Author: psgels

March Summary

by psgels, posted in Monthly Summaries

March… was crazy. For one I had my life getting in the way of actually updating reliably, but also in terms of how every series concluded. Some series got much better, others got much worse. Because of that, this list is completely different from last month’s. It’s good; keeps things exciting and unpredictable.

#17 (16) – Amnesia – (5/10) – Oh dear lord. That obsessive stalker. Things really did not improve afterwards, with the actual ending as a really cheesy conclusion that tried to stuff as many infodumps as possible into its airtime, and things still did not make sense. It was incredibly cheesy and bad. I now feel stupid for thinking that this had potential.
#16 (7) – Robotics;Notes – (7/10) – Robotics;Notes completely fell apart for its ending. All of the subplots it has built up were joined together in a completely hacked way that just felt so incredibly forced. Then they introduced brainwashing and other kinds of cop-outs. Nothing really made sense and nothing really was concluded in a satisfying way. Blagh. I had high hopes for this one.
#15 (14) – Tamako Market – (7.1/10) – Oh dear god, Tamako Market. What on earth were you thinking with that stupid marriage subplot that overtook your entire second half? It didn’t really go anywhere and you could have used your time so much better. Like, on actually developing your characters. My favorite episode so far was the one that focused on Tamako’s father, but that was not enough to make up for how boring the rest was.
#14 (11) – Magi – (7.5/10) – Aah, I wasn’t able to catch up to this series. I’m at this point eight episodes behind, with a lot of other stuff that I also want to check out and watch. I didn’t want to do this, but I don’t think that I can finish it. Did this series turn better in its finale? Will its second season be interesting?
#13 (10) – Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo – (7.6/10) – A been there, done that ending. The only thing that really stood out was how incredibly cheesy the whole subplot with the dorms closing down was. Apart from that I can hardly remember anything that caught my attention, and the whole ending was full of cop-outs that got I the way of change. The script just had none of the wit of the earlier episodes.
#12 (15) – Kotoura-San – (8/10) – The whole killer subplot was stupid, and I didn’t really like that. As for the actual ending though, I liked that one surprisingly much. I’m not sure what happened ,but it’s there where this series got really genuine with itself and its characters. It was one of the big reasons why this is pretty much the only non-sequel series from the past winter season that I enjoyed watching.
#11 (13) – Saint Seiya Omega – (8/10) – Things were much less predictable than what I expected. It wasn’t the best month for Saint Seiya Omega, but still the battles in it were quite good and full of emotions. Also ZOMG, the director of Heartcatch Precure is going to return to do the second half of this show!
#10 (8) – AKB0048 – (8/10) – A decent finale. A bit cheesy with some problems here and there, but it was fun and enjoyable while it lasted. The second season of AKB0048 was less interesting than the first, but still it was a fun little animated musical.
#9 (12) – Shirokuma Cafe – (8.25/10)

I must say, this surprised me with how solid the ending was, especially since the creators saved some of their cards for the end. I laughed quite a bit and this was the best month for this series in quite a while, which is really handy for an ending.

#8 (9) – Hunter X Hunter – (8.25/10)

The finale of the Greed Island arc is definitely done better in the 2011 version of Hunter x Hunter. The animation is much more up to par, and it doesn’t drag on. I still find some parts of it boring though, since half of the arc is basically nothing but a glorified training-arc. And finally, after a year and a half of recaps, we are about to get to the new material!

#7 (17) – Little Busters – (8.4/10)

Well, there you have it. On the home stretch, Little Busters actually got really good there. Kud’s story was by far the best out of any of the girls, and the final episodes were just individual stories about some of the characters. And you know what? These things are what makes Little Busters good! Just screw all of those long complicated arcs that try way too hard to be sad. Just give me more episodes like these! If the entire series was like that, then this would have been a really good series. Now though, I can’t really recommend this show because of some of the crap that you have to sit through.

#6 (1) – Chihayafuru – (8.75/10)

Chihayafuru in this month was mostly build-up, but still it was of edge of your seat quality. It still managed to develop a ton of characters at the same time, and made the entire main cast count, instead of simply forgetting about them when they’re not needed anymore. It wasn’t the best month, but still rock-solid.

#5 (2) – Zetsuen no Tempest – (8.75/10)

The actual ending of Zetsuen no Tempest wasn’t its best, but it did have a really good finale. Especially how everthing just fell into place, and how on one hand it embraced logic, and on the other it just went completely against it. The characters really made this a really enjoyable month for me.

#4 (4) – Uchuu Kyoudai – (8.75/10)

Uchuu Kyoudai this time is in the middle of the desert for a training mission. The pacing still is quite slow, but the characters still are rock-solid. Especially Nitta and Mutta were in the spotlights this time.

#3 (6) – Psycho Pass – (8.9/10)

Psycho Pass had a really solid ending. Perhaps it did not answer everything, but it did wrap up its biggest points in a satisfying way. Not everything got solved, but things evolved. It concluded its view on its own setting and it made for a great emotional climax. More series like this, please.

#2 (5) – Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure – (9/10)

The fights this month really were epic. A great example of how these things should be done. Instead of just being boring with characters exchanging punches until one falls down, the creators introduced all sorts of cool stuff to keep things interesting and varied, ranging from incredibly over the top to small and subtle. Oh, and Stroheim is awesome.

#1 (3) – From the New World – (9.25/10)

An absolutely fantastic ending for From the New World. One of the best I’ve seen in a long, long while. The animators really showed one final time how great this series looks, and the main villain here was one of the best you could get.

Chihayafuru – 36 & 37

by psgels, posted in Chihayafuru

These two episodes showed a match and a half. The first was surprisingly short, the second surprisingly long. Usually episode 11 and 12 are some sort of midway climax. Not here. Here they’re just meant for build-up.

What I liked most, was Desk-kun. A support character like him has been done before, but I just loved Nishida as he wanted to prevent Desk-kun from turning into one of them. The ones who can never stand on the spotlights because they’re just not as good as the aces. It’s rare to see a show actually tackle that issue, because there are not many series that can balance their characters out as well as this series did.

But dammit, I have to say this: Megumu and her fanclub really are annoying. Especially the latter. This series has this unnerving talent to make any single character great, but I do wonder how they were planning to do it with these stalkerish types. The best they did so far was note that Megumu has improved, but that could just as easily have been done without them. And I like Megumu’s teacher and advisor.

I’d also have loved to see more of the other match that went on in episode 12, but that only appeared in a few details (like when Megumu accidentally grabbed some cards that belonged to them, that was a nice detail).
Rating: 5/8 (Great)

AKB0048 Second Season Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in AKB0048, Anime Reviews



The first season of AKB0048 was a big surprise for me for taking such a silly premise, and actually creating something good out of it. Here is the second season, and was it as good as the first? Nah. Still, it’s worth watching if you watched the first season.

The direction for the sequel is slightly different from the first. The first had a lot of fun with criticizing the idol business next to telling its story, showing its darker sides. The second season takes this the other way around, by celebrating it instead. everything here is glorified, instead of played down. It’s got an interesting effect, and it is great to see these two sides of the coin together. But standalone it does miss something.

Mostly because I find idols to be incredibly cheesy, and this series just goes all out in glorifying them (like, what I was afraid of that the first season would be). That’s a bit of a bummer, because it does make the series a lot less interesting in terms of its plot.

So it was up to the characters and the music to save the day! They did partially. There is a lot of good character-development in this sequel, and the rather large cast has a lot of moments for even the side characters to show off themselves. The series has a really large cast, and unfortunately it does look like a bit of a mess because of it, but the advantage of this is that this series can come from out of nowhere to deliver something heartfelt and genuine.

The disadvantage of such a messy cast of characters is that some characters just don’t work. For variety’s sake this does not have to be such a big problem, but it kind of is when one of those characters is the main character. She never really knows what her role is in this series until it gets forced upon her in an entirely non-subtle way.
One-Sentence Review: AKB0048’s sequel is not as good or interesting as the first season, but it’s still quite an entertaining, albeit messy, animated musical.
Suggestions:
– Macross Frontier
– Simoun
– Mouretsu Pirates

AKB0048 – 23 – 26

by psgels, posted in AKB0048

So, the finale for AKB0048. I’m going to combine these final four episodes in one entry.

Episode 23… did not start out well. I have no idea what happened here, but this episode felt really weird in which the characters suddenly detoured in this weird mushroom world for no reason other than to stall time. And I can understand building up for the finale, but when the characters randomly started singing with these weird creatures I can only imagine Shoji Kawamori poking his nose into the script here demanding some Macross references or something.

Things got much better in episode 24 which surprisingly focused on the fathers of Nagisa and Chieri. That had a surprising amount of depth to it, especially from Nagisa’s father, and I really liked that. The creators also with this dropped the whole Chieri’s father being evil-subplot, so I’m glad that the creators did not intend that as the eventual climax.

What they did intend as the climax became clear with episode 25, as people started diving into the other world: the AKB48 Theater. It really does symbolize well how this series has changed. The first season of AKB was all about criticizing the idol business. The second season however, is about celebrating it and all of its weirdness. The way in which it showed where AKB started was a really big hint to that for me. Personally I like the first season over the second because of that. But this was not bad either. There is plenty to like in the second season, just not as much. I mean I quite liked how the people from Akibastar changed as well with Des getting more on the foreground again.

Episode 26 had something to live up to, because my favorite episode so far was the final episode of the first season. So did the second season live up to that? Well, it spelled out its message a bit too literally. “Please don’t hate entertainment.” That message alone would have been incredibly cheesy out of context, unfortunately. Within context, I can see what they’re getting from, but I do feel that it lacks substance compared to the first season.

I also feel that Nagisa becoming a successor…. came a bit from out of nowhere. Suddenly they’re like “oh, here she is now!” It’s too sudden and forced for someone who used to be unable to do anything for a very long time. The ending was cheesy, though I did enjoy the part where Chieri just dived into that spaceship as if it was nothing, to tell everyone to stop fighting.

I think that this was a case of Mari Okada taking up too many series this season. AKB, Sakurasou and Zetsuen no Tempest all had endings that could have been more and lacked a bit of creativity. If she had more time then she could have done something interesting with them. With this though, she was oveworked. Ideally, she needs to work on two series at the same time, and no more. She has shown that she’s able to handle those and deliver some really great things. Three is too much though…
Rating: 4/8 (Enjoyable)

Polar Bear Cafe Review – 81/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews

If I said that a really good comedy for the past year was a show about a Penguin and a Panda walking into a bar, would you believe me?

Polar Bear Cafe is an interesting beast here. Series that combine slice of life with comedy are nothing new, but this series does it in a way that has not been done often before. For one, its characters stand apart in their simplicity,and how they try to stay away from often used cliches. One, by being a bunch of talking animals, and two, by focusing not on teenagers, but on the working class adults.

Most humour in anime is energetic. Polar Bear Cafe though, is all about deadpan. If you enjoy that kind of humour, then you should give this show a chance, because on one hand, it contains really every day conversations between its characters, and on the other hand it is really creative in how it delivers its jokes. It constantly pokes fun at itself and its silly concept and contains more running jokes than you can shake a stick at. The self-referential humour is what I liked best about this series: it spends so much time carefully creating its setting, yet at the same it’s also constantly breaking it down and poking fun at it.

50 episodes is long, but I have to say: during the best episodes I really fell off my chair laughing. For me, they were the Penko episode, and the Bar MC episode. Beyond that this series also made me laugh numerous times, but there were unfortunately also plenty of episodes that failed to raise a laugh, or that were just plain dull. Like I said, 50 episodes is long.

It’s a bit of a dilemma for this series. Ideally its length would be at 39 episodes, but the long length does lead to some really good character building. At the end of the series, you really feel like you know these characters. The “people” you see hanging around in bars, cafes that you sometimes talk to and hang out with. The ones who are constantly trolling each other, who don’t try to get others to like them, yet get their charms from that.
One-Sentence Review: Random slice of life combined with deadpan comedy: that’s what makes this show work although it is too long with 50 episodes; plus Polar Bear is a great character.
Suggestions:
– Excel Saga
– Poyopoyo Kansatsu Nikki
– Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure – 25

by psgels, posted in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure

Okay, so I thought that this was the final episode so I was ready to go all out. And then at the end of this episode there was this “To be continued”-message. Yeah, I was confused. But boy, am I glad, because it means that there will be one more episode of Jojo. They managed to squeeze one more into the airing schedule. David Production also did this with the Armed Librarians. And seriously, these guys have with this earned a spot amongst my favorite production companies out there. The way they handled this adaptation was just fantastic.

I loved the final battle against Cars, because it was more than “let’s just send a huge beam towards the angry monster until it dies”. No, instead Joseph managed to hijack a plane and turned this into a cat and mouse chase. Future action series should really take this episode as an example for their penultimate episodes, because this: the fight had so many interesting things in it. I also loved the small details again, like the meat eating squirrel.

And Stroheim. God, I love this guy. He’s completely one-dimensional, but his theme song ever since he became the terminator is just awesome, and he always appears at just the right moments, doing the craziest things surpassing even Joseph in this. Last episode was already glorious when he apparead with his squad of lamp-weilding guys, but in this episode… to think that he had been hiding in the plane for hours, waiting for the right moment to arrive.

All of the main villain of this series so far have had their dying moment: an episode dedicated to their final trump when they’re near death: Dio had his head, AC-DC was reduced to a brain, and Wham also had his episode dedicated to his final moments. They really seem to be doing the same to Cars as well, but knowing this series, they probaly are intending this one to be special. And it will be between Cars, Joseph and Stroheim on a burning volcano. Oh my god, so much manliness.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

Tamako Market Review – 75/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews

Kyoani. I really respect… your animators. They are able to put in so much detail into their drawings and movements and your anime have much more dynamic movement in them than the competition. Now, would you start making interesting series again? Pretty please?

At this point I’ve already written off Shaft: these guys will just repeat their style over and over unless a really good writer like Urobuchi Gen or something makes them do otherwise. Tamako Market however was for me the final chance I’d give for Kyoani’s slice of life series: if I didn’t like this one, I’d just stop bothering with them. So yeah, at this time I have lost my patience for the as well: I’m not going to give them any more chances. If something like Hyouka appears again, it’ll be obvious that it’s different and interesting right from the start.

Tamako Market did have the best first episode of the new season. It showed a lot of different characters, ranging from high school girls, high school boys, shop owners, adults, families, an eccentric bird, young kids. It seemed so much more than the usual series that are just about a group of random high school girls.

In the end though, this potential never really got used. The shop owners never have any identity for themselves: they are all just lumped together into a collection of random stereotypes. The high school girls aside from Tamako also hardly have any personality aside from one trait. The talking bird got annoying right at the moment he gained weight. The high school boy’s only role in the series turned out to be having a crush on the lead female.

The family is the only part of the first episode that actually got any depth. The few moments the family was at the central focus, this series was at its best. The first half of the series spends most of its time on cultural references. That too was pretty interesting. In the second half though, the series gets overtaken by this really stupid marriage plot that really doesn’t go anywhere. It’s completely mindless, doesn’t really do anything, it’s not charming at all and was really annoying to get through to be honest.

So yeah, with this I’m done with Kyoani. Their series just aren’t for me. Wake me up when they start making something different.
One-Sentence Review: Really good and detailed animation for a slice of life series that doesn’t really go anywhere.
Suggestions:
– Aria the Animation
– Hyakko
– Rumiko Takahashi’s Rumic Theater

Kotoura-San Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews

Some seasons of anime are better than others, but the past winter season has hit a really low point. If you ignore the sequels, then it has been the worst season I ever blogged. Out of the series that did catch my attention enough, Kotoura-san turned out to be best. Not perhaps because it was the most consistent, but because it was the only show that really managed to stand out in a way. Yeah, it’s nothing special, but at least it’s something.

It’s especially the first and the last episode in this series that made sure of that. Perhaps they’re overdramatic at times, but the first episode plays really well with its mood-swings, making for a nice introduction, and the last episode wraps everything up nicely with a lot of character-development, making for a nice conclusion. Kotoura-san’s characters are by no means good or sophisticated; they’re all really simple teenagers without much depth. Still, they are genuine. That gave them a charm that I missed in all other non-sequels this season.

The series does have some big problems, though. You know the saying “it’s not about the destination, but about the journey”? Well that totally does not apply for Kotoura-san. I mentioned above that for Kotoura-san, it’s start and end are great. Inbetween though… it clearly had difficulties in filling everything in. This results in a pool episode, a beach episode, and a silly crime story that all feel really forced. The creators had some nice ideas for the characters, but they didn’t know what to do with them. Because of that the journey in this series can be really tedious because there really is not much interesting stuff going on. It also does not help that the antics of the bunch of perverts in this series gets annoying really fast. Still, it’s fun. It charmed and entertained me more than the other series this season.
One-Sentence Review: Kotoura-san is about mind-readers: it’s honest and genuine and that gives it a charm that makes it worth watching, despite the fact that it doesn’t know how to use half of its airtime…
Suggestions:
– B Gata H Kei
– Hitohira
– Mahou Tsukai Tai

Zetsuen no Tempest Review – 87.5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Zetsuen no Tempest



Spiral was a series that was all about mind games. The characters had to battle people who used puzzles and mind games. Zetsuen no Tempest is the next logical step from its original author: a world-shaking plot that can decide the fate of the entire world, but somehow it managed to find a way to make it entirely dependent on the logic of a bunch of teenagers. It was glorious!

This may sound weird, but really: the characters in Zetsuen no Tempest really are excellent. All of them are fresh and witty, and they play off each other really well. I mean, it’s nothing new that series put a lot of consequences on teenaged emotions, but it has never been done with a cast that works so well together, not to mention with a cast that tries so hard to put logic into the plot as well. The two lead males in particular look like your average male hero at first, yet they turn out to be completely different.

I have sometimes called this “mindfuck, the anime”. This series really loves its surprises in its plot. And while it’s not the first series to attempt some mind-screws, it did manage to pull them off in a unique way. The key here was how it played with its own logic. On one hand, it took itself entirely seriously, on the other it deliberately just ignored it and just went wild with emotions. This dual battle is a really big theme in this series. Logic versus emotions, Genesis versus Exodus, Magic versus Technology, Tempest versus Hamlet (this will all make sense when you see the series). My one complaint though is that it takes a while to get going, and the ending is not what it could have been. The goodness in this series really is in the middle.

Also it also helps that this series has an incredibly epic soundtrack. No, seriously. The animation may be normal, but the soundtrack is just amazing. Right from the start, it just bombards you with complex and classically inspired tracks that just keep coming.
One-Sentence Review: If you’re looking for a good mind-screw with a godly soundtrack and fun characters, then this is a series to check out!
Suggestions:
– Death Note
– Un-Go
– Armed Librarians – The Book of Bantorra

Zetsuen no Tempest – 24

by psgels, posted in Zetsuen no Tempest

From the New World and Psycho Pass had endings that really impressed me. The downside to that is that they did raise the bar on endings quite a bit now. You can’t just defeat the evil monster and do nothing beyond that. You have to do something special now as well. I guess that that’s why I was underwhelmed by the first half of this episode, because that was exactly that. Not to mention: this series prides itself inits logic. A fight scene ending doesn’t have the same impact compared to if they would have based it on logic.

The second half of this episode was much more satisfying as an epilogue, though. This really showed everyone being able to move on, and quite a few characters have changed their ways or beliefs thanks to what happened in the series. Aika also showed again that she was a really compelling character to watch. She was a character who was dead at the start of the series, and yet her impact is all over it. She definitely was my favorite character here.

Tempest was great. It’s a shame that there is not going to be a bones series next season, because they are always interesting, even when they’re weaker. But really, their last weak series was Heroman for me. I eagerly await their next work.
Rating: 4.5/8 (Good)