天下制覇

At least she appears to be wearing a bra, more than can be said for most anime characters.

There was only a minimal chance I'd check out Sword Oratoria next week, but they went ahead and decided to repackage the existing OVA about visiting a hot springs and closeups of breasts exploding out of swimsuits from the original series as an episode 0 and broadcast that this week, planting their flag in the sand about what the spinoff is going to focus on. Minimal chance is now a firm zero. Also, Anime Strike, Amazon's new streaming service, decided to post Re:Creators's first episode today, approximately 24 hours before it's actually broadcast in Japan. Great job right out of the gate, Amazon. I've not seen it pop up in any of the usual places yet though, and they can take their trial service and stuff it, so coverage may wait until tomorrow morning when it actually airs in Japan.

Impressions:

The shorts preceding this, and especially the last PV that was half blushing and romantic mincing around had me worried. Thankfully, only some of that was present here. Unfortunately, not a lot of what made the first episode of the first season so much fun was here either. We're trading high flying rogue adventurers for a hormonal teenage girl who blushes and goes into convulsions any time a male smiles at her (dragon puberty, am I right?), and trading the adventures for… mostly exposition? A rather lot of the episode is spent redefining the setting. The demons are now downtrodden and exploited. Lucifer is a freedom fighter for the oppressed demons. The horses and soldiers are… still really godawful CGI. What it doesn't really do is actually set up the new quest, adventure, or even characters really. It's a whole lot of introduction for introduction's sake. I'd harp on it more, but I still remember how godawful the writing got in the first series, and fully expect it to go down a similar road.

Which isn't to say that it's all bad. There's still action and some promise of adventuring. New protagonist Nina is at least motivated about getting involved and takes getting clotheslined and/or fireballed in stride without too much yelling, and getting right back in the game. I still would've greatly preferred it if she hadn't been a punchline at literally any point in affairs though. They keep showing her as physically capable, but oblivious and incompetent. The exposition around her herself (around all the characters, actually) was also mercifully close to nonexistent, no doubt coming next week with the shocking reveal that somehow, her transforming in a giant ball of flame and a red dragon appearing where she just was are connected events.

Next Episode:

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