First Impression – Hiiro no Kakera

Oh look, more bishies. 

Return of Kara no Kyokai~ LMAO. Is this ever going to get old? Anyways, this is the earliest First Impression of a Spring 2012 title with Tomokazu Sugita…. Which was enough for me to jump on this. I have been ODing on Gintama and then Nichibros recently, so I would definitely like to hear more from him. And as Kara has been over excited about this for some time (you should know her otome game passion by now), I’m in for the first impressions~

Well, it’s out like, a month earlier than I thought it would be, but the first episode of Hiiro no Kakera is here! Even though it’s DEEN, I’m super excited. Why? IT’S AN OTOME GAME TURNED ANIME. I’M EXCITED BY DEFAULT. BRING YOUR WORST, DEEN. MY BODY IS LADY.

Meet Kasuga Tamaki, your average high school aged girl who looks nothing like her original design is traveling in the countryside to her grandmother’s house. On her way there, she takes a dirt path, feels a disturbance in the force and suddenly finds herself face to face with a CGI marshmallow thing with eyes. The thing talks to her for a moment but then floats off and Tamaki then finds herself in front of more CGI entities.

Dear lord, it’s like No Face all over again

However, these ones look considerably more threatening, so Tamaki does as most heroines do and runs away. She’s stopped by a bishie who appears out of nowhere though and he tells her that if she acts uneasy, the gods will become uneasy as well. He then pulls a talisman out of his pocket and tells her to repeat after him unless she wants to get spirited away. After a bunch of chanting, the paper glows and so Tamaki and the bishie get away. She introduces herself after and the bishie introduces himself as Onizaki Takuma. He knows who she is and was sent by her grandmother to get her. However, he refuses to explain anything.

Outside the house, they meet a suspicious old man who walks away and a Chizuru look alike girl named Kotokura Misuzu who serves Tamaki’s grandmother. After meeting with her grandmother, we learn that Tamaki’s parents have ditched her to work in Africa, so she’s staying with her grandmother. …Screw it, grandmother is too long to type out. Baba then explains the plot to the anime, telling Tamaki that she has inherited the blood of the Tamayorihime. Also, gods and ghost exist and if gods stop being worshiped, ghosts are born. However, Baba then ditches that train of thought and explains that the Tamayorihime has to protect the barrier around this badass sword called the Onokirimaru because that’s just what they do. Since Baba is getting old, it’s now Tamaki’s turn.

“You come to me on the day of my daughter’s wedding…”

In a phone call, Tamaki’s mother just brushes the whole thing aside and Tamaki finds herself thoroughly ditched be her parents. She then meets an adorable fox ghost (who I can guarantee is actually male) who is invisible to normal people/ is going to protect her with it’s adorableness. …Next, Tamaki goes to school and meets her female friend of the anime, Kiyono. She also meets a portion of her harem which consists of the loudmouthed senpai (who looks younger than he actually is and is very touchy about the subject), Atori Mahiro, and another senpai who has the amazing ability to fall asleep anywhere, Komura Yuuichi. They explain that they have the job of protecting her and tell Tamaki to just accept it because that’s just the way things have been for generations.

When they get back to the house, Misuzu announces that they’re going to celebrate Tamaki’s arrival. The oldest and reliable member of Tamaki’s harem also shows up and introduces himself as Omi Suguru. After they finish eating, Suguru explains that none of Tamaki’s guardians aren’t 100% human and their job in life is to protect the Tamayorihime and the Onikirimaru. His words put Tamaki at ease. However, the plot isn’t over yet as a bunch of individuals gather randomly in the darkness. The most important one being a loli with the surname Monado (Monad, whatever).

DEEN Goodness:

…Someone explain to me how DEEN got this from this.

I wish my grandmother’s house replaced furniture for sleeping bishies.

Sounds legit.

The sword is so awesome, they couldn’t bother to fit all of it on the screen at once…

End Thoughts:

Oh, DEEN, you. So, if it’s not fugly CGI dragons, there will be fugly slobbery monsters? Even if we blame this to following the original source as Kara points out, the animation was not all that clean. Will they clean it for the final release? I’m not really sure; the game CG looked much better. If you are getting into this without playing the game, expect a full ready reverse harem like Hakuouki. The main heroine is almost like Chizuru, scared with the current circumstances with an important position. Though, the whole princess deal makes Tamaki even more prominent with the ultimate damsel in distress. She does have powers (refer to the way she just floated from that cliff without any fracture or pain), but she’s pretty much unawares. How much, is the right question. Will there be training for her in the future if the setting of the story line is bordering on supernatural and action? Has to be.

To clearly state, if you are not into the game and seiyuu, this series might turn out to be too bland for you. Of course, there are bishies voiced by some amazing VAs but that is not enough for interest, when time is precious (I’ve been recently panning out the amount of anime I watch). DEEN is known for cutting corners and their animation quality is laughable sometimes but you can always test two more episodes out to see how it fairs. From the looks of things, it seems like a female Natsume has been born, complete with a youkai guardian (I miss the debu pig already…). But unlike Natsume, I don’t feel any empathy towards her but I guess, it’s too early to say that because this is the first episode after all. Maybe we’ll find out more about her rather than the guys just keep on working to save her from weird monsters… Why do I have a feeling that it’s exactly going to be that way?

Anyways, characters are all fine till now (I don’t feel intense hate for anyone). The senpai was pretty annoying but you can’t have all goody-two-shoe characters in such a story line so that’s a given. It was good hearing the Kisuisou manager yet again (Tamie Kubato) and she felt even more distant this time. I was half expecting her to become a wolf in grandma’s clothes like the red riding hood tale. Her objectives would soon be known and same for the bishies because not all of them look straight (pun intended). I’ll have my eyes on Yuuichi and Suguru especially. So, overall, it was an okay watch without the OP/ED (I couldn’t help LOL at the seiyuu talking over-excitedly). I’m not expecting something extraordinary with this but as Kara pointed out, I’ll look forward to some epic fighting scenes and InuxBoku SS styled transformations.

…I don’t know how they did it, but Tamaki doesn’t seem as much of a whiny bitch as she was in the game. Here she just seems confused and scared. I mean, I don’t think they changed any of her lines (other than taking some away), but what a difference having an actual voice to a character makes (also the fact that you don’t read as much of Tamaki’s inner thoughts as you do in the game helps). Nothing really happened this episode, but at least we have Tamaki’s future harem and the whole Tamayorihime thing established. Yes, the pacing is a bit screwy, but it gets better, I swear! …Speaking of Tamayorihime, I never realised how stupid the name sounds in English. So Tamaki is a princess with a harem. I hope that people don’t get turned off from this because of how juvenile that sounds…

AHAHAHA oh DEEN, you never fail to disappoint me. There was a fabulous amount of derp and this is the first episode where most productions spend their time and money making it the least derpy. Not only that, but they also took the liberty to completely defile Kazuki Yone’s original character designs. Fiona’s hair alone is a disaster waiting to happen. Mahiro? Who’s that? That is NOT Mahiro. Though Tamaki was the one who looked the farthest from her original design LOL combined with her seemingly less bitchy personality, it’s like she’s a whole new person. At least they didn’t mess O-chan up as much as I thought they would based on the initial picture though they did mess up his gender. Maybe DEEN does half listen to their viewers occasionally.

…Despite my constant bitching, I’m actually really excited for this still. I’m only halfway through Takuma’s route in the game, but I’m looking forward to what’s coming up. It looked like DEEN put some effort towards the special effects (believe it or not, those kami were just as ugly in the game), so I want to see what they do with the fighting. Also, the voice cast helps. I freaking love Okano Kousuke in the game and so that obviously transfers to here. Having Nakamura and Tomokazu helps too of course. Miyake Marie as Tamaki was a great choice too since her voice fit’s my mental image of Tamaki… Or maybe I’m just impressed by the fact that her voice can mess with my opinion of a character like that. Either way, Miyake=a good choice. The music they just took from the game, so I can’t really comment on that (but the game music was nice in the first place). So yeah, if you just ignore the DEEN quality animation, this anime has a lot going for it. …Or at least something going for it. I can’t wait until this actually airs in April~.

Preview: …Once again, this starts officially in April. You’ll have to wait a whole month for the second episode. Rather look forward to our Spring 2012 review.