Senran Kagura Shinovi Master fanservice review episode 1

 

Senran comes back with nudity.

 

The second videogame anime adaption of the season and also the main service show of the season as well has now started. More importantly it as predicated has brought the nudity including nudity of characters that the ova released back in 2015 neglected. A good enough start that hopefully means we have the same to look forward to for the other characters.

Set around Christmas, Asuka is out shopping for presents when she runs into Yumi whom is also doing the same. Asuke mentions how she only has cat ears left to get as a present for Katsuragi and she needs to find a place that sells them. Yumi tells her she was on the way to such a place herself and they head off shopping together. We also get a slight narration setting up the series and some service from showing both of them transform.

Asuka and Yumi look through the store as Yumi looks into getting cat ears herself as the two of them continue to head off shopping together. We also get to see Homura and her group as they are working.

 Get naked.If you say that while doing that with your tongue you are going to give people ideas…

We see that Homura and her group are working in order to earn money to buy a turkey for Christmas. Homura pissed that they can’t train realizes they can do both at the same time and orders the others to move like her for training purposes while they work.

Asuka and Yumi decide to go clothes shopping and try on various clothing as a result. I think some of these costumes have been cards before in the card game. Can’t remember since there have been so many.

After the two of them go to get something to eat Asuka learns that Yumi doesn’t have a smartphone and tells her she should get one (so they can send each other dick pics so they can play the senran mobile game this show is supposed to be helping promote). Yumi tells her she never had a need for one though which is obviously not foreshadowing.

 Ominous news broadcast is ominous.

We see some images of their time out shopping while they are talking at the cafe.

This is their only time to appear in this episode. Guess they have to wait for the next maybe.

As they are heading home they discover that the cat ears Asuka bought fell out and those were the last ones the store had. As a result they both decide to split up and search for it to see where she dropped it.

Asuka does the alucard afterimage trail thing from sotn when running to blow up some skirts (it’s near halloween so I am required by law to make castlevania references).

While searching Asuka runs into Homura whom wants to fight since she is bored but Asuka tells her she doesn’t have time and leaves.

The others of Hanzo have finished their Christmas shopping as well and have met up and are looking for Asuka when suddenly they sense a presence that worries them.

Why does this have to start on a white screen. No one is going to know that is something clickable.

Yumi finds the cat ears Asuka dropped but doesn’t have a phone so she has no way to call her and thus needs to find someway else to do so. Meanwhile the others see two girls appear in front of them wearing the same uniforms from Gessen meaning they are good ninjas but get worried at the air they are giving off. It’s worth pointing out both of these characters are introduced in New Link so the fact that they don’t know who they are means placement wise this is before New Link but more on that later.

Both of them tell the others that they don’t approve of their life as good shinobi and they need to be killed for it. This leads to them getting ready to fight by transforming. This is also a really important moment as we now get nudity of Katsuragi, Hibari, and Yagyu for the first time. I was actually annoyed with the 2015 ova over the fact that we didn’t get Katsuragi nudity in it because out of everyone you would think she would be the first to be shown considering her personality.

Regardless we have three more to check off at finally seeing naked. The transformation scenes here are just static pans but that is to be expected as this is obviously meant to be a quick one to save time and this isn’t really their time to shine yet. Plus they probably don’t want to show everyone too early. Chances are we will get full on transformation sequences with them like we saw with Asuka and Yumi earlier later on I would assume.

Yumi gets to a payphone to call Asuka and tell her she found the ears and they agree to meet back at the cafe. Afterwards Yumi picks something up that she sees someone else dropped. After hanging up Asuka sensessomething around her as she was talking on the phone and  transforms letting us see a full blown transformation sequence which presumably everyone will get at least one of. Asuke then fights off the youma that were around her.

After beating the youma, the two girls that confronted the others earlier appear and introduce themselves as Gekkou and Senkou. This also ends up being Asuka’s first time meeting them further proving this is supposed to be before New Link. The two of them tell her they were searching for her because they want to eliminate her so her ideals don’t containment other good shinobi. Asuka attempts to fight them but is overpowered as they tell her they already beat the others. Presumably captureing them.

Gekkou thinks fighting is like smash brothers and you just need to throw the person off screen to win.

Asuka angry after hearing about the others and presuming them dead (This series makes like a billion dollars they aren’t dead) she still tries to fight still only to get beaten and gives some bra and panty shots in the process.

Eventually we get the full extent of the clothing damage that happens in the games and her clothes get fully ripped open exposing her. Other then the transformations I would assume clothing damage is going to be the other major provider of service just like in the games. Though obviously here we get to see some nudity.

Someone is going to be pissed about their car.

Yumi hands the thing she found back to the owner whom is obviously Fubuki from New Link and going to be the main villain for the show probably. Meanwhile Gekkou and Senkou leave after having beat Asuka because not finishing off the main character so they can come back when you just said you wanted to kill them is required if you want to keep your job as a villain so the series can continue on. And with that the episode ends. We then get the OP playing during the end credits.

Not too much service from the OP but that is to be expected as it is the ED that we really want to keep an eye on. A shame we have to wait till next week to see it but considering the ED has the name erotic in it and is sung by the same singer as the ED to 7sins we can hope this means we will get a similar ED in which we get to see each of the character’s nude much like 7sins did.

 

 

WebM Album.

 

 

So the show delivered what everyone was hoping for. We finally have a full series of Senran with nudity which means there should be no reason for anyone to be left out like in the case of the ova. The animation isn’t on the level of the the first season or the ova with a noticeable number of stills but hopefully this improves as the show goes on. My hope is that they are saving the budget for some significant scenes and hopefully service ones at that. In terms of story it was said prior in an interview that the story was original and so far that does seem to be the case though it seems to be taking elements from other games. The story of this is probably going to be structured so that as long as you know whom the characters are then not playing the other games might not be too much of an issue with it explaining what newcomers might need to know when it comes up while those that have played the games have that already understanding everything edge. Wouldn’t be surprised if the anime is supposed to be it’s own timeline and just ignores most of the games much like how the games have two timelines.

In terms of service they showed with this first episode that we can expect to see nudity of those we did not see before with the main service presumably coming from the shinobi transformations and clothing damage. Most likely there will probably be a bath/hotspring episode at some point as well. What I am really hoping for is some more physical service like we saw in the first season. For example the scene in season one when Ikaruga is giving Asuka’s grandfather a massage and yet the scene is meant to look like something else. Now that we have nudity seeing something like that paired with nudity would be gold. If there is one thing that I feel was missed potential it was the lack of eyecatches. Considering TNK is doing this I was really hoping for dxd style eyecatches at the start and end of each break. Having those consist of two different girls each episode would had been the best and is a shame they missed that opportunity.

More importantly it is nice to see the series reach this point in which it is fully comfortable with using nudity in the show. After the ova it would had been a step back not to and it is because of that why chances are season 1 was non nude. When season 1 aired the series was fairly new having not even released outside japan yet and with one main game released (two technically but burst is a remake of the same game with extra content). The show was to help promote the new vita game and achieve exposure for the series. Think what would had happened if the first had been nude. People would get into the series thanks to a nude anime but then discover the source material is non nude and everything would be a step back. Keeping the first season non nude was needed so that the series didn’t blow it’s load too early so people still have something to look forward to. With each game the service level increases and so if they had started off with a nude anime so early in it’s life it would had made the games pale in comparison and no where else to go (VD avoided this issue by having the game and anime feature different casts so you were not constantly reminded of the anime’s nudity when playing the game). 

It comes down to buildup and then payoff which this series does well. Sure you could have nudity from the get go in something but how impactful is it really when the characters at that point are bland with little development? Senran did the smart idea and gave us characters that those who play the games became attached to over the years and got to see them develop. By the time that nude ova came out multiple games were out and people had a stronger connection with said characters thus making the nudity when it arrived all the more a better payoff and people were still willing to get the games despite being non nude after that because by then they actually cared about seeing more of the characters thanks to this attachment. This is probably what they were aiming for. Get people attached to the characters so that they see them as people then give the nudity. Think of the impact it has when seeing a character nude that you have liked for a long time versus one that gets nude 5 minutes after first laying eyes on them. It’s all about the buildup and payoff and that is what separates this from others as you slowly grow attached to these characters across multiple games before finally getting what you have wanted after so long. To me that is what makes the senran series appealing and that is you actually care about the characters if you play the games and so you get some feels with the faps when you are given the service.

Should had saved this for the final episode but whatever at least now that post won’t be a novel long with my thoughts. So far there is one major thing left we don’t know about and that is the content of the BDs. Since TNK is doing this and dxd had specials and since the first season of senran had specials we can hope that will apply here but no word on the BD details yet. Considering we have a nude show the potential for the specials should be something nice. Though I worry about the possibility of them being used to serve as a dlc lock equivalent of nudity of certain characters. Take Daidojo and Rin for example which were dlc content to buy in some of the games. I could see them using the specials to keep nudity of certain characters out of the show to get people to buy the BDs. Guess we will just have to see but ideally everyone getting nude in the show itself so we don’t have to wait would be better. Let’s hope next week gives nudity for some more not yet nude characters.

Speaking of physical fanservice like that ikaruga scene in the first one. They should have an episode in which all the girls try those horse exercise machines while nude. I mean people make a huge amount of videos of characters on stuff like that. Something like that would also fit rather well taking into account the types of service we sometimes get from the series.