First Impressions: Spring 2016 – Part 4

Okay next batch – I swear to god I will be caught up before the end of the day!

• Netoge no Yome wa Onnanoko ja nai to Omotta
• Anne Happy
• Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress
• Concrete Revolutio S2
• Shounen Maid
• Sakamoto desu ga?
• Haifuri

 

Netoge no Yome wa Onnanoko ja nai to Omotta (And you thought there is never a girl online?)

I think the only really positive thing I can think to say about this, is that it wasn’t as awful as it could have been.  After that I really don’t have much to say.  It’s still the usual otaku self-fulfilment rubbish, but it does have a smidgen of a sense of humour and mostly manages not to be offensively terrible.  It’s still not worth my time watching more of, but I imagine there are plenty of people out there who enjoyed it.

 

Anne Happy♪

So apparently it’s Anne Happy♪ not Unhappy♪ like I thought in the preview, because it is a pun on the main character’s name…..so clever.  Yeah I didn’t actually retain much of this episode – think I had it on in the background while I was reading something else.  Basically this is a class of girls with bad luck – which is now a measurable character trait apparently – and their aim is to improve their luck before graduation.  Snore.  Dropped.

 

Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress

Are you one of the many people who watched & enjoyed Attack on Titan?  Well good news!  Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress is basically that all over again, this time in a Japanese setting with added trains & steampunk tech – rejoice!!

In all seriousness I really did enjoy this opening episode of Kabaneri, but there is no getting away from how similar it is to AoT – right down to the music and sepia filters.  It’s still made for a really cool show to watch though – I really like the designs and I’ve always been a fan of Araki’s directorial style.  I’m certainly keeping Kabaneri on, but do hope it displays a bit more individuality in future episodes.

 

Concrete Revolutio S2

It’s back & it’s as good as ever~!  Extremely pleased of have ConRevo back on my screen – it was probably the show I was most hyped for this season.  Thankfully the quality hasn’t declined (although I do miss the OP & ED songs, but the cool group shots in the ED somewhat make up for it), and the show looks set to continue building on the lattice of plot threads laid in S1.

Fantastic to have more ConRevo to look forward to – this really is one of the finest shows to have aired in recent years.

 

Shounen Maid

Okay so this wasn’t as creepy as I feared it would be, but that doesn’t mean it was good.  I mean it was serviceable, but there isn’t really anything that stood out as being great or particularly interesting.  We’ve seen this pairing of a grounded, dependable child who’s good at domestic work with their childish, slovenly guardian many times before in animanga – it’s usually good for a few laughs, but gets old quickly unless the writing is particularly good.  Shounen Maid is just middle of the road average in all respects – I will give it a second episode, but think this is destined for the dropped pile.

 

Sakamoto desu ga?

Okay.  I laughed a lot at this episode.  Everything is so ridiculously overblown and stupid – from the music & the direction to the voice acting – that I couldn’t help myself – also that great OP!  The entire premise hinges on the idea that Sakamoto is the most effortlessly cool individual to have ever drawn breath, something that enthrals and irritates his classmates in equal measures, and it does work, or at least it does in this episode.  I’m not entirely sure if the simplistic concept can really sustain the show for and entire season, but I’m definitely willing to give Sakamoto desu ga? a fair whirl.

 

Haifuri

I sort of thought this would be some cute, whimsy thing about girls roaming the seas rescuing dolphins or some similar kind of saccharine conservation message, but nope.  Haifuri is another cute girls + military show with our cast of typical female high school archetypes manning a fully armed destroyer.  I don’t know why I thought ‘protecting the seas’ meant rescue operations instead of military manoeuvrers, but there you go.

Anyway, Haifuri is clearly trying to evoke a similar feeling to Girls und Panzer, but it mostly fails to capture the charm of that show.  I mean this wasn’t a completely awful episode, but it is sort of empty feeling – none of the cast seems particularly memorable and there isn’t really a clear feeling of what Haifuri wants to be.  I personally won’t be sticking around to see if it does exhibit any character in the future though – dropped.