Category: Finished Series: Slice of Life/Drama

Hana-Saku Iroha – 05

by psgels, posted in Hana-Saku Iroha



Misunderstandings in anime are annoying. Especially when they can be solved by just… talking to each other. Unfortunately this episode didn’t escape that. What’s worse, is that the creators tried to hide the fact that Tohru was just filling in for a day, yet it was obvious from the start that nothing was going on. Seeing this only fueled up by the novellist, who was the most annoying character of this series anyway, made things even worse.

At least this episode fleshed out Minko and Ohana. This arc established Minko’s character as a hard-working yet lovestruck girl, and it developed the friction between her and Ohana better, and we also have a good basis for a romance as well. Ohana also finally sent a message to her boyfriend as well, so it’s not like this episode was wasted.

What I want to see right now is variety: instead of making the next episode focus on romance yet again, make it focus on something completely different again. The bets example of this was the transition between episodes 2 and 3.
Rating: * (Good)

Hyouge Mono – 04

by psgels, posted in Hyouge Mono



Oh god. I really admire the balls that this series have. Heck, this episode was even less mainstream than the previous episodes were! At least those had some action. This episode was nothing but some guys standing and sitting around, talking. And it just went on and on, for twenty minutes! I still can’t believe that the creators actually had the guts to make such a commercially risky series here.

So yeah, I obviously loved this episode. The way in which it built up its atmosphere was just awesome. It never let go of this atmosphere and actually gave quite an amount of airtime to a character I previously thought to be just a minor side character. It’s bee-Train, so the music obviously helped a lot here, but even that was different from their usual series. This series is actually mostly quiet, and the soundtrack only appears when it needs to, with some wonderful results, and yet this episode was partly meant to establish that the cast consist out of a bunch of complete weirdos.

Also, who the hell was in charge of the camera here? Seriously, that had me in stitches during this episode. I mean, I am a fan of Bee-Train, but I am aware of their biggest criticisms. One of them is the way in which they always really focus on long close-ups.

It really felt like this episode was poking fun at that. Seriously, it took that practice to the absurd. The close-ups got just absurdly close at times. To the point where you could look right up in the characters noses. Apart from that, some of the camera angles were at times just bizarre, like when they keep focusing on Oda Nobunaga’s smirking face. The unique facial expressions only make this even more bizarre.

What I love about this series is that it takes itself fully seriously, and yet it also makes fun of both itself and its characters. I mean, these characters are eccentric beyond belief. Even the lead character of Steins;Gate looks relatively normal compared to them.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Boku-Tachi wa Mada Shiranai. – 03

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



It’s been a long, long while since I watched a series that made me teary-eyed on such a consistent basis as Anohana. It’s got the most amazing cast of characters that consistently try to develop each other. These people feel real and the acting is absolutely amazing. I mean, even Hourou Musuko needed a number of episodes to get going!

Anohana is really about growing up: some of the characters here already have, while Jinta refuses to do so and Poppo just doesn’t care. The same goes with the rest of the cast, and this friction between the ones who have grown up and the ones who didn’t is amazing to watch, especially with such detailed characterization. These characters just keep telling more about themselves and becoming more rounded and versatile. This was an especially good episode for Tsurumi.

Three episodes in, and I only managed to spot one cliche: the dead mother. It’s a bit unnerving that BOTH Noitamina series this season have the dead mother syndrome, but Anohana even makes good use of that one. Living in a dysfunctional family had a massive impact on Jinta and probably even strengthened his trauma, let alone seeing him first lose his mother and then one of his best friends. The thing remains though that the easiest way for a character to have a dysfunctional family is hardly ever used: we hardly ever get to see people with divorced parents. Out of the top of my head, I can only think of two that did that: Noein and Kuragehime. Oh, and Hana-Saku Iroha.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Hana-Saku Iroha – 04

by psgels, posted in Hana-Saku Iroha



This remains annoying: the transfer student introduces him or herself to a classroom and the first thing that every single guy does is annoyingly talk about the cutest girl in school who of course happens to be one of the important characters. It has really gotten old ages ago, and yet anime just keeps pulling it. I mean, I have nothing against there being the cutest girl in school and all, but whenever she’s around, every single guy in school just gets reduced to this annoying fanboy who does nothing other than secretly stalk admire her. Nothing else! It’s a good thing that this show doesn’t have a male lead because that would really have been terrible (you know, the main character being the only one oblivious to her charms and all…).

In any case, this episode showed the introduction of the main character to the local school, so it wasn’t as good as the first two episodes because it dealt with a lot of introductions and stuff that unfortunately appears in a lot of other series. In terms of setting up things, it did its job well though. we’ve got a nice romance around Minko, Ohana’s feelings about her “boyfriend” get developed a bit and Nako also got a bit of her past revealed. It’s definitely not a wasted episode.

The most important thing though: after the previous episode, my biggest fear was that this show would abandon the first two episodes and continue on with these silly stories onward. Thankfully that didn’t turn out to be the case. In that case it was good for a bit of variety.
Rating: * (Good)

Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Boku-Tachi wa Mada Shiranai. – 02

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



A big season has a major advantage, but also a major disadvantage. The major advantage? There will be more great shows. This will only become more apparent as the season goes on, and right now there are already a ton of shows that are really good. The downside though… is that there also will be more bad shows. This season was no exception.

When I checked out Anohana’s first episode, I had nearly given up. Seriously, I haven’t dropped so many series in one season in a long while. There are just so many mediocre series in this season, let alone bad ones. Things like Hidan no Aria, Sofuteni and Hoshikaka, among many others, had these terribly annoying character. Seriously, what’s fun about them? And then there also were series as Sengoku Otome, which I guess didn’t have any harem stereotypes, but also did absolutely nothing to stand out.

Moe in Noitamina? I really had no faith. Mari Okada surely is an amazing writer, but there is no way that she’d be able to write three series at the same time. Again. Where two are completely original stories. The Fractale debacle of the previous season didn’t help either. And then I started to watch the first episode of Anohana. And indeed, it looked like all the others at first, with a guy and a girl having random fun. And then Naruko turned up, it became clear that Meiko was a ghost, and it just blew me away. It’s been ages since I watched such a heartwarming teenaged drama.

A ton of character development, already in the first episode, excellent animation, these characters are just amazing. They’re unlike the stereotypes you usually see: they feel like people. They have personalities, but aren’t completely dominated by them. They have their own stories, but also feel like characters beyond that. Take this episode for example: Naruko was pretty tsundere, but for once I wouldn’t blame her, considering what happened. And at the same time the tsundere wasn’t the only part of her character. It’s clear that all of these characters still have their feelings about their childhood days, but they all grew away in their own ways. This really turned out to be a wonderful story about people growing apart from each other, with some being left behind. Also, this episode really hit home as well when they started talking about Pokemon (or… Nokemon) which they played together. You usually see kids play video games and all, but rarely do you see this much meaning put into it.

The thing with annoying characters is… well… they’re annoying. There are basically two types of them: the types that are annoying because the writers can’t write good dialogue, or the ones that are really meant to be annoying. And even the second category can become a pain to watch if the character in question is just one-dimensional. Meiko has impressed me, though: she has just the right amount of annoying antics so that it becomes a part of her character, while she also has plenty of scenes that just portray her as a normal girl. She has quite a few sides for only two episodes, which is really great to see. Remember Nessa from Fractale? She mostly ran around being happy and once in a while she got sad when Phryne was involved. Meiko is much more dynamic. Thank god!

Whether this series is going to be better or not than Hana-Saku Iroha obviously can’t be said yet: Hana-Saku Iroha is 26 episodes, so it can take its time to take detours to porn novelists. This just has eleven episodes, so it has to deliver in these eleven episodes. And it’s doing a mighty fine job so far!
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Hyouge Mono – 03

by psgels, posted in Hyouge Mono



This episode had even more talking than the previous two episodes. It had a lot of politics and other conversations, and it actually managed to make them exciting. A lot was about Oda Nobunaga’s ambitions, discussed by his followers. It’s an excellent build-up, it touched a bit upon his backstory and really made him out to be this megalomaniac leader.

Also, this series has some strange fascination with facial hair. I mean, the vast majority of the characters here have moustaches (in fact, it has the first moustached lead character I’ve seen in a long, long while), but this episode also put some strange amount of detail in the sideburns of each character, up to the point where they were blowing really smoothly in the wind. That’s part of the charm of this series, though: the really strange facial art. Especially the facial expressions make for some awesome non-verbal communication.

Like most other series about politics, the cast is also looking out to be huge here. These past three episodes have focused on a ton of different characters. Now, these are obviously not as well fleshed out as the lead characters, but they fit in well with the other characters, in particular Sasuke. I’m not sure what it is about him, but they all play wonderfully off of him.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Hana-Saku Iroha – 03

by psgels, posted in Hana-Saku Iroha



True Tears was a show that just kept you guessing. Whenever something major happened, you never were sure whether things were what they seemed. In Hana-Saku Iroha however, things are exactly what they seem. I know that Mari Okada wrote both of them, but the two shows had completely different directors, and yeah, that really showed in this episode. Talk about something completely different.

“Out of place” is the best way to describe this episode. To think that the creators would actually take the porn novelist seriously. The most surreal part was where Ohana started reading some of his work and started relating to a silly porn script (it’s good to see a girl to not act so stereotypically embarrassed like with a ton of other anime, but going too far into the other direction also leads to questionable acting…), but that suicide attempt of that novelist also was just plain weird.

Whether this episode was good or bad depends pretty much on the rest of this series. This is a show of 26 episodes and with the right amount of development this could be a neat way to flesh out the characters and show something new of them. It’s definitely good that this show tries to be different, but at the moment though, it felt like the majority of the cast was just acting out of character in this episode.
Rating: (Enjoyable)

Hyouge Mono – 02

by psgels, posted in Hyouge Mono



Hyouge Mono is by far the most unorthodox show of the season. It does just about everything that you shouldn’t do to get some commercial insurance: it’s full of old guys, there is hardly any moe, and you can’t really call the characters bishies either. There is no action as well, despite this being a series about feudal warfare, and the dialogue is the hardest to understand of the entire season as well.

It’s still a huge shame that receives so little attention, though. No subs whatsoever. Heck, I haven’t even able to find any decent raws of this second episode.And that even though this show has some of the best characterizations of the season, the best soundtrack of the season, and the best lead character of the season. Seriously, if there’s any show that deserves to be watched, it’s this one, for taking so many risks.

What’s also funny is that in a medium as anime that has heaps of moe and fanservice, the actual concept of sex hardly ever gets used, and when it does you often get outright porn like with Yosuga no Sora. Sekai-Ichi Hatsukoi looked to be the first example in years to actually do this even remotely well. And here this series suddenly comes, with no fanservice whatsoever, and from out of nowhere we see the main character have sex with his wife. This show really continues to surprise me.

Also, that lead character is just amazing. This guy is completely out there: on one hand he is supposed to be this level-headed army commander, but on the other he is obsessed over tea and tea bowls. His inner monologues are all just wonderful, and especially his voice actor is amazing. Plus, this show has some unique facial expressions. I mean, anime is already known for its over exaggeration of faces, but this… I don’t think have ever seen facial expressions like this in series here.

If you’d see screenshots of these expressions, you’d probably think that they look incredibly silly, and yet for some strange reason, they do an amazing job of giving the lead character his unique personality. The acting here does not aim to be as outrageous as possible; in fact, all of the expressions here are weird, but all have some restraint to them, like the main character biting his lip, or looking really surprised while trying hold himself in at the same time.

Oh, and obviously, the music is just amazing here, leading to a wonderful atmosphere. Especially at that scene where the main character actually nearly cut off the head of his wife in order to get what he wanted was wonderfully done.

I mean, this season has a LOT of good stuff here. And still, Hyouge Mono stands out by being so damn unique. It has this completely unique feeling thanks to combining feudal warfare with such an obsessive and unique lead character, along with Bee-Train’s usual style. Heck, they actually moved away from all of their usual formulas here. This doesn’t even feel similar to Blade of the Immortal: that really was dedicated to very stylish action and a cool level headed protagonist. This… is completely different aside from being set around the same time.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Some Quick First Impressions: Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Boku-tachi wa Mada Shiranai., [C] The Money of Soul and Possibility Control and Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko

by psgels, posted in Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Boku-Tachi wa Mada Shiranai, Some Quick First Impressions, The Money of Soul and Possibility Control

Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Boku-tachi wa Mada Shiranai.

Short Synopsis: Our lead character lives together with a cute girl.
Amazing! Wonderful! Excellent! Hell yeah! I really applaud Anohana. Finally a show that proves that you can do amazing stuff with moe. I refuse to tell why, though. Just watch the episode. The only thing I’ll say about this episode is regarding the production values: A-1 have yet again done an amazing job on the animation here. It’s in the same style as Fractale, meaning that there are absolutely no still frames. The characters move consistently across the screen and really come to life this way. I remember noting that Hana Saku Iroha would give Anohana some stiff competition this season. It’s at the same time also the other way around here: the battle for the best slice of life drama this season is going to be an awesome one.
OP: A decent ballad.
ED: A bit of a cheesy song, but works wonderfully here.
Potential: 90%

[C] The Money of Soul and Possibility Control

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets tempted by a weird clown.
Well, it had it coming, but this was definitely the prettiest series of the season. The quiet scenes already look very detailed, but the dramatic parts look absolutely gorgeous. The action scene at the beginning of this episode in particular had some really imaginative action. It’s typical of Kenji Nakamura, but at the same time his style is evolving: it’s no longer just weirdness for the sake of weirdness, but there also was a lot of conventional animation used. Characters actually were animated here. And the combination between the extravagant action scenes and the other quiet scenes works really well here. The story is also full of potential. It’s perhaps a bit like Eden of the East, with the big difference being that the main character is actually flawed. This entire episode was about him giving into temptation. He is mundane, yet well fleshed out: this episode takes him seriously and establishes him as level-headed, yet insecure, curious, yet unsuccessful in love (it’s a definite plus to see a potential love interest immediately established as someone who already has a boyfriend other than him). With a bit of luck, this is going to be what Eden of the East couldn’t be. The whole question will be whether or not the creators took into account that they have only 11 episodes to work with. But then again, Kenji Nakamura is a Noitamina Veteran (he and Kenichi Kasai pretty much set the timeslot apart), plus he is an expert on short stories, so this is really promising. The only bad part right now is the cleanup animation: there are quite a few distorted faces.
OP: Awesome graphics, and not a bad song either.
ED: Excellent graphics, but the song is still boring unfortunately.
Potential: 90%

Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets to live together with a cute girl.
Well, this is yet another one of the moe shows of this season. The formula is pretty much the same here: transfer student arrives to town, meets his romantic interest, people talk, the girls try to be cute and there is fanservice. Still, it’s among the better of the bundh. It actually has some good ideas put into the characterization (I’d like to thank the lead female for spending nearly the entire episode wrapped inside a futon and being nearly impossible to undrstand), and the dialogue is definitely better written compared to the likes of Hidan no Aria, Sofuteni, Hoshikaka, etc. At the same time though, it was also pretty forced at times, the male lead was rather bland and very little actually happened in this episode. So, here is my issue with this episode: the end of this episode actually hinted to an interesting story. However, this is Shaft. The rest of this show could just as well be the characters randomly wasting time, and they’re not interesting enough for that to work. On one hand, this has Shinbo who is working on three shows at the same time this season. On the other hand, it has a completely fresh writer who has only been active for a few years in many excellent episodes. This really can go either way and this episode didn’t really change that.
OP: Agh, my ears! It’s like they put a cat in a blender and recorded it.
ED: Simple, a bit of a boring singer, but I’ve heard much worse this season.
Potential: 50%

Showa Monogatari – 01 – AGAIN

by psgels, posted in Showa Monogatari



So, just to make sure I went back to the episode 01 that aired a week ago. It’s completely new again. Stop being so confusing with your episode numbers!

So, to recap:
– The episodes 03, 05, 08 and 09 that aired during the past week are the same as episodes 01, 02, 03 and 04 that were released as preview episodes back in January and February.
– The episodes 01 and 02 that aired during the past two weeks have new content.
– Do not ask me why the creators found it a good idea to just randomly select four episodes and reshuffle them into preview episodes.

It feels a bit weird to watch this opening episode while already having seen five other episodes, but it does fit as an opening much better than the “fake” first episode, which did bring in a lot of random drama around Kouhei and his father. This episode introduced all of the characters, it established Kouhei’s father as someone with anger management problems despite his good intentions, we finally see Kouhei’s sister’s crush formally introduced. And to my surprise that bearded guy from episode two is a recurring character. Seriously, he looks a bit like a rapist or something…

Strangely enough, this episode had exactly three shots where the animation was much, much better than the rest of this series. It’s really obvious that this was meant to be the first episode, which baffles me even more that they didn’t use that animation for the first preview episode. I mean, isn’t the entire point of spending a lot of the animation budget on the first episode the fact that it’s supposed to improve the FIRST impressions? It defeats the purpose a bit to use this as a fifth impression…

Now, because it was meant to introduce everything, this episode probably established the least in comparison to all of the other episodes. Most of the things introduced were already established in the episodes that preceded it, and it never really got to look at the characters in-depth. The previous episodes were all wonderfully varied and all had their own focus, so this episode wasn’t among the best of this series.
Rating: * (Good)