Un-Go – 09

by psgels, posted in Un-Go

And with this, we’ve pretty much abandoned the episodic nature of this series and are heading off to the finale where everything will come together, even though we’ve still got to wait for the preview movie to explain everyone’s backgrounds.

There is some serious potential for the ending of this series. At this point we already know that the writers of this show are just terrific: in terms of storytelling. Along with Hyouge Mono and Penguin Drum, we’ve got three upcoming endings who really have the potential to become amazing. There is a very big but here though.

Simply: Bettenou will either make or break this finale. I say this because she has some really good points, but also some bad points. The good points turn her into one of the most interesting villains around: the mystery around her. it’s a very neat idea to have the main villain of a show be a master of illusions, who can even bend those illusions into reality. Because of this, there was no way of knowing what was real. This was a very paranoid episode, because how much of it really happened? When this was revealed, it made all the more impact.

At the same time though, all we got to see of her was a bunch of random images. Heck, did she even speak yet? At the moment she’s only being fleshed out through her illusions, and the people’s reactions around her. This worked really well for Kaishou in this episode: as a side-villain he rocked. Again you don’t know exactly what his motives are, but there are a ton of possibilities with this guy. This show may not spend time fleshing out its characters, but it found some very interesting alternatives to still have a memorable cast by forcing us to read between the lines about them. As for Bettenou though, will that work as well? We’ve seen so little about her. Hiding a villain until the end is very tricky to pull off right. Blood-C pulled it off, but there the main villain’s air was all over the series. Un-Go is different and Beauteou is only one of all the different villains who all have hardly anything to do with each other.

It’s going to be important to bring everything together, and show the power of a conclusion of a semi-episodic series. Bring both the setting and characters to a new level, while retaining the same sense of storytelling that made the previous episodes so good.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

OVA Impressions: Kyousogiga

by psgels, posted in OVA Impressions

Now, Kyousogiga just aired. It’s an anime original one-shot OVA from Toei animation, directed by the same woman who directed the Heartcatch Precure movie. And holy crap it looks gorgeous.

And it’s not just one part of the 25 minutes. In fact, the only parts of this episode that didn’t look awesome was the ending credits. It just kept the balls in the air, and even the small build-up scenes were really creatively animated, in many different ways. You can really see that a lot of different talents participated in this episode.

On top of that though: this also has a lot of heart. This could have been an arthouse work and just got things over with, but the characters too were really enjoyable. It’s the simple story of a bunch of random… supernatural thingies that are stuck in some sort of more “normal” world, with a main theme of just wanting to go back. You can’t put much more into 25 minutes if you also want to create a fun and action packed OVA, but it worked really well with the portrayal of the character as a bunch of innocent, yet confused and very powerful kids. In the end it’s both fun and has a subtle touch of emotion to it.

Kyousogiga is a one-shot OVA, and if you’ve got 20 minutes to burn: go for it. It’s pretty much the best one-shot we’ve seen in more than a year. And yet: it deserves more. The end of this episode hinted at more, but that could very much be wishful thinking on the creators, but it would be wonderful for this show to get an actual full TV-Series. I’d definitely blog that.
OVA Episode Rating: 8.5/10

Chihayafuru – 10

by psgels, posted in Chihayafuru

For weeks now, I’ve kept trying o find a reason why Karuta is interesting. With this, I’ve found it: the team matches. With the way this episode went down, there will be plenty of inspiration to fill an entire season.

Here’s the thing: throughout this episode we breezed through three different teams. That’s incredibly fast for a sports series’ standard, and yet the creators made all teams unique, and they did so in a completely non-formulaic way: the first got character because of their strongest player intimidating Desk-kun. Then the second used their scary faces, and the third actually had a pretty interesting tactic that you wouldn’t expect from an opposing team: one that puts a ton of emphasis on communication. And then the next math will be between some old acquaintances of Chihaya.

This was the same in the first time this series went to a tournament, when Arata, Taichi and Chihaya still were kids: the creators really put in a ton of details to make these matches varied and interesting.

On top of that, this was just really well delivered. Every single character here stood out and got some development. Everyone was growing more into their roles and stood out. Desk-kun had a very relatable reaction of being unable to do anything. Kanade stood out because of the outfits, Yuusei was surprisingly witty with his remarks, Chihaya showed some flaws in this episode, and Taichi was still on the roll as the team captain, trying to keep everyone together. He may not be comparable to Chihaya or Yuusei, but his leadership does make him un-rivaled.

I really like how this show combines hard work with talent here. I mean, if Yuusei and Taichi didn’t stop playing, they would probably be much better than Chihaya is right now. Chihaya’s skills stand out because she has been practicing non-stop since her childhood, and kept trying to get better, eventually overtaking all of the ones she knew as a child because they did stop playing.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Tamayura – 10

by psgels, posted in Tamayura


Once again: what a heart-warming episode. Finally it’s Kaoru’s turn to get an episode, and this may just have been the best of the character focused episodes so far. If anything, this episode stood out because of how well acted it was. Not just Kaoru (who was wonderfully portrayed, by the way), but the entire cast really shined in this episode. To me, this was the episode where the cast managed to reach a new level.

It’s not just that Kaoru’s development and place with the series as the one who isn’t sure what she wants to do has been grounded. It’s also how this reflected to the rest of the cast. Potte admitting that she sometimes doubts whether she really wants to continue with photography for the rest of her life. It’s small, but THAT was a terrific addition to her character. Or take Maon: she’s now miles away from the girl who only whistled at the beginning of the series. Norie’s puke story was also both hilarious and adorable, but also the way in which she said it was very natural, compared to how over the top she was when we first started out with her.

Ten episodes in, and I really have to say: the creators succeeded in creating an absolutely wonderful cast. I dislike the type of slice of life shows where just nothing interesting happens, but this show struck a terrific balance. It was a bit weak at the beginning with the one-sided characters and a bit too much crying, but all of these flaws pretty much went away as this show solidified.

At the start of this series, I kept hoping for this show to deliver that final “oomph” in the end. It’s tie to see whether this show can set itself apart even more. This isn’t a manga adaptation, so the creators can fully plan in an ending of theirs, rather than this show just ending on a random story.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

I have moved!

by psgels, posted in Special Articles

And at last, I managed to buy my own domain. Please everyone, update your bookmarks quickly because psgels.blogsome.com will go offline in a few days.

There are still a few things I need to tweak here and there (for example the links in the top bar aren’t the right ones yet), but I’ll update those along the way. This really is a site that I can fully edit from top to bottom, so I’m really going to use it once in a while to try out something new. I’ll be able to do much more with this site this way, so if you’ve got a request for a new feature: don’t hestitate to ask.

As for new features, I added two new widgets to make navigating to the latest posts and reviews a bit easier. I also made the theme a bit more spacious, and added an actual shoutbox (let’s see if this one’s better than the CBox I used to have).

This was a bit of a rush job, so this site is a work in progress (December really is a busy month for me, with the site move, me actually moving out of the house in real life and the upcoming 2011 summary again). Don’t hestitate to comment on what you think of it, though.

Mirai Nikki – 09

by psgels, posted in Mirai Nikki



Rather than Yukiteru finally manning up, I think there’s a different explanation for his behavior. with this episode, I’ve really gotten convinced that Yukiteru has a bipolar disorder. I mean, every single diary owner is crazy. Being a wimp is nice and all, but I do not see Deus ex Machina select a wimp amidst various kinds of deranged lunatics. A guy with multiple personalities fits much more: throughout this series Yukiteru kept switching from an incredible wimp to a pragmatic hero whenever he needed, which lead to a huge personality shift. It’s perhaps this inner beast of him that lead to him getting a future diary.

Now, the actual mind games in this episode were a bit questionable. The white-haired guy’s plan only worked because of plot convenience, the plot also relies a lot upon the fact that the dogs of the bad guy are so bothered by their metal beaks that they can’t run fast, and it took the characters an awful long while to realize that you can call an ambulance.

That’s just nit-picking, though. In general, these things tend to stand out due to a lack of interesting things happening to distract from this. In this show’s case, it’s the characterization that still feels like it’s missing something: for me, most of the characters aren’t very interesting to watch. I still haven’t exactly pin-pointed what this series seems to be missing, as obviously it has Yuno being the mother of all yandere. It’s probably because the rest of the cast is a bit too bland here, but why? I mean, Un-Go spends far less time on characterization and yet it has far better characters.
Rating: * (Good)

Phi Brain – 10

by psgels, posted in Phi Brain



This episode was very bizarre for its romantic subtext. Episodes about idols are nothing new in anime, and most of them are pretty terrible. And here comes Phi Brain who comes with an idol who hosts and creates puzzles of doom.

Most of the times these idols are used to make the protagonist feel special. The latest persona episode was a good example of how dull that can be. Here though… Daimon Kaito is instead a rabid fanboy of her puzzles. Instead, Gammon is being set up as her equal in terms of solving puzzles, with a ton of romantic hints between the lines. It’s like, the roles were reversed in this episode if it wasn’t for the fact that Kaito still had to solve the puzzle. He acted pretty much like a side-character in this episode.

And then there was the ending of this episode. What idiot forgets about winning ten million yen? And I accidentally watched next week’s preview. Next week will be crazy….
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Nurarihyon no Mago – Sennen Makyou – 22

by psgels, posted in Nurarihyon no Mago




Seriously, this is the best I’ve seen Studio Deen in since Giant Killing ended. For the first time in one year and two months (which is a really long time for a studio that releases so many series), I’ve been impressed by these guys again on a series. It is about bloody time.

Obviously Hunter X Hunter is the best shounen at the moment, but still: after being disappointed by Ao no Exorcist, the first Nurarihyon no Mago series, Sket Dance, Toriko, Bakuman’s first season, Sacred Seven and Tegami Bachi Reverse, it feels very good to see a shounen actually end well. This conclusion was what a conclusion should be. Not just “let’s just kick the bad guy’s ass and get things over with”. Have things happen at the same time. Put things at stake. Nue’s resurrection worked really well for that. It’s just such a damn shame that we had to wait forty bloody five episodes for that to happen.

I can see the intentions of Nurarihyon no Mago: a shounen series about leading an army. Most shounen leads really are a hundred years too early to be leading an actual army, so it definitely has potential. But then make it about actually leading an army. This show dabbled way too often in things that just did not batter in the long run. The anime is at fault, but the story of the manga also did not help: the introduction still was way too long. Because of that, there is no way that I’m going to recommend this series. But now that I’ve gotten so far, it’s at least very gratifying that my patience is finally being rewarded.

Nue’s resurrection in particular was a great way to spice this arc up. As the red thread connecting everything for the villains: there are a lot of different parties, but it’s this desire for Nue (or Abe no Seimei that connects all of them together, with his mother, Hagoromo Gitsune at the center). Her end here was pretty good with the revelation of how the body that she used to inhabit was pretty much used. The constant flashbacks to the part where Rikuo’s father was killed also paid off here, with the revelation of how things really went. A surprisingly good example of the use of repetition.

Also, the animation at the part where the Skull died. Good stuff there.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Hunter X Hunter – 10

by psgels, posted in Hunter X Hunter



What also sets Hunter X Hunter apart from all other shounen series: the slow pacing means something. One of the big problems with shounen is the “I’m about to kill you… but first let me explain in the fullest detail how I’m going to it, and then explain some more about it in case you didn’t get it the first time”. Hunter X Hunter meanwhile is meant to be an endurance test. Battles in this series aren’t a matter of whacking each other until one side goes down. Furthermore, this exam is all meant to draw time. Finally there are some explanations about why things have to take a long time. And that makes up for a lot here.

Last episode I was confused because the bit about the disfigured guy pretending to be unconscious, because it was introduced by someone else. In the first series, it was the bald guy who did all the talking for the prisoners here. It’s a matter of characterization, really. In the first series, this turned the bald guy into a leader figure, while he was an idiot in this episode. Instead it made the female prisoner much more ominous, which is why I’m really looking forward to next week, knowing what she has in store for Leorio and instead she was a bit of a one trick pony in the first series.

Bizarrely enough this show does include more explanation than the first. That was my one complaint about this episode: the explanations feel a bit out of place in tone with the cartoonish distorted faces, and how the explanations feel too much like a lecture for a young audience. It’s again about the delivery and the voice acting here. And really, if the voice acting of the first series wasn’t so damn good I probably would never whined about it. To try and explain it, the voice acting there had more depth to it, if that makes any sense.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Ben-To – 09

by psgels, posted in Ben-To



You know, I really want to hate this episode for having so much episode and main character abuse. But it was done so well. It’s been a while since I laughed at an episode as much as with this one. laughed, and the direction was amongst the best of the series so far.

And don’t get me wrong: if the creators would have just regularly animated this episode like how most moe shows do it, it would have been absolutely horrible. The direction really made this episode. This ranges from interesting camera angles, the way in which the first half show the same events at different angles, and the incredible force with which they showed Ume here. Both as this obsessive stalker as tour de force.

The part before the OP was also utterly hilarious. Finally! A version of the “terrible cook”-trope that isn’t derived! Instead of just having a character screw up majorly when scrambling an egg, or just throwing in random stuff that makes no sense, this dish here was so bizarre with its flavors that it finally brought some new life in a horse that I once thought was dead.

Seriously though, with Basquash, I already noticed that Shin Itagaki was a special kind of director, who really had a knack for making things unbelievably fun, despite seeming juvenile at first. With Basquash, he lost his touch after about 6 episodes, until being fired from the show completely, but here we’re at episode 9 and you can still see his influence on making the scenes have impact and doing the manga source material really justice. He’s still rather inconsistent, as evidenced by last week, but still: I notice a definite improvement and maturation in his style, and I look forward to seeing more of him.

My one complaint is that we haven’t seen food battles in two episodes now. What the hell?
Rating: *** (Awesome)