Ok, wait so where do I start. I have so much to say. Visual Prison sort of got me by surprise…although it was also kinda what I expected. If anyone could realistically expect such a spectacle as this first episode of Visual Prison! But wait before we get into that, there’s Funimation.
Oh boy… this post is going to be a mess!
Let me get this out of the way first. FUNimation finally upgraded their player and it’s a marked improvement. I only really got to use it for this one episode so far but I’m already much happier with it than their old one. And this may have made the experience of watching this first episode of Visual Prison even more enjoyable.
Let me start off by going through some things other people may not like about Visual Prison. Actually, wait, I’m not sure how many of you even watched this so here’s the basic premise. Every once in s many years, there is a ritual that takes place during which a vampire who manages to sing the most beautiful song to the moon, will gain immense power. For this reason, vampires have been forming pop groups (not boy bands since they have girl members) and becoming superstars while waiting for their chance.
The time is finally here and Ange Yuki suddenly awakens as a vampire just in time for the musical battle royale!
So yeah, it is a boy idol show. In fact, the first episode was pretty much a concert with no less than 4 musical numbers. If you don’t like pop, it’s gonna be rough. I would even go as far as saying that the story actually only begins in the last few minutes of the episode. That’s when we find out everything I explained. Before that, it’s all musical numbers with some smooth subtle CG.
As for me. I think that Visual Prison is exactly what I wanted Platinum End to be. It’s gleefully cheesy, unapologetically excessive and just goofy. There’s the whole scene with a panda cat and then we never see the cat again. I hope we do. It was both adorable and ugly simultaneously. The vampire pop band’s microphones are also swords. All of them. And they don’t have any cable or anything to plug them in. Just sword with a mic on one end. And it fills me with joy.
Every band has its own style and all of them are ridiculous. Here look at this screencap from one of the performances:
Visual Prison is almost entirely pure camp. Can it actually sustain that for an entire season without getting annoying and tired? Maybe not. It would be very hard to do. But the first episode was indeed glorious. I’m looking forward to the next one. Best way to get pumped for the weekend!
After I put out my usual pre-season list, Jon put me up to this, because he knows I like Hypnosis Mic. So this is essentially the first anime where I had a (metaphorical) gun to my head to watch it before I even really got into the season proper.
I wasn’t particularly charmed by the panda cat, but the anime had my attention when it hit me they have friggin’ /microphone swords/. There was basically no story until they decided to stop putting music videos on, so I understand why Karandi disliked it, but to me it was fun, albeit campy. (It’s no Hypnosis Mic, for sure – accept no substitutes when the real thing is still relevant! – but it does fill a very similar niche while not treading the exact same ground.)
I haven’t gotten around to Hypnosis Mic yet but it’s on my list. his one is definitely just cheesy camp but hey, when you’re in the mood for that, it can be fun
I actually liked the first episode, but I’m not sure about the show’s staying power. These sort of shows sometimes work for me (Dance with Devils) and sometimes don’t (the most recent one with the fairies, whose name I forgot).
I did like the music, but I didn’t like the CGI. We’ll see how this goes for me. Growing on me even more, or fizzling out?
I’m also not very confident about the staying power of this one. But I think it still has a few good episodes to give. I’m guessing they need to put their band together and that sounds like fun
*raises eyebrow* Fairy Ranmaru, perhaps? (<- unfortunately(?), basically the only Fairy Ranmaru fan in this neck of the woods)
Yes, that’s the show. I liked a lot about it, but somehow still didn’t come back for episode 2. Something about the “problem of the week” was bugging me; I don’t remember what, though.
A vampire musical, eh? Sounds brill! I will put this on my watchlist but it’s not like I have big anime filters so am pretty accommodating when comes to things to watch. I can spot a few bishies among the pics you posted but not so many cute girls. I hope there are cute vampire girls with cute voices!
There are only two in the bands so far but I know there’s a main pretty lady to come. Fingers crossed!
Not being much of a fan of J-pop I doubt I’ll be watching. Now if I hear the music rises to the level of Nana, I might be up for it.
I thought the compositions were in fact great but Nana is a serious drama, this is nonsense. It’s never going to be the same experience
Swordiphones you say? Must be some cutting edge audio tech.
Best comment!
I genuinely hated this first episode to the point where I couldn’t actually finish it. The character and costume designs were great. Everything else just did not work for me.
That doesn’t surprise me. In fact, what I am surprised by is that you watched it at all in the first place