Author: psgels

Casshern Sins – 09

by psgels, posted in Casshern Sins



Short Synopsis: Casshern arrives at a robot graveyard.
Highlights: Nico was awesome.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 9/10 (Fantastic)
Oh my god. This was without a doubt the best episode of Casshern Sins yet, and with such a series, that really has to say something. I can’t believe how easy these writers make it seem to just create such wonderful stories, episode after episode. This episode not only evolved the storyline, but it also created one of the most awesome characters of the series: Nico.

There were lots of different characters with prominent roles in this episode, and it was much, much more than just another episode of Casshern the “chick magnet”. Nico was kind to everyone she ran into, not just Casshern. The most notable of this was of course the male robot (there really needs to be some sort of general term for them): finally one of them gets a bit of depth, and the results are wonderful. As a robot, he doesn’t feel pain like normal humans, so if he loses a bunch of limbs, all he can just do is sit at one place and wait for the destruction to kill him completely. He’s also the first of his kind to see that Dio was wrong, and have a change of heart.

Of course, I could write pages about how incredibly awesome this episode was, but you really need to see it for yourself. At this point, the creators have really established themselves as masterful storywriters, who really try to make the best out of each of their episodes and take nothing for granted. I’m really glad to have given this series a second chance after its lacklustre first episode and decided to blog this.

Bonen no Xamdou – 16

by psgels, posted in Bonen no Xamdou



Short Synopsis: Nakiami and Yango continue to travel together.
Highlights: Even when building up, this show delivers.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
Ah, my suspicions came true with the arrival of the second half. This series is getting really good now, even in episodes like this one where hardly anything happens apart from building up. It’s especially a delight when the crew of the Zanbani shows up again: for the past episodes these guys have been the epitomes of doing nothing, and yet those short scenes between them have a huge power to them.

The majority of the episode talked about one of the white haired kids that the military managed to secure in the previous episode and the relationship between Yungo and Nakiami. Regarding the former, he shed a lot of light into what these people can do, they even can communicate through large distances. They also seem to be picky about the ones they want to turn into the Xam’d: the guy never even bothered giving his powers to the military guys, and yet he seems strangely interested in Haru (through the tips of Nazuma).

About the latter, there were some things that struck me above the bond that these two develop. Their journey made it clear that there’s a lot more stuff going on than just the main storylines of this series. It’s been a typical episode to bring a bit of life to the world that the series is set in, something you really don’t see often. More often with travel series, I notice that the life purpose of the unimportant side characters seems to be waiting for the travelling main character to arrive and solve his/her problems. But instead, the people that Nakiami and Yungo met had definitely their own problems, and just happened to meet the two. Especially the two kids, who Yungo talked to for a bit were very natural-sounding. Another series where I’ve noticed this effect was Porfy no Nagai Tabi, during its shortest arcs.

Artistically, this was also a beautiful episode. This really is a series that needs to be watched in HD.

Mouryou no Hako – 08

by psgels, posted in Mouryou no Hako



Short Synopsis: Kiba continues to collect clues, and finally all of the four main characters are together.
Highlights: It was a long wait, but finally the developments continue.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
The biggest reason why I like this series so much is that even though its story is very confusing and complex, it never forget its subtlety and great characterization. The complex story combined with the down to earth storytelling is really why I consider this series to be among the best of the season. Some shows with lots of talking tend to get lost into meaningless exposition (I really need to stop using Soul Eater as a bad example for this…), but Mouryou no Hako manages to avoid this completely.

Thankfully this episode was also a bit easier to understand, although there were still plenty of tricky parts. It starts with Yoriko, as she continues to resent everyone around her, from classmates to her mother. None live up to her expectations set by Kanako. The next scene is about Sekiguchi, as he thinks back of the novel he read by Kubo Shunko, which I think inspired him to get more interested in the case of the boxed murders. He’s on his way to visit a certain doctor. When we reach the place, we make a time skip to later that day, when Kiba also got the idea to visit him.

I’m not exactly sure what the doctor is to the whole case, but Kiba too seems to have linked the boxed murder case with the disappearance of Kanako. The doctor was probably in charge of the autopsy of the girl who was found inside the boxes. He mentions that she wasn’t chopped up to be killed, but instead killed in order to be chopped up, suggesting that the killer had indeed been planning to box her right from the start, instead of thinking that it would be a strange way to cover up for his crime. The doctor seems to link this back to human experimentation again. A soldier that can’t die. We then switch to some flashbacks of Kiriko, claiming that Kanako can’t die, which I suspect have some disturbing truth in them.

The doctor then says that Sekiguchi also paid him a visit that morning, and Kiba is very surprised to see Sekiguchi investigating. He then shows him a few notes about the files that Sekiguchi was carrying, which prompt Kiba to pay Sekiguchi a visit. At the train station, Kiba recapitulates what happened back at the research institute.

The next half of the episode shows that Enokizu somehow has made contact with Akihiko. Toriguchi meanwhile has uncovered some new information about the box maker. A strange guy (probably a talented student) told him that he got a request for quite a large amount of boxes from the box maker. He seems to lead the same strange depression as Sekiguchi is (never noticed that, by the way). Toriguchi then shows an old-fashioned tape recorder. Toriguchi seems to have gotten it from his boss. The tape shows an ominous preaching by the box maker, but it seems to be faked. Next up Toriguchi shows a blueprint of the box maker’s dojo.

Enokizu then announces that he and Sekiguchi will be going to check up on a girl named Yoriko Kusumoto, Kusumoto Kimie’s daughter. Kimie, however, seems to stand in the box maker’s cult’s registry file. This isn’t something Akihiko surprised. Enokizu then comes with a surprising revelation: Yuuko isn’t Kanako’s aunt, but her mother. She got a baby on a very young age, and to avoid any scandals on her acting career at that time, it was just pretended that her mother had another baby. Wow…

Kiba then shows up from out of nowhere. I guess that he went to Sekiguchi’s house, only to find out from his wife/girlfriend that he was at Akihiko’s. He’s quite angry, but Akihiko cuts him off, wanting to hear his own story before that.

We then switch to Yoriko, as she seems to have met the mysterious man again in front of a painting store. He’s talking about eternal life. At first he seems a bit weird, but Yoriko is doubting whether to trust him or not. Sekiguchi and Enokizu then pop up. They don’t get much out of her, and she just leaves them to meet up with the mysterious man again. He invites her then in a room full of boxes… and the rest is left up to our imagination…

So the culprit is finally identified, it was indeed the mysterious man. The question now of course is where this guy ties in with the box maker and Kanako. Is he a member of the cult, and if he did push Kanako off the tracks as Yoriko said, then what did he want to accomplish with that? How did he get her out of the research institute?

I also have to say that I’m surprised that more and more anime are willing to use the Second World War as one of their themes. Last season, it was Nijuu Mensou no Musume; and okay, even though that one went wrong a bit, it’s good to see that some Japanese are willing to write stories about their darker parts in history. In the same way, you can see a lot of American-made games that do take place in this second world war, just as a lot of Dutch stories take place in our Golden Age, and you never get to hear anything about what “we” did in Indonesia. While an anime about Pearl Harbour is of course never going to happen, it’s good to see that there are at least some attempts to point at it.

The animation was a bit strange at times in this episode, but thankfully it was only the smoothness that suffered. The vivid expressions that make this series’ characters come to life are fortunately still there.

Kurozuka – 08

by psgels, posted in Kurozuka



Short Synopsis: Kuro suddenly finds himself approached by a strange old man.
Highlights: Now this is psychological horror!
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10 (Awesome)
Best episode of the show so far since the first episode. It’s taken a while for this series to arrive at its real meat, but now it’s finally about time to work towards the series’ finale and this episode really showed the building up come together.

What especially made this episode work well were the bad guys. They were no longer strange caped dudes who kill lots of people, but instead had real personalities. I felt like they were people, rather than a bunch of literal killing machines, and it’s good to see this series spend some effort in its weakest area: the characterization.

I especially like that lizard man, who uses illusions to get rid of his enemies. This episode starts out at a point that doesn’t make any sense at all, where Kuro suddenly finds himself in the middle of a huge city, while in fact it turns out to be one huge illusion by this guy. It really increases the subtle paranoid level of this series: as long as the lizardman is around, you won’t know what’s real or not.

Ooh, and Kuromitsu showed herself, but she immediately leaves again after she saves Kuro. Her own agenda still remains a huge mystery at this point, but I think Kuro is somehow very much needed in it, so she wanted to make sure that he’d survive. How she knew where he was… the only explanation for that is that she’s been monitoring him from the beginning with the strange time stopping power of hers. It also turns out that she knows Sanniwa, suggesting that either Sanniwa was very old, or she and Kuro split ways more than just that time.

It’s also interesting that the story of the anime seems to diverge from the manga. I have no idea by how much this has happened since I’ve not read the manga, but it shouldn’t be too much of a problem as long as the creators know what they’re doing. This will of course only become clear in the final episodes, when everything in this series is supposed to come together. What the creators must make sure of is that they need to shed light on every mystery in that episode, and at the same time pull off a satisfying climax. Bringing back the godly animation of the first episode helps too.

Porfy no nagai Tabi – 47

by psgels, posted in Porfy no Nagai Tabi



Short Synopsis: Mostly an episode of build-up and foreshadowing, where Mina already starts playing in her new role.
Highlights: Mina’s finally starting to grow again.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
Ah, there are five episodes left after this. At this point, the series needs indeed a bit more build-up for the finale, which is promising to be so completely different from the entire rest of the series. But first as usual a summary:

Rose arrives back home, takes a shower and in the meantime Porfy wakes up again. When she’s done, Porfy wonders where he should search for Mina next, and Rose suggests a place where lots of people from around the world come: the Louvre. Mina meanwhile wakes up, and gets invited to have breakfast with Tiffany. Tiffany asks her maid, Nathalie, to fetch some strawberries, as Mina asks when Isabella’s going to pick her up again.

Tiffany then comes with the revelation that Isabella’s gone now. She left Paris and Mina is now in the care of Tiffany. She left one of her precious jewels with Tiffany as a proof. Mina obviously resists, and wants to go back to Isabella, though Nathalie stops her. Mina thinks it’s cruel for Isabella to have left her, but Tiffany manages to convince her that Isabella abandoned Mina, because it’s best for Mina. She says that if Mina stars in a big movie, she’ll appear on big posters, and she’ll be able to reach a huge audience over the world, and with a bit of luck her brother will recognize her.

That evening, Porfy searched around the Louvre for too long, so he’s late at the job. The waiter with the difficult name obviously scolds him, but he’s much nicer than he was in the previous episode, although Porfy’s obviously getting paid less. The cook asks Porfy how the search went, though Porfy has no luck. Mina meanwhile gets really inspired when she sees Tiffany practice her lines. The movie seems to be about a poor girl called Maaya who is working hard and likes to sing songs. It’s a bit cheesy, but in any case Mina is going to play the girl in her younger years.

When Rose comes back from shopping, she has a bit of good news for Porfy, as she found someone who has seen Isabella. He obviously doesn’t remember where they went, but the two of them continue to search for a while, asking people who pass by whether they’ve seen her. Obviously, nobody really wants to cooperate. Rose is a bit disappointed, but Porfy is used to this disappointment by now, and he’s at least glad that Rose helped him this time.

Mina meanwhile has memorized both her lines and the lines of the other parts, and is getting very enthusiastic to play her part. The next day, she already is going to film her first scene. Her manager then, however, notices the scar that Mina has (from the earthquake), but this is easily covered with make-up. Everything goes well during the shooting, and Mina is done quite early because of that.

Ironically, Porfy has chosen the exact same place as the movie-shoot for his search that day, but he arrives there, just as Mina left. He does see the car they’re in, but instead of wondering who’s in it, he gawks over the brand of the car. That’s really typical of him, isn’t it. ^^; When he arrives at the set, one of the women does inform him about the movie, making him a step closer to finding her. She holds a basket of roses, and Porfy buys one of them, for Rose.

Rose meanwhile discovers that Porfy erased some of the lipstick on the photo, and scratches it out with some more. Porfy then comes in, and offers her the rose, as a means of saying thanks. Porfy’s attention then falls to the book of Romeo and Juliet, which brought the two of them together, and Rose cites one of the famous passages of the book. Porfy then notes that Rose should have become an actor (hah!), but Rose says that with talent and luck, you can’t expect to just make it as an actor, which scares Porfy off a bit. He then leaves for work as she thanks him for the flower and the episode ends.

The biggest revelation is of course that Isabella’s freaking gone! Suddenly so much pieces of the puzzle fall into place. The whole episode where the rich kid was about to take Mina away was just one big build-up for the finale. Now that she knows about Mina’s full story, she actually decided to make use of the opportunity that Tiffany gave her, in order to find Porfy as fast as possible and give her a safe home. She actually knew that keeping her with Carlos longer would never make Mina happy, and she actually prevented the bomb that I’ve been talking about for ages now from exploding completely!

I also understand the purpose of the long travel arcs now. They were there in order to make sure that the final arc wouldn’t completely come from out of nowhere: that this is a realistic series, but there often are a few coincidences that are needed in order to get the best out of the characters. Storytelling is often finding a compromise between realism and conflict, because a completely realistic series certainly isn’t a bad thing, but you can’t get a juicy story out of it, but the same way, if a series forsakes this realism the chance will be bigger that viewers will end up scratching their heads and fail to take the rest of the story seriously. It’s up to each individual story to decide where on the scale between realism and conflict it wants to be. Anne of Green Gables is a typical example of a series that goes for realism all the way, and Code Geass is the obvious example of a series that goes for conflict all the way. ^^;

In that same way, I found it a bit hard to believe that Mina would only days after being first recruited shoot her first scene, but I guess that the production was in dire need of a new actress (after all, otherwise Tiffany herself wouldn’t be looking for these people). And because of her imaginative personality and how she spent god knows how many months with a memory loss, I guess that that gives her an extra good ability to relate herself to the characters she plays. That’s of course a great merit for an actor, although I do wonder whether she perhaps lacks some technical acting skills. But ah well, this is such a minor detail, and it really is worth because Mina has finally started growing again as a character. Watching her in this episode was a delight because of that.

Anne of Green Gables Review – 87,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



I originally planned to wait a bit longer with watching this series, but due to certain…*ahem* developments I just had to finish it before the end of the year. Anne of Green Gables, or Akage no Anne is part of the famous World Masterpiece Theatre. It’s written by Lucy Maud Montgomery, and adapted by Isao Takahata, just before he joined Hayao Miyazaki (who also worked on certain parts of the series by the way) to create Studio Ghibli. While I can’t say it’s the best WMT out there (it lacks conflict for that; this series is largely just slice of life), but it did succeed in what it set out to do: creating the wonderful character called Anne, along with Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert who raised her.

The series confirmed a suspicion I kept having about Isao Takahata, since I’ve been rather disappointed by the movies that he made for Studio Ghibli. The guy is most likely the director with the biggest sense of realism out of all anime directors out there, but his movies were all just too short to make any real impact on me, and this series showed that his specific style really is at its best when applied to such a long series, where you can see the characters slowly developing and changing, while going through their daily lives.

So yes, the biggest strength of this series is the huge sense of realism. Anne of Green Gables is a tale of growing up, and especially the first half of the series is chockfull of nostalgia. There are so many things that a viewer can relate to. Every single character in the series just feels like a real person, whose problems are those of real people instead of the problems of soap opera characters. This also means that it’s very easy to find the series boring, though. The conflicts in this series are far apart, even when compared to other WMT-series. You need to like slice of life if you want to be able to enjoy this series.

And of course, Anne makes the long length really worth it. The series shows her growing up from a cute, energetic and very talkative 11 year old to an inspiring mature 16 year old. She’s a wonderful character to watch, especially in her younger years. She does suffer from being a bit too perfect when she’s fifteen years old, though. She achieves any goals she sets to herself, everyone likes her and becomes enamoured with her, and she simply doesn’t have any flaws.

It’s interesting though that Lucy Maud Montgomery was fully aware of these flaws, and after watching this series, it becomes apparent that she tried to make Emily of the New Moon a completely different character with actually lots of flaws.

Nevertheless, this doesn’t prevent the conclusion of the series to be utterly amazing, and the series actually ends with a short but very powerful climax that’s definitely worth watching the 46 episodes that preceded it. Everything that the series has been subtly building up for comes together like a charm, and really ends the series on the best note possible.

As for Hayao Miyazaki’s influences: it’s very easy to spot the episodes on which he worked. The animation of the first fifteen episodes is of a considerable bigger quality than the rest of the series (remember, this series was made in 1978, and probably has the most solid graphics of any TV-series produced in the 1970s), and you can really spot his trademark style of animation, especially comparable to movies as Kiki’s Delivery Service and My Neighbour Totoro.

Anne of Green Gables really is one of the very few WMT-series to be fully subbed and widely available on the internet at this point, and so I wholeheartedly recommend it if you want to get a taste of the lighter side of the franchise. While most other WMT-series are much darker than this one is, it nevertheless is a very charming and adorable slice of life series in Canada of about a century ago.

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

Jigoku Shoujo – 60

by psgels, posted in Jigoku Shoujo



Short Synopsis: A middle aged woman gets bothered by her neighbour who owns a Chihuahua
Highlights: That’s … a very smart dog.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
Okay, at this point, I don’t care anymore. I don’t care how politically incorrect this series becomes, I’m not going to care about how unrealistic, repetitive or predictable the stories are. This third season is the typical sort of series that you don’t need to take too seriously, and instead need to look at the messages. This series is just awesome, although for completely different reasons than usual.

This episode really shows that it’s not just teenagers that the creators hate. It goes back to the first season, where at least the one who accesses Jigoku Tsuushin has a valid reason to send the other one to hell. The focus this time goes to a rather clueless woman in her twenties, keeping a Chihuahua (fully dressed and all), and her neighbour who is very easily ticked off by this. Aggressions build up over time, and after a while she tries to poison the poor little animal.

The woman in her twenties wasn’t totally good either (after all, she let her pet walk around in such an embarrassing little outfit), but this really was a typical episode of the first season, with a few of the impulsive influences from the third season (especially when the dog suddenly came running with the straw doll). For some strange reason, the thing I liked best about this episode was the large amount of crazy ideas that the woman got into her head. And of course the punishment scene this time was pure win.

Mobile Suit Gundam 00 – 33

by psgels, posted in Mobile Suit Gundam 00



Short Synopsis: No fighting this time, instead: plot development. And a cross-dressing Tieria…
Highlights: Nice developments!
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10 (Good)
Ah, finally it’s time for this series to reveal what the final stage of Aeolia Shenberg’s plan was. He wasn’t just an overambitious Mother Teresa who simply hoped to achieve a world without war, but also one where humanity could make great leaps of advancements into space. Now Wan Lui Ming’s role in the whole series also becomes clear: she wants to see humanity enter space, and doesn’t care how it happens. Now that the Innovators are closer to achieving that goal, it obviously doesn’t come as much of a surprise to see her on their side now.

Meanwhile, I’m glad that this episode also introduced some of the small scale politics back into the series, with the plans to reorganize the Middle East. I wonder what kind of effect that will have with Marina Ismael. I can really see her being the Relena of this series, where at one point she’s going to take back the control over the region in an attempt to set right the mistakes she made.

And I must say, that more and more references to past Gundam series keep popping up, especially in the second season: Enhanced Soldiers vs. Newtypes, Setsuna F. Seiei starts to resemble Heero Yui more and more, there’s Mr Bushido of course, the deserted island, and Marina vs. Relena. Still, despite the references, I’m glad that this series manages to retain its own goals and identity. The things I’ve read about Gundam Seed seem to indicate that nearly everything inside it was ripped off past Gundam-series.

Tieria in a dress was an interesting piece of fanservice by the way. But I guess that if he didn’t dress up as a woman, people would start to recognize him, but that still makes me wonder why he used a purple wig, instead of a more neutral colour. That’s one thing that’s kept bugging me about this series: the ridiculous hair colours. I know it’s anime and all, but they remain annoying. It works much better if people just walk around in colours that actually exist. Especially since the only people who seem to be affected by these colours are the ones important to the plot…

In this episode we also learn that Louise’s father is a great financer of the A-Laws. That explains her high position, and likeliness of being involved at important places. It makes sense, although she ended up living next to Setsuna in the first episode of the first season a bit too conveniently. Still, I’m glad to see that she’s maturing really fast. The only thing I ask of her is not to go emo like Saji’s doing. There’s a fine line between genuine drama and downright emo, and Saji’s been continuing to hop over that line through the process of the series (thankfully though, he’s the only one so far, and I’d like to keep it that way).

Telepathy Shoujo Ran – 22

by psgels, posted in Telepathy Shoujo Ran



Short Synopsis: Ran&co go skiing during their holidays.
Highlights: Most natural storytelling of the entire series.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,0/10 (Excellent)
It’s episodes like this that really make me ask the following question:

Why the heck didn’t the creators just ditch the original novels and went with their own direction? Seriously.

And don’t get me wrong, the novels are by no means not enjoyable, and admittedly they remain flawed. There’s simply no continuity or character development whatsoever; the novels were animated in a random order, and you wouldn’t suspect the difference unless you knew. The creators of the anime have a vision, though. They somehow made the lacking novel stories fun to watch until the end, and they seized every chance at filler to include some development so that at least Midori comes out as a complex character. On top of that, the fact remains that the banter between the characters is consistently at its best during the filler episodes. These guys know how to make an anime dammit!

This is why I don’t mind it at all when an anime simply ditches the story of its original source material and goes into a different direction. It only becomes a bad thing when the anime creators clearly aren’t up to the task (I’m looking at you, Romeo and Juliet), but that would have been the same if they decided to follow the original source material (I’m looking at you, Hatenkou Yuugi). What matters is whether or not the creators have a vision. Himitsu ~ The Revelation’s original stories were very capable ones for example, and the anime creators had enough inspiration for the manga’s unique premise, so they just decided to go with their own look at the story, resulting in two different views at the same subject in anime- and manga-form.

In any case, with this episode, the filler episodes for this series have unfortunately come to an end, since there are two novels left to be animated. What I hope is that the anime creators chose the order of the stories so, that the best ones would be saved for last, so that the series at least isn’t going to end with a bad taste.

About this episode, I really liked that this has been the episode that felt the most natural of all of the cases so far. Ran and the others don’t conveniently happen to run into a case. There was just one coincidence that felt a bit weird, but apart from that everything made sense: Ran and Midori actually went to the resort, searching for a local legend about a snow woman. The legend turns out to be wrong, it was the ghost of a fox that took the form of a little girl. The fox was attached to one particular person when it was still alive, and when it called out to it, Ran picked up the same waves, involving her with the story. They then use their powers to reunite the two, and act as a sort of medium between the two. As a result, the climax was rather quiet, but very sweet.

Tytania – 07

by psgels, posted in Tytania



Short Synopsis: Fan Hulic and Miranda stop by another group of rebels opposing Tytania.
Highlights: That battle was more like it
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10 (Good)
When this episode promised to shift the focus back to Fan Hulic&co, I feared for a bit, but to my surprise it ended up pretty good. There was no Lyra, and the whole episode continued to contribute to the much-needed depth of the pirates. All in al, an episode well spent. Just as I hoped, the setting is slowly taking shape in this series, promising some good stuff for the future of this series.

In this episode, the rebels manage to destroy one of the many fortresses of Tytania. They’re of course very happy about what they’ve achieved, but something tells e that Tytana isn’t just going to sit and let the rebels do their thing. The leader of the rebels especially seems to be a bit too confident, so I don’t think he really thought of some sort of back-up plan in case things get screwed.

I also liked that it’s immediately clear what repercussions Tyrandia’s demise had: prises have suddenly risen, poverty increased, people started stealing and looting. So yeah, the guys from Tytania really are a bunch of bastards, even though apart from Idris, they aren’t portrayed as such. Speaking of which, this episode finally shows him not having his way, which I appreciate. I think he’s trying to get in Ariabart’s way out of a strange kind of rivalry.

One thing I’m missing in this series is character background, though. It may be that this has been subtly mentioned here and there and I didn’t pick that up because I’m watching raw, but there’s hardly anything known about the different characters’ pasts, which is a shame since we’re dealing with a cast full of adults. I mean, everyone has to have his or her own story, but so far we don’t get to see anything of that.