Author: psgels

Shinrei Tantei Yakumo Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Shinrei Tantei Yakumo




Bee-Train’s installment for 2010 is called Shinrei Tantei Yakumo, a 13 episode series about a psychic detective who can see ghosts. Lacking their usual director, Koichi Mashimo, the characterization is not as good as we’ve come to expect from them, but there still is a lot to like about this series.

Let me first put a few disclaimers here though, because this isn’t the most accessible series. First of all, despite the “Tantei”-part of the title (tantei = detective), don’t expect this to be a murder mystery: it isn’t. The culprits are often immediately revealed without really giving the audience the time to speculate wht happened. The mystery of this series instead mostly lies in its overall story.

Second of all, adapations whose stories don’t exactly fit within either 13 or 26 episodes nowadays often have slow paced beginnings and rushed endings. Yakumo is completely the opposite: it rushes through its first chapters, just so that it can take its time with the final two arcs of the story in which everything comes together.

So the first half of this series basically consists out of random stories for every episode. The pacing is really fast and some things are rather rushed in order to get everything to actually fit within twenty minutes, but overall these stories work surprisingly well. They’re especially good a using their own build-up and almost all of them end with a neat and interesting conclusion.

The main story that pops up in the second half is actually very interesting. The show boasts a number of very interesting characters (another plus point is that this is one of the very few series of the past season that isn’t about teenagers and actually make suse of it), with some badass characters that are very likable to watch. The show can also boast a neat cast of major villains here, who really are built up as a menacing bunch with a very interesting backstory. The voice actors meanwhile are good, yet composed, so there is none of the usual annoying overacting. There however are a few characters that can get on people’s nerves. Most notably Haruka, the romantic interest, but she’s far from the worst of her kind.

With 13 episodes, the characters aren’t as deep as your usual Bee-Train series, but they are great nonetheless. I especially loved the way in which the second half interweaves all of their stories together, and there is quite a bit of good development in this series, both for the main characters and the side characters.

The music this time is compoed by the relatively unknown RON, who deliver a great little soundtrack that is surprisingly varied. There are a ton of great tracks that the creators use really well, and this show just continues to introduce new ones. The character designs are simple, but the inbetween animation is quite good.

Overall, Yakumo is another series that went a bit under the radar this season (despite the HUGE hype leading up to it) but this is quite a good series to watch, even for some people who usually don’t like Bee-Train’s really slow sense of storytelling, because the pacing of this series is much faster than their usual series. Just be aware of some sloppy and rushed storytelling here and there.

Storytelling: 9/10 – A bit rushed and lacks attention to detail in the beginning, but makes up for it in the way that it manages to weave its different stories together and how well it uses its own build-up.
Characters: 9/10 – Great and diverse cast of well developed characters, there are plenty of strong and likable characters around. And a few that are hard to like, though.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Great soundtrack, decent animation, unremarkable art.
Setting: 8/10 – Seeing spirits is nothing new, but this series does give a fresh spin to it.

Suggestions:
– Madlax
– Soultaker
– Matantei Loki Ragnarok

Shinrei Tantei Yakumo – 13

by psgels, posted in Shinrei Tantei Yakumo



That turned out to be a very nice little ending. It’s far less exciting than I expected, but it formed a very good conclusion to the series. Unlike the rest of this series, nothing was rushed about this episode at all.

So the plot of the bad guys was indeed to try and get the ghost of Yakumo’s father a real body. For that, they needed him in despair and that’s why all of his family members were killed. Miyuki Nanase indeed shot Gotou, as the final straw. The way in which things eventually got solved is a bit weird, yet interesting. It’s not like some deus ex machina suddenly makes the villains incompetent or stupid: their plan just failed. The reasons why exactly are a bit vague, but Yakumo simply refused to give into his despair.

In the end, the villains probably waited for too long to inhabit Yakumo’s body: it would have been much easier to drive him to despair while he was still a teenager (but then again, I think that Yakumo’s father was too much focused on acquiring an actually good vessel, and not a teen-aged one which I can somewhat understand). They tried to make him into a broken character, but in the end Gotou, Isshin and Haruka pulled him out of it. It’s cheesy, but this is one story where the power of friendship is actually quite acceptable to be the final twist. It could have been better, but it also definitely could have been worse.

I also really like that the creators really took their time for the epilogue. I’m not sure how Gotou wasn’t hit at a vital spot, but at least he does spend quite a bit of time at a hospital. Isshin however… actually died. It’s a great idea to base the epilogue of this series around his funeral, it’s a perfect way to close off the series.

Overall, Bee-Train’s series usually last for two seasons: that really gave them the opportunity to come with some really great plots and characters. With just 13 episodes however, Yakumo actually gave a very good attempt. It’s nowhere near Bee-Train’s best, I really noticed that while watching Madlax, but it’s still very good. I’m really thrilled for 2011: not only will Koichi Mashimo return, but he’s actually going to do a series of 39 episodes. I’m really glad that after 2010 that had so few series that dared to be long, 2011 finally is showing series again that go beyond 26 episodes.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Mobile Suit Gundam 00 – A wakening of the Trailblazer Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Mobile Suit Gundam 00




Gundam 00’s Awakening of the Trailblazer is one of those movies where you need to have seen the series for. Spoilers for the Gundam 00 will follow in this review, otherwise I can’t properly explain the impression that this movie left me.

Anyway, I was ready to just get this movie over with, expecting the Gundam 00 Movie to be another forgettable flick. But, to me surprise there was one thing about this movie that made me really happy as soneone who sat through the fifty episodes of the two Gundam 00 series: it has no annoying characters!

Seriously, half of the annoying characters is already dead at this point. The others really impressed me how they managed to spend the entire movie from whining: two years have passed again since the end of the second season, and finally everyone seems to have settled down. Saji and Louise who once urged me to break the screen of my laptop once every episode are actually a cute couple now. Mister Bushido finally dropped that ridiculous mask of his and stopped being a char clone, Marie and Allelujah also are quite happy together. All of the innovators who are still alive have become more than paper bags of characters and even Setsuna has a romantic interest now other than his Gundam.

The cast of this movie is still HUGE. I can’t recall any movie with more characters than this one, and I’m impressed with how it managed to involve all of them in this movie and developed a surprising amount of them at the same time while also introducing a bunch of new ones. It’s definitely much more than I expected.

This movie can very much be compared to Gundam Wing’s Endless Waltz: its villain is completely new but has a vague connection to something important in the original series, it’s much paced very differently from the TV-series that dragged on and it’s actually quite effective that way despite a few glaring problems. This movie takes a lot of time for its build-up, which makes the action scenes stand out even more. The action scenes themselves are actually pretty varied and don’t get boring, yet stay in the same Gundam-esque tradition of having space battles on a huge scale.

As for the plot itself… yeah. The villains are aliens now. Still, it’s handled decently: any kind of realism in Gundam 00 was abandoned anyway since the arrival of the Trans-am system, and this movie just rolls with it, while at the same time tying in neatly with Aeolia Schenberg’s ultimate objectives. The aliens themselves though are as flat as a pancake in terms of character and the ending of the movie is just.. ridiculous. Seriously, it feels like that ending was thought up at the last possible minute.

The graphics of the movie is a very mixed bag. The character animation is surprisingly mediocre for a movie by Sunrise. Instead however, the biggest part of the budget went into the CG near the end of the movie, and granted: that is a visual feast.

Overall, the ending is of headdesk and facepalm level, but apart from that this movie was surprisingly refreshing compared to how annoying and forgettable Gundam 00’s second season was.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Actually well paced for Gundam 00’s standards. Good action, good build-up. STUPID conclusion.
Characters: 8/10 – Shallow villains, but the other characters surprised me a lot: they’re not annoying and are actually able to show off their development.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Gorgeous CG, simple character animations for movie standards.
Setting: 8/10 – It adds on the Gundam 00 franchise in its own way. Some things work well, others don’t work at all.

Suggestions:
– Mobile Suit Gundam Wing – Endless Waltz
– Macross Frontier – Itsuwari no Utahime
– Digimon Movie 2 – Bokura no War Game

Yumeiro Patissiere – Professional Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




The first Yumeiro Patissiere series had 50 episodes. Its sequel only has 13, don’t ask me why. Still, it’s the perfect length for those who find the pacing of the original series too intimidating and boring: the Professional-arc of Yumeiro Patissiere is short, compact and diverse, a unique shoujo series and a great example of how you can make a lovable cast even on a really small budget. As long as you’ve seen the first two or three episodes of the original Yumeiro Patisiere, you can easily follow what’s going on in this season and appreciate its character development (that’s what I did, anyway).

The thing with this Professional arc, is that unlike the first season, it’s not really about making sweets: that was already touched upon plenty by the first season. At this point, the characters are all very proficient at creating delicious stuff. Instead, the great thing is that it looks upon the business part of making sweets: actually selling them, attracting customers, getting the right ingredients and creating a good work atmosphere. It’s quite a unique twist for a shoujo series, and while it’s light-years away from a realistic representation (the creators completely ignore logistics for one, and they often prioritize neat ideas over actually making sense), I really loved how the business consultant part of this series turned into a unique shoujo. With the shoujo genre in its current state of seeing who can deliver the most generic storyline, this series is EXACTLY what the genre needed at this time.

What really made this show work was that it had a wonderful sense of chemistry. I mean, the first season of Yumeiro Patissiere was really, really long, but it developed its characters really well over the course of several years. The characters play off each other wonderfully and make this into quite a successful comedy (even though comedy isn’t the main focus of this series).

At the same time though, the flaws in this series stand out like a herd of elephants in a pet shop. Some of the characters in this series have characterization that is just… bizarre. This show strangely enough takes already badly used stereotypes… and somehow makes them even worse. Miya Koshiro takes the “spoiled princess”-archetype to ridiculous new heights, and Johnny…. just… Johnny.

The entire premise of this show makes no sense whatsoever, having a bunch of teenagers travel around the world (and also to another dimension), help all kinds of shops while maintaining a shop of their own at the same time, and the entire series is riddled with those kinds of questionable plot twists (especially the conclusion is just coincidental beyond belief). The animation and character designs are as simple as they can get, but it was a fun and interesting series, great for light entertainment.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Surprisingly addictive, really. Brings in many neat ideas on the cost of not making any sense.
Characters: 9/10 – Some of the worst portrayals of Americans can be found in this series, but the chemistry between the characters definitely makes up for it.
Production-Values: 7/10 – As simple as things can get.
Setting: 8/10 – Unrealistic, but a very interesting twist to the usual shoujo genre that is fleshed out surprisingly well.

Suggestions:
– Skip Beat
– Kodomo no Omocha
– Glass Mask 2005

Letter Bee -38

by psgels, posted in Letter Bee



This episode is entirely away from the main plot aside from a few scenes at the beginning and end of the episode. Instead, we get an entire Aria episode, which really was a neat way as the final Letter Bee episode of the year. Aria really benefited from this episode, and it made her a much more interesting character, which is bound to be useful as soon as Noir wakes up. Eventually.

Usually when a main character has this “sempai” he looks up to, it’s this sempai who has the most amount of parallels with his situation. Instead though, this episode showed that Lag and Nichi look much more like Aria and Bolt than Gauche and Roda: Lag lacks Gauche’s ambition or will to protect. Instead, both he and Aria are ridiculously innocent, they’re both running after Gauche like crazy, and both have some of the best dingo around, compared to Zazie or Connor, who rely the most on their own weapons.

The Gaichuu in this episode did suffer from the “Oh, those protagonists look very interesting while they talk to each other; let me just watch them and do nothing for a while”-syndrome, but granted we didn’t really have any clue as to what they were thinking. That is one of the minor flaws of this series: as Villains, the gaichuu have no depth at all, and they’re just a bunch of “Humans tasty”-villains so far. I really hope that the Cabernets will change this.

Also, whoa! I could have seen this coming, but for the artificial sun to consist out of human heart… that definitely gives a different spin to this story. For the first time, we actually get a glimpse of what the people from the capital actually did, and at this point it’s a lot more clear how valuable that sun is, and why people aren’t making more of them.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Bakuman – 13

by psgels, posted in Bakuman



Merry Christmas, everyone. Bakuman’s thirteenth episode probably isn’t the best way to celebrate it with, but at least things are slowly getting more interesting. The show may be slow, but at least you can say that every episode so far has progressed the plot. This episode was all about the main characters’ debut into the NEXT magazine, the introduction of Shounen JumpJack’s rating system and Moritaka and Miho finally start exchanging mails with each other.

I’ve heard from a lot of manga readers that the rivalry between our lead characters and Eiji Nizuma is supposed to be very good. In this episode I caught my first glimpse of interest in this. It finally introduces a bit of tension between their manga with the rating system. The differences are thankfully made not too big like you see in some shounen series, and if developed well and interestingly it definitely has potential.

Now that thirteen episodes have passed, the big picture of Bakuman is mostly unremarkable: it’s enjoyable, but nothing has caught my interest yet. Considering how this series might even go beyond fifty episodes, I guess that it’s excused from taking things easy here, but at the same time it is rare for a long series to not include any kind of hook whatsoever in its first season. Take a look at Hikaru no Go, which had some amazing first episodes to gain momentum, or Glass Mask, which already had very compelling characters right from the start. Even the World Masterpiece Theatre series, notorious for being slow, had already done something major at this point.

There have been series like this, though: which took their time and didn’t do anything major for their first thirteen episodes, most notably Touch and Maison Ikkoku, who instead depended on their long-term character development and twists that happened later on in the series. At this point, Bakuman is still miles away from those series, but at the same time it’s also not bad or annoying, like how a lot of shounen series start out that promise to get better later on.

On a completely different note: next week will be new year’s hiatus, so there’s not going to be an episode. After that, I hope that the creators are going to switch to a new OP because the current one is getting obnoxious.
Rating: * (Good)

Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




Panty and Stocking obviously isn’t for everyone. It’s riddled with sex jokes, toilet humour, all kinds of bodily fluids, sex jokes, fowl language and fanservice. It’s going to turn off plenty of people with its unmasked innuendo and mind that has gone far beyond the gutter. At the same time though, it also turned into a pretty interesting experimental seires; in fact, it’s the most experimental ainme of the entire year: it reaks tons of barriers, it tries out tons of new stuff and is filled with neat ideas for both scenarios and animation.

The show consists out of 13 episodes, divided in two stories that often don’t have anything to do with each other: it’s a real episodic series, but it makes well use of this fact with the tons of ideas it’s able to stuff into them. We have homages to Shaun of the Dead, transformers, Invader Zim, High School Musica, all kinds of music videos, and all are done in a unique way. There are also plenty of episodes that are based on some gimmick, or strange idea and also be sure to not miss Osamu Kobayashi‘s unique take on this franchise, which turned out to be a really excellent piece of animation. Whenyou pile everything together, you get a really diverse little series.

But granted, there are also some episodes that just don’t work, and a lot of them are located early on in the series. They’re based either on a premise that just tries being raunchy for the sake of being raunchy, or is just poorly presented. The thing with Panty and Stocking is that it really depends on its execution and energy in order to keep the series going, because Panty and Stocking as a character are a tad one-dimensional. There are episodes in which they really branch out as characters very effectively, but mostly it’s just “Panty likes sex and Stocking likes food”.

In terms of graphics, this show packs a ton of eye candy, but the animation can be surprisingly simple. In order to make up for that though, the creators really try out a ton of different animation techniques that are really interesting to watch, from vector animation to stiff characters to really over the top action scenes (the best action scenes in this show really are a blast to watch). Panty and Stocking is as unsophisticated as you can get, but it’s definitely not uninspired.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Really fun, packs with a ton of neat ideas, concepts and scenarios.
Characters: 7/10 – They’re very simple and two-dimensional at best, though Stocking, Chuck and Garterbelt are very likable.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Really gets points for being so diverse and experimental. The animation is really crude, but there is a TON of eye candy.
Setting: 8/10 – A really unique anime with inspirations that come from both the west and the east.

Suggestions:
– Dead Leaves (I’d probably rate this one higher if I were to review it now)
– Gag Manga Biyori+
– Genius Party

Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt – 13

by psgels, posted in Autumn 2010 Kaleidoscope




Okay. That ending was awesome.

As for the climax itself, the first half of this episode was a bit dull, in which the creators pulled the usual twists that you’d expect at the end of a series. Panty loses her powers but gets them back after having sex with Brief, it was a bit too standard, although the farming scenes were really entertaining. The second half though had some very neat action scenes that really were worthy of this series’ finale. There was a ton of neat animation going on on a really epic scale, and the final twist was just completely bizarre, and yet worked really well.

I love the guts of this series with its ending, though. For one, Garterbelt’s revival scenes were hilarious (“GOD MY OOOOOHHHHHH!!!”), but the way it lead into its potential second season with Stocking’s complete and sudden betrayal was a really neat and nonsensical twist. Now, as for that second season however I do want to say this: there has been a series in the past that pulled a very similar twist right at its final episode. I refuse to spoil which one for obvious reasons, but despite so obviously pointing to a sequel the director later stated in an interview that that was never going to come. Also, that premise of that second season has to be pretty bizarre: “Brief and Chuck with Garterbelt”. Would that even work?

So let’s just wait for any official announcements. If there is going to be a second season, I’ll probably end up blogging it. The main reason why I didn’t blog this entire season was because of the mediocre episodes 2, 3 and 4. After that though, this series took some really neat advantages of its format with a ton of neat and experimental segments.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Fortune Arterial Review – 77,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




Fortune Arterial… I’m impressed. Hentai Game Adaptations are… notorious, a lot of them are utterly terrible. This series looked like one of those cheesy harems right from the start, and yet it’s characters are actually pretty good.

The thing I usually notice with these hentai game adaptations is that unless you have an inspired staff behind it, they don’t really know what their stories are and end up wasting most of their time with silly cardboard cut-outs of characters. Fortune Arterial however knows exactly how to use its time, and how to set its characters apart. In the second episode, it promotes the male lead from a boring nobody to a member of the student council, and actually has him perform some duties like organizing the school’s sports festival or cultural festival. It’s been ages since I’ve actually seen a student council DO something other than look important, and therefore I found the episodes that are devoted to properly organizing and these festivals quite enjoyable.

I also applaud this series for the main storyline between the male and female lead: it’s simple but knows exactly what it is, it’s well built up throughout the series and actually centred around some pretty mature issues for a bishoujo show. The ending itself is quite powerful, although things ended a tad too soon: a few key points were left unresolved that will leave you hanging.

However, the next White Album this ain’t. There are a few underdeveloped side characters, and the storytelling gets a tad too simple at times. This series has especially a hard time figuring out what to do during the moments in which nothing happens, and the results are that these scenes become tedious to get through. None of the jokes it uses really work and they only make some of the characters really obnoxious.

The graphics… well, it’s a co-production between Zexcs and Feel. The result is a series with some of the most generic graphics of the entire year. However, as a “screw the graphics, we’re here to tell a story”, it works surprisingly well. It’s a simple vampire romance so don’t expect something epic here here, but it’s quite effective.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Surprisingly solid for a show of this genre, but should have been a bit more ambitious.
Characters: 8/10 – surprisingly good lead characters, though the cast hasn’t been fleshed out as well as i would have liked.
Production-Values: 7/10 – Really generic.
Setting: 8/10 – Finally we get some vampires again who don’t sparkle.

Suggestions:
– Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito
– Touka Gettan
– Futakoi Alternative

Loups Garous Review – 70/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




Ah, such a shame! Loups Garous is a movie with quite a few interesting twists and turns, offering a slight twist to your usual science fiction premise. It’s the kind of children’s adventure that’s not really meant for children: innocent at one side, really heavy and dark at the other. With the right execution, this really could have been a stunning movie. It’s just too bad that the execution sucks.

Loups Garous is the kind of movie where the writing staff either didn’t get enough time, or didn’t want to take enough time: it’s a collection of neat ideas unable to mesh together, tied together very poorly. The directing for example can’t even keep track of which scene it’s in: randomly it just skips time without even an introduction; things just happen because they’re interesting for the plot. There are countless of things that just don’t make any sense (we’re who knows how many years in the future, and yet there isn’t a single gun in the entire series), the hacking in this movie ranges from interesting to ridiculously stupid (especially during the final climax) and the bad guys have the most pathetic security system out there.

The main problem with this movie however is that it doesn’t know the concept of fleshing things out. It spends a lot of its time on mindless drivel, but it makes no attempt at familiarizing the viewers to its setting. The setting of this movie never gets analyzed beyond its premise, and only one of the characters has any depth at all: the rest are just stereotypes. The villains are also utterly terrible: all of them are just one dimensional stereotypes. People try to murder for the stupidest reasons (the pink-haired girl takes the cake: I dare you to find a dumber reason for her to get chased by a bunch of random punks out to kill her), the main villain is just laughably bad, the conclusion is a joke.

I’m getting a bit tired of Trans Arts, to be honest. They continue to abuse Production IG’s name to produce these ambitious titles that they have no idea how to correctly pull off. The only series in which they didn’t fail horribly was with Kemono no Souja Erin. The production of Loups Garous was horribly rushed and it shows through its entire airtime. I admire the spirit of these people, but please: first learn something from the people who actually know what they’re doing.

Storytelling: 6/10 – Disjointed story, plot holes, deus ex machina, stupid plot twists, poorly paced. Does no justice to its heavy themes. You can see that it’s going somewhere, but there are so many errors along the way.
Characters: 7/10 – Absolutely pathetic villains, likable but shallow characters.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Nothing special for movie standards, but it it does look good and stylish.
Setting: 7/10 – Has a lot of interesting ideas, but never uses them. Completely fails at getting the viewer accustomed to the setting.

Suggestions:
– RD Sennou Chousashitsu
– Dennou Coil
– Metropolis