天下制覇

Jubei-chan~~~

Hm. Totally forgot this existed. This is an early broadcast of episode 1. It doesn’t begin airing for real until October 3rd, when it’ll be in all its uncensored ‘glory’ on ATX. Also, the full title would be something like "Hundred Blooming Flowers Samurai Girls." Just to be pedantic here.

Impressions:

Despite this being an ARMS show and the latest/greatest in its line of "busty girls exploding out of clothes" speciality, I actually have a lot of hope for this one just for its writer alone, who is probably my favorite in the buisness, a vet from UFOTable that did just about every single one of their TV series except for Coyote Ragtime. Of course, there’s a lot more than just a writer, but they’re definitely taking a lot of tricks from UFOTable’s book with these visual effects as well. They’re certainly nothing new, but they’re rarely used in anime. If you’ve played Vanillaware’s Muramasa, the oldschool Japanese inkblot effect will be old hat to you, but it’s still mostly used well and works perfectly with the very rough and archaic artistic style. It is a bit overused, particularly at the start as well as the silly use of it as censorship, but I still think that they did a good job with it and really helps the show stand out. There were more than a few moments where characters, especially Muneakira, looked a tad blocky or like they grew shoulderpads, but for the most part, it looked quite good.

That said, a lot of the episode was more focused on world building than being interesting. While I realize that they have a lot of ground to cover between "Japan uber alles" and "Hattori Hanzo is a lesbian ninja maid now," they could have done a better job of it than sitting down and having straight up discussions of it. Some of the humor was also a bit off. I did laugh at the dramatic pose that Muneakira and his little harem took at the end though, and some of the jokes were good. The fanservice gags at the start were just bizarre though. "Oh no, you saw us naked, now excuse me while I change into something more revealing." I suspect that they’re from the same pantless continuum as Strike Witches.

At the end of it though, my inner Jubei-chan fanboy squealed in delight when Aoi Yuuki put on her best badass voice and introduced herself as Yagyuu Jubei. Where’s my season 3, dammit? In any case, while there are definitely rough spots, I rather enjoyed this first episode and am quite annoyed that I won’t see another one for a month.