Basquash! – 18

by psgels, posted in Basquash!



It’s interesting how the new staff got an entirely new soundtrack to work with. It, along with the new direction gave a totally new atmosphere to this series. I’m surprised to say it, but it actually works. It’s not better in every single way (the loss of the subtlety is one example), yet somehow it works. This episode was mostly meant to introduce the upcoming (and probably final) major arc, but it was a solid and enjoyable build-up nonetheless.

But yeah, the loss of subtlety does stand out. This episode really showed that in the fanservice: previously, this series had a lot of fanservice as well, but the jokes it made around it were creative. So obviously, this episode shows moon giant-kun running into Sera as she comes out of the shower. *headdesks*

Anyway, in this episode Iceman quickly takes care of the bounty hunter, getting revenge on the guy who cut off his arm and leg at the same time, by unleashing a new power: the Destroy Tornado. Interestingly enough, he then gets left behind by the others as they receive a sudden chance for another attempt to go to the moon. It seems to be the main prize of a tournament that’s held in some city, and I suspect that either the moon giant or Flora is going to replace Iceman.

In the meantime, Rouge’s manager is evolving into a real bad guy here, when he even tries to kidnap Coco (ransom, I guess), but Mr Perfect manages to avoid it. That does make me wonder about James’ sense of space. He really seems to be able to appear whenever he’s needed, doesn’t he? Is that some kind of secret power of his, or just a case of lazy scriptwriters?

And yeah, my prediction of Rouge turning into a damsel in distress was wrong. She looks more to be developing into the final boss at this rate. Something tells me that that was Shoji Kawamori’s idea…
Rating: * (Good)

July Summary

by psgels, posted in Monthly Summaries

I must say, that we’ve got ourselves an awesome Summer Season here. Sure, there aren’t many series, but a significant majority of the new series succeed at what they intend to do. There may not be a lot of shows with awesome and ambitious story-lines, but in terms of slice of life and characterization, this really couldn’t have been better. Oh, and if you’re wondering what happened to Valkyria Chronicles: I dropped it. It just became too tiring to keep track of it, especially with so many other great series going on.

Rankings, like the past months are a bit strange again, I basically tried to generate the rankings for each show, compared to the others that are currently airing. Say, for example that Show A has a really good setting, and there are only a few other shows with a better setting, it’s going to rank higher than if there are many shows with excellent settings, and vice versa. I know that it’s a bit weird, but for some reason it does more accurately reflect my feelings about the shows this season.

#33 (new) – Element Hunters – (6,5/10) – So yeah, there’s not much hope for this series. It tries to be educational, but the creators have no idea what they’re talking about. The characters behave like your typical shounen leads (really, you can’t get any more typical than these guys), and overall it’s something you show kids when they’re whining too much. Dropped
#32 (new) – Kanamemo – (7/10) – Amongst all of the other slice of life and yuri series this season, Kanamemo is simply overshadowed in the way that there really is nothing special about it whatsoever, and the first episode just felt forced to me. Dropped.
#31 (new) – Princess Lover – (6,25/10) – I originally dropped this, but because so many people seemed to like it and recommend it I stuck with it. My question is: WHY!? What is so good about this series? I can see that the animation is above average and all, but the whole set-up is even more generic than your average harem. The scenarios are very predictable and very much written to suit the story, rather than evolving naturally. Especially the lead character doesn’t seem to be able to decide what personality he wants to be. It’s just way too forced to make any sort of impact.
#30 (new) – Bakemonogatari – (7,25/10) – Watching Bakemonogatari is like watching someone read the Bakemonogatari novels in front of a slide-show. I can see that Nisioisin is a great writer in the way that he uses wordplay through his stories, but Shinbo has been incredibly lazy in adapting it. The characterization is just utterly bland, and we’re given no way whatsoever to sympathize with them with this style. I’d really wish that Shinbo had the chance to watch Mouryou no Hako before adapting this series; now THAT’s how you should adapt a story with lots of dialogue.
Award: Best OP of the Month (the first one)
#29 (19) – Zan Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei – (7/10) – It’s a shame really. I remember how I used to laugh like crazy over this series, but now all it gets from me are a bunch of chuckles during the good parts. The “social commentaries of the week” are still getting more far-fetched and formulaic by the minute. The only thing that still has my interest is that every single episode has a different OP and ED.
#28 (new) – Needless – (7,5/10) – Well, so this series deserves the reward of featuring the single biggest moron to grace any show this year (“yes, I’m looking for a guy named Adam; do you know such a person?”). It’s an incredibly stupid series and it’s clear that Madhouse’s worst staff has been working on this thing. Yet, for brainless entertainment it does the job. The banter between the different characters is varied and fun to watch at least.
#27 (new) – Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou – (7,5/10) – I’m really not sure what to think of this series. I know that I’m enjoying it so far and I like the concept of programmable magic; it’s not a chore to watch it in any way, and yet it has these cases of hopelessly bad acting and a collection of utterly terrible action scenes, and yet the characters themselves remain strangely enjoyable enough to watch. What puzzles me the most though is this series’ really weird fanservice. Are you getting bullied? Well, just throw your panties in the bully’s face! That will shut him up!
#26 (19) – 07-Ghost – (7,75/10) – Meh, it’s a shame but 07-Ghost has been getting a lot less entertaining. The focus has been getting much less at the church and more at the overall plot which turns out to be surprisingly dull and angsty. Finally my patience seems to be running out with this series…
#25 (16) – Chi’s New Address – (7,75/10) – Chi’s New Address has been getting a bit dull lately. That may be because of the slow subs (I switched to the subs for this series because the raws are near-impossible to keep track of), but granted: the first series also had this. It needs something to spice things up a bit, like the first season did with the big black cat.
#24 (new) – Kuruneko – (7,75/10) – I originally thought that this was going to be another one of those dull kiddie shows. Then I found out who the director was, headdesked and reminded myself why I always check out every single show at the start of each season. Kuruneko only has 3-minute episodes, but they’re really charming so far. I like how the old lady always tries to voice over her own cats, and with the most consistent comedy director in the business behind this series, I can see little that can go wrong.
#23 (22) – Hetalia Axis Powers – (7,75/10) – This month really saw an overabuse of dull Liechtenstein jokes, however after that this series very neatly picked itself back up. Especially the second season had a very nice start.
#22 (13) – Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi – (7,5/10) – Well, I’ve dropped this series at this point. The first four episodes were nice slice of life, but eight is going way too far. I’m not that angry with the series because I’ve never really been a fan, but I can understand the current fans a bit. If Amatsuki were to pull the same thing then I’d be raging too.
#21 (4) – Konnichiwa Anne – (7,75/10) – Ouch, this series has fallen badly this month. The Marysville arc has just been one big mess, full of really cheesy moral speeches that just WOULD NOT STOP and characters ripped off from Emily of the New Moon. The Thomas Family is still as awesome as ever, but characters like the teacher Henderson really manage to bring this series down right now.
#20 (15) – Saki – (8/10) – Okay, so the OP and ED haven’t stopped being annoying and the Mahjong matches have been based on luck more than ever now, but I’m still surprised at how good Saki has become. The reason for this is the cast of characters. They’ve been sufficiently fleshed out and developed right now, and they get more and more engaging with every episode. It’s strange, because apart from that this series has nothing else that makes it special whatsoever.
#19 (new) – Sora no Manimani – (7,75/10) – I originally dropped this, but then I learned about the director. Overall it has been an enjoyable series, but the comedy has been a bit too hit-or-miss, and the creators’ attempts at being heart-warming just end up as cheesy.
#18 (new) – Taishou Yakyuu Musume – (8/10) – For the past year we’ve seen an interesting increase in baseball shows: One Outs, Major 5, Cross Game and now Taishou Yakyuu Musume appears and still manages to stand out individually. The whole gender issues of eighty years ago are nicely touched upon, and the characters themselves are surprisingly likable.
#17 (18) – Gintama – (8,25/10) – Despite my rantings a few months ago, I must say that the new director has been getting better and better. The past arc has been surprisingly good at Gintama’s trademark of taking just about everything to the absurd.
#16 (17) – Basquash! – (8/10) – In this month, Basquash has been trying to get into the right track. Emphasis on “trying”, because I still have no idea whether this series is going to be a success or a total train-wreck. We’ve reached the point now at which Kiss Dum’s director has taken over, so let’s hope that he can give this series the ending it deserves.
#15 (21) – Umineko no Naku Koro ni – (8,25/10) – I’m still having a bit of trouble connecting to the characters, but Umineko definitely has been the most intriguing new series this season. In the first month we seem to have gotten only a little taste of what is to follow, but it’s promising to be a really entertaining mind-screw.
#14 (14) – Shin Mazinger Shougenki! Z-Hen – (8,5/10) – You know, for a homage of the series that popularized the monster of the week genre, the story is surprisingly non-linear. The Germany arc had a surprisingly good conclusion, and now that the past few episodes have started to introduce a whole new layer of depth in the whole story Shin Mazinger has gotten even more epic than it already was. I can always count on this series for my weekly dose of manly entertainment.
#13 (new) – Canaan – (8,25/10) – Canaan really has an awesome set of production values to work with, courtesy of PA Works. Everything looks really crisp and detailed with an excellent direction. Sure, the premise and characters still need some work, but there isn’t anything wrong with the execution so far.
#12 (new) – GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class – (8,25/10) – Talk about the dark horse of the season! I’m really enjoying this series, not just because of the characters, but also because I’m really interested the main topic for this series: Art Design. I love all of the nice ideas that the creators throw into this series, and the creators have really shown that they’re very knowledgeable about this subject. I’m just not sure why they found it a good idea to focus an entire episode on a bunch of unrelated side-characters, but perhaps they’ll return later somehow.
#11 (21) – Umi Monogatari – (8,25/10) – For a Junichi Sato series, Umi Monogatari feels a bit too one-sided, but nevertheless it has a powerful cast of characters and succeeds as a heart-warming drama. The “monster of the week”-theme only turned out to be something of the first few episodes in order to flesh out the characters.
#10 (10) – Marie & Gali – (8,5/10)

This series continues to be my current favourite comedy. It still hasn’t lost any of its charms, and it’s still as funny as ever with all of the weird stuff that the creators throw into it.
Award: Funniest Series of the Month

#9 (6) – Cross Game – (8,75/10)

Cross Game yet again has been a truly excellent series this month. The characters are advancing very subtly and the wit of this series doesn’t seem to be getting less interesting at all.

#8 (3) – Pandora Hearts – (8,75/10)

So yeah, the Cheshire Cat arc rocked. It really pushed the story into a different direction and the characters gained a lot of depth through it. My big worry is the same as the manga readers’ right now: where the heck is that second season!?

#7 (8) – Guin Saga – (8,75/10)

This month, Guin Saga turned to politics and lots of character-development, with some excellent results that really managed to solidify this series’ epic atmosphere. This series has become very solid fantasy and I’m loving it so far.

#6 (8) – Spice and Wolf – (8,5/10)

The first season took a while to get going. The second season didn’t. These past four episodes have been intelligent and complex in the merchant business, and at the same time they showed Lawrence and Horo at their best surpassing the subtle chemistry between them that made the first season so good.

#5 (9) – Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood – (8,75/10)

17 episodes in, and I’m confident to say that Brotherhood has surpassed the original series. The new series is shaping up to be much more interesting, and the way the creators toy around with your emotions, with which you’re not sure whether to laugh or cry, is just brilliantly done.

#4 (new) – Aoi Hana – (8,75/10)

Amazing attention to detail, that’s what this series stands out in. Because of that, this has turned into one of my favourite series of the new summer season. A lot of care has been spent into subtly fleshing out and developing all of the different characters, with some amazing results already within five episodes. Noise rocks!
Award: Best First Episode of the new Season

#3 (2) – Phantom – (9/10)

Phantom has continued to slowly build up its current arc, and you can still see enough of its brilliance throughout. I really like what Cal turned into, and the characterization on Reiji has been truly excellent all the way. This is why I’m such a big fan of Bee-Train.
Award: Best Characters of the Month

#2 (1) – Shangri-La – (9/10)

I really have to praise Shangri-La for its ambition. The storyline is really evolving into something epic right now: there are lots of different sides, every single episode nowadays comes with a truckload of plot twists that hardly ever feel out of place and only make the setting even more intriguing. It’s a lot of fun to watch due to the excellent cast of characters. It’s as a series very rough around the edges, with the direction feeling jerky at times to say the least, but considering how awesome the rest of the series has turned out, I’ve really stopped caring about this series’ flaws long ago.
Awards: Best Storytelling of the Month; Best Setting of the Month; Best ED of the Month (the second one)

#1 (new) – Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 – (9/10)

What an utterly amazing start to this series. I’m really glad to see that the creators chose a realistic approach: they didn’t create a worst-case scenario, but instead a “what if”-scenario. Mirai really works as a flawed lead character, and the creators added a lot of subtle details to her character that make her a really sympathetic lead.
Awards: Best Production-Values of the Month; Best Episode of the Month (02)

Tentai Senshi Sunred Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Well, here’s an interesting one. Imagine your average Super Sentai show like the Power Rangers: our hero has to fight a wave of bad buys and monsters every day in order to protect the world from getting taken over. Now imagine the complete opposite. That’s what Tentai Senshi Sunred is.

I’m still not sure whether this was a case of brilliance, or just a case of a drunk idea that got taken too far, but Tentai Senshi Sunred takes the average Super Sentai Formula, transforms the titular Sunred into a lazy temperamental sadist, and the villains into a bunch peace-loving incompetent idiots who seem to be more interested in housekeeping and making a living than “doing evil stuff”. In fact, especially the lead villain is a peace-loving flower child who is a master at house-keeping and always puts the feelings of others before his own. And so this series chronicles the useless attempts of our peace-loving villains to try to beat Sunred, while at the same time living as respectable members of society. And somehow, it works.

As a comedy, it may not be continuously funny, but it has its moments of brilliance throughout the entire series. It gets a lot of inspiration from its unique setting, and makes good use of this by driving things even more into the absurd. The characters also have their quirks which have a number of priceless moments and some of the running gags also really work well (I especially loved Godom and Sodorrah, even though the two of them didn’t do ANYTHING throughout the entire series). There are a few sketches that do tend to get on your nerves though, like the Host Dog and Vamps Cooking Tips, but overall it’s not too long to get boring or repetitive.

And the nice thing is, that at the moments that this series isn’t funny, it still is a very enjoyable and detailed slice of life with a good cast of voice actors. Really, this series is a pretty realistic portrayal of the trials of young adults if you ignore the fact that most of the characters are silly monsters that nobody seems to find scary or weird. I especially liked the subtle relationship between Sunred and his girlfriend, which for once was not overly romantic like you see in most other anime.

But yeah, the animation is quite lazy. A lot of the characters conveniently have masks on or some other excuse that would prevent the animators from animating their mouth when they speak. Instead, the characters wiggle around a bit when they try to move and speak. And really, it’s not like the animators can’t animate either: there’s one particular segment in which Sunred is walking in the background of a life-action scene, which is animated so smoothly that it actually becomes really hard to see whether he’s drawn or part of the live action.

But then again, to the question “does this show really need to be well animated?” the answer obviously is “no”. Sunred isn’t the best of the comedies out there, but it’s still worth it if you grew up watching shows like the Power Rangers or anything similar, just to see this series completely taking the piss out of those premises.

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

Aoi Hana – 05

by psgels, posted in Aoi Hana



Oh, I so love how this series managed to bring its characters to life. The non-verbal communication between the characters says much more than what the dialogue can even hope for and the creators manage to do this with a lot of subtlety. It really gives all of the characters complex stories, rather than “A is in love with B but B is in love with C so A hates C”, or the like. There definitely is a love triangle going on here, but these five episodes have added a lot of detail to them to make them far away from your average love triangle out there.

In this episode, Kyouko finds out why she was rejected by Yasuko, and how Yasuko is in love with Fumi. I didn’t see any hate for Fumi at her, but just about every other negative emotion was present on her. Because of this, Fumi stops accompanying Yasuko to her rehearsals because she fears having to deal with Kyouko’s sad face again. Throughout, Akira keeps acting as the straight man in this romance: she isn’t loved or in love with anyone, but instead provides support for both Fumi and Kyouko in this case.

And I have to say that Yasuko has a very interesting way to show her affections. While Fumi act like a shy puppy around her, Yasuko instead shows her feelings very subtly: she mostly puts on a straight face in order to be the strong shoulder for Fumi to lean on, but there are a few times here and there in which you can see that she really likes to be with Fumi.

Kenichi Kasai isn’t the most consistent director I’ve seen. What I saw of Major (the first season) shows that he’s terrible at shounen series, and Kimikiss, while it did have genuine characters, did drag on for way too long, but his best works really are something else. Nodame Cantabile was awesome, and Aoi Hana also looks to be standing out in its own way with its attention to detail. And yes, some day I’m going to watch Honey and Clover. 😉
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Umineko no Naku Koro ni – 05

by psgels, posted in Umineko no Naku Koro ni



As much as I don’t care about the original visual novel, I have to admit that this episode stretched even my suspense of disbelief. Battler just acted way too weird in this episode, it just doesn’t make any sense.

So basically, the bodies continue to fall when Natsuhi commits suicide. Butterflies then appear again, Battler tries to shoot them, the eye-catch appears… and suddenly Kanon, Sharon and Natsuhi are perfectly fine and everyone acts like nothing happens! Sure, I can see how Beatrice is screwing with everyone’s mind by magically reviving everyone and all… but what happened to the others? There isn’t even a single mention of them! And besides, everyone was talking like they just returned from a Beach resort, instead of a murderous mansion.

Then Battler’s refusal to believe in the existence of witches. Sure, I believed that too until the end of the previous episode. HOWEVER he completely seemed to accept that everyone and his dog came back to life, and yet he never even questions it, and yet he doesn’t want to believe that Beatrice killed them. That just doesn’t make any sense.

Overall, I’m a bit disappointed that it really was Beatrice who killed off everyone, but let’s see what the rest of the series can do to spice things up. This show now seems to be developing into a battle of wits between Beatrice and Battler, but I wonder how the creators are going to make this interesting without making Beatrice Mary-Sueing Battler over and over.

I’m intrigued by that letter in a bottle from Maria, though. What was up with that, and could that one explain what happened to the real Maria? So that Maria was basically killed and replaced by some thing that could keep an eye around for Beatrice?

Oh boy, this really reminds me back to the first season of Higurashi. I remember how my love for that series was also as inconsistent as he series itself.
Rating: – (Disappointing)

His and Her Circumstances Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



I’m not the biggest fan of romantic comedies, mostly because a lot of them are pretty cliched and boring. Nevertheless there obviously also are a lot of gems. His and Her Circumstances is Gainax and Hideki Anno’s addition to this genre, and while it may on the outside seem like the umpth variation of the same formula, it rises above most others through its dialogue, deep characters and snappy direction.

I have to grant it to Hideki Anno: as infamous as Gainax has become over the years, HaHC features some of the best direction I have seen in a romantic comedy. It doesn’t feel like a moment is wasted here, the dialogue is elaborate and meaningful and he really managed to bring out the depth of the characters from whatever manga this was based on. It turns this into a very accessible series: it’s very easy to watch and hardly ever gets boring. It may not be consistently funny, but it is consistently entertaining (well, with ONE major exception, but I’ll get to that below).

The dialogue overall flows very naturally, and of course the trademark Gainax Animation is very evident through the series, but you can see that along the way, the budget of this series becomes smaller and smaller. Nevertheless, the creators of this series solve it really well, and in a completely different way from how a limited budget is usually masked (by things like distorted faces and an overabundance of still frames). This series excels in its smart and creative tricks to save budget; the art remains crisp and consistent and the creators never forget to have lots of things going on at the same time. Two episodes in particular stand out in this: one consists out of uncoloured character-sketches, while the other is basically a living storyboard in black and white. They were a lot of fun to watch because even though it definitely looked cheap, there was always something going on in the screen and the characters never ceased to be captivating.

This does get taken too far in one aspect, though: Hideki Anno’s really weird obsession with recaps. Seriously, this show is full of the: nearly every episode starts with a recap of what happened up to that point, sometimes even lasting for three minutes. If this series had a complex story then okay, it might have been excused, but for a romantic comedy? In the middle, there also is a string of two completely useless recap episodes in the middle, and my guess would be that the total amount of time this series has spent on recapping is about the same as Wolf’s Rain’s recap block. And that one was aired for a good reason. And not spread across the entire series.

Nevertheless though, this series is a great example of a romantic comedy that’s deep and entertaining at the same time. Sure, it does have a bit of an inconclusive ending, but it’s nowhere near a bad conclusion. It’s a great example of how to correctly save budget without sacrificing style. And hey, after watching this series I finally know what the favourite anime of Akiyuki Shinbo is. ^^;

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

Shangri-La – 17

by psgels, posted in Shangri-La



Another great episode, if only because of Karin’s awesomeness. I already suspected that we didn’t see the last of her when she got busted out of her room by Atlas, but for her to end up buying the entire Akihabara! That’s a nice one. To think that it’s actually Karin who unites all of the good guys, rather than Kuniko, but it’s definitely an interesting twist for Karin to try and collect all of the Digmas (or Triple As, as she calls them). We still don’t know though what makes them so important, and why Ryouko bothered to let them go in the first place. Now that Claris seems to be gone, an interesting split personality on her side also seems to surface.

In other news, Takehito seems to have discovered that Kuniko is a Triple A Atlas member. What we do learn in this episode is that one of the Triple As is meant to inherit Atlas in the future… wtf?! But in any case, Takehito’s grief for his dead sister seems to be a bit too big for him to accept that Kuniko is part of Atlas (he’s probably not going to like it when he finds out about her grandmother either). We see him jump off a cliff in this episode, but in true Shangri-La fashion, I really doubt that that was the last we see of him. 🙂

But the juiciest plot twist in this episode: Kuniko plans to burn down the ENTIRE TOKYO in order to stop the Daedalus from spreading. This plot just keeps getting better and better, doesn’t it? My big hope is that Gonzo has saved its budget for that particular scene, because if it’s going to mean that the the entire city of Tokyo, including Atlas, is going to end up in flames, then that’s going to make for some potentially awesome eye candy.

What also striked me in this episode is that there are a lot of people who have an aversion of something major: Karin hates public places, Mikuni can’t go out in broad daylight, while Medusa can’t seem to survive without water. I keep trying to look for a link with something else in the story, but it seems pretty random. If you take liberties in this definition then you could argue that Sayoko can’t live without a “daughter”-figure to take care of, and Momoko and Miiko turned away their manlihoods, but there still doesn’t seem to be a pattern I can spot here. Especially since Kuniko and Kunihito don’t seem to fit in this theme at all…
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Touka Gettan Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Touka Gettan is part of the “WTF am I watching!?”-series. From the creators of Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito comes an equally eccentric series that will have just about everyone confused as hell in the first five episodes. Its big selling point is of course that the episode aired backwards: it starts with the conclusion and ends with the introduction.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg!

In any case, it’s definitely an interesting and unique experience watching this series. The first five episodes are a complete mindscrew, with just about everything not making any sense because the lack of explanation that was supposed to have happened “earlier” on in the series. After that though, the series slows down and becomes episodic, and starts resembling your average school series with episodes like the Christmas episode, beach episode, et cetera, as we see the daily lives of the lead characters play out.

It might seem boring, but don’t worry, because the filler parts really manage to flesh out the characters, and the serious parts really give you the opportunity to try and connect everything that happened, watching the different characters develop backwards throughout time. The character-development is ranges from subtle to in-your-face, so you’re going to have to pay a lot of attention to get every single detail. Since you know how the characters are going to end up, it definitely has an interesting effect to see their past selves considering the sad and downright screwed up situations that they’re going to end up in.

If I had to praise this series for one thing though, then it’s its creativity. Let alone its idea to reverse the episodes, the cast of characters feels fresh and has a lot of original quirks (I especially loved the car jokes) and a lot of creative episodes (I especially liked what can be considered as the lost episode of Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito. It fits EXACLTY), but there also are episodes that take on the form of a theatre play and even an TV-show. From the outside, this series may consist out of a lot of boring fillers, but they hardly ever leave you bored or uninterested.

That’s not to say that Touka Gettan is without its flaws, unfortunately; it’s full of ’em. It could have been much better paced and the continuity is pretty much a mess. The creators like to randomly let characters appear and disappear without any good reason, and some plot twists just seem to happen for the heck of it, rather than there being a good explanation for them. Considering how difficult it already is to keep track of the different characters in this show, an extra addition of plot-holes really DO NOT HELP.

Then there’s the excessive amount of fanservice in this series. I know that it’s there to add to the style of this series, but the creators really tend to take this overboard at times. The characters themselves also tend to lack background. While watching this series, you obviously won’t know which ones have proper background and which haven’t, but a lot of the characters could have been much better if we actually knew who they were in the end.

So yeah, Touka Gettan is too rough around the edges to really make an impact: it could have handled its unique format much better with a much tighter direction. Nevertheless, when it comes to entertainment and keeping its audience busy, it does exactly what it needs to do. It’s pretty much like Yamibou: it’s not exactly a great example of storytelling, but worth watching just for the character interaction and the ideas thrown into it.

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

Konnichiwa Anne – 17

by psgels, posted in Konnichiwa Anne



Okay, so that play turned out to be utterly terrible, but then again that was most likely the intention of the creators. I don’t want to know how stupid I looked when I performed as a kid in the plays we had in elementary school.

Anyway, this episode starts with a little recap of what happened in the previous episode, with the play getting cancelled and Henderson temporarily suspended and all. Anne overhears this, and tells it to the others who are pretty shocked. Mildred starts feeling guilty, and when Micheal notes that it was indeed her whining that caused her mother to overreact, she really gets defensive.

Henderson then calls them to class, with the message that the play is getting called off, and she’s suspended. She then continues with some boring speech about morals and chasing your dreams that I don’t want to summarize.

The new teacher then arrives and takes over, though we never get to see him teach. After class, everyone is down because the play is cancelled. They’re thinking of throwing away the props they made, but that would be a waste as well. Anne then suggests that even though the play was cancelled for school, they could still perform it in order to show the adults that Henderson is right.

Meanwhile, Mildred tries to talk to Henderson but runs away a the last minute. Henderson tries to stop her, and since she knows that Mildred’s anger at the role decisions was what caused the play to be cancelled, she tries to make Mildred feel better, instead of scolding her. This doesn’t work however, because she never seemed to know that Mildred was jealous of how much attention Henderson gave to Anne instead of her. Mildred breaks down, and when Henderson tries to hug her, she runs away to her parents.

We then see Henderson as she drops by Eggman’s place, probably for moral support. What follows is yet another boring speech on morals that I again don’t want to summarize.

The next day, the kids are thinking of a place they can perform their play, since the school has become off-limits. Randolf then comes with the idea: at the church! Yeah. They quickly gather everyone and the necessary props and costumes. Anne runs off to Eggman to tell him about this plan, when it seems that Henderson has been bugging him again in her worries of what to do next. And so she learns of the plans to continue the play, even though it was supposed to be a secret for her to not get her in trouble.

At the church, everyone is in costume, but at the same time they’re too scared to go on stage. Nobody really has the courage when the moment comes there, but Mildred arrives and saves the day by announcing the play to everyone sitting in the church. Reluctantly everyone arrives, but everyone is way too scared to read their lines. Anne however is different and she starts reciting until Mildred’s parents arrive and see what’s going on.

What follows is YET ANOTHER boring speech on morals that eventually gets enough funds for the library, and I again don’t want to summarize it.

As much as I’m a fan of the World Masterpiece Theatre series, I do have to admit that they can be divided into two categories: First Tier and Second Tier. the first tier is everything the franchise is supposed to be: incredibly realistic characters and they stand on their own as unique and touching series. Examples of those (that I watched anyway) are Perrine Monogatari, Anne of Green Gables, Little Princess Sara, Les Miserables and Porfy no Nagai Tabi. These are the series that made me fall in love with this wonderful franchise.

Then there is the second tier, which can usually be recognized by one thing: cheese. Perhaps the characters aren’t fleshed out enough, they don’t mix well with the storyline, or the direction is simply flawed. Either way, the dramatic scenes are very hard to buy and are laughable, rather than charming and touching. The Trapp Monogatari for example is a bit too full of teenaged angst (especially Hedwig delivered them with buckets at the time), Ie Naki Ko had its very generic finale and Anne of Green Gables unfortunately also belongs to this category after the Marysville arc.

And believe me, these series are nowhere near bad: they achieve things that a lot of series couldn’t even hope of achieving: Trapp, despite the angst, has some of the most realistic angst out there. Ie Naki Ko was incredibly heart-warming at times and did have its moment of brilliance, and Konnichiwa Anne had its first ten episodes. However, the standard for the World Masterpiece Theatre is high. These series are enjoyable, but nowhere near the masterpieces of the First Tier.

In this episode, it was Mildred who surprised me the most. I’m happy to see that she finally managed to completely cast her shell away as a rip-off from the Emily of the New Moon universe, and established herself as a character of her own. I also liked that scene in which Anne tried to tell Eggman about the play, while she didn’t know that Henderson was listening.

It would have been nice and all, but what really bugged me in this episode was that the moral lessons just WOULDN’T SHUT THE HELL UP. The creators really tried to shove their cheesy morals down our throats over and over. I know that it’s supposed to be a children’s show and all, but I doubt that even kids are going to appreciate being told these life lessons. What made it even worse was the downright cheesy reaction of all the adults who were at the church. I mean, people were living in a strict Christian environment, as shown in the early episodes of Anne of Green Gables. I find it hard to believe that the library issue would be solved that easily. It was of course awesome to see the kids trying to gather their courage, but they would probably just have been sent away before they would have been able to come up with that cheesy speech of theirs.

And it’s not like this series can’t produce good filler episodes either. The episode in the beginning of this series, in which Anne was invited to play with that rich spoiled little kid was downright awesome. Very witty and it had a great characterization. The past few episodes have just been dull and boring due to Henderson’s moral ramblings that just went on and on and on. And on.
Rating: – (Disappointing)

Guin Saga – 17

by psgels, posted in Guin Saga



Well, I didn’t see this one coming. Here I thought that this episode would show us the next ordeals that Guin and the others had to face with the new ship they sailed into, but instead none of them even appear in a single scene this episode. We aren’t even shown what they’re doing, the story simply puts its attention to something completely different. I like it; there aren’t many series that have the guts to ignore all of their main characters like this in favour of the side-characters.

So yeah, this episode is all about the wedding between Ardnaris and Amnelis, and the ones around them. Marius had originally the mission of killing off Amnelis’ younger brother (I’m assuming that he’s the oldest male heir to the throne, or something similar), but gets too attached to him and refuses to do his job, and so instead he creates some story in which he doesn’t need to kill the guy, because of how close they’ve gotten Marius has him under control.

Meanwhile, Amnelis has completely changed ever since she fell in love with Naris, and doesn’t even seem to notice how he’s trying to use her. Speaking of which… what was he doing with that Naris-lookalike at that strange city? Who was that man anyway? I guess that that will become clear once the two get married in the next episode. And yet there seem to be enough people aware of his plans, who seem to be people who want Remus to take the throne, instead of Ardnaris, and seem to be planning to use the guy as their pawn (probably still assuming that he’s the same weakling as ever). It should become very interesting if this guy would actually return to the throne, and try to take over the world. At least, if the anime actually gets to the point of animating those chapters…
Rating: ** (Excellent)