Kemono no Souja Erin: The Beast Player Erin

[KitKat]

I've been waiting for this series to finally start!

Here's what anidb has to say:
"A fantasy series written by Uehashi Nahoko (Seirei no Moribito) about a young woman who is drawn into a war between kingdoms. She has the ability to command animals, including dragons, as if she was playing a musical instrument."

Official site: http://www3.nhk.or.jp/anime/erin/
Anidb: http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl...anime&aid=6187

The first episode is out by a group called KyouNoSubs, but I can't manage to get the subs to show up. Guess I'll have to troubleshoot some more. Regardless, here's their release. No idea about what sort of quality their sub is.

KyouNoSubs Episode 1 mkv

[Lucifus]

Also been waiting for this one myself since I saw Serei no Moribito.
Downloading a copy. Hope it turns out good.

Edit: Well, that was strange. I like the atmosphere, but i'll hold my judgements for a few more episodes. For a pilot ep, it didnt have enough hook. =P

Also, my player read the subs fine. GOM player rules the net.

[animus]

More reliable subs.

Episode 1 XviD - Static Subs
Episode 1 h264 - Static Subs

[Kraco]

KyouNoSubs weren't too good. I'll stick to Static from now on for sure. The series showed pretty rough graphics every now and then, but considering this is a double length show, it's understandable to a degree. The plot itself didn't yet impress me, so like Lucifus I'll postpone making the final decision until I have seen a bit more.

Also, they aren't dragons any more than Komodo dragons are dragons... Unless this indeed was nothing but the beginning of the fauna of the world.

[Everon]

http://www.nyaatorrents.org/?page=download&tid=48027
http://www.nyaatorrents.org/?page=download&tid=48167

It either starting really slow or its suppose to be just little vignettes of these people's lives. I'm hoping something changes.

The first three are a little too formulaic -- child/person is in trouble, mother uses the magic whistle to save the day. Its happening so often that its losing its tension.

[animus]

Well it is a 50 episode series based on a novel by the same author as Seirei no Moribito. SnM was slow as well and that was 26 episodes.

I actually enjoy the melancholy, but I also do want to see real development and progression in a bit.

[David75]

Seirei no Moribito had great animation and music. Greatly drawn and so on, at least that's what I remember.

That first ep was strange in the way backgrounds/houses etc are drawn. Looks like there's rough computing in it. Maybe I need sometime to accomodate to that and SnM spoiled me.

[KitKat]

Yeah, I'm not sure how I feel about this series yet either. The drawing style just seems a bit 'Saturday morning cartoon' style to me. That, and I'm not really a big fan of the 'empy eyes' character look.

I'm hoping that we'll have a jump into the future at some point where Erin is more grown up and there's more of an epic over-arching storyline. These first few might just be setting the stage for the bigger events to come.

[Everon]

Its 50 episodes? Wow, that makes me wonder what they're progressing towards.

[Nadouku]

[Static-Subs] Kemono no Souja Erin - Episode 2 AVI: Download
[Static-Subs] Kemono no Souja Erin - Episode 2 MKV: Download

[Munsu]

Just watched the first two episodes, I don't think many here will enjoy this. Though the third episode seems like it'll have some action in it. But so far it seems like a series that I can just relax and watch for a bit without thinking much about it, and it seems like it might be targetted to kids... that art is quite simple overall.

I think the mother will die, and soon...

[shinta|hikari]

I am enjoying this quite a bit. I think the bigger plot will eventually arise, and Erin's role in the conflicts will become more pronounced.

[Kraco]

I think the mother will die, and soon...

I just hope she won't die due to the shady and envious secondary doctor sabotaging a touda under her care. Erin doesn't look like one who would have much success in exacting vengeance, and thus it would be painful to wait for justice to happen. But who knows, the shady doctor is shown so often with that malicious mind of his that I'm afraid just that will happen and the mom will be executed for something she didn't do. It looks the series is paying attention to a feudal system's details in earnest so anything nasty could take place.

[Munsu]

I just hope she won't die due to the shady and envious secondary doctor sabotaging a touda under her care. Erin doesn't look like one who would have much success in exacting vengeance, and thus it would be painful to wait for justice to happen. But who knows, the shady doctor is shown so often with that malicious mind of his that I'm afraid just that will happen and the mom will be executed for something she didn't do. It looks the series is paying attention to a feudal system's details in earnest so anything nasty could take place.

It just seems wierd that Erin will get involved in the war if the mother is still around. If the mother is still around, she should probably be the one going off to the war while Erin stays home. Can't really envision much of a motivation to do so otherwise.

[animus]

Watched the episode 3 sub from Everon's post. Poor Lulu, how dare they cut your earflaps.

Even though it is 50 episodes, man the art is really LQ/crude. Can't believe it's produced by Production IG as well as the same studio that did SnM. It might just be the awkwardish picture book style they're going for? Maybe it was just the SD raw that put me off this time around.

[animus]

Watched the episode 7 sub, and it looks like the series is taking a drastic turn away from it's slow beginning. It was bound to happen, but seeing it happen sucked.

[KitKat]

Are things starting to pick up? I should catch up on this. I'm hoping it gets away from cutesy and becomes more serious.

[animus]

They should start to be probably different starting from episode 8. Episode 7 marked probably the end of slow start and back story I'd guess.

[Kraco]

A whole trove of releases since the last update:

Episode 3 - SS
Episode 4 - SS
Episode 5 - SS
Episode 6 - SS
Episode 7 - SS
Episode 8 - SS
Episode 9 - SS
Episode 10 - SS
Episode 11 - SS
Episode 12 - SS
Episode 13 - SS
Episode 14 - SS
Episode 15 - SS
Episode 16 - SS
Episode 17 - SS
Episode 18 - SS
Episode 19 - SS
Episode 20 - SS



Things have certainly changed and there were massive amounts of cuteness in between. In the beginning I was waiting for Erin's poor mom to die so that the story would move forward. Once she did, I felt like the series only really began. It was good stuff for sure. The time jump removed some of the raw and pure glitter for me personally, as I simply enjoyed watching endlessly curious Erin to run around and learn about things, heedless of any danger.

Still, it's not like the series would have turned bad after the time jump and to be realistic, such a tiny girl couldn't have remained the main character of a very complicated story. It was only a matter of time before it happened, and I had to leave behind that part of the story and start to look at the shady politics and other aspects building in the background. And of course Erin hasn't become completely uncute and innocent. Far from it.

The feeling of an impending tragedy is one probably hanging above this show till the end, so I'm only wondering who's the next person to die in front of Erin's eyes... I wish it was those two useless idiots, who follow Erin everywhere, but I've a dreadful feeling they will stick around till the very end. Well, no viewer would miss them if they died, so there would be little profit in killing them, I suppose.

[animus]

I stopped watching due to slow subs, but do you happen to know which episode the King Beast comes in and kills a couple of Touda's from killing it's chick?