Author: psgels

Amatsuki – 08

by psgels, posted in Amatsuki


Flashback time! If there weren’t already enough reasons for a second season, then this episode added another one. Episode eight usually is the point for 13-episode series to start building up for their climaxes. If there’s going to be a flashback, it’s most often used as a revelation of an important mystery. This episode instead chooses to give more depth to a set of three characters: Kuchiha, Shamon, and one of the monks that works at the temple of the princess.

Especially the latter is a clear indication that this series is aiming beyond thirteen episodes. Heck, I never could have guessed that that guy was so important to have his own background story. It took me a long while to figure out who the heck he was again, but it seems he was the one who guided Toki, Kon and Kuchiha around the temple when they arrived, and explained their customs a bit. To think that he actually was more than a handy way to give background on the temple. The director is no idiot, so he wouldn’t have given background to such an obscure character at this point if he knew that it would be a pointless waste of time.

This episode also shows how Shamon came to adopt Kuchiha. The village she lived in used to shun her because of the huge demon in her. That’s why she’s always so gloomy when this demon gets mentioned. It’s nothing new, but it’s good to see this with more detail. I also really like Shamon; he’s a strong character, and yet he’s down to earth and has a sense of humour.

Overall, this episode was very enjoyable. The cast is really showing that it can be great, even without a heavy atmosphere. Oh, and I like it when an anime doesn’t feature its main character at all for an entire episode as well.

Gilgamesh Review – 87/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews


After the fun, light-hearted and brightly coloured Kero Kero Chime, the obvious next thing would of course be a mysterious dark and gritty horror-series. Enter Gilgamesh, a series that fits this description perfectly. Ad in the end, Gilgamesh turned out to be an excellent series, and a great recommendation for any Japanese-styled horror-fan.

In Gilgamesh, it’s not the storytelling or the dialogue that stand out (they both do their job, but they’re nothing extraordinary), but instead the story and characters themselves are the highlight of this series. A large part of the series is a character-study, backed up by an excellent story that knows how to build up and back up said characters. The characters are surprisingly down to earth and aside from some of the lesser important “villains”, every character is fleshed out and developed. This series continues to get better once it hits its second half, but the first half also has a couple of pretty memorable moments.

One thing I like about mystery-series is their ending: they’re either complete flops or pure excellence, depending on how creative the scriptwriters are feeling. As for Gilgamesh: you’ll either love or hate it, because the ending is unconventional to say the least. I personally loved the final episode, but if you prefer your endings to be along the lines of “Hero saves the world and gets the girl”, you won’t be too happy with it.

As for the bad points: the animation. The character-designs are actually gorgeous, and they will make you think that a good guy is actually a bad guy when you first see him (or her), but a number of shots in the first half have characters walking around like a bunch of thunderbirds, and this series also gratefully likes to re-use animation of previous episode. The storyline also has a few bugs here and there around the middle: in the world of Gilgamesh, computers are supposed to have stopped working, but at one point a character suggests to look up some information on a computer, but this is nothing major.

I also feel that the background of the lead children could have been a bit more elaborate. Don’t get me wrong, their backgrounds are complete, we just hardly get to see anything of it apart from a large number hints here and there. I guess that this was done to give these kids an air of mystery, but at the moment I’m still edging to know how Tatsuya’s mother changed, and in what kind of mess Fuko and Madoka were before the story began. Overall though, I had a great time watching this. I often had to force myself to stop watching in order to do other things, because the cliff-hangers kept making me hungry to see more of the storyline.

Kaiba – 07

by psgels, posted in Kaiba


This episode was absolutely incredible. There’s probably no better way to say it. It’s one of those very rare episodes that just blew me away due to its sheer awesomeness. Everything Kaiba has been building up to has come together perfectly. Seriously, Kaiba right now has actually a chance of surpassing Haibane Renmei as my favourite 13-episode series, if it continues on at this pace.

Seriously, in seven mere episodes, Kaiba did what other series usually takes other series 20. When I first learned that Masaaki Yuasa would direct this series, I had my doubts, seeing as Kemonozume, Mind Game and Cat Soup were all good, but seemed to lack something, though Kaiba really shows that he’s evolving as a storyteller, and Kaiba is the work of a genius.

Vanilla, sacrificing himself for Kuroniko indeed had it coming, and I haven’t forgotten the horrible things he did in the first and second episode, and yet his end was so incredibly sweet. The guy knew full well that Kuroniko didn’t like him, and he only got this confirmed with her disgusted look after he kissed her, after which he planned to send her away, back to the planet where it all began in the first episode.

And then Neiro’s past. Her memory is a bloody mess, and it’s especially interesting to see Hyo-hyo being so shocked about it. We now know that it’s got something to do with Neiro, but it wasn’t aware of what exactly was done to her. There are also more Hyo-hyos than just Hyo-hyo, so I guess that it was just assigned to do a simple task: keep an eye on Warp, and I have reason to believe that that ostrich was also part of the complot.

I suspect that, assuming that everything Kaiba saw inside of Neiro’s memory came in chronological order, Warp once got attacked by Kaiba, and got his memory copied of some sort. That’s how Kaiba was born, and Kaiba was the one who got close to Neiro and fell in love with her, at the displeasure of Warp, so he tried to shoot her, like we saw in this episode. I have no idea how Neiro managed to survive, but if I had to guess, then Popo came to their rescue. He then messed with the memory of both of them, in order to manipulate them. I’m not sure what kind of purpose Kaiba has in his plans, though.

Oh, and I HATE TENNIS. Two freaking weeks without Kaiba!? $#!!$#$!@!@!!!

xxxHolic – 32

by psgels, posted in xxxHolic


Another very solid episode from xxxHolic. This one too goes back to the first one, and is another one in the collection of “stories about girls and women with mysterious problems” that were featured in many of the episodes of the first season. It’s episodes like these which are especially important for this series, because they take the focus away from Watanuki and instead are all about their characters. This makes the viewer both enjoy the character in question more, and look forward to seeing the next serious story about Watanuki. Besides, I love it when main characters end up taking the roles of mere spectators.

The case this time is about a girl whose house is being haunted. She can hear sounds, as if people were living there. What’s actually happening is that she’s the ghost, and doesn’t realize that she’s dead. In the end, Yuuko gives the girl a number of bells that would amplify her presence in the house. In this way, the real residents would be so freaked out that they’d call an exorcist.

I must say that that was a very interesting way to exorcise the ghost. Yuuko refused to let the girl know that she was a ghost, and she refused to exorcise the ghost herself, and I wonder why she did that. Is this called “thou should never kill thy customers”, or something? Or did she decide to just leave things to the professional exorcists, who know how to properly get rid of a ghost?

Kurenai – 08

by psgels, posted in Kurenai


Ah, its finally happened. Most parts of this episode was a calm before the storm, but at the end of the episode, Shinkurou and Murasaki are finally forced to leave their home and run away from the Kuhoin family. Something’s telling me that the best part of Kurenai is about to begin!

It’s amazing you can do with solid writing. The entire episode was clearly building up for something: for a random Kurenai-episode, it just missed the intense dialogue, drama or comedy that made the previous episodes great, and instead it went for a very quiet and peaceful approach, in which Shinkurou, Murasaki and the other went to visit a local shrine. They had fun through the afternoon, and went to have dinner at a restaurant together, as a way of saying goodbye to their lifestyles of the past few episodes, because the day after that a bunch of random Kuhoin-goons came up and beat the crap out of Shinkuro, and as an added twist: there’s a chance that Murasaki isn’t a legitimate Kuhoin-child: only her father’s two sons are legitimately registered.

I liked those two goons: they’ve got a personality, and throughout the episode, you can actually see them as they gather information on the situation. As it turns out, they underestimated Yayoi’s fighting ability so they retreated

Macross Frontier – 08

by psgels, posted in Macross Frontier


Okay… so that was a disaster…

Don’t get me wrong, it was without a doubt a fun disaster, but there’s got to be some kind of limit on how many face-palm moments you can include into one single episode. Ranka in a carrot-suit already was strange, but at that point, I had no idea that the rest of the episode would feature both Ranka and Sheryl joining Alto’s class (feels like a bad teenaged soap, doesn’t it?), Sheryl’s panties ending up stolen by a random fluffy animal, every single male in the school would obsessively hunt said panties, and Sheryl chasing said creature in a flying-suit, wearing nothing but a dress. Not exactly my idea of quality entertainment.

Still, thankfully the banter between the different characters has been getting better and better. As much as I’d like to hate this episode, I have to admit that some parts were downright hilarious, especially Sheryl, finding out Alto’s “nickname”. And as an added bonus, the final minute of the episode showed how the “bad guy” met Ranka when she was alone with the above-mentioned pet. That serious scene worked surprisingly well.

I’m also wondering, since this is a show about idols: will the creators step on the topics of overly obsessive fans? This episode already made it clear that every single male in the school is a drooling fan of Sheryl, but what surprised me is that they all kept their distance from her, and only went after her panties. No autographs? No attempts to get close to her? It’s a rather strange message: an idol’s fanbase isn’t based around her talents or her personality, but instead on her panties. Everything suddenly makes so much more sense. 😛

Himitsu ~The Revelation~ – 07

by psgels, posted in Himitsu ~The Revelation~


I’m not sure if I’m the only one in this, but so far I’ve found the one-episode stories of Himitsu more interesting than the arcs that took up two episodes. Okay, that may be because the shorter stories were easier to understand, but the shortness of the one-episode arcs also has something appealing to it: it’s episodes like this one that are short and sweet, and still pack a punch. I’m interested in whether this’ll remain the same during the second half of this series (assuming of course that Himitsu will have 24/26 episodes. It would obviously be awesome if there turn out to be more episodes).

In this episode, an important businessman dies. He has a large family, but the most peculiar thing is that he can’t see people’s faces. His entire life, he’s been working hard, though he never could enjoy much social interaction, especially in the later half of his life, I believe. AS a result, he never had a good connection with his family, and refused to put his family into his will, because they’ll just waste the money he worked hard for. Instead, he left all his possessions to the one girl whose face he could see, and whom he met ten years before. That meeting made a huge impact on him. But as a result, his son got jealous and decided to kill him over it.

It’s a bit hard to imagine how someone wouldn’t be able to see faces, but you can also see this in symbolism: the guy was married, he lived with a large family, but there was no attempt made to connect to him, which in his turn didn’t give him much motivation for social interaction. I think he felt like everyone around him was around him because of his money, and not because of himself. That’s why the innocence of this little girl made such an impact on him, because she was too young to really care about his money or status.

Judging from the pattern of this series so far, the next episode is probably going to be two episodes long again. This time, I’m going to try and understand it immediately, instead of finding that I missed some huge plot-hole later. The power of Himitsu really emerges when you see the big picture, and not the smaller ingredients. Though I do hope that the focus won’t be on Aoki so much. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a good character, but he has a nasty tendency to overshadow all of the other characters, who are just as interesting as he is. 😛

Allison to Lillia – 08

by psgels, posted in Allison to Lillia


Okay, that’s it. I’m dropping this series. I’ve had enough, the climax of this episode was just painful to watch. I’ll still continue watching this series for the Lillia-storyline, but I don’t want to blog this series anymore.

Owen Nicht is cornered. He’s about to get arrested, so he takes Fiona hostage. Okay, fair enough, I can live with that. HOWEVER, one of the main guards tries to stop Owen by charging directly into the guy. Owen stops him, not by pointing a knife at Fiona, but freaking stabbing the guy’s knee from such an awkward position!

And then it only gets better. Owen manages to escape (note how he didn’t retrieve his knife). The guy is screwed, so he needs to escape. So, where does he run to? The roof. The freaking ROOF. The highest point possible. Obviously, Benedict is the first to get there too, and Owen abandons Fiona to stab the guy, with another dagger that looks exactly the same as the one he just left into that officer’s leg. But here’s the best part: Benedict blocks it with his freaking watch. He didn’t evade the dagger, he didn’t try to disarm Owen. No, he moved his arm in such a risky position so that his watch would stop the dagger, with the danger that if it was only off by a few angles, it would bounce off and still hit him.

After this, I completely lost interest. I knew that this series wasn’t good, but I never imagined that the creators would resort to ZAIZEN JOTARO-plot-twists.

Madhouse, you’re a strange one: you’ve managed to concentrate all of best staff-members on Himitsu, Chi’s Sweet Home and Kaiba this season, and the worst on Kamen no Maid Guy and Allison to Lillia. It’s interesting: usually madhouse series are a strange combination between awesomeness and a bit of laziness. In this season Himitsu, Kaiba and perhaps to a lesser extend Chi’s Sweet Home are pure awesomeness without any apparent weaknesses, and Maid Guy and Allison to Lillia are among the laziest Madhouse Production that I’ve seen so far.

Ah well, now I can blog one extra series this summer, and it’s looking out to be quite a good season. Farewell Allison to Lillia. In a way, I do hope I’m wrong when I fear that the second half won’t be much better, but I don’t feel like finding out.

Crystal Blaze – 07

by psgels, posted in Crystal Blaze


Ah, the standard episode in which a character is angsting and his or her friends spend the episode trying to talk him or her out of it. I now realize how often such an episode can go wrong: it’s obviously predictable, and often it comes across rather lazy. I now realize that series as Suteki Tantei Labyrinth and Code Geass did a rather pathetic job on it: Mayuki and Lelouch did nothing but angst over what happened, then his friends come and say a few words, and they act like nothing ever happened.

Episodes like this one need lots of inspired dialogue. They need introspection, both from the character him/herself and from the ones around him. They mustn’t try to be standalone episodes, assuming that the next episode will continue on like nothing ever happened. And I must say that Crystal Blaze did a pretty good job at it. Manami was definitely depressed, but I like how the creators used a bit of comedy in order to lighten up the mood from all her angst. In this series, the characters actually try to understand both each other and themselves, and that’s what makes this so appealing.

Seriously, Crystal Blaze is one of these series where every major character has become likable, and especially the good guys are a joy to watch. I already sung praises to Shu and Manami, but Ayaka’s caring nature and Akira’s down-to-earth nature are also wonderful. And of course Poririn rocks as well. Th relatively large emphasis so far on the bad guys also really helps. These guys are definitely not your typical misunderstood villains, and they they’re turning out really nicely.

I’m really not sure what exactly it was that the creators did, but this is everything a 12-episode series should be. The reason why I prefer 26 or 39-episode series above series of such a short length is that they can easily go wrong if they’re not focused, and it takes something special to get some quality development out of the characters, something which is much easier for series with 26 episodes, because it usually takes me around 10 episodes to really connect with the cast of characters.

RD Sennou Chousashitsu – 07

by psgels, posted in RD Sennou Chousashitsu


Really, this series continues to surprise me. When I first read the premise, I thought that this series would be something like Dennou Coil or Ghost in the Shell, but I’m still struggling to find a good series to compare this to. Real Drive has become much more light-hearted than I think anyone could have expected, but because of that it’s able to show exactly how people have come to live with the metal, and it’s really able to show the ins and outs of its premise, and the creators can really show their vision of the future, and it’s really great to have series as this one show a more positive view on the future, instead of the bleak corrupted and screwed-up science-fiction series.

This time: pets. I absolutely love the little touches, where chips have been invented that translate what dogs can say (in fact, why shouldn’t this be possible in fifty years?), but there still are a few flaws in the translation, like it mistaking “food” for “friend”. That’s indeed a typical characteristic of software like this: it may do its job 90% of the cases, but it obviously can’t be perfect. It’s the same thing as in episode five: that cyborg was great at fighting, but as soon as he needed to do something else, he became like a three year-old.

The thing is that this series is already so much fun, even though all it’s been doing is building up. I really can’t wait to see this series enter its second half, and use what it’s been building up for, especially considering the director: chevalier had a rather boring first half, but it so much made up for this with its second half, and the same goes for nearly all of his work.