Nanatsu no Taizai – 02

By resquest, I gave Nanatsu no Taizai (Seven Deadly Sins) a second chance this week and, I’ll admit, there are times when my first impression of an anime is dead wrong.

This was not one of those times.

NnT/SDS isn’t exactly painful to watch. The animation is passable and it doesn’t aspire to be more than it is. The story isn’t the worst story ever either and, again, it doesn’t appear to take itself all that serious.

So it’s not pretentious or reaching beyond its means.

the self-burying pig-pub is the most interesting element in the show IMHO

Still…  this show abysmally average. The hero’s boob fetish, the cheerful and mostly unflappable princess who accepts constant molestation, and the quest to gather the rest of the party are straight up been there done that.

Does that make NnT/SSD horrible? No but it makes it impossible to recommend when 4 significantly more mature, more original shows air on the same day, let alone  the others that air during the week this season.

If you’re watching this show, or simply disagree, drop me a line in the comments below.

 

Madan no Ou to Vanadis – 02

Before picking up where it left off last week, Vanadis back-pedals a bit to give us a peek into House Thenardier. They’re pretty much empty villains, with eyes on the throne and no real interest in Alsace.

They simply want to burn Alsace to the ground and pillage it before another powerful house has the chance. It’s also a good chance for their heir to grind some easy experience and break in his new dragons…

“I’m so evil I can’t control my emotions face, face”

Okay, so there are a few (unconventional) signs I use to predict whether an anime is going to be crap over time, and this episode just trotted out one of them. Again, this may seem strange, but when a character makes the above face, I know a show is trying too hard to make someone evil in the most starkly black-and-white way possible.

Characters like that exist to shock us but usually don’t, because they are also usually quite incompetent (yet hard to kill for stupid plot reasons) Such characters also give us no drama and no nuance because they are what they are: pure, irredeemably evil, which is very boring to watch.

Flashing forward, that ‘look’ is part of a pointless scene where Zion Thenardier decides to go to Tigre’s house alone and then decides to torture/rape Titta, Tigre’s maid because…evil reasons.

Why he’s there alone or cares at all about Tigre is not meaningful. He’s the villain this week, and probably in the future because he’s non-fatally shot with an arrow before he can do anything rapey-er than rip up Titta’s clothes. It’s dull and predictable.

As far as plot developments, we learn Eleonora’s sword’s name, and that she can control the wind by slashing it. We also learn that she and Limalisha had a bet over how Tigre would respond to being kept from his fiefdom, and that he chose an option neither expected.

Ultimately, the result is Tigre giving Alsace to Eleonora in exchange for troops and then a brief overnight ride to save his (or now her?) lands. They somehow avoid (or haven’t noticed) the two dragons overlooking the town for now but…next episode.

Tigre also ends up with his family’s magic bow. It’s black. Probably powerful. Nothing exciting here.

You’re going to hear this a few times over the next two weeks, if it wasn’t obvious already: this fall season is stacked with excellent shows and there are simply too many to watch. Unfortunately, given it’s decent-but-not-astounding opening, and now a stumbling, uneventful, second episode, I can’t imagine Vanadis will make the cut.

Should it? That’s up to you and Preston, who will get to review it next week. For now, tell me why I should stick with it and I’ll lurk in the comments below.

Rokujouma no Shinryakusha!? – 07

The Roommates practice their roles for the play, with Tulip training Satomi especially hard in Knightly duties — including fighting. Satomi takes his lumps but learns quickly.

Apparently the villainous villain is “Clan,” Tulip’s sister and second crown princess to the empire. Tulip says Clan has a stealth ship, which is why they cant find her. Why she is explaining this to Satomi (who doesn’t care) during there a tea break is rather questionable.

Her reasons for training him to be a Knight are pretty dubious for that matter. He’s only supposed to walk around on stage in costume for goodness sakes…

“it would be pointless to go looking for her” – Tulip says while Clan is hiding in the closet behind to her. Smooth!

Clan makes several attempts on Tulip’s life but is regularly thwarted by Satomi. In fact, Satomi is first to notice Clan, who’s terrible at stealth because she’s clearly evil and conspicuous amongst the theatre club. (regardless of wearing their school uniform)

Meanwhile, Ruth has discovered Hercules-chan but hasn’t figured out that ‘the cute bug’ is a ‘beetle.’ So she hasn’t gotten made yet. Because aliens know everything about everything except that we call certain types of insects beetles. Gotcha!

“I have come from untold time and distance” – Blue Knight

The Blue Knight’s introductory lines to the Gray Princess sound and awful lot like the premise to El Hazard. That the princess doesn’t recognize his crests either — and remember Tulip just submitted her nation’s legend word for word — make it look more and more like we’re going to have a time travel other world moment somewhere in the future.

Apparently Boob-chan is the only one to notice this. Though, for added mystery, she’s heard the same line from… some guy that gave her a trading card or something. It’s unclear, honestly.

The conflict climaxes on the eve of the festival, with Satomi saving the day on several levels and Clan being completely defeated. Satomi even gets a dragon ball style charge up moment to break through Clan’s defense field.

Then Tulip knights Satomi while he’s sleeping through the credits. (episode end)

Seven weeks in and RnS is has cornered the market on watchability the way Bud Light has cornered the market on drinkability. It’s absolute minimum effort and quality necessary to keep a viewer’s eyes on the screen and their brain function just above absent.

A mystery has been eluded to but who can care? This was a wacky antics comedy for 3 episodes, remember? It’s not like there’s anything at steak hear — for goodness sake! The worst that can happen is 4/5 of the characters lose their claims on a 10×10 apartment that has, thus far, shown no significance other than they all ended up there!

Still, drinkability is drinkability! The character interactions are more fluid now. Their relationships a little more believable and nuanced. Amidst all the nonsense, Satomi even asks Tulip to teach him how to dance and it’s half way cute, in a Tsundere sort of way.

But my goodness! I’m not invested in this show and it’s clearly going to ramble on in a predictable-yet-random direction for at least 6 more episodes, I think I’m going to leave it where it is. Satomi is knighted. He’s going to travel time and space somehow and several of the girls will probably get happy endings, one way or another.

Final Note: The best moment since the premiere was Ruth, having realized the Beetle is a Beetle, chasing Cosplay-chan and Hercules saying ‘Shoo! Shoo!’ with an angry Japanese accent. If there was every a sound byte worthy of a ring tone or an alarm clock in my life, this would be it!

Rokujouma no Shinryakusha!? – 06

Satomi challenges The Roommates to each create a script for the Theatre Club, with 5 points awarded for a finished script and 20 points of territory rewarded if the club chooses a Roommate’s script. The amount of turf is too hard for The Roommates to pass up and soon they are all happily competing. 

Tulip wins by *cough* plagiarizing *cough* a common fable of her people entitled The Gray Princess and the Blue Knight. Her happiness is quickly dashed as actual casting her fellow high school students in the lead roles only plops Satomi and Sakuraba together, furthering their chemistry and chances of hook up.

Little do the Roommates know, another alien has landed via space time quake and is watching them prepare for the play. Clearly, she is up to no good!

RnS loads the bases this week with an unexpected drive into left field. I wasn’t expecting a two part ‘school play’ episode immediately after a two part beech episode and I was expecting it to present an entirely new, mythical side story even less.

Could Satomi actually be the fabled Blue Knight of legend somehow? Could Sakuraba be his Gray Princess? Everyone appears to be seeing visions along those lines…

Meanwhile, a giant Rhinoceros Beetle is living in their closet. Long story short: it’s Cosplay Girl’s fault and “Hercules-Chan” is there mostly as a throw away gag to tie into Ruth’s previous unrequited love plot from the beach arc.

That said, something’s going on with that beetle and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it again as a more prominent plot device.

When did this show get so pretty?

From Tulip’s hologram/bound book to Ghost Girl possessing Satomi to ‘Ghost Write’ her contribution for the script challenge, to the cheap box of curry behind Cosplay Girl, episode six is packed with nice details. In fact, this episode is the best looking the show has produced so far.

So much so that I had to pause and make sure I hadn’t downloaded an OAV by mistake!

Oddness about a middle shelf show’s mid season looking better than it’s early season aside, what really confuses me about RnS is that it is no longer a comedy.

Sure, Cosplay Girl playing the horse’s ass in the play is funny, and sure, RnS goes through the motions with zany situations like having a Roommate bring home a gigantic beetle but it’s trying fewer than 10 jokes an episode — and that’s counting “we’re embarrassed” style humor.

I don’t get it? These characters are totally over the top and they’ve been played over the top for 4 episodes. How am I supposed to suddenly shift gears and care about light-touch romantic drama when magic powers and space mecha are still floating around??

As for the Mysterious New Alien Girl with glasses and cat teeth, who knows? I’m sure she’ll be defeated right away and get stuck in the room with everyone else.

Maybe she’ll be a two-off like the evil Ghost Girl from the beach resort episodes? She’s obviously going to give us exposition and develop Tulip’s back story, which I don’t care about in any way.

Honestly, if RnS hadn’t upped the render quality (it now has a lighting and color treatment more like Angel Beats!) I may have dropped it this week. Even so, this is not an interestingly rendered show.

Oh RnS…what to make of you?

Rokujouma no Shinryakusha!? – 05

The roommates’ time at the beach turns sour as the Yakuza Bros turn out to be ghost hunters and steal Ghost Girl. With a little guidance from Sakuraba, Satomi leads the remaining roommates in a daring attack to get her back and defeats a giant ghoul-lady-ghost boss monster along the way. Happy endings and deeper friendship ensue.

This week’s RnS thankfully ignores the fact that it’s the second part of a beach & hot spring fanservice episode and jumps right into what really matters: introducing even more characters with inane, unexplained motivations!

No seriously! I appreciate the vague explanation about who the Yakuza are and what they are up to but it wasn’t necessary to introduce another sexy-lady-ghost into the mix. Especially when she doesn’t seem to have survived her fight with Team Roommates.

Likewise, if we’re honest, we didn’t need to know anything about the Yakuza either, since they too are throwaway, nonsensical, and not very funny characters.

And humor is ultimately RnS’ central problem. Specifically, when you get past the quirky ‘skins’ applied to the cast, their bones — their archetypes — are completely pedestrian, which puts all the weight on RnS’ visuals and Story. Sadly, RnS’ visuals are average at best and the narrative is soft-ball goofy for-goofy’s sake and not really funny either.

So here we are at episode 5 and we’re watching a comedy that isn’t especially funny, dotted with a little fanservice, which isn’t drawn especially well either. So why am I watching this?

Technically, there are two mysteries behind the narrative that we haven’t uncovered yet (the shrine and what Satomi is knitting) but the suspicious lack of shrine since the premiere leads me to suspect it will either come out of nowhere to wrap the show up or never return again and the specifics of Satomi’s knitting is hardly enough to justify more episodes…

At best, we could be rooting for one of the girls to ‘happily ever after’ with the protagonist. I’m not sure I care, though.

Do you?

Rokujouma no Shinryakusha!? – 04

Satomi and the girls call a ceasefire and head to the beech. Sakuraba, who is rich and owns a ocean side summer home, is there too. While overly nice to all of the girls, Satomi only really has eyes for Sakuraba, which alienates everyone, especially the Aliens. Meanwhile, a mysterious group of ecchi Yakuza are up to something. Probably no good!

This week RnS throws down its gauntlet and challenges us to watch a beach episode—that also has a hot spring! Each girl gets to have her own ho-hum pre-beach adventure at the shopping mall, which results in typical (and not very exciting) alternate character designs for the episode’s second half. There’s really nothing remarkable here—the girls fan-service play in the water, Satomi gets in trouble for accidentally copping a feel, and Magic Girl even sports the group’s genre-appropriate gym class swim suit!

While the reason is not explained this week, the beach trip appears to have been staged by two Yakuza Bros. I certainly appreciate that RnS is giving us a side plot that doesn’t entirely revolve around yet another girl for the harem, but it probably would have worked better if the Yakuza plot was given a little more context.

Sure, we know the Bros rigged the lottery so the girls would win, and that they ecchi spied on the girls at the beach, and refer to a nefarious plan, but it’s all so ambiguous, which is totally out of step with the rest of the show (unless you count the still unexplained and not revisited shrine maiden vignette from the premier…).

Maybe I found it more egregious because the episode ends with the Yakuza, still not explaining anything and makes it very clear the beach will be a two-parter! I guess that’s kinda ballsy for the genre?

The episode also gave us a short but surprising amount of screen time for the captain of the Cosplay Society, who I’d written off as a complete side character but who knows? The unspoken lines between her and Satomi alone make me nervous that she, too, will join the Harem at some point. At least the other cosplayers don’t even have faces and are unlikely to emerge in the harem.

In the end, the episode is about Satomi showing affection to each girl to some degree, each girl wanting that affection to some degree, and each girl coming to understand-if-not-respect her competitors’ motivations. Well, except Kasagi. I have no idea why she’s in this group at all since she has no motivation to like Satomi, care who wins the apartment, nor have anything on the line at all. But hey, Harem right?

Oh! Sakuraba isn’t in on the hot springs either, because she’s at her mansion or wasn’t invited or the animation team forgot she was even in the episode. No character development for you!

Siiiiiigggghhhhhhhhh

What can be said? RnS is as cliche as ever but, not counting the totally bizarre reason Satomi accidentally grabbed boob (dreaming about climbing a tree to catch a giant beetle), this week was all harem and no humor. Seriously! RnS isn’t drawn well enough, nor is it smutty enough, to get away with that.

Majimoji Rurumo – 05

This week MMR keeps things simple with a pleasant, nice-looking “day in the life” episode with a “simple task becomes complex adventure” story. By now Rurumo’s general incompetence has been well-established, but the fact she was similarly incompetent in the magical world leads me to believe perhaps she’s developmentally disabled in some way.

Nah, I’m just kiddin’! She’s just clumsy and forgetful of details that always turn out to be crucial. But this week she has an urgent desire to complete the task Kouta’s mother assigned her: to deliver a parcel to Kouta, who is at his grandma’s doing farm work. But Rurumo doesn’t get off to an auspicious start, getting lost and mistaking postage stamps for train tickets.

Along the way she meets a couple of Kouta’s friends who are both into her, but she doesn’t remember who they are, a nice meta dig on their general blahness as characters. I also like she did remember something Kouta told her about saying “cosplay” when in doubt, as it gets her out of trouble with a “busty cop.”

She does eventually end up in the village where Kouta is, but follows the map wrong and ends up lost in a beautiful field of sunflowers. Chiro, who had accompanied her and left her to her own devices (this is her mission, after all) decides enough is enough, and locates Kouta. That’s when we learn all of Rurumo’s work is to get a lousy wooden smartphone case to him so he can impress his cousin’s pretty friend Yuki.

As a testament to his devotion to Rurumo, Kouta’s own silly mission falls by the wayside when he hears she’s gotten lost. She doesn’t stay lost long, as when he and Chiro return to the sunflower field, Rurumos’ raiment has accidentally magicked into a massive hat-shaped tree. Fortunately, Rurumo herself did not merge with the plant, as Chiro feared, and Kouta doesn’t have to expend any life tickets.

For her trouble, Kouta totally strikes out with Yuki, but as thanks for completing her mission, he prepares and old-fashioned country bath for her, to soothe her bones after so much running around and falling down. After that, she dons a yukata (not sure how she got it on properly) and joins the others for some summer fireworks, and Kouta pats her head, so all’s well that ends well.

Majimoji Rurumo – 04

Just as I was complimenting MMR’s compact cast, this episode introduces three new characters, the girls of the disciplinary committee. It’s not as bad as all that, though; two of the three are little more than background, while the third, Inoue Sumiko, turns out to be a lot more interesting than the cliched imperious school busybody constantly adjusting her glasses.

Don’t get me wrong: she is bossy and domineering, at school at least (though I didn’t notice an excessive amount of glasses-straightening); quite possibly to the point of overstepping her official bounds with regards to confiscating and destroying contraband ero literature, of which Kouta is known school-wide as a prolific wheeler and dealer. But here’s the thing: she’s not being a heel simply for being a heel’s sake—this is personal for her.

Drawn far more straight, sturdy, and angular than the girls regarded as “hotties” in previous episodes, it’s made clear by several trips into Sumiko’s head that she harbors a deep resentment towards her peers, who never regarded her as a girl. None of the boys would even flip her skirt—once a source of pride, now fuel for her high school angst. But there was one boy who did flip her skirt, and isn’t shy about regarding her for being her: and that boy was Kouta.

That’s right: in school they’re arch-nemeses, but in the real world their mothers are friends. They go way back. It would seem they live close by. If their families were more traditional, they may even have been betrothed to be wed by now. It occurs that were Rurumo not in Kouta’s picture, Sumiko would be the primary female interest in his life. Kouta’s tawdry rep precludes them appearing to get along in school, but they seem to get along just fine on the outside.

By “getting along” I mean Kouta can earnestly compliment Sumiko’s cute clothes when she delivers cake to his house; she can put on Rurumo’s pair of “Glasses of Misfortune” and cling to him when rats appear (it was frogs for Rurumo), and then he can chase her down the street during which she gets drenched by various water sources. She may call him a pervert, but he’s her pervert. As for Sumiko herself, she was a pleasant surprise.

Stray Observations:

• Rurumo got the short shrift this week…and was almost done in by frogs!
• Chiro can transform into a human girl. Not sure why, but it was the first time in 25 years that she did it, and she did seem to revel in it. Could come in handy later.
• Again Kouta uses his magic selflessly…or at least semi-selflessly, as he can’t bear to have to report back to his buds that all of their accumulated treasures were cast into the incinerator.
• I kinda want Kouta to ask Sumiko out (or vice versa).

Majimoji Rurumo – 03

In Shibaki Kouta’s quest to reach ever higher stages of manhood, it’s been two rungs up the ladder and one rung down. A girl lives with him, but there’s nothing he can do about it because his mom thinks she’s his sister, and stands ready to gut him at the first sign of perversion.

This week the trend continues when a girl finally joins the Occult Research Club, but things don’t turn out the way Kouta hoped. The girl in question, Kujirai Tanako, may be the best-looking first-year, but she’s a couple eps short of a cour, in anime reviewer’s parlance.

In fact, this episode also came up a bit short in the compelling department, owing to the preponderance of side characters like Tanako—a tiresome fraud of a magician—and Kouta’s club pals, none of whom make much of an impression. I was also way ahead of Kouta in realizing Tanako was interested in the glasses guy, not him—though ironically the glasses guy seems more into Rurumo.

The progressing Rurumo-Kouta dynamic this episode from mediocrity. It wasn’t so much Rurumo’s klutz clinic in her cafeteria job, tripping on nothing and breaking everything, but the fact that Kouta continues to grow as a human being now that there’s someone in his life he wants to support.

Heck, Kouta was focused on a completely different girl most of this episode, but after that bubble inevitably burst, he confronted Rurumo about why she’s trying so hard. Her answer’s simple enough: she has to, as she’s always had to. She’s worried Kouta’s unswerving kindness will make her complacent, and so insists on “restricting herself.”

Yamagishi Saki from One Week Friends was fully aware of her limitations and of the need for someone to lean and depend on. Presently Rurumo seems to be a person of similar limitations, only she’s fearful of depending on someone else. I’m not saying Kouta is the Ideal Man, but he’s the first person to be this kind to her—and she’s the first person he’s been this kind to.

Both are dealing with a completely new kind of interaction; it’s natural to be weary or uncertain. But it’s already apparent that, despite his occasional flights of puerility, Kouta’s slowly becoming a better person with Rurumo in his life. No reason that door can’t swing both ways, as long as Rurumo doesn’t bar it.

Majimoji Rurumo – 02

The book of magic tickets are Kouta’s life (something only he and Chiro know) so even when he desperately wants more female members in the Occult Research Club, he daren’t make any more reckless wishes. But the club quickly learns that their witch-summoning was successful, putting Kouta in the unusual position of having to stop his clubmates from stalking and peeping on Rurumo as she camps in the woods.

So once again, Kouta uses the tickets to help Rurumo (to protect her honor, specifically). And by using her magic, he learned that that was what she and Chiro were doing camping in the first place: waiting for him to use it. She can’t go back to the Underworld until her training is complete, which I take to mean “until Kouta uses up all of his tickets.” In other words, she can return when he’s dead? Something to ponder going forward.

But first things first: Kouta doesn’t think it’s right for a delicate little witch like Rurumo to live like a dirty hobo, so he invites her into his home. His family consists of his mother, who knows what kind of horndog he is and is constantly staring at him, as well as his little brother and his dad (whom we don’t see). Worried by how bringing a girl home might look to his mom, he tries his best to keep it a secret. Between Rurumo’s loud slipper-shuffling and Chiro yelling in the bath, his clandestine guests don’t make it easy.

Indeed harboring a magical trainee is no cakewalk, physically or psychologically, as Kouta is so stress out about being discovered he neglects to realize that for three days he has, essentially, been “living with a girl not related to him in the same room before marriage”, which as it happens is the official SI definition of Living Together. In other words: he has arrived, at the “highest stage” of his life, almost by accident.

The bliss of sharing his room with Rurumo is all too fleeting, however, as his mom storms in the room, and…it looks bad. The situation looks like exactly what she suspects: that he’s abducted a girl and is keeping her captive in his room. Kouta only saves his mom from committing filicide by expending more tickets to magically create a cover story for Rurumo, which is that she’s his sister.

That means the whole family now accepts Rurumo’s existence in the house as perfectly normal, but it also means she gets a separate room, much to Kouta’s dismay. Still, he’s alive (and not in jail) and Rurumo is safe and secure, so he doesn’t have too much to complain about…though I wonder how many of those 666 tickets remain.

Majimoji Rurumo – 01

Sometimes you just have a smidgen of patience and see an episode through. I did with this episode, and it rewarded me by getting better and better as I watched it. Sure, Shibaki Kouta is a horndog, and bits with pantyless or braless girls can be tiresome. But Majimoji Rurumo makes it all work, when given a chance.

Kouta is pervy, but it’s made clear he’s not entirely shameless, and that his behavior has thus far kept him from having relationships of any kind with members of the fairer sex, let along romantic relationships. It’s something he tries (perhaps not very hard, mind you) to keep in check, but when a first year drops flyers and bends over, well…the old instincts kick in.

When he does a witch summoning ritual with his buds in the Occult Research Club (not an out-of-place club to have in a show with a witch in it, but thankfully its workings weren’t the focus of the episode), he can’t help but wish for a girls panties instead of a cute girlfriend. That being said, he was just messing around, and didn’t think it would actually work.

It does, and he finds fruit-patterned panties on the desk in his room. Then a witch named Rurumo falls from the sky. She’s very cool-looking; not too overly detailed, but nicely stylized with her enormous hat. Her cat Chiro is also awesome with his huge pointy ears and little cat sounds he’s even better when it turns out he can talk—with a Kansai accent, no less!

I was actually pretty surprised when Rurumo said the panties were her own. Kouta takes the whole “panties for your life” thing pretty well, even using his last walk around town as an excuse to try to catch a glimpse, taking him to the “highest level.” This is a game to him. But when he learn that the rules of that game mean Rurumo will be imprisoned for more than a century, he drops the perviness and steps in to save her from that fate.

The success of the episode hinged on whether Kouta come off as an actual decent human being, and he did. The first and second halves of the episode were very self-contained, something I also enjoyed. The second half deepened their bond by giving him a book of 666 “magic tickets” which will no doubt imbue him with heretofore unimaginable power, but they also represent his life.

So the stakes are there. It isn’t just a game. And yet he spends a ticket (albeit unknowingly) to heal Rurumo once she comes down to heaven, earning her bashful thanks in return. It would appear he owes his first real relationship with a girl to something that on the surface seems most likely to repel them: a perverse wish made during an occult club ritual.

I really enjoyed Majimoji. The show had a clean, distinctive, nicely-detailed art style, a playful wit, and an above-average score that helped set the mood. Even its moments of fanservice were both justified and well-executed. I’m eager to see what kind of mischief Kouta gets into with his book of magic tickets. We already know from the ED that he taught Rurumo how to ride a bike, which is bloody adorable.

C³ – Cube×Cursed×Curious – 01

High school lad Yachi recieves an unusual metal cube in the mail that laters turns out to contain a small girl named Fear, who was sent by his father to take advantage of the positive, “orderly” energy of his house. She is a “tool” that has been given human form by a curse. The curseproof Yachi leaves her alone when he goes to school with his friend, and she wreaks havoc on his house. He forgives her and assures her they’ll be able to break her curse.

We can’t say why we had high hopes for this series – after all, we knew next to nothing about it, but man, that was hard to sit through. Let us get the good out of the way first; it won’t take long: the series has very nicely-textured background, bright, vivid colors, and liberal use of light. That’s about all. The rest is just terrible.

Where do we start? The horrible character design? The 15 millionth petite, blue-haired, bratty girl? The goofy fanservice? The bafflingly bland lead and his blander childhood friend? The fact that Fear is a useless idiot, whose antics are played for gags that aren’t funny? The mustache-twirling femme fatale at the end? A first impression is an important one when it comes to anime. This first episode was nothing but dull cliches. It just wasn’t our cup of roasted tea.

Rating: 1.5