Uchuu Kyoudai – 31

by psgels, posted in Uchuu Kyoudai

So, this is the episode: they actually got an astronaut to voice a version of himself, as he was in space. You really could hear that he wasn’t a professional voice actor, and instead someone who was more used to giving press conferences.

I kept wondering in what kind of context the creators would put it, but they actually did it in a flashback to when Mutta and Hibito were still kids and got to talk to him along with a number of other kids. That’s quite neat. I also like how they could have shown this segment at any episode the creators would have liked, yet they chose Hibito’s big moment: the moment where he finally achieved his dreams and arrived into space.

The launch itself also was just perfect: there was just as much detail here as last episode, and it’s amazing to actually see so much time spent on just a single launch of a rocket.

This really was an episode that said “You’re next, Mutta”. With all the build-up I kept thinking that they were leading up to this huge death scene, but instead the creators just really wanted to show in full detail what the launch of a rocket would be like, and what it all entails. It’s completely different from the second exam arc in that the number of characters was much smaller, and this wasn’t aimed to get to know them better at all. Still, it worked really well, just because it was so unique. Slow paced series like this are really rare, especially when done right (dragging on is a really big pitfall for them), so I’m really glad with this series.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

Hunter X Hunter – 54

by psgels, posted in Hunter X Hunter

YES! YES! YES! OH GOD YES! It has begun! That one phone text is something I have been eagerly anticipating for more than a year now. The scene where Hisoka sent his message was the point where the original 1999 series ended, and this episode showed the first bits of what would continue in the OVA: the very best parts. Why it’s the best part will become clear in a few weeks, but oh god. This episode was so chockful of hints for that it’s unbelievable.

I am not going to mention these hints for spoilers’ sake. Let me just say that seeing the fortunes read for every spider member is amazing when you know what’s going to happen. Holy crap, I just cannot wait for this.

Also, I want to rain praises at the spider troupe for one more thing: they’re cautious. Most evil organizations glorify death or something like that: they take risks way too easily and they don’t have any value for human life. Here however, it’s more complex than that: some members are valueable and therefore cannot be permitted to die. Some members have a very strong bond together. This whole rope-tagging alone made this episode more than worth it. I just cannot think of any other evil shounen organization that comes even close to how well thought out these guys are.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

From the New World – 06

by psgels, posted in From the New World

Another great thing from From the new World is that it’s different with every episode. This was quite an eerie episode, in which Satoru fights off small armies of those Ground Spiders after getting his powers back.

I’m not quite sure how he got his powers back. I mean, I get that Saki used Satoru’s mantra to get his Cantis back, but I’m curious why Satoru didn’t do the same for Saki. After all, they were in a situation of life and death, which meant that even there, the thought of crossing this taboo didn’t occur to them.

This episode worked really well despite its problems though, in particular the change within Satoru was great as he plowed through these groups of Ground Spiders, actually enjoying himself. Only to run into this actual army at the end of the episode. Although I have to say that some of the 3D animation could have been blended a bit better. In particular the flying rocks and trees.
Rating: 5/8 (Great)

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure – 05

by psgels, posted in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure

The soundtrack for this series… I remember at the beginning of the season that I noted that the best soundtracks of the season were from Zetsuen no Tempest and Psycho Pass. Here’s the thing: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure’s soundtrack was awesome as well, but over the past episodes, it has actually improved, whereas Tempest and Psycho Pass mostly stayed with the same tracks. This episode also had a new track for the ED to work with. I’m amazed at how much work was put into this, because out of all the series this season, this is the show where the soundtrack plays the most prominent role here.

Also, the powers of the different characters just rock. Here is a kid who launches himself with a catapult, the ripple energy that can be used to tiptoe over water, a guy who uses his hair to attack and the most gigantic sword I have ever seen in an anime. It’s all so ridiculously overblown on one hand, yet so detailed on the other with fingers being the single most effective murdering weapon in the entire series. Or that “Let me heal your frozen arm with my burning body heat!”-scene. That was so ludicrous that it became awesome again.

This episode also brought back two famous figures from history back to life as incredibly badass zombies. Even their backstories were over the top, and I love the way how this was portrayed. It was another one of those moments where I nearly had the urge to yell along with the characters. It has been so long that I’ve seen an anime that had so much manliness in it. The previous attempt, Kaiji was horribly dragged out. This is the complete opposite: perfectly paced and I’m not feeling like I’m missing anything.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

Robotics;Notes – 04

by psgels, posted in Robotics;Notes

This episode was mostly basic fodder for competition-based series: the part where the rivals end up working together after having shown off once, while other build-up stuff happens at the same time and new characterts get properly introduced. These were the most unremarkable parts of this episode: Fraukojiro turned out to be this shut-in who talks with internet speak, who really needs some time to warm up, and to be honest the world championships felt rather boring to me.

But then there were some parts in this episode that really impressed me: the background for the characters and the mystery. In particular the latter, as it’s finally revealed what some of the strange moments of the previous episodes were about, and it’s this strange phenomenon that occurred putting everyone to sleep. I really like the idea of one person experiencing time really fast, and the other really slow.

I like how they establish that this is a realistic setting, with supernatural events, right at the beginning, rather than pulling the magic card somewhere in the middle. This was a problem I had with Steins;Gate and Chaos;Head, so what I like about Robotics;Notes, even though Steins;Gate’s first four episodes still were much better, is that it does attempt to fix some of the issues that I had with its predecessors.
Rating: 5/8 (Great)

Zetsuen no Tempest – 05

by psgels, posted in Zetsuen no Tempest

I must say, this episode found quite an interesting place for its characters to fight: inside an aquarium. They also used this whale skeleton, and I have to say that it’s quite a bit better than “generic street 232”.

But that was not what this episode was really about: it was about the villains. Even though most of the screentime showed the lead characters, it detailed the back-story for this series, who Samus is, what he does, why he left his strongest enemy on an island instead of just killing her, and it’s revealed that he instead just declared her dead.

Also, everything happens for a reason. The show will very likely build further upon this theme for the rest of the series, but for now it’s already quite interesting in the way that the dead girl used to say this. After dying…. this left quite an impression on Yoshino. Also, this may have been me missing something, but has it already been revealed how she died?

At least we now know why he has the hairstyle he has: it’s something she gave to him. Should have seen that coming. I do wonder what happened to his glasses, though. Did he end up wearing contacts?
Rating: 5/8 (Great)

Psycho Pass – 04

by psgels, posted in Psycho Pass

This episode was… odd. Very odd. I liked it and all, but it shows this future rendition of online communities that just made no sense. Or rather: things have to move in a very strange direction in the future for it to make any sense.

THe thing with this episode was that it had some nice ideas, but it combined them in a really weird way. Central was a new way for people to interact online with each other: using Virtual Reality that allows them to create their own persona. Logically there are pepole who stand out as celebrities in this setting. And after that it gets weird.

These celebrities have much more elaborate designs than the others. Why would that be? Computing power or something? What also akes them famous is that instead of creating content, like what a lot of today’s famous people on the internet do, they create personalities that people want to be with. Okay. Later on in the episode, a character calls this a “forum”. Okay. And for some reason, even though a computer monitors the entire cities, it cannot keep track of all the proxies it inhabits. Did the privacy laws on the internet survive this well, even though the rest of the setting is so well managed?

The question here: would the internet really evolve in such a way if virtual reality were introduced? I mean, that community definitely wasn’t mormal and all, with tons of shady guys hanging around it (so how on earth did Akane end up there), but this feels like a bizarre way for things to evolve.

What I did like was that there was one thing that this episode did show offline meetings, to show that not everything is virtual. Oh, and this episode was worth it to see Shinya float around as a talking coin. And I admit that I am intrigued as to what on earth the motives of the villain of this arc are.
Rating: 4.5/8 (Good)

Kamisama Hajimemashita – 05

by psgels, posted in Kamisama Hajimemashita

Now that was just completely adorable. This episode was the best episode of Kamisama Hajimemashita so far since episode 01. It was all about the recurring characters this time. And Tomoe gets turned into a kid.

What I’ve noticed with a lot of comedies that lost my interest is that they introduce these characters with gimmicks, and the blow all of their best jokes on the episodes that these characters are introduced in. The result are heaps of characters who feel like one trick ponies. Then Shinjirou Kurama returned in this episode (the idol), and he was much funnier in this episode compared to the second episode. The chemistry between him and Tomoe and Nanami in particular was hilarious.

And at the same time, the serious bits again were really good: this episode again kept switching back and forth comedy and drama. The drama was really genuine, especially near the end of the episode. With the previous episode we already got to see Tomoe’s worries about Nanami, but this episode went even further with him feeling depentant on Nanami, and being ashamed of showing his weak side to her. Nanami on the other hand was really well acted when she properly fell in love with him there after seeing Tomoe’s new haircut.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

October Summary

by psgels, posted in Monthly Summaries

This season? Delightful! A-1 is on fire with six series at the same time, two of which are the best of their respective season. After years of begging, there are two Akitaro Daichi series airing at the same time. After years of complaining, Shounen Jump adaptations suddenly show their best sides since the OVA of Hunter X Hunter. After years of complaining, Shoujo suddenly is prominent again with actually good characters. There is very little bad fanservice stuff, and there are plenty of series that treat its audiences as adults. Hell yeah, bring this on!

#38 (new) – Onii-chan Blahblah – (2/10) – I refuse to spend any more time to try and get the name of these godawful incest shows right. Dropped.
#37 (new) – To Love-Ru – (2.6/10) – Just make this a hentai already! Dropped
#36 (new) – Busou Shinki – (3.1/10) – This one really was surprisingly bad. I mean the OVA was decent, albeit unremarkable. This was nothing but the most blatant of wish fulfillment with some of the dumbest characters of the entire season. Dropped.
#35 (new) – Aikatsu – (3.5/10) – The CG! The horrible, horrible CG! Dropped.
#34 (new) – Liche Light Club – (3.9/10) – A proper studio should have gotten this. What could have been an incredibly dark and twisted comedy got reduced to badly delivered sadism jokes. Dropped.
#33 (new) – Monsuno – (4.25/10) – Very cheesy kiddie shounen series that moves way too fast. Dropped
#32 (new) – Girls und Panzer – (4.6/10) – Why, Girls und Panzer. Why did you take yourself seriously? Did you seriously think that that would survive in this season? Dropped.
#31 (new) – Wooser no Sono Higurashi – (5/10) – Has a nice idea, that wears off after 30 seconds. Dropped.
#30 (new) – Hidamari Sketch – (6.25/10) – Hidamari Sketch never really hit me. It’s a combination of Shaft and characters that never really appealed to me and never really caught my attention. Dropped.
#29 (new) – Hayate the Combat Butler – (6.5/10) – I still haven’t found a reason to watch Hayate the Combat Butler. It wasn’t particularly annoying or anything, but absolutely nothing grabbed me over the three first episodes that I watched. At this point this series has gotten way too long for me to want to bother with it. Dropped
#28 (new) – Chousoku Henkei Gyrozetter – (6.75/10) – Hilariously bad. Seeing little kids who handle actual cars like they’re total pros was worth quite a laugh, but there is no way I’m going to continue with this. Dropped.
#27 (new) – Chuuninbyou demo Koi ga Shitai – (7/10) – Really good animation, but apart from that I have little reason to continue with this show. The characters are annoying, and there is just too little that happens for my tastes. There is much more interesting stuff going on this season, especially considering that there are so many other romance shows airing at the same time that may not be as well animated, but have much more compelling characters.
#26 (new) – Bakuman – (7.25/10) – If Bakuman was just 26 episodes long, it would have made a killer series. I don’t want to bother with it for 75 though. Dropped
#25 (14) – Sword Art Online – (7.4/10) – Well, here is one show that jumped the shark. I really liked the conclusion of the Sword Art Online arc. After that though, the new arc just kept making no sense (I don’t care if it’s explained in the novels), it has the most stereotypically evil villain and I really hate the way in which Asuna has been reduced to a mere damsel in distress, allowing Kirito to expand his harem even more.
#24 (new) – Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun – (7.4/10) – My problem with this series is the male lead. He’s way too forced: on one hand he’s too perfect, on other he’s too flawed. He’s trying to be everything in just one character, making him an unlikable asshole. The female lead deserves better. Because of that I’ve dropped this series. During a quiet season I would have watched it, but there is too much competition that is just more interesting.
#23 (new) – Medaka Box – (7.5/10) – The second season of Medaka Box is… boring. To me it just feels like a parade of over the top characters with crazy powers, but it lacks personality or any kind of engaging story other than “High School” and “Let’s evolve humanity by killing off lots of people”. The new villains aren’t compelling at all and are very much of the same. Will this really end well?
#22 (new) – Ixion Saga – (7.6/10) – My standards for comedy are high: I really want to laugh when I watch one, and Ixion Saga just wasn’t funny enough and it repeated itself a little too much within the three episodes that I watched. Dropped.
#21 (new) – Little Busters – (7.6/10) – I’m beginning to fear that this will end up more like Kanon, rather than Air and Clannad: nice, but ultimately lacking. Air and Clannad were amazing because they went beyond the formulaic “group of sad girls”. With the build-up that we’ve recently gotten here, I don’t see any hints for the same with Little Busters. It’s funny and enjoyable, but the girls have got some major issues. Their acting is pretty bad at points as well, especially the ditzy girl.
#20 (new) – Teekyu – (7.6/10) – … I’m still watching this series. Why!?
#19 (new) – Code: Breaker – (7.75/10) – My problem with Code: Breaker is this: what the hell is this series about? Witht he other series this season, I know what they’re trying to do and convey. Here though, we’re three episodes in and the only thing we know is that a guy is killing bad guys and a girl is trying to stop him. There is no depth to this so far and the terrible comedy during the school scenes isn’t really helping.
#18 (new) – K – (8/10) – K doesn’t have much depth. What it does have however is the best animation of the season and it’s very fun to watch in the way that it combines lot of different plot threads together. It could have been a bit more ambitious with these ingredients, though.
#17 (new) – Sukitte Ii na Yo – (8.1/10) – Here is an interesting romance: it neither claims its male lead nor its female lead as perfect. Everyone is flawed in this series. Also, unlike Kimi ni Todoke, it doesn’t take bloody ages to get somewhere. Its drama is a bit forced at times, and it tends to get a little overboard with jealousy, but it’s quite a charming series.
#16 (new) – Gintama – (8.1/10) – Gintama still has its problems, like how it’s still formulaic how everyone gets beaten to a pulp with lots of drama, only to walk away fine moments late, but the creativity still has me, especially the way in which the Kintama arc ended caught me by surprise.
#15 (new) – Magi – (8.1/10) – Magi is an adventure show. It can be a bit silly at times and it tends to have one-dimensional villains, but it’s fun, and it’s full of creativity. It’s also got an engaging main cast to follow: Ali Baba and Aladdin have a good chemistry together.
#14 (new) – Btooom! – (8.1/10)Btooom shows the ugly side of humanity. It’s got the bad luck that it airs right next to Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure though, because in terms of adrenaline it unfortunately lost by a long stretch. Still, it works as a suspense, even though the bombs aren’t quite realistic. The atmosphere of everyone trying to kill each other works well.
#13 (7) – Shirokuma Cafe – (8.25/10)

This month hasn’t been Polar Bear Cafe’s best, but it still managed to deliver its typical dry humour, sarcasm and corny wordplay. Highlight was the halloween bit.

#12 (new) – Robotics;Notes – (8.25/10)

This show had a slow start, but it’s fun and interesting. The male lead needs a bit of work, but the female lead is quite compelling to watch, and the characterization of the side characters is also pretty good. I’m not going to expect the next Steins;Gate here though.

#11 (new) – Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo – (8.25/10)

This show has really good chemistry. Its characters are all interwoven with each other and even though they seem like really bad clichés at first sight, they soon grow to be much more than that, and much sharper than I imagined.

#10 (new) – Zetsuen no Tempest – (8.25/10)

Fantastic soundtrack, and this show had the best first episode of the season. After that it lost that status when it went a bit too much into building up, but nevertheless this show has great characters, an interesting back-story and excellent action. This can really turn into something amazing with time.

#9 (10) – Poyopoyo Kansatsu Nikki – (8.4/10)

It’s pretty much the same story as usual for Poyopoyo: it’s still delightful slice of life with lots of small relatable scenes that are also really hilarious.

#8 (new) – Jormungand – (8.4/10)

Jormungand’s second season really surprised me with how much it improved over the first one. The characters are actually good, and the villains stopped being snarky and generic. The plot twists were particularly impressive here.

#7 (new) – Psycho Pass – (8.4/10)

Psycho Pass is fascinating. It aims to create these complex moral dilemmas that aim to really make you think. On top of that it’s got some great suspense and an amazing soundtrack to boot.

#6 (15) – Saint Seiya Omega – (8.5/10)

Saint Seiya has really gotten good here. Even a simple recap episode had me at the edge of my seat. It’s simple hot blooded action, but this was done so well in this month with the conclusion of the first half of the show.

#5 (new) – Kamisama Hajimemashita – (8.5/10)

Out of all the romances this season, Kamisama Hajimemashita by far has the best execution. Perhaps the story itself needs a bit more time to get going compared to Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo, but the delivery is just perfect: it is really good at combining comedy and drama together, and every single episode is wonderfully built up, ending at an incredibly charming conclusion.

#4 (new) – Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure – (8.6/10)

This series definitely is not for everyone, but it really has been a while since I saw an anime with so much adrenaline as in this series. There really have been moments in which I just wanted to yell loudly alongside the characters. This show is just so completely over the top in every single way, and the creators look like they’re having so much fun in the process. The voice actors as well ham it up, but they ham it up with so much passion that it becomes an incredibly addictive series.

#3 (6) – From the New World – (8.75/10)

After one month, this is the series that has made the biggest impression on me. Its setting is completely original, but what also struck me is its consistency in its characterization: it just keeps building further upon the characters and they make this show compelling. I also absolutely love its variety: every episode has been significantly different so far.

#2 (1) – Uchuu Kyoudai – (8.9/10)

The past month for Uchuu Kyoudai has been slow, but incredibly detailed because of this. Especially the latest episode was just amazing in how well it portrayed the shuttle launch, and everything leading up to it. I didn’t get bored for a single moment here.

#1 (3) – Hunter X Hunter – (8.9/10)

This show has surpassed itself yet again this month. The spider troupe is for me the single best evil organization in any shounen ever. They’re just so professional and work so well together. Kurapika on the other hand got some amazing development. And we haven’t even reached the best part yet!

Psycho Pass – 03

by psgels, posted in Psycho Pass

Now this was an excellent episode here from Psycho Pass. At this point I really like what this show is doing: create thought-provoking cases of morders in which no side really is right. It aims to show these moral dilemmas.

It’s not exactly a murder mystery: in this episode it quite quickly became clear that the bullied worker was the one who murdered the three people, but instead what stood out was how it was delivered. The portrayal of this facility was great, and the creators got a particularly good voice actor for the boss of this facility.

The main character also stood out here: the previous two episodes showed him as this level-headed guy, but this episode portrayed a very dangerous side of him that enjoys the thrill and action of crime fighting. It also showed that the female lead is going to have to keep every single one of the characters in check, because all of them have their issues, mixed in with their good points.

Also, the opening for this series is really good. A quick look at the staff for this series reveals why: Sayo Yamamoto, the director of Michiko e Hatchin and Mine Fujiko to Iu Onna. She often gets jobs to do OPs, and they always really shine with their style and execution, and this is no different. She really should do another series again.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)