天下制覇

 Ninjas that actually behave like ninjas… it’s a miracle!

Impressions:

I really love the incidental visuals on this show. In a lot of their shows, JCStaff loves to use watercolor backgrounds. This time around, they have a very distinct eastern spin on the usual, looking like they came straight out of an old Japanese painting. It still looks a little cheap on occasion, but in this case, it does a very good job of mixing the ‘historic’ content of the show in the modern setting. On the other hand, it even more distinctly seperates the foreground and background action than usual. It works alright in shows like Honey and Clover because everything is done in very soft palettes, but the juxtaposition can be somewhat disconcerting here at times. I may as well finish the complains that I have as long as we’re here. I’m not a big fan of the BGM scoring and some of the CG made me roll my eyes.

All that out of the way, the animation for the first episode is rather good. An action show with actual decent choreography that could be mistaken for martial arts? I don’t think I’ve seen anything close to it since Tokyo Majin… or maybe that one absurd episode of Nagasarete Airantou at the end. You know… "Tokyo Majin Light" is an excellent way to describe this. They waste no time in getting right to the action… a wonder in this day and age of ‘action’ shows featuring speedlines and exposition in the place of actual fights. To be fair, there were a couple speedline attacks here, but none lasted even a second and there was far more of the good old fashioned fisticuffs. I’m not too attatched to Miharu et all as characters quite yet, but I’m sure they’ll grow on me. The twin tailed blonde will show up next episode though, and she should be good times.

Let’s see… what else of note… Kugimiya Rie in a male role again… she does fine. She’s done them before, so it’s not that big a deal. She’s at least far far better at them than Noto. I actually sort of forgot it was her after awhile which is the best thing for VAs… don’t interfere with the show. The lanky character designs sort of look like they came right from Clamp, especially when they zoom up on their talons fingers, but that’s nothing too major. It at least promotes a lack of weird fanservice and bouncing breasts all over the place.

Lots of people have already weighed in, but so far this is basically the only thing I am pretty much 100% certain I’ll be covering for the Spring so far… so… yeah, I’m a fan. I knew JCStaff would never let me down. <3

Nabari no Ou OP

Preview:

Hello Swordswoman Eri! You look awesome too!