Uchuu Kyoudai – 36

by psgels, posted in Uchuu Kyoudai

Oh space brothers… what the hell are you doing to me? We’re waiting for the big moment to hear whether Mutta is going to become an astronaut, and yet again you’re going to stretch it with this bittersweet episode dedicated to Serika. After Kenji I guess it was obvious that they’d do this, but this episode made one heck of an impact.

First the creators showed Serika’s family (great way to flesh out a cast by the way), and then the creators finally tell the whole story of why her father died, and how she felt with it. The diary returns many times, but instead the central focus of this episode is how even though he knew so much about the subject, he couldn’t find a cure for himself, even though outer space could possibly find the answer.

How Serika’s father’s disease progressed was also beautifully done, and another example of what you can really do if you take your time, and actually use it by deteriorating his situation bit by bit, to the point where he eventually ends up in the hospital and his wife instead has to start working again. Three thumbs up for Space Brothers.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

Hunter X Hunter – 58

by psgels, posted in Hunter X Hunter

And it’s over. My favorite arc of Hunter X Hunter has ended with this, and what a ride it’s been. I’m curious for the Greed Island arc, because it’s here where Nippon Animation started getting lazy, so there might have very well been many stuff it skimped over. However, I am a bit disappointed here.

I refuse to rewatch the 1999 series because it makes me focus too much on the stupid details. However, I will say this: as the episode concluded, I felt like “wait… it’s over already?” As a frame of reference: this arc was done in eight episodes in the 1999 series, whereas here it only took less than five. And no, there were no fillers in that part. As a result, I unfortunately do think that this version skimped over the details. The most noticeable for me was Pakunoda. Now that this is over, I can finally admidst that she was my favorite character, which made me all the more surprised how little attention she got in this episode. It’s like, before we got a really good feeling for her she was dead already.

If I gained any new insights the past half year, then it’s about pacing, and how much it can influence the quality of a series. The most important examples of this are Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure and Space Brothers: they showed me that a series should adapt to its pacing. There is no universal formula in terms of pacing your series. It all depends on your mood, themes, and execution what the best pacing is, but you do need to pay attention to it. And it’s so important, yet so difficult with adaptations: being too fast or too slow can be so disastrous. If you make the wrong decision then you’ll lose so much emotional value.

And the way we all experience pacing is just completely different. I’ve seen many episodes, in which I blogged about how much I liked them, and then other people were too much bothered by that pacing. It’s a big trade-off that needs to be made: the faster your pacing, the more interesting things happen, yet the slower, the more the characters sink in. If your pacing is slow but you have nothing interesting happen/ A slow pacing can so easily become a drag that pointlessly wastes time, and a show that has a fast pacing can lose some of its emotional impact. And yet some series have to sacrifice this emotional impact in order to fit in their stories. It’s so complicated and that makes me all the more happy to see series as Jojo and Space Brothers that actually managed to nail their pacing in an incredibly effective way.

That’s not that this episode was not excellent or anything. Pakunoda still rocks, but here she is not my favorite character, that instead is Kurapika now. This still was an epic tale of revenge and it’s the kind of plan that would never happen in any other shounen series. I also did not expect that comedic bit when Hisoka found out that Chrollo had lost all of his powers.
Rating: 5/8 (Great)

Magi – 10

by psgels, posted in Magi

I think that if there is one thing where this show disappoints a bit, it’s is storyline. Compared to the rest of the series this season, I feel like it could have used itself better, and right now its main theme, fighting for freedom and against poverty, it has been done many times before unfortunately, and better.

What this show does have is interesting character. Perhaps they’re nowhere near the best of the series, but they have this charisma that makes them interesting to watch. That other magi in this episode made the fight that this episode was all about worth watching with how confident he was. The episode really worked in how far it actually went: it started off mundane, but got more and more serious as it went on, to the point where Ugo just went crazy.

Most peculiar detail here is that something else was giving the magical powers to do that, meaning that there is much more behind their bond than what Aladdin thought at first. It definitely gives a much needed different dimension to such an overpowered being in this series.
Rating: 4.5/8 (Good)

From the New World – 11

by psgels, posted in From the New World

This was a bit of a build-up episode for From The New World. Nothing too shocking like last episode happened, but nevertheless it’s the kind of episode that takes a step back for us viewers to get to know the characters a bit better. For fleshing the cast out, this was a really good episode because we finally got to see some of the sides of the minor characters who haven’t been in the spotlights like what Saki has been.

Ryou also was this interesting addition to the cast, in which an entire person has been replaced in everyone’s memory. Where did that guy come from, I wonder? It in any case was a very nice way to make the characters paranoid, and I like how difficult tampering with your memory is in this series: the adults did their best to cover up the memories, but some things just can’t fit. It’s now also clear that certain key parts have been erased from their memories and this goes as far as being able to cover up an entire romance, but it’s very difficult to hide an entire freaking crater appearing from nowhere.

Also this episode used lots of flashbacks and dream sequences, which of course is pretty obvious when the main character is trying to recall things. It actually worked quite well to tie up the past ten episodes together.
Rating: 5/8 (Great)

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure – 10

by psgels, posted in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure

This show. This show is crazy. It’s completely out of its mind!

I mean, we knew that this show was over the top beyond belief. However, with this episode we see Jonathan Joestar’s grandson. And this guy is even manlier than his grandfather. His entrances in this episode were just nind-blowing beyond belief. I mean, there is doing the unexpected, and there is pulling a Joseph Joestar.

Just about every fight scene in which Joseph got himself involved in screamed awesome. They all just took being cool to the absolute ridiculous in their own ways: first by using such a silly thing as a coke bottle as a weapon, then by predicting his opponents moves so well that it gets scary, and then just pulling a freaking tomgun from out of nowhere without warning. I mean, this is awesome. Why did nobody make a full fledged series of this before?

But then again, it’s also David Production’s work on this that just makes this extra special. I mean christ: they came with a completely new soundtrack for the second part of this series. It’s completely different and composed by a completely different person. This time it’s done by Taku Iwasaki. And you know what? This is perfect. This is how you produce a series like this, and this is a cue that Madhouse really should have taken with their adaptation of Hunter X Hunter: make the first arc awesome to watch while you build up for the second arc. Make a soundtrack that fits the first arc perfectly and one that fits the second arc perfectly, rather than making a soundtrack for the second arc and using the leftovers for the first arc.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

Zetsuen no Tempest – 10

by psgels, posted in Zetsuen no Tempest

Okay, so for those who haven’t read the previous work of the author of this series, Spiral: it is basically a series dedicated to mind-games. The characters move from one elaborate puzzle to the other and there is this evil organization that requires them to solve it. It’s fun, but also pretty formulaic and these mind games were pretty much the only reason to keep watching it. If anything though, it showed tht the author is really good at them. But holy crap, I must say that he really struck gold with Zetsuen no Tempest.

Spiral was just a series in which people moved from mind-game to mind-game. Zetsuen no Tempest instead has an epic storyline that happens to have mind-games in them. It has much more to offer than just the mind games, but when they appear, they really shine like never before. After all of the build-up and world building that the series did in the past, we can finally get to the point where this has to be used in order to out-wit Samon, and this is just the second week in a row in which my mind has been blown. You can really see Spiral as the prototype for Zetsuen no Tempest.

I love how Yoshino just came up with this ridiculous theory that makes no sense in order to bet under Samon’s skin. You really don’t often see a villain who isn’t completely confident in his cause, but that makes it all the more interesting: in this story, he is the one trying to achieve his goal against all odds and instead the main characters have someone like Hakaze, who can pretty much nuke the world on a whim when she gets the chance. It’s such a fascinating change of roles here.

And yeah, I loved how Yoshino tricked Samon in giving away something really crucial here: the nature of time travel in this world: if you talk to someone in the past, the effects of that become noticeable immediately. They can really use this: now that Hakaze knows that she will die, she can take actions to prevent it, and these actions will manifest themselves in the world they’re currently in. Just how? Who knows?
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

Psycho Pass – 09

by psgels, posted in Psycho Pass

Psycho Pass is a technically well written series, and what I mean by that is that it’s getting more and more eloquent: the things it has to say in its dialogue are getting more interesting and creative with every episode. It’s perhaps not on Ghost in the Shell levels, but still quite impressive compared to the other series that are currently airing.

The dialogue also really made this episode. It was both very good at describing its characters, and very interesting to hear what the different characters had to say. In particular the cyborg villain caught my attention, and the animators also seem to like this guy. Nobuchika had a major shock when it turned out that his father’s hue got clouded, and this episode really took its time in explaining not only what this meant for him, but also how the other characters related to it. Because of that this series feels more and more solid with every episode.

And yeah, speaking of Ghost in the Shell, this series definitely takes some cues from it, especially now that the talks are starting about androids. The focus of both series is completely different: Ghost in the Shell was a political thriller with a lot of focus on the mass media, while Psycho Pass looks into psychology and the minds of psychopaths, but there are definitely overlapping themes, like questioning the conveniences of having an automatic body, and how we get used to it and depend on them. Having said that, Ghost in the Shell still has much better writing and direction than Psycho Pass at the moment, but nevertheless I hope that this series will open up the door again to more intelligent science fiction thrillers, that will go even further away from your average series in anime, and that dare to take even more risks. Production IG in any case definitely made up for Guilty Crown with this: this is really the kind of daring that I expect them to do. Not that generic mess of plot twists.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

Robotics;Notes – 09

by psgels, posted in Robotics;Notes

This was a major episode for Robotics;Notes: the big guy finally moves… a bit. Before coming to an abrupt stop. Yes, giant robots like that have actual problems moving right. They’re giant heavy objects that need a huge amount of power to be even able to lift one leg. I’m surprised that it didn’t even tumble over.

But yeah, talk about a different portrayal of mecha in this series. This episode also contained this interesting bit about hyping these kinds of things: I mean these are high school kids who built this giant robot, but with that marketing campaign of that guy people were expecting way too much out of it and with these kinds of things, when just one thing goes wrong it already feels like a major setback, instead of the huge improvement that it actually was.

The thing is also that I still have no bloody clue how all of this is going to play out, and how all these different plot threads are connected: on one hand you have Airi and that evil Jaxa, then there is Airi’s quest to build the giant robot, Kaito with Frau about Killbala are also trying to get somewhere, and with this episode Airi’s sister also turned out to be completely different from what I imagined and that also is related to everything… somehow. She’s probably working for Jaxa, but even then I have no clue what the point of it all is. I mean that in a good way by the way, because I’m quite interested in finding out.
Rating: 5/8 (Great)

Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo – 09

by psgels, posted in Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo

I’m thankful that in general, the trend of giving anime characters hair colours that match the rainbow has been reduced to a minority, rather than a majority. Having said that though, there is still a trend that refuses to die: if there’s an english character, then that character has to have yellow hair. It works a bit bizarre in this series when Shiina’s hair already is blond, so he character in question had to be even brighter in order to stay true to this, to the point where it just gets ridiculous.

What also bothered me about this episode was the repetition. This is the umpth girl that keeps clinging to Sorata, and it’s getting a bit much. The balance is starting to get a bit lost. On the other hand I liked thta the creators are hinting at an actual other potential relationship for Aoyama. Please develop this well so that we can also can get rid of that annoying love triangle.

And yeah, I did get the point that this episode wanted to make about how Mashiro’s art, and that message definitely delivered, and made this episode worth watching. It’s a big theme of this series: how ridiculous amounts of talent can be overwhelming, and this episode yet again asks the question of what to do with it. At this point it’s clear that Shiina is doing what she likes, but in the end those are just romantic comedy manga…

Wait a minute, is this show also trying to bite the hand that feeds it?
Rating: 4.5/8 (Good)

Kamisama Hajimemashita – 10

by psgels, posted in Kamisama Hajimemashita

Okay. I absolutely loved this episode. Last week had me fearing a bit that the creators would go through this series a little too fast for the characters and comedy to really work, and this episode indeed consists out of two smaller stories, but the pacing here was just perfect. This time things really fit enough for everything to play out and for the creators to work their magic.

The first half of the episode was chockful of character development: we finally got to see what transformed Tomoe into his current self. That crucial piece of the puzzle was finally shown here, and yet this only takes up 10 minutes. It was delightful to watch Tomoe there and see him change.

The second half: again character development. This time in the romance. At this point it was obvious that Nanami likes Tomoe, and she realizes that very well, but the use of a mixer was really well placed. It really was just something to have fun, Nanami knew that as well, and yet that turned out to be the trigger for Tomoe’s jealousy: feeling competition from a human of all things. On top of that were some really good jokes and facial expressions (I loved how the mixer was just for one of Nanami’s classmates feeling lonely, or how ridiculous the name for that one guy was… did he ever get that coat of his back?)

Also. The ending. That showed that the creators know fully well that the ending of each episode for this series is awesome, and with this episode they only even made it better when Shinjirou started giving a really bad cover of the regular ED. Not only was this hilarious, it also really reaffirmed something for me:

TMS Entertainment has gotten ahold of a couple of really good producers. I already suspected this, but this really shows that they are flexible enough to just record a different ED for once for the sake of a joke that happens in the series, and it fits so well. It shows that the different departments really take each other into account. It’s also shown with the execution of this series: how incredibly consistent it is. Part of it has to do with how Akitaro Daichi is just incredibly awesome, but the rest of the people working on it: everything just seems so well planned out for this series. It’s all crisp and consistently tries to make the best out of its limited budget with consistently god jokes and timing.

Zetman and Lupin III were the same: they were really rough around the edges in comparison (which makes it all the more surprising how consistent this show is), but they always tried their best to make a spectacle out of their episodes, rather than making an episode for the heck of it. It really shows ambition and the drive to cooperate and improve. Next up is really: try to get a budget for a 2-cour series like this. A series that has the same mindset as Zetman, Lupin III and Kamisama Hajimemashita, and that actually has the time to play out for even longer, allowing for much more opportunities to experiment. I would just love to see that.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)