Category: Other:

I kept telling myself not to post about this

by psgels, posted in Special Articles

I kept telling myself not to get involved with this drama, though I have to say the following. As you all know, DrmsChr0 started a whole fad of bashing Jason. I have to admit, when I first read it, I felt very inclined to agree with him. But then I started to think. And I thought back about the post I made back in May, when I got kicked off blogsuki.

Basically (correct me if I’m wrong), all people are saying is that Jason sucks because his opinions are horrible, and he doesn’t contribute to the community. I have to admit, my opinion is the total opposite from his. He also isn’t involved in the Anime Nano-community, and doesn’t comment too often. Still, he runs his own forums, and I have had one comment on my blog made by him. Still, I certainly know more people are active when it comes to posting.

Does this make him suck? Of course not. People are forgetting one thing: it’s his site. He can do what he wants with it. The fact is, he isn’t looking for customers. He just wants to show his opinions. What does he get back? Opinions like “you suck”. Honestly, if you don’t want to read his articles, then why do you?

I see people noting that all of the anime bloggers out there are part of a community. Because they are, they have to comment a lot, and be active. This would indeed be true, if we were dealing with some forum. This is not the case, however. I can’t see why people who start a blog are automatically required to comment on other blogs and act like active parts of the community. That’s not the reason to start an anime blog, in my opinion. You should be able to choose this for yourself.

Jyuu Oh Sei Review – 73/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Jyuu Oh Sei really is a series with its ups and downs. Overall, it remains an enjoyable series. I’m glad I watched it. Though it remains flawed. The story is about a young boy, who lives in a sci-fi-like world along with his twin brother. His parents then are killed and he, along with his brother, gets sent towards a planet full of outlaws. Not only that, but the climate is extremely harsh, and full of human-eating plants. He now has to survive, to be able to get out of this planet, and find out who sent him to Chimera and more importantly: who killed his parents.

The plot progression develops in quite an interesting way. The show starts out great, but as it progresses, you keep seeing more and more flaws in the world system that the creators built. Then, as the series progresses even more, the anime changes focus from story to characters. At first, this seems dull. And it is indeed, but then the events start to slightly improve until that arc ends with a very enjoyable climax. The last two episodes then handle the conclusion, and solve all of the questions that were formed during the first episodes of the season. All of this gets closed by a very satisfying ending. Some people hated it, though I really like endings like these. Especially the combination of characters who remained alive was great and original.

Still, the governmential system in Jyuu Oh Sei is so full of questions. It doesn’t make any sense at all. This is supposed to be a world, in which people have to struggle to survive. How come people are living in such huge communities? How are they able to live and gather food? Nothing is explained on that. Then the series also decides to skip four entire years at that point. In order to show the main character, growing up from 11 to 15 years old. First of all, the way he acts is way too old for a fifteen years old. You can only see this by the fact that he keeps making impulsive decisions. Second of all: when we switch back to him, nothing really happened. It’s like he’s been sitting in a chair for the last four years. That doesn’t make any sense at all. Around the later episodes, we also have a character who keeps killing people for some kind of reason. This reason never really is explained.

The fact is, that Jyuu Oh Sei is short. In one case, it’s good, as the storytelling was quite well done. The creators really planned the episodes in, without trying to create rushed scenes, and they succeeded. Though they had to make a sacrifice for this, namely the unanswered plotholes mentioned in the above paragraph.

The music and graphics are nothing really special, though the battle choreography looked quite interesting. Especially during the early episodes you really could see that the creators spent some time into this.

Overall, it’s a short series with only eleven episodes, and I don’t regret watching it, despite the bad moments. Jyuu Oh Sei is nothing special, though if you need something to watch, and don’t have any idea what you want to, I’d certainly recomment to at least check this anime out.

Makai Senki Disgaea Review – 81/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Makai Senki Disgaea



The spring season 2006 began with its ridiculous amount of series which aired. Of course, there had to be a couple of series which got marked by the majority of people as the “worst series of the season”. These series were immediately labeled as bad series. In this case, “High School Girls” and “Makai Senki Disgaea” got this title. I haven’t seen the former, but does the second one deserve that title?

Absolutely not. The fact that most people seem to forget is that this is a children’s show. You will find elements in this show that are meant for children, for example, a male main character who wants to be the demon king and burns people who oppose him to a crisp, and some characters who first appear for a second, only to be blown into the air in a team-rocket fashion because of this. The fact remains, that these events do give this show a character.

If you can not see that this show is a children’s show, you probably won’t be enjoying yourself during most of the episodes. Does this make it a fact that adults can’t watch it? Of course not. Anyone can watch it. All of the characters have personalities who are pretty easy to figure out by children. Though I really noticed after a while that each of the characters has his or her own very enjoyable personality trait. For example, Flonne’s incredible fangirling about love, Laharl’s disgust of it, Etna’s will to depend on Laharl while she actually wants to kill him, et cetera.

Episode 6, 9, 10 and 11 are incredible. In these episodes, all of the characters are really fleshed out, and it works PERFECTLY. The drama works really great. The characters’ intentions are shown, everything which happened before in the plot makes total sense, and at those times, you really can’t help to feel along with the characters. Not to mention the awesome comedy which was thrown in. The fact that this show is awesome is because of these four episodes.

The comedy thrown in also really works at times. At other times, however, the humor is more directed to children. Luckily, this doesn’t happen too often, which results in some very hilarious situations.

The voice-acting is just awesome. The creators managed to find the perfect voices for some of the characters. Especially Flonne. When she’s raving, you can really hear that her voice-actor is giving the best she has. Etna also sounds great, just as Laharl and the other characters. The OST is surprisingly interesting. It’s nothing special, though it does contain some breath-taking tunes, which really contribute to the scenes they’re played in.

The character-design looks great, though the animation might look a bit inconsistent at times. The background art makes totally up for this, though. Every outside scenery looks just stunning. And not to mention the CG. Where the character animation is falling, the CG is really shining in this anime. Especially near the end, it begins to look more impressive by the minute.

Overall, I’m recommending Disgaea to anyone who has a bit of patience. The first couple of episodes may seem a bit dull, though it soon becomes clear that these episodes were actually used to build up for the awesomeness which follows in the later episodes.

Soul Link Review – 65/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Soul Link is a very strange anime. Not in terms of story, but in terms of production. Some parts are extremely solid, while other parts are just totally horrible. It’s a science-fiction and fanservice series. The story is about a space-ship, which serves as a school for people who want to be in the military. This ship gets overtaken by terrorists. Most of the people aboard the ship manage to escape, though our main characters remain. They now have to survive, and find their way out.

Let’s start with the good part: the story. The story is extremely solid. This anime spans twelve episodes, and knows exactly how to use them. Each episode, the plot progresses a bit further, with no boring parts, no rushed feelings until it hits with a satisfying climax. Though the best part about this anime are the characters. While they’re in no way memorable, almost each one of them fits. It’s also extremely interesting that, while this may be a fanservice-show. It’s not like everyone’s falling in love with the main character. This is one of the few fanservice-show, in which we have a good number of couples, who remain faithful to each other. The anime’s also not afraid to kill off a couple of characters, which only adds to the drama. The plot twists are very nicely done and a lot of things make some sense.

Now the bad part. The anime may have a solid story and characters. That’s the only good thing about this show. For some reason, the creators wanted to focus on useless fanservice. The art looks just horrible and inconsistent. The animation is just garbage and some of the voice actors SO do NOT fit the characters they play. The music sucks, just as the sound effects. If you like fancy graphics, then stay far away from this anime, as you won’t be able to survive it.

Overall, I recommend Soul Link for its story. It’s a very decent anime, if you manage to ignore the horrible art. The first episodes start out a bit slow, but while looking back, they were nessecary to introduce all of the characters. You also might run into a couple of clichéd characters in the first few episodes, though don´t worry. They´ll soon move away from these clichés.

Final Rating: 65/100

Wooo! 300 posts!

by psgels, posted in Special Articles

I finally managed to make my 300th post. Yay! Another milestone hit. On top of that, this blog is now exactly seven months old (I started it at november 22nd). I decided to use this as an opportunity to display some statistics.

– Over the past 221 days, I’ve made 300 posts, which equals to 1.36 posts a day.
– I’ve recieved a total of 244 comments. These are a total number of 160 if you don’t include the posts I made myself.
– Hopeless made a total number of 23 of the comments. Cos comes in second with 18, and Anga is third with 13 comments.
– The series with the highest number of posts dedicated to it is Jigoku Shoujo, with 24 of them. Bleach and The Law of Ueki come in to a close second with 23 of them, and Bleach will probably take the lead in a couple of weeks.
– The most posts on one day were made during my Christmas Update, on December 24th: a massive 12 of them.
– So far, I’ve reviewed 23 anime, and I gave each of them a rating. These anime averaged out at 80/100. (note, this doesn’t mean that 80/100 is the standard. The standard is 60/100, though I’m more inclined to finish 80/100 anime than I am with 60/100 anime)
– My longest post so far is my May Summary, which consists of a massive 4600 words. My longest post about a single episode belongs to Higurashi no Naku Koro ni – 08, with 2540 words.
– At the time of typing this, I’ve managed to gather 31095 visitors.
– The record of most pageviews in one day still remains at April 30th, when I was still on blogsuki and recieved 1554 of them. Ever since I was removed from blogsuki, this number has been halved, with a maximum of 609 pageviews at last sunday.
– The term most popular by the search engines was Saiunkoku Monogatari. Higurashi no Naku Koro ni comes in as a close second.
– So far, I’ve yet to discover any weird search strings. The funniest I could find is the following: “does bleach kill mosquitos”. I know, it’s out of context, but still.
– Best Series Ever: Mahou Shoujotai (couldn’t resist. I just had to mention Mahou Shoujotai in some way ^^;)

Fun With Trailers

by psgels, posted in Special Articles

I was in a certain mood to check out as much trailers as possible. These are the results. I won’t be providing any links, if you want the trailer, then you can just use Google or YouTube. They were easy to find, so I don’t think that providing links is really nessecary.

Flag

I’m really getting exited about this series. The trailer only strengthened this. The character design will probably look very interesting, and the mecha-design and action scenes also looked very impressive. And that’s coming from a guy who isn’t too much into the mecha genre. The anime will indeed be action-packed. That’s certain. Though the thing to set this anime apart is the fact that the main characters have got nothing to do with these mechas. They’re just a bunch of photographers, set out to collect information. The music also sounded of very high quality.

Binbou Shimai Monogatari

I may be wrong, but I think the title means something along the lines of “Tales of a Poor Family”. It’ll be a slice of life-show. It doesn’t look too impressive, and it’ll probably revolve around the main characters, trying to make a living whilst living under poor circumstances. The trailer had some very cute moments, so I’ll at least check this one out, even though I dislike most of those slice of life-shows.

Demashitaa! Powerpuff Girls

I’m still wondering whether this anime will become a total succes, or a big failure. Still, the trailer gave a lot of hints. Apparently, the personalities of the girls will be changed. Blossom will be more of a fangirl and shopping-freak, instead of the bossy person focused on strategies in the cartoon. Bubbles will be miss-popular and have a very cool personality, instead of her crybaby version in the cartoon. Buttercup will be more ambitious, instead of her tough character from the cartoon. I have no idea about the professor, though he seems to have some kind of assistant. The major seems to have gotten some brains, and Mojo Jojo seems to be playing for villain. I’m hoping that we do get to see the gang-green-gang, though. Still, I’m a bit worried about the personalities of our three main characters, as they don’t seem interesting at all, and they remind me too much of certain american cartoons. The original series had some good points, but also some incredibly bad points. It’s up to the creators to remove these incredibly bad points.

Zero no Tsukaima

Alas, I was wrong. This won’t be the next Magikano. It’ll be worse. It’ll be the next Shakugan no Shana. I can’t believe that we have to witness such a horrible mess yet again. Not another Tsundere for this season! We’ve got enough of these already! The trailer just took away all of the enthusiasm I had for this Shana-clone. I can already see people going crazy about this. The katana probably gets turned into a magic wand and melon-pan gets turned into whatever favourite food of the main character. It’ll probably get its own SOS-fansite as well, including its own set of fan-made towels and t-shirts. I just know it! I’m so hoping for the side-characters to be able to save this anime.

Gedo Senki

This is the Ghibli-movie which is coming up in July. It’s promising to look awesome. I like the character designs, especially those of the main characters (which is a rare thing). A lot seems to be happening, and the graphics promise to look just amazing. It’ll probably take till january till it gets finally subbed (if it goes through the same process as Tsubasa and xxxHolic), though this is something to be watching out for.

Project Blue Earth SOS

After seeing the trailer, my anticipation for this anime has downed a bit. The art stopped looking amazing, it’s just above average. The two main characters are also exceptionally talented persons. At least, they behave like that. I hoped them to be just some ordinary high-school students who got involved against their will. Though I’m fearing more and more that they’ve got some elite goverment positions. In any case, aliens attack, and they’ve got flashy beams that destroy anything that hits them. Exiting. Not.

Coyote Ragtime Show

This was a trailer which made me extremely enthusiastic. The characters look amazing and unique, not to mention the music. It’s also got an interesting plot to back it up. This’ll definately be on my top list to watch.

Night Head Genesis

You know, this show might actually be interesting. At first, I wrote it down because of the horrible site, but the trailer showed some nice things. I especially like the look on each of the characters, and the girl on the moon also suggests at some mystery being thrown in. Who knows? The show might become very entertaining. In any case, if the creators make the little boy an important character, I’ll keep watching.

Le Chevalier d’Eon

The other good trailers really made me exited about the shows. That’s indeed what a good trailer’s supposed to do. This trailer, however, did not make me exited at all. That either means that it’s a bad trailer, or it’s a bad show. I’m hoping the former, as I like the setting. Still, the art didn’t look impressive at all, the animation was a bit buggy and none of the characters really grabbed me.

Some Quick First Impressions: Hime-Sama Goyoujin, Gun Doh Musashi and Spider Riders

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

And here’s another batch of the spring-season anime which were horribly ignored by the fansubbers. All of them are low-budget. They’re all incredibly cheesy. And when I say cheese, I really mean cheese. The OPs all are ridiculous, though catchy. Strangely enough, despite all this, I enjoyed watching them.

Hime-Sama Goyoujin

This certainly is a low-budget comedy anime. Was it funny? Yes, it was. I had some good laughs, which could easily compete with Ouran High School Host. The show knows how to use utter randomness, along with a couple of horribly wrong jokes. Still, this certainly won’t be one of the smart anime out there, as each member of the cast has the same intelligence of a dog, chasing its own tail. This show knows what it is: a comedy-anime and nothing more. Overall, I liked it. The jokes were funny, and I’ll be recommending this to anyone who’s in for a few good laughs.

Gun Doh Musashi

From now on, the term extremely corny samurai-show” gets to be the equivalent of Gun Doh Musashi. If I didn’t know that this show came out this spring, I would’t have guessed it at all. The show follows the life of Miyamoto Musashi. It’s based on history, though the creators made thankful use of artistical freedom. It’s also entirely directed at children. I mean, Musashi likes to use weapons that hurt, but don’t kill. He’s a brat who’s an expert swordsman and he’s able to take down entire armies if he wants to. Still, why am I so drawn to this incredibly cheesy show? Despite they look incredibly corny, the art of the main characters somehow looks very interesting, and the OP is just totally awesome, in a funny kind of way. No other show would attempt to include an OP like that. Overall, if you’re into cheesy japanese samurai-shows, I might recomment this. ^^;

Spider Riders

This show was so unknown that the dubs got out even sooner than the subs. Okay, this may be an extreme case in which an american company and a japanese company joined together to make it, but still. In any case, what we have here is a standard show for six-year-old boys. Think guy-gets-transported-to-other-world-and-gets-to-fight-alongside-giant-creatures-sort-of-plot. Still, the bad thing is the dubs. I totally agree with the people who say that english dubs don’t fit anime, and this show proves it. The voice-acting has experienced yet another horrible miss-cast, everything sounds horribly ugly, especially in american accents who show absolutely no signs of emotions. The jokes also fail 50% of the time because of this. Still, the show remains interesting. I think I’ll continue watching this when the subs get out, as it certainly beats shows like Kiba, Elemental Gerad and MAR, despite it being horribly cliché.

Poll: Should I Rate Individual Episodes?

by psgels, posted in Special Articles

I suddenly realized something when I took another look at the front page. I haven’t changed the poll at all ever since the end of march. I guess I’m getting lazy. Ah well, now we at least know that Mushishi features awesome music.

Anyway, I decided to replace the poll with something that’ll actually be useful to the site: should I rate individual episodes or not? I’m seeing some sites who actually do this, and I often find myself looking for the rating they gave the episode. I’m wondering if more people experience this.

Aaaack!!!!

by psgels, posted in Special Articles

Okay, I sincerely apologize to anyone who came by here and tried to post a comment. It seems that everyone who made a comment on Star Crossed in the past is fine, but for some reason, people entirely new here are somehow blocked. This really explains why I didn’t get visits from any new commenters out there. Thanks A LOT to Ten for pointing this out. O_o

The story is like this: about a month ago, every anime blogger out there suffered from huge waves of comment spam (you know, the ones at which you got automatically generated comments who were praising your blog). Star Crossed was no other. And even though it managed to catch a lot of them, the spammers soon found a way to bypass the spam blocker: don’t include any links in the post, and keep your name cryptic. This way, tons of those little buggers came through, and I had to delete them manually (I swear, once this year is over and I have enough time for it, I’m going to move to something with Akismet). Of course, I became sick of this, so I started to search for a way for them to be automatically detected by the anti-spam-feature of blogsome. I messed with a couple of settings, and the spamming stopped. But now I see that I seemed to have turned off the entire traffic for newcomers, which SO was NOT supposed to happen.

I’m currently looking into some way to undo this. Let’s hope that the comment spammers won’t return after this. Agh, this is one of the reasons I dislike Blogsome. *kicks random item*

=Update=
Okay, I’ve managed to fix the problem. If you still have problems posting a comment, you can use the shoutbox on the right. With a bit of luck, I’ll be able to start moving around the end of june.