Category: Finished Series: Action

Sora wo Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai Review – 75/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Sora wo Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai



Sora wo Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai, otherwise known as the Munto Remake or that show with the incredibly long name. The original Munto was a series of two OVAs that simply couldn’t live up to the huge story that they tried to create. That’s why it was great news that it was going to get a remake TV-version that could give the story the right amount of time that it needed to… and yet this series turned into my single biggest disappointment of the past Winter-Season.

The “remake”-part of the title is incredibly misleading. This series is more like an exact copy of the first two episodes with about an hour and a half of new material pasted at the end. There was so much promise for an excellent series, and yet the creators spent the first six episode blatantly copying and pasting and did hardly anything to fix the original problems of the OVA. But to be fair, I’m going to review this series from the perspective of someone new to the Munto franchise. If you’ve already seen the OVAs, then you can easily subtract 30% from the rating, skip the series and watch the movie that’s going to be released in the future because then this series has nothing new to add.

Well then, Munto tells the story about two worlds: one of them is at war and in huge troubles, and a random girl named Yumemi who lives in the other world has enough powers to save it from destruction. Well, that’s the basic premise anyway. The pacing is very fast and it hardly leaves any moment for the viewer to get bored of the show, and that’s one of the show’s biggest strengths: there’s always something going on.

The problems mostly lie in the incredibly short length of the series. The characters have got so much potential to grow into a memorable cast, but they’re not given the chance because the airtime only consists out of nine episodes. Especially Yumemi’s friends are pretty likable, but a huge part of the cast just isn’t fleshed out and developed enough. The result is that some characters suddenly start acting completely out of character in the final episode.

The same problem is there with the setting: Munto takes place in a huge one, with different countries with different alliances, but we hardly get to know anything about it, even the most important one which is lead by one of the main characters of this series receives hardly any attention at all. Because of this it’s hard to care about what’s going on.

Thankfully this is Kyoto Animation, so there is a lot of eye candy in this series. Especially the first six episodes (the ones copied directly from the OVAs) look awesome, and the new material, while significantly lower in quality, still have lots of nice movement and hardly any still frames. There’s a lot of style in this series, and most of the time it’s a feast for the senses.

But yeah, that doesn’t prevent the flaws from sticking out. The story was meant for 26 episodes; there is no way that you can squeeze it in only nine of them, and the creators indeed screwed up a lot here. Thanks to the addictive storytelling and animation we still have ourselves a pretty decent series here, but it could have been so much better.

Storytelling: 8/10
Characters: 7/10
Production-Values: 9/10
Setting: 6/10

Sora wo Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai – 09

by psgels, posted in Sora wo Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai



Short Synopsis: Yumemi uses her powers to instantly take care of most of the major conflicts in the series.
Episode Rating: 6,5/10 (Lacking)
Well, there you have it. There’s going to be a movie, which is going to recap all of the new material of the series (read: copy and paste) and paste the real climax of Munto after it. There was no point to the TV-series at all, and it really reminds me of the Death and Rebirth Movie of Evangelion: pointless and only there to squeeze some extra cash out of a franchise. It’s such a shame: if the creators only took the time to rewrite the original story and make it fit within 26 episodes, we would have had ourselves an absolute gem here. Instead, the series is merely a nice enough series for those who haven’t seen the original OVAs yet.

Having said that, though, this final episode left a lot to be desired, unfortunately. I would have been at least satisfied with a decent action-packed finale, but for some very strange reason Yumemi suddenly started acting completely out of character. She’s been this calm yet reserved girl up till now, and this episode transforms her into some sort of cheerful super-heroine of some sorts. Munto also turned into a completely different person after the climax ended.

But hey, at least we now know where the extremely short skirts from the ED came from: they were simply Munto’s strange sense of fashion. I’m still not sure why exactly he decided to give Yumemi and her friends those new clothes in the first place, and where the school uniforms came from…

In this episode it also really becomes clear that Yumemi’s power needed to be fleshed out much more than it already was. She simply zaps everyone and all the problems are instantly gone, and I also assume that she’s simply going to do the same in the movie. The creators have just god-moded her way too much throughout the series.

In the end, looking back now I regret blogging this series. I’m really going to have to be more careful on that with the upcoming Spring Season, and I predict that it’s going to take a looong while before I’m going to be blogging another Kyoto Animation-show again. Please, Kyoani: do SOMETHING that’s out of your comfort-zone.

Mobile Suit Gundam 00 – 47

by psgels, posted in Mobile Suit Gundam 00



Short Synopsis: A-Laws gathers up all of its forces for an all-out attack on the CBs.
Episode Rating: 7,5/10 (Good)
I keep expecting this series to become a trainwreck… and it doesn’t. Seriously, there was so much potential for these final episodes to delve into a scream-fest, but aside from some slight annoyances (Louise mostly) the finale of this series hasn’t become a total disaster at all. This episode too was again a very good one, strangely enough.

Finally the character-development comes together a bit, and instead of the scream-fest in the veins of Zeta Gundam that I was expecting, the finale seems to be heading much more in the style of Gundam Wing. While there is no huge battleship to crash into the earth (unless Veda decides to plummet into the earth somehow), it basically was a string of very solid all-out battles together with character-development that instead of spiralling out of control made the cast come more together. Exactly what was happening in this episode.

The ending of this episode was also really interesting, with Regetta killing Ribbons, but then again: this remains Sunrise. Ribbons really sounds like a guy who wouldn’t die even if you killed him, and although the idea of Regetta being the new main villain, I first want to see Ribbons really dead in the next episode.

In any case, this series still can go anywhere. It can still be the series to restore the faith in the Gundam Franchise after the likes of Gundam Seed Destiny, or it can just become one total disaster. And I really hope that it’s going to be the former.

Birdy the Mighty Decode – 22

by psgels, posted in Birdy the Mighty Decode



Short Synopsis: Natoru’s powers get out of control.
Episode Rating: 8,5/10 (Awesome)
A building-up episode, but oh my god, what an ominous one! Finally things make sense, but at the same time we can expect a really dark finale for this series. Ah, I should have known that Kazuki Akane would attempt to screw time at one point. This episode is where it happens.

I think that the OVA (Yay! There’s going to be an OVA) is going to shed light on exactly how this happened, and going to tell exactly what happened with Natoru on the day that Birdy lost her caretaker (Oh my god, this is what I realize as I’m typing this: her mystery savior was indeed Natoru’s grown up version! Of course!), and it’s going to show how exactly he and his father were screwed over. This drove him to seek power, and this power is now biting him in the behind.

In this episode he manages to save himself by pulling a time-warp, but the big problem with it is that it happens completely beyond his control. He really seems to have signed a contract with the devil somehow. In the meantime, the creators are also making sure of every opportunity to show a bit of history of he characters. When he went to earth, he seems to have joined a regular high school, while two of the beastmen that he’s supposed to kill have known each other for a long time, it seems.

Seriously, this is one of these episodes that may not make much of an impact when I watched it compared to the others of this series, but now that I’m thinking back to everything that happens, it only becomes better and better. It’s been a very long time since I ran into an episode that had this effect on me. And oh my god… this series remains just amazing.

Shikabane Hime – 22

by psgels, posted in Shikabane Hime



Short Synopsis: Finally! The cat!
Episode Rating: 9/10 (fantastic)
Amazing! The second season just continues to get better and better! I know I have ranted a lot about the second season so far, but the past few episodes have been utterly incredible! This could very well turn into my favourite Gainax production at this pace. This is EXACTLY what a good shounen series needs to be!

And seriously, if this episode wasn’t horror, then I don’t know anymore. We have a slaughtered group of children, a frog shikabane who brutally eats the corpses of these children, yet another group of children who are nearly crushed by a bunch of exploding cars, Hokuto who brutally kills everyone within her sight by squeezing them to death. Oh my god… you can really see that the creators were in their element when they made this episode.

So in the end, it turns out that Hokuto was simply someone bred to be sacrificed to the gods. That’s why she turned into a shikabane without any grudges, making her a simple killing machine. Makina’s ancestors were the one who killed her, and that’s why she was turned into a Shikabane: to give her a grudge. In the meantime, the cat turns out to be the shikabane of every kid who was slaughtered by Ouri’s mother. It was interesting how they saw him as a companion, rather than someone killed them in the case of Hizuchi.

Those revelations also came surprisingly early: three episodes left and most of the mysteries are gone now. The only thing that I still want to know is the background behind the final two members of the Seven Stars. In the meantime, the end of this episode definitely made all hell break loose. Usually I’d raise an eyebrow again, since this means that the show is going to turn into an even bigger fight-fest than it already was, but this series has surprised me enough times already. The creators really seem to plan to go all out with the show’s finale, and I can’t wait to find out what they have in store!

Sora wo Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai – 08

by psgels, posted in Sora wo Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai



Short Synopsis: Yumemi’s friends aren’t going to let Yumemi disappear that easily.
Episode Rating: 7/10 (only one more episode left!?)
So obviously, I am not happy with this series after finding out that it’s only going to last for nine episodes. I’m going to take back some of the original praises I made for this series; seriously, if I had known this beforehand I wouldn’t have attempted to blog this series. Warning: big rant coming up.

I really have to wonder: what was the whole point of this ‘remake’. Why couldn’t the creators just have made a third OVA? They could have saved up on the broadcasting fees in order to spice up the animation of the original material. In the end, Sora wo Miageru Shoujo isn’t a remake, it’s just a recap with about an hour of new material pasted at the end. Seriously, I really expected better from Kyoani.

Take a look at some of the other series which were intended as remakes as well: the eighties version of Glass Mask was terrible, and yet the version of 2005, even though its first half followed the exact same plot managed to rewrite it so that it became something amazing. Towards the Terra turned a reportedly average movie into a full fledged TV-series that excellently made use of its extended time-frame. THAT was exactly what I was hoping that this series would do as well, but in the end the ones who planned out this series never understood what was wrong with it in the first place. Sure, the lack of conclusion is one thing, but it’s definitely not the biggest flaw.

So in the end, this still remains wasted potential: there are so many interesting parts in this world that are never going to get explored. This series simply lacks proper build-up, and time to flesh out the different characters. At this point, one episode before the end I still can’t say that I know any of the characters. Yumemi’s friends probably come closest to that.

I can’t believe that I originally praised Kyoani from finally doing something out of their comfort zone. There was nothing experimental at all about this TV-series whatsoever, it’s just another one of their plans to milk out one of their franchises. That’s the thing I really hate about Kyoto Animation: they only go with series that they know will sell; they hardly take any risks whatsoever. Ever since Haruhi, their only original work has been Lucky Star, and that one still was about a bunch of overly cute girls that you can see in every single one of their series (and I didn’t like that one at all as well). Full Metal Panic as well: it was a continuation of a series that they already knew would work, and the same goes for the Key adaptations: it was Toei who pioneered them, not themselves.

What’s more, it’s probably going to take bloody ages before they’re going to be able to come with another new series: they obviously have to animate the next Key visual novel, Haruhi 2 also needs to come and I’m going to eat my hat if there isn’t some sort of Lucky Star Second Season coming some time. It’s especially aggravating since these guys have so many potential to make great series. PLEASE, Kyoani: make your next series about a pig dentist who practices curling at night. Sure, it might not make any sense, but at least it’s original.

Mobile Suit Gundam 00 – 46

by psgels, posted in Mobile Suit Gundam 00



Short Synopsis: A certain character thought to be dead returns.
Episode Rating: 7,5/10 (Good)
Seriously, I so want to hate this series, and yet this series doesn’t let me. And I so want to love this series at the same tie, and that too is something I’m unable to do with this series. There are so many good things about this series, but there are also so many bad things, and this episode again was no different.

Especially Louise got on my nerves more than ever, now that she finally has the chance to kill Nena. Especially the incredibly exaggerated screaming was just pointless. I personally believe that this series would have been a lot better if she had simply died when Nena killed her in the first season. In that case, Saji would indeed have angsted for a lot of episodes, but at least he would have gotten over it, and their relationship wouldn’t have turned into the whine-fest that it is now. In fact, I’m beginning to like Saji whenever he’s not thinking of his former lover.

But yeah, there was lots of good building up in this episode, which is always welcome. While it’s a bit strange for Wang Lui Mei and Hong Long to still be alive, and how four centuries into the future, people still haven’t invented bullets that have enough force to pass through a human body, I am glad to see that they do succeed in telling the CBs about Veda’s location.

And FINALLY, it becomes clear what Aeolia Schenberg intended to do with his plans from the beginning: turning every human into an innovator. That’s what it meant to change the world, and that’s why the GN Drives had to be constructed through such a difficult process. But here I have to wonder: what’s the point of being an innovator anyway? All I’ve seen in the past few episodes is that they have glowy eyes, weird hair and get to pilot fancy mechas. I guess the only thing is the telepathic powers of these guys, but I can’t see how Aeolia would start such an incredibly elaborate and complex plan, just to turn a bunch of people into psychics… Just imagine how people can be able to misuse these powers by intruding into others’ privacy.

Right now, my biggest problem with the second season aside from the obvious Saji and Louise is that it’s a story that could also have easily been done in thirteen episodes. There was no need to drag this on for this many episodes, unless the creators were very consciously building up for something in the end. The finale of this series can really make or break it for me. With such a large amount of build-up, the finale really needs to give this series a solid and satisfying conclusion. If it can do that, then my opinion about this series will very likely become much higher.

Birdy the Mighty Decode – 21

by psgels, posted in Birdy the Mighty Decode



Short Synopsis: Shouko goes on a big adventure.
Episode Rating: 8/10 (Excellent)
Another quiet episode with the goal of building up, but it’s an episode well spent, as it develops the character of Shouko a bit more. It was a bit silly of her to mistake Nataru and Shion to have a relationship, but the episode did its job really well, and especially the many other things that happened during this episode made it more than worth watching. And after all, she was about to be taken away from Nataru, so she needed something to vent off her frustrations with. Bullying Shion was the obvious thing to do. ^^;

But damn, I hate it when the creators pull that ‘character X is about to be killed off’-cliffhanger, especially since this show has already seen so many deaths. Now I really want to see that next episode, even though it’s going to take another week for it to air. My guess would be that the creators are going to let Nataru struggle for a bit more, make him escape with that power of his while heavily wounded.

Then, I wonder what Muroto’s purpose in this series is going to be. It’s been pretty small throughout the series, but now that he caught himself a ‘scandal’ of Shion, then I really wonder what kind of repercussions it’s going to have. Shouko is probably going to find out, meaning that her role isn’t over yet, and this episode was probably spent in order to develop her character not just to have a complete cast and for the heck of filling an episode, but it’s actually going to be used somewhere later in the series. Nice.

Shikabane Hime – 21

by psgels, posted in Shikabane Hime



Short Synopsis: The seven stars put Makina and Hokuto in one room. Fighting ensues.
Episode Rating: 8/10 (Excellent)
I’m still amazed at this series. I keep having these fears, for the huge amount of pitfalls that this series can fill into. And here it comes, and proves me wrong time and time again. The characters just keep saving this series whenever it’s about to fall apart. When boob-sama first appeared, I feared that she was just going to prove to be a source of annoyance, in the same veins of Saji and Louise in Gundam 00, and how she’d come back as a Shikabane Hime in order to form Ouri’s harem when she ‘died’. And here it turns out that she couldn’t be saved, and actually died for real with a pretty impressive finish. In the last episode, I remember noting how the rest of the seven stars looked like they were going to simply fight Makina in standard shounen fare, and this episode comes and it continues to provide very interesting back-stories for these guys. Heck, even the simple bash-fest between Makina and Hokuto turned out to be awesome somehow. I really didn’t see this coming when the second season started, but at this point, this series can hardly do anything wrong for me anymore. That’s how much I’m already caught up in this series’ pace.

So as it turns out, there’s a whole lot more to that simple flashback scene of Keisei and his former comrades than just them being at the same spot at the same time. It turns out to be a very important scene, having to do with Ouri’s origins. I didn’t understand it completely, but there seems to have been a shikabane that collected children, presumably this was Ouri’s mother. In their attempts to rescue them, Keisei and the others failed, and every child except for Ouri got killed off, and Ouri was brought to the orphanage. Also, did I understand this correctly and did Ouri’s mother turn into the cat? In any case, the biggest revelation in this episode was that one of these dead children was Hizuchi.

What I now want to know is why it’s so important for the Seven Stars to have Hokuto fight Makina, though this will probably get clearer once the creators start on her background.

It’s only a pity that the animation doesn’t feel as rich as in the first season. While it’s still much more than a bunch of still frames, and I can’t exactly put my finger to the big difference. I guess that the animation in the second season feels more standard and less inspired than what we saw in the first, if that makes any sense.

Sora wo Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai – 07

by psgels, posted in Sora wo Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai



Short Synopsis: Munto tells Yumemi about the past of his country.
Episode Rating: 8/10 (Excellent)
Ah, finally! It was a long wait, but finally we know a bit more about what the heck is going on in this series. Finally we see a bit of the elf country when it’s not fighting. While it’s certainly not enough yet, it’s definitely a good start, although again the dialogue was pretty complex, meaning a lot of trouble for me to understand it. ^^;

So if I understood correctly, the past of Munto’s world looked a lot like it in terms of technological advancement. Then from out of nowhere (or from somewhere that’s yet to be explained) and started wrecking things with their huge amounts of powers. They then discovered the parallel world that Munto lived in, and created a link to it. Eventually though, they destroyed this link again when they became obsessed with their own powers, resulting in lots of destruction. In order to prevent this from happening again, I suspect that the outsider was born. This went fine until the strange evil guy who appeared in the previous episode appeared, and Munto tried to use Yumemi’s help to get rid of him, while Gntarl and his allies didn’t support his decision. At least, that’s what I understood from it.

One thing that worries me though is that the pacing still is as fast as ever. Even though this episode was a quiet one, it still rushed the history of Munto’s world through in less than half an episode, which was an especially bad sign for my hopes of seeing this series continue for more than thirteen episodes. Things really can go anywhere at this point, but if the creators do plan to squeeze the entire story in only one season, then the second half of the series is going to have to be consistently solid and excellent if it doesn’t want to end up the same as the very unfinished OVAs. This episode thankfully met those requirements, but but for this series it’s going to be a matter whether the big picture can deliver or not in the end.

As for the animation, I’m glad to say that now that the series has started its original material, the quality hasn’t gone down too badly. While things obviously look less detailed and impressive when compared to the first six episode, the creators thankfully still have lots of movement. Some details were lost in the process, but it’s better than just resorting to safe drawings with mostly still frames.