Author: psgels

Letter Bee – 14

by psgels, posted in Letter Bee



You know, despite the many faults and annoyances of this series… I did miss it somewhat throughout the winter break. This series is cheesy, slow, and at times boring, but at the same time it’s probably the most genuine series of everything that’s currently airing. And that for a shounen-series.

I think that the biggest difference with this series between your average shounen-series is that most of them series drag on in order to stall for time. This series drags on in order to create an atmosphere. Again, you shouldn’t expect developments in this episode. This episode had a bit of new information, but if you’re just going to wait for it you will be bored to death.

This episode was again very strange: we have this scientist who works for the Letter Bees, and he captures Steak and everyone thinks that he’s going to cut him apart for research. The usual hi-jinks ensue, though it’s kept within borders: it was nice enough to watch, but at the same time it was about the opposite of what you’d call exciting.

But in the end, I have to admit. That scene in the flashback, in which Lag cried out for Gauche was incredibly well delivered. It felt so heartfelt, and it’s scenes like this that I’m still watching this series for.

As for the side-characters… this episode really gave them some extra charms. Seeing the cat lover inside Zazie pop up was very charming, and finally we get to see Aria play the violin. That was also a nice touch.
Rating: * (Good)
OP: Terrific art. Gentle music.
ED: Who was the artistic director of this thing? The images look absolutely stunning!

Seikai no Monshou – 01

by psgels, posted in Seikai no Monshou



Well, since the poll was a failure anyway, I decided to experiment a bit. For the past five hours there was this cryptic link to a poll with four options. What I basically did was pick out four series that were recommended, which fit the criteria and seemed the most interesting, and labelled them as Contemporary Fantasy (Windy Tales), Mecha (Innocent Venus), Comedy (The Great Horror Family) and Science Fiction (this one). It was an interesting experiment, to see what people would vote for when they had no idea what they voted for. Especially how almost nobody voted for mecha or comedy.

In any case, I’ll be blogging this series for the coming season, even though it aired more than a decade ago. The rest of this season is just too dry to find 12 bloggable series, especially after blogging Kimi ni Todoke turned out to be a failure.

In any case, I’m impressed. This episode on paper would have been nothing special: there’s this big galactic empire that invades planets and Earth (or Martine in this case) happens to be one of them. Oh, and democracy seems to be abolished and the monarchy is back, so that the lead character can call himself the next in line for the throne at such a young age.

But the way that this episode described the take-over from the galactic empire was what impressed me. It offered a detailed back-story. It’s not just a simple case of “they were too strong, we couldn’t stop them!”, but the humans themselves, especially their president also screwed up big-time, and they could have actually won if it wasn’t for his actions. The betrayal of this guy will probably come as an interesting backstory, later in the series.

I really needed to see some parts of this episode twice in order to fully understand what happened. Certain characters appear before they’re introduced properly, which made following the first half of this episode quite difficult. For example, at the beginning of the episode there was this woman who was searching for Jinto, the lead character. Why was he running away?

Sunrise really was an excellent production-company around the times that this series was produced. It came with tons of creative and interesting premises, and I just can’t help but think that they dulled in for the past five years, perhaps with the exception of Gintama and Bakumatsu

Rating: ** (Excellent)

Armed Librarians – The Book of Bantorra – 15

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



Awesome to see this series back again after its recap last week. I mean, at this point I 97% confident that this is going to turn into my favourite series of the season. Nothing that appeared in the winter-season, even the best stuff, has come close to this series so far. Most of these series are going to need weeks to get fully going, while this show has already a season’s worth of build-up inside of it.

And seriously, it surpassed itself yet again with this episode. The arcs right now are shorter than they were at the beginning of the series, but damn: this episode was good on so many levels. It successfully developed not just Mirepoc, but also the red-haired woman, it added depth for Cigal, but what surprised me even more was Lascal Othello’s son, and DEATH. So much for a major villain. And seriously, that son was a very nice touch. He only appeared… what? One minute? And yet he gave so much extra depth to this Lascal Othello guy: it shows that he’s not just another bad guy who needs to be defeated, no. He’s just a normal person who assumed the role of a legend, and therefore abandoned his family even though he once lived a normal life (including marriage).

And remember the book of Hiza that Winkeny took in the Mokkania arc? The reason why Hamy wasn’t that faced with it was because it really didn’t have anything to do with the main storyline. Instead, this was the red-haired girl’s plan, in an attempt to get more information on the actress, who had a lot of links with Lascal Othello, and Hiza was the one who investigated her case. Talk about tying everything together!

But that wasn’t even the best part of this episode. That honour goes to the plot twists related to the main plot. I mean, it was hinted before, but now we actually see this in much more detail: the church is collecting books of both Armed Librarians, and also its own members. They’re looking for the perfect book, or at least the books of talented and people who have a passion for what they do. Now, might this actually have something to do with Hamy? What if she possesses this “perfect” book that the church has been looking for? That they don’t really see her as a threat, but rather because they want to have her book?

But seriously, wtf?! The church and the Armed Librarians are working together in order to kill the people who seek Lascal Othello? How the hell does that work? What would be the point of that? That was one heck of a creative plot twist, and I have no idea how the creators are planning to write themselves out of that one. Armed Librarians is really a series in which everyone has something to hide, but damn, I didn’t expect Barori to hide a secret that big.

Also, someone refresh my memory. Yor… wasn’t that that thingie that Volken ran off with?
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Some Quick First Impressions: Ookami Kakushi, Dance in the Vampire Bund and Omamori Himari

by psgels, posted in Ookami Kakushi, Some Quick First Impressions

Ookami Kakushi

Short Synopsis: Our lead character moves into a new town and immediately gets himself a new girlfriend.
Yeah, the thing with this season is that just about every show has some sort of overused anime cliche, even the good ones. In any case, the best way to describe this episode was: intriguing. It was basically mostly introductory with a lot of slice of life and a few hints here and there that the town that the main character moved into is screwed up. It’s very promising, the characters are very moeified, but it’s not like they’re stereotypes and they’ve got potential to grow and develop. It also has the best soundtrack I’ve heard so far this season. Now, the question is mostly going to be: is it the creators’ intention to fully animate this story, or are they just going to stop in the middle?
OP: Yuki Kajiura delivers one of the best OPs of the new season.
ED: Pretty decent ballad.
Potential: 70%%

Dance in the Vampire Bund

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is the leader of the Vampires. And a little girl.
The biggest problem with this series is of course going to be Shinbo: is he going to be able to adapt this story properly, or is he just going to repeat himself and focus on the complete wrong parts of the story? I remember the last time he tried to do a series with a little girl who was a vampire (Tsukuyomi Moonphase), which turned out to be a pain to sit through. Though granted, this episode gave a much better first impression. There’s no way to measure it up to the rest of the series, because it was clearly an introductory episode, but let me say the following: if the rest of the episodes are going to be as interesting as this episode, then we’ve got ourselves a success. The TV-program about the existence of vampires was a nice touch, but none of the main characters really got a lot of screentime.
ED: Boring J-rock.
Potential: 50%

Omamori Himari

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets to be protected by a hot chick.
Now this is really is one of those shows that I’d label as terrible. A few cliches here and there doesn’t usually hurt, but when a series packs a ton of cliches EVERY… SINGLE… MINUTE… then it becomes a huge problem. This series rips off just about everything in this episode from other harem shows. The cat allergy? Hello, Nyan Koi. The hot chick with mysterious powers that suddenly protects the lead characters? How often haven’t we seen that one before? The childhood friend who is in love with the lead character and wakes him up in the morning? Come on, please. Probably the most blatant part is the set of character-designs that it shamelessly ripped off 11Eyes: did it seriously think to get away with the lead character, who looks like a more energetic Yuka with only a different hair and eye colour? And how about that teacher, who also looks EXACTLY the same aside from her hair and eye colours? For the most part of this season, I’m being more lenient than usual because how week it’d otherwise become, but this is just nothing. It’s nothing that we haven’t seen before taken to the extreme, the build-up is abysmal. Only go for this one if you’re a hardcore romantic comedy fan or just like to see boobs or panty-shots.
ED: Obnoxious J-pop. Blegh.
Potential: 0%%

Some quick First Impressions: Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu, Durarara!!, Gag Manga Biyori +

by psgels, posted in Durarara, Some Quick First Impressions

Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is an idiot and the smartest girl in school is in love with him.
I have to admit: when this episode started with the lead female who kept having what sounded like orgasms until she fainted, I didn’t have much faith. But what do you know, it turned out to be a parody. Seriously, despite the high school cliches this episode was fun to watch, not just because it kept poking fun at them, but also because of the high production values and its concept that’s completely ridiculous, but a war between classrooms is a somewhat creative way of spending your time in high school. The cliches are definitely there (I’m mostly annoyed by the two lead characters), but I’m glad enough to see that we finally have a high school series that tries something different.
OP: Great animation and a decent song to boot.
ED: Catchy and actually nice art.
Potential: 50%

Durarara!!

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a socially awkward teenager and has just moved to a new city.
And here we probably have the most-hyped series of the season, and with the staff behind it I too have been looking forward to it. The result is very promising; while this episode in itself wasn’t exactly awesome, it was great at building up: the dialogue was inspired, the action was short but sweet, the music was really good and the whole city that this episode took place in was detailed and gave off the feeling that it was alive and an actual modern city. I know the director (I’ve seen tons of series from him, and there hasn’t been any series that I didn’t like among them); this guy is terrific at building-up, so I have no doubt that this is going to be a great series, and the question is more going to be like “how good will this end up?”, rather than “will it be good at all?”. Right now, the things that could get in its way are its stereotypical portrayal of punks and foreigners (something that tons of anime suffer from), and how the lead character is surprisingly cliched (see synopsis).
OP: Great music, but the vocal seems a bit of a miscast.
ED: Solid ED, even though it’s a bit too poppy for my tastes.
Potential: 100%

Gag Manga Biyori +

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a famous French painter and has issues.
Okay, so this is actually the first thing I’ve seen from the Gag Manga Biyori franchise. Now that I watched it… I can only describe it as madness. This episode was just crazy in every single way, but I actually liked it a lot. The jokes were… creative to say the least and the dialogue is surprisingly complex for a supposed comedy. It also really helps that it’s got what’s probably the most consistent comedy-director behind it: Akitaro Daichi.
OP: Nice enough opening for a comedy anime. And completely random as well.
ED: Those lyrics… I’m speechless.
Potential: 80%

Kimi ni Todoke Dropped+ Which Series do You Want Me To Blog? Continuation

by psgels, posted in Special Articles

Look, I’ve been thinking about this and yeah, I’m going to drop Kimi ni Todoke. It was an interesting enough experience, but it’s at this point become too much of a chore to blog it, as a lot of people pointed out. It could have been a nice slice of life-series, but having to write about it on a weekly basis, it just got on my nerves a little too much.

Now, the question is what to replace it with: what series can I use in replacement to keep me busy this season. I have enough problems finding enough series to blog during this season, so finding an eighth one is going to be virtually impossible. Some people suggested to just blog an older series, and you know what? Why not? This blog started out partially as a review blog of old series anyway.

On top of that, since Kimi ni Todoke was the winner of the “What Show do you want me to blog”-contest back in September, I do want to make up for it somehow and spend the rest of Kimi ni Todoke’s airtime on something more worthwhile.

So here:s the thing: post a comment, leaving the names of up to three anime. The only restrictions are:
– Only 14 episodes or less.
– I haven’t watched it yet. For a quick list, I compiled a quick list here (note the beautiful lay-out) and note that those titles are listed in the way that they appear on AniDB. Any anime not on this list is eligible.
– No movies.

Apart from that, I don’t care: TV-series, ovas, whether they’re 2 years old or 20. Whether it has 13 episodes or only 2 or even 1. Whether it’s an original series or just a continuation. Recommend me the best series with 14 episodes or less that I haven’t seen yet, and I will cover it on a weekly basis just as I do with all of the other series I’m blogging. I don’t care whether it’s only available in raw or even German or French (although do note that it should at least be available somewhere). If the series with the most votes only has 1, 2 or 3 episodes, I’ll probably end up with the top-ranked series that total about 13 or 14 in amount of episodes episodes.

This is a quick poll, the deadline is upcoming Friday January 8th, 23:59GMT and any votes after that won’t count. After that, I’ll start to blog whatever series has the most votes.

Here are the results so far:
Ah! My Goddess – 1
Aria – The Animation – 46
Aria the Origination – 2
Armor Hunter Mellowlink – 1
Bakemonogatari – 1
Black Blood Brothers – 1
Boys Be – 1
Bubblegum Crisis – 1
Cyber City Oedo 808 – 1
Dance in the Vampire Bund – 6
Denpa teki na Kanojo – 2
Diebuster – 6
Divergence Eve – 1
Dual! Parallel Trouble – 1
Durara – 7
El-Hazard: The Magnificent World – 1
Full Metal Panic! Fumoffu – 1
Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid – 1
Gag Manga Biyori – 2
Genshinken – 7
Gravitation – 3
Gunbuster 1988 – 10
Halo Legends – 1
Hatsukoi Limited – 1
Honey and Clover II – 8
I My Me Strawberry Eggs – 2
Innocent Venus – 7
Jinzou Ningen Kikaider – 1
Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure – 1
Kashimasi: Girl Meets Girl – 1
Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo: Kyuuketsuki Densetsu Satsujin Jiken – 1
Kita e ~Diamond Dust Drops~ – 1
Koi Kaze – 50
Loveless – 2
Macross Plus – 9
Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto – 1
Maria Holic – 2
MazinKaiser – 1
Meine Liebe Wieder – 2
Midori no Hibi – 4
Mnemosyne – 6
Nodame Cantabile Finale – 4
Onegai Teacher – 3
Ookami Kakushi – 3
Patlabor OVA I – 1
Patlabor OVA II – 1
Photon – the Idiot Adventures – 1
Read or Die OVA – 1
Record of Lodoss War – 2
Seikai no Monshou – 11
Sketchbook – 6
Sora no Oto – 4
Sweat Punch – 2
The Five Killers – 1
The Great Horror Family – 3
Tide-Line Blue – 1
Victorian Romance Emma – 4
Windy Tales – 8
Yami no Matsuei – 1
A Certain Scientific Railgun – 1
Aria – The Natural – 2
Battle Angel Alita – 1
Black Lagoon – 1
Blue Submarine no.6 – 1
DNA2 – 1
FLCL – 7
Gankutsuou – 3
Ghost in the Shell SAC – 1
Gungrave – 1
Haibane Renmei – 1
Honey and Clover – 6
Hoshi no Koe – 1
Jyu Oh Sei – 1
Kemonozume – 1
Key The Metal Idol – 2
Kikoushi Enma – 1
Kino no Tabi – 4
Kurau – 1
Last Exile – 6
LovelyComplex – 1
Macross – Do you Remember Love – 1
Monster – 13
Mushiuta – 1
Muteki Kanban Musume – 1
Paranoia Agent – 14
Pet Shop of Horrors – 2
Planetes – 7
Princess Tutu – 11
Sengoku Basara – 1
Shamanic Princess – 1
Tenchi Muyo – Ryo-Ouki – 1
Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo – 1
Toradora – 1

The series in italics don’t fit one of the restrictions. Out of the posts that suggested more than three series, I selected the first three that met the restrictions.

Well, so much for the poll. I just discovered that someone has been spamming nearly 30 votes for Koi Kaze. If you’re really going to be that immature about it, then I’ll just cancel this little contest.

I’m still going to blog an old show. Instead, I’ll just pick the series that seems the most interesting out of the ones you suggested. I’ll decide which one it’s going to be after I get home from university.

Some Quick first Impressions: Sora no Oto, Cobra the Animation, Reform Withuot Wasted Draws – The Legend of Koizumi

by psgels, posted in Cobra The Animation, Some Quick First Impressions, Sora no Oto

Sora no Oto

Short Synopsis: Our lead character wants to learn to play the trumpet.
Haha! Finally a good show this season! I like how this series created its own city with its own culture and customs, which will prove to be very interesting if explored correctly by the rest of this series. The lead character is obviously moe, but likable, and definitely not among the stereotypes that give moe a bad name: she has a potentially interesting background, she’s got a goal that’s she’s willing to work hard for. If the creators write the rest of the series right then we could have a potential gem here. I also love the soundtrack (French lyrics! With an actual French guy singing them!). It’s not without its problems, though. It’s a bit cheesy at times, and that legend that tells about the five girls… it’s a shame that shows are still relying on such an overused plot device. Still, this should be relatively minor if the rest of the series gets developed properly, and doesn’t get stuck inside pool, beach and hot spring episodes.
OP: Great! Gentle and upbeat, a contender for the best OP of the season.
ED: This one’s obnoxious J-rock, though.
Potential: 70%

Cobra the Animation

Short Synopsis: Our lead character kicks ass and gets lots of women.
So after two OVAs, Cobra finally got his own remake TV-show. I didn’t really like the OVAs, but thankfully the story in this episode was much better built up than that of the OVAs. Here you can really see that it made use of its extra time now. I also admit that the soundtrack is very nice and great for building up tensions. This episode was far from perfect, though. It’s pretty silly, but for a show that seems to be geared at entertainment, the animation is pretty bad, and the villains are just nonsensical (Haha! I have a hostage! Now let me release her and flee like a coward!). The action-scenes don’t make any sense and are poorly built up, and if the rest of the series is like this then I feel like it’s not going to work.
Edit: I just noticed that Osamu Dezaki is doing the screenplay and storyboard. What happened to him,? He could have made the visuals far more interesting to watch with this limited budget.
OP: Terrible lyrics, but pretty good sound.
ED: Decent enough ballad.
Potential: 30%

Reform Withuot Wasted Draws – The Legend of Koizumi

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is the former president of Japan.
Ah, yeah. The only thing I had read about The Legend of Koizumi was that it was supposed to be a political Mahjong series. I had no idea how the creators would plan to do that, but it sounded interesting at least. Well, so it turns out to b ea parody: the show grabs various world leaders and makes them play Mahjong in an over the top fashion (with Koizumi obviously playing the Schwarzenegger-inspired lead character). It was funny, and I laughed, but the direction is outright terrible. It establishes nothing, it pulls all sorts of random plot twists out of its ass, the Japanese are portrayed as regular anime action heroes, while the rest of the Asians are a bunch of stereotypical fascist pigs. It overplays the incredibly overreacting facial expressions. I can’t see this one remaining funny for long.
Potential: 20%

Hi no Tori Uchuu-Hen Review – 90/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



You know these really good athletes, performers or artists? And how they make what they do, whether it’s sports, acting, acrobatics, painting or whatever, look so incredibly easy? Well, that’s this movie. I mean seriously, I can wind a long story around it, but it’s just a brilliant movie. In fact, the Uchuu-hen and Houou-hen have a very good chance of becoming my favourite movies of the seventies and eighties!

It was a real eye-opener: to see how good the story of a movie can be if it’s small enough to fit into such a small time-frame without being rushed. This is exactly the example of how you should tell a story in a movie right, and I’ve only seen a select other movies that had such a solid storyline as the Hi no Tori movies.

The Uchuu-chapter of Hi no Tori takes, like its title makes you suspect, place in space. Where the Houou-hen focused on folklore, the Yamato-hen focused on romance, the Uchuu-hen is a full fledged mystery story. There’s a lot of emphasis on the past and backgrounds, with the eventual answers turning out very imaginative, like you’d expect from Osamu Tezuka. Again, Rintaro did an awesome job in building up the tension, and slowly revealing this backstory. It’s an excellent example of mystery done right.

This movie has the same elements that made me such a big fan of the Hi no tori franchise in the first place: lots of emphasis on character-development, characters with huge flaws, themes of betrayals and punishments and the celebration of life and progression also is prevalent in this movie. The creators yet again manage to weave them into a gripping science-fiction story. Even though it doesn’t exactly have a big budget to work with, it’s a terrific example of how to correctly write a movie.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Truly excellent mystery and build-up.
Characters: 9/10 – Lots of terrific character-development.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Good animation; awesome soundtrack.
Setting: 9/10 – Tons of nice ideas and details thrown into the setting.

Anyway, this concludes my movie spree, and it’s probably going to be the last one I’ll be having in a long time. It’s been a great way to close off the decade and start a new one, especially considering how I’m getting less and less confident to find eight bloggable shows for the new season.

Hi no Tori Yamato-Hen Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



The Yamato-hen is a bit of a step back from the Houou-hen, but really: who cares. With such a brilliant franchise as Hi no Tori, it’s still a very good and enjoyable movie!

I think that the biggest flaw for this one is that it becomes a bit too preachy in the end, the morals and values it tries to push on in the end are a bit too obvious, and the love story between the lead male and female just doesn’t live up to some of the other stories of Hi no Tori. It just misses something.

However, it has plenty of good stuff to boast. Like all of the Hi no Tori stories: it’s a great celebration of human evolution and progression. It tells of conflicting ideals, difficult choices that have to be made, betrayal and tragedy. It again puts a huge emphasis on character-development (something that a whole lot more movies should do!), which is powerful and creative.

I have a lot of respect for Osamu Tezuka, but that’s mostly because of his creativity, and his will to go with things that nobody else would think of. With Hi no Tori, however, he established himself as a truly brilliant storyteller, and Rintaro again did justice to this story, even though it’s not as good as the Houou chapter.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Tons of creative twists, despite the simple story.
Characters: 8/10 – Well developed, but some of them are a bit preachy at times.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Good art, animation and music.
Setting: 8/10 – One of the very few stories that tells about Japan’s tribal age.

Hi no Tori Houou-Hen Review – 90/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



One thing that I’ve noticed with movies is that they’re often too short: they just don’t have the luxury of TV-series, which can take their time in building up their story. It’s much harder to create an awesome movie than an awesome TV-series because of this. I think that Movies tend to be a bit too ambitious for their own good at times. They should be excellent mediums to adapt short stories, but instead I’ve seen tons of them that try stuff much larger stories into their airtime than what’s good for them.

Now, this may just be me who has a bias for folklore, but holy crap, this movie is really amazing. The Houou chapter of Hi no Tori is THE example of how a movie can be done right.

This movie doesn’t exactly have the best animation (though it’s pretty good nonetheless), and even the setting isn’t that big, the action also isn’t why you should watch this, but on the other hand: it really is storytelling at its finest. Osamu Tezuka wrote a brilliant original story, and Rintaro did an awesome attempt in putting the story into an hour-long movie.

It basically follows two men, with completely different backgrounds, around the 7th century AD. What makes their stories awesome is the way its told, and the excellent characterization of these two. It plays around with tons of morals and values, and both these lead characters go through some very powerful developments. They’re complete anti-heroes, and yet you can see the reasons for their actions and their development.

The pacing is slow, but through one of the best soundtracks I have heard of any movie from the 70s and 80s it really gets the best out of the characters. It’s one of those rare movies that just “works”, thanks to its excellent source material. You also don’t have to worry about overlap with the TV-series of Hi no Tori, which was produced in 2004: apparently Osamu Tezuka wrote so many awesome stories for his Hi no Tori manga that there was plenty to choose from from the anime creators. And here I thought that there couldn’t possibly anymore brilliant stories aside from the ones that the TV-series adapted!

Storytelling: 10/10 – Clever, powerful, excellent pacing. Just about everything went right here.
Characters: 9/10 – For a movie they’re really impressive, and shine in their character-development.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Beautiful art, good animation, fantastic soundtrack.
Setting: 8/10 – In what other anime do you get to see the rise of Buddhism in Japan?