Category: Finished Series: Adventure/Fantasy/Science Fiction

Gosick – 05

by psgels, posted in Gosick



So, you’re a bad guy. You know that the good guy has something you really want, so you go to the good guy’s room and turn it into a mess in the hopes of finding it, but you fail to notice that huge suspicious cupboard that could hide a small person. Um, tunnel vision?

I really don’t understand the bad girl of this episode. So, she’s looking for a book that contains a letter that contains a rare stamp (the Penny Black, the first stamp in the world, and a misprint at that), that is left behind by a phantom thief. She finds the book, but fails to remove the letter and instead hides it at a bizarre place, only to knock down Kazuya when carries the book when Victorique already removed the letter. Not to mention the bizarre reason in which Victorique managed to find back the book. I mean, if I were to hide a book in a library, I’d look for a random place and then think of an easy way to remember its place. Not the other way around. And how did Victorique get this on her first guess? See what I mean by her “script logic”? Am I missing something here?

Anyway, I had some hopes for this episode, and it did tie together some of the threads that seemed rather random in the previous episode. The way it did this was forced and mediocre, but that’s not really a surprise for this show at this point, because I have to admit that piecing things together creates at least an interesting back-story> i just hope that this wasn’t the final episode of this arc, because it left so much unresolved, especially the backgrounds of these characters: who were they? This episode answered this for none of the characters involved: the bad girl: who is she and why is she the second incarnation of the phantom thief? Avril: where did she come from and what is her relationship with her grandfather and where did that letter come from? What exactly went on between Maxim and his sweetheart? I mean, leaving some of these backgrounds unanswered is no problem, but this was just too much.

One thing I did like in this episode was its clever use of a red herring: her bandaged hand seemed to suggest time and time again that she also decapitated that motor driver, and the entire previous episode seemed to hint that these two stories were connected… and they weren’t. Those wounds were just bite marks. I have to give that to this series: that’s a neat little twist.

Also, to nitpick a bit: “the train from England to Sauvure”… how did that work exactly in those days?
Rating: (Enjoyable)

Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica – 05

by psgels, posted in Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica



That new girl made her proper entrance in this episode. She at this point is a bit too stereotypically evil, and I would like to see her character in a bit more detail than someone who just wants to kill people. Other than that though, this again was an excellent episode.

She did have a good point in this episode, though: becoming a mahou shoujo, just to protect others is a very shallow reason: in order to remain strong enough to protect innocent people, you need to collect the grief seeds, which can only be collected after a witch had a meal on some innocent people. It’s a vicious cycle, and Sayaka doesn’t really seem to understand this. Sayaka really is a ticking time bomb at this point.

Also, the more this show goes on, the more trollish the OP appears. The tone is obviously misleading here, but also the transformation scene which felt completely out of place could be just a subtle jab to other mahou shoujo and some of the tropes that they just continue to overuse. Especially considering how at this point Madoka still hasn’t become one. I have seen Phantom, Gen’s other work. I know that this guy has pretended the death of characters, only to bring them back later. At the same time though, it’s not like he’s afraid to kill of characters either. My guess is that Mami will return eventually when Madoka chooses her wish. At the same time though, I’m expecting quite a number of actual deaths with the rest of the cast here.
Rating: ** (Excellent)a

Gosick – 04

by psgels, posted in Gosick



Aaahh, I give in. Despite how incredibly flawed the mystery in this series is, I’m going to blog it and drop Dragon Crisis, but if Suite Precure next week is crap, I’m going to pick it back up. I know that I’m really juggling around series this season, but blame their strange airing patterns!

The reason why I originally chose Dragon Crisis over Gosick had a lot to do with my assumption that Gosick would only be 12 episodes long (I mean, how much work can you put on Mari Okada anyway). The characters were just too annoying, and because of that I wanted to give Dragon Crisis more a chance to impress me in a second half, despite being much more cliched (hey, there have been plenty of series that start out really cliched, but get more creative and interesting as they go on). But guess what? Gosick is going to be is going to be 24 episodes long. This actually allows the characters to develop and the shows to evolve. Besides, the stories are small and compact, so there should be plenty to talk about.

Don’t get me wrong though, this episode still was pretty flawed. I’m really not sure why Bones put the director of Heroman of all things on this thing, and it shows: this is miles away from their best work. The one advantage that this series has over Heroman however, is that this time, the source material is actually pretty interesting. If you don’t look at the execution, but just at the story, I admit that this show is pretty interesting.

In this episode, the creator pretty much presented two stories for Victorique, and especially the first one was pretty bad: Kazuya states exactly all of the clues that are needed to solve the mystery including a daydream that just… makes no sense, both in the way that he told it and the fact that Victorique connects this daydream to the culprit. That’s exactly what I mean by that Victorique isn’t a genius at all, and how she simply has access to the script of this series. In comparison, a real genius detective would be Sakon, from Ayatsuri Sakon: that also is a series in which people have been murdered by ingenious plots (but not too ingenious to the point where it gets ridiculous), and Sakon mostly spends his time carefully gathering clues and examining his surroundings, before relating all of those together. In Ayatsuri Sakon, we really get to see Sakon’s thought process. In Gosick, we get none of that.

Instead, we just get some interesting stories. It makes no sense, but I do like how most of the mysteries in this series aren’t standalone and how they eventually become connected with each other. This show outright sucks at the “how” of its mysteries, but one thing I like is that the creators wait really long to explain exactly why things happened. This allows you to fill in some of the details for yourself. At the very least, I can see that the original source material of this series had some very interesting ideas. But was Victorique also a Mary-sue like she is in the anime version, or was this completely different?
Rating: (Enjoyable)

Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica – 04

by psgels, posted in Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica



My impression of this season, now that we’re four weeks in: it’s small, full of teenagers and there are quite a few series that I really don’t want to waste my time on. But holy crap! I’m really amazed at how many really good series have appeared. Madoka Magica’s fourth episode was again a really good one. At this point, Madoka Magica is already my favourite Shaft series since ef – a Tale of Memories.

Where Heartcatch Precure was exactly what the shoujo-targeted mahou shoujo needed, Madoka Magica was exactly what the seinen-targeted mahou shoujo genre needed. This is looking out to be an excellent deconstruction at this pace. To just take an example here: just about every mahou shoujo accepts her fate in the first or second episode. After a few minutes of doubt, she’s willing to change her entire life in order to fight crime because she happens to be some chosen one. In Madoka Magica, Madoka still hasn’t become a mahou shoujo after four episodes. The past four episodes have shown that the downsides to becoming one have some real significance.

This episode also showed that just about everyone has her own agenda, which especially became clear when Sayaka suddenly decided on a whim to become a mahou shoujo, for the sake of her boyfriend at the point where Madoka herself had decided not to become one. This also shows what a bastard Kyubei can be: he says goodbye, but instantly appears whenever he feels that someone is ready to make a contract.

Regarding a bit of a small detail: I wonder what Homura meant when she said that it would take a long time for people to file her as missing? I mean, wouldn’t the people at her school find it strange that she’s gone? I mean, I of course do not know how schools in Japan are supposed to act when students start skipping classes, but in the Netherlands it’s a pretty serious offense for kids of Madoka’s age to be absent unannounced for more than a couple of days.

Which brings me to the next question that may be thinking a bit too much into the setting here, but how many people know about the existence of these mahou shoujo? Do the police know about them, for example? I mean, what happens when one of these seeds explodes without either a mahou shoujo nearby, or one that pretty much kills everyone around it? That’s bound to raise some suspicion sooner or later, isn’t it?
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica – 03

by psgels, posted in Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica



Well, I guess that this shows that this series knew exactly what it was doing. The twist that this episode pulled… I did not expect that so early on in the series. It was by far the best episode of Madoka Magica so far. This is another one of those SPOILER episodes, so you might want to close this window if you haven’t seen the episode yet.

Of course, “mentor deaths” have been used before, and this episode did contain a ton of foreshadowing (I mean, there were a lot of lines by Mami that could easily be translated to “I’m about to die”), like you usually have with these kinds of episodes. The actual death scene was really well executed, though: there was no overly long death speech or melodramatic yelling. It was simply over in an instant. It didn’t even have time to sink in due to the huge sudden mood whiplash. On top of that, this wasn’t just about Mami who just found herself some new friends, but this episode also questioned what it means to be a mahou shoujo, almost like a deconstruction.

As for the next number of episodes, it’s probably going to focus on Madoka and Sayaka becoming mahou shoujo. The interesting part is going to be how it’ll happen. This episode pretty much analyzed why they want to become one, and after what happened at the end of this episode, it’s especially going to be interesting to see how Madoka ends up becoming one. Is it just going to be for the sake of Mami, or will there be more involved?
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica – 02

by psgels, posted in Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica




As for the shows I’m not going to blog:
– Rio Rainbow Gate is one of those rare shows that are so bad that they’re good. But it’s still way too stupid for it to be interesting enough to blog.
– Kimi ni Todoke just was too annoying, despite how the graphics have gotten even better in the process.
Note: this season I’m going to have a bit of a strange blogging schedule, due to Heartcatch Precure and Showa Monogatari, so in about half a month I’ll have room to pick up two more shows (yes, I am going to end up blogging 50% of this winter season!). Even with that taken in consideration though, I don’t think that Kimi ni Todoke will be one of those two, due to the large amount of other interesting shows this season.
Note2: I’m going to be blogging four shows on Thursday. So yeah, some of them will be delayed. Especially because I’m not often in the mood for these low quality versions that often pop up first.

In any case: yeah, I’m blogging a Shaft series again. Soredemo Machi last season did a great job of taking away a part of my bias for them, and this show holds some nice potential. It obviously takes a lot after Nanoha, but brings enough of its own for now. I’ve seen Shaft do much worse in this area before, in any case.

This episode wasn’t as good as the first, but I still liked it quite a bit. This show is especially good at its action scenes, which are really artistic and well directed and do a great job getting me to care about the characters. This entire episode built up pretty decently to that scene at the end, though I would have liked to have seen more details into the witch, and less general explanations.

Now, this episode did show that we shouldn’t expect much from the humour in this show. There was this one bit in which that classmate of the lead characters started making lesbian jokes… and they didn’t work at all. It just shows how dry Shaft’s humour has become, and I don’t mean that in a good way. Thankfully it was just limited to one scene and this show takes itself seriously during the other parts of this episode.
Rating: * (Good)

Some Quick First Impressions: Cardfight Vanguard, Gosick and Wolverine

by psgels, posted in Gosick, Some Quick First Impressions, Wolverine

Cardfight Vanguard

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a wimp.
Now I’m sure of it: this is the season of awesome soundtracks. When even the silly shounen cardgame show has some excellent music, it really is a great season for the audio department. Anyway, this show is definitely completely silly with a ton of bad engrish, but for a kiddie show about card games, it’s not really that bad. I especially like how the creators managed to create the biggest wimp in existence as the lead character: it’s nearly hilarious to see how much this guy lacks a spine when he’s not in a card game. It was very pleasant to see those bullies just walk up to him and steal his best card with so much ease. It’s still ridiculously silly, though, full of bad acting (not to mention that school teachers actually use the cards of this game in their lectures). I have to give credit for some actual good monster designs (emphasis on monsters… the characters themselves look just stupid), but it’s still obviously a “buy our cardgames” show.
OP: Surprisingly good for a kiddie show. Very cheesy and hot blooded, though.
ED: This one’s just cheesy, though.
Potential: 10%

Gosick

Short Synopsis: Our lead character meets a genius detective in the form of a little girl.
Good lord… that hair. Heroman’s character designs look just tame in comparison. Who the hell found it a good idea to put such a ginormous horn on top of that detective? On a more serious note: this episode was really tedious to sit through. That hair guy had a lot to do with that, but even worse is the male lead. This is supposed to be an exciting show about detectives, so why is he so bland and whiny? This show seems to be heading the Bakemonogatari route with the “smart girl dumb guy” trope, but the girl here isn’t exactly smart: she’s just tsundere who has access to the script. In the example mystery of this episode (which was very lazily told, by the way), she never really evaluated all of the possibilities, she just stated a ridiculously far-fetched solution that nobody would have guessed. As for the positives: there were a few dark parts that hinted at something deeper than silly adventures (I guess it’s just a matter of patience to see that actually pay off) and the animation, courtesy of Bones is quite good. Especially on the female lead (for quite obvious reasons) and the backgrounds are also very imaginative.
OP: Boring J-rock.
ED: At least not bad, but neither really good ballad.
Potential: 60%

Wolverine

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a bishie with a tragic love story.
Okay, so the big question: is Wolverine as bad as Iron Man? As a matter of fact actually… it isn’t. It’s still very outsourced, but this is nowhere near the mess that Iron Man was. It actually has come up with an interesting story here, in which Wolverine is chasing after some Japanese mafia that took away his girlfriend, compared to Iron Man’s… whatever the hell it was trying to do with its corny morals. The action scenes in this episode also felt better than any of the fights I’ve seen from Iron Man, and the creators actually managed to put down some convincing villains, and Logan himself also is far from the incompetent moron that Tony Stark was. The horrible distorted faces are also gone. The creators are really going for a tragic story here, and so far they seem to be doing a pretty good job, with an interesting atmosphere. It’s nothing great, though: there was quite a bit of hammy acting and the romance was definitely a bit cheesy and should have been fleshed out more, not to mention the transition between scenes is a bit messy, especially at the beginning of the episode. I’m glad that Madhouse actually got some competent people on this, though.
OP: Decent, but nothing special after watching it more than twice.
ED: This one is surprisingly good, though: both in the visuals and the music.
Potential: 70%

Some Quick First Impressions: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica, Yumekui Merry and IS – Infinite Stratos

by psgels, posted in Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica, Some Quick First Impressions, Yumekui Merry

Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is an average schoolgirl who becomes a mahou shoujo.
Ah, this one passed the first episode test as well. I was a bit afraid since this is Shaft and all, but this episode was fresh, solid and had none of the things that usually annoy me about them. The soundtrack by Yuki Kajiura is excellent as expected, and the visuals are actually used well here: this show has a good balance between simple, regular character designs on one side, and twisted images and background once the magical world in this show pops up. The creators really tried to make another one of those dark mahou shoujo and they really succeeded in contrasting two extremes with each other. Now, there still is the danger of Madoka becoming too pure and her co lead becoming too perfect and serious, but there’s still plenty of time to flesh out their characters. Overall, I’m impressed. Now I really want to ask Shaft to keep this up, because I don’t want to be disappointed by them for the umpth time.
OP: Yuki Kajiura composed this? Hmm, this is some of her weaker work. Visuals have both neat and cliched ideas?
Potential: 80%

Yumekui Merry

Short Synopsis: Our lead character runs into a dream eating girl.
Now this is more like it! I mean, it’s not like Yumekui merry doesn’t have its cliches: it revolves around teenagers, the male lead has multiple romantic interests including a childhood friend whom he lives with, but unlike Infinite Stratos which offered nothing beyond that, this show makes sure to not glorify these cliches, and put in as much interesting stuff as possible. Seriously, this was an excellent episode with some terrific direction and camera work. The way in which it brought the lead characters’ dream world to life is really well done, and it’s especially good at using these tiny details in its environment, like a random can lying around. The entire episode was chock full of creativity, and the action scenes themselves were stunning. The characterization manages to both create charming characters during the light hearted moments, but also hit hard with the subtle yet powerful emotional scenes. Bring on more giant fish-bones!
OP: No cheesy j-pop! Instead it’s got great background art and a pretty decent tune.
ED: Unfortunately cheesy J-pop, but the visuals are interesting here…
Potential: 90%

IS – Infinite Stratos

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is the only guy of his class.
Ah, this is one for the production values. The battle scenes are well directed and exciting and the soundtrack is really solid, courtesy of Hikaru Nanase. … so why was it wasted on this kind of crappy story? I had hoped that this episode would give a more interesting story behind this whole series rather than just the “guy who is surrounded by girls” (mind you, with the right execution it could have become a great series despite these cliches), but this episode was just… unbelievable. It’s entirely about harem hijinks. The antics between the lead characters are all horribly dull and typical, with the same spoiled brats, fangirls, childhood friends, tsunderes and “walk into shower”-scenes that we’ve seen a thousand times before. Beyond that: nothing. Throughout the entire episode, there were no hints whatsoever at anything deeper and the only thing that wasn’t utterly boring was the action scene at the beginning. Even the OP just kept hinting at nothing but silly fights and harem hijinks. This episode seemed to go on for bloody ages because of this. The final nail in this one’s coffin was the very bland characterization: nearly the entire cast is just a walking stereotype and acts incredibly predictable.
OP: Bland J-pop. They got Hikaru Nanase here and they don’t even use her properly…
ED: Even blander.
Potential: 15%

Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu




Denyuuden… was definitely an interesting series. It’s the kind of anime that you normally wouldn’t expect anything great of at first sight (or at least I didn’t), and yet delivers some episodes that completely exceed expectations. The first thing I want to say to people who are planning to give this one a chance: wait until episode three.

This series is a typical example of a series with its ups and downs. About half of it is a bit of a boring fantasy, the other half is an excellent character study. The boring half resides unfortunately around the middle of the series, starting at episode five and lasting for around twelve episodes. They’re basically a long string of building up, filled with uninteresting side-characters and scenarios that have potential, but never really get interesting to warrant the amount of time this show devotes on it.

The final third is where the things get interesting, though: those with patience will be rewarded with some excellent character development: just about every character, even the most annoying ones, gets better, the plot finally spices up and develops as well, abandoning most of its generic fantasy tropes in favour of a much more character-based progression. It ends with a strong conclusion, albeit a very open ended one (and unfortunately the chances for a second season are looking slim).

In terms of graphics, this is a Zexcs production, meaning that a lot of the series looks rather generic. They did surpass themselves in this series at several areas, though. For once, some of the background art is just gorgeous, but there are also these select few episodes that finally ditch the generic looking characters that have been plaguing Zexcs for ages now and deliver some really good animation here.

Denyuuden is definitely unbalanced. For a 26 episode series, it spends too much of its time on building up that’s rather boring. It both makes it very hard for people to get through it, and takes time away from the parts in which this series gets really good. It definitely annoyed me for a couple of months when I was blogging it. And yet, I just can’t say that it left a bad taste. While not quite of Kobato-levels, the final third did make up for the boring parts. It’s a recommendation for people with patience who are looking for an interesting fantasy title.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Pacing could be better, but can really pack a punch when it wants to.
Characters: 9/10 – All characters have their moments of annoyance, especially side-characters like Milk will get on your nerves. Yet, the character development here is really good, especially for the three main characters.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Mostly nothing special, with some very notable exceptions.
Setting: 8/10 – Is at its best when it takes a back-seat and lets the plot and characters guide it. Standalone it’s pretty much your average fantasy setting.

Suggestions:
– Tytania
– Senkou no Night Raid
– Pandora Hearts

Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu – 24

by psgels, posted in Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu



You know what? If this wasn’t the final episode, it would really have been a great halfway climax. And in fact, I still consider this to be an excellent episode. And as an ending: things could have been much, much worse.

This episode was in no way rushed: it really knew what it wanted to do. The main problem with this ending is that expectedly, it leaves a ton of plot threads unresolved. At the end of this episode, the war is still going on, people are still fighting and people still have plenty of things to do that unfortunately will probably never be animated due to the low DVD sales.

And yet, for a show that just cuts off in the middle, it actually had a very good ending: the things that it wanted to close off were closed off well, and this final episode really feels like a conclusion: it both wraps up Ryner, Shion and Ferris, AND it actually develops them some more. With this episode, it feels like we’ve gotten the final pieces of the development in these three.

Compare that to Koukaku no Regios: that one was put under similar conditions, and what did it do? It pulled a huge amount of desperate plot twists that made no sense whatsoever and didn’t really resolve anything. I’m really impressed at how the creators (both the director and Zexcs as well (because yes, this episode looked really good)).

Oh, and yes. Ferris finally being genuine was awesome as well. Kiefer’s appearance on the other hand was a bit coincidental, but I guess it was a necessary evil to also close off her story a bit.

Overall, Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu had its downs, most notably after episode four followed a huge stream of uninteresting episodes. But here’s the thing: Ferris, Ryner and Shion are both well rounded and excellent characters in the end. As for the side-characters, though… they got better. Let’s just keep it at that. ^^;
Rating: ** (Excellent)