I’ve been a long time fan of Ditama Bou’s manga works, and after seeing the premium sale Kiss x Sis anime episodes that shipped with preorder special editions of the manga tankoubon, I was not surprised that Fight Ippatsu! Juuden-chan!! was picked up for a TV anime. This isn’t my favorite among his works, but I really doubt the world will see an animated version of Super Love Potion (complete with the bloody sheet scene, right Roy?) anytime soon! Root passed along the first episode to me and I watched it with a certain level of anticipation, but also with a palpable level of cynicism, since I’ve seen some wonderful manga stories turned into terrible anime properties.
Both sides were borne out. The character design and character archetypes held true to their manga counterparts, but unnecessary changes to the storyline were disappointing. The first episode essentially follows the first manga chapter, but substitutes in Sento’s sister Hakone as the center of the story instead of his father. I can see how this time compresses the first three manga chapters, but it takes away all the funny parts of the second and third chapters – Hakone’s first encounter with Plug for example. This seems like a portent of doom to me. If they’re smashing two-thirds of the first manga tankoubon of five into the first episode of I’m guessing thirteen, that means episodes three thru ten will be either 1) really slow and painful, or 2) filled with characters and situations outside the original manga universe. Another thing that easily stands out to someone who has read the original work is that they have Sento working at a family restaurant. This is a plot convenience to the reworking of the story to center on Hakone, since in the original story he is somewhat of a layabout at home, and this didn’t fit in with Hakone’s assumption that Sento was working himself ragged for her sake. I’m not a fanatic for absolute verbatim adaptation, but I do take exception to changes that don’t really make sense or didn’t need changing in the first place.
The general setting is rather dark and heavy in secondary colors. Lighter, more watercolor-like backgrounds would be more in line with the feel of the original work, considering Ditama’s comparatively light and fine-liined backgrounds. If you remember the background art from Mahoromatic, you know what I mean. The character artwork colors hold true to the original. The voice work is well done. The general animation quality is good, especially considering there is a fair amount of movement.
I don’t have particularly high expectations for the remainder of the anime series based on this first episode, but I hope I am proven wrong. I’ll give the whole thing a watch and see.
Give it a chance
Two-and-a-half Otaku monkeys out of four based on the first episode
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