Hiiro no Kakera isn't supposed to start until April, but it looks like there was an early screening and Crunchyroll aired episode one back on March 5. It totally snuck up on me, but hey, I get to be the first to write up a First Impressions piece this season! As a side note, it looks like fan girls will get a drama CD soon, and the first DVD will be released as early as.. June! The single will be out soon as well, and this preview was aired without an OP or ED attached.

So, here's the skinny. The main character, her name is Tamaki Kasuga, is completely oblivious to this fate that she is informed of upon arrival at her grandmother's. The first guy she meets, mister red-haired Takuma Onizaki, treats her like an idiot for not knowing about her "role" or anything. Furthermore, when she calls her mother later on in the day to ask her about the ordeal, her mother takes it like she's just taking up some shrine maiden duties, and asks her to please not forget to do her homework.

So, here's poor Tamaki, who is of course, a clumsy girl, being tossed into a reverse harem situation (whoa, that's unique!), and being treated like she's totally dumb, unreliable, and basically a useless waste of space for being unaware of their situation, except they're sworn to protect her. It isn't until she meets the fourth pretty boy, an older dude with long green hair that covers the glasses fetish that someone actually treats her on the level. He basically tells her to just take things one day at a time.

This first episode really made me feel bad for her, you know? She's innocent in this whole thing. She's just walked into all of this, and is being told she's some princess and needs to be protected by these guys she's never met, and that she's supposed to accept it and act the part. Then, because she's shell-shocked over having to take it all in, one of her sworn protectors basically tries to make her feel stupid, except I guess she's the kind of protagonist that doesn't allow herself to be made a fool. She didn't once complain that they were picking on her, just that she didn't think it's right that they have to stick their necks out for her when they've never even met.

I don't really find much appealing about this show because I'm really not into shoujo as a genre (there are very limited exceptions to my dislike of shoujo). It's based on a romance game, meaning she's probably going to fall for all the guys. If it's anything like Uta no Prince-Sama, she'll just friend zone all of them. If it's anything like other shoujo I've seen, she's going to get with the biggest jerk out of the group (Itazura na Kiss style), which would be mister Takuma. I am not familiar with the game, so I don't know what the general outcome would be, but going by my experiences with these adaptations, it doesn't really seem to matter anyway.

What I do like about the show is the artwork is actually quite good (edit here: the artwork is good for what this is, but it is by no means... actually fantastic.). It's nice and fluid and there aren't creepy eyes or really bad CGI assaulting your face (except when there are demons. The demons are CGI). It looks like your average anime, with reverse harem, some occult factors and possibly some romance. She already gave the glasses guy some goo-goo eyes and she's already hating on the first guy, so you know this to be true.

The other thing I like about the show is this cute kitsune familiar thingy that appears to her. Man, if there's one thing that's totally unfair about anime is how cute animals take a shine to protagonists and don't need to be trained or anything. They just understand.

Will I stick with the show this entire season? Only morbid curiosity and my determination to bring you all only the best content in the world of anime leads me to await April with open arms, and watch episode two, then three, and... possibly four. It'll be painful, though.

Now, if you're a big fan of the game and you're really into shoujo and all that, you might dig this series. It's got the formula down and, like I mentioned before, the character designs don't include big scary eyes that look like they'll suck out your soul. It even has a great production team by it, directed by the same person who manned Gravitation and Hetalia, and scripted by Yoshiko Nakamura who worked on Junjou Romantica and Hakuoki. It's pretty obvious who this show is meant to appeal to. For the rest of us, though? It's an easy pass.