Category: Finished Series: Adventure/Fantasy/Science Fiction

Gosick – 14

by psgels, posted in Gosick



Aah, this arc is actually going to take up three episodes? Really, this could have easily been done in two! Alas, against my hopes Gosick didn’t completely ditch its lesser arcs for its second half. Such a shame.

It’s not like this arc is bad, but the main side character that it’s based around is just completely hopeless. The story of leviathan is quite interesting, and it’s good to finally see a bit more about the red haired guy who mostly likely will end up as the main villain, and yet most of this episode was about this really annoying love triangle that has no chance of working. Cecile does not belong in the spotlights. This arc did not give her any depth, it just shoehorned her into an even more cliched role as a hopeless love interest who is just there to stir up some tension between the lead couple. and the irony is that Kujou and Victorique never really needed this anyway: there’s enough tension between them already. They’re perfectly capable of developing themselves.

I noted previously that Gosick sucks in terms of telling its random stories. Leviathan really could have been the example to that rule, if this episode actually focused on him. The parts of this episode that focused on his story were actually quite good, but Cecile just took up way too much airtime in this episode. She dragged this arc out to three episodes for no reason whatsoever other than filling up 24 episodes.

This series is yet another one of those examples where it’s a shame that there can’t be 18-episoded series. Gosick is too long for 13 episodes and too short for 24. The result? A lot of pointless episodes and padding. Get back to the point you’re trying to make, dammit!
Rating: – (Disappointing)

[C] The Money of Soul and Possibility Control – 02

by psgels, posted in The Money of Soul and Possibility Control



C is above all, a lot of fun to watch. It’s got an awesome premise, and makes awesome use of that. The action scenes are full of creativity and there is a ton of fast-paced intrigue that keeps this show going. The soundtrack is amazing (third best of the season after Hyouge Mono and Tiger & Bunny), and everything is pointing at the creators planning to make this as fun to watch as possible. Great!

At the same time though, it does have its weaknesses, and doesn’t try to hide it. I like that kind of honesty, at least. The main character did end up to be “the chosen one”: the complete rookie who with a very flimsy reason suddenly does things no other rookie has done before… aside from his big rival. (The rest of the episodes really need to un-flimsy that “asset” of him that allowed him to summon such a giant beam).

Also: 3D CG. It’s clear that the animators are ambitious, but don’t have the budget they need. They want a lot of movement, but they just can’t do everything at the same time, which leads to A TON of 3D CG. On actual characters. Whereas in Tiger & Bunny at least the models are consistent in either 2D or #D, here they really are all over the place, really convincing me of the budget problems. And yet, the scenes at which the animators did focus their attention… are absolutely gorgeous and amongst the best eye candy of the season. Take your pick.

Now, as for the characters: they’re not the best, but I like ’em. The male lead is more than your average male lead, despite his cliches, his female fighting companion is short and to the point, and has the potential to grow, and his rival is probably the most intriguing. They’re all likable, they have potential but need more depth to really work, though. Especially the main character; this episode was instead all about developing the premise. In terms of the really minor side characters though… that probably is the worst part of this series. That thug was just…. too much.

In any case, I’ve been asked what my favourite shows of this season are. I consider the big four to be Hyouge Mono, Anohana, Hana-Saku Iroha and Tiger & Bunny. Those really instantly captured me. After those come Steins;Gate, and C: two series that have all the ingredients to become amongst those other four, but just need a bit of extra time. Right now, the most important thing for C is to remain entertaining throughout its entire 11 episodes. If it manages that, then I’ll be happy, and I won’t mind the flaws at all. The key ingredients for that right now seem to be: more depth on the different characters, and a variety on the different episodes.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica Review – 87,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica




Ah, the deconstruction: taking a genre or trope, and examine it, put it in a real life situatio, or take a look at it from a completely different angle. I personally love these kinds of series (heck, some of my favourite series are deconstructions). Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica finally shows us another deconstruction of the Mahou shoujo genre, and it is glorious.

This series takes the well known formula: a cute animal comes to a girl, gives her superpowers, and they fight evil. It then examins what it means to be a magical girl. It actually uses its setting quite cleverly in order to really give the life of a magical girl a set of huge advantages and disadvantages. Really, the graphics may be simple, but underneath is a very, very dark storyline.

Teh thing that’s especially amazing about this series is how well everything fits together. It’s twelve episodes long, but it makes excellent use of its time, the characters all fit the story perfectly and everyone serves his own purpose to the points that this series is trying to make. The show really makes sure that it doesn’t waste its time and just about every episode adds something to the overall story and characters. This creates quite a bit of nice development for such a short series.

The graphics are also gorgeous in this series. Unlike a lot of other Shaft series, the animation knows exactly when to be normal, and when to be experimental. The action scenes in this series look really great thanks to all kind of strange and artistic images that are inserted in the surreal battle scenes. Yuki Kajiura is also behind the music, and while this may not be amongst her best work, she still delivers an excellent soundtrack.

It’s definitely a well written and thought-provoking series that continues to evolve. It deserves to be watched, and I see no way for this series to not show up in the top 10 of best eries of 2011. I don’t think that I’ll end up ranking this amongst my favourites, but that entirely because I just consider a lot of other series to be better, not for this show to have major flaws or anything. If I had to nitpick and mention a flaw of this series, then I’d point at the characterization: if the characters here were put in any random slice of life or a more conventional action series, they wouldn’t be interesting to watch at all. It’s entirely the story and the setting that makes something memorable out of them. Again though: this is just nitpicking.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Really well balanced and evolves really well for a 12 episode series. Maks excellent use of the ingredients handed to it.
Characters: 8/10 – Nice development, interesting backstories.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Successfully experiments with its graphics, resulting in some gorgeous action scenes that form a stark contrast with the quiet scenes.
Setting: 9/10 – A terrific deconstruction of a genre that really needed some nudge again.

Suggestions:
– Fancy Lala (Very, very different and slow-paced, but shows a completely different yet just as brilliant take on how to deconstruct the Mahou Shoujo Genre)
– Mahou Shoujotai
– Figure 17 – Tsubasa & Hikaru

Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica – 12

by psgels, posted in Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica



A Jesus Ending? It’s been a while since we had one of those.

Yeah, the loophole that the creators used was simply the fact that they never explicitly stated that there was any limit to the wish you could make. Madoka just wishes for a world without witches and Kyuubei… grants it. He doesn’t even seem to have the power to reject such a wish. And so, Madoka dies for our sins and completely changes the world. It neither was the best nor the worst ending of this season, but it didn’t hurt this series either: Madoka Magica remains a wonderful show to watch.

Now obviously the first question that came to my mind when Madoka made her wish was “why the heck didn’t people do this before?” I mean, we all asked this question before: instead of just wishing for simple wishes like resurrecting someone, why couldn’t you wish for an unlimited amount of wishes? Because this series refused to explain that, we all just assumed that Kyuubei would obviously refuse any wishes disadvantageous to him. And here, this episode showed that those wishes could have been possible.

My guess is that nobody made such a wish yet, because Kyuubei keeps targeting emotionally distraught teenaged girls who have just been hit by a major trauma. Yes, in a regular situation in which you’re just sitting in your comfy chair you can indeed try to bend these rules all you’d like, but I can imagine that Kyuubei always presents himself to girls who are desperate for one single wish, offering exactly what they need the most. I could be wrong here, but when you’re about to die in a car accident, you wouldn’t really try to be cheeky and think of a loop-holing wish from out of nowhere.

Madoka was the exception, because at the start of this series, she had no reason to be in despair: she didn’t know anything about Homura, and Kyuubei instead got greedy for her powers, and tried to convince her by tempting her.

And yet, I do fault Madoka for not thinking of this obvious solution any sooner. It’s probably the biggest flaw of this series: she pretty much spends 10,5 episodes angsting, only to snap out of things, go Jesus and wish all the witches away. In the end, the only way in which she really set herself apart is the way in which she refused to change into a mahou shoujo, even though this is a mahou shoujo series. At least the other characters in this series had really interesting backstories.

Oh, but that aftermath was really good. It showed that even though witches are gone, there are still other things that demand a mahou shoujo, and Kyuubei also isn’t gone, albeit completely different. It’s definitely interesting to see the different characters here in a world without Madoka or witches. Especially the latter lead to some interesting character development, but also the lack of Madoka in her family was really interesting.

Overall, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica definitely belongs in the top 3 series that premiered in the past Autumn and Winter Season, along with Hourou Musuko and Level E. Whether or not it was the best out of all of them though is very hard to say because they’re amazing at completely different things. Hourou Musuko also had an amazing second half, Level E had an absolutely fantastic beginning. Either way though, this was the best series that Shaft has made since Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei 1, and I really hope that future Shaft series will follow this series in its tracks: not just blindly copy Shinbo’s style, but also letting the writers really do what they want to do.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica – 11

by psgels, posted in Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica



Dear Shaft: thank you for actually finishing this episode in time and not pulling another Bakemonogatari. Having to wait a month for the final two episodes still is pretty doable. Episode 11 was a rock-solid build-up that was quite worth the wait.

With just about every other character out of the picture now, this episode indeed focused on Madoka, Homura and Kyuubei, but also surprisingly Madoka’s mother also played a large role here. It was really building up to the inevitable: Madoka becoming a mahou shoujo. Or at least, that was very heavily implied at the end of this episode. Overall, while it would have been nice for Madoka to actually refuse Kyuubei throughout the entire series, I can see why she did it: as long as that Walpurgis night can only be defeated by Madoka in her Mahou Shoujo-form, this time-loop will continue on endlessly.

Just, what was the point of that one monologue of Kyuubei? The one where he started talking about the past of the mahou shoujo, where he started talking how many famous girls in history were actually mahou shoujo who were plunged into despair, and how without them we’d still live in caves? That just makes no sense and is completely out of context here.

Now, as for the ending: right now things are heading in exactly the way that has been built up by the previous episodes. At the moment, we’ve reached the inescapable situation where Madoka will destroy the world once she defeats the Walpurgis Night (after all: superpowered Madoka will make for a very exciting final battle). It really seems to be heading towards a loophole ending: the creators try to bend around their own rules in order to find a loophole out of its chaos. It probably will be with casualties, but at least the world will be saved. These kinds of endings really depend on a) how good that loophole is, and b) how exciting the final battle is. Madoka definitely deserves a good closure.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Gosick – 13

by psgels, posted in Gosick



Gosick…. why the heck are you introducing a love triangle at this point? What’s the point of suddenly making one of the side characters (who has absolutely no chance whatsoever of getting him) fall in love with him. I mean, he’s bland enough already. Was he really the best choice for her? Also, Kujou: how the heck couldn’t you recognize Grevil with his hair down? It’s unfortunate that some of the problems that plagued the first half aren’t going to go away.

On the other hand though, the story about Leviathan was really good here, successfully combining mythology with fiction. Okay, so the way in which the place he lived just “happened” to be in the back yard of the main character is a bit… out there, but leaving that aside I like how this episode tried to include alchemy, while sending really big hints towards that philosopher’s stone being another red herring.

Victorique’s smirk when she went down the elevator was also priceless. The characters in Gosick nearly all have their ups and downs, but she is the only one who is consistently excellent.Cecile, the teacher, probably is the worst character so far: was there any point in this series in which she wasn’t incredibly whiny and stupid? As for the red haired guy… I’m not yet sold on him. The creators need to stop hinting at how he’s going to be a major bad guy ad actually show some things about him.
Rating: * (Good)

Some Quick First Impressions: Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Boku-tachi wa Mada Shiranai., [C] The Money of Soul and Possibility Control and Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko

by psgels, posted in Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Boku-Tachi wa Mada Shiranai, Some Quick First Impressions, The Money of Soul and Possibility Control

Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Boku-tachi wa Mada Shiranai.

Short Synopsis: Our lead character lives together with a cute girl.
Amazing! Wonderful! Excellent! Hell yeah! I really applaud Anohana. Finally a show that proves that you can do amazing stuff with moe. I refuse to tell why, though. Just watch the episode. The only thing I’ll say about this episode is regarding the production values: A-1 have yet again done an amazing job on the animation here. It’s in the same style as Fractale, meaning that there are absolutely no still frames. The characters move consistently across the screen and really come to life this way. I remember noting that Hana Saku Iroha would give Anohana some stiff competition this season. It’s at the same time also the other way around here: the battle for the best slice of life drama this season is going to be an awesome one.
OP: A decent ballad.
ED: A bit of a cheesy song, but works wonderfully here.
Potential: 90%

[C] The Money of Soul and Possibility Control

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets tempted by a weird clown.
Well, it had it coming, but this was definitely the prettiest series of the season. The quiet scenes already look very detailed, but the dramatic parts look absolutely gorgeous. The action scene at the beginning of this episode in particular had some really imaginative action. It’s typical of Kenji Nakamura, but at the same time his style is evolving: it’s no longer just weirdness for the sake of weirdness, but there also was a lot of conventional animation used. Characters actually were animated here. And the combination between the extravagant action scenes and the other quiet scenes works really well here. The story is also full of potential. It’s perhaps a bit like Eden of the East, with the big difference being that the main character is actually flawed. This entire episode was about him giving into temptation. He is mundane, yet well fleshed out: this episode takes him seriously and establishes him as level-headed, yet insecure, curious, yet unsuccessful in love (it’s a definite plus to see a potential love interest immediately established as someone who already has a boyfriend other than him). With a bit of luck, this is going to be what Eden of the East couldn’t be. The whole question will be whether or not the creators took into account that they have only 11 episodes to work with. But then again, Kenji Nakamura is a Noitamina Veteran (he and Kenichi Kasai pretty much set the timeslot apart), plus he is an expert on short stories, so this is really promising. The only bad part right now is the cleanup animation: there are quite a few distorted faces.
OP: Awesome graphics, and not a bad song either.
ED: Excellent graphics, but the song is still boring unfortunately.
Potential: 90%

Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets to live together with a cute girl.
Well, this is yet another one of the moe shows of this season. The formula is pretty much the same here: transfer student arrives to town, meets his romantic interest, people talk, the girls try to be cute and there is fanservice. Still, it’s among the better of the bundh. It actually has some good ideas put into the characterization (I’d like to thank the lead female for spending nearly the entire episode wrapped inside a futon and being nearly impossible to undrstand), and the dialogue is definitely better written compared to the likes of Hidan no Aria, Sofuteni, Hoshikaka, etc. At the same time though, it was also pretty forced at times, the male lead was rather bland and very little actually happened in this episode. So, here is my issue with this episode: the end of this episode actually hinted to an interesting story. However, this is Shaft. The rest of this show could just as well be the characters randomly wasting time, and they’re not interesting enough for that to work. On one hand, this has Shinbo who is working on three shows at the same time this season. On the other hand, it has a completely fresh writer who has only been active for a few years in many excellent episodes. This really can go either way and this episode didn’t really change that.
OP: Agh, my ears! It’s like they put a cat in a blender and recorded it.
ED: Simple, a bit of a boring singer, but I’ve heard much worse this season.
Potential: 50%

Gosick – 12

by psgels, posted in Gosick



Gosick, I applaud you. I really did not think that you had the guts to come with such an episode. Completely breaking away from your own formula takes courage, but I’m really glad that you did it. This episode was exactly what this show needed. It was an excellent way to close off the first half of this series.

When Kujou’s friend brought up the Mediterrean Sea, I really began to fear here. “Oh god no. Not another beach episode!” To my surprise however, Kujou completely abandoned this idea in favour of spending time with Victorique. The rest of this episode was exactly that: the two of them sitting out the beginning of the holidays. It was wonderfully quiet, and what’s more: it really allowed their characters to shine.

Kujou’s problem is that he sucks at solving mysteries, which is a really big problem when you’ve got a mystery series. This episode was entirely dedicated to the two lead characters however, and suddenly he shows that he can be a very good character here. This episode took a great opportunity to show about his past, ad tell a bit more about his sister and brothers.

I really have to beg the creators here: please: no more random stories. If there are fillers in the manga, just skip them. Random stories aren’t necessarily bad; there are enough series that are really good at them. Just Gosick isn’t one of them. Plus, this episode showed how good this series can be without its contrived mysteries. The right balance actually has the potential to give Gosick an excellent second half. It really needs to put in effort for that, though.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Gosick – 11

by psgels, posted in Gosick



Okay. Whoa.

To be honest, I was nearly ready to drop this show. I was originally planning to just stick with it for a few more episodes, until I figured out which spring series I wanted to blog. The diamond arc, along with its long hiatus caused this show to be underwhelming for more than a month, and I had pretty much lost my interest before I started watching this episode.

And suddenly this show comes with a very good backstory of Grevil. That really came out of nowhere. Most of this episode was still full of unlikable antics, but the story that it tried to tell got more impressive by the minute. It’s this episode that really convinced me: this show sucks at telling short stories. But it actually gets very good whenever it looks at its main storyline. Because of that, I’m hoping for the second half of this series to be entirely dedicated to plot-related stories, instead of just random ones that are only there to fill time.

And yeah. I admit: they had me. I did not think that this show was witty enough to come up with a good explanation of Grevil’s hair, and it did. I also now understand why all the manga readers were so vague when talking about the reason for his hair being like this, because that really is something you don’t want to get spoiled about.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Gosick – 10

by psgels, posted in Gosick



With this episode, I’m sure of it: Gosick should just have been 13 episodes long. It’s very ironic that out of all the series this season, the only one that goes beyond 13 episodes is the one who doesn’t need that many episodes, leaving series as Yumekui Merry as way too short. Seriously though, if the creators cut off all of the bad arcs and just compiled all of the good stuff into one season, it would have been a very good series.

The current arc really has no business in this series. It completely failed its purpose to give Hair Guy some depth. All we now know is that he feels pressured, but that could easily have been done within a minute inside a different arc. It really made no difference for the story of this arc whether his past was revealed or not.

The story again suffered from the stupid virus once more. I mean, when your house gets searched by the police, and you’ve just collected the most priceless artifact imaginable, not to mention that you’re selling off young children. Even if you’re completely confident that they won’t find anything, why the heck did the bad guys in this episode not try to move everything to a different location? I mean, with the huge crowd he invited, there is just one thing that needs to go wrong and everything is ruined.

Also, did Kujou just really try to drop a priceless jewel on the floor, to test whether or not it was made out of glass? I mean, it didn’t break, but what if that drop scratched it?

Also, it’s a shame to see that this is very possibly the worst animated Bones series in years. I mean, what was up with that action scene at the end? Three frames with speedlines and suddenly everyone was captured. That’s just lazy, but the rest of this episode also just looked too mundane. You can see that at least some budget went into it, but none of the drawings really felt inspired or particularly well animated.

The only merit of this arc was Victorique. Especially that nightmare at the end of the episode was excellent. I’ve said this before: this series sucks in terms of the small picture, but it has some pretty good stuff in the big picture. Just cut away these random mysteries. This show just isn’t good at them.
Rating: – (Disappointing)