Gosick – 07

by psgels, posted in Gosick



This is why this series originally caught my attention: its creativity. This episode was full of it. It successfully created an entire small culture, with its own rituals, traits and habits. It created a wide variety of characters and a very imaginative back-story that for once actually kept me guessing, instead of just waiting for Victorique to grab the script again. Finally there’s some actual build-up in the way she comes to the answer!

It’s a shame that this series leaves so much to be desired in the character department. If it had compelling and deep characters it really would have been an interesting series here. Instead, the only interesting character in this series at this point is Victorique: the past two episodes gave a lot of depth to her with her background and her antics are also starting to get quite colorful. The rest of the cast though… they’re not portrayed well.

Most of the characters here suffered from bad acting and strange behaviors. Especially those three male guests suffered from this: they were stereotypical assholes. I know that this series is deliberately withholding their backgrounds, but in doing so it also forgets to flesh them out and give them decent personalities. We never even get to know who they are. The maid in this episode as well: I’m sure that she’s a nice girl and all, but this episode portrayed her as totally deranged. Oh, and we also have Kujou. I still can’t get over the fact that the lead character of a detective series has such a poor sense of observation. First there is a box with a piece of paper in it, and he says that nothing is in it. Then he promises to protect Victorique, only for her to run off while he’s dozing off. Or take the scene in which we get a surprisingly cheerful Victorique singing from out of nowhere… and he just remarks that she’s back to her usual self. When did we ever hear her sing so cheerfully like that!? (No offence to Victorique about that, by the way. It’s really good to see more sides of her).

And don’t get me wrong, though: this episode was wonderfully told. The atmosphere it built up was excellent and the dialogue blended in really well with the music. It was well paced and packed a number of great and hard hitting plot twists. It’s because of that that it’s such a shame that this show is a waste of this potential due to the really poor attention to detail. I’ve said this before: this show is great in the big picture, but not so great in the small picture.
Rating: * (Good)

Yumekui Merry – 07

by psgels, posted in Yumekui Merry



Aaaand we’ve got ourselves a beach episode here. I guess it was inevitable, with how the OP kept hinting at it, but it’s a good thing that this show is well written, otherwise it would have been a complete disaster, plus gg’s insert jokes are also getting on my nerves now (we know these fanservice moments are bad. You don’t need to make them worse!). This was very much a buildup episode, but at the very least the creators made sure that the random antics and the fanservice didn’t get in the way of the good parts of the episode: Merry and her sense of justice.

Merry and Yumeji… they’re a great lead couple. This episode again showed that even within an episode with such a badly overused premise of going to the beach with half the cast, the chemistry between them remains rock-solid. The past seven episodes have done wonders developing the trust between them, and seeing them play off of it really saved this episode for me. For a beach episode, it could have been much worse, and the creators also took their time to slightly develop the relationship between two of the side characters.

Plus, the characters kept talking about justice, so I was really expecting Merry to gather her composure just in time in order to save that young boy whose dream demon was about to be killed. And yet, Merry didn’t even notice it, and the boy just got his dreams destroyed. It’s definitely an interesting entrance for the new villain, but she really needs to get less stereotypically evil after this point. That will be fine if this episode was indeed hinting at what I think it was hinting.
Rating: (Enjoyable)

Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica – 07

by psgels, posted in Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica



Ah, the wonderful character development! This episode added a ton of new things to the characters, especially Sayaka and Kyouko. This is really what these short 13 episoded series need to do: instead of wasting time like what Fractale is currently doing, they constantly need to focus and build up their characters and if character development fits in the story, then all the better.

Kyouko revealed her past and became a completely different character from who she was at her introduction. She’s still the experienced Mahou Shoujo, but the way she became a mahou shoujo is a really tragic one (which looked awesome, by the way). Sayaka meanwhile takes an entire episode to let the revelation of the previous episode sink in, to the point where she believes that she can’t even have a proper romance anymore. I wonder why, because even though she’s a bit of a zombie, she still can feel emotions like any other. Her fears here are entirely irrational, but this episode really hinted at her getting screwed over by those feelings at the end.

Overall, Shaft. I have to congratulate you. This has by far been my favourite Shaft series in years. For once, they did everything right again, and their decision to bring in Urobuchi Gen was an excellent one.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Fractale – 05

by psgels, posted in Fractale



I expected more of this episode. I mean, it was one of those episodes that make me wonder why they were included in such a short series: the incredibly risky build-up episodes. They’re understandable for character and world building in the long running series, but we’re talking about eleven episodes here!

So, basically everything that happens here is that Clain does a number of chores and Nessa takes over the flying ship of the rebels and makes everything hot. The only really new thing that we learn is Phryne’s reasons for taking away Nessa, which could have easily been done in one fourth of that time. the major problem is that I don’t know whether the characters in this series are solid enough to actually make use of the time this episode spent on fleshing them out. Especially when this was supposed to be an interesting adventure series, and this episode entirely broke that flow and didn’t really contribute anything to this.

The way in which this episode was brought also was a bit lazy. There was a lot of expendable dialogue and characters trying to be funny while they weren’t. Oh, and unfunny underwear jokes. One examples of these kinds of scenes done partly right is with the currently airing Star Driver, which blends in random antics that are genuinely fun to watch, because they’re well delivered, are mixed in with interesting and well explored characters and despite the lack of balance it is consistently fun to watch. I’m really missing that with Fractale. We’re five episodes in already and it really doesn’t have time anymore to goof off.

This episode indeed showed some of the daily lives of the rebels; it did that right, but the way in which it showed this could have been done much better, especially when it gets in the way of a lot of other things in this series. Priorities, people!
Rating: – (Disappointing)

Hourou Musuko – 05

by psgels, posted in Hourou Musuko



I do think that this series is overestimating the acting capabilities of children. I remember when we at elementary school (elementary school in the Netherlands usually lasts from the age of five till the age of eleven or twelve) got to participate in the school plays, we didn’t really know anything about proper acting and understanding your character. We mostly practiced saying all of the lines correctly and the choreography (a lot of the plays we did back then were musicals), while practicing this over and over again. Seeing people completely caught up in their role with even the right theatrical gestures, intonations and movement is perhaps a bit beyond random kids.

The creators nailed the drama, though. The scene in which that guy randomly blurted out Nitori’s secret was really well done and involved a lot of different characters who were at the scene. It also really shedded some more insight about how Nitori feels about his identity, and how Takatsuki helped him in the chapters that the series skipped over.

Saori meanwhile got the bitchy character right. Throughout the entire series she’s being strange and trying to stand out, but she does it in this subtle way that doesn’t make her annoying, yet uses the drama that she created well. And at the same time, her character is far from one-dimensional so she doesn’t end up as your typical stereotype weirdo.

As for the Romeo and Juliet play.. yeah, it had it coming that some lead characters would end up playing Romeo and Juliet. Seeing two random classmates play those roles would perhaps have been interesting in a longer series, but with eleven episodes this series really needs to take every chance it has to build further upon the main characters. At the very least we didn’t get the corny solution of Nitori and Takatsuki playing the lead roles, and the current state of events did lead to some interesting drama that again brought some more life to the characters.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Tailenders Review – 77,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




Anime Innovations Tokyo is an initiative to fund innovative and new projects. Tailenders is its second major production, after Cencoroll two years ago. Both resulted in a half-hour movie, but apart from that they’re completely different. By far the most apparent difference is that while in Cencoroll it was the animation that stood out, Tailenders has awesome artwork. Just about every shot in this show looks great and very stylish, with the only downside being some CG that doesn’t blend in well.

Furthermore, where Cencoroll really put in effort in putting forth solid and believable characters, Tailenders doesn’t care about that in the slightest. Here, the characters are simple, hot blooded and trying to look cool. They’re nice to watch, but completely one-dimensional with one-sided voice acting. Instead, the innovation here comes from all of the bizarre and original ideas that it put in its back-story. Seriously, this may be a racing show, but the how and why of just about everything is completely unconventional.

Unlike Cencoroll, which was down to earth in its action, Tailenders lacks any subtlety, and is pretty shallow in its execution and dialogue. Because of that, it just isn’t as good, but it’s still worth the watch for the effort that went into the good parts. And despite the shallow build-up, the ridiculously high-speed did manage to create quite a bit of adrenaline.

Storytelling: 7/10 – Dialogue and delivery need more work, but the high speed racing sequences are worth the watch.
Characters: 6/10 – Cool looking, but one dimensional with one-sided acting.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Gorgeous artwork with a unique style. Animation is a bit stiff at times, though.
Setting: 8/10 – Many neat and original ideas. The delivery could be better, but the concept of this movie is really imaginative.

Suggestions:
– Cencoroll
– Manie Manie: Meikyuu Monogatari
– Wonderful Days

Senkou no Night Raid – 14

by psgels, posted in Senkou no Night Raid



Most DVD episodes are random side-stories that if they’re lucky, have something to do with the main story. This one is different though: it shows a vital conclusion to this series. The story is over now, but it tells what happened to the characters after the events of the TV-series: what happened to them, and how they changed.

It was mostly centred around Kazura, as this episode hints that he died in a rebellion, started by his former classmates. Before that happens he’s able to meet Aoi (who recovered and is now travelling with Shizune) and Yukina, who has been handling Natsume’s death. Again, they really did justice to the setting: they didn’t choose a cheap way out. Even Aoi helping Kazura from out of nowhere didn’t really have an effect, and he made the conscious decision to help his former classmates.

It was also wonderfully told. This had none of the acting problems of the TV-series, and the actors probably put out some of the most believable performances of the entire series. Obviously the story being less epic really helped there, but even compared to the other DVD special, the pacing and atmosphere felt very natural here. I also really like how the creators used that story of the escaped panther to subtly spice up this episode. If you liked the TV-series, then this episode is a must watch.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Level E – 06

by psgels, posted in Level E



Oh, this show is brilliant! This episode was again an awesome that continued the Color rangers story and turned into a full blown parody here. The characters though were the ones who made it awesome.

Two episodes in, and these characters are not only already developing, but this series is also really making use of it. The point in which they found themselves caught up in the traps that Ouji had set for them was just awesome, but also how Ouji forced them to say the names of the girls they liked was absolutely hilarious. I especially loved how thorough that password system was set for the blond-haired kid. and of course, the grin on Ouji’s face when he found those out was just priceless.

The irony is that Level E is a collection of short stories with no main plot, and yet it still blows every other show this season out of the water. This series however has made every second count, which is very rare for an anime. it’s consistently creative and tries out great and interesting ideas and the delivery also couldn’t be better. Especially the chemistry between just about all of the characters is just fantastic here.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka? – 06

by psgels, posted in Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka?



This episode… was something else. Talk about gore here, seriously. This episode was a really intense one thanks to that demented villain who didn’t care at all how much she wrecked her own body. Usually when anime use regenerative powers, it makes the action scenes rather dull, but this really is one exception because the creators still managed to make the gore look really painful.

After all of the build-up, it also was great to see Hellscythe finally use her words. Seriously, the last thing I’d expected this series to be was a good drama, but this show knows exactly how to create a tense atmosphere and use its characters for the best with it.

Now, this episode did introduce what will probably be the major villain of this show… who still needs a ton of work though. He’s quite generic at this point: really evil and brainwashes others to do evil stuff for him. His back-story of being related to Hellscythe could promise to be interesting, but if his character isn’t interesting then that backstory also isn’t worth much.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Uchuu-Show he Youkoso Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




So, before you start watching this show, you should note that it is a children’s adventure, and so it does have some of the cliches that usually come with this genre.But damn, is it a well executed one!

It’s basically the story of five kids who get to travel through space during their summer holidays, but the creators did a truly amazing job on the graphics. The designs in this show are really imaginative, and this show just consistently comes with new ideas and designs for the characters to run into. The artwork is gorgeous, both in the foreground and the background, but by far the best is how expressive the animation of the characters is. The character in this movie really come to life in the way they’re animated; it’s incredibly dynamic in the way that the emotions, poses and facial expressions are constantly changing. There are tons of details hidden in the nonverbal communication between these characters, thanks to the surprisingly fluid animation.

The characters in this movie, despite being kids, are really likable. One of the reasons is that this movie manages to remember that it’s dealing with kids here, and uses this well. There is an epic plot in this movie, but it devotes most of its time to simple explorations and characters running into new and strange alien things. The drama that pops up near the end of the movie is also surprisingly good.

But yeah, there are some cliches, the worst one being the bad guys with really terrible security staff. Near the end, the movie tried to be too epic. There is also little character development for a movie of two hours and fifteen minutes, despite the effective drama.

Still, this was A-1’s first movie and I’d say mission accomplished. It’s a really enjoyable family movie that keeps a great balance between life-like characterizations and imaginative space adventures. I wasn’t bored for once second.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Well told and believable, yet an entertaining adventure. Gets too epic at the end, though.
Characters: 9/10 – Terrific characterization, though perhaps not much character development.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Truly gorgeous animation and artwork.
Setting: 8/10 – A ton of great ideas. A bit childish, but they work quite well.

Suggestions:
– Mysterious Cities of Gold
– Secret of Cerulean Sand
– The Cat Returns