Author: psgels

Kaidan Restaurant Review – 77,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



I really like what Toei has been doing lately. They took three kids genres that had gotten really stale lately: children’s horror, science anime and mahou shoujo, and successfully managed to breathe new life into them with Kaidan Restaurant, Marie&Gali and Heartcatch Precure. Out of those three, Kaidan Restaurant is obviously the inferior, but if you like kids’ shows then this series will offer some unique charms.

And I must say that it was based on quite a good idea for its basic premise. From the outside, it may look like yet another show about a group of kids who really angered the gods badly, and run into a bunch of ghosts in every episode, but that wouldn’t quite do justice to what this show really is about: it’s a collection of horror stories, sometimes from all over the world, told through the perspective of the lead characters.

Basically, nearly every episodes consists out of two to three quick horror stories, delivered in bite-sized chunks. The stories are short, a tad repetitive, and not that well animated, but at the same time they’re quite well told. In just ten minutes, the creators nearly always succeed in building up a creepy atmosphere, despite the short length. The stories are well paced, correctly introduced and often not as straight-forward as one may think. The series is based on a series of award-winning children’s books, and that really shines through in the adaptation, despite the presence of any sort of big budget. It’s THE sign that you can tell a great story on a short animation budget. And heck, during its airtime this series consistently hit the top 10 of Japan’s viewing rates.

the stories are very repetitive, that’s true. But they all do what they intend to go: provide quick bite-sized chunks of horror. The series is specifically set up in a restaurant format, with meals consisting out of an appetizer, main course and desert, which proved to be quite an interesting metaphor for the series to work with. I also quite liked how some stories leave a lot up to the interpretation of the viewers by not outright stating what happened, while others are more straight-forward. In some stories, the ghosts are killed, but there are also plenty of stories in which the ghosts are the winners, or simply leave. That’s another one of the strange things about this series: it’s quite sadistic at times, but it also has its heart-warming moments.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Is actually quite effective in its horror storytelling. Consistently creates a pretty tense atmosphere for stories that only take up 10 minutes.
Characters: 7/10 – Points for the idea, but the main characters remain mere shells because of how they’re meant to represent a different person for most of the episodes. The characterization of the persons in these individual stories is quite good, though.
Production-Values: 7/10 – This is a bit of an ugly series. The animation budget is full of errors, and very basic. It does what it need to do, but nothing more.
Setting: 8/10 – Repetitive, but imaginative. The setting has a lot more charm than all those cheaply made kids’ shows that treat children like idiots.

Suggestions:
– Gakkou no Kaidan
– Telepathy Shoujo Ran
– Aoi Blink

Uragiri wa Boku no Namae wo Shitteiru – 10

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



Costumes in anime have generally always been rather questionable. The mature series are often fine, but there are also tons of costumes in anime that make you ask “…why”. Seriously, most of the good guys of Uraboku wear normal clothes, even the red-haired guy’s outfit can be attributed to some fashion statement. But Zess, where the heck do you get the inspiration for your clothes from?

Seriously, most of the comedy in this series just doesn’t work, but this guy is comedy gold. His shirt in this episode looked like he violently ripped off the sleeves or something. It’s just hilarious how this guy just acts all cool with a continuous serious and deadpan expression, yet goes overkill at such weird times. My personal favourite scene of him so far was when he summoned that gigantic dragon to just take care of a bunch of weak bad guy underlings.

In any case, a big weak point of this series is definitely the cast of villains. This episode showed a bit more of them, and yet we hardly got to know more about them aside from what kinds of powers they have (oh, and that one of them likes hot guys). Who are they? Why do they do the things they do? There hasn’t even been a hint of this so far, and their characterization just feels bland. These people seriously need more work.

The good guys however are the ones who make me keep watching this series. This series continues to explore them, and build further on their stories. This especially was a good episode for the side-cast, and even though a terrifyingly large amount of people here have suicidal tendencies, the creators did a decent job in making it believable. It’s nowhere near amazing yet, but at least it’s still going into the right direction. It’s going to be interesting to see whether this show can pull off a strong second half.

Also, the golden rule of anime: characters don’t die unless we see this confirmed. The next episode is going to be the first test for this show how annoyingly it will try to hold on to this rule. The problem is especially with Tsukumo: if this guy lives, then the main bad guy will be absolutely pathetic in his job. On the other hand, it will be very cool if those guys actually died, and I admire the balls of the creators if they go there.
Rating: * (Good)

Giant Killing – 11

by psgels, posted in Giant Killing



Whoa, with the usual fast pace of this series, this match suddenly slowed down the pacing a lot, to give a great feel of the match. And even then it’s not even certain that this will deliver Tatsumi’s first win:the best they can do is 0-0 with such a set-up in which everyone defends. You would expect Tatsumi to suddenly change strategy as soon as the second half starts, but even that is no possibility here. It might just be that this match is just another part of the chain that will lead the ETU to victory, and that this is just a match meant to solidify the team’s defence.

It’s also great to see that the opponents here know what they’re doing. They’re not just very powerful, but also use their head in their tactics. The weak link is just that they don’t know that Kuroda devoted a section of his life to one particular player. It’s interesting how that coach didn’t notice that, even though Tatsumi did; it’s probably out of cockiness. He kept talking about professionalism, and how he desires such a team, but at the same time he feels like a coach whose head is a bit too much in the clouds.

The photographers were also a nice addition, it’s part of what makes this show so addictive. They don’t just show a bunch of photographers to the side, they also give them a bit of depth by talking about their profession.

Also, what was up with Tsubaki at the end? Was last episode’s cliff-hanger just a sneaky red herring or something? This could prove to be interesting, considering how Sera collapsing only turned out to be a minor deal (I really thought that that guy would be so badly hurt that he would at least not be able to walk straight for the duration of this match).
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood – 61

by psgels, posted in Full Metal Alchemist - Brotherhood




It’s just as I hoped: the finale of Full Metal Alchemist managed to surpass itself. I really consider this and the previous episode to belong to the true highlights of this series. This is really what I’ve been hoping, the way in which the creators managed to use all of the build-up of the entire series and just deliver an incredibly action-packed finale.

It’s also great to see that the animation is back to its old quality again. The action-scenes looked incredibly diverse and gorgeous, and it really showed that Bones was saving up its budget for those final few episodes during the past season. I especially loved the scene in which Father blasts his first energy beam to Hohenheim.

My biggest fear of this episode was of course the following: with how powerful Father has become, how the heck did the creators plan to bump him from his throne? It would be pretty lame to just have a bunch of kids ruin a plan that involves hundreds of years of preparing. I wasn’t disappointed here, though: it was Hohenheim who turned out to have the final trick up his sleeve, as he too spent centuries, attempting to do something against Father’s plans, and therefore formed an excellent core to foil his plans. Add that to Scar’s brother, who turned out to be surprisingly close to the truth here with his research, and I’m more than satisfied.

This episode was over the top in its action, but that’s especially what I’ve been expecting of it from the start. It was all about having formerly invincible characters getting defeated, but it’s all done in style: Wrath’s ending was epic. He went down against a worthy opponent, and even then he was only at a fraction of his strength because of a mistake he made a few episodes back, causing him to get wounded. Pride in the meantime went down like Envy: it’s because he’s flawed by design in the way that he just allowed himself to be completely destroyed, just for the sake of Father’s Pride.

And at the same time this episode also had those small details in between the action. I loved the scene in which Izumi saw her husband again, or when Roy Mustang saw Hawkeye again. They were short but powerful, and exactly what’s necessary to prevent this show from just going way too much over the top. This episode really had an excellent balance between that exposition and those action-scenes.

The final episodes also now look a lot more interesting, because Father now is no longer a god-moded threat that can’t be defeated. The problem with all-powerful characters is that they can also be made too powerful. When that happens, creators need to pull really weird deus ex machinas or plot-devices in order to keep these guys from just blowing everyone away. Here however, it was handled very well.
Rating: **** (Fantastic)

Angel Beats – 11

by psgels, posted in Angel Beats



Ah, so the shadows: the final end boss. The series needed an extra boost to quicken up the plot (after all, if it wasn’t for that, there would be nowhere near enough time for Otonashi’s adventures to make all of his friends disappear). It’s interesting to see that Key intended the finale of this series to be a thriller.

There were a few things that were a bit wrong about this episode, but that’s just nitpicking. It mostly had to do with the sudden stupidity of some of the characters: why did Otonashi not notice that Kanade was just a regular player? Also, why was Yurippe the only one who understood that Ooyama became an NPC?

But yeah, it’s an interesting thought: what if all of the NPCs were once these wandering spirits themselves, who failed to pass on? That really was the thing necessary to give the entire cast a good reason to think about where they wanted to go.

But someone actually created them. What’s up with that? My guess is that it’s Matsushita. I mean, he’s just gone. Ever since he left for the mountains, he’s just nowhere to be found.

Now, it really takes skill to make him the final villain without any hints prior to that. He could indeed be hiding things like most others, but as a teenager’s spirit who is so confused… does that really make him that good of an actor? Also, he’d better have some damn good motivations to do that. The last time someone tried to kill the cast it resulted into some guy with a god-complex who just slaughtered everyone and just got cured by a big hug.
Rating: * (Good)

Yojou-han Shinwa Taikei – 08

by psgels, posted in Yojou-han Shinwa Taikei



What am amazing conclusion to the love triangle arc. Seriously, Sarai-ya Goyou has really gotten some serious competition for my favourite series of the season, I really love the way in which Masaaki Yuasa has been delivering this series so far. This episode was nearly again the exact same as the previous two, only with the focus on Keiko, Watashi’s pen-pal, and a different conclusion.

The past arc has been brilliant in making everything spiral out of control. It’s THE proof that repetition doesn’t need to be bad, provided that you use it well. There have been tons of series who did amazing things with it (Utena, Higurashi, Jigoku Shoujo and Umineko, and it’s very interesting to see Yojou-han joining them.

I think we all knew that Keiko was actually Oz, the moment he handed Watashi that magazine, in which he found Keiko’s address. Part of what made this episode so much fun though was the way in which he was so genuinely enamoured with her. The look on his face (and especially the dialogue that went on inside his head) at the moment he found out that he had been exchanging love letters with Oz was priceless.

Akaishi’s role in everything also turned out to be very interesting in the past arc. The big difference with the previous arcs is that Watashi actually did something nice for her, instead of ignoring her (that was probably the meaning of the promise-scene of the earlier episodes: it’s to show that the two actually fit each other quite well, but because Watashi is so incredibly dense he never made any advances on her and forgot about his promises to her). Also, she’s living next to Oz.

Seriously, now that prediction that Higuchi made back into that first episode gets a new dimension with this. Who knows how often they hooked up with each other while Watashi was messed up in his umpth weird idea? We’ve heard of Oz’s girlfriend before, but have we actually seen her once? And again: Johnny was no use in this episode, and Watashi again left her. But then again, he really was in love with the image of Keiko he created. That’s the really weird part here: his love for Hanuki felt a bit shallow. Instead however, he has been genuinely in love with two women who didn’t exist. In fact, Watashi is a guy who just keeps chasing after these abstracts that don’t really exist, instead of looking what’s right in front of him: something concrete that can make him happy. Johnny turned out to be the complete opposite of this: not looking far away, but instead just trying to go after what’s right in front of him.

I really wonder what those final episodes will be about: how will they put everything to a conclusion? This is Masaaki Yuasa. For the sake of spoilers I’ll be vague in this, but ‘certain’ series of his have had really… ‘interesting’ endings.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Durarara – 22

by psgels, posted in Durarara



I think that I can finally point to what exactly I’ve been disliking about this series during the second half: it’s Kida. In this episode I actually quite liked Mikado and Anri, and their actions are quite believable. Anri had a bit of a slump at the end of her own arc, but even that was great as a build-up. I loved how in this episode she came to terms with herself, and how she finally developed. It’s here where all that build-up pays off. At the same time, Mikado was also quite interesting. I can believe his angst at the end of the episode, because hey; he just found out that one of his best friend became involved with some silly struggle that he was the indirect initiator of. The guy needs a bit of time alone.

Kida though… I don’t get him. His angst to protect those dear to him, combined with the way that he suddenly started yelling to Anri when he finally was able to talk to her under two eyes… I’m not really interested in that to be honest. For me, the parts of this series that focus on his angst are by far my least favourite of the entire series.

And it’s a darn shame, because the rest of this series really is excellent. It still sucks that it’s gonna end in two episodes, but this episode was well written, and one of those episodes in which a ton of build-up comes together and pays off. That really was great to see, and I loved the subtlety that the creators put into the development of the relationship between Celty, Anri and Mikado.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Sarai-ya Goyou – 09

by psgels, posted in Sarai-ya Goyou



That was an excellent conclusion to the Matsu-kidnapped-arc. Masa did exactly what he needed to do in order to get the guy out, and there wasn’t some kind of last-minute thing that went wrong in order to cheaply increase tension here.

Instead, the final part of this series seems to centre around Yagi, who indeed turns out to be a government official. It’s not sure whether he uses Masa to get to Yaichi, but nevertheless he’s in between two parties who he cares a lot about. This episode very much showed that he has accepted five leaves as friends.

This episode also introduced the dreaded sister with a brother complex. Still, it’s a cliche here that’s handled well: she’s not outright in love with Masa here unlike MANY of her counterparts, and instead the creators portrayed her as a worrying sibling who hasn’t heard anything about her brother for a while. Finally there’s a show that understands that.

Three episodes left, the problem does remain that there still remains a large part of the manga unanimated. I really hope that the creators can create a satisfying ending with what they have. That’s the one disadvantage of this otherwise excellent series.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Ookiku Furikabutte – 37

by psgels, posted in Ookiku Furikabutte



Last episode I commented how the sudden rush to fit this match into only 13 episodes has caused this series to lose one of the things that made it so special: the incredible detail it put into its matches. But really, even without that, this sequel just has more than enough to make up for it. The pacing that suddenly turned fast here brought an entirely new dynamic to this series.

Seriously, if this sequel would have been 26 episodes long, it would have easily surpassed the first season. Here too however: the fast pacing made this an incredibly fun episode to watch; the creators cut the manga very skillfully to paste it into such a short time-frame: this series still is an truly excellent manga-adaptation. I really loved how this episode changed its mood so flexibly: one moment it’s cheerful, then it’s full of tension, then a bit of comedy is there, only to make way for a pitch that could severely change the outcome of the game. This episode was so full of different emotions that complemented and balanced each other out perfectly, and it was all as beautifully animated as ever.

Abe’s absence turned out to be quite an interesting twist here: Mihashi has to work together with a completely new catcher (and you can really see the two of them struggle to get warmed up to each other, and exchange theories). One thing I also love about this series is how often people score. I don’t exactly know how this usually goes in high school baseball, but it’s very refreshing to see these kinds of scores, as opposed to most other baseball series in which the pitchers are so god-moded that they end most of their matches with nearly a perfect game.

I originally did not like this condensation because of the first match of the second season. No offence, but it just wasn’t as good as the other matches. As it turns out though, it just was based on the weakest premise. For all of the other matches, some really interesting plot twists were planned to make them juicy, yet realistic, but there it was just average.

Adapting a manga correctly is often a matter of skillfully copying and pasting: what do you leave in, and what do you leave out to fit the time-frame? Ideally, you of course want the perfect amount of episodes for the story, but alas: anime’s business model just doesn’t fit that. I personally believe that it should be the role of the most successful and rich animation companies to start experimenting with the tried and true anime-format and go with new things. They’ve got enough money, so they should have plenty of resources to take such risks.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Rainbow – 10

by psgels, posted in Rainbow



Oh, I love the plot of this series. I know that I’ve ranted often about the level of cheese, but the way in which the plot is laid out here just keeps getting better and better. It’s bold, creative and incredibly intense.

And as much as I’ve maid fun of Psycho Guard in the past, I do have to admit that just seeing that big smile of his is already a huge rush of adrenaline. At first I really feared that this guy would be a terrible villain in how over the top he was portrayed, but damn. His insanity especially in this episode was a sight to behold, especially since he actually knew what he was doing here: despite how he turned out to be a drug addict, he chose the sure-fire way to get these guys back to the jail, instead of just rushing in and yelling like a complete imbecile.

And damn, Heitai actually got released here. At first I thought that the creators would be like most series, in the way that they try too hard to keep the main cast together, however this is a very interesting twist. Episodes like this show that this isn’t just about life in jail, but rather a look into violent youth, and the world they grew up in ten years after the second world war. Heitai can now actually put a closure to his youth and grow up to be a respectable adult. He always was the most stable member of the cast, and I think that especially after An-chan left so often, it was he who took up the leadership of the group, and guided everyone through.

But there of course are also countless of other characters who developed already. Take Joe, and how miserable he was at the beginning of the series. Cabbage also feels to have become less of a loser, wile Baremoto was about to develop when we saw him for the last time, but we need to see a bit more of him for this to actually solidify.

I’m not exactly sure of the pacing here, but this is what I managed to find out about the manga: volume 1 covers up to the chapter “in flames”. Let’s assume that it covers until episode four, in which the prison caught fire. With the same pacing over 22 volumes, a simple calculation shows that at the same pacing this show would need 88 episodes to tell its story. Unfortunately, that ain’t gonna work; it’s nowhere near popular enough for that. My guess is now really: what are the creators planning? Do they plan to pull an Itazura na Kiss, in the way that they’re hell-bent on getting to the end of this story, or will they just animate this thing and stop when they run out of episodes.

As it’s almost certain that this show will go for either 24 or 26 episodes at this point, I hope that it’s going to be the former. The creators will need to do some skillful cutting in order to condense a huge amount of material into just two seasons, but this fast pacing may actually give an interesting dimension to this series. There’s no way that there’s going to be a second season for this thing, so I really hope that we can get to the really interesting part of this story: the part in which everyone grows up.
Rating: ** (Excellent)