Jesus there is nothing interesting about the childhood friend character at all. One last episode for the three episode rule, but at least it has lewdity of not boring main girl.
Also what the fuck Miyukichi girl, you're better than the imouto and that other freshman but you're not best girl! This show is lame as hell.
Couple of things about Valvrave. The OP is fairly good, it's pretty rare to get a high energy duo like that and it works pretty well. The issue I have with it is with all the fight sequences in the show is that it can be hard to tell what's going on due to the overuse of visual effects. The Valvrave's red whatever takes up so much of the screen that it becomes a bit of a mess.
Still bored. The tone is still oddly sedate--I suppose they want to capture this mundane feel, but it just slows down the show, turning it into a slog. Even the action bits struggle to excite.
On the plus side I actually kinda like the characters.
I guess it also runs into the problem (just like VVV earlier) where there are reactionary attempts at integrating social tech, but it's bound to our conceptions of just what they are, rather than slotting them into the futuristic setting of the show itself. Some attempts at being predictive rather than reactive would be nice.
Still bored. The tone is still oddly sedate--I suppose they want to capture this mundane feel, but it just slows down the show, turning it into a slog. Even the action bits struggle to excite.
On the plus side I actually kinda like the characters.
I guess it also runs into the problem (just like VVV earlier) where there are reactionary attempts at integrating social tech, but it's bound to our conceptions of just what they are, rather than slotting them into the futuristic setting of the show itself. Some attempts at being predictive rather than reactive would be nice.
K-On actually starts off kinda rough despite the super popularity. I was surprised when I rewatched it a year or so ago and the early episode still had a 4koma feel much like Lucky Star. It picks up really fast around the middle part all the way until season 2.
Valvrave frustrates me. I had impressions that I was absolutely sure of. I was preparing them as I was watching, and I was going to talk about some fucked up stuff in the episode (Characters, their motivations, and events that took place). Now I cannot in good faith say I even understand what happened at all.
There was nothing inherently wrong with this opening episode of Valvrave. It was fairly well made and fairly entertaining. I don't, however, think that's it's particularly good.
If you may remember, all the preview information for this show pointed towards it being kind of Gundam-y. However, what you may not have been expecting was how strictly faithful it is to the original Gundam set up. That's not really the main problem I have with the show, although it is certainly an issue, my main problem was that it felt like a string of cliches pilled on top of each other in what was (for the most part) a wholly predictable manner. Valvrave (episode 1) is literally Gundam 78 + highschool + really bad dialogue + modern Sunrise + social media crap +
Gode Geass supernatural twist
. If we leave out the part that in spoilers it's even worse. It just felt extremely manufactured and therefore rather unappealing. Which, as I said above, isn't to say that it's not well made but I just don't care to see this particular bundle of clichés strapped together. I never felt like the episode had much of an identity outside of these particular tropes although, theoretically, that might change as the series progresses.
I didn't care about any of the characters in this episode because they were rather poorly written. Some of the dialogue was also that expository "let's openly discuss the themes of the show" nonsense that you get when lazy writers have characters bring the subtext of the series to the forefront because they don't think that the audience will 'get it'. Please stop doing this, it turns conversations into garbage debates.
A brief word on the shows usage of 'cool' social media technology - I would prefer my science fiction to lead, rather than follow, in terms of technology. It's pretty lazy to just take what we have today and drop it into a science fiction setting, you could at least extrapolate and predict some trends for the future. I guess I shouldn't expect much when the show is clearly lacking in creativity.
As this is a mecha show I suppose I should discuss the mecha action, of which there is some. I didn't like it. There were too many close ups connected by too many quick cuts which made it pretty difficult to work out what was going on. It didn't help that most of the image in action sequence was obfuscated by sparkling red effects and other shit which made it very difficult to make out the lines of the shapes that were engaged in combat.
Most of what happens in Season 2 happens in the manga, it's just they alter the order a bit and pad it out to fill the 27 episodes. Though they take more liberties in Season 2 than they did in the first season.
Apparently I am having a complete overreaction to Valvrave, so yeah...
tl;dr of my impressions that I had: I have no idea what kind of show it is trying/wants to be. It starts out as Gundam, I thought I knew where it was going, and then it gets dumb, or something, really fast.
Sidenote about the Gundam comparison: I haven't watched Gundam since Gundam Wing was on Toonami god knows how long ago, so I can't really make a good comparison between the two. I watched a little bit of Mobile Suit Gundam 00 and it seems similar to how that started. You get to see a bunch of kids doing kid stuff, and how the outbreak of a war effects them. That's all I can say really.
As this is a mecha show I suppose I should discuss the mecha action, of which there is some. I didn't like it. There were too many close ups connected by too many quick cuts which made it pretty difficult to work out what was going on. It didn't help that most of the image in action sequence was obfuscated by sparkling red effects and other shit which made it very difficult to make out the lines of the shapes that were engaged in combat.
Can't say anything else about the rest of the show yet, one way or another, but I honestly didn't have too much trouble telling what was going on in the battle sequences compared to, say, Gargantia's space combat. The fights that didn't involve Valvrave were a little bit messy and not too exciting, but not quite on that level of obscuring the action (which I didn't feel was problematic in the referenced case either). In my opinion, the brief combat following the titular robot wasn't particularly hard to see and I did enjoy it.
As this is a mecha show I suppose I should discuss the mecha action, of which there is some. I didn't like it. There were too many close ups connected by too many quick cuts which made it pretty difficult to work out what was going on. It didn't help that most of the image in action sequence was obfuscated by sparkling red effects and other shit which made it very difficult to make out the lines of the shapes that were engaged in combat.
Fairly standard first ep for the most part. It stuck fairly close to the Hero's Journey set up aside from
mecha-induced vampirism
Apart from the hero and his love interest, most of the good cast seemed to just be "there" this episode. Given the bare minimum of development to distinguish them but no more. Can't really say whether they are any good or not as of yet. The villain squad was interesting though. Pretty good interaction between each other and the protagonist. Mecha action was okay.
The ending was interesting but with the rest of the episode being so predictable it'll be a we'll see for now.
Also what was up with the sudden swimsuit boobgrab?
I'm struggling to think of a SOL series I've watched where the characters AREN'T all reasonably well-off. :lol Maybe...iM@S, if that counts? Yayoi was pretty poor, relatively speaking.
I haven't either! You could tell with the earlier episodes that they had gag setups though. (The car counting thing and the cloud thing, it felt like something out of Lucky Star). KyoAni abandoned that style pretty early but the first episodes had it!
I'm struggling to think of a SOL series I've watched where the characters AREN'T all reasonably well-off. :lol Maybe...iM@S, if that counts? Yayoi was pretty poor, relatively speaking.
Even Ryuuji's single-parent-cut-off-from-larger-family rented two-room apartment life seemed comfortable enough to support a lot of random extravagance. Although his mother was working or sleeping almost 24/7 and he was one hell of a homebody to make up for it.
Even Ryuuji's single-parent-cut-off-from-larger-family rented two-room apartment life seemed comfortable enough to support a lot of random extravagance. Although his mother was working almost 24/7 and he was one hell of a homebody to make up for it.
His mother was probably some kind of executive for an IT company or was a cabaret club mama. His house is way too big to be a realistic single-parent household.
I . . . I . . . WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!
If not for that ten second sentence after the credits, this would be the single most heart-rending finale to a mecha show I've ever watched. I mean, HOLY CRAP. Way to just stab me in the heart one last time, Sunrise. I mean COME ON. No time to think about it, not chance to ease into it. NO. You just "Oh,
We're all staying here in a collapsing universe but you two have to go and tell the tale. KTHXBAI.
BREAK MY HEART WON'T YOU?
Seriously though, painfully bittersweet ending as that was, this was an amazing finale. Just all out no-holds barred beat-downs by GGG as the Soul Masters just kept pulling more and more crap out their dang buts until the MOST AMAZING GOLDION HAMMER OF ALL TIME.
The best part of this episode, and the best part of any super robot show I've ever seen, was no doubt the moment when
all hope is lost, and the goddamn NARRATOR cheers Gai back to life with the wishes of the viewers.
It's such a well done moment in true
EarthBound
fashion. Wanted to cry so many times in this episode, and that ending just ripped my damn heart out and crushed it, like in that one episode of the Simpsons where that girl tears out Bart's heart.
That was me.
I must know. I MUST know.
Do the GGG members ever come back?
I don't expect Betterman to answer this question, so I just need somebody to tell me. Because that ending was just NOT FAIR.
I CAN'T HATE IT THOUGH BECAUSE IT WAS THE AMAZING FINALE TO AN AMAZING SHOW.
MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN.
His mother was probably some kind of executive for an IT company or was a cabaret club mama. His house is way too big to be a realistic single-parent household.
His mother was probably some kind of executive for an IT company or was a cabaret club mama. His house is way too big to be a realistic single-parent household.
Well, she was a hostess, and the average hostess salary is like $70,000/yr. And it's mentioned in the LN that their apartment was $750/mo. I think they could get by pretty well on Yasuko's pay.
EDIT: Actually it's $45,000, I guess. Still, that's pretty good for a two-person household.
Well, she was a hostess, and the average hostess salary is like $70,000/yr. And it's mentioned in the LN that their apartment was $750/mo. I think they could get by pretty well on Yasuko's pay.
Still good, started out really dumb but the episode finished nicely. I like that the team was humbled by fucking up and that there are multiple characters in the show that are aware of how messed up it is to have a bunch of kids fighting in a war with giant robots. The whole "sponsors on our robots" thing was absolutely ridiculous, but the show made that apparent when it could have just treated it as a "this wacky shit is normal in our universe!"
Maybe I'm too bitter/hate fun, but I like it when stuff doesn't always work out for the better in these kind of shows. Makes me it more believable.
It was also noted in the LN that their apartment was $800/mo initially, then once Taiga's apartment complex went up and blocked their window, their rent was reduced to make up for it. :lol
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