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A Wind Named Amnesia Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




Here is something that dawned to me while watching A Wind Named Amnesia, about modern anime movies: they aren’t rushed. Sure some of them are bad and all, but I don’t think I can name any movie that premiered during the past years whose story did not sort-of fit in the time that was allocated to it. Some may be fast-paced, but no movie really lacked entire arcs that should have been animated as well. It’s an interesting observation, considering how this is a problem that many TV-series and OVAs suffer from.

Some of the old movies also suffer from this, to take A Wind Named Amnesia just as an example. I haven’t read the manga (coming from the same original author as Vampire Hunter D), but at times, especially near the end, it feels like the creators skipped entire volumes out of time constraints, just to get to a very strange and confusing ending that doesn’t fit in the story in the slightest as a result. If you plan to watch this series, be aware of a very incomplete story.

The story that’s there impressed me, though. It is centred around a basic, but very interesting question, and the vast majority of this movie is dedicated to studying human behavior. It asks questions behind human culture and civilization, and what would happen if all of that would disappear: what would drive them and how do they survive when suddenly their entire lives are turned upside down? The movie is only 80 minutes long, which is way too little to really get in depth on the theme, but the stories that did make it into the movie are wonderfully told, and very interesting to boot.

It’s a very lonely movie. There’s this melancholy throughout the entire airtime that only gets strengthened thanks to some well chosen and performed background music. The protagonist here is excellent in the way that he is easy to relate to in the chaotic world that this movie portrays, while learning a lot throughout the movie and his backstory.

The animation isn’t the most consistent for a movie: some parts are really well animated, others a bit less, but it still is a visually impressive movie with strong character designs. But yeah, the ending jumps around way too much without any build-up. Ideally, this should have been a TV-series, not a movie.

Storytelling: 7/10 – Excellent atmosphere, but way too short for its story, which especially bites back at the end.
Characters: 8/10 – Both the lead and side characters are wonderfully portrayed in the short time that this movie has for them.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Excellent soundtrack, nice, though not the most consistent animation.
Setting: 9/10 – Based on a number of excellent ideas, and takes excellent advantage of this.

Suggestions:
– Please Save my Earth (done by the same director, and again ridiculously rushed despite having an awesome premise)
– Strange Dawn
– Saishuu Heiki Kanojo

Some Quick First Impressions: Danbooru Senki

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Danbooru Senki

Short Synopsis: Our lead character possesses the legendary tiny robot to save the world.
This season, the first series to debut was also its biggest mystery: the director of Berserk and Figure 17 doing a kiddie show. Now, after watching this first episode, it’s unfortunately not like this series strays far from the usual formula of these kinds of series: three lead characters, one main rival, a tournament arc, and the lead character who possesses the single most important robot in the world. Not to mention the way in which every single adult in this show leaves the fate of the world hanging on the shoulders of a young boy. OLM have really become lazy during the past decade. I mean, I know that they’ve got successes with Pokemon and all, but even Toei comes with shows like Mononoke or Trapeze once in a while. Having said that, though: for a kiddie show adhering to this overused formula, it’s not half bad; I’ve definitely seen worse portrayals. There is none of the obnoxiously bad acting that you usually see with these kinds of series, and the creators immediately state that the lead character is special due to his father’s influence as the inventor of these strange fighting robots that this series focuses on. He also doesn’t find his own robot by accident, but for some reason his father made the conscious decision to send the world’s most powerful robot to his teenaged son. That does bring up the question of what an incredible bad parent you must be to involve your kid in international schemes like this…
OP: For a kiddie opening, it’s pretty decent.
ED:
Potential: 30%

Arashi no Yoru ni Review – 75/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




Ah, a story about a wolf and a goat becoming friends. Going into this movie, I expected a lot of cheese with this recipe to get it even remotely off the ground, but The whole set-up of the premise was surprisigly well told here. Sure, the goat is a bit of a masochist, but the writing of the parts where they meet each other and become friends is top notch.

Instead of the usual cheesy lines here, the characters can actually speak to each other in a normal way, and they’re aware of the issues that come with their friendship. It’s both interesting for kids and adults to watch. It takes a deeper look at the usual “wolves and goats don’t go together”, and especially the nonchalant way of the lead characters, instead of the usual angst you see with these kinds of stories, stands out as interesting. Beyond that there are also enough comical moments for the kids to enjoy.

As the movie goes on however, it turns more and more into a “been there done that” star crossed friends type of story. It starts to more and more follow the generic formula for these kids of stories, but the characters make it nice to watch. The creators lose it near the ending, though. The movie ends with a bunch of really weird deus ex machina that have no purpose whatsoever, especially considering the messages that it wanted to convey. It’s the type of ending that actually makes the rest of the movie also less good, because of all of the build-up it just nullifies thanks to the completely stupid twists it pulls.

So yeah, for the Wolf versus Sheep/Goad storyk, I’d recommend Chirin no Suzu over Arashi no Yoru ni, but at least it has a lot of eye candy here. This movie looks unlike any other movie I’ve seen. The camera work is also pretty interesting here. It’s a nice watch in any case, though don’t expect anything special.

Storytelling: 7/10 – Nice atmosphere and pleasant pacing, though it also has a number of very blatant Deus ex Machina, and these are pretty bad ones.
Characters: 8/10 – Good and down to earth chemistry between the lead characters for this type of story.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Very interesting looking graphics and animation, though some parts (most notably the muddy river) stick out as a sore thumb.
Setting: 7/10 – Some nondescript landscape. I feel like the creators could have done better to flesh it out.

Suggestions:
– Chirin no Suzu
– Yobi – The Five-Tailed Fox

Mr Stain on Junk Alley Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




Here’s another one completely done in CG. Mr Stain has thirteen episodes of seven minutes long, plus one that clocks in at half an hour. It pretty much tells fourteen standalone stories about Mr Stain, and some of the things that he finds around his Junk Alley (why yes, this one has a very descriptive title).

The character models are much more cartoonish than usual with CG anime, which solves the Botox faces problem quite nicely. In fact, the entire series has no words in it whatsoever, and it entirely reliant on the nonverbal communication between the different characters, and that is something that this series is really good at. The facial expressions, the way that the characters move, their gestures. It’s all simplifies, but very sincere and genuine. Also be sure not to miss the EDs for this series, which are based around a wonderful idea.

The stories themselves are a bit of a mixed bag. There are about five or six episodes, like the one with the fish or the one with the fridge that are rather uninspired, and don’t do much interesting. On the other side of the coin though, some of the episodes are shocking, some are touching, some are hilarious and others are just completely bizarre. Some of the things that Mr Stain finds but especially the things that the creators do with them are very imaginative. I especially loved the episode with the Flower and the one with the Baby, due to the bafflingly unexpected twists that the stories in these episodes take.

Beyond that, there isn’t much to this series: episodes don’t build up for each other and the characters just reset themselves after episode after the final one, so there’s not much depth to this thing. It’s a great quick watch though, if you’re in for something strange, yet uncomplicated. What really sets this one apart is some of the bizarre and sometimes even macabre ideas it goes with. It’s completely unpredictable, and yet it’s not just random for the sake of being random.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Fourteen standalone stories, told without any dialogue and makes good use of the fact that there isn’t any dialogue.
Characters: 8/10 – Lovable and well acted, but completely one-dimensional.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Simple character designs, but well animated. doesn’t have the graphical problems that most CG anime have, and yet it was made eight years ago.
Setting: 8/10 – It’s just a strange alley, but the things that pop up there are very creative.

Suggestions:
– Hoshi no Umi no Amuri
– Genius Party – Deathtic 4
– Fireball

Appleseed Ex Machina Review – 75/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




They may look similar, but make no mistake: Appleseed 2004 and Appleseed Ex Machina (2007) are two completely different movies. They’re both action movies, but the former’s big focus was on its setting; the latter’s is on its characters.

Seriously, Appleseed has a great and interesting concept. Ex Machina doesn’t really use anything of it, and pretty much reduces everything to “humans, androids and hacking”. It doesn’t ask any of the interesting questions that the 2004 series did, and just takes its setting for granted, coming with a generic brainwashing thriller.

On the other side of the coin, the characters are far from as clumsily portrayed as the 2004 series. Oh, it’s still cheesy, but it’s nevertheless a major improvement. The characters actually developed a bit in between the two movies (though don’t expect any development in the movies themselves), and the drama between them is simple, a bit cheesy, but effective enough for the action to not become boring.

The 2004 movie also had its botox faces problem. You know, the faces that may look good in screenshots, yet look plastic as soon as they try to move. Ex Machina also has this problem a bit, but it’s much less severe. The cutting and camera work is much more skillfully done and this make the jerky and unnatural movements a bit more bearable to watch.

Basically things come down to this: the 2004 series had a lot of flaws and one thing that it was very good at (the setting), while Ex Machina doesn’t have any flaws that are as big as the 2004 movie, yet also doesn’t really have anything to stand out, and is simply a decent action movie to pass an hour and a half. Take your pick.

Oh, just one thing: this movie does have its share of Deus ex Machina. I mean, what moron really calls his movie “Ex Machina” anyway? You’re just going to draw extra attention to them anyway.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Well cut and unambitious, though nicely built up. If you ignore the Deus ex Machinas in the plot.
Characters: 7/10 – Not as one-dimensional as the 2004 movie, but these people have cheese.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Nothing special, but decent action and a solid soundtrack.
Setting: 7/10 – Loses a point by not using its setting in the slightest and making it really simple.

Suggestions:
– Wonderful Days
– Black Magic M66
– Catblue Dynamite

February Summary

by psgels, posted in Monthly Summaries

This month’s rankings of mine…. are nearly exactly the same as last month. Seriously, the only major surprise this month was that Fractale and Dragon Crsisis weren’t really good and that Kimi ni Todoke is finally going somewhere. Apart from that, every series pretty much continued on the same pace that it set a month ago. Come on, I’m expecting some good stuff here for March. Dare to evolve!

#16 (16) – Dragon Crisis – (6,75/10) – Alas, Dragon Crisis did seem genuine enough to get some good drama, but in the end it never really used this, and came with the most corny stories, one after the other. Any potential created by the good animation and dialogue ended up completely nullified by the bad acting and cheesy scenarios.
#17 (17) – Suite Precure – (7,25/10) – I appreciate that this series is trying to include stories that revolve around the main characters. Beyond that though, it’s a major step down from Heartcatch Precure. The execution and animation is nowhere as polished. The scenarios are dull, it lacks energy, the acting from the villains is horribly silly. At this point the characters still have the potential to become well developed in the second half, but I do not want to sit through 26 boring and badly written episodes to get there. This one is dangerously close to being dropped.
#16 (14) – To Aru Majutsu no Index – (7,5/10) – I think this month really summarized my problems with this second season. The last two episodes are a pretty good thriller. But did we really have to sit through two whole episodes of random goofing off in order to get there? The thing is, that I’m not enjoying these characters at all. They didn’t change in the slightest from what they were at the end of the first season. This series spends so much time on random scenes, but in the end it doesn’t really do anything with them and they’re merely there for fanservice.
#15 (9) – Fractale – (7,75/10)

This is coming from the director of Kannagi, so I already was fearing this show to be unbalanced. And unfortunately these fears came true. The thing is that this show doesn’t know what it’s good at, and instead spends way too much time on its very annoying lead character. It’s only eleven episodes long, and yet it spends way too much of its time on random undirected goofing off.

#14 (15) – Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka? – (7,75/10)

In this month, Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka was either amazing, or a boring cliche-fest. Right now this all seems to even out, but I do hope that next month will focus much more on what this show is good at.

#13 (16) – Gosick – (8/10)

The Wolf-arc was the best arc so far. It’s a bit weird, but it used its red herrings well and especially Victorique emerged as a better character because of it. This show still has its problems, but this month was actually interesting enough to make up for it.

#12 (13) – Kimi ni Todoke – (8/10)

Finally! After thirty episodes, of this show not going anywhere, the romance between the lead couple has finally started moving. It’s still quite slow, but for once the characters are playing off each other, instead of simply refusing to develop. It still doesn’t excuse the first season, but at the very least this was by far the best month from Kimi ni Todoke so far.

#11 (12) – Wolverine – (8/10)

This month saw Wolverine balance between its fights and its exposition, and to be honest it’s doing quite a good job at it, keeping to the same philosophy as in January: be simple, but effective. The characters, both good and bad, all have something endearing, and the action is pretty decent. The stiff acting and simple characters and story will prevent this one from ever becoming something great, but as for entertainment, it’s doing a pretty good job here.

#10 (10) – Mitsudomoe – (8,25/10)

Yes: Mitsudomoe’s second season was clearly better than the first. The jokes were better, the ratio of bad jokes was smaller, it made sure not to milk its jokes out, and also put a lot of effort into portraying the characters as actual characters. The characterization also improved a lot, which also made this a bit of a nostalgic series that I found surprisingly easy to relate to at times.

#9 (11) – Showa Monogatari – (8,25/10)

Episodes 2 and 4 popped up at the beginning of this month, and they were quite good. What makes Showa Monogatari more than just another slice of life story about a random kid is that it also knows that it should pay attention to the rest of his family: all of them are interesting characters at this point, which is a good sign for the rest of the series, which will continue somewhere around the start of May.

#8 (8) – Bakuman – (8,25/10)

Well, it’s taken a while, but Bakuman is finally getting interesting here. The characters have plenty of development put into them by now, and they’re really playing off each other nicely. Even though the pacing is slow, you can still feel some of their energy. Especially the long dialogues between them are the highlights here.

#7 (7) – Yumekui Merry – (8,25/10)

The problem with this show is that that beach episode destroyed the flow this show was in a bit. In the end, it’s wonderfully executed, but doesn’t really have the most ambitious storyline to work with. This show can still deliver a great ending, but the creators really are going to have to try hard here.

#6 (6) – Letter Bee – (8,5/10)

It’s a bit of a shame, but this series could have taken more risks when it comes to wrapping up its main storyline. It’s all very solid, but not as amazing as this show once was. Whenever it focuses on the characters though, it’s at its best, and this month again was no exception.

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

Okay, so it’s probably going to be an arduous task trying to blog this series, but it’s really worth it so far, especially the second episode was excellent and very well written. The graphics are also gorgeous, here’s one to look out for.

#4 (4) – Star Driver – (8,5/10)

The thing is that Star Driver spends a lot of time on the characters doing random things. Even now that the climax is so near, it still spends a lot of time on this school life. The balance it has struck with the actual plot and characters though, is excellent and I’m still enjoying these characters quite a bit, though it’s not going to be the classic I originally hoped it would be.

#3 (5) – Hourou Musuko – (8,5/10)

Two months in, and Hourou Musuko is still doing what it really does well: bringing life to large amounts of characters. The characterization is still excellent and subtly detailed, and the characters all balance their maturity and their childishness wonderfully, leading to some great characters.

#2 (3) – Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica – (8,75/10)

This series is still continuing its string of excellent episodes. Jut about every episode here delivers and adds new depth to the characters; it’s a 13-episode series that fully knows how to use its time.

#1 (1) – Level E – (9/10)

This month for Level E was weaker than in January, but only by a small bit. It’s still my favourite series of the season due to its creative and sometimes outright mean scenarios and an awesome sense of humour. It’s always completely unpredictable and even though it’s composed of random stories, the acting, creativity and scenario all come together wonderfully and make this one of the best comedy anime I’ve seen.

Little Princess Sara Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




So, time for me to review another installment of the World Masterpiece Theatre. Little Princedss Sara tells about about a young, really rich girl who joins a boarding school in London. What happens after that though… let’s just say that I’ve rarely seen so much suffering in just one series. If you’re planning to watch this series, be prepared for a gruelling journey.

It’s hard to talk about this series withuot spoilers, but let me just say that Little Princess Sara has very strong messages against poverty and the hypocricy to which people look at it. It’s a long series, 46 episodes. In this time it delivers a haunting and very in-depth portrayal of poverty and neglect on children. Beyond that, ti also has strong morals and values that are delivered with heart, instead of cheese.

The scenario really helps by being wonderfully realistic. Seriously, a ton of time in this series is spent on very mundane tasks and nothing else. The creators strike an excellent balance between this and character development, leading to an entire cast of characters with a lot of depth and development, miles away from your usual stereotypes.

Like all good WMTs, it also really knows how to build up. It’s a very one-sided series, but the final climax is without a doubt a highlight of the entire series in which everything it built up to comes together. This show definitely knows how to do drama well, and even if the animation is dated at this point, it still manages to bring the characters to life with more detail than most series nowadays can.

I’ve got lot of praises for this series, but at the same time I also want to say that I do not consider this series amongst the best of the World Masterpiece Theatre. I’m going to be nitpicking a bit here, but the standard of this franchise is just so damn high. My issue with this series was that at times, it was a bit too “shoujo”, if that makes any sense. Some twists were delivered with a sense of shoujo-ific melodrama that definitely could have been done more subtle, and some characters spend a long time as cliched and boring rivals who do exactly what you predict them to do, and there is one twist near the end that is just… way too convenient. Sara herself is also way too pure. It’s like she could have been the love child of Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Theresa, or in that direction. All of this does not create characters as realistic, as some of the other WMT series, plus the one-sidedness of the plot also doesn’t create them as dynamic as the others.

At this point I’vwe managed to finish 10 WMT-series, so here I present an updated ranking of my favourite WMT-series to close off this reivew (the ones that I fully finished, at least), in the order of the ones I liked the least to the ones I liked the most. Little Princess Sara ranks fifth. It’s a wonderful series with amazing and unique characters, despite my above criticisms I really recommend it if you like the kind of children series that really try to tell an excellent story that takes both itself and its target audience seriously.
10. My Daddy Long Legs
9. Konnichiwa Anne
8. Tom Sawyer
7. Ie Naki Ko Remi
6. Romeo’s Blue Skies
5. Little Princess Sara
4. Anne of Green Gables
3. Porfy no Nagai Tabi
2. Perrine Monogatari
1. Les Miserables – Shoujo Cosette

Storytelling: 8/10 – Realistic, detailed and down to earth, though a bit one-sided and melodramatic at times.
Characters: 9/10 – Realistic and full of depth and development.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Dated, but very detailed. The soundtrack is a bit disappointing, though.
Setting: 9/10 – Excellent social commentary, themes and messages. Plus a wonderful portrayal of London of more than a century ago.

Suggestions:
– Perrine Monogatari
– Anne of Green Gables

Armored Trooper Votoms – Case;Irvine Review – 60/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Now, I am writing this review as a fan of the Votoms Franchise. If this movie had not been part of it, I probably would have rated it higher, but only slightly.

The reason I’m saying this is because of the following: I became a fan of Votoms because of the alternative it provided to your average cheesy and angsty giant robot series. Where series like Gundam and its ilk were full of angst and cheesy morals, it provided a mature storytelling that took both itself and its characters seriously, going beyond characters screaming and yelling melodramatically. And really, I’m all for going into different directions with your franchise, but Case;Irvine does everything that Votoms avoided so well.

In Votoms, the fact that people die in a war was taken for granted. That’s what allowed it to pull so much interesting drama. Case;Irvine meanwhile is all about “war is bad”, “thou shalt not kill”, “oh, I’m the villain so I kill people for no reason at all muaha” and “ooh, I killed many innocent people in the past. I’m very angsty now! And this just goes on and on. You remember that little girl in the promo art? Her entire point in this movie is to angst and remind the lead character of how he shouldn’t fight. This is not Votoms at all. Heck, it’s even too cheesy to be like Gundam.

I’m also am not kidding about that villain, by the way. Case;Irvine could have been at least a decent angst movie if it wasn’t for this guy. While the lead character still had his scenes in which he doesn’t angst, this guy absolutely doesn’t. He’s consistently yelling, sprouting cheesy morals and looking for a fight with the lead character. This guy is completely overacting for the sake of overacting. To make matters even worse, Votoms also stood out in the way that it didn’t have any custom built mechas besides slight upgrades or colour changes. This guy then comes out of nowhere and mounts these gigantic hands to his own mecha, making it look completely silly in the more realistic setting of Votoms. The entire final battle (which takes up a lot of the time of this movie) is reduced to this really boring angst-fest in which the umpth strange robot has to be taken care of.

The sole salvation of this movie is the music. It’s perfect, and really atmospheric and does a truly excellent job of building up the atmosphere. But seriously. Please let Finder and Koei Futatabi not be so ridiculously angsty. Or heck. This wasn’t even angst, this was downright emo.

Storytelling: 6/10 – It’s definitely different from the usual Votoms. However, instead of experimenting with a unique new style, it got turned into a generic super robot movie.
Characters: 5/10 – Pathetic villain, way too much angst and none of the characters make any impact at all.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Awesome soundtrack. The animation is there… but not really remarkable in any way.
Setting: 5/10 – Destroys some of the the core aspects of Votoms. Not good.

Suggestions:
– Mobile Police Patlabor WXIII (an example of how to correctly get a movie to take on new characters and a new direction).
– The Wings of Honneamise
– Jin Roh – The Wolf Brigade

Chirin no Suzu Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



In 1977, the people from Sanrio came together and determined that kids’ movies overall were a bit too happy and cheerful. So, with some excellent writers and one heck of a catchy theme song, they created Chirin no Suzu. A story that does exactly the opposite of what the cover seems to suggest.

Believe me, this movie is dark. It’s still aimed at children, but unlike the vast majority of the other movies of this genre, it refuses to dumb itself down for its audience. It starts out as your general lamb versus wolf story, but quickly steps away from all other stories that follow the same trope. It’s packed with mature life lessons and morals that other kids’ movies usually just gloss over, or refuse to even mention.

Let me tell you what makes this such a great movie, though: it’s a movie entirely dedicated to character development. It’s a character study, and a wonderful one. The movie is only forty minutes long, but it’s entirely dedicated to the lead character, Chirin, learning new things and changing significantly because of this.

It does have some flaws though. The only available version seems to be an English dub. Most of the voices are very good (especially the voice of the wolf is awesome), though the voice for the little lead sheep can be very hammy. This does lead to a number of very melodramatic scenes that really could have been done more subtle.

Now, the character designs are very simple. At first sight they may not look like much, but the inbetween animation is actually very good here. It’s very smooth, especially for an anime. Overall, if you don’t mind the melodrama and are looking for an old, yet different movie, this is a very interesting one to watch.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Dark and very violent for a kids’ movie, but packs a great story with many morals and life lessons. At times it’s overdramatic, though.
Characters: 9/10 – Great character development that is really well used.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Okay, so it looks dated, but the inbetween animation still is very good and the soundtrack is excellent as well.
Setting: 8/10 – Not the main focus of this movie at all, but doesn’t get in the way of what’s important.

Suggestions:
– A Tree of Palme
– The Dog of Flanders
– Oseam

Some Quick First Impressions: Supernatural The Animation

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions, Supernatural The Animation

Supernatural The Animation

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters are a bunch of detectives.
So, finally the first episode of the Supernatural Animation has popped up. A very badly encoded version, so I wouldn’t recommend it, but nevertheless this was quite good. The visual style of the designs and the animation all look wonderful, and especially the animation in the action-scenes is stunning and imaginative. As for the story, this episode started off with a random case, which was a fairly straight-forward thriller until it started to get quite creative with its climax. Overall, I’m very interested in this show at this point. The characters are pretty interesting as well, though my one point of criticism is that the acting (especially the way in which the characters are animated) feels a bit stiff. A typical Madhouse problem. There is also this point where one of the lead characters gets hurt, only to completely heal again only hours later. Right after his co-lead specifically points out that that’s impossible. Continuity, guys.
ED: English with a bit of an accent, instead of the usual Engrish. It’s still a bit of a boring ballad, though.
Potential: 80%