天下制覇

I think we’ve passed the homage territory and are into almost out and out theft.

Season Premier Disclaimer:

I like to check almost every new show out. The value of a show is in its execution, not its premise. That said, my tastes are mine and mine alone. Some things bother me, some things don’t. I will attempt to be as cogent as possible as to my complaints or compliments for each show, but be aware that my views skew heavily towards the center. Nothing is perfect, nothing is irredeemable. That said, my tastes and my opinions are mine and mine alone and should not be construed as fact or, god help us, some kind of erudite critical analysis of the entire series based on the show’s first 20 minutes. Feel free to leave your own thoughts on the show if you’d like, but invective and similar will be mocked or deleted depending on which amuses me more at the time.

Impressions:

Good lord, the Persona vibes are strong here, not that that’s a bad thing. The music, the monsters, the alternate world, just about everything practically is almost stylistically identical to Persona. It feels more like Persona than the Persona anime did… not that that’s really saying much. Unfortunately, that’s not enough to make it particularly engaging. This episode was a bit overly focused on Kakeru and Yuka’s relationship instead of being… well… interesting. Granted, it’s a little bit intriguing to see a male and female lead who are for all means and purposes already together in a show like this, but aside from fawning over them holding hands or happily sleeping on each other’s lap in park, the otherworld segments only lasted maybe three minutes total, so that’s really about it. I guess if hand holding and such things are like crack to you, then you’ll take what you can get. Although, since every PDA leads to them being trapped in the DEATH WORLD, that may curb the relationship a bit. Many of the side characters were painfully irritating as well, or just showed up to remind us that they’re in the show so we won’t be shocked when they’re a main character later… assuming that you skip the OP every single time.

Unfortunately, there really wasn’t a whole ton else to this episode. The animation was okay, but there wasn’t much to animate, and the art is about average, with mistakes and disproportionate chins cropping up far more regularly than they should be. I really liked most of the music for the most part, but the direction was pretty atrocious. I think they might have left it to someone’s 12 year old son and a stack of video filters and effects. The transfer into the red world, for example, is done with a lot of static, and then the same kind of breaking glass effect that Tales of the Abyss (among others) uses for random battles. I’m also not really sure what was with the post-ED segment of Kakeru fighting the shadows monsters before it cut into the next episode preview. That was just nonsensical.

I’ll give it another week or two in order to introduce some of the less irritating characters and maybe actually have some action, but outside of fond memories of Persona, this really wasn’t a particularly strong beginning. Kakeru seems like one of the better breed of male protagonists, but outside of watching him seduce someone already itching to leap out of her panties for him, there’s really very little to say about this episode.

And keep your Index jokes to yourself or I’ll have to sic the gimp on you.

Preview:

From the sea of thy soul…