Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood – 17

by psgels, posted in Full Metal Alchemist - Brotherhood



So yeah, for the past few weeks I’ve read a lot of comments about people who are disappointed with some of the cuts that this version of the anime made. They’re thankfully not annoying to read (unlike a certain other show), but they are rather one sided. From what I gathered from all of the comments I read by the manga readers, the manga seems to be the most perfect thing ever, and the Brotherhood adaptation is a flawed adaptation.

From my perspective (as I haven’t read anything from the manga), Brotherhood is doing a pretty terrific job so far. The thing I especially like about it is how it toys around with your emotions, and this episode was an especially good example of this: Ross escapes from prison after being framed for the murder on Hughes. Roy then comes and kills her off, of all things! The episode ended without any clear hint about what happened to her, whether it was a clever decoy from Roy or whether he really turned into such a bastard that he’d actually kill her for Hughes. That scene in which he sits in his office… I didn’t know whether I should laugh, mourn Ross, feel sorry for Roy’s co-workers or get angry at Roy for what he did, and there were a lot more scenes with similar effects, in which so many different emotions rush through at the same time. Did the manga have the same effect?

So yeah, I pretty much loved this episode. Barry indeed was awesome in the way he bust Ross out of prison. The whole escape scene in fact was awesome, in the way that Lin tagged along, and when they ran into Ed and Al, so many things happened at the same time. The scene later, with Ross’s death only made things better, when this series kept reminding Ed how helpless he is in protecting the lives of others. This was also the first time that I saw Armstrong seriously angry… and that made a lot of impact as well.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Cross Game – 17

by psgels, posted in Cross Game



Well, so this was an episode for the romance on the show. The evil coach is gone, and most of his team transferred away again, with the exception of Azuma. The training pitch has become a lot less like a war-zone, and Kou and the others finally can practice in the open, which results the popularity of the main cast members growing quickly, as shown by the countless amount of fans for Azuma, Kou and Aoba.

This paragraph contains a MAJOR Touch SPOILER, so look away if you haven’t seen it yet. And so, it was inevitable for rumours to start wandering around, in true Adachi-fashion. This time, it’s spread by Akaishi who feels that the two of them would make a nice couple. but the big difference with Touch at that point was that Minami was already in love with Tatsuya while Kazuya was still around while Kou and Aoba only got closer after Wakaba’s death.

This episode also showed a potential girlfriend for that guy whose name I can’t remember. It’s very nice to see this series break through a flaw that a lot of romance series seem to suffer from: the “only main characters may fall in love”-syndrome, in which the side-characters almost never seem to get hooked up themselves, amidst the romantic adventures of the lead characters.

The rest of this episode was filled with the banter between Kou and Azuma, who seems to have moved into Kou’s house since losing his scholarship. The two of them work surprisingly well together in these light-hearted moments. I’m really glad to see that even after seventeen episodes, this series still hasn’t shown any sign of losing its wit. My personal favourite still remains Akaishi. I just loves how innocent he tries to look whenever things don’t go his way.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Strange Dawn Review – 95/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Strange Dawn



There are some anime out there awesome… and then there are the series that go one step beyond. These are the series that just somehow go against all boundaries and expectations I could have had for it, and have something nearly impossible to describe. When I take a look at the series that I managed to rate at 95/100 and 94/100 through the nearly four years that I’ve been blogging, I keep getting surprised at how little of them look like the masterpieces that they are from the outside. I guess that such a list of personal favourites is incredibly personal, and different for everyone, but every time one of these appears, they truly remind me why I’m still blogging.

As for Strange Dawn, it too doesn’t look like anything special from the outside, however, I was completely proven wrong when I started watching it, about two years ago. Unfortunately, it was nearly unfindable for neither subs nor raws, but I finally managed to find a bunch of French subs for the entire series. It completely blew me away; Junichi Sato (who directed also Kaleido Star, Aria, Magic Users Club and Umi Monogatari) has done an absolutely fantastic job on this series.

Anyway, about Strange Dawn. Its basic premise has been done many times before: high-schoolers end up in some kind of parallel dimension and have some adventures. What sets itself apart from the others is a terrific execution. For starters, it breaks tons of stereotypes that these series have. Usually when a lead character crosses into a new world, he turns out to conveniently acquire some new superpower or something: either he becomes incredibly good at swordfighting, or has the magical Deus ex Machina beam, turns out to be royalty or gets saved by some sort of royalty. Yuko and Eri instead stay exactly the same. Instead, their importance to the story comes from the fact that they ended up in a country full of midgets, hence their natural strength when compared to all of these small people, and that becomes the major driving force of the story.

And there are more of these things: the creators take nothing for granted here, they explain the problems the two girls face when they have to deal with the strange world they ended up in; from eating and taking care of their clothes to sleeping and going to the bathroom (especially the latter is a running plot thread). In fact, the entire series has an incredible sense of detail: during the quiet parts in the series, whenever characters aren’t fighting or in the midst of dramatic climaxes, you can see them taking care of their own food, sharpening their weapons, caring for their horses (okay, flying snails), and doing all sorts of things that most anime nowadays take for granted or only show one or two scenes of.

The same amount of detail you can see in the animation: characters move realistically and relatively few corners are cut in comparison to your average anime. When characters move, they hardly ever look out of place and they’re always doing something meaningful that might not impact the story, but brings SO MUCH life to the setting and the world that the story plays in. For the past few years I’ve been a real advocate of series that manage to make the setting that they’re played in come alive, and this series really is the school example of how to do this right.

And as for the plot, we’ve got ourselves another case of wrong advertising here. The promo art might make you suspect that this is a fun and light-hearted fantasy adventure, mainly aimed at kids. It is not. In fact, don’t even dare to try and watch this series for the lighter parts, because Strange Dawn is dark. It’s not just dark in its atmosphere, but also in its themes. When people get cut up, blood appears without any hints of censorship; themes of war and death play a HUGE role in this series and heck, a certain episode even what can be qualified as an attempted rape in it. The amount of drama throughout the entire series is immense, but at the same time it consistently stays away from emo and melodrama, and stays genuine and never drags on.

Then there is the amazing voice acting cast. Especially the two lead characters are magnificently voiced, but the rest of the cast also shines throughout the series. They perfectly manage to capture the emotions of their characters, making the entire series an emotional roller-coaster along the way. And speaking of the audio, I also have to mention the amazing soundtrack that was compiled for this series. The tracks fit the atmosphere perfectly, and are a joy to listen to throughout the series.

Overall, there wasn’t one episode that didn’t have me clutched to the screen in near-tears, but the thing that blew me away the most was the ending. For the sake of spoilers I won’t say anything more, but the final episode was the single most emotional episode I have watched this year. Do not get fooled by the childish exterior, because inside Strange Dawn is a mature and intense roller-coaster ride. There are probably a lot of people who disagree with me on this, considering the abysmally low ratings on sites as Anidb, but I loved every minute of it.

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

Canaan – 04

by psgels, posted in Canaan



I can somewhat understand the criticisms against Canaan. It’s in no way the best show of the season, the comedy isn’t the funniest around, and the characters themselves pale in comparison to some of the other shows this season. The plot isn’t the most interesting out there either. And yet as entertainment, it works for me. The reason I’m watching this series is not the characters or plot, but rather the direction, and that one has really been excellent so far. The creators really know how to create gripping action-scenes, and PA Works are definitely establishing themselves as a high-quality animation studio.

In this episode, we delve a bit into the past of Canaan, and are shown how she was rescued by her caretaker, and trained in the art of gunslinging, only for her caretaker to be killed off by Alphard. I assume that this show is going to be a thriller, aiming to kill said assassin. I really didn’t like how she suffers from the “I’m about to kill you but I won’t because that will spoil the fun”-syndrome, but I have to say that that gunfight between her and Canaan was the best this series has shown since the first episode.

At this point, I have no idea whether or not the creators are going to be able to top that first episode. At least the characters seem to be coming together, but I really don’t know whether this is the kind of series that attempts to have a very well animated first episode, only for the budget to continuously drop throughout the rest of the series, or the kind of series that has a bit of budget saved for an awesomely animated finale. Usually I just assume the former, but we are talking about PA Works here, not some sort of mediocre Zexcs or ACGT here. Especially the fight this episode showed that the animation budget has in no way run out yet, if only the pacing would increase to allow for a more creative gunfight.

The reason I’m a big fan of anime is the way it combines visuals, audio, storytelling and characters into one. I’m a big fan of multimedia that manage to combine all into one. And it’s also not like the story and characters are so bad that they make the rest of the series dull either: while they’re not the best, they’re definitely good enough for this series to work with. I’m enjoying this series a lot, because of this.
Rating: * (Good)

Otogizoshi Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



I’m a big fan of folklore, so I was looking forward to checking out Otogizoshi, and I must yet again praise Production IG to come with original and new premises. The thing that makes this series special is that while it starts in Japan’s Heian era, the second half of the series takes place in modern day Tokyo. Even though the story and atmosphere of both are completely different, they mix really well in the end.

The Heian arc is really folklore, as traditional as you can get in anime. It’s a tale of honor, samurai and bandits as we follow the female protagonist as she pretends to be her dead brother in order to save the kingdom. It’s got a very tight atmosphere, almost horror-like, and it’s full of sword-battles and the like as the story that offers a deep look into the practices Onmyou evolves.

The Heian arc however suffers from a stereotypical cast of characters. It just spends too little time into fleshing out the characters, and so they never really grow beyond their arch-types, as likable as they may be: Hikaru is your average protagonist, always trying to do the right thing, even though it’s not in her own best interest, then we have your typical loyal guard, the womanizer who turns out to have a heart of gold and the annoying brat. They definitely have their charms, but they just don’t feel like dynamic characters and the end result becomes a bit cheesy. Especially the villains suffer from this: only the mid-bosses are sufficiently fleshed out. The minor bad guys are just a bunch of screaming paper bags with swords, while the main bad guy is your stereotypical evil overlord who wants to destroy the world because he believes humanity to be rotten. Been there, done that.

Then the Tokyo arc, that takes place 1000 years after the Heian arc. The common opinion of this arc seems to be that it’s rather boring compared to the previous arc, but I disagree: it’s the Tokyo arc that really breathes life into this series. For once, it’s much quieter than the over the top Heian arc, and instead it develops into a modern-day mystery series.

The creators here really take their time to let the mysteries slowly build up, and slowly but surely you’ll get an idea of what’s going on as the links with the Heian arcs are made and developed. But what also made this arc better was the cast: the characters for this arc get plenty of time to get fleshed out, due to the slower pacing, and we really get to know them this time. The Tokyo arc takes a long time to get going, but it’s perfectly paced and knows exactly how to use its time to close off with a great conclusion that doesn’t try to be anything more than it is, unlike with the Heian arc.

The visuals in this series also rock. The character-designs are really well done, especially for the Tokyo arc. they’ve got a really realistic feeling, as opposed to all of the moe and overly cute series you see nowadays. Hikaru isn’t moe in anyway, and yet she looks great, and the same goes for the rest of the cast. They really make for a lot of great art throughout the series, my personal favourites were the flood scene and the earthquake scene. I’m not sure who animated those scenes, but they were full of creative visuals and made a lot of impact.

And yeah, despite the flaws the Heian arc most definitely isn’t bad. It’s a tensely told folklore, and the Tokyo arc that follows it makes it even better when it puts a modern touch to it, if you don’t mind a bit of slice of life here and there, of course.

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

Phantom – 17

by psgels, posted in Phantom



Like expected, this was the episode where all hell breaks lose, and it indeed was one awesome episode full of awesome plot twists and awesome soundtracks. If this is going to be the standard for the rest of this series, then we’re in for something amazing. The build-up for the Cal arc was already interesting, but I feel like the climax is going to be even more awesome.

So in the end, it becomes clear that Claudia was the one who ordered the attack, half a year before. Scythe has been orchestrating his revenge against her, and that plan seems to be coming to fruition.

In this episode, Reiji finally gets the chance to talk to Ein again, and it seems that she hasn’t been mind-wiped or something: she still remembers Reiji, and instead is acting of her own will it seems. However, we’re still not given a look into her mind as to what caused her to go back to Scythe. I suspect that she never really cared about Reiji, and feared him more than she was willing to go with him, but let’s see whether or not that turns out to be true.

In the meantime, Reiji’s apartment has gotten blown up as well. Obviously Cal wasn’t inside when it happened because we’re only shown one side of the story, but I still really wonder what the heck happened inside there, and what caused her to escape. With this, she’s fully involved with the main storyline though, so that should prove to be awesome.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 – 03

by psgels, posted in Tokyo Magnitude 8.0



To those who found the second episode a bit too mild and unspectacular: watch A Spirit of the Sun. It’s a two-episode OVA about an earthquake that is so powerful that it splits the entire Japanese mainland in half. That’s destruction for you. I however, prefer series as Tokyo Magnitude much, much better. After all, what makes more impact? An atom bomb dropped onto some sort of major city that wipes out millions of people, or a section of a highway that crushes some people who were worrying about their loved ones and tried to get home, dying right before the protagonist’s eyes?

Anyway, this episode showed what I have been suspecting: the real disaster hasn’t even started yet. Mirai and Yuki are miles away from their house, a distance that’s very hard to walk for a bunch of kids, and the two of them are going to have to try and reach it inside a city in which millions of people are trying to do the same.

And then there are the aftershocks, which may not have been able to cause destruction on a large scale, but definitely on a small scale. Take buildings that have been well designed, but caught fire in the big earthquake. Through an extra push of an earthquake of size 5.0, they can still collapse, which is what happened to the bridge in this episode.

There is no doubt in my mind that this is an amazing series. This episode did so well in bringing across Yuki’s fears of being abandoned and separated from Mari, even though she often bitches at her. The blisters on her feet due to her sandals was also a very nice touch. Because the weather is so hot, I doubt that a lot of people there are wearing shoes fit for long walks.

As for the typical Bones endings, I can actually see little that can go wrong there: if the series is just going to be about Mirai and Yuki trying to get home, this will make for a very charming conclusion to the series if the creators end it at their reunion. The only problem I can see is that they might force in a conclusion to Mari’s storyline about her kid.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Pandora Hearts – 17

by psgels, posted in Pandora Hearts



Okay, so this episode was basically an aftermath and introduction. In the first part of the episode, Sharon’s kidnapping is wrapped up, while the rest of the episode shows us a familiar character returning: Ada, Oz’s sister. Both were excellent opportunities to see different sides of some characters. What I liked most about this episode was how we come to see Break and Sharon in a totally different light.

We learn that Break too was alive 100 years ago, and involved in the time-warp that got hold of Gilbert and Vincent. He was then found by Sharon and her mother, and while he started off as a closed off brat, it was Sharon’s mother who turned him into the playful sadist he is today. As what happened to Sharon’s mother, we still don’t know. She could be dead, but this show has a tendency of keeping it a mystery of who survived and who died.

As for Oz’s sister, she overacted a bit in my opinion. I’m not too fond of how she turned into some sort of blond bimbo, but she definitely has potential if she gets fleshed out more. Oscar in the meantime was priceless in his worries over her. The school also seems to hold some mysteries that have to do with Alice, so I’m wondering what these kids can add to the story. I mean, if they’re at school, they were five years old when Oz was cast into the Abyss, so they can’t have something to do with the whole story, can they?
Rating: * (Good)

Basquash! – 17

by psgels, posted in Basquash!



Yeah, with this there is no question possible about the swap of directors: the directional style of this episode was really different from anything we’ve seen in this show so far. This is Kiss Dum. I was expecting this to be the moment for this show to completely jump the shark, but what the hell, it actually works!?

But yeah, this episode had a lot more emphasis on music. The new director likes to swap hot-blooded action scenes together with quiet exposition scenes, and so the atmosphere of this episode changed a lot of times from one to the other. It’s interesting how he didn’t mess up the continuity and developed it at the same time, though. You can see that the new animation director takes a lot less risks, and so the graphics don’t look as good as in the beginning of this show, but nevertheless I’m glad that the awesome background artists are still there, because at least they made sure for a lot of eye candy.

In a way, this change of direction was exactly what Basquash needed. I’m not sure what made the old director lose his touch, but ever since the desert episodes this series seems to have been missing the chaos of the first couple of episodes, and despite the character-development, this series became rather… generic, with not a lot of things that stood out. However, I can really see a hot blooded GAR finale work for this series. The past number of episodes were at least good at building up, and if the new director at least manages to use this build-up this can turn into a pretty exciting finale. What this series needs to pay attention to the most is to keep the level of cheese in check. While the drama thus far was mostly subtle, this episode definitely upped the cheese-level. That was one of the downsides to this episode.

Nevertheless, I like the new additions to the cast (especially the moon giant has lots of potential), this episode had lots of stuff going on and plenty of new revelations. Finally I’m getting a bit more excited with this series.
Rating: * (Good)

Umineko no Naku Koro ni – 04

by psgels, posted in Umineko no Naku Koro ni



You know, despite the supposed details that are left out from the original Umineko, I’m really enjoying this series. Even Maria is getting better if we consider her as the culprit, or one thing very much related to the culprit, but that’s where the mystery comes in: perhaps she has a very good reason to act the way she does? I mean, this is a fantasy-series: we’ve got glowing butterflies, so a bit of a mental delusion also might fit.

Anyway, what really struck me about this series is the amount of fans from the visual novel that complain about the details that were left out. I’ve been blogging for more than three and a half years now, and I’ve covered lots of series that had the same “the manga/novel/game is so much better”-vibe. The thing however, is that I haven’t played the original novels. I’m simply trying to watch an anime here, and without all the comments on the things that were left out, I probably wouldn’t even have noticed. The only thing that would have annoyed me was how the anime creators tried to overplay Maria’s Higurash-faces, but even that would have been a small detail that’s easily overlooked.

While I haven’t read Umineko, I do want to try and put this into a bit of perspective. If I recall correctly, the first episode of this series lasted a whole three hours. With four episodes, the anime has now been going on for let’s say an hour and 20 minutes (assuming that every episode is 20 minutes long, plus 3 minutes of OP and ED). Within that hour and twenty minutes in the game, was the storyline already this exciting, intriguing and mysterious in the game? I really doubt it.

The point I’m trying to make is this: Take any anime A, it doesn’t matter which one it is, as long as it’s really, really good; amazing in every single way. Now, ask yourself the question: would that series have been even better if we knew every single detail about the cast? How they spent their exact life, what their hobbies are, their entire wardrobe, childhood sweat-hearts, whatever. In my opinion, it doesn’t necessarily have to be so.

This of course is an extreme example, but the same principle goes for Umineko: according to the comments I’ve read on the previous episode, Ryukishi decided to go for the far end of the spectrum by adding lots of background, but that’s not the only way to achieve a deep cast, in my opinion. I’m of course not saying that the anime does have a deep cast, but we’re only four episodes in. There is NO way to tell whether the cast is going to be deep or not at this point.

Anyway, as for this episode, I’m really curious to where the creators are going with this: there are only five people alive at this point. Are the creators going to pull the same thing as Higurashi, and keep pulling a time loop over and over? There are a multiple amount of different arcs, after all.

Remember that the Higurashi anime was also incredibly inconsistent. Every arc was different, and even within each arc there were huge mood-changes. what if this goes the same in Umineko? We’re now at the point at which the story is building up, using the past slaughters in order to create a sense of despair. However, with so many episodes left, there still is enough time for the characters to either die and revive, or regroup and try to figure out what the heck is going on, and who Beatrice is. The thing I liked best of this episode was the atmosphere. It was a really tight one, especially considering we’re only four episodes in.
Rating: ** (Excellent)