Category: Finished Series: Mystery/Suspense

Gunslinger Girl Anime Review – 57/100 – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Anime Reviews, Finished Series: Mystery/Suspense, Gunslinger Girl, Reviews by Lenlo, Throwback Thursday

I really wanted to like Gunslinger Girl. Made by MADHOUSE, Directed by Morio Asaka of Chihayafuru and Card Captor Sakura: Clear Card fame, Gunslinger Girl has a simple but compelling premise: child soldiers. Little girls trained and conditioned to become assassins for the Italian government, forced to do their nations dirty work. Whether that be protection, espionage or outright murder, Gunslinger Girl takes something reprehensible and shoves it right into your face so you can’t ignore. And then it dives into how the girls themselves feel about their position, whether or not its so different from things we do right here in the real world. So with such a premise, and such a strong production team, what’s not to like? Well strap in my friend, because I have a few thousand words prepared just for you. And be warned, this review will contain minor spoilers for Gunslinger Girl.

(Disclaimer: I am working to make 50 the new “average”. 70 is not an average score people. 70 is above average. Carry on.) Continue reading “Gunslinger Girl Anime Review – 57/100 – Throwback Thursday” →

Great Pretender – 13-14 [Snow of London]

by SuperWooper, posted in Finished Series: Mystery/Suspense, Great Pretender

We survived the wait, everybody. Great Pretender episodes 15-23 are live on Japanese Netflix, and the raws are already floating around online. Now we just have to wait for the fansubs to start rolling in like last time, and… What’s that? The guy who made all the previous episodes available hid his torrents and went underground?

Well, damn. This might be the last Great Pretender post on the blog for the foreseeable future. I’d say “better make it a good one,” but that sort of hinges on whether these two installments closed out the Snow of London arc in respectable fashion. Not to spoil the final verdict or anything, but “serviceable” is the word that comes to mind, rather than “respectable.” Hit the jump for my thoughts on why that is.

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Fugou Keiji – 10 [Life shouldn’t be printed on dollar bills]

by Lenlo, posted in Fugou Keiji: Balance: UNLIMITED

Welcome all to the penultimate episode of Fugou Keiji! Apologies for the wait, I had to catch a plane and those don’t really wait for anime blogged. On the up side though we have a lot to talk about this week as Daisuke and Kato catch the bad guys and the story starts to wrap up. Lets dive in!

Starting off I want to get some production concerns out of the way. Because for all that Fugou Keiji tried really hard this week, the production made it… awkward at times. With the entire episode taking place at night, on this secret ship, the lighting really should have been better. From Daisuke’s black hair and suit to the dark rooms and exterior, the lighting made it difficult to see what was happening. I understand that lighting a night scene is difficult, especially in anime of all things. How do you make things easily readable without sacrificing the dark and oppressive nature of well… darkness? However this is a solved issue for the most part, with the hardest part being the execution: Use moonlight! Frame the moon behind people, throw a slightly bloom filter, something! Just let me see Shigemaru’s arm clearly against a black background, please!

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Gunslinger Girl – 13 [Stella Cadente (Shooting Star)] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Gunslinger Girl, Throwback Thursday

Here we are everyone, the finale, the end of Gunslinger Girl Season 1. This post isn’t going to be terribly long, I am saving most of my thoughts for the final review to come out soon. Thanks for stickin me through the series and remember to vote on the next Throwback Thursday poll at the end of the post! Without further ado, lets dive in.

Right off the bat I want to be clear: This was a good episode. But it felt more like a good middle episode, rather than a finale. Gunslinger Girl tries its hardest to make this a more definitive ending of course. It references all the girls, their short lifespans, etc. It focuses in on how they feel about their situation. How they could have been real girls, how they don’t regret it but the handlers might, etc. All of this is good stuff. However… none of it is particularly new. Gunslinger Girls fails to wrap it all up in any meaningful way, it fails to really end any greater story. There is Angelica of course, and we will get to her. But as a whole it feels like we just finished the prologue. And in a way, we did, since there is a 2nd season after this. But not meaningfully.

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Re:Zero Starting Life in Another World 2 – 11 [The Taste of Death]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World

In my coverage of this series I can acknowledge that I have likely spent too many of my posts covering the actual events of the episodes as opposed to my opinions on them. When considering that this is my favorite series of the season and surely my favorite of the year, it would be easy to drum up opinions on episodes that I clearly enjoy. However I have found myself restricted by my own declaration to not spoil details from the source as the current events in Re:Zero are dependent on mystery and speculation to which I cannot speculate due to my own knowledge of future events. Still it is also an issue that the quality of the series speaks for itself as when airing the first season had a more polarising view to the anime community but in light of a four year wait and the outstanding calibre of the second season, many are rethinking it to be a potential anime masterpiece. So what am I to say when you could just watch the series and see it’s splendor for yourself? Perhaps it will still not be everyone’s cup of tea but as many a corporate capitalist media maker fails to realise, a story tailored to everyone is a story that appeals to no one. Taking that into account, I am just going to assume you have seen the episodes plot and meander into my adulation and diatribes.
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Fugou Keiji – 9 [A golden key can open any door]

by Lenlo, posted in Fugou Keiji: Balance: UNLIMITED

Another week, another episode of Fugou Keiji! This week we confront Shigemaru, Daisuke pulls a Christopher Nolan and Modern Crimes finally get their time to shine. So without further ado, lets dive in!

Once again I have to say that Fugou Keiji could have done so much more. Whether it be playing up the serious drama with HEUSC or taking away Daisuke’s money. Show us how he has grown since the series started, show us what he can do without his technology. Have him grow to be self-sufficient like Kato, etc. Yes this takes away from the “Batman” or rich boy power fantasy Fugou Keiji started as. But the series itself has already moved away from that when it became more of a serious crime drama. However I am not here to be a debby-downer, because regardless of what more it could have done, I really enjoyed Fugou Keiji this week. From the consistent Batman references to the Modern Crimes shenanigans, everything was just a lot of fun, and I won’t complain about what we got.

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Gunslinger Girl – 12 [Simbiosi (Symbiosis)] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Gunslinger Girl, Throwback Thursday

You know, its still technically Thursday for me when I send up this Gunslinger Girl post, so i’m not really late. My own poor scheduling aside, considering how much more consistent it is than the other writers snap, lets dive into some cyborg children! Damn that sounds weird to say.

Getting into the episode, right off the bat I am going to say I wasn’t a big fan. Once again Gunslinger Girl is cutting back to the terrorist/politics plot, following up on Filippo’s information from prior episodes. They made a plan, used Claes as bait, things went wrong, etc. Everything you would expect from an episode about espionage. But my issue is that Gunslinger Girl is neither enough of an action show nor enough of a drama to make this work. Action wise, Gunslinger Girl occasionally has some good scenes, decent fights. But we didn’t get anything spectacular enough to really hold our attention this week. Meanwhile on the drama side, which can often carry lackluster action like in Re:Zero, there is very little emotional investment or catharsis. What do I mean by that? Well follow me after the break and i’ll talk about it.

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Re:Zero Starting Life in Another World 2 – 10 [I know hell]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World

As it stands I would say there are only two characters in anime(Or even all of fiction) who can say “I know hell” and make me truly believe it. The first being Sakura Matou who experienced a childhood so horrific that it could drive an ordinary person to madness just to experience three days of what she endured. The second being Natsuki Subaru who has experienced death a total of sixteen times and gone through experiences that, despite what they may claim, would break any watchers mind down to splinters. Though to know hell is but one thing and while Subaru has experienced it, I doubt he has gone through the worst it has to offer. With another episode Re:Zero continues a string of great episodes that could very well go to the end of the cour and the viewers will be experiencing the hell of cold turkey.
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Fugou Keiji – 8 [Money burns a hole in the pocket]

by Lenlo, posted in Fugou Keiji: Balance: UNLIMITED

Hello all and welcome to a rather late chat about Fugou Keiji! I blame Crusader Kings 3 personally, I was a bit busy conquering all of Europe. That aside, this week we get answers to a few mysteries only to have a few more introduced. Cho goes the way of all retired cops and Daisuke gets an unexpected reunion. So without further ado, lets dive in!

Overall, this was a pretty lackluster episode of Fugou Keiji for me. Everything about it felt rushed, felt like it needed more time. More time to expand on the mystery, more time to build up the characters or explore various parts of the setting. Iin this one episode Fugou Keiji introduced and resolved multiple different plots/mysteries, burning through its plot. Take for example the Third Laboratory which Cho introduces this week. We learn where Shigemaru was working, where he met his wife, where the gas from the Presidents assassination attempt was manufactured. However instead of getting an arc about discovering where it is, how to break in, why it was removed from the records etc, its all shoved into this one episode. Kato figures it out from a photo, we immediately drive over and bust in, only to discover something we already knew. It’s wasted potential.

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Gunslinger Girl – 11 [Febbre Alta (High Fever)] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Gunslinger Girl, Throwback Thursday

Another week another late post of Gunslinger Girl! I can only blame the pandemic so many times before it stops working as an excuse, but here we are. So without further ado lets dive into the episode and see what Henrietta and Jose are doing on vacation!

Overall, this episode was basically just a follow up to the last, unraveling what all happened. For the slower members of the audience it outright stated what happened with Elsa, while for the rest of us it followed up on Fermi’s side of things. Following Henrietta and Jose to Sicily, chatting with each other and discussing the philosophies of the Agency etc. There really wasn’t much new here. Rather, Gunslinger Girl seemingly took the opportunity to reframe things, to make us look at it from another angle. As up until now we have primarily seen the story from the perspective of the Cyborgs, from Henrietta and co. This episode seems to want to zoom out and explore it a bit from the Fratello’s side though. Letting Jose discuss it with Fermi while showing us just how close Henrietta is to ending up like Elsa herself.

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