Category: Anime Reviews

I may be hard on shoujo series at times, but don’t get me wrong: when done right I really love the genre (heck, my favourite series of all time is pretty much a shoujo adventure). Patapata Hikousen no Bouken (otherwise known as the Secret of Cerulean Sand) is a bit childish at times, but it’s a wonderfully charming adventure series that doesn’t shy away from dark topics.

As a story that’s constantly moving forwards, it tells about Jane Buxton and the people she meets as she tries to find her lost brother. While seemingly realistic at first, it quickly shows a number of science fiction roots not unlike Nadia and the Secret of Blue Water. Not surprisingly, since both are based on stories by Jules Verne (a guy who wrote about aeroplanes, decades before they were actually invented). A lot of attention went into creating all kinds of different machines, where this series puts especially its focus on flying machines, but there is a lot more than just that. It’s pretty much the science fiction of 150 years ago. The story also gets pretty epic and fast paced, leaving hardly any time to get bored.

Jane as the lead characters has a ton of charms. She may be a teenager, but she’s smart, knows what she wants, she can think for herself and overall she’s a great character to keep the entire series from flowing smoothly. Among the side characters there’s also quite a bit of character-development throughout the entire series, and I can really only recall two characters whose antics become annoying (a dog and a kid), but even they are not that bad.

While the key animation frames may not look impressive, the in-between animation is where this series really shines. You can spot some repeated frames here and there, but it really is surprisingly smooth and lively at others. The ghibli-esque use of bright colours really makes this a pretty series to look at, despite the seemingly average character-designs. The music is also surprisingly good. Combine this with a solid script and the action scenes are all pretty good throughout the series, ranging from the epic ones to small chases.

You’re going to need a lot of suspense of disbelief, though. It’s entertaining, but this series does remain a children’s adventure. Its main problem is its “children are smarter than adults”-mentality. I mean, I know Jane is smart and all, but when she keeps escaping the bad guys after being captured, time after time, they should have started wondering about how efficient their own security is.

The main bad guy is an interesting one. I mean, he’s as stereotypical as you can get, but the series is aware of it. It knew that it needed a guy like him in order to show the things it wanted to show, and so they did take care in giving him a background, personality and solid motivation… which actually are quite good, and actually result into a surprisingly solid ending. Nowadays, you hardly get to see any new adaptations of classic novels. Which is a pretty darned shame when you see series like this one. It’s not the best, but it has a lot of charms.

Storytelling:	8/10 – If you bring a healthy dose of suspense of disbelief you’ll be rewarded by an exciting adventure whose story just keeps moving and evolving.
Characters:	8/10 – The stereotypical bad guys don’t prevent the charms of the main cast to shine.
Production-Values:	9/10 – Good soundtrack. Smooth animation, surprisingly good for its looks.
Setting:	8/10 – Very neat ideas behind the setting, machines and plot twists. Don’t try to ask the how and why behind it, though. It’s not that solid.

Suggestions:
– Mahou Shoujotai
– Ashita no Nadja

With this review I feel like I really need to explain its rating. Daddy Long Legs seems to be one of the most appreciated series of the World Masterpiece Theatre out there. At AniDB it is rated as the best of the franchise with more than 100 votes, so quite a lot of people seem to agree on the classic status of this series. I don’t, though.

If I sound harsh in this review, remember that I’m comparing this to the other World Masterpiece Theatre series I’ve seen. And really, you can see the influences. This remains a series that’s based on a novel, and so the characters are constantly growing up, are forced to come to terms with their flaws and really change throughout the series. It’s perhaps not the most original story, but as a story of growing up it does its job quite well. I just have some fundamental problems with how it was executed.

I think my problems are best summarized by that it follows too much from classic shoujo tropes. And of course, there have been quite a few other WMT-series in the shoujo genre, but they had a very solid execution to back it up with, while this one doesn’t. The drama in this series at times tends to resemble a bit of a soap opera, where the writers try to make the different characters clash a little too easily. Especially the latter half of this series is filled to the brim with romantic cliches that have been done better by many different series that appeared both before and after this series.

Because this is yet another one of those high school series that puts a poor person (an orphan in this case) in a rich environment, leading to culture clashes, it really needed something to make up for it and partially, this series did. Even though it sometimes likes to force its drama, the slice of life moments were well portrayed, and the creators did a good job at exploring the differences between the culture of the upper classes without devolving it into just a string of endless parties or snobbish, stuck up and spoiled children. Julia, one of the main side characters, is especially good at that, where you can see that she has been spoiled her entire life, and yet she behaves like an actual teen-aged girl with more sides to her than just that.

And really, for the biggest part of this series I really didn’t mind it that much. Sure, it wasn’t the best of the World Masterpiece Theatre by far, but it still was pretty good, and did what it was supposed to do, and I didn’t really mind the flaws I mentioned above. Then, however, the ending came.

Now, I have watched a number of series where the ending completely changed my opinion, causing me to rate it much higher or lower than I originally had in mind, and this again happened here. That ending was one of the most contrived, cheesy, Deus ex Machina-laden endings I have seen in a long while now. A huge part of this series is devoted to building up to this particular ending, which then completely trashes any kind of subtlety or charm that was originally introduced. The plot is made way too complicated for its own good and in the end this series collapses under all of the plot twists it made to make the ending as spicy as possible.

The reason why I’m such a big fan of the World Masterpiece Theatre is because how well it handles its drama. It’s all very genuine, its characterization is truly excellent. The final quarter of this series however reduces most of its drama to stereotypical teen-aged angst, and it’s not even good angst. Relatively smart characters also tend to behave like idiots when the plot demands it. I have a lot more plot-related qualms to the ending of the series, but that would be too spoilerific to discuss in this review. The characterization of this series is good, but not good enough to make up for the many issues I have with this series.

Storytelling:	7/10 – Solid at times, but tries way too hard at others.
Characters:	8/10 – Ignore the bad teen-aged angst and you’ve got a bunch of likable characters that are actually quite well developed.
Production-Values:	8/10 – there is no eye candy, but the animation is detailed and does what it needs to do.
Setting:	7/10 – Held back by just too many things that don’t make any sense, a high school that lacks any kind of life, and too much of a focus on shoujo cliches to really show much of America in… whatever time period this is set in.

Suggestions:
– The Trapp Family Story
– Kaze no Shoujo Emily
– Perrine Monogatari

Back when this series first aired, I remember dropping it after only one episode because “the premise didn’t look interesting”. Now, I really am not sure what I was thinking back then, having just failed to give one of the best romances of its entire decade a fair chance. Now that I finally watched it, I fully get the praise this series has been getting. This isn’t just a good romance, it blows away just about every other romance I’ve seen away.

This series has 47 episodes, right? Well, it puts just about all its time into its character-development. The main characters here are truly dynamic: they just keep changing and evolving and despite the huge focus on drama within the series, it remains realistic and believable. The side-characters in the meantime also receive their fair share of development throughout the series, with all of them being varied, interesting and portrayed far away from stereotypes.

With all the silly shounen romances out there, this really is one of those series that is a breath of fresh air with its mature outlook on romance. The characters here have quite a number of flaws, but it always manages to stay away from a cheesy shoujo drama because it really treats all of its characters like adults, and gives them enough time to really show why they’re worried, why they behave like they do, and why they make the decisions they make throughout the series. And seriously, this just goes on for forty-seven episodes and instead of keeping a slow pacing, it always manages to keep its plot flowing, and keep the balls into the air. Even the best romances have their moments in which they’re rather boring or tedious. Nana doesn’t.

If I had to mention a flaw, then I’d mention that the portrayal of rock and punk bands is a bit simplistic here, compared to the realism of the rest of the series: this series never really claims to give a good insight about the music industry, and instead it just uses what it needs for the sake of the characters. Also, the ending. It’s not like the series ends without a conclusion: it actually wrapped the story up pretty neatly, but it also ends with a “there’s going to be a second season so let’s make you as hungry for that as possible”-note. That’s nice and all if that second season actually came, but now I’m just hungry for something that was probably just a publicity stunt.

But seriously though, Nana really showed the power of josei-series. It really is one of the most well rounded romances I’ve ever seen. Whether it’s THE best, I’m not really sure yet (Maison Ikkoku also was extremely good and twice as long), but I do want to say that I have never seen a romance show that went on for more than 13 episodes, and had such a tight plot, and yet it never feels like it’s forced.

Storytelling:	9/10 – It can really get depressing, but the dialogue, pacing and atmosphere are all really excellent.
Characters:	10/10 – Just brilliant. The cast is dynamic and constantly evolving.
Production-Values:	9/10 – The style of this series is off the charts. A grand soundtrack, and Madhouse makes just about every scene look cool.
Setting:	9/10 – Its portrayal of the music industry is rather simplistic, but apart from that it is a very realistic series with characters who really feel part of this setting.

Suggestions:
– Maison Ikkoku
– Asatte no Houkou
– Macross Plus

So yeah, they made a Space Battleship Yamato movie last year. It’s the brainchild of the actual producer of the TV-series, along with most of the movies and it seems that more than 35 years after the start of the series, he still wanted to give the franchise one more chance to shine. Apparently, this movie was due to be scheduled way earlier but got cancelled due to licensing issues with Matsumoto Leiji. That seems all cleared up now however, and this movie sure as heck doesn’t show any signs of this.

I’m always interested in these remakes, as their creators tend to put in a ton of effort to really do justice to the shows they’re based on, which often stand as cult classics. Yamato Resurrection went for the homage: it really wanted to create the feeling of the original Yamato tv-series, and put a modern coat on it.

Unlike the remakes that take the ancient mecha series in general, this movie really is a homage to Space Battleship Yamato, and nothing more. This makes it quite a bit different from the other mecha remakes, because for its time, Space Battleship Yamato was incredibly different from the likes of Mazinger and all of the other giant robot shows. Its atmosphere was dark, lonely and melancholic, and that was exactly what this the creators did here: epic space battles with a dark atmosphere that instead with its energy tries to captivate the audience with just this atmosphere.

The plot is typically something that you can expect from the Yamato franchise: the earth is in danger, the Yamato ends up playing a key role in saving humanity. It’s stupid, of course. But that’s the point: the original Yamato also had some of the most ridiculous plot twists, especially near the end. The plot really is just there as a vehicle for the atmosphere and the epic space battles. Although I did like how this movie aged all of the characters more than twenty years here. I mean, the movie hardly uses this character-development, but it certainly does contribute to this movie.

The graphics… well, the money shots really are a visual orgasm here. The creators got some amazing CG artists for this movie, and they really went all out here. The CG looks absolutely beautiful, and at the same time the 2D characters really tried to stay true to the original style of character-designs from Yamato (so yes, don’t even expect Matsumoto Leiji’s trademark characters here: Yamato aired before the days of Captain Harlock). The 2D characters may look a bit plain, but they’re actually animated really well: whenever they move, they do this smootly and nearly without any cut corners. The problems with this is of course that the two styles don’t really combine together: there is always a very clear border between the 2D and 3D in this movie. The worst though was when the creators actually copied and pasted some of the footage of the Yamato TV-series and movies. Yeah, those who were animated in the seventies and eighties. Needless to say… it looks incredibly out of place. Though I have to give props for this movie being the first to be stupid enough to actually do this.

Of the Yamato franchise I have only seen the first TV-series, but I enjoyed this movie for what it is. However, I’m not sure whether you can enjoy this movie if you haven’t seen anything from the Yamato franchise: you’ll miss some of the references and homages it makes. Still, if anything you can watch this movie for the soundtrack, which for some reason is filled with compositions from FREAKING BEETHOVEN. Now if that isn’t awesome then I don’t know anymore.

Storytelling:	8/10 – Pretty good atmosphere. If you’re a Yamato-fan at least.
Characters:	7/10 – Um, yeah. The characters are there, the development is awesome, but that’s about everything there is to them.
Production-Values:	9/10 – Ah, the visuals! Gorgeous graphics that don’t mesh well. But Beethoven makes up for everything.
Setting:	7/10 – It’s stupid. It’s Yamato. Who cares?

Suggestions:
– Night on the Galactic Railroad – Fantasy Railroad in the Stars (don’t expect a mecha epic for this one, though; it’s actually the entire opposite)
– Space Fantasia: 2001 Nights
– Cobra The Animation

Mai Mai Miracle is a clear Ghibli-inspired film, and another one in the collection of slice of life movies about a young child. Not the most original concept perhaps, but it’s still a well executed and very detailed movie.

Especially the characterization here rocks. The kids here tend to act just like real children: the way they play around to their animation, this movie manages to capture this wonderfully. As it’s focused on kids who grow up in a rural town, this movie mostly follows their imagination and how they grow up together. There’s actually quite a bit of character-development in the movie, and it’s handled quite well and believably.

What sets this movie apart I think is that it manages to avoid the classical trope of these kinds of movies, where they use their first parts of slice of life, just to build up to the serious part at the end. Mai Mai Miracle does have a serious part at the end, but it does not feel like the entire movie is just trying to build up to that. Instead, it’s the combination of everything that happens in this movie that makes the characters what they are, and the movie does a great job in making all of the subplots and events important.

It’s a movie that’s wonderfully unambitious: its main purpose isn’t to show an as big drama as possible. It just wants to show the lives of a bunch of kids growing up together. The drama flows naturally and in no way tries too hard. It’s great for nostalgia, but this also doesn’t make it the most exciting movie.

Storytelling:	8/10 – Uneventful, but realistic and well balanced, making it more than just a Ghibli-wannabe.
Characters:	9/10 – Great characterization, realistic and believable characters, very good character-development for a movie.
Production-Values:	8/10 – Pretty good for movie standards. Detailed animation that captures the movement of the characters, very charming but subtle soundtrack.
Setting:	8/10 – Not the most important part of this movie, but it still made good use of the differences between rich and poor, and the rest of the setting.

Suggestions:
– Arete Hime
– My Neighbour Totoro
– Whisper of the Heart

There is this undeniable charm of Windy Tales, or Fuujin Monogatari. It’s not just its unique art style here, but really the combination of everything, from the characters and the slice of life to the soundtrack and the dialogue. It really is a relaxing slice of life series with a wonderful execution.

And seriously: the direction by Junji Nishimura, supervision by Mamoru Oshii and a soundtrack by Kenji Kawai… if that isn’t a great combination then I don’t know anymore. The dialogues in this series are wonderfully subtle and down to earth, and they do a great job in fleshing out the characters. Kawai’s soundtrack does an excellent job of enhancing this feeling.

This is an episodic series, where every episode focuses on a different event or theme in the lead characters’ lives. I really liked how each episode was chosen with a particular purpose in mind, rather than just being plain random. They’re all very varied episodes, and they do a great job of taking whatever character they’re focusing on under the loop. Ranging from the main characters to the side ones, they’re all enjoyable to watch.

Character-development is an interesting issue of this series, as it really takes a back seat here. Most of it is basic, apart from the final episode, which goes into a very interesting, yet very natural direction. Instead, the series spends most of its time portraying its cast as realistic and natural as possible. And yeah, because of that this isn’t a series for everyone, because the pacing tends to get really, really slow at times. And that for a series with 13 episodes.

But yeah, it remains cool to see cats flying into the air with the unique visuals of this series. And beyond that, there really are a number of gorgeously animated scenes present in this series. It’s a visually experimental series through and through, and you can see the animators try out a lot of different stuff. Probably what I liked the most is how many different ways this series has of drawing ‘wind’. It’s really a major theme of the series, as it explores many different sides and subtle meanings behind wind. Even though the episodes are rather unconnected, it’s this that really ties everything in the series together.

But yeah, if you don’t like experimental graphics you’ll have a hard time getting into this series. It’s obviously not meant for everyone, and it certainly isn’t the most eventful series. It’s restrained on purpose. But the thing is, that I have hardly any complaints about how this series was executed here. They pretty much did everything right here, and I feel like any attempt on getting more character-development, or throwing in more action, a faster pacing or more overacting would just have taken away some of the qualities that this series has right now.

Storytelling:	9/10 – Very realistic and yet very imaginative; excellent dialogue. It’s a bit slow, though.
Characters:	8/10 – likable and charming.
Production-Values:	9/10 – Excellent animation among its experimental graphics, and the soundtrack also kicks ass.
Setting:	9/10 – A very interesting premise was created, along with a very good portrayal of school life. A lot of thought was also put into the themes of wind here. Tons of symbolism.

Suggestions:
– GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class
– The Sky Crawlers
– Kino no Tabi

Well… here’s a tough one to recommend.

Now don’t get me wrong here, Kimagure Orange Road is a very good series. The way in which it fleshes out its characters leaves most teen-aged romances far behind. Especially Madoka is amazing as the main female love interest. With 48 episodes, this series also excels in its character development. That’s all fine and dandy. However, this series also made me want to bash in the screen, multiple times per episode.

Kimagure Orange Road is a very, very annoying series. Basically, nearly the entire series is about teen-aged hormones running around. It’s not just one character that becomes unbearable because of this, there’s a whole bunch of them that makes this series a chore to watch.

Starting with the most obvious: the two horny classmates. Granted, these two have actual personalities and are more than just stereotypes, but that doesn’t make them more likable when they consistently drool over cute girls, trying to get into their panties. For one episode that might not have been too bad, but these guys are present throughout THE ENTIRE SERIES. That’s a lot of time to get on your nerves.

Beyond that, there’s the secondary love interest for the lead character, along with another guy who is secretly in love with her. The former is annoying especially in the beginning, before her character develops. She continues to spoon up to the lead character with the most annoying voice. The latter is annoying because he never develops: he just keeps screaming and acting like comedic fodder.

Then there is the lead character, who just isn’t the most likable guy around. The series basically turns into a love triangle, and even though it’s obvious from the beginning with which girl he’s going to end up with, he refuses to MAKE UP HIS MIND about which girl to go out with. And it’s not even realistic! Some of the things he does are just completely stupid, even for teen-aged standards. This does get more bearable in the second half as THANK GOD this guy develops, but good luck getting there.

The episodes are mainly spent on standalone events that happen around the characters. Most of the times, there is some misunderstanding, some character who does something stupid, or the lead character’s telepathic powers (yes, the lead character is an esper) doing something to cause trouble. The episodes are pretty disjointed, and there are a number of continuity errors. It’s all very much forced in order to spice up the relationship between the lead characters as much as possible.

All of this makes this a very difficult series to rate. I mean, despite all of this, Madoka really was one of the best female love interests in a teen-aged shounen romance here; her portrayal throughout the series is really outstanding. Was her development worth sitting through so many episodes of annoyance? I’m still not sure, really. I mean, there definitely have been romances before that have had their incredibly annoying parts, and yet turned out to be very memorable to me (for example White Album and Bokura ga Ita), but even compared to those… Kimagure Orange Road was a bit much. It also doesn’t help that this series popularized episodic tropes that would later, especially in the past ten years, become milked to death cliches.

Storytelling:	8/10 – Good slice of life, decent but forced episodic stories.
Characters:	8/10 – The character-development is really excellent here, let that be clear. Some of the characters however make it an incredible chore to watch.
Production-Values:	8/10 – Pretty good for its time, the animation does what it’s supposed to do.
Setting:	8/10 – There are some continuity errors, but overall the creators did a pretty good job in portraying the city that the series takes place in.

Suggestions:
– Maison Ikkoku
– Aoi Hana
– White Album

Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto and its sequel Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto ~ Natsu no Sora are two completely different series. Not only do they share no similar characters whatsoever, but their execution, focus, themes and atmosphere are completely different, with the only similarity being that they take place in the same setting. I can fully imagine people liking one of the series, but not the other, and vice versa. Personally I like Natsu no Sora better, due to its extra layer of realism and the subtlety in its characters, but the first series also has a lot to like.

For the ones who never saw any of those series: the Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto franchise takes place in a world in which certain people are able to use magic. It explores young mages in training as they are prepared to make a living for themselves. It’s very much a realistic approach to the question of “what if magic really exists?” Way more than Natsu no Sora, the first season looks at what it means to be a mage: are magical powers really that convenient and can you just use them in the way you want? It also addresses the impact that magic has on society: what the general opinion of mages is, and the trouble it can cause in the wrong hands.

The series is much more episodic than Natsu no Sora, and each episode takes one particular character under the loop (about half of the episodes are dedicated to the main cast, the other to random people), and tries to tell the story of this character. At the final episode, the creators do a pretty good job at bringing everything together. It’s not the most emotional series out there, but this series definitely has its points at which it’s heart-warming.

At this however, it perhaps is a bit too enthusiastic at times. The main flaw of this series is that the creators are a bit too keen to spread around death and accidents. I know it’s necessary for its drama and all, but when everyone and his dog lost someone precious to them in some kind of tragic event, it loses some of the tension.

Overall, this series isn’t the best, and a few episodes and individual stories can be a tad shallow, but in terms of the big picture, it’s pretty impressive. It lacks the rock-solid execution of Natsu no Sora, and the drama can get a tad cheesy at times, but in the end I’d say that it has enough things that make it interesting, most notably the attention it has put into its themes, and how all of the characters relate to them.

Storytelling:	8/10 – A tad cheesy, but the stories are well told and come together well in the end.
Characters:	8/10 – Not as good as Natsu no Sora, but their issues and personalities are well portrayed.
Production-Values:	8/10 – The animation does what it needs to do, though not much more. The soundtrack is quite good, though.
Setting:	9/10 – Great themes, makes good use of its setting, puts a lot of emphasis on the morals of magic.

Suggestions:
– Aria the Animation
– Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto ~ Natsu no Sora
– Hataraki Man

DT Eightron is one of those “screw the budget, we’re here to tell a story”-anime. And really: why not? The plot of this one is excellent, so who cares about the unimpressive graphics?

Personally I loved how the plot of this series unfolded from a seemingly average post-apocalyptic dystopia into a story about survival. What sets this show apart is the huge amount of neat ideas that the creators put into this, all dedicated to flesh out the setting that the series takes place in. It really gets quite deep as the series goes on. It may just be that I’m a fan of science fiction and all (hey, I never claimed that this blog unbiased), but after watching the entire series, I really have to say that the back-story it created is impressive, well thought out and very imaginative.

This show also rocks in the way that it subverts or averts common-used character tropes and cliches here. The lead character actually isn’t in control of the titular “mecha”. Instead, one of his friends is. The lead character is a bit of a bland kid, but for once this makes full sense in the story, and the creators actually make optimal use of this in the story. They never force him to be some sort of stereotypical hero here (those roles are cleverly used for the characters with the most combat experience), and instead its his development that makes him into a worthy lead character. You’ll get what I mean when you watch the series, but I don’t want to spoil too much about it. Just do note that in order to tell its story, it does introduce a few minor plot-holes here and there. The most glaring being the origin of the titular mecha, Eightron, which unfortunately is just never explained.

Watching this series really got me thinking about how perhaps I’ve been a bit too focused on animation budgets for the past months. It’s series like this that show that even though the animation is unimpressive (really, there are too many distorted faces and still frames here), you can still kick ass with your story. While it’s true that a big budget would have made this series even more enjoyable to watch, it’s not something that should be held against it when the plot has so many interesting ideas, and it has been this good at developing its story and setting. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the series that partly inspired Ergo Proxy.

Storytelling:	9/10 – Slow, but atmospheric. Not realistic or believable, but excellent at developing its story and mystery.
Characters:	8/10 – Likable in the way that they play with quite a few tropes and cliches.
Production-Values:	7/10 – Yeah, don’t expect eye candy here. Good soundtrack, though.
Setting:	10/10 – Ah, why not? Great ideas, great development. It’s multi-layered, thought provoking. It’s really the kind of setting that I personally love.

Suggestions:
– Ergo Proxy
– Zone of the Enders
– Argento Soma