天下制覇

Oh crap, Deen’s starting to learn.

Belated edit:
Technically, Eureka Seven AO took over its timeslot today and began broadcasting. What it broadcast though was a recap/digest of Eureka Seven (or maybe the movie, I don’t really know). It did end with a new preview for AO though.

Impressions:

Sigh. Thanks, Deen. That makes two zombie shows for you in as many days that began with the main character introducing himself to the mysterious inner voices inside his head and then info dumping his life, interests, etc. Now that’s awesome storytelling. Who needs presentation when you can just info dump! Thankfully, it did trail off a bit as the episode went on, leading into a very very Shaft-like ending scene. Everything about the visual composition of the whole bit between Chihiro and Rea screamed Shinbo, from the close ups of eyes, to necks bent at impossible angles, to the quick cuts of nonsensical things, to the framed shots of characters and their dangling breasts. Don’t get me wrong, that was probably the best part of the episode and it wasn’t as spastic, unrelated to the conversation, or poorly budgeted as an ACTUAL Shinbo show, but it was still a very sudden shift and the first part of the episode that made me feel like the director had bothered to check in. And was really really trying to emulate Bakemonogatari.

There’s not a whole lot to say about the rest. Most of the first half is an eminently forgettable introduction to the characters by having Chihiro… introduce them all in turn. Again, hooray for infodumps. Learn to characterize through actions, not words, you damn hobos. The art/animation sure as hell isn’t going to win any awards. The art’s rough, but it’s not bad either, just a little washed out and dull. Especially when the director’s asleep at the wheel and the show’s just expecting you to sit there and listen to an endless drone of information about the usual cliched family, strange little sister, crazy grandfather, childhood friend -slash-cousin who totally doesn’t secretly have a crush on him and is just rubbing her breasts on his face platonically, etc etc etc. It took me about 3 seconds to figure out that relationship after she appeared, which is exponentially less time than they spent explaining it.

So in my usual broken record fashion, it wasn’t great, but it wasn’t horrible either. The subdued Shaftness was easily the most well-done part of what was to that point a very very dull expositiontastic episode filled with the protagonist morosely narrating his life. Let’s stop doing that already, eh, Japan?

Preview:

Zombie’ssu.