MetaFap – 37 [NSFW]
MetaFap returns for Spring with Photo Kano and Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Bride
Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Bride – 01
Muneakira is as surprised as we are.
Princess Sen wants you to wear a maid outfit
More like Samurai Maids?
Some customers are just problematic.
If you watched Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls, you saw what I thought was an entertaining harem show set in an alternate universe in relatively modern times, but with a Great Japan is still isolated and under the Tokugawa Shogunate. Following the close of that series, which ended with the disappearance of Master Samurai Yagyuu Juubei, our main character Yagyuu Muneakira (voiced by Hirakawa Daisuke) has taken a 6 month journey to increase his discipline and improve his skills. So as Samurai Bride starts, he returns to the Yagyuu dojo to find… a meido-cafe.
I have to say that while I thought the first series was a good mix of the serious, action, and silly, this was quite a bit more silly than I would have imagined. The familiar crew is back: Yukimura (Kugimiya Rie), Princess Sen (Kotobuki Minako), Matabei (Kobayashi Yuu), Hattori Hanzo (Gotou Saori), and Jubei (Yuuki Aoi), with help from Naoe Kanetsugu (Toyosaki Aki) in her familiar position as the butt of the jokes. Also back are two of the things about Samurai Girls that people really liked: the distinctive art style with slightly muted coloring and ink-on-parchment look, and the fanservice. Airing on AT-X, there wasn’t any censoring, thus making this post somewhat NSFW (Click for full-size Princess Sen)!
As for the plot, we learn that after defeating Amakusa, the Yagyuu Master Samurais got zero credit, with all the glory going to Sen’s brotherYoshihiko, the current head of the Tokugawa. As such, the dojo is broke, and needs money to keep operating, hence the maid cafe. But there’s trouble brewing, as some force has revived Dark Samurai, whose motivations are unclear besides wanting to have some fun. Presumably they’ve defeated Charles d’Artagnan, Yoshihiko’s Master Samurai, and his samurai forces, who confronted them at the beginning of the show. Searching for more fun, they arrive at the dojo and proceed to wipe the floor with Yukimura and Sen, and while trying to summon Juubei’s samurai personality, they find that she truly is gone.
So what did you think of the maid cafe and the money problems? I could have done with a little less maid cafe silliness, especially the overly long ‘magic spells’. It seemed to be just a way to waste some time throughout the show, nor did I think it was particularly cute. It’s also a bit of a downer to see money trouble being a major plot point of the show, because it seems to lead to stupid things when it’s a major part of the show. So do you think they’ll continue with it? Or will they possibly smarten them up?
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Photo Kano – 01
There’s no way my Imouto wants me to take a photo of her?
Sketchy Shashin-bu, check.
Competing Photo-bu, check
Some artistic photos made their way in here, somehow.
A boy gets a hand-me-down SLR camera from his dad and decides to search for subjects to take pictures of. And what better subjects than girls? The premise for Photo Kano isn’t going to blow anyone away, and it’s unlikely that the first episode did either, but there were some things that I found to be a bit interesting in the premiere of this series from Madhouse Studios, based on an Enterbrain VN. Before the season, there was some wondering whether this would be an omnibus style series, like Enterbrain’s hit series, Amagami SS, but with a 12 episode schedule and what looks like 7 girls that are being featured in the show, it looks like there’s no chance of that kind of format. Instead, it seems more likely that we’ll get a little bit more ecchi than we got in Amagami or KimiKiss, and I’m going to guess a few dates with different girls, focusing on things to do with the titular camera.
Six of the girls in the ED
Favorite Girl?
And that camera really is a catalyst for our protagonist, Kazuya Maeda, (voiced by Nobunaga Shimazaki, previously Kaito in AnoNatsu and Taichi in Tari Tari), as its mere presence gets a lot of girls to give him a look and even ask if he’ll take pictures of them. And that might the biggest problem with this premiere episode: There are a LOT of girls. Not just the 7 featured in the ED, that you could figure are the focus of the show, but two other teachers, an imouto, and three other girls in the two photography clubs. Yep, two photography clubs: the Shashin-bu (Photography club) and the Photo-bu (Photo-club). And both are vying for Kazuya’s membership. Under a bit of duress, he goes with the Shashin-bu, which is by far the sketchier of the two, focusing on the eroticism of pictures, and extolling the abilities of the short and tall members to get underskirt shots and down blouse shots. And that’s not even including their ‘stealth expert’, Yuuko.
The art is a little different from usual for the show, with a flatter, more cel-shaded type of coloring, but also with art shifts when depicting the pictures taken by Kazuya to a more artistic style, almost a painting. I liked that effect, and thought it added to the idea that he’s capturing something as a photographer. But one place the art, combined with the character design, gets in the way is in the sameness of the girls. With so many introduced in the first episode, we didn’t have much time with any of them, and a lot of them are pretty similar looking (unlike, again, Amagami, where there was no way to confuse any of those girls with the others). I found it hard to keep some of them separate, and also hard to separate the ‘target’ girls from the rest of them.
I liked the episode well enough, and think it’s got some material to work with. It sure didn’t come out of the box like gangbusters, but it could be a good start for an enjoyable series. Given how much they talked about Niimi, I’m going to guess that she’s going to be the main girl of the series, but who would be your pick?
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About Highway
Proving that you don't have to be young to love anime, I enjoy all genres and styles of shows. If it's not hurting anyone else, you should never be ashamed of what you like!
POWUH: iLurker with 17 comments
How is this not safe for work? I’m looking and- oh.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
If there’s gonna be a NSFW tag, I’d better make it be NSFW, eh? I think they’re catching on to these things, tho, as most of the frames of the pan were blurred until it finished at Sen’s face.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
…as with any anime, needs moar Yukimura…
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
I think I liked Samurai Brides more than I thought I would. I went in knowing nothing, even forgetting the first series even existed. I enjoyed it enough to dig around and get that.
Yeah, they oversold the meido cafe/money issue a bit much. The spell was cute thou.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Ah, you hadn’t seen the first series? Then you were missing out, imo. Given the amount of continuity they seem to be using, you might be better off holding off on this series until you finish the first one, which is actually a pretty fast watch (it was one of those series where the episodes seemed like they were only about 10 minutes long, for me). I like that they’re really not going back and reintroducing characters, but that means that someone who hasn’t seen the first series will not really get the relationships between, say Matabei and Yukimura or everyone and Kanetsugu, although I think everyone will get the relationship between Hanzou and Sen.
The spell was cute for the first 10 seconds, then started to get old.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
I’m going to chisel out some time today or tomorrow to get it watched. I loved anachronistic stuff like this; it goes very well with the color pallete and flatish style.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Yeah, the art style of this show really gives it a lot of leeway for other shortcomings in my book. It’s just really fun to watch, and really the story is not bad.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
I’ve just gotten through the first seven episodes, and am looking forward to finishing it; as well as the continued episode of Bride.
This really is a fun watch. I like the world of Great Japan as it is generalized enough to keep a story, but not overly specific as to cause plot holes or over discrepancy. Covertly it means that Japan has finally developed it’s own OS for computers (with Western windows metaphor?), so that makes me happy. China has Ubuntu Linus now!
I have to say the characters are just so spot on, this is a great ensemble cast; each performer is just hitting the sweet spot, with Aki-chan dipping into her Yui bank when needed, but developing a different voice for most of her scenes. Rie-sama will always be Rie-sama, and it’s Taiga all the way down. Has she ever NOT done a diminutive DFC character?
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
over=overt
Linus=Linux.
I need an edit button, yo?
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
You never saw the first season? Get back in there and marathon it so you can enjoy the experience then you’ll enjoy Samurai Bride even more than you did now!
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
I’ll backlog episode two of Brides and finish up series one sometime this weekend.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
Alright, finished with the first series. S2E2 will be mine shortly.
Oh, is anyone going to cover Hen’neko? Seems a perfect Fap.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Yep, it’ll be included starting this week.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
Classy. I’ll be there.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
I think Highway is taking over that one.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Nope, not me. 🙂
POWUH: 900-999 with 915 comments
@Photo Kano -> I actually enjoyed it. As I expected, the photos looks really great. About the characters, there is some that I didn’t like… There is that girl that dropped oranges (I don’t know WHY someone that dropped oranges around the whole school would be smiling like that), and that weird girl that was crying on the favorite girl’s desk. But there are great characters and solid VA, mainly the president of shashin-bu.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Yeah, comparing it to another VN series that I watched and wrote about, KoiChoco, I think this series will be doing the same sort of ‘target two or three girls and make the rest into less-than-random supporting characters.’ I mean, the only girls we even got names for in this episode were Niimi, Misumi, Sakura, and Sanehara. Muroto and Yunoki were just girls in the hall, and Masaki got some screen time, but not a lot of development.
I’ll be interested to see how many of the girls they go more in-depth on, but I don’t think it’ll be more than 2 or 3. My votes for now are Niimi, Misumi, Sakura, and Sanehara, the ones they mentioned by name and introduction. I don’t think that Masaki will be much more than comic relief.
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
I was so surprised Samurai Bride was uncensored and not full of ink blots covering the naughty bits. I think I was as shocked as Muneakira when Sen just waltzed out topless.
I thought the maid cafe part was a little overemphasized as well. The spell in particular was repeated far too much. =_= Ah well, the new baddies look pretty interesting so there won’t be as much time for them to chant over omurice.
Photo Kano just isn’t my genre of show. It didn’t take me long to realize this while watching it. The girls seem really cute and personable though, so I can see a lot of people liking it for that.
POWUH: 1000-1099 and Pirate King with 1048 comments
I love me some Sen…
Samurai Bride: These new bad girls in Samurai Bride remind me of Senran Kagura, especially Araki with the open shirt and how easily they bested the Master Samurai. While the maid stuff isn’t anywhere near as entertaining as season 1’s opening sequence, there will be ecchi, and I will be where there is ecchi.
Photo Kano: Nonoka is my early favorite, personality wise and also because she plays baseball. A friend and I both were reminded of Kaoru from Amagami when we saw her, one of my faves from thats series. I’ll try and stick around with PK.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
She does have the closest personality to Kaoru, that’s for sure. Surprisingly, the rest of the girls don’t really have analogs in Amagami that I could really argue for. It seems like they’ve come up with quite a few different personalities. And while I could definitely see similarities in the character designs between Kimikiss and Amagami, there was almost nothing that would have tipped that in this show.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
A Highway controlled MetaFap post. You are walking in Fosh’s footsteps. Tread carefully.
Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Bride – 01: Good thing I marathoned Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls last weekend. It feels like it was only yesterday. My only problem is seeing that hopeless airhead Kanetsugu again. That girl needs professional help. Anyway, I’m surprised how easily the dojo girls got owned by those revived dark samurai and on the first episode, no less. Especially after that big battle last season if you consider their time frame.
The maid cafe thing came out of nowhere but it does fitting given how moe the current Jubei is. Hopefully it doesn’t stay like that for long.
The big improvement was that it went completely uncensored. No concealing ink blots like last season even though it coupled well with all the ink in the series. But it also makes me grieve over the fact To Love-Ru Darkness didn’t get the same freedom.
Side note: I always had to laugh whenever I hear Muneakira’s name because of the first four letters which is another word for “breast”. I wonder if he even realizes something like that is imprinted in his own name.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Are there any better footsteps to follow in for MetaFap?
As for the girls, well, they are 6 months out of practice, since I doubt they were doing much Master Samurai stuff while Muneakira was gone. Plus, if you put Yagyuu Juubei up against Yukimura or Sen, the latter two would get their asses kicked there, too. So someone who’s a match for Juubei is gonna stomp them, especially when they’re out of practice and not really into the fight.
The CR version is censored, so those of you watching there are probably missing out (although maybe you don’t mind trading ink splots for 1080p video, over AT-X’s not-the-best ts).
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Photo Kano – 01: There’s a lot of school life/slice of life elements here that if not for the small fanservice bits, I would have have said this wasn’t MetaFap material but I digress. The episode just saved itself from going into creeper territory because if the lone female member Yuuko weren’t there, I would have labeled the Photography Club as a band of perverts. The Photo Club is full of girls. That would have been an ideal opportunity to start a harem. This is passable for a first time but not enough that it would go under the radar and not initiate the three episode rule.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
I don’t think the presence of Yuuko stops the Shashin-bu from being a band of perverts. From everything I can see, she’s just as perverted as the rest of them.
I don’t think Kazuya’s going to need any help to form a harem, one seems to be coalescing around him, although it’s so far a harem like Amagami’s (as is to be somewhat expected), where it’s less ‘All the girls want to be with him’ and more ‘A lot of girls that *could* be interested in him’.