天下制覇

At least it ended in explosions.

I’m not sure why this is #00. Maybe it’s just a summary of the already released OVAs since it was extra long. *shrug*
Very Belated Edit: Apparently that’s exactly what this was. C’est la vie. I guess the real test of what the show’s going to do will be the actually new stuff next week.

Impressions:

Well this certainly lives up to its name, at least for the start and finish. It’s bright, expressive, comical in presentation instead of just screaming punchlines, has a talent for humorous understatement in that as well, and while the CGI is omnipresent, the regular style is fluid enough and spastic enough already to make visual cacophony part of the style of the fantasy city rather than something that jarringly stands out. Well, it still stands out, but when everything else is intentionally looking unreal, it doesn’t look quite so out of place. If anything, it might stand to tone it down slightly as it has that traditional Japanese love of equating volume to energy. Not much, but there are times where it just takes the lazy route of shouting at the audience when it can’t think of anything else to do. They could have also turned the BGM down about eight notches, especially during the boring middle segment. You have characters practically whispering while an entire damn orchestra is blaring over top of them.

Unfortunately, it does lose quite a lot of steam after the explosive (snicker) start. The presentation and direction is suited a lot better for wacky antics and heavily stylized action than talking heads, no matter how clever the writers think they’re being. Things do pick up again in the last segment/RPG golem/monk vs drill hair demon battle thing, but that doesn’t change that at least half of the episode was pretty dull unless orchestras alone are enough to give you a stiffy. There are also a few moments where it’s clear that they didn’t even try to sync the vocals to the animation as they’re not even close. Characters are… okay, I guess, but it’s not really plot driven and doesn’t dwell on them overly much. It is something that the show should hopefully be rounding out or figuring out what they’re going to be doing with in future episodes though.

The start and end were fun though. Easily more than enough to win a few more episodes and the hope that it has the budget to keep that up.

Next Episode:

Happy family.