Summer 2012: First Impressions (Moyashimon Returns, Kono Naka ni Hitori, Imouto ga Iru! and Hagure Yuusha no Estetica)

Yeap, definitely more shows coming out now it’s the weekend.  Up next are adorable microbes, carbon copy imoutos and naked demon chicks………Moyashimon Returns, Kono Naka no Hitori, Imouta ga Iru! and Hagura Yuusha no Estetica.

Moyashimon Returns

Ah the long-awaited, and much hyped second season of Moyashimon has arrived.  While this was a pretty solid start to the series, it did lack the shock value & hilarity that the opening episode of the original series had.  Still this served perfectly well as a refresher on the characters and the whole premise of the series. It also managed to be pretty educational about the alcohol proofing and brewing of sake – bonus!

The human character designs have changed slightly between seasons, and I think I preferred the original anime’s version as Sawaki & Kei both look a touch too girly in this version…….it’s something about the eyes, but I’m  sure I’ll get used to it.  The microbes are as adorable as ever thankfully.  I’m not overly enthralled by the Claris OP, but I did enjoy the educational microbe ED!

Great to have Moyashimon back, I’m looking forward to more alcohol fuelled hilarity and strangely educational segments about the microbes!

Kono Naka ni Hitori, Imouto ga Iru! (My Little Sister is Among Them!)

Normally I make some quip about the production team having a roulette wheel of plot point that they pick from to create these shows, but with this I think they just went “oh fuck it, stick them all in!”.  In all honesty this has to be one of the most by the numbers LN adaptations I’ve ever seen –  I was nearly impressed by how utterly generic it was!  I can’t even get too annoyed by how rubbish this episode was because it’s so completely dedicated to being the most run of the mill show ever.  I did enjoy the way the show makes the little sister out to be some über stalker though & how the male lead is probably more moe than any of the girls!

Production is as dull as you would expect –  can’t say I’m a big fan of the character designs either.  In terms of voice acting its a competent cast and they do their best to live up to the stereotypes their characters embody.  OP & ED were both terrible and basically sum up my overall thoughts about the show.

So not watching any more of this – it really was utter tripe, even if it was pretty inoffensive tripe.

Hagure Yuusha no Estetica (Estetica of a Rogue Hero)

In the hands of any other studio this may have been a good show – it’s got a lot of interesting things going for it, and I like the idea of people freely travelling between dimensions picking up skills.  However in the hands of ARMS and their morbid fascination with boobs & panties this becomes mindless pandering drivel and an utter chore to sit through.  Our main character’s special skill seems to be ninja-ing women out of their bras & knickers without them noticing, and our female’s lead special skill seems to be her massive gainaxing boobs & being utterly clueless & meek despite being the daughter of a demon king.  We also have a platoon of archer maids – just because.

The production is fairly average, while the character designs are nice enough there is a lot of budget saving shots where the characters have a full conversation with their backs to the camera or in total darkness.  Voice acting is pretty decent though, and the music is actually reasonably good too.

This just has ‘waste of potential’ written all over it – I don’t know why ARMS doesn’t just start turning out proper hentai rather than pretending to make shows with actual plot.