天下制覇

I don’t even think I could find a card catalog anymore.

Impressions:

I really like the style they used here for the character art. All characters (and moving parts in general) have a thicker black outline than normal which really makes them stand out against the background. On the other hand, the OP looks like it’s basically a montage, which never speaks well for a show’s budget and for a first episode, they somewhat overused flashbacks to earlier in the episode. There’s also quite a bit of CG, and maybe it’s my Gonzo bias acting up, but I really hate seeing it tossed in for no understandable reason, especially when done poorly. It looks okay, but the seeds are already all over the place for things to go sour fast.

The premise remains really really silly no matter how you slice things. They’re defending card catalogs? Seriously? Seriously?! Not to mention that the first criminal they found was trying to cut out a cheesecake poster from a girly mag and was apparently willing to kill for it. Aside from the premise though, it looks like it’s trying to be a jack of all trades. There’s quite a bit of humor and distorted face wackiness, the seeds of romance (or at least your generic military buddy relationship) are already in place, and of course, the whole military thing. Although, there really wasn’t that much action in the episode. I assume it’ll grow and the wackiness will fade, but who knows.

The music felt a lot like a video game through most of it, which wasn’t really a terrible thing since it felt really surreal anyway. There were a few parts where it didn’t quite work, like the big confrontation at the end which went straight from BIG BOSS music to a sitcom piano heartwarming theme. For the most part though, while it wasn’t the most orthodox scoring, it didn’t grate on me the way most of Tuesday’s themes did. It was pretty decent, and I’m not opposed to watching more in the slightest, but it’s going to take me at least a couple episodes to come to grips with the silliness of people willing to kill for a magazine bikini poster. Then again, I still greatly prefer xxxHOLiC over this, so… we’ll see how things shake out. No promises. So far though, it’s a solid second place.

Library War OP