Author: psgels

Some quick first impressions: Gosenzosama Banbanzai, Ikkitousen – Great Guardians and Telepathy Shoujo Ran

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions, Telepathy Shoujo Ran

Gosenzosama Banbanzai

Yeah, I know that this ova is already two decades old, but I just had to mention it. Liam recommended it to me, and after watching it, I have to agree that this one’s brilliant! I think the only thing you need to know about it is that it’s basically Mamoru Oshii’s attempt at comedy. Despite its age, this OVA was still a breath of fresh air. If you liked Mamoru’s work on Twilight Q, then you’ll love Gosenzosama. The entire thing feels like it’s being performed inside a theatre, rather than a cinema. Combined with a smashing soundtrack from Kawai Kenji, Gosenzosama is an excellent recommendation if you’re looking for an OVA that’s something different.

Ikkitousen – Great Guardians

There’s a fine line between a bit of innocent fanservice here and there and tasteless fanservice meant to milk money from otaku. Ikkitousen crossed this line and then kept going for forty more miles before it realized the concept of “brakes”. I admit, the soundtrack has some good tracks among it and the story about the Chinese mythology is at least interesting enough, but the characters ruin any trace of potential in this series. Scenarios are written way too obvious, the yuri lacks a lot of subtlety and ends up as just plain old fanboy-bait, and I’ve lost count as to how much time I wanted to punch Hakufu, her mother, the blue-haired girl, etc etc in the face for being so god damn annoying. I’m not a big fan of fanservice, but if it has to be included, it should be inserted into the story, not the other way around. What surprises me the most is the huge amount of fansubs this series is getting: six groups have already released the first episode after it aired. I mean, what?!

Telepathy Shoujo Ran

The first thing that catches attention is the unusual art style: there’s a stark contrast between the very simple character-designs and the rich and colourful background art, and the result works pretty well. Overall, I must say I’m impressed so far. This series is like a cross between Kamichu and Kaze no Shoujo Emily: it’s got the heart-warming slice-of-life feel of the former, and this episode already showed the powerful drama of the latter. Especially the slice-of-life parts in this episode were really nicely done, and they’ll probably form a good base for this series to work with. I did fear a bit when this series suddenly introduced the pretty transfer-student (a way too overused cliché, IMO), but I’m glad to see that this isn’t one of these series where the powers of the main characters are kept secret.

Kaiba – 09

by psgels, posted in Kaiba


What can I say? This episode was just incredible, no question possible. Spoilers obviously follow.

As it turns out, the memory-guy plays a vital role in the entire story. He never was aligned to Popo, but made it believe like he was. Popo probably ordered him to use the plant Kaiba on Neiro, in order to mask all of her memories and change all appearances of Warp/Kaiba into Popo. Behind his back, the memory-guy put the remains of these memories into Hyohyo. The ostrich was also a servant of the memory-guy, who indeed helped out Popo back in the first episode. That’s why he secretly let Hyohyo join Kaiba without Popo knowing about it.

And Heck, only now I realize that in Neiro’s memories, Warp’s images are also blackened out! We only saw the evil Warp shoot Neiro, but the rest of it are all images of a black-on-white caricature. I’m getting some strong urges here that Popo was the guy who really ended up killing Neiro’s parents. Why would he want to mask them otherwise? Especially since this episode shows how easily he can just kill people.

A few questions remain with this, mostly: who was the Neiro that evil Kaiba shot, and why is Neiro still alive. In this episode, we also get confirmed that Kaiba wasn’t the Warp that killed everyone, because Neiro addresses him as “Kaiba”. That leaves the biggest question that still needs to be answered: where the heck did Kaiba come from? What also seems strange is how the memory guy seems to think that Warp changed after he met Neiro, because it obviously conflicts with Neiro calling Kaiba Kaiba…

I must say that my biggest fear for Kaiba would be the episodes before the finale, simply because Kemonozume screwed up so badly at that point. It dived way too deep into melodrama for it to remain believable. Still, thankfully Kaiba has managed to avoid this flaw entirely, and this episode really used the building-up of the previous episodes wonderfully.

Amatsuki – 12

by psgels, posted in Amatsuki


In true Amatsuki-fashion, the big climax of this series (or at least the first half… I’m still waiting for that second season announcement…) is not about action at all, but instead about dialogue. And of course, it wasn’t just a matter of the tree being cut down by evil people, there seems to be a huge backstory behind even that, and that’s where Heihachi fits into things, as he was there when the decision was made to cut it down. If I understood things correctly, it was also used to smuggle dangerous stuff, though I didn’t pick up exactly what that was.

It’s interesting how Bonten didn’t turn out to be the bad guy, even though everything about his appearance screams “typical bad guy” at first. He too just wanted to get his idiot companion Tsuyukusa back. What’s also interesting is how the fourth heavenly being (or however these guys are called) decides to show himself.

At the moment, I’m SO hoping for a second season, especially after learning that Druaga no Tou also gets to have a continuation. Amatsuki already is amazing, so I’m really interested in seeing what it can do once the characters start developing. I know the other works of the director, and seeing how awesome Chevalier became in its second half, I’m really curious to see how a second season of Amatsuki will turn out.

Druaga no Tou ~The Aegis of Uruk~ Review – 86/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews


Fantasy Game adaptations have always been a rather notorious genre, due to the huge amount of lazy productions. These series seem to think that “fantasy” means “lack of realism”, and where the end result is almost always an uninspired story about a young swordsman travelling from A to B, saving the world and getting the girl. There are two animation-companies who have managed to break this tradition: Bee-train and Gonzo. Even though .Hack//Roots and .Hack//Dusk were rather questionable, Bee-train did produce .Hack//Sign, which looked more at the philosophy-part of gaming, and the charming adventure story Popolocrois. Then Gonzo came and delivered the hilarious MMORPG-parody Master of Epic, and with Druaga no Tou (or the Tower of Druaga) they did it again.

Druaga no Tou is based on an arcade-game from the eighties. It follows a band of questionable heroes as they try to climb a tower to save the world, but that’s where the generic stuff ends. Finally there’s another series that’s put a bit of thought into its setting, and a lot of ideas went into it to keep things interesting. I especially liked the magician who fights with golf-clubs.

The real charm of this series, however, is that it knows exactly how much it should take itself seriously. It’s not entirely silly, because you can never get a good story out of it, and it doesn’t take itself too seriously at times, which helps swallow the fact that this remains a story about a young inexperienced male on his first adventure. There are a few hilarious episode that successfully parody and homage a number of classic games, but there are enough episodes that focus on the more realistic side of the setting, and Jil (the male lead) is constantly reminded that he’s just an inexperienced attention-seeker, both by the other characters and by the story itself.

When compared to other similar series, Druaga no Tou did a pretty good job, but the fact remains that it’s a miracle that the main party survived, considering that they all were just inexperienced, especially considering the huge amount of people who failed to do the things that they did.

Gonzo had been quite pathetic ever since Bokura no ended, with their only contributions to the past Autumn and Winter season being the crappy Dragonaut and Rosario to Vampire. Special A also went nowhere, and Blassreiter still misses something because it keeps focusing too much on emo, but Druaga no Tou really delivered once it caught steam. I’m glad to see that 2009 will see a second season, because there’s enough left for this series to play with, and with a bit of luck the characters will really warm up and develop significantly there.

Macross Frontier – 11

by psgels, posted in Macross Frontier


Nothing exciting happened in this episode, but it’s a vital one for the love-triangle between Alto, Sheryl and Ranka. With this, I don’t think there’s much chance of Ranka and Alto getting back together, now that the guy just stood up on her and went to fool around with Sheryl. Especially since the creators have been “subtly” hinting that Sterne will get involved with her somehow. I’ll eat my hat if that fluffy animal won’t make the two of them hook up in one way or another.

The rest of the episode was filled with the usual stuff, including lots and lots of fanservice (I knew that it was only a matter of time before the creators decided to stuff Sheryl into a school swimsuit…). Still, I’m surprised at how sneaky Sheryl turned out to be. At first I thought that she’d just let Ranka do with Alto as she pleased, but this episode made very clear that she’s trying to keep Alto away from Ranka. That’s what you get when you start dating a pop idol who’s used to get what she wants. ^^;

I also liked the small bit of politics that was introduced in this episode, with the 33rd fleet and all. It’s good to know a bit more about the Macross universe, especially since I haven’t seen the other series yet. At the same time, Alto also got some more background. So while it was a bit of a boring episode, it certainly wasn’t a waste.

xxxHolic – 36

by psgels, posted in xxxHolic


Now this was an awesome episode! I’m glad to see that the creators were able to play with the manga chapters in such a way to save the best story for last. In fact, I wouldn’t mind if the Himawari-arc would close off the xxxHolic anime, because in this way, the series would leave you in the best way possible, instead of how the first season ended with a random side-story. It’s just like Mushishi: that one stayed episodic until the end, but it did save one of its best stories for last, with great effects.

I really expected this final arc to be even darker than the spider-arc, and what I got was an incredibly heart-warming episode. The bond between Watanuki, Himawari and Doumeki is really something special, and its wonderful to see everything the past thirty-five episodes have been building up for come together.

At this point, I really can say for sure that without taking the manga into account, xxxHolic has been Clamp’s best work for me. Clamp is far from perfect, Tsubasa Chronicle seems to be getting more ridiculous with every plot-twist, Chobits had a lot of boring moments and the character designs of Code Geass are more aimed to attract fangirls and fanboys than some creative masterpieces, but in a series like this one and Cardcaptor Sakura, you can see that they’ve shown their best sides.

Kurenai Review – 86/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Kurenai


Kurenai is quite possibly the most solid of the series that came out during the past spring season. It’s a well-written series. If you liked True Tears and want to see how it would have been with a bit less romance and a bit more action, then it’s likely that you’ll like Kurenai. This series is not going to hit any heights, but it’s perfect for a quick watch.

Aside from the solid writing, Kurenai has another thing it can boast about: its voice-acting. It joins Mahou Shoujotai and Red Garden in the very short list of series that have their voices recorded before the animation-process. The result is that the voice-actors are less restrained, and have more freedom in portraying their characters, which leads to a number of excellent dialogues, with the highlight being episode six.

Unfortunately, because the writing is so solid, the inconsistencies tend to stick out like a sore thumb. There are two or three points in this series that make you wonder what the creators have been smoking, because they don’t make any sense at all in the light of the involved characters, especially around the second half of this series.

With Brains Base, you can of course expect gorgeously animated fight-scenes, and indeed, whenever characters start fighting, the animation shines. Overall, Kurenai is probably too short for the story to make any real impact, but it’s got a likable cast of characters, great dialogue, excellent animation and terrific voice-acting.

Kurenai – 12

by psgels, posted in Kurenai


Ah, glad to see a solid ending for this series. It’s not anything special, but it closed off this series very solidly, without leaving any threads open and with a satisfying conclusion that goes beyond the “save the girl and return home”. The final fight was also really nicely animated, the car-chase was pretty nice. About the only thing that didn’t feel right was Yayoi recovering so easily, and beating Lin so easily when she should have been heavily bruised, even if she did somehow regain her consciousness in time.

Overall, I can’t really say that this has been the best work for either the director and Brains Base: both Red Garden and Baccano were better than this series, but still it’s been an interesting ride, and like True Tears a very solidly written series, apart from a few inconsistencies here and there. Overall, it was a good series for a quick watch that doesn’t hit heights or lows.

Crystal Blaze – 11

by psgels, posted in Crystal Blaze


Talk about an excellent first half of a finale! 12-episode series shouldn’t have “calm before the storm”-episodes. It wastes a precious episode that could have been used so much better, and all these episodes to fill time until the next episode, when the big climax is going to happen. Granted, this way you end up with a great climax, but at the same time there’s a dull build-up that breaks flow a bit.

This is why I really like Crystal Blaze’s style of storytelling: first it spends five minutes as an aftermath of the previous episode, sets a few pieces of the puzzle right and prepares a bit, and very soon it heads into a new direction with an action-packed climax. This keeps the series exciting and the flow of storytelling remains roughly consistent. Perhaps I’ve become bored by series who abuse “calm before the storms” and aftermaths too much, who know.

So basically what happens in this episode: Kitoh has to leave his base (obviously because it’s been discovered), so he kills off his entire staff apart from his research subjects, Kirie and Doc. Doc indeed was just faking to have switched sides in order to get a close look at Kitoh’s research, and because of his obsession to finally find a scientist who is interested in his work, Kitoh never doubts this. BW-alpha also turns out to be able to transform into a huge monster, but as expected she’s still imperfect and rather weak to the blood of a humanoid weapon. The episode ends as Sara is about to turn into crystal and Shu is about to shoot her, which will make her blood come into contact with BW-alpha and kill it off.

What surprises me is that in this series, no attempts have been made to make the viewer care about BW-alpha. Even though she’s a little girl, she’s portrayed at nothing but a monster. Usually in anime that don’t focus on children, young girls like that have the “she’s little! care for her!”-mentality (see the Kohane-arc in xxxHolic). Quite refreshing that this is indeed a story about “adults”.

I’m really interested to see where this series will end. There’s one episode left, and we know that Sara is going to die, though considering the rest of this series, it seems unlikely that the creators don’t have a few juicy twists left in store. I must say that Crystal Blaze has been the big surprise this season, along with Kaiba. I admit that I was really looking forward to it when I saw the promo-image, though when I looked at the character-designs, this enthusiasm faded a bit. “Everything looks generic, so it’s probably going to be generic”. Hah, the creators sure managed to deliver an awesome series with these generic ingredients.

Himitsu ~The Revelation~ – 11

by psgels, posted in Himitsu ~The Revelation~


With an episode title of “Don’t reach for that neck”, I obviously became intrigued as to what this episode could have in store for us. Now that I finished this episode, I understand. This episode is about the thriller-part of Himitsu: a murder has occurred in a small mountain village, Aoki needs to get the victim’s body to headquarters, but the major problem is that there’s a huge typhoon going on. The road is blocked by a landslide, the car he’s in is stuck, and Maki can only pick him up at an open spot, about a mile away. So indeed, he ends up cutting off the head of the victim’s body so that he’s able to carry it to safety in time. *ehrem*

As for the thriller-part: the guy who was killed made an enemy out of the entire village with his arrogant behaviour and how he mistreated a certain woman. There were lots of people who could have killed him: her mother, her brother, a local guy who looked up to her. In the end, many potential victims end up chasing Aoki to make sure that he doesn’t deliver the head. So in the end the real culprit turns out to be the policeman who kept helping Aoki, and the others just acted because of their bonds of living in the same village, not wanting a comrade to end up in prison. I admit: the creators had me really fooled, and I never took that for a possibility.

This episode was really sneaky: it kept and kept throwing all sorts of red herrings over the place in order to mask the identity of the real murderer. Normally it would have been easy to spot the real murderer through this: the one who gets the least amount of attention is the culprit. The interesting twist however, is that the viewer is completely tricked to think that this policeman is just helping out and doing his job. This probably is because the guy had no intention of going against Aoki. Ah, I love how this series likes to play around with irony.