Dawnleaf Watches Hyperdimension Neptunia: Episode 1 – Of CPUs and Kitty Slimes

Oh my god, look at those outfits.  Looks like we’ve hit fanservice central here.  *sigh* Well, at least they’re actually adults instead of young children, so it’s a bit less creepy.  I mean, imagine if they were all lolis...

Crap.  CRAP!

..okay, so these girls have two forms.  The loli human form, and the grown-up form, which they switch into via a magical-girl style transformation sequence in which all their clothes rip off (though nothing's shown, thankfully).  Of course, of course.

*flips through notes* Okay, so there are apparently four girls- Neptune, Vert, Blanc, and Noire (one of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn’t belong~) and they apparently each represent a video game console and govern a country.

They want as many shares (which represent popularity) as possible, and, as of the beginning of this episode, are deciding to all help each other earn them, and they apparently get them from fighting monsters that are troubling the townspeople.  At least, that’s what I think…  And they have little sisters, because the world needs more lolis. 

However, the show does a crap job of explaining this to us.   Perhaps it’s because the first half of the first episode is so boring that I had difficulty paying attention.  I didn’t even notice that this was supposed to be the console wars displayed as cute girls fighting monsters until I read the episode description.

In the first half… um… they talk and stuff… there’s some forced drama regarding the little sister characters that I don’t care about at all because they have no personalities… the girls act all moe-moe and have no distinguishing traits… um…

What I’m trying to get across is that it didn’t really grip me very much, that’s all.  It was one of the longest sets of thirteen minutes I’ve sat through in a while.  Perhaps a fan of Cute Girls Doing Cute Things With Some Breast Bounces For Flavor™ would like it more than me. 

Nep-Nep?  Are you serious?  This is going to give me diabetes.

Then the second half of the episode happened.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s still really stupid, but it’s so much better than being boring.

Some of the girls go to a place that’s being plagued by ripoffs of the slimes from Dragon Quest.  They decide to take them out in front of some of the townspeople in order to gain some popularity.

This screenshot is about as close as the show gets to being badass.  I have officially decided that this is my favorite character, whatever her name is, because she has a blue coat and blue coats are cool.

And she has armblades.  Hell yeah.  Can we make the show about what’s-her-name here?  Neptune’s really annoying.
Moving on, we then cut to one of the girls in her magical girl form kicking ass in a cave somewhere.

Then she gets attacked by a dragon, and Neptune shows up to help her out.  She goes super-saiyan, and we learn that she’s significantly less annoying and much more competent after her magical girl cutscene.

Then we briefly see this chick:

The end. 

This show is pretty terrible.  Like I said, watching paint dry would probably be more stimulating than the first half of the episode, there’s a ton of fanservice, and the characters (minus blue-coat-girl, of course!) are all sugar-sweet and obnoxious stereotypes.

But… I admit… at points, it rockets out of ‘annoying and boring’ into ‘WTF’ territory. Only once or twice, though.  It's probably not worth watching just for that.

Honestly, if this show continues as the episodic adventures of girls fighting monsters instead of them sitting around doing nothing, it may make excellent snark bait. 

However, the moe-moe, sugar, and fanservice are a little too much for me.  I’m dropping it, because I’m not sure I want to slog through that to satisfy my morbid curiosity.  Perhaps someone with more of a stomach for it will love this anime.  The animation’s okay, if you’re one of those people and you care.

IT’S THE FANART!  RUN AWAY!