Author: psgels

Natsume Yuujin-Chou San Review – 87,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Natsume Yuujin-Chou




Finally, after two long years of waiting, Natsume Yuujin-Chou continued into its third season. And how! It probably even surpassed itself!

The reason why this series sets itself apart is simple. The first season consisted out of all sorts of stories around youkai. They were the ones who stood in the center. The second season’s focus was on intrigue; it explored themes as humans versus youkai. The third season is about Natsume himself. Yes, this entire season is dedicated to the character development of just one character.

This season goes back to the more episodic nature of the series, with only two arcs that last two episodes. They tell all kinds of stories about Natsume encountering all sorts of youkai, but every single one of them contributes to his character, and is meant to either show how far he has grown, how he is growing, or how he will grow. The creators always manage to find fresh ways to do it, and make excellent use of the side cast of characters in the process.

And don’t think that the side characters get ignored for the sake of Natsume himself: every story in this series focuses on a different one of them, and every story ends up contributing to them to. This series still has excellent characterization, it is still wonderfully told, with a calm and relaxing atmosphere, a wonderful sense of build-up and a great sense of conclusion.

Now, not every episode is as good as the other: there are some that work better than the others, and in particular the two-episode arcs take up a tad too much space in the series while not having the same charm as the short but sweet other episodes. But even then, I’d say that its consistency is even better than the first season. Really, Natsume Yuujin-Chou was second to only Mawaru Penguin Drum this Summmer Season.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Still wonderfully told. Great direction, great pacing, great script.
Characters: 9/10 – Natsume’s development is just fantastic. The rest of the cast is also excellent.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Restrained, but very vivid if it wants to. Excellent and soothing soundtrack.
Setting: 8/10 – Still a great depiction of how youkai would live, much more realistic than most other shows who try to do this.

Suggestions:
– Windy Tales
– Mushishi

Natsume Yuujin-Chou – 39

by psgels, posted in Natsume Yuujin-Chou




I’m not going to say that this was the best ending of the season for two reasons. The first is that this show hasn’t actually ended yet (the Winter season can’t come soon enough). The second is that this ending was completely different from any other ending this season.

But still: if this would have been the ending of Natsume Yuujinchou, I would not have complained at all.

This episode was so different from your usual ending, and yet it was the perfect way to end the third season. This was by far the episode with the most positive outlook of the entire third season. There was no evil youkai to take care of, and instead the creators chose this to just show a bunch of youkai having fun (playing hide and seek, or Kakurenbou with Youkai; ah, the irony). It was a wonderfully fun and heart-warming episode that showed the cast just having fun, while at the end it also had a powerful message when Natsume’s friends arrived: he’s not alone. Neither in the world of youkai, and the world of humans.

I also want to yet again applaud Brains Base for understanding the importance of an ending. Here is the interesting thing: final episodes often have a lot of budget, meaning a lot of animators are put on them. That’s nice, but also constraining: because of that you hardly ever see final episodes with interesting direction, animation, or plot progression, like what you sometimes see when a particularly talented team is behind just one episode. This episode instead brought together a bunch of excellent animators, who really got to do as they pleased during the hide and seek game. This brought the characters even more to life than they already were.

I would love to say that Brains Base’s endings this season are awesome, however Kamisama Dolls doesn’t seem to fit in that picture. Instead though, I do have to praise Sadayuki Murai for adapting this story, and getting the best out of it. This wasn’t just animating a bunch of random chapters. Every single episode was dedicated to Natsume’s development, and the final two episodes were just the perfect ending. He also seems to be doing the fourth season, which is yet another reason to look forward to it.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Hana-Saku Iroha Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Hana-Saku Iroha




Hana-Saku Iroha…. is an interesting one. Probably the best way to start a review about it is to warn that it can be quite misleading when you start watching it. This series has two wonderfully written opening episodes that have a ton of well written drama, only followed by episodes of random slice of life hi-jinks.

This is a criticism, it takes time to get used to, but also: once this show finds its pace, it delivers a unique slice of life series. The thing is however, that it doesn’t care whether or not it annoys its viewers. This can be great for realism, but this series always tries to take this a bit beyond the comfort zone by inserting random stupidity at times. Throughout the series there will be plenty of teenaged romance angst, random yelling, characters who turn a mosquito into an elephant. Oh, and a depraved writers of smutty romance novels.

And on the other hand we have this series’ brilliant ability to write drama. Seriously, the characters in this series can get annoying, but their development is absolutely wonderful. When it wants to, it can create strong conflicts, character-development focused scenarios and heart-warming dialogue without getting cheesy. Especially in the second half the cast (and with that I mean nearly the entire cast, not just the main characters) develops into engaging characters, with everyone making some sort of impact.

What also helps is that PA Works really put in effort to make this series a feast for the eyes. The art and animation is crisp and fluid, the background art is gorgeous. This was really intended as their celebration for their 10th year anniversary, and they really succeeded here. Hana-Saku Iroha celebrates working and taking responsibility. And through its characters, it really turned that into a wonderful message.

Storytelling: 8/10 – There are scenes that come off as stupid and annoying, especially in the first half. When this series gets serious though, it really delivers excellent drama.
Characters: 9/10 – They will get on your nerves, but their chemistry is excellent, they’re really well used, and their development is top notch.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Clean and crisp. A feast for the eyes.
Setting: 8/10 – Good themes, although it does tend to ignore the borders of realism at times.

Suggestions:
– True Tears
– Konnichiwa Anne
– Les Miserables – Shoujo Cosette

Hana-Saku Iroha – 26

by psgels, posted in Hana-Saku Iroha



What a wonderful ending. The creators did a wonderful job at adding in some final character development, while the epilogue at the end that showed where everyone ended up at was exactly what I was hoping for. This was really heart-warming, and out of the slice of life endings this season (Usagi Drop, Croisee), this was my favourite.

The stars of this episode were Sui and Ohana. Ohana’s wish-tag, where she claimed to want to be like her grandmother was wonderful. Sui meanwhile, saying goodbye to her memories of the Kissuiso and wanting to pick up being a waitress again. those two things made this ending really worth it. My only criticism: the Kou storyline was cut off. Anime, let’s face it: running into two characters as they are about to romantically confess is a dead horse. Stop beating it!

In the end, I think that the biggest problem with this series is its first two episodes. And don’t get me wrong, they were two wonderful and amazing episodes, but they also caused me to sit with an annoyed face at the subsequent eight episodes. The big reason for that is Ano Hana: the first two episodes gave off too much of an impression that this show would be similar. Anohana was meant to be a romantic tear jerker. Something which it did really well, however during its airtime, Hana-Saku Iroha just couldn’t get out of its shadow. Only now, in the summer season it really was able to show ts worth, and stand out on its own.

I mean, the first half of this series did have its share of charming episodes, but the second half is superior because of how the cast grew. The cast growing together was done wonderfully and gave this series a wonderful closure, even though there were enough points that were rather annoying. PA Works, I applaud you.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Ao no Exorcist – 24

by psgels, posted in Ao no Exorcist



I could have sworn that this show was only 24 episodes long. Ah well, with the state that this series is in now, an extra episode doesn’t really matter. And I know that I usually try to avoid spoilers in the screenshots, but this episode just had too many things that made me raise a proverbial eye brow.

This episode pretty much had the same problem as the Konekomaru arc: it is very difficult to properly portray someone getting possessed, without being overly cheesy. Here though, Rin pretty much ended up talking the monster to death. It worked a bit: the themes of Yukio always wanting to do everything on his own were what saved it in particular. But I have to face it: the suicide scene made me laugh. Just about the opposite effect that the creators intended.

Yukio: if you want to commit suicide: that’s fine. If that happens to kill Satan at the same time, then I can understand why you’d do it… but why the yelling? The thing is that in martial arts, yelling does have a very important purpose: By combining it with breathing, you can really deliver harder punches, et cetera. With Yukio however, he was trying to pull the trigger on a gun. That requires a completely different kind of concentration, so he just looked silly while yelling.

In any case, the final episode: it pretty much was the most cliched set up that the creators could think of. Throughout this episode Satan already got strangely weak whenever the main cast was around (remember: this is the guy who easily scorched the best exorcists around like it was nothing, and yet at those convenient points he simply forgets that he has that power)… but the point where the penultimate episode ends with all of the main villain’s plans exhausted and the only thing that still needs to be done is beating a ridiculously powered up version of him… it’s been done thousands of times before. Yeah, it’s good for the animation team: they can go all out, but can this series really set itself apart with such an ending?

Overall, the anime original material in this series wasn’t the worst. It sure as heck was better than in Yumekui Merry and it did stay true to its characters. But still, the creators constrained themselves too much by trying to go with a “by the books” ending. Instead they should have looked at what kind of ending would fit best with its constraints. Some series that did this well in my opinion were: Hellsing, Bokurano, King of Thorn, Himitsu -the Revelation, Hourou Musuko and Kuroshitsuji. This isn’t compared to their manga, but these are the series that instead of half-heartedly just animating a bunch of chapters until they ran out of time, really looked into how to make their anime adaptation story work best. These are the series that new adaptations who know that they’re never going to be able to fully animate their manga’s story should take a good look at and learn from.
Rating: – (Disappointing)

Kami-Sama no Memo-Chou Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Kami-Sama no Memo-Chou




Time to review another one of the top shows of the past Summer season. Kami-Sama no Memo-Chou is either my third or fourth favourite show of the serie that debuted on Summer 2011, depending on how well Blood-C’s ending turns out. This was the series to go to for intelligent mystery, well written scripts and varied cast.

Especially the script of this series is something where this series shined like no other. Thsi show, above all else, is well written. It consists out of a number of standalone arcs that are all focused on some murder mystery, and it’s the script that does wonders in fleshing all the different cases out into multi-layered stories and it tries to put as much meaning into the eventual conclusions as possible. This makes just about every conclusion worth watching, as the creators always manage to throw in some sort of satisfying conclusion.

The cast of characters is also an interesting bunch: from the outside they all look like your regulr JC Staff cliches (you know, moe school girls, bland male lead and in particular an annoying little girl), but this show actually manages to give an original spin on them. It does so by excellent acting, and also by giving each of the characters strong roles. The cast of this show is HUGE, but it’s very varied, and most of them turned out to be actually very interesting to watch. The male lead meanwhile starts off a bit bland, wanting to help people for the sake of helping people, but as the show moves on he really grows into a reliable and sympathetic manager and organizer.

Where this show falls down is that it doesn’t seem to realize that it’s only got 12 episodes. It doesn’t drag, but some arcs are very long (one takes up four episodes; that’s a third of the entire series!) and there are too many episodes that focus on the side characters. That’s nice and all, and the result was that the characters in question got some really memorable stories, but because of that there was no time left to animate the arc that focused on the central character of this series: Alice. She could have been an amazing character with a little bit of depth. And in fact, the entire series ended just prematurely: It’s built up in such a way that a potential second season has the potential to become a classic. Unfortunately, that will probably never arrive.

Oh, and there is also something that you need to take in mind when ou start watching this series: the fanservice. This remains JC Staff unfortunately, and so the creators tried to insert very out of place fanservice scenes, similar to what happened with Index II. Don’t worry though: these scenes disappear in the second half. Right when this series really starts to hit its stride, although its opening episode also is one heck of an eye catcher.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Terrific script, well use of build-up and twists. Only 12 ewpisodes long. Will become even better with more episodes.
Characters: 9/10 – Varied cast, likable characters, strong drama, excellent character development.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Crisp art and animation, nice usse of CG in the backgrounds.
Setting: 8/10 – The stories don’t tie together whatsoever, nor do they have a general theme beyond murder. But this show does create a very believable atmosphere.

Suggestions:
– Himitsu The Revelation (Granted, Kamimemo does not hold a candle to the master of the arc-based murder mystery genre, Himitsu – though it is a fine attempt nevertheless)
– Ayatsuri Sakon
– Shinrei Tantei Yakumo

Kami-Sama no Memo-Chou – 12

by psgels, posted in Kami-Sama no Memo-Chou



Well, it had it coming, but I’m still really glad that it actually happened: this was pretty much the best ending out of all of the unfinished series that have ended this month, and I also doubt that it will be surpassed like anymore. The big flaw of this season really is the length, and this showed in a ton of series: No.6, Kamisama Dolls, Ao no Exorcist, Kaiji (though in the opposite way)… aside from Natsume Yuujinchou (which is the only one of the bunch who actually got a second season), there are just four shows who avoided this: Usagi Drop, Croisee, Dantalian, and this one.

And I know that this show had it easy by being episodic, but still: the creators did pick a great arc to finish on, and they executed it right. With this, there is only one major problem with this series: its wasted potential. This series can become so much more with 12 extra episodes. The iffy episodes at the beginning… they don’t matter anymore. The fanservice disappeared completely in the second half, and Narumi really grew up. He started out as yet another Touma, but the use of Ayaka in this episode really matured him beyond just that role.

Ignore the length, and I’m very happy with how this series turned out. Heck, this pretty much was the best JC Staff series since Aoi Hana.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

OVA Impressions: Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Kira – 02

by psgels, posted in Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, OVA Impressions



I’m a fan of Studio Deen…. but not this year. So far, I consider them to be even worse than AIC, because at least AIC delivered Hourou Musuko and Persona 4 this year. Something really needs to happen to them, because in the past they have delivered plenty of classics.

This episode thankfully was not as abysmal as the first episode of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kira. At least stuff happened. Instead, this was just boring. It was pretty much like the silly episodes of Higurashi Rei, only worse. The reason why they worked well with Rei and not here is simple:
1) those episodes were simply better executed. They did what the TV-series did, only more over the top. It was varied, the characters had fun with each other and the timing and delivery was good. Instead though, you can really see how much the new director hurts here. This episode felt lackluster, the characters one sided and its scenario was just dull and predictable.
2) In Higurashi Rei, the silly episodes were wrapped around an amazingly written storyline focused on Rika. They juxtaposed well because of that: on one hand you have the characters just having fun, and other other hand there are the hard hitting storylines that made this show big. Take away the latter, and you have just random episodes that try to be funny, but because of reason 1), aren’t.

Here’s the thing: the silly episodes of the previous installments of Higurashi added to the characters. This however reduces the cast to caricatures. The preview to the next episode suffers from this as well: it on purpose focused on the caricatures of the cast.
OVA Episode Rating: 6/10

Some Quick First Impressions: Battle Spirits Heroes, Busou Shinki Moon Angel and Working’!!

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Battle Spirits Heroes

Short Synopsis: Our lead character plays a childrens’ card game.
Every season has its array of kiddie shows, so this one is no different. I do like to check out the first episode of each of them, although this does get really repetitive after a while, especially when nearly all of them are just having a competition to see who can rip each other off the most. Battle spirits though… is nowhere near the worst of the bunch. And don’t get me wrong: it’s silly, but it’s not too silly, nor overly dramatic. It’s been a while since I’ve seen such an opening series of such a kiddie shounen that didn’t cover either a hot blooded match with an overly villainous rival or some kind of epic world threatening stake. Instead, the main character plays one match, loses and isn’t angsty about it at all, and helps to test out the holographic system that is this show’s excuse to actually make those battles interesting. The only reason he won there is because nobody told his opponent that the rules had hanged. At least the chemistry between the characters is decent, but it has one major flaw though: everyone acts the same. Seriously, just about every character in this series is snarky in various degrees.
OP: Decent for a kiddie show.
ED: Badly sung and very generic J-Rock.
Potential: 10%

Busou Shinki Moon Angel

Short Synopsis: Our lead character randomly finds a battle toy in a tree.
For me there are pretty much two big mysteries of the upcoming Autumn Season: what can HunterXHunter seriously hope to add, and is Busou Shinki Moon Angel going to be anything more than a glorified commercial? As for the first, we’ll probably have to wait a really long time before that answer is clear. As for the latter… well, this episode WAS a glorified commercial, there’s no way around it: it’s an advertisement for a doll maker, and lo and behold, we have a show where the toys all have superpowers and a random boy finds one for himself. This indeed all screams blatant, which makes the good direction even more awkward. The action is decent, the pacing is nice, the use of music is pretty nice. That’s the thing with this series: if this would have been a full fledged production it would have a near dream-team for its staff; it really was one of the more solid match-ups of the entire season. Overall though: they can definitely do better. This episode had executive meddling written all over it. Especially the script is no excuse for the main writer of Bounen no Xamdou. Will I keep watching for a few more episodes though? Yes. It’s only five minutes.
Potential: 40%

Working’!!

Short Synopsis: Our lead character works at a restaurant with a lot of cute girls in it.
Oh, we’re having a pre-airing special this season. Ironically, it’s from the series that I was looking forward to the least. To my surprise however, it was nowhere as bad as I feared. This was definitely the best episode that I’ve seen from Atsushi Ootsuki. Okay, so for the director of Motto To-Love Ru, Ladies Versus Butlers and Kanokon this isn’t really hard, but the slice of life parts of this episode were actually pretty decent. It’s the comedy however, where it completely lost me. For starters, I didn’t even laugh once in this episode, but what’s worse is that it was very repetitive, and this episode just kept repeating its jokes over and over. A lot were the same jokes that I also remember from when I checked out the first two episodes of the first season. The thing with these characters is that they all have one or two quirks, and they try to show these quirks to the viewer as often as humanly possible, even if they make no sense whatsoever in the process (one character is obsessed with small things to the point where he cries for ten full minutes because someone swatted a fly), and that got old really fast. There were some original jokes that nearly worked, but my standards for comedies are really high: if it didn’t make me laugh out lout, then I refuse to sit through cringe-worthy humour in the hopes that at some point the creators might get lucky and deliver an actual joke that works.
Potential: 10%

Hyouge Mono – 23

by psgels, posted in Hyouge Mono



This episode was about Sasuke’s new mansion as the lord of Olive. The mansion was… weird. Instead of being all flamboyant like with what Hashiba Hideyoshi did to his castle, this mansion was made to look old and run down…

The best part however was Sennou Soueki’s part in this. It’s been a while since we’ve seen any emotion from him, and in fact the only times we’ve really seen it is when he was touched by in his eyes beautiful works of art. That only happened once before. Furthermore, to actually force Sasuke to use a main room that he actually doesn’t like also was awesome. And heck, Sasuke’s name is already starting to spread because of the new mansion.

Next season… Thursdays will be completely crazy. Seriously, this season had the benefit that Usagi Drop was laid back, and No.6 was also fairly straight-forward. Next season, Hyouge Mono, Penguin Drum, Persona 4, Un-Go and Guilty Crown will all air on the same days. How much balls can you stuff into one day anyway?!

In fact, after I looked a bit more into the actual programming, the next season seems bizarrely strictly laid out: Monday will be the day of slice of life, with both Tamayura, Kimi to Boku and Squid Girl, Sunday will be the day for shounen with Hunter X Hunter, Gundam, Phi Brain and Mirai Nikki, Thursday will be for the older crowd with the series mentioned above. Only Saturday is a hodgepodge of random series. Incidentally the harem shows don’t seem to care about this pattern at all and just air whenever the hell they like.
Rating: ** (Excellent)