Bakuman – 18

by psgels, posted in Bakuman



Akito’s brother… am I the only one who got Light vibes from him?

Anyway, it’s taken a while, but I’m liking this series quite a bit at this point. After the Nurarihyon no Mago debacle, I really began to fear for series that took their time at the start, but this thankfully proved to be a good example of how to do this. We’ve seen eighteen episodes of development into these characters, and it’s paying off quite nicely at this point and turning Akito and Moritaka especially into well rounded characters.

This episode also reminded me of how this is coming from the Death Note authors: we’re talking about a shounen jump adaptation here, and yet this episode was filled with dialogue (though admittedly it’s not as extreme as it was in Death Note). It’s what made this episode really interesting in any case.

Even though the tone is apparently very different compared to the manga, I do understand now why everyone forced me to blog this show. Even the series’ weak side, the romance, got progressed quite a bit in this episode. Akito and Kaya actually feel like a genuine couple now, and this finally sparked Moritaka to do something about his own as well. The past episodes have also upped the pacing a tiny notch, and if the creators can keep this up for both the rest of this season and the sequel, this could turn into quite a satisfying series in the end.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Wolverine – 05

by psgels, posted in Wolverine



Half a year ago, when I blogged Sengoku Basara 02, another action series, I remember noting how its biggest flaw was that it spent too much time building up and too little on actual action. That is one flaw that Wolverine really managed to avoid. Heck, it’s been a long while since I have seen an anime that had this much actual action. And the great thing is that it’s not like the usual shounen ish action of “2 minutes of fighting and 10 minutes of staring at each other”, this show continues to push itself forward with its action, preventing itself from dragging on by using its surroundings, new characters or different sets.

In other words: I’m really warming up to this series, and this episode was the best episode of Wolverine so far.It obviously lacks any animation budget here, but still: the action does not devolve into still frames, or the usual cheap shortcuts you see with action scenes. There really is a ton of movement in this show and I really like how the creators make use of this and make this not another action show with just a bunch of close-ups.

Meanwhile: the story. Still simple, but it’s a very neat twist that this episode was hinting that Yukio was the one who killed Tesshin. Simple, but neat twist for in the future. Omega Red’s double comeback also was a neat little twist, in the way that the creators promised another huge fight, and instead solved in a matter of minutes. Oh, and the ending! I didn’t expect that another one of the X-Men would make an appearance here.

Finally: is it just me, or was the music in this episode even better than usual? There were tons of interesting tracks here. Compare that to Iron Man: it just had one awesome theme song (really the height of any episode when that was played), but beyond that the rest of the songs were just forgettable. Even the composer (yes, the two series share composers) has tried much harder for Wolverine.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Gosick – 05

by psgels, posted in Gosick



So, you’re a bad guy. You know that the good guy has something you really want, so you go to the good guy’s room and turn it into a mess in the hopes of finding it, but you fail to notice that huge suspicious cupboard that could hide a small person. Um, tunnel vision?

I really don’t understand the bad girl of this episode. So, she’s looking for a book that contains a letter that contains a rare stamp (the Penny Black, the first stamp in the world, and a misprint at that), that is left behind by a phantom thief. She finds the book, but fails to remove the letter and instead hides it at a bizarre place, only to knock down Kazuya when carries the book when Victorique already removed the letter. Not to mention the bizarre reason in which Victorique managed to find back the book. I mean, if I were to hide a book in a library, I’d look for a random place and then think of an easy way to remember its place. Not the other way around. And how did Victorique get this on her first guess? See what I mean by her “script logic”? Am I missing something here?

Anyway, I had some hopes for this episode, and it did tie together some of the threads that seemed rather random in the previous episode. The way it did this was forced and mediocre, but that’s not really a surprise for this show at this point, because I have to admit that piecing things together creates at least an interesting back-story> i just hope that this wasn’t the final episode of this arc, because it left so much unresolved, especially the backgrounds of these characters: who were they? This episode answered this for none of the characters involved: the bad girl: who is she and why is she the second incarnation of the phantom thief? Avril: where did she come from and what is her relationship with her grandfather and where did that letter come from? What exactly went on between Maxim and his sweetheart? I mean, leaving some of these backgrounds unanswered is no problem, but this was just too much.

One thing I did like in this episode was its clever use of a red herring: her bandaged hand seemed to suggest time and time again that she also decapitated that motor driver, and the entire previous episode seemed to hint that these two stories were connected… and they weren’t. Those wounds were just bite marks. I have to give that to this series: that’s a neat little twist.

Also, to nitpick a bit: “the train from England to Sauvure”… how did that work exactly in those days?
Rating: (Enjoyable)

Yumekui Merry – 05

by psgels, posted in Yumekui Merry




I really like episodic series. Sure, they’re easy to screw up without the right execution, and their main storylines don’t become as smooth as series with a continuous story, but really: who cares? They’ve got plenty of ways to make up for that. This episode showed that even episodic characters are just awesome if they use each other to build up and flesh out the story. Seriously, this episode was amazing.

This was EXACTLY what I was hoping for when I started this series. Sure, the story started off with a number of cliches and all, but this was a really emotional episode that did just about everything right. The first half of this episode was full of wonderful slice of life that makes me take back what I said earlier about this show, in the way that the characters in this series don’t have the most interesting personalities: the way in which this episode fleshed them out was wonderfully down to earth and showed a lot of new things about them, like Isana suddenly liking a famous pop star. Or the fact that Merry has been lost and killing off other dream demons for ten years now. Yeah.

Then the second half came, and that was the point for this series to suddenly contradict a lot of what it had been building up for. Seriously, how many series this season have already done this right? Yumekui Merry gave another wonderful addition to the collection of amazing plot twists of this season: it turns out that Merry didn’t have the power to send demons back at all! In fact, there was no way to get back to the dream world in the first place.

The second half of this episode also wonderfully moved the lead characters into the gray area of morality: in this episode a character representing justice shows up. She’s very much like your average protagonist here: searching to exterminate every dream demon in order to get revenge on her sister and to stop their evil deeds.

The animation also was gorgeous and really inspired, even for this series’ standards. I mean, this just shows the amazing things you can do with generic character designs, if you’ve got the right artists and animation direction behind it.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica – 05

by psgels, posted in Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica



That new girl made her proper entrance in this episode. She at this point is a bit too stereotypically evil, and I would like to see her character in a bit more detail than someone who just wants to kill people. Other than that though, this again was an excellent episode.

She did have a good point in this episode, though: becoming a mahou shoujo, just to protect others is a very shallow reason: in order to remain strong enough to protect innocent people, you need to collect the grief seeds, which can only be collected after a witch had a meal on some innocent people. It’s a vicious cycle, and Sayaka doesn’t really seem to understand this. Sayaka really is a ticking time bomb at this point.

Also, the more this show goes on, the more trollish the OP appears. The tone is obviously misleading here, but also the transformation scene which felt completely out of place could be just a subtle jab to other mahou shoujo and some of the tropes that they just continue to overuse. Especially considering how at this point Madoka still hasn’t become one. I have seen Phantom, Gen’s other work. I know that this guy has pretended the death of characters, only to bring them back later. At the same time though, it’s not like he’s afraid to kill of characters either. My guess is that Mami will return eventually when Madoka chooses her wish. At the same time though, I’m expecting quite a number of actual deaths with the rest of the cast here.
Rating: ** (Excellent)a

Fractale – 04

by psgels, posted in Fractale




A tip for everyone who is going on an adventure: if you want a complete stranger to do something for you, make sure you tell him what to do, in order to prevent him from biting you in the back later.

Fractale certainly used a bunch of strange plot devices in order to get its story started. Phryne just leaves something seemingly important as Nessa in the hands of a complete stranger? If she wanted to hide Nessa, couldn’t she just have hidden it at a random place? Later on in the episode, she says that she didn’t expect Nessa to actually wake up, but that just asks a whole bunch of mew questions, most notably: why was Clain able to do it? You’re not going to tell me that in a few episodes this guy is going to turn out to be the key to switch off the Fractale, right?

Nitpicking aside though, I’m impressed that for four episodes, A-1 have kept up a consistently high animation quality here, that really gives the characters the opportunity to show their personalities and emotions, and there really was a lot to like about this episode in the story department. The aftermath of the previous episode and especially the death were given ample time to sink in, and I also give Clain all the right to try and run away from these people.

Now, at this point it’s pretty obvious that the Fractale is evil, but in terms of the details there still is quite a bit of mystery in this series: why are these stars so important for the Fractale System? What happened in the past between Nessa and Phryne? What is the link to these stars and those two? Beyond Phryne’s strange actions, the characters are also still doing pretty well. They’re nothing amazing, but most of them are not complete stereotypes and have an actual personality here, even though their personalities are sometimes really out there (Nessa most notably).

One thing that I hope that the next episodes will do is to make the Fractale system, and especially their attack squadron into a threat. I mean, when they showed up they looked really intimidating, but in the end, what did these guys actually accomplish?
Rating: * (Good)

Hourou Musuko – 04

by psgels, posted in Hourou Musuko



I’m also watching Kimi ni Todoke at this moment. And really, the difference here shows when a series actually has characters who openly know that people have a crush on them. It makes for much more interesting drama here, beyond the usual “when in God’s name will they ever find out that they’re into each other!?”

This episode was mostly building up. Those episodes are rather dangerous in a Noitamina series of only eleven episodes, but this episode still added a lot of stuff to the series here. It established that both Saori and Shuuichi are too stubborn to give up their crushes. I also like how they are constantly talking about this and their feelings, instead of keeping it all cropped up. And I mean, they’re teenagers so they’re bound to be impulsive and strange at times, but in the same time I like how Nitori wants to be a girl, not just for the sake of this crush, but because he really feels like he is born in the wrong body.

I also like how the problems that Yoshino has aren’t some kind of mirror of Shuuichi here. They both have to deal with growing up physically, but she is far less bothered with hormones and love than Shuuichi is.
Rating: * (Good)

Blue Gender Review – 87,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




When the Earth is under attack from sort of menace, whether these are aliens, robots or giant mutated freaks, the trick is to make them feel like a threat. Really give off the feeling of “we’re screwed”. Blue Gender is really good at this.

In Blue Gender, the earth is overrun by freakish bug-like monsters. As the series went on, and showed how these creatures (called Blue) operate, it had convinced me surprisingly quickly: yes, these things are able to nearly completely wipe out the human race. They are completely brutal in their hunts, they have evolved to the point where they occupy every part of civilized areas, and whenever you try to kill them, they only evolve and get more nasty. Dying in this show is something really easy: just one careless moment can be the result of a brutal and unforgiving death and just when you think you’re safe, another threat just pops up from the corner. Blue Gender is a large part survival horror, and it really knows how to do that correctly.

As the show goes went into its second half, it really started to impress me, though. Beyond the survival horror, it is also really focused on the character development of its lead couple. This character-development is really excellent: at the end of the series, both of them have changed completely, but believably. The changes that their characters undergo gradually twist the series in a completely different mood and focus. The romance also actually gets developed believably and gets somewhere for once!

That’s pretty much the gist of what you need to know for this series: if you like survival horror and character development, then this is a must-watch. It’s rather simple, but this show hardly has any weak moment and does what it does really well. On top of that, it actually gives quite a bit of depth to its setting through a bit of political intrigue here and there. There are just three things that you need to be aware of here:

1). This show has a very low budget. It’s well directed, but the cleanup animation is lacking throughout most of the frames, and there are a lot of still frames around.
2). It’s a show with a lot of angst. And really, once you see the series you’ll see that there are enough reasons why this series has characters purposefully acting like idiots at times in order to show the mental state they’re in, it can be annoying. Clashes of ideals are also a big theme here.
3). Be prepared to go WTF at the ending. Just… be prepared…

Storytelling: 9/10 – Survival horror like it should be. Keeps the tension constantly high and interesting, despite the simple storyline. Excellent atmosphere.
Characters: 9/10 – The thing that really sets this show above most a lot of the other shows of its kind. Angsty, but amazingly developed and easily relatable characters. The main characters especially, but also the side characters do their job wonderfully.
Production-Values: 8/10 – The animation is obviously lacking, but not bad enough to get in the way of the rest of the series..
Setting: 9/10 – Few mecha series have been able to achieve this bleak of a setting. It really manages to portray that things have gotten completely desperate.

Suggestions:
– Shiki
– Gasaraki
– Armored Trooper Votoms
(I’m not putting High School of the Dead here, because it is inferior to Blue Gender in every way apart from the graphics; call it Diet Blue Gender if you will).

Level E – 04

by psgels, posted in Level E




Oh my god. This episode was completely different from what I expected, and yet it continued this series’ streak of awesome episodes like it was nothing! Heck, there was very little comedy in this episode, and it really tried to tell a serious story, and it worked like an absolute charm here! Why the heck did this brilliant of a manga take this long to get animated?!

The thing that immediately sticks out: the graphics in this episode are absolutely amazing. The visual effects are incredibly imaginative and there are a ton of different ideas that looked absolutely gorgeous and that had had no intention at all to look conventional. I mean, holy crap: this is how you make a show with a tight budget! It’s also the contrast with the graphics of the previous three episodes that makes the graphics of this episode stand out.

Also, the story: from out of nowhere, it stars four random high school students with no hint whatsoever from the lead characters. That takes balls there, especially this early on in the series. What’s also great is that the creators pretty much created four distinctive and interesting male characters here: they feel unlike many of the other high school students that we’ve been seeing in anime and they’re completely away from any cliches. The dialogue and characterization is excellent and down to earth.

The episode basically revolves around those four guys as they witness an alien killing a young girl. The story of this alien was also really excellent and tragic: the case of an alien who eats the females in order to reproduce. It made for a really tense climax. All in all it was a brilliant episode…

And the irony is that that moronic prince came up with it! Oh, lord that anti-climax at the end just sealed the deal here. Usually whenever a character comes up with a story it’s pretty lame, but to create such a good scenario here… the creators really showed that this guy is a genius by not portraying him as a terrible storyteller.

I absolutely love David Production at this point. I mean, they continue to go right against the current trends, and they continue to animate stories that make you wonder why the heck nobody else had taken them before, and give them really worthwhile renditions. Ironically, they also don’t seem to care about the “pretty first episode”-syndrome in which creators put a lot of their efforts on the graphics of the first episode as a means to draw people in: first there was Bantorra with the ugly CG boat of episode 1, and now too: the first episode of Level E wasn’t really anything special in terms of graphics, but this episode looked utterly gorgeous.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

OVA Impressions: Houkago no Pleiades

by psgels, posted in OVA Impressions




So, in the end Houkago no Pleiades consists out of four five-minute episodes. You can find the youtube links here. For those who don’t know, this is basically an anime, animated by Gainax and sponsored by car producer Subaru. I have no idea why Subaru found it a good idea to advertise its cars to otaku, but apparently they saw an unexplored market here.

In any case, Houkago no Pleiades pretty much is an experiment in visuals. Gainax gratefully took the budget that Subaru provided to them and just tried to create something interesting looking here, at the expense of inserting a bunch of strange car references here and there. And granted, the action scenes have some pretty visuals and animation. At this point it’s definitely mission succeeded.

In exchange though, the story and characters are all pretty bad. The creators really did not put any effort into them at all: the story is just there to show the interesting visuals and it makes no sense whatsoever, while the characters are all just shallow cardboard cut-outs. By far the worst part of this ova is the parts in which this OVA thinks that it can actually get some drama out of them.

So yeah, this is pretty much a one trick pony. Watch it if you’re looking for some nice eye candy. Otherwise you can give it a pass. I will say this, though: for a car commercial, it could have been much more blatant. The Subaru-references are all kept in the background and we don’t even see an actual car appear during these past 20 minutes. But seriously… brooms that make engine noises?
OVA Episode Rating: 7,25/10