Author: psgels

Nijuu Mensou no Musume – 18

by psgels, posted in Nijuu Mensou no Musume



Short Synopsis: The old scientist shows what he’s been doing for the past decades.
Highlights: Lots of depth for Nijuu Mensou.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
So in the end, the energy from water-arc wasn’t as good as the doll-arc, but this episode was still pretty awesome. While it first looked like this arc was just a copy of the previous one, this episode showed that the purpose of this arc was very different from the Doll arc. This episode was really meant to show some different sides of Nijuu Mensou. Even though the minions from that scientist individually weren’t as strong as the doll-woman, they proved to be much more trouble, since Nijuu Mensou and Chiko were in the minority: they were too busy to fight these one-on-one, giving the scientist the time he needed to fire his energy-beam. I do wonder, though: why did he need Chiko in order to fire it? I failed to pick that one up.

This episode showed that Nijuu Mensou never really was happy about the research he conducted, and it finally showed his past from his own perspective. It seems that it’s especially his research on the energy from water that caused his change of heart. It just wouldn’t work, even though he captured the basics. That got him thinking about the ethical issues (especially since he nearly destroyed his laboratory in a failed experiment). It’s there when he decided to stop his research and burn his evidence, though (as we already know by now) that left many people unhappy.

With a bit of luck, Haruka will mature a bit after this episode. She wasn’t hurt in this episode, but hopefully she realizes that Chiko’s life is nothing like the life she imagined, and that there a lot of nasty sides under Nijuu Mensou’s appearance. Nijuu Mensou has also been hurt at the end of the episode, so he finally can’t run away from Chiko anymore. The next episode should prove to be fun.

It also turns out that the woman we saw with Ken is the woman back from episode eight, with a bit of a changed appearance. Again, it would prove to be interesting when she meets with Chiko, now that Nijuu Mensou can’t run away anymore. There are four episodes left, so there’s probably one major climax coming up. Something tells me that that woman is going to play a big role in it. And what about that washed-up cleaner that we saw, nine episodes ago?

Telepathy Shoujo Ran – 09

by psgels, posted in Telepathy Shoujo Ran



Short Synopsis: This episode brings us Telepathy Shoujo Ran’s version of the story where a ghost has been waiting under a sakura for her loved one to return for ages.
Highlights: Just when I thought that the banter in this series couldn’t get any better.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
Okay, so apparently, the nine volumes of the original light novels that this series is based on turn out to be just a bit too short to fill in 26 episodes, hence why this and the past episode have treated us with anime-original material. I’m not going to use the word “filler” for it, because that term seems to have become something incredibly negative in the fandom, while in fact the past two episodes were highly entertaining, though not in the way you might expect. ^^;

In this episode, the creators did exactly what they’re good at: sending Ran, Rui and Midori on an adventure and having Ran and Midori bicker endlessly in the process. I think the big problem with anime-original episodes is that it’s here where the writers of the anime have to show that they can write for themselves, rather than copy somebody else’s work. This episode showed that the creators of this series most definitely know how to write. With series as Claymore, it’s entirely the opposite: its writers were excellent at copying and pasting, but when they went with their own storyline they fell flat on their face.

The story wasn’t that special, and it’s been done many times before: two lovers who were once separated by a war. The lady is still waiting under a Sakura for her loved one to return, and over time they became youkai. But then again, this series was never about its originality. I remember World Destruction doing a very similar story (if I recall correctly, I dropped that series after that exact episode), and it never tried to spice things up, even though it was dealing with a very dull storyline that would never work on its own. Telepathy Shoujo Ran, however, knows exactly how to spice things up, with the above-mentioned banter between the characters, and the plot of trying to find the tree that the woman waited under, even though it already had been cut down. And of course how their romantic reunion was disturbed by a bitch-slap instead of a heart-warming and overacted hug.

Birdy the Mighty Decode – 08

by psgels, posted in Birdy the Mighty Decode



Short Synopsis: Senkawa and his friends from school are invited to Nakasugi’s summer house.
Highlights: That second half…
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
Seriously, is it me, or is this series really getting better and better with every episode? The build-up in this episode was downright excellent, and it went seamlessly from a quiet and light-hearted mood in the first half to a much darker second half. So what if the first episodes in this series goofed off? They did what they were supposed to do: flesh out characters in this series.

The past few episodes have continued to push Nakasugi’s powers more and more dramatic. In this episode, she even destroys an entire neighbourhood, and this is probably going to continue to get even worse in the future of this series. I liked how the police arrived at the house at the end of the episode. It shows that you can’t just destroy a building and get away with it in this series, adding to the believability. But what was that book that Natsumi was looking at, the one about the destroyed buildings that had the younger version of Shamalan on it? For some reason, Nakasugi wanted to distract her attention from it as quickly as possible, suggesting some sort of connection between her past and Shamalan.

The question also remains who those footprints on the wall belonged to. If they really are from Capella, then why would she go and play around with Senkawa and the others? What did she hope to achieve by walking on the walls and leaving her footprints?

I like what the creators did with the background music in this episode. The tune that the doll played in the previous episode returns multiple times in this one. I remember how Kaiba once did the same, and the technique works out pretty well.

Bonen no Xamdou – 06

by psgels, posted in Bonen no Xamdou



Short Synopsis: Haru receives Akiyuki’s letter
Highlights: Haru, you seriously rock.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
I think that with the arrival of Akiyuki’s letter, the introduction of this series is finally over and the plot can start to really develop. The time for mourning about the tragedy of Sentan Island, and it’s time to move forward. Furuichi joins the military, and to my surprise Haru does so as well! I sort-of suspected that she wouldn’t sit still for the entire series, but to think that she’d actually join the army. That really makes her much more interesting than most other female love interests, whose majority seems to degrade into a damsel in distress.

Toujirou also doens’t seem to be the bad guy I originally thought he would be. There are a lot of parallels between him and Dominic of Eureka7: they’re both young leaders who have troubles with their subordinates. Toujirou in this case is fundamentally against these experiments with the Xam’d, and this episode gave him reasons enough to worry when one of these Xam’d that was supposed to be dead revives and starts rampaging. I guess that this is another way that a Xam’d can turn into, without the help of Nakiami. This begs the question: why can Nakiami safely control the Xam’d, while a scientist from her people can’t do the same, and ends up with the Xam’d going berserk?

Akiyuki’s fight against that humanform reminded me of Eureka7, where Renton suddenly realized that he’s been fighting humans. I’m surprised at how different this was done in Xamdou with its subtle approach. But then again, Akiyuki is a lot more mature.

I’m also reminded of another series, which disturbs me a bit. I just keep comparing Haru and Nakiami with Shirley and Karen from Code Geass, even though the former two managed to get about as much depth in six episodes as the latter did in 46 of them… It’s strange, there are of course a few similarities, but also just as much differences, but I just can’t seem to stop comparing them..

Macross Frontier – 20

by psgels, posted in Macross Frontier



Short Synopsis: This is the episode… where all hell breaks loose.
Highlights: Sheryl, Kuran and of course Michael.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
So this is where the big climax of Macross Frontier begins. Ranka’s pet has finally revealed its true colours as the larvae of not just one Vajra, but an entire Vajra colony who go rampant as soon as they’re hatched. To make matters worse, the Vajra’s from outside have noticed this ad come to help their new comrades. Leon manages to make use of the confusion in order to successfully carry out his coup, but that still makes me wonder how he’s planning to solve that Vajra-problem he’s ended up with.

I really liked Sheryl in the episode. I remember how in the first half, she was one of the more annoying characters, but her character is really the one that received the most development through this series, and it’s really beginning to show now. Like expected, in this episode, she overcomes her anxieties and provides the support for not only Ranka, but also for the people who are hiding for the Vajra. Her character is really getting stronger with every episode, and I appreciate that a lot.

I wish I could say the same about Ranka, though. That girl is getting more annoying with each episode, and especially here she keeps whining and clinging to Alto, now that the shock of seeing Alto with Sheryl caused her song to lose its power over the Vajra. At this point, she really is my least favourite character of this series, and that’s not a good thing, seeing as how she’s the central character in this series. I really hope that she doesn’t end up ruining the finale of this series.

The real climax of this episode was of course the scene between Kuran and Michael. It’s the creators’ way of saying: “yes, we mean business” by killing off Michael so easily, just after he officially became a couple with Kuran. It’s an often-used plot-device, but the interesting thing is obviously going to be how this is going to affect both Alto and Kuran for the final five episodes.

Just a small note

by psgels, posted in Special Articles

Now that the discussions about the autumn anime season have started, I might as well note that for those who are wondering: I’m not planning to make a preview of the upcoming season.

It just feels like everyone and his dog is already doing one, so I don’t see what my attempts can add, since they were never that good anyway. The only advantage I had was that I wrote my previews always relatively early, but this time the first previews for the autumn season already popped up around the half of July. There’s no way I’m going to compete with that. If you want to see an autumn season preview, just go to Animenano and search for “fall preview”. I personally recommend waiting until Hashihime publishes his/hers (I’m still not sure about his/her gender…), as his/her thoughts are always very interesting to read.

The second reason is that I wanted to try a little experiment. For the past few years, I’ve always tried to prepare myself as best as possible, by reading synopsises, staff lists, et cetera, so that I knew what to expect. That doesn’t make much sense, though. I mean, I can understand how someone who’s only planning to watch a handful of series needs to separate the cream from the crop, but I’m going to watch the first episode of every new series anyway. Then what’s the point about getting excited about a series that might disappoint, or dismissing a potential gem because it doesn’t look interesting enough at first glance. Quite a few of my favourite series actually didn’t make too good of a first impression when I first saw them (Simoun, Shion no Ou, Kaiba, Mahou Shoujotai), and I’ve often been disappointed by a series that looked good because of its staff list and promo-art, but turned out to be complete garbage.

Hence why for this season, I wondered what it’d be like to go into a season without knowing anything about the upcoming series, save from possible sequels of course. With that mindset, I obviously can’t write a fall preview at the same time. I personally love being surprised by a series, so who knows? All I know is that I’m going to be enjoying the second seasons of Gundam 00 and Jigoku Shoujo, and for now I’ll just assume that the rest of the season will consist out of dull and uninspired shounen-series.

Himitsu ~The Revelation~ – 20

by psgels, posted in Himitsu ~The Revelation~



Short Synopsis: Aoki tries to catch the culprit of this arc’s crime red-handed.
Highlights: A solid conclusion.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
This arc really took its time to tell its story, and it worked out pretty well. The thing I liked about this arc wasn’t the characterizations or the intensity that some of the other arcs of Himitsu showed, but rather the complexity of its storyline. The previous episodes showed lots of question-marks, and this episode answered them very nicely, even though I had trouble as usual, trying to understand those elaborate dialogues. ^^;

So in the end, it was indeed the bald guy with the hat. The first incident on the train wasn’t because of him, but a girl he really liked was assaulted by a knife. When he tried to stop it, the girl got stabbed, and a bottle that contained the disease got slashed open, spreading the disease through the various people on the train. The following murderers were him, trying to erase the evidence. I didn’t like it when the characters started talking Chinese, though. It was already hard enough for me to grasp what that dialogue was about without some Japanized Chinese translated in Kanji…

I also liked how this episode addressed the sardine-can syndrome of the Japanese trains and subways. They are notorious for how nobody ever seems to talk there, and when such a major incident happens as someone getting threatened with a knife or something, most of them try to ignore it, instead of trying to do something to resolve it.

Then there’s that idiot Aoki. As it turns out, he never kissed and got himself infected, but he just made his fingernails look like they were infected. He did jump right in front of a train in order to save the culprit, though, in a desperate attempt to save Miyoshi from her disease. In the end, there was a romantic tension between the two, but Aoki reminded Miyoshi too much of Suzuki. That doesn’t really work when he wants to get a relation with her to make her forget about the guy.

I think I also finally get why this series feels weird at times, and I can’t seem to fully enjoy it like I did when it first started. I first thought that it was because of bad characterization, but that’s not quite right: even in the first half, this show has seen some great cases. The thing with this series is that it’s incredibly inconsistent: one episode focuses at characterization, while the next focuses on mystery, then the next one is all about horror, then there’s one that aims to disturb, then there’s a thought-provoking one, et cetera. The things that made a previous episode great aren’t the focus of the following. The best example of it is episode eight: possibly the best episode of the entire series because it was so bloody disturbing, but it also caused me to expect the same of the rest of the series.

In other words: this series is incredibly unpredictable: you’ll never know what an episode will be about. It’s both so in the good ways and the bad ways. On one hand, those bloody expectations don’t always cooperate you expect tension but instead get a fairly quiet episode that aims to be more thought-provoking, et cetera. On the other hand, it does show great writing to be so incredibly versatile with this series. It’s a bit of a double-edged sword, that’ll probably cause Himitsu to never really make it to my favourites, but it’s a great series nonetheless.

Ultraviolet: Code 044 – 08

by psgels, posted in Ultraviolet: Code 044



Short Synopsis: The scale is upped as 724 reveals an army’s worth of allies.
Highlights: Mostly building up… and still no Luka?
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
Ooh, it really looks like this series is planning to go all out for its finale. This is the second building-up episode in a row, with just four episodes remaining. In this episode, 724 reveals that much more clones and numbers have followed him to that distant planet, and that he’s regarded as their hero. This episode also gave some more background to Daxus II, and if I say so myself, it was an episode well spent.

724 is really a person who attracts others. He not only did that with his clone comrades, but also the people who work in his mine greatly look up to him, to the point where they were actually willing to fight to the death. It was interesting how didn’t even give them the chance to bury their comrades. 044 didn’t do much in this episode (this episode was really meant to flesh out the side-characters), but that one fight scene of hers was pretty impressive; she actually wants to be stopped.

Also, I really wonder when Luka’s going to pop up. It’s surprising that there hasn’t been any sign of him for the past two episodes. He’s probably frantically looking for Ultraviolet, but as long as there’s no news about her, he obviously can’t do much. It would perhaps have been better to show a bit of footage of him, looking for 044, but on the other hand, this does add to the mystery of it all.

RD Sennou Chousashitsu – 20

by psgels, posted in RD Sennou Chousashitsu



Short Synopsis: To synopsis this episode would be a bit too spoilerific, but let’s just say that it sheds more light on the concept of cyberbrains.
Highlights: Ooh, the character-development!
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
You have to wonder: what the heck are the creators planning for the finale of this series? There’s no bad guy, no approaching apocalypse, there no cast member that’s in danger of losing his/her life, there’s no evil plot to take over the world/organization/town, there’s no goal to overcome, there’s been NOTHING that hinted at a standard conclusion whatsoever. The only thing I can think of is that Souta’s sleeping with his boss, and I can imagine how that would go wrong, but it feels nothing like any other conclusion of a story I’ve seen so far.

This episode too: it was all about Minamo’s and Haru’s character-development, while the next episode seems to go back Souta (whose bracelet was that!?). But then again, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. I really like Real Drive’s episodic nature, and this episode really showed that this series is evolving, now that Haru’s got the power in his legs back. He spends the entire episodes, trying to learn to walk again (which obviously takes A LOT of effort after fifty years without walking). He sure does it in an unorthodox way: no crutches, he doesn’t try to hold any solid object around him, nothing. In medical terms, that’s obviously not advisable, but I can imagine how after fifty years, he really wanted to try and walk without any help from other people or things.

Minamo meanwhile also surprised me when she decided to get a cyber-brain in this episode. And oh my god, the transition to a cyber-brain is much more complicated than I expected. I originally thought that they were just going to plant some chips into your brain and stuff, but it looks like your entire brain is getting replaced by a device. I can imagine that Kushima’s adjustments to his body are even bigger, to prevent him from aging and all. Through the entire series, this “cyberbrain” had seemed like some sort of magic, but when this episode showed what’s inside a person’s head, it suddenly got a whole new dimension.

I also loved the random chatter Minamo made with one of the other people who wanted to get a cyber-brain, although it also was a bit disturbing to learn that Minamo has actually fallen for Haru. Now that he’s about to learn to walk again, and might not need Minamo anymore, Minamo seriously started thinking about him, and realized that she felt for him. I really hope that she meant “as a friend”, rather than the other thing. ^^;

Also, I do wonder what’s up with that guy that Minamo talked to. He lied to her about getting a cyberbrain (he already had one), he used a fake name and he looks like Haru when he was younger. Could this be the first hint as to what the creators are planning for that ending?

Porfy no Nagai Tabi – 33

by psgels, posted in Porfy no Nagai Tabi



Short Synopsis: It’s back to travel-arcs as Porfy runs into a bunch of streetpunks.
Highlights: A travel-arc it may be, but there’s plenty of development for Porfy.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
Okay, so the inevitable happened: this series returned to the travel-arcs. Still, this episode was definitely among the better travel-stories of Porfy’s journey. It’s interesting: the smaller the arcs are, the more impact they make. This episode was excellent, and let’s hope that the next arcs will be so as well.

Porfy walks around a bit, and meets a guy who has trouble with his car. The guy acts very annoyed, but when Porfy fixes it he suddenly becomes very nice. It seems that he mistook Porfy for a bunch of street punks. He offers Porfy to come by for dinner, but Porfy needs to continue on and ask for Mina. A guy, a few years older than Porfy then offers Porfy a bit of bread, and he offers to help Porfy search for his sister. The two spend some time together, and they get some ice cream together (Porfy obviously notes that his mother’s ice cream was better).

As it turns out, Guido (the guy)’s parents are gone. He lives together with other guys who like him lost his parents. He offers Porfy to spend the night there. The guys all seem scary at first, but they greet Porfy nicely, apart from one of them, who keeps glaring at him. They turn out to be travelling, just like Porfy.

That night, they eat bread and soup (which of course doesn’t taste that well). Later, when everyone’s asleep, Porfy thinks how nice it must be to be together with everyone. Guido offers Porfy to join them, but Porfy declines. He needs to search for his sister. He also reveals that when he’s found Mina, he plans to return to Greece and restart the gasoline stand (foreshadowing?).

Georgio (the angry guy) then also, when nobody watches, threatens Porfy to leave as soon as possible the next day, saying that this isn’t the place for him to be. Porfy shrugs it off, but he does intend to leave the next morning. Guido is up early enough to accompany Porfy for a bit. He then tells Porfy a story about how his parents used to love cars before they died, but that car was taken away from them. They finally managed to track down the people who stole away that car. Porfy then says that he’ll help them retrieve that car.

Guido then gives him his purple jacket to wear, while Georgio looks at him very angrily. Later, Porfy and Guido arrive at a rich-looking house and Porfy manages to break into it, and they drive away. They split up later, where Guido says that he’ll hide the car, and Porfy tells him to take care. When he returns at the hideout, everyone’s suddenly gone. After a while, a couple of angry people (among the man from before) come looking for he car. They confuse Porfy for the leader of the pack due to the purple jumper that he’s wearing.

They chase him, until Porfy reaches a dead end, but Georgio manages to save him by distracting the men with a bunch of firecrackers, and they manage to escape. Porfy asks whether Guido has betrayed him, and why he did it, but Georgio just tells him to go away as soon as possible. He then gets beaten up by Guido for being so soft on Porfy. He was the idiot that let himself get betrayed. Guido meanwhile has already forgotten Porfy’s name and the episode ends.

Trust and betrayal is really a HUGE theme of the travel-arcs in this series. They lacked in the Sicily-arc and the Maximilian-arc, which probably is another reason why they felt dull. In this episode, everything comes together, though. Porfy gives his entire trust to the street punks, and never once critically thinks of why they’re so nice to him. Why would they give him bread if they have to feed so many mouths? And I guess that that was the purpose of the Sicily-arc and the Maximilian-arc: they meant to show the niceness of people: people are willing to take care of others, but there are just as many people who take advantage of this.

Porfy’s really going to emerge as a stronger person after this. This episode and episode 31 were a real example of his naivety ending him up in trouble. It’s also awesome to see that the background artists could flex their creative muscles again for this episode. Some of the shots looked absolutely gorgeous, and amongst the best that this series has shown.

Oh, and on a side-note, I got rather disturbed when I checked on my google-hits a few days ago. For the past seven and a half months, the term “Porfy Sucks” has generated 1487 friggin’ hits! Fouteen hundred! I mean, I can understand why someone would want to search for the term once or twice, but what are fourteen hundred people doing searching for a show that sucks? That’s likely even more than the people who are watching it, for christ’s sake! I’d love to hear from one of these people who entered the search term what made them search for it, because I’m baffled right now. I mean, I can understand that not many people are interested in this series, but this is getting ridiculous.