OVA Impressions: Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Kira – 02

by psgels, posted in Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, OVA Impressions



I’m a fan of Studio Deen…. but not this year. So far, I consider them to be even worse than AIC, because at least AIC delivered Hourou Musuko and Persona 4 this year. Something really needs to happen to them, because in the past they have delivered plenty of classics.

This episode thankfully was not as abysmal as the first episode of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kira. At least stuff happened. Instead, this was just boring. It was pretty much like the silly episodes of Higurashi Rei, only worse. The reason why they worked well with Rei and not here is simple:
1) those episodes were simply better executed. They did what the TV-series did, only more over the top. It was varied, the characters had fun with each other and the timing and delivery was good. Instead though, you can really see how much the new director hurts here. This episode felt lackluster, the characters one sided and its scenario was just dull and predictable.
2) In Higurashi Rei, the silly episodes were wrapped around an amazingly written storyline focused on Rika. They juxtaposed well because of that: on one hand you have the characters just having fun, and other other hand there are the hard hitting storylines that made this show big. Take away the latter, and you have just random episodes that try to be funny, but because of reason 1), aren’t.

Here’s the thing: the silly episodes of the previous installments of Higurashi added to the characters. This however reduces the cast to caricatures. The preview to the next episode suffers from this as well: it on purpose focused on the caricatures of the cast.
OVA Episode Rating: 6/10

Some Quick First Impressions: Battle Spirits Heroes, Busou Shinki Moon Angel and Working’!!

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Battle Spirits Heroes

Short Synopsis: Our lead character plays a childrens’ card game.
Every season has its array of kiddie shows, so this one is no different. I do like to check out the first episode of each of them, although this does get really repetitive after a while, especially when nearly all of them are just having a competition to see who can rip each other off the most. Battle spirits though… is nowhere near the worst of the bunch. And don’t get me wrong: it’s silly, but it’s not too silly, nor overly dramatic. It’s been a while since I’ve seen such an opening series of such a kiddie shounen that didn’t cover either a hot blooded match with an overly villainous rival or some kind of epic world threatening stake. Instead, the main character plays one match, loses and isn’t angsty about it at all, and helps to test out the holographic system that is this show’s excuse to actually make those battles interesting. The only reason he won there is because nobody told his opponent that the rules had hanged. At least the chemistry between the characters is decent, but it has one major flaw though: everyone acts the same. Seriously, just about every character in this series is snarky in various degrees.
OP: Decent for a kiddie show.
ED: Badly sung and very generic J-Rock.
Potential: 10%

Busou Shinki Moon Angel

Short Synopsis: Our lead character randomly finds a battle toy in a tree.
For me there are pretty much two big mysteries of the upcoming Autumn Season: what can HunterXHunter seriously hope to add, and is Busou Shinki Moon Angel going to be anything more than a glorified commercial? As for the first, we’ll probably have to wait a really long time before that answer is clear. As for the latter… well, this episode WAS a glorified commercial, there’s no way around it: it’s an advertisement for a doll maker, and lo and behold, we have a show where the toys all have superpowers and a random boy finds one for himself. This indeed all screams blatant, which makes the good direction even more awkward. The action is decent, the pacing is nice, the use of music is pretty nice. That’s the thing with this series: if this would have been a full fledged production it would have a near dream-team for its staff; it really was one of the more solid match-ups of the entire season. Overall though: they can definitely do better. This episode had executive meddling written all over it. Especially the script is no excuse for the main writer of Bounen no Xamdou. Will I keep watching for a few more episodes though? Yes. It’s only five minutes.
Potential: 40%

Working’!!

Short Synopsis: Our lead character works at a restaurant with a lot of cute girls in it.
Oh, we’re having a pre-airing special this season. Ironically, it’s from the series that I was looking forward to the least. To my surprise however, it was nowhere as bad as I feared. This was definitely the best episode that I’ve seen from Atsushi Ootsuki. Okay, so for the director of Motto To-Love Ru, Ladies Versus Butlers and Kanokon this isn’t really hard, but the slice of life parts of this episode were actually pretty decent. It’s the comedy however, where it completely lost me. For starters, I didn’t even laugh once in this episode, but what’s worse is that it was very repetitive, and this episode just kept repeating its jokes over and over. A lot were the same jokes that I also remember from when I checked out the first two episodes of the first season. The thing with these characters is that they all have one or two quirks, and they try to show these quirks to the viewer as often as humanly possible, even if they make no sense whatsoever in the process (one character is obsessed with small things to the point where he cries for ten full minutes because someone swatted a fly), and that got old really fast. There were some original jokes that nearly worked, but my standards for comedies are really high: if it didn’t make me laugh out lout, then I refuse to sit through cringe-worthy humour in the hopes that at some point the creators might get lucky and deliver an actual joke that works.
Potential: 10%

Hyouge Mono – 23

by psgels, posted in Hyouge Mono



This episode was about Sasuke’s new mansion as the lord of Olive. The mansion was… weird. Instead of being all flamboyant like with what Hashiba Hideyoshi did to his castle, this mansion was made to look old and run down…

The best part however was Sennou Soueki’s part in this. It’s been a while since we’ve seen any emotion from him, and in fact the only times we’ve really seen it is when he was touched by in his eyes beautiful works of art. That only happened once before. Furthermore, to actually force Sasuke to use a main room that he actually doesn’t like also was awesome. And heck, Sasuke’s name is already starting to spread because of the new mansion.

Next season… Thursdays will be completely crazy. Seriously, this season had the benefit that Usagi Drop was laid back, and No.6 was also fairly straight-forward. Next season, Hyouge Mono, Penguin Drum, Persona 4, Un-Go and Guilty Crown will all air on the same days. How much balls can you stuff into one day anyway?!

In fact, after I looked a bit more into the actual programming, the next season seems bizarrely strictly laid out: Monday will be the day of slice of life, with both Tamayura, Kimi to Boku and Squid Girl, Sunday will be the day for shounen with Hunter X Hunter, Gundam, Phi Brain and Mirai Nikki, Thursday will be for the older crowd with the series mentioned above. Only Saturday is a hodgepodge of random series. Incidentally the harem shows don’t seem to care about this pattern at all and just air whenever the hell they like.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Blood-C – 11

by psgels, posted in Blood-C



It’s not like I can’t understand the hate behind this series. I myself am incredibly biased against overacting moe stereotypes. so any build-up of atmosphere or character gets lost on me for those shows (that’s also why I am not going to bother with The Idolmaster no matter how good people say it ends up to be). But found this episode to be amazing.

I’m really glad to see that this series knew how to build up. A major problem of mystery series is that they are excellent in asking questions, but rather straight-forward in answering them. This episode revealed the nature behind this world, and it did a wonderful job at it. The backstory of this show is very imaginative. The previous episodes hinted enough to it, but this show really has a unique role for its main character, and in particular the side characters, even though they took a huge risk with it.

I mean, the drag turned out to be a major part of the plot: Saya herself just wouldn’t remember, and so the side characters all got sick of waiting and pretending to be stock characters. Saya staying the same: also part of the plot: the whole point of it was to see whether she could do that. I especially love how just about every character has been putting up a huge act in front of Saya. I mean, I saw that coming, but not in this magnitude. Seriously, in terms of overall plot, I’d say that the balls of this series this season are second to only Penguin Drum. I love the shows like these that take risks like this.

With this, I can really forgive the wait. I mean, I dislike series that focus too much on building up, but I absolutely love the kinds of series that just build up to one climax, and make that count. This all came together wonderfully. My one complaint is that at times the acting was a bit awkward. Mostly when characters started yelling, it wasn’t the most believably drawn.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Mawaru Penguin Drum – 11

by psgels, posted in Mawaru Penguin Drum




I love this show! Before, it already was really well executed, dynamic, fresh and heaps of fun to watch. Now, it also throws in character development. And this character development is the kind that hits hard. This episode was awesome in the way in which it evolved Ringo’s storyline. And it just kept on going!

I mean, the love potion working was already hilarious and an excellent plot twist: Ringo’s story really was at the point where it had gotten enough time to build up, but the way in which things were, there was no way in which she’d really get further with Tabuki. The love potion was a great little twist that gave meaning to Ringo’s earlier attempts to hit on him, and it also made her finally reach her goal, and finally able to look past that. My one point of complaint is that she indeed did end up falling in love with Shouma, but then again: just about every episode had been building up for that.

And heck, I’m intrigued by the end of this episode: how could a birth have killed someone? This show is very sneaky: you’d think that we knew just as much about the plot as the main characters. Instead, everyone keeps just talking about this thing that happened 16 years ago, which caused Ringo’s sister to die, Natsume to bear a huge grudge while being just a baby. “One word changes everything”? How does that all tie together?

The artistic direction in this series also still rocks because of everything that’s going on in the background. The penguins are of course one thing (the microwave in particular was hilarious) , but also how this show makes its backgrounds dynamic is very interesting. That tiger head at the beginning of the episode for example was very nicely placed.

What’s more about Penguin Drum is how different its two halves are: Kanba’s arc is completely different from Shouma’s arc, even though they seem to have more and more in common. Natsume’s arc is dark, while Ringo’s arc is much more whimsical. Now that this series has started to mesh the two together, this works quite well.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Summer 2011 Kaleidoscope – Week 38

by psgels, posted in Summer 2011 Kaleidoscope



Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukinai – 00
I’m not going to put this on first impressions because it clearly was intended as just an appetizer, is just 10 minutes long and was not the start of this show at all, but I do want to share a few impressions of it. In the end, this one turned out to be an abusive harem. You know, the kind where the male lead still is surrounded by girls, girls and nothing but girls, but instead of your regular harem this show thrives on abuse. The big twist is that the females suffer just as much for a change, rather than just have everyone tsundere on the male lead. This episode had a nice sense of irony about it, but it’s going to be very hard for this show to escape its harem roots once it fully starts, especially with so much competition. These are the kinds of twists you can’t keep pulling forever.
Rating: (Enjoyable)

The World God Only Knows OVA
Yeah, I was completely fed up with this series, though after having been told that this OVA would contain some interesting developments I did give in at the end. And yeah, I guess that this episode contained an interesting twist… that is completely pointless to end the series with. You need another season with that, but I do not think that I can bear to sit through another season of this thing. This episode was fairly tolerable because three of its core characters were some of the best characters in the series (including that random side-character who popped up). Elcie however still is a huge pain to watch. Being a moron is one thing, of course, but this girl feels like she had her head lobotomized. I do not want to watch anything of her anymore. Please someone tell me that she gets better quickly!

The musical parts of this episode also were really bad. The OP in particular was just horrid, and also don’t ask me why studying on English automatically improves your musical abilities? I mean, their song at the end wasn’t exactly good, but it still was miles better than their first attempts. That’s the problem with just about every musical performances in anime: the creators just slap some random J-pop tune behind it and expect them to make sense, while instead this nearly always just turns everyone out of character and inserts random instruments that just aren’t there.
Rating: – (Disappointing)

Gyakkyou Burai Kaiji – 25
God dammit Kaiji, you’re still not done yet? Ah well, at least the pachinko arc is over, but to use the old man like that… I am not looking forward to it. Overall the ending of the pachinko arc just felt underwhelming due to how ridiculously dragged out it was. Even this episode was full of pointless symbolism, endless monologues, and other ways to just randomly stall time. Seriously Kaiji: there have been plenty of series that took up just 20 episodes. It has been done before. This isn’t an issue about production or budget anymore because if this series was shorter it would actually flow much better AND be a lot cheaper to make.
Rating: – (Disappointing)

Kamisama Dolls – 12
Oh thank god. I could have sworn that this show only had 12 episodes, but thankfully it got one extra, which was very welcome in terms of timing. I was really afraid that the creators would make Hibino’s near-rape the climax of the series, but this episode thankfully restored itself by focusing on Kyouhei. The way they used Hibino was a bit boring, but at this point that pretty much is the only way for him to really unleash his inner beast, so I understand why the creators did it. The whole Kyouhei vs. Village was quite well developed in this episode, but the problem is that the rest of the cast feels half-hearted and unfinished.
Rating: * (Good)

Natsume Yuujin-Chou – 38

by psgels, posted in Natsume Yuujin-Chou



Oh my god, I’ve found it: after years of waiting, I’ve found the episode to rival the Hotaru episode of the first season. This episode was the single best episode of the third and second season combined, and very likely also the first. This also was the single most emotional episode I have watched in the entire summer season. It really got deep to me.

The story of when Natsume met Touko was incredibly bittersweet. This episode was incredibly powerful to me, especially because it showed how different Natsume has become throughout the series. Out of all the episodes of the series, this one did it best, by going so far into the past, and using an actual youkai that he himself met, rather than who ran into his grandmother (very clever by the way: when that youkai first came, I really thought that it was another youkai who Reiko messed with in the past). To think that he actually nearly was turned into the pet of that thing.

And seriously, after so many hints, it was amazing to actually see the point where Natsume got saved from his life style. And it’s not like the families who took him in were all evil. The son of the family he was in was actually quite nice, and his foster parents were mostly cold to him because they didn’t know him well (because he just kept hopping homes), his strange behavior, and that he was a burden on them to have to also look after.

This episode was perfect, and really came at the perfect moment. It made the entire third season for me.
Rating: **** (Fantastic)

Hana-Saku Iroha – 25

by psgels, posted in Hana-Saku Iroha



What can I say? This was a wonderful episode and an excellent climax to this series. The creators stuffed a ton of character development into just this one episode.

This is going to be a bit strange, but I’m going to compare this ending with Tiger & Bunny’s for a bit. The big reason for that is because during that final arc, the side-characters all felt a bit lumped together. This episode of Hana-Saku Iroha however, avoided that: every single character had his or her own presence. Just about every character had his or her moment in this episode. It was a complete chaos in the Kissuiso, and the creators actually gave everyone something worthwhile to do. And best of all is that through this chaos, there were a ton of characters who were forced to act differently from their usual self.

This is a show that celebrates working, and it definitely hose a very interesting climax here: how to avoid getting caught up in it? After so many episodes in which the characters worked incredibly hard, I was afraid that they wouldn’t address this issue, but this episode really completes the circle and balances things out. This episode really added a lot to this series, and this is the kind of ending that I really like to see: the one that takes the series, keeps its core qualities and pushes them even further.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Ikoku Meiro no Croisée Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Ikoku Meiro no Croisée




Here is a slice of life series with a twist: instead of focusing on the same old setting, Ikoku Meiro no Croisee focuses on a Japanese girl who starts to live with a French blacksmiths in the Nineteenth century. If you’re like me, and you like slice of life series, but not the ones where just nothing happens, then this is one for you.

This show has two focuses. The first is its cast of characters. The second is celebrating both French and Japanese culture, and the difference between them. The studio behind this series, Satelight, has a lot of French roots and connections, and they were utilized wonderfully for this show. Throughout the series, this show examines all kinds of differences between the culture of the French and the Japanese of the 19th century, ranging from food, weather, gestures, customs: a very wide variety. Supported by that is a team of absolutely wonderful background artists, who give a gorgeous depiction of Paris in those days. The setting in this series is amazingly portrayed.

In terms of the characters meanwhile, you get very heart-warming slice of life. Especially Yune and Oscar are great character. Yune incredibly adorable, while Oscar feels very refreshing, standing miles away from the usual “grandfather”-stereotypes. The rest of the cast also has a great chemistry with each other, though there are a few issues with them individually. Claude, the main character can get a bit too angsty for the sake of drama. He acts too unfriendly and bossy a bit too much for it to be really believable. Alice meanwhile will annoy a lot of people in her first appearance, because of how spoiled a brat she is. Both get better over time, though.

This summer season really was lucky to have two such good slice of life series with Ikoku Meiro no Croisee and Usagi Drop. The big difference between them is that with Usagi Drop the drama was very realistic, while with Ikoku Meiro no Croisee it’s a bit forced, while at the same time Croisee succeeded more in creating a heart-warming atmosphere.

Storytelling: 8/10 – A bit forced with its drama, but very heartwarming and relaxing.
Characters: 8/10 – Yune is absolutely adorable, great chemistry, though a few characters that take a bit getting used to.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Satelight has really improved: consistent and the background art is great.
Setting: 9/10 – Amazing depiction of France of the 19th century, full of cultural differences.

Suggestions:
– Hourou Musuko
– Ristorante Paradiso

Ikoku Meiro no Croisée – 12

by psgels, posted in Ikoku Meiro no Croisée



What an absolutely adorable final episode. This was just perfect to close off this series with a heart-warming feeling. At first the episode started off a bit uninspired, with Claude getting angry yet again, and Yune getting lost yet again, but as soon as Yune got on the roof of the Galerie, this episode never lost its charms.

It really forced Claude and Yune to talk to each other, and Claude to finally talk about his father, and the way the creators did it was incredibly charming. Throughout most of the series, my main issue with it that Claude might have been a tad too angsty was also pretty decently explained.

Overall, the big difference between this series and Usagi Drop: Usagi Drop was more realistic, while this series was better at creating its atmosphere. Because of that I believe that I like this series a bit better, and its charms hit me more.

Next season, it’ll be time for Tamayura. From the OVAs, we already know that it’s going to be a charming slice of life series, but it’ll be interesting to see whether it can surpass this series. The key will be the fact that it’s anime original: with that, you can make it do things that just won’t be possible in an adaptation, and I really hope that Sato Junichi will make use of that.
Rating: ** (Excellent)