Author: psgels

Popolorcrois Story 1998 – 09

by psgels, posted in Popolocrois Story 1998



This time mainly focused on the relationship between Narcia and Hyuu. Especially Narcia needed a bit of self-confidence, which she certainly got at the end of the episode. I also find Gamigami more awesome after each and every episode.

We start at the Popolocrois Castle, which suffered some damages after last episode’s attack. Pietoro is enthusiastically helping the castle guards repairing the broken parts. Narcia, meanwhile, makes him some sandwiches. Then Pietoro talks about Hyuu again, after which Narcia gets an unhappy feeling. After a bit of struggle, she decides to go to Hyuu herself in order to talk with her.

She arrives at Gamigami’s castle, where she meets Hyuu, again in some deep thoughts. The two end up talking a bit. Basically, Narcia wants the Anemoritos and Hyuu doesn’t want to give it to her. Meanwhile, Gamigami just finished his new invention: a machine which knows an answer to all possible questions. He demonstrates it to Ston and Sanda, with hilarious results. In the aftermath, the castle shakes and an earthquake takes Narcia and Hyuu to some kind of sewer under the castle. Gamigami meanwhile isn’t too happy. I still find it brilliant, though, especially when you know that the answers of the machines are shown like those bars on slot machines. Ston and Sanda also begin to get more brilliant by the minute.

Anyway, inside the sewers, a cute little animal comes, swallows the Anemoritos and gets turned into a dragon. In the process of trying to turn this dragon back into the cute little animal it once was, Hyuu and Narcia learn to trust each other. It was beautiful to see. The glowing crystal-chamber was indeed a nice touch. Anyway, in the aftermath, Hyuu still keeps the Anemoritos, Narcia gets home, but she will try to find another way for Hyuu. I really liked this episode. Even though it was just an aftermath, I wasn’t bored at all. I’m looking forward to see how this will turn out.

Some quick first impressions: Utawarerumono, Makai Senki Disgaea and xxxHolic

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Aha! These are the ones I’ve been waiting for. At least, some of the ones. Still no Good Witch of the West, but still, I had a very good time watching these.

Utawarerumono

I hope I spelled the title right, as it’s nearly impossible not to make any mistakes in it. Anyway, about the series, a total plus is the character art. I really like that. Some of the characters may be a bit stereotypical, though. For example, the female character who falls in love with our main character. The main character also was a bit too cool for his own good, but I guess it’s better than the usual twelve-year-old boy. I’m a big fan of the story. I can already see the conflicts coming. I think I’ll keep watching this.

Makai Senki Disgaea

Okay, this is just plain randomness. We have this demon, who’s been sleeping for at least two years. He’s being waked by the cutest apprentice angel ever, who happens to be an assasin from heaven. The demon is just plain stubborn, and the angel is just plain clumsy. Talk about a perfect combination? Anyway, we also get a little visit from a couple of star-trek-wannabes and lion-like demons. I’ll certainly be blogging this. The flying penguins should be arriving next episode.

xxxHolic

The art, characters, drama and comedy are all absolutely gorgeous. Both the witch and the butler haven’t changed a bit from the movie, and the two assistants finally talk! Mokona toned down a bit, though. There are still a couple of characters missing, but they should be arriving in the next episodes. The art has been turned into a bit less messy version when compared to the movie, but the long limbs still are clearly recognizable. The cg backgrounds also made way for normal backgrounds, but that seems logigal, seeing that this is a 24-episode-long series, and not a movie. The drama also was one of the best of the season, at least in my opinion. Both the witch’s speeches as the girl who tried to win her friends by acting were just awesome to see. This will definately be on my to-blog list.

Some quick first impressions: NANA, Zegapain and Air Gear

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions



Yay! I got my first 10000 viewers in! It does make me feel small a bit, after hearing that the guys of Kono-Sono managed to get 100000 in about the same time. Anyway, here’s another round of new anime. All these three titles didn’t really impress me when I firstly saw them. For some, my suspicions were right. But others turned out to be pretty decent.

NANA
The art looks great. It really overflows of elegance. Still, I don’t think I’ll continue watching this, as apart from the art, there isn’t really anything that really gets me interested in continuing this series. The dialogue is nice, the creators put some decent music in this, but none of these elements make me want to watch another episode, despite some of the original elements that were put in. After all, how many times do you encounter a show in which two characters have the same front name? In real life, it does happen (I know that from first experience, in a kindof extreme way). I’m also finding it a bit too confidential that both main characters just “happen” to meet again, after their train trip. I mean, Tokyo is a kindof big city (how many million residents did it have again? I already get lost if I run into a town with only ten thousand of them).

Zegapain
Ugh… this probably is the worst anime of the new series. Okay, it has some flashy graphics, nice CG. But the story’s horrible. Reasons? Who needs reasons! Everything seems just too coincidental and convienient for our main character and the poor thing is, this anime doesn’t even realize it. This also isn’t one of these series that’s so bad that it actually becomes funny. This is just plain bad.

Air Gear
I was a bit reluctant to see this. After all, it looked so much like a typical shounen series. And yes, it is a shounen series. But it certainly has some good points. The music, for example, gives this anime a very nice style. The humour works good, the different characters are certainly very interesting to see (I especially loved the main character’s wide variety of sisters), and the actions of the main character actually make some sense. Well, at least if you compare them to your average shounen-show. Overall, I had a nice time watching this, but there is a problem with this show. Each single element could have been executed better. And it wouldn’t have been so hard to do this. This is mostly noticable with the choreography. Okay, there are some nice stunts, but I can’t believe any of the great speeds that are achieved. Right now, it seems that everyone just drives at a measly speed of 20 kilometres per hour. But it’s not only the choreography. The music, although it fitted the theme greatly and certainly brought a good mood to the show, lacked a bit. At times, the character art looked a bit inconsistend and foggy. I think I’ll keep watching this for a couple of more episodes before I draw my final verdict.

Some quick first impressions: Princess Princess, Ouran High School Host Club and Gakuen Heaven

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

I am SO jealous of the people who already saw Good Witch of the West: Astraea Testament. I just can’t wait for a fansub group to release the first episode. I’m dying to know about the first episode. The same goes for xxxHolic, which also just came out in japanese. Anyway here’s the next bunch of previews, this time featuring the yaoi-shows of this season. This has to say something about the immense amount of shows that’s featuring, as this is probably the first time that one season features three yaoi-series. Anyway, after watching these episodes, I began to notice a pattern: transfer students are amazingly popular main characters in anime. Two of these three anime has such a main character, which means that this entire season already features four shows of this nature. And I haven’t even seen the first half of them.

Princess Princess

Main character gets transferred to a new school in the middle of semester. Suddenly, all of the boys in the school start falling for this main character, including the most popular ones. The twist: this time the main character is a boy. Yes, I can’t believe how incredibly similar this story is to the opposite of Strawberry Panic. Though, it does have more elements than what I just described. Strawberry Panic decided to focus on drama and conflicts, Princess Princess decided to focus on comedy. And the comedy part just freaked me out. The fact is: out main character is a bishounen, the school is an all-boys school. One of the rules in these schools is that the bishounen get to dress up as girls, in order to make life for the other students a bit more exciting. I just loved the reaction of the main character when he found this out. There were so many horribly wrong scenes featured, it almost scared me.

Ouran High School Host Club

Here, we have a school for insanely rich people. Only the classiest of the classiest are able to study here. The Ouran High School Host Club is a club full of Bishounen in all different kinds of sizes, who try to win as many ladies as possible by playing “Host”. I know it sounds a bit vague. I haven’t exactly discovered how to precizely describe what it is that they’re doing. Just remember that it comes down to winning as much ladies as possible. Anyway, there’s one poor person who managed to get in the school. This person, of course, has no money for an expensive school-outfit, and only managed to get in the school because of the fact that she’s incredibly good in studying. Then she walks into the High School Host Club, and breaks one of their 8-million-yen vases. The chairman of the club makes her work for the club in order to pay it. The two nice things about these events are: 1. The members of the club are a totally weird bunch. One time, they act as the overdramatic version stereotypical bishounen, the other time they act as themselves, which isn’t really a step in the right direction either. I just loved the randomness of that. 2. Our main character may be a girl. She looks like a boy, resulting in the fact that the members of HSHC mistake her for a male. Of course, the fun begins when they discover that she has the cutest male-face ever. I’ll be watching this for sure.

Gakuen Heaven

We have this ultra-rich school (which of course, doesn’t impress me at all after seeing Ouran High School Host Club, but whatever), and out main character will be transferred to it. That’s weird, because he has absolutely no talents at all. He’s just mediocre. Apparently, the chairman of the school wants him for some reason. There weren’t any yaoi-scenes yet, but I’m suspecting that these will follow soon. Anyway, I don’t think I’ll continue watching this. There weren’t any things that stood out.

Adolescence of Utena Review – 87/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



The Adolescense of Utena is the movie of the show Revolutionary Girl Utena, which I recently finished. It features a remake of the original series, stuffed into about ninety minutes. The characters were a bit remodeled as well. Most of the side-characters were also removed, including Nanami, for some reason. Shiori, however, plays a big role. Utena didn’t have any past with Himemiya or the Prince. She did, however, share childhood memories with Touga. The story Juri told in the last episode of the series also seems to have been integrated somehow. Miki and Jury are also much closer than they were in the series. And I’ll remain silent about Akio, as that might be too big of a spoiler. I also found it fantastic that the Kashira-girls got to play an active role in this movie once more. Not just for comic relief or symbolism, but they played an active part in the story.

The visuals remain stunning and full of elegance. The art of each of the characters has change a bit. Utena got a haircut and a different outfit, Himemiya’s hair has become more flat and less curly. And each of the other characters with long hair suddenly had her or his hair’s length increased by about twenty centimetres. The fun part is, that in half of these cases, it works. Utena looks amazing, especially with her hair. The same goes for Juri, Miki and Akio. For the other half of the characters, however, this new style seems to have taken a step back on the scale of awesomeness. For example, I liked Himemiya’s art more in the series. Touga and Sayonji also don’t look too well.

The first part of the story introduces Utena to the academy once more. She meets the Roze Bride, wins her from Sayonji, and gets to meet Himemiya. Basically, the first couple of episodes from the series. The relationship between Utena and Himemiya is different, though. Himemiya is way more inteded to “obey” her master, and Utena just doesn’t like this. Anyway, after two interesting duels, the move takes a huge leap away from the series, and starts with its own storyline. That was the part that I really liked about this movie, even though it may be bit far-fetched. But still, Himemiya totally steels the show in these scenes. If you combine this with the incredible music that was bombarded during these scenes, if makes for some awesome moments.

Overall, this was an awesome movie. Still, I have to say that I liked the series better. 90 minutes is just not enough to include the incredibly deep characters the series contained. Still, if you have seen the series, I totally recommend the movie. Especially the last part is incredibly unique.

Final Rating: 87/100

Some quick first impressions: School Rumble Second Season, Strawberry Panic and Digimon Savers

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

And another bunch has come in. This round is a bit meh, though. But ah well, I’d have a problem if every single series had some awesome points. Especially in this season. Anyway, here are some previews:

School Rumble, Second Season

What we have here is the second season of the popular series school rumble. I’ve seen up to episode 13 of the first series. Anyway, the main theme of this anime certainly involves misunderstandings in relationships. Person A likes Person B, but Person B likes Person C and believes Person A loves Person D while Person E loves Person D as well, meanwhile Person F also loves Person A. If this goes on, I’ll be running out of letters… Anyway, I don’t think I’ll continue watching this. There were some funny scenes, but it’s certainly not the best of its kind. I think I’ll stay with the utter randomness of Pani Poni Dash and Haruhi Suzumiya for my school-series.

Strawberry Panic

Main character gets transferred to a new school in the middle of semester. Suddenly, all of the girls in the school start falling for this main character without a reason, including the most popular ones. The twist: this time the main character is a girl. There’ll probably some heavy shoujo-ai in this. I don’t really like this, though. Everyone acts without a reason. Nothing really is explained. I’m not too big of a fan of the huge amounts of hair from the characters either.

Digimon Savers

Okay, this is just plain stupid. We have a fourteen year-old boy, who runs into Agumon. After a small fight, this boy happens to be the first person ever to acknowledge him. So Agumon decides to make the boy his master. Then a cute girl arrives, of course of the same age as the boy to stop the both of them, which doesn’t really work. The girl appears to work for some kind of organization, and she isn’t really doing the best of a job. You’d wonder why she was even hired. Anyway, a big digimon arrives, and because the boy is so awesome, he manages to knock it down with a single punch. Agumon evolves for a bit and sends the digimon back, happy ending. Blegh. I’m going to stay away from this.

Some quick first impressions: ARIA The Natural, Haruhi Suzumiya and Soul Link

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions




The next bunch of first episodes of the new series got fansubbed. Both of these three induced some kind of hate/love-relationship in me. Anyway, here are some previews:

ARIA The Natural
This just is the most peaceful series ever. I felt totally relaxed afterwards. The art and music also are beautifully done. I’m just a bit scared that this was a bit too peaceful. The plot looks like it’ll be nothing really big, and I really can’t imagine tension in this show. I don’t think that I’ll keep watching this show. It’s not like it isn’t good or anything, but otherwise, I’ll end up watching too many series at once.

Soul Link
This could have become a good series. I feel a deep plot behind this. The only problem is that the creators somehow found it a good idea to throw in huge amounts of fanservice. In one episode, we manage to see our main character bump into cute girls for at least two times, we have a bishounen as rival, the women get more shots of their chests than their face, our main characters get to be featured in the famous shower-encounter, and let’s not forget the little kid that pulls up skirt. Sigh, what a pity. I’ll try watching this one more episode, in the hope of it getting a bit better. After all, in one episode, they used almost all of the fanservice cliché’s available, so next time should have a bit less of them. Shouldn’t it?

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
What kind of horrible series is this? The overuse of fanservice is horrible, the plot is horrible, how can this possibly be called anime? I found myself thinking these words during the first couple of minutes of this anime. Why did the creators even think about creating such a monstrosity?! At the end of the episode, I understood. I totally understood. I’m a bit scared to continue to watch this. The main character scares me. I mean, she must be totally evil if she manages to make her friends to these kinds of things. I’m really getting scared of her. *shivers*

Bleach – 75/76

by psgels, posted in Bleach



Another Bleach Special. This time with a new OP and ED. I don’t really care for the OP, but how dare the creators change that awesome ED into something like that!?

Anyway, the special begins with the new Bounto who comes and uses metal marbles as a weapon. These marbles join together and form some kind of metal-marble-woman. They get kidnapped afterwards. Then we switch back to Ichigo&co, who seem to have found out the bad guy’s hideout. The three modified souls get into human-mode again (Woo!), the group arrives at the mansion, and for some strange reason, they split up. Then all of them get chased by weird spying eyeballs who grow a mouth, until they meet up with the snake-guy again, along with all the other evil Bountos. Ichigo stays behind to fight them, while Rukia and the modified souls go and find Ishida.

For some strange reason, the snake-guy prefers to fight alone. That’s the beauty of these bad guys. You can always trust them to neatly line up, so that you can fight them one by one. Who needs teamwork anyway? Anyway, fight, fight, blah, blah, Ichigo beats snake-guy by releasing a lot of spirit power. Rukia, meanwhile, encounters a shinigami who betrayed his team. Apparently, he didn’t like Zenpachi too well, so he deserted and ended up with the Bountos. Of course, he has to carefully explain this to a total stranger, so that everyone can hear again what kind of things he did, and exactly how he did it, even though everyone with a bit of sense already figured this out in the last episode. When he has almost killed Rukia, he will of course let the chance to kill her slip in order to protect his master. In this case, against the snake-guy who seems to have deserted his master and has some plans of his own. These plans last short, as the shinigami comes over and kills him in a second. Next episode will probably feature the fight between this guy and Ichigo. Exciting.

Ergo Proxy – 05

by psgels, posted in Ergo Proxy



Holy god, Pino’s just too innocent. That certainly became clear after this episode.

Anyway, we start with Vincent, trying to figure out what to do and the other people around him who begin to get angrier by the minute because of his prescense. Hude saves him for a moment by telling some quick lies, about how Vincent is the savior of the ousiders and he’ll bring Romdeau to fall. He carries these lies, however, way too far, until they quickly get out of hand. You can realy see he was having trouble with this. Pino meanwhile finds a friend to play and draw this. That was just too cute.

Then Ril arrives, with the intention of taking Vincent back. From this moment on, Hude gets to play a great role. We get to see that he’s desperate to go back to Romdeau, so he does whatever it takes to get Ril to take him back. Pino and her new friend also played a great role in this by annoying the hell out of him, which includes painting his face with some nice red colors. (she takes off her bunny-suit as well). Ril, of course, isn’t impressed with this, and takes Vincent back, while she suddenly gets the message that Romdeau is aiming to clean up the outside world, in other words, they intend to kill everyone.

They get out too late, so Ril and Vincent get attacked by Romdeau’s Techibi. Then it appears that Proxy isn’t dead after all, Ril gets hit by one of the Techibi projectiles and Vincent loses his concience. Pino, meanwhile gets taught a small lesson about doing what you like most, instead of copying others. We then switch back to Ril and Vincent, back in Hude’s hut. Ril’s now also stranded in the outside and begins to get a bit desperate and collapses. Pino, meanwhile takes a dive in the water (which looks too cute, by the way), and then she gets a first-in-a-lifetime-experience. I won’t tell what happens because of the spoiler-ness of these scenes. Pino still doesn’t understand this, and goes to take Queen. Then the episode ends. (And yes, I know that this was a crappy episode summary)

Overall, this was an amazing episode. Especially Pino and Hude were great. Although I’m also very happy about Vincent, Ril and Queen. I’m very curious about the next episode now.

Noein – 19

by psgels, posted in Noein

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This episode mostly focused on the differences between adults and children. Especially Kooriyama and Uchida are put in the spotlight. They’re both struggling to survive in the grown-up world, and against that total idiot of a boss of Haruka’s father. It doesn’t really work out the way they wanted. Haruka struggles with the topic of remembering. She realizes that precious memories will be forgotten once you get older, and already starts to notice that this is happening with herself as well. Overall, it was nice to see, although it could’ve been a bit less time-consuming.

The plot developments in this episode were awesome. Even though this was just an intermezzo, we get to see a very nice cliffhanger for next week. I expected Noein to hit first, but Kuina strangely hasn’t given up yet, and is as stubborn as ever. In the current timespace, Atori also gets involved in a huge plot twist. Of course, we don’t get to see what it means, as the cliffhanger prevented us from finding out.

I’m hoping that the next episode will feature a bit more music. Noein’s got the most awesome music ever, the scenes really get an extra boost out of it. It’s just that it doensn’t use it often enough.