First Impression – Level E

The Truth is Out There…. Yeah!

Kyokai: If you see our Winter review, I was the only one pumped up enough for this to watch and blog. There was definitely something here that attracted me. Of course, not the clichéd storyline of finding a stranger in your apartment but the whole setting of aliens and that comedy genre I love. Whatever you say, this mixture intrigued me enough and before even sitting to watch this, I had high expectations for it; which is not good in my case because usually they are not met. However, surprisingly, this time around, they were met and then some. Oh yes! But, before I babble on, let Ness take the episode summary away~

Ness: Well, this is exciting, I didn’t have much expectations in the winter line-up but I had a sort of interest in this anime but not on a high level like Kyo. But here we are and this anime has by far exceeded my expectations and I would claim this to be my favorite of the season so far. What else is there for me to say? So let us begin this new journey…

As a spaceship is soaring to enter Earth’s atmosphere, a narrator with your typical twilight zone music is explaining that there are hundreds of different types of aliens living on earth but humans do not realize it.

It’s a bird! No, it’s a plane! NO! WTF IS IT?!

After an awesome retro and colorful opening, we are introduced to our shounen who just moved to a new town on a baseball recommendation for high school because his middle school was the all Japan champion (but they don’t know he was just a bench warmer). On the taxi ride, our shounen converses with the driver until they reach a stop. The shounen moves away from the window in surprise at two boys staring blankly at him and what can our shounen do? Wave back and smile while above a suspicious parrot has been following since the bus station.

Creepy kids are creepy!

At the apartment entrance office, our shounen is greeted with a hand massage by the attendant who seems to be a baseball fan. Our shounen takes in the new atmosphere of his apartment until he notices his boxes open. I wonder when will we find out his name but it the meanwhile, the shounen hears a noise from one of the rooms and opens thinking it’s his mother. Upon entering the room, the shounen finds a long blonde hair bishi reading intently.

It takes a few moments but when the bishi notices; he inquires on who the shounen is. But of course this is supposed to be the shounen’s line who also points out that the bishi is not only breaking an entry but also took the liberty to his clothes. How you wonder the bishi broke into the apartment? Well, simply the window… from five stories up. The bishi then claims to be an alien and even tries to mock a typical alien voice. The shounen tells the bishi to leave but the bishi in what seems like a sarcastic way but isn’t; asks for the shounen to speak more clearly for he is not yet used to the language.

Me no speakie Nihongo~

The shounen kicks the bishi out but somehow the bishi reappears sitting in the kitchen. The bishi tries to calm down the shounen and begins explaining his situation. It was in the news that a meteorite crashed nearby but in fact it was the bishi’s escape pod. They turn on the TV to see that what the bishi said was in fact true; with footage of the space pod. But we need PROOF! It’s all lies without PROOF!

ET, GO HOME!

But oh noes, our bishi has amnesia from the pod crash and only remembers clutching some sort of device. NEW LINE GAME CONTROLLERS!! The shounen begins to press random buttons and in the distance we hear a KABOOM!! Yes yes, the escape pod exploded and we can even hear about it on the TV news. While the shounen clutches to the TV, our bishi in the background talks nonchalantly about how people might have died and explains the after effects in a dramatic way.

USO DA!!~

The doorbell rings and our next door cute neighbor introduces herself as Edogawa Miho and with a welcome gift (srsly who does that nowadays?). Finally we find out that our shounen is named Tsutsui Yukitaka in his introduction. Miho says that her father is a scientist at the UFO site but nobody was hurt at the site. After Miho leaves, Yukitaka goes back inside happy at his new start for school but is hit back to reality by our bishi’s presence. Out of nowhere, the bishi puts on a puppet show repeating the conversation between Miho and Yukitaka until he concludes the show with Yukitaka having the makings of an excellent psychopathic killer teeheee~.

Jeff Dunham, is that choo?!

Once again Yukitaka tries to kick the bishi out; which pushes the bishi to put a sign out on the balcony and try to speak over a megaphone to blame Yukitaka for the UFO explosion. They stop arguing until they notice the suspicious parrot that has been lurking for a while on the rail and flies off.

How does an alien already know how to write in Japanese?!

That night, the two eat ramen while watching Miho’s father on TV giving a report. The bishi seems well adverse with earth food taste for an alien. The two argue again about the bishi staying until the bishi gets up to leave but upon leaving he pulls the “pity me” card about the clothes and Yukitaka says he can stay ’till the next day. The bishi thanks him and goes into the other room but out of nowhere we hear the bishi speak about an item on the TV that he needs. The bishi leaves in a hurry and jumps off the balcony to the ground; leaving Yukitaka to believe in the bishi’s words. We hear a car crash and Yukitaka runs outside to find the bishi injured with a saved kitten and bleeding BLUE BLOOD.

Maybe he’s Jesus…

The two guys (well, 1 human, an alien and kitten) walk off until Yukitaka leans the bishi alien against a tree for some rest. Behold! Rainbow light, bubbles and the healing of the bishi alien and kitten’s wounds. HE IS AN ALIEN ZOMG!

So purrrty~ Bishies around the world… this is how you make real sparkley FABULOUSNESS!

The next morning, Yukitaka checks in on the bishi alien to find him not there. At school Yukitaka has morning practice and sees Miho who converses about her father. When Yukitaka gets home, he finds the bishi alien to still not be there. The doorbell rings and he opens the door to two men in suits from the police station looking for a criminal and shows a picture of our bishi alien. Denying acknowledgment of the criminal, Yukitaka asks what he did and they say he’s a MURRDERRRERRR.

What do these two men have in common?!

Yukitaka re-enters his apartment to find the bishi alien lounging while eating some odango. Yukitaka asks the bishi alien if he really killed someone but in fact the one who was almost killed was him.. bakyun.~ The bishi alien actually stole the object from the UFO that he was after and recovered his memories from the shot. The object shows the bishi alien’s real form. After some warning, the bishi alien asks (still with food crumbs on his face) if Yukitaka wants to see and Yukitaka agrees. Some button pressing and cool sound effects, the lights are off and we get a cool projection of the alien bishi until it deforms into what is identified as a fluidic organism from the planet Jacqueline Ess called Clive.

Oh naughty bishi alien, show me moooaarrr~

WTF. DO. NOT. WANT

Extra Goodies:

Obligatory Face-plant

Gendou, where’s your glasses and WTF are you doing here?!

Awww, taking the kitten to practice~

MUNCH MUNCH, RWAR!!~

End Thoughts:

Ness: I have not had so much fun doing a review until now. I quite enjoyed going through this and even watching the episode a second time was just as good. I’m not too much into alien/extraterrestrial type of shows but this one was a huge exception. As for our bishi alien (Namikawa Daisuke – Beck: Koyuki, Black Lagoon: Rock and KnT: Kazehaya) being a blondie, I approve! It was not shocking and it matches the combination with Yukitaka. As said in my opening, this is by far my favorite anime for this season. There was so many comedic moments in this first episode that I expect more laughs to come. Such a nice relief from viewing Freezing on Saturdays.

The opening theme for this show was so pleasing and interesting that I could probably watch it a few more times. The art work in this series compliments the actions that the characters take very well. All of the different facial reactions that Yukitaka shows remind me of Daichi from Yankee-kun to Megane-chan. So funny to watch all of those reactions that Yukitaka has to our un-named bishi alien. On that note, I wonder how long it will take for the anime to give a name for the bishi alien (but don’t worry, I know the name hehe). It took a few more scenes than I expected for us to get a name of the main character.

As for the introduction of Miho, I could care less so far but our shounen boy Yukitaka needs a sort of getaway from the burden of having an alien invade his apartment. Oh so young and yet already facing a crisis. As well, it just so happens that Miho’s father is the scientist researching the UFO crash. How did I not see this coming? When there’s aliens, there are scientists in pursuit! But it’s fine, as long as I get more LOLs. Maybe my favorite scene in this first episode would be the whole ET finger to finger touch and the response that we get out of it. But one has to wonder, how is our bishi alien able to differentiate tastes? Saying that his preferred instant ramen is salty. Hehehee.

This episode was enjoyable and you’ll definitely see more of Level E on Metanorn.

Kyokai: If you are following me on Twitter, you already know that this is the first Winter 2011 show that I really got excited about while watching. Kimi ni Todoke season two doesn’t count because the first episode hasn’t technically aired. It was all WIN from the moment, Arakawa’s narrator (Kenpachi, Billy, Gendou), started narrating the story. And after I got over the fact of animated-Dean being the main hero, my eyes widened at the blondie-alien. You see, I’m not into blonde guys at all and I had seen this coming, yet I couldn’t hate him. He just grew on me in the short while of episode and provided the much needed humour at odd times. Not to mention, Tsutsui has good timing, black-haired and voiced by Yoshimasa (Shichika & Juu); all in all a win in my books.

The whole alien-breaking-into-apartment is quite cliché but tell me in this much-explored-genre, what new is left? If the characters are interesting enough, you are pretty much hooked and that is what happened. Though, Miho did not leave any impression whatsoever while her father seemed Gendou Part II. The sparkle-show was just awesome! I knew he had some powers and he saved a kitten; he would forever be my hero (yeah, girls are soft like that).

What I see happening next could be him battling the alien-creatures who are disguised as humans with Tsutsui. Remember those creepy kids who stared him down? They were SO NOT human. Also, this reminds me of Men in Black but hey, it released two years AFTER the manga got published. The original story comes from the Mangaka of Hunter x Hunter so expect good comedy and characters. Though, don’t think aliens would be pwetty considering the real-form of Prince.

Music is another strong point of this anime. I liked the OP better than ED but even the ending sequence had a beat to it. I have the OP on repeat on my iPod and that is the reason, I’ve a cookie for you readers. Full version of the awesome and very catchy OP “Cold Finger Girl” by Chiaki Kuriyama; audio quality is not of the best quality but this is what you get till the single releases.

So, in conclusion, definitely watching and blogging this. Till next time, Ja ne~

Preview: We meet other aliens, Men in black, and Yukitaka does some matrix moves?! ZOMG MOAR LOLs…