Here’s batch 2 of the this fall season’s quick first impressions.
In this batch: (1) Tales of the Abyss; (2) Casshern Sins; (3) To Aru Majutsu no Index; (4) Kannagi; (5) Ga-Rei: Zero; (6) Yozakura Quartet; (7) Kuroshitsuji.
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(1) Tales of the Abyss
More info – Official Site
An adaptation of the RPG game by Namco. The 8th title in the Tales series.
– I liked the OP [“Karma” by Bump of Chicken]. It sounds pretty good. Pity they show a preview while the nice song intro is playing. The guy with the red hair, Luke, is a prince of the Kingdom of Kimlasca. He was kidnapped by the rival Kingdom of Malkuth when he was a child. This resulted in him losing his memories before he this incident. Apparently, he made a promise to Princess Natalia (who seems to annoy me) when they were kids but forgot about it. He and Natalia are betrothed. Flashbacks and a little bit of backstory are shown. We find that Luke gets headaches and glows whenever he hears this strange voice in his head saying that Luke is a fragment of his soul(?). Enter a girl with sidebangs named Tear who has some lullabye abilities with her her spell in a song. She attacks Master Van and Luke comes to his master’s rescue, resulting in a hyperresonance reaction between powers and they get sent flying into a distant land. It seems that Luke possesses some kind of power known as the 7th Fonon (whatever that means) which the Tear also possess. Since he has never been outside of the palace walls and has lived a very sheltered life since he had been kidnapped, Luke is utterly amazed and quite clueless about almost everything. And so, his adventures begin. The ED [“Bouken Houkiboshi” by Kurumi Enomoto] sounds fun and upbeat.
Luke has the most girly outfit among the guy characters (some sort of midriff top to show off his fab abs? ~Lol). Tear is pretty cool. She has some nice kicka$$ moves and skilled with her spear. The character designs are alright. I kinda like Guy and Jade (who I thought somewhat looked like Nomiya from H&C… probably because of the hair color and glasses xD)
- Watch it? It’s actually not as bad as I thought it would be. So yeah, I think I might.
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(2) Casshern Sins
More info – Official Site
– The OP [“Aoi Hana” by Color Bottle] is pretty catchy. I kinda like it. The animation was pretty good. The colors, grainy kind of feel gives it this sort of dark comics vibe to it. It’s set in the future with robots and humans, and robots that look like humans. Casshern supposedly killed someone, thus causing the end of the world to come to an end. The first 6 or so minutes (if not almost the entire episode) blames Casshern repetitively for that and many robots wish to kill him. It’s too emo and confusing (you think Vampire Knight was emo? It’s nothing compared to this). I suppose Casshern will try to find his identity since it seems he has no memory of who he is and what the heck he did to make the other robots target him. Other than that, I didn’t really get what the story actually is or where this is going. I like his mask though, especially that thingy that materializes over his mouth along with his glowing eyes. That was pretty cool. The ED [“Reason” by K∧N∧] is a typical ballad.
- Watch it? I don’t get it. Plus, I almost fell asleep while trying to watch this. So, that would be a definite no.
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(3) To Aru Majutsu no Index
More info – Official Site
– The OP [“PSI-missing” by Mami Kawada] has a dance/techno beat. In a town where people who have special powers are quite common (called espers), there’s this lead guy (I forgot his name) who is revealed to have some sort of ability through his right hand. There’s this girl (I forgot her name too) who has this power to use electricity who challenges him, but he comes through and wins even though he says he is classified as a level zero. The next day, this girl dressed like a nun, named Index, lands on his balcony. She says she carries the 103,000 grimoires with her, that she has magical abilities, and evil magic users are after her. The end shows her badly hurt because an evil magic user got to her. It looks like the lead guy would be helping her out and I guess that’s where the story begins. The ED [“Rimless” by IKU] is not so bad.
- Watch it? Nope.
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(4) Kannagi
More info – Official Site
Also known as Crazy Shrine Maidens.
– The blue-haired girl, Nagi, is a goddess. It seems that Jin had met her mysteriously when he was a kid. She comes to life via a wood sculpture that Jin did out of a sacred wood from the tree that used to be in the shrine. Nagi says she must protect the land from evil impurities along with Jin who seems to have some supernatural ability to an extent. Nagi gets hold of a pink heart-shaped rod which she purified(?) to help her purify the impurities and goes into mahou shoujo mode in doing this.
It reminded me of spring season’s Wagaya no Oinari-sama but I think Wagaya was more fun to watch. My funny bones weren’t even tickled in Kannagi, except for the mahou shoujo part when she was purifying the spiders. xD
- Watch it? I don’t think so. The story didn’t really interest me.
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(5) Ga-Rei-Zero
More info – Official Site
Also known as The Enchained Spiritual Beast Ga-Rei.
– No OP for the first episode. Animation was pretty good with some CGI stuff added in the mix. It has action, a bit of blood and gore, monsters, wicked cool gadgets, a motorbike with cool tires (that can also be used as a weapon). I loved the BGM they used – totally matched the moods and helped improve the scenes. The lead guy, Toru, obviously has some issues based on the flashbacks (he’s voiced by my Doujou Maeko Tomoaki). The blue butterflies were so pretty, and apparently the mysterious villain thinks so too. The girl wielding a sword at the end was pretty cool.
However, I wish for more action and less talk. More talk doesn’t seem to fit the atmposphere of this series. As someone who often watches dialogue-heavy productions, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the moments when the action stops kinda ends up as boring. Moreover, during the final few moments of the episode, I was suddenly left stumped, muttering “Uh, okay. WTH just happened?!” – I think this is the most confusing first episode I ever saw. I hope what happened in the end was phony! The first episode of Tower of Druaga: The Aegis of Uruk suddenly came to mind. I must watch the second episode to appease my thoughts. =_=
- Watch it? I’m very curious. So yes, I’ll give it another shot and see what happens next.
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(6) Yozakura Quartet
More info – Official Site
This is also known as Yozakura Shijuusou; Quartet of Cherry Blossoms in the Night; Yozakura Yon Juusou.
-The OP [“JUST TUNE” by savage genius] has a nice and quick beat. However, I liked the BGM more, the one that was playing during the voiceover at the beginning (Title? Anyone? Pretty please) that I wasn’t even paying attention much to what the voiceover was saying. xD Anyway, the characters have supernatural abilities (Yet again. I think this season is filled with supernatural abilities, don’t you?). Hime says they are youkai and she has the duty to protect the town, along with Kotoha, Ao and Akina. Hime has the telekinetic power, Kotoha can freeze and conjure stuff (I dunno what exactly her ability is), Ao has the nekomimi power to sense stuff (I dunno what exactly her ability is either). I’m not sure about Akina… he said he was human but he appeared to have some sort of power too. By the end, it seems to be revealed that their main villain is this weird-looking nekomimi guy with a not-so-good fashion sense. The ED [“Nagareboshi” by ROUND TABLE featuring Nino] was good – loved the beat, loved the melody.
I was looking forward to this series, actually. I really was. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t really good either… sort of somewhere in between. I guess it just didn’t meet my expectations. The animation was alright, though, and the music was very nice.
- Watch it? Hmm. Might, might not… I shall watch the second and third episodes and decide from there.
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(7) Kuroshitsuji
More info – Official Site
Also known as Black Butler; Dark Butler.
– The OP [“Kiss of Monochrome” by SID] was very nice. I liked it. Daisuke Ono fits very well as Sebastian’s voice. Ciel reminded me of that guy from Rental Magica mainly because of the eyepatch. Kuro shitsuji obviously has gothic influence. It has a touch of horror, comedy, and supernatural stuff (I think this fall season is filled with supernatural stuff, don’t you?). The Gregorian chant as BGM totally adds to the mysterious and haunting mood that pops in here and there. It’s a tad morbid, but I don’t mind. It’s dark, but I loved the intensity of the colors. Sebastian’s eyes are awesome. The ED sequence was so adorable! ~Everyone in chibi mode.^^ The ED [“I’m ALIVE!” by BECCA] was awesome (she also sang the OP for Ultraviolet:Code 44).
- Watch it? Yup. I was also looking forward to this one. Glad it turned out to my liking.
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Indeed, Kuroshitsuji has very good art and music. I’ll be blogging this show regularly 🙂
@ Kitsune: *nods* Very much liked those aspects of it too.^^
I agree with you about Ga-Rei-Zero—-definitely less talk. But I don’t mind heavy dialogue much either since they have awesome voices (besides Nami or Mami or whatever the brunette’s name is). The action was definitely good and it did kind of get boring when the action stopped, but I still really love the last 3 mins.
@ blissmo: The only voice I was paying attention to was the lead guy, Toru (I simply loved Maeno Tomoaki as Dojou in ToshoSen).^^ Haha, the last 3 minutes was the one that made me exclaim “Huh? What?!”
i enjoyed casshern sins. i didn’t think it was too emo… but then again, it may be because i don’t know what he’s so emo about in the first place. so i’m still giving it a shot.
i still haven’t seen gai-rei. -_-
Coht#per&u8230;dam! I thought of “cow” when a computer sits right in front of me…Did you straighten your work space up before the photo or is it always that way??? Great post for the letter “C”
@ biankita: Do try Ga-Rei. It’s very confuzzling, but I thought it was more engaging than Casshern. =D