Author: psgels

Supernatural The Animation – 18

by psgels, posted in Supernatural The Animation



Now talk about an amazing aftermath here. The previous episode did it with a flashback, now this episode takes an in-depth look at making a pact with a demon. It’s all about Dean getting over John’s death, and I’m very impressed at how they did it. It’s not just “angst angst angst”, but it also ask the question: “what if there was a way to sell your soul to the devil to bring him back again?”

There is some repetition again (here we have yet another guy who sells his soul to the devil to save a loved one), but I have to say that when looking at these cases overall, they actually discuss quite a number of different cases. It’s very dangerous to try and pull things like these off due to the big potential of repeating yourself and all, but this show did this pretty well. The creators really made sure to make all of these cases relate to John’s sacrifice.

Interestingly, this episode showed that demons can also terminate their own contracts. It wasn’t shown whether or not the woman in this story survived or not, but this also means that in theory the yellow eyed demon can also be blackmailed into releasing John. I hope that the creators handle this rather tacky situation carefully in order not to ruin these past number of episodes.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Steins;Gate – 03

by psgels, posted in Steins;Gate



Hacking in anime is plugging in your PC, randomly typing stuff, doing some magic mumbo jumbo and being able to completely overtake other systems, even when these are completely unconnected from the outside. Because of that I’m really glad to see that we finally have a show who at least somewhat understands the concepts of SQL Injection. Hacking into CERN (not SERN!) is indeed stretching it a bit, but hey, this show is more grounded in reality than the vast majority of other series.

In any case it’s great to see a series so heavily based on dialogue again. And I don’t mean the crappy kind of dialogue like with Oretsuba, but it’s really quite interesting and well researched and I really like how it’s already gotten pretty in-depth into its subject with only 3 episodes. It’s been a while since we’ve seen series with dialogue as complex as Steins;Gate and Hyouge Mono and it’s great to see creators attempting these kinds of series again.

On a side-note: that girl with that hat just keeps reminding me of Kobato, even considering that they’ve got the same voice actress. I just keep having to remind myself that their characters are completely different whenever she opens her mouth. I wouldn’t call this a flaw, though it’s still a bit unnerving. Instead the most annoying parts of this show are whenever the characters start talking about perverts and fanservice. It just feels out of place and detracts from the interesting stuff.

It’s also interesting how this show is well researched, but at the same time takes its liberties here and there in the small details. For example, the original John Titor claimed that he needed an IBM 5100 (not IBN 5100) in order to use it as a reference to fix various legacy bugs in some computer programs, hinting at the 2038 problem (similar to the Y2K problem, this will happen when the Unix Time runs out of possible values). As a computer scientist I have to laugh at how little sense that makes. In Steins;Gate however, this reason was changed by making the computer language BASIC (one of the first programming languages ever that found widespread use) younger than that PC, meaning that its software talks to its hardware in a completely different way; not based on really complicated standards to give it widespread appeal. I still have no idea how that could have helped him, but I’m impressed nonetheless.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Supernatural The Animation – 17

by psgels, posted in Supernatural The Animation



Whoa, even more background! Seriously, at how many different ages have we seen our characters by now? Apart from Sam’s teenaged years, we’ve pretty much gotten through the entire spectrum of these characters at this point, and it’s really starting to pay off now. And even though we don’t get to see these ten years, you can really start to see now how these characters evolved throughout time. I’d like to applaud this show for that.

I’ve got one more point of criticism though. It’s a bit nit-picky, but it really has gotten to my attention that any cute girl who Sam and Dean meet, ends up possessed by the devil. I mean, I know that that yellow eyed demon is very prolific in creating his servants and all, but if it wasn’t for the Kappa episode there hardly would have been anyone good-natured left who didn’t just act as a random victim during these past number of episodes. And even the guys from the Kappa episode were murdered in the end. Let’s see whether the remaining episodes can bring some variety in this area, because this show certainly showed that it knows how to keep other aspects varied.

Also, the major plot point that the previous episodes have been hinting at for a while now was revealed in this episode: Sam has huge powers and apparently is going to end up destroying the world. Obviously development is necessary to not make a cheese-ball out of that, but with the past number of episodes as an indication that should be no problem. The moose scene in any case did its job really well and made quite an impact.

As for the stiff acting, this pretty much turned out like Rainbow did: the story is more than good enough, and the development of the characters has actually made up for it. Now, this show perhaps is not as intense as Rainbow was, but then again the acting also wasn’t as bad as in Rainbow’s early parts.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Supernatural The Animation – 16

by psgels, posted in Supernatural The Animation



Wow, what an episode! This is why I love the “first half episodic, second half story”-type of series: they may take a while longer to get to their point, but whenever they get to it they can really do some amazing stuff. This episode was chock full of character development, which got even better due to the build-up that the first half of this season brought in.

This was an excellent case of taking a cliche and pulling it off so well that it doesn’t matter that it’s been done before: there definitely was no lack of creativity in this episode here. John really made a conscious, and a very well grounded one. It’s the same decision that many others in this series have made as well; it totally fits into place. His repentance at the end, after all of the time that Sam and Dean spent yelling at him was excellent. Unfortunately, this also means that my favourite character of this show is gone now…

On top of that, Dean’s out of body experience and him going against the grim reaper was awesome too. Especially considering how it wasn’t some sort of simple-minded monster or silly parody of it. That reaper made it very clear that unless something would be done, Dean would have died. It wasn’t the most eventful episode, but the wait to see what would end up causing Dean to get out of his coma was more than enough to build up an amazing tension.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Supernatural The Animation – 15

by psgels, posted in Supernatural The Animation



Whoa, it’s now really time for the main storyline! And holy crap, talk about being brutal. This episode pulled some pretty nasty stuff on the main characters. This was quite an intense episode especially considering all of the developments that were made on the characters.

Throughout this entire episode, you could see hints that would usually point at a character being about to die (Sam and Dean’s father in this case), and yet he ended up surviving this episode, building even further upon the point that Sam made that killing father was not worth killing the demon. At the same time though, I do wonder why that demon took his time on trying to get that Colt. I mean, even if he didn’t want Sam to die, you’d think that he’d be easily able to just kick Sam and forcibly take the colt from him, seeing as it’s the only weapon that can kill him and all.

By the way, is introducing your girlfriend to your parents such a big deal in America? As in, is that an immediate sign of marriage? Isn’t that a bit extreme here? That twist in which the demon killed Jessica just as she planned that, does add a bit of cheese, but this episode had enough other stuff to make up for it. There was quite a bit of character development in this episode and considering how there still are quite a number of episodes left we’re in something really good here.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

OVA Impressions: Yozakura Quartet Hoshi no Umi – 02

by psgels, posted in OVA Impressions, Yozakura Quartet - Hoshi no Umi




Yes. This is EVERYTHING that the original Yozakura Quartet TV-series should have been. Holy crap, talk about amazing action here. This was quite possibly the best action of this year so far. The dynamics and animation are… just totally something else. The fight against the giant golem in particular was just absolutely stunning. It’s not just the awesome animation, but also the creativity that went into it. I mean, how many others have characters summon a legion of stealth fighters from out of nowhere?

The direction really does wonders at bringing the cast alive. They’re all fun to watch, even outside of the action and this episode did not forget to insert some nice drama. Standalone it perhaps wasn’t that spectacular, but the way in which it was delivered worked out really well. The cast of this OVA is surprisingly large, but this show even makes the characters that it doesn’t spend any attention on stand out.

My one point of criticism is that sometimes the dialogue feels a bit uninspired. During the fight the characters just kept talking about special powers and who is stronger than who. I feel like there they could have tried a little harder but then again, the simple dialogue also has its charms.

And thankfully, there will be at least a third OVA in about half a year. Let’s hope that there will be more others to follow after that, because this show deserves a lot of airtime in order to fully tell its story.
OVA Episode Rating: 8,75/10

Supernatural The Animation – 14

by psgels, posted in Supernatural The Animation



Scriptwriting 101: if you’re planning to make a major character return to the main story, don’t name the episode in which this happens “Reunion”. It rather gives some major things away, doesn’t it?

so yeah, this episode was full of recurring characters, so even after that spoiler it still was quite interesting to see not just Sam and Dean’s father return, but also the vampires of a number of episodes back. This episode was surprisingly cold, considering that it was based on the long-awaited reunion that has been built up for thirteen episodes now, but then again:: this guy did leave the two brothers without any hint of what he was doing. It’s good to see that in this episode he finally becomes willing to share his information, rather than be all mysterious.

The story of this episode was fairly straightforward, actually, but it already was disturbing enough on its own. The thing is though, that it’s pretty much a copy of that other story, about the mother who sold her soul to the devil. Was this a red herring or something? Foreshadowing?
Rating: * (Good)

Hana-Saku Iroha – 03

by psgels, posted in Hana-Saku Iroha



True Tears was a show that just kept you guessing. Whenever something major happened, you never were sure whether things were what they seemed. In Hana-Saku Iroha however, things are exactly what they seem. I know that Mari Okada wrote both of them, but the two shows had completely different directors, and yeah, that really showed in this episode. Talk about something completely different.

“Out of place” is the best way to describe this episode. To think that the creators would actually take the porn novelist seriously. The most surreal part was where Ohana started reading some of his work and started relating to a silly porn script (it’s good to see a girl to not act so stereotypically embarrassed like with a ton of other anime, but going too far into the other direction also leads to questionable acting…), but that suicide attempt of that novelist also was just plain weird.

Whether this episode was good or bad depends pretty much on the rest of this series. This is a show of 26 episodes and with the right amount of development this could be a neat way to flesh out the characters and show something new of them. It’s definitely good that this show tries to be different, but at the moment though, it felt like the majority of the cast was just acting out of character in this episode.
Rating: (Enjoyable)

Tiger & Bunny – 03

by psgels, posted in Tiger & Bunny



Three episodes in and I must say that this series is making good use of its time. The past two episodes have put some good effort into developing the dynamics between the two lead characters and didn’t make them as cliched as they could have been. The previous episode was meant to set everything up, while in this episode they’re already changing. This holds great potential for the rest of this series.

The same goes for the setting: instead of doing random crimes each week, the creators make sure to make all of them count. The monsters and villains perhaps aren’t the most complex, but they each do their job of focusing on a different part of the setting. In this episode it was the boundaries of film crews, and how far people can go to capture exciting footage. I loved the twinkle in that director’s eye when she saw this opportunity to film two heroes diffusing a bomb in their spare time

As for the CG in this series, it’s obvious that the creators did not put in effort to make them blend in with the rest of the animation, but at least the creators are consistent: characters drawn in 2D area always in 2D, and 3D always remains in 3D. This is better than having animators randomly switch to 3D models that suddenly look completely different. Plus, the rest of the animation has quite a bit of movement in it, so for now I’m not too bothered by it. I’ve definitely seen worse.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Some Quick First Impressions: Ao no Exorcist and Deadman Wonderland

by psgels, posted in Ao no Exorcist, Deadman Wonderland, Some Quick First Impressions

Ao no Exorcist

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is the son of a demon.
So, this turned out to be Shikabane Hime without its subtlety and without the girls. It’s definitely very shounen, even for the usual standards of the Prime Time Anime of the season, but it definitely has its good points. While it’s definitely aiming to be the epic of the season, it also can be quite charming when it wants to (that scene with the little girl and her father in particular was done really well). The characterization is also pretty good as well: the lead character looked like a moron on the promo art, but he’s surprisingly normal throughout most of this episode. That of course also has its disadvantages, most notably the way in which this episode started with him meaning well, but causing trouble at everything he does. Those kinds of scenarios are really getting old now, but at least this episode put more meaning into those scenes than just wasting time or going for cheap laughs. Oh, and the good news is that according to ANN, this will be 24 episodes. That’s definitely good news because 12 would not have fitted this story.
ED: I like the concept of a car driving across a highway, but the vocals remain cheesy.
Potential: 75%

Deadman Wonderland

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is sent to prison for a bunch of murders he didn’t commit.
Okay, we’ve found our horror seriers of the season. Seriously, that was intense. The majority of this episode was pretty much nothing but the creators doing everything in their powers to torment an innocent fourteen year-old boy. This definitely wastes no punches; heck, it delves into the bizarre, just to be as disturbing as possible. This show is definitely not trying to build up suspense of disbelief, which could hurt it in the longer run. The prison that the lead character ends up in in particular is just completely crazy, based around some rules that would normally cause a complete outrage and I can only imagine the deranged sociopaths that actually created it. But at the same time that’s also one of the potential strengths of this show. It may not have an ounce of subtlety, but this episode definitely was very creative. It has both huge flaws and huge strengths, so this really can go anywhere. Provided, of course, that twelve episodes are enough. the length will probably be the single biggest pitfall for this series.
ED: Unfortunately this is just a boring composition. Does not fit the dark mood of this show at all.
Potential: 80%