Category: Genji Monogatari Sennenki

Genji Monogatari Sennenki – 02

by psgels, posted in Genji Monogatari Sennenki



Short Synopsis: Geni tries to conquer his next target.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
I really have no idea why I always tend to blog the shows with the most difficult dialogues. Especially with this series, it’s going to be really hard for me to try and figure out what the heck is going on, since not only is the dialogue incredibly complex, the show also hardly uses any concrete visual storytelling, and instead it uses its visuals mostly as emotions and symbolism. It’s the same with White Album in a way: you really need to pay attention, otherwise the episodes get an entirely different meaning.

Noitamina is a very interesting timeslot indeed. While usually most major anime air either in the spring or autumn-season, for this timeslot the best series have nearly always premiered in the winter- and summer-seasons, and with the exception of Moyashimon and Hataraki Man the shows that premiered in the timeslot during the spring and autumn seasons so far have been disappointments (mostly due to the fact that they tried to stuff too much source material into only 11 episodes).

Which does bring us to a potential problem with this series: the original story consisted out of 54(!) novels. How the heck is Osamu Dezaki planning to stuff that into just eleven episodes? The first episode covered the first novel, which still leaves 53 left. However, I have heard that the guy is very good at summarizing with his adaptations of Air and Clannad into movies (I’ve yet to see them, though), so who knows what he can to with this story?

And don’t get me wrong, so long as I’m not seeing any signs of a rushed storyline, then this series is among my favourites of the shows, premiered at the past Winter-Season, along with Birdy the Mighty Decode 2. While not rushed, it also doesn’t waste any time to get to the development of Genji, and the first two episodes so far have been very powerful romance. Osamu Dezaki is also really in his element again with his visual effects. While the animation is again not that impressive, the amount of filters and camera-shots really work.

Some quick first Impressions: Sora wo Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai, Catman and Genji Monogatari Sennenki

by psgels, posted in Genji Monogatari Sennenki, Some Quick First Impressions, Sora wo Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai

Sora wo Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai

Short Synopsis: Our lead character has the power to save a strange country of elf-people.
Chance of me Blogging: 50% (If the shows I’m planning to blog turn out bad, I’m going for this one)
Ooh, very nice! Kyoani is finally getting a bit out of its comfort zone. Sure, this series is just a rehash of one of their earliest franchises, but it’s at least a step along the way to get them to adapt something actually other than high school series (with the first step obviously being Clannad’s After Story). Overall I’d love to have seen the studio going for something completely new, but there’s no doubt about the potential of the Munto remake. This episode set the foundations of an epic storyline in a pretty interesting parallel world, with pretty nice animated effects that know when to be subtle and when to be over the top. What this series needs to do now is make its cast of characters a bit more interesting. All I saw in this episode was a bunch of people that are fighting a bunch of other people, and those other people are about to find a girl who can help them fight against those people. They lack an identity so far, despite their distinctive character-designs: give them more sides, life goals, motivations, weaknesses, whatever. Make them interesting!

Catman

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a solitary humanoid cat.
Chance of me Blogging: 0% (But an interesting short nonetheless)
So, inspired by Touhou’s animation project (and trying to find something to cover so that I wouldn’t have to wait until the 24th before being able to post this entry…) I started looking for other short and experimental animation works. Eventually I fond this nice series of flash animations, called Catman. They’re basically a series of short videos without spoken dialogue, about a city of cat-people, following the titular Catman as he lives his life and gets himself into trouble. It’s nice and down to earth, but what especially caught my attention was the soundtrack that fully consists out of catchy ska-songs, which really works and creates a very nice mood for this series. Apparently, it also won some awards, so if you ever have the chance to watch something of this, then it’s a nice way to spend 3 minutes.

Genji Monogatari Sennenki

Short Synopsis: Our lead character grows up as the daughter of a prestigious household.
Chance of me Blogging: 100% (Noitamina + Feudal Japan + Osamu Dezaki? Hell yeah!)
Oh boy, this one’s going to get popular. When Ultraviolet already received so much hate, I don’t want to know how badly the character-designs of Genji Monogatari will be received. Still, I don’t care! This episode had by far the best visuals of the Winter season. Uniting Noitamina with Osamu Dezaki was a large gamble, but it really worked out so far. The pacing in this episode is slow, and yet lots of stuff has already happened and already two characters have received quite a bit of depth. With only 11 episodes, this series really wasts no scene, and I’m predicting lots of great stuff for the rest of this series.