We regret to inform you that Blogsome is going to be closing down permanently. We’ve enjoyed hosting your blogs, but all good things must come to an end. After the 7th December the admin interface of your blog may no longer be accessible and the blog content may be removed. If you would like to backup your content you can do so by logging into your blog. After this choose the Manage >> Backup tabs. Here you will find three backup options. We have recently added a WXR file option, which will allow you to import your content back into the popular WordPress.com blogging site. In order to keep your images you should select a backup of the database which includes images. We are sorry about the inconvenience and wish you good luck in your future blogging endevours. So it looks like after six years of faithful service, Blogsome is shutting down. It has been a great host so far, but unfortunately I’m going to have to look for a new one. While I think of what to do next, I also turn to my readership: does anyone have any good tips on where to move to?]]>
OVA Impressions: Yozakura Quartet – Hoshi no Umi – 03
I have no idea who found it a good idea to give Ryousuke Sawa an opportunity as a main director. But what an awesome idea it turned out to be. This guy is absolutely brilliant, and this was one of the most entertaining action episodes that I’ve seen in a long, long while.
I mean, hell. This was the climax of the arc that the previous two episodes had been building up for. Arguably it was even better than the previous two episodes because of how it constantly kept going. The previous episode may have been much more epic, with the barrage of planes that were thrown at the enemy monsters, but this episode kept things much more personal. But that caused the characters to stand out even more. Just about every scene was animated with such a force that not even a second was wasted here.
It may not be the deepest story or anything, but this still is animation at its finest with a simple, yet very engagingly told storyline. This show doesn’t just have great animation, it also uses this brilliantly. Even if other series may have a bigger budget, few actually manage to bring so much life into their characters. Last time I complained that the dialogue was perhaps a bit uninspired, but this simplicity also has its charms. And simple as the dialogue was, it definitely wasn’t uninspired, and got some good stuff out of the characters.
Unfortunately, this looks like it’ll be the end of this little OVA. In a way it is a bloody shame that this OVA can’t be a full fledged TV-series with more time, but this shortness also has its charm: this way you have about 70 minutes of awesomeness. And that’s the thing with these OVAs: they can take more risks than regular TV-series, and I’d wish that more producers would realize this. And in the meantime, I’m just hoping that with this, Ryousuke Sawa will get even more opportunities to direct.
OVA Episode Rating: 9/10]]>
Towa no Quon – 03 Review – 82,5/100
To the people who sat through the first two movies of Towa no Quon feeling rather underwhelmed: this third movie will reward your patience. It’s a massive improvement. While during the first two movies I wasn’t really sure whether the creators knew what they were doing. The third one however, showed that it knew.
For starters, the extra focus on the characters’ backgrounds really helps. This episode is specifically meant to get various characters with bad pasts relate to each other, including the main character Quon. The cast of this series goes through a massive improvement here, and finally they step away from the rather generic bunch they used to be in the first two movies.
But that’s not all that happens here. In terms of storytelling this movie also did something interesting. It plays around much more with its screenplay. The first two movies were rather mediocre at building up, but this movie contains some really good suspense that actually doesn’t leave. The build-up actually comes together really well at the end of the movie.
The director really put in some thought here in how to make this episode work, considering the very limited budget he has to work with. This leads to a movie that downplays action in favor of suspense, and that really works here. The creators really found something that they’re good at.
| Storytelling: | 9/10 – Suddenly becomes a movie that puts suspense over action, and it works. |
| Characters: | 9/10 – Has a much better feel over its characters, and how to use the drama around them correctly. |
| Production-Values: | 7/10 – For a movie’s standards, the animation here is nothing to write home about. Although that one experimental scene worked pretty nicely. |
| Setting: | 8/10 – Still not particularly creative, but it works well for what this movie was trying to do. |
Chihayafuru – 08
First of all, I do want to say that there is one point at which this series has disappointed. At first, I thought that this would also be a series about how adolescence can change people, and how much interests can change. Things like Taichi’s girlfriend, everyone aside from Chiyaha quitting Karuta as they grew up and learned new things actually made me think that such an interesting twist would play a big role in this series, but then Chihaya came and forcefully dragged everyone back.
And really: in general I do prefer the series that try something new or interesting to the ones that stay with tried and true formulas like Chihayafuru, but in this case it’s just so damn well executed that it just does not matter here. This show rocks and stands among the best of the season. The new character in this episode was actually the number the guy who went against Arata in the child tournament. It is a coincidence like hell, but it fits this show so well. Chihaya at this point really needed someone at her own level, now that Arata isn’t gonna come back for a while. This guy is exactly that.
This episode also marks the end of the second part of this series. The first part was the introduction with the flashback, the second part was the introduction of the side characters. So far there has been no episode wasted and this show has always been quick t move on to the next relevant thing. And I’m really curious to see what the next major focus of this series will be.
After eight episodes, I can also see why Chihaya is the main character of this series. It’s not that she’s talented in the way of most talented people in anime, where things often are broken down into hard work versus talent: people either excel in one of those. Chihaya’s reason for standing out does have a lot to do with hard work, but it’s slightly different from usual here: on top of working hard, she’s also got the personality that draws people into her pacing. She’s that one person in 10000 whose personality just keeps overwhelming everyone around her, taking exactly who she wants to along with her in the process.
Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>
Tamayura ~ Hitotose – 08
Well, this was the episode that still needed to come: the episode about Shihomi and Hoboro. If this show really wanted to have an all-round cast, an episodes that focuses on them was inevitable. The creators handled it well in the way that they took Potte to a friend of theirs from high school. It’s a bit more subtle to get to know them than usual for this series.
What I liked about this episode the most is that they used someone else to flesh out these two characters. That worked quite well, and it’s not as formulaic as you’d expect. Still, the formula remains there. Ideally you’d want to weave all things like this right through each other. This episode did do that with that other Kou fangirl whose name I forgot. Before the real material of this episode started we saw her also picking up photography, and even though this wasn’t her episode, she has been getting more and more bearable with every episode.
Eight episodes in, and closing off the second third of this series, the animation still is quite good here. The best animated series was probably episode 2, but even then there is a ton of movement in this series with hardly any still frames outside of pictures. What’s more though: the characters here have a lot of freedom in their movements. On one hand the animation is smooth, so it looks like the characters are really moving, and on the other hand they do move enough to really come alive.
This show has no action scenes, nor any climaxes that it needs to save its money shots for (in fact, the money shots of this show are very often still backgrounds), so it can just spend an equal amount to all of its scenes. But I think that this is an interesting comparison to series with action, who often don’t spend a lot of attention on their quiet scenes. Even though scenes like that can also bring the characters in question to life if they’re well animated. This series is a really good example of how to do that.
Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>
Star Crossed Six Year Anniversary
last year and all the years before it, I like to celebrate these events with a few statistics and some amusing search terms. Thanks everyone, for putting up with me for so long. General Statistics: Up till now, I’ve made 4639 posts and regularly blogged 175 different television series. The site has been received 7593590 unique visitors, which consist out of 3994820 first time visitors and 3,598,777 returning ones. This year alone the site got 976894 first time visitors and 1239602 returning ones. 36,571 comments have been posted (again, many thanks to everyone who posted one). Top-10 Most Accessed Series of the Past Year: 10. Ao no Exorcist 9. Star Driver 8. Mawaru Penguin Drum 7. Shiki 6. Heartcatch Precure 5. Tiger & Bunny 4. Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica 3. Stens;Gate 2. Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood 1. Les Miserables – Shoujo Cosette (I’m completely baffled that this one ended up with the most amount of visits; what do you mean that people don’t care about the WMT?) Top-10 Most Accessed Posts: 10. Eden of the East Review 9. Top 10 Anime (The old one I wrote in 2007) 8. Angel Beats Review (I have no idea why) 7. Mahou Shoujotai Review 6. Dennou Coil – 01 5. Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica – 12 4. Summer Season Preview (2011) 3. Spring Season Preview (2011) 2. Autumn Season Preview (2011) 1. Darker than Black Review (at times, I just don’t get google; though I am thankful for it) Top-20 Google Keywords: (aside from the obvious ones as “psgels”, “star crossed” and variations of “top 10 anime”) 20. senkou no night raid blog 19. clannad review 18. blassreiter review 17. showa monogatari 16. mouryou no hako 15. wanwa the doggy 14. kimi ni todoke review 13. star crossed anime blgo heroman (I’m baffled that there were 1580 people who wanted to know my opinion on Heroman…) 12. casshern sins review 11. kuragehime 11 10. kizuna ichigeki (protip for any starting bloggers out there: if nobody talks about it, then there will be very little competition on it on Google) 9. tamayura (or sometimes, you just need to get lucky ^^;) 8. you are delicious anime 7. school days review 6. clannad after story review 5. mawaru penguindrum 4. eden of the east review 3. angel beats review 2. that anime blog (I’d like to thank Impz for so diligently directing all his traffic to Star Crossed ^^;) 1. darker than black review (darker than black was very popular this year…) Amusing Search Terms “childhood friends becoming lovers” book -yaoi -werewolf -film -gay -movie Damn you Twillight! first episode of aoi bungaku contains sex Out of all the things in this series… you wanted to know about the sex scene with your dirty mind… “nudity” How did you end up on this site, exactly? 100% real life siblings having sex do japanese mothers masturbate thier sons countries where incest is not a crime incest in japan of mothers and sons have sex at clubs nowadays, do japanese siblings have sex with each other more often? Jesus christ, people! a anime character who removes panties really fast … why? fma blog opowiadanie 57][;’la04 My guess is that a cat walked over their keyboard when searching google… global warming caused the fall of the roman empire what utter bullshit Are there even people crazy enough to admit that? hetalia: axis powers gay? No, it only looks that way. hitler personality compairison email One more pointless thing I learned about the internet… how to say i like kurenai Um… “I like Kurenai” how to write congrats well deserved speech Um… “congrats well deserved speech”. It’s really not hard. i am drawn into the smell of moist asphalt and rain always scared and clenched knees Good for you! i half and wholeheartedly agree Make up your mind phone numbers of people looking for 12 year old anime voice actors Kid, I hate to break it to you, but if you want to become a voice actor, then searching like that on google is not going to help that in any way. psgels – where do you work Dude, you have the wrong idea of what google really is… psgels has bad taste I do, and I’m proud of it! what are some good anime with huge loads? Loads of what? 1+7+9+13+19+15+17+11+3+5=100 bante han 37,5:100= 25 plus 87 is 95 closer to 90 or 100? This year’s array of math questions that people dare to ask to google. is it gay to watch shounen ai likr no. 6? What? You think that just by watching it, you turn into a homosexual? how do i know if i’m pretty at 45 By waiting until you become that age, you idiot. ‘what is the next letter in this sequence z x c v n m’ You forgot the b… “interesting, but not very interesting” Make up your mind! anime 100% like ouran highschool host club Why don’t you just rewatch it if you want something 100% like it? “hetalia isn’t gay” You’re absolutely right. rie kugimiya is getting old Oh yes, she should retire. “shave” her head “anime” “episode” Every year I do these search result lists I keep getting surprised at the amount of people searching for anime in which characters cut or shave their hair. why does gosick 13 not have sound? Because you illegally downloaded the wrong file? what does…’find a unicorn mean? That you need to find a horse with a giant horn on its head. what has the same last letters as star Bar? Jar? Avatar? “the mail that leapt through time” Oh, clever wordplay “most imaginative setting” hetalia fanfic Um, no. was there ever an anime that got canceled because of hypnosiss That would be cool, but you’re probably looking for the pokemon epilepsy affair, which is something completely different i second this comment I appreciate that, but what the hell were you searching for? i watched an anime once. dude pulled a gun at the beginning of the episode, and fired it at the end, and in between it was nothing butangst. Heh, you should have watched Naruto or Dragonball Z. what do good apple seed look like I think brownish. a mysterious message coming from nowhere a mysterious message coming from nowhere.. Yes, these are two different searches. And yes, I do love how this guy thought that his search would improve by adding two periods at the end. 90 year old plays cowboy That’s very nice, but why are you searching for that? shana and yuji were meant to be together I wouldn’t be surprised if they were. 23 march 2011 how to make 5 letters Um… “a s d f g”? i can please spong ebod What? how to become ueki Please. Get a life. You’re clearly spending too much time on the internet. i’m a guy and i like kimi ni todoke Good for you! most popular series after kuroshitsuji Is this guy seriously implying that Kuroshitsuji is the most popular anime out there? O.o “two squirrels” science fiction “never die” Are you confused with Chip and Dale? (Seriously, as a kid I also thought those two were squirrels) is there a blog for anime I think that there might exist such a thing, yeah. what the hell are you doing Uh, nothing… after watching school days i dont think i can watch anime for a while Thanks for sharing that with Google anime about a girl who forgot her memory “Sorry, I forgot to take my memory with me today”. is mari okada still alive What? She died? can i get pregnant if i’m anime I have no idea why on earth you’d ever want to be anime, but no. the homoerotic adventures of he man: the never ending quest to save sasuke ep 72 This one made me laugh]]>
Mirai Nikki – 07
Yeah, this indeed was a bit of a weird episode in which the creators use a 5-year-old kid to try and outsmart the two lead characters. At first I thought that they’d have some very suspenseful build-up or something, but instead this entire episode turned into a really weird game from the kid to try and kill them.
The big problem was that it relied very much on plot convenience. The plan of the kid relied that he would be able to get away from Yukiteru’s mother long enough to send away a package, that Yuno just wouldn’t tie him up. The final ploy with the poison gas would also have been completely useless if Yuno remembered to just open some doors and window and wait a bunch of minutes.
So yeah, this episode was full of plotholes, but plotholes aren’t everything. Sure, they don’t exactly help in retaining the viewer’s suspense of disbelief, but there shouldn’t be a problem if it makes up for them as long as the story is interesting. Still, the lack of aforementioned suspense didn’t make this the most interesting episode. This is something that I’ve been noticing throughout most of the latest episode. I don’t know exactly what it is, but this series seems to be missing something in terms of delivery.
I also wonder: could another reason why Deus ex Machina picked the twelve owners of the diary be a lack of interest in becoming a god? I mean, so far I have seen nobody who really was burnt on the end goal of this series. Yuno just wants to be with Yukiteru, that twelfth guy just wanted to extract his justice, fourth just wants help with his investigations, Yukiteru just wants to live. And this episode suddenly had ninth helping out Yukiteru and Yuno, who could have been her biggest roadblocks. I wonder for what reason that turned out to be…
Rating: (Enjoyable)]]>
Phi Brain – 08
Phi Brain. What the fuck was that?
I mean, this was by far the most nonsensical episode of the entire series. I mean, at least most of the previous episodes were at least somewhat grounded in logic. The drawbridge scene…. just that drawbridge scene. Who was the idiot who thought that that was a good idea? What crazy mind saw that drawbridge, and thought: “Yeah! Daimon Kaito can only be saved by a deer!”!? Also, why did you shrug this off as if it’s the most natural thing in the world to happen?
In a way I can understand that bad guy’s reaction in the end. I mean, would you believe that your evil plans got thwarted by a FREAKING DEER, of all people? I sure as heck wouldn’t buy it. That fit of him was completely unjustified, because there is no way his henchman would have been able to anticipate such a ridiculous plot twist, but at least I can imagine why he did it….
Also, this show has settled in a very bizarre formula in which Daimon Kaito has to solve the puzzles of dead people who all used their puzzles to show some kind of message to their offspring. The bizarre part of this is that Daimon Kaito always ends up solving them, because nobody else but him is allowed to do so. This at least somewhat makes sense compared to that freaking deer, because it was their job and all, but if they wanted to leave a puzzle for their offspring, couldn’t they just have made a puzzle that’s not a puzzle of god? Ah, what the heck am I doing? Do we still need to search for logic after what happened in this episode?
Rating: $&^%# (Wtf?!)]]>
Ben-To – 07
Well, it’s ndeed been a while since I saw a pool episode that was this crazy. Pool episodes are a trend that along with hot spring and beach episodes should really die off, but thankfully the creators realized that, and didn’t make this yet another copy of those, but instead used it to set the stage of another entertaining battle for half-priced food. This entire episode was delightfully silly.
This episode had some parts that were just wrong, and there perhaps were a few too many pervert jokes made at Sato’s expense, but it also had parts that were completely hilarious, like the guy in the penguin-suit, the way in which everyone’s leg cramped up in the water or the completely inexplicable way in which half the cast ended up at the pool. That takes you two full hours to reach by train. Neat way to poke fun at how everyone always seems to run into each other in these kinds of episodes.
But this episode again had the thing that sets this show apart from the other fanservice shows: it knows exactly when to be quiet. The build-up before each battle, was again wonderfully used, and the aftermath was the same: wonderfully down to earth compared to the chaos of the rest of the episode.
Also, this episode drew and described its food with such detail that it actually made me hungry….
Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>
Hunter X Hunter – 08
The beauty of Hunter X Hunter: most other shounen heroes would probably have died by now if they also would have taken the exam. The start of this episode deliberately took its time, to show how stupid it is to just rush in without any idea of what you’re up against. Also, it’s interesting to see that the pacing has slowed down tremendously here: in this episode they only got to wrap up the fight with Tonpa. I think that in two weeks, we’ll get to the point in which the original series really caught my eye. That will be the point to see whether this series did a good job in building up.
As for the Tonpa-fight though, that is unfortunately something that the first series did better. This is because Tonpa already revealed himself to be a total bastard during the running exam. Everyone knew that he shouldn’t be trusted, and that made for a very awkward episode when they learned they had to work together with him. In this episode though, we had Leorio yell at him for no possible reason. At this point they had no reason to really distrust Tonpa, as the only one who realized the nature of the laxative was Killua. And perhaps Gon, if he put 2 and 2 together in his head about the laxative and the frog.
Still the crowning moment of this episode still did work. The point where Killua revealed the big prisoner’s strategy was just wonderfully done. It was hilarious, but at the same time it just showed how easily you can screw up in this series. And that’s also the beauty of the fights in this tower: they’re not just “spam powers and punches until the other side goes down”. No, the characters really have to use their heads here.
Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>