Now this was pretty much my favorite episode of Tamayura so far. It was just one huge chunk of atmosphere, and it had an absolutely wonderful balance between doing nothing, and heart-warming moments. That’s really my favorite type of slice of life series: the ones who can achieve as much as possible, while remaining as down to earth as possible.
Most festival episodes, whether they are town festival, school festival or sports festival episodes, have this nasty tendency of appearing everywhere. Most of them unfortunately have devolved into randomly picking a bunch of events from a list of things you normally do at those events, and lumping them together as if it’s some sort of obligation. This episode created a festival with character. At its core it’s nothing new: remembering the dead is something as old as mankind itself. But this festival felt part of Takehara. It’s something that everyone really wanted to share with Potte, and the impending rain was used really well, while at the same time this episode showed some good restraint in not making the drama around it too heavy.
This episode just did a wonderful job of bringing the cast together. We even saw some characters of the OVA again, but even beyond that, this festival’s purpose beyond remembering the dead is bonding people together.
This just shows that this series is made by a team that’s really well versed in how a slice of life series works. Comparing it to Aria, I’d at the moment rate it around Aria the Natural’s level: it feels much tighter put together unlike The Animation, but the character-development is nowhere near The Origination. Compared to The Natural meanwhile, it’s a bit less impressive in terms of originality of both its overall setting and scenarios, but makes up for it by being much easier to sit through (oh lord, trying to watch that entire series took some effort…).
Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>
Mirai Nikki – 06
Um. Yeah. So I did hope for more time to flesh out the characters. With that however, I did not mean to just devote an entire episode on romantic hi-jinks. That’s just boring. At least try to blend things in a bit.
So on one hand this episode was just annoying, with Yukiteru’s mother and all. It’s overdone, it’s not very good, and could have been done much better. It was full of bad cliches from your standard romantic comedy.
What also really bugged me though, was that this episode had no build-up whatsoever. We just have a bunch of random hi-jinks, followed by a shot of psycho Yuno, with no attempts to build up atmosphere. The same goes for the new diary holder. You’re supposed to introduce these characters with an air of mystery. Having a kid as the next diary holder is a surprise. It doesn’t work when you don’t build up this mysterious atmosphere around her and just have her immediately show these dolls of her that have been in the OP for ages. The problem with this show is that nearly every character is crazy. You can’t just throw in yet another crazy character and just hope that it’ll automatically work.
Rating: – (Disappointing)]]>
Ben-To – 06
I must say I love the camera work in this show. It doesn’t have the largest budget, but the clever use of camera angles, along with the soundtrack, has actually made up for this lack pretty well. And then there is the introduction of this episode which wonderfully played with that.
In any case, this was the midway climax for this series. The Monarch really looked like he was going to be the end boss… only he already got beaten. Looking back, he fits much more as a mid-boss like this. Have something more creative for the final fight.
Having said that, I’m impressed with how this show handled this climax. After the introduction, the comedy was completely gone, and it went for action and drama. And I have to say that it worked really well. Liking the Monarch together with the pasts of some of the other characters did a great job of putting some drama under the fights, even though it turned the side-characters into the interesting ones, and not Monarch himself.
And beyond that there still is the rock-solid characterization of this show. I especially like the part in each episode in which the characters just sit and eat what they conquered.
Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>
Phi Brain – 07
This show. I still have no idea what to make of it. Why does it care so little about making sense? And why at the same time does it work so well on the emotional level?
The use of kids in this episode was just… bizarre. We first had this kindergarten teacher who is actually a member of POG. She then takes a bunch of random toddlers along with her, without ever explaining what happened to their parents, and brings them inside a dangerous building that’s at the verge of collapsing. Some random bad guy then appears from out of nowhere and locks the door everyone’s in, and instead of helping to solve the puzzles in question she made herself as quickly as possible, she spends her entire time trying to bust open a locked door. Add that to the bizarre leaps in logic this show already has.
And yet the characters in this episode were really charming. And I have no idea why. Granted, the teacher in question had a solid story, and the use of atmosphere was really great, but could that alone have been enough? Nonoha was well acted in this episode, and the characters here are far from tedious to watch, bizarrely enough.
In a way this show reminds me of Suteki Tantei Labyrinth. I’m not sure how many people actually watched it back when it aired, but it basically involved this kid who had to solve some of the most ridiculous mysteries, and even though it was very childish and incredibly far-fetched at times, it was fun and had surprisingly enjoyable characters, unlike what you might expect when you first see it. The thing is however, that that show did have a “so bad it’s good factor”. It was great to see how crazy it could become, and it had A TON of cheese. Phi Brain doesn’t really have cheese, though. Its drama is simple but genuine, but it’s not exactly angst-filled or something.
Rating: * (Good)]]>
Fate/Zero – 07
Hmm, the creators really are putting Saber in the underdog role. In this episode she again gets saved from being killed in the midst of battle, she walks into any trap her opponents throw at her, she has most of the enemies going after her, she is the only one who has gotten handicapped. I mean, if she really is supposed to be the king of kings, then she doesn’t need this. This is why I like Kotomine Kirei: at first he seemed to be the one who was going to play the role of main character, and yet his role in the story is a very interesting one as an observer.
In any case though, what I am very happy about is that again the battles are set up so that they can involve as many characters as possible. This episode already gathered three master/servant pairs and that makes things much more interesting than if it was just two characters fighting each other, due to the slow nature of the battles in this series. The intrigue works well, and I especially liked the battle between Emiya and Kayneth and that silver blob of his. Although the climax of the episode was a bit weird, in which Emiya first yelled before shooting, announcing his presence that he masked with so much care, so that Kayneth could react against it…
Oh, and by the way: this episode was very good at building up atmosphere. The thing about this season is that the majority of all good series (not counting the usual crap as Maken-Ki of course) are actively building up to something, and they all do this in many different ways and forms. This season has more long shows than any season since Spring 2009. Fate/Zero is a tad slow for my liking, but it has some very good promise on its second half here.
Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>
Hunter X Hunter – 07
Here’s the strange thing with this series: at first you’d think that they’d try to rush through the first material Brotherhood-style in order to get to the new parts… only for the pacing to slow down significantly afterwards. This episode? It was just about Gon and Killua playing a game with the hunter exam chief. With this pacing, I assume that the creators are aiming to make every episode significantly different from the other, so that every week will be a different experience. Or at least that seems to be the plan until the arcs get longer.
The result is a bit strange. In this way, some chapters are rushed through (most notably this is what happened last week, but also the first episode had this), while others really take their time, like this one. I mean, next week will be completely different, and this episode just consisted out of the characters killing time before it happens. Less than 50% of the episode was spent on some very good characterization. The rest, more than 10 minutes, was spent on a simple game. If the creators wanted, they could have done this in about half an episode by clever cutting and pasting, however I do like the charms of this episode. Building up is always tricky to not drag on, but this episode had a very nice “calm before the storm”-atmosphere that is very different from the norm.
The standout point of this episode however was near the end, when Killua gave up and ran into those two guys. That was the proof that the creators have no intention to tone down the gore in this series and are not afraid at all to make it dive into the darker parts of the story. Now, all that I want to see is hints that they also plan the same with the dialogue. Meticulously detailed dialogue is pretty much a requirement for the Yorkshin arc.
Rating: * (Good)]]>
Last Exile – Ginyoku no Fam – 05
This episode was a bit of a step back, mostly due to how it got a bit too silly at times. There is in particular the point in which Fam stood in front of the idiot commander, and the point at which Millia decided to dress up as a maid. That does not fit this setting at all. We’ve got enough moe shows doing that already. Why do so many shows insist in adding a maid, just for the sake of adding a maid?
Then there is the way in which the characters were rather off-model. This unfortunately is typical Gonzo, but thankfully they have shown many times in the past that even after dips like these, they can still deliver excellent action scenes. The best example of that was Shangri-La, which on one hand had horrible off-character models on one hand, and absolutely gorgeous and ground-breaking 3D effects on the other. In any case, the worst were the mechanics in this area, as while Fam just looked off-model, they just looked silly.
This episode meant to introduce the crew of the Silvius. Overall the problem was that there were too many carbon-copies of the same characters. The creators did pick a number of distinct character designs to portray the crew, and characters like the cook, the navigator, the head engineer: there are still plenty of characters who stand on their own. What clever writing should have done is to create just enough mechanics for the setting to feel alive, without making any two of them like a carbon-copy of another. The first season actually did this.
The interesting thing though, was that just as this show looked like it was getting too silly for its own sake… it recovered. the final quarter of this episode was strong character-building and it also added quite a bit of intrigue with Millia’s sister’s whereabouts revealed. The acting in this series is very peculiar. I mean, most of the characters do know how to act, and there are a lot of very solid performances, and then once in a while they slip out into these silly stupid moments, or meet very badly acted side-characters who only appear for a minute. The acting of this series ranges from near the best of the season to near the worst of the season.
Rating: * (Good)]]>
Hyouge Mono – 30
Is it me, or did Sasuke’s voice just change? It feels much deeper than before. It made this episode a bit weird: he’s still this smug anti-hero who will go through any lengths for the sake of great art, but it didn’t feel like we were listening to the same guy rambling.
Overall, this episode was the first one in a while that felt a bit lukewarm, mostly because it was again dedicated to building up. I was also a bit disappointed that after last episode, Sennou Soueki suddenly got hospitalized. At this point, this show still needs a few trumps to end with. Bee-Train usually knows how to do this, but then again they don’t often do straight manga adaptations, and when they do they pick manga that are impossible to end.
Perhaps the part that I liked the most was the focus on Edo. The modern images made no sense in Blade of the Immortal, but with everyone’s eyes raised at the possibilities of the future (heck, the founder of Japan is a major character in this series), they fitted perfectly, and it’s a nice touch to show the beginnings of Roppongi here.
Rating: * (Good)]]>
Mawaru Penguin Drum – 18
Yeah, this episode was another one of those “batman having tea with superman”-episodes. This episode was just amazing, as it combined the talents of two wildly different directors, Kunihiko Ikura and Shigeyasu Yamauchi, into one. The result was an episode with a ton of weird twists, strong character development and a ton of symbolism, combined with a style that is masterful at getting genuine emotions out of the characters and terrific at subtle pacing.
I can’t believe how well the two blended with each other. Tabuki really got a wonderful episode through this. Ikuhara even gave Shigeyasu Yamauchi the freedom of handling the background art much different from usual, and that too resulted in a ton of eye candy. Tabuki ended up as a great villain through this. On top of that Momoka also got a lot of depth, and the main cast also got much closer to each other. Especially the aftermath of this episode felt very intimate.
Also, the eye-catch. It just revealed another turning-point, as expected. Right now we’re in the background arc, in which all of the side-characters get the chance to show their stories and backgrounds. At the moment the only ones left are Tabuki and the parents who set everything in motion. I can only imagine what the creators have planned for after that. It’s that final arc where they really have to show that they know how to use their build-up.
Rating: *** (Awesome)]]>
Un-Go – 05
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Another excellent episode. Perhaps it wasn’t as good as the previous two episodes, but it still rocked, was well put together and very thoughtful. If only because of how it subverted a very common cliche: the big corporate bastard did it.
In this episode, even the main character got clouded by it, and the corporate bastard indeed wasn’t exactly Jesus in purgatory. He used the death of his subordinates for his personal gain and publicity and embezzled a ton of gold illegally. Normally in anime, this would be the bad guy. Instead though: he’s not a murderer. Finally we get a portrayal f these people that isn’t completely evil at its core.
Also, with the lack of time this show spends on characterization, I do have to say that it has found interesting yet subtle ways to still flesh out its main cast. This isn’t only done by making their beliefs and values a core part of each episode, but also with small things, like when Shinjuurou grabbed all the towels in the restroom. It perhaps doesn’t work as well as just showing these characters during moments when nothing plot-related is going on, but this works too.
Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>