天下制覇

I like you already, Aria.

Impressions:

On a production level, the parallels between this and Princess Lover are staggering. The art style is obviously similar, but there’s also the rather staggering production in this episode to the point where it gets in the way of the show. We really do not need a zoom through the entire school in the middle of character introductions. Given how badly PL’s production dropped off by episode 3 and how embarrassing that got, I’m also not convinced that they’re not just going to do the same thing. There were more than a few faces not quite placed correctly on people’s heads too if you want to get picky. The seeds are definitely more than abundant for another production crash, but for now, it looks suspiciously good. The music was solid enough too, particularly the Angela ED with all sorts of LSD inspired visuals.

That’s just the technical side though, and admittedly, it did look extremely good throughout. The characters and the writing itself was pretty fun for the most part. Aria is a rather amusing little troublemaker. Suzu is more irritating, and Tsuda is nothing but a deadpan prop used to set up jokes or tell the audience "that was silly." He even refused Aria’s suggestion to build a harem of his own. The jury’s out on Shino. She’s mostly amusing, but almost every single one of her gags is just pointing out a cliche and waiting or someone else to comment on it. One thing that the show really needs to cut down on though are the interstitials, which happen after every other joke. Sometimes the conversation just continues like nothing even happened either. They’re just irritating as hell.

It was a pretty good first episode, relatively standard humor mostly centered around parody, so your mileage may vary, but fun. It certainly doesn’t have the warmth or energy of Ichizon, but few shows do. I think by dint of being a pure comedy instead of having terrorists, probably won’t collapse like Princess Lover did. A lot of the jokes, particularly concerning Suzu, are getting old already though, but I’ll stick around for at least a few more episodes to at least see where they’re going to go, even if it does end up being another firey wreck careening off a cliffside.

Preview:

Trouble wears a ponytail.