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| Overall | Art | Animation | Character Design | Music | Series Story | Episode Story | Reviewer | |
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[series:2978#628] | ||||||
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(Four episodes watched): This was a show which seemed to have a fairly clever premise with a good deal of potential, but ultimately not much came of it. While watching episode one I was immediately reminded of the recent show about the guy who had once suffered from '8th Grade Syndrome', Chuunibyou Demo Koi ga Shitai!, in that the male protagonist in that series had once pretended to be a magical superhero until he grew out of the habit. Here, a guy is still quite afflicted with a similar condition--only to discover that somehow he really has acquired some sort of magical power (a pretty lame one, though). No one is more surprised than him by the discovery. The girls in his club each acquire a power as well, and theirs are much more potent. This seemed like fun; something which by all rights ought to be impossible had happened, and I wanted to find out why. If the show was also fairly funny, that would be great. But the remainder of the episode suggested that rather than an intriguing mystery this premise would probably just be used as a basis for so-so jokes. If there ever is any explanation, not a whole lot of effort will probably be invested in making it intriguing and unusual. As I have said numerous times, if a show isn't going to be laugh-out-loud funny, it needs some sort of plot to pick up the slack and make it entertaining enough to be worth watching. The story promptly leaping ahead six months after the bizarre discovery is made pretty much puts an end to that possibility. Battle might still be worth watching, but if the trouble had been taken to include an interesting story it could have been truly good. Maybe manga humor just doesn't translate well into its anime equivalent. Sure enough, in episode two there was little mention of, or expansion on, the premise of amazing supernatural powers being acquired unexpectedly by teenagers. I could only guess that this would be more about slice-of-life comedy with a twist than about the characters trying to use their powers to right wrongs or anything like that. On the other hand, there was a bit of a story that lasted longer than a 4-koma joke, namely the misunderstanding of a letter sent by what's-his-name to a girl. So, while we won't get much of a story about the adventures of superheroes, we might get a sort of one about the more pedestrian problems that they encounter. The first half of episode three is largely wasted on a not very funny bit about using superpowers while playing tennis. In the second half, however, we meet someone who either has a severe case of Eighth Grade Syndrome or has frightening plans for the world as a whole. And since fantastic powers are available in this show, it may be both. My hopes that the teens would be obliged to take on some sort of fairly serious problem were revived; maybe they would even learn things like how even superpowers have their drawbacks. But in episode four whatever plot seemed to be getting underway was dropped abruptly in favor of a not very interesting or moving bit about how the little girl in the group has had a quarrel with a friend. The jokes are modestly funny at best, and I have a hard time remembering anything from the last episode when a new one comes along. The fansubbers seemed to run out of enthusiasm for the project at about this point, and apparently gave up on it. Ah, I am not bitter but am definitely disappointed, because a crazy premise like teenagers suddenly acquiring fantastic powers seems to offer countless possibilities for intriguing and amusing things that might happen, yet Inou-Battle manages to be very pedestrian and unexciting. Last updated Tuesday, March 24 2015. Created Monday, October 13 2014. | ||||||||
