Katanagatari – 04

by psgels, posted in Katanagatari



The big potential pitfall for this series was becoming too formulaic. You know, having every episode consist out of talking that leads up to a fight between Shichika and whoever holds the next of the twelve swords, in which we get to see the story of that swordsman examined. So what does this episode do? It just skips all of this in order to focus on something completely different. Nice. I love it when shows pull twists like that.

And on top of that, this episode was surprisingly intense. This episode completely reversed the parts of good and evil in this series. While Katanagatari wasn’t exactly a battle between good and evil to begin with, there always was a clear side of protagonists: Togame and Shichika, while the antagonists were also pretty well defined. This episode however… wow. Shichika’s sister is evil.

At first sight it seems a bit boring to have three random maniwani try to attack her, but this is really one of those cases in which the creators’ decision to go with double-length episodes pay off. If this had to be condensed into 20 minutes it would have just failed, but with forty minutes we really could get to know these guys beyond the shallow appearances that the maniwani had made thus far in this series. On top of that, Nanami’s monologues were really intense to watch in the way that she completely killed off the first people she was able to talk to since years, aside from her brother and Togame. It made for a very slow-paced episode though. This episode might actually have the most dialogue out of any Katanagatari episodes yet. Ah, those poor subbers.

Overall it was one of the best episodes so far, however it did seem that a part of the animators was on some sort of holiday or something. There was an unusual amount of still frames and extreme close-ups that were shot so that the creators wouldn’t have to animate the characters’ mouths. Thankfully it was nowhere near as bad as with Bakemonogatari, but it still stood out. With these series that show a lot of long monologues, it’s of course no problem if you cut away to a few photos and pictures to illustrate your point or show the surroundings, but there is a thing as overdoing it, and this episode felt to me like it was cutting a few too many corners.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Angel Beats – 03

by psgels, posted in Angel Beats




Let’s play a little thought experiment: suppose that instead of what she is now, Yurippe instead had brown hair, was a former construction-worker, had a brother who was a fired salary man, this series took place on Mars instead of a high school, and an ultra-powerful talking robot with a ditzy personality was working around. Do you think that people would have made such a fuzz about this series as a Zone of the Enders rip-off, as much as people are whining about the Haruhi references now? Even considering the difference in popularity between the two, I really doubt that anyone would have cared.

The thing is: what is original nowadays. Why are people complaining about the Haruhi references in Angel Beats, and yet with other series that are full of high school cliches that are apparent in thousands of other anime become ravingly popular. I don’t get it. In fact: what is originality nowadays? Just about every idea has been done before. The only way to be truly original relating to actual real-life news, but the way in which anime and manga are produced is just too limited to really take advantage of everyday news.

For example: it seems like the next episode will have baseball. Oh my god, they’re also ripping off Major, Ookiku Furikabutte, Cross Game, One Outs, Clannad, Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo, Blood+, FLCL, Touch, Sexy Commando Gaiden and a ton more series that have baseball in them. The thing is, that creators don’t have to reinvent the wheel for every part of their creation. If certain techniques, whether in cinematography, writing, animation or character-development worked in one series, then why not reuse them?

The thing that really matters is not the ingredients, but what you do with them: Angel Beats takes all its ingredients and creates a series that is completely different from Haruhi. It’s a series that focuses on entertainment, but also criticizes both authority and those who go against it. It’s in a setting which feels alive, even though everyone is dead. It’s both fast-paced entertainment and a serious story about characters who don’t believe in this thing called “fate”. For me, it’s done more than enough to set itself apart from other series, and it has plenty of its own ideas. In Haruhi for example, the concert was pretty much a one-off adventure. Here however the concerts form a core part of the story. Can that really be called a rip-off?

An example of a series that really is a rip off would be Omamori Himari of the previous season: it stole so many ideas and cliches from other series, but inserted nothing of its own. Now that’s what I call cheap.

In a way it also reminds me a bit of Argento Soma: apparently it’s supposed to be a huge Evangelion rip-off. But really: who cares? After the ‘big twist’ it goes completely into its own direction and becomes an amazing series with amazing themes. Or take Fantastic Children, which borrows a lot of ideas from Please Save my Earth. Does it suck because of that? Of course not!

Right now my biggest concern with Angel Beats is that the drama doesn’t really seem to work like it should. I’m not exactly what it is, but I’m still having a bit of difficulty connecting to the characters after they show their incredibly sad back-stories. I actually can’t put my finger on exactly what’s not working, but between the drama, mystery, comedy, adventure and slice of life that all come together in this series, I’m enjoying the drama the least. It’s not due to the fact that it rips off something, though.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Durarara – 14

by psgels, posted in Durarara



Hmm, it seems like the second half of this series is going to be a lot more focused: the pacing has become much more linear, and dropped most of the side-characters in order to focus on the main story-lines: Celty’s quest for her head, Mikado and the dollars, Kida and his past, and Anri and those strange slashers. In a way it’s a bit of a shame, but then again: the past two episodes have promised that all those separate storylines are going to intertwine like hell as the series goes on.

This episode was a bit of a calm before the storm; it was probably one of the quietest episodes of this series yet, but still it had one big development for Celty: openly showing her affections for Shinra, and later finding out that Shinra knew that his father was the one who stole her head and shipped it over to Japan. Shinra’s father is a bit of a weirdo, but he’s definitely an interesting addition to the cast. Also, something tells me that he’s not just wearing that mask for the sake of clean air. Perhaps he has some scars he wants to hide or something? In any case, I loved the way in which he revealed what he had done. Slipping such a 20-year old secret out on a whim. I love it when those series insert a bit of comedy with these big plot twists.

Interestingly enough, this episode provided a ton of background information: we now know what the slasher is, we know exactly what happened to Celty’s head, we know Izaya’s intentions and how he’s trying to bring Celty’s head back to life. Most of the questions that the series has asked have actually been answered now, with the biggest question marks that still remain are the background of Kida and Izaya, and what happened between the two of them. And considering that there are still ten episodes left, the creators have built up quite an interesting foundation to start playing with. Rather than revealing everything at the end, it’s definitely an interesting approach.
Rating: * (Good)

Ookiku Furikabutte – 29

by psgels, posted in Ookiku Furikabutte



And so it has begun: the next one of the gruelingly long baseball matches of this series. However, that’s exactly the reason why they stand out: the creators skip hardly any of the pitches. Even the unimportant innings are fully animated. It really makes the matches much more unpredictable than your usual baseball matches.

And like with the first season: the creators waste no time in fleshing out the team that the lead characters have their match with. They gave all of them so var a personality, even the ones who aren’t ace or pitcher. Take that batter before the ace, for example: it’s a small touch, but having him feel a tad under-appreciated under all of the attention that their ace is getting is a nice touch. We also get to know the pitcher a bit more, who seems to be a person who likes to be in control. It’s interesting how he feels like that team’s Abe, and the Ace feels like their team’s Mihashi.

Also, while I am a baseball noob (all of the things I know about the sport are from playing softball in high school at PE (and sucking at it) and watching anime as a student), I’ve been wondering something: why is the fourth position so often reserved for the team’s best hitter? I mean, it only works in the very first inning, when one of the first three batters manage to score a hit. At the rest of the innings, it’s completely random how many people he’ll be able to bring home as a cleanup hitter because all of these games can progress so differently. To me, it actually seems the most logical to stuff the best hitters at the first place: this way they get as many chances as possible to get a good hit out of the pitcher, and score a point.

Also, is it me, or does Ookiku Furikabutte really have the best animation of this season? I mean, it doesn’t have the eye candy of Sarai-ya Goyou, nor the money shots of Angel Beats nor the background art of Senkou no Night Raid, but there are no still frames, and there really is a ton of movement in this series. And not just that, but the characters all just move naturally; more naturally than anything else I’ve seen this season so far. Also take a look at those far-away shots: in most series they’re used as a bit of a cheap trick: people far away require less detail. With Ookiku Furikabutte however, the creators grab their chances to up the frame-rate even more: the animation at these parts is incredibly smooth and realistic.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Sarai-ya Goyou – 01

by psgels, posted in Sarai-ya Goyou




Well, so I could write another first impression post for Sarai-Ya Goyou and Yojou-Han, but since Noitamina airs so late this season and it was obvious that I was going to blog the two of them anyway, I fail to see the point. Sarai-ya Goyou really was the series I’ve been looking forward to the most, finally showing Tomomi Mochizuki in action again. And so far, its first episode does not disappoint.

This episode was an excellent introduction: it introduced the main characters, it showed who they were, it talked a bit about their past, so that we already have a pretty good idea of who they are. It was produced excellently: the animation is down to earth, but refined in the details and facial expressions. You can really see that it shares its original source-material with Ristorante Paradiso: composed, heart-warming and yet down to earth and composed. This really is going to be an excellent slice of life series, and who knows what it might turn into?

Also, Noitamina will be an hour long from now on, right? The upcoming summer-season however only has one Noitamina-series slated: Shiki. Since we already know that Yojou-han will take only 11 episodes, I have high hopes for this series to be the first Noitamina-series to go beyond 12 episodes since Nodame Cantbile’s first season. It’s really interesting to see this time-slot evolve over the years: it started out as a time-slot for those unique Josei and Horror-series. Starting with 2009 however, it started to experiment much more with different formats, and at this point it has pretty much become synonymous with a high-quality and well produced series.

The art style really is beautiful, and I also love the background music: it’s varied and subtle, and complemented the atmosphere greatly, but what I like most about this first episode was how natural the dialogue felt. The chemistry here was really good, while still remaining subtle. I’m really glad to see that this series lived up to its expectations.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Kaichou wa Maid-Sama – 03

by psgels, posted in Kaichou wa Maid-Sama

[Images will appear later due to Imageshack having issues]
Well, so far so good: now that the introduction is over this series keeps its balance between the funny and serious parts pretty well, with both parts actually working pretty nicely. The comedy feels used wisely: not too little and not too much, and the jokes so far still fall pretty good, with Usui’s abuse becoming possibly even funnier.

This episode also descended into shounen-territory for a bit. It’s interesting to have a shoujo-series with such a premise that allows it to make fun of these shounen stereotypes. The parodies were pretty standard, but quite amusing. Right now this series needs to take care in not repeating its stuff too much, but if it goes on like this, it should be fine.

As for the non-funny bits: I liked how we got to know a bit more about some of the different side-characters, like their siblings and stuff. This series has overdone it a bit with its setting, where the creators try to push too much for Misaki to overcome, but what they did get right was how the cast is pretty balanced in terms of strengths and flaws. The female schoolgirls are bright and cheerful, but also way too naive, protected way too much by Misaki. (as shown by that weak confession in this episode). The guys in the meantime are portrayed as complete morons, but at the same time they’re creative, come up with a new ideas for every one that Misaki turns down.

Misaki is of course the huge exaggeration in this, having huge strengths (her independence, leadership) and huge flaws (her short-sightedness, on top of that she seems very emotionally dependant based on the few affectionate moments she had with Usui). Usui on the other hand is glad that he chose a person to develop a crush over with some tolerance, because some of the things he says would have scared off most of those stereotypical moe girls. Especially for Japanese standards, they’re very direct.

Standalone, they’re indeed nothing interesting, but I have to admit that together, they’re forming quite an enjoyable Smörgåsbord of a cast. What the writers now need to do is deliver them properly: it’s no use having these interesting characters if they take a quarter of an eternity to get anywhere: it will become way too boring in the process. The past few episodes have been nice and all, but I’ve seen a lot of shoujo who started off with a bunch of strong opening episodes, only to derail completely and never get anywhere after six or seven episodes, so I’m really hoping that this series will be able to avoid that.
Rating: (Enjoyable)

EDIT: After a bit of thinking though, I decided to drop this series in favour of Rainbow. Blogging both this series and Kimi ni Todoke has shown me that the shoujo high school romantic comedy series isn’t that interesting to blog for me, especially when I have no idea how it’ll turn out. That’s not to say that I’m completely boycotting the genre, of course. I will blog such a series when it’s really, really good. But to me, Maid Sama just isn’t going to be amongst those series, just like nearly all of the similar series that aired during the past ten years.

Seikai no Senki III Review – 77,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Seikai no Monshou



Seikai no Senki III again is completely different from its predecessors. It’s much lighter, the conflict is much simpler, and there’s a lot more emphasis on random conversations than ever. It;’s about Jinto, as he returns to his home planet after having been gone for years. At an hour’s length, I at first believed that this was going to be another one of those unimportant side-stories that you often see in DVD-specials nowadays, but Jinto really develops throughout this OVA.

But yeah, one hour is still way too short, and it also doesn’t help that the creators try to do way too many things at the same time. It could have worked if the creators only focused on Jinto’s development, but for some reason they wanted just about every character to some kind of cameo here. There’s just too much time wasted on pointless banter between these side-character, including a rather strangely out of place mock-battle of which I still nave no idea what point it tried to make.

The strangest thing about this OVA though, is one particular side-character: Ekuryua. Do not ask me why, but this girl completely changes character, beyond anything that was established about her in the previous series. It’s especially grating because the creators keep using this as some kind of quirky gimmick, but those attempts at comedy never really work.

So overall this OVA definitely had the right intentions, and Jinto’s development is as good as ever, but unfortunately it overall was poorly balanced and needed a lot more episodes to really shine like its predecessors.

Storytelling: 7/10 – Not focused enough for such a short OVA.
Characters: 8/10 – Jinto’s development rocks, but there are too many pointless side-character cameos.
Production-Values: 8/10 – A graphical upgrade… including a bunch of recycled scenes…
Setting: 8/10 – Excellent, but could have been even better with more episodes.

Suggestions:
– Space Fantasia: 2001 Nights
– Tytania

Birdy the Mighty Review – 75/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Before Kazuki Akane came with his epic Birdy the Mighty Decode, there of course was the original Birdy the Mighty OVA. While I knew that it was bound to lack depth in terms of the TV–Series I still got curious as to their differences and decided to check it out.

And really, I was pretty surprised at how little these two series have in common. Aside from the main premise of Senkawa being transferred into Birdy’s body and the fact that there are aliens sneaking around somewhere, the storylines are completely different. Hardly any of the side-characters return: I could only recognize Natsumi (who plays the role of romantic love interest here) and that moustache guy (who has a much larger role here).

The story that Decode went with is of course much more superior, but it’s interesting to see how many changes it made, even to the core of the premise. It completely removed the main antagonist that we see here in this OVA. Because of her, the OVA turned into some inconsequential revenge flick that doesn’t really know what antagonist it wants to focus on. Basically, Birdy battles a bunch of bad guys, and that’s pretty much her side of the storyline. It’s nothing that we haven’t seen before, and completely lacks the depth of Decode.

Senkawa’s part in the OVA meanwhile keeps hopping back and forth between amusing and annoying. There are times where he’s pretty nicely characterized, but there are others in which his charms are completely overshadowed by his blandness as a character. The comedy is pretty much the same: some jokes just don’t work, and are the types you see in every comedy series out there. However, some jokes, like the complete lack of tact of Senkawa’s father worked pretty nicely.

Overall, when compared to the stellar standards of Birdy the Mighty Decode (especially its second season), the OVA of Birdy the Mighty is just too short, lacks depth and doesn’t take enough liberties. However, as an action-flick it works pretty nicely. The action certainly isn’t as impressive, but it’s well animated and nice enough to keep you interested. Senkawa and Birdy both have their moment, and this is a pretty nice OVA for those who are looking for very light entertainment.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Light entertainment; nothing more, nothing less and knows it.
Characters: 7/10 – Nicely characterized, but lack a ton of depth.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Pretty good animation.
Setting: 7/10 – Again: no depth. Decode made the setting really come alive. Here it’s just way too standard.

Suggestions:
– Birdy the Mighty Decode
– Black Magic M66
– Canaan

Rainbow – 02

by psgels, posted in Rainbow



Wow. Okay, like I said in my Senkou no Night Raid entry: I might just drop it when Rainbow’s second episode turns out to be really good. It did.

Seriously, the first episode was full of overacting, but this episode actually made me tear up a bit. I’m not sure whether I’m going to drop Night Raid or Angel Beats in favour of it, though. It’s not like these two are the worst, but I’m getting rather worried about their short length of only 13 episodes.

But seriously: the reason why I didn’t like the first episode was because it really tried way too hard. It was all sentimental without us knowing anything about them, and without any build-up whatsoever. The acting wasn’t that good anyway. The lack of build-up was probably its biggest flaw. And here the second episode comes and wastes no time in building up, exploring who these kids really are. Seriously, talk about improvement!

My guess is that the creators wanted to rush through the introductions, so that they could start with the good parts of the manga as fast as possible instead of having four episodes of these introductions. It’s not my favoured approach, but damn, this episode sure made up for it. Joe gets to be the first one to be put under the loop, surprisingly. He first struck me as a bit of a weird kid, but damn. Having been continuously raped in his childhood, about to lose his sister to another pedophile. This is heavy stuff, and I guess that the setting of this series really allows for the creators to write about the darkest parts of society.

The old hag may have overreacted a bit, but still. That part in which Joe escaped the prison, only to be recaptured when he tries to look for her was rather hard to watch. I’m not exactly sure why she decided to react so coldly, but it probably was because she knew he’d be punished severely if he were to try and escape again.

I actually have no idea for how long this series will continue (I of course hope as long as possible), but it’s mostly going to have find its balance between subtlety and overacting, while still capturing the horrors that these kids went through. But if all of their stories are going to be as good as with Joe, then there’s a ton of potential here. And really: what I’m hoping for the most is that the creators are smart enough to actually let this continue up to the end of the manga, in which we can see the characters grow up. I know the manga is really really long, but animating it until the end would really be awesome.

The animation however is nowhere near Madhouse’s best. There are a ton of still frames and speed-lines, and you can really see that Madhouse’s best staff are currently too busy with either Yojou-han and the Marvel-series. But still, that old hag looked really creepy.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Senkou no Night Raid – 02

by psgels, posted in Senkou no Night Raid



As for the series I’m not going to blog:
– Mayoi Neko Overrun’s second episode was actually pretty terrible. Badly produced and every way as obnoxious and unfunny as I originally feared it to be.

In any case, Night Raid is going to be the 10th series that I’ll be blogging this series (I guess it’s pretty obvious what number 11 and 12 are going to be with the way that I’ve kept hyping them), but do note that there’s a good chance that I’ll drop it if either Uragiri or Rainbow’s second episodes are really good, because I do have my problems with it.

First of all there is of course the cheese, which doesn’t exactly mix well with the mature setting that the series is trying to portray. Here we have an original series about international spies, and the best thing would obviously be if
the creators really took their liberties and delivered a series about actual spies: the way they operate and blend into a crowd. But alas, instead we get a supernatural adventure series in which the characters edge more to James Bond than actual spies.

But yeah, that doesn’t mean that the series can’t be awesome. And really, the script for this series is excellent when you look at this as a fantasy-series. The writers don’t excel in their research, but rather their imagination. By now it has already shown that background is very important, and so we get to see a ton of flashbacks.

Here’s one of my big issues with this series, though: this feels like a series that has a great script, but not the means to execute it. Because A-1 Pictures has had to handle so many series this season, I already feared this, but they just don’t have enough manpower to make each of their series excel. Ookiku Furikabutte is as well animated as ever, and I’m sure that Working also has no problems in the graphics department, but with Senkou no Night Raid feels to have received the shortest straw here in terms of A-1’s best staff. Because of that, the acting feels a bit shoddy. The lead characters also doesn’t really help when he’s got voice actors who can’t act half of the time, trying to fluently speak three different languages (to the Russian people who happen to visit this site: how bad was his pronunciation this time?). And then there’s the young teleporting-guy, whose voice actor really hams it up pretty badly.

Plus, this show only has 13 episodes, which is probably my biggest issue with the series at this point: with such a short series, will it be able to deliver, or just end up as another spy flick? I’m especially worried due to the “spy of the week”-theme. I may seem strict and nit-picky in this entry, but with a season in which there are a ton of shows that have big potential among big flaws, I really want to be able to pick out the best ones. Night Raid, more than any other series this season, has a setting that screams “take me seriously”, and therefore I’m currently taking it more seriously than if it just pretended to be a fun action-flick where the main point is to kill bad guys.
Rating: (Enjoyable)