Oh, what a powerful episode this was. It was entirely quiet: no overblown or forced drama, nor an overemphasis on angst whatsoever. I believe that this episode was the most subtle of the entire series, and with Aoi Hana, that has to say something.
The first half showed the wedding between Yasuko’s sister and teacher: this sealed the deal, and her teacher has now officially become impossible to reach. It really was a time in which Yasuko was finally able to close off a big part of her teenaged life. After that, we see her telling a bit about how she originally came to love her teacher. We also see how she cut her long hair short, as a means of symbolism. At the same time we see her befriend Kyouko, who also cut her hair short in response. With this, I’m beginning to see the relationship between Yasuko and Kyouko: Yasuko really does like Kyouko as a friend, but has gotten annoyed with Kyouko’s obsession over her.
But the really good part of this episode happened in the second half, in which Fumi (who was absent at the wedding) invites Akira over, and Akira’s brother and Yasuko end up tagging along. What follows is a very awkward scene, in which Fumi tries to distance herself as far away from Yasuko as possible by using Akira, and Akira’s brother keeping Yasuko a bit busy by telling her about how Akira used to be in the past. I especially loved the last part in which Yasuko tries to apologize to Fumi, and then getting rejected. You can see that she really broke up with Fumi in a tantrum. She ruined things between the two of them herself, because she should have known that Fumi is a really emotional person who takes what people say to her very seriously, especially since she was heart-broken once before.
In a way, Fumi has grown out of this as a stronger person, but at the same time it’s also sad to see that she’s completely shielding herself away right now, afraid to be hurt for a third time.
So, with one episode left, I really wonder how the creators are planning to end this series. I really hope for a “life goes on”-ending: an ending that’s just going to show a final part of the characters, and what’s going to happen to them after that is just going to be left to the viewer’s imagination. Especially since it’s very unlikely to see a second season of this, it would be the perfect ending for such a small little series.
Just one thing: PLEASE don’t end the series with Fumi and Akira falling in love with each other. This series has done SO WELL in avoiding just about every romance cliché in the book, it would be such an incredible shame to ruin it at the last possible minute!
Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>
Author: psgels
Shangri-La – 22
Haha, how awesome! Just when I thought that this show had already passed its best point, it just keeps the surprises coming. Seriously, with this series I was expecting the final episodes to be all over the place, like what it did in the middle part of the story, which had so many different plot twists about so many different characters.
Instead, the past few episodes have been the most solid and focused episodes of the entire series. Because of that, it lost the erratic pacing that I liked so much in the rest of the series. Usually when a series pulls this, it gets rather boring, but this episode really was surprisingly good. In fact, it was awesome, and well for the fact that this series has much more than just that pacing: it still has its great sense of characters, plot twists, visuals, music, et cetera. And the slow pacing leading up to the ending actually improved on them: we now can really focus on the central themes of the series. And hey, this series has completely shifted its style of storytelling before, so for once it doesn’t feel like the creators lack inspiration for the finale.
I really liked the reason why Sayoko was freed by one of Ryoko’s henchmen: he discovered that Sayoko was his older sister he had never known, so he decided to be a good brother for once and let her go. While it seems like a rather flimsy reason at first, the more I think about it the more it fits within this series: it ties in very much with this series’ themes of family bonds: families being torn apart, growing away from each other. You see it everywhere in this series: Sayoko lost her daughter, Takehito having lost his little sister, Kuniko taking her grandmother for granted and getting into a fight with her, Karin and the distance from her parents, and there is of course also my theory of Ryouko, being the mother of Kuniko, Mikuni and Kunihito, which is getting more and more likely, which I’ll get into below.
Most of this episode was spent on Mikuni, trying to decide whether it was worth destroying the world for the sake of revenge. The thing is however, that she’s just a little kid: very easily influenced by the scary Ryouko. Ryouko on the meantime really proved to be an excellent villain here, if you can accept that she’s so screwed in her mind that she’s willing to destroy the world, and it was her who hacked into Medusa earlier.
So in the end she did turn into another villain who’s planning to destroy the world, but in my opinion she stands much higher above the usual villains of this type. In a villain, I’m not looking for someone who necessarily has to be morally ambiguous, like these misunderstood good guys. Those people also have their sets of problems. What I’m looking for in a villain is a personality: a well fleshed out character who isn’t a cheap excuse for a bit of conflicts. Well backed-up reasons are a plus, but not necessarily required: I mean, how many evil overlords in the real world are screwed in the head? The reason why I dislike most villains in anime is because they’re too often just paper bags who are there for the sake of having a villain.
And yeah, I’m getting more and more convinced that Ryouko is the mother of Mikuni, Kuniko and Kunihito. The final twist this episode really was an awesome one: I love it when these character who infiltrate the enemy tell nobody of what they’re doing, not even the viewers themselves. I already found that it was strange that he’d suddenly get so close to Kuniko, I already found it weird for the creators to suddenly start establishing a strange romance between him and Kuniko. Now everything makes sense!
And really, Ryouko looked so much like an angry mother who’s urging her child along when she took Mikuni along with her. She really had that feeling of parental authority when she dealt with her. And besides that, I can’t think of any reason why she would want to obey the successor of Atlas, other than some sort of strange and deranged case of family bonds, in a series which is full of broken up and dysfunctional families.
Out of all the shows that are going to end in the coming month, the ones that are promising some outstanding endings to look out for for me are the new Mazinger, Shangri-La, Tokyo Magnitude and Phantom. These are the shows which were excellently planned across their total airtime, and are promising to close off with a finale in which everything comes together. There are only a few shows of this caliber every season, and I’m glad to see that this season again has a fine selection of them.
Rating: *** (Awesome)]]>
GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class – 09
I’m still amazed at how much the creators are able to cram into just one episode for this series, and still continue to be fresh, original, varied, interesting, charming, and quite a few more adjectives that I’m too lazy to think of.
The episode starts at the beginning of classes on a particular day of bad weather, so everyone arrives with a bad hair day. We also see the members of the Art Club battling the weather in this way, in which Awara is having a bit too much fun and hits Uozumi when he tries to calm her down, and Tomokane’s brother becomes a bit too exhausted from the weather, so he moves to the infirmary to rest.
The next sketch is about a bunch of bottles of very good paint that Yamaguchi has kept with her ever since elementary school (or whatever it’s called in English). Typical of her, she’s never used it because she figured that it’s just be a waste. Next up are a bunch of short sketches about the bad weather, including Yamaguchi getting blown away and a role play in which Awara and a new character are trying to imagine what the sun and the clouds must be thinking when they cause weather like this.
Next up we see the characters sharpening their pencils the old-fashioned way: I never realized it, but it is indeed ideal if you want to determine the shape of your pencils, and what kind of stroke they’ll leave. Tomokane however, takes this way too serious and nearly cuts off her entire pencil.
We then learn that Noda also has a sibling, who apparently works part-time as a model, and sometimes appears on the cover of some fashion magazines. She’s in the same class as Uozumi, and for some reason we never get to see her face. A running gag of this episode is also that Oomichi seems to have just about everything along with her that people might need, including some sort of dye colour (yeah, the focus is all over the place in this episode: you’ll never know what the next scene is going to focus on) and a cold drink, which turns out is something that she just bought with Nozaki.
Yamaguchi then collapses and gets brought to the infirmary. Interestingly enough, Tomokane is so busy with other things that she doesn’t even recognize her own brother, and they leave. As it turns out, Yamaguchi didn’t eat enough and therefore collapsed, but she turns out to be fine after a bunch of cookies. She then comments on how sturdy the box of the cookies turns out to be.
The next sketch is just… crazy. While taking out the trash with Yamaguchi, Tomokane hears Uomichi and Yasumura complain about how bothersome taking care of the chickens is. What follows is an epic battle between the super sentai version of the five leads, versus a giant GAR chicken in what I presume to be Tomokane’s head. It made no sense at all, but it was absolutely hilarious.
Next up: rain, and a quiet couple of scenes involving characters who forgot their umbrella. As usual with this show when it comes back to topics it used to talk about, it doesn’t just milk these topics, but instead it builds further upon them, including a surprisingly charming scene between Awara and Uomichi.
They then talk about rainbows, and confuse Newton to be its discoverer (“Why is this apple red? Yes, because of its spectrum!”).
If I had to give this series a criticism, then it’s that they overplay Oomichi’s weirdness a bit too often, especially in this episode. Her quirks are often too stereotypical, as opposed to the other four characters who still remain characters when they make jokes about their quirks.
In any case, what this episode was really good at is bringing the school alive: it focused on many different characters spending this day at school at which the weather happened to be rather bad and there was always something going on. I’m really not much of a fan of most moe comedies, but I’m glad that exceptions as this one exist.
Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>
Which Autumn Series do you want me to blog?
Here is a list with the shows that are scheduled to air. (At least, that’s what I assume. Notify me if it isn’t complete). – No direct sequels; that’s just boring and predictable. – Apart from that, I accept any series with an airdate between September 20th and November 11th. – Please refrain from spoiling synopsises or staff lists. I’m still trying to enter the Autumn Season with as little information as possible about the upcoming shows, and I’d like to keep it that way. – The poll will end at September 30, 23:59 GMT. All votes that arrive after that will be ignored. Here are the current scores: Kimi ni Todoke – 44 Romance of the Three Kingdoms – 36 Kobato – 34 Kuuchuu Buranko – 31 Winter Sonata – 25 Letter Bee – 23 Armed Librarians: Book of Bantora – 18 A Certain Scientific Railgun – 14 Seiken no Blacksmith – 11 Fairy Tail – 11 Jungle Emperor Leo – 8 Darker than Black – 8 Sasameki Koto – 7 Blue Literature – 7 Nyankoi – 6 Kampfer – 3 Seitokai no Ichizon – 2 Ai no Kusabi – 2 Yumeiro Patissiere – 1 Sora no Otoshimono – 1 Note that with comments that selected three series, I just picked the first two. The people who voted for Darker than Black II and ignored the “No Sequels”-rule can of course always change their votes. A Second Note: it just turns out that Jungle Emperor Leo isn’t going to be a TV-series at all, but instead just a TV-Special. Those who voted for it can of course change their votes.]]>
Guin Saga – 22
It’s episodes like these that really show how good this series has been at building up. Amnelis in this episode was definitely one of the highlights of the entire series for me. And that’s the thing with incredibly flawed characters in a good series: they start out rather annoying, but when they do develop properly, they make much more impact than any Mary Sue could have done.
Remus’ change from wimp to evil overlord happened very sudden, but with Amnelis, her transition from an incompetent princess to a hate-filled warlord has taken up much more time, and this episode really was the key in her development. Not only did he deceive her, but because he has become unreachable for her to even carry out her revenge, it completely changes the way Amnelis used to be. The question is: is her moment to redeem herself going to happen in the next four episodes? If not, then I’ll repeat the same words again: SECOND SEASON WHERE!?
Last episode’s climax was pretty interesting: it suggested an epic fight between Guin and some mysterious orc-like people… and yet the fight was over within a minute, and it just turned out to be a build-up for the Yellow-haired guy’s plans to bring him down. Again: do we get to see whatever he’s building up to within the next four episodes? I have no bloody clue.
Rating: *** (Awesome)]]>
Konnichiwa Anne – 22
And finally, two years pass and Anne has grown up to nine years old. While it’s good to see lots of development, this episode also confirmed what I’ve been suspecting for a long while now: Anne is not Anne Shirley of Green Gables. She really is just an incredibly bright girl who happens to look similar to Anne of Green Gables, she just happens to share the same name and same name of her parents with her. And hey, Canada’s a big country. It could have happened.
Because in this episode, it becomes clear that Anne hasn’t been attending school for two years. Anne of Green Gables, however, was fully able to attend school; she just couldn’t attend it in the winter because it was too difficult to travel to her school, something which Randolf and Mildred don’t seem to have any problems with.
This show simply shouldn’t have been advertised as “Before Green Gables”, because it simply isn’t. I remember how Budge Wilson commented that she wasn’t going to try and mimic Lucy Maud Montgomery’s style for the novel, and instead would keep to her own. That’s understandable and I fully agree with that. However, she should have kept the characters in canon with the Anne of the Green Gables novel. She seems to be a famous writer with lots of experience. She should have been able to predict how Anne would have looked like in her childhood, which is nothing like the Anne in Konnichiwa Anne.
Nevertheless, this was a very nice episode if you ignore this. We get some background on Walter, the characters have all developed in an interesting way especially since this probably is one of the very first time in which we see a character as detailed as Anne, develop from seven years old to nine years old. Usually, when characters are shown below the age of ten, the creators usually just pick one age as a base, but this series instead shows Anne as a six, seven and nine-year-old.
Anne really strikes me as a child who grew up too fast. Children her age should still be busy goofing around, and being children. Instead, because Johanna has been forced to get a job after Bert’s job backfired, she had to face her adult responsibilities way too early. Because of this, even though Mildred and Randolf are much older than she is, she acts as if she’s of the same grade they are.
Rating: * (Good)]]>
August Summary
#30 (29) – Zan Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei – (6/10) – Okay, so this series has hit new frontiers of boredom for me. After one episode, this got so bad that I suddenly became fascinated by the pattern on my chair. In addition to this series getting less funny with every episode, the non-funny parts are also getting harder and harder to sit through, with especially the incredibly stereotypical characters growing more and more on my nerves.
#29 (20) – Saki – (7,25/10) – The battle between Saki and Koromo unfortunately was a step down for this series. At this point, Koromo was so unbelievably god-moded that the creators had to god-mode Saki as well to give her a chance against her. So in the end this just became a contest of who could pull off the biggest and cheesiest Deus ex Machina. Afterwards, this series never really managed to recover for me. It’s been one cheesy and predictable scene to the other, with hardly any of the character-depth that made the middle episodes so enjoyable.
#28 (25) – Chi’s New Address – (7,25/10) – Okay, so I got impatient with the slow subs and tracked down the raws for this series. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like this series is getting any better. There is just an entire lack of direction, and the show just hangs on a string of random episodes that all fail to live up to the first season. There are too many episodes in which Chi randomly causes trouble and breaks stuff, and I think that this series has hit past its expiration date at this point. Such a shame.
#27 (26) – 07-Ghost – (7,5/10) – I hope that for this series, the creators are going to go with an anime original ending. Don’t get me wrong, but this just isn’t a series that’s going to work with a second season, and with an ending that actually wraps up the story there is at least going to be some sort of closure. This show lately has been getting less bearable, with as the depth the really lame Bishop Exam.
#26 (28) – Needless – (7,5/10) – This show really is one of the most vulgar shows I’ve ever seen. The jokes are amongst the dumbest I have ever seen, same with the fanservice. Still, it does what it intended to do: entertain. In terms of mindless entertainment, it really does the job well and doesn’t try to pretend it’s anything more than what it is. At least I can appreciate that.
#25 (23) – Hetalia Axis Powers – (7,75/10) – This month, Hetalia has been adequate. There were no particularly bad episodes, but there weren’t any that stood out either. It’s nothing particularly boring, but I do hope that this show can pick itself up again after this.
#24 (30) – Bakemonogatari – (7,5/10) – I can see that the dialogue for this series is good, but at the same time I have a lot of trouble connecting to the characters because Shinbo took his style way too far. The screen is way too full with pointless visuals, walls of text that appear at the wrong moments, take way too long, and take the focus away from what’s really important: the characters. Seriously, the lead character in particular hardly gets any close-ups when he talks. The camera is always focusing at either his eye, his ahoge, or something completely different. It’s probably because of this that I found the ending of the third arc to be convenient and cheesy.
#23 (17) – Gintama – (7,75/10) – The thing that the new director is going to have to work at is his climaxes. The past oldies arc was pretty good, but the climax just ended up a bit cheesy and was filled with Deus ex Machina.
#22 (16) – Basquash! – (7,5/10) – Basquash was mostly building up this month. It’s going to need it, because I’ve pretty much lost my faith in this series, and only an entertaining ending can save it for me. My biggest issue with this series is that it doesn’t seem to really know what it wants. If it’s supposed to be a fun and entertaining show, then why does it go on and on in pointless drama? If it’s supposed to be a deep and thoughtful show, then why are the characters so unbelievably stupid at times?
#21 (22) – The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya – (7,5/10) – Now that the Endless Eight has finally ended, I’ve gotten bugged with another of this series’ problems: Haruhi is annoying. Seriously though, the past three episodes of her Sigh have been surprisingly boring and uninteresting. The characters have been acting way too much according to their stereotypes, rather than as actual characters, and the dialogue also suffered a lot. In fact, the dialogue of the entire second season has been far from as detailed as it was in the first season.
#20 (24) – Kuruneko – (8/10) – This series is surprisingly fun, especially now that Chi’s Sweet Home has stopped being funny, there’s enough cats to laugh about here. But I especially like the old lady who keeps the different cats. She has wit, and I love how she always tries to voice everything over.
#19 (13) – Canaan – (8/10) – So in this month, Canaan showed its true colours. Deranged, over the top and very far-fetched colours. While I admit that I would have preferred a bit more subtlety in the storytelling, it still is a pretty nice action series. Just don’t try to go in it expecting any sort of realism…
#18 (18) – Taishou Yakyuu Musume – (8/10) – I’m starting to wonder whether twelve episodes are enough for this series. There’s still so much left to do, and yet we’ve already passed two thirds of the series. Sure, things have been pretty enjoyable slice of life, the characters are quite charming, but are the creators really all right with only four episodes left?
#17 (21) – Konnichiwa Anne – (8/10) – I still hate Henderson, but granted, she was much more annoying in the previous month. Thankfully Konnichiwa Anne has gotten better right now, with the focus nicely balanced between Anne and the side-characters.
#16 (11) – Umi Monogatari – (8/10) – This has been a peculiar little series. It’s strength is that it’s incredibly dramatic, and yet it never delves into melodrama or something that’s so overacted that you can’t take it seriously. It’s a great example of an emotional series: one that’s meant to bring out emotions. At this, it actually fares off pretty well, but this is a Sato Junichi series we’re talking about. He has done so much better in the past, that this series just pales when you compare it to some of its other works. If you don’t though, then it’s pretty nice.
#15 (27) – Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou – (8/10) – This is yet another one of those series that isn’t supposed to be good… and yet it is. Seriously, it has all the elements of yet another dull moe show: overly cute character-designs with weird hair-colours? Check. Stupid fanservice? Check. Overly cute voice actresses? Check. And yet, this series has something that a lot of moe shows nowadays lack. The characters, especially the main character, are all surprisingly genuine; the way they act, the way they interact with each other. It feels like they’re really behaving like themselves, rather than trying to go for forced stereotypes.
#14 (15) – Umineko no Naku Koro ni – (8,25/10) – I think that the biggest difference between Higurashi and Umineko, at this stage in the series, is that Higurashi was much more of a horror series: it used its storytelling and mystery to create a very tense plot. Umineko instead chooses for censored gore and a lot of talking, which neither come really close to horror. Because of this, I like the first nine episodes of Higurashi better than Umineko. Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean that the mystery in Umineko doesn’t rock. This yet again is a great series to try and formulate theories of what the heck is going on, only to have them proved wrong by this series.
#13 (10) – Marie & Gali – (8,5/10) – It’s a shame that this show went into multiple hiatuses during this month, because I really can’t get enough of the craziness in this series. What’s also very peculiar for a comedy is that it’s just consistently awesome: there’s hardly any bad episode, and every episode has something creative that puts a smile on your face. Sure, the episodes are only five minutes long, but still.
#12 (14) – Shin Mazinger Shougeki Z-Hen – (8,75/10) – This show really has become epic in the past month. I must say that it’s really managed to create an awesome story, based on the premise of a few key characters and a powerful giant robot. The twists and turns have only added to the awesomeness, and this series is only getting better and better. In the coming month, it’s finally time for this series to close off with an epic finale, and something tells me that the creators aren’t going to settle with a straightforward ending. There are so many different villains at this point that it’s promising to be a true clash of the titans.
#11 (8) – Pandora Hearts – (8,75/10) – Every time I think that this series couldn’t possibly pull any more plot twists, it does, and with every plot twist the series only gets more intriguing than it already was. Sometimes the creators keep hanging a bit too long around Oz’s development, but overall this still is an excellent series. Now where is that second season?!
#10 (7) – Guin Saga – (8,5/10)
Lots of politics this month for Guin Saga, and I must say that I like it a lot. The cast of characters is really growing beyond belief, but the creators still managed to give most of them their own identity. The lead characters meanwhile also make sure that this remains an epic series.
#9 (5) – Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood – (8,75/10)
It seems that the manga readers aren’t all happy with this adaptation, because of all the things it cut out. Having not read the manga, however, I don’t care. I personally don’t notice anything of the cuts that were made, and especially episode 19 was really good and well animated.
#8 (12) – GA:Geijutsuka Art Design Class – (8,75/10)
This show rocks! Sure, it’s probably a bit boring if you don’t have any interest in art, but this series really is one of the few anime this year that actually taught me something. Aside from that, the creators have managed to keep a perfect balance between fun interactions, slice of life and the educational parts. Not one episode feels like a copy of the others, and every episode it comes with new material, rather than ripping or milking off previous episodes due to a lack of inspiration. This definitely turned into one of the best (if not THE best, along with Cross Game) slice of life comedies I’ve seen this year.
#7 (9) – Cross Game – (8,75/10)
The thing that makes Cross Game so good is that every single episode, no matter how seemingly insignificant, contributes to and develops the characters, if ever so slightly. The pacing is slow, but for this series, it’s just enough to see the characters slowly get more and more complex and likable. That really is the strength of a series by Adachi: sure, he can only write shows of one type, but he’s really, really good at it and hardly ever repeats himself.
#6 (2) – Shangri-La – (8,75/10)
It’s not the best month for Shangri-La, but nevertheless it’s gotten surprisingly solid now that it’s building up to its finale, and it might actually be able to pull off a very enjoyable one at this pace. At this point, the story has gotten epic without sacrificing what made the rest of the series so enjoyable. All it now needs to do is have something awesome happen at the finale.
#5 (6) – Spice and Wolf – (8,75/10)
The biggest difference with the first season is the relationship between Lawrence and Horo: the two of them have become much closer with this season, and yet the creators manage to keep the romance mature and prevent it from being forced. The talk about trading has been as intelligent as ever, which always is a good sign.
#4 (4) – Aoi Hana – (8,75/10)
This series has really been consistently excellent, like I’ve probably said many times before. The romantic relationships are very down-to-earth and realistic and the creators are really good at very subtly fleshing out the characters.
#3 (1) – Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 – (9/10)
At first, when I finished episode 8, I thought that this series was going to finish with a rather uneventful finale that didn’t really live up to the amazing first five episodes. But then when I realized that SPOILER, it suddenly put the entire series in an entirely different light. That’s got to be the SPOILEREST SPOILER I have ever seen, and I really applaud the creators for SPOILER. This has the potential of being a classic if they manage to end this series well. Apologies for the rather cryptic description, but the ones who saw episode 8 will probably get what I mean.
#2 (18) – Kemono no Souja Erin – (9/10)
Yeah, yeah. So I gave in to everyone who praised this series and marathoned it up to episode 33. And oh my God, people surely weren’t kidding when they said that this was one of the best shows of the year! Because of its long length, it really was able to get the best out of the character. Especially Erin, who has now grown up to be eighteen years old, has become one of the best developed characters of this year for me. This series has become so good at portraying the pain-staking work it takes to tame and take care of a wild beast, but also the newly introduced villain is already an awesome one who is going to pose a serious threat to Erin. The back-story for this series has also turned out to be surprisingly solid, and for those who were wondering whether this series would have gotten a bit too childish with the farting bee-keeper: don’t worry. It’s just a small gimmick that returns occasionally.
#1 (3) – Phantom – (9,25/10)
Now that it’s entered its final arc, this series has become utterly amazing, and without a doubt my top pick for the past spring season. Especially Cal’s character-development has been awesome, but Reiji and Helen have also become a joy to watch with all of the development that this series has put in them.]]>
Full Metal Alchemist – Botherhood – 21
Apparently last week had some sort of important sport event that caused quite a few series to go into hiatus, among which Full Metal Alchemist. Now that it’s back we can continue with the hunt for the Humonculi, and quite a surprising aftermath to the previous episode.
Because as it turns out, Havoc lost his ability to walk. I’m not sure whether this is permanent or temporary (you never know that in anime…), but nevertheless that was a heavy sacrifice that Roy had to pay in order to be able to kill off Lust. On top of that, Ed and Al also realized (with Barry’s original body being the way it was), that Al’s real body might be rotting away right now, and that he might not even be able to go back to it. At the same time, we also learn that Ed seems to be sleeping an awful lot. Something tells me that this is also going to become important later on.
The rest of this episode focused on a plan to lure out the Humonculi. Scar showed up again, in the city that Ed, Al and Roy happened to be in, and so they come up with the idea to use Scar, in order to lure out the Humonculi who seem to get rid of scar. They suspect this because of the way the Homunculi have been fighting scar, and also that the Fuhrer has a good chance of being a Humonculus, if I understood correctly.
Also, for some reason the facial distortions in this episode were a lot more out of control than usual. Especially with Ed on his fixing spree, and afterwards when he tried to talk to Roy Mustang. The scenes themselves were quite hilarious, but they didn’t mesh too well with Scar’s sudden appearance. I liked it more when the comedy was more subtle. That’s really the moment when you don’t know when to laugh or not.
I wonder how Winry’s going to react when she finds out that Ed and Al were chasing the one who killed her parents for revenge. Something tells me that she’s going to find out sooner or later, and I don’t think that she really would have taken revenge if she was in their shoes. Still, at the moment her part in this series has been rather pointless so far, aside for the emotional support for Ed and Al. I do hope that she’s going to end up doing something useful, rather than hog lots of screentime like she did in the first anime series.
And as usual: when discussing this episode, please refrain from mentioning events that happen after this point in the manga.
Rating: * (Good)]]>
Cross Game – 22
A big episode for Aoba this time. Up till now we have really seen both her and Kou acting as directed Wakaba’s dreams, rather than for their own. And while that indeed is important for both of them to deal with her sudden death, it also really gets in their way at times. Especially in the case of Aoba, who despite being technically superior to Kou is doomed to stay in his shadow because he just happens to be able to throw faster.
In this episode, she finally did what I’ve been hoping for for a while now: participate in an actual game. In the past few episodes, you could really tell that she was pissed off being seen as inferior to Kou. She kept teasing him about how he was a year higher than she was, and was very sarcastic whenever she talked to him. There is such a thing as a lovers’ quarrel, like you often see in anime, but in Aoba’s case it’s much more than her simply being a tsundere. Especially the new batters, who kept comparing her to Kou hit hard.
But yeah, in this episode, Senda(what happened to the guy, by the way? We haven’t seen him in a while, have we?)’s friend pops up again, with a proposal for her to join the baseball team of her school. Obviously, she did this without the consent of the rest of her team, but in the end Aoba gets a part of a stand-in. Which of course is logical: the teamwork would have been completely disrupted if the pitcher were to change to some girl nobody heard of.
And you know, it’s still pretty obvious that Kou and Aoba are into each other, but after having seen a genuine smile from Aoba a couple of times now, I’m starting to think that the two of them really should spend some time away from each other. Something tells me that when they’re together, they only remind each other of Wakaba: I suspect that Kou keeps seeing Wakaba in Aoba, and he continues to put up a strong image in front of her. Aoba on the other hand is constantly reminded of the guy Wakaba was in love with when she was still alive, and therefore still feels hurt when remembering her. In fact, have Kou and Aoba actually talked about Wakaba when they were together? This may be my memory, but it seems to me that the topic of Wakaba has become some sort of a taboo between the two of them.
Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>
Munto The Movie Review – 30/100
Sora wo Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai, or Munto TV, was the biggest disappointment of the past Winter Season. Here the creators had a great chance to take a flawed OVA, and spread it across the airtime of a TV-series so that the setting and the characters could finally get the chance to be developed properly. So, what do they do? A bloody recap. Only the final three and a half episodes featured new material, which was way too little for a story of this caliber. Still, with a movie scheduled, it still could redeem itself. But yeah, I guess that you can all see by the rating for this review that it obviously didn’t.
Oh, the announcement for the movie sounded so promising. Even though it would also recap the new footage for the TV-series, it did promise that it was going to be just a “director’s cut of various climactic scenes”, with “new footage” and it “ends with a finale”. Looking back, that was the biggest piece of crap that the creators could ever have come up with to promote this movie.
Let’s start with the “new footage”. Let me tell you exactly how much new footage there was in this movie: three minutes. No, seriously, it has some three minutes of strange back-story slapped on the beginning. Apart from that, everything else simply recaps the TV-series.
So, how about the “director’s cut of various climactic scenes”? Well, apparently the creators found every single scene a climactic one, because the rest of the movie is literally every single scene of the new footage of the TV-series. Even the useless comic relief ones. The only part that is missing is the final part of the last episode. You know, the scene that PROMISED THAT THE STORY WASN’T OVER YET.
And how about “ends with a finale”? Well, this movie sure as heck ends with a finale. The same that the TV-series ended with. Yeah, the same finale with its Deus ex Machina climax, the same finale in which the characters started to act completely out of character, and the same finale in which Munto dressed up the three teenaged leads into sailor uniforms with extremely short skirts. What the heck was the point in advertising that!?
It’s a shame. This series really had potential; if only the creators actually made a remake of this series, panned over 26 episodes or something similar, it would have been really good. This, however, is just crap. Even for a recap-movie, it’s incredibly cheap, the way it was advertised, the way it promised so many things, and instead just chose the laziest way out and even failed in terms of storytelling with that ending. If you want to see what Munto is about, check out the TV-series, skip the rest.
| Storytelling: | 1/10 |
| Characters: | 1/10 |
| Production-Values: | 5/10 |
| Setting: | 5/10 |