Author: psgels

Moyashimon – 13

by psgels, posted in Moyashimon

Holy crap, I am so late! And screw this, I’m going to blog Moyashimon. This episode convinced me that it deserves a second season. As a matter of fact, it could very well become better than the first season at this rate. It really deserves this with such a tight script, and it’s definitely more than just a comedy. Plus, I have a point that I want to make.

Over the past weeks, I noticed quite a few people who commented on how uneventful this season is. And I’ve been thinking, the only way in which I can agree with that is if you’d compare it to last season with its huge quantity of standout series. Nevertheless, I’d still call this season a stand-out one, and definitely a unique one.

I mean, this isn’t like 2011’s summer season, which had a ton of series with amazing starts. What this season does have however, is creativity. Seriously: there is Uta Koi with its tons of historical content, Moyashimon with its focus on bacteria, Jinrui with its fairies and satire, Horizon with its powers and world. On top of that there is the dramatic heavy hitter of Natsuyuki Rendezvous, Hyouka and Uchuu Kyoudai which carried over from the previous seasons, and Hunter X Hunter is getting to the point where it gets really fired off. I mean I don’t know about you or anything, but I have more than enough to watch this season. If I had to label it with one word, it’d be “interesting”. Perhaps it’s not the most dramatic season (aside from perhaps Eurka Seven and Natsuyuki Rendezvous, but there is more than enough to keep you busy.

Anyway, Moyashimon: did it always have such a good script here? I mean, there is a lot of interesting dialogue in this episode, and unlike with shows as Joshiraku, it feels like the characters are actually explaining things to each other, rather than just provide exposition. The characters here have a chemistry together and feel just like real college students. The acting in this show is quite well done, if perhaps overshadowed by the other Noitamina-series this season.

Also, I remember again why I have hardly any memories of the first season: its ending was rather bad. Sure, with this second season it’s not an ending anymore, but it still was a rather rushed gimmicky episode whose concept ended with a very disappointing cop-out. I hope that the creators aren’t going to do the same for this second season.
Rating: Excellent

Uta Koi – 03

by psgels, posted in Uta Koi

Now that all Summer series have debuted, I can say this for certain: Uta Koi has the best soundtrack of the season. Even though this is a season that has three of my favorite composers in it (Yuki Kajiura, Kou Otani and Hikaru Nanase), it is Yasunori Mitsuda who until now was completely unknown to me who really stole the show. And on top of that, the soundtrack is also really well used, and knows exactly what tracks to use at each moment.

And yeah, this series is just fascinating. The Heian era is one that doesn’t appear often in anime, in favor of the samurai and Sengoku eras and all, but I still find that onE very interesting. This series takes people shrouded in mystery (in this episode’s case Ono no Komachi and gives its own interpretation to them. The most important creative liberties here are Ono no Komachi’s position and the reason why her lover couldn’t visit her for the full 100 days.

it just takes a while to get used to these weird stylistic choices that the creators went with. This time, Fujiwara no Teika dressed up as the new Tokyo Sky Tower… okay. And yet, for the childish voice he uses, the actual episode took itself pretty seriously and didn’t feel childish at all, and it also put a lot of emphasis on the misogyny that reigned during those days.
Rating: Excellent

Hyouka – 13

by psgels, posted in Hyouka

This is a bit of a strange arc here. Hyouka is technically a mystery-series, yet there is about 0 seconds of mystery in these past two episodes: it’s the story about the mysterious stolen props. Instead, this arc is about showing off the school that this series takes place in. We’ve seen glimpses so far, but this time we really get a good overview of what the school looks like and what kind of culture it’s got.

This is something that Kyoani often likes to put emphasis on, especially Kanon of all series took place in what really felt like a school, rather than have this be an obligatory place for people to meet. As someone who hasn’t been in a high school for seven years (god, I feel old saying that), I definitely appreciate that.

I also like the variety in this arc a lot: the creators gave everyone something significantly different to do: Chitanda to be overwhelmed by the different clubs, Satoshi keeping track of all of the events, while succeeding in promoting the classics club, Oreki is his usual self doing nothing, and Ibara took care of the tension and drama with her manga club. They balanced together quite nicely.

Oreki had some interesting moments in this episode with Chitanda’s photos, but I also want to talk a bit about the OP. I don’t really like the OP: the visuals aren’t as inspired as the first OP, and the song is just dull J-Pop to me (I think it’s clear by now that I’m really not a fan of J-Pop and J-Rock), but it does stand out in how it portrays Oreki, especially at the end in which the rest of the characters doodle on his face and he gets angry and starts chasing them…. now does that really sound in-character? Would he really be the type of character who would get so pissed off by this that he’d forget his own laziness and start chasing people?
Rating: Excellent

Rinne no Lagrange – 15

by psgels, posted in Rinne no Lagrange

This episode was really good, although I’m still clueless on what the rest of its plot will be about. I mean there is this obvious war and Ran’s brother who needs to be stopped, on top of those strange Vox powers, but beyond that I have no clue how the creators plan to spice things up. At first I thought that this would be Muginami and Ran who continue to fight over Madoka, but that was solved in this episode by something that a lot of other teenaged pilots should do: by talking things out. So what’s next?

What I mean by this is: Rinne no Lagrange still needs something to make it stand out in its second half. Aquarion had its bizarre fanservice, Mouretsu Pirates had its huge and addictive cast. With Rinne no Lagrange, the ingredients are all there to make an impact. It’s the type of series that puts a lot of emphasis on reaching out and prevention, rather than dumb action. Now, make use of this!

One thing that already changed a lot at this point is the powers of the Vox. I’m not sure what happened at the end of the first season when Midori produced that giant flower, but Madoka can now hear what’s in the minds of the other Vox powers, and that’s likely to only be the beginning.
Rating: Excellent

Some Quick First Impressions: Ebiten

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Ebiten

Short Synopsis: Our lead character strips innocent girls to their underwear.
So, Ebiten has immediately won the “Worst character-designs of the season”-award (those eyes!), but what about the rest of the episode? Well, I guess it wasn’t that bad. Of course it wasn’t anything amazing, and don’t ask me why that one girl had to be stripped and tied up all the time, but when the characters in this episode started role-playing, things got fairly amusing. Ebiten is a show that thrives on meta-fiction: its set up is similar to the bad parts of Haruhi, and there were a lot of Saint Seiya references in this episode. And not the kind of references that are there for the sake of having references, but they were actively used. I think the best series to compare this with is a Joshiraku minus the wordplay and with a ton of random fanservice added, but unlike Joshiraku the characters were trying to be actual characters, rather than vehicles for the author to show off his sense of wordplay. Does that make up for the fanservice? I dunno? That depends on the next episodes.
ED: Why are you trying to make live-action girls substitute for the characters? It’s not like they look alike or anything; bad use of idols
Potential: 50%

AKB0048 – 12

by psgels, posted in AKB0048

It still surprises me with how much this series can get away. I mean, this must have been originally intended as some sort of sell-out, and yet: the ED of this episode is purely instrumental. It was a really good ED, but it in no way promotes AKB48 as an idol group. Really: whoever was behind that idea: I really admire the balls it must have taken to go with this.

Add that to the different cast members openly criticizing the system for AKB0048, on top of this episode showing how this business can mentally break down these girls from the stress they face. These are some very surprising liberties, and with this, I really hope for a second season for this series. especially since this episode came with a bunch of twists that can only be good with some extra episodes.

In a 1-cour series, claiming on the 12th episode that you’re going to say goodbye means an aftermath. In a 2-cour series, it means character development end evolution. Same for that new pet thingy that appeared at the end of the episode.

Also, how many “hard work and guts”-tropes is Nagisa going to subvert anyway? I mean, they go on this heroic quest to save her father, but he doesn’t want to be rescued. She gets her chance to perform in the center of the stage, and breaks down. The motivational speech she gets in this episode about not giving up doesn’t change anything: she still lost, but it made her face the fact that she did rather than completely turning the tables. She still had to see everyone work extra hard to make up for her.

Does that make her a bad character? Here’s the thing: I usually hate characters who don’t do anything, because they’re completely pointless. Nagisa is different, though: her uselessness has a point, and she also has a character; I especially liked that she changed after meeting her father and decided to not inconvenience her mother.
Rating: Excellent

Jinrui wa Suita Shimashita – 03

by psgels, posted in Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita

In this episode, our lead female meets a manga author that she went to school with who invents gay romance fiction and creates a legion of fujoshi by doing so. The thing is, and I’m not sure why, but I had trouble keeping my attention on this episode and I kindof wonder why.

Well, there of course is the way that I’m not interested in works that are purely fanservice and the entire culture that surrounds it, but also: how does this world work anyway? They have cars and apparently methods to transport huge amounts of people, but simple fiction and a printing press is something lost to the ages?

If anything, I fail to miss the point that this episode wants to make. Was it all meant to build up to that moment at the end in which they got caught in a manga? In that case, there is something that bothers me: this series will likely be only 12 episodes long. i feel like it’s taking too long to get from A to B. For a series as Uchuu Kyoudai this is fine because it’s both long and consistently interesting, but with this episode, this series is neither…
Rating: Enjoyable

Uchuu Kyoudai – 16

by psgels, posted in Uchuu Kyoudai

The chemistry between the characters in this episode was just amazing. Even more than usual; the facial expressions said so much about the different cast members, and the stress amongst them was just wonderfully portrayed for every single character, aside from perhaps that woman in team B. I like it when a show withholds the state of mind of some of its characters, but I also just love how this series attempts to dive into the mindsets of multiple characters at the same time, to show how differently they all end up reacting to what’s going on.

As for the reason I dislike slow pacing: that can be attributed to Naruto and Bleach. What I really dislike is the kinds of series that pad out their time, for the sake of padding out time. A recent example of this was Kaiji’s second season, in which everyone started to repeat themselves over and over and over ad nauseum.

With this however, I really want to applaud Uchuu Kyoudai for showing how a slow pacing should be done: every scene adds something. Every characterization improves the characters and makes them more rounded. And the great thing about this is: this series managed to find a way to never be boring; it’s always interesting, due to the fantastic acting here. Because of this, the creators are able to create an engaging story with a lot of twists and turns and really well rounded characters to boot.

Of course, right now it’s pretty clear that Fukuda and that Rubix cube guy are people from JAXA sent in to stir up trouble, but what interests me much more than the mystery around them is the way they’re acting and how they managed to cause the tension around everyone to rise.
Rating: (Awesome)

Total Eclipse – 03

by psgels, posted in Total Eclipse

The big downside to having nearly every show air on the same day in a season like this is that if you’re away for the weekend you suddenly have an incredible backlog. It’s gonna take me a while to catch up to everything here.

In any case, Total Eclipse showed its true colours in this episode with what I presume to be the main cast. And if I have to be honest, I’m not that impressed by them. A lot of them feel flat and stereotypical, and in particular that Italian Playboy and that Nepalese tsundere are annoying to watch. Apart from that this episode was chock full of one-liners that had a similar problem as Jormungand, in that everyone was just trying to out-snark each other. . The chemistry between these people seems very forced.

On top of that, what makes me wonder is that all these people lost their homes and their country. How can all of them be so cheerful? How can the big angsty flashback be about something as simple as a minor pilot’s quarrel. I’m thinking about swapping this with Tari Tari or Moyashimon if this is what we’re going to get for the rest of this series.
Rating: (Disappointing)

Summer 2012 Kaleidoscope – Week 28

by psgels, posted in Summer 2012 Kaleidoscope

#1: Polar Bar Cafe – 15: This show… is brilliant. Oh my god, I’m nearly dying from laughing here. This show managed to surpass itself yet again. – ***+ (Amazing)

#2: Tamayura Hitotose – 05,5: One issue that i still can’t find a good solution for is how to cover OVAs. The thing is, that I want to cover these things because I’ve often noticed that they suffer from a lack of buzz and people don’t often know about them, even though there is some very good stuff amongst them. The problem though is that in my experience, it’s too much of a chore to devote a single post to all of them. What I’m still searching for is some sort of catalog or easily accessible post or page that would briefly highlight the noteworthy OVAs out there. But for now I’ll just include them in these ratings. This episode was awesome and I nearly dozed off due to how relaxing it was. This is what I mean by using ovas well: this episode showed so much about Potte and her father. Awesome. – *** (Awesome)

#3: Computer Kakumei OVA: Computar Kakumei and the below listed Marimo no Hana are two OVAs of only 10 minutes long that have a surprising amount of talent within them (heck, both directors worked on multiple episodes of the Tatami Galaxy and Kaiba among others). While this didn’t come together for Marimo no Hana, Computer Kakumei is actually quite interesting. At first it seemed a bit of a sell-out with the lead’s female’s father suddenly getting hospitalized, but there was a surprising amount of heart to it. The visuals also look very pretty, but what caught my attention the most was how good the soundtrack was.In fact, for such a short OVA… I can hardly recall any OVA of that length that had a better soundtrack other than Comedy. – ** (Excellent)

#4: Tari Tari – 02: I’m not going to blog this series for the fear that it’ll be too short to make any real impact. But still this episode impressed me with how much went on there. I thought that the entire series would revolve around getting the choir club going, but with this episode this entire subplot has been resolved already. This definitely was a significant difference from the first episode and I quite like how the creators juggled around the roles for everyone and made everyone important in trying to make the joint recital. – ** (Excellent)

#5: Hyouka – 11,5: Again, I’ve gotten a bit tired about devoting full entries to OVA episodes like this, so I’ll just list this one here. It’s a pool episode, and while it’s not a very good pool episode (remove the pool part and this episode still would have been able to make the points it wanted to make), it is quite worth watching, if only for what they did to Oreki’s character and his boredom here. – *+ (Great)

#6: Binbou-Gami ga! – 02 – Unfortunately, this is as I expected: this episode was not as good as the first, by far. The new character introduced is just an overblown unfunny stereotype and this episode flowed far from as smoothly. On top of that, a majority of the jokes was very forced and fell rather flat. This is a bad sign. – (Enjoyable)

#7: Hunter X Hunter – 38: This episode only featured the same exposition I’ve already seen before. So yeah, I found this really boring, but it’s good to have all this set-up over with now; this part was even longer and more annoying back in the 1999 series. – – (Disappointing)

#8: Marimo no Hana – OVA: So, AKB0048 is currently very good. Interestingly, this 10-minute OVA is an example of how not to use them. Two of its members basically voice the main male and female. And the male one sounds like a girl. I mean, totally, without any question. And really, I’m not blaming the girls here, the producer here should have known that you can’t just throw idols everywhere and expect this to work out, and this really was a cheap cash-in with no thought put into it whatsover. Which is a darn shame, because this OVA has a bunch of really good animators working on it. – – (Disappointing)

#9: Yuruyuri 02 – 02: When I watch a comedy, I want to watch something that makes me laugh. Not something that dabbles on randomly while trying to annoy me. Dropped. – — (Lacking)

#10: La Storia della Arcana Famiglia – 02: I checked Amazon. And I could only find 6 DVD volumes listed, meaning that it’ll be highly likely that this show will only have 12 episodes. For that, it’s goofing off way too much, there is too little happening: go back to fun action scenes instead of having bishies talk to each other trying to act quirky while saving kittens. Dropped. – — (Lacking)

#11: Phi Brain – 39: Why, Phi Brain? Why!? There was so much wrong with this episode it’s not even funny. Why did you decide to bring back the single most pathetic villain of the first season? Why did you find it a good idea to bring back such a comically evil bad guy? Why did you kidnap Elena without involving Gammon in this at all? Did you entirely forget the romantic hints that the first season was building up to? Why did you take Nonoha instead? Why did she end up partaking into part of the puzzle now of all times, in which she was absolutely useless? Why didn’t you give her something to redeem herself with? Why did you make Rook appear from out of nowhere? Why did Rook’s helper arrive just at the right time? Why did they know about a kidnapping that even Cubic wasn’t aware of? Why did you suddenly introduce two game players, even though the Orpheus Order people have up till now always battled the main cast directly? There are just so many things about this series now that make no sense whatsoever from a storytelling perspective. It’s like this series WANTS to ruin itself or something. — (Bad)

#12: Campione- 02: I dropped this about 4 minutes into the episode, in which this show revealed itself as a harem, the lead female completely changed character and the male lead’s sister got jealous at her. —- (Terrible)