天下制覇

Make it stop!

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 at least try and hook me.

Impressions:

Well, I pretty much expected it, but Yoichi uses that irritating old dialect filled that makes my temples throb de gozaru. At least the girls are relatively normal and nobody talks like they’re on a seven hour caffein rush thankyouverymuchKyouranKazokuNikki. It also helps a ton that the main female lead (the very busty Ibuki) is not a tsundere and is almost pretty much immediately set in stone through this episode as Yoichi’s lady. Hell, of the four sisters, Ayame (blonde) is really the only one who starts off maybe not liking Yoichi. He immediately befriends the loli, and even after a face full of Chihaya’s panties, she just asks him if he’s into yaoi and we move right along.

Also along those lines, I’m very happy with how little fanservice there was in general. They made the joke about Yoichi getting a face full of panties, or a handful of Ayame, but it wasn’t even particularly titilating, unless this is your idea of a sexy panty shot. They made the joke, and they didn’t feel the need to also shove T&A into the audience’s face. That felt… well… different, and rather nice. It’d have been even better if the jokes were… well… good, but at least I cracked a grin instead of rolled my eyes. The opening sequence had a very wet Ibuki, and Kagome made Yoichi search for Ibuki based on breast size, but that was really about it. Okay, so Yoichi did technically grope Ayame, but that scene brought back very happy memories of the similar scene in School Rumble between Eri and Harima, so I was too busy with a giant grin on my face to even care. Yoichi’s adventures with the (CG) escalator and (CG) train were alright, but nothing particularly unique or special. I really liked the vocal work on the OP, but the BGM in a couple parts could have used some work. Overall though, while I don’t have any ringing endorsements for the production, I don’t have any complaints either. It was pretty average for the most part. Nothing really great, nothing particularly horrid.

Really, that’s the best endorsement that I can give this show; It does very little wrong. It doesn’t do very much particularly well and it never blew me away, but every character is likeable, nobody is screaming at each other, and the default value for the relationships are that everybody (except perhaps Ayame) starts out liking Yoichi. He’s not overly stupid or perverse, and is a genuinely good guy that even the cops can see and are happy to help him out. The lack of generated conflict just feels refreshing and so much more peaceful. Apparently Tate Yuichi is going to be a recurring character and the general thorn in Yoichi’s side. Oh well, there are worse temporary villains in the world.

I wouldn’t be opposed to taking on this alongside Black God for Thursdays at the moment, but we’ll see how both progress. I think I enjoyed this episode overall more than Black God’s first episode, but that one was 15 minutes of horribleness and 5 minutes of awesome stuff instead of just a pleasant average all the way through. I certainly wouldn’t hate anybody who didn’t like this show, but I personally think that it has a lot going for it, even if it’s hard to quantify what exactly it is. I will cover this for at least next week and see where to go from there.

Opening Sequence

Preview:

Yoichi’s first day of school.