Author: psgels

Hana-Saku Iroha – 08

by psgels, posted in Hana-Saku Iroha



Ooh, this episode was very good! It probably even was the best episode since episode 2, but at the same time it still was nothing like these first two episodes. The key of this episode was suddenly getting a lot of customers to book a room at the same day while three of the staff members were either sick or had a day off. The stress in keeping things running and the build-up of this were really well done here.

On top of that, the added chaos also showed different sides of everyone, and nearly everyone was enjoyable to watch. The only one who wasn’t was that Takako-woman, but she served her purpose in making things even more hectic by focusing on the mystery guests. This is the pace that this series needs to keep up.

This episode was forced, though. It’s one thing for Grandmother to collapse on such a busy day, but Kou also just had the perfect timing. Not to mention that this set-up was perfect again for fueling the Tohru love triangle that I never really was a fan of. That’s one thing that this series still needs to convince me that it’s going to be worth the build-up.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Tiger & Bunny – 08

by psgels, posted in Tiger & Bunny



This episode really took me by surprise at how good it was, and it did that multiple times, actually. I mean, holy crap, this episode just kept throwing twists and turns, and even the mood just kept changing throughout the episode. You’ll never know what this show will focus on next. This time, we’ve gotten ourselves an Origami episode.

I love how Origami turned out to be completely different from his Superhero persona. Before this, he always stayed in the shadows, but he seemed like another quirky guy, but it was almost cute to see what kind of a pessimist he actually was, on top of being the worst ranked superhero out there (also subverting another cliche of the lead character either being the best, semi-best or worst out there). On top of that, this episode also gave a different meaning to Lunatic by having him mot kill some random stranger, but instead an old friend of Origami (that guy also got some interesting development despite only appearing in one episode, by the way).

The parts at the superhero academy had me in stitches. This episode indeed confirmed that it’s difficult to become a superhero like that, but I did not expect to see these incredibly stupid and pointless powers out there, from being able to stretch out facial skin to sweating really badly. In a way, it does make sense: if people are born randomly with useful powers like in Tiger’s case, there also will be probably even more people born with pointless powers that are only good for a novelty act. Heck, Origami’s powers are completely different from what I expected: his powers are mostly just useless in this kind of setting. He should have been a secret agent or something.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Ao no Exorcist – 06

by psgels, posted in Ao no Exorcist



I really like it when a show packs variety, both in the short and the long run. Having said that though, this episode was just a bad idea entirely.

I mean… what was that? I encourage this series to try something different for a while, with its cliches and all, and I understand what this episode was trying to do. Heck, the only thing I liked about this episode is how it showed Rin’s passion for cooking. That’s fine, and a good way to make him more than your average shounen lead. But couldn’t they really have picked a better way to show this?

This entire episode was just lacklustre. The whole concept of the headmaster summoning a demon to secretly do the cooking for the two brothers just makes no sense, especially considering that Rin can cook for himself. And on top of that this episode also for some reason introduced these cardboard boxes of fangirls who wanted to make lunches for Yukio. There was so much wrong with this episode, from the headmaster summoning a demon who cooks his own students to Rin who just wouldn’t stop screaming in this episode. Even for his standards, this got annoying.

Here’s the thing: Hana-Saku Iroha’s third episode in comparison also was just weird and out of place, but it still retained the charms of its series: the characters were still interesting to watch despite its questionable subject material. Ao no Exorcist’s charms are that it takes the shounen formula and executes it well. Nothing of that remained in this episode.
Rating: — (Lacking)

Colorful Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




Ah, Ascension: the new promising production company, spawned apparently from Sunrise. I originally thought that Kizuna Ichigeki from the Young Animator Training Project was their debut, but as it turns out their first work is the movie Colorful. After this, they stand out even more as a force to be reckoned with, because here they actually got themselves a number of good writers.

Colorful is a slice of life movie. This is a crowded genre at the moment, but it holds itself up very nicely. It’s perhaps not the best, but the character development is definitely worth it. It doesn’t follow the formula of “first half slice of life second half drama”, but instead it blends in both parts very nicely, taking the time to slowly show his character in his every day life, along with the problems he has and how he develops. The drama is good and quite genuine at times as well.

Kou Outani developed a solid soundtrack, and the animation is also simple, but detailed: not the best for a movie, but there is still quite a nice amount of movement. Characters move life-like, and the animation and voice actors succeed pretty well in portraying the characters throughout the movie. It does have a number of flaws that prevent it from being a great movie, though.

This movie was directed by the same guy who directed Kappa to Coo to Natsuyasumi, and pretty much suffers from the same problem in that it perhaps does not make the best use of its time. It’s the build-up that leaves things to be desired and feels incomplete at times, which prevents the drama from really reaching great heights.

Second of all, and this is a complaint that I’ve seen mentioned by some others already: the ending is… a bit of a downer ending. It’s not like it’s rushed or anything, and neither is it a plothole ending, but it’s the kind of ending that tries to shove its messages down the viewers throats, and they weren’t messages that I personally agree with. For the sake of spoilers I’ll only say that this movie does not use its premise well enough. Beyond that though, it’s a very solid movie that’s worth the watch if you’re into slice of life dramas.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Really well written dialogue, but misses something in terms of building up.
Characters: 9/10 – Excellent and life-like portrayal and development.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Nothing special for movie standards, but the animation remains impressively detailed. Especially the background art is consistently great.
Setting: 8/10 – Don’t watch this movie for its premise; watch it for its characters and how they fit into their daily lives.

Suggestions:
– Junkers Come Here
– Whisper of the Heart
– Kappa to Coo to Natsuyasumi

X-Men – 07

by psgels, posted in X-Men



With this episode, this show proved that Madhouse’s Marvel Franchise isn’t going to be purely about action. The talk between Scott and Emma? That was some good drama there, and it had nothing to do with action.On top of that, there was this entire air of mystery around this episode that made all the build-up really intriguing. That’s what build-up episodes should be: they’re mandatory for good storytelling, but at the same time they do not need to break the mood. This episode instead just changed the mood, and I’m glad to see that it worked out well.

At the moment, there are two major pitfalls right now for this series. The first is its bad guy problem: they’re all boring and uninteresting. The two minions that were introduced in this episode? Who are they? The major bad guy? Why should I care about him? The sole salvation for this series at this point will be for them to turn that Sasaki teacher into a bad guy: this episode turned her into the by far most interesting villain here, her co-workers included. With an episode named “betrayal”, there were enough hints that the creators are actually planning this. Heck, screw the rest of the bad guys. Focus more on these guys!

Also, this episode confirmed my fears: Hisako is turning into a walking plot device. It also doesn’t really help her case that she has by far the worst voice actress of the entire series, but it’s also the way in which her only purpose in this episode was to prepare for her to run into Sasaki in the next episode. I still find it strange for the X-Men, who take care of who knows how many mutant children, would just insert her into the X-Men like that.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Gosick – 18

by psgels, posted in Gosick



I must admit: this episode rocks for blending in another mystery, right after previous one ended. It was subtly built up for during the previous episodes by setting up the right people at the right places, and delivered a great storyline that I did not see coming at this point, after such a major episode. This episode was clearly rushed, but heck: we’re on a train riding back from a huge flood. This episode nicely went on with this flow.

I’m a big fan of good adventure series, and thank god Gosick finally turned into one. The mysteries here all are interesting, the characters have stopped being annoying (or at least the most annoying characters have been gone in this arc) and the past three episodes just kept throwing interesting twists and turns to the story. Now that’s what I’ve been hoping for! Victorique’s hasty explanation at the end would have been really jarring if she did this at the beginning of the series with another of those lackluster stories of the first half, but right now it’s just a minor inconvenience. Finally this series has this great sense of adventure that’s really enjoyable to watch.

What I also want to praise this show for is for avoiding the hollywood gunpowder syndrome. I do not know enough about gunpowder to say this with certainty, but I’m glad that for once a bullet actually doesn’t make everything it hits explode. The only questionable thing about that scene was really Victorique’s aim, but then again we don’t really know how much experience Kujou has in shooting from a fast-moving platform. It’s still quite unlikely, but then again, when the rest of an episode is this good, things like these don’t really matter. The more mundane and boring an episode is, the more these inconsistencies and plotholes tend to stand out.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Hyouge Mono – 07

by psgels, posted in Hyouge Mono



As opposed to the previous episodes, this episode was much less “out there”, and instead was quiet build up. It again had surprisingly little of Sasuke, even though he’s the main character, and again a lot of time here was spent on the side characters and the setting. For this series a build-up episode like this isn’t nearly as bad as with most other series because a) it has already caught my attention and b) it has more than enough time to get it to pay off.

This episode was well spent in any case as it showed that Sasuke was still young (oh, the irony; in any other anime he’d be of retirement age), but I’m still curious whether or not this series will delve into the “takes forever to go somewhere” syndrome. It avoided this pretty well so far, though: every episode so far has been slow, but incredibly fun. What makes this series fun is its combination of its dialogue and its acting. This episode just had a tad too much dialogue and it’s up to the next episodes to balance this out, because this kind of build-up deserves to be used well.

In either case, this episode especially solidified Akechi Mitsuhide as a character (it’s interesting by the way how this character has shown up in three different series during the past year: Sengoku Basara and Otome are set in the same time, although I still cringe at how poorly Sengoku Otome treated these characters).

Oh, abut I did love that scene at the end where Sasuke gazes upon the wondrous pineapple. It’s a nice reference to the cultural differences at the time, and I can only imagine how a pineapple looks to an aesthete like him.
Rating: * (Good)

Dororon Enma-Kun – Meerameera – 07

by psgels, posted in Spring 2011 Kaleidoscope



Dear Brains Base,

What the HELL have you created here?!

This show is sneaky. I mean, it is written and directed by the director of the crack-fest Hoshi no Umi no Amuri, so I was sort of looking forward to this series. It then commences to have a terrible first episode and an even worse second episode. I nearly gave up on it because of how uninspired those two were. But no. This show waited until the third episode to reveal its true colours. It’s completely bizarre true colours that are wrong on so many levels.

And don’t get me wrong, this IS a fanservice show. But the fanservice is the most bizarre fanservice I’ve ever seen. Stuff like Seikon no Qwaser is just thinly disguised porn. Series as Hoshikaka just use horribly uninspired and forced fanservice as cheap ways to sell dvds. This… is on a completely different level. This show is crazy. It’s absolutely crazy. The fact that it has a character who walks around completely naked save for a hat and a cape is just the tip of the iceberg.

this show is episodic, and beyond the fanservice it also has the craziest ideas to base its episodes around. Episode six was the most surreal by far, having the entire cast bounce around the world chasing a youkai who blows up everyone he touches like a balloon. This episode? You know these scenes where a character tells a bad joke and as the punchline, everyone falls over? This episode turned that into an art form by introducing a youkai who does exactly that. Some of the visual gags based around this were just beyond weird.

After the first episode I really wouldn’t have guessed at all that I’d say this, but I love this show. Sure, the only show that has more fanservice this season is Seikon no Qwaser and all, but I love its limitless energy and creativity that goes with the most creative ideas it can think of, no matter how stupid or wrong. This really is a breath of fresh air compared to the shows that are either just complete porn or just use the same kind of out of place fanservice over and over again.

Also, what also completely surprised me about this series is how good the background music is. I mean, it completely fits with the energy of this series, and actually creates even more energy this way. The songs are all catchy beyond belief and make sure that there hardly is any time to catch a breath. And you know what? It has the composer of Tokyo Godfathers doing the soundtrack, and the same guy will also do the soundtrack for the upcoming Noitamina series No.6. There’s another reason to look forward to that one.

Beyond that, I also chose this week to blog Enma-kun thanks to a very intriguing news item that popped up. If this is what I think it is, then the summer season is looking even better than it already has. For starters, this means that it’s going to break the record for the most amount of TV-series to premiere during one summer season (Anime is dying? Hah!), but more importantly: the director of Utena is finally going to make another series!

It looks childish, just the story of a bunch of penguins. But it all just seems too…strange. First of all you have to wonder why Emna-kun of all things is going to air promos for it (promos that I unfortunately have yet to be able to find), because it airs in the middle of the night; a really weird time to advertise kids’ shows. Second of all, kiddie shows hardly ever introduce themselves like this. In particular the fact that this will be 24 episodes has me intrigued. I could be wrong here, of course. This could be just another show aimed at 3 year olds. But something’s telling me that this show is pulling a Kaiba.
Rating: ** (Excellent, as wrong as it was)

Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Boku-Tachi wa Mada Shiranai. – 06

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



I absolutely love how this show delves into the minds of its characters. This episode yet again had me teared up, and again it’s not just because of one character, but a whole bunch of them. I mean, most series pick one or two characters do develop each episode: this show does this with nearly every character for nearly every episode. Even Yukiatsu and Chiriko, who had a relatively small role in this episode, were great. I especially love how honest Yukiatsu has become.

The real meat of the episode though was about Jinta finally going to school, Naruko suffering through endless gossips about what happened in the previous episode and Menma only worrying about others. With all these, this show has a nice habit of not just showing characters, but it also keeps showing characters telling how they feel about other characters. Whether right or wrong, it’s actually a great way to flesh them out by showing how they seem in the eyes of someone else.

As for Menma, this episode could have given a really big hint as to why Menma is staying behind as a ghost. Running away is a huge concept of this series. The most apparent is of course Jinta, but the rest of the cast also tends to have this. Menma keeps avoiding talking about herself. I mean, did Jinta ever apologize for what he said to her, right before she died? It’s of course not going to be this simple, but I do think that something in that direction is her wish.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

[C] The Money of Soul and Possibility Control – 06

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




This was by far the best episode of C yet, and that’s a great sign, especially considering how this was the point at which Eden of the East started to dull in. It’s here where this series really shows off its messages as a social commentary and I have to say that I really like how thought-provoking this is getting.

With this episode I have finally found something that makes up for the status of the main character as the “destined rookie”: this episode actually made great use of this by having three people with completely different views contact him and try to influence him to join, and they all have their valid points here. Seriously, in terms of background and motives this series is definitely among the best of the season. Based on the first episodes, this is not something that I saw coming.

The guy of this episode had some pretty harsh criticisms to Minuki, and this really seems to be a harsh criticism to modern day Japan’s economy as well. And yet at the same time this show doesn’t pretend that that view is 100% right or wrong, but instead it offers a lot of different view. Mikuni also has a very interesting defence for his actions. The same goes for that woman that contacted him.

Also, the animation of this series has always been choppy. I’ve heard that the creators were hit hard by the earthquake, so I guess that there’s no avoiding it. But holy crap, the fight scene at the ended was animated wonderfully. Kimimaro was bound to win such an outclassed match and all, but the direction and animation there totally made up for that. It was a wonderful climax to an awesome episode.
Rating: *** (Awesome)