Afterschool Pleiades — Vroom Vroom

January 31st, 2011

 

What is this even supposed to be?

Impressions:

So the Gainax and Subaru magical girl ‘show’ ends up being just a short ‘OVA’ consisting of four 5 minute ‘episodes.’ What a shock. Buuuut, since they did put them all up at the same time, I guess I can treat it as one single bad episode instead. The main issue is that it’s trying to tell an entire story in about a 19 minute span and just drops random things on you constantly because it has no space to actually build up to or develop them. They might have been able to get away with it if there was a much smaller cast (and really, there was no need for any of the other girls besides the core three), but as it was, everything was just spat out and then dropped because the episode had to move on. The story wasn’t even anything special or even beyond cliche. Girl stumbles through magical seals to keep muggles out, gets kicked out by magical best friend, makes up, saves the day through the power of friendship and giving people hugs. Whoopie.

Production looked okay, but not really up to OVA standards and before anybody gets huffy about this being a free net animation, Penguin Girl was much better produced than this with a lot less fanfare and featured far less light bloom. The music was pretty nice, in that lull-you-to-sleep kind of way. A lot of Subaru’s influence (the car company, not the lead character) also made its impact in various terrible ways, from the magical widgets they were collecting (engine fragments) to the noises their staves made. I think they spent most of their money on designs anyway because they seemed to be trying really hard… really hard… to make every single character totally unique to the point where it was getting a little painfully obvious. Giving every one of them their own broom-riding style was over the line. Apparently they’ve got figures to sell, or perhaps are trying to cash-in on what Black Rock Shooter was trying to do.

Overall, meh. It’s only about 19 minutes long so it’s hard to really care one way or the other about it. There’s nothing impressive to see here and no promise of anything more interesting to come. I’m not sure what the point or the take-home message of it is supposed to be so that leaves merchandising, merchandising, merchandising. Of course, I have no idea what they’re selling either. Maybe some fine leather jackets…

Posted in Pleiades | 6 Comments »

6 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • Adam says:

    The screencaps missed all the subliminal frames that tell you to buy Subaru’s new line of fine leather jackets.

  • alex says:

    “Of course, I have no idea what they’re selling either.”

    – as always, lolis

  • Anonymous says:

    Needs moar Madoka.

    Are they planning to make a series out of this later on? Looks quite confusing indeed…

  • Jack says:

    You know the global “great Recession” is over when a car company is co-producing cartoons.

  • alex says:

    still better than Madoka

  • lolzero says:

    engine fragemnts? lol, its way too crazy
    needs moar subaru cars inside there.