Category: Other:

One of the things I like about Clamp is that not only do they have a lot of imagination and a great sense of style, but they always try to go for something in a new genre, as opposed just doing the same genre over and over in order to milking their same old cash cows that brought them success (after all, they use their infamous cameos for that ^^;). Angelic Layer is their shounen fighting series: it’s about a nationwide tournament where people battle against each other with children’s toys brought to life. So yeah, it’s a notorious genre if anything, but along the way this series made me drop my scepsis and doubts completely.

It’s hard to see this from a distance, though. Nearly every single battle follows the same formula: Misaki (the lead character) enters battle, Misaki has trouble defeating her opponent, Misaki wins battle. As this series deals with a tournament, the opponents and outcomes for each battle is very heavily influenced by the writers in order to keep the plot on the correct path (after all, you wouldn’t have much of a series if Misaki lost and got kicked out of the tournament halfway through). But it all just doesn’t matter in the end, because Misaki is SO DANM adorable.

In fact, aside from the above mentioned predictability issues, I don’t have any problems with this series at all. This is simply a series that’s fun to watch, and throughout the series it never forgets that it’s supposed to have a consistently fun and fast-paced atmosphere. Even though you know that Misaki is going to win, you just can’t help but root for her, and during the fights it’s always fun to see what’s happening behind the scenes. Most of the characters are fleshed out and developed really well, and this prevents all of the battles from getting boring, and they continue to deliver.

In terms of eye candy, this series also delivers. Bones may not be the perfect studio, but these guys do know their animation. The character-designs look simple, yet very appealing (as expected from Clamp), and they’re brought alive really well in animation. The fights also consist out of mostly hand-to-hand combat, and while the action doesn’t look flashy at all, it is full of life and emotion. When the characters are fighting, there are hardly any close-ups or other cheap animation tricks used. Instead, we get real nicely animated fights that remain fun to watch.

What also sets this series apart from all other shounen fighting series is the lack of a villain, or for that matter any character who even bears a resemblance to one. In this series there is no “I’m going to use the powers of a bunch of child’s toys in order to somehow destroy the world. Mua ha ha ha”. There is an overarching storyline, but for once this is aimed at the characters, instead of the plot. Because of this, this series may abuse the “parents gone”-trope a bit at times, but the results make up for it.

To close off, even though we have a manga adaptation here, it is one of those few manga adaptations which fits perfectly into the time frame of 26 episodes. It’s especially surprising since quite a few of Bones’ series have their pacing issues, but Angelic Layer never feels too slow or too fast. No episode feels wasted or useless and the creators did a really good job in planning this series correctly. Obviously you don’t want to watch this series for a complicated plot, or heart-wrenching drama, but for those who are looking for a fun fighting series with adorable characters that may sacrifice its plot at times, then this series isn’t going to disappoint.

What is there to say about Great Teacher Onizuka that hasn’t been said yet already? In terms of theoretical education, the guy sucks: as a former gang member, he hardly knows anything about the subjects he teaches. He’s a huge pervert and hothead and often acts before he thinks. Still, when it comes to understanding his students, he definitely is the greatest.

Basically, GTO is a social commentary aimed towards the hypocrisy of the modern education system: teachers that only care about their own position, students with excellent grades are overly protected, while the rest is ignored, putting the focus away from the well-being of the students. Onizuka is hired in one particular school and he tries to get rid of these problems in his own unique way: by putting himself on the same level as the students, and healing the different students one at a time. And I must say that the result is a wonderful series.

It’s a really well written series. The situations that Onizuka has to deal with are imaginative and varied, and the cast of characters is downright excellent. The different characters are endearing, and yet nearly all of them are flawed in some way. The fun in this series comes to seeing how each of them are dealing with these flaws.

The visuals in this series also look really good. This series aired when the distinctive anime art style of the second half of the nineties was about to be taken over by the modern CG art style, but it makes optimal use of its style to make the characters look normal and down to earth, yet very distinctive and unique. Especially Onizuka’s facial expressions are one of a kind.

The problems with this series are mostly small and insignificant. At times, it has some continuity issues: one episode a school building gets destroyed, in the next it magically healed itself, or at the end of one episode, a character tanned her skin way too much, while the next episode completely ignored it, and one particular character (the stalker one) gets written out of the show completely without any possible reason. Still, these are ere details over a show of 43 episodes.

In the end, my only real beef with this series is how its definite best parts are at the beginning of the series, rather than the end. The first twelve episodes are without a doubt the highlight of this series, when the classroom that Onizuka was in charge of was still unknown, and there was this whole air of mystery about what drove everyone to their actions. They’re incredibly addictive and I myself couldn’t stop watching because I just had to know what was going to happen next. Along the way, this effect is lost a bit when you get to know the cast a bit more, so that’s a bit of a pity.

Nevertheless, in the genre of high school-based series, this one still stands solid as one of the best ones of the genre. It really is the prime example of how such a series should be handled.

Whoa, whoa! What the heck!? I so expected to just watch this thing to get it over with. I so expected to just write a quick review, about yet another mildly entertaining action-flick which would just feature a bunch of bulked-up guys fighting each other until the hour of airtime was over. However, this is no action flick. This is Studio 4C!!

I’m still surprised at this thing. I almost don’t want to spoil its big strength, which I feel is something that’s best enjoyed when you simply shut up and watch it, but without mentioning I’m almost certain that my review is not going to make any sense at all, so if you like surprises, simply close this window and watch the OVA.

I was really surprised when I found out that Studio 4C was behind this, especially since the character-designs looked way too plain and average. But as the movie progressed, the experimental nature of this OVA became more than clear to me. It takes pure GUTS to pull such a stunt, and yet it’s so simple that any idiot could have thought of it.

With a title as Street Fighter, you indeed don’t have much choices on what to expect from such a thing: fighting, fighting, and more fighting. Well let me tell you: the length of this OVA is an hour. The first fight only takes place, 30 MINUTES after the start. That’s at the HALFWAY POINT. The first half is spent purely on character-building, building up, setting everything right for the storyline in order to make everything run smoothly for when the real meat of the storyline does begin.

I’m entirely new to the Street Fighter franchise, and yet because of this I had no trouble at all getting used to the characters. And even when the fighting does begin, this series always remains the focus on the characters, and never on the action (which mainly consists out of characters punching each other). With this, this show manages to entirely avoid every single pitfall of the game based anime genre, which is so notorious for its crappy adaptations. The characters are simply excellent and continue to captivate throughout the entire hour of airtime.

What also helps is the music, which is absolutely fantastic. It knows exactly when to remain in the background, or when step in the foreground again. It continuously helps to keep the atmosphere going. My only real complaint here is the animation. This is Studio 4C we’re talking about, and the art just looks way too plain for one of their works. The animation is also nothing special, which can be a bit disappointing. Especially certain characters’ haircuts take a bit of getting used to.

But yeah, so what if the story involves yet another bad guy who needs to be stopped? So what if the ending doesn’t conclude the storyline? This OVA is sickeningly simple, when you look at it from a distance it’s got quite a few cliches, but for me it simply continued to push the right buttons throughout its entire airtime. It’s touching, yet never cheesy. The storyline’s has its problems, but never do these problem get in the way of what’s really important. The animation is simple, and yet it never looks cheap. It’s nothing deep, yet it’s an hour of excellent entertainment. Here you have it, the proof that any crappy concept can be made awesome with the right people behind it.

So even though it seems that the new FMA-series to air this April is going to be a remake rather than a continuation (do correct me if I’m wrong; I’d hate to spread false rumours like this), I might as well watch the movie that concluded the original series. And really, I do hope that the new series is going to be better than this… thing.

God, the amount of plot-holes in this movie is nearly unbelievable. The original series may have had its share of eye-brow raising plot twists, but it was never as bad as here. Characters just happen to meet each other for the sake of the new plot, there’s hardly any time spent on explaining what the heck is going on, the creators pull random powers out of thin air, characters start acting either incredibly stupid or out of character in order to push the plot in the “right” direction, and this happens throughout the entire movie!

The new characters aren’t fleshed out at all. The old ones all have changed a bit from their characters in the TV-series, but instead of becoming more dynamic they’ve all turned into useless stereotypes. Especially Colonel Mustang has turned bad. But nearly every time a character experiences heavy emotions the drama just becomes emo and laughable.

All of it is filled with the most improbable physics ever. Ed can leap up hundreds of meters from a flying plane and just crawl up without a scratch. In a world where people have invented guns, rockets and even atom bombs, people still walk around in medieval armors (strangely enough, all of them seem to become zombies when they do so).

And then the graphics. They are serviceable for your average TV-Series, but this is a MOVIE we’re talking about. It’s a continuation of one of the biggest commercial successes in anime outside of Ghibli. You’d expect the creators to receive a huge budget for it, but I can’t remember any place where I was really impressed by the animation of this thing. Heck, the CG in this movie is downright crap at times , of the level of your average Trans-Arts CG-Horse.

This really is typical of Bad Bones. They come with premises that are destined for greatness, but along the way shoddy execution just turns them into lackluster caricatures that could have been so much better. The second season in April has a lot to make up for after this mess.

Dai Guard is another Evangelion-inspired series: throughout the series, a bunch of strange huge monsters starts wreaking havoc, and it’s up to some private corporation to get rid of it. An Evangelion (or whatever series was the first one to come with such a concept) rip-off however, this isn’t: you can see it more as a combination between satire and homage of the Giant Robot genre of the seventies. And it works pretty nicely.

This series tries to set itself apart through its large focus on the inner politics of influential corporations. The titular Dai Guard is owned by a huge company, and therefore restricted by all sorts of rules and regulations, which led to the priceless situation in which its launch was delayed because one of the business officials who was supposed to give his approval happened to be golfing on a business trip. There’s also a large focus on the company’s struggles with the military, who hold very different ideas from the overmoralistic lead characters of this series.

But even though they’re very moralistic at times, the lead cast of this show is a really lovable bunch of people. At first, they may seem a bit strange and clichéd, but they’re the type of people that’ll grow on you. There isn’t really one person who stands out in particular: every single member of the division that this series focuses on has his or her moments of greatness.

Overall, this is just a fun series for those who are looking for action that’s a bit more than simply handing out punches or throwing beams until the other party goes down. Strategies are a large part of the battles in this series, not to mention that the army also likes get in the lead characters’ way. It’s not without its flaws, though. In fact, it’s got a pretty big one, aside from how the premise gets formulaic after a while.

The big problem with this series is that the people from the army really are portrayed like a bunch of incompetent idiots. I can understand their own situation, but every time they get the chance to show themselves, they either behave like complete morons or the enemy robots do things that would have screwed the lead characters over completely as well if they had to deal with it. While the scriptwriters do provide them with enough chances to show themselves, they also subsequently write any battle in favour of the lead characters, even when the odds are completely against them.

The ending also feels forced as well. The creators created a monster there that may have been a bit too strong, so obviously the operation to get rid of it introduces quite a few plot-holes. So while this show has a lot do dislike, it’s also got a lot to like, and it especially captured the working environment of the lead characters quite nicely. It’s not going to make any top 10 lists, but it does what it intends to do: entertain. It’s a great series as long as you don’t think too much behind it. ^^;

While Nagagutsu Sanjuushi was a bad example of a nonsensical anime, Prime Rose – A Time Slip of 10000 years is a good example of such a series. The result of combining Osamu Tezuka and Osamu Dezaki in a movie from the eighties is pretty weird. There are many times at which the movie simply didn’t make any sense at all, but it definitely was entertaining.

This movie too has some plot twists that simply lack build-up. We see the story about a time patrol unit who travels 10000 years into the future to save two entire cities. Why the time patrol only can send a young male and a ten-year-old brat is never answered, we’re just left to assume that things happen the way they do, and there are a few more plot twists like these.

But unlike Nagagutsu Sanjuushi, this movie has plenty of things to make up for it. The amount of imagination that went into this work is really Tezuka-worthy. The monster-designs in particular look really sweet, and you can see that a lot of creativity went into the making of this movie. That’s something I can really appreciate.

The characters are also interesting enough to keep the movie fresh, and especially Prime Rose surprised me: at the start of the movie we’re led to believe that she’s a simple damsel in distress, while she grows into a feisty warrior and the heroine of the movie. In fact, all of the major characters get enough screentime and development for the timespan of a one-hour movie. Oh, and I just have to mention the soundtrack, which is an excellent one: very varied with catchy tunes that never get in the way of the important scenes.

While nothing extremely special, this movie is a recommendation for any Tezuka-fan out there, it’s really typical of his works: not the most solid or realistic, but a whole lot of fun to watch with young-looking characters who somehow don’t end up annoying. There are a few cameos out there from his other works and Osamu Dezaki did a good job of making his manga come to life.

Nagagutsu Sanjuushi is the second movie that Saiei released recently. It too dates from the time when there was no Studio Ghibli yet, and anime still tried to be like Disney. So, what does that mean? Talking animals, of course! Nagagutsu Sanjuushi is a western with a cat as main character. Unfortunately, it’s a lot less fun than Andersen Monogatari.

While it originally has the potential to become a good family movie, but it’s bad writing that got in the way here. This movie hardly takes any time to explain what the heck is going on. Often, characters do completely random things that make no sense at all, just to keep the story going. There’s hardly any time spent on explaining the how and why of things. In fact, this goes on so badly that NONE of the characters received any important background whatsoever. We never get to know who these people are, or why they’re doing the things they do. Especially in the case of the main character this is jarring: he’s just… there, without any possible explanation what he’s doing here or why he involves himself with the plot.

So overall, we’ve got a movie that’s a lot of bark and no bite. It’s badly written and the creators don’t care at all about continuity, and the endless stupidity of the characters doesn’t help either. Sure, I know that it’s a children’s movie, but even then you shouldn’t have characters with the intelligence of a baboon’s backside running across the screen. The only merit this movie has is one fun, but completely non-sensical chase scenes.