Uchuu Kyoudai – 44

by psgels, posted in Uchuu Kyoudai

Here is a question: how do you best recommend this series? I mean, it’s absolutely fantastic and it has some of the best writing out there, but it will be incredibly long. For people who have no life it will be easy to check out, and I think students also can find the time to sit down and watch. But what about the people who don’t have a lot of free time or patience? I mean, I can only handle this series in my life because there is only one episode coming out each week. What’s the best way to make this huge length of 100 episodes lose its intimidation?

I mean really: this series deserves to be watched. This episode actually brought tears to my eyes with its charms. The scene in which Mutta and Hibito talked to each other again had so much build-up behind it. In the past arc, Mutta only did one thing. But the past episodes made sure to put so much meaning into that little action of his. This episode then really took its time to show their conversation, skipping away the time delay for storytelling conveniences, while acknowledging that it’s still there.

Also, a small detail: when was the last time in which we saw a small child who was still changing his teeth? Yes, it’s small, but I really appreciate the detail that this show put into it. Every single one of those details shapes the characters, and this show does it better than any other anime currently airing.

Also, the comedy is back again. I sure missed it. But I love how this show can pull a joke when you don’t expect it. Buddy in particular was hilarious in this episode, with both his memories of Brian, and his reaction to Damian’s state.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

Chihayafuru – 30

by psgels, posted in Chihayafuru

What the hell is up with this week? Just about every series surpasses itself. And here Chihayafuru comes, and effortlessly matches that level as if it’s nothing!

I mean, even for a sports series this was just really, really good. Only Giant Killing was better at developing such a large cast at the same time. This episode focused on a team-match between ten different characters, and in one episodes it somehow pulled it off to develop ten characters at the same time. Unlike Giant Killing though, which stood out by its great concept and outstanding execution, Chihayafuru makes everything look so incredibly easy. As if it’s the most normal thing in the world to have such tight character-development.

There is Chihaya who is trying to copy the styles of both the king and queen at the same time, Taichi’s rivalry and admiration for Retro-kun, Retro’s awesome development as he continues to try really hard to get ahead just like Taichi. There is Nishida with his sister who suddenly got a new boyfriend, Kanade and her pride for her kimonos after getting insulted, the small kid and his struggles amidst the A-Class in which he never can stand at the top, Sumire who actually does her job, Akihito who got a new job as a reader and holy crap how did all of that fit within 20 minutes?!

And the thing is that all of it was just really good. The matches themselves also were brilliant. One addition of the second season that I really like is how it uses those manga-styled notes all over the screen with nice little details that they can’t otherwise fit in. It’s a very clever idea to add even more detail to the characters. I’ve seen this done before, but never this consistent or well. Oh, perhaps Shaft-series had more text on the screen, but that never really related to the characters as well as it does here.

And good lord, Arata wasn’t even in this episode.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

From the New World – 19

by psgels, posted in From the New World

And the psychological horror is back in full swing for this series, and it really managed to deliver a really tense episode. It’s the episode where the proverbial hell breaks loose. What made this episode extra special is that it really showcased this show’s style of direction: paranoid and experimental. The animation here was wild and vivid, full of detail to make every scene more powerful. Kudos to A-1 here for the job they did.

Something or someone was killing everyone. There are enough theories about who it is, but we never get to see the face of who it is. In the meantime he is on a mass killing spree, not unlike what we saw previously in the series when that one kid went berserk, only this time he seems to have done it fully aware of what he was doing. Why? What has squealer done to lead to that? Is it really Mamoru or Maria?

This is where the confusing direction really works. This series always was confusingly told, but when the lives of the characters are on the line it does give the extra edge. The fact that there are hostages that need to be saved who are mentally unstable due to what they experienced and saw gave it yet another edge, and the gorgeous animation makes tihngs even better. This really shows how far the Queerats have come, and how dangerous they can be with the right allies.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

Zetsuen no Tempest – 17

by psgels, posted in Zetsuen no Tempest

Zetsuen no Tempest, I admire your guts. I really do. You went into a direction that has caused so many other series to crash and burn horribly, and you pulled it off wonderfully. Creators who try to forcefully insert romance into a story have failed in so many different ways. It often has no place in the storyline, and while it’s normal for characters to fall in love, it somehow has to take control of the entire story and characters while feeling horribly uninspired.

Here too the romance has taken control of the story at this point, but dear god, it’s glorious! This show analyzes its romance with the same amount of detail and mind-games as it did with its other subplots. It does not feel uninspired at all, and in fact this episode was hilarious. Not to mention that the depictions of love were really well done, and not cheesy like you would expect.

It’s the episode in which Yoshino finally reveals his big secret. He has been dating Aika. This needed a lot of build-up to work well, considering what a huge part it plays in this series. The past few episodes did this really well by using Hakaze on one hand, and Samon and Mahiro on the other.

Especially the characterization in this episode was amazing, though. Hakaze’s attempts in order to find out more about Aika were awesome (not to mention that this gave us even more excuses to know more about that girl who really has been dead for a year). What I expected even less was that hilarious discussion in which Samon and Mahiro started guessing why Yoshino would hide his girlfriend from him. That really made me laugh.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure – 18

by psgels, posted in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure

First of all, I was warned about last week: do try to avoid looking at this week’s episode title.

It contains a pretty big spoiler. It’s a bit strange to have this one slip through, because this series seemed to have an excellent production team that has proven to be flexible, so I wonder why nobody who saw it thought “wait, that will spoil the surprise, let’s do something else”.

But first, brains. At the start of the episode I thought that Jojo will have to fight some kind of bizarre pair of walking brains with tentacles, but in the end the fight got once again pulled to the bizarre when he actually took over one of the maids. Brainwashing in anime is nothing new, but the way in which this was done. Seeing her body get nearly torn apart definitely added a different dimension to that, and once again it was a really intense fight.

I also loved the big spoiler of this episode. You should not read this if you haven’t watched the episode yet, but seriously. The way in which they revealed Stroheim as some kind of terminator was hilarious. I kept wondering why they kept hiding his face, but yeah. His new character designs rock.

This show loves to play with its characters: the tough guy suddenly breaks down into uncontrollable tears, the cute maid gets completely disturbing, the sadistic nazi becomes a terminator. I really wonder whether the creators are also planning such huge contrasts for the rest of the cast. I really hope so. Don’t spoil this please, the fun is in finding out whether this is really true.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

Psycho Pass – 16

by psgels, posted in Psycho Pass

This was one heck of an episode for Psycho Pass. Just like Robotics;Notes, actually. The point where everything gets turned around.

Unfortunately I had been spoiled that someone would die in this episode, and as the episode went on it was pretty clear who would be the poor victim. The way in which it happened though, I totally did not see that coming. I loved the end of the episode because of that. In fact, this episode pulled lots of surprise twists that were just awesome. Makishima Shougo being apprehended by his own pride by not taking into account that Kougami didn’t come alone gave Akane a great moment for herself. I also love how she didn’t give in, and just apprehended the guy, instead of giving into her emotions. Now that’s a strong female character there who knows her own limits.

It’s very interesting that the main villain has now been apprehended though. From this moment there will be two possibilities: he’ll escape, or the main protagonists will somehow aid him in bringing down the Sibil System. I mean, Kagari’s death will be a trigger for a lot of things for Kougami and Akane, however you pull it. The Psycho Pass will become useless in one way or the other, the question now is “how”, and “what will that lead to”.

Production IG also rocks lately with their animation. First there was this string of excellent fight scenes that I’ve missed for so long, and then there was Jousei Kasei’s image as her skin was removed. That was a really powerful image for her. I loved the framing and the impact it made, and it was just perfect for that scene. Why she’s an android at this point is anyone’s guess, but it made the setting here even more interesting.

For a while I wondered why there was so little security in the building, if something really important is hidden there that absolutely cannot be found by anyone. But heck, I believe that this is the result of people’s Psycho Pass: apparently nobody with a clear conscience could live with something like what went on in the Sibil System’s core, whatever the hell it may be, so the maintenance and security of that building just had to be replaced with robots out of necessity. I guess that that’s why the police operates with people with a high crime hue: because this leads to less free people in the police force, and a smaller chance that one of them will find out about the tower and act on their impulses: like this episode showed, they can be easily killed off by a dominator that way. Whether this was the most efficient tactic for this though…. I have no idea.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

Robotics;Notes – 16

by psgels, posted in Robotics;Notes

And with this, the focus on the robot building suddenly returns. This is what I meant by the previous episodes feeling a bit like acheckist, because I nearly forgot that that was also going on, even though it wsa the main focus of the series. They could have shown a bit more about the progress of the construction while they were doing the stories of the other characters.

Having said that though, the supercandy robot launch really was worth the wait and I really liked the moment in which the thing actually moved properly. And either way, the atmosphere of this episode was really, realyl good. Probably the best this show has been so far. The sense of impending doom worked really well for the largest part of this episode. And then “it” happened…

Just holy crap. I did not see that coming. Both of it. I did not expect this series to be such a deconstruction that it would actually tackle what would happen if such a giant robot would fall over. It also did not come to my mind that the robots going out of control also would mean that Kai’s legs would start to act funny. The ending of this episode was just amazing.

That’s the power of the build-up of this show’s first half, in which it tried to be realistic and believable without much of the drama. Because of that we now know the characters, which makes it all the more disturbing what happened. And to make things even worse there was that point in which Kai’s legs actually forced her to stand up again, hurting her spine in the process. I did not expect such a detail whatsoever in a show that so far had no blood or gore whatsoever. The impact of that single thing was much larger than, say, a show that consistently has people hurting each other.

Robotics;Notes, I applaud you.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo -17

by psgels, posted in Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo

Putting the sister aside, my biggest complaint about this series so far was Aoyama’s part in the love traingle. I had hoped that as time went on, she’d move on… but no. In fact, this episode shot down my single hope at her falling in love with someone else, when at valentine’s day, she was in trouble, and called Sorata. The guy who had a crush on her… acted as a stepping stone.

And don’t get me wrong, I really like that guy. I forgot his name already, but his dedication for Aoyama is admirable. Which is why it’s all the worse that he’s such a simple character with no chance in hell to go anywhere, the same way in which Aoyama is doomed to be Shiina’s second choice. That in its own would be good, but this show doesn’t do anything with it. Instead this show just continue to develop Aoyama as if she is a valid romantic interest for the sake of drama.

The rest of the episode was delightful as usual, though. There was this nice bit of development between Rita and Ryuunosuke. It is beyond me how she manages to gather the money to travel back and forth between England and Japan for such a long time, but I really liked the gesture. Ryuunosuke’s reaction at the end of the episode also was priceless. Shiina got her moment as well, despite how it took so long thanks to Aoyama. She indeed is miles beyond Sorata and he can easily forget that. That is one point that this episode made that I really liked.
Rating: 4.5/8 (Good)

Magi – 15 – 17

by psgels, posted in Magi

I haven’t dropped Magi yet. It’s just that out of all the series I’m blogging, it takes the least priority. In the past few weeks I was a bit busy, so I’m just going to combine these three episodes in one. They close off the Balbad arc in any case, so it fits pretty well.

Here this show moved from the politics to more action, in a string of battles to wrap up the show. To be honest, the battles were not that interesting. What I mean by that is that they took too long. The whole ordeal took up 3 episodes in total. First they fight, then they wait for Aladdin to arrive, then Aladdin fights. Only near the end did it get interesting when Alibaba confronted Kassim about their past. I really liked that, and that is where the dragged out pacing really worked. The way in which it just kept switching back and forth between the two of them. That really worked.

I also liked that there is consequence in this series: Ugo seems to be gone now. It’s now up to the creators to play with that and turn that into interesting development for Alibaba without making it just an excuse for him to become more powerful. It was interesting that the creators put him and that other Magi in a coma, but if you do: don’t start waiting for them. What the show now needs to do is develop its setting correctly: go iin-depth into what it takes to turn Balbad into a democracy, instead of just pulling the “everyone lives happily ever after and the tory moves somewhere completely different”-card.

Kudos to the animation department by the way. The fight scenes were long, but they did have some pretty neat animation and camera work to spice things up. A-1 previously did a prime-time series with Ao no Exorcist, but I think that the animation in Magi really is a step up from that.
Rating: 4,5/8 (Good)

Robotics;Notes – 15

by psgels, posted in Robotics;Notes

Last episode: Frau. This episode: Airi. It’s quite surprising what this episode all showed us, because from out of nowhere it delviers Airi’s entire backstory. Or at least the parts that don’t involve the deeper mysteries behind Kimishima Kou. We did get to see his face, though.

It wasn’t a big surprise that Airi existed in the real world. She was just too real for that. The really interesting part is why Kimishima Kou did what he did. Did he freeze Airi just because he felt sorry for her, or was there some deeper reason behind it? Also, why two Airis? What was the reason behind that? And why did Airi malfunction the way that she did here?

I do have a bit of a complaint about the past three episodes standalone, and that is that they feel a bit too much like a checklist: “okay, we’ve got one girl, now the next one’s up, and after that the next one”. It feels a bit too… scripted, for a series that aims to be so believable. But it’s not like the creators didn’t try to mix this up. I really appreciated how every episode also showed hints and answers for the other lingering plot threads in this series. When put next to each other these three episodes are a bit cheesy but they work as build-up really well.
Rating: 5/8 (Great)