Category: Anime Reviews

Oh god. It’s been a while since I sat through such a mind-numbingly boring series as this one. Usually I obviously try to avoid these kinds of shows, but for the Melody of Oblivion I was lured in because I like a good mind-screw once in a while. What I got instead was a good sleep. You know, with series as Kurokami you can at least watch them for the good action, but Melody of Oblivion simply has nothing that makes it even worth watching, aside from a few weird ideas that never really get anywhere. This series plays in a world in which humanity has lost a big war against the so-called “monsters”, which is something that the narrator is very keen on reminding us of in case we forget. The problems start right with the main character: even for your typical male lead, this guy has the personality of a potato. It’s more fun watching paint dry than to watch this guy on screen. On top of that, he probably has one of the flimsiest back-story I have ever seen. The first episode of this series simply starts off with him as a regular high-school boy, through the course of the first arc he gets his obligatory super powers (shounen series), and then he simply leaves on a journey. Why? We never know. In fact, he spends the entire freaking series fighting for no possible reason. This might be excused if you know, he didn’t have anything better to do and just was fighting monsters to kill the time (which seems to be the case for nearly all of the side-characters in this series by the way), but no: he has a female love interest. Romance can be a beautiful thing: it can enrich characters and make you care for them. However, when the characters in question are a bunch of cardboard boxes, the romance simply becomes way too obnoxious. The lead female really isn’t much better than her male counterpart: she has no power of herself, so she continuously plays either the damsel in distress, or the love interest that watches from the side-lines while doing nothing but worrying. Their relationship becomes even more painful to watch when they’re together, simply because the male lead is such an incredible pussy that he refuses any advances that the lead female makes on him and instead he goes out fighting monsters (which obviously leads to lots of useless and pointless angst). Well then, the series consists out of a number of arcs (eight in total), which feature the two lead characters arriving into a town under the influence of a so-called “monster agent”. These arcs however, all look like each other and do way too little to stand out, or even be interesting. They drag on for way too long. The monster-agents themselves are also incredibly dull and stereotypical bad guys who all fit in the same mold. The only one I even remotely liked was the Bobcat guy, but that may also be because he got the least amount of airtime out of all of them. If I had to mention a highlight, then I’d have to say episode 25, but that’s more in the sense of “so bad it’s good” than that it actually redeemed some of the boredom. It’s a hilariously bad episode, with more recycled material than actual new footage (heck, I even suspect that there were just two minutes of new footage in total in that episode); it’s a completely nonsensical episode in which the creators pull all sorts of idiotic plot twists out of their asses, but it was the only episode of the entire series that was really what it was meant to be: entertaining. As for the mind-screws that this series seems to be known for: it really isn’t that special. All this series has is one of the worst soundtracks out there, along with a bunch of weird images that make no sense and are just inserted for the heck of it. The series is completely nonsensical, hardly anything has a satisfactory background (the explanations that are there don’t make any sense more often than not) and the series closes off with an incredible amount of plot-holes still left open. You can see that the creators wanted to do something different with this series, and in a way I appreciate that, but at the same time they forgot one important thing: make this series interesting.

Storytelling:	5/10
Characters:	3/10
Production-Values:	7/10
Setting:	5/10

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Oh boy; here’s a series that’s aiming for great first impressions. The OP and ED are sung by the Backstreet Boys of all people. The lead character, a nine-year-old boy named Ichiro, is downright the most annoying and obnoxious anime character out there: he’s loud-mouthed, a cry-baby, continually picks fights with both his friends and family. If you thought your average shounen hero was annoying, you haven’t seen anything yet with this guy. On top of that, his mother is a loud-mouthed old hag, his sister an ugly overly whiny middle schooler, his grandfather a senile old man, his father an egotistical drunk carpenter and his best friend an incredibly shy and spineless crybaby. Oh, have I already said that this is an really charming series? Seriously though, this is a very ugly series. The screenshots above may be a bit misleading because this is a Madhouse series, so there’s bound to be eye candy somewhere, but just be glad that I didn’t take any shots of Ichiro crying, yelling, taking a dump, walking around naked, picking his snotty nose or whatever. A lot of people are going to find Ichiro and the other recurring characters very hard to swallow, and but those who do stick with this series are rewarded with a very heart-warming story about a boy who can see ghosts. Basically, this series consists out of a couple of arcs, most of which consist out of Ichiro meets the ghost of a dead person who still has regrets left in this world, and asks Ichiro for help because he’s the only one around who can see spirits. They’re usually the spirits of people who screwed up really badly when they made the most important decisions of their or their loved ones lives and can’t leave to the afterworld until they solve these issues. The stories all have a touch of mystery, in the way that you’re never going to know what exactly the ghost wants from Ichiro when you first see them, and through a very good build-up it slowly becomes clear what their intentions are, closing off with a teary and heart-warming ending that hardly ever misses the mark. These stories, while not on the Mushishi level of quality still are nearly all very good (even the first ones) and an excellent recommendation if you’re in the mood for something sappy. The rest of the time in this series is meant for character-building for Ichiro and the rest of the recurring side-characters. These ones obviously are a bit harder to get through due to just about everyone being obnoxious, but it’s not like they’re bad characters in any way. The characters here are really meant to be flawed, and the creators sometimes tend to take this a bit too far, but they definitely grow on you as the series goes on. I especially liked Mandame Katarina, the ghost who simply refuses to cross over to the next world because she has too much fun being a ghost. Overall, Hanada Shounen Shi is a sappy story, but I mean that in a good way. From the outside it might look like a kiddie show, and Ichiro can and WILL get on your nerves, but despite that it again and again proves that it can be a heart-warming series.

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

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Well, here’s an interesting one. Imagine your average Super Sentai show like the Power Rangers: our hero has to fight a wave of bad buys and monsters every day in order to protect the world from getting taken over. Now imagine the complete opposite. That’s what Tentai Senshi Sunred is.

I’m still not sure whether this was a case of brilliance, or just a case of a drunk idea that got taken too far, but Tentai Senshi Sunred takes the average Super Sentai Formula, transforms the titular Sunred into a lazy temperamental sadist, and the villains into a bunch peace-loving incompetent idiots who seem to be more interested in housekeeping and making a living than “doing evil stuff”. In fact, especially the lead villain is a peace-loving flower child who is a master at house-keeping and always puts the feelings of others before his own. And so this series chronicles the useless attempts of our peace-loving villains to try to beat Sunred, while at the same time living as respectable members of society. And somehow, it works.

As a comedy, it may not be continuously funny, but it has its moments of brilliance throughout the entire series. It gets a lot of inspiration from its unique setting, and makes good use of this by driving things even more into the absurd. The characters also have their quirks which have a number of priceless moments and some of the running gags also really work well (I especially loved Godom and Sodorrah, even though the two of them didn’t do ANYTHING throughout the entire series). There are a few sketches that do tend to get on your nerves though, like the Host Dog and Vamps Cooking Tips, but overall it’s not too long to get boring or repetitive.

And the nice thing is, that at the moments that this series isn’t funny, it still is a very enjoyable and detailed slice of life with a good cast of voice actors. Really, this series is a pretty realistic portrayal of the trials of young adults if you ignore the fact that most of the characters are silly monsters that nobody seems to find scary or weird. I especially liked the subtle relationship between Sunred and his girlfriend, which for once was not overly romantic like you see in most other anime.

But yeah, the animation is quite lazy. A lot of the characters conveniently have masks on or some other excuse that would prevent the animators from animating their mouth when they speak. Instead, the characters wiggle around a bit when they try to move and speak. And really, it’s not like the animators can’t animate either: there’s one particular segment in which Sunred is walking in the background of a life-action scene, which is animated so smoothly that it actually becomes really hard to see whether he’s drawn or part of the live action.

But then again, to the question “does this show really need to be well animated?” the answer obviously is “no”. Sunred isn’t the best of the comedies out there, but it’s still worth it if you grew up watching shows like the Power Rangers or anything similar, just to see this series completely taking the piss out of those premises.

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

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