Shingeki no Kyojin – 09

by psgels, posted in Shingeki no Kyojin(Attack on Titan)

At this point I stopped reading the manga, so here too I’m just blank. And it seems that I quit at a really awesome point in the series, because this episode again was really tense as it showed some hints about why Eren managed to turn into a titan in the first place, as well as hints to how the titans could be defeated and why Eren is special: his father.

People behaving illogically. That’s difficult to do, and yet this series is full of people in panic. In the past it went a bit over the top with how it portrayed the rich guys as egotistical bastards, but in this episode it was really good: Eren indeed is the key to beating the titans. However when you just saw that giant thing turn into him, all you do is want to kill him, yeah. I’m only not sure how Eren knew that he could activate this by biting into his thumb…

And really, the artwork for Eren’s new titan form looked gorgeous. Heck, the atmosphere here was just awesome in how the second episode just kept building up the tension by showing Eren’s inner struggles, and the background music really helped with that.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

May Summary

by psgels, posted in Monthly Summaries

Sorry for the lateness of this entry. You can thank animecon for that. Anyway, the current season. I’m having trouble keeping up with it, and because of that I am rather glad that it’s such a small season. Nevertheless, this just pales in comparison to what we’re used to from Spring Seasons.

#12 (13) – Saint Seiya Omega – (7.75/10) – Saint Seiya Omega is currently in its boring character-reintroduction phase. At least, that’s what I thought until the creators pulled that really random episode in which Ryuuho suddenly became a rock star in order to let out the conflicted feelings that loom inside of him. Saint Seiya, you are treading a very dangerous line between character development, and someone just completely changing character. And don’t get me wrong, I like the idea, the execution was just… weird.
#11 (8) – Dansai Bunri no Crime Edge – (7.9/10) – I watched up to episode 6, and I think I’m going to drop this in favor of other series. I like how it celebrates really weird fetishes and all, but it does so formulaic, and the different powers all feel rather shallow. With the length of this series I don’t really think that this show can really make something memorable.
#10 (12) – Valvrave The Liberator – (8/10) – Valvrave is completely stupid. It however realizes this, and just rolls with it. This also means that I will drop it as soon as it starts taking itself too seriously (there is no way you can get anything remotely serious out of this), but as long as it keeps bringing in the cheese I’m hooked.
#9 (9) – Majestic Prince – (8/10) – I’ve seen up to six episodes now I believe, and this was a big surprise. The creators took cardboard cut-outs and slowly gave them character. I still dislike how these guys are able to somehow do the impossible by winning battles against huge odds, but it uses this well at least.
#8 (10) – Yahari Blahblah – (8.25/10)

I have seen up to episode six here. Yahari Blahblah took a while to get going, and it had a few boring parts. However, episode five gave the characters depth that I was looking for. Here, some of the characters became more than just random tropes and I didn’t expect that.

#7 (4) – Hataraku Maou-Sama – (8.25/10)

Hataraku Maou-sama’s sense of humour rocks. It still makes me laugh in every episode, but the clever plotting… it just isn’t as clever as what it was In the first few episodes, and that made this series a bit of a disappointment to follow. But who knows. It has the potential to pick back up again.

#6 (6) – Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet – (8.25/10)

Gargantia could have balanced itself a bit out a bit better, resulting in two strange slice of life episodes after each other. It still had thought put into it and it showed new and different things about the setting, but the writing just was not as solid as what it could have been. Also culture or no culture, having a bunch of teenaged girls dance half-naked into a bunch of grown men… they could have put some more thought on that.

#5 (15) – Uchuu Kyoudai – (8.5/10)

My biggest problem with Uchuu Kyoudai isn’t the slow pacing. That is brilliant, and it really allows the characters to slowly build themselves. Instead, I get more and more annoyed with the recaps at the start of each episode. I know it’s small, but this series is so good. It’s not worth it to have it brought down by such a single stupid thing that makes it much longer than what it needs to be. Because the effort it put into its character development this month was brilliant.

#4 (5) – Hunter X Hunter – (8.5/10)

Thank god we’re finally at the new material when it takes off, and thank god it actually delivers! They took a bit of time to get used to, but the villains are getting better with every episode as this show continues to explore their personalities.

#3 (3) – Shingeki no Kyojin – (8.75/10)

This really turned into an awesome action series, in a different way from the manga. It really tries to put the characters into as much despair as possible, without making it one-sided. The giant designs really work well in animation and how some of them are coloured, and most imporantly: the characters are also getting very engaging to watch.

#2 (1) – Aku no Hana – (8.9/10)

I don’t care. Aku no Hana is amazing. Heck, the past month had a few scenes that would have been impossible to do right if it was in regular animation. And heck: if you ignore the low budget then the creators pretty much did a perfect adaptation for this series with how god damn expressive it is.

#1 (2) – Chihayafuru – (9/10)

That finale was awesome. It just boggles my mind how much build-up the creators have been putting up throughout the entire second season (and also first season) in order to reach that point. Heck, everything is just coming together in such a ridiculously solid way. It’s amazing!

Aku no Hana – 09

by psgels, posted in Aku no Hana

Now this is how you escalate things. Holy crap, this was a mix of shock and obvious. Kasuga in particular: this episode really shined in how it showed how he decided to run away from home. I think what the creators really wanted to show here was how he puts so much importance and value on the perfect appearance of people. In this episode things got broken and changed completely from the ideas that he has in his mind: Saeki doesn’t mind that he took her gym clothes, and people found out what he secretly did.

I mean, this was awesome. After everyone kept hiding everything, this episode had everything exposed. And instead of returning to normal like nothing happened, things changed significantly. I really like how people are no idiots in this series: Saeki pretty much knew what happened. Kasuga’s mother isn’t just there to stand in the kitchen.

I only wonder: what on earth is going on in Saeki’s head? How did she fall for Kasuga? When did that happen? Did she like him before? What kind of person is she to not be bothered by having her gym clothes stolen like that?
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

Spring 2013 Kaleidoscope: May 30th

by psgels, posted in Spring 2013 Kaleidoscope

#1: Hunter X Hunter – 80: Once in a while Hunter X Hunter comes with an episode that just stands out. This was one of them. The first half just oozed style and really was a big change from the usual atmosphere and I found it really well done with how it was just in black and white, and how it didn’t show the guy’s face at all. The second half of the episode… let’s just say that it’s the first time in 80 whopping episodes that this series managed to shock me.

#2: Yahari Blahblah – 05: The end of this episode. That’s where I understood the appeal of this series and where it really became better than its contemporaries, rather than just a series with potential. The first parts of the episode were a bit iffy, but at the end it really became apparent that the creators spent time on it: the male lead’s loneliness is actually well.

#3: Yondemasuyu, Azazel-San – 07: This was actually quite hilarious. Yondemasuyo Azazel-san is at it’s greatest when it’s just banter. The characters have a really good chemistry together, and I especially love the creative use of facial expressions as this show tries to parody the murder mystery genre. Of course, they then proceed to ruin it in episode 8 while trying too hard on being weird and gross again. Enough with the jokes about people’s nether regions already!

WTF of the past Weeks:

Saint Seiya Omega – 56: So. We have this ninja, who has been raised in an incredibly conservative ninja village. This ninja then hears rock music, it changes his soul and now he suddenly is performing J-rock in a band of power-ranger impersonators. Okay.

Chihayafuru – 44 & 45

by psgels, posted in Chihayafuru

And so the team tournaments finally ends, and seriously I am so impressed with all of the build-up that prepared just for this episode. Every single result for Chihaya, Taichi and Nishida in the previous matches was used in the big finale. It’s just amazing, and definitely worked as a climax.

Also, the individual tournaments. I didn’t realize this, but holy crap there is a complete busload of named and developed characters present at the tournament now. So much variety! I mean that recap was bad and all, but after that I really liked the build-up for the individual tournaments. Take all teams that made it to the semi finals: that’s already more than twenty different characters participating, with all of the bench people, Arata and the Queen and some other random characters. And all of them are great!

So yeah, Chihaya is not going to get far. This really wil be about the Queen and Arata. With the third year, Arata will be getting back to Tokyo, and I predict that that will really bring everything together for this series. If it will ever get made!
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

Aku no Hana – 08

by psgels, posted in Aku no Hana

Aku no Hana, you have balls.

I’m probably going to get a lot of people making fun of my tastes again, but heck, it’s not like I suddenly started caring about that or anything. This episode was an amazing aftermath-episode. One of the best in recent years. I mean, it was just perfect for me, it hit all of the right notes.

Let’s start with by far the most controversial part of this episode: the start. Five minutes in which the characters just walked. Yeah, first of all I have not seen anything like that in anime ever. Yeah, I really admire the guts of the creators to actually do that. I loved it to bits, and not just because of its novelty value. What we saw there was an incredibly intimate moment. What we saw last episode was just all hell breaking loose. They completely wrecked the classroom. Instead of just cutting to the next morning and show the superficial reactions of Kasuga’s classmates for shock value, the creators showed the mood he and Nakamura were in on the journey back. Nothing was said, we just experienced it. I’ve never seen any other anime do this, even though it showed so many emotions nonverbally.

And then there was the rest of the episode. I mean, that was some fantastic build-up. Bit by bit, the creators moved closer to Kasuga’s fears of being found out. The responses by the students, the responses from Saeki, everything was just perfect. Seriously, no overacting whatsoever in htis episode! This was by far the episode with the most convincing acting I’ve seen the entire season.

At first I felt a bit let down by how Kasuga’s name was conveniently obscured everywhere, but Saeki more than made up for it by showing that she very well knew what was going on. I mean, that was one heck of a cliff-hanger, even for this series’ high standards.
Rating: 6,5/8 (Amazing)

Shingeki no Kyojin – 08

by psgels, posted in Shingeki no Kyojin(Attack on Titan)

So yeah, the spring season is the worst spring season we’ve had in a decade when you look at the overall amount of series and the diversity. However, there IS definitely something interesting going on here, and that is how much praise I notice on Shingeki no Kyojin. I mean, it really stands head and shoulders above all other series that are even remotely action-oriented this season, and really: I believe that this series both gives a new spin to the action genre, and most importantly: it’s a great series to introduce people new to anime with. I feel that this is the type of series that really gives anime its good name, and shows what can be possible in this medium.

This was the episode that I had been waiting for since the start of the series. What happened in this episode really made me a fan of Shingeki no Kyojin in the manga, and I’m excited to see how right they got it! I mean blahblah, it was to be expected that Eren wasn’t dead and all, but that’s not the point. What was so amazing here is how this series developed its atmosphere. Up till the previous episode, the characters looked completely screwed. There was no hope. And then that giant started fighting back. This episode developed what that meant: if used properly, this would be the only chance for humanity to actually survive. The delivery would have been everything: the atmosphere needed to be tight, the action needed to be awesome. Otherwise these emotions would just come off as shallow, since Shingeki no Kyojin basically is about a bunch of characters, struggling for their lives against almost certain death.

The start of Shingeki no Kyojin indeed is a bit bland, mostly due to the characters only having one side when they start out. Here though, with every episode this show starts to push the boundaries of them (Jean in particular was hit hard in this episode). That’s another big part of what made this so addictive.

One detail also that stands out here: the giants don’t make any sounds, aside from that Eren-giant. It did not stand out at all in the manga, but obviously a very important detail in the anime. And really, I am glad that they didn’t try to give most of the giants a voice. It makes them all the more creepier.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

Uchuu Kyoudai – 58 & 59

by psgels, posted in Uchuu Kyoudai

Strong emotions. They are always difficult in anime, and it’s so easy to just overact these things. Yet it’s also crucial to nail them in the parts that need to be serious, otherwise you’re just going to end up looking cheesy. An added difficulty is that it’s usually just incredibly difficult to watch people lose control of their emotions.

Having said that, the creators did a pretty good job on Pico and Vince. Space Brothers is a master of subtle emotions, but here they needed to be big. Vince needed to be just completely shaken up by what happened. In this episode, you couldn’t just have pulled the usual “let’s not show our biggest emotions”, because even though he’s completely stoic, he was a child once. We needed to have seen his development.

I think that the backstory could have been done in one episode (especially with around three minutes of bloody recap for both episodes!). And don’t get me wrong, the slow pacing also had its set of big advantages. Because of that the creators could just dedicate so much time to two side-characters to make them really memorable. They especially used the silences really well to build up atmosphere. This episode may have had characters break down, it still was subtle: there were so many scenes in which nothing was said, but instead the creators just let the images do the talking.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

Hataraku Maou-Sama – 07

by psgels, posted in Hataraku Maou-Sama

Last episode I was asked to not focus on cliches anymore, and I agree with that. Cliches on their own usually aren’t bad. If a show is goring, then it’s just boring, whether it has many cliches or not. So with that in mind, I set out to view this episode with an open mind. And then this episode played the pseudo-harem card. Well thank you for making things so easy here, Maou-sama…

But yeah, the pseudo-harem card. Rather than just having a male and a bunch of females in a cast, a show just has to have romantic hints between the male lead and every other hot female in the series. It might not outright state feelings… but the hints lack any sort of subtlety. This is a cliche, but I hate it not because it’s a cliche, but because it’s just a completely stupid and shallow plot twist on its own. The fact that so many different series use it doesn’t really help. It makes the series so much more shallow than what it needs to be. Have the females fall for some side character. Heck, show some actual romantic hints that can be taken seriously for a chance! This is Maou-sama. It’s not a shallow shounen-show that is meant to appeal to young pubescent boys. It has proven to be intelligent in the past! Why is it not that now!?

Thankfully there were points at which this episode was smart again. Small points okay, but they’re there. In particular: for once a disease is treated as annoying, rather than dramatic. Finally a character is just out cold for a few days, rather than randomly fainting followed by heavy breathing with everyone melodramatically worrying over things. Oh, and disguising the holy water as vitamin bottles. That was pretty clever too.

Problem is, that these were mere details that could easily have been omitted without having much of an effect. My beef in particular lies with the holy water, which turned out to be just something to make a sword more powerful and completely pointless unless it goes over 9000. Beyond that… I miss the wit of the earlier episodes, and this show did not offer something else in return.
Rating: 3/8 (Disappointing)

Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet – 05 – 07

by psgels, posted in Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet

So I understand… some of the intentions behind episode five and six. Really, the logic behind the big picture is more than apparent: we needed time to show Ledo getting accustomed to this new culture he ended up at. We needed a chance for the viewers to get a good view of the Gargantia without any drama in it, until that squid came and Ledo had to stir things up again. I like the outcome, but the way in which they got there was a bit weird.

The thing is, that these episodes just weren’t interesting to watch. The creators really could have spent their time better there, instead of going on and on about the random fanservice. They could have used that time to show some geniune and everyday interactions between the characters. Instead they went with a beach episode and silly dances. Sorry, but that just feels shallow. Especially in two consecutive episodes. The creators can write more interesting episodes.

Episode seven thankfully returned to the real business, and I really like what happened. It’s a great twist that the Hideazu have pretty much already settled down on earth, they just chose not to act for now, for whatever reason. Whether they chose to coexist and have something against fancy technology, or they’re just waiting for the right opportunity still remains a question. It’s because of this that Ledo’s actions aren’t inherently wrong; he just acted really rashly.

Convenient heart attack aside, this episode was full of people clashing with each other based on a lot of different values, whether cultural or practical. On one hand there are the Hideazu who have a status as gods, then there is Ledo’s duty, that girl’s personal preference for not wanting to see the guy in a battle, the captain’s concern for the whole population of the gargantia and then there are these economists willing to take a risk for a possible treasure that will benefit the entire Gargantia in the long run. All of them clash together. That really feels like Urobuchi Gen again.
Rating: 3,5/8 (Enjoyable for episodes 5 and 6), 5.5/8 (Excellent for episode 7)