Rainbow – 19

by psgels, posted in Rainbow



With the rather stereotypical evil band going on and on, leading to a rather predictable gunfight that reduced them into people that are too stupid to pull a bloody trigger, I was expected the end of this episode to be this over the top as well. And yet, the actual scene where Joe and his sister reunite just takes what? A minute? And it worked perfectly !

It’s a very humble climax, especially for this series, but it really was worth it. the evil guys did what they needed to do, without creating some cheap drama that would cause Joe to miss meeting his sister. Instead, his sister really was smart enough to stay around for a bit longer instead of just returning home. In the meantime, it was meant to develop the struggles that the characters are in, trying to fit back into society. These guys weren’t exactly related to the prison, but that fight did show that they’re still living amidst violence.

Joe’s decision in the end, to just not give up and start back from scratch, was awesome because of that. He wasn’t just doing the singing in order to find his sister, but he also really enjoys doing it. He has his background, and he’s just going to have to live with it, while working hard.

I’m very curious to see what the final episodes are going to be about. I mean, at this point there pretty much aren’t any threads left hanging. Instead, the creators can just pick any character and give him an extra arc of development. While it definitely was heavy, the third quarter of this series really was less extreme than the first half of this series. But really, it has been an amazing “epilogue”, if you can call it that. Without it, this series would just have been an over the top prison series. This epilogue really made me forgive the overacting in this series.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Shiki – 06

by psgels, posted in Shiki



For me, this has been one of the best episodes of Shiki so far. it’s great to finally have another good horror series airing and this series is certainly pushing the right buttons. This episode continues the string of deaths throughout the village, but you can now really see how people are starting to change as the “epidemic” continues on.

Natsuno, who probably is the closest to the truth, is now finally trying to take measures to prevent himself from getting bitten. We also learn a bit more about Toshio and his father. A great doctor, but I can really see him lose his nerve when he’s failed to save so many lives. Seishin in the meantime is also very much trying to do something to solve the crimes, and he also has been close with his assumptions that something strange is causing the diseases. I blame this on his spiritual upbringing: with normal epidemics this would indeed have been useless, but this mindset is vital in this story, when suddenly we have a bunch of vampires that are attacking. If these three people would meet, and discuss their theories, they would probably crack the mystery. As shown at the end of this episode, where Toshio realizes that Vampires could possibly be behind everything.

I also love how this series has been developing some characters off-screen. When was the last time we saw Kaori and Akira? Well, they haven’t been sitting still as it turns out. It’s perhaps a matter of luck that Akira was able to see that vampire, but still, it just shows how these two have just continued with their lives and don’t just stop moving when the plot doesn’t need them for a while.

Also, I feel that the creators are building up to something with Masao’s dead body. It’s like they really wanted this guy to not have a burial, which is why they made him such an idiot who is hated even by his own family. Does that make him unique though? I’m not sure, really. I mean, in a village full of old people, I suspect that there have been more people who perhaps lived alone and therefore had nobody notice that they died. The difference here is probably going to be his connection to Natsuno.

Also… Ikumi. the horrifying image of what harem girls might turn into when they turn past seventy…
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu – 07

by psgels, posted in Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu



It’s strange that the comedy in this series only works when either Ferris or Raina is directly involved. I mean, both their characters are pretty interesting and their wit is delightful to watch, but on the other side of the coin we have some of the other female characters here. When these people try to be funny they’re just yelling randomly and they’re more annoying than funny here.

The problem with this episode was obviously that female captain, whose story is just too typical: childhood friend, still in love, spunky personality, rather stupid. Yeah, the kind of character I was glad that this series avoided. And how did she make it to captain anyway? I mean, any of those four companions of her is far more suited to lead them around. When are we going to see Raina’s actual love interest again? I actually liked her a lot here. Unfortunately, the OP seems to be hinting at how she’s going to become a major character here. Ouch.

On the bright side, this banter between Raina and Ferris still isn’t getting tiring, which is a really good sign after seven episodes. This episode also was building up some pretty intriguing stuff, and I also really like Shion at this moment, and how Fior’s sister has decided to serve him. The drama overall in this episode wasn’t as good as usual, thanks to whatshername, but still, to have one of the vassal states of the kingdom start a rebellion, it’s yet another layer of problems that Shion needs to overcome.
Rating: (Enjoyable)

Kuroshitsuji II – 07

by psgels, posted in Kuroshitsuji II



Hey, I’m back from holidays.

Anyway, I’m understanding the appeal of Kuroshitsuji now This episode was just so ridiculously camp and over the top that it makes for great entertainment. It’s obviously nothing really deep, but I’m having a hell of a time enjoying the creativity that has been put in these battles between Alois and Claude and Ciel and Sebastian.

Also, THANK GOD Ciel finally turned into someone more than a damsel in distress this time. Overall, I’m not sure whether the cast was any deeper in the first season, but one of my complaints is that aside from Sebastian, Alois and Claude (and perhaps that one maid of Alois), the rest of the cast is pretty interchangeable. Every episode here seems to have a bunch of different side-characters, but they all just look like each other. You could just swap all of them for the same character and it would not have made any difference to the plot. In the same way, Ciel had a pretty interesting concept with his revenge and all, but most of the episodes I’ve seen him in simply make him into someone who either does nothing or gets kidnapped.

Either way though, the side character of this episode, while he pretty much sucked as a character, really fitted its over the top atmosphere. I think my favourite pats here were when Sebastian impaled the triplet servants with a single spear, along with the actual climax of the episode. I’m not sure why, but the creators seem to be having a lot of fun with Alois. The way he’s animated, along with his facial expressions are completely different from everything else on this show. There are really a ton of characters that are overacting and chewing the scenery in this series, but he is of a completely different class here.

As for the mystery: well, it really turns out that Alois was the bad guy behind the bad guy, giving Ciel an actual reason to get another revenge. Only two major questions remain right now: why is Ciel’s soul so damn tasty? And under what kind of condition did Alois make a pact with Claude? They’re both pretty standard questions, so I doubt that this series is going to be making any more points with its mystery right now, so at this point the final number of episodes need to rely on these over the top battles, along with the interesting dynamics between the four lead characters.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Nurarihyon no Mago – 06

by psgels, posted in Nurarihyon no Mago



The first half of this episode was… annoying. Obviously that hot spring was the big blame for this. It’s a good thing that this arc was really trying to tell a story, so that it was just building up for the second half of this series, but it remains obnoxious to see creators grab every chance they can to put female characters in a bath and have some of the unimportant male side-characters talk about peeping.

Overall, I’ll be happy when the focus of this series shifts away from Rikuo’s classmates. At the moment, they’re just too one-sided. The second half of this episode on the contrary was pretty good. That trap felt pretty flimsy in the previous episode, but this episode showed that for whatever reason, Gyuuki made a hard decision here that could cost him his own life. Especially the atmosphere at the end of this episode was quite good, even though it was meant to be an obvious cliff-hanger.

Overall though, after six episodes, I do think that Nurarihyon no Mago lacks the charms of Junji Nishimura’s better works. While I like it much more than Kyou Kara Maou (or what I’ve seen of it anyway), it really lacks the refined characterization that made series as Simoun, Windy Tales and True Tears so memorable. He really seems to be a guy who can get the best out of his series when they’re original stories, instead of following an adaptation. But who knows, I still like Nurarihyon no Mago, and the manga seems solid enuogh in any case.
Rating: (Enjoyable)

Some Quick First Impressions: Ring ni Kakero 1: Shadow

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Ring ni Kakero 1: Shadow

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is Japan’s boxing champion.
Guess who’s late here? Ring ni Kakero’s third season originally premiered during the past spring season, but after that you just couldn’t find anything of it. As expeted though, this turned out to be a ridiculously cheesy boxing series. In just the first episode we have this random bad guy who appears, kidnaps the lead characters’ sister and makes said lead character box against 100 of his goons in order to get this sister back. The acting is just ridiculously over the top and the creators are overly cheesy about everything (especially that scene in which the lead character receives the legendary knuckles of awesomeness). There’s also this terrible comic relief character (who somehow has the exact same haircut as the lead character). This is just one of those shows that goes through such excreme lengths to create tension that it only ends up backfiring horribly, making it look silly.
OP: Hot blooded GAR cheese.
ED: Cheesy j-rock
Potential: 10%

Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin – 06

by psgels, posted in Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin




It’s just as I hoped! This episode really was awesome, and it had a really excellent direction behind it. With the comedy elements this really was different from the likes of Mouryou no Hako and Hashire Melos, but you could still see the traces of Ryousuke Nakamura and Mieko Hosoi. God… these people need to direct another full fledged series.

There were a ton of really well animated shots in this episode, with quite some fluid animation and imaginative camera angles. There were a few scenes that really brought these characters alive, and especially the diving scene at the end was just utterly beautiful. It’s also very interesting how two completely different types of artists worked on this episode and the previous one: the previous episode was very obviously drawn by Mamoru Hosoda fans, while Mieko Hosoi has a completely different inspiration (I’d love to know what that was, by the way).

As for the direction, I absolutely love how this episode played out. Throughout most of the episode we see this careful build-up that shows Maya investigating exactly what happened, combined with a number of quick but really good jokes. There were a few outbursts of drama, like the sudden point in which Kozue started crying, but that too was just used to build up to that final part, which worked really well with Bunmei’s life flashing before his own eyes. It lasted like what? 2 minutes. But they really were worth it.

Beyond that, they also made it plausible for Bunmei and Maya to make up. Thankfully they stayed away from any sort of romance, but rather Maya forced herself to see past her biases after having seen the future.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Daddy Long Legs Review – 75/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



With this review I feel like I really need to explain its rating. Daddy Long Legs seems to be one of the most appreciated series of the World Masterpiece Theatre out there. At AniDB it is rated as the best of the franchise with more than 100 votes, so quite a lot of people seem to agree on the classic status of this series. I don’t, though.

If I sound harsh in this review, remember that I’m comparing this to the other World Masterpiece Theatre series I’ve seen. And really, you can see the influences. This remains a series that’s based on a novel, and so the characters are constantly growing up, are forced to come to terms with their flaws and really change throughout the series. It’s perhaps not the most original story, but as a story of growing up it does its job quite well. I just have some fundamental problems with how it was executed.

I think my problems are best summarized by that it follows too much from classic shoujo tropes. And of course, there have been quite a few other WMT-series in the shoujo genre, but they had a very solid execution to back it up with, while this one doesn’t. The drama in this series at times tends to resemble a bit of a soap opera, where the writers try to make the different characters clash a little too easily. Especially the latter half of this series is filled to the brim with romantic cliches that have been done better by many different series that appeared both before and after this series.

Because this is yet another one of those high school series that puts a poor person (an orphan in this case) in a rich environment, leading to culture clashes, it really needed something to make up for it and partially, this series did. Even though it sometimes likes to force its drama, the slice of life moments were well portrayed, and the creators did a good job at exploring the differences between the culture of the upper classes without devolving it into just a string of endless parties or snobbish, stuck up and spoiled children. Julia, one of the main side characters, is especially good at that, where you can see that she has been spoiled her entire life, and yet she behaves like an actual teen-aged girl with more sides to her than just that.

And really, for the biggest part of this series I really didn’t mind it that much. Sure, it wasn’t the best of the World Masterpiece Theatre by far, but it still was pretty good, and did what it was supposed to do, and I didn’t really mind the flaws I mentioned above. Then, however, the ending came.

Now, I have watched a number of series where the ending completely changed my opinion, causing me to rate it much higher or lower than I originally had in mind, and this again happened here. That ending was one of the most contrived, cheesy, Deus ex Machina-laden endings I have seen in a long while now. A huge part of this series is devoted to building up to this particular ending, which then completely trashes any kind of subtlety or charm that was originally introduced. The plot is made way too complicated for its own good and in the end this series collapses under all of the plot twists it made to make the ending as spicy as possible.

The reason why I’m such a big fan of the World Masterpiece Theatre is because how well it handles its drama. It’s all very genuine, its characterization is truly excellent. The final quarter of this series however reduces most of its drama to stereotypical teen-aged angst, and it’s not even good angst. Relatively smart characters also tend to behave like idiots when the plot demands it. I have a lot more plot-related qualms to the ending of the series, but that would be too spoilerific to discuss in this review. The characterization of this series is good, but not good enough to make up for the many issues I have with this series.

Storytelling: 7/10 – Solid at times, but tries way too hard at others.
Characters: 8/10 – Ignore the bad teen-aged angst and you’ve got a bunch of likable characters that are actually quite well developed.
Production-Values: 8/10 – there is no eye candy, but the animation is detailed and does what it needs to do.
Setting: 7/10 – Held back by just too many things that don’t make any sense, a high school that lacks any kind of life, and too much of a focus on shoujo cliches to really show much of America in… whatever time period this is set in.

Suggestions:
– The Trapp Family Story
– Kaze no Shoujo Emily
– Perrine Monogatari

High School of the Dead – 06

by psgels, posted in High School of the Dead



Um. Yeah. I’m not going to blog softcore porn here…

Regarding the parts of this episode that weren’t part of High School of the Boobs, this episode created a new layer of chaos by finally showing the police being forced to take drastic measures, and actually kill people. It’s all a big build up to the second half of this series, and at least that part of the episode worked well.

This episode also introduced a really weird plothole with the dog. It was barking, it made noise, it was loud… and yet the zombies didn’t seem to care. I mean, these really are the most selective zombies I’ve seen, only responding to certain sounds while completely ignoring others. It’s a shame really. Zombie dogs would have been quite interesting here.
Rating: – (Let’s just move on here…)