Rose of Versailles Review – 90/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




I obviously haven’t seen all of the anime that are out there, and this especially goes for the series that were made in the sixties and seventies, so the following statement should be taken with a grain of salt. But I’d actually wager that at the time that it aired (1979/1980), the Rose of Versailles was better than any other anime that had aired so far. Heck, it would probably take until the premiere of the Legend of Galactic Heroes for this series to leave the top 3 of best anime ever made. This statement is just based on my opinion and the stories that I’ve heard about LoGH, so this obviously shouldn’t be taken as a fact. But damn: this series really blew my mind.

The Rose of Versailles is another product from Osamu Dezaki. It’s perhaps not the series where his direction is the strongest. Instead, what sets this series apart is its plot, characters and setting as it chronicles the events leading up to the French Revolution. There are a ton of things to praise about this series.

Imagine this: most series only take place during a few years, at most. The Rose of Versailles takes place over twenty four years, starting at the point where Marie Antoinette arrives in France to become the future queen. There’s so much character development in this series because of this: you can really see the entire cast grow up and gradually change over time; the amount of character development in this series is really unbelievable. On top of that, the creators actually succeeded in making a great character out of Marie Antoinette: she’s one of the most important characters in the series and the creators did really well in making her sympathetic, yet still retaining her as the wildly irresponsible queen that she was. On top of that, we also have the main protagonist of this series, Oscar. Oscar was… amazing. Charismatic, ridiculously strong, independent and charismatic, and yet with plenty of flaws most notably her pride and with pretty much the best development out of the entire series. I’m not sure what it is with anime, France and cross-dressers, but this series explores every inch of her character.

The characters aren’t the only ones with top notch development. Just about the entire series is the same. It actually starts of like your typical shoujo series, full of sparkles, court politics, nobles, frills and pretty character designs, and only subtly gets darker and darker as the series goes on and the French Revolution draws nearer, up to the point where you really can’t call it shoujo anymore and it transcends genres.

The one criticism is that it has dated a bit, and it does tend to get a bit overdramatic at times: it’s a very theatrical series that has the characters overacting on purpose to get an as big emotional response, sometimes accompanied by those cheesy shoujo sound effects. Still, it’s not like the acting is bad here: the voice actors have an amazing range here, from wonderfully restraint to powerful and over the top. It works for the most parts really well, but there are times where it goes a bit too far in this.

Overall, if you’ve never seen any series from before 1985, the series that I’d recommend the most are the Rose of Versailles for a dark shoujo, Ie Naki Ko for its drama, The Mysterious Cities of Gold for a more innocent adventure. Most of the top series of those days are tests to your patience: Gundam is an endless string of battles and fights, Perrine Monogatari takes a really long time to set up its characters, and Votoms also takes a while to really get going and develop. The series of those days just didn’t have to worry about time constraints and there was much less competition, allowing to spend a lot more time to careful build-up. The three series above however are amazing, right from the start, and they continue to be so through their entire run. Even during the shoujo-esque start of the Rose of Versailles, there’s plenty to like and it only gets better as time goes on.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Amazing plot progression, excellent direction, excellent pacing, wonderful told.
Characters: 10/10 – 24 years worth of development. Just about every character develops significantly and memorably.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Obviously dated, but comparing it to other anime of it time and it starts to look really good and refined.
Setting: 9/10 – An amazing look at the events leading up to the french revolution. It’s not 100% accurate, but it definitely does try to be true to history.

Suggestions:
– Revolutionary Girl Utena
– Onii-Sama e
– Simoun

Kami-Sama no Memo-Chou – 05

by psgels, posted in Kami-Sama no Memo-Chou



The entire theme of this week seems to be doing things against expectations. After the previous episode I expected another mystery story where Alice had to solve another case. Instead, we got this strange mish-mash of slice of life, character development and… organizing the stage for a band. I’m not sure where that all came from, but it was definitely something different for this series.

The thing with this episode is that the characters got side-tracked A LOT, however the things it got side-tracked with are actually pretty unorthodox and creative. They range from being ordered by Alice to go to the zoo, picking up a new apron, doing the laundry, meeting this strange rock guy and again: promoting this indie band. It’s a pretty whimsical episode and whether it’s good or not entirely depends on the length of this show.

The thing is, that for a 13 episode series it’s just goofing off too much. For a 26 episode series however this was some great material to flesh out the characters. It’s all going to be a matter of waiting what it’s going to be.

Now, as for the JC Staff cliches, there was a good thing and a bad thing about this episode. The good thing is that the main character isn’t just randomly running into females all the time: it’s actually nicely balanced at this point with that rock guy. The bad thing however is that for some reason beyond me, the creators are trying to make Alice into a Shana-clone! Thank God she’s a lot more eloquent than her counterparts, but it’s really getting annoying to see that JC Staff are trying to shoehorn the same bloody character in every bloody show of theirs. I keep complaining about this, because it really feels like someone took a look at the script and changed Alice to act more like every other bloody tsundere, especially after how different she was in the first episode.
Rating: * (Good)

Blood-C – 05

by psgels, posted in Blood-C



Yeah, this is horror, a genre that I’m a big fan of because of how well you can build up in this genre. It’s not just the fights that are amazing, but all of the quiet moments together quietly build up a very tight atmosphere. The more I watch this series, the more I’m beginning to think that Clamp intentionally made the slice of life scenes as empty as possible.

This episode, things are a bit different, though. For once the formula is broken up by having a fight in the first half, and second of all the second half starts as quiet and random as ever, but then slowly builds up a ghost story about the background of the village. Again, it’s not just a matter of randomly yelling “the village has monsters who eat people!” -it’s all about storytelling and that same atmosphere.

The big question for this series is really whether it was properly balanced. All this build-up is wonderful, but a bit pointless if there is to little time for the actual climax, which is by far the biggest pitfall of shows who take too much time building up. With this kind of story though, this series can really pull things off if it just keeps building up its atmosphere. The ending here is going to be a crucial one: last year I expected similar things out of Sengoku Basara II, but unfortunately the ending there was ultimately disappointing. The big difference for me at the moment however, is that Blood-C has made every episode worth watching so far. At this point I’m not watching the quiet scenes just to get through them and get to the action scenes, but instead they’re part of the overall atmosphere now. Without them the action scenes wouldn’t nearly have as much impact.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Hyouge Mono – 18

by psgels, posted in Hyouge Mono




The acting in this episode was sublime. Its biggest purpose was to set things up and hint a lot, but the delightful acting made it a wonderful episode to watch. Especially the tension that was generated between the different characters was amazing.

Something is really telling me that Hashiba Hideyoshi’s days are numbered. In the previous episode he already went with that ridiculous get-up, but this episode really hinted that something’s going to happen to him. Especially since he finally refused to simply be Senno Soueki’s assassination tool, right in front of his face. The artists and animators did an amazing job to really draw all kinds of intricate details in their non-verbal communication. Oh, and then there was also that rape scene.

On top of that, there were also these small details like that small intimate moment in which Sasuke gets his wife a small present. I really like how the creators portrayed his relationship with her: finally we have a romance where everything is right: you can see that they both love each other and to their best to support each other. There is no drama whatsoever and they really fit well together considering the time, setting and culture that they’re in. Heck, even Tiger and Bunny had to pull the dead wife twist: Sasuke really has just a happy family that are a large part of his life, yet know that they have no business in the story.

The real story in which grown up men fight over their toys like little babies! I really cracked up at the scene in which they accidentally broke that precious pot over their negotiations. Negotiations that were serious business, by the way, so I can’t wait to see what comes out of it, especially after what happened to Hideyoshi.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Mawaru Penguin Drum – 05

by psgels, posted in Mawaru Penguin Drum



That was… just insane. No, seriously: this episode was completely mind-blowing. Even Utena wasn’t THIS good after just five episodes. And I know that Utena had more episodes and the strength of that series was how well it developed its characters and all, this is still something I did not see coming. This episode took the already amazing cast, and made it even better than it already was.

What especially baffles me is how the transformation scene trope is getting completely redesigned here: normally they’re the kinds of scenes that can’t be interfered. They have this formula and this formula can’t be broken. And here Ringo bloody comes and not only takes Kanba’s place, she also manages to completely turn the scene upside-down by clinging out of the hole she dropped out of and hitting Himari back by taking the penguin hat.

Which all lead to the bloody amazing chase scene of the truck and Kanba. Holy crap, this guy got some extra depth here. The direction was just amazing in how it showed how far he’s willing to go for Himari, right after the creators also brought in the fact that a) he indirectly injured his father when Himari got sick as a kid and b) the house they’re living in could be sold if they don’t have enough money. What the hell kind of a character is he anyways? On one hand he keeps flirting around with women to the most extreme degree, and yet he’s also able to get heaps of cash from mysterious sources and for some reason has grown up to be much more mature than his other brother.

The direction of the rest of the episode was also just amazing: it just kept toying around with your expectations and was full of these subtle mood-switches. The symbolism also really helped here.

And the subway messages of the previous were right again: something got stolen in this episode. I did not expect it to be the penguin hat though, and especially not the way in which it happened. The hint for the next episode… yeah. Kanba definitely borrowed his money from shady sources. Something tells me that this is really going to bite him back.

Speaking of symbolism: the cockroaches that the penguins have been exterminating up till now all died. This time they didn’t though.

And how the hell is this happening this early on in the series? The creators must either have some amazing plans, or are playing their biggest trumps first. Ah well, if this series does dull in, there’ll be enough time to rant about it later. For now I’m just enjoying what is by far the best new show of the summer season.
Rating: **** (Fantastic)

No.6 – 05

by psgels, posted in No.6



This episode really grabbed me by surprise. Not only was it exceptionally good and well produced, but also just about everything that happened here was against what you’d expect or came out of left field. This episode built up a ton of questions, it showed the cast in a completely different light, on top of being absolutely gorgeous to watch.

This episode took two completely unrelated characters: Nezumi and Safu, and had them experience the same hallucination at the same time. Erm, why? On top of that, against expectations the bees turn out to be active during the winter, and they seem to be related to these hallucinations in which they could talk. Again: how the hell is that happening? On top of that, Shion’s mom’s friend is suddenly afraid of mice, Then Shion suddenly comes and catches Nezumi unguarded, and then Safu is coming back, of all things. How the hell are the creators going to weave all of that together? And will the show still be running when we get to that point?

On top of that… that dance scene. Holy crap, that was well animated. The characters really came alive and the visual direction was utterly gorgeous. This episode on top of that had poetry and theatre as well, making it artistic in many different ways. It was a bit strange to see Nezumi in women’s clothing, but it does make sense: traditionally in Shakespearean plays, the female parts were all played by men as well.

Also, shock! This episode actually included a kiss that wasn’t overly romanticized.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Showa Monogatari Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Showa Monogatari




Anime is dying? Hah. As long as series like Showa Monogatari keep getting released, I refuse to believe something like that. Showa Monogatary may have a few production issues, but I just have to praise the guts that the producers had to actually dare and release it. Here we have a series wit no moe, no bishies, zero fanservice, no pandering and no overblown action. Instead of aiming at teenagers, kids or otaku, Showa Monogatari is aimed at a 50+ audience, portraying the life of an ordinary family in 1964.

Now, this is a slice of life series, so it obviously isn’t for everyone, but I do have to warn people that it’s not what it seems at first sight, because this show has something very misleading about its premise: Kouhei, the rather annoying 9-year-old lead character. Because of him, this show will at first seem like a kids’ series where we see yet another coming of age story of a young boy growing up somewhere. This is not what this series is about, though.

Kouhei is just a member of the cast here. There are a number of episodes that revolve around him, but there are also plenty of episodes that don’t, and instead develop the rest of the cast: his older brother, sister, parents and grandmother. All of them together end up as a charming and down to earth family with real problems, challenges and characteristics. Every character in this series is flawed and this show actually does quite a good job to develop everyone.

This series does have its production issues, though. The animation is quite poor and the direction feels rather mellow throughout the entire series. The worst is Kouhei’s voice actor, though: this guy can’t act for the life of him, and will ruin any dramatic scene he’s involved in. It overall is a series that feels like the production was rushed, and that the creators didn’t get time to make everything click and mesh together, and present things well, because it’s very rough around the edges.

The problems that the cast face are very realistic, but at the same time the creators do force their drama. It’s again one of those cases that has a lot of flaws, yet does a number of other things right, because the cast here remains well developed. In the end though, it does lack a bit of staying power.

Storytelling: 8/10 – The direction could have been stronger, but this one is well balanced and very realistic.
Characters: 8/10 – Well developed cast, but sometimes very badly acted.
Production-Values: 8/10 – The animation is really jerky, but the background art is very accurate. It really feels like 50 years ago.
Setting: 8/10 – Very interesting premise, historically accurate and realistic. Very authentic.

Suggestions:
– Furusato Japan
– Rail of the Star
– Ushiro no Shoumen Dare

Showa Monogatari – 13

by psgels, posted in Showa Monogatari



Okay, so it turns out that the final episode of Showa Monogatari aired quite a while ago. Nobody just bothered to release it aside from a random upload on Megavideo. the long wait wasn’t really good for my appreciation of this series: looking back, the previous episode actually left a lot to be desired due to both Kouhei’s acting and pulling a sickness bomb for the final climax.

This episode meanwhile didn’t really feel like a climax. It was interesting though, because of how it forced some of the characters to think about their futures. Ironically though, Kouhei still is a pretty flat character, but thankfully he didn’t play the biggest part in this episode.

Overall, the biggest flaw of this series is the way it presented itself: the script is good, but the way in which the characters are presented, and acted lacks ways that catch your attention and end up memorable. This is indeed tricky to do with a slice of life series, but also probably the biggest reason for why this series got ignored so badly, aside from the chronic lack of moe.

Overall, Showa Monogatari was good, but not up to the standards of Wao World. Their other movies, helmed by their flagship director, did have a strong direction and focus, starting off slow and continuing to build up to a great climax where not drama stood central, but performances. Furusato Japan still was the best at this.

Now all that’s left is the movie, and do note that that one’s being created by a different staff compared to the TV-series. The director is someone who normally does just special effects or producing, so who knows what kind of things will result from a director like that
Rating: * (Good)

Steins;Gate – 18

by psgels, posted in Steins;Gate



One thing that we’ve never seen in this series: what happens after a D-Mail gets sent in the time-line that Okarin leaves behind? Does Okarin just split in two, where one version leaps to a different time-line and the other stays behind? I mean, this episode created a lot of drama around Rukako having to change her gender back, and yet that version of her shouldn’t notice any change and instead she’s sending a consciousness of Okarin to a different time-line. Would the time-line in this episode just result in a full fledged romance between Okarin and Rukako?

In any case, Rukako requesting a date made this episode a bit sillier than I expected. It unfortunately lead to Daru showing once again how far removed he is from reality (by far the most annoying part of this series), and unfortunately I have to admit that the reason why the creators made Rukako fall in love with Okarin was a very flimsy one. The kind you expect from a bad harem show.

The reason for the IBM5100’s disappearance however, was very good. Here I thought some big conspiracy was behind it, and it turned out to be a mere accident. It was such a key point in the story that changed everything for the worse.

Beyond that, the part few episodes have also been terrific build-up by preparing for the inevitable attempt to retract Shining Finger’s D-Mail. She’s been completely absent from the past episodes. And after that, things should only get even more interesting. It’s hard to believe that there are only 6 episodes left, and yet I feel that that could be the perfect number for this show to close off satisfyingly.
Rating: * (Good)

Natsume Yuujin-Chou – 31

by psgels, posted in Natsume Yuujin-Chou



Hmm, I don’t see what’s so particularly bad about this episode. Sure, it indeed wasn’t as good as last week, but it still was a very interesting story with a ton of character development for Natsume and two of his friends, alongside some pretty good background on one of their families.

I do agree that the pacing was a bit more jumpy than usual, and this episode indeed wasn’t of the soothing kind that we’ve gotten used to. Instead, this episode was full of character. Taki’s grandfather’s story was particularly interesting, in the way that he unknowingly set up a bunch of random things and seals, and it also explains how Taki got that seal that shows Youkai.

I also really liked the ending of this episode: with these two, Natsume has finally met two people who understand him, and in this episode he definitely got closer to them, up to the point where he can actually tell them about the youkai he encountered. I mean, he’s still very shy: the scene in which they were just randomly sitting around the table chatting: we get the big impression that Natsume was mostly sitting there and the other two were mostly talking about random classmates. This is like, the fifth episode in a row that contributes in some way to Natsume’s development.
Rating: ** (Excellent)