[Aquifina]

Originally Posted by ultimatemegax

Not a translation nor something from the JP sites. I wanted to offer my thoughts on the first third of the series. No spoilers for anything upcoming.

What kind of show does Chuunibyou want to be? That was the biggest question and doubt that I had in my mind coming into the start of the anime. There were many ways that Ishihara/Hanada could take the concept/source material and adapt it into a visual form, and, despite what they said in interviews, there was no way for us to fully realize where they would take the story. The answer of course was "fulfill your expectations, and then surprise you with reality."

What do I mean by surprise? Take the very first scene we see with Yuuta. After packing away his chuunibyou materials, he has a girl climb down a rope and into his hands. This girl asks him if he saw something and then if he wanted to. We see his bewilderness and then she's disappeared... Was it magic? No, she's merely climbing down the rope slowly. They built up this fated meeting atmosphere and then surprised us with reality. The same thing happens in episode 2's park scene. We see Rikka's awakening and then a spectacular battle with Toka....until we see that she's just playing around with her sister while Yuuta/Kumin look on.

At the same time, these four episodes introduce us to the cast and how they're going to play their roles throughout the series. Of course the focus overall is on Rikka due to her main heroine status, but Kumin had a lot of focus in episodes 2-3, Dekomori played big roles in 3-4, and our expectations were reversed when Nibutani was revealed to have a chuunibyou past. They've balanced the cast well (with the exception of Yuuta being in every scene due to protagonist powers) so you don't have one girl overwhelmingly featured overall.

People have commented that the art style is a step down from Hyouka, but there was never any intent to be similar. Staff comments have said they aimed to portray reality softly and warm like illustrations while Hyouka had a less bright color palette for the majority of the series due to its protagonist's POV. Animation-wise, the series has excelled mostly in part due to the glorious delusional battles. Everything is smoothly drawn.

Music-wise, I'm enjoying the BGM by Nijine as well as the composition of everything else by ZAQ. The OP song is very fitting as is the ED. They both capture chuunibyou in different ways. Sparkling Daydream emphasizes the upbeat nature and reflects the hyperness Rikka exhibits at times while INSIDE IDENTITY feels like a battle show's ED to show the female cast's chuunibyouness. I personally like them both.

Overall, taking the anime as its own work, I've enjoyed the show much more than anything else this season. It's only behind the completed Hyouka for me overall this year. I've already pre-ordered the BDs in anticipation of how Ishihara/Hanada decided to finish the series and I can't wait to start work on translating the booklets. While it's different than the novel, it's different in the good ways that make me entertained. The reception it's gotten not only here, but in various boards/forums/reviews/etc around the world has pleased me beyond anything I can say. All the time I spent translating various details feels like it's paid off tremendously. Here's to 8 more fantastic episodes!

Great write up, and it expresses my own reaction to the show better than anything I could write. My own biggest worry was that this would devolve into a harem anime, and that thankfully hasn't happened--and the characters have proved to be more interesting than I expected. I kinda figured it'd at least be gorgeous visually, and have plenty of moe, but it's been a better series than that--and for that I'm thankful.