Category: Finished Series: Slice of Life/Drama

Natsume Yuujin-Chou – 11

by psgels, posted in Natsume Yuujin-Chou



Short Synopsis: Nyanko and Natsume get into a fight.
Highlights: The lightest episode so far, but unfortunately also the most disappointing one.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10
Ah, I don’t know. This episode was supposed to be hilarious, but it just felt off somehow. Basically, there is no case, here, and most of the episode just follows Nyanko as he sulks after having left Natsume, and I laughed at quite a few times, but it’s the whole timing of this episode that bugs me. There are only two episodes left, and then the creators suddenly come with an episode that’s solely meant to flesh out the characters. Why couldn’t they just have done this earlier, or chosen a different story from the manga, considering the very limited amount of time this series has to work with.

There was one little girl that Nyanko met, who ran away from home, but she merely served for him to come back to Natsume. She was cute a bit, but she really needed more airtime than what she got. I’m reminded of the finale of Kekkaishi: there’s supposed to be a huge climax coming, and suddenly the creators start to introduce all sorts of background for the bad guys. I mean, it’s needed, but it shouldn’t appear this late at the series. Such a light episode, I really think that it would have been more appropriate for episode five or six. Not eleven.

Ah well, at least I got some good laughs out of this episode, but this isn’t something I expect from my favourite series this summer-season. Those final two episodes had better be really good to make up for it.

RD Sennou Chousashitsu – 23

by psgels, posted in RD Sennou Chousashitsu



Short Synopsis: The secretary general gets some more background, while the search for Kushima’s consciousness continues.
Highlights: Extra bit of depth about the secretary general was very much appreciated.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
Okay, so I’m probably the only one who’s still crazy enough to watch this series without subs. Still, this episode featured a lot of interesting things. It’s slowly getting clearer as to what the heck happened, back in episode 21: apparently, Kushima is experiencing the same thing that Haru went to go through for fifty years at the moment. His brains that were found in the previous episode didn’t carry his consciousness, and only a few programs were left on it. One of them is an emergency AI-program he wrote for himself. It’s a really neat idea, to just be able to automate some of your thoughts, in case your consciousness loses it. In this case, humans have really become like machines, and the only thing that separates androids from real humans is that they’re completely mechanical, and their memory programs are designed to be functional, when compared to the whimsical nature of human brains. That’s one thing I really like about this series. It may have screwed up with its characters a bit, but Masamune Shirou’s setting for this series is rock-solid.

In any case, this episode gave some very much needed background to the secretary general, and shows the moment when she met with Souta, and fell in love with him. From here, we can probably guess that they started working together, and at one point she forced herself onto him. She really feels much more as a balanced character after this episode, but the problem is that this should have been a point of character-development. Instead, this episode just showed different sides of her. This shouldn’t be happening THIS LATE in a series, and there’s still that matter of Jennie’s lack of development. there are only three episodes left, but PLEASE give the guy some depth!

I still haven’t figured out what exactly Jennie is planning, but it seems to have to do something with the artificial island that had been built. And whatever it is, it seems to be in the interest of most of the inhabitants of the island. There also seems to be something that’s threatening the artificial island, which I guess is the same thing that Haru encountered.

Natsume Yuujin-Chou – 10

by psgels, posted in Natsume Yuujin-Chou



Short Synopsis: Natsume gets visited (read: possessed) by a youkai who used to play a traditional Japanese instrument called the “koto”.
Highlights: Yet another great character-study, and the gender-bending was hilarious too.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
Like I mentioned before: the past summer-season has been different from nearly all other seasons so far, in the way that I was able to blog a relatively huge amount of series, in comparison to the amount of series that came out. This allowed me to experiment with a number of series that I normally wouldn’t have the time to blog about. In some cases, I was pleasantly surprised, like with Ultraviolet and Birdy the Mighty’s cases, and other series became rather pointless blogging-exercises, like Mission-E, and strangely enough also this series. Which is really ironic, since it’s one of my favourites of the past season.

The strange thing is that even though this series has great characters, I hardly have any inspiration when I try to write an entry. Right now it’s the same, which is why I’m rambling a bit right now about something totally unrelated to this excellent episode. This is much more a series that you want to enjoy in a relaxed way, not try to over-analyze things. I also now know that it was a good decision not to blog Mokke, but instead casually enjoy its greatness. Some shows are meant to be thought about, others aren’t. Natsume and Mokke are typical shows that you just enjoy, nothing more.

Ah well, with three episodes left, I might as well continue to blog this series for such a short time. If there is a second season coming, I might give things some serious thoughts whether I want to blog the same thing again. If there isn’t going to be a second season (which unfortunately is likely, since Brains Base has never produced a series of more than 16 episodes), then I really wonder how the creators are planning to end things. There probably is going to be one episode dedicated to Nyanko-sensei, explaining what he’s been doing at his few nightly trips, and I’d also like to see one more episode that focuses at Reiko, which tries to explain why she compiled the Yuujin-chou in her youth, and what became of her. I’ve got tons of unanswered questions about her, and I’d love to see at least some of them answered.

There’s also one point of criticism I have for this series: this series is supposed to be “Natsume’s Book of Friends”, and yet it’s been ages since Natsume used the damned thing. It needs to come into the foreground some more.

Porfy no Nagai Tabi – 36

by psgels, posted in Porfy no Nagai Tabi



Short Synopsis: Porfy meets a masked woman who lives together with a terrible sister.
Highlights: The series’ attempt at mystery turns out pretty nicely.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
The key to having a successful episodic series is knowing that you can play with your own concept. Because the episodes are relatively short, there are many chances for different storylines. If all you’re going to do is a dull pool or beach-episode, then yeah, it’ll get boring. The past string of episodic stories though has shown a great variety of different characters, settings and focuses. This time: mystery.

I don’t really think that this episode deserves a comprehensive summary. What basically happens: Porfy meets a masked woman, who lives near an abandoned gas station. She has a sister who has terminally ill, and Porfy often hears her fighting with said sister. As it turns out, the woman lost her parents in a fire, five years ago. She herself gained a scar on her face from it. Because of this, she became scared to show herself in public, and ended up wearing a mask. She then created an alternative personality called Sandra, to ease herself from her loneliness. This episode had lots of messages against self-loathing.

In the end, everything was between the girl’s head. The villagers didn’t hate her at all; she just scared herself into isolation. In any case, in terms of mystery, this episode did pretty well, even though this isn’t a mystery-series. It was pretty soon obvious that Marissa had a bipolar disorder, so this episode wasn’t much about its surprises, but instead Marissa turned into quite a sympathetic character in the end.

This episode also had a lot of references to Natsume Yuujin-chou. I’m not sure whether that was intentional or not, but Natsume also meets a lot of Youkai who are originally masked, and then at the end show their faces. Porfy no Nagai Tabi showed a more “realistic” side to this story. (Not that Natsume Yuujin-chou isn’t realistic enough already, but more in the way of nothing supernatural).

Porfy no Nagai Tabi – 35

by psgels, posted in Porfy no Nagai Tabi



Short Synopsis: Porfy gets caught in a rainstorm.
Highlights: Talk about different from a usual Porfy-episode.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
Whoa, instead of the usual travelling stories, this episode goes to tackle existentialism and throws a critical eye at religion. This probably was the most thought-provoking episode of this series yet, especially since it built further upon Damon’s words, back in Greece. Unfortunately, it also meant lots of talking, so I didn’t quite get most of the dialogue. Anyway, here’s what I did pick up:

It’s evening and pouring outside, while Porfy walks down a path, soaked. In the meantime, Carlos, Mina and Isabella are dry in a local pub, while Carlos is losing big, up to the point where he attempts to gamble Mina away. Isabella obviously doesn’t appreciate that attempt, so she smacks him. I mentioned before that Carlos was a walking time-bomb, but Isabella is also beginning to look like one.

Porfy meanwhile arrives at a small cottage. A local pastor (riding a motorbike with side-car) seems to be using the cottage as well, as a shelter for the rain. While Porfy leaves his clothes to dry, he tells the pastor what happened. He stopped by an inn, but they didn’t let him in (probably because the rooms were full, but that’s just my guess). The pastor introduces himself as Juliani, and Porfy tells the usual story about how he’s trying to find his sister.

The next morning, Apollo wakes up to find Porfy with a nasty cold, so he wakes up Juliani, who brings him to the local monastery to rest. Porfy has a few nightmares about Mina, A while later, Porfy wakes up in one of the beds at the monastery, and Juliani greets him. The fever subsided, and Juliani offers him a bit of hot wine, a local recipe against such a fever. The head monk of the monastery then arrives, and greets him as well.

That night, the head monk and Juliani have a small discussion. It was quite hard to understand, but it seems to come down to that Juliani was once a Greek as well, but he stayed at the monastery because of the word of Christ. The next day, Porfy joins Juliano as he preaches in front of a crowd. He talks about what faith is, and saving the poor, but again, it’s hard to fully understand what he’s talking about.

That afternoon, Porfy runs into the head monk, wondering whether he could help cleaning or something. The head monk then laughs, and wonders whether Porfy wants to confess things in front of the church. Porfy then starts to wonder again why god put him and Mina through such hardships. The rage this time is worse than when Porfy lashed out at Damon because of this, probably because he was still very confused.

In any case, Juliani answers with quite a peculiar answer: he claims that Porfy, travelling around because he believes he’ll meet Mina is the same as himself, becoming a Christan because he believes in Christ.

It’s interesting, how most anime lash out against religions, but Porfy no Nagai Tabi instead asks the question of why people still continue to believe in god, even though he puts them through hardships. Especially in Porfy’s case, he has a lot of reasons to doubt god. I myself am very far from a Christian, but it’s interesting to hear the other side of the story. Juliani had a good point: it doesn’t matter who you believe in.

And by the way, I noticed how there was hardly any background music in this episode. The effect was very interesting: most of the series, apart from the earthquake-arc and some others had mostly bright and colourful music. Now that that’s gone, the entire atmosphere of this series suddenly changed to a more down-to-earth version. Also, it’s subtle, but you can see that Porfy is beginning to grow up.

Porfy no Nagai Tabi – 34

by psgels, posted in Porfy no Nagai Tabi



Short Synopsis: Porfy arrives at a town with some strange customs.
Highlights: Porfy’s back! New background tunes! Awesome background art! Thought-provoking story! Increased pacing! No “I need to save you”-subplot!
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
Okay, I think the phrase “IT’S ABOUT BLOODY TIME” fits here like no other. It’s been more than TWO WEEKS since this episode aired. I suspect that the one guy who did the uploads for this series went on a holiday or something, and that’s when you get this. Still, I have no idea who this bloke is, but thanks for continuing to upload this wonderful series, even though its low popularity.

The summary is going to be very short this time, as I have a ton of thoughts and I still have two more episodes waiting to be blogged. Basically, Porfy arrives at a town, and stays with a poor family. There’s something strange going on in that town, though: they have a ritual where they sacrifice old things to the angels, so that they can live a happy life afterwards. This goes for dolls, but also living things as donkeys and old people. The entire episode was basically about Porfy, realizing that there are people with very different customs than himself.

And the best thing: HE NEVER DID ANYTHING TO CHANGE THEIR VIEWS! There was no sort of “here he comes to save the daaaaaay!”-themes that you could find in the travel arcs between episodes 20 and 30. This is exactly what I’ve been waiting for: Porfy who meets other peoples and cultures, and gets a bit of a taste of their customs. I really wonder what Porfy would have done if he ran into this town, right after starting his journey. I bet that he would have bugged the villagers to change their ways.

I must say: I really hope that the episodic stories continue. It’s strange: some series are better when their stories are just one episode long, while others are better with multi-episode arcs. As it turns out, Porfy’s travel arcs are at their best when they’re just quick storylines that only take up one episode. It really keeps the series on its toes, through the already incredibly slow pacing of this series.

Also, the background art in this episode seemed better than it’s ever been. Especially the flower-garden was absolutely gorgeous, but the entire town was beautiful. There also were some new tunes added to the soundtrack, and they also sounded really nice. They added to the empty mood that came from the town in this episode.

Still, I do think that the next instalment of the World Masterpiece Theatre does need to put some more effort into establishing its viewer-base. As this episode showed, there are hardly any people who are interested in this series, apart from World Masterpiece fanatics that happen to know Japanese. You indeed need to put some effort into this series in order to be really able to enjoy it, since nothing really happens throughout the first twelve episodes. I think that the next WMT, whatever it’s going to be, needs to spice its introduction up. Make people want to come back and watch it, instead of starting immediately with the building up. There’s no doubt that this is one of the most well-written series of 2008, but that’s not going to matter if nobody wants to check it out. Seirei no Moribito, for example, did things a bit more wisely: it also had a lot of slice-of-life moments, where nothing really happened, and its pacing was also very slow, but the third episode did feature an awesome fight-scene that kept its viewers watching long enough to see the other beauties of that series.

RD Sennou Chousashitsu – 22

by psgels, posted in RD Sennou Chousashitsu



Short Synopsis: Kushima didn’t only go brain-down, but his entire cyber-brains went missing. This episode shows attempts to recover it.
Highlights: Lots of metal-eye-candy.
Overall Enjoyment Value:8,5/10
This episode was much better than the previous one. Not only because I actually was able to follow what was going on, but also because the focus returned back to the characters. The thing is that RD really is a series about its characters. Most of the episodes had absolutely no plot whatsoever, so any attempts to introduce an overall plot would fall a bit short.

So, basically Kushima was attacked and his brain was removed off-screen, because he posed a threat to Jennie’s plans, whatever those may have been. Souta manages to find this out with the help of the secretary general, who she still turns out to have feelings for. It was pretty brave of Souta to show up in front of her, along with Holon.

In any case, now that this show is about to end, I do have to say that this series has disappointed a bit: it wasn’t the masterpiece you’d expect from such a stellar director. Overall, it’s still a good series, but I expected better (damn those expectations again). Now that the main storyline has started, and this series is done with most of its building up, I realize that this has been a very unbalanced series.

I don’t have a problem with the episodic cases (in fact, I love them), but you have to know how to use them. RD spent way too much of its early episodes on Minamo, which left too little time for the other characters. As the result, Minamo has turned into a downright excellent character. Holon, Souta and Haru also were fleshed out enough throughout the series, and they too are great characters.

Kushima, but especially the secretary general and Jennie needed a lot more screen-time than they actually got. I absolutely feel no connection to Jennie, even though he’s supposed to be the upcoming bad guy. The scuba brothers also are really underused characters. I think that if the creators scrapped the haunted school-building episode, the book episode and perhaps the blind girl episode, and used these episodes to flesh out Jennie and the scuba-brothers a bit more, this series would have greatly improved. The result right now is that two absolutely useless characters are fleshed out more than most of the important ones. As funny as Minamo’s classmates are, they’re really not that important to this series.

In any case, the thing that stood out in this episode was the metal itself. Because the concept of the metal is so original, the artists in this series really could do with it whatever they pleased, which resulted into some very nice eye-candy. Souta, screwing up at the end of the episode and basically erasing Holon’s entire memory also had a lot of impact. Such a tragic love-affair.

Natsume Yuujin-Chou – 09

by psgels, posted in Natsume Yuujin-Chou



Short Synopsis: Natsume meets a famous TV-star, who grew up in the same town as he did.
Highlights: Natsume learns that not everyone deals with the problem of seeing spirits in the same way.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
A quiet little episode, which mostly focuses at Natsume as he finally meets someone who can see spirits as well. The TV-star (Natori) turns out that forgetting about youkai when you grow up isn’t the only option. He’s become a lot more confident when compared to Natsume, and I guess that Natsume wasn’t the first person he met who could also see youkai.

If I understood correctly, he came back to finish a job to get rid of a youkai he met twelve years ago. There’s an interesting bond between the two. At first sight, it seems that he’s forgotten that meeting, but it turns out that he does remember her, but his attempts to get rid of her rather failed, and he was forced to forcefully exorcise her. He did care about youkai somewhat, he just didn’t show it at first. And as a result, when the youkai is freed, she keeps following Natori.

I’ve been noticing about this series: a lot of the youkai and ayakashi that appear in it and look like humans have masks. Episodes often end with this mask partially or fully shattered. In this episode too: we don’t even get to see the youkai’s face in this episode. An interesting use of symbolism, if you ask me.

RD Sennou Chousashitsu – 21

by psgels, posted in RD Sennou Chousashitsu



Short Synopsis: Souta struggles with his feeling, while the top executives plan to do… something…
Highlights: Talking, talking and more talking. Oh, and some very nice romance.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10
Ugh, at times like these I regret being the only raw blogger of this series. Something major definitely got started in this episode, but those top officials are like a bunch of walking dictionaries. Usually, I can pick up enough Japanese to understand an episode, but this was one major exception to that. The online dictionary I use wasn’t of much help either, because the words it suggested kept making no sense in their context… If someone did understand what exactly happened in this episode: care to explain?

In any case, the romance-parts of this episodes were something I did understand, and they were really well done. Even though this is a typical building-up episode, Souta finally decided to buy a gift for Holon and break up from sleeping with his boss. Nothing really happens between him and Holon, but that’s only a matter of time.

Haru can also fully walk again, albeit with the help of a walking-stick. Kushima also seemed really happy with that news. This really was a big episode for him, especially since what happened to the guy at the end of the episode. All “that was revealed was that he was “swept away”, but what exactly that means is up for the next episode.

Natsume Yuujin-Chou – 08

by psgels, posted in Natsume Yuujin-Chou



Short Synopsis: Natsume meets a person who used to be able to see Youkai.
Highlights: That feeling of separation.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 9/10
Oh my god… just when I thought that this series couldn’t get much better than it already was, it surpasses itself. This episode was downright heart-wrenchingly awesome. I remember how, when this series first started, the biggest criticism against it was that its format or returning names could get old very easily. Well, let me tell you that this series has PLENTY of inspiration for its stories. Heck, this episode wasn’t about returning names at all.

Nearly everything about this episode was perfect. For starters, it makes Natsume think about something he never could have imagined: that his ability to see youkai would disappear as he’d become an adult. After all, when we see Reiko in a flashback, she always appears as a child of the same age, hinting that she compiled the yuujin-chou when she was a high-school girl. There’s a very good possibility that she didn’t lose interest afterwards, but just became unable to see youkai. Otherwise, you’d think that she’d leave Natsume with more than just a yuujin-chou.

But the real star of this episode was the ayakashi that Natsume meets. It once was a firefly, and she made friends with that person when he still could see Youkai. His ability suddenly disappeared in one night, even though their bond couldn’t have been closer. Like all other Ayakashi in this series, the firefly just patiently kept waiting beside him, even though he couldn’t see her anymore. They always used to meet at one particular lake, and even though they can’t see each other, they still kept returning to this lake. At the time of this episode, this is about to change, though, when the guy is about to get married, and plans to not return to the lake.

The firefly isn’t able to do anything about it, and would rather return to a firefly, just so he could see her one more time (which she does at the end of this episode). It was really sad to see the two of them apart like that, with no chance to get back. The climax, where the sky was filled with fireflies, was a beautiful conclusion.

Oh and on a side-note: I loved Nyako’s suggestion to name her after a bunch of noodles. ^^;