Ibitte Konai Gibo to Gishi – 01
We’re only a week into summer and we’ve already had two Cinderella takes. Neither of them was all that, but I would take Ibitte Konai Gibo to Gishi over Oni no Hanayome any day of the week. It’s nothing special but at least it’s unpretentious and free of noxious tropes.
That said, the problem I see here is that the series is basically one joke, and it was already old by the end of the premiere. How the hell do you stretch that out for an entire cour? The joke is that when a downtrodden orphan girl shows up at the estate of her wicked stepmother and two older sisters, they all turn out to be nice. It’s not a bad hook but that’s all it is. The best part of this premiere for me was momentarily losing myself in the setup and forgetting the premise – in my head Miya was going to have the stereotypical Cinderella experience. The prologue portion was pretty effective in that respect.
After that it’s more or less a loop of Miyu’s internal monologue predicting the worst, and her new family (she was her father’s illegitimate daughter) surprising her with kindness. As I said already kind of played out, never mind in future episodes. I never saw any evidence that this show has more to it than that though I suppose it’s not impossible that it does. For now it’s a pass though.
Mebius Dust – 01
Mebius Dust was one of my sleepers for the season. The staff looks pretty solid, but the main reason it’s here is because the premise so loudly screams “old-school anime sci-fi”. Emo teens superpowered by a meteor, confined to a small district in Tokyo and confronting their boredom daily. Let’s fact it, it doesn’t get much more 2005 than that.
When I saw the aggregator scores I was a bit taken aback. They’re terrible, but honestly the premiere wasn’t. It wasn’t great either, but I kind of enjoyed it. The mood of those old anime chestnuts wasn’t captured with quite as much authenticity as I hoped but the spirit was there. Indeed, the plot is a bunch of kids confined to a single ward in Tokyo where the crystal that gave them their esper powers landed. Those powers come from the titular Mebius Dust, but if they use too much an alarm goes off and the rozzers come to harsh their mellow.
With little to do and so much ability to do it, these teens are desperate for distraction. Mostly it comes in the form of nightly contests between rival “gangs” (only in the most Japanese sense – I grew up in Chicago). These are something like a cross between capture the flag and parkour and put their abilities to use. One day a so-called doctor – I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be a woman or a boy even younger than the combatants – offers them a means by which they might gain their freedom. Wear a special bracelet and they can use their powers unrestrained, and eventually leave their prison. Yeah, nothing suspicious about that at all.
The visuals are certainly nothing special here, though the choreography isn’t bad. And the narrative is a bit awkward in places, like the episode ending rather abruptly. But as I said, I kind of enjoyed Mebius Dust and I’m not sure why it’s faring as badly as it is. It’ll have to do more to convince me to cover it and justify its sleeper status, but there’s enough here to at least stamp that as a possibility.
