Author: psgels

Steins;Gate – 21

by psgels, posted in Steins;Gate



Out of all of the endings that are coming up next month, Steins;Gate is the one I look forward to the most, with on second place Hana-Saku Iroha. It’s really going to be something that could potentially make the entire series come together and boil down to a wonderful conclusion. But first, an episode entirely dedicated to the characters.

This episode didn’t really reveal any new information, but it really solidified the cast. The past between Okabe and Mayuri got fleshed out some more, same as Mayuri’s worries about Okabe, along with Kurisu. My favourite part of this episode was when she learned that she’d die if the cracking phase was completed.

The people who rewatched the first episode pretty much know what’s going to happen next, so the question of this episode wasn’t really “if Okabe is going to continue with the cracking”, but when he’ll do it. There’s also still the question of how he’ll be able to find a device that allows him to travel further back in time (what happened in the first episode can not be explained with just the thoughts-back-in-time transferer).
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Kurogane Communication Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




I’m a fan of the small and relatively unknown company APPP. Nowadays, they’re just busy doing (pretty excellent) inbetween animation for all sorts of series, but ten years ago they actually made their own array of series. Those series stood out because of their simple, yet very imaginative and original premises. Premises that include a runaway hospital bed, an angel and a devil caught in the same body, and yes. They were also the ones who went with the premise of a show focusing on a middle aged guy saving the universe with hard rock. They showed that you can create so many interesting stories without relay trying hard, if you’re just willing to just ignore conventions.

Kurogane Communication is the same: it’s premise is so deceptively simple: we have a girl who is the last living human on earth. There’s so much interesting stuff you can get out of that. The animation is simple, the budget is small, the story moves slowly and it doesn’t try to build up an overly complicated plot. We never really know exactly why humanity nearly died out beyond a few hints here and there. It’s really trying to be simple, yet engaging. And to me, it succeeded.

This series takes an in-depth look at loneliness. Haruka, the lead character, may live together with a bunch of robots, and while this is a series where robots can act just like humans, there still is something missing. The relationship she develops with them as she tries to live her daily life is the highlight of the series, especially with the robot who eventually takes up the position of a mother figure in her life. This show really takes a look at the nature of robots, even if they were to get enough artificial intelligence to become as smart as humans, and what it means to be alive. It’s definitely a unique little series (the episodes are also just 12 minutes long each).

Also helping are a top notch portrayal of the lead character, Haruka: she’s well acted and is a great lead character to follow. As for the rest of the cast, there is a bit of a catch here: they’re nearly all robots with various levels of artificial intelligence. The dumber ones can get on your nerves, but the creators did this intentionally, and over time their purpose in the series will become more than clear. The smart robots by the way are all great to follow.

It’s overall a heart-warming series that makes great use of its bleak themes. The storyline that pops up in the second half does come across as forced here and there, but it has good points that it wants to make, and it ends with a satisfying conclusion. The production values behind this one are low, so there are quite a number of distorted frames and the animation certainly does not look as good as APPP’s other series, but this is a series with its heart at the right place. If you want to watch a calming series that’s something different from usual, then this is an interesting recommendation.

Storytelling: 8/10 – At times it does get a bit forced, but it’s well paced, quiet, and interesting.
Characters: 9/10 – The strength of the characters lies in their simplicity, and how it still can create memorable relationships between them.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Simple and low-budget, but the great art and soundtrack are enough to not make this one a major flaw.
Setting: 8/10 – The premise of this show is pure gold. Simple, but so effective, and it shows that creativity is far from ran out. It’s deliberately vague on its details, and that gives it a very interesting effect.

Suggestions:
– Uninhabited Planet Survive
– Black Heaven
– Omoshi Magical Theatre Risky Safety

Natsume Yuujin-Chou – 34

by psgels, posted in Natsume Yuujin-Chou



Yeah, with this I remember again why I found the episodic episodes of Natsume Yuujinchou to be better than the arcs. It wasn’t that the arcs were flawed or anything. But the episodic stories were just that good. The drama is written so wonderfully in a way that only very few series can match. They’re so tranquil, yet incredibly heart-warming, and this episode yet again improved on it, and quite possibly was the most heart-warming episode of the third season so far.

I loved it that the fox spirit returned. And even there, the creators handled it wonderfully, just having Natsume meet him for a small, but very emotional moment. The rest of the episode was dedicated to show how he’s changed (it’s been a year since!), and to establish how he’s still longing to see Natsume again. The concept of time for youkai was really big here again, where they live for huge amounts of time, yet their lives consists out of long bursts of silence, with several short moments of activity inbetween. The watch was a great way to symbolize things.

On top of that though, I also love the things that the characters did in the slice of life part of this episode. For Natsume to go on a weekend trip with his foster father for a pottery master class. That’s really creative, and it really feels like a new experience for Natsume. Madara was also wonderful in trying to rest while waiting for his wounds to heal: he really looked in pain and disabled, rather than what you usually see where people can just walk around perfectly fine with a few bandages on.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Ikoku Meiro no Croisée – 08

by psgels, posted in Ikoku Meiro no Croisée



We’re now really getting down to the characters. This episode had a lot less cultural differences, but instead it spent a lot of attention on giving its characters some depth. And it looks like that this wasn’t even the background episode (that’s for next week).

The talk between Claude and Camille started off okay, but it all was rather predictable. As it went on though, that air of predictability vanished. There seems to be something interesting behind their break-up, though when this episode really got going was when Camille started talking with Yune. Comparing the way both think of him was an excellent touch. In fact, this episode really shined because of how it underlined the differences and similarities between the different characters. I talked down on Alice when we first saw her, but she really turned out much better than expected.

Overall, Sato Junichi is going to be one of the most interesting creators of the second half of 2011, due to his involvement in three different series. Two of which original. Ikoku Meiro no Croisee will probably have more drama than Tamayura, but I’m still really interested in how it’s going to treat its story: we will have one of the first actual slice of life original stories since ages (not dramas like Anohana or Hana-Saku Iroha, but actual slice of life). It’s a genre I tend to dislike because of repetition and no incentive for the characters to really show their characters off, but if anyone can do the genre justice, it’s him. And then there’s going to be Phi Brain, in which we finally get to see him outside of this genre again, where he’s even better.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Which Autumn Series do you want me to Blog?

by psgels, posted in Special Articles

Okay. It’s time again for a contest that I hold every year before the start of the Autumn Season: you all nominate one series, and I’m going to force myself to weekly blog that series no matter what. This is your chance to make sure that I blog a certain series, orforce me to cover a series that I normally wouldn’t even think about. It’s all up to you!

Last year I used a survey for it, but in the end that was a bit too much of a hassle to keep up with, so I’m going back to the method I used before, using comments. I’m not going to use a poll, because I want this contest to be amongst my readers. Not random people who just click every poll they happen to stumble upon. Here are the concrete rules:

– To make a valid vote, drop a comment leaving your selection. You can select up to two series from the upcoming Autumn season.
– The anime with the most amount of votes in the end will be blogged for at least 12 or 13 episodes.
– Here is a list of all of the series that are applicable for this contest.
– The poll will end at September 30, 23:59 GMT. All votes that arrive after that will be ignored.

Results will be posted on this topic, though don’t expect me to be as up to date as I used to be during previous years.

Here are the results so far:

Persona 4 – 52
Kimi to Boku – 46
Guilty Crown – 45
Mirai Nikki – 37
Chihayafuru – 28
Shakugan no Shana 3 – 24
Last Exile – Ginkyou no Fam – 25
Fate/Zero – 27
Bakuman 2 – 19
Hunter X Hunter – 22
Un-Go – 27
Tamayura Hitotose – 11
C3 – 13
Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukinai – 10
Lupin III – 9
Working’!! – 5
Phi Brain – 16
Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon – 4
Ika Musume 2 – 3
Cross Fight Bedaman – 2
Gundam AGE – 5
Shumanchu MiRiKa – 1
Mashiro-Iro Symphony – 2
Ben-To – 4
Maji de Watashi ni Koishinasai – 1

Redline Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




Aah, apologies for the delay, I’ve been really busy for the past weeks with all kinds of appointments. I finally got the chance to check out what pretty much is the single most anticipated movie of 2011: Madhouse worked for seven years on this thing. They put their top animators on the project (to the point where its production schedule even ruined that of Iron Man’s). So, did it live up to its hype?

Well, let’s get the following out of the way first: while it perhaps did not have the best animation I’ve ever seen, I will say that it’s without a doubt within the top 10 of best animated anime of all time. Possibly even the top 5. The thing with this movie isn’t just that it has unique designs: every single shot is imaginative, and the amount of shots with really fluent animation that has characters moving in all kinds of interesting ways is amazing. This could only have been done with a tremendous budget, and they make the eye candy within this movie virtually limitless. You have the over the top action scenes, but even the quiet scenes look absolutely gorgeous due to the amount of subtle movements that are in them. The best parts was the part by Shinya Ohira: they actually gave him full freedom in creating a truly gorgeous scene.

So, the visuals are absolutely amazing. But what about the rest of the movie? Well, the setting is really imaginative, plus the entire concept of basing your movie round a race also isn’t something we’ve seen in a long while. This movie found an interesting way to still have a ton of explosions and over the top action scenes, and the amount of ideas that has been put into this movie is very commendable.

The weakest part is probably the characterization: it just isn’t as good as most of the other top movies out there, and doesn’t really seem to focus on them anyway. The characters are all interesting and likable, the main characters have a neat and down to earth backstory, but beyond that there is little that sets them apart: the cast of this movie is just too large and there are too many side-characters who are just uninteresting and seriously were in need of more depth. This is the most noticeable with the bad guys: nearly all of them are just random one-sided goons.

The ending is indeed predictable, but I didn’t find that a major issue. The build-up of the climax of this movie was excellent, and I really liked the ending for how it stayed true to itself, and how it didn’t pretend to be anything more than what it was, while at the same time having a number of interesting stories behind it. It’s a well balanced movie that knows when to pack some action, and when to just be quiet and let itself build up.

When you go into this, don’t expect the best movie ever, because it isn’t. It remains a really good movie though, and if it’s a visual orgasm you want, you really can’t go wrong here.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Simple story, but effective execution and balancing, with over the top action scenes that work.
Characters: 7/10 – I expected more of this. They just are too one-sided and there are too many one-dimensional characters.
Production-Values: 10/10 – Incredibly high budget, tons and tons of eye candy and fluid animation.
Setting: 9/10 – A ton of neat ideas were put into this, and the premise is simple, yet works really well.

Suggestions:
– Macross Frontier – Itsuwari no Utahime
– Trigun – Badlands Rumble
– Trava – Fist Planet

Hana-Saku Iroha – 21

by psgels, posted in Hana-Saku Iroha



I’m sorry for doubting the ending of this series. I should have known: writing good drama is what this series is best at, and this episode wasted no time: we’ve finally gotten to the finale of this series and so every moment of it should count.

So yeah, last week I said that this show has the tendency to completely ignore certain subplots, only to randomly make them appear later on. And guess what? It pulled that again. We don’t see Enishi and Takako for a few episodes, and WHAM: they’re suddenly getting married. I did not see that coming.

What I did see coming was that finally the love triangle would start moving again. The way in which it happened though… I have to praise the creators for it when Tohru just said so many things he shouldn’t have said. Minko was finally pushing herself to get closer to him, and then he starts to praise Ohana for all the things she’s done, right in front of her.

The wedding planning by the way also was great. There was some great tension between Enishi and Takako about the costs of the wedding after Ohana’s grandmother forced them to hold a ceremony. They’re a bit of a strange couple, but that makes it all the more worthwhile (after all, how often do we get to see actual marriages in anime?). It wasn’t romantic, but it did feel very genuine.

The biggest WTF was the cliff-hanger though. You’re forcing us to wait a full week after THAT?!
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Summer 2011 Kaleidoscope – Week 33

by psgels, posted in Summer 2011 Kaleidoscope


Blade – 08
Okay. That was one mid-boss that I didn’t see coming. With this, I’m sure: on top of having the best characters out of the Marvel-series, Blade also has the best story.

Sket Dance – 20
I’m… not sure what to think of this episode. You see, my opinion of this series has gone down during the second half; it just isn’t as funny as it used to be, and more and more jokes fall flat or just don’t work. And here this episode comes… and it’s entirely devoted to bad jokes. I don’t mean the jokes that are so corny that you’re forced to laugh. No, this episode was entirely about either jokes that fall flat, or jokes that are so ridiculously obscure that on a few people who know the context will get it. The subbers also completely missed the point of this episode by trying to explain them. But yeah: listening to jokes falling flat over and over remains annoying, whether they’re tongue in the cheek or not doesn’t matter here.
Rating: * (Good, but very annoying))

Gyakkyou Burai Kaiji – 46
And this is the point where this show is starting to drag on again for me. This really reminds me of the first season again, in the arc where Kaiji’s ears were on the line and things took absolutely forever to move on. This episode… did not really know what it should talk about while waiting for Kaiji to run out of nearly all of his balls (so that it can really ramp up the tension next episode) and just started to repeat the same thing over and over again. Especially that narrator was guilty of that. The background on Ichijou was nice, but didn’t really fit well at this stage. Oh, and the creators are trying too hard with the old guy. Being insane is nice and all, but those antics serve no purpose and distract from what’s really important here: defeating that damn bog.
Rating: (Enjoyable)

Dantalian no Shoka – 06
This episode was… strange. Not only did the main characters make no appearance whatsoever, they were replaced by a priest like figure and a girl with the worst fashion sense imaginable. Normally I just use that as an insult against shows who give their characters overly complicated outfits, but this girl actually walks around in a straitjacket. In any case, what I like about Dantalian is how its mysteries are always incredibly far-fetched, yet imaginative. This episode was no exception and it came together really nicely at the end. The town it all placed in also was really well designed, and I don’t just mean the live action-like buildings that were used: the entire scenery and city lay-out just looked unique.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Usagi Drop – 07
This episode started a bit out of place when it was suddenly revealed that Haruko has relationship problems and ran away from home, and for about four minutes this suddenly turns into a romantic comedy. Daikichi’s acting also felt a bit unnatural and overall it felt a bit weird. And then this episode just made up for it with a terrific analysis of Haruka’s character. This show is about raising a child as a single parent, and this time it took a look at the cases where being a single parent is just impossible: housewifes. Haruka really feels like she made the wrong decisions during her twenties, even though she kept looking to the future. The thing however remains that the creators used Haruka’s character to prove a point they wanted to make, instead of doing it the other way around. Because this show is so realistic, this does stand out.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Ao no Exorcist – 19

by psgels, posted in Ao no Exorcist



Yeah, if this was indeed anime original like I’m suspecting, then it definitely was the best anime original episode so far. This really allowed the characters to shine, and it had really nothing to do with the main plot. It just showed the characters having fun and preparing a surprise birthday party for one of the side-characters. But you know what? That’s all this series needs right now.

Instead of the forced and cheesy drama from last episode, here the drama was really genuine. Birthdays are very personal and we learned a lot of new stuff about the cast. Especially Rin and Yukio’s image of a birthday cake was hilarious, but there were plenty of laugh-out loud moments in this episode and it as all around enjoyable to watch. The drama was subtle, and there even was a good aftermath to the disappointing previous episode (of course Konekomaru would still be a bit cautious around Rin after what happened there).

The big problem right now is that I don’t care about the main storyline anymore. Plot? who cares about that plot? Just fill the rest of the episodes with more episodes like this that just show the characters having fun with each other. There’s no way for Satan to become a good villain at this point. Why should we care about that evil teacher? And Yukio’s health is just forced beyond belief. It’s going to make for a ridiculously cheesy and predictable ending at this rate. So what if things don’t get resolved. Let’s just assume that after six years of training the protagonists become good enough to take on Satan. It’s better than the direction where the show is currently heading at.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Tiger & Bunny – 21

by psgels, posted in Tiger & Bunny



Okay, so Maverick’s plan myay have holes, but it’s damn fun to watch it unfold. It’s bold and imaginative, and yet not completely stupid or overly complicated, and Tiger is really going to have to put in effort in cleaning his name. This episode was wonderful in showing his confusion in trying to figure out what the hell happened. He had no reason to doubt Maverick until it really became obvious what was going on through that news broadcast, so he was constantly trying to figure out what the heck happened. His acting was excellent throughout this entire episode.

Oh, and Kaede also stole the show in this episode. She really showed a different side of hers in this episode, and I loved the way she reacted to Kotetsu’s real identity. Now, furthermore: the creators introduced her powers for a reason, meaning that she’s not simply going to play the role of hostage. I’m really looking forward to seeing how she’ll end up getting used.

Now, the big challenge for the creators will be to convincingly return everyone’s memories. We’ve already seen how Maverick’s powers work: they malfunction when they start to believe something that contradicts their fake memories. Barnaby really believed that Jake didn’t murder his parents after Kriem’s confession and the fact that there was no Ouroboros sign on Jake’s hand. In other words: this really will be up to the scriptwriters. They have to take the current cast of heroes, and make us believe that they believe that Kotetsu (a complete stranger in their minds) isn’t a murderer. This can VERY EASILY lapse into cheese.

Oh, and on hindsight, I also want to praise the creators for the use of the red herring of Dorothy. It both was a great way to give character to Sky High, explain what Barnaby’s parents were doing, and reference back to The Big O (a uniquely great but underrated series). Sunrise, I’m really glad that you’re going back to the habit you seemingly abandoned five years ago, releasing all kinds of interesting and original premises. Here once again we have a show that worked out amazingly.
Rating: ** (Excellent)