Daijoubu

Continuing my discussion of plot development from Part 1….

The Sacred Blacksmith 03: I haven’t seen ep. 04, so I’ll have to talk about just up to 03 here. This series is quite different from Kampfer and Railgun, with a great deal of focus on plot right from the start. The opening credits, which show tons of characters we haven’t met yet, is one clear indicator of the kind of epic approach this anime will take. Like Railgun, the production values are high, so it’s all bright and shiny too. I think the love/hate guy-girl thing is a bit tiresome though, however a decent story can be a distraction from that. As for the plot development, the first two episodes introduced Cecily and the blacksmith, but he never does make a sword for her–instead we seem to be overrun with different types of swords: the one he rapidly creates in 01 and then he talks about a longer forging process in 02, but just as we are trying to figure it all out, we suddenly get a girl/sword in 03. So I think this series might almost verge on moving too fast, or at least being character- and concept-intro-heavy. But 03 does introduce the Demon Sword quite well and creates a rapport between her and Cecily, which is nice and no doubt necessary for the future.

Nyan Koi 04: I expected that this anime would be about helping a neko each week, but I was not expecting it to focus so much on the romance relationships as a central part of it. The pacing for Nyan Koi is quite traditional for the sort of anime where many girls are interested in one guy: 01 introduced the basic premise and the first girl. 02 and 03 introduced the second girl and devoted quite a bit of attention to developing her as a character; 04 introduces the latest girl (I just KNEW the voice sounded like a woman–not merely that a woman played the role, but that the character was a woman lol). And there’s still more girls to be introduced. Then, when we’ve met all the characters, we just sit back and wait for a hot spring episode! Nyan Koi is entertaining, even if the character types have been done before many times (I’m reminded of another extreme tomboy from back in the 80s…).