Author: psgels

Bleach – 70

by psgels, posted in Bleach


This episode consisted of two parts. A part in which the Bounto featured, and a part in which they didn’t.

The former wasn’t really entertaining. The only good part is that we now know that we aren’t dealing with 2-dimensional villains (Well, at least one of them isn’t). The snake-guy also wan’t really something to be looking forward to. Okay, he’s got a power that’s completely original. But the way he uses it, it’s just as if he just learned how to deal with it.

The latter really was enjoyable to see. The character interaction was top-notch as usual and had me smirking for quite a few times. It was really refreshing to see Rukia’s normal side again, instead of her constant worries.

But there’s one thing that’s been bugging me… Rukia lost all of her powers… didn’t she?

Noein – 15

by psgels, posted in Noein


"Shangri-La is a fictional place described in the novel, Lost Horizon, written by British writer James Hilton in 1933. In it, "Shangri-La" is a mystical, harmonious valley, gently guided from a lamasery, enclosed in the western end of the Himalaya. Shangri-La has become synonymous with any earthly paradise but particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia — a permanently happy land, isolated from the outside world. The story of Shangri-La is based on the concept of Shambhala, a mystical city in the Buddhist religion." – Wikipedia.

Noein’s image of Shangri-La tries to explain the mysteries of this utopian place. It’s indeed a perfect world, with no problems what so ever. Although the thoughts behind it are horrifyingly realistic.

Once again, we see that Noein is excellent in creating the physical settings of the anime. This goes for Shangri-La, but even more for La’Cryma and the current timespace. Especially the latter one sticks to your mind. Why? Because the creators make such effective use of the tools given to them. For example, the Aeral Tramway to the mountain lookout. This gives a nice overview of the city, which actually makes sense (instead of the usual copy-and-paste-city-views usually seen in movies) and I’m actually able to recognize some of the places encountered in the anime. The fact that certain locations are just unique and keep on returning only contributes to this fact.

Anyway, about the episode. A LOT got revealed this time. We finally get to see Haruka’s father as he is in the current timepace, including the troubles he suffers from. The researchers come in contact with Toby and Karasu, thus learning a few things. A certain unwanted guest makes an appearance, and some critical information is shown about Shangri-La. Another pleasant-looking surprise is that the Ouroboros may be something much bigger than we originally thought of. It’s always been there, and I took it a bit for granted. But it seems that it’ll get a gret role in the end.

I can’t say that I didn’t love this episode. Therefore I won’t. Everything flowed so brilliantly, the music was awesome as ever, there was just one tiny fight, which was better then most anime can accomplish, and the cliffhanger just makes me thirsty for more. (Now that I think of it… the cliffhanger showed in episode 14 hasn’t been mentioned at all…)

Jigoku Shoujo – 11

by psgels, posted in Jigoku Shoujo


Our case this time: an editor of a corrupt newspaper published an article thta made some guy’s father go to prison, thus destroying his whole family. Some guy wants revenge for this and calls for Jigoku Shoujo. The special thing about this episode (skip this part if you’re just like me and allergic to spoilers) is that we have the guy who’s been returning for the past couple of episodes (is it me and my memory, or are their names never even mentioned?) meeting up with him, and learning about his plans.

This certainly was a "guy-who’s-been-returning-for-the-past-couple-of-episodes"-episode (I think I’ll call him the Reporter from now on, until I get to figure out his name). We get to know his character, we see why he’s so interested in Jigoku Shoujo, his struggles to prevent her from delivering her revenges and a satisfying ending.

I just had two issues with this episode. 1: Why did the Reporter coincidentally meet up with a victim of Jigoku Shoujo? And why does he have such perfect timing? This episode just let an aweful lot depend on Lady Fortuna, unfortunately. 2: I’m also getting kinda bored with the revenge-delivering scenes. I don’t know why, but they seem to be getting boring and repetitive, which is a strange thing for a show like Jigoku Shoujo. It’s like that the creators threw these scenes in out of pity. I’m not really happy with this, as these scenes do for a part of the climax.

AOMM Anime Blog Quality Rating

by psgels, posted in Special Articles

Ah well. Every anime blogger suffering from an inferiority complex can breathe easily again. I just compared Jason’s newest masterpiece of Anime Blog support, the anime blog quality rating, with Star Crossed. You can see the results below. Let’s just say that you’re currently reading on the worst Anime Blog yet, as I don’t think that anyone will have a lower score.

+1 point for viewable on small (i.e. 1024 x 768) monitors.
+1 point for using good HTML techniques, i.e. specifying width and height tags for images and description tags for links.
+1 point for using e-mail address.
+1 point for about page. (If you count the puny page I have…)
+1 point for at least ten posts a month.
-1 point for any day with more than five posts. (What can I say? I almost always reserve one post per episode. And at some days, I watch a lot of anime ^^;)
+1 point for keeping a blogroll.
+1 point for lack of comment spam.
+1 point for RSS or Atom feed available.
+1 point for valid and Magpie parsable RSS or Atom feed.
+1 point if posts are categorized by series or some other system that makes some sense.
+1 point for screenshots.
+1 point for punctuation.
+1 point for spoiler warnings.
+3 points for not being afraid to go against popular opinion.
+3 points for bringing something new to the table.
+3 points for blogging about shows no one else is at the moment.

This makes a total of 21, otherwise known as a horribly low score. But ah well, you know what they say: the more mistakes you make, the more you learn. 🙂

Ayakashi ~Japanese Classic Horror~ – 04

by psgels, posted in Ayakashi ~Japanese Classic Horror~


Holy god, this was one paranoid episode. I loved it!

Ayakashi is divided in three parts, each worth of four episodes. This episode featured the ending of the first part. I’m very pleased with it up till now. The first part featured Iemon getting what he deserved. Okay, it was predictable right from episode two, but the storytelling totally made up for it. I don’t know if it’s just me, but it’s fun seeing a sick person like that getting all scared and having illusions. The rats may have been a bit too much, though, although they set for a grand finale.

The second part of the episode told us about the background of the story. This certainly was a nice addition to anyone on par with the Japanese history. When you don’t know a lot about it, it might become boring, though.

Revolutionary Girl Utena – 32

by psgels, posted in Revolutionary Girl Utena

This episode shows the second half of this Nanami arc. After the things she saw and witnessed last episode, she really begins to fall apart. Touga, of course, helps her in doing this. Afterwards, it’s also her turn to see the end of the world. I really like what she manages to do afterwards. You could almost put a sign on her with the text: "don’t mess with me!" That’s the beauty of Nanami: she can be really poisonous at times, with beautiful results.

Anyway, during her fight, this was really noticable. I’m giving two thumbs up for the choreographers for this. The fight itself was short, with not much happening, for a standard Utena-fight anyway. However, the battle choreography-department seemed to extra their best this time. I don’t know how, but I could really see Nanami giving her utter best in this fight. I think the way she moved was different…

I’m also noticing that, the longer I keep watching the show, the faster I can be able to identify all of the different symbols used. And I realize that there were far more used than I would have imagined. The freaky thing is, that all of these symbols have some kind of hidden meaning, and they all relate to the main plot.

Popolocrois Story – 06

by psgels, posted in Popolocrois Story 1998


We get another pretty entertaining episode this time. GamiGami returns after having been absent for two episodes, and his plans are wackier than ever. Pietro also shows some signs of character development, Ston and Sanda mess up once again, and I was a bit startled when Hyuu came with her unorthodox idea to find some of the lost wind-kind…

Ayakashi – Japanese Clasic Horror – 03

by psgels, posted in Ayakashi ~Japanese Classic Horror~

The goodness continues. Somehow, the third episode managed to follow the second episode’s brilliance. The first half of the episode shows several characters struggle with Oiwa’s curse. It was lovely to see all of them become so paranoid at her sight. The second half of the episode, we get to see a bit of Osode’s story. That one is so full of unexpected plot twist, I really had to control myself not to fall off my chair…

I really like the way this show is heading for. It’s not often when deaths of characters are so common, that the creators manage to make each and everyone of those deaths awesome to witness. Not to mention all of the different complots that are going on. At first you might think them to be boring and repetitive, but once you see more of them, you’ll be able to see the unique aspects of all these complots.

Bleach – 68/69

by psgels, posted in Bleach

Never did I have such hate/love relationships as with these episodes. Like I predicted, this filler arc ended at episode 68. The good thing is that the awesome bad guys get to stay a bit longer. Let’s hope they’ll get some nice airtime. The bad thing was, that the way the creators resolved this, was horribly uncreative. It doesn’t make any sense either. Why would Yoruichi have interfered with them in the previous episode? Well then, we get some boring explanations, Ichigo discovers that he can’t use his bankai anymore (seriously… not the training stuff again? *dies*). Then a sentence appeared that horrified me. "The Hougyouku that he took has another year’s worth of preparation before it can be used." I kindof feared that something like this would happen, but are the creators seriously trying to put another year into this? I so hope they find a very creative way to solve this.

Anyway, we have some talk, a new bad guy gets introduced, who appears to be the woman in the ED. I wonder when we’ll get to meet the big boss… Ah well, then we finally see what the ED has been hinting all along: the arrival of the three stuffed animals. I’m kindof disappointed with this. The three in their human-like form were extremely amusing, but right now it seems that they’ll be spending most of their time in stuffed-animal-mode. Anyway, their reaction to this was certainly amusing. It’s just too bad that Kon managed to ruin this with his whining.

The rest of episode 69 shows us a bit more info on the new bad guys. One of them lets just go of Chad and Inoue. I don’t see why he had to… apart from being convenient for the creators… The new bad guys themselves also seem like a bit of a disappointment. From the outside, they really look like two-dimensional villains. Especially if you compare them with the previous arc.

The episode ends with something that had to be inavoidable for this show. On one side, it can prove for some nice situations, but on the other side, the creators certainly could have spent a bit more time on thinking this over a bit, as it couldn’t have been done in a more cliché’d way.

Bleach shines when friendly characters annoy the hell out of each other. Bleach falls when it tries to be serious. I think that’s the best way to describe how I feel about this show.

Jigoku Shoujo – 10

by psgels, posted in Jigoku Shoujo

Jigoku Shoujo’s episodes may have been amazing, there was always one clear good side, and one clear bad side. This epidose, even those borders are torn apart, as good and bad change rapidly int each other. I can’t say anything other than that I loved it.

The way this episode resolved was also amagreat. It may have been a bit predictable once you see it coming, (about a minute before it actually happens), but the tiny moment you see it coming like that will be blowing you off your chair.

We also see Ai, for the first time, making some decisions, and it’s also clear that her servants also don’t really know what she’s up to all of the time. That might be good for future episodes.

Anyway, this wasn’t the best episode yet, but that doesnt mean that it wasn’t a great watch.