My pre-watch impression of Viper’s Creed was that it had a somewhat awesome title, but I feared that it might be a bit THIS ISN’T KID’S STUFF-y. Therefore, I was expecting it to be something that I’d make fun of. I was pleasantly surprised that it was actually kind of awesome. Maybe not AWESOME, but I’m perfectly fine with just awesome.

First, the OP was pretty good. I had feared some overblown power/nu metal drek that ended up ridiculous rather than gritty or dangerous or whatever, but instead we had a pretty rocking opening with some almost ethereal singing that worked pretty well.

Second, there was tons of CG, all of it good. It’s Gonzo’s fault that I usually fear the worst with CG, but I think by this point that I’ll give CG the benefit of the doubt so long as Gonzo isn’t the ones doing it. On that note, the mecha designs were pretty awesome as well. I feared that the bikes would be a bit too forced, but they worked perfectly fine for me.

Third, the focus was on the action not on navel-gazing. Almost the entire episode was devoted to a motorcycle chase/battle with bits of back and forth between the chase and headquarters. Maybe things will get more ponderous in later episodes, but for now we avoided getting random half-baked treatises on like, the liminality of self in the digital age or whatnot. One fault that I do have to point out is that despite constantly cutting back to the headquarters, during the numerous status reports, nothing was exciting enough to make the various operators spin around. They just sat there.

Fourth, despite seemingly being NOT KID’S STUFF, this was the extent of the boobage.

All in all, it was a pretty successful first episode. Now we just need subsequent episodes to introduce the characters to us.