Category: Finished Series: Adventure/Fantasy/Science Fiction

Cobra The Animation – Time Drive Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Cobra The Animation



Here’s a quick review. I think that my biggest issue with Cobra is that I unfortunately happened to watch one of the worst Cobra episodes as my introduction to the franchise (the first episode of the Psychogun), and because of that I was reluctant to check out Time Drive. Still, I’m glad I did, because especially that first episode stands out to me as one of the best Cobra episodes I’ve seen.

The main problem with Cobra has always been that he God-moded himself through any sort of problem that he ran into. This OVA shows a unique side of his character, though. It’s not just the fact that we get to see a younger Cobra, but also the older Cobra is much more interesting than he usually is. Not to mention the huge amount of ideas that the creators managed to put in just thirty minutes. It’s an excellent adventure.

The second episode is a bit of a step back. Nowhere near bad or anything, but it lacks the punch and the amount of creativity of the first episode, plus the transitions move a bit awkwardly at times. Nevertheless, it’s a nice conclusion to that excellent first episode.

Storytelling: 8/10 – A bit rough around the edges but packs a great sense of adventure, which is exactly what

this series should be.
Characters: 8/10 – In two episodes, it showed more variety to the characters than the 40 TV-episodes that I’ve seen so

far.
Production-Values: 7/10 – Hmm, lacks the excellent animation of Cobra 1982 or the eye candy of Cobra 2010, and it’s

supposed to be an OVA. Though Yoshihiro Ike kicks ass as usual.
Setting: 9/10 – So. Many. Neat. Ideas.

Just one side-note: what is it with Japanese confusing “dive” with “drive”? First Real Drive, and now this. When characters are clearly diving into

something metaphorical… why call it that way?

Seikai no Monshou Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Seikai no Monshou



Well, so this is why, at the start of this contest, I only limited the series that you could force me to blog to 14 episodes: so that I wouldn’t be stuck with 60 unblogged episodes of Monster, in the case that it turned out to be a bad idea. I really apologize: with my current schedule, I just can’t watch and blog older series at a consistent pace, like I do with the currently airing series. Because of that, I just ended up marathoning the rest of this series, and here are my impressions on the entire series.

Seikai no Monshou is yet another one of the series that reinforces my beliefs that the Sunrise of around ten years ago rocked beyond belief: they consistently brought out interesting, daring, exciting and innovative science-fiction mecha series with great premises. Seikai no Monshou at first sight is another science fiction series, but it sets itself apart by its imaginative and especially very detailed execution.

The central focus is the chemistry between the two lead characters. Coming from two completely different backgrounds, this series shows both of their backgrounds, and tells in great detail about the history of the universe they’re set in, especially on the race called the Abh. The gem of this series lies in its dialogue: the dialogue between the two lead characters is direct, straight to the point it forces you to confront difficult issues, rather than jumping around them. The difference in their upbringing is shown subtly but powerfully throughout this dialogue.

The battles in this series are also often very down to earth, and focused more at skill rather than just going over the top with explosions. Unfortunately, there are times at which this series does forget that and turns into an action flick. The final episode, instead of closing off with a powerful climax instead just opts for the kind of battle in which the enemy soldiers (both well-trained police and military officers) conveniently miss every shot they fire, yet get killed off instantly when the lead characters shoot at them.

Nevertheless, that doesn’t ruin the rest of the series that leads up to it, which is an exceptionally written science fiction story that puts a lot of emphasis on the characterization and dialogue between the two lead characters.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Realistic, down to earth and yet powerful, though the final arc isn’t the best.
Characters: 9/10 –
Production-Values: 8/10 – Solid, but surprisingly dated at this point.
Setting: 9/10 – Well detailed, realistic and imaginative back-stories, both for the characters and the world that this series is set in.

Cobra The Animation – 09

by psgels, posted in Cobra The Animation



Well, this is just the last series I expected to just get better and better with every episode. Don’t ask me why, but even though this series started out as a guilty pleasure, I’m genuinely enjoying it now. This episode again: the characters were very simple, but the ideas and the storytelling, along with Yoshihiro Ike’s soundtrack again turned this into an enjoyable episode. I’m a big fan of adventure series, but I often find them lacking in the creativity department. This show has exactly that.

And I have to praise this series: it’s one of the few ones that you can see has a ton of fun, making its own stuff up. Rugball was one of the highlights of Cobra 1982, and here it again comes with a great premise: in a free fall of 30000 feet, participants have to assemble their own vehicles, just in time before plummeting to their death and finish a race at high speed. I love the idea behind it.

One thing that I also appreciate is that ever since that first arc, the entire mentality of this series has changed. While at first, it had the “Cobra and the girl get a happy end”-mentality, instead, the series changed to the “only Cobra is awesome enough to have the happy end”. This makes the females in this series much less useless than they once were. Instead, they’re often the main villains, rather than damsels in distress. In this episode I again feared for Panela to fall into the same trap, but guess what? She died!

But seriously though, there’s no denying that this series is flawed, but nevertheless this series knows exactly what it is, and it’s been using that to its advantage and made this an excellent adaptation. Compare that to Hanamaru Youchien, for example, where the creators can’t seem to realize that they’re animating a show about a kindergarten. Or Letter Bee, in which the creators were building up to a great story that they never had the plans for to animate. In my view, there were too many series this season that failed to capture their essences. Cobra The Animation, however, succeeded in that.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Armed Librarians – The Book of Bantorra – 22

by psgels, posted in Armed Librarians - The Book of Bantorra



What an amazing conclusion to this arc. This series has really been delivering from start to finish, and I can only hope that the entire story can get animated within the next four episodes.

At this point, all of the characters on the outer side of the moral spectrum are dead now: on one side we have Volken’s immense belief in justice, and Noloty’s endless kindness, and on the other we have the power-hungry leader of an evil organization who wants to change the world. The way this series has portrayed them is nowhere near overused, though. Kachua has been a great villain throughout the series: he always had this air of mystery around him, and it’s not like he started out as someone who wanted to destroy the world: it was only his final trump as the Church neared extinction. But I especially applaud Noloty: she really showed that naivety and innocence in an action-series aren’t overrated.

Sure, there are tons of series with lead characters who refuse to kill and all, but it’s Noloty who takes this a step further. Her kind of love for everyone goes far beyond “thou shalt not kill”, but rather tries to look behind it, in her attempts to infect the world with her kindness; kindof the opposite that Kachua has been doing in the past arc. And I guess that that shallowness of his approach was also symbolized in how easy the infected people turned back to normal: in order to truly change something, you need to change its core, like what Noloty has been doing. Brainwashing is just a temporarily solution.

In any case: now what? The main focus of this series is now going to be this “heaven”. People seem obsessed with entering it. Hamyuts in this episode revealed that she indeed wants to die, but do so gloriously. My guess is that that would be her attempt to become a true man and enter this heaven. That mysterious killer guy who killed Vizac and Noloty has his own ways of doing it, by simply betraying the armed librarians. My guess is that Mokkania also tried it at some point, but locked himself away when he realized what he was doing (since this episode did show that he killed quite a number of innocent people as well).

Speaking of which: what happened to Kachua’s book? Will that one still play a role, since he died as a seemingly true man, after all?
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Cobra The Animation – 08

by psgels, posted in Cobra The Animation



It’s strange: Cobra 1982 and 2010 are animated from the same manga, and yet their focus is completely different. Cobra 1982 interpreted “adventure” as “killing bad guys”, while Cobra 2010 interprets “adventure” as meeting interesting people and settings. I think that that’s why I consider the latter to be superior: killing of bad guys for 33 episodes does get old, even though a few of them stand out as original. Especially considering that to get to these interesting people, Cobra first has to kill of hordes of nameless minions and goons. Cobra 2010 leaves the goons for what they are, and therefore is much more able to focus on the creativity.

What also changed is that this series adds a bit of depth to the characters that Cobra meets. It’s small, but because of that I’m much more interested in these people. These people are overcome by greed, so much that they forget to think rationally. It’s been the same for three arcs now, but it actually says much more about them than the umpth minion of the Pirate Guild who want to kill Cobra. I think that the “why” in Cobra 1982 got ignored too often, and that allowed it to get stale. Plus, Cobra 2010 has space cars. How awesome is that?

One thing I liked in this episode was how well the conclusion was handled, and especially how powerful the soundtrack was at that time. That’s another thing at which I consider Cobra 2010 to be superior: its soundtrack is ten times better than the original.
Rating: * (Good)

Seikai no Monshou – 06

by psgels, posted in Seikai no Monshou



Blogging this series has shown me that I’m very selectively punctual. While I promised that I’d blog this series weekly, this entry has had more than a week delay, apologies for that. Blogging this series has been an interesting experiment, but in the end I don’t think that I can blog a series that has already been fully released consistently and at this point, I think I’ll just end up marathoning the two Banner of the Stars, instead of blogging them weekly. I know it’s something that’s completely in my head, but still.

In any case, a great episode. It was very intriguing. This episode showed a completely different side of the Abh: the elitist and racist one. This episode rocked in the way that it slowly revealed the exact stance of the Baron that Jinto and Lafiel ended up at. This episode showed how great this series is at building up: that final shot of Lafiel smiling was a very powerful one.

And the emotions: anime is often a medium of overacting, but this show is different. The subtle emotions of the characters show exactly how they feel, and yet no attempt is made to make them over the top, apart from perhaps those nameless maids.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Armed Librarians – The Book of Bantorra – 21

by psgels, posted in Armed Librarians - The Book of Bantorra



So, the slaughter has begun. I must say that I really like all of the background behind this apocalyptic arc. Finally we don’t have some sort of evil demon who is about to destroy the world: the background behind this one is much more complex and interesting.

This episode passed, and it’s still a bloody mystery as to what happened to Noloty in the previous episode. We do get some hints, though: that boy she was with has the power to unleash his emotions to others. Whatever happened between him, Noloty and the Governor of Paradise, it killed off Noloty, made Arkit believe that the Armed Librarians killed her off, and somehow turned him into a lizard. While the latter is probably an aftereffect of Arkit’s powers, the big mystery is why the Governor of Paradise actually revealed himself in order to get the job done. Is the church this close to extinction?

I do have one point of criticism, though. Ireia’s death was probably the first cliched one I’ve seen in this series. It was by far the least impressive one, because of how over the top it was. All deaths in Bantorra thus far had something special, with the most impressive being Volken and Noloty, but with Ireaia… the creators hinted a bit to much to the fact that she was about to die.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Cobra The Animation – 07

by psgels, posted in Cobra The Animation



Okay, so with this I’ve seen Cobra 1982 and seven of the episodes of Cobra 2010. I’m going to finish watching this series, but after that I’m not planning to return to this series because of its shallow nature: after this, I get the feeling that the more I watch, the older and less fun this series gets. Still, it’s been fun, and this arc was without a doubt my favourite.

The creators… they did great justice to the Cobra franchise, I have to give them that. This was a shallow adventure, but it was a shallow adventure like it should be: it’s got characters with convictions, central themes (belief), it’s creative and isn’t afraid to go with the stupid in order to avoid the predictable. I like that. The final twist, in which it turned out that the only reason Cobra came along with the mountain climbing was because Lady just “happened” to be on the plane that the gold was in. It makes no sense, but it’s one of those plot twists of which I have to praise the creators to actually go with it. A problem I have with a lot of light-hearted series is that they tend to play it too safe. That tends to get rather boring.

Also, this episode showed a quick but effective way to flesh out a relatively big cast sufficiently. The chemistry between the group is very good, and interestingly Cobra isn’t entirely the good guy here, because he pretty much killed a guy himself. Instead, Geronimo was a charming good guy, and the balance of honest people to ones who tried to cheat their ways to the top was healthy.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Armed Librarians – The Book of Bantorra – 20

by psgels, posted in Armed Librarians - The Book of Bantorra



Oh god, no. They couldn’t… they didn’t. This show just… is unbelievable at times. What a plot twist, and what a powerful way to execute it!

This episode really showed me. I’ve noticed that one of the most often voiced criticisms is that some of the characters are too naive, especially regarding Volken, but Noloty has this naivety as well. And this episode showed that the creators intended naivety to be main themes of this series. It’s not like Volken and Noloty are just characters whose archetypes appear in a ton of other series. Just look at their context in the series: they aren’t both naive, they’re naive in their own way with a religious adherance to one particular virtue.

For Volken, it’s that he wanted to spread justice. Noloty wanted to spread kindness. And these two actually had the beliefs and conviction in order to do it: they were so convinced of their own ideals that they were able to make decisions that any sane and mature person, as Mattoalast and Hamy, could never have taken. And THAT’s what sets them apart from most other leads. The first two arcs were exactly for that: to build up their beliefs. Then, right before their deaths, their beliefs get completely shattered and proven wrong, and yet in Volken’s case he remained pure, and I expect that to be the case for Noloty as well.

Because holy crap. I did not expect Noloty to get killed off so soon? I mean, we were all like “yay! another Noloty episode”, and instead we end up reading her book! It’s not confirmed, but I highly suspect that it’s Noloty’s kindness that eventually got her.

This only leaves us with one of the three main naive characters alive: Mirepoc. Unlike Noloty and Volken, she doesn’t have strong beliefs, and is very much in doubts, and she lacks the conviction to really go with her own ideals because she’s constantly surrounded by Hamy and Mattoalast, and in the past also Volken, because her ability is just so damn handy. She’s different to them, because it feels like she’s in the middle of everything: her power is supposed to be dependable, rather than aggressive, which might help her escape the fate of Volken and Noloty.

Also, the major climax has begun. And holy crap is it epic. it’s very common for these kinds of series to involve the entire world in it. The lazy way out is of course to threaten to make the main bad guy so powerful that he’s going to end up destroying the world if not stopped. It’s a lot more layered here, though. Every country, even democracies (whoa, democracies in a fantasy-series: that’s rare!), suddenly decides to declare war on the Library of Bantorra. Just what did Kachua (The Governor of Paradise) do in order to accomplish that?

Also: something tells me that Hamy only told a part of the truth in the last episode. I mean, she obviously has much more secrets, but one particular thing that she failed to mention is that it seems that the war between the Armed Librarians and the Church, while it started out as a simple mock war, has turned into a full blown war. In fact, I’m betting my hat that this had to be done because Hamy became the Acting Director.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Katanagatari – 02

by psgels, posted in Katanagatari



Okay, for those confused by the strange schedule of this series: episode 3 will air on March 8th, and I assume that the rest of the episodes will also follow on the eighth of every month, but that’s not certain yet.

Anyway, about this episode: I enjoyed it a lot. There obviously was a lot of dialogue again, but it was interesting to follow, rather than just continuously stating the obvious like what shounen series tend to do when two characters are talking to each other in the middle of a fight. This episode also had a ton of subtle jokes, like that crazy ninja who just kept talking backwards. Nice references to those shows that have minor side-character with a strange “gimmick”. As this show explains it: they only do that to stand out.

Between this and the previous episode, I liked the previous one a bit better, mostly because its direction had a bit more of an “edge”, but this episode also had some nice touches and unexpected parts. Using your partner’s face as a leverage. The action in this episode was very short, and it really was one of those fights that’s decided before it even started, although I’m not exactly sure how one could figure out that that super-fast sword could only slice horizontally, not vertically.

I’m also enjoying this series because of the cross references. Sure, there’s a ton of dialogue, but it’s not exactly random. The topic of clothing for example just keeps returning, and at the end of the episode we also see the two lead characters talking about last words, just after characters have died that they probably did not intend (especially the reverse guy :P).

For the coming number of episodes, what this series needs to do is to continue fleshing the two lead characters out through this dialogue, so that they can get some proper development in the second half. In the meantime, it also needs to keep its dialogue fresh and characters interesting. This episode threw in nice details about the background of the place and ronin of this episode, but at the same time I do hope that the topics of the future episodes are slightly more interesting. Making a series that consists out of nothing but talking for 50 minutes interesting doesn’t just happen on its own.
Rating: * (Good)