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the_sun_is_upMooooooar.
Rinne No Lagrange: So this is basically just Neon Genesis Evangelion without all the grimdark angst and with Shinji replaced by an energetic, athletic, outgoing girl wearing an orange tracksuit. The ANN folks have been ragging on it for its derivative "teenagers in giant robots fight alien invasion" schtick, but personally I think that "Eva minus angst plus ladies plus a likeable protagonist" sounds like a great idea.
Granted, the ANN reviewers have a point: Lagrange is not the most imaginative kid on the anime block. The beta protagonist, Lan, comes straight out of the Rei Ayanami school of Exotically Emotionless Pale-Blue-Haired Alien Chicks Who Lack Nudity Taboos, and the enemy robot in the first episode looks uncannily similar to the first Angel that Shinji fights in Eva. However the show makes up for its lack of new ideas with some pretty decent execution. The visuals are beautiful, with the animators getting plenty of mileage out of the seaside setting — lots of shots of the ocean, the vivid blue sky, seagulls, lush greenery, etc — and I'm loving the music so far. The OP is really neat-looking, making cool use of textured overlays, although some people will probably find it on the eye-bleedy side. The one big downside of the show I noted was the underage fanservice. There's not a lot of it, but it's really awkwardly placed in the narrative and just pops up out of nowhere and slaps you in the face with its crassness. The one exception would be the bit where Lan strips, which was very pretty and fairly tasteful, although it still suffered from the awkward timing.
But most of all I like the protagonist. Madoka is energetic without being grating, she's not a clichéd moeblob, she has moments of being genuinely funny, she's really into sports without being a stereotypical tomboy, and she responds to the whole "OH HEY COME PILOT THIS GIANT ROBOT FOR US" business with a fair amount of poise and minimal angst.
You can watch it at Viz's website here. Just turn on close-captioning to get subtitles.
Rinne No Lagrange: So this is basically just Neon Genesis Evangelion without all the grimdark angst and with Shinji replaced by an energetic, athletic, outgoing girl wearing an orange tracksuit. The ANN folks have been ragging on it for its derivative "teenagers in giant robots fight alien invasion" schtick, but personally I think that "Eva minus angst plus ladies plus a likeable protagonist" sounds like a great idea.
Granted, the ANN reviewers have a point: Lagrange is not the most imaginative kid on the anime block. The beta protagonist, Lan, comes straight out of the Rei Ayanami school of Exotically Emotionless Pale-Blue-Haired Alien Chicks Who Lack Nudity Taboos, and the enemy robot in the first episode looks uncannily similar to the first Angel that Shinji fights in Eva. However the show makes up for its lack of new ideas with some pretty decent execution. The visuals are beautiful, with the animators getting plenty of mileage out of the seaside setting — lots of shots of the ocean, the vivid blue sky, seagulls, lush greenery, etc — and I'm loving the music so far. The OP is really neat-looking, making cool use of textured overlays, although some people will probably find it on the eye-bleedy side. The one big downside of the show I noted was the underage fanservice. There's not a lot of it, but it's really awkwardly placed in the narrative and just pops up out of nowhere and slaps you in the face with its crassness. The one exception would be the bit where Lan strips, which was very pretty and fairly tasteful, although it still suffered from the awkward timing.
But most of all I like the protagonist. Madoka is energetic without being grating, she's not a clichéd moeblob, she has moments of being genuinely funny, she's really into sports without being a stereotypical tomboy, and she responds to the whole "OH HEY COME PILOT THIS GIANT ROBOT FOR US" business with a fair amount of poise and minimal angst.
You can watch it at Viz's website here. Just turn on close-captioning to get subtitles.
