Who needs to use the actual cast, anyway?
What They Say:
Three girls in the manga club, Ai, Mai, and Mii, battle with evil Earth invaders, face off against rivals in tournaments, and might not actually draw any manga.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The fast paced nature of the first season of Ai Mai Mi certainly had its ups and downs with what it did and this season, bringing more Comic Earth Star manga to anime form, pretty much ups the ante here. The opening episode plays to a few of the usual generic parodies with a pirate captain piece first and then a pseudo-fantasy piece that has the girls dealing with some creepy guys. The main piece in the fantasy side introduces us to new characters that rattle on about things with an ominous tone about how they want to go beyond commercial art with their manga and introduce the world to something even bigger. With a slice of violence with some of the henchmen, there’s a kind of amusing feel about how the group operates but it doesn’t really do much beyond sounding important. Which it doesn’t feel that way since the main characters aren’t even here outside of the first thirty seconds.
In Summary:
No main cast, fifteen seconds of the ending used to promote their books and an episode that plays big but just has a lot of hot air leaves us once again very cold towards Ai Mai Mi. The first season had a lot of junk to it but it had a few minutes of great fun here and there that made it an easy show to check out because it is so short. With this opening episode, it’s not setting a tone that works for me since I’m not reading the manga and I’m likely missing a lot. But they’re not making this show for the new audience members they might have but rather are focusing on the core fans in giving them something. Which I suppose works, for them. For me, it’s looking like another volatile season as to what works and what doesn’t.
Grade: D
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.