Category: Finished Series: Slice of Life/Drama

Bakuman – 23

by psgels, posted in Bakuman



So, one advantage of that slow pacing is that the episodes that DO have a lot of stuff happening really end up standing out. This episode really caught me by surprise and it was one of the best episodes yet. The change of pace was really welcome, and it showed a ton of new stuff.

Basically the entire premise of this episode was that it showed the start of a whole bunch of new manga from nearly all of the important characters. Also, finally we actually got a good glimpse of what the stories were that they wrote were like. They were only short blurbs, but it’s great to see actually something more than some random pictures here and there of which we don’t know how they tell their story.

The reactions of everyone were what sold this episode to me, though. This episode was full of emotions. Mostly cheerful ones, making this a very uplifting episode. Ideally I would have wished that the entire series was this dynamic, but at least we’re seeing the build-up really pay off at this point now. At this pace though< i can really see the second season becoming awesome. If it makes good use of the build-up of this first season and remains as dynamic as its best episodes then it can become an excellent coming of age series. In any case, if it wasn't for that second season, then I this really wouldn't have been a good place to end this series... Rating: ** (Excellent)

Hourou Musuko – 09

by psgels, posted in Hourou Musuko



The drama in this episode was just utterly brilliant. It’s where everything comes together, the build-up is really paying off and the characters start to change even more. Doi turned out to be a wonderful addition to the cast here.

This was a terrific example of the heights that subtle drama can reach. The entire episode was quiet, but so much was going on. The red thread was Nitori doing the impossible and coming to school in his girl outfit, being nudged by Doi in order to do this. It brilliantly made use of his insecurities as a girl in a guy’s body. It all culminated wonderfully until the climax of this episode.

Now, there still is the matter of that ending. This is a manga adaptation after all and I still haven’t forgotten the cheap way in which Kuragehime ended its run, but if that ending is good then this really is an excellent experiment of Noitamina to try and focus on series with a different group of lead characters (unlike Fractale for example). Noitamina is a very double-edged sword, but those who understand its limits (like the creators of this series seem to do) can use it to air some of the most wonderful series.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Hourou Musuko – 08

by psgels, posted in Hourou Musuko



This is something that has been baffling me for years now: why are romance shows so scared to show people in an actual relationship? I mean, the climax of 60% of all romance series is the confession, and 30% just refuse to end without anything happening between the lead couple, having them remain forever in this “yes we’re in love but not actually dating so that we can have harems and love triangles forever”-type ending. That, while you can definitely get some good drama out of a relationship, which is what this show is currently doing brilliantly.

Nitori vs. Anna made this into a really excellent episode. There is some uncomfortable tension between them, but it’s the healthy kind of tension that still leaves plenty of room for them to grow either closer or further away from each other. It’s not cheesy in the slightest, and it’s definitely been one of the most down to earth portrayals of romance in quite a while, even though we’re talking about middle schoolers here.

That little shot of Chiba, Takatsuki and Nitori together when they were younger was a great little addition, by the way. This really was an episode of nostalgia as well, with both Nitori and Takatsuki trying to move on in their own ways. Nitori by exploring other sides of romance, Takatsuki by growing her hair a bit and trying to make up with Chiba again. If I have to critique the creators for one thing, it’s that they show a tad to little of Chiba when she’s not near Nitori. In this episode for example Takatsuki told Nitori that chiba was behaving normally again, but we unfortunately didn’t get to see those scenes.

Instead, we got this former bully. Now, with the way in which bullies are usually portrayed in anime, this guy is a HUGE improvement. He’s bratty, but in a subtle way and he’s definitely having an impact on Nitori. Whether it’s wise to introduce a new character three episodes before the ending is a different story, though.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Bakuman – 22

by psgels, posted in Bakuman



Three episodes left, and this show comes with an anti-climax. Interesting, that after all of the build-up of the previous episode, all that the characters did in this series was get fired up, try out some stuff, realize that they don’t work and continuing where they left off. If anything, this was an episode to boost their confidence and resolve, more than anythings else, and I’m not sure whether the right place for that is so near to a major cliff-hanger.

Also, am i the only one who felt that the audience for Miho’s event was a little… stalkerish? I mean, it was just creepy in \the way that they just kept staring at her without saying anything, or even looking at each other.

Overall, I think that this is the part where this show is getting a bit repetitive. The interesting part about this episode was the way that all of the mangaka commented on each other’s stories and all, but this was the umpth time in which we saw the lead couple in a minor setback, only to get more motivation to go on and create their story. It probably won’t be a problem for the rest of this first season, but the second season does need to pay attention to this.
Rating: * (Good)

Hourou Musuko – 07

by psgels, posted in Hourou Musuko




Hourou Musuko… just surpassed itself. Seriously, this episode was better than any of the previous episodes so far, and convinced me that the creators know what they’re doing. Finally we have another romance that tries to portray love realistically, and FINALLY we have another series that subverts the “lead characters are soul mates” trope.

While Fractale is currently showing just how much of a double edged sword the Noitamina timeslot can be, Hourou Musuko just nailed it. This is the part where we really get to the interesting character development. Nitori suddenly deciding to date Anna was a brilliant move. He’s actually moving on, after being rejected by Takatsuki and exploring the different sides of love, with someone completely different from the one who was first made out to be his soul mate.

It’s here where the power of this show really shines. This show has lead characters, but beyond that the creators make sure to give each of the characters a down to earth portrayal, and it’s not unfair towards anyone: the scenarios are written so that nobody really gets the chance to devolve into a stereotype, even the energetic girl has subtle different sides, miles away from your usual cliched energetic girl. This episode showed the subtle side of this show at its best.

The oddball here is Chiba, who seems to have a lot of issues throughout the series. She’s a great source of drama, and yet she doesn’t devolve into cheese. It’s hard to make a character like her believable, but I think that the creators did it by having her constantly tell how she feels, and what she thinks.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Bakuman – 21

by psgels, posted in Bakuman



Quite a strange build up at the end of this episode, when suddenly it turned out to be that some random J-rock idol decided that he wants to become a mangaka. Now, things can often get quite disastrous when people like that suddenly think that they’ve got talent and use their popularity to give themselves a boost in popularity, but there are of course exceptions. I wonder what kind of approach Bakuman will take to this, but for that we need to wait till next week.

In either case, it’s going to be bad for Moritaka and Akito because the fangirls will make it very difficult for them to rank in first in these manga power rankings. Most of this episode was really about fleshing out their goals of becoming the first: showing them work hard and missing sleep in order to catch their deadlines.

Oh, and that thirty-year-old guy also is making some progress, in quite a strange way, working together with this eccentric girl. The character designs of the latter probably point to the fact that she’ll be a major character later in the series. In any case it’s a bit late for her to make any impact on the first season, with only one month left.

Speaking of which, I wonder whether the creators are going for some sort of cliff-hanger, or whether the story is just going to stop for half a year (assuming that the second season airs next Autumn season). I do hope that at the very least, this thing is going to end with some sort of strange hook. Looking back, Bakuman’s first season has been quite good, but it still has a few too many episodes that were just too slow, but it’s not like it was like Nurarihyon no Mago whose first season was nothing but build-up. If the second season keeps up this pacing, it’s got quite a good chance to become a great series.
Rating: * (Good)

Hourou Musuko – 06

by psgels, posted in Hourou Musuko



Usually when an anime shows its characters perform a play, it’s a real highlight. This time though, it’s the aftermath that really caught my attention. The play itself was rushed through and didn’t have much impact, but the impression it left on the different characters was what really caught my attention in this episode.

The big strength of this show is how it’s able to breathe life in a relatively large cast in a relatively small amount of time, and this all came together in that aftermath: just about everyone had something different to say about it and experienced something different, from Saori’s subtle compliment to her co-star to Nitori’s sister commenting how he just wrote himself into the story.

As for the “school festival”-part of this episode, it really was the standard fare that you always see in those kinds of episodes: a huge crowd, a cafe and a haunted house. It’s more realistic than usual, but still it reminded me how the slice of life isn’t why I’m watching this show. Instead, this is all about its characters, and whenever this episode built further upon them, it was really excellent.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
On a side-note: I’m currently experimenting with a new imagehost: upl.co. Has anybody ever had any bad experiences with them? Like, them deleting images or something?

Bakuman – 20

by psgels, posted in Bakuman



One thing I noticed is that in this second half, the creators (of the anime, I mean), have felt a bit freer with the drawings in this series. I don’t mean freer from the manga, but instead freer from the fact that this is aired on NHK. The drawings are messier, the camera angles are more creative, and especially this is a good example of it. Heck, there have been plenty of series that aired on the NHK Educational characters that were completely unconventional and kicked ass (Giant Killing for example).

This episode again was great.The characters in this series, safe from perhaps Miho, are starting to feel like genuine high school students. They’re genuine and at this point they’ve become pretty well fleshed out with believable characters. This episode also formed a major benchmark: if they didn’t make this episode’s goal, Moritaka would not have made his goal. On top of that, I also laughed harder at the jokes in this episode than with any other episode of this series so far. Great sign.

Also, this episode had this strange quirk of introducing timeskip with that random woman who was handing around fliers of some sort. Neat addition. On top of that, is it me or are the voice actors in this series also getting better?
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Hourou Musuko – 05

by psgels, posted in Hourou Musuko



I do think that this series is overestimating the acting capabilities of children. I remember when we at elementary school (elementary school in the Netherlands usually lasts from the age of five till the age of eleven or twelve) got to participate in the school plays, we didn’t really know anything about proper acting and understanding your character. We mostly practiced saying all of the lines correctly and the choreography (a lot of the plays we did back then were musicals), while practicing this over and over again. Seeing people completely caught up in their role with even the right theatrical gestures, intonations and movement is perhaps a bit beyond random kids.

The creators nailed the drama, though. The scene in which that guy randomly blurted out Nitori’s secret was really well done and involved a lot of different characters who were at the scene. It also really shedded some more insight about how Nitori feels about his identity, and how Takatsuki helped him in the chapters that the series skipped over.

Saori meanwhile got the bitchy character right. Throughout the entire series she’s being strange and trying to stand out, but she does it in this subtle way that doesn’t make her annoying, yet uses the drama that she created well. And at the same time, her character is far from one-dimensional so she doesn’t end up as your typical stereotype weirdo.

As for the Romeo and Juliet play.. yeah, it had it coming that some lead characters would end up playing Romeo and Juliet. Seeing two random classmates play those roles would perhaps have been interesting in a longer series, but with eleven episodes this series really needs to take every chance it has to build further upon the main characters. At the very least we didn’t get the corny solution of Nitori and Takatsuki playing the lead roles, and the current state of events did lead to some interesting drama that again brought some more life to the characters.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Bakuman – 19

by psgels, posted in Bakuman



Ah, the episode of “let’s break up only to get back together at the end”. It’s often used, because it can get a lot of good stuff out of the characters and get them to view things from a different side. Bakuman made well use of that, and this episode was once again excellent.

I especially liked the way Hattori subtly tried to get the both of them back together again. I loved it when this guy gets fired up: he just switches back and forth between composed and energetic. Moritaka and Akito also were great in the way that they continue do talk to each other. I’ve probably said this before, but for a shounen jump adaptation, there really is a ton of dialogue in this series.

The strange thing is that from the different poses here, I can see how this once was a hot blooded series about making a manga, like with the strange over the top expressions that sometimes pop up in the middle of a sentence. Those probably would have felt much more in place with a faster pacing, but it does achieve an interesting little effect here. Most slow paced shows try to be as accurate and detailed as possible, while this show tries out all kinds of poses and artwork. Although some of the artwork remains rushed and unfinished.
Rating: ** (Excellent)