There’s always this… something about plays that are performed in anime. I’m not sure what it is, but they always tend to bring out something fresh out of the characters. Aoi Hana as usual does this very subtly and full of emotions. In this episode, we see the play Wuthering Heights being performed by Yasuko and the others. I really have been watching too many cheesy soap operas lately, because this episode really surprised me at how well everything went, and yet there were so many emotions at the end.
Basically, nearly everything in the play goes smoothly, aside from a few pieces of clothing and books that aren’t at the place they should be, and when everything is over the teacher that Yasuko had her crush on congratulates her, which makes show a rather embarrassing side of her, which is something that Fumi happens to oversee. In your average anime, you’d usually expect Fumi to run away and refuse to talk to anyone, but interestingly enough the two of them were able to talk just fine after that: Fumi is clearly hurt when she found out that Yasuko still has feelings on her past crush, but both of them understand that it’s just something from the past.
There’s also this scene in which Yasuko claims that she dislikes the character of Catherine in Wuthering Heights. Well, I don’t know the full details of the Wuthering Heights novel, but Catherine seemed to be a passionate, wild and mischievous girl, who lead both her and Heathcliff to their doom. It’s interesting how in the same way, Kyouko actually looks up to her due to her strong will. They both have totally different ways in which they relate to her character, and it also signified the distance between the two of them, since Kyouko doesn’t know what happened in Yasuko’s past with her teacher.
And on a side-note, this series has something with hair. In every episode, you can see someone playing around with someone else’s hair. I like this though: it shows that hair is more than just brightly coloured stuff on top of people’s heads that waves elegantly in the wind to give off the air of good animation. I especially liked the animation of Catherine as she played the part. It’s much better to have a bit of a messy animation and movement, rather than clean art and a bunch of still frames.
Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>
Author: psgels
Nadia – The Secret of Blue Water Review – 85/100
Watching a series like Nadia is interesting, if only because of the place it takes up in the history of the adventure genre. It’s based on the novel 20000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, who was one of the pioneers of the science fiction genre and wrote about aeroplanes and submarines before they were even invented. The visuals are clearly inspired by Laputa Castle in the Sky, one of Ghibli’s earliest classics, and you can also see traces of the awesome Mysterious Cities of Gold. In its turn, you can see its influence amongst great future adventure series as Bonen no Xamdou, Blue Submarine No06 and of course Ashita no Nadja. Amongst these excellent works, Nadia obviously doesn’t stand out as the greatest adventure ever, but nevertheless it’s an excellent series and a proof of Gainax’ ambition.
Nadia starts out as an historical series in the year 1889 and shows the two lead characters (two kids named Jean and Nadia) as they are chased by what at first sight seems to be the prototype for Team Rocket. Gradually though, this series gains more and more depth, and the setting develops into something truly epic, and a great look at how science fiction would have been more than a century ago. We gradually get to see more and more of the back-story of the world that this series plays in, which really becomes increasingly more interesting as the series goes on.
Throughout the series, we get to see a wide variety of situations, as we see Jean and Nadja travel on aeroplanes, hot air balloons, robots, the Nautilus Submarine of which the novel 20000 Leagues Under the Sea has become famous for, and much more. There’s also an entire arc that takes a step back from being epic, and instead has the lead characters stranded on a desert island for about eight episodes, with the focus being much more on “slice of life” and trying to survive on that desert island. While it will probably be boring for those who are watching this series for its action, but these episode did a great job of fleshing out and developing the characters.
But what great action this series has! Consider that this series aired in 1990, it looks like no other TV-series that aired before. Hideki Anno did a great job in creating a TV-version of the Ghibli-esque graphics, in the days that Hayao Miyazaki was really at his most prolific. The series has a excellent selection of rich and colourful character-designs and other graphics, and while you can see that the drawings in this series were still done by hand, the animation is surprisingly smooth and detailed.
There unfortunately are a bunch of flaws that hold this series back from calling itself among the greatest adventure series out there. Especially the villains of this series just are hardly fleshed out. The major villain is your typical evil mastermind who wants to take over the world, and every single one of his subordinates has the personality of a paper bag. It’s very hard to take these guys seriously and consider them a serious threat, even though they’re usually competent at their jobs. I think that it’s also because of this that the ending contains a bunch of weird Deus ex Machina that just seemed to have been inserted to wrap up the story. Also, Nadia may have been a bit too often a damsel in distress, especially in the first half of the series.
At times the show is a bit hard to watch, because the barrier between men and women forms a major theme for especially the lead couple, but most of the important characters end up nicely developed by the end. Nothing memorable, but this development does makes sure for a bunch of really charming scenes in which this development comes together. And a honorable mention has to go to King, the animal side-kick who proved that subtlety and GAR do go together.
| Storytelling: | 8/10 |
| Characters: | 8/10 |
| Production-Values: | 9/10 |
| Setting: | 9/10 |
Umineko no Naku Koro ni – 06
Well, talk about a different atmosphere in this episode. For once, nobody died and instead we’ve now come to fleshing out the characters, with Shannon, Jessica and Kanon being the first. What the hell is going on is still pretty much a mystery, but we did get quite a few new answers to what went on. Not the most spectacular episode, but I liked it a lot.
So right now we’ve either moved to the past, or a third universe. We either have ourselves a non-linear storyline like Baccano or Touka Gettan, or this series really is like Higurashi which resets itself every time Beatrice kills everyone (or lets everyone kill everyone), just in the way that Higurashi went. My suspicion is the latter, though. Beatrice is known as the “eternal witch” who likes to put people through eternal suffering. But then again that does raise the question of why she’s resetting in the first place when her goal simply seems to be regaining her powers and ruling over the island.
In this episode, it’s also revealed that Kanon and Shannon are siblings, or at least, Kanon referred to Shannon as his older sister. I could be mistaken in this because kids have a tendency to refer to anyone as older sisters or aunts. We also learn that they are the only two who can see Beatrice, which seems to suggest that either in the past or in this universe Beatrice has yet to say hello to Maria.
This episode was mostly about explaining Kanon’s deep-seated grudge at his position as a servant. He and Shannon both started out as furniture who fell in love with a member of the Ushinomiya family (for Kanon, this was Jessica). Shannon accepted Beatrice’s help and therefore got to date George without any problems. Kanon however, was different and refused Beatrice because she he believed that she kept toying around with the lives of others. So saying that people can’t date furniture in the first few episodes turned out to have been a bit of a rejection to Beatrice.
Jessica in the meantime very much reminds me of Mion: she’s supposed to be the heir of an important family, and yet when she is with her friends she puts up a completely different character. Perhaps she also has a twin in the same fashion.
This is also something seemingly unimportant that caught my eye, but with this series in which everything seems to be relevant, perhaps it’ll turn into an important clue later on: why do all of the direct heirs of the Ushinomiya family have just one child? Is this also something that was dictated by grandfather? And why is Maria the only one who doesn’t match the ages of the others? Did something happen with her parents in the past that caused them to go against Kinzou?
Rating: * (Good)]]>
GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class – 05
Yeah yeah, I know. I’m blogging another moe series. But seriously, the second episode took like what… FOUR WEEKS to get subbed? Talk about the dark horse of the season: that’s the kind of release schedule you’d expect from your average World Masterpiece Theatre or Osamu Dezaki series, not a show about lots of moe schoolgirls…
But yeah, that’s pretty much why I decided to blog this series: because of the lack of subs I’ve been following this series raw and I like it a lot, but the dialogue turned out to be surprisingly difficult for a series that’s about a bunch of 15-year-old schoolgirls and has no plot whatsoever. By writing about it, I hope to be able to catch more of the countless jokes and details that the creators threw in it. My Japanese is far from perfect, so do note that I could make mistakes here and there.
The first half of this episode starts with the GA members handing in some assignments, in which they had to design items that people use every day. Nozaki first came with a vaccuum cleaner, Tomokane took way too much creative freedom in creating a UFO, while Yamaguchi created a cup (which she ironically used to fake a cup she previously knocked over). Yamaguchi and Nozaki obviously get the advice to be a bit more creative. In the next round, Yamaguchi comes with a bunny-shaped cellphone, while Tomokane comes in with a desk. In the next round, Nozaki delivers a copying machine, with Tomokane comes with a bunch of cheap ideas, like pasting her previous desk below a bunch of bookcases. And a desk whose drawers have eyes. Noda in the meantime rips off some of Tomokane’s ideas throughout the sketch. A running theme throughout that sketch was Yamaguchi knocking over the teacher’s cups over and over, so in the end she delivers a cup warmer.
The next part of the episode was about the Nozaki’s birthday. Since she didn’t announce it, nobody could prepare anything for her. Tomokane comes with a hastily drawn gift token (I hope that that’s the right word for it in English). Yamaguchi gave her a picture book. Oomichi and Noda meanwhile organize a small birthday party after classes, in one of the art club’s empty classrooms, it seems, in which they all have a drink. The subject then turns over to these drinks and some word puns that only the Japanese can pull off (like wondering who it was who hit Fruits Punch).
The rest of this episode was about the strange other art club that took up most of the third episode. It’s very strange, because whenever they pop up, the rest of the series also completely changes and becomes much more that of a traditional slice of life series about these people. I still find it strange that this series advertises itself as the “GA Art Design Club”, and yet we’ve already spent more than an entire episode to these guys…
Anyway, the second half of the episode starts with them simply cleaning up their clubroom and getting rid of the stuff that they don’t use anymore (including a strange doghouse that the club-president was sleeping in). The president (I believe her name was Awara Chikako) is pretty much the oddball of that club, and obviously tries to get away from having to clean. When she does end up helping out (as in, ordering everyone around), she finds a book back that she thought she had long lost. In the same process, Homera finds a bunch of soda cans that turn out to be more than ten years old.
The next part of this episode starts when “Same-sensei” (who apparently got her nickname when she first introduced herself in front of a class and got too scared to speak straight) comes in the room, searching for her colleague. The next teacher to visit the room is Kotoma, who seems to be looking for some past work that is stored in the clubroom. For some reason, some of the older members are shocked by this and start fearing for their lives. It turns out that these works are stored in a particularly dirty room that doesn’t seem to have been cleaned for many years.
It seems that it once belonged to a yet another art club, which seems to be long gone now. Awara then comes with a story of how once someone was chased by a ghost when he tried to enter it, and that ghost somehow turned into a strange mannequin that’s in the clubroom.
We then see a bit of back-story on how the doghouse came to be, as it turned out to have been an attempt to make Awara stop whining. It’s broken now anyway, as Awara brings the remains to the local garbage collection place. The episode then ends with the GA club, as they try to go home as it’s raining outside. The ED this time seems to have been sung by Horie Yui, who voices Nozaki. This is one of these series in which all of the main voice actress get to have a go at singing the ED, which makes me wonder what the creators are going to do with the next episode: are they just going to start with Miyuki Sawashiro, who voiced the first one, or are they going to try something different?
In any case, I know that this is not a summary blog. There was a time in which I would write an incredibly detailed summary for every single series that I was blogging, but after a while it just became way too tiring to continue doing that and so I instead changed the focus of this blog on storytelling. Nevertheless, having one show to summarize each week shouldn’t be that much of a problem, and I had a lot of fun writing this entry and figuring out what’s going on. This episode wasn’t the best we’ve seen from this show right now, and the characters have a long way to go before they become as good and enjoyable as Hyakko, which I didn’t end up blogging, but I like the focus on art. I like how the characters in this series already know how to draw, and are instead now looking at expressing their creativity and putting them to practical use. It’s very close to my personal interests, and I don’t think that any similar series is going to pop up any time soon. And besides, it has the director from Les Miserables. Is there any way you can go wrong with that? ^^;
Rating: * (Good)]]>
Melody of Oblivion Review – 50/100
Oh god. It’s been a while since I sat through such a mind-numbingly boring series as this one. Usually I obviously try to avoid these kinds of shows, but for the Melody of Oblivion I was lured in because I like a good mind-screw once in a while. What I got instead was a good sleep. You know, with series as Kurokami you can at least watch them for the good action, but Melody of Oblivion simply has nothing that makes it even worth watching, aside from a few weird ideas that never really get anywhere.
This series plays in a world in which humanity has lost a big war against the so-called “monsters”, which is something that the narrator is very keen on reminding us of in case we forget. The problems start right with the main character: even for your typical male lead, this guy has the personality of a potato. It’s more fun watching paint dry than to watch this guy on screen. On top of that, he probably has one of the flimsiest back-story I have ever seen. The first episode of this series simply starts off with him as a regular high-school boy, through the course of the first arc he gets his obligatory super powers (shounen series), and then he simply leaves on a journey. Why? We never know. In fact, he spends the entire freaking series fighting for no possible reason.
This might be excused if you know, he didn’t have anything better to do and just was fighting monsters to kill the time (which seems to be the case for nearly all of the side-characters in this series by the way), but no: he has a female love interest. Romance can be a beautiful thing: it can enrich characters and make you care for them. However, when the characters in question are a bunch of cardboard boxes, the romance simply becomes way too obnoxious. The lead female really isn’t much better than her male counterpart: she has no power of herself, so she continuously plays either the damsel in distress, or the love interest that watches from the side-lines while doing nothing but worrying. Their relationship becomes even more painful to watch when they’re together, simply because the male lead is such an incredible pussy that he refuses any advances that the lead female makes on him and instead he goes out fighting monsters (which obviously leads to lots of useless and pointless angst).
Well then, the series consists out of a number of arcs (eight in total), which feature the two lead characters arriving into a town under the influence of a so-called “monster agent”. These arcs however, all look like each other and do way too little to stand out, or even be interesting. They drag on for way too long. The monster-agents themselves are also incredibly dull and stereotypical bad guys who all fit in the same mold. The only one I even remotely liked was the Bobcat guy, but that may also be because he got the least amount of airtime out of all of them.
If I had to mention a highlight, then I’d have to say episode 25, but that’s more in the sense of “so bad it’s good” than that it actually redeemed some of the boredom. It’s a hilariously bad episode, with more recycled material than actual new footage (heck, I even suspect that there were just two minutes of new footage in total in that episode); it’s a completely nonsensical episode in which the creators pull all sorts of idiotic plot twists out of their asses, but it was the only episode of the entire series that was really what it was meant to be: entertaining.
As for the mind-screws that this series seems to be known for: it really isn’t that special. All this series has is one of the worst soundtracks out there, along with a bunch of weird images that make no sense and are just inserted for the heck of it. The series is completely nonsensical, hardly anything has a satisfactory background (the explanations that are there don’t make any sense more often than not) and the series closes off with an incredible amount of plot-holes still left open. You can see that the creators wanted to do something different with this series, and in a way I appreciate that, but at the same time they forgot one important thing: make this series interesting.
| Storytelling: | 5/10 |
| Characters: | 3/10 |
| Production-Values: | 7/10 |
| Setting: | 5/10 |
Shangri-La – 18
Okay, so this episode was mostly building up and it wasn’t as filled with as many plot twists as the previous ones, but nevertheless it had some great ideas and scenes thrown into it. One in particular was an awesome one. It’s a major spoiler, so if you haven’t seen the episode yet you might want to skip this entry.
Because holy crap: Kuniko is Mikuni’s sister! Momoko’s earring turns out to be something she stole from Nagiko, of all people. That gives that whole subplot a whole new dimension and a lot of things make sense now. But most importantly: Kunihito!?
If my theory indeed is true, then that means that the digmas are not just a bunch of random people chosen, but instead the three of them are siblings, and the grandchildren of the founder of Atlas! That’s what makes them so special! That explains why they all have “Kuni” in their names (which probably was a strange idea from their mother). It also explains why Kuniko and Kunihito got along so well: this series wasn’t trying to turn Kunihito into Kuniko’s love interest; they just got along as siblings would!
This makes me even more curious about that mystery mother, who seems to be at the center of all of this. In fact, I’m getting more and more the suspicion that Ryouko actually is the one who fits this description. As disturbing as it may sound, for the three of them to be the next heirs of Atlas, it must mean that their mother holds a very important place at Atlas for them to be considered so special. That can’t be anyone OTHER THAN Ryouko! Talk about a screwed up family. And speaking of which… who exactly is Kuniko’s father?
If that indeed turns out to be true, then we had a nice family reunion in this episode, in which Nagiko manages to arrange a meeting between Kuniko and Ryouko, about trying stop Daedalus. Apparently, even though it was meant to prevent fires Daedalus can seem to burn, otherwise Ryouko would have pointed that out.
Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>
Guin Saga – 18
And here we have the big climax for the Naris Amnelis Marriage. Again, there’s no Guin, Remus, Linda or Istvan whatsoever and instead we’ve got an entire episode of political intrigue. I must say that after watching this arc in Guin Saga, Tytania is looking less and less impressive right now, because Guin Saga has done a much better job at it when it comes to the political intrigue part. If only a second season got announced. But yeah, Guin Saga has the same problem.
I’m really not sure whether Satelight is going to go for a second season of Guin Saga. Looking at their past series, they are the type of studio that milks their franchises as soon as they get popular (like with Macross and especially Shugo Chara shows that they do have the guts to carry a series for a hundred episodes, which is just what this series needs), but the thing is: Guin Saga isn’t popular at all. I have no idea whether or not the Satelight Executives feel something for doing this story justice and animating all of the volumes.
In any case, this episode provided a very interesting conclusion which went totally against my expectations. The Naris that attended the wedding turns out to have been a dummy. So when Astrias comes and kills the dummy off with a poisoned sword, everyone believes that Naris had died, which turns out to have exactly been what Naris intended. And to think that this is going to mean even more character-development for Amnelis, who not only lost her future husband, but also her little brother got killed off by Marius’ boss who didn’t see much money in Marius controlling and influencing him.
What also intrigues me is how there still seems to be a role for Astrias… he didn’t die, but he just got taken away by someone I suspect to be Ardnaris. What kind of use can still be there for him?
Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>
Konnichiwa Anne – 18
Oh for god’s sake!
The start of this episode really spelled out promise: with an episode title of “Love’s Course”, and a start of the episode that showed a lot of Eggman, this seemed like a great episode in which we finally get some in-depth look at his back-story. But that turned out to be pretty much a false hope when HENDERSON butted in again. This episode wasn’t about Eggman’s past love, it was about Henderson FALLING IN LOVE with Eggman. What a let-down!
Henderson has really turned into the Saji Crossroad of this series, and I’m sure that this series would have been much better if it wasn’t for her constant whining and cheesy morals. Sure, the episode around Randolf would have been a tad annoying, but at least he managed to grow into an interesting character after that. Henderson just continues to be downright obnoxious, she continues to overshadow all of the other characters with her cheesy, dull and uninteresting problems and she sticks out in this series like sore thumb. And to think that usually it’s the kids that are annoying! Henderson: you’re a grown adult, for god’s sake! Grow the bloody hell up and move far away from this series!
I really don’t feel like summarizing this episode. The reason why I started doing these summaries was because I loved Porfy no Nagai Tabi, and I wanted other people who had problems understanding the raws to have a few pointers. Porfy really was an incredibly well crafted series, with imaginative and yet realistic situations that Porfy was thrown in. It’s a shame that Konnichiwa Anne couldn’t live up to its standards, but at least the Thomas family made this series worthwhile in its own way. The focus on Henderson starting from the Marysville arc has completely destroyed my fanboyism for this series and I really don’t feel like writing an incredibly long summary about that woman anymore.
There was one point I liked in this episode though: Anne’s hilariously horrible letter in which she pretended to be Henderson. It really looked like the handwriting of a kid who just learned to write letters and you have to give it to the creators: they really did their research in how little kids behave. I just wish that they also did this for teachers. *headdesk*
Rating: — (Lacking)]]>
Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood – 18
This episode made me think of the use of weaponry in the FMA universe. There were a lot of gunfights in this episode, in which the people working under Roy Mustang were assaulted by some of the homunculi and their chimera, in which they used various guns to defend themselves. That’s pretty nice and interesting, but that does bring up the age old question: why doesn’t Ed use one?
One of the major biggest flaws of Full Metal Alchemist, both the series I’ve seen so far, is of course how they try to get away with Ed’s strangely amazing fighting abilities, even though he’s only sixteen years old. And okay, it’s something that a lot of anime suffer from, so that’s easy to overlook. But I still wonder why he’s still stuck with his sword hands in a day and age in which guns seem to be common.
Anyway, about the actual episode, it was as fun as usual; especially Barry shined, and I’m starting to understand why he’s such an interesting character, and how much the first season raped his personality. It was very interesting to see him finding his old body back (talk about different from the Barry from the first season), and this indeed shows that the Homunculi are somehow related to the fifth laboratory, and their current mission indeed seems to stop people from finding out about them. That still doesn’t explain their main purpose though, but I suspect that Lior holds some hints to that.
I’m also glad to see Ross still alive. It had it coming of course, but it was quite unnerving to not see a single hint of her alive in the previous episode (yeah, I’m gullible; so what?). It’s also interesting that she’s going to get her own side-plot right now, as she travels to Xing in order to avoid any chances of revealing herself to the public. I’m interested to see what she can add to the story there.
Also, for some reason Ross hid near a camp of Ishbal people who happened to know Winry’s parents, and were helped a great deal by them. It then turns out that they were murdered, not by the order of the Fuhrer to wipe out the Ishbals, but rather by an Ishbal himself: Scar. Or someone who looks like Scar anyway. He sortof reminded me of a Humonculus in that flashback.
Rating: * (Good)]]>
Cross Game – 18
This episode was about a strange little side-story, featuring… Risa, the manager, of all people. In this episode, we see her trying to audition for a part in a local movie that seems to be getting shot. She ended up auditioning, and got through to the next round. There is just one problem: the character she auditioned for is supposed to be a female pitcher.
So a lot of this episode is spent on her, trying to actually throw a pitch. It’s far from a pointless filler though, because this episode really gave a totally new dimension to her character. We’ve come to know her as that stuck-up princes whose purpose as a manager never really was clear, but in this episode we finally see her working for something she really wants to do. And surprise surprise, but she actually turns out to have a huge amount of motivation and will power. While that last part was a bit exaggerated to say the least, it was definitely good to see her finally with a goal in mind. It’s good that she finally quit being a manager, to chase her own dreams.
Oh, and her random confessions were hilarious to watch. Especially since you had no idea what was going on at the time. It’s really typical of this series’ humour.
I just have one question: how long are the creators going to continue with that cat drawing at the beginning of each episode? Is it to keep the interest of the little kids that are watching this series? Is it to fill up time? Is it some sort of homage I don’t get? I could understand how it might be a good gimmick for one episode, but we’ve had this going on for what? Four weeks already?
Rating: * (Good)]]>