Author: psgels

Shangri-La – 02

by psgels, posted in Shangri-La



Short Synopsis: The metal-age and Atlas get attacked by a mysterious party.
Episode Rating: 7,5/10 (Good)
Okay, so I’m obviously not going to blog the beyond ridiculous Hanasakeru Seishonen, but I’m pretty excited about Gonzo’s new series of Shangri-La.It may not be the most solid series, but it’s got enough of one thing: creativity. It now is the job of the creators to fit this creativity properly into only 24 episodes, but with the guy behind Noein and Birdy the Mighty’s series composition, I think that we can expect some great things from this show. The director himself doesn’t really strike me as anything special or unique, but he has potential, having worked at many different staff position for many different series in the past, and I’m trusting on the experience of these guys to make this series work.

My only complaints about this show so far is just a bit of nit-pickery: in this episode Kuniko and Momoko for example are discovered by the enemy and have to run away for their lives, and while doing so they casually start to talk about golden balls. That doesn’t exactly feel appropriate in that situation, does it?

Nevertheless, there’s lots of nice stuff in this series. I like how when a building gets destroyed, it remains destroyed. The music also rocks, and I also really like the different and varied character-designs. There’s some definite chemistry between the characters, which promises a lot of potential for this series’ second half. All in all, it’s a very fun episode to watch, and yet the darker themes of the show regarding the carbon emissions, military oppression and the dystopian-esque setting don’t lose their impact.

Natsu no Arashi – 02

by psgels, posted in Natsu no Arashi



Short Synopsis: This episode shows how Arashi and Hajime met each other.
Episode Rating: 7,5/10 (Enjoyable)
I had trouble choosing between this series and Saki to blog. In the end, I chose not to blog Saki, for two reasons:
– It’s being directed by the director of freakin’ Dragonaut.
– With a concept like that, it’s always going to remain in the shadows of the incredible Shion no Ou.

Natsu no Arashi has wit. It’s cast is a nice mix of children and adults and it’s really something different this time. It’s the first time I’m going to blog one of Shinbo’s series, and I’m glad to see that the guy is finally trying out something new and interesting again, since his past works just failed to impress me. Especially Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei was just Pani Poni Dash II, no matter how much I liked how it started.

I’m also surprised at how underrated this show has become. I’m finding it pretty enjoyable: it has characters with an identity, albeit some of them can become a bit annoying, I admit. But what I like about this series is how it combines slice of life and comedy with mystery. That’s not a combination you see often, and it works pretty well: on one hand this can create very interesting situations, like how in this episode Sayaka’s talents as a con artist got rid of the muscular guy who kept bugging them. And on the other way, I’m getting really curious right now what’s up with Arashi: why is she a ghost? why are people after her? who is she anyway? Who is this Sogoru-guy? Characterization is usually one of Shinbo’s weakest points, and yet here he proves the complete opposite.

I think that the reason for that is the addition of the director of ef and the guy behind ef’s series composition, who manage to balance out Shinbo’s crazy style. It’s an interesting combination without a doubt. There are no signs that this is going to turn into something overambitious like a tale of melodies, so I’m pretty interested in this series.

And of course, the art direction really rocks.

Guin Saga – 02

by psgels, posted in Guin Saga



Short Synopsis: Guin, Rinda and Remus get captured by the enemies.
Episode Rating: 8/10 (Epic)
Oh, Guin Saga is promising to be another one of the gems of the current spring season. Perhaps not the best, but I just can’t ignore such an epic series that at the same time favours a very slow pacing and solid storytelling. This really is the kind of series that draws you in so far, and the choice of Satelight as the animation company really fits this sort of story.

Obviously, with the original novels currently at a staggering 124 volumes (?!), there is no way in hell that the creators are going to be able to stuff this into only 26 episodes (or however long this series might end up to be), so I wonder how the creators are going to plan to end this thing, but that shouldn’t be that big of a deal.

The problems with this show of course are of course that when you start objectively looking past the haunting dialogue, great atmosphere, terrific music and solid graphics, there isn’t that much new: the creators specifically chose this slow pacing and simple setting as a base, and from this they’ll probably slowly develop the rest of the setting. I’m interested in what kind of character-development this series seems to be going for as well: here we have Guin and Rinda, who are already very stable characters without much flaws in their personality that they need to overcome. Instead, Guin’s flaw is his amnesia and the fact that nearly everyone sees him as a monster, while Rinda’s problem is that she’s a grown up stuck into a child’s body that nobody’s going to listen to, now that she lost her status as a princess.

And then there is of course the evil overlord that makes his presence in this episode, who probably is my least favourite character of the show. The guy really needs to be fleshed out, get some development, or have something happen to him to make him more than your average sadistic bad guy. But then again, it’s only been two episodes. There’s plenty of time left for that.

Cross Game – 02

by psgels, posted in Cross Game



Short Synopsis: Aoba thinks back to a game that she played against Kou.
Episode Rating: 8/10 (Excellent)
As for the shows I”m not going to blog:
– Shin Mazinger Z is manly, GAR, fun, epic and a whole lot more things, but you want to watch that series for the entertainment value, not its depth.

There are many reasons for me to blog Cross Game, but the most important one is the cast of characters. It’s only been two episodes, and they’re already very charming and relaxing to watch. This is promising to be an awesome slice of life show if this keeps up. The baseball is just second place for what’s really important here: the character-development and interaction.

And I must say, that it was a very nice idea to rush the first episode through the first volume so that it’d include the big twist of Aoba’s sister dying. this way, the melodrama is gone, and the important stuff that was missed can just be pasted in through flashbacks (which is exactly what this episode did). This really spices up things compared to when the creators would just have chosen the linear storyline, because this way you can really see the subtle character-development and how the big death influenced all of them.

I really like the wit of this series, but what stands out even more is that every single character, even the tiny ones with a few or no lines, have their charms and are interesting to watch, already within two episodes! The soundtrack also excellent, so if you’d ask me we have ourselves a winner here. 🙂

Valkyria Chronicles – 02

by psgels, posted in Valkyria Chronicles



Short Synopsis: Alicia tries to use the tank to bring everyone to safety.
Episode Rating: 7/10 (Enjoyable)
I must admit that blogging this show is going to be a huge gamble. At this point, I myself am not yet convinced of this show, but first: about the series I’m not going to blog:
– Slap Up Party, granted, is an interesting collaboration between Japan and Korea to produce an anime. Some of the jokes worked, but others however just fell flat. Not to mention that the drama sucks and is full of cliches.
– Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood. Why? Because everyone and his DOG is already going to blog it.

I like the new FMA, don’t get me wrong, but I’d much rather devote my attention to a show that actually needs the popularity. Seriously, what is it really that I can add to the already sixty other bloggers? I’ll continue to follow it obviously, and judging from the first episode, it is very likely that it’s going to surpass the original series.

As for Valkyria Chronicles: I see potential for potential, but this really is a series that’s decided to use its first 13 episodes for building up. That really can go anywhere, from incredibly bad to incredibly good. I’m intrigued, though: this is one of those series that didn’t start off ~showing all of its trumps in the beginning. While that didn’t make for the most exciting first episode, I do admit that it’s paying attention to fleshing out the characters very slowly. This attention to detail might prove to be interesting in the future.

But yeah, the show does need to get rid of the overall stupidity of some of the side-characters. People mistaking others for spies, or taking out a tank that isn’t fully charged. I guess that it meant to serve to show that mistakes in such a time of war can have grave consequences, but the creators shouldn’t end up building the plot around this stupidity.

Having said that, though: I admit that this is the first time that I’ve seen an anime focusing on tank combat. It surprises me, because in nearly every other show, tanks merely serve for cannon fodder for whatever giant robot or monster gets in their way, so it’s good to see an actual series that shows how handy these machines can be in warfare.

I’m also interested in the staff behind this series. A-1 Pictures is an interesting production-company and every single of their shows is trying to do something interesting with its animation (most notably Birdy the Mighty, of course ^^;), and you can see that here in the shading. Overall the colours in Valkyria Chronicles look very nice and they match really well with each other, while at the same time keeping a down-to-earth feeling.

The director is a new guy, it seems. He was the episode director of Ookiku Furikabutte (which as I heard was really good), and also directed a bunch of episodes for xxxHolic Kei, most notably the one with the ghost woman (which was very well executed and built up). The series composition is done by someone with lots of experience on all kinds of different series, including Princess Tutu, Strange Dawn, xxxHolic and Hare Nochi Guu (but unfortunately also Kujibiki Unbalance and Nabari no Ou), and with a bit of luck she’ll make sure that the series stays on track.

In this episode, Alicia ends up joining some sort of military academy or institution, it seems, and Welchim also seems to live there. I’m not sure what’s going to happen from here on, but I’m willing to give it the benefit of doubt.

Pandora Hearts – 02

by psgels, posted in Pandora Hearts



Short Synopsis: Oz attends his coming-of-age ceremony
Episode Rating: 8/10 (Excellent)
Well, well; it’s been a while since I accidentally deleted my own post before publishing it. At the moment I don’t feel like retyping everything again for a second time, but I do want to say that Pandora Hearts is promising to be good stuff, especially since the second episode was even better than the first. The thing it reminds me of the most is a 20th century fairy tale gone really dark.

It’s good to finally see another potentially great show from Xebec. They’re a strange production company: quite a few of their shows… fail to really impress (Heroic Age never really went anywhere, not to mention last year’s To Love-Ru and Kanokon), but at the same time they really hit the right marks for me with The Third, and some other excellent shows.

Phantom – 02

by psgels, posted in Phantom



Short Synopsis: Eins trains Zwei for his upcoming missions.
Episode Rating: 7,5/10 (Good)
Next up: Phantom, the show that turned me into a huge hypocrite (not that I wasn’t already one before, but okay). It was of course obvious that I was going to end up blogging this one, since I really like Bee-Train’s style of storytelling, but yeah: in the end it’s not exactly the most original series out there. Just like Kyoani, Bee-Train sucks because they hardly try to do any series outside of their comfort zone. On the other hand, however, I really like them because of their great sense of characterization and their very slow storytelling, in the same way as how Kyoani rocks because of their huge attention to detail.

This episode like expected was mostly building up. The biggest focus was making Zwei realize in what kind of situation he is: doomed as an assassin who serves to kill people, and a lot of the episode sees him training to make him catch up his skills with Eins (Ein?). I liked how this made the use of a gun difficult, and more than just a point-and-shoot game.

I’m not sure what’s up with all of the different people behind the scenes right now. At the moment they just feel too much like one and the same person, but with a bit of luck they’ll develop through the course of the series, and end up as individuals. But yeah, that’s most likely going to take a long while, considering that this is Bee-Train and all.

In terms of music, this time an interesting composer was chosen: Hikaru Nanase. She has produced a lot of soundtracks, but most of them didn’t really stand out, with two exceptions: she composed Shigofumi and Noein’s OST. The result is quite interesting: for a Bee-Train soundtrack it’s down to earth, and yet still awesome and varied. The ED by the ALI project is a bit disappointing, though. Bee-Train has already shown that they can even get some original music out of a band that just keeps producing the same tune over and over (the soundtrack they produced for .Hack//Roots still remains one of my favourite soundtracks out there, even though the series itself was a disaster), but the ED yet again felt incredibly out of place in this episode. The entire episode built up this somewhat slow and haunting atmosphere, and there the ED blasts out of the screen and nearly ruins this atmosphere.

Basquash! – 02

by psgels, posted in Basquash!



Short Synopsis: Dan quickly loses his status of hero when he goes up against a girl.
Episode Rating: 7,5/10 (Good)
As for the shows I’m not going to blog:
– Asura Cryin’ has annoying characters.
– K-On also has annoying characters, and its sense of humour just isn’t my cup of tea.
– Sengoku Basara’s ridiculously overpowered sword-fights are fun; I’ll give it that, but it also remains just another incredibly overblown shounen series. Fine to watch… but to blog?

Basquash isn’t exactly my favourite show of the season, and there are a lot of things wrong with this, but I decided to give it the benefit of doubt. The biggest reasons for that:
– It’s got style.
– The setting really feels like something different. Despite the silly premise, you can see that there went a lot of attention in developing it. It’s one of the few original settings this season.
– Very nice graphics, if you can stomach the CG.
– A charming cast of characters, despite being a bunch of kids they’re fun to watch.

My biggest reason not to blog this show was that I’m not the biggest fan of Shoji Kawamori. Especially when I tried to blog Macross Frontier last year: I just couldn’t get myself to like the characters in the end. Still, I guess that the cast of Basquash feels a lot more colourful (on first glance, at least). I’m not exactly sure why, but what this show reminds me off the most is Gad Guard, a surprisingly good underrated show that especially became something unique in its second half, and I’m curious to see whether Basquash can do the same.

But yeah, until then I guess that I’m going to have to suspend disbelief quite a bit for that, with the 14-year-old lead and all (at least, I think that that’s his age). Ignoring cliche’s though, he amuses me so far. Especially how his attempts at setting up a delivery business only ended up in an increase of the bounty on him, and I also laughed at the incredible incompetence of the police in the city.

What this show needs to do now is continue fleshing out the characters. The cast right now has quite an interesting dynamic between them, but it needs to keep pushing this development forward. This doesn’t really look like the series that would work if it just descended into episodic random stories: this really looks like a typical series that needs some sort of plot to keep things going, unlike shows as Natsume Yuujinchou or xxxHolic and the like.

Some quick first Impressions: Ristorante Paradiso, Higashi no Eden and Hatsukoi Limited

by psgels, posted in Eden of the East, Ristorante Paradiso, Some Quick First Impressions

Ristorante Paradiso

Short Synopsis: Our lead character visits a restaurant managed by lots of bishies
Chance of me Blogging: 100% (Obviously, since I’m already blogging it)
This one was surprisingly relaxing, to be honest. while most people are probably going to avoid this one because of all the middle aged bishies, it feels like some cross between Bartender and Antique Bakery. While from the outside it looks like yet another josei series (okay, yet another… there hardly are any of them in the first place, but you get what I mean), this episode was strangely charming and I’m quite fond of the lead female character. I only have one big complaint, though: the overuse of CG. Even the most useless things that would have been much easier to just draw have been CG-ified, with some pretty bad results. Still, I really like what Fuji TV is trying to do right here, in creating yet another time-slot with interesting premises aside Noitamina. Especially after it was followed by Michiko e Hatchin. It’s going to become interesting if they can keep this up.

Higashi no Eden

Short Synopsis: Our lead character visits the white house and runs into a weirdo with amnesia.
Chance of me Blogging: 100% (Hell Yeah!!)
Okay, so what have we here? Out of all first episodes this season so far, Higashi no Eden has by far the best OP, the most imaginative setting, the most interesting characters, the best mystery, the best use of amnesia, the most natural dialogue, the best combination between quiet scenes in which nothing happens and eventful ones, the best Engrish (the best use of Engrish ever since Beck, actually) the biggest amount of weirdness and it has me more intrigued than any other show. Oh, I love how Production IG manages to come up with these premises that you’d never think of. Here I thought that Eden of the East would be some combination of Shangri-la, and any one of the long line of fantasy shows that this season has already so many of. Guess my surprise when it turns out to be a series about a naked terrorist with amnesia who befriends a twenty year old Japanese girl and goes to Japan with her. I’m really interested in this series, and what the heck the creators are planning to do in only eleven episodes.

Hatsukoi Limited

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets confessed to by a huge streetpunk.
Chance of me Blogging: 0% (Interesting concept, but I already have enough plans for this season)
My first impression when the OP started rolling was “oh god… generic harem”. That’s why I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this wasn’t a harem at all, but instead a show about a bunch of school girls experiencing their first loves. It’s going to be interesting to see the modern version of Sentimental Journey here, with each episode focusing on a different girl (don’t ask me what the show plans to be doing in its final episodes, though). I do have some complaints, though: the girls just look like carbon copies of each other. There’s nothing that really sets them apart from each other. While the girls in Sentimental Journey all had their own problems and lives, the girls of Hatsukoi feel more like carbon copies of the same moeblob.

Ristorante Paradiso – 02

by psgels, posted in Ristorante Paradiso



Short Synopsis: Nicoletta finds herself a job at the restaurant.
Episode Rating: 7,5/10 (Good)
Okay, so my first impressions on this show are going to follow as soon as Eden of the East airs. It’s a bit of a strange choice to start blogging, but before I explain why, let me first hijack this post to write some sort of general impressions of all of the first episodes that aired this season.

On first looks, this season promises to be average: there haven’t been any instant-classics or truly original premises, but there’s a pretty good amount of nice and interesting series. What makes this season unique is the surprisingly large amount of series with short episodes of only five or ten minutes, and most of them are actually either very funny or very charming. I’m not going to blog any of them, for obvious reasons, but it’s going to be interesting following all of them.

The big disappointment this season was Madhouse: they’re usually a powerhouse that churns out one classic after the other, but this season the only thing they came with was Chi’s New Address and the next Koutetsu Sangokushi, and while I’m grateful that they still have Chi and Hajime no Ippo, I really expected better from them. But then again, since they’ve been such an active studio in 2008, it was only a matter of time before they needed to take a small step back. I guess that that time is now.

And as for the shows I’m not blogging:
– Marie&Gali and Chi’s New Address: both are very charming and funny, but Hetalia showed me that I just can’t blog those sorts of series. There’s just not enough to write about them for every single episode.
– Charady’s Daily Joke: the same, although I do like the concept: all sorts of different jokes from all around the world and every episode has a different art style. The only problem is that you never know when a joke will be hilarious or miss the mark.
– Queen’s Blade…. obviously not.

As for the reasons I did decide to blog Ristorante Paradiso:
– Because I can.
– I’m able to blog 12 new shows this season. Even during the best seasons, I find it difficult to find that many series that are interesting to blog. Hence why I end up experimenting.
– I’ve never blogged such a series, and after blogging some male harems during the past winter-season, why not go for a female harem this time? I’ve blogged much weirder stuff in the past.
– I’m interested in seeing what the director can do: he did Crystal Blaze and Saikano in the past. The guy is definitely flawed, and this episode also shows that he might be a bit too eager to introduce drama, but his shows have something unique, that is sort-of subtle but I can’t exactly explain what it is.
– I’m very interested in the potential for the Noise time-slot: Fuji TV is basically trying to create a second Noitamina here, and I’d love to see it work out. Previously, the time-slot aired Michiko e Hatchin, and if they could continue this string of original, fresh and diverse premises that aren’t aimed at teenaged boys (just like Noitamina is currently doing), it would absolutely rock.

But yeah, Ristorante Paradiso sounds like it’s got the potential to turn into a very interesting character-study, centred around the three lead characters of Luciano, Nicoletta and her mother. I really like how Nicoletta isn’t a teenager anymore, and is basically trying to figure out what it is that she wants to do in life, both in terms of her future, and trying out things in love.

The bad part is of course the way in which Nicoletta tried to rape Luciano in this episode. At this point, this series can really go both ways: there can be too much drama than that’s good for it, or it can end up with a great combination between slice of life and drama. I’m still not exactly sure about the key to a good combination like that. What I also don’t like is how the next episode previews are followed right after the episode, and spoil the biggest plot twists of the upcoming episode. I’m really not sure what the creators had in mind with that.

As for the graphics: it’s interesting that amidst the financial crisis, a relatively unknown production company takes the risk of producing its first anime. David Production only worked on a bunch of small series here and there, but never produced their own series, and I appreciate the risk they take with this. Especially since it actually feels like it can be quite a competent series. The character-designs are very nice, and while the big mouths look a bit weird at first, they’re strangely stylish. Still, I have one BIG complaint with them: the CG. Okay, I can understand that buildings and streets and stuff are easier to animate in this kind of show, but CG spaghetti and wine? I mean, come on. Also, people are making very strange faces when they’re eating something…