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No, I’m not typing out that whole damn name.
NouKome – 01
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I wasn’t originally planning to do a post on this series, but the reactions to it were amusing enough that I figured I might as well give it a watch. It’s certainly one of the weirdest series of the season, about a kid named Amakusa Kanade (Toyongaa Toshiyuki) who – at least in his own mind – has the “Absolute Multiple-choice” power – he’s constantly presented with a series of choices (most of which involve his humiliation) from which he must select “1” or “2” or experience extreme pain.
There does come a point where a premise – even a LN premise – can become so utterly stupid that as long as the author acknowledges it, a series can be amusing. And NouKome gets there at times, though the premiere is wildly uneven. The best part for me was the intro sequence, starting from the time Kanade finds the “Superb Pervert” mag to the musical montage of choices throughout history (which was very clever). Once the series got to his school I found it a lot less amusing, but on balance I did laugh more than I would have expected going in, enough to buy me into the pot for at least one more round. NouKome is gleefully stupid and ecchi, and the fact that it’s honest about that gives it a chance to be an amusing distraction.
Walkure Romanze – 01
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There are really only two reasons I watched this one. First, I’m in the process of watching NHK no Youkoso (which has been in my backlog for years) and it shares the same director, Yamamoto Yusuke. And second, I saw this series referred to as “the worst anime in history” and I figured I had to see for myself.
In truth I kind of wish Walkure Romanze had really been that bad, because that would have made it more of an event. It’s bad, mind you – hard to believe it’s the same director as NHK – but it isn’t exactly horrendous, more just forgettable. And I have to admit the stuff with Sakura the horse (a mare, no less) having a thing for ripping off girls’ skirts made me laugh. This is just unpretentiously lowbrow fanservice under the guise of a jousting (yes, in CGI, though I actually thought it was better than what we saw in Ars Nova or Unbreakable Machine Doll) school full of pretty girls – at least it doesn’t have any aspirations to be something else. And how many series show a high school girl wearing kuropan? Walkure earns a few points for that.
Antony Shepherd
October 10, 2013 at 1:53 pmOne of the jousting girls in Waikure Romanze and her rather literal interpretation of 'breastplate' put me in mind of this:-
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/05/boob-plate-armor-would-kill-you
Highway
October 10, 2013 at 6:26 pmI'm hoping Walkure Romanze gets better, which could happen pretty quickly (at least for us harem fans) if the MC turns out to be less arboreal than he appeared throughout this first episode. Mio was more interesting, but really really dumb. But the cardboard cutout of Takahiro is really bad at the moment. His only saving grace is that he's known to have successes in the past, so there's actually some reason that the girls would want to have him as a begleiter (since he presumably knows his stuff). Maybe he'll come out of his shell or something.
The CG in Walkure Romanze is helping cement my opinion of 8-bit as one of the best at using CG action sequences, and from what I hear, Tokyo Ravens is nailing it shut. IS and Busou Shinki also had good CG action from 8-bit, so it seems like it's something they really know how to do. Now if they were only better at harem leads (I think Orimura Ichika is still worse than Takahiro).
Highway
October 10, 2013 at 6:37 pmNouKome was actually pretty engaging. I like the idea of the Reject Five, that there's a group that is known to have issues, but they're at least friends with each other. And the ludicrousness of the choices that Kanade is faced with is probably the best way to handle it. It hopefully won't get too repetitive, with him questioning why he has to do it every single time, getting zapped, and eventually picking the thing that everyone would pick anyway (if they had to pick between two such ludicrous choices).
The style of the show was actually pretty good, and the characters don't feel nearly as much like expy ripoffs as I feared they would. The audio was terrible, tho. Music way too loud and uneven, dialogue way too soft. And I thought the 'choices throughout history' bit went on far too long. What was it, 4 minutes of fast paced reading and scene cuts? It just went on and on and on, well after everyone had gotten the point, and then after I had checked out.
admin
October 10, 2013 at 8:12 pmThat was easily the best part of the episode, for me. I wish it was the school sequence that had been 4 minutes.
And yes, 8-bit are terrible at harem leads (redundant, perhaps). TR did have slightly better CG but even there, I felt it was somewhat intrusive.
ishruns
October 10, 2013 at 9:13 pmThe first harem canidate we saw was pretty amusing and while the next two were far from engaging, I think there's enough absolute dumbness in the series for it to work for a week or two. The main thing is that I laughed and that is golden thumbs up.
Ronbb
October 11, 2013 at 12:26 amI wasn't planning on watching NouKome, but I saw the headline of your post, quickly took a peak before coming back and reading the rest. God, it was funny — and yes, the best part was when the protagonist was contemplating on whether he should pick up that "Super Pervert" magazine. I think I will check it out again till the silliness and comedy wear off.