Sword Art Online – 03

by psgels, posted in Sword Art Online

Okay, a comparison between Total Eclipse and Sword-Art Online. I waited until I had watched the third episode of SOA because Total Eclipse did only show its uglier side there. And yes, with Sword Art Online, its third installment also was the weakest so far. So, how do they compare:

Length: Sword Art Online is confirmed for 2 cours. Total Eclipse hasn’t had its length confirmed yet, but I’m going to give it the benefit of the doubt. Winner: tie.

Setting: Sword Art Online’s setting is a bit of a cross between .Hack and the Tower of Druaga, but less creative than both. It really feels like a MMORPG where the main goal is to fight monsters, but it does portray that very well. Total Eclipse meanwhile is in a setting that is somewhat like the prequel to Blue Gender, in which giant bugs come and invade the earth and entire continents have already been annihilated. SOA wins in terms of potential and detail.

Production-values: Sword Art Online is produced by A-1 and looks gorgeous during its action scenes. Yuki Kajiura made the soundtrack, and even though it’s not among her best work, it still delivers. Total Eclipse on the other hand looks ugly, sounds ugly, and the director broke down due to work overload. Winner: SOA.

Pacing: Total Eclipse took its precious first two episode to go into anime original territory in order to flesh out the lead female more. Sword Art Online… I can’t put my finger on this because I’m unfamiliar with the source material, but it feels like a lot of scenes are skipped here. This third episode was particularly bad with that, but I also disliked how they decided to skip through the first month of content of total chaos, in which everyone has to figure out for themselves how to survive in this game. Winner: Total Eclipse.

Characters: this is a big one, so I’m splitting it up in some side-categories.

Side Characters: This is where both series dropped a lot of points. It’s not like all side characters leave things to be desired: Total Eclipse had the lead female’s former classmates. They were pretty well portrayed. Sword Art Online meanwhile had that one guy of the first episode, along with the mysterious blue-haired guy. The bad stuff in Total Eclipse is its main side-cast: they are annoying, one-sided and stereotypical. In Sword Art Online, the side-cast also lacks life: it’s hard to tell who is an NPC and who is a real character. The minor ones indeed lack any personality (like the blind sheep of the second episode). Still, it does have more and diverse good ones. Winner SOA.

How on earth did these idiots manage to survive? Both series take place in a world in which it’s very, very easy to die. And yet both series have a side-cast of idiots. For Total Eclipse, the most plausible explanation would be that they all grew up in locations without war, and that they haven’t been to the front-lines like the main female character. For SOA though, I’m not sure whether I can answer that question. The party of this episode: how come they’re still alive after they blindly dive into a room they don’t know anything about? I mean, considering the setting, wouldn’t it be the most logical that the only ones to survive up to this point would be the people who are either smart or cowards? Which also makes me beg the question: why are some of these guys fighting as fast as possible? Can’t you just take your time and just raise your level on the lower floors? I mean, the first episode said that these resources are limited, but this episode’s party didn’t seem to have any trouble to find monsters to fight. Winner: Total Eclipse.

Main Character: Both main characters (for Total Eclipse I’m using the main female character, because she is the only one to have been featured in all three episodes) are angsty and gloomy, but only SOA’s main character is that to the point of being unlikable. This also can be blamed very much on the pacing: he’s there, then he joins a party, then he and a girl fall in love from out of nowhere, then she dies and he gets even more angsty. But what surprises me the most is how he had his entire party die in front of him, and yet when the chance to revive someone appears, he ONLY thinks about that one girl, and doesn’t bother to give a second thought to the other party members who died, effectively treating them as NPCs. In fact, this highlighted my biggest problem with Sword Art Online: it acts as if human life is precious, but that only goes for certain characters with important character-designs. Apart from that, it doesn’t seem to care. Total Eclipse does. Winner: Total Eclipse.

So, a mark of 3-3. Great. In the end, I’m going to blog Sword Art Online, because its flaws are less bad than with Total Eclipse, and they can be fixed with the right build-up. With Total Eclipse though, we’re going to wait for the director to have his breakdown around episode 9 or 10…
Rating: (Enjoyable)

Summer 2012 Kaleidoscope – Week 29

by psgels, posted in Summer 2012 Kaleidoscope

#1: Polar Bear Cafe – 16: I have no idea whether Mr Necktie was just a one-shot character or whether he’s going to make more appearances, but seriously: this guy is awesome! I know it’s getting boring to keep putting this series at #1 for these rankings, but this episod had me yet again in stitches. The first half was incredibly corny, while the second half really shined with Mr Necktie’s inner monologues. – (Excellent+)

#2: Hunter X Hunter – 39: YES! YES! This is the episode I’ve been waiting for. The point at which this series goes “Shounen conventions? Screw shounen conventions, we have a story to tell!Ägainst my fars, this episode worked, plus there were a ton of new background songs introduced, which indeed confirms my suspicion that the creators have been saving the best tracks for later. – (Excellent)

#3: Sword Art Online – 02: Two questions: if everyone is playing with their real-life avatar, then what about the guy with blue hair? Why do creators bother with hiding the faces of important characters if they’re prominently featured in the OP? Beyond that, awesome animation! More detail on Episode 03. God, I am so late. – (Great)

#3: Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon – 15: I do think that the male lead is trying a bit too hard to brighten up the mood at this point. I mean, there’s being silly, and there is taking that oo far. But using Macbeth as a weapon? This episode has definitely made up for it. – (Great)

#4: Tari Tari – 03: While I do appreciate that more and more foreigners are appearing in anime and that those voice actors doing a better and better job of not sounding too Japanese, can we now please portray these characters as actual people, rather than one-joke characters? Just look at Gunslinger Girl: not all Italians are weirdoes or players. – (Good)

#5: Kokoro Connect – 02: Okay, I have to admit that this was pretty amusing, and much better than the first episode. Rather than throwing some lesbian scene fro out of nowhere the characters actually went into the gender issues and what it’s like to be suddenly personality-swapped, rather than Ömg I’m a girl now! Must touch boobs!” – (Good)

#6: Tanken Drilland – 02: This episode introduced the third main character. And he is annoying. And uselesss. Thankfully, he realizes that he’s useless and annoying, so at least the creators are using this. Also, a fantasy series in which bullets are limited is not something you see every day. – (Good)

#7: Saint Seiya Omega – 15: The side-character of this episode apparently was someone from the original Saint Seiya series. So let me ask the people who saw that one: was he always such an idiot? I mean, the concept behind this episode could have worked, if only he didn’t have such stereotypical character-design (this is especially surprising considering one of the best character-designers out there worked on this series), and he wasn’t such a moron. “You are my enemies! So let me carefully explain what’s going on to you.” Also, that summoner silver saint… did he actually do anything this episode? I mean, I know this episode wanted to point out that he is just interested in his creations, but also the golems just… stood there. – (Enjoyable)

#8: Phi Brain – 40:So, Rook has finally returned. With this episode it’s finally time for him to show what he’s made of after such a long absence. So what’s his match against? An old dog…. truly an opponent worthy for what once was the main antagonist of the series. Seriously, I get that this was meant to show how ruthless the Orpheus Order are, but why spend this story on Rook? Why so late in the seris? This just felt like any other episode now, and nothigng would really have changed if any other character replaced him. Even Nonoha could have dealt with this! Also, the long-haired bad guy has reached the point where he’s so bad that he becomes funny. Not a good sign for a show that takes itself seriously. – (Disappointing)

#9: Dog Days’ – 02: I couldn’t complete this episode. In the end, the fight scenes, the central focus of this series, just aren’t that good. People just spam beams and make weapons explode until the armor of the opponent breaks (or in the girls’ cases: their clothes tear up). I mean, I can understand it if you want to have a premise that trivializes war and all, but if you do: go for it all the way and actively use this. – (Disappointing)

Uchuu Kyoudai – 17

by psgels, posted in Uchuu Kyoudai

Ah, I finally got a new PC to replace my nearly broken old laptop. Finally I don’t have to worry about being unable to play files and lagging framerates (Seriously, there were times especially during flash mecha-series, in which its frame-rate just couldn’t keep up on files with normal resolution). Thankfully this is a thing of the past now.

Now, as for this episode: it finally confimed what has been clear for a while now: JAXA has sent instructions to some of the contestants to screw things up and create stress: the broken clock was meant to kill their sense of time, while the alarm at the middle of the night was meant to disturb their sleep (which WILL happen if you’re in a space shuttle). After everything was cleared up though, I was wondering how the creators would follow up with this. I mean, for Team A there is no reason for stress anymore thanks to a combination between Mutta’s luck and his observational habits (by the way, it’s interesting to have two members in the team who are bothered on the small things, yet in completely different ways).

And then the climax of this episode came, and it was glorious. I mentioned before that Space Brothers has some of the best romance of the season, and this episode only made this better. Before, the creators already nailed the way in which the two of them could be a couple: similar interestsspending time together, etc. This episode was wonderfully creative in how it used all of the build-up together.
Rating: (Awesome)

Eureka Seven Ao – 14

by psgels, posted in Eureka Seven Ao

At this point, I think I’m pretty sure of the big difference between Eureka Seven and Eureka Seven Ao in terms of series structure: consistency. Based on the past fourteen episodes, I can say that Eureka Seven’s stand-out moments were much more shocking and much better delivered than Eureka Seven Ao’s. On the other hand, Eureka Seven Ao just had a streak of awesome episodes that doesn’t seem to end anytime soon. Compare that to Eureka Seven’s season of build-up. Which one’s the best? I’d say that Eureka Seven still edges it for its world development and these mind-blowing standout moments. But seriously: I love its sequel as well.

This episode also had an awesome plot twist to add to this show’s vast array. And really, these are the kinds of plot twists that make me wtf out loud. They toy with your expectations, and strike when you’d least expect it (I really thought that Eureka immediately knew that Ao was her son, but holy crap Ao has a sister!), and yet they feel part of the plot, instead of just shoved in for the sake of having plot twists.

The rest of the small plot twists were also very fun and interesting to watch, but there is one in particular that caught my attention: Ao hating his father. I originally thought that there was some deep reason behind that. I mean, this series likes to withhold certain pieces of information from the viewer, even when it’s about the main character (which is great, by the way: it shows that said main character had a life before the start of the series), but in the end, he just blamed him for being there with his mother. Which, you know, is pretty reasonable for a kid his age.

This episode also made me realize what the creators were trying to do with him. I mean, the one thing that makes Ao stand out: he acts mature for his age. Why? Because he had a bad childhood. He never really got to be a child because of all that island and discrimination stuff going on. This is the biggest reason why he is so fundamentally different from Renton, who despite losing his parents (he did, right? My memory si fuzzy about that one), did grow up happily and he even had an idol to look up to. And that brings us back again to the main theme of this series: kids don’t belong in war. You could see that again when that one smirky officer was about to shoot Ao, and how many people jumped on him.
Rating: (Awesome)

Natsuyuki Rendezvous – 03

by psgels, posted in Natsuyuki Rendezvous

If it was just the voice acting in this series that was as great as it was, this series would already be amazing. But it’s not just that: the music is brilliant, and in fact got even better in this episode with its combinations of piano and string pieces. And on top of that the expressions are wonderfully drawn in this series: its ability to convey emotions also is completely unrivaled in this season. And the bizarre thing is: this is Dogakobo. What really surprises me is how they suddenly got themselves some awesome producers who could bring together some people who really know what they’re doing. What triggered that? I mean, these are the guys who are behind the many seasons of Koihime Musou. They only did one series once that didn’t involve blatant moe: Ryoko’s Case File, but that was nowhere as well executed as this series is.

I mean, there is also the way in which they got Ryo-Chimo to direct the OP, but what also surprises me is how tightly everything is produced: Kou Matsuou is involved everywhere: he directs, he writes the script, he even directed the ED. On top of that, every episode director so far also personally wrote the storyboard. I know that originally these roles were pulled apart in order to allow for more consistency in the anime production process, so that even with an average staff you could produce a great episode because the workload is divided, but it’s still good to see that the people who have the time and skill to do both at once are still there, because this in my opinion allows for a more creative control over each episode.

What the creators did in this episode brilliantly was show how hopeless Atsushi’s situation is. He’s pretty much forced to watch some random guy start hitting on what he still considers to be his girlfriend, and being sick for his entire life he really became a sympathetic character here after his charades last episodes. And really: Hazuki is one of the most flawed main characters out there, but in a completely different way from usual. This guy is cold and brash, not polite at all. Yet at the same time, he’s very sharp-witted which despite him being an asshole at times, makes him really great to watch. My one nitpick about this episode was that we got to see very little inside the head of Rokka herself. That was what made her so interesting in the first two episodes.
Rating: (Awesome)

Moyashimon – 14

by psgels, posted in Moyashimon

The creators here nailed college, with one exception, which became clear to me with this episode: how come there is only one member of the cast who drinks? I mean, it’s college: the time which is notorious for people drinking themselves into a coma over and over again. I don’t care about the minimum age in Japan being high: Japanese students have got to have found some ways around that, right? In any case, my biggest issue is that with this, the “drinks a lot” has become a stereotype, rather than an actual character trait, due to the main cast being portrayed so black and white.

Also, my memory on the first season is completely fuzzy: I really don’t remember much of it, but haven’t some things changed in the process? I mean, for example I cannot remember that the microbes actually gave classes on fermenting (which are really interesting, by the way). In any case, what also strikes me as a big difference is that the cast is much more fun to watch now, now that it doesn’t have to bother with introductions. It makes the characters more… down to earth.

This meanwhile was an arc for Hazuki to flesh her out, and I must say that the creators used her well, but also the rest of the cast worked quite well together. I’m just wondering where the creators plan to go with that arranged marriage stuff…
Rating: (Great) – (Note: I am going to think of something new for these ratings, I just don’t have the time for that right now)

Moyashimon – 13

by psgels, posted in Moyashimon

Holy crap, I am so late! And screw this, I’m going to blog Moyashimon. This episode convinced me that it deserves a second season. As a matter of fact, it could very well become better than the first season at this rate. It really deserves this with such a tight script, and it’s definitely more than just a comedy. Plus, I have a point that I want to make.

Over the past weeks, I noticed quite a few people who commented on how uneventful this season is. And I’ve been thinking, the only way in which I can agree with that is if you’d compare it to last season with its huge quantity of standout series. Nevertheless, I’d still call this season a stand-out one, and definitely a unique one.

I mean, this isn’t like 2011’s summer season, which had a ton of series with amazing starts. What this season does have however, is creativity. Seriously: there is Uta Koi with its tons of historical content, Moyashimon with its focus on bacteria, Jinrui with its fairies and satire, Horizon with its powers and world. On top of that there is the dramatic heavy hitter of Natsuyuki Rendezvous, Hyouka and Uchuu Kyoudai which carried over from the previous seasons, and Hunter X Hunter is getting to the point where it gets really fired off. I mean I don’t know about you or anything, but I have more than enough to watch this season. If I had to label it with one word, it’d be “interesting”. Perhaps it’s not the most dramatic season (aside from perhaps Eurka Seven and Natsuyuki Rendezvous, but there is more than enough to keep you busy.

Anyway, Moyashimon: did it always have such a good script here? I mean, there is a lot of interesting dialogue in this episode, and unlike with shows as Joshiraku, it feels like the characters are actually explaining things to each other, rather than just provide exposition. The characters here have a chemistry together and feel just like real college students. The acting in this show is quite well done, if perhaps overshadowed by the other Noitamina-series this season.

Also, I remember again why I have hardly any memories of the first season: its ending was rather bad. Sure, with this second season it’s not an ending anymore, but it still was a rather rushed gimmicky episode whose concept ended with a very disappointing cop-out. I hope that the creators aren’t going to do the same for this second season.
Rating: Excellent

Uta Koi – 03

by psgels, posted in Uta Koi

Now that all Summer series have debuted, I can say this for certain: Uta Koi has the best soundtrack of the season. Even though this is a season that has three of my favorite composers in it (Yuki Kajiura, Kou Otani and Hikaru Nanase), it is Yasunori Mitsuda who until now was completely unknown to me who really stole the show. And on top of that, the soundtrack is also really well used, and knows exactly what tracks to use at each moment.

And yeah, this series is just fascinating. The Heian era is one that doesn’t appear often in anime, in favor of the samurai and Sengoku eras and all, but I still find that onE very interesting. This series takes people shrouded in mystery (in this episode’s case Ono no Komachi and gives its own interpretation to them. The most important creative liberties here are Ono no Komachi’s position and the reason why her lover couldn’t visit her for the full 100 days.

it just takes a while to get used to these weird stylistic choices that the creators went with. This time, Fujiwara no Teika dressed up as the new Tokyo Sky Tower… okay. And yet, for the childish voice he uses, the actual episode took itself pretty seriously and didn’t feel childish at all, and it also put a lot of emphasis on the misogyny that reigned during those days.
Rating: Excellent

Hyouka – 13

by psgels, posted in Hyouka

This is a bit of a strange arc here. Hyouka is technically a mystery-series, yet there is about 0 seconds of mystery in these past two episodes: it’s the story about the mysterious stolen props. Instead, this arc is about showing off the school that this series takes place in. We’ve seen glimpses so far, but this time we really get a good overview of what the school looks like and what kind of culture it’s got.

This is something that Kyoani often likes to put emphasis on, especially Kanon of all series took place in what really felt like a school, rather than have this be an obligatory place for people to meet. As someone who hasn’t been in a high school for seven years (god, I feel old saying that), I definitely appreciate that.

I also like the variety in this arc a lot: the creators gave everyone something significantly different to do: Chitanda to be overwhelmed by the different clubs, Satoshi keeping track of all of the events, while succeeding in promoting the classics club, Oreki is his usual self doing nothing, and Ibara took care of the tension and drama with her manga club. They balanced together quite nicely.

Oreki had some interesting moments in this episode with Chitanda’s photos, but I also want to talk a bit about the OP. I don’t really like the OP: the visuals aren’t as inspired as the first OP, and the song is just dull J-Pop to me (I think it’s clear by now that I’m really not a fan of J-Pop and J-Rock), but it does stand out in how it portrays Oreki, especially at the end in which the rest of the characters doodle on his face and he gets angry and starts chasing them…. now does that really sound in-character? Would he really be the type of character who would get so pissed off by this that he’d forget his own laziness and start chasing people?
Rating: Excellent

Rinne no Lagrange – 15

by psgels, posted in Rinne no Lagrange

This episode was really good, although I’m still clueless on what the rest of its plot will be about. I mean there is this obvious war and Ran’s brother who needs to be stopped, on top of those strange Vox powers, but beyond that I have no clue how the creators plan to spice things up. At first I thought that this would be Muginami and Ran who continue to fight over Madoka, but that was solved in this episode by something that a lot of other teenaged pilots should do: by talking things out. So what’s next?

What I mean by this is: Rinne no Lagrange still needs something to make it stand out in its second half. Aquarion had its bizarre fanservice, Mouretsu Pirates had its huge and addictive cast. With Rinne no Lagrange, the ingredients are all there to make an impact. It’s the type of series that puts a lot of emphasis on reaching out and prevention, rather than dumb action. Now, make use of this!

One thing that already changed a lot at this point is the powers of the Vox. I’m not sure what happened at the end of the first season when Midori produced that giant flower, but Madoka can now hear what’s in the minds of the other Vox powers, and that’s likely to only be the beginning.
Rating: Excellent