Category: Finished Series: Action

Birdy the Mighty Decode Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Birdy the Mighty Decode



My three personal favourite series are the following: 1) Mahou Shoujotai, 2) Noein, 3) Visions of Escaflowne. Because Mahou Shoujotai wasn’t directed by just one guy, but a whole bunch of directors and the latter two were directed by the guy called Kazuki Akane, it’s pretty safe to say that he’s my favourite director. So, when he comes with a new series that plans to revive an old OVA from the nineties, then I obviously had to watch it. Overall, it doesn’t live up to his other work, but it’s an impressive series nonetheless.

Although it doesn’t always show this, this series knows how to build up. The first half of the series might goof off at first sight, but once the second half kicks in, everything slowly starts coming together, and the tension is very smoothly built up until the actual climax, and it becomes apparent that the first few episodes were definitely necessary, to flesh out the different characters and settings, and make them believable.

What impressed me the most, though, is the way that this series uses its production-values. There’s time enough for the story and characters to develop, with the second season and all, but both the graphics and music are very well done. The budget of this series is obviously limited, but the creators managed to save most of it in order to treat the viewer to a very small amount of beautifully animated fight scenes, which I’d classify as the best 2D-fight scenes of the past half year. When a character sprains his ankle, or gets his or her arm twisted, you see exactly the bones and muscles that move out of place, which is something most other anime tend to neglect.

There’s just one minor point about this series: it doesn’t have the most exciting main character to work with. Senkawa really is your typical fourteen year old brat, which love issues and impulsive tendencies thankfully the creators do manage to develop his character sufficiently, but he does whine a lot in the process.

Apart from that, I can’t really say much more about this series. It’s a typical series that’s meant to really take off in its second season, and for that it built up really well. There are some clichéd characters here and there, but the director has an excellent sense of timing, and knows what to say when, where and how to make the best out of them.

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

Birdy the Mighty Decode – 13

by psgels, posted in Birdy the Mighty Decode



Short Synopsis: The finale of the first season of Birdy the Mighty: Stop Ryunka and save Nakasugi.
Highlights: Predictable, but satisfying.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,25/10
Well, this episode turns out exactly like you’d expect: at the end of the episode, Ryunka is sealed, Nakasugi is saved and Senkawa is back in Birdy’s body. However, I still like this ending, because of the way it took the creators to get there. They succeeded to make the ending too straightforward, first by playing around with Mind-Games with Senkawa and Nakasugi, by keeping switching Nakasugi and Ryunka like someone with a bad personality disorder, followed by Senkawa finally getting the guts to kiss Nakasugi, taking over the Ryunka and thus sacrificing his own body, which he knows can be easily restored.

Seeing the relationship between Senkawa and Nakasugi coming together with that kiss really made up for the predictable finale, although I’m sceptic about the memory-reset the creators gave to Nakasugi. Memory loss can either work incredibly well or flop entirely. The creators really need to use the fact that she lost her memory, and not make it some convenient reset-button like on a gaming-console. For the second season, the creators also need to find a way to get rid of the fact that dead bodies can just be restored. It’s not going to make for good drama if characters can just be revived like it’s no problem. The creators need to find some sort of “Great will of the Universe”-solution (for those who watched Excel Saga) to keep this from happening.

Overall, when compared to Escaflowne and Noein’s halfway-climaxes, this one pretty much sucked, but with the standard of the past season, then it’s an above-average ending, based on the endings I’ve seen so far. It could have been better, but at the same time it also didn’t screw up at all, and I’ll be looking forward to that second season.

Bonen no Xamdou – 11

by psgels, posted in Bonen no Xamdou



Short Synopsis: The Zanbani is attacked by a number of humanforms.
Highlights: Only 11 episodes and the cast is already developing.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
I must say, I’m very impressed with this episode. The cast is already connecting to a level that takes most series at least five episodes longer. This episode was really meant to develop the cast of the Zanbani, to push them to their limits and use time that the previous episodes spent on fleshing them out, with some awesome results. I think that from now on, we can expect this series to really get fired off, and I’m really curious whether the creators are able to get the best out of this series’ potential.

This episode confirms what I’ve been suspecting: the Zanbani isn’t just a regular postal ship with a bunch of strange members on it. It makes perfect sense: why else would a postal ship carry guns and a Hiruko-priest? It’s the same as Eureka7, where the main characters pretend to be a bunch of trendy people on surfing mecha, while they’re in fact an underground rebellion. The question now remains: who is Benikawa, and why is she carrying out her mission with a bunch of children on board? It seems to suggest that she has a lot of personal issues in whatever she seems to be trying to do, if she really wants her friends and loved ones to accompany her.

I really loved the situations the creators put the characters in in this episode, every single character was awesome in this episode, and especially Benikawa got a lot of depth, as she started yelling at Yunbo because her motherly worries annoyed her. It’s also typical for her gun to suddenly stop working after two shots. She never striked me as the type to take good care of her guns, so it’s natural for them to get clogged up once in a while. Nakiami also completely lost it, after seeing so many killed Humanforms. We still don’t know exactly why she takes them so personal, but my guess is that she once lost a loved one, who became a humanform.

Kisel-jii also shined as he tried to perform maintenance on the ship (a role often neglected, but at the same time very important). Meanwhile Akiyuki and Raigyo played a surprisingly small role in this episode, and this episode mainly showed Akiyuki was he continues to grow and learn to control his powers. There’s also a strange chemistry between Ahm and Hinokimaru, as in a strange father-and-son relationship while they’re actually not related.

What I loved about this episode was the creator’s amazing ability to make every character count. Most of the time in anime, you see the focus falling on one or two characters, and the other characters could just as well merge into one big character, without much of a difference. In Bonen no Xamdou each character has his or her individuality. There were no two characters who did the same. It may be a pet peeves, but I love it when a series manages to accomplish this. I can really see Bonen no Xamdou turning into my favourite series, once all spring and summer-series finish airing. It all depends on what path Porfy no Nagai Tabi decides to choose, and whether or not some amazing short series pops up in the upcoming fall-season.

Macross Frontier Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Macross Frontier


Having never seen anything of Macross, the arrival of the new Macross Frontier, airing more than twenty-five years after the original Dimensional Fortress Macross, seemed like a good place to check out what the hype about the franchise was all about. What I got was probably the biggest-budgeted series of the year, with grand visuals and soundtrack. However, I do hope that this isn’t the best that Macross has to offer.

Overall, Macross Frontier is a very accessible series, as long as you know that in the Macross Universe, songs can be used as weapons. It tells about the love triangle between one guy and two different idols, while evil aliens called the Vajra are trying to invade and need to be stopped. While the romance is rather questionably introduced, it does develop enough to keep the viewer busy. The characters are overall nicely fleshed out, sympathetic and nice to watch.

The problem with this series is that I don’t really think that the creators really knew what they wanted with this series. It jumps from one thing to the others, introduces things that turn out to not matter at all in the end, while rushing the development of the things that do, some moment sparkle with brilliance, while others bore with dullness. The result is a beginning that goofs off a bit too much, and a finale that feels superficial, and where nothing really comes together like it should be.

The series has a cast of very interesting characters, but they’re not always used well. The series has a nasty tendency sometimes to put them into predictable situations, that don’t really allow them to fully develop their characters, with the prime example being Ranka, one of the main characters. She has some excellent moments, but she too often just plays the part of a damsel in distress. There’s only one character that’s really uninteresting to watch, and ironically this guy ended up being the main character of this series: Alto. His character isn’t bad, but he pales in comparison to the other characters, and because of that it’s so frustrating that the creators keep focusing on him.

Thankfully, this didn’t stop this series from having an excellent middle part, which lasts from around episode 10 till 18. It’s here where both the characters and the characters manage to show their best sides, which makes for a bunch of awesome action-packed episodes. Unfortunately, the series quickly dulls in again as it approaches its climax and finishes with a decent but inconclusive ending.

In terms of production-values, this series is also awesome, but unfortunately not without its flaws. Even though this series has a huge budget, the character-designs often look inconsistent and rushed, and unfortunately this just looks out of place a bit, unlike what Satelight managed to do with Noein. Yoko Kanno’s soundtrack also has a few very good pieces amongst it, but it’s nowhere near her best work.

Overall, I just feel that the creators could have done much more with the potential of this series. They should have taken more risks, they should have made more effort to flesh out some of the neglected subplots and side-characters, instead of goofing off with Alto, Ranka and Sheryl. Macross Frontier had the potential to bake a delicious cake, and instead just came with a fried egg. And while the egg is nice and good and all, it could have been so much better.

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

Macross Frontier – 25

by psgels, posted in Macross Frontier



Short Synopsis: The final episode: Save Ranka and destroy Grace.
Highlights: Pretty, but a bit too keen on creating a perfect ending.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7/10
Ugh, okay, so Alto didn’t die; I should have known. I’ve been too spoiled by series as Ultraviolet and especially Himitsu, where people actually DIE when they’re killed. This episode proved the fears I originally had for this series, by keeping the death-count embarrassingly low. If I recall correctly, the only one who dies is Grace, apart from that everyone survives. Yes, even Sheryl who was supposed to have a deadly illness.

Overall, it was a decent ending. It wasn’t the worst I’ve seen this season, but nowhere near the best. The graphics looked really nice as expected, but it didn’t help that some of Ranka’s songs were incredibly cheesy. Her voice worked great with those synthesizers, like in the previous episode, but in my opinion it sucks when she attempts to sing pop tunes on her own. Although her voice is a great one when she sings together with Sheryl.

In any case, Grace indeed turned into the final boss of this series, and the Vajra suddenly turned into the good guys because of this. I didn’t quite pick up why she suddenly turned herself against the Frontier-fleet if her goal was to eliminate all the Vajra. I also feel that Leon’s arrest could have been a bit more subtle. It’s over, just like that? It makes me wonder what his entire purpose in this series was. The purple-haired girl whose name I forgot at the moment also woke up a bit too conveniently.
My main problem with this episode was the way the creators decided to close off the love triangle between Alto, Ranka and Sheryl. After 25 episodes, we’re entirely back to square one: Ranka and Sheryl are friends again, they both still love Alto, and they both still have equal chances to get his love. I mean, PLEASE, bring some conclusion for these people! Let one of these girls get Alto and the other move on, for Christ’s sake. I guess that the creators would use the love-triangle for the movie, but something tells me that even THAT won’t have the guts to give this triangle a proper conclusion.

Overall, I pretty much blogged Macross Frontier on a whim, making use of the opportunity that I could blog a lot of different series for the past spring-season. The results were a great middle part, with a disappointing start and ending. This series lost a lot of its magic after it revealed all its mysteries about Sheryl, and never really made up for it. While it definitely had the biggest budget of the past half year, I just can’t label this series as the one with the best graphics. Birdy the Mighty had the best animated fights in terms of 2D, and Blassreiter had the best 3D fights, and the best insert song was from Kaiba. Macross Frontier really is a series that went for the quantity instead of the quality, and that’s why its individual moments lost a bit of impact.

Birdy the Mighty Decode – 12

by psgels, posted in Birdy the Mighty Decode



Short Synopsis: Syamalan + Ryunka = Destruction.
Highlights: Awesome animation and music and a less annoying Senkawa. What more could you want?
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
Now this is more like it! Senkawa acted much less of a teenager in this episode, which made him much more enjoyable to watch. It’s really such a pity that this series has to work with a typical loser as the lead character, because there aren’t many roads you can go to with such a guy, and he’s already overplayed a lot. I think it would have been better to make Senkawa more like the male lead of True Tears.

And the twist, where Syamalan died so easily after executing his plans was a pretty nice one. It also shows that the finale of the first season will be between its three main characters: Birdy, Senkawa and Nakasugi. It’s really a finale that can go anywhere: it can become utter crap, where Senkawa spends the entire episode in a pointless argument with Birdy over whether or not to kill Nakasugi, or it can become amazing, like the director has shown many times before with Noein and Escaflowne with the help of some heavy-hitting character-development.

I also love the use of music in this series. The director is very much like Bee-Train, in the way that he puts a lot of emphasis on the music, but the difference between the two is that the music here is at its best when the tension is slowly rising, instead of the actual climaxes in Bee-Train’s case. The composer, Yuugo Kanno, is relatively unknown, and he’s only composed the music of a small amount of series, among which Hataraki Man and Library War. It’s interesting, because I remember noting in the first episode of Library Wars how great the music was, and then strangely enough the music dulled out afterwards. Now that the guy has teamed up with such an excellent director, it’s great to hear what he can really do for a soundtrack.

Macross Frontier – 24

by psgels, posted in Macross Frontier



Short Synopsis: The final assault on the Vajra home planet begins. You don’t want to read this entry before watching this episode, so be warned.
Highlights: Not going to spoil that here.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
Oh, okay. I admit Kawamori: you have me. I give up, and I was in the wrong.

Ah, the irony. I was about to give up hope on this series. I kept rambling on how the creators had the guts to kill off Ranka, and that they’d just go with the predictable paths. And then this episode comes and kills of none other than Alto! That’s just about the best plot twist that you can think of at this point. I mean, how often do you see the main character getting killed off before the final episode of a series?

Seriously, that twist is made of nothing but win. I’ve actually never seen Alto as a well-written character. All of the best moments in this series were either about Ranka, Sheryl, Kuran, Michel, Ozma, etc, but Alto never managed to impress me. In a way, he’s the dullest character in this series, especially when compared to the amount of screen-time he got. In a way, it’s quite ironic: my dislike for Ranka comes from the way that she was used, but her actual character is pretty good. I really wonder what would have happened if she got more screen-time than that she actually got, and Alto would be more reduced to the background.

In any case, now that that annoying factor is gone, I’m actually looking forward to that final episode a lot. But Satelight: if you’re planning to revive the guy, then I’ll kill you!

Bonen no Xamdou – 10

by psgels, posted in Bonen no Xamdou



Short Synopsis: Raigyo gives Akiyuki a few “tips” on being Xam’d, and Haru tries to close off her past.
Highlights: Haru’s new haircut looks awesome. Nakiami’s… doesn’t. ^^;
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
Often in anime, a change of haircut means that the person in question is about to enter a new stage of his or her life, and emerges as a different person. This was very much emphasized on this episode in Haru’s case: she continues to be held behind by her past, and in this episode, she attempts to close her memories off for the time being, and not being influenced by them.

The rest of this episode was a bit of background on Raigyo, showing how he became a Xamdou. It was very interesting to see the different cast members at that time. The girl wasn’t there, the boy was only just born, and Nakiami looked really young. Still, I’m surprised at how long she’s already been at the Zanbani: it’s been more than five years already.

This clearly was a building up episode. My prediction is that the next episode will start the introduction of what’s supposed to be the midway climax of this series. I’m interested at what the creators can do, and especially how Haru’s going to tie in everything. The girl definitely is my favourite character in this series at this point, and I’m really looking forward to see her growth.

Birdy the Mighty Decode – 11

by psgels, posted in Birdy the Mighty Decode



Short Synopsis: Birdy faces a difficult task: telling Senkawa that Ryunka is in Nakasugi.
Highlights: A bit predictable, but at the same time very interesting developments, considering that second season.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10
Okay, so this had to happen: Senkawa had to learn the identity of Ryunka, and the fact that Birdy’s out to kill her. Birdy herself waited way too long, and ended up telling him at the worst possible moment, so he indeed had to retaliate and run off with Nakasugi. His character was a quite annoying, but when viewed as a means of building up, then it makes sense.

When Nakasugi and Tsutomu ran off, the creators laid a few parallels to other stories to try and spice it up. The two of them running away looks a lot like when Haruka and Yuu ran away in Noein, and also the story of Bonnie and Clyde that Nakasugi mentioned on the subway was interesting enough

It’s now clear how the creators are planning to end the first season: get rid of Syamalan and say goodbye to Nakasugi. The second season is also going to feature Senkawa and Birdy in separate bodies (which really makes me wonder how Senkawa’s going to remain the main character of this series). It does seem that the creators really intended the first season to stand apart from the second season, as a means of fleshing out the characters. My prediction is that Capella and the guy with glasses will play the main bad guys, and Muroto and Natsumi will likely also gain much bigger roles (which seems to hint at an increase in mystery).

It’s all going to matter on whether the creators can manage to develop Birdy and Senkawa sufficiently for that second season. I can imagine how both of them will change a lot after whatever’s going to happen in the next two episodes, but the trick is to keep things natural and subtle, rather than turning Senkawa into some battle-hardened tough warrior or something.

Bonen no Xamdou – 09

by psgels, posted in Bonen no Xamdou



Short Synopsis: Raigyo gets his proper introduction.
Highlights: Haru.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
A quiet episode this time, which was just meant to give Raigyo’s character some time to catch up in terms of background and fleshing out. Nothing much happened, even for a Xam’d-episode, As it turns out, Raigyo had been travelling the world for two years of his own free will, and in the meantime he brought back a bunch of souvenirs. The crewmembers on the ship apart from perhaps the captain are thrilled to see him back, so of course Akiyuki starts to suffer from an inferiority complex when he’s around. Fairly standard, although I guess that this was a valuable chance for Akiyuki to realize that he’s not special, and that there are more people of his kind.

In any case, I don’t think that I would have suspected this after just the first episode, but Haru’s really turning into my favourite character from this series. She doesn’t take anything for granted, and because of Akiyuki, she continues to doubt her superiors, and yet at the same time she doesn’t run around and throws tantrums to anyone who wants to listen.

Benikawa came with an interesting twist this episode: she actually plans to attack the Northern Government. That was quite a surprise to me, as she’s been behaving like a pacifist for the majority of the series. Well, it does make sense now, why the Zanbani has assault weapons, and why the members are so skilled with fire weapons. Benikawa’s pacifism turns out to be her habit of not getting involved in pointless fights that’ll only put the crew in needless damage.

I do have to say, though, that the website of Bonen no Xamdou sucks. When I want to look up something as simple as the name of one of the characters, it makes me wait more than a minute before the site has fully loaded. That’s way too long, for such a tiny bit of information.