First impressions: Tears to Tiara, Shangri-la, and Pandora hearts

When I was playing Tears to Tiara, I didn’t notice how cheesy everything was. Demon lord? Sacrificial virgins? The absurdity of everything really hit me when Arawn came out of his coffin in a wispy, ghost-like mist and the priest was just standing there laughing as if he was on nitrous oxide. The music wasn’t all that interesting (certainly not as good as Uwatarerumono),  the animation wasn’t bad, and the voice acting, which was a bit different from that of the game, was good. I thought that the pace could have gone faster, as this isn’t something that should be stretched into 26 episodes. However, it did impressed me in the visual department. The game’s character designs were translated well into this new medium, everything was solid, and the ending song was really quite stylish.

I’m not the only person who noticed the indirect kiss when the 2 shared the apple, am I?

I quite liked the first episode of Shangri-la. The music wasgood (although May’n’s opening song just isn’t as good as those from Macross Frontier), the animation was good, character designs aren’t the best, but the beautiful backgrounds more than make up for it. The first episode was basically there to introduce the characters, with cute (and very young) girls being the centerpiece in a wide array of…let’s just say eccentric characters that I don’t want to be in the same room as (for fear of my life and sanity). The concept about the taxing and control of carbon is interesting (here in Canada we actually do have an insanely high Carbon tax that everyone hates), and the vibes I’m getting are suspiciously similar to those from x/1999. The episode ends in a cliffhanger, and while I’m not in love with it, it certainly captured my attention enough for me to watch the rest of the series.

And seriously, the backgrounds are BEAUTIFUL!

I had bad feelings about Pandora hearts and they weren’t dispelled by the first episode. The animation was cheap, the colors ugly, and somehow it just didn’t have that flair that made me like the manga so much. However, words of admiration has to be given to the audio tracks, with a beautiful opening song by FictionJunction (although the credits doesn’t mention which ONE). Yuki Kajuira, as always, did a fantastic job on the music, and the voice actors were good too, even if Alice sounded completely different from what I was expecting.

The final factor that convinced me to not watch this show was the ending song, which involved looking at a naked Alice from various angles. Sorry Bee-train, but I’ve never liked your shows and I’m not about to start now.

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