Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Bladeworks – 06

by AidanAK47, posted in Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Bladeworks

I was mistaken in the previous review. The action scene I thought we would be getting today has been postponed till next week. This week we have a calm before the storm episode as things seem to be setting up for the fight scene to come. I am a little disappointed with this weeks fare as the animation seems to have finally dropped. Movement has gone down and the number of still frames, face shots and environment shots have gone up. It is understandable that they decide to save the animation budget on this particular episode, as they will need to animate some high level fight scenes next episode and this episode was mainly dialogue driven. Still I did find the off shots of windows and the environment during conversation to be a little distracting. it’s a small complaint I know but when something is presenting high level animation and then suddenly drops you notice it all the more.

Lets talk about Shinji Matou for a moment. I have never liked Shinji’s character, though not for the obvious reasons such as him just being a horrible person. Shinji to me has always seemed more a plot device than an actual character. He is designed to be hated to the core, from his high handed talk, his petty anger and to his downright pathetic cowardice when faced with an actual threat. His only saving grace being just how satisfying it is to see him get taken down a peg. In Fate/stay nights fandisc/sequel of sorts, Hollow/Ataraxia, he at least gains more to his character when stripped of his low level villain status. While he still doesn’t become likeable it at least then makes sense as to how him and Shirou could have been friends once. However here he’s just going to become worse as the story goes on. In particular there is one scene involving him in this route which UFOtable is going to have to thread carefully with as it is a rather distasteful moment in a otherwise great story. But the reason I bring this up is that I find Shinji’s presence on screen to be off putting. He is an emotionally manipulative character and even though I know he is designed with the sole purpose of irritating the viewer, I still get irritated all the same. And considering that I see this is the writers intent it just comes off detrimental to the experience and rather insulting. My advice would be to keep him out of the spotlight as much as possible though that is unlikely as he is a driving plot device after all.

On a positive note, I commend the anime for using a shorter explanation for Shirou’s strengthening magic. Because Nasu’s explanations are remarkably long winded and roundabout. Nasu will never tell you outright how something works. He will proceed to explain it in the most obtuse way possible and then repeat that explanation in a number of different beating around the bush ways till you figure it out. It is a way of making the reader misinterpret the thing being told to them as complex and deep because it took effort to figure out, when really they just were given a faulty explanation. Here however we have Shirou explain his magic in the simplest way possible, saving us from listening to a long tedious monologue. I will admit to being let down with this weeks episode of Fate but that does not mean it was a bad episode. It was a rather weak one but did have it’s share of small moments.I liked the talk between Archer and Shirou. As well as Rin and Shirou’s banter as they cleared up the seals. I would say the main thing thats irking me here is that I now have to wait another week to see a fight scene I thought would be in this episode.

Nanatsu no Taizai – 06

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:

There was quite number of still frames this episode so I hope that the animation budget isn’t starting to hurt. So our heroes triumph over the villains with a little help from Elizabeth. She showed some actual enginuity for once. As I was about to sigh as the villain was preparing to blab on about how his power works and give our heroes the exact right information to figure out how to combat it, he is cut off when he realises that Elizabeth already figured it out and made her move. Got to say it was an impressive feat to take the bell from the mans staff as he hit her with it. It would be nice to see her continue to be this inventive but sadly I believe this is a one time moment. She reverts to princess mode pretty soon afterwards.

With the bell out of commision the Sins cleaned house soon enough. Even when one of the villains pulled out his trump card, a spell to seal them away in the prison forever, it was unintentionally broken by the reunion of Meliodas and Ban. Not only did they destroy the spell but also bring down the entire prison with friendly arm wrestling. I am beginning to worry that these characters may be too strong. While I said before that to get around this one can put them in disadvantageous situations but when you disarm the situation it really just becomes a matter of when they win. It is hard to feel they are in true danger in a pure fist fight.

Ah yes and the doctor isn’t dead.To no ones surprise. This is one of the problems I have with shounen battle anime. They are all for having dire situations but there are not many who are willing to follow through with the consequences. I generally dislike fake deaths. I find them to be cheap emotional manipulation that only works once and loses all impact after the reveal. Even then if you can see it then it won’t even work once. This as well takes away the effect of a character genuinely dying as many would just be waiting for the reveal rather than get taken in the characters true final moments. It isn’t even properly explained here. He just go healed somehow and they brush it off pretty quickly. I admit there is something later on that could explain this but right now it’s just lazy way to prevent the daughter from having to deal with the loss of her father. The next episode looks to add a new sin to the head count so we can only see how this King plans to introduce himself.

Shingeki no Bahamut:Genesis- 05

by K-Off, posted in Shingeki no Bahamut

Ah, the story progression that I was looking for. I finally find myself having a reason to get attached to Leone and Kaisar, because this episode devotes an entire episode to their rivalry and is just all around an improvement from last episode.

I’ve talked about how the slow pacing hurts this show, and this is one instance where taking a break from the monotony of side activities does a lot to build the story. In this episode, we follow Leone and Rita (possibly my favorite character so far) as they try to get Kaisar and Amira back, who were captured by demons in the last episode. The old rivalry between Leone and Kaisar finally come to a head, and it’s been delivered in such a satisfying manner here- the rising action was not contrived in any way and it was packed with a lot of tension. Regardless, there remains much to be worried about when talking about where this anime will end up-take Amira’s exponential “moe-ification” and the sluggish pacing, which appeared plenty of times in the last few episodes. Those will, without a doubt, stay relevant as the show moves forward.

In addition, Jeanne D’Arc and the Knights had at most 3 minutes of screen time ever since the series began, so I do think that it’s a mistake for Sato to put them on the sidelines for so long. Jeanne D’Arc is probably the only well-known historical figure in the anime, and she’s yet another character being cast off as a minor supporting character when she has so much potential.

Parasyte-the Maxim- 03-05

by K-Off, posted in Parasyte

Let me put up a disclaimer: When I first started to review this series, I didn’t foresee the obvious outcome that this show would end up so mediocre. I debated whether or not I should write reviews in groups of 2-3 episodes versus reviews that would drone on about the same issues every single episode, and I ultimately decided on the former. Parasyte is yet another anomaly- because while the pacing and story are solid as hell, various weaknesses in character development and a total failure to create an effective setting ultimately bring the show down.

First, I think we can all agree that Migi is by far the best character in this show. But besides him, who else do I genuinely care about? Shinichi’s “dehumanization” continues to occur far too rapidly for us to care about it very much, yet the writers seem to keep beating us over the head with evidence that he’s changing- when Mr. A is approaching Shinichi in episode four, Shinichi feels strong remorse about having to kill A, even though he ultimately kills him out of self-defense. So I was initially under the impression that Shinichi doesn’t want to kill any organism regardless of their threat level, because his actions had demonstrated that very same idea up to that point. However, when a pregnant Miss Ryoko is literally causing zero harm to anyone, all of a sudden, Shinichi wants to kill her- what a textbook definition of beating us over the head with character development.

This also directly correlates with the failure to create tension whenever Shinichi goes outdoors.  With a premise as this reminiscent of vampires, there was so much potential here. Although this is obviously a minor issue in comparison to something like character development, creating an unnerving tension whenever Shinichi goes outside to interact with other humans would take the story this show seeks to tell and drastically further push the narrative. How awesome would it have been, had the writers shown Shinichi suspecting every person he saw in the city simply because one of them might be a parasyte? Because so far, the only things that remind us that there are other parasytes out there are the “boss fights” we get every episode.

Overall, although I’ve only listed the negative aspects of the show fron episodes 3-5, the parts this show does right remains the same as what I wrote for my episode 2 review. Regardless, the soundtrack is definitely now a problem- the big emotional reveal in the fifth episode was ruined for me because of the badly composed dubstep (a genre of music that I normally enjoy.) Ultimately, the positives and negatives of this show make this series a fairly average one so far.

Your Lie in April – 04 & 05

by LightningBolt, posted in Currently Watching:, Your Lie in April

Episodes 4 and 5 of Your Lie in April were crucial ones in terms of how the series would develop. Episode 4 was a very important episode in the series as we see Kousei reintroduce himself to the music world after his mother’s death left him unable to play the piano. How the writers would handle this situation was extremely important. I was personally worried that Kousei’s and Kaori’s performance would go too smoothly, almost belittling Kousei’s trauma. Instead, the writers took a more agreeable path than that in which encouraging signs for Kousei’s progress were mixed with frustration and familiar problems that showed that he is definitely not out of the woods yet.

After the performance, we’re left with Kaori’s sudden collapse. I was immediately worried that this was going to be an extremely cheap use of melodrama to inject some drama into the show that would ultimately be completely negligible to the series as a whole, but we learn in episode 5 that this has been a recurring issue for Kaori and will almost definitely be a very important part of Your Lie in April going forward. The rest of episode 5 showed a stronger focus on the relationships within the show with some monologues from Tsubaki and Kousei as they ponder their feelings. Episode 5 ends with Kaori pushing Kousei to enter a piano competition, which will be another important step in Kousei’s progress overcoming his trauma.

The good from these two episodes is that the pacing and production values have remained very strong. Good pacing is always nice since it feels rather rare in the medium, and especially rare in the drama/romance genres. The show also managed to beat out my worst expectations that I detailed a little bit in the above paragraphs, relating to how Kousei’s accompaniment of Kaori would go and Kaori’s collapse. As for the bad… I really wasn’t a fan of the writers hanging the botched performance over Kousei’s head. I can understand Kousei being hard on himself, even if he was pushed into the performance. I think it would be a natural reaction. I was less understanding of Kaori bringing it up at the end of episode 5. At the end of the day, I think it was merely to get him to do the piano competition, continuing to try to help him overcome his issues, but I’m still iffy on hanging that over his head to get him to do it. This is also a good time to mention the sappy lines I forgot to mention last time. They’re back in full force, particularly during the monologues. The biggest issue with these lines is that they really just suck me out of the show. Nobody talks like that.

Overall I’d say the quality has remained fairly consistent through these five episodes. Kousei’s upcoming piano competition should be the next major event and it’ll be interesting to see how the writers choose to move along the plot from where we are now. Also, of course, it’ll be interesting to see how Kaori’s health develops going forward.

Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Bladeworks – 05

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Bladeworks

Always elegant. That is the motto of the Tohsaka household and the mask of Tohsaka Rin. The meaning clearly that no matter what you do, do it with style and grace. It is the creed which Rin upholds by playing the honor student. Though as you can see, at times cracks can appear in the facade.  We had two great action sequences today but in my opinion this were not the meat of the episode. That is because this episode has started to delve into what makes these characters who they are. Even starting the episode with the conversation that would dictate Shirou Emiya’s life. So after the last episode had Rin declaring that she would kill Shirou if he approached her while not understanding his position, the very next day Shirou does exactly that. It’s a stupid move on his part but frankly I can’t blame him. Considering how Rin has been helping and been sending him mixed signals I would likely do the same. After all she may have warned and made that point clear but often it felt insincere and hard to take seriously. But while Shirou searching for information on the now missing Ayako from the previous episode, Rin takes the opportunity to ambush him and show that she means business.

Though truth be told I doubt her heart was in it. Shirou managed to put up a great fight and Rin didn’t seem to be pulling punches. But with her warm attitude to Shirou before it’s hard to think she could really kill him. But then came the highlight of this episode. When the fight is interrupted by a scream, Rin and Shirou run to the source. Upon finding an unconscious girl Rin administers treatment but is nearly killed by a sneak attack that Shirou blocks with his arm. And then we see the mask come off. Rin sees the blood and the ever cool, collected girl panics. Seeing Rins expression to his injury really set the message home that even if she’s a master magus, Rin has never been in a kill or be killed situation. But Shirou having seen worse keeps his cool and takes control of the situation. Even if his actions are not the smartest. This is quite the interesting dynamic they have. Much like say a master tactician and a rookie soldier with front line experience. When the battle is over we much like shirou are clueless as to what Rin wants and even she herself seems to have a hard time seeing it. Her reaction to Shirou’s magic tutelage was also telling of her character. Her indignation as a mage but her jealousy as a daughter. Ending the episode on the not that Kiritsugu put being a father to Shirou ahead of being a mage. In terms of how they were raised, they are almost complete opposites.

That’s enough about Rin, what about Shirou? He certainly had moments. His reaction to Ayako’s disappearance and his quick thinking during the fights. Shirou is by no means a genius but UFOtable managed to make his character really shine here. One thing I really wish though is that they tone down the hints any time that certain character shows up. I am fairly certain that anyone watching already has an idea of this mans role thanks to the music queues and foreboding atmosphere. It’s minor and honestly not a big issue but still, subtlety would be nice. Animation remains steller with art following. Though a bit of advice. I understand that it’s just the way the characters are drawn but try not to focus on their noses. It can become quite distracting if you stare at it long enough. Well with the next episode we have yet another action scene coming so lets see if the fan name Unlimited budget works continues to hold true.

 

Nanatsu no Taizai – 05

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:

One of the problems facing this series is the presentation of threats. In many other shounen you can just bring out some powerful villain and have him force the protagonist to get stronger. In seven deadly sins however our main characters are already veteran legendary warriors with tremendous power. So just adding in a strong warrior would undermine their status as legendary. So the author has to find ways to place the Sins in disadvantageous positions. The two villains in this episode did just that.

Our first villain attempted to poison Meliodas but when didn’t work he used the princess as a way to prevent Meliodas from going on the offensive and forced him to defend her. On top of that the villain had what seemed to be a method of teleportation. So the threat was not to Meliodas but to those he was protecting. This made Meliodas think out of the box and presented a better fight than a battle of who call pull out the biggest deus ex machina. The second villain also used a troublesome technique, making Daine mistake Meliodas for a holy knight and for Meliodas likewise. Leaving the episode with the two unknowingly fighting each other. This is a great threat to a character who is already powerful. Using their power against them.

While I find the villains costumes ridiculous at least their methods are interesting. But there were some small issues here. The fanservice for one. When escaping Ban the third sin stripped a female knight of her armour. Which turned out to be a waste of time because it didn’t fit. All so we could have her be embarrassed in her underwear. Well we do need the money shots don’t we? Still Ban is at least proving to be a enjoyable Sin, even with the unoriginal personality. It was good seeing him in the flashback egging on the Meliodas to strike him in anger only to see him get angry for the first time. He’s going to need a little more fleshing out to differentiate himself from the many other battle manic type shounen characters.  Another was the doctors death. This because it was pretty obvious what the intent was and this being a shounen series I have to wonder if he’s genuinely dead. Shounen characters have survived swords through the chest before gentlemen. This series so far has been solid but future episodes depend on whether they can keep these overpowered character’s battles interesting.

Gugure! Kokkuri-San- 05

by K-Off, posted in Gugure! Kokkuri-San

This. This is what I was asking for, and it delivered. This episode finally starts to create a distinct voice for itself by not adding to the hodgepodge of comedic styles this show already had, opting for a slow, drawn-out humor rather than the experimentation this show seemed to be doing with these past four episodes. It’s finally good to see this show starting to show some consistency, at least in the style of comedy it’s trying to go for.

Besides that, the part about the bully in Kohina’s school was mind-numbingly dull. I don’t see the jokes about the flower working for a Westerner with no prior knowledge of the context behind Japanese flowers, so the first half of this episode was very painful to sit through. However, I wouldn’t fault this on the show by any means, and I’m sure I would have appreciated it far better than I did had I known.

Let me talk about gender-bending real quick. Often, it’s over-used as fan service of the lowest degree and is one of the worst things a writer can do without giving the proper context. In addition, the explanations given for such gender-swaps are usually so contrived and idiotic that I can’t help but wonder who these shows were supposed to pander to. Even if one has a gender-bend fetish, wouldn’t they want their material being handled with all proper respect? Just like fan service, even gender-bending stories are proper in the right context- and in this spectrum, Gugugure! Kokkuri-San handles gender-bending excellently. Not only is the reason for sex-changes perfect for this story (they’re all spirits/gods, so they’re genderless), it’s handled in such a way that the fan service is covert/almost entirely nonexistent. Chiefly, Inugami. He may only be a side character, but he remains one of the most interesting character next to Shigaraki thanks to this ability. The character interactions change dynamically with Shigaraki when Inugami turns into a female this episode, and this was easily the second highlight of this episode, which was pretty damn funny.

I really started to enjoy this episode after the first half of the episode, as Kokkuri-San and Inugami enroll in Kohina’s school under cover, allowing for more character development for Kohina whilst getting some genuinely good laughs in.The school setting this episode seems to introduce dynamicism  to the plot by expanding the scope of the character interactions- now, not only do we get to see Kohina interact with the spirits, we also get to see how Kohina, the spirits, and the classmates all mingle simultaneously.

If this show keeps going at this pace, it can finally polish itself to become a really great series, possibly better than Barakamon.

Psycho Pass 2 – 03 – 04

by ninjarealist, posted in Currently Watching:, Psycho Pass 2

Episodes 3 and 4 of Pyscho Pass are difficult to talk about. This show has been extremely consistent so far. The staff have handled this sequel with an understated confidence that’s hard to dislike. I still don’t find the show to be as atmospheric as the original, and I still like the dialogue less, but the narrative continues to be engaging. I think where the narrative has really succeeded is in avoiding extraneous clutter that would detract from the major themes of the show.

However, this is both a strength and a weakness. While Psycho Pass 2 doesn’t waste time, the direct style of writing can be a bit predictable at times. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who saw the drinking scene between Aoyanagi and Ginoza as a clear death flag. And one episode later, sure enough, Aoyanagi gets turned into red pudding . This show is clearly trying to shock the viewer and I think it would do a better job at this if the plot was a little more surprising. But that’s a minor quip.

I think a bigger quip would be that if they were trying to shock the viewer with the violence in episode 4, they didn’t do a great job. The hand-to-hand combat shown in the first part of the episode was quite disturbing, and really succeeded at unnerving me. But this effect was sort of ruined with the gratuitous dominator shootout at the end, which honestly felt kind of cartoony to me.

And then there’s Mika Shimotsuki. As much as I hate to admit it, she’s really become the wild card in this series. Her ethically questionable decision-making raises some interesting questions, questions that don’t have easy answers. Chiefly, was her inaction simply malicious or does it speak to more undestandable flaws in her in character? And is her rage against Akane simply the result of a bad attitude or is her anger rooted in the trauma that was inflicted upon her in season 1? Is Mika just a testament to the failure of SYBIL to produce a healthy society? These are tough questions and I’m excited to see how they get resolved.

Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Bladeworks – 04

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Bladeworks

So after last weeks action packed episode it’s only natural that this week takes things easy. Though thankfully not by talking exposition. There was a scene with Saber explaining the class system but it was passed by fast and unlike the other infodumps so far, Shirou had a lot of input to help move things along. What surprised me is the addition of even more new material not present in the original visual novel. At the beginning we had a new scene with Illya explaining her actions to her maid which is welcome as I am sure many were asking the same questions her maid was asking. To have Illya explain herself was fine and all but I really question why this had to take place while she was taking a bath. I find it funny that this series only begins to show great faults when it starts to pander towards the fanbase. We also have a new action scene with Rin facing off against Casters dragon teeth minions in a office building. I do like the new different variations of the skeletons as opposed to the one design they had in the visual novel. But I think this scene was just to put in a little excitement to the episode as plotwise it was relatively pointless. However it does add a little more action to stop the slice of life aspects from becoming too prominent.

Otherwise the episode was about Shirou taking Saber to school and introducing Saber to Sakura and Taiga. With the episode ending on the setup for the next, that being Rin’s declaration that she will kill Shirou if he approaches her without understanding his position as a master. Does that mean this episode was uneventful? Hardly. To those who pay attention you are bound to notice foreshadowing. My personal favourite point was the archery club captain Ayaka’s talk with Shirou. She was good at probing the things that make Shirou who he is without being overly expository about it or spelling it out. I also like that they are toning down Shirou’s affection for Saber. No heavy blushes or exaggerated moves. Here’s to hoping things are kept strictly professional this time between them. He does display these actions towards Rin now but unlike with Saber it’s not in irritating love struck puppy kind of way.

From what I heard these new scenes are written by Kinoko Nasu himself so that may be a reason as to why they don’t feel like filler. But that also means that the new information at the beginning of the episode has now officially become canon. That information being that Berserker gains back one of his lives after three days. Overpowering a character who is already overpowered, yeah that does sound like Nasu’s work. It’s one of his nasty habits that tends to corner him later on in his stories, but well moving on. The new scenes have only added to the series as a whole, helping keep the pacing to a speed more suitable for an anime adaption. It also provides insight into the other masters actions when previously we only seen this from Shirous perspective. My only worry is that they may take time away from the main plot which is already a rather sizeable length. I don’t mind trimming out the more slice of life scenes from the visual novel to make way for new content. But if it cuts time away from the main story we could start having issues. However I still say, just keep doing what you are doing UFOtable, cause so far so good.