Category: Phi Brain

Oho, very clever to use Gammon’s sister at a point like this. Because of this, we’ve only now gotten to the point where we finally get to know a bit more about him. Before it was apparent that he already had a feminine side when he started cross-dressing, but because we’ve nearly always seen him near Kaitou, the most we managed to see of him is his arrogant jealousy.

What’s also interesting is the following: Kaitou didn’t really do anything in this episode. And yet this episode was interesting. What I mean by this, is that Kaitou is an actually good example of a male lead who has episodes of angst. The big reason for this is that the side-characters are interesting enough to take over from him, and he doesn’t force himself into the spotlights when he does need to take a bit of time for himself. Gammon in this episode was more than enough to keep it interesting.

As for Nonoha, I don’t mind her, but she’s also not really the reason to make this series worth watching. She served her purpose, though: again of allowing Kaitou to angst and instead taking it upon herself to push the story further. At this point though, she still is a bit too much like “the love interest”. In fact, a lot of the females in this show are that: Gammon has two of them, who are basically just used because they flesh him out, rather than that they’re a major force in the storyline.
Rating: * (Good)

They’re actualyl going to go much further with Gammon than I thought here. At first I thought that this episode would be the regular “let’s fight and be friends afterwards again like nothing happened”. Instead, the opposite happened and Gammon got even more pissed off at Kaitou. I like this twist a lot: he’s currently hating what Kaitou has turned into, and is tired of constantly being looked down upon. Now, I really hope that the creators don’t back down and have him return to being Kaitou’s lapdog near the end of this first season, because he would the perfect spice for the second season.

The one thing I think that the creators should have spent a bit more attention at is how Gammon feels about the fact that his puzzles can kill people. This is the thing that needs a bit more work to really flesh out. Especially after what he said to Nonoha: that Kaitou could very well end up killing her (a very good point, by the way). However, this episode revealing that he has a sister was a very nice touch here, because his dislike with Kaitou is also large enough to abandon her.

Oh, and the puzzle in this episode was actually very creative here. This also was the first time where the puzzle was more like a game between two players, rather than something that had to be solved (not counting the makers trying to cheat their asses off, of course).
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Holy cucumbers on a stick! Did this series really just pull what I think it did?

I mean: this show here surpassed itself. yet again here. I thought that after the cast got back from their trip to Europe, there’d be some sort of aftermath or something. Not like, the single most important episode of the series so far. This episode explained a lot of stuff about this series. Also, Daimon Kaitou was another test tube kid who was raised for the sole purpose of solving puzzles. Oh, and he turns out to have been adopted.

These are some amazing twists here, and they again show how similar Kaitou is to Rook here, who also was raised with the same thing in mind. The sole difference was probably that Kaitou’s foster parents did really care about him, while Rook was clearly raised by a bunch of sadists. The character development in this show just keeps getting better here.

Now I do have to wonder though: how will the second season be able to top this? The reason this season rocks is because of how well it delves into the pasts of the main characters. With the way things are going though, that will all be solved at the end of the first season. So what can they offer to expand to this?
Rating: *** (Awesome)

So… Phi Brain is getting a second season. I did not see that coming. Despite that though, I’m pretty thrilled for it: Sato Junichi is going to do another 52 episode series. That is a lot to look forward to here. Now all that’s left to hope is that the source material is also up to it.

The most boring course of events will be that Rook will turn into some sort of damsel in distress after Kaitou saves him at the end of this first season. I really hope that there will be more to it than just that. It’s not just the predictability, but what’s more important is that that just throws away a perfectly good villain here. And there is also no way in which the creators will be able to top him. It would really suck if Rook’s role was reduced, because of how much he already did for Kaitou’s character development.

In the meantime we have yet another very good episode here. At this point, I have given up on the believability of this series. Heck, the creators just went ahead and completely rewrote the city map of Venice. Seriously? And that wasn’t even the weirdest part. that came with one of the POG givers coming up with a scenario where that organization was actually able to hijack and crash dozens of planes at the same time. The worst thing… is that I nearly believed him.

As a Gammon-centric episode however, it really rocked. Gammon stands out as a character because he is the only one here who gets more and more pissed off at Kaitou. These past episodes were all about developing the side cast in different ways. Cubic got a kick on the ego (on top of losing his pet robot… sortof…), Ana’s change was more positive as she grew closer to the rest of the cast with her episode. All of it put Kaitou in a good light, though. This episode instead show how he keeps standing in the spotlights of someone with such a huge pride as Gammon. The guy is talented, yet people never take him seriously and every time he has the chance to prove otherwise, Kaitou just bursts in from out of nowhere. I like where this is going here.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Okay, who again said that this was a silly show that shouldn’t be taken seriously? I mean, whoa: this episode yet again delved into the past of Rook and Kaitou and developed the two of them even more. And in contrast to the larger parts of this series, this is some pretty heavy handed stuff. I really did not expect there to be so much psychological abuse in this series.

I mean, first there was Rook, who was used as some kind of test tube child, being confined in a freaking prison of all things. And now his grown version is trying to break Daimon Kaitou down psychologically in an attempt to make him even stronger. And heck, ever since Rook appeared, there has not been one wasted episode: every episode after that made leaps in terms of character development. The random stories of the first half did their job of building up the world, concepts and characters in this series, and right now the creators finally can start to play with them. I like this formula a lot, because even though it takes a while to get going, it’s varied, and a great way to flesh out the characters by showing them in different situations.

Also surprising is how this episode went further with Ana’s themes of Kaitou being the sun and Rook being the moon.Heck, there were a ton of moon themes in the puzzle in this episode,but what was also interesting was how they linked things to Great Henge. I mean, the concept of it being a literal puzzle like in this episode was of course a bit stupid, but Stonehenge in a way also is just like a big unintentional puzzle. It also serves as a great symbol of the sun.

The one thing I am not sure of is why the creators found it a good idea to just randomly destroy “Greathenge”… after the entire puzzle had already been solved. It made for a bit of a weird appearance by Cubic and Gammon, followed by a bit of a strange sequence in which nobody really found it sad that suddenly a millennia-old artifact got destroyed…Or did the creators need a way to get rid of that stupid robot of Cubic?
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Phi Brain returns in the new year with an episode about the side characters, since Kaitou… didn’t really do anything here. There was a lot of angst, but it was delivered actually pretty well. This episode was all about how much everyone in the series cares about Kaitou. What a bizarre sort of harem it turned into.

What also stood out is that finally it’s Cubic’s turn to solve a puzzle all by himself. It’s the same kind of puzzle that could have killed him when he messed it up, but the interesting part is here that he completely doesn’t understand Kaitou and what he’s trying to fight. He was even warned that he could just run away, and yet he didn’t. Not for the obvious reason (that the POG guys are a bunch of lying bastards), but rather because Kaitou would also never run away. He’s so lost in his numbers that he can’t discern different kinds of circumstances.

It’s likely that the other side-characters will also get an episode like this one. What I’m especially intrigued about is the character development that will result from it. I mean, this episode was really meant to change Edison’s role in the series and his role is probably going to be completely different now. It would be great if the creators can do the same for the other characters and play with this.
Rating: * (Good)

Ah, so the puzzles will indeed be getting much more elaborate, dangerous and deadly from now on. The first half of this series really was just a warm up. It’s great to see this show evolving.

Rook turned out to be quite the interesting villain, mostly thanks to the background this and the past episode gave him. In fact, this episode really worked because it was all about Kaitou finding out that his former best friend changed completely.However, I do have to wonder how he was able to pretty much act like god inside this puzzle of his. Using a hidden shortcut of course is one thing, but diving into a flaming pit of seventeen stories high… that’s not really survivable, no matter how many secret trick you happen to know.

In any case, it’s clear that the way in which this kid was raised is completely crazy. With the way that POG is set up, I can easily imagine that we was raised specifically for this twisted goal. At this point it’s pretty clear that Makata Jin is that Professor Pythagoras, which does make it very likely that he had Kaitou and Rook meet very consciously. As for the naming of this guy… well, the real life Pythagoras was also completely crazy and came up with the most crazy yet logical systems, so in that way it makes sense for this show to use his ideas at its core.
Rating: * (Good)

You know, with episodes like this, can I really stay mad at this series for not making any sense? This episode formally introduced this series’ main villain. And suddenly this series wastes no time to inform us of who exactly he is, and what he means to Daimon Kaitou. The characterization acting was really good all the way with this guy.

Also, I’m starting to see what this series is doing with its puzzles here. I mean, due to the nature of Shinto, anime has had a tendency to give a lot of different things a soul: robots, computer programs, shrines, cards. But puzzles? That’s a first. I really understood that this show actually considers its puzzles as sort-of characters, rather than just a means to get to an end.

Also, the music. It stayed in the background for most of the series, but it feels like this episode introduced a ton of new tunes here. And what’s more: they all fitted within the atmosphere, and contributed to it. This was meant to be a bit of a nostalgic episode, and the music definitely portrayed that same feeling. The feeling of finally seeing a really good friend again after many years.

I originally looked forward to this show because of Sato Junichi. After that, when I learned how little sense this show made my interest waned a bit. But really: you can see Sato Junichi’s influence through this adaptation: the characters are just rock-solid. Now that they’re starting to develop, they’re getting more interesting with every episode. So yeah, it’s for kids. That doesn’t need to be a bad thing at all, as long as the creators don’t treat their viewers as mind-numbed idiots (which unfortunately is often the case). Thankfully this turned out to be the other side of the coin.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

So, let me get this straight: this episode involved our cast being turned into giant monsters, invade a city, and move around buildings in order to solve a puzzle. Who the hell comes up with this stuff?!

But yeah, that’s what I like about this show: the complete ridiculousness of its premise. This episode’s puzzle really took the cake in terms of ludicrousness of the puzzle’s theme. They were never THIS crazy, but that only shows that this series is getting better. When they already get this surreal, I’m looking forward to see them actually push that even further in the second half of this series.

Again though: this was really enjoyable, and I’m warming up to the characters more and more. The chemistry between them is also just getting better and better.

Also, the side-villain. This guy’s reaction is just extreme when it comes to failure. Also, why is his screen bouncy? What kind of bizarre technology are they using. This episode seems to be the end of him, though I do hope that he’ll at least get some closure.

Also, did they seriously give a professor of theirs the nickname Pythagoras? They do know that the real Pythagoras was a crazy old man who founded his own bizarre religion? Well.. the creators did indeed get that second part right. So what about the first part…?
Rating: ** (Excellent)

This episode was very bizarre for its romantic subtext. Episodes about idols are nothing new in anime, and most of them are pretty terrible. And here comes Phi Brain who comes with an idol who hosts and creates puzzles of doom.

Most of the times these idols are used to make the protagonist feel special. The latest persona episode was a good example of how dull that can be. Here though… Daimon Kaito is instead a rabid fanboy of her puzzles. Instead, Gammon is being set up as her equal in terms of solving puzzles, with a ton of romantic hints between the lines. It’s like, the roles were reversed in this episode if it wasn’t for the fact that Kaito still had to solve the puzzle. He acted pretty much like a side-character in this episode.

And then there was the ending of this episode. What idiot forgets about winning ten million yen? And I accidentally watched next week’s preview. Next week will be crazy….
Rating: ** (Excellent)