Category: Finished Series: Slice of Life/Drama

Short Synopsis: The mood may have turned a bit lighter than the previous episode, the Thenardiers still continue to be complete bastards and Javert puts even more pressure on Jean. Good: Many interesting events during the episode. I really want to strangle Thenardier now. Bad: Isn’t the plot moving a bit too fast for the 52 episodes? Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 Javert is about to condemn Fantine to 4 months of prison-service, until Jean arrives. It indeed seems that he wants as little people as possible end up the way he did, as he’s willing to help Fantine, even though he knows nothing about her. If it wasn’t for those damned Thenardiers Cosette would now already be with her mother! I do admit that Azele was cute this episode, but how longer do they have to keep tormenting Cosette and Fantine? Though Javert was probably the most interesting character this episode. And the hardest to understand. He finally shows a different side of his when Fantine slaps Jean, and he finally is something else than his usual, serious self. Later the episode, we see him realizing that the facial expression on Jean’s face was the same as Madeleine, when they were trying to lift heavy objects. At the end of the episode, we see him confront Jean with this. I don’t know how far he went, though. It may have been an ultimatum, or he may have hinted that he knows, but the fact remains that Javert looked more concerned than stern and Jean felt he was in deep trouble afterwards. This isn’t the series for which you can say that the next episode is going to be interesting, as it has a slower pacing than most other series. And even though Jean got in trouble at the end of the episode, you never know when his climax hits. That’s something the previous episodes showed. Same with Fantine. She may die in the next episode, but her death could also be five more episodes away. I’m still a bit worried about the pacing, though. I really hope that the creators have this series well planned-out, as this story is way too good to ruin.]]>

Short Synopsis: A Fantine-episode. Things are getting really bad with her. Good: Whoa, it may not have been prostitution, that definitely was disturbing! O_o Bad: … Overall Enjoyment Value: 8.5/10 That was so disturbing. Really. Like expected, the series doesn’t make Fantine go into prostitution, but the things they do to her this episode may be just as bad. Holy god, she really looked freaky near the end of the episode. And that all because that damn idiot keeps sucking money out of her! I knew that Fantine would go downhill, but this fast and this bad, I never imagined. She starts the episode going by random shops and houses, searching for work. This doesn’t work, and she doesn’t find a new job anywhere. Jean, meanwhile hears about her for the first time, when her former employer comes for a routine-report about her business. She then tells him that someone got fired, but Jean didn’t think too much behind it at that time. Thenardier, meanwhile, continues sucking money out of Fantine by claiming that Cosette may have become better, she’s cold and needs warm clothing for 10 franc. Fantine has no means of earning such a large amount of money so fast, and when she starts to get desperate, she actually is willing to sell her own hair. O_o Thenardier, meanwhile, isn’t happy when he found out that Fantine already took the initiative to by a skirt for Cosette, instead of sending the money. Still, the speed with which Fantine replied makes him think that she’s actually loaded with money, while the opposite actually is true. Because of this, he makes an even worse demand. This is where Fantine really gets down-hill. In the end, she found a number of dirty jobs, which earn her a measly amount of money. Luckily, everyone’s friendly to her, but it’s apparent that she’s suffering. To make things worse, just when she collected enough money, it gets stolen from her. That seriously was a heavy psychological shock to her, especially since the police refuses to search for the culprit. After this, she starts blaming random people for it. To make matters worse, she also starts getting sick because of a cold. So sad. But things get even worse. This is when she meets Aran, who immediately notices her bad shape. He later tells this to Jean, who suspects it’s the lady who got fired. Then evening falls and it actually starts snowing. As if it’s not bad enough for Fantine, who is outside with a cold and no warm clothing. But then things get really disturbing when we actually see Fantine in that shape. She actually had no other choice but begging to random by-passers. Even at a couple of drunk guys. These bastards actually start throwing snow at Rantine. That really was the last straw for her, and she actually started to attack them with a stray broom, ending up getting arrested by Javert. That seriously was disturbing, but it made the episode itself even more awesome.]]>

Short Synopsis: An Eponine-episode. Someone from Paris visits the inn. His stories greatly appeal to her. Fantine meanwhile gets evicted. No Jean this time. Good: Eponine = awesome. Bad: Too bad Azelma hasn’t been in the spotlights yet. Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 I’m liking Eponine more and more with each episode, and this episode featured a lot of her. Toron didn’t play a role in this episode, but instead a traveller from Paris comes to visit the Inn. In there, he tells about how things are in that city. Eponine then seems to have a lot of interest in Paris, and she enthusiastically keeps asking him questions. She’s really energetic. At least, until Cosette comes in and it seems that she spent part of her childhood in Paris. Naturally, she gets incredibly jealous because of this. I also love how Thenardier is more than just “the evil stepmother”, whose only purpose in life is to be bullying Cosette. This episode clearly showed that she does have her own problems. It seems that her husband keeps unnecessarily spending the money they earned, and at the same time, Cosette also keeps annoying her, driving potential customers away. All this seemed to have caused her quite a headache. Because of this, when Eponine comes whining to her about how Cosette actually gets treated nicely, she doesn’t behave like Eponine expected her to, eventually, she just ignores her. Because of this, Eponine reaches the limit, and she actually tries to go to Paris herself. Obviously, she has no idea what travelling is like, and when it starts to become dark, she indeed really starts to regret her decision. It’ll be interesting to see how she’ll act in the future episodes. Cosette was the one who saved her in the end, and she looked really grateful to her for once. But will this gratefulness only increase her grudge against her? I’m also wondering what will happen to Fantine, now that she’s been evicted yet again. Like Cos said before, it’s a children’s show, so most of the darker themes are cut out. It would be great to see Fantine indeed end up as prostitute, but will the creators really go this far with a children’s movie?]]>

Short Synopsis: It’s Cosette’s birthday. The majority of the episode focuses on a present Fantine made for her. Good: I love this show, and this episode only strengthened this opinion; omg @ Eponine. Bad: Episode six, and still no real bad points, whoa. I am SO hoping that 52 episodes is going to be the right format for this story. Overall Enjoyment Value: 8.5/10 You could call this episode a Fantine-episode, as she played a role in most parts. During the first half, we see her get her secret exposed, which makes her lose her job. On top of that, she finds out that Cosette has become sick. At least, that’s one of Thenardier’s plans to suck even more money out of her. Thankfully, she manages to find another job at the shop of an old lady. This one actually doesn’t mind that she has a daughter. Later, we see her work on a birthday present for Cosette: an odour of some blue flowers Cosette used to really like (I forgot their names, sorry). She finishes and sends it to Cosette. The second half of the episode focuses at this present, as you didn’t expect Thenardier to just give it to Cosette, did you? Instead, she finds it a nice present for Eponine. She should NOT have done that, even though the results of this turned out amazing. Eponine just couldn’t resist showing this present to Toron, who peeks inside and finds a note of “happy birthday, Cosette”, which obviously reveals that this isn’t Eponine’s, and it does suggest that she stole it from Cosette, while she didn’t know anything when she received it. With this, her hate for Cosette is only going to turn worse. That really was so sad. Jean, meanwhile, gets a bit of development, and we see a bit more of his history. It seems that when he arrived in the town, he immediately gave himself a good reputation by saving two children from a burning house. I’m assuming that after this, he continued to do these kinds of things, until people started to find him suitable for the position of Major. Aran, meanwhile, has been noticing that he’s been feeling unwell at times, and tries to do something about this. I wonder how this’ll turn out. It’s interesting. The spring-season has only just begun, and I’ve already fallen in love with two of its anime. That’s entirely different from the Fall-season, which featured a bunch of good series with a few flaws. Master of Epic and especially Les Miserables have caught my interest immediately. Especially Les Miserables has been consistently good so far, and it has chosen the perfect bland of drama and build-up.]]>

Short Synopsis: Lots of things grow this episode: Eponine’s hatred towards Cosette, Zephine’s suspicions of Cosette’s mother and Javell’s suspicions of Jean. Good: This anime really remains consistently good so far. Even though this episode mostly built up, I loved it. Bad: It’s been one month and still no subs?! What the hell? Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 I’m actually suspecting that Javell has known Jean’s identity all along. He just needs to get enough evidence for him, as you don’t suddenly arrest the major of a town without any proof for it. It seems that he was the main guard for Valjean, probably also one of the main reasons that got him locked up. Right now, he keeps dropping hints towards Jean, hoping for him to turn himself in, while he collects information about the guy. Jean, meanwhile, shows this episode how his character changed incredibly from his younger version. He’s become really dedicated not to let others follow the same path he did. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when the entire factory knows that Fantine (that was her name, right?) has a daughter somewhere. I reckon that she won’t be able to work in the factory anymore, but will that be everything? There’s probably something else about to happen. Oh, and Eponine was wonderful this time. With this, she really became a person, instead of a 1-dimensional stereotype. Toron(?) may not have been very interesting in the previous episode, he makes sure of some interesting events when he starts ignoring Eponine for Cosette. It’s strange, normally I don’t like love triangles due to them being overused as hell and their predictability, though I’m actually beginning to like this. This definitely is another one of those anime who doesn’t deserve to get this neglected. I’m hoping for the subs to arrive soon, so that more people can get to see this little gem.]]>

Short Synopsis: Cosette finally finds out that her mother has been sending her letters. The only problem: she can’t read. Good: For now, it seems that this anime realizes its huge length, and makes excellent use of this by developing Cosette into a great character. This episode was no exception. Bad: Let’s hope that the newly introduced boy doesn’t turn into a bad love interest. Overall Enjoyment Value: 7.5/10 It seems that this episode skipped another year, since Shushu seems to have grown up into a large dog. In the end, Cosette got to keep him. ^^ I’m really liking how much the creators are developing her in this anime. This episode, she makes her first steps into learning to read and write from the local priest. I can’t wait till she finds out exactly what her mother wrote to her, since the moment when she was able to read her own name into her mother’s letter alone already was awesome. Meanwhile, in the city nothing much happened. It feels like the entire episode has been building up for Jean, Javert, Fantine and the old man who appeared during this episode for the first time. We see the latter get into an accident at the end of the episode, with Aran in the neighbourhood. I’m suspecting that his role is to give Aran a bit of development. Javert, meanwhile, shows how devoted he is to upholding the law. I’m also wondering what’ll happen to Fantine, and when exactly it will happen. Still, despite this episode being as good as usual, I’m worrying about the newly introduced young boy (Toron?). I’m really hoping for him to be more than just a love-triangle-inducing character for Cosette. This often forms a pitfall for most anime, I hope it won’t be the same for this anime as well. Also, you have to love the attempts of the poor voice-actors trying to talk French, or Furenchi, in this case. ^^;]]>

Short Synopsis: Cosette and Gavroche find a small puppy and decide to take it home, where it causes quite a bit of trouble. Jean meanwhile gets visited by someone from his past. Good: Already extremely touching, this early in the series. Bad: No bad points so far. Let’s hope it stays this way. Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 So far, the winter-season has been excellent. My two favourite series of the season so far have to be Les Miserables and Master of Epic. While the latter is more than enough for my weekly comedy-fix, the former so far has delivered an extremely toughing tale about Cosette. I SO like her character right now. Even though she’s being bullied by almost everyone, she still shows that she can be strong. I love strong characters like her. ^_^ Still, I’m surprised at the lack of interest about this series. I expected lots of people to talk about this one, but only one other blogger has picked it up. Apart from that, two others talked about the first episode, and that’s it! The fansubbers also are surprisingly slow, despite the Japanese being not very hard (seeing as we mostly hear children talk). I’m really hoping that this show is going to get a bit more attention when the subs start to arrive, as it doesn’t deserve this much negligence. This show has also proved to draw me in its atmosphere faster than almost every other show. I’m not sure what it is, but each episode has such an incredible atmosphere from start to finish. This episode was definitely no exception, it probably was the best episode yet. Especially the ending was amazing, when Cosette got beaten by Thénadier for messing up her sheets, right in front of her children. Also, who’s that guy who’s after Jean Valjean? It would seem that he’s someone from the police, who’s chasing him even now. Still, is there really this much need to hunt down a simple bread thief? I can understand why he wants to hide his identity, as you wouldn’t get far with everyone knowing that you’re a former thief, but I don’t see why people would still be looking for him.]]>

This will be the first show I’ll be blogging from the Winter-season. I’m still pending about the others. Master of Epic will also probably get blogged, perhaps even Venus Versus Virus, and Deltora Quest and Himawari!! depend on whether I can find enough inspiration to write about their second episodes, which were excellent by the way. First, before I start, I might want to put up a small disclaimer. I’ve never seen, read or heard anything about the original work. This is the first time I’ll be experiencing the story. Therefore, you won’t hear things like “the book was better at X”, “the anime omitted Y” or “the anime omitted Z”. Feel free to comment about this, though. Well then, about the episode. I was surprised about how Cosette evolved, only from the first episode, same with Ebonie and Azele (I think their names are spelled that way, not sure though). At the end of the previous episode, Cosette really looked like a helpless girl, now that her mother had left her and she was put in the care of that evil woman. But this episode, she really showed that she can be strong if she wants to. I like how she doesn’t care about the things that are done to her. It’s probably because she’s clinging to the hope that her mother will come back to her some day. Ebonie and Azele also were quite interesting. Where they wanted to play with Cosette in the first episode, this episode makes them resemble to the two evil stepsisters from Cinderella. Jean Valjean continues to play with Aran in this episode, by playing in on his conscience. He asks him to deliver a bit of cash to the local hospital. I’m not sure what his motives are. He might have done it in order to prevent him from going into the wrong direction, it may have been because he needed a loyal assistant, or it may have been because he could relate to him. I think it’s for a personal reason, though, as he goes all out of the way to hint about his own past to Aran. It seems that Jean committed a sin at a time (stealing bread, if I recall correctly), after which he fled, and kept running for nineteen(?) years. In the end, he got caught, but the one he stole from forgave him, and gave him two silver chandeliers (that part was a bit vague on me). We aren’t told what happened after that, but I can guess that these chandeliers helped Jean get the position of major he’s currently at. I also liked how the twosome of Ebonie and Azele also get what they deserve at times. The two of them get some cakes, and pretend that Cosette stole them from them, in order to get even more cakes the next day. If it weren’t for Gavroche (okay, I know I spelled that one wrong), who overheard the two of them, and took the cakes back. ^^ Still, this also means that they are going to take revenge, and they’re going to do something even worse. Should be interesting. I’m also not sure what to find of Gavroche yet. It may be his lack of development, but of all the main characters, I like him the least. I’d love to see how he and Cosette got acquainted in the first place. Apart from him, I really like this series so far. I’m really hoping that the huge length of this anime won’t ruin it, seeing as there’s lots of potential in this one, which doesn’t deserve to be ruined.]]>