Category: Other:

Some Quick First Impressions: Suzy’s Zoo and Fireball Charming

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Fujilog

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is in his mid-life crisis.
Fujilog… is a sitcom. You know, the kind where we follow a middle aged guy and his family throughout random boring adventures while he nags constantly at everything. (In case you’re wondering: no, I do not like sitcoms, with only very few exceptions). In this episode he whines about how good the prefecture is in which he lives and ends up running for governor, and losing. To be honest, I didn’t like it, but this admittedly IS deeply rooted in Japanese culture. Perhaps if you live in Japan, you might get a bit of a better appreciation of what this show is trying to do. There is plenty of animation here, but it’s entirely in ugly CG.
Potential: 10%

Suzy’s Zoo

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a stuffed animal.
At the start of each season, I also always review the kiddie shows that pop up. But seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one where so little happens as in this one. All this episode was about was a moving duck toy taking a stuffed bear outside, the duck gets distracted by a grass-hopper, the bear moves, they hug, and the episode ends. I know that this episode was only two minutes long, but still I’m not really sure what I just watched. Thee animation is good for a kiddie show, though. It’s obviously in CG, but the creators actually put in effort to make it blend in with the backgrounds. Really young kids (read: of age 2 and 3) will probably love this one. Apart from that though… well, I guess that if you were really desperate for a big hug then this show suffices as well.
Potential: 10%

Fireball Charming

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a robot princess who lives in a giant fortress in the middle of a big war between robots and humans.
Fireball Charming: the show without introductions! Seriously, this episode just… starts. Without ever giving the viewer a chance to sit back. This episode was only 2 minutes long, but it really made use of its time. It’s actually improved a bit here and there, but the formula is still the same: two robots just talk about all sorts of stuff while making silly poses. And again, it works surprisingly well. What they’re talking about is consistently interesting and its deadpan humour makes this even better. In the meantime, the characters are moving around even more compared to the first season, which forces you to pay even more attention during these two minutes. Very recommended if you’re looking for a quick comedy.
Potential: 75%

Some Quick First Impressions: Gintama’, Steins;Gate and Oretachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions, Steins;Gate

Gintama’

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a samurai.
I originally dropped the first Gintama season around episode 120. In short, the reason was the change of direction: it was less funny, the focus changed from dialogue to bloody action and some arcs got dragged out needlessly. It wasn’t bad by a long shot, but nowhere up to the standard of the first 100 episodes. With that in mind though, I really have to say that this episode felt much more like the first 100 episodes than the second. It was a really hilarious episode that completely broke the fourth wall in usual Gintama fashion. This is really the Gintama that I’ve been waiting for. The dialogue is again sharp and witty and I loved this episode. However, I do have one major criticism here: After watching more than 120 episodes of this show, it is getting predictable nonetheless. I could see quite a few of the anti-climaxes in this episode coming from afar. While those punchlines were utterly hilarious, it’s this predictability that will be the biggest problem for this sequel. Also (but this is just nitpicking), another thing that bothered me in this episode was that the facial expressions tried too hard. I think that a little more deadpan would have been a better choice, especially because of how characters hardly ever seemed to change their facial expressions.
OP: Best OP song of the season so far. Awesome guitar riffs.
ED: Nice idea, bu the cheesy vocals don’t fit in well.
Potential: 80%

Steins;Gate

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets involved in a time travel conspiracy.
Steins;Gate… again is an excellent addition to this already excellent season. This one stands out in the best atmosphere: it’s really good at using its quiet pacing to build up tension and to retain that tension with some excellent climaxes. It’s got a deliberately overacting lead character (another adult, by the way), who against my expectations contrasted sharply with the dark atmosphere of this series, which worked really well. He’s exceptionally good at keeping the balls into the air and making things consistently interesting. This is a series that depends a lot on its dialogue, and it passes here with flying colors thanks to this guy, who just keeps changing the setting and topic in order to remain fresh and interesting. And yet there is some order to his chaos, which pays off during the climaxes in this episode. The females also were really great to watch, and knew that they shouldn’t try to look like moe stereotypes, but just play themselves. This was a quiet yet very interesting episode and I’m really looking forward to seeing more.
Potential: 85%

Ore-tachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is surrounded by a bunch of girls.
Keeping up in the tradition of this season in which series are either really really good, or not interesting at all, Oretsuba is utter crap. Of course, I pretty much expected it to be bad when I first learned of it, but this show is so bizarrely horrible in a way that I never saw coming. The best way to compare this show with is with Shukufuku no Campanella on weed. The production values here are utterly terrible, with especially the voice actors laughably bad, but what really striked me here is that the scenario writers had no idea what they were doing. This entire episode was just a string of random sketches with no point or purpose that were nothing more than endless unfunny and terrible dialogues between random characters. Most of the time in this episode is actually not focused on the lead characters, but some random dialogue between three random guys that just refuses to end. The lead character only appears twice. Once to be hugged by all of the main females (who also don’t appear for most of this episode in favour of a random waitress and young girl) and one that simply out of nowhere had him claim to come from a parallel dimension. It just… made no sense whatsoever. Oh, and the fanservice. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a TV-series with fanservice that was THIS lazy… to the point where it just gets bizarre.
ED: Um, random.
Potential: 0%

Star Driver Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Star Driver




Out of all the series that premiered during the past Autumn 2010 season, Star Driver stood above the others, promising an epic mecha story; completely original, not based on anything and animated by Bones. It really looked to be the classic of the season. In the end though, that did not happen, but it still has enough to like.

It’s a series that combines school life with over the top mecha battles. It has quite a large cast of characters, all of which it tries to flesh out. And to be honest, it does a pretty good job there. Star Driver’s cast is fresh and dynamic, and the characters that do get the chance to show their stories are well fleshed out and interesting to watch. The school life moments make this a fun and cheerful show to watch, with a good balance between drama and light-hearted stuff.

Where Star Driver falls down is in its ambition. It both tried to have a huge story and cast, and tried to take its time and make this an enjoyable slow paced storyline. It just didn’t manage to do both and instead of focusing on one, both ended up a bit too unfinished. The story knows how to build up to to its final climax. In fact the final episode is excellent in how it brings a lot of build up from the entire series together. But at the same time there are a ton of plot devices that it never uses, the story is full of plotholes, and half the cast never gets its time in the spotlight, leaving them kindof wasted and especially making the scenes that focus on them rather pointless.

The nasty thing here is that tar Driver could have become an utter classic if it had more episodes. It’s good, but it has left a ton of potential lying around by not being able to focus on everything, and focusing on too many characters (even though it created a good reason for trying to do so). The mecha battles also get less and less interesting as time goes on. Both because in the end they serve no real purpose to the storylines, but also because of how they just get more and more repetitive.

So does that make this series worth watching in the end? I’d say that it does. It definitely has a great storyline and characters; it’s just not as good as what it could have been. The creators did succeed into creating a fun and original series to watch and keep you busy, interested and excited. Just don’t expect anything amazing.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Tries to do too much in too little time and ends up unbalanced because of it, but it still is able to write good scenarios and climaxes.
Characters: 9/10 – Takuto never really established himself as an excellent lead character, but there are quite a few excellent side-characters here. And the cast is very versatile just consistently interesting to watch.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Amazing looking mecha battles and soundtracks, with the animation outside of the mecha battles being quite good as well.
Setting: 8/10 – A bit incomplete, but it’s definitely inspired and original, and requires a lot of reading inbetween the lines.

Suggestions:
– Revolutionary Girl Utena
– Macross Frontier
– Baccano

Some Quick First Impressions: Hana-Saku Iroha , Toriko and Tiger & Bunny

by psgels, posted in Hana-Saku Iroha, Some Quick First Impressions, Tiger & Bunny

Hana-Saku Iroha

Short Synopsis: Our lead character starts working at an inn.
Before this series started, I thought that it would be just a simple slice of life series. As it turns out though, Hana-Saku Iroha is as much slice of life as it is a drama. this series made excellent use of its first episode, and it really did a lot in just twenty minutes, especially for a series that will be 26 episodes long. It showed the lead character before, and after she moves to her grandmother after her mother pretty much abandons her. It’s both light-hearted, but also already showed what a huge change in lifestyle the lead character went through. What makes this series especially great though, is how detailed it is. The entire cast is versatile, the slice of life is realistic, the dialogue feels very natural and inspired, and the animation is of PA Works usual high standards. This series is definitely interesting: its series are either really great, or not worth checking out at all. There’s hardly anything in between for me so far.
ED: Decent J-Rock
Potential: 85%

Toriko

Short Synopsis: Our lead character has a straw hat and is a pirate.
No. No, no, no. They just didn’t do that. There must be some mistake. Did Toei really just use One Piece’s popularity to introduce the Toriko anime?! What the heck was Luffy doing there? What the heck was the entire One Piece cast doing there? Toei is known for their sell-outs and all, but this just takes the cake. It doesn’t even make any sense either: the One Piece cast just wanders off and runs into Toriko, with the rest of the episode just being people talking about food and eating. The One Piece cast was just… there. They were more obnoxious than helpful. And as for Toriko, the only thing it pretty much has going for it is its creature design. Seriously, I am no fan of Shounen Jump and all, but setting aside To Love-Ru, Toriko has to be the worst Shounen Jump anime I’ve seen in a long, long while and this episode showed that Toei has no intention whatsoever of making something good out of it. This was a terrible introduction, for a show that basically advertises poaching to young kids. Toei already have more than enough money. This is commercialization at its worst.
OP: “Wow Wow Wow Wow Wow Wow?”
ED: At least the song is decent here.
Potential: 0%

Tiger & Bunny

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a superhero who fights crime.
This season rocks. I mean, for one: only four series have premiered so far, and already we have two of them that features main characters that are older than 30. Heck, the lead of Tiger & Bunny actually has a daughter; when was the last time that we actually had such a series? On top of that, I love the concept of this series, as a kind of semi-satire on modern mass media that’s focused around a program that exploits superheroes, complete with sponsors and everything. The action is excellent, combining both great stunts and nice humour, and it just keeps changing dynamically due to all of the different characters involved. Characters who already have all kinds of charms. This can make for a very interesting series, especially if it will go beyond 13 episodes. My complaint about it is that it does tend to overuse CG, and the director of the whole Superhero show was a bit of a stereotypical corporate bastard who’ll do anything for money. Apart from that, this was a wonderful episode.
OP: The OP is just a collection of boring still shots and a dull J-rock song, though.
ED: As excellent as the OST is, this is just another dull J-rock song.
Potential: 90%

Some Quick First Impressions: Nichijou, Dog Days and X-Men

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions, X-Men

Nichijou

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a random schoolgirl.
There’s no shortage of creativity in Nichijou. Its entire premise is based around the fact that it’s about the every day lives of a group of random school girls who live in a world in which anything can happen. This episode shows random explosions, androids and goats and the characters don’t even seem to find them unusual. That’s what’s good about Nichijuo. Its problem is that that’s also pretty much the only praise I have for this series. Unlike K-On and Lucky Star, this show tries to be a comedy… and it’s just not funny. It does not know what punchlines are, nor how to build up a good joke. It’s full of randomness for the sake of randomness, and seems to believe that just by doing something completely random, it can get funny, though such a thing already got old in the OVA. In the same way, the characters aren’t much to write home about. Kyoani has this thing with characters who are cute for the sake of being cute, and this is no exception. Nichijou just tries way too hard to be mainstream and popular. It’s just too forced.
OP: Badly sung and not really special.
ED: Again a boring song with that just feels like a copy paste of just about every other ED out there.
Potential: 30%

Dog Days

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is the legendary savior for a country of dog people.
That was just insulting. This show had the privilege of being anime original, and yet the creators actually come with this kind of crap? The creators of Nanoha A’s have sunk to a completely new depth here. this was by far the worst I’ve ever seen from them. I can see the intentions of the creators: creating a fantasy setting where two countries have to participate in all kinds of fantastic games at fantastic setting hols potential to be an enjoyable and fun series. But this was just so ridiculously poorly executed. It committed just about every flaw imaginable. The characters are a joke, the setting of having dog people fight cat people, surrounded by teenagers with unexplained superpowers is equal to a slap in the face. The character designs are utterly terrible, the script is abysmal, and the worst thing is that it actually believes that it’s funny and witty. It refuses to make proper use of its silly setting, and it doesn’t even make jokes. It just expects tot get laughs from… nothing. This is… this is even worse than Rio Rainbow Gate. At least that series was aware that it was terrible.
OP: Boring visuals and boring song.
ED: Ridiculously generic.
Potential: 0%

X-Men

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters are a bunch of mutants who fight crime.
That was actually… pretty amazing here. Seriously, this episode hit a ton of right buttons, and sets the X-Men already one step higher above Wolverine. The graphics were utterly gorgeous, the atmosphere is just awesome, and already this show has put in a lot of characterization for its five main characters: Xavier, Cyclops, Storm, Wolverine and Beast. The atmosphere is heavy and the drama tends to get a bit sappy at times, but it all works surprisingly well with each other. Plus, this show also isn’t afraid to sometimes toy with its characters (the joke around Wolverine’s entrance especially was hilarious, in a “couldn’t resist”-way). As for Madhouse’s usual acting problem: the thing is that the character-designs of this series are utterly amazing. The creators not only gave a wonderful rendition of the X-Men in anime form, but they gave every single character, even the minor ones, a unique and individual look. That’s obviously harder to animate, but even then the animators do a pretty good job here. Instead, my qualm is that the voice actors should have tried to be a bit more varied, and they’re a tad too hammy at times. On the other hand though, the soundtrack is yet again amazing, and at this rate it could get even better than Wolverine’s. Seriously, ti’s been a while since the start of a season has been this impressive.
OP: Best one of the Marvel Anime so far!
ED: Again, no vocals, and a good way to close off each episode.
Potential: 85%

Bakuman Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Bakuman




Bakuman was the slice of life series of this season. It shows the struggles of two guys as they aim to get their own manga published in Shounen Jump (or Jack, as it’s called here). It’s slow-paced and really not much happens for the standrds of a 25-episode series, but if you like the kind of series that take their time to tell a story the nit has nice things to offer.

Bakuman is slow, but never stagnates. It is a shounen jump adaptation itself, and in the same veins it’s constantly pushing its own story forward, albeit with tiny steps at a time. Moritaka and Akito grow into solid main characters, and also the side-characters all have their charms. The show also offers a nice look into the process of making a manga, along with the process of getting such a thing actually published.

Nothing really stands out for this show aside from a few select episodes, but it’s a perfect series to just sit back, watch and relax to. Its content and plot are definitely interesting to keep your attention, though it is a hard show to get into. It takes quite a while for the characters to get some signfiicant development to the point where they’re actually interesting enough, and this show is full of shounen cliches until that point. Becuase of that, I can’t fully recommend this series yet before having gotten the chance to judge its second season (because yes, that ending does leave you hanging a bit without resolving much or making much come together).

Overall Bakuman should have used its time a bit more efficiently. I know that the screenshots above make it seem like really exciting, but that’s just because the manga it’s based on is fast-paced. The anime isn’t. There are really few series that can claim to have as much time as Bakuman to tell their stories, and with that in mind the pacing does move rather slow and overall, too little happens for a 25 episode series. It does a lot of thing sirght, though.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Slow, but solid.
Characters: 8/10 – The cast of this show is dynamic and interesting to watch… as soon as they’ve received some development.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Neither impressive nor flawed, the animation is simple but does what it needs to do.
Setting: 8/10 – The analysis on the manga making process isn’t anything deep, but interesting nonetheless.

Suggestions:
Touch
Glass Mask 2005
Hikaru no Go

To Aru Majutsu no Index II Review – 75/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




Despite its faults, I liked the first season of Index. It had an interesting backstory that looked at science versus magic, It was a bit inconsistent, but that was parrt of its charm. Every arc was different and interesting in its own way, which always made me guess what it would focus on next. The second season, though… I just can’t call it as good as the first. There were just too many things that feel half-assed.

Index II still follows the format of various arcs, ranging from two to six episodes. It’s just that the short arcs feel too short, and the long arcs feel way too long. This show has become completely unbalanced in the process, and it somehow lost its ability to determine how much time each arc needs. The short arcs still have their own charms in the way that they are concise and to the point. The problem really lies in the long arcs.

In order to fill up space the creators bring up endless strings of fanservice. The fanservice in this series in particular is terrible because it just keeps repeating itself with exactly the same set-up over and over. In just about every episode we are forced to sit through some horribly forced set-up where a guy (most often the male lead Touma) walks into a naked girl. It’s completely pointless, and even worse these scenes are so numerous, poorly timed and written that they just keep destroying the atmosphere that the rest of this show was trying to build up.

Beyond that, though, when you look at the big picture I also just can’t help but wonder what the entire point of this second season was. During most of its arcs, I just get the feeling like the creators are stalling or time and waiting for a hypothetical third season to wrap everything up. The different arcs all accomplish relatively little in both character and setting development. After this series, we hardly learned anything new about the cast of characters, aside from some introductions. Meanwhile, the purpose of most of the arcs in terms of the setting was establishing that the Roman Catholic Church is the enemy. It has completely lost the variety of the first season as well.

It does have its moments where it redeems itself, though. A few arcs are actually quite good, especially the shorter ones, but also near the final episodes the show picks itself up again. Index remains an action series, and when the action does pop up, it can get really good and creative. Purely interms of suspense, there’s nothing wrong with this show. It just fails at telling its story. Have I also mentioned the way that it tends to resort to Deus ex Machina with wrapping up its stories?

Storytelling: 7/10 – As a thriller it can work pretty well. It just is completely unbalanced, way too long and way too repetitive.
Characters: 7/10 – Doesn’t really add much upon the cast. Plus, they can get really annoying and repetitive during their “light hearted antics”.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Not as good as in the first season, but it still has a number of excellent-looking action scenes.
Setting: 8/10 – It doesn’t do much with it, but granted: when it does it shows that research was spent on making this into an original and unique setting here.

Suggestions:
– Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu
– Armed Librarians – The Book of Bantorra
– Shikabane Hime

Fractale Review – 77,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Fractale




Noitamina is an excellent time-slot that is about to enter its seventh year now. Throughout all the series that it showed, I can only name two series that I really consider to be worse than Fractale: Library Wars and Jyu Oh Sei. Fractale is an enjoyable adventure-series. But it SO has no idea what it’s doing.

The thing with this show is that it completely lacks any sort of vision. It advertises itself with the “unique” Fractale-system: a system where people are separated and lost the need for physical touch. It’s a fascinating setting, so of course this show doesn’t bother to spend any time at all on what SHOULD HAVE BEEN the central theme of this show.

Instead we get a generic adventure plot surrounding a bunch of annoying teenagers that sometimes from out of nowhere receives a huge mood whiplash into dark plot turn of events. At any point where this show introduces a new interesting concept or idea, you can bet your hat that it’ll only get abandoned quickly, in favour of its main cast, and BY GOD are they annoying. Especially Clain suffers from the “bad main character”-syndrome with his whining, but also the rest of the cast doesn’t really get their full chance to shine in this series.

The solve salvation of this series is that it did have an excellent team of writers and animators on board. The animation is consistently excellent, especially for TV-standards. There are really few still frames, if any. And as annoying and short-sighted as the characters sometimes are, the consistent animation does give them a unique dynamic. This show is also great at building up tension, telling climaxes and making its graphics, music and storytelling all come together in one whole. Especially episode 7 is an amazing example of this.

This show knows how to tell a story. It just completely fails at deciding what story it wants to tell and so we have to sit through episodes at a time of nothing happening, only to rush through other actually good and interesting parts. This show doesn’t fit 11 episodes. Heck, I doubt whether 26 episodes would have been enough for all of the ideas that it just skims over. At the end, it’s just another adventure. It’s quite an enjoyable adventure, but don’t expect much more.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Nice sense of adventure in terms of the small picture. In terms of the big picture though… not so much.
Characters: 7/10 – Decent characterization, but the characters themselves are really, really annoying.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Excellent vibrant animation.
Setting: 7/10 – Had potential. It just never uses it.

Suggestions:
– Laputa: Castle in the Sky
– Shangri-La
– Popolocrois Story 1998

March Summary

by psgels, posted in Monthly Summaries

This month… was crazy. It was completely different from any other month, there was just so much going on. It’s not just a month of one of the worst catastrophes to hit Japan since the Second World war. Also in terms of anime releases this month was just unique. It’s been a month of extremes for me, best explained through numbers.

First of all, this is the sixth March summary I’ve written on this site. Throughout all these six years, I don’t think I ever have watched as little as 15 series at the same time. This isn’t on purpose either: I just don’t think that there are any other TV-series that were worth my time this season, especially considering how bloody few series continued over from the past Autumn Season. This really turned out to be a series of quality over quantity: three series were completely amazing despite being really short, and they were the ones that made such a small season memorable.

And yet, despite these low numbers, AND having a job that keeps me busy for 36 hours each week, I have never been as active on this blog as I have been during the last month. With this post, I have just broken my own record of the biggest amount of posts made in one month: 86 of them. The movie spree I’ve been having and Supernatural had a big influence in this, but it’s not just that.

Even though there were few TV-series this month, I don’t think I have ever seen a month where so many OVAs and movies were released. Seriously, they just all kept coming, it’s like everyone and his dog released something here, even when not taking Supernatural into account. The quality of most of these OVAs and Movies also was really good. There was a lot of interesting stuff amongst them, both from one shots and from larger ones. It all culminated into one wonderful month of anime.

#15 (18) – Dragon Crisis – (5,5/10)

This final month was the worst we’ve seen so far here! I mean, the last three arcs were completely stupid and moronic. They made no sense whatsoever and their only purpose was to increase Ryuuji’s harem. Overall this was one huge waste of time.

#14 (14) – Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka? – (6,25/10)

This entire month of Zombie was dedicated to the incredibly stupid drama around Hellscythe. It’s a shame, because if it focused on the creativity of the first half then it could have been very enjoyable.The nail in this one’s coffin was the abysmal episode 12, though. I’d like to thank this episode for leaving a really bad aftertaste for this series. Even worse than that multiple Deus ex Machina ending.

#13 (13) – Gosick – (6,5/10)

Gosick episodes have a spark of potential in them. Unfortunately, this spark was completely gone this month. Only two episodes aired, but those were completely unnecessary in this series.

#12 (16) – To Aru Majutsu no Index – (7,75/10)

This is what the entire series should have been. I finally get the feeling that this series is actually moving somewhere again. It’s still not as good as the first season, but at the least I’m glad that this show did not annoy me in the slightest this month.

#11 (15) – Fractale – (7,75/10)

Fractale is an adventure series whose biggest problem is that it has no idea what it’s doing. As a light-hearted adventure series this would have worked nicely, but at the same time this series is also trying to sound deep. And that’s where it fails completely. As a whole, this series is enjoyable. It’s just that the individual ingredients don’t mesh together at all.

#10 (11) – Wolverine – (8/10)

Again, the lack of depth isn’t going to make Wolverine into anything amazing. But as a simple action series this month kicked ass. The finale really was fun and exciting and the creators threw a lot at Wolverine in order to keep things interesting. It did justice to all of the characters, as simple as they were and overall I had a lot of fun watching and blogging this.

#9 (8) – Bakuman – (8,25/10)

Overall, Bakuman is one of those shows where the pacing could have gone up a notch. Still I have to give the past episodes credit for making me think that they were moving kindof fast, while in fact they actually weren’t. It’s still a solid show about making a manga, though. The characters are continuing to grow as well.

#8 (12) – Kimi ni Todoke – (8,25/10)

Episode 9. That was the episode that by far stood out above all of the other Kimi ni Todoke episodes. FINALLY, after so much waiting, this show finally got down to business, and it was glorious.

#7 (7) – Yumekui Merry – (8,25/10)

Before I’ll get enthusiastic about this show again, I first want to see some kind of second season announcement. Yumekui Merry is amazingly written. Episode 13 just isn’t the right time to end it. Not with a villain like Mistletain.

#6 (4) – Star Driver – (8,25/10)

The thing with Star Driver at the moment is that with still one episode remaining, it’s currently balancing on the edge of a cliff. The build-up to the ending has been completely unconventional, and if it can make this work it’ll be brilliant. If it can’t though, this will mean a very rushed ending. Whether or not this month’s episodes were good is entirely dependent on that final episode, but at least the play episode was awesome.

#5 (5) – Supernatural The Animation – (8,5/10)

Supernatural’s biggest problem turned out to be its acting. I don’t mean the voice acting, but instead the way that the creators manage to portray the characters on the screen. It feels stiff and undynamic, and does get in the way of making them believable, especially in Sam’s case. Apart from that though, it has some excellent stories to tell. The first twelve episodes have ranged a bit in quality, but there were some real gems among them. The graphics also look consistently excellent.

#4 (6) – Letter Bee – (8,5/10)

The Cabernet turned out to be a big weakness here. The creators just couldn’t do anything interesting with it in the end. As for the rest of the show though, I have to praise the creators for actually doing pretty good stuff with the characters here. This show actually received closure. Something rare amongst manga-based series where the manga hasn’t finished yet.

#3 (2) – Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica – (9/10)

Madoka Magica only aired two episodes but the episodes that it did air were amazing. The background story is deep, and continuing this series’ trend to deconstruct the mahou shoujo genre. Bring on that finale!

#2 (1) – Level E – (9/10)

So, in the end it did turn out to be impossible to reach the stellar heights of the first arc. Nevertheless, Level E has been an incredibly varied and interesting series that can both tell great stories and be side-splitting hilarious. Especially the baseball episode was an awesome mystery story, but just about every episode here was incredibly addictive, even when they weren’t funny. This series always has me on the edge of my seat.

#1 (3) – Hourou Musuko – (9/10)

Hourou Musuko ended magnificently It closed itself off perfectly, and yet the final episodes put in a massive amount of character development. Nitori’s development was just amazing, I just loved how the romance in this show worked out, and the introduction of Doi gave a completely different twist to this series. Just about every episode had something amazing, and some of the plot twists just blew my mind. This month did show 5 episodes as compared to Madoka Magica’s only having two, but BY GOD did it make use of them!

Hourou Musuko Review – 87,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Hourou Musuko




The past season had three series that really stood with head and shoulders above the rest. They were all genuinely good and took their genres into new and fresh directions. Hourou Musuko takes a look at cross dressers. Most of time when they’re portrayed in a medium, they’re portrayed for laughs or flamboyance. Hourou Musuko however is entirely built around showing the issues that boys who feel like they are girls (and vice versa) run into while growing up. And it does so brilliantly.

For starters, this is one of those series that has a slow pacing, yet somehow manages to make a ton of stuff happen in each episode. It’s full of subtlety, and because of this it can get a ton of genuine drama out of the characters using its limited time of only 11 episode excellently.

This show actually made quite a bold statement by not animating the first X volumes of the manga it’s based on, but instead starting somewhere in the middle. The great thing about this show is that despite this, it still doesn’t feel incomplete. Characters sometimes refer to things that have happened to them in the past, but it’s apparent enough to the viewers to figure out what happened. This method gave the characters both a rich past and future and it gives the impression that there really is much more to them than what we see in the series. It’s a terrific way of characterizing them, and the entire cast of this series pretty much feels incredibly genuine and believable. Oh, and finally we’ve found another show that takes a realistic look at romance, as opposed to the overly sappy view you see in nearly every anime.

It’s a series for which I’ve had hardly anything to criticize for. The story is perfectly balanced, the plot twists are amazing in their subtlety, the cast is amazing, the animation brings both the cast and setting come alive and there is hardly anything that this show does wrong. If I had to nitpick at something then it’s that the characters are portrayed a tad too mature for their age. But so what? This is a wonderful portrayal of growing up. The cross-dressing is only a tiny part of this series. There’s so much to this show, and it’s only 11 episodes long.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Wonderfully subtle, with some amazing plot twists.
Characters: 10/10 – Amazing portrayal of young teenagers growing up,and their issues dealing with it. Wonderful development.
Production-Values: 8/10 – This show is really good at far away shots, with restrained animation, still bringing its cast to life.
Setting: 8/10 – Excellent portrayal of a school in japan. This show knows how to ring its environments to life.

Suggestions:
– Aoi Hana
– Asatte no Houkou
– Sasameki Koto