Category: Anime Reviews

Natsuyuki Rendezvous Review – 91/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Natsuyuki Rendezvous



The Noitamina timeslot started back in 2005, as an attempt to air series aimed at an older audience than usual. It was a wide success and spawned many awesome series. Then, in 2011 something happened: Fractale aired. It was alongside Hourou Musuko of course, but Fractale is the best symbol for the timeslot as it headed into a completely different direction, making shows about teenagers like what every other anime was doing. There were exceptions like Usagi Drop and Un-Go, but the general new shift in style was definitely noticeable. Until the Summer of 2012, that is. The past three months, we got to see Noitamina return back to its roots. And it was awesome.

Setting aside Moyashimon, Natsuyuki Rendezvous pretty much delivered one of the two best shows of the year, leaving every other series miles behind. It’s just so well made. The production company may be Dogakobo, these guys manage to deliver the best animation they’ve ever done. The characters are drawn incredibly expressive and they come wonderfully to life. And that can be added to the fact that this series is directed by Kou Matsuo, whose series often have this interesting habit of recording the voices before the animation is made. The result is fantastic acting with voice actors who instead of focusing on matching the flaps, can focus on interacting with each other. This show has brilliant characterizations overall.

And realyl, the story knows what it is. It’s deceptively simple from the outside, with very little unneccessary twists. It knows exactly what kind of story it wants to tell and has paced this out perfectly with hardly any moment wasted or rushed turing its 11-episode run. Instead of random twists, it thrives on letting the characters just interact with each other and create their own tension. It has nailed their background and gradual development, and it really succeeded in creating an awesome romance based on the three main characters who feel real and down to earth.

The thing also is, that I can’t think of any real criticism for it. Perhaps there are times at which one of the characters, Hazuki, becomes a bit too forceful, but really: we’re givern plenty of explanation for him to act that way and his acting is really consistent thoughout the series. Heck, if there is anything such as perfection, then this series comes closest to it this year. It’s a must-watch if you’re into realistic drama. It’s not for everyone obviously: if you want action, then don’t bother. However, I do believe that this is the kind of series that can attract people who normally aren’t into romance, but are interested into the genre.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Goldilocks pacing: neither too fast nor too slow. Really manages to let its characters tell its story.
Characters: 10/10 – Fantastic voice acting, amazing chemistry, wonderful drama.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Very expressive and detailed animation throughout the entire series.
Setting: 8.5/10 – Down to earth and very believable, with a great idea to base its romance on that it uses really well.

Suggestions:
– Aoi Hana
– Sakamichi no Apollon
– Hourou Musuko

Hells Angels Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews

I’ll get to Kyousogiga later today. First I want to talk about a sort-of similar production: Hell’s Angels; a 2008 movie that I finally managed to track down. Like Kyousogiga, it’s got a ridiculous amount of style, and even though it’s not as well directed as the former, it does have its charms to watch.

To get an idea of the style of this movie: it is animated by Madhouse and the character-designs have been done by Nakazawa Kazuto, the character-designer of Sarai-ya Goyou, Ashita no Nadja and Samurai Champloo. Pretty much one of the top 5 character-designers out there. The result is a really colourful cast with a lot of different and rugged looks. It’s not the best character-design work of this guy, but still: it definitely looks good. But what about the rest?

Well, right from the start this movie has one very apparent problem: it doesn’t care about dramatic build-up. It just goes from scene to scene to scene without any sort of introduction or slow moment, it just pulls scenes out of its ass and completely disregards trying to create a good flow in its storytelling. When characters need to be together, they just pop up completely from out of nowhere, even lacking scenes that hint that they might be nearby or are about to arrive. This is a very jarring problem for the first half of the movie. The second half of the movie gets more epic, and this problem disappears a bit, making place for a lot of cheesy dialogues. The strange thing however was that despite being cheesy, I was actually sold on this in that second half.

The plot ended up being surprisingly interesting, taking a few biblical stories and giving quite an interesting spin to them. On top of that, the it knows how to deliver an entertaining climax and i had a lot of fun watching it. The characters really had some troubles fleshing themselves out in the beginning,but thankfully they manage to fix that as the movie goes along (it IS nearly 2 hours long). It is a shoujo story, so there are quite a few clichés, but they’re creatively used.

So yeah, this is a good movie for if you’re having a movie night and want something light that looks good. This series has the style to keep you interested, and it has enough substance to not make this get boring within 10 minutes. It entertained me and even though it’s not among the best movies, it set out and did what it intended to do.

Storytelling: 7.5/10 – Throughout the movie, it becomes clear that the creators need to follow a few courses of screenplay 101, because there are a few basic technical issues with how this show jumps around way too much. Later on this gets better and it becomes quite entertaining, even though it can get a bit cheesy.
Characters: 8/10 – Good and likable characters. The female lead is a bit of a Mary Sue, but within the context of this movie it does fit. The cast of characters is also quite diverse.
Production-Values: 8.5/10 – Lots of style; great camera-work and character-designs.
Setting: 8/10 – Neat twist on biblical themes here.

Suggestions:
– Kyousogiga
– Alice in the Country of Hearts
– Hoshi no Umi no Amuri

Ghost in the Shell – Stand Alone Complex Review – 90/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews

I’m not sure exactly what happened, but Ghost in the Shell took me much, much longer to finish than usual. That’s not a bad sign by the way, I have this with some series that I really like, that I don’t want them to end, but this still was really extreme. It took me exactly half a year to finish a measly 26 episodes and I still have a second season to go. My life habits have really changed…

But Ghost in the Shell remains a series that is very tough to digest. It is a series that you constantly need to pay attention for, and it’s full of complex dialogues that are a trademark for its director Kenji Kamiyama. And it’s not just the numerous philosophical debates in this series, but the main plot itself is also mind-bogglingly complex. It involves modern politics, has a huge focus on the mass media. The way in which it fleshes itself out is through long discussions and debates, full of speculation and theories. Yes, you will have to work if you want to enjoy this series, and yes: it delivers.

It was hard work to get through this series, but it does feel like an accomplishment to be able to finish it. Seriously, there are very few series that go even further with their dialogue and exposition than this series. The only that I can recall out of the top of my head are Mouryou no Hako and various Mamoru Oshii’s work, and perhaps Ergo Proxy. If you’re looking for something intelligent, make sure NOT TO SKIP THIS SERIES.

What holds this one back is a bit of a mis-managed cast. I assume that this will be fixed in the Second Gig, but the half of the main cast gets surprisingly little depth, even though the cast of side-characters get a ton of this. I feel like this series could have used its episodes better to flesh them out, because with the way this series is, we always see them in perfect control and we hardly see different sides of them as well. The main storyline around the Laughing Man is fantastic, though I did notice that at this point I can hardly remember the rest of the stories that took place in this series.

Storytelling: 10/10 – That dialogue. It’s great to see another series that takes its audience as seriously as with this series.
Characters: 8,5/10 – Half of the cast really is great. Others are completely one-dimensional though.
Production-Values: 8.5/10 – Here is a tough one: back when it first aired, the graphics were revolutionary. And subsequently it inspired everyone to try harder and surpass the animation here, making it feel rather dated at this point. Yoko Kanno still is godly, though.
Setting: 9/10 – Excellent science fiction, innovative concepts and really makes you think about both technology and politics. Although the standalone episodes could perhaps have been better used.

Suggestions:
Ergo Proxy
Seirei no Moribito
Mouryou no Hako

Mardock Scramble – The Second Compression Review – 77.5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews

Mardock Scramble 2 is a build-up movie. It’s clear to me now that the first movie was meant to be the introduction, and the third was meant to be the conclusion. The second movie is divided in two halves, which both set up this conclusion in their own ways.

The first half is all about world building and the background of some of the concepts that were introduced in this series. The second half will then completely change the setting. I won’t say into what, but it’s basically dedicated to character and atmosphere building, on top of being an interesting change of pace.

So whether the buildup will actually pay off is something I can’t yet comment on until the third movie arrives. What I can say is that it did a pretty good job of remaining interesting, especially in its second half. It’s not as good as the first movie and it doesn’t have the thriller aspect, but it does a good job of developing the chemistry between the characters. As for the character-development itself though… there is only one character who really changes here: the female lead.

The graphics are as polished as you’d expect. Gohands really loves to use CG lighting in lots of different colours, and everything looks really pretty with a lot of good camera angles. The second movie also still has the creative gore of the first movie, albeit in lesser doses. There is one thing that I did notice about the use of colours though: they’re spammed throughout nearly the entire movie, making everything look a tad similar and the same. A bit more variety in this area would have worked wonders. It in no way is a standalone movie though. Watch it inbetween the first and the third.

Storytelling: 7/10 – A build-up movie. It does the build-up well, but it remains build up. I wouldn’t recommend to watch this one standalone unlike the first movie.
Characters: 8/10 – They got nicely fleshed out, the few new characters are interesting and they managed to keep my interest through the whole movie, which is good for something that builds up.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Very pretty colors, albeit a bit one-sided for movie standards.
Setting: 8/10 –

.Hack//The Movie Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews

So, the new .Hack Movie: how did it turn out? Well, you can see this as the spiritual sequel to .Hack//Quantum. It’s got a similar kind of set-up, it’s got a similar main character and its story progression is kindof similar. It’s just slower-paced and more epic.

But yeah, for those who are unfamiliar to the franchise: take Sword Art Online, and instead of putting the focus on combat, you put the focus on adventure and social interaction. Where Sword Art Online has a lot of shounen elements, .Hack on the other hand has more shoujo-esque elements in it, although it does tend to blur the lines between the genres more often. Of the .Hack franchise, I really recomend.Hack//Sign, which has been among my favorite series for eight years now. This movie simplifies a lot of the setting, but it has its merits.

Here is the thing with this movie: don’t expect anything from the plot. You’ve seen this story before, especially if you’re familiar with any other .Hack installment. All you need to know is that the story is epic, the protagonist is an average teenaged girl and that it has romance, and you can pretty much fill in how it’s going to progress on your own. Where this movie delivers instead is with its atmosphere.

The plot is simple, yet the movie clocks in at an hour and 50 minutes. That time is used to make everything play out very slowly. Because of this, it does a proper introduction of the characters, it does the development and the progression believably, the acting is down to earth and credible and the build-up all gets used well in the climax and it closes off satisfyingly. It’s also helped by a composer who obviously is a big fan of Yuki Kajiura, yet manages to keep her own influences.

So yeah, it’s not a movie that people are going to talk about for long, because there’s not much to say about that hasn’t been said in other .Hack anime, but what it does, it does well. It’s also completely done in CG, but this is handled well: in the virtual world this makes sense, and the characters manage to avoid the “botox”-face syndrome decently. It’s in any case better than the other CG .Hack Movie (Trilogy) which was heavily over-acted.

Storytelling: 8,5/10 – The pacing is slow, but skillful and the build-up is good.
Characters: 8/10 – Well acted and engaging characters.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Pretty good CG, and an impressive soundtrack.
Setting: 7.5/10 – It’s the .Hack franchise well portrayed, but it doesn’t really add something new to it.

Suggestions:
– .Hack//Sign
– .Hack//Quantum
– Digimon Movie 2 – Bokura no War Game

AKB0048 Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in AKB0048, Anime Reviews



So, AKB was a series that not many people seemed to like, so with this review I’ll try my hardest to explain why it managed to win me over. And let me get one thing straight: it’s not like I’m some sort of idol fanboy. In fact, I hate the idol business. I really dislike J-Pop as a music genre. And I’m really not a fan of abusing moe and cute girls to pander to an audience. So yes: how on earth did this show manage to win me over?

For the people who aren’t familiar at all with AKB0048: AKB48 is an idol group, consisting out of a huge amount of teenaged girls who sing songs and do other cute things. This series is meant to promote them: the main characters are all played by various members, most of whom have no voice acting experience, and the plot is about a world in which music has been outlawed and the girls run around and perform guerilla concerts as a sort of resistance. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, right? Yeah, but here is the thing: the two main creators, the chief director and the main writer, are two of the biggest trolls around in the anime business: Shoji Kawamori and Mari Okada. And they were given a lot of freedom. I still don’t know who found that a good idea, but bless this person.

Now, to fully appreciate this series, you’re going to have to need to read inbetween the lines a bit. It’s indeed true that we have a bunch of idols who sing and fight evil enemy soldiers at the same time. But at the same time this series does some really surprising things as a show that’s meant to be a promotion of an idol group. I mean, usually these things are incredibly cheap and superfluous: cartoonified members of the group go on random adventures and try to be as cute or cool as possible. AKB0048 however, completely throws these conventions out of the window and starts to focus on the uglier sides of being an idol; how unfair the business can be sometimes, how hard it forces teenaged girls to work and how it forces some dangerous mindsets on them. This series, on one half is indeed cute girls doing cute things, but that other half is really dark to balance all of that out, with some really cynical messages at times.

Beyond that, this show also is just very well executed. The thing with this show is that nearly all voice actresses are completely new, so they don’t have a stereotype that they all try to fit in like what you’d have if people like Kugimiya Rie were cast and all. There are a lot of characters in this show, but none are unlikable or try to force their cuteness down the viewer’s throats. They’re all well-developed and all have engaging issues that actually differ quite a bit. Beyond that there is excellent animation and musical numbers: the performances in this series really work and its use of music is really excellent.

Having said all that though, the overall storyline of this show IS completely silly. The people who outlawed entertainment are nothing more than shallow villains, and somehow they keep getting beaten by a bunch of little girls despite being in armored tanks and mechas. For as much attention this series gives to entertainment and idols, so little it spends on the actual bad guys of this series. That really is the biggest weakness of this series: at times it will be really, really hard to maintain your suspense of disbelief. The sign whether you’ll like this show or not is probably at episode number two: if at that point the characters don’t interest you, then you’ll have a very hard time with this. That episode however does have the power to really capture its audience though, so if you’re interested in this series, do give it a chance and don’t be put off by the whole premise… too much.

Storytelling: 7,5/10 – An excellent animated musical, but the action scenes make no sense!
Characters: 8,5/10 – Large cast with actually likable characters, rather than characters who put too much emphasis on moe stereotypes. They actually got a balance here.
Production-Values: 8,5/10 – Eye candy! Great use of music and songs.
Setting: 8,5/10 – A very cynical and interesting look at idols that you would not expect from a show that’s meant to promote idols.

Suggestions:
– Aquarion Evol
– Macross Frontier
– Nerima Daikon Brothers

Kokuriko Zaka Kara Review – 81/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews

Agh! Stupid laptop! I was nearly done typing up the review for this movie, and then it crashed, taking forever to start up again. I don’t feel like writing it up entirely again, so here is a crash review on Goro Miyazaki’s Kokuriko zaka Kara. There also isn’t going to be a rating table this time, because if that’s longer than the actual review it would defeat its entire purpose.

This felt real! I mean, for a long time I wasn’t sure where this movie was going, but at the ending everything fell on its place and this was a huge improvement over Tales of the Earthsea’s Deus ex Machina ending. The creators created a very interesting movie here with very restrained drama. No overacting whatsoever, even for movie standards. Goro Miyazaki is completely different from his father and he definitely fits quiet drama better, which is probably why he put so much of that into Tales of the Earthsea.
Suggestions:
– Mai Mai Miracle
– Whisper of the Heart
– Chocchan’s Story

Nazo no Kanojo X Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews

If there is one Studio that I consider to be the absolute worst out there, it’s ARMS. They only made one good series once, with Elfen Lied in 2004, and after that they have been churning out one crappy and poorly fanservice series after the other. A few years ago, a Studio named Hoods came along, formed by former Gonzo employees, and it was actually heading to surpass these guys by completely dropping all pretense and producing outright porn, disguised as television-series. Thank god for Nazo no Kanojo, which shows that they’re also willing to go for actually good premises, and treat them seriously.

Okay, the essence of this series is about the relationship between a couple of horny teenagers. This could have been done so badly, but instead this turned out to be a very refreshing and charming take on teenaged relationships. The characters aren’t dabbling in a constant “will they won’t they” loop, and instead start dating right from the first episode, and this series explores their relationship. It’ also helps that the lead girl is rather… weird.

Yeah the tag-line of this series is its drool exchanging, or a metaphor for kissing. Beyond that though, the female led Urabe has a bunch of mysterious powers that really give a fresh dynamic to the teenaged relationships. Her dialogue is often very sharp and unexpected, and she makes for a very interesting character. The male lead is a bit less interesting, but eventually he grows into more than just your average teenaged main character.

Amidst all of the romances in anime that are focused on characters not being able to say anything, the chemistry between these two characters is also really refreshing, as they very often talk out their problems and issues they have with each other. In fact, it’s the chemistry between the two of them that is the most worthwhile of this series, and how subtle the creators managed to portray the sexual tension between them with all sorts of metaphors. The use of fanservice in this series also tends to be very good and fits in the story quite well, rather than being forced to watch the “oops I fell and my panties are showing!”-routine over and over.

So yeah, charming, subtle and sometimes clever romance involving a couple of horny teenagers. This is pretty much one of the best and most believable renditions you can get of that even though the characters have rather weird ways of exchanging their own saliva.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Mostly subtle romance, although there are times when this series loses it a bit.
Characters: 9/10 – Very good chemistry for a teenaged romance. This series knows exactly what it is.
Production-Values: 8.5/10 – The creators got themselves a particularly good soundtrack for this series. You’ll understand when you hear it, but it really contributes a ton to this series.
Setting: 7.5/10 – Standard high school setting. Not the main cfocus of this series, but still.

Suggestions:
– Bokura ga Ita
– Seikai no Monshou

Mouretsu Pirates Review – 86/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Mouretsu Pirates



A series about pirates in space. The creators could have easily put a ship in space and have the characters go “RRRR!” a lot. Not Mouretsu Pirates though. This show is ambitious.

Instead of going with the tried and true formula, Mouretsu Pirates managed to completely create its own setting. It asks the question of what pirates would look like in a futuristic setting in which mankind has ventured off to space. The result is a setting in which Pirates are bound by insurance companies, and are kept afloat as this cultural heritage who raid people as a form of entertainment, and it manages to create all sorts of interesting stories and concepts based on this.

Now, Mouretsu Pirates has a series structure that has some very interesting parts, but also a few downsides. Now, the series consists out of about five major arcs. All these arcs are completely different from each other, they all focus on different characters, they all have different moods and themes, and most importantly: they all get increasingly better. what this pretty much entails to is a series that is a bit hard to get into at first, because the first arcs put a lot of emphasis on world building and setting things up just right, but once it takes off, this series really takes off into a really entertaining roller-coaster ride that just keeps changing.

And also on the character-department this series stands out. The cast of this series is HUGE; every arc introduces a ton of new ones, and I’m glad to say that this is one of those series that handles a huge case really well: it’s diverse and full of all sorts of colourful characters. It’s of course impossible to develop all of them in 26 episodes, but this series chooses very wisely who it wants to develop, while for the rest of the cast it always finds something interesting for them to do or base some interesting revelation around them.

Going back to the early episodes that put a lot of focus on build-up, that has another advantage: The creators re also really good in letting the characters just play out their actions. The result is a series that while being hard science fiction, has a cast of characters that feels real and relatable. I mean, this series may be about pirates, but there are also a surprising amount of arcs dedicated to a high school gir’s yacht club (yeah…), but these characters are portrayed so down to earth and likable that it doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.

A few weeks ago I’ve seen someone describe this show as “Shoujo in Space”, and that pretty much is the best tagline I could find for it: if this term appeals to you, then by all means give this show a chance, because there is a lot to like in it for shoujo fans as myself. This definitely was a very clever series that went from very careful set-up to a really entertaining ride with a ton of colourful characters. If it wasn’t for Natsume Yuujinchou this would have been the best series to debut in Winter 2012.

Storytelling: 8.5/10 – Excellent sense of build-up and variety through its run, but it does take a while to get going.
Characters: 9/10 – Has a huge cast and knows how to use it.
Production-Values: 8/10 – This is a Satelight series, but a low-budget one: it has nice CG at times, but they’re not spamming eye candy like in their usual series.
Setting: 9/10 – This setting here is very creative and well fleshed out. The creators defiitely put thought into how to give a new spin to “pirates in space”.

Suggestions:
– Infinite Ryvius
– Gankuen Seni Muryou
– Armed Librarians – The Book of Bantorra

Natsuiro Kiseki Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews

By far the biggest surprise of the past season was Natsuiro Kiseki. I mean, it looked like an unoffensive series about four girl who live together, like a Tamayura light or something. The end result being so damn good though… I did not expect that. Natsuiro Kiseki turned out to be completely different from Tamayura. And even better.

So, this series is about this very sadistic rocks that takes the wishes of a bunch of teenaged girls and grants them in a way that troubles all of them. It’s pretty much a writer’s excuse to throw all sorts of wacky situations at the lead cast, like making them invisible or getting the literally stuck at each other. What makes this show so good is how well it makes use of this.

All of the rocks diabolical plans force the characters to develop, grow closer together, face things they have been avoiding, all sorts of stuff lfike that. It’s also a great way to flesh them out and makes for some really varied episodes in which there is always something interesting happening. This transforms a show that could have been just another group of stereotypical girls to a heart-warming full fledged character study with well rounded characters.

There are two main weaknesses with this series. The first is that it’s obviously forced: the characters are always put into the situations most convenient for their development. In this context, I didn’t really mind that though. No, the biggest flaw of this series that I can find is that it can be a bit overacted at times. The characters themselves are easy to create drama, and while they act very subtle on some occasions, on others they just try to hard. But heck, this was incredibly heart-warming in any case and a very enjoyable series from start to finish regardless.

Storytelling: 9/10 – A versatile series and uses its own plot devices wonderfully for the points it wants to make.
Characters: 9/10 – Well developed characters who are continually challenged and forced into coming to terms with their issues.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Sunrise solid animation and production values.
Setting: 8/10 – Juts based on one summer holiday and some local folklore. Works well though.

Suggestions:
– Hana-Saku Iroha
– Sasami Mahou Shoujo Club
– Windy Tales