And of the good kind — meaning romance between Louise and Saito. Did my eyes and ears deceive me? Did this whole episode go by without a breast joke? Yes!!! While the end of ep1 may bring some concern back, I at least had a great time with this episode not worrying about a “reset” or more unfaithful Saito behavior.
Synopsis
The show seems to pick up right where Season II left off. Louise and Saito start to “celebrate” his return, but Siesta totally blocks him. :( But we get a new conflict; Saito’s runes have disappeared. This means his contract with Louise is gone, and Saito no longer has his powers.
So what does it mean? We get some emo/depressed bits of Louise thinking Saito will go away forever now that he isn’t bound to her anymore … whereas Saito doesn’t really care about contracts and would stay to protect Louise anyway. But can he? With what power? Henrietta even offers him a chevalier to become a knight and a noble, but Saito refuses as he has this doubt in his mind.
Sabrac?! Wrong series, pal!
Anyway, Louise and Saito do get attacked while traveling .. and by a mysterious new enemy who claims that there are other Void users in the world, and she’s the familiar of the other one (or one of them). With the help of Derflinger, Saito does rush in to save the day.
The cast concludes later that it’s because Saito died at the big battle last season that the contract was nullified. Yet an elf (Tiffania) managed to revive him, so she may have some more answers about his life and his role as Louise’s familiar and possibly this new enemy.
Impressions
I know it was a thick forest, but did that whole action/fight scene have to happen in mostly darkness? I had to tweak my monitor just to be able to see it properly, and I don’t think it really saved on the animation budget or anything. But why do it in the first episode?
Anyway, that opening 60 seconds was hot. Deredere Louise is perfect, and see, Saito does know he has a good girl with him who really will do whatever he desires if the time and mood are right. Why go for the other girls? Siesta coming in was unfortunate, but it didn’t turn out so bad since they were distracted by Saito’s runes disappearing. In a worse case scenario, Siesta’s interruption would have involved Saito looking at her chest and suddenly imagining something perverted when he was JUST with Louise … and she blows him up and we get nowhere fast. So I’m glad that didn’t happen.
The ending of the episode was still cute; it was sweet that Louise did have the promise in the back of her mind, even though she was terribly shy and unsure how to progress. Saito, like any guy, would get a bit overexcited and try to push it … so her blowing him up at that time (hidden pantsu shot!) was okay for me. It was a moment between just the two of them, rather than punishment because Saito involved a third wheel. Louise is delicate…
The very end with her refusing to let him on the carriage, Omni calls a character reset, but I think it’s a bit soon. She’s just still upset about him pushing her too far last night. And you can’t shed the tsuntsun completely if you want a little bit of comedy in this show. But my only worry is with Saito, who causes Louise’s tsuntsun in very unnecessary ways.
The next episode preview with Tiffania doesn’t spell good things for service and conflict and my worries. Episode two might make up for the lack of breasts in this episode with twice as much of it, and I’ll be rather sad. Tiffania is in the OP wearing the academy’s uniform, so I guess she’ll be around all season long, rather close to Saito and company. Meh, I hope she and Siesta start fighting then and leave Louise alone. …Although seeing more Tabitha in the OP made me happy. I just want more screentime for her in general; she doesn’t need to take part in any of the conflict.
So this first episode opened well for me. We got a little bit of every character (even cute little Montmorency), some action, some service, and the start of a neat plot. More Void magic? Awesome! Animation is crisp, and some of the music is reused, though there should be new tracks, too. All for a great Zero no Tsukaima atmosphere.
I also like Kurogane’s retelling of the first episode’s greatest scenes. XD Rainbowsphere Shance had fun, too.
~Crisu
CJ
stardragon
alexkun
Crisu
Janette
rakuen42
Dave
Mmm. Soft Creamy Deredere Louise is nice.
Shance here. And uh, calling me Rainbowsphere was a bit uncalled for. Hahaha. Rainbowsphere is the blog, Shance is the ma-Imean woma-Imean… well… err…
Anyways, yeah, Siesta only got around 30 seconds legit air time due to COCKBLOCK (pardon the word, girls, I just can’t help using it…), but I hope lack of air would be justified by next ep, in which it will rain BOOBIES (again, pardon me…). And I smell people trying to make gifs on that yummy moo-moos on the ED regarding Tiffania. We better hope Mamiko Noto does a good job on voicing her.
Fixed. Sorry about that, but I couldn’t find your name anywhere on the blog (maybe I didn’t look hard enough). ^^; You only list Randall-kun on the About page, and I figured that wasn’t you.
We seem to differ on opinion on the breast issue in this series. ^^; I do like Siesta as a character (and I adore Noto Mamiko), but I won’t like how Siesta and Tiffania will be remembered by when the series ends. =\
No worries. 90% of the people who know me now had trouble figuring out what I am anyway. Hahaha.
I’m crossing fingers on the boobies part. Personality-wise, I’m not asking for more, but yeah, the emphasis of the chest area would be plentiful, though Tabitha having an arc of her own might change things.
Oh… you’ll have to add Sylphid on the foray. Moar boobs for Saito. Hahaha!
man i love this ep it had a great beginning and a funny end. dose any one know when the next one is coming out and where you can download the sub version
Episodes air on Sundays. The sub I got came out on Monday, so that’s a great speed. Er, just check your preferred source of anime, be it torrents or DDL or YouTube or Crunchyroll.
Oh yeah, found the Melty Blood BGM rip on 10:53, Crisu?
Would help if I had seen Melty Blood. ^^;
However! I did notice a track in first or second season that was really, really close to a Sky Girls track. (Unless it was a ripoff the other way around…)
If you tell me the composer for both series is the same person, I’ll feel silly.
I don’t know, composer-wise. And Melty Blood is a doujin fighting sequel to Tsukihime and Kagetsu Tohya. You can try searching for more Melty Blood info on Wikipedia.
About the track, I posted it on my ZnT3 post, so play it on the aforementioned time I gave out.
thanks crisu
I love this series! This season is off to a better start than S2 hope it turns out better I can’t wait to see the elf that saved Saito
I love saito