First Impression – NouKome
The Power of Absolute Choice Compels You!
Ah, the end of the First Impressions, at least for me! And I saved the longest name for last. Another Light Novel adaptation, this one is Ore no Nounai Sentakushi ga, Gakuen Love Comedy wo Zenryoku de Jama Shiteru. Errr, that’s really long, let’s try English: My Mental Multiple-Choice Power is Completely Ruining My School Romantic Comedy. Eh—to—-, That’s still really long. Let’s just go with “NouKome”.
The Premise
Kanade at least has someone who loves him
The premise for this show is pretty silly. The MC, Amakusa Kanade (Toyonoga Toshiyuki, who also played Fuwa Mahiro in Zetsuen no Tempest), is a boy who at random times is faced with a choice. Now, all of us are faced with choices, but apparently he gets random A / B choices, and he has to pick one, or he feels pain. Enough pain to make him want to pick one of the choices. From the very first choice the show throws at us, you know this guy’s in trouble. Encountering an ecchi magazine in the park, he wants to take a look, but his choices become:
Neither is something you’d actually want to do
Well, you can see them there. This sets the stage for Kanade’s curse of “Absolute Choice”. Apparently, it’s possible any time to be faced with some terrible choice which will always come to pass. And as the viewer, we’re sitting here knowing what we’d pick, and knowing that it’ll still be horrible. So while WataMote last season was notable for the, well, not the best choices that Tomoko made, in this one Kanade is forced to choose between two bad choices.
Style!
We meet two more of the main group at school: Yukihira Furano (newcomer Kondou Yui), the quiet (well, maybe) white-haired girl, and Yuuouji Ouka (Tsuji Ayumi, Orihara Kozue from ChäoS;HEAd). Both of these girls are out there, and seem to be at least not repulsed by the weird happenings around Kanade (like asking Yukihira to “touch his boobies”, or stripping off his shirt and shouting). They’re even part of a group named “The Reject Five”, which is actually a concept I like for this show.
The rest of the class might be starting to get used to this
I mean, I don’t like to see one person ostracized, but when it gets to a group of 3 or 5, and they’re more just avoided than ostracized or bullied, that’s actually a good setup for comedy. It really helps that Yukihira and Ouka are in their own little world as well (while the rest of the class is scandalized that Kanade took off his shirt, Ouka just responds “Oh, are you hot? Here, use this!” and pulls out a pocket fan). The only person who seems to know about his problem is their homeroom teacher, Douraku-sensei, a pink-haired loli who covers for him, but also has to keep up appearances, so she drags him around and gives him a hard time.
Hello, sensei
The final choice of the first episode introduces our last main character: Chocolate (Sadohara Kaori, SG550 – Sig – from Upotte!). Again he makes the right choice in saying he wants a bishoujo to fall out of the sky, rather than his obaa-san neighbor who has a huge infatuation with him. And Chocolate says she’s going to save him, apparently by being REALLY cute and having big boobs.
And a cute hat, too
Soooooo…
Scary!
The presentation from Diomedea was actually pretty good, with a nicely paced show… save one part. Right after the OP, the show presents us with some kind of talk show introducing the power of choice throughout history, and proceeds to take three minutes going through all of history with various choices made by historical figures. I actually found this part to be a bit tedious, going on for something like 3 and a half minutes, but going too quickly to read. I got the point a while back, guys. Choices, yay! But aside from that (which is a bit of a personal thing, other people said they enjoyed it, so YMMV), I thought the show kept moving well, and had a pretty good look. When I first saw this in the preview, I was worried that too many of the characters were just straight expy characters, ripped out of other shows. But they don’t really give that kind of feeling in the show. I think something that helps with that is the relative freshness of the voice actors in this show, none of them particularly well known, so you can’t really make that memory link.
For whatever reason, this worked for me
The art is pretty standard for a show like this, but there are some very effective visuals, like the giant neighbor falling out of the sky. The OP and ED music aren’t bad, but I really liked the OP animation sequence, and actually found the ‘everyone does a handstand’ bit engaging. And the ending omake was a bit interesting, exploring the famous future that Kanade would have had if he had taken another choice (with a callback to earlier, with Yuouji’s mother as the reporter).
A different scene with Yuouji’s mother in a more, ahem, compromising position
I said in the Fall Preview that this could be pretty good, or it could be terrible. And I have to say that it is firmly on the side of good. At times very funny, the conceit of the show is interesting, and the way it’s handled by Kanade makes it work. I do hope that they don’t go to the same well too often, with the Choices Presented > Questioned > Pain > Selection. Having him have some different reactions will go far towards making it more interesting. But the characters work so far, and hopefully it stays just as much fun as this first episode.
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: 600-699 and LN Enthusiast with 623 comments
Those anti-gravity skirts in the OP…
History choices montage aside, I really enjoyed this episode. To be forced to choose between one of two embarrassing things or suffer a major headache. That sucks but good thing it’s being played in a comedic way. We’ll probably never get why he has this curse but it’s just as well I guess.
The two girls are in their own world alright and they’re pretty interesting in their own way. Hope we meet the rest of the Reject Five. I like Ouka for now.
And no one in their right mind would choose that neighbor over a bishoujo to fall in the sky. Question would be what will she do to help our MC.
And to top it all off, Nakata Jouji as the narrator that asks the MC to choose is just pure win.
What is it with Diomedea and 10 episodes? First Mondaiji now this. No budget? Sucks really as I’m looking forward to this show now. This should be fun.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Given how well Diomedea planned out Mondai-ji, I think (hope) the 10 episodes will be fine plot-wise, but again leave us wanting more. I think this won’t be quite as pronounced in being short as series sometimes are, because it’s almost the last of the new shows for fall, so it will only end a week or so before most other shows.
I’m sure we’ll meet the rest of the Reject Five. And Chocolate will be in the group, so they’re not really isolated. It’s interesting that the love triangle has been set up between the three girls we’ve seen, tho. We can see Furuna’s interest, but Ouka doesn’t seem interested at all.
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
Except if I understand correctly, Mondaiji didn’t sell enough BDs to get a 2nd season… which is a damn shame. Poor Calico Cat and KuroUsagi.
POWUH: Meta Resident and Werewolf Chaser with 1270 comments
Hmm… looks amusing enough to give it a try later*!
Also, did they have anti-gravity skirts in the second to last screenshot?
*After I catch up my 2nd episodes first.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Yes, there are no pantsu flashes in the OP (although there’s a small bit of one when Chocolate falls on Kanade, and they’re panning around her). Nor was there anything but anti-gravity skirt when Ouka flipped at her entrance (the “Style!” screenshot).
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Of course, I seem like the biggest perv revising this, but there was a flash when Ouka did the flip.
POWUH: Meta Resident and Werewolf Chaser with 1270 comments
Nah, its OK to let your inner perv out once a while ;P
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 175 comments
well feel sorry for kanade give really having mental condition of having being for pick two options.
yet per delay his head hurts give unless compare his school life, that “maid”, & now girl fallen from sky.
yea fun bag to watch on it.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
::ahem:: Changing the world is actually more like a stream of choices, one affecting the other, with a stream of outcomes, all of them maintained by other choices. So it’s not as simple as presented in that, yes painful, three minutes of stuff.
But I think they did that on purpose. Hopefully, to make you realize that first bit. And to dovetail quite nicely into HWY’s hopes for the show as well. That they can change things up too keep the comedy fresh.
But for right now, Kanade is Suffering.
Curses against anti-gravity skirts. They always ruin a good bit don’t they?
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
It was actually pretty interesting seeing how they gave the skirts movement and dynamism without flopping over. But even then, the action of the handstands was engrossing to me.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
For me the phrase is, “It tickled me”. And it did..
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
Diomedea is an underated studio. Really underated.
POWUH: Novice (36-50) with 37 comments
I thought I’d hate this show for sure based on the premise (ugh, another stupid ecchi RomCom, I thought), and although it was extremely stupid in many senses of the word, it still had me laughing my ass off. The MC’s triumphant pose while inwardly saying “champion!” in Engrish after sneaking a peak at the porn mag was the first of many great moments. I too found everyone doing handstands in the OP to be utterly charming!!
The only thing I found disappointing (asides from the overly long history lesson in the beginning- that was a bit boring) was that the MC was only given two options to pick from, whereas most galge and the like give you three options! I’m hoping we get to see three option moments in the future, since I’ll definitely be watching the next episode.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
I think the two options work because they both suck. It’s not ‘good, better, best’ it’s ‘bad and horrible’. And it also kind of got around having more choices as a joke because it’s not afraid to make him do two choices in a row.
Yeah, that “Champion!” pose did a lot towards making him seem likeable. I also really loved Ouka’s “Style!!!” when she nailed that flip). All in all it’s a very dynamic show, and the handstands in the OP just help to reinforce that.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
He has no chance of winning any sort of galge/eroge ending…
POWUH: Meta Team and PreCure Mastah with 9203 comments
This first episode was so damn hilarious! I haven’t laughed that loud since Watamote or Love Lab because of the odd ball choices that the MC had to make and I can tell this is going to be a great comedy <3
My only complaint would be the choices they spammed at the start of the episode they could have cut that a bit shorter, but whatever it still managed to be quite hilarious.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
It would be funny to see how many anime fans actually got the historical Japanese bits. It went by a bit to fast for me, but I got a few. I actually LOL’d like a loon, at the 17 cuts bit….
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
I got some of them, but not a whole heck of a lot (like I didn’t get the 17 cuts one).
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
I don’t even know if it’s worth a wiki search, never explain the joke….but I knew it….