Some Quick First Impressions: Fortune Arterial, To Aru Majutsu no Index II and Togainu no Chi

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Fortune Arterial

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a transfer student.
The thing with this season is that the worst series are far better than usual. There were indeed some series without any potential, but at least there are no series that are outright insults, like KissXSis, Ladies Versus Butlers, Shukufuku no Campanella or Chu Bra. Fortune Arterial, the last series left that could turn out to be a complete disaster, also turned out to be better than expected. Sure, it’s by far the most generic looking series of the season (blame that to ZECXS; I have no idea why they’re still stuck in 2003), and it has quite its share of harem cliches: there’s the transfer student, there are vampires, the student council, walking into each other naked and of course the childhood friends. This episode was more concerned with introducing its characters than parading all over their cliches like it didn’t know anything better to do. The naked scene was a prank, rather than completely forced and random, and the dialogue felt quite natural. The biggest problem is that the lead female is a very typical tsundere, along with a bunch of other voice actresses who can and will get on your nerves. Still, I have to be fair here: the final thirty seconds grabbed me by surprise.
OP: An OP for a harem show in which the singer doesn’t try to be as squeaky as possible?
ED: FANSERVICE
Potential: 35%

To Aru Majutsu no Index II

Short Synopsis: Our lead character lives together with a girl who is easily kidnapped.
Overall, this was quite a solid first episode: it had a nice combination between action, comedy and character-building. The new bad guy who appeared had quite an interesting story, and while Index was as annoying as ever, I do have to admit that Touma knows how to make a good joke. I mean, it’s been 24 episodes and his “misfortune”-shtick still hasn’t gotten old. The animation has been better in this series (but then again, when the first season aired, it aired in a season in which JC Staff had three other shows, all of which still have really solid graphics). In terms of potential, I really want to see some more depth in the rest of this series, especially in the character-department. The first season also had a interesting setting, but it only scratched the surface. I expect this season to delve deeper in its potential.
OP: Disappointing in terms of graphics, but the song itself is nice.
ED: The CG could have been more subtle
Potential: 75%

Togainu no Chi

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is arrested for a murder he didn’t commit.
Here is one series that can go anywhere, all depending on its plot. The animation unfortunately isn’t too pretty, the characters still are pretty static and the plot also could go anywhere, from bad to good. This really was a first impression that didn’t really try to start off with a bang, and so we get a bit of a dull introduction and set-up in which the lead character only gets to fight a bunch of stereotypical punks who have nothing to do with the story, and we only get one glance of what looks to be the major villain. My biggest fear for this series at the moment is a lack of detail: this episode didn’t really put much attention in anything, really: it just told its story, but hardly did anything extra. The characters are standard, the setting is standard apocalyptic, but we hardly get any details on how people are living their lives other than random street fights. What keeps me interested in this episode was that it did create a lot of potential: there’s a ton of room for a grand and interesting storyline being built up behind the shadows, and I’m interested what it’s going to be about. The direction needs to try harder the next episodes, though.
OP: Started off well, until the vocalist opened his mouth.
ED: This one works well. Nice song, simple but interesting visuals.
Potential: 60%

Macross Frontier – Itsuwari no Utahime Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Macross Frontier




Okay, so the Macross Frontier Movie turned out to be an alternative retelling, very much in the same veins as Do You Remember Love. And here’s the thing: in the most cases, the biggest flaw of these kinds of movies is their lack of time: they really try, but compared to the series they’re based on they just don’t have the time to experiment, flesh out their characters. You can really see that with Air, Clannad and Escaflowne: they really had their own ideas and visions, but severely lacked the time to really get the best out of their stories, and instead they ended up with a very stylish, but much more simplified version compared to their TV-shows. But holy crap, Macross Frontier is completely different: I liked the movie quite a bit more than the TV-series.

The thing with Macross Frontier was that its plot was pretty much flawed: it had a lot of subplots that never really went anywhere: it never really knew what it wanted to do. This movie finds this focus, it cuts out all of the pointless bits, and makes the story focus much more on Alto, Sheryl and Ranka. It updates many scenes to make them less annoying and it makes the drama that never seemed to progress in the television series much more dynamic and interesting. And even though its plot is similar to that of the TV-series, it really stands on its own, as much more than just another recap movie.

The back-story of the TV series felt unnecessarily complicated to me. Unnecessary in the way that it had a lot of bark and no bite, and was never really used. The movie simplifies things a lot. The results are that it’s a bit more cliched, but it fits much more within the rest of the series. In order to make up for the cliches, the creators here try to make up for it with the smaller things, where you can see them play around with neat ideas around the performances as well as a much snappier and flowing scenario in which the scenes flow into each other much better. Oh, and Shoji Kawamori found himself a new vehicle that he really wants to show off.

As for the graphics, this movie consists out of frames taken directly from the TV-series, along with plenty of new stuff. The recycled frames may be annoying, but it really surpasses the TV-series with its original content. The character animation is much more fluid and much less rushed, while the action scenes are just visual orgasms: they look absolutely beautiful, there’s a lot going on at the same time and have some of the most amazing choreography.

Really, I realize that I’m one of the people who had quite a few complaints about the original Macross Frontier and all, but I’d actually advise people who are interested in Macross Frontier to check out the movie instead of the TV-series, unless the second movie really ends up ruining things. The TV-series never felt like everything came together. The movie does.

Storytelling: 9/10 – The proof that “more time” doesn’t always equal better. Grabs the plot of the TV-series, removes most of weaknesses and makes the plot flow much, much smoother.
Characters: 8/10 – Much more likable, and much better used.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Not getting a 10 because of the recycled frames, but otherwise it would get really close. Fantastic animation and a visual orgasm and a great soundtrack that really succeeds in making this one of the few animated musicals that really work.
Setting: 8/10 – Less needlessly complicated, though more cliched because of this. Still, the cliches are not enough to weigh this movie down.

Suggestions:
– Macross – Do You Remember Love?
– The Wings of the Honneamise
– The Adolescence of Utena

Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu – 15

by psgels, posted in Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu



An intermezzo, and it doesn’t really help that Milk returned. I understand that it’s necessary to build up the upcoming arc with a solid introduction (which had better be awesome, by the way), but more than half of this episode consisted out of the same character antics that have gotten old by now.

Here’s the thing: Ryner developed more when he was in prison than afterwards. The entire purpose of the previous arc was building up, but in itself it did not evolve this series in any way, other than increase the intrigue between the different countries a bit. The humour really shows this, as it’s been the same for ages now: Ferris insults Ryner as much as she can, Ryner tries to retort, and now that Milk has come into the picture she has gotten even more annoying. I did like that Ryner and Shion got to meet each other again, though. This episode should have had more of that.

Also notable was that there was one particular un-ZECXS-like animator at work on this episode. I’m not sure who or what, but for once there were scenes in which the hair of the characters didn’t stay perfectly in model, like characters were using some really strong hair-spray or something.
Rating: (Enjoyable)

Some Quick First Impressions: Arakawa Under the Bridge X Bridge and Tantei Opera Milky Holmes

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is working as a waitress.
I’d wish that I could rant about Shaft once more here, but no. Instead, my biggest issue with this episode was that it just went on and on about how waitresses in a maid cafe should behave. It’s another one of those topics aimed solely at otaku and for which I have no interest in whatsoever. Apart from that, though, this was probably the most down to earth Shaft series I’ve seen in a long while now. It still has some of the staples that make their shows so annoying, like the yelling and overacting and the chapter title screens, but again: you can really see that they’ve finally gotten themselves a good budget here, and the animation was much better than what you’d usually expect from them. If you ignore the hordes of maid cafe references and the overacting though, this was a pretty decent episode that simply showed a bunch of people talk to each other and have fun. There is a good chance that this will get boring within a few episodes, but for now this episode was enjoyable enough.
OP: Really good animation. Even for Shaft’s usual standards, this was great.
ED: Obviously inspired by a certain show, but the song is surprisingly good.
Potential: 35%

Arakawa Under the Bridge X Bridge

Short Synopsis: Our lead character hangs around with a bunch of weird people around a bridge.
I did not preview Arakawa’s second season because I’m really biased here: I have yet to encounter a Shaft sequel that did not disappoint me. In fact, the Shaft Sequels are the biggest reason for my huge dislike towards them. But okay, if you really want me to preview its first episode, then I’ll give it a whirl. First of all, I do want to say that Shaft did put the earnings of Bakemonogatari’s DVD sales to good use: this episode was much better animated than expected, and overall it looked pretty good, combining actual animation with Shaft’s visual style works well. But here is something I really want to ask the people who did finish the first season (I never watched past episode 1): is this show supposed to be not funny? I mean, all I saw in this episode was a bunch of characters screaming, yelling and overacting. I could see that they tried to make jokes at times, but I don’t recall even chuckling throughout this episode: everything just felt so forced and humourless. This episode did try to reveal some new things about its characters, but half of those things make me wonder why they weren’t revealed in the first season. I think the worst sketch here was that marathon, especially considering how ridiculously predictable the humour was. I guess that the part I liked best was the very last scene, in which we see what Nino’s dream was about. So is Arakawa Under the Bridge more about the former, or the latter?
OP: Amazing visuals. But then again, it was directed by Ryousuke Nakamura, a guy I can’t hype enough.
Potential: 10%

Tantei Opera Milky Holmes

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a detective who has magical powers. Oh wait, No, she isn’t! Oh wait, I guess she is!
This show is strange. No, really. I expected some generic moe detective series, but this series blew all my expectations by being so ridiculously stupid and nonsensical. I mean, what mahou shoujo randomly strips all of the powers of the lead characters, right at the first episode? This show makes no sense whatsoever, and listing everything that’s wrong with this episode would take an entire essay. At the same time, that also is the charm of this series: it simply had a bit of fun with its characters, it was trying out quite a few interesting ideas, ad it didn’t care in the slightest about making sense or not. This episode was fast-paced and kind of fun, and I enjoyed it. But yeah, there is no way for the creators to keep up with this. The characters are as flat as a pancake, and the reason this episode was fun to watch was because the creators just kept throwing new and surprising stuff at us. Although it will be quite an interesting series if the creators manage to keep the surprises coming throughout the entire series, I see no way for them to be able to do that. It is directed by the director of Lilpri, after all. That one too had a very charming first episode, only to immediately degenerate into nothing but boring fillers afterwards.
OP: I don’t think that the creators couldn’t have been more generic, even if they tried.
ED: FANSERVICE
Potential: 35%

Some Quick First Impressions: The World God Only Knows, Motto To Love-Ru and You Are Umasou

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

The World God Only Knows

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is really good at hentai games…
The reason why I was not looking forward to this series is because it’s got a bit of a “dime a dozen”-premise. Last year we saw the cat version of this with Nyan Koi, and that turned out to be really uninspired, so I really wanted to see with my own eyes what this show would end up as. Overall, while I can’t say that I immediately understand why so many people are looking forward to it, I can say that I’m very intrigued, and this episode was much better than I expected. It had quite a bit of creativity in its scenario, and to be honest, the creators did a decent job of getting a girl to fall in love with the male lead. In any case it’s far more plausible than most other harems. What I’m especially interested in is what the heck the rest of this series is going to look like? My main problem is that ghost girl, who feels rather one-sided, but overall, I’m impressed.
OP: I like the visuals here.
Potential: 65%

Motto To Love-Ru

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a typical loser who is loved by about six different girls.
The good news: Motto To Love-Ru is not as bad as Ladies versus Butlers. It at least has something that resembles a narrative and at least the combined intelligence of the cast can be able to outwit a baboon’s backside. The visuals look fairly decent, and especially the far away shots are nicely animated, so at least we don’t get a repeat of that complete disaster here. That’s pretty much where my praises end, though. To Love-Ru still remains a bad harem that is in no way worth watching. Rather than being a show with fanservice in it, it’s a show that is completely built around showing its female cast in awkward romantic situations. It doesn’t make the slightest effort to blend things in naturally, it just throws the cast into a bath house from out of nowhere, and makes the cast bump into each other in the most ridiculous places (a children’s play house? Really?). We’re 26 episodes further, and yet the characters act exactly the same from what I remember from the first season, absolutely no progression seems to have been booked, other than the introduction of a bunch of new characters, who all are simple stereotypical paper bags. What also really bothers me is that Xebec is pretty much outputting the same show twice here this season: both MM and To Love-Ru are harems, both are centred around a high school and both involve beating up the lead character. The biggest difference is that MM focuses more on the beating up and To Love-Ru focuses more on the harem. Really, Xebec: what happened?
OP: A decent J-Pop song. I’ve heard worse.
ED: Again, as bad as the characters are, this one does try to portray them all-right, I guess.
Potential: 0%

You are Umasou

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a dinosaur.
Umasou is a series with five-minute episodes, aimed at 3-year old kids and animated in what looks like flash. It’s a bit of a weird story about a tyrannosaurus rex who ends up adopting a baby ankylosaurus, and it’s pretty much told in the style of a picture book. It definitely has its charms, and I can see how little kids will love it. For the older audiences, though… yeah. It’s very much like series as Chebrashka Arere and Table Cat: fun to watch for a few minutes, but not really worth it in the long run due to the incredibly simple and childish storylines and characters.
Potential: 10%

Romeo’s Blue Skies Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



In the nineties, there was some kind of war going on between Nippon animation and Fuji TV, regarding the broadcast of the World Masterpiece Theatre. This seemed to have started with Little Prince Cedie, and while I’m not sure what exactly happened, the amount of episodes for each series shrunk with every year. Imagine the following: Romeo’s Blue Skies is only has 33 episodes, and yet it aired over a full year. It’s hard to imagine how often this series went on a hiatus sometimes even for an entire month.

In any case the World Masterpiece Theatre was in trouble, Nippon Animation could also get less and less funding for each series, until things eventually imploded with Ie Naki Ko Remi. The interesting thing was that Nippon Animation was really trying out new things in order to revitalize the genre, like adapting a fantasy novel (Peter Pan), revisiting popular installments (Little Women’s sequel), the only anime ever to have been set in Africa (Bush Baby), or Ie Naki Ko Remi’s huge focus on songs and music. The most interesting for me was Romeo’s Blue Skies though, in which the creators tried to be far more action-packed than probably any other installment of the WMT that preceded or followed it.

And really, that resulted in quite an interesting series. Romeo’s Blue Skies is probably the most accessible out of all the World Masterpiece Theatre series, in the way that it tries to have a pacing fitting of your average adventure series, while still grounded in realism, like you’d expect from the WMT franchise. While most World Masterpiece Theatre series are mostly slow-paced (especially in their beginnings), Romeo’s Blue Skies is also very attractive and recommended for the fans of adventure series.

It’s a story that really has this great balance between realism, character development and children’s adventures: all three of those areas receive enough attention in the spotlights. The story is really impressive here, and the creators managed to create an engaging story that keeps changing and evolving, and never tries to focus too much on either the action or building up in order to keep its audience’s attention. The characters are all wonderful, and there hardly is any recurring character who doesn’t develop in some way or another, in true WMT fashion. Romeo himself is a great main character, and he especially works well in combination with every character around him, especially Angeletta and Alfredo.

The themes in this series vary from child abuse to friendship, street gangs, with the most important one being split up from your family: just about every arc in this series involves that in some way or another. And it’s this what really sets Romeo’s Blue Skies apart from most other children’s adventures: instead of creating some sort of epic scenario that tries way too hard, or is way too unbelievable, the action in Romeo tries to stay as grounded and realistic as possible, while it still tries to pack a punch as much as possible. Or at least, this happens much more than with most other adventure series.

I have a lot of praises for this series, but at the same time I also want to stress that Romeo’s Blue Skies is nowhere near the best of the World Masterpiece Theatre: it does not hold a candle to masterpieces such as Anne of Green Gables, Perrine Monogatari or Les Miserables, and that mostly lies with its premise. While it has some points in which this series is definitely realistic, it did need to make a lot of sacrifices here in order to keep its plot action packed.

The most notable is that there are times in which adults become a tad too stupid, weak or short-sighted, but also the important characters are much simpler than you usually expect from the World Masterpiece Theatre, and they’re far less believable and fleshed out than the above-mentioned series. For any other franchise, this would classify as nit-picking, but the standards for this franchise are really high. The World Masterpiece Theatre has produced a number of fantastic, brilliantly written and fleshed out characters, but none of Romeo’s Blue Skies characters stand amongst those. It’s simply a really engaging series, but not more.

But engaging it is! Romeo’s Blue Skies has a wonderful story with an especially great ending. It’s true that the WMT-series of the nineties were less refined than their predecessors (or at least, from what I’ve seen and read about them), but Romeo’s Blue Skies still ends up as a very charming series.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Well balanced, and really tries to give every character and theme the airtime it deserves. Excellent ending, a bit childish at times but makes for a very enjoyable watch.
Characters: 9/10 – Excellent character-development. The characters aren’t as good as some of the other WMT-series, but they’re still very engaging to watch.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Fluid and simple, but works quite well.
Setting: 8/10 – There are some believability issues, but even then the setting around is very lively and realistic for an adventure series.

Suggestions:
– Ie Naki Ko Remi
– Mysterious Cities of Gold
– Perrine Monogatari

Nurarihyon no Mago – 14

by psgels, posted in Nurarihyon no Mago



So, this episode was mostly anime original? I would not have guessed, because it all followed quite naturally from the previous episode, and it’s in no way a filler episode, apparently the backbone of the plot is the same. Normally I’d be a bit wary of this, but when you have a series that is directed by someone who really excels at anime original material, I really hope that the rest of the episodes will also have this.

I really wonder what the original manga looked like though, because this episode did a very good job of showing the new villains, by immediately showing them get down to business. This episode made a good use of the setting around the characters by having these youkai attack in all different kinds of places, and Rikuo acted well as a leader, trying to gain the trust of all of the different sub-families. I also liked the twist with these fish: the only thing that seemed new was their sudden introduction, but I did not expect one of them to get killed off that easily. It’s a great way to show how fragile the things that Nura is trying to protect can be.

The animation was a bit weird throughout this episode. Most of it was nothing special, with a lot of still faces and all, but then there were those few scenes with interesting camera angles, and even that one scene at the end in which we see Rikuo running while the camera starts flying over him. I want to see more of that camera work in the next episodes. And more often.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Some Quick First Impressions: Shinryaku! Ika-Musume, Otome Youkai Zakuro and Yosuga no Sora

by psgels, posted in Shinryaku! Ika Musume, Some Quick First Impressions

Shinryaku! Ika-Musume

Short Synopsis: Our lead character wants to take over the world.
It’s awesome to see what a good comedy this turned into. It did just about everything right here with its first episode: it introduced the characters, played around with their characteristics, made sure that they’re not just based around one gimmick but have multiple sides, and it comes with a lot of different and clever little jokes. From watching this episode, I’ve gotten very positive about this series having enough inspiration for at least thirteen episodes: none of the jokes here felt really repetitive, and instead they were all building further upon each other, rather than this series bombarding us with as many random jokes as possible. The characters all have this thing that sets them apart, but they’re at the same time down to earth: essentially this is just a story about a squid girl who starts working with a bunch of siblings who run a bar at the seaside, and they actually have some pretty normal conversations in between the jokes, who both serve as building up the jokes and building their characters. I’m very positive about this, and this could very well be the best comedy of the season.
OP: Mostly foreshadowing a bunch of the jokes of the series, but again: it looks very diverse here.
ED: A decent ballad.
Potential: 80%

Otome Youkai Zakuro

Short Synopsis: Our lead character fights evil youkai.
With these first impressions: I don’t just look at the first episodes themselves, but also their potential, and that’s where my biggest issue with Otome Youkai Zakuro lies. I mean, this episode really was excellent, it had a great chemistry between the characters and gave an interesting spin to the youkai genre by just throwing all pretense out and just giving everyone the ability to see them, rather than trying to make one or two main characters feel special. Suddenly, we have a clash of different cultures that was definitely interesting to watch. However, I feel no potential from this one: the chemistry was based on a bunch of gimmicks that will become boring if they get abused too much. This episode gave no indication whether or not this series will use these characters optimally, or just dabble on with them. See, with series like Shinrei Tantei Yakumo, you could really see that the creators make use of every moment of their limited time to add more details to the story and characters. Otome Youkai Zakuro meanwhile dabbles often in useless comedy that, while funny, also can become a problem as soon as it starts getting boring. Still, my biggest fear for this was Chiaki Kon, but she really pulled off a great first episode here. This show can be a hit if it manages to use its episodes right.
OP: A decent OP with quite some solid visuals.
ED: Uninspired, both in the music and the visuals, which seem to be just copied from the manga.
Potential: 70%

Yosuga no Sora

Short Synopsis: Our lead character moves back into the town he grew up in with his twin sister.
God, not even more incest? As if we didn’t have enough of that already. Still, I have to grant this series this: they really seem to want to be doing something with the brother-sister love, instead of either parading around with how it’s supposed to be “daring”, or just inserting stuff for the heck of it: the incest is far from the biggest problem with this series, and works well enough because the brother and sister in question are well portrayed. the main problem with this series is that just about every other character isn’t. They’re all random harem stereotypes, all of them try way too hard and therefore are very badly acted, which only makes them more annoying. This series tries to force an entire harem around the lead male that has no business doing there, and it uses just about every cliche and superfluous plot twist to get girls to fall in love with him: there are a bunch of childhood friends, plus more “loves at first sight” than you can shake a stick at. Overall, this could have been a decent incest story, but it loses a lot of points for trying way too hard.
OP: A decent ballad to start the series with.
ED: I like EDs that show a bit of the past of the characters.
Potential: 35%

Some Quick First Impressions: Hakuouki Hekketsu-Roku, Shinrei Tantei Yakumo and Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii wake Nai

by psgels, posted in Hakuouki, Shinrei Tantei Yakumo, Some Quick First Impressions

Hakuouki Hekketsu-Roku

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is surrounded by the Shinsengumi.
I watch these first episodes of second seasons of series that I originally dropped, in order to check whether or not I missed something: did they actually improve through their course? How have things progressed so far? In the past, I have revisited a few series that I originally dismissed this way. So, what does Hakuouki do? A recap; perfect. I dropped Hakuouki after episode five, and after watching this recap, I have to admit that I probably dropped it at its weakest episode. This episode just kept the twists coming here, which were actually quite interesting. They were a bit cheesy, and I saw little change in the villains, but the story turned out better than I expected: this is not like Vampire Knight which devolved into nothing more than angst and bishies. This second season also promises to be a lot more varied here. I still have two problems, though. The first is that this recap episode nearly worked a little too well. It perfectly summarized twelve freaking episodes in just twenty minutes. These pacing issues also were part of my issues with the first episode: it was just so damn slow at times, with little to make up for it. The second problem is the female lead. I like her premise, but the creators forced her too much into the harem role: she has to be everywhere, she has to be involved with everyone, and her whining holds back scenes that she has no business in whatsoever. For me to actually finish the second season of this series, I demand two things: make every moment count, and develop Chizuru significantly.
ED: Decent.
Potential: 40%

Shinrei Tantei Yakumo

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a detective who can see spirits.
Yeah, you don’t want to watch this series as a murder mystery. At that area, it’s nowhere near as good as series as Ayatsuri Sakon: the introduction moves too fast, the culprit is revealed way too soon and at no point does it try to make the viewer wondering what’s going on, or unravel clues. Instead, this show is more of a thriller and character study. When looking at it that way, the fast pacing is going to be interesting for the future of this series, it will be more able to concentrating on “why is everything happening”, rather than “what’s going on”, and with the right execution it will be a good way to spend its limited time of 13 episodes on its characters. Koichi Mashimo’s absence on this Bee-Train series hurts, though: I’m really missing his characterization here, and that’s what worries me the most about this series. Still, even though the characters could have been better portrayed, I’m not denying here that this wasn’t a good episode: it started off slow, but it steadily got better and better, resulting in a great climax for a first episode that really made me intrigued, especially when it got all artsy with the buildings and the random people. The soundtrack is not as good as usual Bee-Train series, but nevertheless it’s among the best of the season when it finally shows its real colours.
OP: Quite intense, and surprisingly varied in tone and atmosphere for an OP. Works well.
ED: Beautifully sung. I like the concept of combining pictures from the pasts of the characters.
Potential: 80%

Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii wake Nai

Short Synopsis: Our lead character has a weird sister.
There is a new male lead cliche that has been emerging during the past number of years to join the ranks of “your typical loser”. I’d like to call him the “Kyon-clone”: neither a loser nor too popular, he snarks himself through the series and tries to be the voice of reason amongst a cast of weird people with his voice acting having nowhere near the charms that Kyon had. It’s a cliche I see quite a while used in harems, and it’s starting to get annoying. Ore no Imouto has another one, and he does little to set himself apart. In any case, I was really fearing this series, though THANK GOD it’s not as abysmal as KissXSis was; there was little fanservice and the two siblings didn’t seem to be in love. Instead, it’s more like Nyan Koi: occasionally able to raise a chuckle, but most of all boring. For now, at least, because I have one HUGE problem with the way this episode portrayed the lead characters’ little sister: she’s a freaking tsundere! I appreciate this series for including a bit of wit in its dialogue and all, but they really weren’t subtle with those hints!
ED: It’s more like some insert song than an ED, but it’s generic J-pop anyway.
Potential: 10%

Heartcatch Precure – 34

by psgels, posted in Heartcatch Precure




Really… this show is unbelievable. This could very well be the best episode of Heartcatch Precure yet. It was completely awesome, from start to finish. I’m really starting to run out of praises for this series without sounding like some repetitive fanboy here.

I mean, Moonlight’s return gave a completely new dynamic to the action here, especially with Dark Precure present. The Dark Precure, who had consistently kicked Blossom and Erika’s ass throughout the series was much more of a match for Cure Moonlight, who also fights completely different from the other Precures so far: it’s far more calculated, wasting as little energy as possible with fancy movements or dodges like especially Tsubomi and Erika like to do. Also, this episode really reminded us of a whole subplot that somehow suggests that Dark Precure and Cure Moonlight are actually very similar (part of the same moon). It’s also great to see Sabaaku finally getting off his damn chair, in order to actually save Dark Precure.

This really was Cure Moonlight’s episode: everything was meant to show her pwn as many bad guys as possible, but at the same time I am very surprised that Tsubomi and Erika… didn’t actually get much stronger in terms of hand to hand combat. With the upgrade episode, they probably received some kind of ultimate weapon, but if things are like this episode, and the bad guys keep them busy and spread out, they actually can’t get the chance to use it. Now THAT’s a power-up: something more than just a Deus ex Machina that the creators cheaply use in order to balance out the power level differences.

The aftermath in this episode may have been even more awesome than the fight. I mean, how many mahou shoujo actually kill off their mascots? Seriously, Cologne… he was just some temporarily spirit made by the Heart Tree in order for Yuri to get her spirits back. I really did not expect the creators to have the guts to actually keep him dead, and actually erase that spirit as well, not to mention how well the creators did justice to that series. It was just two minutes long, but it showed so much within just those two minutes. I really have to applaud this series for that.

And if that wasn’t incredible enough, the creators just had to end that episode in such an adorable way, in which Yuri ends up joining the fashion club. It’s awesome to see how much she stands out there, being more than three years older than all of the other girls there. Being dragged around by a bunch of kids who have been dying for her support since episodes, I’m really looking forward to seeing more of the quiet moments in this series.
Rating: **** (Fantastic)