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Spring Anime Sampling, part 1
Apr. 6th, 2017 08:43 pmSo, I'm sampling first eps of the Spring anime season more thoroughly than I have for a while. My thoughts on the first three shows I've checked out:
Alice and Zouroku: This one was on my radar going in, and the double-length opener was middling-fair. ESPers vs. evil government scientists is an old plot but one I like. Mixing it with "cute girls" doesn't add sugar for me (oh yeah and there's some Alice in Wonderland theming I don't care about), but throwing in a crotchety grandpa type normal was enough to get me interested, and that's basically what I got, although the pieces are just now in place and I don't know how everything is going to balance going forward. The show hasn't done much to elevate itself or even offer credible promises thereof, but I'm interested enough to give it another ep or two to see how it pans out and it at least looks like decent popcorn viewing if I don't have too much else to do. Animation-wise, the use of CGI was kind of clunky but not unbearable, and the loose, cartoony art style isn't especially compelling but I mostly like it. Tentative watch.
The Royal Tutor: I would call this show "pretty-boys and window dressing," but the word "and" implies the enumeration of two separate things. This is apparently supposed to be about a collection of quirky, charmingly-flawed princes and their inspiring and redeeming relationship with their lilliputian teacher, but the charm and redemption aren't clicking for me. The princes are only mildly interesting and the titular tutor isn't living up to who the show is trying to sell him as for me, so I'm left mostly with boredom. The ending sequence did offer a tantalizing glimpse of what the show is supposed to be, but if it couldn't put its best foot forward any better than this, I don't think it's worth my time to wait around for that show to materialize. "Lazy animation" is also a strangely fine line for me; if it's done judiciously and skillfully I can actually be impressed by it ("Oh, how elegantly economical"), but sometimes the illusion just comes crashing down and this is a show where it did ("Oh, they're just moving the image of the carriage across the background;" "Oh, there's no motion on the screen except for lip flap;" etc.). Drop.
Sagrada Reset: This is, like, a collection of philosophical essays packaged as a high school slice of life with supernatural elements. It comes off with this odd hybrid feel, like the earnestness of an auteur b-movie but utterly bloodless. I wouldn't call it pretentious, though, just abstracted. It doesn't help that the male lead comes off as mildly pushy/creepy to me, while the female lead is practically emotionless and the explanation for it goes by too quickly and abstractly to get any traction. The animation looked good to me, though (economical, but in this case it holds up), and the sense of atmosphere is well realized and fitting. Again, there's a narrative hook in literally the last few seconds (it's the next ep preview this time), but again, the first ep doesn't convince me that it's worth my time to stay on board. Drop.
The still-to-watch pile as of now: "Kado: The Right Answer" and "Tsuki ga Kirei."
Alice and Zouroku: This one was on my radar going in, and the double-length opener was middling-fair. ESPers vs. evil government scientists is an old plot but one I like. Mixing it with "cute girls" doesn't add sugar for me (oh yeah and there's some Alice in Wonderland theming I don't care about), but throwing in a crotchety grandpa type normal was enough to get me interested, and that's basically what I got, although the pieces are just now in place and I don't know how everything is going to balance going forward. The show hasn't done much to elevate itself or even offer credible promises thereof, but I'm interested enough to give it another ep or two to see how it pans out and it at least looks like decent popcorn viewing if I don't have too much else to do. Animation-wise, the use of CGI was kind of clunky but not unbearable, and the loose, cartoony art style isn't especially compelling but I mostly like it. Tentative watch.
The Royal Tutor: I would call this show "pretty-boys and window dressing," but the word "and" implies the enumeration of two separate things. This is apparently supposed to be about a collection of quirky, charmingly-flawed princes and their inspiring and redeeming relationship with their lilliputian teacher, but the charm and redemption aren't clicking for me. The princes are only mildly interesting and the titular tutor isn't living up to who the show is trying to sell him as for me, so I'm left mostly with boredom. The ending sequence did offer a tantalizing glimpse of what the show is supposed to be, but if it couldn't put its best foot forward any better than this, I don't think it's worth my time to wait around for that show to materialize. "Lazy animation" is also a strangely fine line for me; if it's done judiciously and skillfully I can actually be impressed by it ("Oh, how elegantly economical"), but sometimes the illusion just comes crashing down and this is a show where it did ("Oh, they're just moving the image of the carriage across the background;" "Oh, there's no motion on the screen except for lip flap;" etc.). Drop.
Sagrada Reset: This is, like, a collection of philosophical essays packaged as a high school slice of life with supernatural elements. It comes off with this odd hybrid feel, like the earnestness of an auteur b-movie but utterly bloodless. I wouldn't call it pretentious, though, just abstracted. It doesn't help that the male lead comes off as mildly pushy/creepy to me, while the female lead is practically emotionless and the explanation for it goes by too quickly and abstractly to get any traction. The animation looked good to me, though (economical, but in this case it holds up), and the sense of atmosphere is well realized and fitting. Again, there's a narrative hook in literally the last few seconds (it's the next ep preview this time), but again, the first ep doesn't convince me that it's worth my time to stay on board. Drop.
The still-to-watch pile as of now: "Kado: The Right Answer" and "Tsuki ga Kirei."
