First Impressions / Snapshots

OP2 Sequence

OP2: 「Scarlet Bomb!」 by 美郷あき (Misato Aki)
Watch the 2nd OP!: Mirror 1, Mirror 2, Streaming ▼

「アグニッシュワッタス」 (Aguni Shuwattasu)
“Agni Schiwatas”

If you don’t like my one-off posts because you tend to follow a series via weekly coverage, feel free to ignore this one. For those watching though, this week of NEEDLESS was full of all kinds of awesome and if I watch something awesome, you can bet I’m going to talk about it! This series also features Aruka Schild, the girl who willing goes nopan. Need I say more?

I mentioned before that I wanted to cover the second half of NEEDLESS on Thursdays, but ultimately decided to cover Nyan Koi alongside Kampfer instead. Even still, I thought I’d try to make time, but last week’s indepth flashback on the Resistance’s demise just didn’t compel me to do so. This week however is a completely different story, as I’ve been waiting for Blade to open a whole can of whoopass on Cruz’s two-faced sister. Seeing as it finally happened, I had to post about this episode at the very least. As for Aruka, she’s lucky she’s voiced by the sultry Ise Mariya and willingly goes commando, or else she’d just be a bitch in my eyes. Instead, she’s a full-blown tsuntsun who’s just asking for someone to bring out her deredere. i.e. She’s hot stuff. That said, I guess it comes as no surprise that I’m hoping Blade strips her down to her socks. (Strip her Blade! She still counts as a little girl!)

For those unfamiliar with this series (and reading on), this show is completely over-the-top ridiculous with superhuman abilities, full of fan-service with both panty shots and girls getting their clothes torn off in battle, and most of all, an absolute riot that will have you laughing more than you thought you would. Some might say it’s a cheap attempt to mimic the comedic style of Gurren Lagann, but things are on a completely different level when you have unreserved fan-service both visually and suggestively. To top it off, you have Koyasu Takehito starring here and he’s unrivaled in the outrageous behaviour department. I can’t even imagine what he’s like in the recording studio when he “goes off”, but if you need someone to play a loud, unrelenting, and completely shameless character, he’s your man. For our female lead Eve, we have Kitamura Eri, who’s pretty hilarious in her own right when she plays dumb characters, plus there are tons of other notable seiyuu as supporting cast.

In terms of action, you have tons of superhero-like characters with specific abilities called Fragments (think Darker than Black contractors minus the annoying remunerations). Throw in cute young girls with lots of pantsu, underboob, pettanko, and every other sort of fetish you can think of and you have the aforementioned fan-service. (We even get male ass shots it seems!) Add in random jokes and silly super-deformed scenes and you have the same humour as Sora no Otoshimono. Mix it all together and you have anime magic. I haven’t mentioned this before, but I love this show. It’s so stupid, but so entertaining for all those reasons.

Since this is my first time posting about NEEDLESS, I decided to include the second opening and ending themes that debuted back in episode 14. I really like Misato Aki’s music in particular, so I just had to include the second opening. The ending theme on the other hand is sung by our Needless Girls, which includes a female version of Cruz (Endou Aya of Sheryl Nome fame). The ending theme is just a silly character song, but the sequence is full of tasteful shots for your viewing pleasure.

As for the actual episode, the biggest surprise is Saten saying he’s fallen for Eve and going easy on her during the fight. Later on, he also gives her an opportunity to “knock him out” so that she can save Cruz. Evidently, Saten has his own agenda but it remains to be seen what that is. For now though, he looks like he’s content with helping our protagonists. This leads us to the Aruka beat down. It seems our green-haired nopan girl was getting a bit overconfident with her Agni Schiwatas (“God’s Flame Breath”) ability and ended up blabbing about how Fragments abilities work. For high tier abilities like the Simeon Strongest Four possess, their use requires unlocking the deeper unknown regions of the brain. With the power of his Zero Fragment and this missing link information, Blade is able to “evolve” and become impervious to her attack by combining his understanding of the Agni Schiwatas and Fourth Wave abilities. Not only that, he’s aslo able to absorb the energy of her attack using the Fourth Wave and decides to unleash it back on her in his own way — an EVOLVED Vulcan Shock Ignition PLUS Little Boy that even has Teruyama jealous! With no way to harm Blade now, Aruka can do nothing but eat it. (OHHH SNAP!)

They’ve spent ten episodes in Shelter #3 now (almost half the entire series), but somehow I don’t mind one bit. However, it looks like they’re finally getting out of this playroom next time. Either way, I can’t wait to see what happens to Aruka.

 

ED2 Sequence

ED2: 「WANTED! for the love」 by NEEDLESS★GIRLS+
Watch the 2nd ED!: Mirror 1, Mirror 2, Streaming ▼

Preview

42 Comments

  6. Stan:
    It’s hard to recommend to people because it depends a lot on your personal tastes/expectations. If you like silly/stupid in a humorous way, I say it’s worth a try. Like I said in the post, I love this show. =)

    darknight:
    Seriously couldn’t! I think this ended up being a series intro-like post though. It ended up way longer than I was intending because I went off on all things NEEDLESS.

    Also, I wasn’t around during the summer season and this type of stuff doesn’t suit Omni’s tastes, so it was unfortunately left out. I definitely would’ve blogged it from beginning to end though.

    * P.S. I love how these one-off posts seem to expose people to new series. There are a lot of good shows out there that we don’t cover regularly!

    divine
    Reply

  15. DIVINE you are are all over the place!!! HAHAHAHA! i love it!! truly living up to the sites name *salute*
    @syllen..true ,people need to take at at face value for what it is, a GAR/ecchi/ludicrous shounen-esq kinda funny shit! “not saying i ever smoked it” but its kinda like a (baking soda > cocaine) type of crack rock. it’ll give ya that type of instant excitement then let ya go with no hard feelings, but of course you’ll be back fo more.

    BROOKLYN otaku
    Reply

  17. I’ve been following the show since episode 1, I would defiantly recommend to those who like fanservice and super unnatural powers. Its full of mindless comedy also, it does kind of stink that they have been fighting in the same environment for someteen episodes but the super nemesis Archlight is back into the fight next episode. Episode 13 has been my favorite so far full of action and great animation this series is rocking at the moment in my opinion anyways.

    Bluance
    Reply

  19. The artwork gets all over the place at times (which somewhat adds to the craziness), but this is produced by Madhouse, so they can definitely push the quality if need be.

    The plot is surprisingly straightforward so far, but there are still some twists in store that they haven’t revealed yet. They’ve done a good job shrouding subjects about “The Second” and Adam Arclight’s real goal.

    If you’re going to give the series a chance, I would recommend watching to at least episode five and then deciding if you want to continue. You’ll have a good taste of what this show has to offer by then.

    divine
    Reply

  21. I love this show!
    It is true, normaly I also get bored if they battle in one and the same location for many episodes, but this show manages to keep things interesting.

    It is such a great over the top series.
    I also love the 3 (Bi)Shoujo Butai girls. xD

    Kyral
    Reply

  23. This show is so damn bad that you can’t help but to watch it. You basically know what to expect every week…SHIT. But at least its way better than watching shows that you’re interested in go down the path to shitsville.

    I know I’m crazy but I actually like this show. It has the guts to be crazy, no plot, dumbass attacks, VAs that play 2 characters, nopan, pantsu up the wazoo, clones, yggdrasils, gutting, cross-dressing, lolis, & more & more powerful MFers that they keep on being thrown at you so you can’t even hope to follow by watching just once. I’ll definitely marathon this shit when its over.

    Megas
    Reply

  25. Dendoh_fanboy:
    Did I ever mention that I’m a huge SRW fan too? (Although not so much as of late.)

    That’s pretty cool though. It’s kind of weird that she’s not performing with JAM Project, seeing as she has before and that they’ve produced numerous songs for the SRW franchise in the past.

    Which reminds me, this is just as epic. I don’t think that song needs any introduction.

    divine
    Reply

  30. Huh…did they mod the OP after Aruka’s face was revealed? Originally, she just removes the mask, half a second, next shot. Now she removes the mask and then glances sideways at the “camera”.

    Having said that, after the Ep 14 intro (before the OP), it was kinda obvious that Aruka was the 4th S4S.

    Well, I’ve been following this pretty closely, and it’s a good, crazy anime. The fanservice doesn’t trip any wires for me though :S

    Vsin
    Reply

  32. Apparently, Banpresto wanted a more “90s feel” for the SRW NEO OP, so instead of going for the full hotblooded JAM Project epic, they went with a solo singer that’s worked on SRW before.

    Dendoh_fanboy
    Reply

  34. I love this series. Been watching it since episode 1. This show has everything for pantsu lovers XD. From shimapan to fundoshi to nopan…hmm…then there’s loli and trap loli (omg Disc-san, how old are you again!?)

    I read the manga, gotta to say it’s a bit more detailed than the anime, but the anime definitely didn’t fail to entertain. The random slapstick they stick in makes things even more interesting. On another note, I didn’t know Gurren Lagaan came after Needless though orz.

    Chaos
    Reply

  36. @Divine
    I like this type of impromtu post. There are many series and is unrealistic to have you guys do them all.

    As for needless I’m watching since chapter 1. I never took this series seriously specially with the Cruz/Yamada name syndrome. Still I want to see Adam Blade fall or was it Adam Arclight or it was never mind I’ll ask Eve for the right name LoL

    Island esper
    Reply

  38. Eve’s problem with names was absolutely hilarious at first. I’ve grown so accustomed to it now that I wouldn’t know what to do without the Yamada and Uchida outcries. The funny thing is that Blade goes along with these names. Great stuff.

    divine
    Reply

  39. I Love this show, something manages to make me laugh every episode. Yet with the kick-ass music and serious fights and interesting explanations its very intriguing. glad i decided to watch this

    Precise Moment
    Reply

  40. Great post. I love this show and I am so glad to see more people like it as much as i do. Great screenshots to btw. But Id really like to see some more of the needless girls from the new ending, especially Seto’s(She looks so damn hot). Could someone post it or give me a link sometime?

    Mike
    Reply

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