Last Exile – Ginyoku no Fam – 23

by psgels, posted in Last Exile - Ginyoku no Fam

You know what? I liked this.

Really, as an ending, you could do much worse. My big fear of Fam magically pushing the “solve” button here was averted. Instead, she ended up playing out her role in this series: that of a delivery girl. She also failed to really pull through with her ideals, and she also failed to prevent many people from dying. I really did not expect the creators to make her stay true to this, and that’s what really saved the final third of this series for me. I mean, I do’t really need all my protagonists to be hero or leader material. It makes them all too similar. It also pays off to show the glory of someone who isn’t the central focus, while this series also made sure to show off the actual scale of the war by using Milia. In fact, the parts of this series thta were the most grating were when Fam stepped beyond her role, and tried to involve herself with politics and large-scale decisions. She just isn’t fit for that.

I also like the way the Grand Race was used. My big fear was that with all that build-up they’d find a way to use it in a Deus ex Machina or something. Intead, they realyl turned out to be just the hopes of a young girl, which eventually didn’t really mean anything in the context of a war. As soon as the peace arrived though, Fam got her wish. I can live with that.

Instead, the doomsday weapon destroyed itself by being just so damn inpractical and unfinished. It’s hinted that Luscinia knew that this would happen all along, but something tells me that he also just realized that his plan wasn’t going to work when he saw the actual thing in motion. I liked how he actually took his loss like a man. Yes, I liked this ending better than Shangri-La’s ending. Also, Claus and Lavie return in the epilogue! Awesome aftermath here!

In the end, the biggest mistakes of this series were made when the plot was outlined. In the end, the creators could have tried better, the show needed more variety and less inconsistencies. A touch of realism would also have helped this show a lot here, and the creators also should have spent time to ask the question of how to make Fam more likable. I like how she was used in the finale, but in the end she did whine way too much throughout the series. She has strong ideals. Her portrayal should have made us sympathize with these ideals. Fam I think repeated them too often, and that made her whiny. Overall I like this show, but the original Last Exile it ain’t.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Guilty Crown Review – 62,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews

I have been following the Noitamina timeslot ever since 2005. At this point, I’ve watched and completed every single anime to appear in the timeslot, save for one, so yes: I do not say this easily: Guilty Crown has been the worst Noitanima series I have ever seen.

This is a combination of a hype that it miserably failed to live up to, plain bad storytelling and a ton of wasted potential. Here we finally had another Noitamina series that was allowed to go on for two cours with 22 episodes. In a timeslot where the biggest problem is being too short this really is an amazing chance, and even more of a bummer to see it trashed like this. This show is stupid, badly told, boring, inconsequential, and most important of all: it’s empty.

Seriously, this series does not know how to tell a story. This show has the idea that as long as it pulls enough plot twists, it’ll automatically get good. It wants this so badly, that it starts pulling these twists right out of its ass. Especially the second half of the series just keeps pulling the most convenient deus ex machina right from out of bloody nowhere. “Oh, we need this power to keep going, oh wait, that character conveniently had that power, even though it was never mentioned or hinted at before!” – and that’s just one of the least insulting ones.

Okay, so the plot is bad. On its own that’s not automatically a failure if the show has enough to make up for it. The thing is however: this show doesn’t. It looks pretty and all, but I can’t really recommend it for anything. In fact, the plot isn’t even the worst part of this show. No, that honour belongs to the cast of characters.

Shu has got to be the worst main character that I’ve seen in a long while. I mean, you really have to try to be as bad as him. This is the kind of guy of which the creators never really decided what personality they should get him. The result is that he completely changes character with every passing episode with no explanation behind it whatsoever. Whatever is the most convenient for the plot, he acts like that. The result is an incredibly annoying, inconsistent and bafflingly stupid character.

And the thing is: the entire show revolves around this loser. Every character is tailor-made to revolve around him, even though we’re never given a reason to actually like him. Everyone is forced into this role to help him tell his story… whatever the hell that may be. The lead female… is completely useless for the entire length of the show. I know that we often joke with romantic interests being pointless, but this girl is even worse. She literally does nothing other than talk here and there and go emo once in a while. The rest of the side-cast also isn’t better of, as they fit in with whatever role the male lead seems to want to play at the moment, acting as cannon fodder for him. The antagonists are just a bunch of screaming stereotypical evil guys who like to kill people because… well… because.

It’s very likely that this show had the biggest budget of the past half year. And yet, I wouldn’t rank the animation as the best or most interesting here. The show has great inbetween animation, but it hardly ever does anything interesting with its eye candy or direction. I found myself enjoying the visuals of Nisemonogatari, Black Rock Shooter, Milky Holmes, Last Exile and Chihayafuru much more, because they actually tried to bring their characters to life. Guilty Crown doesn’t even attempt to do that.

Overall, the first half of Guilty Crown is mind-numbingly boring. Hardly anything really seems to happen in it at all. This completely changes in the second half when it pulls the most bafflingly convenient plot twists that would make Code Geass cringe. And you know what? It’s still boring. It’s been a while since a show that was this hyped, that was this ambitious, fell so flat on its face as here. I read in an interview once that the creators want to make the male lead into the new Shinji Ikari of Evangelion. And indeed, parts of this show scream “Evangelion wannabe”. These guys however had no bloody clue what made that show good.

Storytelling: 6/10 – Mind-numbingly stupid, boring and empty. Has no idea how to tell a good story and just pulls random twists whatever is the most convenient.
Characters: 5/10 – I really have nothing positive to say about these guys whatsoever. There was no character whatsoever who I liked. Everyone revolves way too much around the male lead. Everyone here is exceptionally bad.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Okay, the series does have pretty graphics, but with the budget it has it could have done so much more.
Setting: 6/10 – Who on earth green-lighted this? The setting behind this feels like no thought was put into making it actually work. Again, it centers way too much to the male lead, instead of the other way around.

Suggestions:
– Toward the Terra
– Neon Genesis Evangelion
– Eden of the East

Black Rock Shooter Review – 77,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



So, Black Rock Shooter. It definitely raised some eyebrows when it was first announced as a Noitamina series. Sure, by that time we were already done with Fractale and all, but considering that the OVA was a boring teenaged angst-fest it didn’t exactly have the best papers in a timeslot that set itself apart through its focus on an older audience. There were hints that the creators were willing to experiment, though: it only had 8 episodes, preventing it from dragging on and allowing Thermae Romae to fill its slot in the meantime, Mari Okada was appointed as the head writer and the action would be directed by Hiroyuki Imaishi (you know, the director of Gurren Lagann and Panty and Stocking). As an arthouse project, it could have had some serious potential with this.

Now, if you haven’t watched the OVA though, there are a few things you should know about this. Black Rock Shooter started as a software program Vocaloid which allows people to make their own songs, which spawned an illustration, which spawned a song. This song spawned an OVA, after which a TV-series followed. It’s an interesting example of virality out there. In any case though, the illustration indeed looked very stylish and a good writer could do some great things with that. For some reason however, the creators of the OVA shoehorned a bunch of teenaged girls into the story who took up most of the airtime, reducing the titular “Black Rock Shooter” to just someone who “fights stuff”. It wasn’t that good. It was up to the creators of the anime to try better. Well, they succeeded in that, but there are a lot of bumps along the way here…

Unfortunately, in the end the TV-series of Black Rock Shooter also ends up focusing on teenaged angst. Thankfully where in the OVA this was really boring, they did try a lot of things to spice up this angst. Some things worked, others tried way too hard, and at others they just didn’t try enough. Especially the first half is a chore to sit through due to all of the hugely overblown angst that passes the screen. In particular the character of Yomi gets really annoying in how incredibly emo she gets, but there are more characters in this show who force themselves way too hard to create drama, and this undermines the rest of the characterization.

Thankfully in the second half this series redeems itself, and it actually starts developing its characters and setting. Along with the revelations, the characters are much better balanced together, and it does come down to a pretty decent, albeit sappy, conclusion. Yes, it actually avoided the biggest pitfall of Noitamina series of not being able to end well. In the end it does create an interesting link between the two parallel worlds so things do come together. I personally found the first half of this show a chore to sit through, but I liked the direction it took in the second half quite a bit.

Also, the action in this series is really sweet. We definitely were in for a treat in the animation department this past winter-season: Nisemonogatari, Milky Holmes 2 and Black Rock Shooter: these three series looked past their conventional animation, and really tried to do interesting stuff with their visuals and their visual direction. The action sequences in this series are really intense and well directed. Most of it is done in 3D CG, so that takes a while to get used to (because they don’t blend in too well at times), but it’s a sacrifice that was worth it, because otherwise the creators would never have been able to put as much movement in this series as now. The soundtrack complements it all well. I’d almost say: go and watch this as a multimedia experience. This is really a show where the visuals are as important as the story and characters. The emo is a bit annoying at times, but overall, it could have done a lot worse. It’s not the disaster that Fractale or Guilty Crown were, in any case.

Storytelling: 8/10 – An interesting attempt in combining story, bisuals and music together. Actually ends well.
Characters: 7/10 – A few interesting ones, along with a few characters who try too hard at being dramatic.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Terrific action scenes, a feast for the senses when it wants to.
Setting: 7/10 – The creators could have done a ton of things with this concept. Unfortunately, the setting they went with was centered around moe teenaged angst that is under-utilized in the first half. A missed chance.

Suggestions:
– Madlax
– Narutaru
– Shigofumi

Black Rock Shooter – 08

by psgels, posted in Winter 2012 Kaleidoscope

So you can call me crazy, but I actually liked these final episodes of Black Rock Shooter. Sure, it was rather sappy and all, but despite that, I liked the direction that the plot took, finally relating the Black Rock Shooter world and the real world together, and creating an interesting setting based on that. Mato also became more interesting as she separated from Black Rock Shooter (and was basically out of the picture being unconscious, allowing the rest of the cast to play out).It’s still full of teenaged angst, but I felt that that angst was much better than in the first half. It actually was about something: about being scared to face reality.

Based on that, I really can’t lump this together with the worst of Noitamina. It obviously is nowhere near the best, but at the very least the creators didn’t turn it into a gigantic flop. It’s certainly better than that m ind-numbingly boring OVA. Library Wars? At least this show had a beginning, middle and conclusion. Jyu Oh Sei? At least this series didn’t overpace itself. Guilty Crown? None of the characters here is as bad as the cast of that show. Fractale? Hell, this show actually did something with its setting.

In the end though, this remains a series where the creators should have put more thought into how to make it work, especially due to that first half. The worst character in this series is by far Yomi, and this show dabbled way too much into her uninteresting angst. The teacher also needed more work. Yeah, she got an explanation and I have no problems with her part in the story, but that still doesn’t make me buy her really weird behavior in the first half.

The action of this series also made up for a lot, because this was genuinely good, compared to the dull action sequences of Guilty Crown. The only shame is that everything had to be in 3D CG, but ah well: without it the creators would never have been able to animate as much as they did here.

My request to Noitamina now is: keep experimenting. You tried to dabble into teenaged series for a while. Now, let that go and start to focus on different series with yet another target audience. Tsuritama and Appolon? Keep that direction going. Don’t just suddenly announce K-On 03 or Shana 04 for your Summer Line-up.
Rating: *+ (Great)

Tantei Opera Milky Holmes – Dai Ni Maku Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Tantei Opera Milky Holmes



I tend to complain about comedy sequels. It’s one thing to be funny, but it’s an entirely different story to be funny consistently, over a longer period of time. I really noticed that for the vast majority of these sequels, they tend to lose their inspiration, run out of their best jokes, or start trying too hard. The exceptions are there, though: there are comedy sequels who manage to beat their original: Tentai Senshi Sunred, Mitsudomoe and Fireball are examples of that. The thing is however, that the first season of Milky Holmes already was a really, really good series. And here the creators came, and improved significantly over it.

The original Milky Holmes had its weird moments as it chronicled the adventures of a group of four hilariously inept detectives, but at least it still was somewhat grounded in reality. The second season is crack. Pure crack. It makes no iota of sense, and it takes so many things along with it to the absurd. Its contents are completely bizarre from start to finish.

While parody isn’t its main focus, this show has a ton of fun pulling all sorts of references, only to make them completely ridiculous. The four lead characters have got to be the dumbest characters I have seen in a long while. In this case, it’s a compliment: you really have to try in order to be as mind-numbingly stupid as these four girls. By far the favorite form of parody of this series is taking a common trope, and completely changing its context into something completely bizarre. The result is hilarious, and this was by far my favorite comedy of the past season.

What also helps is how technically sound this series is. You wouldn’t suspect it with a team of Artland and JC Staff behind it, but the animation of this series is consistently excellent: the screen is always incredibly dynamic, this series experiments with a ton of different animation styles, and the energy just bursts from the screen in the different and numerous action sequences. The direction also is full of energy and creativity, and this creativity doesn’t run out, even though this is a sequel of a franchise totaling 24 episodes now.

Now, this series doe shave its slow moments. Because despite all the chaos, it also knows how to build up. The result is that the first halves of most episodes are relatively quiet in order to set up everything, only for this show to flick the bizarre-switch as the episode enters its second half. Don’t expect much in terms of deep characterization, though.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Hilarious; full of energy and creativity.
Characters: 8/10 – They’re very simple characters, but they remain lovable throughout the entire series.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Terrific and very dynamic animation; full of life.
Setting: 8/10 – Loves a good parody, and tears a great deal of different tropes apart.

Suggestions:
– Dororon – Enma-Kun
– Mitsudomoe Zouryouchuu
– Ooedo Rocket

Tantei Opera Milky Holmes – 24

by psgels, posted in Tantei Opera Milky Holmes

That’s it? Milky Holmes are you serious in that your big ending… is a cheesy shoujo dance scene? Don’t get me wrong, I again really liked this episode, but it also was a very bizarre way to end this series with, especially with last week’s bizarre God of Lard climax. this episode pretends that nothing happened there, completely changes genre and instead makes a total mockery out of the shoujo genre.

I only have one really big complaint with this episode, and that is that it used the big comedy cliche of pulling the reset button: “our heroes have finally achieved their objectiv- oh wait, I guess not! Too bad, hahaha!” – This is something that has been pulled way too much and they’re hardly ever worth it.

Still, there was enough creativity in this episode to make up for that. It wasn’t the best episode, but as an “aftermath”, it was a neat idea to instead have the big over the top climax not at the very end.

Overall, I first noticed the director of this series, Makoto Moriwaki during his previous series, Lilpri, due to how incredibly energetic his style is. In Lilpri tis unfortunately was badly used, up to the point where all the characters did was yell at each other and the bad acting got monotone really fast. Milky Holmes has the variety and creativity that makes his style work. This season got even better with Seiya Numata behind the animation. I’d really rank this on the same level as Ben-To and Dororon Enma-Kun. It had a few weak episodes here and there, but these were totally overshadowed by the great parts.
Rating: *+ (Great)

OVA Impressions: Black Jack Final – 02

by psgels, posted in Black Jack Final

Well, Rest in Peace, Osamu Dezaki. This very likely was the last episode you ever worked on, and what a great episode it was. This was the last time where his unique sense of storytelling could be exhibited. The subject for this episode is wars. Black Jack has dabbled in this area before, but with a setting that so closely resembles Northern Korea (remember that this originally was written at a time when Kim Jong Il wasn’t even leader yet) does give it a slightly different load than usual.

Once again though, this episode captures what makes the Black Jack OVAs so incredibly good. It makes optimal use of its 45 minutes of airtime to play out and come with twists and turns, plus as usual it also puts in a lot of time into its characterizations. The lead character in this episode didn’t just have one issue, but instead she had a wide range of issues, who at the same time were all related to each other.

Also, I didn’t expect to see this at this point, but Black Jack actually regretted saving someone’s life. In all of the stories of him I’ve seen so far, he has always been very passionate about saving lives as soon as he set his mind to it, but this really pushed that boundary here.

In terms of the visuals, it’s a shame that the budget of this episode left some things to be desired, because things were a bit sloppy in that era. The cinematography still was wonderful, though. This episode still managed to pull off a ton of visual effects that are so typical of Osamu Dezaki, in which he really tries to get the biggest emotional reaction while using minimal methods. Even in this episode, these scenes still are full of energy.

I personally love it when a director, writer or artists manages to put a lot of his own style and ideas into his (or her) work, and there are very few series directors whose style is as immediately recognizable as Osamu Dezaki. I really hope that a lot more young directors pick this up and start to let their own styles flow into their works more freely. That’s what provides variety and diversity.
OVA Episode Rating: 8,75/10

Mirai Nikki – 22

by psgels, posted in Mirai Nikki

This episode was undoubtedly crazy.

The plot is finally coming together after all the seemingly unrelated arcs in the first half. Finally it becomes clear what Akise’s role is in this series and he finally got his episode to redeem himself. Also, there was Yukiteru who is well on his way to become one of the least inept main characters out there. Thankfully though, the creators are actually playing with this for once, rather than just copying the standard male lead over and over again. Oh don’t get me wrong: Yukiteru has elements of this guy written all over him, but being such a wimp to actually kill his friends like that in favor of his deranged girlfriend. I like that.

Overall, I do have to say that Mirai Nikki was by far the worst series for the past year to avoid spoilers on. Both from the different OPs and EDs, but also from the fans who kept giving away hints that the audience wasn’t supposed to know yet. Looking back, I think that that was for me unconsciously something that held my enjoyment of this series a lot, especially considering how focused this series is on its surprises and plot twists.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Chihayafuru – 24

by psgels, posted in Chihayafuru

Shock! Gasp! Surprise! A major character actually put on weight!? In anime where characters always need to look perfect!?

I mean, once in a while we get overweight side characters here and there, like Nishida in this series. But the main antagonist? It’s really been a while since we had one of those, let alone characters whose physique changes so drastically. Of course it’s a bit exaggerated here, but this was nevertheless a really interesting twist.

Heck, I’m really baffled here. Ever since the show was announced, I’ve been dreading this moment: the ending, knowing that there was no way for this show to end well. And here, this show actually pulls off a stunning penultimate episode.

I don’t care about wrapping things up, but for me an ending needs to take the series, its themes, characters and push them even further. So yeah, the actual king and queen match are a great way for this show to close off. This really goes against all conventions. I really was expecting this show ending with Chihaya playing some random match, as is the norm with all other sports shows. And instead, this episode was completely different, yet completely in line with the rest of the series. It shows the level that Chihaya has yet to reach: a match between two players of actual Queen material. She played them both, but actually watching the two of them play taught her how much she still needs to grow. Shinobu blew her away in the first match, but in this episode she really became human. And again we’ve got another top player who becomes a bit weaker (yet much more intriguing) due to some imperfection or laziness.

I really admire the guts of the creators to not have this episode revolve around Chihaya (like the entire rest of the series), but instead put two side-characters into the spotlights. These kinds of creative twists are some that I can really appreciate, especially when the characters in question are so damn good. Chihaya herself also had a great place in this episode so she still is the main character here.

Now, I have a message to the next episode: end with an ACTUAL ending. I don’t want to see a sequel hook, or the feeling that there still is going to be some sort of next episode or something. It’s obvious that this show isn’t going to get a sequel, now make use of that! What I want is “here is an awesome and creative climax that pushes the characters to new levels!” not “thanks for watching and let’s hope that someday we can tell the rest of this story…” This show deserves it!
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Some Quick First Impressions: Ozuma and Hiiro no Kakera

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Gakkatsu

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a badly animated teacher
Well, at the very least the utterly horrid flash shows are getting better. Don’t get me wrong, this was still far from good, but it does spend much more time into actually animating its characters and make things move, rather than High Score or Haiyoru Nyaruani which just were a bunch of still frames with moving mouths. These five minutes actually had some decent direction and camera work. The soundtrack actually was energetic, the dialogue was delivered with some actual energy, rather than trying to be as annoying as possible. But yeah, what’s this series about? An overly enthusiastic teacher with strange ideas like trying to rename that bump that some people have on their wrists. There was some nice dialogue in this episode that makes it a good gimmick for one episode, but it’s still got no chance to actually be worthwhile in the long run. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that these shows are actually getting better, but they still have a long way to go.
OP: Surprisingly catchy…
Potential: 10%

Ozuma

Short Synopsis: Our lead character runs into a cute girl.
Clumsy, is how I’d describe this first episode of Ozuma. It definitely doesn’t win points in the build-up or execution. It feels like the characters all read their lines a little too fast, and this show doesn’t seem familiar of the concept of pauses between lines. The animation also is quite poor and I really expected more of Ryousuke Takahashi. On the other hand though, we’ve got a very strong contender for the best character designs of the season (which probably can only be contested by Saint Seiya and Lupin; yes, I know they’re all remakes of past character designs. I can’t help it that most characters look the same nowadays), along with an interesting setting focused on all sorts of desert vehicles. This really is meant as an homage to the Matsumoto Leiji series. This unfortunately means that if you’re not familiar with him, you’ll probably miss a lot here. Despite the flaws though, the end of this episode did give me that vibe I’ve had with some of his other stories. Let’s see whether this one can develop into something interesting in just six episodes, however it really has to fix the poor acting for that. It’s not like every character here is badly acted, but there is some pretty bad stuff among them.
OP: Dull J-Rock
ED: The singing isn’t bad, but the song is a bit boring and it’s just another dull slideshow mostly comprising of only the females in the series. Show some of the guys for god’s sake.
Potential: 60%

Hiiro no Kakera

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a princess who needs to be protected by hot bishies.
Studio Deen has always been the most prominent producer of shoujo series. So yeah, when they decline, it’s no wonder that the entire genre takes a nose-dive. With Hiiro no Kakera they’re basically making the same show yet again. This pretty much is another Hakuouki or Brave 10, only this time things take place in modern times. The bishies here are the same bishies that you see in all those other series. The execution is the same as ever and does very little to entertain. I have to give the series this: it does know how to build up an atmosphere, and at least the writing is better than usual with these series. The animation however…was really bad here. There is movement, but that movement is incredibly awkward. The worst was when one of the characters tried to do a somersault and instead randomly slowly floats into the air for three seconds. That’s also a case of bad direction here: there are no attempts made to make things look better or more interesting than they actually are. The only thing that the graphics have going for them is that the backgrount artists are really good, but that too seems wasted here with this lackluster execution. When was the last time we had a good reverse harem anyway? Yumeiro Patissiere?
Potential: 15%