High School of the Dead – 12

by psgels, posted in High School of the Dead




So, the good thing is that the creators really pulled up and delivered a worthy finale for this series. The bad thing is that the story just stops in the middle, the show stops just as the characters are about to find out whether Takagi’s parents are alive. There is one OVA left, but with that one I again doubt whether it will provide full closure.

Now, we could hope for a second season, but Madhouse has a bit of a strange policy when it comes to its sequels. To name an example, they did make a sequel for Saiunkoku Monogatari and Chi’s Sweet Home, but they did not for Claymore. Generally speaking, they very rarely make sequels.

In any case though, I’m not unhappy with the way this series ends. This episode was restrained, yet entertaining. The atmosphere never faltered, and I like how this episode did conclude the story of Saya’s parents. We’re not exactly told what happens to them, but this can be left to imagination easily, and I actually think that it’s more powerful than if the creators would have outright stated whether or not they survived or got slaughtered. This episode also put a lot of meaning into their relationship with Saya, and it’s also good to see that the nurse and her friend got one final conversation.

Oh, and especially the backgrounds in this episode were better than ever. I’m surprised that that’s where most of the budget went here, but works really well, and this episode looked utterly gorgeous because of it.

Overall, out of all of Tetsurou Araki‘s works, this does remain my least favourite series. However, he still put forth a very skillful adaptation here, with some great production values and atmospheres, he really did the story justice for as simple as it may have been. This was the first fanservice series I have ever blogged. It’s a genre that I usually dislike because they often focus too much on the fanservice and forget to make the rest of their series interesting and compelling. High School of the Dead did not. Overall I consider 2010 to be one of the least impressive years of anime since 2005, however the fanservice genre is one of the few for which I feel that it has gotten better. That’s not to say that we’ve gotten rid of the crappy fanservice series of course (*coughkissxsiscough*), but I admit: we’ve gotten quite a few good ones.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Uragiri wa Boku no Namae wo Shitteiru Review – 82,5/100

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




Uragiri wa Boku no Namae wo Shitteiru (henceforth abbreviated as Uragiri) is a series that doesn’t start out as anything special. Its first ten episodes don’t really stand out aside from a few well written action scenes and overly campy dialogues. Still, it managed to pull itself together as a solid character-study in the end.

Uragiri is restrained, but it knows what it’s doing in terms of characters. Their development throughout the second half is well worth the wait, especially because the creators know how to use it in its action and exposition scenes. This goes for both the main and side characters, who manage to grow together into a neatly packaged whole.

There really is hardly a boring moment in the second half because of this. The entire series has this slow atmosphere, but the series never drags on: it is always exploring its characters, showing new things about them and fully detailing their worries, motivations, and the bonds they have with each other.

The action scenes get surprisingly badass as time goes on thanks to their excellent scenario, the unique visuals for this series (this show is especially good at blending in CG effects with 2D animation in order to give the whole series a very gothy feeling) and a soundtrack that on top of being excellently used, also only continues to get better and better as the series goes on.

Now, this series is technically based on a shounen ai story. To the people who are scared of gays: don’t worry, this show is nowhere near yaoi, and the gay undertones never end up taking over the show. Having said that, though, this series does have an array of very campy characters, ranging from the very eccentric dress sense that the demons in this series have, how underdeveloped the villains are compared to the lead characters and there is matter that the lead character Yuki may be a tad too much of a heaven-descended flower-child at times. There is of course being nice, but there are points in which the creators play a bit too much on his good-natured character.

This series however still has an excellent sense of build up (except for the ending; don’t ask me why, but somehow this show ends with a Deus ex Machina without resolving anything while preparing for a second season that is never going to come) and it skillfully builds its characters throughout its 24-episode run. It’s a very nice example of those series that start off without much of a fuss, but actually get pretty damn awesome near the end (emphasis on near!).

Storytelling: 8/10 – Starts off unimpressive, but gets much better as time goes on. Well balanced, a solid script and knows how to build up save for the ending.
Characters: 8/10 – A solid cast: well analyzed and developed. The bonds between them are very important in this series, and quite a bit of meaning has been put into them.
Production-Values: 9/10 – The character animation may not be much special and the characters-designs may be a bit too bishiefied, but the background art and CG are utterly gorgeous, and the soundtrack is really excellent.
Setting: 8/10 – Does what it needs to do, there are interesting concepts behind the setting and it forms a solid base for the characters to work with.

Suggestions:
– Shingetsutan Tsukihime
– Night Head Genesis
– Kobato

Uragiri wa Boku no Namae wo Shitteiru – 24

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



I often see people hoping that anime creators don’t pull an anime original ending and adapt their source material faithfully, but this would really have been a case in which the series would have been better off with an anime original closure: just have a battle between everyone, like what was set up in the previous episode, and have those battles resolve everything. I really would not have minded the few questions that would be left after that (like Reiga’s motivation, or how Luka and Yuki met).

Instead, Yuki starts glowing and forces everyone to retreat with some last minute slapped on powers in which he suddenly has the powers to completely eradicate the darkness and make people realize their mistakes. Um, where did that come from? On top of being a bit too close to a Deus ex Machina for comfort, this episode also introduced a rather large plothole in Reiga’s reasoning.

Because in this episode Reiga also claims that he kidnapped Yuki because he believes that Yuki’s light has the power to make his darkness stronger. A bit silly at first, but I guess that in terms of symbolism when you combine light and dark with yin and yang, it makes sense. If it weren’t for the fact that that theory completely backfired when Yuki turned on his god-mode. And survives with pretty much the same exhaustion as the other times in which his powers went out of control.

So no, I can’t call this ending good. It didn’t do what it was supposed to, it hardly resolved anything, and it failed to use the build-up that the previous episodes worked so hard for to set up. For an ending of a series that was hoping for a second season that’s never going to come, I’d call this one average, though: it didn’t ruin itself, it did neatly to prepare for the second season (that is never going to come), and the final fight before Yuki flipped out was excellent.

I can see the potential of a power that shows everyone their mistakes. A second season would have been able to do neat things with that. However, there is no way in hell that that second season will arrive. As a result, we’re stuck with a Deus ex Machina ending. Such a shame, considering how this series was doing so well. Unfortunately, this series couldn’t fully follow in Kobato’s footsteps.
Rating: – (Disappointing)

Giant Killing – 25

by psgels, posted in Giant Killing



So this is it: the climax of Giant Killing (next episode will be some sort of epilogue, I guess), and THANK GOD it was every bit as awesome as I hoped. It was just one rush of adrenaline from start to finish, Dulfer’s team played to its full potential (it even switched out its attackers to focus on defence), the use of music was perfect (the creators even used a track that they hadn’t used before at), and I loved every minute of this episode.

I mean, I’m not going to deny that the outcome of these matches are predictable. We know that goals will be made. What makes this show so addictive though are the questions of “who?” and “how?”. This is especially why this final match kicks ass beyond belief: in every single episode, the creators pick out different members of the team to get their place in the spotlight, either because of their actions or by delving into their heads. This is a match that was constantly evolving with so much dynamics that I haven’t seen in any other sports series so far.

This time, it’s finally time for Gino to shine by, along with Sugi in order to make the second goal. Natsuki in the meantime only proves that he picked his role back up: he doesn’t end up in the spotlights. Instead, most of the credits for the final goal go to Murakoshi, for opening up the way to the enemy half, and Sera, for finally getting the chance and pulling off the stupid stunt that got in that third goal. And even beyond that, the creators never neglected the support of the rest of the team to get them there, with the possible exception of the Keeper since Osaka got no shots at the goal in this episode.

I really hope that this isn’t the last we get to see of sports series that focus on professionals, rather than high schoolers. They can lead to completely different series, and series that are based on adults have a ton of stuff that high school sport series don’t have, and vice versa. In this age in which the Japanese economy is doing poorly and there are more and more moe and bishie series, I’m really glad to see that there are still series like this one that try to be different in presentation, art, storytelling and execution. This final arc was really the perfect way to close off this series, and the results were really magnificent, and I can only hope for more series like this.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Sengoku Basara – 23

by psgels, posted in Sengoku Basara



I still like what this series is trying to do here: action series often consist out of long strings of long action scenes, which may get boring if they go on for too long. This series however intends to make its action count by keeping it short and sweet.

Of course, whether that’s going to work is will depend entirely on that final episode!!

I mean, talk about putting your stakes here. This isn’t the case in which a series is badly paced so far: the past few episodes have built up enough for that and there is no worry for a rushed ending at this point. This is nothing like series as Sora no Oto, which tried to cram way too much into its final episode. Instead, the final episode has about five major battles scheduled. With an average of four minutes each, making everything as epic as possible, the creators will be forced to make every battle here short, but sweet. And god dammit I can’t wait until next week to see whether they can actually pull it off!

As for this episode, especially standalone I have no complaints about it whatsoever. It did its job perfectly of building up, while containing enough action to remain exciting from beginning to end. This really was that perfect balance between short action scenes, plot and dialogue that I would have preferred to see in the rest of the series. Everything flowed really well into each other, and even though this isn’t that final episode yet, you can really see the build-up pay off here, even though this episode also spent just about all of its time building up as well.

Also, the ninjas busting Katakura out of jail while taking advantage of the fact that Toyotomi’s army is gone. I like that. I was thinking that the creators were perhaps setting up some kind of battle between him and Date, involving some cheap “you betrayed me”-drama, but instead it was all meant to build up for a battle between him and Takenaka.

I’m also curious what the creators have in store for Ichi. Really, I nearly forgot about her, but it’s interesting that the creators really found that her time as a character was over, and she’s more like a weapon in this sequel, and she indeed did seem pretty much like a life-less ghost than the annoyance she was in the first season. Speaking of weapons: they even got a freaking death ray?! I mean, in terms of physics it makes no bloody sense whatsoever, but I love the idea, and it’s just something this series might pull.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Heartcatch Precure – 32

by psgels, posted in Heartcatch Precure



Most kids’ shows face the problem of how to prevent sensible adults from taking over the series, most of the time this results into them getting dumbed down beyond belief, just to let the kids shine, and even when everything makes sense, people like parents, teachers and grandparents are often reduced to completely unimportant and unimpressive. Heartcatch Precure avoids this with its rule that only certain girls can become Precure, along with the fact that Grandma is just AWESOME.

She can’t transform anymore (of which this episode actually provided a pretty interesting explanation), and yet she acts as a good mentor to the lead characters here. Usually she’s nice and supportive, but this episode was very interesting as she tested their resolve to see if they were worthy for the power with which she once failed to kill Dune.

Also, I may be an idiot, but the plot twist in this episode hit me completely by surprise: I did not suspect it at all, but the mysterious identity of the mysterious man who has been protecting Cure Blossom and Cure Marin was awesome beyond belief. I never considered the possibility, but with the way that the creators have kept building up the great Koppei, it makes sense for him to be able to do such a thing. His actions throughout the series also make perfect sense now.

Oh, and this episode included “the power-up”. I already said before that I don’t really like those practices, but this episode handled it tastefully. It’s not just another “Princess Mode”, but instead there are some definite risks involved in using it (as shown by grandma), in order to balance out the new powers. Using it at the same time provided an excuse for the return of Cure Moonlight, so I guess that this episode couldn’t have let things play out any better than that it did.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu – 12

by psgels, posted in Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu



Miran really likes killing people, but to learn that he already was plotting to take over the world at the age of five… That’s some hardcore bad guy.

In any case, I wonder what the creators intended to do by suddenly killing off a ton of different people who were conspiring against Shion: it’s either going to fuel the other anti-Shion people in the kingdom, or they intend to take care of them all at once. Either way, this episode was building up towards more international intrigue with those pink-haired people and all.

I’m still waiting for something to catch my interest, though. People keep saying that the second half of this series will be awesome, and I’m willing to wait for that. My main issue right now is that there are no characters that interest me left: there just are too many of them and they’re too similar. Even the humour between Ferris and Ryner is getting old. The best is probably Miran: I feel that if this guy develops, he can change into something great, as this episode hinted.

Perhaps I’m comparing this show too much to Guin Saga (which arguably did have a much better direction, and it did pull off a huge cast), but I’m not really feeling anything with this series at this point. At this point in the series, that’s nothing too disastrous, though, as there still is plenty of time for this series to redeem itself, though it is a bit of a chore to get through these episodes.
Rating: (Enjoyable)

Shiki – 11

by psgels, posted in Shiki



To the people who have yet to check out this episode: be careful. The entire ED is full of spoilers for the second half. >.< Either way, this was a bit of a bizarre way to end the first half with: an entire episode dedicated to none other than Itou Ikumi. Didn't see that one coming, yet it worked surprisingly well to show how the villagers are starting to suspect things. This episode did really well in portraying such a weird character as herself, and she's actually quite charming. I remember some commenters talk about how I should hate Shiki because its story is just a standard vampire story and has hardly any originality. The thing with this show is indeed that the general story is about a bunch of vampires attacking a town, nothing special with that. The reason why I love this show is the huge amount of creativity and energy it puts in its delivery and storytelling. It's true that I like shows with a lot of plot twists (provided that they don't take this over the top and are too lazy in other areas), but I also love the series that have simple stories, yet excel in their delivery, storytelling, or characters. That's pretty much the reason why my review scale talks about "storytelling", rather than "story". I don't care how big your story is, I'm mostly interested in how it's used. I think the best way to describe the storytelling in this show is that it leaves hardly any room for the audience to take a breath: every second is busy showing something. There seem to be hardly any seconds there to just fill time. It's also a series that makes excellent use of its soundtrack to create its atmosphere: it knows when to start playing its tunes, and it also knows when to keep quiet. It works really well so far. On top of that, I also love the kinds of series that actually make their setting come alive. At this point, it's actually working pretty well so far, and this episode was a key to it: it showed that the lead characters aren't the only people in the world, and the villagers are definitely also involved here. I feel like the creators can take this even further, but that completely depends on the kind of direction that the second half will go into, and whether it will abandon the rest of the villagers, or instead focus even more on them. Series that really manage to portray an alive setting are very rare, but it would be awesome if this show manages to do it. Rating: ** (Excellent)

Kuroshitsuji II Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Kuroshitsuji II




Okay, you can say a lot about Kuroshitsuji II as a sequel to Kuroshitsuji. But at least it has BALLS.

In today’s anime, in which it’s very difficult to come up with really interesting plots and storylines, and people rather try to stay at the tried and true, Kuroshitsuji came, made optimal use of its creative freedom, discarded the manga it’s based on completely, trolled just about everyone who watched it and came up with quite an interesting concept for its sequel. This lead to many good things, but also many bad things.

But still, out of all of the series that premiered during the past summer season, I really can’t deny that Kuroshitsuji II had the best plot out of all of them: it made the best use of its episodes, it was the least afraid to include some caring yet thought out plot twists, it was very good at building up its own storyline and actually using this and overall I have to say that I enjoyed most of it.

But the biggest selling point of this series is without a doubt the new cast of villains, especially Alois and Claude. The two of them are like a trainwreck: completely derailed but yet so interesting to watch. Especially the antics of Alois are consistently captivating, and you can see that the creators had a lot of fun portraying him as this insane teenaged noble. The creators realized this very well, and so they prepared a number of plot twists that really attempt to bring the best out of these two characters.

On the flip-side, this is a series that likes trolling its viewers. This is especially noticeable in the way that it follows a very awesome first episode with a completely disappointing and badly executed second episode. And in fact, the first third of this series has just about everything that made the fillers of the first season so tedious to get through. Episodes 2 to four are a bit of a test of patience, they’re necessary for the plot and all, but this series makes no attempt at hiding its vast array of annoying characters.

After that though, this series really gets better than ever. Its humour gets snappier, the way the series uses its unique selling point of god-mode butlers gets used better than ever, both for the serious purposes and the over the top silly ones (which work more and more as the series goes on).

This series also has the weirdest allocation of animation budget I’ve seen in a long while. The animation in this series ranges between average to very smooth,like what most series do. However, the creators have this very interesting tendency to spend the most frames on the most random scenes, especially on hands or lip-syncing, while the action-scenes usually have average animation. And don’t get me wrong here: it actually works pretty well. Those detailed scenes add an interesting amount of life to the characters, and the action scenes are kept interesting by the plot twists anyway, so they don’t really need any stellar animation.

I have ranted about Kuroshitsuji, I have ranted about the fillers, and I have ranted about the ending of this sequel (which, the more I think about it, was actually pretty good), but really: we need more series like this. Series in which the creators disregard any conventions and just go with a bunch of interesting ideas that actually lead to some unique stories.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Well paced, fun, tense and exciting and manages to get the best out of the plot and characters. At times it might not seem like it knows what it’s doing but in 50% of the cases it’s just trolling.
Characters: 9/10 – Alois and Claude may not be the deepest characters, but they’re delightful to watch. This sequel also gives an interesting new dimension to Ciel and Sebastian.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Strange uses of budget that somehow work. Oh, and Yuki Kajiura has an insert song somewhere.
Setting: 8/10 – Makes optimal use of its creative liberties with a seemingly endless supply of interesting ideas for the plot to work with.

Suggestions:
– Touka Gettan
– Futakoi Alternative
– Ga-Rei Zero

Kuroshitsuji II – 12

by psgels, posted in Kuroshitsuji II



Look… just look at this picture. Got it?

In memory of

Ciel Phantomhive

Who died at Aug. 26th, 1889

That would have been the perfect ending here. That was how this episode SHOULD have ended. I mean, the creators wouldn’t be crazy enough to actually try and revive Ciel, right? They’re not going to do something as stupid as negating the entire ending of the first season. They couldn’t, right?

So yeah, we got trolled here; big time. Dear god, reviving is one thing, but get this: in his last moments, Alois forged a contract with Johanna that turns Ciel into a demon. Because he is a demon now, he can’t die, yet his contract with Sebastian is still running, even though there is no way for Sebastian to absorb Ciel’s soul. So yeah, Ciel and Sebastian will actually be able to live together FOR ALL ETERNITY. Bloody Nora, they actually went there. This series actually was entirely meant to realize the wish of the squealing yaoi fangirls to have those two together until doomsday.

I’m a bit bewildered by all of this, especially on how I’m going to write the review for this series. I mean, was this episode bad? It was perfectly told if you ignore the things it tried to tell: everything took its time to let all of the revelations play out, the second half of the episode was well produced in how the creators portrayed Ciel saying goodbye to everyone. I have no problems with that.

Now, whether or not the big twist is bad, here’s the thing: I have seen a ton of bad endings at this point, and this episode really looked like none of them. Usually, the endings that disappoint me are either the ones who lack ambition (as in, they resolve things fine but the way they do it does no justice to the build-up that it has gotten), ones that fail to resolve anything (it really depends on the rest of the series and how those delivered whether I dislike or accept those) or ones that are just too rushed.

This episode was neither. The creators knew exactly what they wanted to do (dammit!), they knew exactly which revelation they wanted to save for when, and they knew exactly how to plan everything out, not just in this episode, but throughout the entire series. I mean, how often did this series troll anyway? It feels like it trolled both the fans of Ciel and Sebastian as well as the fans of the new approach, twice or even more.

I’m really going to have to sort out my thoughts for a bit for the review of this series.
Rating: #^% (Akjsdfh)