Letter Bee -38

by psgels, posted in Letter Bee



This episode is entirely away from the main plot aside from a few scenes at the beginning and end of the episode. Instead, we get an entire Aria episode, which really was a neat way as the final Letter Bee episode of the year. Aria really benefited from this episode, and it made her a much more interesting character, which is bound to be useful as soon as Noir wakes up. Eventually.

Usually when a main character has this “sempai” he looks up to, it’s this sempai who has the most amount of parallels with his situation. Instead though, this episode showed that Lag and Nichi look much more like Aria and Bolt than Gauche and Roda: Lag lacks Gauche’s ambition or will to protect. Instead, both he and Aria are ridiculously innocent, they’re both running after Gauche like crazy, and both have some of the best dingo around, compared to Zazie or Connor, who rely the most on their own weapons.

The Gaichuu in this episode did suffer from the “Oh, those protagonists look very interesting while they talk to each other; let me just watch them and do nothing for a while”-syndrome, but granted we didn’t really have any clue as to what they were thinking. That is one of the minor flaws of this series: as Villains, the gaichuu have no depth at all, and they’re just a bunch of “Humans tasty”-villains so far. I really hope that the Cabernets will change this.

Also, whoa! I could have seen this coming, but for the artificial sun to consist out of human heart… that definitely gives a different spin to this story. For the first time, we actually get a glimpse of what the people from the capital actually did, and at this point it’s a lot more clear how valuable that sun is, and why people aren’t making more of them.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Bakuman – 13

by psgels, posted in Bakuman



Merry Christmas, everyone. Bakuman’s thirteenth episode probably isn’t the best way to celebrate it with, but at least things are slowly getting more interesting. The show may be slow, but at least you can say that every episode so far has progressed the plot. This episode was all about the main characters’ debut into the NEXT magazine, the introduction of Shounen JumpJack’s rating system and Moritaka and Miho finally start exchanging mails with each other.

I’ve heard from a lot of manga readers that the rivalry between our lead characters and Eiji Nizuma is supposed to be very good. In this episode I caught my first glimpse of interest in this. It finally introduces a bit of tension between their manga with the rating system. The differences are thankfully made not too big like you see in some shounen series, and if developed well and interestingly it definitely has potential.

Now that thirteen episodes have passed, the big picture of Bakuman is mostly unremarkable: it’s enjoyable, but nothing has caught my interest yet. Considering how this series might even go beyond fifty episodes, I guess that it’s excused from taking things easy here, but at the same time it is rare for a long series to not include any kind of hook whatsoever in its first season. Take a look at Hikaru no Go, which had some amazing first episodes to gain momentum, or Glass Mask, which already had very compelling characters right from the start. Even the World Masterpiece Theatre series, notorious for being slow, had already done something major at this point.

There have been series like this, though: which took their time and didn’t do anything major for their first thirteen episodes, most notably Touch and Maison Ikkoku, who instead depended on their long-term character development and twists that happened later on in the series. At this point, Bakuman is still miles away from those series, but at the same time it’s also not bad or annoying, like how a lot of shounen series start out that promise to get better later on.

On a completely different note: next week will be new year’s hiatus, so there’s not going to be an episode. After that, I hope that the creators are going to switch to a new OP because the current one is getting obnoxious.
Rating: * (Good)

Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




Panty and Stocking obviously isn’t for everyone. It’s riddled with sex jokes, toilet humour, all kinds of bodily fluids, sex jokes, fowl language and fanservice. It’s going to turn off plenty of people with its unmasked innuendo and mind that has gone far beyond the gutter. At the same time though, it also turned into a pretty interesting experimental seires; in fact, it’s the most experimental ainme of the entire year: it reaks tons of barriers, it tries out tons of new stuff and is filled with neat ideas for both scenarios and animation.

The show consists out of 13 episodes, divided in two stories that often don’t have anything to do with each other: it’s a real episodic series, but it makes well use of this fact with the tons of ideas it’s able to stuff into them. We have homages to Shaun of the Dead, transformers, Invader Zim, High School Musica, all kinds of music videos, and all are done in a unique way. There are also plenty of episodes that are based on some gimmick, or strange idea and also be sure to not miss Osamu Kobayashi‘s unique take on this franchise, which turned out to be a really excellent piece of animation. Whenyou pile everything together, you get a really diverse little series.

But granted, there are also some episodes that just don’t work, and a lot of them are located early on in the series. They’re based either on a premise that just tries being raunchy for the sake of being raunchy, or is just poorly presented. The thing with Panty and Stocking is that it really depends on its execution and energy in order to keep the series going, because Panty and Stocking as a character are a tad one-dimensional. There are episodes in which they really branch out as characters very effectively, but mostly it’s just “Panty likes sex and Stocking likes food”.

In terms of graphics, this show packs a ton of eye candy, but the animation can be surprisingly simple. In order to make up for that though, the creators really try out a ton of different animation techniques that are really interesting to watch, from vector animation to stiff characters to really over the top action scenes (the best action scenes in this show really are a blast to watch). Panty and Stocking is as unsophisticated as you can get, but it’s definitely not uninspired.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Really fun, packs with a ton of neat ideas, concepts and scenarios.
Characters: 7/10 – They’re very simple and two-dimensional at best, though Stocking, Chuck and Garterbelt are very likable.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Really gets points for being so diverse and experimental. The animation is really crude, but there is a TON of eye candy.
Setting: 8/10 – A really unique anime with inspirations that come from both the west and the east.

Suggestions:
– Dead Leaves (I’d probably rate this one higher if I were to review it now)
– Gag Manga Biyori+
– Genius Party

Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt – 13

by psgels, posted in Autumn 2010 Kaleidoscope




Okay. That ending was awesome.

As for the climax itself, the first half of this episode was a bit dull, in which the creators pulled the usual twists that you’d expect at the end of a series. Panty loses her powers but gets them back after having sex with Brief, it was a bit too standard, although the farming scenes were really entertaining. The second half though had some very neat action scenes that really were worthy of this series’ finale. There was a ton of neat animation going on on a really epic scale, and the final twist was just completely bizarre, and yet worked really well.

I love the guts of this series with its ending, though. For one, Garterbelt’s revival scenes were hilarious (“GOD MY OOOOOHHHHHH!!!”), but the way it lead into its potential second season with Stocking’s complete and sudden betrayal was a really neat and nonsensical twist. Now, as for that second season however I do want to say this: there has been a series in the past that pulled a very similar twist right at its final episode. I refuse to spoil which one for obvious reasons, but despite so obviously pointing to a sequel the director later stated in an interview that that was never going to come. Also, that premise of that second season has to be pretty bizarre: “Brief and Chuck with Garterbelt”. Would that even work?

So let’s just wait for any official announcements. If there is going to be a second season, I’ll probably end up blogging it. The main reason why I didn’t blog this entire season was because of the mediocre episodes 2, 3 and 4. After that though, this series took some really neat advantages of its format with a ton of neat and experimental segments.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Fortune Arterial Review – 77,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




Fortune Arterial… I’m impressed. Hentai Game Adaptations are… notorious, a lot of them are utterly terrible. This series looked like one of those cheesy harems right from the start, and yet it’s characters are actually pretty good.

The thing I usually notice with these hentai game adaptations is that unless you have an inspired staff behind it, they don’t really know what their stories are and end up wasting most of their time with silly cardboard cut-outs of characters. Fortune Arterial however knows exactly how to use its time, and how to set its characters apart. In the second episode, it promotes the male lead from a boring nobody to a member of the student council, and actually has him perform some duties like organizing the school’s sports festival or cultural festival. It’s been ages since I’ve actually seen a student council DO something other than look important, and therefore I found the episodes that are devoted to properly organizing and these festivals quite enjoyable.

I also applaud this series for the main storyline between the male and female lead: it’s simple but knows exactly what it is, it’s well built up throughout the series and actually centred around some pretty mature issues for a bishoujo show. The ending itself is quite powerful, although things ended a tad too soon: a few key points were left unresolved that will leave you hanging.

However, the next White Album this ain’t. There are a few underdeveloped side characters, and the storytelling gets a tad too simple at times. This series has especially a hard time figuring out what to do during the moments in which nothing happens, and the results are that these scenes become tedious to get through. None of the jokes it uses really work and they only make some of the characters really obnoxious.

The graphics… well, it’s a co-production between Zexcs and Feel. The result is a series with some of the most generic graphics of the entire year. However, as a “screw the graphics, we’re here to tell a story”, it works surprisingly well. It’s a simple vampire romance so don’t expect something epic here here, but it’s quite effective.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Surprisingly solid for a show of this genre, but should have been a bit more ambitious.
Characters: 8/10 – surprisingly good lead characters, though the cast hasn’t been fleshed out as well as i would have liked.
Production-Values: 7/10 – Really generic.
Setting: 8/10 – Finally we get some vampires again who don’t sparkle.

Suggestions:
– Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito
– Touka Gettan
– Futakoi Alternative

Loups Garous Review – 70/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




Ah, such a shame! Loups Garous is a movie with quite a few interesting twists and turns, offering a slight twist to your usual science fiction premise. It’s the kind of children’s adventure that’s not really meant for children: innocent at one side, really heavy and dark at the other. With the right execution, this really could have been a stunning movie. It’s just too bad that the execution sucks.

Loups Garous is the kind of movie where the writing staff either didn’t get enough time, or didn’t want to take enough time: it’s a collection of neat ideas unable to mesh together, tied together very poorly. The directing for example can’t even keep track of which scene it’s in: randomly it just skips time without even an introduction; things just happen because they’re interesting for the plot. There are countless of things that just don’t make any sense (we’re who knows how many years in the future, and yet there isn’t a single gun in the entire series), the hacking in this movie ranges from interesting to ridiculously stupid (especially during the final climax) and the bad guys have the most pathetic security system out there.

The main problem with this movie however is that it doesn’t know the concept of fleshing things out. It spends a lot of its time on mindless drivel, but it makes no attempt at familiarizing the viewers to its setting. The setting of this movie never gets analyzed beyond its premise, and only one of the characters has any depth at all: the rest are just stereotypes. The villains are also utterly terrible: all of them are just one dimensional stereotypes. People try to murder for the stupidest reasons (the pink-haired girl takes the cake: I dare you to find a dumber reason for her to get chased by a bunch of random punks out to kill her), the main villain is just laughably bad, the conclusion is a joke.

I’m getting a bit tired of Trans Arts, to be honest. They continue to abuse Production IG’s name to produce these ambitious titles that they have no idea how to correctly pull off. The only series in which they didn’t fail horribly was with Kemono no Souja Erin. The production of Loups Garous was horribly rushed and it shows through its entire airtime. I admire the spirit of these people, but please: first learn something from the people who actually know what they’re doing.

Storytelling: 6/10 – Disjointed story, plot holes, deus ex machina, stupid plot twists, poorly paced. Does no justice to its heavy themes. You can see that it’s going somewhere, but there are so many errors along the way.
Characters: 7/10 – Absolutely pathetic villains, likable but shallow characters.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Nothing special for movie standards, but it it does look good and stylish.
Setting: 7/10 – Has a lot of interesting ideas, but never uses them. Completely fails at getting the viewer accustomed to the setting.

Suggestions:
– RD Sennou Chousashitsu
– Dennou Coil
– Metropolis

Kuragehime – 10

by psgels, posted in Kuragehime



Overall the past few episode shave lacked the consistent energy that came with the first two thirds of this series, so this episode wasn’t as addictive as it once was. To make up for it though, this episode came with a nice dose of character development.

Most surprising was Shuu. At first I thought that Shouko wouldn’t have much effect on him, but this episode was very surprising, and brought out an interesting new side for both of them. Tsukimi also finally gets out of her slump that she’s been in for the past episodes, and she worked especially nice with Chieko when designing that dress out of Kuranosuke’s mother’s clothes. Kuranosuke also was very interesting when he saw the result. It’s obvious that he didn’t like how they ruined some clothes and expensive jewelry that his mother gave him, and at the same time glad with the results.

Now, the final part of this episode did feel a little forced, and I could be wrong, but I don’t think it’s part of the manga (either that or a few chapters were skipped there), as it was rather sudden. It really does hint to the creators wanting to wrap everything up here, though, which is a good sign. Let’s see if they can pull that off next week.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Some Quick First Impressions: Starry Sky

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Starry Sky

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a transfer student who is in love with a cute girl.
Oh lord. You remember this thing that harem series really like to pull? The flashback to when the lead couple still were children, they met each other once and this left such a strong impression on the girl that she can’t stop thinking about anything besides the male lead for the rest of her life? Well, this episode was the reverse harem version of this. And while the episode was only 10 minutes long, it was ENTIRELY DEVOTED to that bloody overused trope. This is the ultimate fantasy for these insecure teenaged girls: a guy you met years ago still loves you and can’t think about anything but you. That’s also his only trait, by the way. Considering how all of the other episodes are going to focus on the other bishies of this show (there are a whopping TWELVE of them, meaning ten minutes per bishie), this episode pretty much spent its entire time glorifying an overused cliche. The episode also tried to play this as straight as possible: it really believed that this was actually a plausible scenario. I guess I don’t have to say that the result was ridiculously cheesy. The voice acting also was typical bishie schlock, so stay away from this one. Gah, even Neo Angelique was better than this.
ED: This one pretty much summarized the entire series, with really cheesy Engrish quotes that didn’t go through a spell check (“Distiny – I don’t want to be bound by anything!” “How can I COME to BELIEVE in YOU?”).
Potential: 0%

Shiki – 21

by psgels, posted in Shiki



This was just amazing beyond words. This pretty much was the episode that decided which sides gets to win in the end, and in the process it did a fantastic job at portraying the regular villagers as blood thirsty murderers. The changes with the previous episode are stunning.

And I mean, there are only four Shiki left alive at this point: Megumi, Tatsumi, Natsuno and Sunako. Combined with Seishin, this is going to make for just a fantastic finale which again is going to be completely different from the past two episodes. I absolutely love how the past episodes have used the build-up that the entire series spent its time on.

What made this episode especially brutal was that the final area that the vampires kept hidden contained all of the vampires who refused to answer to their instincts., ie the most innocent of the Shiki. Tatsumi was also portrayed completely different from what we’ve usually seen him as: his loyalty to Sunako runs really surprisingly deep.

Overall, I really believe that 2010 has been the best year for Noitamina so far. Sure, it knew its share of gems before, but here it just delivered three absolutely fantastic series in the same year. We really have 2009 to thank for that. Up until then, Noitamina was mostly a timeslot of eccentric and Josei series, some of which worked better than the others. Eden of the East and Tokyo Magnitude however opened up the chance for really well produced series, which probably lead to the inclusion of a second spot at the timeslot. It’s really going to be difficult for 2011 to match the same level that the timeslot achieved.

2011 is promising yet another interesting year for Noitamina, as it looks like it’s going to be evolving again. I can’t really predict how these series will turn out, but the way in which three of the already announced series will focus on teenagers children and remains a very risky move, regardless of the quality of these series. Three teenaged Noitamina shows obviously aren’t a problem if they’re going to be good. However, the thing that the Noitamina producers should not do is stop with the adult oriented shows in favour of the teenagers. That’s the thing I’m most afraid of here, especially after the ratings that Sarai-Ya Goyou and Yojou-han received.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Togainu no Chi Review – 57,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




I don’t touch hard yaoi in the same way that I’m not going to talk about those extreme fanservice OVAs, but beyond that I do enjoy a good shounen ai series like Uragiri or Antique Bakery from time to time, despite being a straight guy. The main problem with most of the series of that genre however is that most of them are just so horribly uninspired. That however isn’t the problem with Togainu no Chi: its creativity is in fact the only part of this show with which there’s nothing wrong; it really had the potential to be an interesting and intense story about drugs and violence. If only it were handled by people who actually knew what they were doing.

And I guess that the soundtrack too deserves points for its cheese factor. Everything else however, is just downright poor. The story is incredibly cheesy and ridiculously poorly paced. Nothing really happens for a reason, things just happen for the heck of it and the few reasons that are provided are the corniest in the book. The characters are all flat as a pancake and any attempt made to develop them is just restricted to cheesy plot twists that try to be dark but only end up laughable.

The thing that really sets this show apart is how ridiculously poorly it’s executed, though. The direction is utterly terrible, and none of the voice actors manage to deliver any line correctly. The animation… is even worse than Iron Man. The characters are consistently stiff and feel like cardboard cut-outs. During fights, characters fight like experts one time and like sissies the next. Especially the final two episodes are a complete disaster in which the producers just flat-out give up. The entire final battle is riddled with just pans of random landscapes in the middle of the action scenes. There are animation restrictions due to small budgets, but this was animated by people who put no effort whatsoever in what they were putting out.

Granted, this series is better than Iron Man: its characters are stupid, but not THAT stupid. That however says just about everything positive that can be said, though. It’s just such a shame here that we have two series that do focus on adults, compared to the hordes of teenagers you see nowadays, and yet the characters have the emotional complexity of a bunch of ten year olds.

Storytelling: 5/10 – Is that supposed to be storytelling? Random twists, poorly paced, pointless story.
Characters: 5/10 – These characters couldn’t even act themselves out of a paper bag.
Production-Values: 6/10 – You actually have to put in effort to get visuals that are thisunimpressive.
Setting: 7/10 – At least it has potential.

Suggestions:
– Uragiri wa Boku no Namae wo Shitteiru
– Night Head Genesis
– Himitsu ~ The Revelation