I probably would not make a good anime reviewer.
So, there's this series I've been watching this summer.
Itsuka Tenma no Kuro Usagi, or ItsuTen for short.
(NicoNico claims that it translates to "A Dark Rabbit Has Seven Lives", but I don't believe it. First off, 'tenma' in this case is written 天魔, using the kanji for 'heaven' and 'magic', and Google claims it basically means demon. They've been using the phrase a bunch of places and subtitling it as 'seraphim', so all right, but that still has nothing to do with 'has seven lives'. Plus, even if you were to take the 'ka' in 'itsuka' to be a counter instead of taking 'itsuka' to mean 'someday', 'itsu' would refer to five, not seven, which should be 'nana' I believe. But hey, what do I know? I've only had one year of Japanese. And it's really just me being pedantic, probably - the English title does fit the series, I guess. Assuming that Taito is the rabbit, anyway.)
A twelve episode series based on the series of light novels by the same name by Takaya Kagami, who's only the guy who kind of also wrote the light novels behind Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu, or The Legend of the Legendary Heroes. (Hence why I'm watching it in the first place. If it's something written by the author of my current favorite thing ever, how can it possibly be horrible, right?) Episode 7 just went up today, so we're halfway through.
Summary so far is basically, there's this guy named Taito and this vampire (they're more like sorcerers than traditional vampires I think) named Saitohimea. They fell in love, and nine years ago Himea used her magic so that Taito will only die if he's killed seven times in fifteen minutes. Shortly after that some dude named Hinata attacked and nearly killed Taito seven times, only stopping because Himea agreed to be imprisoned by him, and Taito lost his memory of Himea. But he recently got it back, and due to things he and Himea are kind of forced onto the student council at their school by Hinata's good twin Gekkou. The series mostly focuses on Taito wanting to get stronger and protect Himea, as well as Gekkou having some kind of side plot where he's getting into trouble with the military or something.
Or at least, that's what I've gotten out of it. To be honest, the plot kind of seems to move at the speed of molasses sometimes, and at other times it's hard to keep track of exactly what's going on. It took them until this week to tell us exactly how Taito survived at the end of episode 2. Until episode 7!
The characters aren't the most interesting ever, but they're tolerable. I think my favorite so far is Gekkou - he's just so stuck up, it's kind of funny. Kind of reminds me of Manjoume in a way, I guess. Always calling Mirai trash, but she's his contracted demon, nobody gets to call her names except him. ...Can't really look at Gekkou Hinata (can't believe I only caught this over a month later) without cracking up, though. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's not the right reaction to have, but it's just... that tuft of white hair, his voice (he's played by the same person as Ryner), the fact that he rode in on a giant spider of all things...
Not enjoying the pointless fanservice though. At all. The pantyshots, they're everywhere, and there's really no reason for it. From what I can tell, there's an actual interesting plot in here somewhere, even if it's hard to see sometimes. If you tell a good story, you shouldn't need stupid pointless fanservice shots to attract viewers. I dunno, maybe I'm just a bit prude, but I find it annoying and the slightest bit disturbing.
Is it great? Not really. Is it horrible? I don't think so. At the very least, it's half an hour a week of nice-looking character designs (Himea's hair... it rivals Sion's in terms of prettiness) and a story that's interesting, when it shows itself. And I've sat through things that I enjoyed less to the end. *cough*theyearinwhichnothinghappened*cough* I figure, I'll finish the anime, then hunt down the novels' translations (and/or the manga), see if they're any better, which they probably are.
Will I bring it to anime club? ...Mmm, still deciding. The first couple episodes were good. It was mostly the latest few that were kind of dull, though 7 was good. I suppose the boys in the audience would appreciate the fanservice, unlike me. Not sure what I'd pair it with, though. It's not something that can fly solo. Honestly, it should probably be a warmup before something better, but I don't know much vampire stuff...
(P.S. Why are there at least three ending themes that I've counted? They really only need one...)
Itsuka Tenma no Kuro Usagi, or ItsuTen for short.
(NicoNico claims that it translates to "A Dark Rabbit Has Seven Lives", but I don't believe it. First off, 'tenma' in this case is written 天魔, using the kanji for 'heaven' and 'magic', and Google claims it basically means demon. They've been using the phrase a bunch of places and subtitling it as 'seraphim', so all right, but that still has nothing to do with 'has seven lives'. Plus, even if you were to take the 'ka' in 'itsuka' to be a counter instead of taking 'itsuka' to mean 'someday', 'itsu' would refer to five, not seven, which should be 'nana' I believe. But hey, what do I know? I've only had one year of Japanese. And it's really just me being pedantic, probably - the English title does fit the series, I guess. Assuming that Taito is the rabbit, anyway.)
A twelve episode series based on the series of light novels by the same name by Takaya Kagami, who's only the guy who kind of also wrote the light novels behind Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu, or The Legend of the Legendary Heroes. (Hence why I'm watching it in the first place. If it's something written by the author of my current favorite thing ever, how can it possibly be horrible, right?) Episode 7 just went up today, so we're halfway through.
Summary so far is basically, there's this guy named Taito and this vampire (they're more like sorcerers than traditional vampires I think) named Saitohimea. They fell in love, and nine years ago Himea used her magic so that Taito will only die if he's killed seven times in fifteen minutes. Shortly after that some dude named Hinata attacked and nearly killed Taito seven times, only stopping because Himea agreed to be imprisoned by him, and Taito lost his memory of Himea. But he recently got it back, and due to things he and Himea are kind of forced onto the student council at their school by Hinata's good twin Gekkou. The series mostly focuses on Taito wanting to get stronger and protect Himea, as well as Gekkou having some kind of side plot where he's getting into trouble with the military or something.
Or at least, that's what I've gotten out of it. To be honest, the plot kind of seems to move at the speed of molasses sometimes, and at other times it's hard to keep track of exactly what's going on. It took them until this week to tell us exactly how Taito survived at the end of episode 2. Until episode 7!
The characters aren't the most interesting ever, but they're tolerable. I think my favorite so far is Gekkou - he's just so stuck up, it's kind of funny. Kind of reminds me of Manjoume in a way, I guess. Always calling Mirai trash, but she's his contracted demon, nobody gets to call her names except him. ...Can't really look at Gekkou Hinata (can't believe I only caught this over a month later) without cracking up, though. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's not the right reaction to have, but it's just... that tuft of white hair, his voice (he's played by the same person as Ryner), the fact that he rode in on a giant spider of all things...
Not enjoying the pointless fanservice though. At all. The pantyshots, they're everywhere, and there's really no reason for it. From what I can tell, there's an actual interesting plot in here somewhere, even if it's hard to see sometimes. If you tell a good story, you shouldn't need stupid pointless fanservice shots to attract viewers. I dunno, maybe I'm just a bit prude, but I find it annoying and the slightest bit disturbing.
Is it great? Not really. Is it horrible? I don't think so. At the very least, it's half an hour a week of nice-looking character designs (Himea's hair... it rivals Sion's in terms of prettiness) and a story that's interesting, when it shows itself. And I've sat through things that I enjoyed less to the end. *cough*theyearinwhichnothinghappened*cough* I figure, I'll finish the anime, then hunt down the novels' translations (and/or the manga), see if they're any better, which they probably are.
Will I bring it to anime club? ...Mmm, still deciding. The first couple episodes were good. It was mostly the latest few that were kind of dull, though 7 was good. I suppose the boys in the audience would appreciate the fanservice, unlike me. Not sure what I'd pair it with, though. It's not something that can fly solo. Honestly, it should probably be a warmup before something better, but I don't know much vampire stuff...
(P.S. Why are there at least three ending themes that I've counted? They really only need one...)