Seikai no Monshou – 06

by psgels, posted in Seikai no Monshou



Blogging this series has shown me that I’m very selectively punctual. While I promised that I’d blog this series weekly, this entry has had more than a week delay, apologies for that. Blogging this series has been an interesting experiment, but in the end I don’t think that I can blog a series that has already been fully released consistently and at this point, I think I’ll just end up marathoning the two Banner of the Stars, instead of blogging them weekly. I know it’s something that’s completely in my head, but still.

In any case, a great episode. It was very intriguing. This episode showed a completely different side of the Abh: the elitist and racist one. This episode rocked in the way that it slowly revealed the exact stance of the Baron that Jinto and Lafiel ended up at. This episode showed how great this series is at building up: that final shot of Lafiel smiling was a very powerful one.

And the emotions: anime is often a medium of overacting, but this show is different. The subtle emotions of the characters show exactly how they feel, and yet no attempt is made to make them over the top, apart from perhaps those nameless maids.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Armed Librarians – The Book of Bantorra – 21

by psgels, posted in Armed Librarians - The Book of Bantorra



So, the slaughter has begun. I must say that I really like all of the background behind this apocalyptic arc. Finally we don’t have some sort of evil demon who is about to destroy the world: the background behind this one is much more complex and interesting.

This episode passed, and it’s still a bloody mystery as to what happened to Noloty in the previous episode. We do get some hints, though: that boy she was with has the power to unleash his emotions to others. Whatever happened between him, Noloty and the Governor of Paradise, it killed off Noloty, made Arkit believe that the Armed Librarians killed her off, and somehow turned him into a lizard. While the latter is probably an aftereffect of Arkit’s powers, the big mystery is why the Governor of Paradise actually revealed himself in order to get the job done. Is the church this close to extinction?

I do have one point of criticism, though. Ireia’s death was probably the first cliched one I’ve seen in this series. It was by far the least impressive one, because of how over the top it was. All deaths in Bantorra thus far had something special, with the most impressive being Volken and Noloty, but with Ireaia… the creators hinted a bit to much to the fact that she was about to die.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Durarara – 07

by psgels, posted in Durarara



This time: Shizuo. This was a pretty straightforward background episode: we learn what drives Shizuo, we get to see his past and how he grew up, and we also see how he’s connected to some of the other characters in this series. At first I thought that he was deeply involved into the yakuza-stuff along with Izaya, but that turns out to be a bit differently.

Instead, he’s just another one of Izaya’s victims. Izaya is a strange guy: we know that he’s involved in shady business, but some of his actions are just strange, and don’t seem to have any particular merit or reward: why would he make Shizuo’s life miserable to such an extent? Why would he order some people to kidnap a random girl?

In any case, I like these series that are about all kinds of generations, like this one: we’ve got high schoolers, college students and working adults, the flashbacks are focused on kids, and on top of that we also have a bunch of people in their thirties and forties, plus an immortal one. In any case, this episode also explains why Izaya and Shizuo knew Celty. One thing that I also love about these flashbacks is that they show not just one part of a character’s background, they show all of it through all kinds of ages. It gives such a better feeling of the characters, rather than just another “flashback arc”.

Also, the references to other anime. In such a series, it’s actually pretty nice to see ads for series that are this recent: it shows that series take place right now, rather than in some ambiguous time period that could just as well be 1990 or 2000. I was surprised to see Cencoroll pop up among them, though. It’s obvious why Jigoku Shoujo and Baccano are often referenced in this series, but I like the little wink of the creators of such an independent movie. It’s not really a parody either, and instead it feels a part of the setting.
Rating: * (Good)

Ookiku Furikabutte Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



At first sight, baseball series must all look the same. I too had that same prejudice about the genre before I started watching them. However, what I like about them is that they all have their own things that they’re good at: Touch has its character-development, One Outs has its mind games, Cross Game has its slice of life and Princess Nine has its bombastic and bold execution. Ookiku Furikabutte is the proverbial page-turner: I found myself marathoning through this series, just to see what would happen next.

I’ve often criticized baseball matches for dragging on for too long, but here it’s different: the first season of Ookiku Furikabutte only has two matches, one of which takes up a whopping eleven episodes. Miraculously though, the creators somehow managed to keep it engaging from beginning to end. Out of all the baseball series I’ve seen, this is the one that put the most emphasis on teamwork. It does not have a god-moded pitcher or batter who can single-handedly save games: every single pitch, every single throw or swing is important and could have a major impact on the match.

Because the pitcher inthis series isn’t able to take care of the entire defense by himself, we for once get to see every member of the team in the spotlight, and with his own chances to shine, even the team of the opponent is fleshed out in this way. The baseball matches here are full of tactics that often need to be re-adjusted for every different player, and the creators have really shown that they have a deep knowledge about their subject.

Despite this, I still have a few problems withthe main pitcher, though. It seems to me that the creators tried a bit too hard to make him step away from your average lead character-pitcher that they completely dived into the opposite side of the spectrum. Mihashi is such a loser and socially inept kid that he’s more like some sort of a plot device, rather than an actual character, and I feel that the creators overplayed his strange quirks a bit too much, and that’s a shame because he does get the most ttention in this series. This takes precious time away from the side-characters, that could have been used to develop them.

Overall, A-1 Pictures animated this series also very skillfully: all of the character-designs are distinct and not just carbon copies with just different hair slapped on top of them. Their animation knows when to be smooth and when to cut corners in order to give a good feel of the ongoing baseball match, with the only notable annoyance being the constant facial distortions of Mihashi that get old after a while.

Overall, while I’ve seen more interesting characters in baseball series, I have not seen baseball matches as detailed as outlined here. This is really a series for the baseball fans out there, because this series perfectly captures the essence of how gruelingly long and intense such a match can be. That second season is looking very promising now.

Storytelling: 9/10 – Very well written baseball: every pitch, hit, throw and catch counts.
Characters: 8/10 – Good characterization, but simple characters and an overly quirky lead character.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Solid.
Setting: 9/10 – Very knowledgeable about all sorts of baseball techniques and concepts.

Kobato – 18

by psgels, posted in Kobato



Well, I’ve got to hand it to Clamp: they did it again. Kobato is a great example of why an anime doesn’t necessarily need huge production-values or incredibly solid direction, in order to have a soul. Wonderful characters can be written with any kind of budget, and while it definitely helps, it’s definitely not a necessary.

Because really: at this point I’ve been completely captured by Kobato’s charms. This isn’t exactly like Letter Bee, in which the characters have enough charms for me to keep watching, this is something more: at this point I consider Kobato to be a genuinely good series and I really admire how well the creators managed to flesh out Kobato and make her such a likable lead.

When it first appeared, the debt-problem sure seemed cheesy. But here’s the thing: it was cheesy, if it just was introduced and resolved within one episode. At this point the debt problems have evolved in a great driving force for the drama among the characters. It ain’t gonna destroy the world, we’re not stuck in a cheesy love triangle. Instead we have a bunch of people who try to protect something that they truly care for, even though the odds slowly stack up against them.

This kind of character-development was really what I was hoping for when I gave this series a chance.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Sora no Oto – 07

by psgels, posted in Sora no Oto



Wow… just wow. To everyone who was expecting this to be a fluffy and light-hearted series: this episode is here to prove you wrong.

But yeah, that’s one of the things about anime: while it’s often relatively simple to tell whether a series is going to be good or bad, after blogging for more than four years I still can’t predict at all when a seemingly innocent series like this one is going to blow me away. This episode caught me utterly by surprise: what an execution!

While this show has its moments of innocence, it’s moments like this that remind us what would happen if war would break out again. And really, this episode revealed that it’s been lie, what? Five years since the last war? This episode didn’t just do a wonderful job in fleshing out Phylicia (it only took one episode for us to understand EXACTLY what kind of a character she is, without making her a stereotype), but it also showed how fragile the setting is.

This episode also gave a lot of more hints about what happened to the past. First of all, the Japanese somehow took over Europe. After that, or during that, there followed a technological boom, and what I expect is AI going out of control (humans in machines don’t control them like the way they moved in that flashback). In order to get rid of them, nuclear weapons were used. The Japanese died of the aftereffects of the fallout, and the French resettled the area. My guess is that we’re currently at one of the few areas that were unscathed. My guess is that the current generation of wars either is about a few survivors of that strange AI (that would explain why they called the attacker of Vingt the “Invisible Angel of Death”, rather than just another war, or it’s a power struggle between the survivors for the last remaining patches of fertile land.

I must say, I’m impressed by the director. His two previous works, Elfen Lied and Denpateki na Kanojo both had some very good direction, but both were held back by a certain degree of unbelievability: characters would do stuff, just to advance the plot. In this series, his focus is EXACTLY to fix this. And here this episode comes and shows that he can also hit really hard when he wants to. I really have to say that Elfen Lied would have been a truly amazing series if it had its characters as well written as in Sora no Oto.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Hanamaru Youchien – 06

by psgels, posted in Hanamaru Youchien



A bit of a lesser episode because it had some unnecessary stereotypes: the pool episode and the tsundere sister, things that have been done millions of times before. But yeah, I guess that in the context of this series it still had its fresh elements.

That swimsuit was a bit too much, especially considering how Yamamoto had no idea about Tsuchida’s reaction to it. It’s a good thing that she still lives with her parents, because I really don’t think that she could take care of herself on her own… But overall, what set this episode apart was the focus on siblings. And when Tsuchida’s sister wasn’t acting like a shallow tsundere, she was surprisingly down to earth and interesting. And the synchronized swimming part was hilarious.

The thing about this series is that the adults all had lives on high school before they started to work at the kindergarten, which were vastly different compared to what you’d see in high school series, in which kids tend to segue from one to the other quite naturally. Tsuchidahas been characterized pretty well throughout the past six episode, however he remains rather annoying when he keeps ogling at Yamamoto.
Rating: (Enjoyable)

Full Metal Alchemist – 44

by psgels, posted in Full Metal Alchemist - Brotherhood



This show just keeps surprising me. The reunion between Al and his father was handled wonderfully well, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg of everything that went on in this episode. It’s episodes like this that have a great balance between building up and actual climaxes.

It’s actually very interesting to see Al meet his father, without Ed. They probably would have gotten along a lot less if Ed was there, who has a lot of grudges against his father as we saw earlier. Ed would not have wanted to stay longer than necessary with this guy, but here Al has managed to create a bridge between the two of them. I really like how the creators chose their reunion to be subtle and not over-dramatic at all. The part where they didn’t know what to say to each other was full of subtleties.

Quite the opposite was Lin’s return, however. Talk about intense! We’ve already seen that Homunculi can break with the right amount of pressure at their weak points. Here we see Lin do it from the inside. Also, note how in his memories, Hohenheim is amongst Greed’s friends. So that explains why he got the idea to betray Father.

And again completely different: Ed’s return. Instead, that was much more of the fun kind of action scene. The “car scene” was absolutely hilarious, and I’m amazed at how much personality these two chimeras have already received. I already like them a lot, and they’ve been in like what? 2 episodes now?
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Cross Game – 45

by psgels, posted in Cross Game



Six episodes left, and Seishu’s baseball team has reached the best four, which means that only two baseball matches need to be played. Oh, let’s hope that this will mean a ton of slice of life in order to fill up most of the time, rather than dragging these final two matches on for more than an episode (although this will probably happen for at least that final match).

This episode though was wonderful. I think it was one of the only Cross Game episodes that played its drama straight, and talk about contrast! It really showed the development between Kou and Aoba, which has been subtle but present. In the past number of episodes, Aoba has finally realized completely that Kou has surpassed her. She’s gotten more and more intimidated by him, even when this episode showed that she still can exactly see where his technique needs work.

In contrast, Akaishi’s development was a lot less subtle, and I don’t even think that it classifies as development. It’s simply that Akane has gotten to the hospital, and he’s so worried about her that he starts making stupid errors. It’s more a sign that he’s crawling out of his shell: Kou and Aoba helped each other move past Wakaba’s death. Akaishi had nobody, so that’s why he wasn’t as strong as these two to let his worries affect his performance.

Aside from that, the baseball match was great because the creators actually didn’t try to shallowly create fake tension by having everything decided by the final pitch. That’s also my biggest fear for the final episode. Because seriously, I’m betting my hat that the series is going to end with that kind of plot device. Touch is the only baseball series that I’ve seen that actually did it right. Aside from that it’s all too forced even though apart from that most other baseball series tend to be excellent.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Heartcatch Precure – 02

by psgels, posted in Heartcatch Precure



Ah, you know what? Who cares. I’ve been looking for something to replace Ookami Kakushi with. I used to be a big fan of mahou shoujo, I blogged quite a few mahou shoujo in the past. Heck, even my favourite series ever can be considered as a mahou shoujo. It’s awesome to finally see another one that might actually be good, so I’m going to blog it. I can always drop it at the start of the spring season when it turns out to be too repetitive.

The thing with the shows that are currently airing is that while it’s below average in terms of nearly every genre, but there’s one genre that blossoms: the kids’ series. Marie & Gali is a great educational series, Kaidan Restaurant always delivers with simple but effective horror, Anymal Tantei Kiruminzoo has also gotten fun again, there’s Hanamaru Youchien and Kobato, where kids are very important characters, and now this series has appeared. It’s been ages since we’ve had this many actually good kids’ series.

So yeah, in these entries I’m going to try and explain why the heck I’m such a big fan of this genre. There are many aspects that can make a good mahou shoujo, but for me the key often was a vibrant cast of characters. Another obvious one is of course a continuous storyline, like in Mahou Shoujotai, Sasami Mahou Shoujo Club, Umi Monogatari, Nanoha and the latter half of Full Moon wo Sagashite, but even episodic they can be a lot of fun.

In a lot of cases, it’s really not about the premises. Take one of the most successful mahou shoujo out there: Futago Hime. Its premise is that it follows a bunch of twin princesses as they go on adventures and meet cute princes and princesses of other countries. It sounds completely ridiculous, but the good animation and fresh execution made it a very enjoyable series. Or Telepathy Shoujo Ran: an adventure series in which a bunch of telepathic kids solve mysteries. However, what made that series enjoyable was its characterization and chemistry that even made a number of downright stupid cases and mysteries really enjoyable. And then there is of course the archetype of good mahou shoujo: Cardcaptor Sakura which was a very enjoyable slice of life series, combined with its various adventures.

But yeah, the problem is that there are also a lot of bad mahou shoujo. Kamichama Karin, Saint October, Shugo Chara… they had no personality, were way too repetitive and lacked creativity. A big mistake I also see in bad shoujo series is too big of a focus on hot guys that try to be cool, rather than have a personality (I’m looking at you, mysterious guy who appeared out of nowhere in this episode: you’d better have a personality). A good mahou shoujo isn’t just a matter of adapting a manga and writing random adventure: you have to make them constantly fresh and enjoyable.

Anyway, about this episode: one thing that I also noticed about this series is how great the soundtrack is. Yasuharu Takanashi composed it, and some of his other include the soundtrack for Jigoku Shoujo, Toward the Terra, Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge and Mononoke. Awesomeness. I also liked that touch of having one of the previous Precures, being one of the lead characters grandmother.

In any case, what I like best about this series at this point is its wide variety of emotions throughout each episode, and how seemingly easy it manages to convey that. Now if you ask me, that’s the core of storytelling, whether you’ve talking about the incredibly complex Mouryou no Hako, or just a simple and fun mahou shoujo as the Seventh Precure series, which finally seems to have put more effort into its execution.
Rating: ** (Excellent)