Author: psgels

Level E – 09

by psgels, posted in Level E



I love how despite there being multi-episode arcs in this series, every episode still feels different, and this arc in particular was an excellent example of this. The romance gets dropped, and instead this turns into a bit of a thriller, and as for the lead characters… Ouji returns and the episode is chock full of the addictive chemistry between Kraft and Ouji, making this episode even better than it already was.

I also loved that for once, an arc with a gimmicky premise like this doesn’t end with a cop-out. I mean, usually when the creators put the stake of the entire earth on something silly like this, they end up writing themselves into a corner and end up with a very cheesy and rushed ending. Here however, Ouji actually comes up with a plan to save the entire earth using clones and a whole lot of breaches of intergalactic treaties.

This episode also contained a few nice jabs at alien abductions, in quite a few different ways, from abductions while asleep, those classic light beams and suddenly feeling like 30 minutes disappeared. I also keep getting amazed at Ouji. His trick is that he’s either completely honest, or not honest at all, and his lies sound so sincere. When he said that he used to be a woman… oh lord.

The reason why I consider Level E to be one of the best comedies I’ve seen though, is really because of the big picture. I mean, standalone comedies that are funny are nice, but this series adds in so much more. The standalone stories that it tells are actually very good ones that could have worked well even without the humour, it has consistently created down to earth characters that are believable and relatable, and its backdrop of 90s alien fiction continues to create interesting backstories and fits really well in terms of the big picture. It’s just everything that this series does that still makes me consider this to be an amazing comedy, even though I do admit that the funniest arc was the first one.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

OVA Impressions: Seikai no Danshou

by psgels, posted in OVA Impressions, Seikai no Monshou



The Seikai franchise has two OVAs, one that takes place after the three TV-series, and one prequel. While the former felt like the creators were stuffing an entire novel into just fifty minutes, the latter is an interesting little side-story. Like the title suggests, this isn’t about Lafiel, but instead about her parents.

This OVA works as a background OVA, telling a bit more about who Lafiel’s parents were (about which we were mostly left in the dark throughout the TV-series), but as a standalone short story it also works pretty well. It’s got a good atmosphere, and although it’s simple it’s well told and paced.

And of course, as expected from this series the dialogue is excellent. The characters are once again very eloquent and a lot of this OVA just consists out of Lafiel’s parents talking to each other. The script continues to be interesting and blend in well with the story that’s going on.

If you’re planning to watch this OVA, I’d recommend to at least watch it after watching the first half of the first season, otherwise it will lose some of its meaning. It’s a nice watch for any fan of the franchise, though.
OVA Episode Rating: 8,25/10

Windaria Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




Fantasy stories that focus on a war between two kingdoms, a light and a dark one, are a dime a dozen. When you make one, you really need to set yourself apart. Windaria did this through its development. If for the first half of the movie, you feel that the story is perhaps a bit too generic, then don’t worry: it’s meant to be that way.

Windaria takes your general fantasy set-up, and does a lot of things right with it. The animation is pretty good for 1986 standards, with a lot of fluid movements. The story at the beginning may be generic, but it’s well told: ample time is given to each of the major characters to flesh them out, the artists do a wonderful job to draw and animate the people from the two different countries, and the biggest flaw is probably the very stereotypical evil king.

Obviously since the development is the strongest part of this movie, I’m not going to say much about what happens next due to the spoilers and all. Let me just say that this movie knows how to use its build-up. Its ending especially is wonderful. The second half of this movie did some really neat things to the cast of characters and made sitting though the first half entirely worth it.

This one is definitely recommended if you like old fantasy movies. It’s underrated, exactly because of how much the first half looks like your average fantasy that DOESN’T develop its characters well, but this is one wonderful exception to this rule. Well acted, well developed and averting quite a few cliches, Windaria was a very interesting movie.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Excellent use of build-up, and a very solid fantasy story overall.
Characters: 9/10 – Excellent development.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Very fluid and a good soundtrack, though not the best for movie standard.
Setting: 8/10 – Starts off with a few too many cliches, but ends up as a great story of fantasy war.

Suggestions:
– Escaflowne – A Girl in Gaea
– Tales of Vesperia
– The Cockpit

OVA Impressions: Angel Densetsu

by psgels, posted in OVA Impressions



In another case of “don’t judge a book by its cover”, we have Angel Densetsu, a silly premise of a guy who has an incredibly scary face, made a lot better thanks to a very capable director. The budget of Angel Densetsu is very low, but despite that the timing of the different shots, plus the impact they make, is impeccable.

If there’s anything that this OVA is good at, it’s creating an atmosphere with minimal resources. The artwork in this series is simple, but it can be downright freaky at times, and the way in which everyone is just completely terrified of the lead character creates a wonderful little atmosphere here.

The story itself is just downright bad though. I mean, the dialogue and the scenario are just terrible and shatter any sense of suspense of disbelief. The story tries to portray this guy with a scary face but a heart of gold, but his inner monologues make it sound more like he’s some kind of deranged lunatic. His naivety also knows no bounds. Even in the most obvious cases, he sees no sense of hostility towards him at all. Heck, this guy makes Sawako from Kimi ni Todoke look like Stephen Fry in comparison.

The characters around him also make an elephant out of the tiniest mosquito around him, just to keep the story and the misunderstandings around this guy going. The big problem with Angel Densetsu is that it’s ridiculously forced. Not to mention that it’s based on a much larger manga, and that it just ends right after introducing a bunch of story-lines, making it more a commercial than an actual story. Check it out only if you’re looking for a good atmosphere, otherwise, give it a pass.
OVA Episode Rating: 7.25/10

Star Driver – 22

by psgels, posted in Star Driver



YES! YES! YES! What a way to start off the finale of this series!

To put the play here of all places, I love the idea. It was foreshadowing, it showed a completely different side, it was very different from the previous episodes, it was based on a solid idea, it had already gotten a lot of build-up, and at the same time it stays true to the series’ core: school life.

I’m not sure whether I’m the only one in this, but I personally love the series with short climaxes. It doesn’t always need to have months of build-up, but with the motto of “say more with less”, I’ve found that some of my most memorable climaxes are actually the ones who put their finales in a relatively short amount of time. After this episode, this means that there are just three episodes reserved for the climax of Star Driver. And this episode really pointed towards the fact that the creators are planning something really interesting for the final episodes here. Finally this series makes use of the fact that it’s an original story!

What really would have made this series a force to be reckoned with would have been more of these kinds of episodes. The ones that are based on a strong idea, and what would have allowed each episode to stand on its own, rather than just being a collection of episodes all about school life and robot battles. I mean, that’s why I’m currently such a big fan of Level E: all of its stories are different and based on great ideas rather than cliches. That’s the one thing that Star Driver lacked and what really could turned this into an amazing series.

What also was short but sweet in this episode: that aftermath. I mean, dear lord, how many new things did we learn about the characters in like, what? A minute? I mean, the stuffed animal talks, the president of the drama club is an alien, the cybodies come from space and Tauburn was specifically created for a human? Talk about creating intrigue for next week.

Overall, there is only one bloody show that aired during the past half year and that isn’t going to end within a month: Gosick. At the moment, the endings that are looking the most promising are the ones of Level E, Madoka Magica and Star Driver here. Let’s see which one can deliver the most interesting end here.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Mitsudomoe Zouryouchuu! Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Mitsudomoe



It’s rare for a comedy sequel to be better than the original. Here is one, though. The original Mitsudomoe had its moments of hilarity, but it also had many problems: milked out jokes, trying to be way more disgusting than what was tolerable, and the endlessly repeated forced misunderstandings between the characters. Those problems are actually fixed in the sequel, Mitsudomoe Zoryouchuu.

The keyword here is balance. In the sequel, the creators make sure that no character is overexposed or milked out. Everyone gets some decent time to show off his collection of quirks and jokes. Most episodes are separated into five sketches, and those sketches either centre around one theme or are completely random, but they continue to be different and dynamic. Even the final episode still is hilarious.

The humour in this series works especially well because of how it uses its characters: in the first season it relied a lot on innuendo humour, but this too is much more varied here. The series is at its best when there are a lot of different characters involved who all play off each other, where their emotions quickly change from one to the other. At these points it becomes incredibly dynamic and fun to watch.

The more solid execution also makes the characters a lot more down to earth and likable. The first season was way too full of toilet humour for this. The second season still has that, but it’s much more restrained. The result is that now, the characters in this show are much like your typical children with their childish antics and sometimes perverted minds. Most series about children in elementary school age try to portray them innocently, but Mitsudomoe goes out of its way to show their bratty and naive sides. The second season makes it surprisingly easy to relate to.

In Mitsudomoe 1, the ratio of sketches that worked versus the ones that didn’t work was about 50:50. In Mitsudomoe 2, this is around 75:25. Most episodes have one sketch that is absolutely hilarious, and several others that are quite funny. As for the bad ones though, those are the ones in which either the creators don’t try hard enough, the joke they use just falls flat, or the creators just fall back into the flaws of the first season by repeating jokes for too long. or just being disgusting for the sake of disgusting.

I wouldn’t recommend checking out Mitsudomoe 2 without having seen the first season, as it relies on running gags that were started in the first season. However, if you’ve seen the first season, then watching Mitsudomoe 2 will only make this show better. It has a number of bad sketches, but those are vastly outweighed by the good ones. It’s a much more solid and enjoyable comedy.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Hilarious, solid and varied comedy, knows most of the time that it shouldn’t milk its jokes.
Characters: 8/10 – Some characters are just bad. Most of them are pretty good though, especially their chemistry is on fire in this season.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Bridge’s debut could have been much worse.
Setting: 8/10 – It’s an elementary school. Yet much more believably presented than in the first season.

Suggestions:
– Muteki Kanban Musume
– Ga Geijutsuka Art Design Class
– Hanamaru Youchien

Mitsudomoe Special Episode

by psgels, posted in Mitsudomoe



Yeah, this one is part of the first season. The sexual innuendo is less subtle than ever, jokes get repeated and the misunderstanding jokes are back again. It still had its funny moments, but overall it was also a bit forced, and nowhere as hilarious as most of the episodes of the second season.

By far the worst part of this episode was the “Hitoha’s cheeks are like boobs” joke that just got repeated ad nauseum. It was a bad joke to begin with, but it was dragged out horribly and gave Yabecchi eventually an excuse to bring the misunderstandings back again when. The two parts about Mitsuba’s weight loss also had some of the same repeated jokes, but it had some good laughs. The sushi bit was pretty hilarious though.

One thing that I especially noticed in this episode was that it went a bit overboard with the facial reactions of everyone. Especially Mitsuba was yelling for the largest part, and there were a tad more overacted gasps than were comfortable. To close off this series, the previous episode really was a better choice.

Overall the past year has been interesting in the way that much less series were released than usual, and they were also much smaller than usual, the majority not even going beyond thirteen episodes. This allowed me to blog much more different series than usual, and also series that I normally never would have considered blogging: this series, Gosick and Zombie. It was an interesting year, but in the end I really do prefer the large seasons like the upcoming spring. Sure, there may be more crap, but there are also more interesting series. Blogging these pure comedies was fun, but I’m probably not going to weekly blog any of them for a while unless a comedy that is as good as Level E or Geijutsuka Art Design Class pops up.
Rating: (Enjoyable)

Break Blade IV Review – 77,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Break Blade has what I like to call the “bad main character syndrome”. His story, back-story and development: they’re all completely uninteresting and generic, and he takes away a lot of screen-time from the more interesting parts of this movie. He has nothing to do with the politics, so that too gets pushed completely aside whenever he is on the screen, in favour of bland romance, a bland rival story and bland morals about killing. Four movies in and this still hasn’t gotten any better.

The fourth movie pretty much was the same as the previous ones: whenever the lead character was on the screen it was boring, whenever it focused on the other characters, it was quite interesting. The rivalry was completely absent from this movie, but instead we got a lot of boring romance build-up. On the other hand, the side characters are getting better, and this had the best battles of the movies so far. I’d say that the ratio of Rygart vs. the rest in this movie was about 35:65.

I’ve whined enough about Rygart for now, but let me at least comment a bit on the battles here. The battles here were again in a larger scale than before, up to the point that two small armies actually faced each other. The resulting battle was a great combination between large-scale tactics to small scale ones, from regular mechas to overpowered ones: it was a surprisingly well balanced one. That was exactly what this series needed: it already had the down to earth battles, and this movie took that formula, added some extra spice to it and made it even better.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Good action scenes. The warfare works here.
Characters: 7/10 – Bad main character syndrome. the side characters are interesting, though.
Production-Values: 8/10 – A step up from the previous movie.
Setting: 8/10 – This instalment was low on politics, but makes up for it with its military analysis.

Suggestions:
– Sengoku Basara
– Seirei no Moribito
– Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu

Letter Bee – 47

by psgels, posted in Letter Bee



I can only imagine how different things must have been in the manga at this point, because this episode in particular pulled a few twists that gave a completely different dimension to a few key characters. Still, the manga has an unlimited time frame and the anime doesn’t, so I at least admire the balls of the creators to go with some of the twists in this episode.

The thing with mystery is that it tends to leave a void whenever it’s solved, unless a different hook is provided. That was was a pretty big problem of this series for the past number of episodes, save for the Connor episode. This episode provided that hook again, and it’s just in time for the finale here.

It was obvious that if the plot were to just revolve around getting rid of the Cabernet, it would end up rather boring. It needed some extra spice to be introduced. Thunderland being part of Reverse is definitely an interesting way to do it. He has the background and enough motivation to do it, and having foreshadowed in in the previous episodes would only have made it more shallow, although I do wonder what kind of logic went behind his decision to store the ones who couldn’t become a spirit… int he middle of the Bee Hive.

Meanwhile, Gauche is good again! This lacked some of the impact due to the previous episodes rather shallow reason for it, but nevertheless: that scene between him and Sylvette was an excellent climax between the two. I mean, Letter Bee has always been very character-centric, and now it comes with a plot focused final quarter. It’s great to see that they still have a number of moments dedicated to simply the characters for the finale.

Letter Bee has definitely been an interesting series, it went from good to tedious to charming to repetitive, to amazing, to captivating, to a bit less interesting to a bit more interesting again. It’s going to depend a lot on the ending here. This ending needs to be more than “and they defeated the bad guy and lived happily ever after”. That would be just a dull anti-climax after all that build-up.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Bakuman – 22

by psgels, posted in Bakuman



Three episodes left, and this show comes with an anti-climax. Interesting, that after all of the build-up of the previous episode, all that the characters did in this series was get fired up, try out some stuff, realize that they don’t work and continuing where they left off. If anything, this was an episode to boost their confidence and resolve, more than anythings else, and I’m not sure whether the right place for that is so near to a major cliff-hanger.

Also, am i the only one who felt that the audience for Miho’s event was a little… stalkerish? I mean, it was just creepy in \the way that they just kept staring at her without saying anything, or even looking at each other.

Overall, I think that this is the part where this show is getting a bit repetitive. The interesting part about this episode was the way that all of the mangaka commented on each other’s stories and all, but this was the umpth time in which we saw the lead couple in a minor setback, only to get more motivation to go on and create their story. It probably won’t be a problem for the rest of this first season, but the second season does need to pay attention to this.
Rating: * (Good)