Category: Anime Reviews

I’m not a big fan of moe, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t give these types of series a chance. I’ve been proven wrong often enough times about these types of shows, and there are plenty of series that may look overly chichéd and stereotypical on the outside, yet turn out to be surprising gems on the inside. I was hoping Saki to be the same, and for a while it indeed looked like this was the case, but in the end it unfortunately ended up too much stuck in its own clichés and stereotypes to really develop into something worthwhile. There are just too many fundamental problems with this series. This series is about Mah-Jong. In preparation for this series, you can clearly see that the creators read through all of the rules of Mah-Jong, they looked up all of the major strategies that can be used to win, but on the other hand it also becomes so obvious that they’ve never actually sat down to play a game, in order to get the feeling of how a game normally progresses. And so, the matches in this series aren’t decided by strategy, but instead by pure luck. Matches basically revolve around who can pull the biggest Deus ex Machina near the end of every match. These magical powers enable the characters to cheat in all sorts of ways, like becoming invisible, getting extra luck when the rounds are arranged in a particular way, and even blatantly giving all of your opponent crappy hands so that you can do whatever you please. The creators don’t even make use of this. The matches all end in the most predictable ways, with no attempt whatsoever to spice them up beyond their original set-up (which is just a courtesy of the manga it’s based on anyway). This would have all been forgiven if the characters made up for it. Unfortunately, there too it ultimately disappoints. This series has about thirty named characters, and nearly all of them just end up being one-dimensional clichés and stereotypes, with the few attempts that are made to develop them being the most predictable and clichéd attempts ever, so that doesn’t really help either. In the end, there are just three characters that actually resemble characters and don’t exist based on their exaggerated quirks, and those are just a bunch of minor side-characters. They definitely manage to spice up the series when they’re in the focus, but they’re just too overshadowed by the lead characters, Saki and Nodoka who form one of the most obvious lesbian pairings I have ever seen. There’s nothing subtle about their romance at all. It’s just a constant onslaught of blushing and strange looks when these two are near each other. But by far the worst character in this series has to be the only boy in the entire series. This guy is so incredibly obnoxious that he makes every scene he’s in a pain to sit through. His endless fantasies about Nodoka’s bosom just get worse and worse as time goes by, and overall he remains an utterly pointless character. There’s no reason whatsoever to have him in this series! I recently (read: half an hour ago) realized that this series is quite similar to Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou: both series start out with a flawed premise of lots and lots of moe, seemingly stereotypical characters, magic and huge boobs. And that’s all the more of a shame that YWGM did end up creating something enjoyable with a tongue-in-the-cheek execution and fun chemistry, while Saki kept hanging with a bland and unimaginative execution that always picks the most predictable option to go forward. With one of the most obnoxious soundtracks of the season (I’m not the biggest fan of J-Pop, and it’s music like that that’s exactly the reason why!), it fails to move beyond mediocrity.

The first season of Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei was awesome. It had wit, and came across as a really fresh comedy-series. The second season also had a number of hilarious episodes, but at the same time lost its edge, became repetitive and turned stereotypical. Season three in its turn continued to sap away all creativity, turning it into a repetitive bore-fest. It’s the perfect example of why you shouldn’t milk out comedies. At this point, Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei has really exhausted all of its good jokes. The first season had me laughing nearly continuously, while your average episode in this season only managed to generate a chuckle out of me once or twice if it was lucky. Episodes are yet again divided into three chapters, each looking at a different type of social commentary, but most of them are just rehashes of some previous chapter, without really adding anything new. The ones that aren’t ripped off are about such a ridiculously obscure part of society that it’s hard to care about them. The characters aren’t better off. On top of the fact that they still haven’t changed beyond their stereotypes, this season also gives a lot of them some sort of obnoxious catch-phrase that they tend to repeat in nearly every single episodes. There’s the psycho girl with her periods and commas that appear on the screen, the stalker girl with her “you were there? Always”, the foreign girl with her pantyshots, the hikkikomori with her fanservice and the fangirl with her fantasies. On top of that, every episode starts with a nonsensical audio story that just pointlessly goes on and on, and every episode ends with an even more obnoxious drawing game that already got old in the second season. Granted, the better episodes of this series are near the end, and I have to agree that the cavemen part was pretty funny, but that in no way makes up for the rest of the series. If you’re interested in this series, watch up to episode 6 of the second season. Beyond that, it only gets worse. Still, at least the graphics in this series look as good as ever. The direction and character-designs make this series nice to look at (unlike that other Shaft-show, but more on that once it finishes), but in a season with so many other good comedies, this stands out as an incredibly repetitive series that was already milked out ages ago.

I love remakes! Believe it or not, but out of all adaptations, (ignoring the obvious recaps as Dragonball Kai, of course), these type of anime nearly always try to find ways to improve on their original series, resulting in some of the most amazing series. The same goes for the new Mazinger: this series knows exactly what it is: epic, mecha and action. And it has been by far my favourite action-series of the past half year. Do NOT get fooled by the fact that this is based on a cheesy mecha series. The original Mazinger was the series that popularized the mecha genre, and it consisted (for as far as I can assume) out of a bunch of episodic stories in which the titular Mazinger would end up defeating some sort of monster that was set out to destroy the world. Let me say that the plot of the new Mazinger is NOTHING like this. It’s just taken the basic concept, characters, and did something totally different with it. The series is in no single way episodic, and it pays homage to the old series while delivering enough of its own ideas as well. The creators put a lot of effort into fleshing out the past of this series, for as much impact as possible. They created a complex back-story around ancient Greek myths, science and betrayal. This really allows for a superb cast. Especially the half-male half-female Count Ashura has to be one of the most awesome villains in Giant Robot history, but the rest of the cast also truly shines. But what really makes this series EPIC is the direction. The action is truly over the top, but for once they get it right and successfully mix it in with the more serious parts of the story. Every episode consistently delivers on the action, while also taking care of the plot, and it finds a really good combination between the two, so that they only strengthen each other. The creators really cleverly throw in all sorts of huge plot twists in the middle of the action in order to spice it up even more, with a number of truly awesome results. True, this series does have the tendency to pull a lot of things out of its ass, but when you look at the big picture it all still makes sense. And besides, a lot of this is about secret back-up plans that the characters had reserved, which of course gets a bit boring if you have to go through all of them beforehand. Overall, if you like over the top action you really should give this series a chance. It’s a series that knows exactly what it is, and it delivers as much epic action as possible with an awesome plot that always manages to pull a number of great plot twists. With an ending that I consider to be the single best of 2009 (no seriously, the final episodes in this series completely blew me away), this series exceeded all my expectations. This is a series on which you can always count to be epic.

Sometimes, these series appear that aren’t supposed to be good… and yet they are. Series as Asagiri no Miko and Wagaya no Oinarisama, who have the most generic premises, somehow end up being a very enjoyable ride from start to finish in their own way. The same goes with Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou. And this really isn’t one of my “pity”-reviews as with Sekirei or Strike Witches, in which I argued that they were pretty decent for a moe show. No, even if YWGM were to be compared to a regular series, it would still be pretty good. But yeah, this series has a terrible first impression. The two lead characters have ridiculously coloured hair, voice actresses who try too hard to be moe, the series is yet another one of those series in which cute girls use magic, there’s lots of fanservice and at first sight the characters are nothing but moe stereotypes. And yet especially that last part turns out to be interestingly wrong. The way this series excels is its characterization. Every single character here is surprisingly genuine, and unlike most other moe series I didn’t find any of them forced. Koyomi at first sight looks like yet another stupid high school girl, but yet she’s such a pure and innocent character that that gives her a bit of a different dimension. In the same way the rest of the cast is also surprisingly down to earth and enjoyable to watch. Especially because this series spends a lot of time on just slice of life, it’s nice enough to just see the characters interact due to the great chemistry they have between each other. The idea of modern magic is also very nicely used in this series. You see, magic in this series isn’t the usual dull kind of magic in which you wave a wand and stuff happens, this series gives a bit of a modern touch to it, by allowing magic to be programmable. An excellent idea, which results in a lot of interesting applications for such magic. Possibly the weirdest flaw in this series is its fanservice. It’s so incredibly strange that it often makes no sense (are you bullied? Why don’t you try to throw your pantie in the bully’s face? That will shut him up!), but on the other hand this series is also full of subtle jokes and tongue-in-cheek dialogue. You obviously don’t want to expect anything amazing here, but it’s an all-around enjoyable series if you’re looking for a light watch. This really is the perfect example of why a lot of moe doesn’t necessarily means a bad series.

Watching Key the Metal Idol really makes me appreciate how awesome art from the 90s can be. Sure, the past decade has also put forth a fair amount of beautifully drawn anime, but there definitely is a charm to the cell animation that dates from the time when there was no CG yet. The designs in Key the Metal Idol in particular are beautiful, only made better by some terrific animation. But how does the rest hold up? Well, very impressive. This is an OVA that shines in its direction, which knows exactly how to keep you guessing, interested and caring about the characters. It really draws you in with its strange plot, and the way it plays around with its characters (especially Key) gives them all a unique feeling. Key the Metal Idol made really well use of its OVA format to try out new things, in an attempt to be unique. The premise of this series is that robot girl Key wants to be human, but needs to become friends with 30.000 people, but this is only the tip of the iceberg in this. As the series goes on, more and more very creative idea pop up and make sure that even fifteen years after it originally aired, this series still stands out as fresh and original. With 13 episodes of 25 minutes, plus two episodes clocking in at a whopping 90 minutes both, this really is one of the longest OVAs out there (aside from Legend of Galactic Heroes, of course), and it really shows. While most OVAs are just way too short for their story, Key the Metal Idol does for once have plenty of time to show its entire setting, and it makes really well use of this and takes its time to let the story slowly unfold. This gets taken especially far in episode 14, which is really nothing but ninety minutes of non-stop talking. It’s those kinds of things that are risky, and will either have you love or hate the series. I personally loved how it built up and very carefully explained exactly what was going on in this story, but you don’t want to watch it with a short attention span and it also violated the “show, don’t tell”-rule at times during the exposition. The final episode in its turn suffers a bit from hasty and convenient explanations, that may leap logic a bit too much at times. On top of that, the budget also seems to have dropped in these episodes. It’s a bit sad for the finale of an otherwise excellent series, but it’s not like this final episode is bad either. It’s just… not as solid as the other episodes. Nevertheless, Key the Metal Idol really has a lot to like. Because it was released over the course of four years the producers really had the time to make this series as solid as possible, and aside from the final episode this worked very well. The cast of characters is imaginative and very varied, yet every character feels unique, the storytelling draws you in and the dialogue is deep and meaningful as well. A great example of OVAs done right.

Series about girls’ baseball teams that challenge male baseball teams are nothing new. Princess Nine did this before. Still, Taishou Yakyuu Musume tries to bring in a bit of a twist with its setting: the 1920s. it’s a very nice setting for a feminist series to explore the struggles of a team of girls to be accepted in a male-dominated sport. When you look at the baseball in this series however, it unfortunately ends up shallow. It isn’t about girls defeating boys. My problem with this series is that more than half of the members of this series’ baseball team start out as complete noobs, and yet they suddenly grow strong enough to be just as good as a team of guys who have been training for their entire lives. I mean, I don’t mind feminism at all (in fact, it’s much better than the alternative and turning females into simple damsels in distress), but that’s no reason to deus ex machina your characters into talented players. When you look past the baseball however, you’ve got a pretty enjoyable series. This series is actually mostly slice of life, with only a few episodes dedicated to baseball matches, and the slice of life is definitely the most enjoyable part in this series. The characters all have their charms and are enjoyable to watch, and the plot provides interesting situations that shape their characters. But yeah, that’s nice and all but this remains a 12-episode series with more than fifteen major characters. there’s no way to flesh out all of them, and so a lot of characters remain underdeveloped even though they have quite a bit of potential. Still, at least the two lead characters have enough charms to save this series and while they have a few stereotypes here and there they’re fleshed out nicely, and are able to carry this series as lead characters. Sure, this series isn’t anything special, but it’s the kind of series you watch on a rainy day. It’s very enjoyable, and even the baseball matches aren’t anything bad if you can swallow the unrealistic skills of the girls. It’s always good for a light watch, and this show really knew what it was.