Oh my gosh, it’s like going back in time. This shoujo aesthetic is circa 2005 or so and it feels weird to see in 1080p. Not that that’s my only complaint, or anything, it’s just the first thing most people will notice about this show. Anyway.
After the first episode, I feel like I know less about the show than I did when I read the synopsis on MAL three months ago before the season started. There’s such a ridiculous amount of information missing here, and not in any way that seems intentional, since I know for a fact that the source material is not this withholding. It reminds me a little of Celestial Method, where I feel like I’d be waiting the whole season just to find out stuff I should have known from the first episode, but at least Celestial Method wasn’t incredibly narmy. The frequent “la-la” singing and nonsensical music are cringy as heck and difficult to listen to without laughing.
They were clearly trying for a serious dramatic story here based on music, but you can’t really have that when the songs are silly la-la tunes and really crappy, unintelligible j-punk, and the lead character seems to think she’s on Love Live! Sunshine or something because she’s terribly overdramatic and constantly thinks about “will my songs reach that person” and such.
Basically, it’s a mess. Dropped after one episode, 4/10, go read the manga.
Finally got Anime Strike, expect some incoming opinions on shows I couldn’t watch before!
Incidentally, stuff that I’m still watching on Crunchyroll: KADO: The Right Answer Yowamushi Pedal: New Generation Alice & Zoroku The Royal Tutor Akashic Records of Bastard Magical Instructor SukaSuka
Stuff that i’m not starting yet because I wait for the second cour to start: Sakura Quest RE: Creators My Hero Academia S2
Is it just me or is this just a really awful version of Yamada and the Seven Witches?
Blue-haired main character in high school who has to kiss lots of girls for plot reasons to prevent catastrophe? I hope I’m not the only one seeing this.
Except in that show the characters were relatable, the plot had a proper structure, and it wasn’t trying to be six shows at once and failing all around. I could tell this wasn’t going to be a good parody from the beginning, but after the first episode the only plot we have so far is “boring guy gets forced into harem because the plot says so”, and the show doesn’t even have the courtesy to imply that anything else is going to happen. I’m fairly certain I got the complete Love Tyrant experience from just one episode, and it left a sour, yet dull taste in my mouth.
I hate all of the characters (in a bad way), I hate all of their designs, I hate all of their motivations, and I hate that the show expects me to go along with a story built entirely on contrivance because god forbid we have to think anything through.
It’s just an incredibly milquetoast version of OreImo. That’s really, genuinely all it is, and considering it’s even by the same author, that should tell you whether you’ll enjoy it or not. The production on this one looks A-1 Pictures Standard, so things are mostly fluid on that side of things, but you could pretty easily write the entire first episode in your head.
That being said, I didn’t hate the first episode nearly as much as I loathed Clockwork Planet, and I’ve enjoyed Safest Shows of the Season before (this season it’s a tie between this and Akashic Records of Bastard Magic Instructor, which is next on my list, by the way), so I’m not going to flat-out drop this one because I can see the potential for it to improve later on, and if I find out that it does I’ll probably come back to it.
I expected better of a project even slightly involving Yū Kamiya (author of No Game No Life), like some spark of life, some original thought, something even possibly hinting at imagination. I really should have known better, given the studio attached to this project, but even for Xebec (most famous for shows like Ladies Versus Butlers, High School DxD, and To-LOVE-Ru) this looks like hot garbage. I wouldn’t really call it “off-model” because everything looks screwed up more often than not, all the character designs are below-average at best and cutting-room fodder at worst, and the animation is a complete joke. This isn’t Hand Shakers bad, but it’s somehow worse than that, because where Hand Shakers looked interestingly terrible, this just looks boringly terrible.
I’ve been putting off mentioning the story because I didn’t realize that Kamiya had even less involvement with it as Gen Urobuchi did with Aldnoah Zero, but it’s the most standard and overdone of harem setups – the hot, half-naked female lead literally falls out of the sky and crashes into the whiny protagonist’s bedroom, and since she’s an android he has to strip and repair her, which apparently only involves tightening two screws, and now that he’s fixed her she swears eternal loyalty to him (while insulting the human race directly TO HIS FACE) and proxy-blows him. Even if I were straight this wouldn’t have been hot; it’s just so stupid I can’t wrap my head around it.
Preposterous concept meets D-level production, with a famous name associated with it to reel in suckers.
The Arcane Archive 