Series Review: Arcana Famiglia (6/10)

Instant Summary: The members of this mafia-like family enters a series of duels to decide who would take over as the boss of the organisation, as well taking the current boss's daughter his bride.

Ok, no. Wait. I lied. This is basically Daily Lives of Mafia Boys + One Girl. Despite what the premises may be, it has literally no impact of what Arcana Famiglia is really about.

You see, the series does gave a really nice first impression. A mafia-like organisation with super-powered humans are in the midst of a generation change, in a very mafia-ish style. At least, that's what the first episode tries to prove. But right from the second episode, we're literally watching a slice-of-life with the top members of the mafia as its cast. They have dedicated entire episodes to stuff like running errands for common-folk, daily daytime activities, and groceries shopping. Every so often we get a chance to learn the history of the characters and their role in the "main plot", but they are few and far in between.

Ironically, I found myself enjoying the slice-of-life segments much more than their pitiable attempts at a real story. Arcana Famiglia has a surprisingly knack for comedy, with a little bit of cute moé. The drama department, however, was really lacking. Of the many areas that failed, I particularly blame the horrible voice work, especially that of Jolly and Debito.

And I'm upset by the lack of action in the preview pics above, because there simply isn't good screens to capture. For something with violence as its central theme, there had been so little action, and most of them are truly crap. Some of most important fights in the final duels, like Pace's, Debito's and Luca's are completely cut out; they must have ran out of budget or something.

The show had the setting and characters ready for something awesome to happen, and I ended up enjoying it for the wrong reasons.

Plot/Concept: Very Good!
Story Style: Completely failed at the original concept, but delivered well on something else instead.
Audio/Visual: Poor
Value: 6

First Impression of Arcana Famiglia

Instant synopsis: Members of a (mafia-like) family, each with a "Arcana Power" related to one of the Major Arcana, gets to fight one another for the right to marry Felicita, and become the head of the family.

This isn't what I expected from an otome game adaptation. For a harem-theme anime, there's already a fair bit of action, and the story suggests a lot more to come.

What turns out to be really interesting for me is how cool everyone is, when they captured the feel of a well-dressed, "professional" mafia, with their black suits and all. Actually, everyone is dwarf by how cool Felicitá is. Despite being the only female in the group, she proved that she can hold her own with her powerful kicks and knives. Her cold, confident attack in the main pic above really won me over; the suit simply makes her all the more awesome. Her slightly aloof, bashful personality outside of the violence make her character interesting too. I can see myself really liking this character, even if I didn't like Mamiko Noto all that much.

Notes:
- The Major Arcana each character represents either seems to be a total giveaway to their power/personality, or they makes no sense whatsoever.
- ...especially for Libertá, the "Fool", which is probably the most important Major Arcana.

Verdict: Watching... most likely.

Summer 2012 Pre-season Impressions

I stopped writing "season previews" because for all the info you will want for the upcoming seasons, there's only three places you need to go to (except for MAL and such): Random Curiosity (probably the most famous anime blog there is), The Cart Driver (probably the most popular anime blog there is) and Star Crossed Anime Blog (probably the best anime blog there is). There's no point in recreating all that background info when someone else has already done it, and done it better; so from now on, it'll just be Pre-season impressions.