天下制覇

At least it’s pretty scenery porn.

Impressions:

It seemed to start decently with some nice direction and wanton bloodshed. That was followed after by children screaming, bad CG scenery porn, and the director getting his head stuck up his own ass. If this show was trying any harder, it’d be a comedy. Maybe it already is. Someone needs to tell the composer to back the hell off. Almost every single goddamned scene had a mysterious spooky riff attached to it. Less is more. And the few that did not were instead filled with shrieking pre-teens. A ball gag or eight would not have gone amiss.

Production and art was at least technically solid for the most part. There were some really cheap parts though, mostly scenery porn (especially the long shot with children screaming at the top of their lungs at the start) and ugly CG tossed in because apparently it’s too difficult to draw a piece of wood or a card. The music and direction was pretty poor though. Sheer aesthetics, fine, but expressive or indicative of the scene? Ugh. Children looking at insects? Better make sure that has the same tone as mystic rituals, psychics splattering people, and classroom storytelling. Some contrast between the different parts of the episode would’ve helped a lot more than making every scene blend together into just one continuous string of "This is sooooooo eerie and meaningful, right guys?" regardless of what was actually going on. Or maybe just a little subtlety instead of the 100 ton hammer of constant religious chanting.

The main issue in the end though is that everything was more focused on the world instead of the characters. Characters must drive the story. No exceptions. There has to be at least some tiny connection to them. This was ostensibly centered around one, but she was little more than a prop, moving from point A to B where some new tidbit would be hinted at. After I finished the episode, I didn’t want to see a single one of any of them ever again and that is not a place any show should be.

Preview:

Robomice.