Category: Anime Reviews

Mobile Suit Gundam 0080 – War in the Pocket Review – 87,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



I now fully understand why War in the Pocket is held in such a high regard. At only six episodes it’s probably one of the shortest Gundams out there… but it has BY FAR the best characters that I have ever seen from the franchise. The fact that this series is told from the perspective of the Zeons (the bad guys in UC Gundam) makes it even better, turning this into the most morally ambiguous Gundam series as well.

The character who impressed me the most was Bernie, the lead character. He starts out like your average Gundam lead: young, rookie, ambitious, et cetera. However, the creators still made him competent: he’s a guy who doesn’t just ignore orders on a whim. The veterans around him also treat him as a rookie, and instead of standing in the spotlights he really is a guy who is tasked with the safe, dirty and boring work. The veterans around him also feel like they’re veterans, instead of the usual experienced soldier whose only tasks it is to let the youth take over. At no point does the angst or emo take over the storytelling, and neither do characters suddenly degrade into morons just to spice things up. This series averted a ton of Gundam cliches that originally made me so tired of this franchise.

The excellent characterization also really helps. Six episodes was obviously a bit short to develop a huge cast, but the two central characters get all the time they need to shine. The animation makes sure that the two of them are as expressive as possible, where it favours paying attention to these small details, rather than overblown battles. The side-characters aren’t as rounded as these two, and actually pretty static, but they’re nowhere near bad. They do a great job in illustrating the points that this series is trying to make. It very cleverly combines this childish innocence to the harsh realities of war, without ever going overboard with the drama.

So yeah, this pretty much is the most un-typical Gundam I have seen. While every other Gundam is an action-series, this really is a character-study first and foremost, where the action only takes up second place. For once we also have battles that stay down to earth (no pun intended), rather than going over the top near the end. And despite the lack of any epicness whatsoever, I found myself enjoying it more consistently than any other Gundam.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Perfectly makes use of its time. Great twists, yet remains down to earth.
Characters: 9/10 – Excellent characterization; averts a ton of Gundam cliches, no idiots, morons or emos whatsoever.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Perhaps not the best for a Gundam series, but still very good.
Setting: 9/10 – Puts the loop above settings and characters that are normally just glossed over in Gundam series, and it works perfectly.

Seikai no Senki II Review – 90/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Seikai no Monshou



While both Seikai no Monshou and Senki were excellent series, to me it seemed like they still were missing something, and I don’t just mean Monshou’s disappointing finale. I still can’t exactly put my finger to it, but whatever it was: Seikai no Senki II has it. The third Seikai series more than surpasses its predecessors.

It doesn’t just take the best of the two prequels: the dialogue of Monshou and the combat of Senki. It also introduces a complete new layer: diplomacy. A huge part of this season is about the two lead characters, in charge of a planet full of prisoners that’s about to descend into a civil war. The planet’s political system consists out of four parties with all their own issues yet who have to live together somehow. I personally loved watching Jinto trying to save himself in this situation: his words suddenly carry the lives of tens of thousands.

The dialogue of Seikai no Monshou and Senki was already really good, but Senki II’s dialogue turns out even better. The creators put so much meaning in just about every sentence. Every sentence is spot-on, whether it’s about the characters in the series, or the politics. The scenario itself is also full of twists and turns that yet make full sense when put into the story itself.

The series thrusts us really in a world that neither the characters nor the audience knows anything about. It cleverly makes use of the fact that it’s already got 26 episodes of established characters, while at the same time it also delivers powerful new characters who are gripping and full of flaws from the beginning. While the first Seikai no Senki was generally very focused (it was very much a series about war), Senki II instead was about a whole array of stuff: it’s a very varied series in which one episode may be about politics on a small insignificant planet, the next about space battles, on to switch back to some banter between a bunch of army commanders. It covers the full spectrum. Seriously Sunrise: why don’t you make stuff like this anymore?

Storytelling: 10/10 – Perfectly paced, varied, hard-hitting; science-fiction at its finest.
Characters: 9/10 – Terrific dialogue, both the old and new characters rock.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Excellent music. The graphics do what they need to do and nothing more.
Setting: 9/10 – Excellent portrayal of an ongoing war on many different levels.

Suggestions:
– Toward the Terra
– Hi no Tori – Uchuu-Hen
– Gasaraki

Armed Librarians – The Book of Bantorra Review – 92,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Armed Librarians - The Book of Bantorra




Without a doubt my favourite show during the past Winter Season. Armed Librarians was always interesting to watch, it always brought nice ideas to the table, and it always was wrapped in a tight script. There are just so many thing to like about this series.

For a fantasy series, the premise already stands out with its simple idea to turn people into ‘books’ after they die: these books can be read by anyone who touches them, and the lead characters are basically bookkeepers of these books (so yeah, the term ‘librarians’ in this series has very much a double meaning). The idea an sich is already very creative, but the beauty really lies in how the series makes use of those books to weave past and present into one.

Every arc is basically laid out with a number of seemingly unrelated plot-threads, that get woven into one brilliantly. Past and present cross each other in the explanation of the ties between the different characters in each arc as we learn about why the central characters became involved with the plot in the first place. Each arc really takes care to make its characters complete and even the character-development is very well thought out within the plot. Conclusions are often very clever combinations of circumstances of everyone’s unique circumstances.

And this just goes on for the entire series. Every arc continues to throw interesting plot twists that are full of creativity like it’s nothing! This comes at a price, of course. While this series really has had the best plot I have watched in YEARS, the characters don’t feel exactly like characters, but instead are much more part of the plot. Because of this, you don’t want to watch this sereis for realistic or characterization. The reason the characters rock in this series is because of what they represent, and how their development ties into the rest of the series.

Then there’s also the matter that this show would have fit better within 35 episodes. Throughout the majority of this series, you won’t notice much of it, however the final arcs are clearly rushed, and you can visibly see that the creators have troubles fitting everything into such a short time spam. Nevertheless, whem compared to so many series that were put into the same situation, it really got away with its rushed ending. While cheesy, it always stays true to what it is, and ands with a huge bang that gives it its best shot to resolve the plot as good as possible.

So overall, Armed Librarians has been an utter delight to watch for me. If you’re looking for an exciting fantasy adventure then it’s an excellent recommendation. The production values by David Production get increasingly better after its first episode, and its soundtrack is truly epic and fits its setting perfectly. It’s been a consistently fun an entertaining ride for me, and I hope it will be for you as well.

Storytelling: 10/10 – One of the best plots I watched in years. So many plot threads weaved together.
Characters: 9/10 – Excllent and imaginative development, but no character is realistic.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Awesome soundtrack, animation that may not be the most accurate, but continues to keep the balls in the air for the rest of the series.
Setting: 9/10 – A highly imaginative world that combines many, many interesting concepts into one. Also is the first fantasy I have seen to actually have democracies.

Suggestions
– Vision of Escaflowne
– Hi no Tori
– Pandoa Hearts

Kimi ni Todoke Review – 75/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Kimi ni Todoke



Romances often are annoying, which can often be attributed to characters acting completely irrational, illogical and against their own feelings. I’ve watched quite a few series that created a well developed cast this way, like with Bokura ga Ita and White Album. Kimi ni Todoke however… just… didn’t work for me.

The first half of this series really was a pain for me to try and sit through. The premise is simple: a very shy and socially inept girl (Sawako) and a popular, good-looking guy (Kazehaya) fall in love with each other. Fair enough, but the execution left a lot to be desired, especially when the creators started focusing on the love triangles. Hordes of girls turn out to be in love with Kazehaya as well, and the drama that results out of it is horribly dragged out for way longer than it should have, and the creators treat it like some kind of blasphemy if any of the two lead characters even dares to talk to someone of the other gender.

For a series that’s about the high school years of a bunch of people, Sawako and Kazehaya don’t really feel like interesting characters at all. Sawako is way too pure: whenever someone tries to take advantage of her feelings (by making her jealous for example), her incredible naivety just feels incredibly unnatural and it quickly turns into a bit of a lame gimmick. Kazehaya on the other hand is just so bland as a male romantic interest. He’s just… there, with hardly any personality about him other than some guy who just keeps smiling.

What also did not help was this series’ facial expressions, especially the chibi-distortions that you see in most of those other shoujo series as well. Usually they’re used with stylistic purposes; you know, colour each character with these seemingly over the top reactions. Here however, they felt more like “Okay, you can laugh now”-signs. They’re often badly animated in contrast to the rest of this series’ beautiful looks, are forced and hardly ever are actually used in funny situations. This show just continuously tried to be subtle, while it ultimately just wasn’t.

The only subtle part that I actually found about this series was its character-development. THANKFULLY, this show gets better in its second half as soon as the main love rival is put on a bus away from the main plot. From there on the characters change ever so slightly: Sawako learns how to appreciate life more and Kazehaya becomes less bland, but it’s not that the creators try to shove this development down your throat like they did with the love triangles. it really helps for a series if its final arc is the best one, and that pretty much was the case here.

Still, I don’t think that this show is the same as White Album, in which an excellent second half made up for an incredibly annoying first half. In the end I still see Kimi ni Todoke as a bit of a half-baked series with characters that never really stand out at anything. It’s overall something that will keep you busy on a rainy day with not much else to do, but there are a lot of better series out there.

Storytelling: 7/10 – Lacks subtlety, drags on for way too long.
Characters: 8/10 – Decent enough in its focus at being in love, with slight development that at least makes the final parts of the series interesting enough.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Great visuals, as expected from Production IG, but the chibi-drawings annoy.
Setting: 7/10 – Pretty much your standard high school setting Nothing that really stands out.

Suggestions:
– Bokura ga Ita
– True Tears
– Kimikiss – Pure Rouge

Gag Manga Biyori+ Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



BY FAR the most underwatched and underrated series of the past winter-season was Gag Manga Biyori’s fourth season. There were no subs, the first season was already very much unknown, and its random and unimpressive promo-art that lacked any moe whatsoever lead to only few people to give it a chance. On top of that, it also didn’t help that half of this season was a recap: only the odd numbered episoded episodes were new, while the even ones were just episodes taken from previous seasons.

But here’s the thing: never since the best episodes of Gintama have I laughed as hard at an anime as with this series. This isn’t just a case of a series that’s ‘decent despite its popularity’, no. Gag Manga Biyori+ is one of the funniest things I’ve seen since ages. Besides that, it has nothing: there’s no plot, no characters, the graphics suck. But the new episodes were so awesome to watch that I just don’t care. Even the first season wasn’t as good as the episodes here.

Of course, its sense of humour is not for everyone. If you’re into moe humour then you don’t want to watch this series. However, if you’re looking for hyperactivity, then you really can’t get anything more hyperactive than this. This show elevates energetic to completely new levels, the pacing is absolutely through the roof. It never waits for its audience to catch a bit of breath, it just keeps bombarding it with joke after joke after joke, all of them over the top. With episodes of five minutes, it’s also no commitment at all to try and watch this season. My advice is that if you want something energetic to laugh at and happen to know some Japanese, then give this show a shot. If you don’t know Japanese, then you can at least check out the first season, which did come fully subbed.

Storytelling: 10/10 – Absolutely hilarious. I haven’t laughed this hard in ages.
Characters: 8/10 – Um, yeah. Random characters for every episodes. But they don’t really need to be anything more.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Smooth animation, but simple art style and a lot of still frames. But it doesn’t really need to be anything better.
Setting: 8/10 – Um, yeah. It’s knowledgeable about the things it parodies, I guess.

(So yeah, this is pretty much an incredibly subjective review: I’m only rating it this high because I found it so incredibly funny ^^;)
– Excel Saga
– The other Gag Manga Biyori Seasons
– Kodomo no Omocha
– Sexy Commando Gaiden

Shoka Review – 75/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




The Animax Grand Prix is something like a contest for amateur writers: submit your story, and the winner gets his story animated in a 20-minute OVA. Up till now, the results have been mostly simple kids stories: Yume da Maya Kidan for example was about a girl’s relationship with her brother who got kidnapped by an angry demon, while Takane no Jitensha was about a boy’s relationship with his younger sister. Shoka however, is completely different.

From the screenshots you can pretty much see its unusual art style, and ultimately Shoka is an action OVA: its animation is truly gorgeous. The animation is messy, but detailed and very imaginative. And for once, you can actually see that the animators have put some attention in the lip movement of characters: their mouths don’t just simply move up and down whenever they’re speaking, but you can actually see their mouths form the syllables that they’re trying to say.

The action and animation is really why you should want to watch this little OVA, because apart from that it doesn’t have much else. The story is just there to show the action, and the characters too are pretty simple. The dialogue is also nothing special, as shown in the minute of cheesy comedy that is tacked at the end.

So yeah at the end this OVA knows how to build up tension, and how to write excellent action. But the thing is that these things can all be attributed to the adaptation staff. For once I’d like to see an actually great short story being picked up by the Animax Grand Prix. There are enough amateur writers who are capable of such a thing.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Nice action.
Characters: 6/10 – Just serve as tools for the action; cheesy dialogue.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Gorgeous and detailed animation.
Setting: 7/10 – Nice idea of calligraphers, but 20 minutes is way too short to really explore it to its fullest

Suggestions:
– Tenpou Ibun Ayakashi Ayashi
– Kai Doh Maru
– Manie Manie

Hanamaru Youchien Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Hanamaru Youchien




Here’s a slice of life series that’s slightly different from what you usually see. The lead character is really a typical lead character, but he’s an actual adult. The series takes place not at a high school, but a kindergarten. Add a whole dose of role-play to that, and you pretty much get the formula of Hanamaru Youchien. A fun and relaxing series. And as an added bonus, the characters are well written as well.

Hanamaru Youchien basically spends its time either role playing, or fleshing out the characters. The former is just fun: we get to see inside the imagination of a bunch of five-year olds and their crazy ideas, and all of the adventures that they go on are consistently enjoyable, carrying an air of homage and parody that the creators (both Gainax and its director Seiji Mizushima) are famous for. The latter actually succeeds in making all of the adults into actual characters rather than stereotypes and paper bags.

Especially Tsuchida, the lead character, is one of those rare examples of a typical male lead done right. While he can be a loser at times, he also has enough things that he’s good at, his character is dynamic enough to allow him to evolve, rather than staying in the same one-sided stereotypes. The side-cat is also excellent in their support to the main cast. We get to know the backgrounds and motivations of everyone, and why they become involved as kindergarten teachers. In the end, the adults in this series get fleshed out so well that they actually manage to trump the adventures of the different kids in the series.

The biggest problem with this series however is that it doesn’t know whether it wants to also have romance or not. The ingredients are there: the lead character has someone he’s in love with. she’s just ridiculously clueless and at the end they’re still not together. I mean, if you’re going to set up some romance, at least have the decency to not build a brick wall between the lead characters.

There’s also a bit of an annoying sister, but she only appears in two episodes or so. The rest of this series is light-hearted and down to earth, but still has this sense of maturity that contrasts really well with the younger kids. The drama that’s there is short and focused, and doesn’t come across forced or too dramatic at all, so this series both ended up delivering in its serious and funny parts. On top of that, you also have to love what this series has done with its EDs: every episode has a completely different one, with a completely different style, genre and soundtrack.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Varied, fun and adorable.
Characters: 8/10 – This show confirms why I keep advocating adults in anime.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Solid animation and cute graphics.
Setting: 8/10 – Not the most creative series out there, but creative enough to fill 12 episodes, and the kindergarten itself and the world around it is also well portrayed.

Similar Series:
– Ristorante Paradiso
– Yume de Aetara
– Bottle Fairy

Cross Game Review – 87,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Cross Game




It’s easy to dismiss Cross Game as a baseball series, but make no mistake. This is much more a slice of life series about characters who just happen to play a lot of baseball. Cross Game is much more a tale of growing up, with a healthy dose of humour along the way. And it does this oh so well.

Seriously, in terms of slice of life, you can hardly get any better than this. The seemingly endless amount of wit with which the writers spice up the daily lives is incredible, and they love to play with this. Whenever you see a character do something seemingly out-of-character, there’s always some sort of very logical explanation behind this.Think about a character making an important confession at first sight, only to reveal that he’s talking about something completely different. The entire series is chock-ful of these moments that have a ton of fun playing with the characters in this way.

Obviously this gives the show an awesome cast to work with. We see them grow up through the series, from when they’re still small children to their third year in high school. As a viewer we really get to know who they are, and because of that the slice of life works so well: these characters rock right from the first episode of this series, so it becomes a really enjoyable ride to just see what they’re doing in their everyday lives.

The problem with this series is, in fact, the baseball, for multiple reasons. First of all, the slice of life is just that good. Every time a baseball match started, I felt like something was missing, and just kept hoping that they would wrap up as soon as possible in order to get more of the quiet moments in this series. That, and the baseball matches aren’t that good anyway. Especially when you compare them to other series, they’re poorly built up, hand together with cliches and the teams that our lead characters match against are hardly ever fleshed out properly. There’s no tension in them, and all you’re doing is waiting for them to finish.

Cross Game is based on a manga by Mitsuru Adachi, who pretty much can only write one type of series, but he can do that incredibly well. Cross Game is the same, and although I do prefer Touch (due to its longer length and because it did have excellent baseball matches, despite its lack of wit in the slice of life department), Cross Game nevertheless is excellent and its execution is one of a kind.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Wonderfully witty in its portrayal of the characters’ daily lives. Baseball matches suck, though.
Characters: 10/10 – Take perhaps a bit long to develop, but a lot of the cast members end up well rounded at the end of the series.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Nothing special, asice from a good soundtrack perhaps.
Setting: 8/10 – Not a fan of the way it portrayed baseball, but did a good job of the high school setting.

Tentai Senshi Sunred 2 Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




It’s extremely rare for a comedy sequel to be better than its predecessor. Most of the times, the best jokes are already exhausted, the characters have gotten dull, it takes its style too far, et cetera. Here is one, though. The first season of Tentai Senshi Sunred was a nice super sentai series parody, but there were a number of episodes that just dragged on or weren’t funny. The second season isntead is much more consistent and hilarious.

Tentai Senshi Sunred 2 doesn’t just show that it has plenty of ideas for a second season, it also shows that it’s been saving its best ideas as well. It cleverly makes use of the build-up and character introductions that became rather boring in the first season, and uses them to back up these jokes. The jokes often revolve around a silly monster that Sunred has to battle, or a ridiculous plan of his ‘arch-rival’ vamp that just makes no sense, but a lot of the humour also comes from the monsters themselves as we’re introduced to some hilarious problems that they’re worrying about, like their own identity as a monster, or just every day problems that become just hilarious when put into the context of this series, considering how nobody seems to find it scary that a bunch of random monsters walk around.

There still are a number of monsters that just aren’t funny, like the two moles, or the animal soldiers also tend to drag at times, but overall Tentai Senshi Sunred succeeded yet again with its unique brand of humour. Take a regular slice of life setting, and make it the centre stage of a battle between a hero and an evil organization, sombining a huge amount of realism with a huge amount of stupidity with a combination that works perfectly.Sunred himself always provides a great chemistry with the rest of the cast as just about the opposite that you’d expect of a fighter for justice, and the rest of the cast all plays their part wonderfully.

Storytelling: 9/10 – A much larger percentage of the jokes hit the spot compared to the first season.
Characters: 8/10 – Excellent chemistry between them, plus a number of lovable monsters.
Production-Values: 7/10 – Still very simple and basic animation, but the character poses are very detailed and expressive.
Setting: 9/10 – The detailed and strangely realistic dialog really made me buy the very take on the super sentai genre.

Letter Bee Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Letter Bee




This is a bit of a difficult review to write. The reason for that is simple: Letter Bee is a series chock-ful of potential. That potential however, is only going to be realized in its second season, while the first season… is mainly dedicated to build up. You know, fleshing out the characters, giving the setting the right background, and building up the huge mystery surrounding this series.

While the series starts off with a very intruiguing opening, most of the rest of the series consists out of small arcs that involve Lag Seeing (the lead character) meeting different people. The people Lag meets vary from ridiculously cheesy to compelling and interesting, it’s really all over the place. In the meantime however, you can really see this series putting a lot of attention to flesh out the recurring cast-members, working on their development. Sure, Lag starts out as an incredible crybaby, but his development throughout these first 25 episodes makes him into quite an interesting character. Nichi on the other hand is just consistently lovable. The members of the main side-cast also all have the poihts at which they stand out.

This show also has quite a few fillers in its middle part. They’re used well, though. There are a few godawful episodes (when you get to the “race”-episode, just skip it alltogether), but also a number of surprisingly good ones. But most importantly: instead of being entirely pointless, they try to flesh out the characters a bit more, and give them a bit more character than what was present in the manga.

So yeah, this series served its purpose well: that second season has a lot of potential to rock due to the build-up that it has provided. Its voice acting is really excellent all around, and the few moments at which it does get to show some of the huge potential behind the storyline that it’s been building up, it’s truly an amazing and intriguing series, and it ends with one hell of a cliff-hanger. The highlights of this series are truly sad and melancholic; they’re just few and far in between, hence the relatively low rating.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Excellent build-up. Some not-so-excellent episodic stories.
Characters: 8/10 – Excellent main cast and voice acting. Hard to like lead characters. some underdeveloped side-characters.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Gorgeous images, inconsistent animation, beautiful soundtrack.
Setting: 8/10 – A ton of potential…. for which we have to wait until season 2 to fully see it.