Posted by OP Sequence
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OP: 「Baby universe day」 by 内田彩 & 合田彩 (Uchida Aya & Gouda Aya)
Watch the OP!: Mirror 1, Mirror 2, Streaming ▼
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Summary:
25 years after Éclair and Lumière used their powers to stop the explosion of a planet, cadet partners Ascoeur and Q-feuille are working in the cafe of the Galactic Trade Organization’s main office on the planet Aineias. Ascoeur is a bit over-eager, naive, and clumsy while Q-feuille is the level-headed one. On this particular day, Ascoeur gets into an argument with her manager over her wearing bloomers, and Ascoeur inadvertently takes them off right in front of GTO Chief Hiver. She goes on to realize that she accidentally took off her underwear as well, but before she can do anything about it, assassins who are after Chief Hiver show up. Ascoeur jumps into action and manages to defeat the assassins, but they then combine their armor into a mechanical dragon. Ascoeur’s attack on the dragon’s head causes it to go berserk, and she’s forced to ride it throughout the GTO building, causing tons of damage in the process. She’s eventually able to cut it in half, and the guards finish it off and go on to arrest the assassins. In the aftermath, Ascoeur and Q-feuille are scolded by Chief Hiver inside her ruined office, but ES members Trixie and Troisienne see promise in them.
ED Sequence
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ED: 「太陽と月」 (Taiyou to Tsuki) by 内田彩 (Uchida Aya)
Watch the ED!: Mirror 1, Mirror 2, Streaming ▼
I didn’t mind the opening so that much, but the ending song didn’t sit well with me, mostly because I spent most of the episode being annoyed at Ascoeur’s voice and didn’t want to hear more. Also, the OP animation sequence looked like it was just clips from the first few episodes, which means that it’s probably not the real OP. I assume there’s either something in the real OP they don’t want revealed yet, or they just haven’t finished animating it yet.
I’m not going to mince any words here: this was not a good first episode. There wasn’t much plot to start, and they instead tried for humor, fanservice, and action. The problem is that they failed with all of those. The action was just silly and impossible to take seriously given the panties thing and given how you could tell immediately that these weren’t really threatening bad guys (e.g. they shot into a room full of people and didn’t hit anyone). What really annoyed me though was Uchida Aya‘s voicing of Ascoeur. It’s bad enough that she’s so air-headed, but her voice actually made me shudder, and I had to pause multiple times because I couldn’t stand listening to it for extended periods. I really hope Q-feuille plays a bigger part in the future just so that Ascoeur doesn’t get so many lines.
On the plus side – and this is the main reason I’m probably going to give this series a second chance – the animation and characters were very attractive. Satelight does a good job animating Kadonosono Megumi‘s character designs, and despite the aforementioned silly feel, the action at least looked nice. I guess the other potentially promising thing about the series it that Éclair and Lumière were shown in the beginning and could come back still since what happened to them afterward is unknown, and I highly doubt they were killed off like that. The question is if I can last through the series to get to that point. Hopefully next episode will be a little more promising than this one.
Hmmm looks pretty good so far, I’ll see what ep 2 is like ^^
Their old men! No, they’re hot young baddies in underwear! No, their armour clad fighters with incredibly bad aim using automatics! o_O I personally liked ‘Oscar-roos’ shooting strategy; if you’re vision is impaired by smoke, and you can’t see the enemy, randomly shoot tranquilizers in all directions.
Well, the first Kiddy Grade episode was something like this. I think.
Meh. How unimpressive. /still upset about ascoeur
but sadly our favourite character die or MIA?
I thought this ep was pretty bad too… visually it looked pretty good and I’m going to stick with it to see if they manage to actually pull out a plot but I felt like this episode just failed me. The fights were kinda meaningless/obviously not going to have any plot relevance or challenge to the main characters… kinda like naruto/bleach filler.
The episode goes from ‘keep my eyes glued’, then to ‘huh what the?’ and finally ‘hey not bad’. The first half of the episode, besides scenes where Eclair and Lumiere were on (god I missed those two…), was kinda okay with silly humor once in the while. The second half attracted me quite a bit. Ascoeur and Q-feuille looked kinda similar to Eclair and Lumiere, just the opposite. I kept on imagining Ascoeur as Eclair in Lumiere’s body and Q-fuille Lumiere in Eclair’s body. Or maybe it’s just me…
man aren’t this show boring as hell? i don’t see the point to even make another season.
I have been waiting for the 2nd season since 2003! Glad I can finally see a continuation 🙂 Keep blogging please~!!
Ohh… I never dreamed of seeing this…. I think this was long overdue. Now cross my finger it doesn’t do anything to piss me off. 🙂
I remember Kiddy Grade (I don’t want to, but it scarred me)
It was the most vile, putrid thing I saw that year. Won’t watch this drivel either.
Looks interesting but Ascoeur is getting on my nerve.. >_< Eto, may I know what happen to the past ES member Dextera & Sinistra? Cause some of the former characters are still there.. @_@
Please keep blogging this. Thank you very much~ ^_^
i liked kiddy grade. this was a horrible start to its sequel. the ES members at the end reminded me of Eclair and Lumiere; same hair colors and the blue haired one sounded like Lumiere. all through out Ascoeur’s fight scenes, i could imagine Lumiere saying: “girls should be elegant.” =P
Ugh, I don’t want two new chicks. Bring back Eclair and Lumiere. -_-
I rather enjoyed the first series in a “Mindless-Action-Pretty-Animation” kind of way. But if Eclair and Lumiere aren’t even in this new series, then screw it.
Kiddy Grade was shit, plain old shit. It had no plot, the characters goofed off too much & that ending was terrible. But sadly it was a good anime for that season. I’ll give this a chance, but right now its near the bottom of my list of things to stick with.
“Troyes” Jeanne…in italian sounds like “bitches” Jeanne…lol
How much would I need to know about the first series to understand and enjoy this one?
ah, the easily-recognizable Wakamoto Norio narration 😀
I have to agree that this first episode was pretty bad.
Ascoeur’s voice did get on me, especially the ending song. And, comparing it to the original Kiddy Grade which I actually enjoyed a lot, as of right now the original opening song and ending, plus the show’s story and characters trumps Kiddy GiRL AND at this moment.
But, I’m with OMNI on this that like with the original Kiddy Grade, the animation is probably it’s only saving grace now and I hope that the story improves by the second episode and thereafter.
Because as I see it, the only animes I’m watching this season are:
– Seitokai no Ichizon – So surprised how funny and enjoyable this anime is. Chizuru is just creepy after seeing the last episode, and watching Kurimu is incredibly fun especially with all the memes, anime tie-ins and references, it’s probably the sleeper hit of the season.
– Kampfer – The idea of a love triangle with 2 people being the same person makes me curious on which side of Senou is going to end up with the girl in the end. XD
– To Aru Kagaku no Railgun – All I can say is: FIGHT ON KUROKU! FIGHT ON! lol. Plus, it’s pretty fun series even if the fanservice can get a bit distracting from the plot much.
– Kobato – On the fact that it’s made by CLAMP is more than enough reason to watch it. And, I need some light-hearted comedy and Kobato’s innocence is fun to watch.
hmmm? really? well, it cant be worse than kampfer.. NO SERIOUSLY, it just can’t be.
Hey, what’s wrong with Kampfer? 😛
(Looks like I’ll have to do a better job showing it in a better light down the stretch.)
As for KIDDY GiRL-AND, I haven’t seen the original but felt this first episode was pretty silly just like Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo. The latter got surprisingly good later on, so I’m inclined to give KGA a few more episodes. Both series have that same look/feel, along with a jam-packed cast — Fukuyama Jun, Yukana, Matsuoka Yuki, Mizuhashi Kaori, Kuwatani Natsuko, Ishida Akira, Shiraishi Minoru, and Hirano Aya to name a few.
Sweet, glad you’re giving blogging KG-A a chance.
Oh god Ascoeur’s voice almost killed me. I think my ears are still ringing D:
Q-feuille looks like one of Eclair’s alt forms.
Kiddy Grade was epic. Nice humour, great action scenes, GREAT drama, great plot twists, and NOT silly.
This one is plain silly. Silly, air-headed, high-pitch character, unbearable okama (oh God, why must they put a freakin’ okama in there?!?!?!), extremely repetitive (boring) jokes, stupid bad guys, etc.
I don’t think this new series will ever match the glories of the first season. No more political drama, plot twists, super villain, etc. While Kiddy Grade started out kinda episodic (but NOT silly), the series quickly improved starting from the episode where Eclair was holding back an entire angry mob by herself.
@ Nalface
Ok, so how many episode of this series did you watch already? One right? Well, the first episode of the original series was not that great either. It was just plain silly. It got to the good stuff starting around episode 6 or 7. So.. just wait and see.
I find blanket claims of KG-A’s silliness to be highly amusing. KG had an almost identical first episode, and look at the story and depth it managed. Don’t count your damn chickens.
I liked the girl with the silver hair better than the pink haired girl who replaced her.
@ Nia
You and everyone else.
Isn’t that an older Eclair and Lumiere in the OP from around -50 to -47 (in the streaming version)?
@ Magical Poof
They’re in the OP, but it’s just a cutout of the part from the start of the episode where they’re in space from 25 years ago.
KG’s first ep *was* pretty lame but it was nowhere as idiotic as this was. How long did that awful bloomers scene last? And the moronic stand-off that resulted from the other girl just standing there like a dummy? And the “I could die here but all I can think about is my missing panties!” “fight” scene?
What made KG tolerable in the first few eps was that Eclair wasn’t an airheaded moron and the show’s fan service came from her being a flirty, mature chick who knew what the hell she was doing.
Ascoeur can’t hold this show the way Eclair held KG unless she’s hiding some serious not-“oopsie!* type kickass in that flippy skirt and they tone down the obvious and painful loli-pantsu -wannabe crap. Can’t us non-lolis get a decent show anymore? It ain’t this one, it seems 🙁
@ Puppy
Perhaps that’s why they’re not ES members yet? I mean, she was scolded exactly for just that. Not being patient enough or think far ahead enough.
@ Nia
Yeah, I prefer the original silver haired girl more. She seems much more mature and calm. I guess the reason why the changed is that both her and Q-Feullie would be somewhat boring as they were not genki enough if I’m clear enough.
@Silver
Yep, I’ve only watched *one* episode of KGA, but it’s an educated guess of how it’ll turn out. Sure, it might turn out to be better than KG, but I’m not going to hold my breath.
While KG was kinda repetitive at the start, it did not stoop to this level of shameless comedy. It was hard/almost impossible, to tell which direction KG would’ve gone. KGA, on the other hand, has already used
* chibi characters
* Okama
* moe, air-headed, loli heroine
* bad guys who summons a dragon by sacrificing their clothes
At least the original characters are portrayed well in KGA.
“The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised”. –George F. Will
p.s., what WOULD be a pleasant surprise is if Ascoeur and Q-feuille are really Eclair and Lumiere with amnesia, or copies of them. But I doubt it.
“The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised”
and that nobody can stand you.
@ Nia
What ZTS said about that is pretty universal.
This looks like it’s trying to be like Sora Wo Kakeru Shoujo but from the sound of it is not quite emulating it’s ability to appeal in spite of it’s silliness due to it’s uncanny self-awareness. In any case who wants to bet this one turns serious around the halfway point.
I’ll place my bets when the number of episodes are announced (has it?).
One thing for sure though:
It’s going to be really hard to walk into a store, and ask the sales lady for the “Kiddy Girl-and” dvd box set, when it gets released.
I remember walking into a video store and asking for the Kiddy Grade box set. Should’ve seen the sales lady’s eyes widen, and the long (and sudden) silent pause in the store, before she quietly asked me what the show was about. Told her it was Japanese. Gasps around the shop (till now, I still don’t know why). Told her it was an anime/cartoon. Sighs of relief and “oh”s. She smiled and asked me if it was a kids show. I said no. And we’re back to the silent, judgmental staring again.
Now imagine asking for “Kiddy GIRL and”.
Hey, you know what? I think I *do* like this series after all. 😛
How I wished that those new characters were replaced by Eclair and Lumiere after 3 or so 4 eps. Okay, let them stay as unimportant background characters. Or a timeskip with a way more mature Ascoeur.
The animation wasn’t so bad but… Well the animation wasn’t so bad…
I think i stop commenting any further…*sigh*
@ Nalface
You should have said it was for teens then that would probably been okay.
“if Ascoeur and Q-feuille are really Eclair and Lumiere with amnesia”
No way! I just don’t think that could be! However, we’re not the writers so they could do anything.
Anyway, being pessimistic all the time won’t always give you benefits. It sometimes make you judge things too harshly when it’s not needed.
The only thing I can’t accept is Ascoeur’s comb…how the hell can she grab it with two hands???
A sequel to Kiddy Grade?! Sick. Gonna go look for the first episode. Thanks!
Reminds me of the start where Lumiere and Eclaire are working the front desk, that series didn’t start fleshing out till episode 6 or so and even then it didn’t really get working till the girls all had boob jobs.
Like the characters, like the stupid comedy, like more or less everything about it. This season however is pretty full of light watching, I can’t think of anything that’s caught my eye that’s particularly deep, clever, challenging, etc…
however I don’t like the comb – but then Eclaire had lipstick that turned into a monofiliment whip so what the hell.
is this how there going to continue kiddy grade they look like some of the cast but younger
Megumi Kadonosono’s designs are sooo AWESOME~!
Sadly that’s probably the only thing this show has going for it atm. Seems like they traded the epic plot twists and story line of the original for brain-dead MOE MOE fan service to make it more marketable to your avg anime consumer today. You can see the direction they want to take this just with the theme songs alone (ugh, sickening). A tragedy really, but it seems to be the general direction of anime these days.
I will stick around for later episodes because of the artwork. I hope this series proves me wrong or else i would have wasted 6 years of anticipation.
kiddy grade was and stil is one of my top favourites (eclair and lumiere were amazing…..miss dem sooooo much) but when i first saw this Ep i was like WTF!!! and to c that eclair and lumiere aren’t the main characters just broke my heart…….fortunately Trixie and Troiseinne resemble ALOT of them (even the dress, hair and character style) im gonna give KGA a few more eps