Author: psgels

Cross Game – 44

by psgels, posted in Cross Game



Yeah, this is what I meant. Last week when the creators suddenly decided to focus on the second years; they just needed more attention. The idea of this episode was nice, but at this point I just don’t care about these second years. The four of them are exact copies of each other: there’s nothing that sets them apart. And in the end, at which it turned out that they saved the match it just became a bit too obvious that the creators were trying to build up to it.

For the rest of this episode, I have no complaints, however. One thing I loved was how this episode never tried to prove something using the match against Miki. What we saw here was just a bunch of old friends who played against each other after having been apart for a few years. The part with the second years was forced, but apart from that it was just so wonderfully natural and charming. Friendly matches like this one are very rare in sports series and even when two friends are against each other, they tend to overact and make it way too dramatic than needed. Miki and Azuma were wonderful in this episode, simply because they stayed so down to earth.

Another big theme of this episode was Aoba, and the fact that she’s not using her talents. Next to Kou, it’s indeed very easy to forget that she also is an excellent pitcher, and she was pretty much the one who taught Kou everything he needed to know about being successful. As a teacher, especially so young, she should feel proud of what her student turned into. ^^;
Rating: * (Good)

Cobra The Animation – 06

by psgels, posted in Cobra The Animation



Yeah, I think that this is my favourite episode of the new Cobra so far. While its premise is… unrealistic to say the least, it lacks the stupidity that plagued the previous number of episodes, and instead aims to deliver a cast of interesting characters. All with their own backgrounds and motives. At this point there still are a few redundant characters (that con man for example didn’t seem to have done anything), but overall it was a pretty enjoyable episode, and for once with this show it’s not for the wrong reasons.

But this episode did not lose the main focus of this series: space adventures. In fact, I would have preferred a bit of less time on the adventures, and more to the background of these characters. Although I do admit that that bodyguard also was very interesting, even though he was just random cannon fodder. The fact that he could not see the mountain, which only appears for those who believe in him says a lot about him, though.

While I like adventure series done right, in the end Cobra isn’t one of them. It suffers in its characterization: aside from Cobra none of the characters are really that interesting. However, the next episode actually might break that trend. Still, I’m somehow enjoying it so far into the series. Plus, shows in which you can punch an angry shark and knock it out and where con men walk around with Mickey Mouse-haircuts deserve points for creativity.
Rating: * (Good)

Letter Bee – 18

by psgels, posted in Letter Bee



What kind of an episode was this? Seriously, this was by far the WORST installment of this series so far. It was ridiculously stupid, poorly produced, incredibly rushed and generally an entire waste of time. It makes no sense. It was horrible to watch. Who were the idiots responsible for this mess?

So get this: in this episode we meet a bunch of people who don’t agree with the policy of the Letter Bees, and are of the opinion that their fees are way too high for the poor people who’d like to send mail to their loved ones as well. Fair enough, competition is always good. So what do they do? THEY CHALLENGE A BUNCH OF KIDS TO A RACE. On a horsed cart. To test who is the best at delivering letters. It only gets worse from there on.

Connor for example halts his cart in front of a few roadblocks. We never actually see anything going on at that road. They could have just passed it, there was no reason to block it whatsoever. Connor stands still because he believes it to be the shortest road and his gut feeling (read: stomach) says that it’ll be removed in no time.

Along the way the bad guys decide to cheat for no possible reason whatsoever, since later in the episode it’s more than clear that they’re good guys. They end up crashing because a wheel on their cart was loose. What the heck? Later, as the finish is near they run into a bunch of Gaichuu (since this was a race to a nearly abandoned town and back, why they didn’t run into these Gaichu on the way to this town is beyond me), and the cart of the “Letter Pidgeons” is destroyed. When the Gaichu are taken care of by the Letter Bees, Lag abandons his cart in turn and just starts running as well. The entire cart just disappears during the entire rest of the episode, even though it would have been way faster.

The endless stupidity in this episode was just unbelievable, but the Letter Pidgeons themselves are just plain badly characterized. They’re just a bunch of paper bags and the dude who could only utter 3-word sentences was especially bad. The animation was cheap and the characters looked even worse and more like cardboard cut-outs with just one emotion.

But what pisses me off the most about this episode was how it completely ignored and side-stepped important themes for the setting, and at some point even contradicted the SERIES ITSELF. It’s like the writers of this episode knew absolutely nothing about the story, and just looked at the first OP for inspiration. Connor just continuously whined about food, even though it had already been established that while he likes to eat, he isn’t completely obsessed over it. Zazie is an experienced Letter Bee. While he can be cold, it’s nothing like him to just curse in front of small children (seriously; wtf!?) and yell at them to hand over the letters they want to deliver.

Also, it completely ignores one very important issue, and that’s what upset me the most about this episode. Lag is someone who we already know is obsessed over justice. This episode addressed how Letter Bees basically discriminate and don’t give poor people a chance. And Lag doesn’t even give this a second chance. He does lecture the Letter Pidgeons on how it’s important for a Letter Bee to deliver the heart of their clients. However, it makes no sense in the context: none of the mistakes that the Letter Pidgeons made would amount to such a lecture: these people simply did not know about how dangerous Gaichuu can be. Lag then completely avoids answering why he’s basically ignoring poor people. This would have been a great chance for the creators to clear up this little plothole of how the Bees make money, but the creators just continuously avoid it in order to go for cheap adventures.

I know I sound angry and I’m very much ranting here, but I really hate to see this show’s potential wasted like this. It really was going into the right direction before this thing came.
Rating: —- (Abysmal)

Night on the Galactic Railroad – Fantasy Railroad in the Stars Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Remember Night on the Galactic Railroad? It was probably one of the quietest movies you can get. In any case, it was based on a story from Kenji Miyazawa, and back in 2007, it was animated for a second time by a digital artist named Kagaya. I was expecting something with cat people again (something that returns in nearly all of Kenji Miyazawa’s adaptations), but instead I got something much more unique than I thought.

If you looked at the screenshots you might wonder why there aren’t any people on it. That wasn’t because I was in some strange mood when I took them. There really are NO PEOPLE, or any other sort of characters in this OVA. We just have a narrator who reads the story of Kenji Miyazawa, combined with visuals and music. She also does the voices of the lead characters, but they never appear on the screen. All this show is is one huge chunk of atmosphere as we travel through all sorts of locations and constellations.

Don’t worry though. This is really an excellent recommendation if you like visual poetry. What this movie does excellently is combining the narrative, dialogue, visuals and music into one. It’s the perfect movie for if you want to relax for about an hour and dream away, and because of the limited storytelling and how we never get to see the characters, the narrative speaks to your imagination to fill in the omitted parts. It’s such a relaxing, yet thought provoking and imaginative OVA.

Which is really helped by an absolutely beautiful soundtrack. Every second of that soundtrack fits perfectly with the rest of the story and visuals, and it’s been very skillfully composed. The visuals themselves are also utterly gorgeous. Nearly everything is in 3D, and not everything is perfectly and realistically rendered, but nevertheless it’s full of eye candy. This is what I meant with the art of cutting corners in 3D animation, back in my Urban Legend Hikiko Review. Everything that matters is rendered beautifully, and the rest, like realistic water or textures. Ah well, who cares. They don’t prevent the visuals in this movie from being awesome.

Fantasy Railroad of the Star really is an engaging adventure and a beautifully imaginative journey across the Galactic Railroad. It’s obviously not for everyone, and you have to be into this kind of stuff otherwise you’re going to be bored out of your skull, but it’s OVAs like this that start off with a great experimental idea, and actually make it work. It’s a shame that it’s taken three whole years for this thing to get released in the west.

Storytelling: 9/10 – A wonderful combination of dreamy narrative, visuals and audio.
Characters: 8/10 – Um, yeah. We never get to see them, but even though words they were a wonderful lead cast.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Beautiful soundtrack, very imaginative rendered visuals.
Setting: 8/10 – You can see that the creators had an extensive amount of astronomical knowledge.

Armed Librarians – The Book of Bantorra – 19

by psgels, posted in Armed Librarians - The Book of Bantorra



Holy crap, you people weren’t kidding about this episode! This series just continues to get better and better. What an incredibly creative script, this series really takes no conventions for granted.

Oh, remmember the first few episodes of this series, in which Volken was nothing but an average lead character with a strong sense of justice. Seriously, I never expected that someone as Olivia Litlet would get more screen-time than he did. The way that this series plays around with our expectations and turns them into something unpredictable is just unbelievable.

So yeah: Volken died. The creators actually had the GUTS to kill him off. And yet Olivia still lives at the end of this episode. This episode did such a great job of developing the two of them. Volken on one hand seeing his beliefs destroyed when he found out that his mentor was not the upholder of justice he believed him to be, while Olivia as a strong woman searched for the passion that she once lost. It’s that passion and perseverance of her that really allowed her to live as a meat. Colio had already shown that it was possible, and she just took it a small step further. The whole ritual? She was trying the entire time to get her memories of Vend Ruga back. As someone who took care of her when she was a child and before the church got her.

Also, we’ve been expecting this for quite a while now, but Hamyuts finally confirmed it: the Church and the Armed Librarians aren’t at war at all. They just pretend to be. Heck, the Church was even created by the Armed Librarians. My guess is that they were intended to take care of all of the dirty work, probably for that damn tree or something. My guess is that it feeds on exciting books. That would be quite the irony: that the Armed Librarians and the Church just exist in order to provide nice books.

It’s also interesting: all this time it turned out that Hamyuts Meseta followed after a red herring, and basically sank a ship for nothing, just because Olivia wanted to scrabble her feelings on the wall. However, for her to go through such lengths. I really believe that we’ve found our major villain of this series. Or rather: the major good guy, since we’ve now pretty much confirmed that the Armed Librarians are the bad guys.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Durarara – 05

by psgels, posted in Durarara



This show has just gotten even better than it already had. Just when you think that nearly all of the important characters were introduced, this episode comes and throws in a heap more of them. The way in which this episode weaved so many different story-lines into one was just done masterfully. Masaomi got a lot of extra depth in this episode as well, and Anri too became a lot more colourful.

One thing that this series likes to do a lot is flash-forwards, without giving any indication what they’re about. This episode had those two as well: we first see two seemingly random scenes, in which Celty gets attacked by some other ghost or spirit, and Mikado and Masaomi run into some random direction. Only at the end of the episode were these two scenes explained. Things like these can really spice up an episode.

Also, Masaomi. While at first sight he was just another one of those “best friends”. You know, those paper bags you see in harem anime who play the local pervert and whose only purpose is to make the lead character look ‘good’. Well, that image got completely shattered with this episode, as it might even be that he only acts like that in front of his friends. This episode hinted at some event that happened in his past that caused an old friend of him and Izaya to end up in the hospital. I’m not exactly sure about the details, but for some reason he doesn’t visit her as often any more, so it might have been caused by something he did himself. Either that, or Izaya was just so damn scary, although that girl doesn’t seem to mind Izaya.

Then, Anri and Yagiri. In this episode it’s revealed that Anri didn’t talk so desperately in front of Yagiri because she herself was attracted to him, but rather because one of her friend, Harima, who apparently stalked him, and now mysteriously disappeared. And for some reason she looks surprisingly much like that girl that might carry Celty’s head. Coincidence? I actually doubt that.

Also, what was up with that new character who talked with random punks and has some sort of hikkikomori daughter? It was a nice way to add a bit of characterization for these people, by the way. May they rest in peace. Or at least that’s very much hinted at at the end of this episode…
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Kobato – 16

by psgels, posted in Kobato



PL notified me of something interesting yesterday, which I had not realized yet: Kobato has grown more on me than I had realized. I was surprised when I first read that, but after watching this episode I’m sure of it: I’ve given this show way too little credit thus far. Kobato shows that you can achieve depth with simplicity, and you don’t need world-changing or epicness to deliver great characters. Thank GOD we finally have another show to remind ourselves of this.

I guess it was impatience that lead me to condemn this series early on, and opt not to blog it. After all, this series had nothing to set itself apart in the beginning. I really thought that it would end up as another one of those series with just shallow characters, where 24 episodes would just pass without anything happened. At this point, I’m not sure what was up with me: here we have a show that for once is scheduled for 24 episodes right from the start. It’s produced by Clamp, who after Tsubasa Chronicles know better than any other manga creators how to keep track of their series’ adaptations, so this series is planned in perfectly inside its time-frame, as opposed to those tons of other series that are just way too short.

My guess that it’s my pessimism that turned me off at the start. Around three years ago I probably would have jumped on this series, but ever since I’ve been disappointed a bit too often by series that started of slow and simple… and never really went anywhere in the end. I think the most recent example at the time of Kobato’s debut was Saki: I basically gave it a bit of a chance because I was hoping for that same development, but the show just turned into a huge disappointment for me. And then there are all those romantic comedies out there that thrive on showing cute girls. And really, I’ve tried to give them a chance for the past few years, but I hardly ever found one I really liked. Kobato reminds me of El Cazador de la Bruja. I’ve seen it constantly criticised for its simple story and bad action. But who cares?! The characters were damn awesome! Seriously though, especially in its second half when the characters came together it turned into a very memorable series for me.

In any case, this episode of Kobato really showed me its character-development. Would it have worked to anyone who hasn’t seen the rest of the series? Probably not. It’s all about showing not exactly how Kobato has matured, but instead how her desire to protect the kindergarten has grown and how she does everything in her power to help out. Would she have done the same at the start of the series? I doubt that. And yet her development feels natural and it doesn’t look like she just changed character. Same with just about5 everyone else: they all have gotten a passion to protect that kindergarten.

My big dilemma right now is how to recognize series like Kobato from random shows that never get anywhere. At the time of this series’ debut, I was beginning to think that I’ve gotten pretty good at evaluating the potential of a series based on its first episode, and this was a good wake-up call. There are of course those series that are obviously going to be awesome (Aoi Bungaku) or erm… not to my tastes (Ladies Versus Butlers), but what about Kiddy Girl-And? Looking back I’m glad to have dropped it, hearing the stories about it, but what if it did turn out good? Was I also wrong in dropping Railgun?
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Sora no Oto – 05

by psgels, posted in Sora no Oto



Let me first talk a bit about Anime-no-Chikara, which basically is Aniplex’s attempt to create Noitamina #3. Let me first say, that I really support this idea: a timeslot of nothing but anime original stories. HOWEVER, there is a lot to be worried about. Remember Noise? That one was taken off the air, despite featuring nothing but excellent and well produced series.

In order to work, Anime no Chikara really needs to figure out why Noise failed where Noitamina succeeded. Here’s my theory:

When Noitamina premiered, it played to a hole in the market. While horror was done before, the series like Honey and Clover, Paradise Kiss and Noitamina debuted an entirely new genre in anime: the one focused at college students, and consistently delivered great adaptations with their own originality and uniqueness. Later, as its popularity grew, it slowly turned into a high quality time-slot for new ideas, mostly because of series like Ayakashi and Mononoke, which balanced themselves very nicely. Noise instead just tried to deliver great series. There wasn’t something that gave them that extra edge, the thing that made them stand out.

So, how can Anime no Chikara use this? Well, I think that to start off, the circumstances are a lot more in its favour. We’re in the midst of a crisis. Especially the anime that are about to debut were produced and created in the middle of that crisis. There are announcements like this, in which way too many producers go nothing but “moe moe moe”. Now, there’s definitely moe in Sora no Oto as well, but it doesn’t try to shove this moe down the viewer’s throat, which is a problem that I have with a lot of other moe series. If Anime no Chikara can set itself apart by consistently producing quality series that don’t try to win over their viewers with moe, and it actually becomes known for this, then I might think that it’ll be able to stand a chance. And in a way, with completely original anime, you can go anywhere, instead of being bugged by what light novels or mangas are popular. In fact, now that i think about it: one of the biggest reasons why Noise failed may just be that it lacked a good catch-phrase.

Anyway, about this episode. I’m impressed. We already knew that there was some kind of no-man’s land which was probably created through nuclear fallout, but actually seeing it had much more impact. What we saw there very much looked like huge craters, and it’s very much possible that those were caused by nuclear bombs. Who knows how many bombs were necessary to produce the entire no-man’s land, though. My guess is that the entire area was just bombed flat, and throughout the ages some parts managed to recover, while others turned into desert.

Then: the Japanese. Seriously, talk about a mystery here. I first thought that the Japanese people were sort-of wiped out at the same time as the destruction of no-man’s land, however this episode suggests otherwise. The signatures on the protective thingy were both in Japanese, and in French. For pre-destruction era people however, it would not have made any sense to pick out THAT thingie, of all the possible ones around. Therefore, something must have happened after the bombing that either forced people to change language, or everyone in the area was just wiped out, only for the French to resettle the area after whatever threat was gone.

Oh, and the animation was really good in this episode. A-1 are no Madhouse, but with the right story to animate they do know how to create good and compelling animation.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Hanamaru Youchien – 04

by psgels, posted in Hanamaru Youchien



Tsuchida surely sucks at reading books. What the hell is he doing, criticising a manga for 5-year-olds for being not realistic enough? 😛

Still, the first half of this episode pleasantly surprised me. A huge theme of this show is role-playing and that cheesy romantic scenario that the kids came up with was really cute, and hilarious to watch. In a way, this series is also a very subtle parody-series, which also comes forth in the EDs. I by the way really like that this show is going for a different ED every episode. Nice touch.

The second half saw Tsuchida away, and Anzu spent all her time with Yamamoto who had to fill in for him. I’m glad that we at least got a bit of a more colourful look at Yamamoto. It still doesn’t help that she’s completely clueless about romantic issues, but this half was enjoyable enough.
Rating: * (Good)

The Future of This Blog

by psgels, posted in Special Articles

The future of this blog: I have no idea, to be honest. Tomorrow I’m going to say goodbye to my lazy student life, and start a five-month internship. It’s going to be the first time in my life in which I’m full time busy with something. After that, I’m planning to find a job, and move out of my father’s house. 2010 is very likely going to be the year with the biggest amount of change in my life, and I’m going to have much less time to work on this blog.

However, I have no idea how much that amounts to. I have no idea whether I’ll still have the time or energy to blog twelve series every week, and I may have to cut back on that amount. In the same way, I don’t think you can expect me to churn out reviews on other anime at the same speed that I’ve been doing for the past years now. If there are delays in posting, it’s also simply because I won’t have as much time on my hand as I once had.

However, I do want you to know that I have no intention to simply quit this blog. At this point I like blogging and the community too much to just go on a permanent hiatus and stop writing. Unfortunately, with my life about to go through huge changes and with the anime industry gearing more and more towards moe and fanservice, I have no idea how I will be thinking about this in a year’s time.

As for my to-watchlist, I might as well give you an update on its status, for when I do get the chance to watch more of it, I’m about to get to the stuff I’ve been really looking forward to: when I started it out, combining it with any additions I made in the process, I had a list of 209 series to go through. At this point there are only 63 series on that list left. As soon as I get to fifty I can get to the stuff that I’ve really been looking forward to (you know, the Honey&Clovers, etc). First I still want to finish off a few sequels or spinoffs before that, though.