Category: Finished Series: Slice of Life/Drama

Natsume Yuujin-Chou – 36

by psgels, posted in Natsume Yuujin-Chou



Here’s an interesting one: this is another two-episode arc, but this time it is not connected to the plot of youkai politics or anything. Instead, it again is about Natsume and his friends. Once again, this season is really dedicated to character development, character development, and more character development.

The thing also is, that it’s been entirely dedicated to Natsume. Every single episode was focused on him. If an episode happened to develop a different character at the same time, then this always was in order to also give extra depth to Natsume himself. This lead to the strange effect that Nyanko-Sensei is rather left behind: he really feels like a side-character now, and not the second main character that he was in the first two seasons. He’s still pretty fun to watch, but that’s pretty much it. There’s nothing of the charming stories like that time when he walked around as a giant cat for a while.

Beyond the obvious things as his friendship and finally getting the confidence to confide in the people he trusts, I also love how the creators portray Natsume’s worries. He still has them, though they’re completely different from what they used to be. At this point, most of the youkai who want their names back have already gotten them. Instead though, the huge amount of hostile youkai have made a great impact on him, to the point where he unconsciously tries to blame everything on them. If Tanuma would have caught a real cold, he probably would have thought the same.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Ikoku Meiro no Croisée – 10

by psgels, posted in Ikoku Meiro no Croisée



Now, this was just heart-warming. This entire episode felt just like a warm blanket in the middle of winter and it was incredibly charming. It basically showed two parts right through each other: Claude’s father, and Oscar entertaining first Yune and Alice, and then the whole neighborhood. They meshed together wonderfully.

There really seem to be a lot of hints that Claude is as cold as he is thanks to his father. In those flashbacks, he actually hardly ever talked to Claud. I actually felt that Claude also grew a tiny bit in this episode, especially after how fast he calmed down after he got offended after being compared to his father by that customer of his. It’s subtle, but he would not have been that diligent at the beginning of the series.

What has also surprised me about this series is Satelight’s animation quality, and how consistent it turned out to be. Two years ago, especially when they were working on both Guin Saga and Basquash at the same time, they really had this trouble to keep their faces consistent and keep their art crisp. Heck, even Macross Frontier had a lot of strangely drawn faces and inconsistencies. Nothing of that shows here: nearly every part of this show is detailed.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Hana-Saku Iroha – 23

by psgels, posted in Hana-Saku Iroha



Bravo, Hana-Saku Iroha! Well done! Awesome episode! This is what I’ve been waiting for!

Seriously, this is the thing that sets Hana-Saku Iroha apart from the other slice of life dramas: when it wants to deliver drama, it really delivers it well, with terrific acting and imaginative set-ups. This episode brought all sorts of events from the series together, and the great thing is that the creators really put in effort to give this episode an as interesting premise as possible while still never tugging at the viewer’s suspense of disbelief. Sure, there are some coincidences, but their timing is used wonderfully, so who cares?

I mean, the creators could have just settled for showing how everyone would move on after the closure of the Kissuiso. Then however, they didn’t just bring in the director again, they actually also showed the test footage he made during his arc, and the creators show it to Kou of all people. There was a ton of character development because of that, and Ohana and Kou only met at the end of this episode.

To think that, in three weeks there finally won’t be any Mari Okada series airing. Ever since 2008, there have only been two seasons in which she DIDN’T write something: Summer 2008, Spring 2009. Apart from that she hasn’t just been churning out one series after the other, but she wrote many of my favourites with only rare moments of weaknesses (really, only Fractale really went wrong, along with perhaps that Kodomo no Jikan OVA; Vampire Knight apparently was a very good adaptation of an unfortunately cheesy manga, and perhaps Kuroshitsuji I was a bit too long for its own sake). My favourite has to be the work she did on adapting the Armed Librarians, with a close second the amazing original script that she wrote for Ano Hana.

As for Hana-Saku Iroha, I remember comparing it to True Tears, noting how it completely lacked its subtlety. After 23 episodes, this still remains the case, but True Tears was the kind of series that really turned its subtlety and ambiguity into its main selling point: you could never tell what the characters were really thinking. Hana-Saku Iroha meanwhile is a lot more blatant, but it has a big knack for creating interesting situations and genuine drama. Overall, if I had to compare the two then I think I’d still prefer True Tears, but that’s mostly because it really had amazing acting, whereas the characters of Hana-Saku Iroha do tend to try a bit too hard at times. I still consider this to be an excellent series though: it took its hiccups, and didn’t just make up for them, but actually used them and made them a core part of the series.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Hyouge Mono – 20

by psgels, posted in Hyouge Mono



The great thing is that only now have we passed the halfway point of this series! While just about every other series is nearing it’s end, we still have 19 delightful episodes of Hyouge Mono left. If I hadn’t done it yet, Bee-Train, I applaud you on such a consistent job you’ve done on this series.

This episode was as excellent as any other Hyouge Mono episode. It wasn’t a major episode, but still stuffed with some interesting developments. The best part was seeing it all play out though. The first half had Sasuke visit a friend of Soueki, who seems to also be a master of aesthetics, despite being incredibly poor. After that, it was the time for the bald monk assistant of Soueki to go a bit berserk over his own sense of aesthetics after he heard Soueki comment on Hashiba Hideyoshi’s sense of style (which indeed is pretty awful). I’m really interested in what he’s still planning to use him for.

Overall, halfway though, Hyouge Mono turned into a series that I really could not have predicted. The way at which it looks at aesthetics still is amazing, and at this point the characters also have developed or grown quite interestingly.

As for the music: this definitely has the most mundane soundtrack ouf of any Bee-Train series yet, aside from perhaps .Hack//Dusk, but I’ve mentioned before that I consider that show to be by far Bee-Train’s worst production. The thing is though, that with this music, it is able to create one heck of an atmosphere. It’s still amongst the most original and unique soundtracks of the year, although I do feel like they lost out to Dororon Enma-Kun this year.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Natsume Yuujin-Chou – 35

by psgels, posted in Natsume Yuujin-Chou



Another amazing episode. At this point, things have to go really weird if the third season isn’t going to end up as better than the second one. It even has the potential to still surpass the first one. I haven’t seen an episode that beat the Hotaru episode, but apart from that the new season has just about everything running in its favor, and it has two very important things that the first season didn’t have: consistency and development.

Natume’s development really is THE major selling point of this third season. And heck, this episode added even more of it. I mean, the power of friendship is cheesy and all, but this show completely nailed it. Natsume’s concerns for his friends, and their concerns for him were incredibly heart-warming. It’s a wonderful way to show how much the cast has grown since the start of the series: back in the first season, the characters were still way too distant for this episode to have happened.

School festival episodes are overused, but thankfully not the biggest cliches out there. Those go to the hot spring episode, the beach episode and the pool episode, simply because everybody always does the bloody same there. Of course there are the bad festival episodes that are just there to waste time, but the good ones manage to show the cast in a different light, allow the characters to show themselves off, or highlight development. The best ones re the ones who want to make points that could not have been made without the choice to go with a school festival (so, no cheesy “let’s wait until the festival to confess to each other or something). Here, so much stuff gets thrown at Natsume, and he finally gets the chance to show himself off in the center of the attention by being the store clerk. The festival was a perfect chance for that.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Hana-Saku Iroha – 22

by psgels, posted in Hana-Saku Iroha



Um… people; I just realized something: 1.

That’s the number of currently airing series where both parents of the main characters are still alive. Usagi Drop is the freaking ONLY one who has confirmed that! With Hana Saku Iroha we could thus far still dream that Ohana’s father was some horrible bastard who left his girlfriend as soon as he got her pregnant. What happened to the days of Noein, where parents could simply get… divorced or something? The best thing we can hope for at this point is for Sket Dance’s Yusuke’s father to be a raging workaholic who is never at home or something.

Having said that though: I loved this episode, for a lot of different reasons. First of all: the creators did not wait until the last episode to resolve the Tohru subplot. Tohru now knows about Minko’s crush on him, he won’t be misinterpreting hints from her anymore, and with Ohana totally uninterested in him, it will be a matter of time before his crush on her fades.It’s nice to see all of this happen gradually, but more importantly: the creators had other plans for the climax. Plans that indeed involve dissolving the Kissuiso, allowing everyone to go their own way. It’s the best way for everyone to really shine, and to pack in a ton of character development for everyone. I applaud the creators for going that route!

The characterization for the wedding also was wonderful, making this a really heart-warming episode. Enishi and Takako really came together as a couple here, and the subtle details, like them holding hands were nicely animated as well. Ooh, and Ohana’s mother has finally returned! Next episode she seems to be making an even bigger appearance, which is going to make that finale even more awesome.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Ikoku Meiro no Croisée – 09

by psgels, posted in Ikoku Meiro no Croisée



Now, don’t get me wrong, this episode was wonderful. However, it did feature the big one; the cliche of cliches: the childhood friends. Instead of having Claude and Camille dating at their fifteenth or sixteenth, the creators consciously chose to show a romance between young kids of around ten years old. Here it makes sense: the theme of this episode would not have worked with older characters, but this is really something that lazy anime just keep using over an dover again.

This is something that has always baffled me about Japanese culture: how serious they view the romance between children. Instead of just playing tag, with everyone going his own way afterwards, anime seem to place a huge value on the memories they made as a kid. Instead of looking back at those childhood romances as an adorable quirk, every anime seems to believe those memories will decide your fate for your entire life. With this episode I was originally planning to question the Japanese culture again, only we’re talking about French kids here. But then again, I’m not French either. Are the French obsessed over childhood romances as well?

Anyway, the reason why I consider it to be such a bad twist is because it’s forced and overused. The big problem being the former, and the latter is the thing that made it worse. Nine times out of ten, when a childhood friend becomes involved, this is just reduced to a flashback, and a cheap excuse to get the main couple dating. It’s like saying: “I’m too bland for you, but we used to play tag together!” – and anime just keeps using that as an excuse.

In this episode things are different, though. It definitely had its purpose; this is a series about cultural differences. Not just between the French and the Japanese, but also between generations and between social classes. The childhood romance wasn’t used as a cheap romance, but instead to give Claude and Camille even more character. It added a ton of things to both the cast and the setting, on top of being adorably executed. And seeing Claude’s father was a plus too.

Here’s the thing with this show: it’s forcing me to reconsider the stereotypes I have in my mind about anime cliches. It’s not like Ao no Exorcist, which just has a bunch of cliches and executes them well, no this is really thought-provoking and it’s forcing me to take a different look at things I took for granted. Now that’s great storytelling.

Also, the tea ceremonies immediately gave me flashbacks to Hyouge Mono. I can not watch those anymore without picturing these overly obsessive faces along with it. It was quite good though: again it was a neat way to show how different something simple like tea can be. Plus, the way in which the Japanese sit. Because the bodies of Asians are slightly different from Europeans, they can sit like that much more naturally. I find it particularly murderous for my legs when I’m forced to sit like that for more than ten minutes.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Hyouge Mono – 19

by psgels, posted in Hyouge Mono



Finally, after two weeks we’ve got more Hyouge Mono again. While the wait was terribly long, it did make me realize again how special this series is, and how this series just does not care about how many conventions it screws.

The details in the animation once again were sublime. This series may not have a big budget or anything, but the animation when Hideyoshi performed that dance was just amazingly smooth and powerful. On top of that, the amount of detail this series puts in its characters’ facial expressions still is completely un-rivaled. This makes it able to bring its characters alive in such a unique manner.

Even though this was a lot of building up, it’s still a ton of fun to watch Sasuke build up his own… um… “empire”, while at the same time, the focus is really starting to shift towards Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who after Oda Nobunaga rose up to try and unite Japan. I really wonder how this series is planning to use its length. It seems the most logical point to end would be where Tokugawa Ieyasu manages to unite japan successfully. It’s just… how will Hideyoshi and Sasuke play their parts in this? I mean, according to History the hostilities between the Hashiba and Tokugawa clans will end with Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s influence. At this point, I can still so many barriers before that’s gonna happen.
Rating: ** (Excellenty)

Natsume Yuujin-Chou – 34

by psgels, posted in Natsume Yuujin-Chou



Yeah, with this I remember again why I found the episodic episodes of Natsume Yuujinchou to be better than the arcs. It wasn’t that the arcs were flawed or anything. But the episodic stories were just that good. The drama is written so wonderfully in a way that only very few series can match. They’re so tranquil, yet incredibly heart-warming, and this episode yet again improved on it, and quite possibly was the most heart-warming episode of the third season so far.

I loved it that the fox spirit returned. And even there, the creators handled it wonderfully, just having Natsume meet him for a small, but very emotional moment. The rest of the episode was dedicated to show how he’s changed (it’s been a year since!), and to establish how he’s still longing to see Natsume again. The concept of time for youkai was really big here again, where they live for huge amounts of time, yet their lives consists out of long bursts of silence, with several short moments of activity inbetween. The watch was a great way to symbolize things.

On top of that though, I also love the things that the characters did in the slice of life part of this episode. For Natsume to go on a weekend trip with his foster father for a pottery master class. That’s really creative, and it really feels like a new experience for Natsume. Madara was also wonderful in trying to rest while waiting for his wounds to heal: he really looked in pain and disabled, rather than what you usually see where people can just walk around perfectly fine with a few bandages on.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Ikoku Meiro no Croisée – 08

by psgels, posted in Ikoku Meiro no Croisée



We’re now really getting down to the characters. This episode had a lot less cultural differences, but instead it spent a lot of attention on giving its characters some depth. And it looks like that this wasn’t even the background episode (that’s for next week).

The talk between Claude and Camille started off okay, but it all was rather predictable. As it went on though, that air of predictability vanished. There seems to be something interesting behind their break-up, though when this episode really got going was when Camille started talking with Yune. Comparing the way both think of him was an excellent touch. In fact, this episode really shined because of how it underlined the differences and similarities between the different characters. I talked down on Alice when we first saw her, but she really turned out much better than expected.

Overall, Sato Junichi is going to be one of the most interesting creators of the second half of 2011, due to his involvement in three different series. Two of which original. Ikoku Meiro no Croisee will probably have more drama than Tamayura, but I’m still really interested in how it’s going to treat its story: we will have one of the first actual slice of life original stories since ages (not dramas like Anohana or Hana-Saku Iroha, but actual slice of life). It’s a genre I tend to dislike because of repetition and no incentive for the characters to really show their characters off, but if anyone can do the genre justice, it’s him. And then there’s going to be Phi Brain, in which we finally get to see him outside of this genre again, where he’s even better.
Rating: ** (Excellent)