First Impressions / Zero no Tsukaima

OP Sequence

OP: 「I SAY YES」 by ICHIKO
Watch the OP!: Mirror 1, Mirror 2

Summary:

Saito pilots his Zero through a solar eclipse and to get back to Tokyo, but once there, he realizes that Louise isn’t with him. Feeling that there’s no point in coming back to modern Japan if Louise isn’t there, Saito accidentally breaks the control stick and is about to crash the plane when he wakes up from his dream. He finds himself still in Louise’s room and hugs her out of joy, but once she realizes what he’s doing, she pushes him away. Louise is grateful that he chose to be her familiar instead of going home, however she also wants him to look only at her from now on. Meanwhile, Henrietta is preparing for her coronation ceremony, but she personally feels that she doesn’t need the crown. Her adviser, the Cardinal, however, reminds her that they’re at war and that the people want her to become queen and crush the enemy. At this time, in the dungeon below the castle, a shadowy woman approaches Oliver Cromwell’s prison cell and outlines his failures. Seeing that this woman has gotten back the Ring of Andvari, Cromwell begs for another chance since his earlier defeat was because of void magic. However, the woman then uses the ring on him.

On this day, Louise is giving Saito a present in the form of some special glasses she got from her sister. Unfortunately, Saito can’t take them off after he puts them on, so he goes outside like this. The first person he and Louise run across is Siesta, and he asks her to come see Henrietta’s parade with him, but Siesta turns down his offer because she knows now that he gave up going home for Louise’s sake. In the middle of this conversation, Saito’s gaze drops down to Siesta’s chest, and these feelings of his cause the glasses to start blinking. A furious Louise then explains that these glasses are magical in that they light up when he looks at a girl other than her in a leering way. After she figures out that he was looking at Siesta’s chest, Louise blasts him with magic, creating an explosion that can be heard from across the school. The rest of the morning proceeds similarly to this as the glasses activate when Saito sees Montmorency, Kirche, Tabitha, and seemingly every other girl on campus. The effect of these glasses strikes again during the parade when Saito catches sight of Henrietta and her chest, causing Louise to get extra mad. The ensuing explosion alerts all of Henrietta’s guards, and they quickly surround and arrest Saito.

Having been taken to the castle and separated from Saito, Louise tries to explain to the guards who she is and demands to talk to Henrietta. When Louise tries to threaten them with her magic, one of the female knights who arrested Saito earlier now points a gun at her. This knight, who introduces herself as Agnès Chevalier de Milan, captain of the Musketeer Corps, explains that Henrietta is currently in a meeting with Osmond. Upon learning who Agnès is, Louise then demands to have Saito returned to her and admits that it was her who caused the explosion. Meanwhile, in a prison cell below, Saito is finally able to take off the glasses because they’re now broken and is thinking that it would have been better to go back to Japan. Just as he is recalling how he had once kissed Henrietta, the queen sudden appears because she had come to see him. She has a request for him, but Saito misinterprets this as her wanting a kiss. Before he can do anything though, he gets punched by Agnès who threatens to shoot him. Once Henrietta convinces Agnès to leave, she tells Saito that she wants his and Louise’s help in avoiding the war. Henrietta feels that she doesn’t have many allies who understand how she really feels, and she’s happy when Saito agrees.

For the time being, however, Henrietta wants Saito and Louise to stay at school. She wants to keep them a secret from spies in the country and reveals that, a few hours ago, they had discovered that Cromwell had been assassinated. For helping her, she offers to give him anything he wants, and Saito’s gaze drops down to Henrietta’s chest again. She then has Agnès let Louise into the prison cell, and Louise is unexpectedly in tears after having been separated from Saito. Agnès ends up driving Louise and Saito home, and along the way, Louise shows Saito the Founder’s Prayer Book that Henrietta gave her which supposedly has Void spells written in it, but there appears to be nothing actually written on the book. Saito interprets it as something serious like he reads in manga, and on the topic of something like manga that Louise has never read, Louise wonders if Saito thinks that he should have gone back to Japan. Saito admits that he had thought about this a little, but he also feels that he can’t leave her in such a dangerous place. Once they arrive at school, Agnès assigns them the code name “Zero,” and she also warns Saito against reprehensible behavior in the future. Hearing this, Louise realizes that Saito had tried to do something to Henrietta, so she spends the night beating him. When Agnès comes back the next morning, she finds Louise sitting on a bruised Saito wearing only his boxers. Agnès at first excuses herself from the room out of embarrassment, but she quickly returns to tell them that someone kidnapped Henrietta.

ED Sequence

ED: 「スキ? キライ!? スキ!!!」 (Suki? Kirai!? Suki!!!) by 釘宮理恵 (Kugimiya Rie)
Watch the ED!: Mirror 1, Mirror 2
I didn’t think I’d like the OP from the little bit I heard from the promo, but it turned out to be pretty good. The new opening sequence would also suggest that the old characters (Kirche, Guiche, Henrietta, etc) aren’t going to play nearly as big a role this season as the new characters. The ED meanwhile is fun, but I don’t really like any of Kugimiya Rie’s songs, and this was no exception.

Preview:

Ah, nothing says Zero no Tsukaima like a little S&M. ZnT is back and pretty much exactly as I remember it in terms of Louise acting tsundere and Saito being his lecherous self. Actually, he seems more lecherous than usual, but that may be being exaggerated by the glasses going off all the time. In any case, it’s been a while since I’ve heard Hino Satoshi and Kugimiya Rie together in a show, and this reinforced to me that they make a great pair with the chemistry their characters always seem to have.
This second season, which is unfortunately only going to be 12 episodes long, doesn’t appear to be wasting any time picking up where we left off in the story. We have a new villain and several new good guys (at least I assume Agnès is since she’s shown some very likeable qualities), and by the end of this first episode, Henrietta’s already been kidnapped. The preview would suggest that her kidnapper is the Prince of Wales, but I thought he had died in episode 11 of last season. So either he isn’t really dead or that’s someone else in disguise. Since he shows up fairly prominently in the OP, I would lean towards him not being really dead, but I guess we’ll find out next week. Regardless, I’m really happy to be able to see this again, and it makes me look forward to Shana II in the fall even more.

72 Comments

  9. Well, it wasn’t a surprise that the prince has come back if you were following the novels.Anyway,don’t wanna spoil anything and I’ll just wait on how much they are really adapting to the story.But it was a good start.Felt kinda rush though how Saito now sleeps on the bed all of the sudden.

    tabs05
    Reply

  11. THE MANY FACES OF THE ONE THEY CALL “ZERO”

    LOUISE THE BEDSIDE MANNER
    LOUISE THE JEALOUS GIRLFRIEND
    LOUISE THE TERRORIST
    LOUISE THE MEGA TSUNTSUN
    LOUISE THE MEGADERE

    AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST:

    LOUISE THE S&M

    ZERO IS BACK~~~!!!!!!!!

    jaalin
    Reply

  25. It’s really a shame though,
    Show Spoiler ▼

    I wonder how much of the novel they’re going to do this time around…
    It’s been a while since I’ve read up on the novel.

    Kaito
    Reply

  27. @Typer: BLASPHEMERS! While by no means was this the best anime in the world, it certainly was a breath of fresh air in the anime-world full of mechs, blow-shit-up people, and ecchi-ness (the last of which, I don’t mind). Zero’s certainly earned its second season.

    Don’t believe ANYONE who says its sucks, my good man.

    Raze
    Reply

  33. It’s a shame that they’re going to cram probably 6 novels worth of story in just 12 episodes of anime and most likely a 13th special DVD release I guess.A lot of good story and action was left out from the first season.Oh well, I guess that gives more reason to pick up the novels when it gets out or when the translating group gets to that point.

    tabs05
    Reply

  38. Why must they insist on making Zero no Tsukaima into 12 or 13 episode seasons? They have an all-star cast and a good story to work with. Not to mention that they have a lot of material to use considering the novel is already up to volume 11.

    KiraTakuto
    Reply

  41. This story is going to be a Satio and Siesta pairing in the end. The original Creator of ZnT, Noboru Yamaguchi, has already said he wanted this ending for the anime.

    Hudson
    Reply

  46. Show Spoiler ▼

    anyways. nice to see the show doesn’t miss a beat even with the staff changes. personally I think jealous Louise = win. ^^;

    kiryuu
    Reply

  47. Depending on which shot of the guy in the OP you look at, the face and hair color looked really similar to Wales, so I assumed Wales got a makeover or something to make him look cooler. *shrug* No biggie, I’ll find out who he is when he’s introduced in the story.

    Omni
    Reply

  48. “So either he isn’t really dead or that’s someone else in disguise. Since he shows up fairly prominently in the OP, I would lean towards him not being really dead”

    I don’t see him anywhere in the OP, if you mean the blonde guy with the rapier, that’s Julio

    dmo
    Reply

  49. According to the OP, this season will go up to the point of the novel where we meet Tiffania.

    Which means we’ll see just why Saito’s the most awesome male harem lead ever.

    Village Idiot
    Reply

  50. For those who have read the novels or have read Sushi-Y’s summaries for the next few volumes, I am SO looking forward to the “big fight” involving Saito. I hope it looks awesome.

    KiraTakuto
    Reply

  55. OMGAAAAAAAAAAAH!! I’ve been waiting for this!!! WAAAAAAAAI!!! XD XD

    Mattaku… I almost forgot that the first ep already started. My brain has been absorbed too much from playing Trickster Online, kekeke 😀

    Now that I think about it, did I just saw Montmorency and Guiche? I thought those two characters aren’t included in the character lineup in the official webbie. Or maybe it’s just my imagination? *thinks*

    kekeke
    Reply

  57. If they follow the ‘important’ parts of the novels, all of the main & main support cast from season 1 should be returning and all have their moments in the coming war.

    Show Spoiler ▼

    playmore
    Reply

  59. I just marathoned every single episode of this anime from 11:30pm to 4:30am, and it was totally worth it. Has to be one of my favorites, if not my utmost favorite anime.

    asdffdsa
    Reply

  60. “Hudson at 9:38 pm on July 8th, 2007

    This story is going to be a Satio and Siesta pairing in the end. The original Creator of ZnT, Noboru Yamaguchi, has already said he wanted this ending for the anime.”

    Wait, are you serious? Can you confirm this 100%? I seriously can’t bear to watch this anime any further if this is how the story is ending. That would be way too sad…

    asdffdsa
    Reply

  61. It’s certainly nice to have another season of Zero no Tsukaima back.

    It seems to me Henrietta is getting more screen time this season. Chance for another Yuuji (Saito) – Shana (Louise) – Kasumi (Henrietta) triangle?

    Garet
    Reply

  63. Well, I did a little searching around (because I didn’t really want to stop watching this anime), and I found a post at animesuki.com where a user states the second season is covering the novel’s story beyond volume 4 (and states the whole thing about Siesta X Saito is false).

    His source was here: http://d.hatena.ne.jp/moonphase/20070226#p5 (It’s all japanese, but the google beta translation is:

    “As for production of 2nd period starting in earnest from the previous winter. 2nd period draws after the original 4 volume. Concerning original episode, while keeping reconstructing the original in animation, we would like to acquire various changes in good sense. “The person of the hair of pink” increases, “that gun loyal retainer” appears, also new [kiyara] increases the varieties. With “Tokyo international animation fair 2007” announcement.”

    Everything in the anime thus far (even in the OP, ending, and OP and ending music) seems to point to it ending in a Louise x Saito relationship, but I’d still like a definite confirmation before I get drawn into this series any more.

    asdffdsa
    Reply

  64. Well, I did a little searching around (because I didn’t really want to stop watching this anime), and I found a post at animesuki.com where a user states the second season is covering the novel’s story beyond volume 4 (and states the whole thing about Siesta X Saito is false. Of course, it’s just another random person saying this too..).

    His source was here: http://d.hatena.ne.jp/moonphase/20070226#p5 . If you use Google translation, there doesn’t seem to be any hints at screwing up the storyline in such a way.

    Everything thus far (even in the OP, ending, and OP and ending music) seems to point to it ending in a Louise x Saito relationship so much that it would seem the anime would contradict itself if it ended up any different. But I’d still like a definite confirmation before I get drawn into this series any more.

    asdffdsa
    Reply

  68. >>”This story is going to be a Satio and Siesta pairing in the end. The original Creator of ZnT, Noboru Yamaguchi, has already said he wanted this ending for the anime.”

    Well, from what I heard from the original creator Noboru Yamaguchi, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, baseball players Hideki Matsui and Ichiro Suzuki and from Louise Valliere herself is that they all desired a Louise x Saito x Tabitha ending.

    See, the plot twist will come in the middle of the story where Saito announces that he does not like big breasts, but truly prefers tsundere and meganekko lolis instead.

    Marcosius
    Reply

  69. The mysterious woman said she had got the ring back, and now we see the prince comes back from the grave and highly likely becomes a bad guy, given his kidnapping of Henrietta. Guess what has happened.

    This 1st episode is titled as “Joou Heika no Zero”, which is apparently from the famous 007 movie “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”, because the movie is titled in Japan as “Joou Heika no 007” which means “Her Majesty’s 007”. So I guess it’s one of those sorry-I-couldn’t-resist type of title.

    calde
    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *