天下制覇

  

Oh, well that makes it much better.

Early web-airing on the Bandai Channel yesterday. I just kind of… forgot about it after grabbing it. Leave me alone. I’m busy doing Aroduc things. Broadcast actually begins on Sunday… as if you could miss the note in the lower right over the entire thing.

Impressions:

Watching this in the evening was a poor idea because it was very, very boring. It’s going for kind of a Little House on the Prarie thing, so it’s more intentional than other shows this season I can name, but I haven’t suddenly awoken to the wonder that is the rural peasant’s lifestyle, so it’s not any less dull. I think that may be best exemplified by the second half, where the titular character went to sleep naked and then slept through the next eight minutes of the show. You and me both. The beginning two minutes where she pretended to be a crone (after an initial segment already showing the real Maria) also deserves note for going on about 90 seconds longer than the point where I first began wondering “Exactly how long are they going to be doing this schtick?”.

Returning to the neutered version of war, you’d think after the happy child fun times at the start, they might use her to illustrate the horrors of war, but that’s just relegated to mostly talking about it. Even when the horrors of war break out, it’s so neutered that it’s getting in the way of its own tell don’t show message. I’d say it’s like it’s made for children, but I watched Mufasa be trampled to death and Scar torn apart by hyenas as a kid. This ranks more on the Super Friends level of violence, leaving so very, very much ado while the battle itself is all harmless hailstorms of arrows and nerf maces. A few guys wincing and/or looking like they’re constipated doesn’t drive home the message.

The ‘plot’ is about 95% people standing around having a chat, the cast is characterized by… having a chat, and even the anti-war theme is undercut by its own gutlessness in the visuals. What fun.

Next Episode:

More meadows.