First Impressions / Series Introduction / Snapshots

OP Sequence

OP: 「Errand」 by 飛蘭 (Faylan)
Watch the OP!: Mirror 1, Mirror 2, Streaming ▼

Summary:

Oribe Mafuyu and Yamanobe Tomo were raised by Tomo’s father at the private St. Mikhailov Academy where he was the headmaster, but he then disappeared. The two girls have lived by themselves since then, and Mafuyu is protective of Tomo, particularly since some of their classmates try to make their lives miserable. One day, on their way back from school, they come across an unconscious silver-haired boy and decide to take him in. The boy, however, disappears when they take their eyes off him, and when Mafuyu goes to look for him, she finds the church burning. She goes to try to save an icon but gets ambushed and tied up by a mysterious masked figure, the same one who’s responsible for some other recent murders. This person knows who Mafuyu and Tomo are and doesn’t think that anyone would come to save Mafuyu, but the boy from before suddenly shows up and does exactly that.

The boy is able to free Mafuyu, however he is weak from lack of Soma, creating an opportunity for the enemy. Fortunately, the nun Teresa appears as well and offers her breast milk to the boy, replenishing his Soma in a scene that reminds Mafuyu of the image on an icon. This allows the boy, a Qwaser, to bring forth a giant scythe and slice the masked person, but his opponent then disappears. In the aftermath, Mafuyu tries to thank the boy, but he tells her that those who can’t save themselves don’t deserve to survive and that she has to take hold of things on her own. The next day, much to Mafuyu’s surprise, the church is completely back to normal, and the boy is introduced into her class as Alexander Nikolayevich Her. She tries to get him to explain things, but he thinks that it’s better that she doesn’t know. He’s even colder towards the girls who usually bully Mafuyu and Tomo, however he does take a moment to grab Tomo’s breast. In the end, he warns Mafuyu that misfortune falls on those who get near him.

ED Sequence

ED: 「Passionate squall」 by 藤村歩, 豊崎愛生, 茅原実里, 平野綾, 日笠陽子 (Fujimura Ayumi, Toyosaki Aki, Chihara Minori, Hirano Aya, Hikasa Youko)
Watch the ED!: Mirror 1, Mirror 2, Streaming ▼

The OP isn’t quite as fast-paced as the one Faylan sang for CANAAN, but I like the chorus part here a bit more. That part actually sounds really familiar, but I can’t quite put my finger on what it reminds me of – perhaps Chihara Minori’s Paradise Lost. Anyway, the animation sequence that went with it was fairly standard stuff that shows most of the cast and hints at what’s going to happen. The ED, on the other hand, focuses on the main girls, and the song is a seiyuu group one that was a little better than I thought it’d be, but not by much.

 

This first episode was about what I expected since it followed the manga fairly closely. The production quality was fairly good, and there wasn’t much action, but what was there – the attack on Mafuyu and Alexander’s battle – wasn’t too bad. Instead, there was a lot of exposition (about Mafuyu and Tomo’s past, how they’re now treated poorly, about the icons, Qwasers, etc), some mysterious characters, and some fanservice.

And fanservice is where the series is likely to get a lot of attention. As readers of the manga know, one of the key plot points is the use of breastfeeding for Qwasers. The MBS version, however, more or less censors the Teresa breastfeeding scene with some creative panning and cropping. There were also a few spots when the visuals showed a girl screaming but the audio didn’t reflect that, which makes me think that they cut those out too. In fact, there was less blatant fanservice than I expected given what was shown in the uncensored promo video. Certainly there were a lot of emphasis on Tomo’s huge breasts and some shots of Mafuyu’s underwear, but in the context of what other series these days show, this was relatively tame. The ED had arguably more fanservice than the entire episode. What will be interesting to see is how much the AT-X version, which airs in a couple of weeks on January 26th, will show.

As for me, I was neither really impressed nor really disappointed with the first episode. Even with the edits, it’s not bad, however I’m not convinced it’s a series I’d want to follow and blog, since at this point that would require me to drop another show on my schedule to make room. We’ll have to see what the second episode has in store.

71 Comments

  4. the only reason I followed the manga (and will follow this) is because of the Sasha xD there was a touching scene though in the manga regarding that breast-feeding, than a WTFanservice. Instead of getting my eyes burst, I actually stared at that scene and said, “aww” so I look forward to some things.

    Tan-Tan
    Reply

  12. The male character is so cool. After seeing the first ep., I’m tempted to continue this, even though the end was quite amusing. Also, I’m glad that a few obscene parts were censored.

    Lavender
    Reply

  16. Got Milk?

    Lol I’m surprised no one else said it yet.

    What i expected this series to be is just that…i’ll give this another episode or so before i decide if its worth watching.

    Azar
    Reply

  25. Sorry for the second post;
    I had similar feelings about the familiar op, the chorus sounds similar to Ga-Rei Zero’s op ‘Paradise Lost’ by Chihara Minori. Coincidentally, Chihara Minori is voicing Teresa in the show.

    Omni, thanks for the post, and hope you would keep posting it in future! Thanks!

    Hitsugaya_10
    Reply

  28. You would think that the uncensored version would air first since it doesn’t require editing scenes, but I’ll definitely keep an eye on this.

    The ending song is pretty good too after listening to it a few times.

    Mania Lyssa
    Reply

  33. Easier said than done… It’s hard to watch this…. T____________T

    Where’s my manga!???? I’m waiting for certain favorite manga scenes to be animated and certain characters to show up.

    megalith
    Reply

  38. Just watched the RAW and yeah, the censoring/editing is BS. I actually clicked back a few seconds when Teresa (?) showed up because I remember in the AT-X promo, she rips her dress open and flips in but this censored version just cuts around without making an attempt to blend. Looking forward to AT-X’s airing.

    SlashZaku
    Reply

  43. I’ve noticed the art style is very reminiscent of Kiddy Girl and Kiddy Girl-and. Are they from the same artists/studio?

    Compare this shot:
    http://img4.sankakustatic.com/wp-content/gallery/ero-misc-iv/qwaser-shock.jpg

    … to…
    https://randomc.net/image/KIDDY%20GiRL-AND/KIDDY%20GiRL-AND%20-%20ED%20-%20Large%2001.jpg

    They look almost the same in some way.

    Anyway, this show looks like something fun to watch this season. I might pick this up.

    octoberasian
    Reply

  45. @octoberasian

    Don’t know, but the Qwaser manga was created y the author of Mai-hime/Mai-Otome manga and supposedly will have some paralels with hime-verse.

    So its not surprising that it has similar character designs to MaiOtome manga, as Sasha is supposed to be similar to Mashiro from MaiOtome manga(not anime, as in manga Mashiro is male)

    UnknownVoice
    Reply

  47. I’m surprised any of you were actually surprised at the censorship myself, it was to be expected, at least they did it in a creative manner unlike those white spots from other series, go buy the DVD or wait until the uncensored version pops up later, they’ll come eventually <_<

    KrimzonStriker
    Reply

  48. Well what do ya know, another ass & tits anime. That makes like 5 this season. Sadly the few that don’t involve ass & tits seem to be boring as hell, not to say that the ones that do aren’t boring as hell. But I find myself watching everything this season anyway, since its so little to choose from.

    This anime does appear to be interesting – but the key word is ‘appear’. I’ll give it a few more episodes to see whether I want to fully watch it or just skim through it like I usually do.

    Megas
    Reply

  50. The way they censor, zoom focus on some random angle, so heavily to the point i have a hard time understand what is going on… and some of the sound effect doesn’t match up with the animation. Guess i have to wait for the god-saving AT-X studio to air it to get the full enjoyment…

    Watever
    Reply

  52. The censorship editing really made viewers guess what was going on. The obvious one is the breast feeding. Another more ambiguous one was the hooded girl sticking those breast feeding candle things into the girl’s breasts at the beggining. Watch the promo and episode 01 and you’ll see what I mean. I seriously thought that the girl was killed but was wondering why she was blushing.

    Zazn
    Reply

  54. the kid looks straight out d.grayman… i’m kind of on the fence for this one. I wasn’t a big fan of the op at all.. the song was ok but the rest was kinda bad. i’m hoping they don’t go for just that breast feeding gimic and this one turns out okay… maybe i’ll just read the manga.

    imerik
    Reply

  56. the op was really good
    i already read the manga it was quite interesting and really good (it’s like code breaker or d.gray man)
    but this serie is based on the brest feeding
    so there must be some of this events in the next episodes
    if not i will not watch it

    lilakou
    Reply

  59. damn, I watched this for the fanservice and it was all cut, wth, this was just sad X___X cant they air this after midnight so as to get more boobesque action lol?

    onegai ! AT-X : MUNE WO SHIMESE! ( Ketsu mou ii desu!) ;0

    wtfblog
    Reply

  63. LOLZ! Why the hell did they overload it again with censorship eh? I mean what is the sense of making ecchi anime when the ecchi stuff is removed?

    The Return of the Enigmatic Moonsdoggiebuiscuit
    Reply

  66. What do you mean, it wasn’t bad? It was TERRIBLE. Putting aside the magical breastmilk for a moment, the pacing was absolutely ATROCIOUS and it was nearly impossible to tell what was going on in the exposition scenes, much less the action scenes.

    Also, I want to take a needle to Tomo’s breasts and pop them.

    Hikki
    Reply

  68. somehow i’m not impressed with this anime
    and the lip movement don’t sync with the voice acting in a lot of scene
    not sure if it’s caused by all the censored scene
    but still i’ll watch episode two to see if there’s any hope in continuing to watch it

    descendant
    Reply

  69. I didn’t have a damn clue what this show was about when i decided to watch it today, i will probably drop it because it doesn’t seem to be to interesting and as with the whole breastfeeding thing in all actually as a downside. I’ll be fair because other than that it was a decent 1st episode so ill give it another chance with one more episode, otherwise it will be dropped.

    sigh
    Reply

  71. Eu achei super mega iper legal esse mangá japonês,alem de ser bem feito e a historia bem interesante,ja vi todos os episodios no youtube em espanhol e tb concordei de ter partes censuradas para todos verem.Adorei tb a Mafuyu e o Sasha,alem de formarem um BELISSIMO casal amei a serie

    carol
    Reply

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