Tag: videogame adaptation

Spring 2016 Capsules

Don’t bother with Ragnastrike Angels (if you can even find it). It’s a glorified 30-second commercial for the mobile game, and it’s over before you even realize it.

 

With three minutes of runtime, Pan de Peace! (the pun, it hurts !) at least manages to provide a more decent bite of content. It’s yet another adaptation of a 4-panel manga starring four girls with vague lesbian overtones, with the gimmick being that they’re all crazy about bread. Perfectly inoffensive, but nothing particularly distinctive or interesting either ; it’s comfort food, basically. And since I’m on a diet, I’m gonna skip it.

 

Oh, and just in case, the new JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure series, Diamond is Unbreakable starts off very promisingly. The colour design is even more striking than before somehow, too. And with only 39ish episodes planned, there’s a good chance it’s going to be less bloated than Stardust Crusaders.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2016 – Page 2

 

As previously mentioned, I won’t be doing a full review of the first episode of Macross Delta, as I already covered a preview of it three months ago. Let’s just say that it’s still as charming, and there are few more minutes of stuff happening at the end. (Since the actual first episode is somehow shorter than the preview, I presume they cut several minutes of fluff earlier on ; none of it is really missed.)

 

And for completeness’ sake, Sailor Moon Crystal is back, now covering the manga’s “Infinity” arc. On the one hand, given the popularity of the first anime version of it, it’s a no-brainer. On the other hand, the manga version (followed to the letter here) unfolds quite differently, and not always for the better. (The “reversion” stuff in this chapter is particularly silly pseudo-science.) And well, the usual flaws of Crystal are still present, especially the lack of atmosphere.

But who cares ? I bought the whole manga despite not liking it much ; I can certainly watch through this for completionism’s sake. (Especially as “Infinity” isn’t too bad as manga arcs go.)

 

Shounen Ashibe: Go! Go! Goma-chan is a short kids’ show about a boy (Ashibe) and his pet seal (Goma), adapted from a 4-panel manga series that already got two TV series in the early 90s. To say that it’s very dated indeed is an understatement ; most of the jokes and caricatures seem lifted straight out of the 70s or earlier. Otherwise, it’s perfectly inoffensive, but I’m way too old to be in the target audience.

Onigiri adapts a MMORPG as a series of shorts. Interestingly, it chooses to take the piss out of this fanservice-ladden cliché-fest, mocking thoroughly how male characters aren’t voiced, or having the main characters’ account be suspended because of tool tampering (as I was indeed wondering about the machine-gun and flamethrower whipped out by one of them in this med-fan setting…). To my surprise, most of the jokes are actually funny and delivered with good comedic timing, so I could see myself keeping watching it for a while.

Bishoujo Yuugi Unit Crane Game Girls is a baffling series of shorts, featuring three random girls being assembled so that they can save the world, but with their handlers telling them they’re going to be idols and playing crane games. The joke is in dire need of a punchline, and doesn’t work at all ; and it isn’t helped by fugly Flash-like animation. Skip.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2016 – Page 3

 

Nope, not doing a full review of Tonkatsu DJ Agetarou. It looks awful and is barely animated, the premise is silly (being a DJ is just like cooking Tonkatsu !), and it quickly got on my nerves. I’ll pass.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2016 – Page 5

Seisen Cerberus: Ryuukoku no Fatalités

(12ish episodes ?)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a heroic-fantasy mobile RPG.

Characters

Hiiro, our hero. (That’s some imaginative naming, right here.) Ten years ago Mom and Dad tried to seal away the ancient evil dragon Dagan Zot. It went poorly, the kid got a magic scar out of it (presumably being the only survivor), and the three macguffins of sealing (a sword, an orb and a mirror, of course) got lost. Now a foolhardy teenager, Hiiro has escaped surveillance from the family retainers and is tracking down the items, in an effort to complete his parents’ quest. Which doesn’t prevent him from spending way too much time feuding with street urchins. Anyway, the lord of the city he’s just arrived in has somehow gotten hold of the orb.

Enter Nambuuko, a powerful merchant who apparently can just barge in with his dozens of soldiers and his annoying sidekick, and strongarm the local lord into giving him favourable deals. And also order the execution of an urchin who had tried stealing the orb, somehow.

Hiiro, having somewhat fraternized with the urchins, won’t have any of it. Especially as his bodyguard has just finally caught up with him.

And then, for some reason, the dragon shows up. Wut ?

Production Values

Adequate enough… but wow, those are some rather uninspired character designs everywhere.

What did I think of it ?

There are a few cute jokes here. Hiiro’s parents making a trap for the dragon by disguising Mom as a sacrifice maiden, only to reveal herself as a swordswoman, is a good one. So is Hiiro carrying around a giant scabbard, only to eventually wield a tiny sword.

But the overall plotting is a complete mess, Hiiro is the only character who’s not completely unsufferable, and the world-building is so by-the-numbers that most of the time the writers don’t even bother explaining shit.

I just can’t bring myself to care. Next !

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2016 – Page 3

Ace Attorney (Gyakuten Saiban: Sono “Shinjitsu”, Igi Ari!)

(25ish episodes ?)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of the first two Phoenix Wright – Ace Attorney videogames, featuring the trials and tribulation of a young defense attorney.

Characters

Phoenix Wright, our protagonist, is just fresh out of law school. Not everybody would start off their career with a murder trial, but he insisted because the defendant in this case is his childhood friend…

Larry Butz. Let’s be honest, he’s a complete idiot with terrible luck and even worse manners. But he claims to be completely innocent of the murder of his top-model girlfriend (who totally hadn’t just dumped him), so what else can his best friend do but try and defend him ?

Mia Fey, head of the Fey & Co Law Office, and Phoenix’s boss. She’s here to be the helpful mentor who pushes Phoenix to make the right deductions. Don’t get too attached, though, she’s only here for the tutorial case.

Because clearly this is merely an appetizer before meatier cases ; the culprit’s identity is revealed from the start, and the whole thing is resolved under twenty minutes of screentime.

Production Values

Not very good, unfortunately. The animation is bare-bones, the character designs haven’t aged that well, and there’s a lot of awkward staging. I’m a bit puzzled by the choice to use exactly the same introduction boxes as the game ; it doesn’t look very good. At least the random dynamic character insets work a bit better. And they seem to have nailed the body language (that bit with Larry sitting was genuinely funny), which is essential in a show that could easily devolve into talking heads. Decent update and expansion on the game’s score, too.

Crunchyroll have made the interesting choice of providing two different subtitle sets, with our without translating character names. On the one hand, the American localization of the games is rightfully iconic (which is why I’ve been using it above), especially considering the pains they’ve taken to translate the punny names for everyone. On the other hand, even they started to run into trouble with their attempts to relocate the setting to Los Angeles, and this is compounded in this show, with many distinctly Japanese establishing shots, to say nothing of the victim’s plainly Japanese passport and her trip to New York (exactly 14 hours of timelag away) being major plot points in the case. This simulcast can’t just subtly alter the visuals like the games did, and so a “straight translation” subtitle track makes a lot of sense, especially with the more localized one as an alternate option.

What did I think of it ?

I’m a die-hard fan of the games ; of course I’m going to watch this to the end, regardless of actual quality. Especially if it spawns sequels for the later games.

It certainly could be worse. It’s utterly faithful to the games, covering every nook and cranny of the murder trial’s argumentation and somehow managing to cram the whole first case into a single episode without feeling too rushed. It even found the time to seed some flashbacks in that won’t be actually explored until the fourth case, as well as fit in a few additional character bits here and there. It’s also nice to see more thought given to how the AA trials actually look like beyond the limited perspective of the games.

There’s no way this could be as fun as actually playing the games, and frankly it could have been a lot more polished, but it’s decent enough for my purposes.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2016 – Page 2

Brotherhood – Final Fantasy XV

(5 11-minute episodes released on the web on an unknown but presumably monthly schedule)

What’s it about ?

A glorified trailer for the next Final Fantasy game ; it won’t be out until September, so in the meantime SquareEnix starts hyping it up with this prologue broadcast on their Youtube channel.

Characters

Noctis is the (adopted ?) son/heir of the Lucis kingdom. He was on a road trip to his marriage when the nearby rival Empire invaded and conquered the kingdom. Since he has no real news about his family in the capital and wouldn’t be able to do much there anyway, he decided to keep on with his road trip to check on his fiancée.

Fortunately, he’s not alone, as he’s with three friends with more street smarts than him : Ignis the serious mother hen, Gladiolus the big guy who’s always mouthing off at the latter, and Prompto the hyper, younger one. And since they’re a FF hero party, the four of them are plenty enough to handle the dozens of robotic Empire shock troups on their way (although they’d rather avoid them as much as possible to get to their destination quickly).

Production Values

The bland competence that you’re used to see studio A1-Pictures bring to the table when they’re not particularly inspired. And of course the character designs are the kind of over-designed nonsense you get in FF games these days.

I really hope that the hordes of identical robots are supposed to barely react to our heroes and politely attack them one by one, because their behaviour certainly looks laughable.

What did I think of it ?

It’s utterly inoffensive, and instantly forgettable : the platonic ideal of the skippable prelude for hardcore completists of the franchise only. It does a decent job of sketching out the main characters and their quest, but not to the point of selling me on actually buying the game. It’s also doomed by the foreknowledge that it can’t resolve anything major, as that’s presumably the game’s job. (Especially as all I’ve heard about it is that it is wholly about those dudes’ road trip.)

I may get around to eventually watching the next few instalments of this… or just completely forget about it by the time they do come out.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2016

Winter 2016 Capsules

Sushi Police has exactly one joke : an elite police task force regulating the quality and authenticity of sushi. Unfortunately, the execution is rather dismal : few of the gags land, and the animation style is an acquired taste at best. You probably shouldn’t bother seeking it out.

 

Old Man & Marshmallow is an office romantic-comedy about a middle manager who loves marshmallow. One of his underlings keeps teasing him about him in a way that makes it clear she’s flirting with him ; he’s oblivious. Nothing great here, but it’s paced decently, mildly funny, and rather okay overall. I may stick with it.

 

Oh, and I’m giving up on Assassination Classroom. The first season had huge pacing and consistency issues ; mostly, it wasn’t that funny. So this new season really had to hit it out of the park to keep my interest… It didn’t. It’s a below average episode with nothing particularly interesting happening ; it might have worked partway through the season as a breather, but something much more punchy was needed at this stage.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Winter 2016 – Page 2

 

I’ve given up on writing a full review for Divine Gate. This is an adaptation of a smartphone game where characters aligned with six different elements fight against each other. The show makes it darnedest to try and build up my interest into the token plot and make it look visually interesting, but I just don’t care. I just can’t summon the energy to take interest into whatever is going on here, and the characters certainly aren’t appealing enough to carry the show.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Winter 2016 – Page 3

Sequel watch !

Durarara!!x2 had a very good start for its last third. Most of it is taking stock of the story so far, as Celty desperately tries to get an explanation of what the heck is going on and WHAT ARE ALL THOSE PEOPLE DOING IN HER HOME, but superbly executed. Izaya & Shizuo also get good scenes, so I’m perfectly content with this.

Koyomimonogatari are the latest instalment of the -monogatari franchise, this time around as shorts only available on a mobile-app. (So ready your eyepatch if you want to watch it.) It adapts a bunch of short side stories, so it’s not that great a loss if you miss it. “Koyomi Stone”, the first one, is set before Bakemonogatari and fun enough, as an insight into Ararararagi’s early character development.

By the way, Snow White with the Red Hair is still as fun and engaging as before the break, it’s the one bright spot on Mondays.

I’ve Had Enough of Being a Magical Girl is basically a similar premise to Nurse Witch Komugi R, i.e. a magical girl parody, except as 3-minute shorts and actually half-way engaging. Nothing to write much home about, though.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Winter 2016 – Page 4

Phantasy Star Online 2 The Animation

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of the MMORPG of the same name. Well, kinda.

Characters

Usually videogame adaptations are set in the game’s universe, and follow its plot. Not so here : this is set in a futuristic highschool where PSO2 is the latest big fad.

Itsuki, our protagonist, has never played the game before. He’s been too busy with his studies, helping out various clubs, and being generically nice to pay attention to the game everyone else is playing. That’s until he’s summoned by…

Rina, the student council president. She “offers” him the place of vice-president after it’s gone unexpectedly vacant during the holidays. He’s all the more bemused when she tells him the whole job is to play PSO2 and report on it. WTF ? Oh, well, sounds easy enough…

Cue every little detail of Itsuki learning to play the game. This includes a huge dude in armour heavy-handedly offering the nOOb some help for his first quest. (It’s obviously Rina “in disguise”.)

There’s another PC/girl watching over the whole thing who’s obviously going to be introduced properly next episode.

Production Values

Nice enough, I guess ? I certainly would have liked to study in this futuristic school, given the facilities. (Well, minus the weird paranoid rent-a-cop at the entrance. THAT was just weird as a thing to spend so much time on.)

It does manage to make PSO2 look somewhat cool (if hopelessly generic), so there’s that.

Overall Impression

Well, that’s certainly a weird adaptation choice. Have the writers given up on imposing structure to a sprawling MMORPG universe, and instead falling back onto well-worn highschool tropes ? This has the unfortunate effect of most of the screentime being devoted to characters telling us that PSO2 is a cool game, instead of actually showing it. Especially as it looks like any other MMORPG, and the narrative destroys any attempt at showcasing its worldbuilding.

As an advert, it feels like a failure. As an actual show… Well, the characters have little depth, the weirdness of the PSO2 craze being the student council’s main focus isn’t particularly compelling, and it’s kinda dull overall. I’ll pass.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Winter 2016 – Page 3

Utawarerumono – Itsuwari no Kamen

(25 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Originally Utawarerumono was a tactical-RPG/visual novel hybrid, which got an anime adaptation a few years later in 2006 to tie-in with its PS2 rerelease.

This series is an adaptation of a sequel/spin-off videogame, which got released a few days ago. Synergy !

Characters

It’s not really clear yet whether this is a straight sequel set after the first game, or an alternate universe take ; apparently some of the (surviving) supporting cast are supposed to show up later on. For now, though, it’s all about new characters… who have very close dynamics to the originals.

“Haku”, our new protagonist, is an amnesiac dude who wakes up in cave, with monsters about to eat him. Also, unlike anyone else we see, he’s a straight human wearing a modern hospital gown. Given what I remember of the mythos from the previous series, it’s not a good sign. Anyway, he’s not only an amnesiac, but also completely ignorant of the world and its inhabitants, or even of a honest day’s work. He’s not very athletic and more than a bit lazy, but he does have a knack for engineering.

Kuon, the travelling merchant who saves him, quickly takes him under her wing, declaring herself his guardian and coining his new name. She’s a cat-human hybrid (which shows mostly with the ears and the tail). Anyway, cue cute romantic comedy hijinks in a pleasant medieval-fantasy setting. (That she‘s the one who spies on him in the bath tells you everything about this show’s priorities and sense of humour.)

Production Values

Quite nice ; there’s a good amount of scenery porn, and the animators are careful to let the body language of both leads carry a lot of the story.

Overall Impression

Well, this is certainly a nice and fun early romance between consenting adults. It easily captures what I liked best about Utawarerumono, and even improves upon it by having a more proactive female lead. So far, so good.

On the other hand, there are lots of worrying signs that the original mythos is still valid, and that was quite dark indeed. The original series struggled a lot with the sudden tone shifts between goofy harem comedy and brutal war story (to say nothing of the weird stuff towards the end), and both Haku’s introduction and the fact that the second game is still billed as a tactical-RPG makes me worry we’re going to cover similar territory. Now, it’s very possible this is a “done right” quasi-remake that suppresses the original’s weaknesses ; stranger things have happened. But the trainwreck potential is very present.

Anyway, this is a good enough start, and I’m intrigued enough by the project, to keep watching for at least a while.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Fall 2015 – Page 2

God Eater

(13 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a PSP action-RPG videogame. It also got a short “prologue” OVA back in 2009 by the same studio.

Characters

Renka, the player stand-in. He one of the talented trainees among Fenrir, an organisation devoted to exterminate the “Amagami”, monsters that have nearly destroyed civilization as we know it, aside from those small resistance forces. He’s aching to get in the field ASAP, but he’s rebuked by…

Ms Amamiya, the instructor for his rookie group, who insist on them training more. She takes this “tough love” approach because she doesn’t want them to die pointlessly, of course. But it’s a given that Renka is going to get into the field anyway, at which point she’ll be relegated to mission control over the radio.

Other characters include Renka’s bungling pal Kouta, and a bunch of other Elite God Eaters who just about manage to join the fray in time to save Renka’s bacon. Frankly, the characterization here is so minimalistic I have trouble remembering anything about most of them.

Production Values

Yikes. This is a show whose premiere got delayed by a week to try and fix the quality issues, and boy does it show. I think the action sequences mostly work, providing the flashy spectacle that has become studio ufotable’s trademark. The problem comes from the quieter scenes (i.e. most of the episode’s runtime), as the weird blend of traditional animation and enhanced CG colouring (or is the whole thing cell-shaded ?) looks very, very bad. It even manages the make the dialogue sound slightly out of sync, which suggests much last-minute tinkering. It’s frankly embarrassing for everyone involved.

Overall Impression

So, it’s a series that looks quite bad (and I’m really not sure the studio can fix things for further episodes ; I fear it can only get worse). But that only compounds the main issue : aside from spectacular battles, the show just doesn’t have much to offer. The plot is bland, the setting is beyond generic, the characters are walking clichés, and there’s no sense of the enemy being much more than cannon fodder. It’s aggressively boring and forgettable ; that may have worked fine in the original game, but it won’t cut it as an anime.

I have better things to do with my time than wasting it with this train wreck.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Summer 2015 – Page 5

Anime from 2000 : The Leftovers

Over the course of this project, there were a number of show I decided not to cover, or just couldn’t. Those were :

  • Sequels to earlier shows (and thus not NEW shows). There’s a few spin-offs I still chose to try and cover for significance reasons, but overall I skipped most of them.
  • A good number of kids’ shows that just weren’t available in any form (even in massacred English dubs). Those I had no option but to skip entirely.
  • Also, I didn’t do OVAs and movies. Sorry, FLCL.

So, here follows a list of everything I didn’t review :

#03 on the list is something called Mon Colle Knights, adapting some collectible cardgame. It’s the first of the many kids’ shows I just couldn’t get any hold of for this project. Not that I’m really heartbroken about it.

#05 is OH! Super Milk-Chan, a sequel to a 1998 comedy kids’ show.

#08 is Ojamajo Doremi #, the second season (out of four) of the magical girl franchise that eventually left way for Precure.

#10 is Digimon Adventure 02, which feels enough like a straight sequel of the original (unlike, say, Tamers) that I am not covering it.

#14 is Hidamari no Ki, an adaptation of a late Osamu Tezuka manga about the friendship between a samurai and a doctor in the Edo period. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find a copy of even the first episode of it. A shame, as it sounds quite interesting.

#15 is Doki Doki Densetsu Mahoujin Guru Guru, a sequel to a 1994 kids’ show adapting a manga lampooning Dragon Quest-style RPGs. It actually sounds quite fun, but it’s outside the scope of this project.

#21 is Inspector Fabre (Fabre Sensei wa Meitantei), another kids’ show I couldn’t lay my hands on.

A few words on #22, Banner of the Stars. It’s basically part two of a trilogy of anime adaptations of a light novel series, so it’s outside the scope of this project. But I should note that it’s the weakest chunk of this S-F saga. Crest kept things close and personal to its lead couple ; Banner II also had a tight focus as they dealt with a prison planet. Banner, on the other hand, throws them in the middle of a massive military campaign, depriving them of agency and relevance in their own series. It’s got its moments, but I found it distinctly less enjoyable.

#23 is yet another unavailable kids’ show, Taro the Space Alien, adapting a children’s manga.

#28 is something called DinoZaurs: The Series, which is apparently a sequel to a few OVAs that were bundled with a toyline that’s also known as “DinoZone”. Anyway, I couldn’t find it, and I had no inclination to dig too much.

#29 is Medarot Damashii, the second season of the adaptation of the Medabots RPG videogame franchise.

#35 is Mr. Digital Tokoro, a full-CG-animated series of shorts (130 3-minute-long episodes) based on comedian Tokoro George. (A guy famous enough to lend his name to half a dozen Mahjong videogames ; he also dubs Homer Simpson.)
Frankly, this sounds dreadful, but I couldn’t find even one of them.

#43 is Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Children, an adaptation of that RPG franchise’s attempt at emulating the success of Pokémon, with simpler gameplay more accessible to kids. It got a sequel in 2002, adapting a further game (and apparently having a troubled production). Anyway, I couldn’t find it.

#44 would be Baby Felix, a spin-off from the old Felix the Cat cartoons (which were apparently popular enough in Japan). Again, I couldn’t find it.

I thought I had gotten my hands on #50, Dotto Koni-chan, but my copy has no subtitles. It’s a comedy kids’ show about kids messing around and getting into hijinks. It’s mostly notable for being animated by studio Shaft before they became SHAFT, and directed by Excel Saga‘s Nabeshin himself. It does look kinda fun.

#51 should be Pipopapo Patrol-kun, a kids’ show featuring a friendly neighbourhood cop that might have been educational if I could have laid hands on it.

Our final and 52nd entry would have been Suteki! Sakura Mama, a series of shorts I could find nearly no information about. A bit anticlimactic, eh ?

Spring 2015 capsules

A few words on Vampire Holmes, first. It’s an adaptation of a… smartphone game app (!) as a series of barely-animated shorts ; the premise is that this Holmes completely sucks at using reason… not that it stops him from solving the crimes. It’s supposed to be funny, but this one joke is way too slight to support even a 3-minute short, let alone a whole season of it. Don’t bother with this one.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2015.

 

Oh, frack it, I’m not doing a full review of Wish Upon the Pleiades (Houkago no Pleiades). For one thing, I already reviewed the pilot web-thingy 4 years ago, and this first episode is a slightly abbreviated version of the same story. I think Gainax reanimated the whole thing thanks to that sweet Subaru money, but I can’t be arsed to track the original version down to compare.

Anyway, it’s still as boring and utterly bizarre as a use of a sponsor’s money (the magical girls’ brooms roar like motorbikes ! The main character is named Subaru ! And, er, that’s it for product placement…) ; I can only fathom that the few people left at Gainax needed the money, no questions asked.

 

On Sunday aired a short called Rainy Cocoa (Ame-iro Cocoa), about a bunch of handsome dudes running a café. It’s a string of mediocre jokes and stereotypical characterization that just abruptly stops because we’ve hit the 2-minute mark. (There’s technically a cliffhanger with a dude suddenly showing up, but come on now.) Nothing to see there.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2015 – Page 4.

 

A few words on a couple of shorts, first.

BAR Kiraware Yasai features a bunch of vegetables having a drink and complaining about how nobody likes them. It’s mildly cute as a concept, and at least it’s a joke that fits the “series of shorts” format, but there’s nothing particularly compelling in the execution to make me come back next week.

Urawa no Usagi-chan is *COME TO URAWA CITY* a series of shorts featuring a girl called Usagi *PLEASE COME, WE’RE DESPERATE ENOUGH TO COMMISSION THIS* who has utterly normal fri- *NO SERIOUSLY, WE NEED YOUNG PEOPLE TO COMPENSATE OUR POPULATION’S AGING* -ends *TOURISTS ARE FINE TOO*…

Excuse me, please wait a second.

/Shoots the representative from Urawa City’s tourism board.

Now, that’s better. Unfortunately, while there’s enough budget to make this look decent, the producers forgot to include anything like a plot, characters doing anything, or even the glimmer of a single joke. It’s just a scene that lasts for more that three minutes and accomplishes nothing in that duration.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2015 – Page 4.

 

No full review for Saint Seiya : Soul of Gold. I’m not sure whether this is a proper sequel or just a side-story ; the premise is that a good chunk of the supprting cast sacrificed themselves in the Hades arc (which I haven’t watched), and now at least some of them find themselves surprisingly not dead (or maybe undead), in Asgard of all places. And of course there’s something nasty going on there.

This is a perfectly alright on all levels : it looks alright, it quickly establishes the premise and the first miniboss, and even takes the time to allude to the Lion Gold Saint’s origin story as a stab to make him engaging as a protagonist. There’s even a weird cliffhanger to make the viewer question what’s really going on. Quite competent all around… It’s just that unlike the Latin-American market who demands the franchise to be revived every few years, I have no particular nostalgia for Saint Seiya (easy “endless stair-climbing” jokes aside), so I don’t particularly care about this project. Not for me, I guess.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2015 – Page 5.

 

Now for the final straggler… and there’s no way in hell I’m doing a full review of Ninja Slayer From Animation.

The signs should have been obvious. It’s adapted from an elaborate prank (an alleged “traduction” of an American novel, serialized on Twitter). Episodes are barely 12-minute-long, and broadcast only on NicoNico over in Japan. (They’re in a goddarn 4/3 format !) They got the Inferno Cop guy to direct it. Of course it was going to turn out to be a no-budget, no-plot “gonzo parody”.

The thing is, this is actually much worse than Inferno Cop. I may not have liked it, but that show had personality and embraced its own lunacy. It wasn’t boring like this crap, and its shorter episode length made for much better pacing. Ninja Slayer, on the other hand, has an even thinner premise (“dude who hates ninjas gets reborn as a ninja who kills ninjas”), characters with no depth whatsoever, and just piles on cliché after cliché without ever doing anything interesting with them. It doesn’t even have the guts of going all paperdoll-style like Inferno Cop, instead having random bursts of semi-decent animation that make it look even more boring.

The only kind thing I can say here is that it’s got good colour design, and an okayish soundtrack. Everything else about it is pure, unadultered crap. Congratulations, Ninja Slayer ! You’re easily the worst show this season, and by far.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2015 – Page 6.