2011 Q3 – Summer – Page 3

Ro-Kyu-Bu

What’s it about ?

Standard sports series about an elementary school’s female basketball club. Also, lolicon.

Characters

Subaru, our protagonist. He’s a high school student roped by his elder sister (who’s an elementary teacher) into coaching the club for three days. He was part of the high-school basketball club until it got dissolved a month or so ago due to a “lolicon incident” (I’m not sure about the details, and I can’t bring myself to rewatch this), and his middle school club got quite high in tournaments, so at least he’s competent, but he’s not particularly enthusiastic (his sister being a complete troll doesn’t help).

The five members of the club are the usual stereotypes : the talented and competent one, the loud idiot, the brainy one, the tall and way-too-well-endowed-for-an-elementary-student moeblob, and the kid.

We also get a glimpse of Subaru’s potential love interest, as well as the male elementary basketball club walking angrily towards Subaru as a weak cliffhanger.

Production Values

There’s absolutely no way to mistake what kind of audience this is pandering to : way too many ass shots, an emphasis on the glistening hotpants the girls wear, a gratuitous shower scene where they actually start fondling each other…

Well, at least they spent part of the animation budget into making the basketball look somewhat good. But that’s what, 4 minutes of screentime in total ?

Overall Impression

I knew what kind of show I was in for when I saw that the first post-OP action of the girls was to dress as maids in an effort to “make a good impression” on their new coach (and their dialogue gets more explicit after that). I braced myself for quite a painful watch.

It’s… actually not that bad : the lolicon stuff gets more subdued as the episode goes, and it’s hard to mess with the standard sports show formula. Still, that doesn’t actually make the show any good : the not-brain-bleach-inducing parts are merely mediocre instead of plain awful. There’s nothing at all to recommend to this show.

via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2011.

Blade

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

It’s a straightforward vampire-hunter show.

Characters

Eric “Blade” Brooks, our protagonist. His mother got bitten (and killed) while pregnant, and thus he’s a half-vampire “Daywalker”. Obviously he’s got something of a grudge, and goes around killing vampires by the dozen with his silver-bladed weapons.

Makoto, a young vampire-hunter who makes a team with her veteran father (so of course he’s doomed to die before the first episode ends). She gets three minutes of badassitude before getting way over her head and spending most of her screentime in distress. Hopefully she’ll snap out of it before she gets on my nerves too much.

Deacon Frost, the Big Bad Vampire, who’s recognizable as the one who bit Blade’s mother because of his characteristic 4 fangs. Obviously he makes short work of Blade at this point, although he leaves him alive for some reason (maybe because the “Daywalker” blood samples he extracts may not be enough ?).

Production Values

Decent. For once, the rough artstyle of the Marvel/Madhouse coproductions fits the tone of the series instead of working against it. The music score is better than average (this may be the first OP among those projects where the instrumental tune works perfectly with the visuals), and there’s some decent use of colour to set the mood here and there. On the other hand, I’m not fond of the frequent use of freeze frames in the action sequences (it always looks cheap to me), and the dissolving effect when vampires get dispatched looks quite weird.

Overall Impression

Well, I didn’t fall asleep, which is better than I expected (despite being a Marvel fanboy, I have absolutely zero interest in Blade as a character). It works quite well as a action piece (apart from some stylistic mistakes detailed above), and Makoto shows some potential as an action girl if she gets a clue quickly (Maaya Sakamoto’s charisma strikes again !).

Can it sustain itself over 12 episodes without becoming repetitive ? I have my doubts. But it’s earned itself a second episode, which is more than I’d thought beforehand.

via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2011.

Double J

(4-minute episodes)

What’s it about ?

A high school club where everyone is a representative of an inane, this-should-really-have-been-automated-by-now kind of manual labor (such as engraving toothpicks or gluing enveloppes).

Characters

Four minutes is a bit short for anyone to develop beyond stereotypes. We’ve got the newcomer girl, her brash friend, the solemn toothpick girl, the club secretary… and the club chief, a dude who gets drawn in a much rougher artstyle for some reason.

Production Values

By the makers of Haiyoru! Nyaruani: Remember My Love(craft-sensei) ! Which tells you everything about what to expect, really : barely animated sets of talking heads.

Overall impression

Well, on a writing level it’s somewhat better than Nyaruani : the jokes are funnier and the pacing has much more punch to it. On the other hand, it doesn’t have a killer hook like its predecessor… and it’s not good enough for me to care.

Avoid.

via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2011.