Shiki – 05

by psgels, posted in Shiki



This show just continues to up the body count here. We’ve really reached a point in which nobody is safe. But with this episode, it feels like the prelude is finally over, in the way that Natsuno is actively getting involved with the plot.

I’m not exactly sure what was up with that dream. So far, most of the events here could be explained through this vampire attacks, but with Toru in Natsuno’s dream things are a bit different. Somehow, a vampire attacked Toru somewhere, but not on the place we saw Megumi bite him (bite-marks were missing). So either Natsuno can somehow dream about things that happen around him, or the vampires are able to transmit their actions into other people’s dreams. The latter would be quite an annoying restriction.

Either way, Toru died. The strangest thing about this episode was what happened afterwards though, when the series suddenly decided to focus on Masao. And really, it did what it was supposed to do, and Masao became a lot more interesting to watch, because his character was just so goddamn flawed. He feels more out of place amongst his environment than Megumi did because somehow, he really doesn’t know how to be polite to people, even when someone close to him died. I actually thought that the creators would continue his plot a bit further… and then he died too. He’ll probably also be turned into a vampire, but we’re still not exactly sure what that means. I can imagine his vampire character to just be insane though.

What amuses me is that the town doctor… travels by bike. You’d expect in a village like this, that everyone would have the possession of a car and yet he chooses to just use a bike. Can’t he save at least minutes if he got himself a car? In a situation between life and death, it could make a huge difference. I’m also interested in how, even though the town is full of old people, you hardly see any of them using the local bus (which Natsuno strangely does use. In order to get to school or something? Then how do the other teenagers in the village travel?). This episode also shows a businessman and businesswoman making use of it. You’d expect them to have cars as well…
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Nana Review – 92,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




Back when this series first aired, I remember dropping it after only one episode because “the premise didn’t look interesting”. Now, I really am not sure what I was thinking back then, having just failed to give one of the best romances of its entire decade a fair chance. Now that I finally watched it, I fully get the praise this series has been getting. This isn’t just a good romance, it blows away just about every other romance I’ve seen away.

This series has 47 episodes, right? Well, it puts just about all its time into its character-development. The main characters here are truly dynamic: they just keep changing and evolving and despite the huge focus on drama within the series, it remains realistic and believable. The side-characters in the meantime also receive their fair share of development throughout the series, with all of them being varied, interesting and portrayed far away from stereotypes.

With all the silly shounen romances out there, this really is one of those series that is a breath of fresh air with its mature outlook on romance. The characters here have quite a number of flaws, but it always manages to stay away from a cheesy shoujo drama because it really treats all of its characters like adults, and gives them enough time to really show why they’re worried, why they behave like they do, and why they make the decisions they make throughout the series. And seriously, this just goes on for forty-seven episodes and instead of keeping a slow pacing, it always manages to keep its plot flowing, and keep the balls into the air. Even the best romances have their moments in which they’re rather boring or tedious. Nana doesn’t.

If I had to mention a flaw, then I’d mention that the portrayal of rock and punk bands is a bit simplistic here, compared to the realism of the rest of the series: this series never really claims to give a good insight about the music industry, and instead it just uses what it needs for the sake of the characters. Also, the ending. It’s not like the series ends without a conclusion: it actually wrapped the story up pretty neatly, but it also ends with a “there’s going to be a second season so let’s make you as hungry for that as possible”-note. That’s nice and all if that second season actually came, but now I’m just hungry for something that was probably just a publicity stunt.

But seriously though, Nana really showed the power of josei-series. It really is one of the most well rounded romances I’ve ever seen. Whether it’s THE best, I’m not really sure yet (Maison Ikkoku also was extremely good and twice as long), but I do want to say that I have never seen a romance show that went on for more than 13 episodes, and had such a tight plot, and yet it never feels like it’s forced.

Storytelling: 9/10 – It can really get depressing, but the dialogue, pacing and atmosphere are all really excellent.
Characters: 10/10 – Just brilliant. The cast is dynamic and constantly evolving.
Production-Values: 9/10 – The style of this series is off the charts. A grand soundtrack, and Madhouse makes just about every scene look cool.
Setting: 9/10 – Its portrayal of the music industry is rather simplistic, but apart from that it is a very realistic series with characters who really feel part of this setting.

Suggestions:
– Maison Ikkoku
– Asatte no Houkou
– Macross Plus

Space Battleship Yamato Resurrection Review – 77,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




So yeah, they made a Space Battleship Yamato movie last year. It’s the brainchild of the actual producer of the TV-series, along with most of the movies and it seems that more than 35 years after the start of the series, he still wanted to give the franchise one more chance to shine. Apparently, this movie was due to be scheduled way earlier but got cancelled due to licensing issues with Matsumoto Leiji. That seems all cleared up now however, and this movie sure as heck doesn’t show any signs of this.

I’m always interested in these remakes, as their creators tend to put in a ton of effort to really do justice to the shows they’re based on, which often stand as cult classics. Yamato Resurrection went for the homage: it really wanted to create the feeling of the original Yamato tv-series, and put a modern coat on it.

Unlike the remakes that take the ancient mecha series in general, this movie really is a homage to Space Battleship Yamato, and nothing more. This makes it quite a bit different from the other mecha remakes, because for its time, Space Battleship Yamato was incredibly different from the likes of Mazinger and all of the other giant robot shows. Its atmosphere was dark, lonely and melancholic, and that was exactly what this the creators did here: epic space battles with a dark atmosphere that instead with its energy tries to captivate the audience with just this atmosphere.

The plot is typically something that you can expect from the Yamato franchise: the earth is in danger, the Yamato ends up playing a key role in saving humanity. It’s stupid, of course. But that’s the point: the original Yamato also had some of the most ridiculous plot twists, especially near the end. The plot really is just there as a vehicle for the atmosphere and the epic space battles. Although I did like how this movie aged all of the characters more than twenty years here. I mean, the movie hardly uses this character-development, but it certainly does contribute to this movie.

The graphics… well, the money shots really are a visual orgasm here. The creators got some amazing CG artists for this movie, and they really went all out here. The CG looks absolutely beautiful, and at the same time the 2D characters really tried to stay true to the original style of character-designs from Yamato (so yes, don’t even expect Matsumoto Leiji’s trademark characters here: Yamato aired before the days of Captain Harlock). The 2D characters may look a bit plain, but they’re actually animated really well: whenever they move, they do this smootly and nearly without any cut corners. The problems with this is of course that the two styles don’t really combine together: there is always a very clear border between the 2D and 3D in this movie. The worst though was when the creators actually copied and pasted some of the footage of the Yamato TV-series and movies. Yeah, those who were animated in the seventies and eighties. Needless to say… it looks incredibly out of place. Though I have to give props for this movie being the first to be stupid enough to actually do this.

Of the Yamato franchise I have only seen the first TV-series, but I enjoyed this movie for what it is. However, I’m not sure whether you can enjoy this movie if you haven’t seen anything from the Yamato franchise: you’ll miss some of the references and homages it makes. Still, if anything you can watch this movie for the soundtrack, which for some reason is filled with compositions from FREAKING BEETHOVEN. Now if that isn’t awesome then I don’t know anymore.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Pretty good atmosphere. If you’re a Yamato-fan at least.
Characters: 7/10 – Um, yeah. The characters are there, the development is awesome, but that’s about everything there is to them.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Ah, the visuals! Gorgeous graphics that don’t mesh well. But Beethoven makes up for everything.
Setting: 7/10 – It’s stupid. It’s Yamato. Who cares?

Suggestions:
– Night on the Galactic Railroad – Fantasy Railroad in the Stars (don’t expect a mecha epic for this one, though; it’s actually the entire opposite)
– Space Fantasia: 2001 Nights
– Cobra The Animation

Eden of the East 2 – Paradise Lost Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Eden of the East



It’s hard to judge Eden of the East: it started out as a series that promised to be amongst the best of the year… and failed to live up to that. It tried to do way too much in too little time. The movies tried to make up for a lot by deliberately keeping the pacing slow, but in the end, even that wasn’t enough to turn this into the masterpiece that it could have been.

In the end it joins the list of flawed series that actually do have quite a few points to make up for it. Paradise Lost is really no exception. It wraps up a lot of plot points, it reveals quite a number of interesting twists that tie the plot together and it still manages to keep the pacing restrained, with a lot of focus on the dialogue between the characters.

On the downside, there are quite a number of glaring holes left open. Some other revelations lack their build-up so that they fail to make any impact for a mystery series of this scale. Other revelations just come out of nowhere and really would have benefited from more foreshadowing and others just don’t make any sense. I want to be as ambiguous for this as possible due to spoilers, but let’s just say that the final resolution felt weak to me. The fate of the NEETs also is something I didn’t buy.

Now that everything is over, I also have to say that the series just didn’t have the time to flesh out its characters. Because of that, there really is just one character who actually develops when you ignore the memory loss devices of this series. I think that out of all the flaws of this series a lot of them can be forgiven, though this is one of those key flaws that caused me to enjoy this series a lot less than I would have liked. Most of the characters are just walking plot devices that just didn’t feel interesting to watch beyond the plot they were trying to tell. And its a shame, because that plot really was pretty good and imaginative.

Despite its short length, this did turn into one of those series that actually evolves: Paradise Lost really is completely different from the first episodes of the TV-series, and through its run this is one series that has been constantly changing. Because of that, every part of this series is different and fresh, not ripping off itself and it wonderfully manages to avoid the formula that it promised in the first few episodes.

On retrospect, I don’t think that even 26 episodes and two movies would have been enough here. To really be able to flesh out everyone, and give the story really its time to be complete, the creators would have needed at least 39 episodes. But really, I do want to say that despite my bitching, I really like what this series was trying to do: here we have the brain child of a very talented director. A series that’s not based on anything and a completely original story that really benefits from its format by including some of the latest technologies, feeling like this is one of those few series that really takes place in 2009, rather than something that also could have played in the year 2000. I just didn’t enjoy it as much as I hoped to.

Storytelling: 8/10 – A good number of twists and yet a slow and restrained pacing. The story is great, but it uses too many plot devices to get there.
Characters: 7/10 – In the end, the big weakness of this series. I tried, but I failed to care about most of the characters here.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Again, Paradise Lost’s graphics weren’t exactly better than the TV-series. It’s still very consistent and detailed though. The use of music was also very excellent.
Setting: 9/10 – I like the guts of this series. It’s not afraid to think beyond the box, try out new stuff and overall I really like the different ideas put into this movie.

Suggestions:
– Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
– Tokyo Godfathers
– Key the Metal Idol

Rainbow – 18

by psgels, posted in Rainbow



Well, this episode was one heck of a build-up. Not necessarily because Joe is still getting bugged by those assholes who were jealous of his talents, and therefore at the end of the episode were about to put a bullet between his eyes. That’s just something the creators used to spice up this arc. Instead, we’re about to get to the point where Joe is going to meet his sister again! Based on the past episodes of this series, the creators are bound to make a fantastic spectacle out of this moment.

In this episode, there really was a ton of support for Joe, as he tried to achieve his goals and was visibly having a hard time. The tension just came from one bunch of assholes, but I like how the creators wanted to show that there were plenty of people in their time with good intentions who didn’t want to make the lives of everyone around them miserable. The pianist and his son especially were quite charming.

The problem here is obviously those five lemons who may have been a bit too obsessed over trying to kill Joe here. But of course, this is just me who doesn’t know how bands used to operate back then, and how fierce the competition was for fame. Plus, if they really wanted to kill Joe, then I doubt whether that kid will make it in time to warn Mario about it. Still, this is just minor stuff. As long as in the next episode, it doesn’t get in the way of Joe’s and Megu’s development then I’ll be happy.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Mai Mai Miracle Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews




Mai Mai Miracle is a clear Ghibli-inspired film, and another one in the collection of slice of life movies about a young child. Not the most original concept perhaps, but it’s still a well executed and very detailed movie.

Especially the characterization here rocks. The kids here tend to act just like real children: the way they play around to their animation, this movie manages to capture this wonderfully. As it’s focused on kids who grow up in a rural town, this movie mostly follows their imagination and how they grow up together. There’s actually quite a bit of character-development in the movie, and it’s handled quite well and believably.

What sets this movie apart I think is that it manages to avoid the classical trope of these kinds of movies, where they use their first parts of slice of life, just to build up to the serious part at the end. Mai Mai Miracle does have a serious part at the end, but it does not feel like the entire movie is just trying to build up to that. Instead, it’s the combination of everything that happens in this movie that makes the characters what they are, and the movie does a great job in making all of the subplots and events important.

It’s a movie that’s wonderfully unambitious: its main purpose isn’t to show an as big drama as possible. It just wants to show the lives of a bunch of kids growing up together. The drama flows naturally and in no way tries too hard. It’s great for nostalgia, but this also doesn’t make it the most exciting movie.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Uneventful, but realistic and well balanced, making it more than just a Ghibli-wannabe.
Characters: 9/10 – Great characterization, realistic and believable characters, very good character-development for a movie.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Pretty good for movie standards. Detailed animation that captures the movement of the characters, very charming but subtle soundtrack.
Setting: 8/10 – Not the most important part of this movie, but it still made good use of the differences between rich and poor, and the rest of the setting.

Suggestions:
– Arete Hime
– My Neighbour Totoro
– Whisper of the Heart

Nurarihyon no Mago – 05

by psgels, posted in Nurarihyon no Mago



Interesting romantic build-up here, in which people start mistaking the brother-sister relationship between Rikuo and Yuki-onna as something more. Still, I liked those small details of holding hands, and how Yuki-onna’s loyalty was portrayed. This mostly was a build-up episode so this was the thing that stood out the most, but it definitely wasn’t a chore to watch the rest of this episode.

A lot of the build-up went into some followers of Nurarihon, who apparently don’t like Rikuo becoming the third heir (speaking of which, we haven’t seen Rikuo’s father, have we? Same for his grandmother: what happened to them? My guess is that the creators are saving those stories for somewhere in the future), and therefore try to kill him along with his friends. Now, with the overwhelming power that Nura has, they really must have come up with something that can actually kill him. After all, the rats were simply underestimating Rikuo’s power. The same can’t exactly be said from the people of the Nura clan, who pretty much saw the guy grow up.

I think that the evil youkai are a bit too stereotypically evil here (as in, they have no other sides than those evil ones), but apart from that I’m surprised how I didn’t really get annoyed by this episode even though not a lot of stuff happened and there were a lot of teenagers being typical teenagers. The fact that there was at least some plot here also probably helped, but as far as build-up goes I’ve certainly seen much worse.
Rating: * (Good)

Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin – 05

by psgels, posted in Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin



The focus is away from Bunmei, and so this episode was much more enjoyable than the past one. It was all about the occult, and really chock full of references to all kinds of ideas and superstitions around the world thanks to a character that I once thought was pretty useless (the girl who is obsessed over occult stuff).

It actually made this episode pretty interesting. I’m a big fan of the series that put a lot of research into their subject matter here. While the previous episodes were all about “what if folklore was true”, this episode broke that part and instead talked about superstitions that are just products of the imagination of humans, ranging from spoons that can’t rust to monks who bury themselves alive and even the five second rule passed (called the three second rule here).

At first I really thought that that girl would be annoying with her optimism, but the comedy around her was again really excellent. This series definitely has the best sense of humour of the entire season, and its jokes are well built up and varied and the repeated jokes are handled with restraint.

Also, the previous episodes were certainly annoying, but they did what they were supposed to do: Maya really loathes this guy right now, and the previous two episodes really turned that into a deep-seated loathing, compared to the “this guy is weird”-kind of hatred of the first two episodes. Now, if she suddenly starts to develop feelings for Bunmei this would of course ruin everything (“you guys are fighting a lot so you must be in love with each other”… blegh), but I have faith in this series. And heck, the next episode will be staffed by Ryousuke Nakamura of all people. While I’d rather see him get another full series over which he has total freedom, an episode directed of the best and most imaginative series of the current summer season certainly isn’t bad either. I’m really interested what he’s going to do with it.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

High School of the Dead – 05

by psgels, posted in High School of the Dead



Well, yeah. There isn’t much to say about this episode, really. It was clearly building up to that one fight scene at the end, and while nicely animated, this episode lacked the atmosphere of the previous episodes. We’re also introduced to a new major character, who turns out to be one of the best snipers of the country who just happens to be a childhood friend of the nurse.

Most of all, this episode was used for the background of the different characters, most notably the people who remained on the bus and who weren’t hypnotized by that psycho teacher. It’s not the most exciting episode because of that, but it’s good to see that we finally get to see for exactly what kinds of relatives they’re worried. Now, all that’s left is for the rest of the episodes to actually use this.

The one major event was that psycho teacher was finally ditched, which definitely is a good thing. However, I doubt that the creators intended him to be just a plot devices to get the characters out of the bus, only to lead them to another vehicle they can use (that armoured car). Especially considering that the creators in no way have explained what was up with that one student who was suddenly yelling at Komuro. Because of that I fear for the future of this series, especially because the creators were hinting at a bath episode next week…
Rating: (Enjoyable)

Giant Killing – 18

by psgels, posted in Giant Killing



YES! YES! The Dutch coach has returned! Now this is really going to give this show the potential to become even better than it already was. The next match against Osaka should really prove to be awesome, and not just because that means that there’s going to be a ton of Dutch in the next number of episodes.

But yeah, I really have to say that this series has the best use of foreign language of any anime series I’ve seen. We had entire conversations in Dutch and french in this episode, and while I can’t speak for the accuracy of the French accent, the Dutch one was really nailed. Dulfer does speak with a lot more passion than your average Dutch guy, but I still wouldn’t be surprised if they got a voice actor who actually lived in the Netherlands for a while. The accent of his translator was abysmal, like you would expect of a native Japanese, and I think that most Dutch people probably would have to ask him twice in order to really understand what he means, though it’s easy to get used to when you spend a lot of time with him.

I’m also very excited to see how much detail has gone into the character designs of the Osaka team. There were a ton of players whose character-designs received as much attention as the lead characters, and even the ones in the background all had distinct ones. If anything, this promises that the creators have great plans, and this might be an even bigger match than the one against Sapporo.

In the meantime, it’s really hard to imagine what the upcoming arc is going to focus on, since so many stuff happened in this episode at the same time. The only thing I’m able to put money on is that the ETU will be victorious, but how and why… I have no bloody clue. This episode continues the battle of the forwards by healing Sera’s leg, and hinting at how the second half was much better played, though leaves it for us viewers to imagine whether or not there was any correlation between these events. On the same time, this episode grabbed some more characters who haven’t had their own arc yet: the forward mid-fielders aside from Gino. This episode just didn’t want to say whether they just had a standalone conflict because everyone was pissed off by the goal against, or whether the show is to continue developing their characters.

Then there also was this thing that this series loves to use: Tatsumi apparently announced a crazy strategy, based on the expressions of all of the players. Unfortunately, we don’t get to hear it as viewers, and instead we just have to wait for it to actually happen. Either way though, I’m really getting hungry for more.

Oh, and I also really loved that scene in which the team got into that fight, as it just showed how everyone had different reactions. Seriously, the cast of this show is huge, and I love how this series plays around with characters with a huge variety of different ages, with only three characters not being adults. That scene really showed how all of the players in the team are unique, and how even when they’re together in a group they still stand out.
Rating: *** (Awesome)