Okay, so with episodes like this one it may have been better to have recalled the old director, because with episodes like this one you need subtlety, and the new director sure as heck doesn’t have any. The result is that we have an episode full of character-development that may have been a bit too straightforward for its own good.
So yeah, my guess would be that this episode was the new director’s way to just get the character background over with, presumably because the first director either forgot it or didn’t find it too important. We learn how Haruka decided to become a shoe designer because she saw giant footprints when she was still a child. She also dated James Loan for a while because he was the first one to believe in her story about those giants. We also learn that Miyuki had lost her father in an accident when she was younger, and that’s why her grandfather ended up taking care of her.
On top of that, Flora’s sister busts our two male companions out of prison (finally), Flora herself starts realizing that she can’t just follow Dan and the other around for the rest of her life: she’s had her fun, so what’s next? Rouge also finally woke up again from her slumber. Overall, in terms of continuity this was a very valuable episode.
But yeah, the CHEESE. This also was a big episode for the romance, but without the subtlety that this series used to have it was just an onslaught of blushing, embarrassed faces and very cheesy smiles at each other. Oh, and lots of angst in Rouge’s case. That definitely was annoying and not near as good as the romance between Dan and Rouge during the beginning of the series. This is just waaaaay to predictable.
I’m really not sure what to think of the finale, the way it’s being set up. With a finale that’s going to be a cross between Kiss Dum and Macross Frontier, it really can go either way; it’s all going to depend on whether the new director decides to focus on his manly action… or his cheesy romance. Please let it be the former!
Rating: (Enjoyable)]]>
Category: Finished Series: Sports
Cross Game – 19
I love how this show at first sight can make it seem that an episode isn’t really going to contribute to the plot, and yet time and time again it proves you wrong. Every single episode, although slow, has contributed to the plot and none of them have felt wasted. This episode too: I first thought that it was going to be a strange filler in which Kou and Aoba’s families spend the Christmas Vacation at some sort of a spa resort. I was wrong.
It turns out that they were invited to the place at which Aoba’s grandparents live. They used to play there during summer vacations when Wakaba was still alive, so this was an entire episode stuffed with nostalgia for both Kou and Aoba. And finally we get the first direct and solid clues that they’re into each other! Hah!
For both of them this becomes clear through jealousy: Aoba really gets jealous looking at an old book of photos in which Kou and Wakaba are really close to each other. Kou on the other hand gets in trouble when an old childhood friend of Wakaba shows up, and suddenly gets Aoba to smile like she never showed at all. Since we’re talking about Adachi here, it’s very likely going to take some more ages for both of them to realize this, but I really wonder how he’s going to let this play out. Especially since the new guy looks like that second pitcher of Touch whose name I can’t remember, and he turned out to be a challenge for Tatsuya to overcome for completely different reasons. What especially surprised me about him was how Aoba totally didn’t act tsundere when she met him.
Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>
Basquash! – 19
Blegh. The second half of this episode was mostly recap. A really weird place for this show to start recapping, but at least you can see that it’s building up. My main annoyance right now is that there is no way of knowing whether this build-up will come together in the end. With Shoji Kawamori, you’ll never know.
And wtf… Coco has been on the moon all this time?! That’s definitely something I didn’t see coming. I guess that that’s why she’s been out of the picture lately. I first thought that it was James Loan’s younger and wilder version that hung out with her and Dan when they were little, but it turns out to have been Slash. It turns out that Coco used to be much more spirited and talented than Dan when she still had her legs, and Slash turns out to have recognized this talent and promised to take Coco to the moon as soon as she found her groove. After losing her legs, she took a while of calming down, but instead ended up promoting the Basquash through the internet, hence why she ended up at the moon. The question is whether or not she’s going to have surgery to restore her legs. I hope not, but yeah… this is anime.
The first half of this episode consisted out of a bit of development for Sera. But I must say that the basketball matches are starting to get rather boring right now. There was character-development in it (Dan finally stopped trying to do everything himself), but the action scenes didn’t really interest me. That brings me back the start of this series again: the action-scenes of the first eight episodes simply were much better and well done. After that, it really dulled in aside from episode 11 and that part was a filler.
Rating: (Enjoyable)]]>
Cross Game – 18
This episode was about a strange little side-story, featuring… Risa, the manager, of all people. In this episode, we see her trying to audition for a part in a local movie that seems to be getting shot. She ended up auditioning, and got through to the next round. There is just one problem: the character she auditioned for is supposed to be a female pitcher.
So a lot of this episode is spent on her, trying to actually throw a pitch. It’s far from a pointless filler though, because this episode really gave a totally new dimension to her character. We’ve come to know her as that stuck-up princes whose purpose as a manager never really was clear, but in this episode we finally see her working for something she really wants to do. And surprise surprise, but she actually turns out to have a huge amount of motivation and will power. While that last part was a bit exaggerated to say the least, it was definitely good to see her finally with a goal in mind. It’s good that she finally quit being a manager, to chase her own dreams.
Oh, and her random confessions were hilarious to watch. Especially since you had no idea what was going on at the time. It’s really typical of this series’ humour.
I just have one question: how long are the creators going to continue with that cat drawing at the beginning of each episode? Is it to keep the interest of the little kids that are watching this series? Is it to fill up time? Is it some sort of homage I don’t get? I could understand how it might be a good gimmick for one episode, but we’ve had this going on for what? Four weeks already?
Rating: * (Good)]]>
Basquash! – 18
It’s interesting how the new staff got an entirely new soundtrack to work with. It, along with the new direction gave a totally new atmosphere to this series. I’m surprised to say it, but it actually works. It’s not better in every single way (the loss of the subtlety is one example), yet somehow it works. This episode was mostly meant to introduce the upcoming (and probably final) major arc, but it was a solid and enjoyable build-up nonetheless.
But yeah, the loss of subtlety does stand out. This episode really showed that in the fanservice: previously, this series had a lot of fanservice as well, but the jokes it made around it were creative. So obviously, this episode shows moon giant-kun running into Sera as she comes out of the shower. *headdesks*
Anyway, in this episode Iceman quickly takes care of the bounty hunter, getting revenge on the guy who cut off his arm and leg at the same time, by unleashing a new power: the Destroy Tornado. Interestingly enough, he then gets left behind by the others as they receive a sudden chance for another attempt to go to the moon. It seems to be the main prize of a tournament that’s held in some city, and I suspect that either the moon giant or Flora is going to replace Iceman.
In the meantime, Rouge’s manager is evolving into a real bad guy here, when he even tries to kidnap Coco (ransom, I guess), but Mr Perfect manages to avoid it. That does make me wonder about James’ sense of space. He really seems to be able to appear whenever he’s needed, doesn’t he? Is that some kind of secret power of his, or just a case of lazy scriptwriters?
And yeah, my prediction of Rouge turning into a damsel in distress was wrong. She looks more to be developing into the final boss at this rate. Something tells me that that was Shoji Kawamori’s idea…
Rating: * (Good)
Cross Game – 17
Well, so this was an episode for the romance on the show. The evil coach is gone, and most of his team transferred away again, with the exception of Azuma. The training pitch has become a lot less like a war-zone, and Kou and the others finally can practice in the open, which results the popularity of the main cast members growing quickly, as shown by the countless amount of fans for Azuma, Kou and Aoba.
This paragraph contains a MAJOR Touch SPOILER, so look away if you haven’t seen it yet. And so, it was inevitable for rumours to start wandering around, in true Adachi-fashion. This time, it’s spread by Akaishi who feels that the two of them would make a nice couple. but the big difference with Touch at that point was that Minami was already in love with Tatsuya while Kazuya was still around while Kou and Aoba only got closer after Wakaba’s death.
This episode also showed a potential girlfriend for that guy whose name I can’t remember. It’s very nice to see this series break through a flaw that a lot of romance series seem to suffer from: the “only main characters may fall in love”-syndrome, in which the side-characters almost never seem to get hooked up themselves, amidst the romantic adventures of the lead characters.
The rest of this episode was filled with the banter between Kou and Azuma, who seems to have moved into Kou’s house since losing his scholarship. The two of them work surprisingly well together in these light-hearted moments. I’m really glad to see that even after seventeen episodes, this series still hasn’t shown any sign of losing its wit. My personal favourite still remains Akaishi. I just loves how innocent he tries to look whenever things don’t go his way.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
Basquash! – 17
Yeah, with this there is no question possible about the swap of directors: the directional style of this episode was really different from anything we’ve seen in this show so far. This is Kiss Dum. I was expecting this to be the moment for this show to completely jump the shark, but what the hell, it actually works!?
But yeah, this episode had a lot more emphasis on music. The new director likes to swap hot-blooded action scenes together with quiet exposition scenes, and so the atmosphere of this episode changed a lot of times from one to the other. It’s interesting how he didn’t mess up the continuity and developed it at the same time, though. You can see that the new animation director takes a lot less risks, and so the graphics don’t look as good as in the beginning of this show, but nevertheless I’m glad that the awesome background artists are still there, because at least they made sure for a lot of eye candy.
In a way, this change of direction was exactly what Basquash needed. I’m not sure what made the old director lose his touch, but ever since the desert episodes this series seems to have been missing the chaos of the first couple of episodes, and despite the character-development, this series became rather… generic, with not a lot of things that stood out. However, I can really see a hot blooded GAR finale work for this series. The past number of episodes were at least good at building up, and if the new director at least manages to use this build-up this can turn into a pretty exciting finale. What this series needs to pay attention to the most is to keep the level of cheese in check. While the drama thus far was mostly subtle, this episode definitely upped the cheese-level. That was one of the downsides to this episode.
Nevertheless, I like the new additions to the cast (especially the moon giant has lots of potential), this episode had lots of stuff going on and plenty of new revelations. Finally I’m getting a bit more excited with this series.
Rating: * (Good)
Cross Game – 16
Do not ask me why this episode started with that strange drawing of the Tsukishima cat. I’ve seen them before in Kodomo no Omocha and Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei, and never really understood what they were about… They were kind of charming in Kodocha, but here in Cross Game, I’m not so sure.
But nevertheless, this was one awesome episode. After the first baseball match of this series, I was really fearing for this episode, but it was over within just one episode, and that really made sure for an exciting episode, even though you could see the ending coming from miles away. It’s episodes like this where everything really comes together in terms of character-development, with some awesome results.
The evil coach was indeed your typical evil coach, and yet he struck me as an ambitious character who probably once loved to play baseball, but over the years became too obsessed over going to Koushien, so that he failed to see past the plans of Kou and the others that made them seem like a bunch of weaklings (the five games they lost were all against teams that previously ranked among the top 8, and they didn’t really lose that badly anyway). The final nail in the coffin for him was the identity of the mysterious old guy with the hat, as he turned out to be the actual principal of the school.
I have to wonder why this principal decided to disguise himself in the first place, though. If he was around the area, why didn’t he just come and show himself instead of being all sneaky? He definitely had his reasons for it, so I’m curious to find out about them.
This episode also brought Kou and Aoba a bit closer together. Despite their bickering, they really work together as a team. I loved how Aoba kept scolding him at the beginning of the game, because she knew that he could do much better. The next thing that’s going to need to happen is for Kou to stop trying to look mature in front of her, and instead start treating her normally. Due to Wakaba, the two of them have grown into an awkward relationship together, in which it nearly seems that they purposefully close each other off whenever they get too close to each other.
Rating: *** (Awesome)
Basquash! – 16
Okay… so this series has just delved into WTF-territory. I think it’s best to just quote Random Curiosity’s summary to show what I mean:
“Flora explains that, in the past, descendants of giants related to the creation of the universe lived on the moon. Earthdash was created by gods, and mankind’s playing of sports with balls stems from the fights of those gods. The legend is of someone with the ability to manipulate the ball of thunderbolts saving Earthdash and the moon, and the trajectory of that ball shows the shape of the creation of the universe.”
I mean, who in his right mind can come up with such a ridiculous back-story? And that’s just the tip of the ice-berg in this episode. From the moon they ended up at what seems to be the place where Iceman grows up and lost his arm and leg, called Dead Bottom. In there, Sera and Flora (who blew her cover, by the way, with nobody being really surprised) somehow end up working at a night club while Miyuki fixes their bigfoots which were badly damaged in the crash. Miyuki then runs into another tech geek who hates her last name.
Dan meanwhile ends up arrested from out of nowhere by strange masked people, and then ends up fighting in some sort of bloody arena to the death. He ends up beating his enemy with… a basketball. When he’s forced to kill his opponent, he runs away and a bounty is suddenly on his head. He then ends up in a weird place with huge lizards and another mysterious bigfoot. Yang meanwhile pops up from out of nowhere and hires a prisoner to kill off Dan.
Does it make any sense? No. Did I like it? I guess so, yes. The setting has definitely gotten heaps more intriguing with this episode. Setting aside the really weird story of how people are playing basketball today because that’s how the Gods fought with each other, Dead Bottom looks like a really interesting setting, that’s definitely shown a different side of the world that Dan and the others live in. This episode also debuted a bunch of new background tracks, and they really fit with the dark and mysterious image that comes from this city.
In the next episode, we should see the new director taking over. It’s going to be interesting whether he can give this show the finale it deserves.
Rating: * (Good)
Cross Game – 15
Okay, so this as an episode that set up the next baseball match, but boy was it an exciting one. The nature of the upcoming match is going to be much more than the first one: the fate of both teams are at stake, one of the coaches is going to get fired afterwards, if the Farm Team loses it’s going to be disbanded, Aoba has offered to become the Farm Team’s Right Center and at the same time Azuma isn’t going to be playing. With this, it can really be anyone’s game.
It’s a shame that the character pages of Myanimelist are evil and full of spoilers (seriously, a bit of spoiler warnings would have been preferable!), I already received enough hints to know how that match is going to end when I tried to look up the names of a few of the characters a couple of weeks ago, and besides I also don’t think that it’s going to be that hard to predict how the match is going to end anyway. As long as the creator keep the length of that match a bit under control (and not like last time stretch a simple match for more than three full episodes…), it’s going to be very interesting to see how it’s going to play out.
And in any case, this was an excellent episode for the character. It really allowed us to see some different sides of theirs. I loved those little touches of the old guy, noticing that it’s the task of the manager to do a team’s laundry. That guy turn out to be the Farm manager’s grandfather, by the way. At this point, I have no idea what the point of this guy in the story is going to be, especially since there have been plenty of hints that this guy is obsessively hiding something.
KouxAoba also continued in this episode. It’s always small things that show them how much Wakaba is still affecting them. This time, it’s the remark that Kou made at a certain point, quoting how she would say that she’d rather die than give up, which has him worried. The chemistry between the two of them really revolves a lot around Kou taking light sayings like that seriously. Since Wakaba died in such a simple accident, it’s indeed no wonder that they’re like that.
I also like Miki a lot. I at first thought that he was just going to be another one of those stereotypical evil teammates that needs to be overcome, but the past few episodes have shown that he definitely has his heart in the right place. Despite his rather serious look, he’s one who wants to play baseball for the fun and teamwork.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
The introduction of the next baseball match and lots of potential character-development