天下制覇

Still needs more wanton violence.

Everything’s aired at least one episode now (including sequels I’m not touching) except for PreCure, which doesn’t start until February, but I’m going to wait until Tuesday (off-day) to do my usual wrapup. Because I can.

Impressions:

Well, it passes the metric of being more interesting than the other Friday shows, but that’s setting the bar pretty low. The middle in particular dragged pretty hard. There are ways to introduce your setting without bloody exposition, you know. Actually, they probably do since they did a much better job of introducing the characters and their powers at the very start before launching into the lecture. Even during them cheating at cards, they were subtle enough to maybe overlook if you weren’t paying attention instead of blasting it in your face. I like most of the characters here too, so that’s a rare point in its favor. They’re all confident, willing and able to use their powers at the drop of a hat, aren’t alarmed or shrieking about their situation, and already have a begrudging respect for each other. That’s further than most anime fantasy parties get in entire seasons.

It’s a bit unfortunate though that pretty much all of the action in this episode was already shown in the promos, so there wasn’t a whole lot there to be impressed by either. Technical production was otherwise above average for the most part, although not particularly far above that with a couple cringe-inducing moments. Thankfully just moments, but they could have certainly done a better job with the little action segments. They did use the visuals well to keep the setting colorful and energetic though, even during the exposition. Didn’t make it any less boring, but at least there as some noticeable effort. Music was mostly used well too. The corny insert song towards the end was dumb, but at least it was quiet. It wasn’t even the OP either. There’s a true surprise.

It seems like mostly a decent enough adventure show for now, assuming they can keep away from the dull lectures from now on. It trounces its Friday competition at any rate, which gets it a free pass to episode 2+.