And I’m finally back with my movie reviews, and next up are going to be the Ghibli-movies. I’m not sure whether they’re going to be as frequent as before, due to my studies and all, but I’ll try to do one whenever I have a quiet day. Anyway, the first on the list is Umi ga Kikoeru, or better known to the English community as Ocean Waves. It’s a high-school romance, and while it may not be the most original genre, it does show that with quality-writing, any concept can turn out worthwhile.
With the start of the new season, I’ve been thrown to death by all the new high-school romances that came out, but still Ocean Waves turned into an enjoyable and relaxing anime for me. The degree of realism really helps: yes, it is a love-triangle, but the events flow well and don’t feel forced. The characters are developed well, they’ve all got sufficient background and make perfect use of the couple-of-years-long time-skip that takes place near the end of the movie (the latter was the real highlight for the movie for me). In the end, I found myself really caring about the three main characters, and I doubt to be the only one who did.
Still, don’t go for this movie if you want an exciting storyline. The pacing for Ocean Waves is really slow, and it should be used to relax, not to be blown away by. It’s not the best movie ever because of it, but it’s good at what it does.
I’ve also noticed that I tend to spend very little attention to production-values in my latest reviews, so I’m going to force myself here to write a whole paragraph about them. For a movie dating from 1993, the art looks really crisp and clean. The character-designs are simple, but they look very pleasing to the eye, with a degree of realism that all harems nowadays don’t even care about. It gives the movie a nice, down-to-earth feeling. The animation is detailed, but it’s a bit too simple and static for a Ghibli-movie. The background music is also well-chosen, albeit unspectacular.]]>
Author: psgels
Suteki Tantei Labyrinth – 03
Yup, this was a clear building-up episode. In here, we get to see the real introduction of Mayuki and how “awesome” and cute he’s supposed to be. This episode’s purpose was really to flesh out the different characters and setting a bit. I’m not sure why, but it was actually quite enjoyable. For some reason, the series that take place in the so-called middle school work more often than the high-school ones. But that may also be because the harems and uninspired anime often chose the latter out of laziness…
There were a few bugs in this episode, though. Why haven’t there been any attempts to revive the Tokyo Tower after it got destroyed, thirty years ago? Why did the bad guys know that Mayuki was going there? How did they make the elevator operational again? I can’t really think of any logical explanations for this, and that’s rather in a bad way.
I’d also wish that the black-haired girl wouldn’t get left behind in everything and actually starts to do something. Also, why doesn’t Mayuki wear the same school-uniform as everyone else? Still, despite all this, I like this series so far. It’s got a nice combination of innocent middle-school adventures and mystery. I think we shouldn’t expect too much of the next coming episodes, as it’ll probably take a while to flesh everything out properly.]]>
FREEDOM – 04
Koharu Biyori temporarily made me lose my faith in OVAs. Thankfully, FREEDOM managed to restore it. This is everything a shounen-adventure should be: fun, creative and most importantly: innocent.
And seriously, I love the OP and ED for this series. I finally realized that the OP consists out of rendered images from previous episodes, and it really looks excellent, and this really gives this series an even more unique style. The ED also still is catchy, even after hearing it a few times.
This episode was really different from the previous ones, and it mostly consisted out of the males, having fun and making idiots out of themselves. I laughed quite a bit, though, and some of the banter between both Takeru and Biz and the truck of idiots they run into was priceless. Takeru is one of the few shounen-leads that made an impression on me. Simply because he actually has a dream, albeit a little childish one (meeting the girl he fell in love with and all) and he doesn’t stop until he reaches it.
This is so much better than your average shounen lead who doesn’t have a goal beyond “score a girl”, or “become the best X in the world”. To me, it just shows that they just go in brainless random directions without any real goal in mind, and that’s not really that exciting for me. It also helps that this show is quite well written, with perhaps a few bugs as where the characters get their water from.
I also laughed when Takeru and Biz were really planning to show themselves to Ao in gold and silver alien-suits they received from the guys who provided them a ride. You think that the encounter would be the most romantic thing ever, but no, the writers had other ideas. ^^; Perhaps it’s because of that that the climax worked again so well, despite the predictability (I mean, they had to find the girl at the end of the episode, didn’t they?). It is going to be fun to see how he’s going to talk himself out of it, the next episode should promise to be fun, and I’m interested in how the creators decide to portray Ao.]]>
Les Miserables – Shoujo Cosette – 41
Holy! Flippin’! Heck!!!
Christ, I can’t believe the creators really went SO FAR IN THIS EPISODE!! I can’t believe what happened at the beginning of the episode. Obviously, it involves spoilers. DO NOT READ THIS ENTRY IF YOU HAVE NEITHER SEEN THE EPISODE NOR READ THE BOOK!!! This sentence is there to fill space in the blog aggregators.
Seriously… oh my god. I never expected the creators to actually kill off my favourite character of the entire series off so cruelly. This episode became utterly incredible because of it, but still… Eponine is really gone now… This was by FAR the best episode of the entire series. And with such an excellent series already, that HAS TO SAY SOMETHING.
I absolutely loved how Eponine managed to confess her love in the end at least. Not only was it great that she finally was released of the burden in her heart, but this also made Marius realize what he had done to her. In anime, love triangles are often forced, but the one between Cosette, Eponine and Marius was a mighty fine exception. It really featured perfect build-up and it used this build-up perfectly.
I seriously urge everyone to check out this series, and perhaps get some fansubbing group to sub beyond the fifth episode. With this episode, Les Miserables has really turned into one of the best series of the year, and it really shows the power of 52-episoded series.
And if that wasn’t enough, the upcoming attractions are looking really interesting too: Gavroche will finally meet Cosette again, and Javert has been unmasked as a spy.
(PS: apologies for the delay, but I’ve been really busy for the past days. You might expect more of these delays for the next few months. Still, this episode was SO worth the wait!)]]>
Gundam 00 – 02
Two months ago, I ran this little poll, asking which show my readers would want me to blog. In the end, Gundam won the poll, hence the reason I’m going to blog this series. Personally, I acknowledge that it’s got potential, but I’m not willing to call it a success yet. I think we need to wait a few more episodes for that.
The thing I like about this series is how the characters acknowledge how the plans of the Celestial Beings are flawed. The reasoning of the Celestial Beings is that by diverting the anger, harboured by both parties in a war towards the Gundams, the problems will be solved. Now the next thing that the creators need to do is actually use this. My prediction is that the first dozen or so episodes will focus on the building-up, where our heroes try to stop various wars. It won’t be very exciting, but after that, things could become very interesting when the Celestial Beings will run into trouble.
In this episode, we already saw that people are investigating the source of the power for the Gundams, and I’ll be darned if they don’t end up finding it at one point. Once the different nations of the world are able to build units of the same strength, the advantage of the Celestial Beings will be gone. Do they have a plan to counter that?
There are a few issues with the setting, though, and I wonder whether we’ll get explanation for that. This episode explained nicely how the fossil fuels have ran out, so people switched to solar-power, but that’s not the only thing that’s about to run out. What about the parts of the Oil that’s used for plastics? What about iron? Why haven’t all the metals ran out? Gundam Wing found a nice answer for this: asteroids. Though in this timeline, it doesn’t look like the humans have ventured that far into space.]]>
Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji – 02
For me, Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji has turned out into the best series of the season so far. There are other good series this season, but they all have their weakness: Mokke could have had better writing, the characters in Blue Drop are a tad too adolescent, Shugo Chara is too cheesy at times and Labyrinth has a few too many maids and strangely clothed females for its setting.
Kaiji, however, is perfect so far, and it’s looking really interesting. I’m seriously going to check out Akagi as soon as the series is over. I may have said it before, but I really like anime where the main characters aren’t the only ones who are special, and this is really emphasized here in this series: every single person in the game is in a worst situation possible. Everyone is a loser who somehow ended up with debt. This really is a survival of the fittest.
And the thing I love about Kaiji is how he learns of his mistakes. There are indeed a few people who look at the game in a smart way, and try to trick others into believing them, and Kaiji is one of these victims. The plan is quite simple:
– Find someone who is stupid enough to be tricked, and Kaiji fitted that role perfectly. After all, after everyone requested one million, and he was the first one to request the maximum of ten million, Kaiji was the first one to follow him. That shows that he quickly goes along with others, and that incidentally fits Kaiji’s personality perfectly. It also helps if you make this guy think that he’s smart.
– Then you just need to explain how the plan works: just keep cancelling each other out, and nobody loses any of the stars you need to win.
– Go along with the plan for nine rounds, until both parties have just three cards left out of the original twelve. Then claim your victory when the victim thinks that everything is going according to plan by placing down the paper-card instead of the rock-one. Repeat this, and you’ve got five stars, while the other has just one.
The beautiful thing is that if Kaiji used his brains, he wouldn’t have fallen for it, and it really seems like he’s got a plan to get out of everything: working actually together. The nasty thing about the rock-paper-scissors game is that it’s easy to win, but it’s just as easy to lose, and because of this, people will underestimate the potential of it. Because of this, the yakuza ends up with quite a few stupid slaves who won’t be smart enough to betray them.
I really wonder how he’s going to pull it off, though. Basically, he has three people, one with relatively many stars, one with relatively many cards, and one with relatively much money. Together, there are four stars, five cards and 14 million yen. How the heck is he going to get to nine stars, 0 cards and 19,6 million yen?]]>
Dennou Coil – A Circle of Children – 20
This was a truly amazing episode, probably one of the best ones of the series yet. Finally Yasako has the time to really shine. It all starts when Mega-baa and Tamako manage to save Yasako and the others, after which both Tamako and Yasako learn that Haraken ran off with Kanna’s glasses. After that, we get an interesting fact about Tamako: four years ago, she nearly went to the other side herself, if it wasn’t for Mega-baa. I like how that one explains why she works at the cyber-agency at the age of only seventeen. It seems that this is the Denou Coil that Nekome warned Haraken about in episode 14 (at least, I think it is; correct me if I’m wrong): being taken to the other side by the humanoid illegals.
When they arrive at the place where Haraken went to, he already has been “Dennou Coiled”, and it seems that Isako also went after him. Yasako then lets herself get captured by the humanoid illegals, and gets taken to the other side herself in an attempt to get Kanna back. What follows was a magnificent scene, where Haraken finally meets with the remains of Kanna, and Yasako confesses to him, before bringing his body back with some code from Isako.
And so this concludes another arc of this series, and it indeed looks like the final six episodes will centre on 4423, and Takeru will also probably return. I somehow feel that 4423 is more than just another child, taken to the other side. After all, Isako is basically trying to do something even more dangerous than what Haraken’s been doing: getting an actual Dennou Coiled person back to the normal world. I also hope Daiichi will return; I miss the guy.]]>
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni – 40
And this episode finally gives Takano her background. I was able to tolerate her evil cackling of the previous episodes because I knew that the current arc would develop her, and this episode makes a good start, showing how she came to her position. Now all that’s left is why she’s doing everything, which I think will be answered in the next episode.
This episode could have been done better, though. My biggest problem was with the owner of the orphanage Takano ended up in. What the creators basically did was make an underdeveloped character developed while using yet another underdeveloped character. Seriously, the guy just beats up the orphans in his orphanage for no apparent reason: just to be evil, and it doesn’t look like he’ll be getting any more screen-time, since Takano managed to run away at the end of the episode. To be honest, I expected more of Higurashi at this point.
Still, I’ve got hopes. Higurashi’s highlights never were in its first episodes, apart from the first arc, perhaps. This also promises to be the longest arc yet, so there has to happen more than just that.]]>
Saiunkoku Monogatari – 61
Well, one of my predictions came true: this arc is much more fast-paced than the previous one. In only four episodes, the case of the counterfeiters has been solved. Compare that to Eigetsu, being stuck inside that cave for roughly ten episodes. I think the largest purpose of that arc was to introduce Tantan-kun, who looks like he’s going to play a major role in the final parts of this anime. I indeed had a feeling that it was his father who was behind the counterfeiting and the abduction of Kailing’s child. It seems that someone made him do it, though, which hints to a connection with Riou.
In any case, this episode was as heart-warming as ever, and I’m really glad to see that Saiunkoku Monogatari is catching steam again. And I think that we can only expect even better things from now on, as Shouka, small Riou and big Riou should be getting some more attention again. You can especially see that in the very last scene of the episode: I’ll be darned if that wasn’t some kind of foreshadowing, with the newly sprouting flowers of the tree being subjected to a gust of wind.
I’m also glad that I’m warming up more and more to the comedy, which has returned with the beginning of this arc. Especially Seiran’s impression of Shuurei was priceless.]]>
Shugo Chara – 02
If you’re wondering why I haven’t been picking up many shows in the past week, it’s because of three reasons:
– I am not planning to blog as many series as I did with the previous season. My studies allowed a bit more free time in the past few months, though I’m about to enter some of the busiest months of the year, so that means less time for blogging.
– This season isn’t that good in the first place.
– Nearly all of the god series are concentrated on either Wednesday or in the weekend.
Ah well, a bad season once in a while isn’t bad either. It helps lower your standards a bit. I really noticed that with the past Winter-season as well. I’ve got sorted out the shows I’m planning to blog, so they should arrive shortly. And regarding the series I’m not blogging:
– Clannad is 50% enjoyable, but 50% obnoxious.
– Shakugan no Shana II is getting really pointless right now.
– Dragonaut has the potential; it just doesn’t know how to use it.
– Kodomo no Jikan has just one major flaw: the excessive fanservice, and this flaw can potentially ruin the entire series. I want to remember this series because of the characters, not as”that pedo-show”.
– And Goshushou-sama Ninomiya-kun is just bad.
Shugo Chara is fun, though. After Master of Epic and Otogi Juushi Akazukin ended, there hasn’t really been any new worthwhile sweet series, so I’m glad that this series showed up. It is cheesy here and there, but that does fit the style. What I especially liked was the symbolism in this episode. Everyone is down-hearted once in a while, and it seems that the bad guys use that to turn the egg inside their hearts to evil eggs. It’s nothing new, but it’s solid enough. The thing this series now needs to focus on is finding interesting cases and characters, though I think we need to wait till the introductions are over until we get to see the full potential of this series.
Still, overall this series is fun enough to blog. The blue Shugo Chara that makes her appearance in this episode was really cute as well, and it seems that she symbolizes everything our heroine wants to be. I just wonder why she was the only one who got three eggs… is that because she has more worries than anyone else?]]>