天下制覇

What? No tuba?

Impressions:

What confuses me the most about this show is the ED. There were no females in the episode to speak of, but the ED is this bizarrely poppy idol thing, complete with splashing their names around like they’re important characters and them lounging around barely clothed. As for the rest… I kind of feel like the entire story might have been better served if it skipped the first 17 minutes. I hope you’re interested in thirty somethings… excuse me, this is Japan, so it’s 19 and 24 year olds… sitting around in the dark watching bad children’s shows and talking about how they’re cool. That’s like… what I’d expect from a budget Cartoon Network live action show airing at 3am, except CN would aware that it was a joke and targeted at stoners, and it’d be half as long.

Production’s fairly abysmal and the music is particularly bizarre, although that’s nothing really new for Manglobe. Tipsy trombones do stand out among the usual Japanese musical affair though. Direction is similarly awful, with the worst moment coming during the long… long internal monologue toward the end as all the punks stood rock still, waiting for him to finish his literally 90 second motivational speech. How courteous of them. I’m sure it’s supposed to be a coming of age story, but I’m not buying it, and since it’s Manglobe, there’s almost certainly nowhere but down from here. They’re shooting for idealistic and immature but just hitting bratty and stupid. I don’t buy that anybody could be so indoctrinated and deluded that they spazz out over ‘hero curry.’ I don’t buy the world weary cop at 24 routine. If it was more of a joke or even just self-aware of it, maybe things would be different, but after all that immature stuff in the middle, we’re supposed to then cheer for him and his dream speech making abilities? Not happening.