Author: psgels

Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood – 52

by psgels, posted in Full Metal Alchemist - Brotherhood




This has got to be among the best Full Metal Alchemist episodes to date. And with more than a hundred episodes on the franchise’s track record, that has to say something! It mostly focused on two fights: the one versus Kimblee and Pride, and the one versus Sloth. Both were awesome in their own ways, full of great twists and turns, making for one hell of a ride.

Seriously, I’m getting the same vibes here as when I watched the action scenes of Bounen no Xamdou. What Bones did here is deliver animation with such a force and power. This is exactly what I’m looking for in an action series. And this time, the stories and backgrounds actually did get well developed. While at this point Full Metal Alchemists’s animation still isn’t quite as good as Xamdou, it has far surpassed Xamdou at this time as an action-series for me, due to the plot, characters and setting in this series.

Kimblee’s death (or at least, I think he died) also really surprised me. In the way that Pride kept playing with his victims like a cat, it was a very good reminder that there are plenty of mortals in this series, and this even showed that having a philosopher’s stone doesn’t make you immortal. To contrast, there were also plenty of heart-warming moments during the same fight: three side-characters who I wrote off as being useless in battle really created an awesome escape sequence.

Also, the clone army really proved to be one of the flaws in Father’s plans: having them rampage around is nice enough, but the way in which they fail to recognize either friend or enemy leads to a lot more soldiers changing sides, especially when you’re in front of such a charismatic leader as Olivier. This episode forced a ton of characters to do things they usually would not: Ed also finally ended up using weaponry, the Armstrong Siblings working together.

One point of criticism for this episode was during the Ed’s fight. I mean, the army of closes did go a bit into overkill there, and it wasn’t that well animated anyway, with a lot of clones just being CG dolls. It reminded me a bit of these cheap fantasy series in which teen-aged leads have to battle on hordes of copy/paste zombies. Not to mention that the clones decide to just stand still whenever some major plot twist happens. Really, if I was such a clone, I wouldn’t care about what happened around me. All I would care about would just be these tasty human beings in front of me.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Heartcatch Precure – 10

by psgels, posted in Heartcatch Precure




Wow, what an episode! It’s here where the creators show how good they actually are. This episode was both beautifully animated, hilarious and tense. It’s here where the Precure are proven to be completely useless and not god-moded at all when it comes to defeating the biggest threats. In typical mahou-shoujo fashion they were saved by some mysterious guys who are also on their sides, but then again: these two high schoolers look so much more interesting than your average prince on the white horse, even though we don’t even know anything about them.

The combination between the incredibly silly henchman and the actually competent dark Precure turned out to work really well: because of that we didn’t get a sudden episode full of angst about this unbeatable opponent, but instead the creators balanced the light-hearted parts (and that strange football match) well amongst the darker parts in which that Dark Precure appeared. And remember that we’re only at 1/5th of the way: there’s still plenty of time left to actually develop them.

And the animation! It wasn’t just absolutely gorgeous, it also brought out the best of the characters! That’s really what I consider to be animation at its finest: not the kind with the biggest budget, but one that actually makes its cast alive when it counts. And this episode did that so well: it was full of interesting camera-angles, the characters were full of different emotions and even the action was continuously fun, both in the small down to earth parts as the soccer match, and the over the top parts where Dark Precure stood in the spotlights. Seriously, if this is only a taste of what the creators have in store for us, then I’m really curious to the rest of this series.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Hakuouki – 02

by psgels, posted in Hakuouki



As for the series I’m not going to blog:
– Lilpri is ridiculously stupid, but it has its heart at the right place: you can see that it’s really trying to do something. It just fails horribly at times, but it’s ridiculously entertaining for both the right and wrong reasons. However, me blogging it? Nah.

In any case, I was in a lot of doubts about whether or not to blog Hakuouki. I intended to fill this slot by either one of the three bishie-series this season (Uragiri, Rainbow and this one). While I can’t say anything about Uragiri yet (if that one does turn out awesome I may have to drop either this one or Angel Beats), but the thing with Rainbow is that while it’s got an awesome concept, the acting is utterly terrible. On top of that, I actually doubt that Madhouse is willing to spend enough time to fully animate all of the novels. Normally I love Madhouse, but they have made their share of flops, and the director of these flops is now in charge of that series.

Hakuouki on the other hand is just annoying: it’s one of those series with those few hints of potential that might or might not hint at something better. But I’m deciding to give it a chance, because if it does manage to get everything right it has the potential to become awesome. The biggest reason for this is the dialogue: it really tries to flesh out the characters with it. While the voice acting itself isn’t that special, with that kind of dialogue we really have the potential to get to know our characters. It’s now all going to depend on how the characters are going to develop.

However, do note that I WILL drop this series as soon as I find out that there are only going to be 13 episodes. With these kinds of premises, you really NEED those 24 or 26 episodes to really get somewhere. At this point it’s too late for this series to really stand out if it’s just going to run for one season: it’ll just end up as another forgettable samurai adventure with a bit of random action.

Speaking of the action, that was one of the other reasons that this series caught my eye: it’s damn tense! Well built up, and they’re short but powerful. Most of the time Studio Deen’s animation wasn’t anything special in this series, but that scene in which that guy charged on Yukimura was really well animated. At the same time it shows what the creators are capable of, and yet it’s not one of those cases in which they obviously blow all of their budget in the first episode. Speaking of Yukimura: she has a lot of potential IF (and only if) she manages to grow. At this point, she’s still that typical useless lead who can’t do anything. However, this episode just kept dropping hints that “you know what? This girl is going to develop into a dependable woman.” What I got from her was a strong urge to learn and understand everyone. Standalone, this is just useless, pointless and rather annoying. With development however: ah, the potential.
Rating: * (Good)

Angel Beats – 02

by psgels, posted in Angel Beats



As for the series I’m not going to blog:
– Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou is just silly, but in a good way. Still, it’s just a comedy without much substance. There’s a reason why I don’t blog those: I’m much more of a fan of Dutch and British humour anyway.

In any case, Angel Beats is a series that has one HUGE disadvantage: it’s only going to be 13 episodes. It’s got a huge cast. Will this really be enough to get its full potential out? Despite this however, I’m giving it a chance to impress me, because I really like its opening episodes. While this is nowhere near the funniest comedy out there (pretty much like why I decided to blog Kaichou wa Maid-Sama and not B Gata H Kei), but everything around it screams potential. The fast pacing and dialogue is very addictive, and I really like these stories that play around with life and death.

Immortality is of course a tricky thing to do, because if it’s used lazily you just end up god-moding your lead characters. That’s the problem I have with most series that pull those kinds of things like extremely fast regeneration. This time however, while the characters can’t die when you stab them, it hurts a lot, and they’re up to a pretty much invincible enemy. These twists are nowhere done out of cheapness.

As for the comedy, it’s definitely the weakest part of this series. It’s pretty much what you would expect from the director: lots of over the top and quick-fire jokes that either hit the mark or don’t. I’m much more of a fan of the adventure part of this series: exploring different places, in order to get to some kind of goal. There’s a lot of creativity in these scenarios, and that’s what I like best about this series. From the cave with the strange traps to the concert stage in the previous episode, it’s a very fun ride to watch.

Also, the backgrounds. In this episode we got our first taste of it, and while the visuals in Yuri’s flashback looked gorgeous… it was one of those “let’s give her the worst possible childhood muahahaha”-backstories. While it looks like her backstory is going to play a bigger role in the rest of thsi series (heck, her younger sister appeared on the promo-art), at this point it feels a bit pointless and a cheap way to get us to sympathize with her, rather than adding to her characterization. Instead, her characterization came much more from what she did in this episode. You can see that she’s a born leader who worries about her subordinates, and also gets her point across. And really, you don’t really need to have lost all of your siblings in an incredibly traumatic event to emerge that convicted.
Rating: * (Good)

Durarara – 13

by psgels, posted in Durarara




Now… this is just so good. The entire start of this episode screamed build-up: we skip forth half a year, we get to see new characters (like Shinra’s father who suddenly pops up), while the narrator is Anri. The build-up however was just so excellent, the final scene of this episode made a lot more impact than I could have expected at this point. And we’re only at episode one of this series’ second half!

It’s now when this series really has to prove itself by surpassing the already excellent first half. And based on this series, the creators really might actually do it. I love how well written the dialogue of this series is. This episode did so many things at once: it established who the characters were, giving everyone a short scene to confirm that things have settled a bit, only to hit right back at this notion of no development with sudden new plot twists that set the character-development in motion again. The police officer, for example. That was a surprise for him to be bugging Celty so much that she’d lose her nerve over it.

Like its predecessor Baccano, the script for this series again is truly excellent, but in a completely different way. The way the creators in this episode played around with all kinds of different moods and themes, while keeping true to their characters was truly excellent, including the way the creators use their background music and sound effects, which is bold and varied. I’m really curious to see how far the creators are going to be able to take this.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Kaichou wa Maid-Sama – 02

by psgels, posted in Kaichou wa Maid-Sama



I’ve been thinking a lot about whether or not to blog Kaichou wa Maid Sama. Basically, the big reason I hardly ever blog Shoujo romantic comedies is because the genre has evolved in such a way that it’s a bit impossible to really tell whether they’re going to be awesome or not, just based on its first episodes. Ten years ago it may have been different (I mean, one look at Kodocha and His and Her Circumstances would tell that they were going to be awesome), but nowadays, I find it very hard to determine whether a shoujo romantic comedy is going to be another Ouran or Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge. Just take Itazura na Kiss, for another example: hilarious in its first few episodes, but completely falling apart after that.

But you know what, I decided to have faith in this series. It’s perhaps not the funniest series this season, but I like its sharpness. The drama is awkward to watch, but in a good way. This isn’t just a series about the romantic adventures of two random teenagers, but it’s also a bit of a battle between the sexes, and it also focuses a lot on freedom and its limits. It lacks subtlety in this department, but that’s one thing that made the drama and the parts in which Misaki forced down her biased opinion on all of the guys in the school. Even though I’ve often seen comments on how this series has nothing original, that kind of drama taken seriously is something I have yet to see in a shoujo series, and because of that I’m giving it a chance.

On top of that, I also have a lot of faith in the director, Hiroaki Sakurai. This guy has really shown that he can be hilarious, while also really good at drama (heck, he co-directed Kodocha and directed Les Miserables, for goodness’ sake). A lot is of course also going to depend on the manga, but this guy is going to be able to get its full potential out of it. And it really shows so far. The past two episodes have been well paced and calculated, with just a right combination between comedy, drama, chemistry and those awkward moments.
Rating: * (Good)

Ookiku Furikabutte – 28

by psgels, posted in Ookiku Furikabutte



As for the series I’m not going to blog:
– It’s a bit pointless to watch Heroman as an action-series when the creators bluntly skip half of the fights.
– B Gata H Kei has a prime: an important side-character who actually has a boyfriend other than the lead male. Still, regarding blogging it… it’s not the series that I think I can be able to write about every week.

In any case, this season surely turned out to be excellent, and better than I ever could have expected. There are so few series that aren’t worthwile, and just about every series save from a bunch of kids’ shows and KissXSis, Ikkitousen and Koihime (and perhaps Arakawa, but that’s just my bias) has its own strengths. And the best of the season hasn’t even aired yet.

What I also love about this season is that it’s overall a lot darker and more down to earth than the previous season. There, we had a lot of bright fantasy that was a lot focused on brightness and heart warming storytelling. This season, while there are of course the upbeat Heroman, Daimaou and B Gata H Kei, the best shows of this season are actually far more based around down to earth and straight to-the-point dialogue. From the outside it indeed looks less flashy, the content might become even sharper because of it. It’s interesting, because this Spring Season is completely different from the spring seasons we’ve seen during the past five years or so. Usually, those seasons had lots of fantasy. This season barely has any.

Instead, there really is a TON of dialogue, and the beast in this hasn’t even aired yet. It’s also going to be a huge challenge for me to try and understand it, especially since in the previous season most stuff was either a) subbed fast, b) for kids c) didn’t have dialogue that was that hard to understand. There are a ton of shows this season however that look like they’re neither, so please do correct me when I make a mistake. My Japanese at this point is NOWHERE near perfect, so I might pick up a number of things wrongly.

Having said that, after Noitamina Ookiku Furikabutte was THE show that was bound to rock this season. Especially compared to the baseball series of the previous year (Cross Game and Taishou Yakyuu Musume of the last summer) it excels in exactly the things that those shows were rather bad at: the matches. You could really see that the creators put a ton of research in this.

Before they start however, we’re treated for a few episodes of slice of life, which in this series mostly consists out of people, talking about baseball, introducing characters and analyzing patterns that feel out of place in an actual match. The team that they have to play against for their next match also has a bit of a weirdo as their ace. If I understood things correctly, he’s a guy whose average isn’t that good, but when he hits he hits HARD. I can understand why the creators came up with him: his unpredictability promises quite a few interesting situations for Mihashi.

A lot of things passed the radar this episode, but a major theme was Abe versus Mihashi. In my review of the first season I mentioned that one of the things that annoyed me was that the creators overplayed Mihashi’s quirks, but at the same time they have no intention whatsoever to not develop them. And really, I can totally understand Abe for losing his patience. The guy’s a perfectionist, and quite a proud one at that, and while he tries to get Mihashi to feel comfortable, he just can’t lower himself to Mihashi’s level. Even in this episode, when he knows what his problem is, he still loses his temper. I feel like the rest of the season will focus a lot on him, trying to find a balance between pushing his ideas into Mihashi and allowing him to be himself.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
PS. Is everything clear about the episode numbering. This is basically how I always number my sequels unless they’re significantly different from their prequels. Basically episode 28 of Ookiku Furikabutte is just the same as episode 2 of Ookiku Furikabutte ~ Natsu no Taikai-hen~, but is that clear for everyone?

Some Quick First Impressions: Hetalia World Series, Senkou no Night Raid and Metal Fight Beyblade – Explosion

by psgels, posted in Hetalia: Axis Powers, Senkou no Night Raid, Some Quick First Impressions

Hetalia World Series

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is the personification of a certain mediterranean country.
Healia, please. Start putting labels on your characters. This episode introduced a bunch of new characters of which I had no idea who they were. It’s of course nice to see more characters like these, but it’s a bit pointless if you don’t know what coumtry they represent. It’s not good to assume that everyone read the manga, studio Deen. As for this episode, it was funny as usual. I do hope that the episodes will get released a bit faster now. This isn’t really like a series as Marie & Gali, in which I’m really willing to wait multiple weeks for the next episode.
ED: Same as usual.
Potential: 40%

Senkou no Night Raid

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is an international spy.
Well, there you have it, A-1 surely is on fire this season. This episode was really well made: it had a lot of spy action, but it cleverly kept everything from going over the top, and instead kept everything down and true to the abilities of the characters involved. The dialogue itself was also excellent: well written and it actually kept the language barrier: the Chinese people speak Chinese here. That was also a bit annoying though, because I had no idea what they were saying. But still, when you compare this to Canaan it looks very promising. The characters have a few quirks and traits, but despite that they don’t feel out of place. This should prove to be a pretty nice spy thriller during the upcoming season.
ED: Interesting visuals, but a dull ballad.
Potential: 80%

Metal Fight Beyblade – Explosion

Short Synopsis: Our lead character wants to have the legendary spinning top of the galaxy unicorn.
It’s hilarious how poorly produced this series actually is. Cutting corners is of course one thing, but this episode was just so ridiculously cheap. Take the first half for example: it shows an arena full of fans as they watch a bunch of people battle with their spinning tops (yeah…). At one point, the creators simply forget that there’s supposed to be an audience and instead turn the entire audience in some sort of fancy wallpaper as the matches stop and the characters start rambling on about some kind of kid who disturbed their match from out of nowhere. The second half has the lead character of this series search for some sort of legendary beyblade. When he finds it (yeah, this all happens in the span of one episode; no build-up whatsoever) it’s followed by a huge amount of cheap-ass tricks to try and make the moment of a boy grabbing a spinning top from a wall look as epic as possible. I got a good laugh out of it, that’s for sure. But the thing that I’ve been wondering about these kids’ shows is the following: if they’re going to be cheap, why don’t they just recap some sort of kids’ show from the nineties? That’s going to be even cheaper, and it’s not like these kids are gonna notice.
ED: I could swear that the vocalists were on drugs when they sung this in.
Potential: -20%

Some Quick First Impressions: Saikyou Busho-den Sangoku Engi, Arakawa Under the Bridge, Hime Chen! Otogi Chikku Idol Lilpri

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Saikyou Busho-den Sangoku Engi

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is another famous character from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms novel.
I was not looking forward to this series at all. With all of the cheesy adaptations that have been done before, I had pretty much given up hope for this franchise. But damn, this episode had some of the best animation of the new season. There are hardly any still frames, everything is moving like it should. The animation is still a bit jerky at times, but it’s so much better than just show a bunch of talking heads whose mouths move up and down, or only move three or four frames each scene. The storytelling itself was a bit rushed and the characters tended to overact, but wow, this actually has some potential.
OP: Matsumoto Leiji homage?
ED: Decent ballad.
Potential: 50%%

Arakawa Under the Bridge

Short Synopsis: Our lead character ends up living under a bridge with a cute girl.
I did a little check. In two years, most directors are able to handle two or three series, right? Well, in the same timespan Shinbo has done a whopping TWELVE of them, excluding four OVAs. At this point I’ve pretty much given up on trying to watch him delivering some half-assed product, just for one or two good episodes that might or might not come. This episode ultimately was dull. I usually like a lot of dialogue, but this time it was ruined by a hopelessly overacting lead character (it also didn’t help that he had exactly the same voice as a ton of other Shinbo-lead characters). The humour overall was predictable and hardly ever funny. With the high standard of the rest of this series, is there really a reason to continue watching this series? If there is, then please enlighten me because at this point I’m way too biased to give Shinbo’s series a fair chance.
Potential: 0%

Hime Chen! Otogi Chikku Idol Lilpri

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is destined to be the legendery Little Princess. Get it? Lilpri. Little Princess. *har har*
As if this season couldn’t get any better, even the cheap mahou shoujo which I initially wrote off as just another Jewel Pet clone turns out to be much more enjoyable than I imagined. And don’t get me wrong, the story behind this series is utterly terrible. All of the fairy tale princesses are disappearing and because fairy tales can’t live without their princesses the queen of fairy land sets three animals out to wake up the “super miracle idols” (an actual quote from the dialogue. It sounds every bit as silly as it looks) who are supposed to very vaguely represent Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and Kaguya-hime, in order to get them to sing horribly cheesy songs in front of live audiences. This premise is just… stupid beyond all belief. Even for kids’ show standards! And yet, despite such a cheesy plot, there’s one thing that this series did surprisingly well: the chemistry. The cheese and the characters made this into a surprisingly fun series to watch. The three lead kids in this series are surprisingly likable (and actually sound and act like real kids. I loved the part in which the animal sidekicks were looking for their princesses, and just dismissed the lead characters because they were too young.
OP: Don’t tell me they’re going to sing this in every episode?
ED: TOO. MUCH. SUGAR.
Potential: 30%

Heartcatch Precure – 09

by psgels, posted in Heartcatch Precure




Another excellent episode, there’s no other way to it. Tsubomi’s relationship with her parents got under the loop this time. On top of being quite a sad episode, it’s awesome to see that the creators have no intention to forget about the parents this time. You often see series gloss over the lead characters’ parents in anime, but showing these things can give such a good insight on how they decided to raise their children, explaining why the character in question grew up the way he/she did.

The way that they were once workaholics, who eventually chose their child over their jobs is perhaps nothing new, but it added so much to Tsubomi’s character. I really felt sorry for her to have to sit alone on a bench for years. It’s interesting how her grandmother also didn’t seem to have time for her, or stimulate her to go and play with other kids. You can see that she still fears that her parents are going to go away again, up to the point at which she even was too afraid to explain it.

with this, the story of the baseball boy also isn’t such a filler anymore. Instead, the creators meant to introduce someone who Tsubomi could feel vaguely familiar to, and they meant to show her a case in which a child did not want to get in the way of his parents’ happiness. In a way, Tsubomi’s parents are now also trying to make up for the time that they couldn’t be there for her.

The animation during the fights was also very well done, and you can see that the recycled scenes are getting slightly shorter with every episode. There’s one thing I still don’t get, though: the heart seeds. Perhaps it’s something I missed from a previous Precure series, but why are these farts so important? We’ve hardly seen them used, and the recycled scene around it didn’t make sense in this episode: we see it appearing at a point at which neither Tsubomi nor Erika could have been near it to store it in the… “heart seed container”. Or however it may be called.
Rating: ** (Excellent)