Category: Anime Reviews

Yondemasuyo, Azazel-San Z Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews


Reviewing a comedy sequel usually is quite simple: in most cases it just drops the bomb and runs out of inspiration, and in rare cases it actually manages to stay hilarious. The tricky thing with these kinds of series is that you need to remain funny, and you need to have the inspiration for that. The usual two methods are 1) doing the same thing over and over again or 2) take the prequel and make it more over the top at the areas that it excelled in. Azazel-san chose option 2, but it became both much better and much worse than the first season.

What I mean by that is that is that on one hand, I laughed much more and harder at its jokes. Seriously, the first arc is the best out of the entire series, including all of the OVAs that were made. Moloch has always been a fantastic character, but Azazel-san also grows into this character who just continues to bring me to stitches. And this show knows how to use the two of them. It loves to just kick them into situations that show their funniest sides. And at their best, the banter between the characters is just hilarious and the funniest thing I’ve seen all season.

At its worst though… dear god, this show descends into some depths here. The first season was incredibly vulgar, but the show did manage to make it interesting and varied. It was admirable how much bile it threw at the viewer and how unapologetic it was. So what was the answer of the second season to this? Sex jokes. Lots and lots of bad sex jokes, ranging from bleeding asses to bsdm and lots of willies.

This show doesn’t know what it’s good at. At one moment I’m nearly falling off my chair laughing, at others I’m yelling at the screen for the umpteenth penis that the creators wanted to shove in, and this is especially prevalent in the middle arcs of this series. Still, unlike the first season, I can’t find any arc that was completely boring: every arc, no matter which depths it descended into, made me laugh.
One-Sentence Review: This show’s pitch-black humour is second to none, Azazel and Moloch are awesome, but prepare for a slew of really bad sex jokes.
Suggestions:
– Hen Zemi
– Detroit Metal City
– Jungle wa Itsumo Hale Nochi Guu

Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet Review – 81/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet



Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet tells the storyline of a planet that is completely submerged, with only giant ships residing on the surface, while one of those ships gets visited by this guy and his AI-mecha from this very technologically advanced civilization. Yes, this show is about world building.

What this show managed to do really well is create a culture for the people who live on these ships, complete with customs, a new religion, a clothe style, a way of behavior. They use the technologically advanced culture well to explore this culture by clashing it, and show the differences. The show can keep this up, and it definitely has some interesting ideas to explore.

The shame is that this is a 13-episoded series that really just needed 26 episodes. It’s not rushed because of that, but it does have pacing issues, and glosses over a lot, and doesn’t really get to explore this setting to its fullest.Same goes for the characters: there are some good ones here: Ledo and his AI have this really good chemistry, and the acting in general is also quite good and down to earth… with some notable exceptions though. There are a number of annoying characters, and really weird character character-decisions that don’t make much sense. The storyline has nice ideas on one hand, but it does get a bit boring and redundant at others. Especially the beginning is good, and the conclusion also has its moments, but in the middle there are a few episodes that could have been better used; they waste too much time.

It’s a solidly produced series, and the creators managed to make this show stand out with tis visuals that manage to remain expressive. Gargantia is a show with issues, but I personally think that the pros weigh over the cons and it’s worth a watch. Just don’t go out of your way to watch it though, because there just are better series.
One-Sentence Review: Good world-building and characterization versus some big pacing issues causing this show to not get the full potential out of its ingredients, by far.
Suggestions:
– Blue Submarine No.06
– Heat Guy J
– Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

Yahari Ore no Seishun no Love Come wa Machigatteiru Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews


I like surprises, like when a series comes that just turns out to be good against my expectations. Yahari Blahblah from the outside had all the signs to turn into yet another one of those high school comedies: snarky male lead, pointlessly long title that fails at being witty, various other cliched side-characters. And they made something good out of it!

The credit here goes to the original light novels this was based on, because for once, this show aims to stray away from mindless fluff, even though it may not seem like that at first. The lead character at first seems like the umpth snarky male lead, but eventually he sets himself apart to be different by actually using the weaknesses in his own personality as a weapon. This gives him wit that leads to some very insightful character-development, and the great thing is that this series never claims that he is just right, but instead it provides multiple viewpoints at the same issue. The original source material was very well written, and thankfully the creators of the anime managed to carry that over in their adaptation.

The side characters also surprised me. They range from intelligent to… not so intelligent, but I was quite impressed with how so few actually try to play up their own stereotypes. For example, you have the typical blond girl who is the most popular girl in the school, and while she acts cocky, she actually has more to her character than that, and she never really just starts acing like a complete spoiled princess. The lead female at first seems like a Senjogahara-clone, but quickly develops her own traits that make her far less one-dimensional than what you’d expect.

There is a lot of standard high school fare, and this show does linger along at places, not to mention that I feel like its ending is quite rushed and inconclusive. The visuals also aren’t anything special: they are adequate, but the animation never stands out nor falters. Still, for a high school “romantic comedy”, this was pretty damn good.
One-Sentence Review: Takes the generic high-school love-comedy set-up, and makes it good with some deep characters.
Suggestions:
– Umi ga Kikoeru
– Hana-Saku Iroha
– His and Her Circumstances

Chihayafuru Second Season Review – 89/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Chihayafuru



Let’s put this into a bit of perspective: generally to warrant a second season a series needs to sell well in one way or the other. Chihayafuru’s DVD sales were abysmal: it sold like, 500 copies in its first week or so. Despite being a really excellent and well-made series, people just didn’t want to bite, and I had given up on any hope for a continuation. Imagine my surprise when the manga suddenly gets really popular and a second season has been highlighted!

And guess what? The production-values still are completely top-notch. There only are a few episodes with some bad and jerky animations. Otherwise: everything is perfectly crisp, the animation manages to make every single karuta match stand out and sparkle. There still is a ton of eye candy here. Any idea how hard it is to keep up this consistency for like fifty episodes?!

I mean, Chihayafuru’s sequel is just amazing. It continues the trend that the first season set, and just continues on with it, doing so many things right. Every single episode, it doesn’t just push one character forward; it tries to do this with as many characters as possible. No episode is wasted like this, and every episode brings something new to the table. It really is amazing how the creators continue to be able to do this. They introduce quite a few new characters that have a great impact on the storylines, and nearly all of them have some sort of gimmick, yet they feel real, and very relatable. The acting was fantastic in the first season, and that didn’t let up in the second, and the second now has so much build-up and development behind it!

It’s really clear that the creators here have a very good understanding of the game of Karuta: they really manage to flesh out the game even more in this season, and show many different sides of it. A downside is that if you just look at the matches objectively, then this series is a bit predictable in the big picture, but in the small picture, it’s everything but: the creators try their hardest to make the individual karuta-matches as exciting as possible.

This season does have a bit of a downside that it’s the middle arc, so there is no beginning, nor an ending, and because of that the juiciest developments are reserved for the other parts (if they’ll ever get there), and as a result this series does have less subject material, so it can move a bit slow at times. But still this show had some of the best characters of the year.
One-Sentence Review: If this series can’t get you fired up on Karuta, then nothing will; fantastic characterization.
Suggestions:
– Hikaru no Go
– Nodame Cantabile
– Shion no Ou

Valvrave The Liberator Review – 65/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews


Storytelling is hard. You can’t have a storyline that is about a bunch of characters watching paint dry: there needs to be some storyline, some sort of conflict to make things interesting. It’s an intricate balance that you need to find. Put way too much emphasis on the conflict, and you get Valvrave the Liberator.

Valvrave is a series that likes conflict. Every episode is geared to shock twists not really uncommon in a bad soap opera. Characters yell and screwm with drama, and things quickly devolve into this train-wreck of events that favors sensation over suspense of disbelief. The plot in this show tries to adhere Murphy’s law, and when it can’t it’ll just shove in some sort of plothole or -device. Because of all of the overacting the character-development also doesn’t really work because everyone just keeps acting outrageous rather than relatable.

For a while though, it was good. This show got so ridiculous that I just kept watching for my 20 minutes of brainless action per week. If there is anything that this show is good at, it’s eliciting emotions due to how over the top the plot went, and it didn’t seem to take itself seriously either. So of course near the end, it drops all that and starts to play its own story straight. The shocks are just there to shock, rather than to entertain as it tries to take itself so seriously. And that’s where it falls apart so horribly. The characters can’t hold the plot together without the comedy, and the twists… are totally inappropriate and devolve into pointless sensationalism.

Oh yes, they’ll get people talking about it, but not in a good way. There still is a second season due this Fall Season, and in all honesty, with the hints given it can return to its ironic self, but knowing the guy who wrote this it’s just going to devolve into an even bigger trainwreck. I really need to put more thought into what series I drop and keep watching, because this… wasn’t really worth the watch. It’s an easy page-turner, but totally not good storytelling!
One-Sentence Review: As long as it doesn’t take itself seriously, this is mindless bombast and entertainment; when it does, it falls apart completely in this sensationalist trainwreck.
Suggestions:
– Mai Hime
– Infinite Ryvius (an example of how to do such a storyline right)
– Macross Frontier

Hataraku Maou-Sama Review – 81/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Hataraku Maou-Sama



Comedies in anime. Most of them are… juvenile, to say the least. Lots of show center around dumb fanservice humour, and the majority of the ones that are actually funny are so because of their characterization. Hataraku Maou-Sama set out to do something special: it tried to add a bit of intelligence to its jokes. It’s something that it couldn’t keep up for its entire run, but it’s a very interesting attempt nonetheless.

Let alone that for once we aren’t following a bunch of high schoolers, but people who are actually working. Here we have a series in which a demon lord suddenly has to adapt to the human world while being stranded there, and by far the best thing about this series is the way in which he does this. This series likes to build up its humour: with a lot of jokes, you’ll be “ah, so that’s why they did that”. The jokes in this series are really well written, and quite often they really are hilarious.

This series is a mixed bag in the character-department. It has some really fun characters on one hand (Maou and Ashiya make for a very fun and atypical comedy duo), while on the other hand other characters are bland and only annoying (Chiho), and others are sometimes great to watch, and sometimes the creators don’t really seem to know what to do with them. A lot of these problems stem from the fact that as well versed this show is on comedy, it doesn’t really know how to do proper character-development. Change in the characters is either completely predictable, or characters just make giant heel-turns as soon as they’re defeated, and a lot of characters here find it very hard to move away from their one-dimensional caricatures.

So yeah, this series’ biggest strength is its comedy. The problem is, that this isn’t really consistent. Personally, when I watch a comedy, I really want to laugh a lot. Hataraku Maou-Sama has strings of episodes that just aren’t funny enough; for me, at least. It also has one really dumb pool episode that kills a lot of fun as well. this series also may be focused on a demon king, but really: remove that and nothing much would really change in the overall storyline. This series never really uses its own symbolism well, making the overall storyline even flimsier.

As for the production-values: this show looks crisp. Very crisp, and there hardly ever is a badly drawn shot. You can really see that White fox was behind it, because their consistency is always top-notch. This show doesn’t excel in over the top eye-candy, but it still is very pretty to look at, and the soundtrack has one very good track to it that also is used at the moments that suit it best.

The question is: does the best stuff weight up to the boring parts? Well, I’d say that if you easily get annoyed by cliches, then it’s probably better to pass this one up. If you’re looking for very well done comedy, then by all means give this one a chance. Don’t expect much from the storyline, and you’ll be set.
One-Sentence Review: Clever comedy with good build-up, weighing against a bit of a dull storyline.
Suggestions:
– Ben-To
– Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin
– Ooedo Rocket

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Review – 89/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure



There are a lot of ways to adapt something. Shounen battle series tend to very quickly fall into a very dull variation of that: really slow pacing that goes on forever with long boring drawn out battles that all look like each other. David Production looked at them, and just said “we can do better!”

They grabbed one of the most popular shounen series that hadn’t been fully adapted yet and gave it a kickass treatment that just screams epicness that fits the story perfectly. Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure on its own is already a completely crazy story, but this anime actually throws in everything it has to amplify this insanity. The voice actors all yell out their lines with an incredible amount of passion and energy, the animation is full of weird and over the top poses and trippy colour effects, the soundtrack is completely epic with many different tracks (including even dubstep), the pacing is incredibly fast, yet nothing feels rushed. All dedicated to make the adrenaline rush as high as possible.

The plot of this series is basically a bunch of incredibly muscly guys punching zombies to death. That could have been so dull so fast, but beyond the incredibly over the top execution, the actual contents of the action scenes are really creative and fun to watch. This show knows how to keep itself fresh: every character is varied and unique (and really likable by the way, the best being Joseph and Stroheim), every villain has different powers and methods of fighting, and this show loves to use all sorts of props and powers to remain interesting. This series in particular loves to give huge powers to very tiny and weak things, to prevent things from being just one superpower after the other. It keeps fights with random goons really as short as possible, so that it can focus on the characters who actually matter.

Of course, this series is not for everyone. It is for those looking for over the top action, and in terms of shounen action it pretty much offers the best you can get. Having said that though: it is pretty simplistic at times. Some characters are quite one-sided and only work because the presentation is so good. Don’t expect the most complex character-development here, but instead huge heaps of energy and manliness.
One-Sentence Review: An excellent adaptation, full of incredibly over the top shounen action with a very creative plot and really likable, albeit simple, characters.
Suggestions:
– Baccano
– Shin Mazinger Z
– Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood

Little Busters Review – 77,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews

Key’s series are… interesting. They always have their flaws, but when they hit, they really make for a home run for me. Their latest title is Little Busters and yeah… let’s not fool ourselves: it is their worst adaptation so far. It’s a show that has so many problems, but still: if you look beyond them you actually can get something quite good out of it.

So yeah… where to start? The format is known at this point: we have the male lead who moves between various female characters and solves their problems one by one, with random stuff inbetween. It’s a simple task, but… yeah. The creators did not spend a lot of thought on polishing this. Some of the voice actresses are actually abysmal at their job (especially girl #1), making their story painful to sit through. Then there is the way at which the show tries to rush through its story way too fast in order to be able to stuff everything in, resulting in a long-string of infodumps that just fail to engage. And then there are some stories that are inherently just completely bad and stupid, where resolutions make no sense, or people overreact for no reasons just to create drama. Whenever this series tries to get dramatic, it falls into this horrible mess of bad execution and only one of the girls really ends up doing well there.

And yet… I managed to finish this series. The reason for that was all the stuff inbetween the big arcs. The slice of life, the random goofing off. For some bizarre reason, this show is actually really good at just fleshing out its cast. Rather than your standard harem, there are actually other male characters who aren’t cliches, and these guys are actually really interesting to watch. Why couldn’t they have had their own arcs? And beyond that it is just a very fun group of friends to watch. Screw the drama! This would have actually made a fine slice of life series there. The cast is varied, and even though there are a bunch of stereotypes, everyone just fills in for each other. The bond between the rather large cast of main characters is quite well done.

Do I recommend this then? Nah. It just takes way too long for these strengths to really show, and there is A LOT of crap you have to go through, just to be able to enjoy the good parts. Little Busters is… misguided. At this point it nearly seems like a build-up just for Refrain, which apparently is supposed to be amazing. But my opinion about those kinds of series is simple: DO NOT make me sit thruogh an entire season of build-up. I’ve got better things to do!
One-Sentence Review: This show is quite good at just goofing off and doing random staff. It’s quite bad when it goes really dramatic.
Suggestions:
– Clannad
– Air
– Ano Hana

AKB0048 Second Season Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in AKB0048, Anime Reviews



The first season of AKB0048 was a big surprise for me for taking such a silly premise, and actually creating something good out of it. Here is the second season, and was it as good as the first? Nah. Still, it’s worth watching if you watched the first season.

The direction for the sequel is slightly different from the first. The first had a lot of fun with criticizing the idol business next to telling its story, showing its darker sides. The second season takes this the other way around, by celebrating it instead. everything here is glorified, instead of played down. It’s got an interesting effect, and it is great to see these two sides of the coin together. But standalone it does miss something.

Mostly because I find idols to be incredibly cheesy, and this series just goes all out in glorifying them (like, what I was afraid of that the first season would be). That’s a bit of a bummer, because it does make the series a lot less interesting in terms of its plot.

So it was up to the characters and the music to save the day! They did partially. There is a lot of good character-development in this sequel, and the rather large cast has a lot of moments for even the side characters to show off themselves. The series has a really large cast, and unfortunately it does look like a bit of a mess because of it, but the advantage of this is that this series can come from out of nowhere to deliver something heartfelt and genuine.

The disadvantage of such a messy cast of characters is that some characters just don’t work. For variety’s sake this does not have to be such a big problem, but it kind of is when one of those characters is the main character. She never really knows what her role is in this series until it gets forced upon her in an entirely non-subtle way.
One-Sentence Review: AKB0048’s sequel is not as good or interesting as the first season, but it’s still quite an entertaining, albeit messy, animated musical.
Suggestions:
– Macross Frontier
– Simoun
– Mouretsu Pirates

Polar Bear Cafe Review – 81/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews

If I said that a really good comedy for the past year was a show about a Penguin and a Panda walking into a bar, would you believe me?

Polar Bear Cafe is an interesting beast here. Series that combine slice of life with comedy are nothing new, but this series does it in a way that has not been done often before. For one, its characters stand apart in their simplicity,and how they try to stay away from often used cliches. One, by being a bunch of talking animals, and two, by focusing not on teenagers, but on the working class adults.

Most humour in anime is energetic. Polar Bear Cafe though, is all about deadpan. If you enjoy that kind of humour, then you should give this show a chance, because on one hand, it contains really every day conversations between its characters, and on the other hand it is really creative in how it delivers its jokes. It constantly pokes fun at itself and its silly concept and contains more running jokes than you can shake a stick at. The self-referential humour is what I liked best about this series: it spends so much time carefully creating its setting, yet at the same it’s also constantly breaking it down and poking fun at it.

50 episodes is long, but I have to say: during the best episodes I really fell off my chair laughing. For me, they were the Penko episode, and the Bar MC episode. Beyond that this series also made me laugh numerous times, but there were unfortunately also plenty of episodes that failed to raise a laugh, or that were just plain dull. Like I said, 50 episodes is long.

It’s a bit of a dilemma for this series. Ideally its length would be at 39 episodes, but the long length does lead to some really good character building. At the end of the series, you really feel like you know these characters. The “people” you see hanging around in bars, cafes that you sometimes talk to and hang out with. The ones who are constantly trolling each other, who don’t try to get others to like them, yet get their charms from that.
One-Sentence Review: Random slice of life combined with deadpan comedy: that’s what makes this show work although it is too long with 50 episodes; plus Polar Bear is a great character.
Suggestions:
– Excel Saga
– Poyopoyo Kansatsu Nikki
– Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru