Sekirei – Pure Engagement Review – 77,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




Sekirei… has its problems. Most notably revolving around the well endowed bosoms of all the females that gather themselves around Minato, the male lead. It’s obvious that its premise is partly there for the boobs, but alongside that it does pull off something that just about every fanservice show is missing: an actually interesting plot.

The first season was plagued by having to actually set up its partially awful premise, but in the second season things come a lot more together. This series still pulls a few deus ex machina, the most notable being them suddenly changing the freaking gender of one of the characters and the pointlessly moronic antics of the main villain, but the overall storyline does get better and better, and especially the last arcs succeed quite well in their attempts to tug at your heartstrings. For all its faults, this is a series that does know how to develop its cast of characters.

It’s also interesting how Seven Arcs managed to significantly improve the animation budget for the second season. Especially the second half of this sequel has quite a few beautifully animated fight scenes. I mean, the entire series has really improved throughout its run so far.

Even at this point, the story is still nowhere near finished, but at this point I can’t say whether or not a third season is going to come in two years to wrap up the story. This second season mostly finishes the introduction of all of the characters, it rounds off the basic back-story behind the entire premise and it concludes a number of side-stories. It really made the franchise a lot more solid, but a third season really is necessary to delve into the essence of this story because regarding the core of the series, all we got was a bunch of vague hints here and there. I’m not going to recommend this series until it becomes clear whether or not that third season is going to come, but either way this was a pleasant surprise.

Storytelling: 7/10 – The excessive focus on fanservice and a few Deus ex Machina hold this one back, but overall it’s a lot more solid than the first season.
Characters: 8/10 – If you get part the premise of all of the characters, they’re actually pretty good and well developed here.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Surprisingly well animated fight scenes here, the rest of the animation is also pretty solid.
Setting: 8/10 – The biggest improvement over the first season. A lot of time was spent on making the foundation of the series more solid, and it works quite well.

Suggestions:
– Futakoi Alternative
– Code-E
– Sola

Sengoku Basara Two Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Sengoku Basara




This season’s prime time series was Sengoku Basara’s second season. And… it’s quite an interesting action series.

At the start, I suspected that this series would consist out of a string of action-oriented episodes. Instead, this series has only four or five episodes that are really focused on action. The rest of the episodes all put their priorities on dialogue and build up. Instead of containing a long string of epic action-scenes, this series aims to only contain a select few of them, and attempts to make those as epic as possible.

And partially, this worked. Episode six contains without a doubt the single best action I have seen during the past three months. The rest of the action episodes are also completely over the top, but a lot of fun to watch due to their contrast with the more quiet but very manly build-up episodes. This balance is far from perfect, though, because especially the second half spends too much time building up and too little on the actual substance, and the build-up itself also isn’t perfect. In the end, the action itself isn’t worth it to sit through so much build-up and this series could easily have been cut down to ten episodes in length.

However, this sequel is a much needed improvement after the rather lackluster first season. Events are a lot more interesting to watch, and the action scenes themselves are much better portrayed now. The story this time is a lot more focused, and there are a lot less annoying characters. It also helps that the characters made good use of 24 episodes in order to flesh themselves out, and so even the rest of the cast is a lot more interesting to watch. It’s still a series that’s completely over the top, but that has really become part of its charm without ending up cheesy.

It remains a really well produced series: the animation is consistently smooth and detailed for a television-series, especially with Production IG’s trademark style of character-designs. Albeit unbalanced, the dialogue itself is very well written, the music can be really awesome when it wants to. It’s not the next Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto, but nevertheless I really enjoyed this series.

Storytelling: 8/10 – When it wants to be, the action really is epic and really well delivered. There’s too much build-up though.
Characters: 8/10 – Much better compared to the first season; the entire cast consists out of bulky and manly men, but they’re used well within the action and dialogue.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Especially the money shots are a sight to behold with great poses and combat animation. Consistently smooth and detailed graphics overall.
Setting: 7/10 – Makes absolutely no physical or historical sense. Even though it’s “loosely” based on the sengoku era, it could have used this better.

Suggestions:
– Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto
– Seirei no Moribito
– Jubei-chan’s Second Season

Sengoku Basara – 24

by psgels, posted in Sengoku Basara




Ah, the episode of today that I was looking forward to the most: the conclusion to Sengoku Basara. For a moment after learning about the upcoming movie, I was afraid that it would end with a huge cliff-hanger, but no worries: this episode resolves all of the conflicts built up to. Overall, it wasn’t as good as I hoped, but I still was pumped from start to finish.

My main issue was that this episode wasn’t as good as episode six, it could have been a bit more creative, and especially the way in which Toyotomi went down: he was dominating through the entire fight, Date was beaten to a pulp and afterwards he just stands up and gives Toyotomi one good whack, completely immobilizing him. With all of the build-up going into this episode, it’s this point where I expected more. Not to mention that the creators didn’t bother to animate the battle with the pirates.

Apart from that, though: this episode was awesome. Yukimura bringing down that entire fortress was definitely not a bad way to close off this series with, and on the opposite scale, Kojuuro’s battle also was very satisfying.

Ultimately though, the huge amount of build up of the rest of the series just wasn’t worth it. The creators could have easily cut one or two episodes out, and this series would have been much better. Still, I consider the second season to be a big improvement over the first at least: the action that was there really worked, and it didn’t drag itself out. This is also why I’m curious for the upcoming movie, because there the creators aren’t bound by time as much, and instead can use it much better to blend build-up with action.

Overall, you could really see that the change of directors worked for this series: I’m enjoying Kazuya Nomura‘s work a lot more. Unfortunately, it also shows that Yasuyuki Muto is still behind the series composition. Both seasons feel like they didn’t make good use of their time, and you can also see that very much with his work on Persona – Trinity Soul (though this wasn’t the case with Chevalier). This guy really should have played around more with the progression throughout the series.

Still, it’s interesting: this is the first time the prime time slot has showcased a series of only thirteen episodes, and overall this was a pretty nice way to fill up the time until Star Driver. Ever since Gundam Seed, the timeslot has been in the hands of the three big ones: Sunrise, Bones and Production IG (with one exception), and while the former two always try to show their best and most epic side (aside from Ayakashi Ayashi, which really unfortunately was cancelled), Production IG instead does not focus at all on what it’s best at and instead tried out a few new stuff. With Blood+, it had its plot that was heavily based around character-development, while this can best be called an experiment in marketing: could they in their own way make an over the top and brainless action series? Considering the viewer ratings, it worked surprisingly well.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Giant Killing Review – 90/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Giant Killing




Giant Killing, my favourite airing show of the past three months and likely to be my favourite sports anime (if board games aren’t sports). It’s a breath of fresh air in its execution, and a delight to watch from start to finish with a well developed cast that just sparkles with personality.

From the outside it may seem like a bit of an unimpressive football series, but it turns out to provide a unique look into the world of professional soccer, and it doesn’t ignore anything: aside from the players, it also gives ample attention to all kinds of supporters, the press, photographers, coaches, management, everyone involved is portrayed as a character and important to the series. The cast here is incredibly diverse, allowing everyone to stand out, rather than blend in. Credit also goes to the character-designers, who gave every single character in the series his own look.

I also feel that this is the series that shows one of the bewst portrayals of “there is no I in team”. It’s indeed true that Tatsumi is a brilliant coach, and there are a few brilliant players, but the series is entirely different from all of the teams in fiction that are just built around one player. Instead, everyone has the points at which he’s good and the points at which he’s terrible, and throughout 26 episodes, this series really tries to put as many people under the loop as possible. It really tries to do as much as possible in every episode in terms of characterization, and this really makes the huge cast come alive. It’s not like there’s one character that stands out, and instead it’s the characters together that form a very addictive whole.

Because it continues to explore its characters, evenin the quietest parts, there hardly is any part about this serise that’s not interesting, but the soccer matches, and especially the long ones, are where this series truly shines. It’s not that they’re the most unpredictable out there, you can pretty much predict the outcomes. Everything apart from that however is a huge roller-coaster ride, especially the final match that forms the climax of this series. It’s a match that’s constantly cyhanging and evolving, utilizing as many characters (including the opponents!) as possible.

This is really how a series without a big animatio budget should be done. Giant Killing can drink many of its big budgetted counterparts under the table with its incredibly detailed and addictive storytelling. It also is the series that is the single best at handling foreign languages, out of any anime I’ve ever seen: French, English, Dutch, Portugese, this is a really international anime that portrays foreigners as they are, rather than as the xemophobic stereotypes you usualyl see in anime. It’s not like this series has one particular character that is really well developed. What it does have, though, is dozens of characters with their own charms, quirks and flaws who subtly change over the course of the story.

Storytelling: 10/10 – Utilizes every minute to put as much detail into its cast and football matches. Addictive beyond belief.
Characters: 9/10 – Lots of characters, who are all diverse and sparkle with personality, and are explored really well throughout the series.
Production-Values: 8/10 – The animation isn’t stellar and it uses a lot of shortcuts, the series has a unique look nevertheless. The music is also simple but mesmerizing.
Setting: 9/10 – An excellent portrayal of professional football and everything around it.

Suggestions:
– Shion no Ou
– One Outs (It’s similar, although much less awesome)
– Baccano!

Giant Killing – 26

by psgels, posted in Giant Killing



First of all I want to say that this episode ended with a completely new ED, and it really could not have fitted better. What a great and original way to close off this series.

In any case, the previous episode featured the climax of this series, so this episode had all its time for an epilogue, and it really turned out to be quite a unique closure for this series. Most series take things easy and slow down the pacing, but damn, so many things happened in this episode: we saw three matches, and the entire second half was dedicated to a bit of a curry party. At first this episode seemed very random, but it came together wonderfully in the end.

As an epilogue, you could really see that there was a lot that this episode tried to do, and it really succeeded. First of all it showed that the match against Osaka was nowhere near the end: they’re going to keep playing and growing, shown by how Akasaki was selected for Japan’s Olympic team. At the same time, this episode meant to summarize the themes of the entire series, and it did so through that curry party. For one it was hilarious to see Tatsumi order everyone to take part in it, but it really highlighted the themes of Giant Killing: teamwork and having fun.

I consider this to be an excellent example of a series that still is somewhere in the middle of its on-going manga, but found itself a perfect place o stop. Of course I’d really like a second season, but if this ends up to be the end of the series then I’m not feeling down about it at all, and the past episodes were an excellent ending.

Before the past Spring season started, I expected nothing from this series, but its first episode really blew me away. During the Spring Season, it was a tad overshadowed by Noitamina, but throughout the past three months it has been consistently my favourite airing series and I had a lot of fun blogging it.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Heartcatch Precure – 33

by psgels, posted in Heartcatch Precure




It’s cure Moonlight’s return. Of course this episode was awesome!

I mean, this entire episode was dedicated to Yuri and her past as Cure Moonlight. The creators here really waste no time to use their new powers in order to help Yuri get her powers back, and even then it wasn’t just a cheap revive that completely negated the build-up of the earlier episodes: despite how extremely badass Yuri’s fairy looked, he remains dead, and can only talk to her through some sort of illusion from the heart tree. The main reason why Yuri was able to transform again was due to Tsubomi and Erika’s work, both in collecting the heart seeds and bringing back her motivation.

Yuri’s fairy was even more proof that this series has some of the best animal mascots I’ve seen in in a mahou shoujo. Most of the time they’re either just a device to get girls to transform, acting as annoying and cute as possible. Here things are completely different, especially the veterans like Koppei and Koron: both are just totally badass in their ow way, and both really are crucial in their support, yet at the same time they never try to steal the spotlights.

Moonlight’s transformation looked gorgeous, by the way. It didn’t have the huge amount of frames that Cure Sunshine had, but really made up for it with its gorgeous art. Right now, I really am convinced that she has the best character-designs of the entire series, hence why she hooked me from the first episode.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Mitsudomoe Review – 77,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




Contrary to popular belief, Mitsudomoe is not first and foremost a fanservice series. Sure, it’s full of panty jokes, but at its core it really remains a comedy series. Still, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have its mind completely drowned in the gutter.

Remember back when you were around ten years old, and how everyone kept making the most immature and tasteless jokes they could think of? Well, that’s this series: 13 episodes of toilet-jokes and innuendo at the level of ten-year-olds. The thing is that the delivery in this series so good that despite the subject material, it had me laughing out lout in every episode, aside from perhaps the first two.

This series especially loves making use of the way that in the Japanese language, you can often omit huge parts of a sentence if it’s clear about the context you’re talking in. It comes up with all kinds of scenarios to get the best out of this little quirk that’s unique to the Japanese language. Apart from that, it also loves toying with the chemistry between the different characters. The jokes it tells are just wrong at times, but I really couldn’t help but laugh. The jokes here range from utterly stupid to surprisingly witty, and they’re often surprisingly creative.

The big problem with this series is that it doesn’t have enough material for 13 episodes. Every episode is divided into about four or five short sketches, and every episode has at least one sketch that is just repeating the same jokes that were already used before. Especially the boob jokes and the Gachi Rangers get milked out too much, which really has me worried about the recently announced second season: when the first season is already struggling to fill 13 episodes, then there is no way that the second season will be as funny as the first one.

This series does need to take a bit of time to really find its niche. The first two episodes miss the mark completely: they try way too hard, are completely disgusting and will probably turn off many potential viewers. After that though, it becomes a pretty hilarious comedy series with a top-notch delivery. The reused jokes will probably become a huge turn-off in the second season, but this first season still has enough original content and jokes that are actually developed throughout the series, rather than merely copied and pasted.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Hilarious whenever it isn’t repeating jokes; it really has excellent delivery and comedic timing.
Characters: 8/10 – Their mind is completely in the gutter, but they’ve got a good chemistry.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Bridge is completely new, but they’ve done a pretty good job here with the animation.
Setting: 7/10 – Nothing special, and doesn’t really make use of it.

Suggestions:
– Yoiko
– B Gata H Kei
– Usavich

Asobi ni Iku Yo Review – 70/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




During the past Summer season, the thing that I disliked the most was AIC. They did come out with four new series, but they were. all. moe. anime. And not even the good ones, like Geijutsuka Art Design Class; all four of them were completely underwhelming, had no idea how to use their time correctly or how to tell a story for that matter. Asobi ni Iku Yo at least set itself apart from the others by showing that it at least somewhat knew what it wanted to do.

It just threw all pretense out: it’s a harem with a lot of guns and aliens, and just tried to make something enjoyable out of it. This worked… somewhat. Asobi ni Iku Yo has its enjoyable moments, but they’re too few and far in between for a series that only has twelve episodes. This series is at its best when it doesn’t try to be anything. It’s a bit corny, but the slice of life moments of this series work well enough. On top of them, the action scenes themselves are also pretty enjoyable. It’s what’s in between that’s really the problem.

The story is interesting, and has a few neat ideas here and there, like the whole concept of aliens with cat ears coming to earth in order to establish diplomatic relationships, but most of it is just predictable fodder, including a number of very badly inspired bad guys who fail to create any kind of tension. The big problem here is that the series spends way too much of its time on pointless exposition that never really goes anywhere. This series only has twelve episodes, and way too often it just fails to entertain because it somehow found the need to explain another boring detail in the bad guys’ plans.It doesn’t seem to realize that neither its premise nor its characters can carry a serious plot.

As for the characters, they’re better than your usual harem, especially compared to AIC’s other series this season. Characters at least talk sensibly without trying to be too cute, and that’s something I could appreciate (and this is also what made me able to watch it all the way through). There is a decent chemistry between them, but they’re still riddled with problems. There is hardly any character-development, and due to the above-mentioned tendency of this series to waste its time on its plot, they really could have been fleshed out more. The worst is the love triangle that develops, though. Kio, the lead male is dense beyond belief (again, very original), which completely goes against any kind of development that could have made this series better. The romance here is just there to insert pointless drama, and the way it gets resolved made me bang my head on my desk. I mean, I know that I should be glad that a series for once resolves its love triangles and stuff, but the way in which this series does it is a total Deus ex Machina insult.

Overall, would I recommend marathoning this series? No, there are many better series out there. This series fails to see what it’s good at and instead wastes too much time on its story and drama, which both don’t really accomplish anything. Add that to its silly and cliched premise, and you have a series that everyone will have forgotten in about half a year.

Storytelling: 6/10 – Poorly balanced, too much exposition for a series that’s supposed to be fun and light-hearted.
Characters: 7/10 – Characters are not stupid and obnoxiuos, I at least praise this series for that because it’s the only AIC series this season to avoid this pitfall. They also fail to stand out and the drama between them sucks.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Solid, hardly any bad frames.
Setting: 7/10 – There are a few neat ideas, but overall it’s underutilized.

Suggestions:
– Magikano
– Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ouki
– Mahou Tsukai Tai

Berserk Review – 87,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




A few weeks ago we had this discussion on the shoutbox about Berserk. I was really looking forward to it, but people were saying that it did not hold up, compared to its manga. And fair enough, the anime is only 25 episodes long, while the manga has been running since 1990 and still hasn’t finished, meaning that there was no way for the anime to be able to completely tell a story that wouldn’t conclude, even thirteen years after its airdate. The original manga of Berserk also seems to be one of the most well received mangas out there.

The thing is though, and most people who have been reading this blog for a while have been very much aware of this, but I’m terrible at reading manga. Blame a lack of time, but series like Blade of the Immortal, Bokura no, Himitsu Top Secret, Pandora Hearts: I loved all of them despite being somehow unable to just grab and check out their respective mangas. Even though some of them made huge changes and none of them get to the real meat of their source material, I’m still a huge fan of them as standalone, albeit very incomplete stories, based on manga that are God knows how good. I’ve been stuck at the Bokura no’s thirtieth chapter for years now, despite it being awesome just like its anime counterpart.

In any case, Berserk is the same: ridiculously incomplete, ending with one ridiculous hell of a cliff-hanger, but it’s also a ridiculously well executed anime.

I t really immediately sets itself apart from all of the other fantasy series that were spread across the nineties. The atmosphere is dark and gritty, it doesn’t try to glorify its battles (this series is completely brutal when it needs to be, and never tries to hide it), and the battles themselves are very well drawn, detailed and animated. The series quickly stars focusing on battles on a larger and larger scale, and yet the series consistently stays many levels of believability above what you’d usually expect in series that focus on medieval warfare.

What really sold me to Berserk was its character-development, though. Even though I have no idea how good the character-development in the manga must be, the anime really makes excellent use of its time to put as much meaning as possible into its three main characters. The plot is entirely meant to explore them, push them forwards to their goals, and get the best out of their characters while remaining perfectly paced so that each event flows into the other.

As a contrast though, the rest of the cast pales in comparison. They’re mostly static and really not the most interesting. There are unfortunately a lot of episodes that focus on them, and I feel that this series would have been even better when it made its characters, especially the people who end up on the other end of Guts’ blade, a bit more down to earth and give them a bit more character, rather than having Guts kill the same hordes of punching bags over and over again.

Really though, just for Guts, Casca and Griffith I’m really glad to have watched this series. It’s really one of the most mature action titles out there, both with its gore and the way it uses this gore to look at its characters. As for the ending… I don’t think I really need to describe in how many ways it gave us the middle-finger, but I nevertheless consider this series to have an amazing finale.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Slow, but very solid, and absolutely brutal when it needs to be.
Characters: 9/10 – The side characters are nothing special. The main characters are wonderfully developed, though, with a lot of meaning put into them.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Gorgeous artwork from the nineties. Plus, its soundtrack was composed by Susumu Hirasawa.
Setting: 8/10 – A detailed look into medieval warfare, but ridiculously incomplete.

Suggestions:
– Shin Mazinger Shougeki! Z-Hen
– Gilgamesh
– Gungrave

Sora no Oto – 13

by psgels, posted in Sora no Oto



The first DVD episode was a pointless side-story. This one wasn’t, though, and it’s very relevant to the series. It’s a much better ending for this series than episode twelve, but still leaves me bloody hungry.

Most importantly, the most burning question here was answered: where the heck does this series take place in. And I have to admit, the creators were shrewd here. I always thought that we really were somewhere in Switzerland where the Japanese somehow settled again in the past, but it turns out to be much simpler: The entire world was nuked and somehow the only piece of land that was spared was Japan. The French and the Germans then invaded Japan and started living there. Really, I like that idea.

But at the same time, this really convinced me even more: this setting is too good for 14 episodes. You can really see that the creators realized this a little too late, resulting into that disastrous twelfth episode. I know that I’m talking down on this series a lot, but it for me it really has become a textbook example of how one episode can just completely kill my enthusiasm and destroy my suspense of disbelief on a series.

The thing is, that the creators didn’t seem to know what they wanted to do with this series: if they wanted to explore their unique setting, they should not have chosen Kanata as the lead character, for that they needed someone more central to the plot. If they wanted to show the adventures of a simple remote army base, then the creators shouldn’t have tried to make this series epic: the princess backstory, the way that the war miraculously concluded in the main characters’ back yard, they were all pointless. Instead, we are here with a combination of both that just doesn’t fit and come together. The subsequent installments of Anime no Chikara really improved on this: Senkou no Night Raid clearly chose to explore its setting, while Occult Academy clearly chose to focus more on its characters. And despite a few annoying flaws, that really worked in their advantage so far.

I was pretty happy with this episode, though. It dropped all of the epicness for what it was and just focused on the girls again. I liked how they made very natural conversations with the townsfolk (and how we learned a bit more about Naomi), and how this episode focused on the dreams that all of the characters have…

…that we’re unfortunately never going to see realized.
Rating: * (Good)