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)

Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu – 11

by psgels, posted in Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu



To be honest, I’m beginning to get a bit bored with this series. You could see that this episode was really trying to be sad here, but to me it still felt like it was missing something. If you guys aren’t going to let me drop Katanagatari, then be prepared that I’m going to stop blogging this series after the start of the Autumn season in favour of a more interesting series.

It’s not like this series is becoming unbearable to blog in the same way as Kimi ni Todoke, and this show is nowhere near bad, but I am getting rather tired of it. Last week I blamed the side characters for this, but I don’t think that that’s everything. The reason I’m a big fan of the fantasy adventure genre is because of the creativity and variety of the really good series. And that’s something I’m missing here, with this episode being a good example: in this episode we yet again see Shion strategize about some random problem, we yet again saw Miran scheming something, and most importantly: we yet again saw Ryner battle some random mages and angst over his past.

Especially that last part is something that has been getting on my nerves. Yes, we know that the guy had a sad past, can we move on now? That boy with Alpha stigma just felt too forced. It’s like the creators went: oh, look. We killed his parents in front of his own eyes. FEEL SORRY FOR HIM. It didn’t really work for me.

This show could still turn out much better in its second half, but I just don’t trust this enough to be honest. Still, the setting is still solid, albeit unimaginative. And I can very much see it as the director’s best TV-series so far.
Rating: * (Good)

Kuroshitsuji II – 11

by psgels, posted in Kuroshitsuji II



You know, for most of the duration of this series (I’d say a bit less than two thirds of it), I thought of this as a bit of a silly series that had nice ideas. But I’m more and more forced to take this show seriously at this point. I mean, the creators here did something that I really want to see in a whole bunch of more and other anime: take full advantage of its creative liberties; instead of going through the tried and true formula, it really played around with its plot and characters.

And really: this just seems to get better and better at this rate. I really loved this episode, and the way it used this quiz maze in order to show Alois’ inner torment. Combine that with the fact that he forced Claude to reveal that he’s been used as a cheap tool to get to Ciel, the characters really perfectly used each other in this episode. I really love these types of episodes, and to think that the creators used it as the semi-final episode.

\With one episode left, it’s either going to be a complete success or a total disaster, and I really feel that it’s going to have a major impact on how I’ll end up rating it. And seriously: I’m seriously willing to rave on this series if it doesn’t end up chickening out at the last possible minute. At this point, this series has exceeded my expectations twice: the first was with its first episode, and now again with its final episodes it has become much more fun than I could have expected. Please don’t let that final episode ruin things, because I really liked how Johanna pretty much stabbed everyone in the back for her own goals. Talk about neat plot twists.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Rainbow – 23

by psgels, posted in Rainbow



Awesome to see that alongside Suppon, the creators also took their time to show Lily’s story here and have her develop. Again, it’s an arc completely different from the previous ones so far, in the way that Suppon doesn’t really have any problems fitting in. The only thing that’s seriously getting in his way is the trauma from 13 years before, in which he lost his entire family.

The fact that he still hasn’t gotten over it was pretty sad, and that combined with Suppon’s usual maturity made this quite an effective episode. As for Lily, I like how this series really doesn’t try to avoid sensitive subjects here. The childrape of the earlier episodes were much worse, but I can very much imagine of how the problem of foreign soldiers having their way with local women, only to abandon them afterwards, is addressed here, as usually anime are too politically correct to talk about it. Really, 2010 has been an interesting year for the portrayal of WWII with this series and Senkou no Night Raid. This series takes care to show the horrors of that time period, while also showing that every side had its share of assholes.

And I know that I’ve been saying this often enough, but damn, I’m really impatient for that Heitai-arc. This guy is one heck of an interesting guy, so I really hope that the final two episodes, or at least the semi-final one, will be his.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Nurarihyon no Mago – 10

by psgels, posted in Nurarihyon no Mago



A few episodes back, I complained that Kana had no character. This episode proceeded to give her one. Fair enough.

Seriously though, I really like it when a character I previously disliked or even hated redeems him or herself. And this episode had this for Kana. It’s a great sign of how a series is changing for the better. Out of all the episodes that centred around Rikuou’s classmates, this is the one I like best so far, even though the stakes of this episode are probably the lowest of the entire series with that random mirror youkai.

But yeah, we got to see Kana as she was young, she stepped out of her role as simple damsel in distress and actually started critically asking Rukuo and Nura questions. It’s not like she was a bad character anyway, I just disliked her because she was nothing more than a plot device that Rikuo needed to save. This episode had her again captured by a youkai, but she did step out of that role and became more than that. I especially liked how, since this episode was told from her perspective, it became a strange little horror episode, especially when Nura dragged her to that Youkai restaurant.

The end of this episode also introduced the new upcoming villains, and it’s here where this series is really going to have to deliver, especially as next month it’ll get some serious competition when Letter Bee starts airing again. While Letter Bee has way more flaws than Nurarihyon no Mago, it does have a better setting, atmosphere and soundtrack, plus at this point it also looks like its overarching story is a lot more interesting than Nurarihyon’s. It’ll have to put in some effort to not get overshadowed.
Rating: * (Good)

Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin – 10

by psgels, posted in Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin



Well, that settles it: the end of this episode really hinted that in the next episode, the finale is finally beginning. With that, we should get away from the random storylines and back to the main storyline, which is bound to be a lot more action-packed.

The big question is obviously going to be: did this series take up too much time, trying to develop Maya? The thing with the past two episodes was that the direction was nowhere as interesting as the rest of the series, which can really hurt with a 13-episode series. I mean, the first half of this series was full of wit. The absence of this wit throughout most o this episode was rather unnerving. There were some parts I liked, especially the part in which Fumiaki tries to talk to Maya (seriously, more anime characters should do that), plus the development of Maya was also quite nice, but right now this series is in the danger of spending so much time on development that it sacrifices too much of its entertainment, story, Anime no Chikara tension and atmosphere.

Having seen Sora no Oto, this is something that worries me, though thank god it’s not as extreme here. At this point, Sora no Oto had novels full of questions that it had yet to answer, and that really showed in its final episode in which it tried to do way too much at once. Senkou no Night Raid in contrast did have a great build-up with its finale, and that’s because it abandoned its build-up phase very early after episode seven. Occult Academy looks to be somewhere in the middle. Three episodes will be plenty of time to resolve all of the questions it has left hanging, but can it deliver? With its excellent script and direction it has built up expectations for its ending> I really want to see something more than a simple ending that just attempts to answer those questions. I want to see something that rocks.

Ultimately, the ghost girl felt shallow to me. This series really has the opportunity to toy with new ideas, and here it comes with the ghost of a dead girl who was neglected and can go to pass on after hugging her father. I can understand that the creators wanted Maya to relate to her, but it’s all “been there, done that”, with no need to spend two whole episodes on it. A skilled writer could have put the past two episodes into just one episode and make them work just as well.
Rating: * (Good)

OVA Impressions: Tamayura

by psgels, posted in OVA Impressions



To be honest, Tamayura turned out to be a bit disappointing. First of all because it’s just fifteen minutes long, and second of all because it’s not really like Aria, but more like K-On with photographing instead of music. So yeah, if you’re interested in K-On but find it too long then this OVA might be something for you.

The OVA tells the story about a bunch of girls who are living in a small city. Due to the short length, the lead character is pretty much the only one who isn’t a stereotype and gets some attention. She’s a bit annoying with her antics, but she is decently portrayed when the focus turns to her photography hobby.

The problem is that this show uses a few too many unnecessary cliches. The lead character has a dead father, without any point to it, she is of the klutzy type that seems to be really popular nowadays for some reason and this is another one of those series that reduces cats to weird moe blobs. I have no idea why anime really wants to do that, seriously? Real cats are much more awesome than that.

Oh, and there is also one particular character who has a specific character trait that has the potential to evolve into a horrible, horrible moe cliche on its own. At this point she is completely original, but I cringe at the thought of what would happen when moe series in the future take over the idea and include a character whose only method of communication IS FREAKING WHISTLING!

Overall… this OVA wasn’t really worth it. Its premise is too run of the mill, and it had too little to make up for its flaws. The voice actresses seem to be trying too hard most of the time, which doesn’t really help to remove them from their own stereotypes. I hate to say this, but this is one of the worst things I’ve seen from Sato Junichi.
OVA Episode Rating: 6,75/10

High School of the Dead – 10

by psgels, posted in High School of the Dead



That’s… interesting. Three episodes before the end, this series suddenly decides to abandon its brainless action and fanservice formula for the duration of the episode in order to get some depth on the characters, and in that department this probably was the best episode yet, despite being not the most exciting episodes. It’s definitely going to be interesting if this series would decide to go into a completely different direction, if it wasn’t for that ridiculously over the top cliff-hanger at the end of this episode that showed that this was just a single episode mood-swing.

I have watched hardly any zombie flicks, so I don’t know how often they deal with topics like in this episode, but I liked it. The most interesting part here is that the main cast here was in the wrong: now that they have become part of this larger group of people who are trying to survive, they don’t fit in, they refuse to give up the valuable weapons they acquired, they don’t help others and instead of keeping calm they start fighting with each other. Still, this episode worked. I like how the characters in this series have the right combination between flaws and positive character traits.

But yeah… that nazi teacher will be back in the next episodes. Unlike the lead cast, he is a character whose flaws are ridiculously unbalanced within his character, up to the point where most of his airtime was just a string of annoyance, and the same goes for the students that he turned into his slaves. If anyone is able to ruin the finale of this series, it’s these guys.
Rating: ** (Excellent)