Another – 04

by psgels, posted in Another

You know, this series reminds me a lot of Ookamikakushi, but well executed. This series pretty much is what I hoped that series to be. And within four episodes, it also has pretty much surpassed Ookamikakushi in every aspect. In particular the cast of characters is a lot better here.

The lead character… he actually doesn’t just passively do nothing, or act stupid like a wimp. He’s actually trying to find out what is going on, while at the same time he’s not the other side of the spectrum of being way too damn impulsive. What mostly sets this one apart is the dialogue, though. You can definitely see that this is coming from something other than a manga adaptation. It actually feels pretty natural here.

Also, I wonder how it must be marathoning this series in one go. It’s probably a completely different experience. The cliff-hangers in this series don’t give me the feeling of “must… know… what… happens next…”, but the shock factor nevertheless works really well. It will be pretty hard to eventually explain (aside from that the ghost wants to make the lead character’s life completely miserable), but I like the direction so far nonetheless.
Rating: * (Good)

Mirai Nikki – 16

by psgels, posted in Mirai Nikki

For a while throughout this episode I thought “this is the Mirai Nikki that people have been looking forward to?” During the second half of the episode however, I understood. That was actually a pretty interesting way to use Yukiteru’s father. The show still is chockful of plotholes, though.

The big ones in this episode: Seventh challenging Yukiteru and Yuno to a fight, when they could just as easily just destroy two cell phones. It makes sense to hold onto them in order to manipulate them… but they never actually do that. Also, this really depends a lot on Yukiteru being both a wimp and an idiot. Right from the start it should be obvious that Yukiteru’s father doesn’t know about the fact that Yukiteru dies when his cell phone gets destroyed. Yukiteru forgets about this just until the moment when it’s too late.

Still, at this point I don’t count the plotholes of Mirai Nikki as flaws anymore. What’s much more important for this series is whether or not it’s entertaining and whether or not the characters get to show themselves off. And with that, Yukiter’s father worked really well here. And strangely enough, the thing I like about him the most is not what he added to Yukiteru, but rather his character himself. His ignorance is totally believable and that made him great to watch for the second half of the episode. Also, I liked Yuno again, mostly through her subtle appearances outside of the action scenes in this episode. It’s unbelievable how close she was to actually killing Yukiteru’s father.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Aquarion Evol – 05

by psgels, posted in Aquarion Evol

wtf… just wtf.

I have to give it to this series: it’s creative. This episode once again was completely weird, but on a completely different level than the previous episode. Instead this turned into this bizarre romantic comedy. It’s like the previous episode promised, but I did not expect electric bracelets that would go off whenever the wearer had an impure thought. It’s even more surreal that all of this was monitored by the people in charge of the academy.

Because of that, this episode was hilarious. And this comes from a guy who normally finds romantic comedies to be really boring. There was a lot of good chemistry between the characters, but I also really liked how well the serious parts were directed. That robot guy’s past, and the climax of this: that really was some well delivered stuff here. On top of that, the art department of Satelight really got to flex their muscles again in this episode, with some really gorgeous pictures as a result. These guys really know like no other how to draw huge and grand landscapes with a ton of detail in them.

Seriously, comparing this to the first five episodes of Macross Frontier, and Macross Frontier pretty much loses out on every area aside from the animation. The romance in this series feels whimsical and fun, rather than forced and contrived as it did there. The overall storyline is much more interesting and has much more potential (for me, “guy dates two idols while bug aliens attack” is much less interesting than what this show is currently doing, exploring the tensions between males and females while actually sentient aliens are attacking).
strong>Rating: ** (Excellent)

Rinne no Lagrange – 04

by psgels, posted in Rinne no Lagrange

The chemistry between the characters is really good in this series. This was supposed to be just a dull building up episode, but thanks to that chemistry I didn’t mind that at all. These characters are very funny when they’re together, and I’m not just referring to the main characters. The side-cast also is full of characters who are great to watch and who love to make quips towards each other.

One of my biggest fears for this series was the third main character. The last thing that this series needed was another ditzy stupid female. And yet, surprisingly she turned out to be a completely different character, using her traces of ditziness actually to her own advantage. I also like how this series didn’t try to glorify how she was using CPR. It’s been a while since I didn’t see someone freak out and link saving lives to randomly kissing.

Unfortunately, one very annoying cliche slipped by. Two, actually. The first is the lead character suddenly living together with a bunch of cute girls. The main one though was the “waitress scene”. That’s something I’ve seen dozens of times before and it was only saved because of the good characterization.

And again: this episode showed the damages of the last episode being rebuilt, both for the main characters and the aliens. Another thing that this series does well is that the town that this is set in feels alive. This show is very good at putting in small details that flesh out the characters, but it’s doing the same thing with the setting. I like that.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

OVA Impressions: Tales of Symphonia – 09

by psgels, posted in OVA Impressions, Tales of Symphonia

Apologies for the lateness. I thought that this was one of the earlier OVAs.

In any case, with this we’re continuing with the Tales of Symphonia Story again, and this definitely was an interesting episode here. Again it had things that it did better than the game, things that it did worse, and things that are completely different.

The big difference really is that the creators cut out the entire storyline for the second half of the games. Seriously, from what I remember the games had this epic storyline that involved firing this giant mana cannon and an out of control world tree. All of that was cut out here in favor of the characters. An interesting decision here.

This episode was about the half-elves of the story: Genis, Raine and Yggdrassil. This however is one point where previous design decisions come back to bite this series, because from out of nowhere it suddenly introduces the themes of racism that were prevalent through the entire game. So yeah, the creators had to catch up to a lot of building up here in just forty minutes. And speaking of build-up: with all of the hints at Zelos’ betrayal, I thought that he’d get much more airtime in this episode, but he showed up just at the end of this episode. My guess is that the final episode will focus a lot of time on him.

Zelos’ betrayal was really well done by the way. And with this, the creators also neatly avoided the single biggest face-palm of the game (seriously, there were two paths in the games: one where he betrays the party, and one where he doesn’t; the latter reveals that with one heck of a Deus ex Machina). In the game, the small version of Mithos was also acting really weird. I mean, he’s acting really weird here, but there he did the strangest stuff, and nobody really questioned this. Here, his actions make much more sense. This episode was a tad too angsty for my tastes, but they did flesh out this guy pretty neatly and explained why he ended up as the main villain for this series.
OVA Episode Rating: 8.25/10

Phi Brain – 17

by psgels, posted in Phi Brain

Holy cucumbers on a stick! Did this series really just pull what I think it did?

I mean: this show here surpassed itself. yet again here. I thought that after the cast got back from their trip to Europe, there’d be some sort of aftermath or something. Not like, the single most important episode of the series so far. This episode explained a lot of stuff about this series. Also, Daimon Kaitou was another test tube kid who was raised for the sole purpose of solving puzzles. Oh, and he turns out to have been adopted.

These are some amazing twists here, and they again show how similar Kaitou is to Rook here, who also was raised with the same thing in mind. The sole difference was probably that Kaitou’s foster parents did really care about him, while Rook was clearly raised by a bunch of sadists. The character development in this show just keeps getting better here.

Now I do have to wonder though: how will the second season be able to top this? The reason this season rocks is because of how well it delves into the pasts of the main characters. With the way things are going though, that will all be solved at the end of the first season. So what can they offer to expand to this?
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Mouretsu Pirates – 04

by psgels, posted in Mouretsu Pirates

So, I was ready to sit back and relax while watching the next installment of the quietly paced Mouretsu Pirates. And then they come with this.

This was a very pleasant surprise: the entire episode was just nothing but a long string of dialogue, full of technical terms and concepts that explained what was going on, and what could be done against it. A ghost ship suddenly appeared, and what in particular caught my attention was how thorough the lead character was in trying to find something against it.

I like how you really need to pay attention to follow everything in this episode. This episode actually showed, against all my expectations, that the creators don’t consider their viewers to be idiots. And while at first this episode may seem to have a lot of techno-babble, it does all fit together with the rest of the theories that it has presented so far. I did not expect to get so much hard sci-fi in this series, but it’s a very pleasant surprise nonetheless. And on top of that this episode also delivered some really good characterization on the captain and vice-captain of the yacht club.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Last Exile – Ginyoku no Fam – 15

by psgels, posted in Last Exile - Ginyoku no Fam

Oh, this episode. It really had me torn about Fam. I’m not certain of this yet, but this episode pushed me much more into believing that this series has the “bad main character”-syndrome.

There was one particular line of hers that really stood out. It was at the beginning of the episode, in which she was crying about the fate of her hometown. I think the line was something like “why? We just want to fly.”

Um, why? Because you’ve been stealing the federation’s ships, obviously. This line really told me that Fam… doesn’t really understand the situation she’s in. She also immediately got cheery after that, acting like everything will be alright, even though a lot of people died here. The rest of the episode thankfully did show that she’s bothered with a lot of things, but she never could accurately describe them, nor find a good solution for this until the salvation came at the end of this episode. That’s the kind of mentality that is good for a side-character, but not a main one who is supposed to drive the storyline forward.She;s still an enjoyable character, but she so doesn’t fit this series. Compare that to Kuniko of Shangri-la: she knew that she was a leader, and she actually kept trying to take responsibility for it.

And the thing with this episode: the rest of the characters were really good here. Milia developed, we know why her sister betrayed her (neat idea to change the federation from the inside) and the dialogue between the different side characters continued to build upon the setting and story here. That all was really well done.

So in the end the problem is a bit with the marketing of this series. Shangri-La unfortunately bombed, so the producers didn’t want to go with an as colourful and strong main cast this time, and instead went for the safe option of having a bunch of cute girls at the center in order to boost the sales. And really: Giselda and Milia are just fine. It’s just Fam whose character just feels out of place here.
Rating: * (Good)

Thermae Romae Review – 77,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews

So, for those of you who don’t know: Noitamina is a timeslot started back in 2005, dedicated to showing anime for an older audience and touching upon themes that are beyond the norm for anime. 2010 was a huge year for it: it upgraded to having two series air per season, on top of showing three brilliant series right after each other (Sarai-Ya Goyou, Yojou-han Shinwa Taikei and Shiki). Unfortunately these didn’t sell so well.

This lead to a completely different direction for the timeslot in 2011: it actually started making series that focused on a younger audience. Yeah, the same audience that every other show was also focusing on. In particular Fractale and Guilty Crown were very unnerving examples because of how they also dumbed down their own content and characters. For a long while the future of the timeslot was uncertain. Of course an experimentation into different audiences should be encouraged, but the timeslot shouldn’t stay in this and lose the thing that made it stand out in the first place. Thankfully, with Thermae Romae the producers have shown that they haven’t run out of their drive to experiment anytime soon. Yes, we here have a series about roman baths.

This probably is the first full comedy that the timeslot aired. It did feature funny series before, but the humour never was as important to the whole series as here. What makes this series work so well is the deadpan humour that it uses. It’s got this great lead character who is a roman architect in charge of building baths, and throughout the entire series he keeps taking himself seriously, even though some really weird stuff happens to him. The show is only six episodes long, and each episode is just ten minutes, so it’s perfect if you want to watch a little bite-sized comedy that touches upon something different for a change.

It’s just a damn shame that out of all the production companies to get their hands on adapting the manga for this series… it had to be the single worst one out there. The animation i this series is just completely abysmal. Instead of actually animating the characters, they just stand as cardboard cutouts on the screen and wiggle back and forth with bad flash transitions. This feels more like a fancy visual novel than an actual anime, and it’s the same in a long line of terribly animated gag stories like High Score, Haiyoru Nyaruani, that gothic teacher one and Himitsu Kessha Countdown. With Thermae Romae, they finally sat down and actually got themselves some good source material, and it shows, even through their crappy translation. But how good this series should have been if it didn’t have such awkward animation and direction.

Storytelling: 9/10 – In particular the deadpan dialogue works really well for a comedy, and it’s well written here.
Characters: 8/10 – The only one who really stands out is the main character. But he is so enjoyable to watch that he dwarfs the unlikable and one-sided other characters.
Production-Values: 5/10 – I usually don’t try to be harsh on bad animation: sure, it’s nice to have good animation, but it’s not vital for a good series. Here though, the animation is so bad that it really does get in the way of the story. And that’s a bad thing.
Setting: 9/10 – It’s baths in Rome, with a little japanese twist.

Suggestions:
– Marie & Gali
– Hetalia Axis Powers
– Gag Manga Biyori

Hyouge Mono Review – 87,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Hyouge Mono



Nowadays, there are few series that you could really call unique. Nearly all shows base their ideas and concepts off of some other work that came before them, or build further upon concept introduced anywhere else. Once in a while though, an anime appears that just can’t be compared to anything. Hyouge Mono is one of those series.

I mean, seriously, I’ve got nothing. At first sight this might be lumped with the other historical series, but there are just a ton of elements in this series that no other historical anime has. Here we have a series of 39 episodes that is solely about a bunch of old guys talking about aesthetics, while making the most bizarre faces in the process. Beyond my wildest expectation, this series ignores just about every convention that has been established over the past ten years and just goes into its own direction. It has really been years since I last saw a show do that.

Being unique is of course one thing, but you still need to be interesting. A show can be unique, but a chicken riding a unicycle while singing the Estonain National Anthem is too, but that perhaps isn’t the most interesting to watch. Thankfully though, Hyouge Mono is a delight to watch for those who are looking for something slow, yet substantial. There are a lot things that this show does right.

The acting in particular is just sublime. This series managed to deliver the most accurate version of the Sengoku era we’ve seen so far (which admittely isn’t that hard with shows as Sengoku Basara), and put down very believable portrayals of characters like Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and the tea master Sennou Rikyuu. And on the other hand it’s also chockfull of the most bizarre facial expressions that are almost glorified throughtout the entire series. And strangely enough, these two extremes blend in really well. The performances of the main characters in particular is stunning, but also the side characters (and that cast is HUGE) shines with very diverse and true to life characters.

By far the biggest mystery of this show is how on earth it managed to land itself a whopping 39 episodes. In a time when all experimantal series can consider themselves lucky if they can get 13 episodes, and here this show comes from out of nowhere with a length three times of that. Because of that, it can get really in-depth into its subject material. This both is a really good look into history, but it’s in particular the detail into aesthetics, and the teachings of “wabi sabi” that really stand out in this series.

In terms of flaws, I’d say that this series is a little too slow for its own good at times. It’s not exactly dragged out or anything, but when you look at each individual episodes, there is relatively little that actually happens, for the sake of detail, and that balance at times was skewed a bit too much to the slow side. The visuas in this series are limited, but most of the times they try to make very good use of their budget. There are some exceptions here, resulting in badly drawn faces on what are actually key moments.

Also, this series can be quite misleading in its actual subject matter. At first it might seem like there will be quite a bit of attention into medieval warfare, and the first half of the series has some very interesting battles (including what could possibly be one of the best death scenes of the most recent years). There really is signfiicantly less action and even more talking in the second half. The action that’s there however is incredibly stylish. This is a series that really evolves and changes over time, amd the conclusion they went with really fits the series perfectly.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Excellent direction. A bit slow at times, but the use of camera angles and the dialogue are just wonderfully written.
Characters: 9/10 – The acting for these characters is just sublime. Rock-solid performances from the main cast in particular.
Production-Values: 8/10 – The animation is simple. but very effecitvely used with very detailed character designs. Soundtrack also is excellent, but doesn’t get many chances to really stand out due to its restricted nature.
Setting: 10/10 – Spends a huge amount of time fleshing out the teachings of wabi sabi, japanese tea ceremonies, and is an amazing look at the days of the Sengoku Era.

Suggestions:
– Not gonna even attempt to find similar series for this one