Major Review – 72,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



I’ve been looking forward to watch the Major series for a while now, and with this I finally managed to check out the first season. The baseball series form a truly underrated genre in anime, with most people getting turned off because they don’t know anything about the games. Well, let me tell you that I’m in no way a sports fan, and yet I’ve enjoyed myself quite a few wonderful baseball series, and I was hoping to add Major to that list. Well, that’s definitely taught me not to get my hopes up too high before starting a series.

The premise seems solid enough: this season shows a young boy of nine years old named Goro as he challenges the little league with his team, and the succeeding series will show him as he slowly grows up into adulthood. It would have been a fine series if it wasn’t for the damned cheese that this show overflows with. I know that passion and manliness can spice up an anime, but this show is really taking that way too far.

This series just tries way too hard to create as much drama as possible. Just as an example, they really try to make Goro’s past as sad as possible. Whenever things are looking a bit too happy, you can bet your hat that very soon something unexpected will happen that will put everyone in despair. The characters are always eager to angst, and especially the way in which Goro just keeps yelling and whining at everyone really doesn’t help anything.

This would have been excused if it wasn’t for the other flaws of this series: the characters. There’s definitely development among them, but it’s handled so badly at times that it gets really hard to take this show seriously. The worst example of this is the bullies: one episode we see a bunch of bullies turn one of their classmates’ life into hell, the next episode we see Goro yelling at them and suddenly they’re begging for forgiveness, professing their love for baseball from out of nowhere and completely change character.

And this formula really appears pretty often, by the way. Whenever a side-character is feeling down of has his issues, then within an episode we see Goro yelling at them and giving a speech about the power of friendship and they’re completely healed again. In the second half of the show, a bit of pointless romance also pops up that never gets anywhere, and especially since we’re dealing with nine year-old kids here, I really wonder why the creators bothered with it anyway.

Then there’s the baseball. Granted, it’s not the worst part of the show and the creators are able to create some interesting situations and fun games… but the fact remains that the matches are just too forced. This isn’t the first time in which a baseball series has an incredibly good pitcher as a lead character, but even when taking that into considation, Major is really stretching it with Goro. He needs a team full of incompetent idiots in order to prevent him from God-moding himself through every single game with ease. Within six months, he transforms a team that started out with a bunch of random kids with no talent for baseball to the best team of their age in Japan. All through the power of friendship.

It’s therefore no wonder that the baseball matches become utterly predictable, in a bad way. Characters become incredibly good or bad, depending on the writers’ wishes. Even though all the opposing teams use interesting strategies, the only tactics in Goro’s team are ad-libbed. But the worst thing is that every single game is set up exactly so that Goro is the one to save the day, by scoring a point at the very last possible moment.

Usually I can excuse a flaw here and there in a series, but Major just has way too many of them, not to mention that Goro himself is completely unlikable. He really is your typical shounen lead character with a dark past and a simple mind, and really doesn’t do anything to diverge from it. Most of the opposing teams would have been more interesting if they didn’t simply turn into stereotypes. There are some interesting characters, like Joe Gibson and Shigeno, but the two of them hardly ever appear.

And as for some positive comments: the baseball matches are definitely exciting. when you watch them for the pure entertainment value and don’t mind how it ends, then they’re going to keep you busy, because there is lots and lots of passion in this series. The graphics look simple, but the animation and music also do their job and don’t stand in the way of anything. But the thing is that there are many baseball shows that are so just much better than this one. Try Adachi’s works, or if you want more excitement there is also Princess Nine, while for the tactics you can go to One Outs and I’ve also heard that Ookiku Furikabutte is awesome. I’m just not going to bother with Major anymore.

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

07-Ghost – 06

by psgels, posted in 07-Ghost



Interesting episode, and I’m still surprised at how good the battles in this series are. This episode starts the offensive of Ayanami to get Teito out of that church, and while this episode only showed the beginning of his wave of attacks, he did immediately use Mikage’s sister for his plans. We still have no idea why the heck Mikage was released in the first place, though.

And with this episode it also becomes clear that Teito has hidden powers, but ah well, I guess that there was really no other way with him being exceptionally talented for a student, and everyone and his dog in the military having to go after him. Ayanami now also knows that there’s something really strong protecting Teito, so it’s going to be interesting to see what his next plans are going to be. Frau and the others can’t protect Teito forever, and while their weapons may be strong against ghouls, they’re going to have to face trained military artists now.

My prediction though, is that Teito is going to remain in the church just fine until at least episode 13, at which probably something major is going to happen. In the meantime, this show is doing a good job of fleshing out the characters and their strange customs. There’s an entirely different culture inside this church, and the light-hearted moments of this show have really allowed to show some interesting customs and rituals of what goes on inside the church. Because of the Ghosts, I can imagine how the church has managed to survive for ages without any influence from the outside, and so they really were able to explore what they found were important.

Rating: * (Good)
A bit clichéd, but nevertheless the fight rocked.

Konnichiwa Anne – 06

by psgels, posted in Konnichiwa Anne



Oh my god. I really did not expect this. Let me say that this season features lots and lots of great and excellent series, and so I never considered Konnichiwa Anne as the top of this season.

But seriously, this episode was without a doubt the single most emotionally powerful episode of the entire Spring Season so far. I expected that the entire episode would deal with Elisa getting emo over and over about not wanting to leave Anne behind, and then it pulls this. I so did not expect that.

We start the episode with a little recap of what happened in the previous episode, and we see how the conversation between Elisa and her father goes on for a bit longer. Bert tells her that if Elisa’s going to stay, just because of Anne, she’s going to regret it every day, and blame Johanna and Anne for it, and hate him even more than she already does, and he tells her that her life is of her own, and that she should leave the house.

Elisa leaves, saying that she saw a side of her father that she never knew he had. Anne meanwhile is running away into the nearby forest, which is quite troubling for Johanna as she’s approaching the birth of her new child and wanted someone to rub her back. Elisa goes to look for her, and quickly finds her. When they get back home, Johanna again reminds Anne of how she’s not going to London. Anne then goes to her room and tries to pack her stuff along with that of Elisa, in the hope of getting to travel with Elisa, but the wedding ring on Elisa isn’t helping much.

The next couple of days, Anne doesn’t say anything and just quietly and angrily does her job, even scaring off Horace and Edward, no matter how Elisa asks her to start speaking. Roger then arrives at their home, and the two of them make up for the time in which Elisa ran away in the next episode. As Anne watches them, she promises herself not to fall in love (and that explains why sin the original series she never really was that interested in love).

Elisa tells Roger about Anne’s behavior, and roger tells her that he managed to get the ship’s tickets, and they’ll be leaving the next week. There’s no time left, so he figures that they’re going to have to rush the marriage, but Elise doesn’t want to get married without Anne being there. That’s why Roger proposes to delay the marriage, and simply go to London with the two of them.

At the day that Elisa is going to leave, she says goodbye to her mother, who comments on how the baby inside of her is remaining awfully quiet. Elisa then says goodbye to her little brothers and gives them a farewell hug. Anne still is nowhere to be found, so Elisa and Roger wait until there’s no time left, but Anne stubbornly remains hidden under Elisa’s desk. Bert gives his own subtle farewell gesture, and the two of them leave. Anne realizes too late that she still wants to say goodbye, tries to run after the carriage but is just too far behind. Horace then walks up to her with the message that the baby is coming.

Bert went to call the local midwife, so it’s up to Anne to take care of Anne. Anne immediately snaps out of her gloom and focuses on getting hot water and getting the boys out of the way, while commenting on how painful it looks. Anne helps massage Johanna’s back a bit, but it doesn’t really help ease the pain. Bert meanwhile is in bad luck because the midwife happened to be on a trip, and so she can’t make it in time for the baby to be born. This means that Anne has to be the one to help deliver the baby. When the baby is halfway out, Anne comments on how it has a blue colour, and so Johanna screams at her to get the baby out.

Bert arrives just too late, and Anne meanwhile is crying because of the things that she was forced to do. It’s a boy, by the way. The next morning, Bert gives Anne the opportunity to name the new baby, and so Anne walks away exhausted. She talks a bit to her reflection in one of the cupboards and then comes up with the new name: Maya (or however you spell it, it was really hard for me to make out how to actually spell it), and the episode ends.

So oh my god, where to start? I know that I talked down on this series when it first started, but with this episode it definitely earned its title as World Masterpiece Theatre. Sure, it was a bit convenient for Johanna to give birth right after Elisa left, but this really caught me unexpectedly. We’re all busy with the sadness that someone important is leaving Anne’s life, and then suddenly there are much more important things to worry about: delivering that damned baby. Especially considering how it so easily could have gone wrong. It really is such a task for such a young girl to just pull that baby out of a woman, and really it could have gone horribly wrong if she didn’t. That birth-scene and especially the aftermath was more emotionally powerful than anything I have seen thus far in this season.

And Bert! I know that the guy is a lazy bum. I know that he is a horrible father and husband and slacks off too much. And yet I love his character and how it’s getting fleshed out. Now that he’s found a job, we really can see a different side of his. That one of a cold, lazy and useless, but caring father. The way he completely lost his cool when he was waiting for the midwife to show up really shows that he cares about his family, even though he doesn’t often show this, and the way in which he understood that Elisa was off worse if she were to stay with him was really surprisingly mature for a guy who hits his wife.

What’s also interesting is that sudden parallel with Kaze no Shoujo Emily that popped up in this scene. That really was surprisingly similar to the time in which Teddy went away to London for a few years and Emily missed the chance to say goodbye to him because of her own stubbornness. But in this case, it’s pretty sad because with this, Anne has really lost her best friend and it really doesn’t look like they’re going to be living together again. Now, Anne really doesn’t have anyone to confide into and is just going to be taking care of the young boys until the inevitable happens and she’ll be forced to leave her aunt.

And another thing I really liked about this episode is that Anne really behaved like a little girl in it, especially during the first half in which she does nothing but pouting because she’s unhappy, and how she refuses to listen to anyone. The whole thing with Elisa leaving was done surprisingly subtle, with just the right amount of angst in it.

Rating: **** (Fantastic)
So many things come together in this episode; an incredible emotional ride from start to finish.

Guin Saga – 06

by psgels, posted in Guin Saga



Oh boy, this series is sure promising some great things. In the next episode, we’re going to see Guin along with an army of ape-men try to take on 15000 Mongols. I really can’t think of any fantasy series that correctly pulled off battles between entire armies a la Lord of the Rings, but if there’s any series that can do it, then it’s going to be this one.

And yeah, I’ve been trying to think of something to compare this series with, and this really has a lot in common with Lord of the Rings, the anime, especially when you look at the presentation of the movies: beautiful landscapes, different races, majestic architecture and battles on a very large scale. The big difference is that the enemies this time aren’t a bunch of dumb orcs, but human beings themselves. That’s one thing I dislike of a lot of western fantasy: its “humans good orcs bad” mentality. I mean come on, break the boundaries between good and evil a bit.

In any case, the next episode is probably going to be make or break for this series, and we’ll see if it can pull off such a huge battle (of which we probably will see much more in this series) correctly. I’m not asking for much, just as long as it doesn’t screw up as badly as Valkyria Chronicles did in its first episodes. But I’m confident: so far, the only flaw in the combat of Guin Saga was that at times the mood gets ruined by bad animation, which really stands out like no other in this series amidst the otherwise beautiful drawings.

As for the rest of this episode, it mostly built up for that next episode, but I’m glad to see that the graphics looked much better than the past episodes. The fact that Satelight ended up animating this series really has its good and bad sides: on one hand, the best shots look really good, but at the same time the lesser shots really visibly lack polish. It’s about the opposite of companies as Production IG and Kyoani, who hardly ever seem bothered corner-cutting.

Rating: * (Good)
Building up, but that battle in the beginning was pretty good.

Shangri-La – 06

by psgels, posted in Shangri-La



Having a flawed character as Kuniko is always a bit of a double edged sword, since she often ca get on people’s nerves, but I find her to be surprisingly solid as a lead character. This episode was mostly meant to build up and shed more light into what kind of powers she has, as she seems to be able to track down Medusa when it’s manipulating the carbon industry. It’s already been hinted that there is some kind of connection between Kuniko and Karin, and the two of them might have some similarity that allowed Karin to so easily take over the carbon industry.

I’m personally a big fan of mystery-series, and that part is getting pretty well developed in this series. Kunihito for example: we learn that there’s more to this guy than meets the eye, which when you think about it makes sense: why else would Atlas send a rookie out to such an important mission? We know that he is in some way important to Naruse Ryouko, and important enough for her to consider his record as secret.

And where does Kuniko’s grandmother fit in all of this. She clearly plays a role, since she’s able to follow the world carbon markets, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she played some part in getting Karin to the place she is now. With her daughter highly placed in Atlas, and her granddaughter having someone related to Mikuni as her mentor, she sounds like one of the key persons in this whole mystery.

It’s obvious that this series is still building up, but what makes the difference between this show and Valkyria Chronicles, which is doing the same, is that with Shangri-La, I can really see some potential for the future: there are lots of things going on and built up that can promise to be so interesting for the future, while Valkyria Chronicles is just stuck in stereotyped side-characters and formulaic battles. I’m not sure how many others still like this series, but I’m pretty much sold and eager to watch the second half of this series.

Rating: * (Good)
The animation turned buggy again but it’s still much better than the first four episodes. This pretty much was an episode of building up, and it did this well.

Natsu no Arashi – 06

by psgels, posted in Natsu no Arashi



Okay, that’s it. With this, you can consider Valkyria Chronicles dropped and Natsu no Arashi picked back up. Not only was the past episode of VC incredibly bad, but the current episode of NnA was also incredibly good. We’re really talking about a wolf in sheep’s clothing here: after the silly first episode, did anyone expect that five episodes later, we’d see the characters in the midst of a sea of fire after a bombing in the second world war? Thought so.

And seriously, before this season started I really didn’t expect that I’d like the next series by Shinbo this much. After Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei, Maria Holic and watching Tsukuyomi Moon Phase, I really was through with the guy, and especially that announcement of him trying to regurgitate yet another season of Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei, which really hit its expiration date long ago made me worried. And yet here he comes, picks out a great manga and adapts it really well so far. The storyline has been getting really interesting in its focus of past vs present, and the filler episodes are a lot of fun to watch (like last episode’s cross-dressing bit).

This episode was much more serious, in which we for the first time see Jun and Kaja go back in time for the first time (making interesting use of the fact that Jun’s actually a girl), and we turn to the place in which she herself grew up, and we get to know her first love right before he died in a bombing. Since Kaja is less confident than Arashi, a large par of this episode is spent on her wondering whether or not to change history.

And poor Jun gets dragged around all the way, but we really get more insight into ‘her’ character in this episode as well as she sees Kaja struggle with her past love. I also like the reason she has for cross-dressing, how she holds some sort of grudge against the average female.

Rating: ** (Excellent)
Wonderful art style, a really dark and deep episode for such a seemingly innocent series.

Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood – 06

by psgels, posted in Full Metal Alchemist - Brotherhood



Again an episode in which two chapters cropped in order to get to the new material as soon as possible. It was to be expected, but for once I have to say that the original series handled it better. Especially the return to Resembool-arc needs a full episode in order to have its full impact. Half an episode is just too little to make the most out of Armstrong gradually understanding the situation that Ed and Al are in.

In the first half of the episode, Marco suddenly turns up. It’s an interesting decision of the creators to introduce him like this: he simply was at the wrong time at the wrong place and Armstrong happened to see him. While chances of this happening are of course very slim, it could happen, since the guy seems to be travelling by train often. It’s obviously flawed, but somehow, I’m buying it. The short length and early death of Basque Gran also had also an extra advantage, since we didn’t have to watch endless scenes of Marco getting emo when Basque Gran discovers him.

But the interesting news is that we should be getting to the really new material in three or four episodes with a bit of luck, if my memory doesn’t fail me. The next episode is probably going to be about the research in the library, then the next episode is probably going to deal with Laboratory five, and after that it’s going to get interesting, since that bugger of a Shou Tucker is dead so someone else needs to guide Ed into trying to make that Philosopher’s stone (or whatever it was that they did in the manga).

Bones has been a strange production company in terms of adaptations. Ignoring that their endings usually fall short, they often try to add things to their adaptations to make them better. The original season did the same, and it really did some scenes well: some of the quiet scenes that were added really added more life to the characters, but yeah: the problem was that huge string of filler episodes that just wasn’t interesting at all. Arcs like the Phantom Thief, the Fake Brothers or that one in which the broken Al gets lost and they spend an entire episode chasing him just to return the status quo: what really was the point of that? They really were a pain to get through.

But looking back, it’s amazing how much the creators managed to cut: at this point, we’re eleven episodes ahead of the original series already, and the result is already looking pretty competent. The question is of course going to be: will the creators slow down once they reach the new stuff?

Rating: (Enjoyable)
A light and laid-back episode and still it’s rushed, but it’s pretty solid so far and Marco’s story was much better than in the original.

Cross Game – 06

by psgels, posted in Cross Game



And so it’s finally time for the characters to enter high-school, and this show still is as solid as a rock. As it turns out, there are two teams at the baseball club. The best one consists out of most of the older members and Azuma Yuuhei, it has as coach the daughter of the vice principal and a great coach with the potential to make it to Koushien. Oh, and also for some reason Useless Guy also got a spot in it. The second one has all of the new users, including Kou and Akaishi and some of the worst players of the higher years. They’ve got the old coach and an non-popular yet dedicated manager. I didn’t quite pick up what happened to Aoba, but my guess is that she ended up as the captain of some sort of third team, while she also practices with the lower boys team.

What’s also interesting is Azuma’s habit of not remembering the names and faces of people without talent, and there are four of them whose name he can remember. Of course Kou is one of them, but I wonder about the other three. My guess would be the guy who was yawning in class, Aoba, but apart from that I haven’t seen any hints yet at that fourth one. That’s the sneaky bit of this series: it keeps giving hints here and there but half of the time there is no way to tell what they exactly mean when you see them, and it’s always going to take a while before their meaning becomes really clear. The only reason why Aoba and Yawn-guy stood out to me was because Yawn-guy’s yawn-scene was pretty much parallel to Azuma arriving late, and my guess of Aoba is only because she caught Azuma’s eye when she walked past, possibly hinting at how she’s still sticking to his mind.

What I also like is how Akaishi, Kou and the other one whose name I forgot are pretty much trying to fool everyone with their secret weapon Kou. They even deliberately ended up in the lower team, in order to make as much of an impact as possible and I like how both Azuma and the new coach are starting to suspect that something is going on, but still can’t exactly put their fingers on what.

I’d just wish that there was somewhere a list with characters and their names. Even the official sites lacks it. While all characters are unique, it does remain pretty hard to keep track of all of the names of the side-characters.

Rating: ** (Excellent)
First episode at high-school with lots of things building up at the same time. Still no signs of weaknesses at all.

Valkyria Chronicles – 06

by psgels, posted in Valkyria Chronicles



This post is going to contain slight spoilers of Kurokami 16, but I want to use that as an example of something that I fear that Valkyria Chronicles is going to turn into, since it was a good wake-up call for myself as well. The thing is, that a series may be spending lots of time building up, but it still needs to do this skillfully, and that’s what’s making me more and more worried. We’re six episodes in, and I’m not going to be able to maintain my suspense of disbelief much longer.

In the case with Kurokami, while it had an unimpressive first half I decided to give it the benefit of the doubt just like this series, in the hope that it was going to get better in its second half. And sure enough, the second half featured some juicy plot twists and character-development, but what I failed to notice (or rather refused to notice) was the fact that the battles were too orchestrated in order to make the lead characters win. The result popped up in episode sixteen, which pulled just about every Deus ex Machina imaginable and pretty much ruined all of the suspense of disbelief I had built up when it resurrected the lead character out of nowhere with no possibly explicable reason whatsoever. Even for Sunrise, it was one very blatant character-resurrection.

And that’s what I’m fearing is going to happen with Valkyria Chronicles: six episodes in, and I still haven’t been impressed with anything, and the strategical combat is unfortunately flawed. While I didn’t mention it last week, it just is too hard to belief that this battle-hardened commander of the enemy troops would be fooled by a simple tactic to split up an army into two halves. I can’t see how he couldn’t have done something to that tank. I hoped that this general stupidity would fade, but it’s still there, and even gotten more out of hand in the current episode. It’s got me very worried that this series isn’t going to be able to pull off a good fight when the second half arrives and it needs to deliver. Right now the only solid part of this show is its cast of characters, but when the creators are just going to dumb down their opponents so that they can win, then I don’t think that the character-development is going to be able to save this show.

At the moment, I’m really starting to regret continuing to blog this show in favour of Natsu no Arashi, which really has been getting better and better, unlike what I’ve seen in Valkyria Chronicles so far. If I recall correctly, this was mostly because of the large amount of people who didn’t want me to stop blogging it, but at the moment I still can’t see whether the commitment is going to be worth it. It may have been that this episode was just plain dull, but if this goes on I’m probably going to drop this series at the end of this season, in favour for one of the new shows of the Summer Season.

And yeah, this episode was pretty much a disaster. We already knew that Alicia wasn’t too bright, but this episode established just about everyone as an idiot. Especially Brigitte and Largo seemed completely different characters this time: their change is way too sudden. And I also was really disappointed to see that some support members of squad seven were just a bunch of stereotypes: finally there’s the chance to show a bit more of them, and the creators then use it to transform them into a bunch of paper bags. The only one I even remotely liked was the gay guy.

Rating: — (Dull)
It’s one thing to have a filler episode now and then. It’s another thing to completely change character-personalities and make everyone behave like complete morons.

Maria-Sama ga Miteru Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



I really didn’t know what to make of this series when I first started watching it. Maria-Sama ga Miteru has been going on for three seasons and one OVA right now, and this review is going to be of the first of the bunch. It tells the story of a very strict Christian school and especially the elite students: the student council and the ones around them. The focus isn’t so much on the management-tasks of the council, but much more about them being the role models that they are, and their relationship with their so-called “Soeur”: an underclassman that they pick out to be their “sister”.

My initial impressions on this series weren’t exactly good. The beginning episodes were just too… boring, and there wasn’t really anything that made me want to watch the next episode. The drama mostly revolved around things that were hugely overstated: the characters really made a fuzz about even the smallest things that their co-stars did wrong. I can understand how gossip is supposed to be an important part of the show’s themes, but it really didn’t interest me at all.

Yumi (the lead character) didn’t help either, as out of all the characters she was the most annoying one, which is something you really don’t want to happen to one of the central characters in a series. She’s naive, just keeps whining about all sorts of things, she lacks background (that may be saved for the future seasons, though) and all in all, her story just isn’t as interesting as the other ones of this show.

But oh my god, the side-characters really were amazing, especially within only 13 episodes. While nothing much interesting happens in the first half of this show, the cast really comes alive in the second half. I especially loved Sei’s story, with one magnificent episode dedicated to her past standing out as the absolute highlight for me, but all members of the side-cast are rich and colourful, they have a deep story behind them and are very subtly developed.

And the side-characters really are the ones who are solely able to carry this series. The character-designs are well done, but the animation has quite a few bugs here and there, and you also don’t want to watch this series for the storytelling or setting: they do their job of being solid and staying in the background, don’t have any flaws, but also don’t stand out either.

So yeah despite Yumi I just can’t look negatively at this series. Good things come to those who wait, and that definitely applies to this series. There’s lots of character-development, but it all has a sense of subtlety, which is pretty rare in anime, and even Yumi isn’t the worst of characters once you get to know her a bit. And while she may be featured often in this series, there still is plenty of time in which the rest of the cast has the chance to get fleshed out. I’m interested what the other seasons can add to this series, because there’s plenty of potential left after only thirteen episodes.

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