Angel Beats – 09

by psgels, posted in Angel Beats



I’ve had my criticisms about this series so far, but really: this was the best Angel Beats episode so far. A great sign at this point.

I’m very pleasantly surprised: there is no villain anymore. At first you’d indeed think that there would be something darker behind everything, like some sort of evil overlord who enjoys toying with lost souls. Instead, the souls created all of the conflict themselves. The final episodes won’t be about beating some sort of end boss. It’ll be about getting these characters to accept their grudges. Most notably, Yurippe. It’s typical Key, but I mean that in a good way. June overall is going to be an awesome month: there are so many awesome series that are going to climax there, I really can’t wait to what they have in store here.

The trainwreck scene was probably the most focused part of this series yet, and it also was without a doubt the best background scene we’ve seen in this series so far. I think that the thing with the early flashbacks of this series was that they were just too short: we got to know why these people held a grudge, but we never got to know who they were. Young Yurippe for example: her character is sad, but also got the depth of a paper bag. It’s now up to the final few episodes to link the two of them together, because one of the things that made this episode so good is how it showed the growth of Otonashi as a character. If all we’ve seen of Yurippe is a little girl who gets scared when her siblings are about to die, you can hardly play with the character-development at that point.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Ookiku Furikabutte – 35

by psgels, posted in Ookiku Furikabutte



Surprising amount of comedy in this episode. It ranged from the tickling to the interplay between Mihashi and Abe to angry coaches. Especially the tickling seems to be something that’s going to return more often in this series. Regarding this I do hope that the creators will prevent it from turning into a weird gimmick.

In any case, I’m intrigued about the length of this match. According to what people say, its length is even longer than the match of the first season, and yet in two episodes we’ve already gone through four innings. I’m guessing that the pacing will tone down in the next number of episodes, and these past two episodes indeed looked like they were setting the stage for the rest of the match. The point that was scored against them in this episode was really there to make clear that a lot has to happen here for them to win.

So yeah, that’s pretty much it. My entries on this series have been a bit short, but commenting on the episodes has been fairly straightforward: it’s consistently excellent in its portrayal of these matches and the animation still is consistently detailed.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Sarai-ya Goyou – 07

by psgels, posted in Sarai-ya Goyou



Oh my god… Tomomi Mochizuki might actually be surpassing himself with this series. Within seven episodes, he managed to put as much meaning into its characters as what Porfy no Nagai Tabi took 26. He’s got such a great sense of realism and character-development, and it also really helps that aside from directing he also did the series composition so that he could really put forth his vision of the manga. And on top of that it’s just awesome to see what a great manga he got to adopt. After having seen two of her stories now I really have to say that she’s a genius at characterization.

This episode again: from the outside the scenario was just about a few mundane tasks: Masa running away from a fight, him starting to train under that other older samurai, etc. From just those sentences it looks like a cheap shounen series, but just about every scene in this show was focused on putting as much meaning as possible in these events. A simple plot of Ume gets a ton of extra side-effects: it was his way of getting Yaichi to pay a visit to Masa. Yaichi knew very much that Ume was lying about Masa’s condition, but went anyway. He knew that he would be recognized, but at the same time he knew that it wouldn’t be that big of a problem since the old man wouldn’t tell much. And yet hints about his past were bound to be dropped here. It’s like he’s getting Masa to learn a bit more about him… but only a bit, nothing too much.

The characters here are nowhere near stupid. They’re very observant about each other. Masa himself knew very well that Yaichi had to have some sort of criminal past, and not just as some rogue bandit. You can really see him trying to get through to Yaichi, whether this is out of admiration, fear or something else still remains a bit of a question. Yaichi on the other hand can really notice Masa’s mood change as he gets to know more about him, and thus more afraid.

At the same time this episode was also very much about Masa’s self-loathing, or perhaps that’s a bit too big of a word. Either way, he’s being held back of an interesting career because of his personality, and knows it. The fight in this episode at which he ran away also really showed that he’s a guy who really keeps clinging to the past. As this is in his case a rather bad past (he had to cope being a samurai with that personality of his), he has a ton of anxieties, especially when alone and there being no reason for him to actually be tough.

This episode also gave a very interesting dimension to the older samurai and the graves he visited. The anecdotes he told about the people he lost were interesting yet down to earth, not to mention that that cliff-hanger was an interesting one. It’s obvious that there can be more dogs called Scruffy, but it is one gnawing cliff-hanger nevertheless.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Yojuo-han Shinwa Taikei – 06

by psgels, posted in Yojou-han Shinwa Taikei




This episode finally introduces that strange cowboy we’ve been seeing in the OP. Guess what his name is? I really thought that it was some kind of Euphemism that Eden of the East came up with, but here we’ve got another show that comes up with that strange nickname.

In any case, this episode was just awesome, by far the best of Yojou-han yet. It was a masterfully written romance that felt incredibly refreshing when compared to all of the uninspired high school romances out there. It’s the episode that finally gets a close look at Hanuki, the dentist assistant. Watashi meanwhile is in the middle of a really weird love polygon in which he often hangs out with her after club activities (this time it’s the English Club, at which for once he doesn’t suck… or at least feel out of place at), exchanges letters with a mysterious girlfriend whose identity we never really learn and somehow ended up taking care of Jougasaki. Hanuki in the meantime also hangs out with Jougasaki and it’s heavily implied that Master is her boyfriend.

The reason this episode rocked so much was how well it got into Watashi’s head for this episode. Especially when the liquor popped up everything kept spiralling out of control masterfully. I’m not exactly a fan of Johnny’s voice actor, but nevertheless it shows what a genius Masaaki Yuawa is at portraying chaos.

Ozu this time was interesting again, in the way that he was very much out of the picture for the biggest part of this episode. He’s still causing trouble, but it’s affecting Watashi less and less: he actually got close to three girls other than Watashi here. Speaking of which: she never made an appearance at all. This was a very interesting episode of Watashi, experimenting with other women than what this series made out to be his “true love”; very refreshing.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Durarara – 20

by psgels, posted in Durarara



I’ve said before that this isn’t the sort of climax I like. You know, the kind where characters just refuse to talk to each other, which is something that could make things a lot easier. With Anri… it’s still somewhat understandable: she doesn’t know about Mikado, and instead she’s just worried about being rejected as a monster, that’s fine. But in this episode Kida finds out that Mikado is the leader of the Dollars, and also remains silent. *headdesk* It also doesn’t help that Mikado still keeps listening to Izaya and that the rest of the Dollars are running around beyond his control.

There’s a line between flawed and just downright annoying here, and Kida… unfortunately is constantly hopping over that line. His angst has just been a bit too much for me… I can see that he’s had quite a past, but he doesn’t quite feel like such a dynamic character; my impression of him is that he’s either angsty or hyperactively hiding his angst, with hardly anything else. Anri on the other hand is getting more and more interesting now that we’ve gotten to know her, and Mikado already was interesting… though he’s gotten way too little airtime during the past episodes. I want to see some more scenes of him, trying to keep the Dollars under control. The two of them have a bunch of different sides now, but surprisingly there are just too many characters that are just… too one sided. This also includes Simon (who seems like he always talks about how good Sushi is) and Izaya (who seems to be a professional troll or something: do we see him do anything else?).

At this point though, I’m not yet sure whether I should criticize this show for having an annoying plot on purpose: it’s clear that the creators put a lot of thought into having things escalate like this, and Izaya’s trolling is making sure that everyone keeps doubting each other. But I’m just not enjoying this show like I hoped I would at the end of the first half of this show. It’s not bad or anything near that, but at the same I consider the second half as inferior to the first half of this show.

It’s also a bit of a shame that the animation budget still hasn’t recovered here. There are a few scenes with smooth animation, but none of them last longer than half a second, and on top of that there are a ton of distorted or rushed frames. That’s something you wouldn’t expect of Brains Base. I believe that this is the first series that they animate continuously for 24 episodes without breaks, and I guess that the toll of this becomes visible now.

Let me also talk a bit about the OP here, which have been… misleading to say the least. Consider the OP, which displays a bunch of characters who hardly made any appearance in this second half. I mean, why Shizuo’s brother? Why was there the need to include his brother? Heck, I actually thought that that Cop would make a big appearance, but aside from a cameos he’s also been pretty useless aside from giving Celty a strange quirk that feels a bit overdone. It’s another one of those “hey, we’re advertising to be like Baccano while we actually are completely different”-gimmicks of this series that caused me to expect the completely wrong kind of series here. I see that part of the fault lies with me for actually expecting this, but still…
Rating: * (Good)

Rainbow – 08

by psgels, posted in Rainbow



Holy crap. I know that I often talked down on the director. The reason for my scepsis was very much based on those series series, based on great manga but that were ruined by a sloppy direction; most notably Ookami Kakushi. While the series composition guy was excellent, with anime it’s always the question how these two balance each other out: there are series in which the director is in control of everything, but there are other directors that let themselves get very much guided by the plan, laid out by the series composition: it’s different for every series.

Thankfully though, this turned into more of an Umineko than an Ookami Kakushi: it’s flawed as an adaptation, but the essence of the original manga still comes shining through. The biggest problem with this show really is the acting: it doesn’t know the meaning of subtlety and instead just tries to tug at your emotional strings too quickly, only creating something silly.

This episode though… damn. The strength of the manga really shined through here. Seeing everyone work together to save An-chan’s life, in a structured well-thought out way that doesn’t try to be stupid in any way really made up for the acting this time (sure, the rope was cliched, but in this context I can really see it working). This is really one thing that I didn’t expect to see coming beforehand: that the tables have turned, and the six leads instead have to take care of An-chan. It’s extreme, but definitely an interesting twist to the trope of the strong guy taking care of the weak ones. Heck, he’s only one year older than them anyways, that’s also an interesting twist here.

the crowning moment of awesome here really was Psycho Guard’s manic appearance when he tried to stab An-chan. We only have to assume that he assumed the right path that the guys would escape through, but that’s really the first point at which I have to give thumbs up to how the anime creators decided to handle him. It was completely out of left field, but seeing his manic face, only to get beaten to hell by Mario again was really satisfying. But the entire episode really was full of them, from all of the characters’ sacrifices (normally these things are very cheesy, but here of all things it was completely necessary for them to make it out of the prison). Pedo Doctor’s roar of anger may have been a bit too much, but still didn’t ruin anything.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Senkou no Night Raid – 08

by psgels, posted in Senkou no Night Raid



Okay, that’s it. You can pretty much consider me a fan of this series. This series isn’t among my favourites this spring season, but the past episodes have brought it pretty damn close. It really took some time and hiccups to get going, but after last week, I’m completely hooked to this series. It follows the classic “first half episodic second half continuous” format, and now that we’ve gotten to the continuous format I’m really enjoying this series up to the point at which I don’t really care about the Engrish (which actually was reasonably good with the native English people, and actually pretty bad with the Japanese and Chinese, like it actually should be).

However, at this point I was also very fond of Sora no Oto, but that was mostly because I was expecting a strong climax to come any minute, though it never really did, making a lot of its build-up pointless. Night Raid is different, though. While I can’t see into the future, I somehow feel like the creators know very well how to pace this show and what to build up for. The first six episodes were really meant to establish the characters and the setting: the episodic stories were also just meant for that, and to introduce the villains. Episode seven then dropped the bomb, and started off the real story of this show. It’s all signs that the creators spent a lot of time thinking about the series’ structure. At this point, I’m confident enough to say that if this show manages to indeed pull of that ending, I’ll call it superior to its Anime no Chikara predecessor.

Anyway, about this episode. It’s here where the series goes back to its roots as historical fiction. The previous episode did a wonderful job of establishing the historical roots behind the series, but this episode also made sure to remind us that we’re dealing with fiction when it goes back to the government-spanning plan of the villains. He really seems to be going for the intimidation element, detonating things that look like atom-bombs in front of a bunch of big-wigs. There’s no way that that could have happened in real life, however it does add an interesting twist to the whole story.

Criticism can sometimes be a weird thing. I just know that if it wasn’t for the previous episodes, I would have gone on about how the characters here weren’t careful enough like real spies, or indeed how overblown the villain is. This isn’t just a matter of development, but overall the series has really made up for these flaws for me. I think that it was the elegant build-up that did it for me, along with its risky but well fleshed out setting and the subtle bonds between the characters who take themselves and each other seriously. I really was expecting some cheesy back-story about Aoi’s girlfriend. But heck, the ending of this episode was a very powerful cliff-hanger when the two of them recognized each other.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Giant Killing – 08

by psgels, posted in Giant Killing



I guess it’s true that Giant Killing has a lot of shounen elements, although as a genre, I’d probably classify it as somewhere in between Shounen and Seinen: there’s not one genre that this series completely fits into (other than ‘sports’, perhaps). It’s of course a matter of tastes, but to me that in itself isn’t something bad. In fact, I’m glad to be able to watch such a good shounen series again. The key to a good shounen for me is to make it fun and whatever action it focuses on interesting, alongside the usual stuff as great characters and pacing.

Giant Killing brings us a very interesting twist on the ‘underdog’ trope. What we have here isn’t the usual story of a team of losers trying to become stronger and winning. It’s more like this series is about healing a broken team. The problem with the team was that it was unbalanced: it focused too much on defence and it wasn’t aggressive enough. The keys here were the two defenders and Murakoshi, who kept putting pressure on each other, so much that they didn’t allow each other to escape this visual circle. Tatsumi then came and divided the problem. Tsubaki turns out to just be a red herring: his backstory is nice, and with more experience he’s really going to make it big, however he wasn’t vital to the team’s survival.

On top of that, I just love the small details that the creators keep inserting. Take a look at the street and the people in the background: it doesn’t just feel like random people standing or walking past, but it’s drawn in such a way that it feels alive. It’s a shame that the creators had to use CG for that, but it really works. Also, in most anime when a character does something outrageous or weird in front of a bunch of strangers, you usually see these strangers just look, or utter a few “oohs” or “eeehs”. The guy on the bike went even further, though, with his brisk reaction to a guy who suddenly starts yelling out of nowhere. Also, is it me or are the stands getting emptier with every match here? They used to be full, however with the losing streak of the team continuing you can actually see less and less people showing up.

One thing I also loved was the moment at which the penalty was taken. The opposing player noted that he used to work together with Dori. Nothing more, but that line was enough to give both him and Dori a much more interesting character, by showing that they’ve done plenty of other stuff in their lives. A great way to flesh them out.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Uragiri wa Boku no Namae wo Shitteiru – 07

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



“Muahahaha, I am the bad guy of this series, and I shall demonstrate this by dropping random glasses full of wine on the ground. Now that should keep those cleaners busy for a couple of minutes!”

It’s things like this that make it hard again for me to take this series seriously.

This series overall is a very mixed bag, and especially this episode showed it. I like some things about it quite a bit, while others still need a lot of work. Yuki? I like the kid, he’s interesting and compelling to watch. I also like Takashiro, Touko and Tsukumo, they’re interesting side-characters and I like how they show that they care about Yuki and feel guilty about the things they’re going to do to him, yet remain down to earth about it. Zess on the other hand… nah. This guy should get a life.

And then this episode comes and introduces a whole bunch of new characters, nearly all of them stereotypes. The worst of them was of course that bad guy (seriously, wtf), but the others also felt like cheap cliches. Here’s a washing-list of all the newly introduced characters:
– Twin bad guy henchmen who are eager to do bad stuff.
– Bad guy henchgirl who is also eager to do bad stuff.
– Zess’ freaking animal mascot (or ‘familiar’ as he calls it).
– The shy maid.
– The eccentric doctor.
– The energetic and harassing old guy (read: between 25 and 30 years old) with a hat that I reckon was meant to be stylish.

I mean, come on! Can you introduce any more cliches in just one episode? The worst thing here is that just none of them tried to set itself apart from its stereotypes, this was just overkill. A bit of development is probably able to save a few of them, but the cast of this show is already getting alarmingly huge. I’m especially worried about that bad guy.

I guess that the creators wanted to have a cast of interesting characters besides the lead ones. The problem is that they really should have spent more time into that. I’m not sure whether this comes from the anime or manga staff, but my guess is that most of the blame falls to the latter. This clearly was meant to be an arc to introduce the side-cast, but these are way too many cliches to just screw up. The anime staff is of course at fault too: they could have easily brought a bit of character into these guys.

A good example of this is Zombie Loan: it’s basically built around the same premise: a lead character meets a group of interesting zombie-hunters. While Zombie Loan was way too goddamn short, it did one thing right: the characterization. All of the side-characters were interesting to watch, and they all had interesting and charismatic personalities that kept you interested. Here, these side-characters couldn’t even charisma themselves out of a paper bucket.
Rating: – (Disappointing)

Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood – 58

by psgels, posted in Full Metal Alchemist - Brotherhood



This episode was very straightforward and much of what you’d expect, but the scenario was as exciting as ever. Right now, you can see that the creators are building up to the climax of the series (yeah, there are only five more episodes left here). It’s the small touches that impressed me the most in this episode, though.

The random soldier who actually managed to shoot King Bradley, from Father’s true form that doesn’t in the slightest bit try to be aesthetically pleasing. It was a very intense episode, with deaths (we get to see the two deaths of the previous episode confirmed), death threats, Al who suddenly stopped waking up and the old man’s monologues as he tried to get Roy to perform a human transmutation were also very atmospheric.

There’s one thing I didn’t quite get though: why Roy of all people? I mean, couldn’t father just get himself a human sacrifice to attempt the transmutation? I mean, with the effort he put into creating the Bradley clones, he also could easily have educated one of them to use alchemy to the point of being able to transmutate a human being.

In any case, we’re about to get to the ending, and that does bring me to one particular gripe about Bones that I had at the time that this series started: its seeming inability to create good finales. Back then, I was getting very tired of how Bones series always tended to be full of potential, but rushed through all of their endings, leaving a bad aftertaste in the end and this happened to nearly all of their series. In the meantime however, this spell has been broken by Tokyo Magnitude, which closed off its story perfectly, so I’m very interested in whether the creators can pull things off, and most importantly: pace the remaining manga chapters properly across five episodes. I’m not asking for a panel-to-panel similarity; there have been enough shows which had to cope with a rushed ending due to lack of time (Armed Librarians, anyone). All I want is these final episodes to capture the essence of the series and what the manga author had in mind about the conclusion that she spent years building up to.
Rating: ** (Excellent)