天下制覇

Apparently little spikes.

Cap quality is meh since I got tired of waiting and just snatched it off NND. You’ll survive.

Impressions:

I’m not really entirely sure what to make of Kaiba just yet. As expected, it’s pretty surreal, but I’m not certain if the visual style works well with the content. When it’s just being silly and weird, fine… but when it tries to be serious and shows people being attacked or dying, it just doesn’t click with me at all. Everybody and everything looks entirely too innocent and cheerful. It’s like someone attacked the set of Steamboat Willy and dragged everybody into a philosophical treatise on the nature of self and memories. Think of it as an even cuter and more surreal Astro Boy in terms of style and movement.

It’s certainly unique if nothing else. Even above and beyond the weird style, I am a bit concerned about the sparse animation at times. I swear that we spent at least 90 seconds on the same key frame while they were trying to find the right ‘memory spike’ or whatever you want to call them. I did really like the OP, but I’m just not certain how I feel on most of the rest of the show. It’s pulling off the whole memory thing a lot better than Himitsu is, but the visual style just seems really ill-suited to telling a serious story, so for at least me, there’s a mental disconnect going on.

At any rate, I don’t realy like stretching my brain too much as I watch shows, so I’m not entirely certain I’ll be keeping up with this, especially raw. I’m interested in seeing if they really can tell a serious story with such a childish style, but not really interested enough to follow with baited breath. If you’re looking for another Kemonozume, I don’t think this is it, but it’s definitely stretching the boundaries of anime in a different manner, so props for that at the very least.

Kaiba OP