First Impressions / Series Introduction / Snapshots

OP Sequence

OP: 「screaming」 by 橋本みゆき(Hashimoto Miyuki)
Watch the OP! Mirror 1 and Mirror 2 (Thanks moyism for editing and uploading)

Summary:
Nagase Sayaka and Aizawa Ryota are both third-year military academy students headed up to the Space Station Aries for training. They run into each other in the airport on Earth, but Ryota is searching for his fourth-year friend Morisaki Nao. They find Nao and Ryota has to lead her to her departure gate before her shuttle takes off. Along the way, they run into Nitta Kazuhiko, a fellow classmate, and he takes Nao the rest of the way. Ryota makes it back to his own departure gate, but in his hurry he accidentally trips into the breasts of a stranger. She doesn’t seem to care and Ryota hurries on. The shuttle flight is uneventful, though Sayaka and Ryota are amazed by the view from outer space. Once they arrive, they get reunited with Nao and meet their instructor, Celleria Markelight. It seems that the woman Ryota ran into earlier, Yamanami Yu, is also staying on this station. She takes a gun from her suitcase, but then hears a knocking on her door. At the door is Morimoto Shigemichi, here to welcome her to the Airies station. He explains to her the different parts of the station and then she shuts the door on him.
At the airport on Earth, a girl named Sugimoto Aya is lost looking for her gate. She trips, but is caught by a large man with a scar on his face. She asks him and his female partner where her gate is, and the girl points her in the right direction. The man and his partner then board their own shuttle, which is filled with men in military clothes. They seem to have something planned. Aya, on the other hand, finally arrives at the right gate. While getting out her ticket, she also pulls out a picture of herself and Sayaka. Back on Airies, the students have started some preliminary tests. Kazuhiko and Ryota are good at marksmanship whereas Sayaka is adept at using robotic arms. Ryota finishes his physical training and heads to the shower, but accidentally runs into Sayaka, who’s just coming out. Out of embarrassment, she slaps him, but later apologizes for it. Elsewhere, Yu has entered an off-limits area, but when she’s caught she pretends that she’s lost and looking for the exit. Ryota, Sayaka, and Nao are in the cafeteria when a certain blue-haired boy named Masato lifts up the girl’s skirts. He’s caught by Kazuhiko and then his mother comes to claim him. After they are led out, Shigemichi enters and gives Ryota a message from his brother Shuhei. Nao gets all wide-eyed and happy at the thought that Shuhei is coming to the station.

ED Sequence

ED: 「dust trail」 by 橋本みゆき(Hashimoto Miyuki)
Watch the ED! Mirror 1 and Mirror 2
Really like the OP and the ED is growing on me. Both are done by Hashimoto Miyuki who also sang the ED to SHUFFLE! and the theme song to Tick! Tack!

To kick off the new season, we have the highly anticipated Soul Link. Well, highly anticipated by all of the people who loved SHUFFLE!, including myself. Anyway, the series gets off to a fairly slow start and the first episode merely introduces the characters and their setting, the Space Station Aries. The cast is quite big, and there’s already several relationships being hinted at (especially in the OP) such as Ryota & Sayaka and Nao & Shuhei. But like I was saying, there’s not much action in the first episode, though they do hint that something is going to happen.
The animation for this first episode isn’t anything great, but they did draw a lot of fanservice, which includes the return of everyone’s favorite skirt lifting Masato. I enjoyed the background music (especially the epic sounding piece when the ships docks with the station), but hated all of the Engrish. I think this series has a lot of potential, but they’re going to need to rev up the story a bit since this is only going to be twelve episodes long. I’ll probably be keeping up with this unless one of the other Saturday shows happens to be utterly amazing.

42 Comments

  3. Haha… the panty brat is the one thing that seems to connect every Navel story. Looking forward to seeing what they can accomplish in only 12 episodes… hoping for the best.

    relentlessflame
    Reply

  5. Masato is such a cool kid (if anybody noticed, that’s that kid’s name–in every Navel games).

    So who’s the main character? It seems like the game and the anime have different perspectives.

    Rasmiel
    Reply

  15. i get the feeling that this show will be pretty much boring
    so i won’t be watching it …

    am not really into its charachter design for one and don’t you think they have to BIG bodies
    for those little head of theirs :p *2nd row, first picture to the left for example*

    anyway, it doesn’t look like my type of show, am hoping am wrong though am not counting on it.

    D
    Reply

  17. asa sempai clone found. the white hair girl with red tube top. i find her really cute though. prolly the cutest out of them all IMO.

    hmm, i think this anime is worth a shot for the girls and reason being, it’s from the same producer as shuffle. let’s just see how it goes

    xlamda
    Reply

  26. Whoa, pipe down people. It’s only the first episode. Heck, there are many animes that end differently than expected from their first impressions. Da Capo S.S. is a fine example, and so is Navel’s own Shuffle!, which everyone at beginning thought was boring piece of typical harem crap.

    Though I do admit that it’s difficult to say whether this will be as interesting as the game, since they changed the main character…

    Rasmiel
    Reply

  29. My first impressions.

    The op and ed music is good.

    Animation is ok

    Nice first ep, not much to talk about since it is character introduction episode. going by the opening it looks like a sayaka ending. Since Sayaka and yu is faveorite girls form this series i am happy with even if i am more of a melon fan…errr i mean Yu fan 😀

    Anyway

    Green FTW

    Xellos-_^
    Reply

  31. So far…it’s pretty boring. Average character design, and no plot yet…hmm….this show just doesn’t stand out too much. There is too much fanservice for a girl like me to watch but I’ll give episode 2 a try.

    Yuen
    Reply

  33. Erhm – no, sorry, it’s absolutely NOT like Starship Operators. Soul Link is obviously a lighthearted mildly ecchi action comedy. Starship Operators is a dead serious drama. So, more or less exactly on the other end of the anime universe.

    I’ll give this some more time – unlike others I can only say that I like the character designs alot. OP and ED are enjoyable, too. The only thing which really bothers me already is the kiddyish voice of the male lead. Let’s see where it goes.

    Mentar
    Reply

  37. While I was somewhat disillusioned that it was made by the same guys who did Shuffle (which has been abbandoned around ep 16), I find this rather interesting (most importantly since it doesn’t seem to be a harem type series).

    So please do continue blogging this. Oh and the opening is GREAT! I love it.

    Vera
    Reply

  39. in fact i quite liked it …

    OP is cacthy right away and after a few times ED starts to shine as well

    yeah … it was a rather genetic character intoduction ep and there is allready due to the OP some relationships thats ‘more or less’ set in stone … but wouldn’t that be expected as well if it was in real live (yeah i know … can’t go to space stations yet but give it about 25-30 years and i’m sure we’re there)

    9/10 from me

    Devilen
    Reply

  40. i’ll see it all. because I believe that it’ll be as good as shuffle!

    but actually, if it’s not a harem anime, it’ll be hard for me to love it as much as shuffle…

    in the game you play Ryouta? I already hate his brother…
    the H-game is a harem type? 1 boy – 5\6 girls loves him?

    Miku
    Reply

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