STORY:  Following the story of Maya Kitajima’s devotion to stage acting. She aspires to become an actress one day in those hopes of making all her dreams come true…

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Every season I try to find at least 2 or 3 series that are a bit older, just so I can branch out my tastes a bit more.  For the blog, I’ve decided on trying something a tad bit different.  Typically for my initial impressions posts I added in a section towards the bottom Likely to Blog: here though I’ve decided to at least tackle the first 3 episodes, and if the show doesn’t make the cut it won’t be reviewed on the site.

Also I want to let people know, if you have any ideas on how I can improve this blog please email me or add a comment in the section below this post.  It would be greatly appreciated.

Here is a story about Maya a young girl obsessed with anything to do with acting and she is treated quite horribly in this first episode.  A Cinderella story is something that comes to mind with how she is viewed by her family.  Ticket being offered to her and then snatched away but that doesn’t stop Maya from seeing the play.  She starts off as this useless girl only entranced by what she sees on television- kind of boring don’t you think?  I sat through the entire episode and was pleased more so in the second half.  Skip Beat! had the same effect on me- granted that series was a lot more humorous than this one looks like it will become.  It did have its share of light-hearted scenes.

Introducing people in a show especially one as large as this one is.  51 episodes to be exact.  Can be quite tough to cram those in skillfully, but this episode ended up being decent.  The first half in particular showed the life of Maya as a waitress and her love for acting.  I want to point out right here that the cast of this is completely different than the 1984 TV series.  Much better choice because THAT series was horrible.  Sanae Kobayashi what a fantastic choice as Maya here- I mean she’s done even a guy role before.  Allen Walker of D.Gray-man.

The second part however got more serious as the world of acting was being swept into her life by her desire to make those deliveries.  The biggest surprise to me was the director right here.  Mamoru Hamatsu.  What all has this guy done aside from directing a couple of OVA’s and in terms of animation he’s done some pretty solid stuff, but I find it hard to believe this guy pulled it off with Glass’ first episode here.

The music in this is tried and true of theatre traditions.  The vast amounts of classical pieces worked in here allowed for the delivery scene and the part where Maya swims out to grab the ticket have a stronger impact!  Mahou Shoujo Tai- the anime equivalent of Lord of the Rings, really I am being truly honest here.  That series took 40 8-minute episodes into one of the best adventure mahou shojo series to this day and it could not have been possible without the music.  I can really see his work from Glass pouring all over that series!

Not a lot of series can achieve the praise this one did as its one of the very few that I can recall ever not having any fantasy or supernatural element mixed in.  Great series.  Prior to that anime was the anime The Twelve Kingdoms based off of yep the author of Shiki, Fuyumi Ono.  I love her novels.  Written so well.  Glass Mask hopefully will change for the better as it moves along.

OVERALL IMPRESSION: 5/10

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