天下制覇

Oh wait, he’s wearing a hat. Not naked.

Impressions:

It was fairly action packed for the most part, although Alice still isn’t a particularly good villain. She finally whipped out an interesting Worse at least, Alice’s Mirror (Through the Looking Glass) that let her create flesh and blood dopplegangers that briefly began driving Konoha and Fear nuts when Fear meatgrindered one of them. That’s… kind of all they did though, because then Shiraho and Sov popped up, did some silly poses to break the mirror, and Kuroe took care of all the dopplegangers at once.

Then Alice jumped off the ledge, fell into the arms of a conveniently passing ship with her soon-to-be-naked Worse lover and apparently adopted Worse daughter and literally sailed off into the sunrise. Then everybody did a dance, Kirika stripped, and the show ended. Yeah, we kind of lost the thread of sensical behavior about when Shiraho and Sov showed up with their own colored spotlights. I guess it was decent despite not being an episode at all. I’m still scratching my head as to why Kirika got a special OP for this too. She was barely even a part of this arc at all. Well, whatever.

Final thoughts at the bottom. 

Final Thoughts:

After that rather unremarkable first episode, the show really pulled itself together both artistically and thematically for the rest of the introductory arc. Unfortunately, the two that followed were far far weaker and while it did stay decent and action packed throughout, especially compared to many ostensibly ‘action’ shows that have had only a couple fight scenes this entire season… some involving vuvuzelas. That isn’t to say that the first arc wasn’t without its own issues. The writing in general here was often just a little off from where it should have been. Better development for both Fear and Sov would have done their arcs and associated mental breakdowns a world of good. Alice/Kuroe’s arc though… that was just kind of a mess, although certainly doesn’t hold a torch to other shows I could name when it comes to horrible writing.

I still think it’s a good show overall though. The artistic direction here is fantastic, particularly in the first arc. None of the characters are incompetent or annoying for any long stretch of time, which admittedly isn’t the same as them being good, but with anime, I take what I can get. The production is also solid throughout, and while I don’t agree with some of their directorial decisions, I appreciate Silver Link’s creativity and style, particularly their use of color. It doesn’t always spice of Fear’s Detective Corner of Exposition^tm, but it actually makes really good use of the medium, something a lot of shows fail to do.

So I’d say it’s definitely worth giving a shot if you like action shows. The first episode is easily the weakest of all of them and it picks up immensely after that, although given the weak arcs and relative lack of character development that follows, it’s not a great show either. I’d welcome a second season, but I won’t be crying into my pillow if Silver Link moves on to other projects instead.