天下制覇

Windows are not sufficient cover, Welkin.

New Season Disclaimer:

I prefer to give every show a chance. You never know when your dream-eating insect wielding Mai HiME knockoff will turn out to be a psychological romantic thriller, or the strange moeblob show will be full of wit and urine jokes. However, my preferences are still my preferences, and while I’ll endevor to at least convey why I do or do not like things, there are genres of shows that I just plain don’t particularly enjoy. My opinions are based on nothing more than a gut reaction to what I watched literally 10-15 minutes prior and should be construed as nothing more and nothing less than that.

Impressions:

This’ll be amusing to talk about. While A-1 actually gave the art a lot of attention for once, there were still a number of hiccups. They decided to simulate the watercolor style of the game by tossing a sketch texture on various things, usually wood and parts of clothing. However, it’s a static texture overlaid after absolutely everything else was finished, which means that the texture remains in a static position on the screen while the item itself moves. Gankutsuou used this technique extensively, and Shaft likes to toss it in every now and then for good measure. For the most part, I don’t think it’ll bother people who aren’t me, except when the big wagon comes rumbling by in the background carrying with it a rippling wave of strange movement. A-1 also had a few of the same hiccups as it did with animating the Birdy action sequences where the characters and the backgrounds were moving at very noticably different speeds. The CG tanks will continue to be silly CG tanks.

Overall though, it was one of the better produced shows so far this season. Colors are sharp, backgrounds are lush, there are no creepy unmoving eyes to scare the crap out of me, etc. There is, however, some really stupid writing. Alicia and Welkin were chased into their house under a rain of gunfire. Then, once inside, they decided that they were safe… protected by the wooden walls as Welkin bravely stood in front of a window and explained that this was his house. Meanwhile, an entire battalion surrounded the house, dropped one shell on it while their own soldier was right next it . Since he failed to get the job done, and there was no enemy fire coming, the next step was to have the entire regiment open fire on the house until someone threw a grenade out, and then apparently everybody retreated. I’ve seen better tactics from X-Com’s Sectoids. Oh yeah, and Wekin’s stomach rumbled after we just killed 5 soldiers. *tee hee!*

Outisde of the incomprehensible military affair, it was still pretty decent as a setup episode. However, Alicia needs to be a lot less thickheaded for me to like her and they need to move things along a little more quickly. Less silly tittering in the middle of fire fights and/or taking cover behind glass windows would also help. I’ll give it another episode or two, but Regios easily remains my #1 Saturday show.

Valkyria OP

Preview:

The defense of Bruhl.