Category: Anime Reviews

Before I start with the usual review, I first have to say that this is the 100th review I’ve written for my site! Okay, I’m finally back with my reviews of the interesting-looking 12/13-episode series. For the past few months, I’ve either been too busy, the series I downloaded turned out to suck (Gun Frontier), or the bittorrent files got stuck in the middle due to lack of seeders. Bittorent really isn’t the best way to get your hands on the rare series out there. Luckily, after a bit of searching, I found out that Vision-Anime still had this series on IRC-bots. Anyway, onto the review. Rumiko Takahashi is a great writer, in my opinion. She just has one huge bad point: she doesn’t know when to stop. The first season of Ranma 1/2 was just classic, though I quickly lost interest with the second season, and to think that the entire series was seven seasons long! Inu Yasha also spawns lots of people bashing it, though based on the things I’ve heard, it would have been a great 26-episode series, and I can imagine something similar being the case with Urusai Yatsura. So what about her short stories? Well, they rock. 🙂 Mermaid Forest already showed this once, but the stories in Rumic Theater also were really entertaining. While not as good as Mermaid Forest, it’s a real recommendation to any slice-of-life fan. Rumic Theater really fits perfectly along with three other series I’ve seen recently: Human Crossing, Seraphim Call and Sentimental Journey. If you liked any of these four, you’ll like the other three as well. Yet again we have a random story about a random person for every episode, unrelated to each other apart from a few references here and there. While Sentimental Journey showed how twelve girls deal with their past crushes, Human Crossing shows the problems and the worries of various adults and Seraphim Call centres around eleven rather unique girls in a futuristic setting, Rumic Theater features thirteen ordinary people or families, with extraordinary things happening to them. These people really couldn’t be more normal, they actually could be your neighbour if you lived in Japan. If you’d ever like to see how normal families live, and what their problems are, Rumic Theatre is the perfect show for this, as it really takes a step away from all the usual stereotypes you see in anime that deal with modern Japan. The extraordinary things can be anything. Some of these events can happen to anyone, like being invited to a school reunion, after 25 years of absence. Others deal with supernatural elements, like a salaryman who keeps getting bothered by the ghost of his deceased wife, while some of them could happen in real life, but are just really improbable, like a housewife, having to take care of a penguin. Enough blabbering about the contents. How does it deliver? Well, to be honest, Rumic Theatre has the best entertainment value out of all four series mentioned above. For starters it doesn’t really have any clear bad points, unlike Human Crossing, which had the nasty tendency to end its episodes forced and unnatural, or Seraphim Call, which was really inconsistent and a bit too unpredictable, or Sentimental Journey, which had a few boring cases. And Rumic Theatre still manages to come up with thirteen individual, well developed and varied cases. Two or three episodes were really sad ones, while others really cracked me up at times, others were heart-warming and plain sweet, and all of them had some kind of hidden message. Each of the episodes, the better and lesser ones, were some great character studies, accompanied by a nice atmosphere. Another interesting thing was that actually quite a few cases centre on a misunderstanding. While this was sort-of annoying in Sentimental Journey, they didn’t really mind me with Rumic Theatre, and some of these cases actually were brilliant, even though you knew beforehand that the main character’s view was completely wrong. Out of the four series mentioned above, it really felt the most natural, the stories fit the episode-format perfectly, and rarely was there a rushed episode. In terms of graphics something needs to be said, though. Don’t expect any beautiful girls with bright hair and crisp and detailed character-designs. The character-designs are done in a typical Rumiko Takahashi-style, but they do look rather outdated. They by no means look bad, though if you need detailed and mainstream character-designs in your anime, you probably will get annoyed with Rumic Theater. Overall, even though I’ve seen four series with almost the same premise, I still can’t get enough of them. If you want thought-provoking cases, then go and check out Sentimental Journey. If you want a thick atmosphere, go for Human Crossing. For lots of creativity Sentimental Journey is best, and if you want a bit of everything and a good dose of humour here and there, Rumic Theatre is the best. A few highlights were: Sentimental Journey: Episode 6 and 10 Human Crossing: Episode 4 and 13 Seraphim Call: Episode 2 and 7 Rumic Theatre: Episode 6 and 12 Each of them are well worth watching. ^_^]]>

The fansubbers labelled this as “the best movie of 2006”, and I’ve seen other sources claim this as well. Whether this is true, I can’t say for certain yet, because some of the big names as Tekkon Kinkreet, Gedo Senki and Eien no Hou have yet to appear. But one thing’s for sure: these movies are going to have to be reeally good in order to be able to top this one. Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo, I think we’ve all read about its premise by now, but for those who haven’t: a high-school girl suddenly gets the power to leap through time. With this, she starts using it to alter the space-time continuum to her own advantage. When I read the premise for the first time, I thought that she’d go and alter major time events and really alter history, but she just sticks to making her own life better. Basically, it’s a high-school romance, but that description doesn’t really do it justice, as some pretty horrible things happen along the line. I really praise this anime for that last part, by the way. It’s obvious that things won’t go as Mokoto (our main character) expects them. And it’s predictable for bad things to happen, but this movie developed its characters so well that the predictability didn’t matter, and that each major event felt like a huge shock. From my own experience, I’ve seen movies fail more often than series did, but this movie is just a must-watch. The backgrounds that we get to see are what you expect from a movie: crisp, detailed and beautiful, although one or two scenes may be trying a bit too much (like a fridge which may have been a bit too stuffed for a random family). As we’ve got ourselves a romance here, there aren’t a lot of flashy action-scenes, but still the overall animation was really life-like and natural. The music was simple, consisting out of mainly piano-tunes. But it fits the movie perfectly. It was especially stunning during the heavy scenes. Seriously, only if you really need some action in your anime, you may want to skip out of this. Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo has been a great watch for me, and I can imagine others liking it just as much as I did, and probably even better. I’m glad that this movie reminded me that a well-done anime movie can be as satisfying as a tv-series.]]>

Le Chevalier d’Eon tells the brilliant story of the years before the French Revolution, during the reign of Louis XV in a setting with fantasy-elements. It follows d’Eon de Beaumont, a chevalier in service of the king (hence the title), who suddenly discovers the death of his famous sister, whom he admired. If you’re interested in politics, realism, cross-dressers, historical anime, battle tactics or compassionate characters, then look no further as Chevalier brings a compelling combination of these elements. The storyline is incredibly detailed. Characters act because of complex reasons, and in most of the cases these reasons are explained as well. Through the course of the anime, the countries of France, England and Russia show a bit of their political system they used during the timeline in which the series takes place. And some of the characters get fleshed out incredibly well. The second half of this series is a pure delight because of this. Starting from episode 15, there isn’t even one bad episode, and each one delivers, with four or five absolutely amazing episodes. Unfortunately, though, the first half is just too slow at times, and it spends perhaps a bit too long on building up. There are a few climaxes, but they weren’t really that special when compared to the second half, and I can imagine that they cost this anime quite an amount of viewers because of it. The music is good, but forgettable. The graphics however, shine. Not literally, but characters are drawn incredibly detailed, and they’re greatly animated. Battle-scenes also are greatly choreographed as well. But the thing that really made this anime was its cast of characters. I probably won’t be able to forget the charming Durand soon, or the naive Robin, or the knightly Teillagory. Each of them was so worth to watch. It’s a shame you don’t hear so much about this anime, as it’s really the highlight of last year’s summer-season.]]>

Tenpou Ibun Ayakashi Ayashi was supposed to take over from Blood+ on the Saturday 18:00 timeslot, the number-one prime-time spot for anime, which also housed series as Full Metal Alchemist and Gundam Seed Destiny. For this, it had to live up to some great expectations, and it came with a story about Youma-hunters, during the Tenpou era of Japan. If I had to say so myself, then Tenpou Ibun Ayakashi Ayashi definitely lived up to these expectations, but it’s so not suitable for the prime-time spot. Timeslots like these are meant for popular shows with lots of fanboy-pleasing action, not an intelligent show like this one. Because of this, the series’ original length of 52 episodes was cut in half, leaving only 26 episodes for this anime to work with. This, in fact, is the only really bad point of this series. Like I suggested above, this series’ great strength is its storytelling. It consists out of small arcs, ranging from usually two or three episodes, which all centre on themes, deeply rooted in the history of Japan and its religions. I’ve almost never encountered an anime which did so much research for its stories. As a result, the individual tales just sparkle with creativity and originality, while they still hold a large amount of realism. To give a small indication, brothels have often appeared in historical anime (to name a few, Samurai Champloo, Peace Maker Kurogane, and quite some more), but never was this concept so fleshed out as in the three episodes Tenpou Ibun Ayakashi Ayashi dedicated to the subject. Because these stories have such a good base, the characters also can be really fleshed out. Every important character has at least one arc in which he or she stands in the spotlight, and even though the character-development is incomplete, because of the reduced anime-length, the development that we do see is truly fascinating. To add that, nearly each arc has one major climax, and perhaps with exception of the first arc, each of these climaxes turns out to be really captivating, and full of tension. Even in the graphical and musical department this series delivers. The background music makes sure that the climaxes work even better, while the character-designs are really lifelike. I remember commenting about how these characters looked so standard when I first saw them, but the fact remains that every single character looks unique in this anime, instead of being a clone of character A with different hair and eye-colour (something which seems to plague other anime). Add in a couple of great special effects, and you’ve got yourself a visual treat. Because of the reduced length, I can’t rate this 90% or higher, because I feel that this anime would have been even better if the remaining 26 episodes were added (and not to mention the rushed ending), but I definitely recommend giving Tenpou Ibun Ayakashi Ayashi a try. It’s probably one of the few anime with a guy in his fourties as a main character, and this works perfectly. Just be aware that the dialogue can be quite intensive, so this isn’t an anime that you can just watch leisurely]]>

Satoshi Kon comes with another movie, called Paprika. This is the same person who directed Paranoia Agent, so I undoubtedly looked forward to it a lot. So, after having seen it, how did it turn out? Well, disappointing. It’s not bad or anything, but I expected something more. Paprika comes with another psychological theme: dreams. About 50% in this movie happens in dreams, and they show what happens when humans start messing with them. Overall, it was quite interesting, but I’m surprised to say that the pacing was rather slow, compared to Paranoia Agent, which continuously kept the flow of events high. Paprika definitely is different, as it seems to more focus on its characters than paranoia itself. When you look at it this way, it turned out pretty good, with interesting choreography at times, and all accompanied by very unusual characters that you probably won’t see in any other anime. Still, there are two rather bad points about this movie. It’s repetitive, and it doesn’t use its amazing soundtrack enough. Seriously, if you loved Paranoia Agent’s soundtrack, you’ll love the theme song. It’s a great song, but the rest of the anime is filled with rather mediocre background sounds or just plain silence. I kept longing to hear the opening track again, which unfortunately only happened when the ending credits rolled. Regarding the first point, it’s quite a few times that we see scenes that we’ve already seen before. I guess these scenes were meant to illustrate the changes in the anime, but when a strange parade passes the screen for the fifth time, its novelty has worn out. Overall, if you’ve got some time to burn, you can check this out, as it’s quite a good watch, but there definitely are better movies out there.]]>

The Yoshinaga-family has won a rather strange prize in a local lottery: a talking gargoyle who acts as their gatekeeper. Through the course of 13 episodes, it explores the lives of the Yoshinagas, this particular gargoyle (also hilariously nicknamed “GAR-kun”) and the people from their neighbourhood, with some very strong references to the practices of ancient alchemy. With a lot of writer’s freedom, that is. My main problem with Yoshinaga-chi no Gargoyle is that it has a number of the most excellent characters, but refuses to use them well. Futaba is a true delight to watch when she is in action. Too bad that this only happens in three or four episodes. Osiris and her owner make a perfect team. Unfortunately, they never get the chance to truly show their personalities for more than ten seconds. Gar-kun is one of the most original characters I’ve ever seen. Too bad he also has a dull side, which he shows more often than not. Futaba’s mother and father also make a perfect team. It’s just too bad that it’s only till the final episodes that the two of them get any decent development. Takahara Iyo works great if she’s the main focus of the episode. Too bad that only happens once of twice. Ironically, most of the time in this series is wasted on a character who actually works best as a side-character: Hyakushiki. His background is also one of the more unbelievable of the series, and especially the middle episodes keep on dabbling about useless things that don’t even matter. Other episodes focus on rather dull cases, and only the first two episodes and the final two episodes are the ones in which the characters are really showing the best sides of themselves. If there ever was a series in need of a remake, it’d be this one. It’s got some of the most amazing characters. If they’re actually used well, they’ll definitely make for an awesome series. But because it dabbles away too often in dull elements, it turned out merely above-average. Still, this anime was definitely worth seeing. The good episodes were a delight, and even the bad episodes showcased at least a bit of the different characters’ brilliance, making them a tiny bit enjoyable after all. :)]]>