Hey, thanks everyone for voting so far. I’m going to bother you one more time.
The final match is against Kurogane. Be sure to check out his blog before voting here.
Rainbow – 15
The upcoming arc turns out to focus on Mario. Interestingly, it’s him who ended up back in trouble due to violence. I actually like how the creators are using the fear to go back to prison, in order to create the drama here, and the story still is carrying on its pacifist themes of the first half: that there is no need to beat up people who annoy you.
It was over the top, but at the same time this episode also tried to make a point of the rather hypocritical stereotypes people have over these violent youths,. On one hand, they often fail to see the people behind those stereotypes, but on the other hand the fact remains that Mario beat a guy into the hospital. Seriously, the story of this thing really is excellent, and I’m really glad to see that this still applies with the second half here.
The first half of this episode also felt a bit weird, but in a good way. With this incredibly dark series, we suddenly have half an episode dedicated to young and innocent crushes. For ten minutes, there actually were no apparent conflicts in this series. As for the arranged marriage… yeah, it’s been done before. But at the same time I can imagine that especially in these times, parents were very desperate to marry off their kids to a solid future. If I am wrong with this, please correct me on that, because I in no way claim to know exactly how things went on in Japan, 11 years after the second world war.
There is one issue that I had with this episode, but that’s more of a personal annoyance of mine. Personally, I dislike it when creators use thugs in order to create cheap drama. The drama here of course wasn’t cheap at all, but still felt like it was started too easily, without much of an introduction: that businessman had the depth of a paper bag. And this is something that annoys me with nearly all thugs in anime. It could have been done much cheaper, though, and I definitely see why it was necessary.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
Nurarihyon no Mago – 02
Most of the shows this season are energetic, over the top and fast-paced. I think that it’s because of that that this series is quite refreshing. I men, for a shounen series, it’s got a pretty calm and relaxed atmosphere, while the foundation it lays for its future drama is serious and well thought out.
It has unfortunately some production issues, like in this episode the point at which Yuki-onna tripped and the point where that snake youkai revealed his intentions: they could have been animated more solid. Overall though, I’m really liking what this series is building up to, with on one hand Rikuo’s alter ego that he has no idea of, while pursuing the life he chose for and on the other hand there’s the politics between the different youkai clans. This episode also used the youkai’s nature to cause trouble quite well in its drama.
The animation… is of course not that good, but that was to be expected. Deen’s staff has always been more a collection of artists, rather than animators, and that really shows here in this series again with some of the intricate youkai designs, plus that really cool-looking snake head in the action scene of this episode. I’m also really digging the soundtrack. The composer, Kouhei Tanaka turns out to be incredibly experienced, with a wide variety of different series he worked on. None of those really turned out to be memorable, but you can see (or hear) the care he put into the soundtrack here. It’s varied, yet very atmospheric. It could be his best work yet if this goes on.
Rating: * (Good)
Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin – 02
Occult Academy for me had the best first episode of the season. Of course I’m going to blog it! It’s great to see that all of the Anime no Chikara projects get progressively more interesting. Occult Academy once again is an ambitious series that really wastes no time with its limited format of only 13 episodes. A great mentality!
But there’s more. Take a look at Anime News Network, and the staff of the third episode: Osamu Kobayashi will be its episode director. You know, the director of Beck, Natsu no Sora, Paradise Kiss and his unique style. To make things even better, none other than Mitsuo Iso (Dennou Coil!) will finally make his reappearance to be the animation director. And to make things even better, if this guy is correct, the sixth episode will have Ryousuke Nakamura as its episode director. You know, from Mouryou no Hako and Hashire! Melos. Can anyone confirm somewhere whether this is true?
Either way, I’m already a fan of this show. This episode may not be as good as the first, but it still was witty, interesting and the chemistry between the two lead characters turned out to be really good. This series does really well in combining the occult from east (youkai, demons, etc) with that of the west (Nostradamus, the doom scenarios). When I first saw the lead male in the promo art, he really looked like one of those stereotypical scapegoats: you know, those who exist just to get stepped on by the lead character who is eccentric. It turned out to be a bit more nuanced than that, though: the guy is actually fairly normal, though a bit eccentric. It’s only the lead female who he can’t handle. Because he popped up naked in front of her and all. The lead female on her turn isn’t your typical tsundere in the way that she has very strong ideas and beliefs, and really likes to act when she puts her mind on something.
The thing I also really like about this series is its witty direction. I mean, take a look at that flashback at which Abe tells about why he travelled through time, and how he appeared with sunglasses and a holiday suit. Do you really think that that’s how he looked back then? I really think that he was trying to make himself look bigger in his own narration. The episodes so far are full of these nice details. This series also continues to go back to the backgrounds of its characters, rather than saving that for later. Again, a great mentality.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
High School of the Dead – 02
As for the series I’m not going to blog:
– Shukufuku no Campanella… who the hell found that a good idea?
– Seitokai Yakuindomo just keeps repeating the same jokes over and over again.
– Mitsudomoe has some actually funny moments. But it’s also utterly disgusting and it tries way, way too hard.
High School of the Dead of course has its problem, but in terms of atmospheric zombie bashing it’s a pretty solid choice this season. Tetsurou Araki, the director of Death Note, Kurozuka and that story with the really long title in Aoi Bungaku was the perfect choice to animate this thing and make it as atmospheric as possible with his unique style.
This episode wasn’t as good as the first, though. Mostly, this can be blamed on some of the new characters. The school nurse is just about an exact carbon copy of any other school nurse out there. Now first of all, this is something I’ve been wondering since ages: why are school nurses necessary in Japan? Really, at our high school the janitor knew first aid, and whenever an accident happened (which really was not often), he would take care of everyone. Are Japanese schools really so accident prone that they need to reserve an entire room for it, and hire someone who doesn’t need to do anything for most of the time?
But yeah, the big problem with that nurse is that she’s really annoying, along with that annoying sound that her boobs make whenever she does something. I really hope that we don’t have to listen to that for the entire rest of the series. Still, I’ve got to give credit where credit is due: she was decently fleshed out in this episode, and she isn’t an entire stereotype.
The other annoying character was that pink haired girl. Again, a collection of moe cliches: genius, tsunere, twintails, glasses, etc. The worst though was the part in which in she made NO ATTEMPT TO HIDE HER VOICE. She had the right intentions, she didn’t hide in the obvious places, she’s careful on where to go, she carefully analyzes the situation around her and yet she fails to think of one of the most obvious ways to give her away. Yes, it’s a zombie outbreak people. Let’s start yelling to everyone! Again though, credit where credit is due: her breakdown at the end of this episode promised good stuff. As long as she doesn’t continue yelling like that throughout the rest of the series, I’ll be happy.
Rating: * (Good)
Pretty Cure All-Stars DX2Review – 55/100
I like Toei… or at least some parts of it. They can come up with quite original premises and well executed series. But whenever they market the living heck out of their series I just tune out. Six Digimon series, seven Precure series and god knows how many more movies. Heartcatch Precure really was one of those rare exceptions in which they really wanted to do something new and good. This movie… just wasn’t. I mean, it doesn’t even try to hide that its sole purpose is to sell toys.
The premise of this movie is utterly flimsy. The mascots invite all of the Precure to a magical theme park that contains a magical light that can give hope to everyone but also can conveniently give some bad guy the power of eternal life, so he sends s bunch of minions to get it. In there, the mascots all just openly hand out magical toys (so much for trying not to stand out), which in the end will be used to defeat this bad guy.
The messages of this movie are very badly hidden: buy our product so that you can send your own hopes to the lead characters in order to help them beat this bad guy. Let’s all keep up our hopes, and that will allow us to conquer all evil. Of course, don’t worry about any damage that the bad guys cause: when you beat them, everything will return to normal, and broken buildings and structures automatically heal themselves back to life. I know that there are other series with these elements, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen them done with the subtlety of an elephant on figure skates.
In the end, you want to watch this movie for the action scenes. The art here can be quite beautiful, but with the budget of this series (do not tell me that Toei doesn’t have any money here with their marketing here), I do believe that the creators should have tried harder. At crucial times the creators just switch to animating their characters in 3D CG, and the bad guy himself is just some big purple blob that’s conveniently very easy to animate and the movie is also full of stock-footage transformation scenes that may be excused for long television series, but not for an hour-long movie that shouldn’t have to worry about its budget. You can see that some talented artists have worked on certain scenes. But at others… I just miss creativity.
Movies based on series have really been quite lazy during the past years, with them either being recaps, or just movies with silly premises like this one. Bringing all of the lead characters of all of the existing Precure series together was a nice idea, but this movie hardly does anything with it. I want to see more movies with bold ideas, the ones that are full of the creativity that you can’t show at a regular tv-series.
| Storytelling: | 4/10 – Yes, kids? You want the Precures to be able to beat the bad guys? Then buy our products and yell as hard as you can! |
| Characters: | 7/10 – No depth or development whatsoever, but the characters are likable enough to watch. Tsubomi and Erika somehow manage to hold this movie together. |
| Production-Values: | 8/10 – Animation ranges from actually really good to just uninspired considering the movie’s budget. |
| Setting: | 3/10 – Stupid. Just stupid. I know it’s a kids’ movie and all, but that’s no excuse. |
Suggestions:
– Heartcatch Precure
– Kaleido Star
– Adolescence of Utena
Giant Killing – 15
Haha, a new character! The creators really picked the perfect guy to stir up a little tension here and there, PLUS, they also finally explained exactly why things have been going so awful for the ETU during the past season. On top of that, the character himself also is quite a character to watch. That’s three flies with one hit.
Natsuki is just hilarious, and this episode made it really believable that the team rather lost its touch after this hunk of energy left due to his injuries. Murakoshi may be a good captain, but he lacks the energy to really inspire the rest of his team, like what Natsuki and Tatsumi did. Gino also is a good scorer, but he’s way too lazy to really be a reliable backbone for a team.
It’s also interesting how this episode addressed the issue of the soccer club’s habit of buying other players, and how at times it can completely backfire. A player may be very talented, but there’s a lot of danger in him, burning out if he can’t find his place within the team. The guys at Sapporo handled this well: there was tension in the team, but those three Brazilians fit in well with the others, along with pushing the rest of the team to their limits.
In any case, I also love how this episode focused on yet another one of the players who hasn’t gotten much attention yet: the forward, Sera. With a lot of players showing their best sides right now, and Natsuki suddenly coming back, he needs to think a lot about himself if he doesn’t plan to just give away his position.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
Oh, and this series surely has nice timing, airing on the day of the world cup finals. Seriously, it really is crazy outside right now. You see fans dressed in orange everywhere. Good luck to the Dutch team. And the Spanish too, of course. ^^;
Uragiri wa Boku no Namae wo Shitteiru – 14
This series has this really strange tendency to introduce all kinds of powers from out of nowhere, and then acting like it’s the most normal thing in the world. I mean, hello?! A rabbit just turned into a catgirl here! Couldn’t at least act a bit surprised?
Either way though, as an aftermath this episode was pretty damn good. It was all about solidifying the characters’ relationships against each other: everyone talked about their issues to each other, and quite a few disagreements were either settled, or accepted. After watching quite a few series in which people just refuse to talk to each other, seeing how honest this episode was was quite a refreshment.
Especially Luka surprised me, and the way with which he has accepted the current situation. He’s had plenty of time to sort out his own feelings, and ended up deciding to support Yuki, whatever she ends up with. The episode ended with the promise of back-story, so I’m actually quite interested in this show at this point.
The angst in this series feels like it’s done right for once, compared to, say, Vampire Knight angst. While angsting, the characters really are thinking about themselves and the influence they have on others, compared to, say, how much they hate or love a certain character. I have to give the manga author that: these characters are well thought out, and the anime staff did quite a good job at bringing this to life.
Rating: * (Good)
Some Quick First Impressions: Sengoku Basara Two, Asobu ni Iku Yo! and Boku Otaryman
Sengoku Basara Two
Short Synopsis: Our lead character is very loosely based on a famous historical figure.
Hell yeah! Best soundtrack of the season! A series that once was a dull samurai adventure has now become an epic hot blooded action series. The original Sengoku Basara had great ideas and intentions, but also a very soul-less direction that succumbed under its own expectations, so I wasn’t that fond of the announcement of a sequel. But heck, the new director really turned this kitty into a tiger. The creators got rid of a lot of the CG, which also really helps. The clashes between guys with superpowers for once is done justice, with over the top speeches and a snappy direction that for once makes the over the top powers of these people awesome, rather than just over the top. As for the story, the original series had a lot of intrigue, but it was all just so boring because it was so bad at building up tension. That’s not going to be a problem with the sequel though, based on this episode, so I see no way in which it won’t be able to beat its predecessor.
OP…um…ED…um…Insert Song in the Middle: Definitely fun, energetic and epic.
Potential: 85%
Asobu ni Iku Yo!
Short Synopsis: Our lead character’s harem include a best friend, rich silent girl, alien.
You know what? The plot of this thing wasn’t half bad. This episode focused a lot on the build-up of a campy action series, full of evil organizations with weird chat-rooms, high school girls who look dumb and cute, but are actually what seems like terrorists, an alien landing on earth. This wouldn’t be half bad as an entertaining action series if it can deliver the things that it promised in this episode. But yeah, who am I kidding? Every single part of this episode that involved the lead character was utterly terrible. His acting, the way that girls flock to his side for no particular reason (he already has a harem of three girls here, none of which are given any attempts at explanation), his character is horrendously dull. It’s basically AIC and its harems again. As for the lead female… imagine having a cat grow boobs. That’s pretty much her.
ED: Dull ballad.
Potential: 20%
Boku Otaryman
Short Synopsis: Our lead character is an otaku and salaryman. Hence, otaryman.
So, this OVA got released back in January, but I figured that it’s not too late to take a look at it now that it’s finally gotten subbed. Otaryman is another one of those unfunny comedies, aimed at otaku, but with a slight twist: for once it isn’t wish fulfillment. Instead, it’s a “this could be you” type of series. Its lead character is a complete loser, and this series knows it. It raises some nice points, but most of the time it drags on. If you’re not an otaku, then I don’t see any reason why you should check this one out.
OP: Catchy soundtrack, uninspired plot.
ED: Attempts at being funny that just aren’t.
Potential: 10%
Heartcatch Precure – 22
Well, so it happened: this episode confirmed the identity of the third Precure, even though it already has been obvious who she was going to be anyway. I really admire the way the creators ended up doing it, though. They chose for a very natural introduction instead of just forcing some convenient arc about the student council president.
It’s a shame that the entire design of this show is what revealed her identity: lead characters are pretty. That’s a cliche that even this series failed to avert. Ignoring that, though, this episode really introduced Potpourri to the student council president by sheer luck: they really just happened to bump into each other. No extra forced plot twist beyond the ones that the series already consists of were used.
In any case, this episode also showed that Tsubomi has joined the greenery club at school. This is really something that I notice with a lot of other bland lead characters in mostly mediocre series: characters like these really have no interests whatsoever. They’re bland because it’s not clear at all what they’ve been doing before their respective series starts. Heartcatch Precure however is the complete opposite: this essentially is Tsubomi, making the best out of her youth: trying out various hobbies, pursuing her own interests of flowers and fashion. The episodic format of this series is indeed somewhat forced, but it really makes excellent use of this format to give Tsubomi a taste of all these different hobbies.
Also, Kumojacky and the typhoon. I’m not exactly sure what’s so awesome about that, but the badass way in which he discovered his new technique: the typhoon punch, it just made this episode even better. Out of all three minions, this guy, with his pride and honour, is my favourite.
Rating: ** (Excellent)