This show. I still have no idea what to make of it. Why does it care so little about making sense? And why at the same time does it work so well on the emotional level?
The use of kids in this episode was just… bizarre. We first had this kindergarten teacher who is actually a member of POG. She then takes a bunch of random toddlers along with her, without ever explaining what happened to their parents, and brings them inside a dangerous building that’s at the verge of collapsing. Some random bad guy then appears from out of nowhere and locks the door everyone’s in, and instead of helping to solve the puzzles in question she made herself as quickly as possible, she spends her entire time trying to bust open a locked door. Add that to the bizarre leaps in logic this show already has.
And yet the characters in this episode were really charming. And I have no idea why. Granted, the teacher in question had a solid story, and the use of atmosphere was really great, but could that alone have been enough? Nonoha was well acted in this episode, and the characters here are far from tedious to watch, bizarrely enough.
In a way this show reminds me of Suteki Tantei Labyrinth. I’m not sure how many people actually watched it back when it aired, but it basically involved this kid who had to solve some of the most ridiculous mysteries, and even though it was very childish and incredibly far-fetched at times, it was fun and had surprisingly enjoyable characters, unlike what you might expect when you first see it. The thing is however, that that show did have a “so bad it’s good factor”. It was great to see how crazy it could become, and it had A TON of cheese. Phi Brain doesn’t really have cheese, though. Its drama is simple but genuine, but it’s not exactly angst-filled or something.
Rating: * (Good)]]>
Author: psgels
Fate/Zero – 07
Hmm, the creators really are putting Saber in the underdog role. In this episode she again gets saved from being killed in the midst of battle, she walks into any trap her opponents throw at her, she has most of the enemies going after her, she is the only one who has gotten handicapped. I mean, if she really is supposed to be the king of kings, then she doesn’t need this. This is why I like Kotomine Kirei: at first he seemed to be the one who was going to play the role of main character, and yet his role in the story is a very interesting one as an observer.
In any case though, what I am very happy about is that again the battles are set up so that they can involve as many characters as possible. This episode already gathered three master/servant pairs and that makes things much more interesting than if it was just two characters fighting each other, due to the slow nature of the battles in this series. The intrigue works well, and I especially liked the battle between Emiya and Kayneth and that silver blob of his. Although the climax of the episode was a bit weird, in which Emiya first yelled before shooting, announcing his presence that he masked with so much care, so that Kayneth could react against it…
Oh, and by the way: this episode was very good at building up atmosphere. The thing about this season is that the majority of all good series (not counting the usual crap as Maken-Ki of course) are actively building up to something, and they all do this in many different ways and forms. This season has more long shows than any season since Spring 2009. Fate/Zero is a tad slow for my liking, but it has some very good promise on its second half here.
Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>
Hunter X Hunter – 07
Here’s the strange thing with this series: at first you’d think that they’d try to rush through the first material Brotherhood-style in order to get to the new parts… only for the pacing to slow down significantly afterwards. This episode? It was just about Gon and Killua playing a game with the hunter exam chief. With this pacing, I assume that the creators are aiming to make every episode significantly different from the other, so that every week will be a different experience. Or at least that seems to be the plan until the arcs get longer.
The result is a bit strange. In this way, some chapters are rushed through (most notably this is what happened last week, but also the first episode had this), while others really take their time, like this one. I mean, next week will be completely different, and this episode just consisted out of the characters killing time before it happens. Less than 50% of the episode was spent on some very good characterization. The rest, more than 10 minutes, was spent on a simple game. If the creators wanted, they could have done this in about half an episode by clever cutting and pasting, however I do like the charms of this episode. Building up is always tricky to not drag on, but this episode had a very nice “calm before the storm”-atmosphere that is very different from the norm.
The standout point of this episode however was near the end, when Killua gave up and ran into those two guys. That was the proof that the creators have no intention to tone down the gore in this series and are not afraid at all to make it dive into the darker parts of the story. Now, all that I want to see is hints that they also plan the same with the dialogue. Meticulously detailed dialogue is pretty much a requirement for the Yorkshin arc.
Rating: * (Good)]]>
Last Exile – Ginyoku no Fam – 05
This episode was a bit of a step back, mostly due to how it got a bit too silly at times. There is in particular the point in which Fam stood in front of the idiot commander, and the point at which Millia decided to dress up as a maid. That does not fit this setting at all. We’ve got enough moe shows doing that already. Why do so many shows insist in adding a maid, just for the sake of adding a maid?
Then there is the way in which the characters were rather off-model. This unfortunately is typical Gonzo, but thankfully they have shown many times in the past that even after dips like these, they can still deliver excellent action scenes. The best example of that was Shangri-La, which on one hand had horrible off-character models on one hand, and absolutely gorgeous and ground-breaking 3D effects on the other. In any case, the worst were the mechanics in this area, as while Fam just looked off-model, they just looked silly.
This episode meant to introduce the crew of the Silvius. Overall the problem was that there were too many carbon-copies of the same characters. The creators did pick a number of distinct character designs to portray the crew, and characters like the cook, the navigator, the head engineer: there are still plenty of characters who stand on their own. What clever writing should have done is to create just enough mechanics for the setting to feel alive, without making any two of them like a carbon-copy of another. The first season actually did this.
The interesting thing though, was that just as this show looked like it was getting too silly for its own sake… it recovered. the final quarter of this episode was strong character-building and it also added quite a bit of intrigue with Millia’s sister’s whereabouts revealed. The acting in this series is very peculiar. I mean, most of the characters do know how to act, and there are a lot of very solid performances, and then once in a while they slip out into these silly stupid moments, or meet very badly acted side-characters who only appear for a minute. The acting of this series ranges from near the best of the season to near the worst of the season.
Rating: * (Good)]]>
Hyouge Mono – 30
Is it me, or did Sasuke’s voice just change? It feels much deeper than before. It made this episode a bit weird: he’s still this smug anti-hero who will go through any lengths for the sake of great art, but it didn’t feel like we were listening to the same guy rambling.
Overall, this episode was the first one in a while that felt a bit lukewarm, mostly because it was again dedicated to building up. I was also a bit disappointed that after last episode, Sennou Soueki suddenly got hospitalized. At this point, this show still needs a few trumps to end with. Bee-Train usually knows how to do this, but then again they don’t often do straight manga adaptations, and when they do they pick manga that are impossible to end.
Perhaps the part that I liked the most was the focus on Edo. The modern images made no sense in Blade of the Immortal, but with everyone’s eyes raised at the possibilities of the future (heck, the founder of Japan is a major character in this series), they fitted perfectly, and it’s a nice touch to show the beginnings of Roppongi here.
Rating: * (Good)]]>
Mawaru Penguin Drum – 18
Yeah, this episode was another one of those “batman having tea with superman”-episodes. This episode was just amazing, as it combined the talents of two wildly different directors, Kunihiko Ikura and Shigeyasu Yamauchi, into one. The result was an episode with a ton of weird twists, strong character development and a ton of symbolism, combined with a style that is masterful at getting genuine emotions out of the characters and terrific at subtle pacing.
I can’t believe how well the two blended with each other. Tabuki really got a wonderful episode through this. Ikuhara even gave Shigeyasu Yamauchi the freedom of handling the background art much different from usual, and that too resulted in a ton of eye candy. Tabuki ended up as a great villain through this. On top of that Momoka also got a lot of depth, and the main cast also got much closer to each other. Especially the aftermath of this episode felt very intimate.
Also, the eye-catch. It just revealed another turning-point, as expected. Right now we’re in the background arc, in which all of the side-characters get the chance to show their stories and backgrounds. At the moment the only ones left are Tabuki and the parents who set everything in motion. I can only imagine what the creators have planned for after that. It’s that final arc where they really have to show that they know how to use their build-up.
Rating: *** (Awesome)]]>
Un-Go – 05
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Another excellent episode. Perhaps it wasn’t as good as the previous two episodes, but it still rocked, was well put together and very thoughtful. If only because of how it subverted a very common cliche: the big corporate bastard did it.
In this episode, even the main character got clouded by it, and the corporate bastard indeed wasn’t exactly Jesus in purgatory. He used the death of his subordinates for his personal gain and publicity and embezzled a ton of gold illegally. Normally in anime, this would be the bad guy. Instead though: he’s not a murderer. Finally we get a portrayal f these people that isn’t completely evil at its core.
Also, with the lack of time this show spends on characterization, I do have to say that it has found interesting yet subtle ways to still flesh out its main cast. This isn’t only done by making their beliefs and values a core part of each episode, but also with small things, like when Shinjuurou grabbed all the towels in the restroom. It perhaps doesn’t work as well as just showing these characters during moments when nothing plot-related is going on, but this works too.
Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>
Persona 4 The Animation – 06
You know, I’ve seen a lot of people badmouth the first Persona anime (Trinity Soul), but when comparing the first six episodes of both that show and this series, I really have to say that I prefer Trinity Soul over Persona 4. And considering how that series really took its time to get going, compared this show’s rush to skip those boring parts, that’s not a very good sign.
I mean, series like No.6 and C may have been rushed, but that’s nothing compared to the utter speed at which this show is rushing through its stories. This episode blasted through eighteen days at once. That’s more than half a month’s worth of content. My biggest gripe with it however was that it didn’t really make use of its time. This episode was supposed to be about this typical tough guy with a heart of gold, but by the end of the episode we hardly saw anything of him, and most of the airtime here was spent on random hijinks and characters goofing off. It’s a bad sign that the thing that caught my attention the most was a “s bad it’s good”-scene. The chase scene was funny, but part of it was because how badly it was animated and acted.
Also, did the creators just skip a scene in the TV-world completely, only to pull a Tsubasa Chronicle and talk about that moment in flashbacks? Someone, please tell me that I have not been paying attention in the first four episodes. Pulling such a twist makes this just a show to please the fans. As someone who is trying to get into the story without having played the games, I feel more and more left out.
I can only imagine the games, in which that fighting dude probably did not come off as just another carbon copy of the tough character who actually likes cute stuff. I can only imagine how fun the games can be, where you’re just running around town and try to meet all of the characters at your own freedom. This isn’t a compilation of a game though. This needs to be a standalone story. Compressing a large story into a much smaller anime format has of course been done many times before, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen such a jarring cut-and-paste job.
Rating: – (Disappointing)]]>
Princess Tutu Review – 87,5/100
Now that I’m getting so close to the end of my to-watch-list, and really to the series that I’ve been looking forward to the most, this really does give a different kind of expectation compared to usual. This goes in particular for Princess Tutu: aside from one particular series, it has been the series that you have recommended to me the most often (that other series is Monster, by the way). With such a critically acclaimed series, I went into this series with a completely different mindset than others and it generally leads you to expect things in a different way from usual.
What I mean by this is the following: after completely finishing this series, I’d have to say that Princess Tutu isn’t the best shoujo series I’ve seen. Normally for an average show, this really wouldn’t mean much, because you can say this for 99.9% of all of the series out there, but this statement does gain a different meaning for something with the caliber of Princess Tutu. That doesn’t however mean that this show isn’t awesome and if you even remotely like shoujo and haven’t seen this one yet, you’re doing yourself a great disservice.
First of all, Princess Tutu is about ballet. That alone gives this show an air of elegance unlike any other, and the creators make full use of this with some excellent choreography. This show doesn’t have fancy graphics, but it still looks gorgeous due to the time that went into portraying all of the different dances that are incredibly prevalent throughout the entire series. A good dancer is able to entice an audience, just by performing, and the creators of this series did just that.
What really caught my attention about this series however, was how well this show develops its characters. In particular the most important characters change tremendously throughout the storyline, and this change ends up being a very important theme throughout the entire series. These characters are round and dynamic, they change naturally, yet you can’t see them coming. Even the side-characters evolve subtly throughout the series. Everyone is well acted, and the cast is immensely fun to watch, both during the light hearted moments and the serious ones.
This series is also able to tell a great story, with a beginning and an actual ending, where it makes great use of its build-up. Where it left things to be desired for me was at some points while building up, where it tended to get a bit too formulaic. This series also depends a lot on brainwashing and using love as a plot device. It actually gets away with it quite decently, but there are times when in particular the side characters suffer losing their free will too much, so that they can’t really show what kind of character they actually are. Brainwashing in general is very tricky to do right and Princess Tutu remains one of the better examples to do it because it’s a major theme of the entire series, but it does lead to a lack of freedom that holds the show back at times.
Still, with the current state that shoujo anime is in today, it’s great to look back at how grand it was in the past. This show combines innocence with dark and deep characters really well and with the ballet, it turns turns into a wonderful emotional ride. Oh, and the soundtrack cannot go unmentioned here. The use of classical music in this show is just a perfect match.
| Storytelling: | 8/10 – Great use of build-up, original and clever plot twists, but a tad too formulaic at times, and makes a bit too often use of brainwashing and love as a plot device. |
| Characters: | 9/10 – Wonderful development, especially on the main cast. |
| Production-Values: | 9/10 – The animation may not be big, but the characters are wonderfully animated to life, and the soundtrack makes this show still a feast for the senses. |
| Setting: | 9/10 – Very creative premise with a deep setting and unique atmosphere. |
Chihayafuru – 06
The new side-character is really necessary for this series. Up till now, the Karuta in this series could just as well have been replaced with Rock Paper Scissors; we knew that it was a game that involved some cards, but that’s it. Instead, we got to see a lot of Chihaya’s and Arata’s passion about the game. This time, we get a character who can put meaning behind the game, the cards, and the traditions behind it. For such a seemingly simple game as Karuta, that really is a very welcome addition.
It’s indeed a bit of a strange start for this series: Arata was a professional. He was someone who was playing the game for the sake getting as good as possible at it, and that’s what drew Chihaya in. She never went into the basics and the meaning behind the cards and the game, and instead she immediately learned to not care about what the poems say, but what characters they consist of.
The thing is, that this new girl set a really high standard, and there are still two side characters left, according to the OP. I really wonder what the creators have in mind to show even more different sides of Karuta, because at this point it’s clear that this show is very well planned out. This episode once again pushes the storyline forward, and once again it’s completely different from the ones before. It will be awesome if this show can keep this up for its entire airtime, but I can hardly imagine how the hell it’ll be able to do that.
Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>