Soultaker is a definite recommendation for any mystery-fan. If you ignore the cheesy title and OP that seems to suggest we’re dealing with a GAR-mecha show, then you’ll find the perfect example of a well-written mystery-series that’s perfectly fitted for thirteen episodes.
The first thing you’ll notice when you start watching this series is the direction. It’s hard to describe, but we hardly ever see any normal shots of the characters, most shots we see of them are weird camera-angles with lots of lighting-effects, which seldom stay for more than three seconds. Because of this, almost the entire series gives off a feeling of fast pacing, where perhaps only one episode really takes its time. Despite this, though, Soultaker never feels rushed, and the creators knew exactly what they were doing.
It’s hard to talk about the plot of this series. Heck, the very first scene already is a major spoiler. Let’s just say that it’s about a mutant with a messed-up family. Through the course of thirteen episodes, it gradually answers more questions, asked in previous scenes, where the new revelations all increase in terms of impact, ending in a nice though predictable climax. Mystery-series should definitely take an example out of this one.
To accompany the mystery, this series comes with a cast of intriguing characters; all with their own motivation and intentions, and most of them get a decent amount of time to get fleshed out. Even the seemingly annoying brat turns out watchable in the end. I do feel, though, that they could have had more development. This series is really well written, and the creators knew how to use their time, but the series never really reaches the height that requires it to become an awesome series. There’s also the matter that all mystery-series need time to build up, so the show needs some time to really get going.
Nevertheless, I’m glad I watched this. It’s an excellent mystery-series that delivers, without hitting the heights. But don’t worry, you’ll be in for lots of surprises. ;)]]>
Category: Other:
Alexander Senki – Reign the Conqueror Review – 83/100
I was really surprised when I found out that this was the third-worst rated anime on Anime News Network. Heck, even Tekken had a better rating. I can’t believe how many people gave this a measly 1/10 score, just because it’s a bit different from your usual anime, and failed to look at the merits of this series.
For me, Alexander Senki is a piece of art. It’s loosely based on the life of Alexander the Great, we see him take over the title of king of Macedonia from his father, and we follow his world conquest, and the people around him. The background art is incredibly surrealistic, and it turns this anime in a visual treat. Everything in this anime is just extremely stylistic, which fits the mood of Macedonia before Christ perfectly, and not to mention that we’ve got quite a few famous people from those ages making cameo-appearances. The music makes the atmosphere even better, when it combines epic music with synthesisers.
Still, I can imagine why people wouldn’t like it. Not only is the character-art very unconventional, it also tries to meld in with the unique style of this anime. It works, but lots of male and female skin is shown in the process. People basically walk around without any pants, nude women often parade the screen, and there’s also plenty of male nudity. It’s easy to think that this will lapse in some kind of yaoi-fest. But let me assure you, there isn’t any hint of Yaoi in this anime, and you also can’t really call this shounen-ai.
Still, there are a few technical flaws in this series, which prevent it to be part of the top-notch anime. The most notable one is that this show brings the Deus ex Machina back to their original meaning, when it seems that at times, the Gods themselves like to interfere. While it is nice when compared to the Deus ex Machina from other anime, they do remain Deus ex Machina, and certain parts, especially the supernatural ones could have had more explanation. Some important side-characters also could have been a bit more fleshed out as well.
The fact remains, though, that this is a really thought-provoking anime, with lots of symbolism and references to the ancient Greeks. It constantly makes the viewer think a bit. The ending may have been a bit too enthusiastic in this, by the way, and I’m still not sure whether that’s in a good way or a bad way. It’s clear that the creators intended to end the series with a huge question-mark, and lots of questions that shouldn’t have been answered are left for us to ponder, but there were also enough questions that should have been answered, and the fact remains that this series would have benefited so much from one more episode.
Overall, if you like unique anime, favour thought-provoking series, are interested in the ancient Greeks and don’t mind the male nudity, this can be an interesting watch for you. The series has its flaws, but the third-worst anime ever?! It seriously deserves better than that.]]>
Mahou Tsukai Tai Review – 81/100
So… because the summer holidays started I have a bit more time to watch anime, so there’ll be an increase in the amount of reviews. First one up is Mahou Tsukai Tai, a charming slice-of-life show, about a school’s magic club.
At first sight, the cast looks like a terrible amalgamation of stereotypes. There are five members in this magic club, and among them are a ditzy idol, the pretty-boy who gets adored by al the girls at school and is terrific at sports, and a geek who can’t help to think perverted thoughts. Still, upon further watching, it becomes clear that these stereotypes are just small parts of these characters, and they all form a very likable cast.
To give a few examples, remember the pretty-boy? Well, he’s gay, and he’s put his eye on the geek, hence the reason of his unlikely membership of such an obscure club as the magic club. The geek, on his part, is the one who founded the club, and throughout the series, we actually see him stand up for the things he believes in, unlike his counterparts in, say harems, who never get to do anything. And I haven’t even started talking about the main character: Sae. She’s a really cute character, who always has trouble expressing what she wants to say. And the combination of all these different characters makes the anime feel incredibly genuine, which also plays a big role for the story, in the end.
The anime basically consists out of two parts. In the first, the magic club tries out random spells, all going different from expected, so that they can give the different characters some development. The second part is about the main storyline, in which a mysterious character appears and starts wreaking havoc. In my opinion, the first part was the better one. The main storyline is nice and all, but what really shines in this anime are its characters, and they show their best while dealing with the random spells that they let lose on the world (think of spells involving a giant walking cherry-blossom, or a spell that teleports you to the place that’s on your mind). The fact also remains that this mysterious character takes quite a few episodes to get interesting.
Mahou Tsukai Tai did air about a decade ago, so don’t expect much on the graphics-department. The animation looks decent and it’s never awkward and the art style does well enough to tell the story but it’s nothing special. At times, there may be a bit too many fanservice-jokes, but it’s nothing serious. Apart from a very catchy OP and ED, the music also does a fine job of not getting noticed.
Overall, if you’re a slice-of-life fan, you could check this one out, as it’s got some memorable characters. It was definitely fun watching especially the beginning part, and the ending left me with a good feeling, it’s just too bad that some of the middle episodes were a tad dull.]]>
Some quick first impressions: Buzzer Beater, Code-E and Mushiuta
Buzzer Beater
Okay, you know when an anime is bad when it uses recycled Pandemos-designs from Master of Epic with varying skin-colours for its alien-designs. Yes, it’s that bad, and it immediately shows the image that the creators have of them: all aliens have horns, so they’re evil, while humans are good and they have to win. And believe it or not, but things are even worse on the earth-side. Somehow, the creators found themselves the most annoying brat, and gave him a star-spot on the basketball-team that’s supposed to finally defeat the aliens. How the heck did that happen!? Buzzer Beater enforces my opinion that most sports-anime are garbage, simply because they almost always include the near-impossible scenario of a 14-year-old brat that somehow becomes the best in the field. Buzzer Beater features one that has no team-spirit whatsoever, happens to be of the same level as grown-up players who trained their entire lives and continues to think that he’s king of the world. Don’t even bother to give this one a chance.
Code-E
With the director of Simoun, I just had to look forward to this. Unfortunately, it’s not anything special yet, apart from the OP and the climax. This episode was really meant to introduce the main character, who has the strange power to disrupt electrical equipment when startled or scared. She already was very shy, which may not have been the best personality-trait for this power. I liked how she’s cheerful in surroundings that she and is trusted with, but becomes incredibly scared when new things are introduced to her. So far, the first episode dabbled along nicely without getting boring, and there were smudges of hints that the future episodes will become intriguing (most notably, the climax), but I do have to say that the male lead must really improve over the next few episodes, as he’s rather horrible, both his character-design and his personality.
Mushiuta
After having watched the episode, I know for sure: this is going to be a very dark story. Even the light elements in this episode had a gloomy atmosphere. The story is based around the general premise of “bunch of people with powers fighting monsters”, and the main character seems to be the strongest of the team, a fourteen-year-old kid, and he acts like a timid person when he’s not involved in a mission. Still, despite this, he managed to distance himself from the other teenaged brats that we see so often. He’s not cocky, arrogant or whiny at all, due to the things that have already happened to him. Okay, he’s still inexperienced (he let a very easy target slip away at the beginning of the episode), but as far as characters like his go, I like him. If you’re looking for a dark story with high-school elements, this will be a fine pick. If it manages to stay away from fillers, that is.]]>
Some quick first impressions: School Days, Kenk Zenrakei Suieibu Umisho and Zombie Loan
School Days
I must praise this anime for being the first harem-anime that actually “gets on with it” so fast. Just watch the episode, and you’ll understand. I’ve seen quite a few first episodes of harem-shows during the overcrowded fall-season, but none went as far as the first episode of School Days. Unfortunately, that’s the only good and actually average point about this anime. Everything else is either sub-par or horrible. The dialogue was boring, and the male main character looks even worse than your average harem-lead. The animation was again nothing special, and the music was almost non-existent. And why must every school-based bishoujo harem, with no exception, have an energetic best friend who is a pervert and will never have a girl of his own and merely exists to be annoying and “comic” relief? So, basically what will happen is that we’ll be following a standard dating-sim, until the end where everyone kills each other? There’d better be enough serious scenes to keep me interested.
Kenko Zenrakei Suieibu Umisho
Okay… I think we’ve found our fanservice-series of the season. For an anime about swimming, there was bound to be some nudity, but this series carries this to a very next level. Basically, the story is about a mermaid who attacks a young boy while he’s swimming in the ocean, giving a fear of water for the rest of his life and visits his town a bunch of years later to make his life even more “miserable”. Oh, did I mention that this girl likes to swim around naked? Still, it does have a few good point, most importantly: the male lead actually looks different from all other male leads of series of the same genre. In comparison to, say School Days, this anime actually has some nice production-values, and it just looks good. The characters also were interesting enough, when fanservice wasn’t involved. Still, I’m worried about the excessive amount of fanservice, and I hope it’s not a bad sign of things to come.
Zombie Loan
Whoa, this one turned out good! I was a bit scared due to the cheesy title, the concept of zombies and the mediocre promo-art, but these worries were not needed at all. Zombie Loan actually is a freaky shoujo-anime, and it’s one of the few cases where the promo-art looks worse than the art of the actual anime. The art, background sounds, music and dialogue manage to create a really captivating atmosphere, and the characters have already managed to set themselves apart from the stereotypes in only the first episode. Let’s hope now that the series won’t degenerate into fillers at some point, but this episode already showed that it can deliver some great drama. I’d definitely recommend this one.]]>
Some quick first impressions: Shigurui, Nanatsuiro Drops and Doujin Work
Shigurui
The first series I checked out for the summer-season, and I think I’ve already found my favourite OP of the season. I love artsy OPs like this one, that do something else than just “oh, let’s display the different characters in a cool or sad way and add some random music to it”, not to mention that the melody rocks. Anyway, about Shigurui: let me first start with a warning. If you’ve got a weak heart, are rather young or just can’t stand gore: DO NOT WATCH THIS. This is a horror-show, focused at a select audience, and it tries to captivate it by combining an eerie mood and some of the most disturbing gore I’ve seen in anime. If I had to guess, than the entire anime is about the fight between two samurai, one missing an arm and one without eyesight, where most of the airtime is spent on fleshing out their backgrounds. It’s only been one episode, and already we’ve seen bloody broken fingers, a guy pulling out his own guts and another guy stabbing his own toe, in all graphic details. Personally, I like the show so far, but the scene where the guy broke his fingers was too much for me, and I just couldn’t bear to watch the screen anymore.
Nanatsuiro Drops
Oohh.. someone… PLEASE make Sumomo stop whining! Seriously, how more annoying can she get? Her character-designs suck, her voice-acting is way too drawn out and her personality is, just like the rest of the cast by the way, a cookie-cutter at best. I can’t believe the character-designer is famous, because what he shows here was just horrible. Anyway, about the story, it’s not much interesting either. A guy gets turned into a fluffy animal and needs Sumomo to catch sparkly thingies in order to change back. These sparkly thingies can draw the energy of the flowers, and if they do, Sumomo will cry because it’s so sad for the flowers… god, she needs to grow a spine. Oh, have I already mentioned the obligatory dark mysterious character who watches from afar and will probably get drawn into the main character’s harem at episode three? This is one to avoid.
Doujin Work
And here we have the anime about a group of doujin-artists. In this episode, a girl attends a doujin-convention, realizes how much money people can make in it and decides to become a doujin-artist herself… and that’s about it. There’s not much to say about this series anyway. The art is sub-par; the animation is not very good. The jokes manage to make sure that it doesn’t get boring too soon, but they’re not exactly funny. The characters are rather flat and one-dimensional, and I honestly can’t think of something that stands out. Let’s hope that this is one of these anime that needs a bit of time to warm up, as this episode didn’t impress me much. I liked the yuri-joke, though.]]>
June Summary
June Anime Rankings
I like this format, because it’s simple. To give a small indication of the quality of the shows, place 1-10 have made a big impression on me during this month. Place 11-20 still are really good and recommended, but the impression they made was slightly lower, or they spent most of their time building up, which is necessary but mostly not very exciting. Place 21-30 are enjoyable but can definitely be improved and 31-36 are just garbage.
#36: Shining Tears x Wind – Please, next time if you want to make an RPG-adaptation, chose one with a good story. It’s series like these that give RPG-adaptations a bad name. If you want to see a good one: go for Popolocrois.
#35: Murder Princess – Whose idea was it to make episode 3 so incredibly cheesy?
#34: Heroic Age – Okay, so the show introduced politics now. It’s too bad that the two emperors have the same depths as a bunch of paper bags, they’re just stupid because the story demands them to, and it’s been obvious since the beginning that they’d screw up somehow. Boobs-san ironically is the only one in the entire series with a bunch of brains. Everyone else seems to be either fighting or worrying about either Age or the contract by the Golden Tribe.
#33: Lucky Star – Ow, this has been a bad month for Lucky Star. Unfortunately, the show has been getting more repetitive with every episode, and the characters are getting duller and duller. Not only that, but it’s about to get completely overshadowed by the other Otaku-based show: Tetsuko no Tabi. Let’s hope that it’ll get better in its second half, but then again, we’re talking about Kyoani here. I doubt they’ll be able to save this series.
#32: Kaze no Stigma – I want to like this series, I really do, but it’s not making things easy with its annoying characters and the way it handles its male side-characters. Kazuma keeps saying that he wants to save as much people as possible, and yet he goes after the cute girls while the male characters die with heaps at the time with no impact whatsoever. I’m also not sure whether the inclusion of pixies was the right idea.
#31: Koutetsu Sangokushi – This series continues to quietly dabble along. It’s a nice watch when bored, but nothing amazing, spectacular or unique happens.
#30: Wangan Midnight – So far, nothing memorable yet. I’m giving this series a few more chances.
#29: Engage Planet Kiss Dum – Finally the subs came out again, but unfortunately the anime itself took a wrong path. The main guy may have had a good reason to obtain the power he did, but I dislike his personal harem. Still, I have hope. The first two episodes really were of good quality. Let’s hope that this’ll come back in the second half.
#28: Devil May Cry – While I do admit that it’s nice to see ACG out with the subs of this series so fast, it does make me worry, as they haven’t released a single episode of Deltora Quest this month, and even though Devil May Cry is a good brainless action-show, I definitely prefer Deltora Quest above it.
#27: Power Puff Girls Z – Not as good as the previous episodes, but it still was cute to see the supporters get a bit of attention.
#26: Romeo x Juliet – This series seems to be trying a bit too hard at this point. People betray each other for no reason whatsoever, only to make Juliet feel as miserable as possible. Still, I do have hope for the second half, and it’s a good thing that the suffering comes relatively early in the series, so that Juliet can learn from it as the series draws to its end.
#25: Reideen – While the series hasn’t been really memorable, it has been good for a nice watch. I do hope that the love-triangle will be getting somewhere, though.
#24: Kishin Taisen Gigantic Formula – I admit that it’s turning increasingly more interesting to watch the teams of the different countries, but what can the creators do to prevent Japan from winning in the end?
#23: The Skull Man – There is some great mystery in this, and the storyline turned out quite interesting, but I don’t know… It seems to be missing something. I think it was a bad idea to include humour in this series, as it doesn’t seem to merge with the story-part well enough.
#22: Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann – One of the more overrated series of the season, it’s a nice show and all, but it remains brainless action for the most part. In episode thirteen, for example, the standard “friend-taken-hostage-what-should-I-do”-bit appeared again. I also dislike Nia a lot. Her character is annoying and forced, and her bad cooking-skills could have been more subtle. Still, there is one part of the series that I’m really enjoying: Dai-Gurren’s antics. I just love the battle-tactics that involve that giant mecha, from the flipper-outfit to launching it miles into the air. ^^; Anyway, there is hope. The backstory seems to be interesting enough.
#21: Tokyo Tribe 2 – One thing that I really appreciated of the past few episodes is the attention to the side-characters. While it was annoying to see Skunk rising, I admit that I was quite pleased to see the little bugger in trouble, which quite possibly what the creators had in mind.
#20: Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge – I must praise Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge, as it’s one of the very few comedy anime to actually provide an ending, make this ending good and not forfeiting the humour that made the series great. Now let’s hope that this also goes for the ending itself.
#19: ICE – ICE has been a rather peculiar OVA. It did have its flaws, but when I think back at it, I do have to say that its story is memorable at least. Still, I need to see the second episode to really be sure whether it’s good or not.
#18: Hitohira – The major climax came with episode 8 and 9, while the rest of the series came with a really long epilogue. Because of this, the development of Hitohira couldn’t have been better, and it really was a highlight of the spring-season.
#17: Gintama – I loved it when Gintama started playing with memory-loss. While it has been better, something tells me that we’ve yet to see the best part of the series.
#16: Tetsuko no Tabi – I’m surprised about the lack of attention this has been having, but then again, how many people can be looking forward to a show about trains? Still, the chemistry between the characters is excellent, and I’m definitely going to continue watching this.
#15: Darker than Black – Okay, I admit. This turned into a perfectly fine series with quite a few interesting cases. Still, I’m going to wait for Shinsen’s subs in the future, simply because Sudo likes to release in only HD MKV-files, which mean murder to my labtop.
#14: Kekkaishi – This month, Kekkaishi mainly focused developing the new main character. This series has been as charming as always.
#13: Claymore – What I like about Claymore is that every major plot point, with one or two insignificant exceptions, has an explanation which seems perfectly plausible. It’s also taking me a while to realize that this is one of the few shounen-fighting shows where having the largest amount of power doesn’t necessarily mean being the strongest. Ever since the Law of Ueki, I’ve yet to see such a series, and it feels really refreshing (*coughBleachcoughNarutocough*)
#12: Dennou Coil – I knew that Isako would warm up to Yasako sooner or later, but the way episode 7 did this was really good. I find myself liking Kyoko more and more, because she really feels like a little girl.
#11: Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS – Finally this anime gets fired off with episode 7 and 8. I can’t wait to see the rest of the series now!
#10: El Cazador de la Bruja
This probably is the most hated series of the season, due to the fact that most people who didn’t like the first episode still stuck with it. Still, that doesn’t stop me from really enjoying it, and it’s currently doing a really good job of building up.
#9: Seirei no Moribito
In this month, Seirei no Moribito really temporarily became a slice-of-life series, but the incredibly detailed storyline remains Even though it wasn’t the most exciting series of the month, it’s great to see all the different characters fleshed out a bit more, and I cant wait till the story starts developing in the next episode.
#8: Wellber no Monogatari
Wellber no Monogatari has most definitely been an interesting series, that doesn’t deserve the negligence it received. The first few episodes may goof off at times, but with episode 6 it really gets fired off and an interesting story begins. What I really like is how all major characters get enough development and fleshing out, the story is in no way rushed, and episode 13 left me with a good feeling. I can’t wait to see the second season!
#7: Ooedo Rocket
Most definitely the funniest series to have come out in the spring-season, with both slapstick, intelligent jokes, sarcasm and parodies. Add a serious and compelling story to it, and you’ve got a success of a series. There have been so many epic characters (Genzo, the townsfolk, Akai, Ginjiro and many more), and I love how all of them get enough attention.
#6: Les Miserables
Les Miserables quite possibly has the best character-development of all the shows aired in 2007 up till now. The time-leap was definitely well executed, and I’m becoming an increasingly bigger fan of Eponine. I can’t wait to see the final two arcs, which are rumoured to be amazing.
#5: Toward the Terra
I’m really surprised at the huge amount of time-leaps this series took. So far, it’s developed into a unique and excellent science-fiction series, which for once isn’t about saving the universe or the world, but a quest for the shunned Myu to settle down and live their lives in peace. Keith is also an antagonist with a huge amount of development, which is always nice to see.
#4: Kaze no Shoujo Emily
The best slice-of-life series of the season? Definitely. It’s such a shame that almost nobody is giving this series a chance (including fansubbers), since Emily is an amazing character, and Perry, Teddy and Ilse are really charming. It’s sad to see that the most neglected series of the season turned out to be this one, while it in fact is one of the best series to have come out.
#3: Saiunkoku Monogatari
The second season turned out to be quite possibly even better than the first season, due to the immense amount of development that the characters already had because of the first season, and even the new characters, especially Shuuran, turned out amazing.
#2: Death Note
You know, it may have had a lot of bumps, but the ending of Death Note was a great one. The final three episodes were amazing and among the best episodes of the entire series.
#1: Bokura no
Bokura no’s change of focus this month was a real surprise for me. There were no twisted cases, it just focused on the children and the lives they left behind. Still, despite this I’m immensely enjoying this series, and it remains one of my favourites of the season. I’m not sure why, actually. I’m drawn to this series in a way similar to The Third, which is one of my favourite series. I also really like the way the plot is going. Overall, it’s barely, but this series definitely is my favourite series of this season, and that has to say something, with so many excellent ones that came out.
Top 5 Episodes
#5: Toward the Terra – 11 – This was an excellent episode, with a huge amount of shock-value, touching scenes, conflicts and much more, and I greatly enjoyed it.
#4: Les Miserables – 24 – Eponine = Love. Seriously, her grown-up version is awesome, and this episode saw her at her best.
#3: Kaze no Shoujo Emily – 11 – See the previous comment, but swap Eponine with Perry. His desires to live up to his dreams, despite his hard life and social status are truly magnificent.
#2: Bokura no – 09 – Again, see the previous comment, and put Daiichi there. He deserves to be called a hero, and his tragic parting with his family was the highlight of an already amazing series.
#1: Death Note – 36 – There are these kinds of episodes that just blow you away, and this was one of them. Death Note may have had its bumps, this episode is where everything comes together to provide an amazing climax, and probably the best and most annoying cliff-hanger I’ve ever seen.
Also, I’ve been wondering. I’ve been making these summaries for more than a year now, but this is the first time I’ve asked this question: what were your highlights during this month? What are currently your favourite series?]]>
Sisters of Wellber, Second Season?!
this! I know I joked in my post how a Greedham no Monogatari ~ Sisters of Greedham anime would be quite a possibility,, but I never expected the timing of the announcement to be so perfect. Ah well, that’s one series I’ll be looking forward to. The first season knew how to tell a story and it knew how characters need background in order to become interesting, so I’ll be looking forward to when this series will focus on Tina’s backstory. I just wish for this for this series to get subbed soon, because I can understand that not a lot of people would understand my enthusiasm with only three episodes released. The series really gets going with episode six, so let’s hope that when that episode gets subbed, it’ll get more attention than it is now.]]>
Death Note Review – 84/100
Death Note: Yagami Light finds himself a notebook, dropped by a Shinigami: the Death Note. If you write down the name of a person in this Death Note, he’ll die, no matter what. With this new Death Note, Light begins to create a perfect world, killing off all criminals. Then, a detective who goes by the name of “L” gets assigned to catch him.
Let me first state that Death Note is unique amongst shounen-anime. There are nearly no fights, and nearly the entire anime consists out of people planning and plotting to outsmart each other. Through the course of the anime, Light makes optimal use of the Death Note, and he comes up with a number of really smart and careful plans.
Because of this, the main good points of Death Note, especially in the beginning, are its surprises. Some plot twists are ingeniously incorporated in the storyline, and they make sure for maximum shock-value. This makes sure for a number of really intense episodes, even with the lack of fighting or other forms of physical action.
The graphics and music only contribute to this. The art that is used in Death Note is unique, and incredibly detailed. The animators made some really creative “action”-scenes, which you won’t be seeing in any other anime, and they really makes sure that these scenes are as creepy as they can get. The music consists out of a number of very addictive choir-songs, which fit the mood perfectly.
Still, despite the awesome climaxes, this series didn’t make it in the 90/100-range for a reason, as it’s got quite a few humps and bumps along the way. The most obvious one is the middle part of the series. Death Note has an excellent beginning, and an awesome ending, but the Yotsuba-arc in the middle was so bad that it made me almost lose my faith in the series. The climaxes stop being interesting, and the creators turn the series in some kind of joke of itself. Luckily, the anime picks up again with episode 24, and delivers an awesome climax, but the thorn remains. The beginning is also filled with a couple of nasty coincidences, for example Light’s father being the police-officer who is in charge of catching Light.
There are also a number of rather annoying characters in this anime. I’m referring to the ones that mainly exist for comic relief like Misa and Matsuda. They usually have no purpose at all, and they whine too much to really become interesting. The characters that are introduced later in the series also need a lot of episodes to get enough development to stop getting annoying. There are also quite an amount of people that lack a bit of background. To give one example, we learn just as much about Aizawa’s (a minor character) background as L’s (a major character) background, and believe me, that isn’t much. There’s also a time-leap somewhere in the middle of the series that just lacks proper development as well, with the result that it makes no sense in lots of areas.
Still, despite this, there are a lot of good characters with enough background to become interesting. Light himself is a fascinating person, and it’s interesting to see how he develops and eventually declines. Some temporary and side-characters also turned out really touching, and L, despite his lack of background is well developed and turns into a really enjoyable character.
Overall, it’s not the best anime out there, but it’s definitely worth a watch. It has awesome climaxes, but the fairly low rating comes from the fact that it just has too many areas that could have been improved.]]>
Popolocrois Story 1998 – 24
“If you, too, are a real man, then you will protect Hyuu.”
Wooot! The next instalment of Popolocrois has been released again by Wyrdwad. The current episode wraps up the story-part of this anime. It fills in the parts of the story that were still left unexplained, and it set the stage for the final episode, which will be very character-centric, if things go on. I do wonder what exact path it’ll take, though. Popolocrois is unique as an RPG adaptation in the sense that it’s focused on characters, instead of battles.
Gamigami was definitely one of the highlights again, and his speeches were the epitome of manliness. Even though he stopped being significant to the story, his “Otoko no Roman!!!” remains truly memorable. ^^; (Notice how Pietoro just literally drops Gamigami on the ground as soon as he’s done talking? :P)
Anyway, the major revelation in this episode was the reason why the Wind-kind were travelling in the first place. It’s like this, when the Anemoritos blew up, there had to be something done to prevent such a tragedy from occurring again. The solution was to split all kinds. The Dragon-kind would settle in the heaven, the Human-kind would settle on the earth, and the Wind-kind would continue wandering from place to place without destination, basically taking their biggest wish of freedom away. Right now, Pietoro and Hyuu are struggling with these decisions that were made.
That was really deep, and I loved it! ^_^
Still, it’s sad that there’s only one episode left. At this point, there is no other series that I blogged longer than Popolocrois 1998. It feels strange to let it go, especially Gamigami, who turned out to be one of, if not THE most original and likable male character I have ever seen. Let’s hope the final episode closes off with lots of Otoko no Romaaaaaan!!!!]]>