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Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin




The past summer really had its quantity problem, but there still were three series that really stood out to me as a breath of fresh air that may have significant flaws, but also have a delightful execution. These series are Shiki, Kuroshitsuji II and Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin. While Shiki had an incredibly solid execution and Kuroshitsuji got better and better as it went on, Occult Gakuin instead was just all over the place, which had both its advantages and disadvantages.

This series promised to be a fast-paced adventure series through the occult with its excellent and very witty first episode, but instead it turns out that it’s built around several two-episode arcs instead, focusing more on its characters while developing its plot only in the background. In Occult Academy, no episode really is like the other, with the result that you might be expecting a fast-paced action episode, only to get a bunch of episodes that focus more on the quiet type of storytelling.

On the bright side though, you’ll never know what this series will focus on next, and the episodes in which this series really goes all out were without a doubt the best episodes I watched during the entire summer season. The producers got some of the most amazing staff to write for some of the episodes, ranging from the director of Michiko e Hatchin, the director of Mouryou no Hako and Aoi Bungaku’s Hashire Melos to the writer of Noein and Birdy the Mighty Decode. There are thre episodes in this series that are so well written, portrayed and animated, that simply their presence makes this entire series worth watching.

Now, as for the rest of the series, it does have some balancing issues, and some other episodes fail to entice any excitement, and could have been cut from the series easily. The series itself spends a bit too much of its focus on developing Maya as a character, that it forgets about the other parts of the series. Because of this, some parts are rushed while others just take too long, on top of their lack of creativity compared to the better moments of the series.

Despite the balance issues, the plot does come together quite nicely in the end, though. All of the major questions get answers quite nicely and used to bring in some very interesting twists near the end. And really, amidst the countless of series that don’t seem to have any ambition, Occult Academy really tried to create something interesting, creative and diverse. It’s set up pretty much guarantees that you’ll be disappointed in one way or the other due to the lesser episodes, but for me it had enough to make up for it. I have quite a few issues with this series, but really: if those issues were fixed then this would have been a serious contender for the best series of the year and it will be awesome if more series would try to follow in this series’ footsteps.

Storytelling: 9/10 – The writing ranges from average at worst to absolutely fantastic at best. When it wants to, this series can be truly excellent at building up, but there are times in which it doesn’t have enough creativity in its script.
Characters: 8/10 – A very solid cast, but considering the premise of this series, the creators could have eliminated some overused cliches, and they could have done more with Maya’s character considering the amount of time that was put in her development.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Gorgeous and creative animation that really brings the characters to life.
Setting: 8/10 – Explores the occult from all over the world. Very interesting as a kaleidoscope throughout the supernatural, though never really goes in-depth.

Suggestions:
– Baccano
– Michiko e Hatchin
– Kaiba

Sekirei – Pure Engagement Review – 77,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




Sekirei… has its problems. Most notably revolving around the well endowed bosoms of all the females that gather themselves around Minato, the male lead. It’s obvious that its premise is partly there for the boobs, but alongside that it does pull off something that just about every fanservice show is missing: an actually interesting plot.

The first season was plagued by having to actually set up its partially awful premise, but in the second season things come a lot more together. This series still pulls a few deus ex machina, the most notable being them suddenly changing the freaking gender of one of the characters and the pointlessly moronic antics of the main villain, but the overall storyline does get better and better, and especially the last arcs succeed quite well in their attempts to tug at your heartstrings. For all its faults, this is a series that does know how to develop its cast of characters.

It’s also interesting how Seven Arcs managed to significantly improve the animation budget for the second season. Especially the second half of this sequel has quite a few beautifully animated fight scenes. I mean, the entire series has really improved throughout its run so far.

Even at this point, the story is still nowhere near finished, but at this point I can’t say whether or not a third season is going to come in two years to wrap up the story. This second season mostly finishes the introduction of all of the characters, it rounds off the basic back-story behind the entire premise and it concludes a number of side-stories. It really made the franchise a lot more solid, but a third season really is necessary to delve into the essence of this story because regarding the core of the series, all we got was a bunch of vague hints here and there. I’m not going to recommend this series until it becomes clear whether or not that third season is going to come, but either way this was a pleasant surprise.

Storytelling: 7/10 – The excessive focus on fanservice and a few Deus ex Machina hold this one back, but overall it’s a lot more solid than the first season.
Characters: 8/10 – If you get part the premise of all of the characters, they’re actually pretty good and well developed here.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Surprisingly well animated fight scenes here, the rest of the animation is also pretty solid.
Setting: 8/10 – The biggest improvement over the first season. A lot of time was spent on making the foundation of the series more solid, and it works quite well.

Suggestions:
– Futakoi Alternative
– Code-E
– Sola

Sengoku Basara Two Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Sengoku Basara




This season’s prime time series was Sengoku Basara’s second season. And… it’s quite an interesting action series.

At the start, I suspected that this series would consist out of a string of action-oriented episodes. Instead, this series has only four or five episodes that are really focused on action. The rest of the episodes all put their priorities on dialogue and build up. Instead of containing a long string of epic action-scenes, this series aims to only contain a select few of them, and attempts to make those as epic as possible.

And partially, this worked. Episode six contains without a doubt the single best action I have seen during the past three months. The rest of the action episodes are also completely over the top, but a lot of fun to watch due to their contrast with the more quiet but very manly build-up episodes. This balance is far from perfect, though, because especially the second half spends too much time building up and too little on the actual substance, and the build-up itself also isn’t perfect. In the end, the action itself isn’t worth it to sit through so much build-up and this series could easily have been cut down to ten episodes in length.

However, this sequel is a much needed improvement after the rather lackluster first season. Events are a lot more interesting to watch, and the action scenes themselves are much better portrayed now. The story this time is a lot more focused, and there are a lot less annoying characters. It also helps that the characters made good use of 24 episodes in order to flesh themselves out, and so even the rest of the cast is a lot more interesting to watch. It’s still a series that’s completely over the top, but that has really become part of its charm without ending up cheesy.

It remains a really well produced series: the animation is consistently smooth and detailed for a television-series, especially with Production IG’s trademark style of character-designs. Albeit unbalanced, the dialogue itself is very well written, the music can be really awesome when it wants to. It’s not the next Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto, but nevertheless I really enjoyed this series.

Storytelling: 8/10 – When it wants to be, the action really is epic and really well delivered. There’s too much build-up though.
Characters: 8/10 – Much better compared to the first season; the entire cast consists out of bulky and manly men, but they’re used well within the action and dialogue.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Especially the money shots are a sight to behold with great poses and combat animation. Consistently smooth and detailed graphics overall.
Setting: 7/10 – Makes absolutely no physical or historical sense. Even though it’s “loosely” based on the sengoku era, it could have used this better.

Suggestions:
– Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto
– Seirei no Moribito
– Jubei-chan’s Second Season

Giant Killing Review – 90/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Giant Killing




Giant Killing, my favourite airing show of the past three months and likely to be my favourite sports anime (if board games aren’t sports). It’s a breath of fresh air in its execution, and a delight to watch from start to finish with a well developed cast that just sparkles with personality.

From the outside it may seem like a bit of an unimpressive football series, but it turns out to provide a unique look into the world of professional soccer, and it doesn’t ignore anything: aside from the players, it also gives ample attention to all kinds of supporters, the press, photographers, coaches, management, everyone involved is portrayed as a character and important to the series. The cast here is incredibly diverse, allowing everyone to stand out, rather than blend in. Credit also goes to the character-designers, who gave every single character in the series his own look.

I also feel that this is the series that shows one of the bewst portrayals of “there is no I in team”. It’s indeed true that Tatsumi is a brilliant coach, and there are a few brilliant players, but the series is entirely different from all of the teams in fiction that are just built around one player. Instead, everyone has the points at which he’s good and the points at which he’s terrible, and throughout 26 episodes, this series really tries to put as many people under the loop as possible. It really tries to do as much as possible in every episode in terms of characterization, and this really makes the huge cast come alive. It’s not like there’s one character that stands out, and instead it’s the characters together that form a very addictive whole.

Because it continues to explore its characters, evenin the quietest parts, there hardly is any part about this serise that’s not interesting, but the soccer matches, and especially the long ones, are where this series truly shines. It’s not that they’re the most unpredictable out there, you can pretty much predict the outcomes. Everything apart from that however is a huge roller-coaster ride, especially the final match that forms the climax of this series. It’s a match that’s constantly cyhanging and evolving, utilizing as many characters (including the opponents!) as possible.

This is really how a series without a big animatio budget should be done. Giant Killing can drink many of its big budgetted counterparts under the table with its incredibly detailed and addictive storytelling. It also is the series that is the single best at handling foreign languages, out of any anime I’ve ever seen: French, English, Dutch, Portugese, this is a really international anime that portrays foreigners as they are, rather than as the xemophobic stereotypes you usualyl see in anime. It’s not like this series has one particular character that is really well developed. What it does have, though, is dozens of characters with their own charms, quirks and flaws who subtly change over the course of the story.

Storytelling: 10/10 – Utilizes every minute to put as much detail into its cast and football matches. Addictive beyond belief.
Characters: 9/10 – Lots of characters, who are all diverse and sparkle with personality, and are explored really well throughout the series.
Production-Values: 8/10 – The animation isn’t stellar and it uses a lot of shortcuts, the series has a unique look nevertheless. The music is also simple but mesmerizing.
Setting: 9/10 – An excellent portrayal of professional football and everything around it.

Suggestions:
– Shion no Ou
– One Outs (It’s similar, although much less awesome)
– Baccano!

Mitsudomoe Review – 77,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




Contrary to popular belief, Mitsudomoe is not first and foremost a fanservice series. Sure, it’s full of panty jokes, but at its core it really remains a comedy series. Still, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have its mind completely drowned in the gutter.

Remember back when you were around ten years old, and how everyone kept making the most immature and tasteless jokes they could think of? Well, that’s this series: 13 episodes of toilet-jokes and innuendo at the level of ten-year-olds. The thing is that the delivery in this series so good that despite the subject material, it had me laughing out lout in every episode, aside from perhaps the first two.

This series especially loves making use of the way that in the Japanese language, you can often omit huge parts of a sentence if it’s clear about the context you’re talking in. It comes up with all kinds of scenarios to get the best out of this little quirk that’s unique to the Japanese language. Apart from that, it also loves toying with the chemistry between the different characters. The jokes it tells are just wrong at times, but I really couldn’t help but laugh. The jokes here range from utterly stupid to surprisingly witty, and they’re often surprisingly creative.

The big problem with this series is that it doesn’t have enough material for 13 episodes. Every episode is divided into about four or five short sketches, and every episode has at least one sketch that is just repeating the same jokes that were already used before. Especially the boob jokes and the Gachi Rangers get milked out too much, which really has me worried about the recently announced second season: when the first season is already struggling to fill 13 episodes, then there is no way that the second season will be as funny as the first one.

This series does need to take a bit of time to really find its niche. The first two episodes miss the mark completely: they try way too hard, are completely disgusting and will probably turn off many potential viewers. After that though, it becomes a pretty hilarious comedy series with a top-notch delivery. The reused jokes will probably become a huge turn-off in the second season, but this first season still has enough original content and jokes that are actually developed throughout the series, rather than merely copied and pasted.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Hilarious whenever it isn’t repeating jokes; it really has excellent delivery and comedic timing.
Characters: 8/10 – Their mind is completely in the gutter, but they’ve got a good chemistry.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Bridge is completely new, but they’ve done a pretty good job here with the animation.
Setting: 7/10 – Nothing special, and doesn’t really make use of it.

Suggestions:
– Yoiko
– B Gata H Kei
– Usavich

Asobi ni Iku Yo Review – 70/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




During the past Summer season, the thing that I disliked the most was AIC. They did come out with four new series, but they were. all. moe. anime. And not even the good ones, like Geijutsuka Art Design Class; all four of them were completely underwhelming, had no idea how to use their time correctly or how to tell a story for that matter. Asobi ni Iku Yo at least set itself apart from the others by showing that it at least somewhat knew what it wanted to do.

It just threw all pretense out: it’s a harem with a lot of guns and aliens, and just tried to make something enjoyable out of it. This worked… somewhat. Asobi ni Iku Yo has its enjoyable moments, but they’re too few and far in between for a series that only has twelve episodes. This series is at its best when it doesn’t try to be anything. It’s a bit corny, but the slice of life moments of this series work well enough. On top of them, the action scenes themselves are also pretty enjoyable. It’s what’s in between that’s really the problem.

The story is interesting, and has a few neat ideas here and there, like the whole concept of aliens with cat ears coming to earth in order to establish diplomatic relationships, but most of it is just predictable fodder, including a number of very badly inspired bad guys who fail to create any kind of tension. The big problem here is that the series spends way too much of its time on pointless exposition that never really goes anywhere. This series only has twelve episodes, and way too often it just fails to entertain because it somehow found the need to explain another boring detail in the bad guys’ plans.It doesn’t seem to realize that neither its premise nor its characters can carry a serious plot.

As for the characters, they’re better than your usual harem, especially compared to AIC’s other series this season. Characters at least talk sensibly without trying to be too cute, and that’s something I could appreciate (and this is also what made me able to watch it all the way through). There is a decent chemistry between them, but they’re still riddled with problems. There is hardly any character-development, and due to the above-mentioned tendency of this series to waste its time on its plot, they really could have been fleshed out more. The worst is the love triangle that develops, though. Kio, the lead male is dense beyond belief (again, very original), which completely goes against any kind of development that could have made this series better. The romance here is just there to insert pointless drama, and the way it gets resolved made me bang my head on my desk. I mean, I know that I should be glad that a series for once resolves its love triangles and stuff, but the way in which this series does it is a total Deus ex Machina insult.

Overall, would I recommend marathoning this series? No, there are many better series out there. This series fails to see what it’s good at and instead wastes too much time on its story and drama, which both don’t really accomplish anything. Add that to its silly and cliched premise, and you have a series that everyone will have forgotten in about half a year.

Storytelling: 6/10 – Poorly balanced, too much exposition for a series that’s supposed to be fun and light-hearted.
Characters: 7/10 – Characters are not stupid and obnoxiuos, I at least praise this series for that because it’s the only AIC series this season to avoid this pitfall. They also fail to stand out and the drama between them sucks.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Solid, hardly any bad frames.
Setting: 7/10 – There are a few neat ideas, but overall it’s underutilized.

Suggestions:
– Magikano
– Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ouki
– Mahou Tsukai Tai

Berserk Review – 87,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




A few weeks ago we had this discussion on the shoutbox about Berserk. I was really looking forward to it, but people were saying that it did not hold up, compared to its manga. And fair enough, the anime is only 25 episodes long, while the manga has been running since 1990 and still hasn’t finished, meaning that there was no way for the anime to be able to completely tell a story that wouldn’t conclude, even thirteen years after its airdate. The original manga of Berserk also seems to be one of the most well received mangas out there.

The thing is though, and most people who have been reading this blog for a while have been very much aware of this, but I’m terrible at reading manga. Blame a lack of time, but series like Blade of the Immortal, Bokura no, Himitsu Top Secret, Pandora Hearts: I loved all of them despite being somehow unable to just grab and check out their respective mangas. Even though some of them made huge changes and none of them get to the real meat of their source material, I’m still a huge fan of them as standalone, albeit very incomplete stories, based on manga that are God knows how good. I’ve been stuck at the Bokura no’s thirtieth chapter for years now, despite it being awesome just like its anime counterpart.

In any case, Berserk is the same: ridiculously incomplete, ending with one ridiculous hell of a cliff-hanger, but it’s also a ridiculously well executed anime.

I t really immediately sets itself apart from all of the other fantasy series that were spread across the nineties. The atmosphere is dark and gritty, it doesn’t try to glorify its battles (this series is completely brutal when it needs to be, and never tries to hide it), and the battles themselves are very well drawn, detailed and animated. The series quickly stars focusing on battles on a larger and larger scale, and yet the series consistently stays many levels of believability above what you’d usually expect in series that focus on medieval warfare.

What really sold me to Berserk was its character-development, though. Even though I have no idea how good the character-development in the manga must be, the anime really makes excellent use of its time to put as much meaning as possible into its three main characters. The plot is entirely meant to explore them, push them forwards to their goals, and get the best out of their characters while remaining perfectly paced so that each event flows into the other.

As a contrast though, the rest of the cast pales in comparison. They’re mostly static and really not the most interesting. There are unfortunately a lot of episodes that focus on them, and I feel that this series would have been even better when it made its characters, especially the people who end up on the other end of Guts’ blade, a bit more down to earth and give them a bit more character, rather than having Guts kill the same hordes of punching bags over and over again.

Really though, just for Guts, Casca and Griffith I’m really glad to have watched this series. It’s really one of the most mature action titles out there, both with its gore and the way it uses this gore to look at its characters. As for the ending… I don’t think I really need to describe in how many ways it gave us the middle-finger, but I nevertheless consider this series to have an amazing finale.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Slow, but very solid, and absolutely brutal when it needs to be.
Characters: 9/10 – The side characters are nothing special. The main characters are wonderfully developed, though, with a lot of meaning put into them.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Gorgeous artwork from the nineties. Plus, its soundtrack was composed by Susumu Hirasawa.
Setting: 8/10 – A detailed look into medieval warfare, but ridiculously incomplete.

Suggestions:
– Shin Mazinger Shougeki! Z-Hen
– Gilgamesh
– Gungrave

Some Quick First Impressions: Pokemon Best Wishes

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Pokemon Best Wishes

Short Synopsis: Our lead character wants to be a Pokemon Master (at least, that’s what I think he’s still doing).
Here is my issue: with the huge amounts of money that Oriental Light and Magic (the animation producers behind Pokemon) have been making… they still don’t really put in much effort in the animation quality here. I mean, this first episode had a bunch of cheap effects and a number of scenes that could have definitely used more quality checking. What happened to all of the profits that this series has made as one of the biggest commercial successes in the history of anime? It’s been four years since OLM made any series that wasn’t just meant for children, and to be honest I find this really cheap. Take some risks, dammit. Anyway, about Pokemon: I used to be a big fan when I was but a small teenager, but the major problem with this show is that it’s just so damn long. Most of the episodes are pointless, filler and cheaply written, but I like how it managed to create its own world with its own culture and legends. That’s what really hooked my younger version, and helped me become a fan of anime. This first episode was again very safe, but I like how the new female lead doesn’t seem like yet another Misty-clone. Plus, there was one twist in this episode that could be showing that this series is willing to head into a new direction (as shown by Ash/Satoshi’s complete absence from the first promo-art), so I’m at least curious.
Potential: 10%

Heroman Review – 72,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




I think that from the start, it was obvious that Heroman would be nothing like the usual standard you’d expect from Bones. Even Bones’ flawed series are full of ambition, have this sense of maturity even when focusing on kids and teenagers, and are produced with a lot of attention to detail. Heroman however was a concept that none other than Stan Lee presented to them.

Now, it’s one thing that the creator of Spiderman, the X-Men, the Hulk and Iron Man was involved here, but Heroman is just so safe, it just has so many cliches, it has such a mediocre writing staff and it has the maturity of a 13-year-old, that it’s easily one of Bones’ weaker premises. Not the weakest, that title goes to the Mars Daybreak, but Heroman lacks both the ambition and execution to make it into any kind of memorable mecha series.

The premise: there is a kid who is pretty much a very kind-natured loser who finds a giant robot who is more powerful than anything mankind has ever created, he has a rich female childhood friend who acts as a semi-girlfriend, and he’s friends with a high school teacher who clearly is an uninspired homage to Doc from Back to the Future. Throughout the series he battles a bunch of aliens with powers that pretty much appear whenever the plot needs it.

With so many cliches, it really depends all on the execution here: how enjoyable is this series? How good are the characters? Heroman tries, but doesn’t really seem to know how to either develop its characters or create an enjoyable action series. Joey himself is very unlikable as a lead character: the creators tried to make him too pure, resulting in that we see 26 episodes in which a whiny little kid ends up saving the world. The creators do try to give the lead cast a little depth, but for some reason they decide to wait until twenty episodes have passed in order to only reveal some of the most basic of background information (I’m looking at you, Psy!).

Out of the 26 episodes, there are about four, possibly five episodes that really have good action. The rest aren’t anything special, and depend more on the story to keep the tension and the attention of the audience. This works decently in the first half, but in the second half the creators lose track of the plot completely, resulting in a bunch of pointless filler episodes that try to tie themselves into the main plot, but could have been deleted just as easily. The final battle of the series is way too rushed for the epic level it tries to reach.

There have been plenty of examples in which I’m able to ignore those kinds of flaws if the end result ends up enjoyable. High School of the Dead, for example: I am fully aware that it has flaws, but the way it played out was varied and kept my attention from start to finish. That’s what I look for in an anime. Heroman is different, though. I really get the feeling like it doesn’t know some of the basic techniques of storytelling, like a proper build-up. After you pass the climax of the second arc, there is hardly any variation left: we’re treated to things that we’ve all seen before and the things that are new don’t fit in the story at all.

In the past, Bones has already made a series about a kid who gets a toy that is able to fight and uses that to fight through hordes of opponents amidst bits of simple intrigue, and this was in 2001. The only part in which it doesn’t dwarf Heroman is that it tried to be much less epic, which is only a good thing, to be honest. Heroman completely has no value. I was positive about this series for a while, but in the end, now that the series is properly finished and I can get a proper look at the whole picture, I really have to admit that it wasn’t really worth my time to sit through this entire series (that is also why the rating for this series is much lower than the ratings I’ve been giving it at my monthly summaries. If you’re slightly interested, then watch up till episode nine: for that part, this series still is pretty solid. It’s in the part after that for which this series leaves too much to be desired, and this only gets more obvious as the series goes on.

Storytelling: 6/10 – The first half is solid enough, but especially the latter half is poorly laid out, and really fails to entertain or captivate.
Characters: 7/10 – Way too safe with its stereotypes, and the development comes way too late into the series.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Here is the thing: the animation of Heroman is very good with Bones’ usual standards, but I can only remember relatively few animated scenes that really impressed me. There are more frames than with most series and they are all solid and well quality checked, but it’s just so safe.
Setting: 8/10 – America, which is decently portrayed and decently responds to the main storyline; it does what it needs to do, but nothing more.

Suggestions:
– Angelic Layer
– Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
– Overman King Gainer
These are just a few examples of how redundant Heroman is and how it could have been done much better.

Hikaru no Go Review – 87,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




I would like to thank Hikaru no Go for some of the most riveting opening episodes of any long series that I’ve seen in a while. The first arc of this series, encompassing episodes 1 to 14 is masterfully written and an emotional highlight in the way that it toys with its characters. It plays out unlike any other shounen I’ve seen in the way that it throws its young protagonist in a world that he totally doesn’t belong in. With a simple, but extremely chilling soundtrack, it really is a roller-coaster ride that combines an excellent build-up with powerful and gripping drama that really blew me away.

In the rest of the 75-episode run of this series, it calms down a bit and it turns into more of a classic shounen set-up, emphasizing slow and gradual development. It’s a bit repetitive, but said development is still more than worth it to continue with this series until the end. 75 episodes is a lot of time for characters to change, and the creators really make use of this by making not just Hikaru change, mature and grow up, but a wide variety of different characters are portrayed growing throughout the series.

This show doesn’t just look at the Go game itself and its various layers of strategy, but what’s possibly even more important is the place of Go in Japanese society, ranging from how simple amateurs play it to the world of professionals of all kinds of levels, with even a few international side-stories: this series explores the full spectrum here.

Shounen series usually have this tendency to drag out their matches, but Hikaru no Go is a big exception here as well: I don’t think I recall any Go match that took up longer than one episode. Instead, the thing that bothered me that there may have been a few too many matches that simply looked like each other, which are played against similar characters with similar premises that play out in similar ways. I mean, 75 episodes is a lot of time here for things like these to get boring, and especially around the middle there just are a few too many Go matches and characters that look like each other for my tastes, despite making full sense in the story.

Nevertheless, this series still is chock full of interesting twists and tons of well written Go matches that put you to the edge of your seat. It especially sets itself apart with its development, which makes excellent use of its long airtime. At times it takes a bit too long levelling up its lead characters’ Go skills, but it remains a very detailed look in the world of Go, with especially the rivalry between Hikaru and Touya standing out as memorable.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Really knows how to make Go matches exciting, and really likes to toy around with emotions.
Characters: 9/10 – Has 75 episodes and makes excellent use of them to show half its cast change and mature.
Production-Values: 8/10 – I can only imagine how pain-staking it must have been for the creators to draw hundreds of different Go-matches, but what especially catches your attention is the hard-hitting soundtrack.
Setting: 9/10 – An excellent portrayal of Go in Japan. Pays attention of the wide variety in which it gets played.

Suggestions:
– Glass Mask 2005
– Nodame Cantabile
– hunter X Hunter