Category: Anime Reviews

Sarai-ya Goyou Review – 90/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Sarai-ya Goyou




One of the things that made the past spring season awesome was the fact that it didn’t have just one, but two Noitamina series. And boy, it sure came with a couple of amazing series to start off this new feature!

Sarai-ya Goyou is a character-study, set in the Japan of a number of centuries ago, and it unites Manglobe with Tomomi Mochizuki, of Toka Gettan, Porfy no Nagai Tabi, Kimagure Orange Road and a ton of other series. He’s a true veteran in the anime business, and he did an incredible job of bringing these characters to life.

The animation in nearly every scene in this series is full of detail, with a ton of subtle movements. This really allows the creators to put as much meaning into these scenes as possible, giving them a surprising amount of depth and development in only twelve episodes. Even most of the side characters get some development throughout the series that already is short on time and despite this limited length, it never tries to rush through things in order to fit as much as possible into its airtime. There comes a price to this, of course: it’s unfortunately an incomplete series, and stops after animating about half of the manga. The main plot threads are skillfully wrapped up at that point, but it’s clear that the storyline isn’t over at that point.

Airing next to Yojou-han this season, this series faced some incredibly tough competition, but it really shined out there despite this, and is a great recommendation for those who are looking for a short character-focused series. There is one arc that isn’t as good as the others (the Matsu arc), which breaks the flow of this series a bit, but apart from that the stories that it tells about its characters are all incredibly thoughtful and engaging.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Very detailed. Tries to put as much meaning into every scene as possible, and succeeds. Never loses itself in its pacing, though the story itself has plot threads that aren’t wrapped up.
Characters: 9/10 – Deep, well developed and thoughtful.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Manglobe does it again with excellent animation that focus on bringing its characters to life instead of over the top action scenes. Haunting soundtrack.
Setting: 9/10 – Excellent portrayal of Japan at the time, with a great analysis of the types of problems that people faced around these ages.

Suggestions:
– Mushishi
– Porfy no Nagai Tabi
– Seirei no Moribito

Gag Manga Biyori+ Review – 85/100 (Again)

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Last season I accidentally posted a review of this series before it had actually ended. No worries, though, because this just give me another excuse to try and hype the hell out of this series. With thirteen extra episodes, I have no doubt that this is going to end up as my favourite comedy of 2010. I know that this series has a really obscure reputation, but really: it’s absolutely hilarious.

The formula of the fourth season is 50 percent recap, and 50% original episodes. This makes it an excellent way to get introduced to the series for even those who haven’t watched it, and the thirteen new episodes are as hilarious as ever. In fact, from what I’ve seen of the series, it’s actually gotten better by time.

The thing that really sets this series apart from all other comedies is its energy. Seriously, you will not find a series that is more hyperactive than this. Even the Excel Saga, Sexy Commando Gaiden and Gintama feel slow. The dialogue leaves absolutely no time to catch your breath. The voice actors are all excellent in the way that they keep the energy going, finding a great combination between overacting and deadpan tones.

The subject matter of this series varies widely, but episodes can generally be divided into two types: the historical parodies and the anime parodies. My personal favourites were the latter, but that’s mostly because I have more affinity with it, compared to the surprisingly obscure yet important historical figures that the former addresses.

Either way though, this series may be known as random, but that also does a bit of injustice to its premise. Sure, the characters here are all morons, but very often you can see episodes build up to some kind of punch-line, some of which are just brilliant in the tropes that they make fun of. In fact, these are the best episodes of the entire series, with my personal favourite being the spaceship episode.

I know that Humour is something personal that’s different for everyone, but if you’re looking for hyperactive humour, then you really can’t get more hyperactive than this. I know that I keep teasing everyone during my monthly summaries with my huge praises of this series, but I really want to give it as much exposure as possible, in the hope that it’ll eventually get noticed by a fansub group who want to pick it up. This is an awesome addition to the comedy genre in anime, it doesn’t deserve to get forgotten like this!

Storytelling: 9/10 – Insane pacing. Never fails to keeps the balls in the air and deliver great jokes with an unrivalled hyperactivity.
Characters: 8/10 – A bit hard to judge in this context, but there are surprisingly few cliched characters in this series. Most characters only have up to five minutes of airtime, but they still manage to be hilarious. Well written in its own way.
Production-Values: 8/10 – A rating of 8 here obviously doesn’t mean eye candy, but the animation is solid, and never gets in the way of the humour. In fact, the simple graphics are refreshing for the anime medium that way too often goes for moe and bishies.
Setting: 9/10 – Clearly spent a lot of time thinking up ideas for tropes that it was going to parody. Great finds, and references to surprisingly underrated historical figures.

Suggestions:
– Excel Saga
– The other Gag Manga Biyori Seasons
– Kodomo no Omocha
– Sexy Commando Gaiden

Senkou no Night Raid Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Senkou no Night Raid




The fact that a series is slowly subbed doesn’t mean that it can’t be excellent. Really, with Yojou-han immediately subbed, this was by far the hardest one to translate by fansubbers, and therefore it didn’t get the coverage and attention that it should have gotten. Night Raid is a special series, and much more series should share the utter guts that it displayed. Be sure to support it when it eventually does come out in English!

But first and foremost, let me respond to the naysayers out there: no, Night Raid does not rape history. As a series about a group of Japanese people in China, in the 1930s. This could have been the most historically insensitive series out there. The problem is that, if I understood things correctly, there is this habit of the Japanese to really ignore anything they did around the second world war, and instead of accepting that they did a lot of things wrong and move on, there seems to be this air of not wanting to talk about it and learn from it at all.

This series, it seems to me, wanted to be a response to statements like this. While we follow a group of Japanese spies in the middle of China, it makes sure to cause no misunderstanding: the Japanese did some horrible things, and they consciously chose to do these things. In fact, a huge part of this series is about them, making these decisions, considering the alternatives, and act based on what they believe is right. Self-righteousness is a huge theme in this series, and the way this series explores them makes it a very thought-provoking series. Sure, some of the tropes it uses have been used a number of times before, but never in this context.

Now, as for the actual execution, this one could have been a bit more solid at times. The result is a number of plot-holes that are there to just keep the plot from going further. With thirteen episodes, it also doesn’t exactly have the time to give the characters a lot of background, though it definitely does try.

The acting department is a bit of a mixed bag. Some characters put down very convincing performances, like Yukina and Airi. Others, like Aoi, sound a bit too immature and unrefined. Especially in the first few episodes does this get tedious to watch.

Which is especially annoying because the first half really exist to just set everything right. It’s episodic in the way that it introduces all of the concepts, and fleshes out the setting. I think the most notable here is the infamous fourth episode, which is only dedicated to fleshing out the characters and nothing else.

If you’re interested in this series however, I do urge you to watch until episode seven before passing judgment, because it’s there where the series shows its true feathers. The thing with Night Raid is that on the small picture, it is indeed a bit inferior to its predecessor Sora no Oto. In the big picture however, I really believe that it surpasses it.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Knows its priorities, knows how to build up and most importantly: knows how to be subtle with its drama.
Characters: 8/10 – Good depth for the short length of only 13 episodes, some are well acted, others could have been done better.
Production-Values: 8/10 – A-1’s best artists were at Ookiku Furikabutte this season, but nevertheless solid enough, plus a very good soundtrack also helps.
Setting: 9/10 – The guts it has with its subject material as a medium of anime surpasses even Zipang. Very daring and thought-provoking.

(On a side-note: I really wish that I could rate this one higher, but unfortunately I can’t find an excuse for it. It unfortunately had a few too many faults, but the advantages really made up for it for me.)
Suggestions:
– Zipang
– The Cockpit
– Mobile Suit Gundam – War in the Pocket

Bakemonogatari Review – 72,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Monogatari Series



I usually don’t wait for DVD-only or other kinds of extra episodes for writing a review, but for Bakemonogatari I made an exception because I thought that the final three episodes would air quite soon after the end of the TV-series. So I was wrong. My memory may be a bit fuzzy about the series right now, but I do want to talk a bit about why I didn’t like it.

But first, let me say the following: I’m usually a big fan of shows that feature lots of talking. Ergo Proxy, Mouryou no Hako, Amatsuki, I can’t get enough of them. I also like series that do something interesting with their art and visuals, to give us some kind of unconventional eye candy. I was set to like this series when I first started watching it… but the way it turned out just didn’t work for me.

Now, the reason I’m a fan of anime is the way that it combines storytelling, visuals and music into one. Even with series who have a ton of dialogue, they really focus on portraying these characters as they tell their stories. With Bakemonogatari however, this combination is completely gone. There are way too many scenes that don’t focus on the characters, but on some random eye, object in the background, or just a very far away shot of a bunch of people talking. The creators go out of their way to avoid animating the full faces of these characters. There are a number of episodes in which this gets carried way over the top: one episode has scenes of three minutes, at which it just does nothing but stare at the same landscape without any variation. Another episode consists for about thirty percent of just black and red screens with random text on it. The rest of the episodes are also riddled with these blank screens that don’t really do anything except break pace.

All of this results in the fact that this isn’t really an animation about a bunch of characters having conversations with each other. It feels more like an animated slide-show in which a bunch of voice actors read a story. If I wanted something like that, I’d go for drama CDs or something.

The way that the source material was adapted leaves also a lot to be desired. Scenes are dragged on for way too long with boring dialogues, while the dialogues that matter are rushed through. This series has this very annoying habit of hinting at back-story, while only devoting a few lines to what happened, if any. This is especially annoying considering that this is a harem, in which everyone and his dog just ends up falling in love with the lead character. Most of the motivations for these characters and their crushes turn out to be just superficial. For me the worst was the snake arc. It wasted so much time with pointless stuff and weird fanservice, while the real story was rushed, glossed over with hardly any attempt given to give the characters some depth.

Now, the series also likes to play around with poetry: there’s a ton of symbolism, and the original novel is full of wordplay, but in the end that doesn’t really amount to anything. Yeah, there are a bunch of word jokes, and when the characters talk about cats you see pictures of cat ears, those kinds of things. They will strengthen the experience if you did like the series, but for those who aren’t a fan like myself, they’re pretty much pointless.

Granted though, the budget and focus do get better near the end: the creators finally take their time to fully animate episodes, it wastes less time with pointless stuff and there are a number of scenes that have some really sweet animation. But even then, it’s not really worth it to sit through the rest of the series just to get there. This series advertises itself by fleshing out its characters through its dialogues, but to me, that’s rather failed. There are still too many characters who just have one side to them, and just feel like caricatures.

There really was a time at which I liked Shinbo. And I still consider him to be a good director. However I’d much rather see him put his full attention on just one series, instead of churning out a bunch of half-assed product that might or might not have their moments.

Storytelling: 7/10 – Badly paced, and badly portrayed.
Characters: 7/10 – A lot of bark, but no bite. Most characters fail to impress.
Production-Values: 8/10 – I give this one the benefit of the doubt here. It cuts a ton of corners, but granted there are a number of scenes that are really well animated.
Setting: 7/10 – There is no explanation of the magic system here. Things just… are there, but I failed to see any cohesion or depth.

Suggestions:
– Soultaker
– Boogiepop Phantom
– Twillight Q

Angel Beats Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Angel Beats, Anime Reviews




For Angel Beats, Key decided to go into a completely different direction: no more visual novels but instead a straight-up anime production, instead of being a straight-up drama, it tosses in all kinds of different genres, it’s got a much more upbeat mood than any other Key work so far, but at the same time it still has some of the elements that made Air and Clannad so addictive. It’s definitely a great premise in theory.

It’s a comedy, adventure story, action series, drama, and sometimes also a romance and slice of life series, but at its core Angel Beats is a full fledged mystery-series. The characters are thrown into a setting they know nothing about, and gradually it unfolds its true nature. Really, the biggest reason why you’d want to watch this series is for the creativity, and the large amount of ideas that the creators tried to put into it. They really tried to create an original world with a lot of depth behind it, and the mystery itself is written quite skillfully to make optimal use of how it unfolds, resulting in a great climax.

The rest of the series would be best described as ‘chaos’, both in the good and in the bad ways. Over thirteen episodes, the pacing is really all over the place. It makes for a number of interesting episodes, but at times the series also just stops trying to make sense. A lot of scenes are just disjointed from each other, and this series hops from one plot twist to the other without much of a transition.

Unfortunately, Key just had way too many ideas that it wanted to put into just thirteen episodes. I think what suffers from this the most is the characterization: it’s often rushed and cheesy because of it, and while the cast as a whole is impressive and enjoyable to watch, nearly all of the characters are rushed through so that only two of them get some actual time to tell their story. The rest of the (for 13 episodes) HUGE cast has their moments in which they just don’t work or connect when they should.

These pacing and rushed issues really prevent this series from standing out, but nevertheless it has quite a bit to like, and its ideas will keep you busy as long as you don’t expect too much of it as a key series. While good, it didn’t have the “oomph” that I experienced with the Air and Clannad TV-series and movies.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Good mystery, very varied, but also rushed.
Characters: 7/10 – The cast shines as a whole, but most of the individual characters lack attention.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Excellent animation and visuals, especially the money shots.
Setting: 9/10 – Original settings. It may have a few plot-holes, but the creativity put into it more than makes up for it.

Suggestions:
– Air
– Haibane Renmei

Durarara Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Durarara




I personally like those series who manage to make their setting come alive, and Durarara turned out to be quite a fine attempt in this. In the middle of Ikeburkuro, it intertwines the stories of all kinds of interesting people as they live their daily lives. From seemingly average teenagers to invincible fighting machines to Russian waiters at a sushi restaurant.

It’s at its best when it can really intertwine these stories with its a-linear pacing. Especially the first half of the series manages to bring a lot of colour to the combination of different characters that parade the screen. It’s fairly episodic, but that format really allows the creators to show a lot of different things about its setting.

A lot of character-development can be found in the second half, which for better and for worse, is completely different to these colourful first parts. The story becomes a lot more linear, it becomes a lot darker and a lot more straightforward. Personally I’m a big fan of character-development when used right, but it felt to me that in this part, the creators sacrificed a bit too much for the sake of this character-development. Be prepared for a number of characters who tend to act rather illogical, refusing to solve problems that can simply be solved by talking to each other. Personally, for me it just wasn’t as good as this first half: it lacked energy, and it tried to look a bit too much like Baccano, which it most definitely wasn’t.

The animation varies throughout the series. It really starts off excellent, and especially the background art is gorgeous, though you can see that the budget becomes a little tighter as the series goes on, and more shortcuts show up. The music is also pretty good, and it has some excellent tracks for both the lighter parts and the darker ones.

Overall, this series has been created by the creators of Baccano, and the director had done a ton of other stuff including Jigoku Shoujo, Fancy Lala, Natsume Yuujinchou and Koi Kaze. Durarara isn’t among the best of them, and in that way it turned into a bit of a disappointment. From most other directors however, this series would have been gold. It suffers a bit with its characters (quite a few of them have their unlikable moments), it has a bit of a wonky pacing in the second half, but it has a pretty inventive plot, a ton of nice ideas and while not the best, it’s definitely worth your time.

Storytelling: 8/10 – The disjointed format in the first half has a great effect, so much that it feels empty when it’s not there in the second half. Tries to give too much pointless hints to Baccano.
Characters: 8/10 – Some characters are well developed, but the show ends too fast to actually use this, and others remain rather stereotypes. The teenagers aren’t really that likable throughout large parts of the series.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Some great stuff, some standard stuff.
Setting: 9/10 – Ikebukuro (a neighbourhood in Tokyo) is well fleshed out and especially comes to life in the first half, but also gets well fleshed out in the second half with a number of pretty interesting ideas and concepts.

Suggestions:
– Birdy the Mighty Decode
– Kaze no Youjinbo
– Mobile Police Patlabor

Ookiku Furikabutte – Natsu no Taikai-hen Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Ookiku Furikabutte




I’ll just kick in the door immediately with this review: having only 13 episodes hurts. Ookiku Furikabutte was a show that set itself apart with its gruelingly long baseball matches. Take that away, and you take one of the essential parts of the series away. Nevertheless, don’t write this sequel off, because it also has a lot of points at which it actually surpassed the first season.

For those uninitiated, Ookiku Furikabutte is a baseball show. We often see series that focus on a bunch of teenagers that try to make it to Koushien, but they all have something that sets them apart. Ookiku Furikabutte has the incredible detail it puts into all of its matches. Every single detail is paid attention to, matches are complex and realistic.

A-1 did an even better job at the animation here. The animation is just consistently smooth and detailed with very few (if any) hiccups. Movements, especially during the baseball match are all very finely detailed. You especially have to love some of the far-away shots: in this series, those aren’t cheap excuses to draw less detailed, they are opportunities for animators to animate even more fluidly than they’re already doing. This has been by far the most detailed portrayal of baseball I have ever seen in anime. Screw the length of this show, it’s an excellent adaptation in which the creators succeed wonderfully in bringing the manga to life.

Compared to the first season, the biggest disadvantage of the second season is that the enemy teams just aren’t as colourful: due to the shorter length, they receive way too little attention in favour of the lead characters. These guys however, do get pushed into the right direction. The sequel successfully manages to iron out the few bugs it still had in the characters, and added quite a bit of interesting stuff to the most important ones.

It doesw have the worst match of the series: the first big match of the second season failed to live up to expectations, even when considering the shorter length of the series. However, the second match totally makes up for it. It had to be cut incredibly short (I doubt that the creators themselves even knew about this limited airtime when they first planned out the series), but still retained the essence of the match to make it just better and better with every episode.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Excellent attention to detail in its baseball, only held back due to a warped pacing and short length.
Characters: 8/10 – Very good characters, though the enemy teams could have used more details and colours.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Consistently excellent animation. A-1 really put their best into these visuals.
Setting: 9/10 – The best portrayal of baseball I have seen in anime so far

Suggestions:
– Touch
– One Outs
– Princess Nine

Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Artland is… weird. Let’s define it as that. They’ve got this talent to make all of their shows look as cheaply as possible, and yet they actually deliver some pretty good series. Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou looked like an incredibly cheap harem series when it first was announced. The character-designs for the females were incredibly stereotypical, the trailer was full of fanservice, it had the director of Shakugan no Shana. It was a recipe for failure.

Again, another proof of why you shouldn’t judge books by their cover (a saying that I really hope applies to the upcoming Summer Season!), because Daimaou turned out to be along with B Gata H Kei the series to breathe some much needed new life into the moe fanservice genre. Beyond all of the stupidity, beyond all of the pointless fanservice, this series has a lot to like. It’s not exactly deep or anything, but as entertainment it is very solid.

Finally, we have a moe show that understands the concept of creativity. This show turns out to be a subversion of the good versus evil genre, where the most good-natured guy out there gets labelled as an evil demon lord. Instead of whining and crying like a little girl, he’s assertive and tries whatever he can to escape his fate, ‘helped’ by to be honest quite a dynamic cast of side-characters. Every character here stands as unique and contributes something to the series, though my personal favourite was the green-haired girl. I loved her wise-cracking jokes with her deadpan delivery.

What makes the plot of this series interesting is that unlike most fantasy series, it just doesn’t care about credibility: it’s just there to have fun, and while the subplots are all solid enough to give the characters their background and make them to be more than just paper bags, it often just gives up and chooses entertainment above just making sense. The series is at its best when it manages to balance these two out the best, in which serious scenes move to nonsensical ones in rapid succession. The show is at its worst when it rather forgets this, and dabbles too long in either its fanservice, or its serious stories.

While the character-designs of this series may be terrible, the animation, especially in the money shots, is actually very good. There is a surprising amount of fluidity, and a few episodes are just downright fun because of how much the animators were playing around and trying out various ideas.

I think the weakest part of the series are the serious parts of Hattori in the beginning, and the serious parts of Keena in the end. With Keena, the creators were trying to go for some dramatic climax that just ends up as an anti-climax, while with Hattori has some annoying tsundere moments. For a harem though, it’s pretty damn good and has quite a few nice ideas on good and evil.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Too much pointless fanservice, but nevertheless solid entertainment.
Characters: 8/10 – Charming, stupid, harem, hilarious, tsunderes, background, cliches, but all have their own purpose in the story.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Unimpressive character-designs, but actually pretty good animation. Artland knows a number of very good in-betweeners.
Setting: 8/10 – Ton of nice ideas, though limits itself with its cliches a few times here and there.

Suggestions:
– Touka Gettan
– Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou
– Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito

B Gata H Kei Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Of course, the past Spring Season had plenty of gems with a ton of depth, but what made it really stand apart from all other seasons is that I now have two new favourite moe fanservice series. It’s a genre I usually hate, but this season came and showed that you can actually do this genre right with enough imagination and characterization.

With B Gata H Kei, your mileage may still vary, of course. It features a loser with a hot girlfriend, oblivious to a childhood friend who is in love with him, a ton of boob jokes and a lead female who is an incredible tsundere. It’s a recipe for disaster, one that so many other series screwed up at, but this is the only one that I’ve seen that manages to come with more than just that.

The characterization managed to keep me more than interested despite these cliches. Yamada is a wonderful lead character in the way that this series explores her attempts to have sex. She’s a unique character in the sense that she has the most weird ideas and the most shameless actions. This series really likes to toy around with the embarrasment about its subject matter, in a way that I consider to be the best out of any fanservice show that I managed to sit through. Every major character in this series has his oer her own things to be embarrassed about, which results in a number of priceless situations.

In the middle of this series it may look like the series gets lost a bit into its own cliches, and these episodes by far the least interesting of the series. The creators did plan a number of great and incredibly dynamic final episodes for the series to close off. Of course, leaving aside the fact that it doesn’t actually end, and that the final episode is ONE BIG TEASE.

If you’re interested in this series, you can simply give it a one-episode taste test, it’s pretty much what you can expect of the rest of the series, so if you don’t like it, it’s not going to get better, while if you do, it’ll keep you entertained. Teenaged romances in anime are usually terrible, especially the ones that focus too much on moe, but this is actually quite a charming series about teenagers exploring their feelings about sex. There’s a ton of fanservice, but it’s not just fanservice for the sake of fanservice: it’s all there with a purpose, it’s a means to get the characters to show their best side, rather than just pointlessly showing some boobs to get viewer ratings up.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Well paced, doesn’t drag on its jokes, and knows how to deliver them well. There are too many cockblocks for a series like this, though.
Characters: 9/10 – Wonderful characterization, excellent voice acting. We get really into the minds of the lead characters, and especially the lead characters are very dynamic and pretty well developed for just 12 episodes.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Consistent, well balanced and nowhere annoying.
Setting: 8/10 – A TON of cliches are present, but the series knows this and tries to make them ridiculous as much as the story allows.

Suggestions:
– Kenko Zenrakei Suieibu Umisho
– Yoiko
– Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou

Kaidan Restaurant Review – 77,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



I really like what Toei has been doing lately. They took three kids genres that had gotten really stale lately: children’s horror, science anime and mahou shoujo, and successfully managed to breathe new life into them with Kaidan Restaurant, Marie&Gali and Heartcatch Precure. Out of those three, Kaidan Restaurant is obviously the inferior, but if you like kids’ shows then this series will offer some unique charms.

And I must say that it was based on quite a good idea for its basic premise. From the outside, it may look like yet another show about a group of kids who really angered the gods badly, and run into a bunch of ghosts in every episode, but that wouldn’t quite do justice to what this show really is about: it’s a collection of horror stories, sometimes from all over the world, told through the perspective of the lead characters.

Basically, nearly every episodes consists out of two to three quick horror stories, delivered in bite-sized chunks. The stories are short, a tad repetitive, and not that well animated, but at the same time they’re quite well told. In just ten minutes, the creators nearly always succeed in building up a creepy atmosphere, despite the short length. The stories are well paced, correctly introduced and often not as straight-forward as one may think. The series is based on a series of award-winning children’s books, and that really shines through in the adaptation, despite the presence of any sort of big budget. It’s THE sign that you can tell a great story on a short animation budget. And heck, during its airtime this series consistently hit the top 10 of Japan’s viewing rates.

the stories are very repetitive, that’s true. But they all do what they intend to go: provide quick bite-sized chunks of horror. The series is specifically set up in a restaurant format, with meals consisting out of an appetizer, main course and desert, which proved to be quite an interesting metaphor for the series to work with. I also quite liked how some stories leave a lot up to the interpretation of the viewers by not outright stating what happened, while others are more straight-forward. In some stories, the ghosts are killed, but there are also plenty of stories in which the ghosts are the winners, or simply leave. That’s another one of the strange things about this series: it’s quite sadistic at times, but it also has its heart-warming moments.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Is actually quite effective in its horror storytelling. Consistently creates a pretty tense atmosphere for stories that only take up 10 minutes.
Characters: 7/10 – Points for the idea, but the main characters remain mere shells because of how they’re meant to represent a different person for most of the episodes. The characterization of the persons in these individual stories is quite good, though.
Production-Values: 7/10 – This is a bit of an ugly series. The animation budget is full of errors, and very basic. It does what it need to do, but nothing more.
Setting: 8/10 – Repetitive, but imaginative. The setting has a lot more charm than all those cheaply made kids’ shows that treat children like idiots.

Suggestions:
– Gakkou no Kaidan
– Telepathy Shoujo Ran
– Aoi Blink