Category: Phi Brain

What mind created this? And what was he on while creating this? So… this was the dreaded school festival episode. Usually it’s part of the pool of episode templates for creators who don’t know how to fill their episodes. In this case, it’s an excuse of the creators to dress up the entire male cast as women. Heck, just look at the screenshots above: Daimon Kaito had to solve a puzzle in a dress, in the middle of a burning circus tent, surrounded by very creepy melting dolls while Nonoha was turned into Snow White. A tent by the way, which was secretly constructed next to the school, making use of how everyone was too busy preparing for the school festival. How do they come up with these things? Also, don’t get me wrong here: I am currently enjoying this series a lot here. It’s completely ridiculous when you think about it, and I’m not going to stop ranting about that. But that’s the fun part about it. The thing is, that I find being generic a much worse crime than making no sense. It’s anime. It should be crazy. What’s even more important however, is the execution. And despite all my ranting… this show is doing that well. This episode was all about the student council president, and it actually worked. It’s bizarre, but the characterization in this show is simple, but effective. There are times at which I’d wish that this show would combine its characters more, like involve more characters with its puzzles at the same time, but ah well. This works as well. Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>

Phi Brain. What the fuck was that? I mean, this was by far the most nonsensical episode of the entire series. I mean, at least most of the previous episodes were at least somewhat grounded in logic. The drawbridge scene…. just that drawbridge scene. Who was the idiot who thought that that was a good idea? What crazy mind saw that drawbridge, and thought: “Yeah! Daimon Kaito can only be saved by a deer!”!? Also, why did you shrug this off as if it’s the most natural thing in the world to happen? In a way I can understand that bad guy’s reaction in the end. I mean, would you believe that your evil plans got thwarted by a FREAKING DEER, of all people? I sure as heck wouldn’t buy it. That fit of him was completely unjustified, because there is no way his henchman would have been able to anticipate such a ridiculous plot twist, but at least I can imagine why he did it…. Also, this show has settled in a very bizarre formula in which Daimon Kaito has to solve the puzzles of dead people who all used their puzzles to show some kind of message to their offspring. The bizarre part of this is that Daimon Kaito always ends up solving them, because nobody else but him is allowed to do so. This at least somewhat makes sense compared to that freaking deer, because it was their job and all, but if they wanted to leave a puzzle for their offspring, couldn’t they just have made a puzzle that’s not a puzzle of god? Ah, what the heck am I doing? Do we still need to search for logic after what happened in this episode? Rating: $&^%# (Wtf?!)]]>

This show. I still have no idea what to make of it. Why does it care so little about making sense? And why at the same time does it work so well on the emotional level? The use of kids in this episode was just… bizarre. We first had this kindergarten teacher who is actually a member of POG. She then takes a bunch of random toddlers along with her, without ever explaining what happened to their parents, and brings them inside a dangerous building that’s at the verge of collapsing. Some random bad guy then appears from out of nowhere and locks the door everyone’s in, and instead of helping to solve the puzzles in question she made herself as quickly as possible, she spends her entire time trying to bust open a locked door. Add that to the bizarre leaps in logic this show already has. And yet the characters in this episode were really charming. And I have no idea why. Granted, the teacher in question had a solid story, and the use of atmosphere was really great, but could that alone have been enough? Nonoha was well acted in this episode, and the characters here are far from tedious to watch, bizarrely enough. In a way this show reminds me of Suteki Tantei Labyrinth. I’m not sure how many people actually watched it back when it aired, but it basically involved this kid who had to solve some of the most ridiculous mysteries, and even though it was very childish and incredibly far-fetched at times, it was fun and had surprisingly enjoyable characters, unlike what you might expect when you first see it. The thing is however, that that show did have a “so bad it’s good factor”. It was great to see how crazy it could become, and it had A TON of cheese. Phi Brain doesn’t really have cheese, though. Its drama is simple but genuine, but it’s not exactly angst-filled or something. Rating: * (Good)]]>

The reason I’m a big fan of Sato Junichi is not because of his slice of life. Aria and Tamayura are very good, but he isn’t the best slice of life director out there (that honour goes to Tomomi Mochizuki). Instead, this guy’s ability to portray emotions is what really won me over. My favorite show of his, Strange Dawn, doesn’t rock because of how much sense its plot makes, but instead it became among my favorite series because of how it nailed the emotional states its characters were in. Now, Phi Brain is obviously nowhere as good as those series, and it’s definitely the weirdest show he’s ever worked on, but his influence is still noticeable. This was a very emotional episode, and even though it was about solving puzzles, it actually worked because of the chemistry between the three lead characters. There also was a strange team of animators behind this episode. One that didn’t worry about keeping with the character models, and the consistency was all over the place. But ah well: the animation of this show is very limited, so it’s at least nice to see that they’re trying out different things. Heck, in the case of the big bad they actually improved his looks, and with such a small animation budget, a bit of inconsistency is actually quite nice to get some more expressiveness out of the characters. Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>

Well, in any case it’s clear that Sunrise put most of its staff this season on Gundam and Horizon. That’s the only explanation of why the animation is already rushed at this stage. Especially considering how Persona with its staff issues looks even better. This episode was full of distorted faces. In any case, I’m still curious as to how this series is planning to make sense of all that’s going on. This episode added a special club-house for the four geniuses with free food included to the mix, along with a scooter WHO CAN CATCH UP TO A FREAKING PLANE. The above-mentioned animation also lead to a bit of awkward acting here and there. I will say this, though: this show is working on the emotional level. This episode was meant to explore Daimon’s trauma of losing his parents… and it actually worked. It used its side-characters well to keep the flow o the episode going, and present interesting puzzles that were all based on some kind of mechanical premise. The creators also actually used a cliche well in their advantage: in anime, characters are either great or terrible cooks, so I already rolled my eyes when the characters brought up Nonoha’s terrible cookies. And in the end this just turned out to be part of Damon’s trauma. In a way I feel sorry for Kaito to have everyone push expectations and tasks onto him even though he’s just a teenager at this point. In a way the red-haired guy is the perfect antidote for him, because he can take these expectations away from him. Apparently he was sent to study in england abroad on his own against his consent. Rating: * (Good)]]>

This show is full of nutcases! This show pretty much concludes the introductions, for as far as the characters shown in the Promo material goes. And it’s still weird, yet undoubtedly creative and enjoyable. After this we should probably getting some more side characters (like the ones shown in the OP), and the plot is probably going to take off. But seriously, that new character gives a new meaning to the term airhead. And in the end, her…um his biggest problem turned out to be one of the reactions she..he evoked on another member of the cast. She… he was interesting to watch. But the love triangle this ended up creating was really annoying, especially on Nonoha. The puzzle this week convinced me that the POG is the most bizarre evil organization in existence. So we have this old widow whose late husband was a famous painter. Their butler (a member of said organization) ordered this painter to lock up his most precious painting in a safe, solvable by a puzzle. Okay, I have to give it to the creators: it’s creative. The thing is though, that the story of the old couple DID work. When at the conclusion it was revealed what the painter’s most valuable paintings were, we got into this wave of nostalgia about the past of how the two met. The music also helped here really well. Rating: * (Good)]]>

The more I watch this show, the more I’m baffled by one thing: why? Seriously, within these first three episodes, the creators have yet to explain a single thing. This doesn’t include the big questions, like why the bad guys are challenging the world’s best puzzlers to puzzles, or why the main character is blackmailed to solve them. It’s also still a mystery of what the entire side cast is doing here. Why is there suddenly an inventor kid showing up? Why did he dislike puzzles, even though mathematic equations are just another version of puzzles? Why does the red hired guy follow the male lead everywhere where there’s a puzzle? Why did he bother to give him a bracelet that gave him headaches while he was thinking, even though you NEED to think when you’re inventing something or solving a math problem? Why didn’t the male lead just get a large pair of scissors to get that thing off? Why did the puzzle maker of this episode want to blow up the city he planned out like he was playing SimCity? Why is every of those puzzle makers a sore loser? Phi Brain, I will be seriously impressed if you actually manage to answer all of this. I am beginning to see the intentions of the creators, though. The key of this episode was that the red haired guy somehow joined in. Last episode I found this really random, but now that I’m thinking about it: the creators are aiming to create a cast of six characters who all together try to solve the puzzles that get thrown at the main character at the same time. That explains their outrageous and the really weird and childish banter: when this gets developed, it can lead to some really fun and interesting scenarios. This episode was rather weird, in particular the kid’s development, but at the same time, it was surprisingly fun when they started to actually solve the puzzle. What also makes this show weird is the way in which it allows its audience to solve the puzzles first: by assuming that there’s a pause button somewhere. It’s a bit weird to rely on that, but they always provide everything you need to know to solve the puzzle, only they don’t allow the viewer to solve things unless you’re a really fast thinker. I can understand why: with so many people who think at different speeds, this indeed is the more solid approach without making the fast ones wait and cutting the slow ones off. Rating: * (Good)]]>

Well, so unfortunately the only part that didn’t turn out worse than the previous episode was the female lead. She’s likable, plus she knows her role as a support character. Apart from that, this episode had some annoying parts with the introduction of a new, rather obnoxious character. Overall, this series is interesting, but flawed so far. The biggest flaw is that I have no idea how it’s going to be able to answer the why of everything: what is that bracelet that the main character found last episode and why is there an evil organization dedicated to making puzzles? Also, you’d think that this series would focus on solving puzzles. Things turned out quite a bit different, though. The creators don’t even show the solutions to some of the puzzles, especially the smaller ones. Instead, this show is all about trying to come up with the most creative puzzles. When I first read about this series I thought it would feature a number of riddles in the same vein as Professor Layton and Spiral, but surprisingly every single puzzle in this show is an actual puzzle that is based on numbers and figures. And granted, the puzzles that the creators came up with so far are very creative. Rating: (Enjoyable)]]>