Category: Anime Reviews

I may have said it before, but for the past few months, I’ve been checking out several 13ish-episode series I’ve been wanting to check out for a long time. I went to AniDB and made a list of all anime that looked interesting to me. Right now, I’m working through this list, with the ones that look the least interesting to go first. Because of this, I saw many great things, such as Figure 17, while series such as Aquarian age turned out to be pure pain. Right now, I’ve put my interest to three case-based series. Sentimental Journey is the first of them (let’s see if you can guess the others ^^). I’ve always been a fan of case-based series such as Mushishi and Kino no Tabi. About these three I had some doubts, though, as they’re all kindof slice-of-lifey. Especially Sentimental Journey had me worried, since the description said that it consisted out of 12 episodes, all dedicated to the relationship of a girl to a boy. Thankfully, this anime turned out much more interesting than that. It’s true that each episode focuses on the relationship of a girl with a boy, but for starters, all these relations were past relationships. All couples got separated at one moment, mostly due to moving away. The boy never really is put in the spotlight. Heck, we never even get to see their faces. What this anime really focuses about is how this boy changed the girl. Each of these boys had some kind of influence, and the anime features these girls, years after they said goodbye, dealing with these experiences. I must say that I’ve never been a really big fan of slice-of-life romances, but this anime felt like a very pleasant surprise. Each of the twelve tales are heart-warming stories, some better than the others. While I would normally find stories like these rather boring, the fact that each episode took a different focus was really refreshing. I therefore can say that I really enjoyed the calm and peaceful mood for this series. The first episode serves as a nice introduction to the general premise of the story. It already shows that this anime can come up with some original twists to make each case unique, and it showcases the typical quiet mood. The second episode comes with a totally different girl, and it’s one of the few in which the girl actually managed to find a new boyfriend. The third episode was one of the lesser episodes. The premise was nice, though I felt that it lacked something. Episode 4 asked nice questions about life and memories, though I didn’t like how everything was based on one huge misunderstanding. With episode 5, however, this anime captured me for the first time when it features a greatly emotional tale about two best friends, about to be separated. The definite highlight for me came with episode six, where the slice-of-life elements take a small step back, and the anime turns more into a crossing between a documentary and a case-study, where it features a fascinating discussion about earthly desires. Definitely recommendable. Episode 7 proposed some very interesting questions about lying, and how the girl has experienced this. Episode 8 showed nicely how influenceable a human could really be. Episode 9 was one of the more thought-provoking episodes, when it provides a very good twist to the arranged-marriage-plot. Episode 10 was another highlight for me, when it comes with an actual ghost story, or something similar. Episode 11 comes with a love-triangle, I expected it to be rather uninteresting, but somehow it managed to hold my interest throughout the entire episode. Episode 12, finally comes with a rather peculiar case. Even though the execution was nothing special when compared to the others, it remained very interesting to watch. One of the things I like about case-based series is that the creators just can’t get away with cases in which nothing happens. They have to actually put some work into making each case unique. Furthermore, because all cases only take one episode, it’ll rarely drag. Sentimental Journey is a great example of this, even though it covered a genre I mostly find boring. Nearly each case has something unique. It’s also not always the girl’s viewpoint we see. One story gets told by an adult, one story doesn’t really have a main perspective, heck, one story even gets told by an empty soda-bottle. If I had to mention one down-point, it’s that some stories are too much focused on a misunderstanding. It made things a bit too repetitive for the stories-in-question. In terms of graphics, you shouldn’t expect too much from this, though. The animation is nice, but the fact remains that this anime comes from 1998. Add that to the fact that it wanted to create a rather “old” feeling. The music, however, fits perfectly for the show. It really gave a feeling of the first years of the nineties. Especially because of the OP and ED. If you happen to read this, and you also happed to see this anime as well, I’m interested in your favourite episodes. For me, it were episode 6, with episode 10 as a second place, though I feel that this an anime that can appeal in lots of different ways to lots of different people. I’m suspecting that everyone will probably have his or her own highlight of this series. I’m curious to see if that indeed is the case.]]>

Hanoka is a unique anime. It’s the first anime which has been entirely made out of vector-graphics in flash. The result is quite interesting. It’s also one of the shortest tv-series ever. It’s got 12 episodes with a length of 5 minutes. If you deduct 90 seconds for the OP, and 30 more seconds for a recap of the previous episode, then all this anime has is 3×12 = 36 minutes of airtime. For the story, the creators must’ve been put in front of quite a challenge. Not only did they have to think of a story to fit inside those 36 minutes, it also had to comply with the episode length of 3 minutes, and it still had to give enough opportunities to show the capabilities of flash-graphics. For that, it chose a story about a war being fought, between humans and large machines, owned by strange creatures called the citizens of the stars. The story is extremely basic, but still the creators managed to add romance, betrayal, a bit of background, and a fairly consistent story. The creators could have done so much worse with this. The story was nothing special, but because the episodes were so short and the creators threw in enough interesting plot elements due to a fast pacing, this anime never really felt boring or annoying. The only really bad point is the ending, where the creators suddenly introduce another villain for no possible reason, even though it already had the material to make a good ending. Instead of focusing on this, this anime preferred to focus on that final antagonist, who didn’t really add anything to the story. The graphics in flash are a hit or miss. Because they’re made in flash, don’t expect the drawings to be of an extreme or realistic quality. Personally, I quite liked the style though. Animation in vector-graphics is quite different from the animation in normal anime, so it was really refreshing to look at it. Others, however, might get too bothered by the unusual look. Overall, it’s been a cute, short show. I rather enjoyed watching, even though this is nothing really special. Still, I’m suspecting that by far the largest part of the anime-community will never touch this show. It’s been made in a style that you have to like. If you’re into experimental anime, then you could check this out. However, you won’t find much joy in this if all you can stomach is Kanon-styled graphics.]]>

Cat Soup is most definitely one of the strangest movies I’ve seen in a long while. Heck, if you thought that Mind Game and Dead Leaves were absurd, just wait till you see this one. At least these two had some kind of sensible story. In Cat Soup, however, the thread that keeps everything together only appears when the movie is nearly finished. Really, this movie jumps from one strange setting to the other. It’s about a little cat and his big sister, who’s sick, and they travel for some kind of strange reason. They end up in places like a huge circus, during their journey, Father Time messes up, which makes the time stand still, and think of more of these kinds of adventures. I might warn you that some of these cases are very disturbing. More often than not do people get cut into pieces, boiled inside a huge steel pot, and more of these rather gross events. The thing I really liked about this anime is its huge amount of symbolism. A lot of cruel things happen, and I could be wrong in this, but they all seemed to try and bring some kind of message. I’m not yet sure what message, though. I’d say that it comes closest to people, and how they cling to their lives. Overall, if you’re into absurd movies, you should give Cat Soup a try. I didn’t give this one a rating, as there is NO friggin WAY to give a good indication of how good or how bad this movie is. It’s different for everyone, and even I’m still not sure what to think of it. When compared to other absurd movies like Mind Game and Dead Leaves, though, it has one major disadvantage: it doesn’t drag. The entire movie manages to stay interesting.]]>

Afro Samurai is the perfect example of why you should never let an American company handle an anime. I should have known when I started to watch this. They’ll start to see this as some kind of Hollywood Action-movie, instead of an engrossing tale about likable characters. This anime makes the same mistakes as your typical big-budgeted Hollywood action movie: it thinks that action and pretty graphics instantly make it good. Obviously, just that won’t get you far. Okay, as a defence, this anime does give our main character a bit of a history and background. It’s just too bad that not too soon, these start to delve into the absurd when the other villains of this show start to use this background, turning something that could have been interesting into a one-sided boring piece of garbage. Any attempts to draw sympathy out of the viewer fails, seeing that the creators seemed to thing that the more horrible your childhood was, the more you can sympathise with your character. Fleshed-out characters don’t even come to their minds for a second. The second episode could be considered the best of the show. Why? Because an actual human gets placed in the role of antagonist. Apart from that, all Afro Samurai has to face are androids, robots and people who manage to heal themselves without any proper reason. All of this, only to make sure that these opponents don’t just die after one hit from a sword, and keep fighting Afro-samurai, who seems to have a limitless amount of stamina. The creators really couldn’t find an interesting antagonist at all, and instead of that, they keep resurrecting old characters who have already died once, just because they ran out of creativity. The premise, if you can speak of that, revolves around two headbands. A number one and number two-headband. The one who possesses the number one can live as a god. The number two is the only one who can challenge the number one. Afro Samurai is the son of a former number one, who got killed. Because of this, he wants revenge. It’s a good premise, if the focus is put in the right place. Unfortunately, it’s an American company we’re dealing with here. The only two words of that premise that really return in the anime are “challenge” and “revenge”. We never see how the number-one lives. For as far as we know, he just keeps sitting on his lazy ass doing nothing. He also seems to be the only one who gets the god-like powers, strangely enough. Oh, and yes, Samuel L. Jackson does the voice of the main character in this OVA, but really, don’t expect too much of it. All he does is moan and groan a bit. If this guy really is one of the best actors America has to offer, then I’m glad I don’t live there. This definitely is a good example of a good premise, ruined by Hollywood-influence. I fell in love with anime not just because of the pretty graphics. The things that also drew me to it is the focus, the stories, characters and themes. All of these, I fail to see in Afro Samurai.]]>

There’s a certain pattern that some 13-episode series follow. It’s mostly apparent in Kemonozume. The first X episodes of the series rather goof off with random side-quests, funny fillers, etc. And then at one episode, a huge twist comes and the anime suddenly turns serious, starts working towards its major climax, and the overall atmosphere suddenly feels much tenser. Generally, I don’t like these, as they’re just way too forced and directed. Makai Senki Disgaea is one of the few series which actually did such a twist right up till now. And I’m glad to see that Niea Under 7 can be added to this small list. This series starts out as a comedy-series. We’ve got this poor cram school student (Mayuko) who has a very annoying alien living in her closet. The fact that the two of them are almost polar opposites makes sure that the two of them keep bickering against each other whenever they meet. This provides some pretty funny and hilarious situations. But that’s not the thing that made me interested in this anime. The best thing of this series really is Mayuko’s situation. Not only is she a cram school student, she also is incredibly poor, she can’t rely on her parents, she’s shy, and she has to work very hard. Her worries about her situation definitely made this show worth watching. The addition of comedy turned this into a very enjoyable watch. A huge focus is money-struggles. None of the characters appearing in this anime is a huge money-maker, and you can see that even at the places Mayuko works part-time at. This means that whenever a roof gets distroyed, it doesn’t magically fix itself in the next shot, like in most anime. No, here, this roof spends most of its time in the anime being broken, until it finally gets the chance to be fixed. The style of the character art also is one you won’t see in the anime appearing currently anymore. It’s a pity, since I like the style and it’s by no means low-budget. It’s definitely a sign that anime is changing. Still, there are a few bad points about NieA Under 7. It did a very good job in not taking any risks by not forcing too many conveniently-timed plot-twists, but because of this, it doesn’t take all the chances that are presented to it. It could have been more. Mayuko could have been better developed. We could have seen more of her struggles, though this anime decided to keep things simple.]]>

I think some people may have noticed by now, but for the past few months, I’ve been watching some 13-episode series I’ve always been wanting to see, but never got around to. I went to AniDB and made a list of all the interesting-looking series (right now, the list has 17 anime, this one not included). I watch them based on how interesting the concept sounds, with the least interesting to go first. If Figure 17 is any indication of the overall quality of the rest of the list, then I’m really looking forward to them, since this anime is awesome! You see, the problem I have with slice-of-life series isn’t their slow pacing. It’s the fact that nothing happens. I want to sympathize with the characters, but for that, they need to be put in danger. I don’t really care about characters who spend their time eating cakes at a summer-festival, or something. Same with romances. I want to see the different characters face challenges, put their lives on the line, that’ll make me care about them, if done well. This anime seems to have heard my calling, as it flawlessly combines slice-of-life with action scenes. You’ve seen those 26-anime who got crammed into 13 episodes? (Good Witch of the West, Narutaru, etc). Well, this anime shows that you can also can do it the opposite way when it increases its episode length with factor 2. Because of this, Figure 17 turned into the most un-rushed series I’ve seen in a while. Like I said, this show could also have been done in half of its time, but because it took its time so much, it has some great opportunities for fleshing out its characters, and it gladly takes them. Through the course of the series, we get to know Tsubasa and Hikaru, our main characters, through and through. The fight scenes really put them in danger, and because of that, I found myself always rooting for the two of them to win. I’m also glad to say that this show has added itself to the very small list of shows that made me cry and weep. Yes, it’s that good. The problem, of course might be that this show could drag on horribly, but surprisingly, I almost never felt bored while watching this. Perhaps only episodes 3 till 5 felt a bit tedious to get through, but these episodes did make sure for some amazing scenes, later in the series. I also must praise the battles in Figure 17, which were one of the reasons it turned so good. Even though the antagonists are a bunch of monsters, they can actually think for themselves. They’ve got some amazingly tricky battle tactics, and they don’t only get stronger each episode, they also get smarter each episode. This turns the battles more and more strategy- and skill-based, than power-based. Still, I do admit that some battles weren’t as good as others. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised with such a solid piece of work. I thoroughly enjoyed it, not to mention that it actually has a great ending. Still, this isn’t an anime you’d want to marathon. I think it’d be very hard to concentrate after four episodes of the slice-of-life events. But, if you watch this one in a while (like I did), it’ll be an amazing watch. Definitely recommended. You also have to love the soundtrack that comes with it.]]>

Ah, finally Studio 4C releases something again. This time, it’s a collection of four music videos, Global Astroliner, Glass Eye, Kung-Fu Love and Joe and Marilyn, all combined in one package of Amazing Nuts! After watching this, I really have to say that the people behind this were simply brilliant. If these were actually anime, they would have been awesome. It’s such a huge pity, seeing as Studio 4C is an amazing studio, though they spent most of their time on music videos, instead of a compelling anime series. Global Astroliner has a real urban feeling. It features pointy and shady-looking character designs, and portrays the relationships between corrupt officials and people from the street. It’s the only video which doesn’t feature a love-interest of some sort. I’m quite fond of the art-style here, think Tokyo Tribe meets Gorillaz with a high amount of imagination. All characters look quite unique this way. I wish more anime would follow this example. ^^; Then comes Glass Eye, with a totally different focus. We see a girl who’s probably suffering from an overdose of some kind of drug, in the middle of a street. While Global Astroliner was more stylish and funky, this is more sad and touching. This girl then meets a boy, all surrounded by some great CG and animation. The characters themselves also look to be completely made out of CG, but not as crappy as the usual 3D series you see. This actually looks very good. Glass Eye really had a dreamy mood, when you combine the great CG, character designs and background art with each other. Then Kung-Fu Love comes, and this is the first time we have a bit of a descriptive title. It once again is entirely different from the previous one when it features a kung-fu girl, taking on various opponents, and eventually running into a boy she loves. Qute standard, though the thing I really loved in this one was the art and animation. This anime has a greatly colourful style. Perhaps the closest to Studio 4C’s original art style. Each of the characters look beautiful, especially the main character looks gorgeous. The only real disadvantage is the music in this one. While none of the songs really fit my taste, Global Astroliner and Glass eye managed to capture my interest with some very interesting songs, though Kung-Fu Love comes with a cheesy pop-song. Could have been much better. Joe and Marylin was the worst of the four, though. This time, we have a ballad between two loved ones, one of them being a singer. And well, that’s basically what happens. It features some strange 3D-animation, which unfortunately doesn’t really work. Also, the attention to detail we saw in the previous three movies is also a bit lacking, apart from a beautiful cloudy background, perhaps. The music also didn’t really do anything to improve this, it tries to create a romantic feeling, though Glass Eye was far better in this. Overall, if you’re bored, and looking for some eye-candy, this is definitely one to recommend. Though the fact remains that we’re just talking about a bunch of music videos here. They would have rocked if they were genuine anime-series, though right now, they’re all a bit lacking in the story and character development department. Still, this does prove that Studio 4C haven’t lost their touch. I’m therefore looking forward a lot to their upcoming releases of Tekkon Kinkreet and Genius Party. And with a bit of hope, they’ll start on another tv-series in the future. I’m really hoping for that to happen, as their talent is just too big to waste.]]>