By: tskiller - On Sunday 20 April 2008 @ 2:06 pm
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Suddenly, anime! Thousands of shows! Well maybe not that much, but a new season can make it overwhelming to pick out what to watch. Have no fear, here at DDN we watch all the crap FOR you, and then tell you what is decent! Time for part one of: Spring season first looks! This segment will contain first looks of: To Love Ru, Macross Frontier, Kanokon, Blassreiter, and The Tower Of Druaga. Click on for the full scoop!
First of all, let me go over our rating system. It is impossible to give a show a grade based on one episode alone, so we give a prediction of how it will turn out. The system is as follows:
A: Excellent first episode, not to be missed by anyone with a TV/Computer and 24 minutes of free time a week.
B: Looks pretty good so far. Give it a chance unless you have a strong hatred of the genre or production studio.
C: Decent show, give it a watch if you are a fan of the genre. Otherwise, it may be a good idea to wait a few more episodes to see if its worth your time.
D: Gettin iffy here. Avoid unless you REALLY REALLY like the genre or have some inane reason to watch the given show.
F: Terrible, avoid at all costs.
So basically, anything C and higher left us with a good impression.
Lets get started!
Kanokon (かのこん)
FBIninja:
Kanokon to me at first was pretty much a groaner, it was a copy and paste anime story from the get go, a kid who’s balls obviously haven’t dropped yet gets hit on by an extremely busty older girl. And right away, another predictable character, the girl with glasses, who can’t get anyone on her own so she has to stop others. Up to this point the only characters i actually liked were the red headed twins, and all they got was 2 shots.
The story picks up pace and it gets a little better, the girl in heat with a shotakon fetish turns out to be a fox spirit,and with the power of love (ooh boy!) gives them power when she decides to take over the kids body. Predictable plot lines here we come!
Unless the fights pick up, or shit hits the fan, im not going to watch much more of it, I only chuckled twice the whole ep, and a show needs something to keep me interested. and with a fox girl so shortly after Spice and Wolf? I’ve had my fair share.
I give this anime a flat D, mostly because I’ve seen it before.
tskiller:
Kanokon, is a fantasy romantic comedy based on a light novel by Katsumi Nishino.Kouta, a country boy transfers to a new school in the city, and is immediatly confessed to by Chizuru, a local fox deity. Standard comedy harem flair ensues.
Lets see, foxgirls, how could you go wrong? By falling into every harem stereotype there is. The main male lead is your standard spineless wimp that gets a bunch of girls fawning over him for literally no reason at all. The animation quality is tolerable at best, and the jokes are mediocre at best. The fanservice isnt even all that great, which is usually a saving grace of these sorts of shows. There hasnt been much action yet, but the brief combat we have seen so far seems to point to standard shounen powerlevel combat.
While not an absolutely terrible show, I would still avoid it unless you are out of everything else better to watch. I give it a D+.
Macross Frontier (マクロスF)
FBINinja:
Nyan nyan nyan nyan ni hao nyan~ ok so ive watched that video for that little bit on loop for the good part of an hour once, and its a pretty catchy tune, hopefully no one will notice when i make my own chinese restaurant and use that…
Ok so Macross Frontier, let me see, I first watched this back when it was an ova, as in the same ep without an ed or op, and I was looking forward to watching a Macross series for a while, I must admit that I have watched more Gundam than Macross, and I would actually like to get into one sometime, but for right now, I’m thinking that i might need to watch some classic macross instead of this one, the action is in CG and the regular animation is pretty poor in quality. I don’t think it has enough for me to keep watching at this point, other than that, the story is still pretty confusing.
Other than that, i see quite a bit of potential in this series, I have no idea what they will do with it. Lets hope they don’t mess it up.
Im going to give this one a C-. If you like Macross go ahead.
tskiller:
Ok, raise your hand if you have not heard of Macross. The two of you, leave. Now. For the rest of us, Macross Frontier is a sequel to Macross 7, and celebrates the 25th aniversary of Macross. It follows the story of the 25th “Macross Frontier” colonization fleet. I don’t know about you guys, but im always up for an action mecha space drama, and Macross Frontier sure didnt dissapoint me so far. The animation quality is great, the character designs are solid, and the action sequences are top notch. gotta love the combat scenes during the concert. And the music? Well, its Yoko Kanno, so you know its going to be great, which it was, so far.
This show is excellent, and i recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good anime. B+
To Love Ru (To LOVEる -とらぶる-)
FBINinja:
To love ru was pretty odd starting off, I thought I had slipped into an anime bastardization of “Star Wars”. Then the OP set in, which in my opinion was really cool, I can usually tell how well I’ll like an anime by the OP, well that’s in most cases… Then we get hit with a bit of the same thing, a high school love comedy, I was hoping it wouldn’t be that way, but unfortunately it did. A girl warps into the tub with the main character, who by the way has pretty awesome hair, and an infatuation for some girl who wanted to give him a second chance after a horrific gardening accident from when they were in middle school. (What.) All in all I liked the art, but the character designs are pretty much mash-ups of other characters from other shows. The main character isn’t mostly a spineless wimp, he just needs to watch more porn, at least he keeps a cool head under pressure from the antagonist apparent’s lackeys. The line from him at this point; “what’s this unexplainable event doing in my room? they’re stomping all over my carpet”, made me laugh.
I’ll give this anime a C+, its a harem, fanservice abounds. Its kind of like a cross between Busou Renkin, Star Wars, Disgaea, (etna tail made me rage a little.)a magical girl show, and a
high school love comedy. I personally will watch a few more episodes.
tskiller:
To Love Ru is a comedy harem show being produced by XEBEC, which follows the tale of the typical harem lead Rito Yuki. He is a “nearly” spineless wimp that cannot confess to the girl he has always liked, when suddenly an alien lands in his bathtub and demands to marry him. Typical harem? Yep, but atleast its pretty well done so far. The animation is above average, the service is excellent, and the music is fitting. I do wish the male lead wasnt such a carbon copy of every harem lead ever, but atleast he isnt completely useless.
It is worth a watch if you are into harem or need a decent service show, but otherwise you probably wont get much out of it. C-
Blassreiter (ブラスレイター)
FBINinja:
Holy shit, it took some coaxing and even some help from tskiller to have me keep going with this one. That’s right, by the time the sponsor screen showed up I was ready to give it up. The combination of CG and animation isn’t very good. And Motorcycle racing? I guess, whatever you want to do with that one. The creatures have an ability to assimilate anything with its body, and it would seem cool, but there are sometimes where its not, and this show proves it. The main character is basically having
the worst month of his life and decides to pop a mystery pill that could kill him, from a mystery woman. Drugs are not cool kids.
I’m giving this an D-. I did not like this at all, it got a little better at the end, but it still fell short of my expectations. You might like it if you were a kid and/or like motorcycles, and Kamen Rider. Otherwise, there are better things Gonzo can do with your time.
tskiller:
Blassreiter. Wow. This was pretty bad. Not gonna say much here but avoid it unless you are 12 and love crappy CG with so-stupid-its-silly action scenes containing monster racing motocycles. Bad animation, terrible CG, cliched storylines and characters. Avoid it unless you are a glutton for pain. F
The Tower of Druaga: the Aegis of Uruk (ドルアーガの塔 〜the Aegis of URUK〜)
FBINinja:
Ok so the first ep is kinda, LOL WHAT. Its hard to figure out what the heck is going on, and it isn’t afraid to poke fun at its own genre. From now on, I’m not going to tell anyone when im getting married. I laughed a lot in this, and I was impressed with it, I hope the renowned Gonzo (low) quality doesn’t kick in. So far I let a lot of things slide because it is a comedy, (as far as i can tell). The op was pretty cool, but I’m not here to rate that. I liked it anyway. Im looking forward to this one.
I’m giving this a B-, The first ep isn’t totally original, but it did a really good job. As I said, im looking forward to more.
tskiller:
The Tower of Druaga: the Aegis of Uruk. Hmmm, where to begin. An average show, once you get over the fact that the first episode is a dirty, dirty, trick. everyone knows the legend of the tower of druaga, right? right? Well, pretend you do. Basically, there is a tower controlled by demons which do all sorts of nasty things to the common folk. Every five years, the demons are weakened due to some magic trickery, so our band of heroes comes in to try to mess their shit up with varying degrees of success.
The first episode was actually pretty funny, and had good animation. We didn’t get to see much of the plot, but i have decent hopes for it. C+
Well there you have it! 5 new shows, some good, some not. What did you guys think of the beginnings of these shows? Let us know in the comments, and we will see you next week with more first looks, including Allison and Lillia, Code Geass R2, and more!
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Oh boy this season isnt looking so good so far huh?
what anime do u guys think i should go out and by thats good and have romance,niked girl,kissing,and fucking in it? i want more anime like the movie (please teacher) it had sex and all of that in it.