Is every season going to have an anime with a title that pisses me off now? Last season we had that one (I will not even try its name just out of spite!) and this season we’ve got Phantom blah, blah Phantom. (Only say phantom once you annoying pieces of naming poo!)

Anyway, I guess this is another series I can put in my “As expected” pile. Once again, not a bad thing. It just didn’t disappoint me or exceed my expectations. It was as expected. *sigh~* I think all of my anime for Spring are going to be this way and I’ll end up bored out of my mind.

So Bee Train…we meet again. And I see that you haven’t changed one bit! You’re damn lucky that this is a slow season and that I didn’t particulalry mind your series with guns (it was the awful Tsubasa adaptation that ignited my eternal grudge). Of course I never finished one of your series with guns because I got distracted, lost track, and then just didn’t feel like finding it again.

Keep me from doing that this time and we’ll call this a success.

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Art & Animation

Everybody likes this scene.

Bee Train…like I said they haven’t changed. They make their action scenes look like they’re supposed to be really good, except they don’t have enough frames so things look awkward. They use a lot of shortcuts too. It’s still pretty good (like…more “okay” maybe), but the shortcuts and stuff are noticeable. The movement isn’t fluid.

It’s not like I’m blaming them saying, “You guys suck” (though they totally do because of their past actions!), but I’m saying that it’s awkward enough to be distracting. I keep thinking, “I wonder what their budget is.” “If the first episode seems a little awkward, is it going to get worse? Or are they stretching out their budget properly?”

I’d say that at least the art looks really nice, but my concerns over animation transferred to that and I started wondering if such a nice style would be difficult for them to maintain as the series goes on.

It might just be distracting to me though since I always have something going through my head. Plus I’m overly-pessimistic about the whole season. Overall I think the animation is fine and the art is good right now.

Also..lol. CG swing was an obvious cg swing. Though it did look nice. Nicer than my own swing set actually. Hahaha~

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Music

Opening: Kokia – “Karma”

More typical Bee Train. Pretty good music is in there to make up for where the series lacks. They’re pretty good at that. Though they still abuse even that I think. There’s too many long moments of panning or close-ups where all I have to entertain me is music.

I think it’s only so incredibly noticable because it’s Bee Train and it’s what I expected though. I don’t know.

Anyway, it’s all good music which matches the mood of the scenes and stuff. Drawing out the drama and helping to hype the action. It’s all good. It does its job well.

On the ending and opening, both are really suitable songs with suitably creepy-weird animation. It’s not exactly to my tastes though. I don’t like animation with all sorts of weird colors and stuff. It works though.

Despite not having a lot to say I still managed to get 8 screencaps for each theme though. Um, well I guess I can just say it looks good. The music and animation still isn’t something that holds my interest, but it looks good. You’ll probably see one or two of these in a banner for Simplicity when I put up my next set. Though as of right now I don’t really have any design ideas…

Ending: Ali Project – “Gates of Hell”

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Characters

Um…as expected? lol. We have a couple of killers who don’t show emotion. It’s pretty typical. That’s why they can be assassins without being “evil” because they don’t see the wrong in it. It’s pretty standard for a series like this I think. Super talented, no emotion. I really don’t have a lot I can say about them.

They’re both in the same position with no memories and just killing. So they’re developing one of those super close relationship right away. You know, the kind that often tends to be between killers (ew and killer siblings too which is then super creepy).

It also seems that the two of them may have met before Zwei lost his memories if that scene on the swing set is any indication. That would be nice since it would create some real bond aside from killing.

Zwei and Ein are pretty typical for the series. Zwei’s our confused protagonist who just got thrown into some random place without any of his memories. But then he’s given the purpose of killing so he’ll get pretty comfortable in his “puppet” role for the time being. Though I imagine that will change because if it didn’t we wouldn’t have much of a story.

Ein is just as typical. Emotionless killer girl that’s cute. Of course without emotions, she’s pretty dull. Except that she’s freakin’ scary as Hell.

Meido Ein is cheerful and crazy~

It’s that smile that makes me call her scary as Hell rather than typical. I mean did you see her smiling all cheerfully like a proper maid!? WTF crazy girl!

I think it’s most disturbing when an emotionless killer is able to fake a happy smile like that. Ein is scary~

The other people are also as expected. Like the one evil doctor, scientist guy. Pretty cliche, but you can’t exactly have sane people training assassins.

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Pictures with hugging are required to be included on Simplicity.

Let’s see? What else. Well I would include a seiyuu section, but I’ll just say that I love Miyu Irino (Zwei) and Ayahi Takagi (Ein) as much as I did before I started watching the series. It’s too bad that they’re the mostly silent, emotionless characters though. But at least I should be hearing more of Miyu Irino in Zwei’s thoughts. That should make me happy~ And for Ayahi Takagi, it’s just enough that she sounds cute.

So overall, I don’t have a lot to say here either because it’s all “as expected” again. In a good way for now since I’ll keep watching it. But if a continuing plot outside of Zwei’s training and the two of them going out and shooting people doesn’t come up before episode 5 I’ll probably drop it. It’s certainly not the type I’m really going to talk about much (I haven’t even commented on anyone else’s post because I have nothing to say). So blogging is a definite no. I probably won’t even comment onother blogs much for it.

In: First Impressions | tags: as expected, crazy people, meido, WTF!?. | #