Category: Kaleidoscope

#1: Natsuiro Kiseki – 08: I love travelling series, and this episode captured that perfectly. Trips are fun and all, but getting there is very often underestimated. As much as I like the direction Kimi to Boku turned into, in the end I do like Natsuiro Kiseki better, because it accomplished the same thing, while needing half of that airtime. – **+ (Excellent+)

#2: Kimi to Boku – 20: This time it’s the turn for Shu’s brother. As annoying as he was in the other episode he was featured in, as charming he was here. Seriously, that was some good romance there, especially for a guy with as little airtime as him. – **+ (Excellent+)

#3: The Legend of Korra – 07: By far the lest interesting part of the Legend of Korra is its romance, but that really got a push into the right direction with this episode when everyone finally seems to drop all of the tension. Aside from that, once again the action was great and I indeed saw confirmed that I’ve been suspecting all along now. – ** (Excellent)

#4: Nazo no Kanojo X – 07: The male lead’s big flaw is that he is very unremarkable. There is one point at which he sets himself apart from his counterparts though: the way he reacts to his girlfriend. Add that to a played down performance that isn’t trying too hard, and you’ve got a male romance lead that I really don’t mind watching. Nevertheless though, the female characters in this series remain the better ones. – ** (Excellent)

#5: Shirokuma Cafe – 08: A grizzly bear, a polar bear and a panda go fishing. I never imagined that they’d actually make an anime out of that. That bird in the first half of this episode was also hilarious, not to mention Shirokuma’s past. – ** (Excellent)

#6: Jormungand – 07: Nice episode, especially in terms of the gunfight. Koko’s date was a bit anticlimactic, though, but this show is steadily making its cast more interesting. – *+ (Great)

#7: Poyopoyo Kansatsu Nikki – 20: The thing with this series is, that the entire cast is just fun to watch. It’s not just Poyopoyo, but the brother and sister tht own him are well acted and just as fun as he is, if not even more. – *+ (Great)

#8: Hunter X Hunter – 32: This is one fights which was done completely different when compared to the 1999 series. Overall, I prefer the waythe 1999 version did it, for one main reason: this episode went overboard with the explanations. It just went on and on with guiding us through every step in the ultimately brief fight. At times it also felt like the characters were talking to the audience, rather than each other. It’s a shame, because with the right execution the creators could really have done some impressive stuff here. Also, I disagree that my arguments can be dismissed because “this is a shounen series”. Genre conventions are guidelines. Be bold! Screw conventions! Break them! Hunter X Hunter is the perfect series to do that with! – * (Good)

#9: Saint Seiya Omega – 08: Okay, so apparently I dropped this show right at the wrong time: stuff actually happened here. I admit that the golden saint is interesting, but this episode did not fix the character issues I have in that they’re just too bland and uninteresting. That gold saint was one of the best characters so far for a reason. – * (Good)

#10: Sankarea – 08: There is one thing I am really struggling with with this series: it has parts that are really good. But it’s completely boring during the rest of its time. Now, will it get better/ Knowing Studio Deen, they will milk this show into a second season, but even thhen this is a manga adaptation where a lot of focus will be on how they handle the ending.This episode was already dragged out, despite the good bits at the end of it. – (Enjoyable)

#11: Medaka Box – 08: You know, it’s nice and all that the genre shift is about to begin now… but this show will be over in four weeks. Yeah, it’s only a 1-cour series. So yeah, in the meantime we have another dull episode about some random police officer who takes het job way too seriously. Also, if she didn’t have another uniform, what happened to the one she was going to make Medaka wear? – – (Disappointing)

#1: Kimi to Boku – 19: Are Japanese girls really so weak that they faint if you so little as even bump on them? I know she was tired and all, but these girls have health issues… Anyway, I digress. An amazing episode with the love triangle finally moving somewhere. Chizuru in particular changed significantly. He’s the type of character who often gets done wrong, with some horrible results. With this though, he really redeemed himself. – *** (Awesome)

#2: The Legend of Korra – 06: This series has also just surpassed itself this week. Really good action scenes, and the creators just keep building further upon Korra’s naivety. I really like how this series is set to subvert a number of often-used fantasy cliches. – **+ (Excellent+)

#3: AKB0048 – 03: I do not have time right now so I’m going to delay deciding whether or not to blog this, and how on earth I’m going to fit this into my schedule, for one more week. But seriously, what the hell did I watch here? Yet again enough proof that the creators know what they’re doing here: this show glorifies idols, but this episode also showed the uglier side of this bizarre premise. Especially Mari Okada was on fire on this episode: this was full of emotion, yet not as extreme as with Black Rock Shooter. – **+ (Excellent+)

#4: Poyopoyo Kansatsu Nikki – 19: Oh my god, this was one of the best episodes yet. The sketch where Poyopoyo gets caught in quick drying cement was priceless. I was wondering why there were less jokes than usual, but the build-up was totally worth it. – **+ (Excellent+)

#5: Natsuiro Kiseki – 07: I hate the idol business in Japan. So why are the idol themed series so damn good? A thoughtful episode that highlighted the layers of the different characters and how they feel about the rock. – ** (Excellent)

#6: Nazo no Kanojo X – 06: That’s some impressive romantic tension you’ve got there, Nazo na Kanojo X. Nice aversion of the love triangle, and a very good potrayal of Tsubaki’s insecureties that make him less bland as a character. – ** (Excellent)

#7: Shirokuma Cafe – 07: Polar Bear is without a doubt my favorite character of this sereis. His deadpan humour in this episode especially was just hysterical. And that while the premises of each episode remain absolutely corny. – ** (Excellent)

#8: Hunter X Hunter – 31: “Let me drag out this fight by holding long monologues in order to explain you exactly how my powers work, giving you plenty of hints on how to stop me!” – This is exactly why I dislike the shounen genre dammit! The pacing keeps slowing down here! – * (Good)

#9: Jormungand – 06: I’m still missing something with this series. I mean, the backdrop of Africa is good, it’s nice to see the characters getting fleshed out and slowly reveal their pasts and the diplomacy is also nice, but I don’t know. The charcters still feel too one-sided and stereotypical. – * (Good)

#10: Medaka Box – 07: This was Medaka Box’s worst episode so far. Dull and forced fanservice, bland premise about art and a forced way to flesh out that new council member. Also I hate how creators can’t think of any light-hearted way to open a scene, so just go for the “walking into changing”-scene. Why has this turned into a default scene to use? – – (Disappointing)

#11: Sankarea – 07: Seriously? An entire episode dedicated to that cousin? With no scene of Rea whatsoever? And it only reaffirms her character as “I like the main character”, with nothing beyond that? Come on, Sankarea, weren’t you supposed to be this romance with creative twists? – – (Disappointing)

#12: Saint Seiya Omega – 07: I’m dropping this series. It has consistently ranked last amongst these rankings, and it got me thinking: what did it really offer in the past seven episodes? Nothing stood out, it was just a bunch of random hot blooded fights without much soul to them. There are too many other gret series this season for this. – – (Disappointing)

#1: Natsuiro Kiseki – 06: Brilliant characterization! Developing the same character in two different ways, based on a simple whim. This show just keeps getting better! – *** (Awesome)
#2: AKB0048 – 02: I have been asked very persistently by a certain someone whether or not I’m going to blog this series. I’m going to withhold that answer for next week, though. Why? Because I want to know what happens next. The intro is done, and what now? Will this turn into yet another boring school series like so many series with promising first episodes have done (lookin’ at you, Saint Seiya…), or will it evolve with the promise of these first two episodes? So far it’s good stuff, though. – ** (Excellent)
#3: Nazo no Kanojo X – 05: This episode again contained that mysterious charm that this sereis has with its bizarre fanservice, even though it was a beach episode. It was restrained, and very nicely played with that. Now if only the male lead were a bit less bland. – ** (Excellent)
#4: Jormungand – 05: Interesting back-story arc with the addition of Koko’s brother here. Good to see Jonah’s backstory earlier. – ** (Excellent)
#5: Kimi to Boku – 18: Aw, what a cute little romance. Naturally this only blossomed after one of the two had to move away, so that’s a bummer, though. – *+ (Great)
#6: Poyopoyo Kansatsu Nikki – 18: This has to be the most tsundere cat I have ever seen. This episode really shined in how it managed to emote the different cats here. – *+ (Great)
#7: Hunter X Hunter – 30: The fight was boring with again unimpressive animation, attack names and weird musical choices. The aftermath however was surprisingly dark, and actually done better than the first season. Also YES! Kurapika’s arc has started! One detail that I think the 1999 series did better there is that we saw things from Kurapica’s perspective there: when Nen was used, we didn’t see anything. – *+ (Great)
#8: Shirokuma Cafe – 06: This episode had too much panda. the charm of this series is that all of the other characters are hilarious too. Although the punchline at the end of the episode was as hilarious as usual. Why the village people of all things? – *+ (Great)
#9: Medaka Box – 06: Well, this episode did stand out by subverting its own cliches a bit, but I don’t know… it still feels so forced for some reason. – * (Good)
#10: The Legend of Korra – 05: So the only way they decided to spice up the tournament arc was with having a very menacing and egotistical end boss and a lot of yelling for romantic reasons. Not the most interesting episode. – * (Good)
#11: Sankarea – 06: Agh, this show is frustrating! On one hand it’s well acted and written. But the attempts at comedy are so cringe-worthy. It’s also that grandfather who tries way too hard at being funny, resulting in especially the first half of this episode to turn into a chore to sit through bad jokes. – (Enjoyable)
#12: Saint Seiya Omega – 06: You know, the more I’m watching this series, the more I’m convinced that it doesn’t really look all that good. You can have a great character-designer, but even those designs look rather ugly if you don’t use it. – (Enjoyable)

#1: Natsuiro Kiseki – 05: What a completely adorable episode. The characters just continue to grow here. even though there was no stone today, this was one of the best depictions of a cold in a long while. – **+ (Excellent+)
#2: Shirokuma Cafe: I don’t get it. Some of the jokes in this seris are horribly predictable. This episode again had all kinds of animals suggest bizarre dishes around their favorite food, and Shirokuma’s bad puns. And yet it’s hilarious and so refreshing to watch. The punchline to the parfait fair also was delightful. – ** (Excellent)
#3: The Legend of Korra – 04: Cheesy romance aside, this is the first time I’ve been impressed by this series. The creators used Korra’s brashness in an excellent way here in combinatiton with the politics. – ** (Excellent)
#4: Kimi to Boku – 17: This episode played up Chizuru’s annoyance to the max again, but I’m not bothered by that as much as I used to. Again this episode was really charming and simple. – ** (Excellent)
#5: Sankarea – 05: Very torn on this episode. It would have been #1 if it wasn’t for that annoying cousin. Excellent build-up and pay-off, although I do wonder whether turning zombies in assaulters was the right decision. – ** (Excellent)
#6: Poyopoyo Kansatsu Nikki – 17: I’m still amazed at how short this series is: not including the OP and ending screen, its episodes are only two minutes and ten seconds long. This episode had 6 different sketches in just that time-frame. All of them were fun. – ** (Excellent)
#7: Jormungand – 04: Good episode for Koko as finally her character was a bit more rounded. Also, “I am an American! I have blond hair, I work for the CIA and I am an asshole!” – *+ (Great)
#8: Nazo no Kanojo X – 04: A bit of a step down compared to last weeks, mostly because the saliva is starting to lose its gimmick, but nevertheless that girl whose name I’ve forgotten had some nice moments together with Urabe. – *+ (Great)
#9: Medaka Box – 05: I noticed that Medaka is often able to hold the higher moral ground, solely because she’s so ungodly good at everything. Will this get used later? Also Gainax, there are times where a slideshow is good, but there are also times where a slide-show is just lazy. For a Gainax series I am surprised how actually mediocre the action in this series is. – * (Good)
#10: Hunter X Hunter – 29: Uh, Hunter X Hunter… are you serious in this? Do you really intend to have people call out the names of their attacks, accompanied by huge letters? Is that your idea of how to best represent Nen? – * (Good)
#11: Saint Seiya Omega – 05: Is the entire series going to be about training and people being hot blooded? – (Enjoyable)

#1: Nazo na Kanojo X – 03: What sets the soundtrack of this series on top of all of the others is hard to describe, but that one track it has that it always plays at the episode climaxes brings out a ton of emotion. – ** (Excellent)
#2: Natsuiro Kiseki – 04: That rock is very cruel: toying with the wishes of teenaged girls, and giving them a big middle finger when they try to fix it. Nevertheless though, this episode once again had some really good character development. I also really like how well this show uses the fact that some of its characters are athletic, while others aren’t. – ** (Excellent)
#3: Poyopoyo Kansatsu Nikki – 16: I love how the creators are able to take everyday situations, throw a bit of sadism into them, and make them fun. That Civet cat in particularly worked well with that in this episode. – ** (Excellent)
#4: Shirokuma Cafe – 04: You know I could complain about how Panda was annoying again and all. But they actually showed the polar bear driving a car this episode! The drive-through part in particular was awesome. It’s very hard to correctly explain why this series is so good to someone who has never seen it, though. – ** (Excellent)
#5: Kimi to Boku – 17: This episode was about the twins. Quite refreshing to see the blond kid completely gone. Quite heart-warming to see some of the conflicts between them. – *+ (Great)
#6: Jormungand: The crazy obsessive lesbian is a trope that seriously needs to die. What’s wrong with having just a regular lesbian on the cast? I did like the tension that the boy soldier created in this episode, though. – * (Good)
#7: The Legend of Korra – 03: Very good fight scenes, and the real introduction of the resistance holds potential, but the amount of cliches in the first half was a bit annoying, and this show has this “Saturday Morning Cartoon’-feel to it. – * (Good)
#8: Hunter X Hunter – 28: It’s finally time for the introduction of Nen, the single best power system of any shounen out there. And it lacks a bit of subtlety here. The creators just send waves of random CG without much variation to Gon and Killua. At the very least, comparing the old and new version with each other has given me a new appreciation for how well the 1999 version was made, regardless of how accurate it may have been to the manga. – * (Good)
#9: Medaka Box: If a character is good or bad at handwriting: SHOW this. Don’t just have random characters claim this. Don’t tell me that your animators only know how to do flashy action-scenes, Gainax. – (Enjoyable)
#10: Sankarea – 04: Very annoying episode with lots of cliches. Especially that cousin and those classmates are not interesting to watch at all, not to mention that the creators actually went for a “walking into the shower scene”. this episode was saved by Rea’s changes and development.
#11: Saint Seiya Omega – 04: Rather boring training episode with generic RPG element explanation. – (Enjoyable)

Introducing this season’s Kaleidoscope. I like to experiment with these things, as it’s the perfect format to try out different stuff. This time, because there are so many series that stand out, I’m going to do a ranking: from best to worst, the episodes that caught my attention the most each week of all of the series that I’m not fully blogging, followed by a small blurb for each series (blurbs can also just be “unimpressive”, otherwise it would just take up too much time for some shows). This way I can also share my thoughts of Hunter X Hunter, without having to dedicate an entire entry to it (although I will remove it from this list as soon as the Hunter X Hunter fanbase arrives again and starts telling me how I should enjoy my series…).

Every week on Sunday I will post a new entry for this Kaleidoscope, with weeks beginning on Sunday and ending on Saturday this time. I usually try to have weeks start on Monday, but this is much more convenient because nothing airs on Friday and Saturday, allowing me time to catch up (not to mention the ungodly amounts of series that air all at the same time on Sunday, on top of me being very busy on most Sundays with this thing called real life), and I’ll update this entry as the week goes along.

Also, as for the series that didn’t make the cut (meaning the series that I’m not going to watch this season):
– Arashi no Yoru ni ultimately isn’t worth it. It’s overacted and I’ve already seen the story before.
– Accel World has some potential, but it doesn’t have any interesting characters whatsoever, not to mention that it’s got a pretty dull and annoying male lead.
– Tasogare Otome Amnesia has really bad acting. Plus, the girl turns round and the guy immediately goes for her boob. Now that’s bad fanservice that needs to die.
– Kuroko no Basuke, I don’t think that it can really improve beyond what it has shown here. It’s still a jump series full of shounen powers, and it will probably follow a very constraining format. It in any case doesn’t live up to the standard that sports series have set in the past.
– I actually enjoyed the first two episodes of Saki. However, that got me thinking: the reason I enjoyed them so much, and why I actually managed to finish the first Saki, is because there were no Mahjong battles. I’m bailing out while I still can, because those mahjong matches in the first season were just an insult.
– Shining Hearts needs more ambition. The characterization isn’t good enough to make this a good slice of life series, and for an adventure it just goes nowhere with an entire episode being dedicated to… a nasty storm.
– Acchi Kocchi fails for me as a slice of life due to its annoying characters.
– Kuromajo-San ga Tooru also lacks ambition and is just too dull.
– And then there are comedies like Gon, Haiyore, Zombie and Jewel Pet, which just aren’t funny enough to warrant a watch.

Okay, so Hunter X Hunter is hereby dropped. I just have no clue what to replace it with. After watching both Nazo na Kanojo and Jormungand’s first episodes, I think I’m either going to blog Jormungand, or go with a Kaleidoscope. I’m leaving that for next week to decide.

The thing is: we really have a special season this time. It really needs to be successful, because it has the potential to raise the bar on anime. Last Summer I also was very enthusiastic about how good it was, but this time it’s different: there are so many series this season that put in a lot of effort to stand out in their own ways. There are no immediate instant classics, but there are so many series that have the potential to become so. This will very likely become the best season of the entire year in terms of overall quality.

My thing with Jormungand is that it does not belong among those series, yet it has the potential to stand out. It’s not the only series this season that has this. Really, I had a ton of difficulties picking between this series and Nazo na Kanojo X. Seriously, the runners-up this season also really have some potential to stand out, and that’s something I haven’t seen in a while. A quick overview of them and why I didn’t decide to weekly blog them:
– Nazo na Kanojo has a great female lead and excellent characterization when it gets down to business. It however has only 13 episodes and I’m not sure whether it’ll be enough to talk about weekly.
– Natsuiro Kiseki is very creative, and again deserves a lot of points with the interplay between its cast. It is also very bold in spending so much time on small things. It however, is too angsty at times.
– Polar Bear Cafe is wonderfully creative and delightful Iyashi-Kei. It’s also so boring.
– Same for Kimi to Boku: I’m only starting to like this show more and more and the characterization only gets better, yet the annoying parts are also still there.
– AKB048 just puzzles me with its bizarrely creative premise.
– And then there is the wildcard of Medaka Box, which is very overblown moe, but I can see it break the boundaries of genres like what everyone says about it… if it ever gets to that point and the director doesn’t ruin it.
– Not to mention that Legend of Korra which promises an interesting look at modern day heroes.

And then there are the series that don’t stand out, but are just very good entertainment:
– Kuroko no Basuke knows how to be fun. But yeah: it’s both too shounen and a shounen jump series.
– Saint Seiya has Yoshihiko Umakoshi‘s animation, but unfortunately it doesn’t really add much to what we’ve already seen from him in Casshern Sins and Heartcatch Precure.

Now that I’m typing this up, I see a lot of potential for a good Kaleidoscope here. The past summer season had me saying that it could become an incredibly good series. In the end it didn’t turn out as good as I expected due to a number of bad and incomplete endings. This season has that much less: only Zetman is an obvious culprit here, and even that show is actually trying to make up for it, rather than ignore it.

Anyway, Jormungand. I actually chose this show because it was out of the ones mentioned above, the show I wasn’t going to blog, yet have the most to say about. Again, this can really grow to stand out: the manga is also fully finished and there will be 26 episodes, not to mentioned that the semi-episodic nature will makes sure for a ton of variety. This can really work, and yet I am missing something from this series. Something that doesn’t place it among the top of this season. I’ll try to explain what that is.

Because really: I am a big fan of war dramas. Anime in the past have done some really great things with it. And that’s a thing: this series does feel a bit derivative. I’ve seen a lot of people compare it to Black Lagoon, but that’s also probably because the OPs sound similar (and indeed: the OP does in no way match the classic OP that Black Lagoon had), but I think that the problem is more with the way it ends up setting itself apart because of this: its humor and entertainment value.

This series indeed is very slick, fun and fast-paced. This episode also threw in a lot of character development for the side characters, which also is a good sign. What I do feel however, is that it has its tongue a bit too far up its own cheek, and overplays the comedy a bit too much for a war drama: it always needs to have a joke ready, or it always needs to have a character looking cheeky. Despite the solid production values overall, this is something that it fails to recognize. It makes this series very one-sided. Especially Coco is guilty of this. Think a bit about the most memorable characters out there who use comedy: they use it with a natural charm: they don’t try to be funny, but this comes naturally to them. Jormungand seems to go for this effect, but ti tries to force this too much by trying to give the characters too much natural charm, making them forced. This is something that this series is going to really have to take care of.
Rating: *+ (Great)