Tsuritama – 10

by psgels, posted in Tsuritama

You know what? I’m actually enjoying Tsuritama more than Apollon at this point. This episode was all the fun that I hoped it to be, and it was a really creative calm before the storm episode. Just about everyone here made this episode exciting and I love the work that was done on the screenplay.

I have to say that Yuki’s little trip to Nagoya was a really creative way to get him out of the picture for a while, so that this show could focus on all of the side-characters instead. Yuki himself racing back to Enoshima also was really fun to watch. On top of that, the great thing about Duck is that even though they look silly, they were actually quite competent. They just had the bad luck that their target was absurdly powerful in the water. And they had a couple of very gullible goons, okay, but there is nothing wrong with their thoroughness.

In any case, Tsuritama is a series that is really built around its finale. Every part of it is meant to built up to these episodes, and this has its advantages and disadvantages. The biggest disadvantage is that the first half tends to be rather boring. I don’t mind build-up as long as it satisfies two conditions:
– This build-up actually pays off and gets used.
– It is actually building up, and not dragging out and delaying the inevitable.

Tsuritama at this point satisfies both. The whole first half of the series really took its time to flesh out the characters and show a bit of drama around them, while it gave Yuki a crash course in fishing so that he would be able to take on JFX in the upcoming final episode. I don’t feel like it has rushed or dragged on at all, and these episodes all played out very naturally. Because of this these past episodes have been so believable and engaging. With this, I can really see that the creators put in a lott of time to make sure that the pacing of this series works, and I congratulate them for that.

The reason I wasn’t optimistic during the build-up part is because I have been disappointed a little too often by series that promised to build up… only to fail to deliver, or ending on some rushed finale. This didn’t just happen in manga adaptations, but also anime original series like Tsuritama. If the finale also ends up delivering however, then Tsuritama really is a great example of a series that got things right.
Rating: **+ (Excellent+)

Sakamichi no Apollon – 10

by psgels, posted in Sakamichi no Apollon

Apollon, I thought that you were too good to pull the “walking into naked”-card. Of course it was well explained and it was used well, but still this remains something that needs to die.

But yeah, this episode then proceeded to put in the same amount of development that most shows only manage in three times that amount. It got through the annoying, triumphant and calm before the storm stage by the end of it with Kaoru confessing again after a long period of dodging around the issue, even though that in the it only helped to return to the status quo.

The big twist for me in this episode though was Sentarou’s father returning, especially after how much effort he put into advancing to the third year thanks to Kaoru. I know that he hates his father and that he very likely sees that he loses his place in the family this way, but for him to disappear is quite radical. At first I thought that they were going with the predictable school festival ending, but this is a drama before this is a musical series, so this is indeed a great way to spice things up.

Speaking of which: no instruments were played i this episode.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Lupin III – Mine Fujiko to Iu Onna – 11

by psgels, posted in Lupin III - Mine Fujiko to Iu Onna

This was another Mari Okada episode. And one impression I’ve gotten after watching this episode is that she really likes Oscar. This was the second episode devoted to him and his crush on Zenigata. Whenever this show focuses on Oscar it suddenly gets so full of shoujo-vibes, completely different from the rest of this series. It’s great for variety’s sake, not to mention that we actually have a bisexual character in a series where the rest of the cast is just straight.

Having said that though, I do have to point out that the end of the episode suffered from one huge flaw in Oscar’s logic: why jump along with that bomb? I mean, couldn’t you just… drop it or something? Right now, his end is basically that he was trying to be someone who impressed inspector Zenigata, he got indirectly rejected and couldn’t bear this so he committed suicide. Was that the image the creators were going for? Still, I liked this episode a lot again. Perhaps also due to this shoujo vibe it had.

The animation by the way also really improved over this episode. This episode finally had some smooth animation again, plus the artistic direction also was at its best again. The smoke effects in particular had some really good animation, so I’m glad that the producers still managed to find enough budget to pay some attention to inbetween animation. On top of that this episode took place in Paris. Having been in Paris a month ago, it really hit home how they portrayed it. Although obviously all hints of commercialization were removed.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Zetman – 11

by psgels, posted in Zetman

This was a huge episode for Kouga here. The previous episode already built this up, but this really is where the hole subplot with the white-haired guy comes together. While it’s hard to see what parts of his story were real and which one were a bluff, there nevertheless was a grain of truth to his words when Kouga noticed that he got ecstatic from fighting.

I am not sure how this scene worked in the manga, but here in the anime Kouga turned into this archetypical hero who actually gets bogged down by his own naivety and is forced into situations in which he screws up horribly and fails to save people’s lives. I like that a lot here.

This episode also had these scenes in which the animation got really good again, which really has my hopes up that the creators did save some great animators for next week, the series finale. The creators actually wrote it so that they can actually wrap up this story if they want to. But then again, there have been plenty of anime that also looked like they could wrap everything up in their final episode, only to go into a completely different direction with unnecessary sequel hooks.

My one concern: this episode really stood out. It was excellent psychological warfare that has been built up for quite a while now. Jin on the other hand doesn’t have that: he’s just a strong guy who fights stuff. The finale will definitely be action-packed, but what about the rest?
Rating: **+ (Excellent+)

Hyouka – 08

by psgels, posted in Hyouka

The reason why the camera moves so little in anime, aside from panning and zooming, is that it’s really hard to animate backgrounds, on top of animating character-models from different angles. And here Hyouka comes and gives a wonderful rendition of the view of a cameraman walking around. This is only possible with very careful use of CG, and I really have to admit that they blended this in really well with the entire look of an amateur camera. But it’s especially the way they kept all of the character-models consistent in all these frames that is impressive.

The movie was very different from the movie that was made in Haruhi, which was played for comedic effect, but there is one thing about that that they copied over and improved: the bad acting. What I mean by that is that it really feels like it was made by a bunch of high school kids: everyone was acting very stiff, and some were yelling their lines out too loud. Furthermore there were few cuts compared to a professionally made movie, simply because it’s such a hassle to do that.

We’ve also gotten our first long arc again with this. It’s a bit of a strange set-up, and especially the three amateur detectives have me a bit puzzled. Going through so much trouble of trying to find the culprit when you could just ask the sick scriptwriter for a small explanation, plus you still need someone to write the rest of the script.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

AKB0048 – 07 and Aquarion Evol – 24

by psgels, posted in AKB0048, Aquarion Evol

One thing that I’ve noticed about a lot of Mari Okada’s anime original scripts: the one thing she has trouble with is being interesting while building up. Especially in the first halves of her longer series have these flashes of brilliance intermixed with dull slice of life. Take Hana-Saku Iroha’s long wring of random episodes, Aquarion’s boring romantic set-up in its first half, or even Kuroshitsuji II’s first four episodes that were nothing but random hi-jinks. We too are now on that point for AKB0048 unfortunately, but the end of this episode did remember to actually deliver.

And it did so with some very weird succession rules that showed even more what a strange organization this AKB0048 is. So everyone is set to become a succeeding member of one of the founding members of the AKB, and who gets to succeeds is decided by strange flying blobs based on very vague criteria, they are ruled by a strange shadowy figure who writes unnerving lyrics. And also: we’ve seen people talk plenty of times in this series about “graduating”, however nobody has actually explained what that entails to.
Rating: * (Good)

There was so much trolling going on in this episode of Aquarion. Where to start: Amata was consciously abandoned by his parents, causing him to have a bad childhood, Ah, and you finally see them again? Too bad! Seriously, can’t we ever make these people survive and have them take responsibility for what they did? Shoji Kawamori was all over this episode, but the most apparent really was the ending, in which the main source of the conflict turns out to e environmental destruction. I already found it strange that there was so little of that in this series.

It made for a very fun episode though, and I definitely enjoyed it. It’s definitely nice to have such over the top plot twists combined with interesting characters here. They’re not all interesting of course: Mikono YET AGAIN did absolutely nothing, but Zessica and Mikage have really grown on me, Kagura really got his time to shine here, and even Amata has gotten interesting to watch now that we’ve delved into his back-story.

Also, now that we’re near the end of the first half of 2012, I think I can say this confidently: Aquarion has the best soundtrack of the year so far. Yeah okay it was copied from the first Aquarion and all, but still: it blows all of the other soundtracks this year simply out of the water due to its massive size, sheer versatility and consistent epic tone.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Phi Brain – 35

by psgels, posted in Phi Brain

Who the heck was behind this episode, and what on earth was he smoking while writing it?

This episode already started off bad by both having Elena transfer into the Root Academy, and being a beach episode. I did not expect it to be such a bizarrely written one, though. I’m not sure whether this was in a good way, because what made it so bizarre was the incredibly stupid ideas behind it.

So, let me get this straight… the POG actually owned another tropical island. They used that for filming a giant monster movie named “puzzla”, and they still keep some of the props, including a giant monster model, hidden in a cave on that island. Where the hell did that come from? Why would that professor Pythagoras have ordered a thing like that?

The more I think about this episode, the more I realize that it really is quite bad. I mean, on one hand I guess the stupidity was funny and all, but on the other hand: it actually nullified some of the development that has been handed to the characters. There is that bizarre movie plan from the POG, but also:
– This episode had everyone going crazy from puzzle withdrawal, including Cubic and Ana, even though the two of them weren’t really passionate about puzzles. In the series we mostly see them paint and do science stuff respectively. This episode lumped their character way too much together.
– Elena also gets reduced to a generic side-character. Remember in the first season how there were hints of a romance between her and Gammon Well, this episode apparently didn’t.

Episodes like this are supposed to give the characters more colour, not make them grayer!

Some more comments:
– Apparently this show forgot that lock-picking is also a puzzle.
– Being in puzzle withdrawal is one thing. Gammon however has made plenty of puzzles for himself. Really, it’s not that hard to make them and instead the characters decide to go into that bizarre puzzla chase.
– Nonoha swimming for six hours and fishing up the key that Elena threw away is just plain bad.
– Death to slide-show montages!
Rating: — (Lacking)

Uchuu Kyoudai – 11

by psgels, posted in Uchuu Kyoudai

The first and second exams were so standard that I didn’t really see this coming. But seriously the third exam is awesome. Last week already threw the cast in an incredibly interesting situation, and this episode even made it better: splitting everyone up in three groups, and having everyone live together for two weeks. That’s two weeks of constantly being on each other’s lips, just like how things will be in a real space station as a test to see whether the characters are psychologically fit enough to handle it.

This episode really focused on that psychology, especially when they showed that footage of the three astronauts who crashed into the earth. Beyond being a great death scene, it built even further upon the previous episode taking the risks of the job very seriously, and again this had a different effect on many of the different applicants.

And then there was that cliff-hanger. For once it’s not a surprise what’s going to happen, but nevertheless it showed a very interesting difference between Mutta and the others. I mean, all of the applicants here have a technical background, that’s pretty much a requirement for the job. When asked with a question of what time it is, the most logical thing to do for such a person indeed make an as accurate estimate as possible. Mutta however is the only one who also has a creative background (again that car he designed), which gave him a very different perspective: we’re in space. Why should time matter?
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Mouretsu Pirates – 23

by psgels, posted in Mouretsu Pirates

Yeah. I guess that this was the perfect episode to show that pirates have their sense of theatrics. That hologram is one thing, but for a ship to bring its own sound effects in order to circumvent the “no sound in space”-problem, I have to give it to the creators: that was very creative. Being a pirate before was made to look like a very bureaucratic job, but amidst all of the rules that they need to follow in order to survive, they did build in this very nostalgic coded signal in the form of a bunch of old-school pirates singing.

Aso, Ririka only appeared in one scene, but that scene alone was enough to shut down any theories that she’s going to play any significant role in this series. It’s a pretty awesome anti-climax in a way: we’ve seen scenes of her wanting to do stuff she likes to do, so with her absence during the past arc you’d think that she took pirating back up or something. But no, she just started traveling, which is actually a much more logical explanation. I believe that she finally saw that Marika could take care for herself now, and started to make use of her new free time.

I really like this: on one hand you have the stakes being higher than before, but at the same time this series also has gotten more playful than ever, and that’s not something you usually see. I really have to praise the character-development in this series: it’s subtle, but it’s there, and what makes this final arc so much fun to watch is watching how much the cast has grown together. Now all that’s left is a good finale.
Rating: **+ (Excellent+)

Fate/Zero – 23

by psgels, posted in Fate/Zero

If I had to give Fate/Zero’s second season one criticism, then it’s the convenience of some of the noble phantasms. I don’t mean all of them; Rider’s noble phantasm was great and Assassin’s and Berserker’s were also well used. But for some of the others: first there was Lancer, whose noble phantasm conveniently nullifies Saber’s powers. Things then got worse when Caster needed to be taken care of and Saber’s noble phantasm just so happened to be perfect for that. And now Archer reveals this giant delete button of his which conveniently ends up being the perfect thing to take away Rider’s trump card. My memory isn’t perfect, so it could be that they built up to this and I just don’t remember it, but if they didn’t: pulling this thing three times is a bit much, guys.

In any case though: there was one thing for which this episode was really clearly building up to. With this episode, it became really apparent, but the entire second season has carefully been leading up to this moment: Rider’s fall. It started with him wasting too much of his energy on taking care of Caster, and ever since he lost that air of invincibility around him. That moment in which Rider charges Archer by himself is where all of this came together.

Also, I am not sure who was behind the visuals of Rider’s noble phantasm, but once again the scenes that took place in there looked gorgeous. Especially the point where it all started to fall apart had a lot of visual talent behind it.

Also, Berserker… I now understand why they kept his identity hidden for so long.
Rating: ** (Excellent)