Nurarihyon no Mago – 19

by psgels, posted in Nurarihyon no Mago



You can fault this episode because that wolf demon took too long in attacking Rikuo’s classmates: if he wanted to, he could have killed them off in a surprise attack easily, like what he did to that fish a few episodes back. On the other hand though, the way in which he played with them like a cat does with a mouse created one heck of an atmosphere.

I really wonder what this episode looked like in the manga, as Rikuo’s classmates really played a key part in it: they were both the main focus of the episode, and they also served to anger that wolf youkai who loathed humans and had huge pride as a youkai. This episode worked well because the previous episodes did such a great job at fleshing out Rikuo’s classmates, but if they would have been just as annoying as in the first ten episodes, then this episode probably would not have worked.

Also, what was up with that scene of Yura, looking at a bunch of ants? It’s a neat detail, but I wonder why the creators decided to include it. I liked it for some strange reason, though.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Shinryaku! Ika-Musume – 06

by psgels, posted in Shinryaku! Ika Musume



A consistently funny episode, though unlike the previous episode there wasn’t really one thing that stood out. This episode wasn’t really anything special for this series’ standards, but it still packed some great jokes. The biggest problem with this episode was that half of its jokes weren’t fresh.

What I mean by that mostly lies in the first and third segment: the first segment featured super sentai parodies: that has been done plenty of times before. The third meanwhile came with no new material and instead was more of a set-up, developing a bizarre love polygon that is probably going to be used by future episodes. It has the potential to spiral out of control to be hilarious, but at the moment it still revolved around the scared girl being scared of Squid Girl, which was already featured in this series.

Nevertheless though, all of the segments had something fun. In the first segment, I love how down to earth the people organizing the sentai show were: they were perfect straight men for the antics of Squid Girl and the way in which she took over their performance. The second segment rocked because of how we suddenly discovered that Squid Girl was really good at math. It was obviously meant as something silly at which Squid Girl would completely outclass Eiko at, but to think that the creators went with math of all things.

As for the third segment, I can see what the creators did there. At first I was fearing another forced love triangle or something, but the twist here that everything exists in Eiko’s head definitely made for a bunch of laughs here. At the same time I’m quite surprised at how the creators have restrained themselves from devoting a segment on Goro’s crush on Chizuru: especially this early in the series it probably would have come off horribly forced with predictable romantic jokes you see everywhere. When it surfaces here and there though, it has its charms.
Rating: * (Good)

OVA Impressions: Tamayura – 03

by psgels, posted in OVA Impressions



The reason I was so negative about Tamayura’s first episode was because I thought that it would only have two episodes: when you have half of your airtime spent on dull introductions there’s little time to actually use it. With four episodes however, it makes much more sense to spend that first one on setting everything up.

Tamayura 3 was also quite charming. It wasn’t as deep as episode 2, but it worked as a simple adventure and it really felt like we got to know the cast better. Now, there still are a few quirks that are overused, though: the twin-tailed girl is way too obsessive: whenever she has the chance she fangirls about Kou. The whistling girl was a cute idea for five minutes, but it doesn’t work when it becomes her main method of communication. Also, was that hot spring sequence really necessary?

As Iyashi-kei, it works, though. Four episodes is just long enough for the characters to show themselves off, and short enough for this to become sort of a quick watch, making it very different from Aria and its 52 episodes, which are much more of a commitment to sit through.
OVA Episode Rating: 7,75/10

Shinrei Tantei Yakumo – 06

by psgels, posted in Shinrei Tantei Yakumo



Quite an unusual episode for Yakumo: in most of its episodes it tries to stuff in as much as possible. The story in this episode however was really small. It was so simple that it probably would have fit into half an episode. So instead the creators stuff in a lot of scenes to flesh out the different characters. It works well.

And seriously, the drama in this episode was simple, yet very effective. The ghost in this episode was not angry because of some romance, but instead this episode featured a shy and secluded girl who once made a picture of herself wearing a pretty dress. It’s a simple yet very effective twist here.

Karuka, she has her issues, but in the end I do consider her to be a good female sidekick. She’s got plenty of weaknesses, but she also is pretty useful in getting Yakumo to crawl out of his shell. She’s certainly no moron and is really trying to understand him and the various ghosts she runs into, without becoming overly pushy or obnoxious. I like that. Speaking of morons… To think that “the klutz” in this series would be played by a guy. This guy… has no backbone. And yet I like his purpose in the series, having to work together with that woman that he’d once seen possessed.

This episode featured quite a few of those small scenes of characters who had nothing to do with the plot of this episode, but I like those kinds of scenes for some reasons. Heh, and yet this was the first episode in which we didn’t get to see Yakumo’s father. This really was meant to be some sort of quiet before the storm.
Rating: * (Good)

Star Driver – 06

by psgels, posted in Star Driver



Whoa!? This early?

Like expected, this show only got better as soon as it started focusing on one of the major characters. This episode, it was Sugata’s turn. His Cybuddy… has the power to make the user sleep eternally. It’s apparently the king of all Cybuddies (so much for Takuto getting himself a special Cybuddy), and based on the tale that the blue-haired girl was telling, it’s based on a king who got bored of his immortality and wanted to be put to sleep on purpose.

After that kind of exposition, I really did not expect the creators to use that card so early: I thought that only later in the plot, he’d be forced to use it. My guess is that he really is going to remain asleep for quite a number of episodes and that we’re really not going to be able to see him for a while. The creators really don’t seem like the type of people who would just chicken out after so much build-up.

Also, the birthday thing was something they probably got from Clamp: two characters with the same birthday, with a lot of irony put into them. It works in this context as well, though. It’s of course one thing for Sugata to hate his own birthday because of his father finding that day out of all possible dates the right date to tell him about his destiny, but Takuto having the same birthday is also interesting. We really don’t know much about him, but the creators do keep hinting that there’s something about him: that watch for example: we know that it’s important to Takuto, having it with him on his birthday and all, but apart from that we don’t know anything about it.

On a side-note: I love the use of insert songs in thsi series. It’s great for the atmosphere.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Mirai Shounen Conan Review – 77,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




Hayao Miyazaki scares me. Back in the late seventies, when anime wasn’t even twenty years old, it was really starting to evolve and mature, resulting in quite a few early masterpieces. There was one thing however that all of them had notable difficulties with, though: the inbetween and cleanup animation. And here Hayao comes and animates Conan with such a consistent crispness that was completely unheard of at the time. It would take the rest of anime five to seven year to come that kind of refinement. How the heck did this guy accomplish all of that?

I mean, this guy knows like no other how to make something mainstream with his innocent yet exciting storylines. Mirai Shounen Conan is pretty much the base of what every children’s adventure should be: a lead couple, exciting, yet varied action scenes, villains who actually know what they’re doing and aren’t complete pushovers (plus, they use actual gunpowder guns, not those phony laser-guns), a solid story without any plot-holes or cheesy deus ex machina, a balance between action scenes and build-up that can both be playfully childish and able to take itself seriously, never taking itself too far to become unbelievable, yet putting constant tension on the characters. This series is so incredibly solid, it must have made a HUGE impact on 1978, and the way that its formula is still being used today, it must have had an immense influence as it played a major part in Miyazaki’s role in revolutionizing anime.

And yet, I do feel a bit disappointed: I expected more from this. Part of this has to do with the premise being used so often now that it hardly held any surprises. Heck, even Miyazaki himself revisited the general premise here with Castle in the Sky. Out of all of the works I’ve seen from him, this probably is the one that aged the least well.

But even beyond that, I kept feeling like this series was missing something. This show has an incredibly solid base, but beyond that I feel like it did very little to spice itself up. There is surprisingly little character-development, and Conan and Lana as a main couple don’t seem to develop at all, and weren’t really interesting enough to really keep my attention. Conan also has this huge amount of strength in him. I can understand why this was done for the action and to keep the plot going, but it also rather makes this series a bit too predictable for its own good when his only weakness is not being able to be at two places at the same time. When the once smart villains also get completely stupid and arrogant near the end of this series, I do feel like this series could have been much more in terms of its plot and characters.

I am a big fan of both Miyazaki and children’s adventures, but I have to be honest and say that I didn’t enjoy it as some other anime of those genre. If I watched it as a child I have no doubt that I would have loved it, but when you look at the same year in which this series was made: 1978, I just have to admit that I liked Captain Hardlock and Perrine Monogatari’s stories and characters a lot better. Technically speaking, it’s one of the most solid tv-series of its decade though, make no mistake about that.

Storytelling: 8/10 – This series both contains exciting adventures and down to earth drama and they blend quite well. Solid in just about everything it does, but could have taken more risks.
Characters: 7/10 – Could have been better: the lead couple isn’t interesting enough to carry this show, the side characters have their charms but they don’t stand out, and the main villain gets too stereotypical near the end.
Production-Values: 8/10 – For the standards of more than thirty years ago, the animation was fantastic. Today, it still looks good. The soundtrack in contrast is used surprisingly sparingly, if used at all. That could definitely have been used better for a better atmosphere.
Setting: 8/10 – A solid post-apocalyptic back-story, with Miyazaki’s usual pet peeves of airplanes and environmentalism.

Suggestions:
– The Mysterious Cities of Gold
– Laputa: Castle in the Sky
– Romeo’s Blue Skies

Letter Bee – 31

by psgels, posted in Letter Bee




This episode was so full of win that it’s hard to know where to start. It seemed like a random filler at the start, but it was full of those tiny neat ideas and those awesome little quirks of the different characters with as closure a really heartwarming story about a doll. Not to mention that the villain in this episode was called Autobahn. Now, if that isn’t awesome then I don’t know anymore.

But seriously though, I didn’t know that Sylvette was such a successful doll maker here. This episode gave a whole new meaning to that doll of hers, as she started making them from Gauche, and later turned it into her profession. The Wheelchair Leopardess really got her time to shine in this episode.

I’m amazed at how many neat ideas the creators stuffed in this episode. I absolutely loved the villain, but also: a carriage carried by a rhino, an old guy who dresses up young and yet tries to hit on older women, and not to mention the shoddy outfit that Lag spent this episode in as the Dingo of Sylvette. Nichi in her few episodes was also fantastic again. I really love how the setting of this series feels like no other and I love how the creators don’t shy away from mentioning these seemingly useless but still original and very neat details about the world they live in.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Bakuman – 06

by psgels, posted in Bakuman



Finally we get to the first meeting of one of the editors of Shounen Jump (or Shounen Jack, as it’s called here), and it was quite interesting, as we also get to see the full concept of the pilot that Moritaka and Akito created. It’s also here where you can see that the two still have a long way to go: the sketches looked rushed, and the dialogue of the trailer itself had some good concepts, but sounded rather cheesy without the proper build-up.

I don’t read any manga myself, but I’m still interested at how the editor said that there was too much dialogue and that his story would suit a light novel better. It’s true that that pilot sounded more like a trailer than an actual story, but that can also be a particular style, right? I’m interested in how many people like Moritaka and Akito he gets each month: do a lot of people try to contact him like that, only to give up later? The way he talked with his colleague seemed to suggest that they’re not exactly a rare case.

In the meantime, we also get to see some of Akito’s background. His mother was a bit much in the way she started crying in front of her son about something cheesy like that revenge, but overall it could have been much worse, and it’s a solid background for him either way. Oh, and finally the romance a) moved somewhere and b) stayed in the background with just a few scenes dedicated to it that were concise and to the point. When it’s like that then I don’t have any problems with it.
Rating: * (Good)

Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt – 06

by psgels, posted in Autumn 2010 Kaleidoscope




Ah, who cares? I’m just going to talk about two shows this week. Don’t expect it to turn into a habit, but this episode was just too awesome. Episodes 2, 3 and 4 probably turned off a lot of people, but the past two episodes really made up for it.

Episode five was mostly awesome because of Osamu Kobayashi (yeah, the guy from Gurren Lagann’s fourth episode), but this episode was really everything that this series should be: crazy and over the top fast paced action. The first few episodes made the mistake of focusing too much on the shock factor, which is neat for one episode but becomes boring quite fast.

The bitch-fight between the two angels and devils was completely awesome though. The focus was much more on the addictive chemistry between these four than the shock factor and dirty references, and the toilet humour instead got used effectively in the action scenes at the second half of the episode. This was really the first episode of this series where the chemistry between these characters really worked. On top of that, this episode was well paced and didn’t drag on like some of the previous episode as well.

It’s really these kinds of episodes that I expected when I first learned about this series. The second half of this episode just continued building up the action without getting boring: that’s how varied it was, moving from battles with angry cars to toilets, shootouts and random chases: there was a ton of creativity in this episode that went much beyond the usual gimmicks of this series. It’s also here where the music really helped making things even more exciting.

The big question now is whether this show will be able to keep this up. It is the perfect set-up for an action series without any bounds whatsoever, but the creators really need to make use of it and let their creativity run wild like the previous two episodes. If the remaining episodes will be like that though, then this will end up as an awesome series.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Uninhabited Planet Survive Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




Uninhabited Planet Survive. Now, if that isn’t a descriptive title, then I don’t know anymore. I do want to warn those who are planning to check it out, though: it is not a series that aims to be the most realistic. Some of the things that the kids here end up building and pulling off just stretch the suspense of disbelief. Not to mention that during the months (perhaps even year) that they spend on that deserted planet, their hair never goes off-model, and their clothes magically repair themselves. I know a lot of other anime do that and all, but with such a premise it really sticks out.

Having said that though, I am very impressed with this series, and the incredible amounts of challenges it puts in front of its characters to overcome. They may be kids, but damn: they really work hard in order to be able to survive; hardly anything is handed to them on a silver platter. Every day they need to find food and take care of themselves, they have to build everything, from tools to shelters from scratch. A lot of this series really is just these eight characters, trying to keep living on this strange and unknown planet. This show has 52 episodes, and this length really makes it into one heck of an engaging series.

So yeah, they’re kids, all of around fourteen years old. They start out pretty annoying and one-sided; especially Howard was specifically designed to get on your nerves. They really do grow on you, though. Throughout the series they are well explored and developed, and especially the bond that forms between them ends up as very memorable. The series spends plenty of time developing themes as leadership, sacrifices and family to really make this a well rounded cast (it really makes use of these 52 episodes to let everything change very naturally). The part that impressed me the most was the surprisingly mature looks on blame and forgiveness.

The main problems with this series lie in the way that it’s a children’s adventure. I personally like this genre a lot, but it has A TON of pitfalls that are very easy to hit, and this series unfortunately didn’t manage to avoid all of them. It’s not the fact that this series is childish: really, for a show of its kind it has plenty of mature moments. The thing is however that near the end it tries to be too epic, resulting into a ton of pointless and cheesy Deus ex Machina that could have been totally avoided by a much more mellow ending. The first episode also is probably the worst episode of the entire series, in which the creators for no reason put the characters’ lives in danger, before anything had even happened yet.

These cheesy episodes are a relatively small part of the total airtime of this series, but they’re a bit inconveniently placed, right at the beginning and end of the series. Apart from that though, whenever this series just focuses on the cast trying to survive, learn about each other and the planet they’re on, I really enjoyed it, and this just gets better and better as the show goes on.

You can really see that this is from the same creators as the Secret of the Cerulean Sand: both do end up stretching your suspense of disbelief, and try to be a bit too epic, yet they’re very engaging adventures. Secret of the Cerulean Sand has a much faster pacing, while Uninhabited Planet Survive has a much better cast of characters and feels much more natural in its pacing.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Wonderfully paced and played out, really giving the cast ample time on the deserted planet. The finale is riddled with Deus ex Machina, though.
Characters: 9/10 – Start annoying, develop wonderfully. Great themes between them.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Simple, but do their job. The soundtrack has some great tracks.
Setting: 9/10 – Tries to be a bit too epic for its story near the end, but it still is a very imaginative world that the characters ended up in. Lots of neat science fiction as well.

Suggestions:
– The Mysterious Cities of Gold
– The Secret of Cerulean Sand
– Mahou Shoujotai