天下制覇

And lots of it.

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 didn’t expect to enjoy this at all and it did nothing to surprise me or change my mind. Most of it could be mistaken for a video game thanks to the pretty much constant use of CG and very sparse animation otherwise. The CG wasn’t anywhere near as good looking or detailed as SoraKake’s yesterday, but they did use it a lot more dynamically and effectively.

The characters are all ripped from generic military stereotypes like they’re going out of business. There’s the flamboyant blonde guy, the older over-muscled guy, the taciturn badass who doesn’t listen to orders and takes crazy risks, the token female, and an all-female cadre of bridgebunnies back at home. Like I said, animation aside from the CG was servicable at best, though the CG was relatively nice, if a bit sterile for what was supposed to be a wartorn area. It’s strange to see ruined buildings sitting right next to a gleaming perfect road. Music also felt like it belonged more to a video game than a show, but overall, I thought the scoring was pretty good. The Engrish ED… not so much.

In the end though, it does absolutely nothing new, different, or (to me at any rate) particularly interesting. If you like this kind of military drama, you’ll probably like the first episode, but certainly won’t be blown away by it. If you aren’t a fan of this genre though, you can give it a pass without a second thought.

Opening Sequence