Uchuu Kyoudai – 09

by psgels, posted in Uchuu Kyoudai

So, it was a will. It makes sense, and it also changed the mood of this series quite a bit with this episode. There still is plenty of light-hearted stuff, but at the same time it also got Mutta thinking about the more serious issues of spaceflight and how things can easily go horribly wrong. Add that to Serika’s reason for trying to become an astronaut, and you’ve got an episode with a lot of really good mood-swings.

Also, Kenji: a “best friend” character who actually has a stable relationship. Not only that but he is married and has kids. I know that this is a series about adults, but still, it is very refreshing to see his archetype being done completely different. At first I feared that there would be some sort of love triangle between him, Mutta and Serika, but with this that also is very neatly avoided.

I also love what this episode hinted at: a time-skip. Instead of having characters ready within months to go into space, it’s established that it may very well take up eight years before Mutta can join Hibito into space, in which he’ll be in his forties already. Besides death, this episode put an even bigger focus on the passage of time for these astronauts, and how it’s completely different from what we’re all used to.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Phi Brain – 33

by psgels, posted in Phi Brain

The sliding puzzles arc has some really big flaws, combined with a number of things that look suspiciously much like flaws, but can be written out of with the right writers.

Let me start with the big flaw of this arc; one that can’t be excused at this point: we’re basically watching five episodes about the same game here. No variations, it’s five episodes of sliding puzzles. That is way too much and way too long. I’m not opposed to the tournament set-up: it’s clear that the creators intended this to be an arc chock full of character development. For that it makes sense to devote an entire arc to just one game. But writers: you should have picked different puzzles to do this with. This is just lazy.

Another flaw here seems to be the cheese. The long format of this arc leads to a lot of time being devoted to characters angsting. I felt that the first season did this better (although I do admit that none of the characters in the second season comes even close to being as bad as that one villain of the first season who smashed the screen with his chair out of anger…). I’m missing a bit of balance here.

Now, the flaws that seem like the writers wrote themselves into a corner, but can still get out of with the right direction: the bizarre plot devices:
– First there is this mysterious “data” that cubic collected, which was way too vague. With an entire episode being dedicated to him collecting that “data”, it has to be something pretty awesome to make up for it.
– Then there was the previous episode. There, it was established that Freecell hates Kaito because he made him sad on the day that his mother died, causing his mother to die sad, but in this episode made it look more like he outright killed the woman. The funeral scene definitely hinted that there is something more going on, but really: there are still so many ways in which that back-story can end up as a complete disaster.
– And then there was this episode with Ana Gram. At one point he suddenly from out of nowhere reveals that he has an older sister… oh hey Mizerka, what are you doing here?

the way the creators can fix this by making Mizerka just some random girl who grew up with Freecell. My biggest issue with this is the way it was built up though: it does make sense for Ana’s sister to be sent to England as well, but don’t just introduce this from nowhere and show hints that Mizerka actually knows Ana. The creators could have avoided this by making Mizerka incredibly stoic to her sister: with that it would have made sense if this came out of nowhere, but this episode also shot down that potential thread by making Mizerka just flip out: she is not the type of person to hide her feelings.

When the second season first was announced, I really thought that the first season was made with the second season in mind. Right now though, it’s pretty obvious that the writers only learned that there would be a second season after the first one was completely written. Most of the times they were able to hid this very well, but Ana’s sister really is a big hint that the second season was written much later. It really feels like a nice idea one of the writers had along the way to add to his character, because if she really is so special to Ana, then he would have mentioned that somewhere in the first season.

Rant aside by the way: I did like this episode. I mean, I think that Ana is a very interesting character to watch, and he used his charm well here. He’s much more interesting than Cubic in any case, so it’s great for him to have another episode dedicated to him. The way she managed to cheer up Kaito was also quite heart-warming.
Rating: *+ (Great)

Mouretsu Pirates – 21

by psgels, posted in Mouretsu Pirates

So… in this one episode this show did what I thought would take up the rest of the series. What the?

And don’t get me wrong here: this was really well done. Suddenly the pacing of this episode increased two-fold, and that lead to an incredibly fun race with a ton of action and intrigue and suspense. It was chaotic in a good way and there was a lot going on here and this pretty much stands among the best episodes of Mouretsu Pirates. I really was totally immersed here and I love how despite the slow pacing the creators chose, they are also flexible enough to once in a while just go all out. This brings a wonderful balance between action and slice of life.

Also, with the graphics in this episode you could really see that this comes from the director of Stellvia of the Universe. For the people who haven’t seen that yet: the CG scenes looked really ugly and made no attempt whatsoever to blend in. The dinghies really look like the space ships that they used in Stelliva. Now, this episode took that mentality, and handed it over to Satelight’s CG department, who are known for their eye candy. The result looked very artistic.

I also feel like the end of the episode with Ai was a great shout-out to Stellvia. In that series the pilots didn’t even get to see outside and were forced to navigate though these very abstract and convoluted interfaces. Here though, the opportunity was given to her to fly around without any screens or electronics, and she took it. Although I do wonder how that all would have worked in terms of aerodynamics.

Overall, Mouretsu Pirates turned into a great example of a series that spends a lot of time building up. In the early episodes there were enough hints that his show knew what it was doing: great acting, real character performances and a good amount of creativity and imagination put into the premises. This was enough to keep me confident and interested in this series. And really: it paid off. I’m glad to have kept up with this show.

The show hasn’t ended yet so I can’t say this for certain yet, but I get more and more convinced that Mouretsu Pirates will end up as the best non-sequel series of the shows that premiered in Winter 2012.
Rating: **+ (Excellent+)

Fate/Zero – 21

by psgels, posted in Fate/Zero

The second half of this episode took some huge risks. This series has been very composed in terms of acting; with some exceptions, the acting in this series was subdued and even during the over the top parts, the characters knew exactly how to act with just enough restraint whilst still giving off great performances. This episode drops that and descends into overblown melodrama. Not just to show how a character feels, but also vital to the story.

These are the moments when a character completely loses it. They’re not meant to be pretty, they just are about characters completely breaking down and looking very ugly in the process. This is incredibly hard to act right because it’s just all too easy to scream at the top of your lungs and do the most outrageous thing out there. Another key to this is willing suspension disbelief: as a viewer we really need to get the idea that these characters have broken down. Which is why I’m a bit puzzled that the creators chose to do this with the master who has gotten the least amount of airtime to get fleshed out so far. To be honest, that breakdown scene… it didn’t really hit me and looked more silly due to how little we actually know of these two people. It also felt like there was just too little build-up and aftermath for it. Tohsaka killed the woman, walked away and immediately we switch to Archer and Kirei sitting back and having some wine celebrating. It… doesn’t flow well.

Also, an observation that I made before this all happened: in the first season, Rider really was the stand-out character: his charisma and monologues were wonderful and it brought a lot of spark to the series. In the second season… this just doesn’t apply at all. He has been weakened and beaten pretty often, with in this episode him losing his chariot, in favor of characters as Kotomine Kirei and Kiritsugu. This can be quite interesting build-up if the final episodes know how to handle it.
Rating: * (Good)

Spring 2012 Kaleidoscope – Week 21

by psgels, posted in Spring 2012 Kaleidoscope

#1: Natsuiro Kiseki – 08: I love travelling series, and this episode captured that perfectly. Trips are fun and all, but getting there is very often underestimated. As much as I like the direction Kimi to Boku turned into, in the end I do like Natsuiro Kiseki better, because it accomplished the same thing, while needing half of that airtime. – **+ (Excellent+)

#2: Kimi to Boku – 20: This time it’s the turn for Shu’s brother. As annoying as he was in the other episode he was featured in, as charming he was here. Seriously, that was some good romance there, especially for a guy with as little airtime as him. – **+ (Excellent+)

#3: The Legend of Korra – 07: By far the lest interesting part of the Legend of Korra is its romance, but that really got a push into the right direction with this episode when everyone finally seems to drop all of the tension. Aside from that, once again the action was great and I indeed saw confirmed that I’ve been suspecting all along now. – ** (Excellent)

#4: Nazo no Kanojo X – 07: The male lead’s big flaw is that he is very unremarkable. There is one point at which he sets himself apart from his counterparts though: the way he reacts to his girlfriend. Add that to a played down performance that isn’t trying too hard, and you’ve got a male romance lead that I really don’t mind watching. Nevertheless though, the female characters in this series remain the better ones. – ** (Excellent)

#5: Shirokuma Cafe – 08: A grizzly bear, a polar bear and a panda go fishing. I never imagined that they’d actually make an anime out of that. That bird in the first half of this episode was also hilarious, not to mention Shirokuma’s past. – ** (Excellent)

#6: Jormungand – 07: Nice episode, especially in terms of the gunfight. Koko’s date was a bit anticlimactic, though, but this show is steadily making its cast more interesting. – *+ (Great)

#7: Poyopoyo Kansatsu Nikki – 20: The thing with this series is, that the entire cast is just fun to watch. It’s not just Poyopoyo, but the brother and sister tht own him are well acted and just as fun as he is, if not even more. – *+ (Great)

#8: Hunter X Hunter – 32: This is one fights which was done completely different when compared to the 1999 series. Overall, I prefer the waythe 1999 version did it, for one main reason: this episode went overboard with the explanations. It just went on and on with guiding us through every step in the ultimately brief fight. At times it also felt like the characters were talking to the audience, rather than each other. It’s a shame, because with the right execution the creators could really have done some impressive stuff here. Also, I disagree that my arguments can be dismissed because “this is a shounen series”. Genre conventions are guidelines. Be bold! Screw conventions! Break them! Hunter X Hunter is the perfect series to do that with! – * (Good)

#9: Saint Seiya Omega – 08: Okay, so apparently I dropped this show right at the wrong time: stuff actually happened here. I admit that the golden saint is interesting, but this episode did not fix the character issues I have in that they’re just too bland and uninteresting. That gold saint was one of the best characters so far for a reason. – * (Good)

#10: Sankarea – 08: There is one thing I am really struggling with with this series: it has parts that are really good. But it’s completely boring during the rest of its time. Now, will it get better/ Knowing Studio Deen, they will milk this show into a second season, but even thhen this is a manga adaptation where a lot of focus will be on how they handle the ending.This episode was already dragged out, despite the good bits at the end of it. – (Enjoyable)

#11: Medaka Box – 08: You know, it’s nice and all that the genre shift is about to begin now… but this show will be over in four weeks. Yeah, it’s only a 1-cour series. So yeah, in the meantime we have another dull episode about some random police officer who takes het job way too seriously. Also, if she didn’t have another uniform, what happened to the one she was going to make Medaka wear? – – (Disappointing)

Eureka Seven Ao – 07

by psgels, posted in Eureka Seven Ao

Again, my laptop sucks and I have plans for this evening so I don’t have much time. Here is the gist of my thoughts of this episode:
– Brilliant! Love the complete tone shift!
– Shows as Rinne no Lagrange and the other mechas that appeared this year may have been very good, but they lacked something to be truly outstanding. With this episode Eureka Seven showed that it does have that potential to make it an outstanding mecha.
– Half real dream sequence rocked!
– Excellent villain is excellent.
– Love how Naru plays with her role: she was useless aside for emotional support, but left on her own will. Not sure if that was 100% but regardless you could see a huge load lifting from her shoulder. She would have done this.
– More of this please!
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Tsuritama – 07

by psgels, posted in Tsuritama

I had this entry all typed up, but I’ve got plans and am quite busy today and I wanted to also get Eureka Seven’s entry out before I have to leave again. So I decided to first watch Eureka Seven’s episode, publishing both entries afterwards at the same time. It’s more efficient that way. And ah? What could happen?

And then my laptop crashed. Right as I finished typing up my thoughts of Eureka Seven. That’s two entries lost when I’m under time pressure. I’m not going to retype both, but here are the gists of my thoughts:
– Tsuritama had a slow start again after last episode which worried me a bit.
– Ending made up for it, and the dynamic between the cast was fun.
– Something went wrong with the outsourcing.
– That ending had better be awesome!
strong>Rating: *+ (Great)

Sakamichi no Apollon – 07

by psgels, posted in Sakamichi no Apollon

And from out of nowhere…. the big concert scene of this series. And really: that was just amazing. On paper it could have been an incredibly cheesy episode, but those animators… they did an incredible job of bringing that performance of Kaoru and Sentarou to life. And Yoko Kanno, you are awesome. Everything just came together in this episode and it managed to surpass itself.

Awkwardness and being unable to talk to each other has been done before. Heck, it has caused a lot of annoyances in the past when characters just flat-out refused to talk to each other. This however; this was the best example of how being unable to talk should be done right. It should be incredibly uncomfortable. It should make the characters feel really uneasy. But at the same time it shouldn’t drag on for bloody ages as a way to pad out more romance. Yes, I’m looking at you, Kimi ni Todoke. The awkwardness in this series however changes constantly: it’s full of character-development and not just meant for the characters to overcome their fears at the end of the episode.

The characters: they all stepped out of their own roles. Sentarou got much more mature (he actually didn’t think about fighting at all; usually punks like him are shown as always easily ticked off. Kaoru meanwhile became more social, edged on by his classmates of all people, resulting in that wonderful performance at the end and Ritsuko felt more like an ordinary high school girl than any other episode so far. And there are still four episodes left.
Rating: ***+ (Amazing)

Lupin the Third – Mine Fujiko to Iu Onna – 08

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

I suspect that from now on we will get a closer look at Mine Fujiko’s past. This episode wasn’t exactly about that, but it did confirm that she was abused at a young age for who knows how many times. This episode was probably the catalyst that triggered her looking at her past again.

What stands out about this episode was how subdued it was, in a good way I mean. There was no nudity whatsoever, but the creators still captured Mine Fujiko in one of her most restrained performances so far. With Mari Okada behind the script (good lord, she’s writing three awesome scripts this season; all at the same time; again!), it’s bound to become interesting, especially with such an excellent director as Sayo Yamamoto. She really showed how well she can create an atmosphere and went into her own direction, while at the same time doing great justice to the Lupin Franchise.

What also made this episode interesting was how it was about predicting death days using this lithograph. The fortuneteller in this episode was great, both as a catalyst for Mine Fujiko, but also as a villain
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Aquarion Evol – 21 & AKB0048 – 04

by psgels, posted in AKB0048, Aquarion Evol

AKB0048… I…. give up…

I want to hate this show. I want to rant about what an incredibly stupid and pandering premise they settled with. But I can’t. I have no clue why, but this show has this amazing energy and charm. The idol shows did it again, even though I hate idols and J-pop. This is the umpth show that went “So you hate idols? Well, here is a really good anime about them, so there!” Some other examples of this are the current Natsuiro Kiseki and its use of idols to bind the cast together, but the past also was full of them: White Album? Unique romance with balls. Fancy Lala? Incredibly genuine character-study with an amazing ending. Full Moon wo Sagashite? It had heart-wrenching second half. And then there was Skip Beat which was hilarious, Key the Metal Idol was really well made, Symphony in August was really well done for one of the few non-fiction anime out there and Perfect Blue was just the perfect gritty look at the business. Sure there have been plenty of duds, but I’m still amazed at how much good and daring stuff the genre brought forth.

The only problem: how on earth am I going to blog this in this already incredibly busy season? the only thing I can come up with is blog it together with Aquarion Evol, since they have so much staff in common, being both helmed by two of the big trolls of anime out there: Shoji Kawamori and Mari Okada. The thing is: in these first four episodes went along as well as Aquarion Evol, if not better, and Aquarion did develop a few issues along the way which I don’t see coming as easily with AKB0048. It’s just unfair to prefer one over the other at one point. The individual entries will probably get a bit shorter than usual, but I do want to highlight both, because I’m enjoying them a lot.

AKB0048 is very genuine and despite its huge cast it actually keeps track of everyone. It’s very charming, but what surprised me also were some of the production issues so far: here is the thing: most of the main voice actresses in this series are members of the real AKB48 group (or whatever it’s called) and have very little experience, if any at all. And yet they are all doing a really good job at bringing their characters to life! They aren’t trying to stuff themselves into stereotypes either. That was one of my biggest beefs against that Idolm@ster show (or at least the first three episodes that I managed to last) and what prevented me from enjoying it unlike a lot of other people: everyone felt like a stereotype. Here instead the characters have a much better defined backstory, motivations and personalities that don’t need to be shoehorned into archetypes. And thank god there is no Kugimiya Rie either.

Also, I’m not sure because of who this was, but one of my beefs with Macross Frontier was that as soon as someone started singing outside a concert, it still felt like everything was taking place in a recording studio, with random instruments appearing from out of nowhere and all. Here though, when characters are singing for leisure, it really feels that way.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Now, as for this week’s episode of Aquarion Evol: bloody Nora, what a plot twist. I should have known from the couple of Mari Okada and Shouji Kawamori in a series that tries to be as over the top as possible: to think that there were points at which I actually tried to take the love triangle between Amata, Kagera and Mikono seriously. They’re the same person. Of course. With that, all makes sense. I like that though: it’s a satisfying twist after all that bloody build-up and this episode lead into it pretty well. That dream sequence in particular was awesome, and actually among my highlights of this series.

And Shoji Kawamori, did you again just pull the “it really looks like one of the main cast members died but h/she turns out to be fine in the end?” I’ve seen too many of your series to know where this is going, unfortunately. It would be an awesome twist if I were wrong, though, but the dead sign that Zessica is fine is that bit at the start of the episode where she talks to Mikage: whatever that was leading up to hasn’t happened yet.

Why I really liked this episode by the way also had to do with that this episode went back to the city of the first episode, and showed in a completely different light now that it’s destroyed and evacuated. Earlier I complained that this show didn’t do anything about continuity. I really have to take that back now. At this point, there are tons of scars in the landscape of events that happened in the past, from this destroyed cities to Andy’s filled up holes. One notable exception is that we still don’t know who the heck does the maintenance on the mechas in this series.
Rating: ** (Excellent)