Star Driver – 22

by psgels, posted in Star Driver



YES! YES! YES! What a way to start off the finale of this series!

To put the play here of all places, I love the idea. It was foreshadowing, it showed a completely different side, it was very different from the previous episodes, it was based on a solid idea, it had already gotten a lot of build-up, and at the same time it stays true to the series’ core: school life.

I’m not sure whether I’m the only one in this, but I personally love the series with short climaxes. It doesn’t always need to have months of build-up, but with the motto of “say more with less”, I’ve found that some of my most memorable climaxes are actually the ones who put their finales in a relatively short amount of time. After this episode, this means that there are just three episodes reserved for the climax of Star Driver. And this episode really pointed towards the fact that the creators are planning something really interesting for the final episodes here. Finally this series makes use of the fact that it’s an original story!

What really would have made this series a force to be reckoned with would have been more of these kinds of episodes. The ones that are based on a strong idea, and what would have allowed each episode to stand on its own, rather than just being a collection of episodes all about school life and robot battles. I mean, that’s why I’m currently such a big fan of Level E: all of its stories are different and based on great ideas rather than cliches. That’s the one thing that Star Driver lacked and what really could turned this into an amazing series.

What also was short but sweet in this episode: that aftermath. I mean, dear lord, how many new things did we learn about the characters in like, what? A minute? I mean, the stuffed animal talks, the president of the drama club is an alien, the cybodies come from space and Tauburn was specifically created for a human? Talk about creating intrigue for next week.

Overall, there is only one bloody show that aired during the past half year and that isn’t going to end within a month: Gosick. At the moment, the endings that are looking the most promising are the ones of Level E, Madoka Magica and Star Driver here. Let’s see which one can deliver the most interesting end here.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Mitsudomoe Zouryouchuu! Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Mitsudomoe



It’s rare for a comedy sequel to be better than the original. Here is one, though. The original Mitsudomoe had its moments of hilarity, but it also had many problems: milked out jokes, trying to be way more disgusting than what was tolerable, and the endlessly repeated forced misunderstandings between the characters. Those problems are actually fixed in the sequel, Mitsudomoe Zoryouchuu.

The keyword here is balance. In the sequel, the creators make sure that no character is overexposed or milked out. Everyone gets some decent time to show off his collection of quirks and jokes. Most episodes are separated into five sketches, and those sketches either centre around one theme or are completely random, but they continue to be different and dynamic. Even the final episode still is hilarious.

The humour in this series works especially well because of how it uses its characters: in the first season it relied a lot on innuendo humour, but this too is much more varied here. The series is at its best when there are a lot of different characters involved who all play off each other, where their emotions quickly change from one to the other. At these points it becomes incredibly dynamic and fun to watch.

The more solid execution also makes the characters a lot more down to earth and likable. The first season was way too full of toilet humour for this. The second season still has that, but it’s much more restrained. The result is that now, the characters in this show are much like your typical children with their childish antics and sometimes perverted minds. Most series about children in elementary school age try to portray them innocently, but Mitsudomoe goes out of its way to show their bratty and naive sides. The second season makes it surprisingly easy to relate to.

In Mitsudomoe 1, the ratio of sketches that worked versus the ones that didn’t work was about 50:50. In Mitsudomoe 2, this is around 75:25. Most episodes have one sketch that is absolutely hilarious, and several others that are quite funny. As for the bad ones though, those are the ones in which either the creators don’t try hard enough, the joke they use just falls flat, or the creators just fall back into the flaws of the first season by repeating jokes for too long. or just being disgusting for the sake of disgusting.

I wouldn’t recommend checking out Mitsudomoe 2 without having seen the first season, as it relies on running gags that were started in the first season. However, if you’ve seen the first season, then watching Mitsudomoe 2 will only make this show better. It has a number of bad sketches, but those are vastly outweighed by the good ones. It’s a much more solid and enjoyable comedy.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Hilarious, solid and varied comedy, knows most of the time that it shouldn’t milk its jokes.
Characters: 8/10 – Some characters are just bad. Most of them are pretty good though, especially their chemistry is on fire in this season.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Bridge’s debut could have been much worse.
Setting: 8/10 – It’s an elementary school. Yet much more believably presented than in the first season.

Suggestions:
– Muteki Kanban Musume
– Ga Geijutsuka Art Design Class
– Hanamaru Youchien

Mitsudomoe Special Episode

by psgels, posted in Mitsudomoe



Yeah, this one is part of the first season. The sexual innuendo is less subtle than ever, jokes get repeated and the misunderstanding jokes are back again. It still had its funny moments, but overall it was also a bit forced, and nowhere as hilarious as most of the episodes of the second season.

By far the worst part of this episode was the “Hitoha’s cheeks are like boobs” joke that just got repeated ad nauseum. It was a bad joke to begin with, but it was dragged out horribly and gave Yabecchi eventually an excuse to bring the misunderstandings back again when. The two parts about Mitsuba’s weight loss also had some of the same repeated jokes, but it had some good laughs. The sushi bit was pretty hilarious though.

One thing that I especially noticed in this episode was that it went a bit overboard with the facial reactions of everyone. Especially Mitsuba was yelling for the largest part, and there were a tad more overacted gasps than were comfortable. To close off this series, the previous episode really was a better choice.

Overall the past year has been interesting in the way that much less series were released than usual, and they were also much smaller than usual, the majority not even going beyond thirteen episodes. This allowed me to blog much more different series than usual, and also series that I normally never would have considered blogging: this series, Gosick and Zombie. It was an interesting year, but in the end I really do prefer the large seasons like the upcoming spring. Sure, there may be more crap, but there are also more interesting series. Blogging these pure comedies was fun, but I’m probably not going to weekly blog any of them for a while unless a comedy that is as good as Level E or Geijutsuka Art Design Class pops up.
Rating: (Enjoyable)

Break Blade IV Review – 77,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Break Blade has what I like to call the “bad main character syndrome”. His story, back-story and development: they’re all completely uninteresting and generic, and he takes away a lot of screen-time from the more interesting parts of this movie. He has nothing to do with the politics, so that too gets pushed completely aside whenever he is on the screen, in favour of bland romance, a bland rival story and bland morals about killing. Four movies in and this still hasn’t gotten any better.

The fourth movie pretty much was the same as the previous ones: whenever the lead character was on the screen it was boring, whenever it focused on the other characters, it was quite interesting. The rivalry was completely absent from this movie, but instead we got a lot of boring romance build-up. On the other hand, the side characters are getting better, and this had the best battles of the movies so far. I’d say that the ratio of Rygart vs. the rest in this movie was about 35:65.

I’ve whined enough about Rygart for now, but let me at least comment a bit on the battles here. The battles here were again in a larger scale than before, up to the point that two small armies actually faced each other. The resulting battle was a great combination between large-scale tactics to small scale ones, from regular mechas to overpowered ones: it was a surprisingly well balanced one. That was exactly what this series needed: it already had the down to earth battles, and this movie took that formula, added some extra spice to it and made it even better.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Good action scenes. The warfare works here.
Characters: 7/10 – Bad main character syndrome. the side characters are interesting, though.
Production-Values: 8/10 – A step up from the previous movie.
Setting: 8/10 – This instalment was low on politics, but makes up for it with its military analysis.

Suggestions:
– Sengoku Basara
– Seirei no Moribito
– Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu

Letter Bee – 47

by psgels, posted in Letter Bee



I can only imagine how different things must have been in the manga at this point, because this episode in particular pulled a few twists that gave a completely different dimension to a few key characters. Still, the manga has an unlimited time frame and the anime doesn’t, so I at least admire the balls of the creators to go with some of the twists in this episode.

The thing with mystery is that it tends to leave a void whenever it’s solved, unless a different hook is provided. That was was a pretty big problem of this series for the past number of episodes, save for the Connor episode. This episode provided that hook again, and it’s just in time for the finale here.

It was obvious that if the plot were to just revolve around getting rid of the Cabernet, it would end up rather boring. It needed some extra spice to be introduced. Thunderland being part of Reverse is definitely an interesting way to do it. He has the background and enough motivation to do it, and having foreshadowed in in the previous episodes would only have made it more shallow, although I do wonder what kind of logic went behind his decision to store the ones who couldn’t become a spirit… int he middle of the Bee Hive.

Meanwhile, Gauche is good again! This lacked some of the impact due to the previous episodes rather shallow reason for it, but nevertheless: that scene between him and Sylvette was an excellent climax between the two. I mean, Letter Bee has always been very character-centric, and now it comes with a plot focused final quarter. It’s great to see that they still have a number of moments dedicated to simply the characters for the finale.

Letter Bee has definitely been an interesting series, it went from good to tedious to charming to repetitive, to amazing, to captivating, to a bit less interesting to a bit more interesting again. It’s going to depend a lot on the ending here. This ending needs to be more than “and they defeated the bad guy and lived happily ever after”. That would be just a dull anti-climax after all that build-up.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Bakuman – 22

by psgels, posted in Bakuman



Three episodes left, and this show comes with an anti-climax. Interesting, that after all of the build-up of the previous episode, all that the characters did in this series was get fired up, try out some stuff, realize that they don’t work and continuing where they left off. If anything, this was an episode to boost their confidence and resolve, more than anythings else, and I’m not sure whether the right place for that is so near to a major cliff-hanger.

Also, am i the only one who felt that the audience for Miho’s event was a little… stalkerish? I mean, it was just creepy in \the way that they just kept staring at her without saying anything, or even looking at each other.

Overall, I think that this is the part where this show is getting a bit repetitive. The interesting part about this episode was the way that all of the mangaka commented on each other’s stories and all, but this was the umpth time in which we saw the lead couple in a minor setback, only to get more motivation to go on and create their story. It probably won’t be a problem for the rest of this first season, but the second season does need to pay attention to this.
Rating: * (Good)

A Wind Named Amnesia Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




Here is something that dawned to me while watching A Wind Named Amnesia, about modern anime movies: they aren’t rushed. Sure some of them are bad and all, but I don’t think I can name any movie that premiered during the past years whose story did not sort-of fit in the time that was allocated to it. Some may be fast-paced, but no movie really lacked entire arcs that should have been animated as well. It’s an interesting observation, considering how this is a problem that many TV-series and OVAs suffer from.

Some of the old movies also suffer from this, to take A Wind Named Amnesia just as an example. I haven’t read the manga (coming from the same original author as Vampire Hunter D), but at times, especially near the end, it feels like the creators skipped entire volumes out of time constraints, just to get to a very strange and confusing ending that doesn’t fit in the story in the slightest as a result. If you plan to watch this series, be aware of a very incomplete story.

The story that’s there impressed me, though. It is centred around a basic, but very interesting question, and the vast majority of this movie is dedicated to studying human behavior. It asks questions behind human culture and civilization, and what would happen if all of that would disappear: what would drive them and how do they survive when suddenly their entire lives are turned upside down? The movie is only 80 minutes long, which is way too little to really get in depth on the theme, but the stories that did make it into the movie are wonderfully told, and very interesting to boot.

It’s a very lonely movie. There’s this melancholy throughout the entire airtime that only gets strengthened thanks to some well chosen and performed background music. The protagonist here is excellent in the way that he is easy to relate to in the chaotic world that this movie portrays, while learning a lot throughout the movie and his backstory.

The animation isn’t the most consistent for a movie: some parts are really well animated, others a bit less, but it still is a visually impressive movie with strong character designs. But yeah, the ending jumps around way too much without any build-up. Ideally, this should have been a TV-series, not a movie.

Storytelling: 7/10 – Excellent atmosphere, but way too short for its story, which especially bites back at the end.
Characters: 8/10 – Both the lead and side characters are wonderfully portrayed in the short time that this movie has for them.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Excellent soundtrack, nice, though not the most consistent animation.
Setting: 9/10 – Based on a number of excellent ideas, and takes excellent advantage of this.

Suggestions:
– Please Save my Earth (done by the same director, and again ridiculously rushed despite having an awesome premise)
– Strange Dawn
– Saishuu Heiki Kanojo

Wolverine – 09

by psgels, posted in Wolverine



Okay. That was a lot of action.

Seriously, these bad guys don’t know the meaning of overkill. This episode was worth watching, if only to see the ridiculous amount and size of all the things they threw at Wolverine, to just prevent him from ascending that freakishly long Hell Road. It was a complete carnage what happened there. i mean, this show takes fighting goons to a different level.

It’s a shame that this episode was clearly partly outsourced, because the direction of all of this chaos was really good. The bad guys just kept coming with new and different ways to try and kill Wolverine and this flowed very neatly from one action scene to the other, with interesting camera angles and and animation. Especially the fight with the thousand deadly spears looked wonderful, but as the episode went on there were just too many “one frame action scenes”. You know, the one in which the creators just show one single frame with a bunch of a sounds over it. It works for some series, but the previous episodes of Wolverine set themselves apart by exactly NOT doing that. The biggest hint to the outsourcing however was how the creators couldn’t decide how large the army of Yukio’s grandfather was. That shot of them, walking up Hell Road was probably the worst of this entire episode.

At this point, Wolverine has pretty much surpassed Iron Man in every conceivable way, aside from perhaps the background catchiness (seriously, near the end I was just watching Iron Man to hear that kickass background tune of theirs). The setting is a lot more solid, the plot is simple, yet effective, the action takes itself seriously and is well paced (and most importantly: really not formulaic aside from the fact that Wolverine keeps winning), the characters also aren’t going to win any awards, but they still do their job by being interesting to watch and everyone having their own motivations that isn’t a complete cornball. I wouldn’t call this series a complete success yet, because I’ve seen tons of action series that built up to a grand finale that never came (Sengoku Basara, High School of the Dead), but so far I’m enjoying this show much more than I thought I would after Iron Man.

Oh, and yeah, for those who didn’t know yet: the director of Basilisk and Afro Samurai is going to direct the X-Men. Oh boy. This really depends on what kind of scriptwriter they got here, but if that guy is good (meaning that he manages to come up with a good backstory, rather than what happened to Afro Samurai), then we’re really in for something interesting here.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Gosick – 09

by psgels, posted in Gosick



Dear police inspector. When someone comes across something he should not have seen, the bad guys will no doubt try their hardest to cover their mistakes up as thorough as possible by denying any sort of involvement. When examining testimonials like that, you should take every statement with a grain of salt. Not just the ones from the obnoxious kid you dislike.

Dear bad guys. When a random guy happens to stumble upon a priceless artifact that you have stolen, you really should get better security and you had better make damn sure that this guy does not have the chance to report EVERYTHING HE SAW to the police. I mean, you’re lucky that the inspector was a moron and all, so that these two stupid acts cancelled each other out.

I’m still not sure what’s up with these two, to be honest. I mean, I guess that the dumber the cast is, the smarter Victorique seems in comparison and all, but she doesn’t really need that. She’s a great character even without some morons around her, and I’d actually argue that if she were surrounded by other characters who at least had some common sense, she’d end up shining even brighter. I at first feared that she was too much of a tsundere, but the past few episodes have made her a very strange tsundere with some… interesting quirks. The previous arc also really did its job and gave her some depth and this episode too was pretty charming due to her catching a cold. Neat way to flesh her out some more.
Rating: * (Good)

Some Quick First Impressions: Danbooru Senki

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Danbooru Senki

Short Synopsis: Our lead character possesses the legendary tiny robot to save the world.
This season, the first series to debut was also its biggest mystery: the director of Berserk and Figure 17 doing a kiddie show. Now, after watching this first episode, it’s unfortunately not like this series strays far from the usual formula of these kinds of series: three lead characters, one main rival, a tournament arc, and the lead character who possesses the single most important robot in the world. Not to mention the way in which every single adult in this show leaves the fate of the world hanging on the shoulders of a young boy. OLM have really become lazy during the past decade. I mean, I know that they’ve got successes with Pokemon and all, but even Toei comes with shows like Mononoke or Trapeze once in a while. Having said that, though: for a kiddie show adhering to this overused formula, it’s not half bad; I’ve definitely seen worse portrayals. There is none of the obnoxiously bad acting that you usually see with these kinds of series, and the creators immediately state that the lead character is special due to his father’s influence as the inventor of these strange fighting robots that this series focuses on. He also doesn’t find his own robot by accident, but for some reason his father made the conscious decision to send the world’s most powerful robot to his teenaged son. That does bring up the question of what an incredible bad parent you must be to involve your kid in international schemes like this…
OP: For a kiddie opening, it’s pretty decent.
ED:
Potential: 30%