Author: psgels

Angel Beats – 12

by psgels, posted in Angel Beats




This episode, to me, felt like it was desperately trying to catch a train. Sure, it got there in the end and it’s a damn cool train, but at the same time it rushed through everything and forgot to buy a ticket, and now just keeps hoping that a member of the train crew won’t drop by to find out about this. This episode came with a ton of interesting plot twists, but at the same time it just didn’t care about logical narrative. Things just… happened, while most of the necessary transition scenes were lost on the cutting room floor or something.

But you know what: who cares? This series has already been chaos, and in that sense this episode was everything this has been focusing on. The thing I liked best that yet again, whenever we feel that finally the setting itself is taking action, it yet again turns out to have been just another regular character who took his own ideas. This has been the same for Kanade as she played the evil part to get everyone to pass on, the new student council president with his God complex, the Tachibana clones who went out of control: all of them are just people who took advantage of the setting, and the setting remained very much like an axe or a saw: sure, you can kill people with them, but they’re usually pretty useful in getting somewhere.

And hey, how many other series can boast that they actually found a believable way to include the power of love as a plot twist? It’s actually quite an interesting idea, in a world in which spirits who find themselves at peace will disappear. If you were to fall in love there, and the other person disappeared, that would make it damn hard to disappear as well out of love sickness. The guy in question happened to know how the computer programs worked here, and I guess that he installed some kind of system to prevent the same thing from happening again. His methods were just too extreme, though. If you can’t make them disappear, then just turn everyone into NPCs. That’s cruel! I’m also very curious here which NPC this guy turned into…

In any case, the end of this episode dropped a ton of hints that Yurippe has disappeared. In terms of Key, it did not turn out to be as emotional as their other works. The thing is that Air and Clannad reserved a lot more time to get the best out of their emotional climaxes, while that clearly wasn’t the focus of Angel Beats. I do think that I like Angel beats more than Kanon, so at least that’s something.

To be honest, I’d rather see a rushed episode with a ton of interesting ideas like this one, compared to a series with no ideas that, while solid, is too focused on playing it safe. Especially when it doesn’t have much else to offer. That’s why I rather liked this episode, despite the obvious criticisms you can have against it.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Durarara – 23

by psgels, posted in Durarara



Ah, so the creators are going into an anime original ending. My opinion of those kinds of endings is simple: as long as it works, I don’t mind. Although of course in the past creators have shown that adapting a story and writing an original can be completely different (I think Claymore is the most notable example of this). But, here this series has the odds in favour of it: Takahiro Omori‘s endings have got an excellent track record. Baccano ended wonderfully, even though the source material continued on, Jigoku Shoujo always had excellent endings in which everything came together, and Fancy Lala had the single best ending of any mahou shoujo ever.

But Durarra… its ending is a bit more nuanced. You can see that a lot of thoughts went into it, but it lacks refinement. Here’s what I mean:
– I really liked how in this episode Mikado explained why he decided to shut down the Dollars. A surprisingly solid reason and gamble of him. The fighting didn’t stop immediately, but I doubt that he was just thinking in the short term. Unfortunately, he did not explain why he refused to answer Kida’s calls.
– I liked how the adults here set the children in their place, the chemistry between Celty, Anri, Shinra and Shizuo was well done, it was subtle, developed the story and was very interesting to watch. The conversation between Simon and Kida however… that was just too one-sided.
– The twist that the Blue Squares were the ones who took over the yellow scarves was actually quite interesting. It gives a reason to those random attacks they’ve been making beyond “ZOMG dollars sucks”. On the other hand… what were the creators thinking with that fight? Why can Kida easily kick away guys twice his size, and only after ten or so guys does he give up? I know that such an iron bar can hit hard and all, but it’s thugs he’s dealing with. These guys should know how to fight. I also did not like how they stood there like sheep while Kida was having a nice talk. And even during the fight, most of them just did nothing. Yeah, that’s a good idea, attack just one at a time.

Nevertheless, those are just details. What about the bigger picture? There, I can see where the creators are going here. They’re continuing the path of the flawed characters. They made Mikado more naive (seriously, I’ve seen quite a few webmasters pulling some weird drama that makes shutting down the Dollars just seem like nothing special) to let everything spiral out of control like what was originally hinted at. It decided to focus on the fact that the characters are teenagers, in the way that they have good ideas, but at the same time can’t quite see all of the consequences of their actions and don’t always take the smartest way out.

I suspected this way earlier, and with series that focus on flawed characters, it’s really hard to make your audience care about them compared to the flawless and charismatic ones. For me, it was especially Kida who got in the way and made me lose interest. This episode actually used Celty as a catalyst very effectively to develop Mikado a bit, in the same way that she took care of Anri.

The final episode is going to be very important for this series. I really want to see a good conclusion here, when the creators went out of their way to create a new one, eliminating any chance for a possible sequel. Kida is about to develop out of his angsty self. If the creators can get his character-development in the final episode right (and I really mean make something memorable out of it), then I feel like I’ll be able to forgive a bit of the disappointment of the second half of this series.
Rating: * (Good)

Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Artland is… weird. Let’s define it as that. They’ve got this talent to make all of their shows look as cheaply as possible, and yet they actually deliver some pretty good series. Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou looked like an incredibly cheap harem series when it first was announced. The character-designs for the females were incredibly stereotypical, the trailer was full of fanservice, it had the director of Shakugan no Shana. It was a recipe for failure.

Again, another proof of why you shouldn’t judge books by their cover (a saying that I really hope applies to the upcoming Summer Season!), because Daimaou turned out to be along with B Gata H Kei the series to breathe some much needed new life into the moe fanservice genre. Beyond all of the stupidity, beyond all of the pointless fanservice, this series has a lot to like. It’s not exactly deep or anything, but as entertainment it is very solid.

Finally, we have a moe show that understands the concept of creativity. This show turns out to be a subversion of the good versus evil genre, where the most good-natured guy out there gets labelled as an evil demon lord. Instead of whining and crying like a little girl, he’s assertive and tries whatever he can to escape his fate, ‘helped’ by to be honest quite a dynamic cast of side-characters. Every character here stands as unique and contributes something to the series, though my personal favourite was the green-haired girl. I loved her wise-cracking jokes with her deadpan delivery.

What makes the plot of this series interesting is that unlike most fantasy series, it just doesn’t care about credibility: it’s just there to have fun, and while the subplots are all solid enough to give the characters their background and make them to be more than just paper bags, it often just gives up and chooses entertainment above just making sense. The series is at its best when it manages to balance these two out the best, in which serious scenes move to nonsensical ones in rapid succession. The show is at its worst when it rather forgets this, and dabbles too long in either its fanservice, or its serious stories.

While the character-designs of this series may be terrible, the animation, especially in the money shots, is actually very good. There is a surprising amount of fluidity, and a few episodes are just downright fun because of how much the animators were playing around and trying out various ideas.

I think the weakest part of the series are the serious parts of Hattori in the beginning, and the serious parts of Keena in the end. With Keena, the creators were trying to go for some dramatic climax that just ends up as an anti-climax, while with Hattori has some annoying tsundere moments. For a harem though, it’s pretty damn good and has quite a few nice ideas on good and evil.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Too much pointless fanservice, but nevertheless solid entertainment.
Characters: 8/10 – Charming, stupid, harem, hilarious, tsunderes, background, cliches, but all have their own purpose in the story.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Unimpressive character-designs, but actually pretty good animation. Artland knows a number of very good in-betweeners.
Setting: 8/10 – Ton of nice ideas, though limits itself with its cliches a few times here and there.

Suggestions:
– Touka Gettan
– Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou
– Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito

Sarai-ya Goyou – 10

by psgels, posted in Sarai-ya Goyou



Ah, like expected: the series is going to close off with Yagi’s arc. This episode was meant to set everything up, while the final two episodes can really explore this guy.

We also now know why Yagi was so important to this story, as he turns out to have known Yaichi as a child (yeah, the child in the flashback really was him). It all points towards a trauma: the guy witnessed the death of the only adult he looked up to, which is probably what made him turn to become a member of a gang. The beauty is that he already developed a lot in the meantime. Yagi has some weird ideas, and he keeps sticking to his criminal roots with the use of Goyou, but he’s also bright and witty.

It’s interesting how there have been no kidnappings for the past few episodes. It’s probably because of Yagi that he’s not trying to do anything funny; he must have recognized him back there, though it was probably a bit harder for Yagi to lay the link because of how Yaichi grew up and completely changed his appearance. The white hair also could be some sort of hint here: why did he suddenly lose all of the pigmentation there?

In any case, with two episodes left I’m very curious to see whether they can surpass the middle episodes. I think my highlight of this series lies at episode six and seven. The final two episodes have already received a ton of build-up at this point, now it’s up to this series to make optimal use of this.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

B Gata H Kei Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Of course, the past Spring Season had plenty of gems with a ton of depth, but what made it really stand apart from all other seasons is that I now have two new favourite moe fanservice series. It’s a genre I usually hate, but this season came and showed that you can actually do this genre right with enough imagination and characterization.

With B Gata H Kei, your mileage may still vary, of course. It features a loser with a hot girlfriend, oblivious to a childhood friend who is in love with him, a ton of boob jokes and a lead female who is an incredible tsundere. It’s a recipe for disaster, one that so many other series screwed up at, but this is the only one that I’ve seen that manages to come with more than just that.

The characterization managed to keep me more than interested despite these cliches. Yamada is a wonderful lead character in the way that this series explores her attempts to have sex. She’s a unique character in the sense that she has the most weird ideas and the most shameless actions. This series really likes to toy around with the embarrasment about its subject matter, in a way that I consider to be the best out of any fanservice show that I managed to sit through. Every major character in this series has his oer her own things to be embarrassed about, which results in a number of priceless situations.

In the middle of this series it may look like the series gets lost a bit into its own cliches, and these episodes by far the least interesting of the series. The creators did plan a number of great and incredibly dynamic final episodes for the series to close off. Of course, leaving aside the fact that it doesn’t actually end, and that the final episode is ONE BIG TEASE.

If you’re interested in this series, you can simply give it a one-episode taste test, it’s pretty much what you can expect of the rest of the series, so if you don’t like it, it’s not going to get better, while if you do, it’ll keep you entertained. Teenaged romances in anime are usually terrible, especially the ones that focus too much on moe, but this is actually quite a charming series about teenagers exploring their feelings about sex. There’s a ton of fanservice, but it’s not just fanservice for the sake of fanservice: it’s all there with a purpose, it’s a means to get the characters to show their best side, rather than just pointlessly showing some boobs to get viewer ratings up.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Well paced, doesn’t drag on its jokes, and knows how to deliver them well. There are too many cockblocks for a series like this, though.
Characters: 9/10 – Wonderful characterization, excellent voice acting. We get really into the minds of the lead characters, and especially the lead characters are very dynamic and pretty well developed for just 12 episodes.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Consistent, well balanced and nowhere annoying.
Setting: 8/10 – A TON of cliches are present, but the series knows this and tries to make them ridiculous as much as the story allows.

Suggestions:
– Kenko Zenrakei Suieibu Umisho
– Yoiko
– Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou

Ookiku Furikabutte – 38

by psgels, posted in Ookiku Furikabutte



I think that if I did not know about the series’ plans to suddenly cut off the series at episode thirteen episodes, I would have absolutely loved this past arc. Still, even though knowing that this arc could have been God knows how much better, I still loved the way that the past match evolved. It really showed how much more interesting your plot can become with a lot of added realism.

In baseball, losing matches are two of a kind: the margin of loss is so small that it depends on just one pitch whether the team would have lost or won, or they’re matches that the main team would never be able to win off, making them lose by a huge margin. This episode however, falls in none of those categories. six versus eleven is a huge difference, and yet until the final pitch I kept thinking that there might be some way for them to get back, or at least close most of that distance. The final pitch here was nothing glorious: it wasn’t your hot blooded pitcher battle between the two most important characters of the game. Instead, it was against a guy who was so scared with the weight put on his shoulders that he only could have hit that ball by sheer luck.

In any case, I’m glad that, knowing the episode count, the creators reserved at least one episode for the aftermath. This episode definitely made a huge impact on the characters, and this doesn’t just mean Mihashi and Abe. The guy who was up at the final pitch also must be thinking very hard about the way he completely blocked back there.

I wish I could say that a potential third season could really make a lot of use of this development, but let’s not kid ourselves: there’s no way that there’s going to be a continuation for this series. I doubt that even the creators knew that this series would only get thirteen episodes, judging by the pacing, or otherwise they would have cut back on the slice of life episodes, or that first match. This series was incredibly lucky already to get a sequel and license. Heck, A-1 only made one other sequel before: Birdy the Mighty Decode, and that was because it clearly planned beforehand. Even their most popular series, Kannagi, hasn’t gotten a sequel, despite being nowhere near complete.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Rainbow – 11

by psgels, posted in Rainbow



So this episode was all about Sakuragi versus Ishihara. And boy, was it full of adrenaline. Really, to have such a psychotic man after your life, where you can easily take his life, yet that would only complicate things infinitely. This episode actually did a pretty good job in displaying this over the top insanity, and the challenge that Sakuragi faced in order to get that guy to just shut up and leave his friends alone.

Which left him badly wounded in the end. He’s been through worse, but this will likely increase his sentence. How long did he have left again before he got to be released? Also, there is still no reason that Ishihara will be gone now. The guy really is crazy enough to keep up with the abuse, and if he isn’t going to do it, then that doctor will find plenty of ways to kill him. This is actually a turn of events that I didn’t quite expect, because any event of Sakuragi getting caught means a ton of attempts to kill the guy.

Also, that boxing match. Its biggest purpose was to bring some extra tension in between that Sakuragi versus Ishihara conflict, but it also served its purpose in developing Mario. In any case, I’m really looking forward to that second half of this series, at which the characters can really show off this development.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Senkou no Night Raid – 11

by psgels, posted in Senkou no Night Raid



Setting two former friends against each other in a struggle is tough. This show did it, though. I really like how it has been blurring the boundaries between good and evil, using the war and atom bomb as a way to completely change characters’ viewpoints. This episode was all about that: you can’t just tell anyone about a secret so incredibly big. It’s also interesting how the characters in this episode acknowledged the coincidence of having a former lover of a colleague of your sister as one of your main allies. It remains a plot-hole, but you don’t often see characters aware of them. This really helps relativity that twist to something that really did happen through coincidence here.

Anyway, this episode was paced slowly, but this restraint has really been one of this series’ strength considering its subject material. This allowed for a much more subtle characterization than usual, and I’m getting more and more interested in how the creators plan to end this thing. Unlike Sora no Oto, there have been hardly any useless moments aside from the food filler of episode four, so if the creators can also close off with an actually good conclusion, compared to the incredibly rushed ending of Sora no Oto, I’ll be entirely happy about this show.

Also, the end of this episode came with quite an interesting plot twist: what was that guy doing there? Did he somehow find out where everyone was going, or does he have some sort of hidden agenda that he’s about to reveal? Two episodes left, let’s hope that this show will go out with a bang!
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Top 25 Favourite EDs

by psgels, posted in Top 10 Anime

Compiling this list was… annoying. At least with OPs, series take a lot more liberties to try something interesting. Most of the EDs however, just look and sound way too much like each other. There were a ton of the same ballads with dull images in front of them, but by far the worst were those moe show endings with those horrible J-pop songs. Standalone they may not be so bad, but when I compiled this list I had to listen to hundreds of these things. I was seriously glad when the pain stopped.

In any case though, there are also a number of series that showcase excellent EDs, and that’s what this list is about. Note that my taste in music is a bit weird for your average anime fan (I really don’t like most J-Pop and J-rock).

A great ED for me has first and foremost got to contain a good song. It may have great visuals, but those are no use if I’m poking my ears out. On top of that, I also like EDs that treat themselves as more than just an obligatory thing to show credits at: the ones that come with interesting ideas for a music video, or so to say.
Continue reading “Top 25 Favourite EDs” →

Some Quick First Impressions: Sekirei ~Pure Engagement~

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Sekirei ~Pure Engagement~

Short Synopsis: Our lead character has… ah screw it, I’m not going to make a Pokemon joke here; everyone and his dog is already doing that.
Here’s the big problem with Sekirei: it’s not like it’s another one of those brainless moe or fanservice shows; it’s actually got quite a decent storyline, but the comedy is utterly terrible. This episode too, the fanservice jokes were god-awful and uninspired. The creators took the most often used jokes and somehow found it a good idea to just repeat them. Within six minutes, the lead female had already tripped and planted her bosom into the conveniently placed lead character, and this episode was full of dumb jokes like that. The animation was interesting, though. The characters were drawn with a consistently as heck, but there was actually quite a bit of movement, and it actually looked quite good. Although there were times at which the animators also didn’t really understand what they were drawing (weren’t those plates hot? And what idiot closes off a program by using SHIFT, seriously?). The few serious parts reminded me of why I didn’t instantly drop this series, though. I can take this series seriously as long as it takes itself seriously. Let’s hope that the majority of this sequel will be like that, with as little of that awful comedy as possible.
OP: Standard J-pop; not good; very cheesy.
ED: Very annoying J-pop. Oh, but I guess it doesn’t matter because it has boobs…
Potential: 60%