天下制覇

The only way to beat a dragon, bore it to death.

Either someone forgot to change the episode numbering on the eyecatch, or there is no episode 1, because next week is episode 2. It’s more amusing to me this way.

Impressions:

Well, the pacing issues weren’t as severe as Rabbit’s first episode but this was another episode of nothing happening. From start to finish, the whole thing is almost just a straight exposition dump without any emotion or feeling. The thing that’s totally different from before… the mysterious library girl has dark hair while the clueless protagonist is blonde. It’s setting itself apart from Gosick admirably already.

That is admittedly a cheap shot though. Hugh has no personality, but isn’t a completely incompetent dolt like certain other characters I could name. He does manage to shoot a magical knife guy, a magical lion, and a magical dragon but he’d rather ask his newfound magical girlfriend for more exposition than focus on that. In between having to carry her everywhere because her legs apparently don’t work once anything interesting starts happening. Plus, it was also impossible to take anything about that dragon ‘fight’ seriously after the first 15 seconds or so since it apparently decided to completely ignore them while they talked things out, had a transformation sequence, read a book, etc. None of the exceedingly brief action bits were particularly well done regardless, even before you take into account that everything was pitch black anyway. Also, the sequence where Hugh just stood there reading a book for about a minute? Ugh.

However, the music is easily the biggest problem with this show at the moment. It’s obsessed with wailing violins, despite whatever may actually be happening on screen. Having tea? Sad violins. Dragon attacking? Sad violins. Freudian transformation sequence where Hugh penetrates Dalian with his ‘key’? Sad violins. When the direction is more or less the same between tea and dragons, there are severe issues with the presentation. Otherwise, production’s… okay I guess. I really don’t like the photo filtered backgrounds and they make the actual art obtrusively stand out at times. It’s not going to win any awards regardless. Hugh didn’t irritate me much either, which is only really notable because this season has been lousy with intensely irritating male leads. If anything, he’s like a silent RPG protagonist. Competent, but mostly just a vehicle so that the other characters have something to talk at so they don’t seem crazy.

Overall, I guess it was very average. The episode reeked of ham-handed introduction, so that’s not a good sign, but maybe they can bother actually giving Hugh a personality next week. Still, Fridays are looking fairly bleak at the moment, so I’m probably just rationalizing like nobody’s business.