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)

Zetsuen no Tempest – 16

by psgels, posted in Zetsuen no Tempest

The past few episodes were weird in how they suddenly focused so much on Hakaze’s crush on Yoshino. Compared to the first half of this show, it contrasted completely: here we have this serious series full of mind-screws and world-shattering conflicts… that gets followed by a happy romance story. This episode I think forms the conclusion to that.

Hakaze once again was hilarious, but this episode carried it even further. It showed how Yoshino indirectly used Hakaze’s powers because she was worried about him. From the outside this looks like a cheesy scene, but there is something that just does not add up: Yoshino is no idiot.

I love how, even though he’s the main character, we are not allowed to fully look into Yoshino’s head. The way he used the chain in order to slide to the other side, and just “ran” into that easily avoidable burning building… it’s like he was asking to be saved with magic or something. So we’re now at the point at which a person like him has full control over the end of the world. Hakaze confessed her feelings and will now be very, very heavily influenced by his actions. Oh boy. The question is now: was this on purpose? This show is evil enough to not give any confirmation or denial about this.

There are two series that are referencing classical literature this season: Psycho Pass and Zetsuen no Tempest. They both use it as symbolism, but in completely different ways. Psycho Pass occasionally mentions a classic and compares its own setting to it. Zetsuen no Tempest meanwhile is all about Hamlet and Tempest, using this symbolism to show the difference and similarities between the two works.

Also some really good animator was working on the scene where Yoshino rescued that child. Lots of creative movements!
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

Psycho Pass – 15

by psgels, posted in Psycho Pass

It’s getting more and more clear what the creators wanted to show with the setting of Psycho Pass. It’s not just that they wanted to show that a society based on the Sybil System would work. That was just a method to get to what it really wanted to show: a society that has not known crime for a for a long time. And what if those people were suddenly handed the means to get away with crimes?

This once again was a very good episode. The animation for example had some very interesting shots, in which you could actually see the depth of the character-designs. This is quite hard to do in HD, but this episode was full of those scenes here.

I also really like Makishima’s long dialogues as he explores the flaws of the Sybil system and talks with others about it. On top of recommending a few good books (quite good to see so many interesting references here to compare this setting with), I like his conviction to see what lies at the center of the Sybil system, and I can understand why people want to follow him. I don’t often have that with nameless goons from an evil organization (yeah, the main villain may be a psychopath for wanting to destroy the world, but who in their right mind is going to follow them?).

What surprises me: how little police there is in this city. I mean, the engineers behind the Sybil System made a number of really big mistakes. Security through obscurity is another one: it is the belief that as long as you don’t tell anyone what your system looks like. That works fine, until someone actually finds this out. The police has been decimated, to the point where the people in charge believed that they weren’t necessary except for the extreme cases.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

From the New World – 18

by psgels, posted in From the New World

This really was an episode with some awesome animators. Especially the big fight scenes looked gorgeous and very artistic. The budget of this series has not been as big as its first half, which is quite common for series, but what I love is that the creators still are trying to make it look really nice.

As for the content… I did not expect an all-out war at this point. At all. Perhaps near the end of the series, but I did not expect the main focus of the third arc to be the war between the humans and queerats. Yakomaru so far has been unpleasant, but with this he actually attacked the humans with all sorts of dirty tactics. The weirdest of one is that they now have human allies that can use Cantus.

I wonder… was the first arc the catalyst for this? I mean, the queerats probably caught some snail or something, but did Yakomaru realize with the young Saki and Satoru that the “gods” were mere mortals? I mean, something happened. It’s not normal for the queerats to make such a progression. The question is whether Saki instigated it, or whether she was merely unlucky enough to end up in the center of it all.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

Some Quick First Impressions: Doki Doki Precure!

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Dokidoki Precure

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets to be a mahou shoujo.
My big issue with Precure: there is so much of it! I’m not going to devote so much time to it, unless it’s really good, like what happened to Heartcatch Precure. Now, did Dokidoki’s first episode reach the same level as Heartcatch’s first episode? No. For me it lacks the fresh emotional touch and the energy that I noticed there. However, I am positive about this episode and it stands out among the better ones. For once, the lead female is not a ditzy airhead anymore (seriously, there were too many characters in precure like that…). Okay, she still is incredibly naive, but her resourcefulness at least is a start! If I have to be honest though, with the current execution, I do not think that I will continue with this series. I miss emotions. I miss some passion. The characters may develop well, but I do not want to be bored while waiting for that. The current pacing… I think that I will get bored.
OP: Not the worst, but also not that good of an OP.
ED: You’re still not done with those crappy CG dance EDs?
Potential: 50%

Uchuu Kyoudai – 43

by psgels, posted in Uchuu Kyoudai

At the start of the episode, Hibito only had 8 minutes of oxygen left. The oxygen ran out at the 17 minute mark. Substracting from that the 3 minutes of recap and opening, about five minutes of a flashback. And then you come awfully close to going through the actual time that Hibito went through. In real time! That was bloody intense.

I really thought that the creators would end up killing off Hibito, but the build-up was perfect: his rescue is very believable in the end. In the end what saved him was that one of the buggies was nearby. The creators pulled a few tricks, but having the Brian arrive at the last moment… thanks to all that build-up it got away with it.

The detail I probably loved the most here was the way in which there is no wind on the moon, so tracks don’t get erased. I mean, the last episode was great because we got to see a souvenir that Brian Jay left. This time though, we also got to see his footprints that brought him there. It’s a small detail, but so powerful, considering that he died afterwards.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)