A great comedy duo.
Well, this episode certainly turned out differently than I had expected. Instead of some dark and ominous introduction on the ghost that haunts the school, an interesting side by side comparison of scenes with and without the mischievous (and definitely not scary) ghost president of the Paranormal Investigations Club are used. I found this unique introduction to be very amusing, especially during the scenes in which Yūko was present. The episode started off with mostly comedy but, towards the end, a slight hint of mystery started to surface. Yūko's unknown past (caused by her amnesia, hence the series name), which I presume to be the main focus of the series, will probably be an important part of the plot in the coming episodes.
With only four characters introduced - one male and three (two?) females - it's starting to look a lot like the start of a harem. Amusingly enough, Teiichi already has two of them within his grasp. For me, out of the three girls, I liked Yūko the most. Her mischievous behaviour and playful personality was really cute to watch. The added mystery surrounding her past makes her an even more interesting character. I strongly believe that underneath her cheerfulness lies a dark and painful past that ultimately resulted in her death. The potential for character development as she continues to battle her amnesia in order to regain her memories is quite high. The only thing I question is the number of characters. Sometimes, less is more, but in this case, I feel that four characters will end up being too little after a while. Hopefully, a few more will be introduced soon.
While the story wasn't expanded on too much, I'm sure it will be as time goes on. I'm still interested in seeing what happened to Yūko when she was alive. With the story set up like this, flashbacks seem like they'll be prominent later on, as they are the only way to explain the past in detail. Although the comedy in this episode was nice, I'm hoping that it gets toned down in the future with more plot development taking its place.
And it seems like having the OP play as the ED in the first episode of a new series is very common nowadays.
OP: This was an interesting song that fit the theme of the anime quite well. There were some parts which I liked, while others didn't fit my tastes quite as well. "Choir Jail" is a weird name for the song, though.
Heh, I would most certainly pick Yuuko out of the three as well :3
ReplyDeleteAs for the series, the first episode wasn't anything like I expected, but it was a really good watch nonetheless. I hope next episode develops the plot more, and especially goes back to tell about Yuuko's past.
As someone who's recently started the manga, I have to say this is substantially different from the original work. The first episode already introduces Kirie, whilst the manga doesn't introduce her until a couple of chapters.
ReplyDeleteAlso, about the "lift mystery" part: It's presentation was not bad, but the difference is that Kirie is present, while in the manga the only ones who investigate are Teiichi, Momoe, and Yuuko. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I have to wonder why they started the show with all of the main characters introduced already.
The most striking difference, however, is Yuuko's supposed grave: after she kicks it down, the anime shows that there's a bell under it... However, what's under the grave in the manga is not a bell, but a comb. I believe this is proof that the anime will take a completely different route from the manga. I'm kind of afraid of that they screw things up, but so far it's entertaining. I think they managed to showcase the atmosphere of the story really well, mixing comedy in the beggining with a touch of suspense at the end. It was a good introduction, I think.
Now, I wonder how they'll handle some of the fanservice. The manga can get pretty blatant with it sometimes, which doesn't surprise me since Maybe is also an ero-manga artist, so I wonder if they'll just cut it out completely, or censor the shit out of it... I'm leaning towards the latter because Japan.