Summer 2012 Kaleidoscope – Week 37

by psgels, posted in Summer 2012 Kaleidoscope

#1: Hunter X Hunter – 46: It’s as I hoped: the creators really nailed Uvogin here. He’s not just your average strong guy, because in this episode he really showed that he also has a pair of brains that he can use. In the meantime Gon and Killua make their appearance again. While they definitely aren’t the stand-out characters of this arc, without them the parts with Kurapica and the Spider Troupe wouldn’t stand out so much. – 5.5/8 (Excellent)

#2: Kokoro Connect – 10: And with this the second arc of Kokoro Connect ends. To be honest, I liked the first arc better: it was sharper and lead to better drama, and the climax here felt like it would have happened even when Heartseed came up with something completely different (although it definitely sped up that process). Still, Inaba got a great conclusion to her feelings here. – 5/8 (Great)

#3: Saint Seiya Omega – 23: Saint Seiya isn’t the most complex series. This episode again was focused on a bunch of simple fights. But to be honest, it did get its build-up right, which is why I’m enjoying it quite a bit now compared to the first half. This episode was about Soma’s story again, and I must say that I like the direction that it’s heading into, now that we get a bit more detail in how he looks at his own quest for revenge. – 5/8 (Great)

#4: Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon – 22: A very enjoyable episode for this series. The insert songs were quite well used, and there were quite a few well delivered climaxes. The creativity also had a bit of wit added this time, which helped to differentiate this episode with the other episodes of Horizon (as creative as it is, creativity for the sake of creativity stops being interesting at a certain point; you have to do things with it). – 5/8 (Great)

#4: Polar Bear Cafe – 24: Ideally, Polar Bear Cafe should have been shorter. I’d say 20 episodes was fine, because then the creators could have skipped the boring parts and the good parts could have been more concentrated. The first half of the episode was nice and had some good laughs, but wasn’t good enough to keep my attention. The second half with the sports festival though was hilarious. This show again takes something completely normal, and puts talking animals in it and lets the chaos unfold, and this was one of the best examples of that. – 5/8 (Great)

#5: Tari Tari – 11: Um… okay. So this was supposed to be Tanaka’s arc. And what did he end up doing? He drew badly and accidentally saw the panties of one of the female cast members. Nothing about badminton whatsoever, there was nothing about his future or his past, and instead this show went on with this bafflingly random and forced twist about the school. Beyond how bad that twist was, what I really don’t like about these past episodes is how I get more and more the feeling that Tari Tari is looking down upon its male cast. They’re just there for comic relief and instead it’s up to the females to be all heart-warming. I mean, the past episodes have systematically avoided any kind of serious depiction of them in favor of comic relief, even though this was supposed to be their point to shine. PA Works, I expected better of you. – 3/8 (Mediocre)

Uta Koi – 11

by psgels, posted in Uta Koi

Uta Koi already was a great series to provide background for Chihayafuru while we wait for the second season (Winter 2013, hell yeah!), but this episode showed a little detour. A detour into Genji Monogatari, to be exact. This episode was entirely dedicated to its writer: Murasaki Shikibu, offering its own interpretation of what her mindset would have been like while writing it.

Once again, this episode fits itself into the “being a woman in history SUCKS”-themes. Murasaki managed to avoid this fate, but a close friend of her according to this episode’s interpretation did not, and ended up being a captive in a marriage. With that in mind, I can see how that would result in the creation of such a romantic drama as with the Tale of Genji, although it remains a bit strange for her to at the end simply say that she wants to tell a story about female strength. Sure, it’s one of the themes of the Tale of Genji, but there was much more going on in Genji Monogatari, especially considering all that the girls and women went through. A few of them died quickly after giving birth after all.

What’s also daring is that they turned her of all people into a lesbian. I mean, I paid close attention to the OP and noticed one female couple amongst the different people who passed the screen, but I never imagined that this would be the author of Genji Monogatari. It’s an interesting idea, especially considering the contents of what she wrote about. This kind of meta-fiction is what makes Uta Koi so good and special: showing the mindsets and thoughts that were put into works of fiction and poetry. I have no idea how this happened, but nevertheless I’m really glad they made this.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

Rinne no Lagrange – 22

by psgels, posted in Rinne no Lagrange

Well, things got serious here. This was the episode in which all hell breaks loose. There are two episodes left, so this was about time, things look promising, but I still feel like this could have been more.

Overall, things would have been bad if this episode had been delayed till next week, however with two episodes, or fifty minutes, the creators can do some interesting stuff with it because it doesn’t take that long to just stop a world destroying superpower: there will be more. In the meantime this episode was fun and action-packed, so the creators did get that right.

In the meantime we have Dizelmine going totally ballistic. The more I think about it, the more issues I have with that. To list them:
– It was… rather overacted, especially for him. Where did that sudden outburst come from? I’m not really that convinced that he went mental, just because Madoka stopped him. He was able to interact with Vilagulio perfectly fine before.
– The “this guy is evil due to another more evil guy behind the scenes”-twist near the end of the series is a difficult one to pull off. Why? You just poured so much time into showing who he is, and why he does the things he does. And then you suddenly create an even more evil character from out of nowhere, who has had absolutely no development whatsoever. The result is that the creators are going to have to give a new character impact from out of nowhere. It has been done plenty of times before with success, but when the guy is such a stereotypically evil bastard with no other sides things will get a lot trickier.
– Just have Dizelmine kill Vilagulio. That shows that he really is serious and that something snapped with him. If you don’t show him actually dying, you’re just going to obey the golden rule of anime (no character is dead unless confirmed so).

I’m also complaining so much for another reason: a lack of other things to keep me interested. I mean, after how awesome the conclusion for Mouretsu Pirates was, I guess that I got my hopes up too much for Tatsuo Sato’s other series. And the characters indeed are great, but the plot has lost all its creativity ever since Yurikano disappeared. And unfortunately, this is because the creators focused too much on getting that epic world-threatening ending. Please put some creativity in the final episodes because the characters are too good for just a standard climax.
Rating: 4/8 (Nice)

Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita – 11

by psgels, posted in Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita

So in the first half of Jinrui, the order of episodes is all jumbled up, but in the second half, there is a clear order, and all of the episodes are airing in reverse. So indeed: the series ends with the period at which Watashi attended school.

This episode was quite a bit different from the usual episodes. For once, there was hardly any focus on the fairies: only one of them appeared at all in this episode, and its role was pretty minor. Instead this episode finally brings a bit of depth to Watashi herself by showing how she turned into that cynical future version of her, explaining that she was both bullied, and refusing to befriend others. I think that that’s also why she took a liking to Assistant so much: he did not try to invade her personal space. At all.

So yeah, in terms of characters, this is going to be a great ending. But in terms of the show’s themes, I’m not so sure. Again, there were very little fairies.

Unless the title of this episode can be interpreted literally. I only realized that this episode had a very weird title just now: “The Fairies’ Secret Tea Party”. I mean, that has absolutely nothing to do with this episode, unless you assume that the group of girls that Watashi ran into at the end of this episode were actually fairies in some sort of disguise.
Rating: 5/8 (Great)

Hyouka – 21

by psgels, posted in Hyouka

This was an interesting episode. I mean, movie or no movie: the series is ending next week, so Kyoani can pour even more budget than usual into it. The result is a really well animated episodic story with weird build-up.

I mean weird build-up in the way that this episode on one hand develops Satoshi, it explains his actions of some of the previous arcs, and on the other hand it suddenly turns Mayaka and Satoshi into a couple. Now, I know that my memory isn’t the greatest with these kinds of things… but have we ever seen hints to that twist before? I mean, it’s not something that blossomed overnight: they’ve apparently been going on for more than a year now. And with the incredible attention to detail that this series has, I find it hard to believe that they’d never hint at this. So did I miss something?

But whatever faults Hyouka may have had there, it made up for it by giving a very different meaning to his part in the school festival arc. What he did there wasn’t jealousy, it was a battle of him trying to win from his obsession. He allowed himself to dabble a bit with trying to solve things, but he never went far into it like Oreki did. It makes much more sense: if he’s such a large sherlock-fan, then why doesn’t he try to formulate theories or brainstorm? Well, that’s why. And that’s also why Oreki’s plan last week went wrong.

Also weird was Chitanda. I mean, the usual progression for a character like her is to done down: as she grows up she becomes more mature in the process. She however is completely different and after the school festival arc, she suddenly got more extreme, acting more and more on her feelings than she already did before. The animators really liked to exemplify that with a particular few scenes.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

Uchuu Kyoudai – 23

by psgels, posted in Uchuu Kyoudai

You know what? I think that Space Brothers just got better.

I mean really: this episode was just brilliant and I was incredibly moved at the end of it. Seriously, this is how you write your characters. Every single character was enjoyable to watch, and Mutta’s acting was even better than usual. We now know him for 23 episodes already, and he’s still changing. Most notably his confidence in this episode was completely different compared when he went to Hibito for his first trip. Putting him in weird yet realistic situations only made this better, like when he dressed up for Santa Clause for a part-time job, or when he forgot to charge his train fare. Or take the rest of the cast: I loved how Serika randomly danced around at the end of the episode, or the little tantrum that Kenji’s daughter gave when Mutta visited (hiding behind the curtain was just way too adorable!). Despite the slow pacing, this episode had so many memorable scenes here.

But the real star of this episode was Yuri. I already suspected that now that he would be part of the main team, he’d get some more attention and all, but this episode completely went against my expectations. It without a doubt was one of the best executions of the “This character is put on a bus… oh wait, he is not!”-twist I have seen. With just ten minutes, this guy got a ton of depth, and I never imagined that the past episodes were all building up to that moment. I really got his fascination with aliens, and what he feels he should be doing with his life, but especially the talk he had with his father was beautifully and wonderfully down to earth.
Rating: 7/8 (Fantastic)

Sword Art Online – 10

by psgels, posted in Sword Art Online

My memory with these kinds of things is not the best, but if I’m not mistaken, then this was the first time in which Kirito actually killed a person, right? I mean, not indirectly like what happened with that one guild of his, but in which he was actually forced to strike down and kill a fellow player. This episode was stuffed with character-development, of which that was only the tip of the iceberg: Kirito was forced to join a guild and he and Asuna officially became a couple (including the two of them sleeping together, which is something you rarely see outside of the outright porn shows). But I do feel that this episode was rather forced…

Kuradeel… I get why he was used, but I didn’t really like him before, and this episode did not change that. I mean, I like that he’d try something, considering that he hates Kirito quite a bit, but I feel that he also could have done that without the overacting. In fact, I think that the points in which the characters in this show go mental are hard to buy and annoying, and it didn’t really help that this was followed by a badly covered “I nearly killed you but because I like to talk to myself your ally arrived just in time to save you”-twist. If you’re going to go with a twist like that: at least deliver it properly, because to be honest, at this point I have pretty much been programmed to exactly point out the moment in which these twists happen due to how bloody overused they are. You could have shown this from Asuna’s point of view, perhaps. that would have spiced things up a bit, and at the same time it’d also show that she actually did something… other than look at Kirito on her personal map. A few weeks ago I complained that we saw her do very little guild-duties, and that’s a problem that still hasn’t really been fixed here.

The direction on was on other points really good though. I mean, ignore the hapless overacting and I got quite a few chills from how Kirito and that one guy were killed off. I also like how the creators succeeded in making the first night between Kirito and Asuna rather awkward. One complaint to this however is that things moved incredibly fast. I mean, the end of the episode moved right from sex to marriage in an instant. Wouldn’t it have worked better if the creators put some time between that?
Rating: 4.5/8 (Good)

Eureka Seven Ao – 19

by psgels, posted in Eureka Seven Ao

Now this was a big episode! It completely changed the plot and setting and after this, the series will look completely different. This is really what this show needed to make it even better and it’s a wonderful twist to prevent it from getting stale near the end.

I generally dislike “let us adults sacrifice ourselves for the younger generation”-twists, however in the context of this series it fits perfectly. The themes have always been that children should be protected, even if they’re the only ones able to pilot mechas, and that’s exactly what happened here. On top of that the creators went even further by giving the kids a good excuse to be the central focus of the plot: it’s exactly because they have been protected and bear no responsibility for the actions of these adults, that they’re able to be free in stopping the real threat: the Scab Coral.

And yeah: Generation Blue has been disbanded because it has been causing too much trouble and acted way too much behind the scenes. Beyond that Fleur got some really good development out of everything, Elena finally came clean with her story (what the hell has Eureka been doing?!), and Truth also is moving more and more away from the perfect villain that he was when he was first introduced. He may not be dead (unfortunately, I have seen too much anime at this point to know the trick of that cliff-hanger), but even considering that, his role in this series has been completely changed after this episode.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

The Manga Experiment – Week 36

by psgels, posted in Manga Experiment

Regarding next season: I am not going to continue this experiment there, and instead I’m going to take a more laid-back approach and focus more on finishing longer manga. The poll I ran last season really showed three things that stood above the others of possible things that I can cover: manga, some extra series, and recommendation posts. Next season I’m going to focus on the second one, and blog 12 series at once again (so no Kaleidoscope either). As for the recommendation posts… I’ll start on them as soon as I finish my to-watch list of Ghost in the Shell, Planetes, Texholnyze and Twin Spica.

With the Light – The Raising of an Autistic Child – Ch.01-??: When this was recommended, I searched for it online a lot, however I couldn’t find it anywhere. But then, a few days ago I was at a local manga library, and thankfully I managed to run into it. I don’t recall exactly what chapter I reached (probably around chapter 03), but this was definitely an interesting and realistic look at what it means to raise a child with autism. These first chapters only delved into the time when the kid is 2.5 years old and the first signs of autism start to change, but I especially loved the depiction of the stress that this can cause to the mother.

Hito Hitori Futari – Ch.14-15: These two chapters really exemplified the strengths of this series: it’s a very dark, yet also very warm story, and the two are combining more and more seamlessly here, especially in chapter 15 in which we see a more human side of that mysterious antagonist. I can see that the author loves to draw this guy, because there are a ton of stunning panels featuring him.

Shingeki no Kyojin – Ch.08-09: Holy crap! I mean, there are twists, but this really came as a shocker. And don’t get me wrong, the next chapters have a lot of explaining to do, but still this is something that I did not see coming, and it was made even better by the intense style in which this manga is drawn. The author really likes to abuse speedlines, but the intense effect that this has is really working with these kinds of twists.

Summer 2012 Kaleidoscope – Week 36

by psgels, posted in Summer 2012 Kaleidoscope

#1: Hunter X Hunter – 45: God, this only reaffirms that Hunter X Hunter has the single best storyline out of any shounen series I’ve seen. This episode was entirely dedicated to Uvogin and the unique situation he was in. On top of that, the spiders all have a great chemistry together. Next season I’m very likely going to cover this show weekly again. – 5.5/8 (Excellent)

#2: Kyosogiga – 01: God, Kyosogiga is good. And with episodes that only take up ten minutes, it’s extremely accessible to watch. This first episode details the past of the female lead, but what makes it stand out is how well it is directed, combining both its dialogue with its animation to show various moments in her childhood. Not to mention the characterization, who really manages to nail her as this spunky yet innocent kid, especdially taking the first OVA into account. – 5.5/8 (Excellent)

#3: Polar Bear Cafe – 23: That new ED is awesome. As for the actual episode: the first half was utterly hilarious, the second half didn’t work for me. It had a lot of food jokes based on obsessively saving money, but I didn’t find them that funny. Hamda’s romance however is getting better and better in the way that every single animal is poking fun at him. – 5/8 (Great)

#4: Kokoro Connect – 09: Interesting episode this week. It was mostly about resolving things, and that indeed was the highlight of this episode, seeing the different characters talk out their issues with each other. The oddball turned outto be Inaba, who had a bit of building up for later going on. – 5/8 (Great)

#5: Saint Seiya Omega – 22: Yet again a great episode from Saint Seiya, this time about the ninja. Sure, it’s simple and all, but it worked surprisingly well, especially considering it was about completely different characters this time since the party split up. – 5/8 (Great)

#6: Phi Brain – 47: Well, the climax has begun and Klondike actually did something. I’m glad taht eh didn’t wait for the last possible moment. However, with this the focus on “saving” the villains has pretty much disappeared and this show has turned again into “defeat the villains”. Can they make that work for the climax? – 4.5/8 (Good)

#7: Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon – 21: Horizon’s cast is HUGE. But did it make good use of it? Well, this episode had a lot of build-up, plus the climax for two characters who I believe we saw eight episodes ago. It was this dramatic climax about sacrifice, but what interested me the most in it was its context in the story, and not these actual characters. – 4.5/8 (Good)

#8: Tari Tari – 09: Hmm, this is an episode that I missed amongst last week’s slew of OVA releases, apologies for that. This starts the arc for Wien-kun. But really: is this arc actually about him? I mean yeah, he likes sentai shows and all, but we hardly see him do anything. Most of the organization is done by the girls and he doesn’t really seem to have any problems that he needs to overcome… – 3.5/8 (Enjoyable)

#9: Tari Tari – 10: Well… so much for Wien then… he got a total two minutes to shine, and the rest of this episode was about something completely different. We didn’t really learn anything new about his character, he didn’t really overcome a problem of his, he didn’t really gain any depth. I mean, it was fun how they captured that pickpocket and the vice principal suddenly turning tsundere was forced, but had a few charms, but nevertheless this was a missed opportunity. Are they also going to ignore the tennis guy’s story like this? – 3.5/8 (Enjoyable)