Category: Anime Reviews

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

The past winter was a pretty interesting one for comedies; we were treated to no less than three good ones: Milky Holmes, Poyopoyo and Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou. Out of those three, I’d say that I found Danshi Koukousei to be the least funny. But heck, it’s still great to see a comedy that manages to bring so much creativity in something as overused as following the lives of a bunch of high school kids.

Every episode pretty much consists out of a collection of pretty short sketches, ranging from one to five minutes in length. In terms of humour, it uses the shotgun shell approach: deliver as many and as different jokes as possible in the hopes that some hit. Because of that, it’s always a bit of a question whether a sketch will work or not, and the ones who don’t work indeed fall flat pretty badly. I’ve got a lot of praise for the ones who do work, though.

As said before, my favorite thing about this series is how creative it can get when it wants to. It loves subverting generic high school cliches, but it also isn’t shy for random slapstick and it also loves to poke fun at Japanese cultural values. The direction and delivery for the jokes is also pretty well done, and in particular Tomokaze Sugita (who also played Gintoki in Gintama) really is on fire as the voice actor of one of the characters. This series also has the same director as the first 100 episodes of Gintama, so it’s no wonder that this guy’s acting talents are used to their full potential. The cast does have a few problems though, most of it has to do that half of the cast can’t decide what kind of character they want to play, and the other half that did decide on this ended up with a cardboard cut-out. Yeah, characterization is not this show’s strongest point.

Probably the weakest sketches are when this series tries to swap gender roles. I’ll leave it in the dark for the sake of spoilers how it exactly does it, but these sketches are too overused: they drag on for too long, they repeat each other too often and they appear too often. The best sketches can’t really be labeled like that. It’s completely random whenever the creators got a brilliant idea, and part of the fun of this series is waiting for those ideas to come. I’d say the ratio between the good and dull sketches is about 50/50. It’s not consistent enough to be a great comedy, but it’ll definitely give you a few good laughs.

Storytelling:	9/10 – Very funny and creative when it works.
Characters:	7.5/10 – A few too many cardboard cut-outs. The characters are funny, but have their moments of annoyance.
Production-Values:	8/10 – Solid sunrise production values.
Setting:	8/10 – Doesn’t get in the way for a comedy.

Suggestions:
– Gintama
– Hyakko
– Mitsudomoe Zouryouchuu

I remember Astarotte no Omocha last year. It was a show that looked like pedo-bait, yet seemed to have something deeper and charming, only to reveal after a few episodes that it turned out to be even worse pedo-bait than what it had originally seemed. I still regret giving that show a second chance, and at the start of this season I really was not keen on doing the same to Papa no Iukoto o Kikinasai, a show about a guy who suddenly finds that he’s the father of three cute girls.

Yet, this turned out to be the surprise of the season. I thankfully picked it back up after a lot of people started to recommend it again. And thankfully, this series avoided the Astarotte route and instead it actually tried to tell a very genuine story. It’s not perfect (believe me, it still has a lot of problems), but this series actually delivers quite an interesting look of what it takes to take care of teenaged girls and a toddler, especially when you yourself are only of college age with a measly paying job. It’s quite a heartfelt series, and I definitely did not expect this when I first learned about it.

Even when you ignroe the first impressions though it’s really easy to look past this series. Because it also tries to appeal to the otaku crowd. The result makes this seris a whole lot more annoying than what it should have been. There is a ton of pointless fanservice in this show, and I mean of the worst kind (characters randomly walking into each other changing or bathing. Over and over again…). There also is one particular character: the fat guy. This guy somehow managed to pull it off by being consistently annoying in every single scene he appears in. No exceptions. You’ll get what I mean when you see him.

So yeah, Papa no Iu Koto ni Kikinasai is a slice of life series that at first sight seems really bad annoying, but is very warm and charming on the inside. I wouldn’t recomment it immediately, because there is a lot of fluff in this show, but it’s not a bad watch either if you want to watch something that’s light, yet with substance. My one complaint about the substance is that the ending is a bit flimsy and doesn’t really solve anything. The final episode like, focuses on a problem that pretends to be the climax, yet leaves a bunch of stuff unresolved that really should have been addressed.

Storytelling:	7/10 – Why on earth did this show try to be as annoying as possible?
Characters:	8/10 – Bad moe cliches at first sight, but the development is actually pretty good and heartfelt./td>
Production-Values:	8/10 – Nothing special, nothign that stands out, doesn’t get in the way, although the character designs are pretty bad here…
Setting:	8/10 – An intersting look at parenting. Perhaps not as detailed as with Usagi Drop, but still good in its own way.

Suggestions:
– Usagi Drop
– Hanamaru Youchien
– Kimi to Boku

The most difficult review to write thsi season is Inu X Boku. Most shows were fairly straight-forward to evaluate: the likes of Chihayafuru and Natsume were really, really good, Guilty Crown was pretty bad, Black Rock Shooter was pretty decent. Inu X Boku however, is slightly more difficult.

Those who follow this blog probably know already that I’m a big fan of the producers behind this series: David Production. They really spend time into making shows work best, they don’t bind themselves to genre conventions and their stories are always very creative. It’s because of this that Inu X Boku is the worst TV-series they have done so far, because for a large majority of its airtime, it didn’t really seem to be doing that. Instead we got a fairly mellow series about a girl and her bodyguard with a bit of a combination of shounen and shoujo elements, paired with a large and mis-managed cast of side-characters. The plot and characters never seemed to be really trying to do anything, and while it certainly wasn’t bad, if you compare it to the standard that David Production has set before, then it just ends up a bit borign.

And yet, this show has flashes of brilliance. For some inexplicable reason, this series, despite its boring moments, was able to put a smile on my face with nearly every single episode. This show spends a lot of time on the insecurities of its main character, and the way they play out is actually surprisingly heart-warming. Despite having obvious trouble to keep finding enough things for the characters to do in only 12 episodes, there are quite a few really heart-warming characters in this series.

And then the final two episodes arrive and deliver one of the best finales of the entire season out of bloody nowhere. It’s only here where the writing suddenly gets 10 times better, the build-up all comes together, the characters develop brilliantly, and for the first time in years I can say that I found a show that does the bishie genre justice. Seriously, this show closes off amazingly.

These flashes of brilliance can be found throughout the series, but the big problem with the first 10 episodes is that they don’t use this often enough. The cast of side-characters in particular didn’t work out for this series, as there are a bunch of characters who have a lot of potential, yet hardly get any screentime, while there are also a few characters who just have one gimmick and keep using that over and over. The fangirl lady is by far the worst offender of this.

But you know what? Because of these flashes of brilliance, I’m going to give this show a relatively high rating, because it at least HAS them. Seriously, there are not a lot of shows I can say that of. It’s not like this show falls apart in the middle and I really have to say that I enjoyed watching it a lot. If you want to know why I’m a fan of David production though, this is not the series that best shows their talents. Instead, go pick up Level E or the Armed Librarians or something.

Storytelling:	9/10 – Surprisingly heart-warming, it knos when to get creative. Amazing finale.
Characters:	8,5/10 – Loses points on its side characters: some are fun, others are badyl written, others are underutilized. The main cast is surprisingly well developed.
Production-Values:	8/10 – Crisp animation, though nothing special.
Setting:	8/10 – The seetting is far from the main focus of this series. It’s got some nice dieas, and it’s solid, thtough.

Suggestions:
– Tactics
– Meitantei Loki Ragnarok

Amongst the studios that focus too much on moe, I find JC Staff among the better ones. Sure, they have their bad shows, but you can see that they put more effort into their series, compared to the likes of AIC, Xebec or ARMS and their lazy recycled premises. Ano Natsu de Matteru is a great example of this. Yes, it unfortunately has all the cliches: the main character living together with a hot girl, a childhood crush who is in love with him, him being the bland likable guy, spiced up with the deadpan snarker and the ladies’ man. It’s a very bland romance, but ultimately surprisingly well executed.

The best praise that I can give this series: the romance actually goes somewhere. Yes, in a genre that thrives on indecisive characters and pointless and annoying drama, here for once we have a romance that actually develops naturally. The main characters actually realizes what he wants, and rather than waiting for the final episode to get to some sort of confession, this show deals with that stuff slightly earlier than usual in order to actually give everyone the opportunity to sort out their feelings. The result is a surprisingly good drama.

In the character department this series also demonstrates that you can go an end with cliches when they’re well developed. It unfortunately doesn’t apply to every single character, but half of the cast here is actually pretty interestingly developed. To contrast with unfortunately, there are a number of uninteresting characters that drag this show down a bit. The main character ultimately is too bland to really carry this series. The childhood friend also completely gets caught up in her role as childhood friend, without having much else to offer, and the deadpan snarker also has just one gimmick that gets old fast. There also is this horrid beach arc in the middle that shoehorns two very annoying side-characters into the picture who end up doing nothing other than turn this show into a harem.

With the director of Ano Hana behind this series, Ano Natsu is definitely a step down in comparison. Yeah, it’s probably a bit more realistic due to its slower pacing, but I dislike how this show uses half of its cast as walking plot devices, rather than actual characters, when it on the other hand tries to deliver a somewhat realistic romance. More than anything, this feels like watching a mellow version of the first season of Birdy the Mighty Decode with a lot less emphasis on action and its setting.

Yet, I liked this show, and you can definitely see that a lot of attention went into making it work. The romance that works really works here, and it’s got a healthy amount of character development. The animation is also consistently vibrant, successfully bringing these characters to life.

Storytelling:	8/10 – A romance that actually goes somewhere and that doesn’t drag on. Finally!
Characters:	8,5/10 – Half the cast is bland, but the other half is great and well developed. Does that make them worth watching? Yes, actually.
Production-Values:	8,5/10 – Not the best of this season, but that animation still remains very expressive.
Setting:	7,5/10 – The backstory of this show is nice, but it does have its very flimsy sides that are hard to buy at times.

Suggestions:
Introducing the rating of 81/100 back again (rounded down from 81,25, which would be way too specific). When I scraped this rating I did this because I couldn’t really explain the difference between 81/100 and 80/100. Now I can, though: these are very good series, who have a few highlights here and there that make them enjoyable and worth watching.
– Birdy the Mighty Decode
– Aoi Hana
– Ano Hana