My super late first impressions post on Hidan no Aria (aka Aria the Scarlet Ammo), a JC Staff show starring a tsundere loli voiced by Rie Kugimiya. I want one of those remote-controlled, Uzi-rigged Segways. I don't think this went exactly as planned, but Kinji is better off because of it. You don't have to wait around, Ignorable Volunteer Maid Girl, because Macindows takes ages to boot up. Summary: Kinji Tohyama is enrolled in the Tokyo Butei School which trains "Buteis" (armed detectives) to catch criminals, but Kinji wants to live a normal live and plans to transfer out of the school. One morning Kinji misses the school bus and has to ride his bike to school, but he discovers that he is the target of someone who is copying a recently-caught Butei killer. Kinji's bike is planted with a bomb which will blow up if Kinji slows down, and Kinji is being monitored/chased by a remote-controlled Segway rigged with a speaker, camera, and Uzi. Kinji rides around not knowing what to do and is running out of options when suddenly a pink-haired girl wearing the Butei school uniform jumps off a nearby building, deploys a parachute and shoots out the Uzi-Segway with her pistols. The girl then steers her parachute around and tackle Kinji off of his bike to save Kinji from the bomb. The bike explodes soon after and Kinji and girl and sent rolling into a building. Second faceful of the episode. Awesome Loli-lover Mode activated. Kinji wakes up and finds the girl unconscious in front of him with her shirt lifted up. Kinji reads off the girl's bra and learns that the girl is Aria H. Kanzaki. Aria wakes up and thinks Kinji was trying to do bad things to her while she was unconscious, but soon the two come under fire from seven more Uzi-Segways. Aria returns fire with her pistols to force the Uzi-Segways to retreat behind a wall. During the firefight Aria inadvertently presses her chest into Kinji's face, and this causes Kinji to undergo and dramatic personality change where he starts acting all cool and calling Aria "princess". Kinji then walks out and takes out Uzi-Segways by putting bullet into the barrel of each of the Uzis. Afterwards, Kinji unwittingly teases Aria about being an elementary student when in reality she is a second year high-schooler. Aria wants to rip Kinji a new one, but Kinji takes away Aria's pistol magazine and makes Aria slip on her own bullets before leaving. A real sharpshooter. Later, Kinji makes it to school and reverts to his usual personality. It turns out under special circumstances, Kinji will go into "Hysteria Mode" which greatly enhances his fighting ability but also changes his personality at the same time. In class, Kinji discovers that Aria just transferred into his class. The other students tease Kinji and Aria, but Aria fires her pistols to shut everyone up. After school, Kinji goes back to his apartment and sulks about how unlucky he is. The doorbell rings, and Kinji discovers Aria standing in front of his door with some luggage. Aria barges into Kinji's apartment and then tells Kinji to become her "slave". You are a man right? Well it's time to man up and take responsibility. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A decent first episode. Good production quality and action customary of JC Staff, and of course there was a sizable dose of fan service and the tsundere loli voiced by Rie Kumigiya. Kugimiya's voice seems to be especially high-pitched this time around (or I haven't heard her voice in a leading role for some time), but perhaps it's only fitting for Aria's overly tsundere character. Still, it might take a little time to get used to the high-pitched screaming if it happens every single episode. While Aria is predictably tsundere and quick-tempered, the male lead Kinji isn't quite as well defined. Kinji's sudden personality change due to loli-chest-in-face was amusing, but his normal personality didn't show any other special traits so far. It's too early to say much about the story and settings, but as long as the Butei School setup brings us more action and comical interactions between the important characters then there won't be much to complain about. I'm expecting this show to survive mostly on action, fan service, our twin-tailed gun-wielding lead and Kinji's alter personality. I'll follow the show, but I won't blog about it weekly. Hopefully Hidan no Aria will deliver a decent balance of action and comedy every week, especially since Maria Holic Alive didn't managed to be that funny in its first two episodes. From the feed of A Product of Wasted Time
Read the rest of this entry Entry meta