Is it time for one-hour anime episodes? I ask because it seems like every episode 2 I’ve seen so far has been the second half of a two-part premier. Granted, that could just be due to the nature of first episodes, but the slow build-up is real. It’s gotten to the point where you don’t expect the first episode to hook you, but rather the second. Boku no Hero chose to break the mold with the most perfect first episode you could ask for, but let’s see how the others play catch-up.
The Rankings:
1. Boku no Hero Academia
The pacing may be a bit slow, but they REALLY know how to extract every single drop of character from the pages of the manga. It… does tend to drag on quite a bit, but the payoff is spectacular.
You really can’t help but feel every single emotion poring out of Midoriya. That said… as weird as it sounds, the anime really can’t afford to take the time to do this every episode.
2. Sailor Moon Crystal Infinity
Literally the cutest she’s ever been.
The quality jump in Sailor Moon Crystal continues to hold steady, and we’re even treated to easily the best henshin Chibimoon has ever had. Unfortunately, the episode suffers from having full henshins and post-henshin speeches for the five Senshi AND Chibimoon. Not normally a problem, but all together it took up 5 MINUTES. 5 minutes not sound like a lot of time? Consider, then, that 5 minutes is literally 25% of the entire episode and suddenly we realize why it seems like not all that much happened.
On the bright side, three of the Witches 5 matched the amount of dialogue they had in the entire 90’s anime. Also, Hotaru!
3. Ushio to Tora
UshiTora takes a break from going full blast and spends a surprising amount of time dragging through the scene where Asako tries to sacrifice herself in Mayuko’s stead to make the Beast Spear. To be fair, it IS an important scene, even if we all basically knew how it was going to end.
More surprising is the sudden appearance of Guren and the Beast Horde, with no explanation whatsoever.
Goddamn, they REALLY should have kept in that chapter.
4. Sousei no Onmyouji
Wow. So, I initially wasn’t all that interested in where this was going at the end of the first episode, but the second episode has piqued my interest. Albeit, for the wrong reasons.
So, stop me if you’ve heard this before… There’s a prophecy that the Miko, an all-powerful Onmyouji, will one day be born. This Miko will eliminate all the evil Kegare in the world, putting an end to the long battle between Onmyouji and Kegare. At first we’re led to believe Rokuro and Benio are the two candidates to be this Miko, but it turns out they are the Twin Stars: the two destined to join together and give birth to the Miko. And so, the Onmyouji want them to wed against their will.
That DOESN’T SOUND FAMILIAR AT ALL, I SWEAR!
Now, I’m not totally delirious. No one’s copying my ideas. Rather, what I’m saying is that my ideas were SO DERIVATIVE that something coming out and sounding like my own work just highlights how… double derivative this series is. And fuck, I already talked about how much it feels like Persona, so triple derivative… And yet, I’m still going to be watching this series. Yeesh.
Y’know what? Fuck, I need to finish Millennium Match. I get the feeling I was on to something there.
5. Ace Attorney
The quality of episode 2 is muuuuuuch better than episode 1. Still pretty derpy all around, but better.
Again, very streamlined, and a lot of content was cut. Gotta give people a reason to play the actual games, I guess. What I loved most has got to be the additional scene with Phoenix and Maya in the detention center, where Maya realizes just how desperate he is to help her, and Phoenix realizes he’s the right person for the job. Although I’m split halfway on what appears to be an active effort on the part of the anime staff to ship them.
I’m rather liking the voice casting so far, with the exception of Larry. NOT what I was expecting at all. The original music is rather good, but the use of the game music has been suboptimal. For instance, we heard the solemn version of the Steel Samurai theme in this episode for no fucking reason. We could have had an updated version of the original detention center music instead, but nooooooo. Whoever’s in charge of implementing the game music in the adaptation is doing a shitty, shitty job.
6. Kuma Miko
Kuma Miko is basically loli miko doing cute loli miko things, but there’s still a decent amount of substance there. It is rather amusing seeing Machi try and utterly fail at being self-sufficient. Ultimately, I can’t help but think this would have been better as a 15-minute show.