Category: Finished Series: Adventure/Fantasy/Science Fiction

Nijuu Mensou no Musume – 15

by psgels, posted in Nijuu Mensou no Musume



Short Synopsis: Chiko now lives away from her aunt, in a mansion along with Tome. Haruka visits her and forms the “Detective Girls”.
Highlights: A rather silly episode…
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
I’ll withhold judgment for the detective girls-arc of this series for now. Seriously, I have no idea what to think of it or what to expect, knowing the rest of this series. I really need to see the next episode to form a valid opinion for this series. The fact remains that this series has had plenty of light moments, which make you fool that this series is just goofing off, while they’re in fact just building up.

In this episode, Haruka and Chiko don’t really go and look for cases, but instead they get visited by a number of burglars. The process of catching these burglars was rather silly, especially since Haruka had act and claim her moment of glory (which involved her and Tome, crashing down some stone stair on a bike), but the few moments where this episode was serious were really good. Akine’s back-story gets completed, and it turns out that he lost his sister back in the war, and Chiko resembles his sister a lot. He also finally leaves Chiko’s aunt (which may have been a bad thing, as she’s probably going to hire someone tougher), and we still don’t know what these burglars were doing inside Chiko’s house. They were not normal burglars, because they still tried to attack Chiko, even after they were found.

Most of the humour in this episode was rather corny, but I do admit that I laughed at Haruka’s fantasies of the glamorous future missions of the Detective Girls (with Chiko as the invincible warrior, Tome as a seductress and herself as the fearless leader). The messy animation during the fight scenes also looked really good, and it surprised me. Bones isn’t really a studio that often experiments with its animation (in fact, I can’t remember having seen any experimental animation from them apart from this series).

Blade of the Immortal – 02

by psgels, posted in Blade of the Immortal



Short Synopsis: A girl whose parents were murdered asks Manji to help her with her revenge.
Highlights: If you weren’t already convinced that this was a Bee-Train series, then this episode will.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
Okay, so I think that it was pretty obvious that I’d end up blogging this series. After years, I’m still not sure what’s so appealing about their distinctive style, and yet I absolutely love it. I haven’t read one page of the manga so far, though I might read it once this series is finished. I believe that there were some changes made here and there that made the manga-readers overall disappointed, but for now, I won’t care about that.

In any case, it turns out that the frantic pacing of the first episode was just used by means of an introduction. I should have known: Bee-Train really likes to kick off its series as mysteriously as possible, only to go for a slow pacing with episode two. We’ve seen it in El Cazador, .Hack//Sign, Tsubasa Chronicle, and probably some more that I forgot about now. Still, a slow pacing is really what fits Bee-Train the best. It really allows the story to take its time and the characters to develop properly.
I also keep getting impressed by the music, and it’s surprisingly varied. One track bears a clear reference to Tenpou Ibun Ayakashi Ayashi, while the next is a spunky modern jazzy piece of music, the next is a quiet harp song, the next gives off horror-vibes. Kou Outani really was given a lot of freedom for this series. I must say that I really like the vocals that were used. Call it wailing, but I think that whoever is singing it has a great voice.

Also, what’s up with the episode count for this series? MyAnimeList is the only site which has this series listed at 13 episodes, and yet neither AniDB nor Animenewsnetwork, which strike me as the more reliable, have anything about the total amount of episodes. And yet, there’s also talk going on about a second season. In any case, next week there’s another hiatus, but after that, the releases seem to continue weekly instead of semi-weekly.

Ultraviolet: Code 044 – 04

by psgels, posted in Ultraviolet: Code 044



Short Synopsis: An intermezzo, without much action, but much character-development and introductions.
Highlights: The new characters should prove interesting for the rest of this series.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
Okay, so even though this was a quiet episode, it still delivered, as it made perfect use of the extra time for the characters to reflect upon themselves, and it also made 044 see how stupid she was acting considering her love. There’s no guarantee that when Luka wakes up, he’ll be in love with 044 too, and he’ll probably just return to his comrades.

In the meantime, she also removes the chip that Daxus II used in order to track her down. He’s just like 044 in a way: he too is obsessed over another human being, to the extent where she’s more important than his job, and he’ll use all of his influence to get her back. In the same way, 044 will use al of her powers in order to protect Luka, even though she hardly knows anything about the guy.

The new people introduced included some sort of cross between a gang-boss and a fashion-victim, who was after the reward put on 044’s head. This episode also introduces Luka’s comrades, who come and retrieve him at the end of the episode. It’s interesting how they seem to be connected to Mathilda somehow. Then there are some acquaintances of Garcia, who haven’t done much yet.

I must say that Madhouse is pretty much turning into my favourite production-company this year. They may have had certain flops with Allison and Lillia and Kamen no Maid Guy, but the majority of their series that aired this year all had interesting premises, looked fresh and had deep storytelling. The problems I’ve once had with the studio was when they kept disappointing me over and over with Kaiji, the second season of Black Lagoon, the finale of Akazukin, Claymore and Shigurui and the large amount of hiatuses and recaps from Dennou Coil and Saiunkoku Monogatari, but ever since the spring-season, these guys have been better than ever.

Nijuu Mensou no Musume – 14

by psgels, posted in Nijuu Mensou no Musume



Short Synopsis: This episode follows Chiko and Ken, as they try to get the doomed zeppelin down safely.
Highlights: An excellent aftermath to an amazing arc.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
The previous episode was an absolute chaos, so it was only natural that the aftermath would be more straight-forward, and yet this was a very solid and entertaining episode, which really served to get the cast closer together, especially Ken and Chiko managed to settle their differences as they tried to get out of that bomb-filled zeppelin. An interesting twist was that all of the guests turned out to be alive, and the wine was just rigged with some strange stuff that quickly made them unconscious. The blood that they seemed to cough… just turned out to be wine.

One thing that my limited Japanese didn’t fully understand is what went on between Chiko’s aunt and Tome. The end result was Tome, blackmailing the aunt, but I’m not exactly sure how she did it. Did she feed her the same poison that was fed to Chiko, so that if she were to go to the doctor, her plans to poison Chiko would be revealed?

Overall, I’m really impressed by this arc, but the question remains: what is going to happen in the final eight episodes. Hashihime mentions something about the final parts of the series diverging from the manga, and turning into “detective girls”, and the ED seems to confirm this.

The detective-girls do have potential, and it’ll be interesting to see what kinds of mysteries the creators can come up with, but I’ve got one major issue with it: Haruka. The OP and ED continue to portray her as a major character, while her actual role in this series has been incredibly small. The only time that she did stand in the spotlights turned into a disaster, when she knocked a big strong man unconscious with a bunch of toys. If this series really is going to turn into a detective girls-thingy, then I fear that Haruka’s brattiness has the potential to ruin everything. She’s about the only member of the cast that feels stupid, and I really hope that the creators will manage to develop her sufficiently.

Ultraviolet: Code 044 – 03

by psgels, posted in Ultraviolet: Code 044



Short Synopsis: 044 betrays her organization.
Highlights: Fixes the movie’s mistakes.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
I tried watching the movie Ultraviolet, to get an understanding of why everyone seemed to hate it. Well, I lasted 30 minutes until the pain made me stop watching. That was exactly what I feared that this anime-series would turn out to be, and let me say that the Ultraviolet anime fixes a lot of the mistakes of the movie.

The movie was a horrible mish-mash of random fights and cheesy dialogues. The little story that was there was a combination of the original setting of the comic books and a plot that made no sense, where 044 rescued a child that could have been the doom of her entire kind… just so that she could be saved… or something like that. It’s at that point where I just gave up and stopped watching the movie.

The biggest mistake in the movie was the fights, though. Enemies dress in the most ridiculous outfits, you never know who they are, they’re just… there and supposedly security-staff and they die within 5 seconds. Instead of trying to protect their lives, they go for overly cheesy poses (one particularly bad scene featured them as they surrounded 044, stood around her in a perfect circle and… all shot at her. Combined with 044’s amazing talent to evade bullets (in the movie, at least), what where they thinking?

And here comes Osamu Dezaki, and he managed to successfully put some focus away from the action, and focused much more on the personal aspect of the characters. There’s still action, but the goons that 044 has to defeat are given an identity: you know what they’re doing there. 044 also doesn’t have the ability to dodge bullets anymore, and not all people that stand in front of her have to be slaughtered. This episode shows that she just gives that treatment to the goons from her organization.

Both the movie and the anime feature 044 as she betrays her organization. In the anime, she does so because she suddenly fell in love, and saved one of her supposed enemies, and she’d do more for him that for her organization, which I suspect she never liked anyway. In the movie, I guess she falls in love too… with a 10 year old boy who never says anything and who turns out to be the son of some of the major enemies. I guess, that’s the only explanation I can think off to make her actions there seem at least a bit plausible.

But boy, this surely turned out to be the dark horse of the summer-season. Three episodes and still no subs? I guess that this can be blamed to the bad reputation of the original movie. I can really say that I like this series now, though. My biggest fears, of this turning into Devil May Cry II with a bunch of boring fights were avoided completely. So far, there hasn’t been any trace of filler at all, and with the current storyline, I’d be surprised if the creators would manage to stuff one in.

Some quick first impressions: Koihime Musou, Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu and Blade of the Immortal

by psgels, posted in Blade of the Immortal, Some Quick First Impressions

Koihime Musou

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters finds a twelve-year old orphan who is a genius at fighting.
Highlights: Overglorifies its own setting
Overall Enjoyment Value: 6/10
This sort-of reminds me of Prism Ark, and although I admit that the writing is more solid, it does have the same weaknesses. At least there’s no country named “The Untied Kingdom” or “Poleland”, but as things look now, it seems that all the major army commanders are a bunch of little girls in frilly dresses. First of all, who in his right mind would take such a thing seriously? And second: what happened to the males or older females? Did some kind of disease wipe them all out or something? Still, this could have been ignored if it wasn’t for the little girl, mentioned above. She’s living in a regular village, her parents died, and she’s been living by herself for a while now. Then why the heck is she wearing the fanciest clothes in the entire village? How did she become so good at fighting? Who taught her? Why the heck is her house all nice and clean, why does she have a futon that’s not worn out in any single way? I mean, I know that this series isn’t supposed to take itself seriously, but in my opinion, being a comedy is no excuse to be lazy or historically inaccurate. Besides, this episode wasn’t that funny anyway.

Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu

Short Synopsis: Our lead character discovers that the most popular girl at school is a closet otaku.
Highlights: Oh boy…
Overall Enjoyment Value: 3/10
I must say that I’m surprised at how the series this season featured a very low amount of stereotypes, even series as Seikirei, Koihime Musou and Antique Bakery had at least an enjoyable cast, with perhaps a typical loser male here and there. I was happy with this, but then Nogizaka Haruka came and ruined everything. Seriously, so many stereotypes come together in this series: horny teachers, a clumsy girl, a male lead who isn’t bothered by his hormones, the entire male school population who is, the perfect girl, and I could go on and on for a while. To make matters worse, these stereotypes don’t make any sense either. The above-mentioned horny teachers have the amazing ability to drink as much as they want and never get a hangover. If Haruka is so incredibly clumsy and a cry-baby, why did it take this long for her secret to be discovered? It’s not like this episode described her as a master of keeping secrets. How did such a shy girl become the most popular girl anyway? I could rant on an on about this series. The animation may have a considerable budget, but the characters end up looking dull and uninspired. The OP and ED are incredibly annoying. In other words, I don’t like one bit of this series. Every season has its worst show, and the worst show of Summer 2008 is for me without a doubt Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu.

Blade of the Immortal

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters has a curse on him that makes him immortal.
Highlights: Awesome soundtrack, excellent atmosphere, terrific OP.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
I’m an absolute sucker for samurai-stories and Bee-train, so when the two are combined, there was no way for me not to love this series. The summer-season has already brought a lot of good stuff, but Blade of the Immortal has without a doubt delivered the best first episode of all the new series. It’s great to see that Bee-train is willing to experiment with new styles, because this series is absolutely nothing like their previous works, and the only similarity it shares is the same attention to the awesome soundtrack that this series has. The animation itself was quite decent, but especially the OP features some beautifully choreographed swordfights. Still, everything looks really nice. Great to see Bee-Train back!

Nijuu Mensou no Musume – 13

by psgels, posted in Nijuu Mensou no Musume



Short Synopsis: The doll arc finally ends
Highlights: Have I already said how amazing this series is for its climaxes?
Overall Enjoyment Value: 9/10
Oh my god… when I thought that the previous episode was good. I may have my problems with this series during the quiet parts, but boy… does it deliver when it gets serious. Like mentioned above, this episode closes off the doll-arc, but there’s much more to be said than just that.

We learn how during the war, Nijuu Mensou worked as an investigator of these supernatural weapons. At one time, he worked together with the doll-woman, when she was still human, and there they exchanged their two necklaces. The doll-woman really was in love with the guy, it seems, and underwent the operation that turned her body into that of a doll for him, but in the end he betrayed her.

It’s indeed like I thought: Nijuu Mensou was involved with a lot of supernatural research during the war, and he just left everything without cleaning it up, and now his past is back to bite at him. He tried to live his life as a famous thief, probably in order to forget his past, but after the mass-murder in episode 6, he realized that he couldn’t just ignore his past. This is why he abandoned Chiko and Ken: to not involve them with his problems. Unfortunately, Chiko is now known as his daughter, so all of his enemies will now be going after Chiko because he makes himself unfindable. Nice strategy. The guy is screwed, and a perfect example of the proverb “you reap what you sow”. The fact that he left again at the end of this episode shows how his problems are far from over.

Also, it turns out that Akechi really does exist, but Nijuu Mensou likes to dress up as him. The big question is of course: who was the one who gave Chiko Nijuu Mensou’s necklace. It’s obvious now that Nijuu Mensou has been doing other things ever since he faked his own death, but to what extend did he keep in contact with Chiko?

I must applaud the creators for coming up with such a dynamic cast. Out of all th series that aired during the past spring season, Nijuu Menosu no Musume and Real Drive have a cast of characters that feels most away from any stereotypes, and now that these have hit their second halves, you can really see the results of that. Stereotypes may be best and funniest when they first appear, but they falter in the long run, whereas the developed and fleshed out characters only get better as the series progresses.

Ultraviolet – Code 044 – 02

by psgels, posted in Ultraviolet: Code 044



Short Synopsis: 044 continues her hunt for the mob boss.
Highlights: The subtle characterizations.
Overall Enjoyment Value:8/10
While I’m waiting for Mission-E to appear (seriously, what the heck happened to it?) I might as well watch this one. Since the past Spring season featured a lot of good 13-episode series, and relatively few good 26-episode series, I can blog lots of series this season. If I end up dropping Soul Eater (which seems pretty likely at this point) and Kaiba doesn’t go into yet another hiatus, I’ll be able to blog seven new series. There are lots of promising series this season, and one of them is Ultraviolet.

When I watched the first episode, the character-designs looked familiar somehow, and one look at the staff-list made me understand why: they’re done by the same guy who did the character-designs for Osamu Tezuka’s adaptations, such as Hi no Tori and Black Jack, but he also seems to be Osamu Dezaki’s standard character-designer. The result is pretty interesting, as it brings some of Tezuka’s innocence to such a dark and gritty setting.

I must say that Osamu Dezaki knows how to spice up his fights a bit, even when his budget isn’t unlimited. The screen, split in three is indeed something you’ll either love or hate, but I personally quite like it. It’s got an interesting effect.

In any case, the reason why I’m going to blog this series is that it’s definitely something different, as it tries to look into the mind of a killing machine. Much like Elfen Lied, in a way, but without the gore and the naked children. The thing I was waiting for in this episode is some more development for 044, and not just another action-scene, and that’s exactly what I got. We still don’t know what that strange voice is, but in this episode, it makes 044 save one of her original victims who fell in the ocean.

On a side-note, this series is quite a bitch to try and understand. Tuesday really seems to be the day of complex dialogue: Real Drive, Himitsu and Ultraviolet all have very complex dialogue that really takes a while to understand. In this episode, I’m still not sure what the Mob boss’ story about the vampires was all about.

This series does have its flaws, 044 could have been more subtle in trying to hide her own presence, but I suppose that as an almighty killing machine, she might not have any worries to hide. This indeed doesn’t seem to be a series about a main character, trying to complete her mission, but instead it’s much more about 044 herself.

Obviously, this series isn’t for everybody, and it sure has gotten a lot of bad reviews since it aired. I like it, though. It seems like another solid series from Madhouse, and I’m willing to stay with it for 10 more episodes.

Nijuu Mensou no Musume – 12

by psgels, posted in Nijuu Mensou no Musume



Short Synopsis: Lots of things happen, among which is Akine’s backstory.
Highlights: Hard to talk about without spoilers.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10

Oh my god… this episode is exactly why I’m watching this series. One episode might seem to suggest that this series goes nowhere, and then episodes like this one come and the entire plot makes a complete 180 degree turn. If you’ve yet to see this episode, you’d best not look at the rest of this entry. ^^;

I’ve forgotten the name of the glasses-guy, the one that gave Chiko the hint that Nijuu Mensou was still alive and who gave her his treasure. With this episode, it’s obvious why the guy would have all this, because this episode reveals him to be Nijuu Mensou himself. It’s quite sneaky: the attempts at foreshadowing this plot-twist are deliberately done a bit too obvious to take seriously. Both Chiko and Ken note how the guy resembles Nijuu Mensou, so through reverse psychology, there has to be more to the guy than just that. Well, no.

This episode continues to pull tricks like that throughout the episode. The doll-person also shatters the head of a tome-statue in this episode. Obviously, Tome didn’t die, but she was inside this statue, below the head, nonetheless. At the end of the episode, the puppet-woman (yes, woman) also makes a controlled Chiko stab Nijuu Mensou in the back. Thanks to Ken’s smokescreen, we may have to wait five more episodes before we find out how Nijuu Mensou survived that blow.

But really, I’m still surprised at how this series holds no punches at all when it gets serious. Heck, on top of all of that, Chiko ends up kidnapped at the end of the episode, and the puppet woman turns out to have been some sort of part of Nijuu Mensou in the past, suggesting that he abandoned his crew more often in the past. This does explain why all of these supernatural people are suddenly after Chiko: they’re probably all things that Nijuu Mensou left behind and was too lazy to clean up.

Also, what was this about Akine? Why did he use two different names for Chiko: Chiko and Chizuko? Up till now, I just saw him as a rather unlikable lazy guy, but as it turns out, his bond with Chiko (or at least the younger Chiko) turns out to be deeper than suspected. If I understood correctly (and correct me if I’m wrong) during the war, Akine once took Chiko to a foreign country and then lost track of her. Nijuu Mensou then was responsible of bringing her back. If this is true, then Nijuu Mensou did more than just pick a random talented girl off the street…

Some quick first impressions: Ultraviolet: Code 044, Slayers Revolution and Sekirei

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions, Ultraviolet: Code 044

Ultraviolet: Code 044

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a famed and feared assassin, probably the best of her kind. In the futuristic world this series is set in, she spends the first episode on two different missions.
Highlights: Excellent action; a feast for the senses; isn’t just dumb action; TOO MUCH FANSERVICE.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
Whoa, in terms of first episodes, this one surely caught my attention. This is going to be an action-series, and this episode absolutely delivered in that department. The creators definitely wanted to start off this series with a bang, and the result is a very fast-paced introduction. The graphics were fantastic, and the music was awesome as well. The next question is obviously: will the creators be able to keep up this level. Even with 12 episodes, action series have been rather notorious of deteriorating after their first episodes. Still, this episode showed some good signs: there wasn’t only a lot of action, but also a lot of talking. The characters here aren’t just brainless, but they’re also critical of both themselves and their colleagues. Let’s hope that this proves to be good for the rest of this series. But really, there was too much fanservice. The creators took every chance to show as much skin as possible…

Slayers: Revolution

Short Synopsis: Our lead character apparently is hunted by many people, who in one episode already manage to destroy three ships and one city.
Highlights: Starts dull, gets more interesting as the episode goes on; the pirates suck, though
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7/10
Well, so this was the first thing I saw of Slayers. There were things to like, and things to dislike as well. The main cast needed a bit of time to warm up, but they ended up being an energetic and spunky bunch of people. I was rolling my eyes whenever the pirates were on the screen, though. I don’t hope that every Slayers-minor-villain is as dull as these guys, because they’re all a bunch of stereotypes and they’re just not funny. Same with the giant fish-head (why did it need to hold on to a log at the end of the episode anyway?) Overall, for a comedy it was a decent enough first episode, but I’m not sold on Slayers yet. The problem with comedies also tends to be that you can’t predict at all whether they’ll lose inspiration or not, just by their first episode.

Sekirei

Short Synopsis: A girl with no sense of shame and a typical loser team up in a battle royale.
Highlights: Boobs?
Overall Enjoyment Value: 5/10
I’ve been told that Sekirei is more than just fanservice, so for that sake I might as well try to judge this series, without paying attention to the excessive boob-shots in this episode. What we have here is that a bunch of super-powered girls rescue a young boy from some kind of facility. Ten years later, one of these girls is still in love with this guy and wants him to be her partner for an upcoming battle royale. The thing is that I can live with the battle royale, and the rather questionable enlisting procedure of kissing each other. My problem, however, is this: how come this girl, after ten years, is still in love with that main character. I find it rather hard to believe that in ten years, not one single male has tried to make moves on her, or tried dating her. That’s basically my problem with most series like this one: they seem to think that the main character is the only one allowed to date girls, which results in a huge number of plot-holes. Since this season is small, I have enough time due to holidays and there are only going to be 12 episodes, I might as well give an attempt to watch this one, but I really wonder whether it can deliver in that time…