Author: psgels

Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu – 02

by psgels, posted in Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu



As for the series I’m not going to blog:
– Ookami has some nice ideas. Just too bad that it doesn’t know how to use them, is pretty bad at building up and has a terrible narrator.
– Amagami may have a pretty good staff, but even they couldn’t do something about the utterly dull scenario and lead character.

As for Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu… yeah. It’s definitely a wild-card for my blogging schedule this season, and if it would have aired in any other season, I would never have considered to cover it. This summer season however… I wouldn’t call it dry, like with the previous Winter Season. There are quite a few excellent titles with Shiki, Nurarihyon no Mago, High School of the Dead and Occult Gakuin, along with promising sequels as Kuroshitsuji II and Sengoku Basara II. Apart from that though… there really isn’t anything else. The rest, while having charms here and there, is just doomed for mediocrity.

Out of that ‘rest’, the one that stands out the most is Denyuuden. As much as I fear the staff (it has the director of the first season of Sengoku Basara, Regios, Rental Magica, Mamoru-ku n ni Megami ni Shukufuku wo, Yume da Maya Kidan and the Chrono Trigger OVA, while the series composition guy only worked on Chocolate Underground, Dogs, Bullets and Carnage, Final Fantasy Unlimited and Kurogane no Linebarrels… what kind of a resume is that?!), I’m willing to offer them a chance to impress me.

Denyuuden (as I’ll call this thing for now) stands out with its tongue-in-cheek lead characters, and this episode showed that it’s also interested in building towards a serious story. I’m interested in how the two are going to mesh. This show sucks for having such a focus on teenagers in such a fantasy setting (with the strongest magician like what? sixteen years old?), but this episode spent a lot of time on what it should have been doing: building up, introducing the setting, showing a bit of back-story, things like that. The characters are quite likable due to this tongue-in-cheek execution, and they’ve got enough chemistry. That should be alright for now, though do note that I WILL DROP THIS SERIES as soon as it starts dragging or falling apart.

The worst part of this episode was that it tended to try a little too hard with the dramatic scenes. The part in which that girl whose name I can’t remember cry up to Raina could have been done more subtle, while the bullies in that flashback scene… were just too much.
Rating: (Enjoyable)

Some Quick First Impression: Shiki, Strike Witches 2 and Stitch! Zutto Saikou no Tomodachi

by psgels, posted in Shiki, Some Quick First Impressions

Shiki

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a typical teen-aged girl who doesn’t like the place she’s grow up in.
Well.. so this series really has an issue with its character-designs. The unimportant characters are fine, and the females range from decent-looking teenagers to actually great looking parents. But the males, dear god, the poor males. Some of these guys look absolutely atrocious. What were the creators thinking here? Either way though: putting that aside, then this was a really excellent first episode. The direction was snappy and creative, and it proved to give a great cliff-hanger to its first episode. The horror was subtle yet at the same time in your face when it mattered. This is another one of those series that play in an isolated Japanese village, and the creators did a really good job in portraying the silent and remote nature of this village, full of older people and farmers about to hit retirement. The art direction was really good, and really made this episode interesting to look at whenever the males weren’t in the picture. This episode already showed that it’s great at building up an atmosphere and fleshing out a single character over a single episode. Noitamina looks like it’s going to be awesome this season as well!
OP: Best OP of the season.
ED: Hmm, badly sung.
Potential: 90%

Strike Witches 2

Short Synopsis: Our lead character originally thought that she wouldn’t be fighting anymore, but returns to the battlefield anyway.
Strike Witches… makes no sense. Seriously, any attempts to give any logical criticism to it are the equivalent of gathering a small army to kick in an open door, so therefore I won’t. Instead, it’s a series that’s all about its characters, and weird ideas for its setting and scenarios. Since the first season was obviously produced without this second season in mind, this episode merely serves to put things back into status quo by pulling the lead character out of retirement and having the enemies that were previously thought to be destroyed return. Right now, the second season will probably have more time to explore the different characters, plus it looks like we’ll also get more dime to delve into the cause of all of the evil monsters, which never really was explained in that first season. Either way, this episode pretty much showed that this really is going to be much of the same: if you liked it, then you’ll probably like this series as well as it wasn’t an entirely shallow series, and if you hated it you’re going to hate it even more because nothing much has improved. Personally, it wasn’t that much of a chore to watch the first season, but did it deserve the incredible amount of DVD sales? Of course not. This series is fluff. Charming fluff, but fluff nonetheless.
OP: Pretty much a carbon copy of your standard OP
ED: Pretty much a carbon copy of your standard ED
Potential: 35%

Stitch! Zutto Saikou no Tomodachi

Short Synopsis: Our lead character moves to a new high school with her troublesome alien friend.
I watched the first episode of this one back in 2008, so I figured that I might as well check out what happened to it. But seriously, it has really derailed in the process! The show devolved into some really weird combination between japanese and american kids’ shows. The villains are terribly incompetent morons like you always see in those uninspired american kids’ shows, while this episode showed the lead character as she moved to a new school, gets the attention of the hottest classmate and makes enemies with a spoiled rich girl, in typical Japanese fashion. I mean, East meeting West is nice and all, but that still is no excuse for a kids’ show to treat its audience like idiots. I mean, there are times at which this series tries to educate its audience when Stitch causes trouble (seriously, this thing is like a trouble magnet. For him, entering a door becomes an entire adventure of hopping across the room while breaking as much in the process as possible), but right at the start we see him steal a bunch of donuts and nobody even squeaks at it. Be consistent, dammit!
OP: I really believe that the creators should have put more than 2 minutes into composing this thing.
Potential: 0%

Maison Ikkoku Review – 92,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



96 episodes. I know that it’s a huge task to watch this series, especially when it’s filled with slice of life. But heck, who cares? This series deserves every inch of its status as a classic. Heck, it’s by far the best romance I’ve ever seen.

I mean, the big danger with these incredibly long series is that they spend too much time dragging on, or repeating themselves. That’s not the point of Maison Ikkoku, though. It’s here to really deliver the every day lives of its lead characters, and we follow them through EIGHT YEARS of their lives. We start at the point at which the lead character (Godai) tries to get into college, and we get to see the progression of him and the ones around him through his college years, up to the point of him, trying to find employment. There is a HUGE amount of character-development in this series, and you know what? It’s handled even better than Touch.

Along with the every day lives, this is a series that continues to tug against the characters and their relationships with real and identifiable problems. At times it may go a bit overboard with the misunderstandings, but it always finds very down to earth methods to solve them. This series also masterfully uses the cultural norms and standards of Japan in the 1980s in its drama, like the desire for women to be ‘pure’, the focus on marriage, or the tight job market. There’s always something going on in this series and when it drags out, it really drags out to get the best out of the characters, rather than stalling for time.

Some of the characters of this series are hard to get into: they’re the types of unlikable bastards who leech off others and enjoy the misery of the easy victims. Flawed as they are though, these people also have the charms that grow with you as the series continues. They’re all portrayed real people, rather than the usual stereotypes who only can live off their gimmick. Throughout the entire series, they’re annoying, but for once they’re annoying in a lovable way.

But what really blew my mind about this series was how well it was technically executed. I mean, this series has the best animation of any Studio Deen series I’ve seen so far, and that for a series with nearly a hundred episodes! Animation is smooth and detailed, characters move as life-like as possible and there are less still frames than in most 24 episoded series nowadays. The way that the series portray all of the different feelings and emotions, from anger to love to hangover, is done very realistically. And it keeps this standard up throughout its entire run, with only a few noticeable hiccups.

Rumiko Takahashi… yeah. She really is a genius when she wants to. This series even blows series from Mitsuru Adachi out of the water with its depth and execution. I wouldn’t call it perfect, though. There are times when it uses coincidences too much in order to get two characters at the right place at the right time, and its characters can be quite dense at times. But even there: it’s a pretty realistic portrayal of denseness. It’s not like we have characters like Hanamaru Youchien here: characters here have trouble getting romantic hints, but they’re in no way stupid enough not to notice the obvious signs thrown in front of them. In fact, everyone in the series has his or her moments of stupidity and intelligence. Either way though, if you want the best romance anime out there, then I really believe that this is the series you should check out.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Makes excellent use of its 96 episodes, it’s really good at building up, really succeeded in bringing the source material to life. Sometimes it uses too many coincidences, though.
Characters: 10/10 – Absolutely fantastic. Wonderfully portrayed, fleshed out and developed.
Production-Values: 9/10 – For its time and length… very impressive. Detailed in its movements, and surprisingly few corners are cut.
Setting: 9/10 – This series has ton of slice of life, but exactly because of that it’s able to offer a very detailed portrayal of what people in their twenties, more than twenty years ago must have gone through.

Suggestions:
– Touch
– Saiunkoku Monogatari
– Victorian Romance Emma

The Seamifinals of the Aniblog Tourney

by psgels, posted in Special Articles

Silly puns aside, we’ve reached the semi-finals. Yay!

Today’s opponent is without a doubt the strongest I’ve had to face so far. Heck, they already existed before I even knew what an anime blog was. As usual, you can find the link to the tourney here:

http://aniblogtourney.wordpress.com/2010/07/06/semi-finals/

And also, don’t forget to check out Sea Slugs Anime Blog, if you haven’t already done so. 😉

Rainbow – 14

by psgels, posted in Rainbow



Hell yeah, the creators really did it:they closed off the two major antagonists. We’ve actually reached a point at which the biggest conflicts are gone, and yet there are still 12 episodes left. That’s something you hardly ever see in anime.

This episode was both about revenge being sweet, yet not sweet enough to allow you just to kills someone and get it over with. The doctor got what he deserved, and our lead characters also got their chance to dance on his premature grave in order to really let his deeds sink into him. Ishihara meanwhile was a bit more ambiguous, as we don’t know exactly what happened to him, but Mario gave him a nice closure.

Now, those final twelve episodes. They’re all going to be about our characters growing, and exploiting their own futures. It’s this part that I’ve really been looking forward to, and how this series, with all its over the top acting, is going to end up handling this. This episode also stressed that they’ve all grown up, they’re adults now, and they can now move on with their lives.

There’s one thing that I especially want to know: whatever happened to Joe’s sister? Did they get together? The past two episodes have really not told much about these lives, in order to really focus on wrapping the past storyline up.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Some Quick First Impressions: Digimon Xross Wars, Tono to Issho and Nurarihyon no Mago

by psgels, posted in Nurarihyon no Mago, Some Quick First Impressions

Digimon Xros Wars

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is the legendary hero who can save the world from an invasion of Digimon.
Well, so this was going to be the biggest question-mark of the season. It’s digimon… but focused on an even younger audience. Would that really be able to work? Well… after watching this episode… it seems that the creators intend this to be one of those cheesy mecha series from the seventies and eighties, and I don’t mean that in a good way! Battles descend in flashy transformations in which the good guys are able to wipe out hordes of evil digimon at once, everything is unnecessarily spunky. The direction unfortunately also sucks. Things just… happen. There is no build up, no attempts to create suspension of disbelief, it’s just an adventure of a bunch of kids who happen to have superpowers. I will say this though: it is better than most other kiddie shows. There’s a hint of drama, and one or two scenes actually didn’t have cheese. But yeah, let’s face it: this one’s never going to be as good as Digimon’s first season. I know it’s a kids’ series and all, but that’s no excuse to look down on them and treat them like idiots.
OP: Decent enough.
Potential: 10%

Tono to Issho

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a famous person in the Sengoku era.
So… if you were wondering whether the tv-series improved on the OVA… don’t bother. IT’S EXACTLY THE BLOODY SAME! Seriously, as it turns out, the tv-series is just going to consist out of the OVA, chopped up into episodes of ninety seconds. I mean… eh?
ED: The only thing new, but still crappy.
Potential: -70%

Nuyarihyon no Mago

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is the grandson of some lead of some large youkai family.
Some shows go all out with their first episode. This one didn’t, but there still is enough to like left. This episode was wonderfully subtle for a shounen series. There’s no overacting, there is no fanservice, the lead character isn’t some cocky idiot who charges into fights, and yet the drama that’s there is handled really well. The characters get to say what they want to say without going over the top, and this episode already established the lead character beyond a mere caricature by showing how he chose to grow up as a normal human, despite the house full of youkai he’s raised in. I especially want to praise that soundtrack, which turned out to be really atmospheric and added an extra layer of emotional depth to the dramatic scenes. The series still is a bit childish, as we see a lot of scenes of middle schoolers, hanging out with each other, but there was nothing bad about them. There were no obvious stereotypes or characters who abuse their own gimmicks, it pulled no cheap tricks, nor were the characters acting way too stupid for their own good. The youkai designs range from cute to simple to actually quite beautiful and well drawn. Overall, a solid start to a series that surely is still holding back a lot of its cards.
OP: Decent at first sight, but it has this innocent charm to it.
ED: Um… yeah. Why does this work so well?
Potential: 85%

Some Quick First Impressions: Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin, High School of the Dead and Seitokai Yakuindomo

by psgels, posted in High School of the Dead, Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin, Some Quick First Impressions

Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is the daughter of the head of some supernatural high school.
How awesome. This was everything a first episode should be! Funny, entertaining, tense, mysterious, intriguing, engaging, this episode was all of it. I was really afraid of the way that the promo material portrayed the lead characters, but there turned out to be no need to worry. The female lead at least is a very colourful character, and most importantly: this episode really wasted no time to delve into her background. It just went “screw carefully introducing characters and waiting with their background until the last minute. We’ve got only thirteen episodes here, you know!” This episode was full of weird and entertaining plot twists that had a ton of charms. The jokes were quite creative, and most importantly: while it definitely made its characters out to be a bunch of oddballs, it never turned them into idiots. Especially the part in which that ghost pretended to be the lead character’s dead father, she really saw through such a shallow trap immediately, instead of getting all sentimental about it. However, I do have one thing to say about this episode, and this is a pretty big issue: this clearly was a “let’s go all out with our first episode”-first episode. That is NO EXCUSE for the show to dull in after this. This has the potential to become a classic if all the episodes are of this caliber. However, will the creators really have enough material to make every single episode entertaining, or will they just descend into random fluff after this?
OP: Very neat art there.
ED: A decent ballad
Potential: 95%

High School of the Dead

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is in a school full of ZOMBIES
Yeah, it’s pretty much like expected. The story itself has the depth of a paper bucket, we have a school zombie invasion and your average teen-aged lead happens to be one of the few who manages to escape, along with his love interest. There’s a ton of fanservice as well. Does that matter, though? Of course not! This is just one of those shows that knows exactly what it is: adrenaline. This episode was a great taste in what is about to come, with a tight and over the top atmosphere, with a lot of passion and overacting. Right from the start, this would be a series that’s going to sell itself with its action, and well, in this episode it accomplished its mission! On the cliche side of things, though: while there are definitely cliches here and there (the childhood promise being the worst of them), the lead characters for once aren’t actually useless or weak. the lead female practices martial arts, while the lead male has also showed that he can kick zombie ass.
OP: Decent J-rock, though nothing special.
ED: Again, decent j-rock.
Potential: 75%

Seitokai Yakuindomo

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets to be in the student council in a school with 90% females…. they’re not even trying anymore, are they?
Oh boy, oh boy! I hope that you’re a big fan of short-jokes, because this series surely has enough of them in its endless attempts to remind us that one of the characters is short. Seriously, the people from GoHands are terrific animators. So why the heck do they keep spending their time with these incredibly stupid premises? While not as bad as Princess Lover, Seitokai Yakuindomo is yet another one of those series in which we get to see cute girls with the depth of a paper bag parade around the screen, all around one male character who gets his usual harem. The jokes here… were terrible. They’re not funny, and some of them get repeated endlessly. I doubt that many people who visit this blog were planning to check this one out, but still: there are so many better shows of this kind. I don’t see anything that sets this series apart from its ilk.
OP: Glad to see that the jokes that the series plans to drag out in the rest of the series are even more terrible than what they showed in this episode.
ED: Obnoxious.
Potential: 0%

Giant Killing – 14

by psgels, posted in Giant Killing



This is just one of those series that can be awesome, even in episodes without any action. This was all meant to be an intermezzo, but it still was an excellent watch, and really gave some extra depth to the people it featured.

Most of all, this episode was about the older fans, trying to re-find their nostalgia, and Yuri’s work addiction. It was quite adorable to see those older fans, trying to get their friends from the past interested in football again, even though most of them have grown out of it. The sheer passion they have in this really is addictive, and it really shows that this series is as much about the players as it is about the fans.

Meanwhile, Yuri got some development as she realized how early office workers are finished with work. She’s surrounded in such a masculine environment. Her overworking to the point of getting no sleep was handled subtly, but the rest of this series also has a ton of even more subtle characterizations. I loved in this episode that we got to actually see Kuroda’s fans. They were… peculiar. Another thing I love is that Tatsumi really is someone who’s trying to look cool. And yet, when a goal is made, he screams just as wildly as anyone else around him.

Out of all the series that are currently airing, this now is my favourite, now that Sarai-ya Goyou, Yojou-han and Full Metal Alchemist have ended. While those were all full of production values, this one really shows that even on a small budget you can be very detailed in your storytelling. This series is really full of life, but in a completely different way from the three above mentioned. The first half already was amazing, but I’m very interested to see whether it can surpass itself in the second half.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Uragiri wa Boku no Namae wo Shitteiru – 13

by psgels, posted in Uragiri wa Boku no Namae wo Shitteiru




This was the climax of the first half of this series, and you know what? It was the best episode of this show yet. There was of course Yuki’s angst over Kanata and all, but seriously, this was a very exciting episode that also pushed these characters a bit further. And surprisingly, it was Takashiro of all people that stole this episode for me.

This episode also showed how good the soundtrack of this series can be, and the entire episode really looked gorgeous with all of the visuals that JC Staff were experimenting with. Seriously, I prefer the way they render blood far above the ketchup you usually see in anime. On top of that, we got plenty of hints of background for Reiga (plus Takashiro, which explains pretty much why the Giou clan is used to hunt for these things).

Overall, I’m happy now, and with all of the mid-bosses dead at this point, I’m very interested in the second half of this series. It’s here where the creators really are going to have to use the development of these characters, in order to develop them even more. They’re going to have to spent a number of episodes fully detailing how the characters were in their past lives, and how they changed, ESPECIALLY Reiga and Takashiro. The prospect of that alone is bound to make the second half more interesting than the first.

By the way, does anyone know how far we’re into the manga?
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Heartcatch Precure – 21

by psgels, posted in Heartcatch Precure



I like this show. A lot. But I have mixed feelings about them dragging out the search for the next Precure.

I mean, I can see what the creators are trying to do: in the past two episodes, there has been no shallow hint whatsoever on the identity of this third person. The creators really tried to stay away from the formula that usually surrounds these kinds of tropes. (You know, everyone keeps looking, they can’t find anyone, and only at the last possible moments when the bad guys are about to beat up the lead characters does the mysterious character show herself). In this episode, Tsubomi and Erika were perfectly capable themselves in taking care of the Teacher’s fear of ghosts.

This is all fine and dandy… if it weren’t for the fact that it’s still pretty obvious on who the new main character is going to be. I mean, despite trying, it really made the mistake early on of giving this particular character character-designs that stand out, a mysterious introduction in the first episode, and quite a bit of background for a supposedly unimportant character.

So while I appreciate the series’ efforts, I’d rather just have it get things over with, because return we got a bunch of stupid antics from the three mascots that just went on and on as they sought out the new Precure. I know it was funny, I know it was great to see past characters back, but I also know that it was obnoxious.
Rating: (Enjoyable)