After a Chinese Ghost Story, the logical next step is of course Wonderful Days; A Korean-made movie. This one comes with a dystopia, and quite an interesting one. The world has yet again been flooded, just like with Noah. One party managed to predict it, and retreated to a safe place. Now, years later, they’re still in control, and suppress everyone not of their kind, just like in a proper dystopia.
First of all, the CG in this movie is awesome. I can understand why the Japanese animation-companies outsource to Korea so much, because these guys definitely know what they’re doing. Especially the background-landscapes are just plain gorgeous and a definite highlight for this movie. At the moment, I honestly can’t think of any other movie with better-looking background-art than this one. The traditional animation looks fine too, and blends in with the other graphics pretty nicely during most of the times.
But yeah, the story and characters aren’t really that special. There is chemistry between the characters, but for most part this movie just follows a standard plot of beating the bad guys, and no attempts of originality are really made. It’s another one of those anime where the side-characters end up looking more interesting than the main ones, and especially as the story nears its climax you can start to recognize more and more elements that appear in 50% of the other movies.
Still, that doesn’t mean that the ending is a complete failure. There is one reason you should be watching till the end of this one: the music. While it’s fairly unimpressive overall, the best two tracks have been saved for last, and they’re perfectly timed. Even though the ending sucks in terms of storytelling, it’s a gorgeous feast for the senses, which in the end, managed to make it worthwhile.
The main characters are by no means bad. They’re just… too standard. This movie is a good recommendation if you need an hour and a half to burn. There are enough action-scenes to keep it from getting boring.]]>
Author: psgels
El Cazador de la Bruja – 20
I don’t know about others, but personally I absolutely LOVED this episode. It’s all about the relationship between LA, Ellis and Nadie this time, with a huge focus on LA, and it works out perfectly. So what if the action-scenes in this series suck? Ellis, Nadie and LA totally make up for this, and they again show how much I love Bee-Train’s style of character-development.
So, basicaly, in this episode LA starts working with the police and gets Nadie arrested, but that’s just the least interesting part. Basically, the last episode, in which LA saw Ellis and Nadie so close together made a huge impact on LA, and when the night falls, he tries to kill her, along with the other policemen at the station where Nadie is locked up in.
Ellis, meanwhile, proves how closely she is attached to Nadie when she goes to save her. Even when LA reveals that Nadie worked for the ones who kidnapped Ellis, that still doesn’t matter for her, and she claims that she won’t forgive him when he tries to harm Nadie. In the end, LA leaves, though he’s in an even worse shape than he was before.
I also finally realized that Blue-Eyes’s necklace is somehow linked to Ellis. It’s probably made of the same stone that Ellis keeps holding. We again see her in this episode in a car, about to arrest Ellis, though somehow she refuses to act. Could it be because she knew of the dangers LA gave?
Rozenberg also finally starts getting active again, as we see him doing something else than playing chess with his loved one. It’s about time, though, as the finale is about to start. Seriously, the ending has to screw up really bad if they want me to dislike this series.
El]]>
Here is Greenwood Review – 77/100
To be honest, I’ve never before ran into an anime, set in an all-boys high-school that didn’t have yaoi-undertones. Do the anime-creators seem to think that in absence of females, the males will start to go after each other? Anyway, luckily this OVA from 1994 shows us another viewpoint on this setting, when it provides quite an interesting combination between comedy, drama, and in the later episodes, romance.
There’s one reason to watch this: the characters. Each of them, even with the side-characters, has at least one quirk that makes him or her special. Some of them have also got a really interesting and sadistic sense of humour, which works perfectly with the main character, who I way too uptight and serious about everything. The first couple of episodes, which deal with the characters having fun and trying to tease each other turned out really well because of this. They also spend a bit of time fleshing out their characters for the romance-subplot that gets introduced in the final two episodes, which because of this didn’t actually turn out as bad as I suspected. Romance is often tricky to do in anime, but Here is Greenwood showed a fine attempt at it, especially considering the time it has been given.
Still, the OVA has continuity errors. It’s another one of these mangas that got animated, with the manga being larger than the time that was given to the animators. Ultimately, this OVA became a collection of the best stories of the manga. Apart from episode five and six, the stories of the different episodes just don’t connect to each other. One particular case even has one of the characters claiming that a plot-hole was explained in volume X of the manga. While you could say that you just need to read the manga for this, I like my anime to be complete.
Also, you don’t have to count too much on the aesthetics. The soundtrack consists of typical tunes from the early nineties. The character-designs also look a tad too much like each other, and most feel like they’re all the same body with different eyes and hair-colors. This is especially noticeable when they start taking baths. One character also seems to switch randomly between long and short hair, without any explanation.
Overall, even though the graphics are mediocre, the sounds aren’t anything special, the story isn’t something to rave about and this OVA would have been better if it were longer, the characters are a delight to watch. While this OVA can’t match the great anime out there, I definitely don’t regret watching it.]]>
Les Miserables – Shoujo Cosette – 32
Yes! An Eponine-episode! This episode was mainly meant to develop the love-triangle between her, Marius and Cosette. And god, Marius is such an idiot. Eponine finally runs into him, she’s really happy to finally see him, she’s clearly in love with the guy, and what does he do? He asks where his Ursulle is! *headdesks*
Still, this episode was pure win, as it’s because of this that Eponine finally learns the identity of Ursulle: Cosette. Eponine decides to find out her identity, in an attempt to make Marius happy, even though that will totally ruin her chances with him. She then reaches their house, and spots the infamous doll, that Jean gave to Cosette when he came to get her. And even though she knows that, she still decides to tell Marius!
Still, Jean has yet to find out about this. He still believes that Marius works for Javert, and something tells me he’s going to freak out unless Marius approaches him in the correct way. Let’s hope that Eponine can make her move after that.
About the other characters: Jean has finally managed to find a job, answering a question I’ve been wondering about for about twenty episodes. Thenardier and his companions have indeed been imprisoned, though they’re very busy with thinking up an escape-plan. No sign yet of Thenardiere or Azelma, though. Javert meanwhile, is on fire after he finally received a new clue about Jean’s whereabouts. He’ll probably get closer and closer to him in the next couple of episodes.
I also had to laugh when Thenardier’s former house-owner lashed out at the policeman, blaming him for taking away her source of income, and of course at the rather cheesy scene of Eponine, watering the flowers. ^^;]]>
Tales of Symphonia – 02
Ah, this episode was much better than the previous one. It didn’t come without flaws, though. I’m especially critical because Tales of Phantasia probably is my most favourite OVA ever, so this series has a lot to live up to. Unfortunately, Tales of Symphonia won’t be taking over that title, though it’s definitely fun to watch.
The most obvious bad point for this episode has to be the ending: they have yet to reach Tethe’Alla, which means less time for my two favourite characters, Presea and Regal. Their cases had better receive enough time in the final two episodes. And especially now tat Lloyd and Colette are getting so much development, I just WANT to see Genis and Presea together.
My second point of critique was about the stuff that was left out. In this area, where Tales of Phantasia succeeded, Tales of Symphonia fails. The great thing about Tales of Phantasia was that it allowed the viewer to fantasize for himself about what happened during the parts that weren’t shown, without it feeling incomplete. The best example has to be the line “and you had to burn our villages for that?!” It gives just enough information to perfectly explain that situation, and leave the rest up to the imagination of the viewers.
Tales of Symphonia acts like the left-out pars never happened. Take Marble, for example. Her case is essential to explain why Lloyd and Genis embarked on their journey in the first place. In this episode, it seems that the Renegades have been completely left out as well, which were supposd to be the explanation of why Lloyd and Colette managed to rejoin with each other. The explanation the anime used is just bad. I mean, how often do you run into each other, in the middle of the DESERT?! The Expheres have also been left out for both Genis and Raine. The reason why they can use magic is also beyond me.
Palmacosta was also left out, but that was inevitable,, as it had absolutely nothing to do with the main story. It is a pity to see the destruction of the town of Luin missing, which was supposed to have given Sheena some valuable character-development. Either that, or that’s going to happen in the next episode. It would be really bad if she’d just ended up joining Lloyd, just because he spared her life.
Which brings me to my third point of criticism: Lloyd. His translation into anime just didn’t go well, and he ended up looking like all other carefree, ambitious shounen-heroes out there. Again, Tales of Phantasia also managed to avoid this with Cless. The guy is determined, he knows what he wants, he’s struggling inside, and he doesn’t try to be a hero in front of others, only to fail horribly.
Okay, enough with the bad points, now the good points. Apart from Lloyd, all other characters were AWESOME in this episode. While Tales of Phantasia put more emphasis on its story, Tales of Symphonia is definitely about the characters. I loved how the creators managed to keep in Rain’s ruin-mode and seasickness, and her and Genis’s reaction when Lloyd started bashing the half-elves also was really interesting.
Colette, while I hated her in the game, also turned out really cute. I like how she broke some clichés throughout the episode, when she indeed didn’t have to fight much, and didn’t get to save Lloyd at the last possible moments. Kratos also was much better than he was in the game, where he sometimes was like a wimp. He’s much more mature, and he really shows his strength this time. Thanks to him, the fights are also interesting, with the tactics inserted. The highlight was his fight against Sheena.
It’s a bit of a shame that Sheena’s entry at the Ossa Trail was left out, but apart from that, she looked awesome in this episode. Zelos surprised me. He’s not the lovable idiot I remember from the game, but I think we’ll get to know that side in the next episode.
Another thing that really took a turn for the better in this episode: the music. I think that this is the only part where Tales of Symphonia can call itself equal to Tales of Phantasia, as they sound really beautiful, and they give the perfect mood to the entire episode.
Overall, this episode really was fanboy-worthy, though again, it’ll never beat Tales of Phantasia. I’ll never forget Klarth’s triumphant laugh after he slaughtered the army full of flying beasts.]]>
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni – 32
And finally the second season can really get started! Even though the previous arc was not very exciting, the time that focused on Rika’s despair built up perfectly for the current arc. The main focus of this episode was to give Rika hope again to keep trying to change her fate, and it works out greatly. 🙂
The episode begins with the confirmation that Rika indeed has been reborn in the same timeline over and over, and there’s also a new revelation: the Oyashiro-sama in Rika uses Hanyuu in order switch back time. She also isn’t in Rika’s body throughout her life, but only appears at a certain period of time. In this arc it was two weeks before the Watanagashi, in the fourth arc it was at least five years before the current time-period.
Rika also doesn’t know who is after her, though he or she indeed is partially the reason why every arc ends up different. Interestingly enough, Rika also claims that on the night of the Watanagashi, a third person will die, along with Tomitake and Takano. Did she refer to herself, and was it just a bad translation, or does a third, unrelated person really die along with them?
Anyway, the main character of this arc: Rika. The co-main character is Keiichi. We also see Hanyuu for the first time, and she’s just like a little kid, despite being hundreds of years old. Rika is surprised that she only has two weeks left before the Watanagashi, which is just too little time to prepare. She tests whether Keiichi remembers, but it fails again. I suspect that Hanyuu will be the important side-character for this arc.
Interestingly enough, Hanyuu claims that nobody has noticed her, which is in contrast with the tips, where Keiichi’s father did see her. Could it be that Hanyuu only is visible for the first X years of her life?
We then switch to the local hospital, where Satoko has just received an injection. She seems to be sick, suffering from a disease. Irie has been working on it to cure her, but it’s likely that she’ll never be healed. Takano is also helping in this.
Then we switch to the game at the toy-store, from arc 2. It seems that Rika has been playing this one for every arc, though we just didn’t get to see it. I do wonder, though, why the doll didn’t trigger Shion to freak out in the other arcs. Anyway, something interesting happens here: Rika tells Keiichi that she can predict the future, just like she did with Akisaka. Interestingly enough, Keiichi actually takes her seriously, and tries to help her. He forces the game that has been played to be changed, and he gives the doll to Mion, instead of Rena. This gives Rika enough motivation to try and change her fate again, unlike what she did in the previous arc.
Well then, the biggest question of the episode: is the disease Satoko is suffering from THE disease, or another rather nasty one. If we can get the answer about this one, and it turns out to be true that Irie really is trying to cure THE disease, then a lot of questions will be answered. In that case, Irie most definitely knows something, and he has indeed been trying to cure people, and he was killed because he knew too much. This also hints that Takano is somehow involved with him, and that she knows about his research.
This episode also yet again shows how close Keiichi is with his friends. H never even questions Rika’s story for a bit, and he actually believes her, just like how everyone was so supportive to Rena when she committed her murder. (By the way, did she still do it in this arc? Sh did it in the third arc, so perhaps she’s been doing it for every arc, though I think that that woman is just like Satoko’s uncle and Shion: sometimes they’re there, and other times, they’re not. I suspect that the real killer has been controlling this. The question remains: why?).
One thing I do hope for in this arc is a bigger role for Rena. Both she and Rika are currently my favourite characters in this series, and I’d love to see the mysteries that surround her being solved. Especially the one of why she was being chased in the previous arc, and why she freaked out in the third arc, and turned perfectly normal after that.]]>
A Chinese Ghost Story Review – 81/100
The most popular premise for a movie by far is the one where a guy (or in Spirited Away’s case: girl) winds up in a fantasy world, and meets a beautiful girl (or in Spirited Away’s case: guy) who is special in some kind of way, and the two of them predictably fall in love. A Chinese Ghost Story shows the Chinese attempt at this trope, as it’s one of the few anime that has been fully produced in China.
Interestingly enough, the creators did a pretty good at this one. Okay, they didn’t create a blockbuster, but it’s definitely better than Gonzo’s attempt at the trope: Brave Story. There are two reasons for this: the deep roots into Chinese Mythology, and the fact that it doesn’t take itself too seriously at times. It’s not a pure comedy, and the fantasy does take priority throughout the movie, but the inclusion of quirky characters and dialogue makes sure for a light-hearted feeling to the entire movie. You can especially see this in the fights. Due to their semi-serious nature, in combination with a movie-budget, they turned out to be really fun to watch, and a highlight for this movie. Something that doesn’t happen often.
The roots into Chinese Mythology also made sure that the fantasy-world didn’t turn out to be to be the same like the others. The main character for this story works as a debt collector who just got dumped by his girlfriend. During one of his assignments, he runs into a ghost town. As I’ve seen mostly Japanese mythology in my anime lately, it was refreshing to see the differences in both. For starters, the ghosts can just be seen by normal people and even a bunch of stairs turns out to be a ghost. It’s also been a while since I saw people talk this lightly about reincarnation.
The movie does have flaws, though. The most obvious one is concerning the graphics. This movie uses traditional drawings, combined with a huge amount of CG-backgrounds and animations, and the two just don’t blend well together, and end up looking fake. Another thing is that the animators just didn’t figure out how to synchronize the mouth movements with the voice-acting. It makes for a nice style, but sometimes it’s a bit too obvious. The rest of the animation for the traditional drawings looks excellent though, just like what you’d suspect from a movie.
Another flaw comes with the writing. Through most of its part, it makes the movie fun to watch, but sometimes it’s just a bit too far-fetched. Especially the ending comes with a few twists that just don’t feel right. Be sure to expect a Deus ex Machina here and there as well.
Overall, if you’re looking for something different, you might give this one a try. The Chinese definitely have a different style of dialogues than the Japanese have. It won’t win any awards, but it’s a fun movie.]]>
xxxHolic Second Season?
Kacpy reports that Moonphase announced the second season of xxxHolic! I really hope this is true, and I’ll definitely be blogging it. It’s great to see that after Wellber no Monogatari, xxxHolic will also recieve a continuation. I’m looking forward to see Watanuki’s antics again. :)]]>
Toward the Terra – 19
And the current small arc is already over. Still, despite the short length, it is a major arc. Especially this episode gives us lots of new information. In the next episode, the finale of the series is going to start, with only five episodes left. It’s promising to become an epic ride.
The very first scene already comes with a major plot twist: Physis isn’t a Myu. When Blue found her and rescued her, he found her inside a test tube. This doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s a Myu herself. Toni tells this to her, and he lets her know how much he disgusts humans, and so Physis. He also partially blames her for killing his parents, due to her similarities with Keith. He then gets chased out of the room by Physis’s assistant.
In the meantime, Shangri-La has been hovering in the sky for quite a while now. We next see Toni, training with his comrades, and he’s way too harsh on them. He’s clearly struggling about what to do. Jomie is meanwhile in his room, along with Swena. She tells him about the things he did with E1077. Swena now also needs to find something else to do, since her original mission of finding the Moby Dick has been fulfilled.
The other Myu have meanwhile gotten access of the Universal Computer, and they’ve located the data that tells about Terra’s location. It’s being protected by a rather nasty password, though, so it’s going to take a while to crack it. We meanwhile see Keith, inside E1077, and Jomie, boarding a space-ship, while getting bugged by Swena about her daughter.
Keith then turn back on the power source of E1077, and heads to the room with Mother Eliza. And now, we finally get to know the link between him and Physis: They’ve got the same DNA! They were both the products of the first successful attempts to create “superhumans”, if I had to guess. For the same experiment, about a dozen clones were made. Physis was the female part of the DNA, Keith the male. Physis got saved by Blue, while Keith was let out of his capsule as an experiment, and it worked perfectly. I wonder why the others weren’t released as well…
Back to Jomie, he finally gets to see Swena’s daughter. She’s now in the care of new parents. He then says goodbye to Swena, which probably was the last time he’ll see her. When they’re gone, Toni (who has gone along with them, along with Rio) protests how he can be so friendly towards the humans, who are supposed to be the enemies, though Jomie reassures him that he too is a human. Toni just can’t believe this.
Jomie then heads to the place where he was born, much like Keith, who is now cursing his clones and Mother Eliza. Shockingly enough, they both end up destroying their birthplaces. Jomie destroys the cave which carries the tubes with newborn children, and even though it would have been awesome to see Keith’s clones in action, Keith kills them all, along with Mother Eliza and E1077. He leaves Peter Pan behind at Shiroe’s former dormitory.
After destroying the tubes, along with the computer that protected it, he leaves the keepsake he got from Sam there. With this, he finally closed off his childhood. We close the episode with the news that the location of Terra has finally been discovered, and Keith, getting a new mission from Grand Mother, which probably involves stopping Jomie from getting to Terra.
This episode was more about its revelations, than the addictive pacing and tension of the previous arc, but it still was awesome watching it. With five episodes left, there’s plenty of time left to finish off this series, and I’m curious to see how it’ll end. At the end of the previous episode, Keith looked surprisingly human, when he was heading to his birthplace. At the end of the episode, though, he’s back to his old self, and we’re supposed to hate him again. We know he isn’t going to make it easy for the Myu, and something’s telling me that he’s going to slaughter the children of the Myu. The question is: how?]]>
Kaze no Shoujo Emily – 19
This episode focused again on Emily, but it seriously was an awesome one. It’s definitely one of her most thought-provoking ones, even though none of the other side-characters were involved. As much as I’m hoping for the Teddy-episode, I can’t deny that this episode was pure awesomeness.
It starts when Emily’s poem finally gets printed in a local magazine. The previous episode definitely had an effect, as Emily is starting to get known in the town now, and people are actually recognizing her. With that comes her first job, and the first time that Emily needs to learn about responsibilities, and a hard lesson it is.
The job is writing a poem about a recently deceased guy. The problem is, though, that from the outside, he lived a really boring life. He just worked and worked, and when he didn’t work, he drank alcohol. Emily needs to get lectured by both Elizabeth and her teacher, before she really understands the job that she’s been given. She’s obviously very inclined to just give up. Heck, it doesn’t hurt her at all. But I can imagine how much it must hurt the family if Emily broke her promise.
Still, it’s great to see both Emily and Perry growing considerably. Notice how Perry continues to study really hard, in order to catch up with the others? This episode also shows that Emily is continuing to develop her skills, and I can imagine that Teddy has been sketching as well. I’m just a bit disappointed that we never got to see Ilse’s talents. According to Wikipedia, she’s a talented Elocutionist, but I’ve yet to see that from her.]]>