Category: Wellber no Monogatari ~ Sisters of Wellber

The doubts I had about this series, I take them all back after this episode. For three episodes in a row, Wellber no Monogatari has continuously pushed forward excellent episodes, one after another. While that by itself already is a feat that only few other anime from the current spring-season have accomplished, Wellber no Monogatari goes even further, by making each of these three episodes unique, and very different from the other. The title for “most diverse series” definitely goes to Wellber no Monogatari at this point. Wellber no Monogatari and Kaze no Shoujo Emily really prove that the underdogs rock yet again! The current episode definitely was the best yet, when it features a huge amount of plot and character-development, with some great effects! With that, though, comes probably the only lesser part of the episode: some parts featured lots of dialogue, and were very hard to understand. xD Anyway, most of the developments were focused on Galahad. We learn that Jamill is actually his girlfriend, and *gasp* Guernia is still alive!! For a moment, I was afraid that Galahad would turn good just because of the sixth episode, but I had no reason to worry. Near the end of the episode, he did betray his comrades, but he had every reason to, after Guernia told him that he’d been killing his own people (to test out his sword skills?), and that he indeed was the culprit, instead of the victim back in the first episode. Still, that Guernia is quite a bastard, he really seems to be after Rita’s head, so that he’d be able to get the throne of both Wellber and Sangatras. It’s interesting to see that Galahad just betrayed the guy like that, and I’d love to see what he’s going to do next. (Jamill’s reaction to his betrayal, by the way, was excellent!). I had my doubts about his character at first, but during this episode, I really started to like the guy. Tina, meanwhile, also reveals quite some interesting information about herself: she can’t write! It would be perfectly plausible for a thief like her, though. And I’m surprised that similar characters like her don’t show the same problems. She turns rather cute when she has to spell out a letter to send back home so that Rita can write it down. ^^; I really, really, really hope that I can continue to praise Wellber no Monogatari for the rest of the series. Production I.G. is really showing its best side in the current season, with Seirei no Moribito as well. Now all that’s left is to hope that this won’t pull a .Hack//Roots, so that my enthusiasm has been for naught, but for now, I’m quite confident. It’s a shame, really. A series like Claymore, who had a mediocre start as well has enough people watching it, because the manga turns better and better as it progresses. For an original story like Wellber no Monogatari, though, you can’t know whether it’ll turn out good or bad, just from first impressions.]]>

You know, I’m really beginning to warm up to Wellber no Monogatari, as strange as it may seem and despite its obvious flaws. The current episode was extremely silly, probably the silliest of the entire series so far, but I just loved it. I don’t know why, but every week I’m really anxious to check out the next episode of this series. The episode starts out serious enough when Rita’s brother confronts his father about how he doesn’t do anything to ensure his daughter’s safety. He then starts carrying out a strange magical ritual, if I’m not mistaken it’s to find out the future of the country of Wellber. The rest of the episode is basically one big treasure hunt when Rita’s scroll gets stolen. To give a short summary, a thief first tricks Rita and Tina into thinking he’s from the border-guard and steals their money and the scroll. He sees the scroll as useless so he throws it away into a hay carriage. A crow then comes and picks it up. After a fierce battle between this crow and Sherry, it drops it in a tree. Rita then gets it, but the branch she’s standing on breaks and she falls into a post office, onto a pile of letters and scroll-tubes. Then villagers who mistook their treasure-hunt to be a real treasure hunt rampage, but they eventually get scared away by Bergerac. In the end, it appears that Rita put the scroll in her suitcase, so the whole chase had been for naught. This hunt by itself wasn’t the thing that made this episode great; it was the reaction of the different characters to all of it that I absolutely loved. Tina was just awesome; you just have to love her facial expressions and gestures during the entire episode. Also, Sherri finally is a bit useful for something when she starts chasing the crow. It was quite awesome though, seeing a fight between two such small creatures. Tina also missed with her gun, when she tried to shoot this crow down. I loved it how this came back later in the episode when the scroll-case is stuck in the tree and Rita doesn’t trust her shooting-skills anymore. ^^; The episode ends with Rita’s brother, realizing that Sangatras is planning to invade Wellber. This scene definitely shows promise for the future episodes, as I do suspect that now Rita is out of Wellber, her journey didn’t suddenly become a lot easier. The next episode should get back on track when Galahad returns, but that doesn’t mean that this episode was useless. While the plot went nowhere fast, some good character-development and fleshing out did happen. I do hope that some fansubbers start actively subbing this series, as it really deserves it in my opinion.]]>

I don’t know about others, but I greatly enjoyed this episode. It was definitely the best one in this series so far, when it focuses on Galahad and Rita, instead of a random case. I’m so glad that this episode avoided the pitfalls that strike so many other anime when they attempt an episode like this one. The graphics also just looked stunning in this one. The combination of fire, snow and some excellent animation made this episode really worthwhile to see. 🙂 The episode starts, though, with the guard we saw in the first episode arriving on an island, introducing yet another character: the female knight. If I had to guess, then she too is from Sangatras. Then the episode starts when Rita and Tina are in the middle of a snowy mountain, they talk about how the area is infamous for housing a rather poisonous spider, and then it seems that Tina has been afraid of spiders since she was young, after one unfortunate incident. ^^ One small detail I loved is how Rita’s fears aren’t used in this episode. Another thing is that this means that Sherry has known Tina for a very long time now. I still wonder how the two of them met each other. In any case, a blizzard shows up, and Rita first gets separated from Tina, and then runs into none other than Galahad. She manages to get away from him when she falls off a cliff. Apparently, this cliff wasn’t very large, and due to the snow, she had a soft landing, after which she fled into a convenient wooden shed. Galahad, however, sees the wooden shed as well, and what follows is some considerable development between the two of them. One of the spiders mentioned above managed to get hold of Galahad, and Rita just isn’t someone to leave someone like him just to die. Then an interesting discussion follows, where it seems that Guernia acted really strange in the night when Rita murdered him. I’m glad to see that she finally reveals what really happened to her. I didn’t understand this part too well, but it seems that Guernia wanted to kill Rita for his own gain. If I had to guess, then he first wanted to kill her, in order to blame others afterwards. It was probably so that he could get both Sangatras and Wellber for himself in the future. That’s why he kept bothering Rita with marriage requests. Strangely enough, though, he was extremely nice to Galahad. The two of them grew up together, and Galahad never noticed anything strange with him. Still, the best part of the episode comes when Galahad actually poisons Rita’s drink when she’s not looking, with the venom of the same spider when she’s not looking. I hate it when episodes like these bring rivals together, only for the two of them to make friends and act like nothing happened. That definitely wasn’t the case here, when even after hearing Rita’s story, Galahad still wants to kill her. Luckily, she managed to hit over an oil lamp in her struggles, so that the house catches fire and Tina would be able to find her. It’s quite interesting to see what the creators have already put Rita through. I’d love to know what’s going to happen in the rest of this series.]]>

Heh, I’m beginning to like Wellber no Monogatari more and more with each episode progressing. This episode was surprisingly good, with far less annoying elements than the episodes before. It’s also got a nice sense of humour, which I really appreciate. The beginning of the episode was the best part, in my opinion, where another couple of bounty-hunters have found Rita and Tina. In order to draw their attention away from the princess, Tina shamelessly hijacks a carriage that happened to be near them, belonging to two lovers. She gets shot down while fleeing, but the princess is safe when the bounty-hunters find out that they’ve been tricked. This scene definitely showed that this show is also perfectly able to display the more serious scenes, as Tina looked great, when she was shot down. This makes me have high hopes for the future of this series. In the rest of the episode, Tina gets saved by a guy who notices her body lying around. She wakes up again, but she did leave Rita waiting for quite a while. This part of the episode was definitely meant to give Tina a bit more confidence in Rita. After all, as a princess, Tina figures that Rita will probably go without her, assuming that she died or stopped caring at that point. Rita, however, really isn’t that irresponsible, and she does go out to look for her. Eventually, the two parties reunite. The rest of the episode then deals with getting rid of Galahad, who seems to have followed the princes up to this point, and knows that she’s heading for Greedam. The guy who rescued Tina (and has fallen in love with her a bit ^^;) and his friends also help a bit. They’re travelling merchants, who travel from city to city with big horse-carriages, which are perfect to hide a large horse and talking tank in. Unfortunately, there is one person who also recognized Rita, and he goes off to tell Galahad that he saw Rita enter a red carriage. Rita, though, comes with the idea to secretly switch carriages, just in case such a thing happens. The fake carriage then drives away from the other carriages, in order to really draw Galahad’s attention to it to that the others can get away. She really is smarter than she looks, based on this. The plan works, and Galahad is helplessly left, watching Rita and Tina get away. Galahad, meanwhile, shows that he’s quite impulsive, and that his wishes to find the princess do make him lose sight of the important things. He could have easily gotten past the guards if he was a bit more calm, and then overtaking a mere horse carriage was a piece of cake. I could be wrong on this, but I think his reason to go after Rita isn’t the money, but the fact that she killed his superior. He probably looked up to him a lot, which makes the shock of seeing the guy get killed by his future wife. I liked this case, by the way. It was nothing special, when compared to the others, but they do show that people still have a lot of hospitality. In some cases, they’re not interested in the money on Rita’s head, and in other cases, they are. This episode also already showed how much Rita has grown, as she was far less commanding than in the previous episode. I like where this is going.]]>

Short Synopsis: When assaulted by people after her head, Rita flees into a brothel-city. Good: Great themes, serious undertones, some hilarious moments. Bad: Could take itself a tad more seriously. Way too much fanservice. Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10 Seriously, this episode reminded me a lot of Jigoku Shoujo 19: A good episode, but why so much fanservice? The fanservice definitely wasn’t useless, and it did make sense, unlike most other anime. But really, especially at the end, the creators may have been a little too enthusiastic. I think what strikes me about Wellber no Monogatari is that it’s got a lot of things I like, and also a lot of things I don’t like. Still, the potential is definitely there. The individual cases may goof off a bit at times; there definitely are some serious undertones. The fact does remain that these prostitutes did join the brothel because they had no choice, and this anime effectively uses it. One person in particular got introduced to the business because the war destroyed her village. Rita also has quite a few annoying moments, but on the other side, this anime is quite busy developing her from the ignorant little princess to someone who actually knows what she’s doing. She’s currently rash and impulsive, but after all, she grew up as a princess (which reminds me, I’d love to see some scenes of her when she was little). It’ll be interesting to see her at a later stage of this anime. I also have to say that for the first time, this anime really cracked me up when Rita ran into Sherry.]]>

Short Synopsis: Tina learns of a rumour which might have something to do, and decides to investigate. Good: Very interesting battles. Bad: Could use a bit more realism. Overall Enjoyment Value: 7/10 I admit that Wellber no Monogatari does have its flaws. Rita and Tina have less excuses to linger around than Nadie and Ellis, so seeing the two of them get involved in random cases doesn’t work as good as with El Cazador. It’s also surprising that nobody recognizes the giant tank which accompanies the princess. This probably means that vehicles like Bergerac are common in the world this anime plays in, but so far I’ve yet to see any of them. The fixing-shop did suggest, though, that Bergerac doesn’t have unique design, otherwise it wouldn’t be so easy to fix it. And yes, “decievereting” is probably the worst case of Engrish since Gonzo’s “Garally”. Still, despite this, I like Wellber no Monogatari. Not only does it have the best OP of the season (imo, at least), the potential for a great storyline is there as well. The current episode also fleshed Tina nicely, while Rita has had a nice share of character-development, which usually is a good sign. This episode, we get some full details of Tina’s perception of her parents being murdered twelve years ago. Something tells me it’s that Galahad-guy. After all, he’s the only blonde guy in this anime. But I think there’s still a twist to this. Accompanied by an unconventional, but actually very catchy soundtrack, the fights also were quite interesting. I like how brains have to be used to win. I’m not too sure about the ending, though. We first see Rita and Tina, in a burning building with no way out, when suddenly the screen blacks out. In the end, they got out by making a huge bell drop on top of them, protecting themselves from the fire. Cute, but why didn’t they end up with a terrible headache, due to the huge sound-waves caused by the bell, smashing into the ground? You’d also wonder why they were able to not suffocate inside of that.]]>

Short Synopsis: A princess who has lived inside a castle for her entire life obviously has to get used to not living in luxury anymore. Good: Rita’s got a surprisingly versatile character, the OP still is brilliant. Bad: Rather unrealistic horse movement. Overall Enjoyment Value: 7.5/10 For Wednesday and Thursday, my shows to blog will be Wellber no Monogatari and Claymore. Even though they’re both Wednesday-shows, there just isn’t anything blogworthy on Thursday, while Wednesday has an excellent line-up. This will probably one of the more laid-back shows, when compared to a series like Claymore. One thing I liked in this episode was Rita. We’ve often seen people of high stature embarrass themselves when they try to live as normal people, though not often does this happen with the main characters of a series. At the beginning of the episode, Rita is obviously clueless, she keeps standing out too much, she has to act on her own morals, no matter what and she doesn’t quite care about anything other than herself. Obviously, this had to be annoying to some extend, but I like how her cluelessness is just one part of her personality. She knows quite well what she has to do, and at the end of the episode, we also see her take appropriate methods of altering her appearance. Still, I wonder what she’s going to do once people realize that she’s travelling with a talking tank. ^^; Tina has shown her different sides a bit more subtle, though. Right now, she’s still a rather one-sided character, though she never really had a moment to shine yet, unlike Rita. Regarding the talking tank, he reminds me of Bogie, though a bit more clueless, energetic and random. I like how he actually has a part in this story. And I’d love to see how Sherry and Tina met each other. I’ve yet to see another thing like Sherry, which means that it’s got to be quite a special story. There’s one thing awkward about this anime, though. The animation is good, the background art is terrific, but some of the CG is rather bad. Especially the horses. They look like a one-minute job with random galloping sounds added which don’t match their movements at all.]]>