Category: Finished Series: Comedy

Level E – 04

by psgels, posted in Level E




Oh my god. This episode was completely different from what I expected, and yet it continued this series’ streak of awesome episodes like it was nothing! Heck, there was very little comedy in this episode, and it really tried to tell a serious story, and it worked like an absolute charm here! Why the heck did this brilliant of a manga take this long to get animated?!

The thing that immediately sticks out: the graphics in this episode are absolutely amazing. The visual effects are incredibly imaginative and there are a ton of different ideas that looked absolutely gorgeous and that had had no intention at all to look conventional. I mean, holy crap: this is how you make a show with a tight budget! It’s also the contrast with the graphics of the previous three episodes that makes the graphics of this episode stand out.

Also, the story: from out of nowhere, it stars four random high school students with no hint whatsoever from the lead characters. That takes balls there, especially this early on in the series. What’s also great is that the creators pretty much created four distinctive and interesting male characters here: they feel unlike many of the other high school students that we’ve been seeing in anime and they’re completely away from any cliches. The dialogue and characterization is excellent and down to earth.

The episode basically revolves around those four guys as they witness an alien killing a young girl. The story of this alien was also really excellent and tragic: the case of an alien who eats the females in order to reproduce. It made for a really tense climax. All in all it was a brilliant episode…

And the irony is that that moronic prince came up with it! Oh, lord that anti-climax at the end just sealed the deal here. Usually whenever a character comes up with a story it’s pretty lame, but to create such a good scenario here… the creators really showed that this guy is a genius by not portraying him as a terrible storyteller.

I absolutely love David Production at this point. I mean, they continue to go right against the current trends, and they continue to animate stories that make you wonder why the heck nobody else had taken them before, and give them really worthwhile renditions. Ironically, they also don’t seem to care about the “pretty first episode”-syndrome in which creators put a lot of their efforts on the graphics of the first episode as a means to draw people in: first there was Bantorra with the ugly CG boat of episode 1, and now too: the first episode of Level E wasn’t really anything special in terms of graphics, but this episode looked utterly gorgeous.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Mitsudomoe Zouryouchuu! – 04

by psgels, posted in Mitsudomoe



And this episode is hilarious again. Seriously, this show is inconsistent, but that’s also part of the fun: this way you won’t know what to expect, which is definitely good for a comedy. This episode was mostly made out of random sketched, but the good thing about this episode was that all of them were pretty much different from each other. Again: unpredictability is great for a comedy.

And among these sketches were a number of great ones. My favourite was the one where Miku photoshopped a bunch of pictures of Mitsuba. There’s just so much wrong about that: the fact that Miku had been stalking and secretly taking pictures, to the way that she actually tried to make them into a ghost story. The best part was when it turned out that she ended up photoshopping Hitoha’s face on all these pictures. It was quite well built up and completely hilarious. I also like that the occult girl turned into a nice running gag here,similar to the ones that Gintama used.

The last sketch of the episode, the swimming pool one, was also a great one, especially when the creators kept toying with Hitoha’s death, accompanied by conveniently appearing violinists, only to be followed by a huge anti-climax when Futaba appeared. The ED that followed there was also priceless. It perhaps wasn’t as good as the custom ED of that one episode of the first season, but it’s still great to see the creators pulling this again, while not overdoing it with every single episode.

There also were a number of sketches that had their minds into the gutter, but I actually found them pretty funny this time. Especially the first one, which was wrong on many levels, but the fact that the same thing pretty much went on into the mind of all four of the girls made it hilarious.

And yet again: this episode avoided what was milked out the most in the first season: the misunderstandings. It did continue with Yuudai’s perverted techniques, but even there it built further upon it, instead of just repeating the same jokes. The worst part of this episode was for me the festival one: that was just the umpth time in which the creators tried to put some panties on Shinya, which has gotten really old by now.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Level E – 03

by psgels, posted in Level E



That. Was amazing. Seriously, this show completely blows 95% of all comedies completely out of the water. These past three episodes have been absolutely fantastic.

I was really wondering how the creators were planning to top the first two episodes. Somehow, they did, with one heck of an awesome anti-climax. To think that a show would start with an introductory arc that was pretty much one big joke, I just love the guts that this series has. All of the build-up and the bloody drama of the previous episodes was rendered completely useless. In the last episode I noted how this series really knows how to plan ahead. I didn’t think it would be to such an extent, though.

I also remember noting how, before the twist, some of the aliens were acting a bit weird, and how the Diskonians were getting a bit too one-sided when their attack begun. To think that they were all acting this. Even the prince’s outrageous behavior now totally make sense when you think that throughout the entire airtime of these first three episodes, he pretty much was nothing but being one giant troll.

What also made this such an amazing episode was the characters who were on the receiving side of the prank. You could really see that that prince completely got on the nerves of his three subordinates and it was completely awesome to see that one bodyguard’s eyes twinkle at the prospect of getting to kick the prince in order to attempt to restore his memory.

The time-skip of three months is also getting interesting (I also like how the main character actually got a tan from practicing outside so much). After this the main storyline should probably start. With this kind of series, it can really be anything. Level E has been by far my favourite show this season, and to think that this only was the introduction. Seriously, it’s been a long while since I’ve seen a show that had SUCH a good start: there have been plenty of series with excellent first episodes, but the ones who can keep this up for three whole episodes are really rare.
Rating: **** (Fantastic)

Mitsudomoe Zouryouchuu! – 03

by psgels, posted in Mitsudomoe



Okay. Um. Mitsudomoe’s second season’s episodes so far have all been completely different. This is very good for a comedy, but this episode showed the bad side of this. I mean… it did just about every bad thing that the previous two episodes avoided so well. What the hell?

Last episode I noted how the previous two episodes now only made a sex joke when they had a genuinely funny one. This episode showed what happened to the bad ones. I mean, seriously: this entire episode was full of bad sex jokes. And a bad normal joke is bad enough already, but when a sex joke falls flat it’s ten times worse. To make things even worse, this episode also brought back the worst misunderstandings that were already milked out too much in the first season.

I mean, this was bad. Really bad. There only were three or four good jokes in the entire episode. Especially the triplet’s father suffered here: he went completely out of character for the sake of a bad nude joke (by far the worst part of this episode was when he randomly started to strip; when did this guy turn into a complete and utter moron?!). Another really bad segment was the earthquake test. Again, there is a fine balance between silly jokes and the utter stupidity that that segment devolved into.

I don’t think I have ever seen a comedy that jumped from this good to so outright bad from one episode to the other. Due to the random nature of this series I’m going to give this one one more chance next week. If next week’s episode is good and like these first three episodes completely different, then there’s no problem. If next week’s episode is as terrible as this one though, then the first two episodes were just flukes and I’m going to swap it in with Gosick…
Rating: — (Bad)

Level E – 02

by psgels, posted in Level E



As for the series I’m not going to blog:
– Beelzebub is just crap. Why does this director keep getting work?
– Zombie is being overshadowed by the other comedies this season. It’s funny, but not the funniest of the season.
– I’m probably going to pick up Dragon Crisis after Showa Monogatari’s four preview episodes end. It’s enjoyable, but I don’t have any room for it right now.

Meanwhile, Level E is just unbelievable: this second episode was even better than the first. This show is absolutely amazing, and just about every scene in this episode was just awesome. It’s been a while since I’ve seen such a good comedy as this one, and this is coming after the Autumn Season of 2010, which had more excellent comedies than you could shake a stick at. The comedic timing, the build-up and voice acting in this show are all just perfect.

I also loved how this show subverted various alien cliches. Usually when aliens come to earth, they try to blend in by putting on some kind of people suit, right? This episode premiered some new aliens as just human-like, but they travel around in these bizarre cheesy alien costumes. Or take those scenes in which the aliens are surprised by some of humanity’s inventions, which this episode parodied by having that blond-haired alien enjoy the heck out of the snow on a broken television set.

I also love the main characters. Yukitaka and Miho in particular, as they turned out to be nothing like the first episode made them out to be. Yukitaka already had an interesting background with his history as a bench-warmer at Japan’s top baseball school. This episode also revealed that he was a former punk (and used that extremely well, by the way). Miho meanwhile threw all stereotypes away in this episode with her own unique backstory, being raised in an extremely paranoid way. I especially like how sharp she is: she immediately notices everything around her, including Yukitaka’s backstory. Seriously, a lot more female leads should follow her example.

In fact, there are a ton of characters who are completely different from what they appear: it was for a long while a mystery what these men in suit were, and the cat turned out to be… a walking alien camera. This is just full of these awesome details and nice ideas.

Oh and on a side-note: don’t try to look up the long-haired alien’s name on sites as Myanimelist and AniDB. I did, and unfortunately just spoiled myself to an awesome joke that the creators have in store for us for the next number of episodes and that only amazed me even more of how extremely well this show is planned out.
Rating: **** (Fantastic)

Mitsudomoe Zouryouchuu! – 02

by psgels, posted in Mitsudomoe



As for the series I’m not going to blog:
– Let me get back to Gosick when either Heartcatch Precure ends or Showa Monogatari’s first four preview episodes are over. By that time the characters will hopefully be less annoying.
– I remember noting how Cardfight Vanguard at least didn’t contradict its own rules in its first episode. It did in its second, though. Not to mention the huge amounts of cheese.
– Freezing’s second episode was even worse than the first. Plus, it has one of the worst male leads of the season, only eclipsed by the one from Cardfight Vanguard and Oniichan.
– Oniichan no Koto Zenzen Suki Janain Dakara ne… just… no.

Meanwhile, there are two reasons why I decided to blog Mitsudomoe:
1. Convenience.
2. It’s rare for a comedy sequel to actually be better than the original.

In regards to the first reason: Mitsudomoe 2 will only have 8 episodes. That will be very handy considering this. In case you haven’t looked at its official website, let me elaborate: the official site lists the following release dates for its DVDs:

Blu-ray＆DVD 『SUPEARNATURAL THE ANIMATION』
ファースト・シーズン/全22話
◆2月23日⇒Vol.1-3（第1-6 話） レンタル開始／Vol.1（第1-2 話）発売
◆3月9日⇒Vol.4-6（第7-12 話） レンタル開始／BOX1（第3-12 話）発売
◆3月23日⇒Vol.7-9（第13-18 話） レンタル開始
◆4月6日⇒Vol.10-11（第19-22 話） レンタル開始／BOX2（第13-22 話）発売

Basically, episodes 1-6 will be available from February 23rd, episodes 7-12 from March 9th, episodes 13 to 18 on March 23rd and the final four episodes on April 6th. That is a whopping twenty-two episodes of Supernatural in only a month and a half. If Mitsudomoe ends a month earlier, then at least I’ll have a bit more space in the hopes of being able to properly cover it….

As for the the second reason: this sequel is just unbelievable. The first season had its problems: about 50% of the jokes were hilarious, the other 50% just fell horribly flat. In the second season, this ratio shifted to 80% of hilarity with 20% of jokes that just aren’t as good. These past two episodes have been absolutely hilarious, and to my surprise this second episode was even better than the first.

In this episode, this show finally shows that it knows the difference between repeating a joke ad nauseam and running jokes. This episode took the material of the first season, and really started toying with it. The start of the episode was the perfect example, in which that creepy occult girl suddenly appeared. Right from the start, you could sense the tension and the huge probability of things going wrong.

It also helps that these episodes were much more varied than the first season. Even the previous episode which was just focused on one big story never felt like it dragged on. This episode was the complete opposite in that it had many different scenes that prevented these jokes from dragging or milking themselves. The entire second half for example was about Christmas, and yet we saw the preparations to the Christmas party, the Christmas party itself, the hopeless way in which the teacher spends it, the part where santa clause arrives, and its aftermath. The story here flows much more naturally than the first season, which just was a bunch of random scenes pasted together.

Now, this show still has its mind in the gutter, but it’s much less deep than the first season: it only makes a tasteless joke when it’s got a really good one (like Hitoha’s hairy leg) and even the resident pervert didn’t keep on rambling about panties like he did in the first season. On top of that, this show can also boast Mitsuba: the first female lead character who actually doesn’t look like a supermodel in a long while (Kuragehime only counts half, because the only thing that prevented Tsukimi from the same thing is that she didn’t bother to spend time on her looks).

Now, there were some bad jokes in this episode. The female teacher… even this sequel didn’t really manage to make anything out of her. She’s such a hopeless character that I don’t think that anything can make her funny. The mother joke also felt a bit flat. Still, this episode had me in stitches during the largest part. This is really one of the series this season that majorly exceeded my expectations.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Some Quick First Impressions: Dragon Crisis, Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka? and Level E

by psgels, posted in Dragon Crisis, Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka?, Level E, Some Quick First Impressions

Dragon Crisis

Short Synopsis: Our lead character meets a cute girl who can only think about him.
Hmm, this is one with a lot to like and a lot to dislike. To start with the positives, it has one of the best soundtracks of the season so far (and with this season, that is saying something), the animation is surprisingly good for a Studio Deen series and this feels unlike any other series they’ve done before. The action is creative, the car chases are exciting and the characterization for half the cast was actually pretty decent. Ryuuji may be very girly for a guy, but this show actually acknowledges it and gives him more personality beyond “ew, a naked girl!”, and Eriko also turned out to be much more than just that fanservice character which she appeared to be at first sight. Now, the bad thing about this show however is that it just doesn’t make any sense, and it believes that it actually does. This leads to some bizarre situations like hordes of incompetent faceless mafia members that are involved in a plot that has so many holes that there is no way that it can ever be explained, a guy who just skips school for the heck of it and BY FAR the most clingy female lead I’ve ever seen. It’s a very strange combination between something that tries to tell a serious story and something that just wants to act as wish fulfillment by having cute girls continuously spoon over the male lead. The different parts of this episode didn’t mesh well together at all, but I do admit that there’s some potential here.
OP: One of the most unique OP songs I’ve heard in a long while.
ED: Again unique, but this time in a bad way.
Potential: 60%

Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka?

Short Synopsis: Our lead character lives together with two cute girls.
Here is one that turned out better than expected. Of course, this show still has a completely stupid premise and it had quite a bit of fanservice, but it’s surprisingly well executed: the male lead has an actual personality, the scenarios are well written, the jokes are well built up and actually very funny and the action too was surprisingly good for a Studio Deen series. It’s a pretty effective romantic action comedy that knows when it needs to be completely over the top, and when it needs to be completely serious. Because of this, the few serious moments actually worked well and didn’t end up cheesy, and yet the crazy jokes also fit this show. But yeah, if you want to check this out, be aware of the fact that characters have bizarre costumes and very easily lose their clothes in this series.
OP: Decent song, but especially the visuals are nice.
ED: This one is just terrible, though.
Potential: 70%

Level E

Short Synopsis: Our lead character starts living together with an alien.
Hell yeah! Level E just delivered the best first episode of the new season, it had the most interesting back-story, it was the most intriguing opening of the entire season, it neither was overly moe or bishie, it had the best jokes of the new season, the best OP. For me, it completely blew all of the other episodes that have debuted so far this season out of the water. It’s one of those series of which I have no idea what genre it’s going to be: it has a high school student as a male lead, and yet it’s miles away from your average high school show. For a shounen series there was too little action, for a shoujo series there was too little sweetness. For a slice of life series it had a plot that is just way too interesting and a drama also doesn’t really fit. The episode was wonderfully told and I love the creativity that was put into a simple concept of an alien crash landing on earth. The chemistry between the lead characters was just fantastic. None of the characters here are typical. Hell yeah, if only because of this show, this season is going to rock!
OP: Best OP of the season BY FAR. Excellent song, great visuals.
ED: Much more generic J-Rock, but nothing bad.
Potential: 100%

Some Quick First Impressions: Mitsudomoe 2, Beelzebub and Freezing

by psgels, posted in Mitsudomoe, Some Quick First Impressions

Mitsudomoe 2

Short Synopsis: Our lead character saves the world from evil.
The big question for Mitsudomoe was: would it have enough inspiration in order to fill all of its eight episodes. The answer, based on this episode: yes. This episode was completely different from the first season, but actually in a good way that still remained funny. Unlike the first season, it wasn’t divided in smaller sub-arcs, but instead it was entirely devoted to a parody of Super Sentai Shows. Unlike Beelzebub, I really laughed quite a bit at it, especially at how it was completely silly, yet the characters took themselves 100% seriously. The amount of toilet jokes was also surprisingly reduced here, and it actually worked well. This is actually very surprising, because often comedy sequels just try too hard or just can’t seem to work as well with with the new style they’ve chosen. This is a great exception, though. I really hope that the rest of the season will have more of these gimmicky episodes that work surprisingly well, and the fact that this show is only listed for eight episodes seems a great hint to that.
OP: Quite lame, but that was probably the entire point of it. ^^;
ED: Nice little gimmicky ED putting the regular characters in the role of the Gachi Rangers.
Potential: 80%

Beelzebub

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a juvenile delinquent with superpowers.
I wasn’t looking forward to Beelzebub, because it was being adapted by a bunch of people who are notorious for their bad adaptations. And indeed, about 70 to 80 percent of the jokes of this episode fell flat. They were either badly timed, badly acted, or just consisted of random yelling or unfunny toilet jokes. This episode was in many ways obnoxious, it already repeated some of its jokes ad nauseum (most notably that electric shock attack). now, the music was quite good, and there were a few jokes here and there that were quite funny. It feels like there are some interesting ideas in this one, but most of the time it doesn’t really know how to use them. It’s not the worst opening of a Shounen Jump show I’ve seen in recent years, that probably goes to Fairy Tail, but at the same time I have no idea why Beelzebub is so highly regarded by so many people, just based on this episode. And please don’t tell me that it’s the type of story that only gets good after fifty episodes or so.
OP: Decent rock song that at least fits the maturity level of the series.
ED: Surprisingly decent.
Potential: 40%

Freezing

Short Synopsis: Our lead character has a dead sister complex. A very severe one.
This episode was actually very good for the largest part. There sure was a truckload of fanservice, but at the same time it really treated itself seriously. The action scenes were intense and well directed, with a surprisingly large amount of gore that worked quite well. The build-up is great, the soundtrack was excellent as well (this really is the season of awesome soundtracks here), and overall as an action series, I really could see myself enjoying it. But yeah… then the final two minutes came. What the heck was that? I don’t even want to explain what just happened. Just… watch it if you really want to know…
OP: Decent rock song with nice animation.
ED: Fanservice slide show, but the song could be worse.
Potential: 50%

Kuragehime Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Kuragehime




Romantic comedies are a dime a dozen nowadays. Few however can boast to be as well directed as Kuragehime, however.

Kuragehime may not have the characters with the biggest amount of realism or depth. In fact, a lot of the characters in the series are one dimensional. It may not have the best storyline. In fact, it’s second half is unbalanced and the ending leaves a lot of things unresolved. It may not have the most original premise. In fact, it’s centred around a bunch of fujoshi and cross dressers. From the outside, it may not look like much.

It is however one of those series where the execution totally makes up for it. The chemistry between the characters is downright addictive. This show bursts with energy while not losing itself in it. The characters, while lacking dimensions are incredibly fun to watch, and the acting is consistently excellent throughout the entire series. the characters here all have their own charms, from the super serious Shuu to the flamboyant cross dresser Kuranosuke. They all combine really well with each other and nearly each episode is a blast to watch.

In this day and age, female leads who aren’t designed to be as attractive as possible are hard to come by. The fujoshi in Kuragehime, including the lead Tsukimi are a breath of fresh air in this way so I really hope that this catches on. The series loses a bit of its steam in its second half, but despite that it’s a ridiculously fun and refreshing series to watch.

Storytelling: 9/10 – 11 episodes is not the right length, but it’s still presented with a ton of addictive energy, making it very accessible.
Characters: 9/10 – A lovable cast of characters. They’re all adults, so no teenagers whatsoever. Especially the chemistry is really addictive here. Some of them are pretty static, though.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Dynamic visual, very few still frames.
Setting: 8/10 – Solid, but doesn’t really come together well in the end.

Suggestions:
– Honey and Clover
– Nodame Cantabile
– Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge

Kuragehime – 11

by psgels, posted in Kuragehime



Yeah, this episode was rushed. At the same time though, I’m amazed at how much the creators managed to put in just this single episode.

Overall this series should have been better balanced in order to avoid this problem. I’d say, that stuffing episodes7, 8, 9 and 10 in just three episodes would have already done wonders, but this episode still was really enjoyable. It’s just that it didn’t resolve half of its plot and the things it did resolve were… yeah.

As for the cliff-hanger at the end of the previous episode: it turned out to be a mistake by a bunch of construction workers. In the end the problem gets solved in a way that does make sense in the end… but still remains questionable: Chieko’s mother just arrives with the message that she doesn’t intend to sell the thing after all. It’s one of those “why didn’t you say so in the first place!?”-twists at the ending, though granted this is a decent version of it: it was established episodes ago that Chieko’s mother’s phone was broken so she had no way of contacting them.

This episode also went back and forth between a fashion contest from out of nowhere at the same time. And remember that girl that Banba and Jiji ran into? She’s a supermodel and is at the same fashion show. Apart from a few “ah, I remember you!”, that encounter was never really used. At the same time we also see Shuu and Shouko who bump into each other at the same plane.

And don’t get me wrong, this was a very entertaining episode: the creators knew that they’d never be able to wrap everything up so they tried to stuff in as much as possible in this episode. Overall this is a series that doesn’t do well in terms of the big picture, but rather shines through its individual scenes and jokes, and that’s something it really was excellent at.

Probably the worst thing about this episode was that none of the romances were resolved. Shouko and Shuu were literally on a plane together when we last saw them, and the tension between Kuranosuke and Tsukimi is the same that it ever was. Unlike Shiki, which ended Perfectly, Kuragehime really should have had a normal time-slot to really show its best.

Next season’s Noitamina should prove to be significantly different: from a silly and over the top Josei comedy about cross dressers, we’re moving to a realistic and down to earth slice of life series about cross dressers and from a brutal horror show with lots of mystery we’re moving to a moe show with lots of mystery. Again, the question is whether they’re right for Noitamina or not: are their mangas small enough to fit within 11 episodes or will they be as incomplete as Kuragehime?
Rating: * (Good)