Posted by OP Sequence
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OP: 「暁光」 (Gyouko) by (Half time Old)
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「雨宮夕日とトカゲの騎士」 (Amamiya Yuuhi to Tokage no Kishi)
“Amamiya Yuuhi and the Lizard Knight”
Well, that was a lackluster premiere-even the OP was low budget with re-play (or rather pre-plays) of the episode in the background. I can honestly say, there isn’t much I had to say or even notes to take for the premiere-I was expecting to at least have something more to talk about. In the manga, the story didn’t pick up for me until a bit later on, so I’m hoping the anime will catch my attention as the episodes go on. As a fan of the manga, I was disappointed the premiere couldn’t have gotten better treatment (and am also tormented by the regret that it wasn’t the mangaka’s other work, Spirit Circle, which is my favorite of his series).
The premise starts out with your rather standard “earth is in trouble and animal companion chooses a reluctant hero” sort of thing. In this case the Lizard Knight, Neu Crescent (Kenjirou Tsuda), chooses lackadaisical college student, Amamiya Yuuhi (Enoki Junya), as the knight who must (or rather, should) band together with the princess and the other knights to save the earth from the planet-crushing Biscuit Hammer. Amamiya is rather content to sit and let the earth go to hell until he gets roped in with the reward of a granted wish. Amamiya is not the most engaging of MCs to start out with, but he serves as a good foil for Asahina Samidare’s (Oozora Naomi) strong personality. I also find it ironic that the knight and princess chosen to save the world don’t actually want to save it. The story will get more into that later.
The comedy fell flat for me with tropey underskirt peeking- discourtesy of Amamiya’s telekinetic bubble. Not that you could see anything under such a long skirt anyway, which is supposed to be the humor of it, I guess. All that aside, it seems like a rather difficult power to use, with the bubble’s weight equal to supporting your own body weight. It’s nice that the power is one he has to grow into and not one that’s out of the box ready. What he gets out of it is only equivalent to what he puts in it. One part I did like was that the Princess is the one who saves the day. What an unusual princess she is- quite assertive and strong– giving the supposed knight a run for his money. She definitely doesn’t look like the gentle, gorgeous, well-mannered, healing-type girls who so often typify the hime-sama role in anime. We need more strong anime princesses and I am glad to see Asahina breaking the mold.
One thing that stuck out to me was the complementarity between Amimiya and Samidare’s names. Both names contain reference to rain. Amamiya means “Rainy Capital” and Samidare, “Early Summer Rain. The two characters also have references to capitals. The “miya” in Amamiya means “Capital” and Asahina’s name contains one of the Japanese characters used in the town name Nara, which was the Japanese capital in the 700’s. Very suitable for the princess character. There is also a contrast between them, with Yuuhi meaning “Evening Sun” and Asahina with the characters that mean “Morning sun”. Very poetic and descriptive of Samidare’s bright, strong personality overshadowing Yuuhi’s gloomier personality.
As for whether I’ll keep this series on my weekly timetable- I’ll probably still watch it, having read the manga. Here’s to hoping the anime adaptation gets better or at least doesn’t get worse!
ED Sequence
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ED: (Reflexion) by (SpendyMily)
Preview
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I have never read the Manga, so I can’t relate to your dissatisfaction with the first episode Princess Usagi. I found the artwork slightly different, kinda reminds me of Meitantei Conan (Case Closed) and I like it.
Although the first episode reminds me of the opening to Machikado Mazoku or Jashin Dropkick where it was immediate comedy right out of the gate. So I had a hard time of figuring out if this was a serious Show or not.
The manga was a serious series, so the anime should be as well-if it follows the source material closely (which I think that it will).
Not sure if there is a term for it, but it kinda felt like one of those series that takes it’s sillyness seriously if that makes any sense. (I mean, you got a talking lizard and a giant hammer?)
One of those things I never got around to reading (on the huge back list), so not a clue how faithful it was, but the first one wasn’t terrible.
I’d say it was pretty faithful to the story, at least, even though the execution could have been better. If you get the chance, you should definitely check out the manga!
Good episode, but the studio clearly is working with a very low budget. Not only the animation is barebones, but the opening and ending are pretty much some images with some Photoshop effects applied to them.
Still, they did a decent job with they had.
By the way, even the voice actors for both protagonists are not high quality. They sounded pretty amateurish to me. They got the job done, but I had the impression they are not professionals.
Yes, the low-budget quality was very disappointing. I don’t know that I would call Amamiya’s seiyuu (Enoki Junya) amateurish-he’s got quite a lot of experience under his belt, including big name roles like Itadori Yuuji in Jujutsu Kaisen and Rengoku Senjurou in Kimetsu no Yaiba. I think it just might be what Amamiya’s role was aiming for (a lackluster college guy).