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Some Quick Reviews: Bungaku Shoujo, Two Walnuts and Kowarekake no Orgol

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews

This is a bit of an experiment. All these three titles are pretty short and I don’t have much to say about them individually, but I might as well make a combined entry that talks a bit about all of them.

Bungaku Shoujo

This one’s a strange 15-minute special about a girl who loves books so much that she eats them. Seriously, she imagines the stories she reads very vividly and compares them to food, only to eat the paper the stories are written on literally. While I liked some of the food analogies, I overall fail to see the point of this release. To me it just seems like a really long commercial for the manga, light novel or whatever this story is based on. There is potential if it can get itself a proper TV-series: if they can make this into a sort-of story about stories, and put more emphasis on the latter than the former unlike what was done here, it might become interesting enough to warrant a watch. But even then it’s going to have to really put work in making its characters interesting. This OVA though… I can only imagine recommending it to someone who already is interested in the source material to have a quick look on what it is about.
Rating: 70/100

The Two Walnuts

This has to be one of the lazier premises of a World War II movie I’ve seen. Instead of just taking a person who actually lived through the hellish period, and expanding upon his or her life, the creators just had to take a kid who lives in 2007 and magically transport her back to a few days before the bombing of Tokyo. The rest of the antics are predictable: while the creators did well in showing the hardships of those times (especially the cruelty to animals is a major theme) it’s just all too easy for the lead character. At the end the creators try to create sympathy by going Tomino, but the melodramatic way in which these deaths are acted out is just a mockery of the real Tokyo Bombings. Stay away from this one, if you want WW2-movies: instead go with those from the eighties and nineties.
Rating: 65/100

Kowarekake no Orgol
Again, this is just a random commercial for whatever manga or visual novel it’s based on. The problem is that it was unbelievably boring, and what impressed me the most was how it kept dodging any sort of explanation of what’s going on. Seriously, every time that it’s about to explain something, it quickly cuts to some sort of boring slice of life scene. That doesn’t really work in a one-shot OVA. At this point we have some sort of story about a guy who finds a broken down android, who dies and wakes up again a couple of times, but how and why are never explained. And on top of that, the characters themselves are boring and cliched, especially their back-stories (or whatever this episode dared to show of them, anyways). It’s obviously a slice of life OVA, so if you like that then be my guest and ignore this mini-review, but for me I only find slice of life around characters I don’t care about boring.
Rating: 60/100

King of Bandits Jing – In Seventh Heaven OVA Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Okay, so usually I don’t write reviews for OVAs that are based on a series, because often they’re just too similar to the series they’re based on, or just random side-stories that aren’t meant to be judged as standalone products. There are exceptions of course, when an OVA goes into completely its own direction, and improves significantly on the series it’s based on, I do want to promote it a bit and say a few things about it.

And an excellent example of this is King of Bandits Jing’s OVA. The TV-series itself was all over the place; some episodes were awesome, though most of them were very simplistic and unimpressive. Now here the OVA comes, and it takes the best parts of the series, and just goes all out into an awesome mindscrew.

The visual direction really is amazing. It takes place in a semi-dreamworld, and just about every shot is creative, and beautifully drawn. There’s so much creativity put into just three episodes. If you finished the TV-series and liked its weird stuff, then you owe it to yourself to take a look at it, because it’s entertainment at its finest.

The three episodes are also completely different from each other. The first is chock-full of visual comedy and uses its creativity and unique direction to create a very entertaining adventure through a dreamlike world. The second episode is more serious, and actually tells about Jing’s past. While he doesn’t exactly gain much depth, it’s still very interesting to watch. The third episode in its turn is a character-study of the major villain, which was very interesting and well scripted.

Thanks to Jing’s tongue-in-cheek personality this OVA has a unique feel, but it’s not to the point where the style gets in the way of what’s important. The characters’ antics and the visuals are just as important and the animation is actually really good. Add to that that one of the best character-designers out there has worked on this, and you’ve got something consistently entertaining.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Tongue-in-cheek execution with tons and tons of creativity.
Characters: 8/10 – Great emphasis on character background despite the weirdness.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Absolutely stunning designs.
Setting: 8/10 – Tons of nice and neat ideas, though the concept of the series remains questionable.

Armored Trooper Votoms – The Brilliant Heretic Review – 77,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



The Brilliant Heretic OVA was made in 1994. It never actually got subbed, but a raw version is available, so I decided to check out its content. It’s set about 30 years after the end of the television series and so it’s the only OVA so far to be a sequel to the series, rather than a prequel. As a series from the Votoms Franchise, it just isn’t as refined as Ryousuke Takahashi’s other works, however it’s still an interesting watch.

One thing that will be hard to swallow in this OVA is that the main focus doesn’t fall on any of the lead characters. Instead, we have Chirico doing what he does best (fighting), Vanilla providing support, Gotho has degraded in some sort of a mad old man, and Fyana really has gotten the short end of the straw because she’s nothing more than a damsel in distress throughout the entire OVA. A role that she avoided so well in the TV-series! The rest of the cast doesn’t appear at all, and instead the depth in this series comes from the setting, and in particular one new female character.

This new character is actually pretty interesting, in the way that she fits in the political system of the setting, but she’s not perfect. She’s quite a bit cliched and her *sigh* romantic feelings fail to make any impact. The relationship with her father is very interesting, though. I think my favourite part were the ones that focused on the politics: at first sight they’re simple but they’re actually quite interesting.

The animation is very inconsistent: it ranges from very stiff to really good, though most of the animation edges to the former. There are a number of scenes that have the same kind really smooth animation that Ryousuke Takahashi would later perfect in Gasaraki.

However, because of one final twist this really is a must-watch for any Votoms Fan. I’m not going to spoil exactly what’s going to happen, but while this series doesn’t live up to Ryousuke Takahashi’s usual high standard, and the new characters while they have their times of depth also have their times of shallowness, it really doesn’t deserve that it’s not gotten subbed.

Storytelling: 8/10 – A bit disjointed, but interesting politics, the same dark atmosphere as Votoms.
Characters: 7/10 – A bit of a mixed bag.
Production-Values: 7/10 – Again: mixed bag.
Setting: 9/10 – Interesting setting that tries out many new and different things.

Some Quick First Impressions: Nodame Cantabile – Finale

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Nodame Cantabile – Finale

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is studying hard.
Well, the big question with this series is of course: is it going to recapture the magic of the stellar first season, or is it simply going to turn into a nice though uneventful romantic comedy of the second season. The big problem here is Chiaki Kon, as she’s well on her way to become Shinbo II in the way that she’s been directing way too many series for the past two years. This episode started off pretty nice, setting up the premise for this season: Nodame getting her own concert. It’s about time for her to really develop, though, because I’m starting to get annoyed with her antics.
OP: Decent, but not very impressive.
ED: A quiet ballad, but again nothing special.
Potential: 60%

Gag Manga Biyori Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Okay, so I got interested in the rest of the Gag Manga Biyori after watching the first episode of its fourth season, so I tracked down the first season (unfortunately, the complete second and third season are nowhere to be found). I’m glad I did, because it really is an awesome comedy. Good luck finding a series with more energy than this one.

To give a bit of an indication of the chaos of this show: imagine one of the fast paced episodes of Gintama. Make that pace twice as fast, and you’ve got your average episode of Sexy Commando Gaiden. Double the pacing yet again, and you’ve got an average episode of Gag Manga Biyori. It’s just insane in every single way. After watching this series, I actually tried watching an episode of Hetalia Axis Powers in between. While that usually was an energetic comedy, it suddenly became incredibly boring and slow paced in comparison.

Every episode is five minutes long and shows a standalone story that shows a bunch of random people doing something random. About half of them take place in the past and show famous historic people, while the other half takes place in modern times and parodies something to the extreme. Every episode is funny in its own way, and three in particular were absolute classics for me (the sticker, the end of the world and the death episode). There are a few episodes that drag on a bit too much, but the set of brilliant episodes more than make up for it.

This type of humour of course isn’t to everyone’s tastes, but if you liked Sexy Commando Gaiden then you’ll also like this, because it’s taken its randomness much, much further. I really urge people to at least not ignore the fourth season that’s currently airing. Somehow get it subbed, because it’s a unique comedy. I also loved how every episode has a different ED, where only the… um… lyrics… remain the same. I really wonder what mindset the performers were in when they recorded them…

Storytelling: 9/10 – Insane. Just insane.
Characters: 8/10 – Nearly every episode has completely new and unrelated characters.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Looks simple, but the animation is surprisingly fluid for a comedy.
Setting: 8/10 – Instead of taking the more obvious historical figures, this chronicles the people that most western anime fans have never even heard of.

A Quick Look and Review of AnimeTV

by psgels, posted in Special Articles

If you’re wondering what’s up with this post: I was actually asked by the marketers of AnimeTV to review their first episode. It’s awesome to see such a request from a professional company, but at the same time that’s not going to stop me from giving it a fair review. AnimeTV basically is presented by Johnny Yong Bosch and Christina Vee, and it shows reviews of mainstream anime and interviews of important people in the American anime business. Right from the start it’s clear that it’s aimed at teenagers, rather than a wider demographic, so I’m not exactly the target audience, but here’s what I think about it:

Episodes are split up in three parts. The first part is called the “Hima segment”, where a panel of four people basically discusses what they’ve been watching, reading or playing. Basically a round of quick recommendations. The first part is a pretty nice recommendation for the Strongest Disciple Kenichi; it discusses why it’s more interesting than your average shounen, and even though it would have been interesting to see them discuss some of the lesser parts of the manga, it piqued my interest. After that there was a nice part about a new manga from Clamp and how they refuse to do cute stuff.

The segment completely derails after that, though. An overly obsessed Naruto fangirl starts rambling a completely incoherent story that clearly wasn’t prepared beforehand. In about one minute, she basically did just about everything that you shouldn’t do when making a quick recommendation: it’s incredibly disjointed, nonsensical for people who aren’t familiar with the Naruto franchise, instead of talking about what makes it good, she starts shipping her favourite couples, she imagines herself in the storyline and she actually spoils part of the storyline (way to go in a segment that’s meant to get people interested in a franchise…). This is the kind of talk that you’d expect in a bad fanfiction forum, not in such a professionally produced video like this.

After that another guy talks about the Yugioh trading card game, but he never really says anything about it. If I watched this video without knowing about it, I’d still be clueless. He just rambles on and on about how he pwns at the game, but that’s about it. People from Revision3: you wanted my opinion on this bit, and here it is: dump these two dimwits and replace them with two people who do know how to voice their opinions properly. You’ve got such a great opportunity to record a program to promote anime in a professional environment. You can’t waste it on these two people.

The next segment shows an interview, as we get to see inside the Bang Zoom studios (the same that was invaded by Conan o’Brien a few months ago, apparently), and an interview with a voice actors and one of its executives. This may just be me being outside of this show’s target audience, but that interviewer got very much on my nerves. He placed too much emphasis on himself, and too little on the actual people he tried to interview. I’m not sure whether teenagers would appreciate that style of interviewing more, though. When the interview actually gets to business, I guess it’s interesting enough, though not anything special. The second interview was a bit cheap, because the guy who was interviewed also worked as the producer of AnimeTV. It must not have been hard to get an appointment with him…

The third and final segment is an actual review of a mainstream anime, and I think that this is the best part of AnimeTV. What makes it more interesting than your average review is that the creators basically put four people in one room, and all of them have different opinions on what they watched. This is actually a pretty good way to collect different opinions. The fanboy and fangirl are back, though, and while they’re a bit better here, they pretty much stated the obvious and the girl again couldn’t resist to comment on the hotness on one of the male characters.

My basic issue with AnimeTV is that while they have nice ideas, a lot of the reviewers and interviewers don’t really make use of the unique opportunity here. They’re part of the Invision 3 network, which also has many other shows that are not about anime, and thus it has the potential to get non-anime fans curious into the franchise. If you then have a rambling Naruto fangirl going on and on about how she’d like to marry one of the characters, then that’s only going to have the opposite effect. With good reviewers however, it has the potential to be an interesting show.

Maria-Sama ga Miteru – Haru Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



I now see that it’s not exactly right to call Maria-Sama ga Miteru a shoujo ai series. If you want lesbians, there’s Aoi Hana, Sasameki Koto, Blue Drop or Candy Boy. Instead, it’s more like a relation-focused drama series that just hardly has any male characters in it. The second season continues pretty much where the first one left off, but it focuses more on drama than on the slice of life.

And it’s really the same typical drama of this series, that tends to make an elephant out of a mosquito. Because of how elegant the culture inside the school and especially the “student council” that this series focuses on is, the creators can really make the simplest things seem like huge problems, without overdoing it and delving into melodrama. Though granted, the second season seemed to be edging for that line a bit more than the first season did.

However, it also continues developing its terrific set of characters, who still remain the selling point of this series. What’s special about this season is that various characters come and leave, and so the main cast at the end of the series looks quite a bit different from what it looked like in the beginning. There’s a ton of background, extra depth and character-development in this season, which makes it worth watching if you enjoyed the first season.

I still think that my favourite episodes are in the first season (the Sei episode), however on average the second season is superior: it’s more consistent and overall more interesting development, although the final arc may have taken things a bit too much overboard. The graduation arc however rocked. It was subtle yet touching, and so many characters were developed in that arc alone.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Elegant atmosphere, subtle drama.
Characters: 9/10 – Tons of extra development, background and depth for the cast of characters.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Great character-designs, gentle music.
Setting: 8/10 – An unique portrayal of a catholic school, unlike most stereotypical portrayals of the elite you see in your average anime.

Some Quick First Impressions: Hanamaru Yochien, Seikon no Qwaser and Kaito Reinya

by psgels, posted in Hanamaru Youchien, Some Quick First Impressions

Haramaru Yochien

Short Synopsis: Our lead character starts his new job at a kindergarten for moeblobs.
First, let me say this: this show rocks for having absolutely no teenagers in them! It only focuses on young adults and 4-year-old kids, while teenagers only appear in a few flashbacks. Aside from that, it was a bit of a strange series; the best way to describe it would be a cross between Potemayo and Kodomo no Jikan. It has the moeblobs from Potemayo if they were to 3 years older, and it has a similar teacher to Kodomo no Jikan, even including a similar love-interest of his. The biggest problem with this sereis is obviously that most of the characters are too one-sided or stereotypical, but it does work. This episode was enjoyable slice of life. I especially enjoyed those small scenes after school. What this series needs to do is to somehow remain as light-hearted and enjoyable as it was here, not repeat itself too much, and flesh out the cast beyond the stereotypes that we’ve seen so far. If it’s going to focus on the romance, then I hope for something similar to Yume de Aetara (the OVA, not the TV-series. By GOD, not the TV-series).
ED: This is why voice actresses that pretend to be little kids should never sing.
Potential: 50%

Seikon no Qwaser

Short Synopsis: Our lead character wants to protect her seemingly retarded sister as much as possible.
Ugh… that sister. What a horrible voice actress she received. Just about everything about her is annoying. Apart from that, this episode was decent. There’s potential for a decent action-series, although the direction was flawed at times (one moment the camera pans across a classroom, and the next shot from out of nowhere a girl with a ridiculous pink hairstyle just appears). About half the cast is interesting, while the rest of the cast are just dull stereotypes with a one-sided personality. The lead character herself is decent, but has a nasty tendency to overact. For this series to work, it’s really going to have to put in effort to correctly pace its storyline, and not waste time on pointless beach, hot spring and pool episodes.
OP:
ED: What was the mindset the creators were in when they came up with these visuals?
Potential: 30%

Kaito Reinya

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a phantom thief in the city with the most incompetent police.
There’s an art to making a good comedy: actually making it FUNNY. That’s something that Kaito Reinya completely fails at. It’s full of corny and overused jokes, the slapstick with the mouse is so bad that it becomes horrible, and the constant references to phantom thieves are uninspired at best. I guess that this series’ selling poing is that it’s fully animated in flash, but even that looks lazy: Hanoka, which was produced three years earlier, looked much better than this uninspired… thing.
OP: Obnoxious explanation of the premise of the show.
ED: Not really an ED, more like just a credit role.
Potential: 0%

Some Quick First Impressions: Ookami Kakushi, Dance in the Vampire Bund and Omamori Himari

by psgels, posted in Ookami Kakushi, Some Quick First Impressions

Ookami Kakushi

Short Synopsis: Our lead character moves into a new town and immediately gets himself a new girlfriend.
Yeah, the thing with this season is that just about every show has some sort of overused anime cliche, even the good ones. In any case, the best way to describe this episode was: intriguing. It was basically mostly introductory with a lot of slice of life and a few hints here and there that the town that the main character moved into is screwed up. It’s very promising, the characters are very moeified, but it’s not like they’re stereotypes and they’ve got potential to grow and develop. It also has the best soundtrack I’ve heard so far this season. Now, the question is mostly going to be: is it the creators’ intention to fully animate this story, or are they just going to stop in the middle?
OP: Yuki Kajiura delivers one of the best OPs of the new season.
ED: Pretty decent ballad.
Potential: 70%%

Dance in the Vampire Bund

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is the leader of the Vampires. And a little girl.
The biggest problem with this series is of course going to be Shinbo: is he going to be able to adapt this story properly, or is he just going to repeat himself and focus on the complete wrong parts of the story? I remember the last time he tried to do a series with a little girl who was a vampire (Tsukuyomi Moonphase), which turned out to be a pain to sit through. Though granted, this episode gave a much better first impression. There’s no way to measure it up to the rest of the series, because it was clearly an introductory episode, but let me say the following: if the rest of the episodes are going to be as interesting as this episode, then we’ve got ourselves a success. The TV-program about the existence of vampires was a nice touch, but none of the main characters really got a lot of screentime.
ED: Boring J-rock.
Potential: 50%

Omamori Himari

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets to be protected by a hot chick.
Now this is really is one of those shows that I’d label as terrible. A few cliches here and there doesn’t usually hurt, but when a series packs a ton of cliches EVERY… SINGLE… MINUTE… then it becomes a huge problem. This series rips off just about everything in this episode from other harem shows. The cat allergy? Hello, Nyan Koi. The hot chick with mysterious powers that suddenly protects the lead characters? How often haven’t we seen that one before? The childhood friend who is in love with the lead character and wakes him up in the morning? Come on, please. Probably the most blatant part is the set of character-designs that it shamelessly ripped off 11Eyes: did it seriously think to get away with the lead character, who looks like a more energetic Yuka with only a different hair and eye colour? And how about that teacher, who also looks EXACTLY the same aside from her hair and eye colours? For the most part of this season, I’m being more lenient than usual because how week it’d otherwise become, but this is just nothing. It’s nothing that we haven’t seen before taken to the extreme, the build-up is abysmal. Only go for this one if you’re a hardcore romantic comedy fan or just like to see boobs or panty-shots.
ED: Obnoxious J-pop. Blegh.
Potential: 0%%

Some quick First Impressions: Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu, Durarara!!, Gag Manga Biyori +

by psgels, posted in Durarara, Some Quick First Impressions

Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is an idiot and the smartest girl in school is in love with him.
I have to admit: when this episode started with the lead female who kept having what sounded like orgasms until she fainted, I didn’t have much faith. But what do you know, it turned out to be a parody. Seriously, despite the high school cliches this episode was fun to watch, not just because it kept poking fun at them, but also because of the high production values and its concept that’s completely ridiculous, but a war between classrooms is a somewhat creative way of spending your time in high school. The cliches are definitely there (I’m mostly annoyed by the two lead characters), but I’m glad enough to see that we finally have a high school series that tries something different.
OP: Great animation and a decent song to boot.
ED: Catchy and actually nice art.
Potential: 50%

Durarara!!

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a socially awkward teenager and has just moved to a new city.
And here we probably have the most-hyped series of the season, and with the staff behind it I too have been looking forward to it. The result is very promising; while this episode in itself wasn’t exactly awesome, it was great at building up: the dialogue was inspired, the action was short but sweet, the music was really good and the whole city that this episode took place in was detailed and gave off the feeling that it was alive and an actual modern city. I know the director (I’ve seen tons of series from him, and there hasn’t been any series that I didn’t like among them); this guy is terrific at building-up, so I have no doubt that this is going to be a great series, and the question is more going to be like “how good will this end up?”, rather than “will it be good at all?”. Right now, the things that could get in its way are its stereotypical portrayal of punks and foreigners (something that tons of anime suffer from), and how the lead character is surprisingly cliched (see synopsis).
OP: Great music, but the vocal seems a bit of a miscast.
ED: Solid ED, even though it’s a bit too poppy for my tastes.
Potential: 100%

Gag Manga Biyori +

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a famous French painter and has issues.
Okay, so this is actually the first thing I’ve seen from the Gag Manga Biyori franchise. Now that I watched it… I can only describe it as madness. This episode was just crazy in every single way, but I actually liked it a lot. The jokes were… creative to say the least and the dialogue is surprisingly complex for a supposed comedy. It also really helps that it’s got what’s probably the most consistent comedy-director behind it: Akitaro Daichi.
OP: Nice enough opening for a comedy anime. And completely random as well.
ED: Those lyrics… I’m speechless.
Potential: 80%