Kimi ni Todoke – 06

by psgels, posted in Kimi ni Todoke



Ah, the cheese.

I know full well that romances are supposed to be annoying and irrational. Heck, I really liked Bokura ga Ita, and I’m currently even enjoying White Album which has more drama than Kimi ni Todoke could ever hope to achieve, but still this episode just felt off. Instead of going for the subtle route, the characters in this episode cried more than Lag Seeing in your average Letter Bee episode.

I can see how this story worked in manga-format though. The manga-readers seem surprised at how the creators managed to stretch this arc over three episodes, and even I could pick it up that these past three episodes dragged horribly. I really don’t hope that the rest of the series is going to be like these past three episodes. The first three overall were fine, but the past arc just… felt off.

Also, there’s one thing I don’t get in this episode. Did I miss anything? Sawako finally confronts the “evil bitches” about the rumours. The episode closes, and suddenly the entire class is outside the bathroom talking about how a fight has ensued. Did something get cut or something? The “evil bitches” only pushed Sawako to the ground after the entire class was already gathered and talking about this fight.

Also: Kazehaya, please grow a personality in the next couple of episodes. I’m getting pretty tired of how he’s supposed to be this perfect guy in love with the lead character. His only flaw at the moment is his crush on Sawako, and I’m still not buying this guy, even though he had relatively little airtime during the past arc.
Rating: – (Disappointing)

Letter Bee – 06

by psgels, posted in Letter Bee



In a true headdesk moment, I have forgotten to actually post this episode’s impression. Thanks dreamer for bringing it to my attention, and apologies to those who were waiting for it.

Unfortunately, the text for this post is gone now and I don’t feel like rewriting it, but thankfully it wasn’t a major episode. The conclusion to the Jiggy Pepper story was a bit too cheesy and standard, and didn’t really stand out. It wasn’t bad, but not exactly good either.
Episode Rating: (Enjoyable)

Barefoot Gen Review – 77,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



In case you’re wondering: I recently discovered that there were quite a few WWII-movies that I have yet to see, so I’m going to be watching and reviewing them in a sort-of mini marathon for the next couple of days. Today I’m taking a look at Barefoot Gen, as it portrays the citizens of Hiroshima before, during and after the bombing. In particular a young boy called Gen.

It’s another movie that’s hard to watch. Most of these movies go for subtlety and shy away from showing the biggest amounts of violence. Barefoot Gen does not. Especially the scene of the bombing is truly gruesome. In this act, more than one hundred thousand people died, which translates to roughly a third of the city’s population. Barefoot Gen tries to make sure to show the true horrors that went on in Hiroshima at that point.

The problem with this, however, is that this movie was its time far ahead. And by that, I mean that some of the things it wanted to animate, it simply didn’t have the resources, technology or budget for. This movie was created in 1983, in which anime was still in its relatively early stages. Because of the animation errors, the victims of the atom bomb sometimes look gruesome, while at others they look like those zombie people you see in cheaply animated fantasy flicks. The animation simply wasn’t able to show enough details of all the victims that pass the screen, which is a damn shame. I wonder what would have happened if this movie were to be animated today.

Gen as a lead character does an adequate job. There’s not much depth in this guy, but you can see that he’s an innocent young boy who is caught up in everything and especially for the movie’s time, he’s well portrayed. He likes to fight and play around, but he’s colourful enough to carry this series as its main character. His mother surprised me: I really thought that she would turn into another one of these stereotypical mothers who are completely useless and too mentally weak to do anything, but she actually shed away her stereotype to become something more realistic than that.

With these reviews, I don’t intend to judge the characters or the settings themselves, nor do I intend to offend anyone. We all know horrible things happened back then. There’s no need for me to repeat it. Instead, I’m simply judging the storytelling here: are the characters well portrayed? How much impact did it make on me? Is it properly animated? That sort of stuff. Barefoot Gen is a flawed work that was a bit too ambitious for its time and resources, but it’s definitely worth the watch.

Storytelling: 8/10
Characters: 8/10
Production-Values: 7/10
Setting: 8/10

Grave of the Fireflies Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



I actually watched this movie once before. It was about five years ago, I think. I just had discovered the wonders of the online anime community, and therefore was also keen on trying out the supposed “best anime ever”. It’s a movie that always gets listed among the most famous pieces of anime, alongside Ghost in the Shell and Hayao Miyazaki’s works. I didn’t like it, though. It bored me, it went on for too long and eventually I quit the movie about two-thirds in because I was bored out of my skull.

I finally gave in now. I figured that I might as well try it out a second time, especially considering how my taste has changed a lot during the past five years. And indeed, it made a totally different impression on me. I hated it once, but it’s actually a very well constructed movie. It’s not the saddest movie I’ve seen, but at the same time I can understand why this is regarded by some people as a masterpiece.

Grave of the Fireflies has a few things that set itself apart from most other WWII movies. Unlike most of them, it doesn’t start off with slice of life: it immediately throws the characters in darkness even though we hardly know anything about them at that point. After that, it’s basically the two lead characters as they try to survive after the horrible things that happened to them. Most lead characters in such a situation are written to be likable. This however is one heck of an exception. I won’t exactly go into the how and why for the sake of spoilers, but there aren’t a lot of lead characters that are more flawed than he is. And that’s what makes this movie so great.

The second point at which Grave of the Fireflies stands out is the realism. It was directed by Isao Takahata. I’ve often called this guy the king of realism, and this movie only reaffirms this. WWII-anime are already often realistic, but Grave of the Fireflies adds a whole new layer of realism with all sorts of small details and subtle touches that you can’t find in any other movie. Takahata really is one of the greatest anime directors out there: setting aside Pom Poko, there are absolutely no other series or movies that are more realistic than the works he directed.

I can’t call this a true masterpiece, though. This movie falls a bit short at fleshing out its characters. At the end of the movie, I still don’t really have the feeling that I truly know the two lead characters. While I originally dropped this movie for being too long-winded and boring, I now feel in retrospect that it easily could have been half an hour longer, so that the characters could get the time they need to properly get fleshed out.

Storytelling: 9/10
Characters: 8/10
Production-Values: 9/10
Setting: 8/10

Konnichiwa Anne – 32

by psgels, posted in Konnichiwa Anne



Ah, thankfully this episode did a great job in portraying the orphanage that Anne ended up in. The owner was very down to earth, and the other orphans weren’t just evil for the sake of evil, but just a bunch of bratty kids, put off by how Anne made a complete enemy out of the entire orphanage as she refused to socialize. The fire was a bit too much,, but at least this explains what happened to Browning’s book.

But yeah, the Anne right now is more and more growing to become the Anne at the start of Anne of Green Gables. I honestly didn’t expect the creators to be able to pull this off. The reason she hated to be called a red head wasn’t because she was occasionally teased about it when she was young. Instead, it was because of the abuse she endured in the orphanage. In her own mind, orphanages had formed such an evil presence that she simply refused to believe that they’re not all that bad.

Her classmates and teacher also sound much more interesting than her class in Marysville. The teacher is a bit incompetent, but you can see that the children respect her. She’s not so obviously and stereotypical as Henderson was. Her classmates are also much more complex than Mildred (who was just bratty because her parents didn’t pay enough attention to her) and Randolf. These kids all had the painful experience of the loss of their parents, and yet they haven’t shut themselves in as much as Anne. Even the bookworm turned out to be the most popular girl, but in a more realistic way than you often see portrayed.

Now, the question obviously remains: is the development of these people going to go right? The next episodes are going to be a huge hit or miss again, because it’s exactly this that this series is worst at. Remember the midwife of a few episodes ago: when she first appeared, she was awesome. Then she got developed, and she turned cheesy. The kids right now are great, but half-hearted development is going to hurt them much more than making them stay the same. Right now, there are seven episodes left. What this series needs to do is make use of this time. Instead of picking out one character every episode to develop, it instead needs to focus on slice of life, and let the characters gradually come to tolerate each other.

I know that the creators can do this for Anne: they have shown this by now. Anne right now is still very elitist: she’s been so much used to look down on other kids that she needs to realize that she’s just the same as everyone else in order to remain in canon with Anne of Green Gables. I have no doubt that the creators can do this, and they need to realize that they can simply do the same thing for the other character. No need for cheese.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Aoi Bungaku – 05

by psgels, posted in Aoi Bungaku




Oh, I love this. The various adaptations are really all going to be completely different: different graphics, different soundtrack, different OP. The only thing that’s the same is the ED. This episode was awesome, but for totally different reasons as No Longer Human was. What he hell have I just been watching?

This arc features the adaptation of “In the Woods Beneath the Cherry Blossoms in Full Bloom” (which I’ll just keep abbreviated as “In the Woods” from now on. Instead of the serious No Longer Human, this short takes a more light-hearted approach. At first this worried me a bit, but the deadpan humour of the lead guy was hilarious. You hardly ever see good deadpans in anime, but I really like that type of humour.

The story in this was just… weird. Which made it even better. Here we have a rugged bandit whose skills are second to none. He lives with a bunch of women he captured. His latest addition is very spoiled and bratty, so she doesn’t want to live together with them. However, the lead guy is in love with her. so what does he do? He kills off every woman but one. What?!

This episode just oozed style. Is this really an adaptation of classic literature? I can really hardly tell. The creators of the anime added the funky atmosphere, a terrific set of voice actors, a bunch of insert songs, seamlessly integrated with the story and an MP3-player. I’m not kidding. Beats me where this guy got the batteries from.

And the graphics! This episode was a visual orgasm beyond belief, and Madhouse have truly outdone themselves yet again! Some of the backgrounds looked truly fantastic here, and this definitely was the prettiest episode of this season.

Seriously, why aren’t there more series like Aoi Bungaku?? This is just utter brilliance, and you can see that the creators are throwing in lots of stuff and ideas to spice up this episode. You could see that they had a lot of fun adapting this work. I love the idea of the little specks of blood on the camera when one of the guys was killed. The pacing, the timing, just about everything felt right in this episode.
Rating: *** (Awesome)
OP: Funky, catchy and gorgeous visuals. Fits the story perfectly.

Ushiro no Shoumen Dare Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Before I start, I’d like to note that this is actually my 500th anime review I’ve written for this site. Gosh, time sure goes fast.

Anyway, for this review I wanted to do something special, and therefore decided to pick out a very unknown movie, watch it and hopefully give a bit of attention to a nearly forgotten gem. Thankfully, I was right in picking out Ushiro no Shoumen Dare. While not the best of the WWII movie genre, it’s a very charming and bittersweet story about a little girl, and her experiences during the war.

What I like about this movie is how down to earth it is: it doesn’t try to be overdramatic, or show as much death and destruction as possible. Instead, it focuses on the lead character, her life and her family. The major part of the airtime is mostly spent on slice of life, while the final parts of the movie show how the lead character survived through the war, and the few years after that.

The slice of life is really good. The lead character really is just like a bratty little girl, who just has fun and cries a lot when something goes wrong. A lot of details has gone into just the every day lives, and one particular thing that this movie likes to do is show off various nursery rhymes that were popular in those days. It’s an interesting watch for anyone who’s interested in the Japanese culture around these days, and it makes sure that the characters are all fleshed out well enough, when the darker parts of the story arrive, resulting in a bunch of bittersweet scenes.

The flaws in this movie simply stem from the fact that it really kept it down to the basics: While I very much assume that a lot of people have had to go through what the lead character has gone through, it does have this air of “been there, done that”. The dramatic parts of the movie, while sad, are also one-sided. When you compare this to other similar movies like Chochhan’s story, which was much more balanced and interesting, I just can’t label it among the best ones of the genre.

Nevertheless though, if you’re into this genre of realistic war stories, then it’s definitely worth the watch. At the moment it’s pretty difficult to track this movie down, but if you happen to find it, why not give it a chance?

Storytelling: 7/10
Characters: 9/10
Production-Values: 8/10
Setting: 8/10

Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood – 31

by psgels, posted in Full Metal Alchemist - Brotherhood



The animation in this episode felt a bit off fro usual. Especially in the first half, the charactr’s expressions lacked sould and detail, it seems. This is especially strange considering we just had a recap a few weeks ago. My guess is that something went wrong with the outsourcing this time, because the characters’ expressions looked stiff and forced.

Anyway, as for this episode: i don’t understand why people were complaining about the lack of development for Knox during the previous episode: he actually got some attention in this episode. We see some of his past apprentices, what has become of them and we got to see a glimpse of the work he did in the past. To me, this seems like the creators have decided rearrange a bunch of chapters. Have some faith, will you?

In any case, this was clearly a build-up episode so there’s not a lot to say about it, other than that we finally get the proper introduction of Kimbley. thankfully he seems less stereotypically evil, although the scene between him and Envy was a bit too much of a contest to see who could create the biggest evil grin (like I said: the facial expressions in this episode were just OFF).
Rating: (Enjoyable)

Cross Game – 32

by psgels, posted in Cross Game



Ah, it’s just as I hoped: the arrival of Akane brought the spark back to this series. It’s once again a delight to watch the slice of life in this series. This episode was stuffed with tons and tons of subtle jabs towards all of the different characters. Now this is what Cross Game is best at!

Now this is subtlety! No longer do we just see Kou and Aoba fighting, but now that Akane has joined the mix, the two of them also start acting completely different towards each other, and yet they haven’t forgotten to sneak subtle jabs at each other in the middle of their conversations. A bit weird were the parts in which Kou stopped that naked dude who terrorized Akane’s school and Aoba, who protected Akane from those very stupid (yet somewhat endearing) high school punks, but they were nevertheless a lot of fun.

I’d still be here tomorrow evening if I were to mention every clever bit about this episode, so let´s just say that I laughed a lot. There were so many fun details in it. I probably liked the part in which the father saw the image of his dead daughter. It´s like he said, he heard the rumours, but his face was nevertheless priceless. I even didn’t mind the scene in which Kou ran into Akane changing. It´s a staple of all teen-aged romance series, but the way that the creators carried this one out was just too adorable.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Kemono no Souja Erin – 43

by psgels, posted in Kemono no Souja Erin



For everyone who has yet to watch this episode: close this window, don’t look at spoilers, wait for the subs to release and watch this episode. It’s one of those episodes you don’t want to get spoiled about. This line of text is there to prevent these spoilers from showing up at the various blog aggregators.

I’m utterly astonished at this episode. It was such a powerful proverbial kick in the groin that it gives the entire story an entire new direction. Show for kids? Charming story about a young woman and her trusty Beast King? Hah! Think again! This episode more than anything showed the mature and downright brutal nature of this series. I’m completely amazed at how far this episode went, and it’s also the episode of this series that has made the most impact on me.

After the death of the queen, you’d expect a slow-paced battle between Erin, as she tries to keep Lilan out of Damya’s clutches. That was Erin’s plan too, but here Lilan comes, attacks the royal guard, kills one of these people AND BITES OFF THREE OF ERIN’S FINGERS! Holy crap. It’s this series’ way of saying: don’t mess with beasts. They’re dangerous. It completely nullifies Erin’s wishes to be a beast player without the use of a mute whistle: this episode was a really hard lesson for her to never underestimate the power of these things.

Also, what’s going to happen next? I originally thought that the final episodes of this series would focus on the upcoming war, but this episode really changes everything. Erin doesn’t run away like a coward, but she has to bear the responsibility for killing one soldier, and injuring another. Lilan… I have no idea what’s going to happen to her. Common sense dictates that she’s simply going to have to be executed, but is everything really going to end that simple? After all, Erin was the one who proved the theory wrong that only the queen could control the beast kings, he might have some plans for her.

Is there really not going to be some sort of second season?
Rating: **** (Fantastic)