Category: Letter Bee

Finally, the main storyline is back! After 22 episodes, we’re currently at 13 chapters in the manga, it seems. With 37 chapters currently released, the second season will have no problems fitting those all in, provided of course that the manga will end in about a year or something.

I liked how this Mana arc, despite being another one of the fillers, neatly tied in and introduced the upcoming arc, by fleshing out who Gauche is, without offering any information about what the heck happened to him. That might prove to be very valuable to the future, and the creators chose this arc very well. Thunderland also got a lot of extra depth in this episode, and he’s no longer the stereotypical scientist that he first was. It’s pretty much exactly what a filler should be: either an excellent standalone-story, or a story that contributes to the overall story.

Now, as for the main storyline: this episode hinted at a lot of interesting stuff. Human experimentation has been done often in anime, but it gets an interesting dimension when it suddenly gets linked to Gauche’s mysterious disappearance. It would hint at how he got into an accident when he went to meet that person who was unable to become a spirit. What does that mean anyway, becoming a spirit?
Rating: * (Good)

Um… so yeah. Last week I said that I was going to drop this series. This was because I found out that there were only going to be 25 episodes in this series. With anime’s current trend, there was no way for a second season to be announced, considering the popularity. I mean: Guin Saga and Pandora Hearts were much more well known compared to this series, and yet they didn’t get a sequel. At that point I had completely lost any sort of confidence about studios, willing to spend more than 26 episodes to a franchise unless proven to be commercially successful.

So yeah. A second season just got announced. I’m baffled. Seriously, this is the last show that I expected that of. Forget about all of the stuff I’ve said about this series’ length; Studio Pierrot, THANKS for restoring my confidence in sequels. This show rocks! And I’m very curious about that second season, since it looks like it’s going to start at the point at which this series is really going to get interesting. But please, do keep the fillers there within a limit. Or at least good. Definitely the best news I’ve seen this month.

Anyway, about this episode, we’re back to the manga again (very easy to tell, because it deals with the past of some of the important characters, in this case Sunderland). Overall, I liked the story of the blind researcher, especially the chemistry between her and Sunderland. You can see how this guy used to be much tenser in the past, and I think that we can blame her for changing him.

Oh, and Gauche also makes an appearance. The story will be continued in the next episode. I wonder whether he’ll be more than just a straight man in this story.
Rating: * (Good)

Oh, this is bad. This is not looking good. Take a look at the DVD-page of the official website. Especially the caption: テガミバチ DVD ＜全７巻＞.

巻 (kan) means volume. 全 (zen) can mean “all”, “whole”, or “complete”. So yeah. Letter Bee is only going to consist out of seven volumes, standing for about 25 episode. Dammit Studio Pierrot. If you’re going to have the balls to drag this series on with a ton of filler, you’d better animate the entire series. At this point, there’s no hope for a second season: the series is nowhere near popular, and if Studio Pierrot wanted to drag on this series, they’d just throw in some extra fillers.

I’m getting very tired of this. If you’d ask me what I hate the most about anime, it’s not the crappy moe series, it’s not the endless teen-aged angst, and it neither is cardboard characters or badly developed characters. It’s the fact that so many series only plan to animate a part of their story with no intention to cover the rest of it if it’s not popular enough.

With a series as Guin Saga, I can forgive the creators: it was epic, and I had a lot of fun watching it. Letter Bee however… meh. The entire point of these fillers was to build up an atmosphere just for when the story gets good. It doesn’t make any sense if we’re never going to get to that point.

Be prepared to see this show dropped. I’ve lost my motivation for it now. It’s not even an issue of time: I would have gladly blogged this series if it took up 50 or more episodes. However, this… I fail to see the point of it.
Rating: (Enjoyable)

It’s very interesting: normally, this would have been a much earlier episode, but thanks to all the fillers its manga chapter arrived much later. Yeah, it’s the sickness episode: a character gets sick, faints, sleeps a bit, recovers completely and it never gets mentioned again. I’m pretty sure that this is a manga chapter, though: at the end, Sylvette and Nichi are much closer and Nichi makes a very good point that further fleshes out her character: she values freedom over everything (not surprising, after her history) and because Lag means so much to her, she’s giving him all of the freedom that she can give him.

But most of all, this was just an adorable episode. The sickness has been done to death by now, but it did allow Nichi’s character and her wit to blossom. It was a pretty nice way to show her in an episode where Lag is a complete side-character. Sylvette also kicked ass in that fight scene, and the Peanuts Field was pretty awesome as well.

But yeah, it all seems pretty pointless if this show is going to end at episode 25. Out of all the shows that are currently airing, this show is the most in need of extra length, simply because of how it chose to take its time. Thankfully it’s not certain yet that this series is going to end in a month and a half, so let’s hope that Studio Pierrot will allocate enough time for this series.
Rating: * (Good)

What kind of an episode was this? Seriously, this was by far the WORST installment of this series so far. It was ridiculously stupid, poorly produced, incredibly rushed and generally an entire waste of time. It makes no sense. It was horrible to watch. Who were the idiots responsible for this mess?

So get this: in this episode we meet a bunch of people who don’t agree with the policy of the Letter Bees, and are of the opinion that their fees are way too high for the poor people who’d like to send mail to their loved ones as well. Fair enough, competition is always good. So what do they do? THEY CHALLENGE A BUNCH OF KIDS TO A RACE. On a horsed cart. To test who is the best at delivering letters. It only gets worse from there on.

Connor for example halts his cart in front of a few roadblocks. We never actually see anything going on at that road. They could have just passed it, there was no reason to block it whatsoever. Connor stands still because he believes it to be the shortest road and his gut feeling (read: stomach) says that it’ll be removed in no time.

Along the way the bad guys decide to cheat for no possible reason whatsoever, since later in the episode it’s more than clear that they’re good guys. They end up crashing because a wheel on their cart was loose. What the heck? Later, as the finish is near they run into a bunch of Gaichuu (since this was a race to a nearly abandoned town and back, why they didn’t run into these Gaichu on the way to this town is beyond me), and the cart of the “Letter Pidgeons” is destroyed. When the Gaichu are taken care of by the Letter Bees, Lag abandons his cart in turn and just starts running as well. The entire cart just disappears during the entire rest of the episode, even though it would have been way faster.

The endless stupidity in this episode was just unbelievable, but the Letter Pidgeons themselves are just plain badly characterized. They’re just a bunch of paper bags and the dude who could only utter 3-word sentences was especially bad. The animation was cheap and the characters looked even worse and more like cardboard cut-outs with just one emotion.

But what pisses me off the most about this episode was how it completely ignored and side-stepped important themes for the setting, and at some point even contradicted the SERIES ITSELF. It’s like the writers of this episode knew absolutely nothing about the story, and just looked at the first OP for inspiration. Connor just continuously whined about food, even though it had already been established that while he likes to eat, he isn’t completely obsessed over it. Zazie is an experienced Letter Bee. While he can be cold, it’s nothing like him to just curse in front of small children (seriously; wtf!?) and yell at them to hand over the letters they want to deliver.

Also, it completely ignores one very important issue, and that’s what upset me the most about this episode. Lag is someone who we already know is obsessed over justice. This episode addressed how Letter Bees basically discriminate and don’t give poor people a chance. And Lag doesn’t even give this a second chance. He does lecture the Letter Pidgeons on how it’s important for a Letter Bee to deliver the heart of their clients. However, it makes no sense in the context: none of the mistakes that the Letter Pidgeons made would amount to such a lecture: these people simply did not know about how dangerous Gaichuu can be. Lag then completely avoids answering why he’s basically ignoring poor people. This would have been a great chance for the creators to clear up this little plothole of how the Bees make money, but the creators just continuously avoid it in order to go for cheap adventures.

I know I sound angry and I’m very much ranting here, but I really hate to see this show’s potential wasted like this. It really was going into the right direction before this thing came.
Rating: —- (Abysmal)

What an adorable episode. Lag has cried for God knows how many times by now, but this was the first time at which it actually got to me. While it’s of course not good for a series to try and bang its head against a wall until it gets through, but I really feel like Letter Bee has gotten much better and consistent compared to the first thirteen episodes. The past month, we’ve seen what? One flawed episode and three very charming ones? That’s a huge improvement.

Now, I haven’t seen the OVA or anything, but was this story really what it was about? I expected something more… central to the plot, but instead neither the plot nor the characters are of any importance to the main plot or cast, or it’s very unlikely that they do. The only link is that they were very friendly with the current Head Bee and we actually saw something of him in his childhood.

In any case, Darwin surely was one awesome geezer of a Dingo. This episode did such a terrific job in characterizing him: without making him talk or show any obvious signs of his backstory, the people around him all shed light on his affections for his late master. I especially loved how despite being more than 100 years old, he still managed to outrun Lag, and save him from plummeting to his death.

Now then, the big problem in the future of this series is obviously going to be that it won’t be good if it closes off at 25 episodes, like most other series. Not with the amount of time that was not spent on the main plot. Episode 25 is currently 8 episodes away and while the fillers are nice, there’s hardly any time left for the main storyline to unfold.

I can only foresee a disaster of an ending if the creators indeed plan to end this show in two months…
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Another filler.

But holy crap, who cares?! This episode was so good that even the main storyline of this show so far was inferior to it. It’s quite possibly my favourite Letter Bee episode so far. It’s true that it’s a bit of a pity that the main storyline isn’t getting anywhere at this pace, but damn. With episodes like these I can really forgive this show for it.

The story in this episode was beautiful, with a rich characterization and gorgeous music. It tells about a pianist called Matilda Rein… who isn’t like what you’d expect as a pianist. She’s down to earth and honest, however very talented when she’s motivated. And it’s her manager who is able to get that potential out of her. The problem however was that the two just continue to bicker when they’re near each other. Cue the manager’s best friend, who puts on a little show to get them together. The previous fillers all had the problem of being a bit shallow, and having characters who were just too simple, but this was different: all three of them were very well coloured and diverse. And the main cast made it even better with their subtle additions, without taking too much screentime for themselves. I loved it when Nichi compared that manager to Matilda’s Dingo. That’s so true. ^^;

And here’s one thing I’ve noticed: there’s a clear distinction between the main storyline and the fillers. At this point, it’s too early to tell what the main storyline has been building up to, however you can see that the fillers have taken up clear themes of truth and honesty and they’re actually exploring these themes really well at this point! They’re actually turning this series into a pretty decent episodic series and at this point the fillers are just going to turn into anime-original material, where they stop being pointless and actually contribute to the storyline!

Seriously, Studio Pierrot has learned! To be honest, I really feared the worst when I first found out that this show would delve into fillers. Remember Naruto and Bleach? Aside from the usual flaws, like how the fillers were shallow, dull and either just silly comic relief or they just told a story for the sake of telling a story and filling up time: the creators couldn’t do anything interesting because the Studio Pierrot executives wouldn’t let them screw up the story of the manga. They just never added something to the series, but these Letter Bee fillers are different. When I first started watching this series, my biggest fear indeed was these Studio Pierrot executives.

Around ten years ago, studio Pierrot made some amazing series with awesome animation (Key the Metal Idol, Kaze no Yuojinbo, GTO, Juuni Kokuki, Fancy Lala, Area 88, et cetera). But after they discovered Naruto, and later Bleach, something seems to have changed with them. I’m really glad that they intend to change the tide this season. Yumeiro Patissiere was a tad to cliched for my tastes, but you could see that it wanted to put a lot of effort into its scenario. And Letter Bee is the same: the writers could have just as easily come up with a number of bargain-bin episodes to fill up time and keep the fans waiting for the main storyline, but the fillers at this point have created something worthwhile on their own.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Oh boy, it’s been a while since I blogged a series with this many anime original fillers. Or at least, this episode had nothing to do with the main plot, was poorly animated and was very much a standalone story. The Irony is however, that the anime fillers are actually better than the manga fillers. That is to say: the stories in the manga about characters who are only going to play a role in their respective arc and completely disappear after that were much less interesting and atmospheric than what the anime came up with. Of course I’d rather see the main storyline animated, but seriously: I’m not exactly regretting watching the past number of episodes.

This episode was of course nothing spectacular, but it could have done a lot worse with the ingredients that were given to it. Right from the start it was obvious that the woman was deceiving her boyfriend; her acting was shallow enough for that. The pacing of this episode, along with Lag’s usual meddling made it interesting to watch, though. And the ending was actually pretty nice in the way that the creators cleverly stayed away from a forced happy ending, and that the two just broke up after Lag’s powers revealed Bonnie’s lies.

These fillers aren’t perfect of course. This episode was badly animated, and the creators clearly didn’t have the budget for it. I’m also not that happy with how Lag just “happened” to run into them. Still, for a filler it was pretty good. My only hope is that the creators aren’t going to let them take over the show in order to wait for the series to progress, especially since the manga is still relatively short. In most cases I really advocate long series lengths, but thanks to Studio Pierrot this is turning into an exception: I really hope that this series closes off at 25 episodes, only for a second season to be animated in a few years time.
Rating: * (Good)

You know, despite the many faults and annoyances of this series… I did miss it somewhat throughout the winter break. This series is cheesy, slow, and at times boring, but at the same time it’s probably the most genuine series of everything that’s currently airing. And that for a shounen-series.

I think that the biggest difference with this series between your average shounen-series is that most of them series drag on in order to stall for time. This series drags on in order to create an atmosphere. Again, you shouldn’t expect developments in this episode. This episode had a bit of new information, but if you’re just going to wait for it you will be bored to death.

This episode was again very strange: we have this scientist who works for the Letter Bees, and he captures Steak and everyone thinks that he’s going to cut him apart for research. The usual hi-jinks ensue, though it’s kept within borders: it was nice enough to watch, but at the same time it was about the opposite of what you’d call exciting.

But in the end, I have to admit. That scene in the flashback, in which Lag cried out for Gauche was incredibly well delivered. It felt so heartfelt, and it’s scenes like this that I’m still watching this series for.

As for the side-characters… this episode really gave them some extra charms. Seeing the cat lover inside Zazie pop up was very charming, and finally we get to see Aria play the violin. That was also a nice touch.
Rating: * (Good)
OP: Terrific art. Gentle music.
ED: Who was the artistic director of this thing? The images look absolutely stunning!

This was going to be an important episode for this series. Heck, it’s Studio Pierrot. I should have known that they were going to include fillers. This episode really was the chance of the creators to show that they can tell a story. And really, they did it.

I was actually very afraid when i first heard that both the previous and this episode are fillers. However, if all of the fillers are as enjoyable as this episode, then I don’t have anything to complain about. It’s strange how the random stories for this show don’t seem to work alongside the main storyline, but when they’re simply used to flesh out the characters and the setting, then I admit that they’re quite charming. Nothing special of course, but what the heck, I enjoyed it.

I’m really going to have to change my mindset while watching this series, though. At the start, I was really expecting a continuous story where the random stories would only end up getting in the way. Still, I guess that this episode had its charms. The series turned out quite a bit more childish than I first thought it would be, and there are times at which the details just don’t make sense, but this episode did its job in keeping me entertained. It was quirky and charming, and especially Steak in the background was hilarious to watch.

Fillers an sich aren’t bad. Himitsu The Revelation had lots of them, and yet all of them were inspired. The fillers in Tsubasa Chronicle 2 also were very enjoyable (YES I LIKED IT!!). They only get bad when they’re uninspired. Which, unfortunately, happens a lot. The thing that Letter Bee is going to have to take care about is to properly balance them inside the series, and to not overdo them.

PLEASE, don’t overdo them!
Rating: (Enjoyable)