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Arusu the Adventure Review – 86/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Arusu The Adventure, Mahou Shoujotai


As a continuation to Mahou Shoujotai, Studio 4C brought out a six-part OVA called Arusu the Adventure. There are a few things you should know before watching it: it’s in no way as epic as the original series. Everything about Arusu the Adventure is light-hearted, and if you were put off by the childish moments of the original series, then you certainly won’t like the OVA. Arusu the Adventure has no main storyline, and instead is a string of standalone episodes, all dedicated to either flesh out certain points of Mahou Shoujotai, or showcase some more cultural habits in the world of the witches. Ever wondered where the dragon house came from? Or the background of Grand Master? Well, this OVA provides the answers.

The best parts of this OVA, however, are the stunning visuals. Mahou Shoujotai already looked absolutely gorgeous, but Arusu the Adventure looks even better, and it made perfect use of the experimental nature of the series. Throughout the six episodes, the creators keep changing from one art style to the other, and each and every episode, no matter how strange they may look, turns into a visual feast. The soundtrack also got updated with a few new tracks, and they too fit this series perfectly.

Standalone, Arusu the Adventure isn’t anything special, but it does contribute to my most favourite series ever and for that I’m more than willing to call it a success. The storytelling may be very sloppy at times, but this is a perfect OVA to watch if you want to relax, as opposed to the chaotic nature of Mahou Shoujotai, and it still shines in terms of graphics, music and creativity. I’m really looking forward to find out Studio 4C’s next work. Pleeaase let it be another tv-series!!!

Some quick first impressions: Druaga no Tou ~The Aegis of Uruk~, Amatsuki and Itazura na Kiss

by psgels, posted in Amatsuki, Some Quick First Impressions

Druaga no Tou ~The Aegis of Uruk

Well, this episode turned out to be something entirely different than expected. You can say a lot about Gonzo, but I don’t think that anyone can say that they don’t know how to create a bad game-adaptation, and they use this perfectly to their advantage for this episode to create a hilarious RPG-parody that also takes the Mick out of popular series as Haruhi and Gurren Lagann. I was throwing all kinds of curses at Gonzo before I found out. 😛 On the other hand, however, this series still has a 16-year old male protagonist, so there’s still enough room for screwing this up. Still, it’s a good thing that Gonzo knows how not to do this series; now let’s hope that they do know how to do it properly. One hint that points in a positive direction is that none of the characters we saw in this episode, apart from the main guy and his rival, seems to be a major character. Are they going to get killed off or something? Now that would be a great opportunity for character-development.

Amatsuki

Seriously, why do so many series suddenly have first episodes of this quality!? I’ve been used to the fact that nearly every series starts out mediocre, and here series after series suddenly sparkles with potential. Really, apart from To Love-Ru and Kyou Kara Maou, I have yet to see a series this season that didn’t deliver for its first episode! In any case, Amatsuki turned out like I hoped it would: a wolf in sheep’s clothing. On one side, it’s reminiscent of a Kyou Kara Maou-clone without any sexual innuendo, and then suddenly the main character sees a huge beast slaughtered in front of him. Don’t make the mistake that this will be an ultra cheerful series, because this series isn’t afraid to deal with the darker topics.

Itazura na Kiss

The past Autumn- and Winter-season featured an unexpected wave of good shounen-romance series, though this really seems to be the turn for the shoujo-romances to shine again. It’s felt like ages since a good one popped up, after the disappointing Shugo Chara and all. For Itazura na Kiss, the character-designs look very simple, but that’s the beauty of it: neither the males nor the females feel exceptionally beautiful, like you see in so many other series. Heck, our main female lead is befriended with a couple of punks. The story for this series isn’t anything special, and it’s just meant to get another boy and girl in one house, but what really shines in this series is its lovable cast of characters. It’s just been one episode, and already the characters feel diverse and have shown the viewer multiple sides. Now all that’s left is to hope that this series won’t delve into useless fillers, but I’m pretty confident with the director and the music composer of Toward the Terra and the animation-company of Kaze no Shoujo Emily.

Ghost Hound Review – 92/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Ghost Hound


If you’re looking for a standard anime with a standard storyline, then you should stay well away from Ghost Hound. This is one series that tries to be different, and it’s at the same time after Shion no Ou my favourite series to have aired during the past Autumn Season. It does feature a bunch of fourteen/fifteen year old boys, but this series manages to use them to their full extend.

One of the major themes of Ghost Hound is psychology. You can see that the creators are very knowledgeable about the subject, because this series really delves into the details of this subject. All main characters have run into their own kinds of traumas due to various things that happened in their childhood, and everyone has reacted to this differently. Ghost Hound shows how these people can be cured, and how just a small push in the wrong direction can lead to disaster.

There’s another thing that really sets this series apart from most others: it’s been directed by the director of Serial Experiments Lain, and it shows. Apart from that series, there is no other anime I can think of that puts more focus on its sound effects than Ghost Hound. The result is an continuously tight atmosphere as the events slowly develop.

And yes, this is a slow series, but don’t make the mistake that nothing happens. In fact, every episode builds up for the next one, and it keeps you on your toes, because you’ll never know when a sudden plot-twist might arrive. In this series, it’s not the destination that matters, but the road at which you get there. Because of this, the ending ended up being a tad rushed, but thankfully entertaining enough to keep interesting.

I didn’t have much series to look forward to at the previous Autumn Season, but this one really stood out, and it’s along with Shion no Ou my top-recommendation amongst the shows that aired back then. Don’t worry that it’ll start off slow, it’ll pick up its pace quickly enough and deliver a great storyline, an interesting cast of characters that develops very natural-like and a feast for the senses.

Some quick first impressions: Allison to Lillia, Kurenai and xxxHolic Kei

by psgels, posted in Allison to Lillia, Kurenai, Some Quick First Impressions, xxxHolic

Allison to Lillia

Ah, the first good series of the season. This episode was pretty solid; it started out as not anything special, but as it went on, it became more interesting by the minute, and this is just the first episode. You can really see the influences of both Mokke and Kino no Tabi, and yet this series goes into its own direction. It turns out that this series will be about two couples: Allison and Will, and Lillia and Treize, who have yet to be introduced. My only point of critique would be that Will’s voice-actor sounds a bit too young for his age, but that should be easy enough to get used to. Another interesting thing is that the female lead likes to ignore rules if necessary. It never really came to me, but you don’t often see people that break rules as easy as she does in anime. One thing I’m hoping for the future episodes is to explain a bit more about the politics of the country that the two main characters live in, but with 26 episodes there should be plenty of time for that.

Kurenai

Whoa! Here’s a contender for the best first episode of the season. You can really see that Brains Base (who did the animation for Baccano!) worked on this series, and the result looks absolutely gorgeous. There are hardly any still frames, characters make subtle gestures, the 7-year old girl really sounds like a young girl instead of a squeaky 30-year old voice actress and the OP has been done entirely in flash. The art style is a strange combination between that of Red Garden and Baccano, which only makes things better. The scriptwriting also is quick and witty. Here’s a potential classic, if the creators can keep up this level of quality, at least.

xxxHolic Kei

What an awesome episode to start off the second season! This episode was exactly the reason why I fell in love with the first season. Watanuki is downright hilarious, and stands miles away from your “typical high school boy”. On top of that, this series has always featured thought-provoking cases, and this episode was no exception. I won’t spoil anything, but if you liked the first season, you just have to watch this episode. Really, this series makes coming up with an entertaining storyline look so incredibly easy.

Some quick first impressions: Chi’s Sweet Home, Kyou Kara Maou Third Season and To Love-Ru

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Chi’s Sweet Home

Ever since I first saw the promo, this series intrigued me. It was a show about a lost kitty, and yet it was labelled as a seinen-show and animated by Madhouse and the episode director of Death Note and the assistant director of Shigurui. Well, it turns out that the guy was just looking for something completely different to work on, and rather took this to the extreme. Chi’s Sweet Home is a really cute series, though with just ninety seconds for each episode, it’s way too short. Heck, even Hanoka was longer. How many episodes will there be anyway?

Kyou Kara Maou, Third Season

A few years ago, I watched the first few episodes of this series, though I dropped it when the sexual innuendo became a bit too much to take seriously. I became intrigued again, however, when I found out that the director of Simoun and True Tears was behind it, so I decided to give this series one more shot, just in case this turned out to be more than fangirl bait. It didn’t start off too well, when the very first scene features a bunch of unicorns, though thankfully there were one or two scenes that at least hinted at potential. Overall, though, I feel that this series really needs to take itself more seriously. The main character is a king, yet he seems to know nothing about how to properly run a country. What bugs me the most, however, is that it’s been seventy freaking episodes and the characters hardly feel different. A 13-episode series is excused to have minimal character-development, but 70 episodes are plenty of time for the characters to go through changes. Really, what the heck have these characters been doing in the first two seasons?

To Love-Ru

Well, so this one turned out exactly like expected, and that’s a bad thing because I was expecting this to suck. There’s nothing much to say, actually. The only reason why you’d want to check this out is because of the fanservice, nothing else has any value. Things are badly explained, the main character is just another “typical high-school boy”, who turns out to have the mysterious power of attracting cute girls. It’s just the same we’ve seen over and over again. In any case, after watching this series, I was edging for another episode of Kyou Kara Maou, and that’s not a good sign.

Bamboo Blade Review – 71/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews


Ah, Bamboo Blade. You had the potential to become interesting when you started, though something went wrong. The flaws for this series are a bit more subtle than usual, and I’m still not 100% sure what it was that really caused the downfall for this series. If I had to guess, then it’s a combination of things. Bamboo Blade in the end had its moments, but remains overall boring.

Let’s take a look at the characters first. At the beginning of this series, they really caught my intention, and I admit having laughed quite a bit at their antics. They get a small share of development during the second half, so what went wrong? Well the characters may have been impressive at first sight, but looking back, the creators just took a bunch of stereotypes and gave them one or two original personality-traits. This leads to a quiet and small but uberpowerful girl who is obsessed with cheesy mecha-shows, a beauty who actually is quite sadistic but has a geek as boyfriend, that geek who has managed to score such a beautiful girl as girlfriend.

This is nice and all, but the characters didn’t feel dynamic at all. The creators were so busy, trying to step away from the stereotypes that they forgot that the silent girl still remained silent, the geek remained a geek, and the sadistic beauty remains a sadistic beauty. In the end, nearly every character couldn’t shake away his or her stereotype. The side-characters are off even worse: there’s the obsessive stalker-girl, the old hag, the rival and several of the opposing kendo-teams who are cookie-cutters at best. Because of this, the characters are funny and enjoyable when first introduced, but they just can’t remain interesting for a full course of 26 episodes.

Then there’s the story. It may be me, but it really felt like the creators were struggling to keep it moving forward. Basically, the show’s about a Kendo-club who fights in a number of tournaments. Every single group of opponents gets progressively duller for some strange reason. Especially the two final opponents feel artificial at best. Seriously, this show takes a real nose-dive as it nears its ending.

I really feel that this is one series that would have been best suited for 13 episodes. At least that way, the characters wouldn’t have had any time to get boring. I’ve praised the past Autumn and Winter-Season for featuring a lot of good shows, centring around high-schools, but this is unfortunately not one of them.

Gunslinger Girl – Il Teatrino Review – 90/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Gunslinger Girl - Il Teatrino


Before I start with the usual review, I’d like to point out that this is the 250th review I’ve written for my blog. Yay!

In any case, if you’ve watched the original Gunslinger Girl and plan to watch Il Teatrino, there’s one thing that you need to take into account: a lot of changes have been made. The soundtrack has changed, but most importantly the character-designs have been redrawn completely in a totally different style and the animation-budget has suffered a great loss. The bad news: the fight scenes will look fake, and there will be speed-lines. The good news: this is about the only thing that’s wrong with this series.

The change in art style is something you’ll either love or hate with passion. Not considering this though, they do look gorgeous, and even though the animations in the fights looks fake, the animators have tried to make up for it with some awesome fight-choreography. With this, fights are much more than just brainless gunfights, and are much more based on tactics.

In addition, the storyline has developed into something amazing. The most notable thing is that there is NO main character whatsoever. Even though the girls are the centre of this series, do not make the mistake into thinking that they’re the one with the most screen-time. The creators have made sure not to give any character special attention, and because of this, this is one of the very few series where the “good guys” are just as developed and fleshed out as the “bad guys”. And yes, I put the quotations there on purpose, because sometimes it really feels that the girls are the bad guys. Especially Rico can be really scary at times.

Gunslinger Girl is also one of these series that delivers with every single episode. Introductions, climaxes and aftermaths follow each other in a rapid succession, and there’s so much going on in each episode. The cast of characters may be amazing, but it’s the storyline that pushes them forwards. This is one series that knows how to wrap up all of its storylines at the end, and provides a very satisfying climax.

It may be that I just don’t care about the changes that were made, but Gunslinger Girl has turned into one of the best series to air during the past winter-season, along with Porfy’s Long Journey and Hakaba Kitarou. At first sight, the characters may look “moe-ified”, but this series cleverly shows that the girls are much more than just a bunch of cute angels. Really, the adults end up stealing the show in this series much more than they do.

March Summary

by psgels, posted in Monthly Summaries

And with this, the season is nearly over. There are still a few series left to finish, but they should close off in a few days from now. Overall, I must say that it’s been an interesting half year, and nothing like the spring-season that preceded it. It feels like there were less ground-breaking series than usual, but at the same time it feels like there were much less mediocre series. Either that, or my taste has just gotten broader over the past year. The winter-season has also been the best since years, although there weren’t many popular series that emerged.

#30 (28) – Dragonaut the Resonance – (5,9/10) – Wait… Kazuki just turned good that easily? For Christ’s sake. The final episodes lost any spark of potential that was still left in this series, unfortunately.
#29 (???) – Kimi ga Nozomu Eien ~ Next Season – (7,2/10) – Well, this episode basically recapped the television-series, so it wasn’t that exciting, but at least I now know why Mitsuki left.
#28 (24) – Bamboo Blade – (7,3/10) – The one climax was great and all, but afterwards everything dulled out again. It’s a shame, Bamboo Blade had the potential to become an entertaining series, but it ended up being just mediocre.
#27 (26) – Mnemosyne – Musume-tachi – (7,4/10) – This series needs to start to deliver soon, or I’ll lose interest. This episode was nice and all, but it wasn’t anything special
#26 (27) – Hatenkou Yuugi – (7,4/10) – Episode nine was actually pretty good! Really, that one showed that the manga behind this series had really potential, which makes it such a shame that the anime creators screwed up this series so much. Seriously, I expected much better from the director of Sasami Mahou Shoujo Club.
#25 (new) – Bus Gamer – (7,6/10) – This could have been more interesting, though due to its short length it’s a nice series to watch if you need to burn an hour.
#24 (9) – Kekkaishi – (7,8/10) – Okay, so the final episodes aren’t exactly without their problems. There also were some strange animation-problems in the final one, where the creators suddenly changed style. It’s exactly for this reason that Shounen-series shouldn’t play with superpowers. Sure, it looks flashy, but it also eliminates any sense of tactics.
#23 (10) – Darker than Black – (7,9/10) – The DVD-only episode finally got released. Like expected, it did nothing to wrap up any of the plot-holes it left behind, but at least it was funny. I laughed quite a bit at the silliness.
#22 (36) – Hellsing OVA – (7,9/10) – Well, at least it was a bit better than the previous episode, but am I the only one who considers the TV-series to be better than the OVA?
#21 (18) – Gintama – (8,1/10) – Another standard month for Gintama. I laughed, but there were other comedies that were better.
#20 (13) – Kimikiss Pure Rouge – (8,2/10) – The school festival was nice and all, but I don’t feel that his month has been the best month for Kimikiss. It was just a bit of delaying the inevitable, and nothing that we didn’t knew already appeared.
#19 (17) – Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji – (8,3/10) – Episode 21 and 22 were incredibly intense, while 23 and 24 were nothing but building up. I really want to praise this series, but if so little happens during one episode, it’s getting really hard!
#18 (14) – Ahiru no Quack – (8,4/10) – The quality of the soundtrack still surprises me. Herman van Veen is one of the very few Dutch singers who can get away with it. Seriously, if you thought that some of the J-Pop was crap, just wait till you hear some of the artists we have. -_-
#17 (23) – Persona – Trinity Soul – (8,4/10) – Whoa, I never expected this series to be so focused at mystery. I like it, though the creators do need to think about their continuity. More than once, I found myself thinking “where the heck did that come from”?
#16 (7) – Wellber no Monogatari ~ Sisters of Wellber – (8,5/10) – Ugh, I’m not happy. This is why a satisfying ending is so important for a series, because that’ll be one of the major things you’ll remember when thinking back. Wellber no Monogatari may have had an amazing finale, but the aftermath was just one bad idea after the other.
#15 (12) – Suteki Tantei Labyrinth – (8,5/10) – If only for the epic revelation of episode 22, this series deserves points. Sure, it’s for the wrong reasons, but you can’t deny that the cheesiness hasn’t been entertaining.
#14 (10) – Shigofumi – (8,6/10) – Fumika’s story came together quite nicely. I can’t say for sure that this has been the best of Shigofumi, but this remains a great series nonetheless.
#13 (11) – True Tears – (8,7/10) – The final month wasn’t necessarily the best of this series, but nevertheless it closed off this anime pretty nicely.
#12 (20) – Saiunkoku Monogatari – (8,7/10) – And it’s finally over. Thankfully, the final episode left the series on a good note, though god knows when the third season will finally be animated.
#11 (15) – Clannad – (8,7/10) – That final episode turned out better than I could have imagined. Heck, I actually cried for Nagisa.

#10 (8) – Hakaba Kitarou – (8,7/10)

What I liked about this month is the consistency. This series has been consistently entertaining. I think that the scriptwriters are to thank for that. They really knew how to keep this series interesting.

#9 (14) – Gundam 00 – (8,7/10)

That final battle featured some really interesting twists for the second season to work with. I especially liked that final episode.

#8 (16) – Spice and Wolf – (8,8/10)

Boy, those final three episodes rocked! It’s great to see that this series has come together.

#7 (19) – Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei – (9/10)

The big flaw of Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei is that it refuses to develop its characters. Sure, the show develops, but the characters never change. Thankfully, the rest of the series more than makes up for this flaw, and especially episode 7 was wonderful.

#6 (2) – Ghost Hound – (9/10)

The highlight of this month was of course Makoto’s story coming together. This series has been as solid as ever.

#5 (16) – Power Puff Girls Z – (9,1/10)

Episode 51 was sensational! It really deserves to be up there along with the manga-artist as the best episode of this series. This month has been an awesome month for this series.

#4 (5) – Mokke – (9,1/10)

The final episodes rocked! Especially episode 24 was without a doubt the best of the entire series, and it was a real tear-jerker. Mokke, you’ve been one of my top picks for the Autumn-season for a good reason.

#3 (4) – Gunslinger Girl – Il Teatrino – (9,1/10)

Another very consistent series. Every episode delivers, and is really well written. Please someone announce the third season!

#2 (3) – Porfy no Nagai Tabi – (9,3/10)

Well, I think episode 13 says it all. Everything that this series has built up for has come together. It’s so heart-wrenchingly sad, though Porfy is without a doubt the best series of the winter-season, and I say that considering the amazing line-up of some of the other series that aired.

#1 (1) – Shion no Ou – (9,5/10)

Talk about a sensational month for Shion no Ou! The final four episodes closed off the series perfectly, and the animation-department was on fire as well. It’s so sad to see this brilliant series gone now.

Gundam 00 Review – 83/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Mobile Suit Gundam 00


Gundam 00 has been one of the most ambitious series of the past Autumn-season. It basically tried to show us a view on the world politics 400 years from now, combined with Gundam’s trademark mecha-action. Usually, this comes along with a great risk of screwing up and delving into an emo-fest, though fortunately the director of Ooedo Rocket and Full Metal Alchemist managed to avoid this pitfall, and delivered quite an interesting series. It may be rather rough around the edges, but there’s a lot to like about this series.

A group of four guys with ultra powerful mecha who use them to solve all armed conflicts in the world. This obviously sounds like an incredibly gullible idea to achieve world peace, but the thing is that the characters are well aware that the thing they’re doing is naive. This series never claims one side to be morally right or wrong. It just presents us several different views on the world.

The strength of this series is that it knows how to carefully build up. It’s got a huge plot and a huge setting that it needs to work with, and even though there are a few errors here and there, you can see that the creators have tried to explain as much as possible. The thing is also that the cast starts out as incredibly unlikable, and yet every single character develops, and at the end of the series has turned into something better and enjoyable. With a cast so large and diverse, you’re bound to have a few favourites.

The part in which Gundam 00 screws up the most is the dialogue, though. You can see that it’s one of the few parts that didn’t receive careful attention, and it just serves to develop the characters and the plot, though it does feel rather forced at times.

Gundam 00 is a series that continuously develops both its plot and characters, and things do come together in the end quite good. I won’t to spoil anything, but let me just say that the second season will be completely different from the first. It’s not the best series, but it turned out better than expected.

True Tears Review – 86/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, True Tears


Love triangles and myself don’t have the best relationship. They’re often predictable, usually get nowhere and really like to distract from the main point of a series. True Tears shows that things can be done differently, though. This series has really been built around a love-triangle, and somehow, it’s managed to avoid the pitfalls that has caused the demise of so many series.

The key is good scriptwriting. The series is originally based upon a visual novel, though the creators made the smart decision to just ignore the storyline and come up with their own. True Tears is a slow series, but because it’s slow, it’s able to really dive into the minds of its characters. The result delivers, because the characters in this series are deep.

This is one of these series where the characters and their intentions can’t be easily described in one sentence. A major theme of this series is sorting out your own feelings, and feelings like that aren’t that simple to describe. Shinichiro, our main male lead also keeps hopping from one girl to the other, making the viewer wonder about who he’ll end up choosing until the final episode. The side-characters also for once aren’t stereotypes. The best friend has an actual personality and his own problems, the main character’s father and mother play a big role in the series as well. There’s just one character whose role remains ambiguous throughout the series: Aiko. I’m still not sure what her purpose actually was.

The visuals are another reason to check out this series, because they look absolutely gorgeous. A lot of attention has been put in the animation, and you can see that this series has received a big budget to work with. Even though there are definitely better series, True Tears remains a worthy series of your time.