This has been done to death.  A fantasy series that forces an otaku to encounter the very harem he’s always wanted.  How many series are following the harem story model this season?  Monster Musume, Jitsu wa Watashi wa, Kuusen Madoushi Kouhosei no Kyoukan, To Love-ru Darkness 2nd, Fate/kaleid liner Prisma☆Illya 2wei Herz.  To many this season and some of which will be longer than 1-cour, unfortunately.

Modern day Ginza, Tokyo experiences a mysterious portal that sends out monsters and soldiers wreaking havoc on the city.  Youji Itami a 33-year old otaku suddenly becomes a JSDF officer out of his heroic efforts in rescuing many Ginza citizens from the terrorizing fantasy world.

This is a wonderful example of how not to write a first episode.  It doesn’t jump around in its content but focuses on Itami’s reliable yet ridiculous success in video-games to win at real life scenarios.  The military appoints him to lead the army into the gateway and travel through the mysterious fantasy world all in one episode.  Way too light-hearted for a series that dabbles in a crossover sci-fi fantasy war.  What worries me is that the series writer Tatsuhiko Urahata is also working on Rokka I really hope this show doesn’t take precedence over that one.  That anime has so much more potential than this junk.

Strange that Urahata is writing this adaptation because he had some really strong works between the early and mid-2000’s with Monster and NANA.  In recent years he’s done some pretty stale series that have fallen short [thinking of Black Bullet].  He’s got good ideas and a solid flow of telling a story it’s a shame to see him craft this together.  I’d really like to see this writer make a comeback with an original anime alongside Ryota Yamaguchi so he can really learn how to write a fantasy series if that’s what he wants to do with this show.

This is probably one of the worst series Yoshiaki Fujisawa could have ever composed music for.  His best work comes from Uchōten Kazoku!  This was just plain bad!

Director Takahiko Kyogoku should stick with idol series not action shows.

The company that produces this is GENCO with A-1 Pictures in charge of animation production.  GENCO should have presented Yanai Takumi’s novel Hyoufuu no Kolkka: Yuki no Yousei to Shiroi Shinigami instead of this manga.  At least that one’s finished publishing and GATE is still ongoing.  They should have gotten TROYCA to do the CG designs with this episode don’t let a studio that’s really solid in character art that’s never done a lot of CG animation before handle all of it.

OP: “GATE ~Sore wa Akatsuki no Yō ni” (GATE～それは暁のように～) by Kishida Kyōdan & the Akeboshi Rockets

Remember Highschool of the Dead‘s opening well this is by the same performers.  Akeboshi Rockets usually do hard rock but this is really J-POP boring.  It’s light-hearted just like the series is and the visuals aren’t that impressive.  It puts a large emphasis on both timelines being in the same world.  For some reason I’m reminded of Argevollen with the montage of soldiers.

ED: “Prism Communicate” (ぷりずむコミュニケート) by Nao Tōyama & Risa Taneda

Ok the text wavering is about the only neat thing about this opening.  Seeing a military vehicle driving through the city shimmering with various colored petals around it is really lame.  Who in the heck directed this because the CG is awful.  The song is generic duo J-POP with a electronic drum beat that doesn’t really match the song at all.  Again, really bad.

I won’t be covering this show.

OVERALL IMPRESSION: 1/10

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