Aku no Hana – 03

by psgels, posted in Aku no Hana

This series. It’s the best horror anime that I have seen in a long while. It’s really been long since I watched something that made me feel so uncomfortable, in such a good way. I love how this show just completely breaks down teenaged anxieties and fears and how it just makes them spiral out of control.

What’s more: every episode has just gotten more and more intense so far. Episode one was a slow build-up, episode two saw things escalate, and with this… things have gotten completely crazy, but it’s also done in such a realistic and believable way, while at the same time what happened was just completely messed up.

You can just see the fears and guilt build up inside of Kasuga: he doesn’t want to be seen as a pervert, or strange, or evil. And with that he just keeps wiggling himself into more and more of a corner. And that lead to just a brilliant climax that I think a lot of teenagers or ex-teenagers can relate to.

What happened in the first half of the episode was probably a bit less relatable, but still I love the camera work there (and I can only imagine how difficult that scene must have been to do right without rotoscoping on a tigh budget!), plus how crazy Nakamura turned out to be now that she finally found someone she can use with similar interests as her. I really like how she just forces herself completely into her comfort zone.
Rating: 6.5/8 (Amazing)

Spring 2013 Kaleidoscope: March 18th

by psgels, posted in Spring 2013 Kaleidoscope

So, some feedback on my previous entry: it seems that people were actually expecting something else when I said that I’d do a kaleidoscope this season, and that is more of an entry with short impressions on a lot of different series.

I can get behind that. I also like to highlight a lot of different series. The problem is going to be to keep up with all of it. Ever since I got a life I can’t just consistently keep up with everything every single week, so be sure to expect some delays.

These entries won’t be complete, but every thursday, I’ll try to give a rundown of my favorite episodes of the series that I’m not blogging, along with disappointments or other noteworthy episodes that I happen to watch. Enjoy.

Top 3:

#1: Yondemasuyo, Azazel-San Z – 02: very rarely is a comedy sequel better than its predecessor. And yet, Azazel-san here had its best episode yet. With this I include all the OVAs and TV-series together. With the first episode I already said that Moloch is by far the best character of the series, but he really surpassed himself with this episode; it was just brilliant. The creators had so many hilarious ideas with how they made him pretend to be a stuffed animal and they built up their humour perfectly. Heck, this was the funniest thing I’ve seen all year.

#2: Hunter X Hunter – 75: Finally. After waiting for more than a year and a half. Throughout 75 episodes. We are finally about to get to the new material. Finally I won’t have to bitch anymore about the series just being a glorified recap. Anyway, the Greed Island arc was done better in Madhouse’s version compared to what Nippon Animation did to it (better pacing, better action, better acting, things flowed much better), but it remains for a large part a training arc that is just boring to watch. This final episode though was really good, as it showed some of the people behind the Greed Island Game. Just one thing: didn’t Hunter x Hunter have its own alphabet? What are they doing then toying with latin letters over and over here? And then the text on the cards for Greed Island is in Japanese… how do languages work there anyway?

#3: Danchi Tomou – 02: Oh come on, people. It’s been a week and still no subs? What is this? 2008? Anyway, Tomou is good. It’s slice of life without much happening, but the characters are quite endearing so far, and it’s about actually interesting situations. I actually quite liked how everyone just got out and had dinner outside on a whim. It’s full of these small relatable things, but sometimes it does go on for a bit too long (the smelly hands thing got awkward quite fast, and it just went on and on!)

Notes about Aiura: sorry, but being the fan of Ryousuke Nakamura I have to talk about this. The second episode still was funny, the voice acting was still very good, but there are some stereotypes. Well hidden stereotypes, but you can see that this was based on a mediocre manga.

Disappointments:

Karneval – 02: I’m not going to watch the second episode of everything, only the series that I thought had potential. Out of those, Karneval disappointed me the most. Listen, there is a difference between stupidity, and acting like you’re outright lobotomized. The male lead acts like a completely whiny kid with no grasp of who he is. The rest of the cast tries way too hard with their acting. If I dropped the Hakkenden, I also have to drop this one, because the Hakkenden was much, much more solid.

Devil Survivor – 02: You know what really surprised me? How boring this show is. I mean, even Persona had some fun elements when it started, but this… the characters are completely bland and I’ve already forgotten what half of this thing was about. The animators try, but I see no motivation whatsoever from the scriptwriters or directors.

Chihayafuru – 39

by psgels, posted in Chihayafuru

Holy crap! When Nishida lashed out to Tsutomu last episode, I did not expect that it was about to build up to something as amazing as here right now. I mean, the outcome of this episode was predictable, but the way in which it happened totally wasn’t!

Most of the episode was about Chihaya and her growth. Chihaya lost to Megumu, but it’s clear that she has become better, while at the same time that she has a long way to go (the way how her nails were clenched into the palm of her hands the whole time). And then when she lost, Tsutomu really came out of nowhere to really steal the show. This show already had the luck of the draw decide against the team’s favor, so with this it is a really good way to balance out. Because of this you really don’t know what to expect when things come down to it. Either way it was Tsutomu’s crowning moment of awesome there.

Then there is Kanade. What really surprised me here was that there were two matches of which we hardly got to see anything: Kanade’s and Taichi’s. What really intrigues me was why Kanade finished before Taichi, which really made me think that we haven’t really seen much about how she actually improved. All we know is that she suddenly has gotten really good, with multiple wins in a row despite being dead tired. Still, was Taichi just against a better player? It seemed like the best two seemed to be against Chihaya and Nishida. I mean, Taichi is pretty much an A-Class player at this point, as soon as he manages to win that damned tournament, so what exactly worked against him there?

This episode was also full of hints about special cards: the cards that contain the names of everyone. Chhaya lost hers to Megumu, Megumu lost hers to Chihaya. And I noticed the creators also dropping the names for the cards for Arata and Shinobu. Yay for building up!

One thing never improved though: the photographing guys never really stopped being annoying.
Rating: 6,5/8 (Amazing)

Red Data Girl – 02

by psgels, posted in Red Data Girl

What this season lacks, is quantity. The amount of series that really stand out here. There are the obvious stand-outs of Shingeki no Kyojin and Aku no Hana, in terms of comedy there are the hilarious Maou-sama and Azazel-san, and also Gargantia has potential, but beyond that… I don’t really sense enough ambition, not to mention the complete lack of long series aside from Shingeki no Kyojin. To me this feels more like a strong winter/summer season, instead of the Spring season that it is.

Red Data Girl is a bit of a wildcard. I intended to just blog the TV-schedule of it, rather than keeping up with the pre-release. It has the potential to become a very charming or interesting series, although it probably never will hit its heights. Still, I’m intrigued, especially by the first episode. The second episode was a bit of a step back for me.

I like the atmosphere. The music rocks. The backgrounds are very well drawn. I like the side characters. These guys make it worth watching and they are engaging to follow. The lead female though… needs work, and it mostly has to do with how at the moment, she fits in a very annoying cliche: the useless character. Everything gets done for her, most of her powers are just passive, she holds everyone back. Mind you, she’s well acted, but there is only so far that you can take a character doing just nothing. These first two episodes were full of hints that they are going to put a spin on that uselessness for later: don’t let me down on that.

Oh and about this season’s strong point: voice acting. There are lots of series in which the voice acting is really good and engaging. They try to emote and connect with their adience, rather than yelling way too hard all the time.
Rating: 4.5/8 (Good)

Gargantia on the Vendurous Planet – 02

by psgels, posted in Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet

Suisei no Gargantia, pretty much the best mecha series of the season. What I like best so far is how it’s more than just mecha: it’s just a story that has a mecha in it, it has a bit of gunplay in it, it has a bit of post apocalypse. It’s very varied and fleshed out. compare that to Majestic Prince, which feels very monotone, or Valvrave that just puts the tried and true school formula in a place where it doesn’t belong. Plus it’s the only show that can actually take itself seriously. That’s also a plus. I mean I like comedy as well and all, but comedy that feels out of place does more harm than good for me.

Not to say that this series is perfect though. The characters strangely remain teenagers, and the lead female in particular needs to be fleshed out more (though granted, she got a lot more tolerable in this second episode), and the same goes for the rest of the cast: aside from the male lead none really stands out so far, so the creators need to develop them somehow. Make them interesting.

What I liked about this show is that you can see that it’s going to escalate. That was quite cleverly done, in the way that those pirates were obliterated so easily without effort. It’s just the build-up to something much bigger and much worse, something that Urobuchi Gen tends to be good at. Though I’m not expecting a gore-fest, I am expecting that things will escalate somehow. It’s up to him to find a good way.
Rating: 5/8 (Great)

Shingeki no Kyojin – 02

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

So I think that it was obvious that I was going to blog this series. It is undoubtedly the epic of the season, not to mention that it feels so unique. I know what will happen up to a chapter or ten or so, but even then these first episodes had me fired up. The thing with the manga is that I only got invested with the story at the point of episode three, at which it gets really, really good. The anime really put in some effort to make the build up very detailed and engaging.

What matters the most is the next few episodes. This series is incredibly polished. But the manga was more than that. It had something extra with its presentation. Let’s now see whether the creators can capture that as well.

This episode mostly stood out with how dark and grim it was about the consequences of the outer Rose Wall being breached: there just was not enough food for everyone. People were abandoned and eaten, but on top of that people were now in a situation in which the entire population just would not be able to survive. It only adds up more to how incredibly screwed humanity is, and I really like that.

Then the presentation: the creators really gave a very worthy attempt to bring life to the titans. The big titan that breached the gate in this episode really had presence thanks to some very good animation and direction. It’s because of scenes like this that I called this series nearly impossible to translate well to animation: The giant designs are really detailed and they all just look incredibly intimidating. You need to keep this up consistently if you want to be able to retain the same epic atmosphere.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

Aku no Hana – 02

by psgels, posted in Aku no Hana

Rotoscoped or not, cheap or not. Here is the thing: Aku no Hana so far has gotten the biggest emotional response out of me out of the entire season. This second episode, it was even better than the first in which we just saw the emotional breakdown of the male lead, and all of thewalls he ran into in order to get out of what he did. It’s not like I automatically like things because they just happened to be different (I hated Inferno Cop for example). It’s just that this method of animation works brilliantly for getting a really big emotional response. The reason I like series that are different is because there are many different ways to make something awesome, but it’s very easy to get caught up in the tried and true formula and I love series that think outside of the box. As long as it works, obviously.

That’s also my opinion about the huge change in art style compared to the original source. Personally, I don’t care how faithful it is, as long as it works well. In the same way, Shingeki no Kyojin could turn into this magical girl series for all I care, as long as it manages to find a way to be just as epic as the manga chapters that I read of it. With that said, Aku no Hana is amazing. The atmosphere over the first two episodes was just brilliant.

Probably my favorite parts of this episode was when Nakamura invaded Takao’s personal space so closely. He was busy setting up all of these walls for himself, and she just forced herself right through them with that evil smile of hers. Her voice actress really was great for that. In fact, every voice actor here really works. Everyone here sounds very sincere and believable. For me this series also has the best voice acting of the season.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

Hataraku Maou-Sama – 02

by psgels, posted in Hataraku Maou-Sama

A really difficult question: whether to blog Dansai Bunri no Crime Edge, or Hataraku Maou-sama. On one hand I really like Crime Edge’s weirdness, compared to Maou-Sama that does have some cliches. Crime Edge also can be quite heart-warming, while Hataraku Maou-sama doesn’t attempt to be that. Crime Edge has an atmosphere, while Hataraku Maou-sama doesn’t really seem to care about that.

Still, what happens when you really start thinking about them? In that case, Crime Edge ends up being a celebration of weird fetishes, without really much depth. Hataraku Maou-sama on the other hand is one of the most clever comedies to appear over the past few years. Seriously, this series bites.

Instead of doing random joke after random joke, everything fits in this series, plus the jokes are all built up before you even know it. The earthquakes at first seemed random, and only after a minute I realized that that might mean something more. Especially when that random text arrived. This series is full of stuff like that, where you only realize a joke has been made, half a minute later. Or jokes that only work because of some clever build-up early on.

What also helps is some fantastic voice acting. I especially loved the part where that Hero was locked out of the demon king’s apartment and she started ranting outside of the screen. This series also really tries to be believable and realistic at times, which is what makes the jokes work even more: the suspense of disbelief is great here! How often do you see characters just doing random groceries, or just living their daily lives in the middle of trying to take over the world?

Just try to keep the cliches out of here. You’re better than that, show. *Har har you are fighting so you must be in love, har har*
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

Spring 2013 Kaleidoscope: Saint Seiya Omega – 52

by psgels, posted in Spring 2013 Kaleidoscope

To be honest, I am not sure yet which series I’m going to blog or not this season. I still need to make up my mind on that. Still, I feel like doing another kaleidoscope this season. Giving a small commentary on every episode I watch is going to be impossible, so instead I’m going to blog a different series each week, and on top of that I’ll cover the episodes that really stand out or catch my attention.

A fitting start would be the transition for Saint Seiya from its first half into its second half, because there are some really weird decisions made here… First though, about the conclusion of the first half: the animators really went all out for that, and I really like that. The story was cliched, but the really good animation and atmosphere really brought that to life and I love how much freedom they got for it.

And then… this happened. As I’ve said before, I was really looking forward to this because it shows the return of the Heartcatch Precure director. This is a guy who also directed Interlude, which was a really weird OVA that did have its flashes of brilliance, and I think that that’s what describes this first episode of Saint Seiya Omega’s new arc for me.

Because holy crap, who came up with that new character? What is this walking cliche doing, just forcing himself into the middle of the story, right from out of nowhere with that stupid outfit of his? I guess now that Koga has grown up the creators needed a new immature character to balance things out and all, but couldn’t he have been a bit more likable and less cliched? I mean, this is a cliche that only really bad sequels pull in order to drag out their storylines even more.

That’s not to say I hated this episode, but the weird thing is that I liked it for really weird reasons. I mean… that butler! I have no idea who he is, but I really felt sorry for him! The part where Seiya failed to kill that girl? I liked that a lot. That one golden saint? His speech about how shallow his own powers are really got to me.

And then on the other hand you have the animation that clearly had its shortcuts taken, including really cheesy transformation sequences (I know that there is a background from Heartcatch Precure here, but you don’t HAVE to include them, you know?). And then Koga just went and randomly pulled that giant unicorn out of his ass… So yeah, all in all this has me quite baffled on how it will turn out…
Rating: #%!*/8 (???)

Uchuu Kyoudai – 51 & 52

by psgels, posted in Uchuu Kyoudai

I’m just including episode 52 in this entry so that I can comment on the new OP and ED. I love them! They are unmistakably Space Brothers, but they feel so retro! The OP reminds me of this cheesy beach music, while the ED starts out dull and boring, and suddenly explodes in this really well sung piece that actually perfectly symbolizes parts of the story, and the quest of both brothers to reach space.

But yeah, episode 52 WAS a recap. That’s the only flaw of Uchuu Kyoudai at this point: the excessive flashbacks. Episode 51 took nearly five whole minutes before it got to its new content. What could be the cause of this? Budget restraints? Is the manga not long enough ahead? Not enough staff?

Either way though, when episode 51 did start for real, it was really, really good. It really took its time again, to focus on the difference between Nitta and his brother, and Mutta and Hibito. I really like how Mutta and Nitta both are jealous of each other. The episode also showed some progression in Nitta’s brother, and it did so with a lot of heart. Nothing that Nitta did when he was in the desert had any effect on that, but it was the fruit of Nitta and his mother, constantly having patience with him and encouraging him to actually do something with his life. With this, the first step was set.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)