Durarara – 13

by psgels, posted in Durarara




Now… this is just so good. The entire start of this episode screamed build-up: we skip forth half a year, we get to see new characters (like Shinra’s father who suddenly pops up), while the narrator is Anri. The build-up however was just so excellent, the final scene of this episode made a lot more impact than I could have expected at this point. And we’re only at episode one of this series’ second half!

It’s now when this series really has to prove itself by surpassing the already excellent first half. And based on this series, the creators really might actually do it. I love how well written the dialogue of this series is. This episode did so many things at once: it established who the characters were, giving everyone a short scene to confirm that things have settled a bit, only to hit right back at this notion of no development with sudden new plot twists that set the character-development in motion again. The police officer, for example. That was a surprise for him to be bugging Celty so much that she’d lose her nerve over it.

Like its predecessor Baccano, the script for this series again is truly excellent, but in a completely different way. The way the creators in this episode played around with all kinds of different moods and themes, while keeping true to their characters was truly excellent, including the way the creators use their background music and sound effects, which is bold and varied. I’m really curious to see how far the creators are going to be able to take this.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Kaichou wa Maid-Sama – 02

by psgels, posted in Kaichou wa Maid-Sama



I’ve been thinking a lot about whether or not to blog Kaichou wa Maid Sama. Basically, the big reason I hardly ever blog Shoujo romantic comedies is because the genre has evolved in such a way that it’s a bit impossible to really tell whether they’re going to be awesome or not, just based on its first episodes. Ten years ago it may have been different (I mean, one look at Kodocha and His and Her Circumstances would tell that they were going to be awesome), but nowadays, I find it very hard to determine whether a shoujo romantic comedy is going to be another Ouran or Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge. Just take Itazura na Kiss, for another example: hilarious in its first few episodes, but completely falling apart after that.

But you know what, I decided to have faith in this series. It’s perhaps not the funniest series this season, but I like its sharpness. The drama is awkward to watch, but in a good way. This isn’t just a series about the romantic adventures of two random teenagers, but it’s also a bit of a battle between the sexes, and it also focuses a lot on freedom and its limits. It lacks subtlety in this department, but that’s one thing that made the drama and the parts in which Misaki forced down her biased opinion on all of the guys in the school. Even though I’ve often seen comments on how this series has nothing original, that kind of drama taken seriously is something I have yet to see in a shoujo series, and because of that I’m giving it a chance.

On top of that, I also have a lot of faith in the director, Hiroaki Sakurai. This guy has really shown that he can be hilarious, while also really good at drama (heck, he co-directed Kodocha and directed Les Miserables, for goodness’ sake). A lot is of course also going to depend on the manga, but this guy is going to be able to get its full potential out of it. And it really shows so far. The past two episodes have been well paced and calculated, with just a right combination between comedy, drama, chemistry and those awkward moments.
Rating: * (Good)

Ookiku Furikabutte – 28

by psgels, posted in Ookiku Furikabutte



As for the series I’m not going to blog:
– It’s a bit pointless to watch Heroman as an action-series when the creators bluntly skip half of the fights.
– B Gata H Kei has a prime: an important side-character who actually has a boyfriend other than the lead male. Still, regarding blogging it… it’s not the series that I think I can be able to write about every week.

In any case, this season surely turned out to be excellent, and better than I ever could have expected. There are so few series that aren’t worthwile, and just about every series save from a bunch of kids’ shows and KissXSis, Ikkitousen and Koihime (and perhaps Arakawa, but that’s just my bias) has its own strengths. And the best of the season hasn’t even aired yet.

What I also love about this season is that it’s overall a lot darker and more down to earth than the previous season. There, we had a lot of bright fantasy that was a lot focused on brightness and heart warming storytelling. This season, while there are of course the upbeat Heroman, Daimaou and B Gata H Kei, the best shows of this season are actually far more based around down to earth and straight to-the-point dialogue. From the outside it indeed looks less flashy, the content might become even sharper because of it. It’s interesting, because this Spring Season is completely different from the spring seasons we’ve seen during the past five years or so. Usually, those seasons had lots of fantasy. This season barely has any.

Instead, there really is a TON of dialogue, and the beast in this hasn’t even aired yet. It’s also going to be a huge challenge for me to try and understand it, especially since in the previous season most stuff was either a) subbed fast, b) for kids c) didn’t have dialogue that was that hard to understand. There are a ton of shows this season however that look like they’re neither, so please do correct me when I make a mistake. My Japanese at this point is NOWHERE near perfect, so I might pick up a number of things wrongly.

Having said that, after Noitamina Ookiku Furikabutte was THE show that was bound to rock this season. Especially compared to the baseball series of the previous year (Cross Game and Taishou Yakyuu Musume of the last summer) it excels in exactly the things that those shows were rather bad at: the matches. You could really see that the creators put a ton of research in this.

Before they start however, we’re treated for a few episodes of slice of life, which in this series mostly consists out of people, talking about baseball, introducing characters and analyzing patterns that feel out of place in an actual match. The team that they have to play against for their next match also has a bit of a weirdo as their ace. If I understood things correctly, he’s a guy whose average isn’t that good, but when he hits he hits HARD. I can understand why the creators came up with him: his unpredictability promises quite a few interesting situations for Mihashi.

A lot of things passed the radar this episode, but a major theme was Abe versus Mihashi. In my review of the first season I mentioned that one of the things that annoyed me was that the creators overplayed Mihashi’s quirks, but at the same time they have no intention whatsoever to not develop them. And really, I can totally understand Abe for losing his patience. The guy’s a perfectionist, and quite a proud one at that, and while he tries to get Mihashi to feel comfortable, he just can’t lower himself to Mihashi’s level. Even in this episode, when he knows what his problem is, he still loses his temper. I feel like the rest of the season will focus a lot on him, trying to find a balance between pushing his ideas into Mihashi and allowing him to be himself.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
PS. Is everything clear about the episode numbering. This is basically how I always number my sequels unless they’re significantly different from their prequels. Basically episode 28 of Ookiku Furikabutte is just the same as episode 2 of Ookiku Furikabutte ~ Natsu no Taikai-hen~, but is that clear for everyone?

Some Quick First Impressions: Hetalia World Series, Senkou no Night Raid and Metal Fight Beyblade – Explosion

by psgels, posted in Hetalia: Axis Powers, Senkou no Night Raid, Some Quick First Impressions

Hetalia World Series

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is the personification of a certain mediterranean country.
Healia, please. Start putting labels on your characters. This episode introduced a bunch of new characters of which I had no idea who they were. It’s of course nice to see more characters like these, but it’s a bit pointless if you don’t know what coumtry they represent. It’s not good to assume that everyone read the manga, studio Deen. As for this episode, it was funny as usual. I do hope that the episodes will get released a bit faster now. This isn’t really like a series as Marie & Gali, in which I’m really willing to wait multiple weeks for the next episode.
ED: Same as usual.
Potential: 40%

Senkou no Night Raid

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is an international spy.
Well, there you have it, A-1 surely is on fire this season. This episode was really well made: it had a lot of spy action, but it cleverly kept everything from going over the top, and instead kept everything down and true to the abilities of the characters involved. The dialogue itself was also excellent: well written and it actually kept the language barrier: the Chinese people speak Chinese here. That was also a bit annoying though, because I had no idea what they were saying. But still, when you compare this to Canaan it looks very promising. The characters have a few quirks and traits, but despite that they don’t feel out of place. This should prove to be a pretty nice spy thriller during the upcoming season.
ED: Interesting visuals, but a dull ballad.
Potential: 80%

Metal Fight Beyblade – Explosion

Short Synopsis: Our lead character wants to have the legendary spinning top of the galaxy unicorn.
It’s hilarious how poorly produced this series actually is. Cutting corners is of course one thing, but this episode was just so ridiculously cheap. Take the first half for example: it shows an arena full of fans as they watch a bunch of people battle with their spinning tops (yeah…). At one point, the creators simply forget that there’s supposed to be an audience and instead turn the entire audience in some sort of fancy wallpaper as the matches stop and the characters start rambling on about some kind of kid who disturbed their match from out of nowhere. The second half has the lead character of this series search for some sort of legendary beyblade. When he finds it (yeah, this all happens in the span of one episode; no build-up whatsoever) it’s followed by a huge amount of cheap-ass tricks to try and make the moment of a boy grabbing a spinning top from a wall look as epic as possible. I got a good laugh out of it, that’s for sure. But the thing that I’ve been wondering about these kids’ shows is the following: if they’re going to be cheap, why don’t they just recap some sort of kids’ show from the nineties? That’s going to be even cheaper, and it’s not like these kids are gonna notice.
ED: I could swear that the vocalists were on drugs when they sung this in.
Potential: -20%

Some Quick First Impressions: Saikyou Busho-den Sangoku Engi, Arakawa Under the Bridge, Hime Chen! Otogi Chikku Idol Lilpri

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Saikyou Busho-den Sangoku Engi

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is another famous character from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms novel.
I was not looking forward to this series at all. With all of the cheesy adaptations that have been done before, I had pretty much given up hope for this franchise. But damn, this episode had some of the best animation of the new season. There are hardly any still frames, everything is moving like it should. The animation is still a bit jerky at times, but it’s so much better than just show a bunch of talking heads whose mouths move up and down, or only move three or four frames each scene. The storytelling itself was a bit rushed and the characters tended to overact, but wow, this actually has some potential.
OP: Matsumoto Leiji homage?
ED: Decent ballad.
Potential: 50%%

Arakawa Under the Bridge

Short Synopsis: Our lead character ends up living under a bridge with a cute girl.
I did a little check. In two years, most directors are able to handle two or three series, right? Well, in the same timespan Shinbo has done a whopping TWELVE of them, excluding four OVAs. At this point I’ve pretty much given up on trying to watch him delivering some half-assed product, just for one or two good episodes that might or might not come. This episode ultimately was dull. I usually like a lot of dialogue, but this time it was ruined by a hopelessly overacting lead character (it also didn’t help that he had exactly the same voice as a ton of other Shinbo-lead characters). The humour overall was predictable and hardly ever funny. With the high standard of the rest of this series, is there really a reason to continue watching this series? If there is, then please enlighten me because at this point I’m way too biased to give Shinbo’s series a fair chance.
Potential: 0%

Hime Chen! Otogi Chikku Idol Lilpri

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is destined to be the legendery Little Princess. Get it? Lilpri. Little Princess. *har har*
As if this season couldn’t get any better, even the cheap mahou shoujo which I initially wrote off as just another Jewel Pet clone turns out to be much more enjoyable than I imagined. And don’t get me wrong, the story behind this series is utterly terrible. All of the fairy tale princesses are disappearing and because fairy tales can’t live without their princesses the queen of fairy land sets three animals out to wake up the “super miracle idols” (an actual quote from the dialogue. It sounds every bit as silly as it looks) who are supposed to very vaguely represent Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and Kaguya-hime, in order to get them to sing horribly cheesy songs in front of live audiences. This premise is just… stupid beyond all belief. Even for kids’ show standards! And yet, despite such a cheesy plot, there’s one thing that this series did surprisingly well: the chemistry. The cheese and the characters made this into a surprisingly fun series to watch. The three lead kids in this series are surprisingly likable (and actually sound and act like real kids. I loved the part in which the animal sidekicks were looking for their princesses, and just dismissed the lead characters because they were too young.
OP: Don’t tell me they’re going to sing this in every episode?
ED: TOO. MUCH. SUGAR.
Potential: 30%

Heartcatch Precure – 09

by psgels, posted in Heartcatch Precure




Another excellent episode, there’s no other way to it. Tsubomi’s relationship with her parents got under the loop this time. On top of being quite a sad episode, it’s awesome to see that the creators have no intention to forget about the parents this time. You often see series gloss over the lead characters’ parents in anime, but showing these things can give such a good insight on how they decided to raise their children, explaining why the character in question grew up the way he/she did.

The way that they were once workaholics, who eventually chose their child over their jobs is perhaps nothing new, but it added so much to Tsubomi’s character. I really felt sorry for her to have to sit alone on a bench for years. It’s interesting how her grandmother also didn’t seem to have time for her, or stimulate her to go and play with other kids. You can see that she still fears that her parents are going to go away again, up to the point at which she even was too afraid to explain it.

with this, the story of the baseball boy also isn’t such a filler anymore. Instead, the creators meant to introduce someone who Tsubomi could feel vaguely familiar to, and they meant to show her a case in which a child did not want to get in the way of his parents’ happiness. In a way, Tsubomi’s parents are now also trying to make up for the time that they couldn’t be there for her.

The animation during the fights was also very well done, and you can see that the recycled scenes are getting slightly shorter with every episode. There’s one thing I still don’t get, though: the heart seeds. Perhaps it’s something I missed from a previous Precure series, but why are these farts so important? We’ve hardly seen them used, and the recycled scene around it didn’t make sense in this episode: we see it appearing at a point at which neither Tsubomi nor Erika could have been near it to store it in the… “heart seed container”. Or however it may be called.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood – 51

by psgels, posted in Full Metal Alchemist - Brotherhood




Whoa, so many things happened in this episode. What an awesome way to enter the fifth and final season of this series; it was action-packed from start to finish and just about every side-story the creators showed here kicked ass.

The clone-army, which we saw awakened at the end of the previous episode, was indeed as intense as I expected. It had it coming that they would freak out, but I really have to give credit to Bones for animating this so well. It also was very nice to see not just Barry the Chopper’s body back, but also the same wall that was created in the same fight still standing. It’s the same as in Lior: these things ain’t gonna fix themselves, and it really adds to the setting to keep track of the damages that are done to buildings and surroundings during the past fights in the story.

The best animation in this episode definitely came from Envy, though. His scene was short, but incredibly powerful, especially considering that Mai Chang is going to have to face him all by herself. It may have been stupid of her to take Envy back to where he wanted to go, but at the same time this flaw does add to her character. What would be awesome now if for her to actually redeem herself, and learn from her mistakes.

Also, against my expectations it was Kimblee instead of Sloth who came to rescue Pride, but of course that makes all the more sense, since Kimblee could reach the guy a lot faster than Sloth would, and he also would not have any problems blowing up a wall. It’s still a bit of a mystery why Al let it all happen, though. Even considering that he didn’t know at all that this was possible, you would have to get some sort of clue after seeing Pride hit on his helmet for who knows how many hours. But then again, Al has been going through a rough time. My guess is that he was so relieved that he was able to something despite his condition, and I think that he was much more focused on not trying to lose his body. Which made his comeback all the more worthwhile.

So yeah, an awesome episode. If the rest of this series is going to be like this, we’re in for one hell of a finale. It’s just a shame that the new OP was a disappointment, though. Both the song and mood in my opinion failed to capture what this series is about, and instead made it look like some cheesy sentimental drama. All of the shots we saw were of people looking gloomy or angry, being sad or looking downward. What I got from this series however, was to look upward: don’t resign to your fate; instead you should do something about it!
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Some Quick First Impressions: Giant Killing, Hakuouki and SD Gundam Sangokuden Brave Battle Warriors

by psgels, posted in Giant Killing, Hakuouki, Some Quick First Impressions

Giant Killing

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a famous football coach
Now this is why I love anime. There just are those times when these series come around, who completely exceed my expectations. This season was already full of these series, but Giant Killing takes the cake. It’s been ages since Studio Deen really came out with a new and fresh premise, so I wasn’t expecting much of them at this point (as shown by Hakuouki, which pretty much was them and their bishies again). And here this episode comes, and it’s SO WELL made. The characterization is by far the best of all the first episodes I’ve seen this season so far. It’s only one episode, and the creators have already shown that they know and understand their characters. The chemistry between the hugely varied cast was just awesome to watch. And on top of that, they actually portrayed English football fans really well, INCLUDING actual English, that gets spoken in full sentences, rather than your usual lazy Engrish. The animation also is just awesome: finally we have another series that attempts to experiment with its own style. The football matches are animated really smoothly. At first I thought that Ookiku Furikabutte would naturally become this season’s best sports series, but damn. It’s got some serious competition. And really: this season rocks because we haven’t even gotten to the best stuff yet!
OP: One of the best OPs of the year so far. J-Polka. What brilliant mind thought of that?
ED: Fun and exciting.
Potential: 90%

Hakuouki

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets involved with the rather shady business of the Shinsengumi.
Another show, that while it has its problems, also has a ton of potential. Let me get these problems out of the way first: this series does suffer from the harem syndrome: the creators pulling a really far-fetched plot twist just to put the main characters amongst a group of bishies/moe cute girls. The reason the creators pull here is simply one that asks: why hasn’t this happened before? The acting also leaves a lot to be desired. The characters aren’t as well portrayed as they could have, and the characterization for all of the bishies feels kind-of bland. However, this episode focused a lot on characters, just interacting and talking to each other. The script did make up for the sub-par acting, and while the dialogue was nowhere near Amatsuki-levels, it still was surprisingly interesting (speaking of which, Deen: when is that second season going to arrive?!), not to mention that this series has got a pretty interesting back-story that verges on horror during the tense parts. The lead female is also surprisingly likable as well. And I guess that that’s one thing that female lead harem characters often have in favour of male leads: while male leads are often made to be as bland and uninteresting as possible, female leads always have some sort of story behind them that defines their character much, much better and Hakuouki is no exception.
OP: Slightly catchy.
ED: Surprisingly good ballad.
Potential: 60%

SD Gundam Sangokuden Brave Battle Warriors

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is the umpth incarnation of the lead character of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms novels.
Sunrise… why? Just… why? This premise is awful in every single way. It’s the ultimate of all cheap cash-ins, combining the popularity of the Gundam Franchise with the one of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms franchise. So why the heck did you find it a good idea to give this show so many excellent background artists, and such a good soundtrack? These are COMPLETELY WASTED on such a silly script. Seriously Sunrise, is it that much to ask for you to go back to the way you were around ten years ago, in which you just kept delivering awesome premise after awesome premise, trying out new things?
ED: Cheesy J-rock
Potential: -20%

GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class – OVA

by psgels, posted in GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class



Amongst the surprisingly good start of the Spring Season of 2010, GA also comes along to remind why I consider this to be the single best 4-Koma adaptation out there. This episode was everything that made the series so much fun to watch, and I’m really glad that the creators managed to release one more episode of it.

On top of being such a damn good comedy (the characters in this episode were just downright adorable in their quirks, and yet these quirks aren’t overplayed and don’t take control over their entire stereotypes), this episode also breathed so much life into the high school that the story is set in! The second half of this episode in which we see Kisaragi look around for people were really inspired. With high schools being so incredibly overused in anime, this was one of the very few ones that made me a bit nostalgic to my days in high school.

A large part of this episode was also about costume design, and again it was very inspiring and informative, as we followed Kisaragi find her inspiration. That was also one of the great things about this series: the characters already know how to draw. Instead, this series is all about how to apply this art: making it as interesting as possible.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Some Quick First Impressions: Jewel Pet – Tinkle, Rainbow, Angel Beats

by psgels, posted in Angel Beats, Rainbow, Some Quick First Impressions

Jewel Pet – Tinkle

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is socially inept and gets to magical girl.
Last year, when the first season of Jewel Pet aired it really had been ages since a good kids’ show had debuted. I was glad enough that at least something was there. This season however couldn’t be any more different: with Marie&Gali, Heartcatch Precure, Kaidan Restaurant and Kiruminzoo, the standard for this season’s kids’ series has been set higher than ever, so for once, I get the chance to be really strict against a kids’ series! This episode was terrible; I couldn’t find any hint of creativity whatsoever. The creators just grabbed the weird animales of the first season and dumped them to another kid, who has been made as purposefully dull as possible. The hijinks that the creators decided to fill this episode with were just abysmal as well. We get to see endless jokes of the lead ‘Jewel Pet”s magic screwing up and causing trougle. And the animation! The characters all have plastic faces. Especially these jewel pets have had WAAAAAY too much plastic surgery in their life. The different expressions of the characters hardly ever change. Not to mention the utterly horrid character-design of just about every character (seriously… what the heck are those heterochromic cats supposed to be…?). If you’re interested in a kids’ show, go for one of the series I mentioned above. Skip this one.
OP: Horribly cheesy J-pop
ED: Uninspired and bland.
Potential: 0%

Rainbow

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters are delinquents in jail.
Okay, so it did turn out that this series does not have Madhouse’s best staff. The direction feels jerky, and the voice acting is often over the top and cheesy. These are the type of characters who aren’t going to be the most realistic or believable. Having said that, though, this was one heck of an intense episode. What this episode lacked in terms of good acting, it made up for atmosphere with an excellent soundtrack to boot. The prison here was definitely meant to model the worst kinds of circumstances you can run into: it has a paedophile doctor and a downright abusive warden. On top of that, the OP also very much hinted at the fact that the creators have no intention whatsoever to just cut this series off in the middle: they really want to show what happens to these kids when they grow up later, and that’s what I’m looking forward to the most. This can be an interesting test to see whether you can portray interesting characters, even with sub-par acting.
OP: Whoa!
Potential: 70%

Angel Beats

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is dead.
The thing I love about this season is that it keeps exceeding my expectations. From the outside Angel Beats looked like a bit of a Haruhi-clone directed by a comedy director who has never been known for his subtlety. This episode showed that the Haruhi-references were merely homages: it more than has its own story and characters to tell. The director also gives off a very strong performance in this opening episode, making this an excellent opening. There really was a ton of fast-paced dialogue in this episode, and at the same time it was full of subtle and not-so-subtle jokes. It makes use of the fact that it takes place in a world in which nobody can die by killing off people for fun, while still putting in the tensions and fears of being erased by ‘God’. The climax was also very well written and allowed the build-up to really come together. The animation is a bit simple, but the graphics themselves look pretty good, especially the concert scene. The thing I also loved was how this series showed that the NPCs of the world it takes place in all have lives. The concert, was really something to show that these people also just do things for fun, rather than existing randomly. Thumbs up.
Potential: 80%