天下制覇

  

You need to get over this cliche, Japan.

Stuff tomorrow (and the whole week) airs long after I’ll have gone into work, so all coverage will be in the afternoon.

Impressions:

An episode of ups and downs, but if it’s a sign of how the absolute glut of light novel magical girlfriends at magical school with magical abilities shows are going to go this season, it’s probably somewhat promising. It’s certainly well above how most of these go at any rate. It has a budget for one. Doesn’t use it particularly effectively since the direction’s a little weird at times. We pan very quickly over a bunch of mooks fighting in their little melee in the background, but when it comes time for the main character to fight, it’s mostly slow-mos and explosions. It also wears cliche like a badge of honor for reasons I can’t begin to fathom, especially when it comes to the ultra-fetishtastic ‘adults,’ featuring the gothloli emcee and squeaky hyperactive teacher dressed like a maid with bunny ears. I’d say it’s trying too hard, but I’m almost certain that if it was trying at all, it wouldn’t have ended up there. Both served little purpose but exposition anyway, so it was easy to tune out the helium-fueled screeching.

Still, there have certainly been worse starts than a flash forward to one protagonist possessed during a melee against Captain Space Lightsaber followed not soon after by a gigantic melee ending when the protagonist punches the not-childhood friend in the gut. Lord knows that would improve most shows, although I still rolled my eyes so hard they fell out of my head and rolled under the table at the whole “Oh, these magic weapons don’t actually hurt people.” That’s a… stupid thing it’s going to have to work on. There was also a blissful lack of self-narration from the protagonist. He’s not great, but he’s not tremendously obnoxious either (yet). An actual blank slate, if you will, instead of a dish rag or doormat. The female lead isn’t as cute as they seem to think she is though (nor the T&A as titillating), particularly not with the romantic ‘background’ piano blaring louder than his thoughts.

That sort of leaves me with the ever-lazy critical statement of “cliche as hell, but executes most fairly decently.” Won’t win over any converts, but there’s some promise here if you like this kind of thing. It’s also more lighthearted than the grim OP would suggest, but Japan’s never been shy about pouring angst all over anything it feels like. I doubt from this episode it’ll be anything special, but if it can get its act together with directing the action scenes a little better, it could probably be a decent action show, although that may have more to do with how woeful these kind of things typically are. The next episode preview featuring crotch sniffing doesn’t indicate that it will.

Next Episode:

Crotch sniffing.