Posted by OP Sequence
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OP: 「Believe My Dice」 by 江口 拓也, 寺島 拓篤, 松岡 禎丞, 柿原 徹也 (Takuya Eguchi, Takuma Terashima, Yoshitsugu Matsuoka, Tetsuya Kakihara)
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「第1柱 devil and realist」 (Dai Ichi-Hashira devil and realist)
“First Pillar: devil and realist”
I counted zero women in that premiere, when was the last time that happened?
I wasn’t really sure what to expect when I went into Makai Ouji. I’m the type of anime viewer who likes to keep premises short and sweet before venturing into a show, and I like being surprised. So when I heard “gothic-styled” and words like “demons” and “butlers” I immediately thought of a series like Kuroshitsuji. It turned out to be only a so-so comparison. Now I’ve never finished the latter so I can’t really talk too much about it, but compared to the premiere of that, Makai Ouji doesn’t seem to take itself very seriously at all. There’s a whole lot more slapstick humor here than I remember there being in shows of the vein of Black Butler, and the plot doesn’t seem nearly as critical as it is in those series either.
In fact, from the moment we’re introduced to William Twining (Eguchi Takuya), it’s clear this isn’t exactly a show with seriousness too high up on the priority list. William is a young noble who proclaims himself as possessing “brains worthy of being national treasures” and his reactions, along with the rest of the cast, including devil duke Dantalion (Terashima Takuma), are so ridiculously over the top that they make that earlier statement feel rather modest. William’s whole dilemma is merely that his rich Uncle has gone bankrupt and he can no longer afford his ritzy school education; even after he discovers his destiny as an “elector” for the devil crown, he refuses to take the whole escapade as reality, cementing his role as the “realist” amongst all the magic and weirdness around him.
Honestly, as an adaptation, I felt this could have been portrayed better. For one thing, this premiere felt weirdly paced; it is rushed in some places, leaving awkward pauses in dialogue and it generally has no room to stretch out with. There are also some issues with comic timing; it feels somewhat odd seeing those chibis and jokes thrown in there, and much of that odd feeling has to do with the fact that they’re not introduced very naturally. They just feel out of place the way they’re used, which is never a good way to start anything. There were also copious amounts of that signature shoujo atmosphere, but in this case I didn’t really feel like that contributed too well to the overall atmosphere. While it did work fine in some cases, such as those early homoerotic-styled close ups between Dantalion and Solomon, the consequential overdose (ie, the sparkly hug) makes even that difficult to take seriously (or even as stylistic). Perhaps it’s just me, but in general I just felt like this premiere was overstuffed with too much of everything and didn’t let itself establish any particular mood, except perhaps “silly”.
If that sort of comedy and shoujo fabulousness is your cup of tea though, then by all means, this is your stop to all things devils and tsundere, stubborn, narcissists. If things slow down a bit from here on and pace themselves better, it might actually turn out to be highly enjoyable for those of us still on the threshold.
Note: There are currently no plans to cover Makai Ouji on a weekly basis.
ED Sequence
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ED: 「a shadow’s love song」 by 江口 拓也, 寺島 拓篤, 松岡 禎丞, 柿原 徹也 (Takuya Eguchi, Takuma Terashima, Yoshitsugu Matsuoka, Tetsuya Kakihara)
Preview
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Didn’t actually noticed that there was no women in the premiere until you mentioned it, Kairi.
It does feel as though it’s too hurried when it could have slowed down to introduce the characters and story.
On the fence on this one.
Well, if you look closly at the OP, then you should see that there IS a women, but I am not spoiling who…….^^
next!
My replacement for Karneval and Kuroshitsuji all in one :)!
Just like some of the other first episodes from this season of anime, I really liked Makaouji and I’ll definitely be watching this!
That’s actually a good comparison. The “gothic-styled” is basically just the setting and atmosphere is more Carnival in nature.
In terms of female presence in 1st eps, Free! is looking more heterosexual than this show!;p
In b4 whining about THE GAAAAY.
I don’t see why ppl don’t like this show, I read all the chapters and
it has a great story line. Even though I’m a fan of yaoi it dosen’t mean
that I’m watching it for that reason, I’m watching it cuz it has a good
story and good characters, even my friends like it as well but it doesn’t
matter everyone has there own taste in shows.
I’d much rather have some yaoi undertones than to have a single bland audience surrogate girl who is worshipped by a majority of the male cast.
I thought it was interesting enough to watch a few more episodes. Not the best start of this season, but also far from the worst.
Otohime and a number of shojo dramas …. yeah…. Got over them really fast like 5 years in high school.
Thank god I put of watching High School DxD so i had some boobs to wake me up after this sausage party.
I don’t think it was too bad of a premiere. However, I’m on the fence about this one. I’m definitely going to need another episode to see if I’m going to follow this all the way through. This was one of the ones I was hyped about too, can only hope that episode 2 is better.
Well this was surprisingly funny (for me), if this continue at it is I’ll continue watching it.
this is actually very good and interesting……. until i found out there is no woman…
Its ironic that guys complain about having an all male-cast and yet when there’s a female protagonist they start to complaintoo. I’m guessing they want females to be stuck as secondary characters. Either ways, I’m on the fence with this too, despite me liking the genre, I can’t help but they added too much gag comedy in here at random moments. At least they did the fight justice…though 50% chance they did what a lot of producers do and make the first fight good and then the quality will start to dip after that. I’ll still watch it to see how it goes though.
Ah too bad that there is no plans for covering this serie! ( but still thanks for the first episode impression ) I’m reading manga, so I can be too critical about it, but am I the only one who is disappointed in animation? Especially the colors, which looks too emm blank? Ff the first episode isn not too polished, then I’m worried what will be in next episodes. I hope to not see any ‘derpy’ faces…
I felt the same, the story has great potential and there were some truly adorable moments but where’s the eye candy? I wish it was prettier and less derpy, a series like this needs good animation or it doesn’t really work. >:/ I’ll keep it probably but hopefully the art won’t go further downhill.
I’ve watched it twice now and I still can’t decide just how I feel about it. Oh second episode, here I come it seems…
All I can say is that Dantalion really cleaned up, house and image that is :p
I really don’t think Black Butler and D&R should be compared.
I love them both but still.
I feel sad that there has been too many shows of boy loves boy and very few of girl loves girl. the only one that I remember seeing is strawberry panic. shows such as mariasama ga miteru do not count because they are not yuri in my eyes because they are not sleeping together, kissing, etc and they all will marry a guy later on.