Macross Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews


Those who followed my blog about a year ago probably know that I wasn’t exactly… ‘pleased’ with the way Macross Frontier turned out. Even taking the upcoming movie into account, it never really seemed to know where it wanted to go and while it definitely had some good points, it also just kept getting stuck at an endless love triangle with a bunch of unimpressive lead characters and villains.

Still, it did inspire me to go after the early Macross-series, in order to find out why the franchise got its fan-base in the first place. And I must say, I’m glad that I did. While not perfect, the original Macross does a lot of things right at which Macross Frontier screwed up. As probably one of the first series to combine serious love with mecha action and doing a really good job while at it, I can see why this series had such a big influence on the later anime to come.

The thing that struck me the most about this series is how interesting the villains actually are. At first, when I learned that this show would be about a mysterious alien race called the Zentradi attacking Earth, I was fearing lots of “Humans rock!”-themes, combined with an ending at which the aliens suddenly turn good like how Macross Frontier pulled it, but it was actually much more clever than that. A large part of this series is actually focused on analyzing why these Zentradi fight, how their society is created and how Earth’s society impacts them (which provided some of the most entertaining scenes of the series). It also shows what would happen if a race would be suddenly forced to a totally different life style, and how hard it is to adapt to these new life conditions.

The three lead character are also much more capable of carrying this show. There again is a love triangle, but it’s pretty well built up and this series uses its episode length of 36 very nicely in order to let everything gradually play out and the show evolve. This really gives the love triangle between them the chance to sufficiently develop and close off with a pretty satisfying conclusion, although near the finale the romance can get a bit cheesy at times. I also really appreciated that it didn’t try to stuff all of the meat of the series in the final four episodes or so, though going into detail why would perhaps be a bit too much of a spoiler.

Unfortunately, at other points the show does have some pacing issues. Some episodes really give events the time to flow naturally, but a few episodes really move way too fast, with the most notable being ‘the wedding’. It just comes way too bloody fast and before you know it the involved characters have completely shifted their personalities. The ending also felt like it could have used half an episode extra.

And obviously, the production values aren’t as good when compared to Macross Frontier, but that’s not going to surprise anything. Compared to the other shows of its time though, the animation looks very capable. Most of the time it’s very rough around the edges and the hand-painted cell animation definitely feels jerky, but the whole look matured just as well as for example Matsumoto Leiji’s character-designs did. The music however, is beyond rescue. Lin Minmay(one of the lead characters, an idol)’s songs mostly consist out of very cheesy J-pop from the seventies, and even though the rest of the soundtrack serves its purpose, every time she started singing the sound got more and more on my nerves.

Overall, if people are wondering which Macross TV-series to check out first, it basically boils down to this: with Macross Frontier you get a shallow story with a godly budget, and with the original Macross you get a series with dated production-values through a fascinating setting. Just take your pick. Personally I definitely prefer the original.

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

Konnichiwa Anne – 05

by psgels, posted in Konnichiwa Anne



While at first sight yet another cheesy episode about a cheesy love story surrounding Elisa, it soon turned into a very insightful episode that really showed some different sides of the characters. It forced especially Elisa to really think about the situation she’s in. Thus far, she’s been a bit too similar of a Mary Sue, but this episode removed just about every aspect of that nasty brat in her and turned her into a really flawed character, and a typical teenager.

The episode starts as we see how Bert has finally landed himself a job helping out at a local farm. Anne has been counting the days since it happened (10) and is really happy to see that he stopped drinking and hitting his wife. Elisa meanwhile has been invited to a local party given by the Emerson family, and her classmates fangirl over Roger, and how Elisa is so poor and all. Roger however, looks to be really serious with her, and actually ends up proposing to her for marriage.

It turns out that Roger has to go to London for a job the next year, and he wants to have Elisa next to him, which is why he’s proposing to her so early. At the party, Roger hopes to hear Elisa’s final answer. When she arrives at home, she tells all about it to Anne, who obviously gets all happy about her, though Elisa still is really embarrassed.

It soon becomes clear that Elisa too is in love with Roger, and Anne really encourages her to go along with Roger to London… and that’s the point where Anne gets sad when she realizes that that means that she’ll be separating from Elisa, though Elisa quickly tells her that she can go with the two of them: Roger is a nice guy, so she thinks that he’ll definitely understand the situation and take Anne along… yeah.

That night, the two of them are still fantasizing about how good they’re going to have it in London. Elise never really liked being in her household, and she grew up as someone who just did the right things because it means that she was doing the right things. It turns out that Elisa once had a best friend (Katie Morris), but got separated from her somehow (couldn’t exactly pick up why), and that’s why she’s so burnt on not being separated from Anne.

Things however don’t go as planned when Elisa tells the news to her parents. Surprisingly, Isabella has no problems with letting her daughter go, but she’s not willing to let Anne leave in the hands of two inexperienced teenagers, not to mention that it’s going to really increase her workload. Especially when her new baby comes, nobody is going to be able to take care of her if Anne’s gone. She outright refuses this to Elisa.

The next week, Elisa’s dress arrives and she gets ready to go to the party. Anne still doesn’t know that she can’t go to London, and Elisa is still in lots of doubts over the marriage. Roger in the meantime has his own problems with his parents, because his father doesn’t have much faith in one of Bert’s children. Roger however has made his decision, and has to promise to his father to make the job he’s assigned to do in London succeed no matter what.

When Elisa arrives at the party, a lot of people whisper behind her back, not expecting such a poor girl to show up in a full dress. She dances with Roger for a while, and a while later when they’re alone, Roger asks for Elisa’s answer. Elisa says yes, though then she tells him about how she wanted to take Anne with her, but her mother wouldn’t let her. Roger suddenly gets very surprised when he finds this out, and when Elisa asks him whether he’ll take her with them, he declines: he likes Anne, but she isn’t Elisa’s child. It’s not going to be easy to live in London, so taking a child with them is not going to work. Elisa gets upset and runs away.

When Elisa gets back home, she knocks on Bert’s door (god, I nearly forgot that that guy was supposed to be a father) and wants to talk about what happened. Anne happens to see this, and overhears how Elise tells him that Anne can’t go with them, and the episode ends with Bert, saying the wisest thing that he’s ever said in this series: that she should go to London and leave Anne behind.

So yeah, this series doesn’t have the epic storyline of Les Miserables, the refreshing storytelling of Porfy, the realism of Anne of Green Gables or the atmosphere of Kaze no Shoujo Emily, when compared to these masterpieces it doesn’t have anything that really stands out, but it does have one thing: a great cast of characters. I really wanted to push Elisa in the face when she begged Roger to take Anne with her. Don’t get me wrong: I really like Anne myself, but that unrealistic thinking of her really got me: here she is, she has the chance for a great future, despite being poor she has the chance for a great future and a very nice husband… only to ruin it because she can’t leave her five-year-old friend.

And the thing is that with this type of series, I actually have no idea whether it’s the type of series that likes to keep its lead characters together, or whether it’s going to allow Elisa to move away. It’s definitely going to be interesting to see Elisa gone now, because that’s basically going to remove Anne’s only friend, and that means that she’s only going to retreat into that fantasy world of her even more, and the series is probably going to take a turn for the dark.

Rating: ** (Excellent)

Shangri-La – 05

by psgels, posted in Shangri-La



Whoa.

I must say, I totally didn’t see this coming. This was without a doubt the best episode of Shangri-La yet. The thing with Gonzo is that they’ve got so much flaws, that I at times forget that these guys make damn good anime. No other animation studio has surprised me more times than they did. Blassreiter looked like a simple action-show, but what terrific action it became. Gad Guard from the outside looked like yet another boy meets robot show, and yet it developed into a very likable series. The same goes for the likes as Solty Rei, Welcome to the NHK, Seto no Hanayome, they’re all shows that turned out to be excellent even though you wouldn’t suspect it at first glance.

After the previous episodes’ disaster in the animation department, I was seriously surprised to see the animation quality this much improved. The inconsistencies are totally gone. Characters aren’t conveniently placed in the background to save money on drawing close-ups, and especially the virtual reality animation rocked beyond belief. Now, if only the rest of this series can keep this same quality.

But also in the storyline department this show got some new dimensions. Like above, the virtual reality turns out to play a much more important role than suspected, as even some of the guys at Akihabara make use of the same technology that our little genius uses to manipulate companies. At the same time, the military has also been working on an invisibility device, and Kuniko makes use of one of the naive guys of the military and finally gets a bit of an idea of what’s going on inside Atlas. I personally loved that scene between them, because you could really tell that the two of them were living in totally different worlds and tried to justify their own actions.

Oh, and I had to laugh at the subtle otaku-jokes. Usually in anime these sorts of jokes are dumbed down a bit too much, but I loved how Kuniko’s grandmother used to be a popular idol when she was young. I definitely understand why she’s trying to hide that. ^^;

In any case, overall this episode made this series even more intriguing than it already was. I really had some doubts whether this series would turn out okay or not in the end, but this episode surely removed a lot of them.

Rating: ** (Excellent)

Guin Saga – 05

by psgels, posted in Guin Saga



I’m noticing a worrying decrease in animation quality with every progressive episode of this series, which seriously isn’t a good sign. I really hope hat Satelight are saving their budget for the later episodes, because amidst the beautiful shots the bad shots really stick out like a sore thumb. The graphics of this show unfortunately are of the kind that need a big budget, because otherwise they’re just going to look bad.

In any case, this episode didn’t have me as much impressed as I hoped to. The novelty of this series has worn off just about now and this episode lacked a bit of atmosphere. Guin, Remus and Linda get captured by the Mongol army, only to get rescued again by Istvan. It’s mostly just used as a building up episode, and not really that of an exciting one, although we do learn some new stuff.

As it turns out, these lands are very unfamiliar to the Mongol forces and they too have a lot of trouble trying to fend off all the huge fishes and giant sandworms, which seems to suggest that they don’t have these giant beasts in their home country (otherwise they’d know how to deal with them more efficiently by now). Another small clue was given about Guin and Istvan’s pasts: somehow the name of Landock is important to Guin, which Istvan once saw written on a very fast ship ten years ago when he was being a pirate.

Rating: (Enjoyable)

Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood – 05

by psgels, posted in Full Metal Alchemist - Brotherhood



Finally! This is the point I’ve been waiting for, and finally it’s time for me to praise this show a bit. It’s good to see that this time, the annoying part only took up four episodes, rather than FOURTEEN, and not only that but this episode was also significantly better than its original counterpart.

Even though episode 3 didn’t introduce Envy, this episode was sufficient enough for an introduction of the guy. Scar’s appearance also made much more sense this time: he didn’t try to attack an entire army of state alchemists this time, but instead just went after Ed, and made the mistake of thinking that Ed would be easily taken out just like his other victims. The only reason why his face was shown this time was because he didn’t take into account that Ed and Al had metal body-parts, which allowed them to buy enough time for the military to show up (who were also in the neighbourhood).

And in this way, Scar was a much better way of showing Ed how cruel some people can be, compared to that strange butcher who just “happened” to kidnap Winry of all people. Overall, this episode really reminded me why this show has potential. It again was rushed, but things fell much more in their place, aside from the history of Ishbal perhaps, which was a bit too fast. It was nice to see a map of the world though. It gives a much better view of what goes on where. For example, I never knew that Ishbal and Resembool were that close together. And yet in a way this does make sense, as it makes the holiday of Winry’s parents much more plausible.

But what surprised me the most of this episode were the couple of experimental scenes. Especially for BONES, this is really rare: they’re really a studio that focuses on the solidness of their productions (which is quite ironic if you think about how a lot of series of them end up rushed in the end), and I can’t recall any of their series to be experimental, and especially not in the animation and storytelling department. That’s why I loved the sudden appearance of Scar: Ed was in the middle of something completely different, and you really don’t expect the guy to show up at such a moment. The few animations in the beginning also looked really nice.

And as for the bits of comedy amidst the fighting: I like them. The thing is, that the original series was just too emo at times. And with such a series, it’s hard to avoid. That’s why it’s good to see these moments brightening up the mood at times.

The biggest potential pitfall I see for this series is the typical weakness of a Bones’ series: its inability to properly fit its series into the proper time-frame. Out of all of their series I’ve seen (which are quite a few by now), the only show of them whose story fit exactly into its number of episodes was Angelic Layer. Aside from that one, all of the other Bones shows I’ve watched have either rushed endings or in Eureka7’s case 13 consecutive episodes in which nothing really happens, and I really hope that this show is going to be able to avoid it.

Rating: ** (Excellent)

Cross Game – 05

by psgels, posted in Cross Game



The thing that really sets Adachi’s stories apart from all other high school anime is the huge amount of time that he devotes to the history of the lead characters in the beginning, when the characters are still just in middle school and the first few episodes simply set all of the stages for the rest of the series. This is obviously such a good way to flesh out the characters in the beginning. Out of all the shows that started airing this season, I feel like I got to know the cast of Cross Game the best within the time-span of only five episodes. Even the characters of Eden of the East are nowhere as likable as these guys.

This episode was even more slice of life than usual for this series, but what a wonderful episode it was. Basically, both Aoba’s father and big sister and Kou’s parents were out of town while Momiji wasn’t feeling well. Kou was asked to keep a bit of an eye on Momiji alongside Aoba. So after Kou’s usual secret training sessions, he visits the local supermarket and brings back food for the three of him, Aoba and Momiji.

Since Aoba never really learned how to cook with sisters as Wakaba and Ichijou, Kou offers to cook dinner, even though Aoba is obviously heavily against it. Also here it shows how Wakaba is still on these youngsters’ minds: the moment Aoba goes too far in her insults the whole mood completely changes even though the reason for it is never explicitly mentioned.

What’s more, this episode also was about a cooking book that Wakaba used to use. Aoba originally intended to use it, but she accidentally lets Kou find it. The result is a bowl of rice that tastes exactly the same as Wakaba used to make it, which is especially tough on Aoba.

Then there’s Momiji’s fever in this episode, which is also used in order to show the downsides of Aoba’s tomboyish character: when she starts feeling unwell, it’s mostly Kou who keeps everything in straight lines and makes sure Momiji’s fever goes down fast. Aoba just thinks too much of Aoba, who really was the type of caring sister (especially since she thinks back on how Wakaba used to take care of her when she herself was ill). It’s the same trick that Touch used, though slightly different: Kazuya was simply better than Tatsuya in every aspect, while Aoba still had sports in which she could stand above her sister.

And on a side-note: I really like Momiji’s character, and how well she and Kou get along with each other. Momiji feels really genuine as a character, and there’s something wonderfully innocent about how she and Kou interact. Of course, the chemistry between a lot of different characters in this series is really good, but the two of them really take the cake in my opinion.

Rating: ** (Excellent)

Valkyria Chronicles – 05

by psgels, posted in Valkyria Chronicles



This series is strange. On one hand it’s about two warring countries, but on the other hand it has pigs with wings. Seriously, as much as I appreciate that Alicia is very alert for possible spies, this needs to end somewhere. While seeing Welkim as some spy was at least a bit believable… but that pig? I mean, come on.

But still, I’m starting to see where the creators are trying to go with this series. They’re really trying to go with the contrast between the light and innocent Alicia when she’s not fighting and the ambitious woman that she turns into when the fighting actually starts. As innocent as she may look, as annoying as she may be at times with all her complaining against Welkim and Faldio, she did go through military training and it shows that she knows how to handle herself in a combat situation. She just lacks experience. And that’s why the character-development in this series is going to be so important.

Because this particular formula of having young girls fight in war has been abused plenty of times throughout anime. Just think of the countless shounen series that have teenagers fighting against hordes of formidable and trained bad guys. For this series, it’s all going to depend on the execution if the creators want to avoid this pitfall, and I must say that the start so far has been pretty solid. The realism definitely helps: when Alicia got shot in this episode, I definitely cared about her and I’m really suspecting that this is going to be a series in which people die when they’re killed.

Alicia is definitely a character that you need to warm up to. I hope that that happens fast, though. This episode was pretty good, but some of her banter with Faldio was just annoying.

Now, let me hijack the rest of this post for something completely different: I was quite surprised to see that many people who found the episode ratings helpful. I decided to remove them mainly because it was getting really tedious to write a short episode synopsis every time, so that one isn’t going to come back.

This is also a good opportunity to change the episode rating system a bit. The numbers out of ten were nice and all, but they had a few bad points: they were in the same format that I used for the monthly summaries, and yet meant something completely different, and I just kept rating about 90% of all episodes as 7,5/10 or 8/10. What I also didn’t like was how they were always at the top of every post, possibly taking away some attention from the more important parts, which is why I think that from now on, the ratings are going to move to the bottom of the post.

I think I’m also going to swap the x/10-format with simple stars (or some other symbol). Though instead of simply mapping the out of ten-ratings to five stars like 6/10 = 3 stars, 8/10 = 4 stars, et cetera, I’m going for something a bit different. Compare it to the star-rating for hotels and restaurants: an episode has to earn its stars. So, the rating scale would be something like this:
(no stars) – probably going to be denoted by a simple ‘-‘. Basically an episode that left me unimpressed.
* (one star) – The equivalent of my current 7,5/10 rating: a pretty good episode
** (two stars) – The equivalent of my current 8/10 rating: excellent episode
*** (three stars) – The equivalent of my current 8,5/10 rating: an awesome episode.
**** – (four stars) – The equivalent of my current 9/10 rating: a fantastic episode which really shows the episode at its utter best
***** – (five stars) – The equivalent of my current 9,5/10 rating: an incredible episode, the best of the best, and probably an episode that only appears once or twice a year or so.
In theory, there also can be six stars, but in all the three and a half years I’ve been blogging I only encountered one episode that deserved such a rating (Simounr 16, to be exact).

In any case, for this episode, the rating would be something like this:

Episode Rating: *

Phantom – 05

by psgels, posted in Phantom


Oh, this series is sure shaping up to be an awesome one. I had a few doubts as this episode started that it wouldn’t live up to the other episodes of this show so far, but as the ending credits rolled I really had to this back: this episode knew exactly what it was doing.

I really like the approach when it comes to the random stories of this series: at first, it shows the people from the Mafia from a sympathetic sight. It shows that even though these guys are thugs and don’t hesitate to kill if they want, they are also human beings with a family… only for them to get killed off mercilessly by Phantom in the end. El Cazador in comparison was much more of a travel series, in which the lead characters move around and meet different people, while the early episodes of Noir were more about why the targets were ordered to be killed in the first place, since the two lead characters were freelance assassins, rather than being employed by one particular mafia-gang like the lead characters of Phantom are. I can’t comment on how Madlax did it since I haven’t seen it yet.

Throughout the largest part of the episode, it felt like the parts were swapped, and the mafia boss instead was the lead character of this episode. Eins and Zwei really were portrayed as the bad guys this time, and that‘s something you don’t see very often. And at the same time we also get a pretty good idea of how powerful Inferno actually is: even without Phantom, they have excellent security, and prevent any information about them from being leaked out in order to stay into obscurity.

It’s also interesting how Ein and Zwei are basically mirroring each other at some points. Ein has that strange scientist while Zwei has McCunnen, and with both we see at least some hints that whenever one of them is with them, the other one is waiting for them. Just how they exactly feel about each other still is a mystery, though.

Pandora Hearts – 05

by psgels, posted in Pandora Hearts



In this episode, we get some more clues as to what exactly happens when a monster from the abyss makes a contract with a human. It’s basically a method for both of them to get out of the Abyss, but it’s not going to last forever: at one point both of them will be dragged back into the Abyss. And at the same time, there was quite a bit of banter between the characters out there. While it’s not quite the funniest banter out there, Oz calling Raven “father” was priceless.

It was mostly a building up episode, but still it made a lot of impact and at the same time this episode also used its time to flesh out the characters quite a bit and increase the trust between the lead characters. It’s of course strange that Oz would simply trust someone he just met (as signified by this episode in which a seemingly innocent flower-selling girl turns out to be possessed by a demon), but then again: there’s nobody else that he can trust, is there? Alice was Oz’s ticket out of the Abyss, and I think that that’s why he’s not suspicious of her, and I think that that’s why he was more shocked at seeing the flower-girl disappear, compared to the thought that he himself would also return to the abyss that way unless a countermeasure is found.

Still, the animation this episode was strange. Throughout most of the episode, it looked as good as ever… apart from that flower-girl whose face looked horribly distorted at times. Usually a bad drawing can just be attributed to either a limited budget or an incompetent chief animation director, but why do only the drawings for that girl look ugly? My guess would be that there was just one guy responsible for drawing her, and he screwed up big time.

Eden of the East – 04

by psgels, posted in Eden of the East



I just realized that Akira and Saki have quite a few similarities as the two lead characters of this show. They’re both at the turning point in their lives and both have to deal with the rather annoying consequences of it. Saki has finally finished her education and is about to get ready for a job, while Akira is someone who seems to have cast his old self away and wanted to start anew, or so it seems at least.

In any case, this episode sheds some light into the purpose of the Selecao and the role of the supporter. Quite early, actually. It indeed turns out that the Selecao are in a game to see who can save the nation first. Accepting such a phone is pretty much a guaranteed death, because if you aren’t the fastest, you’re going to get killed off anyway, and I think that that was the intention of number one when he tried to get rid of Akira: he knew that with such a ‘special’ personality, if anyone would be able to save he nation, it would be him.

The thing is that up till now, all we’ve seen is extremes: ignoring the mysterious number one who appeared only for a flash, we have one incredibly strange Selecao (Akira), we have someone who tried to save the nation, and failed horribly and so started using his money for his personal gain (Kondou), and we have someone who has no problems with dying and just wants to do what he can with his money. I really doubt that the other Selecao are just as extreme as these guys, and they probably all are somewhere in between the latter two (aside from the Supporter, perhaps). I’m especially intrigued that nobody aside from Kondou has tried to abuse his money for his personal gain.

As I’m watching this series, I realize how little anime deal with actualities. I mean, I of course understand that series usually are planned years ahead, and if they’re based on a manga even more, but still even the events of 9/11 are only mentioned or referenced in a very select amount of series. In most ‘modern’ series, the PCs are still stuck in Windows 95. Cameras still look like the models of 10 years ago. And in a way that’s a shame, because keeping up with actualities is a very good way for anime to remain fresh. And that’s why Eden of the East feels so fresh, in these financially difficult times the theme of how difficult it is to save a country is very up to date. In fact, it’s so up to date that it’s almost scary, since I doubt that this series was only planned and produced within the eight months since the recession started.