Star Driver – 09

by psgels, posted in Star Driver



Yet again: an episode that gives a complete new spin to the story. And we’re only nine episodes in yet; normally you see these kinds of things ten episodes later or something. This episode again did something that went completely against my expectations, it brought in A TON of new stuff, characters and plot threads.

Mizuno, the west maiden really brings a huge new plot along with her. From out of nowhere, she introduces a new Crux Brigade member (replacing the head, who went on a holiday after what happened in the previous episode), who turns out to be Mizuno’s twin sister, entirely in it to protect her sister from being found out (even going to the point of setting up a flamboyant act for it), not knowing that her subordinates (four also totally new characters) have formed their own brigade and are pretty much just using her as a tool. This definitely brings some great new potential to the series. Also, this episode on top of that introduces painter R. We have no clue who it is apart from that it’s special to both good guys and bad guys.

I don’t really understand the whole point of the shrine maidens at this point, though: why is the West Maiden necessary to reach third phase? I mean, I can understand it if you’d need 1 maiden for phase 1, 2 for phase 2 etc (opening up the possibility for a phase 4 as well), but the fish girl just left and the brigade members still were able to enter phase 2.

This wasn’t the most enjoyable episode because it spent quite an amount of time introducing these new characters (plus, I’m missing the fish girl song). The fight scene in this episode also was a bit unremarkable (again, it was just used to build up and nothing more). The romantic hi-jinks were also not the most enjoyable, but the fanservice could have been much worse I guess. There were no stupid cliches nor was there too much of a focus on the fanservice, so I guess it’s all-right.
Rating: * (Good)

Letter Bee – 34

by psgels, posted in Letter Bee



Ah, a wonderful conclusion to the second part of Nichi’s arc. I expected this episode to delve into what happened to Nichi after she was thrown into the ocean, but instead this episode was all about her sister, and her feelings throughout the past 200 years. That too really worked, because she really is a great character. I also really want to applaud this episode for its portrayal of how she uses her hair as a weapon. Nichi looks like a bunch of chopsticks compared to how she’s able to use it.

Now, it’s obvious that the manga chapter in this case was a bit too short for 20 minutes, so there were quite a few flashbacks. The ones that were shown right after the OP and the break were just shallow, but I have to admit that watching the parts again in which Lag found Nichi really got to me. Flashbacks like that really work when they show exactly how much the characters in question have grown.

This episode also gave an answer to what those strange frozen Gaichuu were, but it still was rather vague, but at the same time it made it a bit more likely why Gauche went after them. I also really wonder what’s in store for Lag now that Nichi isn’t with him… something just tells me that he’s going to run into Gauche again…
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Bakuman – 09

by psgels, posted in Bakuman



Another episode where the biggest airtime is devoted to the romance. If I had known this at episode 2 or 3 and wasn’t forced to blog this series, then I probably would have given up on this series, but at this point things definitely have gotten better. The problem was really was that it made some bad first impressions, the way in which Moritaka likes the girl whose mother was liked by his uncle and whose best friend has a crush on Moritaka’s best friend, not to mention that she wants to be a voice actress: the creators used it well for the story, but it was just too convenient.

The romance is well developed, though. This episode had a lot of fun sorting out Akito’s love live, which was pretty enjoyable. I’m also glad that the romance is actually moving forward at a steady rate instead of getting stale. It’s far from True Tears or White Album levels though and it still has a long way to go, it made use of some annoying cliches that make no sense, like when someone pretended that you can only like or dislike someone, with no inbetween.

Also, my memory may be fooling me here, but this may be the first time in which someone was actually suspended from school for a while, due to a violent incident. In any case it’s something you don’t see often. I also liked how Ishizawa did not get punished, which lead characters to discuss some very down to earth flaws in their school rule system. Quite realistic.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu – 21

by psgels, posted in Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu



Whoa, this episode again had some very good animation. While it was nowhere as good as episode 18, it still impressed me in the way it was so “subtly exaggerated”. The downside to this was that the boobs of the females suddenly grew two sizes, but the upside was some very expressive animation, surprisingly smooth inbetween frames and some great camera work. ZEXCS is really getting better here and I hope that they can keep this up. Not of course for the upcoming winter, they’re pretty much hopeless in that regard, but I do hope that after that they’ll be able to more and more let go of their usual generic graphics.

The rest of this episode was also very good: just about every character in it got pushed forward. I especially have to give credit to Milk, who as the once most annoying character of the show was actually very good now, showing that annoying characters have very much the ability to develop into likable ones. I’m still going to continue to rant on them though, because the fact remains that they once were very obnoxious and there are plenty of annoying characters who don’t develop…

The scene between Miran and Shion was probably the only point where the animation got a bit too cheesy, but aside from that it was a very good scene, finally showing Shion putting Miran in his place. It probably was the first point at which Miran really didn’t like the instructions Shion gave him because they stood against the ideals that he saw in him, and at the same time it showed that Shion hasn’t entirely lost his humanity for his dreams of changing Roland.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

To Aru Majutsu no Index II – 08

by psgels, posted in Autumn 2010 Kaleidoscope



Okay, perhaps last week would have been a better time for me to blog an episode of Index, but I did not know that that arc would just take up two measly episodes. And besides, this episode was pretty much was as interesting as it was terrible, which is pretty much what Index is all about.

So far, the second season of Index has been a huge mixed bag, but that’s part of its charms: the first arc was rather dull, the second arc was surprisingly good for being the lost chapters of Railgun (I really liked how they just cut the crap there and went straight to the point instead of dragging on). The current third arc is definitely enjoyable: it’s not the most ambitious arc, but it puts a lot of emphasis on the chemistry within the cast, which was quite enjoyable.

But really… there is fanservice, and there’s taking these dull romantic cliches way too far. How many times did Touma walk into a naked girl? How many times did his face get planted in someone’s bosom? Why did the creators suddenly introduced yet another random girl for Touma’s harem? It makes no sense, it feels lazy and it was completely pointless, making it seem like Touma can’t be friends with a girl unless he gets some romantic tension with her or something…

Either way though, this episode wasn’t a complete waste. I liked Touma in the rest of the episode, where there were a ton of different things that were going on. That’s how I like these sports festival episodes: we’ve seen them done to death by now, but this episode made well use of it to show some good antics. Another piece of criticism that I can give here is that the magical items in this show are starting to become mere McGuffins: especially in this episode, you could have replaced that Stab Sword with for example the “magical pizza of the annihilation of something very important”, and it wouldn’t have changed this episode in any way.
Rating: * (Good)

Mahou Shujo Lyrical Nanoha The Movie Review – 77,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




So yeah, this turned out to b a recap. Or to be more specific: a retelling of the first season with nearly the exact same plot and scenario (with one major exception, but more on that below), condensed into two hours. The graphics got a major overhaul, and you can pretty much consider this as the cleaned up bite-sized version of Nanoha. It doesn’t take much risks, it does just what it’s supposed to do, but there are much worse recap movies.

Let’s start with the good parts here: the animation. I had to confirm this by rewatching some scenes of the original series (it’s been six years since I watched the first season), but the movie really put in effort to get rid of all of the chunky animation, still frames and deformed faces that riddled its counterparts. The dialogue and scenarios, which were excellent in the TV-series, were simply left alone. It makes flow of the movie a lot more dynamic.

Still, the movie did cut away pretty much four hours of footage, and that does hurt; especially on the titular character Nanoha. It cuts away a lot of the building up to make this movie much more action-packed than the TV-series, but in its turn it also skips much of Nanoha’s characterization: she no longer feels like just an ordinary girl: she just runs into Yuno, he gives her her magical powers and she’s like “okay”, without ever questioning him. These things happen more often in the movie, and that introduces cheese. Because of that, this movie just isn’t as good as the TV-series.

Also, there is one part of the movie that contains actual new footage. I won’t spoil exactly what part that is, but nevertheless I really appreciated that part. It wasn’t exactly vital to the plot, and yet it gave some new depth to one particular in this movie, and it also made the person in question a much more interesting character.

My general stance on recap movies is that I hate them unless they prove me otherwise. I believe that just retelling the same story again is lazy and that they should have come up with something more interesting, yet they can be good movies with the right execution. Nanoha’s movie did convince me, even though it’s not as good as its TV-series, because I can see what the creators wanted to do with it: Nanoha definitely looks better than ever now, and now you can also watch the first season during a random movie night with friends. If you’ve got more time than that though, I still recommend going for the TV-series.

On a side-note: the StrikerS Movie should prove to be very interesting, because of how much time its television series wasted on pointless build-up. The second Nanoha movie, which most likely is going to recap A’s will also fail to really condense the same story into just two hours: it’s just way too complex for that. StrikerS however really could use some overhaul.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Sacrifices build-up for a much better flowing story.
Characters: 7/10 – Skips fleshing the characters out, which ultimately bites the back with cheese, especially Nanoha becomes too static and perfect. Fate’s story still manages to shine, though.
Production-Values: 8/10 – For movie standards it’s perhaps nothing special, but for Nanoha’s standards the graphics really got a massive overhaul.
Setting: 8/10 – Ah, back when Nanoha’s setting still wasn’t so unnecessarily complicated (I’m looking at you, StrikerS).

Suggestions:
– Air The Motion Picture
– Card Captor Sakura
– Blue Drop

Shiki – 17

by psgels, posted in Shiki



I remember how during the first half, a couple of people noted how the first OP of this series showed the people who would end up dying in this series… Yeah. That suddenly got a whole new dimension here.

I mean, if that was the intention of the creators, then they could have just as easily shown the entire cast in that metaphor. I mean, this episode pretty much killed off all of the remaining lead characters: there are only two important characters left that are still alive and unbitten: one of the nurses, and Kaori: Seishin is drugged and will soon be enslaved, Toshio is bitten, the rest of the nurses also get caught in this episode. I mean, I expected some deaths when this series first started, but I never saw an entire genocide coming here…

So I really wonder: what’s next? I mean, the creators have now pretty much ran out of people to kill: we’ve pretty much reached the worst case scenario here. Even though this is a series in which the dead can come back to life, it’s not like the deaths here are reversible. I also keep calling this show for a turning point to start, and yet every episode finds some way to drag its cast closer to despair.

And yet, that can’t go on forever. This series has pretty much been building up for seventeen episodes now; the big difference with a lot of other shows is that it still packs a punch when it’s building up unlike for example Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin and Sengoku Basara, in which the build-up ended up getting a bit boring and random. The question is now really going to be: how does this show plan to use that build-up? What the heck is Toshio going to do once he becomes a vampire? What is Natsuno planning? All he did was run around in this episode a bit. Is Seishin finally going to do something in these final few episodes?
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Kuragehime – 06

by psgels, posted in Kuragehime



This show is just amazing: it just grabs its cast of characters, and instead of wasting its time with dull building up or slice of life, it just grabs its entire cast and pulls them out of their comfort zones, and it does this with such class, dynamic energy and variety that it becomes awesome to watch.

This episode continued the transformation of the sisterhood into a group of stylish ladies, and it puts them into a cafe in order to get accustomed to their new identities (and high heels. How can women walk on those?). The great part with them is their tension with Kuranosuke, who had to continue to pull them out of their shells throughout their entire adventure, and that wasn’t even the awesome part of this episode: the romantic tensions. And I don’t say that often.

There of course was Kuranosuke who against his will got turned on by Tsukimi, but I just loved Shuu and Inari Shouko in this episode, and how incredibly straight to the point the latter was when she tried to seduce Shuu: just forget building a relationship, simply drug the guy and blackmail him with a few pictures! Not to mention that the moment in which Shuu woke up was just priceless.

I can also really see this work as an 11 episode series: Noitamina’s short format really is a double-edged sword: it really forces creators to condense their stories, and weave building up more into the stories: with a pretty much guarantee that there isn’t room for a sequel in the prestigious Noitamina timeslot, the creators who realize this can get some amazing series that are short and to the point out of that. Kuragehime has also shown that it knows not to put too much on its plate, and I can really see a good conclusion for all of the characters it introduced in just five episodes.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Nurarihyon no Mago – 21

by psgels, posted in Nurarihyon no Mago



This episode felt like an intermezzo between the build-up and the confrontation with the Shikoku Youkai. The status quo is restored with the training camp ending because Rikuo’s friends are no longer in danger (though it is a bit gullible of Rikuo, I can very much imagine that now that they’ve gathered 88 demons, they don’t really care for the small fry anymore).

It’s a major episode for Rikuo’s character-development, though. It’s a bit our of character for him to suddenly start worrying, but I like how he’s going to form his own parade of demons here, with youkai who are loyal to him, and not his grandfather.

It’s a shame though that this episode was supposed to be really awesome in the manga, because it wasn’t really standing out at that point for me. I wonder what happened here. My biggest issue with this episode was however that (or at least it seems like that) the previous episodes put into building up Rikuo’s classmates, it looks like they’re going to be put on a bus for the final confrontation with the Shikoku Youkai. I guess that it was inevitable and all, but it does feel like something is missing again.
Rating: * (Good)

Shinryaku! Ika-Musume – 08

by psgels, posted in Shinryaku! Ika Musume



Okay, we don’t have to worry about this series running out of material. With this episode the creators showed that they can make something as simple as an umbrella awesome. The third part of this episode was definitely my favourite sketch of the past three episodes. Generally, for me the best episodes of Squid Girl have been not the ones who focused on some gimmicky character, but instead left Squid Girl and her imagination alone for a while, only to observe the carnage. Squid Girl was just too adorable as she discovered the magic wonders of the umbrella.

The other two parts of this episode also rocked. In the first part we see Squid Girl as she catches a truly bizarre disease that makes her hungry for shrimps in a way not too dissimilar from a person drinking sea water: eating them would only make her more and more hungry until she’d eat as much until she dies. How do they think of it? The episode also built up to a great punch-line at the end with the shrimp costume making its return.

The second part also was hilarious as it introduced another part of Squid Girl’s bizarre powers: her hat, as it suddenly starts moving. It’s a pretty useless power, although it seems quite powerful (I loved the part where she tried to squat a mosquito with it). A large part of the episode was also spent om some bickering between Squid Girl and Takeru and a friend of his, which also was just priceless.
Rating: ** (Excellent)