This was surprisingly good. A lot of things that could have been in it to ruin it, which they consciously left out.

It's based on a game from Sega, and when you see these young ladies:

I dunno about you, but my first thought was "eroge". But if that's the source, it's been scrubbed clean. There's pretty much no fan service.

The first episode came off feeling like "healing anime", in fact. It was a normal day in the life of this place and these people and pretty much establishes a baseline from which, presumably, we will deviate henceforth. (The next ep teaser says as much.)

Left to right, the local priest, Amil, Eri, Neris, and Rick. The latter four are our main characters. The three girls are sisters. The four of them operate a bakery. Rick is the baker; the other three take care of in-shop sales, deliveries, and acquisition of raw materials.

The three girls sleep in the shop. Rick sleeps in a beached ship.

Here's the island where all this takes place:

That's quite a fortress. And digging that moat all the way around the main town wasn't an easy job; it's at least 100 meters across. In the lower left corner, you can see the ship that Rick stays in.

It's not just people living here, either. We have a catgirl:

Her name is Xiaomei. And we have elves:

Her name is Rana and she's really nice. But her older brother Alvin is cold and aloof. (Or maybe he's just got a lot on his mind.) As to Rana, she likes Rick's bread.

We also got sylphs. That one got injured. But it likes Rick's bread too, and eats a bunch of it. (Everybody likes Rick's bread! Except Alvin.) The elves take the sylph from our four.

There are a lot of ways in which this show could have included fan service, and they never did. For instance, all the girls you see above are quite top heavy, but none of them ever jiggle that I noticed. No panty shots. None of the girls flirt with Rick. No closeups of chests. They wake him in his bed, but it seems to be normal and no one acts like it's risque. He later wakes them all in their beds, and same thing. None of the girls are tsunderes. No romantic vibes whatever. Nothing that hints of a harem.

It was really nice, in fact. The girls are (deliberately) gorgeous, of course, but the director isn't trying to pander. Rick seems to be the story, based on what I've heard and read. He was shipwrecked on the island, and has lost his memory. Next episode a "big storm" is coming, and it probably has to do with him.

Rick seems like a nice guy. He works hard in the bakery. He doesn't complain. He doesn't leer at the girls. He seems to enjoy being with them, but that's as far as it goes. He isn't angsty. He is pleasant and polite to everyone.

He isn't a wimp, but he also isn't feisty or macho. When Alvin was hostile, Rick stood in front of him, looked him straight in the eye, and there was a beat. Then he responded politely. But that moment was his message to Alvin that Rick wasn't intimidated.

It seems to be a historical setting. All the technology I saw was consistent with Europe in the 16th century. The beached ship in which Rick sleeps looks like a galleon, though I don't recall seeing any cannon. And the castle and the fortifications on the island are all consistent. It isn't a star fortress, but the size of the moat certainly is intended to guard against something worse than simple infantry.

I enjoyed it a lot, and unlike all of the other first eps I've watched lately, I will look forward to watching the next episode of this one.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 06:02 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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