Category: Finished Series: Slice of Life/Drama

Bakuman – 06

by psgels, posted in Bakuman



Finally we get to the first meeting of one of the editors of Shounen Jump (or Shounen Jack, as it’s called here), and it was quite interesting, as we also get to see the full concept of the pilot that Moritaka and Akito created. It’s also here where you can see that the two still have a long way to go: the sketches looked rushed, and the dialogue of the trailer itself had some good concepts, but sounded rather cheesy without the proper build-up.

I don’t read any manga myself, but I’m still interested at how the editor said that there was too much dialogue and that his story would suit a light novel better. It’s true that that pilot sounded more like a trailer than an actual story, but that can also be a particular style, right? I’m interested in how many people like Moritaka and Akito he gets each month: do a lot of people try to contact him like that, only to give up later? The way he talked with his colleague seemed to suggest that they’re not exactly a rare case.

In the meantime, we also get to see some of Akito’s background. His mother was a bit much in the way she started crying in front of her son about something cheesy like that revenge, but overall it could have been much worse, and it’s a solid background for him either way. Oh, and finally the romance a) moved somewhere and b) stayed in the background with just a few scenes dedicated to it that were concise and to the point. When it’s like that then I don’t have any problems with it.
Rating: * (Good)

Bakuman – 05

by psgels, posted in Bakuman



Next episode should promise to be interesting. This episode showed Akito and Moritaka create some sort of pilot, now they have to convince the manga publishing magazines that their work is good enough. That should really prove to be interesting. This episode established this series as a “hard work”-anime, which has definite potential. Moritaka is a perfectionist, and you can see that Akito is getting caught up in that.

I also like the story they came up with here, with the clones and all. It would be interesting if Bakuman would also end up talking not just about manga artists, but mangas themselves. Moritaka’s art… it looks a bit cliched, but at the same time it’s very detailed, and he’s definitely a talented artist.

The romance at this point feels like comedic relief, though. Normally I don’t think I would have minded so much, but I know the standards of Kenichi Kasai, and I know that it just pales in comparison to some of his other works. It’s not exactly bad, but it’s just… there. Not really interesting, and all I’m doing during those scenes is waiting for the focus to fall back on the manga creating process.
Rating: * (Good)

Bakuman – 04

by psgels, posted in Bakuman



If I had to describe my feelings of Bakuman so far in one word, it’d be “solid”. It’s not the deepest or most exciting show of the season, nor does it have the best characters yet, but at the moment it’s happy enough to just carefully set up its story and premise. This episode continued that trend, as it discussed Moritaka’s conviction.

Moritaka is actually in some way similar to Yagami Light: both start out as seemingly regular students at the top of their class, with nothing really meaningful to do. Light then gets corrupted by the arrival of the Death Note, while Bakuman takes a completely different turn by having the guy work hard to become a manga artist. This episode really showed his talents, on top of his willingness to make something successful out of it, as he’s willing to let his grades drop significantly in favor of the manga he’s writing.

This episode also established that he might just as well be the guy to actually pull it off: he’s got the right mind-set, and once he starts writing he gets totally caught up in it. I mean, it’s one thing to be experienced in how a manga gets created through his uncle, but even considering that, this guy has talent and the right personality for it. Contrast that with Akito, who probably did not realize all of this when he first proposed his idea to Moritaka.

As for the side-characters, this episode introduced a bunch of new ones. I didn’t really like the wannabe artists whose only purpose was to make Moritaka look smart. Miyoshi meanwhile has me a bit indifferent, as her introduction didn’t really show much of her, and we’ve got a fifteen year old mangaka who probably will serve as some kind of example for Moritaka and Akito, and he’s who I’m interested in the most here. Oh, and Azuki’s scenes were a lot more bearable in this episode, mostly because the creators didn’t try to use any weird coincidences here, but instead just tried to show it progressing naturally. My only gripe is that the mostly down to earth Moritaka somehow becomes a little toogullible when he starts talking with Akito about Azuki.
Rating: * (Good)

Bakuman – 03

by psgels, posted in Bakuman



Okay, so when Moritaka’s uncle was in high school, he had this girl he was semi-dating, and exchanged letters with. This girl eventually married someone else, and became the mother of Miho, who looks exactly like her at that age… Even Death Note’s romance was more plausible than that…

This episode was pretty much similar to the previous two: the parts that focused on the mangas were interesting, and it’s also good to see more depth on Moritaka’s uncle, but the romance again was pretty dull. Using these coincidences is always a bit of a matter of walking on a tight-rope: if they’re small or the rest of the series makes up for it, they can often be forgiven, but this was just too much, especially considering this series is still introducing itself. I especially don’t like the cliche that you see everywhere, in which a mother and daughter look exactly like each other. That’s called lazy character-designing!

In any case, I’m now beginning to understand why Moritaka’s uncle is such a big focus of these first three episodes, because it allows the lead character to already have a bit of experience with the manga industry, and how it works, and yet there’s going to be a lot of contrast, since the manga that Moritaka is thinking of is a lot more sophisticated than the gag manga that his uncle became famous for. Most of the times with anime like these, the characters involved start out as total rookies, so it’s definitely a refreshing change here.
Rating: * (Good)

Bakuman – 02

by psgels, posted in Bakuman



As for the series I’m not going to blog:
– The only good thing of Iron Man is its soundtrack. I mean, I can understand that Madhouse had to sacrifice the animation in favour of Redline, but that’s far from the only problem here. Who the hell wrote this rubbish?
– MM had together with To Love-Ru the worst first episode of the season for me.
– Probably the biggest dilemma this season is whether the comedies are going to be interesting to blog, because this season they’re blessed with some of the best direction out of all of the premiering series. Still, if I’m going to blog a comedy then it’s going to be Squid Girl. Panty and Stocking really does have a very shallow characterization and I’m not getting happy if Sora no Otoshimono II is based around a girl whose only defining traits are boobs and stupidity.

In any case, every year I hold a contest in which you can force me to blog one series without question. In the past, this resulted in me blogging Claymore, Gundam 00, Tytania and Kimi ni Todoke (I love how diverse the results turned out to be, by the way). This year was by far one of the most close calls, in which Bakuman just barely managed to beat Psychic Detective Yakumo with just one vote difference.

Had I not been forced to blog this series, then I probably would have ended up blogging it as well, though it wouldn’t have been one of my top choices. Most of this would probably be thanks to Kenichi Kasai, who is a very solid director, since I knew absolutely nothing about the manga, other than that it was about manga artists and written by the same guy from Death Note. Out of all of Kenichi Kasai’s series, Bakuman didn’t have the strongest opening episode (that title goes to probably Aoi Hana), but it still was quite a solid episode, and this episode continued that trend.

The creators used the death of the lead characters’ uncle well to create their drama here. I really liked how realistic they kept Moritaka’s relationship with his parents: it’s obvious that they’re still thinking about his uncle and how he died, but they quietly discussed how they felt about it. I especially liked that grandfather: you’d expect him to take Moritaka’s decision to become a manga artist as some kind of bad omen, but instead he’s actually very glad that Moritaka has found a passion for himself.

As for the romance… you really could have fooled me here. This episode again spent quite a bit of time on the romantic relationship between Moritaka and Miho. I’m not sure what to think about them at this point, really. Just get the two dating, or at least do something with it, because at this point it feels rather pointless.
Rating: * (Good)

Some Quick First Impressions: Bakuman, MM! and Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt

by psgels, posted in Bakuman, Some Quick First Impressions

Bakuman

Short Synopsis: Our lead character wants to be a manga-writer.
The season so far has really had its ups and downs. The biggest down however was the characters department: none of them tried to be anything deep, nearly all of them were just simple and one-dimensional, based on a gimmick or stereotype. Bakuman changes this, however: within its first episode it establishes its two main characters, it clearly shows what kind of past the lead character lived in and how this managed to shape who he is today, and it detailed what he likes how he looks at life. This is how first episodes should be done… aside from the romance, perhaps. That was pretty forced, cliched and unnatural.
OP: A very interesting emulation of the old kids shows.
OP: The refrain is pretty decent, but the rest of the song is a bit boring.
ED: Interesting art, upbeat, quite a good way to close off each episode.
Potential: 80%

MM!

Short Synopsis: Our lead character likes to get beaten up by cute girls.
Yesterday was quite a good start for this fall season, but I also fear that that marks the ending of all of the good fanservice shows. MM is just another in the line of uninspired Xebec shows with shallow attempts at comedy. Basically, this entire episode was mostly just cute girls, beating up the lead character, but if you ignore that, then all of the stereotypes of your generic harem are there. There is no creativity whatsoever in the set-up here and everything has been pretty much taken from other series. The only thing that really sets this series apart is its extreme focus on sadomasochism, but that is nowhere near enough to carry this series: no matter who beat up the lead character, it all looked the same, it wasn’t funny at all and the entire episode was a chore to sit through. At the end of this episode the creators also tried to insert a little drama, but that just felt incredibly forced and out of place. There is no creativity, there is nothing that stands out, I really see no potential whatsoever for this series.
OP: Is that supposed to be a song?
ED: Again, horribly sung and utterly generic.
Potential: 0%

Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt

Short Synopsis: Our lead character fights crime with her underwear.
Without a doubt the best action so far, the most interesting direction, the best art style, the best humour, the most entertaining episode, the worst taste, the most amount of fanservice, the biggest amount of toilet jokes, the most creative scenario and the most shameless first episode of the new season. And yes, considering how we already got Sora no Otoshimono, Iron Man and Super Robot Wars, who were also focused on most of these areas, that has to say something here. Panty and Stocking is a show of extremes: it’s really trying to push boundaries here, and you can really see that this was made by the same creators of Dead Leaves, rather than Gurren Lagann. Some of the jokes are completely disgusting and tasteless, but it is refreshing for once to see a show treat the matter of sex so nonchalantly seeing as how most supposed fanservice shows try to pretend it doesn’t exist. And when disregarding the fanservice, I really have to praise what the creators did with the action here, especially that chase scene was a lot of fun. There’s one HUGE problem, though: the characters. Panty and Stocking were pretty much both based on a gimmick each: Panty likes sex and Stocking likes eating. To stay funny and enjoyable they’re going to have to try harder than that!
OP: Short but sweet.
ED: It’s catchy and all… but who thought that this would be a good fit for this series?
Potential: 75%

Yojou-han Shinwa Taikei Review – 92,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Yojou-han Shinwa Taikei




The Noitamina time-slot surely rocked beyond belief this season. Alongside Sarai-ya Goyou aired the possibly even better Yojou-han Shinwa Taikei, the latest product of Masaaki Yuasa of Kaiba-fame. This time, he went for a ton-of-dialogue artsy character-study slash college life series, in which we follow the lead character as he explores a wide variety of different clubs and lifestyles during his years in college throughout many parallel dimensions. And it works out wonderfully.

At first sight, the way in which this series keeps resetting itself after every episode may seem weird at first, but it actually was a brilliant method to flesh out its different characters. Because of its very frequent resets, this stands out even more than series that did similar things in the past, like Higurashi and Umineko. Because of this, we get to see a ton of different sides of the characters that would never have been able to been shown without these resets, and the most important part is that we see Watashi develop in many different ways throughout each episode. The different side-characters all have their own parts to play in Watashi (the lead character)’s world and everything comes together wonderfully in the final episodes.

All of this is accompanied by some truly excellent dialogue. This series is based on an actual novel, rather than a manga or light novel, and it really shows. The dialogue is incredibly fast and you really need to pay attention to keep up with it, but as a narration it offers very detailed descriptions of the situations that Watashi finds himself in, which is nearly always very imaginative in the ways that it does so, with quite a number of witty remarks.

One potential pitfall could have been for the series to lose itself in either its dialogue and visuals, but neither happens. There are a ton of details stuffed into this series in order to make all episodes stand out, but in the same way the main message and characters remain deceptively simple on the outside. In comparison, while Kuchuu Buranko felt a bit like a loose cannon at times, every moment of Yojou-han is instead meant to bring colour to the life in which Watashi is living, and build up for the episodes that are still to come. Because the huge amount of building up, the first half of this series is decidedly less impressive than the second half, but the build-up is definitely worth it.

It’s a series that doesn’t try to provoke the biggest emotional response, but as a character-study it really stands out as a minor masterpiece here, in the way that it very subtly manages to flesh out and characterize its entire cast. Especially after the final episodes, it stands out as my favourite show of the series that premiered during the past spring season.

Storytelling: 10/10 – Fresh, and varied, skillfully combining repetition with new ideas to flesh itself out. Top notch narration.
Characters: 9/10 – The formula really allows the characters to come alive and show many different sides of themselves.
Production-Values: 9/10 – It’s Masaaki Yuasa. Do I need to say anything more?
Setting: 9/10 – Spoilerific to go in detail here but yeah: this one rocks too.

Suggestions:
– Mind Game (another one of those movies that I’d review entirely different if I were to watch it today)
– Amatsuki
– Revolutionary Girl Utena

Yojou-han Shinwa Taikei – 11

by psgels, posted in Yojou-han Shinwa Taikei



Well, so here it finally is: the ending I’ve been looking forward to the most this season. And indeed: this really was the best ending of the season for me. It was a wonderful wrap up of all of the build-up that this series has done.

So in this episode, Watashi continues to wander through all of the parallel worlds of his own life that he’s been trapped in, but the big difference with the previous episode was that he finally starts piecing everything together in an attempt to get out of that maze in which he can only eat castella and fish burgers that are lying around.

Most of this episode actually was a summary of what happened in the previous episodes, but by finally thinking about them and piecing everything together, Watashi finally started to notice that Mochigumo that kept hanging above him. Like expected, that was indeed the opportunity that kept dangling in front of him. That part really was the only potential pitfall of this episode: many shows have failed with such a cheesy romantic conclusion, but the way in which Watashi finally realized that he developed a crush over Akashi was well portrayed, and subtle. In fact, his entire confession was wonderfully different from what you usually see. It wasn’t dramatic at all, and instead just felt very natural. Or as natural as you can get a guy to act, wearing nothing but a scarf and talking about disappearing underpants.

Instead, the dramatic climax was… about Oz. Watashi finally came to terms with Oz as a character, and accepted him for who he was. Interestingly, Oz’s facial expression also completely changed here. It shows even more that we see all of this from the perspective of Watashi, in which he’s this evil bastard and therefore also has this continuous grin on his face. the same goes for the fortune teller: she also looks totally different now.

Overall though, it’s awesome to see that Masaaki Yuasa is constantly trying to improve himself. The big weakness of Kaiba was its rushed ending, so here instead he comes with a perfectly planned out series across eleven episodes, in which the final episode is really meant to give closure to everything. Whether Yojou-han surpassed Kaiba… nah. The rest of Kaiba was just that good. Nevertheless, Yojou-han was a really well written character-study that has a good chance of becoming the most unique series of 2010.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Sarai-ya Goyou Review – 90/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Sarai-ya Goyou




One of the things that made the past spring season awesome was the fact that it didn’t have just one, but two Noitamina series. And boy, it sure came with a couple of amazing series to start off this new feature!

Sarai-ya Goyou is a character-study, set in the Japan of a number of centuries ago, and it unites Manglobe with Tomomi Mochizuki, of Toka Gettan, Porfy no Nagai Tabi, Kimagure Orange Road and a ton of other series. He’s a true veteran in the anime business, and he did an incredible job of bringing these characters to life.

The animation in nearly every scene in this series is full of detail, with a ton of subtle movements. This really allows the creators to put as much meaning into these scenes as possible, giving them a surprising amount of depth and development in only twelve episodes. Even most of the side characters get some development throughout the series that already is short on time and despite this limited length, it never tries to rush through things in order to fit as much as possible into its airtime. There comes a price to this, of course: it’s unfortunately an incomplete series, and stops after animating about half of the manga. The main plot threads are skillfully wrapped up at that point, but it’s clear that the storyline isn’t over at that point.

Airing next to Yojou-han this season, this series faced some incredibly tough competition, but it really shined out there despite this, and is a great recommendation for those who are looking for a short character-focused series. There is one arc that isn’t as good as the others (the Matsu arc), which breaks the flow of this series a bit, but apart from that the stories that it tells about its characters are all incredibly thoughtful and engaging.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Very detailed. Tries to put as much meaning into every scene as possible, and succeeds. Never loses itself in its pacing, though the story itself has plot threads that aren’t wrapped up.
Characters: 9/10 – Deep, well developed and thoughtful.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Manglobe does it again with excellent animation that focus on bringing its characters to life instead of over the top action scenes. Haunting soundtrack.
Setting: 9/10 – Excellent portrayal of Japan at the time, with a great analysis of the types of problems that people faced around these ages.

Suggestions:
– Mushishi
– Porfy no Nagai Tabi
– Seirei no Moribito

Sarai-ya Goyou – 12

by psgels, posted in Sarai-ya Goyou



Okay, so we all know the circumstances of this series: it’s Noitamina, it only got 12 episodes, and so it only had the room to animate the first half of the Sarai-ya Goyou manga. Next week, we’re going to get treated to Shiki and a live action Moyashimon for some reason, so the creators had no choice of wrapping this up right now, with little chance at a sequel, knowing the sales.

With this in mind, I believe that the creators couldn’t have done a better job here. The final episode ranked for me among the most emotionally intensive episodes of the series so far, and I’m really happy with how it turned out. What made it such a wonderful episode was the way it put so much meaning into just one simple revelation: the fact that he was lied to that the first Yaichi was the one who contracted the kidnappers. It brought forth so many emotions in Yaichi, and that’s exactly why I originally fell in love with this series. I also realize that it’s exactly that that felt missing in the Matsu arc. That was the reason why this series fell into a bit of a dip.

Yaichi only had one point at which he really let his emotions go. After that, he was back to his old self immediately, without any sort of attempt to drag that scene on. It was really well portrayed, and typical of Tomomi Mochizuki, the director: Porfy no Nagai Tabi also had quite a few of these moments.

So, how to rate this? Well, let me put it this way: out of all of the series in Noitamina that didn’t get the full time they deserved (Jyu Oh Sei, Moyashimon, Library Wars, Genji Monogatari, Eden of the East), it’s my favourite. It’s consistently well executed, and instead of trying to cram the entire manga into one series, the creators opted to just give the scenes that they wanted to show their full attention, and just end at a given point. The animation by Manglobe was just wonderfully detailed, and Tomomi Mochizuki did a really great job in bringing it alive. Whether it’s better than Porfy no Nagai Tabi, however… I can’t say that. Its fifty-two episodes really allowed it to develop its characters in a way that Sarai-ya Goyou would only be able to beat if it was fully animated.

Either way though, I’m definitely a fan of Natsume Ono now. Her mangas turned out to be very successful as anime, and I really hope that more of it is going to become animated in the future.

This was easily the best final episode I have seen this season so far. Manglobe, you really gained my faith back after Seiken no Blacksmith.
Rating: *** (Awesome)