I’m not exactly sure if Fantasista Doll was all that good, but I can at least say there’s a lot of meat in this episode that I’m curious to see where it goes from here.
The anime starts off with two parallel scenes, one where our main character, Uzume, is watching a horror flick, and one where an unknown guy ends up stealing cards. It ends with one of them screaming for their life and one who trips and falls on the floor.
We then progress to the normal school life, where Uzume is just heading to school, except on her way there someone ends up putting a pack of cards in her bag, and she has no idea who did it or why. She then ends up getting chased by someone because she has said cards. Placed in a situation where her life is in danger, Uzume hears a voice that tells her she must do a number of things, and she ends up registering (yes, let me use that term!). This enables her to use Fantasista Dolls, and with the help of the first one, Sasara, she’s able to escape the enemy’s clutches. But just what exactly has Uzume gotten herself into?
I hope you’re paying for that!
I’m not going to say this episode blew me away or anything too praiseworthy, but I find it a pretty decent start. What helps of course is the role the Fantasista Dolls play and their entire history. Exactly who is chasing after them? What do you mean this is the first time you’ve had a Master say thank you? How long have you guys been alive? And then it also comes down to what powers they possess, since there’s 5 in total. It’s also clear there’s more Fantisista Dolls out there, either good or evil. Just what is their main purpose is probably the part that interests me, and I’d be interested to get more information on them.
The other interest is the side characters that appear beside Uzume. Komachi seems like she’ll be very much involved in helping Uzume grow into getting used to her cards, while Manai is a wildcard: was she recruiting Uzume for innocent reasons or does she serve more of a purpose than at least suspected? And then of course, we have Lord Rafflesia, who apparently is very good at leaving beautiful flowers for young schoolgirls and really really believes Uzume has some ability with the cards, kind of like Manai did. Hmmmmm….
But yeah, the one thing that makes me cautious is the action in the anime wasn’t all too impressive, and I felt the pacing could have been managed better. It’s a case where we built up that Uzume was safe by going to school, but just as suddenly she’s attacked? Don’t see it. The music had some parts that were ok, but nothing too good just yet. But if nothing else, this has a bit of potential to be a solid anime series to watch this summer.
This series is streaming on Crunchyroll.
