Category: Finished Series: Action

Kurenai – 03

by psgels, posted in Kurenai


How awesome! With this episode, there’s no mistake: the voices in Kurenai are recorded before the animation, instead of afterwards. Otherwise some of the conversations this episode could never have turned out as they did here, with characters who spoke right through each other, without having to worry about matching the lips. Seriously, more anime should attempt this style, because it gives the voice-actors so much more freedom. I think that by far the best example of this is the fight between Claire and her father in Red Garden. It was an absolute masterpiece, and it would never have turned out so incredibly emotionally intense if the voices were just regularly recorded after the animators did their work.

In addition, this episode was also a lot of fun to watch. Murasaki pays a visit to Shinkurou’s school, and for once Shinkurou wasn’t attacked by every single male in the school who was jealous of how he was living with a cute girl. I love how this series has been shattering clichés one after the other. A while later, we see a bunch of punks bully an old lady, and even though I dislike it when a series uses a bunch of punks as a random plot-device, it was probably one of the first time where the main character refused to save their victim. Murasaki tries, but it really looks like Shinkurou hates fighting. As it turns out, he only does his jobs because of Kuhoin (I hope that that was her name), who saved him after his parents were killed off. Makes sense.

The best thing about this episode was without a doubt Murasaki’s innocence, though. Both the comical and serious parts. I really laughed when Murasaki mistook a biology-puppet (how did you call these things again) for an actually live human, and yet her inability to understand why Shinkurou didn’t stop the punks really hit a spot, even without the amazing voice-acting. I can really understand why this series has become one of the most popular series of this season. It’s solid, it knows its characters, it’s fun and it’s got without a doubt the best voice-acting of all new shows that aired this season.

Macross Frontier – 03

by psgels, posted in Macross Frontier


The quietest episode of Macross Frontier up till now, but for once everything felt right in it. There was a silly fanservice-joke in the beginning, which made me fear for the rest of the episode, but that one joke turned out to be used well in the rest of the episode, both for Sheryl’s character-development, as lightening the mood for a short moment, because only minutes later we switch to Ranka, seeing her “brother” wounded in one of the mecha.

So far, the only thing that this series has really suffered from is the classic “shoujo-syndrome”: no matter how big the world is: the major characters will always run into each other. This one got taken to the extreme in Code Geass, and I was starting to fear about this series, but thankfully this episode didn’t feature any of these coincidences, and it seems that the characters just used this in order to introduce the storyline.

The thing I like a lot about this series is Ranka’s fears, surprisingly enough. Even though she’s your usual traumatized girl, and in no way lives up to her counterparts of Shion (Shion no Ou) and Mina (Porfy no Nagai Tabi), but I loved that little scene where her hands just refused to let go of Alto, even though she tried to get them loose at all costs. At the end of this episode, she also showed that she’s not the whiny girl who won’t do anything but cower in fear (okay, auditioning with a song won’t exactly save the universe or something, but it’s glad to see her actually do something so early in the series).

Macross Frontier – 02

by psgels, posted in Macross Frontier


Ah, why not? I’m going to blog this series. Thanks to L.A. for pointing out that I missed this series. This series is basically THE powerhouse in animation-budget for this season, plus Yoko Kanno’s work is very impressive as well. The second episode was also much better than the rather underwhelming first episode, something of which I’m very glad. The series isn’t perfect: it still combines military with teenagers and characters tend to coincidentally run into each other (how often do you meet a famous pop idol that happens to be near anyway?), but I really like how the creators showed the fear in that female character’s eyes when she got dragged into the sky during the big fight.

The staff behind this also looks quite promising. The animation-company behind this series is Satelight. The thing with Satelight is that their most recent series have been really underwhelming. Their line-up from the past few years just consisted out of Shugo Chara, Kamichama Karin, KISS DUM, Angelique, Galaxy Angel-Rune and Glass Fleet. On the other hand, they DID produce the stellar Noein (which was absolutely beautiful), Chikyuu Shoujo Arjuna, and two series with rumoured excellent graphics, but which I still have to see: Aquarion and HeatGuy J. It looks like they’re really trying to go back to their old roots with Macross Frontier, back to their quality-series. I now know why Kiss Dum, Kamichama Karin and Shugo Chara managed to win me over when they first aired: Satelight definitely know how to make graphics look good, it’s just the execution that was really buggy.

The other staff behind this series is interesting as well, but my biggest worry right now is Shoji Kawamori, the chief director. I’ve checked his profile on ANN a bit, and he’s really worked on a lot of different series, but mostly as the mechanical designs. So, yes, he does know how to produce good graphics, but I was a bit disappointed to see the series he directed before. While I can’t judge on anything of Macross that he’s done, I have heard some things about how Aquarion was to be a series with great production-values, but hardly anything else. Arjuna also could have been much better in my opinion, Spring and Chaos was a disappointing adaptation of one of Kenji Miyazawa’s stories because it didn’t know where it wanted to go, and in the end the only non-graphical thing that I can really praise him for is his role in the creation, screenplay and supervision (but NOT the direction) of Visions of Escaflowne.

Luckily, the director of this series looks more promising. He did some pretty strange series as a hentai-one, Saint Seiya, but his repertoire also includes episode 15 and 22 of none other than Noein (especially the last one was nothing but awesomeness), he directed Black Heaven (talk about something completely different) and strangely enough he was also behind the key animation of episode 11 of Ergo Proxy, which was without a doubt the trippiest one of that entire series.

So, yeah, this series can go both ways, but I’m interested to find out in which direction this series will go. This also means, however, that my Thursdays will be absolutely packed from now on. I’m not entirely sure on which other shows I’ll be blogging this season, but if Toshokan Sensou also has a good second episode, that means that I’ll be blogging SIX shows on the same day. I think that some kind of new personal record. So, you can indeed expect lots of activity from me around Tuesday and Thursday, while the other days will end up relatively quiet. Seriously, why do all the good shows air at the same time?!

Kurenai – 02

by psgels, posted in Kurenai


After the first episode, I was pretty sure that I’d end up blogging this series. The second episode of Kurenai is less impressive then the first one, but that’s only natural. If you’re going to start with a bang, you obviously need to take things easy in the second episode so that the characters can be fleshed out a bit. Especially Murasaki and Shinkuro got a lot of attention in this episode.

What immediately stands out for this series, apart from the art-style, is that these two main characters don’t act their age at all. I can imagine how Murasaki was educated early on, as she already speaks Japanese at adult-level, though at the same time she’s just like a princess who has been pampered for all her life. And yet she’s more than your typical spoiled princess, because most of her arrogance comes from her ignorance, and not her need to feel superior to all lower life-forms.

Shinkuro on the other hand, doesn’t show any signs of puberty at all (something of which I’m REALLY glad). We still don’t know much about him, but he’s seen his dead mother right in front of his eyes, he probably lost his father as well, he’s turned into a killing-machine with purple blood and strange elbows.

Another thing about this series is the use of dialogue. When the tension increases, the characters hardly let the others finish speaking before they say something. Where you’d usually hear a one-second pause between one sentence and the next, Kurenai shortens this to a quarter of a second. I’m not sure whether this series is the first one to do this, but it is the first time I’ve noticed it.

One thing I’m quite curious about is the length of this series: will it be 13 or 26 episodes, and if there are 26 episodes, then how does this series plan to fill its time? Some series are quite sneaky about it. For Persona, for example, I realized really late that it was supposed to run for two seasons, instead of just one.

Some quick first impressions: Allison to Lillia, Kurenai and xxxHolic Kei

by psgels, posted in Allison to Lillia, Kurenai, Some Quick First Impressions, xxxHolic

Allison to Lillia

Ah, the first good series of the season. This episode was pretty solid; it started out as not anything special, but as it went on, it became more interesting by the minute, and this is just the first episode. You can really see the influences of both Mokke and Kino no Tabi, and yet this series goes into its own direction. It turns out that this series will be about two couples: Allison and Will, and Lillia and Treize, who have yet to be introduced. My only point of critique would be that Will’s voice-actor sounds a bit too young for his age, but that should be easy enough to get used to. Another interesting thing is that the female lead likes to ignore rules if necessary. It never really came to me, but you don’t often see people that break rules as easy as she does in anime. One thing I’m hoping for the future episodes is to explain a bit more about the politics of the country that the two main characters live in, but with 26 episodes there should be plenty of time for that.

Kurenai

Whoa! Here’s a contender for the best first episode of the season. You can really see that Brains Base (who did the animation for Baccano!) worked on this series, and the result looks absolutely gorgeous. There are hardly any still frames, characters make subtle gestures, the 7-year old girl really sounds like a young girl instead of a squeaky 30-year old voice actress and the OP has been done entirely in flash. The art style is a strange combination between that of Red Garden and Baccano, which only makes things better. The scriptwriting also is quick and witty. Here’s a potential classic, if the creators can keep up this level of quality, at least.

xxxHolic Kei

What an awesome episode to start off the second season! This episode was exactly the reason why I fell in love with the first season. Watanuki is downright hilarious, and stands miles away from your “typical high school boy”. On top of that, this series has always featured thought-provoking cases, and this episode was no exception. I won’t spoil anything, but if you liked the first season, you just have to watch this episode. Really, this series makes coming up with an entertaining storyline look so incredibly easy.

Gundam 00 Review – 83/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Mobile Suit Gundam 00


Gundam 00 has been one of the most ambitious series of the past Autumn-season. It basically tried to show us a view on the world politics 400 years from now, combined with Gundam’s trademark mecha-action. Usually, this comes along with a great risk of screwing up and delving into an emo-fest, though fortunately the director of Ooedo Rocket and Full Metal Alchemist managed to avoid this pitfall, and delivered quite an interesting series. It may be rather rough around the edges, but there’s a lot to like about this series.

A group of four guys with ultra powerful mecha who use them to solve all armed conflicts in the world. This obviously sounds like an incredibly gullible idea to achieve world peace, but the thing is that the characters are well aware that the thing they’re doing is naive. This series never claims one side to be morally right or wrong. It just presents us several different views on the world.

The strength of this series is that it knows how to carefully build up. It’s got a huge plot and a huge setting that it needs to work with, and even though there are a few errors here and there, you can see that the creators have tried to explain as much as possible. The thing is also that the cast starts out as incredibly unlikable, and yet every single character develops, and at the end of the series has turned into something better and enjoyable. With a cast so large and diverse, you’re bound to have a few favourites.

The part in which Gundam 00 screws up the most is the dialogue, though. You can see that it’s one of the few parts that didn’t receive careful attention, and it just serves to develop the characters and the plot, though it does feel rather forced at times.

Gundam 00 is a series that continuously develops both its plot and characters, and things do come together in the end quite good. I won’t to spoil anything, but let me just say that the second season will be completely different from the first. It’s not the best series, but it turned out better than expected.

Gundam 00 – 25

by psgels, posted in Mobile Suit Gundam 00


What the? Did these people hear my prayers or what?? Major spoilers coming up in the next paragraph, and I really mean MAJOR spoilers. This is really an episode where Gundam has really set itself apart from the major other Mecha-epics. This line is here to prevent spoilers to appear on the blog-aggregators like animeblogger antenna.

Great god! I remember making a number of predictions about how this episode would turn out, and none of them came true. Has there really been another series that had the guts to kill off its main cast halfway through? I don’t remember any. And that’s the great thing about this episode, because there were a lot of great characters who remained alive. The technician and Sumeragi are fine and will play a major role in the second season as well, Soma Pieres and Papa Bear also have survived against all odds. Allelujah may be dead, but Hallelujah still shows signs of surviving.

One big surprise was also Graham Acre dying and then getting revived again four years later, bearing the mask that seems to be some kind of trademark for Gundam-series, and the annoying Alehandro Corner kicked the bucket as well. While there was a lack of politics, this remains without a doubt my favourite episode of this series, simply because it shattered so many stereotypes I had about this series. And not to mention, the fights were actually really well done. In the end, it indeed turns out that Livonze will be the major bad guy for the second season.

And then there was the aftermath, and the introduction to the second season. At the moment, I really have no idea what direction it’ll go. The earth is united, there’s no need left for the Gundams, and yet new models have been constructed, along with the help of Nena, the only surviving throne. I remember that the professor once noted that the unison of the world wasn’t Aeolia Schenberg’s original goal, so what would it have been? It looks like Nena will play a whole different role in the second season than I could have imagined.

Saji has also started working on the solar generator, though thankfully four years have passed now, so he isn’t an angsty teenager anymore. Thank god for that. I also loved how Setsuna sent his final messages not to his comrades, but to Marina Ismael. The impact she had on him turned out to be much larger than I expected. I do wonder whether she managed to solve all the problems in her home-country, though.

Some small things: I was surprised to see that Patrick’s still alive. We only see a glimpse of him, but it really looked like Tieria killed him back then. Also note how we never get to see Ali al Sarshes’ eyes. Did something happen to them? And who was this Tieria-lookalike near Louise, and what was Louise doing with him in the first place? The second season will probably shed light into who Nena, Tieria and Livonze are. Livonze also turned out to have some clones with him, so why wouldn’t this be the case for Tieria as well? Although I’d shiver at the thought of an army of Nena’s.

To finish this entry, I just can’t resist another Code Geass reference. It’s just such a good series to show how things should not be done. And the thing I’m talking about here is the cliff-hanger of the first season. I mean, it’s just too predictable: you just know that both Lelouch and Suzaku will both magically survive, and it’s not a god thing to have to wait nine months to confirm that this indeed is the case. Thankfully, in the meantime Dragonaut has showed up and brought us an even cheesier rivalry between childhood friends, and it looks like even Code Geass will be better than that one. I think that the thing that Code Geass needs to do for its second season is to stop putting so much attention to Lelouch, and instead focus more on the side-characters.

Gundam 00 – 24

by psgels, posted in Mobile Suit Gundam 00


I’m not sure whether I should be happy or not to have been spoiled about the contents of this episode. In any case, I was right, and this episode basically built up for the major turning-point for this series that’ll happen in episode 25, but I never thought that it’d do this in such an extreme way.

There were several things wrong with this episode, though. And I’m not referring to the bloodbath. If the circumstances are right, then why not kill off a bunch of characters? It’s a great contrast with series that are just too afraid to kill off their characters because it’ll upset the fans or something. Just to give a small list of who died in this episode (obvious SPOILER warning)

– Tieria Erde
– Patrick Colasour
– Christina Sierra
– Lichtendahl Tsery

Which, if I’m not mistaken, brings the total body-count to ten important characters dead, eleven if Ali al Sarshes kicked the bucket as well.

In any case, my problem isn’t with these deaths. It’s with the sudden uber-technologies that suddenly got introduced out of nowhere. Okay, I can understand why Aeolia Scheinberg never put the Trans-am in his plans. It makes sense that he and his scientists discovered this technology at one point, but decided not to implement it due to the potential dangers of its limited usage. I can live with that.

But where did he pull such a huge space-ship from, and why the heck didn’t he use it?! With such a big cannon, it would have been perfect as an added safety-measure. Really, if the creators wanted, they could have used much better reasons to kill off the members of the cast. The enemies are really no idiots, and I could imagine a few sneaky battle-tactics that would have destroyed the Ptolemy anyway.

And this is just a minor detail, but Lichtendahl was badly developed. I only now realize this once he’s dead, but we should have gotten an introduction that androids or cyborg actually exist. The lieutenant… I still have no idea whether she was a cyborg as well, or just genetically modified. Before this episode, we hardly saw anything about him, which makes his death lack the impact it could have had.

But on the positive side: there was no Saji!

It really seems that Marina Ismael and Saji were meant to be characters for the second season. The next episode will probably kill off much more people, making the Celestial Beings disband without a doubt, and the survivors will probably be the main characters for the second season. Setsuna is the only one where I can say with certainty that he’ll live, as Allelujah also looked pretty bad in this episode.

This is just a guess, but it seems quite likely that the main characters for the second season will be Nena, Setsuna, Marina and Saji, with the major villains being Alehandro and Ali. Of course, there’ll probably be much more characters introduced, but I’m worried: these four are the most immature members of the entire cast. My biggest worry right now is that every sensible member of the cast will get killed off in the next episode. Please make at least one of Sumeragi, Feldt, Lasse or that mechanic-guy survive!

Gundam 00 – 23

by psgels, posted in Mobile Suit Gundam 00


A Gundam 00-episode without any Saji?! Is it really possible! This episode proves that it is. Incidentally, it’s also one of the best episodes of this series yet, as this series finally sets itself apart from Gundam Wing, where the main cast just refused to die no matter what.

Right now, the thing that this series now needs to worry about is not to dive into some kind of vicious emo-circle because of the death of Lockon. It’s good that everyone’s moved, but that should be a sign for character-development. It shouldn’t be the green light for an emo-fest that’s about to happen.

I’m also getting a bit worried about the side-characters, though. The side characters have been dangerously neglected for the past few episodes. We’ve now seen plenty of the main characters. They’ve developed and all, but I can’t really say that about most of the people that the Celestial Beings are up against. Even Ali Al Sarshes never really changed. Of course, the rest of the first season probably won’t change that, because it needs to build up for the big twists at episode 25 (I still believe that the Celestial Beings will split up around that time), but it would be nice if the second season for Gundam 00 would actually pay some more attention to the side-characters.

Gundam 00 – 22

by psgels, posted in Mobile Suit Gundam 00


Now here is an awesome episode! It’s episodes like this one where everything comes together. Not in an extreme way like in Code Geass, but through a logical flow of events, that actually makes sense. At least, for the biggest part. There were a few plot-twists that just were too perfectly timed together. Thankfully though, this series has always managed to keep these kinds of twists right within the boundaries, and not the biggest focus of the episode anyway.

Because this episode was really about the death of two of the trinities! Mihael and Johan, both gone, with only Nena surviving. It’s a pity that the most annoying of the three had to survive, but something tells me that that girl is about to get a lot of character-development. Just one thing: don’t make her and Setsuna become lovers! This just isn’t the series that needs teenage romance!

Saji also received less screen-time than ever (about two seconds), so overall, I’m quite happy about what went on. It was also surprising that Aolia Shenberg put himself in a sleep, to awaken when the world has changed. Well, he’s dead now, and revealed his final trump: full utilization of the GN-drives, and probably the last push that the Gundams will get. From here, they won’t get any new powers, and they’re just going to have to survive with the slight lead that they have.

As it turns out, the Trinities were never part of Aolia Shenberg. They were just developed at a later stage, and improved here and there. What’s interesting is that the developers never suspected the hidden powers in the real Gundams. It also turns out that the betrayer worked on the Trinity-camp, and he was probably the one who gave the Trinities their assignments. This is also why the GN-drives in the hands of the AEU, HRF and the Union also won’t get these extended powers.

What this series now needs to do is progress in a logical way. Coincidental slips like this one are fine once in a while, but it mustn’t get out of control, like what happened in Code Geass. I still believe that the first season will end with the Celestial Beings disbanded, and especially now that Aolia Shenberg is dead it looks more and more likely to happen.