Author: psgels

X-Men – 08

by psgels, posted in X-Men




Here’s the thing: after eight episodes, I can pretty much say that X-Men has the best animation of the season. Sure, some of the slice of life series may have more fluidity, but they also are a lot easier to animate and keep consistent. The animation with the X-Men is wild, vivid, colourful and very diverse. C has this too, but at the same time it does have a lot of off-model shots and CG. Tiger & Bunny meanwhile also has the CG working against its otherwise great eye candy. Ao no Exorcist is animated consistently meanwhile, but it instead just looks too mundane too often. The X-Men, while it may not be amongst the Madhouse series with the best visuals, still stands apart with its consistently interesting visuals and excellent character designs. This episode again looked excellent. Perhaps only Nichijou has better animation, but I have seen too little of that to really say something about that.

Overall this turned out to be quite a solid action series: the action kicks ass and appears often, there is intrigue, the characters all have their issues that blend together quit nicely. It’s only the storyline that I’m not yet convinced of: at this point it still feels a bit too random and unconnected. What was the purpose of the U-Men beyond just kidnapping a bunch of people? They really could have used that time to focus more on the characters and real villains.

Apart from that, this episode was really meant to build intrigue, and I’m curious to see whether that will pay off or not. A lot of the series this season are very big on the build up, and most of them are doing a great job on that, though X-Men still feels a bit iffy here. I’ve said before that the main villains here are uninteresting. Wolverine’s ending worked so well because it had a really charismatic villain. What X-Men meanwhile needs to do is build a finale around Sasaki and Xavier on one hand, and Cyclops and Emma Frost on the other hand. It will be much more difficult than just “have battle to defeat the big bad”, although that part definitely must not be half-assed either.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Gosick – 19

by psgels, posted in Gosick



Um. Wow. This might just as well have been the best episode of Gosick yet. This past month has just been absolutely amazing for this series, there’s no way around it. The bad stories? All gone. The annoying characters? Who cares about those? Heck, every episode this month has delivered beyond what I could have ever expected from this series.

Cordelia’s background… holy crap. To think that in the past half year, there have been two series that feature main characters that were pretty much the products of outright rape (for obvious spoiler reasons I’m not going to mention what the other series was, but those who saw it know what I’m talking about). This episode really gave some insights at who Cordellia was, as well as completely prove me wrong in thinking that the red haired guy was supposed to be a villain.

I also love that how in hindsight, the series has been dropping hints and references to this episode over and over. Unfortunately this can’t be said of every arc: the pointless arcs still remain pointless at this point, but the good arcs are surprisingly well tied to each other. And heck, this past month has really made up for the bad arcs of this series. Gosick has turned from a cheap mystery show to an amazingly engaging adventure series. It’s not just Victorique who is awesome: it’s the bond between every character here that just gets better and better.

The only part I did not like about this episode: Bones didn’t have the budget to really animate that dance scene of Cordellia. That’s a bit of a pity.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Boku-Tachi wa Mada Shiranai. – 07

by psgels, posted in Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Boku-Tachi wa Mada Shiranai



This probably is the moe-est show that I’ve ever considered as my favourite of a season. I mean, I have enjoyed teenaged drama romances before and all, but not to the point where they were done this well in such a short time. More than any other series this season, this series really nails the feelings of its lead characters and it continues to push their relationships forward. This episode was slightly special, though: for once it focused especially on Jinta and Menma.

Instead, I can only see this episode as a build-up red herring. That’s nothing bad, by the way. Some of my favourite stories use these red herrings. Rather than pointless, I love it when done well, they are excellent in fleshing out the characters and story, and the same pretty much happened here: the whole rocket story has nothing to do with Menma’s wish and all, but this episode really stressed the bond and the memories that the main characters made with each other.

By the way, it’s great that Noitamina has been pretty much consistently amazing for the past five seasons here: for the past five seasons and eight series since the timeslot turned into an hour long, there pretty much has been an amazingly well written series on, with the best still being Spring 2010. 2010 was overall a mediocre year, but THAT was the best season that Noitamina ever had). Heck, pretty much the only mistake during this period was Fractale. As for Anohana, I’d probably put it somewhere in the bottom of the top 8 of my favourite Noitamina series. Where exactly entirely depends on the ending.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

[C] The Money of Soul and Possibility Control – 07

by psgels, posted in The Money of Soul and Possibility Control



Ah, this episode was exactly what this series needed. This was an episode to look back. It took a break from the different battles, and instead gave two characters the chance to play as the narrator, in order to tell a bit more about themselves. In case of Mikuni, it’s about his past, and in case of Mashu it’s about her feelings. It’s a good chance to take a bit of a step back and focus on these characters in order to solidify the finale of this series, and this episode did that wonderfully. Oh, and it was also a really nice touch to suddenly revisit a past character who seemed like nothing but cannon fodder t the time.

I only have a few minor complaints about this episode. The animation for example wasn’t really up to par, even for this series’ standards. I really wonder what this series would have looked like if the earthquake hadn’t happened, and because of that I do have to admit that despite the creative images, Mononoke, Trapeze and Bake Neko have this one trumped in terms of visuals.

As for the individual stories, the thing with C is that none of its episodes so far have been as bad as the worst episodes of Trapeze, nor have they been as good as the best episodes of Trapeze. In terms of the overall story and characters though, C has definitely been better. Of course, Trapeze did tie itself up really nicely in its final episode, but at this pacing, this series can be able to do the same, only with a much better storyline and characters. At the same time though, the direction will never be as good as it was in Mononoke or Bake Neko. It just lacks the energy, force and timing to really draw you in with its pacing.
Bake Neko was pretty much the perfect short story, and ever since I never saw something of Kenji Nakamura that was good as that one. But his shows have always been very interesting to watch.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Hyouge Mono – 08

by psgels, posted in Hyouge Mono



This show really knows when it needs to be funny and when it needs to be serious here, often combining the two really well. That falcon scene for example was hysterical, but also the start of this episode was just awesome in the way in which it turned into a political bluff-match where Sasuke had to take care of the food for important guests. The pineapple already was nicely used in the previous episode, but this episode really took advantage of these cultural differences.

Beyond that, this also had a lot of build-up, but it was much better done than in the previous episode. The acting brought the characters alive here, even when they were just talking to each other: it wasn’t as emotionless as it was an episode ago. And yet at the same time, while this series is completely different from anything that Bee-Train has ever made before, there is one thing that makes this series perfect for them, and they took advantage of this really well: the conversations, and the use of pauses there. I’m not sure whether the manga had this too, but the timing of this series is impeccable. It’s a hate or love technique of course, but I love how these silences also speak huge parts about what these characters are trying to say to each other, non-verbally.

The animation for this series has been… interesting. I mean, it’s not like this series is consistent, but the key scenes are drawn really well, and actually are very well animated. The characters may not move around the screen much, but when they do move it’s slow, yet surprisingly smooth, and these scenes really manage to stand out.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Showa Monogatari – 07

by psgels, posted in Showa Monogatari



I still think that the EDs for this series are a very nice touch: showing a different classic song from those days really makes this series even more authentic than it already was. It’s one of the few EDs this season that actually tries to add something to its series.

In any case, I really liked this episode. Half of it was about Kouhei, and the other half about Yuuko. Kouhei surprisingly had his best episode so far, which probably had a lot to do with the fact that he wasn’t alone in this episode: his part was about his entire baseball team. The story about bullying was surprisingly well done here, and it was worth seeing all those kids together. As a group, these kids really are a great character here.

Also, it was a nice touch to show an earthquake there. I suspect that this series was talking about the 1964 Niigata Earthquake, of a magnitude of 7.5. Yet again: it’s impressive to see how well the creators are trying to make this series blend in with the actual history, not to mention that it also was a nice touch to show all this through the eyes of a child, who couldn’t grasp the consequences of such a thing yet.

The next two weeks meanwhile will be the remaining two preview episodes, and with this episode everything nicely falls into place. First of all, this episode really shows the events that lead up to Yuuko’s date going wrong. Also, the fact that within two episodes we’re going to skip to the summer holidays really point to the fact that the creators are intending the 1964 Olympics as the finale of this series. A great idea. It’s especially going to be good for Kouhei’s brother: his storyline can’t be wrapped up that quickly, and something tells me that the creators were intending to put more of Yuuko in the first half, and more of him in the second half of this series.

Also, this episode had a slightly different animation style than usual. The drawings were messier, but at the same time there was more movement and the camera angles were much better than usual. I’ve always found that movement and details have a higher priority than consistency, so this is a change that I liked quite a bit. Ideally you’d of course want animation to both have a lot of movement and be crisp at the same time, but Wao World unfortunately doesn’t have the best animators.

On a side-note: that pool! It’s hard to imagine, but were pools in those days always that filthy?
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Steins;Gate – 08

by psgels, posted in Steins;Gate



Oh god. Not the cliff-hangers again?! The end of this episode promises many frustrating weeks of waiting what’s going to happen next. Seriously, the end of this episode made me really hungry to see what happens next.

I loved this episode. It was pretty much nothing but Okarin experimenting with making simple changes to the past, some of which failed and some of which succeeded. The ones that did succeed kept taking things a bit further, though, all in ways that seem pretty strange at first. Why did a simple message to change cell phones prevent that cell phone woman to join Okarin? Or did she change something else and just didn’t show it to people? Also, the idea of using pagers to send messages seventeen years back into the past, on something as vague changing genders.

Also, eight episodes in, and I have to say that I really like the cast. Sure, they have their annoying moments,but they’re very well balanced together, filling in for each others’ flaws. I’m usually not into characters doing random things unless I find the characters interesting, and that’s exactly the case here: even when they’re just shopping for bread, I’m interesting in what these characters are doing. This episode in particular just kept juggling its characters around, showing a bit of all of them.

There’s one thing that just keeps catching my attention though, and that especially stands out while making screenshots: this is one series that doesn’t care about consistency in its drawings. In fact, the entire season is full of distorted faces. Especially in the post-quake era it just shows how difficult it is to consistently make the faces of your characters expressive and believable. The shows that do this the best out of this spring season are Hyouge Mono and Ano Hana, by the way.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

The World God Only Knows – 19

by psgels, posted in Spring 2011 Kaleidoscope



Okay, so I’m going to be covering multiple series this week for this category. People have kept saying over and over that this arc of TWGOK would be something special, and now that I’ve watched it, I do have to say: it was indeed the best arc of the series so far.

Finally, this show bring sin an actually normal girl who is more than just another stereotype come alive. Finally this show actually brings in a boundary between reality and fiction, and finally Keima actually develops. If anything, this episode was refreshing and different, and it was the first major arc since the first episode of the first season that did not feel like a chore. But I do have a few problems with it.

Especially near the end, the girl of this episode turned formulaic again. The whole moral speech-kiss routine actually wasn’t quite different from the other arcs. In fact, every arc has simply ended in the same way. It’s not the first show to do that and things like that can be done well; heck, Jigoku Shoujo turned it into an art and all, but Keima’s moral advice about how she should live… probably was the least interesting part of the entire arc.

That’s just nitpicking, though. The question is: was it worth it sitting through sixteen episodes of mediocrity, just to see this? For that, I unfortunately have to say “no”. I could just as easily have skipped a bunch of arcs, and I wouldn’t have missed anything. The thing is, that at the moment, this series feels like it’s a series where various game characters have escaped into the real world where the main character has to conquer them back, with this arc being the point where he actually has to encounter a real girl. Unlike Gosick, which despite its mediocre episodes did a wonderful job of building up and using this build-up, The World God Only Knows has too little of this to really make me reconsider labelling this as a waste of time. The rest of the series needs to be of at least this calibre for that to happen.

What was up with that Southpark-reference, though? I really noticed that the references this series puts in are… completely random and out of context.
Rating: * (Good)

Denpa-Onna to Seishun Otoko – 06

by psgels, posted in Spring 2011 Kaleidoscope



Aaand thiss is about the point where my patience with Denpa-Onna has run out. I’m going to drop this, but I do want to wrap up my thoughts about this show because it’s not like it started off without any potential. My bias against Shinbo would have dropped this immediately if it sucked completely.

The first three episodes of this show were actually very good. You didn’t know whether there really were aliens and the theories of that cousin were quite interesting to watch. This show was quite dynamic, had good themes, was unpredictable and seemed to have a lot of potential. After that though… this show jumped the shark and pretty much now it tries to stuff material for perhaps 3 or 4 episodes in its nine remaining episodes. The way in which it fills up its extra time is… really annoying.

My big problem here: there has been no good drama for the past four episodes. Instead we get that horny aunt, ditzy classmate and that girl whose only defining trait is that she dresses up in strange costumes. All of them are really annoying. And the main character wasn’t much better. The premise about aliens was nice. Right now however, this show’s themes are just moe pandering:

“Oh no. We have this really cute girl who is completely helpless and mentally challenged and yet everyone in town hates her. The main character is very unfortunate to have to take care of her.” This is nothing but the excuses that moe pandering shows always make, only even worse.

Also, the dialogue has the Bakemonogatari syndrome. It’s not as bad, but that possibly makes it even worse because that means that it stands out even less. There is a lot of dialogue in this series, but in the end, what do these characters really talk about? They just keep repeating themselves over and over again, and they. Just. Won’t. Shut. The hell. Up. This show majorly lacks inspiration to fill its time.

Compare that to Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru: its characters were annoying, but it always had something nice to discuss, the characters were always doing something interesting and it was always trying to be varied. It’s characters like these that were genuine and fun to watch. Denpa-Onna is just annoying, and I’m glad that Shaft is not going to output any new series for the upcoming summer season. Let them put some actual work in making one series, instead of a bunch of mediocre ones.
Rating: – (Disappointing)

Deadman Wonderland – 06

by psgels, posted in Deadman Wonderland



This series is crazy.I mean, this was already apparent and all, but this episode again was just completely out there. This episode was again disturbing and again in a different way than before.

The use of a cute girl for a fourteen year old boy… as if he wasn’t tortured enough already. It’s a good thing that this girl likes to make her victims suffer and all, but that act of hers was great on hindsight. Sure there was fanservice and all, but that was more like functional nude than fanservice. I’m not sure whether the manga had an explanation of why her brother found her at exactly the right time and all, but even then this was a ridiculously intense and crazy episode.

It’s just a shame that the animation in this series wasn’t up to the usual Manglobe standards. Because of that the distorted faces of that girl sometimes became a bit stupid. At the same time though, Ganta cursing his heart out at the end was just awesome.
Rating: ** (Excellent)