*sigh*

Intro: I’m doing this as I watch it so I won’t forget any details. As soon as I saw the girl sitting in her high chair drinking tea, the legions of people and the guy in a school outfit I wasn’t impressed. I was thinking “this HAS to be a parody…right?”, and then when the battle started with the glazed stoned looking girl (in which the girls in this show have the annoying noticeably large eyes, sometimes, other anime compensates in character design but it’s not so subtle here) who pulls out a giant gun from nowhere and a giant bullet I was still thinking “so this IS a parody, right?”. When the guy started hacking the 1985-RPG skeleton army, I thought “so this parody is making fun of virtual reality games, right?”. The voice over of “When the crimson, blah blah blah” also didn’t help because usually either only parodies have that or really bad, lame shows. The opening is by Masami Okui though who is the most awesome singer, ever. At least I’ll have that to look forward.

Production I.G. has spoiled me with their relatively unique characters who don’t look like your random generic chick with blue/purple/green hair and some half-assed fan service outfit. From the start, the character design here gets a really bad rating…

The show: SO, the girl with the light purple hair and the girl with the dark purple hair ACTUALLY HAVE GRADIENTS IN THEIR HAIR? CAN WE MOVE BEYOND THE PHOTOSHOP LOOK of gradients? I mean, people know how to animate hair with better highlights, right? I understand this is typically animated but *shudders* - I miss Claymore too, even though all the claymores have blonde hair and blue eyes, they were very well differentiated.

What’s with the piano soundtrack in the background all the time? Is this some sort of AIR+some kind of fantastical perversion fused show?

So the flying car HAS to be a parody, right? They’re not expecting us to be amused at everyday life+seemingly random crap…because it just doesn’t work. In Gintama, hell yes. Gintama can have giant talking vegetables being eaten by bronze statues from the 1800’s for all I care and it’ll fit right in.

*sigh*

Childhood friend = love conflict.

“The mysterious transmission tower.” Way to point out things, it’s like a show where the unknown villain (to everyone else in the show) gets pointed out by one character who’s like “By the way, that’s the bad guy and he’s going to blow up those buildings but not until 5 more episodes. Anyway…”

Of course, this show just has to have 12 year old sinister looking bad-asses pulling the strings. Very scary and threatening.

Geometric bracelet shield that tessellate! Whomever thought that was a good idea: it’s not. At least it’s slightly beyond the ridiculous “Valkyrie Skirt” from Busou Renkin. Why not, “Holy Heaven Power Long Johns”? Or perhaps, “Super Emanating Light Beam Pantyhose”? LAME. Also lame: Kureha’s card throwing arm contraption…you know, that’s why we have muscles - so we can THROW THINGS. You’d think in a show of this genre, minding velocity and force is a bit too late.
Red gems/stones after you kill a monster? RPG, yeah but actually portraying it in the show - LAME.

The ending song is also not so bad; I would listen to it if I were washing the dishes or something. Eris…the typical destined girl with powers and Hiragi, the typical protector of the destined girl and OF COURSE all of this is prophesied in a book somewhere. From the onset, it looks like she’s going to be whiny and weak until well…she isn’t, or the transformation is never going to happen. It also looks like there are some spare jewels on the bracelet - so I’m guessing this will entail some “collect da jewelz”.

I thought Rental Magica had no original elements but this is just as bad if not worse, and the thing is: it’s not a parody! They’re serious, which is the worst part of it. The castles bring to mind Shoujo Kakumei Utena which Night Wizard cannot even hold a candle to, not that they’re in the same stream anyway. Although, the “guardian from childhood” and roses thing reminded me of it, vaguely.

In any case, the only way I’ll watch this is if a). someone paid me to, aka $50/episode or b). threatened me with my life.

(No pictures because trust me, you don’t need to see.)

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Category: Episode Synopsis

A. Papillon is not amused.