A certain “Belated” Spring 09 Preview – Part Three
nekosasu | May 15, 2009 | 12:38 am
Go! Go! Never stop!
Moving on! Part three. Enjoy!
List of series in Part Three:
Pandora Hearts
Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~
Queen’s Blade
Ristorante Paradiso
Saki
:3
I don’t really have a lot to say about this first episode, apart that it’s quite boring, and it didn’t catch my attention at all. Sometimes I complain that first episodes are pretty fast-paced with their introductions, but here it was quite tedious. And one wonders what the point of the story is. Sure, some questions are raised, like why that yandere girl wants to kill the main guy only because he touched that pocket watch, or why there’s another girl appearing at the end of the episode, but there is absolutely no suspense to look forward to. A little ounce of curiosity remains, but it shall vanish as soon as I encounter a better anime in the next few hours. I have to admit though, the OP song is good.
Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~
Yes, it’s yet another maid. This season is horrible. They know exactly they’ll get me with this.
Well, ain’t this the usual cold-blooded assassin plot with elements of the Darwinian theory of Natural Selection: kill or be killed. I don’t know how often I’ve heard that in my life, and it doesn’t sound any newer in this anime either. Great production quality (Post-entry edit: apparently my taste sucks, crikey!![1] ), and a more than interesting Ein[2] but apart from that, I’m not really thrilled about the story.
I am certain that Ein and Zwei will eventually recover their memories, as the drugs most probably will have a long-term weakness or fade away. After that, it’s probably going to be the two of them against the entire organization, Inferno, and they will have a happy end, or go down in a Romeo and Juliet style.
If anything, I would say that this anime is slightly more interesting than Pandora Hearts mentioned above, but still just average. The ED is done by Ali Project, which always, but really always sounds the same. And I’m getting sick of that. But by far not as sick as I am going to be when watching…
This is the kind of bullshit that awaits you in Queen’s Blade: tits, crotches, and pee. Exciting isn’t it?
Fuck this. I already knew it was bad, though I never dared to try. But since I have a figurine that happens to come from this series (Yumil, to be precise), I figured I should bite the bullet and give it a try.
Result: I stopped watching after 4 minutes, I can’t bear watching such a revolting piece of shit. But hey, if you’re into tits the size of montgolfiers, acid-spewing nipples, and other kinds of base fanservice, why not give this a try? Might as well just watch horse porn instead. Anyway, it’s an epic waste of time. Moving on.
What a cute smile.
Looking at the title, I had thought it would be some kind of cooking series, inspired by Disney/Pixar’s 3DCG movie Ratatouille, with an interesting and fast-paced story, like Yakitate!! Japan. But a couple of minutes into the first episode, I revised my thoughts. This is almost like ARIA!
In effect, this anime is dead boring. I mean, really boring. Nothing happened at all in this episode. However, once you realize that this smells strongly like slice-of-life-oform, it becomes enjoyable. Lay back, relax, and enjoy the whole picture.
It starts with the design: it’s quite unique and relatively undetailed, it’s simply… simple! Looking at people’s faces, they show no exaggerate reactions at all, and their delightful behavior is more than natural. This makes the characters very likable and attractive. Even better, it involves adult men and women, which is really a nice change from all the hustle and bustle in the usual loli/highschool girl stories.
The pacing is sluggishly slow, and yet it’s exactly the right speed. And, just like ARIA, it offers some kind of sightseeing through the streets of Rome, although in this case, the backgrounds are not so clearly defined; they’re more like oil on canvas paintings, emanating a more artistic aura.
All in all, Ristorante Paradiso is a very enjoyable trip, and the next episode seems to offer some very interesting romantic development: Nicoletta seems to be falling for a much older Claudio.[3] And he’s married, too… Kind of an embarrassing situation. Will she stop in time, or will he be able to pull the brakes? I want to know more. Especially since Nicoletta seems to be quite the fine lady. She’s kind of beautiful, not in an ultra-moe kind of way. Must be the original character design, huh? But I wouldn’t mind her at all.[4]
I just can’t understand Japan’s fascination for Italy. Venice, Rome… how about Luxembourg, for a change? D:
Don’t worry at all, Saki, they’re just fine. Perfect.
Ugh, I’m pretty torn about this anime. I could reproach it of luring the viewer with the same, old tactics. Look. There’s Saki, the normalo with an apparent breast inferiority complex. Then we have Nodoka, the mandatory tensai oppai bishoujo. Yuuki, the quota loli with the protuberant canine tooth, the voice of a mouse being stepped on, and the immoderate hunger for tacos. Mako, the vicious meganekko. See where this is going? Nowadays, in their quest to conquer every potential buyer’s interest, anime (manga, games in general) must absolutely feature most, if not all of these cliché elements at once.[5] Oh, pardon me, I forgot the obligatory miniskirts and suggestive angles, because anime would be dead boring without fanservice these days, wouldn’t it?[6] Yes, I’m annoyed now. Just why can’t there be a NORMAL series with NORMAL girls without having to emphasize on a girls’ breast size and drawing the male’s attention onto what might be below those stupid miniskirts? For fuck’s sake, GET A CLUE! And by NORMAL I mean Ristorante Paradiso normal. In essence, Saki is yet another prime example of what I hate in anime.[7]
But where other anime usually cut short, Saki offers at least some interesting stuff: Mahjong. Apart from occasionally Mahjong Solitaire on my Windows 7 laptop, I have absolutely no clue at all about that game. Obviously, I was pretty dumbfounded at all the terms and definitions used in this episode – however, it triggered my interest in how the game is played. It’s probably the same phenomenon that got me reading Hikaru no Go a couple of years ago: it made me want to try and learn the game.[8]
On the other hand, I am quite certain that Saki will never reach such epic proportions as Hikaru no Go, mainly because it’s not really neophyte-friendly, and because of the weak story and boring jokes.[9]
So Saki knows how to play Mahjong (or at least how to reach that ±0 score). She’s lucky and skilled, fine. …so? Any kind of character evolution, of growth we can expect? I can see none, apart from Yuuki hopefully getting an indigestion from all those tacos. Damned loli made me hungry. I want tacos, now.
So yes, I may watch it for the Mahjong. And Saki herself, she seems to be the most down-to-earth character yet. The rest can suck my left nut or something. Oh and I heard there will be yuri, I assume coming from Nodoka. Sigh.
——-
And that’s it for today! Went faster than expected, mainly because I didn’t have to spend any time thinking about Queens “Faggotry” Blade.
Next is the last part, already! And there will be six series instead of five! I didn’t want to do Sengoku Basara at first because it didn’t interest me at all. But since I’ve given every series a chance, even to a travesty of an anime, I suppose I could watch it after all. Otanoshimini~
- It’s good enough for me, but apparently not for the few biased people who flatly reject it, you know who you are. For my part, since I don’t give a rat’s ass about the studio, I can actually enjoy anything without preconceptions. Anything… except KyoAni productions. But that’s not because I have a personal strife with it (as I’m sure certain people definitely have with Bee Train), but because of all the fanwhores who keep overrating it. For the rest, I judge what I see, and Phantom looks GOOD. End long footnote comment. ^^ [↩]
- She really needs some lovin’, poor girl. [↩]
- He must be twice as old as her… he could be her father! [↩]
- I would serve her my best dish, if you know what I mean. [↩]
- And before you tell me that such constellations do occur sometimes in real life, well I’m fine with that, but it just doesn’t happen ALL THE FUCKING TIME like it does in anime. [↩]
- In b4 defensive perverts telling me not to look at it at all. Of course! How could I, as a healthy young man, have ignored such a revolutionary idea, thank you! I’m now one step closer to ROCKET SCIENCE!! [↩]
- It’s probably a matter of episodes before the first maid dresses and school swimsuits appear, too. Sigh. [↩]
- Which I played a lot back then, and I was relatively good, too – nowadays I don’t even know how to place the stones… [↩]
- Actually, the comparison doesn’t even stand ground, because it’s so much of a stretch. [↩]
Pandora Hearts – big detractor for me is the airing qual, but I like the Alice premise or whatever revealed a little later. Probably won’t turn out in a top 10 list.
Saki – lol, it’s broken anime. Yea, it does a lot of typical shit, but there are some more details with Saki and Nodoka both. Whether it’s really yuri, idk, seems like it, but could be that Nodoka is just hot on Saki’s mahjong (as lewd as that sounds). idk, I think the largest attractor has been the game aspect, which I also know nothing about… but it’s competition.
I should probably watch Ristorante Paradiso, ugh, cramming too many series in :/ and so behind. Really not sure about Phantom, though those watching seem to enjoy it. Could be a late-year thing for me.
Again, nice thorough impression ^^
Okay, so I have an issue with your “Queen’s Blade” review. First off, the first 4 minutes of an anime I believe will not tell you if it’s good or bad. The way I see it is an anime should be watched by the 3rd episode to determine if it’s good or bad just for the simple fact that some anime’s don’t get to the good part at first. Some will sit there and make you think “okay this is turning out pretty crappy….” and then by the 3rd episode you could be like “Wow! this is getting good!”.
It’s best to keep an open mind while watching anime because hey, it’s from Japan. The country that brought us the video game Katamari, where you go around and make a big ball out of collected things as well as tenticle eroge. Which brings me to another item on hand. Queen’s Blade was originally a Eroge Game. So of course your going to see some things that are out of the ordinary as well as a lot of fan service, big tits, and ass. It was bound to happen.
So I feel it’s best to watch Queen’s Blade with an open mind, rather than a closed mind which you somewhat seem to have about it. I personally think you should give it a few chances (the 3rd episode) to determine whether or not it’s watchable material or a waste of time.
-Ecchi’s Wifie
Thank you for taking your time writing that comment, kuroneko. (And sorry for the spam plug-in, wp-spamfree has been acting up lately, too many false positives – I’m switching back to Akismet.)
I was already open-minded enough to give it a try because I absolutely dislike excessive fanservice, especially if it’s in such a blatant fashion, and that has absolutely nothing to do with being closed-minded or prude, it’s simply my own preference when watching anime. I ignored that fact for four minutes, then I realized it was pointless, because I was simply disgusted. (I would also comment on the relatively sloppy quality, but that would be me being biased now.)
I knew that Queens Blade was an Eroge, and that anime is, for the wide majority, from Japan – however, I wanted to watch anime without hentai, which I hoped it was, to a certain extent. After all, there are many examples of eroges/VNs adaptations that don’t display the same amount of ecchi at once. Heck, anime in general doesn’t show nipples. I cannot conceive why a presumably good story would need a metric crapton of boobs in order to decorate its awesomeness. I find it absolutely superfluous; if anything, they represent a distraction to shift the focus away from a story that is mediocre at best.
Of course, I cannot argue with the fact that people like it, and I totally accept their views; I am merely stating my first impressions of this anime which are excruciatingly bad, and that these made me decide not to watch it, for better or for worse.
It’s no problem. Thank you for listen to me rant xD We figured out it was the word “h3nta1″ but spelled normally. So all is well.
See, when I watch an anime like “Queen’s Blade” I’m expecting it to be a little perverted. So I set aside the fact that yes, I will see a lot of nudity in this anime as well as fan service. You can ask my husband, I’m not one for seeing that sort of stuff in my anime either. I honestly despise it myself. I think it’s degrading to women and is just there to draw in a bigger male fan base. But, I won’t let that get in my way of a good story. I watched the first two episodes yesterday and found the story line to be quite unique. It would seem that it’s going about telling the story of different women and how they are getting involved in the Queen’s Blade tournament. Everyone is getting their own reason as to why they should compete and why they believe they should win. It shows their hardships in their life and the relationships they have with other people. Also yes, I would have to agree with you that the fact that boobs are in there they do distract from the storyline. it pretty much makes the watcher go “ooo this is getting….. mmmm boobies” O.o It’s provoking the ADD in people lol.
We actually had a friend sit down and watch this with us and all he was looking at was the breasts and any other part he could find on the female body to look at on there. He was not paying attention to the story whatsoever. But that’s his loss. Also he’s not an avid anime watcher like the hubby and I.
Anyways though, I’m not saying that your not entitled to your own opinion I’m just asking you to give it a little bit more of a chance. The boob appearance’s lessen in the second episode so maybe it may get a little less disturbing for you. If you still don’t like it by the third episode, label me a “Baka” and tell everyone not to listen to me because I don’t know what I’m talking about. lol.