Amatsuki (あまつき)

[myopius]

Am I the only one here who's read(ing) the manga? ;_; It's not a reverse Twelve Kingdoms, but I'm not sure what it is. The plot's complexity is difficult to keep up with for many people. A lot of intrigue, and mystery...

The trailer disappointed me a bit, though.

Spoiler for Thoughts on the trailer--very minor spoilers:

The school scene is some sort of filler. I guess it does make sense that they want to provide some filler featuring Toki's school life, because at the start of the manga, he's already in the history museum.

Everything else in the trailer happens in the very first chapter.

It seems like Studio DEEN is slowing down the pace a lot here. The pacing is very fast in the manga, but that's what's great. The manga doesn't "slow down" to provide emphasis on characterization, plot development, or action. It does each of those things well, without having to slow down. Well, we'll see soon.

[Westlo]

I was going to download the manga and read it all last night.... but I decided not to. Nearly every manga to anime adaption starting this season which has been scanlated I've read... so I decided to ignore it for this and go in fresh.

[myopius]

That's probably a good idea.... I loved the manga's pacing and hope the anime's is comparably excellent... But realistically, I suppose it doesn't even matter, since whatever style of presentation they choose, the content is what makes the anime what it is. Ah, but I love the characters and hope the voice actors and animation style do them justice. =)

[Jiyuu]

Originally Posted by Westlo

I was going to download the manga and read it all last night.... but I decided not to. Nearly every manga to anime adaption starting this season which has been scanlated I've read... so I decided to ignore it for this and go in fresh.

mostly i think thats a good idea..
i usually at most read the first 1-2 volumes of a manga in a case like this just to get a general idea of what kinda anime it's gonna be..
but in general i think its a lot better to leave the manga for after the anime that way you use your time to watch and enjoy the series for what it is instead of compering the manga and the anime all the time and thinking "this wasn't like that in the manga! this too! what's going on?!?!"
and in the case the anime really is a 1:1 of the manga its worse as you already know everything thats gonna happen (and how it will happen)..

[Shinkouhyou]

Amatsuki is one of my favorite recent manga, so I'm really looking forward to the anime adaptation. It initially seems like another standard fantasy-adventure, but I've enjoyed the folklore and sci-fi elements. The manga is tightly plotted like a detective story and there's a lot of moral ambiguity in the characters. Well, I hope the anime doesn't screw it up. The only thing I'm really disappointed in so far are the clothing designs... UGH! Too bland.

[Hedd]

Well the first episode is slated for today, wonder which sub group will pick it up and how long it'll take them to post it.

[aroduc]

OP

Honestly wasn't overly impressed, but I'm not familiar with the source material either. Just seemed very very slow and they went out of their way to describe every single thing. Decently animated and the foreground art was all crisp and consistent, but the BG artwork was boring as sin, so during all the long expositions my attention tended to pretty quickly drift. *shrug*

Caps:
http://blog.seiha.org/?p=752

[myopius]

(Watched the raw.) Yep, it was very slow. There was much less conversation in the manga, although there was still an above-average amount in the manga.

And not only were things added, some were removed. There were no real plot changes in the anime, but the narrative definitely had a different tone because of it... I won't say any details because there's no need to (the anime should be enjoyed for what it is) but I have no idea why Studio DEEN removed the things they did, unless they wanted to save all their frames for Vampire Knight. This episode would've had more charm if those things weren't removed.

By the way, the song from the trailer was the ED song.

Edit: It was bothering me for a while... I just remembered who Kuchiha's voice reminds me of. The tsundere mermaid examiner in Seto no Hanayome, Shiranui. Similar role, and I feel like it's probably the same voice actor... not sure at all, though.

[Westlo]

Originally Posted by myopius

By the way, the song from the trailer was the ED song.

Nice, I'm glad it didn't end up nowhere like the songs used in the trailers for the first FMP and Kiddy Grade.

[the_firefly]

Originally Posted by myopius

It was bothering me for a while... I just remembered who Kuchiha's voice reminds me of. The tsundere mermaid examiner in Seto no Hanayome, Shiranui. Similar role, and I feel like it's probably the same voice actor... not sure at all, though.

Kuchiha is Romi Paku and Shiranui was Eri Kitamura.

[Kaijin]

Hmm, lots of people are saying it was dull, but I can't write-off an entire show cause the beginning was slow, I've watched a few shows that started slowly and ended brilliantly. Those who've read the manga have been saying to give this show a chance, cause it starts slow only to build into an incredibly fast-paced and exciting story. I think first impressions are just that, only impressions.

[eipu]

Originally Posted by Kaijin

Hmm, lots of people are saying it was dull, but I can't write-off an entire show cause the beginning was slow, I've watched a few shows that started slowly and ended brilliantly. Those who've read the manga have been saying to give this show a chance, cause it starts slow only to build into an incredibly fast-paced and exciting story. I think first impressions are just that, only impressions.

I agree with you completely. First impressions should not be the sole basis of our judgment whether a show is good or not. It's disappointing to here there are people ready to give up on the series because of the first episode being slow-paced. Amatsuki is worth more than.

[Impz]

Well, in my opinion (after watching it), I can say that there is enough interesting stuff in Amatsuki to keep on watching. I do not understand why people expect great stuff from an episode. I feel that there are enough interesting points in the series to get excited about. It might not be crazy action, but the action scenes are decent and there seems to be a good background for this.

That said, we made a summary + screenshots for the first episode. ^^

[Deathkillz]

ep 1

Spoiler:

Boring? bland? slow moving? How could you O.o

I actually like this first episode quite a bit. It has a certain charm that kept my attention all the way even with the long explanations some of which I was able to pick up (thankgod ^^). The characters are attractive and hold interesting personalities, abit cliched seen as I can just see that this is the start of their "party"but still good imo. The sudden change from reality to the fantasy world was sudden, but in a good way ~ now that is what I call being caught off guard.

This is a good first impression out of all the new series I've seen so far, so I hope they keep at it ^^ And what's more, this gave me some great fushigi yuugi vibes for some reason :3

[Westlo]

12 Kingdoms didn't exactly meet with rave reviews when it started airing (IIRC it wasn't until the King of En episodes when people started to talk it up, so much bitching about Yoko and her friend at first...), I'm not saying this will be as good as 12 Kingdoms but I expect a similar amount of improvement. (hopefully)

[zalem]

I liked it. I really don't care about the slow pace so long as there is some characterization (which there is) and set up. Too bad it's another 13 episode only series. *sighs* Suppose with the manga incomplete it's inevitable.

[myopius]

They should easily have enough material for two seasons, but perhaps they thought it'd work better to wrap up with that amount of material. If it's going to be that short, though, it concerns me that they Gonzo will be tempted to create a filler ending to provide better closure... Then again, this is just the first episode, so it'd difficult to speculate exactly how the series will flow.

[Westlo]

It isn't by Gonzo, it's studio DEEN.

[Kaijin]

Who said it was going to be only 13 episodes?

[arkxkra]

just watched it, song not bad, the story look not bad too, will follow for sure.