Category: Finished Series: Adventure/Fantasy/Science Fiction

Saiunkoku Monogatari – 76

by psgels, posted in Saiunkoku Monogatari


Now this is what I’ve been hoping for! This episode was terrific in terms of storyline. So many things happened at once, and finally the building-up of the previous half year is paying ff. But still, it’s so sad to see that the budget-problems become more and more apparent. Such a major episode should be paired with terrific animation, like what we saw around the climax of the first half of the second season. Instead, the creators treated us to lots of distance-shots, thick lines and still frames. I really don’t like the trend that MadHouse has been setting to screw up their adaptations as they draw near their end! I mean, they’ve got excellent staff, but I’m getting more and more the feeling that it’s their producers who are incredibly lazy.

Well, putting that aside, another reason why I loved this episode was because it again was quite easy to understand. The ship with Ensei, Suou, Shurei and Ryuuren crashes off a waterfall. As everyone becomes conscious again, Ryuuren goes off to find some springs for water, after which Shun comes to pick up Shuurei, by the orders of his master. His orders were to take just Shuurei away, so Ensei and Suou stay behind and collect supplies for the way back.

As Shuurei and Shun walk up the mountain to the castle, Shuurei asks whether he’s heard about Shiba Jin, though Shun says that she had the wrong person. The two then enter the castle, and Shun brings Shurei to the prison cell where Ryuuki lies. Shuurei is really glad to see that he’s fine, though before she has the time to call out to him, Shusui appears, using the same spell that failed, twenty episodes ago. Shuurei then falls unconscious and gets taken away.

We then switch to Ryuuki, who’s finally woken up. Right next to him stands a Shusui, who claims that she’s possessed by a member of the Hyou-clan, which is why she’s acting so weird. I guess she was an easy target for them, because she already lost herself before. In any case, Shusui begins to taunt Ryuuki at how he’s incompetent at his job, and how he should just give up. After this, Ryuki begins to develop even more. That night on the mountains has really convinced him what an idiot he’s been, and he’s determined to now become a real king.

Then, Ran appears. It indeed seems that he’s been following Ryuuki all along, and after hearingt his confession, he decides to step in and save Ryuuki from Shushui. After this, the Hyou-member orders Shun to take care of Ryuuki, leaving the body afterwards. Shusui then turns into her fighter-mode again and starts chasing after Shuuei. Juusanhime also arrives to stop her, after which quite a funny conversation follows, where Shuuei ends up using a dirty trick to remind Shusui of Shouka. After a few slaps from Shuuei, Shusui returns to normal.

Juusanhime then stays to fight Shun, while Shuuei, Ryuuki and Shusui escape. When they are out of the castle, Shusui goes back in to save Shuurei. Shuuei then brings Ryuuki back to Suou, and goes back along with Ryuren to save Shuurei. Ensei went ahead of them, as he seemed to have the same idea. As Ryuuki wakes up, he wants to go back to save Shuurei, though Suou stops him. After all, he’s the king and everyone just went through the trouble of saving him. After hearing this, he finally understands a new part of his responsibilities.

Meanwhile, back in the castle Shuurei is still unconscious. The member of the Ryou-clan seems to be called Ruka, and it was basically her plan to use Ryuuki to lure the Bara-hime in Shuurei towards her. It’s here where Shouka in scary-mode appears again, and breaks some kind of mirror that’s important for Ruka. Strangely enough, Ruka doesn’t seem to be shocked by this, so at least something must have gone according to her plan. In another part of the Castle, Juusanhime now gets the chance to finally say goodbye to Shiba Jin, as it really seems that he works for the enemy and he’s out to kill Ryuuki. That scene seriously rocked.

There’s one thing I don’t understand, though: what’s the real relationship between Shun and Shusui? Where did they meet each other? Is Shun the reason Shusui gets possessed? Which Shusui went along with Shun to the castle? Did she come on her own accord, or was she already possessed by Ruka back then?

In any case, let’s hope that the final two episodes end the second season with a bang, so that the creators can return in a year or two to finish this story. With such a fan-base, there’s a good chance that it’ll happen some day. But then again, Claymore was even more popular, needed a second season even more badly and there are still no signs of any continuation… which leaves me kind-of worried.

Arusu the Adventure – 02

by psgels, posted in Arusu The Adventure, Mahou Shoujotai


This episode was a more serious story. Unfortunately, it wasn’t some kind of continuous story, and got solved at the end of it. It also felt a bit too rushed. It seems that the creators wanted the same addictive pacing as in the TV-series, but this time, they failed a bit at that. Even the original series had building up, but it was one of the rare series that could push its story forward and build up at the same time, and I missed that a bit here.

Still, even though the storytelling left things to be desired, the story itself was very good nonetheless. It features a witch who had been sealed in the past, because she gained too much power and went berserk, a bunch of decades ago. Ever since, she split off herself into two personalities, a good and a bad one. The bad one wants to be unsealed, and wants Alice to do this for her. She picked Alice because she was just about the only one, along with the children, who didn’t know about this witch.

In the end, Alice does what she’s good at: believing in her own ideals, naive as they may be and unseals the witch, because in the end, both the good and the bad personalities were nice to her. It’s an interesting idea: the “bad” one just wanted to be noticed, while the “good” one tried a bit too hard to prevent the “bad” one from reaching her goal. In the end, they both acted, based on their own morals and values. Oh, and nothing goes wrong in the end, because while she was sealed, the witch had learned to control her great power. While this may be a nice idea it did come from nowhere, actually.

Well, it seems clear now that Arusu the Adventure will never become anything special, but I’m happy enough to see the characters, getting fleshed out some more. It’s clear that all of the major trump cards were played in the series already, but at least this episode reminded me again why I fell in love with the original characters. Every single one of them was forced to seriously look and reflect at his or her own morals and values as the series went on, and there isn’t just one kind of right. This episode featured the same, though the storytelling just wasn’t up to the sky-high standards of the original Mahou Shoujotai.

Arusu the Adventure – 01

by psgels, posted in Arusu The Adventure, Mahou Shoujotai


Finally! After more than TWO YEARS of waiting, with numerous delays, Arusu the Adventure is finally here. I originally intended to wait for the subs, but I’ve gotten so impatient that I couldn’t wait to check it out. In the end, this OVA consists out of six episodes, all about 20 minutes long. I’ve got all of them on my PC, and I’ll be blogging them whenever I have the time. After watching the first episode, my initial verdict of Arusu the Adventure is simple: it’s awesome, but totally not what I expected from it.

It turns out that there isn’t going to be an overall storyline, and instead this OVA will feature random adventures of Alice, Shiela and Eva. Ah well, the story of the original Mahou Shoujotai may have been one of the best I’ve seen, but that wasn’t the only thing that originally made me fall in love with this series. The art-style was amazing, the character-designs were excellent, the setting was really imaginative. In short, it was outstanding in every single way.

I’m not going to say what happens in this episode. It’s really one of these things that you just need to see for yourself, otherwise it’ll ruin everything. Seriously, I really hope that this gets subbed fast, because I laughed really hard at times. I admit that I didn’t like waiting so long for this OVA to come, but it was SO WORTH THE WAIT. It’s the perfect chance to showcase a few of the ideas that the creators couldn’t use for the original series.

Wellber no Monogatari ~ Sisters of Wellber – 21

by psgels, posted in Wellber no Monogatari ~ Sisters of Wellber


An intermezzo. Wellber no Monogatari spends this one with the much-needed background story of Voljurac. It’s probably the least interesting episode of the second season so far, but then again, the second season was just that good, and a bit of background for a side-character can only work in the series’ advantage for the final episodes. He now feels more than just a random tank.

Basically, Voljurac breaks down, and he needs to be fixed. The only person that Voljurac knows who can do this thing is the guy who created him, or to be exact: the daughter of the guy who created him. Renaldo Vinci, thirty years ago, met with Voljurac when he was still a human. It indeed seems that in the end, he transferred Voljurac’s spirit into a tank he made, after the guy had been shot lethally. Basically, Renaldo once worked for the Kingdom of Wellber, but once his health deteriorated, he quit, though his superiors didn’t like this. Voljurac was sent to kill him, but the two of them became friendly too much, and Voljurac betrayed his superiors. As a thanks, he got shot to death.

This episode also answers a question that I’ve been having ever since Rita went undercover: are there more machines like him? In short: yes. Renaldo may be dead now, but his daughter hasn’t been standing still, and she’s created quite a company, producing all sorts of interesting machines. It would have been more interesting to see some of these machines actually on the street, but this is just a minor detail.

This makes me wonder… there’s one important character left who still misses background, apart from the obvious Rita’s brother, of course. Will Sherry also get an episode for herself? It would be quite interesting, but on the other hand, there are only five episodes left, and I don’t think that the creators can just waste another episode. Or will we perhaps get a third season? That would be quite interesting…

Gunslinger Girl – Il Teatrino – 07

by psgels, posted in Gunslinger Girl - Il Teatrino


I’m getting more and more convinced that there is no such thing as a main character, or a main group of characters for this series. The girls are definitely not the ones who receive the most airtime. Heck, in this episode they yet again didn’t appear at all, and the focus shifted to Franca, as we get to see her background, why she met Franco in the first place, and how she got her code-name Franca in the first place.

It seems that she spent her college-years with none other than Patricia, Marco’s ex lover. Franca was actually the one who introduced Patricia to Marco. Oh, and her name was Catherina back then. It turns out that at one point, her father died and she wanted revenge. For that, she sought the help of a guy named Franco, son of a famous bomb expert and who helped his late father many times in the past. When she met him it seems that he had lost any motivation for the passion that his father once had.

I’m not sure what happened in between, but the two stuck together. When at one point, a bunch of old friends of Franco ask him what Franca’s name is, and instead of answering “Catherine”, he replies with “Franca”. This was all eight years ago, and both of them have matured greatly since then. It really feels like two lost souls have found each other, and grew, depending on each other. Even though Franco doesn’t show it, it does seem like his encounter with Franca gave him a reason to live again.

Sure, the story of the girls is nice and all, but the adults are really stealing the show for this series over and over again. I just love how this can quite possibly be one of the very few series that has important characters of all possible ages, except perhaps of high-school-age (the most annoying age anyway), depending on how old Pinocchio is. I really like how this series has tried to make every single character count, and it succeeded pretty well at this. I’m not sure why, but I always tend to like series with lots of important characters.

Pinocchio also developed a bit this episode. This probably was the first time he showed any emotion towards anyone other than his uncle. In the week he spent with Franco and Franca he barely said anything, and just kept to himself most of the time, but after saving Franca, he did show a few signs of friendliness. During said incident, Franca also got pretty beaten up, so Pinocchio’s uncle decided to give her a visit. When Pinocchio sees him again, it becomes clear that he really wants to mean something to his uncle, and he wants to be complimented.

Oh, and on a side-note: the animation for the OP changed to the traditional method. Again, it’s pretty well done, and it seems to consist out of a combination of recycled cells and original animation. Ah well, at least you can see that the creators are trying, despite the limited budget. Franco’s typing at the beginning of the episode was just bad…

Saiunkoku Monogatari – 75

by psgels, posted in Saiunkoku Monogatari


There are three episodes left. Then, what the heck is a recap-episode doing here? This shows more and more that the creators just need to take a break for a year, and get their budgets and planning fully sorted out, because right now it seems that they just can’t keep up with their own schedule. Unfortunately, the planning-department of Madhouse just isn’t as good as that of for example Nippon Animation, which basically showcased Les Miserables without any break or recap at all, and looks to do the same for Porfy no Nagai Tabi.

The only new scenes are of Ryuuki, developing and reflecting on his own actions. Thankfully, this made the episode not a total waste of time, but this remains lazy on the creator’s side. Thankfully, the development that Ryuuki went through was very good, and the episode prepared really well for the final three episodes.

My main worry is that Madhouse has become infamous for screwing up slightly with their adaptations. For most part, they adapt faithfully, but when it comes to the details, you can always see cut corners. This isn’t like Gonzo, where they basically rewrite more than half of the original source-material; with Madhouse, the changes just feel lazy. Just a few examples:
– Shigurui: Entire final chapters left unanimated, with no intention to do so either.
– Devil May Cry: turned into random plotless fillers.
– Claymore: went with an original story after episode 21 and changed from an engaging plot to a cheesy final battle.
– Death Note: a rushed second half with many pages omitted.
– Gunslinger Girl: no intentions to animate the plot-heavy second half of the manga, so they went with their own ending.
– Pet Shop of Horrors: Just four chapters animated, no information on main character whatsoever.

I think you can understand my worries. Right now, Saiunkoku Monogatari really needs a second season, but I can’t help but fear that Madhouse will screw up with the little details again, and it’s such a pity to see this happen, right when we’re about to hit such an rumoured excellent part of the original novels.

Wellber no Monogatari ~ Sisters of Wellber – 20

by psgels, posted in Wellber no Monogatari ~ Sisters of Wellber


Last week was about the second Shinigami Bee, so like expected, this episode returns back to the love-triangle between Rita, Tina and Galahad. And what an episode it is! Romance can either work in a show’s favour, or completely ruin it, but with Wellber no Monogatari, the result has become excellent.

Basically, Rita and Galahad are now officially a couple. Tina has finally decided to confess to Galahad, only to find out that he loves Rita. Rita meanwhile knew how Tina loved Galahad, so she turned down his confession two episodes ago. Because of this, Galahad feels like he’s breaking up both Rita and Tina, so he decides to leave. It’s a theme that this series has used more often. It’s a nice touch, seeing as you’re not entirely sure whether people will make up, or remain gone (in Jin’s case). In the end though, Tina finally realizes that she’s been standing between both Galahad and Rita, and Rita finally confesses to Galahad.

What’s also interesting is that we’re nowhere near the end of this series. Usually, things like these are saved for the final episodes, but right now, there are still six episodes left for this series, and enough time for the creators do further develop Rita’s and Galahad’s relationship. I think that this episode marked the end of the first half of the second season now, though, and I think that we can expect something entirely different for the second half, now that the love-problems in the main cast have been solved. The upcoming war should take a larger focus, just as Rita’s brother’s role.

Gunslinger Girl – Il Teatrino – 06

by psgels, posted in Gunslinger Girl - Il Teatrino


Thanks to Windspirit, for pointing out that last week’s episode wasn’t a half-recap at all. It seems that I just had gotten a wrong file from Share, and it looks like there are no signs at all that the budget is running out. Of course, it was relatively small to begin with, but something tells me now that the creators knew exactly how to use it. After watching the first half, the second half also made much more sense, not to mention the bit of development for Triela.

This episode finally was about Henrietta again. I can’t really say that she’s my favourite member of the cast, but thankfully enough other things made this episode worthwhile enough. I especially liked the old acquaintance of Franca. He’s the member of a terrorist group, working at an antique repair shop. He originally joined the terrorist group in order to take revenge on his brother, who died a few years ago. But in this episode, he gets second doubts after meeting Henrietta, if I understood correctly. I like how he turned down Franca’s request in the end.

In this episode, Henrietta and Rico also have a small fight, after Rico accidentally breaks the Jose’s microscope. While it was enjoyable, I’d much rather see more of Angelica, Triela or Claes. Ah well, there are enough episodes left for them to shine. 🙂

Saiunkou Monogatari – 74

by psgels, posted in Saiunkoku Monogatari


There are just two things I don’t like about Saiunkoku Monogatari: the fact that the slow subs have forced me to watch it raw, meaning that I don’t understand half of most of the episodes without Impz’s help, and all these random hiatuses it’s been having. For the past few months, I realized that it’s really important for this series to continue on a weekly basis, otherwise it loses me a bit in the middle of the action. Thankfully, it seems that the final episodes of the second season won’t have anymore random hiatuses like that, so that eliminates the second point for now. ^^;

And really, Ryuuki stole the show this episode! Finally, he’s actually starting to develop, along with Juusanhime. His sadness on the boat towards Shuuei really surprised me, and it seems that he’s really regretting how he ran away from all of his responsibilities, yet again. There’s even a possibility that he won’t be able to return as the king, which is especially unnerving, considering that a few episodes back, we saw that one of these guys had plans to take over Ryuuki’s throne.

In her turn, Juusanhime finally reveals her history with Shiba Jin. It seems that at one point, her mother died (of which circumstances, I don’t know, though; I’m not even sure whether that was revealed). Shiba Jin was then sent to kill her off too, but he couldn’t. Eventually, after three days if I picked this up correctly, Shiba Jin ended up cutting out his own eye and went along with her to the main house of the Ran Clan, and ever since the two had been in love. The two of them spent most of their childhood years together, along with Shuuei, but at one point Jin killed his own father. I’m not sure why, but if I had to guess, then it’d be because he tried to do something against Juusanhime. Probably to finish the task that Jin never could complete.

Wellber no Monogatari ~ Sisters of Wellber – 19

by psgels, posted in Wellber no Monogatari ~ Sisters of Wellber


Haha, I knew it! The resemblance between the two just couldn’t be a coincidence. Major spoiler coming up ahead if you’ve been following the subs. Let me just say that Wellber no Monogatari has become amazing with its second half, and this episode was no exception. This one was fully focused at the plot, as Tina meets the second Shinigami Bee. He isn’t the one who killed Tina’s parents, but he does tell her where she can find the real murderer.

It’s in Wellber, which makes it almost certain that Rita’s brother indeed was once known as the third Shinigami Bee. Now that I mention it, Tina has never seen the guy, has she? I must say that the way that the creators handled this was very good. First they introduce the guy, and after that they keep dropping subtle hints that all point to the fact that Rita’s brother was the murderer. It’s so much better than when they saved the surprise for the last possible moment and went with a sudden revelation (Romeo and Juliet anyone?)

And those disguises! There are basically two rumours about the Shinigami Bee floating around, and Tina and Bergerac go and investigate the first one, while Rita and Galahad go for the second one. The latter two need a disguise for that in order to avoid suspicion, and both of them looked so awesome. Especially the sunglasses and new haircuts did it.