Author: psgels

Phantom – 07

by psgels, posted in Phantom



I think that shows like Valkyria Chronicles at the moment really show how hard it can be to successfully adapt a game into animation. Unlike novels and mangas, where the only thing you have to worry about is how to properly translate the pages into animation, in most cases it just isn’t sufficient to just copy and paste the storyline (since it’s usually too short and overshadowed by the game-play) and especially the game-play. At this point, the creators are going to have to insert their own additions in order to flesh out the cast, and this usually fails so badly, descending the show into a string of uninspired fillers.

And here Bee-Train comes and yet again they pull off a very successful adaptation like it’s nothing. They did the same with .Hack//Sign, which completely dropped all of the fighting and instead went on to focus on its brilliant story, Popolocrois also wouldn’t make you suspect that it’s about an RPG, and instead turned into a fun and charming fantasy adventure and character-study and Wild Arms featured some of the best fillers out there in its second half. These all showed that they knew exactly what to do in order to spice these games up and make them work as an anime, and the same is done in Phantom, with the large emphasis on characterization and atmosphere. I’m not exactly sure how the original game played, but I have a really hard time imagining what the heck the game-play was about.

This episode builds up for the next one, and at the same time we fully get to see what happened with Zwei that made him end up as part of the Phantom. What’s also interesting is that Zwei is beginning to recover his memories, and turning into the guy he was before his mind-wipe. the thing is, though, that even if he were to fully recover his memories, he’s so far in the mafia, he’s already killed so many people that it’s going to be impossible for him to return to Japan and the life he left behind.

And the tension between Ein and Zwei really continues to increase, especially when Ein keeps distancing herself from Zwei since she’s scared of his skills. Before his mind-wipe, he already was able to outrun her for a couple of days, so something tells me that she’s fearing what he can turn into. In the next episode we’re going to see them in different missions, which makes me wonder how that’s going to end.

Rating: ** (Excellent)
Really solid and subtle art, great build-up episode, though lacking in action perhaps.

Basquash! – 07

by psgels, posted in Basquash!



Oh my god… when I first started out this series, I never thought that I’d say this but… this show rocks. This seriously was an awesome episode and this series shows no signs yet of slowing down at all. At first sight, this might be yet another shounen sports series… but it really is so much more. Basquash! is a satire of shounen series that yet takes itself seriously and yet at the same time knows when to be a bit silly.

A common theme of these shounen heroes is their motivation to be the best [whatever] of the world: to get enough money to help out one of their poor friends. Dan is the same, but the major difference here is that Coco doesn’t want help. Dan was probably turned off by Coco’s initial disappointment of having lost her legs (which isn’t surprising: anyone would get incredibly upset after suddenly losing such important limbs). From that moment, Coco was able to accept her disability and grow further, while Dan simply stayed the same. Because Coco didn’t want any sympathy from the one who caused her her injuries, the two of them just grew apart more and more without ever trying to understand each other. In this episode, it’s indeed shown that their communication really is the biggest problem between those two, because you can really see that Coco is proud of her brother when he does what he likes: basketball.

Another common theme of shounen series is their “cheating is bad! you should follow clearly set rules!”-mentality. Well, that too gets completely smashed in this episode when James Loane tries to impose his own rules on basketball. Dan is very quick to remind him how basketball is meant to have fun, not be bound by all sorts of restrictive rules that fail to get the best out of the characters. Real fun basketball is supposed to be the kind that takes risk. And in that way, this series couldn’t possibly have chosen a better fitting lead character than Dan, because he may not be the most technically skilled basketball player, but his sheer guts and creativity when playing are what makes him unique. And really: a lot of shounen series struggle so badly to make their characters stand out. Yay! We’ve seen a teenager change the world. Why him? Why couldn’t anyone else do it? Nine out of ten shounen series simply fails to answer that, or has such a ludicrous answer for it that it’s hard to take seriously.

Some other shounen-tropes that are made completely ridiculous in this series: “screw the rules I have money” (which is really taken to the extreme by James Loane’s incredible wealth), the evil overlord who tries to look as cool as possible (James again, as he tries to look cool while blowing bubbles) and the overly obvious romance. Really, with so many girls in this series, with so much fanservice, there hasn’t been a sign of romance at all. Dan and Miyuki for once behave like real childhood friends, rather than them using it for cheap romance. Sera, while she has the hots for Dan as he plays baseball, she gets turned on by every good baseball match. I really hope that this series can continue this, because it’s felt SO refreshing so far.

But what I like the most in this series is the setting: it really feels alive: it really feels like this series takes place in a city with lots of different people, rather than a television set with a bunch of extras here and there. This has LOTS of promise for the future of this series. For example, the eye catch in this episode showed two people who I couldn’t recognize at all: I had no idea who they were. As it turns out, they were some random townsfolk who appear every once in a while and are just living their daily lives. It just shows how important Rollingtown is for this series.

Rating: *** (Awesome)
In this episode, Dan really showed why he is this series’ main character. Lots of extra depth for both the characters and setting, one heck of a successful episode.

Pandora Hearts – 07

by psgels, posted in Pandora Hearts



I’m not sure what exactly this series has done to only warrant very low quality releases like this, because after last week’s cheese the show really is as good as it once was, and it really deserves some files of higher quality. Ah well, while the cliff-hanger of the previous episode ended with a bit of an anti-climax, the rest of the episode really rocked.

It really was meant as an episode to strengthen the bonds between Oz and Gilbert, who distanced himself from Oz out of the fear that he might not have liked the way he changed, and Oz and Alice, who has been continuously wondering whether or not to trust Oz, especially now that he seems to have found his childhood friend back.

In the meantime we learn a bit about Alice’s past as well, which indeed seem to have taken place in the house of Bezarius. The person she once was with looks like another member of the Bezarius-family. A hint is given that we’ve seen the guy before, but I can’t exactly place my finger on when that happened. And we also learn that there’s another Alice, who my guess would be was either the one Oz met in the first episode, or responsible for Alice’s memory loss.

With this episode, the introduction now seems really over and the characters are established, so I’m curious to see what the real meat of the story will be about.

Rating: * (Good)
The cheese is gone, good character-development and the mystery got a little deeper again amount to a very enjoyable episode. Plus, that bunny looked awesome.

Eden of the East – 06

by psgels, posted in Eden of the East



Yet another episode of building up, but really: that’s exactly what this series needs to be doing at one point. I watched this episode raw, so I probably missed quite a few things, but it’s always good to see an episode dedicated to fleshing out the side-cast. There’s plenty of time for the climaxes during the final episodes of the series and the movie, so I’m happy with how this show has turned out so far. It’s definitely the series with the most solid execution of the entire spring season, even though it’s not the most exciting one.

This pattern really reminds me of how brilliantly Mouryou no Hako turned out. Its middle part also had SO much building up, and yet it finished off with such an awesome climax, and Eden of the East is shaping up to become the same. This episode shows how Saki gets dropped off by Akira near her friends, so that she can introduce them to him. Among her friends are a female programmer and two NEETs, of which one has lots of resemblances to a hikkikomori. In a way, especially her male friends are exactly those targeted by Akira’s “saving the world” programme.

Also correct me if I’m wrong, but “Eden of the East” turns out to be Saki’s friends’ programming club. At the moment, I’m not sure whether Saki herself is also a computer geek, but she sure did befriend a lot of them. When the show started, I thought that it was some sarcastic reference to Japan, with all of the bombings and all. The theme of young people trying to find the place that they belong turns out to be surprisingly large for a series that first seemed like just a fascinating mystery-series. The “Eden” more means something like a heaven for NEETs.

Also, this episode sure gave an even more macabre image of the white-haired woman, as we learn that she kills her victims by cutting off their “Johnnies”. I really am not sure how a selfish bitch like her managed to escape the supporter for that long. My guess would be that she made some sort of deal with number one, who pretty much everyone suspects to be the supporter.

Rating: * (Good)
Building up and fleshing out the cast with still all-out excellent production-values.

Ristorante Paradiso – 05

by psgels, posted in Ristorante Paradiso



This really was an excellent episode for this series. It’s really clear that this is a character-study, and this time it’s Gigi’s turn to be placed under the loop, and I must say that he has quite an interesting backstory, and I think that this was one of the first convincing stories of adultery I’ve seen in anime.

So as it turns out, Gigi is Lorenzo’s half-brother. Lorenzo was born because Gigi’s father committed adultery with his own brother’s wife. The interesting thing though, is that none of them really hold a grudge against each other, and the two of them actually grew to be really close. It was Lorenzo’s father’s winery that fueled Gigi’s passion for liquor, and what’s also ironic is that Gigi’s father himself, even though he was outraged by his brother, did commit adultery himself with another woman, which gave Gigi another half-sibling.

I’m also starting to get the central theme of this series: the past. Sure, every character here has his or her own past, and collection of bad memories, but this series asks the question: why would one still hold a grudge for these events? Nicoletta came to Rome in the first place to smack her mother for the things she did to her, but then she came to understand how her mother found happiness that way, and she just stopped with trying to make her mother’s life miserable. Claudio and his wife must have shared a few sad memories when they broke up, and yet the two of them still are on good terms with each other. And this episode shows the same with Lorenzo and Gigi: sure, their parents did some stupid things, but is that really enough to hate them and get emo over it? The only one who got worked up over it was Gigi’s father.

This really is a-typical of most anime, who most often put lots of angst in these sad past events, but this series shows that they can also be very well used in order to flesh out characters without any angst whatsoever. Vito’s up in the next episode, so I’m interested to see what he can offer to this.

Rating: ** (Excellent)
Excellent art direction, combined with Gigi’s fascinating backstory.

Major Review – 72,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



I’ve been looking forward to watch the Major series for a while now, and with this I finally managed to check out the first season. The baseball series form a truly underrated genre in anime, with most people getting turned off because they don’t know anything about the games. Well, let me tell you that I’m in no way a sports fan, and yet I’ve enjoyed myself quite a few wonderful baseball series, and I was hoping to add Major to that list. Well, that’s definitely taught me not to get my hopes up too high before starting a series.

The premise seems solid enough: this season shows a young boy of nine years old named Goro as he challenges the little league with his team, and the succeeding series will show him as he slowly grows up into adulthood. It would have been a fine series if it wasn’t for the damned cheese that this show overflows with. I know that passion and manliness can spice up an anime, but this show is really taking that way too far.

This series just tries way too hard to create as much drama as possible. Just as an example, they really try to make Goro’s past as sad as possible. Whenever things are looking a bit too happy, you can bet your hat that very soon something unexpected will happen that will put everyone in despair. The characters are always eager to angst, and especially the way in which Goro just keeps yelling and whining at everyone really doesn’t help anything.

This would have been excused if it wasn’t for the other flaws of this series: the characters. There’s definitely development among them, but it’s handled so badly at times that it gets really hard to take this show seriously. The worst example of this is the bullies: one episode we see a bunch of bullies turn one of their classmates’ life into hell, the next episode we see Goro yelling at them and suddenly they’re begging for forgiveness, professing their love for baseball from out of nowhere and completely change character.

And this formula really appears pretty often, by the way. Whenever a side-character is feeling down of has his issues, then within an episode we see Goro yelling at them and giving a speech about the power of friendship and they’re completely healed again. In the second half of the show, a bit of pointless romance also pops up that never gets anywhere, and especially since we’re dealing with nine year-old kids here, I really wonder why the creators bothered with it anyway.

Then there’s the baseball. Granted, it’s not the worst part of the show and the creators are able to create some interesting situations and fun games… but the fact remains that the matches are just too forced. This isn’t the first time in which a baseball series has an incredibly good pitcher as a lead character, but even when taking that into considation, Major is really stretching it with Goro. He needs a team full of incompetent idiots in order to prevent him from God-moding himself through every single game with ease. Within six months, he transforms a team that started out with a bunch of random kids with no talent for baseball to the best team of their age in Japan. All through the power of friendship.

It’s therefore no wonder that the baseball matches become utterly predictable, in a bad way. Characters become incredibly good or bad, depending on the writers’ wishes. Even though all the opposing teams use interesting strategies, the only tactics in Goro’s team are ad-libbed. But the worst thing is that every single game is set up exactly so that Goro is the one to save the day, by scoring a point at the very last possible moment.

Usually I can excuse a flaw here and there in a series, but Major just has way too many of them, not to mention that Goro himself is completely unlikable. He really is your typical shounen lead character with a dark past and a simple mind, and really doesn’t do anything to diverge from it. Most of the opposing teams would have been more interesting if they didn’t simply turn into stereotypes. There are some interesting characters, like Joe Gibson and Shigeno, but the two of them hardly ever appear.

And as for some positive comments: the baseball matches are definitely exciting. when you watch them for the pure entertainment value and don’t mind how it ends, then they’re going to keep you busy, because there is lots and lots of passion in this series. The graphics look simple, but the animation and music also do their job and don’t stand in the way of anything. But the thing is that there are many baseball shows that are so just much better than this one. Try Adachi’s works, or if you want more excitement there is also Princess Nine, while for the tactics you can go to One Outs and I’ve also heard that Ookiku Furikabutte is awesome. I’m just not going to bother with Major anymore.

Storytelling: 7/10
Characters: 7/10
Production-Values: 8/10
Setting: 7/10

07-Ghost – 06

by psgels, posted in 07-Ghost



Interesting episode, and I’m still surprised at how good the battles in this series are. This episode starts the offensive of Ayanami to get Teito out of that church, and while this episode only showed the beginning of his wave of attacks, he did immediately use Mikage’s sister for his plans. We still have no idea why the heck Mikage was released in the first place, though.

And with this episode it also becomes clear that Teito has hidden powers, but ah well, I guess that there was really no other way with him being exceptionally talented for a student, and everyone and his dog in the military having to go after him. Ayanami now also knows that there’s something really strong protecting Teito, so it’s going to be interesting to see what his next plans are going to be. Frau and the others can’t protect Teito forever, and while their weapons may be strong against ghouls, they’re going to have to face trained military artists now.

My prediction though, is that Teito is going to remain in the church just fine until at least episode 13, at which probably something major is going to happen. In the meantime, this show is doing a good job of fleshing out the characters and their strange customs. There’s an entirely different culture inside this church, and the light-hearted moments of this show have really allowed to show some interesting customs and rituals of what goes on inside the church. Because of the Ghosts, I can imagine how the church has managed to survive for ages without any influence from the outside, and so they really were able to explore what they found were important.

Rating: * (Good)
A bit clichéd, but nevertheless the fight rocked.

Konnichiwa Anne – 06

by psgels, posted in Konnichiwa Anne



Oh my god. I really did not expect this. Let me say that this season features lots and lots of great and excellent series, and so I never considered Konnichiwa Anne as the top of this season.

But seriously, this episode was without a doubt the single most emotionally powerful episode of the entire Spring Season so far. I expected that the entire episode would deal with Elisa getting emo over and over about not wanting to leave Anne behind, and then it pulls this. I so did not expect that.

We start the episode with a little recap of what happened in the previous episode, and we see how the conversation between Elisa and her father goes on for a bit longer. Bert tells her that if Elisa’s going to stay, just because of Anne, she’s going to regret it every day, and blame Johanna and Anne for it, and hate him even more than she already does, and he tells her that her life is of her own, and that she should leave the house.

Elisa leaves, saying that she saw a side of her father that she never knew he had. Anne meanwhile is running away into the nearby forest, which is quite troubling for Johanna as she’s approaching the birth of her new child and wanted someone to rub her back. Elisa goes to look for her, and quickly finds her. When they get back home, Johanna again reminds Anne of how she’s not going to London. Anne then goes to her room and tries to pack her stuff along with that of Elisa, in the hope of getting to travel with Elisa, but the wedding ring on Elisa isn’t helping much.

The next couple of days, Anne doesn’t say anything and just quietly and angrily does her job, even scaring off Horace and Edward, no matter how Elisa asks her to start speaking. Roger then arrives at their home, and the two of them make up for the time in which Elisa ran away in the next episode. As Anne watches them, she promises herself not to fall in love (and that explains why sin the original series she never really was that interested in love).

Elisa tells Roger about Anne’s behavior, and roger tells her that he managed to get the ship’s tickets, and they’ll be leaving the next week. There’s no time left, so he figures that they’re going to have to rush the marriage, but Elise doesn’t want to get married without Anne being there. That’s why Roger proposes to delay the marriage, and simply go to London with the two of them.

At the day that Elisa is going to leave, she says goodbye to her mother, who comments on how the baby inside of her is remaining awfully quiet. Elisa then says goodbye to her little brothers and gives them a farewell hug. Anne still is nowhere to be found, so Elisa and Roger wait until there’s no time left, but Anne stubbornly remains hidden under Elisa’s desk. Bert gives his own subtle farewell gesture, and the two of them leave. Anne realizes too late that she still wants to say goodbye, tries to run after the carriage but is just too far behind. Horace then walks up to her with the message that the baby is coming.

Bert went to call the local midwife, so it’s up to Anne to take care of Anne. Anne immediately snaps out of her gloom and focuses on getting hot water and getting the boys out of the way, while commenting on how painful it looks. Anne helps massage Johanna’s back a bit, but it doesn’t really help ease the pain. Bert meanwhile is in bad luck because the midwife happened to be on a trip, and so she can’t make it in time for the baby to be born. This means that Anne has to be the one to help deliver the baby. When the baby is halfway out, Anne comments on how it has a blue colour, and so Johanna screams at her to get the baby out.

Bert arrives just too late, and Anne meanwhile is crying because of the things that she was forced to do. It’s a boy, by the way. The next morning, Bert gives Anne the opportunity to name the new baby, and so Anne walks away exhausted. She talks a bit to her reflection in one of the cupboards and then comes up with the new name: Maya (or however you spell it, it was really hard for me to make out how to actually spell it), and the episode ends.

So oh my god, where to start? I know that I talked down on this series when it first started, but with this episode it definitely earned its title as World Masterpiece Theatre. Sure, it was a bit convenient for Johanna to give birth right after Elisa left, but this really caught me unexpectedly. We’re all busy with the sadness that someone important is leaving Anne’s life, and then suddenly there are much more important things to worry about: delivering that damned baby. Especially considering how it so easily could have gone wrong. It really is such a task for such a young girl to just pull that baby out of a woman, and really it could have gone horribly wrong if she didn’t. That birth-scene and especially the aftermath was more emotionally powerful than anything I have seen thus far in this season.

And Bert! I know that the guy is a lazy bum. I know that he is a horrible father and husband and slacks off too much. And yet I love his character and how it’s getting fleshed out. Now that he’s found a job, we really can see a different side of his. That one of a cold, lazy and useless, but caring father. The way he completely lost his cool when he was waiting for the midwife to show up really shows that he cares about his family, even though he doesn’t often show this, and the way in which he understood that Elisa was off worse if she were to stay with him was really surprisingly mature for a guy who hits his wife.

What’s also interesting is that sudden parallel with Kaze no Shoujo Emily that popped up in this scene. That really was surprisingly similar to the time in which Teddy went away to London for a few years and Emily missed the chance to say goodbye to him because of her own stubbornness. But in this case, it’s pretty sad because with this, Anne has really lost her best friend and it really doesn’t look like they’re going to be living together again. Now, Anne really doesn’t have anyone to confide into and is just going to be taking care of the young boys until the inevitable happens and she’ll be forced to leave her aunt.

And another thing I really liked about this episode is that Anne really behaved like a little girl in it, especially during the first half in which she does nothing but pouting because she’s unhappy, and how she refuses to listen to anyone. The whole thing with Elisa leaving was done surprisingly subtle, with just the right amount of angst in it.

Rating: **** (Fantastic)
So many things come together in this episode; an incredible emotional ride from start to finish.

Guin Saga – 06

by psgels, posted in Guin Saga



Oh boy, this series is sure promising some great things. In the next episode, we’re going to see Guin along with an army of ape-men try to take on 15000 Mongols. I really can’t think of any fantasy series that correctly pulled off battles between entire armies a la Lord of the Rings, but if there’s any series that can do it, then it’s going to be this one.

And yeah, I’ve been trying to think of something to compare this series with, and this really has a lot in common with Lord of the Rings, the anime, especially when you look at the presentation of the movies: beautiful landscapes, different races, majestic architecture and battles on a very large scale. The big difference is that the enemies this time aren’t a bunch of dumb orcs, but human beings themselves. That’s one thing I dislike of a lot of western fantasy: its “humans good orcs bad” mentality. I mean come on, break the boundaries between good and evil a bit.

In any case, the next episode is probably going to be make or break for this series, and we’ll see if it can pull off such a huge battle (of which we probably will see much more in this series) correctly. I’m not asking for much, just as long as it doesn’t screw up as badly as Valkyria Chronicles did in its first episodes. But I’m confident: so far, the only flaw in the combat of Guin Saga was that at times the mood gets ruined by bad animation, which really stands out like no other in this series amidst the otherwise beautiful drawings.

As for the rest of this episode, it mostly built up for that next episode, but I’m glad to see that the graphics looked much better than the past episodes. The fact that Satelight ended up animating this series really has its good and bad sides: on one hand, the best shots look really good, but at the same time the lesser shots really visibly lack polish. It’s about the opposite of companies as Production IG and Kyoani, who hardly ever seem bothered corner-cutting.

Rating: * (Good)
Building up, but that battle in the beginning was pretty good.

Shangri-La – 06

by psgels, posted in Shangri-La



Having a flawed character as Kuniko is always a bit of a double edged sword, since she often ca get on people’s nerves, but I find her to be surprisingly solid as a lead character. This episode was mostly meant to build up and shed more light into what kind of powers she has, as she seems to be able to track down Medusa when it’s manipulating the carbon industry. It’s already been hinted that there is some kind of connection between Kuniko and Karin, and the two of them might have some similarity that allowed Karin to so easily take over the carbon industry.

I’m personally a big fan of mystery-series, and that part is getting pretty well developed in this series. Kunihito for example: we learn that there’s more to this guy than meets the eye, which when you think about it makes sense: why else would Atlas send a rookie out to such an important mission? We know that he is in some way important to Naruse Ryouko, and important enough for her to consider his record as secret.

And where does Kuniko’s grandmother fit in all of this. She clearly plays a role, since she’s able to follow the world carbon markets, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she played some part in getting Karin to the place she is now. With her daughter highly placed in Atlas, and her granddaughter having someone related to Mikuni as her mentor, she sounds like one of the key persons in this whole mystery.

It’s obvious that this series is still building up, but what makes the difference between this show and Valkyria Chronicles, which is doing the same, is that with Shangri-La, I can really see some potential for the future: there are lots of things going on and built up that can promise to be so interesting for the future, while Valkyria Chronicles is just stuck in stereotyped side-characters and formulaic battles. I’m not sure how many others still like this series, but I’m pretty much sold and eager to watch the second half of this series.

Rating: * (Good)
The animation turned buggy again but it’s still much better than the first four episodes. This pretty much was an episode of building up, and it did this well.