First Impressions / Mayoi Neko Overrun!

「迷い猫、笑った」 (Mayoi Neko, Waratta)
“Stray Cat, Laughed”

As much as I love AIC’s work here, I can’t help but feel they tried to cover a bit too much in one episode. Even with the formal introduction of Nozomi, there was just so much skipping around scene-wise that the humor never got to build up. For example, there was a pool scene to show the girls off in school bathing suits, but it didn’t even get so far as showing them getting into the water before jumping to the next scene. I won’t lie and say I didn’t enjoy it, but objectively speaking, it served absolutely no purpose whatsoever in the grand scheme of things. The saving grace for me this episode was Itou Kanae’s portrayal of Fumino in all her tsundere goodness, with everything from her Shimada Minami-like abusive nature to her dishonesty with herself. However, even Fumino’s antics weren’t enough and I had to look to Hocchan’s Minorin-like portrayal of classmate Naruko Kanae for a bit of comic relief.

To the episode’s credit, I did enjoy seeing more of Nozomi and how she’s soft-spoken, naive, yet incredibly smart and talented at the same time, plus the initial workings of a love triangle between her, Fumino, and Takumi. That was one area that showed a bit of promise, even though it’s highly unlikely relationships will get anywhere in a harem-esque series such as this. At only twelve episodes long, it risks falling to mindless levels akin to To LOVE-Ru (but shorter and without the ecchi-ness), which is one of the reasons why I felt it was difficult to recommend back in the Spring 2010 Preview. Still, as a patient viewer who’s not expecting too much depth to begin with, I have no problems sticking around in hopes of improvement. All I really want is some entertainment value, which shouldn’t be too difficult if the episodes don’t try do too much at time. With that said, here’s to hoping that the next episode will be better, as I like the quirky characters and feel this series has potential to better than it has been thus far.

Note: The CG animation of Satou and Suzuki in the previews isn’t too bad, but Satou Rina and Arai Satomi actually got their roles reversed in this scene.

 

Preview

28 Comments

  1. but Satou Rina and Arai Satomi actually got their roles reversed

    Oh wow. I thought something was a little off, but I don’t think I would’ve noticed that if you hadn’t mentioned it. That’s a pretty big “OOPS!” :p The CG at the end feels really awkward though. If they can do the rest of the episode normally, why randomly switch to CG in the preview? 😡

    Nazarielle
    Reply

  2. It seems like this show will have an Uncensored version?
    alot of scenes jumping around, just to cut out over-ecchi scenes.
    CG is going to be a hit?

    3 animes this season use CG in ED/Preview? This , KissXSis and Hime Chen

    UnknownYu
    Reply

  12. Divine, I’m trying to find some way to contact you but you have no contact info available… so here goes. I’d be happy to help out the site by blogging Bleach. I still regularly follow the series. I’m not sure if I need past blogging experience to be able to ‘apply’ so to speak, but I have done reviews before.

    Anyway, lemme know please.

    Skins Thunderbomb
    Reply

  13. “Still, as a patient viewer who’s not expecting too much depth to begin with, I have no problems sticking around in hopes of improvement. All I really want is some entertainment value, which shouldn’t be too difficult if the episodes don’t try do too much at time. With that said, here’s to hoping that the next episode will be better, as I like the quirky characters and feel this series has potential to better than it has been thus far.”

    I agree with you divine, I watch for good entertainment on this one.

    amado
    Reply

  14. This show needs more cats.

    That scene with Nozomi sleeping on the couch? There should’ve been at least eight more cats on the screen. It’d be better and you know it.

    My rigorous analysis (involving a post-it pad and a pencil) of episodes one and two show the enjoyment in this show directly correlates with the number of cats onscreen.

    SlashZero
    Reply

  18. @ Natsumi

    Kind of. She does have that somewhat similar outer look at first but after a while, no. But man, thanks for reminding me of the series again. It’s rather fun to watch together with Hanbun no Tsuki and Shinagami no Ballad.

    Silver
    Reply

    1. Holy crap, I KNEW Otome looked familiar but I couldn’t quite place it. They both have almost the same onee-chan personality as well.

      I really wonder where Nozomi is from. And I wonder about her cat ears, I think Nozomi denied in that episode that they were cat ears.

      akani
      Reply

  22. the problem with anime adapted from light novels: its pacing will be off.

    Show Spoiler ▼

    rihito
    Reply

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