Natsume Yuujin-Chou – 42

by psgels, posted in Natsume Yuujin-Chou

Well, there you have it. The third episode, and yet again this show delivers. Heck, I did not expect this, but out of the four Natsume seasons, the fourth actually had the most consistently excellent opening three episodes. I really hope that that’s a sign for the rest of this season, because this show already is better than anything else that airs right now that I’m watching.

This episode really toyed with the heartwarming type of stories of Natsume Yuujinchou. Natsume has taken care of cute things before, but this one had a bit of a twist here: it was poisonous and easily startled. It’s much more like a wild animal than the others that Natsume took in, and for a long while it didn’t reveal how sentient it was exactly, especially with it disappearing around the halfway mark of the episode. Because of that, it was really heart-warming to see how it felt sorry for hurting Natsume. This episode was completely adorable, though in a different way from the other cute episodes so far.

My one criticism of this episode is that it had some obvious continuity errors. One scene Natsume’s room is full of holes and blood, the next it’s finished. Also, it’s implied that Natsume went to sleep right on top of dirty berries. Of course this is nothing minor. It’s easy to assume that he cleaned all of that up out of camera, but here I believe that it would have made this episode even easier to relate to if there was just one small scene spent on Natsume actually doing this.

Also, this episode showed sometihng very interesting about Nyanko-sensei: he got sealed off in this episode and walked around through most of the episode with this strange eye-patch. It’s implied that he can’t get it of on its own, and yet he easily dispatches of it near the end of the episode. He could have chosen to do it immediately to just get rid of an unthankful youkai, but instead he agreed with Natsume to first try to solve things in a peaceful way by allowing Natsume to reason with it.

I mean, at this point it must also be obvious to him that that book of friends will be mostly empty when he can finally get his hands on it. I sense the same loyalty here to Natsume as the other youkai that Natsume befriended. He keeps teasing Natsume to hide it, but I doubt that the book of friends is his biggest reason to stick with Natsume at the moment. Heck, even Natsume teases him with that in this episode.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Aquarion Evol – 03

by psgels, posted in Aquarion Evol

I have not watched the first Aquarion, but I want to test whether it’s possible to watch this series without having watched the prequel. The reason for that is that this season of Aquarion has a very different staff from the first. And really: there are a lot of great people working on this thing.

I have my issues with Shoji Kawamori, but I consider him to be a very good director. He’s at his best though, when working together with other talent. I got really annoyed with Macross Frontier, but in the end the writers for that show, along with the other director, weren’t really that impressive(as a frame of reference, the writer of Macross Frontier is currently writing Guilty Crown…). This series though? The director under him is the guy who directed NHK ni Youkoso and B Gata H Kei. The series composition? None other than Mari Okada. And amongst the other scriptwriters for the episodes are the guy who wrote Senkou no Night Raid and adapted The Third and the guy who wrote Argento Soma, Betterman and Yukikaze. There really is a lot of talent involved in this series, not to mention Yoko Kanno behind the music.

In any case, this is by far the best looking series of the season. In particular the architecture is impressive here, with the kind of grandeur that’s very typical for Satelight (for example Macross Frontier, Guin Saga and Basquash). This definitely aims to be the epic of the season. And heck, I have no idea why Satelight picked the winter season of all things to go all out, but heck, it’s definitely an interesting twist.

As for the plot in this episode… it was weird. We have a main character who starts to fly whenever he’s turned on, and we’ve got a lead female who is turned on by failure. I like the themes of males versus females, although there are still a few things I’m a bit iffy about, like the forced fanservice of tihs show. I don’t mean those transformation scenes; I’m more referring to that one scene where the male lead and his companion were trying to tunnel under this show’s version of the Berlin Wall and picked the exact spot to surface that allowed them to look up the lead female’s panties. That’s just bad; but ah well, at the very least I hope that we won’t get an episode like in Macross Frontier, which was entirely dedicated to getting Sheryl’s panties back…

In any case though, this was solid build-up, meant to get to know the characters. We got a good feel for them here, and this includes the side-characters. And at the very least, the creators realize that the two leads are useless idiots. This allows the rest of the cast to stand out, compared to Guilty Crown, where the entire universe revolves around that darned male lead…

Obviously the show isn’t there yet, but I see potential for growth here. Comparing this to the other of the big three sci-fi action shows (Mouretsu Pirates and Rinne no Lagrange), it only stands out with its better graphics, but with the right script it can get quite interesting.
Rating: * (Good)

Mirai Nikki – 14

by psgels, posted in Mirai Nikki

Well, now this is something I didn’t see coming. I mean, the last episode hinted to this, but I didn’t think that the creators would actually deliver exactly what it promised. Things… are bound to become much different now.

Still, I liked such a crazy turn of events a lot. This is the point where Yuno just drops all pretense and flat-out drugs Yukiteru. It’s a bit of a shame that the uninteresting classmates seem to now have become major characters here. Also, I didn’t expect Deus ex Machina to be such a cheater by randomly appointing new diary holder. And to what extent? To save four random bystanders? Is he so much on Yukiteru’s side that he thought that he wouldn’t win the game without the help of these four? Also, if he’s a god, can’t he just randomly zap people he doesn’t like?

That returns me again to that scene earlier in the series, in which Yukiteru’s destiny got majorly changed apparently, after he looked at the room with the corpses. After watching this episode, I’m still not sure why it was that big of a deal. Heck, it probably just delayed things. If Yukiteru never looked into the room (which is pretty unlikely, but still), Yuno would probably have taken him even earlier on that little trip of hers.

In any case though, I liked how crazy this episode was in terms of plot development. The halfway point is a great point to go into a different direction, and now it’s really time for this show to pull all brakes, while also using the build-up of this first half.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Rinne no Lagrange – 02

by psgels, posted in Rinne no Lagrange

Rinne no Lagrange’s biggest flaw is its pointless fanservice. Aside from that, it definitely doesn’t stand as inferior as the other Tatsuo Sato series this season. Where Mouretsu Pirates had its characters that impressed me, Rinne no Lagrange surprised me with how creative its direction can be. And I don’t mean in the big lines; that part is pretty standard. Instead, I’m referring to the small scenes and scenarios. These were written with inspiration.

The result is a standard mecha show at first, with some nice touches once you look more closely. Ships that were destroyed last episode are still broken and help bring continuity in the world, to that one robot that was defeated being towed away… still upside down. But I’m also referring to things like getting lost while trying to find a hotspot for your cell phone. Oh, and the regular weapons actually aren’t useless this time, but actually serve their purpose to buy time.

The crowning moment of this episode however was the underwater scene. It’s a very neat idea at that point in the episode, to just have her quietly talk with her sister. when she felt down. And Youko, you made my day. You are without a doubt my favorite character of this series.

The cast in this series is fleshed out very differently from Mouretsu Pirates. Mouretsu Pirates did it by giving characters really time to play themselves out. It had humour, but that was secondary. In this show though, the tongue-in-cheek nature is much more a core part of this show, and the characters are fleshed out in how they react to everything, rather than how they act.

Oh, and that soundtrack of this show is really good here.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Phi Brain – 15

by psgels, posted in Phi Brain

Okay, who again said that this was a silly show that shouldn’t be taken seriously? I mean, whoa: this episode yet again delved into the past of Rook and Kaitou and developed the two of them even more. And in contrast to the larger parts of this series, this is some pretty heavy handed stuff. I really did not expect there to be so much psychological abuse in this series.

I mean, first there was Rook, who was used as some kind of test tube child, being confined in a freaking prison of all things. And now his grown version is trying to break Daimon Kaitou down psychologically in an attempt to make him even stronger. And heck, ever since Rook appeared, there has not been one wasted episode: every episode after that made leaps in terms of character development. The random stories of the first half did their job of building up the world, concepts and characters in this series, and right now the creators finally can start to play with them. I like this formula a lot, because even though it takes a while to get going, it’s varied, and a great way to flesh out the characters by showing them in different situations.

Also surprising is how this episode went further with Ana’s themes of Kaitou being the sun and Rook being the moon.Heck, there were a ton of moon themes in the puzzle in this episode,but what was also interesting was how they linked things to Great Henge. I mean, the concept of it being a literal puzzle like in this episode was of course a bit stupid, but Stonehenge in a way also is just like a big unintentional puzzle. It also serves as a great symbol of the sun.

The one thing I am not sure of is why the creators found it a good idea to just randomly destroy “Greathenge”… after the entire puzzle had already been solved. It made for a bit of a weird appearance by Cubic and Gammon, followed by a bit of a strange sequence in which nobody really found it sad that suddenly a millennia-old artifact got destroyed…Or did the creators need a way to get rid of that stupid robot of Cubic?
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Hunter X Hunter – 15

by psgels, posted in Hunter X Hunter

I’m now really starting to see the purpose of the fillers of the first series, and especially the boat arc: they gave character to the other contestants. At this point, the difference is really starting to show, even when I’m ignoring the fact that I can see all of the plot twists coming. Back when I watched the first series, I actually cared about the other contestants. This new version though, only gave them a few lines here and there. It’s a shame, because this bonding with everyone was one of the things that made the Hunter Exam arc so great there.

While watching this series, I’ve also gotten a bit of understanding of why why people keep going on about faithfulness in an adaptation. I’m starting to notice myself that because I already know what’s going to happen, I end up focusing much more on the details. Even small flaws stands out now. You have this image of how this series should be, and when it deviates from this, it feels more annoying than anything. Because I’m so focused on this, I’m not really enjoying this series like I used to in the first season. This is really a dilemma, because really: this remains the best shounen plot we’ve had in years. How come there weren’t any more series like this that showed up in Shounen Jump? Did the manga have no influence whatsoever on other authors or something?

This is also why I hate recap movies, and I can only watch these series when they actually try to stand on their own, instead of trying to tell the same story with only slight differences. I think that the bare minimum of changes was the Nanoha Movie: the story might have been the same, but the creators there successfully brought it down to an hour length and made it watchable for the people who didn’t watch the series. These two series however… they’re just way too similar. Right now my advice is just to watch the Hunter Exam arc of the Hunter Exam arc. After that you can just swap back to the new series for the next arc, because that will likely be done better. They’re completely interchangeable right now.

This is also why I fail to understand why people would want to watch the anime version of a manga they’ve read, when it’s just going to be the same anyway, save for some minor details that stand out.

For example, I’m not sure if this was in the first season or not (my memory of it isn’t THAT good), but it really bugged me that that monkey guy did such a terrible job at hiding himself. He went into a completely different direction, and yet they easily caught up with him. I do think however that I would have brushed this aside as a minor detail when watching the story for the first time. And I really fear that I’m going to have the same reactions when we get to my favorite part of this series, the Yorkshin Arc.
Rating: * (Good)

Mouretsu Pirates – 02

by psgels, posted in Mouretsu Pirates

As for the series I’m not going to blog:
– Kill Me Baby just is too dull for a comedy.
– High School DxD is just another shallow fanservice fighting show.
– Symphogear’s second episode thankfully wasn’t as mind-numbingly stupid as the first episode, but it still forgets to build its characters, setting, and just about everything else and just degrades to boring exposition.
– I really bet that I wouldn’t mind Nisemonogatari nearly as much as I do now if the topics that the characters talked about were actually interesting. So why do these characters keep returning to talk about pointless fanservice?
– Amagami SS: hell no.
– The Knight in the Area just doesn’t live up to the standards of the sports series genre.

I’ve already pretty much figured out which series I want to blog this season. I only have one dilemma: I’ve got room for 7 new series this season. There are 7 shows that have so far aired that I want to blog. The problem is that Smile Precure and Black Rock Shooter haven’t aired yet. So if either of those turns out awesome, I may have to drop one of the other shos I’m blogging to make place for it. I doubt that it’ll be Mouretsu Pirates though, because it’s been quite a solid show so far.

I like that despite the silly looks, this show takes itself seriously. The characters here are well acted. They’re nothing amazing yet, but for a first episode they are solid and believable. From here on, the creators can start to play with them. This definitely is a series that keeps its trumps hidden for a while, because after two episodes the lead character hasn’t even decided yet whether or not she wants to be a pirate. This show has 26 episodes, so it can take its time for that.

This kind of pacing reminds me a lot of Tatsuo Sato, especially Stellvia of the Universe and Shingu: Secret of the Stellar Wars. In fact, this show feels like a bit of a combination between the two, as both placed a lot of emphasis on letting scenes play out between the different characters. I’m especially intrigued what will happen once the huge cast of this show turns up. Do I think that this show will become a classic, like what happened last season with Hourou Musuko, Madoka Magica and Levele E, though? That, however, I doubt.

This episode had some good stuff in it. While I’m not sure how a mere high school club got their holds on an actual space ship, the way it was operated had something whimsical to it compared to the usual older crews of these things, seeing as this is mostly done as a hobby. I also really like the relationship between the lead character and her mother, ad how the lead character is given ample time to make up her decision. The hacking… was done decently. At least they went further in detail than just “oh look! we’re being attacked! let’s try to type as fast as possible to make it go away somehow!”. The way that they explained how it exactly worked really helped here.

Right now I’m going to hijack this post a bit to compare my first impressions of the season to that of other Winter Seasons, because that’s the best way to show the strenghts and weaknesses of this season. I mean, last year, Winter was awesome in the way that it delivered three amazing series: the abovementioned Hourou Musuko, Madoka Magica and Level E. Winter 2010 had only one such series: Heartcatch Precure (let’s say now that for me to consider a series to be awesome, I’d rate it 85/100). Then look at 2009, which had a whopping seven of those series (Rideback, Erin, Birdy, Shikabane Hime, Genji Monogatari and Hajime no Ippo). 2008? Also seven (Gunslinger Girl, Hakaba Kitarou, Spice and Wolf, Porfy, Shigofumi, True Tears, Aria), 2007 had three again, but two of those were classics (Nodame Cantabile and Les Miserables), while 2006 had the awesome Ergo Proxy, Rescue Wings and Ayakashi.

Based on this, the minimum of awesome series for a winter season is around three series, ignoring 2010, which was by far the worst season I ever blogged. In fact, apart from that year every winter Season had me rank three series of 87,5/100 or above (which pretty much stands for exceptionally good to me). Do I believe that this season will do the same? Well, things can still grow of course, but at the moment I do not think that this season has the caliber for that. Only Natsume Yuujinchou seems to be heading into that direction, and that’s a sequel.

However, let’s then look at a tier below that. The kinds of series that may not be anything amazing, but still well executed, fun and interesting in their own ways. The tier that Mouretsu Pirates belongs to. Setting aside the best seasons for a minute (2008 and 2009, which really can’t be beaten), and look at 2011, 2007 and 2006: then they don’t really have much else to offer. 2011 had shows as Wolverine, Gosick and Yumekui Merry. Apart from that there was mostly bland stuff. 2007 had even less: apart from Msater of Epic, Nodame Cantabile and Les Miserables, ultimately only Rocket Girls and Deltora Quest were interesting, and even then only just. 2006? Um, Hantsuki and that animated musical Nerima Daikon Brothers.

That is the tier in which this season really delivers: we’ve got Rinne, Mouretsu Pirates, Aquarion, Milky Holmes, Another, Knight in the Area, Inu X Boku, Ano Natsu de Matteru, Dansei Nichijou and if you like Shaft there’s also Nisemonogatari. Not to mention the upcoming interesting arthouse project of Black Rock Shooter, which might very well also make this list. All of them are just a lot of fun to watch and interesting to keep up with, and that’s where the real strength of this season lies. And if I turn out to be wrong and one of those does end up awesome, then that only is a very pleasant surprise.

After all, if you look at the list of awesome shows I gave for each winter season: in more than 50% of the cases I did not realize that I would end up liking these series as much as I ended up doing. After only two episodes.

Rating: ** (Excellent)

Last Exile – Ginyoku no Fam – 13

by psgels, posted in Last Exile - Ginyoku no Fam

Now this was a pleasant surprise, to see such a solid build-up episode from this show. These kinds of episodes are often in danger of just becoming boring for the sake of build-up, but they solved it really neatly with a great atmosphere, a small look into Gracies’ culture, and some good characterization. Plus I also really like how consistently the Russian was used here. The creators really put a lot of detail in this episode.

The characterization also really worked well here. The characters in this show are simple, but the acting for these guys is still quite genuine. Milia in particular stood out. It’s a nice touch that she can speak the language of Gracies (being a princess and all), and I think that this episode also showed off that she grew nicely.

Overall, after 13 episodes I do believe that this show is the worst out of the Range Murata Trilogy (Last Exile, Shangri-La, Ginyoku no Fam). It’s not so simple that one is just better than the others in every way, though. Last Exile had by far the best and most mature characterization. Shangri-La on the other hand had a really great plot that dwarfs the other two. At the same time I believe that Ginyoku no Fam is the best at describing its setting. This episode again showed that (also look at the detail that went into the various Gracien dishes, or how the people live there). The other two though, also had very good settings and to be honest, it does have the least interesting plot and characters of the bunch. Adding these together and it ends up as the worst, but even then I still quite like what this show has turned into. It’s just a series of franchises with a very high standard.

Just one thing… where are the men in Gracies…?
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Hyouge Mono – 37

by psgels, posted in Hyouge Mono

Date Masamune, the one eyed dragon.. playing Jesus with a golden cross. I have no idea how they came up with that. Still, it’s interesting that this show touched a bit upon the Christian issues of that time. It’s not a major theme, but it’s still interesting to see.

In any case, we’re two weeks away from the ending, and this really shows in the catfight between Rikyuu and Hideyoshi, of all things. Surprisingly, Sasuke is not the main drive of the conflict in this series. He’s important, but more like a bystander. When looked at the actual story the finale will be centred on Rikyuu. Although, I know Bee-Train for having really good endings, and Koichi Mashimo very likely wants to keep up this tradition with this show.

The one thing that annoys me about this show is that it’s getting harder and harder to write about this show. Not fully understanding every sentence probably isn’t helping here, but I’ve already said everything I wanted to say about this series, and am starting to suffer from writer’s block with this series. So yeah, these entries are rather short.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Some Quick First Impressions: Thermae Romae, Listen Girls, I am Your Father and Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Thermae Romae

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a roman bath architect.
Yeah, so this was without a doubt the single most unique series of the entire season. Thankfully DLE’s hack-job still didn’t prevent this one from shining. what we have here is a show about roman baths, and on top of that it’s centered on deadpan humour. That really isn’t something that a lot of anime tend to do, even though I really like that kind of humour. Most deadpan humour in anime either misses the point, or isn’t trying to be funny in the firts place. This show is based on such a strange and unusual premise, and thankfully the script can back it up. I can really see how much fun the original manga that this was based on must have been. But yeah, DLE. The thing about animation is that things need to be… animated. The one advantage that this medium has is that things actually move. Not hop around the screen in bad flash transitions. The animation in this show is just plain bad. With this hack-job you could just as well have shown a slide-show of the coloured manga and call it a deal. The one thing I have to give them: they did pick some great music to go with this show. At the very least I can say that this was by far the best thing they ever did. And half a year ago, I never expected to see a show even slightly similar to Hyouge Mono. And yet, while that series is still airing we get another show that’s entirely about a bunch of old guys talking.
ED: Bizarrely enough: the best ED of the entire season.
Potential: 75%

Listen Girls, I am your Father!

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets to live together with a bunch of cute girls.
Urgh. I keep stressing that I like series to focus on a more older cast, just than only teenagers. I know I say that a lot. But when the oldest main character of the entire season is in a show like this, I really make exceptions. This show already stood out as the worst pandering premise of the entire season. Now that I watched this episode, I unfortunately have to say that this show is exactly what it seems at first sight. Only not in the way you first expect it. The weird thing about this episode was that it took an incredibly long time to get anywhere. Most of this episode actually was build up between the lead characters and his friends from college. It really stood out in how dull it was, but with those parts it would have just been a dull average romance. Only near the end of the episode do the lead character’s little nieces start living with him, and it immediately turns into a fanservice fest full of some of the most overdone cliches. That’s where this show really descended from forgettably mediocre to just plain bad. Really, at the very least the largest part of the episode explored who the characters were. But with its true colors really being the way they are… yeah.
ED: Really bland J-pop
Potential: 1%

Dansei Koukousei no Nichijou

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a hyperactive middle schooler.
Now here is a surprise: this show turned out to be quite funny, and I laughed a lot with this episode. The characters all have a good chemistry together, and this episode was a lot of fun. The big question is for how long the creators can make it that way. To me, the characters were often not sure what kind of personality they had, and yet they still remain pretty one-sided and some of the jokes were pretty forced. There also is one very interesting thing about this series: Tomokazu Sugita. This show comes from the director of Gintama, and I have a lot of reasons to believe that he really tried to get Sugita Tomokazu (Gintoki’s voice actor) into this series. The result is that finally we can listen to the wonderful rants of this guy. His over the top rants are just hilarious to listen to. But how the heck did he think that he would get away with playing a middle schooler with that kind of a performance? I mean, I know that there are kids who grow up earlier than others and all, but seriously, something really went wrong when his balls dropped when his voice is this masculine already…
OP: Generic J-Rock
ED: Now this is a very witty way to end a comedy with.
Potential: 75%