天下制覇

The Kool-ade man would have been a welcome respite.

Season Premier Disclaimer:

I like to check almost every new show out. The value of a show is in its execution, not its premise. That said, my tastes are mine and mine alone. Some things bother me, some things don’t. I will attempt to be as cogent as possible as to my complaints or compliments for each show, but be aware that my views skew heavily towards the center. Nothing is perfect, nothing is irredeemable. That said, my tastes and my opinions are mine and mine alone and should not be construed as fact or, god help us, some kind of erudite critical analysis of the entire series based on the show’s first 20 minutes. Feel free to leave your own thoughts on the show if you’d like, but invective and similar will be mocked or deleted depending on which amuses me more at the time.

Impressions:

They’re certainly not making any illusions about who this is being aimed at. Between the cute little mascot character, half of the music that would be right at home in Loony Tunes (although most of the serious/action themes were pretty good), and the jokes that are pitched so hard that some of them physically hurt me, I can already see envision a legion of irritating 10 year olds watching this on Cartoon Network within two years. What is it about Japanese kid humor that requires some person screaming after every single joke? Can’t they just install a giant buzzer to go off to alert people? It’d have the same effect and probably be less irritating that listening to certain VAs shout at you constantly. One should never long for the subtlety and poise of Animaniacs, but here we are.

Surprisingly, Hirano Aya’s shriek wasn’t the most irritating thing about this episode. The animation was far more offensive. It was lacking at best and occasionally offensively at worst. It’s got everything, inconsistent framerate, unsynced vocals, random abuse of speedlines, stills, and some really inanely bad visual effects, but that’s more of a direction problem. The way almost all of the spells/attacks were done, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they were saving them up for stock animation later too. I expect better from A-1 and Satelight… although maybe they’ve left this one to their interns. It did pull itself together a little bit at the end, but that doesn’t forgive how poorly the first 95% of the episode was animated. At least it doesn’t abuse CG in any overly embarrassing way.

In any case, unless you’re a rabid fan of stuff like One Piece and its ilk and feel like they wouldn’t be hurt at all by slashing the production, there’s nothing for you here. Flee. Flee now. For those few brave souls that remain… well… you probably feel bad enough as it is, so help yourself to the M&Ms on the counter.