First Impression – Zero no Tsukaima F

The original Shana clone is back!

Oh Louise, how I’ve missed you and your tsundere-ness. I’ve been anticipating this ever since that horrible ending of the last season, and I have higher hopes for this! Bring it on, boobs, tsunderes familiars and all! xD

Finally, ZnT is ending. I have a lot of memories with this show (most of them are me raging and flipping tables), so I’m kind of sad that it’s at the end. …And at the same time, I don’t think that I could stand another season of “oh noes! Saito is off with new harem member *fill in number over 10 here* and Louise is jealous! Let’s continue this on for 12 FREAKING EPISODES and have them magically make up at the end.” No thank you.

Wooo! Finally it is here! The final season of Zero no Tsukaima or is it truly the final one? With Shana and this series running in 2012 I wonder if Rie will ever be out of work, well that is highly unlikely because countless lead tundere girls need voices. To be honest I am a huge fan of this series but like most people I am also ready for it to finally be over, so does this first episode restart my love for it? I have no idea…hopefully we get some fun out of it..

Was it really all the way back in 2008 when I last saw these characters? Wow, that makes me feel old. Anyway, I still can’t wait to see if this new season inspires in me some of my old nostalgia! Here’s hoping.

We enter the 4th season of a show very few people were asking for. I watched the 1st series way back in 2007 and didn’t think it was bad. I had no interest in the subsequent seasons, so I didn’t watch them. From what I hear, I didn’t miss much. But this also means that I’m completely unaware of what happened between the 1st season and this one, other than that some busty elf maiden got added to Saito’s harem in the 3rd season.

Zero no Tsukaima F wastes no time reminding us what it’s all about, as the opening shot is of protagonist Saito in bed with Louise in one arm, and Siesta in the other. Oh, and boob metaphors are made, which makes Louise all tsun-tsun, prompting Tabitha to come out of nowhere to protect Saito. The story begins in earnest when professor Colbert announces that Louise – and, as it turns out, the rest of her class – are summoned by Tristain queen Henrietta to Romalia, which seems to be the religious capital of this fantasy world. After a quick airship ride to the city, Saito is greeted by the heterochromic Julio, a Romalian priest and someone he’s apparently encountered before. He summons Saito, along with Louise and Tiffania, the busty elf introduced in the 3rd season, to what appears to be the main church of Romalia.

Opening scene of the show. What did I miss in those 2 seasons!?

Relax, ladies, there’s more than enough Saito to go around! Just gotta learn to share.

They’re greeted by Henrietta as well as Vittorio Serevare, the pope of Romalia. Vittorio reveals that he knows that Louise is a Void mage, and that besides her, Tiffania and Vittorio himself are as well. Henrietta explains the plan, which is to have Louise and Tiffania be shrine maidens during the 3rd anniversary ceremony of his ascent, in order to draw the attention of the 4th Void mage, Joseph, the king of Gallia. Apparently Saito has had dealings with him as well, involving killing Tabitha’s father and doing something to her mother’s soul.

The motive? Void mages are destined to save the world from some terrible disaster, and they all have to work together, so they hope to convince Joseph to join forces with them, despite the crimes he’s committed before. Vittorio isn’t too clear about what the threat to the world is, he just says that the mere existence of the 4 Void mages in such close proximity is enough to believe that a disaster is coming. I suppose faith is something that should come naturally to the pope. Louise dives in head first, immediately accepting his request without taking up the offer to think about it.

This dude looks rather young to be the pope. But hey, who am I to tell them how to run their fantastic religion?

Before the cut to commercial, it’s dinnertime for the students, and we are briefly introduced to a group of 4 eating in the same hall: a woman with pink hair by the name of Jeanette, a large topless man with red stripe tattoos named Jacque, a small blond boy named Damian, and another blond young man whose name we don’t hear. The way they call each other by “nii-sama” gives the impression that they’re part of some very close-knit group, if not actually related (they don’t look related, but with anime, you can never tell!). The unnamed blond man and Jacque go off before dinner in order to prepare for something.

Our introduction to who are likely to be the first set of antagonists.

Then we return right to the harem antics that evening, with Saito reprimanding Louise for accepting too readily. He just has to lead by pointing out how “dere-dere” she was in front of Vittorio, which sort of negates his good point that her quick response put Tiffania on the spot. Louise responds only with jealousy (naturally) and kicks him out of their bedroom. Elsewhere in the complex where they’re staying, Tiffania is given from Henrietta a ring that once belonged to her ancestor and asks Colbert for help in summoning her own familiar.

Once by herself, Louise sees what appears to be a pair of thieves running through the complex and so decides to follow them. Turns out that this pair are the blond man and Jacque from dinner, and they’ve blown a hole through the wall of some storage room to steal something Jacque calls “The Mirror of our Founders.” Louise arrives before they escape, but she’s quickly noticed and tied up. Somehow she still manages to let out a scream for help. Saito hears and arrives in time to catch the thieves as they leave out the hole and on the roof, but Jacque holds him at bay with summoned knight armors, while the blond runs off with the Mirror.

They could’ve made this a lot more perverted. I appreciate hate that JC Staff decided not to.

Saito shows off his moves.

Saito manages to do pretty well, destroying all the armors and then holding his own against Jacque himself, but Jacque gains the upper hand by using magic to fling a pebble into his stomach. Before Jacque is able to land the final blow, Louise comes and blasts him away with an explosion, one that causes Saito also to slide down the roof. He would have been a goner for sure had Colbert not been teaching Tiffania the summon familiar spell right there, allowing him to slow his descent and land right into Tiffania’s bosom.

We would expect no less from this series.

The episode closes with Jacque arrested and Saito and Louise kissing and making up the next morning. Until Tiffania walks in on them and gets all flustered, causing Louise to aggressively deny that anything was going on, which gets Saito angry, which makes Louise call him a dog, which… well, you get the picture. Tiffania’s inner monologue reveals that she’s developing feelings for Saito – what a surprise!

Aww, they do love each other.

Ah, so we’re back to the days of Saito forever ogling other women and incurring Louise’s wrath. I actually think it’s kind of cute how these two are always getting jealous over each other and having those silly couple fights, but that’s probably just me being the hopeless romantic I am. xD

This episode makes me remember what I love the most about this anime – those endearing characters. Sure, most of them might appear cliché, but I rather appreciate the diversity of characters and their quirky personalities. I find those little faults and weaknesses they have interesting – Louise’s huge ego, Saito’s denseness, Siesta’s occasional devilish side… That’s what makes the anime hilarious and entertaining!

Now onto the plot~ Since Zero no Tsukaima has always been a light-hearted anime, I didn’t expect it to be have a very serious plot anyway – it looks pretty interesting so far, and I’m looking forward to getting to know the new villains better. For this season, I’m hoping for more character development for the side characters, rather than just, you know, HAVING BIG BOOBS. >.> I have always loved Zero no Tsukaima’s OPs and EDs, and as expected, this time round Ichiko and Rie Kugimiya did not disappoint. All in all, I’m definitely sticking around for the final season of Zero no Tsukaima!

Wait,wait,wait. What??? I could have sworn that Louise and Saito were kicked out of the country in the last season and were going to Tabitha’s place to chill. Obviously I don’t remember as much as I thought I did. …So does this mean that Saito is now also Tiffa’s tsukaima since he went through the portal, or what? Because if that’s true, then every table within a 10 meter radius of me is going to be flipped in a mad rampage. I don’t think I could deal with that. I just about dropped this when the pope came out because I thought that it would just be +1 to Saito’s harem list. Fortunately, he was just +1 to Saito’s guys to get jealous of list.

…Sigh. I’m probably going to need to marathon this. There’s just no way that I can sit through 10+ weeks of rage while Saito goes off with his harem and Louise tsuns around. Why draw it out when I can easily condense it into 1 day? Ahaha though it does look a tiiiiny bit more promising since there were actually a few Saito and Louise moments this episode. Despite being possibly the most dysfunctional couple ever, I do hope they get together. Happily I mean since technically they’re already a couple. (Not that you can tell.) If that’s even possible.

So despite my complaining, I’m actually glad this is finally getting a conclusion. Hopefully one that will actually give closure (unlike most harem anime out there). Of course, the final season includes the ICHIKO opening and the classic eyecatch from the previous seasons for consistency’s sake. The new bad guys look much more interesting than just another big chested woman like the last 3 seasons have had (there was that one other guy too who ‘killed’ Colbert, but he doesn’t count). Tiffa being a Void mage seems interesting enough, and it looks like Louise will be cosplaying Index next episode. Things are looking up!

Ooooh that was great! It definitely made me remember why I sort of liked this series; well the characters were always lots of fun to watch. Maybe not all of the characters….I mean Louise is a great lead with her usual ways of beating the crap out of Saito! I did not miss that part of the series because man did that get old after the hundredth freaking time. Still we got to see a few of my other favorites like Siesta, Tiffania, Charlotte and her now human dragon oh man that rolling back and forth made me laugh.

Speaking of Siesta! I wonder why she was sleeping with Saito and Louise? That was sort of random and hilarious. I loved the whole line about traveling through the “mountains” Damn you Saito! The best thing about Siesta would be how competitive she gets towards her love of Saito; I really enjoy watching that side of her! And next up, Tiffania; she sure hasn’t changed much since the previous seasons. She still looks as attractive as ever, and I was really happy to see that they revealed her as another void mage! And I can’t wait to see who or what she summons as her first familiar. I wonder if she will get a human like Louise and the pope. I was waiting for Saito to become her familiar or something random like that; I know he’d love that! I know I would…

So that first “fight” was kind of weak! But I am interested to see more of this story, who all thinks the pope is evil? I have a feeling he might turn out evil! Of course that is what they want you to believe or I think anyway. What episode of Zero no Tsukaima would be complete without some fan service! And damn Siesta and Tiffania bring that all over this final series. Besides boob physics! Romance is in the air! But I don’t really care too much for it aside from Louise’s reaction to others watching… she does have a great blushing face! Overall it is nice to see this series around again, sure it is not the most AMAZING series out there but it still has some entertainment to it.

Well, it’s nice to see the animation has been given the shiny-shiny gloss treatment, however it’s not so nice to see the bane of my viewing pleasure return. Siesta! You are so annoying! Shoo! Shoo! Take your mountain range and JUST LEAVE. Fuuu. I really hate this one. I mean, at least Tiffa has something to contribute, Siesta really has no business being in this series. All she has to offer is story-stalling drama and an irritating way to keep bringing our signature couple back to square one. She’s worse than Henrietta for that shit, I just can’t stomach it.

Enough of my bitching though, this episode was pretty good for Zero. It’s always nice to hear Ichiko’s OP, really gets me in that Zero no Tsukaima mood. You can’t listen to her too much or else she starts to grate, but even by that token I can’t think of this franchise without hearing I SAY YES ZUTTOOOOOO~ Which I am deciding is a good thing. I am also liking the evil looking shota in the OP. Any potential villain is interesting, because I honestly can’t remember a single one from the past three seasons. Speaking of villains the Pope seems a bit…creepy. I dunno, just the way he was introduced, and Louise’s random lovestruck attitude towards him seemed to be setting up for a fall.

The choir music that plays during that scene was surprisingly good, can’t say I remember much of the music besides Ichiko’s OPs. JULIO. Unf, I love this man. It’s the bi-colour eye thing. I’m sorry, it’s one of my many many fetishes. Besides that he’s just a fun character. All the males in this show are, which is the reason I like it despite it being a fanservice-heavy harem show. The fact Julio is also the Pope’s bitch, er, I mean familiar…just adds to his awesomeness. There does seem to be a more concrete plot this time, it’s as cliché and phoned in as it can get, but at least they are trying. What they do with it remains to be seen, however.

I know I sound like I’m bashing Zero, despite having admitted to it being one of my guilty pleasures from the past. But it was exactly that – in the past. It might not tickle me the same way it did 5 years ago, and that’s always the risk with rebooting a franchise that has been out of the viewing pool for any number of years. I hope that turns out not to be the case, and while the first episode didn’t exactly wow me, the ending where Saito and Louise are being all cute, then tsundere is a formula I remember loving, and I can’t say I didn’t get a little flare of nostalgia there.

Well, this show started off quickly, with a lot of stuff happening this 1st episode. It certainly didn’t bother to be accessible to those who haven’t watched the series before, as we were shown Louise, Siesta, Saito, Tabitha, Colbert, Tiffania, Henrietta, and others without introduction or explanation about their relationships. You wouldn’t even know the important premise that Saito is from modern-day Japan and got pulled into this fantasy world back when Louise was summoning her familiar. I could follow pretty well since I remembered the characters from season 1, but I admit I didn’t recall much about the setting, so I had to look up the country and city names.

I like it when a show starts off quickly, so the lack of introductions or explanations wasn’t a bad thing. Although that did mean not as much time for the more lighthearted bits I was looking for. What comedy that was there was alright, more or less the same thing as I remember from the 1st season. I liked the liberal use of comical facial expressions. The very short action scene at the end was also animated and directed pretty well. Nothing mindblowing, mind you, but good choreography. In fact, I quite liked the art overall. The color palette is vibrant and colorful, helping to give the show a very light and happy feel.

I’m not going to think or speculate too much about the story, but I suspect there’s more to Vittorio’s plan than he lets on. These religious figures are rarely good guys in fantastic settings, doubly so when they’re so accomodating and friendly. I’m curious about what this group of 4 thieves are up to, and if and how they will tie into the main shrine maiden story. Not too much is known about them yet, but at least the character designs are nice and I like the blond man’s relaxed lackadasical style. To be honest, I’m not really looking for much in the way of story or character development, just some wacky harem antics, and it should be fun going blind into blogging this show.

Preview: Louise in a fantastic nun outfit! And, um, we’ll see the progress of the pope’s scheme, I guess?

About Tag Team

We live, laugh, enjoy and strictly believe on "more the merrier". When together, we usually come up with very chatty, conversation-based episodics and interesting posts.