Category: Currently Watching:

Nanatsu no Taizai – 05

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:

One of the problems facing this series is the presentation of threats. In many other shounen you can just bring out some powerful villain and have him force the protagonist to get stronger. In seven deadly sins however our main characters are already veteran legendary warriors with tremendous power. So just adding in a strong warrior would undermine their status as legendary. So the author has to find ways to place the Sins in disadvantageous positions. The two villains in this episode did just that.

Our first villain attempted to poison Meliodas but when didn’t work he used the princess as a way to prevent Meliodas from going on the offensive and forced him to defend her. On top of that the villain had what seemed to be a method of teleportation. So the threat was not to Meliodas but to those he was protecting. This made Meliodas think out of the box and presented a better fight than a battle of who call pull out the biggest deus ex machina. The second villain also used a troublesome technique, making Daine mistake Meliodas for a holy knight and for Meliodas likewise. Leaving the episode with the two unknowingly fighting each other. This is a great threat to a character who is already powerful. Using their power against them.

While I find the villains costumes ridiculous at least their methods are interesting. But there were some small issues here. The fanservice for one. When escaping Ban the third sin stripped a female knight of her armour. Which turned out to be a waste of time because it didn’t fit. All so we could have her be embarrassed in her underwear. Well we do need the money shots don’t we? Still Ban is at least proving to be a enjoyable Sin, even with the unoriginal personality. It was good seeing him in the flashback egging on the Meliodas to strike him in anger only to see him get angry for the first time. He’s going to need a little more fleshing out to differentiate himself from the many other battle manic type shounen characters.  Another was the doctors death. This because it was pretty obvious what the intent was and this being a shounen series I have to wonder if he’s genuinely dead. Shounen characters have survived swords through the chest before gentlemen. This series so far has been solid but future episodes depend on whether they can keep these overpowered character’s battles interesting.

Psycho Pass 2 – 03 – 04

by ninjarealist, posted in Currently Watching:, Psycho Pass 2

Episodes 3 and 4 of Pyscho Pass are difficult to talk about. This show has been extremely consistent so far. The staff have handled this sequel with an understated confidence that’s hard to dislike. I still don’t find the show to be as atmospheric as the original, and I still like the dialogue less, but the narrative continues to be engaging. I think where the narrative has really succeeded is in avoiding extraneous clutter that would detract from the major themes of the show.

However, this is both a strength and a weakness. While Psycho Pass 2 doesn’t waste time, the direct style of writing can be a bit predictable at times. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who saw the drinking scene between Aoyanagi and Ginoza as a clear death flag. And one episode later, sure enough, Aoyanagi gets turned into red pudding . This show is clearly trying to shock the viewer and I think it would do a better job at this if the plot was a little more surprising. But that’s a minor quip.

I think a bigger quip would be that if they were trying to shock the viewer with the violence in episode 4, they didn’t do a great job. The hand-to-hand combat shown in the first part of the episode was quite disturbing, and really succeeded at unnerving me. But this effect was sort of ruined with the gratuitous dominator shootout at the end, which honestly felt kind of cartoony to me.

And then there’s Mika Shimotsuki. As much as I hate to admit it, she’s really become the wild card in this series. Her ethically questionable decision-making raises some interesting questions, questions that don’t have easy answers. Chiefly, was her inaction simply malicious or does it speak to more undestandable flaws in her in character? And is her rage against Akane simply the result of a bad attitude or is her anger rooted in the trauma that was inflicted upon her in season 1? Is Mika just a testament to the failure of SYBIL to produce a healthy society? These are tough questions and I’m excited to see how they get resolved.

Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Bladeworks – 04

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Bladeworks

So after last weeks action packed episode it’s only natural that this week takes things easy. Though thankfully not by talking exposition. There was a scene with Saber explaining the class system but it was passed by fast and unlike the other infodumps so far, Shirou had a lot of input to help move things along. What surprised me is the addition of even more new material not present in the original visual novel. At the beginning we had a new scene with Illya explaining her actions to her maid which is welcome as I am sure many were asking the same questions her maid was asking. To have Illya explain herself was fine and all but I really question why this had to take place while she was taking a bath. I find it funny that this series only begins to show great faults when it starts to pander towards the fanbase. We also have a new action scene with Rin facing off against Casters dragon teeth minions in a office building. I do like the new different variations of the skeletons as opposed to the one design they had in the visual novel. But I think this scene was just to put in a little excitement to the episode as plotwise it was relatively pointless. However it does add a little more action to stop the slice of life aspects from becoming too prominent.

Otherwise the episode was about Shirou taking Saber to school and introducing Saber to Sakura and Taiga. With the episode ending on the setup for the next, that being Rin’s declaration that she will kill Shirou if he approaches her without understanding his position as a master. Does that mean this episode was uneventful? Hardly. To those who pay attention you are bound to notice foreshadowing. My personal favourite point was the archery club captain Ayaka’s talk with Shirou. She was good at probing the things that make Shirou who he is without being overly expository about it or spelling it out. I also like that they are toning down Shirou’s affection for Saber. No heavy blushes or exaggerated moves. Here’s to hoping things are kept strictly professional this time between them. He does display these actions towards Rin now but unlike with Saber it’s not in irritating love struck puppy kind of way.

From what I heard these new scenes are written by Kinoko Nasu himself so that may be a reason as to why they don’t feel like filler. But that also means that the new information at the beginning of the episode has now officially become canon. That information being that Berserker gains back one of his lives after three days. Overpowering a character who is already overpowered, yeah that does sound like Nasu’s work. It’s one of his nasty habits that tends to corner him later on in his stories, but well moving on. The new scenes have only added to the series as a whole, helping keep the pacing to a speed more suitable for an anime adaption. It also provides insight into the other masters actions when previously we only seen this from Shirous perspective. My only worry is that they may take time away from the main plot which is already a rather sizeable length. I don’t mind trimming out the more slice of life scenes from the visual novel to make way for new content. But if it cuts time away from the main story we could start having issues. However I still say, just keep doing what you are doing UFOtable, cause so far so good.

Nanatsu no Taizai Episode 1-4

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:

Sorry for not giving this a first impression but I felt that to do so at this point would be redundant. So Nanatsu no Taizai, or Seven Deadly Sins if you prefer. An anime that certainly does nothing new. Every ounce of which filled with standard shounen battle manga tropes. Yes this anime does nothing new, instead it brings back something old. Seven Deadly Sins is reminiscent of old school shounen such as dragonball, Slayers and Fist of the North Star. Even the artstyle of the manga had a similar feel to that of Akira Toriyama. And in the age where mainstream shounen is that of blatant wish fulfilment such as Sword art online and Mahouka, this is most certainly welcome. To those who grew up on the likes of Dragonball Z, this will hit the nostalgia buttons.

The story is of a kingdom being terrorised by the holy knights, where a young princess Elizabeth seeks out the legendary Seven Deadly Sins. A group of exiled Knights who may be the last hope for the saving the kingdom. On her search she runs into a mysterious boy who owns a pub who could be connected to the ones she seeks. The story is simple but effective and wastes no time in getting started. It’s not long before we are introduced to our first Sin, Meliodas. Being our main protagonist, Meliodas is rather happy go lucky though not with the sense of idiotic naivety like Monkey D Luffy. More in the sense of a powerful warrior with a heap of confidence. The one aspect I am not fond of is his constant sexual harassment of Elizabeth, which is played for laughs. This is not out of righteous indignation mind you, but rather that it gets old fast. Elizabeth is a character chained by her role as a princess. Therefore you can likely guess her personality. She serves the needs of the plot but it doesn’t remedy the fact that she is rather boring. Daine the second sin, on the other hand is a great character. It’s so rare to have a giant as a main character and her method of fighting with brute force is one I love to watch. I also find her concern for her size and how others view her interesting. Such a pity she is crippled with a lovestruck fascination with Meliodas. Again used for comedic effect. The talking pig is a typical mascot character but well at least doesn’t grate on the nerves.

The animation seems fairly good with fight scenes having the necessary thrill. The art didn’t quite capture the style of the manga but it’s close enough to not warrant complaint. I do find fault with the fanservice but in comparison with the standard as of late this is very tame. And so far the story has been adapted perfectly. To those missing the glory days of Naruto and Bleach or looking for a nostalgic fix I do recommend this show. As both the manga and the anime have yet to suffer the curse of long running Shounen battle manga. I only hope it can stay that way. One last thing, the new third Sin in the fourth episode should have kept the beard. He looked much better with it.

Grisaia no Kajitsu – 04

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:

That’s it. I give up. I concede. I throw in the towel. I surrender. This is just a travesty, an unsalvageable mess. I have given this more patience than it deserves and it has rewarded me with tedium. The editing is schizophrenic and distracting. The dialogue and events passing by too fast for emotional impact. The animation and art barely passable. The presentation of the source material utterly baffling and without context. I can safely say that if you had not read the visual novel you would be completely lost on the story of this episode. And when an anime requires you to read it in another medium to understand it, then you have failed as an adaption. The music has been ripped straight from the visual novel and quite frankly you can tell. For a reading experience these tunes are fine but in this they are very out of place. Being more intrusive than anything. If I had to guess I say the producers of the anime struggled to search the game OST for suitable tracks, only to just try and force in whatever tune they landed on.

This episode has introduced us into one of the routes of the visual novel. Unfortunately the route of my least liked heroine, the blond fake tsundere Michiru. I previously stated in my last Grisaia review that to jump into the plot of one of the heroines without establishing an emotional attachment first is a mistake. The remedy the producers seemed to think would fix this was to just chuck a bunch of random skits to do with the heroine for the first half of the episode and hope for the best. It didn’t work. The skits passed by too fast and were too lazily done to be funny. The jump into her arc was vexing at best. Switching from a cheap philosophical conversation about life after death to low brow slapstick humor. I am rather confused at what the intent is here. Am I supposed to consider how “deep” that talk was and then after laugh because the girl put her hand on dog poo? Which target audience are we trying to hit here? And the end of the episode was a poor attempt at tragedy. Again this is something that needs an attachment to the characters to work, an attachment we cannot possibly have from some tiny little skits. We barely know anything about these characters. How can we feel for characters troubles when we do not even know the character herself?

So with high confidence I can declare that this can join the ranks of the many failed visual novel adaptions to be thrown into the animated medium. Unless there is some major development like a complete studio change I can safely say this is a lost cause. With my previous review, I stated that Fate/stay night UBW was how to adapt correctly. Well this is how not to adapt. Grisaia no Kajitsu is an adaption in the same way that M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Last Airbender” is an adaption. The characters may have the names and the story events may be present, but presented without soul and crushed down till it retains none of the quality. A shallow imitation with no charm or meaning. It’s only purpose to prevent the story from being handled by more capable hands and dissuade others from picking up the visual novel. I said before that this story was by no means a masterpiece. But to see it get degraded down to this is a sad sight. So with a heavy heart, I will drop this anime and see if I can find something more worth my time.

Your Lie in April – 02 & 03

by LightningBolt, posted in Currently Watching:, Your Lie in April

Your Lie in April has emerged as a bit of a nice surprise in this young season. The fairly popular noitaminA programming block has been pretty hit-and-miss of late, with some very good shows here and there but a much higher rate of complete duds compared to the block’s past. For this reason I approached Your Lie in April not so convinced that I was going to be a fan, despite a decent (though hardly groundbreaking) premise. Thankfully, through three episodes, the show has settled into a nice groove and has brought some pretty good drama and music to the table each week.

In episodes 2 and 3 of Your Lie in April we’ve gotten through character introductions and have seen beginnings of the various relationships present in the show. Our two leads, Kousei and Kaori, have gotten over their initial but shortlived hostility towards one another that stemmed from their meeting and have begun interacting on more friendly and deeper grounds. The writers didn’t waste much time in addressing Kousei’s trauma related to his piano playing and have faced it head-on in these episodes, ending with episode 3 having Kousei ready to accompany Kaori in her next performance. While there’s not much reason to believe Kousei’s over his trauma, it is refreshing that it hasn’t been dragged out as long as it could have (and as long as I was personally expecting) and that, whether things go smoothly during this performance or not, some kind of progress should be made in the next episode on this front, just as there was progress made in this latest episode. Perhaps this is one of the better aspects of Your Lie in April – there’s been consistent progress made in the story over all three episodes so far without a lot of the dragging out that plagues many stories, especially ones that touch on romance.

Not all is good in Your Lie in April, unfortunately. The main thing that sticks out to me as not being particularly well done is the comedy. While comedy is wildly subjective and difficult to critique without going to vague points, I do think the show’s comedy fails on most levels. In most comedic moments, the art style resorts to a more crude and simple style which tends to clash pretty strongly with the show’s normal highly detailed and well-done presentation. Most of the comedy also seems to be of the slapstick variety, which has never been a favorite of mine on a personal level. In episode 3 we had such moments like Kaori throwing a shoe at Kousei and giving him a heel drop at the end. Our female lead is quite the violent one. There are also a few other problems, though they aren’t very numerous and don’t detract too much from the experience. One such problem was the unnecessary “Friend A” thing thrown around so far. I immediately related it to the all-too-common character trope anime uses with lead characters who are super ordinary and live super normal lives. The thing is that Kousei isn’t that character. He’s already been through a lot as a person, he has a remarkable and outstanding talent, and, as mentioned in episode 3, he’s seen as a bit of a celebrity among musicians from his age group. I just don’t really understand where that whole “Friend A” thing came from that paints him as some forgettable background character.

Overall, Your Lie in April has been a pretty good watch through three weeks. I wouldn’t recommend it to the whole anime-watching world as of now, but I’m sure a lot of people would enjoy it so far. If you’re into drama/romance anime, then you might want to pick it up.

Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Bladeworks – 03

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Bladeworks

Well what can I say besides, I told you so. But even though I knew what was coming this is still remarkable. Not only is this episode excellent but it may in fact have topped it’s source material. It is at times like these that it is difficult to be both a Fate fan and a reviewer, as I fear I may just gush about this episode and give a gleeful ten out of ten. So bare with me as I try to appear objective. The episode was essentially one big fight scene between Saber, Archer and Berserker. Viewers of Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya may be surprised to see the former magical girl who learned about the importance of love and friendship, tell a giant behemoth to kill the people in front of her with nonchalant innocence. But to those of us who happened to see Fate/Zero we might have an idea as to why she might be full of murderous intent.

The stand outs of this episode was…the entire thing. Quite frankly the battle was phenomenal and never let up. This was a fight that would make the shounen big three green with envy. Positively jaw dropping animation with great choreography. But throughout the episode where small breathers. Those being a talk between Kirei and the blonde stranger, a small Shirou character moment and a battle between Rin and Ilya. The final of which I have confirmed to be brand new content not present in the original visual novel. This would normally be a negative point for fans but this actually managed to improve the story as a whole.

One of the biggest negative factors of Fate/stay night when compared to Fate/zero is that the masters of Zero actually got involved with the battle. In Fate/Stay night however in many cases the masters just stood at the sidelines and let the servants duke it out. Partly this was due to the inexperience of the masters of the fifth holy grail war. Here however we see Ilya putting up a fight as a master and showing that she’s more than Berserkers battery. It was a projectile based battle different from the close quarters combat of the servants and made the episode all the richer for it. Another new scene was Saber managing to cut berserker in half. I am a bit sceptical that she actually has the power to do this, however seeing as Sabers win record is rather disheartening I am willing to wave it off. Shirou’s moment was great as well, when seeing the battle between servants he is scared stiff and cursing his own powerlessness. But unlike a standard shounen protagonist who would spend a day angsting about this, Shirou quickly shakes it off and gets himself together. In the visual novel this was conveyed entirely through monologue but here it is done through a few spoken lines of dialogue and his actions. This my friends is the difference between simply shoving a story unaltered into another medium and adapting it for another medium. When you have the power to show, do not continue to tell.

If i was to truly nitpick as hard as i could I would say that some of the movement was exaggerated. In particular midair movement seems to disregard the laws of physics completely, with characters somersaulting and rolling through the air often pointlessly. But any one of you can tell me that doesn’t matter and I would gladly toss it aside as nothing. Because when the end result looks this good, who cares? UFOtable has done so far a amazing job in adapting fate/stay night. My only concern is whether they can keep up the pace. I would be solemnly worried that they wasted the budget on these first episodes. But if they can keep this level of quality…well this may be the best animated TV anime of all time.

Grisaia no Kajitsu – 03

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:

This isn’t looking good. Let me explain, Grisaia has a somewhat nakige visual novel approach. Meaning that it has a comedic relatively plotless first half, followed by a tragic heroine backstory related story arc. Notable examples of this is any Key visual novel anime adaption you can think of. So for the first half we will have to be amused by hijinks and comedy skits. And I am not amused. From the looks of things they just want to get this part over with and while this section did drag on far past it’s welcome in the visual novel, it was still important for setting up the characters personalities. If we were to delve into the plot now it would suffer because we have simply not spent enough time with the characters to develop an emotional attachment. But truth be told I with how this is being handled I doubt they could manage to accomplish that much.

Besides a fairly funny military chant in the beginning, comedy hit no notes, little in the way of character development happened and the animation may have possibly gotten worse. The only notable event was Amane confessing to Yuuji but even this was brushed off pretty fast with a “Oh well, I will be your big sister instead.” Truth be told I am grasping at straws here. There was jokes here that could have worked. The “Sachi making Yuuji a Bush dog strap” had comedic potential. However it was put off by bad comic timing and some questionable editing. Again the editing seems to have no sense of time, jumping around even to past events without informing the viewer. There is no connection between scenes, at the beginning it showed Yuuji getting up early and being fairly active. Yet later on apparently he didn’t get enough sleep last night despite not showing any signs of sleep deprivation at all in any of the previous scenes. I have not even seen it become night but from what I can tell from my source knowledge the events here are from several different days.

I know that the plot is coming. From the next episodes title there is a possibility of them jumping into one of the girls stories. But In truth I am starting to recall just how tedious and overlong the common route of this really was. So while better material is coming, I am not sure if getting through this poorly put frankensteined together skits will justify it in the end.

Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Bladeworks – 02

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Bladeworks

The stage is set, the actors are in place and the curtain is rising. So I can say this episode’s title was certainly apt. Unfortunately this week we have no bombastic fight scene to ogle and instead we get a heavy dose of info dumping. This is not the most exciting of episodes but the ending scene does promise to make up for the lack of action. Truly, UFOtable made a wise choice when deciding to make the first two episodes an hour long, as to get to this point in what could have been five weeks with regular twenty four minute episodes would have been a terrible slow start. Though I did think that the show was more suited to a hour long episode format but well that may be me moaning about my weekly fate/stay night being all the shorter. Well c’est la vie.

Servants, mana, the holy grail war…if you are familiar with any part of the canon then these things is something you already know about. Making this the least interesting episode for fate fans. We all know this episode needs to happen and we can thank UFOtable for getting it out of the way. Not to say there won’t be info dumping later in the series but at least it will not be quite as excessive. Let me summarize this episode, Shirou is taken inside his house to be told about the holy grail war. Then he is taken to the church where Kotomine Kirei tells him more about the holy grail war and Shirou makes the choice to fight. That is the episode in a nutshell. Like I said, not the most eventful of episodes.

One of the commenters in the previous episode review made a statement about Tohsaka Rin being a character that panders to the audience. On reading this I felt he was exaggerating a bit but upon seeing Rin berate herself for failing to summon Saber by vigorously scratching her hair, lying on the floor and then wiggling her butt in the air, I must be forced to admit that maybe this man has a point. This reaction was much more subdued in the source and I can’t see any reason for it to be this overdone other than to titillate the character fanbase. I for one would appreciate these kinds of reactions being less evident in the rest of the series. Shirou also didn’t come looking the best seeing as a lot of his lines in this episode was mainly him taking what has already been said and repeating it in the form of a question or simply asking questions. This became better as he was talking to Kirei but overall it doesn’t make his character seem all that smart when all other characters are lecturing him. And yes Kirei, definitely the highlight of the episode. Now having accepted his nature in the prequel anime he has now become a lot more, shall we say, cheerful? His antagonistic quips and small manipulations making a large infodump a lot more interesting. Things like trying to push Shirou into killing masters while omitting the information that he doesn’t need to, help get across the information better rather than simply laying it out straight. And while this may be personal preference speaking, I have always loved the tone of his voice. While his english voice actor has done a great job presenting the character, one thing I feel he could never match was the Japanese voice actors sound. A voice that is grandiose, yet hinted with malicious intent. Truly the voice of a man such as Kotomine Kirei.

The art of the series remains excellent and while the animation this week does not require much there is enough movement to show these are not motionless dolls and actually human beings talking. The environments are looking great with the fog and desolate atmosphere which should lend well to the next episode. Finally this helping ends with the formerly shown magical girl coming to attack our heroes so next episode will be quite the treat. That I promise.

Grisaia no Kajitsu – 02

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:

The grisaia visual novel was by no means perfect. In fact if I was to summarize it as concisely as possible I would deem it a mixed bag. Some great moments but quite a number of bad storytelling decisions. Still there was hope for this anime adaption. After all the Steins Gate adaption managed to cut out the weaker elements of the source material and managed to make it shine through highlighting its strengths. I hoped that with the right hands the same could be done with this.

At least…that’s what I hoped. The result has so far been not up to my lowest expectations. The art is decent, the animation fairly bare and the treatment of the story abysmal. Notable examples being the use of chibi character models for two scenes in this particular episode. This was a cheap money saving tactic for the visual novel and it is disappointing to see it used once again in the anime adaption. I spotted a large amount of still frames and face close ups. When there is movement it’s good, in particular Yumiyo’s attack at the beginning of the episode looked like it had some weight in it. Despite the minimal amount of time the protagonist has spent at the school the anime makes it seem like he has been there a lot longer. In the words of a friend who watched this with me “It feels like I just skipped a huge chunk of the story.” Which was exactly my sentiment. To us the viewer Yuuji has been there for only a day. Yet all the girls are acting overly familiar. To top it off this episode ended with a montage of how these girls entered this school. Such an event would normally be placed at the middle or end if a series. Many of these girls have barely had ten minutes screentime. One hasn’t even had five. Is the viewer supposed to be sentimental about characters we barely know? Transitions between scenes are jarring, often switching randomly without warning. One scene switched to a flashback and it took me a full five seconds to figure out it was a flashback. Even then I wasn’t certain I was correct. But most importantly the pacing is far too fast. Dialogue felt like the characters were on fast forward, trying to get the scene over with.

The saving graces are the moments which turn harem tropes on there head and a rather unusual protagonist for this kind of genre. You have no idea how refreshing it is to have a harem lead who does not light up red at the slightest hint of female intimacy. He may not be the most expressive or interesting character but I take this any day over the standard wooden plank we get. If harems had more protagonists like this then at least we could have some fun with this old tired genre.

To top it off I have heard unconfirmed information about this being a one cour(12/13 episodes) anime. This would certainly explain the rushed editing. Let me say this, with one cour this will not end well. A shame as recently a kickstarter was made to bring the Grisaia visual novels to the west. Something which I do approve of. But if this anime is supposed to show us why we should check out the visual novel then it better get its act together. Fast.