“B-but what about Death Parade!?” In due time, man. In due time. It’s past midnight at the moment, and I’m dead tired. I’m blinking like a billion times per minute simply because I want to fall asleep that badly. Unfortunately, I have things to do, so I can’t afford to get some shut eye. Having said that, I’ll just wait until the sun is up before I set my sights on Death Parade. For now, this thing called Juuou Mujin no Fafnir will just have to do. This will be relatively quick and painless, right?
— We kick things off with some clumsy exposition, and… well, this sorry excuse for a kaiju in 2015. Long short story even shorter, Vel’koz and his buddies were tearing things up until little girls were suddenly born with the power to fight back. Uh, Black Bullet, anyone?
— People keep wondering how anime can afford to churn these crappy light novel adaptations out, but c’mon, does this look like it required much time or effort to create?
— Oh, a light novel adaptation, you say? Well gee, what are we missing so far this season? That’s right! We don’t have the one adaptation where the harem lead joins a school full of girls!
— Yeah, people with dragon powers in this universe are simply known as “D.” And guess what? The harem lead is the only male “D” in the worl–… hey, stop laughing back there! God, this is a serious story!
— Running into a naked girl on your first day of school, check.
— I mean, just look at that OP try to induce seizures in its audience.
— Blah blah blah, the heroine can’t believe there’s a boy here. Why else would she be so brazenly naked?
— So she summons a bunch of marbles. Impressive-looking stuff. Could this possibly be the worst out of the three harem shows we’ve seen so far? I’m sure the two remaining shows would just love to weigh in.
— The guy’s name is Yuu. The girl’s name is Iris, and then the harem lead’s estranged sister shows up. Even Iris can feel the tension. Yep, that’s what I’m talking about. The girls in Shinmai Maou no Testament aren’t really related to their harem lead, but it’s like a whole new fuckin’ world here.
— “Let me confirm how much you know.” == “I’m going to dump some steaming, hot exposition on your ass.”
— I’m not even going to parse the exposition. It’s not too much jargon, but I just don’t care. Girls have powers. Dragons will attack. That’s all you need to know.
— The school holds an assembly just to introduce the first male D to the entire school. That’s a good way to paint a target on the protagonist’s back.
— And even though he had just introduced himself to the entire student body, our hero finds himself doing it again for his homeroom. Speaking of which, his class barely has any students in it. They won’t even draw a bunch of faceless background characters.
— Ah, there’s the obligatory character who is dead set against having a male D in a school full of girls. I gotta say, however, that I share her misgivings. But the truth is, her words are hollow anyway. She won’t accept a male D, but we all know she’ll welcome the D with open arms soon enough. Blondes just put up a little more resistance. That’s all it is.
— All Ds have this special mark on their bodies that confirms their D status. Okay then.
— In any case, Yuu has to prove that he’s got D potential. As a result, he uses his powers to conjure up… well, a gun, of course. Now remember, kids… sometimes a D is just a D. But a gun on the other hand…!
— Everyone mocks the harem lead for brandishing a gun in their face. Apparently, it’s too.. direct? The male D has no imagination? On the other hand, female Ds almost require imagination.
— Uh, I sure hope so, buddy. No one wants a D that fires blanks.
— Iris stupidly tells everyone about how he saw her naked. So like every other story about a guy attending a girls-only school, people now think he’s a super pervert. It’s like that shitty Blade Dance anime all over again.
— The show continues to ejaculate exposition all over us. Apparently, one of the “dragons” is really Yggdrasil, i.e. a tree.
— Anyway, it’s time for everyone to train and stuff. Since Yuu’s D is inexperienced, he’s sitting this one out. He gets to watch as each of the girl shows off their D. But y’see, it’s like 99% imagination or something! For instance, mean blondie over here can conjure up a spear for her D, but it merely looks like a spear! It’s still 99% dark matter, so she can use her D to fire off powerful energy blasts! Wow! On the other hand, Yuu’s D literally fires bullets. How dull.
— I’m not going to cover all of the girls’ D. They’re pretty generic-looking Ds. You wouldn’t be very impressed with these Ds.
— Plus, to further cement the fact that this is one of the laziest shows I’ve seen in a long while, whenever one of the girls summon forth their D, there’s just this brief shimmering effect as the girls’ clothes go translucent or something before rematerializing. It just looks really sloppy and bad. Anyway…
— When it comes time for Iris to show her stuff, however, her D flops pretty badly. Nobody wants a floppy D.
— Haruka, the teacher/colonel, finally reveals the true nature of the dragons: they’re just looking for the right D for them. Apparently, when they find the right D, the D grows until it grows a RAGON. Then together, they can mate and wreak havoc or something. So Yuu better be careful, or he might lose all of his Ds to some dragon.
— Why was Iris naked earlier? Well…
— Later, Iris explains to the harem lead why she’s so upbeat and stuff. It’s a pretty generic backstory.
— When she learns that she reminds Yuu of his sister back in the day, the girl swears to try even harder, a concept that this anime knows nothing about. After all, the first episode isn’t even over, and it sounds like she already has a crush on the guy. But c’mon, where’s the goddamn causal link between a guy seeing you naked to you trying your best to get his attention.
— Anyway, an alarm goes off to warn the students that a dragon is headed their way. All of a sudden, Iris’s mark starts to glow. Whoops. Looks like Yuu’s first male rival has just arrived. Hands off my D, jerk!
— I don’t know, man… I think this is even worse than Absolute Duo and the demon lord one. This episode didn’t even have any action. We’re way beyond pale. Not only is this show generic, it’s poorly animated, ill-conceived, and oh yeah, it has the most snooze-inducing opening episode of the young winter season. Oh man, it’s bad.
— Heh… Ds…
Moe Sucks 
It seems like you enjoyed yourself a little bit while writing this. You really got me at RAGON.
I don’t suppose there’s any chance the intersection of Protagonist being the only male D and “there being one D for every dragon” involves the existence of a gay dragon? No?…
Of course not. Gay people are gross, so it’s only logical to assume that gay dragons are gross too. Now, lesbian dragons, on the other hand…
that blonde girl reminds me of Fahrenfart
She doesn’t quite have the ridiculous boobs.
Totally forgot about this one. Imagine my surprise when this post came up. Can’t Deny I look forward to the easy material for jokes Ds posts will have.
I bet there is a special type of bullet Yuu can fire
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.
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D-EEZ NUTZ!!!
I’m so sorry, I’m terrible!
But not as terrible as this show
I don’t know what you’re on about, mate. I think it’s amazing they managed to build a script off of Rene Descartes’s most thought-provoking quote.
No but really this was bad. I don’t know how you’re gonna make it through this if the entire anime is like this. At some point the D jokes will run out, and by then…
God help us all…
And seriously what in the hell is it with all these anime this season looking like hentai? It’s all porn-quality everything, from design to animation to story. Every single newcomer is just porn without the porn, which kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?
Not that I’d prefer this was a porn. Lord knows what kind of nightmare we’d end up with if this was a hentai about a guy in a school full of D girls.
*raises hand*
I’d watch it. You know, just to get a kick out of it or whatever somethings.
Same way I got through all those Harem Hill seasons. And those were worse, because I had to watch all of the bad shows in one night.
The only reason why I thought Absolute Duo was probably the worst show of this season is because I completely forgot that this piece of shit exists. Great way to start off, right?
>Generic low-tier art that’s been faithfully reproduced since the early 2000’s
>What’s looking to be a garbage battle anime against hoooooorible (looking) evil munsters
>Special Snowflake MC with special powers (with blue hair again) in an academy (surprise!) of just chicks
>Magical battle chicks
>DRAGONS… Really? Dragons? How much more unimaginative can you get?
>Imouto
Does plagiarism come off as okay to the industry? How many of the literally same set-up have we seen these past five years? Writers everywhere else are careful and sensitive about SENTENCES sounding alike, but this shit is shamelessly lifted wholesale from other works.
And let me guess, the monsters are led by a hot chick that will also pine for D’s D. Can we expect a tsun-tsun cooking battle? Yep. Or how about a beach and onsen episode? Huh.
It’s not that I’m in disbelief of how many shitty LN adapted harem shows there are, I’m just confused how studios can continue to hemorrhage money into these sub-par carbon copy shows. Anyone with half a brain will immediately figure out that they can’t recoup the amount they’re spending for this quality and amount of schlock. Are the viewers (how many could there be for this show) going to rush out and buy DVDs and merchandise that comes from this anime? Most likely not. Not every harem show is going to “hit it big” like Oreimo.
I’m probably going to give this the obligatory three episodes and see where it goes from there. Even though I watch this bullshit for laughs, I’m doubting this show could even give me that.
“’m just confused how studios can continue to hemorrhage money into these sub-par carbon copy shows.”
That’s simple: somebody gives them a job to do, they do their job.
So Japanese broadcasting stations (or whoever) give funding willy-nilly for projects that are undoubtedly going to be financial failures? Recipes for success.
Meh, who needs to pay for better writers and animators? Let’s just keep throwing dead money at LN adaptations done shoddily. It’s just Chinese cartoons after all.
If you can’t tell, I’m pretty much waiting until the industry just implodes on itself.
Considering how Hollywood literally takes scripts full of gold and butchers them into generic, bland blockbusters because executives think repeating the same thing over and over will bring in the dough, I’m not surprised the anime industry takes up the same attitude.
“Maaan, making something original and creative is too hard and risky, and requires us to use our brains. Let’s just spew out the same light novel adaptation again and again, the otaku will still buy at least one copy anyways.”
Yeah, this anime shares a lot of similarities with Blade Dance, maybe this harem lead ends up being another demon king candidate and his D stands for demon, that would be such a twist lol
Humans… simple, MESSY, yet exce-… actually not really. No knowledge OF VALUE to be acquired from this current world. Will disintegrate with full prejudice.
R
8.billionenta kill.
SNEEZE INFINITE BARF STRATOS COUGH BURP FART
C’mon Minor, I know you’re more mature than that.
How would you maturely approach this anime?
Now I started to realize something, why in the world would some mainstream franchises that I don’t like, for example Naruto or Bleach are so damn popular to the point that they have countless manga volumes, anime episodes, movies, among other merchandise? Why are this the ones everyone watch and enjoy to the point that creates insane fanbases that think they are the best thing ever done? I finally get it now, it’s simply because at least they are made by creators who put as much love and effort on them and give them their own unique identity by creating colorful characters, cool action, powers and overall a different execution in terms of plot, unlike all this pieces of crap light novel adaptations that rip-off each other so much, they all almost look and feel like the same show.
Do I hate all light novel adaptations? Not really, but the problem is that while this books could easily create fast-paced stories for anime, they are wasted with the same damn otaku pandering that we’ve seen for so long. A lot of this are made simply to win a few bucks (which is baffling since I doubt even otakus will bother wasting their money on this), but because they are so damn forgettable and generic like freaking mexican telenovelas, they never go far and they get forgotten a few weeks later after they end. I’m pretty sure every studio wants their series to grow into a long lasting franchise with strong fanbases, but that will not happen as long as this crap keeps getting made.
What the fuck did I just watch.
I-I need to take a minute and lie down.