Gosick – 13

by psgels, posted in Gosick



Gosick…. why the heck are you introducing a love triangle at this point? What’s the point of suddenly making one of the side characters (who has absolutely no chance whatsoever of getting him) fall in love with him. I mean, he’s bland enough already. Was he really the best choice for her? Also, Kujou: how the heck couldn’t you recognize Grevil with his hair down? It’s unfortunate that some of the problems that plagued the first half aren’t going to go away.

On the other hand though, the story about Leviathan was really good here, successfully combining mythology with fiction. Okay, so the way in which the place he lived just “happened” to be in the back yard of the main character is a bit… out there, but leaving that aside I like how this episode tried to include alchemy, while sending really big hints towards that philosopher’s stone being another red herring.

Victorique’s smirk when she went down the elevator was also priceless. The characters in Gosick nearly all have their ups and downs, but she is the only one who is consistently excellent.Cecile, the teacher, probably is the worst character so far: was there any point in this series in which she wasn’t incredibly whiny and stupid? As for the red haired guy… I’m not yet sold on him. The creators need to stop hinting at how he’s going to be a major bad guy ad actually show some things about him.
Rating: * (Good)

Interstella 5555 – The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




My first experience with Matsumoto Leiji’s typical character-designs… was actually from a Daft Punk music video (One More Time!). I watched it before even discovering anime online, so finally sitting down and watch the entire movie of Interstella 5555 was a definite nostalgia trip.

There have been anime music videos, but I don’t think that it has ever been done as ambitiously as with Interstella 5555: it’s basically just one giant music video. There is no dialogue and the entire story gets told through both the animation and the music, both of which are excellent. Daft Punk’s style of trance works really well with this kind of media, and the graphics are full of neat designs, ideas and details in order to provide plenty of eye candy for an entire hour. It’s definitely a unique watching experience.

One of my fears was that, since this entire movie is based on one of Daft Punk’s albums, that it would be too much of a self-promotion of the band. It could have gone much worse, though. The people from Daft Punk only make an appearance as a cameo in one scene and do not feel like they’re stroking their own egos. The one problem that this movie does suffer from is that you can clearly see the borders between the different songs. Every song on the album pretty much got its own music video, and the transition between one song to the other is a bit stiff. On the other hand, that does make each song stand out and make it distinct, rather than just being a rehash over and over.

With no dialogue you obviously can’t get really that complex of a story nor characters. And indeed, those are not the main focus of this movie. The story mainly exists in order to make all of the music videos different yet coherent, while the characters… are just there. Instead I just want to praise the way in which the creators delivered this story, and how they used these simple ingredients to make something really enjoyable here.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Great delivery and a very enjoyable and unique ride.
Characters: 7/10 – Enjoyable, but very one-dimensional. No dialogue is great, but it comes with its sacrifices.
Production-Values: 9/10 – A great multimedia project. The music and visuals really bring this one to life.
Setting: 8/10 – It screams Matsumoto Leiji, and it definitely has a cool albeit sometimes cliched, universe.

Suggestions:
– Amazing Nuts (yes, there really is an anime out there called “Amazing Nuts”. Don’t ask).
– El Cazador de la Bruja
– Mr Stain on Junk Alley

Sket Dance – 02

by psgels, posted in Spring 2011 Kaleidoscope



For those who only stumbled upon this blog recently, in the category Spring 2011 Kaleidoscope I review an episode of a different series each week. There are quite a number of series that I don’t want to blog weekly (like this one), but have enough to say about to fill one post. At the end of the season when I’ve run out of shows to review, I return to the best ones for some final impressions. I don’t do these Kaleidoscopes every single season (the previous Winter Season was just too small for it), but I found it a nice way to show a lot about the busy seasons.

In any case, manga adaptations have always been tricky, but Sket Dance actually has a clearly paved road to a very enjoyable series. Since the manga consists out of just random stories, if the creators are smart they can just compile the best chapters of the manga together and make a very enjoyable series. This is one of those cases where I’d really encourage shuffling around the chapters in order to make them paint a nice picture of its cast. The most important for Sket Dance will be bringing its school to life. Its premise really lends itself to showing many different people walking around the school grounds. Unfortunately, I haven’t read the manga, so I can’t really comment on whether or not this episode took these liberties, or whether it’s just a textbook adaptation.

In any case though, this episode served its purpose: it built up momentum. It perhaps wasn’t the best in terms of characterization, but it did have a lot of energy that it used really well. This episode was pretty much an entire fest of ADHD that was surprisingly enjoyable. What this series needs to do now is keep building further upon this momentum. If not, then this will just revolve into a scream-fest.

Because yeah, this show is pretty simple. Right now the characters are constantly screaming: if there is no order to that chaos then it will get boring pretty fast. The biggest problem right now is that all of the people that the Sket Dan needs to help are stereotypes and one-sided. Currently, they’re being saved by 1) one big twist to their characters, 2) the fast pacing of this show and 3) having them reappear throughout the other chapters. Take for example The World God Only Knows: that one lacks numbers 2 and 3 and as a result, none of these characters really end up standing out. (as a matter of fact, I’ve pretty much forgotten about most of them). Sket Dance needs to avoid this by making all of these people count, despite their short arcs. Right now though, I’d say that if it can keep up this pace, it’ll turn out fine. but it’s obviously not going to be anything amazing.
Rating: * (Good)

Hyouge Mono – 02

by psgels, posted in Hyouge Mono



Hyouge Mono is by far the most unorthodox show of the season. It does just about everything that you shouldn’t do to get some commercial insurance: it’s full of old guys, there is hardly any moe, and you can’t really call the characters bishies either. There is no action as well, despite this being a series about feudal warfare, and the dialogue is the hardest to understand of the entire season as well.

It’s still a huge shame that receives so little attention, though. No subs whatsoever. Heck, I haven’t even able to find any decent raws of this second episode.And that even though this show has some of the best characterizations of the season, the best soundtrack of the season, and the best lead character of the season. Seriously, if there’s any show that deserves to be watched, it’s this one, for taking so many risks.

What’s also funny is that in a medium as anime that has heaps of moe and fanservice, the actual concept of sex hardly ever gets used, and when it does you often get outright porn like with Yosuga no Sora. Sekai-Ichi Hatsukoi looked to be the first example in years to actually do this even remotely well. And here this series suddenly comes, with no fanservice whatsoever, and from out of nowhere we see the main character have sex with his wife. This show really continues to surprise me.

Also, that lead character is just amazing. This guy is completely out there: on one hand he is supposed to be this level-headed army commander, but on the other he is obsessed over tea and tea bowls. His inner monologues are all just wonderful, and especially his voice actor is amazing. Plus, this show has some unique facial expressions. I mean, anime is already known for its over exaggeration of faces, but this… I don’t think have ever seen facial expressions like this in series here.

If you’d see screenshots of these expressions, you’d probably think that they look incredibly silly, and yet for some strange reason, they do an amazing job of giving the lead character his unique personality. The acting here does not aim to be as outrageous as possible; in fact, all of the expressions here are weird, but all have some restraint to them, like the main character biting his lip, or looking really surprised while trying hold himself in at the same time.

Oh, and obviously, the music is just amazing here, leading to a wonderful atmosphere. Especially at that scene where the main character actually nearly cut off the head of his wife in order to get what he wanted was wonderfully done.

I mean, this season has a LOT of good stuff here. And still, Hyouge Mono stands out by being so damn unique. It has this completely unique feeling thanks to combining feudal warfare with such an obsessive and unique lead character, along with Bee-Train’s usual style. Heck, they actually moved away from all of their usual formulas here. This doesn’t even feel similar to Blade of the Immortal: that really was dedicated to very stylish action and a cool level headed protagonist. This… is completely different aside from being set around the same time.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Some Quick First Impressions: Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Boku-tachi wa Mada Shiranai., [C] The Money of Soul and Possibility Control and Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko

by psgels, posted in Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Boku-Tachi wa Mada Shiranai, Some Quick First Impressions, The Money of Soul and Possibility Control

Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Boku-tachi wa Mada Shiranai.

Short Synopsis: Our lead character lives together with a cute girl.
Amazing! Wonderful! Excellent! Hell yeah! I really applaud Anohana. Finally a show that proves that you can do amazing stuff with moe. I refuse to tell why, though. Just watch the episode. The only thing I’ll say about this episode is regarding the production values: A-1 have yet again done an amazing job on the animation here. It’s in the same style as Fractale, meaning that there are absolutely no still frames. The characters move consistently across the screen and really come to life this way. I remember noting that Hana Saku Iroha would give Anohana some stiff competition this season. It’s at the same time also the other way around here: the battle for the best slice of life drama this season is going to be an awesome one.
OP: A decent ballad.
ED: A bit of a cheesy song, but works wonderfully here.
Potential: 90%

[C] The Money of Soul and Possibility Control

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets tempted by a weird clown.
Well, it had it coming, but this was definitely the prettiest series of the season. The quiet scenes already look very detailed, but the dramatic parts look absolutely gorgeous. The action scene at the beginning of this episode in particular had some really imaginative action. It’s typical of Kenji Nakamura, but at the same time his style is evolving: it’s no longer just weirdness for the sake of weirdness, but there also was a lot of conventional animation used. Characters actually were animated here. And the combination between the extravagant action scenes and the other quiet scenes works really well here. The story is also full of potential. It’s perhaps a bit like Eden of the East, with the big difference being that the main character is actually flawed. This entire episode was about him giving into temptation. He is mundane, yet well fleshed out: this episode takes him seriously and establishes him as level-headed, yet insecure, curious, yet unsuccessful in love (it’s a definite plus to see a potential love interest immediately established as someone who already has a boyfriend other than him). With a bit of luck, this is going to be what Eden of the East couldn’t be. The whole question will be whether or not the creators took into account that they have only 11 episodes to work with. But then again, Kenji Nakamura is a Noitamina Veteran (he and Kenichi Kasai pretty much set the timeslot apart), plus he is an expert on short stories, so this is really promising. The only bad part right now is the cleanup animation: there are quite a few distorted faces.
OP: Awesome graphics, and not a bad song either.
ED: Excellent graphics, but the song is still boring unfortunately.
Potential: 90%

Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets to live together with a cute girl.
Well, this is yet another one of the moe shows of this season. The formula is pretty much the same here: transfer student arrives to town, meets his romantic interest, people talk, the girls try to be cute and there is fanservice. Still, it’s among the better of the bundh. It actually has some good ideas put into the characterization (I’d like to thank the lead female for spending nearly the entire episode wrapped inside a futon and being nearly impossible to undrstand), and the dialogue is definitely better written compared to the likes of Hidan no Aria, Sofuteni, Hoshikaka, etc. At the same time though, it was also pretty forced at times, the male lead was rather bland and very little actually happened in this episode. So, here is my issue with this episode: the end of this episode actually hinted to an interesting story. However, this is Shaft. The rest of this show could just as well be the characters randomly wasting time, and they’re not interesting enough for that to work. On one hand, this has Shinbo who is working on three shows at the same time this season. On the other hand, it has a completely fresh writer who has only been active for a few years in many excellent episodes. This really can go either way and this episode didn’t really change that.
OP: Agh, my ears! It’s like they put a cat in a blender and recorded it.
ED: Simple, a bit of a boring singer, but I’ve heard much worse this season.
Potential: 50%

Some Quick First Impressions: Hidan no Aria, Yugioh Zexal and Seikon no Qwaser II

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Hidan no Aria

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets to live together with a cute girl.
Oh GOD no. Not another Kugimiya Rie tsundere!? When will they ever stop!? I mean, at least Lotte no Omocha cast her as a ten year old. This Aria is pretty much a yet another Shana clone. There is nothing new or fresh about her; everything is pretty much copy pasted from your standard uninspired moe show. Only the lead character stands out because of how he treats her like a kid, but that’s not really a positive thing to say here because it only made her into an even bigger tsundere. Now, as for the rest of this episode: it really tried to be a fun action series, which I can understand. What I can’t understand however was the huge amount of really boring moe antics around really boring characters that dominated the rest of this episode. I’ve heard that the manga this is based on gets really good after a while, which is something that I’m willing to believe. However, I have two problems with that. First of all: is there any guarantee that the anime will reach that point? With such a trollish director I doubt it, and this episode wasn’t really in a hurry to get to that point. My second problem: is it really worth it to sit through a ton of crap, just to get to those good parts? I mean, the action scenes in this episode were fun enough, but random action scenes only stay fun for so long unless you build up, and I know that I’m not going to be able to sit through any more of the moe antics of this series. The lead female is just that annoying. I’d really like to congratulate this season: I was nearly getting over my bias of Kugimiya Rie, but Rose, Lotte and especially Aria reminded me of why I hate that voice.
OP: Actually not bad, and they tried to be a tad different here. It’s still a very typical OP once the voice starts, though.
ED: Nice visuals. Again, not bad.
Potential: 10%

Yugioh Zexal

Short Synopsis: Our lead character plays a children’s card game.
Oh, this wasn’t actually as bad as I expected. Okay, obviously the main character looks incredibly stupid and all (really, this guy’s looks are on a completely different dimension), he’s pretty much a moron and this is the umpth show about a young guy who plays some sort of game, but it did it with the kind of cheese that actually made it a bit watchable. The background music was actually surprisingly good, and the bad guy in this episode was so ridiculously over the top that he actually was kindof fun to watch with his angry flying sharks and all. I have to say that the monster designers got pretty creative for this one. Oh, this is cheese. But the very least it knows how to build up tension.
OP: I would have expected much worse from a kids’ show.
ED: Actually decent if you ignore the cheese.
Potential: 30%

Seikon no Qwaser

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is an unregistered sex-offender.
Oh, lord. I’ve just been watching four new bad series in a row… that really was too much for my sanity. Especially since this one takes the cake: it has completely stopped pretending now. Why isn’t this labelled as porn yet? Just… watch this if you want boobs. It’s got plenty of them. The rest of this episode was just stupid beyond belief. I have no energy anymore to rant about this thing.
OP: Boring, badly sung, the usual.
ED: Is that Aya Hirano singing through her nose?
Potential: 0%

A few questions for the Germans out there

by psgels, posted in Special Articles

Sure, this is perhaps a bit of a personal question, but I figured that I might as well abuse this blog for it.

Basically, I’m currently planning a holiday tto Germany somewhere in the upcoming summer, and I’ve been wondering:
– What are some of the must-visit places?
– What are some cheap places to stay?
– Perhaps we could meet up or something?

In any case, for everyone who is not German: apologies for wasting your time.

OVA Impressions: Votoms Finder

by psgels, posted in OVA Impressions



With both Votoms Finder and Case;Irvine, the creators got the strange idea that the usual Votoms mecha designs were too bland, so they decided to give them a stylish upgrade. That’s like, missing the entire point of Votoms here!

In any case, Votoms Finder is much better than Case;Irvine. It’s neither overly angsty or a Gundam wannabe, and even though it introduces concepts that would have been really weird in the Votoms Franchise, it also succeeds in expanding its franchise a bit. Its biggest sin is that apart from that, I don’t really have naything to praise it for.

The action was nice, but never really stood out. The story… well, there was a story. It was a story that fitted well within 40 minutes, but apart from that it’s just a damsel in distress story with just one single twist in the middle. The characters… they’re not annoying or anything and I guess that they’re likable enough, but they’re all pretty one-dimensional. Why would you want to watch this? Uh, I really have no idea.

After this post, I’m really going to stop blogging these OVAs, just for the heck of it. They just take away too much of my time and I want to stop writing about things that just don’t interest me. Talking about bad and mediocre stuff can be fun once in a while, but right now I’ve done just too much of that. Rants are fun once in a while but if you do them too often you’re just going to sound really whiny or obnoxious.

From now on, the only OVAs that I’ll create a separate post about are the ones that either:
– Are really good (read: episode rating of 8,5 or above)
– Are really underrated (nobody talks about them and they deserve more recognition).
– Are something that I really want to say something about (episodes that perhaps aren’t the best, but somehow did something to get me really fired up).
Regarding the others, I’m planning to just compile a list of general impressions for my monthly summaries. Writing posts about every single OVA that comes out that consist out of four or more paragraphs… those are just too much. This also includes things like Gundam Unicorn unless it does something really good, or .Hack//Quantum when it fails to really stand out. Blogging all of these OVAs at the same time, alongside all of the TV-series that come out is just too much of a chore.
OVA Episode Rating: 7,25/10

Steins;Gate – 02

by psgels, posted in Steins;Gate



Stein’s Gate has the most subtle build-up of the season, and yet at the same time it has its moments that are completely un-subtle. The colours are all washed out, there is no complex background music but instead it consists out of simple sounds, and yet it has a very hammy lead character that combines together surprisingly well. The atmosphere is really tight when it needs to, and the lead character provides some nice silliness to lighten the mood from this atmosphere.

Now, that cross-dresser was a bit too much, and I’m also not sure where that maid cafe suddenly came from (seriously, are there actually cafes in Japan in which the waitresses aren’t dressed as maids? This episode overall was not as impressive as the first one, but it still had a lot to like about it. The dialogue in particular is nicely down to earth and interesting: it’s well written for both the subtle and silly parts, making sure that it doesn’t destroy the mood of the serious parts.

Also, the mysterious John Titor is definitely an interesting addition to this series: a time traveller who appeared ten years ago, and in the meantime erased his own existence. This series has definitely chosen interesting subject material with time travel, and that gel banana also shows that it’s really planning to make use of it.

The big question for this series right now is: why is Hououin special? Why did he not forget about time resetting itself?
Rating: * (Good)

Showa Monogatari – 01 – AGAIN

by psgels, posted in Showa Monogatari



So, just to make sure I went back to the episode 01 that aired a week ago. It’s completely new again. Stop being so confusing with your episode numbers!

So, to recap:
– The episodes 03, 05, 08 and 09 that aired during the past week are the same as episodes 01, 02, 03 and 04 that were released as preview episodes back in January and February.
– The episodes 01 and 02 that aired during the past two weeks have new content.
– Do not ask me why the creators found it a good idea to just randomly select four episodes and reshuffle them into preview episodes.

It feels a bit weird to watch this opening episode while already having seen five other episodes, but it does fit as an opening much better than the “fake” first episode, which did bring in a lot of random drama around Kouhei and his father. This episode introduced all of the characters, it established Kouhei’s father as someone with anger management problems despite his good intentions, we finally see Kouhei’s sister’s crush formally introduced. And to my surprise that bearded guy from episode two is a recurring character. Seriously, he looks a bit like a rapist or something…

Strangely enough, this episode had exactly three shots where the animation was much, much better than the rest of this series. It’s really obvious that this was meant to be the first episode, which baffles me even more that they didn’t use that animation for the first preview episode. I mean, isn’t the entire point of spending a lot of the animation budget on the first episode the fact that it’s supposed to improve the FIRST impressions? It defeats the purpose a bit to use this as a fifth impression…

Now, because it was meant to introduce everything, this episode probably established the least in comparison to all of the other episodes. Most of the things introduced were already established in the episodes that preceded it, and it never really got to look at the characters in-depth. The previous episodes were all wonderfully varied and all had their own focus, so this episode wasn’t among the best of this series.
Rating: * (Good)