Likewise, the first episode of K will blow people away. The colors, the camera angles, the scenery, interesting characters, lushly animated crowd scenes, and intriguing plot are simply put, compelling beyond belief.
You have two warring factions under leaders called kings. The op tells you that the show will be about these two groups fighting each other. Then there's a mystery set up later on in the first episode about Yashiro Isana, who you can see is listed as a main character on this very page. It's set up to be an action show with slight comedic elements, say like Rurouni Kenshin.
You know what? I'm going to stop writing for now. GO WATCH EPISODE ONE. It is amazing. Then come right back.
...
Back? Okay! Now you can skip the entire rest of the show. Don't waste your time on it. It's clear just from episode two that that they blew two to three episodes' worth of budget on episode one. That's not the major problem, though. While Escaflowne falls apart at the end, K falls apart in episode two. Specifically, the show turns into a light comedy with action bits. Those two kings in episode one? They don't really hate each other. Those two warring factions? They don't really fight each other very much at all. Eventually, they even pull a piece of animation out of the op and use it in the show. o_o Then they do it again with the same piece.
So, yeah, the production values take a nosedive in episode two and never recover, as the recycling increases more and more. The intense action-packed show that's set up in episode one dissolves immediately at the very start of episode two because they can't keep up the pace, and that mystery? Trust me when I say that whatever you think the answer is will be a much more satisfying answer than what they came up with. ~_~;
A note about scores. I use a traditional 5 point objective scale:
1 terrible
2 bad
3 average
4 good
5 great
This is stretched to 10 points, so everything is multiplied by 2 with no half-points allowed.
Overall series animation gets a 2 and art gets a 3.
After watching all of Escaflowne and knowing the sad fate that befalls the end of that show, I still found it compelling enough to purchase the whole thing on DVD. On the other hand, I would not buy K.
So, the bottom line is everyone should see episode one of K, then just imagine how the rest of the series goes. Enjoy!
