Category: Finished Series: Action

Aquarion Evol – 21 & AKB0048 – 04

by psgels, posted in AKB0048, Aquarion Evol

AKB0048… I…. give up…

I want to hate this show. I want to rant about what an incredibly stupid and pandering premise they settled with. But I can’t. I have no clue why, but this show has this amazing energy and charm. The idol shows did it again, even though I hate idols and J-pop. This is the umpth show that went “So you hate idols? Well, here is a really good anime about them, so there!” Some other examples of this are the current Natsuiro Kiseki and its use of idols to bind the cast together, but the past also was full of them: White Album? Unique romance with balls. Fancy Lala? Incredibly genuine character-study with an amazing ending. Full Moon wo Sagashite? It had heart-wrenching second half. And then there was Skip Beat which was hilarious, Key the Metal Idol was really well made, Symphony in August was really well done for one of the few non-fiction anime out there and Perfect Blue was just the perfect gritty look at the business. Sure there have been plenty of duds, but I’m still amazed at how much good and daring stuff the genre brought forth.

The only problem: how on earth am I going to blog this in this already incredibly busy season? the only thing I can come up with is blog it together with Aquarion Evol, since they have so much staff in common, being both helmed by two of the big trolls of anime out there: Shoji Kawamori and Mari Okada. The thing is: in these first four episodes went along as well as Aquarion Evol, if not better, and Aquarion did develop a few issues along the way which I don’t see coming as easily with AKB0048. It’s just unfair to prefer one over the other at one point. The individual entries will probably get a bit shorter than usual, but I do want to highlight both, because I’m enjoying them a lot.

AKB0048 is very genuine and despite its huge cast it actually keeps track of everyone. It’s very charming, but what surprised me also were some of the production issues so far: here is the thing: most of the main voice actresses in this series are members of the real AKB48 group (or whatever it’s called) and have very little experience, if any at all. And yet they are all doing a really good job at bringing their characters to life! They aren’t trying to stuff themselves into stereotypes either. That was one of my biggest beefs against that Idolm@ster show (or at least the first three episodes that I managed to last) and what prevented me from enjoying it unlike a lot of other people: everyone felt like a stereotype. Here instead the characters have a much better defined backstory, motivations and personalities that don’t need to be shoehorned into archetypes. And thank god there is no Kugimiya Rie either.

Also, I’m not sure because of who this was, but one of my beefs with Macross Frontier was that as soon as someone started singing outside a concert, it still felt like everything was taking place in a recording studio, with random instruments appearing from out of nowhere and all. Here though, when characters are singing for leisure, it really feels that way.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Now, as for this week’s episode of Aquarion Evol: bloody Nora, what a plot twist. I should have known from the couple of Mari Okada and Shouji Kawamori in a series that tries to be as over the top as possible: to think that there were points at which I actually tried to take the love triangle between Amata, Kagera and Mikono seriously. They’re the same person. Of course. With that, all makes sense. I like that though: it’s a satisfying twist after all that bloody build-up and this episode lead into it pretty well. That dream sequence in particular was awesome, and actually among my highlights of this series.

And Shoji Kawamori, did you again just pull the “it really looks like one of the main cast members died but h/she turns out to be fine in the end?” I’ve seen too many of your series to know where this is going, unfortunately. It would be an awesome twist if I were wrong, though, but the dead sign that Zessica is fine is that bit at the start of the episode where she talks to Mikage: whatever that was leading up to hasn’t happened yet.

Why I really liked this episode by the way also had to do with that this episode went back to the city of the first episode, and showed in a completely different light now that it’s destroyed and evacuated. Earlier I complained that this show didn’t do anything about continuity. I really have to take that back now. At this point, there are tons of scars in the landscape of events that happened in the past, from this destroyed cities to Andy’s filled up holes. One notable exception is that we still don’t know who the heck does the maintenance on the mechas in this series.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Zetman – 08

by psgels, posted in Zetman

After the hectic first episodes, I’m pretty surprised how slow the pacing in this episode was: it really took its time to show the aftermath of the previous episodes without feeling rushed, and the payoff at the end where Kanzaki’s story was resolved was short but very effective. There was some very good interplay between Jin and the rest of the cast here. Most rushed series don’t take the time for episodes like this, and when they do the result usually is a lot messier.

And apparently this episode also included parts that are only a year old in the original manga. Well, with this it’s confirmed then: the creators have no intention of making a second season: these 13 episodes are all we’re going to get, and they’re just trying to put the right content into them, rather than just animating this series up to one point and just stopping. Whether or not this approach works will depend on whether they actually plan to make it end…

The following paragraph has very vague spoilers about some of Atsuhiro Tomioka ‘s adaptations because this brings me to him again. Taking a look at his adaptations (that I watched anyway): Disgaea was full of filler but ended well, Nishi no Yoki Majo also had a solid ending, albeit really rushed, Samurai Seven had a great ending, Trinity Blood’s ending was crap and a complete rush-job that left way too many holes open and Zombie Loan ended before it even got started. Yes, this guy has done the entire spectrum of endings. He always liked to take a lot of liberties, much more than most other writers. Sometimes this is good, at others this is bad. Let’s hope that Zetman will remain among the good side of the spectrum.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Eureka Seven Ao – 06

by psgels, posted in Eureka Seven Ao

Eureka Seven Ao’s best episode yet. Seriously, this episode marked a huge change from the first five episodes. It starts off like a completely different series when we suddenly move to Peru and Myanmar for some side-stories, only to turn over to Ao again with a message that lives really are on the line in this series.

And I must say that that death really made impact. It made great use of red herrings of the girls introduced last episode. I did not expect that so early on in the series. It took a second watch-through to make out what exactly went on during their deaths, but this was very tightly written.

Then we also get to see what looks to be the main villain of this series. His scenes were completely standalone from what happened in the rest of the episode, but the creators did succeed in making him seem menacing, and feel like a threat. Next up will be giving him flaws, motivation and background.
Rating: **+ (Excellent+)

Zetman – 07

by psgels, posted in Zetman

The conclusion of this arc is fairly straight-forward. After all of the tension created in the previous episodes, this episode is all dedicated to a big fight against the remaining Player Brothers,in order to balance things out. The main point that this episode tried to make was probably restoring the bond between Jin and Kouga, andpushing Zetman’s factors to a new level, to the point where his Zet factors don’t drop.

The fight was up to Zetman’s standards, though not the best of the series. After all of the rush in the early episodes, I’m pretty surprised how straight-forward and fairly slow-paced this episode was. It’s interesting how this show is the most interesting when it’s building up.
Rating: * (Good)

Aquarion Evol – 20

by psgels, posted in Aquarion Evol

Really Aquarion, this is more like it. Finally your plot is developing significantly. Ideally this episode should have been earlier, allowing for more time for all of the things to develop, but this was nevertheless glorious.

I am really surprised at Andy by the way. He started out as the typical best friend: the guy who is just there to support and never stands out. And here his subplot with Mix has actually been quite interesting. I feared that it’d turn into yet another kidnapping story, but the twist of reversing her gender was really used well here. The real main characters, Amata and Mikono meanwhile served in this arc as support characters: finding out what’s going on, helping others. That’s actually quite neat and I’m glad that unlike Macross Frontier, Shoji Kawamori actually allowed this. It allows for much more interesting character dynamics if the roles of these characters aren’t so constrained.

This episode also finally turned into that emotional roller-coaster that the first episodes had been promising. Just about every character acted differently in this episode and there was a wide variety of emotions all coming together. Finally! The most hilarious of which was Yunoha and her sudden out of place male speech patterns.

And that glorious music! Seriously, my opinion of Yoko Kanno increased significantly after listening to this soundtrack. Her best work still is Cowboy Bebop, but this really is a good contender for second place. The action in this episode also was better than usual, and the interesting thing is that this was not because of an increase in budget, but rather better directed fights and a better use of shots and colours. Especially that Andy scene was a very interesting visual idea.

And then there is Fudo with his donuts again. And the weird thing is that his symbolism all oddly makes sense. It’s completely silly, but rather than being pointless symbolism for the sake of having silly symbolism, it does fit in to the context. This show is weird.
Rating: **+ (Excellent+)

Eureka Seven Ao – 05

by psgels, posted in Eureka Seven Ao

Now this is where this series set itself apart for me. There was no action in this episode, but instead it focused on Ao making himself at home at the base of the Pied Piper. Usually it’s the kind of build-up episode where nothing much of importance happens and instead a bunch of characters are introduced. This episode really impressed me though.

And there is one reason for that: Ao’s portrayal. The way in which he feels so awkward and out of place, not knowing what to do here. It’s just showing the consequence of his decision, and how not everything is going to go smooth for him. My favorite parts were where he stood so helplessly, not knowing what to do. There is a huge difference between the teenagers and the adults in this series. The adults really sympathize with having to make children fight. The kids though: are completely different. They are not going to guide newcomers along every step of the way. They offer their support here and there at crucial points, but everything inbetween will be for Ao himself to solve.

Meanwhile this episode kept the nice ideas coming. The whole base being built out of things gathered from the Scab Coral is a very interesting idea, and I also like the idea of having Ao be able to see light frequencies beyond what normal humans can see (again this isn’t revealed to him)I do wonder though: why is every pilot there aside from Ao a girl?
Rating: **+ (Excellent+)

Zetman – 06

by psgels, posted in Zetman

Holy crap, this episode was intense. This show actually got even better with this episode. I don’t care how butchered the last episode was with the three murdered high school girls. This episode made some awesome use of it by continuing that path of sacrifices and toying with how hard it is to save everyone. There was a lot of stuff going on at the same time here, combined with some awesome action scenes.

And yeah, I just can’t help but praise the visuals of this\ series. This animation is just so incredibly expressive. This is an effect that you can’t get no matter how big of a budget you have, how well it plays together with the music and the storytelling. Really, TMS Entertainment has shown some wonderful stuff this season.

There are only two really bad decisions that they made. By far the worst was the decision for this series to only have 13 episodes this show really deserves more. The problem probably is that they couldn’t get enough sponsors to really get to 26 episodes, hoping for good DVD sales. Now this was a very big production error that unfortunately happens way too often. The second big mistake was hiring Atsuhiro Tomioka to compile the scripts. This wasn’t all bad: like with his other series, he really managed to add that something extra and succeeded in making this a standalone series. But someone needed to oversee the content that he cut away to do it because he really tends to do that. Then again though, I haven’t read the manga, but having the restriction of only 13 episodes to work with, I can also very much understand to skip certain parts in order to get further into the manga at the end.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Aquarion Evol – 19

by psgels, posted in Aquarion Evol

Okay. This episode caught my attention.

Last week I noted that I had gotten bored with this series. After watching this episode and thinking a bit more about it, I’m able to explain a bit more accurately why that happened. It’s got a lot to do with the structure of this series, and mostly my expectation for the interesting stuff and development to arrive with the arrival of the second half. Instead, the development of this series came to a grinding halt with the random filler episodes. The problem was that no character really improved or was developed further. Everything came at a standstill, apart from Zessica of all people. And she was in no way an interesting character to watch, with her only character-trait being love triangle bait, resulting into that incredibly stupid wardrobe change of her.

Looking back, these episodes were wasted. These filler episodes with the bizarre bananas and burying: they should have been done earlier in the series. These episodes should have been used to build up the plot some more. What originally attracted me to this series was the bizarre romantic subtext, along with the promise of featuring boys versus girls. Instead of that we gradually saw this show turn into a standard love story. There are plenty of those series already, and done better. Looking back, this series really could have used these ideas more in its first two thirds.

With this however, things actually changed and became more interesting. Shrade finally did something again, we got a closer look at what that other world is, Amata’s story with his mother FINALLY got somewhere at the end of the episode. What’s more: Mikono actually did something on her own (was I the only one reminded of Star Driver at the scene where she left? It would be pretty interesting if she were to follow that example), there was this bizarre plot twist pulled in which… Mix was gender-swapped (O.o). Finally things got shaken up! Finally it uses its characters.

And then there is Zessica. When it first became clear what the creators were going for, I facepalmed at the thought of having all this build-up… leading to her brainwashed and a villain. Now that I think more about it though, this holds potential. At the very least she’s doing something. She still desperately needs another character-trait beyond liking Amata, but finally she’s more than love triangle bait for Amata and Mikono.
Rating: *+ (Great)

Eureka Seven Ao – 04

by psgels, posted in Eureka Seven Ao

So… I had typed up this entire entry for this episode. I was taking screenshots… and then my laptop crashed. So apologies for this brief entry.

Basically, I’m warming up to Ao. One big similarity between this series and the first Eureka7 is that everyone treats the lead character for who he is: a kid. Renton was a brat, so people treated him as such, while Ao is more sympathetic and a victim instead, and I can see why the adults in this series want to look over him.

Naru meanwhile: what is her purpose beyond a romantic interest? I was surprised that she didn’t join along with the Pied Piper crew, but that will probably come later. In the meantime, this series has very solid build-up and a great and emotional soundtrack. Now let’s hope that net week my laptop doesn’t crash.
Rating: *+ (Great)

Zetman – 05

by psgels, posted in Zetman

I disagree that the faces in Zetman are ugly. In fact, I find them very refreshing, and I love this show for how much emotion it has managed to put into its drawings. What I am hoping for the most right now however, is the kind of animation that we saw in the first episode of this series. It’s clear that it blew a lot of budget on that, but even there you can see that people really spent thought into trying to make the visuals in this series as expressive as possible. Granted though: this was the episode that had that effect the least so far.

One annoyance about this episode was how incredibly clingy Tanaka ended up being. She knew him for like, one day or something? The interplay between her and Jin at least was nice… until the love triangle appeared. Apart from that the girls in this episode were only good for being kidnapped. That’s the problem with keeping Konoha in the dark about everything that’s going on: if you don’t provide her with a good reason, she’s going to try and look for someone she obviously cares about. Just try to tell her the truth and she’s far more likely to at least be on the lookout.

In the meantime, I really liked Kouga and that old guy who started playing that moral dilemma with him, contrasting with his random outburst on what a hero should look like.
Rating: *+ (Great)