Category: Anime Reviews

Tytania Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Tytania



Tytania had some massive expectations working against it when it first aired. It’s supposed to be the spiritual successor to the Legend of Galactic Heroes, one of the rumoured best anime ever made (yeah, yeah, I’m going to watch that one some day). These are expectations it obviously couldn’t live up to, but if you watch it as a regular series, then it’s got quite a few charms.

Tytania is a Space Opera, but instead of going for the flashy overpowered mecha action scenes, it’s got a completely different focus, and instead becomes some sort of political thriller. It’s basically a man vs. empire type story and most of the series is dedicated to making it seem plausible why such a huge empire is able to fail such a seemingly simple task of capturing rebels. Corruption and inner-coutry politics for a large part of this series’ themes, and those who are looking for action are going to be disappointed.

What’s interesting about this show’s characters is that nearly every member of the cast is flawed. There are no mister or miss perfect here, everyone hast at least something of a vice or so, ranging from lazyness to incompetence, a temper or just plain insanity. This is exactly what makes this series so interesting to watch, seeing all of these flawed characters grow and develop (or refusing to develop) but it also makes for a bunch of really boring opening episodes. Seriously, in the first ten or so episodes hardly anything happens, and the show is just establishing the setting that it takes place in.

But what a fascinating setting it turns into. Series about politics always need a while to warm up a while, but when they do you, they create deep and multi-layered countries full of inner struggles where mots people care more about their own agenda than anything else, and in this series a lot of detail went into explaining how exactly the almighty Tytania Empire is going to fall apart.

The show does have its issues, though: the big focus is really the setting and characters, but the storyline is a bit buggy here and there, and one of the most grating flaws is tha the creators like to insert plotholes here and there to keep the story going. The animation is also… unorthodox to say the least. The CG spaceships really don’t look well, and characters are very often deformed when they speak. In exchange though: there is lots of movement in this series: characters’ chins move when they talk, and the show isn’t a collection of still frames, so the creators definitely get credits for trying. And either way, you have to admit that the characters look very stylish and charismatic.

It’s not the most solid season, let alone is it a question whether a second season is going to come along in order to animate the rest of the novels that this series is based on, but nevertheless it’s a fun watch for those who want something different from hand to hand (or mecha to mecha) combat. You should often take this show with a grain of sand, but it raises many good points and the characters are definitely fun to watch.

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

Druaga no Tou ~The Sword of Uruk~ Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



The Sword of Uruk is the continuation to the surprisingly good Aegis of Uruk, which aired last year. It left us with quite a cliff-hanger, and it’s in any case worth the watch to see how everything plays out in the end. There are quite a few surprises along the way, but somehow the Sword just doesn’t have the charms of of the Aegis.

But before that, you really have to admire the time that went into developing the background for this series. Six months have passed since first season, and this shows in the character-development. The setting, which sounded so innocent and playful in the first season develops into one of epic proportions, and this really is a series of plot twists. For a fantasy series, the plot’s been quite complex and imaginative, which is something I can really enjoy.

However, at the same time I just don’t feel the things that made the original series great. The Aegis of Uruk was a very varied series: there was an excellent combination between silly adventures, character-development and plot. The Sword of Uruk is much more formulaic, though: the first five episodes or so are silly adventures, and after that the comedy stops completely to make room for the ever increasing drama. It just doesn’t feel balanced at all.

the first season had lots of interesting sites to explore, but only one episode of the second season really made an impression on me like the first season did: the house of the dead. This show succeeds more than ever as a fantasy series, but as an adventure one, it fails to impress, which is a bit of a shame, considering the first season. The ending especially shows this, as it’s a bit too much of a formulaic cheese-fest.

Still, there’s lots to like left in this show. The characters still are as charming as they ever were, especially since they already had a season’s worth of development on their resumes and the animation looks as solid as ever. The second season definitely stands out for different reasons than the first one, but it’s still pretty impressive, although not the charming series it once was.

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

Kodomo no Omocha Review – 90/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



One thing that I noticed after having watched lots of different anime is that gets harder and harder to find series that seriously surpass their own genre. Nevertheless, here is one such series: Kodomo no Omocha is without a doubt and by far the best shoujo romantic comedy I have ever seen. And in fact, aside from Nodame Cantabile I can’t think of any romantic comedy that made a bigger impression on me. I’m still amazed at how this series doesn’t just evade just about every pitfall that so many others of its genre fall in, but it manages to be consistently awesome for no less than 102 episodes!

Both in the romance and comedy department, this series delivers. The comedy always feels fresh, and the show exactly knows when to stop repeating its jokes in order to prevent them from getting stale. What makes the comedy especially enjoyable is the incredible amounts of energy that went into it. Sana surely is someone with at least some form of ADHD, but because of her incredibly bubbly personality the show stays fun from beginning to end. The side characters are also absolutely wonderful. I especially liked Sana’s mom and her antics.

The biggest fear you’d obviously have for such an incredibly long series is the tendency of those series to delve into long, long strings of fillers, but his show manages to avoid that very nicely. There are only about six pure fillers throughout the series: three recaps (which you can pretty much skip without any consequences) and three episodes which take place in some sort of bizarre parallel universe of the series. The latter belong to some of the funniest episodes of the entire series.

The rest of the series is divided in about ten arcs, of around ten episodes each, keeping the content from dragging on for too long. Every single arc has a different focus, but all of them contribute to the development of the cast. Even the most insignificant-seeming episodes have their purpose of fleshing out and bringing the cast of this series to life. The creators make excellent use of foreshadowing and flashbacks, and one particular thing they like is introduce one plot-line that only becomes important many episodes later.

In any case, the result is about 100 episodes worth of development put into the cast, and while the pacing of the drama and romance is pretty slow, the very fast paced comedy makes sure that the series never drags on. The show never forgets that it’s supposed to be a romantic comedy, and therefore maintains an excellent combination between funny and serious scenes: it knows exactly when to be funny and when to leave the jokes for a different time. In the end, the series comes together wonderfully, and the final arc of the series is definitely one of the best of the entire series, with a very satisfying ending.

Watching this series really made me wonder why there are so many other similar shoujo romantic comedies which completely miss the mark or have so much trouble to even fill 26 episodes. The only shows that I can think of that can even remotely remain funny through that airtime are Skip Beat and Perfect Girl Evolution. Apart from that, nearly every other shoujo just seems like an uninspired copy of this series. This series has more ideas stuffed into only 13 episodes than others in 26 of them.

Anyway, enough ranting. The only downside to this series appears in the fansubs, which pretty much belong to the worst subs I’ve ever seen, aside from Coalguys, perhaps. Lines are wrongly timed, badly translated and some are even omitted. There are also about ten episodes in which they for some reason completely change the names of the characters to their English counterparts. And while I can understand that this might be an attempt to make the show more accessible to western audiences, however:
1) Then at least be consistent in this and don’t introduce this halfway and give up just as easily.
2) You really know that things are going wrong when a guy named “Takeshi Gojo” turns into “Wootsie Woosie”. Seriously, who found that a good idea?

Still, that’s what official releases are for. For me, Kodocha stands on top of the shoujo genre, and it has been standing there for more than ten years by now. The sheer amount of creativity fully make up for the huge length of this series. Some of the jokes were utterly brilliant, the wide ensemble of facial expressions has been just priceless, and the cast of characters is just wonderful. Akitaro Daichi seriously is one of the best comedy directors out there. Speaking of which, what has he been doing for the past few years? It’s about time he came with another series, isn’t it?

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

Shikabane Hime Kuro Review – 87,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Shikabane Hime



The first season of Shikabane Hime was a very solid build-up, it had great horror, and may have had some pacing issue in the beginning, but it was one of the stories that gets better and better as it goes on. Shikabane Hime Kuro (the continuation), however promised to decline into the standard shounen clichés again, where the two lead characters form a romantic couple and battle a bunch of bad guys in a very overdone way. And in some ways, it did, but with so much style.

Shikabane Hime Kuro is an expert in managing expectations. From the beginning to the end, it sets different expectations for the viewer, only to deliver either something completely different, or exactly what it promised only five times better and more impressive. This leads to bizarre situations, like a couple of very crappy first episodes, followed by a string of awesomeness, followed by a Gainax-ending.

The biggest strength of this series is the cast of characters, though. Because it already had an entire season worth of build-up put into the lead characters, it now really has the chance to play with them and even then the development of the cast doesn’t stop. There’s hardly any episode wasted and both the side characters as the antagonists receive more than adequate attention to flesh out their characters well.

There are lots of nice themes that this series explores. While there are many elements that fall into the shounen clichés in this series, it also provides lots of new and fresh content, with an interesting storyline and plenty of effective mystery. Ouri and Makina are also far away from your typical shounen couple, for once, and a lot of attention in this series if focused on the two of them, trying understand each other, rather than simply one of them serving as a glorified damsel in distress.

But in the end, what it all comes down to is the following: Shikabane Hime is a terrific action-series, that knows exactly what it is. While the first few episodes of Kuro will disappoint, it quickly picks up with a string of gripping action scenes, with some of Gainax’ trademark animation (though used in moderation this time) and a rocking soundtrack, combined with a strong cast and imaginative plot twists that are going to keep you busy throughout the entire rest of the series.

I’m not exactly a fan of shounen series, but I love it when they’re done well, and that’s exactly what Shikabane Hime is. It’s found a very nice combination between style and substance here, and Gainax and Feel did a really good job at bringing the manga alive. It’s also interesting how for a manga adaptation, the creators managed to fit the stories perfectly into 25 episodes: there are hardly any signs of rushed scenes, major plotholes or pacing issues. Exactly what a good manga-adaptation should be.

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

Clannad After Story Review – 90/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



I’ve been thinking about this series, and how to exactly review it, since Clannad’s after story contained some of the biggest highlights but also some of the biggest lowlights of the season. In the end, though, I decided to be positive about this series. Sure, the ending was terrible, I’m not going to sugarcoat that, but the episodes prior to that were utterly incredible.

Clannad already was a very good series, and its after story pretty much starts out similar, with a number of different arcs that are meant to flesh out the different members of the Clannad cast. Since Clannad already did the main characters, the first half of the After Story focuses more on the side-characters. while nothing amazing, the stories are consistently charming and interesting.

The goodness only really starts with the arrival of the second half, though. It’s here where most of the characters graduate high school and all go their own way, and this is where this series evolves into something completely unique. It’s a bit hard to describe this without any major spoilers, but the result is absolutely heart-wrenching, and yet incredibly realistic. Nearly every side character disappears from the screen in order to follow his or her dream, and we’re just left with the main couple of the series. It’s going to be very hard to find someone who wasn’t extremely positive about the turns that the series took at that point.

But yeah, it unfortunately ends in one of the biggest and most blatant Deus ex Machina endings out there, on the same level as Mai Hime. Whie the game this series is based on contains the explanation of what went on, anyone unfamiliar with the games will feel completely cheated. The series had been quite faithful to the original Visual Novel, but it did try to add in enough extra vits in order to spice up the story and make it more realistic and believable, but those two really did clash in that final episodes. And in the end the biggest flaws of this series is that it’s a bit too keen on pleasing the fans of original visual Novel. The ending just feels out of place, and Tomoyo’s After Story and Kyou’s story (which both got only one special episode) just feel like a big waste of potential. If the creators wanted to include those stories, they should have gone with a Higurashi-styled series: have different arcs focusing on all the important characters, which reset to the beginning at the end, and having each of these arcs deal with various of the side stories seen so far.

So no, I really wasn’t happy with that ending. Still in the end, Clannad has been a fantastic series, just like its predecessor Air. Both have taken the biggest heap of clichés imaginable, and went with such a harem setting to something completely daring and original with excellent and bittersweet results. Unlike Kanon, these two really helped the harem genre evolve, and with a genre that originally lived on seeing who could make the most generic heap of stereotypes, it really needed that.

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

Michiko e Hatchin Review – 92,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Michiko e Hatchin



Ah, time to review one of my favourites of the past season. Manglobe always manages to come with some fun, interesting and innovative series, and this one’s no different. While Samurai Champloo had its action, Ergo Proxy had its plot, Michiko e Hatchin stands out in its characters. But like the other two, it really has so much more to like about it.

I often criticise anime for taking place too much in Japan, while there are much more interesting sites in the world to explore. This series does that exactly, giving an incredibly accurate portrayal of Brazil in the 1980s to work with. From the police driving in beetles to the busy cities, everything just screams “Brazil” throughout the entire series. The only other series that I can think of that play out somewhere in south America are more than twenty-five years old by now.

And like mentioned above: the characters are the true highlight of this series. While at first this seems like your average strong character travels together with weak character, it soon becomes clear that the relationship between Michiko and Hatchin is much, much different. Michiko is a sleezebag, she constantly causes trouble and knows nothing about raising children. Hatchin is neat, tidy and ordered, but hates laziness with passion. The personalities between the two constantly clash, and it actually takes a very, very long time for the two of them to get used to each other, but when they do, they really complement their own weaknesses. Especially Hatchin grows into an awesome character, who is constantly fun to watch.

This series can also boast one of the best villains out there in a long, long time. Satoshi doesn’t appear on the screen a lot, but when he does, you instantly know that this guy is incredibly dangerous, and yet at the same time he stands so far away from your standard “Muaha, I’m going to destroy the world because I’m evil!” that you seem to see in nearly every anime nowadays.

What also made this into such a great show is that it’s incredibly varied. It’s a show with many different faces, rather than just one general tone that keeps up for the entire series. One episode may be fun and full of comedy, while the next is an incredibly dark one about the inner clashes of street gangs, while the next may turn into a fun action-game sequence. You’ll never know what the series is going to focus on next, but it’s always going to be fresh and interesting.

Right now, I’m trying to think of a big flaw in this series, but all I can think of is some tiny flaws, like how for some characters the introduction seems to be missing, so you’re often thrown into the blue, or how the ending doesn’t answer all of the questions that you might have gathered through the series, but those are just mere details.

The thing is, that Michiko e Hatchin is an awesome, stylish and mature series and it excels at just about everything that it does. There is a fantastic dynamic between the characters, and never once does it feel childish or anything, despite Hatchin being a 10 year old and all. It’s really got a bit of everything, and it’s my personal favourite series of a studio that had already a record of putting down the most amazing series.

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

Hoshi no Umi no Amuri

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Well, I finally made myself watch the final episode of this thing. Hoshi no Umi no Amuri, or Amuri in the Star Ocean, is a three episode OVA, fully rendered in 3D CG. What I expected when I started watching was another one of those bad and uninspired fanservice OVAs, without any redeeming value whatsoever. What I got was… well, I’m still not sure what I got exactly, but it was really weird.

Seriously, this entire OVA feels like a really bad acid trip in space. Try to imagine yourself drunk, stoned, in an airless environment and having just lost a significant amount of blood. The hallucinations you can get there are a pretty accurate portrayal of all the bizarre stuff that flies, bounces, blasts and jumps across the screen in this OVA. It really is surreal beyond belief.

But the thing is, that it’s got a cast of really charming characters somehow. The characters in this series have lots of really weird powers, but they all have to do with escapism: the lead characters bounces off everywhere, but this is because she keeps resisting against making contact and friends with other people. Another character constantly flies uncontrollably across the screen like an annoying fly, but that’s because she’s constantly running away from trouble.

Overall, I refuse to give this series a rating, because my rating system just isn’t fit for all the strange stuff that happens in this series. I liked the show, though. It definitely isn’t for everyone, especially those who hate extremely sugary and energetic series will hate this show with passion, but if you’re looking for something utterly bizarre yet charming, then this series is a must-watch.

Casshern Sins Review – 90/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Casshern Sins


One of the most unique series to start airing in the past Fall Season was Casshern Sins: a remake of a super robot series that aired in the seventies, but one that went into a completely different direction with just about everything. The result is a highly stylish series with lots and lots of things to like about it.

If there ever was an award for “Best Character-Designs”, then this series would be one of the top contenders. The art style in this series is really unique, and in fact it’s one of the most outstanding ones I’ve seen in the past few years. Just about everything in this series is a visual feast, ranging from the wonderfully drawn characters to the astonishingly beautiful background art. The animation quality itself isn’t anything special for most of the time, but it doesn’t need to be: this series is beautiful enough, even without a huge budget.

This series also stands out in its style of storytelling. The dialogue flows very naturally, and yet it’s deep, meaningful and very inspired without trying to sound pretentious. The pacing is deliberately kept slow in order to squeeze all of the potential out of the characters. It really was my favourite part of this series, because the dialogue flows in this series unlike any other series I’ve seen.

Casshern sins is a series about destruction and immortality, and a quite thought-provoking one as well. while mystery isn’t its main focus, it asks lots of interesting questions throughout its airtime that keep the viewer busy. As the lot unravels more and more, it really is the type of plot that requires the user to think in order to understand it all, because not everything is spoon-fed on a silver platter.

However, do note that this isn’t a series that only gets better and better. It’s divided into two halves: the first half is basically a travelling series, where the main character meets lots of different people. The quality is pretty inconsistent: some of the best and worst episodes of the series can be found here. In the second half, the main story kicks in, and the series becomes much more consistent: it pretty much continues at a steady pace, it never hits any lows, but also any heights are absent. This can become disappointing if you were hyped by some of the truly outstanding episodes in the first half. It’s the sign that the charcter-development never really came together in the end, although it definitely tried.

The only other flaw of this series is a rushed ending, though. The creators just didn’t take enough time for that final episodes, and the twists just come too fast to make the impact they could have had. But still we have ourselves an excellent series here. It’s fresh, original and imaginative despite based on a 1970s series. It doesn’t quite have the material to become an outstanding series, but it nevertheless has been a delightful watch for me for the past six months.

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

Sora wo Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai Review – 75/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Sora wo Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai



Sora wo Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai, otherwise known as the Munto Remake or that show with the incredibly long name. The original Munto was a series of two OVAs that simply couldn’t live up to the huge story that they tried to create. That’s why it was great news that it was going to get a remake TV-version that could give the story the right amount of time that it needed to… and yet this series turned into my single biggest disappointment of the past Winter-Season.

The “remake”-part of the title is incredibly misleading. This series is more like an exact copy of the first two episodes with about an hour and a half of new material pasted at the end. There was so much promise for an excellent series, and yet the creators spent the first six episode blatantly copying and pasting and did hardly anything to fix the original problems of the OVA. But to be fair, I’m going to review this series from the perspective of someone new to the Munto franchise. If you’ve already seen the OVAs, then you can easily subtract 30% from the rating, skip the series and watch the movie that’s going to be released in the future because then this series has nothing new to add.

Well then, Munto tells the story about two worlds: one of them is at war and in huge troubles, and a random girl named Yumemi who lives in the other world has enough powers to save it from destruction. Well, that’s the basic premise anyway. The pacing is very fast and it hardly leaves any moment for the viewer to get bored of the show, and that’s one of the show’s biggest strengths: there’s always something going on.

The problems mostly lie in the incredibly short length of the series. The characters have got so much potential to grow into a memorable cast, but they’re not given the chance because the airtime only consists out of nine episodes. Especially Yumemi’s friends are pretty likable, but a huge part of the cast just isn’t fleshed out and developed enough. The result is that some characters suddenly start acting completely out of character in the final episode.

The same problem is there with the setting: Munto takes place in a huge one, with different countries with different alliances, but we hardly get to know anything about it, even the most important one which is lead by one of the main characters of this series receives hardly any attention at all. Because of this it’s hard to care about what’s going on.

Thankfully this is Kyoto Animation, so there is a lot of eye candy in this series. Especially the first six episodes (the ones copied directly from the OVAs) look awesome, and the new material, while significantly lower in quality, still have lots of nice movement and hardly any still frames. There’s a lot of style in this series, and most of the time it’s a feast for the senses.

But yeah, that doesn’t prevent the flaws from sticking out. The story was meant for 26 episodes; there is no way that you can squeeze it in only nine of them, and the creators indeed screwed up a lot here. Thanks to the addictive storytelling and animation we still have ourselves a pretty decent series here, but it could have been so much better.

Storytelling: 8/10
Characters: 7/10
Production-Values: 9/10
Setting: 6/10

The Sky Crawlers Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews


Mamoru Oshii has become famous for his typical style of very convoluted dialogue. For the Sky Crawlers though, he went into a completely different direction from all of his other works. There are no endless dialogues here, the storyline isn’t really that complex, the action scenes don’t last forever: they’re short and to the point, the character-designs are very simple and down to earth and the pacing throughout the entire movie is very quiet. And yet it works like hell.

Basically, the Sky Crawlers tells the story of a bunch of people who are stationed at a small airbase somewhere in Europe in the middle of some war. The movie’s biggest focus is on its storytelling, because my god, the realism! Amidst the dogfights, there is a huge amount of attention to detail spent on how the characters interact with each other. The characters here really feel much more like regular people than in most other anime. Most of the drama in the movie is kept very subtle and meaningful. And that really is the biggest strength of this movie: it’s two hours long, with a story that could also be done in 20 minutes, but because of the incredibly slow pacing it really was able to show off its characters, their strengths and weaknesses in a very quiet and subtle way.

So yeah, obviously you don’t want to watch The Sky Crawlers if you’re looking for an energetic action-flick, although the action scenes that take place whenever the characters fly their planes definitely look beautiful. The CG is really well done, and integrates really well with the 2D art so that it hardly ever feels out of place.

If I had to mention down-sides of the movie, then there are two things that spring to my mind: first of all, there hardly is any background on the characters. Only the lead characters have some (very good, by the way), but the rest of the characters are all just a bunch of random pilots who happen to be in the same airbase. This of course can also be seen as a good thing: you get to know exactly as much about them if you were to meet them in real life. Of course they have their secrets, but they sure as hell aren’t going to blurt them out to any Tom, Dick or Harry.

The other flaw is most of a personal disappointment of me: there really isn’t that much innovation in this movie. It’s probably something really new for Mamoru himself, but I’ve seen the subtle storytelling done before and better. It’s of course really good for this movie to chose this approach, but I felt I saw nearly every aspect in this movie in another anime already before. Kenji Kawai’s soundtrack also pretty much sounded like all of his other soundtracks, and it didn’t really stand out as anything fresh or new from him.

Still, that definitely doesn’t take away that this is a very solid movie. It’s not Mamoru’s best work, but nevertheless consistently good and enjoyable if you like your drama to be subtle.

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