天下制覇

I was hoping for a whole episode hiding from the premise and hook.

This was a two episode pre-air special. Actual broadcast starts on the 10th (ie, episode 3 won't come until the 24th). I'll… likely post about the second episode a little later, but having glanced through it, it appears to be more of the same, except ramping the melodrama levels up.

Impressions:

Come on, PA Works. I can tell you know what a hook is. You started out the episode by advertising all the crazy, colorful characters, and how they'd be racing across the US in various goofy machinations. And then we flash back to a very, very bland, and very, very, very drawn out origin story containing none of those things, unless you count one of the characters having a poor grasp of lipstick colorful. The protagonists aren't even really… well, anything. The supposed genius is more of a tinkerer with some weird gadgets, and is also the straight man. The samurai is a put upon dude who is overexcited and shouts all the time. That's the odd couple who's supposed to carry this. 

This is just plain a bad first episode. The characters don't do anything particularly interesting, let alone fun to watch, nor do they go on any of the teased wacky adventures, nor meet colorful locales, nor… well, anything. They're stifled at their current location, so they leave. They face only marginal conflict or obstacles in the process. It doesn't even seem all that well animated for a PA Works show, but that could also be that I was bored witless. The characters have no chemistry, and there's no plot to speak of. Is it just supposed to be Yet Another Teenager Coming of Age vapid drama with somewhat odd character designs? 'Cause that's sure as hell what it appears to be from this episode.