Before I saw this episode, I only knew two things about Kagihime Monogatari Eikyuu Alice Rinbukyoku. For one, it has a really long name (let’s call it Kagihime from now on)! I also knew that certain characters would have bunny ears. After seeing the first episode, can I honestly recommend watching more of this anime? Read on to find out!
Kagihime starts out with some narrative from Kirihara Aruto, this guy that is totally obsessed with the book "Alice." He even wants to write his own fanfic! One night, he sees this girl (he calls her an Alice, but she’s really "Arisu") flying outside his window and investigates! He chases after her and eventually gets caught in between their battle. Arisu sticks her "key" into the other girl’s "chest" and takes her stories/secrets. Hazukashii!
The next day, Aruto meets Arisu in the school library. She also happens to be an Alice maniac like him. Some kind of Highlander-esque plot is revealed where each girl has to get all the pages of the book to complete the secret Alice book. Oh, and there’s a scene where a girl tries to hit on Aruto’s sister, Kiraha.
Later on, it’s revealed that Aruto’s sister is also an Alice. I wonder how Aruto missed that! Because of this, Arisu and Kiraha start fighting! Arisu wins and pokes Kiraha with her key! I seriously can’t tell whether that’s painful or enjoyable… Maybe both? Aruto finally breaks up the catfight and they both resolve to find pages together! Yay! At the end of the episode, there’s some twins talking about sugar and some pissed off guy, and I think the librarian! DUN DUN DUN!!!! Overall, the plot was very confusing.
So it seems that this anime is going to be another generic "collect the X in order to have your wish granted" story. One thing worth noting is that, like this preview, pretty much every other sentence contained the word "Alice" in it. Not to mention that the girl’s name is Arisugawa Arisu… Suffice it to say hearing that got old fast.
The character designs are actually pretty good. Kiraha is pretty cute, and so is her "friend." The problem I have is with the inconsistent animation. At times the animation is really good, but the characters suffer from what I like to call "expanding nose syndrome." The characters noses go from invisible to "OMG that’s huge!" It’s not really that big of an issue, but it really distracted me while I was watching this anime (I have a conspiracy theory about the production quality in the forums, if you care to read about it). There was some fanservice, but nothing too distracting (unless you count the "key" penetration stuff).
The music for this anime is average at best. The OP is as generic as you can get. The ED is unique for sure, but not really in a good way. The background music fits the show well.
Listen to the OP: Little Primrose by kukui
Listen to the ED: Kioku Baraen by Ai Shimizu
Overall, the weak story, mediocre music, and big noses make me want to stop watching this anime completely. The characters are cute, but that’s about all this anime has going for it. I guess the key "insertion" parts go into the pro-Kagihime section too. I’ll give it one more episode to shape up before I put this on the "do not watch" pile.
7 replies on “Kagihime Monogatari Eikyuu Alice Rinbukyoku – Anime First Impressions”
Kiraha’s so cute when she does that “angry” face! X3
[…] Read about my first impressions of Kagihime here! […]
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kiraha is very cute in that anime i love it so much that i want to watch it every day but i have a class evey day so no can do T_T
long live the cuteness of kiraha…….
banzai
banzai
banzai
banzai
kiraha is soooooooo cute i love her so cute so squishiiii cuteness
hail all mighty cuteness serve her hehehehehehehe with all of your power *_* @_@
Nice anime series.