Author: psgels

Suteki Tantei Labyrinth – 17

by psgels, posted in Suteki Tantei Labyrinth


Okay, now I know for sure: this show’s crazy!

I’m not sure what it is that the creators have taken, but I wonder where I could get some. I now finally understand how the director (Hiroshi Watanabe) could have produced series that are so incredibly different in overall quality. The guy is just incredibly dependant on the source-material that he has to adapt, and somehow manages to increase the most defining feature of said source-material. Shining Tears X Wind was rumoured to be the “worst RPG ever”, so of course you’d get a very crappy anime. The Law of Ueki, on the other hand, came from a very creative manga, and that worked just perfect with the strange sense of humour of Hiroshi Watanabe. And now Suteki Tantei Labyrinth has been adopted from a manga that according to Usagijen already was quite bizarre, and the result is… well… this.

The fact remains that nearly every of Hiroshi watanabe’s works left some kind of lasting impression on me, whether good or bad. I still cringe at how horribly cheese the twelfth episode of Shining Tears X Wind was. I still consider The Law of Ueki to be the single best shounen-fighting series out there. The final parts of Star Ocean Ex bombarded me with its horrible deus ex machinas, and it was exactly that series that made me realize how bad these are for the overall storytelling, and Suteki Tantei Labyrinth is currently fighting along with Power Puff Z for the title of “weirdest storytelling”. In the same way, I’m getting rather curious to check out his works on Tactics and Matantei Loki Ragnarok. The guy should try to animate some ideas of his own, though. I mean, he definitely has enough creativity to pull it off; he was the one who proposed the concept for Jigoku Shoujo, after all.

Anyway, about the episode… it really was one of the weirdest yet. The show may be heading further and further away from the “detective”-part in the title, but in exchange for that it has turned into a(n unintentionally) hilarious anime that just screams “don’t take me seriously”. Basically, Seiran’s brother seems to have made it to the new school-headmaster, and for that, he organizes a running-event. Mayuki, being by far the slowest person in the class, obviously doesn’t like this.

Hold on, though, it gets much weirder. When Mayuki is all alone, Hatsumi comes from out of nowhere, carrying a huge backpack full of meat and vegetables, in an attempt to replenish Mayuki’s energy (…yeah). She then falls into some kind of trap-door (yes, in the middle of a street), and both she and Mayuki end up in some kind of underground building, probably from before most of the buildings got destroyed. After a small conversation with his good and bad angel (am I the only one who was disturbed by the fact that these angels were wearing dresses?), he decides to cheat and take a shortcut.

Unfortunately, the plans of cheating are short-lived when the two of them get lost. Incidentally, he suddenly seems to have become much better at running… In any case, now we get to the really strange part… they run into a strange man who is trying to get rid of some rocks in one of the corridors. After they try to help him a bit (to no avail, by the way), he points them to a door, that’s supposed to be the exit. Behind that door, is an alligator.

Yes, don’t ask me where the heck that alligator came from. I have no freaking idea myself. After a hilarious chase, Mayuki uses the meat that Hatsumi was carrying (gee, what an incredible coincidence :P), to lure the beast away, and clear the rocks in the process. It then seems that the strange man was after a time-capsule, in which a demo-tape of his early days as a rock-band guitarist was kept. Unfortunately, the band went nowhere, and they broke up, and this demo-tape was the only thing that remained of their works. It seems that he was just being nostalgic.

The story isn’t over with just that, though. The rocks were not only blocking that time-capsule, but also some kind of underground water. Oh, and Maru ran off on his own when he smelled food. Hako uses this chance to secretly attack Hatsumi for no apparent reason, and Seiran, who also came from nowhere, tries to stop her, but fails. In the end, everyone flees from the water. For some reason, in the aftermath we see water come from the top of a huge building, which would be physically rather impossible. But then again, this is at least better than the murder on top of the radio-tower…

The episode ends with a very strange twist: The owner of the previously mentioned alligator is Shien, and he seems to have called her “Catherine”. Incidentally, it hasn’t eaten the meat from Mayuki at all, and strangely enough, the two of them end up hugging each other… Really, looking back, this series has so many bad storytelling-errors, but I’m really beginning to think that this was intentional…

Gunslinger Girl – Il Teatrino – 04

by psgels, posted in Gunslinger Girl - Il Teatrino


Really, this episode rocked! I’d much rather see badly animated, but well-coordinated fights than godly animated, but abysmally coordinated ones. Flashy graphics is one thing, but if all the characters do is hurl flashy beams towards each other until one goes down, then I’d pass. I’m really impressed at how the plot has developed up till now.

You can say a lot about this series, but for me, it remains really well-written. The creators make sure that lots of stuff happens in one episode, and I actually feel that Artland did this better than the first season by Madhouse. The current episode is a Marco/Angelica-episode. One thing I also noticed of the second season is also that even though the character-designs have been supposedly “moefied”, it’s not like the girls are the only ones who get attention. One of the problems with the first seasons was that the guys didn’t really get that much attention, though here it feels that they get about just as much attention as the girls. If the creators really wanted to use the cute girls to sell this series, they’d have included random moe-moments, of which I haven’t seen any thus far.

In this episode, it seems that one of the major subordinates of Christopher gets arrested. The episode starts with a bit of his family, and I like how he’s portrayed in a way that doesn’t care about any clichés. Interestingly enough, there was no sign of Pinocchio, nor Franco or Franca. This clearly was an episode to build up, but still I’ve found this to be the best episode of the second season yet. I really like how this series has been getting better and better with every episode.

Porfy no Nagai Tabi – 04

by psgels, posted in Porfy no Nagai Tabi


I’m getting rather annoyed at the huge negligence of this series. Sure, this definitely isn’t the first time that I blogged a series that almost nobody watches, but it’s really getting extreme here: this afternoon, when I checked up on my google-keywords this afternoon, I found out that eighty-four people came to this site, searching for the “Porfy sucks”. I mean, what!?

Okay, rambling aside, this was another excellent episode, as it continues to develop the characters. The episode starts with Porfy, waking up, and heading downstairs without waking up Mina. It’s here where he starts working on Mina’s birthday-present. It’s going to be something, carved out of wood, but he still refuses to show it to anyone. We also see him, borrowing a piece of string from his mother.

Mina then wakes up, and climbs downstairs. There, her mother (whose name is Anek, by the way) and father (whose name is Christopher, by the way), congratulate her on her eleventh birthday. Mina then rushes over to Porfy, though he acts like nothing happened (obviously, because the present isn’t done yet ^^;). Let’s just say that Mina isn’t happy. In any case, since this day it seems to be weekend as well, so Porfy and Mina are off from school. Therefore, Christopher offers to give the whole family a ride.

For that, however, a car is needed. It then turns out that Christopher is a car mechanic, and he can use the car of one of his clients (Corrina’s father, to be exactly), as long as he fixes it. And suddenly a lot of things become clear; most importantly Porfy’s obsession for cars. Of course, if your father is a car mechanic, you get to see a lot of cars. Now that I mention it, Mina must have become interested in Ancient Greece because of her mother. She came from a wealthy family, so she obviously has been schooled in these subjects, and she must have told Mina a lot of wonderful stories of those days.

Christopher indeed teaches Porfy a few things about cars as he works, after which Corrina drops by, looking for Zaimis. Once she left and the job is done, he takes the car along with Porfy to Mina and Anek. What’s also interesting is that he didn’t ask for a fee at all, as long as he could use the car for one day to go out with his family.

On the way home, Christopher and Porfy pass Zaimis and his father, who are just painting their stone hedges. Porfy wants to use the paint a bit to decorate his present for Mina (which we still didn’t get to see, by the way). After this, Anek and Mina are picked up, and Christopher heads to the ruins of an ancient Greek city, along with its own ancient theatre; something which Mina loves; you can really see that as she tries to imagine how that might have been. She even starts singing in Greek at one point. I must say that her voice-actress does a decent job. It definitely beats Les Miserables’ attempts at speaking French. 😛

While the foursome has lunch together, Porfy finally gives his present to Mina: it’s the wood-carved Apollo that you can see in the OP. This will probably have a huge symbolic value, later on in the series. When Christopher and the others return, a guy named Nicholas arrives at his house as well, delivering various materials that are used to build a house with, along with a very young tree, which gets to be planted in the back-yard of the house. It seems to be a “minen”-tree, though I’m not sure what that translates to. I did find a tree called a “minesakura”, which means a Japanese alpine cherry, though I wonder whether those exist in Greece. In any case, because the name of the tree sounds like Mina, the tree is called “Mina’s tree”, and the episode ends. I’m not sure what kind of house Christopher intends to build, but I’d guess it’s some kind of inn.

On a side-note: I’m still surprised at how detailed, yet simple the dialogue for this series is. For every episode, there’s usually just two or three line that I just can’t understand. Apart from that, I’m having no trouble at all to figure out what the characters are saying. Ever since I started watching raws, there hasn’t been any series that I was able understand as well as this series. That’s also why it’s such a shame that no subs have come out: it’s the perfect series for beginning translators to practice their skills.

Gundam 00 – 16

by psgels, posted in Mobile Suit Gundam 00


So, yes. This episode was for one half a recap, and for the other half it’s the proper introduction of the new Throne Gundams. Ah well, at least it was good for one thing: making me look forward to the next episode. Looking back at their intervention, while the presentation could have been better, it does make sense. I mean, Scheinberg had to have thought of the possibility that entire armies would end up against the Celestial Beings. Building in such a safety would be a great tactical move. It’s a real shame that none of the Gundams was captured, but I think that this is just going to be a simple matter of delaying the inevitable. It’s clear that the CBs have a lot of tricks up their sleeve, but these tricks have to run out at some point.

I don’t like the three new pilots of the Gundam Thrones, though. While I expect that they’ll work great when they’ll meat the normal Gundam Meisters (which is the reason why I’m looking forward to the next episode so much), on their own they seem really dull and uninspired. Especially the girl: she’s well-endowed, has a high-pitched voice, and doesn’t seem to be well-gifted in the intelligence-department.

One thing that could be interesting for the future episodes is how the three Throne Gundam Meisters lack one important thing: battle experience. Their Gundams may be fancy, but I can’t imagine how they’ve ever used them in a serious fight. Also, why was Sumeragi so worried during the battle? I mean, didn’t she know that the Throne Gundams would appear? Or could this be something that still needs to be revealed?

Shion no Ou – 14

by psgels, posted in Shion no Ou


Really, Shion no Ou is one of these few series that’s just as awesome during its climaxes as during the building-up scenes. I don’t care anymore whether we get some exciting Shougi-matches or just their set-up: they’ll be awesome either way! Even though this episode just built up for the eight-finals of the shougi-tournament, it easy was able to remind me why this is my favourite series at the moment.

Like expected, Saori doesn’t get angry at Ayumi after finding out his secret. Instead, she and Ayumi get much closer now. Like Shion, she offers to pay for the operation on Ayumi’s mother, but yet again he refuses. What’s also interesting is how Saori too noticed that Ayumi started to get other reasons to play shougi, other than paying for his mother’s hospital bills. It also turns out that Ayumi has been keeping his shougi-adventures away from his mother as well. This was to be expected, of course. Ayumi really is a person who doesn’t want others to worry about himself, and likes to keep information about himself from others.

I’m still not sure what Satoru’s up to. First, he brought Saori and Ayumi closer together, and now he arranged behind the scenes with the help of the reporter that Shion’s first match in the eighth-finals would be against her foster-father. Instead, he keeps dropping hints how he was the one who killed Shion’s parents. What did seem interesting was the way he talked to Shion was much more different than usual, and it almost felt like he was emotionally involved with the things he said to Shion, how he too lost his parents at an early age. And really, Ayumi was too cute when he tried to protect Shion.

Interestingly enough, Hisatani also made it through the preliminaries. I loved how nervous he was at all the professional-looking shougi-players that he was amongst. It’ll be interesting to see what the underdog has up his sleeve. And I had to laugh at the way that Yasuoka picked up his phone that told him his place in the eight-finals. From his overdramatic movements, to him not knowing how to use a cell-phone.

The media also got developed a bit through this episode. Now that the tournament is progressing, the coverage of the media is also going to increase. Especially on the only two high-school “girls” who made it through the preliminaries. It really felt like they looked at Shion and Ayumi as they were a bunch of cheap idols, and it’s quite a change from the usual reporter, who always was really involved with the matches.

Shigofumi ~ Stories of the Last Letter – 04

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


Okay, it’s a bit hard to believe that a fire would start, just from the suns rays that shine through a bottle of water, but thankfully this time, it didn’t ruin the story for this episode at all. All the doubts I had of this series after episode 2 are gone now, and this has been shaping up to be an awesome series that successfully combines the ordinary with the spectacular.

This episode tells the story of two girls. One of them is the best player at a local high-school tennis-club, and the other is the coach of said club. A lot of signs point to the fact that both are lesbians, or at least very close friends. One of them has been left by her mother, when she ran off with another guy. Right now, this mother died, and sends Fumiko out to deliver her Shigofumi.

Most of the episode is about the girl, running away from this Shigofumi, and afraid to confront it. After all, her mother ran off without coming back at all. This has to feel like some betrayal, and the girl must have thought that her mother hated her. Turns out that her mother watched her tennis-matches from the side-lines, and encouraged her all the way. The past two stories have been simple, but due to their building-up, they’ve worked out really well. What I especially like is how we also get a small look into the lives of the ones to receive the Shigofumi. I guess that this is the same reason why I fell in love with Jigoku Shoujo. ^^;

True Tears – 04

by psgels, posted in True Tears


I like how this show is progressing so far. There’s been quite a bit of drama, but it knows exactly when to lighten the mood a bit with a few good jokes, in order to prevent the atmosphere from becoming like Kannadzuki no Miko or Kyoushiro to Towa to Sora. There’s also hardly any random fluff that feels like filler, like you see in nearly every romantic comedy, and so far, the creators have really shown that they make use of every scene to build up.

The weak link for this series so far is Aiko. She really needs some background information. I want to know why she fell in love with Miyokichi in the first place, and why the heck she became so sick of him that she started going after Shinichiro. Her relationship wit the guy feels nowhere near as interesting as with Noe and Hiromi.

I really like how this series portrays the two of Noe and Hiromi against each other. This episode develops Shinichiro’s relationship with Noe into a more friendship-like one: the two of them just hang out and talk like friends. On the other side we see Shinichiro and Hiromi having both trouble to express their feelings for each other, and they both react differently for lacking the ability to do so. Now it’s going to get interesting when no-one else than Noe’s brother asks Shinichiro to start dating Noe, at the end of the episode. The guy definitely has an interesting sister-complex, which was probably caused by the death of his grandmother.

One thing that also puzzles me is how Shinichiro’s mother treats Hiromi. The two of them aren’t exactly the friendliest towards each other. If that’s the case, then how the heck did the two of them end up in the same house, I wonder…

Saiunkoku Monogatari – 72

by psgels, posted in Saiunkoku Monogatari


Okay, so this may not be the best series to watch with a headache. The dialogue is hard enough as it is, and that headache didn’t make things better. Still, at least I’m glad that Saiunkoku Monogatari seems to be back again. I’m really starting to get impatient with this series. I want to see Ryuuki develop already! I know it’s close, but it had already been close two freaking months ago. With all the hiatuses from this series, I’d really wish that this series would hurry up and get on with it.

This episode basically introduces the next mini-arc. Something seems to be going on in the Ran-province, and Shuurei manages to get permission from Ki Kouki to travel there and check it out. It seems to involve a guy named Son Chouchou, whose role I unfortunately couldn’t pick up. We also see more of the villain for this arc, who seems to have teamed up with the suspicious-looking noble whose name I can’t remember at the time.

Interestingly enough, Ryuuki too will be heading to te Ran-province, along with Shouka. I’m really glad that this guy finally gets some attention again. He was one of my favourite characters whenever he played a major role, so I’ve been a bit disappointed that he’s had so little attention for the past half year.

Now that I think about it, does anyone know how long the second season will last? AniDB says that it’ll end with episode 39, but I just don’t trust that website as an official source. And there is no way that this series will be resolved in six episodes. Of course, that could mean that there’s a third season, waiting to air in the upcoming spring-season. That would be awesome, though I really hope that the building-up of the past months will be worth it.

Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji – 16

by psgels, posted in Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji


I’m not sure what’s wrong with me, but this has been one of the most enjoyable episodes of Kaiji yet, even though it consisted mostly of people sitting and talking. It’s probably for the same reason why I still consider the first episode to be one of the best episodes of the series as well. It’s episodes like these that are simple, yet effective.

Now I realize that with the beam-arc, Kaiji had been drifting away a bit from its original purpose: gambling. The beam-arc just consisted out of a bunch of idiots who walked towards their death. What I want to see are the mind games; people who try to outsmart each other in a battle of psychology. Seeing people, just scared to death becomes uninteresting quite soon.

It’s because of this that this arc is looking very promising. This time, Kaiji doesn’t have an idiot on the opposing side. This time, he doesn’t have to strangely be the only one to worry about the fates of others. This is really a battle between two men, and it already starts out well. Of course, with two rounds, you won’t be able to predict your opponent. It, however, really seems that Tonegawa will only lose about four times if Kaiji doesn’t start using his head soon. I’m especially interested in this experience of Tonegawa.

Hakaba Kitarou – 03

by psgels, posted in Hakaba Kitarou


The story for this week was rather bizarre… Remember the little plant that grew from Dracula’s dead body in the previous episode? Well, Nezumi Otoko uses his breath to knock a famous singer unconscious and plants this plant into his right arm. After a while, the plant starts to grow and it consumes its host. In the meantime, the famous singer met Mizuki. Yeah, who else would believe that there’s a demonic plant, growing on your arm?

In any case, the singer turns into a rather strange kind of tree-stump, and soon even loses the ability to speak. Nezumi Otoko then kidnaps the stump and moves into a secluded house, somewhere far away, using the money he stole from Kitarou in the previous episode. ^^; The stump then grows into a tree, and one very large fruit appears. Nezumi Otoko hoped that this would be the reincarnation of his late master, but instead it hatched a small version of said singer. The episode ends with Nezumi Otoko fleeing, the tree burning, and Kitarou, the small singer and a third youkai who just showed up having tea…

Still, I would be lying if I said that I don’t enjoy these kinds of stories. This series manages to combine a quirky feeling with horror-stories, and the result works out pretty well, and this series is really fun to watch.

I think we also saw the beginning of Catgirl in this episode (or Neko Musume, as Gegege no Kitarou named her). She’s just a normal girl right now, but I doubt that remain the same. Especially since Kitarou has fallen in love with the girl because she can sing so well. I doubt that he’d leave her alone. He was really cute in this episode as well. 😛 What’s also interesting is how Mizuki returned back from hell, to keep an eye on Kitarou. Indeed it would be the best for someone to keep an eye on such a demonic child as Kitarou.

Another thing I like about this series is how all the victims so far have been grown-up men. Usually, an anime would portray some kind of really cute girl in peril at this point, but the fact that Kitarou uses businessmen gives a nice twist to things, especially since they’re portrayed so much away from stereotypes as in this series.