Category: Finished Series: Horror

Shiki – 04

by psgels, posted in Shiki



You can see that this series is using most of its time to build up at this point, but it still has quite an excellent atmosphere. The horror is already quite good, and even though this seemingly wasn’t a major episode at first sight, the episode did end with one heck of a cliff-hanger.

At this point, I think it’s clear now that we’re dealing with Vampires here, and they seem to be more similar to the classic vampires compared to what vampires have evolved into in modern pop culture. It’s true that we’ve seen none of the potential vampires appear at daylight, right? The older stories about vampires have also talked about how Vampires first need to get invited, before they can claim their victim. This is why they’ve tried to get friendly with everyone here.

Natsuno’s delusions are something I haven’t figured out yet. If the OP hints at anything, this show seems to be developing its own army of dead people turned into vampires, but I’m not yet sure whether the end of this episode actually happened, or whether this stayed in Natsuno’s head. We know that that cat guy is trying to get into Toru’s house, but why he decided to bring Megumi along is a bit of a mystery to me.

In the meantime, the animators. I can understand that they can’t make all of the drawings as detailed as in the manga, but you can see that they’re having fun with the visuals here. Like the church scene for example, that looked really good, but the visual effects they pulled on the climax of this episode also looked quite interesting here.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Rainbow – 17

by psgels, posted in Rainbow




Awesome, it really looks like we’re going to get an arc about the future of each of the lead characters at this pace, if this episode was any hint at least. On top of that, the creators also put in a lot of effort to make all the different arcs flow into each other: this episode neatly wrapped up the main story between Mario and Setsuko, while it also showed some depth for Baremoto and Cabbage, before moving on to Joe’s future as a musician.

I love the way in which Setsuko’s marriage was wrapped up here: it’s clear that the two love each other, but at the same time the series didn’t chose the cheap way out by devolving in cheesy quest for love abandon her chance for real happiness with her new husband, who will be able to take better care of her compared to Mario, due to his background. Because of that, the romance in this episode was powerful, yet not drawn out or overblown. That smile of Mario, when he saw Setsuko at her wedding, pretty much said it all.

Baremoto meanwhile, in the really rare moments of comedy in this series, gets introduced by Suppon to some old hag in his quest to find some kind of woman. I’m not sure what was up with that, but it’s probably some sort of build-up. Either way though, it’s great to see that everyone is now building their own future here, which was even more symbolized by Mario leaving for Tokyo. I’m really interested in whether Cabbage will join him. He’s always been this simple, lovable type, and while he never really got an arc for himself, I still like the way he turned out.

Meanwhile, Joe. The creators really wanted to use the build-up of the earlier episodes here. And it’s a very strange plot twist here, for him to get into a situation where sleeping with some influential woman in order to make it big in the music industry. Usually a plot twist like that would get rejected immediately, but I’m not sure whether the creators intend this to symbolize how Joe should look at the bright sides of his past, whether he should simply accept what happened, or whether they meant to make some kind of point about how childrape victims can turn out. They already showed a different perspective in this with An-chan’s friend who committed suicide.

And god dammit what happened to his sister?! I mean, I know that he accepted that both of them went into different directions, and he probably has no idea where she is right now, but bloody Nora. She was adopted by someone who looked like a freaking mass rapist for god’s sake. Can’t we at least get a slight hint of what happened to her? Think of the character-development here!
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Shiki – 03

by psgels, posted in Shiki




A lot of building up was done in this episode, but it still had an excellent atmosphere. And I must say, for a studio like Daume, the art has really turned out to be quite beautiful here. The shots that use CG or strange filters are really well composed here. Character-designs like these are definitely a risk that was taken here, but it works out quite well.

The drama in this episode was a bit less due to the inclusion of some random emo teenager (or at least, that’s what he looked like). At this point, this guy is still a bit too extreme to be taken seriously, but I wonder what his purpose will be for the rest of the series. In any case this episode did a pretty good job of showing a bit of the every day lives of these people, and how they met each other, and I can very much see an extreme character like him pay off in the end. I can see that the creators were going for a bratty teenager here, so I’ll wait to see them show different sides of this kid.

Especially Natsuno showed a bit of a different side of him here. He was indifferent here, but now that he wasn’t bothered by some teen-aged girl here, he didn’t have this air of annoyance around him. His new friend also helped here, I guess.

This episode also was very much hinting at which characters we should watch out for. We finally get a good look at the owners of the castle, along what is possibly their daughter. The latter is so obviously featured in the OP and ED that she has to play a huge role here, and this episode pretty much set her up as a future antagonist. Also, the cat dude also seems to hold some secrets.

In any case, I love how the creators have been trying to include as many inhabitants of the village as possible, while giving EVERYONE distinct character-designs. Even all of the minor characters look unique, and are portrayed as people, rather than cardboard cut-outs (aside from a few old people in those rumour-scenes, I guess).
Rating: * (Good)

Rainbow – 16

by psgels, posted in Rainbow



This episode was all about crowning moments of awesome. Heitai and Baremoto… their actions really made this episode. Not only did the creators find a plausible reason to get Mario out of jail, they also used this occasion to refer back to Mario’s past.

This arc at its core, I think, really was meant as this social criticism, a tad different from the first arc. The first arc was all about underlining the horrible circumstances that some inmates are put through. This arc uses this, but looks at a broader perspective, and also includes the views of the hard-working war veterans who look down on the street-punks. Baremoto’s speech was all about addressing this hypocritical view, and how the lives of their generation was ruined because of the war these adults went into. I do believe that they could have portrayed these adults with a bit more depth, but taking the length of the series into account, and how a lot probably needed to be cut here, it was handled quite well.

Now that we got Mario’s back-story wrapped up, I’m really curious what the creators plan to do with that of the others. At this point I’m not sure whether their background was cut in order to focus on the more important parts of the story, but the OP is definitely hinting at something more.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Shiki – 02

by psgels, posted in Shiki




First, let me put up this disclaimer: this blog will discuss Shiki the anime, not the manga or novel. If you want to talk about stuff that happens there, then go to some website that discusses spoiler material. I’m usually very lenient on comment moderation, but I will get poisonous and delete comments that discuss spoilers.

The only thing I want to know here is the following: Shiki is an adaptation of a manga that is an adaptation of a novel, right? Wouldn’t it have been better if this series would have directly adapted the novel, rather than going for a strange double adaptation?

Either way, this is one of those rare second episodes that actually surpasses the first episode for me, even after an already favourable first impression. The direction was excellent here, the acting was very believable and the animation had quite a few interesting cuts and angles. We’re really in for an awesome series if this keeps up.

Having grown up in a small village, even smaller than the village that is portrayed here, I can somewhat understand the feelings of Natsuno feeling cramped up. It really is a village in which everyone knows each other, and there is hardly anything to do, other than to sit inside. I like how the creators portrayed the village, and actually put a lot of attention in making the bird’s eye view connect with what happened in the series. The strange thing about this village is how many doctors there are. I mean, in an entire village that’s loaded with old people, one out of every 216 people is a medical staff.

I’ve also gotten used to the character designs y now. They’re a bit weird, but definitely original. Especially the older people look great here. Daume… turned out to deliver a surprisingly solid series, considering that they only did silly moe shows up till now. It’s actually great to see that Noitamina allows all kinds of animation companies to produce a series for its timeslot, and it’ll be interesting if Daume made more of these serious series in the future, in other time-slots.

Interestingly, the series s taking the approach of a bit of a medical thriller: some kind of disease is causing problems (probably having something to do with that castle that was built). In the first episode, it still seemed a bit too similar to Higurashi and Ghost Hound, but with this episode it really set itself apart.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Rainbow – 15

by psgels, posted in Rainbow




The upcoming arc turns out to focus on Mario. Interestingly, it’s him who ended up back in trouble due to violence. I actually like how the creators are using the fear to go back to prison, in order to create the drama here, and the story still is carrying on its pacifist themes of the first half: that there is no need to beat up people who annoy you.

It was over the top, but at the same time this episode also tried to make a point of the rather hypocritical stereotypes people have over these violent youths,. On one hand, they often fail to see the people behind those stereotypes, but on the other hand the fact remains that Mario beat a guy into the hospital. Seriously, the story of this thing really is excellent, and I’m really glad to see that this still applies with the second half here.

The first half of this episode also felt a bit weird, but in a good way. With this incredibly dark series, we suddenly have half an episode dedicated to young and innocent crushes. For ten minutes, there actually were no apparent conflicts in this series. As for the arranged marriage… yeah, it’s been done before. But at the same time I can imagine that especially in these times, parents were very desperate to marry off their kids to a solid future. If I am wrong with this, please correct me on that, because I in no way claim to know exactly how things went on in Japan, 11 years after the second world war.

There is one issue that I had with this episode, but that’s more of a personal annoyance of mine. Personally, I dislike it when creators use thugs in order to create cheap drama. The drama here of course wasn’t cheap at all, but still felt like it was started too easily, without much of an introduction: that businessman had the depth of a paper bag. And this is something that annoys me with nearly all thugs in anime. It could have been done much cheaper, though, and I definitely see why it was necessary.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Some Quick First Impression: Shiki, Strike Witches 2 and Stitch! Zutto Saikou no Tomodachi

by psgels, posted in Shiki, Some Quick First Impressions

Shiki

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a typical teen-aged girl who doesn’t like the place she’s grow up in.
Well.. so this series really has an issue with its character-designs. The unimportant characters are fine, and the females range from decent-looking teenagers to actually great looking parents. But the males, dear god, the poor males. Some of these guys look absolutely atrocious. What were the creators thinking here? Either way though: putting that aside, then this was a really excellent first episode. The direction was snappy and creative, and it proved to give a great cliff-hanger to its first episode. The horror was subtle yet at the same time in your face when it mattered. This is another one of those series that play in an isolated Japanese village, and the creators did a really good job in portraying the silent and remote nature of this village, full of older people and farmers about to hit retirement. The art direction was really good, and really made this episode interesting to look at whenever the males weren’t in the picture. This episode already showed that it’s great at building up an atmosphere and fleshing out a single character over a single episode. Noitamina looks like it’s going to be awesome this season as well!
OP: Best OP of the season.
ED: Hmm, badly sung.
Potential: 90%

Strike Witches 2

Short Synopsis: Our lead character originally thought that she wouldn’t be fighting anymore, but returns to the battlefield anyway.
Strike Witches… makes no sense. Seriously, any attempts to give any logical criticism to it are the equivalent of gathering a small army to kick in an open door, so therefore I won’t. Instead, it’s a series that’s all about its characters, and weird ideas for its setting and scenarios. Since the first season was obviously produced without this second season in mind, this episode merely serves to put things back into status quo by pulling the lead character out of retirement and having the enemies that were previously thought to be destroyed return. Right now, the second season will probably have more time to explore the different characters, plus it looks like we’ll also get more dime to delve into the cause of all of the evil monsters, which never really was explained in that first season. Either way, this episode pretty much showed that this really is going to be much of the same: if you liked it, then you’ll probably like this series as well as it wasn’t an entirely shallow series, and if you hated it you’re going to hate it even more because nothing much has improved. Personally, it wasn’t that much of a chore to watch the first season, but did it deserve the incredible amount of DVD sales? Of course not. This series is fluff. Charming fluff, but fluff nonetheless.
OP: Pretty much a carbon copy of your standard OP
ED: Pretty much a carbon copy of your standard ED
Potential: 35%

Stitch! Zutto Saikou no Tomodachi

Short Synopsis: Our lead character moves to a new high school with her troublesome alien friend.
I watched the first episode of this one back in 2008, so I figured that I might as well check out what happened to it. But seriously, it has really derailed in the process! The show devolved into some really weird combination between japanese and american kids’ shows. The villains are terribly incompetent morons like you always see in those uninspired american kids’ shows, while this episode showed the lead character as she moved to a new school, gets the attention of the hottest classmate and makes enemies with a spoiled rich girl, in typical Japanese fashion. I mean, East meeting West is nice and all, but that still is no excuse for a kids’ show to treat its audience like idiots. I mean, there are times at which this series tries to educate its audience when Stitch causes trouble (seriously, this thing is like a trouble magnet. For him, entering a door becomes an entire adventure of hopping across the room while breaking as much in the process as possible), but right at the start we see him steal a bunch of donuts and nobody even squeaks at it. Be consistent, dammit!
OP: I really believe that the creators should have put more than 2 minutes into composing this thing.
Potential: 0%

Rainbow – 14

by psgels, posted in Rainbow



Hell yeah, the creators really did it:they closed off the two major antagonists. We’ve actually reached a point at which the biggest conflicts are gone, and yet there are still 12 episodes left. That’s something you hardly ever see in anime.

This episode was both about revenge being sweet, yet not sweet enough to allow you just to kills someone and get it over with. The doctor got what he deserved, and our lead characters also got their chance to dance on his premature grave in order to really let his deeds sink into him. Ishihara meanwhile was a bit more ambiguous, as we don’t know exactly what happened to him, but Mario gave him a nice closure.

Now, those final twelve episodes. They’re all going to be about our characters growing, and exploiting their own futures. It’s this part that I’ve really been looking forward to, and how this series, with all its over the top acting, is going to end up handling this. This episode also stressed that they’ve all grown up, they’re adults now, and they can now move on with their lives.

There’s one thing that I especially want to know: whatever happened to Joe’s sister? Did they get together? The past two episodes have really not told much about these lives, in order to really focus on wrapping the past storyline up.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Rainbow – 13

by psgels, posted in Rainbow



Recap. I didn’t really feel like watching it entirely so I just glossed through it, but it did not have any new content aside from some monologues of Mario that didn’t really say anything new. This was really meant as a break for this series.

Either way, it came at a rather annoying moment, just when the series is really getting interesting. Oh, if the creators play their cards right this is going to make for a VERY interesting second half.
Rating: — (Recap)

Rainbow – 12

by psgels, posted in Rainbow



These are my favourite types of episodes: those who completely blow my expectations out of the water. This episode was fantastic. I wouldn’t hesitate to put it among the top three most emotionally charged episodes I have seen this Spring season. The places this episode went… I never expected it to get this good. Obviously major spoilers are coming up, so do not read this entry if you haven’t watched the episode yet.

In my posts about the previous episodes, I always assumed one thing: An-chan would make it out alive. There was no way for the creators to just kill him. The previous episode’s ending seemed to confirm this, in the way that he was finally discovered again. It seemed that we would see another upcoming arc in which the lead characters again try to fend off that pedophilic doctor. And yet… he dies. Seriously, he doesn’t even last five minutes.

This episode also did exactly what I’ve been hoping that it would do: the time-skip! Everyone has grown up now, giving a complete new dimension to the story. Talk about character-development! I especially loved what Ishihara had turned into. It’s just fantastic to see that everyone has moved on now, even that doctor.

And that really begs the question here: everything looks set on wrapping the jail arc up at episode thirteen! We’ve still got an entire half left for this series, and here everyone is out of jail, everyone has grown up. Ishihara is gone, the pedo doctor will also probably go out of work in the next episode. That just leaves THIRTEEN EPISODES full of pure character-development. This is even better than I could have hoped for!

I know I often bitched against this series, but this episode just made up for everything. Madhouse, you once again demonstrate that you have BALLS.
Rating: **** (Fantastic)