Quick First Impressions – Angels of Death

Boy, am I gonna look like a hypocrite here. I just attacked ISLAND for being a pileup of tropes, and yet, despite Angels of Death being something like that as well, I liked this first episode a lot more.

I should say that I’m not really scared, and this premiere should have tried a little harder for that than just having us watch obvious psychopaths reveal that they’re crazy, but despite that, the world has me intrigued. The whole every-floor-is-a-new-level thing has absolutely been done before, but the kind of hell our protagonist has found herself in lends itself well to generating questions and interest, and we get enough of a glimpse into how it works to want to explore further.

It’s really obvious that this is based on a game (as was the manga) but I don’t necessarily find that detrimental here as I did for Persona 5 the Animation, partially because P5 is a game that its entire audience is probably already familiar with, and also because of just how insanely deep it was and knowing that a lot of details would have to be cut out entirely. The characterization of “Ren Amamiya” (because that’s not his effing name) is also divisive since his personality was based so heavily on the choices of the player.

I like Rachel so far, though. This first episode already gives her a few rather interesting characteristics and shows that she might secretly be hiding her own brand of insanity under her plot armor, and the dynamic she has with Bandage Dude looks like it’s gonna be pretty neat to watch.

So it’s not a super-effective horror yet, but it is at the very least an intriguing one to me.

Quick Final Thoughts – ISLAND

What a dull way to start Summer off…

This has to be one of the blandest visual novel adaptations I’ve seen, and it’s not that it didn’t have the potential to be interesting, but it just buries all that potential under massive loads of cliches and lets the plot carry the protagonist along.

That second problem is sort of a reverse-Another situation, where in that show, the protagonist contributed almost literally nothing to the plot and he just kind of bumbled through it like an idiot. In ISLAND, our boy Setsuna seems to have read the script, because he seems to run on pure plot contrivance fuel without us getting any idea what’s going through his head.

And in this very first episode, we’ve set up:
* Uncomfortable sexual encounters involving high school-aged or younger girls
* Amnesia
* Time travel
* Weird illness that doesn’t physically show (a.k.a. Soap Opera Disease)
* A shut in character
* Impromptu singing
* An insular culture who hates outsiders
* An incredibly vague goal for the protagonist that he can’t remember

It’s an awful lot to take in, or at least it would be if that wasn’t just an easy list of overused visual novel tropes, but either way the result is that I have trouble remembering what happened because it all just came out to be boring on the other side. The shows this most reminded me of were Eden of the East, Steins;Gate and The Lost Village, but it doesn’t have the script to be able to stand up next to any of those (and yes, I do totally count Lost Village as a great show because it’s supposed to be a stupid B-movie).

It’s just a twelve-car pileup of 2000′s-era visual novel trash with no sense of how to maintain tension or frame a scene. The art isn’t the worst thing, but it’s not interesting either, and I can’t imagine a world where it makes a turnaround. 3/10.

Quick Final Thoughts – Comic Girls

A nice little surprise.

I kept wanting to drop Comic Girls, to be totally honest, but every time I thought about it, it managed to pull me back in. It’s certainly not anything we’ve seen before, and it’s not even close to the same tier as Bakuman. or Shirobako, but it is a solid little artist comedy.

The production kept up from the first episode, too. While the animation isn’t amazing, the art style is very poppy and overall, the show is just really nice to look at. I also want to highlight Reina Ueda’s voice work as Fuura, because her comedic timing is on point and it brings out such a hilarious character.

I can also appreciate the ending. Comic Girls presents us with both a satisfying (if not a little undercooked) ending, and a sequel hook, which I think is a pretty decent way of bringing a story like this to a close, since it means the audience won’t be too torn up if another season never materializes.

So, 7/10 seems like a fair score here. It could have made some better choices (it’s kind of wasteful that Kaos is the only character who isn’t stable in her publication, and the reaction to the circumstances of the ending is underwhelming) but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Quick Final Thoughts – HINAMATSURI

Easily the funniest show of the season, and of the year thus far.

The biggest strength of Hinamatsuri is its ability to keep its comedy fresh by changing up its style on a frequent basis, though it does tend to keep absurdism at the bedrock of every episode. For example, one of the strongest outings was Episode 10, which goes so far into insanity as to basically become an It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia plotline where poor decisions just snowball into a massive mess that nobody really faces consequences for, but in a show like this, I’m perfectly willing to accept that.

The characters we get here are also pretty strong and tend to come with subversions built in to their archetypes, with the only sane character being one of the middle schoolers, or the deadpan girl being genuinely unintelligent. The most compassionately portrayed people in the entire show are homeless and living in a shantytown, which is honestly impressive, and at the center of things is Nitta and his crew of honest-to-god yakuza, who are shown as mostly being reasonable people except in the case of personal betrayal. Honestly, I would be surprised to come across a more interesting cast of characters this year.

A particular highlight goes to Anzu, who goes through the most shake-ups by far, and we can really get into her head each time we catch up with her. She becomes homeless while still forming her sense of independence, and while the people around her are wonderful to her, the things they teach her do not all translate to normal life, and we see that she has become uncomfortable with things like accepting selfish gifts or even getting food and shelter without working for it. Overall, she balances out by the end of the show into a very well-adjusted young woman, and seeing this growth manifest into an exploration of how she has become different from Hina is really sweet.

One thing holding this story back, though, is the final episode, which wraps up its plot halfway in and then goes to follow a side character for the rest of its run. I feel like this would have been better if we had gotten a proper goodbye to the main cast, and this story had been saved for an OVA. It’s not the worst thing, but it comes totally out of left field and introduces an entirely new subplot in the final twelve minutes of the show, just to justify the opening scene from the first episode, and even though we get to rewatch the completely badass action scene from that, it seems really, really rushed when this is only the third time we’ve seen this character, and the time skip involved just undermines the satisfaction of the actual ending and creates more questions. While this may have been the plan the entire time, it just doesn’t work, because it comes across as a pilot for another story.

Still, as a whole, this is a very solid additional mark in studio feel.’s resurgence, and I’m glad they chose to make this instead of the second season of Dagashi Kashi. It’s not as good as Tsukigakirei, but given the very negative response to the first episode of Island, it’ll probably be the best thing the studio makes this year, and a strong 8/10. (For the record, I did take off an entire point for the ending, because yes, it was a huge missed opportunity and could have been done far better.) I give it a strong recommendation for people who enjoy offbeat comedy (like the aforementioned Always Sunny) or want a righteous skewering of the kids-with-superpowers concept.

Quick Final Thoughts – Tada Never Falls in Love

It wasn’t spectacular, but it almost got there, and I’d still say it’s an improvement.

From the writer behind Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun, we have here a more down-to-earth romcom that leans a little less on the “com” but makes up for it with charm. And the most important element this has that its predecessor adaptation lacked, is an actual ending. That’s right, instead of one of the most famously frustrating endings to perfectly alright shows in recent memory, Tada-kun gives us a beginning, middle, and end instead of the maligned “read the manga” ending from Nozaki.

And getting there is still lots of fun, with a much more cozy cast of friends and the new foreigners to shake things up among them. While several elements of the cast are pretty rote at this point (the club member who is obsessed with an idol and can’t see that it’s really the girl sitting next to him who also has feelings for him being the primary offender), I really, really appreciate Ijuin out of the whole side cast. While he plays up being flirty with Alec, it’s his quality of loyalty to his friend that really makes him shine, and I was really happy to see it taken to its logical extreme in the final episodes.

I would like to say though that the last episode is a bit of a stumbling block. See, the key to the ending of a romantic comedy is almost always the confession of feelings, and generally there’s at least some tension over how things will shake out, particularly in situations where there is a third party involved to whom one of the main pair is already obligated. While I don’t object to the removal of the standard jealous disposable fiance, the issue of the engagement is just solved far too easily, and kind of makes me wonder why the show bothered with it when it could have just as easily gone with the equally played-out but more-satisfying “they can’t be together because she has to marry a noble” plot line. It wasn’t a huge problem, but it stuck out as being strange.

Oh, and the emotional climax is really abruptly interrupted by a sudden tonal shift before we finally get the obvious conclusion to the story. I’m not sure how I would have fixed this, but it’s very jarring, though it doesn’t take away from the actual final scene, which is very okay, if a little lazy.

Still, I can’t help but applaud this show for its consistently good production the entire way through. Quirky music and bright-yet-realistic color tones convey the perfect atmosphere rather than turning the entire show into a single large moeblob universe, as happens in Is the Order a Rabbit? (not that I hated that show, but the crazy pastels got really boring to look at by the second season), and although nobody’s design really stands out (they spend most of their time in school uniforms) I would like to highlight the in-universe photography as being quite good, while also looking properly high-school-level.

Overall, this show takes some very well-used building blocks and stacks them into a well-executed house. It’s not mind-blowing, but I feel comfortable with an 8/10, a score MAL classifies as “Very Good”. Check it out if you were disappointed by Nozaki-kun.

Quick Final Thoughts – Magical Girl Ore

Magical Girl “Eh”…

Six episodes in, and this show is making me just totally unsure of what I want from it.

It was going alright up until episode 5, which is 99% dedicated to a skewering of the way Pierrot makes its shows that just was not as funny or clever as it thought it was, followed by a hot springs episode. And given my own preferences, a fanservice episode featuring beefy dudes should be up my alley, but the intention of displaying a strange parody of homoeroticism is just utterly killed by repeated jokes and constant reminders that one of the characters involved is actually a girl who has been unwillingly transformed into a male.

The main protagonist Saki just baffles me. I understand the joke that she’s an aspiring idol who is completely untalented and only in it to get closer to her crush, but it’s so incredibly obvious that Mohiro, the object of her affection, is not into her and is very much attracted to her beefy male form that it makes it really difficult to get where she’s coming from. Oh, and her best female friend has directly confessed her feelings to Saki but is inexplicably willing to help her get closer to Mohiro, who is also her brother. It’s created this strange quasi-gay School Days love triangle that the show isn’t smart enough to find the right way out of.

And just in case I haven’t mentioned it enough, I am NOT a fan of queerbaiting like this. The issues of gender in this show are way, way more complicated than it’s willing to address, and by the time we get to the point where transformed!Saki and Mohiro end up seeing each other naked for an extended period of time (creating a situation where Mohiro has not consented to Saki seeing him this way but is unaware that it’s actually her), I was ready to throw my hands up and declare that I was just not up for this. Maybe if the main character had been, for example, a frail and unathletic boy transforming into a beefcake (since that tends to be a male self-ideal, compared to the female self-ideal of sexy curves and such that we see in magical girl transformation) I would be more up for this, but let’s face it, Japan has just not gotten to the point of accepting that yet.

I did think some of the jokes in earlier episodes landed, the opening is fun and bouncy, and the production isn’t the worst, but I don’t consider anything except my overall enjoyment to determine my score, and I think a 4/10 fits here, a below-average but not completely abysmal rating that communicates tastelessness and bad writing more than any other failing.

Quick Final Thoughts – Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online

Reki Kawahara is not a good writer, and I am far from the first person to say so. His plots are haphazard and incoherent, his characters are dull and unrelatable, and his ability to completely destroy his own potential is legendary. All Keiichi Sigsawa had to do to clear his bar was to write a story with proper pacing and even two-dimensional characters.

The fact that he managed to take the most poorly-thought-out game in SAO’s universe and craft a story that features almost none of Kawahara’s faults speaks volumes about his ability compared to the series’ creator, and displays just how awful Kawahara is at his craft.

Here we have a show with multiple female characters with agency, none of whom are ever in danger of sexual assault, and all of whom have completely understandable motivations and consistent characterizations. We have a world where people take actions that make sense and are able to put aside all else when real consequences are on the line. And we have really satisfying, well-choreographed, and utterly brutal action that culminates in the best final battle scene in the franchise.

I can’t say that it was completely smooth sailing. There is one odd scene of strange fanservice, and though it never comes close to the creepiness of the original, it’s still an unfortunate speed bump that goes on way too long, but it’s still nothing compared to watching Asuna get molested.

And it’s not gonna stop me from awarding this an 8/10, with a really strong recommendation for any fan of the series – this is what SAO should look like. I have almost no hope that the upcoming SAO III Alicization will come anywhere close, since the premise of the arc involves it exclusively following Kirito and isolating him from the rest of the cast, but I’ll probably be watching it anyway if only to make fun.

Quick Final Thoughts – Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These

The original Legend of the Galactic Heroes is pretty infamous among more dedicated otaku as a show that they mean to watch eventually, but can’t for two reasons: first, until recently, it was completely unavailable (in the United States, anyway, where we now have it on HIDIVE), and second, because of its absolutely crushing length. At 110 episodes, a lot of us just don’t have the patience or time for it. So when Production I.G. took the reins on a remake project condensing it down to just 12, I was also curious about how they’d manage to trim so much fat.

And what results is a show that remains watchable and interesting, but at a great cost. Even as someone who hasn’t seen the original, the epic scale of this story is simply too much for twelve episodes, even if we are going to see three films starting next year to wrap things up. This version completely skips pretty much all worldbuilding to just portray a story which is meant to feature two heroes despite the fact that one of them is pretty unambiguously bad, not that it matters because absolutely nobody aside from Yang Wen-li gets enough development to really matter. Dozens of named characters are thrown at the screen (complete with name cards) and flanderized to the point where none of them are memorable, and even our deuteragonist Lohengramm gets utterly sidelined after the flashback episodes are over.

And as for the worldbuilding, it’s desperately important for a science fiction story, because without it, it could just be set on Earth in the present day and it would make literally no difference. We get all kinds of ideas tossed up into the air (the Empire’s insane arrogance, the fact that the war should have ended halfway into the series but kept going because of beaurocracy and public opinion, the idea that none of the people really commanding the war have their lives on the line for it) that there just isn’t enough time to catch, and it’s a serious shame.

While we manage to get a coherent story, crazy-high production values, and some fantastic music, the meat of the story is just missing. This remake needed at least 26 episodes (perhaps even with a movie to wrap it up) if not a Gundam-style 50, and as-is, it is not going to convince anyone that the original was as much of a masterpiece as those who have watched it will claim, and the ending is absolutely insulting with how entirely unsatisfying it is, making no attempt at all to actually wrap up any plot threads. They really want to stake this on the upcoming films, but I’m not even sure I’m interested at this point.

6/10. Maybe this is salvageable, but as it is, it’s just really disappointing that something with so much potential just ended up barely making it over the line of being average.

Quick Final Thoughts – Darling in the FRANXX

Honestly, I’ve been behind on this one for a while, but the current discussion about this show has turned so foul that I just have no motivation to keep going after 16 episodes. When the most common thing I hear about a show is that it’s become poorly-written right-value propaganda, it’s not worth giving it more of my time and attention.

Not that Darling wasn’t already badly written, or that I’m even close to being the first person to say that every decision made about the plot is just the most boring one. Zero Two has, in one episode, lost every compelling part of her character and just become a generic Monster Musume waifu, Hiro was never as interesting as the plot made him seem, the other pilots have been underused since day one, and the genre-required midseason upgrade is…pretty weak, honestly.

And the show keeps trying to say something and make a point, and then just completely bails on it. Like, Hiro, Zero Two is literally killing you and Actual Best Girl is throwing herself at you and it’s just Subaru and Emilia all over again. I’m not one of the people who raged when the show split them apart because it was obvious it was just a fake out or where would the plot be going, and I was right.

This is making me ramble and I’m not even gonna edit it out. Darling is so pretty to look at, but the script and setting are just so hollow that it just becomes a massive waste of potential. Trigger just announced their next project and hopefully without the A-1 marketability machine, they can shake this off, because this studio can do better.

5/10. Inferno Cop Season 2 can’t come fast enough.