Instead of writing separate posts for each First Glance this season, I’ll write them all in a single post since it gets less crowded that way. I might also mention that since I don’t have much time to write during summer (normally I write on my phone on the bus, but during summer I mostly bike) I’ll be taking a break from the Mahou Sensei Negima! coverage and my Fairy Tail coverage won’t start until autumn when school starts again.
Ookami-san to Shichinin no Nakama-tachi
Translates to “Ookami-san and Seven Companions”(Ookami means wolf), also known as just “Ookami” since the full title is so long. Or the parody variations “Ookami-chan” or “Ookami-tan” because this title just begs to be made fun of.
“Long, Long ago… Well, not that long ago actually, there was a place called Otogibana City. And in that city, there was a school called Otogi Academy. The director of this school was a dirty old geezer named Aragami Lamp. I mean old man. He also happens to be a big shot in the Aragami Syndicate that controls the city. And this is the club he formed, the Otogi Academy Student Mutual Assistance Association, also known as the Otogi Bank. In return for fulfilling requests, they have their clients return their obligations to them as necessary. And that is the setting of our story”
—Narrator, Episode 2
That quote from the Narrator summarizes the setting pretty well. The club called Otogi Bank, because it’s real name is too long, help clients with requests of all possible natures from love confessions to assassinations (yes, seriously!). The pay is simply to owe the Otogi Bank a favor. They then cash in this favor in ways that makes Loan Sharks go green out of jealously (another quote). The main characters of the story are Ryouko Ookami (“Ookami-san”), whose name means “Wolf”, and who handles most of the tasks involving beating someone up. Ryouko is a typical Tsundere (and a Dere-Tsun if we’re following Sebastian’s definition from Lucky Star), and she’s not particularly good at hiding either her softer side or her interest. Then we have her roommate and best friend Ringo Akai, whose name is a pun on Apple and Red Riding Hood. She is obviously based on the latter, and is about what you’d get if you’d combine Komoe from Toaru Majutsu no Index and Kitsune from Love Hina. And she’s just as fun as this sounds (thought less manipulative, fortunately). Then there’s Ryoushi Morino who is the only guy to ever have fallen for Ryouko, and who is more or less forced into the club by Ringo both because she, like Kitsune, thought it would be fun to get Ryouko and Ryoushi together, and because the Otogi Bank needed some male members (everyone except the president and Tarou Urashima are girls) – Ryoushi is a hunter and is a master at hiding his presence and shooting people with a Slingshot from the shadows. He also has Antrophobia (fear of being stared at) and Scopophobia (fear of being seen) and his way of ending his sentences with “~su” which just adds to his cuteness. The Narrator also deserves a special a mention. She’s voiced by the same person who did Kuroko Shirai in Toaru Majutsu no Index and Toaru Kagaku no Railgun, and isn’t a passive narrator who just explains what happens but frequently comments on the situation (commonly it’s remarks about Ringo and Ryouko’s flatness), or gets overly engaged in what happens. Seems she kept a bit of Kuroko’s personality from doing her voice for two “seasons” (soon to be three).
Ookami also makes fun of a lot of classic folktales, for example Cinderella’s tennis shoes (and Cinderella’s running spinkick!?) and two of the members of the Otogi Bank are Tarou Urashima from the japanese Dragon King’s Palace legend, and Orihime from the Tanabata legend – Tarou flirts with everyone (“He’s not just a corny womanizer for show” is the Narrator’s comment), and Orihime has a crush on him and “deals with him” every time he flirts with someone else (and she acts a lot like Chizuru from Mahou Sensei Negima! minus the Mutsumi-part of her personality). And did I mention the Graphics are gorgeous?
If the plot starts going anywhere this could very well be a 9 or 10 out of 10 rating, right now it’s about 8/10.






Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin
Also known as “Occult Academy” in english is both a serious horror/mystery story and a comedy. A bit like Ken Akamatsu’s stories, it keeps serious without taking itself overly seriously. If you’ve read Mahou Sensei Negima! or Love Hina you know what I mean.
The series begins with Maya Kumashiro travelling to the school where her father is the headmaster after he died. There, one of the teachers has found a casette which contains a parting message to his students, which she plays to everyone in the school. Due to the headmaster reciting a spell for reviving the dead since he confused it with another spell, he revives his own body from the coffin and the zombified version of him starts rampaging around the school until Maya, together with an “Occult Dowser”, the school mechanic and two friends stop him. While this could be a completely serious “arc” (can you call it that when it’s just a single episode?), OA turns it more towards being the ultimate clumsiness to accidentally revive himself. It’s more comedy than serious plot and Maya’s faces are completely epic. At the end of this episode, Maya announces that she hates the occult, when a naked guy falls from the sky without any explanation. Apparently he’s a time traveller who came from the future to prevent the world from being destroyed in 2012 (see The Nostradamus Prophecies). By destroying a certain object that could be located anywhere inside the school, they can prevent a dimensional rift from opening and letting out aliens that will destroy the world – and apparently that was also exactly what Maya’s father had been doing.
Occult Academy (“OA” for short) reminds a bit of Durarara!! in both the art style and the general atmosphere – and since Durarara!! was a complete masterpiece that’s more than welcome. As I mentioned, the story doesn’t take itself overly seriously while still keeping a serious plot going. It could be described as what you’d get if you’d combine Death Note and Durarara!! with a bit of comedy added in. So far the story hasn’t really started up, instead it keeps suggesting and foreshadowing like D.N.Angel (the Manga version, the Anime sucked and didn’t do either a single bit!) or Canaan. If it keeps the pace and story going, this could easily be one of the best shows of the season. 9/10






Nurarihyon no Mago
The pointless english title is “Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan” (that’s not even a translation!) is essentially the Manga version of D.N.Angel combined with Harry Potter and a bit of demons added in. Also, I tend to call it “Noriyasu no Mago” because I can’t pronounce the title.
Rikuo Nura is a boy who is 3/4 Human and 1/4 Demon (“Yokai” actually, but that’s essentially the same thing). He is also the heir to a clan of demons (again actually Yokai), which his Demon quarter fully approves but his human part has no interest in inheriting anything, and just wants to be normal. Said Demon Quarter is essentially Dark Mousy from D.N.Angel all over again, just as his human form is a cuter and less whiny version of the main character Daisuke Niwa, again from D.N.Angel.
That’s about all there is to the base plot, but the execution is so awesome it’s almost scary. It has the same kind of atmosphere as the Manga version of D.N.Angel, and more or less revives the whole Supernatural genre which has been lying untouched for a while. It has a lot of colorful characters, and switches between being really badass and really funny seamlessly. Yuki (means Snow in Japanese), the Ice demon who looks a lot like the Pokémon Frosslass, has a really good voice acting and a cute somewhat moé-ish personality, and is also pretty clumsy (Rikuo spills his coffee over his pants and screams “Aaaah! Hot!”, Yuki tries to cool him down by blowing an icy wind at him, but accidentally freezes him into a solid block of ice instead is one example of that). The only part of the sountrack that really caught my attention was a theme that plays in the background about 60-70% of the show and that sounds almost identical to the main theme of the Harry Potter films. Along with the great animation – the quality is certainly along the lines of Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou or Toaru Majutsu no Index, which is really good, but not as good as for example Clannad and Clannad ~After Story~. Also, if you’ve read D.N.Angel, you’ll find similarities (or ripoffs) everywhere from character designs to plot to “split personalities” with their own bodies. If this keeps the quality up, it could easily reach 10/10 once the plot starts. Currently it’s 9/10.






Mitsudomoe
No! No! NO! You can’t do something like this! Perverted humor that passes “funny” and over to the “annoying” and “disgusting” side with a cast consisting of sixth-graders spells “EPIC FAILURE” with big letters. Don’t watch this. 0/10 – Unwatchable
Shukufuku no Campanella
I first tried to translate this title myself, but confused “Shukufuku” (blessing or blessed) with “Seppufuku” (a sort of compromise-solution to a love-triangle). Just in case you wanted to know. You may also want to know that this is incredibly boring. It’s not as much of an epic fail as Mitsudomoe is, but I was seriously about to fall asleep after the first episode. Think a show with several main characters who are essentially Mutsumi from Love Hina. Without Keitaro and Naru to balance her, that’s just annoying. People are also genuinely stupid (but not like in Angel Beats! where they are stupid in a funny way, this is the kind of stupid that’s just annoying), the “plot” (if you can even call it that) is slow and likes to over-explain things since they apparently takes the viewers for idiots. Don’t watch this, it’s just a waste of time. Watch something better, like Ookami-chan. But Kurogane thought it was funny, so if you give it a chance, I won’t blame you. 2/10 – Don’t bother
Gakuen Mokushiroku HIGHSCHOOL OF THE DEAD
More epic failures. Sure, HOTD has pretty visuals, but there’s a bit too much zombies, indiscriminate slaughter and fanservice/ecchi for me. I didn’t even bother watching the first episode to the end which may be giving up to early on my part, but I really hate ecchi shows if it isn’t a really good series apart from it (Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou) or if it’s written by Ken Akamatsu (Love Hina, Mahou Sensei Negima, A.I. Love You). ?/10 – Didn’t give it a chance
Asobi ni Iku yo!
“Let’s go play” in english, is one of the ecchi shows I can actually stand.
A guy named Kio Kakazu one day finds an alien with cat ears and tail, and has her live at his place. At the same time, an FBI group and a cult of alien maniacs are after the alien.
Not the world’s best story, but it’s really well made. In the start of the first episode, there’s a girl who solo-raids a ship filled with soldiers without taking a single hit, then survives an explosion that blows said ship up without a scratch. This scene serves mostly to show of the graphics. The story makes no sense, but isn’t as bad as most other shows of this type is. The graphics are well-made, the body motions are exceptionally fluent. The soundtrack isn’t very noteworthy, but serves it’s purpose. If the story starts making sense, it could raise the score greatly. Right now it’s just 7/10
(EDIT: After watching the 2nd episode, the rating suddently raised to 8/10)






Screenshots by Random Curiosity. Used with permission.

























































































































































































