Category: Finished Series: Adventure/Fantasy/Science Fiction

Shangri-La – 07

by psgels, posted in Shangri-La



Ah, screw what the popular opinion on this series is. This show rocks.

With this episode, I was reminded what makes Gonzo’s best series so good and unique. It’s indeed true that they like to take risks, but what I’ve found in their top series is that they’re really good at variety: every episode or two episodes, the mood, themes and nature of the show completely shift while still forming a whole in the end.

With this episode, I realized that Shangri-La is the same: four episodes ago, we were in Akihabara with lots of otaku references, then we went on to hacking, techno-babble and the world carbon trade, and now in this episode the focus becomes the youth prison that Kuniko was locked into. It’s really this sense of unpredictability that’s really made me like Good Gonzo.

One of the big question-marks in that first episode was why Kuniko ended up in prison in the first place. This episode actually finds a pretty plausible reason to return Kuniko there (because people are starting to realize that she’s special, and what better place to test this out than in prison, where they have full control over her and she can still show what she can do). This episode really established Kuniko as special; not just because she has some mysterious powers that can influence carbon trade, but also because of her personality. This episode really established that she is a born leader: where most people would be scared in the situations she’s thrown in, she instead looks at opportunities, and bringing people together. While her character at first seems a bit cheesy, it’s starting to come together now.

I believe that the whole point of her character would be the strong leader that breaks through Atlas, and for that you really need careful build-up, otherwise you’re just going to end up with a hopeless flower-child. As long as she’s going to be well developed, this shouldn’t form any problem though, and the past few episodes have done a pretty nice job at fleshing out her character, and showing her in different situations.

I also liked the portrayal of prisons in Shangri-la, it showed that the creators really thought about it: with Atlas sending everyone and his dog to prison, there are of course a lot of girls who normally shouldn’t be there and only committed small crimes among the ones who really are causing problems. That’s probably why Kuniko became so popular during her first visit there: she could relate to most of them and therefore easily became friends. This time, a bunch of new girls was introduced to the prison who were rather dominant and violent, and when you promise them a place in Atlas then yeah, they’re going to do their best to make Kuniko’s life miserable.

Oh, and on a side-note: I’m really not sure what the heck the animators were smoking in those first few episodes. Yet again, the animation in this episode looked really good, and nothing like the inconsistent mess of episodes 2-4.

Rating: ** (Excellent)
I usually dislike geniuses because they’re often badly portrayed and used as cheap plot devices. Somehow, Kuniko avoids this completely.

Guin Saga – 07

by psgels, posted in Guin Saga



Now this was supposed to be the episode to make or break this series; with this episode, we would know whether or not this series is able to animate large-scale fights that put armies against each other, and which will probably become the biggest focus of this series. We’ve already seen how Valkyria Chronicles screwed up when it didn’t seem to know whether its enemies were tactical geniuses or incredibly stupid, but I must say that Guin Saga gracefully avoided this flaw. This was such a great episode, and I’m even more hungry to see the next episode.

So as it turns out, Guin’s plans consisted partly out of psychological warfare, and partly out of using the local monsters near Nosferas. They attacked in small groups in order to draw out the Mongol Army, Guin also showed himself a few times, and when they became angry, they unleashed carefully timed giant blob monsters on them.

The thing is that this plan mostly worked so easily because of Amnelis’ incompetence. The way she’s dressed and the way she acts suggest that she’s never really lost a battle, or came close to it. The Mongol army really seems like an army that uses pure numbers in order to overcome its foes, and that means that they’ve never really had to use smart tactics in order to win: they’d just overwhelm their enemies and get things over with. My favourite scene this episode came when Guin actually nearly killed Amnelis when she moved too close to the front lines.

This episode was basically one very big wake-up call for Amnelis. Her numbers meant that she was overconfident, and with such a huge chunk eaten out of her army, this now means that she has to get serious and start using her head and listen to the advice of her companions, who are much more experienced than she is. Guin may have his giant slime blob, but now it’s also known that fire will repel it.

With Valkyria Chronicles, the characters in charge just felt too much like stereotypes: there was nothing that really set them apart. Amnelis, incompetent as she may be, is slightly different. We can really see what’s going on inside her head and where her weaknesses lie. She’s a flawed character, there’s no mistake about that, but she doesn’t have the personality of a paper bag.

Usually in anime when battles between huge armies are portrayed, they fail to impress because the creators are trying to rush through them too much and fail to keep track of this army. I often have no idea how large these armies are: all we see is just a bunch of people fighting here and there. And here this series comes, and simply by saying how many soldiers are involved, I feel much more able to imagine the sheer amount of soldiers that play a part of this.

Rating: ** (Excellent)
This episode had one of the best battles on a really large scale I’ve seen in a long while.

Phantom – 07

by psgels, posted in Phantom



I think that shows like Valkyria Chronicles at the moment really show how hard it can be to successfully adapt a game into animation. Unlike novels and mangas, where the only thing you have to worry about is how to properly translate the pages into animation, in most cases it just isn’t sufficient to just copy and paste the storyline (since it’s usually too short and overshadowed by the game-play) and especially the game-play. At this point, the creators are going to have to insert their own additions in order to flesh out the cast, and this usually fails so badly, descending the show into a string of uninspired fillers.

And here Bee-Train comes and yet again they pull off a very successful adaptation like it’s nothing. They did the same with .Hack//Sign, which completely dropped all of the fighting and instead went on to focus on its brilliant story, Popolocrois also wouldn’t make you suspect that it’s about an RPG, and instead turned into a fun and charming fantasy adventure and character-study and Wild Arms featured some of the best fillers out there in its second half. These all showed that they knew exactly what to do in order to spice these games up and make them work as an anime, and the same is done in Phantom, with the large emphasis on characterization and atmosphere. I’m not exactly sure how the original game played, but I have a really hard time imagining what the heck the game-play was about.

This episode builds up for the next one, and at the same time we fully get to see what happened with Zwei that made him end up as part of the Phantom. What’s also interesting is that Zwei is beginning to recover his memories, and turning into the guy he was before his mind-wipe. the thing is, though, that even if he were to fully recover his memories, he’s so far in the mafia, he’s already killed so many people that it’s going to be impossible for him to return to Japan and the life he left behind.

And the tension between Ein and Zwei really continues to increase, especially when Ein keeps distancing herself from Zwei since she’s scared of his skills. Before his mind-wipe, he already was able to outrun her for a couple of days, so something tells me that she’s fearing what he can turn into. In the next episode we’re going to see them in different missions, which makes me wonder how that’s going to end.

Rating: ** (Excellent)
Really solid and subtle art, great build-up episode, though lacking in action perhaps.

Pandora Hearts – 07

by psgels, posted in Pandora Hearts



I’m not sure what exactly this series has done to only warrant very low quality releases like this, because after last week’s cheese the show really is as good as it once was, and it really deserves some files of higher quality. Ah well, while the cliff-hanger of the previous episode ended with a bit of an anti-climax, the rest of the episode really rocked.

It really was meant as an episode to strengthen the bonds between Oz and Gilbert, who distanced himself from Oz out of the fear that he might not have liked the way he changed, and Oz and Alice, who has been continuously wondering whether or not to trust Oz, especially now that he seems to have found his childhood friend back.

In the meantime we learn a bit about Alice’s past as well, which indeed seem to have taken place in the house of Bezarius. The person she once was with looks like another member of the Bezarius-family. A hint is given that we’ve seen the guy before, but I can’t exactly place my finger on when that happened. And we also learn that there’s another Alice, who my guess would be was either the one Oz met in the first episode, or responsible for Alice’s memory loss.

With this episode, the introduction now seems really over and the characters are established, so I’m curious to see what the real meat of the story will be about.

Rating: * (Good)
The cheese is gone, good character-development and the mystery got a little deeper again amount to a very enjoyable episode. Plus, that bunny looked awesome.

Eden of the East – 06

by psgels, posted in Eden of the East



Yet another episode of building up, but really: that’s exactly what this series needs to be doing at one point. I watched this episode raw, so I probably missed quite a few things, but it’s always good to see an episode dedicated to fleshing out the side-cast. There’s plenty of time for the climaxes during the final episodes of the series and the movie, so I’m happy with how this show has turned out so far. It’s definitely the series with the most solid execution of the entire spring season, even though it’s not the most exciting one.

This pattern really reminds me of how brilliantly Mouryou no Hako turned out. Its middle part also had SO much building up, and yet it finished off with such an awesome climax, and Eden of the East is shaping up to become the same. This episode shows how Saki gets dropped off by Akira near her friends, so that she can introduce them to him. Among her friends are a female programmer and two NEETs, of which one has lots of resemblances to a hikkikomori. In a way, especially her male friends are exactly those targeted by Akira’s “saving the world” programme.

Also correct me if I’m wrong, but “Eden of the East” turns out to be Saki’s friends’ programming club. At the moment, I’m not sure whether Saki herself is also a computer geek, but she sure did befriend a lot of them. When the show started, I thought that it was some sarcastic reference to Japan, with all of the bombings and all. The theme of young people trying to find the place that they belong turns out to be surprisingly large for a series that first seemed like just a fascinating mystery-series. The “Eden” more means something like a heaven for NEETs.

Also, this episode sure gave an even more macabre image of the white-haired woman, as we learn that she kills her victims by cutting off their “Johnnies”. I really am not sure how a selfish bitch like her managed to escape the supporter for that long. My guess would be that she made some sort of deal with number one, who pretty much everyone suspects to be the supporter.

Rating: * (Good)
Building up and fleshing out the cast with still all-out excellent production-values.

Guin Saga – 06

by psgels, posted in Guin Saga



Oh boy, this series is sure promising some great things. In the next episode, we’re going to see Guin along with an army of ape-men try to take on 15000 Mongols. I really can’t think of any fantasy series that correctly pulled off battles between entire armies a la Lord of the Rings, but if there’s any series that can do it, then it’s going to be this one.

And yeah, I’ve been trying to think of something to compare this series with, and this really has a lot in common with Lord of the Rings, the anime, especially when you look at the presentation of the movies: beautiful landscapes, different races, majestic architecture and battles on a very large scale. The big difference is that the enemies this time aren’t a bunch of dumb orcs, but human beings themselves. That’s one thing I dislike of a lot of western fantasy: its “humans good orcs bad” mentality. I mean come on, break the boundaries between good and evil a bit.

In any case, the next episode is probably going to be make or break for this series, and we’ll see if it can pull off such a huge battle (of which we probably will see much more in this series) correctly. I’m not asking for much, just as long as it doesn’t screw up as badly as Valkyria Chronicles did in its first episodes. But I’m confident: so far, the only flaw in the combat of Guin Saga was that at times the mood gets ruined by bad animation, which really stands out like no other in this series amidst the otherwise beautiful drawings.

As for the rest of this episode, it mostly built up for that next episode, but I’m glad to see that the graphics looked much better than the past episodes. The fact that Satelight ended up animating this series really has its good and bad sides: on one hand, the best shots look really good, but at the same time the lesser shots really visibly lack polish. It’s about the opposite of companies as Production IG and Kyoani, who hardly ever seem bothered corner-cutting.

Rating: * (Good)
Building up, but that battle in the beginning was pretty good.

Shangri-La – 06

by psgels, posted in Shangri-La



Having a flawed character as Kuniko is always a bit of a double edged sword, since she often ca get on people’s nerves, but I find her to be surprisingly solid as a lead character. This episode was mostly meant to build up and shed more light into what kind of powers she has, as she seems to be able to track down Medusa when it’s manipulating the carbon industry. It’s already been hinted that there is some kind of connection between Kuniko and Karin, and the two of them might have some similarity that allowed Karin to so easily take over the carbon industry.

I’m personally a big fan of mystery-series, and that part is getting pretty well developed in this series. Kunihito for example: we learn that there’s more to this guy than meets the eye, which when you think about it makes sense: why else would Atlas send a rookie out to such an important mission? We know that he is in some way important to Naruse Ryouko, and important enough for her to consider his record as secret.

And where does Kuniko’s grandmother fit in all of this. She clearly plays a role, since she’s able to follow the world carbon markets, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she played some part in getting Karin to the place she is now. With her daughter highly placed in Atlas, and her granddaughter having someone related to Mikuni as her mentor, she sounds like one of the key persons in this whole mystery.

It’s obvious that this series is still building up, but what makes the difference between this show and Valkyria Chronicles, which is doing the same, is that with Shangri-La, I can really see some potential for the future: there are lots of things going on and built up that can promise to be so interesting for the future, while Valkyria Chronicles is just stuck in stereotyped side-characters and formulaic battles. I’m not sure how many others still like this series, but I’m pretty much sold and eager to watch the second half of this series.

Rating: * (Good)
The animation turned buggy again but it’s still much better than the first four episodes. This pretty much was an episode of building up, and it did this well.

Eden of the East – 05

by psgels, posted in Eden of the East



This episode was a typical building-up episode, but it definitely added some extra intrigue to this series. Most of the episode was about Saki’s first interview, but we also get to see two more of the Selecao: Number One and a strange woman whose number we don’t get to see and who seems to be a bit too full of herself. That Number one really baffles me, though. There are lots of hints pointing at how he’s the supporter, he seems to have a lot of connections to the Selecao, and yet he didn’t just kill off pre-mindwipe Akira like he did with the other two.

Speaking of which, if you take a look at the OP, at one point you see connections being made between certain numbers of the Selecao: One is linked to all of them, while Nine (Akira) is linked to Four (Kondou), One is linked to Two and Ten once more, and Three is linked to Twelve. There are three numbers that disappear: Four, Five (as shown in the previous episodes) and Ten, who I guess would be that woman of this episode. What’s also interesting is that apart from them, it is suggested that nobody dies… or that might be saved for the movie.

In any case, it also gets revealed that Akira didn’t kill off the NEETs at all: he just dropped them in the middle of Dubai and had Juiz made it look like he killed them so that others wouldn’t start searching for them, allowing the NEETs to finally have to do something for themselves. And that was his way of trying to make the world better.

Saki was also great in this episode, with her first job interview and all. Her depressed look after seeing the interview failed felt really genuine to me.

Rating: * (Good)
Just building up, but still a very nice episode.

Pandora Hearts – 06

by psgels, posted in Pandora Hearts



Okay, so this episode explains what the heck happened in those first three episodes, although most of it consisted of things that we already were able to guess: ten years indeed have passed, and Raven indeed is Gilbert. The reason why Gilbert betrayed Oz turned out to be simple brainwashing: in this episode we meet the one who did it, inside Oz’s house that has aged ten years and all. That still leaves the question of why Sharon didn’t age one bit, though.

My problem with this episode was that it may have been a bit too cheesy in the end. Brainwashing is very hard to do well, simply because it’s so easy for the characters to break the spell of brainwashing through the power of love, and for a moment it really looked like this was going to be the case when Oz yet again had to face a brainwashed Gilbert.

I didn’t expect him to pull the trigger, though. Obviously something is going to happen that’s going to prevent Oz from dying instantly, but I’m intrigued as to what exactly it is. We’ve now seen that this is a show where people don’t necessarily die when they’re killed, but the matter is going to be whether they can explain it well. For example the latest subbed episodes of Gintama have had Gintoki penetrated by swords, bullets and god knows what, only for all of these wounds to completely disappear a day later. That’s obviously not how to do this. But in Pandora Hearts, if there indeed is some sort of link between the Abyss and dying, I’ll buy it.

Either that or the gun just missed; that’s also of course a possibility. But then again, this show doesn’t strike me as the type to use those kinds of anti-climaxes.

Rating: (Enjoyable)
Really evil antagonist, good to see a bit more of the past of Oz and Gilbert, though a bit too cheesy in the end.

Phantom – 06

by psgels, posted in Phantom



Six episodes in, and Phantom still is one of my favourites of the current series. Even for a Bee-Train series, this show is magnificent. The characterization is so subtle, and yet it works so well. It’s something Koichi Masahino has always been good at, but with because his source-material this time was already very good, this promises to be among his better work.

And I must say, that despite the increasing fanservice, Ein’s character-designs are what I consider the best of the season. I’m probably one of the few who believes “simplicity = better”, but Ein really looks gorgeous, even though her character-designs are kept simple on purpose (and with this I don’t mean simplicity in the way of Cross Game, but rather not going through huge lengths to make characters look unique. Something that a lot of harem shows need to understand).

This episode was much more about the assassin-part of this series. While the mafia-boss of the previous episode may have lost his wife and son, he still has a couple of powerful allies, and they get taken care of in this episode. Mostly by Phantom, but I also liked how Inferno has a strong support cast to back them up and help them. You can really see that everything was planned carefully ahead to bring the risk to a minimum.

Rating: ** (Excellent)
Very strong episode as usual with the lead characters getting only better and better