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Hanamaru Youchien Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Hanamaru Youchien




Here’s a slice of life series that’s slightly different from what you usually see. The lead character is really a typical lead character, but he’s an actual adult. The series takes place not at a high school, but a kindergarten. Add a whole dose of role-play to that, and you pretty much get the formula of Hanamaru Youchien. A fun and relaxing series. And as an added bonus, the characters are well written as well.

Hanamaru Youchien basically spends its time either role playing, or fleshing out the characters. The former is just fun: we get to see inside the imagination of a bunch of five-year olds and their crazy ideas, and all of the adventures that they go on are consistently enjoyable, carrying an air of homage and parody that the creators (both Gainax and its director Seiji Mizushima) are famous for. The latter actually succeeds in making all of the adults into actual characters rather than stereotypes and paper bags.

Especially Tsuchida, the lead character, is one of those rare examples of a typical male lead done right. While he can be a loser at times, he also has enough things that he’s good at, his character is dynamic enough to allow him to evolve, rather than staying in the same one-sided stereotypes. The side-cat is also excellent in their support to the main cast. We get to know the backgrounds and motivations of everyone, and why they become involved as kindergarten teachers. In the end, the adults in this series get fleshed out so well that they actually manage to trump the adventures of the different kids in the series.

The biggest problem with this series however is that it doesn’t know whether it wants to also have romance or not. The ingredients are there: the lead character has someone he’s in love with. she’s just ridiculously clueless and at the end they’re still not together. I mean, if you’re going to set up some romance, at least have the decency to not build a brick wall between the lead characters.

There’s also a bit of an annoying sister, but she only appears in two episodes or so. The rest of this series is light-hearted and down to earth, but still has this sense of maturity that contrasts really well with the younger kids. The drama that’s there is short and focused, and doesn’t come across forced or too dramatic at all, so this series both ended up delivering in its serious and funny parts. On top of that, you also have to love what this series has done with its EDs: every episode has a completely different one, with a completely different style, genre and soundtrack.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Varied, fun and adorable.
Characters: 8/10 – This show confirms why I keep advocating adults in anime.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Solid animation and cute graphics.
Setting: 8/10 – Not the most creative series out there, but creative enough to fill 12 episodes, and the kindergarten itself and the world around it is also well portrayed.

Similar Series:
– Ristorante Paradiso
– Yume de Aetara
– Bottle Fairy

Cross Game Review – 87,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Cross Game




It’s easy to dismiss Cross Game as a baseball series, but make no mistake. This is much more a slice of life series about characters who just happen to play a lot of baseball. Cross Game is much more a tale of growing up, with a healthy dose of humour along the way. And it does this oh so well.

Seriously, in terms of slice of life, you can hardly get any better than this. The seemingly endless amount of wit with which the writers spice up the daily lives is incredible, and they love to play with this. Whenever you see a character do something seemingly out-of-character, there’s always some sort of very logical explanation behind this.Think about a character making an important confession at first sight, only to reveal that he’s talking about something completely different. The entire series is chock-ful of these moments that have a ton of fun playing with the characters in this way.

Obviously this gives the show an awesome cast to work with. We see them grow up through the series, from when they’re still small children to their third year in high school. As a viewer we really get to know who they are, and because of that the slice of life works so well: these characters rock right from the first episode of this series, so it becomes a really enjoyable ride to just see what they’re doing in their everyday lives.

The problem with this series is, in fact, the baseball, for multiple reasons. First of all, the slice of life is just that good. Every time a baseball match started, I felt like something was missing, and just kept hoping that they would wrap up as soon as possible in order to get more of the quiet moments in this series. That, and the baseball matches aren’t that good anyway. Especially when you compare them to other series, they’re poorly built up, hand together with cliches and the teams that our lead characters match against are hardly ever fleshed out properly. There’s no tension in them, and all you’re doing is waiting for them to finish.

Cross Game is based on a manga by Mitsuru Adachi, who pretty much can only write one type of series, but he can do that incredibly well. Cross Game is the same, and although I do prefer Touch (due to its longer length and because it did have excellent baseball matches, despite its lack of wit in the slice of life department), Cross Game nevertheless is excellent and its execution is one of a kind.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Wonderfully witty in its portrayal of the characters’ daily lives. Baseball matches suck, though.
Characters: 10/10 – Take perhaps a bit long to develop, but a lot of the cast members end up well rounded at the end of the series.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Nothing special, asice from a good soundtrack perhaps.
Setting: 8/10 – Not a fan of the way it portrayed baseball, but did a good job of the high school setting.

Tentai Senshi Sunred 2 Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




It’s extremely rare for a comedy sequel to be better than its predecessor. Most of the times, the best jokes are already exhausted, the characters have gotten dull, it takes its style too far, et cetera. Here is one, though. The first season of Tentai Senshi Sunred was a nice super sentai series parody, but there were a number of episodes that just dragged on or weren’t funny. The second season isntead is much more consistent and hilarious.

Tentai Senshi Sunred 2 doesn’t just show that it has plenty of ideas for a second season, it also shows that it’s been saving its best ideas as well. It cleverly makes use of the build-up and character introductions that became rather boring in the first season, and uses them to back up these jokes. The jokes often revolve around a silly monster that Sunred has to battle, or a ridiculous plan of his ‘arch-rival’ vamp that just makes no sense, but a lot of the humour also comes from the monsters themselves as we’re introduced to some hilarious problems that they’re worrying about, like their own identity as a monster, or just every day problems that become just hilarious when put into the context of this series, considering how nobody seems to find it scary that a bunch of random monsters walk around.

There still are a number of monsters that just aren’t funny, like the two moles, or the animal soldiers also tend to drag at times, but overall Tentai Senshi Sunred succeeded yet again with its unique brand of humour. Take a regular slice of life setting, and make it the centre stage of a battle between a hero and an evil organization, sombining a huge amount of realism with a huge amount of stupidity with a combination that works perfectly.Sunred himself always provides a great chemistry with the rest of the cast as just about the opposite that you’d expect of a fighter for justice, and the rest of the cast all plays their part wonderfully.

Storytelling: 9/10 – A much larger percentage of the jokes hit the spot compared to the first season.
Characters: 8/10 – Excellent chemistry between them, plus a number of lovable monsters.
Production-Values: 7/10 – Still very simple and basic animation, but the character poses are very detailed and expressive.
Setting: 9/10 – The detailed and strangely realistic dialog really made me buy the very take on the super sentai genre.

Letter Bee Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Letter Bee




This is a bit of a difficult review to write. The reason for that is simple: Letter Bee is a series chock-ful of potential. That potential however, is only going to be realized in its second season, while the first season… is mainly dedicated to build up. You know, fleshing out the characters, giving the setting the right background, and building up the huge mystery surrounding this series.

While the series starts off with a very intruiguing opening, most of the rest of the series consists out of small arcs that involve Lag Seeing (the lead character) meeting different people. The people Lag meets vary from ridiculously cheesy to compelling and interesting, it’s really all over the place. In the meantime however, you can really see this series putting a lot of attention to flesh out the recurring cast-members, working on their development. Sure, Lag starts out as an incredible crybaby, but his development throughout these first 25 episodes makes him into quite an interesting character. Nichi on the other hand is just consistently lovable. The members of the main side-cast also all have the poihts at which they stand out.

This show also has quite a few fillers in its middle part. They’re used well, though. There are a few godawful episodes (when you get to the “race”-episode, just skip it alltogether), but also a number of surprisingly good ones. But most importantly: instead of being entirely pointless, they try to flesh out the characters a bit more, and give them a bit more character than what was present in the manga.

So yeah, this series served its purpose well: that second season has a lot of potential to rock due to the build-up that it has provided. Its voice acting is really excellent all around, and the few moments at which it does get to show some of the huge potential behind the storyline that it’s been building up, it’s truly an amazing and intriguing series, and it ends with one hell of a cliff-hanger. The highlights of this series are truly sad and melancholic; they’re just few and far in between, hence the relatively low rating.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Excellent build-up. Some not-so-excellent episodic stories.
Characters: 8/10 – Excellent main cast and voice acting. Hard to like lead characters. some underdeveloped side-characters.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Gorgeous images, inconsistent animation, beautiful soundtrack.
Setting: 8/10 – A ton of potential…. for which we have to wait until season 2 to fully see it.

Cobra The Animation Review – 77,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Cobra The Animation




Cobra’s premise at first seems one doomed for failure. In a world where all girls walk around in ridiculously revealing clothing, an invincible superman walks around and pretty much succeeds at everything he tries. Characters should be flawed, but Cobra is one of those guys who is perfect in every single way. Noramlly this would lead to rather boring television, but the creativity that has been put in the stories, along with Cobra’s charisma make this into a surprisingly enjoyable series.

The adventures, and the different places that this series shows make for a perfect light-hearted watch. The stories are nearly all well told and while they may not make too much sense at times, they’re well paced and built up and manage to draw you into its atmosphere.

I probably like this show even better than the original Cobra series of 1982. While that one was more of an action-series that focused on killing bad guys, the 2010 Cobra puts a lot more focus on adventures and exploration and instead of Cobra killing hordes of bad guys, it’s much more about his interatcion with the side-characters that happen to be tagging along with him.

On top of that, this series can boast the best soundtrack of shows that premiered in the past Winter-season. Yoshihiro Ike is a brilliant composer, and here again he delivers an exciting and perfectly fitting soundtrack to accompany the series. The graphics all look solid, but the animation itself is sub-par.

The arcs that this series decided to show differ a bit in quality. The mountain climbing arc is by far the best, while the two longest arcs at the beginning and end tend to drag on for a bit too long than necessary, and their plot twist may be a bit too non-sensical than what’s good for this series.

Cobra isn’t a series you want to go to for depth or realism at all. The stories are all very simple and the characters are all more charicatures than that they resemble actual people. But here’s the thing: it knows what it is, and it does this well. Cobra the Animation was very obviously made by passionate fans of the original Cobra 1982-series, who wanted to do the source material as much justice as possible. And you know what? They succeeded.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Rather cheesy at times, but knows how to draw you in.
Characters: 7/10 – Caricatures, Cobra is god-moded, but they all have their own charisma.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Animation isn’t impressive, but the graphics are. Plus a fantastic soundtrack.
Setting: 8/10 – The Cobra-universe is full of interesting places and settings.

Some Quick First Impressions: KissXSis, Koihime Musou – Otome Tairan and Ikkitousen Xtreme Xecutor

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

KissXSis

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets to live inside a house with two cute girls who pretend to be his sister.
Well… it’s porn. It’s as simple as that. Are people really going to check this show out for a reason other than the teenaged nudity? At the least, I do appreciate that the worst stuff in this season comes first. And yeah, this episode was pretty much even worse than the other shows in this post, and that has to say something. It’s full of the most ridiculous stereotypes that just about every fanservice show has. It’s been one episode and the lead character already has a harem of four girls who adore him for no reason whatsoever. These characters seriously have no lives. It did try to out-gross other fanservice shows with the pants sniffing and all, but seriously. With Chu Bra and Seikon no Qwaser last season, who’s it going to fool?
ED: Godawful J-pop and abysmal CG.
Potential: -20%

Koihime Musou Otome Tairan

Short Synopsis: Our lead character goes on an adventure to search for a bunch of random items to save some random woman.
Again: Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Again: find some other bloody novel to parody! In any case, the third season of Koihime Musou is exactly what this series has always been: realyl stupid slice of life. And seriously, these morons really take the cake when it comes to a lack of brainpower as they believe that someone with stomach cramps as pregnant. Well, i guess that stupid girls are really popular with otaku, which is why these kinds of shows keep getting made, and if this is your kind of humour, then good for you. but this episode felt so unbelievably boring to me. Slice of life series are great when the characters themselves are. With these stereotypical idiots however… ugh.
OP: Cheesy J-Rock
ED: Godawful J-pop.
Potential: 0%

Ikkitousen Xtreme Xecutor

Short Synopsis: Our lead character thankfully is completely absent in this episode.
Well, I’m at least glad that the worst shows of this season get released first, so let’s just get this over with. The only thing I’ve seen of Ikkitousen are the first episodes of the second and third season (both were godawful), so most of my comments here are about the execution, rather than the story that I know nothing about. Still, I do want to say that the thing I hate most about this season isn’t the fanservice or moe, but the truckload of Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Seriously, pick some other franchise to parody. In any case, for Ikkitousen this was actually a decent episode. I expected the same kind of crap that the previous seasons became infamous for, and while the acting still is pretty bad, this actually was an episode in which you can at least shut your brains off and enjoy it as a random action show. The build-up was nice enough, and the lead characters this time thankfully were much less obnoxious as some of the other paper bags that this show has to work with. Nevertheless, the standards to which I’m comparing this are really low. This episode wasn’t abysmal, but one third of it was recap, the jokes were corny at best and the non-action scenes were pretty cheesy. Also, are these men really supposed to be high school students? I mean, how many grades did these punks repeat anyway?
ED: Boring J-Rock
Potential: 5%

Eden of the East I – The King of Eden Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Eden of the East



After watching this movie, I’m sure of it: Higashi no Eden should never have been a Noitamina-series. The time-slot is perfect for those short stories that have a small but dedicated focus a la Tokyo Magnitude, slice of life stories like Hataraki Man and Antique Bakery or episodic series in the way of Kuchuu Buranko or Hakaba Kitarou. Series that want to tell a huge story are far better off with a regular time-slot of 26 or more. This is the mistake that shows as Library Wars and Jyu Oh Sei also made. The series of Higashi no Eden just jumped around too much to really allow the story to develop properly.

The movie’s pacing is completely different. It’s here where Kenji Kawayama has more than enough time to spend on telling his story. And that’s exactly what made it work for me. It’s a shame that the build-up of the first season left things to be desired, because otherwise it really would have been an excellent movie.

And seriously, I was expecting the two Eden of the East Movies to jump around just like the TV-series did. Instead, they focus on believability and realism. The background sounds are kept to a minimal. And instead we get to see long, long scenes of character-building that don’t attempt to cut any corners whatsoever. It really takes its time to let everything flow naturally, which makes for a very slow-paced movie, but the characterization is worth it. This really is just like Seirei no Moribito: not afraid to get boring in order to be realistic, which often has its uneventful times. It’s been a while since I’ve had the chance to watch such an anime, and it’s without a doubt refreshing and I’ve got to admire the restraint of this movie, avoiding the use of overly cheesy monologues or over the top plot twists, while occasionally packing a punch where needed.

There are a bunch of weird things with this movie, though. While the TV-series did a surprisingly good job at handling the language barrier, the movie… um… didn’t. One scene shows Saki talk in English to an American with a really weird accent who uses really short sentences. A while later, we see Akira talk to the same guy, in JAPANESE. The American understands him and just talks back in English. Uh, why? How? There are also some of the side-characters that I still couldn’t buy. The comic relief of Saki’s friends… I’m still not much a fan of them.

Nevertheless, I have to admit: a lot of attention to detail was put in the atmosphere of a young company. I can very much relate to that (due to my current internship and all), and I must say that the creators caught it spot-on. And that’s really the great thing about this movie: the realism that you really don’t get to see in many other anime. Despite the hiccups, this movie was really refreshing compared to how the TV-series disappointed me. There are still a ton of questions that need to be answered in terms of the plot. But hey, with 90 minutes, Paradise Lost should be able to do it.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Much more focused than the TV-series. Really slow pacing allows for lots of realism.
Characters: 8/10 – Such a slow pacing gives a nice feel to the characters, but they still spend a bit too much time on exposition + badly portrayed Americans.
Production-Values: 9/10 – No significant increase in quality compared to the TV-series, but that one already looked awesome so there still is a ton of eye-candy.
Setting: 8/10 – I first want to see what Paradise Lost is going to do before celebrating this part: there is a ton of potential in this setting, provided that the next movie handles it well.

Maria-Sama Ga Miteru Fourth Season Review – 87,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



The previous seasons all sort-of picked a bunch of characters, who surrounded the two lead characters of Yumi and Sachiko, and developed them. This season however, is different. It leaves most of the characters for what they are, and instead just picks one: Touko. While she might not have the most airtime, the entire fourth season is so written to explore her character to the fullest. Considering that she already had quite a bit of depth thanks to the second and third season, it’s perhaps not much of a surprise that this fourth season of Maria-Sama ga Miteru is my favourite one yet.

You could see Maria-Sama ga Miteru as a slice-of-life series, and indeed there are a ton of scenes in which we see the regular lives of the characters. However, I prefer to see it much more as a character-study: it’s always thinking to show off new sides of characters. It’s always thinking of ways to evolve them or give them more depth. You can see this not just in the main ones, but also the side characters. And really: we’re four seasons in at this point. When you add everything, the total amount of character-development in this season reaches higher than ever.

But the real star of this season is Touko. Basically, the creators try to pull something similar as to the climax of the second season, but it’s much more well balanced, and the conclusion is much more satisfying. The interplay between Touko and Yumi is explored really well. It’s emotional, and yet it doesn’t try to be too melodramatic (especially not when compared to the standards of most other anime).

Unfortunately, the animation isn’t up to par with what we’re used to from this season. Granted, it did have to follow up the great standards of an OVA, but I guess that at the time of this series’ production, Studio Deen’s best artists were working on… Jigoku Shoujo, Higurashi Rei and 07-Ghost, I guess. Faces in the background are often distorted and ugly and lack a quality check. There’s enough movement, though, so at least the creators didn’t try go take the cheap way out. This show certainly can’t complain about its inbetweeners.

But yeah. This is pretty much what you get when you give series the opportunity to fully shine by not suddenly cutting them off after 26 episodes: they really get to show their full potential. With nearly 50 episodes at its disposal, its character-development really set itself apart from most other high-school series out there. Here’s to hoping that many more series get this chance.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Well balanced slice of life and drama. Makes really well use of its setting as an elite high school.
Characters: 10/10 – Continues building up to the huge amount of character-development that this series already had.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Great inbetweeners, key-frames often lack quality checks.
Setting: 8/10 – There are already tons and tons of high school series. This is one of the few that actually makes this setting stand apart from the others.

Kobato Review – 87,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Kobato




Kobato is one of those series that at first sight isn’t anything special. It starts with a premise, and repeats that for a bunch of episodes with a number of questionable results. In Kobato’s case, she has to heal a number of people’s hearts. I too wasn’t that much interested by this premise, having seen a few too many series with similar premises that never really went anywhere in the end. Kobato however, did.

The people that Kobato heals in the first half of this series range from nice enough to mediocre, so it’s understandable to get turned off at first. But oh, the character-development in the second half more than makes up for it. This is one of those series which is greater than the sum of its part. Through its entire airtime, it never forgets what it’s supposed to be, and what it’s supposed to build-up for. Every of the early episodes spends time to flesh out the characters, while the later episodes use this build-up to deliver with an excellent emotional impact, resulting in a heart-warming series.

Kobato truly stands out in how incredibly genuine she is. I found her an airhead at first, but her personality and innocence turned out to be so addictive that I couldn’t help but root for her. And true, the story in the second half can get pretty soppy at times, but this isn’t the show that tries to pull deus ex machina for extra drama, and instead carefully builds it up.

Madhouse has done the animation, and despite that you can easily see that this wasn’t the series that their best artists were working on, they still delivered great graphics, allowing Clamp’s character-designs to shine, along with a few episodes that look absolutely gorgeous.

Kobato’s story is very simple, but it has really proven that it’s in no way a disadvantage. Due to its simple plot it had all of the time it needed to properly tell the story that it wanted to do. the ending is wonderfully un-rushed, and provides an amazing conclusion to the series that made optimal use of the time it spent on building up. This isn’t a series for people who dislike overdramatic-ish series due to the soppy parts, but this series’ second half hit all of the right buttons for me.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Never forgets the meaning of build-up. Simple, but very effective.
Characters: 9/10 – Excellent character-development, though the drama can get a bit soppy at times.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Madhouse rocks, even in their less-budgetted series.
Setting: 8/10 – Good attention to detail to the series’ small surroundings, plus some Clamp references that don’t feel forced or rushed.

Marie & Gali Review – 87,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



One of the many things I love about writing this blog is being able to promote those unknown gems that most people haven’t heard of. Whether it’s because of a lack of subs, bad advertisement, a kiddish look or something else that caused only few people to give it a chance. Let me now sing praises over the series that I consider to be the best comedy-series out of all the series that I watched during the past four seasons: Marie and Gali.

From the outside, this looks like a cheesy kids’ show. And you know what? It is. However, it very quickly set itself apart as a one of a kind kids’ show. Episodes are only five minutes long, but every single episode delivers. Every single episode is hilarious. There are absolutely no weak moments. There are no jokes that fall flat. Heck, there are hardly any jokes that even get recycled! Every second of this show just sparkles with creativity.

Basically, this is a series that has been designed to make science fun for kids. And you know what? It more than succeeded. License this series, put a bunch of kids in front of it and they’ll love it. Throughout the series, great names as Galileo Galilei, Marie Curie, Isaac Newton, Thomas Edison, Archimedes, Charles Darwin and a bunch more explain the principles of physics. It parodies them, but it also celebrates the great achievements that these people made in their times. It never takes itself seriously; instead, every moment was dedicated to make the different topics it discusses fun.

But what really set this show above all other comedies for me was its seemingly endless pit of creativity. The examples that the creators use in order to illustrate their points are beyond imaginative. It always has something unexpected in store, and every episode has something original. The entire script just sparkles with tons of nice ideas that the creators stuffed into the scenario. Because of this, I just kept looking forward to this series week after week.

Granted, the characters themselves are nowhere near realistic. They all act incredibly over the top, and often act a bit too much to their character-traits. However, I couldn’t help but love to seeing Marika (the lead character) gradually getting caught up in the frantic pacing of the rest of the characters. This show is incredibly hyperactive, but I truly consider this to be amongst my top 10 of favourite comedy anime that I’ve ever seen.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Every single episode delivers. Consistently hilarious and over the top and always pulls something unexpected.
Characters: 8/10 – Wonderful characters, although a bit too one sided, perhaps.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Everything looks like a visual feast, courtesy of Toei.
Setting: 10/10 – Makes science even more awesome than it already was. Sparkles with creativity.