Iwamoto-senpai no Suisen – 0011

Definitely going to be some digest posts this month, what with 20 or more First Impressions coming (and most of them this week). I had relatively high expectations for Iwamoto-senpai no Suisen but the demands of time are what they are, so digest it is.

This one comes from the pen of Shibashi Hiroshi, whose Nurarihyon no Mago was both pretty good and quite commercially successful. That was a Deen adaptation, like this one. And Iwamoto-senpai no Suisen is right up their street – pretty boys, fantasy, historical setting. The title character is a third-year middle schooler (who looks ridiculously old – that seems to be a theme this season). But Seiho Junior High is rather a special school. It’s associated with the army, its principal is Ishida Akira, and its purpose is the investigation of the paranormal (and, presumably, how the military can benefit from it).

To that end, Iwamoto investigates a village where reports of “black snow” abound. One suspects this X-Files format is going to be the norm, with Iwamoto investigating boys with strange powers who will become Seiho students. Pink-haired Aonima Shizuma is one such, a lad around whom strange flowers with analgesic and hallucinogenic (thus the black snow) powers bloom. He burrows further and further underground to keep his “shine” from harming people, and his grandfather – head of a pharmaceutical company – seems okay with that. But Iwamoto is not.

This all follows pretty predictable paths, but the grandfather being fine with Iwamoto rescuing Shizuma from this life is a bit of a twist. Production-wise this is a Deen bishounen series – if you’ve seen one you know what to expect there. The premise is an interesting one and even if the premiere didn’t absolutely wow me, Shibashi’s track record offers reason to believe Iwamoto-senpai no Suisen has room to grow from here. Let’s give it another couple of eps and see where it goes.

Oni no Hanayome – 01

Yup, that’s a shoujo all right.

Oni no Hanayome has kind of of an interesting pedigree. It’s been pretty much everything but an anime already – novel, LN, manga, live-action. But in the end generic is generic, and that’s how this premiere played out for me. Everything is in primary colors, the characters are mannequins, and there’s really not an ounce of anything original in there as far as I can see.

The plot, such that it matters, is another Cinderella take. This time around ayakashi have helped rebuild Japan after some nebulous flannel about a dystopia, and now whenever they choose a human as a bride (no mention of female ayakashi) she becomes a superstar. So it is with the MCs sister, who catches the eye of a fox demon (high-class) after their parents completely ignore her. There’s foxfire and then the titular oni shows up and chooses the MC for no reason whatsoever. All the requisite boxes are checked. Not my thing, moving on.

Grow Up Show: Himawari no Circus-dan – 01

CGDCT. As generic as the above and impossibly, of even less interest to me. Hard pass.

Black Torch – 01

I suppose if I added it up, the hit rate on these “Modestly Interested” wing and prayer series is probably about one in three or four. As such Black Torch being pretty good is not a huge surprise, and indeed it’s pretty good. I think Iwamoto-sempai probably has more long-term potential but to be honest this was the snappier first episode.

This is formula too, make no mistake – battle shounen formula to be precise. But for my taste a much better execution of formula than the previous two shows. Black Torch ran for five volumes, first in Jump Square and then on Shounen Jump+, and then was apparently cancelled. Why it’s getting an anime now I have no idea and it makes no sense, except this is a pattern that’s repeated itself several times over the past few years. I also don’t know what this means for the eventual ending, which we should be able to get to in one cour – presumably it wasn’t the one mangaka Takaki Tsuyoshi originally intended.

For now, it’s all good. I like Jiro, the protagonist. He’s a shinobi who can talk to animals, and uses his two powers exactly the way you’d hope someone with those powers would – i.e. as a kind of one man animals-in-need rescue squad. One of the animals he rescues, a black cat (in this idealistic mythology cats and crows are friends) turns out to be a Mononoke named Rago. Rago is quite powerful by Mononoke standards it seems, and much sought after as a result. But he’s pretty much done with all that. Even so, when another Mononoke comes after him and Jiro takes a fatal wound defending him, Rago decides to fuse himself with Jiro and give him his powers.

I don’t where this business with the espionage agency is headed, but I like both Jiro and Rago and the adaptation – while obviously low-budget – has quite a bit of spark to it. The chemistry between the kid and the cat is already excellent, and the dialogue has a lot of old school shounen charm. For one week at least, expectations exceeded.