天下制覇

Are we sure this isn’t being made by A-1?

New Season Disclaimer:

I prefer to give every show a chance. You never know when your dream-eating insect Mai HiME knockoff will turn out to be a psychological romantic thriller, or the strange moeblob show will be full of wit and urine jokes. However, my preferences are still my preferences, and while I’ll endeavor to at least convey what I do or do not like, there are genres of shows that I just plain don’t particularly enjoy. My opinions are based on nothing more than a gut reaction to what I watched literally 10-15 minutes prior and should be construed as nothing more and nothing less than that.

Impressions:

What’s surprising here is how mediocre the overall production is, especially given KyoAni’s reputation. When things are in motion, ribbons flop, hair moves, skirts billow, it looks sort of decent. Then as soon as movement settles, everything morphs into textureless blobs. It reminded me more of A-1’s particular style than KyoAni’s. Lots of movement, occasionally excessive as they bob and weave like they were boxing instead of mindlessly chattering, but they completely sacrifice the art quality and never look back. You could probably make a complete gallery of all the different ways they distort the hands in this show, occasionally even reducing them to half-inch stubs jutting out from their sleeves.

As I expected from both the source and past encounters with the general genre, the content bored me to tears. The main joke abused ad nauseum was "girls making silly faces" instead of "telling a joke." Felli makes cuter faces anyway and satisfies my violence quota to boot, pun fully intended. Sadly, the terrible castanet joke that I mocked in my preview got used not once, not twice, but three times in the episode, each time causing me a little more pain than before. There were a couple that made me chuckle, such as the Detroit Metal City gag, but I wouldn’t take that one to the bank.  Music was decent enough, but it did give me the nearly overwhelming urge to take a nap.

If you’ve already made up your mind to enjoy this based on liking shows having A.) Girls, and B.) KyoAni, I don’t think anything I say will dissuade you from that. In fact, I’d imagine the opposite would be more likely. I can’t imagine that this is going to win over any new converts to the "watch girls do mundane things while making silly faces" subgenre. *shrug* At least it didn’t inspire any kind of sarcastic bile in me, unlike other things I could name. That’s got to count for something.

K-ON! OP

K-ON! ED

Preview:

Buying a guitar.