天下制覇

Shut the hell up, Kanako.

New Season Disclaimer:

I’ll make a post for almost all new series (barring sequels) with a wrap-up and bullet point opinion of each once the premier week is over. Remember that these are just my kneejerk reactions to the first 20 minutes of shows, many of which in genres that I don’t even particularly like, but I do believe in giving every new series at least an episode to interest me.

Impressions:

In a feature of total inanity, this is the first of two pre-airing specials for Maria†Holic, and one I was totally unaware of. AT-X will also be airing the first episode on the 30th, but broadcasting won’t actually start until January 4th. Round and round it goes. Watch this oh so high quality stream here if you’d like.

I’ve got to admit, I wasn’t a huge fan of this episode, and most of that lies on Kanako’s shoulders. She just never shuts up and so little of it is actually interesting or entertaining. It’s just an endless high pitched drone for twenty straight minutes slowly boring into my brain. Things improved after the eyecatch (around 13 minutes in) when Mariya took over for a little bit to threaten and berate Kanako into submission, but it still never really got particularly funny. Some of the visual gags were alright, but there were just as many that were just Kananko pointing out the exact same thing that they just showed… only now in chibi form.

I also thought that Shaft did an uncharacteristically poor job with the music here. In a lot of ways, it reminds me of Index’s BGM selection, very little melody and a lot of strange sounds tossed in to create controlled cacophony. Visuals and productions were pretty much exactly what you’d expect for a Shaft show. If you didn’t like Shinbo’s style before, this isn’t going to change your mind. It’s a lot more spastic than almost any other show they’ve done, even Pani Poni Dash, but if they cut down on Kanako’s sugar levels, that should calm down quite a bit. Hopefully with Mariya now torturing her/keeping her in line, she’ll be a bit more manageable and make my brain hurt less. A little ritalin (or focus) is really all it’d take to drastically improve my opinion of this show.

It doesn’t seem horrible, and does seem like it will get quite a bit better instead of worse, but I’m not sold on it yet. I know Totali really loved this episode though, and with Minami-ke and Casshern also on Sundays, I wouldn’t say coverage from me is looking particularly promising. We’ll see how the second episode goes though.