Category: Anime Reviews

I’m not the biggest fan of romantic comedies, mostly because a lot of them are pretty cliched and boring. Nevertheless there obviously also are a lot of gems. His and Her Circumstances is Gainax and Hideki Anno’s addition to this genre, and while it may on the outside seem like the umpth variation of the same formula, it rises above most others through its dialogue, deep characters and snappy direction.

I have to grant it to Hideki Anno: as infamous as Gainax has become over the years, HaHC features some of the best direction I have seen in a romantic comedy. It doesn’t feel like a moment is wasted here, the dialogue is elaborate and meaningful and he really managed to bring out the depth of the characters from whatever manga this was based on. It turns this into a very accessible series: it’s very easy to watch and hardly ever gets boring. It may not be consistently funny, but it is consistently entertaining (well, with ONE major exception, but I’ll get to that below).

The dialogue overall flows very naturally, and of course the trademark Gainax Animation is very evident through the series, but you can see that along the way, the budget of this series becomes smaller and smaller. Nevertheless, the creators of this series solve it really well, and in a completely different way from how a limited budget is usually masked (by things like distorted faces and an overabundance of still frames). This series excels in its smart and creative tricks to save budget; the art remains crisp and consistent and the creators never forget to have lots of things going on at the same time. Two episodes in particular stand out in this: one consists out of uncoloured character-sketches, while the other is basically a living storyboard in black and white. They were a lot of fun to watch because even though it definitely looked cheap, there was always something going on in the screen and the characters never ceased to be captivating.

This does get taken too far in one aspect, though: Hideki Anno’s really weird obsession with recaps. Seriously, this show is full of the: nearly every episode starts with a recap of what happened up to that point, sometimes even lasting for three minutes. If this series had a complex story then okay, it might have been excused, but for a romantic comedy? In the middle, there also is a string of two completely useless recap episodes in the middle, and my guess would be that the total amount of time this series has spent on recapping is about the same as Wolf’s Rain’s recap block. And that one was aired for a good reason. And not spread across the entire series.

Nevertheless though, this series is a great example of a romantic comedy that’s deep and entertaining at the same time. Sure, it does have a bit of an inconclusive ending, but it’s nowhere near a bad conclusion. It’s a great example of how to correctly save budget without sacrificing style. And hey, after watching this series I finally know what the favourite anime of Akiyuki Shinbo is. ^^;

Storytelling:	9/10
Characters:	9/10
Production-Values:	8/10
Setting:	8/10

Touka Gettan is part of the “WTF am I watching!?”-series. From the creators of Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito comes an equally eccentric series that will have just about everyone confused as hell in the first five episodes. Its big selling point is of course that the episode aired backwards: it starts with the conclusion and ends with the introduction.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg!

In any case, it’s definitely an interesting and unique experience watching this series. The first five episodes are a complete mindscrew, with just about everything not making any sense because the lack of explanation that was supposed to have happened “earlier” on in the series. After that though, the series slows down and becomes episodic, and starts resembling your average school series with episodes like the Christmas episode, beach episode, et cetera, as we see the daily lives of the lead characters play out.

It might seem boring, but don’t worry, because the filler parts really manage to flesh out the characters, and the serious parts really give you the opportunity to try and connect everything that happened, watching the different characters develop backwards throughout time. The character-development is ranges from subtle to in-your-face, so you’re going to have to pay a lot of attention to get every single detail. Since you know how the characters are going to end up, it definitely has an interesting effect to see their past selves considering the sad and downright screwed up situations that they’re going to end up in.

If I had to praise this series for one thing though, then it’s its creativity. Let alone its idea to reverse the episodes, the cast of characters feels fresh and has a lot of original quirks (I especially loved the car jokes) and a lot of creative episodes (I especially liked what can be considered as the lost episode of Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito. It fits EXACLTY), but there also are episodes that take on the form of a theatre play and even an TV-show. From the outside, this series may consist out of a lot of boring fillers, but they hardly ever leave you bored or uninterested.

That’s not to say that Touka Gettan is without its flaws, unfortunately; it’s full of ’em. It could have been much better paced and the continuity is pretty much a mess. The creators like to randomly let characters appear and disappear without any good reason, and some plot twists just seem to happen for the heck of it, rather than there being a good explanation for them. Considering how difficult it already is to keep track of the different characters in this show, an extra addition of plot-holes really DO NOT HELP.

Then there’s the excessive amount of fanservice in this series. I know that it’s there to add to the style of this series, but the creators really tend to take this overboard at times. The characters themselves also tend to lack background. While watching this series, you obviously won’t know which ones have proper background and which haven’t, but a lot of the characters could have been much better if we actually knew who they were in the end.

So yeah, Touka Gettan is too rough around the edges to really make an impact: it could have handled its unique format much better with a much tighter direction. Nevertheless, when it comes to entertainment and keeping its audience busy, it does exactly what it needs to do. It’s pretty much like Yamibou: it’s not exactly a great example of storytelling, but worth watching just for the character interaction and the ideas thrown into it.

Storytelling:	7/10
Characters:	8/10
Production-Values:	8/10
Setting:	9/10

I’m a big fan of folklore, so I was looking forward to checking out Otogizoshi, and I must yet again praise Production IG to come with original and new premises. The thing that makes this series special is that while it starts in Japan’s Heian era, the second half of the series takes place in modern day Tokyo. Even though the story and atmosphere of both are completely different, they mix really well in the end.

The Heian arc is really folklore, as traditional as you can get in anime. It’s a tale of honor, samurai and bandits as we follow the female protagonist as she pretends to be her dead brother in order to save the kingdom. It’s got a very tight atmosphere, almost horror-like, and it’s full of sword-battles and the like as the story that offers a deep look into the practices Onmyou evolves.

The Heian arc however suffers from a stereotypical cast of characters. It just spends too little time into fleshing out the characters, and so they never really grow beyond their arch-types, as likable as they may be: Hikaru is your average protagonist, always trying to do the right thing, even though it’s not in her own best interest, then we have your typical loyal guard, the womanizer who turns out to have a heart of gold and the annoying brat. They definitely have their charms, but they just don’t feel like dynamic characters and the end result becomes a bit cheesy. Especially the villains suffer from this: only the mid-bosses are sufficiently fleshed out. The minor bad guys are just a bunch of screaming paper bags with swords, while the main bad guy is your stereotypical evil overlord who wants to destroy the world because he believes humanity to be rotten. Been there, done that.

Then the Tokyo arc, that takes place 1000 years after the Heian arc. The common opinion of this arc seems to be that it’s rather boring compared to the previous arc, but I disagree: it’s the Tokyo arc that really breathes life into this series. For once, it’s much quieter than the over the top Heian arc, and instead it develops into a modern-day mystery series.

The creators here really take their time to let the mysteries slowly build up, and slowly but surely you’ll get an idea of what’s going on as the links with the Heian arcs are made and developed. But what also made this arc better was the cast: the characters for this arc get plenty of time to get fleshed out, due to the slower pacing, and we really get to know them this time. The Tokyo arc takes a long time to get going, but it’s perfectly paced and knows exactly how to use its time to close off with a great conclusion that doesn’t try to be anything more than it is, unlike with the Heian arc.

The visuals in this series also rock. The character-designs are really well done, especially for the Tokyo arc. they’ve got a really realistic feeling, as opposed to all of the moe and overly cute series you see nowadays. Hikaru isn’t moe in anyway, and yet she looks great, and the same goes for the rest of the cast. They really make for a lot of great art throughout the series, my personal favourites were the flood scene and the earthquake scene. I’m not sure who animated those scenes, but they were full of creative visuals and made a lot of impact.

And yeah, despite the flaws the Heian arc most definitely isn’t bad. It’s a tensely told folklore, and the Tokyo arc that follows it makes it even better when it puts a modern touch to it, if you don’t mind a bit of slice of life here and there, of course.

Storytelling:	9/10
Characters:	8/10
Production-Values:	9/10
Setting:	8/10

Read or Die is the example of why you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover (har har har). I originally watched its first few episodes about four years ago, and even though I liked the premise of a professional writer hiring a bunch of bibliophilic body guards who attack with paper, it didn’t do enough for me to remain interested. However, as the series goes on it definitely proves that it does have its excellent sides.

But yeah, the first half of this series does little to stand out. It consists out of a bunch of episodic stories that either deal with some sort of treasure hunt, or the school life of one of the bodyguards (Anita, who’s just a little kid). These stories however are just too disconnected from each other, and too random to really care about them, and as standalone stories they’re just too formulaic, dull and uninteresting. It’s only when the second half comes and connects the pieces of the puzzle that you can see the merits that this series has.

Because the back-story of this series has tons of creative and original ideas stuffed in. Suddenly from out of nowhere we’re dealt to a multi-layered plot that has to do with books, brilliant minds, political intrigue, and pterodactyls. At the same time, the characters who previously weren’t that interesting suddenly come together as well and gain their share of depth. Especially Nenene was a delight to watch whenever she appeared on the screen, but the rest of the cast also has its merits.

As much as I liked it though, the second half does have its flaws as well. For the back-story to be so creative, sacrifices had to be made unfortunately; in this case, these sacrifices come in the form of plot-holes, and lots of ’em. While some things are explained quite well, others require a healthy dose of suspension of disbelief to buy, especially the way in which the seemingly random events of the first half somehow magically all turn out to be relevant to the plot.

My biggest beef with this series however is that it tried to go a little too epic in the end. It’s a common mistake of anime (or just about any storytelling medium, really) that the fate of the world is a little too often put at stake as the big climax of the story, but Read or Die really takes it a step too far in the way that the bad guys at one point use politics in order to take control over the entire world: there are no protesters whatsoever, nobody aside from our lead characters finds it strange that suddenly every nation is being united out of the blue, especially considering the rather questionable things that lie in the past of the villains. This series definitely fails in making its setting come alive, because the world feels more like populated by a bunch of sheep rather than human beings.

Nevertheless, Read or Die is a great series with a select number of wonderfully animated action scenes. It’s not among the classics of anime due to its rather boring first half and the other flaws mentioned above, but nevertheless it really does make for a nice watch for anyone looking for something new and creative. And for me, that’s more important than having a plot without plotholes.

Storytelling:	7/10
Characters:	8/10
Production-Values:	9/10
Setting:	9/10

I’ll just say this right from the start: yes, this is a biased review. Geneshaft is directed by Kazuki Akane, who is my single most favourite director in like, ever. His works aren’t just awesome; they’re incredible. Noein, Escaflowne and Birdy the Mighty Decode are among my absolute favourites, so I had to watch Geneshaft at one point. And after watching, I have to say that this is science fiction at its finest. Yeah: science fiction; not storytelling.

Despite being an utter Kazuki Akane fanboy, I do have to admit: Geneshaft is miles away from his other works. Geneshaft has quite a few flaws that will turn off a lot of people. The most noticeable is that it’s a series that’s meant for 26 episodes, stuffed into only 13 of them. Call it a production error, a lack of budget to adequately fund 13 more episodes. The thing that remains is a collection plot-holes, questions that are never answered, characters that could have used more background, and a bit of rushed character-development here and there. But heck, despite these flaws I liked this series a lot. Here’s why:

Because what this series lacks in storytelling, it definitely makes up with its setting. Which is truly fascinating and full of creativity, and it toys with a premise that’s surprisingly rare in anime: genetic manipulation. While at first sight it might seem like your average tightly controlled setting, in which humanity has achieved a perfect state without wars and the like, but is very strictly controlled by its government, but very quickly the opposite turns out to be true.

I guess that the central message of this series is that perfection is overrated and not even possible, but that’s just the conclusion that I came to. What I liked about this series is how thought-provoking it is: it never claims to be right, but instead provides a number of different viewpoints and just lets the viewer make his own conclusions on what’s right and wrong. Every single major character has his or her own view on what’s right and wrong, and this series never presents its messages on a silver platter, ready for consumption. This series is definitely enjoyed best when you use your head. And I must say this is something that I don’t see in a lot of other anime, and something I appreciate a lot.

Then there is the issue with the music, which I am sure has received a lot of mixed reactions. A lot of the background tracks consist out of heavy metal, which is a bold choice but if you’re not familiar with that kind of music it’s going to sound like trying to run a cat through a blender. I personally loved the music in this series though: it’s unlike any other soundtrack I have heard, but it works really well, and gives this series a very stylish and unique atmosphere. Especially the tracks that aren’t heavy metal are really well composed and very nice to listen to.

As for the characters, you’re not going to find well developed or fleshed out characters in this series, but yet they work because of the excellent chemistry they have together. The characterization is well done to prevent them from being average stereotypes and every character has his or her purpose and knows his or her role in the overall story. Even the comic relief characters: I kept cracking up whenever the debugging team popped up. Their scenes often last no longer than a minute, and yet they’re fun to watch because they don’t feel like complete comedic fodder, just thrown in for cheap laughs. It’s these small details that Kazuki Akane would later perfect in Birdy the Mighty Decode 2 that makes the setting feel more alive than usual.

Overall, I really wish that I could rate this show higher, but at the same time I have to acknowledge that it’s a bloody shame that this series had to deal with pacing issues. If it were allotted a proper time-frame of 26 episodes, I’m sure that it would have become an awesome series, especially with Kazuki Akane’s talents. However, in its compressed forms, it also has its charms. It’s an easy to watch series for anyone who doesn’t mind the soundtrack, and yet it’s deep and thought-provoking. Geneshaft has style. Plus, it features a dog who can send e-mails. How can that not be good?

Storytelling:	7/10
Characters:	8/10
Production-Values:	8/10
Setting:	9/10

Around four years ago, I watched the first three episodes of Scrapped Princess, but I dropped it soon afterwards because it didn’t interest me enough. Based on some recommendations from several people I decided to watch the entire series and I must say that Scrapped Princess definitely has its merits.

This really is a typical Bones series. For nearly every single one of their anime, you can be sure to expect a very imaginative setting, and Scrapped Princess is no different. While it starts with a story about a princess that the entire country wants dead, it soon develops into an interesting mix between fantasy and science fiction. It’s a thought-provoking series that questions whether or not one should allow the deaths of thousands, simply to protect one insignificant life. This really was my highlight for this series.

This series’ flaws lie in the cast of characters: they really are a mixed bag. Some are interesting (Fulle, Yuhma, Senes), but a lot of them are insufficiently developed or just plain dull. Pacifica really starts out as an interesting character, but around the middle of the story she suddenly gets amnesia out of nowhere, which doesn’t really contribute or influence anything in the story except for slowing it down. Winia and Leopold never really were interesting characters, but this series just keeps coming back to them in favour of the more interesting characters. Christopher is a walking mystery: we never get to see any of his background or development, and yet his change of character and motivation are really hard to buy.

The same goes for the series’ antagonists: they start off really good and this series really manages to show us that these people are dangerous and are not to be fooled around with. This sense of despair is another one of the true highlights of this series when you realize all the horrible things that the lead characters are put against. It really helps to sympathize with not just the main characters of Pacifica, Shannon and Raquel, but also the villains themselves. Unfortunately, in the final third of this series this is abandoned completely, and they turn into your average bunch of incompetent fools who keep changing sides and never seem to get anything right.

And yeah, this series is typical Bones, and that also means that it has a typical Bones ending. In the end, everything is just solved too easily (as in, “why the hell didn’t you just do that in the first episode?!”), characters are randomly brought back from the dead and everyone just lives happily ever after in the now ideal world. It’s a real shame: I would really have been much more positive about this series if only that ending didn’t leave such a bad taste in my mouth. This really is my big problem with Bones: I really want to like them. I really appreciate how much time and effort they put in their series to make them look unique. But why the heck do they keep screwing up with their endings over and over?!

Nevertheless, this series does make some good points; especially in its first two thirds, it really is a nice look at humanity. It’s not a perfect series, and Bones has made much better series as well, but nevertheless it makes for a nice watch.

Storytelling:	7/10
Characters:	7/10
Production-Values:	8/10
Setting:	9/10

For this review, I want you to try something. First, visit Yoiko’s MAL page and read the description. Then, take a look at the OP:

While this is also a good opportunity for me to test whether or not embedded Youtube videos work on this site, I now want you to imagine what kind of series this is going to be. It sounds like a heart-warming slice of life series in the same veins of Mokke, doesn’t it? A nice and quiet series about a small child who lives in a grown-up body; an innocent tale of growing up. That’s what I thought, at least.

So yeah… where to start?

Yoiko is a series with twenty episodes of 10 minutes. Every single episode starts with a nude shower scene and a full close-up of Fuuka’s boobs. Every single episode ends with Fuuka’s brother making a masturbation joke. The rest of the series isn’t any different: chockful of fanservice jokes, boob-shots, masturbation jokes and arousal jokes. This series has no sense of shame, and the worst thing is that this is supposed to be a series about elementary schoolers. Time and time again you see grown adults of all sorts of ages getting horny over a 9-year-old who happens to have the body of an 19-year-old.

However, this isn’t the case with most fanservice shows, where I can just label it as crap and get it over with, like To Love-Ru and Kanokon. Yoiko definitely has its merits. For one, I laughed like crazy during a fair number of the episodes. A lot of the series’ humour comes from seeing what borderline of taste the creators are going to break this time, and that results into a number of absolutely hilarious situations and a fair number of actually good sex-jokes.

The other source of humour in this series comes simply from watching elementary schoolers and their usual antics. Despite the huge amounts of fanservice and the creators who keep dancing on your grave because you became aroused by a 9-year-old, this series can boast a charming cast of typical kids and their simple minds. While there are a few stereotypes here and there (like the horny teacher, et cetera), the cast somehow works.

Part of the reason of why the characters are enjoyable is the cast of voice-actors, who do a terrific job of bringing the cast alive. Especially the above-mentioned horny teacher is greatly voiced, but the rest of the cast also sounds awesome, and really like their age.

Granted, this isn’t the best comedy out there; there are a number of dull episodes in which the humour doesn’t work as well as it should have, especially in the second half of the series. Still, this series never gets too dull to just start dropping. There also isn’t really an ending. The show just stops after 20 episodes, without really concluding anything (not that there was anything that needs conclusion, though; this series did avoid going down the emo road in its final few episodes). This series does well in its characterization, but in terms of character-development it doesn’t go much beyond the introductions of the different characters.

What baffles me the most though is that this series was directed by Omori Takahiro, a powerhouse of a director who also was behind awesome series as Baccano, Jigoku Shoujo, Natsume Yuujinchou and Fancy Lala. I guess the best thing this series can be compared with is if you take Fancy Lala, remove the idol bit and any sort of serious storyline and symbolism, let the lead female in her adult body 100% of the time, remove every single border of taste and add in lots and lots of boobs. And then some more.

Storytelling:	8/10
Characters:	8/10
Production-Values:	8/10
Setting:	7/10

Argento Soma is one of the post-Evangelion series. Like series as Betterman, Reideen and Dai Guard, and even awesome series as Figure 17 and Bokura no, it features a series of smart and very hard to destroy monsters that need to be destroyed, and the lead characters have some sort of huge mecha that can do the job. There’s a lot of potential for this kind of formula and granted, Argento Soma isn’t the best of the bunch, but it’s a fine attempt nonetheless.

Argento Soma chooses for a slow-paced approach with some subtle angst, and I must say that it works quite nicely. For once we don’t have any teenagers piloting the giant mechas, but instead we have a team of people well in their twenties. In fact, there is only one child in the story, and with her it’s made clear over and over that she actually doesn’t belong in the military. Central to the story, and the definite highlight, is the relationship between the two lead characters: the young girl and one of the main pilots that is to fight the evil “aliens”, as they’re called in this series. They’re both heavily traumatized and scarred by things that happened in the past and through the series they help each other growing over their troubles.

A major theme in this series is also symbolism. There are two particular characters who have a habit of comparing the situation they’re in to either random anecdotes or figures of speeches. This show also has a nice little pattern with its episode titles, which are all emphasized at the end of each episodes. In some cases the symbolism is a bit silly, but most of the times it works pretty nicely.

You don’t want to watch this series for the battles, which more often than not take just a back-seat to other things. Central to this series is its cast of characters, which develops nicely throughout the series. There are a lot of episodes that don’t have anything to do with fighting, but instead focus on other things, like one episode is fully dedicated to politics (a very well done episode, by the way), and there are quite a few episodes dedicated to character-development. The battles themselves quickly turn repetitive though. There are also a few random plot-holes that pop up near the ending, and I also think that Soma’s voice actor isn’t fully able to make his character believable once he starts angsting. The villains in this series are also very stereotypical and really lack any sort of impact.

This series does stand out in its soundtrack and character-designs: both give this show a unique feeling. Overall though, this series could have done with a bit more ambition. It never really reaches any heights: the story is very simple if you start to see the bigger picture, and the characters themselves do feel like they could have been fleshed out a bit more, but that too has its charms: it’s not trying to become the best thing since sliced bread, but instead just puts down an enjoyable little series with a bit of depth, yet doesn’t hit heights and at that, it succeeds.

Storytelling:	8/10
Characters:	8/10
Production-Values:	8/10
Setting:	8/10