hopeful_monster
Thousand Master
Starts with a little girl (Kurau) going to her father’s lab as part of her birthday present and if that’s not a recipe for disaster I don’t know what is. Only question generally is does it involve tentacles. Fortunately not, since Daddy is working trying to create alternate energy sources (and his name isn’t Gordon Freeman). There are many flashing lights, twiddly knobs, buttons to be pushed and machines that go boing. The totally foreseeable unforeseen bugger up was during the test two glowing blobs of light twirling round the experiment. One of these aims for sweet little Kurau, hits her and then both promptly vanish. She reappears moments later (good thing too other wise it would be a very short series) butt naked. Now this would be considered weird enough but add the fact she is hovering about a foot off the floor, glowing, and has a habit of passing through walls. After catching the other ball of light she decides be ground based again and starts working out what everything is. Now she claims to be Rynax, (part of a paired energy based life form i.e. the two blobs of light), and is generally harder, better, faster, stronger. Daddy isn’t happy and just wants his sweet little daughter back, despite assertions from the Rynax and his house keeper that she is his little girl. After a bit he realises this and they live happily ever after… not quite. Fast forward 10 years and Kurau is a Agent (freelance operative who takes any job that's potentially dangerous or illegal, so think like corporate espionage, item retrieval, Body guarding etc), and has a reputation for being a bit of the trill seeker but highly accomplished and respected. This is show by her taking down a small mech with nothing more than a shock stick. And that’s just the first episode.
And that’s the problem. Pacing. They could have extended the first episode to build up a bit to build up suspense and mystery but didn’t they rush through quite a bit of the opening ground work to try and jump straight into the action. The next few episodes are full of action with only a few nods to future plots arcs I’m guessing. Shame because I like a little mystery.
As a Bones work it has the usual beautiful background and character design, but the animation feels a little... flat. I don’t mean than details are missing or there isn’t enough expression, it’s just the way they move and the expressions are fractionally off and it doesn’t sit quite right, especially after their other works like FMA or Scrapped Princess.
Normally don’t talk too much about VA’s but Monica Rial does a good job of differentiating between kiddie Kurau, Rynax Kurau, Adult Kurau and various blends of the above. The rest of the cast is the standard ADV crowd doing a solid if unspectacular job of it. Haven’t got round the Sub yet. Both the OP and ED are chilled pieces, with the OP being an upbeat pop number and the ED being mellower with strings in the background. There was also some ‘Quon singing’, in episode vocal music that played little part in the plot. While they work well with subs they are slightly disconcerting with the dubs first time round.
I really wanted to like this, and while I don’t hate it there is a certain something missing. It didn’t grab me by the cojones with a shock opening like Eva, lead me on with a darker side like Mahoromatic. While it has potential to go on to better and brighter things I’d like to wait a bit until I start recommending it whole heartedly. Definitely a watcher, but undecided as to if it’s a keeper yet.
And that’s the problem. Pacing. They could have extended the first episode to build up a bit to build up suspense and mystery but didn’t they rush through quite a bit of the opening ground work to try and jump straight into the action. The next few episodes are full of action with only a few nods to future plots arcs I’m guessing. Shame because I like a little mystery.
As a Bones work it has the usual beautiful background and character design, but the animation feels a little... flat. I don’t mean than details are missing or there isn’t enough expression, it’s just the way they move and the expressions are fractionally off and it doesn’t sit quite right, especially after their other works like FMA or Scrapped Princess.
Normally don’t talk too much about VA’s but Monica Rial does a good job of differentiating between kiddie Kurau, Rynax Kurau, Adult Kurau and various blends of the above. The rest of the cast is the standard ADV crowd doing a solid if unspectacular job of it. Haven’t got round the Sub yet. Both the OP and ED are chilled pieces, with the OP being an upbeat pop number and the ED being mellower with strings in the background. There was also some ‘Quon singing’, in episode vocal music that played little part in the plot. While they work well with subs they are slightly disconcerting with the dubs first time round.
I really wanted to like this, and while I don’t hate it there is a certain something missing. It didn’t grab me by the cojones with a shock opening like Eva, lead me on with a darker side like Mahoromatic. While it has potential to go on to better and brighter things I’d like to wait a bit until I start recommending it whole heartedly. Definitely a watcher, but undecided as to if it’s a keeper yet.