Author: psgels

Hyouge Mono – 02

by psgels, posted in Hyouge Mono



Hyouge Mono is by far the most unorthodox show of the season. It does just about everything that you shouldn’t do to get some commercial insurance: it’s full of old guys, there is hardly any moe, and you can’t really call the characters bishies either. There is no action as well, despite this being a series about feudal warfare, and the dialogue is the hardest to understand of the entire season as well.

It’s still a huge shame that receives so little attention, though. No subs whatsoever. Heck, I haven’t even able to find any decent raws of this second episode.And that even though this show has some of the best characterizations of the season, the best soundtrack of the season, and the best lead character of the season. Seriously, if there’s any show that deserves to be watched, it’s this one, for taking so many risks.

What’s also funny is that in a medium as anime that has heaps of moe and fanservice, the actual concept of sex hardly ever gets used, and when it does you often get outright porn like with Yosuga no Sora. Sekai-Ichi Hatsukoi looked to be the first example in years to actually do this even remotely well. And here this series suddenly comes, with no fanservice whatsoever, and from out of nowhere we see the main character have sex with his wife. This show really continues to surprise me.

Also, that lead character is just amazing. This guy is completely out there: on one hand he is supposed to be this level-headed army commander, but on the other he is obsessed over tea and tea bowls. His inner monologues are all just wonderful, and especially his voice actor is amazing. Plus, this show has some unique facial expressions. I mean, anime is already known for its over exaggeration of faces, but this… I don’t think have ever seen facial expressions like this in series here.

If you’d see screenshots of these expressions, you’d probably think that they look incredibly silly, and yet for some strange reason, they do an amazing job of giving the lead character his unique personality. The acting here does not aim to be as outrageous as possible; in fact, all of the expressions here are weird, but all have some restraint to them, like the main character biting his lip, or looking really surprised while trying hold himself in at the same time.

Oh, and obviously, the music is just amazing here, leading to a wonderful atmosphere. Especially at that scene where the main character actually nearly cut off the head of his wife in order to get what he wanted was wonderfully done.

I mean, this season has a LOT of good stuff here. And still, Hyouge Mono stands out by being so damn unique. It has this completely unique feeling thanks to combining feudal warfare with such an obsessive and unique lead character, along with Bee-Train’s usual style. Heck, they actually moved away from all of their usual formulas here. This doesn’t even feel similar to Blade of the Immortal: that really was dedicated to very stylish action and a cool level headed protagonist. This… is completely different aside from being set around the same time.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Some Quick First Impressions: Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Boku-tachi wa Mada Shiranai., [C] The Money of Soul and Possibility Control and Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko

by psgels, posted in Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Boku-Tachi wa Mada Shiranai, Some Quick First Impressions, The Money of Soul and Possibility Control

Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Boku-tachi wa Mada Shiranai.

Short Synopsis: Our lead character lives together with a cute girl.
Amazing! Wonderful! Excellent! Hell yeah! I really applaud Anohana. Finally a show that proves that you can do amazing stuff with moe. I refuse to tell why, though. Just watch the episode. The only thing I’ll say about this episode is regarding the production values: A-1 have yet again done an amazing job on the animation here. It’s in the same style as Fractale, meaning that there are absolutely no still frames. The characters move consistently across the screen and really come to life this way. I remember noting that Hana Saku Iroha would give Anohana some stiff competition this season. It’s at the same time also the other way around here: the battle for the best slice of life drama this season is going to be an awesome one.
OP: A decent ballad.
ED: A bit of a cheesy song, but works wonderfully here.
Potential: 90%

[C] The Money of Soul and Possibility Control

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets tempted by a weird clown.
Well, it had it coming, but this was definitely the prettiest series of the season. The quiet scenes already look very detailed, but the dramatic parts look absolutely gorgeous. The action scene at the beginning of this episode in particular had some really imaginative action. It’s typical of Kenji Nakamura, but at the same time his style is evolving: it’s no longer just weirdness for the sake of weirdness, but there also was a lot of conventional animation used. Characters actually were animated here. And the combination between the extravagant action scenes and the other quiet scenes works really well here. The story is also full of potential. It’s perhaps a bit like Eden of the East, with the big difference being that the main character is actually flawed. This entire episode was about him giving into temptation. He is mundane, yet well fleshed out: this episode takes him seriously and establishes him as level-headed, yet insecure, curious, yet unsuccessful in love (it’s a definite plus to see a potential love interest immediately established as someone who already has a boyfriend other than him). With a bit of luck, this is going to be what Eden of the East couldn’t be. The whole question will be whether or not the creators took into account that they have only 11 episodes to work with. But then again, Kenji Nakamura is a Noitamina Veteran (he and Kenichi Kasai pretty much set the timeslot apart), plus he is an expert on short stories, so this is really promising. The only bad part right now is the cleanup animation: there are quite a few distorted faces.
OP: Awesome graphics, and not a bad song either.
ED: Excellent graphics, but the song is still boring unfortunately.
Potential: 90%

Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets to live together with a cute girl.
Well, this is yet another one of the moe shows of this season. The formula is pretty much the same here: transfer student arrives to town, meets his romantic interest, people talk, the girls try to be cute and there is fanservice. Still, it’s among the better of the bundh. It actually has some good ideas put into the characterization (I’d like to thank the lead female for spending nearly the entire episode wrapped inside a futon and being nearly impossible to undrstand), and the dialogue is definitely better written compared to the likes of Hidan no Aria, Sofuteni, Hoshikaka, etc. At the same time though, it was also pretty forced at times, the male lead was rather bland and very little actually happened in this episode. So, here is my issue with this episode: the end of this episode actually hinted to an interesting story. However, this is Shaft. The rest of this show could just as well be the characters randomly wasting time, and they’re not interesting enough for that to work. On one hand, this has Shinbo who is working on three shows at the same time this season. On the other hand, it has a completely fresh writer who has only been active for a few years in many excellent episodes. This really can go either way and this episode didn’t really change that.
OP: Agh, my ears! It’s like they put a cat in a blender and recorded it.
ED: Simple, a bit of a boring singer, but I’ve heard much worse this season.
Potential: 50%

Some Quick First Impressions: Hidan no Aria, Yugioh Zexal and Seikon no Qwaser II

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Hidan no Aria

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets to live together with a cute girl.
Oh GOD no. Not another Kugimiya Rie tsundere!? When will they ever stop!? I mean, at least Lotte no Omocha cast her as a ten year old. This Aria is pretty much a yet another Shana clone. There is nothing new or fresh about her; everything is pretty much copy pasted from your standard uninspired moe show. Only the lead character stands out because of how he treats her like a kid, but that’s not really a positive thing to say here because it only made her into an even bigger tsundere. Now, as for the rest of this episode: it really tried to be a fun action series, which I can understand. What I can’t understand however was the huge amount of really boring moe antics around really boring characters that dominated the rest of this episode. I’ve heard that the manga this is based on gets really good after a while, which is something that I’m willing to believe. However, I have two problems with that. First of all: is there any guarantee that the anime will reach that point? With such a trollish director I doubt it, and this episode wasn’t really in a hurry to get to that point. My second problem: is it really worth it to sit through a ton of crap, just to get to those good parts? I mean, the action scenes in this episode were fun enough, but random action scenes only stay fun for so long unless you build up, and I know that I’m not going to be able to sit through any more of the moe antics of this series. The lead female is just that annoying. I’d really like to congratulate this season: I was nearly getting over my bias of Kugimiya Rie, but Rose, Lotte and especially Aria reminded me of why I hate that voice.
OP: Actually not bad, and they tried to be a tad different here. It’s still a very typical OP once the voice starts, though.
ED: Nice visuals. Again, not bad.
Potential: 10%

Yugioh Zexal

Short Synopsis: Our lead character plays a children’s card game.
Oh, this wasn’t actually as bad as I expected. Okay, obviously the main character looks incredibly stupid and all (really, this guy’s looks are on a completely different dimension), he’s pretty much a moron and this is the umpth show about a young guy who plays some sort of game, but it did it with the kind of cheese that actually made it a bit watchable. The background music was actually surprisingly good, and the bad guy in this episode was so ridiculously over the top that he actually was kindof fun to watch with his angry flying sharks and all. I have to say that the monster designers got pretty creative for this one. Oh, this is cheese. But the very least it knows how to build up tension.
OP: I would have expected much worse from a kids’ show.
ED: Actually decent if you ignore the cheese.
Potential: 30%

Seikon no Qwaser

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is an unregistered sex-offender.
Oh, lord. I’ve just been watching four new bad series in a row… that really was too much for my sanity. Especially since this one takes the cake: it has completely stopped pretending now. Why isn’t this labelled as porn yet? Just… watch this if you want boobs. It’s got plenty of them. The rest of this episode was just stupid beyond belief. I have no energy anymore to rant about this thing.
OP: Boring, badly sung, the usual.
ED: Is that Aya Hirano singing through her nose?
Potential: 0%

A few questions for the Germans out there

by psgels, posted in Special Articles

Sure, this is perhaps a bit of a personal question, but I figured that I might as well abuse this blog for it.

Basically, I’m currently planning a holiday tto Germany somewhere in the upcoming summer, and I’ve been wondering:
– What are some of the must-visit places?
– What are some cheap places to stay?
– Perhaps we could meet up or something?

In any case, for everyone who is not German: apologies for wasting your time.

OVA Impressions: Votoms Finder

by psgels, posted in OVA Impressions



With both Votoms Finder and Case;Irvine, the creators got the strange idea that the usual Votoms mecha designs were too bland, so they decided to give them a stylish upgrade. That’s like, missing the entire point of Votoms here!

In any case, Votoms Finder is much better than Case;Irvine. It’s neither overly angsty or a Gundam wannabe, and even though it introduces concepts that would have been really weird in the Votoms Franchise, it also succeeds in expanding its franchise a bit. Its biggest sin is that apart from that, I don’t really have naything to praise it for.

The action was nice, but never really stood out. The story… well, there was a story. It was a story that fitted well within 40 minutes, but apart from that it’s just a damsel in distress story with just one single twist in the middle. The characters… they’re not annoying or anything and I guess that they’re likable enough, but they’re all pretty one-dimensional. Why would you want to watch this? Uh, I really have no idea.

After this post, I’m really going to stop blogging these OVAs, just for the heck of it. They just take away too much of my time and I want to stop writing about things that just don’t interest me. Talking about bad and mediocre stuff can be fun once in a while, but right now I’ve done just too much of that. Rants are fun once in a while but if you do them too often you’re just going to sound really whiny or obnoxious.

From now on, the only OVAs that I’ll create a separate post about are the ones that either:
– Are really good (read: episode rating of 8,5 or above)
– Are really underrated (nobody talks about them and they deserve more recognition).
– Are something that I really want to say something about (episodes that perhaps aren’t the best, but somehow did something to get me really fired up).
Regarding the others, I’m planning to just compile a list of general impressions for my monthly summaries. Writing posts about every single OVA that comes out that consist out of four or more paragraphs… those are just too much. This also includes things like Gundam Unicorn unless it does something really good, or .Hack//Quantum when it fails to really stand out. Blogging all of these OVAs at the same time, alongside all of the TV-series that come out is just too much of a chore.
OVA Episode Rating: 7,25/10

Steins;Gate – 02

by psgels, posted in Steins;Gate



Stein’s Gate has the most subtle build-up of the season, and yet at the same time it has its moments that are completely un-subtle. The colours are all washed out, there is no complex background music but instead it consists out of simple sounds, and yet it has a very hammy lead character that combines together surprisingly well. The atmosphere is really tight when it needs to, and the lead character provides some nice silliness to lighten the mood from this atmosphere.

Now, that cross-dresser was a bit too much, and I’m also not sure where that maid cafe suddenly came from (seriously, are there actually cafes in Japan in which the waitresses aren’t dressed as maids? This episode overall was not as impressive as the first one, but it still had a lot to like about it. The dialogue in particular is nicely down to earth and interesting: it’s well written for both the subtle and silly parts, making sure that it doesn’t destroy the mood of the serious parts.

Also, the mysterious John Titor is definitely an interesting addition to this series: a time traveller who appeared ten years ago, and in the meantime erased his own existence. This series has definitely chosen interesting subject material with time travel, and that gel banana also shows that it’s really planning to make use of it.

The big question for this series right now is: why is Hououin special? Why did he not forget about time resetting itself?
Rating: * (Good)

Showa Monogatari – 01 – AGAIN

by psgels, posted in Showa Monogatari



So, just to make sure I went back to the episode 01 that aired a week ago. It’s completely new again. Stop being so confusing with your episode numbers!

So, to recap:
– The episodes 03, 05, 08 and 09 that aired during the past week are the same as episodes 01, 02, 03 and 04 that were released as preview episodes back in January and February.
– The episodes 01 and 02 that aired during the past two weeks have new content.
– Do not ask me why the creators found it a good idea to just randomly select four episodes and reshuffle them into preview episodes.

It feels a bit weird to watch this opening episode while already having seen five other episodes, but it does fit as an opening much better than the “fake” first episode, which did bring in a lot of random drama around Kouhei and his father. This episode introduced all of the characters, it established Kouhei’s father as someone with anger management problems despite his good intentions, we finally see Kouhei’s sister’s crush formally introduced. And to my surprise that bearded guy from episode two is a recurring character. Seriously, he looks a bit like a rapist or something…

Strangely enough, this episode had exactly three shots where the animation was much, much better than the rest of this series. It’s really obvious that this was meant to be the first episode, which baffles me even more that they didn’t use that animation for the first preview episode. I mean, isn’t the entire point of spending a lot of the animation budget on the first episode the fact that it’s supposed to improve the FIRST impressions? It defeats the purpose a bit to use this as a fifth impression…

Now, because it was meant to introduce everything, this episode probably established the least in comparison to all of the other episodes. Most of the things introduced were already established in the episodes that preceded it, and it never really got to look at the characters in-depth. The previous episodes were all wonderfully varied and all had their own focus, so this episode wasn’t among the best of this series.
Rating: * (Good)

Showa Monogatari – 02 – Take 3

by psgels, posted in Showa Monogatari



Um… yeah. Can someone explain the bizarre airing schedule of this series?

I mean, I don’t get it anymore. Showa Monogatari aired its first four episodes back in January and February. First episode 01 was released, then episode 03 followed, then 02 and then 04. That already was confusing in itself, but I just assumed that this series would just air normally during this spring season. I was planning to just pick it back up as soon as episode 05 aired.

And yet, this week baffled me when suddenly episodes 5, 8 and 9 popped up from nowhere. Those turned out to be episodes 2, 3 and 4 of earlier. Here we meanwhile have episode 2, which turned out to be a completely new episode. Then the day before yesterday we also suddenly got treated to episode 3. I haven’t checked it out yet (too busy!) but what the heck is that one going to be? Showa Monogatari has by far the weirdest airing schedule I’ve ever seen. Never have I seen an airing schedule that was so much over the place.

This episode by the way was really good. Again, this show isn’t about Kouhei, the young kid. He may get a lot of airtime, but this episode was much more about his brother and his sister. Even his father showed something new about himself. Especially his brother got a great episode. Being outright rejected on his first date, that’s really something you don’t see often in anima that highly adheres to the concept of “true love”. And yet at the same time this series has a lot of different romances here: Kouhei’s parents’ marriage was really traditional, while his sister seems to be in a completely different situation with that guy she likes.

I also like how this show isn’t afraid to get a bit corny when it comes to the entertainment of that era. That dance party for example looked really silly when looked at with a modern eye, and the same goes for when everyone suddenly started singing. And yet, those things probably were the most normal things of entertainment in the eras before mass communication.

Oh, and the reunion also explained quite a bit of something that happened in episode four surrounding Kouhei’s brother’s friends. This was the episode that was meant to set that up, and I really suspect that there will be more episodes that are going to focus around him, trying to find a place in society. This episode also gave a lot of meaning to that particular episode as well. The production values may not be good, but it knows how to tell a story.

One thing that I don’t agree with is to have Kouhei’s parent’s background episode air after this episode. I especially liked how this episode told more about Kouhei’s father and how he grew up. I really like the idea of first showing him in his late teens, only to go for him in his early teens afterwards.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
EDIT: I just watched that mysterious episode 03 that popped up the day before yesterday. It’s episode 01 again. What the…?

Some Quick First Impressions: Lotte no Omocha, Hoshizora e Kakaru Hoshi and The World God Only Knows 2

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Lotte no Omocha

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a ten year old succubus who needs to find herself a male to suck… wait what?
Well, on the bright side Shinbo actually held himself back: his style for once wasn’t all over the place here and the other creators also got their chance to bring their own style out. Unfortunately though, this still wasn’t very good. A lot of this has to do with Rie Kugimiya who is getting really annoying having to play the umpth tsundere, although at the very least she’s more eloquent here then her previous role in Dragon Crisis. She remains an annoying brat, though and this episode was tedious to sit through because of her. The character designs are also really generic and the music was just stock music as well. There was an actual story, but it moved awfully slow here and a lot of time was just reserved for moe antics that were neither funny nor enjoyable. There is only one character who caught my attention, that purple-haired servant. She at least was interesting to watch and actually seemed to have half a braincel. I probably would have been a lot more positive about this series is if focused on her instead.
OP: I hope that this wasn’t one of those “let’s summarize the plot here in 90 seconds”-OPs, because it really looked like one.
ED: Could have been worse, but still a boring ballad.
Potential: 10%

Hoshizora e Kakaru Hoshi

Short Synopsis: Our lead character meets a lot of cute girls that he can date.
This was actually nearly unwatchable. It’s the kind of hentai game adaptation that pulls every cliche it can think of, puts no creativity whatsoever in its scenario, is horribly produced and does just about everything in its power to make its females as annoying to watch as possible. You really know the drill: the lead character arrives in town as a transfer student, he bumps into a bunch of random girls, accidentally kisses one, then runs naked into the shower in front of another one, and upsets an older woman with big boobs by calling her a middle-aged lady. This is the kind of crap that has been popping up for nearly a decade now. On top of that, though, the voice acting is also horrible. Especially the main female sounds like she lives in a tank full of helium, the male lead’s acting is abysmal whenever he’s embarrassed, his younger brother sounds way too much like a little girl and it has the most annoying white haired girl who does nothing but whine at the male lead. The character designs are also really bad and completely uninspired. There were some hints at a serious story, but I really don’t see this show doing anything good with them with this kind of opening episode.
OP: Anime seriously needs to stop forcing voice actresses who can’t sing to sing in the OP for a show.
ED: Again, very badly sung.
Potential: 0%

The World God Only Knows 2

Short Synopsis: Our lead character needs to kiss certain girls in order to remain alive.
This episode was much of the same as the first season. Which like, really is a bad thing here because the first season already was really hard to sit through. I mean, this obviously wasn’t as bad as Sofuteni or Oretsuba because it really does try to give its characters an interesting story, but TWGOK still is inherently flawed: everything in this series is exactly like the games that Keima plays. The characters are all one-sided with a twist, they all immediately fall in love with the main character, and they all don’t amount to much beyond their quirks. And of course, you don’t become good at martial arts by learning the basics, but by cleaning the floor, if a cool person enters the classroom everyone suddenly gets quiet and gazes in a awe, and the female lead is incredibly klutzy, whiny and annoying (no, that also didn’t change, unfortunately). This show fails at what it is trying to do here by having no real difference between games and reality, and even now there still is no hint whatsoever that this is going to change!
OP: The classic case of “oh, the first OP was really good, so let’s make another version like it that tries too hard and ruins itself.
ED: Boring J-pop, but granted: it is better than the first ED.
Potential: 30%

Hana-Saku Iroha – 02

by psgels, posted in Hana-Saku Iroha



Hana-Saku Iroha: the series with the best drama of the season. I seriously did not expect this show to already be this good this soon, and Noitamina’s Anohana is going to have some really stiff competition here. What’s best is that finally, PA Works are moving into 26 episoded series.

The strength of this series is that it has a huge cast of characters who all somehow clash with each other, and it plays off of this really well. Ohana is a great lead character whose personality is perfect for this series, but the other main characters are all great to watch. Her strict grandmother and the shy waitress in particular were great, and I also loved the bickering between her and the cook assistant who keeps telling her to die..

What’s interesting is that some of the people have this habit of just walking away when they run into a situation they don’t like. Ohana actually made good use of that at the end of this episode with a particularly wonderful climax and I really hope that this show can keep this up.
Rating: ** (Excellent)