There aren’t many movies that are based on series, which fit into the continuity and end up contributing to them, but I’ve finally found one: Kino no Tabi – Life goes on. It’s basically a glorified episode, clocking in at a mere thirty minutes, and it tells the story of how Kino matured from an insecure little girl to the Kino we’ve come to love in the series. It’s definitely good to see more of this series, though there are a few problems.
I hate to admit it, but it’s clear that this movie was made in a hurry: it lacks the fine-polish that you usually see in the dialogue, it’s a bit too straightforward at times, and the animation is actually worse than it was in the series; something that doesn’t happen often. If the creators just took more time to fix all these, and increase the depth of the storyline, this could have been an excellent movie. Right now, it’s just an okay episode.
This is probably my shortest review in like, ever; but apart from what I mentioned above, there’s nothing much to be said. Fans of the series should definitely check out the movie, but the only purpose of the movie is to give Kino some valuable background. Still, I’m looking forward to the next Kino no Tabi, which premiered in April and should arrive in a few months to the English-speaking community. The creators must have seen that this movie could have been better, so I’m anticipating to see how they’ve learned from this small gem.]]>
Author: psgels
Escaflowne – A Girl in Gaea Review – 74/100
Visions of Escaflowne is one of my favourite series ever. I watched it even before starting this blog (hence the lack of a review for it), and after a decent first half, the second half of the series stole my heart. I’ve never really had the chance to watch the movie, though, but now I’ve finally managed to check it out. Like expected, the creators got a bit too ambitions, and the movie doesn’t live up to the series.
Transferring a series that takes up twenty-six episodes into a ninety-minute movie has never been easy, seeing as how a lot of scenes have to be cut. One of the few anime who did it right was Utena: the first half of the movie was basically a crude summary of the series, after which the second half embarked on a totally original and crazy idea, and while it still wasn’t as good as the series itself, it worked. The key was how the Utena-movie stayed so wonderfully away from the mainstream.
You guessed it, Escaflowne the Movie goes way too far into the direction of mainstream, and screws up. Both the story and characters have turned into mere clichés, and the creators basically dropped all of the traits that made them interesting in the series. Folken has been promoted to the main bad guy, the old man is nowhere to be found, and neither is the machine that foresees destiny. Van has also turned into an overpowered action-hero, and Hitomi has turned even more annoying than she was in the series. The little bit of character-development that survived the transition doesn’t make any sense at all. One moment, Hitomi and Van are incredibly cold to each other, and the next moment they’re hopelessly in love without any reason whatsoever.
The movie at least tries to include some substance by asking some philosophical questions. The unfortunate thing is, however, that it refuses to answer them, and when things get too difficult, it just quickly changes the subject. Whenever Van is against a tough opponent that he doesn’t want to kill, a third guy conveniently shows up and stabs the guy, so that Van doesn’t have to worry about him.
Still, despite this I enjoyed a Girl in Gaea. The plot and characters may be dull, but the screenplay is terrific. This has been the first time where I’ve been amazed by the action-scenes of an anime, despite a weak story. Even for a movie, the animation stands out, and while the story itself has its problem, the storytelling is quite decent, and keeps the movie from dragging on and getting boring. And let’s not forget that Yoko Kanno composed the music for this one.
This isn’t really a movie that you need to have seen, though, as it ruins a lot of things that made the series great. If you’ve seen the series, then you might want to check this one out if you’re a real fan. If you’ve not seen the series, then this is a decent action-movie with a rather dull plot. If you’ve seen the movie, but haven’t seen the series, then watch the series NOW!!!]]>
Suteki Tantei Labyrinth – 10
Just when you think a show can’t get any stranger, it surpasses itself. Get this: today’s mystery is about a guy who’s been spiked on top of a huge radio-tower. Yeah.
The explanation that the show puts behind it is also the most ridiculous of the entire series: the culprit was a fireman, and he used a super-powered hose with liquid nitrogen in the middle of the rain to create a path of ice to the top of the tower, climbed it and placed the corpse on top of it. Okay, I can imagine how he got the idea, being a fireman and all, but wouldn’t the ice-tower break through the sheer pressure, being hundreds of meters TALL and all? Also, wasn’t there a fence around the tower? How could he have gotten a fire-truck there? And seriously… why think of such a huge plan when you can just dump the body somewhere in the ruins of the city, and it would have been hidden for a long while. Why go through the trouble of such a risky plan?
Obviously, the evil Byakko is the source of the trouble again. Interestingly enough, she ends up killing the culprit at the end of the episode, and I’m curious as to what the creators had in mind for the next episode. This series really continues to baffle me… the creativity is there, it’s just used at the wrong places, but I do have to admit that I’m intrigued about what tricks the creators will pull with the next instalment.]]>
Gundam 00 – 09
One thing I like about Gundam 00 is how it’s finally a war-story that doesn’t give Japan special treatment. Heck, it doesn’t even seem to be a member of the Human Reform-Leage, and if I had to guess, then I’d say that it’s just a tiny neutral country. Sortof like Switzerland in the twentieth century. The only link with Japan that seemed to be in the series (Setsuna’s name) also turned out to have nothing to do with Japan in the end (seeing as how Setsuna is just a codename) Take that, Code Geass.
Anyway, about the episode: I liked it a lot, because there finally is a high emphasis on tactics for this battle, and for the first time, the Celestial Beings are in real trouble. I must admit that this happened sooner than I thought. The fight was quite solid so far. There was a bit of angst, but that’s only natural, as for many members of the crew, it was the first time their lives were in direct danger. I’ve heard from all sorts of sides that Gundam Seed Destiny was a scream-fest, and now that there’s no threat that Gundam 00 will follow in Code Geass’ footsteps, my biggest fear for this series is the same thing to happen as with Gundam Seed.
The first half of the episode was quite light-hearted, and the creators did a god job of portraying how the characters spend their free time on such a small spacecraft. There’s hardly any moment for privacy! Meanwhile, we learn that Lockon grew up in Ireland, and that he has an evil twin-brother. Ishmael has finally found a party that can help Azadistan: the United Nations. Louise meanwhile gets picked up by her mother, who finds it too dangerous for her daughter to be studying abroad. Saji still remains a whimp.
Oh, and we also have a first for this series: for the first time, Setsuna didn’t feel annoying whatsoever. In fact, he was rather cute when he had his meal, right next to Tieria. Felt also gets a bit of development in this episode. Her parents were apparently second-generation Gundam Meisters. They died, but the reason why remains a mystery.]]>
Les Miserables – Shoujo Cosette – 48
And with this episode, all remaining threads for as far as I know have been neatly wrapped up, aside from the Thenardiers. Now… what the heck is going to happen in the final four episodes!? The only hint we have is Jean, who spent the episode trying to decide where to go from now. Cosette is happy with Marius, and she’s finally reached the point where she doesn’t need him anymore. Now, what is Jean going to do?
In the rest of the episode, Marius tries to find the guy who saved him (he doesn’t remember that it was Jean), and Jean eventually ends up lying about how he wasn’t the one, and he made up a story of how he got away in the confusion. Marius also finally runs into Gavroche, and breaks the news of Eponine’s death to him and Cosette. He has settled his differences with his grandfather, and yes, he ends up proposing to Cosette. Awww. :3
One thing I am glad for, by the way, is that the animators found themselves some budget again. Especially the proposal-scene looked really pretty.]]>
Shion no Ou – 08
Yep, it does seem that Daijin’s right about the length of this series. There is no way that the creators are going to stuff the rest of the tournament in just four episodes. This episode revealed that the tournament is going to be huge, and EVERYONE will be participating in it. There is no way that four episodes will be enough, especially since this episode has also been introducing new opponents for Shion.
Also, after playing a few shougi-games myself here (link, thanks to Daijin), I’ve gotten even more respect for the different characters of this series. Really, shougi is hard. It’s really much, much harder than it looks. The pieces can really come from nowhere, there are so many holes that can be created in your defence, and you really need to take care of all of them if you don’t want to fail miserably. The shougi-match between Shion and Saori in the last episode, I really can imagine how one simple move can turn the entire tables for one match.
Anyway, now that that’s out, I absolutely loved this episode. The tournament starts here, and it’s well built-up for. Not only the characters we know have entered, but also quite a few unknown ones, and this episode already marks the end of the first matches of the first rounds. Something you rarely see in tournament-series.
The tournament is basically divided into three groups, and the participants are randomly divided in these three groups. Here’s the line-up:
Group A:
Hisatani (Shion’s foster-brother)
Shinji (Shion’s foster-father)
Ayumi
Group B:
Hani-Meijin
Ayumi’s shougi-teacher
Saori
Group C:
Shion
Satoru
An interesting line-up, especially as it seems very likely that Hani-Meijin will end up playing against Ayumi’s shougi-teacher. Shion is also the one who’s going to have to go up against Satoru (which he probably arranged behind the scenes). Apart from that, she has to go against newly introduced characters. This episode, she wins from a grown-up adult, who is something like a good amateur. Next episode is some kind of other child prodigy, which could turn interesting. Ayumi has also won his first match, though we don’t get to see the opponent, and I can imagine how all the others won as well. Satoru also seems to have beaten quite a famous shougi-player, suggesting that the guy indeed was really good.
And yet, so much more went on in this episode than just that! We first get to see a bit of background between Hani-Meijin and Satoru, of the time when their mother died. They were just playing a few shougi-matches, while the hospital phoned. Satoru begged Hani to continue playing, though Hani wanted to take care of his late mother. After that, Satoru stopped playing. Later, we see how Shion visits Ayumi’s mother.
I must say, that out of all anime that feature tournament-arcs that I’ve seen, Shion no Ou is the best. It successfully manages to avoid so many clichés, and I love the way the first rounds have turned out, with enough going on. I also love how many friends have entered in the same tournament. Also, none of the matches drag, and all of them so far have been over within a minute. While this will probably change in the future, I still love how so far, Shion no Ou feels refreshingly different from them.
And seriously, I love the scenes where Ayumi and Shion are together more and more. Right now, I’m really sure that it wasn’t a mistake to label Shion no Ou as the best series of the autumn-season so far. No other series has managed to make me care about its characters as this one.]]>
Dennou Coil – A Circle of Children – Review – 93/100
Fans of the fifteenth episode of Rahxephon can rejoice: its director, Mitsuo Iso has embarked on a new project called Dennou Coil. Having done the animation for major Ghibli-movies such as Porco Rosso, Ocean Waves and Only Yesterday as well, this guy had the potential to create a masterpiece. Thankfully, he actually pulled it off, and many consider this series as one of the best of the entire year.
The thing that’ll probably immediately catch your attention when you start to watch this series is the immense amount of creativity that’s put into the series. It takes place in about twenty years, where a cyber-world exists that people can only see if they’re wearing special glasses already is something you don’t think of quite easily, but Mitsuo Iso created a world that consists out of much, much more than just that. The first half of the series carefully builds this up, and makes sure that the viewer has been accustomed to the many sides of the setting, only for this series to really get fired off with the second half, and the final quarter of the series has some incredibly emotionally charged climaxes.
To make this even better, Dennou Coil has amazing production-values, second to only Seirei no Moribito. What you usually see with series is how their first few episodes have amazing animation, only to switch to a lazier animation-style after a few episodes, but Dennou Coil is different. The animation is of a consistent high quality, and there are no signs of outsourcing at all. The character-designs may look simple, but the animation and integration with CG make them look beautiful.
The characters may not be among the best points of this series, but they do work effectively when they have to, due to the careful building-up of the storyline. One point of critique would be that most of the side-characters could have gotten more development. Daiichi, Denpa, Fumie and Kyoko are wonderful characters, but if feels like they weren’t used to their full potential, and their roles became smaller and smaller as the series went on.
One thing that irked me, but will probably have little effect to those who plan to marathon the series is the overabundance of recap-episodes. In total, there’ve been three of them for a 28-episode series. The final episode could also have been a bit less rushed. Finally, there are three episodes in the middle of the series (11, 12 and 13), which I guess were meant to flesh out the world of Dennou Coil a bit, and they’re excellent standalone episodes, but they really feel out of place with the rest of the series, and only throw in more potential that unfortunately had to be ignored in the end.
Apart from this, though, we’ve got ourselves a masterpiece here. It’s one of the highlights of the year, and apart from Kaze no Shoujo Emily, it’s the most consistently good series of 2007 for me. It’s anime like these that show that even stories focused at children can be awesome nonetheless.]]>
Dennou Coil – A Circle of Children – 26
Ah, thank god. For a minute, I thought that the ending for Dennou Coil would end up rushed, but thankfully the series gets closed with one final powerful climax that nicely finished the series. Obviously, the ending itself doesn’t match up to some of the other series of the spring-season: Bokura no, El Cazador, Seirei no Moribito, Kaze no Shoujo Emily and Ooedo Rocket all wrapped up their stories better than Denou Coil did in this episode, but I can’t complain, as it could have turned out a lot worse.
And so, we finally find out what really happened in Yasako’s flashback. Obviously, if you haven’t seen the episode, CLOSE YOUR WINDOW. Yasako ended up in the coil-domain thanks to Densuke, right after the accident with Nobuhiko and Isako occurred. She than ran into Nobuhiko at the shrine, and the two of them had fun for a bit. Then Nobuhiko realized that the coil-domain was starting to collapse, so he told Yasako to run away fast, while he himself got sucked into the void.
Afterwards, Yasako managed to escape the black void, and met the Null. This guy turned out to be indeed Yasako’s grandfather. The two of them recognized each other quickly after Yasako’s memory went blank, so the two of them managed to say one final goodbye. The reason Yasako’s grandfather was there was because he was trying to save Isako. Nobuhiko lost his body in the accident, though Isako’s body remained, and it was Yasako’s grandfather who managed to bring it back in the end.
There were quite a few forced scenes in this episode – Nobuhiko suddenly got eyes, and there’s no real reason given for all the revelations. But one thing that went really well, apart from the climax itself, is the emphasis on one of the major themes of this series: saying goodbye to the deceased: Yasako got to say her final goodbye with her grandfather, Isako got to see her brother one final time, Densuke remains gone, but he appears in front of Yasako and Kyoko one final time, when they’ve grown up. This is really why it’s a children’s series in the end: it’s meant to show children who have lost something important to keep remembering this person, but live on at the same time.
And so we’ve come at the end of the major gems of the spring-season. It’s really been an awesome ride, and also a really consistent series.]]>
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni – 47
Whoa, things went much, much faster than I expected. And really, the building-up is really paying off now, as this was an excellent episode. With three more episodes left, there are many twists up ahead, as 60 minutes is enough time to throw in some excellent climaxes. It’s hard to imagine that finally, after nearly fifty episodes, Higurashi is nearly getting finished.
This really was an episode for the adults of the story. The children only appear in one scene, but apart from that, it was all about Irie, Tomitake, Oishi and of course Takano. Especially the latter finally crawled out of her shell, and showed us something entirely different from her usual character. I do admit that I’ve often complained at her annoying character, but it was so worth it to see her in despair after finding out that people were once again going against her.
Meanwhile, Tomitake is on the run for Takano and the Yamainu, as it’s obvious that he’s the most likely traitor. Irie tries to remain on Takano’s side, though the latter manages to realize that Irie is against her too, so she puts the guy under surveillance. I hope that Irie does realize that he’s obviously going to be tracked.
There were a few vague parts in this episode, mostly at the police-side. I’m not exactly sure where Ootaka came from, and his “connection” with the Sonozakis. Still, it was good to see this guy getting pwned by Oishi, who refused to let anyone to the autopsy-department of the police office.]]>
Shugo Chara – 09
After Yaya and Kuukai, we now have the Nadeshiko-episode. All that’s left now is for Hotori to get his own episode, and after that this anime can move on. I’m glad that there was no bad egg this week, and instead the creators opted for the obligatory haunted-house episode, as Nadeshiko appears to live in a huge mansion.
It’s all fairly cliché so far: Kuukai has soccer, Yaya has ballet and now Nadeshiko turns out to be well-versed out in the classic Japanese style of dancing. Obviously, the animation for this turned out to be too much to handle for the animators, so they just went and showed a bunch of still-frames. It’s a shame, as especially dancing-scenes like these ones are the perfect chance for them to show off their skills.
The “ghost” of this episode turned into the Shugo Charas, who were trying to chase a mouse out of the mansion. It was all fairly standard, though the development for Nadeshiko made up for it, and how she tried to hide her hard-working self from Amu. The manga-readers also mentioned something about Nadeshiko’s “true identity”, though we don’t get to see that in this episode. It’s clear that the creators plan to use the first season of this series for fleshing out the character amidst random stories.]]>