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Visual novel harem adaptations have really become a notorious genre in anime. A lot of them are simple uninspired high school romances, but like with all other genres, there’s always a series that tries to go into a completely different route. An example of this: Chaos;Head, or as it’s official title seems to be ChäoS;HEAd. In twelve episodes, it presents a tale of delusions, paranoia and mind games.

While most of these series try to appeal to the otaku by letting lots of girls fall for the same guy for often inexplicable reasons, Chaos;Head goes even a step further, by featuring an otaku and hikkikomori as a lead character. For once, the lead character isn’t your “typical loser”, but rather one of the biggest losers that you can think of. He has no social skills whatsoever, has fallen in love with a fictional character and imagines her as a real person, and he’s generally hopeless in everything he does except for playing video games. This anime attempts to show what’s going on inside his mind, and how the guy reacts to all the weird things that happen throughout the series.

That’s nice and all, but what indeed makes this series enjoyable is the huge amounts of question marks that fly past the screen. There’s a huge backstory behind everything, and especially in the beginning episodes hardly anything makes sense, and it’s a lot of fun to watch everything unfold and see the pieces of the puzzle come together.

The problem with this series lies with its characters. This series is a harem series after all, and as the series goes on, more and more females strangely gather around the male lead. Thankfully most of them have very valid reasons to do so and don’t feel out of place, with one exception: Rimi. As the show goes on, she transforms from mysterious do downright annoying, and her romance is really underdeveloped. Combine that with an underdeveloped ultimate villain, and indeed, the ending becomes way too cheesy for its own good. It basically ignores most of the building up of the rest of the series and goes with a very predictable and unrewarding conclusion that just doesn’t match the series.

So no, when it comes to confusing series about visions and the altering of reality, then this series isn’t the best. Serial Experiments Lain for example is still better than this series, but it’s a very fine attempt nonetheless.

Giant Robot shows from the seventies are pretty like today’s harem series: there’s a lot of bad stuff among them: uninspired premises that get nowhere apart from perhaps a rushed conclusion in the end. The trick is of course to find the good ones among the crappy ones, but that’s not always easy, considering how all of them look so much like each other. Still, I’ve managed to find one (thanks to this guy, link only in Dutch, unfortunately): Invincible Superman Zambot 3. This series is so much more than a simple robot-bashing show. This is a giant robot-series, Tomino style.

This show makes it clear that even before creating Mobile Suit Gundam, Yoshiyuki Tomino was already trying to popularize the realistic side of mechas. While the series starts out as your average series, where a bratty 12 year old kid gets the unlikely chance to pilot a giant robot, it soon becomes clear that saving the world isn’t just going to be a simple matter of beating every enemy robot that starts wreaking havoc. Already after a few episodes do we see the public reaction to the titular Zambot descending into sheer hate, as people start blaming the lead characters for destroying their homes in their fights.

Throughout the series, this continues to escalate into further chaos. Because the lead characters are a bunch of adventurous kids, they take way too long in realizing what sort of arrogant idiots they’ve been, and at the same time the tactics of the bad guy (with the awesome name of “Killer the Butcher”) continue to get more desperate and gruesome.

The monster of the week theme does remain, though, so that’s a bit of a downside, and there are really way too much transformation sequences. And as it turns out, there’s a whole backstory there to explain why out of all people, we have three kids piloting the robot who decides the future of the world. To be honest it sounds a bit far-fetched, but at least it’s better than nothing, and it’s sufficient to support what this series is really about: the fact that war is BAD, and should never be underestimated. A bigger problem is that a number of characters aren’t fleshed out enough. Especially the main villains are a bit too one-sided. It’s also strange that Kappei’s father, without a doubt the manliest member of the cast, is useless throughout the largest part of the series: he hardly ever does anything, he’s just there, even though there’s enough for him to do.

Nevertheless, the point of this series was to show that robot battles aren’t as idealistic as portrayed in most of these giant robot series, and that’s exactly what it did. When a building gets destroyed, it really gets destroyed and doesn’t magically disappear. People are going to care about it and get angry. Saving the world has never been easy, and especially the series’ finale lets that message sink in. Yeah, I can understand why Tomino got his nickname now. ^^;

Usually, I’m not too big of a fan of school life series. I dunno, but they always look the same, there’s always the same set-up, often filled with dull moments. It makes it really hard to separate the cream from the crop at first sight, and even the ones that do seem vaguely attractive often turn out to be somewhat enjoyable, though not entirely worth the time invested in it. However, there are obviously exceptions to every rule. For this one, it’s Hyakko. I’m still not sure why I ended up enjoying this series so much.

From the outside, Hyakko seems like yet another comedy about a group of four friends. And yet, it feels fresh and engaging. Instead of simply focusing at a group of four or five friends, the creators attempted to bring an entire classroom to life, and that actually turned out pretty well. High school (or middle school or whatever the school system in Japan is called) indeed isn’t a time that you spend simply with three or four other people over and over and over again, you actually meet lots of different people with very diverse interests, and that’s what Hyakko is about.

And what makes this series extra enjoyable is the very strong cast. Unlike other school series with lots of characters like Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei and Pani Poni Dash, the characters may all have their own traits, but none of them are cardboard cut-outs, and all of them receive a bit of depth through the series, making their quirks even more enjoyable. Especially the lead character Torako is really fun, but really: the entire cast is enjoyable to watch with hardly any exceptions. I really laughed hard during the best jokes of this series. I also just have to give credit to the teacher’s voice actor: this guy sounded like he was having the time of his life while voicing his character, resulting in a bunch of awesome one-liners from the guy.

Unfortunately, like most comedies out there this series also got the inexplicable need to introduce some drama as the series nears its end. But as a surprise, it actually doesn’t suck, and it’s in fact pretty good at times. This series never forgets that it’s also supposed to be a comedy, and just when the drama gets too heavy, it’s sure to insert some sort of hilarious joke to brighten up the mood. This works great, compared to most other comedies which completely forsake their comedy for the sake of a dramatic ending. The ending itself is also really original: for once it isn’t about some sudden overdramatic plot twist or love triangle, but instead a very normal problem that is handled very subtly. Really, more comedies should look at this series for that.

My only complaint with this series lies in the sound department, something of which I hardly ever have problems with. The serious scenes of this series were nearly ruined by the sound director, who at times is a bit too eager in inserting sad piano music when there’s absolutely no need for that whatsoever. The OP and ED are also plain baaaad. Seriously, Hirano Aya should stop doing singing stuff she’s bad at. And it’s not even one mistake she made, she just keep taking jobs that are simply way too far out of her league. Her work on Nijuu Mensou no Musume was excellent, but apart from that I really haven’t heard any performance of her that really impressed me.

Nevertheless, in a season full of good comedies, Hyakko has turned out to be the best of them after Skip Beat. There are only a few episodes that are just mildly hilarious, apart from that all of them hit the mark. The drama is a bit too cheesy at times, but for a comedy it’s way above average in that aspect. And even though it has received mixed reactions, I really enjoyed the characters. I’m really getting amazed at how each non-kiddie series from Nippon Animation seems to turn into something special.

Note: this is a review of the 1997 World Masterpiece Theatre version of Ie Naki Ko, not the Osamu Dezaki version of 1977. I’d love to have watched the original version, but unfortunately I couldn’t seem to find it anywhere; it’s gone up in smoke, so I needed to settle with this inferior version. For those of you who don’t know, Ie Naki Ko has a whole backstory to it.

In 1996, the World Masterpiece Theatre franchise was in a lot of trouble. The previous WMT-series, Famous Dog Lassie, had been suddenly halted after only 26 episodes, and it was replaced by this series. 23 episodes later, and it was suffering from bad reviews and low television rates, so it got taken off the air completely by the television network. After 23 years of non-stop series, the World Masterpiece Theatre went into a hiatus that would last for nearly ten years, until it was picked up again by Les Miserables. Even among the WMT-fans it seems to have been rated as one of the lesser series of the franchise.

However after watching the series, I do want to say that if the version that’s universally considered as a cheap rip-off is already this good, then I can only imagine how incredibly beyond awesome the Osamu Dezaki version must be.

But yeah, this series definitely has its problems. The creators here tried to stuff a story that’s meant for 52 episodes in only 26 of them. They changed a lot from the original novel, including the actual gender of the main character, and even with the shortened episode length, it still includes a few fillers. I think that this was done in an attempt to make the WMT-franchise more mainstream, which obviously failed.

Nevertheless, despite this the show has an awesome cast of characters, which stay true to themselves no matter what gets thrown at them. Remi may have changed into a girl, but she’s a really strong character, who is able to carry the weight of the series easily. There are still plenty of slice of life moments, which really try to flesh out the different characters. Despite the fillers feeling rather random when you watch them, each of them has its own purpose of foreshadowing later plot-twists.

Where this series falls behind in comparison to the other WMT-series is that it wants drama a little too badly. With this, I mean that no matter where Remi arrives through the series, you’ll know that something bad is going to happen to her. Be it a robbery, stolen item, or whatever, and especially the way in which Remi meets her real family feels really strange. Compare that to Porfy no Nagai Tabi, where you’ll never know if a person Porfy meets is going to have gentle or ill intentions, and yes, it does fall flat in that aspect. There’s also a bit of romance that pops up near the end of the series. On one hand, it’s incredibly heart-warming, though it can also be way too soppy at times.

But what impressed me the most about this series is that even though it usually has a warm but naive idealistic nature, there are times where the cold, hard feeling of reality crashes down on the characters, and at those times it really spares nobody. It may fool you at times, but this series is typical WMT in the sense that it can be incredibly dark for a children’s series. We’re talking about brutal child abuse here. The contrast between these dark and cold parts and the heart-warming mood is what really made this series something special.

So yeah, while overall flawed this nevertheless is a very capable series. What it lacks mostly is polishing. If the creators could have spent some attention to make the drama less soppy, the different coincidences less apparent and added 26 more episodes, then I can imagine how the Osamu Dezaki version could easily be one of the best anime of the seventies.

2008 has been a bad year for Shaft. While I can’t speak for Hidamari Sketch, their only two other series this year were simply sequels for series that didn’t really need one, and both of them featured a drastic decrease in quality. While ef – a tale of melodies didn’t decrease in quality as much as Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei, it still is rather underwhelming and a disappointment if you’re a fan of the great first season.

Like the first season, a tale of melodies is also split up in two parts, and tells the story about two different couples. They’re the side-characters of the first season. The story about Kuze is pretty good. Even though it has a few humps and bumps in the middle and isn’t as impressive as the stories of a tale of memories, it nevertheless comes together in the end with a pretty nice conclusion.

My real problem with this series was the story between Yu and Yuuko. While on paper, it may seem worthwhile to finally learn who the mysterious guy with white hair from a tale of memories is, the creators handled it really in the wrong way. It seemed to me that the creators never really knew what they wanted to do with this story. They keep throwing one plot twist after the other but forget to make the viewer accustomed to the characters. They’re hardly fleshed out, unlike the stories in the first season.

The characters, although they change through the series, feel more like cardboard cut-outs than real people because of this. It was a nice idea full of ambition, really, but the creators simply tried to stuff too much in such a short timeframe. The conclusion to this story becomes downright ludicrous because of this, and we’re not even answered the simple question: why did Chihiro end up with Yu in the end?

My issue is also with the themes of creative expression that were so prevalent in the first season, because they play a much smaller role in the second season. Sure, there’s a character who plays a violin, another one sketches, another one paints, but the creators never actually use it. They’re no longer the central themes of the series, and the new themes of this series (taking distance from someone you love) feel superficial and not fleshed out enough.

Thankfully, there’s one definite bright spot of this series: the graphics. While the animation isn’t of any particularly high quality, the creators throw an even bigger amount of special effects at the viewers than even in a tale of memories. There are lots of cool shots and filters, and there’s lots of eye-candy in this series. The background music is also of the same high quality as the first season, so at least that part didn’t suffer.

It’s a shame that I can’t say the same for the rest of the series, and I can only hope that 2009 will be a better year for Shaft. They’re a great and unique animation studio and all, but at times they seem to get lost in their style, forgetting that they’re also supposed to have substance. ef – a tale of memories was a great example of a series with an excellent combination of both style and substance. ef – a tale of melodies, unfortunately isn’t.

For the adaptation of the Ga-Rei Zero series during the past Fall Season, the creators came up with a daring idea. Since the original manga was reportedly poor, they decided to screw the manga, and go with a concept of their own. The result is a downright shocking first episode, followed by the rest of the series which attempts to explain what the heck happened back there, focusing on a cast of completely new characters.

And what do you know? It actually worked.

The strength of this series is that due to the really strong first episode, you’re going to want to finish the series, to find out what drove these characters to do what they did. Even through the boring parts, the whole thread that the first episode created remains. Because unfortunately, the building-up part of the series does remain a bit boring. It takes a relatively large amount of time to warm up to the characters, and especially Kagura isn’t likable from the start.

Nevertheless, this series managed to avoid collapsing under the weight of its first episode, mostly due to some very solid storytelling that appears once the series hits its second half. This is a series that’s not going to pull any punches, and it’s got quite an amount of ruthless scenes as the show goes on, rather than being an idealistic tale of friendship.

So all in all, the series managed to deliver for me, even though there were times in the beginning that made me doubt. It’s a really solid and focused series, in terms of both production-values and storytelling. The characters themselves are not really something special, but yet they never get in the way of what makes this series important and they do manage to bring the series to life. It managed to deliver on the promises it made in the first episode, and that’s something not every series can boast (Tokyo Majin Gakuen Kenpuchou, anyone?).