Little Busters – 05

by psgels, posted in Little Busters

Ah, screw Sword Art Online. I’m still going to watch and finish it, but there is no point in blogging it anymore. I actually really liked the first half, but the entire set-up of the second half is just wrong. There is no way the creators are going to be able to make up for that. I’d rather focus my limited time on something else. Now, why that something else turned out to be Little Busters of all things probably needs some explanation.

– The best Autumn 2012 show that I’m not currently blogging is pretty much Jormungand. I really support what that series is trying to do and if you got through the first season, I do urge you to check out the second. I just don’t have any inspiration to write a full entry about it. I noticed that when writing about its first season.
– Saint Seiya Omega unfortunately has gotten much worse again with its second half, introducing a sting of no less than TWELVE over the top battles against all odds against golden saints that will probably only get good near the end again. It’s pointless to blog it at this point.
– Sukitte Ii na Yo is also pretty good, but it comes off a tad forced at times. It’s good, but when characters come with their past it feels like the creators are running down a checklist instead of genuinely try to tell a story.
– The best other alternative would be Btooom: short and sweet suspense. In the case of that series though, I think it lacks depth, and probably isn’t going to get much with just 1 cour. Not to mention that an analysis of the fight scenes would just devolve into a string of complaints about the bad physics.

Now, Little Busters has its problems. DEAR GOD, it has problems. However, I do have a few reasons why I want to blog it, which I’ll get to below. To summarize though: its five opening episodes are better than the first five opening episodes of Kanon, and worse for Angel Beats, Air and Clannad. Still, it has something.

This is pretty much my mindset while watching an episode of Little Busters: “HATE HATE HATE HATE hate hate HATE HATE hate… oh this is actually pretty good… this is surprisingly good, whoa”. And this not in the way in which other bad or dull shows have a few redeeming moments: while those moments are enjoyable, they usually don’t succeed in removing my annoyance with the series by being dull or still not doing anything significant. I remember how Guilty Crown had one good episode. Well, whoop-tee-doo, it didn’t make up for the rest of the show. Little Busters actually succeeds in this. I’ve blogged a number of other series that were clearly flawed, but had enough to make up for them (Zetman, Deadman Wonderland), and to be honest, I want to give a more nuanced view over this series. I do feel like it has been getting too much negative reactions because there are enough things to like about it, and I want to highlight this series from a different perspective.

Yeah, so what if Kyoani doesn’t animate this. I actually don’t consider them to be that much better than JC Staff to be honest. Yeah sure, their animation is better, but they also keep making shows I’m not interested in. JC Staff also has these series, but they also make plenty of interesting shows, on top of shows that sound cliched, but are surprisingly well executed (Kimi to Boku, Milky Holmes, Yumekui Merry, Kamisama no Memo-Chou, Otome Youkai Zakuro, Aoi Hana, Nodame Cantabile, etc).

Now, the worst part of Little Busters BY FAR is the voice acting. I managed to get used to all of the characters by now, except for ONE: Komari. Dear god, she is annoying. Every time she opens her mouth something horrible comes out. And it doesn’t help that she’s trying to be incredibly ditzy and klutzy. This girl. Who the heck thought that that voice would fit her well!?

Now, with the key visual novel adaptations, the worst characters also get their arcs in first, and that very much is the case here. Nanami indeed is the worst key character so far, although she still is not without her merits: her story is at least more interesting than Kanon’s Uguu-girl, the previous holder of this title. The people around her: I find them actually very interesting, that missing brother and the grandfather, to the point where they actually make up for her annoyingness.

What also is a huge plus for this series: the chemistry between the characters. That is something of a pet peeves of mine: if the chemistry is good, then I can let a lot of things slide because I’m enjoying myself. And it’s not like this show is particularly funny or anything, but the side-characters all feel genuine. The cast is also quite large and full of interesting characters that aren’t just girls, unlike what you’d expect from other visual novels. The chemistry in this series is not of the kind that is immediately enjoyable, but the kind that makes me go “that was actually pretty fun” afterwards. I like this effect a lot actually, and for that, plus the promise that this series has for its future episodes makes me want to blog it.

But dear lord… I do hope that upcoming Winter will be a small season…
Rating: 4/8 (Nice)

Kamisama Hajimemashita – 06

by psgels, posted in Kamisama Hajimemashita

I love how this show is able to cheer me up no matter what. This once again was the best episode since the first episode, and that first episode really was in a league of its own with all of the hyperactivity going on there. This episode was utterly hilarious in its first half, and incredibly charming in its second.

I usually dislike fevers because they’re often forced in for extra drama, but here the creators made brilliant use of it by having Tomoe dress up as Nanami. As an added surprise, Shinjirou was again hilarious in combination with him, toying with a lot of the bishounen idol cliches. His entrance alone was just delightful in the way that it created this expectation that things would get crazy, and they did.

What this episode also did really well was portray love: Nanami’s crush developing was very good, especially now that she also got to see a chunk of his past and how much he changed. His previous master is also finally introduced here. This part worked particularly well due to how much I like the characters already, after just six episode, and I really have to say that Kamisama Hajimemashita has some of the most consistently enjoyable characters of the season.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo – 05

by psgels, posted in Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo

The one charcter I always found a bit questionable in this series was Nanami Aoyama: the classmate. Why would the creators want to bother adding a harem element with this series when the relationship between Shiina and Sorata already is interesting enough? With this episode she took an interesting new twist.

So it was obvious that she would move in at some point. I did not expect her to actually take over Shiina duty for at least a while though. It’s a nice touch to finally have a normal girl in Sakurasou to balance out the aliens that are Shiina and Misaki, and the creators make great use of it. This episode was actually quite hilarious whenever Shiina started trolling the couple of Nanami and Sorata.

Also, this episode was about deadlines: everyone in Sakurasou is pretty much incredibly busy with their work, and this episode was full of all-nighters. It’s actually quite inspiring to see everyone work so hard at what they want to do, while also balancing out the chaos that happens in Sakurasou.
Rating: 5/8 (Great)

Magi – 05

by psgels, posted in Magi

I see that it’s a bit of a challenge for this series to balance out its morals and stories. What I mean by that is the following: the past episodes focused all on this community of ordinary people who are about to be annexed, and a lot of focus was put into not fighting, resulting even in the death of the village elder as she tried to promote her ideas. Those ideas got through, the villagers decided to abandon fighting… only for the main characters to pick up their arms instead and slaughter the enemy nevertheless. Screw negotiations.

It’s obvious why they did it of course: the villain in this episode could not be talked out of his plans, but still: this set-up does deminish the storlyline for the tribe a bit: these two stories next to each other don’t really strengthen each other. Yet, this is still much better than Sword Art Online, which doesn’t even seem to care about its unimportant characters. Magi definitely does care about them, and that care definitely made it through in this episode.

Also, this arc seemed to be for Aladdin to realize what his purpose is, and to meet other kinds of genies and magi that also were there to select kings. I’m definitely feeling the grandeur of this setting with this, and this episoe showed that there is so much more to this setting than what has been shown so far. And really: I like the village elder a lot more than I thought I would. Because of that, her realization of what Aladdin is at the end of this episode made all the more impact.
Rating: 5/8 (Great)

K – 05

by psgels, posted in K

This was one of those annoying episodes of which you won’t know whether it was good or not until the series ends. Annoying to review, I mean, not to watch, mind you.

But yeah, in terms of plot, nothing concrete really happens: people search for someone, they don’t find him. People fight, they retreat. People prepare for something, but that is left for the next episode. A cliff-hanger promises a lot of intrigue… yet not in this episode.

No, this was all about character building. Fleshing out the cast and making the audience more familiar with them, in particular the skateboard guy and his companion, along with Saruhiko (who is not Reishi by the way, a mistake I made at first). Highlight was the gorgeously animated fight scene between these guys.

But yeah, this build-up is nice and all, but it’s pointless if you ain’t gonna use it, and shows like this tend to forget that, getting so much caught up in their build-up that they forget to deliver. this show has the luxury of being anime original, so not bound on any kind of original source material whatsoever, so in theory it can really do as it pleases. Now make use of that!
Rating: 4/8 (Nice)

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)