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Gosenzosama Banbanzai Review – 87,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Mamoru Oshii really is one of the most unique anime directors out there, his sense of dialogue is really unrivalled. Gosenzosama Banbanzai came from the period in which he was still in his experimental phase. As a result, this has been one of the most unique OVAs I’ve seen, there truly is nothing like it, even though it’s already 20 years old by now. It’s a unique take on the genre of series that focuses on long strings of dialogue, and gets the formula right.

The only way to get a really good impression on what this OVA is about is to actually watch it, but to give an attempt to describe this thing: the setting is incredibly simplistic. Every episode takes place for about 90% in one single room, with only a select number of cameras that it feels like a stage. In fact, the creators often use stage-lights to confirm this. On these stages, the anime shows all of the different characters engaging in seemingly endless dialogues and monologues, often about things that at first sight don’t even seem to matter.

In this OVA, Mamoru Oshii brilliantly manages to tell his story through this dialogue, in which he loves taking his arguments to the absurd while making them seem like they make sense by creating a context in which they seemingly do. The dialogues and monologues are brilliant at messing with their own logic and taking the piss out of themselves, and yet at the same time they manage to create a serious story with quite a number of interesting twists.

The visuals in this series also rock. Like I said, they’re simplistic: there are hardly any changes of cameras, but this has enabled the animators to really focus on animating the characters, and the results show. The animation is incredibly smooth and a lot of effort has been put into making the characters move naturally. On top of that, the visual direction also provides plenty of strong shots, creative situations and simple yet effective action-scenes.

It’s really a shame that they don’t make anime like this anymore. There really aren’t many series that can claim to be as unique and yet as well produced as Gosenzosama Banbanzai. With an excellent soundtrack done by Kenji Kawai and a great stab at in-series advertising more than fifteen years before Code Geass came with its Pizza Hut, I really recommend this for those who are looking for something short and different.

Storytelling: 10/10
Characters: 8/10
Production-Values: 9/10
Setting: 8/10

First Squad Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



I remember how I watched the original First Squad Music Video, and thought to myself “this is awesome, they should make more about this”. Well, someone at Studio 4C must have heard this, because here it is: a full one-hour-length movie about Russia during the second World War. And really, they’ve done it again. First Squad yet again stands out with its absolutely gorgeous graphics and new ideas that the producers could try out in this movie.

Out of all the anime studios out there, Studio 4C see anime the most as an international medium, rather than just something for Japanese audiences. First Squad is probably the first Japanese-Russian co-production, as it shows a bit of WWII from the Russian perspective, combined with a fictional story of the occult, the realm of the dead, and packaging everyting as a semi-documentary with live-action bits of people from all sorts of backgrounds, who tell about their experiences during the war, and their comments on the story of this movie.

And I know that I talked down on live action during the past days, but here’s one who actually gets it right, and I think that this has been the best combination of animation and live-action I’ve seen: the live-action serves to add that bit of extra depth to the setting, while it never gets in the way of the animation. It’s a very neat idea, and really works.

And yeah, I just have to mention the graphics for this movie, which turn it into a visual feast. The character-designs are typical of Studio 4C, and they really make use of the advances in CG of today in order to mesh the two seamlessly. The animation itself isn’t as good as your average movie, but the sheer beauty of all of the different shots definitely makes up for it.

You can see that the story and characters take a bit of a back-seat in favour of the setting and animation, but they’re in no way bad. The story revolves around a typical plot to summon an evil demon to help the Nazis, but it’s well built up, and it slowly unfolds as the movie goes on. Despite its simplicity, the story is well told and will keep your attention. The lead character is a teenaged girl who somehow weilds a katana in Russia, but again: her background is nicely explored, and she serves her function. My only complaint here is that the story ended with a rather pointless cliff-hanger, even though the creators could have easily just ended it.

Storytelling: 8/10
Characters: 7/10
Production-Values: 9/10
Setting: 9/10

Some Quick First Impressions: Sora no Otoshimono, Miracle Train and Natsu no Arashi! Akinai-Chuu

by psgels, posted in Natsu no Arashi, Some Quick First Impressions

Sora no Otoshimono

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets his own god-mode android angel servant.
Well hello… fanservice. Well, at least this shows knows its target audience, but it still puzzles me why they don’t just turn these concepts into hentai-series. Here we have a series in which an android angel servant falls from the sky, and the lead character just happens to be at the right time and place to have her bump into him so that she makes a contract with him and fulfills every of his wishes. The guy is your typical teenager, so you can imagine how he ends up abusing these powers. The series has the typical flaws of a harem-series: lots of clichés (he gets woken up by a cute childhood friend, there’s a huge magical sakura tree near where they live, et cetera), pointless fanservice and a male lead of who you wonder why he’s even popular with girls. I think the biggest flaw of this series is the lead character himself. Sure, there have certainly been worse versions of him, but his attempts at being funny just end up as annoying and his voice-acting is pretty annoying to listen to. I liked the white-haired guy, but overall this is just a waste of a perfectly good budget.
ED: I presume that the animation is going to be filled in the next episode. The song is nothing special, but not particularly bad.
Potential: 10%

Miracle Train

Short Synopsis: Our lead character tries to help troubled ladies along with his team of bishies.
Aha, Iyashi-kei! It’s been a while since we had one of those. This episode really had that typical calming atmosphere of the Iyashi-kei series, but at the same time it also has a lot of issues. Most notably, the bishies. I like the idea of personified subway stations helping passengers through their worries, but did they really have to look like a bunch of ugly bishies with ridiculous hairstyles? Most of the time they’re acting like stereotypes as well, especially that yellow-haired guy was obnoxious. Especially the scenes in which they talk to each other are cringe-worthy. Nevertheless, when push comes to shove it does manage to pull off a nice down-to-earth story for the troubled passengers. If the future episodes can focus more on those passengers and less on the bishies, we could have something very interesting here.
OP: Cheesy J-rock. Move on.
ED: Slightly better, but still generic J-rock
Potential: 50%

Natsu no Arashi! Akinai-Chuu

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is surrounded by lots of cute girls.
Like White Album, I’ve been heavily debating whether or not to blog the second season of Natsu no Arashi. Sure, the first season was very good, but this is Shinbo, after all. No matter how good the source material, I have this feeling that he’s going to take its style to extremes again while forgetting what’s really important. And really, it didn’t help that this episode was probably the worst of the entire series. It was a beach-episode, but the thing is that it just wasn’t funny. The whole episode was just a string of random fanservice-jokes, and lacked the wit or subtlety from the first season. Among the rest of the jokes were also lots of recycled ones (the creators are still going on about Hajime vs Jun, the salmon-thing returned yet again and the creators were even desperate enough to recycle a joke from Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei and the Samurai-Jokes from Pani Poni Dash!). Sure, this series might pick back up, but this episode just showed too many signs that the creativity of Shinbo has run out, and I don’t want to blog this series just for the sake of finding out whether I’m right or not in this. Also, why the heck are the creators hinting at a romance between Jun and Hajime?!
OP: Like expected from Shaft, at least it has a pretty good OP. Creative visuals and nice music.
Potential: 30%

Some Quick First Impressions: Yumeiro Patissiere, Inu Yasha – Final Act and Tentai Senshi Sunred 2

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Yumeiro Patissiere

Short Synopsis: Our lead character wants to become a Patissiére.
Oh dammit. With a title as “Yumeiro Patissiere”, I was instantly reminded of series as Ristorante Paradiso, Antique Bakery and Bartender: mature series that for once focus on people with actual jobs, rather than teenagers or holy warriors or something. So yes, I was looking forward to this. And then it turns out to be a cheesy shoujo-series; what a disappointment. But yeah, it’s fair enough: there are so many shoujo series in which the lead character is a huge glutton, so it was only a matter of time before one would pop up that would focus entirely around this, and this episode did a nice enough job of introducing the concept, getting the lead character introduced and motivated to start making cakes and beg her parents to transfer to a cake making school. However, the lead character is really just a typical shoujo-lead with absolutely nothing that sets her apart, the live-action parts at the end were absolutely horrible, and what worries me the most: what the heck is going to be the role of these fairies that appear in the OP? Please don’t tell me that they’re going to Deus ex Machina the female lead to be the best patissiére in existence.
OP: Too! Much! Sugar!
ED: Annoying music with annoying dancing fairies.
Potential: 20%

Inuyasha – Final Act

Short Synopsis: Our lead character still isn’t done fighting evil spirits.
Well, this series jumps right into the action, doesn’t it? This really is typical Sunrise: it’s here to deliver some action, action and more action. I haven’t seen the original series, but I guess that it’s this fast pacing that made it so popular among the younger crowd. Overall, while this episode was full of techno-babble (or magic-babble, in this case), there were some nice themes in this story. The action, as abundant as it was, failed to make impact, though: it’s just a bunch of people throwing powers at each other, and lacked any sort of build-up. The attempts at comedy also failed. Overall though, it’s definitely not the worst, but I cringe at the thought of having to sit through 100 episodes of this.
OP: Standard J-rock, doesn’t stand out, with a typical shounen-esque visuals.
ED: Half the vocals feel like a mis-cast in what could have been at least a decent J-pop song.
Potential: 30%

Tentai Senshi Sunred 2

Short Synopsis: Our lead character fights evil.
Hell yeah! I’ve been anticipating this series, and it doesn’t disappoint. I’m glad that I gave this series a second chance, because it’s really pulled the best out of its concepts, without any signs of it getting dull. Sunred still is an awesome male lead character, in the way that he ‘s just about the complete opposite of your average superhero. The thing with this series is that it’s so frighteningly realistic at times, which really contrasts with the incredible stupidity of the villains when they challenge Sunred for the umpth time, simply because they feel like they should carry out their duties as an evil organization. My big fear is of course that curse that seems to plague a lot of comedy-sequels: preventing the humour from getting dull. Still, if any series is able to do it, it’s this one. The director has plenty of experience with hilarious series, and with Sunred he finally seems to have gotten the hang of how to properly use drama.
OP: Very catchy and not in a bad way at all. Great intro for this series.
OP2: Why the hell are there two OPs? Music is a bit less, but the visuals are subtle and funny and fully reflect what this series is about… sortof.
ED: Not as good as the first ED, but still a nice sentimental way to end such a strange series. Best ED of the season so far.
Potential: 70%

Some Quick First Impressions: Letter Bee, The Sacred Blacksmith and Shugo Chara! Party!

by psgels, posted in Letter Bee, Shugo Chara, Some Quick First Impressions

Letter Bee

Short Synopsis: Our lead character delivers packages and fights monsters.
Usually, series have a tendency to start out with a bang. Letter Bee however, is different, and instead very much takes its time. The scope of this episode is very limited: we just see three characters: a postal worker with a magic gun, a kid who lost his parents, and the postal worker’s dog. This episode progresses very quietly as the two of them meet and travel together, learn to deal with their differences, and explore each other’s problems (a very convenient power of the lead character seems to be that when he uses them, anyone can look into his heart). So yeah, because of that this wasn’t the most exciting episode of the new season, but if it picks up in the future it could be something interesting. The storytelling was solid, the characters are all fleshed out. Now all that’s left is the creators, making use of this.
OP: The song has nice vocals but fails to stand out otherwise, visuals are pretty basic foreshadowing.
ED: Again an impressive singer, but not really an impressive song.
Potential: 60%

The Sacred Blacksmith

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a rather incompetent teen-aged warrior.
Ah, I hate it when these series come that can really go anywhere. This series has absolutely gorgeous graphics and monster-designs, a snappy direction that really brings the best out of the different sword-fights that for once aren’t just focused on just slashing swords around, but also concentrate on the quality of each weapon. The characters are far away from stereotypes as well, and seem to have well-motivated back-stories. But yeah, on the other hand the lead character remains a moe teen-aged tsundere, and her love interest is a genius swordsman and blacksmith, despite also being a teenager. While on one hand, the lead character strikes me as an ambitious girl who takes initiatives, there’s also so much potential for this to turn into yet another one of those generic fantasy-series that never really goes anywhere, where she’s stuck as the eternal damsel in distress that always needs to be saved. The execution really rocks, but if the rest of the story doesn’t go anywhere then it’s just a waste to put such a powerhouse as Manglobe behind this series.
OP: Mostly just standard J-Pop with cheesy Engrish parts thrown into it.
ED: Again very generic J-Pop and the animation attempts to be cute but ultimately isn’t.
Potential: 60%

Shugo Chara! Party!

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets bugged by an overmoralistic elementary schooler.
I figured that I might as well check out what became of the extremely fillerish series that I once considered as something with potential, but oh my god. WTF have they done with this series!? The creators successfully brought the target audience down with six years with this episode, this now has turned into a series that you show to four-year olds. The entire first half of this episode was nothing more than the voice actresses for the different cute mascots of this series as they “attempted” to talk to their audience throughout the TV. Heck, Sesame Street is more mature than this… thing. The second half was actually animated, but there too you can see that the creators are going for an entirely different target audience this time, when they introduce an elementary schooler who is probably going to hog Amu’s place as a lead character with her powers to talk to X-Eggs. I disliked this series for having too many fillers, but this is a treatment that it definitely doesn’t deserve!
OP: THE proof why live-action should stay FAR away from anime. Cheesy J-pop at its worst.
ED: The live action! It burns! At least the song didn’t.
Potential: -50%

Some Quick First Impressions: A Certain Scientific Railgun, White Album II and Koi Shigure

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions, White Album

A Cetain Scientific Railgun

Short Synopsis: Our lead character possesses a godmode beam and fights crime.
Well, I now see why Solaris wanted me to blog this series. Talk about something completely different from A Certain Magical Index. Instead, this series takes place in a magic academy that is the most scientifically advanced city in the world, and whose 2,3 million population consists 80% out of students (they seriously expect us to take that seriously?). Overall, the only thing that impressed me here was the animation, which is indeed very smooth and a lot of time went into it. The rest failed to stand out though. Here we have yet another group of teenagers that fight crime, while the police is pointless and non-existent, and it’s another one of those series with a “teens rock adults suck”-mentality. The characters… well, they aren’t bad but overall they feel pretty bland and failed to catch my attention.
ED: Decent J-pop song, but nothing special. This probably is going to be the OP in the future episodes.
Potential: 30%

White Album II

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is well on his way to become the next Makoto Ito.
At this point, I’m really debating whether or not to blog the second season of this series. The first season started off so well, and I loved the subtlety in the storytelling, only for the characters to start incredibly overacting during the dramatic parts. Especially after Aoi Hana showed how to do such a premise properly. This episode really seemed to continue the series in the same veins: some of the subtle parts of this episode were really good, that sea was animated beautifully, I loved Kouta in the hospital near his father, but the dramatic parts were just too much. Considering that the shit hasn’t even hit the fan in this series, I really wonder whether it’s going to be able to deliver properly. It can still turn out to be a great series, the question is just whether or not I want to blog it if it does end up as a bad soap opera.
OP: Like the first, simple yet pleasing to the eyes with a nice song to boot.
ED: Slideshow, but a nice song nonetheless.
Potential: ??%

Koi Shigure

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters get dumped by the ones they’re in love with.
Ah, why not? I might as well write a short blurb about this one. Remember Vanessa from Michiko e Hatchin? Well, her voice-actress stars in what basically is a narrated slide-show about a bunch of love stories. The first instalment features three stories of about five minutes long, which tell about different women as they tell about their experiences in love, and how they were disappointed by it. If you’re not into these things, then Koi Shigure probably isn’t going to make you see the light, but nevertheless the short stories are nice to relax to. They’re nicely build-up considering their short length, and the background songs gave it a bit of a serene atmosphere. It’s a shame that after each story, this atmosphere gets brutally broken by an appearance of the song’s composers that tell about their experiences with this project… or something…
Potential: 40%

Some Quick First Impressions: Seitokai no Ichizon, Armed Librarians – The Book of Bantorra and Kämpfer

by psgels, posted in Armed Librarians - The Book of Bantorra, Some Quick First Impressions

Seitokai no Ichizon

Short Synopsis: Our lead character has his own harem as a member of the student council.
I was fully expecting this series to suck. The way that along with Kämpfer this was labelled as the clichéd moe show of the season, and the utterly horrid character-designs made me expect the worst out of this series. However, two things proved me wrong in particular: first of all, for once we have a bit of a “realistic” portrayal of a student council: just a bunch of teenagers goofing off and having fun, rather than a bunch of elitist bastards that are perfect in every single way and are looked up to by everyone in the school. Second of all: the male lead. This guy is a complete asshole and knows it. He’s so different from your average male lead in these kinds of shows. In fact, these horrible character-designs were exactly part of the point of this show: as a parody. There is no way that you should take this series seriously, and instead it attempts to parody just about everything moe. And really, for me it succeeded so far, I laughed quite a bit. The dialogue just hardly ever seemed to stop and there always seemed to be something going on. My main concern right now is that the creators seemed to be a bit too edging on including a bit of drama at the end of this episode. PLEASE STAY AWAY FROM THAT!!!
OP: Really cheesy J-pop song, but I think that that was the point.
ED: Very funny. Really quirky animation that works.
Potential: 50%

Armed Librarians – The Book of Bantorra

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is the leader of a group of strangely-dressed people that fights some sort of occult group.
Whoa, we’re already 2 days into the season and I’ve already found a contender of the most intriguing first episode of the Season. Armed Librarians is no pretty series: the characters, background and CG don’t mesh at all, and don’t ask me why all of the important characters have such weird outfits compared to everyone else. Nevertheless, it’s the story that caught my attention, which has a lot of nice ideas thrown into it. While at first sight it may seem like yet another band of heroes that fights generic evil organization, but the magic takes itself surprisingly serious: when the lead characters fight faceless goons and they cut off these people’s limbs they really start screaming, rather than just scream and fall down. The bad guys also make use of human bombs, talk about radical! There are lots of different characters, all with different intentions. This really looks like it’s going to be a series that’s not going to seduce anyone with its visuals, music or snappy direction. Instead, the creators are just going to focus on the pure story. I can appreciate that.
OP: Very generic ALI-Project song, but very nice and original visuals.
ED: Just a slide-show with a song, neither which are that special or catch attention.
Potential: 80%

Kämpfer

Short Synopsis: Our lead character can transform into a hot chick and fights other hot chicks.
Oh, the pain. Where to start with this thing? The absolutely horrid character-designs for the male lead? The bland action? The horrile voice-acting? The moe stereotypes? It’s really series like this that give anime a bad name. Here we have a guy who can transform into a girl who then fights with magic fireballs. His love interests include at this point a shy girl and the most popular girl in school (who at this point are already in love with him), the acting his horribly bland and uninspired and it’s chock-full of incredibly shallow fanservice. Watch this if you want something to laugh at, stay away otherwise!
OP: Horrid, cliché, cheesy, a waste of the few good shots of animation with the stuffed animals.
ED: Fanservice galore and really weird hip-movements! The music is also not much better.
Potential: 0%

Basquash! Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Basquash!



In today’s age, there are few things that could still be considered truly original and never done before. Especially in anime, in which about 90% of all the series are based off of something else, true originality is even harder to come by. Nevertheless, out of all the series for the past year, Basquash stands out as the most original. I mean, to base a series around cars with arms and legs that play basketball? How the hell do you think of this?

But yeah, this unique setting of Basquash is what prompted me to start blogging it weekly. Overall, it really is the single most inconsistent series of the past half year: it has moments of brilliance, fun, stupidity, boredom, excitement, intrigue, chilchés, depth and shallowness, all packaged into 26 episodes, which makes it really hard to determine if it’s worth watching.

The first eight episodes are especially awesome. They’ve got this real sense of chaos, in which everything is going on at the same time, a lot of characters are developed at the same time, and even though Dan is an impulsive teen-aged lead, he definitely has his charms in his innocence and how he continuously tries to make up with his sister who is in a wheelchair after an accident. It’s all good and very unpredictable fun, but after a while the show becomes much more straightforward, predictable and uninteresting.

To me, it seemed like this series never really knew what it wanted to be. Sure, it gives variety, but some parts of this series are incredibly stupid, and are best watched by not taking the series 100% seriously. At other times however, this series nearly begs for the audience to take it seriously when it spends ages on slowly exploring and developing its characters, which demand a much more personal mindset when watching it. In the end, these parts don’t mesh really well and the drama feels shallow because of it.

Personally, I liked the beginning and finale for this series. the middle part just took itself too seriously among the far-fetched premise of this series, and I felt it hard to care about the characters. The series closes off with a pretty exciting finale though, combined with some absolutely gorgeous visuals. In the end, this series is a great watch at some times, but really dull at others.

Storytelling: 7/10
Characters: 7/10
Production-Values: 9/10
Setting: 9/10

Some Quick First Impressions: Nyan Koi, Asura Crying 2 and Queen’s Blade: Gyokuza wo Tsugumono

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Nyan Koi!

Because I’m allergic to cats, I can fully understand the horrors of the lead character, having to live inside a house with a cat. It must be near-impossible for him to try and keep things hair-free. Anyway, this episode wasn’t as bad as I expected: the characters are still pretty generic teenagers, but at least they’re not stereotypes and the production-values are pretty solid as well. The only really annoying characters were that lead guy’s characters. The romance is pretty shallow: guy who hates cats can understand cats and needs to help them, he falls in love with a girl who loves cats but can’t seem to understand them and so tortures them. Still, it’s a decent enough romance story, so why the heck are the creators planning to turn this into a harem, if we are to believe the OP and ED? My main problem with this series is the following though: cats are supposed to be awesome. Just look at Kuruneko or cheezburger. The cats in this series are very generic and uninteresting, and the humour mostly comes from the wittier-than-usual male lead.
OP: Very generic and formulaic J-Pop that I definitely do not like.
ED: A bit more bearable than the OP, but still generic and formulaic.
Potential: 40%

Asura Crying 2

I actually liked the first parts of this episode. The introducing monologue caught my interest, the OP was good, and it all made me interested in how this series would pan out. But yeah, then male lead came, opened a door and ran into his love interest while she was changing clothes. *headdesk* I mean, fanservice is one thing, but for this series to pull the biggest harem cliché within the first three minutes is just too much. The rest of the episode also reminded me why I originally dropped this series. It does have a few interesting-looking side-characters, but the main cast is so utterly generic. The male lead and that big-breasted girl especially are very badly acted, clichéd and one-dimensional. To me, this looks like nothing more than yet another whimsical teen-aged adventure that fails to stand out anywhere aside from perhaps a bunch of pretty good theme songs.
OP: Much better than the first, in which Angela tried to sound a bit too much like the ALI Project
ED: Nice enough, although a bit generic.
Potential: 10%

Queen’s Blade: Gyokuza wo Tsugumono

Well, so the Autumn Season has started, and let’s hope that with this series, we’ve got the worst to air first. From now on, I’m just going to put these quick first impressions, and re-post them as I watch more. Do warn me when this starts flooding RSS-feeds. In any case, this first episode of Queen’s Blade’s second season is at least not as abysmal as the way the first season started. At least there’s some narrative as it introduces the premise for this season. But yeah, that doesn’t excuse the fact that the characters are still walking around in the most impractical outfits imaginable. Wherever these women go, they have the chance to be tentacle-raped (no, seriously), and yet nobody seems to find this strange. It’s obvious that I’m not going to follow this series but at least it didn’t burn my eyes as much as the first episode of the first season did.
ED: Just a slide-show of the characters, but the music is decent. (in case you’re wondering: I got this idea from Cinammon Ass)
Potential: 0%

September Summary

by psgels, posted in Monthly Summaries

#29 (29) – Saki – (6,5/10) – The last month was by far my least favourite part of this series, everything was cliché and predictable and I was just hoping for it to finally end, my suspense of disbelief has been completely broken at this point. #28 (30) – Zan Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei – (7,25/10) – Thankfully this wasn’t the worst month for this series, and I have to admit that the caveman part was pretty funny. Overall though, Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei stopped being funny for me a long time ago, and the third season just took too little risks in order to change this. #27 (28) – Chi’s New Address – (7,5/10) – Granted, as dull as the series was, the finale did was nice enough. It was a bit cheesy, but nevertheless a good idea executed reasonably well. Apart from the ending itself though. Way too melodramatic and overacted. #26 (24) – Bakemonogatari – (7,5/10) – Episode 12 finally came and properly animated the characters, instead of focusing on just about everything that wasn’t relevant. However, in exchange we also had to sit through the Snake-arc, which was probably the weakest of the entire series… #25 (26) – Needless – (7,5/10) – The problem with Needless is that it spends too much time talking. Sure there is the obvious fanservice which often reaches the points of abysmal, but this is supposed to be an action series. Too often we see people in the middle of dull exposition about their next strategy. First of all, these dialogues are so mind-numbingly boring that they instantly freeze all opponents that are in the neighbourhood (no, seriously), and second of all these strategies are often so incredibly stupid that it takes a complete idiot to fall for them. But (and this is a big but) occasionally episodes arrive with a truly awesome animation direction (episode 13 for example). These sorts of episodes are awesome to watch and remind me why I still haven’t dropped this bloody show. #24 (18) – Taishou Yakyuu Musume – (7,75/10) – Well, it was a nice finale. Nothing you wouldn’t expect, but it’s been good, clean fun with this series. #23 (25) – Hetalia Axis Powers – (8/10) – Nice month for Hetalia. Finally another classic episode appeared with the Christmas episode. This series really is at its best when it pokes fun at cultural differences. #22 (21) – The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya – (8/10) – The two final episodes of Sigh really made up for the rather boring first three episodes. Episode four made a very good point, while episode five was just enjoyable to watch. All that’s left now is to wait or season three. #21 (15) – Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou – (8/10) – It was a nice finale. It didn’t sacrifice the chemistry between the characters for the sake of building up to that dramatic climax, and the humour was at its best during the final month. I especially liked that brother: he’s a very refreshing only-male-in-moe-show. #20 (27) – 07-Ghost – (8,25/10) – An exciting finale, because Ayanami for once actually DID something. It’s a shame, he really would have been an awesome villain if the creators actually used him better. Still, a great finish for a rather flawed series. #19 (19) – Canaan – (8,25/10) – The final episodes of Canaan kicked ass. While Alphard’s end may have been a bit out of character, it definitely redeemed itself as a good action-show, with the cast turning out strong enough to make it more than just a show with pretty pictures. #18 (22) – Basquash! – (8,25/10) – Great to see that this series is closing off with an enjoyable finale. Gorgeous production-values courtesy of Satelight thankfully didn’t make this series into a waste of time after the first eight episodes. #17 (16) – Umi Monogatari – (8,25/10) – The finale was a really emotional one, and it worked pretty well. Especially the final episode worked great as an ending that had an emotional impact, yet stayed away from cheese. Definitely the best month for this series. #16 (14) – Umineko no Naku Koro ni – (8,25/10) – The third arc promises to be even better than the first two. I love these series in which you have no idea what’s going on, and Umineko surely has no intentions to make trying to understand it a walk in the park. This month especially did well in portraying the hopelessness of trying to prove everything without magic. I’m really curious to see how the creators are planning to write themselves out of this one. #15 (20) – Kuruneko – (8,25/10) – 2009 has really been an awesome year for short series with 5-minute episode. Kuruneko only gets wittier as time goes on and more cats come into the picture. There’s a lot of creativity put into this, despite its simplistic nature. #14 (6) – Shangri-La – (8,5/10) – Not the best month for Shangri-la. I really liked it the best when it threw buckets of plot twists at the same time that made the setting even more intriguing. The finale instead was solid. Well-built up, although the ending itself was rather lazy. Nevertheless, it remains an excellent series for those who have a big suspense of disbelief. #13 (7) – Cross Game – (8,5/10) – Really, the only thing about Cross Game that isn’t wonderfully consistent is the very small set of baseball matches that pop up once in a while. Aside from that, the slice of life is so delightfully enjoyable and witty. However, this month was a bit of a step back from previous months, simply because the creators have gotten a bit unsubtle with their hints that Kou and Aoba are into each other. #12 (13) – Marie & Gali – (8,75/10) – I’m still amazed at how incredibly consistent this series is. Every single episode manages to be absolutely hilarious in the way that it takes simple scientific concepts and drives them to the absurd. It’s a series with an awesome sense of humour and a pool of creativity that still seems nowhere near exhausted at this point. Definitely my favourite comedy during the past half year. #11 (2) – Kemono no Souja Erin – (8,75/10) – This series just keeps exploring its own borders, doesn’t it? This month may have been a bit of a step down from the previous one, but nevertheless that birth-scene was very impressive, and you can see that it’s still building up. #10 (11) – Pandora Hearts – (8,75/10) Pandora ended with an anime-original ending, but that didn’t prevent it from being really good. The story made sense in canon, it closed off with a bang and yet left enough open for a potential second season. It perhaps wasn’t the most intense month for this series, but it was all-around enjoyable, and I really hope for that second season to come. #9 (4) – Aoi Hana – (8,75/10) Aoi Hana closed off with a “life goes on”-finale, which was a perfect way to close off the series. It’s a shame that the Noise-timeslot disappeared, because its series have really been consistently awesome in what they did. Here’s to hoping that it’ll return for the Winter-season. #8 (9) – Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood – (8,75/10) Excellent month for Full Metal Alchemist. The action was very creative and well-written, and on top of that the plot twists just kept coming here. This has really turned into a no-nonsense series, which is so completely different in atmosphere compared to the first series. #7 (8) – GA: Geijutsuka Art Design Class – (8,75/10) This month yet again was a very consistent one for GA: it was consistently enjoyable, creative, unpredictable and fun to watch. It definitely stands out as one of the under-watched gems of the Summer Season. #6 (5) – Spice and Wolf – (9/10) Spice and Wolf closed off with a very strong finale, which really pushed the characters in a new direction. It’s been a series with drama that combines subtlety with conflict, and it really managed to surpass the first season for me. #5 (10) – Guin Saga – (9/10) An excellent finale for a series that has been so under-looked for the past season. The politics and action meshed really well, and just about everything developed. Now where the hell is that second season? #4 (3) – Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 – (9/10) The finale was very daring, and completely different from the relatively action-packed first half. Ultimately though, it gave a whole new dimension to this series and it closed off this series with a heart-wrenching finale. This is Noitamina at its finest. #3 (1) – Phantom – (9/10) Yeah, so what? I like endings with a twist and it’s not like that ending didn’t fit in the series. Phantom closed off with an excellent ending in my opinion. The finale did provide closure for the entire series, and yet it never abandoned the subtle storytelling that made the rest of the series into my favourite of the past half year. The final twist is definitely controversial one, but I liked it. It perfectly fitted the whole themes of the series. #2 (17) – Konnichiwa Anne – (9/10) And this is why I love the World Masterpiece Theatre. This series managed to pick itself back up magnificently this month, with a number of heart-wrenching episodes and a massive amount of character-development. These are things that absolutely no girl of Anne’s age has to go through. #1 (12) – Shin Mazinger Shougeki! Z-Hen! – (9/10) That finale was FUCKING EPIC! It knew exactly what it was: action and plot twists, and boy how it delivered on them. This exceeded all of my expectations and you know what, it had the best ending of the season. Now THIS is exactly what an action-series should be! It’s indeed a bit of a strange Top-2 I have this month, but I really wanted to reward these two series who have massively improved themselves since last month, compared to the more consistent #3, #4 and #5, even if I consider those three far superior when looking at their overall picture.]]>