Category: Kaleidoscope

I really would have liked to see Otome Youkai Zakuro go on for 26 episodes instead of just thirteen, but ah well, at least this was a great ending that was simple, yet very well told: all of the important characters reached their catharsis and the creators managed to add a very nice emotional charge to it. The three main couples all grew even closer together, Byakuroku and Daidai got themselves a great conclusion, and the final twist on Zakuro’s mother also made her into a really sympathetic character, where her love as a mother, that has been questioned throughout the entire series, was restored.

Only Omodaka got a bit of a short straw here with that suicide ending of his. I’m not sure what was up with that and what the creators wanted to prove with him just dying without any reason: he just chose to sit next to his mother as the house around him burned down. And I know that there is the golden rule of anime and all (no character is dead unless this is confirmed), but this is the final episode: there was no hint whatsoever that he survived, despite half the episode being dedicated to the epilogue.
EDIT: oh wait, it seems I missed an epilogue and he really did not die. ^^;

At the end of the episode, the bureau of spiritual affairs also got disbanded, only to reappear only minutes later (with a plausible reason, though). That twist was mostly there to get that kiss out of Zakuro and Agemaki. I guess that there wasn’t time to let it flow naturally between them (because granted, it’s probably going to take a long time for them to stop arguing if their relationship ends up happily ever after in the first place). It in either case was a charming bit of romance.

Overall, this blogging a different series each week turned out to be a nice experiment, that I might do again in another season where there a lot of shows about which I have something I want to say. I’m not going to do it next season, though: when Heartcatch Precure ends I’ll be able to cover nine new series: that’s half the total amount of series in the entire season.

I’m not yet sure which series those are going to be, though. I’m guaranteed to blog Level E, and things also have to be pretty strange if I’m not going to cover Yumekui Merry, Fractale and Hourou Musuko. For Supernatural it’s all going to depend on how the heck they plan to release it. For Rainbow Gate, Freezing and Infinite Stratos it’s going to depend on whether or not they have their mind in the gutter. Madoka Magica, Wolverine and Beelzebub have very notorious staffs so any hints towards that will play a big role in whether or not I’m going to blog those, and Gosick and Dragon Crisis will get covered if they’re not as childishly stupid as they seem to be at first sight. In any case though, I never had to choose nine new shows to blog in such a small season, so I’m at least thankful that it’s going to be a very diverse one.

Going back to Otome Youkai Zakuro, my initial worries were that it wasn’t ambitious enough with its story, and granted its story isn’t as complex as, say, Shinrei Tantei Yakumo, but it still developed into a very nice and simple story that pushed a lot of right buttons. A definite recommendation for those looking for some light romance.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Okay. That ending was awesome.

As for the climax itself, the first half of this episode was a bit dull, in which the creators pulled the usual twists that you’d expect at the end of a series. Panty loses her powers but gets them back after having sex with Brief, it was a bit too standard, although the farming scenes were really entertaining. The second half though had some very neat action scenes that really were worthy of this series’ finale. There was a ton of neat animation going on on a really epic scale, and the final twist was just completely bizarre, and yet worked really well.

I love the guts of this series with its ending, though. For one, Garterbelt’s revival scenes were hilarious (“GOD MY OOOOOHHHHHH!!!”), but the way it lead into its potential second season with Stocking’s complete and sudden betrayal was a really neat and nonsensical twist. Now, as for that second season however I do want to say this: there has been a series in the past that pulled a very similar twist right at its final episode. I refuse to spoil which one for obvious reasons, but despite so obviously pointing to a sequel the director later stated in an interview that that was never going to come. Also, that premise of that second season has to be pretty bizarre: “Brief and Chuck with Garterbelt”. Would that even work?

So let’s just wait for any official announcements. If there is going to be a second season, I’ll probably end up blogging it. The main reason why I didn’t blog this entire season was because of the mediocre episodes 2, 3 and 4. After that though, this series took some really neat advantages of its format with a ton of neat and experimental segments.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

This is the episode in which the creators decide to reveal the past, and what happened to Zakuro’s mother. It’s pretty much the episode that explains it all, right before the final climax of this series. And with this episode, this series got even more solid than it already was.

This episode was both very tragic, as surprisingly deep. The role of Zakuro and her mother turned out to be much more at the centre of the entire story than I thought, with Zakuro’s mother’s existence even being the reason that these half spirits exist in the first place, all thanks to these disturbing corrupt practices that were going on in order to try and use her powers. I mean, this episode never explicitly stated it, but it’s pretty obvious at this point that Zakuro’s mother was raped multiple times in order to attempt some good off-springs.

There is a bit of the romantic cheese: Zakuro was born out of true love and therefore has inherited some incredible powers. This is obviously a bit of a flaw, but after this backstory I don’t mind, because this episode brought more than enough to make up for it. Especially Omodaka became a much better villain after this episode: after this episode I really hate this guy as an asshole, rather than this cheesy shoujo villain.

I’m also glad to finally see an actually justified hints at incest. Anime with incest nowadays are nearly all of the type “hey we have a boy who has this hot sister. Let’s make them fall in love with each other!” Zakuro’s family in contrast is so completely broken; Omodaka has been corrupted by his father from the start, he now turned out to constantly lust after Zakuro’s powers. It’s miles away from the lazy and shallow incest we usually see.

In any case, in the end this series did turn out to have just 13 episodes, which thankfully means that Mari Okada only has three series to worry about in the upcoming fall season. She’s an amazing writer, as shown by how well she treated Otome Youkai Zakuro, so I really hope that she can give all three of Hourou Musuko, Fractale and Gosick enough justice instead of rushing through all of them. Only once I’ve seen a more extreme version, this was in the Autumn Season of 2007 when Natsuko Takahashi wrote a whopping four series at the same time. The results were still good, but really unbalanced at times (but then again, that’s pretty much Natsuko Takahashi: she’s either really solid or makes really strange design decisions).
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Of course it’s great to see Garterbelt’s past here, but what really made this episode for me was its brilliant second half. It pretty much was about nothing: Panty and Stocking sitting in front of the television being really bored. But the entire half was shot on the same camera on the same position. It only panned twice, it only cut three times. Apart from that, it was all about Panty and Stocking randomly talking, along with Chuck, Brief and Garterbelt who appeared along the way. I love these kinds of episodes that really take this unconventional way of storytelling.

And still there were plenty of things going on with that half being everything but boring. Panty and Stocking being bored was surprisingly interesting, especially when you learn about the bizarre context at the end of the episode: Garterbelt spending ten hours inside the kitchen in order to cook a lunch party to celebrate that his afro was announced as the best afro in the world. The voice acting was especially fun and excellent here, and I like how the animation brought the characters here to life without a camera that usually keeps changing positions. I also really liked the final punchline. That was some great comedic timing there.

A lot of the anime today are just too safe and hardly ever bother with episodes like this and that’s quite a shame, really. There’s a ton of potential here if you’d just wish to abandon conventions and that’s what I really appreciate this series for doing.

Oh, and it’s not like Garterbelt’s backstory was uninteresting either. I mean, with the entire history tour that this guy made, parodying everything from Adam and Eve to the vikings.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

For the Autumn 2010 Kaleidoscope I’ve been talking about different series each week. Otome Youkai Zakuro’s ninth episode makes for the last series I want to say something about. For December, I’m going to fill this category with posts about the series that I think will have the most interesting finales, which probably will be posts focusing on Panty and Stocking and Otome Youkai Zakuro.

Oh and on a side-note: I’m probably not going to go a kaleidoscope for the upcoming winter season, because of the simple reason that TOO MANY SHOWS ARE ENDING at the end of December. With that as a result, I’ve got room for eight new series; nine when Heartcatch Precure ends. That’ll be plenty of room to blog all of the good shows, plus also a bunch of premises that I normally wouldn’t even consider.

In any case, this episode is a good point to talk about this series, because a) we’ve gotten some significant build-up at this point and know where this show is heading to, b) I can praise a lot about it and c) I can also criticize a bit about it.

Starting with a), Otome Youkai Zakuro definitely has built up the best cast out of all the shows I’m not blogging this season. It’s got three couples who play off each other really well, and the past episodes have developed some really genuine relationships between all of them. the most intriguing being Zakuro and the mystery behind her: she’s a really tragic character who was really well explored in the past eight episodes.

Now, this episode was meant as a bit of an intermezzo between the heavy arcs, mostly focusing on fleshing out the romances a bit. It was enjoyable because we’ve seen relatively little of the cast in light-hearted situations due to the short length of this series. This episode was enjoyable, simply because the characters have been very well developed at this point, and because of that they were fun to watch.

And yet, this episode also enlarged some of the major flaws of this series. For that I need to go back to the source material, or its original author Lily Hoshino. When you look at the different covers of some of the other manga she has written, there’s one thing that immediately caught my attention: they all look the bloody same! Nearly all of them feature two people looking mellow and hugging each other. I couldn’t find a premise for most of them on ANN, but the premises I did find were just completely stupid and cliched, most notably that one about a family which forces all of its children to marry guys.

The creators here really gave a wonderful adaptation of the Otome Youkai Zakuro, but at the same time you can see that the romance is bound by these stupid cliches. The romance is mostly mature, and yet because of that premise the characters never really become couples, even though how obvious it is that Susukihotaru and Yoshinokazura are into each other, with the same going on for Bonbori and Hoozuki and Hanakiri.

Zakuro also suffers from these romantic cliches, though slightly different. In her case it’s indeed more logical to become good friends with Agemaki due to the large tension between them, and I actually really liked the point at which her crush on Hanadate was revealed. But yeah: he’s a bad guy, making what could have been a mature love triangle into a cheesy shoujo affair and Zakuro closer and closer to a standard tsundere. It’s pointless twists like these that are really holding back the otherwise truly excellent execution of this series.

Again though, I really like this series despite these criticisms. What’s even more impressive here is that JC Staff is really busy this season: they’re working on four different series at once, and yet all four of them are actually pretty good. Obviously some are better than others, but compare that to AIC which was in the same position during the previous Summer Season, working on four moe shows at the same time, where in the end every single one of them turned out to be dull and boring.
Rating: * (Good)

Okay, perhaps last week would have been a better time for me to blog an episode of Index, but I did not know that that arc would just take up two measly episodes. And besides, this episode was pretty much was as interesting as it was terrible, which is pretty much what Index is all about.

So far, the second season of Index has been a huge mixed bag, but that’s part of its charms: the first arc was rather dull, the second arc was surprisingly good for being the lost chapters of Railgun (I really liked how they just cut the crap there and went straight to the point instead of dragging on). The current third arc is definitely enjoyable: it’s not the most ambitious arc, but it puts a lot of emphasis on the chemistry within the cast, which was quite enjoyable.

But really… there is fanservice, and there’s taking these dull romantic cliches way too far. How many times did Touma walk into a naked girl? How many times did his face get planted in someone’s bosom? Why did the creators suddenly introduced yet another random girl for Touma’s harem? It makes no sense, it feels lazy and it was completely pointless, making it seem like Touma can’t be friends with a girl unless he gets some romantic tension with her or something…

Either way though, this episode wasn’t a complete waste. I liked Touma in the rest of the episode, where there were a ton of different things that were going on. That’s how I like these sports festival episodes: we’ve seen them done to death by now, but this episode made well use of it to show some good antics. Another piece of criticism that I can give here is that the magical items in this show are starting to become mere McGuffins: especially in this episode, you could have replaced that Stab Sword with for example the “magical pizza of the annihilation of something very important”, and it wouldn’t have changed this episode in any way.
Rating: * (Good)

This week I want to rant a bit again, even though I’m probably still the only one left who still watches this series. Still, I do want to write a bit about the strange and horrible decisions that were made for this second season. I’ll try to explain my thoughts on this series so that they also become a bit understandable for people who have never seen anything from Marie&Gali.

The first season of Marie&Gali was awesome: it was a fantastic comedy that showed how fun science can be; every episode was full of hilarity and came with completely new material and jokes, never running old or repetitive. The characters started out as stereotypes, but they really grew on you as the over the top quirky personifications of famous scientists that they were. Everything was set to also close off perfectly after forty episodes.

And then, out of nowhere, a second season suddenly got announced.

Obviously I was delighted back then, but after watching more than 20 episodes of this second season, I get more and more the impression that the second season announcement was as much a surprise for me as it was for the creators. I’m betting my hat that they only learned of it, after fully planning out the entire first season. This meant that they had to create a completely new set of forty episodes from scratch, even though they already put their best material and inspiration in the first season.

There are many reasons why I believe this to be the case. The most notable are the following:
– They inserted a freaking Scrappy. Norika, a strange whiny princess-like little girl, just comes out of nowhere and completely takes over the show as the lead character.
– The first season never repeated itself. The second season does, devoting several episodes in a row on the same concept.
– The comedy in the first season felt natural. In the second season, it feels forced. And this didn’t happen gradually, it immediately turned from good to bad at the start of the second season. But more on that below.

I’m not really sure why Toei found it a good idea to give this of all series a continuation, because it really wasn’t their most successful series by far. Especially considering how they closed off their viewer ratings cannon of Kaidan Restaurant abruptly after only 23 episodes. This season just serves no purpose.

You can also see how the creators are having trouble to fill this season through the execution. The biggest problem is Norika: her whining gets old really fast, and because of her the entire nature of this series changed because the creators included the rule that Norika can’t leave the world she’s cast in until she gets to appreciate science. What followed were 23 episodes of Norika running and screaming around, refusing to accept science and blowing everyone away with her giant teddy bear.

The first season felt so fun because it basically was about a bunch of quirky scientists who loved to show off their accomplishments to Marika (the lead character of the first season). Nothing was forced, you just had the adventures of a bunch of eccentric people who really loved what they were doing. The scientific explanations really blended in well with the storytelling. The second season, however, just turned into a series that explains science for the sake of explaining science. By trying to force Norika to accept science, they also try to force the viewers to sit through it. It loses all spontaneity.

On top of that, a bunch of characters derailed as well: the first season featured some stereotypes, but the characters were more than that: Gali was this dirty old man, but at the same time you had those scenes that showed that he was quite the brilliant scientist. The second season however reduces these characters, back to their stereotypes. You can really blame that to the acting: balanced in the first season, but the second season contains way too much yelling, especially considering how everyone in every single episode, likes to introduce him or herself in this overenthusiastic way for some strange reason.

The show at this point is still mildly funny, but it’s nowhere near as good as the first season. It’s at its best when it at least tries to do something new, but even those episodes are rare. The current episode for example featured a contest between Gali and Leonardo Da Vinci: who can build the fastest flying machine.The show so far has had a ton of these kinds of episodes. Especially in the second season, whenever Leonardo comes into the picture the creators can only seem to focus on how he pwns everything about Gali.

Oh, and the “scientific” explanation on how airplanes fly in this episode… it was actually wrong. Read some xkcd dammit!
Rating: — (Lacking)