Author: psgels

Genji Monogatari Sennenki – 02

by psgels, posted in Genji Monogatari Sennenki



Short Synopsis: Geni tries to conquer his next target.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
I really have no idea why I always tend to blog the shows with the most difficult dialogues. Especially with this series, it’s going to be really hard for me to try and figure out what the heck is going on, since not only is the dialogue incredibly complex, the show also hardly uses any concrete visual storytelling, and instead it uses its visuals mostly as emotions and symbolism. It’s the same with White Album in a way: you really need to pay attention, otherwise the episodes get an entirely different meaning.

Noitamina is a very interesting timeslot indeed. While usually most major anime air either in the spring or autumn-season, for this timeslot the best series have nearly always premiered in the winter- and summer-seasons, and with the exception of Moyashimon and Hataraki Man the shows that premiered in the timeslot during the spring and autumn seasons so far have been disappointments (mostly due to the fact that they tried to stuff too much source material into only 11 episodes).

Which does bring us to a potential problem with this series: the original story consisted out of 54(!) novels. How the heck is Osamu Dezaki planning to stuff that into just eleven episodes? The first episode covered the first novel, which still leaves 53 left. However, I have heard that the guy is very good at summarizing with his adaptations of Air and Clannad into movies (I’ve yet to see them, though), so who knows what he can to with this story?

And don’t get me wrong, so long as I’m not seeing any signs of a rushed storyline, then this series is among my favourites of the shows, premiered at the past Winter-Season, along with Birdy the Mighty Decode 2. While not rushed, it also doesn’t waste any time to get to the development of Genji, and the first two episodes so far have been very powerful romance. Osamu Dezaki is also really in his element again with his visual effects. While the animation is again not that impressive, the amount of filters and camera-shots really work.

Michiko e Hatchin – 13

by psgels, posted in Michiko e Hatchin



Short Synopsis: We learn what happened to Atsuko after episode 10.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
Good to finally see a bit of quality airtime devoted to Atsuko. Most of her airtime so far has simply been a few minutes here and there, but this time she has an entire episode for herself, and she uses it quite well. It’s a shame that there wasn’t even a second of Hatchin, but nevertheless I really enjoyed this episode.

What I especially loved is how much Atsuko hates her new job. She never actually mentions it, but her expression says a thousand words. The once proud police woman who climbed her way up from a mere street-punk is now cleaning cans at a local Aztec ruin and chasing runaway pet monkeys. This episode was mostly about her getting her motivation back, and that’s mostly done by her, meeting a child who strangely resembles a younger Michiko. (And her, finding a newspaper article about Hiroshi’s newest movie, of course).

I do hope that Satoshi is also going to get an episode like this one. Like most people in this series, he’s been a very interesting character, but only appeared in one episode for as far as my memory doesn’t deceive me. Imagine the potential when he gets even more time devoted to fleshing out his character. But then again, that’s probably going to come along with Hiroshi’s development, who also is about to get into the spotlights. What is the guy doing on the silver screen, and if he’s that rich, then why did he abandon his daughter to some random evil pastor family?

Shikabane Hime – 17

by psgels, posted in Shikabane Hime



Short Synopsis: Sougi and Itsuki tell about their background.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
Now this is more like it! This is exactly the reason why I came to like the first season so much, and I’m glad to see that the second season is going to be more than a weak sequel of the first. Sure, this episode was much about a side-plot of this series, but a bit of background never hurts, and this episode definitely shows that the creators haven’t lost their touch, after the rather disastrous fanservice-problem of the previous three episodes.

This episode was all about Sougi and Itsuki, who in their early days looked suspiciously like your average shounen-lead-pair: a dorky male lead gets contacted by a female with power, in this case because Itsuki hit a truck and happened to form a contract with Sougi before she turned into a berserking Shikabane, complete with the introduction-scene at school (again…).

But thankfully there was much more to that episode than just that. While Itsuki wasn’t as tormented as Makina by revenge, the two of them had their own problem. Itsuki was practically a corpse, and yet Sougi saw her as a regular girl, without any special powers. This caused him the huge scars that he has on his body, simply because he wanted to protect Itsuki from getting hurt, even though she could simply regenerate her wounds, while he couldn’t.

So, yes. The fanservice was definitely a problem, but this series does know what it is: entertainment. As much as I’ve ranted on these past three episodes, they never failed to entertain me, and especially this episode was full of adrenaline, even though there were plenty of quiet parts. If the creators can keep the same mood for the rest of the series, with Makina’s storyline and all, then I’ll call this second season a success.

The next episode should be either fun or a complete disaster: Makina is being transported by a group of monks, without Ouri, and suddenly one of the seven stars attacks, impersonating Keisei. Let’s see where that one goes.

Bonen no Xamdou – 24

by psgels, posted in Bonen no Xamdou



Short Synopsis: This episode is all about Midori
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
This episode was quite an interesting take on the “calm before the storm”-trope. The big climax of this series has definitely still to happen: the Zanbani and Kujireika have yet to even arrive at the village of the Quickening Chamber, and yet this episode formed an excellent conclusion for the Midori-storyline. We’ve already seen that Xam’ds can be pulled out of despair with the right catalysts, so of course the same would happen with Midori. The past few episodes have been a bit too generous on the death count, so it’s good to see that people actually survive, despite the predictability.

It really seemed that Midori never really got to say a proper goodbye with her mother, and it also seems that the communication between the two wasn’t going well. Because of that, Midori always felt a big gap between the two of them, since she didn’t know what to say at the right time and her mother was an impatient person.

I´m really curious as to whether this series can pull off a worthy finale. It might seem obvious that series that are slow and focus a lot on build-up will automatically feature excellent climaxes, but as series as Ghost Hound showed, this isn’t always trivial. It’s all going to depend on how the creators are going to interpret the fight between Akiyuki and the Hiruken Emperor, and whether they can throw in some juicy plot twist that fit within the series and make the ending rushed.

In any case, the animation in this episode was so awesome. I’m not sure where Bones got the budget for this series, but it’s one heck of a budget well spent.

Casshern Sins – 16

by psgels, posted in Casshern Sins



Short Synopsis: Dio and Leda run into some old acquaintances and Ouji reveals a few things about his past.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
It’s good to see that Dio and Leda get their fair share of attention. While they are my least favourite characters of this series, their extra development is quickly getting rid of these problems, and makes the two of them more enjoyable with every episode that focuses on them. In this episode, they meet Braiking Boss’ top soldiers before Dio and Leda arrived: Barkan and Mars. The two are still angry for the two of them taking their place.

The interesting thing here is that they too beat the crap out of Dio, though still all he can think about is how he can’t win of Casshern. Leda manages to save him and leads the two of them away, but something bugs me about her reaction when Dio returned (pumped up by Braiking Boss’ words of motivation): her joy at seeing Dio back was definitely acted. I’m still not exactly sure about what she’s planning, but she definitely has a hidden agenda. This series has shown by now that she simply isn’t as strong as Casshern or Dio, so instead she has to resort to trickery and deceit more.

Speaking of which, Braiking Boss also hasn’t been simply wandering around for no possible reason. Something’s telling me that he’s trying to set up Casshern and Dio against each other, but what especially bugs me is how in the ED, he’s lying right next to Luna. You’d think that that would be a place for Dune, so what’s he doing there?

But my favourite part of this episode was obviously Ouji’s background. He seems to be some sort of cyborg: mostly human, but with artificial limbs. It turns out that the reason he’s taking care of Ringo is because she saved him when he was at the bottom of despair, when she was only just an infant. That really begs the question to what she is, though. I can understand how Ouji is a cyborg: the guy was a scientist for Braiking Boss, so I guess that he also had enough time to experiment on his own body. But Ringo on one side is just a regular child who grows up, gets hurt, and apparently doesn’t need any food (at least, we’ve never seen the two of them eat so far), and at the same time she feels the effects of the destruction just like any other robot…

Sora wo Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai – 02

by psgels, posted in Sora wo Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai



Short Synopsis: Munto continues to try and get Yumemi over to his world, while Yumemi has her own problems to take care of.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10 (Good)
Hehe, you were expecting Ride Back at this spot, no? To be honest, so did I before I watched Ride Back’s second episode, but then I started thinking: the show has 12 episodes, of which the first two were slow introductions that hardly did anything besides setting up the premise. It’s going to be a show about some teenagers riding motorbikes who somehow become involved in a huge war. How the heck are the creators going to get some good development in only 12 episodes? This is Madhouse we’re talking about: compared to some of its previous series Ride Back just isn’t as interesting.

Besides, the lack of realism really became jarring in that second episode: nobody finds it strange that these Ride Back things simply drive around INSIDE BUILDINGS? Nobody tries to complain about the noise that these machines cause? Nobody finds it strange that these machines tend to break down and crash a lot? Nah, I’d rather see a bunch of elves beating the hell out of each other.

So I’ve yet to see the Munto OVAs, but apparently I don’t need to do that anymore since the first episode copied about 80% of its content. That episode reminded me a lot of a poorer version of Noein’s first episode, with the big difference being that Noein spent lots of time in its first episode to flesh out the cast before diving into the action, while Munto dived straight into the action without letting the viewer get to know the characters.

Well, that problem was partially solved by this episode, which was very un-typical of your average second episode. Most of the second episodes after a huge eventful first episode are deliberately slow, in order to explain what the heck went on in the show’s start. Munto instead deliberately chooses to slow down the pacing, but doesn’t attempt to explain much. Instead, it starts fleshing out the lead characters. I especially was surprised that they immediately showed the story for one of Yumemi’s friends.

I also like that the creators are using the Noein approach. With most series where the lead character is transported into some sort of other world, the connection between these is really something sacred: it can only be crossed once, and the conditions for someone to cross are very vague and only serve as a plot device to get the lead character involved with the plot. In Munto instead that link is fleshed out a bit more, and it looks like it can be breached more often. Seeing as how Yumemi’s friends are going to be important characters in this series too, I expect that either the series will take place mostly in the real world with your occasional trips to the elf world, or Munto is somehow going to kidnap the three of them at the same time.

Now, about the lesser parts of this series… we have a delinquent who gets saved by a cute girl and they end up marrying. Am I the only one who was reminded of a certain other Kyoani series? I also fear that most of the elves are going to lack in personality: this episode hardly focused any attention on them.

Natsume Yuujin-Chou – 16

by psgels, posted in Natsume Yuujin-Chou



Short Synopsis: Natori returns and invites Natsume to… a hot spring?
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
Best episode of the second season so far! This most likely is because it involves a recurring character again: Natori, and indeed confirmed my suspicion that the best part of the second season is going to be the stories that evolve around him and the recurring characters, rather than the standalone stories which hit their height with the firefly episode (I think I mentioned this a few too many times by now…).

And was it me, or was Natori much kinder this time to Natsume? He needed a genuine favour from the guy and his book of friends, and instead of straightforwardly asking him to cooperate, he made up a story of going to a hot spring resort in order to relax a bit. This episode also showed that he isn’t perfect: if Natsume didn’t help that big youkai at the beginning of the episode, the two of them would be screwed right now.

But my favourite moments of this episode were the quiet ones, where the pacing was really slow to show the different characters together. I was especially touched by the dream Natsume had, where it appears that he’s still really troubled by his past and hated how he showed that weak side of his to Natori. Speaking of which, I wonder how Natori spent his childhood, with his ability and all. It’s going to be interesting to see how this guy grew up.

Popolocrois 2003 – 26

by psgels, posted in Popolocrois 2003



Short Synopsis: The ending of Popolocrois 2003, in which Zephys has to be defeated somehow.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10 (Awesome)
So, it’s finally finished. Wyrdwad and the other fansubbers did an awesome job in bringing the two Popolocrois series to the English community.

About the ending, it was definitely different from what I expected. With the way that Wyrdwad kept hyping it, I expected Zephys to brutally kill everyone on the entire planet before Pinon could find a way to defeat her, but instead the body count is kept relatively low and instead this episode focused at making these deaths have impact.

It got me thinking about those “everyone dies”-endings, and indeed their major flaw is that they fail to make each death have an impact. While a death in the middle of a series is a great way to include some character-development, if someone dies in the final episode, there’s hardly any character-development to get out of it, let alone if five or six of these people die at the same time. Most series also don’t take their time to show proper aftermaths, which makes you wonder about the point of these deaths.

While I can’t consider this ending as the best one I’ve ever seen (that spot is filled by series such as Utena, Mouryou no Hako and Haibane Renmei), this was an excellent ending nonetheless. Like I hoped, it wasn’t focused at “ZOMG kill Zephys!”, but instead it was really focused at making Luna’s mother’s death have as big of an impact as possible. It formed a perfect closure to this series, and was miles away from the cheese that you usually see in endings like this. It didn’t drag nor was it too short, and it pretty much avoided any of the common pitfalls that endings usually have.

I’m not going to write a review for this series, since my experience has shown that I’m pretty bad at that with series that I watched over half a year ago. Still, overall, the 2003 series wasn’t as good as the 1998 series due to its rather weak first half, but it did have a much better main storyline compared to its predecessor, which especially made its final quarter a joy to watch. The 1998 series, in contrast was all about its characters, and therefore was downright awesome to watch in its first three quarters, especially when Gamigami Maou and his antics became involved.

Popolocrois 2003 – 25

by psgels, posted in Popolocrois 2003



Short Synopsis: Pinon and the others try to stop the forest half and the sea half of Zephys to combine.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
Wyrdwad: you rock!

Awesome to see this series finally fully subbed. The Popolocrois Franchise has really been the cream of the crop in the RPG-adaptation genre, and I hope that me blogging it for the past three years has introduced some people to this wonderful franchise.

Anyway, about the episode, this is going to be a short post, since I’m obviously edging for that final episode. I’m pretty curious to see what the creators can make out of it. Usually in anime, this is the point where things turn dull: the big bad guy has reached its final ultimately powerful form, and it simply has to be defeated in the final episode, usually requiring some sort of hidden power to be summoned from the lead character. I really wonder what’s going to make that final episode so special and I want to find out as soon as possible.

Mobile Suit Gundam 00 – 40

by psgels, posted in Mobile Suit Gundam 00



Short Synopsis: The Ptolemy is tracked down and the innovators again continue their attack, while Setsuna is away and injured.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10 (Good)
Haha! Finally the thing that I’ve been anticipating the most in this series happened: the coup d’etat. Now the fun is really going to start. Let’s see whether that was something that the innovators took into account. My guess is that they too never saw it coming, otherwise they wouldn’t be unleashing an attack at the last possible minute. This coup is definitely going to take care of the one-sidedness of the politics so far in the second season so far (with A-Laws being the equivalent of an evil empire and all).

I’m also glad that in this episode, Saji and Louise finally knew their place: simply as side characters. The battle in this episode put them against each other again, but instead of completely claiming all of the focus their scenes were short and to the point. That’s definitely making their appearance a whole lot more bearable.

The big focus of this episode instead was on Setsuna and Marina, who got to spend some quality time together. Let’s hope that this is going to inspire her to actually DO something relevant to the plot (in fact, it’s going to be interesting to see how Kataron is going to evolve after the coup).

And it has also finally happened: Celestial Beings aren’t the only ones with a Trans-am anymore, and I can already see the system being mass produced before the end of the series, degrading Lockon and Allelujah’s mobile suits to your average custom suits. Tieria’s special powers also have been pretty much useless throughout the series, so the only advantage that the celestial beings have right now is 00-Riser’s mysterious communication powers. Unlike the first season, there’s really not much room anymore for the creators to give any upgrades to the Gundams, so right now it’s going to be a matter of seeing how long they can survive.

Unlike certain other Sunrise series, this show has already shown that this is a series where people die when they’re killed, so the corpses should start falling pretty soon. After all, Gundam 00 has been a show with many references to past Gundam series (and at the same time it managed to keep its own identity, unlike Gundam Seed which if I understood correctly simply completely copied the UC timeline), so I doubt that the creators aren’t going to ignore Tomino’s “nickname”.