Author: psgels

Koi Kaze Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




Boku wa Imouto ni Koi Suru, KissxSis, Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai, Oniichan no Koto Nanka Zenzen Suki Janain Dakara ne—!!

Yes, I really dislike how incest is handled in anime. Even leaving the above-mentioned series aside, it feels like you’re less likely to find a brother and sister in anime who aren’t in love with each other and in eight out of ten cases, it’s completely pointless and shallow and handled with absolutely no taste at all. There are exceptions, though, and Koi Kaze is just about the most notable out of all of them.

It really has built up a reputation over the years, and after watching it, I can really understand why. Right from the start, it treats is characters seriously, portraying them as actual people, rather than stereotypes. The protagonist is just a regular guy with a regular job, and the series portrays him as he falls in love with his underaged sister, without pointing fingers or trying to appeal to any kinds of fetishes or fanservice. Throughout its entire airtime, this series remains focused on just the development of the lead characters.

I was pretty surprised at how well this series made use of its time. Its premise is simple, and because of this it really could use its thirteen episodes optimally to flesh out and develop its cast. The story is slow-paced, but there are few really wasted moments. The dialogue is also down to earth and makes sure that the characters are able to really express themselves properly. Heck, even if it wasn’t for the controversial source material, this would have been an excellent romance.

It’s not exactly the material that will blow you away; what it is is a consistently well written romance that despite its slow pace and controversial topic is actually very accessible and easy to watch due to its short length. My main gripe with it was that the most dramatic scenes were a bit too angsty, lacking something to counter-balance them, and no matter how badly the upcoming “Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai” and “Oniichan no Koto Nanka Zenzen Suki Janain Dakara ne” anime end up butchering the themes around the relationships between brothers and sisters, this series can definitely hold its head high with the wonderful way in which it portrayed its characters.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Doesn’t mess around, and instead is fully focused on telling its story, with a slow yet calculated pacing.
Characters: 9/10 – The best at portraying incest. And even without the incest, this is a wonderfully developed romance.
Production-Values: 8/10 – There is one single episode that really has some incredibly detailed and inspired animation. The rest of the series is rather inconsistent, but does justice to the characters.
Setting: 8/10 – Solid, especially in exploring how the characters think that their actions will fit in, though apart from that it really remains in the background.

Suggestions:
– True Tears
– White Album
– Asatte no Houkou

Nurarihyon no Mago – 13

by psgels, posted in Nurarihyon no Mago



Recap. Dammit, this show is one huge tease. Every time it promises to get better, it finds some excuse to delay this to next week. Of course this is making me hungry to find out in what way this series is going to end up becoming awesome, but this is getting rather annoying…

Nurarihyon no Mago was the series that was looking forward to the most for the past summer season, and in that way it ended up disappointing me a bit. I’m a huge fan of its director, Junji Nishimura, but in order for him to really shine, he really needs to be working on an original series in which he really can let his creativity loose, and not being bound by some sort of source material.
Rating: – (Disappointing)

Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin




The past summer really had its quantity problem, but there still were three series that really stood out to me as a breath of fresh air that may have significant flaws, but also have a delightful execution. These series are Shiki, Kuroshitsuji II and Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin. While Shiki had an incredibly solid execution and Kuroshitsuji got better and better as it went on, Occult Gakuin instead was just all over the place, which had both its advantages and disadvantages.

This series promised to be a fast-paced adventure series through the occult with its excellent and very witty first episode, but instead it turns out that it’s built around several two-episode arcs instead, focusing more on its characters while developing its plot only in the background. In Occult Academy, no episode really is like the other, with the result that you might be expecting a fast-paced action episode, only to get a bunch of episodes that focus more on the quiet type of storytelling.

On the bright side though, you’ll never know what this series will focus on next, and the episodes in which this series really goes all out were without a doubt the best episodes I watched during the entire summer season. The producers got some of the most amazing staff to write for some of the episodes, ranging from the director of Michiko e Hatchin, the director of Mouryou no Hako and Aoi Bungaku’s Hashire Melos to the writer of Noein and Birdy the Mighty Decode. There are thre episodes in this series that are so well written, portrayed and animated, that simply their presence makes this entire series worth watching.

Now, as for the rest of the series, it does have some balancing issues, and some other episodes fail to entice any excitement, and could have been cut from the series easily. The series itself spends a bit too much of its focus on developing Maya as a character, that it forgets about the other parts of the series. Because of this, some parts are rushed while others just take too long, on top of their lack of creativity compared to the better moments of the series.

Despite the balance issues, the plot does come together quite nicely in the end, though. All of the major questions get answers quite nicely and used to bring in some very interesting twists near the end. And really, amidst the countless of series that don’t seem to have any ambition, Occult Academy really tried to create something interesting, creative and diverse. It’s set up pretty much guarantees that you’ll be disappointed in one way or the other due to the lesser episodes, but for me it had enough to make up for it. I have quite a few issues with this series, but really: if those issues were fixed then this would have been a serious contender for the best series of the year and it will be awesome if more series would try to follow in this series’ footsteps.

Storytelling: 9/10 – The writing ranges from average at worst to absolutely fantastic at best. When it wants to, this series can be truly excellent at building up, but there are times in which it doesn’t have enough creativity in its script.
Characters: 8/10 – A very solid cast, but considering the premise of this series, the creators could have eliminated some overused cliches, and they could have done more with Maya’s character considering the amount of time that was put in her development.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Gorgeous and creative animation that really brings the characters to life.
Setting: 8/10 – Explores the occult from all over the world. Very interesting as a kaleidoscope throughout the supernatural, though never really goes in-depth.

Suggestions:
– Baccano
– Michiko e Hatchin
– Kaiba

Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin – 13

by psgels, posted in Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin



Okay, so this turned out to be an ending that I both loved and hated. Let’s just get the bad part over with first:

– Okay you discovered that the real Nostradamus Key was a dimensional time-rift created by Bunmei meeting his former self. The most logical step is now to get Bunmei out of that time-line as fast as possible in order to make the chance of him running into his child version as small as possible, NOT to just wait a day, invite younger Bunmei INTO THE SCHOOL, and just hope that everything goes well.
– Everything seems lost, the aliens have arrived, the world is about to go to hell, and here Bunmei comes, grabs younger Bunmei’s spoon, suddenly gets his powers back and blasts the aliens back to their own time-line. Where the hell did that come from?

Those are the only complaints I have about this final episodes, but dammit they’re pretty big ones. The entire story was rounded off so well before especially the second point comes, and here this series decides to end with a Deus ex Machina… I’m really wondering why the creators went with that plot, out of all possible things.

Nevertheless though, I also loved this episode as a final episode of this series. I love the entire irony behind Bunmei’s part in the series, and how he actually didn’t get to have a happy ending. You’d expect something over the top, after we just learned that that witch of the previous episode was not the Key of Nostradamus, and yet this episode was incredibly quiet with an actual climax of just one minute long (with some pretty neat animation, by the way). Throughout the entire airtime, there was this slight atmosphere of panic about what was about to happen and what was about to end. This series has already proven that it’s excellent at building up, and this episode proved that once again when it built up to the point in which Bunmei would meet his younger self.

I also liked how at the end, we saw the focus shift back to Maya’s father, which was really a charming way to close off this series. Despite the weird choices made, I do consider this episode to e in my top three final episodes that we got to see this season, alongside Kuroshitsuji II and Giant Killing: all of them tried to do something very interesting in order to close themselves off, and came with interesting twists and unorthodox pacing.

Overall, even though things could have gone better for this series, it did solidify me as a fan of A-1 pictures. This series looked consistently beautiful, and a few of the episodes were really masterfully written and laid out. Like all of the previous Anime no Chikara series, it had its flaws: Sora no Oto couldn’t decide what it wanted to be, Senkou no Night Raid’s lead characters needed acting lessons and Occult Academy had its balance issues. Nevertheless, really appreciate all three of them and what they tried to do, and Occult Academy is my favourite so far. I’m not looking forward to the next installment due to Shinbo and all, but I really hope that this timeslot isn’t going to end there because there definitely is potential.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Sekirei – Pure Engagement Review – 77,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




Sekirei… has its problems. Most notably revolving around the well endowed bosoms of all the females that gather themselves around Minato, the male lead. It’s obvious that its premise is partly there for the boobs, but alongside that it does pull off something that just about every fanservice show is missing: an actually interesting plot.

The first season was plagued by having to actually set up its partially awful premise, but in the second season things come a lot more together. This series still pulls a few deus ex machina, the most notable being them suddenly changing the freaking gender of one of the characters and the pointlessly moronic antics of the main villain, but the overall storyline does get better and better, and especially the last arcs succeed quite well in their attempts to tug at your heartstrings. For all its faults, this is a series that does know how to develop its cast of characters.

It’s also interesting how Seven Arcs managed to significantly improve the animation budget for the second season. Especially the second half of this sequel has quite a few beautifully animated fight scenes. I mean, the entire series has really improved throughout its run so far.

Even at this point, the story is still nowhere near finished, but at this point I can’t say whether or not a third season is going to come in two years to wrap up the story. This second season mostly finishes the introduction of all of the characters, it rounds off the basic back-story behind the entire premise and it concludes a number of side-stories. It really made the franchise a lot more solid, but a third season really is necessary to delve into the essence of this story because regarding the core of the series, all we got was a bunch of vague hints here and there. I’m not going to recommend this series until it becomes clear whether or not that third season is going to come, but either way this was a pleasant surprise.

Storytelling: 7/10 – The excessive focus on fanservice and a few Deus ex Machina hold this one back, but overall it’s a lot more solid than the first season.
Characters: 8/10 – If you get part the premise of all of the characters, they’re actually pretty good and well developed here.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Surprisingly well animated fight scenes here, the rest of the animation is also pretty solid.
Setting: 8/10 – The biggest improvement over the first season. A lot of time was spent on making the foundation of the series more solid, and it works quite well.

Suggestions:
– Futakoi Alternative
– Code-E
– Sola

Sengoku Basara Two Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Sengoku Basara




This season’s prime time series was Sengoku Basara’s second season. And… it’s quite an interesting action series.

At the start, I suspected that this series would consist out of a string of action-oriented episodes. Instead, this series has only four or five episodes that are really focused on action. The rest of the episodes all put their priorities on dialogue and build up. Instead of containing a long string of epic action-scenes, this series aims to only contain a select few of them, and attempts to make those as epic as possible.

And partially, this worked. Episode six contains without a doubt the single best action I have seen during the past three months. The rest of the action episodes are also completely over the top, but a lot of fun to watch due to their contrast with the more quiet but very manly build-up episodes. This balance is far from perfect, though, because especially the second half spends too much time building up and too little on the actual substance, and the build-up itself also isn’t perfect. In the end, the action itself isn’t worth it to sit through so much build-up and this series could easily have been cut down to ten episodes in length.

However, this sequel is a much needed improvement after the rather lackluster first season. Events are a lot more interesting to watch, and the action scenes themselves are much better portrayed now. The story this time is a lot more focused, and there are a lot less annoying characters. It also helps that the characters made good use of 24 episodes in order to flesh themselves out, and so even the rest of the cast is a lot more interesting to watch. It’s still a series that’s completely over the top, but that has really become part of its charm without ending up cheesy.

It remains a really well produced series: the animation is consistently smooth and detailed for a television-series, especially with Production IG’s trademark style of character-designs. Albeit unbalanced, the dialogue itself is very well written, the music can be really awesome when it wants to. It’s not the next Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto, but nevertheless I really enjoyed this series.

Storytelling: 8/10 – When it wants to be, the action really is epic and really well delivered. There’s too much build-up though.
Characters: 8/10 – Much better compared to the first season; the entire cast consists out of bulky and manly men, but they’re used well within the action and dialogue.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Especially the money shots are a sight to behold with great poses and combat animation. Consistently smooth and detailed graphics overall.
Setting: 7/10 – Makes absolutely no physical or historical sense. Even though it’s “loosely” based on the sengoku era, it could have used this better.

Suggestions:
– Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto
– Seirei no Moribito
– Jubei-chan’s Second Season

Sengoku Basara – 24

by psgels, posted in Sengoku Basara




Ah, the episode of today that I was looking forward to the most: the conclusion to Sengoku Basara. For a moment after learning about the upcoming movie, I was afraid that it would end with a huge cliff-hanger, but no worries: this episode resolves all of the conflicts built up to. Overall, it wasn’t as good as I hoped, but I still was pumped from start to finish.

My main issue was that this episode wasn’t as good as episode six, it could have been a bit more creative, and especially the way in which Toyotomi went down: he was dominating through the entire fight, Date was beaten to a pulp and afterwards he just stands up and gives Toyotomi one good whack, completely immobilizing him. With all of the build-up going into this episode, it’s this point where I expected more. Not to mention that the creators didn’t bother to animate the battle with the pirates.

Apart from that, though: this episode was awesome. Yukimura bringing down that entire fortress was definitely not a bad way to close off this series with, and on the opposite scale, Kojuuro’s battle also was very satisfying.

Ultimately though, the huge amount of build up of the rest of the series just wasn’t worth it. The creators could have easily cut one or two episodes out, and this series would have been much better. Still, I consider the second season to be a big improvement over the first at least: the action that was there really worked, and it didn’t drag itself out. This is also why I’m curious for the upcoming movie, because there the creators aren’t bound by time as much, and instead can use it much better to blend build-up with action.

Overall, you could really see that the change of directors worked for this series: I’m enjoying Kazuya Nomura‘s work a lot more. Unfortunately, it also shows that Yasuyuki Muto is still behind the series composition. Both seasons feel like they didn’t make good use of their time, and you can also see that very much with his work on Persona – Trinity Soul (though this wasn’t the case with Chevalier). This guy really should have played around more with the progression throughout the series.

Still, it’s interesting: this is the first time the prime time slot has showcased a series of only thirteen episodes, and overall this was a pretty nice way to fill up the time until Star Driver. Ever since Gundam Seed, the timeslot has been in the hands of the three big ones: Sunrise, Bones and Production IG (with one exception), and while the former two always try to show their best and most epic side (aside from Ayakashi Ayashi, which really unfortunately was cancelled), Production IG instead does not focus at all on what it’s best at and instead tried out a few new stuff. With Blood+, it had its plot that was heavily based around character-development, while this can best be called an experiment in marketing: could they in their own way make an over the top and brainless action series? Considering the viewer ratings, it worked surprisingly well.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Giant Killing Review – 90/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Giant Killing




Giant Killing, my favourite airing show of the past three months and likely to be my favourite sports anime (if board games aren’t sports). It’s a breath of fresh air in its execution, and a delight to watch from start to finish with a well developed cast that just sparkles with personality.

From the outside it may seem like a bit of an unimpressive football series, but it turns out to provide a unique look into the world of professional soccer, and it doesn’t ignore anything: aside from the players, it also gives ample attention to all kinds of supporters, the press, photographers, coaches, management, everyone involved is portrayed as a character and important to the series. The cast here is incredibly diverse, allowing everyone to stand out, rather than blend in. Credit also goes to the character-designers, who gave every single character in the series his own look.

I also feel that this is the series that shows one of the bewst portrayals of “there is no I in team”. It’s indeed true that Tatsumi is a brilliant coach, and there are a few brilliant players, but the series is entirely different from all of the teams in fiction that are just built around one player. Instead, everyone has the points at which he’s good and the points at which he’s terrible, and throughout 26 episodes, this series really tries to put as many people under the loop as possible. It really tries to do as much as possible in every episode in terms of characterization, and this really makes the huge cast come alive. It’s not like there’s one character that stands out, and instead it’s the characters together that form a very addictive whole.

Because it continues to explore its characters, evenin the quietest parts, there hardly is any part about this serise that’s not interesting, but the soccer matches, and especially the long ones, are where this series truly shines. It’s not that they’re the most unpredictable out there, you can pretty much predict the outcomes. Everything apart from that however is a huge roller-coaster ride, especially the final match that forms the climax of this series. It’s a match that’s constantly cyhanging and evolving, utilizing as many characters (including the opponents!) as possible.

This is really how a series without a big animatio budget should be done. Giant Killing can drink many of its big budgetted counterparts under the table with its incredibly detailed and addictive storytelling. It also is the series that is the single best at handling foreign languages, out of any anime I’ve ever seen: French, English, Dutch, Portugese, this is a really international anime that portrays foreigners as they are, rather than as the xemophobic stereotypes you usualyl see in anime. It’s not like this series has one particular character that is really well developed. What it does have, though, is dozens of characters with their own charms, quirks and flaws who subtly change over the course of the story.

Storytelling: 10/10 – Utilizes every minute to put as much detail into its cast and football matches. Addictive beyond belief.
Characters: 9/10 – Lots of characters, who are all diverse and sparkle with personality, and are explored really well throughout the series.
Production-Values: 8/10 – The animation isn’t stellar and it uses a lot of shortcuts, the series has a unique look nevertheless. The music is also simple but mesmerizing.
Setting: 9/10 – An excellent portrayal of professional football and everything around it.

Suggestions:
– Shion no Ou
– One Outs (It’s similar, although much less awesome)
– Baccano!

Giant Killing – 26

by psgels, posted in Giant Killing



First of all I want to say that this episode ended with a completely new ED, and it really could not have fitted better. What a great and original way to close off this series.

In any case, the previous episode featured the climax of this series, so this episode had all its time for an epilogue, and it really turned out to be quite a unique closure for this series. Most series take things easy and slow down the pacing, but damn, so many things happened in this episode: we saw three matches, and the entire second half was dedicated to a bit of a curry party. At first this episode seemed very random, but it came together wonderfully in the end.

As an epilogue, you could really see that there was a lot that this episode tried to do, and it really succeeded. First of all it showed that the match against Osaka was nowhere near the end: they’re going to keep playing and growing, shown by how Akasaki was selected for Japan’s Olympic team. At the same time, this episode meant to summarize the themes of the entire series, and it did so through that curry party. For one it was hilarious to see Tatsumi order everyone to take part in it, but it really highlighted the themes of Giant Killing: teamwork and having fun.

I consider this to be an excellent example of a series that still is somewhere in the middle of its on-going manga, but found itself a perfect place o stop. Of course I’d really like a second season, but if this ends up to be the end of the series then I’m not feeling down about it at all, and the past episodes were an excellent ending.

Before the past Spring season started, I expected nothing from this series, but its first episode really blew me away. During the Spring Season, it was a tad overshadowed by Noitamina, but throughout the past three months it has been consistently my favourite airing series and I had a lot of fun blogging it.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Heartcatch Precure – 33

by psgels, posted in Heartcatch Precure




It’s cure Moonlight’s return. Of course this episode was awesome!

I mean, this entire episode was dedicated to Yuri and her past as Cure Moonlight. The creators here really waste no time to use their new powers in order to help Yuri get her powers back, and even then it wasn’t just a cheap revive that completely negated the build-up of the earlier episodes: despite how extremely badass Yuri’s fairy looked, he remains dead, and can only talk to her through some sort of illusion from the heart tree. The main reason why Yuri was able to transform again was due to Tsubomi and Erika’s work, both in collecting the heart seeds and bringing back her motivation.

Yuri’s fairy was even more proof that this series has some of the best animal mascots I’ve seen in in a mahou shoujo. Most of the time they’re either just a device to get girls to transform, acting as annoying and cute as possible. Here things are completely different, especially the veterans like Koppei and Koron: both are just totally badass in their ow way, and both really are crucial in their support, yet at the same time they never try to steal the spotlights.

Moonlight’s transformation looked gorgeous, by the way. It didn’t have the huge amount of frames that Cure Sunshine had, but really made up for it with its gorgeous art. Right now, I really am convinced that she has the best character-designs of the entire series, hence why she hooked me from the first episode.
Rating: *** (Awesome)