IS: Infinite Stratos: Episode 1 [First Impression]

Summary:

The world only male Infinite Stratos pilot, Ichika Orimura, has been accepted to enter the world only IS academy, an otherwise female only school. This first episode is about Ichika first few days at his new school.

*THIS ANIME WILL BE SHARED BETWEEN ZERO AND OKI. Since it’s the first episode, both have put down their first impression.

Zero’s First Impression:

Alright so, I was intrigued by this show when I saw it for this season. I like mecha, I like ecchi, I like humour in general. But combining mecha and ecchi is something I am unfamiliar with. So I will either love this show, or hate it from the bottom of my heart.

The first thing that striked me from this first episode is…THE FIRST 5 MINUTES MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL!

The show is introduced with a huge mecha fight involving I-have-no-clue-how-many mecha. There are people screaming everywhere and stuff exploding but you have no clue what the hell is going on. You don’t know who is who, why they are fighting, what is going on. All you know is stuff happens and shit blows up. I will disregard this part of the episode, because it shouldn’t have been there to begin with.

Alright so, now the show lost his first chance, but I feel generous and I’ll give it a second try. It better not make me regret it.

Lets introduce our characters.  We have  this guy, Ichika, he’s the only guy able to pilot an IS. the IS are mecha robot, but they look more like a robotic extention to a human than an actually machine you pilot. I guess a picture is worth a thousand words.

So those IS are normally only piloted by women, why? No clue yet. But we know that Ichika, for some reason, is the only man on earth to be able to pilot one, and that makes him ideal to be our protagonist. The guy looks like your average ecchi protagonist in a harem scenario, a little inhibited, heterosexual, sexually unexperienced and with little friends at the beginning of the show. He seems not quite comfortable being the only guy in an Academy otherwise only composed of female student. Then again he is standing out quite a bit, having a penis and all. So now that they have introduced us to the main character, it is time to let us know about the next character.

There she is… THE ASSISTANT TEACHER? WTF. OK so the assistant looks younger than the students, she wears some quite-open clothes in the breast area and she looks like a 3 years old would be able to intimidate her. That makes perfect sense.Oh well, atleast that make one potential romance for a harem, even though the assistant seems like a weird choice for a real contestant to win Ichika’s heart.

Time for the next character to be introduced, and it shall be the Teacher herself. Chifuyu Orimura, she is Ichika’s older sister and now his teacher. She seems aggressive and to have an authoritarian personality. She made it clear that at school her younger brother shall call her by her last name, not by her first name like a family member would call her.

So that’s for the third character introduction, but of course we want this to be a harem, so let’s see who else could possibly have sexual intercourse with our main character. So what could we possibly have for our next pretty girl. Hum, let’s go for the childhood friend, that’s always a good bet. So here we have Houki representing the old friend. Now we would only need one more character, some kind of sadistic bitch to put some action into this show. Alright so let’s have Cecilia Alcot an elitist british bitch, that should do the trick for the harem selection.

So there we are, most of the show characters are established, all there is left to do is to start setting the main character in difficult situation where awkward and ecchi stuff will happen. All that was left to do is to set Ichika and Houki has roommates, and here we go, drama and ecchi stuff are all set and ready.

Now we are all set and ready for the story to unfold. As you can see the story follow a traditional pattern and therefore It will be quite foreseeable. But the story could be nonetheless funny to watch, after all this will be, I hope, a humoristic anime.

For the next anime a duel is set up, we’ll see if this doesn’t end up as a mecha mess-up.

Things I look foward too:

• I really want to believe the anime won’t revolved around 15 minutes of mecha combat and more on the story of the character learning to become their pilot
• A guy in a girl only academy is a quite interesting though
• I want to learn more about the different characters, their background, etc

Conclusion:

The show doesn’t look like it will be anything special, but I don’t believe (crossfingers)  It will be a pain to watch. This season should be entertaining and hopefully IS will find it’s unique way to present yet another harem ecchi.

See you all next time

ZeroG

~*~

Oki’s First Impression:

So when I watch an anime nowadays, it’s because I get really intrigued. I love ecchi, I love mecha, and I love art. If a show has those three things then I will watch it to begin with. But it’s not those three things that keep me watching. In fact, when a show is not rooted in some sort of interesting story arc I get rather bored and go dabble in my video games. So when I was looking at animes to look into this season, I really thought Infinite Stratos might be my thing. It reminds me of Macross Frontier, which I liked, and it was mecha, which I loved. So if it played it’s cards right, I’d love it!  …Right?

So the first thing I noticed was-

Yes. You heard me right. For the first time in years a distinctly beautiful image was thrust into my eye sockets and so I knew, one way or another, this episode was going to be finished if I had to download the raw and just watch the pretty background images.  I mean LOOK AT THIS MOUNTAIN! If you were like, moving or some shit, to a fantastic magical place of wonder, would you not want a fucking amazing mountain like this to be in the backdrop? It’s like candy land without Katy Perry annoying me the whole time. I for genuine serious would love to be up in this mountains’ grill and I hate nature. Whoever drew this mountain needs a gold metal. I LOVE THIS MOUNTAIN. Nothing could be wrong with this art whaso-

Oh. The mechs are in 3d. The one thing I hated about Macross Frontier.

Well, the 3d mechs aren’t so bad I want to vomit. In comparison to Macross Frontier they’re actually very aesthetically pleasing but I still prefer good ol’ CG celled mechs, if I had a choice. The first part is merely a group of individuals fighting. Actually, it’s showing what I would assume to be a fight scene between characters we’ll shortly be introduced to. I’ve seen several anime’s do this type of thing. First you have some intense fight scene and the characters involved are already introduced, and call one another by name. This let’s you know that either when they’re introduced to you they’ll already be friends, or that when they’re introduced they’ll learn to come together as a team even if they don’t seem like they will at first.

Actually these guys work together so well they actually seem concerned when another is in danger, and save each other when they’re not in a good situation. Ultimately, Ichika, the one everyone seems to be relying on in this introduction, even states that he won’t let the enemy they’re fighting escape this time. This is almost guaranteed to be an event that has not happened yet, because we have no emotional bond to any of these characters. We can assume this is a flashback.

 

Now the credits open, and you may wonder why I spent so much time expositing an introduction when it likely isn’t necessary! Because the series wants you to notice it. It’s the very first part of this series that you see. You need to see that this series is pretty, it’s fast, it’s got character’s who truly care about one another and work together. Infinite Stratos WANTS you to know this about the series before it wants you to know anything else. There’s not even ecchi in this part- just action, teamwork, and pretty pretty mountains.

Also I liked the opening. It’s very pretty and the song is decent, but it’s not ranking on any top ten lists until it grows more on me. However the logo for the series is rather dull. The logo really shows you what they wanted to represent their series when you can’t see any pictures, and it’s just kind of boring.

Now onto the actual episode. In a nutshell, I want to answer something. Are we going to learn who these characters emphasized in the opening are, and will the scene from the beginning recur? And just for you, I’ll rate the ecchi.

Our main character’s first priority is a girl not paying attention to him, but he also doesn’t seem to be a wuss. I like my men with emotions but without the indecisive gene, so I kind of like this guy.

Also, he has a harem. And he is very afraid of it. I’d introduce you name by name to every new character but it’s your job to watch, so I’ll just sum it up and screenshot the one I think is the hottest. Honestly I’m just preoccupied by the guy, instead of the women I assumed would be throwing themselves all over him from second 1, he is very entertaining and doesn’t want to be seen as the gloomy guy. I think he comes off as that normal guy who wants the one girl to notice him and anyone else he shrugs off.

WOWZA! Nevermind. The only member I can’t add to this harem is officially the hottest. She could glare at me all day long, woah. I’m actually really liking that in 2 seconds I already understood that she’s badass, and not very objectified. She wears stockings. You’ll see what she wants you to see. Oh my god, and Ichika, even monologues about how his sister’s job was something he never even knew about. I love these characters. Already I want to watch more.

And it’s in the moments of siblings abuse that will follow that we learn what is so special about Ichika- he is the only man in the world who can use IS. Actually, I did always like the idea of the entire field being dominated by one gender until one kickass member of the opposite sex came in and showed everyone who’s boss. Granted it can be seen as sexist when the chosen one, which I assume will be Ichika, is a man and the lowly women majority must grovel. But when women are the only one’s who can use the power, we’ve got a nice feel so far. Especially when there hasn’t been a sexism overload yet.

And on that note, I really appre-

LOOK AT THAT FIRE! IF THAT FIRE WAS A PERSON I WOULD HAVE SEX WITH IT! WHY IS THIS ART SO GOOD! I AM SEDUCED BY THE FLAMES! THE FLAMES!

Actually, Ichika’s sister is famous and represented Japan as an IS user. Now she’s a famous teacher, and apparently kept that from Ichika. Well, I’d hardly believe my kickass sister was in charge of a school. Even if the moutains were that fabulous. Then there’s learning and exposition and stuff you’ll need to know but I don’t feel like telling you so good luck with watching a moe teacher and her exposition.

Be prepared for the typical estrogen charge that comes with a boy coming to what would typically be an all boys school. And actually, Ichika is no lech or perv and is only interested in his childhood best friend who for some reason would like to punch him in the face. Or did. Now she wants to talk to him on the roof! And for once the main childhood love interest is not a bubbly giggly whiney person, she’s actually kind of cute and I would be okay with her ending up with Ichika. Come on, you know it might plausibly occur.

I will go ahead and say I find this whole 1000 girls stalking Ichika to actually be plausible. Almost every girl deep down wants their fated high school romance. I wanted one and I hate high school boys. The fact that an actually attractive boy came to their school makes sense. Now they’re all fantasizing that they will be so special that a boy who could have essentially any girl at their school would pick them. That’s like every girl’s fantasy. I could eat reeces cups for 3 weeks straight and not feel bad about myself if a boy with that many options picked me, or at least I could in high school. The hormones are raging when you’re a kid and even if these girls love school and their future careers, that at least a few would be interested in what a normal person would like makes sense to me, you know? Yeah. Not saying it’s what they should be doing, but they’re normal girls who are probably fed the sa- okay I’ll shut up now. Basically, as a girl who’s wanted some fairy tale romance at SOME point, even if not now, the concept of this harem anime makes sense to me as opposed to some other…rather stupid ones.

So now we’re onto that harem business I mentioned. We have our stuck up tsundere model 40 Cecilia Alcott. Actually instead of just flashing by these girls and giving us panty shots, they took a few minutes to give Cecilia some development. But then it flashes to honest to God, the first real ecchi we get. And if this is what I get to expect then I’m glad to watch this anime. EMERGING FROM SHOWER BOOB SHOT NO JUTSU!

This is his main love interest. You know, childhood friend one? Yes, I support them together already….fufufufufu in more ways than one. Anyway so they live together, there are rules. Hijinks ensue.

Well yeah, the majority of the rest of the episode is spent having awkward moments with Houki and Ichika because he is a dumbass, and of course the harem of women that follow him despite that he is a raging dumbass (I do like that about him XD). But then there is a hook for the next episode! A battle between Cecilia and Ichika! Also a fun statement about how women are now the stronger gender and an entire room of girly girls loling as Ichika forgets EVEN THE MOST BASIC CONCEPTS OF THEIR SOCIETY!

Alright, so there you go! Infinite Stratos! So far, not too much is going on. Oh, and for a harem anime it’s interesting how the end is just Ichika and Houki running… a lot

Things I look Forward to-

Honestly, I want to see Ichika fight and see how typical animu protagonist he is. I like that’s he’s not the best at everything but I need to see more and see if I’ll continue to like him as much as I do.

DROOL ART, ART, ART!

Seeing this mismatch of characters, half of whom haven’t really appeared or had screen time, become a team like in the intro.

Conclusion:

I really like this anime so far. I want to follow it and see if it stays in the shift of things! As it stands it’s barely a harem and barely an ecchi, but it’s starting off focusing on characters which I really like. It could be really good, if it decides to make the characters as important as they are now. And also it’s funny so yeah.
-Oki