Author: psgels

Natsu no Arashi – 06

by psgels, posted in Natsu no Arashi



Okay, that’s it. With this, you can consider Valkyria Chronicles dropped and Natsu no Arashi picked back up. Not only was the past episode of VC incredibly bad, but the current episode of NnA was also incredibly good. We’re really talking about a wolf in sheep’s clothing here: after the silly first episode, did anyone expect that five episodes later, we’d see the characters in the midst of a sea of fire after a bombing in the second world war? Thought so.

And seriously, before this season started I really didn’t expect that I’d like the next series by Shinbo this much. After Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei, Maria Holic and watching Tsukuyomi Moon Phase, I really was through with the guy, and especially that announcement of him trying to regurgitate yet another season of Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei, which really hit its expiration date long ago made me worried. And yet here he comes, picks out a great manga and adapts it really well so far. The storyline has been getting really interesting in its focus of past vs present, and the filler episodes are a lot of fun to watch (like last episode’s cross-dressing bit).

This episode was much more serious, in which we for the first time see Jun and Kaja go back in time for the first time (making interesting use of the fact that Jun’s actually a girl), and we turn to the place in which she herself grew up, and we get to know her first love right before he died in a bombing. Since Kaja is less confident than Arashi, a large par of this episode is spent on her wondering whether or not to change history.

And poor Jun gets dragged around all the way, but we really get more insight into ‘her’ character in this episode as well as she sees Kaja struggle with her past love. I also like the reason she has for cross-dressing, how she holds some sort of grudge against the average female.

Rating: ** (Excellent)
Wonderful art style, a really dark and deep episode for such a seemingly innocent series.

Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood – 06

by psgels, posted in Full Metal Alchemist - Brotherhood



Again an episode in which two chapters cropped in order to get to the new material as soon as possible. It was to be expected, but for once I have to say that the original series handled it better. Especially the return to Resembool-arc needs a full episode in order to have its full impact. Half an episode is just too little to make the most out of Armstrong gradually understanding the situation that Ed and Al are in.

In the first half of the episode, Marco suddenly turns up. It’s an interesting decision of the creators to introduce him like this: he simply was at the wrong time at the wrong place and Armstrong happened to see him. While chances of this happening are of course very slim, it could happen, since the guy seems to be travelling by train often. It’s obviously flawed, but somehow, I’m buying it. The short length and early death of Basque Gran also had also an extra advantage, since we didn’t have to watch endless scenes of Marco getting emo when Basque Gran discovers him.

But the interesting news is that we should be getting to the really new material in three or four episodes with a bit of luck, if my memory doesn’t fail me. The next episode is probably going to be about the research in the library, then the next episode is probably going to deal with Laboratory five, and after that it’s going to get interesting, since that bugger of a Shou Tucker is dead so someone else needs to guide Ed into trying to make that Philosopher’s stone (or whatever it was that they did in the manga).

Bones has been a strange production company in terms of adaptations. Ignoring that their endings usually fall short, they often try to add things to their adaptations to make them better. The original season did the same, and it really did some scenes well: some of the quiet scenes that were added really added more life to the characters, but yeah: the problem was that huge string of filler episodes that just wasn’t interesting at all. Arcs like the Phantom Thief, the Fake Brothers or that one in which the broken Al gets lost and they spend an entire episode chasing him just to return the status quo: what really was the point of that? They really were a pain to get through.

But looking back, it’s amazing how much the creators managed to cut: at this point, we’re eleven episodes ahead of the original series already, and the result is already looking pretty competent. The question is of course going to be: will the creators slow down once they reach the new stuff?

Rating: (Enjoyable)
A light and laid-back episode and still it’s rushed, but it’s pretty solid so far and Marco’s story was much better than in the original.

Cross Game – 06

by psgels, posted in Cross Game



And so it’s finally time for the characters to enter high-school, and this show still is as solid as a rock. As it turns out, there are two teams at the baseball club. The best one consists out of most of the older members and Azuma Yuuhei, it has as coach the daughter of the vice principal and a great coach with the potential to make it to Koushien. Oh, and also for some reason Useless Guy also got a spot in it. The second one has all of the new users, including Kou and Akaishi and some of the worst players of the higher years. They’ve got the old coach and an non-popular yet dedicated manager. I didn’t quite pick up what happened to Aoba, but my guess is that she ended up as the captain of some sort of third team, while she also practices with the lower boys team.

What’s also interesting is Azuma’s habit of not remembering the names and faces of people without talent, and there are four of them whose name he can remember. Of course Kou is one of them, but I wonder about the other three. My guess would be the guy who was yawning in class, Aoba, but apart from that I haven’t seen any hints yet at that fourth one. That’s the sneaky bit of this series: it keeps giving hints here and there but half of the time there is no way to tell what they exactly mean when you see them, and it’s always going to take a while before their meaning becomes really clear. The only reason why Aoba and Yawn-guy stood out to me was because Yawn-guy’s yawn-scene was pretty much parallel to Azuma arriving late, and my guess of Aoba is only because she caught Azuma’s eye when she walked past, possibly hinting at how she’s still sticking to his mind.

What I also like is how Akaishi, Kou and the other one whose name I forgot are pretty much trying to fool everyone with their secret weapon Kou. They even deliberately ended up in the lower team, in order to make as much of an impact as possible and I like how both Azuma and the new coach are starting to suspect that something is going on, but still can’t exactly put their fingers on what.

I’d just wish that there was somewhere a list with characters and their names. Even the official sites lacks it. While all characters are unique, it does remain pretty hard to keep track of all of the names of the side-characters.

Rating: ** (Excellent)
First episode at high-school with lots of things building up at the same time. Still no signs of weaknesses at all.

Valkyria Chronicles – 06

by psgels, posted in Valkyria Chronicles



This post is going to contain slight spoilers of Kurokami 16, but I want to use that as an example of something that I fear that Valkyria Chronicles is going to turn into, since it was a good wake-up call for myself as well. The thing is, that a series may be spending lots of time building up, but it still needs to do this skillfully, and that’s what’s making me more and more worried. We’re six episodes in, and I’m not going to be able to maintain my suspense of disbelief much longer.

In the case with Kurokami, while it had an unimpressive first half I decided to give it the benefit of the doubt just like this series, in the hope that it was going to get better in its second half. And sure enough, the second half featured some juicy plot twists and character-development, but what I failed to notice (or rather refused to notice) was the fact that the battles were too orchestrated in order to make the lead characters win. The result popped up in episode sixteen, which pulled just about every Deus ex Machina imaginable and pretty much ruined all of the suspense of disbelief I had built up when it resurrected the lead character out of nowhere with no possibly explicable reason whatsoever. Even for Sunrise, it was one very blatant character-resurrection.

And that’s what I’m fearing is going to happen with Valkyria Chronicles: six episodes in, and I still haven’t been impressed with anything, and the strategical combat is unfortunately flawed. While I didn’t mention it last week, it just is too hard to belief that this battle-hardened commander of the enemy troops would be fooled by a simple tactic to split up an army into two halves. I can’t see how he couldn’t have done something to that tank. I hoped that this general stupidity would fade, but it’s still there, and even gotten more out of hand in the current episode. It’s got me very worried that this series isn’t going to be able to pull off a good fight when the second half arrives and it needs to deliver. Right now the only solid part of this show is its cast of characters, but when the creators are just going to dumb down their opponents so that they can win, then I don’t think that the character-development is going to be able to save this show.

At the moment, I’m really starting to regret continuing to blog this show in favour of Natsu no Arashi, which really has been getting better and better, unlike what I’ve seen in Valkyria Chronicles so far. If I recall correctly, this was mostly because of the large amount of people who didn’t want me to stop blogging it, but at the moment I still can’t see whether the commitment is going to be worth it. It may have been that this episode was just plain dull, but if this goes on I’m probably going to drop this series at the end of this season, in favour for one of the new shows of the Summer Season.

And yeah, this episode was pretty much a disaster. We already knew that Alicia wasn’t too bright, but this episode established just about everyone as an idiot. Especially Brigitte and Largo seemed completely different characters this time: their change is way too sudden. And I also was really disappointed to see that some support members of squad seven were just a bunch of stereotypes: finally there’s the chance to show a bit more of them, and the creators then use it to transform them into a bunch of paper bags. The only one I even remotely liked was the gay guy.

Rating: — (Dull)
It’s one thing to have a filler episode now and then. It’s another thing to completely change character-personalities and make everyone behave like complete morons.

Maria-Sama ga Miteru Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



I really didn’t know what to make of this series when I first started watching it. Maria-Sama ga Miteru has been going on for three seasons and one OVA right now, and this review is going to be of the first of the bunch. It tells the story of a very strict Christian school and especially the elite students: the student council and the ones around them. The focus isn’t so much on the management-tasks of the council, but much more about them being the role models that they are, and their relationship with their so-called “Soeur”: an underclassman that they pick out to be their “sister”.

My initial impressions on this series weren’t exactly good. The beginning episodes were just too… boring, and there wasn’t really anything that made me want to watch the next episode. The drama mostly revolved around things that were hugely overstated: the characters really made a fuzz about even the smallest things that their co-stars did wrong. I can understand how gossip is supposed to be an important part of the show’s themes, but it really didn’t interest me at all.

Yumi (the lead character) didn’t help either, as out of all the characters she was the most annoying one, which is something you really don’t want to happen to one of the central characters in a series. She’s naive, just keeps whining about all sorts of things, she lacks background (that may be saved for the future seasons, though) and all in all, her story just isn’t as interesting as the other ones of this show.

But oh my god, the side-characters really were amazing, especially within only 13 episodes. While nothing much interesting happens in the first half of this show, the cast really comes alive in the second half. I especially loved Sei’s story, with one magnificent episode dedicated to her past standing out as the absolute highlight for me, but all members of the side-cast are rich and colourful, they have a deep story behind them and are very subtly developed.

And the side-characters really are the ones who are solely able to carry this series. The character-designs are well done, but the animation has quite a few bugs here and there, and you also don’t want to watch this series for the storytelling or setting: they do their job of being solid and staying in the background, don’t have any flaws, but also don’t stand out either.

So yeah despite Yumi I just can’t look negatively at this series. Good things come to those who wait, and that definitely applies to this series. There’s lots of character-development, but it all has a sense of subtlety, which is pretty rare in anime, and even Yumi isn’t the worst of characters once you get to know her a bit. And while she may be featured often in this series, there still is plenty of time in which the rest of the cast has the chance to get fleshed out. I’m interested what the other seasons can add to this series, because there’s plenty of potential left after only thirteen episodes.

Storytelling: 8/10
Characters: 9/10
Production-Values: 8/10
Setting: 8/10

Eden of the East – 05

by psgels, posted in Eden of the East



This episode was a typical building-up episode, but it definitely added some extra intrigue to this series. Most of the episode was about Saki’s first interview, but we also get to see two more of the Selecao: Number One and a strange woman whose number we don’t get to see and who seems to be a bit too full of herself. That Number one really baffles me, though. There are lots of hints pointing at how he’s the supporter, he seems to have a lot of connections to the Selecao, and yet he didn’t just kill off pre-mindwipe Akira like he did with the other two.

Speaking of which, if you take a look at the OP, at one point you see connections being made between certain numbers of the Selecao: One is linked to all of them, while Nine (Akira) is linked to Four (Kondou), One is linked to Two and Ten once more, and Three is linked to Twelve. There are three numbers that disappear: Four, Five (as shown in the previous episodes) and Ten, who I guess would be that woman of this episode. What’s also interesting is that apart from them, it is suggested that nobody dies… or that might be saved for the movie.

In any case, it also gets revealed that Akira didn’t kill off the NEETs at all: he just dropped them in the middle of Dubai and had Juiz made it look like he killed them so that others wouldn’t start searching for them, allowing the NEETs to finally have to do something for themselves. And that was his way of trying to make the world better.

Saki was also great in this episode, with her first job interview and all. Her depressed look after seeing the interview failed felt really genuine to me.

Rating: * (Good)
Just building up, but still a very nice episode.

Pandora Hearts – 06

by psgels, posted in Pandora Hearts



Okay, so this episode explains what the heck happened in those first three episodes, although most of it consisted of things that we already were able to guess: ten years indeed have passed, and Raven indeed is Gilbert. The reason why Gilbert betrayed Oz turned out to be simple brainwashing: in this episode we meet the one who did it, inside Oz’s house that has aged ten years and all. That still leaves the question of why Sharon didn’t age one bit, though.

My problem with this episode was that it may have been a bit too cheesy in the end. Brainwashing is very hard to do well, simply because it’s so easy for the characters to break the spell of brainwashing through the power of love, and for a moment it really looked like this was going to be the case when Oz yet again had to face a brainwashed Gilbert.

I didn’t expect him to pull the trigger, though. Obviously something is going to happen that’s going to prevent Oz from dying instantly, but I’m intrigued as to what exactly it is. We’ve now seen that this is a show where people don’t necessarily die when they’re killed, but the matter is going to be whether they can explain it well. For example the latest subbed episodes of Gintama have had Gintoki penetrated by swords, bullets and god knows what, only for all of these wounds to completely disappear a day later. That’s obviously not how to do this. But in Pandora Hearts, if there indeed is some sort of link between the Abyss and dying, I’ll buy it.

Either that or the gun just missed; that’s also of course a possibility. But then again, this show doesn’t strike me as the type to use those kinds of anti-climaxes.

Rating: (Enjoyable)
Really evil antagonist, good to see a bit more of the past of Oz and Gilbert, though a bit too cheesy in the end.

Basquash! – 06

by psgels, posted in Basquash!



So at last we’ve gotten to the main part of the story: getting Dan to the moon so that he can find a way to fix Coco’s legs through some version of major league basketball (or Basquash). This episode shows the auditions, which include of course Dan, Sera and Iceman, but also one of Iceman’s old rivals, a tall black long-haired guy (apparently called Man-Z) and… our little princess (coached by Coco). Never knew that she had that much inner basketball talents.

But yeah, the reason why I like Basquash so far is that there’s always so many different stuff going on. The show doesn’t have a particularly big cast when compared to others, but it does feel like everyone is doing something. There are countless subplots going on in every episode, ranging from trivial to important. It’s great to see a character in which everyone is chasing after their own agenda and what they themselves feel important, rather than everyone walking after the lead character like a tame little lamb. Sure, Dan’s passion for basketball is the thing that keeps this series together, but everyone seems to react in a different way to this.

And that’s the thing with this show: behind the boobs, strange use of basketball and… businessmen who give pet names to boobs and blow soap bubbles, there’s quite a bit of substance behind it that you wouldn’t suspect on first sight. This series never forgets that it’s supposed to be a fun show (at least, up to this point), and yet there’s an air of seriousness that never feels out of place.

It’s also good to finally see some of the faces behind those pesky cops who keep ruining everything as soon as they come walking in with their own mechas (walking police cars… you just have to think of it). I also like how this show manages to portray the street culture here. Man-Z for example: he never got himself a proper introduction, but he was just one of the other guys who passed the audition and simply started chatting with Sera and the other winners. Very natural.

Rating: * (Good)
Introduces a bunch of new characters, a new arc and quite a bit of potential while still remaining fun. But why he bubbles?

Phantom – 06

by psgels, posted in Phantom



Six episodes in, and Phantom still is one of my favourites of the current series. Even for a Bee-Train series, this show is magnificent. The characterization is so subtle, and yet it works so well. It’s something Koichi Masahino has always been good at, but with because his source-material this time was already very good, this promises to be among his better work.

And I must say, that despite the increasing fanservice, Ein’s character-designs are what I consider the best of the season. I’m probably one of the few who believes “simplicity = better”, but Ein really looks gorgeous, even though her character-designs are kept simple on purpose (and with this I don’t mean simplicity in the way of Cross Game, but rather not going through huge lengths to make characters look unique. Something that a lot of harem shows need to understand).

This episode was much more about the assassin-part of this series. While the mafia-boss of the previous episode may have lost his wife and son, he still has a couple of powerful allies, and they get taken care of in this episode. Mostly by Phantom, but I also liked how Inferno has a strong support cast to back them up and help them. You can really see that everything was planned carefully ahead to bring the risk to a minimum.

Rating: ** (Excellent)
Very strong episode as usual with the lead characters getting only better and better

Some thoughts on the “Anime is Dying” doom scenarios

by psgels, posted in Special Articles

Okay, so most of you probably know that I don’t write a lot of editorials because I suck at them, but I still want to say a few words about this subject. After Howling-Kun mentioned the DVD-sales of certain shows in the shoutbox, I started looking at some of the other data in this topic. Now, this is not going to be a rant on how most of my favourite shows aren’t getting any DVD-sales. Everyone’s of course entitled to what he wants to buy (although it does get harder and harder to associate myself with this fandom when shows like Training with Hinako top the charts…).

Instead, those rankings reminded me of all the fuzz that’s going on, and how many people seem to be claiming that “anime is dying”. With this many times that the same doom-scenarios popped up, I almost started believing this myself, until I saw the actual facts in the following graph of DVD-sales in the topic mentioned above.

Well, I may not be an economist or anything near it, but here is my interpretation of the graph. First of all, I don’t get any of those arguments about how anime is supposed to be dying. Sure, sales have gone down compared to 2005, but that’s just a very selective analysis: compare it to ten years ago, and you can see a huge increase in sales. The decline in sales of the past years is about the equivalent of a kick in the groin: sure, you’re going to be walking funny for the next couple of hours, but “dying” is a big overstatement.

The thing is, that the year with the biggest sales was 2005. Interestingly enough, the response in 2006 to this was a huge increase in the amount of different anime titles that was released, as everyone seemed to be profiting from this boom in the sales of the industry. Unfortunately though: just like in the stock market, when sales suddenly go up, this isn’t going to continue forever. Right now, the anime industry is trying to find a new balance amidst the significantly increased interest in anime for the past ten years, and until it has found this the market is going to wobble around like a drunk student on his way home.

And as for the relatively low sales figures of 2008: did you seriously expect anything different with the current economic crisis? The recession has also hit Japan very hard, so it’s of course to be expected that last year’s sales would decrease. What I actually haven’t seen yet is people who are looking at the future. Sure, reports like this are nice and all, but they seem to assume that this recession is going to take forever.

With a bit of luck, the economic crisis is going to be mostly over in 2011 which is going to allow the industries to recover. So what’s going to happen with anime when that point arrives? When that point arrives, people are going to have more and more money to spend on anime, so there actually is a chance for a very solid recovery in the not-so-distant future. Who knows?

And really, as long as producers are able to churn out well-produced series of which they know are never going to sell well, I’m not buying those “anime is dying”-arguments anymore. As long as there are Genji Monogataris, Himitsus, Porfys and Kaibas, it shows that the animation companies aren’t at the real edge of destruction.