Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood – 33

by psgels, posted in Full Metal Alchemist - Brotherhood



Haha! I knew it! Even though the creators may have been trying to not show Marcoh’s new face for a while, they still were trying too hard in the way that absolutely nothing of his face was shown. Not even hints. Besides, the total absence of Mai Chang also showed that the hooded guy that travelled with Scar was one big decoy; otherwise there was no reason for him to split up with Mai Chang and the moustache guy.

Nevertheless though, that fight between Scar and Kimbley kicked ass. While not the deepest character, Kimbley has this air around him that makes him fun to watch. He’s definitely a big change from the first season. It’s one thing that he was a purely evil maniac back there, but the absolutely pathetic way the creators used him in the final parts of the series really made him into one my least favourite characters of the first series.

It’s also interesting that the creators actually paid attention to the effects of heat and cold on metal in this episode. It seems that the winter has arrived, and on top of that Ed and Al have travelled to a high and cold mountain range in the middle of a blizzard. And his automail actually causes him troubles. The strange thing however, is that alchemy suddenly also stopped working. Seeing the nature of alchemy and Rentanjutsu, could it be that something exists that only allows alchemy to be used in certain places? Like, rentanjutsu is the alchemy that’s used throughout the world, but someone created renkinjutsu, which only can be used inside the country.

Armstrong’s older sister is also quite different from what I imagined. While Armstrong always had something comical about him, his sister is dead serious. Or at least, at first sight. And yet, she seems to be even more dangerous than he is.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Aoi Bungaku – 07 & 08

by psgels, posted in Aoi Bungaku



Holy crap, a double feature of one of my favourite currently airing series. Can things get any better? Episodes 7 and 8 animate the story of Kokoro. I’m not going to bother making separate entries for these two episodes, because they were bundled together as one. And really, Kokoro is just as good, if not better than the previous stories!

During the first half, it might seem a bit like a step down in comparison to In the Woods and No Longer Human, in which we have this lead character who lives together with a woman he likes, and he then invites a friend of his to live in his house, to study with him. This friend quickly steals the girl he likes away. For the most of the first episode, it’s a bit too one sided.

Then the second episode starts, and the fun begins, and the story gets a completely different dimension.

The second episode actually shows the same story from the perspective of the friend. While he was this big brute who took advantages of women in the eyes of the lead character, his real character is completely different. What an awesome idea, and it’s really well executed. This episode is really about love and prejudices, and what they can do to people who normally would just hang out peacefully together. Because they only know part of the story, people’s imaginations start filling in the blanks. Notice how some details of the story differ from the perspective of both of them: the parts in the first episode in which the tall guy was alone simply are what the lead character thought that he was doing at the time.

The rest of this series’ schedule also seems to be a bit weird. Hashire Melos! seems to air regularly during the next two weeks. After that, there is a break of TWO WEEKS, until the second day of Christmas, at which both the final stories will air. I really love the tight schedule of the past few weeks: sundays have always been a blast thanks to this series, but those two weeks are probably going to be one hell of a wait for the final two stories.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Cross Game – 34

by psgels, posted in Cross Game



Japan: the only country in which elementary schoolers can become masters of aikido. After watching anime for quite a while, I still haven’t figured out how they manage to pull off their notorious work ethic.

In any case, another very nice episode for this show. There’s lots of slice of life, as this episode shows the start of the new year. Although I don’t think that you should be watching this series for its plot, there were quite a few new developments in this episode: Momiji has herself a boyfriend (interestingly enough, she denied it in front of Kou, and yet she called him her boyfriend (in third person, strangely enough) during her silly little “Cross Game Quiz” at the beginning of the episode.

Also, this episode returned to Aoba’s own ambitions: she’s never going to be able to participate in Koushien, and instead of joining a female baseball team, she just stubbornly hangs around with Kou’s team. Kou in the meantime also keeps hanging around Akane (helping her with delivering). It just shows how the two of them, even six years after Wakaba’s death, still are very much influenced by her memories. After all, if Akane would have looked differently, I doubt that he would have given her as much attention as he is now.

Overall though, this was a very fun episode. Seeing everyone hang out and spend the first day of the new year in their own way was very enjoyable to watch. Screw the baseball matches, this is what makes Cross Game awesome.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Kemono no Souja Erin – 45

by psgels, posted in Kemono no Souja Erin



whoa. Just when I thought that this show couldn’t pull any more plot twists. This episode yet again pushes the story into a completely different direction. Obviously, if you haven’t seen this episode yet: beware for spoilers because this episode ties up a lot of the mysteries in this series.

Because holy crap, it was Damya all along. This guy really struck me as someone with ambitions, however also with loyalties to the Queen. Turns out, it was all an act: he was the one who ordered the collection of Touda eggs, the attack on the queen, and all of the other things that those masked guys did. On top of that: Kirik is one of them! He was the one who nearly escaped from Ialu a couple of times, and now he’s been sent to keep out an eye for Erin.

This episode also put in some major development for Kirik, and it really paid off. We finally get to fully see what that flashback of his meant: he and his sister were orphans, and were taken in by people who just wanted to kill the two, so he ended up poisoning them. The climax really worked, between him and Ialu.

But yeah, the worst part is going to be Erin: we now know that she’s really been tricked, and that Damya has no good intentions for her whatsoever. Throughout the entire episode, we could only see her sitting in a corner, thinking of the possibility of having the Beast King force disbanded. With only five episodes left, the end is finally getting in sight.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Letter Bee – 08

by psgels, posted in Letter Bee



While still formulaic, this show has just gotten an a bit more interesting. We’re still in the formula of “Lag meets someone related to the plot, Lag cries, lag tries to save”, but the plot in question has gotten quite a bit more interesting now, and this episode did well in exploring it.

Right now, this series’ biggest enemy is cheese. This episode kept it within bounds and even Lag’s crying felt genuine, but that was because it was simply building up. The next episode is going to have to put in some real effort in preventing this episode from going down the same route as episode 6. That plot definitely has potential, and I like the subtle ties that are created between the different characters (that blond-haired office Bee turns out to be a former friend of Gauche, for example).

What stood out in this episode were Nichi’s weird antics again. I’m not sure what’s up with her, but she constantly manages to amuse me, even when she’s supposed to stay in the background while Lag is talking to someone. It’s not much, but it’s things like these that keep me from getting bored during the more quiet parts of this series.
Rating: * (Good)

White Album – 21

by psgels, posted in White Album



Oh god, guess who’s back? The one guy who could only turn this into an even bigger drama than it already was. He’s changed a lot, though. He was this confident asshole, but now he’s more like a wimpy moron. However, the impression he left on Misaki remains.

In any case, this episode marks the beginning of the climax. My guess would be that the creators finally found it time to start with the drama, and my guess would be that each of the successive episodes will now deal with and close off the stories of the various characters. The one to kick off, is Mana.

So yeah, she’s been paying Touya out of her own pocket money to keep Touya with her. In this episode her mother finds out. Since this is the same mother that employs Touya, this also means that Mana figures out that Touya is working as Rina’s manager. In any case, Mana runs away from home, Touya figures that she might have gone back to Haruka (involving her back into the storyline), but at the end of the day, she’s still missing.

The next episode should give us a bit of a hint into exactly what kind of finale the creators are going for. In terms of Mana’s story, there’s no reason for them to hold back anymore: the next episode is going to climax her story, as Touya either finds her back, or she commits suicide or something else that’s crazy. I see no reason why the creators can just make this into a temporary climax, because running away from home is pretty radical: Mana’s mother now also has to see that something went wrong with the way she raised her daughter. She’s a smart woman, so she will learn from this incident.

Also, I loved that little scene in which Touya ran into the girl he stood up earlier. ^^;
Rating: * (Good)

Armed Librarians – The Book of Bantorra – 08

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



This show just continues to blow my mind with every episode. This episode again did such a wonderful job of tying the whole arc together in one heck of a climax. This show doesn’t show any signs of slowing down, does it?

Okay, so the big secret? The white-haired guy can absorb books. Therefore he can absorb souls and gain their powers. Absorbing powers isn’t totally new, but within the context of this series it gets a totally new dimension. The kid (Enlike Bishile) whose story we kept seeing is basically just a Meat with his bomb removed (I assume this, at least), who was trained in a magic power, just so that his book could be absorbed by this guy.

What caused the breakdown of this guy was that Enlike somehow managed to take control over the guy’s original body. I can see this happen: nobody said that those powers are 100% accurate. His powers are very rare and unknown, and therefore he might indeed not have known what would happen if one would absorb too many books. Really, the magic system in this series is just so imaginative and well-detailed.

And the animation! While the fight scene with Noloty wasn’t quite of Birdy the Mighty, it actually came damn close; I totally take back when I said that the animation in this show would be simple. These animators here rock.

There was one part that I might have missed though: what did the old guy mean with that Enlike rejected Hamyuts Meseta’s smile? Or is this something that still needs to be revealed. After all, what was up with that blond guy? I suspect that he also has an entire backstory left to tell. And the old, bearded guy also is still a complete mystery: In the last episode, you could see that he was against the church, but here you can see him talk with other people from the church like it’s nothing. What is up with him?

Seriously though, this series is exactly why I like anime. Those series that show up completely at random and blow you away.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Kuchuu Buranko – 06

by psgels, posted in Kuchuu Buranko



Whoa, this series has really gotten significantly better in the past couple of episode. It’s hard to imagine that the first few episodes were a bunch of depthless guys, because this episode had a really good main character to play with. There’s something with teenagers making an appearance in otherwise adult shows: in teenaged series they’re often annoying, but this episode had definitely its charms.

A teenager addicted to cell phones. It’s something very typical of teenagers, and the start of this episode had something sadistic, in which both Irabu, as the nurse as his classmates started picking on him. And yet, this episode did a wonderful job of making me feel sorry for this guy. The ending was really well written: there’s no forced climax, but instead it made perfect sense.

The ending would have happened as well if the guy didn’t pay a visit to Irabu, but Irabu’s addition had a very nice effect on the episode, the way in which he, after he realized that his friends weren’t who he thought he were, they simply invited him with all of the other patients. It’s an interesting story about a loner trying to fit in, yet trying way too hard in the process. In fact, his frustrations which seemed to cause his cell phone addiction (what if he got left behind by them?) only caused a distance between them.

And to a surprise, this episode continued to flesh out Irabu and the nurse, surprisingly enough. Especially that nurse is quite unexpected: I really thought that she was going to be a simple plot device. Also, this episode had quite a few of references to other episodes: there were actually quite a few cameos from previous episodes, and I also like the subtle part at which the theme song is played, and the lead character claims to really like the “drama” it’s based on. Yeah, right. 😉
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Star Crossed Four Year Anniversary + New IRC Channel

by psgels, posted in Special Articles

I think that at the time that I started this blog, I never would have guessed that I’d still have it four years later; it really was created on a whim, and eventually I just never had any intention or reason to quit it. Anyway, today marks Star Crossed’s fourth anniversary. Like I also did in the previous years, here are some statistics:

General Statistics:
Up till now, I’ve made 3019 posts, regularly blogged 108 different television series and 13 movies and OVAs.
The site has been received 3020186 unique visitors, which consist out of 1942846 first time visitors and 1257340 returning ones. (Basically, in the past year I received nearly the same amount of visitors as in the entire first three years combined).
18085 comments have been posted (many thanks to everyone who posted one)

Top-10 Most Accessed Series:
(note that this list is from the past year only, otherwise it’d just look too much like the list I made a year ago)
10. Michiko e Hatchin
9. Guin Saga
8. Bonen no Xamdou
7. Mushishi
6. Jigoku Shoujo
5. Pandora Hearts
4. Phantom
3. Casshern Sins
2. Higurashi no Naku Koro ni
1. Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood

Top-10 Most Accessed Posts: (a bit one-sided this time)
10. Hajime no Ippo – New Challenger Review
9. Which Autumn Series do you want me to blog?
8. Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood – 23
7. Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood – 26
6. Mahou Shoujotai Review (for a series that had such an enormous impact on me, I surely did write a crappy review of it).
5. Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood – 27 (the internet is weird… this post is barely a month old… and it’s about a bloody recap…)
4. Bonen no Xamdou – 02
3. Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood – 19
2. Darker than Black Review
1. Top 10 Anime (the old version)

Top-10 Google Keywords: (aside from the obvious ones as “psgels”, “star crossed” and variations of “top 10 anime”)
10. Umineko no Naku Koro ni
9. Pandora Hearts Blog
8. Saiunkoku Monogatari Season 3
7. Genji Monogatari Sennenki
6. Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood 23
5. Guin Saga
4. Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood 27
3. Mouryou no Hako
2. Aoi Bungaku
1. Darker than Black Review
(Especially number 2 and 3 surprise me: those were the last two series I expected to generate lots of hits O.o)

Amusing search-terms (I can’t believe how many screwed up ones I managed to find this year…)
anime girl with 5 different personalities – Schizophrenia, anyone?

crazy person claiming to be the real neo trinity forum – I don’t know what’s worse: a person claiming such a thing, or people actually searching for this guy…

dress up kurenai sense but first she has to be naked – What the heck did this guy have in mind? O.o

hi me anime – Hi… um, me psgels

porfy is a stupid name. say it. porfy. – It’s short for Porphyras, a greek name. Obviously it’s going to sound wierd in English.

anime in which a star turns into a skateboard? – Oh god, please no!

anime were can i buy paprika – at the local supermarket?

how to blog anime – Go to wordpress.com, register and start writing

how to make an anime with you as the star – You really don’t want that to happen.

sky bolg of nice girl – Even though this is a typo, I have no idea what this guy was trying to find with this term…

what does 3 year anniversary mean – That something is three years old, idiot.

what season is august in – You seriously needed to search for this?

26 + 74 = one hundred – Erm… thank you for this piece of information…

japan, producing of the worlds weirdest shit since 1952 – Certainly!

a 13 to 15 line paragraph on how i betrayed my best friend – Write it yourself, how should I know about that friend of yours?

a anime where you can see girls – You’re going to have to be a bit more specific than that. 😉

who blogs star crossed anime – I do.

humanity calls out for a hero… can a child of ruin be the savior of mankind? anime – Oh no, not another one!

i can’t understand your blogs cuz of your bad english – Um… sorry. I’ll try to type more clearly from now on.

i will force that reasoning aside with my unreasonableness” – I like this one.

when did june start 09 – Um… on June 1st, 2009?

when some when apologize and i dont want .. nicknames – Why?

a letter to have good first impression from a nice girl – Again, write one yourself.

at the beginning, to begin with, afterwards, finally, after a while – Get on with it!

i have a great idea for an anime but don’t know what to do with it – Here’s my advice: just go sit in a corner, and wait until the idea goes away.

i’m not fully understood – Who is?

i’ve been a princess – Who isn’t?

interesting metallic thing – I really wonder what this guy was hoping to find when he typed this in…

what’s the weird anime that anne is not telling me about – … no comment.

“parents are still alive”, anime – That’s rare…

what would kaiba say – “Screw the rules I have money” (only the ones who watched the Abridged Yugioh will get this reference, but ah well).

is that a motha-fuckin’ rpg?! is that a motha-fuckin’ rpg in a backpack?! – This one’s my favourite. ^^;

IRC-Channel
Oh and if I recall correctly, a few months some people requested an irc-channel. So, why not:

#starcrossed @ irc.chatspike.net

This is pretty much an experiment, but if it catches on I’ll post a link to it somewhere on the main page.

Darker than Black – Ryuusei no Gemini – 07

by psgels, posted in Darker than Black - Ryuusei no Gemini



An interesting choice for an episode this time. In a lot of other series, this episode was surprisingly formulaic, and yet I only noticed this when the end-credits rolled. There are only two real plot twists in this episode. The rest can all be reduced back to character-building. But I have to say that this episode was very sneaky in trying to hide this.

This again shows that the contractors with the biggest powers are often the easiest ones to die: they get cocky, and think that their powers will protect them, even when they’re not paying attention. I really was fooled in this episode: I thought that that extremely powerful contractor would pose a serious threat for Hei and Suou, the way he just walked in and pwned everyone easily. But yeah: he forgot to prevent July calling Hei, and in the end simply got strangled. Hei on the other hand may also have powers of instant death, but that whip looks very hard to control: he must have practiced a lot to perfect this technique. Suou’s powers too have a major disadvantage: as soon as enemies get close to her, she’s screwed. And that’s another reason why I like Darker than Black: the lead characters kick ass, not because they have unlimited godmode powers, but rather because they spent a lot of time to fill in for their weaknesses.

Now that we’re seven episodes in, it’s about time that the climax of this show is getting in sight. At this point I have no clue at how the creators are planning to end this. All we got from this episode is that Suou’s father is still alive. It makes sense in a way: if he spent so much effort into hiding Shion, it’s not surprising that he also prepared some sort of fake body to throw the enemy off. The question also remains where Yin fits into all of this: she feels like a bit of a random element in the whole story at this point.
Rating: ** (Excellent)