Angel Beats – 11

by psgels, posted in Angel Beats



Ah, so the shadows: the final end boss. The series needed an extra boost to quicken up the plot (after all, if it wasn’t for that, there would be nowhere near enough time for Otonashi’s adventures to make all of his friends disappear). It’s interesting to see that Key intended the finale of this series to be a thriller.

There were a few things that were a bit wrong about this episode, but that’s just nitpicking. It mostly had to do with the sudden stupidity of some of the characters: why did Otonashi not notice that Kanade was just a regular player? Also, why was Yurippe the only one who understood that Ooyama became an NPC?

But yeah, it’s an interesting thought: what if all of the NPCs were once these wandering spirits themselves, who failed to pass on? That really was the thing necessary to give the entire cast a good reason to think about where they wanted to go.

But someone actually created them. What’s up with that? My guess is that it’s Matsushita. I mean, he’s just gone. Ever since he left for the mountains, he’s just nowhere to be found.

Now, it really takes skill to make him the final villain without any hints prior to that. He could indeed be hiding things like most others, but as a teenager’s spirit who is so confused… does that really make him that good of an actor? Also, he’d better have some damn good motivations to do that. The last time someone tried to kill the cast it resulted into some guy with a god-complex who just slaughtered everyone and just got cured by a big hug.
Rating: * (Good)

Yojou-han Shinwa Taikei – 08

by psgels, posted in Yojou-han Shinwa Taikei



What am amazing conclusion to the love triangle arc. Seriously, Sarai-ya Goyou has really gotten some serious competition for my favourite series of the season, I really love the way in which Masaaki Yuasa has been delivering this series so far. This episode was nearly again the exact same as the previous two, only with the focus on Keiko, Watashi’s pen-pal, and a different conclusion.

The past arc has been brilliant in making everything spiral out of control. It’s THE proof that repetition doesn’t need to be bad, provided that you use it well. There have been tons of series who did amazing things with it (Utena, Higurashi, Jigoku Shoujo and Umineko, and it’s very interesting to see Yojou-han joining them.

I think we all knew that Keiko was actually Oz, the moment he handed Watashi that magazine, in which he found Keiko’s address. Part of what made this episode so much fun though was the way in which he was so genuinely enamoured with her. The look on his face (and especially the dialogue that went on inside his head) at the moment he found out that he had been exchanging love letters with Oz was priceless.

Akaishi’s role in everything also turned out to be very interesting in the past arc. The big difference with the previous arcs is that Watashi actually did something nice for her, instead of ignoring her (that was probably the meaning of the promise-scene of the earlier episodes: it’s to show that the two actually fit each other quite well, but because Watashi is so incredibly dense he never made any advances on her and forgot about his promises to her). Also, she’s living next to Oz.

Seriously, now that prediction that Higuchi made back into that first episode gets a new dimension with this. Who knows how often they hooked up with each other while Watashi was messed up in his umpth weird idea? We’ve heard of Oz’s girlfriend before, but have we actually seen her once? And again: Johnny was no use in this episode, and Watashi again left her. But then again, he really was in love with the image of Keiko he created. That’s the really weird part here: his love for Hanuki felt a bit shallow. Instead however, he has been genuinely in love with two women who didn’t exist. In fact, Watashi is a guy who just keeps chasing after these abstracts that don’t really exist, instead of looking what’s right in front of him: something concrete that can make him happy. Johnny turned out to be the complete opposite of this: not looking far away, but instead just trying to go after what’s right in front of him.

I really wonder what those final episodes will be about: how will they put everything to a conclusion? This is Masaaki Yuasa. For the sake of spoilers I’ll be vague in this, but ‘certain’ series of his have had really… ‘interesting’ endings.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Durarara – 22

by psgels, posted in Durarara



I think that I can finally point to what exactly I’ve been disliking about this series during the second half: it’s Kida. In this episode I actually quite liked Mikado and Anri, and their actions are quite believable. Anri had a bit of a slump at the end of her own arc, but even that was great as a build-up. I loved how in this episode she came to terms with herself, and how she finally developed. It’s here where all that build-up pays off. At the same time, Mikado was also quite interesting. I can believe his angst at the end of the episode, because hey; he just found out that one of his best friend became involved with some silly struggle that he was the indirect initiator of. The guy needs a bit of time alone.

Kida though… I don’t get him. His angst to protect those dear to him, combined with the way that he suddenly started yelling to Anri when he finally was able to talk to her under two eyes… I’m not really interested in that to be honest. For me, the parts of this series that focus on his angst are by far my least favourite of the entire series.

And it’s a darn shame, because the rest of this series really is excellent. It still sucks that it’s gonna end in two episodes, but this episode was well written, and one of those episodes in which a ton of build-up comes together and pays off. That really was great to see, and I loved the subtlety that the creators put into the development of the relationship between Celty, Anri and Mikado.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Sarai-ya Goyou – 09

by psgels, posted in Sarai-ya Goyou



That was an excellent conclusion to the Matsu-kidnapped-arc. Masa did exactly what he needed to do in order to get the guy out, and there wasn’t some kind of last-minute thing that went wrong in order to cheaply increase tension here.

Instead, the final part of this series seems to centre around Yagi, who indeed turns out to be a government official. It’s not sure whether he uses Masa to get to Yaichi, but nevertheless he’s in between two parties who he cares a lot about. This episode very much showed that he has accepted five leaves as friends.

This episode also introduced the dreaded sister with a brother complex. Still, it’s a cliche here that’s handled well: she’s not outright in love with Masa here unlike MANY of her counterparts, and instead the creators portrayed her as a worrying sibling who hasn’t heard anything about her brother for a while. Finally there’s a show that understands that.

Three episodes left, the problem does remain that there still remains a large part of the manga unanimated. I really hope that the creators can create a satisfying ending with what they have. That’s the one disadvantage of this otherwise excellent series.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Ookiku Furikabutte – 37

by psgels, posted in Ookiku Furikabutte



Last episode I commented how the sudden rush to fit this match into only 13 episodes has caused this series to lose one of the things that made it so special: the incredible detail it put into its matches. But really, even without that, this sequel just has more than enough to make up for it. The pacing that suddenly turned fast here brought an entirely new dynamic to this series.

Seriously, if this sequel would have been 26 episodes long, it would have easily surpassed the first season. Here too however: the fast pacing made this an incredibly fun episode to watch; the creators cut the manga very skillfully to paste it into such a short time-frame: this series still is an truly excellent manga-adaptation. I really loved how this episode changed its mood so flexibly: one moment it’s cheerful, then it’s full of tension, then a bit of comedy is there, only to make way for a pitch that could severely change the outcome of the game. This episode was so full of different emotions that complemented and balanced each other out perfectly, and it was all as beautifully animated as ever.

Abe’s absence turned out to be quite an interesting twist here: Mihashi has to work together with a completely new catcher (and you can really see the two of them struggle to get warmed up to each other, and exchange theories). One thing I also love about this series is how often people score. I don’t exactly know how this usually goes in high school baseball, but it’s very refreshing to see these kinds of scores, as opposed to most other baseball series in which the pitchers are so god-moded that they end most of their matches with nearly a perfect game.

I originally did not like this condensation because of the first match of the second season. No offence, but it just wasn’t as good as the other matches. As it turns out though, it just was based on the weakest premise. For all of the other matches, some really interesting plot twists were planned to make them juicy, yet realistic, but there it was just average.

Adapting a manga correctly is often a matter of skillfully copying and pasting: what do you leave in, and what do you leave out to fit the time-frame? Ideally, you of course want the perfect amount of episodes for the story, but alas: anime’s business model just doesn’t fit that. I personally believe that it should be the role of the most successful and rich animation companies to start experimenting with the tried and true anime-format and go with new things. They’ve got enough money, so they should have plenty of resources to take such risks.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Rainbow – 10

by psgels, posted in Rainbow



Oh, I love the plot of this series. I know that I’ve ranted often about the level of cheese, but the way in which the plot is laid out here just keeps getting better and better. It’s bold, creative and incredibly intense.

And as much as I’ve maid fun of Psycho Guard in the past, I do have to admit that just seeing that big smile of his is already a huge rush of adrenaline. At first I really feared that this guy would be a terrible villain in how over the top he was portrayed, but damn. His insanity especially in this episode was a sight to behold, especially since he actually knew what he was doing here: despite how he turned out to be a drug addict, he chose the sure-fire way to get these guys back to the jail, instead of just rushing in and yelling like a complete imbecile.

And damn, Heitai actually got released here. At first I thought that the creators would be like most series, in the way that they try too hard to keep the main cast together, however this is a very interesting twist. Episodes like this show that this isn’t just about life in jail, but rather a look into violent youth, and the world they grew up in ten years after the second world war. Heitai can now actually put a closure to his youth and grow up to be a respectable adult. He always was the most stable member of the cast, and I think that especially after An-chan left so often, it was he who took up the leadership of the group, and guided everyone through.

But there of course are also countless of other characters who developed already. Take Joe, and how miserable he was at the beginning of the series. Cabbage also feels to have become less of a loser, wile Baremoto was about to develop when we saw him for the last time, but we need to see a bit more of him for this to actually solidify.

I’m not exactly sure of the pacing here, but this is what I managed to find out about the manga: volume 1 covers up to the chapter “in flames”. Let’s assume that it covers until episode four, in which the prison caught fire. With the same pacing over 22 volumes, a simple calculation shows that at the same pacing this show would need 88 episodes to tell its story. Unfortunately, that ain’t gonna work; it’s nowhere near popular enough for that. My guess is now really: what are the creators planning? Do they plan to pull an Itazura na Kiss, in the way that they’re hell-bent on getting to the end of this story, or will they just animate this thing and stop when they run out of episodes.

As it’s almost certain that this show will go for either 24 or 26 episodes at this point, I hope that it’s going to be the former. The creators will need to do some skillful cutting in order to condense a huge amount of material into just two seasons, but this fast pacing may actually give an interesting dimension to this series. There’s no way that there’s going to be a second season for this thing, so I really hope that we can get to the really interesting part of this story: the part in which everyone grows up.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Senkou no Night Raid – 10

by psgels, posted in Senkou no Night Raid



I just realized something… episode seven still hasn’t gotten subbed, has it? Oh, what a terrible place for this series to get stuck: right before the point at which this series actually gets good. I’ve unfortunately seen a lot of negative comments here and there about this series because of it, and I really want to ask people: please, if you’re going to judge this series, wait until episode seven. It’s a huge turning-point. Series like this one should really be able to get more coverage so that they can keep making more of them. People keep saying that we need more mature series, but yeah that doesn’t work when series like this one hardly get any coverage. It’s thankfully not as extreme as with Mouryou no Hako or others, but still.

Of course, this series is also partly to blame. “Senkou no Night Raid”. A flashy night raid… that’s a terrible title to be honest.

In any case, it’s a bit of a shame, but in this episode you could again see that A-1 took a bit too much on its plate for this season. It’s a relative calm before the storm, and so they chose this episode for some budget cuts, which show themselves in a number of annoying off-models. And yet despite that this episode again delivered for me.

When at the beginning of the series, the superpowers were introduced, I wasn’t too big of a fan of it, however they ended up providing quite a bit of an interesting “what if”-scenario: what if a group of people knew about the atomic bombings beforehand? They won’t be just able to travel to America and stop the development, they also won’t get a lot of people to believe them. How far should they have gone, in such a turbulent time but when the war hasn’t even started yet? This episode is all about making these difficult decisions: what’s more important to you, your country or yourself, your position or your loved ones?

Despite the blocky drawings at times, I love how the creators are using their soundtrack here. The animation may have been flawed, but the pacing and direction still were very good. In fact, this series has the interesting pacing of Persona~Trinity Soul without most of the annoying baggage that made it a bit annoying to watch (the way in which it refused to focus on something interesting). Perhaps it has really helped that the series composition behind The Third has been working on this series. Either that, or the creators behind this series hit a major source of inspiration. I try, but I’m still often way wrong about which people or group of people is responsible for making an amazing anime.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Heartcatch Precure – 18

by psgels, posted in Heartcatch Precure




It’s as if the creators knew that episode 17 wasn’t as good as the others and thus used this episode to make up for it. Apart from being as charming as it ever was, the visual direction also was just awesome. You could really see that the creators were playing around with the formula a bit this time.

while it was of course awesome to see a Desatorian using Kumojacky as a paint brush (no, really), Kumojacky’s reaction to this was what made it priceless. The way in which he didn’t mind to be used as a brush to paint things with… I really wonder where the creators got that idea.

But the entire pacing of this episode was just fun and quirky, this episode again had such a wide variety of facial expressions and emotions through each other, it’s something that especially the earlier episodes of this series shined at, and it’s great to see that it’s back. And at the same time, ‘Ban-kun”s story was very charming. While not exactly a mother’s boy, this episode was more about being proud of what you want to do, rather than being honest to your mother. And at the same time it also didn’t pretend to have that black and white of a message, as there are definite disadvantages in his future compared to him becoming, say, a salary-man.

Also, I’m not exactly sure why the creators were purposefully stretching the sailor-moon-syndrome to its limits here. I mean, there were literal pages in which ban-kun drew Tsubomi and Erika in his manga, it makes no sense, but it’s a nice find. One thing I also loved about this episode was how supportive the two of them were for Ban-kun’s dreams.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Uragiri wa Boku no Namae wo Shitteiru – 09

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




Ooh, what a surprise: this episode was actually quite good again. I didn’t expect this show to pick itself back up after those… rather lackluster previous two episodes, but this episode returned to the parts that made this series good. It was very angsty, but at the same time it allowed Hotsuma to develop quite a bit. We finally get to know him, which is a very good thing to see.

Before this series started I was hoping for it to be something like the next Night Head Genesis. Okay, so in the end it didn’t. It’s got far less interesting ideas, while Uragiri doesn’t really offer anything in terms of its plot. Nevertheless though, the characters do have their charms. The creators know how to develop their characters and they do that very nicely, being just subtle enough to prevent the angst from going out of control *(especially the end of this episode was quite emotionally gripping), plus the pretty good soundtrack are enough to keep me interested for now.

The only thing of note here is how the creators decided to show Hotsuma’s and Shusei’s background. It’s in the same way as Yuki’s background. We don’t get an entire background arc that outlines the lives that the characters used to live. Instead, it’s brought in a bit of a memory-fashion: we get to see the key points in their past, without really learning what kind of children they were. Doing such a thing is risky, but it works surprisingly well for them.
Rating: * (Good)

Tono to Issho OVA Review – 27,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Tono to Issho is one of the series that will be debuting in the upcoming Summer Season, but first a one-shot OVA premiered as some sort of prequel and introduction. To be honest, before watching this OVA I was actually looking forward to a bit of comedic history. After watching it however, I’m considering it to be a strong candidate for the ‘worst show of the season’. It’s unbelievable how incredibly boring this show turned out. It’s just… not funny.

I know that comedy can be something very subjective, but seriously, this OVA had some of the worst comedic timing I’ve seen in a long while now. Every single voice actor always takes about a second of a breath after every single freaking sentence. Jokes that should be quick and fast are here unbelievably slow. Especially during the points at which the creators feel like they’ve made an exceptionally clever pun, they make sure to give the viewer the chance to let this joke sink in.

To add to that, the jokes themselves are corny as hell, and all follow the same pattern: a character does something random. A straight man then yells and makes a weird face. More series of course make use of these kinds of jokes, but this show just shamelessly rips these things off without understanding what makes them work. I had to sit through that same pattern being repeated over and over for nearly forty minutes. This is something that you show someone you really don’t like or something.

And if that wasn’t enough, the characters themselves also have this horrible tendency of dragging any joke they make on beyond belief. Jokes that would have been cute if they were just delivered in fifteen seconds are spread out over five minutes as the creators make sure to milk every bit of boredom from them.

I think out of all the series I have even written for this site, I have never given a rating as low as this one. I admit that I have seen worse anime, (Himitsu Kessha blahblah Countdown and Abunai Sisters), but this one had the bad luck to be a one-shot OVA, and I actually think that it’s the worst non-recap anime I have ever managed to finish. Seriously, if this was five minutes long (with the same content), it would have been a fun though cute OVA. But this… there’s a limit to human tolerance and how badly you can deliver jokes. If this is what we’re going to have to go through for the TV-series… god… I don’t want to imagine that…

Storytelling: 2/10 – Does just about everything wrong in terms of comedic delivery.
Characters: 2/10 – Absolutely terrible. Takes famous characters from the Sengoku era… and turns them into a bunch of dull idiots who only have one quirk and nothing more. Yes, EVEN the main character.
Production-Values: 3/10 – Nothing about the graphics is inspired, and at the end the animators just give up and wiggle a bunch of random drawings of people across the screen.
Setting: 4/10 – At least gets some points for a bunch of historic references, but never does anything with them.

Suggestions:
– Gintama
– Gag Manga Biyori
– Sexy Commando Gaiden
These three shows are everything that this cheap excuse of an anime is trying to be.