Category: Finished Series: Slice of Life/Drama

Hyouge Mono – 10

by psgels, posted in Hyouge Mono



I will be talking about major spoilers right here, so people who are still following the subs (really, do give it a chance despite their slowness! This show is much, much harder to translate than any other series this season) might want to look away. I warned you. This sentence is meant to prevent spoilers from showing up in aggregator sites.

That was one of the most badass deaths I’ve ever seen. I mean, holy crap. I never expected the creators to kill off Oda Nobunaga this early in this series despite being the second most important character in the series, but the way in which he went was just completely mind-blowing. His final words were just the epitome of manliness. I couldn’t pick up whether that pot he obtained had anything to do with it, but either way: the beginning of this episode was just incredible.

And besides that, this completely changes everything about this series. Sasuke now finds himself without the master he’s been loyal to for sixteen years now (that was the right number, right?), and if I’m not mistaken, he has gotten dangerously close to accessing one of those three so-called legendary ceramics. What the hell is the rest of this series going to be about!?

The pacing also was just amazing. The slow way in which every scene played out was an amazing build-up, plus the graphics also were better than ever. I can’t believe how smooth the animation got at certain points here: that was like, completely fluid. The creators really did a wonderful job in order to bring this story to life, and the direction also was just fantastic, creating an impeccable atmosphere. I’ll stop now before I run out of adjective. Bottom-like: one of the riskiest and most unique shows of the season showed here once again that it’s one of my favourite shows of the season.
Rating: **** (Fantastic)

Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Boku-Tachi wa Mada Shiranai. – 09

by psgels, posted in Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Boku-Tachi wa Mada Shiranai



Ah, it’s almost a shame that there are just two episodes left, but that’s the strength of a good Noitamina-series: they’re short, but really, really sweet. This episode was the calm before the storm: preparing everything for that finale, and it’s promising to become an awesome one that is going to involve every single character significantly.

I really liked how both Jinta and Poppo nearly broke their character. Unlike Yukiatsu who isn’t afraid to show his personal feelings or Naruko who is terrible at hiding them, both of them have been quite good at dodging these things. This time, even that composure broke. Especially Jinta, who right now is the one threatening to screw everything up.

As to the “big plothole” of this series, I think that it has a lot to do with this. While it remains questionable why Menma waited so long on announcing her presence, it is clear now why Jinta didn’t push her to do that: it’s pretty much as Yukiatsu said; Jinta wants to stay with Menma and wants to have her for himself, while at the same time he still has parts of the attention whore that he was when he was younger.

Meanwhile, Tsuruko also finally showed some new things of herself. She really is going to be a big mystery for that ending as well: she’s the most composed member of the cast so she really had relatively few scenes to show her character off compared to the more unstable characters, but with Yukiatsu getting stranger and stranger (he’s also hitting on Naruko now? Is this because he’s interested in her or because he just wants to take everything away from Jinta?) we finally get to see that she too has at least a crush. Her character was invaluable to the series, though. It showed that the cast wasn’t entirely made up out of people with issues. It was exactly what the cast needed here for variety.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Hana-Saku Iroha – 10

by psgels, posted in Hana-Saku Iroha



Yeah. This was good. This was really, really good. It was definitely the best episode since the first two episodes. I’ve always wanted to see an episode that just follows the every day lives of these characters without these hi-jinks like set-ups, and this was it. Sure, Ohana had to get sick for it, but what follows is a wonderfully down to earth episode in which for once the cast really came to life. it’s a very mundane episode, but because of that the creators were able to show a lot.

It’s a bit ironic that the episode with the most mundane premise so far has turned out to be the best one, but this has to do with the essence of why I didn’t enjoy Hana-Saku Iroha as much as I hoped I would. It’s not the fact that it became less serious, but rather that the scenarios for each episode felt… uninspired. Of course I don’t mean totally uninspired, but I did feel like I was missing something. They were fine as build-up, but in terms of the characterization they missed this thing that this episode had: their ability to really breathe life into these characters.

This episode was genuine as hell. The acting was wonderful, for just about everyone. The sick Ohana was wonderfully performed and the creators really went out of their way to portray her overly serious attitude while being sick. The chemistry between the cast really returned back to what it was in the first two episodes. Tohru also ended up showing much more of his crush on Ohana beyond the occasional chuckle as well, especially that scene in which he brings her dinner was really well done.

And you know what the irony is? This episode was written by Junji Nishimura, the director of True Tears. It shows.

Heck, it was storyboarded by the the director of Armed Librarians and directed by the co-director of GTO. Talk about a dream team here…
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Hyouge Mono – 09

by psgels, posted in Hyouge Mono




OMG WTF!?

This show is brilliant. Utterly brilliant. But… what?! And don’t get me wrong: this episode was the best one of Hyouge Mono so far, but… what!?

Just to be sure, I watched the preview for the next episode… but that was even crazier. Okay. That took me completely by surprise. This show just proved that it’s even better than I first thought. In this post I will be really vague on what exactly happened for the sake of spoilers. In any case though, next week’s episode promises to be even better, so I’ll probably have to end up talking about what the hell happened here there.

In the meantime though: the build-up throughout this episode was exquisite. It just so subtly brought the different characters alive, only to switch to the completely un-subtle quirks of the different characters. I just love how Oda Nobunaga just keeps bringing in these exotic products. The elephant in this episode again was hysterical. Rarely do I get to see an evil overlord who is this enjoyable to watch.

The way in which he uses his powers to always get what he wants and makes everyone scared of him: it’s just brilliantly done. The way in which he announces his plans to conquer the entire world: you’d almost believe that he’s actually capable of doing it. On top of that, Furuta Sasuke was also amazing to watch as usual. Usually the quirkiest characters of the cast don’t end up as the main characters, but he is one example who wonderfully defies that trend.

And really: everyone had the most wonderful facial expressions in this episode. Heck, this series has by far the most details in the drawings of its faces than any other series I’ve seen this year. Heck, it feels like ages since a show came along that had facial expressions that are this detailed. Sure, the animation of this series is obviously limited, but this is one heck of a way to make up for it!
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Boku-Tachi wa Mada Shiranai. – 08

by psgels, posted in Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Boku-Tachi wa Mada Shiranai



Even for Ano Hana standards, this episode was amazing. I mean, how much can you stuff into an episode anyway? This episode went from heart-wrenching scene to heart-wrenching scene, and it just kept going! Each time showing new things about the cast, sharp dialogue and a huge heap of sincerity.

First there was Menma’s mother who actually lashed out at the group as a whole, then Yukiatsu forced Jinta to just go on on his own, Anjou confessed the feelings she had when she was younger, Jinta had a great scene together with his father, then Menma’s brother came along and as a desert Menma finally had the guts to make her presence known to the others. Heck, every single part here would have made for an amazing episode, but this episode found a way to put them all in the same episode. Now THAT’s how you take advantage of Noitamina!

I always found it a bit of a plothole that Menma didn’t just make stuff float in front of the group. Still, this episode showed that she can probably only bump into stuff, and probably thought that that wouldn’t be enough to convince people of her existence (she’s good at running away and all).

In any case though, this episode was also really good for one of the biggest strengths of this series: the way in which it puts so much meaning into its dialogue. The script in this series is masterfully written, in order to get as much out of the characters as possible. The characters here are both big liars, and surprisingly true to their feelings: they’re really able to express what they’re feeling, and this series does that in a way that I haven’t seen in a long, long while.
Rating: **** (Fantastic)

Hana-Saku Iroha – 09

by psgels, posted in Hana-Saku Iroha



Okay, so with this episode it’s clear: Hana-Saku Iroha is building up to a love polygon: we have this new girl who likes Kou, while Ohana and Kou still don’t know whether they actually like each other, and while Tohru is likely to start hitting on Ohana anytime soon now, with Minko still having her crush on Tohru. The only one who misses at this point is Nako and the entire picture will be complete.

I’m not the biggest fan of love polygons, as they tend to be really annoying, but at the very least this series is aware of that and therefore is building up things carefully. Plus, if the rest of the episodes will be as interesting as this past arc, then it’ll still be a very interesting series.

It’s a nice and stressful episode for Ohana, and I liked how this past arc created its drama, even though it was a collection of coincidences strangely happening all at the same time. This episode however took that idea and rolled with it, resulting in quite a bit of character development and new sides of characters that we hadn’t seen before. Overall, these were the best episodes of Hana-Saku Iroha since the first two episodes.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Boku-Tachi wa Mada Shiranai. – 07

by psgels, posted in Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Boku-Tachi wa Mada Shiranai



This probably is the moe-est show that I’ve ever considered as my favourite of a season. I mean, I have enjoyed teenaged drama romances before and all, but not to the point where they were done this well in such a short time. More than any other series this season, this series really nails the feelings of its lead characters and it continues to push their relationships forward. This episode was slightly special, though: for once it focused especially on Jinta and Menma.

Instead, I can only see this episode as a build-up red herring. That’s nothing bad, by the way. Some of my favourite stories use these red herrings. Rather than pointless, I love it when done well, they are excellent in fleshing out the characters and story, and the same pretty much happened here: the whole rocket story has nothing to do with Menma’s wish and all, but this episode really stressed the bond and the memories that the main characters made with each other.

By the way, it’s great that Noitamina has been pretty much consistently amazing for the past five seasons here: for the past five seasons and eight series since the timeslot turned into an hour long, there pretty much has been an amazingly well written series on, with the best still being Spring 2010. 2010 was overall a mediocre year, but THAT was the best season that Noitamina ever had). Heck, pretty much the only mistake during this period was Fractale. As for Anohana, I’d probably put it somewhere in the bottom of the top 8 of my favourite Noitamina series. Where exactly entirely depends on the ending.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Hyouge Mono – 08

by psgels, posted in Hyouge Mono



This show really knows when it needs to be funny and when it needs to be serious here, often combining the two really well. That falcon scene for example was hysterical, but also the start of this episode was just awesome in the way in which it turned into a political bluff-match where Sasuke had to take care of the food for important guests. The pineapple already was nicely used in the previous episode, but this episode really took advantage of these cultural differences.

Beyond that, this also had a lot of build-up, but it was much better done than in the previous episode. The acting brought the characters alive here, even when they were just talking to each other: it wasn’t as emotionless as it was an episode ago. And yet at the same time, while this series is completely different from anything that Bee-Train has ever made before, there is one thing that makes this series perfect for them, and they took advantage of this really well: the conversations, and the use of pauses there. I’m not sure whether the manga had this too, but the timing of this series is impeccable. It’s a hate or love technique of course, but I love how these silences also speak huge parts about what these characters are trying to say to each other, non-verbally.

The animation for this series has been… interesting. I mean, it’s not like this series is consistent, but the key scenes are drawn really well, and actually are very well animated. The characters may not move around the screen much, but when they do move it’s slow, yet surprisingly smooth, and these scenes really manage to stand out.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Showa Monogatari – 07

by psgels, posted in Showa Monogatari



I still think that the EDs for this series are a very nice touch: showing a different classic song from those days really makes this series even more authentic than it already was. It’s one of the few EDs this season that actually tries to add something to its series.

In any case, I really liked this episode. Half of it was about Kouhei, and the other half about Yuuko. Kouhei surprisingly had his best episode so far, which probably had a lot to do with the fact that he wasn’t alone in this episode: his part was about his entire baseball team. The story about bullying was surprisingly well done here, and it was worth seeing all those kids together. As a group, these kids really are a great character here.

Also, it was a nice touch to show an earthquake there. I suspect that this series was talking about the 1964 Niigata Earthquake, of a magnitude of 7.5. Yet again: it’s impressive to see how well the creators are trying to make this series blend in with the actual history, not to mention that it also was a nice touch to show all this through the eyes of a child, who couldn’t grasp the consequences of such a thing yet.

The next two weeks meanwhile will be the remaining two preview episodes, and with this episode everything nicely falls into place. First of all, this episode really shows the events that lead up to Yuuko’s date going wrong. Also, the fact that within two episodes we’re going to skip to the summer holidays really point to the fact that the creators are intending the 1964 Olympics as the finale of this series. A great idea. It’s especially going to be good for Kouhei’s brother: his storyline can’t be wrapped up that quickly, and something tells me that the creators were intending to put more of Yuuko in the first half, and more of him in the second half of this series.

Also, this episode had a slightly different animation style than usual. The drawings were messier, but at the same time there was more movement and the camera angles were much better than usual. I’ve always found that movement and details have a higher priority than consistency, so this is a change that I liked quite a bit. Ideally you’d of course want animation to both have a lot of movement and be crisp at the same time, but Wao World unfortunately doesn’t have the best animators.

On a side-note: that pool! It’s hard to imagine, but were pools in those days always that filthy?
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Hana-Saku Iroha – 08

by psgels, posted in Hana-Saku Iroha



Ooh, this episode was very good! It probably even was the best episode since episode 2, but at the same time it still was nothing like these first two episodes. The key of this episode was suddenly getting a lot of customers to book a room at the same day while three of the staff members were either sick or had a day off. The stress in keeping things running and the build-up of this were really well done here.

On top of that, the added chaos also showed different sides of everyone, and nearly everyone was enjoyable to watch. The only one who wasn’t was that Takako-woman, but she served her purpose in making things even more hectic by focusing on the mystery guests. This is the pace that this series needs to keep up.

This episode was forced, though. It’s one thing for Grandmother to collapse on such a busy day, but Kou also just had the perfect timing. Not to mention that this set-up was perfect again for fueling the Tohru love triangle that I never really was a fan of. That’s one thing that this series still needs to convince me that it’s going to be worth the build-up.
Rating: ** (Excellent)