Hatenkō Yūgi - Episode 1

My Thoughts:
My first thought was quite simple: what was that?

I'm at an utter loss as to what I'm supposed to be thinking with this thing. It was unnecessarily convoluted, a problem that could have been avoided with a single line of text on the screen that said something like "six weeks later." By the end of the episode, i had no emotional investment in any of the characters, a distinct blasé feeling concerning the possibility of an overarching plot line, and a moderate appreciation of the art. It's not KyAni, but it's not as bad as some of the things I've seen.

At this point, I'll give episode 2 a try, but if it still fails to engage me, I'll be promptly ignoring it.

Episode Summary:
The episode starts out with the main character, a young girl named Rahzel being kicked out of her hours by her father, who basically tells her to travel a bit, learn on her own, and see the world. Just a few minutes out of the house, she runs into a criminal named Alzeid, who's on some type of mission of revenge. Flash forward some unknown amount of time (though you only know this because they're suddenly in different clothes) and the pair is trying to make a bit of quick money. They take a job trying to exorcise a ghost who's hanging out in the woods of the town they happen to be in. Exposition ensues, and some guy who flirts with Rahzel and has a butterfly tatoo on his hand suddenly appears. Once the flirting/banter is over, Rahzel sends him off to buy something. More exposition bores us, and then we have sudden scene shifts in a vain attempt to build suspense.