“You can become the Quiz King!”
Charibo’s Impressions:
I’ll admit, what motivated me to watch the first episode of Nana Maru San Batsu was the sports anime feeling the series seemed to have. You know, with that new first year student, getting by mistake into some kind of weird club and being dragged almost against his will into some competitions until he starts to enjoy them and become good at it? Well, I was not completely wrong, because Nana Maru San Batsu aka 7O3X follows same old formula, at least this first episode does.
So meet our brave hero, a first year student on his second day of school.The only adjective I can think of to describe him would be average (sorry my dude). During the school fair, he notices that the school’s Megane-kun is advertising his weird club: the Quiz Bowl Circle and thus, the latter asks the hero if he would like to join the club and become the Quiz king.
Wow, that was quick.
Although I appreciate the show using self-depreciating humor with all the “I want to become the [Insert random profession/talent/hobby here] King”, but I still think it was a rushed beginning. I mean, we don’t even know the name of the hero yet.
Well anyway, we finally learn it: Koshiyama Shiki. An average guy who thinks he doesn’t belong anywhere and wishes he were special. He also appears as a lone wolf, eating lunch in the library (I’m pretty sure it’s forbidden by the way) rather than with his comrades. On his lunch break he meets with Fukami Mari, the hot girl of his class who also seems to like the same things at him: such as books, and probably quizzes.
During the school’s ceremony, weird Megane-kun goes on stage to advertise his “circle” once again and organizes a little demonstration with some volunteers, such as Mari, and random picked students like, conveniently, our hero.
While our young protagonist slowly begins to understand the rules of the game, allowing us to discover them alongside, Mari explains the real objective of the “fast buzzing game”. According to her, the real goal of the game is not to know the answers, but to be the first one to buzz.
In front of our skeptical main character, and after putting her hair behind her hear, (which is probably how she unleashes her power) she starts showing everyone what she got, guessing every questions before they were even posed and giving the correct answer. Everyone is like “waaa kakkoii”, even the main character. However, it does not take long before he starts understanding the strategy behinds this new game. After some intense focusing, he manages to answer one question before Mari which amazes the whole crowd.
After the ceremony, Hero-kun and Mari have a little talk in the classroom where she realizes main guy is pretty smart and assures him he can become the “Quiz King”. The end.
Hum… How can I express my feelings about this episode? I guess it was “normal”? It honestly was neither amazing nor bad. It was pretty average to be honest. It felt more like the “obligatory” first episode of every sports anime that happens in school. Almost like they wanted to get through all that introductory stuff very quickly and start the competitions.
There was a bit of comedy with all the “looking at panties” thing but honestly I did not think it was interesting enough to mention.
The little “thinking/focusing” fragment was cool. It kinds of reminds of the guessing portion in the second Danganronpa game, except you are not skating on some king of magical highway but just looking a words flowing all over the place… It probably does not make much sense but it looked really cool.
Sometimes Megane-kun stroke some Jojo poses and that was also pretty cool, I have the feeling that he will become my favorite character of the series. He is so extreme that I cannot help but love him.
Opening and endings were pretty entertaining. If I’m not mistaken, the opening was done by Mrs Green Apple, a group who usually makes nice songs I enjoy: ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
Judging by the opening it looks like they are many potential rivals our young hero will face and god I love rivals. Good rivals make a story much more interesting and in the present case, they seem much more endearing than the main cast.
I mean, look at this guy for example:
I want to swap main characters now.
Can I get the nice looking spiky hair guy as the MC please?
I’m worried the show might become a bit repetitive so I’m wondering if they will stay on the realistic side or go full crazy with their techniques to guess the questions before they are completely asked. Will also the rivals have some special techniques that are specific to each one of them? I wonder how far can they go with the quiz game concept in order to keep the watchers interested. It also looks like I won’t be learning anything new thanks to the show since they focus much more on the questions than on giving answers… That’s too bad tho
Because the first episode provoked so little emotions within my body, I decided to refrain from covering it. It might become better with the time but I don’t want to start covering something I might get bored of pretty quickly. My only hope for the show is the rise of nice rivals and interesting techniques. Let’s see if the show will manage to do both.
Possibility of watching: Yes, just to see how far can they go
Possibility of covering: Nope, Sorry, I’ll have to pass on this one