Suite Precure

What’s it about ?

The baddies are trying to replace the Melody of Happiness with the Melody of Sorrow, but the good guys in charged stalled them by dispersing the notes of the Melody. It’s up to two random schoolgirls to save the day !

Characters

Our heroines, Hibiki the slightly tomboyish sports player and Kanade the honor student/sweet-maker. They have a long history together, but they’ve been squabbling over petty matters for quite a while. Interestingly, it’s Kanade who has the worst temper of the two, although they’re both good at saying the wrong thing and regretting it later. Those two have great chemistry in the relatively little screentime they get.

The good guys consist of Queen Exposition Aphrodite, who seems to vaguely rule over stuff, and the cat-thing Hummy, who’s dumb as a sack of hammers.

The bad guys consist of evil lord Mephisto (so camp I have trouble taking him seriously as a threat), a trio of singing henchmen that are already horribly irritating despite barely getting three lines in the whole episode, and finally Siren, Hummy’s evil counterpart (who can actually transform into a girl). Unlike everyone else in the last two paragraphs, I actually like Siren, as she sounds like the only competent and intelligent person among all those morons. That’s charisma for you.

Production Values

Not very good, I fear. Side characters appear lifeless when they don’t speak, and the Big Bad’s design is so ridiculous it’s laughable.

The OP and ED aren’t very catchy, which is kinda disappointing in a music-themed series. And the ED’s gimmick of having CG models of the girls dance in rhythm slides deep into uncanny valley – it’s even more disturbing than the Heartcatch version.

Overall Impression

You know, this ain’t so bad. It was a somewhat ballsy move to have the first half of the episode devoted to the overall plot and the two heroines only introduced later on (especially as the overall plot is pretty crap, let’s be honest). But it’s the little things that make it work : Hibiki and Kanade feel like “real” lapsed friends, and Siren’s a promising mini-boss.

The lack of scope of the main plot is worrying, and I’m not sure about the setting (everyone seems to be living in the same partly-magical world, which makes me wonder about the “routine” episodes). But I’m probably keep following it for a few more episodes to get a better sense of it.

via [In which I review] New anime, Winter 2010-2011 – Page 27.

Afterschool Pleiades (Houkago no Pleiades)

(6-minute-long webisodes, although since they’re released 4 at a time it’s a lot like a standard 24-minute episode)

What’s it about ?

Magic-powered schoolgirls battle against a wrong-headed prettyboy for fragments of an interstellar drive.

Characters

Subaru, our naive newcomer viewpoint character. A bit slow on the uptake, but not too annoying. Seems naturally gifted for this, to the point of randomly stumbling into the hammer-space rooms where all this stuff is happening (which surprises everyone else). The fourth episode gives a decent reason why.

Aoi, Subaru’s “friend” and de facto leader of the girls (technically the “Club President” is the alien blob whose spaceship they are trying to recover the engine’s pieces for, but she seems more or less in charge). Very reluctant to bringing Subaru into all this stuff she had hidden from her, but you know how these things go.

The three other girls don’t rise above stereotypes : there’s a monotone one dressing in witch’s clothes for some reason, a kind one and an energetic one.

Minato, the guy, was hit by a fragment (or is it an actual star ?) two years ago and hasn’t been right in the head ever since. He wants to gather the engine pieces for his own purposes. Which makes him the de facto baddie.

Production Values

It looks more or less okay, but there are some bits of limited animation here and there that jumped to my eyes. No OP ; the ED is inoffensive fluff playing to production sketches.

Overall Impression

WTF ?

I have to hand it to GAINAX : they find new ways to troll every day. This time, it’s not so much the actual contents of the show (a by-the-numbers magical girl series), than the announcement that this is a co-production with SUBARU, of all people. I have absolutely no clue why, apart from the protagonist sharing the company’s name, and the logo briefly appearing at the start. If there’s any product placement here, I completely missed it.

Anyway, taken at face value, it’s a very generic show without much to recommend to it. The setting is slightly puzzling, but that’s it. I can’t find any clue only whether these four episodes are it all, or if there’s any more planned. I know I won’t bother to seek it out.

via [In which I review] New anime, Winter 2010-2011 – Page 25.