天下制覇

What is it with this year and magic horses?

Pre-air special. Actual broadcast doesn’t begin until July 6th (Fridays).

Impressions:

Let’s start with what this show did great. It has some really nice CG cars. They didn’t look bad at all. Sure, they’re still CG cars, but compared to the blocky abysmal affairs usually found in anime, these are the top of the heap. Now with that out of the way, let’s move on to just about everything else. Exposition, exposition, exposition, and exposition. It actually almost looked like it was starting promisingly. Well, not the start start, which was the usual bland couple minutes of a protagonist mentally narrating his life story, but then someone pulled a knife on him right before a giant pig stomped on the city. Both things usually indicative of a step in the right direction. Not so much this time as the production was maybe a little above average, but no discernable effort was really put into these ‘action’ scenes. The direction was also a little questionable. I have no idea how Godou got from the street to a fourth floor balcony in the space of a single screen transition. Or what he was even doing in some random building. It wasn’t even the same one Erica was on. I’m also not entirely sure why Erica is so shiny either. I imagine that she’s covered in a thin film of crisco. Or she’s really really greasy. What happens in Italy, etc.

Unfortunately, the most animated bit of the whole thing was her generic sword summoning before it cut back to Stupid for exposition, followed by more exposition, followed by yet more exposition plus lingerie, then drunky time, then more lingerie. Actually, drunky time was easily the highlight of the episode. Erica ranting at and trying to abuse a metal mask was oddly kind of charming. She isn’t too bad a character either, quickly appreciating Stupid when he tried to do something noble before the MCness kicked in and she had to go tongue-spelunking for his true power, which ended up being a rain of CG swords and the most hilariously overblown narration imaginable. The things these protagonists keep in their mouths… I have no idea where that came from either. It was almost like the last minute of the episode suddenly became a parody.

So, *shrug*. It’s generic as all hell, not particularly well made, and what should be an exciting first episode designed to hook the audience is instead packed to the gills with unneeded exposition. Giant monsters. Evil gods. There. QED. Anyway, it’s not the most compelling of starts and doesn’t really give much of a reason to be particularly excited for more. Then again, this is the only (new) Friday show, and only Friday show period besides Accel World. Maybe if future episodes are just 15 minutes of Erica getting drunk and ranting at things…