Otherwise known as That Show With the Horribly Long Title (Winter 2013 Edition)
Summary: Izayoi Sakamaki, Asuka Kudou, and You Kasukabe are all “problem children” and each of them is blessed with a special power. One day they all receive invitations to a place called “Little Garden.” As soon as they read the letter, each of them is transported Alice In Wonderland style to said magical land, where they meet Black Rabbit (who is not black, but does have a rabbit tail and ears.) She tells them all about this new world, where members can play “Gift Games” and earn prizes. All three decide that it sounds like fun to stay (at least for the moment) and explore this place for a while. While it might seem like fun and games on the outside, Black Rabbit seems to be hiding something about the real reason that these Problem Children have been summoned.
Tenderfoot’s Impressions: I didn’t really know what to expect from this show, and while I wasn’t floored by this first episode, neither was I disappointed. The premise is nothing new: A group of kids get’s transported to a magic land. There’s a nice twist supplied by the fact that they don’t gain powers once they arrive but that they already have their powers in the real world. As expected those powers are what causes our main characters to have so many problems and to become bored with their lives. Little Garden, what little we’ve seen of it so far, seems like the bastard offspring of a Casino and an Internet forum. As Black Rabbit explains, each community or member can host a game of varying difficulty as long as they have a prize to give away. It’s seems like a good set up for an endless number of fun episodes featuring different games that our heroes can grow stronger playing. As far as premise goes, it does have potential.
Our three main characters aren’t exactly breaking the mold, but they do seem fun in a familiar way. Izayoi Sakamaki, the blond haired boy who wears earmuffs headphones all the time for some reason, has amazing physical strength and a bad attitude. Of course he’s the first to get into trouble, going off to fight a huge snake water god (and win) as soon as he can. While he does have a rotten personality, he’s also very perceptive and is the first to pick up on the fact that Black Rabbit is hiding something. Asuka Kudou is our little princess, a rich girl with a superiority complex whose power seems to be the ability to get anything (be it people or animals) to obey her commands. You Kasukabe is the quiet girl who can talk to animals. She seems the most “normal” of the bunch, and doesn’t seem to be as troubled as the others. Finally there’s Black Rabbit. How she got that name has yet to be revealed, as there’s nothing “black” about her in any way, shape or form. As far as “powers” go, her hair will change from blue to pink when she powers up, and she can jump and run very fast. To be honest I thought they would make her a lot more “jiggly”, if ya know what I mean ;). Sure, there was some fan service, but it was so minor and it could have been much, much worse. Anyway, Black Rabbit part of a small community that is briefly introduced but hasn’t fully been explained yet (other than to be pointed out as weak by Galdo Gasper, an obvious villain.)
The animation was nothing special, but it didn’t look too cheap either. You can tell that they took some short-cuts, making some scenes very dark, and other scenes that should have been light had that strange muted thing going on. The character designs were appealing in a very standard way. There wasn’t an opening, but the ending matched the feel of the show pretty well. There were some chuckle worthy moments, like when You’s cat companion was hitting on the Cat Girl waitress. My over-all feeling of this show is that it’s very…middle of the road. There’s nothing to make it really stand out, but there’s nothing horribly offensive about it either. It’s the type of show that might fly under peoples radars, even though it might not be the worst thing on this season. As long as the animation quality doesn’t take a nose-dive, I think it has potential to be a fun show to watch every week as long, as you’re not expecting too much out of it. I’ll definintly continue to watch this, and I’d be willing to consider blogging about it, but maybe only if I were to share it. I guess we’ll see.
Possibility of Watching: Sure, as long as it stays fun.
Possibility of Blogging: Unsure, maybe if I share it with another blogger.
Eva’s First Impression:
I’m not sure what to think really… but I think there’s a lot more than meets the eye for this show. At first I thought it was going to go with the whole Dog Days scenario with endless games and all. But judging with the conflicts between the leaders, and how Black Rabbit was rejoicing over the fact their community won a large Water Tree Sapling (which means they finally obtained their own water supply) tells me that the so-called “games” may be in fact more like “Survivor” in a way (you know how they’d receive supplies and rewards when they won a challenge?). There are prizes involved for conquering and defeating the Gods and opponent.
Despite the appearance of the Little Garden looking quite grand, I get the feeling that Black Rabbit’s community is in a way lacking materials (prizes) and are considerably weak in comparison to their opponents. It seems that she had called these three unique humans to help them. The game was simply a cover, but that cover is about to be blown now that Izayoi is confronting the Black Rabbit about his suspicions and the girls having encountered Galdo, the leader of the Fores Garo community.
The characters seem likable. Asuka Kudou has this Geass-like power as I call it since she can order people to do her biddings. Her character design also reminds me a bit of Tohsaka Rin from F/SN. You Kasukabe is quiet, I actually like the fact she can communicate with animals and is able to use their physical capabilities as her own (ex: jumping around in the trees like a cat). Izayoi Sakamaki and his terrible and not to mention ignorant attitude makes things entertaining, even more so when he is in fact, quite sharp and intellectual. He is able to find loop-holes in the rules, which will definitely be proven useful in the future. With his cocky attitude, his super strength certainly suits him very well.
The Black Rabbit is pretty cute. I find it neat that she can shift colors when she powers up. I also find it quite amusing how she tries really hard to put up a strong face when she is in fact terribly nervous.
This show will only have 10 Episodes. It’s very short, but with the whole set up, I have a feeling that in a way, this might be similar to Munto TV (who had nine episodes).
Despite the fact I am a bit iffy about this show, I am curious to see if there’s actually something interesting going on. If not, well I certainly won’t be covering this.
Possibility of Blogging: Unsure – If we’re up to it, Tenderfoot and I will probably share this one since this isn’t really something I’d cover on me own either.
Possibility of Watching: Yes, for the hell of it.