Category: Birdy the Mighty Decode

Short Synopsis: Senkawa and his friends from school are invited to Nakasugi’s summer house.
Highlights: That second half…
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
Seriously, is it me, or is this series really getting better and better with every episode? The build-up in this episode was downright excellent, and it went seamlessly from a quiet and light-hearted mood in the first half to a much darker second half. So what if the first episodes in this series goofed off? They did what they were supposed to do: flesh out characters in this series.

The past few episodes have continued to push Nakasugi’s powers more and more dramatic. In this episode, she even destroys an entire neighbourhood, and this is probably going to continue to get even worse in the future of this series. I liked how the police arrived at the house at the end of the episode. It shows that you can’t just destroy a building and get away with it in this series, adding to the believability. But what was that book that Natsumi was looking at, the one about the destroyed buildings that had the younger version of Shamalan on it? For some reason, Nakasugi wanted to distract her attention from it as quickly as possible, suggesting some sort of connection between her past and Shamalan.

The question also remains who those footprints on the wall belonged to. If they really are from Capella, then why would she go and play around with Senkawa and the others? What did she hope to achieve by walking on the walls and leaving her footprints?

I like what the creators did with the background music in this episode. The tune that the doll played in the previous episode returns multiple times in this one. I remember how Kaiba once did the same, and the technique works out pretty well.

Short Synopsis: A certain someone with long dark blue hair starts killing people.
Highlights: Whoa, is this really the same Birdy the Mighty?
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
Really, this series is looking ten times better after that second season announcement. Everything finally makes sense. By far my biggest problem with this series wasn’t that it was bad, but rather its questionable use of its limited time of only 13 episodes. Five consecutive episodes did nothing but take their time to build up, and it often got distracted on things that didn’t really matter for such a short series. With 26 episodes, it makes perfect sense, though. With that kind of format, it makes perfect sense that the first episodes would focus more on building up.

Something tells me that that second season is going to rock. The director really has a knack for memorable character-development (ever since finding out that this series would only have 13 episodes, I kept wondering how he’d pull this off with such a small time-frame): both Noein and Escaflowne really began to shine once they hit their second halves. And now I finally realize the parallel of Birdy’s outer-space arc with Noein: that too showed La’Cryma surprisingly early in the series.

Incidentally, this episode also rocked. It’s the best episode of Birdy yet – at least since episode one – as it tells about a serial-killing android who bears surprising resemblance to Nakasugi. It turns out to have been infected by a bug that went wrong, that caused her to hug her victims too strongly, strangling them. Ever since, she’s been “hugging” everyone who looked like her original creator. Birdy’s rival ends up bringing it to the Indian-ish guy (I need to learn these people’s names) and the two seem to have made some sort of alliance.

Short Synopsis: Nakasugi invites Senkawa and his classmates over to her house, but Birdy has other plans.
Highlights: Finally this series gains a bit of depth.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10
Now this is more like it. Birdy the Mighty Decode still is my least favourite series of the shows I’m blogging, but at least this episode was a major improvement on the outer-space arc. It’s main purpose was fleshing out Senkawa’s classmates, and it did this well. I feel a lot more familiar with these guys now, and it’s interesting to see that Nakasugi didn’t just recover from her accident that easily, as she seems to have been revived by an alien as well.

My biggest problem with this series is that the episode length of only 13 episodes seems way too short for its own good, and instead of keeping a fast and focused pacing to make the best out of such a short time, it continues to goof off and gets distracted on unimportant side-plots. This episode too: it was enjoyable and all, but there are so many side-characters and side-plots left. How the heck are the creators going to stuff those in just seven episodes with this slow of a pacing? If this was a 26-episode series, I could understand this decision, but 13 episodes is just way too short.

Short Synopsis: Birdy goes after the terrorists that were behind the explosion of the previous episode.
Highlights: Pretty much pointless story, but very nice art.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10
Well, this episode seems to conclude the outer space-arc of Birdy. The villains in this episode weren’t much special, and seemed a bit hastily thrown together. They hardly had any background and just weren’t interesting at all, but for now I’ll just see this arc as a means of giving Birdy her background, and showing a bit of the world where she came from. If that were the case, then the rest of the series had better be significantly better than what was shown here.

One thing that did impress me in this episode was the excellent art. The budget is still nowhere the high levels of the first episode, but I like the amount of imagination that was put into the character-designs and especially the background art. The creators made great use of the fact that the episode was set in an unknown alien environment to make a number of pretty unique art setting.

I think the only really interesting thing about the story in this episode was that it showed how the police-system on Birdy’s planet is pretty much one big mess, where multiple divisions are working on the same case without cooperating with each other. In this episode, Birdy ended up tailing someone who was already been tailed by another guy.

But please, can we finally move to villains who don’t look like some sort of street-punks? The villains in this episode who looked at least a bit attractive turned out to be either spies or betraying their boss. I mean, it’s getting pretty predictable if you can just recognize the real villain, just by the way they’re drawn…

Short Synopsis: More characters than ever get introduced as Birdy goes back to her home-planet.
Highlights: Completely different from the first three episodes, in a good way, though Senkawa is getting a bit annoying.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7/10
Okay, I’m not sure what happened here… This episode introduced the real meat of this series, but it’s not something to expect, with the stellar staff behind this series. I liked all the different characters that got introduced, but there were parts in this episode that made me question whether the creators really knew what they were doing…

The biggest culprit obviously being Senkawa’s overly moralistic speech towards that judge. I can understand his whimsical banter with Birdy (which was actually quite fun to watch), and his surprise at all the new things that he’s saw in this episode, but that tribunal-scene made no sense whatsoever. I liked how it gave Birdy a bit of background, but that’s about the only thing that was good about that scene.

Then there’s also that random bombing at the end of the episode that Birdy just “happened to be at”. It’s not the most solid plot-twist, and I’m not sure what its purpose really is going to be. I think that this series needs to be a bit more focus, and I hope that the next episode can establish a clear goal for this series to work to. At the same time, I also hope that the creators will remember to flesh out all of the different important characters that were left on earth.

In a way, this episode was necessary to give Birdy her background and wrap up the Giga-arc, but it could have been done a bit better. One real disappointment about this episode was the huge downgrade in the animation. It’s nowhere near the huge quality of the first episode. To be honest, I’m disappointed with this series so far, but I’m partly to blame myself for getting my expectations up too high. I’m not going to expect anything grand from this series anymore, then perhaps it’ll surprise me in the next few episodes.

Short Synopsis: The death-count of this series keeps rising as Giga launches an attack at Birdy.
Highlights: A few overused plot-devices here and there, but the plot has turned out to be very fast-paced so far.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10
It seems that Giga was indeed just an introduction-villain for this series. Now that he’s gone, this series seems to be starting for real. I must say that I didn’t expect the creators to kill off Tuto so early, considering how he was one of the major characters of the first three episodes. I admire the guts of the creators, making this a Anyone Can Die-show, á la Souko no Strain.

And of course, I should have seen those hints at romance between Nakasugi and Senkawa. It’s a typical plot-device, especially since Senkawa isn’t interested in his child-hood friend. I do hope that she’ll become more than just a damsel in distress… I’m interested whether the creators can make these schoolgirls develop a bit by the end of the series, considering the huge cast that they seem to be planning to work with. It’s been subtle, but the first three episodes have continued to slip in introductions to a huge cast of characters: we have the rival who stands on a rooftop, that idol, those press-figures, Giga’s friend, the teacher, the scary old woman, and judging by the preview, the next episode is going to introduce even more of these guys.

In any case, the most important thing that this series needs to do is to properly develop the understanding between Birdy and Senkawa. The two have been and will be going through a lot, and this series will get boring fast if they just stay the same. The creators made a good start, though. This episode too had the two of them arguing a lot. First, Senkawa was still being upset about all the things that happened to him, but very soon when Birdy got into a fight with Tuto, Birdy suddenly became the complaining one.

Short Synopsis: Obligatory introduction episode.
Highlights: Nice fight-scene, though.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10
As for the series I’m not going to blog:
– Antique Bakery is hilarious, and knows exactly when to take itself seriously, but I feel that I won’t have much to write about it.
– Okay, I’m willing to give Sekirei a chance and watch it till the end, but in no way am I going to blog it.
– I’m not a slayers-fanboy yet, and even though it’s cute, it hasn’t sold me yet.

About Birdy the Mighty, this episode obviously had to pull back the pacing a bit, and explain things for those who haven’t read the premise of this series yet. Still, I’m going to blog this series. The series that aired in the summer-season aren’t as deep as in the previous season, but a common theme is that they’re nearly all fun to watch.

The director of this series is the genius behind Noein and Escaflowne: two of my three favourite series. How could I let this chance go by? A short series like this one has no chance of creating the same success as the two above, who had both 24 and 26 episodes, but overall I’m expecting a fun short series with great fight scenes.

This episode was of course a step back when compared to the first episode, but that’s to be expected. It did a good job of introducing a lot of new characters, and I appreciate how it did manage to be more than just countless expositions and Senkawa’s first days at school, while trying to hide his secret. What caught my interest was how Senkawa managed to stop Birdy from going after a bad guy due to a possible victim that might have ended up dead. It shows the beginning of how they try to understand each other.