Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girl first impressions

From the people who made the whole Queen’s Blade franchise, I really couldn’t expect something initially entering this series.  The first of the fall season arrived super-early and has left me panicking to quickly make a decent version of Bokutachi’s traditional seasonal previews.  Expect that to come soon but more importantly, you should be worrying whether or not this show would be fun to watch.  Yes, despite the unusual artwork that they clearly spent thousands on (*cough cough*), I found the first episode to be interesting maybe because I’m getting into the whole feudal Japan-thing recently (in fact, I’m considering doing a review on ‘Sengoku Rance’ once I get the time).

Despite the whole feudal Japan thing, there were planes in that beginning sequence but I guess that the whole plane-fighting thing and falling from the sky slicing everything apart was something to come in the future.  The whole series would revolve on how those girls came together to form that indestructible female-force.  The opening was catchy but nothing special.  However that’s a good thing considering how many shows have had really weird openings lately.

Playing Muneakira Yagyu (wow, that name is going to be hell remembering) is Daisuke Hirakawa who has notable played Irei in ‘Itazura na Kiss’ and more infamously, the douchebag Makoto Ito from ‘School Days’ (anime).  The wide variety of shows on her resume seems impressive enough and the rest of the cast seems impressive as well: Aki Toyosaki, Rei Kugimiya, and Saori Goto among others make my initial impressions of this show somewhat helpful.  The character designs on top of that have been provided by Tsutomu Miyazawa who has been part of shows such as Bleach, Elfen Lied, and Highschool of the Dead.  In other words, this show is emitting an already good aura from it.  Let’s keep this up.

Back to the show, Muneakira comes into a new territory and gets involved with Yukimura and her servant Sen.  Before long, they are ambushed by Hanzo Hattori, the leader of the ninja division of the territory.  While everyone ends up chasing each other for the entire first episode, Muneakira seems to be an already strong figure in the show being able to fight off several ninjas and have enough brains to get away.  And when all things seem lost, a mysterious figure comes from the sky and proclaims herself to be Jubee Yagyu.

Good first episode, but the artwork was really getting to me.  It looked really fuzzy, but that was intentional.  I couldn’t help thinking that this would become the one show that I would blog this season but I have to wait for the other shows to come up.  It’s really not up to me (well, yes it is) to only blog one additional show this season but it could be Sora no Otoshimono 2, the World Only God Knows, or any of the other shows that could show some potential.  Everyone on the staff is organizing our team’s posting for the upcoming season since some of us will be coming back from the epic battle of the multi-limbed monster.