天下制覇

Juri will beat your tail in.

Impressions:

A reboot of Yozakura Quartet (at least as far as the staff and studio goes) in an unfortunately rather protracted OVA form. While this episode wasn’t stellar, it was a lot more fun than the original series, much lighter on the exposition, and the style does make for some rather cute shots. It’s a shame that the next episode isn’t until February. Whoever planned this release schedule should be beaten with a stick repeatedly. Anyway, the change in artistic direction is the biggest alteration and it’s easy to see. Everything is in a rougher style which sometimes works and sometimes makes Akina’s forehead big enough to land the Exxon Valdez on it. I’m not a huge fan of the style personally, but like I said, it has its moments. It does let them get away with barely any stills or lingering shots of the scenery… the bane of the TV series, so that’s an improvement.

Most of this episode was fluff. I would have liked a little more development, or action, or… anything. It’s cute and all to see Yae jumping around in a bear head and Juri in her short short skirt kicking butt, but nothing happened until the end. Just like the TV series, the music continued to be a pleasure to listen to at least. Most of the episode was just a reintroduction to the city and characters. That’s not much for an intro episode in general, but after a TV series and with a 5 month gap before the next episode, a berserk Rin nearly taking off Oni-onii’s head in the last minute doesn’t cut it for plot. This was this director’s first time at the helm, so I’m hoping he learned from this and can improve the next time around… in February. Sigh.