I started watching this the first week it was aired, so I was following most of this as it was being subbed, apart from the last 4 episodes which I burst through this evening by force.
This anime starts off very strong in my opinion, it is funny, it is reasonably paced, the characters are interesting, and although there are hints of being slightly generic on occassion in the first few episodes, I dismissed them as everything else was great.
The intro hooks you as it starts out at a train station, the main protagonist Sai Akuto is getting on the train to his new school with
...
hopes of becoming a priest, how wrong his hopes will turn out to be though.
Immediately he meets with one of the female heroines, and gets off to a rocky start, which is quickly remedied, and they quickly become friends, and from that introduction easing you in, it starts throwing scraps of the main plot at you, mixed in with interesting characters and lots of funny moments to keep you interested, it seemed so perfect at first, to me at least, as everything was right, everything fit, it seemed great and I couldn't say a bad word about it.
The main character was likeable, he wasn't a stale, brown haired with glasses "I want to always do the right thing nothing else matters I won't hurt people but I don't want to die" cliché piece of rubbish we've seen a million times. He was a unique character, interesting, likeable. He wasn't afraid to stand up, to get in a fight where necessary, but he tried to avoid it otherwise in a reasonable fashion, a simple first hurdle that so many protagonists in this kind of genre fail at and which anger me every time.
The female heroines had some generic stereotypes thrown in here and there, but overall were a solid set of characters, all unique and different, with different motives for being with the protagonist, different goals in mind, all drawn to him and all playing an important part to the main plot evenly, no girl is completely left out.
On a personal side note I absolutely adored the robot girl and student council president. Especially the president, my lord she was brilliant.
The other 'throwaway' side characters as I like to call them aren't annoying, they're reasonably likeable, they do their job well and don't feel forced.
Overall the cast was very solid and worked together well.
The main problem with this series though, is that it starts to rush things.
REALLY rush things, and it loses a lot of it's charm, especially around the middle sections to near the end.
Before you know it, everything has been introduced for a base to build the main plot on, then suddenly the main plot kicks into overdrive and you're left sitting with your head cocked to one side, confused as to where this all of a sudden came from, who these new people are, what is actually going on. Especially in the build up to the last few episodes.
It was obvious that they had to cram a lot together in the 12 episodes, and it would have been much better as a 24 episode series in my honest opinion, as a lot of it was explained in a rather backhanded manner, "Oh, by the way, x is now x of so and so and does this, this is what is the cause of that, understand what's going on now? no? me either.", at least that is how it felt to me at times.
One thing to note though, when the main serious plot does kick in, while the jokes don't completely dissipate; they are toned down. A lot.
There are probably more jokes and hilarious moments in a single early episode than there is in the last 5.
Another gripe is how it seems to almost change genre episode 5+, at times it suddenly gets rather cheesy, with fighting and action scenes that I can only describe as "a mix between dragonball z and naruto" in some cases, especially the sword in the stone bit, I won't spoil, but that seemed too ludicrous for me to handle.
It almost feels as if it can't decide what it would prefer to do, stick with the way it started in the first few episodes, or switch to a generic fighting anime style, it hovers in-between and it aggravated me somewhat.
Despite it's flaws, and in my opinion becoming very generic and average in the middle areas, the late areas redeemed themselves, with the final two episodes being genuinely enjoyable again, although the ending felt like a slight cop-out to me, it was still enjoyable, so if you do watch, be warned that you might have to force yourself to watch some episodes near the middle.
Anyways, enough with explaining the story, characters and my enjoyment of it, onto the art and sound.
The art was very good, the animation was done to a reasonably good standard, neither were anything to go crazy about, but they were good.
Most of the characters had unique visual properties (I say most) that define them and make them unique, so for the most part there are no copypasted characters, the main protagonist is definitely unique, and in a very good way.
I never found any glaring faults with things like anatomy or the way characters move, which is always a good thing, oh, and I watched it uncensored so I cannot comment on how the censorship was done, sorry there.
In regards to sound, the OP was very nice, I liked it a lot in terms of both the animation and the music, the ED was alright too, but I wasn't a huge fan.
The music in the actual anime wasn't really that memorable except in one or two sections, so it is a solid 5-6 on that front, but I liked the voice acting a lot, so that bumps it up to an 8.
The voice actors were very good in my opinion, they conveyed the emotions, reactions and feelings well, I can't say anything bad about them.
All in all, it gets a 7 in my opinion, it was honestly enjoyable, but it rushed too much and felt like it couldn't decide what it wanted to be as an anime.
It could have been so much more.
Still, I would recommend fans of the comedy/supernatural genre give it a try as it is a good all rounder still, I just don't see it getting any special mention or being considered "amazing" any time soon.
Jul 17, 2010
Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou
(Anime)
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I started watching this the first week it was aired, so I was following most of this as it was being subbed, apart from the last 4 episodes which I burst through this evening by force.
This anime starts off very strong in my opinion, it is funny, it is reasonably paced, the characters are interesting, and although there are hints of being slightly generic on occassion in the first few episodes, I dismissed them as everything else was great. The intro hooks you as it starts out at a train station, the main protagonist Sai Akuto is getting on the train to his new school with ... |
