Author: psgels

Cromartie High School Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



In terms of describing Cromartie High School, I think Jascii put this the best way: Cromartie High School is not about delinquents; “it’s about a bunch of morons who look like delinquents”. It’s Production IG’s shot at a comedy, and while it’s not one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen, it’s a very capable comedy-series nonetheless.

The fun in this series comes from the fact that even though the characters are all a bunch of idiots, they still try to be smart by engaging in huge debates over nothing, and they keep doing so with a straight face (many thanks to the animation, which remains consistent throughout the entire series). Every time a fight is about to take place, you can bet your hat that the characters will just talk endlessly about how they’re going to fight, and in the end they lose interest because of something else completely random that caught their attention.

That, along with the originality of this series make it a pretty funny short series (the episodes are only 10 minutes). The creators really try to toss everything they can think of at the viewers. We’re talking here about meteors, aliens, robots, grown men in bunny-suits and a Freddy Mercury-lookalike. This is more than enough material to keep the viewer from getting bore, so this series also doesn’t suffer from a lacklustre second half…

…although the characters do remain rather one-dimensional. There are also a bunch of characters with really inconsistent personalities, especially the main one: he changes from a complete moron to someone with actual intelligence, depending on the writers’ mood. There is character-development, but it’s pretty much become useless because of the episodes that seem to be aired in random order (one particular character is moves to America for a number of episodes, and yet a few episodes during this period show him like nothing’s ever happened).

Nevertheless, Cromartie High School is a quirky little series that’s good for a nice laugh. It’s got enough material to fill its airtime with (although it does at times overuse its running jokes too much, mostly the Afro-guy gets a bit too much airtime then what’s good for him), but I laughed a lot during this series.

Storytelling: 8/10
Characters: 7/10
Production-Values: 8/10
Setting: 9/10

Porfy no Nagai Tabi – 45

by psgels, posted in Porfy no Nagai Tabi



Short Synopsis: Paris is big. Mina isn’t there yet. Porfy’s out of money. So yeah, he’s still going to have to kill some time.
Highlights: Calm before the storm!!
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10
Porfy no Nagai Tabi is a very good series, but as I’ve mentioned before: overall just isn’t as good as Les Miserables, but one thing that it did do right was the OP: it fits for the entire series. In Les Miserables, people at one point were fighting and dying for what they believed in, and the OP still showed a bunch of little girls. ^^;

The episode starts as Porfy walks around one of the rich parents of Paris. Obviously, it’s not the most wanted part of the town by fortune tellers, so everyone acts annoyed at him, especially if he continues to bug them. A kind baker then directs him to the right places, and how it’s not the time for the fortune tellers to show up yet. Porfy then feeds some of the local pigeons and gets reminded of Apollo again.

That evening, Porfy sees the first cards since his arrival at Paris and idiotically mistakes the owner as Carlos. The supposed “Carlos” pushes Porfy away, who then hits one of the waiters, dropping one of his dishes. The waiter is very annoyed, although Porfy doesn’t seem to realize this because all he’s interested in is the food he just ruined: it’s Greek. Porfy says that he came from Greece, but the waiter obviously couldn’t care less. He then forces Porfy to the cook. Since Porfy doesn’t have any money and is familiar with the Greek dishes, he offers him a job. Porfy’d rather search for Mina, but the waiter, Xalupurous (Christ, what a difficult name), reckons that he can just search for Mina if he’s not working.

Alex(?), the cook, then shows him around and offers him a bit of food, since he’s a nice guy. It turns out that the restaurant desperately needed a new waiter since they recently sacked one of their old staff, and none of the French people was able to remember the right dishes. While Porfy washes the dishes, he chats a bit with Alex. It turns out that he was born in France, but his parents came from Greece. Porfy then accidentally breaks one of the dishes, making the waiter (I’ll just call him the waiter, since Xalopuro-thingy is just too complicated) gets even more angry. Later, when Porfy is peeling potatoes, he complains again because there’s too much of the potato wasted this way. The waiter then sends him to take away the dishes that are done.

One of the guests, reading a book, is getting bothered by a drunk. They struggle a bit, and she eventually pushes him onto one of the other tables. She however gets blamed for what the drunk did. The waiter tells her to leave, and even though Porfy tries to say that it wasn’t her fault, the waiter doesn’t listen and the woman leaves in anger, leaving her book. Porfy then brings it back to her.

A bit later, Porfy and Alex are finally done with the dishes. The waiter then pays Porfy with an incredibly small amount, due to the plates he broke and dishes he wasted and because of the book he brought back to the woman (he wasn’t supposed to). He then orders Porfy to be on early the job the next day as well. Porfy says that he doesn’t have a place to stay, but the waiter refuses to let him stay at the restaurant. Porfy then walks away, and runs into the woman from before again, who wants to thank him for bringing back the book. Apparently, she has been waiting for him, and overheard how he doesn’t have a place to stay. She introduces herself as Rose.

Porfy then tells her about how he’s searching for his sister, and lost just about everything, but Rose tells him to cheer up. She shows him around the house, and suggests how he should sleep on the couch in the living room, and of course take a bath, since he’s been sleeping outside all this while. When Porfy is watching outside, she takes him to the roof where they can get a better view.

They look at the stars for a bit, and then Rose says that she’s about to get to work. She puts on lipstick, and notes that it’s hard for a woman to be living alone. When she’s left, Porfy notices one of her paintings which has been flipped over. One of the faces of the painting has been crossed out with lipstick, and looks a lot like the actress Mina used to admire and the episode ends.

So yeah, it was a bit coincidental, out of all the woman Porfy could have ran into, but it’s a fascinating idea nonetheless, and the sacrifice the series has to make for it is more than worth it. I really like how, just before the finale of this show, the series decides to reserve two episodes to flesh out Mina’s love form movies a bit, by giving a bit of background for her favourite actress. After that, it’s really anything that could happen, and it all depends on how much time the creators want to spend on the series’ aftermath. There are seven episodes left, six if you count the next episode, which will conclude Rose’s story. I’m really curious to see how the final reunion will work out. The reunion with Alecia was downright awesome, and it’s now time to see whether the creators can make full use of nearly fifty episodes of building-up.

Mobile Suit Gundam 00 – 31

by psgels, posted in Mobile Suit Gundam 00



Short Synopsis: A-Laws prepares for the next wave of attack.
Highlights: Ooh, more background.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7/10 (Enjoyable)
You know, in a way I’m glad that the creators decided to wrap up Saji’s story in this part of the story instead of waiting for this until the end, but really: it has to stop somewhere. He was the most annoying character in the second half of the first season, and as much as I hate to admit it, he’s also the most annoying character of the second season. I don’t mind how you can have a character like him on the show, but the creators are really giving him way too much airtime.

Every episode I keep thinking that the guy has learned his lesson, and for every single episode so far he’s proved me wrong. Okay, so he sees that he screwed up big time in the previous episode; He wants to help; that’s good. Unfortunately, the episode ended at the point where he was about to shoot down Louise, something which will make him even more emo than he already was for goodness’ sake!

Okay, so those were the bad parts. The rest of the episode was pretty enjoyable, to say the least. “Mr. Bushido” seems to be finally coming into action, and I’m interested in what he can add to this archetype. The overall episode was a good aftermath that did let the deaths of the previous episodes sink in. I’m also glad that Setsuna has grown up really much, and didn’t just try to get to Ali as soon as possible (like he would have done in the first season). The guy knows his priorities, and overall he’s turned into a capable main character for this series.

Meanwhile, I was pleasantly surprised when this episode showed some of Sumeragi’s past. She had this whole life as a soldier behind her, explaining why she knows so much about tactics, and why she fell into a slump after the end of the first season: she already had lost some of her loved ones at one time, and she tried to use the Gundams to forget about these times, but that pretty much failed after that final episode. Then Billy took care of her for the next four years, which also wasn’t the smartest thing to do because he kept reminding her of her past.

I’m also warming up to that silver-haired official, thankfully. His big disadvantage is that he doesn’t have the season worth of build-up like the other characters have, but he works very nicely against the other, more moralistic characters. I still think that the military people act a little bit too sentimental, considering how they’re supposed to be rigorously trained and should be used to the fact that anyone of them might die, but this is just me being nitpicky.

Detroit Metal City Review – 77,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Detroit Metal City



Studio 4°C is known from its original premises that try to explore the boundaries of the medium of anime. Once every five years or so, they release a comedy, and they too have these traits: think of Eternal Family and Kimagure Robot. The newest instalment is Detroit Metal City, a series that parodies a genre that hardly ever appears in anime: metal. The series was a huge success, and at the time that I’m writing this it stands as the highest-ranked series on AniDB. But then again, the second-highest ranking series is Code Geass 2, so one shouldn’t take these rankings too seriously.

In any case, Studio 4C’s experimental trademarks are clearly visible in this series. The character-designs look like no other series I’ve seen and they’re truly original, the art looks great, although the animation is simplistic. This is another comedy that heavily relies on its energy to keep the jokes going, and throughout its airtime, it makes a complete fool out of the metal-scene while offering some social commentary at the same time.

The major part of this series is about the lead character’s extreme case of multiple personality: on stage he’s a brute king of death metal, off the stage he’s a country bumpkin who likes Swedish Pop. The best parts in the series are when a Negishi’s fans get weird ideas after a simple accident, and even though they’re mostly over-exaggerated stereotypes, they’re a lot of fun to watch due to their bizarre imagination.

Ultimately though, this isn’t the best comedy out there. The comedy is really hit or miss: some episodes are hilarious, some are mildly entertaining, but others simply don’t work or drag on and the dull episodes outnumber the hilarious ones by a small fraction. In a way, it’s hard to get excited for such a series if you don’t know whether it’s going to hit or not. Thankfully, the final episode does deliver, so the series won’t leave a bad taste in your mouth.

So yeah, DMC is the least impressive out of Studio 4°C’s comedy-repertoire. I feel that if the creators cut the length in half, and removed the lesser episodes, it would have made for a much more exciting series. That’s what made Kimagure Robot and Eternal Family so great: they were hilarious, had some nice hidden messages here and there, and they were over before you knew it. DMC is a nice experiment for a series with a longer length than Studio 4°C’s usual works; it’s a good series, but not the best.

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

Jigoku Shoujo – 58

by psgels, posted in Jigoku Shoujo



Short Synopsis: Two girls get a crush on Hone Onna.
Highlights: Talk about an elaborate punishment-scene.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10 (Good)
This episode was really typical of the third season of Jigoku Shoujo: two girls are fighting over the love of Hone Onna, one using more subtle tricks, while the other blatantly threatened the other. The second one then ends up sending the first one to hell, and the next day she’s forgotten her crush and fallen in love with someone else.

If there’s one thing I’m worrying about this season, then it’s the lack of variety when compared to the others. It really seems that this third season is set in a high-school, and so it will be about conflicts between students and teachers, while the first and second season also like to show problems between adults at times (the lovable idiot, for example). I also wonder, since Jigoku Shoujo is basically confined to one area this time (since she can’t really move anywhere because she’s bound by Mikage), what are other people doing with their revenges? Does the website simply not work? The first season had this as well, and it’s an annoying plot-hole in an otherwise excellent series.

In any case, the ironic thing about this episode is that it’s basically Hone Onna who set up the two girls against each other. One oft he girls was awfully shy, but Hone Onna gave her a bit of courage, after which she started making the life of her rival miserable, getting sent to hell afterwards. Again, there’s a hidden meaning beneath this: adults meddling in teenaged business isn’t always the right thing to do. From a teenaged perspective, in any case.

This episode aso showed the first hint of an overall storyline: it’s now clear that Mikage is proving to be not the best vessel for her. Let’s see how this evolves throughout the series.

Telepathy Shoujo Ran – 20

by psgels, posted in Telepathy Shoujo Ran



Short Synopsis: Rin gets a love-letter.
Highlights: Quite possibly one of the funniest episodes of the series yet.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
Okay, so this episode was just a standalone story, there was no real continuity and it didn’t really progress the series forth in anyway. That classifies as filler, doesn’t it?

Ah, who cares if it’s a filler! This episode was hilarious!

I think that the term “filler” has evolved into a bit too negative of a term. I mean, a bad filler is just as bad (if not worse) as a bad episode that does progress the story. I’ve also seen many episodes that were labelled as fillers that actually did progress the series a little bit (El Cazador’s episodes for example: are they fillers or not?). I mean, if the episodes are fun, interesting or well written, then who cares if it’s a filler or not? That’s why I rather dislike the use of this term.

In any case, I really loved this episode. It was all about Rin, and he really is awesome when he stands in the spotlights. Seeing this series lapse into self-parody in the second half was also really fun to watch, and there was plenty of hilarious banter throughout the episode. Overall, it’s an episode well spent and it pretty much eliminated my fears that this series would turn dull in its final quarter.

It’s just a shame that the creators wasted a lot of potential due to the format of this episode. It’s obvious that the love-letter was just a misunderstanding, because Rin getting a girlfriend wouldn’t exactly fit the rest of the concept. I’m not sure whether I should be glad or not that this series won’t introduce a love-triangle near the end, but it would have been interesting to see what this series could do with it.

And so, with only six episodes left, there’s one thing that I still really want to see here: an episode dedicated to Rui. It was pretty hilarious how he completely emerged from the background like a bloodhound as soon as the word “jiken” (case) got mentioned, but I want more: an episode where he can fully show off his character. Even the time with the other ran didn’t really give him the chance to give everything he had.

Sexy Commando Gaiden Review – 87,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Those who’ve been following my reviews for the past few months probably noticed that a lot of them started with something like “I wasn’t looking forward to the premise at all … but my expectations were proven wrong”. This pattern obviously isn’t going to last for much longer, since I’m about to get to the shows that I’m actually looking forward to, but before that happens I want to direct your attention to Sugoiyo!! Masaru-san, or Sexy Commando Gaiden, which is probably the epitome of this effect.

The promo-art in this case does absolutely nothing to prepare you for what this series is really about. Just take a look: it looks like some sort of mediocre wrestling-series, doesn’t it? Instead, this is a fully-fledged comedy-series, about a guy who uses his sex-appeal in order to win his fights (among others). I think that really nothing can prepare someone for the extreme silliness that is this series.

Still, it’s one of the better comedies that I’ve watched so far. It’s ten years old at this point, but it can easily drink many modern comedies under the table. Its big strength is its consistency. This may sound a bit weird coming from a series that uses a lot of randomness as the base for its jokes, but what I mean by that is that even though this series won’t necessarily make you laugh harder than other comedies, it will make you laugh longer. The episodes are only eight minutes long, but for every single one of them, you just know that it’s going to crack you up. There are no weak episodes, there are no disappointing moments, and every single of its 48 episodes delivers. Now that’s what I call a good comedy.

Through its entire length, this series knows exactly what it is: a comedy. Never does it try to gain sympathy by switching to pointless drama – the number one mistake that comedies can make. Even the ending has to be one of the best endings I’ve seen in a comedy, simply because even there the laughs continue to keep coming. Ending parodies are actually full of potential, but you unfortunately hardly ever get to see them since most comedies try to be bigger than they actually are and want to have a “satisfying ending” themselves.

Also part of this series’ success is of course the cast of characters, who managed to keep fresh through the entire run of the series both the main and the side-characters). Obviously, you shouldn’t expect rocket-science from these guys, but they’ve got enough sides to keep them from getting boring after a few episodes, and their quirks are fresh and original (which surprises me in a way: ten years, and still nobody has tried to rip them off?).

This series’ only downside is that at times, its tricks to fill up extra airtime get a bit too ridiculous. You can exactly see when the creators have run out of inspiration to exactly fill their eight minutes for that episode, because the episode randomly lapses into a cheesy insert-song that doesn’t have anything to do with the actual episode. Thankfully, none of these insert-songs feel repetitive, and the creators have enough ideas to prevent even these insert-songs from getting boring, but it does remain a little cheap. There’s also a 30-second recap of the previous episode at the beginning, and even though these recaps make no bloody sense at all, it does become a bit too much after every single episode, considering how each of them is only eight minutes long.

Nevertheless, if you’re looking for something to laugh at and don’t need any moe-schoolgirls for that, then I wholeheartedly recommend Sexy Commando Gaiden. Very few comedies can boast the same amount of consistent laughs as this one, and some of the jokes are absolutely brilliant. I wouldn’t be surprised if the creators of Gintama also got some inspiration from this little series.

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

Tytania – 05

by psgels, posted in Tytania



Short Synopsis: A planet-nation called Turandia just lost its king, and Tytania immediately plans to re-establish diplomatic relationships.
Highlights: Finally some politics again.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10 (Good)
You know, it’s taken me five whole episodes to realize the whole hidden meaning behind the OP and ED: The OP shows just shots of the Tytanians, while the ED is about Fan Hulic, Lyra and Miranda. It’s a very nice use of symbolism, although the dramatic visuals in the ED worry me a bit. I really hope that the creators aren’t going to focus too much on the romantic relationship between Lyra and Fan Hulic, because so far it’s been the least interesting aspect of this series. Especially those thorns bug me.

In any case, this episode went back to the politics again, which was very much welcome after the previous episode. It was an interesting idea that Turandia, after the loss of its ruler needed to re-establish its political structure. Juslan was sent to that planet to help that (apparently, he’s the half-brother of one of the dearest friends of the princess of the country), but unfortunately most of the Turandia-officials decided to turn themselves against Tytania. I didn’t expect these two to die so suddenly either. The coup d’etat was one thing, but instead of just capturing the princess, they just shot her.

This episode also showed the large implications that Ariabart’s loss had to the image of Tytania. They’re no longer the invincible force that needs to be reckoned with, which inspired the Turandia-officials to grab the courage to turn themselves against the nation. I’m not sure yet how the rebels and Fan Hulic are going to form the centre of this opposition, but I guess that that’ll be clear in the next episodes.

Shikabane Hime – 06

by psgels, posted in Shikabane Hime



Short Synopsis: The fight against the evil car continues, and Ouri gets more insight into the bond between Makina and Keisei.
Highlights: Nice fight!
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10 (Awesome)
Now THIS is exactly why I’m watching this series! Best episode so far, and the fight this episode was among the best of the season so far. My idea of a god fight might be different from usual, but my favourite fights nearly always contain the three following ingredients:
– Good music
– Good choreography/direction
– And most importantly: character-development. Obviously about characters I care about. ^^;

This episode had all three of them, and so it’s no surprise that I loved this episode, and it totally made up for my.. er… tantrum after the previous episode.

I really expected Ouri’s whining to get in the way of the fight scene this episode, but instead he actually contributed to it. Okay, the middle of a fight may have not been the perfect time to start questioning Makina about why she’s fighting, but it sure made everything a whole lot more exciting. I think that with this episode, he fully understands the strange bond that has developed between Makina and Keisei, how the two of them swore to protect each other while they both worked towards their selfish wishes.

I also really liked how the creators made use of the fact that this is a Gainax-series, and how it would have been inevitable for people to compare this to Gurren Lagann. This episode laid a lot of parallels between Keisei and a certain character from Gurren Lagann. The creators kept hinting at how he was going to die. At the end of the episode, we’re still not sure if he lived or not (I think he lived, otherwise the episode would have gone off with a bigger bang), but even if he did live, this can just be one big build-up for the guy’s real demise, which still could very easily happen in this series. In any case, it’s a great way to make the viewer care about the characters. That’s also the big problem I had with Gurren Lagann at this point: it was nice and all, but I just couldn’t find myself to care about the characters, and consequently about the big plot twist of that series.

Michiko e Hatchin – 03

by psgels, posted in Michiko e Hatchin



Short Synopsis: Michiko looks for Hana’s father while Hatchin finds a job.
Highlights: Number of episodes Hana’s hair lasted: 2,5.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10 (Good)
Three episodes in, and I’m finally beginning to see the huge strength of this series. I originally went into this series, expecting this series to be some sort of cross between Samurai Champloo and El Cazador, with fun characters in fun and exciting fight scenes. The OP seemed to suggest the same, and that’s why the first episode disappointed somewhat because it was so damn serious.

I now see that the direction this series chose might be even better than just a fun-filled adventure. There still is some enjoyable banter here and there, but what this series really is about is the really colourful characterization, and the immense attention to detail that’s put into the dialogue to make it seem as realistic as possible, while keeping a solid pace. This series has the potential to become one of the hidden gems of the Autumn-season, but that all depends on how it decides to fill in the rest of the series. There’s no end goal in sight, so who knows?

In any case, in this episode Hatchin (who officially changes her name to Hatchin and cuts off her hair in this episode) and Michiko clash again when Michiko buys (read: steals) Hatchin a pair of shoes. Hatchin then tries to work off the shoes at a local restaurant. I think that she just thought that she’d be handing out plates and dishes, but an unexpected part of her job is trying to stop everyone who’s out for a free meal. At one point she gets carried away and chases a bunch of kids far into the city. Before she can deal with them, they reach their gang, and Hana has to stand in front of a guy with a gun.

I found it typical of Michiko that she refused to acknowledge the guy she slept with because he found another woman and got married. At least, that’s what I think happened, we never see this actually confirmed, it could be that she indeed got the wrong guy, but I think that if that was the case then Michiko wouldn’t be as gloomy as she was gloomy as she was here.