Gotta admit… I’m still not super excited about this show, so I’ll make this quick and painless.
What I liked:
— Peggi’s cool.
— We have a bit of a reversal in the damsel-in-distress storyline: Kyotaro’s trapped in the big bad baddie’s lair, and it’s up to Rinka to get stronger and save him. Of course, there’s no guarantee that she will end up saving him, but it’s shaping up to look that way. But seriously, what we have here isn’t exactly groundbreaking, but Rinka’s the lead of her own show, so it’s nice to see the story play out that way.
— The fighting on the tanker was alright. In fact, the whole tanker scene was kinda cool in concept.
— Rinka’s strong, but not overpowered. As cliche as it is to see her train with her overprotective dad. at least she’s actually training.
— The bad guys get away with it… for now. It’s a minor point, but at least it’s something. After watching shows like Captain Earth where every little conflict is wrapped up by the end of the episode with a nice, tidy bow, it’s not to see the bad guys get the upper hand every now and then.
— There are even actual consequences to the bad guys’ actions. I’m not happy to see anyone in pain, but it is so unbelievable when there are no actual casualties. Again, in Captain Earth, we have yet to see a single person lose their life even though the anime repeatedly tries to convince us that the Kiltgang aliens have the potential to wipe mankind off the face of the planet. When bad things happen, people do die. We shouldn’t celebrate it, but we shouldn’t shy away from reality either. I feel too many shows are off in la-la-land, and as a result, I just can’t get emotionally invested in them. That’s not to say I’m emotionally invested in Tokyo ESP yet, but… well, it’s not a bad show. A decent popcorn anime, I guess. Nothing something I’d sit down and analyze, but not something that would make you facepalm either.
What I disliked:
— Generic “Have you taken this seriously yet?” plotline.
— Kyotaro’s personality isn’t very inspiring. Actually, he puts me to sleep.
— As cool as the tanker scene was, the animation when the characters started fighting was a little choppy. That was disappointing to see.
— I imagine the Professor is the primary villain of the series? Well, at least he is for this arc, anyway. Sadly, he’s not very interesting. There’s nothing wrong about his character per se. It’s just been done before. Basically, he’s the one releasing all the glowing fishes into the wild, which causes people to awaken to their “latent powers.” Why? He intends to create a new world order where, I’m sure, espers like himself are the rulers of the world.
This story is perfectly fine… except we’ve seen it a billion times before. It’s not Tokyo ESP‘s fault that others have already beaten it to the punch, but I just can’t get excited to see the same ol’ plot unfold each and every time I watch a story about humankind waking up to special powers. Sure, there are slight variations every time we see this particular trope play out, but that’s not enough.
— After all these episodes, I still don’t see why the first episode was necessary. The knowledge I got from watching it hasn’t exactly enhanced the viewing experience of episodes two through six. In fact, I’ve mostly forgotten about the first episode.
— Rinka seems to have developed a crush on Kyotaro. On paper, I don’t care who pairs up with who (Rinka’s father and Kobushi is probably a bad idea, though). In fact, I kind of like seeing romance in the shows that I watch. A good romance just give you that warm, fuzzy feeling when it’s done right. Having said that, I’m not trying to imply that the budding romance between Rinka and Kyotaro is a disaster, but the way it has developed just doesn’t seem all that convincing to me. I feel as though they barely know each other. So when I see her blushing and thinking about the guy at night, I just don’t buy it, I guess.
It feels like the romance has been rushed or shoehorned into the story simply because the two main leads are of the opposite sex (but thankfully not related).
What I hated:
— Creepy pervert panda. I don’t care if his name is Master Roshi. Sexual harassment wasn’t funny then, and it isn’t funny now.
— Pointless censorship. There’s no need to elaborate on this.
Moe Sucks 
Haven’t been on the net for the last 2 weeks or so. I decided to catch up with this first and I have to say it’s still around the same maybe even a little worse. A special ESP zone? Really? The last two ESP anime I watched had that same thing. Why is it even important that they get one when they plan to take over? A genuine question btw. I like animals but peggi is so annoying, especially those sounds it makes and the panda is just terrible, totally unneeded. Having to watch from episode four seeing kobushi develop a crush on rinka’s dad was pretty funny and I cant remember seeing a character with a crush on someone’s dad before. Though I think it’s less romantic since she never had a father and all. You weren’t kidding when you said you’d make this short. Moving on to sword art next.
A special ESP zone probably isn’t that poor an idea. As in a world where superpowers start emerging some sort of rational etiquette (i.e. not dominated by noun-mongers) is required and for a stable environment to emerge effective policing is required. Both these points can be better achieved by people with a vested interest.
Or they could just go the way of Ba-sing-se (Darker than Black has this also) and round up all the supers to make up a super army for deterrence, spec ops or outright conquest (though I imagine Japan still has it’s belly full of the latter.)
I suspect Two-Face’s motivation is that if the appearance of supers is continued to be ignored by the government, tensions will start to mount and the idea that a confrontation between muggels and supers is inevitable will gain traction (the fact that some politicians in series have started arguing for all ESPers to be detained and designated as terrorists is proof that it’s a thing already) rather than letting that idea fester and potentially turn up in the worst place imaginable he intends to commandeer the concept and run it to the ground to demonstrate to all the obvious flaws of it and to set a precedent.
After all the easiest way to achieve something like a special administrative zone for ESPers (in Japan) is probably through to political process especially when you have and Aizen-like superpower that lets you manipulate perception of others. I doubt such an idea would be dismissed without prudence. I mean it’s not like they’re trying to overthrow the government or secede.
Interesting. I appreciate the response.
There isn’t really much in the show to examine.