Author: psgels

Star Driver – 10

by psgels, posted in Star Driver



At first this looked out to be a rather boring episode with the baseball and all, especially considering how Utena’s light hearted episodes were completely brilliant. Still, as the episode went on it became apparent how much characterization the creators ended up putting in this episode.

The interesting thing is that this show is no longer as flamboyant as it used to be and it’s gotten a lot more subtle now. Of course, Takuto still is the light-hearted and energetic character he always was and this episode was of course also chockful of screaming fangirls, but around him, all sorts of interesting things are starting to happen.

A lot of the flamboyance in this show is like a red herring: loud and obnoxious, but for once it has a lot to make up for it with its characterization. The “faceplant in boobs”-scene was definitely annoying, but unlike for example that 08th episode of Index, there was so much going on with so many different characters that I quickly forgot it.

Also, what’s the meaning of the songs of the priestesses? In this episode we get a new one (I still prefer the fish girl song, but that one too was quite good), but there have been enough battles that occurred without the presence of one such song. Do their songs strengthen something, or do they just do it for the heck of it?

Overall, this was the first episode in a long while that didn’t bring some sort of major twist. Instead, it convinced me that this series can manage its huge cast. A huge potential pitfall with series with a huge cast is that they try to give equal attention to all of them without making any of them stand out,but in star Driver there are a lot of them that stand out, each episode grabs all of the chances it can get in order to add some character to them, even when the episode in question doesn’t focus on them at all, and the ones on which the episodes in question do focus on still get the proper attention they deserve. Each episode grabs a different array of characters, and that’s probably the thing that makes this series so varied.

Also, a huge theme of this series turned out to be leaving the island: this show just keeps introducing stories about characters who can’t leave it, characters who leave it, and Takuto being the only one known so far who actually did the opposite and came to the island. The creators are going somewhere with that, and I’m interested to find out where that is.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Shinrei Tantei Yakumo – 10

by psgels, posted in Shinrei Tantei Yakumo



A lot of series will be ending at the end of december. The ending I’m looking forward to the most however is Shinrei Tantei Yakumo, closely followed by Shiki. The current (and probably final) arc has only just started and already it has delivered some amazing twists. Just think of how everything is going to come together in the end. I’m also the least worried of a rushed and incomplete ending, exactly because how the past episodes made it clear that they rushed the first half, exactly in order to avoid this problem.

The previous arc really cemented Miyuki Nanase as a bad-ass, and yet here this episode comes and also labels her as flawed when she completely unexpectedly gets caught. Not through some overblown car chase by one of the lead characters, but instead she gets cornered by regular patrol cars. Finally another series comes along that completely busts the “police are useless”-trope. To make things even more interesting, it’s heavily implied here that the main villain… is already dead. Again: why does this guy have such a grudge that even in the grave, his soul still continues to haunt Yakumo. On top of that, this makes Miyuki Nanase even more awesome, considering how just about everything in the previous arc was her work.

meanwhile, it’s good to see that finally there is another man who is about to die from a terminal illness, breaking the “women get sick really easy”-trope, and yet this isn’t a simple reversal in the way that the creators introduced that little girl whose future is also looking pretty bleak, balancing things out. In any case, the creators gave Yakumo’s uncle a very good portrayal. He was bleak, yet things didn’t get too sappy. Same with Yakumo’s baby pictures (nice touch to his character, by the way) that finally showed Yakumo some of the good sides of his mother again.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Heartcatch Precure – 42

by psgels, posted in Heartcatch Precure



An adorable episode, focused on Yuri again. Most of those series that introduce an extra hero or heroine to the team never really make those characters stand beyond their role of side-characters. Like, they may add extra abilities, but the show still revolves around the lead characters. Heartcatch is completely different: Yuri is completely awesome, and she is as important as Tsubomi and Erika. The latter already had a lot of episodes dedicated to them in the first half, so right now the creators are really focusing their effort on making Yuri a proper lead character. It’s awesome to see a bit in what she was like when she was still in middle school.

The story of the boy that she grew up with is also really charming. Again, he’s a kid, but he’s far from annoying. This episode was about the love between two childhood friends, but the age difference between the two here made it miles away from the usual cliches. At the end, the way in which the boy confessed his feelings, yet said that he knew that he was way too young for any real romance was very manly.

Speaking of manly: the OP was updated with the most awesome scene involving Koppei. Seeing these scenes alone was just amazing, but something is telling me that the creators were foreshadowing here. I’m dying to see Koppei in action again. This episode was in no way meant to be dark, but there were plenty of hints at future dark episodes with dark precure awakening. Not to mention that Cobraja seems to be the next one heading into the way of Sasorina. There are too few episodes left to make this progress go as smooth as it went with Sasorina, so the creators are going to have to end his story in a bit of a different way than with hers, and i can’t wait to find out how they will do it.

There has been some bad news this week, though: we got our first look into what Suite Precure will look like, and it looks utterly terrible. For those who haven’t seen it, click here. The fact that Toei isn’t returning with Heartcatch Precure’s character designer is just a minor issue here. The mascot also doesn’t look too good (I’m much more a fan of a realistic drawing of cats than with anime’s trend of reducing them all to moe blobs), but that too is just a detail.

No, instead the big thing that bugs me is how little effort was spent into drawing that promo art. It’s a really bad sign when the freaking promo art of a series is off model. The poses are completely moronic, the hair feels literally pasted on and the clothes are unnecessarily detailed with pointless frills. I’m calling it right now: enjoy the three months that we’ve still got left on Heartcatch Precure, because that’s where the awesomeness is going to end. Toei have shown that they don’t really care anything about maintaining quality with Digimon Xros Wars, they’ve shown that they can make enough pointless sequels that come nowhere close to their original with Marie & Gali 2.0, so at this point I’m not expecting anything from Suite Precure anymore.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Bakuman – 10

by psgels, posted in Bakuman



So, JC Staff have been working on four series at the same time this season. The strange thing is that somehow Bakuman ended up with the least impressive animation out of the four. Zakuro has some amazing artwork, Index got their best inbetweeners while Milky Holmes was chockful of interesting poses, Bakuman always looked a bit average in comparison: the animation did its job but never really stood out. This episode was the first time in which the visuals really caught my eye, especially the poses were finally a bit creative and detailed. Hattori in particular surprised me by showing some completely new sides of him.

With this episode I finally understand why people keep calling this a hot blooded manga making series. Especially Hattori suddenly getting fired up brought a lot of new stuff to the table, and I especially liked how they were desperately trying to come up with interesting premises, and how hard it is to not take creativity for granted. That string of uninteresting premises that they came up with really shows that they were under a lot less pressure for those ones, so they probably didn’t spent as much time or effort into making it original (especially the one with that dude and the sword looked generic).

I also liked it a lot when the editor in chief popped up. This partly was because he was the main cause for Hattori’s sudden change of personality, but also because of how maturely he treated Moritaka and Akito: he knew Moritaka’s uncle, so he felt no need to sugarcoat things like Hattori had been doing. I just love his confidence, and that he seems far less secure when he was still working with Moritaka’s uncle.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Letter Bee – 35

by psgels, posted in Letter Bee



Lag in a dress… a lot of series have had cross dressing, with sometimes disastrous results… and yet these cases continue to appear that just continue to surprise me. Lag as a girl works just way too well. Even Roda fell for his charms.

On a more serious note, one of the big unanswered questions of this series at this point is Akatsuki, with the question that’s most burning on my mind being to what extend it is corrupt. Are just a handful of assholes at the wrong place, or is the entire city basically the bad guy here. This episode in any case gave Roda more than a good enough reason to rebel against the government. It’s also clear that the Reverse have no intention to just cheesily destroy the world (otherwise they would have unleashed more of those giant gaichuu), yet they do use so-called “human sacrifices”, so where exactly on the moral scale is everyone?

Either way, Lag versus Roda was amazing, and it’s a shame that it ended on a bit of a cliff-hanger. This episode also revealed quite a bit about that thing that’s living inside Lag’s eye, and the strange thing is that these spirit ambers seem quite common, yet this was probably the first time Lag really talked about it. If my memory doesn’t serve me wrong, in any case.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Zettai Shounen Review – 87,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




I’m fan of a lot of different genres, but personally my two favourite genres of anime are science fiction and mystery. Zettai Shounen is a typical example of the latter. Mystery definitely is a tricky genre that’s easy to screw up with, but when done right it can produce some of the most unique series. Zettai Shounen is definitely not for everyone, but at the same time it’s a wonderful example of the mystery genre done right.

First of all though, if you were expecting a fast-paced story, action, or a series that treats its viewers like idiots or people with a short attention span, then go and look somewhere else. A lot of the characters in Zettai Shounen are teenagers, a large theme of this series is adolescence, but at the same time the series treats them with a surprising amount of maturity. Most of the series just consists out of people talking with each other, whether in person or through a phone. These conversations can be short and to the point, but they can also take up half an episode. If you hate series with lots of talking, stay away from this one.

And yet, that’s also the beauty of this series. The thing that makes Zettai Shounen unique is that the mystery is actually fairly simple, yet the conversations that the characters have about it is what makes it deep and complex. Every character in this series has a different way to relate to the mysterious phenomenons that pop up throughout the series and everyone interprets it in a different way.

This is a series by Tomomi Mochizuki, which leads to a wonderfully realistic portrayal and dialogue. The characters all act naturally and far away from stereotypes; there’s nothing overly moe and instead the creators created this wonderful down to earth atmosphere that really draws you in.

This all leads to a truly excellent cast of characters. Aizawa Ayumu is a terrific lead character, unlike just about any other male lead I’ve seen. The relationship he has with his father is especially amazing, but just about half of the cast here in this series sets itself apart and stands as a unique and captivating character. I really loved characters like Miku, Wakkun, Sakakura, Okaka-baba and even the minor side-characters like an old man and his dog with a hat on leave their impression. There is A TON of character development in this series, and the cast gladly makes use of it.

This is a series that’s divided in two halves. The interesting part is that both halves have completely different focuses, and even the lead characters switch (only two regular characters of the first half return as regular characters of the second half). Personally I liked the characters of the first half a little better, but both halves have more than enough to make them worth watching, and the second half especially is where the character development starts shining.

What really sold me over this series however was that it knows exactly how to build up. Instead of wasting time, it’s constantly either trying to develop the characters or flesh out its setting, and it makes everything come together wonderfully during its rare climaxes. Both halves of Zettai Shounen have got some awesome endings that make wonderful use of the build-up that’s been handed to them.

Zettai Shounen is both a very relaxing, and very deep series. It’s skillfully constructed and the dialogue, in what form it may be, is constantly as sharp as a knife. The one thing you shouldn’t do with this series is get impatient, because then you’re missing the entire point of the story, but I really recommend this for any mystery-fan who doesn’t mind quiet stories.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Quiet, yet very sharp. Excellent dialogue, great sense of build-up that it manages to use really well.
Characters: 9/10 – The characters are charming yet flawed, they’re consistently enjoyable to watch and receive a ton of meaningful development throughout the series.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Dreamy soundtrack, undeniable visual style, though the CG can get intrusive at some points.
Setting: 9/10 – Realistic and down to earth, yet deep.

Suggestions:
– Ghost Hound
– Dennou Coil
– .Hack//Sign

Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu – 22

by psgels, posted in Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu



Another very strong episode for Denyuuden, full of introspection.The arrival of the guy who looks to be Ryner’s father came a bit out of left field, but it definitely gave a whole new spin to this series. I mean, at the start of this series Ryner really looked like this typical hero: huge powers, sad past and fated to save the world or something. He’s more and more turning into the role of a victim here: everyone wants to be able to manipulate his powers and half the country wants him dead. I’m really glad that this didn’t turn out to be the spiritual successor to Koukaku no Regios.

Ferris on the other hand is also miles away from your usual romantic side-kick. I mean has she even once been kidnapped in the series? Instead, she really feels like Ryner’s companion here, and is struggling along with him in order to get away from all of these superpowers that are after him. It’s here where the politics finally get interesting, because without them, Ryner’s situation would not have been able to get this complex.

The scene with Milk and that human experiment was a bit sudden, though. I get what the creators were trying to do there, but it felt a bit out of place, especially when that guy suddenly started talking with the voice of a girl… that was a bit out of place. Apart from that though, I loved Shion’s little introspection, as well as that strange dream in which Ryner ended up meeting what looks like his mother. Also, what is that significance of that strange symbol on Ryner’s chest that prevented him from dying? Is he a bit of the equivalent of a zombie now?
Rating: ** (Excellent)

OVA Impressions: Armored Trooper Votoms – Phantom Arc – 06

by psgels, posted in Armored Trooper Votoms - Phantom Arc, OVA Impressions



And with this, we’ve reached the end of Gen-ei Hen. And I have to say that it left with one heck of a cliff-hanger. It’s not like this episode didn’t provide closure to the whole OVA: it was a great ending. But I’m just so curious as to what’s going to happen next. Before that will happen though, there still are two spin-off movies in the way.

Beyond progressing the story, the entire Gen-Ei hen was meant to bring all of major Votoms installments together, so it’s very fitting for this final episode to bring Wiseman back. It’s interesting how he had this kind of back-up server ready, that may not have been able to rule the world like he did for the past 3000 years, but was enough in order to prepare a proper successor for his legacy, one who could even surpass Chirico in terms of intrigue.

The politics were also a bit interesting this episode: Gilgamesh and Balalant were too scared and didn’t do anything, while the Church did send the pope to Wiseman, yet in the end he just got killed as a bit of an aftermath to the Brilliant Heretic. It’s still very good to see what happened to him in the years that followed that OVA though.

Now, all that’s left is the three movies. What I’m hoping for the first two movies is that they’ll be good standalone stories, that at the same time flesh out the universe of Votoms. The third one however is by far the movie I’m looking forward to the most: Chirico and the Child of God have been picked up from outer space by what I guess to be Balalant forces. What is the point of the Child of God for Chirico? That’s going to be the central question to that movie, but beyond that I’m also clueless.

This episode also partially explains the promo art for the upcoming movie, and what Vanilla and Cocona’s children are doing there. It’s clear that they had no part in the Gen-Ei Hen, and yet they’re supposed to play such a big part during the “Alone Again” movie. Speaking of which: how does that title make sense? Chirico was alone anyway after what happened at the end of the Brilliant Heretic. At the moment he finally has company again that could replace Fyana (the Child of God), he’s about to meet those six children (who I’m also pretty interested in, by the way), so how is that title going to relate to what’s going to happen?

Still, the biggest mystery of the Alone Again Promo Art isn’t answered yet: what’s someone who’s supposed to be dead doing there?
OVA Episode Rating: 8,5/10

Shiki – 18

by psgels, posted in Shiki



Finally, after seventeen episodes of relentless waiting, it’s finally time: the counterattack. And holy crap, this episode twisted this series into a new dimension. Beyond the main attraction of this episode (Toshio), there also were a lot of these neat short scenes that took place during the first half of this episode.

Especially the way in which the episode started was just completely out of left field: usually this is a very dark and composed series, and yet it sometimes includes these really weird and over the top scenes, like what happened previously with the eccentric undertaker. For starters, Tatsumi’s suit was just completely pinpin’, but the way in which Natsuno’s father just popped up from nowhere also came completely by surprise. We still don’t know what happened between Natsuno and his father, but that scene definitely gave a lot of insight there.

Second of all, the Shiki are looking more and more human now that their numbers are increasing. Their conversations almost feel normal now, and this episode also shed a lot of light on the hierarchy between them, and how each of them has a different job. The thing is also that Tatsumi no longer is able to keep an eye on everyone in order to scare them. Because of that, Tohru ended up in front of Ritsuko when she first awakened, who looked more like an angel than a zombie in this episode. You can see that the Shiki are getting confident: it’s not like ten episodes ago, in which they still had to be careful in their actions.

And that’s what Toshio took advantage of in this episode, and he did so wonderfully. I first thought that Toshio would take her to some dark place and stick a stake through her heart or something, but this was of course the perfect chance for him to lure out the Shiki and expose them to the villagers, and it’s really the way in which he did it that makes it awesome. If he were to scream and yell, people wouldn’t listen to him, so he really subtly showed the villagers that Chizuru was a vampire. The look on his face really was priceless. Atsushi’s arrival just made it perfect.

I really love the restraint of this series: it’s just been seventeen episodes of building up, and every time at which you thought that the characters would make some kind of come-back, the vampires only ended up making things worse. Instead, this series was really waiting for this single moment, five episodes before the end, in order to turn the tides. That’s really how you should use build-up. Lately we’ve seen a lot of series that did spend a ton of time on build-up, and yet failed to optimally use it, the biggest offender being Sengoku Basara 2, so it’s great to see another series that does know how to use it effectively without making the build-up boring or wasting all of that effort that was put in building up.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Kuragehime – 07

by psgels, posted in Kuragehime



This episode was a bit of a step back from the dynamics of the previous episodes, but you can see that it was building up to something. The big challenge for this series is to make all of this build-up come together in the final four episodes: make this a real solid series instead of one that just cuts off at a certain point.

Most of the episode revolved around Kuranosuke looking for ways to get money in order to buy their own apartment, along with the aftermath of Shuu’s previous night. Most of the tension came when Kuranosuke tried to sell off Chieko’s belongings, where Banba suddenly manned up. On top of that, Shouko’s rants are also getting more enjoyable with every episode.

Tsukimi disappointed me a little, because she spent most of this episode angsting over Shu. Kuranosuke around her was still really enjoyable to watch though, especially when he nearly unconsciously ended up kissing her. Speaking of which, why didn’t Mayaya find it strange that Tsukimi suddenly had this naked buy in her room when she kicked the door open? Did she just… not notice or something?
Rating: ** (Excellent)