Okay, so I’m biased; I like Bee-Train, and their unique style. I’m not exactly sure how they did it, but they somehow caused me to really like this obviously flawed anime. I’ve seen lots of people give it bad reviews; it even turned into the “worst anime ever” for some. I’d like to say something positive about it, though.
A lot of things ‘clicked’ for me in Avenger. Its got a really interesting setting: Post-colonizational Mars, where no child has been born for ten years. The children have now been replaced with child-like robots called “dolls” (and finally we see androids who don’t look exactly like human beings. The dolls really look like machines in this series, which is really refreshing compared to the countless robotic harem maids that seem to be rather popular).
The soundtrack also is awesome. I seriously demand for the ALI-Project to do more of them for different anime, because their work in both Avenger as .Hack//Roots is really good. The OPs and EDs that they sometimes do for random shows might be good, they’re nothing when compared to the magic that they can do for the background music. The character-designs are also really appealing, but that’s to be expected from Bee-Train. I’ve never really been an animation-expert, but the three or four major fight scenes featured some great animation and coordination. The animation for the rest of the series was nothing special, though.
Then the characters. Unlike other reviewers, I really liked them. Some of them may lack background or reasons, but they’re well fleshed out through the course of thirteen episodes. Their character-development is very small and subtle (apart from Layla, perhaps), but it is there, just enough for such a short series. These factors, the music, animation, setting and characters, combined with Bee-Train’s direction provide a great atmosphere, which is despite all flaws, fun to watch.
Still, the flaws remain flaws, and this anime could have been so much better if Avenger took the time to answer all of its questions. This is another one of those series that suffers from the fact that its story was meant for 26 episodes, not thirteen of them. Because of this, things had to be sacrificed. In this case: the background information. How did people get on Mars? How can people breathe there? Where did Nei come from? These are just a small portion of the questions that this anime leaves behind. Even the ending continues to ask more questions. While it’s not as bad as in .Hack//Roots, the fact remains that this is a major thorn for this series.
About the question whether you will like this, you should ask yourself the following: do you like the so-called “Bee-Train Pacing”? If the answer is no, then stay far away from this series, because if you don’t like the whole atmosphere, you’ll be sure to hate it, especially with the relatively slow turns of events. I’ve also seen many people complain how the entire series is too confusing, though I didn’t run into the same problem (probably because I’ve been watching raws I don’t completely understand for a relative long time ^^;). In any case, I had a lot of fun watching this.]]>
Author: psgels
Mononoke – 02
Seriously, Mononoke is pure awesomeness. It’s such a huge shame that there are so few people who gave this series a chance. Heck, the only blog-entry I saw on Animeblogger and Animenano came from a guy who didn’t like the style. Still, that doesn’t mean that I don’t love this series, and it’s going to be fun to blog. I’ve considered following this series subbed, but thankfully the dialogue turned out to be quite easy, with my biggest obstacle being some words I don’t know, instead of the usual incredibly long sentences. It’ll also probably take ages for this thing to get fully subbed, and I’m too impatient to wait for them.
Well then, for those of you who haven’t seen Bake Neko: basically all you have to know is that the medicine seller needs three things before he’s able to slay a demon: the Katachi, Makoto and Kotowari, or the name of the demon, what really is going on and the events that made the demon act the way it did. He usually has no trouble finding the Katachi due to his knowledge (in this case it’s Zasshiki Warashi), but in order to get the Makoto and Kotowari, he needs the involved persons to open up.
The central person for this story is a pregnant woman, who hired a room in an inn, owned by an old woman and her servant. The previous episode showed us strange cradles, a strange kid-like creature, the sound of playing children and the death of a guy who was supposed to be after her.
So, the current episode basically explained the Makoto as follows: at one point, the inn used to be a brothel. And whenever a woman turned pregnant, the owner would kill her, since there wasn’t any chance for her anymore after that. I’m not sure whether the woman mentioned above worked at the same brothel, since the timelines don’t seem to match if she did, but the fact remains that she once was a prostitute as well, who fell in love with an important person. He offered to marry her, until he found out that she already was pregnant of him. She then managed to escape, but her former near-husband sent the guy after her that we saw getting killed at the previous episode. Please correct me if I’m wrong about this one. The Japanese may be easier than usual, it’s still vital to understand as much as possible.
According to this, the Kotowari should be the following: the real form of Zasshiki Warashi is these rather strange children. They are, in fact, the unborn children who were killed by the owner of the brothel, and I believe that they were just searching for another mother. They’ve waited a long time until another pregnant woman showed up, which turned out to be our blonde woman. It now makes sense why they killed the guy in the previous episode: he was threatening their “mother”.
Overall, this arc gave an awesome start to Bake Neko, but I still have to say that Bake Neko was better. But then again, Bake Neko had three episodes, compared to the two episodes of this episode. I’ve read somewhere that this series will feature 13 episodes, divided into five arcs. If this is true, and I had to guess, then the next arc will be another two-episoded one, after which the final three arcs will consist of three episodes. Ayakashi ~ Japanese Classic Horror already showed that the creators like to save the best for last, so I’m really excited to see the rest of this series.]]>
Ooedo Rocket – 16
Haha! This episode is not to be missed, as it’s excellent in both the comedy as the drama-department. It has been a long time since I laughed this long and hard when Kinshiro ruined Akai’s attempt to arrest Seikichi., using modern photo-cameras and a strange version of a computer. The rest of the episode, though, was rather serious, and the first drop of blood has been spilled. I was quite surprised when it happened, but apparently, this show does have the guts to show blood. I wonder how much more of this we’ll get to see. On the graphical side, things looked great, by the way. It’s clear that this would be an important episode for the creators.
There was one development that stood central in this episode: Seikichi finding out about Sora’s identity. To make things even better, he attacks Sora in beast-form, while protecting blue-monster-from-the-sky in human form. The next episode is promising to become a great aftermath, since he’s got to do some explaining to her. ^^
Another rather interesting thing happened: another blue monster from the sky sprouted from the blue monster from the sky. Not only that, but her physical abilities seem to be way higher than those of the ones we’ve seen before, judging on how she (at least, I assume it’s a she) easily took care of Ginjiro’s henchmen. This raises some interesting questions: is this monster the same as the one we saw before, or does she also have a human form?
I’m also still not sure whether to classify the blue monster from the sky as “evil”. After the previous episode, I started to feel a bit compassion for her, despite the huge number of women she killed, but in this episode she showed that she showed to be quite merciless when she tried to take out Sora by making Akai reveal her secret in front of Seikichi. What she didn’t realize, though, was that this incident will only bring our couple closer together.]]>
Bokura no – 15
Seriously, I can’t believe I cried at the end of the episode. I was ready to call this episode a failure, when it spent more time on Ushiro’s uncle than on Kirie himself, and then it comes with such an incredibly mean plot twist! I’m still not sure whether it was incredibly cheap or incredibly brilliant, but I’m really edging towards the latter.
Seeing the enemy commit suicide shows even more that there are real people inside of it. They’ve got the same worries as everyone else. This was a pilot who was even worse off than Kirie himself. I don’t know what his reasons were, and the sad thing is that we’ll never know them. He could have hated himself, perhaps he was suicidal, perhaps he got into a fight earlier, who knows.
I also love Kirie now, after this episode, now that it seems that he still has time left for development, especially considering that he doesn’t have the intention to fight, and the fact that he lives with Jun, now that his mother lies in the hospital. I’m anxious to see how this problem will be solved.
Still, what was up with Jun’s uncle? I’m not sure why Tanaka invited the guy.]]>
Claymore – 16
Ah, it sees that my worries after the previous episode were all for naught. This episode was really good, and it finally tied the entire anime together. Lots of interesting things happened, and I didn’t even mind the way in which Galatea saved Claire at the last possible minute.
Let’s start with Galatea. It seems that she didn’t just get her first place, just because she was very good at sensing Yoki. She also possesses the ability to manipulate small amounts of it, and from all 47 Claymores, her strength increases the most when she releases her Yoki. (It would be bad for her to awaken, wouldn’t it?) It makes you wonder how powerful number one and two are.
It also seems that there are three awakened beings, even stronger than Priscilla. One of them is the girl we saw in this and the previous episode, Riful. One of them recruited Priscilla after she went berserk, and apparently she manipulated the guy into becoming active again. The episode wasn’t really clear whether he meant to pick a fight with Riful herself, or he means to fight against the organization, but all three of them have begun to gather more awakened allies.
What I’m really curious about is how these three awakened beings will be defeated, and what Claire’s role will be in it. I really like how she finally showed in this episode that she isn’t perfect, and needs the help of others. The next episode should start out really interesting, when Claire needs to rescue Jeane. At this point, all signs point to the fact that Claire is indeed going to save her, but then again, this isn’t the first time that Claymore surprised me. ;)]]>
Tokyo Tribe 2 Review – 73/100
Tokyo Tribe can be described as a fun brainless action-show. It features Kai, a member of one of the urban tribes of Tokyo, and it basically shows what happens when all these tribes are put under the same threat.
“Suspense of belief? Screw that, we don’t need it!” – This is probably what the creators thought when they wrote the plot. It’s a well-constructed one, but some elements are just overly far-fetched, even more than most action-shows. To give some examples, it’s got an incredibly fat Yakuza-boss, who likes to rape innocent schoolboys, and kill them in the process and an android who likes to bite people’s eyes out. This implies that there’s a large amount of gore in the series, and indeed. The creators aren’t afraid to show blood, and some scenes are particularly raunchy.
Still, the story itself was quite fun to watch. The middle section may have taken itself a bit too seriously, but it did make sure that the final few episodes avoided the pitfalls of becoming too dark for their own good, turning them into quite a fun ride. What I especially liked was how the series continued to introduce unique side-characters, who never felt boring at all. The only bad character, though, was Hashim, the standard stupid best buddy, with no connection whatsoever to the story. At the times when he took the spotlight, he rather ruined this series.
The graphics look quite interesting. You’d expect this show to be dark and gritty, but instead of that, almost every scene is filled with bright-coloured neon-lights. The character-designs are also quite unique. The music comes with a bunch of hip-hop tunes. They’re quite nice, actually, but there have been better.
I wouldn’t really recommend Tokyo Tribe 2, though. It’s got a few too many flaws, and it’s actually a miracle that Kai survived the entire series. There are enough series who’ve done better than this one, and only if you want to watch the unique style or the action then you could give it a chance.]]>
El Cazador de la Bruja – 16
The first half of the episode was nothing special. While I loved how it made sense, since Nadie can’t rely on Blue-Eyes for her money-problems anymore, which forced the two of them to take a job at a local Taco-restaurant (where else? :P), there was also not much going on, and everything was pretty straightforward. Even with the inclusion of Ricardo and Lilio.
But everything changed once LA showed up. I’m not sure why, but he remains my favourite character of the entire series, and every scene with him in it turns out awesome for me. This episode was no exception, when we see Ellis use brute force on him, and we indeed get confirmed that she possesses huge physical strength. It was really cool to see the supposedly weak Ellis smack the hell out of that bastard. ^^;
Overall, while the episode wasn’t as important as the previous one, El Cazador just remains fun to watch, with its awesome soundtrack and highly addictive characters, just what you’d expect from a Bee-Train production. And it’s obviously great to see that finally Ellis starts to act for herself a bit. :)]]>
Les Miserables – Shoujo Cosette – 28
What a surprise! After the previous episode, I expected that the light-hearted mood would stay for a few more episodes. Boy, was I wrong when Thenardier threw his tantrum right in the middle of it! I’m really excited to see this series turn dark again, and I’m even more excited about the fact that finally the Thenardiers were the major focus of the episode!
Eponine and Azelma were so sad in this episode. We already knew that they weren’t in such a good position, but they’re actually being abused by their father. Azelma even ended up with a bleeding hand at one point. It’s sad to see how she turned out, by the way. It seems that both her and Eponine stopped going to school, soon after Cosette left. Because of this, especially Azelma had no real chances to make any friends, with the result that she now clings to Eponine, the only one who treated her normally (I suspect that Thenardiére also stopped being nice to her when their money ran out).
And Yes! Eponine finally talked to Marius! The two of them were so cute, even though nothing major happened. Still, it seems that Marius will be able to hear everything that happens in Thenardier’s room, due to a crack in the wall (this Episode showed this, when Thenardier started yelling), so something tells me that he’ll start feeling sorry for her very soon. Cosette had better be fast with making her move.
And speaking of her I could almost strangle her at the end of the episode! She didn’t even recognize Thenardier, who has hardly changed a bit for the past years! And he was right under her nose! There’d better be some kind of recognition in the next episode!]]>
Toward the Terra – 15
Seriously, this episode turned out incredibly exciting. I know I already wowed over the first half of the series, but as things look now, the second half of Toward the Terra is going to beat it in every single way. If the series can keep up the pacing for the final episodes, then when we’re talking about one of the best science-fiction anime of the past few years.
Anyway, things didn’t turn out like I predicted after the previous episode. Toni and Physis get taken hostage by Keith, to help him escape, but both of them manage get away safely from him. Karina, however, is not so fortunate, and she dies through her worries of having lost her only son. Her death certainly was a memorable one, and it puts Toni in an interesting position, because some day, he’ll have to face the fact that he indirectly killed his own mother.
We also see Blue back in action, and for some reason, he sees the same memories in Keith as the ones in Physis. The question now remains: why was Blue the only one who could sense the guy’s real memories? The link between Physis and Mother Eliza still remains a huge mystery. The bubbles seen in the memory probably stand for the strange place Shiroe ran into in episode eight, but that doesn’t explain Physis’s role in it.
Anyway, right now, the Myu are in trouble, and the younger ones are going to have to accept that they’ll have to leave Nazca. After all, Keith sent enough back ups to take care of them. I suspect that they’ll be heading for Terra again, but I wonder how they’ll find out its location. We’re in for at least one more major time-leap, up to the point where Tobi has fully grown up. I suspect that next episode will be spent on escaping from Keith, where Blue probably plays his final trump card, after which the Myu manage to remain hidden for a number of years.
But then again, this is all based on the information in the OP, and we all know how misleading that one can be. ^^;]]>
Kaze no Shoujo Emily – 15
Oh my god, I loved this episode! Not necessarily because of the story used, as it’s a standard one that’s been used more often by other stories. It’s neither because of Emily, okay, she was as awesome as usual, but she didn’t really add anything new. But seriously, the background music was magnificent. This episode introduced a few new background tunes, and they’re absolutely beautiful! The original soundtrack already was great, but these tunes were still much better than anything I’ve heard on this show up before.
About the rest of the episode, Emily visits her grandmother this time. It’s nothing new, it’s nothing special, but Emily’s character alone made this episode yet again so incredibly sweet, so that it was well worth watching, even without the awesomeness of the soundtrack. There was a really creepy atmosphere through the course of the episode, because Emily’s grandmother’s house was supposed to be haunted. Obviously, Emily wouldn’t like that, due to her abundance of imagination. ^^;
On a side-note: that eye-catch really scared me! You’ll understand when you see the episode yourself. Anyway, Emily keeps surprising me as one of my favourite series of the spring-season. I can’t wait till the series draws near its end, and even more drama is going to be included. 🙂
Oh, and *note to self: get hands on soundtrack!*]]>