Category: Finished Series: Action

AKB0048 – 08 & Aquarion Evol – 25

by psgels, posted in AKB0048, Aquarion Evol

AKB0048‘s episode this week caught me off-guard with how good it was. I thought that the building up could continue for a while longer, but this episode very harshly returned to the theme of how competitive the idol business is, especially when the girls involved are still so young and pushed to practice almost non-stop.

What I especially liked is how this episode was about the relationships between the ones who made it and the ones who are still struggling to get a place as a successor. The main cast isn’t bothered by this yet because they are relatively new, but seeing the older generations being broken up like that due to the system of AKB really makes me wonder what the creators have in store for them later on in the series. The battle at the end of the episode worked really well because of that and I hope that that was a great hint for things to come.
Rating: *+ (Great)

Aquarion meanwhile had this one scene in which Amata had some flashbacks of Mikono. And Okada, Kawamori… who of you got the idea to make one of the first scenes for him to remember that one time in which he landed with his face in her crotch? The first half was incredibly sexually charged by the way, thanks to Andy and Mix having their own over the top finale.

The second half of the episode was standard penultimate episode build-up, although Mikage was nice enough to fill me in about what all happened in the first season of Aquarion. Things were pretty crazy, and seriously: I did not expect Fudo to be the reincarnation of Apollo, though that does make perfect sense on how he managed to stay alive for so long. The creators in any case made things very epic by moving an entire freaking planet for Mikage’s plans. So yes, he’s going to kill off everyone. At least this is a series where that completely fits, with the rebirth themes and all.
Rating: *+ (Great)

Zetman – 11

by psgels, posted in Zetman

This was a huge episode for Kouga here. The previous episode already built this up, but this really is where the hole subplot with the white-haired guy comes together. While it’s hard to see what parts of his story were real and which one were a bluff, there nevertheless was a grain of truth to his words when Kouga noticed that he got ecstatic from fighting.

I am not sure how this scene worked in the manga, but here in the anime Kouga turned into this archetypical hero who actually gets bogged down by his own naivety and is forced into situations in which he screws up horribly and fails to save people’s lives. I like that a lot here.

This episode also had these scenes in which the animation got really good again, which really has my hopes up that the creators did save some great animators for next week, the series finale. The creators actually wrote it so that they can actually wrap up this story if they want to. But then again, there have been plenty of anime that also looked like they could wrap everything up in their final episode, only to go into a completely different direction with unnecessary sequel hooks.

My one concern: this episode really stood out. It was excellent psychological warfare that has been built up for quite a while now. Jin on the other hand doesn’t have that: he’s just a strong guy who fights stuff. The finale will definitely be action-packed, but what about the rest?
Rating: **+ (Excellent+)

AKB0048 – 07 and Aquarion Evol – 24

by psgels, posted in AKB0048, Aquarion Evol

One thing that I’ve noticed about a lot of Mari Okada’s anime original scripts: the one thing she has trouble with is being interesting while building up. Especially in the first halves of her longer series have these flashes of brilliance intermixed with dull slice of life. Take Hana-Saku Iroha’s long wring of random episodes, Aquarion’s boring romantic set-up in its first half, or even Kuroshitsuji II’s first four episodes that were nothing but random hi-jinks. We too are now on that point for AKB0048 unfortunately, but the end of this episode did remember to actually deliver.

And it did so with some very weird succession rules that showed even more what a strange organization this AKB0048 is. So everyone is set to become a succeeding member of one of the founding members of the AKB, and who gets to succeeds is decided by strange flying blobs based on very vague criteria, they are ruled by a strange shadowy figure who writes unnerving lyrics. And also: we’ve seen people talk plenty of times in this series about “graduating”, however nobody has actually explained what that entails to.
Rating: * (Good)

There was so much trolling going on in this episode of Aquarion. Where to start: Amata was consciously abandoned by his parents, causing him to have a bad childhood, Ah, and you finally see them again? Too bad! Seriously, can’t we ever make these people survive and have them take responsibility for what they did? Shoji Kawamori was all over this episode, but the most apparent really was the ending, in which the main source of the conflict turns out to e environmental destruction. I already found it strange that there was so little of that in this series.

It made for a very fun episode though, and I definitely enjoyed it. It’s definitely nice to have such over the top plot twists combined with interesting characters here. They’re not all interesting of course: Mikono YET AGAIN did absolutely nothing, but Zessica and Mikage have really grown on me, Kagura really got his time to shine here, and even Amata has gotten interesting to watch now that we’ve delved into his back-story.

Also, now that we’re near the end of the first half of 2012, I think I can say this confidently: Aquarion has the best soundtrack of the year so far. Yeah okay it was copied from the first Aquarion and all, but still: it blows all of the other soundtracks this year simply out of the water due to its massive size, sheer versatility and consistent epic tone.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Eureka Seven Ao – 09

by psgels, posted in Eureka Seven Ao

This was an episode for character and setting building, but thankfully it also remembered to deliver some good drama and action along the way. I like that about this show: it has fairly more time than usual, but when it needs to build up it does try to make this build-up interesting.

The episode had two main goals. The first was building trust between Ao and Fleur and Elena, showing that they’re beginning to read each other more and more. This is interesting development, but it does have a potential pitfall: developing into something generic. The way they interacted with Ao so far was very interesting and there was a lot of tension between them. Them getting to trust each other is natural of course, but this will remove some of that tension. So yeah, this series will have to put something in to replace that.

Second was that we saw that Truth guy continuing with his plans to what I presume will be world destruction. In this episode he recruits a soldier who is surprisingly similar to Dominic from the original Eureka Seven. I can definitely see that the creators are trying to do something interesting with Truth, especially by introducing him so relatively early in the series. I like how his powers enable him to just turn up from absolutely nowhere, but this does have the disadvantage of making him a bit too overpowered. What this guy needs next, is flaws.
Rating: *+ (Great)

Zetman – 10

by psgels, posted in Zetman

For me, this was the best episode for Kouga so far. It finally build further upon that first test that that he was given by one of the villains, and it really carried that up to eleven with a great mind-game for him to tackle. I really like how he let himself all this get to him, alongside all of the ways in which he was tempted and confused here.

Jin meanwhile accepted some romance in his life. I like these changes, yet at the same time I feel like something still needs to happen to his character; it’s still a bit too simple, and the version of him that I like best is his young version in the first episode.

And yeah, this episode hit the “epic”-switch. It’s something you see in every series and his dog if even the least bit of action is involved: something quick triggers the potential end of the world. In this case it’s the absence of those white-hooded guys, leading every player to figure that they might as well kill all humans while they have the chance.

There are a few things that happened in this episode that will be really hard to explain, though. With this, I don’t mean Kouga letting himself get kidnapped so easily: it does fall in line with how he has been built up as this naive hero, especially since he probably figured that if he didn’t play along with the rules Konoha would end up dead. However, what does puzzle me is how one player can take control over every single broadcasting network. And what about that girl who got crushed by that bed? Why was she so happy to get herself killed?
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Aquarion Evol – 23 & AKB0048 – 06

by psgels, posted in AKB0048, Aquarion Evol

Aaand Mikono, you fail at being a romantic love interest for Aquarion Evol. This was supposed to be your chance: this episode delivered all of the background for this series. This was your chance to be relevant. But no, you’re just mentioned once in the entire story as a sort-of afterthought. Your role as a damsel in distress got upstaged by Zessica at the end of the episode, and beyond that the only thing you did was… feel sorry for Kagura.

Apart from that though: this was solid back-story. And to imagine that the big twist of the original Aquarion… was a dog. That was just as crazy. The commander really stole the show in this episode with his trolling, and Shrade also shined here. It’s completely camp and over the top, but good entertainment.

I do wonder, though: if the world split in two, and only men can survive in Vega… then what are they doing on Altair? Based on that same logic we should have an entire female cast.
Rating: *+ (Great)

AKB0048 was about that really strange phenomenon known as “hand shake events”, together with unreasonable fans. I again like the focus on the darker sides of being an idol (having young girls like that listen to death threats like that), but the creators did miss a few opportunities. I mean, this episode did focus on the good fans, but we saw little of the really creepy fans; there was only one scene of that: the obsessed grown man who kept clinging. That could be a hint for things to come though. What probably won’t be treated is the whole commercial farce that idols can be, since with this series, the characters actually have a justifiable reason to get as much exposure as possible.

Also those battles still make no sense!
Rating: * (Good)

Eureka Seven Ao – 08

by psgels, posted in Eureka Seven Ao

It’s back to the regular storyline with this episode, as we finally get a good look at the president of the whole operation. He’s a rather witty character who isn’t afraid of manipulating the international news in order to get his way. He’s an interesting character, reminiscent of Shinji’s father from Evangelion, but less of an asshole on the surface.

For Ao, this was an episode of bonding and getting to know his team mates. Right now I’m most afraid of the romance getting forced in, but at least so far this just got limited to some delusions from a side-character. It’s also a plus that Fleur’s character doesn’t just exist for Ao, but she has her own issues and will too. The car accident backstory is a bit forced, but at the same time it is very vague: this episode showed some of her feelings about it, but not all of them came to the surface. This series can be really subtle and un-subtle at the same time, and I like that about it.

also, Ao hates his dad. That’s something pretty major here being casually revealed. How does he know his father if Eureka crashed down from the sky being pregnant of him? Why does he hate his “father”? Did he actually meet him?
Rating: *+ (Great)

Zetman – 09

by psgels, posted in Zetman

Okay Zetman: if you’re planning to end next month, you’d better make it an awesome one. The past two episodes understandably switched a gear back in order to focus on some character development, and after this you need to pick the right chapters to both give this closure and an action-packed finale.

I really noticed that with series as Kamisama Dolls and No.6 past summer: these series may have been excellent in their start and middle, but their unsatisfying conclusions unfortunately hurt a lot, and lowered my opinion of them significantly. Zetman isn’t the big disaster in terms of pacing this season; that award goes to Medaka Box, but it would be such a shame if this show ended with a lukewarm feeling.

The one standout point in this episode was the fight at the Amagi mansion. That was short but sweet, and there was a very interesting death along the way: someone actually got careless and didn’t run away fast enough. The players actually didn’t charge into the strongest opponents, but tried to attack everyone at random. One criticism here is that it’s again the old ugly guy who died on a whim, even though the girls in this show have been attacked again and again while coming out alive.
Rating: *+ (Great)

Aquarion Evol – 22 & AKB0048 – 05

by psgels, posted in AKB0048, Aquarion Evol

Next week’s episode of Aquarion Evol: that will be the time for you to show yourself, Mikono. That will be the time where you need to show that you’re more than a damsel in distress. You have been guided, you have been trained, but so far… you haven’t really done anything. You are very close to stepping in the pit of the generic Kawamori female love interests, and that will be your time to either jump over it or go into a completely different direction. Zessica is about to do it, so you can do that too.

For the rest of this episode: this really was action-packed. Nice action, amazing soundtrack, it all was very entertaining, with the spotlights reserved for Shrade. The tension around this guy is actually much more interesting: he and Amata both have huge powers, but the difference between them is that he actually uses it well. Amata doesn’t know how to use his.
Rating: *+ (Great)

AKB and pandering. Of course you can have a cast with females. When it becomes a problem is when the creators start using moe and fanservice as an excuse for not trying, which unfortunately still happens way too often. AKB0048 doesn’t have that… or didn’t at least. I really began to fear that right the first episode after I decided to blog this show, the characters suddenly got a day off, we got a bath scene, a bunch of very stupid antics and this disturbing focus on pheromones.

So yeah, weakest episode of AKB0048 so far. But as it went on, I did notice something: the sheer amount of characters that the creators managed to stuff into just this episode. Heck, I believe that they actually succeeded in fleshing out the entire cast of named characters, giving everyone a bit of a moment or scene to show more about herself. That’s actually pretty impressive to balance well.

Also, this show doesn’t actively criticize, but some of the ideas in this show nearly seem like they were put in to subtly provoke this. I’m mostly referring to the pheromones talk, but especially that bizarre family that breeds idols to look like each other…
Rating: * (Good)

Eureka Seven Ao – 07

by psgels, posted in Eureka Seven Ao

Again, my laptop sucks and I have plans for this evening so I don’t have much time. Here is the gist of my thoughts of this episode:
– Brilliant! Love the complete tone shift!
– Shows as Rinne no Lagrange and the other mechas that appeared this year may have been very good, but they lacked something to be truly outstanding. With this episode Eureka Seven showed that it does have that potential to make it an outstanding mecha.
– Half real dream sequence rocked!
– Excellent villain is excellent.
– Love how Naru plays with her role: she was useless aside for emotional support, but left on her own will. Not sure if that was 100% but regardless you could see a huge load lifting from her shoulder. She would have done this.
– More of this please!
Rating: *** (Awesome)