First Look: Level E
Title: Level E Genre: Comedy, Sci-Fi
Summary: Tsutsui Yukitaka was a freshman who had just entered a high school, and he was hoped to be a good baseball player. When he moved to a new apartment, there was a man in the room. He said he was an alien and lost his memory.
First Look: When I first watched Level E I thought “This anime is something different”. After watching the trailer and reading the summary I was expecting a hardcore sci-fi series filled with action and deep philosophical ideas. Even looking at the Level E made me believe that series is going to be intense. Instead I found myself busting up laughing and wondering what crazy situation is going to come up next. I was handed hilarious characters and comedic story line. This unexpected comedy shot to the top of my charts this season. Episode after episode kept getting better and better. The story and humor wasn’t the only good thing about this series either. The art style kind of reminds me of older anime, not saying that is a bad thing. The series took a realistic art style with basic settings. The apartment isn’t anything extravagant, rather you can see it as a homely place. The series does a great job drawing different creatures and spaceships, planting a seed in the viewers mind, “What if aliens DO actually exist?”. The writers are brilliant. The entire series makes it seem like there is a dark plot developing. Yet in the end it turns in to one big joke. As a comedy and as a sci-fi this series is awesome. I don’t expect any real storyline, but I can definitely get behind this anime as a good watch. I don’t think I would like to have a storyline , because from past experience episodic style comedies that attempt to make a story cough P&S cough don’t turn out well.
The characters are all likeable. I really like the character design of everyone because they all play their role to bring fresh comedy to the scene. In general, I don’t usually like main characters in a comedy because they get boring, but I can see myself missing characters after this series ends. Even the hot headed bodyguards are awesome. Although I don’t think I will see much of them anymore (maybe in one or two more episodes), I still consider them one of the best characters so far.
The series has a great soundtrack as well. The opening and ending both have great art style and music. I want to say that it reminds me a little of Cowboy Bebop but slower pace. I’m a little wary of stating such a claim because I think Cowboy Bebop has one of the best soundtracks of any anime I have watched so far. I think that the thing that got me entranced by the opening are the strange colors. Using solid, basic colors like green and pink made objects stand out due to contrasting. This contrast is like making a bold statement in an art piece.
Final statements: I really hope that they don’t try to do too much with this anime and leave it as a comedy. I am keeping it on watch and even though it is a little early to tell I will probably consider this a worth while watch for everyone. So if you need a bit more of an anime fix, or just a good laugh, this will probably be one of the series to pick up.