Seikai no Monshou – 04

by psgels, posted in Seikai no Monshou



I love how this series plays around with morals. In the first episode, it really seemed like the Abh were your stereotypical evil empire full of evil emotionless Nazis that like to conquer people. And yet now that we’ve gotten to see a bit of their side of the story, then we suddenly see that these people are surprisingly human, and despite having power-hungry leaders, it’s not like all of them are heartless monsters. Cultural values and differences also play huge differences on hate and distance between the Abh and other nations. That makes me wonder what the Abh themselves think about their habit of not getting involved with the nations they conquer. Could it be that it’s not like they keep out of the nations they conquer because they believe they’ll be hated and nobody would want to cooperate?

This episode was mostly about these complex kinds of politics, rather than two previous episodes, which were more focused at just Jinto and Lafiel. And it did well in making it sink in that wars can take multiple centuries before being resolved. I hope that one of the future episodes will show the story from the perspective of the opposing alliance of those four countries. That will really allow us as viewers to form a complete picture. That sudden attack of them to the ship came seemingly out of nowhere, so I’m very interested in their exact reason and mindset for initiating that attack.

Overall, we probably won’t see her again after this point, but I liked that captain of the ship a lot. Before she appeared, I had this totally distorted image of the Abh, but she showed that the Abh are a varied race. That’s something that I often miss in stories that make up their own races: sure, the humans are varied, with all sorts of different bastards and nice guys walking around. And yet the elves are tree-loving, intelligent and use bows, dwarfs are small, grumpy and live in caves and the angels are all stuck-up and pretentious. With small tribes, I can understand: the herd instinct will likely develop these people with slightly similar personalities. But entire races? Nah.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Armed Librarians – The Book of Bantorra – 18

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



I’m sorry for the delay of this entry. I’ve got a bit of a cold at this moment, so I’m not at my fastest.

But what a hell of an episode we had this week! Even though it was just a build-up, it was in no way inferior tot he other Armed Librarian episodes. The way in which this episode built up tension, simply by letting Hamy take a “while” to catch up to Volken was brilliantly done, and in the meantime it revealed an increasingly interesting back-story behind this arc.

This episode subtly gave a whole new dimension to a ton of different backgrounds. First of all, take a look at the OP: you can see the young Vend Ruga right next to young Hamy. Therefore, it’s pretty likely that Hamy’s grudge against Vend is something personal. The thing is, however that Vend Ruga was a True Man: one whose book was very interesting to read, and yet she rebelled against the Church, and therefore also against the Armed Librarians. In a way, that makes her one of the good guys. What complicates matters is that somehow she has split her soul across many different bodies. One of the things that makes Hamy so frustrated is that she keeps killing off these bodies, but can never seem to get all of them.

Now, Olivia Litlet. It is very likely that the ship we see in this episode was the same that Hamy blew up in episode one, only Olivia was lucky enough to leave the ship before it happened. On that ship she was desperately deceiving the owner of the boat, using his meats in order to perform a ritual to get something back. However, remember that she has Vend Ruga living inside of her. How much different were the kind of containers that Hamy killed off in this episode’s flashback to the meats we saw in the first arc (the ones who kept going “Kill Hamyuts Meseta”). In fact, I think that that was the revenge ten years later that the Governor of Paradise was talking about.

It might be that Olivia, when she kept using Yucklyuck in order to bring a “certain person” back, she might have been doing it for Vend Ruga instead, which might relate to her past with Hamy. But on the other hand, if that’s the case then Renas’ statement doesn’t really make sense. Another theory on why Hamy was so hellbent on getting rid of Vend is because she was “trying to destroy the heavens”. Now first of all: what are the “heavens” exactly in this series in which everyone turns into a book at death? How does the Governor of Paradise and the tree fit into this, as they both seem to be allies with Hamy for some reason.

we all know that Hamy doesn’t care about dying, but could it actually be that she doesn’t want heaven to be destroyed, whatever it may be? If that’s true, then it would explain why she’s so extreme in trying to get rid of Vend Ruga: she was a true woman, who could have had the power to destroy this heaven. If we link this further to Hamy death wishes: could it be that Hamy isn’t the key to destroy the world, but rather something really really good will happen if she reaches this “heaven”?
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Durarara – 04

by psgels, posted in Durarara



One of the big complaints against this series seems to be that the characters are too one-sided, but I disagree. A show like Ookami Kakushi has shallow characters who can just be described with one line. The characters of Durarara however have gotten subtly fleshed out quite a bit already. Simon might be a typical foreigner at first sight, but the hints at his background and his morals and values have made him into more than just a stereotype. The same with Shizuo: he may be a hothead, but it’s not like he’s angry all of the time, as especially this episode showed. And yeah, this episode also showed that the creators have no intention to cut corners on the backgrounds of these characters.

Every episode so far has been told through a different perspective, and this time the creators chose for the biography: Shinra Kishitani tells about the background of the headless biker, aka Celty. I was pretty surprised that she actually WAS Dullahan, a Celtic legend. This really is one thing that we could have expected from the director: he did something similar, combining classic folklore with modern technologies like the Internet in Jigoku Shoujo. In here, we have a headless horseman who communicates through an IPhone and chat program.

I also love how much detail the creators have put into this legend. I think this is one of the first times that we get an autopsy of one of these mystical “beings”, and find out that her organs aren’t working. It makes sense for an immortal being: why would you need such “mortal” organs anyway if you can live forever?

But yeah, this episode rocked the mos because of Celty’s terrific characterization. This episode did a great job in portraying how she feels after losing her head and living in Japan for twenty years, only able to communicate through text.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Ookami Kakushi – 04

by psgels, posted in Ookami Kakushi



I pretty much like this show so far, but I’m worried. I just discovered that Amazon.co.jp only lists six DVDs, which total at around 47 minutes each, or twelve episodes combined. The pacing of this episode also very much hinted at that there are only going to be 12 episodes. I’m very, very worried right now.

Now suppose that I’m right: then we’ve just passed one third of this series. Now, what have we accomplished so far? The story itself is still getting introduced: we know that something in the town is screwed up, the residents are under a threat that manifests in some sort of disease and some sort of strangely dressed people who kill people who go out of control. One reporter is out there, trying to figure out what’s going on and the lead character is sort-of the innocent bystander. Fair enough.

But how about the character. Four episodes equals about an hour and a half. What have we learned about the lead character? Well, he’s… polite and likes his sister and his balls haven’t dropped yet. His sister? She’s disabled but wants to be independant. The lead female: well, she likes the lead character and tries to cover up for her pedo-brother. The brother? He’s a pedophile who can’t control his urges due to his disease and therefore is likely to be killed off next. That’s nice and all, but we’ve passed FOUR EPISODES already! For 12 episodes, that’s way too little. Every single character has not gotten beyond its one-line description. We still haven’t got to know these people, and instead the creators are too focused on the mystery and horror. Take Sora no Oto as a counterexample: it started out a bit more stereotypical than this series, but for the past number of episodes it has put a lot of attention in fleshing out its characters so that we could get to know them. The characters in Ookami Kakushi are just… shallow.

So yeah: my big fear is about to come true: at this point, Ookami Kakushi is compelling: the way that the climaxes are delivered is gripping and captivating… but those characters… There is no way that they’re going to get enough depth within only 12 episodes and the creators just spent too much time on the mystery, and too little on the rest. And that’s the thing with this director: he’s good in technical terms. But his balance, pacing and ability to look at the bigger picture is terrible.
Rating: * (Good)

Full Metal Panic! – The Second Raid Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Okay, so for those who missed it: I am not going to review Fumoffu because I don’t want to sit through a comedy I don’t enjoy. I do want to say a bit about why I didn’t like it, because the comedic moments of The Second Raid also turned me off for the same reason. For me, the creators took Sagara’s antics way over the top. In the first season he was a bright kid, who just had trouble adjusting in normal society. In the subsequent series, the creators try to make use of every light-hearted moment in order for him to do something outrageously stupid, only for Chidori to smack him in an over the top fashion. My biggest problem was that it wasn’t just not funny, but it also turned Sagara into an idiot and this plagues him throughout nearly the entire Second Raid.

As for the rest of this series… I’m really troubled judging it. During the middle part, I was really ready to label this series as superior to the first season. Even though Gonzo’s version of Sousuke was superior, Kyoani added a lot of extra things. The animation was far superior and the visual direction, and the small details within the storytelling were great to watch.

However, as the series drew near its finale, and Sousuke and especially his angst got more and more screentime… something just didn’t work for me. There was so much potential for this storyline and yet the creators waste so much time on Sousuke angsting over and over. It goes up to the point where his angst gets in the way of just about everything, preventing the minor characters from really shining.

And then came the ending. Seriously, what is it with Kyoani and Deus ex Machina endings? I’m trying not to spoil it, but the final episode was poorly built up, tried to do way too much character-development in way too little time, tried to wrap up its patiently built-up storyline way too fast. It felt way too convenient. A huge shame, considering how much potential there was in this series. It would even have been better if the creators just left a few more plotholes open, perhaps for a potential fourth season to address.

So yes. I may be the only one in this, but I actually enjoyed the Gonzo version more. With all the hype that surrounds it, I really expected something more from Kyoani’s version. It was undoubtedly more refined and superior in technical terms, but I just never liked Kyoani’s sense of humour, and this series misses the charms that made me enjoy the first season so much. This mostly is due to Sagara’s “derailment”, but also the villains themselves were surprisingly disappointing: none of them really matched the Gauron of the first season. They were all just too busy with their own quirks to really make an impact on me.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Excellent in technical terms; very creative, but the overall plot fails to make use of this potential.
Characters: 7/10 – Disappointing lead character and villains, though some of the side-characters have their moments of greatness.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Very highly detailed, very smooth animated. No complaints whatsoever.
Setting: 8/10 – Detailed military background forms a pretty solid base for this series to work with.

Kobato – 15

by psgels, posted in Kobato



With this episode, I’m glad to have stuck with this series. It was a fairly simple episode, but so many emotions were put into it. This episode showed that the creators know how to build up and use it to create heart-warming drama.

And with well fleshed out characters like in this series, even the episodes with cliched premises turn out to be a treat. This probably was the best “sudden illness”-episode I’ve seen in a long, long while. First of all, Sayaka’s illness actually made sense within the storyline, rather than having it as a deus ex machina: she’s extremely stressed through her work, and this has been going on for God knows how many months. It’s actually a very subtle hint to how much she’s worrying, because she’s gotten quite good at hiding it.

Second of all, the illness is not just used to create cheap drama, but what Kobato went through in this episode was surprisingly touching and genuine. There are a ton of characters who seem to have emotions bottled up inside of them in this series, and I think that with Kobato they’re hidden the deepest. We now know that she’s suffering some sort of trauma due to the death of a loved one. If the amnesia is because of that, or something else caused it we don’t know yet. Amnesia is a really dangerous plot device though: it can lead to a very compelling series, or be a show-destroying plot device when used cheaply. Thankfully Kobato seems to be edging to the former, but I can’t say for sure yet.

It’s also here where Kobato’s voice actress proved herself. She really got into her role and managed to handle the dramatic parts really well, not crossing the bounds into either emotionless or overacting. I have to admit: I only started blogging this show because the current season really doesn’t have anything else. But this episode really surprised me how charming this series’ innocence has become.
Rating: *** (Awesome is not exactly the right word, but I really really liked it)

Katanagatari – 01

by psgels, posted in Katanagatari



Whoa! I didn’t expect Katanagatari to have episodes of 50 minutes. That seals the deal for me: I’m going to blog it. I very much approve of this longer pause between episodes. Series like Votoms’ Pailsen Files, Figure 17, Blade of the Immortal and Marie & Gali also had this, and they became very entertaining to watch in their own ways, simply because the creators had more time to refine their episodes.

My biggest fear before starting this series was obviously the director of School Days who got appointed behind this, not to mention that the animation company behind it has only done Tears to Tiara, which apparently was mediocre at best (though I dropped it after 1 episode). Still, for now I’ll just see this as another case of Casshern Sins, in which the director of various Dragonball Z movies ended up making such a beautiful series. And yeah, I guess that we should at least be glad that Shinbo didn’t also get this series. This episode wasn’t just “okay”; I very much enjoyed it.

This series is a bit of an homage to the shounen genre, it has many elements of a shounen series, and yet it isn’t exactly a shounen series. It includes fights, it makes fun of the “Hah! I’m about to kill you but let me just stand here and let you finish whatever conversation you’re having!”-trope, it also pokes fun at how fights like these tend to go on for ages just because the characters won’t shut up talking, it features teenagers who fall in love with each other quite quickly, but at the same time there are also tons of quiet scenes, in which people just sit in a room talking for more than ten minutes, straight on; which is something you won’t find in any other shounen-series, and is actually more seinen.

Overall, what I liked most about this first episode was the build-up: I’m really surprised at how well this episode built up its tension through the incredibly long dialogues in the beginning, and the more action-packed yet still dialogue-filled second half. The animation was also simple where it needed to be, and detailed where it needed to be, though aside from its crispness and unique look nothing special. What I did like was the subtle sense of humour oft his episode, in which the creators liked to insert a joke right in the middle of a character’s speech. It keeps you on your toes and it adds an interesting flavor to the whole script.

It was quite a bit of a challenge to follow this episode raw (to all the fansubbers and typesetters planning to go for this series: good luck), but i like challenges like these once in a while. I’m not sure what it is exactly, but I seem to have some weird fascination with watching dialogue-filled series in raw, trying to keep up with the Japanese even though my own Japanese is far from perfect.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Sora no Oto – 04

by psgels, posted in Sora no Oto



Great to see that it’s indeed the creators’ intentions to flesh out and develop the characters in the first half of this series. Sora no Oto just has one less annoying character. Noel got a lot of depth in this episode, without making it too predictable of an episode. In this episode she really showed that she’s more than a sleepy airhead, but has a passion for what she does.

As for the setting, my guess would be that we are in the French part of Switzerland. The fact that the characters speak in Japanese is probably done out of convenience: even series as Red Garden and Chevalier, which have nothing to do with Japan, are spoken in Japanese. Another hint of why there is now way that this show is set in Japan is how the saleswoman didn’t mind to be called by her first name. These cultural values are very common in Europe, but I don’t see it happen in Japan, even with a number of centuries in the future. It’s also very plausible for French countries to have English software, especially in the military. Heck, I live in the Netherlands and about half of the software I use is in English.

One big question that I still have is: what happened tot he architecture? My guess would be that the buildings we see here are built by by the locals after something wiped out all of the modern buildings, and that they were modelled after local architecture and resources that were available. That must also mean that most of the futuristic technologies like the giant robot were completely annihilated for some reason.

Also, in this episode Kanata learns to play the trumpet. It was a bit fast and too much of a change, but I know the feeling that the creators tried to portray: for a long time you’re struggling without improving in the slightest, despite knowing the basics, and sometimes it just takes one realization to significantly improve yourself. I practice Karate myself, and I’ve had tons of these moments. In this episode it was obviously exaggerated, but it worked nicely.
Rating: * (Good)

Hanamaru Youchien – 03

by psgels, posted in Hanamaru Youchien



So overall this show turned out enjoyable enough, though not anything special. There’s one thing I don’t like, though: Yamamoto. Seriously, I’m surprised that she hasn’t sprouted wings and flown to heavens yet. I know that there’s purity and all, but that woman really takes the cake. It would have been nice if her total cluelessness was some sort of a novelty, but just about every love triangle in anime has it. What does this show hope to achieve by following this completely pointless bandwagon?

This episode featured a bunch more cliches that you’d usually see in high school romances, but I guess that that was necessary to flesh out the characters. As long as the future episodes aren’t going to repeat it, I don’t see much of a problem.

One thing that I’ve noticed from this series is that it likes to put tropes of other kinds of series into its setting of a kindergarten. I also recognize some parts of Great Teacher Onizuka in Tsuchida: he too makes friends with his students by placing himself on their equal level. At least, with everyone aside from Anzu.
Rating: (Enjoyable)

Macross Plus Review – 87,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Yeah, this is it. Macross Plus has without a doubt turned into my favourite installment of the Macross Franchise. Directed by Shinichiro Watanabe, it turned into an amazing character-study of its three lead characters. It’s much less chaotic and whimsical than your average Macross series, and instead it is a very focused story about fully grown adults and the relationship between them.

These three lead characters are the ones who make this series, but what also supports them is a rock-solid sense of storytelling, who knows exactly how to use its airtime to the fullest, giving a great balance between action, drama and build-up. Especially the final episode, in which everything comes together, is an amazing episode that allows the best of these characters to rise.

If I had to mention a flaw, then it’s that some of the side characters just seem… shallow. And I mean that in the way that they only seem to exist or do stuff, for the sake of advancing the plot. Sharon’s executive, for example. His actions had great result, but the guy himself was just a stereotypical evil villain who was evil for the sake of being evil. And while the ending itself is amazing, I’m a bit disappointed by the lack of an actual epilogue to wrap everything up.

For a Macross Series, the animation is perhaps not the most impressive out there, but still very good and fluid, especially considering the year in which this was produced. The animation is very smooth and the artistic direction is also very powerful. The soundtrack is an awesome one as well.

So yeah, now I finally understand why the Macross Franchise is held with such a high regard. The other Macross series I’ve seen had their charms here and there, but for me they mostly stood out through their eye-candy, not their substance. I’d probably rank them in the following way, from least favourite to most:
5). Do You Remember Love? (Lacks the charms of the series it recapped)
4). Macross Zero (Great visual direction but a chaotic story)
3). Macross Frontier (Great middle part but disappointing beginning and finale)
2). Original Macross (Great insight on the Zentradi)
1). Macross Plus (Great character-study and storytelling all around)

Storytelling: 9/10 – Focused and powerful.
Characters: 9/10 – Very well detailed and fleshed out lead characters with an excellent chemistry.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Very smooth animation, great soundtrack.
Setting: 8/10 – Some things exist just to forward the plot, but otherwise a good addition to the Macross Universe.