Monday, October 12, 2015

[New][October 2015] Comet Lucifer

Oh. It's a mech anime. goody.
Summary: Comet Lucifer is a fantasy set on the planet Gift, where precious crystals called Giftium are buried in the earth. The main character Sogo lives in a prosperous mining town, Garden Indigo, and loves to collect rare crystals. One day, he gets caught up in a dispute between his classmates, and somehow loses his way deep in the ruins of a mine. There, he discovers a blue-haired girl with red eyes named Felia, and his adventure begins. Also, Mechs.

First Impression: Oh. It's a Mech Anime. Well. Took them long enough to let on about that. Actually, took them long enough...oh wait. They NEVER told us ANYTHING about WHAT THE HELL IS EVEN GOING ON, ON MY SCREEN. Is this just a Mech thing? I seem to remember ... just about every? Gundam anime that I ever bothered to watch doing this. Just dropping us 'In Medias Res' style in the thick of it, and maybe eventually getting around to explaining just what is happening.

My Opinion: This was looking kind of promising, minus the 'I have no clue what is happening at all' thing, for most of the episode. I was just waiting for them to finally tell us something about the little red crystal thing Sogo was so flipping thrilled about. But no, they couldn't even give us some techno babble to partially slack our thirst of curiosity, and explain more later, they just...teased that they were about to tell us something, and then had him rushing off again. I swear I spent half the episode just watching Sogo run, climb, and hover board all over. Grant, the animation looks nice? I guess? Not that I was ever one to give a shit about how pretty the animation is. 

So yeah...my opinion? I don't farking have one yet besides that this is definitely a mech anime, and those tend to be mediocre at best, with a 1% chance of being good sometimes.
When just one giant robot type shows up on screen, particularly when it's just a work machine like it was here, it might not be a mech anime. But when they spend a full scene animating said robot running for a full minute and change, and then another kind of robot appears, and a fight happens, that is definitely a mech anime. Not an anime with giant robots in it, it is an anime about Mechs. There is a difference.

I mean really, I don't expect every show to immediately tell us everything that is going on right away, that's just bad design, but you can't tell us nothing. So far all we know is some very obscure and vague ideas about the relations of the first 4 main'ish characters. I have no opinion beyond stating basic facts. Maybe in another episode or two. Even then, it feels like the show is pulling me along by the nose to find out whether I will even care about it or not, trying to squeeze pennies out of my basic curiosity by pumping their initial view counts. Or however it is anime make money, I dunno.

[New][October 2015] Asterisk War


Summary: Invertia…an unprecedented disaster that struck the world during the 20th century.
Because of this disaster, numerous cities around the world were destroyed. However, this event
also gave rise to a new species of human born with unique skills: The Genestella.
The instability after the disaster saw the return of Monarchies in some countries in the wake of the declining power of the existing major nations, and a new united governing body, The Integrated Empire Foundation, came into power. Now, the best Genestella of various countries are sent to battle for supremacy in a Battle Entertainment Festival, "Festas", at Rikka, an academic city built on the water, and the winner is said to be granted any desire, so long as it can be accomplished in the world. The students are divided into six separated schools that host Festas once a year.
The story follows Ayato Amagiri, as he is chosen for the school that presently has the worst record in the recent Festas'.

First Impression: I don't know if you noticed, but this anime's summary literally sounded like someone hacked up random pieces from the last 2 years of anime's summaries and spit glued them together to make a new story. I don't even feel like bothering to point out any of them because it feels so obvious that this thing was, at the minimum, inspired by, and at the worst, plagiarizing story ideas. Grant, I don't think that it is inherently bad to do that, but the thicker the copy paste, the more indicative it is of low quality and corner cutting.
Having said all that, I walked up to this show actively looking to drop it, because it sounded so uninspired and being able to take a show off the list of things to juggle for potential posts sounded immensely tempting. I am however, keeping this one, and looking forward to it. Ever since Magic War (Mahou Sensou), I know better than to assign expectations, but still.

My Opinion: I'm just going to straight up raise my hand and say that I'm immediately biased on this show. Since it seems to be an industry standard now to bold-facedly swing a hook at the audience with an opening action scene, I'm giving this show points for said hook not being a poorly manufactured 'In Medias Res', or for it just spitting a protagonist into a fight before we even know for sure we're looking at the protagonist. Instead, we get a scene from the past, and the show quickly seeks to let us know that by mid episode. 


Additionally, they immediately pull a check-box standardized Fan-service scene out of their pocket and throw it onto the table, and not completely piss me off with it. Grant, I'm always going to argue that this shit is unnecessary, and can wait till later in to the series when we have proper attachments to characters, if not just outright never happening at all...but they handled this quite maturely. At the very least, the closest thing to maturely since Madan no Ou to Vanadis. She still ends up trying to punch him for ogling her, but the show itself doesn't try to pretend like she's doing it for any other reason than just because she's angry and it will make her feel better. Which is really the only reason any character ever does this tired token scene. Still, points for her actually giving him a chance to apologize, and thanking him for the reason he was even there in the first place being of good intention.

All in all, I like the world building they've done in the first episode. Which is another point, despite two fights in quick succession right at the start, the first episode is pretty much exclusively devoted to introducing and fleshing out characters, and their world. That is always a good sign, albeit not a guarantee of quality. Just the potential for it. So, I'd say keep your eye on this show at this point. If it seems like it's theme is to your tastes, it may very well shape up to be a great show. Hard to tell at this point.

Sunday, October 4, 2015

[New][October 2015] HackaDoll!

This looks so much like the MMDance Program it has to be intentional...or the Program.

Summary: The original HackaDoll app delivers a customized feed of news for each user. The user answers some simple questions when launching the app for the first time, and then the app will filter the news that caters to the user's personal interests: boys love, cosplay, anime, manga, games, light novels, voice cast members, etc. With daily use, the app automatically analyzes and learns which news articles the user reads and recommends to further personalize the feed. Much to the users surprise however, the app functions based on three physically manifested AI's suddenly popping into her room from her phone.

First Impression: Somehow I knew this was going to be comedy, despite its extraordinarily serious start. Like, it straight up is Perfect English in the beginning with Japanese subtitles quoting a very profound line. Grant, I'm inclined to think that it is wholesale quoting the line, not some voice actor reading it, but I don't recognize the quote nor who spoke it, and I'm not motivated enough to look it up. The second quote makes me doubt this, but it could also be from the same person, as the context, of technology's advancement, is the same.

Having said all that, this is a Comedy Show. Straight up, Comedy. Heart of the show is trying to make you laugh at its jokes. Also, a little bit of fan service. Not erotic fan service, which is kind of a nice change of pace, but rather the 'Moe' kind. Y'know, the one that's nigh impossible to explain. Never actually showing anything, but definitely showing it off. The kind in a run of the mill show that would be set up almost by fate itself. If the erotic equivalent is a gust of wind blowing a skirt, then the Moe side would be a protagonist walking in on someone secretly cosplaying as a maid in their room.

My Opinion: The comedy's pretty good, or at least, I think as much despite it not being to my tastes. While there's nothing at all wrong with the show, and it actually has a really interesting world setting, The core of it is comedy and I'm not really enjoying its particular variety. A lot of it in the first episode made me smile, but nothing really made me laugh or snicker. While I do plan to watch the second episode, I'm just going to go ahead and say that if you don't see another post on this one, assume I dropped it.

It's a good show from what I've seen so far, but it's just not to my tastes.