Author: psgels

Giant Killing – 09

by psgels, posted in Giant Killing



So we’ve already had English, Dutch and French, and now this episode also throws in a bunch of Brazilians. Awesome. Their portrayal is a tad stereotypical, but they did well in contrasting with the rather uptight Japanese players. And who knows, something’s telling me that the next episode will add a lot more colour to them. One of the reasons this show is so awesome is because of its huge and incredibly diverse cast, and with this episode it became even more diverse.

This episode had no soccer matches, but for a series like this that’s no problem at all: it again showed that this isn’t just a series about football, it’s a show about everything that involves football, from the players to the fast to the press and the coaches and all of the other staff members behind a team who all have their own functions. With so many details, I can more than forgive the few unrealistic parts about the soccer.

The cast really is huge, probably the largest of the entire season, but nearly all of the characters here stand as individuals. Take the supporters for example: you have the loyal fans, then there are the fans with the most status who rally everyone on to cheer as hard as possible, and then there also are the older fans who long for the nostalgia of the old Tatsumi.

I also loved Tatsumi in this episode, you can really see that he knows that he’s not going to win easily, and even he has to motivate himself a bit after such a losing streak of five matches. I think that for a lot of people, they’re into a test of endurance: how long can they keep up with the team’s abysmal performance? How long will it be before Tatsumi will live up to his name and brings a victory to the team? Seriously, out of all of the sports series I have seen so far, this one feels by far the most unique.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood – 59

by psgels, posted in Full Metal Alchemist - Brotherhood



We’re really nearing the climax for this series now, you can really see that the focus is getting more and more back to the lead characters and especially the lead villains. The next episode should be all about Father, trying to do whatever he needs to do in order to execute that plan of his. After that there are going to be three more episodes to wrap everything up. Should be enough.

Thumbs up for especially Al in this episode: he actually refused to go back to his body, because he knew that it would be impossible to be useful with that kind of a posture. That was actually very well built up: ever since he got stuffed in that box and Pride got hold of him, he’s had a lot of trouble being useful, having to play the part of damsel in distress a few times, along with just being too far away to help out in the early battles of Central City.

This episode made a ton of promises for interesting fights: it’s not just the question of “Will Al be able to redeem himself?”, but also, “how will Roy kick ass now that his eyes are gone?”, and “what will Mai Chang’s role be if the creators went through the trouble of putting her amongst the most central characters of the story at the most crucial time?”, to a fight between Scar and Mustang that will continue into the next episode. And then there’s Ed: as the lead character but nowhere near the best fighter, what is his role going to be?

The animation was quite inconsistent in this episode: some parts were animated quite smoothly, and you can really see that the animators really like animating the fights that involve Bradley with great detail, but there also were a few speedlines, unrefined faces and still frames. The big question for that is obviously going to be whether or not the creators saved enough budget for those final episodes, especially since they’ve been teasing us over and over with that ED.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Rebuild of Evangelion 2.22: You Can (Not) Advance Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




I did not like the first Rebuild of Evangelion because, well… it was a recap. I’ve got a big problem with movies that do nothing other than follow the exact same scenario as their predecessor, it should be a format for trying out new things, experimenting and just going all out with wild ideas.

Anyway, the second movie however follows its own scenario, which makes it a lot more enjoyable to watch. It combines the build-up of the first movie, a few things here from the TV-series and a bunch of other things that are completely new. A lot of the “monster of the week” angels of the TV-series were dropped, and instead the action focuses much more on the three lead characters. At the same time, we get an array of new characters, and the new twists that this movie pulls are definitely interesting. The final two movies do have a bit of work to do to cover up for the seeming techno- and myth-babble of this episode, but at this point there is no reason why they shouldn’t be able to do that.

The thing I liked most about this movie was the artistic direction during the action-scenes, which was with no doubt fantastic. The action, the use of colours, the soundtrack. Everything was a feast for the senses. This is just one of those movies with unique and awesome graphics. I also liked how the creators discovered that you can get pretty neat effects when you play a piece of soundtrack for a scene that at first sight doesn’t fit it at all. At the same time though, surprisingly little has been done to blend in the CG with the traditional animation outside of the action-scenes.

My biggest issue with this movie was the characterization, though. It’s just unrefined and rushed. Asuka’s development is just way too quick and sudden, and the quiet moments in the movies, which should be used to build characters, make use of too many shallow cliches. You know, the cliches that you see in dozens of high school shows already. The focus on cooking has been done to death by now, Shinji’s friends have degenerated into these typical high school “best friends”. Characters also really like to describe themselves with cliched one-liners, and these small things just keep piling up.

So yeah, this is pretty much a movie that kicks ass during the climaxes but is a bit tedious to watch during the quiet parts. This is one part of balance and characterization that the next two movies really have to get better if they really want the Rebuild of Evangelion to be remembered ten years from now.

Storytelling: 8/10 – A bit of myth-babble does not take away imaginative twists on the original Evangelion with clear attempts to make the story even more interesting in the next couple of movies.
Characters: 7/10 – Nice ideas, but the characterization is too shallow and there are too many cliches.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Magnificent during the action scenes. I would have given 10/10 here if it wasn’t for the obtrusive CG at times.
Setting: 8/10 – Nice potential, interesting ideas.

Suggestions:
– Ghost in the Shell II: Innocence
– Bonen no Xamdou
– Princess Mononoke

Tales of Symphonia – 06

by psgels, posted in Tales of Symphonia



Awesome. Nearly an entire episode dedicated to Regal and Presea, my two favourite characters of the game. It was a bit cheesy, sure, but I don’t care! This is the episode I’ve been anticipating ever since the Tales of Symphonia anime got announced. After more than four years of waiting this episode was SO worth it.

It’s awesome to see that in an adaptation of a game that shined because of its side characters, the creators indeed intend to give all of them ample time to show themselves, especially considering the limited time that this OVA has to deal with. The characters didn’t end up travelling to Ozette or Regal’s company, and the point about the rotting corpse of Presea’s father was also omitted, but instead Regal immediately recognized Presea, and didn’t keep his past secret, wanting to settle it immediately. That works too.

A bit surprise was also that Presea’s character is completely different from the game. In the game, when she recovered, she still remained quiet: she only said something when necessary, and she remained introvert. Here however, she’s much more outspoken. Her voice actress also gives a very different dimension to her character compared to her English voice actress from the game. I actually liked this difference quite a bit, to see such a different interpretation of her character like this.

Adapting a game is probably the most difficult kinds of adaptations that you can get. With mangas and light novels, you can pretty much copy and paste the scenario from start to finish. With games however, you can’t just do that: there are so many things that just can’t be translated to the animated medium: random battles, quick-saves, the battle system, having to slowly travel around the world and talk to random people. You really have to think outside the box to make these work. And again, I’ve got to applaud Ufo Table for actually pulling off a pretty good attempt here.

This episode did have its nitpicks again, though. The biggest wut of this episode came at the beginning, when Yggdrasil showed off a skill that not only he never had, but also introduces quite a bit of plotholes. When he has the ability to stop time, then how the heck can it be expected to beat him? In all the battles he can just stop time and kill everyone before they can do anything. In the games, he was just ridiculously strong and used that to beat everyone. He could have easily used that here too.

Also, the flashbacks. In the games, we never saw an actual flashback of the moment at which Lloyd’s father killed his mother, people only talked about it. It’s quite reasonable, since Lloyd shouldn’t remember anything about it. It was pretty much a big question mark at this point. In the anime however… yeah. Is there anyone who hasn’t played the games and does still now know what’s up with Lloyd’s father? Great subtlety, guys.

Overall, Lloyd and Collette were the least interesting characters of the games, and that again pretty much shows here. It’s very refreshing to see an entire episode without Collette, while Lloyd felt like he had a bad case of constipation in this episode. The rest of the cast was wonderful, though. Zelos’ jokes were a lot funnier than in the games, and the chemistry between him and Genius worked surprisingly well.

I expect the next episode to again kick a lot of ass. The final episode… well… in the games it was a standard climax. It definitely wasn’t among the best parts.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Angel Beats – 09

by psgels, posted in Angel Beats



I’ve had my criticisms about this series so far, but really: this was the best Angel Beats episode so far. A great sign at this point.

I’m very pleasantly surprised: there is no villain anymore. At first you’d indeed think that there would be something darker behind everything, like some sort of evil overlord who enjoys toying with lost souls. Instead, the souls created all of the conflict themselves. The final episodes won’t be about beating some sort of end boss. It’ll be about getting these characters to accept their grudges. Most notably, Yurippe. It’s typical Key, but I mean that in a good way. June overall is going to be an awesome month: there are so many awesome series that are going to climax there, I really can’t wait to what they have in store here.

The trainwreck scene was probably the most focused part of this series yet, and it also was without a doubt the best background scene we’ve seen in this series so far. I think that the thing with the early flashbacks of this series was that they were just too short: we got to know why these people held a grudge, but we never got to know who they were. Young Yurippe for example: her character is sad, but also got the depth of a paper bag. It’s now up to the final few episodes to link the two of them together, because one of the things that made this episode so good is how it showed the growth of Otonashi as a character. If all we’ve seen of Yurippe is a little girl who gets scared when her siblings are about to die, you can hardly play with the character-development at that point.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Ookiku Furikabutte – 35

by psgels, posted in Ookiku Furikabutte



Surprising amount of comedy in this episode. It ranged from the tickling to the interplay between Mihashi and Abe to angry coaches. Especially the tickling seems to be something that’s going to return more often in this series. Regarding this I do hope that the creators will prevent it from turning into a weird gimmick.

In any case, I’m intrigued about the length of this match. According to what people say, its length is even longer than the match of the first season, and yet in two episodes we’ve already gone through four innings. I’m guessing that the pacing will tone down in the next number of episodes, and these past two episodes indeed looked like they were setting the stage for the rest of the match. The point that was scored against them in this episode was really there to make clear that a lot has to happen here for them to win.

So yeah, that’s pretty much it. My entries on this series have been a bit short, but commenting on the episodes has been fairly straightforward: it’s consistently excellent in its portrayal of these matches and the animation still is consistently detailed.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Sarai-ya Goyou – 07

by psgels, posted in Sarai-ya Goyou



Oh my god… Tomomi Mochizuki might actually be surpassing himself with this series. Within seven episodes, he managed to put as much meaning into its characters as what Porfy no Nagai Tabi took 26. He’s got such a great sense of realism and character-development, and it also really helps that aside from directing he also did the series composition so that he could really put forth his vision of the manga. And on top of that it’s just awesome to see what a great manga he got to adopt. After having seen two of her stories now I really have to say that she’s a genius at characterization.

This episode again: from the outside the scenario was just about a few mundane tasks: Masa running away from a fight, him starting to train under that other older samurai, etc. From just those sentences it looks like a cheap shounen series, but just about every scene in this show was focused on putting as much meaning as possible in these events. A simple plot of Ume gets a ton of extra side-effects: it was his way of getting Yaichi to pay a visit to Masa. Yaichi knew very much that Ume was lying about Masa’s condition, but went anyway. He knew that he would be recognized, but at the same time he knew that it wouldn’t be that big of a problem since the old man wouldn’t tell much. And yet hints about his past were bound to be dropped here. It’s like he’s getting Masa to learn a bit more about him… but only a bit, nothing too much.

The characters here are nowhere near stupid. They’re very observant about each other. Masa himself knew very well that Yaichi had to have some sort of criminal past, and not just as some rogue bandit. You can really see him trying to get through to Yaichi, whether this is out of admiration, fear or something else still remains a bit of a question. Yaichi on the other hand can really notice Masa’s mood change as he gets to know more about him, and thus more afraid.

At the same time this episode was also very much about Masa’s self-loathing, or perhaps that’s a bit too big of a word. Either way, he’s being held back of an interesting career because of his personality, and knows it. The fight in this episode at which he ran away also really showed that he’s a guy who really keeps clinging to the past. As this is in his case a rather bad past (he had to cope being a samurai with that personality of his), he has a ton of anxieties, especially when alone and there being no reason for him to actually be tough.

This episode also gave a very interesting dimension to the older samurai and the graves he visited. The anecdotes he told about the people he lost were interesting yet down to earth, not to mention that that cliff-hanger was an interesting one. It’s obvious that there can be more dogs called Scruffy, but it is one gnawing cliff-hanger nevertheless.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Yojuo-han Shinwa Taikei – 06

by psgels, posted in Yojou-han Shinwa Taikei




This episode finally introduces that strange cowboy we’ve been seeing in the OP. Guess what his name is? I really thought that it was some kind of Euphemism that Eden of the East came up with, but here we’ve got another show that comes up with that strange nickname.

In any case, this episode was just awesome, by far the best of Yojou-han yet. It was a masterfully written romance that felt incredibly refreshing when compared to all of the uninspired high school romances out there. It’s the episode that finally gets a close look at Hanuki, the dentist assistant. Watashi meanwhile is in the middle of a really weird love polygon in which he often hangs out with her after club activities (this time it’s the English Club, at which for once he doesn’t suck… or at least feel out of place at), exchanges letters with a mysterious girlfriend whose identity we never really learn and somehow ended up taking care of Jougasaki. Hanuki in the meantime also hangs out with Jougasaki and it’s heavily implied that Master is her boyfriend.

The reason this episode rocked so much was how well it got into Watashi’s head for this episode. Especially when the liquor popped up everything kept spiralling out of control masterfully. I’m not exactly a fan of Johnny’s voice actor, but nevertheless it shows what a genius Masaaki Yuawa is at portraying chaos.

Ozu this time was interesting again, in the way that he was very much out of the picture for the biggest part of this episode. He’s still causing trouble, but it’s affecting Watashi less and less: he actually got close to three girls other than Watashi here. Speaking of which: she never made an appearance at all. This was a very interesting episode of Watashi, experimenting with other women than what this series made out to be his “true love”; very refreshing.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Durarara – 20

by psgels, posted in Durarara



I’ve said before that this isn’t the sort of climax I like. You know, the kind where characters just refuse to talk to each other, which is something that could make things a lot easier. With Anri… it’s still somewhat understandable: she doesn’t know about Mikado, and instead she’s just worried about being rejected as a monster, that’s fine. But in this episode Kida finds out that Mikado is the leader of the Dollars, and also remains silent. *headdesk* It also doesn’t help that Mikado still keeps listening to Izaya and that the rest of the Dollars are running around beyond his control.

There’s a line between flawed and just downright annoying here, and Kida… unfortunately is constantly hopping over that line. His angst has just been a bit too much for me… I can see that he’s had quite a past, but he doesn’t quite feel like such a dynamic character; my impression of him is that he’s either angsty or hyperactively hiding his angst, with hardly anything else. Anri on the other hand is getting more and more interesting now that we’ve gotten to know her, and Mikado already was interesting… though he’s gotten way too little airtime during the past episodes. I want to see some more scenes of him, trying to keep the Dollars under control. The two of them have a bunch of different sides now, but surprisingly there are just too many characters that are just… too one sided. This also includes Simon (who seems like he always talks about how good Sushi is) and Izaya (who seems to be a professional troll or something: do we see him do anything else?).

At this point though, I’m not yet sure whether I should criticize this show for having an annoying plot on purpose: it’s clear that the creators put a lot of thought into having things escalate like this, and Izaya’s trolling is making sure that everyone keeps doubting each other. But I’m just not enjoying this show like I hoped I would at the end of the first half of this show. It’s not bad or anything near that, but at the same I consider the second half as inferior to the first half of this show.

It’s also a bit of a shame that the animation budget still hasn’t recovered here. There are a few scenes with smooth animation, but none of them last longer than half a second, and on top of that there are a ton of distorted or rushed frames. That’s something you wouldn’t expect of Brains Base. I believe that this is the first series that they animate continuously for 24 episodes without breaks, and I guess that the toll of this becomes visible now.

Let me also talk a bit about the OP here, which have been… misleading to say the least. Consider the OP, which displays a bunch of characters who hardly made any appearance in this second half. I mean, why Shizuo’s brother? Why was there the need to include his brother? Heck, I actually thought that that Cop would make a big appearance, but aside from a cameos he’s also been pretty useless aside from giving Celty a strange quirk that feels a bit overdone. It’s another one of those “hey, we’re advertising to be like Baccano while we actually are completely different”-gimmicks of this series that caused me to expect the completely wrong kind of series here. I see that part of the fault lies with me for actually expecting this, but still…
Rating: * (Good)

Rainbow – 08

by psgels, posted in Rainbow



Holy crap. I know that I often talked down on the director. The reason for my scepsis was very much based on those series series, based on great manga but that were ruined by a sloppy direction; most notably Ookami Kakushi. While the series composition guy was excellent, with anime it’s always the question how these two balance each other out: there are series in which the director is in control of everything, but there are other directors that let themselves get very much guided by the plan, laid out by the series composition: it’s different for every series.

Thankfully though, this turned into more of an Umineko than an Ookami Kakushi: it’s flawed as an adaptation, but the essence of the original manga still comes shining through. The biggest problem with this show really is the acting: it doesn’t know the meaning of subtlety and instead just tries to tug at your emotional strings too quickly, only creating something silly.

This episode though… damn. The strength of the manga really shined through here. Seeing everyone work together to save An-chan’s life, in a structured well-thought out way that doesn’t try to be stupid in any way really made up for the acting this time (sure, the rope was cliched, but in this context I can really see it working). This is really one thing that I didn’t expect to see coming beforehand: that the tables have turned, and the six leads instead have to take care of An-chan. It’s extreme, but definitely an interesting twist to the trope of the strong guy taking care of the weak ones. Heck, he’s only one year older than them anyways, that’s also an interesting twist here.

the crowning moment of awesome here really was Psycho Guard’s manic appearance when he tried to stab An-chan. We only have to assume that he assumed the right path that the guys would escape through, but that’s really the first point at which I have to give thumbs up to how the anime creators decided to handle him. It was completely out of left field, but seeing his manic face, only to get beaten to hell by Mario again was really satisfying. But the entire episode really was full of them, from all of the characters’ sacrifices (normally these things are very cheesy, but here of all things it was completely necessary for them to make it out of the prison). Pedo Doctor’s roar of anger may have been a bit too much, but still didn’t ruin anything.
Rating: *** (Awesome)