天下制覇

Wasn’t this about pop idols?

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, my early prediction was wrong. There wasn’t a single naked burly man in sight. It’s a pity, really, because I’m sure it would have done nothing but improved my opinion of this episode. Good lord, was it boring. Absolutely nothing happened for the first 15 minutes, and then they crammed some cliche idol on idol hazing into the last 3 minutes or so, but presented and resolved in basically a single breath. A ton of them all got together and decided to pour juice to stain Kaoru Yuki’s dress, and then the next time you see it, it’s covered in stains and has been transformed into a punk look. I expect that kind of silly cliche from shows like Full Moon wo Sagashite where things are supposed to be overplayed and fantastical.

The really notable thing here was the music. Holy hell it was possibly the bizarre collection I’ve ever heard. A very classical selection including, amongst other things, a waltz. I’m not even sure how long it’s been since I heard a waltz randomly thrown into a show as generic BGM. You’d think for a show about pop idols, they’d go with pop music, but most of this stuff sounds like a Holst march. The rest of the production was solid. Art was superb and no complaints about the animation, although they did switch styles a couple times, which was a bit jarring and confusing. I’m not sure if the opening is the one they’ll be using simply because it’s frankly garbage. I’m pretty sure at least one shot is just a close-up of rope run through half a dozen blur filters. It sounds alright at least, though a bit waily for Nana Mizuki. The direction was also a little uneven. They’re clearly trying to mimic Shinbo’s presentation of ef a little bit, but just tossing up words onscreen isn’t the best way to go about it. The dream sequence at the start was also far more irritating than it had any need to be. Not to mention the foreshadowing delivered with a 40 ton hammer.

Overall, this went nowhere very very slowly. Touya was off doing his thing while Yuki was doing her thing and it wasn’t really clear that either was actually leading anywhere, which may have been the point, but it felt like most of the episode was totally meaningless. I highly highly doubt I’ll hang around for the next episode of this one. It does seem like it could be a solid production, except for the writing and music, but with dramas, the writing’s really what makes or breaks them, and I saw almost nothing I liked from that out of this episode. I can’t imagine sticking with this one, even though Saturdays are looking pretty sparse. Regios (next week) would have to be really bad for me to decide to pick this over it.

White Album Opening