Sousei no Onmyouji – 03

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I’m starting to get to the point of the season where I think about what are the keepers, the drops and the “maybes”.  As it happens I like Sousei no Onmyouji quite a lot – enough to keep watching it, certainly – though in terms of blogging I think I’d still have to call it a bubble series.

I think what this show comes down to is whether or not there’s enough substantive (and successful) tweaks on the very tried-and-true shounen formula to make it interesting enough to write about. It’s a well-executed shounen, certainly – a good premise, the look is interesting, and the BGM is very effective.  But it’s pretty predictable in a lot of ways.  It’s going to come down to whether stuff like skewing the protagonists a little younger is enough to keep the series feeling fresh.

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This week the doomed (romantically, at least) childhood friend character makes her first splash of the series.  Otomi Mayura (Serizawa Yuu) is pretty much a stock character – the unrequited love for Rokuro, the preternaturally developed breasts – but she seems likeable enough.  I’m not sure we really need to see the whole “pubescent girls obsessed with boob size” cliche play out again – if I never do again it’ll be too soon – but it’s not obsessively fixated on for an extended period.  As if it weren’t obvious enough Mayura doesn’t have a chance in hell, she has the prophecy the series is built around working against her, but I’m sure she’ll go down fighting.

What I’m hoping is that the relationship between Benio and Rokuro gets past the “Humph!” and head-turn stage relatively quickly.  There’s already a hint of mutual respect there, though I guess having a prophesied marriage and baby hanging over you is a lot for 14 year-olds to get past.  Maybe the entry of possible rival Ikaruga Shimon (Ishikawa Kaito) will shake things up a bit between the two leads.  The dedicated and entitled princess and the reluctant hero is a nice setup, but the ability to keep things from sliding into a predictable rut is going to be the key to everything as far as Sousei no Onmyouji is concerned.

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4 comments

  1. Twin Star Exorcists has me disliking the whole cast / story.Unlike Ajin where the ? was who is good this is failing for me.

    This show reminds me of Excel Saga but the characters there I liked

    Arima Tsuchimikado The eccentric leader of all exorcists just reminds me of Il Palazzo ( Excel Saga ) but that anime was a sastire of anime!

    And both Rokuro / Bio are so arrgorant

    I have read the take from manga readers saying things are changed around / I’ll reserve my thoughts on that not reading that one. But it is another when they added the annoying Kinako

    I wish I could like it more . I am not even sure about the fight scenes with the red / black backgrounds

  2. S

    I read the manga and I love how the story works in the anime but the thing is, I’m actually quite dissatisfied with the facial expressions of the characters. I prefered the rounder faces that Sukeno Yoshiaki draws in manga and about the facial expressions, they were more detailed and more dramatic. I liked to see the sudden changes on facial expressions, like the time when Tsuchimikado Arima provoked Rokuro to make him fight with Benio in the 2nd chapter of manga and Rokuro said “I’ll kill you.” with an almost-too-scary face. That part was unfortunately not included in the anime and many other won’t also be. To sum up, that exaggerated, detailed style of the manga is what I liked in Sousei no Onmyouji and I can’t see it in the anime. In manga, the crazy was crazier, the scary was scarier and the cute was cuter and this point is the thing makes the style of Sousei no Onmyouji unique for me. What do you think about this topic?

  3. TBH I haven’t read enough of the manga to have a strong opinion about the character designs. I like the manga designs, and the anime designs are definitely more “mainstream”, but that almost always happens with adaptations so I didn’t obsess over it much.

  4. That pet is designed so badly its almost funny, everyone in the show seems to be ignoring it too.

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