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WarriorsGate (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#101: Apr 9th 2022 at 12:09:24 PM

The scheduling for Onipan continues to baffle me. Apparently it's a "short" anime, and the Hidive website — sadly — lists the first episode as being 15 minutes long. They're also advertising it as a 12-episode weekly simulcast that starts on the 15th, but in Japan it's a Monday-Friday show that starts on the 11th. A twelve-episode series doesn't make sense; that'd mean it stops airing in Japan on a Tuesday. So now I wonder — is it actually a series of three minute shorts Sentai are packaging as half-length episodes for the western market?

If so... sad

Ohta's animation is always best when it's manic. Like how he took a single page from the Yuru Yuri manga and storyboarded an insane Looney Tunes chase scene where Chinatsu desperately tries to corner Akari. Or, well, all of Love Lab. But he's also surprisingly good at the dramatic. He created "The Akari Who Leapt Through Time" out of whole cloth, and he storyboarded the hilariously depressing first episode of Kotoura-san.

I'm not sure that three-minute episodes are the best way to experience Masahiko Ohta.

If Onipan! is just pure comedy, it might do well with such a limited runtime, but I was hoping his first anime original would give him a chance to stretch his wings and soar without being weighed down by preexisting source material. I want to say it's a fool's errand to try and cram genuine emotional beats into a three-minute short, but if anybody would try, it's him.

We've already seen an Ohta show with no budget (Didn't I Say to Make My Abilities Average?!). Will 2022 be the year we see an Ohta show with no time?

SammyTommy Since: Jul, 2020
#102: Apr 9th 2022 at 1:27:18 PM

Question about Shikimori-san since there's no page for it yet: Is Shikimori's given name ever... given (NPI), or she has a case of No Full Name Given?

Chariot King of Anime Since: Jul, 2014
King of Anime
#103: Apr 9th 2022 at 1:31:06 PM

She has one according to the wiki but I don't know when it's revealed so it may or may not be a spoiler.

jun_kagami Since: Oct, 2018
#104: Apr 9th 2022 at 2:26:56 PM

[up][up]the author said in an interview that they will reveal both Shikimori and Izumi's first names during an important turning point, but so far not yet. And no, Micchon is not her first name, it's just a nickname her friends calls her.

https://media.comicspace.jp/archives/15444/2

Edited by jun_kagami on Apr 9th 2022 at 4:29:31 PM

fillerdude Since: Jul, 2010
#105: Apr 10th 2022 at 5:30:03 AM

First Impressions

  • Spy X Family: I knew I said I wasn’t going to watch this, but I had to at least check out the first episode… and (maybe a bit too predictably) it’s good. The seiyuu for Loid and Anya nail their roles, the animation is crisp, and the soundtrack is a delightful homage to spy movies. Nothing mindblowing but an excellent adaptation all around. I’ll have to say I’m continuing. Who needs sleep anyway?
  • Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie: It’s trying to sell Shikimori as “best girl” material, and ehhh I’m kinda not sold. She’s serviceably cute with an appealing tomboyish streak, but that’s about it. I think the main couple is a bit boring, to be frank, and that’s pretty much a death knell for a romance anime. They should have made the story about Hachimitsu instead. Shikimori might have won the bowling contest, but Hachimitsu got the most stylish strike. Dropping. But I might pick up the manga, looks like it could be a decent pick-me-up for when I have time to kill.

GabrieltheThird Anvilicious Since: Apr, 2012
Anvilicious
#106: Apr 10th 2022 at 7:41:28 AM

Spy X Family was interesting in that it was well made quality stuff but I can't help thinking the first episode was a mistake. All I knew going in was the premise and thought it promising, but that hurt my experience and left me somewhat disappointed. In my opinion they really should have started in media res. Introduce us to this normal family, drop hints of the secret life of all its members and then have the madness ramp up. You only get one chance at making a first impression and all that.

Instead the origin story ended up feeling pretty paint by numbers. Very safe and standard. Some OKish new family comedy bits, some not that exciting spy stuff and some cute kid stuff. Nothing bad but nothing that makes an impression either.

Animation and voice is top notch at least.

Edited by GabrieltheThird on Apr 10th 2022 at 5:44:06 PM

RedSavant Since: Jan, 2001
#107: Apr 10th 2022 at 8:03:26 AM

I can agree with that. While I really liked it, I think it would have been kind of cool to see the story portrayed that way.

It's been fun.
fillerdude Since: Jul, 2010
#108: Apr 10th 2022 at 9:31:49 AM

[up][up] The In Medias Res approach would have been pretty cool actually.

Edited by fillerdude on Apr 10th 2022 at 9:32:05 AM

TropayXion The i. one. from HEART Since: Jul, 2011 Relationship Status: Complex: I'm real, they are imaginary
The i. one.
#109: Apr 10th 2022 at 9:39:14 AM

Spy x Family's first episode still hooked me, really. Can see why this one was hyped, so looking forward to the mother joining.

Shikimori... is another show that had the bad luck to air this season. If this and maybe Aharen aired during Winter when there was actually nothing going on, I wouldn't mind watching them. But there's just too many shows already, never mind that there's already better romance shows airing right now, too.

thuse from see timezone Since: Oct, 2020 Relationship Status: Whoa, they're bisexual! I didn't know that!
#110: Apr 10th 2022 at 9:40:15 AM

Initial Reactions:

Kono Healer, Mendokusai: Man, I hope I can survive this anime until the end because Carla is indeed very troublesome, I can't stop wishing to see Alvin's true face, I witnessed a title so long it rivals Kutoitsu-san's long titles, and I've seen some fantasy deconstruction happening; although, I should've seen that coming considering that this is meant to be comedic—
Baraou no Souretsu 2nd cour: And lo, the second cour has started, and it has maintained the atmosphere from the last cour. Now I wonder how everything will go wrong...

Edited by thuse on Apr 11th 2022 at 12:41:28 AM

Cortez from Parts Unknown (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#111: Apr 10th 2022 at 11:22:57 AM

In my opinion they really should have started in media res.

I don't think in media res would work with this particular family.

Nouct over the front from an east coast Since: Sep, 2014 Relationship Status: Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies
over the front
#112: Apr 10th 2022 at 11:46:38 AM

It did lose its punch somewhat from not having the first few panels as an Series Establishing Moment.

WarriorsGate (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#113: Apr 10th 2022 at 5:07:14 PM

So the first part of Onipan! just dropped in Japan, and the official (Japanese) website has a synopsis.

It's listed as "Episode #1" but the airdate is the 11th to the 15th, so as I suspected it's being broadcast in little serialized chunks. Which is concerning, but according to the Japanese Wikipedia every episode is meant to be viewed as a compiled package, so hopefully it'll feel like a complete episode with a higher-than average number of commercial breaks instead of one of those insubstantial three-minute fluff shows.

Been rewatching Love Lab in preparation. Though I'd enjoy some emotional nuance from Onipan!, as long as Ohta brings the gag faces, it's all good.

WarriorsGate (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#114: Apr 11th 2022 at 3:08:43 AM

So the first episode of Onipan! may have fallen off the back of a truck, and I may have picked it up and watched it.

    Review 

It's only two-and-a-half minutes, as I expected. The "compilation" episodes starting on Friday will be about twelve minutes, same length as Aho Girl! (also written by Takashi Aoshima, but not directed by Masahiko Ohta — as incredible as that would've been). Which is fine, I guess. It's an original IP in a notoriously unstable industry that hasn't yet learned to just hand Ohta a blank check, so whatever.

The series starts with our protagonist moping, "We should go back home," only for her friend to snap, "But the anime's just started!" So already we're in that Yuru Yuri "What's a 'fourth wall'?" territory. Which I like. The Sabagebu OVAs — one of which had the protagonist face the screen and berate Aoshima by name for being a hack — were an absolute blast.

The animation is stock Ohta. Characters slide into frame like paper cutouts, pop up inside little insets to deliver some tsukkomi, snap between only two frames of animation when they're fuming mad. Pretty much the same visual language he perfected on Yuru Yuri a decade ago. It's solid, but none of it wowed me. No Love Lab-tier comedy cuts, and a disappointing lack of good gag faces. If anything, it seemed kind of cheap. The background characters are all plain white blobs, and the lip movements seem pretty mouth-flappy at times. It's not Didn't I Say to Make My Abilities Average?! cheap, where it sucked the fun and joy out of Ohta's style completely, but it doesn't look lavish.

But this is just the first episode. Not even that, it's the first fifth of the first episode. Hopefully Ohta is just budgeting appropriately.

Onipan! is about as CGDCT as Ohta's other works — which is to say, not very. Tsutsuji is a neurotic mope, Himawari is both the Only Sane Man and The Gadfly at the same time, and Tsuyukusa is a narcoleptic Deadpan Snarker. Ohta's always been a pure comedy director who makes shows about butt monkeys and trolls. Onipan! is more tsukkomi than twee and more irate than iyashikei.

It's also not very kiddie for a kid's show. The oni girls make jokes about eating people, with a very detailed reference to Studio Wit's prior work that will probably give small children nightmares.

Still not sure what the actual plot is. The press release says the oni girls are cultural ambassadors, but the ending makes it seem like a Super Sentai/Magical Girl show where the titular oni shorts let them transform into costumed heroes? Which I'm totally down for. Ohta only has two screenwriting credits to his name. One of them was "The Akari Who Leapt Through Time", the most heartfelt episode of Yuru Yuri. The other was the absolute piss-take of badly-produced Super Sentai shows that opened Mitsudomoe season 2. So if anybody knows how to do both heartwarming humor that doesn't make you gag and wring comedy from henshin heroes, it's Ohta.

Edited by WarriorsGate on Apr 11th 2022 at 7:11:45 AM

fillerdude Since: Jul, 2010
#115: Apr 12th 2022 at 12:30:25 AM

First Episode Impressions

  • Kyoukai Senki: It’s back, I guess. The starting episode for season two is mainly establishing how the war has developed over the eight year timeskip, and what the resistance has been up to. It’s the same template mecha anime, with that 2D animation for the giant robot fights, which is rare nowadays. It’s honestly lucky it’s the sole representative of its genre this cour. Trying until episode three, might end up simply watching the action highlights on Youtube afterwards.

EDIT:

More First Episode Impressions: Kaginado comes back with a vengeance by having Kappei muse about how sidelined he’s been. As someone who did a full a 100% run of the Clannad visual novel that got me rolling.

Edited by fillerdude on Apr 12th 2022 at 9:33:16 AM

SKJAM Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Baby don't hurt me!
#116: Apr 12th 2022 at 5:49:06 PM

Foolishly, I watched all of Tiger & Bunny Season Two. I liked it. My favorite part (serious ending SPOILERS) Barnaby's Childhood Friend not dying or turning evil.

Nachtwandler Since: Dec, 2014
#117: Apr 13th 2022 at 8:21:03 AM

[up] Its's only half of the season though. There will be another 12 eps batch.

SKJAM Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Baby don't hurt me!
#118: Apr 13th 2022 at 10:27:43 AM

Wow. That sure seemed like a season finale.

WarriorsGate (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#119: Apr 13th 2022 at 2:20:06 PM

The third segment of Onipan! is out, and at last it's starting to feel like a Masahiko Ohta show. The first two segments (so the first five minutes of the full episode) were pure Show, Don't Tell exposition; a string of situations contrived to immediately establish the characters' personalities. Which is fine, if a little clunky. But this third segment has a "fight scene" that's only three frames of animation, yet manages to the funniest moment in the show so far. It's undeniably cheap, but it still has that manic, slapstick energy of Ohta's past work.

The show is an allegory for some kind of discrimination. Not sure if it's classism, racism, or rednecks vs. urbanites. Probably all three? I don't think the show will get that heavy, but Ohta is the same guy who trolled people with ten minutes of depressing melodrama at the start of Kotoura-san, so all bets are off. It's ultimately about the need for more positive portrayals of demon girls to counter stereotypes, but unlike modern American works — where you can practically feel the mountain of corporate memos about how to make Product #9263 more palatable to pressure groups — Tsutsuji is an endearingly pathetic mope who doesn't think she can succeed, which just makes you want her to ganbatte! even more.

I'm eagerly waiting for that character to appear. The obnoxious, full-of-herself braggart who steals every scene she's in. The character type Ohta excels at: Kana Minami, Kyouko Toshino, Satania McDowell. Based on the trailer it looks like that'll be Kaori Maeda's character, but it seems we'll have to wait a bit for the 2022 Meme Generator to appear.

Edited by WarriorsGate on Apr 13th 2022 at 11:55:58 AM

thuse from see timezone Since: Oct, 2020 Relationship Status: Whoa, they're bisexual! I didn't know that!
#120: Apr 14th 2022 at 8:10:20 PM

Initial Reactions: Summertime Render

Holy fuck that was one opener. Who knew the most fucked up enemy one could face is one's self (well, technically, the shadow of one's self). And then there's the ending where it became something like Groundhog Day or Re:Zero (idk, haven't seen any of them). Oh, and Shinpei's eyes... Well, this'll definitely shock my Fridays from now on...

And with that, my list for Spring 2022 is complete save for Bubble! I predict that this will be much livelier than Winter 2022!

WarriorsGate (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#121: Apr 14th 2022 at 10:05:27 PM

At long last, a whopping three years after his last show — the underwhelming Average Isekai — Masahiko Ohta is back on TV. Onipan! aired its first "complete" episode, compiling the shorts that aired throughout the week. And it's...

Good, I guess?

It's hard to judge. If we pretend this is some random Moe director, it'd be a great setup for a quirky, heartwarming Slice of Life show. But Ohta is the gleeful troll who ended Yuru Yuri season two by having the main characters turn to face a massive explosion two feet behind them with a quiet "Eh?" and then smash-cutting to the ED right before they're all blown up. This feels more normal than I'd like.

If we grade this episode on the Ohta curve, it's definitely not as boring as Average Isekai, which looked like it had a budget of six bucks. But it's so full of plot, so constructed to hit the beats required to set the premise up — especially as a half-length episode — there's little room for the wonderful nonsense found in Ohta's best, endlessly-rewatchable work like Mitsudomoe or Love Lab, where every cut feels like a masterclass in comedic timing. There's some, such as the "fight" between Tsutsuji and Tsuyukusa or the lengthy parkour sequence at the end where Ohta ruthlessly milks Studio Wit's 3D team for all they're worth, but the short length makes it seem crammed yet unfulfilling at the same time.

On the Ohta curve, this falls squarely in with the first half of the first episode of Gabriel Dropout: an amusing episode that debuts our main characters with some solid jokes, but is otherwise merely "good". However, the second half introduced Satania McDowell, who gave GabDro a kick in the ass and elevated it to one of 2017's most popular comedies. Based on Onipan!'s dance-party ending ending, it seems Momo-zono Momo (yes, really) is going to be our Satania 2.0 (or our Kyouko Toshino 3.0), so I can only hope Onipan! follows a similar trajectory when they introduce her next episode.

fillerdude Since: Jul, 2010
#122: Apr 15th 2022 at 7:37:44 AM

First Impressions

  • Summertime Render: Been a while since I read the manga, but from what I remember the first episode of the anime is an almost shot-for-shot adaptation of the first chapter of the manga. Guy goes back to his island hometown to attend the funeral of his sister, then learns that her death might not have been accidental. And the funny business might be supernatural in nature. The ride gets wilder from here and I’m ready to finally ride it to its conclusion. Continuing.

Edited by fillerdude on Apr 15th 2022 at 7:38:08 AM

Hylarn (Don’t ask)
#123: Apr 15th 2022 at 6:17:59 PM

Healer was mediocre as a manga, then the anime made it terrible

Onipan... I know casting unknowns for the leads worked okay in Yuruyuri, but boy it didn't here

Summer Time Rendering is fine, I guess. Direction feels a bit flat, but it sure is animated well. Unfortunately, I read the manga like 8 months ago and this isn't adding enough for me to want a repeat so soon

Spy X Family: I feel like this is worse than the manga? And I could never get into the manga

In second (and third) episodes, Birdie Wing remains fun, and seems to be moving in a more sports-ish direction; BRS... is not particularly well-executed, but is still designed to appeal to someone exactly like me; Executioner and Machikado are holding steady

So, got my watchlist, I guess. Kinda small, but better than last season

WarriorsGate (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#124: Apr 15th 2022 at 7:29:26 PM

The Onipan girls aren't unknowns. They're idol singers whose old unit was disbanded. The show is being used as a launchpad for their new unit.

I suspect Ohta looked at his teenaged talent, put on his kiddie gloves with them, and decided to give his best material to the two meme characters — voiced by professional voice actresses — he's introducing next week.

Edited by WarriorsGate on Apr 15th 2022 at 7:50:35 AM

Nachtwandler Since: Dec, 2014
#125: Apr 17th 2022 at 3:42:32 PM

I was never a fan of Tiger and Bunny in general (it is one of that shows that cannot keep the balance between parody and drama) but I still liked it i general.

Watching S2 now (7 eps. watched for now) and I will say it is on par with S1. They yoned down some things, upped some other ones and added a few new charcters to add more to the story. But overall it is the same which is good. To bad shipping wars kill any romance line perspective here.

Edited by Nachtwandler on Apr 17th 2022 at 3:42:47 AM


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