Posted by OP Sequence
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OP: 「カワルミライ」 (Kawaru Mirai) by ちょうちょ (Choucho)
Watch the OP!: Streaming ▼
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「彼女について知っている二、三の事柄」 (Kanojo ni Tsuite Shitteiru Ni, San no Kotogara)
“Two, Three Things You Should Know About Her”
J.C. Staff’s latest adaptation kicks off with an hour-long special, providing ample time to introduce the premise and characters, and wrap up the first case so that we have a better idea of what this series entails. As I described in the Summer 2011 Preview, transfer student Fujishima Narumi (Matsuoka Yoshitsugu) gets introduced to self-proclaimed NEET detective Alice (Ogura Yui) by his classmate Shinozaki Ayaka (Kayano Ai), and winds up helping her and other fellow NEETS Tetsu (Matsukaze Masaya), “Shousa” (Miyata Kouki), Hiro (Sakurai Takahiro), and “Yondaime” (Ono Daisuke) solve cases together. He initially stumbles on a request they’re working on, involving a senior, Kimura Miku (Ise Mariya), who appears to be a schoolgirl prostitute. However, after Alice preaches to Narumi about how a NEET detective is different, searching the world for the truth and acting as messengers of the dead, we soon find out that Miku’s actually searching her missing friend Sakuma Shouko (Sakura Harumi, Yuri in Angel Beats), and is accompanied by Shouko’s boyfriend, Teraoka Satoshi (Okitsu Kazuyuki). Before Alice can consider the case closed, they have to find Shouko.
It all sounds straightforward enough, but the portrayal of the darker side of urban society helps distinguish Alice’s efforts from that of a mere shut-in trying to kill time. The ambiance contrasts heavily with J.C. Staff’s other adaptation that only dealt with goofy requests, Ookami-san, whereas the more serious subject matter is pretty engrossing once they get closer to solving the case. Over the course of the episode, I actually became increasing more interested in the outcome of the truth behind Shouko’s disappearance than the characters themselves, which was surprising considering that this is the very first episode. That was largely attributed to how the story kept dropping clues along the way to keep me speculating, something that I felt GOSICK lacked in its own mysteries. It’s always more fun when I have a better idea of what might be going on, regardless of whether or not I’m correct in the end. The twists along the way made it even better, like when Miku revealed that there’s an uglier side to the Shouko whom she absolutely adored, brought about by the expectations of her highly successful parents.
In a lot of ways, Kamimemo is reminiscent of Shigofumi, which is a good sign since I was hoping for something similar. Thus far, the mystery aspect has shown a fair bit of promise with its unsettling developments, but that doesn’t mean the characters themselves are particularly dull. I compared Alice and Narumi to Victorique and Kazuya in the preview, and still feel it’s valid given how Alice prides herself on her intelligence but is really weak physically. She also maintains a superior air most of the time, yet quickly regresses to a little girl and starts tearing up when some really trivial things happen, such as when her chopsticks didn’t break cleanly and the when ear on her teddy bear came off. Narumi on the other hand just gets caught up in her pace and is too nice to refuse even though he’ll complain, much like when Ayaka had him join her gardening club in exchange for joining his computer club, which they’re were both sole members of. The two of them have an interesting character dynamic, and one I’m not entirely tired of seeing just yet. Mixing it up is ramen store owner Min (Nabatame Hitomi), who helps inject a lot of the lighthearted moments.
I wouldn’t say I’m completely sold on this series from the first episode alone, but I am left with a more positive impression than its manga counterpart. I still would’ve liked to hear the drama CD cast, though I can’t really say the relatively green one that replaced it is all that bad. In fact, I find myself more and more interested in hearing how Ogura Yui plays Alice in various situations. (She sure loves her Dr. Pepper, i.e. Dokupe.) In any case, I definitely plan to keep watching, especially with the catchy opening theme by Nico Nico singer Choucho.
* Note: I’m covering this first episode for Prooof. Assuming the show interests him, he’ll be picking it up from episode two onwards, which won’t be airing until July 15th on Tokyo MX. AT-X is taking a break next week, so Tokyo MX will be the first station to air Kamimemo going forward.
ED Sequence
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ED: 「Colorado Bulldog」 by MR. BIG
Watch the ED!: Streaming ▼
Preview
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omg look at all those referenced anime! I’m surprised there was not Hanasaku Iroha.
The artist is the same isn’t it? Those gradient tones are unmistakable. :}
Yes, the character designer for both is Kishida Mel. His art is pretty nice.
Kishida Mel is a girl! lol
Kishida Mel is a male, a lolicon at that. lol
hmmm…. Interesting. That explains why this series caught my interest.
Although the actions of the characters might be out of place, the animation seems to follow their actions really well. Well, i have high expectations for this series.
An ED sequence by Mr.Big o_o? Those guys are freakin’ dinosaurs (kinda). Still though, I really liked the OP and ED, and it was a pretty decent first episode.
if only air this 48min a week then that would be awesome.
Hey Divine, do you think Dokupe = Dr. Pepper
It is. I already mentioned that in the post. Dokutaa Peppaa -> Dokupe.
lol, Didn’t see that one. Thx.
I’ve never had one, how’s the taste ?
wow, thanks fo dat Shigofumi clickable text. I completely forgot it’s existence.
The ending song actually is a small trivia toward a small quirk in the main story later. Not gonna spoil it though.
Really enjoyed that first episode. Very clever dialogue by Alice and a generally nice look for a JC Staff show (so far). I got a lot of the obvious that Divine mentioned, but for me it felt like equal parts Gosick, EotE and Durarara with characters from HanaIro…
I thought this show didn’t air until next week?
I added a note about that in the season preview:
Early Premiere: July 2, 2011 at 23:00 on AT-X
Regular Premiere: July 8, 2011
Also, as Justin mentioned earlier, Part B isn’t actually posted online anywhere as far as I can tell? Twas wondering if you knew where part B was out already?
Thanks
Are you referring to subs? I watched it raw and it’s been out for a good while now.
When I’m watching it on watchanimeon ,it was really different-when I’m looking for those pictures. Where did you everyone watch it ?
I don’t get it …. :/
_EDIT_ or maybe I watched part A? .. aynone don’t know here to watch part B ?
Part B is being processed right now from what I’ve heard. It was split from the actual 48 minutes.
Is it me or is DrP. trying to market itself to anime crowd via product placement? (Smart people drink it… Steins Gate, and now this)
I really liked it, with both Shigofumi vibes and modern day Victorique equivalent.
So, I have a bunch of questions:
-Does the 48 minutes cover the whole of episode 1 or episodes 1 and 2?
-If it’s all one episode are they all going to be that length?
-Did you Divine cover the whole 48 minutes or the first part that’s released online?
Thanks 🙂
Only the first episode is one hour long (i.e. 48 minutes). It’s considered episode one alone, not episode one and two. I covered the entire hour here.
48 minutes= entire pilot episode, split into parts A and B, normal episodes will be +-24 minutes long, divine covered entire 48 minutes, part A ends arouns screencap #22
sorry for this dumb question, but where can i find part B? i’ve only seen part A and it left me hanging…
still in the subbing pipeline, i guess…
For all those asking, EveTaku has subbed the whole episode. I don’t have any personal experience with their subs, but I’ve heard nothing but good things regarding them.
Their translations were fine in A-Channel from what I saw (which is the most important thing as far as I’m concerned). They also seem to be using Japanese-provided raws, which have been filtered to remove the watermarks (another plus).
Yeah, I was quite pleased with it after watching. I was an English major, so I’m a huge stickler for good word choice and grammar. Though there were a few little problems here and there, overall it was miles better than most fansubs.
as long as if’s jc staff no questions asked i will definitely watch
are the two main characters going to fall for each other?
Who knows? even manga is scanslated only at 5th chapter, so no big spoilers for once – unless someone has been reading novels that is…
Also, I see more of a dynamic between protagonist and his schoolmate from the gardening club.
Plus, hated the typical, but out of place lack of logic. A female friend barges in and starts to disrobe Alice, when situation dawns of them – blame the male! Alice you are supposed to be logical detective!
He has not much presence? No way to this level…
Still it was lol. and he got free Dokupe from that 😛
Crossing my fingers for this show to not fail!
Alice voice sucks awfully. Really. I’m sorry for Ogura, but her voice doesn’t fit the greatness of Alice. Her screams when the ear of her bear teared off or on the last fanservice scene almost make me puke. I mean it.
Give the drama cd a try. Minako Kotobuki voice and acting fits the character almost perfectly.
Maybe it isn’t an issue for a starter of kamimemo, but after reading the 6 volumes of the novel, Ogura Yui’ acting seems a sacrilege to poor Alice.
Anyway, I have to say that from the 6 novels the more boring case was the 2nd volume, Meo’s case. So i’m very sad to see the scene of Meo washing Alice’ hair on the preview. What’s with Meo? They did the same with the manga, starting from the 2nd volume case, and its boring. It’s not something I would do if I want to attract attention of the audience.
I would prefer it to stick to the first volume, give an hour special making us love Ayaka and then finish it godlike with her “accident” 😀 That has a better shock effect.
Anyway, maybe they like to start with Meo’s case because she’s a young, cute thai girl, wanting to marry his father and has some provocative dialogues with Narumi. Plus Narumi and Hiro wandering with 風俗 girls. In other words, room for fanservice -___-
Overall this episode gave me a good 1st impression of the series: the plot touches on social problems, Alice’s sidekicks are all competent and has some depth of their own, Alice so far has been likable, I especially like her habits to speak precisely and with great details, as it’s a habit I commonly see with nerds in real life. In comparison, the characters are a great improvements from the inanity of those of Gosick, the mystery of the last season: Victorique is a blatant God Mode Sue/Black Hole Sue, Kazuya is whiny and spineless and acts more like Victorique’s pet dog than anything, the other characters are plain stupid or silly and their displays of intelligence (or lack thereof) merely serve to emphasize how superior Victorique’s was. However, I don’t like the way Alice solved this case. From a bunch of random information about a girl’s life, social connections and emotional struggles, she made the farfetched conclusion that said girl had committed suicide, her boyfriend was hiding her corpse, and he approached her kouhai to know his girlfriend better than what he’d seen of her when she had been alive ? I’m sorry, what ? I don’t call that problem-solving, that was outright script-hacking. Where has the good time of Case Closed and Kindaichi’s case files gone, when readers/watchers are shown every clue to the mystery, and the detective’s solution doesn’t looke like an ass pull ? Unless KamiMemo can fix that, I doubt I can see this series rank high in my watch list.
I don’t know. I’d actually argue the exact opposite. In fact, if anything, this entire arc was completely predictable the second that flashback between the two girls was revealed. Stress caused by unrealistic expectations caused her to do stupid stuff (i.e. prostitution) but it wasn’t enough to help her, so it would ultimately lead to suicide. The only problem with the whole thing is that anybody should have seen this result coming from a mile away. A completely preventable death. Then again, there are no counselors in Japan, it seems.
The bigger problem I have is with the male lead. Narumi, or whatever his name is. At no point did he actually try to move on his own. He simply got dragged along. That’s great and all, but these people act like he is the appointed one, the way they reacted to him when introduced. I guess I was hoping for something along the lines of DRRR! or Baccano.
Perhaps two high a bar to set?
Logically, there is good trail of evidence… self-destructive actions – down to saying own real name to prostitution clients, and final proof was boyfriend buying large quantities of ice…
Even I’ve would have gone to the same conclusion given these facts.
What is saddest is that not her obviously loving boyfriend, nor her female kouhai managed to break the vicious downward spiral and save that beautiful, smart girl form death.
I don’t think predictability was necessarily bad in this case. Like I mentioned, they dropped enough clues to give us a pretty good idea of what might have happened, but that only served as a hook that kept us watching to see if we were right.
I was thinking suicide as well, but I wasn’t expecting Satoshi to be trying to preserve Shouko’s corpse in his bathtub, nor him and Miku to be searching for her and pretending that she’s still alive. That’s the eerie twist at the end that made the whole viewing experience feel worthwhile.
Our mileage vary, then. Even with those so-called self-destructive evidences, from those to conclusion of her suicide is still a long way. The conclusion I would have gone to first is that Shouko had run far away: giving out her real name, leaving behind her works, her desperation with her current life… can also suggest she wanted to leave behind her old self, crushed and broken apart under pressure. That her boyfriend bought a lot of ice ? Well, THAT’s a better evidence (of her committing suicide and he knowing it), but I believe she still needed to investigate more before jumping to the conclusion. Like, at least try to make sure that he doesn’t use the ice for anything else other than preserving a corpse.
But looking back, I admit it didn’t seem so outrightly like a script hack, now. Still, a lot of points seemed to have been skipped. This series still needed to work them out better.
Modern wellspring of wisdom victoricaaaa adaptation.
This op episode felt like it had quite a bit of potential for me. It wasn’t on the edge of my seat wanting to know what would happen next, but I didn’t feel like it was extra long episode as I started to get into the mystery as well as it went on. I’m hoping the rest of the series improves from here.
Also, I lol’d at the point when the guys were so amazed at Narumi’s 1337 computer skills xD
think a bunch of goblins amazed by some visiting lvl 1 wizard casting a magic missile…
those guys would not ask what does a big red button on weapon given to them
I liked the first episode, the show seems interesting.
…but the ED sequence blatantly rips off the OP of the TV drama “Keizoku” (^^’)
For some reason emotion, be it sad or distasteful(prostitution) or happiness, it is all magnified in anime’s I watch compared to how moving it is in regular non animated movies or shows. I wonder why.
great op
Will the regular premiere still air this episode?
Yes it will, hence why I said the second episode won’t be airing until the July 15th.
OMG CHOUCHO CHOUCHO!!! Appreciate you mentioning her since I didn’t even realize at first.
Pretty good impression for the first episode. Compared to GOSICK I might even end up liking it more since its easier to relate to, time period/mysteries and all. I tend to not really care for the mystery genre so I’m more excited for how the characters will develop. I’m really liking Alice’s character so far. I think they should do the whole one hour special thing more often.
And seriously :Q___ at the art. And character’s like Alice are just the types of I love to draw. Let’s hope that the show goes well and keeps improving.
Narumi reminds me of a mix between Ryuugamine from Durarara (he doesn’t stand out too much, but has more to himself than one sees at first), Neku from The World Ends With You and Kyon from Haruhi (Neku for his unsocial personality, Kyon for having to be the only straight man in a group of weirdos, both for easily being forced to go along with said weirdos whims).
Narumi is a male lead in the great tradition of such leads as Kyon and Kyosuke: dragged into an interesting world in spite of themselves.
I liked the 1st ep, will at least be picking up the next ep, unless ive forgoten bout it by the time it comes out =(
nice to see u about devine 😀
DIVINE* urrghh *crawls back into his hole*
Holy crap, Choucho! It’s really nice to see talented Nico singers and composers go professional.
Excellent episode. They really didn’t have to put the fanservice scene at the end, but the rest was an excellent mystery solved by the NEET detective. The dialogue and animation were great.
Since this one seems interesting I decided not to read your post until I watch it…I hope you didn’t hate it.
Characters are interesting, and a strong start for the series. Hope they can keep things interesting upto the end. A few shows from last season started off strong, but really didn’t deliver after a couple episodes in.
The character design of the shop manager Min reminds me of the policewoman in Railgun.
Why does it feels like GOSICK set in modern days? Oh! The gifted yet fragile loli detective with a taste for taste for Gothic clothes that can barely move from her place and has everybody around her on their toes for her many needs.
But apart from that, her personality, different kind of male lead, settings, and the variety of characters makes up for that big coincidence.
I’ll see it for the comedy and possible controversial themes for the cases: This take on prostitution was quite bold with all the moe and silly stuff going on. Still, I don’t really have too much hope to see some good mystery/detective plot.
I have been downright disappointed in J.C staff’s projects since Kaichou Maid Sama finished (even that one wasn’t THAT great by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a fun series). This episode is really the first series from J.C staff to impress me in a long, long time. Here’s to hoping they continue this form (a repeat of Yumeki Merry epic failings will cause massive rage from me!)
Their other project this season, Kaitou Tenshi Twin Angel, is just awful. It’s the first series I’ve dropped without even finishing the episode (of those that I though I would try out just to see how its like).
KamiMemo for this season then Shana III for Fall 2011 JC Staff is starting to step on the engines 🙂
Lookin good. Yes. Lookin good,
Crossing my fingers that this continues to deliver.
loves the diverse music in this
Can someone tell me why Miu was in jail at the end? From what I saw and heard she didnt have something to do with Shoukos death and didnt know Satoshi was hiding her corpse either.
And I dont think you get in jail because of compensated dating. Or do you? I mean as a women/girl. After all in Japan you can get in jail just for looking at a women/girl as a man.
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