The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan 1
I rarely watch shows week-to-week, but I occasionally make exceptions for stuff that looks really interesting or that is a follow-up to something I really enjoyed.
Nagato Yuki-chan falls into the latter category: I adored
The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya and the alternate reality scenes were some of my favorite parts of that film. I hadn't been blown away by the little of the spin-off manga that I'd read, but I was hopeful for this show.
Yeah, about that...
The first thing I noticed was the atrocious character designs. I mean, everyone is still recognizable, but they all look off and that bugged me throughout. I don't expect a TV show to look as good as a movie (especially one with the budget that
Disappearance had), but I don't think the art here holds up well compared to the original
Melancholy either. Not a good way to start off, but I wanted to give it a fair shot anyway.
The show throws us right into this new story with no context, so I'm not sure if the events of the movie still took place and Kyon just chose to stay in the alternate reality, or if this show is pretending that the original doesn't exist at all. Given how different the characters act, I'm leaning towards the latter. This Nagato does not act like either the OG Nagato or the alternate reality Nagato, which basically undercuts my main interest in watching this show. I could understand them maybe wanting to end with Yuki being more like this as she grows and becomes more human-like, but to begin like this just misses the point. If I wanted to watch a show about this kind of character, I'd be watching
K-On! right now.
DTL is right about Kyon being much less cynical or entertaining.
Haruhi Suzumiya always had its harem-esque elements but that's brought much more to the fore here and Kyon is much more your typical useless protagonist who stands around not doing much aside from occasionally interjecting something. Mikuru seems to be largely the same, but she wasn't all that interesting except for her adult version and when she talked about time travel stuff, which obviously isn't going to happen here. Haruhi and Koizumi have yet to make a real appearance. I will say that I liked seeing Asakura get so much screentime since she's one of my favorite minor characters, but her dynamic with Yuki is so different due to Yuki's personality changes.
I don't want to just harp on this show for being different from the original, but I think I was ready for that. Obviously the circumstances leading to the alternate reality sticking around meant things would be different from the original timeline. But I don't think it had to be as cheap-looking and generically-written as this. I'll probably give it another episode or two but it barely feels like the same characters here. I've read a lot of fanfiction that has a better grasp of the characters, and I have nothing against fanfic, but this isn't even a good example of it so far.
