Shocking beheadings aren’t what they used to be.
Forgot to note in the preview, but this is a double length first episode, so if the screenshot collection seems especially scattershot, that’s why.
Impressions:
This definitely didn’t need to be 50 minutes. Hell, by the 20 minute mark, it was already feeling like it had gone on for far too long with everybody sitting around basically going “Boy, it sure is nice that our idyllic village is so peaceful and no demons are currently attacking it.” Especially when you have the designated fridging victim out there telling the stonefaced protagonist how much she’s going to sacrifice to marry the local Gaston despite all his feelings he has, while he just stands there, staring blankly like a trout. Truly a love affair for the ages. Even when the oni finally showed up, they couldn’t shut the hell up. You’re standing in a river fighting to the death. Why are we all of a sudden having a philosophical discussion on the nature of man? Weirdly, the obnoxious jock was about the only one who had any emotions or frustrations about the entire thing rather than just reciting what a tragic affair this was, and managed to come off as the most likeable of the lot… and then he decided to get all rapey.
I think I’d fall on “generic but passable story and characters, told atrociously.” Everything was simply characters announcing their feelings out loud from start to finish, and then explaining their feelings, and staring blankly as other characters announced how each other could or would react. The pacing and storytelling especially were just awful, with the visuals to match. Yokohama Labs is a very, very poor studio and the visuals here were… actually I guess no worse than the two cheat power shows, but man, the average so far in terms of production for the season is at rock bottom. I’d put Dororo as a show in a similar vein of miserable samurai age people having a miserable time, but it differentiated itself with both visual flair and characters striving to be better, even while inhuman or being an obnoxious child, and actual animation and direction to sell it, while this is just misery on misery on announced misery. I could absolutely see at least that part improving now that he’s off into the world to do good, fight demons, etc, but I can’t imagine the production will.
Next Episode:
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