We’ve got a strange lineup for Noitamina this year.  Saenai follows the life of an otaku surrounded by the very harem he wants to include in his dream game.  Punchline [which I will be posting up an initial impression soon]  takes a Samurai Flamenco-esque approach–  adding in tons of elements from aliens to government conspiracies and ghosts arriving at one single thread–  if a boy sees panties he will destroy the world.  We’ve got a couple of darker series later this year.  As of today the first key visual for Rampo Kitan is out and I must say it looks fantastic!  Just hope Lerche can handle animating the complexity of Edogawa’s aesthetically bizarre stories.  Now onto Saenai!

The inevitable hooking-up encounter.  This was bound to happen from one of the girls at some point–  I was expecting this.  Utaha’s editor is really funny she’s fully aware of the relationship between Tomoya and Utaha that she allows the two of them to sleep in the same hotel room.  There is a definite strong sexual tension in the air between the two of them and its great to see how overlooked this is when they start jumping into developing a plot that would captivate Visual Novel players.

Tomoya has a strong passion for Utaha’s writing–  he shows up to her book signings, and she realizes this.  Don’t forget Tomoya is an otaku and creator at heart so its only natural for him to accept how good a work is–  this results in the wonderful chemistry between them throughout this episode!  Heck, we even see Utaha tweak her writing out of approval from him!  Fantastic!  I just hope we get more episodes like this by developing a situation that enriches the character’s potential at being greater than they’ve expected out of one another!

I’d like to point out the absence of music and how important it is here–  Utaha is showing skin as most of her scenes are her in a bathrobe.  The sensual cinematography strongly suits what this series’ intention are–  a ruse into the genre of harem that symbolizes how much Tomoya wants to include a touch of what visual novels normally include–  fanservice.  How it is portrayed in reality throughout this show is satisfyingly timid and a great way to allude that Tomoya’s game may go this route.

Great build-up towards evolving Megumi’s bland personality by including a slight jealous tsundere expression on her face after the credit sequence!  It’s great how we don’t see her face just a representation of it from Eriri’s artwork!

OVERALL IMPRESSION: 9/10

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