Author: psgels

Letter Bee – 04

by psgels, posted in Letter Bee



Like expected, this episode was somewhat hampered by the stereotypical and badly acted evil circus directors. What I didn’t expect was that this episode would make up for it with the “Forest of Broccoli”. How awesome is that?

In all seriousness though, I didn’t expect much of this episode because of those circus directors. I really feared for some clichéd storyline in which Lag has to save his damsel in distress from these evil people. Nevertheless, the creators seemed to realize this as well, so they quickly abandoned the circus-plot, in favour of focusing on the growing relationship between Lag and Nichi, along with their newly acquired friend, a small animal called “Steak” (yeah, Nichi named him that way; it really seems like names in this series are quite a bit different from normal ones. Both their sound, their meaning and their symbolism).

The thing with this episode was that it was a very mixed bag, but I actually found lots of stuff that I liked. It was a bit messy for the creators to suddenly abandon two story-lines (the circus and we also never see the people whose camel Lag blatantly stole), but the scene in which Nichi sat next to Lag just shot up his memory in order to protect her was definitely charming. She’s a damsel in distress, but a very un-typical damsel in distress at that: she didn’t really need to be saved, but nevertheless, when Lag who is completely useless in fights aside from that godmode beam of his, tried to save her, this wasn’t meant to show how weak she was, but rather how she never has been treated kindly due to her powers. It is cliché, but also well enough executed to work.

Also, it took me a while in noticing this, but Letter Bee has a surprisingly good soundtrack. It’s not exactly the best of this season, but nevertheless it’s varied, simple and yet effective and powerful when it needs to. The composer up till now did the soundtracks for… Saiunkoku Monogatari, Juuni Kokuki and Victorian Romance Emma. Talk about difference…
Rating: * (Good)

White Album – 17

by psgels, posted in White Album



It’s amazing: Touya only had five scenes in this episode in which he appeared. In three of them, he did nothing, so he only had about one minute of serious airtime. And yet he still manages to come across as an inconsiderate asshole in that time.

But let’s look at the other characters first. A majority of the episode was spent on Yuki’s grief after she found out that Rina would leave her. Can I fault this series for overdoing that? Not really. Yuki always was a crybaby who always sought protection from Rina. She sees Rina as a very dear friend, and thus I can see how she would not accept Rina’s choice of leaving her brother, especially if she was the indirect reason for it. The scene they had together was very nicely done, actually.

And you know, Eiji with his painting, which apparently originally belonged to Mana’s mother. Since he didn’t know it was a very pricey painting, I can see how he in his delusions would have had no reason not to paint over it. I’m now beginning to see the part that that new singer girl is going to play in the whole story. The thing with Yuki always was that she’s weak and can’t protect herself. If Eiji ends up abandoning her, she only has Yayoi left, and we all know what a reliable woman she turned out to be…

Speaking of the devil, she’s getting love-sick. When Touya stood her up, you could really see that she’s not screwing him just out of business anymore. Could it be that she was left by her previous boyfriend and has therefore been looking for someone to fill that void?

A lot more questionable was the bar scene, in which Mana and Haruka both started crying while talking about Touya. I know that Haruka is sad for the loss of her brother, and that Mana longs for her mother, but whether that would result in both of them crying… that scene was a bit too much perhaps, but I know too little about psychology to really say for sure.

But yeah, Touya. He makes an appointment with Yayoi, but goes to his father instead. His studying turns out to have been a preparation for his student tuition work for Mana. He finally puts in some work for something, but to me it’s just a way to escape his relationships with Yuki and Yayoi. On top of that, not knowing what happened between Yuki and Rina, he simply brushes off her tears on television as something that she does to ask for attention. When he finds out that Haruka cried about him, he starts laughing. Oh boy.

There is no doubt that Touya is one annoying SOB. However, is he a bad character? I’m still not sure, to be honest. In technical terms, he is well developed: he’s been inside a downward spiral ever since the start of the series, and the end of this episode only makes this worse. White Album asks an interesting question: if a character isn’t likable, does it make this character automatically bad? School Days did this before but it failed horribly with its badly executed development and script that just seemed geared to getting to that bad end. White Album however is much more subtle, and while we have to wait a few more episodes to find out whether or not it actually paid off, I’m still having problems to determine whether this series is bad, or simply annoying.

I think that the first season had its obvious flaws, but those were in its set-up: as an adaptation of an eroge, the creators had to create a scenario in which all of the five girls would have feelings for the lead characters in a certain way. But accepting this set-up, I’m still not sure what to think of this series.
Rating: * (Good)

Armed Librarians – The Book of Bantorra – 04

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



Every single episode, this series continues to remind me why I consider it among the top of this season along Darker than Black and Aoi Bungaku. Unlike those two however, it looks like Armed Librarians is going to cover up 26 episodes. And it’s already this good. The question of course is going to be whether the creators can keep this up. I’ve seen a lot of series that started out awesome but disappointed near the end, but oh, if the creators can keep this kind of quality up for the rest of the season we could be dealing with a potential classic here.

Okay, so what the hell happened here in this episode? On the foreground, it mainly told about the battle between Hamyuts Meseta and Segal. Segal prepared well: with divination he predicted when the next typhoon would hit. He’d then poison Hamyuts with a deadly disease, and got his hands on Shlamuffen, a sword that automatically parries all attacks thrown at it. To make matters worse, Hamyuts eventually disarms Segal, but Schlamuffen then takes on a mind of its own as if it really wants to kill Hamyuts. Eventually, she gets saved by Colio who was warned by Shiron that this was going to happen because it was the very first divination she had. So in the end, Hamyuts is saved… and Colio dies anyway?

That’s something that wasn’t expected, and it also gave a bit of an extra dimension to the books when you combine them with Shiron’s divination: at the end of her life, she knew that Colio would read her books, and therefore warned him about what he needed to do through divination, in order to recreate the vision she had. Now, the question remains why it was so important for Colio to do this, or was this just a symbolic event? And are we ever going to see both of them back? I mean, their books still exist, but what? They were really built up to be the main characters for the past four episodes…

Also, David Production may not be the best at eye-candy, but these people sure know how to choreograph a good action-scene. The fight scenes in this episode really rocked, and really weren’t what you’d expect after the mediocre animation quality of the first episode.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Kuchuu Buranko – 02

by psgels, posted in Kuchuu Buranko



Well, so I don’t think it’s much of a surprise that this is going to be the final series I’m going to blog this season, making my blogging schedule:
Monday: Konnichiwa Anne
Tuesday: none
Wednesday: Kimi ni Todoke
Thursday: Umineko no Naku Koro ni
Friday: Darker than Black, Kuchuu Buranko, Armed Librarians
Saturday: Letter Bee, White Album, Kemono no Souja Erin
Sunday: Full Metal Alchemist, Cross Game, Aoi Bungaku
In other words, I’m going to have busy weekends.

In any case, I’m a pretty big fan of Kuchuu Buranko. Not necessarily because of the depth (we’ve got Aoi Bungaku for that), but rather for the entertainment value. The cases in this series are often easily solved: the protagonist just needs to realize something and his troubles are over. However, the fun comes with the presentation, and the majority of the episode which explores all of the problems that are generated from the ailment that he has.

The weird graphics may seem quite random, but I’ve discovered that there’s at least a shred of logic in them: the calendars for example signify that a day has passed. The nurse-injection scene seems to be there in order to change the lead character in a weirdly coloured animal (this time, a rhino). Also notice how there are now two syringes in the waste-basket (nice reference to the previous episode), and how the guy’s horn got smaller, right before he got healed.

This time, if I understood correctly we have a guy who injures his penis, and therefore can’t stand straight and cringes down in pain whenever he gets turned on. Yeah, you just have to think about it. Cue an episode full of awkward moments of intimidation in which the lead character in this episode fails completely and gets increasingly stressed out by the women around him.

I’m often not into sex-jokes. Not because I’m that allergic to them, but 95% of them are so uninspired, cheap, unsubtle and corny that they stopped being funny for me ages ago. This episode however was a nice exception. This was a pretty funny episode, and especially the loser of a lead character was pretty likable and fun to watch.

Also, I already thought that the OP and ED sounded familiar: they’re done by Denki Groove, who also did Hakaba Kitarou’s awesome OP. They’re a bit less impressive, but still among the best OPs and EDs this season.
Rating: * (Good)

Darker than Black – Ryusei no Gemini – 03

by psgels, posted in Darker than Black - Ryuusei no Gemini



Holy crap, this episode was better than I could have expected. Bones really is on fire in 2009. Seriously, this was probably one of the best orchestrated action-scenes of the entire series so far. While that might just be my memory playing tricks on me, but I really like how the new series has gone into a completely new direction when compared to the first season: it really shows that this is more than just an attempt to milk out the franchise,

Darker than Black has always been known for its absolutely brutal fight scenes that spared nobody. That’s one thing so unlike 90% of all other anime, and it returns so well during the slaughter in this episode. There seem to be three parties after Shion: the organization that employed Hei, those old guys who turned Tanya into a contractor, and that other group of contractors. Because of that, there were so many things that happened at the same time : from Suou getting chased by a group of armed men to Nika getting killed off by Tanya, to that golem-guy suddenly launching a train at Hei.

This episode was also full of new plot twists. I’m not exactly what’s up with Suou going Utena, but her alternative personality really fits this series. It was also a big surprise to see July suddenly appear again, and basically provide the right coordinates for her to fire at. Mao indeed turns out to be the flying squirrel, like some people suspected already.

Also, the new soundtrack is very impressive, and it might even surpass the old one if this goes on!
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Umineko no Naku Koro ni – 17

by psgels, posted in Umineko no Naku Koro ni



It’s perhaps taken a long while for this series to really get fired off. Especially how the first two arcs were merely introduction and build-up with hardly any conclusion, wrap-up or answers, But seriously, for me this is a show that just gets more intriguing with every episode. This episode didn’t necessarily contain any new plot twists, but it excellently continued building further upon the plot twists of the previous episode.

We also learn what was up with Beatrice’s sudden change of character in this episode. It wasn’t just that Battler’s words hit her so deeply back then, but while that definitely had its effect, a lot of the blame also seems to lie at the title of “endless witch”. Since for an Endless Witch, the concepts of time really don’t mean anything, and this gets reflected in her personality, turning her into a homicidal maniac. This then brings us back to the element of risk in magic: Beatrice wanted to become a real witch. It seems to me that in order to become the Golden Witch, she needed to make Battler accept her, however it felt to me that if she also wanted to continue being the Endless Witch, she had to give up her personality and become a psycho killer. That makes me wonder about Lambdadelta and Bernkastel.

The thing I liked most about this episode was the powerful dialogues, though. I think that this was the episode most focused on dialogues, as it portrayed a lot of characters, symbolizing their change through this dialogue: Eva rejecting her younger self, Krauss on how he stopped treating his siblings like trash, Beatrice as she tried to make up with Battler by reviving Shannon for George, Battler as he grew up and used his mind much more, instead of his emotions, and Jessica as she lost her parents and her mind. That’s really a lot of development!

And through all these red herrings, you’d almost forget that there’s an actual human killer on the loose, who’s operating under the guise of Beatrice and Evatrice. Why did the killer bother moving Shannon’s corpse? Since it’s also very likely that there are two killers (to match the six locked doors mystery). Right now, it seems very unlikely for any of the eighteen suspects to really have been able to pull off these murders, unless you start to look a bit further.

MAJOR HIGURASHI SPOILERS in the paragraph below.

Remember how in Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, one major culprit behind the murders was a simple disease that drove people to insanity. While I doubt that Ryukishi07 is going to use the same thing in both his stories, I do think that we need to look in that kind of a direction. Up till now I’ve simply thought this story to have the simple formula of your average detective novel (you know, “the butler did it!”, and things like that), but what if the real killer never even touched the corpses, and simply poisoned the victims with a strange kind of potion that would make one mentally delusional? I mean, for one thing, it is common for mentally delusional people to see conspiracies everywhere, which could explain the presence of the magical circles drawn in blood.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
Again, do note that I reserve the right to delete any comment that spoils what happens after this point in the visual novel.

Kimi ni Todoke – 03

by psgels, posted in Kimi ni Todoke



You know, I’m starting to get into this series. Or rather, I’m starting to care about the relationship between Sawako and Kazehaya, and Sawako’s quest in trying to connect with the class. I’m starting to see her desire to be liked, clashing with her desire not to be hated. On top of that, Kazehaya is finally starting to show some flaws, so I’m liking this series more and more.

But on the other side, Sawako’s facial distortions still are pretty annoying, especially when repeated over and over again. It’s a problem that a few other shoujo-series have, but ironically I ended up really liking those (Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge and Skip Beat both abused them, and yet they turned out to be great otherwise. Let’s hope that this will be the case for Kimi ni Todoke as well, though a lot still has to happen for that).

I think the next episode is going to be a major one to determine whether or not this series is going to work: it’s going to be about the first love rival for our couple. The set-up is pretty obvious: this girl is in love with Kazehaya, she doesn’t like Sawako being near him and starts spreading all sorts of rumours about her. It’s obviously a plan that’s generic and never going to work, so it’s all going to depend on the execution to make up for it.
Rating: * (Good)

Kemono no Souja Erin – 40

by psgels, posted in Kemono no Souja Erin



So in the end I’m not going to blog Winter Sonata, for the following reasons:
– The release schedule that’s even more uncertain than Aoi Bungaku. Besides, I don’t know a word of Korean.
– The producer: only three episodes are finished at the moment because the lead actor was changed at the last moment. It’s the task of a producer to prevent these kinds of screw-ups!
– I’m already blogging enough angst this season (glares at White Album, and based on the rumours Winter Sonata seems to be even more annoying, if that’s possible).

I also decided not to blog 11Eyes: it really only has those tense moments that are good. The chemistry between the lead couple is just… generic to say the least (in the kind of “I’ll protect you and your bosom!”). And since the rest of this season didn’t have anything else that was promising, I figured that I might as well blog the final 11 episodes of Kemono no Souja, to make up for how I ignored it when it first aired.

Overall, this really is a lesser season. I wouldn’t say that it’s the worst Autumn Season ever, that award goes to Autumn 2007, in which there only were like, 6 shows that left a good impression on me, while this season does have more interesting series. The problem with this season also isn’t the moe overload. Previous summer had that too, and that turned out to be a really enjoyable season. It’s also no problem that this is the first season since ages that doesn’t have any mecha in it. In fact, it’s actually quite refreshing.

I think the problem with this season is quantity: when you look at the amount of series that aren’t sequels, we’re back to the amount of 2005 or perhaps even worse. To add to that, while Autumn 2005 did feature a lot of 26-episode series, right now we have like, what? only four series that are going to be more than 13 episodes (Kobato, Armed Librarians, Kiruminzoo and probably Kimi ni Todoke as well, but even that isn’t certain). It’s really such a shame. Let me tell you, if the Sacred Blacksmith would have had 26 episodes instead of 13, I probably would have blogged that one instead. But what can it really do in just 13 episodes?

And that is what I think is the biggest problem with anime: a majority of the series are just too short. And don’t give me that talk of “yeah, but second seasons can be announced”. That’s what I thought with Amatsuki as well and I’m still waiting for that much, much needed sequel. That’s why the past spring was so good: finally we had a good amount of series that even went beyond 26 episodes: these series really took a risk and gave their series the time needed.

And the same Kemono no Souja: I actually remember that a lot of people were scared away by the scheduled 50 episodes, but thinking back, those were pretty crappy reasons to drop this show. I think that Naruto and Bleach really made this long length infamous, and the currently airing Inu Yasha also prevents people like me, who don’t like the genre it’s in to give it a chance out of the fear of committing time to something that was ultimately not worth it, however I’m now starting to see that at least these series give their franchises enough time to play out. Kemono no Souja Erin has 50 episodes, and it still doesn’t look like enough.

Anyway, I’m not going to talk about this episode because it was a recap, but I do want to use these posts as a means of making up to this great series. I originally dropped it for a very clear reasons: the creators. At the time this series aired I really wasn’t happy with Trans Arts: they had this very nasty trend of picking out very interesting premises, only to screw them up:
– Sisters of Wellber? Great premise for a fantasy-series, but THE CHEESE.
– Library Wars? Sounded very nice, but it lacked complete direction and wanted to do way too much in too little time.
– And Chocolate Underground was entirely crap.

So yeah, as interesting as Erin sounded, I believed that they would screw this one up as well, and so when I detected a bit of cheese I dropped it. That was a bit of a stupid decision. This series built itself up very slowly, but in the end it was definitely worth it. This series reminds me of other lengthy shoujo-series as Glass Mask and Kaleido Star, which just focus on one aspect, but really take their time in exploring their subject matter to the fullest.

Edit: oh, silly me. I never noticed that I downloaded the wrong episode.

The “real” episode 40 was indeed much more like it, and did such an excellent job portraying the aftermath of last episode’s shocking climax. The start of this episode was really hectic, in which many things happened at the same time: Erin’s shock at what happened, taking care of the wounded, the queen who collapsed, the fact that Erin pretty much worked herself into trouble by commanding a Beast King right in front of a small army, including Damya.

And yeah, we now know where the Touda eggs which were previously stolen went to. I don’t think that that organization whose name I forgot has that many Touda, but you can clearly see that they’re trying to spark a war between the Queen and the Grand Duke. During these tense times, all Damya has to do is to bite back, and the country is pretty much doomed.

I also must praise how well the relationship between Erin and Ialu has been built up throughout the series. Now this is romance that really takes its time, instead of going down the cheesy part. Very nice.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Some Quick First Impressions: Winter Sonata, Kuchuu Buranko and Kiddy Girl-And

by psgels, posted in Kuchuu Buranko, Some Quick First Impressions

Winter Sonata

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is angsty.
Thank you Meep for pointing towards the first episode of this new series. This time, you should really consider this entry as a “first impression”, because I ended up watching this series in raw Korean despite knowing not a single word of the language (hey, at least in Spanish I know the words for one, two and three). There were subtitles in both Chinese and Japanese, but that too didn’t help me either since my Kanji is terrible. Anyway, my first impression of this episode: really pretty graphics, but the drama was sappy. It’s of course great to see a romance that focuses on actual ADULTS, rather than teenagers, but I would have preferred a bit more slice of life. Perhaps that’s yet to come in future episodes, but the characters were a bit too often staring into nothingness, rather than interacting with each other. However, I do support this series: it’s the very first attempt at a full-fledged Korean TV-series. If this can be the doorway to more and interesting premises that set themselves apart from both anime and western animation, then it’s definitely a good thing.
Also: Irony. There are a few English-speaking characters in this series. The good news: the creators actually hired properly English speaking people to voice them. The bad news: the creators still screwed up by miscasting a 30-year-old woman as a 10-year-old girl. She sounds like a strange witch now!
OP: Sappy love ballad. Not my style.
ED: Decent ballad. A nice way to end every episode.
Potential: 50%

Kuchuu Buranko

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is stressed out.
What is up with the raw providers this season? First Aoi Bungaku and now this. Are they allergic to shows that don’t focus on cute teen-aged girls or something? Anyway, Kuchuu Buranko… yeah. What is there really to say? It’s really an experience, and an awesome one at that. It’s full of the weirdest animation techniques, surreal art styles, and the direction keeps changing from one mood to the other. It’s really just a game of “let’s play psychologist”, with a different case looked upon during every week. With the best sense of humour of the entire season, I’m loving this series already. 🙂
OP: Heck, this is actually a really good song. Simple, but not annoying, and the strings int he background really work.
ED: Yeah, the best ED of the season. Funky, catchy and a great way to close off this series.
Potential: 100%

Kiddy Girl-And

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a teen-aged maid who kicks bad guy ass.
Wow, Satelight sure is busy this season. With four shows, they’re definitely the most represented in this season. While last season, they produced some of the best-looking shows of their seasons, this time… not so much, and all of their shows look pretty generic on the outside. The epitome of this… is Kiddy Girl-And: yet another moe action comedy in which teen-aged girls have kick the ass of various bad guys. But what about the execution? Unfortunately, this also is pretty generic. The female lead is incredibly annoying to listen to; her voice actress keeps yelling and yelling, hoping to make an impact. The scenario also keeps hanging too long around panty-jokes. The gimmick of this show seems to be quirky and over the top action-scenes, but even they fail to stand out. While they’re nicely animated (especially for Satelight: for once the animation wasn’t rushed at all), but the direction lacks any sort of creativity.
OP: Obnoxious J-Pop. Do not like.
ED: A bit better, but still with that obnoxiously cute J-Pop voice.
Potential: 0%

Konnichiwa Anne – 29

by psgels, posted in Konnichiwa Anne



Well, I actually forgot to publish this post after I wrote it. That’s a headdesk-moment right there.

Obviously I’m not in the mood of writing everything all over again, but I do want to say that this episode confirmed my fears of the return of the cheese in this series. It wasn’t as bad as during the Marysville arc, but nevertheless the climaxes are getting formulaic at this point. This will probably continue for most of the rest of this series.

However, there is good news, because this series promises to end on a good note. This really is a series with its ups and downs, and we’re unfortunately currently in a down again.
Rating: (Enjoyable)