Alright. It’s all up to you, Sekai Seifuku. Space Dandy is too silly, Chuunibyou’s just Chuunibyou, and Hoozuki turned out to be like Lucky Star except somehow even more dull. If any show is going to end up this season’s dark horse candidate, it’s gonna have to be you. Don’t let me down!
Episode 1
0:28 – Well, these backgrounds are nice. A good first step!
0:47 – And a suitably absurd prologue. Looking good so far…
1:06 – Yeah, this is my kind of stupid deadpan joke. Like with Hataraku Maou-sama, 3/4ths of the joke is in how much the aesthetics support it – the pacing, the overblown music. I’m on board so far
1:19 – And being pretty never hurts
1:33 – Nice, the great backgrounds extend to non-distopian scenes. The color work is great, an excellent sense of scale and detail, and I like the textured effect
2:21 – So his parents communicate through feedback-heavy guitar riffs? I can get behind that
3:29 – Wait, what.
3:42 – No delicate princesses here.
5:09 – Yeah, they’ve got my attention. What kind of world are we living in?
5:41 – This show is going to be so goddamn silly.
6:06 – So, so silly.
6:22 – A face to kill for
7:07 – Oh my god her voice is so fantastic. If they thought putting a little girl as the head of a terrorist organization was enough of an idea to build an entire show around, they were completely right
7:21 – Brilliant. It’s hitting so many standard beats (the meeting with the girl from school, “will I die here, before achieving my dream?”, this canned line here), but they are just so inherently silly in this context. This is much funnier than actual gags
8:02 – Wow yeah she’s the best character of the season
8:15 – The BIGGEST dream
9:00 – IT IS TIME TO CHOOSE
9:11 – ALL THIS CAN BE YOURS okay yeah I’m loving this show
9:54 – These line deliveries are so good. Good thing too, since this concept lives or dies on how silly Kate is
10:16 – This even seems like an interesting world, too. Sekai Seifuku holding this season together!
10:45 – Pfff, that’s barely any conquer at all!
11:07 – The ad break is as fiercely adorable as their leader
12:19 – The minions try to complete the mission while their leader searches for her stuffed animal. Typical executive incompetence
12:24 – I really am loving this design/color work, too
12:51 – Wondering if conquering the world will create a home to the MC who opened the episode by running away from home. Guess we’ve got a theme on our hands, folks
13:17 – Quite a speech for a first episode! “It’s easy to find a replacement for someone”… hm. Also, Kate’s expressions are all the best
13:32 – Additional expressions
14:13 – This show
15:17 – Visual design again. The light striking that tree is a nice effect
16:16 – Yeah sure show do what you want
17:19 – Oshit the tension’s rising!
18:22 – Our great leader’s compassion is as boundless as her wisdom
19:49 – Yes, if only Lincoln had been immune to bullets.
20:02 – Well isn’t this show just full of surprises
21:42 – I guess this is pretty much the show in a nutshell
And Done
Okay, yeah, that was easily the best premier of the season. I’m not sure if I’ll actually be covering it, since I’m pretty determined to keep my number of weeklies low so I can actually write more essays, but goddamn if I didn’t have a great time watching that. My fears have been vanquished – winter season has been successfully Conquered. Great work, anime
This premier was pretty kick ass. Noragami is probably my favorite premier, but this was easily a close second.
That Lincoln joke did me in good.
Yeah, I have high hopes for this show. It could easily fall apart, but I think it shows the most wacky potential out of anything this season.
I was really surprised by how solid the writing was, so I went and looked up who the script writer was. Now I’m not surprised anymore, though I’m left a little anxious about where this is going to go. Forest was one very, very strange visual novel.
So I’ve heard. But hey, I’ll take strange over uninspired any day.
Best first episode this season ive seen so far !(I have a few left to see) I have to agree with Fellow the writing was solid and the characters design are great. (pupa and pupipo are the only other shows that Im trully interested in has I doubt Dandy’s humor will get better)
Yeah, I really liked the writing in this one. In general, I’m a big fan of structural humor – the show didn’t make many overt jokes, it just let the characters be their absurd selves in this absurd situation, which is much funnier to me.
A nice little touch: in the sequence at 13:32 the show specifically shows her knocking off her bike’s training wheels and then not falling over. A deliberate metaphor and sign that Jimon’s speech is the kick in the rear she needed to start acting without artificial support in general? Who knows, but I’m not putting it past this show.
I tried this because of your enthusiasm and it was nice in a lot of ways – good art and animation, pretty cute and funny. But man, I’m not normally one to complain about sexualization in anime, but isn’t this going a bit far? Not to mention that the ED is pretty much a little BDSM rubber bondage fantasy, except ending with an 8 year old sitting on him…
Eh, it didn’t really seem sexualized to me. The outfits themselves are definitely ridiculous, but the episode itself didn’t really play up any fanservicey camera angles the way something like Kill la Kill does. It could certainly go in that direction, and that’d be lame, but so far it seems more silly than creepy to me.
Pipirupirupirupipirupi !
Pipirupirupirupipirupi !
Let’s all hope it won’t be that bad.
I was very confident that this would be good going into it due to the director. I don’t necessarily view stuff he has directed as my favorite stuff, but his baselines is so high, and everything I’ve seen of his has been quite solid. That said, this is the most “anime” thing he’s directed that I have seen, so it is a bit of a departure for him.
I like your point about the humor and found Kate to be very amusing throughout the episode.
BTW, are you also looking into Noragami and Nobunagun this season? Those two plus Zvezda (andDandybutyouhateit) are the standouts for me, albeit in a relatively weak season.
I like Dandy! The four new shows I’m most excited for are actually this, Dandy, Chuunibyou, and Pilot’s Love Song.
I’ve checked out both Noragami and Nobunagun, and am kind of lukewarm on both. Noragami I absolutely love the direction, animation, music, and visual design for… but feel all of that is working in service of some pretty generic writing so far. Nobunagun just doesn’t seem like my kind of thing – the first episode was fine, but I’m not really an action show kinda guy.
Did you give Wizard Barristers a try? The content is hit or miss (though it’s still interesting it suffers from pacing issues) but it gets full marks on visual direction and animation.
Frankly, I feel overstuffed on visual direction and animation at the moment. Both Noragami and Nisekoi feature great design working in service of really generic writing – personally, I’d prefer it the other way around every single time.