天下制覇

Are we sure this isn't PA Works?

Impressions:

Maybe this show is meant to be a joke. Like… can we create the cringiest thing possible? Will people swallow all its pseduo-philosophic nonsense, or better, regurgitate it as if it is the intellectual masterclass that it tries to make itself out to be? Probably, on all accounts. Mostly, after the godawful virtually unanimated opening where two characters stared, unmoving and unblinking, at each other for about a minute straight, I was discovering a newfound appreciation for weird hairstyles as it then did the same thing, but with two basically identical looking dudes, both on more prozac than the other, droning in monotone at each other. I couldn't, at that point, tell you which one was the protagonist.

As the episode wore painfully on, it became increasingly clear that neither was. Oh, sure, there's one that showed up in every scene and whose internal narration never goddamned stopped, but he's as much the protagonist of the story as his tie is, and all events would have carried on similarly with or without his incessant purple ramblings. At least the tie didn't go shirtless to show off the weight of his teenage suffering. That was also the only point in the entire episode where any character had an expression or emotion that wasn't "morose boredom."

The quickest and easiest comparison is that it's a poor man's Monogatari, and I mean that in every way. If you stripped out the majority of the fantasy elements, all of the weird Shinbo directorial quirks, and the entire budget, then went ahead and ramped up both the pretention and the haremness another few notches, you'd end up with this.  I mean, hell, it's the first episode and they're already having characters wake up in bed with their horny DTF 'sister' and explaining their empathic stigmata. It sounds like that means it covers some ground in the story department, but you'd be wrong. There's no real reason for it. They're just, you know, weary and angsty teenagers who happened to bump into each other while in the midst of having a metaphysical angst and decided to talk about it.