Moshidora Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




2011 is surprisingly short on sports series. Moshidora was pretty much the only new one we got here. But at the very least, it did come up with a really interesting premise: instead of being just another group of high schoolers, it focuses on a “what if?”-scenario: what if a high school girl got her hands on a business management guide and applied that to the management of a high school baseball team?

Throughout the series, we see a high school girl apply the basics of management to high school baseball, and succeeds at this pretty well. It takes a look at things as marketing, innovation, performance, and yet it also criticizes itself, and doesn’t take everything for granted. It’s quite an inspirational work, and the series also doesn’t forget to give some colours and development to the characters themselves. It’s a short series with only 10 episodes, but it makes optimal use of its time.

Now, this show was produced with a really small budget, though: the animation is simple and full of distorted faces. You really don’t want to watch this for the eye candy. But on the other hand, it’s not like this gets in the way of the storytelling. Instead, this series’ biggest flaw is its cheese. It really tries to pull at your heartstrings without restraint at times, but fails due to either insufficient build-up, acting, or questionable coincidences.

The baseball matches in this series also suffer from these coincidences: from start to finish, they feel completely directed and unnatural. It’s clear that the major focus of this show are management and its characters, and the baseball is just something that they happen to have as a common goal. It’s not the most believable at times, but definitely an interesting watch.

Storytelling: 7/10 – Makes good use of its time, but can’t control its own cheese.
Characters: 8/10 – They’re cheesy at times, but still remain surprisingly likable and developed for a 10-episode series.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Nothing special. Does what it needs to do to not get in the way of the other parts of the series, though.
Setting: 9/10 – An original idea surprisingly well fleshed out.

Suggestions:
– Cross Game
– Ookiku Furikabutte
– Touch

Steins;Gate – 06

by psgels, posted in Steins;Gate



I like this show a lot, but its characters do take turns in annoying me. Last time it was Mayuri, this episode it was Hashida. I never really liked watching anime about anime otaku, and this series unfortunately did not change that. I don’t mind this guy when he’s useful, but this episode didn’t have any role for him, so he just kept making bad sex jokes and kept reminding me why I’m glad that I am not an otaku myself…

In any case, watching this series shows how different a good visual novel adaptation can be from other anime. The big difference is that Visual novels come out all at once, compared to mangas, light novels and anime, who have to sell themselves with their first installment. The result is that this show can take its time in building up. Of course I’m going to rant if it turns out that the creators took too much time for these first episodes, but that’s something for later.

In any case, the previous episode was meant to leak out what Cern has been doing. This was probably meant to leak out what the lead characters have been doing. It perhaps wasn’t the most interesting episode, though I like Shining finger’s quirks for now, especially in combination with Hououin. This show may not have the best chemistry between character of the season (that award is reserved for Tiger & Bunny), nor the most likable eccentric main character (that one goes to Hyouge Mono), but the dialogue remains well written. Now it’s up to the rest of the series to actually make use of it.

The thing that intrigues me the most about this episode was that dream. Was it simple foreshadowing, or more than that?
Rating: * (Good)

Gintama – 207

by psgels, posted in Spring 2011 Kaleidoscope



Last week I noted that Gintama’s sequel wasn’t as good as I hoped to. I’m not sure whether I was the only one with this, but I’d like to use this post to elaborate a bit on that. The current episode is a good example of why, while still a good comedy, it’s no longer the comedic classic that it once was.

A lot of it has to do with many jokes not being funny anymore, and trying too hard. And I have to give this series credit: these episodes are not as bad as the point where Gintama originally started to move downhill (after about episode 100, if I recall correctly). If I were to compare it to your average comedy, it’d still be pretty decent, but I’d rank Gintama among my top 5 of favourite comedies ever. The first 100 episodes also had their weaker moments, but overall they tended to be brilliant. This isn’t.

The running jokes are probably the ones that went downhill the most: there was a time where this show knew exactly what the border was between great running jokes and shameless repetition. that’s what allowed it to become such a long series in the first place, but the new season reduced the running jokes either to repetition, or took them to too forced absurds. Sarutobi’s crush on Gintoki for example: this episode made her an even bigger fangirl of Gintoki, but it just didn’t feel fresh. Also, in the middle the mood suddenly got serious. But what was it about? About her refusal to get other glasses. What happened to the manly tears of the first season? This was just silly.

The series itself is also getting rather formulaic. I mean, using guilt to get people to move? Didn’t the creators play that on Gorilla a few episodes ago? Plus, the way in which the serious parts showed up felt formulaic, and quite similar to the previous episode (which granted, was better done than this one, but even there it was forced: “care about these characters!”).

It’s also the presentation: the original Gintama may not have had the most fluid animation, it hardly ever contained weak shots. The new season though is full of distorted or rushed faces. The new season also has this habit of overabusing the “straight man”-faces. I mean those scenes that focus for seconds on on a heavily exaggerated serious facial expression after something outrageous happened. They’re all surprisingly poorly timed for this series’ standards.

It’s still inspired, though: the ideas behind each episode are definitely interesting, and each episode does have a collection of good jokes amongst the ones that fall flat. I just don’t know whether I can really enjoy this series when I keep comparing it to the classic that it once was. Especially considering how it’ll keep going on for ages. I mean watching this for 26 episodes is okay, but I don’t think that I’ll have the patience to watch 100 more episodes of the caliber of the past six episodes.
Rating: * (Good)

Some Quick First Impressions: Inazuma Eleven Go

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Inazuma Eleven GO

Short Synopsis: Our lead character wants to play football.
So, on one hand this is a typical kiddie show: we live in a world which is entirely dedicated to football, we have a random teenager who has a simple personality yet a lot of passion for the sport, and there are evil people who abuse their superpowers in order to… close down a school’s football club. Oh, and we live in a world where footballs are like boomerangs: they always come back no matter where you kick them. In terms of that, this was a very formulaic episode. Nevertheless, it’s been a while since I saw the opening episode of a kiddie show actually being able to build up tension this well. This episode was quite silly, especially the guy who was supposed to be the bad guy, but I’ve certainly seen worse kiddie shows. The most notable of it all was that the dramatic scenes actually worked despite the cheese.
OP: Sung by a guy who is really trying to compensate for the fact that he can’t sing.
ED: Generic J-Pop
Potential: 35%

Tiger & Bunny – 06

by psgels, posted in Tiger & Bunny



Okay, so the title of this episode seemed to suggest that it would be an episode about Fire Emblem; it wasn’t. It’s instead about a villain who also uses fire as a weapon. Of course Fire Emblem did make many appearances in this episode, and even though we didn’t get to know anything about his past, he only got more adorable through is antics.

Instead, we got ourselves a major villain. His introduction was a great one: usually when a main villain gets introduced, he just appears in one shot, trying to look cool. This guy immediately succeeded in making himself into a threat by linking him to Barnaby’s past, having him brutally kill previous villains and by by making his flames far more effective than the fire user of the group. This show has a lot with people with the same powers.

The chemistry between the characters is still amazing. Especially the interplay between Tiger and Bunny is great, and this episode also showed Tiger and Fire Emblem together, and they too make a great combo with each other. I especially love how the creators also aren’t afraid to build up jokes during the exciting parts, somehow succeeding not to make the jokes feel out of place. What’s more: this show has these things that you’d think are random jokes at first, yet prove to be important plot points later on, like the prank photo that Tiger made on Barnaby’s cell phone and the suit designer being claustrophobic. It’s all weaved wonderfully together.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Hana-Saku Iroha – 06

by psgels, posted in Hana-Saku Iroha



So, this show is really seems to be going with the “first half random stories, second half plot”-format. This episode was once again a standalone story. With this though, I also realized what I’ve been missing through the past four episodes:

There are two keys to a great first half for such a format: it needs to have strong individual stories and it needs to use those stories to build upon the main setting and characters. This series has the latter covered: the second half of this show has a ton of potential considering the amount of build up that the past number of episodes have been putting into it. That’s fine. It’s just that I don’t really find the stories of the individual episodes that interesting.

So yeah, in this episode the characters got to dress up in fetish outfits: first there were the china dresses and then there were the maid-ish outfits. The whole story around trying to innovate the bathhouse wasn’t really interesting because of how it just limited itself to random outfit changes. It never bothered to look at the big picture. It’s obviously building up to something, but this episode in itself didn’t really stand out. It was too mundane.

Still, we got a few hints to grandmother’s past and uncle’s background. This episode did serve its job of delivering variety and fleshing out the characters. The only thing I didn’t like about that part was that we now indeed get confirmed that Tohru has a crush on Ohana. Love Triangles are really dangerous: they very easily can take over the entire series if the creators aren’t careful. Please, let them be careful.
Rating: (Enjoyable)

Ao no Exorcist – 04

by psgels, posted in Ao no Exorcist



So this episode showed that this show doesn’t necessarily have to rely on its action scenes. The episode in this episode was short, and instead it was much more about the character who I suspect is going to be the female love interest. Overall, this episode served its purpose quite well: we now have a love interest who already has a good backstory and has been nicely fleshed out.

And that’s the great thing about this series: it may not be anything new, but the things it does, it does really well. For a moment I was a bit afraid of the cliches taking over this series, but by now it has shown that it’s going to turn into one of the examples of how this kind of premise should be done well.

The main character is still a bit annoying, but I doubt that this will remain for long. Even this episode, which focused on a completely different character for once, had plenty of scenes that fleshed out the two brothers again.

Oh, and another plus of this series: I can actually see this working well in a 24 episode series: on one hand it has enough time to create a good cast, and at the same time its backstory is not way too ambitious: we have a pretty clear goal and path laid out by the first two episodes and the main character isn’t the type to beat around the bush as soon as he finds a way to kill Satan. It can be a good yet compact story that can both deliver on the action and wrap itself up without much problems, even if the manga does go on for longer. The creators have already showed that they know how to improve the storyline of the manga for the better (or so I’ve heard, of course).
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Hen Zemi – 05 & Yondemasuyo, Azazel-San – 05

by psgels, posted in Spring 2011 Kaleidoscope



This week I’d like to talk about what I’d like to call “The completely disgusting comedy block”. They air right after each other, they’re only ten minutes long and I’d run out of time to talk about the other series this season if I did both of them in a separate post. First of all, Hen Zemi.

The TV-series of Hen Zemi is not as good as the OVA. At first I thought that, if this were to happen, it’d ruin the entire series, but surprisingly it’s still worth watching. It did lead to bizarre situations as the previous episode, which… was entirely censored because of how much nudity was in it. It wasn’t just filled with black screens: it seemed like the animators outright refused to draw any of the explicit stuff.

The biggest downside of the TV-series though is that the dialogue just isn’t as good. The characterization in the OVA was so detailed and dynamic that it really got under my skin. The TV-series mainly is about the antics of a bunch of perverts, nothing more, nothing less. Whereas the OVA would go into great detail about breast sizes, this show just keeps making small boob jokes. That kind of stuff.

The characterization still is good though, and surprisingly enjoyable considering how this is a fanservice show. This episode for example was quite down to earth and actually added quite a bit to the cast of characters. Especially that mother who just keeps interrupting was hilarious, especially with that smirk on her face. The dialogue still is based around people talking to each other, and for what it does, it does this well.

As for Yondemasuyo Azazel-san: I love Tsutomu Mizushima as a director, but he’s not perfect. He is undoubtedly the king of extreme comedy: His series always have the most extreme overreactions and a sense of energy that I haven’t been able to find somewhere else. The big danger is this turning into a gimmick, though. The best example of that are Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-Chan and Dai Mahou Touge: they’re both series that look like cute mahou shoujo, yet instead have a completely brutal and badass main character instead. The big problem with those two shows was that whey were only funny for one episode when they still had their shock value, and became completely tedious afterwards. That was my biggest fear for Azazel-San.

This fifth episode however showed that Azazel-San has enough material to remain hilarious. On top of taking comedic facial distortions to another level, it also has a lot of fun messing with demon summonings and uninspired episodic stories by subverting the hell out of them. The comedic timing in this episode in particular was excellent, but the jokes were also quite creative. I love how the ultimate weapon that any demon can have is simply violence

Apart from being ridiculously over the top I also love these small touches like Azazel continuously ranting and laughing in the background, or how the whole setting is based on something really risky (like how this episode showed what would happen when a summoning goes wrong).

Overall, this is a pretty nice season for comedies. There is nothing side splittingly funny, and yet there are quite a few inspired, well written and well paced series that are quite funny to watch. All of the series however lack something that really places them amongst the great comedies.
Rating: * (Good) (Hen Zemi) / ** (Excellent) (Azazel-San)

Deadman Wonderland – 04

by psgels, posted in Deadman Wonderland



This. Is one heck of a mind-screw. I mean, holy crap: this episode went even farther than this show already has in order to make the main characters’ life hell. Heck, this episode devolved into complete psychological torture! Even Shiro here proved that she isn’t god-moded as well, being captured like that.

This prison is completely crazy. Even the Number Pads on the security locks are scrambled up in order to confuse people. It’s so crazy that it has a badass violent inmate who is scared of breasts and an unregistered prisoner doesn’t even catch their attention.

These don’t have to be criticisms, of course: we have yet to learn of Shiro’s story. It’s already been established that something is really strange about her, and people hardly seem to notice her. Also the boob phobia is a neat quirk as long as it doesn’t overtake Crow’s character (which, in this episode, it didn’t do that at all).

Four episodes in, and the characterization has been pretty consistent: neither good nor bad, but it works. This series mostly makes its characters interesting by showing the way they react when confronted with everything that goes on in Deadman Wonderland. The cast in particular makes sure that the story just keeps going on: there’s always something interesting happening. The downside to this is that the characters never have the time to really sit back and do nothing, which is especially visible in the lead character. So far though, it’s got enough to make up for it, and I can’t say that for every series that has stiff acting this quickly.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

X-Men – 05

by psgels, posted in X-Men



Well, the message at the beginning says it all: last week, an episode of the X-Men was scheduled, but it didn’t air. Madhouse too was hit hard by the quake, and this was one episode that they just couldn’t finish in time. The irony is that this episode, despite being an obvious step back, still delivered. Compared that to Iron Man, which also suffered from production issues thanks to Redline: there it didn’t even look like they were trying.

So yeah, this was a build-up episode. It’s quite early, especially compared to Wolverine, but that series also had quite a simple plot. This episode was all about developing the trust between the old X-Men and their new characters. It’s the kind of episode where you can only tell whether or not it pays off when the series is finished. At the very least though: this episode gave some really clear hints that the bad guys will indeed get some major development as well. That’s good.

The thing with Hisako is mostly that she just feels out of place. It’s great to see an entire series about adults, and the tension between Emma and Scott is just much more interesting at this point than Hisako trying to gain control over her powers. And yet, I totally understand why the creators put her in the series. The X-Men have always been about providing a stable environment for mutants to grow up in. Youth is a very big theme in the franchise, despite the main cast all being adults. And Granted, Hisako could have been a lot more annoying. She may be whining, but she’s always to the point, and… well, with the way she’s been treated, I don’t blame her in a lot of cases. Just… don’t let it go on for too long. The key to good whining is balance and granted, this episode did not have a perfect balance there. My main issue with her is just that she may have been a little too quick in becoming a part of the X-Men…
Rating: * (Good)