Author: psgels

Macross Frontier – 24

by psgels, posted in Macross Frontier



Short Synopsis: The final assault on the Vajra home planet begins. You don’t want to read this entry before watching this episode, so be warned.
Highlights: Not going to spoil that here.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
Oh, okay. I admit Kawamori: you have me. I give up, and I was in the wrong.

Ah, the irony. I was about to give up hope on this series. I kept rambling on how the creators had the guts to kill off Ranka, and that they’d just go with the predictable paths. And then this episode comes and kills of none other than Alto! That’s just about the best plot twist that you can think of at this point. I mean, how often do you see the main character getting killed off before the final episode of a series?

Seriously, that twist is made of nothing but win. I’ve actually never seen Alto as a well-written character. All of the best moments in this series were either about Ranka, Sheryl, Kuran, Michel, Ozma, etc, but Alto never managed to impress me. In a way, he’s the dullest character in this series, especially when compared to the amount of screen-time he got. In a way, it’s quite ironic: my dislike for Ranka comes from the way that she was used, but her actual character is pretty good. I really wonder what would have happened if she got more screen-time than that she actually got, and Alto would be more reduced to the background.

In any case, now that that annoying factor is gone, I’m actually looking forward to that final episode a lot. But Satelight: if you’re planning to revive the guy, then I’ll kill you!

RD Sennou Chousashitsu – 24

by psgels, posted in RD Sennou Chousashitsu



Short Synopsis: Jennie tries to execute his plans, and I finally found out what the bugger’s trying to do!
Highlights: Nice fight scenes!
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
Okay, so this series blew its chances at being a masterpiece due to some uncoordinated build-up, but it still can end the series with a strong finale, if everything goes right. It started the build-up for the finale thankfully at least a bit in time, and right now it needs to deliver an interesting finale in its final two episodes. This requires the creators to take what they’ve been building up to, and push this into an entirely new or further direction, because I’m not convinced whether a character-based or straightforward ending is going to work for this series. The fact remains that the most fleshed out entity in this series is Minamo, and she never played a central role in the final arc.

Ooh, but I finally found out what the eventual plan of Jennie is, thanks to some very appreciated English words that appeared on the screen. It’s really a shame that this series has stopped being subbed, because the finale was just full of elaborate dialogues. In any case, Jennie has been trying to use the plant he and the secretary general have been developing in order to send nano-machines into the atmosphere, in an attempt to control the weather. And I must say that this is a perfect issue about which differences of opinions could arise. On one hand, think of the possibilities when you can fully control the weather. On the other hand, you’ll be disrupting the eco-system of the entire planet this way. It’s the basic environmentalist vs. progression debate, in a very interesting coat, if I had to say so myself. At least the messages in this series are rock-solid, but I wish I could say the same about the storytelling-technical aspects of the series, but ah well. You can’t change what’s already done, so at least I’ll try to enjoy the finale of this series for what it is.

Another interesting thing is the huge amount of parallels with Nijuu Mensou no Musume that are popping up. In its final arc, Chiko is also trying to prevent a scientist from launching a particle beam, and what’s even more coincidental: both in their latest episodes, these attempts have succeeded. Overall though, RD’s attempt at its particle beam is more interesting, because Jennie still is more of a villain than that scientist of Nijuu Mensou no Musume. At least I’ll grant it that. Jennie at least feels part of the show, rather than him being just another villain. In the end, I do admit that his lack of attention wasn’t as bad as I originally thought it was. I think that the reason that this series has disappointed is simply the fact that it went from character-based to story-based, and that progression wasn’t that smooth. This series is about its setting and characters. When the story takes over, it’s going to feel a bit awkward. That finale just arrived to abrupt. What should have been a time when all the character-development came together turned out to be a time where the characters are ignored in favour of the storyline. And that’s just a pity.

Bonen no Xamdou – 10

by psgels, posted in Bonen no Xamdou



Short Synopsis: Raigyo gives Akiyuki a few “tips” on being Xam’d, and Haru tries to close off her past.
Highlights: Haru’s new haircut looks awesome. Nakiami’s… doesn’t. ^^;
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
Often in anime, a change of haircut means that the person in question is about to enter a new stage of his or her life, and emerges as a different person. This was very much emphasized on this episode in Haru’s case: she continues to be held behind by her past, and in this episode, she attempts to close her memories off for the time being, and not being influenced by them.

The rest of this episode was a bit of background on Raigyo, showing how he became a Xamdou. It was very interesting to see the different cast members at that time. The girl wasn’t there, the boy was only just born, and Nakiami looked really young. Still, I’m surprised at how long she’s already been at the Zanbani: it’s been more than five years already.

This clearly was a building up episode. My prediction is that the next episode will start the introduction of what’s supposed to be the midway climax of this series. I’m interested at what the creators can do, and especially how Haru’s going to tie in everything. The girl definitely is my favourite character in this series at this point, and I’m really looking forward to see her growth.

Natsume Yuujin-Chou – 11

by psgels, posted in Natsume Yuujin-Chou



Short Synopsis: Nyanko and Natsume get into a fight.
Highlights: The lightest episode so far, but unfortunately also the most disappointing one.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10
Ah, I don’t know. This episode was supposed to be hilarious, but it just felt off somehow. Basically, there is no case, here, and most of the episode just follows Nyanko as he sulks after having left Natsume, and I laughed at quite a few times, but it’s the whole timing of this episode that bugs me. There are only two episodes left, and then the creators suddenly come with an episode that’s solely meant to flesh out the characters. Why couldn’t they just have done this earlier, or chosen a different story from the manga, considering the very limited amount of time this series has to work with.

There was one little girl that Nyanko met, who ran away from home, but she merely served for him to come back to Natsume. She was cute a bit, but she really needed more airtime than what she got. I’m reminded of the finale of Kekkaishi: there’s supposed to be a huge climax coming, and suddenly the creators start to introduce all sorts of background for the bad guys. I mean, it’s needed, but it shouldn’t appear this late at the series. Such a light episode, I really think that it would have been more appropriate for episode five or six. Not eleven.

Ah well, at least I got some good laughs out of this episode, but this isn’t something I expect from my favourite series this summer-season. Those final two episodes had better be really good to make up for it.

Himitsu ~The Revelation~ – 24

by psgels, posted in Himitsu ~The Revelation~



Short Synopsis: There is NO WAY I’m going to spoil this episode in front of the blog aggregators. MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW. READ AT OWN RISK!
Highlights: Why did I ever say that this series was bad at characterization?!
Overall Enjoyment Value: 9/10
That was one AWESOME episode. It really fitted for a finale, it packed a punch, and it wasn’t afraid to go for the worst-case scenario. After the previous episode, I really expected the creators to find some way to revive Amachi. Guess what? She actually didn’t make it! She’d goddanmed died!

Basically, what happened is the following: after Amachi saw the extra set of footage that got saved from the victim’s brains, she went to investigate on the research facility of that woman that came to claim the body. That’s the reason why she was captured and her brains taken away from her. It turns out that the woman had a personal vendetta against Daiku, and that’s why she brought back the brain, in order to lure more Daiku members who’d come rushing in to save her.

Which Aoki does, of course. She captures him, but she didn’t take into account that the rest of Daiku would also chase after Aoki, and after that, her practices of human experimentation are brought down quite quickly, so she kills herself and destroys her brains. Amachi, unfortunately, had already died. Her body stayed away from her brains for too long. The thing is that when Aoki got captured, she actually was still alive! The two of them shared a dream, if I recall correctly.

I’m really impressed by how this series turned out. At first, it may seem like a strange idea to just go with anime-original stories, instead of keeping to the manga, but in this way, the creators were able to plan EXACTLY the sufficient airtime for each character, so that each one of them got enough attention. The result is an absolutely awesome cast in the end, even though there were enough times where I lost faith in this series.

And I’m really curious: what the heck did the creators have planned for the final two episodes? The first one will be another aftermath to the Kainuma-case, but what is the second going to be? Ooh, so many possibilities!

Nijuu Mensou no Musume – 20

by psgels, posted in Nijuu Mensou no Musume



Short Synopsis: The scientist has a back-up plan, and tries to activate it in this episode.
Highlights: Interesting twist that fits with the series’ themes.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
Aah, there are two episodes left and I still have no idea what the name of the major villain is! It gets annoying to keep calling him “the scientist”, but oh well. This episode was enjoyable, but I’m still waiting for that “Oomph” that was present at the doll-arc. This episode was mostly about the scientist’s secret, and I do admit that it was a pretty interesting one: he turned himself into an android. And not just any android, but one shaped like Nijuu Mensou.

It fits perfectly with the paranoia that the people had after the war. With the human-shaped robots, made out of solid steel, that could imitate others perfectly and resist bullets like a bunch of flies. Now, he in a strange sense of irony, took on the form of Nijuu Mensou. Probably after hearing about his popularity.

The question now really remains: are the creators able to close this series off properly? The doll-arc was much shorter than the scientist-arc, but it did have a much bigger impact. These final two episodes really need to be amazing in order to be able to make up for it. One thing that I really hope is that the creators are going to switch to that experimental animation-style again. It worked really well when that doll tried to drown Chiko, but ever since Chiko’s little show on her broom, it disappeared entirely.

Sekirei Review – 75/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews


For the past summer-season, Sekirei was one of the series I was least looking forward to. I mean, the premise was a guy who collects a bunch of big-breasted girls (or Sekirei as they’re called in this series) who like to show off their goods, and these girls fight each other. It just had a premise that sounded so much like those other shounen-fanservice series. Now that it has ended, I must admit that it turned out to be much better than I expected.

As it turns out, the series tries to explain the fact that every single female falls in love with the male lead through its concept: Sekirei naturally fall in love with the ones they form a contact with, and so if you can collect a lot of these Sekirei, you can create your own harem. I admit, it’s much better than your average harem that has females falling for the male lead for no possible reason, but at the same time, it does feel a bit lazy.

Thankfully, the series makes up for it through its characters. There’s a wide variety of them in the series, and the creators succeed in actually making the viewer care about them. This is also the biggest strength of this series: it knows how to tell its story (which turns out to be much more complex than I originally expected) and keep the viewer interested. Overall, it was a very pleasant surprise.

Some of the main characters do have the ability to get on your nerves pretty fast, though. Especially some of the main characters: Kuu and Tsukiumi, who are a bit too eager to express their love, and feel a bit too 2-dimensional. The series also plays around with coincidences a bit too much, and especially the beginning has too many people coincidentally meeting the right people, in order to set up the story.

The big flaw of this series, however, is its ending. Sekirei is part of a much larger manga, and at one point, it just stops, while the manga goes on. This of course isn’t such a big problem. There’s room enough for a second season, which will most likely get announced. The problem, however, is that the final episode is downright terrible. This series worked so well at building a nice story, and it threw everything down the drains with a bunch of horribly blatant Deus ex Nachinas (and not just one, there’s a whole BUNCH of them), that try way too much to end the series on a happy note. In terms of plot, I can understand how these twists had to happen, but please: make at least an effort to build up for these twists. Don’t introduce them at your own convenience because the plot needs them.

While it’s nowhere near a great series, my faith in bishoujo-series that got pretty much blown apart by Kanokon and To Love-Ru managed to get restored by the past summer-season. Sekirei is a nicely written series, which may focus a bit too much on its fanservice, but underneath it’s got a charming cast of characters to boast.

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

Mission-E – 11

by psgels, posted in Mission-E



Short Synopsis: The calm before the storm-episode, where Chinami and Kotarou’s engagement gets celebrated
Highlights: Hilarious banter.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
Ah, now I understand! I finally realize why Mission-E has disappointed so much, thanks to this episode, which probably was among the best of the entire series, along with the first one. The thing is that this episode probably had the most time spent away from the story out of all the episodes so far, and incidentally, those moments also were the most enjoyable of the entire series. The banter between some of the characters was hilarious, and Adol’s reaction to being in the enemy’s camp was awesome.

So yeah, the big problem with this series is that the story downright sucks. I originally hoped that the creators would shed some light on the practices of the foundation, but eleven episodes in and they’re still the evil corporation that plots the destruction of our heroes (and now, the country). The entire storyline had just been taking care of these goons, and the eloping-parts never really tried to solve this. The reason why Code-E didn’t suffer from this is because the story there was engaging: you could see Chinami, as she tried to make sense of her own powers, and her classmates that helped her in that. It was cute, and that’s why the climaxes worked so well.

The big problem is that the creators needed enemies that were more interesting than the current foundation. This could provide a story where the characters were able to shine more, and allow for more banter (BY FAR the best thing of this series). What we have here is a series with an identity crisis: it thinks its story is awesome, while in fact it’s the characters who rock, but the characters are hardly given any chance to shine because they’re TOO DAMN BUSY SAVING THE WORLD!

Golden Boy Review – 75/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews


Time for another OVA from the nineties. There are a lot of rumours about Golden Boy. The two most notable ones are that it’s supposed to be hilarious and chockfull of fanservice. Well, at least I can agree with one of them. Whenever this OVA has the chance, it shows off its female “assets”, often taking fanservice to the extreme (we’re talking about women who hump motorcycles here).

And in terms of humour, it just disappoints. I did get a few good laughs out of some of the episodes, but it wasn’t really side-splittingly funny like some reviews I’ve read about it seemed to suggest. The jokes either work completely or miss the mark entirely. Fortunately, Golden Boy does manage to set itself apart from all other fanservice comedies with a solid and creative script.

Basically, it follows a guy who travels around and takes on random part-time jobs, while meeting and charming sexy women in the process. Every single episode ends with said woman falling in love with Kintarou, but what happens around that is the interesting part. Kintarou, the main character, is an incredible pervert, and yet at the same time he’s one of the most versatile and interesting perverts I’ve seen in anime (not that that bar is particularly difficult to pass, but okay). His obsession with toilets may be a little too played out, but his obsession with learning becomes downright adorable over time.

He also chooses some interesting places to work in, and the creators actually did some research on what working at such a job entails (I never thought that I’d see references to FORTRAN and COBOL somewhere in anime), ranging from a simple noodle house to an anime production company. Compare that to your average fanservice-series, which often can’t get more original than a beach episode.

In terms of production-values, Golden Boy is very much a mixed bag. The animation ranges from standard to incredibly fluid (especially the fanservice-scenes have a lot of the latter), and the music consists of a bunch of random cheesy J-pop tunes, which really felt like the sound producer found them somewhere in a bargain-bin at a local garage-sale.

Overall, I do have to say that Golden Boy is over-hyped. There are quite a few times in which it goes straight against logic or physics. Nevertheless, for a fanservice comedy, it’s among the better anime of the genre. You can see that the creators put a lot of effort into its creation, and the short format helps to keep things fresh, even through the lesser episodes. It’s nowhere near my favourites, but at least I got some good laughs out of it.

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

Ultraviolet: Code 044 Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Ultraviolet: Code 044


Every season has its most underrated series for me. For the past summer season, this was without a doubt Ultraviolet: Code 044. It only got one episode subbed, and that episode received masses of bad reviews. Because of all this bad publicity, this series received no chance at all to show its goods, which is a pity, since it’s actually a pretty good series. If you know what you want to watch it for.

Let me get a few things straight before I continue. This series is part of a whole Ultraviolet franchise, which started out as a series of comic books. Previously, it had already been adapted into a movie, which sucked beyond belief. That’s yet another one of the reasons for this series’ lack of popularity. Let me assure you, though: Code 04 is nothing like its movie counterpart. The movie was a horrible mishmash of random action scenes, while the anime manages to avoid these pitfalls.

So, yes. Code 044 is an action-series, but it knows that you can’t make a good series with action, and so it has a very solid and simple plot to keep it going. Whenever the characters are not fighting, they’re being fleshed out or developed. Not a single scene is wasted. To those who might have feared that this series would fall into a bunch of random fillers: it doesn’t. This series has a very clear goal and purpose, and manages to balance the action, plot and characters very nicely.

Part of the reasons why everything worked out so nicely is that the series has a stellar director: Osamu Dezaki. Very few people have the same amount of experience as he does, and he not only manages to use this experience to avoid common pitfalls like characters that aren’t fleshed out enough, rushed endings or cheesy dialogue, but he also manages to turn the screen into a visual feast, even though the graphical budget is often limited. The action-scenes themselves are mostly consisting out of still frames, but the effects that Osamu throws at you give it a great sense of style. He really likes to overuse CG, those sketch-like frames and split screens, and it really works. If you’re into experimental visuals, of course.

In terms of flaws, this series doesn’t have any major ones, but it’s just not a series for everyone. There are some strange instances of fanservice in the first episode, but after that the fanservice disappears nearly entirely. The plotline is very simple and for most of the time straightforward. It never tries to be anything deep or thought-provoking. It’s just one of those examples of “anime as entertainment”, as in: don’t try to find anything special behind it, because there is none. It just wants to tell a story and entertain the viewer. And for me it pretty much accomplished that feat

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

(*a small note: like I mentioned somewhere earlier, a high number at production-values doesn’t necessarily mean smooth or detailed animation, but rather whether the series “looks” good. Which was for me the case, although do note that the character-designs are very unconventional for anime)