Zetsuen no Tempest – 04

by psgels, posted in Zetsuen no Tempest

This was a very quiet episode, but it showed much more the strengths of this series: its characters. The action of last week was nice and all, but this time this show was all about the characters and their back-stories, and I just find that much more interesting.

The story between the two leads is quite creative, and it also really shows some of their edges. Mahiro as the kid who grew up always feeling special and violent, Yoshiro as the kid who was quite intelligent and came with smart ideas. While people can change a lot in their transition from kids to teenagers, it still is good to keep establishing their characters like this early on in the series. And I have to admit that especially Yoshiro coming up with the story of Mahiro saving that puppy made me laugh.

What also surprised me about this episode was that the two of them just barged into a house and made use of their supplies. That’s quite… different and unusual for protagonists to do. I mean, Yoshino objected at first, but he happily plundered a fridge there. But then again, by the time people will wake up, everything would probably have spoiled.

Also, commenting on how to cook celery. These are small details, but also bring a ton of character.
Rating: 5/8 (Great)

Kamisama Hajimemashita – 04

by psgels, posted in Kamisama Hajimemashita

This show didn’t turn out as what I expected it to be. With Akitaro Daichi behind the direction I was expecting a lot of hyperactive comedy here, but this episode yet again took a step back in terms of pacing. The way this episode progressed also quite surprised me.

To be honest, the first half of this episode had me wonder whether I perhaps overestimated this series. The set-up was basic with Nanami running into this snake familiar who suddenly decided that he was going to marry her against her will. It was a very cliched set-up, especially with Tomoe joining the school as a student. But as the episode went along it just kept getting better and better.

It did suddenly get quite dramatic, but what seemed forced at first turned out to be surprisingly genuine. First with the story about the snake familiar who has created an entire dimension to protect the memory of his deceased master, and afterwards Tomoe realizing that the same might happen to him and Nanami. And inbetween Nanami just walked around brightly and took a lot of those worries away. The drama here is simple, but really effective, especially with that ED. Because of how well these episodes are told, this still is my favorite shoujo of the season, even in terms of drama. Sukitte Ii na Yo is also good, but it comes across quite forced in comparison.
Rating: 5/8 (Great)

Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo – 03

by psgels, posted in Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo

Sorry for the lateness. A combination of me having many real life appointments and my computer catching a virus lead me to create quite a backlog. Still, now that I’ve managed to finally see this episode, I can again get really surprised at how GOOD this show actually is. At this point this show can pretty much become the best shounen romance in a long while.

So many cliches died today. Sorata definitively stepped away from the other male leads in this episode. Before, he was like them in that he had nothing that set himself apart: everyone else in Sakurasou had something to do, but he had no hobbies. In this episode, he actually realized that, and became fully aware of it. That is so much better than your average shounen lead who is kept bland on purpose and doesn’t even seem to realize it.

Misaki meanwhile. Holy crap, her role here was really good. I really feared that she would be the typical ditzy girl you see everywhere. Well, those ideas ended with this episode as well; she really managed to show her feelings for Jin. Who by the way had the best dialogue of the episode. The guy is subtle: he was obviously pissed in the first half of the episode, yet he hid it in a really good way. It’s still a mystery why he doesn’t just go after Misaki though. My guess is that his pride is in the way, but they just know each other for too long fot htat to be true.

Also, Shiina. I mean, she started out as the typical girl who needs to be taken care of by the male lead. It’s a typical wish fulfillment trope, and yet in this episode she became so much more. She’s just so focused on drawing manga that she doesn’t care about anything else (or so it might seem), but she’s really sharp in her dialogue and she really knows what she wants.

I’m really glad to have decided to blog this series, because there is so much interesting stuff going on. I also don’t mind the fanservice at this point. It’s blatant yes, but it’s part of the characters, instead of just there for the sake of having fanservice. That’s also why I minded that one panty-shot of Little Busters so much: that just had a girl tripped up in an incredibly weird position that made no sense, just for that shot). It also is there to create this wonderful tension between the characters: without it the chemistry between the characters actually wouldn’t be as good as what it is now. That’s what I call good fanservice.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

Uchuu Kyoudai – 29

by psgels, posted in Uchuu Kyoudai

This series’ cliff-hangers reached a new level of frustration. Before, they already had me wanting more and more, and ended right at the exact moment I was the most into the series. This week’s episode was like that as well, but on top of that, it had something extra: WHAT ON EARTH was the meaning behind that cliff-hanger?

I mean, this was a wonderful episode. The build-up was just perfect, and I love how this show took its time to show everything leading up to Hibito’s launch. It’s all so detailed, and despite the slow pacing the characters all made it so enjoyable to watch. The humour was better than ever, and as an added bonus Mutta’s mother showed a completely different side of her this episode when she was so worried about Hibito’s fate. Oh, and we finally had a punk kid who behaved normal. I once met a guy who had mohawk hair, and he behaved totally normal, completely unlike the over the top punks you usually see. Of course this effect was mitigated by his father and little brother, but it’s at least something!

But here is the thing: this series also looked like the build-up of a big death scene. With this series taking so much time leading up to that, toying with the weather, showing everyone worried and putting so much focus on Hibito. I wouldn’t be surprised if something indeed did go wrong. And it will very likely be completely amazing if that does happen.

And then Apo disappeared. What? You’re going to kill the dog? What? Why did he get lost at such an important moment!? WHY!?
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

Magi – 03

by psgels, posted in Magi

This episode closes off the introduction arc of Magi, and it was actually surprisingly good here. Nothing deep or anything, but in terms of adventure it was rock-solid with many references to the Arabic legends, a lot of creativity and surprisingly solid characters. The adventure part is what I like most about Magi, though: this episode again showed the characters travel from one scene to the other, every single one of them having a ton of creativity.

Most of all this episode also added background of royalty: Magi being the one to select a king is a great back-story and makes this more than a random dungeon crawler, with that bad guy living his entire life for meeting him. In one episode this episode hinted at the pasts for all of its major characters.

I also like that this show is in no hurry to get its main cast together. I mean, it’s obvious that the purple haired girl will end up joining the lead cast, and this episode provided even more hints for this, but we’re three episodes in and they’re still not a team. That’s quite rare for an adventure series (I mean I like the genre and all, but I’m also very annoyed by some of the overused clichés that bog them down).
Rating: 5/8 (Great)

Sword Art Online – 16

by psgels, posted in Sword Art Online

Before I start, I want to say the following: I’ve gotten tired of assholes right now. If you want to criticize the series, then be my guest. I’m doing that too. But from now on I reserve the right to delete any comment that insults people for liking or hating this series, and depending on my mood I’m going to ban the posters of those comments from this site. I want this site to be a place in which we can just peacefully discuss these anime. Not hate on each other for having different tastes.

Anyway, Sword Art Online: the new arc has really started now, and my suspense of disbelief is being tested like no other. I’ve got a background in computer science, and I just cannot believe some of the things that the programmers included here. Why on earth was half the game of Sword Art Online copied to that elf game? Who on earth bothered to transfer all that data. That doesn’t just happen by accident, you know? The most baffling thing is that Yui is suddenly back though. Not with her admin powers, but instead as a random program. She was supposed to be there for maintaining player’s mental health. She’s useless here because people can log out now. The image of what she’d be like in real life is just bizarre. Can you imagine being in a marathon-session of World of Warcraft with suddenly a cute little AI-programmed girl approaching you and comforting you?

The episode ended with that elf girl appearing, and Kirito kicking everyone’s ass now that his character still is the same. My impression of her is… “meh”, but that could be because we hardly got to see anything of her. This was all about Kirito getting the chance to impress another girl again by being at the right time at the right place again.

There is one good thing about this arc: it’s different. I like variety, but it’s a double edged sword. If you want to be different you of course need to also be good, otherwise this misses the whole point of variety. This arc furthermore has another big disadvantage: there is very little tension in the fights now that death has become a momentarily annoyance. The end of this episode for example: it made such a big deal of what? Losing a bit of experience?
Rating: 3.5/8 (Enjoyable)

Hunter X Hunter – 52

by psgels, posted in Hunter X Hunter

The second half of this episode had a fight that I have been looking forward to for so long now. It’s another one of the stand-out moments in which this series really sets itself apart from other shounen series.

I mean, up till now, Chrollo has been a very mysterious main villain: he’s the head of the spider, but we never actually saw him fight someone aside from the previous episode, which wasn’t even a fight anyway. So here this episode comes and immediately throws the two single most powerful characters in the entire series at him. No tricks, no padding. They’re just there, and they immediately do their job right. It’s a level of professionalism that you hardly ever see in shounen series.

Kurapika is skillfully kept out of the spotlights due to his job of looking over Neon, and instead, even though there are still many side-villains left alive, the creators show the fight between the three most powerful characters in the series (I doubt that even Hisoka would win from Chrollo).

The one scene outside of this that also really made an impact was where Gon and Killua called Kurapika with their information. THAT was actually very important. It may seem like they were meddling, but after seeing Kurapika in control for so many episodes now, this episode is where he’s left at the mercy of others, plus, he actually gets offered help.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

From the New World – 04

by psgels, posted in From the New World

Well, so this was the best episode of the new season yet if we ignore the first episodes.

This episode consisted out of two halves. By far the biggest part was, like Zetsuen no Tempest’s latest episode, exposition. I remember how I found that rather boring, however, here I really liked it. The creators didn’t just have someone talk for 10 minutes without doing anything else, and they made great use of flashbacks, reaction shots and visual images of what was going on. Not to mention ho well written that exposition was.

I did not expect that the story behind the prologue in the first episode would be told so fast. That strange slug-like creature basically tells what happened to the world, and these scenes turned out to be the start of a conflict between people who have the Force and those who don’t. In the ages after that, this culture evolved that was meant to safeguard the force, and prevent people from going on a rampage like what was shown there. Heck, these really were just children who were testing out the limits of their powers!

What’s also great is that there is no real right or wrong here. Sure, the kids may have the right to know what’s going on and all, but the danger of them abusing their powers remains. When they’re so easily able to kill others, something has to be done to restrain them. In the meantime, what is the role of the different creatures in this series, like those rat monsters? They appeared in the final half of the episode, and here again, it’s pretty much established that they’re at the mercy of the Force. Sure they’re aggressive, but they’re pretty much slaughtered in an instant.

In any case, I hope that there will be more episodes like this that place so much focus on dialogue. It’s going to have to be tough to keep track of everything, but that’s really good: we have a series here that isn’t planning to hold your hand along the ride.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure – 03

by psgels, posted in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure

I’m still completely baffled by how over the top this show is, but here is the thing: if the pacing was any slower, this series would have been incredibly cheesy. There is so much over the top yelling going on. If this had the pacing of its contemporary Dragonball Z, it would have been an incredible flop. I cringe at the thought of what would hvave happened if this would had the pacing of a regular shounen series.

Instead though, the creators went for this really fast pacing, and they went for it all the way. It does have a few quiet moments that prevent it from being too fast-paced, but the action scenes are a complete delight, exactly because it jumps from one scene to the other without the endless padding. Because of that, the scene above the inferno worked, even though it took ages for two people to just fall. The characters yelling now fits perfectly here and it just continues to build up adrenaline. It’s also not like the voice actors do nothing but scream the same over and over. They simply talk with a lot of power and passion behind their voices.

Dio especially was brilliant in this episode in this. This is the point where he completely loses his humanity, and during his many rants he was just so enjoyable to watch. There is just something funny about how he goes “JOOOOJOOOOO!!!!”, or how he uses his fingers and toes to climb walls but he just keeps going! Once the action scene in this episode starts, there is just hardly any chance to catch a breather.

On a side-note: do you see the top-left image? I now know where some of Hunter X Hunter’s character designs came from.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

K – 03

by psgels, posted in K

K has a lot of characters. I like that, and in fact I’m a big fan of those kinds of series. They are however, a double edged sword: try getting some good development out of all of them, especially with only 13 episodes. The trick will be balancing the development for all of them: focus on a bunch of them and flesh them out really well, and give the guys who aren’t in the foreground presence, rather than making them into characters for the sake of having more characters.

K is trying to achieve that balance, definitely. There are a few key characters here in this story: Suoh and Reishi with his powers on one side and Kurou and Yashiro on the other side. Suoh and Reishi are fleshed out by all the people around them, their subordinates et cetera, while Kurou and Yashiro are fleshed out through their own actions and their chemistry.

Beyond that we have the side characters, most of them are pretty one-dimensional at this point. Think of the cat girl who is always cheerful, or the punk who is always snarky and stuff. For these guys it’s going to be impossible to make all of them three-dimensional, so the trick will be to give all of them presence and make all of them different, and still create impact with all of them. Ideally, at the end of this series I want to have one stand-out moment for all of them. Episode 1 already had that moment for the skating punk guy with its animation. This episode instead made Shirou stand out. I quite liked the climax of this series. Instead of ending with a cliff-hanger or a tense battle, they just end with a silly joke that shows more about his character. Very nice.
Rating: 5/8 (Great)