No plot, lots of references. That’s the short of it. But who needs plot when you have, at my count, 7 references, 8 meta-jokes, and 3 self-depreciations before the OP? The basic setup is the student council meetings each day after school, made up of four girls fitting various anime stereotypes (with some sort of additionally seen before hidden hobby/interest for most of them) and one guy who got in because he’s the valedictorian. It doesn’t seem to have much of a plot or character advancement, though it seems like they have something to (likely weakly) move events along. But I’d probably be content to watch it as long as they keep the references coming.
Characters: Ken, the valedictorian is obsessed with eroge, referring constantly to the student council as his ‘harem’. Mafuyu, the ditsy blond who takes updating game walkthroughs online as Serious Business. Minatsu the twin-tail tsundere older sister of Mafuyu, Chizuru the tall beauty who secretly wants to do “this…and that” with the club president, and club president Kurimu ‘Akachan’, plus Mahiru-sensei give us the cast.
Quick Recap: This first episode starts off before the OP as the council meeting to discuss themselves being made into an anime and how and what they might have to change. Later Ken keeps hitting on all the girls and makes a lot (probably a few too many) eroge/harem jokes, the group discusses how he got into the student council, and then they start working on approving club requests and sorting supplies, making jokes and references all the while. At the end Ken pretends to condense the piles of requests into one form and the girls go home, while later on he does them all himself to make everyone happy and work towards his desired ‘harem end.’
Animation/design: ExecutiveOtaku haet character design! It’s not terrible, exactly, I just hate that style. And those uniforms are just fugly, especially the male version (red/black/pink plaid sort of pattern on long pants?!) That said, I can live with it if the jokes stay good.
Potential: While I enjoyed the first episode, it’s going to take another episode or two to see if they can sustain the in-jokes and references in a decent setting or not. The end of the episode had Ken trying to secretly work for the girls, the council president seeing through it, and it kind of awkwardly implied how ‘caring’ this pervert really is. Please don’t try to have any semblance of drama in this writers, it’s just not made to be serious. Implied feelings on the part of the president towards Ken seems like a less believable version of the Nagi and Hayate relationship.
Bottom Line: While not having much character of its own at the moment, this thing spits out referential humor like bullets from a C-RAM. Will keep watching and hope it doesn’t exhaust itself too quickly. No Lucky Star or Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, but good enough to get my interest.
Just for fun, my references, meta-jokes, and self depreciation counts.
References: 30 that I could identify (including: Kuroshitsuji, DBZ, Dragonball Evolution, Lucky Star, Haruhi, Higurashi/Umineko, Kannon, K-ON, Mobile Suit Gundam, Akikan, Tenchi Muyo.)
Meta-jokes: 17
Self-depreciation (“a drama CD would be enough” etc) :6
I found three references, might be more.
7 Comments
I’m a big sucker for reference shows, and I love how they did this comedy quick-fire. When reading the manga I wasn’t too sure that it would port over to anime well, but the way they’ve produced the anime is even better than the manga (no translations that I know of for the original light novels). The rapid delivery of the jokes kept the comedy flowing, and the characters are passable so far. I don’t need a plot to enjoy a show, just comedy is enough for me if done well.
@ Calawain
Same here, my colleague. I knew I was going to enjoy it right from the pre-OP scene. I worry a little about it’s sustainability and whether they try to make it serious, but if they avoid those traps it ought to be a solid comedy.
I see… may be one reference in the last shot. So, where are the other two? Clearly I don’t have enough animu-fu.
I’m not a fan of reference shows usually, but that one horrified me. There are many parodic shows out there, and I don’t like every one of them, but I dare say most are at least more entertaining than this one ; I mean, Zetsubo, Hayate, Gintama, to name only a few long running ones, are massively better than this boring drivel. I do not know the manga, but have no desire either to read it seing this show.
However, Calawain mentionned he liked plotless comedy shows, while I do not. I mean to me you can only hold a show together so long without some thread to link all the jokes together ; I found the seitokai / characters way too weak and underdevelopped to me liking.
On the animation, style, voices, arts, what you may call the “technical” front, it seemed lazy to me.
But hey – let’s not say lazy, because then you’d have to mention Kampfer. Go cover that show, I dare you. I DARE YOU.
@Nemo
Oh God, Please don’t meantion Kampfer. I had semi-high hopes for a harem/action gender bending extravaganza but it phailed on all fronts except the fan-service one, that side was reinforced well. I’m gonna keep watching it cause I do love fan-service but I’ll be crying along the way.
Besides after watch a few of the shows that came out for the fall I’m only gonna be following a few:
Seitokai no Ichizon, Kampfer (FAN~SERVICE), Sora no Otoshimono, Fairy Tail, Darker Than Black and To Aru Kagaku no Railgun.
Well I believe Darker than black will be above my expectations, as for FT only time will tell, Railgun it was ok, Seitokai was pretty funny to me.
Anywho GL with the other First Impressions, Also don’t listen to Nemo and write a review for Kampfer, no seriously don’t >_>
@ will of the wisps
The three I picked up where: the can in the upper right corner as a reference to Akikan (the visible katakana says ‘kan’ and there’s green hair from a character showing); the ball and chain and beam rifle in the bottom is the RX-78-2′s Gundam Hammer and Gundam Beam Rifle from the original MS Gundam; and obviously the Tenchi Muyo label that was subtitled.
@ Nemo
Oh Kampfer, I only watched it because Crusader pointed out that it made a reference to the MS-18E Kampfer mobile suit. He may do a first impressions post since he seemed to love it in some sort of masochistic fashion.
@ TorontoSyrup
Plan on doing first impressions for Kimi ni Todoke since it sounds like it has potential. Maybe one on Letter Bee, though I’m still on the fence about whether I’ll keep watching it. I’m excited about the Darker Than Black, Natsu no Arashi, and InuYasha sequels though, and might blog one of them on my own and maybe one in collaboration with Calawain or Crusader if they’re up for it.
Im lazy to write a long thought, but ya, it has been long time since i lol-ed so hard. bravo to all the parody and jokes. and not to forget the character themselves and the voice over. good job!! (i like the approve and aeroplan runway joke XD)
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