Eva’s First Impression
It has been four years since I covered the adorable ONA, and I am super psyched to watch Houkago no Pleiades as a TV-Series! The premiere today made it very easy for anyone who had watched the original ONA (Four, 8 Minutes Episodes) to remember the premise of the story. In short this episode didn’t have a whole lot of new material and at times did feel as if they did just take the old footage and recycled it. If they really did do that, then it would definitely explain why I felt the pacing and transitions were a bit off. There were times when certain things happened rather than having clarity about it, it threw me off. It wasn’t like it was rushed or anything of the sort, it was just how the scenes were put together.
The story revolves around around Subaru who one day finds herself experiencing bizarre things around her. She meets a group of magical girls where her friend Aoi is already a part of, and quickly becomes one herself. (No magical chants needed, just a hug a star and you too can become a magical girl!) Even though the girls and herself don’t really know what they are doing, (because they never done it before), their mission is to secure a fragment of the engine for their Pleiadian friend’s spaceship. It is a bit unclear whether or not they retrieve things in a different realm of a sort, but it certainly appear to be. Here’s to hoping they will properly give us a solid explanation next week.
I felt there was a lack of focus with so many little things happening. Magical rooms that normal people should not be able to enter, foretold to be the “Savior”, the Pleiadian President who recruited the girls to help him out recover the fragments of the engine for his spaceship, and the boy (who initially appeared sickly) as the dark shooting star (established as their rival when it comes to retrieving the fragments), and of course, the tension between Aoi and Subaru. Of course it wasn’t the sloppiest I’ve seen, but it is something I hope to be improved on as the series progresses.
The so-called ‘tension’ between Aoi and Subaru was a bit strange. Frankly speaking, I found it to be an extremely weak conflict between the two and I partially wonder why they even bothered with it- especially when it has been more or less resolved within the first episode. Their conflict was a misunderstanding where they had thought the other one had abandoned them when they went to a different high school. It wasn’t like they had a big fight- which probably would have left a bigger impact had it been the case instead.
I am relieved there will be more time to develop Subaru’s character as well as to get to know the others (who were more or less serving as Background Characters today). Her introduction as a character was admittedly a bit of a lackluster due to the type of character she is. She shown us how slow she can be to notice things around her when she is totally out of it (she didn’t realize that she wasn’t in the observatory until she was out of the green house she magically stepped into) feel as if she is a character who lacks a bit of confidence, but will muster up her courage to help others out.
Nevertheless, despite the imperfections, I did enjoy the episode and I am eagerly anticipating what they have in store for the series. I am curious to see what kind of relationship is going to form between the boy and Subaru.
As I am already covering five shows, and covering six now a days for me is a bit risky… I would like to do the coverage of this show, but I think it would be in my best interest to do a trial run for the first three episodes to find out whether or not my wrists can handle the workload.
Possibility of watching: Guaranteed
Possibility of Blogging: High – But will undergo a 3 episode trial to see if I can handle the workload.
“(she didn’t realize that she wasn’t in the observatory until she was out of the green house she magically stepped into)”
Now that’s unfair. Her reaction when she opened the door showed that she realized what was on the other side was not what was supposed to be there. Afterwards She was just caught up in her emotions from trying to invite Minato to go stargazing with her only to have him turn her down, so she left the room in a kind of a daze. She got outside and was thinking “I need to go to the observatory… wait, this IS the observatory!” It’s not that she hadn’t known that the observatory was supposed to be there, or that the greenhouse wasn’t, her mind was just running on a different track at that point and it took her a second to switch back.
I also didn’t have a problem with the Aoi/Subaru dynamic. So they’ve figured out that there were misunderstandings between them. That doesn’t mean everything will be happiness and roses from now on. It just sets us on the path to having them properly make up, and (hopefully) prevents us from having several episodes of Aoi being a bitch to Subaru due to misunderstanding, which could easily cause viewers to come to dislike her because of her attitude.
I wasn’t picking on her for it. She probably thought she was (still) dreaming despite doublechecking when she stepped in until she actually spoke to Minato.
And I wasn’t saying it was bad for Aoi and Subaru’s fight to be resolved. It’s as you said, spares us from unnecessary cliche drama of one character usually acting bitchy. What I meant was I didn’t feel like they have to have a conflict in the first place. But it’s good that not everyone had a problem with it.
Well, the conflict itself was a remnant from the ONA, except there it failed to have any sort of explanation and just [i]was[/i].
Anyway, I hope you’ll be able to follow this.