Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin – 11

by psgels, posted in Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin




Wow…. these are the kinds of episodes that blow you away. It did to me at least.

I already mentioned at the shoutbox that we had a beyond awesome staff working on this episode: Sayo Yamamoto, the director of Michiko e Hatchin doing the storyboard and the script written by Hiroshi Ounogi, who also wrote Noein and Birdy the Mighty. It’s like Superman having tea with Batman here. And seriously, even knowing that, this episode kicked ass beyond belief.

I don’t even know where to start with how magnificent this episode played out. So much happened at once (I guess that that was the point of the previous two episodes: becoming so quiet and dull in order to just strengthen the ridiculously huge impact this episode would have). Mikaze’s sex appeal went beyond the roof here (and it was actually used extremely well in the first half of this episode), the inner paranoia of her spells on Bunmei were wonderfully portrayed and the entire episode itself was just amazingly animated.

This episode was just disturbing. I mean, we could expect Mikaze to be up to something, but I absolutely loved how the creators just threw everyone’s hidden identity at your face here. Mikaze knowing the exact recipe of Bunmei’s cooking was just creepy. That kissing scene… I can’t believe how far and graphic that actually went. You could really see the influences of Michiko e Hatchin here. Another favourite was that scene in which Maya kicked the heck out of Bunmei here. Talk about brutal!

I mean, I’m just baffled by this series. The thing is that it had its share of mediocre episodes, and it is mostly awesome when it has the right episode staff (I really have to applaud the producers here in getting the best people they could get here). I mean, episodes 1, 6 and 11: I consider all three to be the three single best episodes out of any show that started in the past summer season. I found it really strange that right before the ending, this series would waste so much time on random stories. But I really didn’t expect the creators to bombard us with so much at once here.

Occult Gakuin, I applaud you.
Rating: **** (Fantastic)

High School of the Dead – 11

by psgels, posted in High School of the Dead



I was expecting the worst here. I mean, at the end of the previous episode, the way that that demented teacher knocked on the door was like saying “Hello, I’m your endboss. May I come in?”

Thankfully though, this episode fully acknowledged that he was a disaster, and instead of the earlier episodes the creators chose a very restrained way for his story: we get a bit of his history, then we get to see what he did to Rei, then we get a confrontation and after that he’s simply kicked out. I really did not expect this kind of subtlety from a show that markets itself with zombies and boobs.

There were some parts I didn’t like, like at the start of the episode in which those adults refuse to cooperate (but then again, I also don’t understand the hordes of people who demonstrate for the most moronic reasons), but overall I like this change of pace. I already said that this series sets itself apart with its atmosphere, and there was this strange melancholy during that scene in which all those nuclear bombs were launched that I really liked.

At the same time, I like how the creators chose the climax of this series to revolve around rescuing the loved ones of Rei and Komuro. It’s down to earth, yet it’s bound to be exciting, there’s going to be an interesting deadline that the creators can use. The thing with this series is that its action may not be as good as Sengoku Basara, nor is its premise really refined or original not to mention the pointless fanservice, but it is much better balanced and varied than the other major action title of this season.

Edit: a small correction here: I just discovered that High School of the Dead will just be twelve episodes long. So yeah, it’s going to end next week, which makes it quite a strange choice for a semi-final episode.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Sengoku Basara – 22

by psgels, posted in Sengoku Basara



Now this is more like it. This episode was entirely building up to that finale again, but it also packed a punch when it comes to action. This really shows a number of things about this series:

– This series keeps its action scenes short and sweet: it wisely chose not to drag out the action for too long.
– This series knows that an action series isn’t just about action, but also creating a good setting and characters to carry this action are just as important.
– This series has huge balls and guts to let everything depend on the final two episodes.

I mean, I’ve said this before: this really is the school example of a series you can only judge after it fully ends. Out of all the series this season, this one really lets the most depend on its finale, even more than Occult Academy. And unlike Occult Academy, I still have full confidence that the creators know what they’re doing. All they need to do is give everything they’ve got, like what they did with the sixth episode, and that will make the entire series worth it.

In the meantime, I enjoyed the action of this episode a lot. It was well directed, and a pretty nice taste of what’s to come. I especially loved the parts in which Date Masamune was so cool that he could have entire conversations on his horse while in the air, in the middle of explosives. I also loved the rest of that explosive horse scene. The entire episode was just a ploy of Toyotomi and his allies to slow down his enemies enough for his main force, and I liked how all those plans seemed to be working.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Giant Killing – 24

by psgels, posted in Giant Killing



I hate the cliff-hangers of this series with passion. I mean, keeping a hook until next week is one thing, but the tension is killing me here. The creators here have this tendency to cut off at the most tense episode of the series. This is just unbelievable: this entire episode was building up for something that happens two seconds after the end of the episode.

Aside from the usual tension, this episode really made the characters shine in so many different ways. I loved all those moments that were focused on character antics, ranging from Akasaki celebrating his goal to Hauer punching Kuroda because he had gotten so annoying (especially the way in which Tatsumi noted that Kuroda had a talent for annoying people). Most of the time, my favourite series of each season are dark, with quite a bit of angst, death and destruction. Giant Killing however is completely different. It’s an incredibly bright and fun series that hits just about all the right buttons.

I can only imagine how awesome the next episode is going to be: it’s there where everything in this series is going to have to come together: with twelve episodes left, and Tsubaki’s chance to score 2-2 ruined because of that defender who is really really tired, the match is at a point at which anything can happen now. I also love how this match is evolving with every single episode: first everything was focused on stopping the onslaught of attackers, most notably Kubota, then the focus moved to Natsuki as an attacker, and now this episode, instead of focusing on Tsubaki, it focused on Dulfer’s strategy collapsing and the main dilemma he has to face: what is more important, your ideals or winning every match you’re in? The long term versus the short term.

NB. This is also something I noticed as I started making screenshots, but the camera angles in this episode were really good here: they were varied, creative, and really helped to bring up the best in the characters. The animation in this series is generally nothing to write home about, but there are these rare scenes that are actually animated quite well and smooth.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Uragiri wa Boku no Namae wo Shitteiru – 23

by psgels, posted in Uragiri wa Boku no Namae wo Shitteiru



Ah, you know the cliches: a character is certain to die: there’s some kind of deadly projectile heading in his direction, and only a miracle can save him, which indeed happens as he is saved at the last moment by a friend of his. Or take the cliche in which the lead villain has lost most of his powers, only for suddenly another end boss to get introduced. This episode had both of these cliches, yet it did not, if that makes any sense.

This show has fun playing with these cliches, strangely enough. I really thought that Takashiro at the end saved Yuki there. But nope, it’s a completely new character. This character however isn’t anything like Reiga’s boss: he’s just another one of his subordinates. His intervention makes perfect sense as someone who prefers to work in the background, realizing that Reiga is overpowered with his emotions. Speaking of which, I really thought that Reiga’s emotions would cause him to turn into one of the good guys. Instead, they end up trying to kill Yuki. I mean, this was just subversion after subversion after subversion.

At the start of this show, I tended to laugh at it. But really: this episode had two FREAKING DRAGONS duking it out. Now if that isn’t awesome, then I don’t know anymore. This finale is really progressing smoothly so far: it uses these semi-cliches, but it also shows how the characters have developed, it is well paced and takes its time without dabbling in endless quiet before the storms (this episode again took 5 minutes for everyone to catch their breath, only to move over to the real finale: the storming of Reiga’s castle). I mean, the second half of this series has been really skillfully written.

I only have two beefs with this episode. The first I’m a bit iffy about is introducing a character, right at the end of the SEMI-FINAL episode. I mean, I know Luka’s brother versus him is going to make for an awesome final episode that will very likely delve into Luka’s past in order to explain how he left his clan (to save that for the final episode… excellent idea), but couldn’t his introduction have happened a tiny bit sooner?

Also: Reiga’s motivation. Humans are evil, they pollute the planet. Copied and pasted directly from the Evil Handbook of Generic Villains. I expected better from you!
Rating: ** (Excellent)

HeartcatchPrecure – 31

by psgels, posted in Heartcatch Precure



And here we have it: the upgrade episode. Both the bad guys and the good guys received new powers. Now, as much as I like this series, I’m going to be critical again here, because there are a few questions that bother me here:

– In this episode, Sabaaku hands Sasorina, Kumojacky and Cobraja a gem that lets them upgrade their desatorians. Where did he get that and why didn’t he use that before?
– How do Precures discover new abilities anyway? Do they just… “level up” and instantly know how to use new powers? I mean, the golden Precures here… where did they come from? Did they just think of this in the heat of the moment or something?
– Why is there a fanclub for the biggest geek in the school?

Those gems… I have this hate love relationship with them. On one hand, they did make the fights more interesting. On the other hand: Sasorina was about to develop, dammit. I really liked how she was changing at the beginning of this episode, and here that damn evil Sabaaku had to step in and do something about it.

Still, the above questions were the things that you could expect from a mahou shoujo. It in any case didn’t prevent this series from being excellent again, especially since it took Yuri under the loop again, and especially the relationship between her and Tsubomi. This episode definitely succeeded in giving a bit of colour to her character and it made her more than the angsting Yuri.

On top of that, this episode carried on the theme of the previous episode of the loss of fairies, as the characters thought of the possibility of losing Chypre, Coffret and Potpourri. Always great to flesh them out.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Kuroshitsuji Episodes 05-08 and 17-24 Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Kuroshitsuji II




So, yes…. I caved in.

Here’s the thing: for the past summer season, there have been three series that stood out to me: Shiki, because it had the best atmosphere, Occult Academy, because it had the best execution, and Kuroshitsuji II, because it had the best plot (a possible fourth on this list would be Sengoku Basara Two because it had the best action, but that entirely depends on its final three episodes). Because Kuroshitsuji II did what many other series failed at, and became more interesting to watch than I could have hoped for, I guess that I just was obliged to check out that first season now – not all of it, mind you. This is one of those series that at times seems to be actively trying to be bad with its random stories and insert-episodes, so this is a review of just the episodes 5-8 and 17-24. If you want an impression of the entire series, just note that I couldn’t make it even past the second episode. Twice.

Without the random annoying side-story, Kuroshitsuji becomes quite a snappy and diverse series about the occult in England around 150 years ago. There are a few holes in the plot here and there, but they’re all simple enough that they can be just guessed, so I can recommend this method of watching for the people who are interested in Kuroshitsuji’s darker parts, but have no indention of sitting through hordes of uninspired light-hearted moments that only take ten seconds to become annoying.

Because I must say, those darker parts were quite worth it. This series sells itself with bishies doing the most impossible stunts, but behind it is an interesting and quite often disturbing world with quite a bit of intrigue. The lead character Ciel starts out as a bit of a questionable lead character, but he turns out to be quite an interesting anti-hero who has given up on life, just for the sake of his revenge. The darker parts of this series is where the unique selling point of Kuroshitsuji also really shines: Sebastian fits right in with this dark atmosphere, and even the few anticlimactic uses for his powers turn out to be hilarious, like they should be.

Having said that, though, I do want to say that I still like the second season of Kuroshitsuji better. Alois and Claude (and Johanna possibly too) are by far the most interesting characters in the entire franchise, and these two really made a huge spectacle of the second season. The first season tries, and it has some neat villains too by the way, but none of them really get close to how fun it was to just see those two flamboyant characters parade across the screen. Sebastian and Ciel are interesting, but in the end they aren’t really the most complex characters and there is no development between them either. Especially Ciel makes a number of rather strange and stupid decisions throughout the series.

Still, I liked the plot here, the creators put in some very interesting ideas for Ciel to tackle, and overall I had no problems getting though this series and I quite enjoyed it. Kuroshitsuji is a strange series though. I can easily have seen the first season as 13 episodes, and my guess would be that it would have been much more accessible and balanced than that it is now. And yet for some reason this show paraded all over with its bishies and shallow side-stories, even though beneath it is actually pretty good. This isn’t another case of Kobato, whose first half was simply inoffensive before it could get to its good part. Kuroshitsuji’s random stories are annoying beyond belief; they are completely different from that it really is about, and I really don’t want to watch anything more of that.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Good atmosphere, well told, a pretty good sense of build up.
Characters: 8/10 – Nothing special or well developed, but an interesting cast nonetheless with a nice chemistry to watch.
Production-Values: 8/10 – To me, the second season was also better in this aspect, but the art looks consistently solid and the soundtrack is also pretty adequate.
Setting: 8/10 – Okay, it’s England with a lot of liberties taken, but this series makes very good use of these liberties to show a very interesting setting here.

Suggestions:
– Suteki Tantei Labyrinth
– Trinity Blood
– 7 Comments

Katanagatari – 09

by psgels, posted in Katanagatari



During my past entries, I may have been a bit negative about this series, but don’t get me wrong here: I like this series. I just have no idea what to write about it. I know it’s a bit of a paradox with a series with so much dialogue, but usually I have no problems writing down three paragraphs per entry, and yet for Katanagatari I’m usually struggling to get there. BUT NOT THIS TIME, MUAHAHA!

I liked this episode more than usual, strangely enough. Even though it was just another “sword of the week” that was obviously building up to those final three episodes, the fight in this episode was probably the easiest fight so far, and the sword’s story was also the simplest one so far. At times like this I just don’t understand this series’ effect on me.

My guess would be that we finally saw Togame and Shichika kiss each other, and there was more romantic tension between them than ever: not just in their words, but most importantly in their acts. It was cliche, dammit, but the direction made up for it because of how hilarious those scenes were, especially with Shichika trying to stand in a proper kendo stance.

One of the other reasons I’ve liked this show so far was simply because I like martial arts. Practicing karate myself, I’m really interested in those topics, and Katanagatari proved to be quite an interesting tour of weapons and fighting styles. This show analyzes them, talks about and shows their strengths and weaknesses, and creates interesting battles around them. I like that, though there is one beef I have with the way this series treats its characters like mathematical functions: everything is reduced to simple rules and tactics, both in terms of the body and the minds of the characters, with luck and characters’ whimsical feelings reduced to absolutely nothing, even though in real fights these play huge roles as well.

It isn’t a 100% bad thing, though, as it is refreshing to see another series within this perspective. Especially since that last rule is popular to abuse within anime in order to come up with reasons to let the lead character win.

Oh, and I applaud the animators of this episode: there were some neat shots and scenes with interesting animation, there were some very neat camera angles and I hardly spotted any weaknesses other than some still frames in this episode.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Honey and Clover Review – 90/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




Through the life time of this blog, I don’t think that there has been a series that you guys have requested more than Honey and Clover, especially in the early years. And really, when this was the series that opened up the door for the slice of life series featuring adult characters in the 21st century, it was the series that started the Noitamina timeslot, which has been running successfully for more than five years now, and the series that popularized the josei genre, I could only imagine how incredibly good this series must be.

I am usually someone who likes to save the best for last, but since I’m going to be graduating university in less than a week from now (upcoming Wednesday to be exact), I figured that this couldn’t be a better time to sit down and watch this series. In the end, I didn’t get the best thing since sliced bread, but that doesn’t mean that Honey and Clover isn’t an all around top-notch and well written college series.

This series may not be the holy grail of character-development: characters in this series do change subtly, but this is nowhere near the main focus of the series. Honey and Clover instead has a completely different area at which it really shines: in the way it describes its characters. At heart this is a slice of life series with a healthy dose of drama, but the creators also love to analyze their own characters, pick them apart and take each of those bits under the loop, so that we as an audience could understand them as much as possible.

The way it describes its characters is just fantastically done, and it’s that part what I loved the most about this series, and it really has a rock-solid cast because of this. On top of that, this series is also excellent at fleshing its characters out: it puts them in many different situations that are wacky, yet typical of college students. This show also likes to have characters go on month-long journeys, just to show how different the characters act when said person is not around. It’s well balanced between its drama, slice of life and comedy, and the plot itself is skillfully written in a non-episodic pace.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t go for the entire cast. I’m not sure whether this is due to the second season that will elaborate further on them, but there are a few characters who aren’t as interesting as the others, and hold this series down a bit. With this I mean characters like the people from Fujiwara Design like Miwako, her dog and its presidents. I also kept hoping for the creators to delve into Hagu’s mind and show us what she’s thinking, just like what they were doing with the rest of the cast, but unfortunately she remains a bit of an enigma until the end of the series, despite being really interesting.

Either way though, Honey and Clover is a very worthy series about young adults, and can stand with its head held high amongst Nodame Cantabile, Maison Ikkoku and Nana. They’re all unique, have their own points in which they make their cast shine beyond belief. It’s not the best among them, but as a slice of life series it really shines with a top notch script that really captures the years of college life.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Wonderful script, well balanced, constantly evolving as a series.
Characters: 10/10 – An absolutely lovable cast that is wacky and down to earth at the same time, and gets analyzed through and through throughout the series.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Pretty character-designs with pretty good animation.
Setting: 9/10 – Captures college life, and the things that surround it.

Suggestions:
– Nodame Cantabile
– Ristorante Paradiso
– GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class

Shiki – 10

by psgels, posted in Shiki



Oh, I love series when they take unorthodox plot twists. I have to admit: the vampires’ counterattack went completely different from anything that I could have expected.Both with Natsuno and Toshio, their reaction was bold, creative, ruthless and effective. This episode again: it rocks for so many different reasons: the things they throw at Natsuno, Natsuno’s reaction to this, Natsuno’s relationship with his parents, the way that they finally portrayed the vampires as surprisingly human, and especially that twist at the end.

Of course death I this series isn’t exactly permanent, but I still love it when creators find a way to kill off their main characters. Natsuno isn’t exactly dead yet, but I do feel like the creators are really trying to turn this guy into a vampire. And while vampires doesn’t exactly equal death, it does seem like a pretty irreversible process. It really shows that there is no way that this is going to result into a “and they lived happily ever after”-endings.

It’s also great that the creators took this chance to show more about Natsuno’s relationship with his parents. They’ve got a very interesting chemistry with each other, showing that they’ve been living together for a really long time, yet don’t seem to fully get along with each other. Typical of puberty, actually and I like the subtlety in which the creators handled it.
Rating: ** (Excellent)