Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens – 01

It’s no surprise that Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens did a LN crossover with Durarara!, because this is a series that very much puts you in mind of that one.  HTR more or less plays like a DRRR tribute band, in fact – albeit a decent one.  That’s not necessarily a put-down, but the truth is that I was kind of bored by the end of the most recent Durarara! adaptation so “Ramens” has an uphill climb in order to grab my attention.

That said, this wasn’t a bad first episode – Satelight has done a decent job with the visuals, and it’s always interesting to see one of Japan’s “hinterland” cities as the subject of anime.  Though I hear it’s a nice place, I very much doubt Hakata is as interesting as it’s depicted to be here, with seemingly half the population being hitmen.  What I know about it is mostly the titular ramen it’s famous for, and it’s known as being a pretty liveable place.  Apart from the organized crime connections we don’t get much of a sense for the town here – though that may change in coming episodes.

I’m not giving up on Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens yet, as it’s fairly atmospheric and the initial plot is modestly interesting – with violence against foreigners and corrupt politicians involved.  But overall things look pretty formulaic, and it’s a long shot that it’s going to hold my interest enough for me to blog it.

Hakyuu Houshin Engi – 01

I have a recollection of watching a few episodes of the original Houshin Engi adaptation way back when, though I’ve never read any of the manga.  I don’t recall it as being anything exceptional to be honest, but I know the manga is quite popular in shounen circles and when this reboot was announced, finally bringing the manga ending to the screen, it created a decent amount of buzz.  Given it’s place in shounen manga canon, Soul Hunter getting a new anime was certainly something I had to attend to.

I have no idea whether 23 episodes is, in theory, enough to adapt the entire manga.  But they certainly packed a lot into one episode – there was a sense that we were blowing through an awful lot of material here.  Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood sped through the material the prior anime covered quite quickly and still managed to make it into the conversation for the greatest shounen anime ever (at least before Hunter X Hunter 2011 came along), but it did so rather more elegantly than the premiere of Houshin Engi did, at least for me.

I don’t mean to say this premiere was bad by any means, because it wasn’t.  I mean, it’s fun to hear actors like Sakurai and Ishida and Toriumi hamming it up in roles like this, and there’s no denying the old-school shounen feel of Soul Hunter – which is revealed more in the tone and dialogue than the premise.  But basically, as a whole this felt rather routine and predictable to me – maybe that would be less true 20 years ago when the landscape wasn’t as peppered with shounen roughly like this one.  I’ll watch for another week or two, but this one might be one of the season’s early casualties.