Author: psgels

From the New World – 09

by psgels, posted in From the New World

So this definitely is a week of plot twists. The thing that this episode implied though definitely took the cake. They made Shun look like such an important character, central to the plot of this series. He grew up to be brilliant, so there seemed no doubt that he was supposed to be a very big player in the upcoming story arc. And then the creators actually did THAT with him.

So, he’s either dead, or an animal. Knowing this show, it will actually go through with it: Shun’s gone, or at least he’s an animal now that’s not going to return back. The intrigue is just getting better and better with this show.

The whole air of mystery around this series and the stuff that the adults try to hide from the children is awesome. The characters really seem on the verge of stepping into something huge, that can so easily ruin the lives of so many people that the children have to be kept constantly unknowing. This story of a bunch of curious children that happened to find out about the truth about all that. It can only go bad ways because those rules weren’t set up for nothing…
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

Magi – 08

by psgels, posted in Magi

This show has one very misleading ED. I really thought that it would be a happy cheerful adventure featuring the three lead characters having fun. This episode showed that the atmosphere in this series is in reality muh darker. With the slavery themes this already was to be expected, but this episode really took the cake.

Alibaba’s past was… gloomy. The creators really tried to show how poverty can drive people to do strange things, and the whole story about Alibaba’s friend growing up to be the leader of a bunch of thieves is definitely a great one. This episode lso loved to use its facial expressions for that with a much more exaggerated look than normal, which also did quite some wonders in bringing up emotions.

The tension is mostly between Alibaba and Morgiana, the latter of whom will probably have a lot of trouble accepting what’s going on. I really liked how she just dragged Alibaba over the rooftops to Aladdin for a talk. The big danger right now is for this show to devolve into too much angst: making it too one-sided in a way. I’m not sure what it exactly is, but it feels weird, like something is missing from it or the show is trying too hard to get to this angst.
Rating: 5/8 (Great)

Zetsuen no Tempest – 08

by psgels, posted in Zetsuen no Tempest

This season is delightful in how many long series there are, and it really shows in the progression of the series: lots of shows are still in their building up stage. There are so many shows who actually have the time to set things up correctly. And the thing is that the build-up of these series is really good. Tempest is probably the purest in build-up, having the slowest pacing so far in terms of stuff happening, but this episode delivered one heck of a cliff-hanger.

There were the hints: that skeleton should have come from somewhere. It’s still a bit hard to believe that a body would decay entirely within just two years, but nevertheless, I love this time travel twist when it appears that not only has Hakaze spoken to the future, she will die shortly as well. On top of that, it’s looking more and more like the main characters in this series are the villains, set up by the Tree of Genesis who is really hinted to have orchestrated Aika’s murder. It also makes this quite an impressive series in which half the main cast is already dead at the start of the series. You don’t see that often.

Meanwhile the background of this series is getting more and more interesting, combining a lot of fiction together. Destroying the world in order to recreate it without flaws is turning into a cliche right now, but this show uses it well with its back-story. After the incredibly fast-paced Eureka Seven Ao and Un-Go, it’s also interesting to see Bones do another really slow-paced series again and making it work.
Rating: 5/8 (Great)

Robotics;Notes – 07

by psgels, posted in Robotics;Notes

What I love about this show: the slow build-up. Every episode it slowly builds up tension and raises the stakes in the midst of all the slice of life. You could really see this in Steins;Gate as well, even though the characters there turned it into a completely different anime. It’s pretty much how a slow pacing should be done: this series feels slow because it’s building up, not because i’ts padding for time.

This episode brought in a lot of mystery by also involving a murder plot involving an anime production staff, in which Fraukojiro’s mother was the main suspect. The whole episode being overlaid with that children’s song that is very often used to create a creepy atmosphere. It worked really well at the climax of this episode. It’s also not like the tension of each cliff-hanger is completely useless: it carries on over the next episode, as shown with how much Subaru changed here now that his father got into the picture.

The dialogues in this show by the way are quite down to earth, and I like that a lot about it: it fleshes them out really well. This episode was just one string of dialogues between different people, and it was actually quite well balanced: it didn’t go on and on around one particular couple, and yet the dialogues were long enough to give some extra character to the ones involved.
Rating: 5/8 (Great)

Psycho Pass – 07

by psgels, posted in Psycho Pass

I have been waiting for this kind of series for so long. Especially this episode, which just leaves the action for what it is, and instead creates tension through both art and dialogue. This episode was nothing but long dialogues between people about the current case of dismembered schoolgirls in a disturbed Maria-Sama ga Miteru setting.

This is a kind of storytelling style that I really love, but doesn’t happen often. It’s hard to balance because there is so much dialogue, making it hard to add in other stuff, but this episode balanced it out wonderfully in the way that it turned these murders in this weird kind of art, while at the same time exploring what goes through the mind of its creators, from the perspectives of different people.

On top of that, the way in which this case is loosely connected to Kogari’s reasons for becoming an enforcer is quite interesting, especially the backdrop of this series in which his friend was the victim of this deranged artist. Also for this friend to be a complete womanizer that he dfound interesting, rather than some perfect human being.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure – 08

by psgels, posted in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure

I love what this show does to its hencmen: it only shows the battles against three of them in detail. Apart from that, all of them are instantly just slaughtered by Jojo as he refuses to waste any more time on this. The result was that this episode showed yet another incredibly over the top battle with Dio and Jojo.

And again, the adrenaline between those two. The incredibly crazy gore that this show has is just amazing. Usually when people with over the top powers and strengths fight, it just doesn’t have the impact as when the fights were done realistically. And yet here this show comes with such extreme details in its gore. I mean, did Dio really just pull out a bunch of arteries from Jojo’s neck? And then there are bizarre contraptioons that were supposed to be zombies. Seriously, the author of this thing had one sick mind.

But yeah, the past episodes have pretty much been Jojo punching zombies to death in a ridiculously elaborate fashion. If the rest of the series wil have this as well, it will get old fast, although I’ve heard enough times that the second arc will be completely different, and actually better on each level. Can’t wait!
Rating: 5/8 (Great)

Rinne no Lagrange OVA

by psgels, posted in Rinne no Lagrange

So yeah, for those who haven’t noticed yet: K and Little Busters are dropped. K was just not interesting enough: it’s beautifully animated and there is nothing inherently wrong with its story, it’s just way too unambitious and it’s not interesting to talk about that. Little Busters meanwhile has the problem that the male characters are much more interesting and better portrayed than the fmeale ones, and yet it focuses on the latter. Both of these shows gave me quite a good excuse to cut back on the shows I’m covering weekly. I noticed that I’m way too busy to catch up with every show lately in order to be able to cover other stuff, and I really want to also be able to cover OVAs like this, or do the occasional manga review, which just wasn’t possible with my current schedule.

Now, as for Rinne no Lagrange’s OVA: if you have watched the first season, but haven’t watched the second season yet: watch this one first. It’s there to fill in some of the gaps, and flesh out the cast before the second season starts. While it didn’t fix the flaws of the series, it did improve on it.

I mean, the characters in this series remain well portrayed, and clocking in at 44 minutes, it was quite charming slice of life. The overall theme of this episode was that everyone is apart now, doing their own thing, yet they miss each other, and that’s quite solid for an OVA to cover, albeit unspectabular. Madoka’s birthday also was a nice touch.

But there was one thing that this OVA did, that the series didn’t cover at all: life on the planets of Lan and Muginami. It always kept bugging me how empty those planets felt because we never saw anything from them except a bunch of spaceships. With this we got to see the people who live there, and what they look like from the inside (including that they’re just as corporately selling out as what happens on earth). I mean, compare this with a series as Birdy the Mighty Decode: right in the fourth episode they already went to the alien planet to show what it was like. That was like, the school example for me on how to do the alien planet subplot right, and Rinne no Lagrange… I kept waiting for it but it only focused on Kamogawa. The setting never felt as big as it could have been.

Kamisama Hajimemashita – 08

by psgels, posted in Kamisama Hajimemashita

Just like Sakurasou, a sell-out episode. Where Sakurasou came with the sister, Kamisama Hajimemashita treats us to a beach episode. The big difference is that where Sakurasou got lost in its own cliches, Kamisama Hajimemashita used those clichés to achieve some really good character development.

And the simple reason for this was something major that Tomoe did in the sea 526 years ago. This was back when he was still completely different from who he used to be, and stole one of the eyes of someone called the dragon king, who is very strict with debts, to the point where it gets hilarious. This episode danced around the issue, but this seems to have been a major defining moment in Tomoe’s life. The biggest hint for this was that he was practically baited into it by that tramp: the issue had to be solved somehow, to the point where he felt that it was worth risking Tomoe’s life for.

What made the beach part of this episode enjoyable was how fresh it was. Rather than just showing the female cast parade in swimsuits, they really added stuff that was personal to the cast: Tomoe being unable to enter the water, Nanami unable to buy a swimsuit, to that one girl skipping along while just being dumped by her boyfriend. This episode really made sure to spice up such a clichéd set-up, and made it fun again, and it was the school example of how to do such an episode right.

Plus, the guy with the scarf just lost all of his dignity with that speedo of his. I burst out laughing there, but at the same time I really like the mystery around him and the irony of how he has basically been watching Tomoe from behind without him noticing it. I really want to see Tomoe’s face when he finds out. The creators already managed to create this expectation that it will be awesome just from the few times he has bene in the picture. Now that is good storytelling.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo – 07

by psgels, posted in Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo

Aagh! Not the sister!

This episode made this show cost a lot of points. Mari Okada, you should know better than this. Even if this was exactly like the original source material, this episode had such major problems that they should have been fixed by the script review. I think everyone here is to blame for not noticing it, but even then: someone had to have come up with this.

First of all, the sister was an exact carbon copy of all the other token sisters you see everywhere. That was by far the worst offense this episode made. It didn’t start well when she started by randomly showing her panties, but the rest of the episode did not make this better by making her only defining character trait “I like my brother”. This was just plain bad.

Another problem was that she also dragged the entire show along with her. Previously I said that the fanservice in this show adds to the characters: remove it and the show would be less good. The fanservice in this episode however, was just plain random and pointless. The sister just randomly shows her underwear, the bath randomly breaks down so that we can go to a bath to see the girls grope each other… it’s all incredibly shallow that you’d expect from a third rate hentai game adaptation, not this show that prided itself with quality writing and character development.

On top of that, there was Nanami. Previously she was a character who also had her agenda. In this episode her entire character also got reduced to “I like Sorata”. Again: Mari Okada, you should know better than this.

The sole salvation for this episode was the direction: it knew it had something completely awful to work with, and at least tried to make the best of it. The visual images were great to watch, the use of life action worked great and the camera angles and timing actually made me laugh. Sorata’s straight man act also saved this episode from a complete disaster, and Misaki getting her drivers’ license also was a nice touch. I expect much better next week though. But what do you mean that the sister is going to be a recurring character!?
Rating: 3/8 (Mediocre)

Magi – 07

by psgels, posted in Magi

Well, the start of the episode made it rather obvious that this was originally written by a woman. In a way, I like that this show has fanservice for both genders, and that the fanservice also knows when to shut up. Afterwards this episode turned into a pretty interesting episode for wurld building by showing the city that Sindbad the Sailor founded.

All accompanied by some good old fashioned chemistry. Sindbad already is an interesting character from the start, but he works particularly well. With Aladdin meanwhile it’s good to already spot a bit of character development: he has become more aware of his goal, and he’s definitely less ignorant than what he was in the first episodes.

Also, A-1 is on fire this week. First there was the surprisingly good animation for Sword Art Online, and now this episode too had some really good inbetween animation, although a lot more polished. But the characters here look so incredibly dynamic: everything is just moving, and this definitely is a great use of a big budget. Also, next season A-1 will do seven shows at the same time. Holy crap.
Rating: 5/8 (Great)