Fall Anime Impressions – Yozakura Quartet and Ga-Rei Zero

Next up are my reviews of the new fall anime shows Yozakura Quartet and Ga-Rei Zero. One tried to it’s best to make me forget about it and the other attempts to wow us with a Shyamalan ending.

Yozakura Quartet

Rating: 8/12 B+

I’m writing most of these fall impressions a few days after actually watching the episode in question. This hasn’t been a problem so far, I record the score right after I watch the episode and I remember what impressed me and why when I write about the episode. Last night as I was getting to this entry I found that I couldn’t really remember much of anything for this episode. The one thing I remember well was the introduction because I liked watching the city grow through time.

I rewatched it and agreed with my initial rating but there’s a problem with the show when it fails to leave a impression (positive or negative) on the viewer. The animation is okay, neither terrible or outstanding. The characters don’t seem too clichéd or memorable. I could go on but you get the idea – this show has potential but at the same time I can’t help but compare it to To Aru Majutisu no Index because at least right now they seem like similar shows: people with powers, a special city that it takes place in, and good guys fighting evil people. When compared to Index, Yozakura Quartet doesn’t seem to match up at the present. I will watch a few more episodes and hopefully this show can find it’s unique voice.

Ga-Rei Zero

Rating: 9/12 A-

One of the blogs that I’ve really been reading a lot of recently is Star Crossed Anime Blog and this show’s first episode was ranked pretty good so I thought I’d give it a go.

The show didn’t exactly wow me at first. Sure the animation was above average and the action was pretty good but when I don’t really know the characters then action for action’s sack really isn’t that awesome. I was interested, however in the flashbacks the main character has where one of the bad guys (are they demons, vampires, or something else?) has converted his girlfriend into one of the bad guys. He shot her at the time but still feels bad over this.

To make a long story short, the good guys dispatch the Class B bad guy and are relaxing, drinking tea and right when we think this is the end of the episode the main character’s girl shows up from the dead. Good place for a “To Be Continued” but instead we watch as she quickly slices everyone but our main character to death. Okay, I think to myself, killing off most of your main cast in the first episode is certainly different but our main character will must surely make it out alive – you can’t kill your entire cast in the first episode. As the girl advances to our main character, he can’t pull the trigger on his gun because it’s her. The episode ends with her definitely killing him and the ending credits roll with no music and to top it off there’s no preview.

I’m definitely intrigued about the show but I have no clue where it’s going to go now. Are they going to introduce a new group of people, bring these ones back from the dead somehow, or was this the ending of the show that we just saw? I don’t know but hopefully another episode will clarify this show for the viewers. If they wanted to get viewers interested in this show, they did a good job – now they have to deliver.