Author: psgels

Porfy no Nagai Tabi – 24

by psgels, posted in Porfy no Nagai Tabi


It’s a bit of a shame that Porfy stays so long at the same places. I was hoping that he’d continue to travel as soon as the issue between Iralia and Rebecca was solved, but instead it seems that the creators have bigger plans for this arc. Considering the nature of this series, I have absolutely no idea what to expect. Especially considering Les Miserables’ strange behaviour at this point: episode 26 was the only filler in the entire series, and after fooling me like that the tension suddenly sky-rocketed in the episodes afterwards. Will this be the same for Porfy no Nagai Tabi, or will this arc be more heart-warming in nature?

Porfy’s attempts to convince Iralia to go and see Rebecca fail, and she runs away. Maximilian and Porfy then try to enter Rebecca’s house, but she refuses to respond. The next afternoon, Iralia goes shopping again, and takes Porfy along with her. They stop by a local cafe to buy a drink, and Iralia buys some chocolate cake for Porfy as thanks of all the hard work he’s done.

Iralia then apologizes for the thing she did, and how it’s not so easy to just see Rebecca. Porfy can’t understand why people would try to be so difficult on this matter, and he then offers to make Rebecca want to meet her. Obviously, directly asking her is pointless, so he takes away her small glass statue, with the note that if she wants to have it back, that she should come to the cafe.

Unfortunately, Porfy didn’t realize that there were more cafe’s in the same town, so he and Iralia end up waiting at the wrong cafe. Hoping that they aren’t too late, they rush to the right one (which was supposed to be Rebecca’s favourite cafe). Iralia and Rebecca make settle their differences surprisingly fast, and they’re on good terms again once Maximilian arrives to check up on them.

Another surprise guest then shows up: Daisy. Apparently, she too went shopping with her father. Her father then suggests putting up a poster about Mina in the local city hall. A lot of people get there, and a friend of Daisy’s father once found his cat back through this method. They go back to Maximilian’s house to gather some paper and make said poster (including a very bad drawing of Mina by Porfy). Porfy and Maximilian then go to the city hall to put up this poster.

A problem arises, though, when Porfy needs to go to the toilet and he ends up fighting with the local mayor over the only available urinal. The episode ends as said mayor looks at the poster, with a rather angry face.

The most notable thing about this episode is the ease at which Iralia and Rebecca just made up like that. Usually, I would be face-palming at the ease at which such grudges are settled, and it’s true that lazy anime often use this technique in order to get “it over with”. But here it got me thinking, and it does make sense in a way. The biggest reason why Iralia and Rebecca refused to talk to each other was not their love dispute between Maximilian, but instead it was the fact that they refused to talk to each other. Because of this, fear took over and they started forming melodramatic theories of why the other wouldn’t want to see her, and through the years, this just escalated without the two of them ever getting a chance to make up.

RD Sennou Chousashitsu – 11

by psgels, posted in RD Sennou Chousashitsu


An episode about Kushima. Again, this episode is about the things people leave behind in their past, and at the same time it’s a great chance to get some more insight into his character. As it turns out, he used to be an excellent violinist when he was young, though he quit at a certain time.

I first thought that he quit due to the wound he received when he tried to stop Haru from plunging into the glowing red sea, but instead his decision to quit was a bit more complex. My lack of Japanese didn’t understand his exact reason, even with a dictionary, but it’s basically that he saw no reason to continue to improve his skills anymore. He already was at the top, and there was no practical use for his talents anymore. He lost his passion, so he quit.

Since this is probably the only anime apart from Milennium Actress with characters that age for more than fifty years and explores more than just “suffering”, it can really show us some interesting stuff. I have no idea when exactly Kushima quit playing the violin, but it’s likely to be around forty years ago. Not only is he still carrying around the things he did, but the people around him who admired his work also still carry those memories. In this episode, we meet a violinist who became great due to his urges to be accepted by the far superior Kushima, who already was very businesslike back then. Am I also right that he once was a girl, and then changed genders?

I’m looking forward to the next episode, as it seems to be going back to the supernatural roots of this series. That girl has me intrigued for some reason.

Soul Eater – 11

by psgels, posted in Soul Eater


In terms of the serious side of Soul Eater, this was surprisingly the best episode yet. It’s indeed really good to see Tsubaki finally do something on her own, without watching from the side-lines. The fights themselves in this series may be nothing special, but the characters really succeed in bringing them alive.

Black Star getting repeatedly bashed on the head by these villagers may have been a bit too much, but it does show that the guy is an excellent spectator. Guys like him often are great when they just watch a fight and don’t interfere with it. I guess that it’s fresh from the usual where the energetic ones are fighting and the quiet ones do nothing.

Overman King Gainer Review – 83/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews


I first learned about Overman King Gainer through its OP that you’ll either absolutely love or absolutely hate. In my case, it was the former, so I just had to watch the series, hoping that it would be more than just a cheesy mecha-show. As it turns out, twenty-five years after creating Gundam, Tomino still knows how to make a good anime.

As it turns out, he left the realism as seen in Mobile Suit Gundam for what it is (after all, after creating 200 episodes and various movies of Gundam, how much more can you play with realism?) and instead he decided to focus on creativity. The result is a series that might be nothing special when concentrating on the big picture, but is filled with lots and lots of details that sparkle with creativity. The setting in the middle of Siberia, the Exodus where entire cities travel for hundreds of miles, looking to “break free”, the mobile suits designs, you can see that a lot of time has been spent to make the setting as original as possible, and it really works.

Tomino also didn’t forget how to pull off good action. In this series, there are no episodes dedicated to intermezzos or aftermaths. Every single episode has something fun in store for its viewer, leaving hardly any chance to get bored. So much is happening on-screen. This is really an anime that’s meant as entertainment, and I call this mission accomplished.

Interestingly, Overman King Gainer has the same weakness as Mobile Suit Gundam: both have a main character that becomes the pilot of the main mecha through very questionable reasons. This one needs a bit of minutes to get the hang of it, after which he can pilot the thing as a master, only because he happens to be good at video games. This will indeed give you improved reflexes, but there’s also the matter of getting accustomed to the new controls, and learning to endure the physical strain on your body while fighting.

The plot overall isn’t the most solid ones around by far. During some fights, the writers pull random powers out of thin air, just to keep the story flowing smoothly, and there are quite a few sloppy explanations that rely too much on the viewer’s imagination. The ending also goes on for too long. I really feel that this would have been perfect for 22 or 23 episodes, simply because the climax takes bloody ages, becoming a bit too serious for its own good. Thankfully, this series manages to finish with the bang that it was supposed to deliver, but the road to this descends to a generic “stop the world from getting destroyed”-plot that moves too far away from what made the rest of the series so enjoyable.

It’s interesting to see the evolution of such a prominent director. Overman King Gainer isn’t better than Gundam, but instead it’s fresh and fun. If you liked series as Gurren Lagann or Code Geass, you’ll probably like this one as well, and personally I enjoyed this one the most: it’s got the fun and down-to-earth factor that Code Geass seems to be lacking, and the engaging storyline that I was missing in Gurren Lagann. It’s far from perfect, but very enjoyable nonetheless. I wonder what Tomino’s up to right now. He hasn’t released anything since the Wings of Rean, has he?

Nijuu Mensou no Musume – 09

by psgels, posted in Nijuu Mensou no Musume


Aah! And things went so well for this series! What the heck were the creators thinking at that fight-scene?! Suspense of disbelief is very important for this series, because it’s dealing with the topic of a child prodigy, which is very easy to overglorify in anime. In this episode, Chiko and her new friend have to fight against two grunts that are after Nijuu Mensou’s treasure map for God knows what reason. The way the first one goes down is already hard to believe: one judo-throw by someone who has just been practicing Judo for a year (which reminds me, has Chiko been continuing her judo-training ever since she got back?) will not knock out someone for hours. It’ll startle them a bit at most, especially considering how he was a full grown guy.

Still, that could have all been ignored if not for the blatantly insulting way that the second one went down: he takes Chiko’s friend hostage, so Chiko uses a hand mirror to blind his eyes. If that wasn’t enough, Chiko suddenly is also able to deal out powerful kicks from nowhere. Still, that also would have been sort-of acceptable, if the guy wasn’t stopped in his tracks by some toys that Chiko’s friend threw at him. He even got knocked unconscious because he simply slipped. No amount of explanation is going to set that one right…

I’m going to see this one as a bad day for the creators. Possibly a bad writer was in charge of this one and not the amazing previous three episodes. Thankfully, the parts about Ken made this episode at least a bit worthwhile: we actually see confirmation that Nijuu Mensou is still alive (dressed up as a police-guy), and that he never attempted to contact Chiko. It also took me quite a while to find out that half a year has already passed. I originally thought that Chiko would grew up to like fifteen years old, but it turns out that the major part of her story will take place at the age of only thirteen. I hope that her hormones won’t get in the way of good storytelling.

Kaiba – 08

by psgels, posted in Kaiba


It’s been a long wait, but finally my beloved Kaiba is back. And what an episode does it return with! For once, Kaiba doesn’t appear in it at all, and instead it’s all about Popo, and how the bastards killed off his own mother to keep up his appearances. As it turns out, she once changed his body, which is against the rules of the organization Popo works for. That does make me wonder why Neiro was just allowed to change into Ger and all…

In any case, we indeed learn that there is another Warp besides Kaiba. This guy probably was the one who shot Neiro. If I understood things correctly, then Neiro’s body was shot, and she ended up in Hyohyo. It seems that her memory got split in two: one part works for Popo, and the other one went along with Kaiba.

That still leaves the question to: which Warp is the real one? What we know is that the body that Kaiba was in in episode one was the genuine indestructible body of Warp. I believe that the Warp we see in this episode is the real Warp who killed off those hundreds of people. Then at one point, he ran into this “Kaiba”, which stole his body. Kaiba then met Neiro and the two fell in love. Warp then tracked down Kaiba and destroyed Neiro’s body, though what I suspect is Popo’s meddling, Kaiba escaped him, somehow causing Kaiba to lose his body and get that hole through his body, after which episode 1 started.

What interests me the most is the real link between the plant Kaiba and the human Kaiba. We know that that plant has a lot of an appetite and that it eats memory, but what I want to know is how such a plant ended up being turned into actual memory. What I also want to know: who are on Kaiba’s side in this story, and most importantly: why? Why would the ostrich be working for such a plant? What’s the connection to the memory-guy to all of this?

I must say, that this series knows EXACTLY what makes a good mystery-series. I totally forgot about this, since 2007 was a bad year for mystery-series, but a good mystery-series doesn’t just ask questions, but it forces its viewer to form his own theories about what happened. This is what sets the genre apart from series that have to rely on some obscure side-story that you can only understand if it’s spelled out in front of you.

And indeed, even though I originally thought that Crystal Blaze would be a mystery-series, its mystery turned out to be just a simple back-story and the story focused on storytelling and characters instead. Instead, Shion no Ou’s mystery-plot was simple, yet it knew how to make its viewer guessing about the identity of the murderer, and most viewers already knew exactly what happened when facts were finally revealed. Nijuu Mensou no Musume is about to do the same: the simple question is: what happened to Nijuu Mensou, and there are several theories possible, and enough clues to keep you guessing.

Another great approach to mystery is the one used in Himitsu: it offers you the pieces of the puzzle for each episode, and they only really fall into place when you connect these pieces. Ergo Proxy and Boogiepop Phantom are yet another story: they just provide a few clues here and there and apart from that they make no attempt to help the viewer figure out what happened.

I now see that the series that just feature a huge setting, but withold some of this information at the start aren’t necessarily good mystery-series, and rather use the appeal of the unknown to create tension. I personally loved Dennou Coil, but it was excellent because of its plot, characters and the amount of imagination that was put into the setting. Not because of its mystery, and I’m surprised it took me so long to realize this.

At the moment, I’m wondering whether Real Drive will be able to pull off good mystery. Right now, it relies a lot on the appeal of the unknown, and it’s definitely got my attention about its concept, but interestingly enough, it hasn’t started asking focused questions yet. When this’ll happen, I wonder whether it’ll allow the viewer to speculate about the setting, or whether it’ll just carry the viewer along with its revelations.

Amatsuki – 11

by psgels, posted in Amatsuki


For the past few years, I’ve been using AniDB to keep track of the anime I’ve watched. It’s got a clean look with a lot of options for statistics, and I especially like how you can assign priorities to the entries in your wishlist, which helps to give a clear overview over my huge to-watch list. Unfortunately, there are enough reasons to dislike AniDB, and recently another one of them got introduced: the tag-system.

The tag-system basically enables visitors to add their own tags to different anime. I’m not complaining about the ones as “action”, “lost technology” or “randomness” (although I do wonder what makes these so different from AniDB’s category-system). My problem is mainly with the more subjective categories as “Boring”, “Utter Crap” and “Emo Fag”.

So yes, I’m indeed mentioning this in this particular post because Amatsuki has been labelled as “Utter Crap” by god knows who. Other entries I majorly disagree with are Wellber no Monogatari, Mai Hime and Crystal Blaze (under that same tag), and Ergo Proxy, Flag, Higurashi, Jigoku Shoujo, Voices of a Distant Star, Seirei no Moribito, Evangelion, Trinity Blood and Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, which have been labelled as “Boring”. I also wonder what the category “Emo Fag” really contributes…

My problem with these categories, other than that some of my own favourites are amongst them, is that they do absolutely the opposite of promoting anime. If someone was looking for a show to watch, stumbled upon Crystal blaze, only to find it amongst the utter-crap tag, there’d obviously be a small percentage of him, actually checking it out. I’m perfectly fine if you want to say bad things about a series; heck, that’s what stating your opinion is for, but the tag-system is such a ridiculous 4chan-way to do it. It never allows you to state the reasons for having that opinion. Besides, AniDB also has comments, tags and reviews for stating opinions. Heck, I’m still not sure about the difference between all these.

I’m really feeling that AniDB is about to drown into its own features. What’s the purpose of the mylist and why isn’t it integrated with the vote-system? And there are more of these details that gradually make you unable to see the forest because of all the trees that are in the way. So yeah, if any of you knows a better site to keep track of the anime you watch (besides the obvious myanimelist.net), would you care to share it?

Okay, I’ve gone off-topic for a bit too long now… Back to this week’s episode of Amatsuki. This finally sheds a bit of light on Heihachi’s fate. AS it turns out, Tsuyukusa never abandoned him, but instead he saved the guy from being killed by the fox demon. In exchange, he became some sort of servant (?) to the fox-demon. The thing that Bonten did to him in the previous episode was just to read his mind to find out what happened.

I also now finally know the mission that Toki and Kuchiha were going to do: they were going to check up on the guy who cut down the tree that housed the spirit that the fox demon grew up with. It now all makes sense: she was trying to get it back, and because of that rumours of Ayakashi probably started floating around. Now all that’s left is to figure out where the heck Tsuruune and Benitobi have gone to.

And oh my god, Toki and Kuchiha are really cute together as a couple. I’m surprised to see that even the romance in this series went well: it’s there, but it knows exactly when to appear and disappear.

In any case, yet another great episode. Let’s hope that it won’t be over in just two episodes.

Kurenai – 11

by psgels, posted in Kurenai


Just like xxxHolic, after two weaker episodes, Kurenai is totally back on track. The finale might be a bit shorter than I expected (only two episodes), but this episode was an excellent conclusion, and it made up for a lot of time that got wasted on the previous episode.

In this episode, Shinkurou, Yayoi and Benika try to break into the Kuhoin main house, and the result is an utter failure. Yayoi gets beaten up to the brink of death, one of the servants (the one who helped Murasaki escape) gets brutally killed off by Lin, Murasaki is so afraid of her brother that she refuses to come with Shinkurou, so Shinkurou and Benika end up retreating. The episode ends with Shinkurou going back, while Benika was retrieving Yayoi’s body. A perfectly fine stage has been set for a solid ending.

Because things can’t go many ways from now (I mean, what else could happen but Lin getting defeated, Ryuuji getting humiliated and Shinkurou and Murasaki getting back together?), so it’s all going to depend on the scriptwriters for the final episodes. They’ve done some great work up till now, but writing a good ending still is something different, and I hope that they’ll be able to pull it off.

xxxHolic – 35

by psgels, posted in xxxHolic


Ah, thankfully this episode managed to restore my faith in this series. The Kohane-arc just disappointed, but this episode was a terrific foreshadowing of the final two episodes of xxxHolic Kei.

The creators really know the key of good horror: build-up. During this build-up, the attention of the viewer is grabbed as much as possible, after which the major revelations and plot twists get unleashed. xxxHolic has also had the advantage of having spent many episodes already on fleshing out and developing its different characters, and the result worked perfectly.

The end of this episode also goes back to the major climax of the first season, where Watanuki met the woman. The guy is just so damn stubborn around the ones he loves, that he forgets all about himself.

I’m wondering: are there enough stories without Tsubasa Chronicle left in the manga for a third season, or does the manga basically become the back-up manga for TRS after this arc?

Himitsu ~The Revelation~ – 10

by psgels, posted in Himitsu ~The Revelation~


Another excellent episode from Himitsu. This time, it’s about mass murderers who have been arrested and have gone crazy ever since. In this episode, one of these guys gets murdered during a power outage. Because the security-cameras weren’t working at the facility where he was kept, there was no evidence except for his own brain.

As it turns out, it was a suicide. Being confined has a strange effect on mass murderers, and most of them will end up haunted by the people they killed. This particular guy has found emotional support in a white mouse, who he keeps talking to. When the power went out, his eyes blackened out, and he thought that the mouse was gone and on a whim he killed himself.

This was also a means to test out the capabilities of the MRI-team by a rather ambitious and annoying guy who was in charge of the facility, and as it turns out, the entire suicide murder was set up for this reason. This again brings up the question: these people are utterly useless to society, so do we have the right to just kill them off? I also couldn’t help but think “why don’t they kill the mouse and look at its brains”? This episode really showed how convenient it can be for someone to die, even though it’s morally unacceptable. It’s amazing how critical this series is of modern-day society.