[Klashikari]

For starter, I must admit I really regret my vote, as I gave a 8, instead of a 6.
Basically, this episode fail for many many things that it completely outnumber the awaited return of the enpatsu shakugan...


meh... i put my rant back on the blog.
SNSII, Episode 1: Screencaps, Summary and Thoughts

now, for the rant!

First, the biggest problem is probably the “reset button”. It is purely dumb, as the first season clearly demonstrates that Yuuji HEARD Shana, and the later scenes after the Tenpa Jyousai did imply deeper interactions.
I dunno if it was some device to actually fix the mistake they did in the first season (as, if IIRC, shana wasn’t supposed to confess back there), but it is terrible since they are just trying to boost up the triangle, which completely fails as i will explain later on.
AT LEAST, Kazumi’s confession was still aknowledged (hard to avoid this anyway…but they DID mention nevetherless, along with Hayato’s!).

Still, the triangle effect doesn’t worth anything if Yuuji is clear with his feelings (which can be altered if JC staff do jack, just like they did with the reset). How this move was stupid enough? Because even if Shana doesn’t confess to him, that doesn’t mean Yuuji might begin to change his feelings out of the blue. Knowing it or not just gives the ability to actually execute the “couple dilemna” later or not.
That absolutely doesn’t reactivate the triangle, as as i said, until Yuuji changes his mind (very unlikely), Kazumi has 0 chance.
Aside of the major disappointement, I just realized it when i was screencapping the episode for the blog: basically, the art was completely unstable.
It has nothing to do with the change of design (as it is quite easy to distinguish the changes, especially the girls’ eyes, much smaller, giving a wider gap between them. Compare “SII” shana with the faint flashback of the Tenpa Jyousai), but really the consistency of the design, which go completely budget in various instances.
Example: Friagne… “glove” (is that rather a muttin!?),
Let’s not mention the unbalance in detail: why the staff decides to put crapload of details for Shana’s lecture scene? See the details in the hair (though Kazumi was still shafted big time, anyway) and eyes were largely superior to most sequences in this episode.
I begin to fear some “ZNT” legacy for the art, as many “lazy” part can be spotted aside of what i just wrote.
At least, they didn’t use poor old footage for the whole “flashback dream” stuff. In fact, it is funny to see they completely reworked it to adapt with the Movie (as they have shown Marianne wielding bubble loot, which doesn’t happen in the first season)


That said, that doesn’t redeem JC staff for the very poor job in the character design consistency.
On the other hand, the animation is still smooth enough, though I would complain again for some parts (toncrap of stillshot).
Now as for the plot itself, we didn’t get much except that weird tomogara who can project such dream. It doesn’t exactly look like harmful yet, which is why this first episode was kinda useless. True enough the pace and the parts chosen were nice, but that didn’t exactly tell us who she is.
It would be better if they shortened this dream part to 2/3, and we could grasp something, instead of her idiotic laugh.
consequently, this episode looks really like a filler to me, as it didn’t flesh out the new plot yet (which could be done more efficiently with less dream thing)

Aside of the weird change for the Character Design, the series kept its heritage from the first season with the usual BGm and seiyuu (Kugimiya Rie engrish is even worse this year…)