Author: psgels

Hoshi wo Ou Kodomo Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews

Makoto Shinkai got famous for his movies and short films that were just completely unique and unlike anything else in anime. I always found it really hard to judge these movies, but there is one thing that I want to praise all of them for: their sense of distance.Even after watching so many anime, I never encountered any other anime that portrayed that so well and indescribably.

Now even though I’m saying this: Hoshi wo Ou Kodomo is completely different from his previous work. Apart from She and Her Cat they were all simple romances. This is an adventure movie. In fact, Makoto Shinkai watched a lot of Ghibli movies inbetween directing this one and 5cm/Second, and this really can be viewed as his portrayal of a ghibli movie. With that, I’m not saying that it’s a Ghibli-rip off, by the way. This movie definitely takes the

classic Ghibli style into a different direction compared to Miyazaki’s change over the past 10 years. Clocking in at two hours, this is a slow-paced adventure movie about a random schoolgirl and teacher of her. It makes use of its slow pacing by animating the two characters very life-like. The acting is very realistic without any weaknesses or bad lines. The world it takes place in is very creative and full of ideas, and feels very believable for a fantasy world. A lot of work went into making the characters easy to relate to here, and Makoto Shinkai really succeeded in this.

This movie definitely is more accessible than Makoto Shinkai’s previous movies. That does have its downsides, though. The sense of distance that I mentioned above: this movie has it too, but while the previous movies gave unique interpretations to this theme, in this movie it simply turns into “death”, which has a bit less substance and has been done before many times. And unfortunately, better. Overall the biggest flaw of this movie that it seems to lack a bit of substance here and there. Its messages are simple, the characters are simple, and the setting, instead of going in-depth on one of its ideas instead remains on the surface with a bunch of ideas inspired by random ancient cultures, ranging from Middle America to ancient south-west Asia. It’s pretty much a family movie… for a bit of an older audience than usual, perhaps. This does have gore, so if your son or daughter can’t stand blood then you might want to give this movie a pass.

What stands out the most here are the visuals. Oh my god, these are gorgeous. This movie is two hours long and absolutely chock full of all sorts of visual ideas. I mean, like I said: Makoto Shinkai is inspired by Ghibli this time, but it still is undoubtedly a Makoto Shinkai movie. The artistic direction is a brilliant blend of the two styles and while the budget of this movie may not be as big as your average Ghibli movie, the animation is still very life-like, some frames are incredibly fluid, and the background art is just absolutely fantastic. Here, he actually surpassed Ghibli with its sheer versatility.

And really, this isn’t one of those movies that are all style and no substance. It still stands out as a very solid and enjoyable movie, but I do feel that Makoto Shinkai could have gone more in depth to his material.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Believable storytelling, slow but very good pacing and kept my attention through the whole movie.
Characters: 8/10 – Realistic characters, albeit a bit one-sided.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Amazing background art.
Setting: 8/10 – Imaginative, though not very deep.

Suggestions:
– Yona Yona Penguin
– Gedo Senki
– Princess Mononoke

Last Exile – Ginyoku no Fam – 09

by psgels, posted in Last Exile - Ginyoku no Fam

Now this is a quiet episode that I can get behind. It had some flaws, but overall it was very heart-warming. Also, another old face appears!

The characters in this series may not be as well portrayed as with the first season of Last Exile, but this episode showed that they’re still really good when it comes to the light-hearted scenes as well. Giselda’s arc of the past number of episodes concludes here, with some very neat shots about how the two of them grew up. It worked. The team building hockey match? It worked. The birthday subplot? It worked.

Now though, this still is Gonzo. And this episode unfortunately got the short stick of the animation budget. The backgrounds still looked fantastic (Seriously, nine episodes and these still are consistently gorgeous), but there were more still frames in this episode than you can shake a stick at. The hockey match was a bit over the top, but that was to be expected, though I feel that this especially does disservice to the crew members of the Silbius: these guys both do not have good animators behind them, and their voice actors are also pretty bad. Only the superiors do not suffer from this and they indeed were great (I loved the head mechanic as he wondered where everyone went). This was actually something that the first Last Exile was very good at: even the random soldiers were very well acted.

Also, regarding the plot, I still don’t really get it: last episode, the enemy massively abandoned a sinking ship. They withdrew everyone from it… and just left it there without actually blowing it up, or making sure that it didn’t fall into the hands of the enemies. Why? I get that they can’t salvage the remains due to the proximity to the border of Gracies, but they pretty much handed the enemy a really good warship there.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Towa no Quon – 04 Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews

For the first two Towa no Quon movies, I began to fear that it would be like the Break Blade Movies, and just be too dull to really work as a movie series. Movies 3 and 4 managed to prove me wrong with a significant improvement in both its content and characters. Having said that though: movie 4 is not as good as movie 3.

Movie 3 had a very good concept behind it. Movie 4 meanwhile is more straightforward, and is totally devoted to the thing that the previous episodes have been hinting at constantly. The content of this movie isn’t as interesting as last time, which really had me on the edge of my seat. The predictability of this installment worked a bit against it.

Nevertheless though: this movie had some good character development in it. The characters are far from the shells that they used to be in the first movie. There is one particular character who changed significantly in terms of character. The rest of the main cast didn’t so much change, as we got to see much more of why they’re doing what they’re doing, and interestingly enough it’s the side-cast of characters that’s also developing really well. This combination really works, and serves as the backbone of this movie.

Towa no Quon is a series of movies with a really heavy emphasis on ethics and morals. With that I don’t mean that it includes really difficult moral dilemmas; we’re all pretty much supposed to root for the main character. Instead though, this movie, through its main character Quon, devotes a lot of time and effort to show its vision of what’s right. Quon’s present version is the epitome of righteousness, even though some of his actions aren’t the most logical ones. The actin of this series unfortunately isn’t perfect, so this does sometimes lead to cheese. Still, beyond the cheese there also is enough genuinely good drama in this movie to keep you interested.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Straightforward, but well built up.
Characters: 8/10 – The character development is the highlight of his movie, though the characters do get a bit cheesy at times.
Production-Values: 8/10 – This show just doesn’t have your average movie budget, but the soundtrack makes up for it.
Setting: 8/10 – Huge focus on morals as always.

Mawaru Penguin Drum – 22

by psgels, posted in Mawaru Penguin Drum

Well, so I kept hoping for these final episodes to bring everything together. And with this episode, they did. The developments in this episode took this show to a new level. With things finally concluding, the twists i this episode brought in the best out of the characters. The twists in this episode made terrific use of the build-up.

The great development here was the family breaking up. For so many episodes it seemed just natural for the three siblings to stay together no matter what. And yet in this episode things really go horribly wrong. Himari had died before in this series, but this time, it actually seems that this is for real (although I wouldn’t be surprised if she still had some part to play). She finally stepped up and realized what she caused Kanba to do.

What’s also surprising here is how powerless Shouma was: for a long while it seemed like he was going to be the main character of this series, and yet he hardly had any role, aside from the moment we’ve been waiting for: Double-H to make an appearance, only to disappear again. Overall, this is something that I really have to give to Utena: the shadow play girls in the end turned out to be much more awesome, even though you can see here how the creators tried to give them a very important role in the story.

Apart from that, I’m not going to compare the two shows just yet, due to how important the ending was for both of them. There are some very obvious differences, and the next two weeks it will be up to this series to show how well its ideas worked. This episode really was in the right direction, but was it right enough?

What also made this episode awesome was Natsume. Again her role changed completely last week. In this week, we get to see the results of this change, and how her attempts to get her brother back failed. It’s in a completely different mood from her earlier attempts when she tried to get him back with that sweater she knitted. That sweater by the way was a very sneaky hint to the two of them being siblings, when you compare them to Himari’s knitted clothes for her “brothers”.

And on a side-note: what was Shouma doing in that box?
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Un-Go – 09

by psgels, posted in Un-Go

And with this, we’ve pretty much abandoned the episodic nature of this series and are heading off to the finale where everything will come together, even though we’ve still got to wait for the preview movie to explain everyone’s backgrounds.

There is some serious potential for the ending of this series. At this point we already know that the writers of this show are just terrific: in terms of storytelling. Along with Hyouge Mono and Penguin Drum, we’ve got three upcoming endings who really have the potential to become amazing. There is a very big but here though.

Simply: Bettenou will either make or break this finale. I say this because she has some really good points, but also some bad points. The good points turn her into one of the most interesting villains around: the mystery around her. it’s a very neat idea to have the main villain of a show be a master of illusions, who can even bend those illusions into reality. Because of this, there was no way of knowing what was real. This was a very paranoid episode, because how much of it really happened? When this was revealed, it made all the more impact.

At the same time though, all we got to see of her was a bunch of random images. Heck, did she even speak yet? At the moment she’s only being fleshed out through her illusions, and the people’s reactions around her. This worked really well for Kaishou in this episode: as a side-villain he rocked. Again you don’t know exactly what his motives are, but there are a ton of possibilities with this guy. This show may not spend time fleshing out its characters, but it found some very interesting alternatives to still have a memorable cast by forcing us to read between the lines about them. As for Bettenou though, will that work as well? We’ve seen so little about her. Hiding a villain until the end is very tricky to pull off right. Blood-C pulled it off, but there the main villain’s air was all over the series. Un-Go is different and Beauteou is only one of all the different villains who all have hardly anything to do with each other.

It’s going to be important to bring everything together, and show the power of a conclusion of a semi-episodic series. Bring both the setting and characters to a new level, while retaining the same sense of storytelling that made the previous episodes so good.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

OVA Impressions: Kyousogiga

by psgels, posted in OVA Impressions

Now, Kyousogiga just aired. It’s an anime original one-shot OVA from Toei animation, directed by the same woman who directed the Heartcatch Precure movie. And holy crap it looks gorgeous.

And it’s not just one part of the 25 minutes. In fact, the only parts of this episode that didn’t look awesome was the ending credits. It just kept the balls in the air, and even the small build-up scenes were really creatively animated, in many different ways. You can really see that a lot of different talents participated in this episode.

On top of that though: this also has a lot of heart. This could have been an arthouse work and just got things over with, but the characters too were really enjoyable. It’s the simple story of a bunch of random… supernatural thingies that are stuck in some sort of more “normal” world, with a main theme of just wanting to go back. You can’t put much more into 25 minutes if you also want to create a fun and action packed OVA, but it worked really well with the portrayal of the character as a bunch of innocent, yet confused and very powerful kids. In the end it’s both fun and has a subtle touch of emotion to it.

Kyousogiga is a one-shot OVA, and if you’ve got 20 minutes to burn: go for it. It’s pretty much the best one-shot we’ve seen in more than a year. And yet: it deserves more. The end of this episode hinted at more, but that could very much be wishful thinking on the creators, but it would be wonderful for this show to get an actual full TV-Series. I’d definitely blog that.
OVA Episode Rating: 8.5/10

Chihayafuru – 10

by psgels, posted in Chihayafuru

For weeks now, I’ve kept trying o find a reason why Karuta is interesting. With this, I’ve found it: the team matches. With the way this episode went down, there will be plenty of inspiration to fill an entire season.

Here’s the thing: throughout this episode we breezed through three different teams. That’s incredibly fast for a sports series’ standard, and yet the creators made all teams unique, and they did so in a completely non-formulaic way: the first got character because of their strongest player intimidating Desk-kun. Then the second used their scary faces, and the third actually had a pretty interesting tactic that you wouldn’t expect from an opposing team: one that puts a ton of emphasis on communication. And then the next math will be between some old acquaintances of Chihaya.

This was the same in the first time this series went to a tournament, when Arata, Taichi and Chihaya still were kids: the creators really put in a ton of details to make these matches varied and interesting.

On top of that, this was just really well delivered. Every single character here stood out and got some development. Everyone was growing more into their roles and stood out. Desk-kun had a very relatable reaction of being unable to do anything. Kanade stood out because of the outfits, Yuusei was surprisingly witty with his remarks, Chihaya showed some flaws in this episode, and Taichi was still on the roll as the team captain, trying to keep everyone together. He may not be comparable to Chihaya or Yuusei, but his leadership does make him un-rivaled.

I really like how this show combines hard work with talent here. I mean, if Yuusei and Taichi didn’t stop playing, they would probably be much better than Chihaya is right now. Chihaya’s skills stand out because she has been practicing non-stop since her childhood, and kept trying to get better, eventually overtaking all of the ones she knew as a child because they did stop playing.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Tamayura – 10

by psgels, posted in Tamayura


Once again: what a heart-warming episode. Finally it’s Kaoru’s turn to get an episode, and this may just have been the best of the character focused episodes so far. If anything, this episode stood out because of how well acted it was. Not just Kaoru (who was wonderfully portrayed, by the way), but the entire cast really shined in this episode. To me, this was the episode where the cast managed to reach a new level.

It’s not just that Kaoru’s development and place with the series as the one who isn’t sure what she wants to do has been grounded. It’s also how this reflected to the rest of the cast. Potte admitting that she sometimes doubts whether she really wants to continue with photography for the rest of her life. It’s small, but THAT was a terrific addition to her character. Or take Maon: she’s now miles away from the girl who only whistled at the beginning of the series. Norie’s puke story was also both hilarious and adorable, but also the way in which she said it was very natural, compared to how over the top she was when we first started out with her.

Ten episodes in, and I really have to say: the creators succeeded in creating an absolutely wonderful cast. I dislike the type of slice of life shows where just nothing interesting happens, but this show struck a terrific balance. It was a bit weak at the beginning with the one-sided characters and a bit too much crying, but all of these flaws pretty much went away as this show solidified.

At the start of this series, I kept hoping for this show to deliver that final “oomph” in the end. It’s tie to see whether this show can set itself apart even more. This isn’t a manga adaptation, so the creators can fully plan in an ending of theirs, rather than this show just ending on a random story.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

I have moved!

by psgels, posted in Special Articles

And at last, I managed to buy my own domain. Please everyone, update your bookmarks quickly because psgels.blogsome.com will go offline in a few days.

There are still a few things I need to tweak here and there (for example the links in the top bar aren’t the right ones yet), but I’ll update those along the way. This really is a site that I can fully edit from top to bottom, so I’m really going to use it once in a while to try out something new. I’ll be able to do much more with this site this way, so if you’ve got a request for a new feature: don’t hestitate to ask.

As for new features, I added two new widgets to make navigating to the latest posts and reviews a bit easier. I also made the theme a bit more spacious, and added an actual shoutbox (let’s see if this one’s better than the CBox I used to have).

This was a bit of a rush job, so this site is a work in progress (December really is a busy month for me, with the site move, me actually moving out of the house in real life and the upcoming 2011 summary again). Don’t hestitate to comment on what you think of it, though.

Mirai Nikki – 09

by psgels, posted in Mirai Nikki



Rather than Yukiteru finally manning up, I think there’s a different explanation for his behavior. with this episode, I’ve really gotten convinced that Yukiteru has a bipolar disorder. I mean, every single diary owner is crazy. Being a wimp is nice and all, but I do not see Deus ex Machina select a wimp amidst various kinds of deranged lunatics. A guy with multiple personalities fits much more: throughout this series Yukiteru kept switching from an incredible wimp to a pragmatic hero whenever he needed, which lead to a huge personality shift. It’s perhaps this inner beast of him that lead to him getting a future diary.

Now, the actual mind games in this episode were a bit questionable. The white-haired guy’s plan only worked because of plot convenience, the plot also relies a lot upon the fact that the dogs of the bad guy are so bothered by their metal beaks that they can’t run fast, and it took the characters an awful long while to realize that you can call an ambulance.

That’s just nit-picking, though. In general, these things tend to stand out due to a lack of interesting things happening to distract from this. In this show’s case, it’s the characterization that still feels like it’s missing something: for me, most of the characters aren’t very interesting to watch. I still haven’t exactly pin-pointed what this series seems to be missing, as obviously it has Yuno being the mother of all yandere. It’s probably because the rest of the cast is a bit too bland here, but why? I mean, Un-Go spends far less time on characterization and yet it has far better characters.
Rating: * (Good)