It’s episodes like these that really show how good this series has been at building up. Amnelis in this episode was definitely one of the highlights of the entire series for me. And that’s the thing with incredibly flawed characters in a good series: they start out rather annoying, but when they do develop properly, they make much more impact than any Mary Sue could have done.
Remus’ change from wimp to evil overlord happened very sudden, but with Amnelis, her transition from an incompetent princess to a hate-filled warlord has taken up much more time, and this episode really was the key in her development. Not only did he deceive her, but because he has become unreachable for her to even carry out her revenge, it completely changes the way Amnelis used to be. The question is: is her moment to redeem herself going to happen in the next four episodes? If not, then I’ll repeat the same words again: SECOND SEASON WHERE!?
Last episode’s climax was pretty interesting: it suggested an epic fight between Guin and some mysterious orc-like people… and yet the fight was over within a minute, and it just turned out to be a build-up for the Yellow-haired guy’s plans to bring him down. Again: do we get to see whatever he’s building up to within the next four episodes? I have no bloody clue.
Rating: *** (Awesome)]]>
Category: Finished Series: Adventure/Fantasy/Science Fiction
Phantom – 22
Oh my God, Cal just becomes more and more awesome with every single episode. Up till now we’ve only seen glimpses of her new version, and what she turned into ever since she was abandoned by Reiji and taken in by Scythe, but only in this episode we get a full grasp of her deep-seeded hate against Reiji. And this episode yet again was absolutely amazing. People have often asked me why the heck I’m such a big Bee-Train fan. Now THIS is why! Time and time again they end up creating a truly awesome cast of characters.
And while it’s indeed true that they sexed up Cal a bit too much, they do get the point across: someone who started out as a sweet little girl is now cursing all over, lost any trace of compassion, living solely for revenge and has no future at all if she does manage to kill off Reiji. What hit me the most was when Reiji asked her to leave Helen alone. It then all hit her that Reiji indeed was the bastard she imagined him to be, who left her for dead and instead is willing to protect Ein with his life.
At this point, Reiji’s apologies and the words that he thought she was dead obviously can’t easily put things right anymore, since they’re just going to come off as cheap excuses. The fact remains that Reiji just walked off without confirming Cal’s dead body, because he was too occupied by Helen. It’s completely understandable, but it completely destroyed Cal’s chance of growing up happily.
Also, I’ve said this many times before, but I really feel the need to repeat that I absolutely love the soundtrack for this series. In this series, it has become much more than simply a bunch of songs that play into in the background. Bee-Train was already experimenting with this kind of soundtrack during Blade of the Immortal, in which it really worked, and for this series they again compiled a crazy soundtrack that’s full of many different songs, ranging from the quiet ones to the mindfuck tracks. These songs aren’t meant to be simple elevator music, but they’ve become a very important part of the storytelling itself, and I really love the way it turned out.
Rating: *** (Awesome)]]>
Pandora Hearts – 21
Whoa. Even for Pandora Hearts, this was a surprisingly good episode. Since it already has been two weeks since the plot disappeared (with the previous week a hiatus and the week before that more aimed at comic relief), but damn, I didn’t suspect that the creators were already going to arrive at Break’s background this early.
So this episode basically starts out as Oz manages to get himself an appointment with the person who most likely is to remember something about the tragedy of Sabrie 100 years ago: Rufus Barma, the longest sitting of the four dukes, and a collector of information. Apparently, Oz had heard of him from before he was cast in the Abyss. Makes sense.
Anyway, it then turns out that Barma likes to play with his visitors, and creates a whole illusion to try and hide who he really is. With the threat of the Baskervilles and all, this indeed seems like a wise move. Anyway, it seems that the biggest reason why he accepted Oz’s invitation is because he wants to learn something from Break. On a side-note, the foursome of Break, Oz, Gilbert and Alice look awesome in formal attire. It’s nothing new, but this series sure is good at its costume designs.
Anyway, while this seems nice and all, the second half of this episode completely turns the chessboard upside-down, to come with an Umineko-reference, when it turns out that Break’s background is much darker than I imagined (or should I say, Kevin’s background). In his original time, his family was murdered and he willingly travelled into the abyss to get their murderer back. He already had a contract back then. He then met the White Alice, who turns out to be no-one else but the “Will of the Abyss”. She then pokes Kevin’s eye out, gives it to Cheshire Cat, and kills his chain. wtf. To make things even more inexplicable, a young Vincent (who seems to be an acquaintance of the Will of the Abyss), brings an unconscious Gilbert (who also happens to know her) in and acts like it’s the most normal thing in the world.
This explains quite a bit: it explains how Break knew of the Cheshire Cat, and what he wanted from him (his eye back), it also is probably going to explain why he has such a deep-seated grudge against Vincent. The next episode is probably going to show Vincent doing something really nasty to him. As a result, it’s probably because of this that Break has vowed to find out what happened in the Tragedy of Sabrie: it’s his wish to find Vincent’s weakness, and what Vincent absolutely doesn’t want is the truth about the tragedy to come out. The reason why he refused to sacrifice Sharon has probably to do with his little sister.
Also… about Alice being the Will of the Abyss, this is just a theory but was the Abyss actually created along with the Tragedy of Sabrie? I mean, the people who returned from the Abyss all were special cases: Gilbert and Vincent were there when it was created if this is true, and this would also explain why Vincent knew the Will of the Abyss so well. Break meanwhile was probably the only human who willingly entered the abyss, which seems to be confirmed with how the Will of the Abyss said that he was the only one who maintained his conscience. Oz was special because he found Alice’s locket, which somehow did something with one of the Alices to make some connection.
Also, was I the only one who noticed the weird Rozen Maiden cameos in the Will of the Abyss’s dolls?
Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>
Shangri-La – 21
Three episodes left, and we finally move to something that resembles a climax. This episode was much like episode five, in which a lot of focus was spent on trying to hack Medusa out of trying to destroy the world, especially focusing on Karin vs Kuniko. In this episode, Karin finally has to learn to grow up a bit, and the highlight of this episode was Kuniko, trying to talk some sense into her.
In the next episode, we should finally get some light of what the hell Ryouko has been up to throughout the series, as she finally seems to be ready to execute whatever plan she was scheming. Finally we see her taking one of the digmas (Mikuni) back to her. It could be that she was simply waiting for one Digma to collect all of the daggers, and figured that it might have gone faster if she’d just Karin collect the daggers, rather than send her own men to do the job. Probably she also did this in order to avoid suspicions on her part. That still leaves the question why she’s willing to let Atlas succumb to earthquakes, though.
I’m surprised that this episode was relatively quiet, especially since this series still has a lot of work to do in its final hour to wrap everything up. I suspect that this was really the last calm before the storm and I really wonder what the creators are planning to end this series with. Endings are always really tricky to really pull of well. This series does have the ingredients to make it work, but I’ve seen many awesome series with unimpressive endings, so I’m just going to keep my expectations low for this one.
Rating: * (Good)]]>
Guin Saga – 21
Haha! This series is getting closer and closer to the big climax. Or at least… the big climax that’s going to close off the first of hopefully many Guin Saga seasons. To be honest, out of all the shows I’m watching right now that are about to end, this is the series that I’m rooting for a sequel the most. With a show focused so heavily on politics, you really NEED lots and lots of episodes to get the best out of it. The same goes with Tytania. Looking back, it just isn’t worth watching if the producers had no intentions to animate the second half of the story.
In any case, this is one of those typical episodes in which the plot thickens, mostly around the Parro revolution. It becomes clear that a lot of the former citizens of Parro have grown rather tired by the Mongol occupation, and while on their own they don’t stand much of a chance (their strategy of rolling inside barrels may have worked for a few soldiers, but they were quickly outdone by the Mongol soldiers), however Naris managed to get them under his control in time, and so they’ll prove to be of a much better use rather than simply Mongol Target Practice.
Speaking of which… I’m surprised that Naris so easily gave up the cover that he was dead. I’m still not exactly sure why he bothered to try and marry Amnelis, though it might have been a move to confuse the enemy and humiliate them. In any case, it’s going to be interesting to see how Amnelis is going to react when she learns of this.
Cuthron (or however you spell that in English), unfortunately ended up dying in this episode, because he was being out-witted by the very same Mongol officer that he was trying to kill. It turns out that he was a traitor in the Mongol army; my memory isn’t exactly clear on this matter, but if I recall correctly he was converted by Rikia when she was taking care of Naris’ fake assassination.
Speaking of which, only when I went to the official site to look up Cuthron’s name I realized the incredible size of the cast of this series. Seriously, it’s a enormous washing-list that just keeps on and on. It’s amazing that so many characters have already passed the screen. Especially considering how we’re only at what? Novel fifteen out of 130? At this rate this show has a good chance of surpassing even Baccano and Saiunkoku Monogatari in terms of its amount of characters… Especially Mister Question Mark intrigues me. Why did the creators bother to put him (or her) up when there’s absolutely nothing known about him (or her).
Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>
Phantom – 21
Oh boy, this series has been nothing but awesomeness since the start of the Tokyo Arc. Sure, it’s true that Cal’s body grew a bit too much over two years, but if you blame puberty it could have happened. It’s not really something to be overly obsessive about, because I don’t think that it really gets in the way of the rest of the series.
Even though this turns out to be the adaptation of a H-game, I was quite surprised with how honest Reiji was about Cal. In your average anime you’d guess that for some bit of extra tension the characters would just keep these secrets from each other, but then again: this series already has enough tension as it is. No need to be melodramatic at all, because the characters have reached the point where they are more than able to carry the series along. Cal busting up the rivalling gang for example, was nothing short of kickass. This does show that Scythe has some sort of strange methods of getting the best potential out of his Phantoms.
I was actually hoping for this episode to delve a bit more into the Cal vs Reiji, but it seems that the creators are still saving this for later. Instead, this episode’s end showed the next best thing: Cal vs Helen. Next episode surely is going to rock!
If the rest of the finale continues to be as good as this, Phantom is definitely going to be my favorite Bee-Train series since .Hack//Sign, and out of the shows that premiered during the past spring season, it’s pretty likely that this series is going to end up as my favourite. Sorry Shangri-La, but this series has simply gotten that good.
Rating: *** (Awesome)]]>
Shangri-La – 20
And so the finale for this series has begun. This episode was mostly building up, but as usual with this series it came with tons of revelations. And heck; the creators might actually be able to pull of a satisfying conclusion at this rate.
I’m glad to see that even though we’re nearly at the end, the creators still show a bit of what happened to the folks of Duomo after they were evacuated inside Atlas. With this, Kuniko also got her wishes through that every last bit of space in Atlas would be used for the people, rather than simply letting them be wastes of space.
In this episode something that rather gets in the way of my “Kunihito is Kuniko’s brother”-theory, when some actual romance starts to develop. Thankfully though, there wasn’t a lot of cheese among the two and the situations that made them realize their crush was pretty creative (Come on, Kuniko hugging Kunihito when she tried to find out where the sudden lights came from was really cute). It’s a bit disturbing though, because aside from the blushes, their “lover’s quarrel” looked more like the fights that siblings would have, rather than lovers.
And then the pattern with Atlas in the middle. It turns out that it was supposed to be the whole pillar that would make Atlas the most influential city of the world. When Nagiko and Sergei was younger, this was their motivation to construct Atlas. It was an attempt to escape earthquakes, but it failed. That’s why they created the Hiruko: young sacrifices that would end up stopping the effects of the earth on Atlas, and which is also what killed Takehito’s sister.
In the meantime Karin (apparently Akihabara was spared in the bombings) has been stalking Kunihito with her subordinates, and so obtained the final dagger. Apparently, this is going to make Mikuni the true heir of Atlas (so that’s what was the purpose of these daggers). Medusa in the meantime is getting rather out of control, though Karin realizes it a bit too late when it’s already planning to crash the entire market through Antarctica. Now that’s going to be the turning point for her wealth, it seems.
The whole deal around Titan confused me a bit, especially since we never actually get to SEE it, but we’re very much given the impression that it’s an aerial fortress of Titan came to Tokyo after Ryouko tipped them off that the person behind Medusa is in Akihabara. Because of this, it launches a pillar of light at Karin. She probably hasn’t died yet, because we’ve yet to see her actually die, but someone else did die: Hiruko, aka Miiko. WTF.
So wait… Ryouko actually meant to kill Hiruko?! And we only just learned that it’s Hiruko that prevents Atlas from collapsing under its own weight. What the hell could her purpose be? I mean, if she wanted to crash Atlas, couldn’t she just have used a bunch of explosives? With this however, the finale has really been set up. I have no idea what’s going to happen to Atlas right now, but it’s definitely setting up for some sort of grand finale.
I’m also really glad to see that at this point, the budget still hasn’t run out. The final scenes, in which Miiko showed her last moments, were really well drawn and they looked absolutely beautiful. It’d be awesome if Gonzo is saving the last remains of its budget to go all out on that final episode.
With four episodes left, this series has a lot cut out for it, but if it manages to do everything right, then this finale is going to rock. Right now, it really seems like Ryouko is going to be the final villain. She might or might not be planning to use Titan for the final episodes, but it’s now clear that she’s really planning something that really shouldn’t be allowed to happen, and four episodes seem just about right to flesh it out enough, after all the build-up that she’s received up till now. Karin and Kuniko are probably going to form the centre of her opponents. And also, what’s the carbon trade going to do in the final episodes? Is the market really going to crash, or will Karin be able to salvage enough of her money to set up a small army?
Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>
Guin Saga – 20
This episode was a bit hard for me to understand, simply because so many things happened in it and a lot of characters I hardly even knew played a big role in it. It’s a build-up episode in which a lot of different stuff happens. While Remus prepares to take Parro back from the Mongols, a lot of other players are also putting their pieces in the right positions.
I suspect that a lot will become more clear in the next few episodes, but things are definitely looking exciting with that many players around. Istvan happens to intercept a secret message from the Mongols which makes him regret deceiving and killing the general, back in Nosferas, since his family is now looking for the one who did it.
With six episodes left after this, I wonder how the creators are planning to end this series. Are they going to rush through the current arc in order to get to the point of some big climax at episode 26, or are they simply going to keep up the same pace and just stop adapting once episode 26 has passed. If there is going to be a sequel, I’d obviously prefer the latter, but if the creators aren’t going to make a sequel then I’d at least see some sort of satisfying conclusion that at least wraps up the biggest plot threads.
Rating: * (Good)]]>
Pandora Hearts – 20
Okay.
That was awesome!
Whoever said that fillers are bad? Most of this episode was just random banter, but that’s exactly what made it so hilarious at this stage. Especially when Oscar brought out the liquor in the second half of the episode, the hilarity really started. And okay, I know I said filler, but it’s not like this episode was completely useless either. It did a great job of fleshing out the characters, developing them slightly and wrapping up the past arc.
But seriously, more anime should have drinking episodes. They almost often result in hilarity and yet you hardly ever see them. Obviously with shows about kids this is understandable, but with series where the characters are sixteen years or older, I don’t see much harm. This episode really showed some interesting new things about the characters, like how half of the members of the main cast are terrible at handling alcohol. Only Oz and Oscar seem to be fine with it, and Break only pretends to be drunk, but Sharon turns into an even bigger narcissist than she already was, and especially Gilbert and Alice experienced really heavy mood-swings.
Something also tells me that in this episode, the creators were having the time of their lives trying to come up with all of the different facial expressions throughout this episode. They were all very creative, and really funny.
As for the main plot, there was only about a minute dedicated to it, but the twist we learned was pretty big: Eliot is yet another guy who was warped into the future during the tragedy of Sabrie. In fact, he was the one who wrote Alice’s song, and something tells me that the creators had a very good reason to keep Alice out of the action during the past Ada arc.
There is some bad news, though: next week is going to be a hiatus. Damn.
Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>
Phantom – 20
Hell yeah! This episode was all kinds of awesome stuck together! Talk about a complete change of atmosphere.
The way this episode started out… out of all the things that the Japan Arc would be about, the last thing I expected was that the show would end in a high school setting. The OP… was so much different from what I expected and fitted these final six episodes so well. There’s a lot of chaos going on, and yet this episode has been more slice of live than this series has ever shown! That shows some awesome possibilities, and I know that Koichi Mashimo is going to be able to get the best out of this.
So basically, two years (!) have passed since the last episode. Reiji and Helen have travelled the world; they first came to the Philippines and now have moved into Japan half a year ago, and they’ve been pretending to be brother and sister, since it would have been a bit awkward if a teenaged couple suddenly moved in and started following classes. They’re also back again acting, like they did in one of the beginning episodes. Especially Reiji has gotten a lot better at it now.
But yeah, just about everything in this episode was perfectly executed. Reiji’s time spent with his potential girlfriend did exactly what it needed to do: show how he and Helen changed, and how they’ve come to live their lives now. It’s a perfect build-up, since we also got to know much more about them, and the setting which they moved into.
But the real moment of epic in this episode was obviously the point at which Cal shows herself. Typical of Bee-Train’s storytelling, but it works so incredibly well.
And to think that even in this episode, so close to the ending, there still are new background tunes being played, and they rock just as much as the rest of the soundtrack while at the same time being completely different in tone: the first arc had a really dark and melancholic soundtrack, the second arc was more upbeat and pimpin’, while right now we got more… colourful atmosphere, if that makes any sense. The soundtrack here has a lot more warmth than we’ve seen so far.
In any case, this is one of these rare series in which you can really see that the creators spent lots of time thinking of how to make it work in the absolute best way, and where it actually works out incredibly well. In 2009, I can only recall 3 other series which managed to do the same: Ristorante Paradiso, Tokyo Magnitude and Birdy the Mighty 2.
Rating: *** (Awesome)]]>