‘If we are frightened, the people behind us will be, as well.’
Summary: The action story is set in Edo-era Tokyo in the early 1700s. The eighth shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune ordered boxes to be installed so commoners can submit their thoughts. After hearing their voices, the shogun creates a new magistrate unit—Mushibugyou—to protect the people in the heart of the city. Each member is a specialist with unique fighting skills.
(Source: MAL)
Chris’ First Impression:
Before I begin, I’d just like to point out that I am in no way A. a pervert looking for ecchi (hell, I didn’t even know it was labelled as an ecchi until after I’d watched it!) or B. someone who gets turned on by spider’s unleashing their ‘load’ (I’d like to say ‘spiders webs’, but what came out of that spiders ass was not web-like!) on men and women alike. That is all.
Jinbei is our ‘hero’, our protagonist. We find him walking along the road to Edo when he is confronted by a bear and kicks it’s ass in true samurai
style. At this moment in time, I’m not quite sure what I think of Jinbei (I think his name is Jinbei, but when I looked it up on MAL it came up as… Jinbee?) at this moment in time. He’s your stereotypical boob loving hero, who within five minutes of being in Edo has already found a love interest. Nice one! Haha, but male banter aside, Jinbei is one of those headstrong ‘show no fear’ heroes that we’ve come to love like over the years and it was no surprise that within another two minutes after meeting his love interest he is forced to confront his first second enemy. Now this enemy is a giant man eating spider that just so happens to be wondering around the ye ol’ town of Edo without a care in the world… other than hunger. Apparently giant spiders are a formidable foe. Who knew? Right, back to Jinbei. Of course, Jinbei jumps right on in to defeat his opponent and ultimately he is defeated. Honestly it took me by surprise. Yes, yes, it’s become common courtesy to make the hero lose his first battle and then later redeem himself, but I was thinking that maybe they’d try going back to the old way of doing things – you know, hero shows up everyone by kicking ass! But I digress, Jinbei loses, Haru (Oharu) is kidnapped by a spider, Jinbei gives chase, beats the spider, is confronted by like 
two hundred more spiders, loses, find’s his ‘star’ and joins the Insect Magistrate’s. Now all throughout this we’re constantly being shown flashbacks to the reason why Jinbei is the way he is. His father and his father’s ‘accident’ (that guy needs help, self-harming is never okay man!). His father’s ‘accident’ adds a level of depth that is needed for shows like this to ‘succeed’ (so to speak), without the required depth shows (and characters alike) like this end up being simply shows where a guy who has no reason for fighting, is fighting and that’s it. That’s what this show would be without the ‘accident’. The need to be ‘the strongest’ or a ‘hero’ is, I feel, an overused and unnecessary concept that, if not used properly, can ruin a show. Luckily with Jinbei’s guilt and his need for ‘redemption’ the ‘I must be a hero’ complex isn’t wasted on him. Good on ya Jinbei! Overall, Jinbei is an interesting character, with an interesting background, who has plenty of space to grow. He’s comical and determined and surely that’ll never be a bad thing. No go kick some insect ass!
Haru doesn’t get much screen time in this episode and serves only as a ploy for A. Jinbei to make a romantic/first connection in the town of Edo and B. to force Jinbei to show us his ‘true’ strength. So far Haru is simply a cute girl, with whole screen filling boobs, who’s parents are dead and who likes to feed and hug random strangers who she’s only just met and only just learn the name of. You w****! W**** is such a crude word… Anyway, I don’t have much to say about her other than I hope she remains cute and helps develop Jinbei’s character even more. Yep… Nope. I’m not going to talk about her boobs you perverts! Get away from me. Ugh.
Now for the Insect Magistrates… Mugai is an overconfident douche who will surely, in time, get what’s coming to him. He hasn’t even spoken yet and I already don’t like him. Damn you and your gravity defying hair Mugai! Hibachi (the gunpowder expert) is… annoying. She spoke like twice and I, again, don’t like her. She’s definitely a Sakura, in love with the bad ass who will never love her back. Yup. Tenma. Is he one of these overly powerful child girly boys who act like they don’t know anything and then go and kick some serious ass? Yeah I don’t like him that much either. Now Shinjiku, he’s the kinda guy I wanna see more of! He’s got that sadistic smile that reminds me so much of Zoro (One Piece). He hasn’t spoken that much either and already I like his character more than the other three Magistrates. Thing is… I’ll probably come to like Hibachi, Tenma will become less annoying and more of a character that I just ignore (unless he has an awesome backstory!) and Mugai… ugh, I don’t even know where to being with that guy. Jinbei will most likely ask to train under him (because Mugai is his ‘star’ after all) and Mugai will keep a straight face, refuse, and go back to being a master insect killing douche. Oh! And I almost forgot, Kotori! Meh, he’s alright. He didn’t really bring much to the show other than the kind mentor vibe that probably means that he’ll be Jinbei’s go to guy for most of the series. I think that’s enough about them though.
The story! The basic premise is what simply what it says in the summary. Bugs are (for some unknown reason A. giant and B…) invading the city of Edo (I’ll get back to Edo later) and it’s the Insect Magistrate’s Office’s job to deal with them. Jinbei’s backstory and his father’s ordeal is what I found to be best about the story so far. From this episode alone I can’t actually make any presumptions about where this story is going to go because of the lack of detail that we’ve received so far about the state of the world and Jinbei’s role in it, but I’m sure it will be at the very least an okay storyline with loads of cleavage shots and an abundance of insects… yes, this is the extent of my deductive skills. I mean, I liked the whole Jinbei to the rescue plot point this episode but I just don’t see where they’re going to take it from here. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.
Edo. I really like the look and feel of this anime. I’m not sure if it’s my adoration for archaic Japanese architecture and the epicness of the Shogunate period (and the Edo era) but either way, I thought that the scenery looked amazing! The animation quality isn’t Shingeki no Kyojin quality, but it’s easy on the eye and is enjoyable to watch. I’d never heard of Seven Arcs (the animation studio) before this and they haven’t done many works that I’m familiar with BUT I think they’ve done a pretty good good here. They can have a pat on the back from me!
Now where was I… ah yes, the music! The OST is nothing amazing and the opening and ending songs are nothing special, so I guess that’s all I have to say about that. You know what I hate more than ‘note so great’ openings and endings? Short paragraphs. This paragraph is going to annoy me until it’s at least three lines long. Done. There we go. It should be fine now. Phew.
Let’s finish this off then shall we? Overall, I quite liked this show. I found it charming. Ever since my Fairy Tail went away, I’ve been locked in a state of melancholy. I’m not saying in any way that this show will be able to fill the void the Fairy Tail has left, but I think it’s good enough to keep my curiosity sated until Fairy Tail returns. The characters are nothing special, but are nonetheless characters who will all surely have interesting back stories and bring humor to my life. Basically, what I’m trying to say is, if this show is good enough to keep my interest long enough to reach the 25 minute mark, then it’s doing something right. And no, I didn’t just watch it in the hope of boobs and panties! How are you insinuate such profanities. This is slander. I’ll sue you all!
Possibility of Blogging: Probably, depends entirely on episode 2’s story.
P.S: This humored me to no end. What even is that coming out of it’s ass? And how dare they make such a blatant innuendo!
P.S.S Jinbei’s ‘Stop it’ scream was nothing in comparison with Eren’s in Shingeki… Just saying.
