天下制覇

Any questions?

Impressions:

God damn it, Allison & Lillia… now I’m fixated on character noses.

Alternately… Shaft now has a studio competing with them for "Weirdest OP." Certainly a vaunted award, but I don’t think there’s too much other competition out there.

AAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnyway, this was a relatively decent episode. Outside of the wacky neo-Flash OP, it was pretty well animated and drawn. I wasn’t a big fan of the piano background music that made up most of the soundtrack, but for most of the first half, I was suffering from at least a little bit of culture shock. I wasn’t entirely certain what the show would be like, and then the OP furthur confused me before we got thrown into some relatively dark stuff… and then ended on a very bright and colorful ED.

We get thrown right in with the very abusive Murasaki family before things drastically shift to the other main character, Shinkuro Kurenai and his school life. Unfortunately, he’s not a terribly interesting guy, though he does manage to get his face spraypainted almost immediately. He seems like the usual well-meaning protagonist who can’t resist sticking his nose into everything that every woman wants and every man takes an opportunity to step on.

The story felt a little rushed, but at the same time drawn out. The direction just felt a little clumsy with drastic jumps between very disjoint scenes. Apparently transitions are things that happen for other shows. Kuhouin’s voice also doesn’t really seem like it fits her too well. She sounds significantly older than the 8 or so years old that she’s supposed to be. There was also a very uncomfortable moment when she was undressing and Kurenai was staring at her that had the opportunity to go really really disturbing… but then he went over and helped her finish getting dressed, which I guess is… well… if you’re prepared to assume that a random guy just became the guardian to a little girl he’s never met before, then… well… as you will. At least Kurenai doesn’t take crap from his charge, even if he does leave a little girl alone in a rundown apartment in the slums.

It wasn’t that bad of an episode, but it just felt very very long. Things felt like they were moving quickly at the start and then everything just slowed down. I don’t really have any complaints with the production values, and assuming the show does eventually become a little more lighthearted and less moody (as the OP seems to indicate), then it could get better. It didn’t really do a great job of drawing me in after the first episode though. I’ll give it another episode and see where it goes from there.

LSD Fueled Kure-nai OP

Preview:

More adjusting to living in a hovel.