Heartcatch Precure – 16

by psgels, posted in Heartcatch Precure



Perhaps one bit of criticism for this series would be about its battles. If Erika and Tsubomi have this all-finishing attack that returns Desatorians back to their original form, then why don’t they use it immediately? It’s also a bit formulaic that the bad guys always pick out a depressed kid that happens to be near our two lead characters. But still, those are just minor nitpicks. I’m happy enough with how this series has managed to breathe new life into the mahou shoujo-genre.

This episode was all about leadership. We get to see the captain of the school’s drama club versus Erika, the leader of the fashion club. This episode used this comparison to give a lot of depth to the drama club’s captain. The girl is very talented, and you can see that she’s a perfectionist when it comes to acting. As a leader however, she failed to take care of her team: make all of them feel appreciated, listening to them, et cetera. Erika in this episode shows how to do this well: she uses her energy to make everyone in the club comfortable: she cheers everyone on, gives hints and listens, and creates an overall great team spirit, even though her huge amount of energy takes a bit of getting used to.

Turning her into a Desatorian was also mostly necessary for her former teammates to see that she was willing to change. The girl very much knew that she screwed up, but her pride refused her to just go to her teammates and apologize.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Katanagatari – 05

by psgels, posted in Katanagatari



I’m pleasantly surprised how good this series has turned into. It’s a show that may have a bit of a formulaic formula, but it knows that it shouldn’t just do the same thing over and over. The episodes so far have been pleasantly varied and interesting. This episode finally introduces some romantic tension between Togame and Shichika, also answering my pleas for character-development.

Again, even though this was an episodes of more than half an hour of talking, I wasn’t bored at all. I’m really getting warmed up to this series at this point and I really have to praise both NishiOisin and the staff of the anime for pacing out the series well to make it interesting without becoming boring or tedious. And even though it’s nowhere near the best of the genre, this still is what I’m looking for in a “ton of dialogue”-anime.

It of course had it coming that a bit of chemistry would develop between the two of them, after having been this close for a relatively long amount of time. The only thing that was needed at this point was this getting through Shichika’s thick skull (having lived alone with his sister for more than a decade). The interesting question now is what the creators are planning to use this for. At the least, the romance has felt subtle enough not to feel like cliches or cheese, which definitely is a step into the right direction.

This episode also set itself apart with these weird tantrums of Togame… which were definitely fun to watch, especially with the weird background music that this series has been using.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Angel Beats – 08

by psgels, posted in Angel Beats



There are some things about this show that just don’t make any sense. It’s been established by now that Tachibana somehow managed to create all of her abilities out of self-defence. Why then did she bother to also create the ability to spawn an evil clone? Even if someone else was behind it, wouldn’t she have noticed when she logged on? Then there’s the pink-haired girl. I mean, what the heck was her purpose again? If she was just a random side-character, then okay. But was it really necessary to put her on the promo-art for this series, along with Yurippe and Tachibana? Wouldn’t it have made much more sense to put Otonashi there, so that you really get the three central characters there?

In any case, with this we’re two-thirds in. In the next episodes, this series is going to have to deliver. Angel Beats overall has been nowhere among my favourites, but it’s definitely been fun. Knowing Key however, they do tend to hold a ton of trumps that they only plan to use near the end, and if anything this episode very much hinted to that when Tachibana absorbed all of those thousands of clones. Now, there are two possibilities after this: Tachibana turns evil and makes everyone’s lives miserable, or Tachibana turns into the typical Kyoani Key female lead. Of course I hope I’m wrong with this and things turn out a bit more nuanced than that.

As for the humour, it’s very typical of the director: his humour either just works, or it just falls flat, and this episode was about fifty-fifty in that. On one hand, the heroic sacrifices were pretty funny, however it also kept reusing a ton of jokes, like that annoying pink-haired girl, and the former student council president’s double-takes over Otonashi also were used way too much.

In any case though, this series has been very varied so far, and that’s what I like about it. Even though this episode revisited a previous location, it’s very different from the second episode and I’m glad to see that the creators didn’t just delete it when it blew up. Again though, I feel that these final few episodes are going to make or break this series. It’s been fun, but it’s definitely been building up to something. I really suspect that whether I’ll remember this series fondly or not will depend on how well the creators are going to handle these final episodes.
Rating: * (Good)

Yojou-han Shinwa Taikei – 05

by psgels, posted in Yojou-han Shinwa Taikei



It’s of course easy to immediately start comparing this show to Kaiba, however I opted not to do this for the first four episodes. Simply, because that would not be fair. Kaiba was a stellar series, and amongst my favourites. Expecting the same would just be unrealistic. The interesting thing about anime is that beforehand you almost never know which shows will turn out to be the best. Even more, Kaiba had a stellar first episode. Yojou-han instead was completely focused on building up. Kaiba sold me with its incredibly creative back-story and its gripping narrative. Yojou-han instead has its dialogue, repetition and wit. With a series as Durarara, you can see that it tried to look like Baccano at times, however Yojou-han makes no attempt at trying to catch in on Kaiba’s… um… popularity.

This show is weird: we’re still stuck in those random campus life stories. In this episode, Watashi ends up in a hippie-cult full of peace-loving flower-children that look a lot like scienology. It’s another story of how he completely throws away his first two years at college, just in an attempt to fit in. It’s actually very similar to the third episode in which he couldn’t fit into the cyclist club because he wasn’t athletic, here too he couldn’t fit into the softball club because he wasn’t one of those people who always look at the bright side of life. Here things got carried way more out of control though, because Ozu was surprisingly absent here. He for once only caused trouble that helped Watashi.

What’s also interesting is that Akashi still is Higuchi’s disciple. Her role seems to be all over the place, it seems. Sometimes she ends up joining the same club as Watashi, sometimes she doesn’t. Sometimes she’s straight-up his love interest, but this episode has him chasing after someone completely different. I think a key is also that she’s a year younger than him, so by the time that she gets to join college he’s also completely involved in whatever stupid club he’s involved in. I think a major theme in this show has been the contrast between Watashi’s image of romance, between the types of girls that he’s actually interested in. Watashi ends up in such a huge mess every time because his expectations of college life are completely different, and instead of choosing a club that fits him he instead keeps choosing clubs that fits the romantic image that he has in his head. He just is an anti-social character, and I’m beginning to think that Ozu and Akashi always end up with him because they too aren’t fond of socializing and doing regular college stuff.

I also labelled Watashi as a loser once, but that also doesn’t quite turn out to be the truth. He can be quite successful when he wants to: he can train and become very muscular, he can make a lot of money through jobs, he can put together an entire movie on his own. It’s not like he’s not good at anything, he just doesn’t use his energy at the right places and instead wastes it on stupid stuff that only make his life miserable.

In any case, what I’m trying to say here is that Yojou-han episodes have this weird effect. Especially this one. Overall this episode was enjoyable, though nothing special when you get past the styles. There were a number of interesting jokes, plus the critique at scientology also had its moments, but it’s nothing that I would label amongst Giant Killing and Sarai-ya Goyou as my favourite of this season. However the final few minutes in a Yojou-han episode are very often the best ones. We get to see the point at which Watashi snaps and turns back time, but the whole episode also comes together surprisingly clever. This episode even added to the previous episode (explaining that the 20000 leagues under sea novel and the globe actually were from Watashi and he thought that Ozu stole them).

The weirdest thing here was this future version of Watashi suddenly popping up. Was this just symbolism, or is this going to continue more often? In any case I must say that I was right in not expecting too much from the first few episodes of this, because after a few episodes that may not have been the most exciting I’m getting more and more excited about this series.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Ookiku Furikabutte – 34

by psgels, posted in Ookiku Furikabutte



And finally the real match of this season has started. To be honest, the previous ones did not feel as good as in the first season, with only three episodes dedicated to them. But yeah, they served their purpose well as build-up for the real meat. It’s here where every detail of the match gets under the spotlights.

And this match also starts out in a very different way from the other matches so far: this time the team isn’t the underdog, and has actually been researched. That pretty much results into them scoring four easy points. It’s a bit of a cliche in the baseball genre, but then again, what isn’t?

This episode also showed that the creators were really building up for Abe to become the weak link of this match, as his abuse only seems to get worse and worse here, up to the point where Mihashi gets more and more flustered when he tries to say something. But at the same time, Mihashi himself does try to speak out at lest. You can really see that his relationship with the rest of the team is getting better (like with the tickling), something that you can’t say for Abe.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Sarai-ya Goyou – 06

by psgels, posted in Sarai-ya Goyou




This series just continues to amaze me. At first the plot of this series seemed a bit mundane, about the every day lives of a band of criminals, but the situations here just sparkle with creativity here: everything just fits, and it takes full advantage of the fact that the characters here are criminals. They don’t present them as some kind of chivalrous thieves (even though they started out that way), and stress that the creators are fully aware of their actions. This especially shines through Masa, who still isn’t sure about whether or not to turn them down, especially since they treated him so genuinely nice.

I also loved how this episode comes to bite back at Ume, when the creditor of the guy of the previous episode started wondering where the hell he could get all that money from. I really love how the antagonists here aren’t stupid: they can think for themselves, and if it wasn’t for Masa he would have caused a great deal of trouble. By the way, I loved that shot in which Masa pointed his katana to his neck. That was so incredibly well animated.

Then Yaichi. He was a bit absent during the past two episodes, but the end of the episode came with a very interesting revelation: he and the old man knew each other. I suspected that something was fishy when it turned out that Yaichi never even once visited him, but to think that they were so much of an acquaintance. This does explain why he became involved with five leaves, though. Another very sneaky way.

I really like how this episode also forced Ume to think about his commitments to Five Leaves, especially since this indirectly caused so much trouble in this episode. At the same time you can also guess that Yaichi also put a lot of time into thinking whether or not to visit Masa. In this way, nearly every character here is forced to make certain choices.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Durarara – 19

by psgels, posted in Durarara



The second half of this series turns out to be disjointed in a completely different way than the first half. The first half threw random scenes together and kept jumping back and forth to make a fun little story. The second half on the other hand is much more linear, but instead it likes to pull twists that it’ll only explain later, without any hint beforehand whether it’s going to do so or not. It was indeed a bit weird for Anri to suddenly show up at the end of the previous episode, this episode explains what she was doing there.

Now it’s time for this series to deliver. I’m not going to tolerate any more boring episodes after this, because overall my expectations for this series might have been a bit too high. I really tried not to compare this show to Baccano, but in the end the lack of energy of this series compared to Baccano unfortunately did bother me during the second half when the pacing suddenly turned down, instead of up.

Another thing is that Baccano just did have a huge cast of incredibly charismatic characters. Durarara on the other hand doesn’t: it’s about a bunch of angsty teenagers, a bunch of psychopaths, a headlesss rider and a bunch of characters whose quirks could have been great, but were underdeveloped. Sorry, Simon. I really liked him when this series started, but this guy never really got further than his episode in which he was the narrator. There are more of these minor characters who degenerated into caricatures due to lack of airtime in the second half, and I think that that’s something that I’ve been missing with this series.

Having said that though, I’m very interested in the plot here. It’s the kind of plot that I dislike, but in a good way. The way in which everything is based on misunderstandings and everything would be solved if people would just stop listening to Izaya and instead talk to each other. It’s been well built up however, and the creators can actually get an interesting climax out of it if they go out all the way with this, remain true to their characters and let everything spiral out of control.

The characters are acting with a kind of stupidity that is incredibly annoying with underdeveloped characters. However, now that Kida’s background has also been shown, they’re actually turning into rounded characters here, and that’s something that I appreciate a lot. However, character-development is one thing, now they also have to use it. I did cringe at the point in which Anri in this episode refused to show her face to Kida, however when the creators back it up well enough this can do interesting things for the plot.
Rating: * (Good)

Rainbow – 07

by psgels, posted in Rainbow



This episode featured the most extreme themes, but at the same time the cheese also was the most reserved. Thank god, really. The drama felt a lot more genuine in this episode, and it showed that this series knows how to put a bit of subtlety into its atmosphere.

What strikes me the most however is how fast this series is moving. At first, I thought that this series would be about how An-chan and the six others live together at the prison, and how they spend their daily lives. However, An-chan is about to be released. At first I believed that the creators would end up pulling some kind of twist that would lead to An-chan having his sentence increased, but this episode blew that theory out of the water: Psycho-guard is determined to kill the guy. Any longer there, and he would not have survived. The next few episodes are going to get this guy out of prison, I’m sure of it.

This is really going to lead to interesting character-development as soon as he’s gone, however: psycho guard won’t have his hate anymore. He’s either going to direct this at the six leads, or change completely. The six leads in the meantime will have to survive in prison on their own. The thing however is that even without An-chan, they’re a close-knit group now. Especially Heitai, this guy could become very much like the next An-chan: he’s mature, level headed.

But yeah, this show was already heavy, but heck. They actually killed someone here, with someone else about to die. Psycho guard is really getting more and more extreme with every episode, only fueled on by Pedo Doctor.
Rating: * (Good)

Senkou no Night Raid – 07 (the real one)

by psgels, posted in Senkou no Night Raid



Oh my god, the creators actually did it. I’d easily label this as the episode with the highest stakes against it of the entire year, perhaps of the past few years: just one inserted cliche; only one weakness could completely break this show and label it as a pretentious piece of garbage. It’s been ages since I’ve watched an episode that took such a huge risk. So seeing that the creators actually pulled this episode off, showing that they knew exactly what they were doing makes this a wonderful episode.

The main characters were completely gone. In fact, only one recurrent character makes her appearance, but she only appeared for like… one minute before this episode aired, and subsequently only had one minute of airtime in just this episode. This episode was all about the figures central to the Mukden Incident, and it avoided the things that I was afraid that this episode could do really well: it did not try to avoid the fact that the Japanese themselves caused the incident, it did not present the Japanese as nice guys, but at the same time it also did not present the Japanese as stereotypical war-hungering bastards.

In fact, this episode was all about making the decision to do this. The central characters involved actually carefully considered the options they had, and eventually decided to go with the plan to blow up the railway, which eventually escalated so terribly. This episode portrayed them as knowing full well that they were changing history, and causing a lot of people to suffer.

Then, the cameo of Aoi’s sister (she was his sister, right? Or his girlfriend?). She did arrive from out of nowhere in front of key figures, right when they made the decision, but she actually did not influence them: the characters again stressed that it was themselves who decided. The one joke that this episode pulled was strangely cute, and did lessen the atmosphere. The one thing that might have been a bit fishy about this episode was how they didn’t go after her when she ran away, but I think that that can be attributed to faith: these guys believed that they saw some kind of prophet, or something. The girl overall is pretty mysterious, and perhaps it was her intention to make them believe this. Perhaps it was some sort of test, who knows? It’s up to the next episodes to go more in-depth into that.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Senkou no Night Raid – 07 (the recap one)

by psgels, posted in Senkou no Night Raid



I originally meant to just ignore this episode and go for the streamed one, but in the end I do want to make this small post about it. Because seriously, for a recap it was pretty damn good.

This really is one of the more interesting trends that anime has followed over the past five years: creators are realizing that cheap recaps are very often annoyed, and they are used way less often when compared to ten years ago and before. And when they’re used, they’re actually pretty good in about 50 percent of the cases. A trend really has been to have them as more than a cut and paste job, but instead tell a story of their own.

That was this episode: it skillfully cut together a compilation of the past six episodes and created a flowing narrative out of it, combining it with a few minutes of new footage: a bit of the past of some of the cast members, as well as foreshadowing about whatever that girlfriend of Aoi may be up to. What especially striked me was how the mood of this episode was completely different from the series: the series is usually slow-paced, but here they chopped all of the key scenes together into a surprisingly action-packed one. Especially for this show I can understand the need for a recap, and it’s good to see that they’re actually putting effort into it.

This show has something. I have no idea what, but it’s got this X-factor that draws me into it, and it’s something that I actually did not experience with Sora no Oto. In any case, tomorrow morning I’m going to hunt the real episode seven down. The past week definitely made me hungry about what direction this show will go into.
Rating: * (Good) – Especially for a recap.