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Ookiku Furikabutte – Natsu no Taikai-hen Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Ookiku Furikabutte




I’ll just kick in the door immediately with this review: having only 13 episodes hurts. Ookiku Furikabutte was a show that set itself apart with its gruelingly long baseball matches. Take that away, and you take one of the essential parts of the series away. Nevertheless, don’t write this sequel off, because it also has a lot of points at which it actually surpassed the first season.

For those uninitiated, Ookiku Furikabutte is a baseball show. We often see series that focus on a bunch of teenagers that try to make it to Koushien, but they all have something that sets them apart. Ookiku Furikabutte has the incredible detail it puts into all of its matches. Every single detail is paid attention to, matches are complex and realistic.

A-1 did an even better job at the animation here. The animation is just consistently smooth and detailed with very few (if any) hiccups. Movements, especially during the baseball match are all very finely detailed. You especially have to love some of the far-away shots: in this series, those aren’t cheap excuses to draw less detailed, they are opportunities for animators to animate even more fluidly than they’re already doing. This has been by far the most detailed portrayal of baseball I have ever seen in anime. Screw the length of this show, it’s an excellent adaptation in which the creators succeed wonderfully in bringing the manga to life.

Compared to the first season, the biggest disadvantage of the second season is that the enemy teams just aren’t as colourful: due to the shorter length, they receive way too little attention in favour of the lead characters. These guys however, do get pushed into the right direction. The sequel successfully manages to iron out the few bugs it still had in the characters, and added quite a bit of interesting stuff to the most important ones.

It doesw have the worst match of the series: the first big match of the second season failed to live up to expectations, even when considering the shorter length of the series. However, the second match totally makes up for it. It had to be cut incredibly short (I doubt that the creators themselves even knew about this limited airtime when they first planned out the series), but still retained the essence of the match to make it just better and better with every episode.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Excellent attention to detail in its baseball, only held back due to a warped pacing and short length.
Characters: 8/10 – Very good characters, though the enemy teams could have used more details and colours.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Consistently excellent animation. A-1 really put their best into these visuals.
Setting: 9/10 – The best portrayal of baseball I have seen in anime so far

Suggestions:
– Touch
– One Outs
– Princess Nine

Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Artland is… weird. Let’s define it as that. They’ve got this talent to make all of their shows look as cheaply as possible, and yet they actually deliver some pretty good series. Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou looked like an incredibly cheap harem series when it first was announced. The character-designs for the females were incredibly stereotypical, the trailer was full of fanservice, it had the director of Shakugan no Shana. It was a recipe for failure.

Again, another proof of why you shouldn’t judge books by their cover (a saying that I really hope applies to the upcoming Summer Season!), because Daimaou turned out to be along with B Gata H Kei the series to breathe some much needed new life into the moe fanservice genre. Beyond all of the stupidity, beyond all of the pointless fanservice, this series has a lot to like. It’s not exactly deep or anything, but as entertainment it is very solid.

Finally, we have a moe show that understands the concept of creativity. This show turns out to be a subversion of the good versus evil genre, where the most good-natured guy out there gets labelled as an evil demon lord. Instead of whining and crying like a little girl, he’s assertive and tries whatever he can to escape his fate, ‘helped’ by to be honest quite a dynamic cast of side-characters. Every character here stands as unique and contributes something to the series, though my personal favourite was the green-haired girl. I loved her wise-cracking jokes with her deadpan delivery.

What makes the plot of this series interesting is that unlike most fantasy series, it just doesn’t care about credibility: it’s just there to have fun, and while the subplots are all solid enough to give the characters their background and make them to be more than just paper bags, it often just gives up and chooses entertainment above just making sense. The series is at its best when it manages to balance these two out the best, in which serious scenes move to nonsensical ones in rapid succession. The show is at its worst when it rather forgets this, and dabbles too long in either its fanservice, or its serious stories.

While the character-designs of this series may be terrible, the animation, especially in the money shots, is actually very good. There is a surprising amount of fluidity, and a few episodes are just downright fun because of how much the animators were playing around and trying out various ideas.

I think the weakest part of the series are the serious parts of Hattori in the beginning, and the serious parts of Keena in the end. With Keena, the creators were trying to go for some dramatic climax that just ends up as an anti-climax, while with Hattori has some annoying tsundere moments. For a harem though, it’s pretty damn good and has quite a few nice ideas on good and evil.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Too much pointless fanservice, but nevertheless solid entertainment.
Characters: 8/10 – Charming, stupid, harem, hilarious, tsunderes, background, cliches, but all have their own purpose in the story.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Unimpressive character-designs, but actually pretty good animation. Artland knows a number of very good in-betweeners.
Setting: 8/10 – Ton of nice ideas, though limits itself with its cliches a few times here and there.

Suggestions:
– Touka Gettan
– Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou
– Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito

B Gata H Kei Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Of course, the past Spring Season had plenty of gems with a ton of depth, but what made it really stand apart from all other seasons is that I now have two new favourite moe fanservice series. It’s a genre I usually hate, but this season came and showed that you can actually do this genre right with enough imagination and characterization.

With B Gata H Kei, your mileage may still vary, of course. It features a loser with a hot girlfriend, oblivious to a childhood friend who is in love with him, a ton of boob jokes and a lead female who is an incredible tsundere. It’s a recipe for disaster, one that so many other series screwed up at, but this is the only one that I’ve seen that manages to come with more than just that.

The characterization managed to keep me more than interested despite these cliches. Yamada is a wonderful lead character in the way that this series explores her attempts to have sex. She’s a unique character in the sense that she has the most weird ideas and the most shameless actions. This series really likes to toy around with the embarrasment about its subject matter, in a way that I consider to be the best out of any fanservice show that I managed to sit through. Every major character in this series has his oer her own things to be embarrassed about, which results in a number of priceless situations.

In the middle of this series it may look like the series gets lost a bit into its own cliches, and these episodes by far the least interesting of the series. The creators did plan a number of great and incredibly dynamic final episodes for the series to close off. Of course, leaving aside the fact that it doesn’t actually end, and that the final episode is ONE BIG TEASE.

If you’re interested in this series, you can simply give it a one-episode taste test, it’s pretty much what you can expect of the rest of the series, so if you don’t like it, it’s not going to get better, while if you do, it’ll keep you entertained. Teenaged romances in anime are usually terrible, especially the ones that focus too much on moe, but this is actually quite a charming series about teenagers exploring their feelings about sex. There’s a ton of fanservice, but it’s not just fanservice for the sake of fanservice: it’s all there with a purpose, it’s a means to get the characters to show their best side, rather than just pointlessly showing some boobs to get viewer ratings up.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Well paced, doesn’t drag on its jokes, and knows how to deliver them well. There are too many cockblocks for a series like this, though.
Characters: 9/10 – Wonderful characterization, excellent voice acting. We get really into the minds of the lead characters, and especially the lead characters are very dynamic and pretty well developed for just 12 episodes.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Consistent, well balanced and nowhere annoying.
Setting: 8/10 – A TON of cliches are present, but the series knows this and tries to make them ridiculous as much as the story allows.

Suggestions:
– Kenko Zenrakei Suieibu Umisho
– Yoiko
– Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou

Top 25 Favourite EDs

by psgels, posted in Top 10 Anime

Compiling this list was… annoying. At least with OPs, series take a lot more liberties to try something interesting. Most of the EDs however, just look and sound way too much like each other. There were a ton of the same ballads with dull images in front of them, but by far the worst were those moe show endings with those horrible J-pop songs. Standalone they may not be so bad, but when I compiled this list I had to listen to hundreds of these things. I was seriously glad when the pain stopped.

In any case though, there are also a number of series that showcase excellent EDs, and that’s what this list is about. Note that my taste in music is a bit weird for your average anime fan (I really don’t like most J-Pop and J-rock).

A great ED for me has first and foremost got to contain a good song. It may have great visuals, but those are no use if I’m poking my ears out. On top of that, I also like EDs that treat themselves as more than just an obligatory thing to show credits at: the ones that come with interesting ideas for a music video, or so to say.
Continue reading “Top 25 Favourite EDs” →

Some Quick First Impressions: Sekirei ~Pure Engagement~

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Sekirei ~Pure Engagement~

Short Synopsis: Our lead character has… ah screw it, I’m not going to make a Pokemon joke here; everyone and his dog is already doing that.
Here’s the big problem with Sekirei: it’s not like it’s another one of those brainless moe or fanservice shows; it’s actually got quite a decent storyline, but the comedy is utterly terrible. This episode too, the fanservice jokes were god-awful and uninspired. The creators took the most often used jokes and somehow found it a good idea to just repeat them. Within six minutes, the lead female had already tripped and planted her bosom into the conveniently placed lead character, and this episode was full of dumb jokes like that. The animation was interesting, though. The characters were drawn with a consistently as heck, but there was actually quite a bit of movement, and it actually looked quite good. Although there were times at which the animators also didn’t really understand what they were drawing (weren’t those plates hot? And what idiot closes off a program by using SHIFT, seriously?). The few serious parts reminded me of why I didn’t instantly drop this series, though. I can take this series seriously as long as it takes itself seriously. Let’s hope that the majority of this sequel will be like that, with as little of that awful comedy as possible.
OP: Standard J-pop; not good; very cheesy.
ED: Very annoying J-pop. Oh, but I guess it doesn’t matter because it has boobs…
Potential: 60%

Kaidan Restaurant Review – 77,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



I really like what Toei has been doing lately. They took three kids genres that had gotten really stale lately: children’s horror, science anime and mahou shoujo, and successfully managed to breathe new life into them with Kaidan Restaurant, Marie&Gali and Heartcatch Precure. Out of those three, Kaidan Restaurant is obviously the inferior, but if you like kids’ shows then this series will offer some unique charms.

And I must say that it was based on quite a good idea for its basic premise. From the outside, it may look like yet another show about a group of kids who really angered the gods badly, and run into a bunch of ghosts in every episode, but that wouldn’t quite do justice to what this show really is about: it’s a collection of horror stories, sometimes from all over the world, told through the perspective of the lead characters.

Basically, nearly every episodes consists out of two to three quick horror stories, delivered in bite-sized chunks. The stories are short, a tad repetitive, and not that well animated, but at the same time they’re quite well told. In just ten minutes, the creators nearly always succeed in building up a creepy atmosphere, despite the short length. The stories are well paced, correctly introduced and often not as straight-forward as one may think. The series is based on a series of award-winning children’s books, and that really shines through in the adaptation, despite the presence of any sort of big budget. It’s THE sign that you can tell a great story on a short animation budget. And heck, during its airtime this series consistently hit the top 10 of Japan’s viewing rates.

the stories are very repetitive, that’s true. But they all do what they intend to go: provide quick bite-sized chunks of horror. The series is specifically set up in a restaurant format, with meals consisting out of an appetizer, main course and desert, which proved to be quite an interesting metaphor for the series to work with. I also quite liked how some stories leave a lot up to the interpretation of the viewers by not outright stating what happened, while others are more straight-forward. In some stories, the ghosts are killed, but there are also plenty of stories in which the ghosts are the winners, or simply leave. That’s another one of the strange things about this series: it’s quite sadistic at times, but it also has its heart-warming moments.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Is actually quite effective in its horror storytelling. Consistently creates a pretty tense atmosphere for stories that only take up 10 minutes.
Characters: 7/10 – Points for the idea, but the main characters remain mere shells because of how they’re meant to represent a different person for most of the episodes. The characterization of the persons in these individual stories is quite good, though.
Production-Values: 7/10 – This is a bit of an ugly series. The animation budget is full of errors, and very basic. It does what it need to do, but nothing more.
Setting: 8/10 – Repetitive, but imaginative. The setting has a lot more charm than all those cheaply made kids’ shows that treat children like idiots.

Suggestions:
– Gakkou no Kaidan
– Telepathy Shoujo Ran
– Aoi Blink

Tono to Issho OVA Review – 27,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Tono to Issho is one of the series that will be debuting in the upcoming Summer Season, but first a one-shot OVA premiered as some sort of prequel and introduction. To be honest, before watching this OVA I was actually looking forward to a bit of comedic history. After watching it however, I’m considering it to be a strong candidate for the ‘worst show of the season’. It’s unbelievable how incredibly boring this show turned out. It’s just… not funny.

I know that comedy can be something very subjective, but seriously, this OVA had some of the worst comedic timing I’ve seen in a long while now. Every single voice actor always takes about a second of a breath after every single freaking sentence. Jokes that should be quick and fast are here unbelievably slow. Especially during the points at which the creators feel like they’ve made an exceptionally clever pun, they make sure to give the viewer the chance to let this joke sink in.

To add to that, the jokes themselves are corny as hell, and all follow the same pattern: a character does something random. A straight man then yells and makes a weird face. More series of course make use of these kinds of jokes, but this show just shamelessly rips these things off without understanding what makes them work. I had to sit through that same pattern being repeated over and over for nearly forty minutes. This is something that you show someone you really don’t like or something.

And if that wasn’t enough, the characters themselves also have this horrible tendency of dragging any joke they make on beyond belief. Jokes that would have been cute if they were just delivered in fifteen seconds are spread out over five minutes as the creators make sure to milk every bit of boredom from them.

I think out of all the series I have even written for this site, I have never given a rating as low as this one. I admit that I have seen worse anime, (Himitsu Kessha blahblah Countdown and Abunai Sisters), but this one had the bad luck to be a one-shot OVA, and I actually think that it’s the worst non-recap anime I have ever managed to finish. Seriously, if this was five minutes long (with the same content), it would have been a fun though cute OVA. But this… there’s a limit to human tolerance and how badly you can deliver jokes. If this is what we’re going to have to go through for the TV-series… god… I don’t want to imagine that…

Storytelling: 2/10 – Does just about everything wrong in terms of comedic delivery.
Characters: 2/10 – Absolutely terrible. Takes famous characters from the Sengoku era… and turns them into a bunch of dull idiots who only have one quirk and nothing more. Yes, EVEN the main character.
Production-Values: 3/10 – Nothing about the graphics is inspired, and at the end the animators just give up and wiggle a bunch of random drawings of people across the screen.
Setting: 4/10 – At least gets some points for a bunch of historic references, but never does anything with them.

Suggestions:
– Gintama
– Gag Manga Biyori
– Sexy Commando Gaiden
These three shows are everything that this cheap excuse of an anime is trying to be.

May Summary

by psgels, posted in Monthly Summaries

Milestone time: this is the fiftieth month in which I’ve written such a summary about the shows I’ve been watching. Woohoo!

Anyway, this month showed interesting developments: you can really see some shows delivering and becoming better and batter, while also an array of series just failed to live up to its expectations. The success of this season is really going to depend on how June turns out, though. Many series will then end, and many series have been promising a lot of potential for their finales.

#23 (26) – Hakuouki – (6,5/10) – Yeah, I dropped this one. The lead female just keeps getting rescued over and over, and instead of learning she just continues to go into dangerous situations. The plot behind it may have been interesting, but I couldn’t take her any more.
#22 (19) – Kaichou wa Maid-Sama – (7/10) – Ah, screw it, this one’s dropped as well. Episode nine was the final straw for me. For one thing: if you make a nonsensical filler episode: make it funny. This was just stupid, pointless and suggested to me that even the creators have given up on it. I’ve got many better things to do than keeping up with this thing.
#21 (23) – Marie&Gali – (7,5/10) – This series is still incredibly creative, but the thing with this sequel is that it’s now explaining science for the sake of explaining science. It lacks the spontaneity of the first season, and the new main character is also more annoying than she is funny. Such a shame!
#20 (18) – Hetalia World Series – (7,75/10) – Nothing much can be said about this one. It’s the same as ever: not the best, but solid entertainment.
#19 (10) – Uragiri wa Boku no Namae wo Shitteiru – (7,75/10) – The past few episodes have been rather dull, but there is definitely potential here. The characters are interesting to watch, and I especially like the role of the kids in this series. A big problem is the new side-cast, though. They either need to develop or leave.
#18 (14) – Anymaru Tantei Kiruminzoo – (8/10) – I do have to say that the creators often rely on the same gimmick: putting a creature in Japan that has no reason whatsoever of being there. I know it makes sense in the story, but something new has to happen. You can’t keep milking that forever.
#17 (17) – Kuruneko – (8/10) – Releases are very sporadic, but this still remains an enjoyable slice of life series. The different cats all have their different quirks and they remain fun to watch even after forty episodes.
#16 (20) – Kaidan Restaurant – (8/10) – Yeah, okay, I was wrong. This show is just too good to be dropped. It’s repetitive, but the bite-size chunks of horror work every time, and are surprisingly well told. It will have a lot more competition once the Summer season starts, though.
#15 (22) – Heroman – (8/10) – Props to Heroman, for actually delivering quite a solid saturday-morning-ish show. The plot has its clichés and overused tropes, but it has also been continuously moving with a lot of potential to develop into.
#14 (11) – B Gata H Kei – (8/10) – Not as good as during the first few episodes, but still very enjoyable. The big problem with this show is the huge amount of overused clichés, but the chemistry between the lead characters still manages to elevate this far beyond any other fan-service show for me. The two are hilarious together with the sexual tension that keeps sparking between the two of them, and the side-characters all do their jobs to support this despite their clichés.
#13 (13) – Durarara – (8,25/10) – Overall, this series has been good, but not as enjoyable as I would have expected. The whole conflict that is spiralling out of control is of course interesting, but to me it still feels like it’s missing something, and it doesn’t really help that this show keeps giving off hints to Baccano while it in fact is completely different. If the series would go on for more than 24 episodes, then I probably wouldn’t be complaining as much as I am now, but i just feel that the conclusion of this series just isn’t going to get the best out of the concept with so many novels still unanimated.
#12 (16) – Ichiban Ushiro no Damaou – (8,25/10) – I’m really surprised at how good this show has become, especially considering how it has so much pointless fan-service. The wit of especially the green-haired girl is delightful, and you can see that the creators are having a lot of fun pulling all kinds of weird twists into the plot. The serious parts aren’t the most interesting of this series, but they work well enough I guess.
#11 (8) – Katanagatari – (8,25/10) – It’s still a consistently enjoyable show with a ton of dialogue. The past episode again showed that it’s sufficiently varied to keep the audience’s attention, and as the show goes on I’m getting more and more faith in it. The dialogues are still excellent and interesting and the action again is short but sweet.
#10 (7) – Ookiku Furikabutte – (8,25/10)

The big match of this season has finally started, and again this series sets itself apart with a huge attention to detail in its matches. Consistently enjoyable so far,though I noticed that the creators are using quite a bit more comedy than that they did in the first season. It works, so there’s nothing wrong with that.

#9 (12) – Rainbow – (8,25/10)

Yeah, the acting can be pretty bad at times, but the overall scenario, pacing, plot and story really are excellent here. When you can stomach the overacting you’ll be rewarded with a great story with excellent characters who all help each other survive the harsh prison they’re in. Especially the past few episodes have to be praised for how far they actually went.

#8 (9) – Angel Beats – (8,25/10)

It really has had its ups and downs, but Angel Beats really looks like it’s heading towards a very solid conclusion. The past few episodes have become really good and the characters are more and more coming together. I had my doubts at first, but the creators now actually have a good chance of pulling this one off.

#7 (15) – Senkou no Night Raid – (8,5/10)

Episode seven sold me on this series. It really was amazing how well the creators handled such a touchy subject, and I really admire their balls balls to actually go through with such an episode. Overall, this show has really grown on me despite the slow start, and it’s especially getting interesting now that the episodic stuff is dropped and it’s moved to a continuous story. The characters all have been fleshed out quite well and they become more and more interesting to watch. If it continues like this, it’s really going to surpass Sora no Oto for me.

#6 (6) – Gag Manga Biyori – (8,5/10)

It’s still absolutely hilarious, pulling parodies from all kinds of genres. My favourite was the spaceship episode. I’m not going to spoil what it was about, I just want to say that… it really had a point there. 😛

#5 (5) – Heartcatch Precure – (8,75/10)

This series really has been amazing for the past month. Whether the episodes were about a random story or the main plot, they all kicked ass. We’re not even halfway yet, and it’s already a heart-warming series with utterly gorgeous graphics. Only episode 17 was a bit shallow in comparison, though.

#4 (4) – Giant Killing – (8,75/10)

I love what the creators have been doing with this series. They brought in a ton of foreigners (who all spoke in their native tongue, rather than Japanese), the tension just keeps increasing because Tatsumi still hasn’t turned the tables for his team and they still kept up with everything that made the earlier episodes so enjoyable: the fans, press, player, staff, rival coaches, everyone here is important, gets his own characterization and stands apart from the others. Because of this attention to detail I’m really enjoying this series and more than willing to forgive a bit of unrealistic soccer play.

#3 (1) – Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood – (9/10)

To be honest, this hasn’t been Full Metal Alchemist’s best month. It however still kicks ass beyond belief, and it’s been a consistently excellent action series to watch for the past month and the story has delivered quite a few interesting plot twists. The animation has been in a dip through he past number of episodes, though. Considering the budget that this series used to have, it is a bit unnerving.

#2 (2) – Yojou-han Shinwa Taikei – (9/10)

You’ve got to love the presentation of this series. After six episodes Watashi has gotten really fleshed out now, despite every episode resetting. The episodes are all unique and well written, and I don’t just mean the dialogue by that. The scenario, choreography, storyboard, everything about the script in this show excels beyond belief here.

#1 (3) – Sarai-ya Goyou – (9,25/10)

Utterly amazing; the characterization in this series is incredibly well executed. Every line, every scene is meant to flesh these guys out and add more meaning to them. The characters are poignant, deep and fascinating as they make their decisions. The plot has really been mature and even though the pacing is slow, the creators have really made use of every second to get their message across.

The Secret of Kells Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



I know that this is an anime blog, however that doesn’t mean that I’m not allowed to talk about anything else. Japan certainly isn’t the only country that can produce great works of animation. I’ve reviewed Korean and Chinese movies, so why not? This Oscar nominated co-production between Ireland, France and Belgium is certainly worth a look, and I also believe that modern anime can learn a lot from it.

The graphics of this movie are very impressive. At first the character-designs may seem simple, especially the lead character Brendon. However, the animation itself totally makes up for it, as it is incredibly smooth. What steals the show is the artistic direction, though. Gorgeous, imaginative and varied, this is a feast for the senses. The soundtrack is also excellent; it’s a great composition that combines traditional instruments with a modern soundtrack feeling.

The story looks a lot like a family movie, but make no mistake that this is based on Irish folklore. On one hand you have some often used tropes of a boy who wanders into a forest and meets a cute mysterious girl spirit. On the other hand, this movie is also about the Viking invasion of Ireland. It’s got a surprisingly elaborate story to go through in just seventy minutes, on top of building up its characters. There’s also plenty of character-development, the characters are all likable, and the most important ones are well fleshed out.

The creators may have been a bit too ambitious with this, though. Trying to stuff as much as they did in this movie lead to a number of strange leaps in logic, or plot twists that lack poor build-up. The ending for example is based on a bunch of great ideas, but the creators reserved too little time to make it flow naturally, reducing impact from what it could have been.

Storytelling: 8/10 – A bit rushed, but well told, nice humour, excellent scenario.
Characters: 9/10 – Engaging characters in Irish folklore.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Excellent artistic direction. Very fluid animation.
Setting: 8/10 – Great portrayal of the old Ireland, though the Vikings and other monsters don’t get a lot of depth.

Suggestions:
– Comedy
– Arete Hime
– Night on the Galactic Railroad

Tales of Vesperia Review – 87,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



The Tales of-franchise stands out because every game gets to be adapted by a different production company and a total different staff. This leads to a wide variety of different adaptations with all their own focuses, interpretations and things at which they stand out. With Tales of Vesperia, it’s Production IG’s turn, and they went with the movie format. And holy crap, is it good. This is everything an RPG adaptation should be.

At first it might seem like your average fantasy story: alas, the protagonists are young. One of them appears to have a princess as girlfriend, there are more cute girls, meant to act as the voice of reason when the lead males go out of control again, blah blah blah. But make no mistake: for every cliche that this show uses, it subverts two of them. While this is a fantasy movie, it for once does not require the leads to travel across the world and have all kinds of adventures. No, these guys are part of a town guard: they simply belong to a unit, responsible for protecting a bunch of people. There’s nothing like saving the world in here. Aside from the initial cliches, there’s no attempt made to make these characters seem any bigger than they are: they merely follow the orders of their captain when they fight a battle.

Also, this is animated by Production IG, and it really does live up to their name. The battles here are incredibly well animated: in duels, there are no still frames or convenient cuts; a lot of focus has been put on the sword skills, team work (and not just a team of four warriors or something, they often fight battles with a small squadron in which everyone knows his place). Fights aren’t a matter of whacking a sword long enough until the other party goes down, instead they’re calculated, realistic and believable. Because of this, the magic system can also be fleshed out a lot more: the spells here are a lot more interesting, logical and believable than you usually see in fantasy series.

There is a lot of drama in this movie, most of it centred around the coming of age of the two lead characters. The two of them are flawed, and a lot of the focus of this movie is about fleshing these two out, and developing them. Especially in the first half of the movie these two like to cause trouble, which can be annoying to watch at times, but it’s all with a purpose: to get the best out of their development. They really both develop into great characters in the end. What also helps throughout the first movie is a great sense of humour: it’s got a very good comedic timing.

The fact that the characters for once are simple town guards also has another advantage: you really can get a good feel of the people who live in this town, and this movie takes optimal advantage of that: it chooses a few random townspeople and gives them a convincible personality and character, which all do a great job of bringing the town to life.

I do have a few question marks about the ending credits, though. I’m not sure whether it’s meant to be an advertisement about the games, or a sequel, but it showed many of the cliches that this movie avoided so well. In any case though, this movie is yet another excellent example of how good RPG adaptations can be when some actual effort is put into them. Despite some initial cliches, it’s got excellent characters, a believable scenario, excellent animation really manages to bring its setting to life.

Storytelling: 9/10 – It’s got a ton of fantasy and action, but brings this realistic and believable. Well paces, nice ideas and good attention to detail.
Characters: 9/10 – There are cliches, but makes up for this with excellent character-development and great chemistry between the characters.
Production-Values: 9/10 – What you’d expect of a movie: no cut corners, well portrayed battles that find a very nice balance between believability and action.
Setting: 8/10 – Inspired and lively, though loses points because of how young some of the characters are.

Suggestions:
– Tales of the Abyss, Eternia, Symphonia, Phantasia.
– Strange Dawn
– Popolocrois.