Hana-Saku Iroha – 04

by psgels, posted in Hana-Saku Iroha



This remains annoying: the transfer student introduces him or herself to a classroom and the first thing that every single guy does is annoyingly talk about the cutest girl in school who of course happens to be one of the important characters. It has really gotten old ages ago, and yet anime just keeps pulling it. I mean, I have nothing against there being the cutest girl in school and all, but whenever she’s around, every single guy in school just gets reduced to this annoying fanboy who does nothing other than secretly stalk admire her. Nothing else! It’s a good thing that this show doesn’t have a male lead because that would really have been terrible (you know, the main character being the only one oblivious to her charms and all…).

In any case, this episode showed the introduction of the main character to the local school, so it wasn’t as good as the first two episodes because it dealt with a lot of introductions and stuff that unfortunately appears in a lot of other series. In terms of setting up things, it did its job well though. we’ve got a nice romance around Minko, Ohana’s feelings about her “boyfriend” get developed a bit and Nako also got a bit of her past revealed. It’s definitely not a wasted episode.

The most important thing though: after the previous episode, my biggest fear was that this show would abandon the first two episodes and continue on with these silly stories onward. Thankfully that didn’t turn out to be the case. In that case it was good for a bit of variety.
Rating: * (Good)

Ao no Exorcist – 02

by psgels, posted in Ao no Exorcist



Yeah, if there was any doubt left after the first episode, this episode took all of that away: this really is the shounen epic of the season. Whereas the previous prime time series (Star Driver and Sengoku Basara) tried to combine action with another genre (medieval politics and mystery/character study respectively), this is pretty much an all out action series about a boy who happens to be Satan’s Son. It really is the classic shounen formula, but it remains a very good rendition of it.

The set-up is not the best of this season by a long shot, but the execution and characters make up for it really well. This episode was an action-packed thrill ride, but the animation and art got really creepy near the end. The priest getting possessed by Satan was the highlight of the episode, but the other action scenes also kicked ass.

So far, the lead character is your typical shounen protagonist, but he has both his good points and his bad points. He can get rather annoying when he just stands there yelling, but whenever he isn’t he’s quite level headed and I liked how bluntly he just said that he’d become an Exorcist. In any case he still has enough room to grow. The side characters so far are diverse and interesting as well. The villains meanwhile do a good job of being a threat, although they are rather stereotypical, but let’s see where this series goes with them.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Tiger & Bunny – 04

by psgels, posted in Tiger & Bunny



Yesterday I was asked about reconstructions by Deedee. Back then I couldn’t really think of a good example that I really liked of one, but as I watched this episode of Tiger & Bunny I realized that it’s actually a pretty good example of a deconstruction. It accepts the flaws of the superhero genre, and then proceeds to create a highly creative setting around this flawed concept that both celebrates it and criticizes it. Of course it makes no sense for the heroes to be able to always be at the right place at the right time, but this series happily plays with that idea and has fun with it.

Also, apparently Tiger & Bunny will be 24 to 26 episodes long. I’ve yet to find official confirmation of this, but if this is true then it’d be awesome. This would really allow the creators to flesh out this setting of theirs, and this episode showed that they have every intention to do so. We finally get to see some background on one of the other heroes: the ice girl. My guess is that the other side characters will also get their own episodes. I also like that finally the most stereotypical character also became a bit more than a walking tramp. It’s a nice addition to see him own his own company, making him constrained by a whole number of different rules.

In the meantime, the action scenes still are fun to watch. They’re varied, and I like how they always involve multiple and different combinations of superheroes to make them fresh. The banter between the characters in-between the scenes especially is fun, and what the characters say are more than just cheesy one-liners.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Deadman Wonderland – 02

by psgels, posted in Deadman Wonderland



This show is crazy. It’s complete purgatory. The creators here take a boy, give him convenient excuses not to die and then proceed to torment him completely, while also making sure that he doesn’t get insane. This is like taking candy from a little kid, only to repeatedly kick it in the groin afterwards.

The convicts are pretty much labelled as criminals and this gives the creators the excuse to pretty much toy with their lives, like a very persistent sadistic cat. This episode was just completely brutal: here the prison simply sends about sixty people on a obstacle course, and how many of them survive it? Five? And heck, if that wasn’t enough, convicts have to gather an ungodly amount of money every three days in order to be able to survive. If you just win one such race, then you’re only safe for three days. How many convicts are there in Deadman Wonderland anyway, for them to be able to kill off everyone so indiscriminately? Based on these rules you’d figure that 95% of the convicts just dies off in just three days.

So yeah, the balls of the storyline is the main reason I’m blogging this series. Sadistic prisons have been done before, but not this crazy. It doesn’t even matter that it doesn’t touch upon prison rape (at least not beyond threats), because there is more than enough wrong with this setting as it is. This kind of openly endorsed bloodbath.

And yet, this is a series in which a fourteen year old kid can knock out a former taekwondo Olympic medallist with a mere plastic ball. That’s one of the two main problems with this series: the creators needed to do something in order to prevent the main character to just die off after five minutes. Even IF he is special, he’s also weak, and yet some of the things he does are just meant to give the writers the excuse to remain on track. This total lack of build-up of suspense of disbelief is one of the two major pitfalls for this series.

The second pitfall? The length. Seriously, this needs a second season to really work.

As for Manglobe, I’m afraid to say that the animation still doesn’t live up to their usual standards. The animation is decent, but nothing like the standards they set for themselves, with a lot of still frames, uninspired character designs (for their standards of course) and the voice acting also could be better. It’s a show that can go anywhere at this point, sand I’m interested in where it’ll end up at.
Rating: * (Good)

X-Men – 04

by psgels, posted in X-Men




This episode had two action scenes. And BY GOD where they excellent! This episode had a number of some people from the animation team of Birdy the Mighty Decode on it, and it really showed. The X-Men is a perfect series for these people to show their talents. These scenes were raw and brutal, and drawn with a ton of force and movement. Definitely the best action scenes of this series yet.

The last episode left me rather disappointed by that “fluids”-guy, but at the very least this episode really gave him a great action scene to close off. But Wolverine’s aerial fight against that flying mutant was awesome as well. More episodes like this, please!

As for the story, that also was quite neatly developed further, when Emma Frost of all people turned out to have a second mutation. The creators made good use of the fact that that one bad guy didn’t show himself in keeping the suspicions around her. These mutants with this second mutation are at the moment far more interesting than the U-Men, but let’s see what this series can do when it starts to develop these people in its second half.

Oh, and I also cracked up at Wolverine playing snooker.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Gosick – 14

by psgels, posted in Gosick



Aah, this arc is actually going to take up three episodes? Really, this could have easily been done in two! Alas, against my hopes Gosick didn’t completely ditch its lesser arcs for its second half. Such a shame.

It’s not like this arc is bad, but the main side character that it’s based around is just completely hopeless. The story of leviathan is quite interesting, and it’s good to finally see a bit more about the red haired guy who mostly likely will end up as the main villain, and yet most of this episode was about this really annoying love triangle that has no chance of working. Cecile does not belong in the spotlights. This arc did not give her any depth, it just shoehorned her into an even more cliched role as a hopeless love interest who is just there to stir up some tension between the lead couple. and the irony is that Kujou and Victorique never really needed this anyway: there’s enough tension between them already. They’re perfectly capable of developing themselves.

I noted previously that Gosick sucks in terms of telling its random stories. Leviathan really could have been the example to that rule, if this episode actually focused on him. The parts of this episode that focused on his story were actually quite good, but Cecile just took up way too much airtime in this episode. She dragged this arc out to three episodes for no reason whatsoever other than filling up 24 episodes.

This series is yet another one of those examples where it’s a shame that there can’t be 18-episoded series. Gosick is too long for 13 episodes and too short for 24. The result? A lot of pointless episodes and padding. Get back to the point you’re trying to make, dammit!
Rating: – (Disappointing)

A-Channel – 03

by psgels, posted in Spring 2011 Kaleidoscope



I know that I praised this series and all, but as I watched the second episode of A-Channel something dawned on me: this series is really formulaic, isn’t it? This was less prevalent in this third episode, but still it stands out.

I’m not talking about formulaic in terms of cliches. These are actually fine in this series, especially compared to the other series of this season. Instead, the scenes in this series nearly always follow the same pattern:
– First there is a bit of a build-up: characters do something normally.
– A character then does something weird, random or strange.
– A straight man then makes a startled reaction.

And mind you, these scenes are often less than a minute long, and this same pattern just repeats over and over. The girls do alternate between acting as the straight man and the one making the joke, but most of the time they have fixed roles in these jokes. Especially in the second episode.

This is a very nasty flaw, and yet this was one of the few moe shows this season that did not bore me out of my skull. Sure, the second episode was bad, but this third episode actually started to mix things up a bit, and contained some actual good jokes along the way, something that a lot of other generic moe shows this season lacked.

It’s nothing amazing, but my best guess at what makes this series tick is that it has good characters. Looking back to the joke format above: that format may be bad, but the build-up is actually fleshing these characters out pretty nicely. The jokes themselves meanwhile, even when they fail, do not turn these characters into generic stereotypes, or force them into these contrived situations, but instead they play with their quirks.

There are some bad examples though, at which this show forgets this. This episode for example contained a really strange insert-song that was just there to fill up time, and the sole salvation of that school doctor was his shock factor, which will die out in a few episodes now. There are also times at which the characters just fall too much into their own roles, but thankfully moments like these are made up for by other scenes that do something completely different with the character in question.

That variety will probably be key in keeping this series fresh. This episode was a good example of that, because it did a good job of shuffling its scenes around, showing a lot of different aspects of high school life. Currently it’s probably at the bare minimum of not being annoying. It’s obviously nothing amazing like Hana-Saku Iroha or Anohana, but it suffices for now as something laid-back to watch.
Rating: (Enjoyable)

[C] The Money of Soul and Possibility Control – 02

by psgels, posted in The Money of Soul and Possibility Control



C is above all, a lot of fun to watch. It’s got an awesome premise, and makes awesome use of that. The action scenes are full of creativity and there is a ton of fast-paced intrigue that keeps this show going. The soundtrack is amazing (third best of the season after Hyouge Mono and Tiger & Bunny), and everything is pointing at the creators planning to make this as fun to watch as possible. Great!

At the same time though, it does have its weaknesses, and doesn’t try to hide it. I like that kind of honesty, at least. The main character did end up to be “the chosen one”: the complete rookie who with a very flimsy reason suddenly does things no other rookie has done before… aside from his big rival. (The rest of the episodes really need to un-flimsy that “asset” of him that allowed him to summon such a giant beam).

Also: 3D CG. It’s clear that the animators are ambitious, but don’t have the budget they need. They want a lot of movement, but they just can’t do everything at the same time, which leads to A TON of 3D CG. On actual characters. Whereas in Tiger & Bunny at least the models are consistent in either 2D or #D, here they really are all over the place, really convincing me of the budget problems. And yet, the scenes at which the animators did focus their attention… are absolutely gorgeous and amongst the best eye candy of the season. Take your pick.

Now, as for the characters: they’re not the best, but I like ’em. The male lead is more than your average male lead, despite his cliches, his female fighting companion is short and to the point, and has the potential to grow, and his rival is probably the most intriguing. They’re all likable, they have potential but need more depth to really work, though. Especially the main character; this episode was instead all about developing the premise. In terms of the really minor side characters though… that probably is the worst part of this series. That thug was just…. too much.

In any case, I’ve been asked what my favourite shows of this season are. I consider the big four to be Hyouge Mono, Anohana, Hana-Saku Iroha and Tiger & Bunny. Those really instantly captured me. After those come Steins;Gate, and C: two series that have all the ingredients to become amongst those other four, but just need a bit of extra time. Right now, the most important thing for C is to remain entertaining throughout its entire 11 episodes. If it manages that, then I’ll be happy, and I won’t mind the flaws at all. The key ingredients for that right now seem to be: more depth on the different characters, and a variety on the different episodes.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Boku-Tachi wa Mada Shiranai. – 02

by psgels, posted in Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Boku-Tachi wa Mada Shiranai



A big season has a major advantage, but also a major disadvantage. The major advantage? There will be more great shows. This will only become more apparent as the season goes on, and right now there are already a ton of shows that are really good. The downside though… is that there also will be more bad shows. This season was no exception.

When I checked out Anohana’s first episode, I had nearly given up. Seriously, I haven’t dropped so many series in one season in a long while. There are just so many mediocre series in this season, let alone bad ones. Things like Hidan no Aria, Sofuteni and Hoshikaka, among many others, had these terribly annoying character. Seriously, what’s fun about them? And then there also were series as Sengoku Otome, which I guess didn’t have any harem stereotypes, but also did absolutely nothing to stand out.

Moe in Noitamina? I really had no faith. Mari Okada surely is an amazing writer, but there is no way that she’d be able to write three series at the same time. Again. Where two are completely original stories. The Fractale debacle of the previous season didn’t help either. And then I started to watch the first episode of Anohana. And indeed, it looked like all the others at first, with a guy and a girl having random fun. And then Naruko turned up, it became clear that Meiko was a ghost, and it just blew me away. It’s been ages since I watched such a heartwarming teenaged drama.

A ton of character development, already in the first episode, excellent animation, these characters are just amazing. They’re unlike the stereotypes you usually see: they feel like people. They have personalities, but aren’t completely dominated by them. They have their own stories, but also feel like characters beyond that. Take this episode for example: Naruko was pretty tsundere, but for once I wouldn’t blame her, considering what happened. And at the same time the tsundere wasn’t the only part of her character. It’s clear that all of these characters still have their feelings about their childhood days, but they all grew away in their own ways. This really turned out to be a wonderful story about people growing apart from each other, with some being left behind. Also, this episode really hit home as well when they started talking about Pokemon (or… Nokemon) which they played together. You usually see kids play video games and all, but rarely do you see this much meaning put into it.

The thing with annoying characters is… well… they’re annoying. There are basically two types of them: the types that are annoying because the writers can’t write good dialogue, or the ones that are really meant to be annoying. And even the second category can become a pain to watch if the character in question is just one-dimensional. Meiko has impressed me, though: she has just the right amount of annoying antics so that it becomes a part of her character, while she also has plenty of scenes that just portray her as a normal girl. She has quite a few sides for only two episodes, which is really great to see. Remember Nessa from Fractale? She mostly ran around being happy and once in a while she got sad when Phryne was involved. Meiko is much more dynamic. Thank god!

Whether this series is going to be better or not than Hana-Saku Iroha obviously can’t be said yet: Hana-Saku Iroha is 26 episodes, so it can take its time to take detours to porn novelists. This just has eleven episodes, so it has to deliver in these eleven episodes. And it’s doing a mighty fine job so far!
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica Review – 87,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica




Ah, the deconstruction: taking a genre or trope, and examine it, put it in a real life situatio, or take a look at it from a completely different angle. I personally love these kinds of series (heck, some of my favourite series are deconstructions). Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica finally shows us another deconstruction of the Mahou shoujo genre, and it is glorious.

This series takes the well known formula: a cute animal comes to a girl, gives her superpowers, and they fight evil. It then examins what it means to be a magical girl. It actually uses its setting quite cleverly in order to really give the life of a magical girl a set of huge advantages and disadvantages. Really, the graphics may be simple, but underneath is a very, very dark storyline.

Teh thing that’s especially amazing about this series is how well everything fits together. It’s twelve episodes long, but it makes excellent use of its time, the characters all fit the story perfectly and everyone serves his own purpose to the points that this series is trying to make. The show really makes sure that it doesn’t waste its time and just about every episode adds something to the overall story and characters. This creates quite a bit of nice development for such a short series.

The graphics are also gorgeous in this series. Unlike a lot of other Shaft series, the animation knows exactly when to be normal, and when to be experimental. The action scenes in this series look really great thanks to all kind of strange and artistic images that are inserted in the surreal battle scenes. Yuki Kajiura is also behind the music, and while this may not be amongst her best work, she still delivers an excellent soundtrack.

It’s definitely a well written and thought-provoking series that continues to evolve. It deserves to be watched, and I see no way for this series to not show up in the top 10 of best eries of 2011. I don’t think that I’ll end up ranking this amongst my favourites, but that entirely because I just consider a lot of other series to be better, not for this show to have major flaws or anything. If I had to nitpick and mention a flaw of this series, then I’d point at the characterization: if the characters here were put in any random slice of life or a more conventional action series, they wouldn’t be interesting to watch at all. It’s entirely the story and the setting that makes something memorable out of them. Again though: this is just nitpicking.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Really well balanced and evolves really well for a 12 episode series. Maks excellent use of the ingredients handed to it.
Characters: 8/10 – Nice development, interesting backstories.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Successfully experiments with its graphics, resulting in some gorgeous action scenes that form a stark contrast with the quiet scenes.
Setting: 9/10 – A terrific deconstruction of a genre that really needed some nudge again.

Suggestions:
– Fancy Lala (Very, very different and slow-paced, but shows a completely different yet just as brilliant take on how to deconstruct the Mahou Shoujo Genre)
– Mahou Shoujotai
– Figure 17 – Tsubasa & Hikaru