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Jigoku Shoujo Review – 92/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Jigoku Shoujo



The concept: somewhere on the net, there exists a website. When you access that website, you can enter the name of a person you want to take revenge on. This person then gets sent to hell immediately. There is a catch, however. When you die, you also get sent to hell. Your soul will never find peace, and it’ll burn forever. In some anime, concepts like these never work. Jigoku Shoujo, however, somehow manages to turn this into something awesome.

Each episode is a standalone episode, except for the latter ones. In each of these, a person wants revenge on another person, and struggles whether it’s worth it or not. While some of the cases may look like each other, the majority of these cases manage to produce a unique standalone story, with beautiful characters, beautiful motives and furthermore great storytelling. I especially liked episode 7, 16, 22 and 23.

The characters are amazing. Each of the main characters has a unique personality, a good background (in most cases great) and really adds to the story. There were no annoying main characters at all. The characters who only appeared for one episode, even though there were a lot of them, all had something different from each other, and each of them had some kind of background. At the end of each episode, we could really enter the mind of these characters.

The art looks amazing. Especially the character art is among the most crisp ever seen in anime. The music also has turned into a masterpiece. The storytelling also couldn’t have been done better.

Overall, Jigoku Shoujo is an amazing anime. I’ll definately recommend it to anyone. Although, I have to say that there were a number of episodes which didn’t really seem too impressive. Apart from that, I have no complaints about this series.

Final Rating: 92/100

Some quick first impressions: Yoshinaga-san chi no Gargoyle, Kamisama Kazoku and Demonbane

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

And here we have the latecomers of the season, either in terms of air date, or in terms of late fansubs. I’m kindof curious about the series which still have to be subbed. There are about six of them left, but there might be something very interesting among them.

Yoshinaga-san chi no Gargoyle
An example of good shows almost totally ignored by the fansubbers is Yoshinaga-san chi no Gargoyle. The story’s about a very energetic, young girl, who won a living, stone gargoyle by accident. Ever since, the gargoyle has been protecting the little girl’s house, but he’s a bit too enthusiastic in this, trying to burn everyone who comes close. The little girl does not like these events, so the’s often yelling at him, resulting in some awesome scenes. The case introduced in the first episode also was a beauty. it’s about the daughter of a blind man, who comes to understand the blind man’s guard dog. Greatly excecuted. Yoshinaga-san chi no Gargoyle certainly isn’t the best show around, though it will definately be entertaining.

Kamisama Kazoku

When I first heard about this title, I kept hoping for this show to be centered around lots of puns. The main character also looked relatively old, so I kept hoping for him to be the only mature, while his family was something around the lines of the Kami-sama in the Law of Ueki. That really would’ve been awesome. Alas, I was wrong. Totally wrong. Our main character remains a 12-year old brat. His entire family is crazy, but it isn’t centered around puns, it’s centered around perverts. Ugh. What could’ve been an amazingly cool hippy turned into an old pervert who grants his son any wish he wants. His mother and sisters don’t make this a lot better, as they’re the standard harem-cast featured in all of those other anime. Our main character also has someone who loves him, namely an angel sent from the heavens in order to protect him. Just when I thought this couldn’t get any worse, this angel (named Tenko) managed to save it, right at the last possible moment of the episode. If this show will revolve around her mental breakdown, I’ll be happy. I also have to say, that the character art, although messy, looks good.

Demonbane

Garbage, garbage, garbage! This SO contains every single fantasy-harem cliche, puts it into one series, and thinks it’ll be succesful. Apparenly, destiny plays a big role in this thing. Our main character is destined to drive the most powerful mecha ever, he’s destined to meet up with a beautiful girl, merge with her, and he is certainly destined to save the world. There’s one thing that cracked me up, though: the beautiful irony of a statement that was made at the end of the episode: “Does a hero become a hero from the moment he’s born? No, a hero is one who follows a path of bloodshed with an iron will.” Oh, the beautiful irony. This show doesn’t even know it sucks. On a side-note: the art looks horrible as well.

Dumped by Blogsuki, an interesting development

by psgels, posted in Special Articles

Okay, so suddenly, Jason removed Star Crossed from BlogSuki. Why? I have no idea. He gave two reasons in his little post, about the criteria of blogs to be removed. The first one is that you make make too many off-topic posts. Well I don’t recall having made absolutely any offtopic posts at all, or maybe my entry about my exams, back in december suffices, though I doubt Blogsuki ever existed at that time, so that can’t be it. The second reason he gave, was that you do not get enough readership.

So far, in the month May, Star Crossed gained an average of about 500 unique visists a day. This number has been rising ever since I set up this blog (November: 55 pageviews, December: 1233 pageviews, January: 1808, February: 2795, March: 6369, April: 13811, judge yourself). In my opinion, this is a pretty large number, though it makes me wonder what number will be good enough. In fact, I’m wondering what is even defined with enough readership. Let’s take a look at the stats for this month, shall we? What are the two pages with the most people viewing it? Higurashi no Naku Koro ni 04 and 05. Ironically, the anime with one of the most people blogging it is still way ahead of the anime I’m the only one blogging (say, Popolocrois). I just know, that if I started to blog Haruhi, Mai Otome, Fate/Stay Night and Magikano, that these would also have the same amount of readership. Does that mean that I have to start blogging just the popular shows now? Or did Jason mean something different by readership?

To be clear, this post is definately not intended to bash Jason in any possible way. After all, it’s his site, he can do what he want with it. I do admit that I’m not pleased with him kicking me just out like that, without any message whatsoever. Though I realize that it was me who sent him an e-mail in the first place, not the other way around, so I’m the one to blame in this part, it was my own responsibility. Anyway, this post is more meant as a bit of self-reflection. What am I doing wrong? (I’m obviously doing something wrong) And what can I do to improve it?

I believe that the biggest problem people have with this blog is the writing-style. Yes, I’m friggin’ Dutch. Of course my writing-style couldn’t par any of the native guys and girls out there. Just add this to the fact that I haven’t had any interest in writing until about a year ago, and you have an even more horrifying writing-style. I’ve aquired most of the writing experience I have right now in that year. One of the reasons I started this blog was also to learn more about writing, and it definately provided enough material for me to write about. I’m also finding that I’m not the best comment whore out there. And yes, indeed. I should be commenting other blogs a lot more often, though that’s just my nature. I’m horribly shy in real life. On the internet, this is significantly less, though I still find myself unable to write giant-length comments about just anything. I’m still amazed about how people like kawai are able to write such behemoths of comments, they must have some kinds of superpowers…

Then there’s the issue that passed about a week ago on Blogsuki. About the content of blogs, and how bloggers should not only post summaries, but also some in-depth articles. And indeed, all about I’ve ever done is make posts about individual episodes, write series reviews and posting previews of the upcoming seasons (heh, I’m probably the blogger who posts the earliest first impressions of all the other bloggers out there ^^;). I have some ideas about articles, though. For example a rant against people bashing RPG-based games, or a little opinion about the Naruto-fillers. (Note to self: write these articles once you have a lot of free time on your hands) I indeed hate it how lazy I am concerning these things. Another thing I’m lazy about is keeping up my blogroll. I’ve been wanting to update it for a long while now, as there are so many new interesting blogs which caught my eye.

When I look back to my earliest posts, I can see a lot of differences. At May 22nd, I’ll be celebrating the half-year aniversary of this blog, and since November, a lot has changed. First of all, my writing style was even more horrible than it is now. I think that that’s the worst thing about my posts back then. Another thing is that it really surprises me how short my posts were at that time. Most of them were as big as my individual quick first impressions right now. If you compare this with my recent posts that average about 500 words, alongside some entries which even manage to get as far as 1500, it really is interesting to notice. Though, I do have to say that I had something back when this blog was just fresh, and which I don’t have right now: my fanboyism. In the past, I used to get all giddly about some episodes, while currently, I’ve taken a way more objective look at things. Though, I’m not even good enough to say objective. I’m too happy with almost each episode I watch. Every episode is good in my standards, with only Bleach being a healthy change. I especially noted this when comparing my own entries of Ayakashi to Hopeless Sensei’s. I just had the same opinion I always have. And still, I seem to have lost my inner-fanboy. This makes me wonder whether I should pick up a show like Gintama… Anyway, I’ll try to find ways to counter this.

Another good aspect which I did have back in the old days, but don’t have right now is a simple one: Mahou Shoujotai. This is simply the best anime ever. No discussion possible. It was also one of my biggest sources of fanboyism, and one of the reasons I started up this blog in the first place. Now that I’ve finished it, I’ve ever since been searching for an anime which would be able to call Mahou Shoujotai its equal. I haven’t succeeded yet. I’ve seen a lot of amazing series, though, but they’re all just a bit below the awesomeness Mahou Shoujotai managed to create.

Though, when I look at my recieved comments, I indeed realize that this is one of the lesser sites out there. My maximum number of comments on one post remains six, while other people somehow manage to bring in fifteen comments for each one of their posts. Even if it was something as simple as a visit to the bathroom, they will be swarmed with at least ten comments, while I have to hope to get any comments at all. The comments I do get, however, are greatly inspiring. I especially love Hopeless Sensei, along with lolikitsune, Anga and Mina. I’m also incredibly glad with the people who keep pointing out mistakes I made in some of my posts, even though I don’t always show it. Believe me, I might be making the most mistakes of anyone in the blogging community.

The final flawed aspect of this blog that I can think of right now is the fact that I’m a post whore. At times, I really make four or five posts a day, because of the fact that I reserve one post per episode. When you have a day at which five episodes come in, the numbers pile up. I also keep thinking that I’m blogging way too many series at the moment. There are fourteen of them at the moment, which will soon be twelve when Noein and Jigoku Shoujo have their final episodes subbed. Then again, it will be thirteen again when Mushishi comes back into action, which could be any moment now. It’ll be most likely to come sooner than Noein and Jigoku Shoujo can finish, so I’ll eventually end up with fifteen blogged series at one moment. I might be experimenting with multi-episode posts in the future, though for organizational purposes, that would be horrible again. Still, I have been worse at times in the past. For the last couple of months, my maximum number of posts per day has been at april 1st and 2nd, after the combination of my exams and a sudden tidal-wave of new Jigoku-Shoujo and Utena-episodes coming in caused me to fall behind, and forcing me to catch up an incredible lot. Though, when you look at my christmas update, there appear to be even more posts made in one day (12, to be exact, in comparison to the 10 of april 1st).

Ah well, this event certainly won’t be keeping me away from blogging. It’s not like I needed Blogsuki anyway. Yeah, ok. It’s good and convienient for bringing in visitors, though I managed to survive for more than three months without it anyway. Also: if you’ve got a suggestion, or if you’ve got some critizism for this site, by all means, do not be afraid to post about it. I read all my comments. I’m an active member in a game-design community, so I KNOW that constructive critizism is extremely valuable. And for anyone actually bothering to get to this point of finishing the article: thanks for actually reading this little rant of mine. ^_^

The Law of Ueki Review – 90/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Law of Ueki



Say hello to the anime with the most creative battles ever. We finally have a series which understands that strategy-based battles are so much better than power-based battles. At least, most of the time.

The premisse is simple: we have this God, who organizes a tournament in order to decide his successor. 100 middle schoolers are picked, and given a power. Then they have to fight each other, and the last one standing wins. The good part: most of these powers make no sense at all. They’re certainly not the thing you’d expect. I’m referring to the power to change trash into trees, tomatoes into magma, bamboo into scissors and a ring into a rocket. And these are just the least original of the bunch. There also is a limit to each of these powers, as in a condition that has to be fulfilled before you can use it. Think of the ability of changing water into fire if you put it in your mouth, the ability to change towels into steel if you hold your breath and many more. When these are used in battle, the results become incredible.

It was really clear that the creators put all of their creativity in these battles. Some of them truly turned into something memorable, as you will have no idea what’s going to happen, or how the antagonists will be defeated. It’s also great that a great deal of humor was put into these battles, and somehow the creators managed to find the perfect combination between comedy and action.

The first thirteen episodes of the series contain either amazingly funny battles, or just a couple of scenes you just need to sit through a bit. Though that may be tedious, the awesome episodes are definately worth it. The six episodes afterwards, are horribly creative, and touching as well. In these episodes, Ueki shows his best side, and the bad guys just keep getting better and better.

The next six episodes, especially the first bunch, are amazing. We get to see some great duels, which contain the best strategies of the series, as the side-characters of the show show off their best. The six episodes afterwards (27-32, if you lost count) follow with a short intermezzo. Nothing special or worthwile happens here, though. There are some funny moments, but these were certainly not as good as the previous ones.

The series suffers a huge blow around episode 32 and 33. These were horrible examples of directions at which you should never go, and the se/ries went there. At this point, it almost made me give up the show. Luckily, in the episodes following, the show manages to steadily pick up, until episode 38. From this point on, The Law of Ueki really begins to shine. We get to see the best fights ever, perfectly combining comedy and action into one gigantic heap of awesomeness. Especially when the side-characters come into the spotlight, the show just switches from one amazing scene to another.

The awesomeness continues until episode 43. After this, the show loses its shine, and eventually manages to produce a decent ending. These last episodes were better than you expect, though they just weren’t on the same level as the previous episodes.

The art of the characters looks a bit different than usual. The unevennes of the faces is heavily accentuated, and every scratch becomes visible. I like this, it’s also what originally turned me on to keep watching the series, although as the series progresses, you become used to this. The backgrounds are a very good piece of art. Although the same ones are used for a couple of episodes after each other, this doesn’t really destroy that effect, it only makes it better. The music, although nothing extraordinary, it used to its full extend. It makes the dramatic scenes so worthwile, and adds even more to the great battles.

Overall, any action fan will surely just love this anime, or if you’re just in for a couple of good laughs, then I really recommend this anime.

Final Rating: 90/100

Ayakashi ~ Japanese Classic Horror Review – 87/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Ayakashi ~Japanese Classic Horror~



Ayakashi ~ Japanese Classic Horror is divided in three individual stories. Each of them stands alone and has nothing to do with the other two. They also share a totally different art style, atmosphere, motives and characters for each of these tales.

Ayakashi begins with the story called Yotsuya Kaidan. The first episode is horrible, it starts just so boring, and keeps this on until the end of it. But then again, that was easily the worst episode of Ayakashi. The good part starts at the second episode, when some great deaths come past the screen, ending at the fourth episode with a satisfying climax. The art style is really old-fashoned, though it remains ugly. Though I guess that that was meant to be that way, as the theme of this story is ugly as well. It’s about the evil that humans can accomplish, and these humans eventually get punished. The characters are all horrible bastards, with a few exception, which only makes it more enjoyable to watch when these characters go berserk. Still, even though it was an enjoyable tale, the story itself is mostly one-layered, with a small exception in the second and third episode.

Then comes the tale Ten Shu Mono Gatari, and if it wasn’t for the fact that they share both the name Ayakashi, I would’ve been unable to identify it with Yotsuya Kaidan. Ten Shu Mono Gatari is suddenly a love story, the total opposite of its predecessor. The Horror-part of Ayakashi is also nowhere to be found in this story, it’s just a normal human and a supernatural being falling in love with each other. The art looks really nice this time, especially when compared to Yotsuya Kaidan. The first three episodes build up perfectly, and end into a very satisfying climax. Though, I have to say that Yotsuya Kaidan is the better one of these two, as it featured some memorable scenes, and it has chaos included which Ten Shu Mono Gatari misses.

Then the third story, Bake Neko, comes. And without a doubt it’s the highlight of the series. The art turns into something really unique, I can only say that I loved it, though it takes some time getting used to. The Horror-part is finally clearly distinctable, and the entire three episodes it consists of turn into an amazing roller-coaster ride with a couple of amazing quiet moments. The characters are each wonderful, and I haven’t even began about the story, which was truly one of the best ones I’ve yet to see.

Overall, I’m recommending Ayakashi ~ Japanese Classic Horror. Especially to the ones who love great deaths, though the fans of love-stories will also be satisfied, and even if you’re not one of these people, just give this series a chance. The first episode is what turned most people off, though it you manage to survive that one, you get treated to some brilliant scenes. You can also just skip the first eight episodes, and immediately turn to Bake Neko if you wish, as each of the stories have no relationships with each other.

Yotsuya Kaidan Rating: 85/100
Ten Shu Mono Gatari Rating: 81/100
Bake Neko Rating: 94/100
Final Rating: 87/100

Some quick first impressions: Inukami, Love Get Chu and Tsubasa Chronicle 2nd Season

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

These all feature an episode in which a female tries to do her best. The first two fail horribly, though the last one succeeds.

Inukami

Okay, I think we’ve identified the worst anime of the season. And I thought Joshikousei was bad. Seriously, stay away from this anime. Far, far away. It’s that bad.

Love Get Chu

I was hoping that this would become something very insprirational. Well, my guess was wrong. There’s nothing exceptional with this anime. Just an ignorant little girl who wants to become a seijuu and happens to have a very strong voice. She’ll probably make it to some of the best seijuu ever, and live happily ever after with the guy she happened to meet in this episode. The side-characters also are one cliché after another.

Tsubasa Chronicle 2nd Season

Aah, I missed this. It really is just as good as the previous season. The music is the same awesomeness as before, with a couple of extra tunes added. This time, the feather is the grand prize for a racing event. The racing vehicles are some kind of flying-chibi-cars, not optimally aerodinamic at all, but somehow, they manage to fly. This episode is about the qualification for the final race, as only ten people may enter it. I can’t say anything but the fact that I loved this race. All of our four main characters enter. Kurogane and Fye both manage to come in first, Sakura still has difficulties driving her flying car, and Syaoran has engine problems. The two of them do manage to get the ninth and tenth place, though. Even though this was totally predictable, I really liked it. Especially when you consider the humor thrown in, and the fact that someone’s cheating in order to win the feather. I’m expecting a lot of goodness from this.

Some quick first impressions: Witchblade, Glass no Kantai and Good Witch of the West

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

For the quick first impressions, I’m always trying to find a small similarity between the three. It doesn’t always work, though. Just as with these three. I think the closest resemblance would be that each of the first episodes focuses around a female, instead of a male, but that isn’t really something extraordinary… But who cares! Good Witch of the West is finally fansubbed!

Witchblade

My, my! I never would have thought an anime like this would have good points! Okay, the main character’s designs are hugely fanservice-oriented, there are a lot of fast action-scenes, but holy god, the mother-daughter story was just too sad to see. We have this mother and daughter, who are fleeing for the Child Support Agency, which plans to separate the two of them. Both of them really want to be with each other, so when they are eventually separated, both parties become desperate to see each other again. That part was beautiful, although I’ll probably hate the parts which have nothing to do with this relationship.

Glass no Kantai

Apparently, this started airing recently as well. It’s a science-fiction series, with huge 18th century influences. Space has been filled with air, for some strange and unknown reason, and large battles between lots of big space-ships. This anime will probably about the leaders behind large-scale wars, with some ethics involved. The graphics look great. The CG to coordinate all of the different battleships on the battlefield also has been done pretty impressively. The theme is also fairly nice, though the story and the characters have yet to impress me. I don’t know if I have enough motivation to keep watching this.

Good Witch of the West – Astraea Testament

Woohoo! It’s just as good as I imagined! For one, the art looks truly beautiful. It can even challenge Tales of Phantasia if this keeps going on, which is a very remarkable feat, especially if you realize that Tales of Phantasia was an OVA, while this is just a tv-series. Anyway, the characters, the story, the dialogue, the music, everything is full of potential. It’s also a very nice addition that our main character is a fan of fairytales. We’re still bothered by a couple of common clichés (the larges one being our main character being member of the royal family), though. But I’m happy that they are using them right now, instead of at the end of the series. Yes, I’m looking at you, Esther. I think that with this, my top three of the spring season consists of Good Witch of the West, .Hack//Roots and Higurashi No Naku Koro ni. I’m really dying to see the next episode of each of these three.

Some quick first impressions: Yume Tsukai, Ar Tonelico and Jyu Oh Sei

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

We now turn to the series which were kindof ignored by the fansubbers. They’re all fantasy series, in one way or another. Again, some are good, some are bad. Some of them, though, really deserve more credit than they get.

Yume Tsukai

I liked the promo-art when I first saw this. It promises to be an interesting series, with kindof a weak start. If I guess this right, this will be just like series as Jigoku Shoujo and Mushishi: each episode, we get a different case, and each episode is a story on its own. Still, the former two captured me at this moment. Yume Tsukai, however, seems a bit mediocre. I do have confidence, though, that this will turn out to be a great series later in the show. Still, I don’t know whether I’ll be able to witness it, due to the enormous amount of other shows which currently air, and caught my attention more. I’ll try, though.

Ar Tonelico

I secretly hoped for this to be the next Tales of Phantasia. Note to self: NEVER do that again. The story is just generic. The main character is an impulsive, immature, pubescent male. That is so original. Especially when you try to consider that the creators try to make him look like some perfect being. That doesn’t work. The fact that he immediately ends up with a cute girl doesn’t really help, so does the fact that another cute girl happens to be the best engineer ever. Still, despite all this garbage, there’s one thing I really loved. The graphics look totally amazing. Especially the backgrounds were on Mushishi and Tales of Phantasia-level.

Jyu Oh Sei

I have absolutely no idea why this show is neglected this much. It’s brilliant! I urge everyone to check this out, you won’t be disappointed. It’s not the best to come in this season, but this will certainly be a good watch. Another thing: even though the concept is huge, the show only airs eleven episodes. This will either mean great pacing or a rushed ending. Judging from episode one, I’d say its the former. Let’s hope it’ll be able to keep up, because if it will, this will become awesome. Interesting fact: the first thing I thought of when I saw this anime was “Fantastic Children”, which is true, the main characters really look like some upgraded versions of the Children of Befort, which is a very good thing.

Magikano Review – 73/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



What we have here, is an example of an anime containing great, but at the same time, horribly wrong comedy, often combined with huge amounts of fanservice. Although the fanservice is bad, the comedy totally makes up for it. Each episode, we get to see our characters do the most stupid things ever. The characters are brilliant when it comes to comedy. This is a typical harem-series, so there naturally is just one male member in the cast, with the rest filled with women. All of course, in love with our main chacrater. Each of these characters has her own different personality, and in combination with each other, they work absolutely great.

The graphics themselves look pretty decent. The character art can be debatable, but it’s good enough to not be bothered by it. The CG looks very nice. Maybe it’s a bit too much copied and pasted, but I’ve seen anime do this worse. The music itself isn’t really special, but it gives a nice mood to the series. The OP is way too cheesy, however. It fits the anime perfectly, though.

Like I said before: this anime really works, I had a great time watching this series. However. This anime only works when it doesn’t take itself seriously. Every time it attempts to introduce a serious scene, it turns into pure and utter garbage. I especially recommend everyone to stop watching after episode ten, as the last three episode were part of the most boring episodes in the history of anime.

Apart from that, though, I really recommend this anime for the people who are in for a few good laughs, and like some horribly wrong comedy.

Final rating: 73/100