Summer 2012: First Impressions (Oda Nobuna no Yabou & Joshiraku)

Almost done with these first impressions – still haven’t a notion what I want to blog, but that’s what 2nd episodes are for!  Anyway let’s have a look at the latest genderbent Sengoku general & bunch of talkative girls………..Oda Nobuna no Yabou and Joshiraku.

Oda Nobuna no Yabou (Oda Nabuno’s Ambition)

Out of all the shows I’ve tried this season, this by far was the toughest to finish the first episode of.  An endless parade of boring/irritating characters and tired clichés, this latest incarnation of genderbent Sengoku generals does not have a single original or interesting idea to its name.  What particularly turned me off is how seriously they take the history element, but still layer on the stupid bishoujo character designs and idiotic harem hijinks jokes – the two elements just do not gel and it left me wondering just what the hell this show is trying to do.

It’s particularly galling when you look at how excellent the production is on the series – what on earth are Madhouse thinking?  The animation is great and even if the character designs are horribly overdone, they’re well drawn and nicely animated.  The music is also fantastic – why have they got Takanashi Yasuharu working on this drivel!??

Argh – so very dropped!

Joshiraku

I didn’t really enjoy Joshiraku.  I felt like a lot of the humour was lost in translation (although [gg] really put in a valiant effort to try to localise some of the puns), and the whole concept of girls sitting round talking just isn’t my thing to start with.  Some of the gags were pretty funny though and I did laugh a few times, but just too much of the episode washed over me and left me cold.  The breaking of the fourth wall and the meta jokes at the start were fun, but it went on a bit too long and started getting obnoxious quite quickly.  I can’t profess to really like the characters either as they’re pretty much standard bishoujo stereotypes.

On the production front, well it wasn’t as bad as I was fearing, but there was still a lack of any real creative flair to make the talking heads format look a bit more visually interesting.  Effort was expended on the OP & ED though (even if I didn’t like either of them).  The voice acting was okay – no one really stood out though.

So yeah, I’m dropping this – a gag show where half the gags are lost in translation isn’t worth the time.