Author: psgels

Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood Review – 92,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Full Metal Alchemist - Brotherhood




Because the first season of Full Metal Alchemist went with its own story, it turned out to be one of the most famous anime of the decade, and the manga was finally about to finish, it maybe wasn’t much of a surprise that Bones ended up animating the story of the manga. And they really made sure to give it a top notch treatment here!

Especially in the past few years, the trend has grown in which series should consider themselves lucky if they can get 26 episodes, or even enough time to animate the entire story on which they’re based. Full Metal Alchemist is different, however: with 64 episodes, it received just the right length in order to tell the full story of the Full Metal Alchemist manga, and boy is it an awesome one!

The story here is completely different from the first season, but I ended up liking it a lot better with the different focus. It’s still focused on a ton of action-scenes, but the story around it is deep, well fleshed out and mature, especially for a series with many shounen elements. The world that the series is set in is well fleshed out, multi-layered and quite detailed.

Another huge focus of this series is the time it spent on characters preparing. With the epic nature of this series, a lot of time is actually spent on the lead characters, finding allies to help them. The cast of this series is huge, but everyone in this series has his or her own part to play in the large scheme of things. The length also allows the creators to really look at all of them and their motivations, backgrounds and purposes, in order to make all of them unique, with excellent results.

What you get is an epic action series with plenty of depth to come by, carefully paced and wrapped up in the end with a finale that’s full of adrenaline. However, you should note that the first fifteen episodes or so follow pretty much the same story as the first Full Metal Alchemist TV-series, and it’s clear that at that point, the creators try to get through these parts as fast as possible in order to get to the new material, compared to the very slowly paced first season.

It of course depends on how keen you’re into seeing the same things again, but there are some notable differences between the two. Brotherhood cuts some of the useless fluff of the first season away, like the moments that were just there to show contrived situations for the lead character to save the day, though it also cuts away a lot of the minor character-building scenes. Don’t worry though, because after 16 episodes, the series continues with a completely different story that in my eyes completely surpasses the original Full Metal Alchemist.

It’s a definite recommendation if you’re looking for something epic. Despite being 64 episodes, Bones keep a surprisingly good animation quality throughout the series, especially the action-scenes themselves look gorgeous for such a long series. The soundtrack also fully captures the grant atmosphere of the story, and will make sure for a show that will keep you entertained.

We here have a series that really made excellent use of its opportunity to finally show an epic story that goes beyond even 52 episodes, while always keeping on track and not losing itself somewhere in the middle. The creators had a really excellent manga to base themselves on, and even though they did not keep to the manga for 100%, the way they brought it to animation still deserves to be applauded.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Well paced and varied in the long run, exciting and engaging in the short run.
Characters: 9/10 – A ton of different characters, most of them get their chance to show off themselves and get some depth. Plenty of character-development as well.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Great animation from Bones, plus an excellent soundtrack.
Setting: 10/10 – Excellent in its depth and multiple layers, focusing both on the big picture as the individual details. Successfully brings many different stories together.

Suggestions:
– Bounen no Xamdou
– Vision of Escaflowne
– Nadia – The Secret of Blue Water

Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood – 64

by psgels, posted in Full Metal Alchemist - Brotherhood



And so, this series is finally over. What a ride it’s been!

As an epilogue, this episode managed to wrap everything up pretty neatly. The future of some characters are very neatly detailed, while for the others it’s left to our imagination. It’s great to see that both Ed and Al have gone their own ways, where Ed chose to take it easy in order to be able to raise his family, while Al took more ambitious plans. Roy meanwhile grew a moustache and got a step closer to beconing the next fuhrer, while getting his sight back with the help of a philosopher’s stone provided by Marcoh.

I admit, at the beginning of this series I tended to complain a lot about Winry, but looking back, this mostly was due to the way that the first season treated her, than her role here. She was a fine love interest in this series, and the creators didn’t try to shoehorn her into the main plot at the last minute. Instead, they used Al and Mai (and Izumi and her husband too, I guess) for the bit of romantic tension, which strangely seemed to fit a whole lot more.

Anyway, I was quite surprised at the reactions I got last eek, when I said that I’d pretty much label this series in my top 5 of 2010, so let me elaborate a bit further on that. At this point, I still can’t decide what my favourite show of the past half year has been, and I’m very much doubting between the Armed Librarians, Yojou-han Shinwa Taikei and this series. Assuming that two more series of that same caliber appear in the upcoming half year (which is reasonable, I suppose), that’s how I came to make that statement about this series being top 5 worthy.

Full Metal Alchemist was indeed freaking epic, but the thing is: the Armed Librarians were also really epic in their own way. Yojou-han on the other hand may not have been epic, but it was a masterpiece nonetheless. These three all had their own points at which they stood out as memorable. Full Metal Alchemist did this with its length, detailed setting, cast of characters, and the way its action scenes had been written. In comparison though, if for example Bounen no Xamdou would have been 39 or 52 episodes long, I would not have rated it inferior to this series.

And don’t get me wrong, this isn’t one of those series like Gurren Lagann, Kanon or Haruhi in which I, while enjoying the series, do not agree that their popularity is deserved. Brotherhood realyl deserves all the popularity it’s getting, but granted, I have seen quite a number of series that made more of an impact on me.

I don’t think that this has to do with being shounen or seinen or what. I mean, with series like Les Miserables being labelled as kids’ series, and series as Koihime Musou labelled as seinen… do we really have to hold it against them when a series has shounen elements? Besides, if this really is a shounen series, it really was one of the damn best of its genre.

The fantasy action genre, along with science fiction, is very much my favourite genre out there, so my standards are really high for it. What this series didn’t have, which I did experience with other series of its genre, was this addictive style of storytelling that keeps you at the edge of your seat. The kind that keeps juggling all kinds of emotion at once. Full Metal Alchemist instead was like a bulldozer, especially near the end. Is that bad? Of course not! it’s still a freaking awesome series.
Rating: * (Good)

Senkou no Night Raid – 00

by psgels, posted in Senkou no Night Raid



Okay. So apparently an episode 0 got released. I assume that it’s a DVD-episode, but I don’t think we’ve ever gotten one of these this fast. I mean, it hasn’t even been a week since the series ended. If this trend is going to continue throughout all of the Anime no Chikara series however, then we might have the beginning of a very interesting trend and attempt to lengthen anime beyond thirteen episodes.

This episode plays before the entire series: we’re on a boat, and we get to see the point at which all of the lead characters are introduced to each other. A very important episode, and I’m very glad that it’s this that the creators decided to focus on, compared to Sora no Oto’s DVD episode. The rest of the episode was about a standalone story about the infiltration of a group of human smugglers who posed as a film making company on that same boat.

I actually believe that this serves as a better introduction than episode one. It’s nicely action-packed, we get to immediately see a bit of intrigue, the characters are properly introduced and I think that it’ll give a favourable impression on more people than that that real first episode did, which rather haphazardly threw in the concept of superpowers.

The story of the episode itself was interesting in the way that none of the main characters knew about each other, so you could all see the jobs in which they infiltrated intertwined as they waited for the right moment. The problem with it was that the villain was a bit stupid to just leave an enemy like that unconscious without confirming whether he really was harmless. This brings me back to the earlier criticism I had about this series, before it came with episode seven: the spies in this series are closer to James Bond than actual spies.

Still, I wonder: Sora no Oto is going to have a total of two DVD only episodes. Will Senkou no Night Raid be the same? I’m especially interested if one of the later episodes contains one as well: at that point, there’s going to be no way for the creators to squeeze in an episode with a pointless or random story, so who knows what they’ll end up contributing to?

That attempted rape was… heavy, though. The way that the creators made no attempt at focusing at how Yukina was about to be violated by a creepy old pervert.
Rating: * (Good)

Kurenai OVA

by psgels, posted in Kurenai



Well… yeah. As it turns out, this is aimed entirely at the fans of the manga. None of the things that made the anime so memorable return, and instead we’re stuck with an episode of random hi-jinks and fanservice. Blegh.

In the end, this OVA turned out to consist out of three random, unrelated stories. In the first, everyone is at a pool in which some sort of terrorist fails with a very flimsy plan. The second story is entirely focused on a broken laptop and the third forces the characters to go exercising. It’s all way too forced, especially that third part, and all of the dialogue feels incredibly shallow and pointless.

I love the way how the original series really tried to improve on the manga and made it much more mature, especially with its excellent voice acting. But yeah, with this OVA that actually tries to be faithful to the manga… everyone feels completely out of character. Shinkurou gets reduced to an obnoxious teenager, Yuuno has transformed into a walking boob-joke, Murasaki’s bodyguard has turned into an obsessed caretaker and Murasaki herself changed from a kid who was way too mature for her age into something that more resembles a cute mascot character. Overall, it makes me even more glad to see the huge changes that the anime made.

And it’s not like this OVA was funny either. And to think that the anime featured one of the best filler episodes out there.
Rating: — (Lacking)

Kuruneko Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Ever since 2009, we’ve seen a huge influx of series with really short episodes. Setting aside the obviously awesome Gag Manga Biyori and Marie&Gali, most of them were just mindless fluff. Kuruneko however, turned out to be a surprisingly good one. It’s a very relaxing slice of life series about a woman who lives together with her cats, and it’s got quite a bit to laugh at as well.

This is another one of those shows for cat lovers, but it’s also very different from Chi’s Sweet Home, for those who were expecting similarities. It’s true that both series are about the adorable antics of a bunch of cats, but Kuruneko is much more calm and relaxed. The jokes are delivered with wit, rather than energy. Another big selling point is just the downright adorable way in which the woman voice overs all of her cats’ dialogues. Throughout the series you really come to know her as a genuine animal lover who really enjoys the company of all the different cats around her, despite the troubles they tend to cause.

What also helps here is that this series evolves over time. We start out with just one cat who lives together with the lead. Over time, we get to see new additions to her family as they grow up from cute kittens to fully grown felines. While it is a comedy, this is one of those series that’s also very enjoyable to watch when it’s not funny, due to the subtle charms of the characters, combined with how all episodes are just two minutes long.

This was a series that I could always count on to relax me. Akitaro Daichi definitely pulled it off. However, this is Akitaro Daichi we’re talking about. He’s capable of directing so many awesome series, and it’s been years since he really came with an ambitious series. I’d love to see him push himself to his limits again, like what he did with Now and Then, Here and There or the second Jubei-chan series. This is a very safe and easy to create series, especially for someone as talented as him. It’s nice that Kuruneko is going to have a second season and all, but damn: show something more about yourself, dammit!

Storytelling: 8/10 – Subtle and witty, yet relaxing.
Characters: 9/10 – We really get to know these characters and see the cats all grow up. Very solid for a supposed comedy, these characters are enjoyable to watch even when they’re not funny.
Production-Values: 7/10 – Very simple graphics that don’t stand out.
Setting: 8/10 – Um, yeah. Not the focus at all here, but doesn’t get in the way.

Suggestions:
– Chi’s Sweet Home (the first, stay away from the second season).
– Niea Under 7
– Tetsuko no Tabi (if you can find it, that is)

Some Quick First Impressions: Mitsudomoe, Shukufuku no Campanella and Kuroshitsuji II

by psgels, posted in Kuroshitsuji II, Some Quick First Impressions

Mitsudomoe

Short Synopsis: Our lead character has to teach a class containing three really annoying problem children.
Granted, some of the jokes in this episode really were terrible, but this still is a series that turned out better than I expected. I thought that this would be another one of those dull moe series like there are so many of this season, but it actually got a number of chuckles out of me. There are a ton of problems in this show, and some parts are just plain wrong, but I admire that in the genre of moe comedies, it attempts to do things a bit different by having cute girls make no attempts at acting likable. There are a TON of fanservice jokes in this series, but think of it this way: who didn’t at the age of ten make tons of stupid sex jokes that you didn’t understand? At the moment, some jokes worked and others didn’t, so this series still can go anywhere at this point. The biggest problem with this episode was its forced stupidity. The teachers are supposed to be the straight men in this series, but at times they fail their job at building suspense of disbelief. At a certain point the girls all asked the male teacher to pull down his pants, and he just obliged to that request without questioning it, just for the sake of a small penis joke. As a straight man, you should build up some sense of realism that can be broken by the comedic characters. This guy is unfortunately too bland for that, and his female teacher love interest is just entirely terrible.
OP: Obnoxious, yet somehow catchy.
ED: Hmm, works surprisingly well.
Potential: 45%%

Shukufuku no Campanella

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a mind-numbingly boring git.
I… have nothing. Seriously. What was that? It’s these kinds of series that really give anime a bad name. I already suspected that this show would be bad, but the depths that this series would reach were even beyond my imagination. This series is just… unbelievable in how incredibly dull it ended up to be. The characters, the dialogue, everything seems so designed to sap any sort of energy out of its viewers. The characters, and I mean EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM, become a goddamn chore to watch and listen to when they open their mouth. They just kept yapping and whining about the most pointless stuff, but the worst part was the way in which the creators seem really keen on reminding us viewer how incredibly beautiful the main cast is. Seriously, they just keep going on and on about that. The only way in which this show stands out is that girls can now get pregnant at the age of three. Worst show of the season BY FAR, this is pandering at its worst.
ED: Generic J-pop
Potential: -50%

Kuroshitsuji II

Short Synopsis: Our lead character has some sort of uber butler.
Okay, let me first explain how I went into this series: I have only seen the first episode of the original Kuroshitsuji, and I don’t really feel like checking it out at this point. The first episode felt too formulaic, it tried too hard to make Sebastien look cool and Ciel like a damsel in distress. It was too forced. However, with the new staff, new cast and new approach, I became interested in checking out the second season. And holy hell is it an improvement! I’m not sure whether I can watch or blog the rest of the series without knowledge of the first season, but nevertheless, this episode was wonderfully camp. The lead character here is an just crazy, and his butler here does things ten times crazier than what I saw in the first season. The scene especially between him and his maid was just…. WTF-worthy. And at the same time, the creators also managed to stuff in enough depth on the inner psyche of this kid, along with the weird relationship he has with his butler. It was wonderfully acted, it went over the top, yet it also had plenty of quiet and subtle moments that gave a ton of depth to these characters. Here’s definitely a big surprise this season.
OP: Standard J-rock, but very nice visuals.
ED: Nice ballad
Potential: 85%

Yojou-han Shinwa Taikei Review – 92,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Yojou-han Shinwa Taikei




The Noitamina time-slot surely rocked beyond belief this season. Alongside Sarai-ya Goyou aired the possibly even better Yojou-han Shinwa Taikei, the latest product of Masaaki Yuasa of Kaiba-fame. This time, he went for a ton-of-dialogue artsy character-study slash college life series, in which we follow the lead character as he explores a wide variety of different clubs and lifestyles during his years in college throughout many parallel dimensions. And it works out wonderfully.

At first sight, the way in which this series keeps resetting itself after every episode may seem weird at first, but it actually was a brilliant method to flesh out its different characters. Because of its very frequent resets, this stands out even more than series that did similar things in the past, like Higurashi and Umineko. Because of this, we get to see a ton of different sides of the characters that would never have been able to been shown without these resets, and the most important part is that we see Watashi develop in many different ways throughout each episode. The different side-characters all have their own parts to play in Watashi (the lead character)’s world and everything comes together wonderfully in the final episodes.

All of this is accompanied by some truly excellent dialogue. This series is based on an actual novel, rather than a manga or light novel, and it really shows. The dialogue is incredibly fast and you really need to pay attention to keep up with it, but as a narration it offers very detailed descriptions of the situations that Watashi finds himself in, which is nearly always very imaginative in the ways that it does so, with quite a number of witty remarks.

One potential pitfall could have been for the series to lose itself in either its dialogue and visuals, but neither happens. There are a ton of details stuffed into this series in order to make all episodes stand out, but in the same way the main message and characters remain deceptively simple on the outside. In comparison, while Kuchuu Buranko felt a bit like a loose cannon at times, every moment of Yojou-han is instead meant to bring colour to the life in which Watashi is living, and build up for the episodes that are still to come. Because the huge amount of building up, the first half of this series is decidedly less impressive than the second half, but the build-up is definitely worth it.

It’s a series that doesn’t try to provoke the biggest emotional response, but as a character-study it really stands out as a minor masterpiece here, in the way that it very subtly manages to flesh out and characterize its entire cast. Especially after the final episodes, it stands out as my favourite show of the series that premiered during the past spring season.

Storytelling: 10/10 – Fresh, and varied, skillfully combining repetition with new ideas to flesh itself out. Top notch narration.
Characters: 9/10 – The formula really allows the characters to come alive and show many different sides of themselves.
Production-Values: 9/10 – It’s Masaaki Yuasa. Do I need to say anything more?
Setting: 9/10 – Spoilerific to go in detail here but yeah: this one rocks too.

Suggestions:
– Mind Game (another one of those movies that I’d review entirely different if I were to watch it today)
– Amatsuki
– Revolutionary Girl Utena

Yojou-han Shinwa Taikei – 11

by psgels, posted in Yojou-han Shinwa Taikei



Well, so here it finally is: the ending I’ve been looking forward to the most this season. And indeed: this really was the best ending of the season for me. It was a wonderful wrap up of all of the build-up that this series has done.

So in this episode, Watashi continues to wander through all of the parallel worlds of his own life that he’s been trapped in, but the big difference with the previous episode was that he finally starts piecing everything together in an attempt to get out of that maze in which he can only eat castella and fish burgers that are lying around.

Most of this episode actually was a summary of what happened in the previous episodes, but by finally thinking about them and piecing everything together, Watashi finally started to notice that Mochigumo that kept hanging above him. Like expected, that was indeed the opportunity that kept dangling in front of him. That part really was the only potential pitfall of this episode: many shows have failed with such a cheesy romantic conclusion, but the way in which Watashi finally realized that he developed a crush over Akashi was well portrayed, and subtle. In fact, his entire confession was wonderfully different from what you usually see. It wasn’t dramatic at all, and instead just felt very natural. Or as natural as you can get a guy to act, wearing nothing but a scarf and talking about disappearing underpants.

Instead, the dramatic climax was… about Oz. Watashi finally came to terms with Oz as a character, and accepted him for who he was. Interestingly, Oz’s facial expression also completely changed here. It shows even more that we see all of this from the perspective of Watashi, in which he’s this evil bastard and therefore also has this continuous grin on his face. the same goes for the fortune teller: she also looks totally different now.

Overall though, it’s awesome to see that Masaaki Yuasa is constantly trying to improve himself. The big weakness of Kaiba was its rushed ending, so here instead he comes with a perfectly planned out series across eleven episodes, in which the final episode is really meant to give closure to everything. Whether Yojou-han surpassed Kaiba… nah. The rest of Kaiba was just that good. Nevertheless, Yojou-han was a really well written character-study that has a good chance of becoming the most unique series of 2010.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Sarai-ya Goyou Review – 90/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Sarai-ya Goyou




One of the things that made the past spring season awesome was the fact that it didn’t have just one, but two Noitamina series. And boy, it sure came with a couple of amazing series to start off this new feature!

Sarai-ya Goyou is a character-study, set in the Japan of a number of centuries ago, and it unites Manglobe with Tomomi Mochizuki, of Toka Gettan, Porfy no Nagai Tabi, Kimagure Orange Road and a ton of other series. He’s a true veteran in the anime business, and he did an incredible job of bringing these characters to life.

The animation in nearly every scene in this series is full of detail, with a ton of subtle movements. This really allows the creators to put as much meaning into these scenes as possible, giving them a surprising amount of depth and development in only twelve episodes. Even most of the side characters get some development throughout the series that already is short on time and despite this limited length, it never tries to rush through things in order to fit as much as possible into its airtime. There comes a price to this, of course: it’s unfortunately an incomplete series, and stops after animating about half of the manga. The main plot threads are skillfully wrapped up at that point, but it’s clear that the storyline isn’t over at that point.

Airing next to Yojou-han this season, this series faced some incredibly tough competition, but it really shined out there despite this, and is a great recommendation for those who are looking for a short character-focused series. There is one arc that isn’t as good as the others (the Matsu arc), which breaks the flow of this series a bit, but apart from that the stories that it tells about its characters are all incredibly thoughtful and engaging.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Very detailed. Tries to put as much meaning into every scene as possible, and succeeds. Never loses itself in its pacing, though the story itself has plot threads that aren’t wrapped up.
Characters: 9/10 – Deep, well developed and thoughtful.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Manglobe does it again with excellent animation that focus on bringing its characters to life instead of over the top action scenes. Haunting soundtrack.
Setting: 9/10 – Excellent portrayal of Japan at the time, with a great analysis of the types of problems that people faced around these ages.

Suggestions:
– Mushishi
– Porfy no Nagai Tabi
– Seirei no Moribito

Sarai-ya Goyou – 12

by psgels, posted in Sarai-ya Goyou



Okay, so we all know the circumstances of this series: it’s Noitamina, it only got 12 episodes, and so it only had the room to animate the first half of the Sarai-ya Goyou manga. Next week, we’re going to get treated to Shiki and a live action Moyashimon for some reason, so the creators had no choice of wrapping this up right now, with little chance at a sequel, knowing the sales.

With this in mind, I believe that the creators couldn’t have done a better job here. The final episode ranked for me among the most emotionally intensive episodes of the series so far, and I’m really happy with how it turned out. What made it such a wonderful episode was the way it put so much meaning into just one simple revelation: the fact that he was lied to that the first Yaichi was the one who contracted the kidnappers. It brought forth so many emotions in Yaichi, and that’s exactly why I originally fell in love with this series. I also realize that it’s exactly that that felt missing in the Matsu arc. That was the reason why this series fell into a bit of a dip.

Yaichi only had one point at which he really let his emotions go. After that, he was back to his old self immediately, without any sort of attempt to drag that scene on. It was really well portrayed, and typical of Tomomi Mochizuki, the director: Porfy no Nagai Tabi also had quite a few of these moments.

So, how to rate this? Well, let me put it this way: out of all of the series in Noitamina that didn’t get the full time they deserved (Jyu Oh Sei, Moyashimon, Library Wars, Genji Monogatari, Eden of the East), it’s my favourite. It’s consistently well executed, and instead of trying to cram the entire manga into one series, the creators opted to just give the scenes that they wanted to show their full attention, and just end at a given point. The animation by Manglobe was just wonderfully detailed, and Tomomi Mochizuki did a really great job in bringing it alive. Whether it’s better than Porfy no Nagai Tabi, however… I can’t say that. Its fifty-two episodes really allowed it to develop its characters in a way that Sarai-ya Goyou would only be able to beat if it was fully animated.

Either way though, I’m definitely a fan of Natsume Ono now. Her mangas turned out to be very successful as anime, and I really hope that more of it is going to become animated in the future.

This was easily the best final episode I have seen this season so far. Manglobe, you really gained my faith back after Seiken no Blacksmith.
Rating: *** (Awesome)