Author: psgels

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure – 12

by psgels, posted in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure

Seriously, this show is awesome!

I mean, it keeps finding new ways to stand out while being over the top. I thought that this was impossible. This one did it with nazis. Last episode kept emphasizing how they are everything that is evil. This episode took the nazi stereotypes so over the top that it became hilarious. The people here really did justice to the evil organization by making one that looked completely unlike the others in over the topness: these guys have an actual personality other than “I listen and do stuff like a mindless robot”.

Also, I did not expect the powers that that stone guy turned out to have: the ability to completely manipulate his body and absorb others. And he really used it in a brilliant way when he traveled through the ventilation shafts. The build-up of it all, especially in the beginning was great.

Oh, and I nearly fell off my chair with Joseph in this episode. That dress.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

Psycho Pass – 11

by psgels, posted in Psycho Pass

Now. This was incredibly intense. This latest installment has really pushed this series to new levels and I really was at the edge of my seat through the entirity of the scene between Akane and Shougo Makishima. And hands off for the creators for actually doing it: killing off the girl. From Urobuchi Gen this was to be expected, but many other writers would have chosen to let her live, which would just not have had the same impact.

Because the end of this episode was just hopeless. Akane really looked completely shocked in this episode. She was slightly different and more competent from the usual rookie you see in these positions, but she still is naive, believing that she can just take care of things herself. This episode was so over her capabilities. The direction of this episode really was amazing in bringing this forth.

I just wonder… what idiot thought that the Sybil System would be a good idea? I mean, what it basically does is sniff out psychopaths. The junks and the mentally instable people whose desires go out of control. There is another group of killers out there though: the ones who simply don’t care about human lives. These guys aren’t necessarily psychopaths, they just have no value for anything and just kill whenever they find someone annoying. Or in Shougo’s case someone who just rationally manages to kill people.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

Robotics;Notes – 11

by psgels, posted in Robotics;Notes

How everything is going to tie together, I have no idea. But this episode definitely went into the right direction by providing some great twists for some of the different subplots of this series.

So Kimijima Kou elaborated a bit on how the world would be destroyed, and this episode definitely drove home that Misa now has completely changed, and works for the bad guys now (although I suspect very much that things will get a bit more nuanced in the future). But this episode also laid links between the Kimijima Report and Frau’s mother and subsequently the final episode of Gunbarrel, which ended up being an incredibly pessimistic troll ending.

My guess would be that Frau’s mother knew the same thing that Kimijima Kou knew, and also tried to show this through the Gunvarrel anime, but got found out before the final episode which she used for these hints, came out. That probably explains why Kimijima Kou made the instructions to get to his reports so ridiculously complicated. Why the story is centered on robot building amidst all this… still isn’t clear to me, but who knows?

Also the twist that someone is using the accounts of the top 3 players of Killballad is quite morbid. And surprisingly like that one arc in Psycho Pass, although here the impact is really on the fact that someone is cheating in a completely different way than expected, and using such morbid means in it. The deaths here do make more impact compared to Psycho Pass because the murders there are the orders of the day: it’s a police series about serial killers, while this is a show about building robots.

Also, I was wrong: next week will air another episode. After that we’ll get a one-week hiatus… and then the Noitamina-timeslot will move to Tuesday Evening. Yes, after all those years of Noitamina airing on tuesday, it will finally change its schedule. The question now is: will that retain its viewers. In a way, I can understand it though: over the past years, thursdays got way too crowded: most likely due to its influence, there were way too many shows that aired on the same day and therefore much more competition. In comparison, Tuesday evening has always had much less series. I really hope that the viewers will move along with them and allow the timeslot to be even more successful.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

Zetsuen no Tempest – 12

by psgels, posted in Zetsuen no Tempest

Oh no, the world will be destroyed! Just like in 50% of all other action series! Yeah, if you want to do this, then you need to make it count.Just putting the world at stake at this point is adequate, but standalone it just doesn’t make enough impact, to the point where it can even feel shallow. Zetsuen no Tempest is very good at avoiding this.

In this series the world is at stake, and you really feel like the world is at stake. It keeps driving home that this can pretty much happen on a whim: it’s unknown what will happen, and wrong move will just blow everything up. The characters are just thrown between two huge trees, either of which is trying to make this happen. In this episode things started to get really out of control, and even though this series doesn’t show many people gathered at the same place or huge crowds, it did drive home that something really big is so easily about to happen. The shots of the businessmen trying to map everything that the tree was doing was enough for that.

Beyond that, I still love this series’ style of storytelling. It just takes what it has, and then uses one of its characters to completely turn over the logic in this series, again and again and again. I also love the way this series plays with logic: normally this is something that can’t be influenced, but here there are these two giant trees that are playing russian roulette with it. Very good depiction of the utterly hopeless situation that the characters are in.

Also, the soundtrack! The godly soundtrack! Really, I am going to write a post on my favorite soundtracks of the year. I can’t believe how many great soundtracks 2012 had in comparison to previous years. I just need to find a good way to publish it…
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

Kamisama Hajimemashita – 12

by psgels, posted in Kamisama Hajimemashita

Um, Kamisama Hajimemashita, you’re ending next week. Don’t you think that with this episode, you’re heading to a rather flimsy climax? I mean I dunno, but this just screams “crap, we’ve run out of time! Quick, throw in some really powerful monster and have the main couple split up!”

I guess it had it coming, but the style of this episode definitely was different from usual. The jokes were ess sharp and the plot took this turn that just screams that the script was rushed. The final episode had better be very good to make up for this, because it’s an episode that I’ve seen so many times before.

A few of the things that did manage to set this episode apart: Nanami’s feelings of being useful. Okay, they came totally out of nowhere, but heck. They give her character. This just is not fitted for the final climax of the story. Problem is that this is the thing that I’ll remember this show by, so I really hope that the creators can still make something out of this. Please…
Rating: 3.5/8 (Enjoyable)

Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo – 11

by psgels, posted in Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo

School festival arcs. Inherently boring, so series really need to add something to make it work. This series does that by just doing what it always does and making the school festival not the central focus. Instead, this was again about working hard to make something good, and very sharp dialogue and lots of addictive character chemistry.

I noticed that the bad school festival episodes just put too much emphasis on the school festival: just doing boring stuff like having a haunted house or a cafe, and having characters walk around without much passion. And really: having a school festival in real life sounds really fun, but only a few anime really manage to capture it. Sakurasou didn’t exactly capture it, but ir rather avoided it. Misaki’s bit with her sister was very surprising and a great way to develop her, but it had absolutely nothing to do with the school festival. Same for Mashiro’s subplot about returning to England.

There is one thing that I’m a bit bothered with: the way this show looks at Shiina. It’s a bit subtle, but sometimes the focus is a bit too much on her as a “pet”, rather than as an actual character. In this episode there was this focus about him not letting Shiina go back, as if she was his property. Only at the cliff-hanger the focus returned to what Shiina really wanted. It’s a missed opportunity.

Also, small detail: I like how Shiina’s painting on the wall stays there. Yay for continuity.
Rating: 4.5/8 (Good)

Magi – 11

by psgels, posted in Magi

A-1 really grabbed some good animators for this episode. The fight that showed the conclusion of last week’s episode had some really solid animation there. It lacked the emotional impact that last week had because it was just there to resolve things and wrap things up, and introduce this new tsundere princess character who is bound to be important later on. And it was good to look at. The soundtrack was also better than ever.

Then this episode came with its world building, that did make the impact I was looking for. So far the slavery has been fairly simple: it’s evil. This episode put some more depth to it by explaining why there was so much slavery in Balbadd to begin with, with the use simple macroeconomics. It’s definitely the start, but I’m still looking for this show to go further in exploring its characters like this.

This definitely was a good start, but I’m still missing something from Magi. I mean, it has the development of its characters, but it’s not enough as of yet. I can’t put my finger exactly on what I’m missing though, but this episode had a bit of it.
Rating: 5/8 (Great)

From the New World – 12

by psgels, posted in From the New World

Holy crap… a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. This show definitely put that saying into a different perspective. I mean heck, this is just a horror series in disguise. The whole story about that one kid who went crazy actually nearly freaked me out, that’s how good it was. Very, very dark psychological horror.

But with this I also feel so sorry for the people who all had to solve this and clean up, being forced to put so many constraining rules on the village. This was the first time the series showed the story from their perspective. And also their fear of some other kid freaking out. And the thing is that this series has been slowly building up someone for that role: Mamoru.

What’s more, Saki is being forced in the role of a leader now. I can only imagine how different the second half of this series will be, when she is actually put into that position, and forced to make the same incredibly difficult decisions. This show is cruel. Very cruel.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

Hunter X Hunter – 59

by psgels, posted in Hunter X Hunter

I can be quick about this episode: watching exposition that you’ve already seen before is boring. Training arcs are even worse. There will be a big chance that I’ll put this show on hold again for blogging in the upcoming Winter season, because the very reason why the Greed Island is so good is its exposition. Sure, this was the point where the 1999 series went downhill in its exeuction, but I don’t want to get bogged down by the details again. Really, with the way things look, it will have taken nearly a year and a half for the series to reach the new material. Like, more episodes than what it took Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood to tell its full story.

Also, the new ED… something tells me that the sound guy was not paying attention again. “WhoaaaahooooooooHOOOOO”… is that really what you want to use as a cliff-hanger for the next half year?
Rating: 3/8 (Mediocre)

Uchuu Kyoudai – 37

by psgels, posted in Uchuu Kyoudai

Yeah, the only two series that made me cry this year: Natsuyuki Rendezvous and Uchuu Kyoudai. I just completely broke down at the big moment of this episode.

At first sight it seemed that the creators were going to make this one the episode for the losers: the ones who didn’t make it while Mutta was still going on and on about his luck of the day. The episode indeed started out that way: Mizoguchi didn’t get the job. And in a way, this was to be expected: he is talented, but in the end he is too much focused on himself. It’s a bit of a shame that we didn’t get to see much of him in the third exam, but I believe that the decision was already made after the second.

Mutta in the meantime was hilarious. Just seeing him waiting and waiting for the right moment was awesome. And then this episode put details like head-bumps in the mix to make things even better. And then he suddenly got invited to come outside, and hear that he passed, even though there still are enough people left of which we don’t know what happened.

His reaction in any case was beautiful. The danger with these things of course is making them too cheesy: playing up the emotional value too much and making the reactions too simple and shallow. The comedy did so much to avoid this, the symbolism helped so much, en then Mutta’s facial expressions were really well done. This series doesn’t have the best animation at all, but it is a A-1 production nonetheless: they really bring in some good people for the scenes that really matter, and this episode really showed that in bringing out the emotions right.
Rating: 7/8 (Fantastic)