psgels, Author at Star Crossed Anime

Some quick first impressions: Ginga Tesudo Monogatari, Marginal Prince and Sasami Mahou Shoujo Club Season 2

October 5, 2006 by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Woo! An actually good batch. While Ginga Tesudo Monogatari might’ve turned out mediocre, Marginal Prince and Sasami Mahou Shoujo Club actually turned out to be a big surprise. These anime really show that this series can contain something other than garbage. And yes. I have a strange taste, and I’m proud of it. ^^

Ginga Tesudo Monogatari ~Eien he no Bunkiten~
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Interesting concept. Instead of space-ships, this anime has trains which travel through space, with earth as the main base. This seems to be the continuation of a previous season (I didn’t get the chance to see it, by the way). It seems that at the end of that season, the main character lost his father and decided to live with his mother again. This episode, he realizes that he is needed after all when he’s the only one who can do something about a high-speed train which went out of control, is heading towards earth, and plans to crash there, along with its passengers. For some reason, the main character manages to hijack a small train and reaches the berserked train with just the right timing. Strangely enough, he was the only one who got this idea. He then detaches the engine from the rest of the train, so the passengers are saved. But for some reason, he’s stupid enough to remain on the engine-part, instead of just letting it crash on earth. I’m also feeling that this show loses itself too often in useless techno-babble. Most science-fiction shows like these seem to be troubled by it. I think this is just extra material for fans of the original series. I wouldn’t recommend it to people who haven’t seen it.

Marginal Prince
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First of all, before I start, I have to remind you that this is a bishounen-series, done by Gonzo, of all possible studios. Finally, they managed to make an anime without any big-breasted fanservice-indusing female characters. They finally begin to learn. Anyway, about the anime. I quite liked all of the cheesy scenes which flowed across the screen. Things also turned quite serious at the end of the episode, and quite enjoyable as well. Okay, the anime doesn’t make any sense at all, but a boy who gets admitted to a super-rich school with only six people in it sounds so much better than a boy who gets surrounded by a bunch of beautiful girls. I’ll keep watching this. I might even blog it if the second episode turns out to be good.

Sasami Mahou Shoujo Club Season 2
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Seriously, why hasn’t this series gotten subbed yet? As far as I know, it’s the ONLY spring series which didn’t come without even one sub, and that’s such a darn shame. It may be my love for mahou shoujo-series, but I actually really enjoyed this first episode of the second season. If things continue to be just as good, I’m probably going to end up blogging this show. The show is about a school for mahou shoujo (finally the girls actually get to study, instead of getting instant-superpowers. I like that), and follows five girls, along with one of their teachers. It’s a shoujo-series, and things are mostly light-hearted. But the events are just presented in such an adorable way. It can be funny was well. I especially loved the lesbian-kissing-scene at the end. ^_^ Someone, sub this. Seriously.

Some quick first impressions: D.Gray-Man, Pumpkin Scissors and Yoake Mae Yori Ruri-iro na ~Crescent Love~

October 5, 2006 by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

The second batch for the spring season, and the first subs have already appeared. Luckily, the overal quality is better than the previous batch, but still, the huge load of garbage remained. Thank goodness Pumpkin Scissors proved to be good.

D.Gray-Man
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So, this is the first of the bunch of shounen-series, and it isn’t very surprising that this one also doesn’t promise much good. We’ve got a 14-year old boy, who somehow is a master in exorcism. He’s gotten huge power for no reason, and he’s probably the only one who can kill the killing machines called the Akuma. There have been some attempts at comedy, but these failed. The battles also are nothing special. An Akuma appears, kills a bunch of people, our main character does nothing and waits till the tension is the biggest, does his thing and the Akuma is history. The story used in this episode also was incredibly basic and even then it had some flaws. Why didn’t anyone bother to mention the fact that the female heroine lived right next to the church in which the Akuma killed its victims? And yeah. The fact that the main heroine is going to team up with the main hero is so cleverly thought of.

Pumpkin Scissors
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I’m glad to say that we’ve got our first good show from the fall season. Okay, it could have been better, but I really like the quirky characters which go along with this show. It’s rather refreshing to see an anime about the aftermaths of a war, involving good realism, strategic battles, and yet tries not to take itself too seriously. The result works rather well. This has to be the anime with the most realistic (and because of that hilarious) tank-movement. I especially liked the two main characters. I mean, they’re a rather enthusiastic lieutenant and a gorilla-like war-veteran. Nice combination, no? ^^;

Yoake Mae Yori Ruri-iro na ~Crescent Love~
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Oh, the pain. The horrible pain. When you thought Tokimeki Memorial couldn’t get any worse, this piece of garbage comes in and changes your mind. I seriously hope that with this, we’ve passed the worst part of the season. We’ve got another pubescent male who’s just been copied and pasted from any other random harem, he has a little sister, a big sister, and somehow he’s made friends with only girls. Things only get better when a moon princess, along with her own personal maid (guess what?) comes to live with him. The characters are all bland and overused. Not to mention the fact that the following episodes will probably cause every single girl in the show to fall in love with our overcharming main character. Seriously, the person who wrote this stuff needs to get some kind of blow with a hammer.

Ergo Proxy Review – 87/100

October 4, 2006 by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Ergo Proxy

Ergo Proxy is a science-fiction series with a healthy dose of mystery and action. It’s set in a post-apocalyptic world, in which the regular earth has become uninhabitable. The only places where people can live is in certain air-tight domes. This story begins in one of these domes: Romdeau. It’s a highly controlled society, which believes that each citizen should get as less freedom as possible, in order to become the perfect citizen.

Ergo Proxy definitely is an incredibly unique series. This mostly lies in the way the plot is written. Especially the middle episodes really play games with your mind. Complex dialogues and monologues occur often, with awesome effects. Some episodes definitely are huge roller-coaster rides, almost without any slow moments. These kinds of episodes really were great to see, and I definitely recommend them. They were also very thought-provoking, dealing with issues as philosophy and psychology.

The show also has a cast of very interesting characters. Ranging from a tough, realistic woman to a small, “android” (or Autorave, as they call it in the anime) girl. The anime starts out full of mysteries and vague references. don’t expect to understand anything of the story for the first three episodes. Then, the pacing dies down a bit, and things can get a bit explained. After that point, things pick up again, and the series starts to become episodic, featuring a fight between two characters on every episode. The great thing is that these characters don’t fight the standard way. Each clash between characters is full of originality. Most of them prefer to use mind games, and we even have one character who kills his victims off by using a fully fledged game-show.

The mystery-part works very well in the early episodes. For almost every episode, new questions get introduced. Still, as the series progresses it makes the mistake to introduce more questions than it can take, resulting in a lot of unanswered questions at the end of the series. I’ve finished this series now, and almost half of the mysteries of this show still remain mysteries. The episodic nature of the second half of the show also takes its toll, especially on the later episodes. For some reason, these seem to have lost the extra touch that the first two thirds of the anime did have. The first half of this series definitely was the better half.

The graphics are also a feast for the eyes. The animations is so incredibly fluid, the character designs look very appealing, though not over the top, the CG has been very well integrated with the rest of the graphics and the background music also delivers.

Overall, Ergo Proxy has been incredibly fun to watch. It’s got its flaws, though the brilliant plotwriting definitely made up for it. If you’re looking for a series which will make you think, this is the one you should go for.

Ergo Proxy – 23 – And it’s Over

October 3, 2006 by psgels, posted in Ergo Proxy

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Heh, this was one of the few times at which a Deus ex Machina actually felt good. Probably because of Pino’s role. When we saw her wandering through Romdeau, I kept thinking that something bad would happen to her, but she actually didn’t play a role in this final arc at all. The creators just gave her an excuse to spend a bit of time, that’s all! Then she met up with Kristeva and returned to the Usagi again, without anything happening, and picked up Real. This moved away from the overused endings in quite an original and appreciated way.

Anyway, the final episode did explain a few crucial parts, though there are a lot of details which remained unexplained. Why did Ergo kill Monad? What exactly was the missile Raul sent towards Moscow? What’s Real’s link with Monad? Who, exactly, is the creator? This also is a series that you need to watch twice if you actually want to understand it. I might do this, perhaps after all of the fall-releases have died down.

This is what I think happened to the world:
– When the world was threatened to be destroyed by the exploding tanks of methane hydrate, the Proxies were created.
– Humanity fled to outer space with space-ships, waiting for the gas to fade away.
– Each of the Proxies created a dome of its own. Proxy One created Romdeau, Monad created Moscow, etc. For some reason, this was vital for the Proxy Project to succeed.
– The Heartbeat of Commencement, I’m still not sure what exactly it was. It’s never really explained. It involves Romdeau being destroyed, Vincent fighting Ergo, Vincent and Monad-Real flying through the clouds, Vincent going back and Monad-Real becoming one with a sparkling light. It was supposed to have happened way sooner, but the Proxies betrayed the Creator.
– Proxies die when they get in contact with direct sunlight. That’s why they refused to start the Heartbeat of Commencement.
– Humanity, meanwhile, has been waiting for generations in their spaceships, in an orbit around the earth.

I would’ve preferred that this anime would have had one extra episode. It’s exactly enough to fill in the remaining gaps, and make things a bit clearer. Overall, the ending was pretty nice. Not perfect, though not the horrible mess that other anime manage to become in their final episode. I’ll probably have the review of Ergo Proxy up tomorrow, as it’s getting too late for that now. Overall, it was a very nice series. I’m glad I watched it, and I’m sad to see it go.

Ergo Proxy – 22 – Great Episode :)

October 3, 2006 by psgels, posted in Ergo Proxy

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The first half of the finale has started, and it really was awesome. You really can classify this as the answer-episode, as lots of revelations are made. This is going to be a rather short entry, as I already have episode 23 on my computer, just waiting to be played.

So,
– Ergo Proxy/Vincent escapes his death by ripping his arm off.
– Ergo Proxy/Vincent created Romdeau.
– Each Proxy created its own dome.
– Fake Real thinks only about Vincent.
– Daedalus only wants Fake Real to think about him, and he gets pissed off by her actions.
– Pino isn’t captured like I thought. She just ran into Raul’s home, drew a couple of pictures and left. She’s still roaming in Romdeau.
– Raul attempted to shoot Daedalus, but something happens which makes him shoot himself instead.
– When Raul reaches his house, he sees Pino’s pictures. One of these pictures shows the two of them, happily holding balloons.
– Raul meets his end when he roams around Romdeau, trips and falls on a shard of glass.
– Ergo created Vincent in the hope of forgetting about his sufferings as a Proxy.
– Finally it becomes clear why Proxy One and Vincent are different beings: he controls both Vincent AND Ergo Proxy! He’s the true creator of Romdeau.

This was a great episode. The next episode also promises to be awesome: how to kill someone who always wins? Pino wanders further through Romdeau (what were the creators planning to do with her?). And Daedalus has to either accept that Fake Real is interested in Vincent, or he has to take physical actions. Something tells me it’s going to be the latter.

(on a side-note: Ergo Proxy always is a bitch when trying to take screenshots. They always turn out too dark -_-)

.Hack//Roots – 25 – One more to go

October 3, 2006 by psgels, posted in .Hack//Roots

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I’m glad to see that .Hack//Roots has gotten better when the final episodes came along. Things finally become a bit interesting again. Especially Phyllo and Touta were great this episode, even though it’s still unknown what they exactly did. The next episode could actually promise to be a great one, if things go right. Seeing Haseo at the end of the episode, back in his original form also was very interesting. We also finally have another reference towards real life. Tabby did some investigations on her own, and found Shino. She also met Haseo in real life. He seems to be visiting her every day.

Still, there’s one thing I dislike.

Why does Haseo have “the element”? What makes him so special?

Some quick first impressions: Galaxy Ange-lune, Tokimeki Memorial and Love Dol: Lovely Idol

October 3, 2006 by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Yeah, I’m planning to through the garbage of the season first by watching the raws. It’s not like shows of this nature were known for their incredibly difficult language anyway.

Galaxy Ange-lune
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This is another one of those failed attempts at comedy. We’ve got a cast of stereotypes, who try to be as random as possible, but aren’t really funny. It’s basically an excuse to give some cute girls a chance to drive space-ships, without any explanation for their huge skills. Thrown in a couple of fanservice-references, the standard cute pet (who seems to have the same voice actor as Randagio) who gets abused for the most standard reasons ever and the only guy in the show who moans when he speaks and you have a recipe for failure. The only moderately funny part was the red-haired girl, sleeping through the explosion.

Tokimeki Memorial
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This anime takes place in a high school. Guess who our main character is? Yup, a transfer student. How original. In any case, the school president has come up with a “clever” idea for the school event. Coincidentally, it took place right on the day our main character joined the school. Because of that, our main character gets labelled with a pair of nekomimi-ears, and the one who catches him will get a date with the most popular girl in school. And yes, believe it or not, but our main character manages to outrun the ENTIRE male population of this school. In the meantime, he helps another cute girl in the library, reaching a book on the top shelf (seriously, couldn’t she have grabbed a chair or something?). I guess she’s in love with him now. The next episode will probably feature our main character, flirting with the top female athlete of the school. Seriously, this anime is another piece of garbage. The only good points came from the range of weird teachers this school inhibits. They were actually quite hilarious.

Love Dol: Lovely Idol
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Surprisingly good, if you compare it to the two above. Still, that doesn’t really say anything. This show is mostly bad, though it does have its potentially promising moments, unlike the two mentioned above. First of all, it’s got a huge cast: 18 idols, one manager and one boss. Especially the four main characters actually try to move away from the stereotypes. If these are used well, things can become very interesting, though I’m not expecting that to happen. At this point, the show mostly looks like it intends to focus on cute girls and your occasional moment of fanservice. Still, the fact that the debut-concert was cancelled does show that things don’t always go as planned in this anime. That might be a good point. Still, my verdict is that this anime will lose itself in its huge amount of cute girls, directed to fanservice. And am I the only one disturbed by the fact that they were performing in front of a herd of wild otaku? Aren’t these idol-things mostly meant for young children and pubescent girls?

Popolocrois 2003 – 15 – Arrrr

October 2, 2006 by psgels, posted in Popolocrois 2003

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A very interesting view on the life at sea. I haven’t really seen the concept of the entire crew being one big family before. Overall, it was interesting. The creators spent a lot of details on the different roles of the different crew members. The crew of a ship no longer consists out of captain, cook and random people. I like this touch.

This episode was mostly light-hearted, meant to introduce the eleven new characters and the life aboard the Dakart. A short story about a baby kraken-like thingy also was inserted. I liked that one, as it actually featured our three main characters making their own choices, and taking responsibility for them afterwards. Still, even this was very light-hearted. But there was one point at which the subject reverted back to Pietoro’s and Marco’s parents, being turned to stone. That was a surprisingly heavy part. Pinon wakes up after having a nightmare regarding his parents, and after he sees that Marco’s crying in his sleep for his mother, he suddenly starts crying. That was such a good scene.

Anyway, it seems that the current arc will mostly play on the Dakart. This means that we’ll probably get to know the crew over the course of the episodes. A quick rundown on the different members:

Boss: I’m ashamed to say that I couldn’t remember her name. I knew I should’ve written it down somewhere. In any case, she’s Pietoro’s sister, and Pinon’s aunt. She’s indeed someone you’d expect to be the daughter of Paolo. Does she happen to posses any dragon powers as well, by the way?

Donovan: the captain of the Dakart. He probably handles everything concerning the Dakart as a ship. He looks quite experienced.

Gooley: the boatswain of the Dakart. He’s indeed quite cute with his small tail. He seems to be skilled with bow and arrow.

Billy: One of the deck mates (or however you call them). He likes to get annoyed fast.

Toad: One of the deck mates (or however you call them). He’s got a strange talent which can tell whenever there’s a storm coming. He doesn’t like to talk much, though, and when he does, he does it in an almost inaudible way.

Momba: The strange lizard we saw already in the previous episode. He probably has the lowest rank on the Dakert, working even under Billy and Toad, though he does take initiative in everything, making his character stand out a lot. He also doesn’t like people thinking bad of him. ^^;

Edgar: he’s the helmsman. I’m a bit worried about the fact that while he’s supposed to be steering a ship, he likes drinking and dancing… He also talks in a very polite, old-fashioned way.

Curtis: the operations officer. He seems quite the lady-man, though he does have a laid-back attitude. He’s got an interesting personality.

Lambert: the ship’s doctor. One of the few sane people on the ship. Therefore, the most likely one to commit suicide, betray Pinon or get paranoid, if we have to follow the rules of common anime.

Dike: he’s a wandering merchant, though I’m not exactly sure about his role on the Dakart. He seems to be a geeky-type.

Gaston: takes care of the ship’s engine. He seems very experienced, he’s a huge cat with one eye missing. I like him. ^^;

Aina: takes care of the Seirei stone and the food for the crew. She seems to have an eye on Marco. Perhaps because she finally saw someone of her own age again. She’s Gaston’s granddaughter. It seems that the guy either married a human, or had a son or daughter who married a human.

The Third – 19 – Very Nice

October 1, 2006 by psgels, posted in The Third

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As this seems to be a four-episode-arc, the final five episodes will probably feature the closing arc, which will probably feature Ikus in some major way. The episode itself was very enjoyable to see. Basically, it features Honoka and Blue Breaker getting inside Rona Fauna’s base. In the meantime, Bogie, Paife and Ikus try to catch up with them and Rona Fauna herself shows that she’s more than just a 1-dimensional antagonist.

Each of these parts was well worth seeing. Honoka and Blue breaker fight together, even though they’re former enemies. Blue breaker saves Honoka from a moment of carelessness while Honoka amazes Blue Breaker when she takes care of a very powerful anti-mechanical soldier. He actually asks her how she’s able to cut through such thick steel, though she can’t really give him an answer for that. It’s also very awkward to see the two of them having conversations in such a normal matter.

The plane from the previous episode got crashed, dropping Bogie about five kilometres away from Rona Fauna’s hideout. Both Bogie and Paife show their best sides when they eliminate all of the lurking autonomous soldiers. It was actually quite amusing to see Bogie abandoning Paife. ^^; Rona Fauna also sent her assistant to eliminate the two of them, so the next episode should promise to be something special.

I’m also really beginning to like Rona Fauna. She’s just full of mysteries. What exactly is she? How is she connected to the nanomachines in her hideout? What’s her goal? Why does she want to see Honoka? Why did she kidnap Joganki? Why are her forces so unprofessional? Why is her assistant giving Honoka visions? Joganki also was very interesting. His reaction when he found out that Honoka was coming was very surprising. For some reason, he dislikes that Filla Marique involved Honoka in all this. Both Joganki as Rona Fauna seem very uneasy at the end of the episode.

The next episode promises to be a great one. Rona Fauna vs Blue Breaker and Honoka and Rona Fauna’s assistant vs Bogie, Paife and Ikus. I can’t wait. 🙂

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni – 26 – The End? I Hope Not.

October 1, 2006 by psgels, posted in Higurashi no Naku Koro ni

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The final episode was pretty straightforward. Or should I say, everything in this final episode which didn’t involve Rika was pretty straightforward. But I’ll get to that later. First, the conclusion.

Rena didn’t run away, like the previous episode suggested. She went to the school, held all of the students hostage and planned to blow the place up if the Sonozaki-family wasn’t arrested. She doubts all her friends in the process, and delivers some serious injuries to Mion. Oishi also showed yet another side of himself, while he tried to use Keiichi in order to calm down Rena. It was a pretty nice episode, but it did have its flaws.

Flaw #1: Rena set a time bomb, to go off at 7:00 pm. Over the course of the episode, Satoko helps Keiichi to find this bomb, Keiichi rushes to the place and manages to disarm it with only one second left. Seriously, I thought that the creators knew better than this.

Flaw #2: As this is the final episode, it had it coming that it would end up in a clash between the two main characters. Pretty touching, but annoying at the same time.

Anyway, the fact remains that Keiichi didn’t get cured, Shion didn’t get cured, but Rena did get cured. In the first arc, Rena tried to embrace Keiichi, though that didn’t work. During this arc, Keiichi tried to remind Rena of the happy times gone by. And that managed to convince her.

Okay, now to the really good stuff: Rika. She’s finally beginning to see that in order to solve the mysterious tragedy, she has to come in action as well. I think Keiichi really gave her courage. When Keiichi and Rena are fighting, she also reckons that Keiichi might just find an exit. Still, in the end, he didn’t. Rika and her mysterious companion still are stuck in this “endless June”. Though I think that Rika now really is beginning to get serious. The last sentence of the episode really proves this. The seventh arc is promising to be awesome, but in order for that to work, some kind of OVA or second season does need to be announced. But as for now, I’m pretty confident that this’ll happen. After all, the creators did include these scenes at the end of the episode, suggesting that there is more to come. I’m so hoping that I’m not wrong in this.

The TIPS:
Only one tip to come with this episode: The Demon’s Script. It tells about Akasaka, and it also reveals that the fourth arc happened before the sixth arc as well. It reveals exactly what was in Takano’s scrapbooks, and it also reveals that the day after the events of the current episode, the “volcanic gas” appeared again. It indeed is some kind of cover-up story, due to the onigafuchi marsh which has been covered in concrete to supposedly stop the outbreak of volcanic gas, though Takano’s theories also don’t seem that trustworthy.

Oh, and one scene I really liked is when Rena was talking with Oishi on the phone, while Keiichi was contacting another police officer. Very nicely executed.

(Oh, and a small note: I’ve decided to not write a review about this anime yet. Even if there isn’t going to be another OVA, a fan-translation of the seventh arc in the game is going to be made, and I’ll probably end up playing it. As things are now, Higurashi is horribly incomplete, and I don’t want this to negatively influence my views. For now, I’m putting Higurashi on Hiatus, instead of completed.)