Lupin III – Mine Fujiko to Iu Onna – 02

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

So when I made my preview for this season, I was convinced that in terms of promising staff, nothing could beat Sakamichi no Apollon, which would reunite Shinichiro Watanabe with Yoko Kanno alongside Madhouse’s top department going solo. And then this got announced: Sayo Yamamoto of Michiko e Hatchin fame, Takeshi Koike directing the animation, Mari Okada writing the series, Dai Sato doing some of the scripts, and Shinichiro Watanabe producing the music. I think that it’s fair to say that we’ve got ourselves the biggest dream-team of the year here. And it shows, with what is by far the most artistic series of the year.

This show just oozes retro, and it’s great to finally see another series that has its own visual direction. This is really common amongst remakes for some reason beyond me: these kinds of series are often made by big fans, who don’t just try to remake their series, but also try to make them better by putting a lot of their own influences into them. The result is often glorious, just look at Hi no Tori, Metropolis, Casshern Sins, Dororon Enma-kun Meera Meera, Tetsujin 28-Go, the new Mazinger, et cetera.

And to be honest, I’m not even a fan of Lupin III. the only thing I watched of it is the Castle of Cagliostro. The reason why there isn’t a review of it on this site is because I only had one thought on my mind after completing it: “that’s it?” Granted, that was because of Hayao Miyazaki’s influence and how there were a lot of people claiming that it was amongst his best works; it probably would have been at least a decent movie if that didn’t cloud my expectations, but because of that I never really had anything with this franchise. However, this series really caught my eye, and these two episodes were made with the intention of reaching new audiences.

With this episode, it’s also clear that this will be an episodic series, which means that the creators can get much more variety in than if this were a continuous story. This episode already demonstrates this by being very different from the first episode. Lupin is nowhere to be seen, and instead this focuses on the bearded bodyguard. The film noir style remains, but instead of a fun adventure it’s much more sober, and tries to tell a serious story. Overall, it works well together. The soundtrack also looks to be huge, and it felt completely different from what I heard last week. That’s Shinichiro Watanabe’s influence for you. He may not have composed the soundtrack, but like with Bee-Train you can really hear that he knows how to guide his composers to what he wants.

The one disadvantage of this series is that with such graphics, it becomes hard to properly animate everything. I think that it’s here where TMS’s inexperience seeps through: they really tried something different this season, and pretty much are the boldest studio of the year for me at this point, combining this with what they’ve done with Zetman. However, this episode again was not animated as well as its predecessor, and some movements were rather jerky at times. The show still looked gorgeous, but the difference remains. What I really hope is that they will take chances, and really push their animation despite their graphical limitations. They really have it in them: both Zetman and this series’ first episodes didn’t just look great because they had a slightly higher budget: they also were stunning because of how expressive they were. You can get that too with a talented animator on a short budget.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Zetman – 02

by psgels, posted in Zetman

From the start I was a bit apprehensive about blogging Zetman, because I knew right away that it would be rushed. Why? Because of the guy behind the series composition: Atsuhiro Tomioka. It’s not like he is bad or anything: I really liked his adaptation of Samurai 7, and all of his other adaptations do have a number of really good parts. However, he always takes huge liberties when it comes to source material and he always rushes through with incomplete stories. And then you give him a huge manga to adapt with only 13 episodes. Yeah.

So Zetman will be incomplete. I don’t really care about whether it’s faithful to the manga or not, but it is not fun to start watching a series knowing that that it’s not going to end well. But really: after that first episode I just have to cover this. It had so much detail there, and the creators put so much emotion in this episode. the graphics were also amazing. In fact, out of all the first episodes to have premiered this season, I liked the graphics of Zetman and Lupin the most. Yes, both are TMS Entertainment series. I really like how they went for something completely different from their usual series, and it works.

Now, the looks of this episode were decidedly less impressive and the animation was much more static, but it still had its parts that looked great. The characters’ faces in this series have depth. they’re not some cardboard-cutouts but they feel like movable objects. It’s not like the animation is perfect, and there were plenty of rushed shots in this episode, but even considering that the amount of the shots with depth was remarkably high. On top of that, I also love the amount of emotion that the characters’ faces portray.

Now, this wasn’t perfect though. I can only imagine that the manga had a better solution for saving the family trapped in the burning building. A bunch of pillows are nowhere enough to break the fall of several stories. Some of the old guys in this series also lack the energy that the young ones have, especially the corporate bastards: they feel like the same corporate bastards you see everywhere.
Rating: *+ (Great)

OVA Impressions: Buta

by psgels, posted in OVA Impressions, Young Animator Training Project

This year we too get an installment of the Young Animator Training Project. Again, four studios have been granted a decent budget with the assignment to create a TV-special. Buta is Telecom Animation Film’s entry. They were the ones who last year delivered the best short for the Young Animator Training Project with Ojiisan no Lap. Buta is clearly inferior, and mostly suited for children, however. Kids will be kept busy for these 20 minutes, though.

This episode is a traditional ronin story, only really childish. The characters here are all animals, and aside from the titular pig, every single character is an idiot, the same type as the standard generic Saturday morning cartoon. The story also isn’t anything noteworthy either, and the only drama revolves around “stealing is bad”.

But what about the animation, the thing that this entire project was about? Well, the simple character designs allows for easier animation, and the characters indeed move around a bit. In that way it’s a good way to get rookies to actually animate things. The art looks pretty good and crisp as well, but there are some shortcuts taken compared to the fighting episode of last year’s Young Animator Training Project (Kizuna Ichigeki). I wouldn’t recommend this episode overall: none of its areas are the worst, but it also doesn’t stand out in any way compared to the other YATP-series.
OVA Episode Rating: 7.5/10

Mouretsu Pirates – 14

by psgels, posted in Mouretsu Pirates

An episode about insurance and recruitment. That is actually quite interesting. Ideally I would have liked to see Marika actually try and hire new crew-members, but the end of the episode gave a good reason of why this isn’t going to happen: Marika is looking for people she can trust. And for that, the Yacht club fits perfectly, despite their lack of experience. With such a huge cast, I kept wondering how the creators would bring all of them together. Well, I suppose that this is a way.

But things like insurance are also pretty interesting to watch. With all of the destruction you usually see in anime, you’d have to wonder how much restoring everything costs, and especially for someone like Marika, who has to maintain not just a ship, but just an entire crew, it’s very logical for them to be insured in the case of something happening.

I’m also surprised that someone who is supposed to be the second-most important character (if you look at the promo art and all), Chiaki has surprisingly little airtime. She was completely gone in the Serenity arc, and here too it looks like she’ll be away from Marika again, filling in for the jobs that Marika couldn’t take. I like how this show handles its cast, however with such a huge cast also come challenges: the development. Now that we’ve arrived in the second half of this series, we need to see these guys grow. Up till now, Mouretsu just did this for Marika and perhaps Gruier, while the rest of the cast remained fairly static. This needs to change.
Rating: *+ (Great)

Some Quick First Impressions: Saki Episode of Side A and Tasogare Otome x Amnesia

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Uchuu Senkan Yamato 2199

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a giant battleship sunk in WWII.
For the record: the actual Yamato TV-series only airs in 2013, this was just a preview episode. The first movie however, premiered a few days ago, which means that we probably also have to wait around 9 months for more of this, so this really was just a very early appetizer. Based on just this episode though, things are looking very promising. This episode covered about the same as the first episode of the 1974 Yamato series, but the creators added a lot of things to it as well, and they really succeeded in turning this into a modern version of the story. You can especially see the influence of Xebec’s science fiction department department. The creators managed to put a lot of their own influences in, yet they also captured the epic spirit of Matsumoto Leiji’s stories. I also love the soundtrack, which is new, yet is sprinkled with the influences from the original Yamato’s soundtrack. I do wonder though if the rest of the series will be as accurate as here, and I’m especially curious how this series plans to handle the infamous plotholes that pop up at the end of the series.
OP: No OP, unfortunately. I’m dying for the rendition of Yamato’s classic OP for this series.
ED: Quite sentimental. A bit too restrained, but I can see this growing on me.
Potential: 80%

Saki Episode of Side A

Short Synopsis: Our lead character isn’t even in this series…
If I had to name one theme that keeps recurring through this season, it is annoying characters. There are much, much more of them than usual, making checking out every show get a bit more on my nerves than usual. Saki though… fortunately doesn’t have that. Okay, so it’s cheating a bit by being a sequel and all, but it feels good finally watching another moe show without getting the urge to strangle the characters. In fact, I’d say that this was one of the best episodes of Saki overall. It was a nice look into Nodoka’s past, the characters were overall much less obnoxious than the main cast of Saki, and it was even slightly heart-warming. That’s all I ask of just a first episode: convince me that I can enjoy watching this. The development and the good stuff can come later. This episode did have a number of flaws, though. For example this episode tried to make cliched boob jokes whenever Nodoka was around, and one of the reasons why this episode also was pretty nice was because there was no mahjong in it. That’s not very reassuring for a series where that is its selling point, but what series reduces these games to a mahou shoujo context in which the winner is the one who manages to manipulate luck the most?
ED: Dull J-Pop.
Potential: 50%

Tasogare Otome x Amnesia

Short Synopsis: Our lead character has a peudo-harem containing a ghost.
I’ve got quite a few problems with Silver Link, but by far the biggest of them is the reason why I never finished more than one episode of any of their series: their unwatchable characters. Tasogare Otome x Amnesia… unfortunately has this too, which is a shame, because if you strip away that and all of the cliches, then you’d have an interesting series. This episode played around with its narrative by making the titular character invisible to one of the cast members, and it did a number of interesting things with its visual direction throughout this episode. But yeah, I already know that I’m not going to continue this much longer because for most of the episode I was too busy wanting to punch the characters in the face. The girl who can’t see ghosts was particularly obnoxious, and she just wouldn’t shut up. The male lead was also incredibly dull due and nothing more than your average harem lead. The titular maiden Amnesia could have had potential as this playful ghost, but unfortunately she too just got reduced to a member of the lead guy’s harem. There is not much fanservice in this episode, but the fanservice that was there was dumb, forced and shameless. Seriously though, it’s getting very annoying that Silver Link’s series still are plagued by bad acting. Where Shaft has actually moved on and changed, they still seem the same as they ever were, save perhaps for prettier visuals.
ED: A good vocalist, wasted on a cliched and cheesy song.
Potential: 20%

Hunter X Hunter Follow-Up

by psgels, posted in Hunter X Hunter

I’m probably going to piss off a lot of people with this post, but look: I’m getting tired of this. I’m in the need of some opinions. There are some very vocal Hunter X Hunter fans, but I also want to know what others have to say about this: do you still want me to blog this series? The thing is, that I’m not enjoying this in the slightest. It’s not just this series, but also the discussions that follow it and the people who all tell me that I’m talking about this series in the wrong way. For the past half year, I feel like I have been trying way too much to please everyone, and I reached my limit here.

It may seem strange, but yes, I have been trying to hold myself with my criticisms for Hunter X Hunter. I realized that today. The way I went on nit-picking: that’s something common for people who don’t like a series but can’t actually explain why they don’t like it. For the past half year I just kept on dodging the entire issue in an attempt to try and please everyone, but I’ll just say it here: my opinion of this adaptation of Hunter X Hunter is that it lacks soul. I can’t get into this series. I can’t enjoy this series in the way I did with the 1999 series due to how the story, music and animation don’t come together. I don’t care if there is CG or how the animation is never off-model: the animation doesn’t evoke anything from me, unlike the first series, which did look very crappy, but put emphasis where it needed to. Who cares if the 1999 series dragged; it had a ton more emotion oozing from every part. Who cares if it wasn’t faithful to the manga: it had its own story and it worked incredibly well.

So, now that I got that off my chest, what’s next: do you people want me to continue blogging this series with this mindset, or are there people not interested in reading that? I’m not going to try and be nice to this series anymore unless it really deserves it, because I’ve pretty much been forced to watch a recap (including two recap episodes) for more than half a year now. That is not how I enjoy anime. In the end, this remains a personal blog about my own experiences, and with this series, I’ve gotten tired of trying to be politically correct.

However, if I am going to drop it, it’ll be dropped forever. I’m not going to pick it back up even when we get to the yorkshin arc or the chimera ant arc. This series had its chances to impress me, but it went on for way too long without impressing me. So, what do you say?

Mirai Nikki – 25

by psgels, posted in Mirai Nikki

Whoa. Mindscrew!

This episode was a lot of fun to watch, and perfect for the penultimate climactic battle. It was completely over the top, but worked really well. It’s a bit of a strange decision to go on for three weeks longer than every other show of the past season, but it really worked out. I have to praise the producers of this series for taking the time for that. It’s a shame that to fill up the lost time, we were treated to those boring skits at the end of each episode, but heck: they can be skipped. I complained about them, but in the end they are a neat trick to get rid of that nasty limitation where episodes all need to be 20 minutes long.

Also, for a minute I was fearing that the series just cheaply pushed the reset button, but the creators really did some interesting things with it, especially with how the different timelines started to intertwine. Especially Yuno stabbing her own father was a bit surreal, especially how we saw a completely different side of him now.

Then this episode also used a classic twist that a lot of penultimate episodes like to pull: the illusion where characters just live their lives without any problem. It was with a little twist, though: Yukki knew what he was going into, and what Yuno was doing, but he was slowly drawn into it.

Oh, when Murmur went berserk, things really got crazy. It also was really well animated. Probably the best animation of the entire series and Asread definitely brought in a talented animator for that scene.
Rating: **+ (Excellent+)

Aquarion Evol – 15

by psgels, posted in Aquarion Evol

So, it’s finally time for the love triangle to get somewhere. This is something that can easily get really annoying when the creators have no intention whatsoever of breaking up th emain couples, but heck: Kagura and Mikono emerged as better characters out of this episode. Kagura for finally showing a different side of himself than that raging beast (it’s about time here…) and Mikono, for finalyl doing something against her part as Amata’s true love (hah! I got his name right this time!).

Amata and Zessica meanwhile still need to have their moments in which they need to grow. Zessica is nearly getting there, but her growth entirely depends on Amata here: if he doesn’t change, the she’ll remain stuck in in her current dull part forever. You’ve just entered your second half, Aquarion, so the time for delaying is over now. You’ve got the luck that you’re an original story, so you can fully make use of the 26 episode format.

The whole Silvia & Apollo is something that I, as someone who didn’t watch the first season, didn’t really get, but a quick look on the internet showed that they are the two main protgonists of the first Aquarion series. I like how they didn’t go for the predictable “Amata is Apollo route. What I still dislike about this series is how it still adheres to “true love”: the way in which love is always decided and only two people are meant for each other. Amata is the only one who so far goes against that. It’s a problem that has been all over anime, really, and 95% of the attempts to subvert this just turn into harems or psueudo-harems. Chihayafuru last season was one of the very few series who got it right for me.
Rating: *+ (Great)
ED: Entirely dedicated to Yunoha? Okay. It’s just a pity that her voice actress can’t sing, though.

Uchuu Kyoudai – 02

by psgels, posted in Uchuu Kyoudai

As for the series I’m not going to blog:
– Hiiro no Kakera’s female lead is an idiot and the side-characters are all one-dimensional stereotypes.
– Accel World would have been nice if it wasn’t for the main couple who is way too forced and unlikable.
– Saint Seiya Omega lacks context for me, not being familiar with the rest of the franchise. Also it suffers from overacting.

Uchuu Kyoudai however, is a no-brainer. Out of all the new episodes that premiered this season so far, it was the best, and it has by far the best characters out of any other show. Mutta in particular is just awesome. He’s not just incredibly likable, but within 2 episodes we’ve already seen so much of his character, both from when he was young and his 31 year old version.

This episode introduces us to his two aunts who live together, who also had a lot of influence on him with a giant telescope they have on in their attic. It really feels like they knew each other very well, but what’s also special here: Mutta has two parents who are alive, plus a great relationship with his aunt. It’s really rare to see a family that is this close and intact in anime. Mutta’s parents also really feel like parents. I’m only saying this based on 2 episodes, but based on how well the characters are done already: I actually think that the characters in this series could beat those of Tiger & Bunny. They’ve got this delightful extra touch of realism to it.

Also, with instruments: when characters start playing instruments in anime, usually they are either completely terrible, or amazing. Mutta’s trumpet solo was so refreshing. You could see that he knew the basics, yet had not played in a long while, and the sound really reflected that.

This series by far doesn’t have the best graphics of the season, but even then: the character designs have soul. This series doesn’t care about characters looking completely pretty, and to be honest, I’d much, much rather have characters that look like this, rather than the same moe and bishie designs you see repeated over and over again.

My one fear for this series would be Makoto Uezu, the guy behind the series composition. This guy just is not a very good writer and adapter, with adaptations like Seikon no Qwaser, Kore wa Zombie and Eiyuu Densetsu behind his name, among many mediocre others. Here however, the script was wonderfully translated to animation, getting the best out of the characters. At the moment there are a ton of rumours going around for the total number of episodes for this series. Please let it be 51, because that would just be amazing.
Rating: **+ (Great)

Hunter X Hunter – 26

by psgels, posted in Hunter X Hunter

Someone. Please fire the guy responsible for choosing the placement of the music in this series. This episode showed me that he has no clue what this show is about.

It’s bad enough already that this was a recap. That’s the second recap in 26 episodes. For a show that already has a really long way to go before it can get to new material. I’d take the fillers of the 1999 series of this anytime. The premise of this episode was Gon writing to his mother, so I guess it was at least justified that the narrative was very jumbled. One detail is that Gon forgot to explain why Hisoka spared him. That makes that picture slightly different. But for a recap’s low standards, that part at least wasn’t bad.

But dear god, the music. For starters, this episode immediately started by making a mockery of my favorite non-Yorkshin episode of the 1999 series by playing the most generic tune the soundtrack has on top of it. That already was annoying, but I couldn’t believe my ears when Gon got to the part where he was quietly laying in wait for the correct opportunity to strike the bird and later Hisoka… and suddenly the ED started playing. Yes, that incredibly hyperactive song with lots of screaming and grunting. that was about the worst song you could have picked and it completely broke the mood. Hisoka in particular looked completely ridiculous with that hyperactive J-pop looping over his supposedly gloomy face especially when he actually started grunting alongside with it. Just… why? I really want to be fair to this new adaptation, but it doesn’t make it easy. Most of my previous comments can be classified as nit-picking, but this was just plain bad.

What’s next? Senritsu’s theme song being squeaky J-Pop?
Rating: — (Bad)