Author: psgels

Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu – 12

by psgels, posted in Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu



Miran really likes killing people, but to learn that he already was plotting to take over the world at the age of five… That’s some hardcore bad guy.

In any case, I wonder what the creators intended to do by suddenly killing off a ton of different people who were conspiring against Shion: it’s either going to fuel the other anti-Shion people in the kingdom, or they intend to take care of them all at once. Either way, this episode was building up towards more international intrigue with those pink-haired people and all.

I’m still waiting for something to catch my interest, though. People keep saying that the second half of this series will be awesome, and I’m willing to wait for that. My main issue right now is that there are no characters that interest me left: there just are too many of them and they’re too similar. Even the humour between Ferris and Ryner is getting old. The best is probably Miran: I feel that if this guy develops, he can change into something great, as this episode hinted.

Perhaps I’m comparing this show too much to Guin Saga (which arguably did have a much better direction, and it did pull off a huge cast), but I’m not really feeling anything with this series at this point. At this point in the series, that’s nothing too disastrous, though, as there still is plenty of time for this series to redeem itself, though it is a bit of a chore to get through these episodes.
Rating: (Enjoyable)

Shiki – 11

by psgels, posted in Shiki



To the people who have yet to check out this episode: be careful. The entire ED is full of spoilers for the second half. >.< Either way, this was a bit of a bizarre way to end the first half with: an entire episode dedicated to none other than Itou Ikumi. Didn't see that one coming, yet it worked surprisingly well to show how the villagers are starting to suspect things. This episode did really well in portraying such a weird character as herself, and she's actually quite charming. I remember some commenters talk about how I should hate Shiki because its story is just a standard vampire story and has hardly any originality. The thing with this show is indeed that the general story is about a bunch of vampires attacking a town, nothing special with that. The reason why I love this show is the huge amount of creativity and energy it puts in its delivery and storytelling. It's true that I like shows with a lot of plot twists (provided that they don't take this over the top and are too lazy in other areas), but I also love the series that have simple stories, yet excel in their delivery, storytelling, or characters. That's pretty much the reason why my review scale talks about "storytelling", rather than "story". I don't care how big your story is, I'm mostly interested in how it's used. I think the best way to describe the storytelling in this show is that it leaves hardly any room for the audience to take a breath: every second is busy showing something. There seem to be hardly any seconds there to just fill time. It's also a series that makes excellent use of its soundtrack to create its atmosphere: it knows when to start playing its tunes, and it also knows when to keep quiet. It works really well so far. On top of that, I also love the kinds of series that actually make their setting come alive. At this point, it's actually working pretty well so far, and this episode was a key to it: it showed that the lead characters aren't the only people in the world, and the villagers are definitely also involved here. I feel like the creators can take this even further, but that completely depends on the kind of direction that the second half will go into, and whether it will abandon the rest of the villagers, or instead focus even more on them. Series that really manage to portray an alive setting are very rare, but it would be awesome if this show manages to do it. Rating: ** (Excellent)

Kuroshitsuji II Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Kuroshitsuji II




Okay, you can say a lot about Kuroshitsuji II as a sequel to Kuroshitsuji. But at least it has BALLS.

In today’s anime, in which it’s very difficult to come up with really interesting plots and storylines, and people rather try to stay at the tried and true, Kuroshitsuji came, made optimal use of its creative freedom, discarded the manga it’s based on completely, trolled just about everyone who watched it and came up with quite an interesting concept for its sequel. This lead to many good things, but also many bad things.

But still, out of all of the series that premiered during the past summer season, I really can’t deny that Kuroshitsuji II had the best plot out of all of them: it made the best use of its episodes, it was the least afraid to include some caring yet thought out plot twists, it was very good at building up its own storyline and actually using this and overall I have to say that I enjoyed most of it.

But the biggest selling point of this series is without a doubt the new cast of villains, especially Alois and Claude. The two of them are like a trainwreck: completely derailed but yet so interesting to watch. Especially the antics of Alois are consistently captivating, and you can see that the creators had a lot of fun portraying him as this insane teenaged noble. The creators realized this very well, and so they prepared a number of plot twists that really attempt to bring the best out of these two characters.

On the flip-side, this is a series that likes trolling its viewers. This is especially noticeable in the way that it follows a very awesome first episode with a completely disappointing and badly executed second episode. And in fact, the first third of this series has just about everything that made the fillers of the first season so tedious to get through. Episodes 2 to four are a bit of a test of patience, they’re necessary for the plot and all, but this series makes no attempt at hiding its vast array of annoying characters.

After that though, this series really gets better than ever. Its humour gets snappier, the way the series uses its unique selling point of god-mode butlers gets used better than ever, both for the serious purposes and the over the top silly ones (which work more and more as the series goes on).

This series also has the weirdest allocation of animation budget I’ve seen in a long while. The animation in this series ranges between average to very smooth,like what most series do. However, the creators have this very interesting tendency to spend the most frames on the most random scenes, especially on hands or lip-syncing, while the action-scenes usually have average animation. And don’t get me wrong here: it actually works pretty well. Those detailed scenes add an interesting amount of life to the characters, and the action scenes are kept interesting by the plot twists anyway, so they don’t really need any stellar animation.

I have ranted about Kuroshitsuji, I have ranted about the fillers, and I have ranted about the ending of this sequel (which, the more I think about it, was actually pretty good), but really: we need more series like this. Series in which the creators disregard any conventions and just go with a bunch of interesting ideas that actually lead to some unique stories.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Well paced, fun, tense and exciting and manages to get the best out of the plot and characters. At times it might not seem like it knows what it’s doing but in 50% of the cases it’s just trolling.
Characters: 9/10 – Alois and Claude may not be the deepest characters, but they’re delightful to watch. This sequel also gives an interesting new dimension to Ciel and Sebastian.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Strange uses of budget that somehow work. Oh, and Yuki Kajiura has an insert song somewhere.
Setting: 8/10 – Makes optimal use of its creative liberties with a seemingly endless supply of interesting ideas for the plot to work with.

Suggestions:
– Touka Gettan
– Futakoi Alternative
– Ga-Rei Zero

Kuroshitsuji II – 12

by psgels, posted in Kuroshitsuji II



Look… just look at this picture. Got it?

In memory of

Ciel Phantomhive

Who died at Aug. 26th, 1889

That would have been the perfect ending here. That was how this episode SHOULD have ended. I mean, the creators wouldn’t be crazy enough to actually try and revive Ciel, right? They’re not going to do something as stupid as negating the entire ending of the first season. They couldn’t, right?

So yeah, we got trolled here; big time. Dear god, reviving is one thing, but get this: in his last moments, Alois forged a contract with Johanna that turns Ciel into a demon. Because he is a demon now, he can’t die, yet his contract with Sebastian is still running, even though there is no way for Sebastian to absorb Ciel’s soul. So yeah, Ciel and Sebastian will actually be able to live together FOR ALL ETERNITY. Bloody Nora, they actually went there. This series actually was entirely meant to realize the wish of the squealing yaoi fangirls to have those two together until doomsday.

I’m a bit bewildered by all of this, especially on how I’m going to write the review for this series. I mean, was this episode bad? It was perfectly told if you ignore the things it tried to tell: everything took its time to let all of the revelations play out, the second half of the episode was well produced in how the creators portrayed Ciel saying goodbye to everyone. I have no problems with that.

Now, whether or not the big twist is bad, here’s the thing: I have seen a ton of bad endings at this point, and this episode really looked like none of them. Usually, the endings that disappoint me are either the ones who lack ambition (as in, they resolve things fine but the way they do it does no justice to the build-up that it has gotten), ones that fail to resolve anything (it really depends on the rest of the series and how those delivered whether I dislike or accept those) or ones that are just too rushed.

This episode was neither. The creators knew exactly what they wanted to do (dammit!), they knew exactly which revelation they wanted to save for when, and they knew exactly how to plan everything out, not just in this episode, but throughout the entire series. I mean, how often did this series troll anyway? It feels like it trolled both the fans of Ciel and Sebastian as well as the fans of the new approach, twice or even more.

I’m really going to have to sort out my thoughts for a bit for the review of this series.
Rating: #^% (Akjsdfh)

Ookami -San to Shichinin no Nakama-Tachi Review – 77,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



For the series that had the most hard to remember title of the past summer season, I was expecting something like a fairy tale story with some moe elements. Instead, we got a moe story with some fairy tale elements. Obviously that was a bit of a disappointment, but it’s still a pretty decent series.

I think the best way to describe this series is that it’s generally well executed, but it has a number of things that ended up holding it down. JC Staff really put some of their best animators on this series, which really results in a show that is chock full of interesting animation, with rich and detailed movements. It’s well directed, the dialogue is also pretty well written and presented. The characters are lively and are portrayed as such. At these aspects, it’s a very charming series.

Unfortunately, this is one of those series where it’s really the plot and content that hurts it the most, in which your mileage may vary depending on how much you can stand moe and harem stereotypes, because this show is chock full of it. Maids, tsunderes, boob jokes, punks, magicians, popularity contests, fireworks, pool episodes, you name it and this show probably has it. This is great for if you love these kinds of things, but personally I was rather annoyed with all of the stock situations that this series came up with, even though it often provided some sort of twist or creative twist to their cases. You can see that this series likes to be tongue in cheek about its subject material, and it’s very much a homage to various moe stereotypes, but for my tastes it wasn’t tongue in cheek enough.

The presentation is, like mentioned above, pretty solid, though there are some strange and notable exceptions. You know the good comedies, who even when a joke falls flat remain fun and interesting to watch. Ookami doesn’t have that: when a joke falls flat, it really falls flat, and this show often has a tendency to repeat those jokes over and over again. The most notable here are the boob jokes (there are way too many of those here, and they just refuse to leave), but the narrator also has some moments in which she thinks she’s funny while she actually isn’t.

This is also one of those series that doesn’t try to hide the fact that it’s based on a still on-going series of light novels. It just ends. There is no real conclusion, and the final episodes fail miserably in their attempts to at least have some sort of climax by introducing way too many new side-plots and turning the big bad guy of the series into an evil genius with huge holes in his plans. And to the rest of the villains of this series, the creators aren’t really kind either: most of them just end up as one-dimensional punching bags for the lead characters, so they fail to introduce any kind of tension.

And yet… despite all that I said here… I do kindof like this show. The lead characters are pretty charming and nicely characterized, and all of the protagonists have their own backstory and personality. The episodic nature of this series prevents it from dragging on and the fairy tale roots of the series aren’t really a core of the series, but they do provide the series with a nice amount of symbolism which really helped this series. It is indeed a show focused heavily on moe stereotypes, but I have watched tons of blander moe shows.

Storytelling: 7/10 – Solid, though a bit too reliant on stereotypes at times.
Characters: 8/10 – The good guys are interesting to watch, the bad guys not so much.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Excellent animation, I have to admit.
Setting: 7/10 – Too many moe stereotypes that will turn off those who aren’t interested in them.

Suggestions:
– GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class
– Kannagi
– 7 Comments

Rainbow – 24

by psgels, posted in Rainbow



Okay, so contrary to what I first thought, the Suppon arc is going to take up three episodes. That makes me all the more curious to that mysterious final episode through which the creators are going to close off the series (please! Heitai!), but as the final multi-episode arc of this series, Suppon’s story works really well. For the biggest amount of drama, the creators could have chosen to save Mario or Joe for last. Instead, they chose the much more mellow and melancholic Suppon: a guy who really embodies the major theme of this show through and through.

And frankly, I like it that the creators used the least sappy story for last. This series always had its cheese problem: despite its excellent plot, it’s the reason why I’m never going to rate this show as a masterpiece. Still, it is one of those examples which really makes up for its cheese. Out of all of the arcs of the second half though, I find the Suppon arc the most interesting. That’s not to say that the other arcs didn’t stand out, though: Mario’s was the most intense, Joe’s was the most heart-warming, Cabbage’s was the funniest and Baremoto’s made the best use of the flaws of its character. They all had their own way in which they stood out, and that’s what made this second half work so well.

As for the Americans… yeah, they were decent I guess. The biggest problem was that they were portrayed like most thugs in anime: without much of a personality (except for that one boxer guy perhaps). The voice actors actually got their accents quite right and it wasn’t like the usual Engrish here. But at the same time, you can really hear that this dialogue was written by a Japanese, and then translated to English without trying to make it sound natural from the mouth of an American. But yeah, this is just me, saying things. I have no idea how natural anime sounds in the ears of Japanese people.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Nurarihyon no Mago – 11

by psgels, posted in Nurarihyon no Mago



So with this episode, apparently the real story of Nurarihyon no Mago should have started. And really, I’m impressed so far. Not with the potential, but the idea of the author to start things off with Nurarihyon and Yura, as they immediately get attacked by whatever evil youkai that have moved into town.

I liked the chemistry between them, and the creators made good use of the tension and the fact that Yura was actually really liking the one she wanted to kill in the first place. I really wonder what that attack would have looked like with Yura out of the picture, which would have allowed Nurarihyon to show some of his powers: I’m very interested to whether this guy still has his bite, or whether he has just turned into a regular old guy. I never really understood how youkai age, to be honest: they seem to be able to live forever, or at least for many centuries, and yet some of them age while others don’t. When a youkai is in an old man form, does that also mean that he’s weaker than his younger version?

I liked Yura a lot, especially now that this episode finally gave her the chance to actually summon her full force. Her weakness is still pretty big, though: she only has to hope that she can buy enough time to actually summon all of them. Especially since she works alone, she is very easy to surprise and take out at this rate, though I guess it’s worth the effort considering the great stuff she can pull off when she actually does manage to summon all of her Shikigamis.

The rest of this episode was quite light-hearted, but all of it was pretty enjoyable. The youkai together remain cute, and even Rikuou’s classmates are nice enough to watch when they don’t belong to the main focus of the episode.
Rating: * (Good)

Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin – 11

by psgels, posted in Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin




Wow…. these are the kinds of episodes that blow you away. It did to me at least.

I already mentioned at the shoutbox that we had a beyond awesome staff working on this episode: Sayo Yamamoto, the director of Michiko e Hatchin doing the storyboard and the script written by Hiroshi Ounogi, who also wrote Noein and Birdy the Mighty. It’s like Superman having tea with Batman here. And seriously, even knowing that, this episode kicked ass beyond belief.

I don’t even know where to start with how magnificent this episode played out. So much happened at once (I guess that that was the point of the previous two episodes: becoming so quiet and dull in order to just strengthen the ridiculously huge impact this episode would have). Mikaze’s sex appeal went beyond the roof here (and it was actually used extremely well in the first half of this episode), the inner paranoia of her spells on Bunmei were wonderfully portrayed and the entire episode itself was just amazingly animated.

This episode was just disturbing. I mean, we could expect Mikaze to be up to something, but I absolutely loved how the creators just threw everyone’s hidden identity at your face here. Mikaze knowing the exact recipe of Bunmei’s cooking was just creepy. That kissing scene… I can’t believe how far and graphic that actually went. You could really see the influences of Michiko e Hatchin here. Another favourite was that scene in which Maya kicked the heck out of Bunmei here. Talk about brutal!

I mean, I’m just baffled by this series. The thing is that it had its share of mediocre episodes, and it is mostly awesome when it has the right episode staff (I really have to applaud the producers here in getting the best people they could get here). I mean, episodes 1, 6 and 11: I consider all three to be the three single best episodes out of any show that started in the past summer season. I found it really strange that right before the ending, this series would waste so much time on random stories. But I really didn’t expect the creators to bombard us with so much at once here.

Occult Gakuin, I applaud you.
Rating: **** (Fantastic)

High School of the Dead – 11

by psgels, posted in High School of the Dead



I was expecting the worst here. I mean, at the end of the previous episode, the way that that demented teacher knocked on the door was like saying “Hello, I’m your endboss. May I come in?”

Thankfully though, this episode fully acknowledged that he was a disaster, and instead of the earlier episodes the creators chose a very restrained way for his story: we get a bit of his history, then we get to see what he did to Rei, then we get a confrontation and after that he’s simply kicked out. I really did not expect this kind of subtlety from a show that markets itself with zombies and boobs.

There were some parts I didn’t like, like at the start of the episode in which those adults refuse to cooperate (but then again, I also don’t understand the hordes of people who demonstrate for the most moronic reasons), but overall I like this change of pace. I already said that this series sets itself apart with its atmosphere, and there was this strange melancholy during that scene in which all those nuclear bombs were launched that I really liked.

At the same time, I like how the creators chose the climax of this series to revolve around rescuing the loved ones of Rei and Komuro. It’s down to earth, yet it’s bound to be exciting, there’s going to be an interesting deadline that the creators can use. The thing with this series is that its action may not be as good as Sengoku Basara, nor is its premise really refined or original not to mention the pointless fanservice, but it is much better balanced and varied than the other major action title of this season.

Edit: a small correction here: I just discovered that High School of the Dead will just be twelve episodes long. So yeah, it’s going to end next week, which makes it quite a strange choice for a semi-final episode.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Sengoku Basara – 22

by psgels, posted in Sengoku Basara



Now this is more like it. This episode was entirely building up to that finale again, but it also packed a punch when it comes to action. This really shows a number of things about this series:

– This series keeps its action scenes short and sweet: it wisely chose not to drag out the action for too long.
– This series knows that an action series isn’t just about action, but also creating a good setting and characters to carry this action are just as important.
– This series has huge balls and guts to let everything depend on the final two episodes.

I mean, I’ve said this before: this really is the school example of a series you can only judge after it fully ends. Out of all the series this season, this one really lets the most depend on its finale, even more than Occult Academy. And unlike Occult Academy, I still have full confidence that the creators know what they’re doing. All they need to do is give everything they’ve got, like what they did with the sixth episode, and that will make the entire series worth it.

In the meantime, I enjoyed the action of this episode a lot. It was well directed, and a pretty nice taste of what’s to come. I especially loved the parts in which Date Masamune was so cool that he could have entire conversations on his horse while in the air, in the middle of explosives. I also loved the rest of that explosive horse scene. The entire episode was just a ploy of Toyotomi and his allies to slow down his enemies enough for his main force, and I liked how all those plans seemed to be working.
Rating: ** (Excellent)