OP Sequence

Watch the OP! Mirror 1, Mirror 2, Streaming ▼

Summary:

At school one day, Araragi Koyomi sees a girl falling down the staircase and manages to catch her. To his surprise, she’s incredibly lightweight, and he identifies her as Senjougahara Hitagi. Curious about her since he knows that she has a weak body, Koyomi asks classmate Hanekawa Tsubasa about Hitagi and learns that she was a lot more energetic back in junior high school when she was on the track team. When Koyomi leaves the classroom, he’s approached by Hitagi who wants to know what he was talking about with Tsubasa. Before he can react, she sticks a box cutter in his mouth and then threatens him further with a stapler to his right cheek. It turns out that she had slipped on a banana peel earlier, and she knows that he now knows that she’s almost weightless. Hitagi explains that it all started before she entered high school when she encountered a certain crab and had her weight taken away, and she wants him to keep silent about it.

The physical harm she’s threatening leaves Koyomi no choice but to agree, however she still decides to put a staple through his cheek anyway. Though in pain, Koyomi manages to pull the staple out of his cheek, and he ultimately runs after her. She thinks that he wants to fight, but Koyomi just wants to help her by introducing her to a man named Oshino Meme. He gets her attention by showing her that he doesn’t have a wound anymore even though she stapled him in the cheek just minutes earlier, and he explains that Oshino helped him turn him back from vampire to human, though he still retains a small amount of the immortality effects. It turns out that Oshino lives in an old building, and with him is a quiet little girl that he’s named Shinobu. Once Hitagi explains what happened to her, Oshino tells the two about the omoshikani (lit. weight crab) from folklore which may have been a god. Regardless, he’s willing to help Hitagi if she wants to regain her weight.

ED Sequence

ED: 「君の知らない物語」 (Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari) by supercell
Watch the ED! Mirror 1, Mirror 2, Streaming ▼

There wasn’t a true OP this episode, and I believe they’ll be using different OP sequences throughout the entire series. The opening sequence that was here was sort of weird in that it started with a panty shot and then progressed to an action scene with many characters who haven’t been introduced yet. Having watched the episode, I assume those are shots either from the future or from back when Koyomi was still a vampire. In any case, it’s an opening sequence that gets me excited about the series, and it makes me wonder if they’ll be any significant amount of action here. The ending, on the other hand, is a nice and catchy song, and I really like the voice of supercell’s vocalist. It comes with a nice piece of artwork too, but nothing was actually animated for the ED this week (hence the same three shots above).

Preview

Well now those were some incredible visuals. I knew they were going to be good based on the promos, but this was stunningly good. I’d forgotten how high quality of a production SHAFT can do when they need to, though of course this episode still had its share of their unique style and brand of humor with shots like this and this, plus the preview. As I said above though, I’d love to see some of this level of quality applied to action scenes, if there are any in this series. The closest we came to that in this episode was when Hitagi pulled out all those weapons from seemingly thin air, and that was only a brief scene.

Speaking of Hitagi, the way she assaults Koyomi should make her seem crazy (I didn’t think she’d actually drive a staple through his cheek), but I ended up finding her rather likable thanks to how she’s able to identify herself as a tsundere and to how Saitou Chiwa voiced her. Horie Yui was also quite pleasant here as Tsubasa, and it helped erase the memories of how much she got on my nerves in Umineko. In any case, the plot ended up being probably the least impressive part of the episode. That’s not to say that it was boring or bad, but I found myself caring more about the characters than what was happening to them. This is only the first episode though, so I expect the story to become more interesting. And even if it doesn’t, I’m probably going to keep watching this because it’s so visually impressive. I wonder if they can keep it up all series.

43 Comments

  1. The visuals indeed are quite impressive, hopefully they keep it up. I’m curious as to what level of violence/’gore’ this series includes, considering that “OP”. >_<

    Meery
  2. Nice summary! Hopefully they DO use different OP sequences, though I wonder why the ED was billed as the OP before the episode was shown. And holy crap that quality. Ideally they would keep it up but it is a high standard to keep up with.

    Also, since supercell’s vocalist was not credited ANYWHERE for some terrible reason, her name is nagi. Great voice indeed…

  3. Love the artistic style. Very intriguing story so far. And I couldn’t recognise Chiwa Saito’s voice at all, compared to her usual high (Gokujou Seitokai) and low pitch (Kemeko) voices. Will be following this one.

    Nalface
  4. Qoute:
    My love is a stapler~~
    End quote
    ZOMG, some1 too literally read text of the K-ON song 😛
    Impressive ability to create sharp objects from Hammerspace…
    But IDK what is the premise of the whole story? Supernatural beings trying to live in human society?

    ewok
  5. Ef has no comedy, so this isn’t like ef even though the artwork resembles that of ef. Rather, I feel that it resembles how Maria+Holic was brought about. Messy yet beautiful scenes with random words carving all over the place. The comedy and the metahumour is also to be noted.

    Tandem
  6. “And even if it doesn’t, I’m probably going to keep watching this because it’s so visually impressive.”

    Out of all people especialy you should know, that the quality won’t keep up. The question is here, if the story will get better – if not I’ll pass this.

    What’s with Umineko btw?^^

  7. Really… again lots of long shots, shots that don’t show details, random quick cuts, long winded discussions, “Artistic” moments… Let’s see how many eps before it becomes too painful to watch.

    Anacone
  8. looks good. maybe i should add this to my watch list as well. 2nd anime that wasnt in my watch list that i would like to watch now, first one being Aoi Hana.

    randomperson
  9. I wanted to watch this but after learning more abt this anime from you, I guess it’s not for me. Tsunderes+pantyshots have always been a turn-off for me, not to mention gratuitous violence (yes, I consider punching a staple in someone’s mouth as violence). The art looks great, but I was expecting something more along the lines of xxxholic in the early days (before the whole mix w/ TRC) plot-wise.

    yukino
  10. @ Flobb3k
    It’s from the same animation studio and director.
    Just love SHAFT’s style. Beats the crap out of the generic animation being pumped out these days, and yes, I’d agree with Zetsuboushita that SHAFT are slowly but surely entering Studio 4c area of greatness.

  11. Re: Rickart

    No, the weird guy in the condemn build help our main character recovered from being a vampire. That story might be covered in the non-broadcast prequel arc Koyomi Vampire (for that matter, a good chunk of the ‘OP’ comes from Koyomi Vampire.

    bigfire
  12. I enjoyed the way Senjougahara expresses herself, as well as her being genre savvy. She’s both fairly creepy, and pretty cool. The eye closeups were a bit eerie as well.

    Meery
  13. I don’t know how many people here are familiar with David Lynch movies, but if you have seen them, when you watch them, you are unsure whether you like the film or not immediately after it ends.

    Visually this was pretty impressive, but the story’s pacing felt very random. That bit with him being a vampire was really random. Also, the sheer amount of school supplies that Hitagi carried and used as weapons was insane. She speaks in a very even, matter of fact way, then puts a staple through him. Geez, and she thought she did him a favor by spiking him on the inside of the mouth? Oh well… Among my anime loving friends, I have developed a reputation for finding the quirky stuff. The reputation lives on with this and Umineko

    No Room for A-holes
  14. Re: No Room for A-holes

    The “random” pacing is more spontaneous and unpremeditated than a lot of other anime series as of late—it really feels refreshing. This pacing is enhanced by lots of cuts to the eyes or the face, all of which help contribute to the kinetic energy flowing through the whole episode.

    Pretty damn impressive start for this series.

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