hosannainexcelsis
Member
The things I get myself into...
The Law of Ueki 1
This first episode starts with what I assume is a far flash-forward, of the sort shows do when they want to make it clear that things get crazy down the line, so be sure to stick around! Unfortunately, what they do here is not a compelling hook. We see two people fighting in some abstract arena, doing those things battle shounen characters do: yelling, waving their hands, making big shit happen. But there's no clear stakes involved or a palpable sense of danger or any reason to care about these characters when they shout, "I need more power!"
This continues into the main story of the episode itself. The introduction of our main characters - the rough protagonist, the nagging girl friend - is clumsy and tends to rely more on exposition than showing what their normal lives are like. This is a problem when the main character is a student who has been plucked out of his normal life into a crazy world of battles - without any sense of who he is and why we should care about him, he's just some kid who throws trees around. The one who did this plucking is an older man I can only assume is a teacher, even though he does no teaching, who sits us down and tells us he is a candidate for the Celestial King - whatever that is - and so he has to choose a junior high school student to battle against all the junior high school students the other candidates have selected, and the student who survives until the end gets his sponsor selected as King. This is one of the worst methods of determining a ruler I've ever seen.
Our villain of the week is an evil doctor who puts the over-the-top cruelty of the villains in Hell Girl to shame. As the narration tells us, he did horrible things to a little boy's mother, causing the boy to lash back by pouring excrement on the doctor's car. This causes the doctor to chase after the boy, send his monstrous black-suited goons to beat him up, whip him, chain him up, and try to run him over with three cars, one of them with monstrous drill that rises out of the hood. What a drama queen!
I have considerable issues with the art direction of this show. The color choices are garish - the bright neon green of the screenshot above hurts my eyes. It reminds me of Rinne, only incompetent. The character designs are rough, unpolished, and inconsistently drawn. When your first episode looks cheap, that doesn't bode well for the rest of the show, especially a long-running show. Not that I would have expected better from modern DEEN.
This is going to be tough.
----
[Dennou Coil]
It's also better than everything that aired last year. It's freaking Dennou Coil after all!
The Law of Ueki 1
This first episode starts with what I assume is a far flash-forward, of the sort shows do when they want to make it clear that things get crazy down the line, so be sure to stick around! Unfortunately, what they do here is not a compelling hook. We see two people fighting in some abstract arena, doing those things battle shounen characters do: yelling, waving their hands, making big shit happen. But there's no clear stakes involved or a palpable sense of danger or any reason to care about these characters when they shout, "I need more power!"
This continues into the main story of the episode itself. The introduction of our main characters - the rough protagonist, the nagging girl friend - is clumsy and tends to rely more on exposition than showing what their normal lives are like. This is a problem when the main character is a student who has been plucked out of his normal life into a crazy world of battles - without any sense of who he is and why we should care about him, he's just some kid who throws trees around. The one who did this plucking is an older man I can only assume is a teacher, even though he does no teaching, who sits us down and tells us he is a candidate for the Celestial King - whatever that is - and so he has to choose a junior high school student to battle against all the junior high school students the other candidates have selected, and the student who survives until the end gets his sponsor selected as King. This is one of the worst methods of determining a ruler I've ever seen.
Our villain of the week is an evil doctor who puts the over-the-top cruelty of the villains in Hell Girl to shame. As the narration tells us, he did horrible things to a little boy's mother, causing the boy to lash back by pouring excrement on the doctor's car. This causes the doctor to chase after the boy, send his monstrous black-suited goons to beat him up, whip him, chain him up, and try to run him over with three cars, one of them with monstrous drill that rises out of the hood. What a drama queen!
I have considerable issues with the art direction of this show. The color choices are garish - the bright neon green of the screenshot above hurts my eyes. It reminds me of Rinne, only incompetent. The character designs are rough, unpolished, and inconsistently drawn. When your first episode looks cheap, that doesn't bode well for the rest of the show, especially a long-running show. Not that I would have expected better from modern DEEN.
This is going to be tough.
----
[Dennou Coil]
It's also better than everything that aired last year. It's freaking Dennou Coil after all!
