Sarai-ya Goyou – 02

by psgels, posted in Sarai-ya Goyou



To those who were turned off by the character-designs, or found them ugly: what do you consider to be great character-designs? Personally I love the character-designs of this series; I’m a big fan of series that have their own visual identity, rather than staying with the same tried and true moe-based art style. The character-designs here are all unique despite the fact that it isn’t the first series set in its time-period.

In any case, this was a wonderful episode that did an excellent job in fleshing out the characters. This is one of those series that really makes the cast come alive. While it was a typical episode that showed the lead character as he tried to decide whether or not he should join group X (in this case, five leaves), but the key with those kinds of episodes is to really show the thought-process that these characters go through, rather than stretch for time. While we see Masa pondering about what to do, you see people trying to influence him from all sides, and check him out. Especially Ume is interesting with his doubts. And even outside of this, Masa’s reactions to everything around him are really well characterized.

The use of music also was pretty interesting, especially that tune that was played as Ume walked around with that body. The pacing was slow but yet the soundtrack was fast-paced. It overall has a great use of sound effects and music, with a lot of variety in them. It’s great to see such a slice-of-life so well executed, and there’s quite a bit of subtle wit in the dialogue.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Yojou-han Shinwa Taikei – 01

by psgels, posted in Yojou-han Shinwa Taikei




Finally, after a LONG wait Yojou-han has appeared. And it really is something else. There isn’t just a lot of dialogue, there is a lot of dialogue that goes really, really fast; the amount of dialogue in 20 minutes even leaves Katanagatari far, far behind it. You can again see that Masaaki Yuasa is trying out something completely different: a ton of dialogue and a ton of visual experimentation. I like it!

I love how at one time, this episode threw a lot of weird stuff at us, but on the other hand it did succeed in telling the lead character’s story, and his relationship with the people around him. His characterization feels rich and despite the cliches that surround him I’m very much interested in the lead cast. I feel that this is going to be much more than Kuchuu Buranko our your average shinbo-series, especially considering we’re dealing with an actual novel adaptation, rather than a manga or light-novel. Just compare this to Aoi Bungaku to see how different these kinds of adaptations can be.

I also love the visuals here: they’re all really experimental and yet nothing like what Masaaki Yuasa has done before. This show doesn’t just have a lot of strange graphics, but it also puts a ton of ideas in them. Ranging from symbolism to camera-angles to photoshop effects to strange filters, it tries out a ton of them with a huge amount of variety.

The balance is really what sold me on this series: the voice actors all act very well, and know exactly what isn’t over the top. The comedy is also used wisely, and the characters all feel alive, rather than those stereotypes and the narration has a very good balance between narration and regular scenes. This especially shines in that best friend of the lead character: he really is the typical best friend in high school series, but his characterization really shines through here and feels much more like a real character rather than that annoying stereotype you see everywhere.

I’m also very much into the ED of this series, which is definitely the best of the season. The OP also is very good, as expected of Noitamina. Overall this episode wasn’t as good as Kaiba’s first episode, but I also doubt that this was the point: this was much more an episode to introduce everything.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Hunter X Hunter – Greed Island Final Review – 70/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Don’t get me wrong: I love Hunter X Hunter. All shounen series should take a look at it for example of how to do the shounen genre right. But the final Greed Island OVA is a very disappointing conclusion to the series.

Usually I applaud series that go into completely different directions. The finale of Greed Island also has a bunch of ideas into it that other shounen series would never dare to use, and you still see that people actually prepare for fights, rather than rush in randomly. The problem however, is that it also destroys a ton of the carefully laid-out build-up of the previous installments of Hunter x Hunter: it’s poorly produced, and makes a mockery out of the series’ battle system, characters and philosophies.

The combat in this season is exceptionally disappointing. And don’t get me wrong: the battles are fun, if your standard is at the level of a badly animated Heroman. For Hunter x Hunter however, they leave a lot to be desired. One thing that made the special powers of Hunter X Hunter so fascinating was that they were all built around restrictions: it takes a huge amount of time and effort to fully understand the concepts, and actually be able to do something useful. The reason why Kurapica kicked so much ass in the first OVA was because of the huge restrictions he put on his powers. The previous seasons all stressed a ton of times on being careful. We saw over and over that Gon and Kilua were just rookies; that they had a lot to learn.

So, what does this episode do? We get a training montage that spans 3 months and changes Gon and Kilua from inexperienced rookies to god-moded powerhouses. What a shame! The power system of this series also gets pretty much reduced to: the one with the largest aura wins, and whenever Gon’s aura is the weaker one, he just goes super-saiyan enough until he has the upper hand. If that wasn’t bad enough already, probably the hardest thing to grasp is that somewhere along the way, this series lost its concepts of pain. In this OVA, the characters sustain some truly horrific injuries, especially considering that they’re all just kids. But yeah, it kills the tension a lot when you just see them walk away from that without a problem.

If that was the only problem, then okay. I could have lived with it. But there are a ton more of them. The pacing for example: Hunter x Hunter always was a pretty slow series, but you could always see that they used their slow pacing to build up as good as possible. Here however, the creators just needlessly drag on fights and training arcs for episodes after each other. There are too many recaps, and the entire story could have easily been condensed into the regular eight episodes.

The characterization also suffers a lot. The side-characters, while usually bright and colourful in how they were portrayed, now are bland, one-dimensional and we never learn anything about them. It feels like nobody was fleshed out throughout the entire 14 episode run, and the increased amount of comedy and silly faces from the two lead characters Gon and Kilua completely lacks the subtlety of the jokes of the earlier instalments.

The animation itself also is amongst the worst we’ve seen from this series. I consider the character-designs of the side-characters of Hunter x Hunter to be amongst the best that you can find in shounen anime. Here however, they’re all bland, and the main villain looks sort-of like an emu; the creators tried really hard to make him look as evil as possible, but it only resulted in making him sillier.

It’s interesting to see Nippon animation during the past ten years: whenever they’re trying to be innovative, they’re brilliant. Hunter x Hunter, Les Miserables, Fantastic Children, and even Hyakko and Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge: they all pushed boundaries within their genre. When they try to squeeze too much money out of their own franchises however, they suddenly suck, as shown by the mediocre Konnichiwa Anne and also this final ova. You can see that the creators tried too hard in making it more mainstream, but to me it seems like the anime staff behind this ova didn’t understand the underlying story. Standalone this would have been a nice enough action-manga, but it doesn’t live up to Hunter x Hunter’s standards.

Storytelling: 7/10 – Pointlessly slow and dragged out, but there’s an interesting game-element to the battles. But a training-montage?
Characters: 7/10 – Very mediocre characterization. We never learn anything about both the main and the side-cast aside from a few dull and predictable lines of exposition.
Production-Values: 7/10 – Poor, especially for Hunter x Hunter’s standards.
Setting: 7/10 – Some very interesting ideas, but it seemed to me like the creators didn’t understand them.

Rainbow – 03

by psgels, posted in Rainbow



Like Senkou no Night Raid, Rainbow is a bit of a strange series. If the creators played it realistically, it definitely would have been the best show of the season. The execution that the creators went with however, does hit hard. As opposed to most series, which often take their time introducing the characters, Rainbow plays it heavy, right from the first moment. This episode goes to huge lengths in stirring up some drama, trapping some of the cast members inside a burning prison while Nomoto gets stirred up by psycho guard in order to turn against them.

Still though, I believe that setting the psycho guard aside, all these things could have happened: the arson was set up because Nomoto quickly stashed away a burning cigarette. And even the psycho guard becomes a bit less stereotypical in this episode when it turns out that he just hates Sakuragi. This guy is obviously way over the top, but he does illustrate the problem of corrupt prison guards. What I also liked was that this episode did show that there were other normal guards around, but even they seem to either ignore or don’t know about psycho guard’s issues.

This show obviously is extreme, but I’m interested to what kind of character-development it’s going to lead. I mean, the OP keeps hinting that it’s going to keep animating the manga until we reach the part in which the kids grow up (and who knows how much more).
Rating: * (Good)

Senkou no Night Raid – 03

by psgels, posted in Senkou no Night Raid



I was too busy ranting last week to notice, but I failed to notice how good the OP of this series is, especially in terms of the visuals. I’d probably rank it the second-best OP this season, after Giant Killing. It’s full of nice ideas and animation.

In any case, for me this was the episode that sold me on this series. I’m not sure exactly what it is, but the characters have some kind of strange charm that even Sora no Oto did not have. I felt like this episode treated the characters seriously and like adults, giving them the time to shine without overdoing it. The acting also felt much better.

What I also liked was how this episode showed that the powers of the characters aren’t exactly special: in this episode we meet someone with the exact same powers as Kazura. On top of that, while the series may be episodic, there are a ton of threads that keep it together, most notably Yukina’s brother.

As for the combat: I was very pleased with how this episode handled it. One one hand you’d wonder what happened to the police, but the scenario of the fight itself was very nice, balancing the stealth, bomb disposal, child rescue and gunfights with each other. It all stayed nicely down to earth instead of going over the top, and I appreciate that.

This is a bit of a strange series though. On one hand it’s very down to earth, but on the other I’m also questioning why the bomb guy used such elaborate means to just contact Yukina. Didn’t he know where she was or something? And even then why would bombing a building guarantee her arrival?
Rating: * (Good)

Hunter X Hunter – Greed Island Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



It’s so refreshing to watch Hunter X Hunter. It goes right where nearly all other shounen series go left. It’s here where Nippon Animation show that shounen series don’t necessarily have to be fight-fests with shallow battles that last for episodes after each other. The first Greed Island OVA continues where the previous OVA left off. And to be honest, it isn’t as good as the OVAs. But those standards were set really high after all. Greed Island has a lot to like here.

The interesting thing is that this OVA is mostly focused on two things that are often really hard to do well in anime: training arc and exposition. They actually pull it off, though!

Here’s the thing with most training-arcs: they’re completely shallow. They often pointlessly waste time and advance their characters way too unrealistically. Way too often, we see characters do some random movement over and over, and suddenly they’ve mastered a new technique, became twice as strong, etc, etc, yadda yadda, without actually understanding the deeper meaning behind it. Part of the beauty of martial arts is that you’ll never get anywhere if you don’t know what you’re doing, and that’s a trap that so many shounen-series fall into.

Hunter x Hunter is different though: it links the series concepts of Nen and combines it with realistic fighting abilities. It’s true that the lead characters are talented, but the reason how the powers work here is detailed and fleshed out in one of the most believable ways I’ve ever seen in a shounen series. Or a series based on superpowers for that matter.

Then the exposition: a lot of time of this OVA is spent on outlining the unique features of the world that the characters have run into (Greed Island), ranging from how the rules work, to strategies one could take in playing it. It fleshes out the residents, as well as the other players inside it and explores their motivations. Seeing as there are only eight episodes, a lot of time is just spent on people talking, and I don’t mean in the way in which series as Katanagatari use their dialogue to build-up to a climax each episode.

The reason why exposition often gets boring is… well, because it is. When you’re detailing some obscure details of your world that are shallow but require a ton of of time to explain it just wastes time. Here however, I was consistently interested in what was going on. This OVA kept making me hungry to learn more about what was going on.

This is of course also helped by the fact that it has already seventy episodes full of character-development behind it. And unlike the TV-series, the pacing here wasn’t as unbalanced: this show knew when to shut up and move on and not go on for too long on the same subject. It’s a shame that the best characters are virtually gone in the OVA, but Gon and Killua themselves are excellent characters themselves as well, and the creators did well in giving the new characters believable personalities, rather than stuffing a bunch of stereotypes in. My only complaint here was one particularly overacting minor character. You’ll know who I mean when you see him.

Storytelling: 9/10 – One of the rare cases of exposition and training arcs done right.
Characters: 8/10 – The best characters… aren’t here. the ones that are here do a great job, though.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Not as good as the OVA, but decent enough.
Setting: 9/10 – Excellent. A lot of time is spent on fleshing the setting and back-story out, and it’s very interesting to watch it unfold

Suggestions:
– .Hack//Sign
– Tenpou Ibun Ayakashi Ayashi
– Darker than Black
(no need to recommend the first Hunter X Hunter OVa of course. It’s a truly excellent OVA, but by the time you’ve arrived at Greed Island you’ve probably already seen it ^^;)
PS. A short update on my to-watchlist: I still have three OVAs left to watch before I can get to the 50 series on my to-watch-list that I’ve been looking forward to the most. It’s taken me two years, but I’m finally nearly finished with its first (and by far largest) part. Just do expect that from now on I won’t take any new suggestions to watch.

Uragiri wa Boku no Namae wo Shitteiru – 02

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



Yeah, yeah. I know I’m shuffling around series more than ever this season, but who cares, this episode was goooood. Consider Hakuouki dropped now, because Uragiri’s second installment did just about everything better.

I was a bit reluctant with this series. Not because of the gay undertones, but rather because of the prospect of another gothic show with angst and bishies. Sounds like Vampire Knight, doesn’t it? But really, the reason why Vampire Knight sucked wasn’t because of its angst and bishies. It was because of its completely shallow plot and characters and the horrid character of Zero. There have been plenty of good examples of series with bishies, and really: who cares about the homosexual undertones?

One of the biggest reasons why I consider this to be better than Hakuouki is the voice-acting, which was painfully rushed in the latter. It’s like the creators were “ah, just act like a hot guy and you won’t have to worry about being credible”; it’s the same thing that annoys me about all those cheap moe show. The characters here however are credible and don’t overact despite the angst. On top of that, the lead character is much, much more bearable here. Sure, Yuki isn’t exactly the most useful character, but at the same time with such a power as his, on top of being a girl in a guy’s body you can expect why he has emotional problems. And on top of that, he also isn’t the guy to run into a building full of murdering ronin without thinking things through. That also is a plus.

But what impressed me the most about this episode was its climax. Seriously, that was some really good combination of music, dialogue, atmosphere and build-up. I can also sense a lot of creativity in the art department: the gothic undertones are there, but they’re subtle, and the use of CG is the same. The plot itself also is quite creative: not in its ideas, but its execution. I really must praise the director for what he did here, and looking at his work, it seems that all of his works as a main director have been surprisingly solid: I loved what he did to Asatte no Houkou, Rescue Wings and Tsukihime: all had excellent characterizations.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Giant Killing – 03

by psgels, posted in Giant Killing



Another excellent episode, three episodes in and Giant Killing still is able to consistently entertain with its excellent chemistry. I love how, instead of trying to play as nice as possible, the coach seeks conflict. Now that Murakoshi isn’t allowed to take the lead anymore, the hierarchies that unfold are really interesting to watch. This episode also showed that he isn’t perfect: one of his experiments goes completely wrong and everyone just ends up arguing with each other.

A new player also makes his entrance, some sort of narcissist who actually turns out to be quite good. The next episode should be interesting to see what he can do as the new captain of the team. It’s pulling something similar to Ookiku Furikabutte: instead of building up, go against a really good team right away.

I also think that this is the series with the most amount of variety in terms of ages this seasons: there are teenagers, people in their thirties, we have supporters in their forties and also the kids are part of them. The only ones are missing are the really old people and high schoolers. And to be honest, I’m not at all sad about the latter.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Hakuouki – 03

by psgels, posted in Hakuouki



Okay, so now it is getting a bit annoying to see the lead character run everywhere, only to get protected. You can see that she really wants to help, and I can very much understand that she’s not going to get good at swordsmanship in order to be able to take on a number of adults, but when she runs into a building in which there are ton of angry guys waiting to kill everything that has to do with the Shinsengumi, she just jumps into the realm of the stupid.

In any case, with this episode it’s pretty much clear that the creators just plan to use the setting of the Shinsengumi for their own story: apparently Shinpachi Nagakura and Toudou Heisuke died of their wounds later on. Here, they pretty much survive. I doubt that the characters are actually going to Ezo at this point, but who knows. With the sub-par acting, it’s really going to depend on the character-development and the series’ ideas for its plot.

I didn’t like how the unnamed members of the shinsengumi are pretty much just cardboard cut-outs. Seriously, they don’t do anything; they just stand there and play for furniture that can draw swords. For the main plot, I really do want a bit more depth on the villains at this rate. At this point I’m still struggling a bit with the believability of this series: with some series it’s apparent that the creators did their research. Here it is not. It’s also the way in which the characters heal within like what? A week?

However, damn, that soundtrack was really good! When you just look at the pacing, then this episode was quite good. This is one of those series that you shouldn’t watch for its fights, but for its atmosphere, but that one was really good. The voice acting is bad at times, but the characters are getting fleshed out by their dialogue. This is one of those series that could get really good later on. Or it can just remain forgettable and a waste of time.
Rating: (Enjoyable)

Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood – 53

by psgels, posted in Full Metal Alchemist - Brotherhood




Wow, what an episode. Roy is back in the spotlight, and immediately steals it again. The action-scenes around him were just awesome. The animation, the way that Envy kept playing dirty and screwing up, it all worked wonderfully, not to mention that it was an exceptionally emotionally charged fight as we finally see him get the chance to avenge Hughes’ death.

And even though Mustang was incredibly powerful, it’s not like he god-moded himself through the fight as well: the creators made sure to not make this into just a one-sided bashfest due to that twist at the end of the episode: Mustang not taking into consideration that Envy could also change into Hawkeye. While not Darker than Black, this is another series in which being the strongest doesn’t necessarily mean being able to win every fight, and it does so without overdoing it by having weaklings win against incredible odds. Of course, this was a bit of a cliched cliff-hanger: the fact that we do not see Envy shoot means that he’s either going to miss, or just not shoot at all due to something (either Roy or the real Hawkeye) getting in his way.

And aside from the action, I also love those tiny details that are in the non-action parts of the show, like how during the broadcast, some of the guys had trouble holding in their laughs as they played around with the military on the phone. At this point, they really have nothing to lose, so they can really take such a risk of hacking into radio broadcasts, in order to gather up as many allies as possible.

One small bit of criticism here is the following: the past few episodes have really focused on a select amount of characters. I also would have liked what the characters who weren’t in the spotlights were doing. Not much, of course, just a few shots of were they were in each episode. For example, Hohenheim still is walking around somewhere, but we have no idea where that is. I actually think that it would make the series more complete if we occasionally got a small update on what guys like him, Al and also characters like Izumi and Father were up to.
Rating: *** (Awesome)