11eyes #01 — Persona 3

October 6th, 2009

 

I think we’ve passed the homage territory and are into almost out and out theft.

Season Premier Disclaimer:

I like to check almost every new show out. The value of a show is in its execution, not its premise. That said, my tastes are mine and mine alone. Some things bother me, some things don’t. I will attempt to be as cogent as possible as to my complaints or compliments for each show, but be aware that my views skew heavily towards the center. Nothing is perfect, nothing is irredeemable. That said, my tastes and my opinions are mine and mine alone and should not be construed as fact or, god help us, some kind of erudite critical analysis of the entire series based on the show’s first 20 minutes. Feel free to leave your own thoughts on the show if you’d like, but invective and similar will be mocked or deleted depending on which amuses me more at the time.

Impressions:

Good lord, the Persona vibes are strong here, not that that’s a bad thing. The music, the monsters, the alternate world, just about everything practically is almost stylistically identical to Persona. It feels more like Persona than the Persona anime did… not that that’s really saying much. Unfortunately, that’s not enough to make it particularly engaging. This episode was a bit overly focused on Kakeru and Yuka’s relationship instead of being… well… interesting. Granted, it’s a little bit intriguing to see a male and female lead who are for all means and purposes already together in a show like this, but aside from fawning over them holding hands or happily sleeping on each other’s lap in park, the otherworld segments only lasted maybe three minutes total, so that’s really about it. I guess if hand holding and such things are like crack to you, then you’ll take what you can get. Although, since every PDA leads to them being trapped in the DEATH WORLD, that may curb the relationship a bit. Many of the side characters were painfully irritating as well, or just showed up to remind us that they’re in the show so we won’t be shocked when they’re a main character later… assuming that you skip the OP every single time.

Unfortunately, there really wasn’t a whole ton else to this episode. The animation was okay, but there wasn’t much to animate, and the art is about average, with mistakes and disproportionate chins cropping up far more regularly than they should be. I really liked most of the music for the most part, but the direction was pretty atrocious. I think they might have left it to someone’s 12 year old son and a stack of video filters and effects. The transfer into the red world, for example, is done with a lot of static, and then the same kind of breaking glass effect that Tales of the Abyss (among others) uses for random battles. I’m also not really sure what was with the post-ED segment of Kakeru fighting the shadows monsters before it cut into the next episode preview. That was just nonsensical.

I’ll give it another week or two in order to introduce some of the less irritating characters and maybe actually have some action, but outside of fond memories of Persona, this really wasn’t a particularly strong beginning. Kakeru seems like one of the better breed of male protagonists, but outside of watching him seduce someone already itching to leap out of her panties for him, there’s really very little to say about this episode.

And keep your Index jokes to yourself or I’ll have to sic the gimp on you.

Preview:

From the sea of thy soul…

Posted in 11Eyes | 13 Comments »

13 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • Hinano says:

    This is relevant to my interests.

  • クレナイユメ says:

    From what I see, maybe I’ll just skip the anime and just finish that game…

  • Nellie says:

    I gotta ask, how do these nurses keep getting hired at these schools? Nothing says trustworthy like cigarettes, black garter belts and stockings. I guess the white lab coat cancels it out.

  • Tensho says:

    Another one of those close to the game but not really storyline

  • […] I REALLY wanted to like this show. Even Aroduc convinced me with his post that I might like this show. I REALLY WANTED TO LIKE THIS ANIME I REAAALLY WANTED TO LIKE THIS […]

  • Yue says:

    Woah… Why animate 11xeyes now when the height of popularity and fandom of its manga has already waned?

  • warum says:

    The transfer to the red world, according to the game, is supposed to be abrupt and unnatural (I think the game did use similar effect of static->glass breaking). Then again, while it did feel abrupt in first person view, it might come out feeling cheap and unimpressive in third person.

    • クレナイユメ says:

      That’s pretty much it. It starts out being a little unpredictable, but it becomes really easy to guess when it starts coming in at “inconvenient times”. No doubt they’ll follow through in the anime.

  • The Phantom says:

    This series looks amazing, but I agree the first episode was less than estellar, however the potential is there, this can easily become the anime of the season and has many strong arguments to compete for it. Heck I am probably going to follow it until the end regardless of it improving or not, I am sucker for this kind of shows.

  • mousoukyoku says:

    Trinity Soul was pretty much Persona actually.
    OK there weren’t any shadows and the Persona didn’t look like those from the games… but the atmosphere and the setting/themes fit the rest of the franchise. And I mean the Persona-franchise, not Megaten as a whole.

    However I do have to agree that 11eyes has many aspects from Persona 3. Nothing unexpected though, Chaos Head also copied some aspects from Higurashi… somehow 5pb likes to do this and obviously their products sell.

    • Travis says:

      Chaos Head is hardly like Higurashi, and Trinity Soul is not Persona. Not Revelations, not Innocent Sin or Eternal Punishment nor P3 or the gleam in it’s eye that was P4. It’s like… It’s like what Reservoir Chronicles is to Clamp. Or something. And if you’re referring to the anime of Chaos Head, well, I take it all back. As the anime butchered pretty much everything. Guh.

      As for this, stick with it. It should solidify into one heck of a fun ride.

  • […] 2009 First Impressions: 11eyes Aroduc wasn’t kidding when he said the power of the Persona force was strong in 11eyes. It was the […]