Category: Anime Reviews

Sometimes, a show comes along that has the best of intentions… but just seems to miss the boat by a few inches. Jormungand is scheduled for 24 episodes, this first season covering 12 of them and this seems to be enough time to cover its entire story about weapon dealers who travel all over the world. This should have been an awesome series, but instead this season had more than a dozen better series. So what happened?

Well first of all this season is awesome, that’s definitely a matter of bad timing for Jormungand, but even then there is a reason why it failed to stand out. I’ve seen quite a few comparisons between this series and Black Lagoon, but that’s not quite right. Black Lagoon had a cast of widely varied and colourful characters. Jormungand wants to have a cast of colourful characters, but gets a few things wrong.

The series definitely knows its basics: every episode is dedicated to give background and a story to at least one member of the cast. These backstories and developments are definitely interesting. It also fleshes a bunch of them out quite well, most notably Jonah. The problem though, is that it doesn’t do this with every character.

Now, that on its own isn’t a bad thing: the trick with a series that has a huge cast is to make every character feel unique and part of the story. And that’s where Jormungand falls down, especially with its villains. There is no big villain in this series: every arc has its own antagonists, and they’re all pretty much carbon copies of each other. The creators keep recycling two or three archetypes over and over again: the loud-mouthed complaining boss, the ditzy and spunky female sidekick and the silent soldier. After seeing the protagonists easily beat these characters over and over again with seemingly no effort, things get a bit boring. This series also really likes snarky characters, up to the point at which just about every bloody characters is snarky to some extent.

And that is a shame because a series with this concept is destined for greatness. The places that the characters visit are unique and beyond any cliches, and it really toys with the themes of weapon dealing and morality in a fresh way. And there are definitely interesting characters, but they’re just overshadowed by the unremarkable ones. But here is the thing though: it still has plenty of potential for its second season. It laid out more than enough build-up for that. The second season will have to put in much more emphasis on getting better villains, but there are plenty of hints that it will. There is plenty of interesting stuff in this first season, it just gets held back a bit. Remove that and who knows what you’ll get?

Storytelling:	8/10 – Fun action scenes and good pacing. Battles are too easy sometimes.
Characters:	7/10 – There are way too many similar characters and archetypes throughout the series. The few good characters don’t manage to save this series from being dragged down by this.
Production-Values:	8/10 – Funky soundtrack, its own visual identity and nice animation.
Setting:	9/10 – The most interesting part of this series, with still a ton of potential left for the second season.

Suggestions:
– Madlax
– Black Lagoon
– Mobile Police Patlabor

I remember that it was often a pain to sit through the first season of Kimi to Boku. Chizuru, the blond haired kid especially got on my nerves many times. The thing is however, that despite that, it did know how to build up and create good characters. And that’s the nice thing of second seasons: you’ve already done the introductions and fleshing out so you can fully focus on the good stuff.

As a result, Kimi to Boku’s second season is a lot more bearable. Chizuru definitely develops his own charm and the chemistry between the characters only gets better and better. Every episode takes one of the characters, whether this is a main or a side one, and does something clever with him or her. There’s a lot of character-development to be found in this series.

Another big difference is that the focus on drama is much greater, and by that I mean that the creators take up much more time in order to let the serious scenes play out as smoothly as possible. The result is very atmospheric. The first season had most episodes structured where most of their airtime would be random goofing-off, with some sort of redeemable twist at the end. The second season is more really slow development with you at the end realizing how much has actually been added to the characters.

You obviously need a bit of a thick skin for Kimi to Boku, because Chizuru can and will get on your nerves, but beyond that this is just an excellent drama with loads of interesting characters. The second season can be a bit slow at times, but heck: it’s been a while since a slice of life series came around that was this good with a predominantly male cast.

Storytelling:	8,5/10 – Great atmosphere, and loves to take its time to let events play out well.
Characters:	9/10 – Tons of subtle character development.
Production-Values:	8/10 – Solid animation: nothing special, but no abuse of still frames either.
Setting:	8/10 – A typical high school that for once doesn’t feel over-exaggerated.

Suggestions:

Back when I was a teenager and not an anime fan yet, I used to watch way too much American cartoons. I pretty much suffered an overdose from it and all of the incredibly bad stuff I actually sat through back then. I wasn’t going to touch any of those shows anymore unless it had something really good to offer. Enter the Legend of Korra.

The premise of this series just sold me. Instead of going with the usual premises, it instead took things a step further: this series takes a look on what would happen after the world has been saved by an “Avatar”. What would the world look like after someone came along and united everyone? What would the new version of him look like and what would her part be? The result is that the creators stuffed a martial arts expert inexperienced into a big political battle with roots deep in racism and oppression by those who are stronger. It blurred the lines between good and bad by making both sides flawed, and Korra often ends up as a hypocrite due to her inexperience. Add in some terrific action scenes in which in particular the fight choreography stands out (which really was better than any of the other anime that aired this season) and you really have a series that could have become amazing.

There are two things that ended up holding this series back though. At first this series struggles with its romance. It’s inconsequential and annoying with a pointless love triangle that only serves to stall for time, rather than just spending time to flesh out the characters. The second flaw is that it’s got a really bad ending. I know that this is only the half-way point of the series, but the ending did try to wrap up everything that this season had brought forth, and failed miserably with a bunch of very blatant Deus ex Machina that render some of the build-up and most defining moments earlier on in the series rather meaningless.

Now, the Legend of Korra does have some very good individual moments and great concepts, they just don’t come together at the end and due to that ending I’m not sure whether I can really recommend it (endings for me are very important on fiction and often ended up changing my view on a work significantly) and my rating for this series would have been much higher without it. For those who don’t want to watch any of the other installments of the Avatar Franchise: don’t worry. This series is actually pretty standalone and an be watched on its own.

Storytelling:	7/10 – A bit of a wonky pacing with a bad ending mostly reduces the potential of this show.
Characters:	8/10 – It uses its characters very nicely and the age gap between the different characters along with their backgrounds combines very well. The romance doesn’t really work, though.
Production-Values:	9/10 – This season there really were a lot of series that stood out with visuals, all in their own ways. For Korra, this was the fight choreography that was un-matched.
Setting:	8.5/10 – Great ideas for politics.

Suggestions:
– Last Exile
– Mahou Shoujotai
– Secret of the Cerulean Sand

If you’re wondering what’s up with the delays: well, right at the busiest time of the season for me (Thursday when the series start to end and I have to write reviews for all of them) my laptop decided that it didn’t like internet anymore, and I’ve been running around trying to get to fix it.

Anyway, Medaka Box: there are exceptions, but in general I tend to dislike shounen jump adaptations: they’re too long, too dragged out, and almost always are badly paced. Whether Medaka Box will also fall into these pitfalls is hard to say at this point because this first season is only 12 episodes long and a second season is on its way that’s supposed to be about the meat of the real series, but on the other hand this was awfully close to an entire season dedicated to introductions.

So here is the premise: Medaka is perfect at everything. Very often this is is a bad thing, but the unique thing about Medaka Box is that it realizes this, embraces it and plays with it. What does it mean to be perfect? Is it really possible to be perfect? What about the people around you? It’s these questions that make Medaka Box worth watching, and make it more than just your average shounen jump series that are all about fighting.

The problem with this series is the way in which it’s set up. This first season consists mostly of episodes that in terms of premise aren’t that different from Sket Dance: someone has a problem and the lead cast solves it, and that someone gets added to the cast of characters. These arcs try to be interesting, and they do their best to outline the backstories of the characters they focus on, leading up to some sort of character-development at the end. But ultimately they end up rather boring.

It’s a combination of the way in which all these stories are meant to just be introductions, along with how most characters are pretty shallow when they first appear, added on a formula that the series sticks to a little too eagerly. Most of the characters only get interesting after their introduction arcs when they aren’t the main focus.

So why do I still consider Medaka Box worth watching? Well, there is one particularly epic arc in the second half of the series that does let go of all these formulas and shows the series completely changing genres and making great use of the build-up of the earlier duller episodes, both in terms of its characters and its themes. This was where the series really starts toying with shounen conventions and subverting them. This really was interesting and shows a lot of the potential that could possibly be within the second season.

So yeah, let me get back on this one. I mean, the original manga is written by NisiOisin, a guy who is infamous for wasting ungodly amounts of time, but I can’t deny that when he gets down to business he can write some very interesting stuff; even the dull episodes did have interesting ideas behind them. And the energetic Gainax behind the wheel does balance out with his dialogue more than what I’ve usually seen from his adaptations.

Storytelling:	7,5/10 – A season of introductions. It’s building up right and all, but there is only one arc that really makes use of it. That arc is excellent though.
Characters:	7,5/10 – Again, Medaka Box has good characters that do play around with shounen tropes, but it doesn’t use them enough. Yet.
Production-Values:	8/10 – The animation in this series is inconsistent: there are times in which you’ll be wondering what happened to Gainax’s usual animation. The points where it does show itself though make up for it.
Setting:	8,5/10 – This series has really – < interesting ideas and concepts, waiting to be fully explored in the second season.

Suggestions:
– [C]
– Heroic Age
– Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin

Ah, Medaka Box can wait. First there is a movie I want to talk about: Buddha. It’s been a while since a movie really made me go “wow”.

Of course, I am a big fan of Osamu Tezuka. Next year it’ll be fifty years since the debut of the anime Astro Boy, and his stories still stand out as unique. Some of the movies and series that are adapted from his works stand among my favorites. The reason why this movie surprised me however was because of how it started; not every adaptation of Osamu Tezuka is brilliant, and a lot of them are either too childish or just too silly to properly enjoy, and the Buddha movie starts as the latter. The opening scene had a point to it, but it’s just so bizarre with some of the weirdest acting by animals that it made a very nasty opening for this series.

And after that though, this movie completely delivers. The storyline really is typical Osamu Tezuka, as it shows a very liberal interpretation of the man who would later be Buddha. The movie has the st-up that many other works by the God of Manga have: many different characters who all have their own stories that sometimes intertwine, a story that only shows its true self once it has been going on for more than half an hour (heck, Buddha isn’t even born yet in the movie’s opening 30 minutes), lots of time-skips and most importantly: tons and tons of character-development.

All of those things make his stories unique, but the character-development really stands out: just about every important character goes through a complete change that is meaningful and well built up. Buddha is no different here. I still can’t believe how much change the creators managed to put in just two hours.

It also shouldn’t be surprised that there are huge Buddhist themes in this movie. Osamu Tezuka has used them in some of his other stories, Hi no Tori notably featured some brilliant insights in both its good sides and bad sides. Buddha meanwhile is a more positive look on the faith, which brings me to what really caught my attention about this movie, because everything else about it is completely and utterly dark.

Seriously, don’t let the looks fool you. This movie is full of abuse, death, pain and suffering. Its characters are constantly struggling to get better lives, only to suffer huge life-changing set-backs. There are some huge karma themes in this movie, as with some of Tezuka’s other works, but I can’t recall any other work that has so many of them. This movie also has some incredible plot twists that just keep pushing this further and further. Serioulsy, this movie is 2 hours long and hardly ever takes things slow. It always manages to find something interesting to throw at its characters.

Toei also put some really good animators on this movie. At first it might not seem that way because there are plenty of rushed and simple shots, but some of the fight scenes have really smooth animation. In particular there is one huge battle scene between two armies that manages to bring every soldier to life, on top of having completely fluid animation that on top of that has some really creative and dynamic animation.

Now, is this the best adaptation we’ve seen from Osamu Tezuka? No, but that’s because it’s competition is just so damn strong: most of these adaptations just seem to fit perfectly into the movie format, while I feel that Buddha was a bit rushed here and there, especially in the beginning, plus some of the acting can get a bit weird at times. Nevertheless, the creativity of this movie is really something to be praised. Best movie of the year so far.

Storytelling:	9/10 – Just keeps the plot twists coming, and manages to weave a ton of different storylines together.
Characters:	9/10 – Amazing character-development, as expected from Osamu Tezuka.
Production-Values:	8,5/10 – The animation is inconsistent, but when it’s good, it’s really good.
Setting:	8,5/10 – Very creative, uses its Buddhist themes really well, but there are also a few things here and there that are portrayed a bit too silly.

Suggestions:
– Metropolis
– Hi no Tori – Uchuu-Hen
– Hi no Tori – Houou-hen

So, things have been very quiet in terms of movies. However, starting from now, we’re in for a year in which the line-up is going to be the best in many, many years. And what a wonderful way to start this streak of awesome movies than with Berserk’s remake. Remake anime are tricky. I hate them if they don’t add anything, or are nothing more than a glorified recap. With those things, you can just as well watch the original thing, making them completely redundant. When they’re done well though, I just can’t complain. Berserk’s movie is one of the best examples of that.

It adapts the same story as the TV-series, but the tone and execution are so completely different, and both adaptations have their own merits. The TV-series was dark, subdued and incredibly gloomy, using is long length perfectly to set its atmosphere. It let everything play out very slowly, and as a result was a tad padded out here and there. The movie however has a much brighter colour palette, its pacing is much faster, and rather than the gloomy atmosphere, it creates the atmosphere of an epic fantasy series. This also really reflects in the soundtracks: the TV-series had Susumu Hirasawa’s magic do a very depressed and dark score. The movie instead is full of choirs and orchestras, having a much more bombastic feel.

And then there are the visuals. On one hand we have the TV-series, which has the better art style of the two (outdated? Hah, I disagree; I have more problems with most anime characters nowadays looking too similar), creating some stunning designs and images, at the expense of a lot of still frames. Then there is the movie, which really excels in its animation. The TV-series had some amazing consistency, while the movie is much more experimental, even though it had to make some sacrifices for that.

Because yeah, if there is one complaint that you’re going to hear about this movie, then it’s the fact that the creators had to resort to CG for the actual character models. And really, for character-models done in CG, this really is one of the better examples of combining 2D and 3D, but it still stands out. The creators definitely prioritized movement over looking consistent, and it shows: the movement in this show feels very smooth and natural. The fluidity of the scenes is great.

Where this movie also stands out is a specialty of the director that Studio 4C got for this movie: Toshiyuki Kubooka, who previously directed Remaining Sense of Pain from Batman: Gotham Knight. He already showed there a great knowledge of human anatomy that he used in his gore, and he also uses this very effectively in this movie, giving a real edge to the combat scenes.

So, is this movie on par with the Television Series? I can’t say that yet, as it only adapted, what? The first ten episodes or so? They haven’t even reached the part where Berserk gets really, really good, but even then this movie had my constant attention and it was excellent at both building up and delivering solid action scenes, and it still has really good acting. It’s all really well balanced, but yeah: the downside is less time to flesh out some of the characters. Especially the side-characters suffered from this.

Storytelling:	9/10 – Managed to condense the Berserk storyline to movie-format. Wonderful balance and really went with its own direction.
Characters:	8/10 – The creators did a great job in bringing the characters to life. Unfortunately, the movie is only an hour long, and some side-characters suffered from this.
Production-Values:	8/10 – Really, the only reason why this isn’t a 9 is because of the CG. Perhaps the budget isn’t as big as some other movies, but the sense of aesthetics of this movie makes it a visual feast nonetheless.
Setting:	9/10 – Still maintains that unique take on the medieval setting here.

Suggestions:
– Berserk
– Rurouni Kenshin – Tsuiokuhen
– Vampire Hunter D – Bloodlust

So… Ozuma. What is there to say about it, really? After years of absence, another Matsumoto Leiji series has come out, adapting a story of his that’s more than 25 years old by now about sand submarines. After six episodes, I’m still not quite sure what I watched.

Ozuma’s biggest problem is that it’s plagued by production issues. While in theory it’s nice to see a series who says an entire “screw you” to broadcasting schedules, this series feels very sloppy, and way too short to really do anything with its premise. It just delivers a bunch of ideas, but doesn’t connect them well. The ideas are great, don’t get me wrong about that, and this could have been a great retro series, but in the end nothing really comes together and the whole execution lacks soul, not to mention the sloppy animation.

I think what also was pretty bad for this series was its cast of characters. The main character is a very annoying brat, and the ones around him just fail to be interesting. They have neat ideas behind their characters, but their delivery is all just so lackluster. I miss passion here, I miss attention to detail, I miss the build-up that stories of the Leijiverse are so good at. You can see that the original Ozuma story had potential, but it’s like the creators didn’t care or something.

Storytelling:	6/10 – Lackluster is the best way to describe this. Doesn’t care at all about standing out.
Characters:	6/10 – These guys feel like caricatures of the usual Matsumoto Leiji characters. You can see flashes of other, better characters in them. Oh, and be aware of the male lead. He’s annoying.
Production-Values:	7/10 – Great character-designs, but very sloppy animation and doesn’t stand out at anything else.
Setting:	8/10 – Great ideas! Sand submarines? Awesome! Bloody shame that it doesn’t use them, really.

Suggestions:
– Space Pirate Captain Harlock
– Hi no Tori
– Secret of the Cerulean Sand