First Impressions: Spring 2014 – Hitsugi no Chaika, One Week Friends and Soul Eater Not!
Okay next some stuff I’m marginally more positive about – Hitsugi no Chaika, One Week Friends and Soul Eater Not!
Hitsugi no Chaika (Chaika the Coffin Princess)
Best bit was when the unicorn exploded into a shower of blood and guts. I liked that. Otherwise this was a bit underwhelming and slightly confusing. I mean I hate episodes that go full on info-dump in their first episodes, overwhelming us with jargon, but Chaika goes the opposite direction, not telling us anything about the world at large and just letting things happen for no apparent reason. Some sort of guiding framework would be nice – I’d like to know something about this world and why the random disembodied hand is so important. Still it was hardly a boring episode, plenty of action and an exploding unicorn – can’t really complain about that!
I still hate the character designs, but Bones once again deliver on the animation front – it is a pretty nicely animated show. I’m going to give it another few episodes, but don’t really get a must-see vibe from the show.
One Week Friends
This was kind of nice, not as depressing and gloomy as I’d thought it would be given the concept, mainly thanks to some well written and acted conversations. It isn’t the most exciting of shows, but sometimes it is nice to watch something innocuous and soothing.
The colour palate is so soft it is bordering on washed-out, and the constant blushing is a bit irritating. But the delicate animation works well for highlighting the acting, which is pretty good.
Will be keeping on for another few episodes at least.
Soul Eater Not!
What on earth is the point of this spin-off? It basically stips all the cool stuff out of the Soul Eater universe and replaces it with generic pseudo-yuri crap! Is there any point to having the characters from the main Soul Eater series cameo here, it just makes me think I should maybe finally pick up the Soul Eater manga like I’ve been meaning to for years.
Terrible….but I’ll give it another episode just in case it suddenly shows some merit.
Caraniel's Ramblings 
I was wondering if Soul Eater Not was going to be good; I had the feeling of “no” just because of the female to male ratio. Good thing I didn’t bother with it. 😛
If it made more use of the cool world setting it may have been okay, but it is just another cute girls show full of the usual archetypes.
I’d heard good things about the Soul Eater Not manga from a friend, but I can’t say I was overly impressed with the first episode of the anime. Easily dropped.
Isshuukan Friends, I’m mostly keeping on for a change of pace, though I hope and assume it’ll get better as the series goes along.
I’m more than willing to forgive Hitsugi no Chaika for not revealing much about its world and setting, so long as it addresses those things eventually. The fantastic animation and fun characters immediately won me over, and I was sad the episode had to end! Definitely my favourite of the season, based on first eps at least.
Can’t say I’d heard anything too positive about Soul Eater Not, but I was surprised by just how devoid of merit the first episode was. This is a cool world setting why have the ignored it!?
I’m watching One Week Friends because I need my weekly dose of diabetes – that show is sweet as all hell!
I’m not falling over myself with praise for Chiaka – thought it was prefectly fine, if rather forgettable overall. Solid without being remarkable IMO.