Author: psgels

Shigofumi ~ Stories of the Last Letter – 09

by psgels, posted in Shigofumi ~ Stories of the Last Letter


Well… that wasn’t one of the most exciting episodes…

This could be just me, but whenever the major crew of an anime heads off to another resort or hotel, it just feels horribly bland and uninspired. Especially since EVERY SINGLE ONE of these episodes has to have some kind of hot-spring sequence. It’s not necessarily the fanservice that gets me, but the fact that every single episode looks like each other. It feels just like the creators were in a “well, we need one more episode to fill but we’ve run out of ideas so let’s just send the cast off to a resort so that they can enter hot springs”-mood. Such an episode SO doesn’t belong in this series, especially after I praised it for feeling so refreshing!

So, basically this episode was meant to give Chiaki a bit of development, but I feel that it would have been better if it didn’t spend half of its time on pointless chatter. We’ve enough other series for that! It turns out that she too was a normal human, fifty years ago. She was in love with a guy who was about a decade older than she was, and just as the two were about to propose, they got in a car-crash and Chiaki died. Now, fifty years later the guy also finally passed on, and used the Shigofumi to talk to Chiaki one final time. It turns out that she’s always been on his mind.

Shion no Ou – 19

by psgels, posted in Shion no Ou


Heh, and I thought that Satoru would be out of the picture now that he lost. Heh, it’s far from that. Basically in this episode, he confirms the suspicions that were raised in the previous episode, and it’s now pretty clear who the murderer is. Really, only now that this information is revealed, I realize how much sense it makes.

Why did I never question why Shion and Satoru had the same kind of necklace? I just assumed that it was chance, but that was FAR FROM THE CASE. In fact, these two necklaces belonged to Satoru and Hani’s mother! Each of them took one of the necklaces, and I think that this is the first thing that raised Satoru’s suspicions. It must’ve been quite a shock when he first saw it. I also now realize why he was toying with Shion so much: he was trying to figure out how she got the necklace, and because of that, she reminded him of Kasumi. Still, why was Hani-Meijin stupid enough to leave his necklace at such a place?

Also, Shion’s style of playing shougi turns out to be the same style as that of Hani-meijin, according to Satoru. Of course that’s the case! From what I gathered, Shion and Hani spent quite a bit of time together between the time of the murder and the arrival of the police. We already know that he was the reason why she continued to play shougi, so he might as well have given her a few pointers on how to improve her game. The interesting thing is that ever since, Shion did try to change from her usual tactics. I wonder whether the creators will use that in the final episodes.

And thank god Ayumi didn’t turn into a helpless pawn of Hani-meijin. He really shines when he does something for Shion and yet again there are so many possibilities at how the creators can use him against Hani-meijin for the final episodes. Three episodes is just enough to give Hani-meijin some more development (now that we finally know that he did it, it’s time to delve into the reasons as to why he did it). Satoru has already proved to be an extremely versatile character, and it would be a shame to see this series end without Hani-meijin getting the same treatment.

True Tears – 09

by psgels, posted in True Tears


Seriously, this series keeps moving forward like a seismograph that’s about to detect a big earthquake: Hiromi – Noe – Hiromi – Noe – Hiromi – Noe – et cetera. One moment, you’d think that Shinichiro goes for Noe, but then another plot-twists makes his interests waver to Hiromi again. In this episode, this plot-twist is Hiromi and Noe’s brother eloping and crashing their motorbike on a slippery road afterwards.

Nobody was hurt, but the bike’s gone now, which is quite a big hit for Noe’s brother. In any case, their little adventure did make both Noe and Shinichiro incredibly worried. Because of this, Shinichiro and Hiromi forget how they avoided each other in the past, and become much closer. Noe of course doesn’t like this, but she decides to let Shinichiro go to be with Hiromi. The episode ends, however, with Noe being incredibly love-sick.

What’s also interesting is how the story that Shinichiro and Hiromi are siblings isn’t true at all. Shinichiro’s mother just made that up. I do wonder why she hated Hiromi, though. Was this because she never got asked permission for Hiromi to come and live with her, or something? The degree of realism overall was quite good in this episode, from Hiromi and Noe’s brother who drove slowly because of the frost so they didn’t end up getting hurt to the rumours that escalated on school the day afterwards and Shinichiro getting into fights because of it.

It really seems like the creators want to keep the way they want to end this series a surprise for as long as possible. At this episode, it seemed that Hiromi would be “the one” for him, but the fact does remain that Noe’s still incredibly lovesick and there are four episodes left.

Baccano! – 14

by psgels, posted in Baccano!


Thank you pgal, for pointing out that the first of three Baccano! DVD-only episodes has arrived. The length has been increased to half an hour, and this episode basically spends its time fleshing out some of the characters of the series, and introducing one new guy. I’m not sure what the point was behind some scenes, though. At one point, we see Isaac and Miria laying down some kind of domino-course in front of a baffled Firo. It was also a bit hard when the new guy used a wrench to deflect a bullet.
In any case, this episode featured a lot of good stuff. The new guy (I couldn’t pick up his name, unfortunately) met Ladd in the past and he’s about to go after Jacuzzi. Huey also gets a bit more development, and we see some time he spent with Chane (who was too cute when she was young, by the way). Apart from that and Rachel sees Chezlaw (who seems to hang out with Ennis now) again.

I obviously missed a lot of dialogue because I watched this raw, but I think that even with some kind of translation it’ll be rather impossible to figure out where the creators plan to be going. The only way to find out is to wait for episode 15 and 16.

Saiunkoku Monogatari – 77

by psgels, posted in Saiunkoku Monogatari


I’m not exactly sure why… this episode was a clear aftermath and yet I found it was one of the most enjoyable ones of the third arc so far. I originally thought that seeing Shuuei and Ryuuki develop would be the best thing about the final episodes of the second season, but seeing them actually use this development turned out much more interesting.

Overall, the Kouki-arc just didn’t match up to the Government-Official-arc and the Sa-Province-arc, but that’s only logical. I now see that this arc is far from over, and all that the episodes have been doing is building up. Even the past few mini-arcs were just meant to develop the cast, and to make them ready for the real meat of this arc. It’s just like the Sa-province arc. The first twenty-or-so episodes also were a bit disappointing at times, and Sakujun took a lot of episodes to become likable, but the second half of that arc, with the disease and all simply rocked.

I really hope that Madhouse will continue next year with the third season for Saiunkoku Monogatari. There are just too many interesting plot-points unresolved to not let it happen: there’s Ouki, who’ll be trying more and more to take over the throne, which will bring Kouki, Seiga, Shuurei and Suou more to the foreground as they will definitely be asked to investigate and prevent this takeover. Then there’s the Bara-hime storyline with the big Riou and of course the big mystery about Sakujun’s whereabouts. Furthermore, we still haven’t seen anything of the plans to marry Kouyuu out to Shuurei. Then there’s also Seiga, who majorly lacks in development, considering how important his character is. Overall, that’s more than enough to fill a third season and close this story off properly. Please, Madhouse, don’t abandon this series just yet!

On other news, I was pretty surprised that Shouka didn’t prepare any explanation whatsoever to Shuurei about what the heck he was doing when Ryuuki wandered off on his own. I doubt that he would never make such a mistake to anyone other than Shuurei and Bara-hime. I think that that’s one of the reasons why he originally fell in love with Bara-hime. Somehow, he just couldn’t get his assassin-act together in front of her. ^^;

Hakaba Kitarou – 08

by psgels, posted in Hakaba Kitarou


Now this is what I call a good horror-story! Twisted, full of plot twists, and most of all: creative. This definitely was one of the best episodes of this series along with episode one. You just have to think of Kitarou’s hand getting cut off and taking on a mind of its own. 😛

Basically, two men set out to check out the rumours on a haunted building where an acquaintance of them is about to live. Obviously, any ghosts or people pretending to be ghosts have to be removed from this house, but unfortunately this “ghost” turned out to be Kitarou. What follows is a really interesting battle, where both parties try to get each other out of the house. You’ve got to love how Kitarou likes to play with his victims.

One thing I also liked about this episode is how the first half perfectly builds up the mood for the second half, by already hinting at how strange the house is that the two guys have settled in. Especially with the creature with four legs, no head and five arms who suddenly appeared from out of nowhere. Actually, Kitarou works best as a character when he doesn’t play the role of the main character, and only appears once in a while in his usual, mysterious form. But I can understand the need for episode four and six, as they’ve really served their purpose in fleshing out his character, and giving it a bit of development.

Ghost Hound – 17

by psgels, posted in Ghost Hound


Another terrific episode. I’m still surprised at how each episode starts pretty quietly, with usually a bunch of flashbacks, only for a few intense-plot-twists to happen in the second half. There’s nothing wrong with series that alternate between building-up and climax-episodes, but after Kaze no Shoujo Emily, Shion no Ou and Ghost Hound, I have found that I like series that can combine both building-up and climaxes in the same episode, making every single episode worthwhile much more than that, as it really takes skills to make everything come together. You also have every week something to look forward to, as you just know that a series will deliver in this way.

In any case, the major vent in this episode was how Tarou finally got the courage to tell Miyako how he believes that she’s the reincarnation of his sister. Miyako, who had met with her mother, whom she obviously didn’t like, having abandoned her and her father after all, was already in a rather bad mood, so Tarou’s rather blunt statement must have upset her even more. And really, Tarou looked so realistic when he tried to speak his mind to Miyako. I could really feel ho much trouble he had to get his words all together, and how speaking into complete sentences must have been the most difficult task in the world back then.

Surprisingly, there’s hardly anything about Hirata, apart from the fact that his dreams and Tarou’s dreams are starting to merge with each other… Because of this, Tarou now has nightmares where his sister talks her final worlds to the councillor, instead of him, and suddenly she turns into Miyako. I’m finally beginning to see one of the major themes of this series: the influence that your psychological state has on others. Tarou, Masayuki and Makoto are of course extreme examples, but the way they can interact with their environment within their own minds has some great symbolic values.

Oh, and I had to laugh when Ootori caught Masayuki in the act. She’s smarter than she looks, and can form an interesting villain (which I assume she’s going to be, after the previous episode and all).

February Summary

by psgels, posted in Monthly Summaries

I must say that this has been the best winter-season we’ve had in years. usually, they just features one or two great series, but this season juast has a whole bunch of worthwhile watches, albeit you do have to look a bit harder than usual.

#28 (28) – Dragonaut The Resonance – (6,6/10) – This is quite rare: the plot has turned out to be quite interesting, but any attempts to further develop it are greatly hammered by the characters. They’re either stereotypes, or are the product of soap-opera plot-twists and melodrama.
#27 (26) – Hatenkou Yuugi – (6,9/10) – The best thing about this series is the card-game of episode six. Apart from that, it just feels like a lazy manga-adaptation. The manga may have had excellent dialogue, but it feels like the anime-staff hardly even cares about it.
#26 (new) – Mnemosne no Musume-Tachi – (7/10) – I’m not yet sold on the gore + fanservice-concept of Mnemosyne. There is potential, but the first episode felt mostly unimpressive to me.
#25 (new) – Mai Otome S.ifr – (7,2/10) – Well, here we go again. At least this one looks to be a bit more solid than its predecessor, but do the characters have to be so annoying?
#24 (24) – Bamboo Blade – (7,2/10) – What the heck has happened to Bamboo Blade? This should be a time of character-development, and the creators should try their best to keep the characters interesting. Who found it a good idea to come up with the pointless foreign girl-arc and braver-arc? Seriously, these have been some of the dullest episodes of this series yet.
#23 (19) – Persona – Trinity Soul – (8/10) – I’m not sure what the creators had in mind with these rather silly side-stories. As a 12-episode series, it really needs to use its time to develop its story and I’m not sure about the point behind wasting half an episode on a haunted-house side-quest.
#22 (???) – Armored Trooper Votoms – Pailsen Files – (8,2/10) – Like expected from Ryousuke Takahashi: a solid science-fiction series that focuses more on believability than action. It’s nothing amazing yet, but it did go into the right direction.
#21 (10) – Gigantic Formula – (8,2/10) – Finally another episode got released, and I must say that I’m impressed how the creators took such a faulty concept and turned it into something worthwhile. I do admit that I like how the corrupt government-subplot has turned out, though these guys seriously lack in development.
#20 (11) – Saiunkoku Monogatari – (8,3/10) – I’m not happy with Madhouse, as it’s continuing its trend of screwing up the endings of its adaptations. The story of Saiunkoku Monogatari has finally become amazing now, and this is definitely NOT THE TIME for budget-problems!
#19 (5) – Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei – (8,3/10) – Well, the subs are as fast as ever and only one episode got released this month. It wasn’t as continuously hilarious as the previous ones, but thankfully it did feature a bunch of brilliant and clever jokes.
#18 (10) – Gintama – (8,3/10) – I have seen better months for Gintama, but episode 48 and 49 both had a couple of brilliant jokes and parodies.
#17 (21) – Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji – (8,4/10) – For the past month, I’ve loved Kaiji in terms of the small picture, but looking at the big picture I feel that it could have been handled better.
#16 (20) – Spice and Wolf – (8,4/10) – Spice and Wolf too has been unspectacular, yet incredibly solid. Its main characters are well-defined, and I admit that the attention to politics and the in-depth look at the job of a medieval merchant turned really interesting. One point of criticism would be that the side-characters could have gotten more attention, as they hardly receive any sort of background or development.
#15 (15) – Clannad – (8,4/10) – Okay, let’s hope now that Clannad has finally shaken away its harem-roots (about the only thing I really didn’t like about this series), so that it can focus on what’s really important. Apart from that, this series has been as solid as usual.
#14 (18) – Gundam 00 – (8,4/10) – Thankfully, every single character has now become more likable apart from Saji. This series still isn’t anything special, but it’s getting more enjoyable with every month.
#13 (12) – Kimikiss Pure Rouge – (8,5/10) – It’s sad to see that Mao has become exactly what I feared her to be: love-triangle bait without any possibility of success. Fortunately, she has been well-developed, which makes up for this a lot. In addition, Kazuki’s story did turn out in an excellent way.
#12 (17) – Suteki Tantei Labyrinth – (8,6/10) – Well, it looks like this series has finally stopped fooling around, and got to its serious part. So far the drama has been surprisingly interesting and the characters are actually well-enough developed and likable.
#11 (13) – True Tears – (8,7/10) – For a 13-episode love-story, True Tears is top-notch. It really makes use of the limited time it’s been given, and the characters are already getting developed.

#10 (7) – Shigofumi – Stories of the Last Letter – (8,8/10)

I like how Shigofumi, amidst the series of Jigoku Shoujo, Shinigami no Ballad and others, managed to find its own style and niche, and continued with this. The stories are well-developed and the extreme plot-twists are enough to keep me more than interested. Okay, you won’t find any subtlety in this series, but that’s part of its charms.

#9 (22) – Kekkaishi – (8,9/10)

Kekkaishi has rocked now that its ending has gotten nearer. I like the wit of the writers to not let everything climax at a worst-case scenario. Now let’s hope they won’t screw up the ending.

#8 (14) – Hakaba Kitarou – (8,9/10)

This series does an excellent job at surprising its viewer. I must say that I never saw some of the plot-twists coming and on top of that the way this series combines horror with humour deserves points as well.

#7 (2) – Wellber no Monogatari – Sisters of Wellber – (8,9/10)

Wellber hasn’t been as good as last month, but that’s probably because of the time it spent building up for the grand finale, and it’s promising to become an awesome one.

#6 (6) – Perrine Monogatari – (9/10)

This is the power of the early episodes of the World Masterpiece Series: you know things are about to happen, you’ll just never know when they will. In the meantime, I keep rooting for Perrine’s mother to get better, even though I know that this’ll be useless.

#5 (4) – Mokke – (9/10)

I’m not sure what it is that this series has, but every time I watch an episode, I end up really satisfied. The two lead characters are just so adorable characters, even though they’re a bit cheesy at times.

#4 (9) – Gunslinger Girl – Il Teatrino – (9/10)

At this point, I hardly care about the new character-designs and lack of budget anymore. Gunslinger Girl – Il Teatrino has a terrific plot, period.

#3 (8) – Porfy no Nagai Tabi – (9,1/10)

Like expected, Porfy no Nagai Tabi has been amazing, even though hardly anything happened yet. Porfy and Mina just feel SO real. Even the Ghibli-movies I’ve seen didn’t feature little children that felt so nostalgic as the two of them.

#2 (3) – Ghost Hound – (9,2/10)

In February, Ghost Hound kept its same style of tense and refreshing storytelling, and started introducing increasingly more interesting psychological concepts. Here’s one series that knows how to build up.

#1 (1) – Shion no Ou – (9,5/10)

Shion no Ou has been absolutely sensational. Not one character is wasted, every episode delivers, and especially Satoru has received a tremendous amount of development this month. It’s already one of my favourite series 2008.

Wellber no Monogatari ~ Sisters of Wellber – 22

by psgels, posted in Wellber no Monogatari ~ Sisters of Wellber


This episode was mostly unspectacular, and just built up for the finale of this series. Basically, Rita and Tina arrive back at the castle of Wellber and are greeted back by Rita’s family. Galahad formally requests a wedding with Rita, and later he settles an old score with the knight, back from episode one. All in all, the chess-pieces were set right for the final four episodes of this series.

But it does promise to be an awesome finale! In the next episode, we finally get to see the confrontation between Tina and Rita’s brother (because yes: it’s now officially confirmed that he was the one who killed her parents). At this point, I have no idea what she’ll do. Just keep quiet about it in front of Rita? Brainlessly attack the guy? Give subtle hints? Talk things out? It’s all possible.

My guess is then that the final three episodes will deal with the upcoming war between Wellber, Sangatras and Greedam, or to be more precise: preventing it. Here too I wonder what kind of direction the creators will go with. There are still quite a lot of interesting possibilities for the war to turn out in three episodes, but for now they must make sure to build it up well, just like they did with the characters.

Suteki Tantei Labyrinth – 21

by psgels, posted in Suteki Tantei Labyrinth


Ah, finally Byakko gets her background! I must say that this has turned into quite an interesting family-drama between Seiran, Chien and Seijuu. Their background doesn’t feel complete yet, but then again, there are still five episodes left and these can be used to fill in the blanks that we’re still missing like their parents and why Seijuu has decided to go after the Hyuugake Gentoushuu in Mayuki.

At this point, I’ve also started doubting whether Byakko will change sides or not. At the beginning of the episode, we see her about to kill her master, until he reminds her how he gave her the name Byakko. It turns out that she grew up with Youko (that was her name, right?). Then Chien took Youko away and she was all alone until Seijuu picked her up.

Seriously, Byakko’s mood took huge swings throughout the entire episode, especially after Mayuki (in Hyugake Gentoushu-mode) pointed out towards her cocky mode that she was in fact really unsure of herself. She was really fun to watch, though. One moment she was crazily uttering her name over and over, the next she dresses up in a fancy costume to lure Mayuki’s friends to a deserted location.

And I must say, that this has been one of the most solid episodes of this series yet. There’s no botched storytelling, nor any far-fetched mystery and for once everything felt believable, even Byakko’s insanity (the series built up very well for that, in my opinion). It was also refreshing that for once Seiran was out of the picture, so that none other than Chien had to protect Mayuki.