Category: Finished Series: Adventure/Fantasy/Science Fiction

Some Quick First Impressions: Aikatsu, Psycho Pass and Robotics;Notes

by psgels, posted in Psycho Pass, Robotics;Notes, Some Quick First Impressions

Aikatsu

Short Synopsis: Our lead character wants to become an idol
Oh god no! After the past spring season I have been spoiled by good idol shows with AKB and Natsuiro Kiseki’s idol subplot. But this season serves to remind us that there also is a lot of crap in the genre. When not about idols, this show is decent: just your average slice of life, nothing special but nothing really bad. When the idol performances begin however… oh dear lord. The CG! The horrible, horrible CG! Make it stop! Make it stop!
OP: No CG, interestingly enough.
ED: Nice idea to use a record for the ED. Boring song, though.
Potential: %

Psycho Pass

Short Synopsis: Our lead character weilds a gun.
Well, one season, two series with a fantastic soundtrack. First the audio of Zetsuen no Tempest blew me away, now Psycho Pass did the same. This is the kind of soundtrack that I can listen to over and over again even outside the series. For some it’s a bit too much on the foreground, but that’s something I really like. Beyond that, Psycho Pass just is a really interesting series, and this episode was an excellent example of that. This may be the umpth time in which we see a story from the perspective of a rookie, but this episode really was there to drive home how naive this rookie is. I also like how this episode wasn’t told from the perspective of the main character himself; they used him well for that, especially near the end of the episode. Beyond that the animation is for most part of the episode very nice, but there are a number of scenes that have visuals that really stand out. The gore is very detailed in this series, but also random scenes of really detailed lips caught my attention. These are the kinds of scenes that add so much to the visuals. And at this point, this season’s Noitamina aren’t the biggest budgetted series in terms of animation. Instead they’ve got very solid writing and characterization. Psycho Pass and Robotics;Notes first episodes were in any case much more interesting than the opening episode of Guilty Crown, and this looks to be far from the trainwreck that that show was. Thank god, because what we really have here is unique: not one, but TWO series on the Noitamina timeslot that go on for 22 episodes!
OP: Creative use of sounds and vocals.
ED: A bit too poppy, but quite energetic and fits the show.
Potential: 90%

Robotics;Note

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a gamer and high schooler.
Okay, let me get one thing straight: Steins;Gate had an amazing opening episode. Robotics;Notes does not. Instead, this show is more of a slow burner. We’re probably going to have to wait a while before this one really kicks off, but in the meantime Production IG delivered some solid characters and a varied cast. The two leads work well together and they’re well acted, even though they’re just teenagers. It’s a good set-up, especially with another Noitamina series of 22 episodes again. I still don’t like how this show is meant to glorify games, but this episode did a good enough job of dancing around that issue and highlighting some of their other parts, and this is far from as bad as with The World God Only Knows. There is this bit of realism in the characters that helps too, not to mention that even though the characters are teenagers, they don’t try too hard and instead their charms are natural ones. All in all, this can work out quite well if it knows its build-up.
OP: Solidly made, but too plain.
ED: Entirely dedicated to one character who only made one short appearance.
Potential: 75%

From the New World – 02

by psgels, posted in From the New World

Oh boy, From the New World sure set a standard as the first show of the new season. This show really is good, and it still stands out, even though there have been many other every promising first episodes since. There still are points at which it is just the best of the bunch.

What really makes this show stand out above all the others is its setting. Better than any other show this season, it managed to create its own world with its own rules, cultures, education and customs. Within 2 episodes it already managed to make us feel a part of it by using 12-year old kids who were familiar with it, but still needed to get a grasp on the fine details. The whole Cantis is also a very intersting version of Telekinesis, and I love how rooted it is with the rest of the setting, to the point where humans are seen as gods by other species because of it.

Also, there is a lot of eye candy this season, but even then, I feel that this series has the best artistic direction. Perhaps not the best animation (that award goes to K), but with K you can see that the animators are abusing lens flares a bit much. Here however, everything feels artistic, and the use of colours is just perfect, especially during the trippier scenes, making this series really look gorgeous.

The characters in this series are interesting because as one of the few series, this show decided not to put them on its promo image. They feel different than usual in that they don’t try to stand out from the rest: they feel right in place with the rest of the children there, apart perhaps from that purple haired girl. It makes them feel down to earth, and yet this series is very good at portraying their emotions. This one’s definitely one to keep your eyes out for.

This episode also did a good job of fleshing them out, using that little contest of theirs: it added to their characters, but also it showed some of the more serious sides of the whole Cantis, how it is a taboo to interfere with the Canti of others. They also introduced a guy who probablyis going to become a major villain in quite an interesting way with this.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

Some Quick First Impressions: Tonari no Kaibatsu-kun, Hiiro no Kakera 2 and From the New World

by psgels, posted in From the New World, Some Quick First Impressions

Tonari no Kaibatsu-kun

Short Synopsis: Our lead character falls in love with a bishie.
So, there’s lots of shoujo on the start of this series. And really: after so many bad shoujo series, it felt very refreshing to see a show that had a lead female with an actual personality. She has elements of your generic shoujo lead, but she also has elements that are completely different from her peers. Especially her wit was nice to watch. Overall this show knows its comedy: the few comedic scenes are well animated and delivered, as expected of Brains Base. The lead male though… I didn’t like him too much. He’s this incredibly smart character who at the same time is this wild beast who needs to be tamed and on top of that this enigmatic mystery… he’s trying too hard. He feels like four cliches thrown into one character. The romance in this episode was neatly done, in the way that the feelings of the two leads kept changing rather than being bland and one-sided, but for a high school slice of life series, it does need to include more than what it showed here if I want to keep watching it. That’s what you get when choosing an overcrowded genre.
OP: Generic song, generic animation, but that art direction is quite nice.
Potential: 70%

Hiiro no Kakera 2

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets to be protected by cute bishies.
Okay. So last season I made the huge mistake of being too guided by my own ambitions and overlooked the gem that was Kokoro Connect, so even though I dropped Hiiro no Kakera after two episodes in anger, I am going to keep an open mind here. Screw biases! Just see for yourself whether the anime has improved or not… wait a minute… why do these scenes seem so familiar? Why do I get the feeling that I’ve seen this all before… it’s a recap, isn’t it? Seriously, Hiiro no Kakera, you are making it very difficult for me to like you. I mean, a recap is okay and all, but out of all series, does this show really need one? Well, with this episode I at least got a bit of a view of what I missed with the first season, but most of these scenes could just be divided into two categories: characters looking at each other with either a very strange smile or the same sad expression, often romantically charged, and a character looking cool while doing something with power. That’s all! It was incredibly cheesy, but the worst part is that it was incredibly generic. And here is the thing, I used to love the production company behind this series, Studio Deen. In the past, their series stood out due to fantastic characterization. Instantly likable characters. The cast here is inconceivably bland. Everyone is either acting like a stereotype, or just vaguely staring into nothing with that strange smile of theirs. I mean, there is definitely an idea behind that smile: the creators probably wanted to go for something warm with that smile, but they don’t seem to understand how acting really works. You can’t just go for one type of emotion all the time. You have to be dynamic in this. It’s like having hot dogs for dinner every day. On the flip-side: the use of the soundtrack was very good. This episode actually had an atmosphere.
ED: Dull J-rock with uninspired pictures.
Potential: 0%

From the New World

Short Synopsis: Our lead character has psychic powers.
Um, let’s just get this straight first: this series may have children as lead characters, it is most definitely not geared to them. The first scene of this episode shows them using their powers to violently murder a number of people around them. And seriously: this episode rocked. The direction was just fantastic. It really toyed around with its timing, camera angles and narrative in order to create this really intriguing episode. tHe music was fantastic and really well used. And then there was the animation: seriously, A-1 gatherered a number of really talented animators for this show. The characters moved in all sorts of interesting ways. There were a ton of very artistic scenes to spice up this episode as well. I’ts probably a level of quality that they won’t be able to keep up throughout the entire series, but still, this was amazing to watch and the perfect way to open the Autumn Season with.
ED: Catchy song, lazy visuals (it basically is just the promo art and nothing else)
Potential: 95%

Mouretsu Pirates Review – 86/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Mouretsu Pirates



A series about pirates in space. The creators could have easily put a ship in space and have the characters go “RRRR!” a lot. Not Mouretsu Pirates though. This show is ambitious.

Instead of going with the tried and true formula, Mouretsu Pirates managed to completely create its own setting. It asks the question of what pirates would look like in a futuristic setting in which mankind has ventured off to space. The result is a setting in which Pirates are bound by insurance companies, and are kept afloat as this cultural heritage who raid people as a form of entertainment, and it manages to create all sorts of interesting stories and concepts based on this.

Now, Mouretsu Pirates has a series structure that has some very interesting parts, but also a few downsides. Now, the series consists out of about five major arcs. All these arcs are completely different from each other, they all focus on different characters, they all have different moods and themes, and most importantly: they all get increasingly better. what this pretty much entails to is a series that is a bit hard to get into at first, because the first arcs put a lot of emphasis on world building and setting things up just right, but once it takes off, this series really takes off into a really entertaining roller-coaster ride that just keeps changing.

And also on the character-department this series stands out. The cast of this series is HUGE; every arc introduces a ton of new ones, and I’m glad to say that this is one of those series that handles a huge case really well: it’s diverse and full of all sorts of colourful characters. It’s of course impossible to develop all of them in 26 episodes, but this series chooses very wisely who it wants to develop, while for the rest of the cast it always finds something interesting for them to do or base some interesting revelation around them.

Going back to the early episodes that put a lot of focus on build-up, that has another advantage: The creators re also really good in letting the characters just play out their actions. The result is a series that while being hard science fiction, has a cast of characters that feels real and relatable. I mean, this series may be about pirates, but there are also a surprising amount of arcs dedicated to a high school gir’s yacht club (yeah…), but these characters are portrayed so down to earth and likable that it doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.

A few weeks ago I’ve seen someone describe this show as “Shoujo in Space”, and that pretty much is the best tagline I could find for it: if this term appeals to you, then by all means give this show a chance, because there is a lot to like in it for shoujo fans as myself. This definitely was a very clever series that went from very careful set-up to a really entertaining ride with a ton of colourful characters. If it wasn’t for Natsume Yuujinchou this would have been the best series to debut in Winter 2012.

Storytelling: 8.5/10 – Excellent sense of build-up and variety through its run, but it does take a while to get going.
Characters: 9/10 – Has a huge cast and knows how to use it.
Production-Values: 8/10 – This is a Satelight series, but a low-budget one: it has nice CG at times, but they’re not spamming eye candy like in their usual series.
Setting: 9/10 – This setting here is very creative and well fleshed out. The creators defiitely put thought into how to give a new spin to “pirates in space”.

Suggestions:
– Infinite Ryvius
– Gankuen Seni Muryou
– Armed Librarians – The Book of Bantorra

Mouretsu Pirates – 26

by psgels, posted in Mouretsu Pirates

Awesome! A movie has been announced! And what more, this doesn’t seem like it’s going to be a movie for the sake of having a movie like with Full Metal Alchemist, Ao no Exorcist or Star Driver, but this really continues with the story that this episode left off with. This episode wrapped up the past arc, but it left plenty of villains still alive, plus the issue of the pirates deciding their course still hasn’t been solved yet. My guess is that that will be the main focus of the movie.

Now, as for this episode, the creators went for the action-packed ending: this entire episode was dedicated to an over the top battle against the strange woman who has been shooting down pirate ships. They used a bunch of clever decoys and the pirates that Marika invited played a good role in it. This episode didn’t have the crazy revelations that showed completely new sides of the characters and it did remain a pretty standard ending and I wouldn’t label it as the best ending of the season, but still, the episodes leading up to it were the best of the entire season.

The aftermath with Iron Beard was excellent by the way. Like many people suspected, he is Marika’s father. In the end it turned out that he wanted to hand over the reins of the Bentenmaru over to Marika, so he came up with the story of food poisoning in order to give her the chance to be a pirate. Ririka very likely was in on the joke, and she very likely figured that now that Marika has gone her own way, it’s time for her to go back to pirating with her husband.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Tsuritama Review – 84/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Tsuritama



Back in 2006, Kenji Nakamura surprised probably everyone with his three episode masterpiece that was Bake Neko, part of the Ayakashi-television series. It was trippy intense and brilliaantly written and built up, Together with Kenichi Kasai’s adaptations, it defined and popularized Noitamina and brought it to a mainstream audience. Ever since, Kenji Nakamura has been releasing a new series every now and then, with 2012’s installment being Tsuritama, at which he completely diverges from the types of shows he normally does.

I loved all of his previous works, but they collectively all had one downside: the characters. Relatively little time was spent on fleshing them out, and most of them were pretty one-sided and didn’t really come to life. Tsuritama is entirely dedicated to attempt to do this correctly, and it works. The plot is simple on purpose exactly to allow the characters to play themselves out naturally. There are relatively few action-packed climaxes in this series, but all of them have clear meaning and kick ass and ultimately make it a really fun show to watch.

And even though this series takes it easy in terms of pacing, it definitely doesn’t take it easy in terms of the ideas it has. This series really thrives on originality: it may have a teenaged cast, but within that it has many fresh ideas, like an alien with a watergun, a duck named Tapioca, or how about an entire series dedicated to fishing? Especially in the second half of the series the scenarios get particularly creative.

A downside is that this series does take a while to get going. The first half of this series contains a lot of build-up and is pretty much fishing 101 as it drills the necessary fishing skills into the main charachter in order for him to function properly in the second half of the series. While this can get a bit boring at times, I can’t deny that this series has a really well written structure: it knows exactly how much story it should have to not get rushed, it knows how much time to spend building up an make its characters feel alive, while stil having enough time to actually deliver on the fun and action-packed bits. Noitamina-series are infamous for their pacing issues, but Tsuritama is a series that gets the balance and format just right.

Storytelling: 8.5/10 – Fun to watch and a greatly paced out structure and a creative scenario.
Characters: 8.5/10 – The series is fun because the characters are fleshed out well and get to play themselves out naturally.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Not as trippy as you’d expect from Kenji Nakamura, but still has a unique and colourful look and wild animation where it matters.
Setting: 8.5/10 – Really tries to be original amidst all of the teenaged series that try to see who can rip each other off the most.

Suggestions:
–

Tsuritama – 12

by psgels, posted in Tsuritama

The animation of this episode was slightly rushed, towards the end some distorted faces popped up. But still, this really was fun. Perhaps not as fun as the build-up that preceded it, but this definitely was a worthy way to end this series.

Really, this season is full of interesting endings (not counting the ones that cut off for another season). There is a lot of refreshing stuff amongst them that tries to do things differently from the norm. The best examples of this were Fate/Zero and Lupin, but Tsuritama also had a great climax that was full of emotion, yet avoided hammy drama completely. The big bad guy turned out to be completely different from the evil overlords you usually see. We already knew that he was of Haru’s kind, but for it to be such a fidgety guy is completely different from what I expected.

The epilogue was great too, but I have one problem with that one. This is a series that thrived on originality, and yet one cliche slipped through: the one where a lot of drama is created around the characters saying goodbye to each other. The characters had a great time together, but now it’s time for everyone to move on and go their own ways and… wait never mind! They just return as random transfer students!

Overall, Tsuritama was Kenji Nakamura doing something completely different, and succeeding at it. I wouldn’t sy that it was his best work: Bake Neko still stands out as his masterpiece, and I’d also consider Mononoke to be more interesting. And ultimately C’s ending was more interesting because of how well things came together. Despite all that though, it definitely trumped all of those series in terms of characterization and fun: the character in Tsuritama really felt alive and the plot feels complete and not rushed at all.
Rating: *+ (Great)

Mouretsu Pirates – 25

by psgels, posted in Mouretsu Pirates

Tatsuo Sato, you are awesome. I didn’t think it was possible, but Mouretsu Pirates just surpassed itself. In fact, this episode was THE proof that there was a really talented writer behind this series. I don’t know whether this stems from the original writer or Tatsuo Sato himself, but whoever it was: someone really spent thought and time into how to make the anime work best. This completely exceeded all my expectations, more than any other penultimate episode this season so far.

The restraint of the creators deserves a medal here. This episode was full of twists that could have been pulled at any other episode, but by saving all of them for just this episode, it made all of them extra sweet. Seriously, I love how many new things we learn about the cast. And what’s even better is how these twist all show that every single cast member has been acting and doing stuff, even when the cameras weren’t on him. I don’t see that often, but in order to bring a big cast to life this is a wonderful trick, and usually leads to amazing results when it’s pulled off correctly.

This episode was a ridiculous amount of fun put together. The new pirates are all colourful and go together wonderfully. the revelation of the twin was hilariously down to earth. In fact, I love how this episode brought back so much that seemed so dramatic, and made it such a simple issue. I’d say that Tatsuo Sato even surpassed what he did on the Secret of Stellar wars with this, and that show also really was quite witty.

The guy who really stole the show was that chef, though. Just about everything is awesome, even though he seemed like an ordinary chef last episode. Here though, he just got so incredibly over the top despite his incredibly tiny posture (I didn’t even realize that, even though he had been in the OP for ages). Chiaki also was adorable when her father played the song she recorded with Marika. Seriously, when I first saw her on the promo material I thought that she’d be your average side-kick and all, but she turned into someone completely different from what I could have imagined.

Also, this whole arc has a fantastic set-up. Sure, it’s about a pirate-killer, but more important is how it’s about forcing everyone to choose a new direction for the pirates: continue with the imperialism, or go back to what pirates are symbolized to be. Seriously, this is one series that turned out to be much better than what I imagined it would be.
Rating: ***+ (Amazing)

Fate/Zero Season 2 Review – 86/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Fate/Zero




Fate/Zero was one of the big titles of the past Spring Season. It already had an incredibly solid first season, and this promised to only get better as it fired off. And yeah, the second season indeed ended up trumping the first and using its build-up. I have some qualms with it, but really: this was an incredibly well made series.

In a season with so many series that stood out with their visuals, Fate/Zero stands among the best: its consistency is amazing: characters stay amazingly on-model, even after 25 episodes and there is a ton of eye candy with brilliant use of CG. The director, Ei Aoki is a guy who started in Photography, and it shows: just about every frame in this show looks good. To put this into a perspective: in a season with three Satelight series airing at the same time, this second season alone the eye candy surpasses that of all three of them combined.

The plot continues off where the first season left off and contains a number of very satisfying climaxes that are surrounded by an interesting plot that just keeps taking turns. There are a few issues with this plot, though, most notably that you really need to be familiar with the Fate Franchise, otherwise some plot points won’t make any sense. This series may be just a prequel to Fate/Stay Night, but even then there were events that happened before this series that this series refuses to line out.

Like the first season, this series again does a wonderful job to melt the setting from the European middle ages and the ancient middle east together, putting Chivalry on one hand and conquests on the other. The two mesh greatly as they clash, on top with the Fate franchise’s interesting system of magi and mages.

Now, as for the characters. I do feel that I need to clarify myself a bit after claiming that the emotions feel empty, and things indeed are a bit more nuanced than that. The cast of Fate/Zero definitely has a number of characters that are developed really well throughout the series. The second season in particular contains some really heavy scenes that show many of them completely breaking down and there definitely are a lot of big emotions in this series. What I feel like the creators could have done better is flesh out these characters. This series puts a lot of time into battles and explaining the actions of its characters, but not so much on the touches that make their characters more human or show them in different emotions. Balancing these scenes out could have been done better: when this show builds up, it’s usually very slow (there in particular is an arc devoted to the background of just one character that takes up 2 whole episodes, but in the end is a bit too focused on explaining why he is involved in the story and a bit too little on creating a dynamic character). I feel that this could have been built up a bit better and because of that things don’t come together at the end as well as I hoped.

This series is a bit overhyped, but still, Fate/Zero remains an excellent series. Even though some plot twists come from nowhere if you’re not familiar with the Fate franchise like myself, it’s a big recommendation and there really is nothing like it around. This series pushed what can be done with animation further and the people of Ufo-Table have really grown into a powerhouse of a studio at this point.

Storytelling: 8,5/10 – Great action-packed climaxes with many interesting plot twists that are best enjoyed when you’re familiar with the Fate franchise.
Characters: 8/10 – Excellent development and loves to make its characters break down.
Production-Values: 9.5/10 – The consistency of the amount of eye candy in this series is amazing. 25 episodes and it still manages to look amazing with very few weak points.
Setting: 8,5/10 – Great themes, blends different settings together really well. Make this a full 9/10 if you’ve seen Fate/Stay Night.

Suggestions:
– Kara no Kyoukai
– Berserk
– Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica

Fate Zero – 25

by psgels, posted in Fate/Zero

There was only one thing I didn’t understand in this episode: the entire series has been stressing that people die when they’re killed. And here this episode suddenly pulls back Kotomine Kirei back from the dead and turns him into a zombie. How? Did the grail turn him into this weird kind of servant or something? It just doesn’t fit in with the dark and gloomy themes of the rest of this series.

Setting that aside though, this was a very solid ending with a very solid aftermath. It”s very rare to see an ending so gloomy, especially Kiritsugu really worked in this episode. The guy is one of the few to have completely survived the drama, yet his will and resolve were completely broken (which again makes it all the more weird why Kirei pulled that zombie-card). I was also really glad that there was also a minute pulled out for Berserker. that really made the ending work for Saber. Combined, it was all so gloomy and depressing, and this was in a very good way.

Overall, out of all of Gen Urobuchi’s adaptations and series, I’d rank Fate/Zero on the third place, with Phantom still on number one and Madoka Magica on number 2. I’d say that it had two things going against it: the first is the way in which it required knowledge of the rest of the Fate franchise at key moments, and the second is that its emotions felt a bit empty. This final episode was an exception for the latter of those by the way. Emiya showed more emotion than what he showed through the entire series here and I liked that a lot.

Still, Fate/Zero was an excellent series that was really well made with a rare focus on adult characters and struggles and for that I really appreciate Ufo-Table for going with it.
Rating: ** (Excellent)