Otakuism

Finally one of the shows I actually want to watch this season is subbed.

In a rundown church in a snowy field, a blue-haired girl in goth-lolita clothing and an eyepatch shoots at an unknown shadow with a revolver. Stepping outside, she encounters a brown-haired girl in normal school clothing. The blue-haired girl goes to shoot at her, but is out of ammo. She instead grabs her knife, which the other girl does likewise, before the two dash to strike eachother.

Quite an interesting first scene, isn’t it? Too bad the rest of the episode has nothing to do with it. We are introduced to Sumire, the brown-haired girl in the opening, a generally clutzy and dumb girl with good intentions. She also has the ability to see Viruses, evil spirits that plague the world. She is part of Venus Vanguard, a group that hunts down viruses. The group also includes Lola, a blonde, rather stuck-up loli, and Ruchia, the eyepatch girl from the opening. Ruchia is the cool, silent type, whose left eye is covered by an eyepatch, not because it’s injured, but because it allows her to see visions of things she doesn’t want to see.

The first episode mainly introduces these characters, along with a girl who comes as a client. The girl whose a client has been seeing a shadow everywhere, and her friends have gone missing, clear signs of a Virus since they eat souls. Ruchia finally manages to draw the Virus out through her visions, and proceeds to kill it. Except it doesn’t really work too well. The Virus takes Sumire hostage and is about to steal her soul when Ruchia shoots one of her anti-virus bullets into Sumire’s mouth. Now, why would she do that? Turns out Sumire has another, totally badass, ability. When exposed to the Virus anti-body in Ruchia’s bullets, her personality completely changes and she becomes an excellent virus killer, ripping them apart with her bare hands. It’s like how Shiki becomes Nanaya when exposed to demon blood. Too bad when she changes she also likes to kill humans, though this time she fortunately mananges to change back before harming Ruchia.

I really liked VVV’s first episode. The premise, while very cliche, is at least interesting since I love supernatural stuff. But it’s the characters that are really awesome, mainly Ruchia and Sumire. I have a fetish for eyepatches, don’t ask me why, so seeing a main heroine wear one is great. Ruchia is also pretty cool for using a revolver, which I always thought was a pretty stylish weapon. Her character design is very nice, though I think her outfit is a bit plain. Needs more ruffles to be really goth-lolita. Now Sumire’s normal personality is pretty bland, but when she goes all Nanaya Shiki on your ass, now that’s awesome. Can’t wait to see her rip more monsters apart with her HANDS! Oh, and the promised yuri looks pretty good, though I see them side-skipping the issue until the end of the series. You can hint at it all you want, but until they kiss I say it’s not yuri.

Animation wise it’s alright. It’s not kyoani but it’s not Yoake QUALITY either. How they handled flashbacks was pretty neat, with the whole circular frame around the picture. A nice touch. I love both the OP and ED, especially the ED since it’s done by the great Yousei Teikoku. VVV looks to have some potential to be pretty good. It’s not gonna be earth-shattering, but hopefully I can enjoy it.