First Impression – Juuou Mujin no Fafnir
You know, I’m sure I’ve done this show before…
Welcome back to our continuing Winter coverage! You know, I’ll just let the joke under the splash pic rest right there, as a second viewing made the show stand out just a tiny bit more than I had originally thought.
It’s “D”s World We all Just Live Here
Welcome to Midgar
Well, as far as world building goes, Fafnir really isn’t striking out any new ground. Date A Live, Freezing, Eureka Seven, to name but a few all feature this sort of extra-dimensional invader set-up. It takes a bit, but they do eventually stamp out some decent path of it’s own, but more on that later. So, 25 years previous, incredibly powerful Dragons invade and proceed to stomp all over everything; cause they are traditional style monsters, why ruin a long standing relationship with Earth. In the wake of invasion, young girls develop superhuman powers involving the control of “dark matter”, and they are able to eliminate the threat. Now, on Midgar the girls, called “D” study and are in turn studied to understand what is behind the invasion, how the powers work, how to make them work for everyone’s benefit, and why the Dragons and the “D” are linked.
It probably has something to do with this…no…not the oppai…
The Corner of Trope and Standard
“There’s a perfectly ordinary explanation to all this” – harem trope standard statement
With this world breaking affair, you just have to have a guy butt in, don’t you? So enter one Yuu Mononobe (again with Yoshitsugu Matsouka? Is this the season of the Yoshisouka Harem Virus?), an officer in NIFL,recently assigned to Midgar for….reasons, I guess the Dragon mark is a dead give-a-way. But rather than the hum-drum standard affair of checking in, he is in a daze on a beach finding himself confronted with a naked girl. Whether or not this is hum-drum, is completely up to you. But, regardless, after a brief misunderstanding and some standard harem ecchi hijinks, both Yuu and Iris settle down a bit. For afters we have the long lost sister trope pulled out and flogged; they hadn’t seen each other since the cold open, I guess in narrative space that can take the half a lifetime it seems to want to convey, for us, it’s like…yep, guess that’s a thing….
She may be the best character they have, for all the passive-aggressive trope writing itself nonsense
So in short order Yuu is enrolled in the school, where no boy has enrolled before (but they have a fitted uniform for him….missed opportunity to have him in a fetching dress). As I stated earlier, this is where the “D” train in the use of their Dark Matter powers, and try to come to an understanding about the relationship they share with the Dragons. Yuu in no novice, as he is able to fashion a gun, complete with ammo, with little trouble. The girls are not impressed as the training montage shows us. Girls, it seems are much more creative when it comes to Dark Matter shaping.
All the “D”….
Feisty Imouto GO!
Well, at least we get some standard training out of the way early on. It’s a holodeck style affair, so it’s somewhat safe as houses. Given that Midgar is designed to also contain some of the worst this Dark Matter can bring, that’s a good thing, as Iris is just going on “gotta give it my best” and is quite clumsy in that regard. It’s not something she is happy with, as she feels the weight of the past on her shoulders. The White Dragon appeared, with indications pointing that is what looking for her, and lots of people payed the price for that. We take this with the news that “D”s contact with the Dragons could turn the girls into monsters themselves. Not a happy recipe at all.
A boy a “D” and a trope
She not the most able tool in the shed, but she is starting to grow on me…
At first I was not taken with Iris’ personality. She almost seems to dumb to live, but that has a decent advantage to it in terms of story. One, it takes that trope away from the male MC, giving him room to do other things, and it serves to cement these two in the narrative, both can grow as needed, or as pushed and perhaps even compliment each other. That’s where I would like the series to go. She can still be a bit clumsy, and a bit too cheery if necessary, but she’s got to get her head out of the past and into the game. I’m hoping both can find each other there….
…and she makes for a nice endcard…
Well, I went in with expectations. That it not totally rip off anything it could get it’s hands on. By contrast I could see how Absolute Duo borrowed from other places. Here I could see where much more clearly. But they did manage to file off some serial numbers in short order. If I have any complaints, it’s that the character design feels a bit overused, and looks like flat at times, and the white filter is kinda tedious at points. This is Diomédea’s fourth effort this season, and it kinda feels like it got the rush end of the budget. It feels a bit too cobbled together in more than a few places, and I didn’t feel much originality coming from it. LN adaption curse? Couldn’t say. But I’m willing to see how far it goes, as there are some points I did rather enjoy. So what did everyone else think?
Glowing Dragon mark at night, next episodes delight!
About skylion
All around nerd that enjoys just about any anime genre. I love history, politics, public policy, the sciences, literature, arts...pretty much anything can make me geeky...except sports. Follow me @theskylion
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
Fapnir. They spelt it wrong. The other one is Fapner.
So this one is Cross Ange, minus the raep, with the haremyness of Seirei Tsukai, Absolute Duo, DxD, et al. ripping off Greek/Norse/whatever mythology.
On the serious side, I would prefer things to be more gender balanced or at least more trappulicious.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
…you can never argue me against having a delicious trap…
I swear, weapons names are just so off the shelf these days….
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1557 comments
The second dragon wasn’t a dragon at all. I feel cheated. It was a squid octopus thingy.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
…it rather was, wasn’t it…but it was large. He’s large.
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1557 comments
It was decent, I liked it a slight bit more than Testament and Absolute Duo, so far.
Now all Onii-chan needs to do is one-up those girls:
I noticed that every girl’s transformation starts with their clothes becoming see-through. Now then, what will we get to see with Onii-chan’s transformation?
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
Ah, I have to admit I love an equal opportunity hentai….
Show us what Yuu got!
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
Unlimited LOLiworks is more applicable… I think it was in one of the posts somewhere on the site..
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
I think I’ve used Unlimited LOLi Works in Ilya. I might have used it during Shinobu Time…I’m drawing a blank.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Things I liked:
1) Yuu isn’t already the best at whatever he’s doing, but isn’t a complete novice. He also may bring a nice alternative viewpoint to the girls at the school, having been a soldier and presumably more responsible.
2) The overall feel isn’t bad. It is a bit bland, and tries to make up for it with underboob and see-through clothing transformations (I’m actually guessing that’s a TV thing and the BD might get rid of the transparent clothing part).
Things I didn’t like so much:
1) so much brightness reduction. It really sucks. They make up some excuse about it ‘protecting equipment’ what? Makes no sense and makes the show look like crap.
2) Why did they have a boy’s uniform for Yuu? They should have handed him a dress like the girls wear and said “Sorry, you’re the first boy here, we don’t have any uniforms for you.”
3) I don’t really care for Iris.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
Well, Yuu is probably still gonna be a chew toy for the girls no matter what.
BD are always our hope. Well, not always, the Trin7 BDs still kept censor steam.
OMG the brightness must protect our things!
Fail on trap noted.
I’m actually liking Iris now. First view, I was not down with her at all,but the connection both Yuu and her have feels like a complete set.
Not the set that Toruu and Julie have, but more on that later…
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
APPROVED! That should have happened!
POWUH: 600-699 and LN Enthusiast with 623 comments
*insert ‘D’ joke here*
Guess that part’s too easy to joke about so no one would really want to do it.
Until World Break aired, I thought this was weaker than Absolute Duo’s pilot episode. The exposition was kinda lacking even with all the things mentioned by the instructor. Why are D’s only limited to women? Is it related to dragons seeking only women? I could accept an explanation as bullshit as Infinite Stratos’ “only women respond to the IS unit”. At least provide something about it. It just makes the guy an exception just because we need a single guy to get involved in harem hijinks with the ladies.
The characters are also quite flat themselves. They don’t stand out that much even if they adhere to their archetypes. Plus points for the MC being a soldier before I guess.
The explanation for the dark matter powers seem interesting. Them using mythological weapons are a plus point. There must be a gist to the MC’s power which will make him even more special. I’d be more surprised if there wasn’t anything special since they made a point about him being the odd one to manifest a gun instead of using magic.
This can go any way but it probably can’t get any worse than World Break or Absolute Duo so that’s something. I’m wondering which out of the magical-fantasy-ecchi-harem-action-LN anime adaptations this season would be the best one at the end of it all. Let’s take some bets shall we.
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
Will not bet because IMHO, all are equally terrible. In fact, I will do the opposite instead and wait and see which one will have the main hero killing off his harem. Or alternatively, have some redeeming quality.
So far the one that is showing promise: Cross Ange.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
The application, at least in the episode, perfunctory as it was, of Dark Matter and by extension the weapons felt way too by-the-book. Interesting idea, flat execution. I hope they can do more, because as you point out, it is a good point for the show.
…as you’ll see later, World Break does have it’s fans, YT included.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Yeah, a funny thing happened on the way to World Break… I’ll be posting that tonight.
There are some things I will believe with the ‘only girls can do it’. Cross Ange’s normas only being girls is a good example. It is at least plausible that something on the X-chromosome could express in such a way that mana usage is prevented. Likewise, in Vanadis, you can chalk it up to pervy dragons only wanting to be touched by women. But things like IS or Fafnir here, where it’s “the one guy” strain that credulity quite a lot.
POWUH: 600-699 with 691 comments
So many potential jokes about D from this anime…i got 22 of them just from the first episode, my favorite is
“They’re all for the new D”
still, i expected more…the brightness(so bad, that i thought my pc was having problems)
i liked it though…even though it’s the generic harem/ecchi/fantasy anime of the season, the best of the season is still the magic boys anime(so funny)
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
It’s too damn generic, it writes itself…and badly…
POWUH: 600-699 with 691 comments
Can’t argue with that…but dragons and D open the page for so many jokes, especially considering the ecchi scenes
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 163 comments
The worst thing about this was that the whole show just was boring. I literally had to slap myself in the face to keep from falling asleep.
Everything felt forced. From the “Kyahs – he saw me naked!” to the “blush-panic – I saw her naked” to the “you’re actually nice, I think I love you and want to have your babies” to the “don’t misunderstand – I think your trash” to the “gokai desu’s”. Even the evil bastard’s monologue was boring.
And then one boring transformation scene… OK, I can sit through it… why do they think that just showing skin is sexy – it really isn’t – it’s all about context and artistry, and… oh bollocks, they’re doing another one… OK, that wasn’t any better and… ANOTHER ONE?
Yup – they did all, what? Five of them? Honestly I don’t care, because they were all forgettable.
Frankly, the most exciting part of the whole show was the prologue. And episode 2 isn’t any better.
Evening ended on a better note however, because I decided to finally get around to watching Amagi Brilliant Park.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
Oh, yes. The second episode didn’t improve a thing!
POWUH: 600-699 with 691 comments
i spent my time when seeing this anime thinking about jokes involving the letter D