Heat the Pig Liver Anime - Ep 1 Thoughts

So episode 1 finally aired, and there's a number of things I would like to talk about.  This'll not only include my thoughts on the episode itself, but also a brief update at the end on whatever extra anime news was posted recently.  I'll try to avoid spoilers, but just in case, you've been warned that I may include minor ones if I slip up.  Feel free to skip the thoughts section as well if you just want the news.

Episode 1 Thoughts

To start with, in addition to the lack of color during the first scene, there's something they utilized which I enjoyed and wanted to bring up; although this is the sort of detail that would confuse new viewers moreso and cause them to chalk it up to bad editing.  When we're seeing from Mister Pig's perspective, Jess (and the overall surrounding environment) looks wider, and that's because pigs have a wider field of view than humans, causing this sort of fisheye effect.

I’m also glad they’re having Mister Pig monologue a bunch, because I had a hard time imagining how else they would tell this story for various reasons.  Though, I do feel sorry for Matsuoka’s voice for having to do all this talking.

It's also interesting to note that, because of the medium change from text to voice, instead of using angle brackets (or parentheses, in the case of my translations), they used an audio effect/modifier.

They also seem to have rearranged the story progression a little by skipping straight to the rista discussion first, then cover the Pig Prince SS dialogues, and finally close out episode 1 with Mestria’s history talk about the royal family and the need to meet the king.

At the end where Mister Pig says “If that’s what you think, then show me something more interesting next time,” Jess looks at us the viewers.  I guess this anime original moment is supposed to be meant as foreshadowing?  It felt a bit out of character though.

Despite the key moments looking fairly good, the art can be a little off at times.  I honestly don't mind when it happens to Mister Pig (because he's supposed to be cute and goofy), but when I noticed it happening to Jess, it's worrying; especially since there were a lot of still frames with panning.  I hope the animations will be alright when the story gets to the more action-packed moments...

Lastly, based off of the LN, we're not even through 1/3 of chapter 1.  Given how monologue heavy this story is, I'm starting to think that they'll be using all 12 episodes to cover volume 1.  I don't know if there are that many good cliffhanger stopping points in vol 1, but we'll just have to see how it goes.

News Update Section

Quite a bit of news was posted upon episode 1 airing...

ASCA tweeted out the streaming services where you'll be able to listen to the full OP on 10/8 and purchase the album on 11/15: https://asca.lnk.to/WatashigaWarauWakeha

The ED sung by Myuk will be available for streaming next week, so look forward to that as well.

Next, they've posted details regarding the Blu-ray & DVD release, which you'll be able to find here: https://butaliver-anime.com/bddvd/special.html

There'll be 6 sets, with each containing 2 episodes plus some bonus content.  They're currently opening reservations for the first set, which will run until October 29, and by preordering you'll be able to receive a bonus bed sheet with Jess on it.  I will not post a picture of it here, you can take a look at it yourself on the site linked above.

And on the subject of the anime's site, they added two new sections to the special tab as well: https://butaliver-anime.com/special/

There's the Support Illustrations page, which is a compilation of all the illustrations that were tweeted out by the anime's twitter account.  Oddly enough, they appear to be lower res than on twitter, so uh... go there if you want the highest resolution.

And then there's Heat the Pig "Lever" which is basically a funny gacha page where you pull the lever and it'll play a random voice clip from Mister Pig.  It says it'll be updated weekly, so check back every now and then.

That's about it for now.  I can't wait for episode 2 and probably the following episode 3 to come out, because just showing the first 1/3 of chapter 1 isn't enough to hook the viewers in yet.