「俺、この転校が終わったら、あの娘と結婚するんだ」 (Ore, Kono Tenkou ga Owattara, Anomusume to Kekkon Suru nda)
“I will marry that girl after I transfer to a new school”

Death flags galore! And a few love ones as well.

Flags, Flags, Flags!

The premise behind this show is that main character Hatate Souta (Ohsaka Ryota) can see the dating sim construct known as flags. Unlike the similar Noucome, this isn’t played for laughs so much as love, and stranger still, they never point out the dating sim connection. It felt strange how the nosy princess Nanami Knight Braidfield (Kido Ibuki) didn’t even bat an eye at such a strange term such as “flags”. Either way, your mileage may vary – it’s a pretty silly setup, and it doesn’t seem as well suited to its world as Noucome’s Absolute Choice was, but it has some potential.

The Cart Before The Horse

The entire episode I felt like they were expecting us to care about these characters earlier than we were given reason to – but only by a few minutes. When Nanami dragged Souta up to the rooftop and started laying into him, he went all broody anti-hero with his “nobody should be close to me” schtick, and I just couldn’t care about it yet. Then we heard that the shipwreck – of which he was the only survivor – was just the other day, and I felt like he should be far more messed up than he was! By the end of the episode I kind of liked him – his concerns appear well-founded, and he’s likable enough – but it feels like the order was reversed.

A similar thing happened with ditsy ojou-sama Mahogasawa Akane (Kayano Ai). She was spending so much time forcing herself on Souta that it made him feel like a typical harem lead who nets girls with no effort, and that was annoying – until we find that she actually just saw the sadness in him and wanted to help him for her own selfish reasons. Better, even if that friendship flag turned into a love flag by the end of the episode. The cart was before the horse, but once the horse caught up it all worked out decently enough.

Looking Ahead – Death Flags, & Super Death Flags

For a series based around the idea of “flags”, I’d expect love flags to be the main focus, but we had an awful lot of death flags show up this episode. How Souta managed to overwrite Akane’s death flag with a “conquered” love flag was convenient to the extreme, but that big, super death flag over Souta’s head is the one thing that actually has me interested. Him being all broody and wanting to be alone has pretty much been taken care of, but that flag hints at something else going on here. I wonder what it will be, and that more than anything else is why I think I’ll continue watching this, at least for a few episodes more.

I don’t have any plans to continue blogging this series, but I’ll probably be watching it, so check in with me on twitter if you want to discuss. Thanks for reading!

tl;dr: @StiltsOutLoud – Unlimited Flag Breaker meets his match in the girl without flags & the one with way too many #gaworare 01

Random thoughts:

  • I’m calling this now – Nanami is going to be special because she doesn’t display flags, and that’s why she’ll be the end girl. I haven’t read the source material, but to quote a certain Capturing God, “I can see the ending!”
  • Speaking of, she’s the 13th Braidfield princess? Of 10 princes and 14 princesses?! DAMN! Stop having kids, King-san.

Check out my blog about storytelling and the novel I’m writing at stiltsoutloud.com. The last four posts: Useful lies; Missing the point; You don’t get credit for the words you don’t write; and Right, not best.

Full-length images: 19, 25.

 

ED Sequence

ED: 「彼女がフラグを立てる理由」 (Kanojo ga Flag wo Tateru Riyuu) by YELL (Kido Ibuki, Kayano Ai, Asumi Kana, Hanazawa Kana, Hikasa Yoko, Suwa Ayaka)

Preview

End Card

33 Comments

      1. *nods, nods*

        She counts as insane even measured in terms of your average anime Student Council President. It’s that bad. (well, depends on your definition of “bad”…)

        NKNKN
  1. Wooo so many good series this season :3 Really love this series, I really am looking forward to souta’s death flag and how he’ll over write his own death flag. But anyways, looking forward next episode for the trap! :3

    TrapMaster
  2. Looks fun, but the fast pacing does make it feel like they have the cart before the horse. Being adapted from a novel, they’ve obviously stripped out a lot of details (the manga adaptation of this was slightly better than this anime IMO :p). Nonetheless, the voices are great XD. Ibuki Kido has not had a good major role for a short while, and this looks to be a decent one for her. Ai Kayano seem to be having lots of fun with this role XD. I’m going to enjoy this a lot even if the pacing might not be to my liking, as this has a good list of very quirky characters with a list of popular seiyuus (Kana Asumi, Kana Hanazawa, Youko Hikasa, Aoi Yuuki, … etc) voicing them :p.

    x
  3. Haven’t found my go to “get drunk and giggle for 30 minutes” show yet this season, but this one looks promising in that regard 😛

    My sides are still recovering from that face in picture 42.

    Pancakes
  4. While this episode was definitely rushed, I couldn’t help but be a little intriged by it. Didn’t expect it would get as serious as it did, as I imagined generic harem antics when I heard the premise. I’m not sure whether this show will actually manage to work out its plot to a satisfying degree, but the potential is there.

    I’m going to give it a few more episodes, anyway.

    Dvalinn
  5. A lot of the WTF? moments in this episode are due to lots of stuff being cut out, storylines being altered, and material being compressed into something as dense as a neutron plot-star. 1 teaspoon contains 10 volumes of plot. @_@

    And the whole newspaper thing is just WTF-worthy. I don’t care that the accident happened a few days ago (which is a whole other problem in exposition), but, “I JUST SO HAPPEN TO HAVE THIS NEWSPAPER, RIGHT HERE IN MY BLAZER,” is just too weird.

    I’ll keep watching, because I enjoy the source material, but my expectations are being adjusted accordingly.

    s_w
    1. I would expect so, but still. That King needs to keep it in his pants, lol

      Also I’m pretty sure Europe is out of polygamist monarchs, or most monarchs period. But that’s another thing entirely.

      Stilts
  6. I didn’t find Noucome enjoyable at all. It seemed like the god(s) were just toying with the main character for sport (and nasty ones that that) DNF. Here the MC has precognition of events to some degree so he has a chance to influence the course of events by either breaking or changing flags. What you might do in RL only with the ability to see peoples intentions and possible outcomes. Nanami is a ultra tsundere but I think I’m going to like her (and hope she’s the winner). Akane is wacky, but she’s growing on me. If all the girls are as sweet and interesting as these two, I think I’m really going to enjoy this even if it is a very “light” desert.

    Bear
  7. First there was Noucome, then there was Nourin, and now there is…NOFLAG! Keep it coming, the more comedy the better!

    I was starting to see Souta as an upgraded version of Hachiman a little bit. I can’t put a finger on who Nanami is like without trying, but Akane is basically Yuuouji Ouka from Noucome.

    Hook, Line and Sold!

    magoiichi
  8. God I loved the episode…
    “Irresistible force (flag breaker) meets immovable object (regenerating friendship flags)”
    And then it gets only better with love flag (“conquered”, no less…) and mega-death flag on MC himself.
    Also I love the inquisitive princess.

    ewok40k
  9. I have to say this was so much better then the pre-air was, they cleaned up the art and animation nicely and the subs were so much better albiet only about 2 more minutes of episode (excluding ED and Preview).

    In regard to the MC’s flag rather than a death flag I think it’s a misfortune flag.

  10. Despite warnings from various people on the Internet over this show, I actually found it kinda silly in a fun way. It looks to be light-hearted for most part, except when it came to the reminiscing of Souta and Akane and those death flags.

    Judging from the ending and episode preview, things will probably get a lot crazier with the harem setting, not that I’m complaining. No way this is a heavy hitter of a show, but for some laughs after a stressful day, this isn’t too bad.

    Owaranai
  11. i have read the manga, but the anime is really fast paced, or it really that way? and at the first haf there’s already the oh-so-touching scene where the heroine wants to be shujinko’s friend

    and the anime wasn’t mentioning that shota can’t see a flag on that heroine o.O

    Shiro

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