First Impressions – Shirogane no Ishi: Argevollen
can a cute blond mecha programmer keep me interested? We shall see!
With Knights of Sidnia over with for now and Captain Earth continuing this season it is time to talk about one of the other mecha shows of the season with Shirogane no Ishi: Argevollen! I enjoyed this first episode, but I have a feeling that a lot of people will end up dropping this series very fast when they compare it to the other popular mecha airing this season Aldonah.ZERO…
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War Is Not Fun
Red mecha-“Do you have time to listen about our lord and savior? Oh I guess not…”
Welcome to the world of Argevollen folks! I bet some of you are wondering what the hell is this series even about? For starters the basic rundown follows two opposing factions The Kingdom of Arandas Alliance and Countries Unification of Ingelmia who have been fighting in some endless war over natural resources. Now I know that does not sound all that interesting and boy you would be right on that! I don’t really know why I thought it was going to be interesting in the first place or is there some hidden potential in this anime somewhere? I think I will probably just stick to watching two more episodes just to see where things might go! That said I don’t think I will be blogging this series especially if it’s something that I am fully committed to reviewing week after week and with it being over twenty something episodes I think I would end up getting burned out on covering it.
With that out of the way what did I actually like about this episode? Wow that is really tough to answer right now because I honestly I did not find a whole lot to actually like! I mean within minutes of meeting our main character Tokimune I simply found him to be super annoying! I mean he complained a lot and that wasn’t even the worst part of his character! The moment that annoyed me was when he pulled that whole lets disobey a direct order from a superior officer just to save a random civilian!? WOW WHAT THE?! Sure this is not the first time we have witnessed things like this in anime and I know he is our main hero but wow seriously, but I suppose if I sit back and really think about it from a mecha creators perspective how else would Tokimune find Jamie and gain his new overpowered robot?! It definitely beats just magically falling into the cockpit and magically knowing how to access the controls right? Anyway I got over that and I did notice that the character designs were done by Ouka Yuichi aka that guy who draws all the sexy To-love-ru characters which had me feeling super curious just to see if there was some kind of fanservice thrown in this to spice things up, but nope and sadly I don’t think that would be enough to save it! Maybe I am being a bit too mean here or did you all feel the same?
FK YA Extra Mechs
Probably too much iron in his diet.
Life is so shinji~
YOU GO GIRL! WOOOOOOOOOOO!!
hhnnnnggggg
End Thoughts
Welp there really isn’t much for me to say here so I will keep it short! I feel really bad being to this series based off one episode, but I feel with all of the current mecha we have currently this season which is just the second half of Captain Earth and now we have the start of Aldnoah.ZERO which everyone seems to be enjoying a lot and they should because it has a lot of promise! While those two do their thing I feel that Argevollen will be one of the shows that everyone ends up dropping after this episode or are actually going to give this a shot even past three episodes? I guess we shall see huh? Worst case you can expect to see a series review after it ends! Yeah I might end up doing that later on.
About Foshizzel
Is huge anime fan from Florida! who loves to watch anime and also enjoys drawing and collecting pictures, my favorite genre of anime has to be Mecha, there is just something awesome about giant robots beating the crap out of each other! Other than that type of show, I love a good comedy or action series :D
POWUH: 800-899 and Flying Sage with 856 comments
I agree that this show did not have much “special”. When I watch anime, I usually look for something unusual, even if it is something small, like some weird festival, or type of food that I have never heard of before. Unfortunately Argevollen seemed like just about any mecha show. Nothing surprised me, and I don’t think I’ll keep watching it, especially with other shows that are much more promising.
POWUH: Meta Team and PreCure Mastah with 9203 comments
Yeah sad but true! I failed to see anything interesting that made me want to see more, but I might watch more episodes to see if there is something that pops out at me for WOW factor.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Sorry to say but for an opening, it performed poorly. Standard mecha anime start up routine: An ongoing war for supremacy, an idealistic, hardheaded and reckless protagonist (not very likeable here) finds and operates a robot of a different design and he takes the enemy on against overwhelming odds. I couldn’t find anything in this run that made it stand out from anything using a similar formula I’ve seen. A letdown compared to the awesome first episode of Aldnoah.Zero. Maybe at least two more episodes will make me give a second opinion but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
POWUH: Meta Team and PreCure Mastah with 9203 comments
Hahaha yeah that is the best way to sum it up performed poorly for a first episode! That and compared to A.Z we know who is obviously more superior of the two…
POWUH: and Athenaeum Châtelaine with 2212 comments
Doesn’t seem to be much to this, it’s your average mecha fare with a usual boy-falls-into-cockpit beginning. At least this one has a little training, I just wish he wasn’t so unlikable.
In fact, both male and female MCs and most of the characters aren’t that likable, both countries have issues, and the main mech is only okay.
Jaime pissed me off, since I hate characters that act stupidly for no reason at all. So you decide to punch the soldier who’s laying his life on the line to save your scrawny, because your job is in peril? Well, I’m sorry, but you, your idiotic moe highness, can get shot and die for all I care!
And Tokimune isn’t any better. As far as mecha MCs go, it’s like they got to have their cake and eat it too. He DOES have some training, but he’s also pretty much a novice at the same time. He may be a military pilot, but he’s a “new” military pilot. He’s basically straight out of the academy. He can’t even pilot his original mech without tripping or messing up. And as for personality, sometimes the hothead, reckless, going-against-orders thing works for an MC, but that character better be smart enough, strong enough, and lucky enough, to pull it off. A good example is Nagate from Knights of Sidonia. He disobeys orders at times, but it’s only when needed and when he knows he has a better solution AND can pull it off.
This new guy trying to “help” those civilians was pretty stupid. He had no plan or strategy except to charge straight at the enemy, and then they end up overwhelming him anyway and he ends up having to count on his superior officer to come and save his hide. If the Argevollen hadn’t been there, he could very well have cost that lady her life as well as that of his fellow soldiers.
I love mecha, so I’ll stick with it a bit longer, but I’m hoping it really finds its stride and shapes up
POWUH: Meta Team and PreCure Mastah with 9203 comments
Average indeed Irenesharda down to generic main character and typical mecha trope of finding or magically falling into the giant overpowered giant robot.
Jamie and Tokimune are both very meh characters when you break them down and obviously she will become the token fanservice character because she programmed the Argevollen so she will be around for a long time.
Ahahahah yeah Tokimune running in to save those random civilians was kinda derp…not only did he disobey a direct order he put the whole team at risk of being discovered and his partners life? WOW GOOD JOB HERO-KUN! LOL
True ill be watching as well~
POWUH: Meta Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
It’s still too early to ultimately tell whether Argevollen will be good or bad though.
The best way to tell would be to revisit the show after the 1st half has aired to see which way it’s headed.
POWUH: Meta Team and PreCure Mastah with 9203 comments
Yeah giving it the classic three episode rule to see what the real story is like.
POWUH: and Yaoi Fangirl~ with 2320 comments
This is like Break Blade without the whole magic thing and with less dramatic characters BUT more annoying
POWUH: Meta Team and PreCure Mastah with 9203 comments
Yeah it is very much Break Blade without all the magic and dramatic character deaths! LOL Annoying is one way to word Argevollen.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
I was thinking it’s kinda like ZA FUUUUUUU without the stupid historical figure mishmash. I’ll probably keep watching it, because it doesn’t really annoy me. We’ll see how the characters develop, tho.
POWUH: Meta Team and PreCure Mastah with 9203 comments
Hahaha yeah true that and I hope the characters improve.
POWUH: Meta Team and Ringleader Extraordinaire~ with 6433 comments
For a first episode it was okay. I laughed to see the damn truck and mecha inside with an attractive operator. OH RIGHT, YOU ARE A PILOT, give this baby a go… it’s typical but I’ll still give this at least a three-episode run.
POWUH: Meta Team and PreCure Mastah with 9203 comments
Ooooh definitely I will be giving this the three episode rule but if something COOL happens maybe I will stick to watching it? I mean if I can survive that terrible train wreck of ZA FOOOOL then Argevollen should be easy.
POWUH: Novice (36-50) with 43 comments
Decided to drop it when the technician was trying to explain to the stupid soldiers that the Arvevollen will only work with the hero sitting in the pilot chair and the blond mecha pilot (can’t remember the names, this anime is so generic…) says “sorry, soldiers only trust their own experience”. It’s been a while since I heard such a stupid phrase in our out of anime.