Mobile Suit Gundam 00 – 49

by psgels, posted in Mobile Suit Gundam 00



Short Synopsis: The big climax of Gundam 00
Episode Rating: 7,5/10 (Good)
And so, most of the conflicts are solved in this episode. All because Setsuna couldn’t stand to see all of his friends dying, which unlocked some sort of hidden powers in his Gundam which made it shoot out tons of GN Particles and allowed everyone to settle their difference. I’m not exactly sure what drug it used in order to resolve nearly every single conflict apart from the ones around Ribbons, but I guess that the overall message is that conflicts shouldn’t be solved by brainlessly fighting each other without listening to the other party. Nice, I guess, but a bit unrealistic. Ah well, at least I’m glad that it wasn’t Marina’s song that ended up saving everyone.

In any case, for all of the different conflicts that were solved in this episode, some were good and some were bad: Saji vs Louise was as horrible as ever, though the conclusion between Ali al Sarshes and Lockon was very solid and a very good gunfight. Marie vs Smirnoff basically went nowhere, and Billy vs Sumaragi was cheesy but served its purpose I guess.

Ribbons was pretty pathetic, though. The entire series has established the guy as some sort of evil overlord without any flaws whatsoever. And in this episode he just lets some random guys take over Veda without even an attempt to stop it. He should have known that all innovators could link to Veda, and since he’s such a 1337-hax0rz, he could have easily taken measures to prevent others from accessing Veda. And yet he acts all surprised when Tieria turns out to be alive, using the same trick he used a few episodes back.

I think that the big problem with this episode was that the “ultimate power” was a bit too convenient and selective: it was exactly what this series needed in order to wrap up every hanging thread: everyone conveniently gets healed, it conveniently calls the ghosts of some dead characters who help taking over Veda, while other dead people don’t appear at all, it conveniently cancels out Ribbons’ brainwashing on Louise, it conveniently clears most useless hatred. It’s just too convenient!

Overall, with one episode left, I have to say that I liked the first series better. Sure, Setsuna was pretty annoying back then, but at least his impulsiveness had a certain charm to it, which isn’t something I can say for Saji and Louise. It had a solid build-up with a great climax, and took place in a world that actually felt alive with a complex political structure. The second season focused much more on action and the characters, which all were either a hit or a miss for me.

On a positive note, I do have to admit that I really liked the background music of this episode. Great soundtrack.

Birdy the Mighty Decode – 24

by psgels, posted in Birdy the Mighty Decode



Short Synopsis: Senkawa’s classmates have fun at the school festival, while Nataru continues to pursiut the remaining aliens.
Episode Rating: 8/10 (Excellent)
Ah, like expected: the creators plan to finish this series with a huge bang, just like they did with Noein. It’s going to be there where we can see whether or not all the building up can come together in the end. This episode was mostly building up, although there were quite a few surprise twists included.

Most notably, Nakasugi is back, though with her memory erased. I still really like how Senkawa got over his loss of her, and he’s not angsting about her at all. Instead, he provides excellent support for the other main characters, and in a way you can’t call him the main character of this series anymore. The first season was his moment in the spotlights, and he learned well that the new storyline doesn’t centre around himself.

And in a way, that’s the advantage that episodic series have over series with a continuous plot: it’s much easier for them to show different people and flesh out the setting this way, making it come alive, whereas a series with a continuous plot usually just focuses on a fixed set of characters without much time for guest appearances, because it’d be difficult to weave them into this storyline. And that’s another reason why Birdy the Mighty is so amazing, because it combined the best of both: its storyline is definitely continuous, and yet it did succeed wonderfully in making this setting come alive and making it diverse.

One thing that caught my eye was that this series still is continuing to make its setting feel alive, even with only one episode left to go. It’s a bit unconventional, and will definitely leave a few threads hanging open, but on the bright side it really gives that extra spark to the setting: it makes it feel like there’s much more going on in the world than just the problems of our lead characters. The alien in sunglasses in the end never really had an important role, and we hardly know anything about him, but he does return every once in a while to influence parts of the storyline (for example, tricking the girl into killing her former comrade for protection). Nakasugi as well: there is no way that she’s going to have any influence in the story at this point, but it just shows that she too is continuing her life and that Birdy and Nataru may have their issues, but they’re not the centre of the universe. I mean, how many other series have a light hearted school festival at the end of their airtime? The only examples I can think of are the ones in which the school festival leads to some really dramatic climax, but here it’s used for the entire opposite: to brighten up the mood and flesh out the setting.

I really like this, especially since most other series don’t care about this at all, and you can really see the results: in the series, it looks like the entire world is revolving around the lead characters, with hardly anything else. Random by-passers also just feel like a bunch of mannequins, who aren’t important at all. In Birdy the Mighty Decode, though, they all feel so refreshingly alive due to the attention that it’s been paying to flesh out the setting at such a late point in the series. Seriously, I’m really surprised to see that they decided to do this in the second half of the series, which is usually the time when most series are done with the world building and focus on other things. This really is much more apparent than even Noein, and it shows that Kazuki Akane’s style is evolving, and he’s trying and become an even better director than he already was. This guy truly is my favourite director ever.

Jigoku Shoujo – 76

by psgels, posted in Jigoku Shoujo



Short Synopsis: Yuzuki is!%$#%#$@$@#!@#!#$@!@#!!!!!
Episode Rating: 9/10 (Fantastic)
Holy. Freaking. Heck! Oh my god, what an utterly incredible episode. I would even go as far as saying that this has been the single best episode that I have ever seen from Jigoku Shoujo, and with such an amazing series, THAT HAS TO SAY SOMETHING. Oh my god… I’m still amazed at the huge guts of the creators to pull such a plot twist….

So yeah, we all know the problems with the third season of Jigoku Shoujo: the incredibly far fetched stories that populated that first half. But seriously, the show has managed to pick itself up so wonderfully after that first half. It really is something the second season didn’t succeed at, and while at one point I claimed the third season to be the weakest of the bunch, I’m going to have to take that back now. Mitsuganae is at least better than Futakomori, and if the rest of the finale is as amazing as this one, it might as well be as memorable as the original series.

Because, ZOMG, Yuzuki turns out to have been a ghost in denial! Everything that happened so far was because she refused to acknowledge that she was dead, while in fact she was simply being recruited by Ai to join her league. It was indeed very weird for Ai to just pick out a random girl, but there’s nothing weird about it at all: Yuzuki is just another one in a string of random corpses that Ai tried to use in order to find her successor. My guess would be that all of them tried to escape to their previous lives when they found out, leaving Ai without a body again, in search for the next one.

I have to say that I was getting a bit wary of this series when the previous episode still came with the usual revenges, but now I see that this is the sort of climaxes that really works on the surprise element, and thus doesn’t need that many episodes, as opposed to the ending of the second season, which required much more build-up to work.

And yeah, the first half was good for another thing: it helped me lowering my standards for this series. At the beginning of this series, I really was expecting the most amazing series, that may have been a bit too unrealistic. But unlike the stories of the first season, which were incredibly diverse, the stories of the third season all were much more similar in atmosphere and themes. At the expense of the lack of diversity, it did allow the series for some magnificent build-up for the grand finale of the season, and oh my god… it worked so well.

On a completely unrelated side-note: was I the only one who loved how that little crawling ant was animated?

Clannad After Story Review – 90/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



I’ve been thinking about this series, and how to exactly review it, since Clannad’s after story contained some of the biggest highlights but also some of the biggest lowlights of the season. In the end, though, I decided to be positive about this series. Sure, the ending was terrible, I’m not going to sugarcoat that, but the episodes prior to that were utterly incredible.

Clannad already was a very good series, and its after story pretty much starts out similar, with a number of different arcs that are meant to flesh out the different members of the Clannad cast. Since Clannad already did the main characters, the first half of the After Story focuses more on the side-characters. while nothing amazing, the stories are consistently charming and interesting.

The goodness only really starts with the arrival of the second half, though. It’s here where most of the characters graduate high school and all go their own way, and this is where this series evolves into something completely unique. It’s a bit hard to describe this without any major spoilers, but the result is absolutely heart-wrenching, and yet incredibly realistic. Nearly every side character disappears from the screen in order to follow his or her dream, and we’re just left with the main couple of the series. It’s going to be very hard to find someone who wasn’t extremely positive about the turns that the series took at that point.

But yeah, it unfortunately ends in one of the biggest and most blatant Deus ex Machina endings out there, on the same level as Mai Hime. Whie the game this series is based on contains the explanation of what went on, anyone unfamiliar with the games will feel completely cheated. The series had been quite faithful to the original Visual Novel, but it did try to add in enough extra vits in order to spice up the story and make it more realistic and believable, but those two really did clash in that final episodes. And in the end the biggest flaws of this series is that it’s a bit too keen on pleasing the fans of original visual Novel. The ending just feels out of place, and Tomoyo’s After Story and Kyou’s story (which both got only one special episode) just feel like a big waste of potential. If the creators wanted to include those stories, they should have gone with a Higurashi-styled series: have different arcs focusing on all the important characters, which reset to the beginning at the end, and having each of these arcs deal with various of the side stories seen so far.

So no, I really wasn’t happy with that ending. Still in the end, Clannad has been a fantastic series, just like its predecessor Air. Both have taken the biggest heap of clichés imaginable, and went with such a harem setting to something completely daring and original with excellent and bittersweet results. Unlike Kanon, these two really helped the harem genre evolve, and with a genre that originally lived on seeing who could make the most generic heap of stereotypes, it really needed that.

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

Genji Monogatari Sennenki – 10

by psgels, posted in Genji Monogatari Sennenki



Short Synopsis: Genji gets involved in a pretty nasty scandal.
Episode Rating: 8/10 (Excellent)
Another difficult to understand chapter, so it took me a while to understand what’s going on, but nevertheless it was another excellent one. Genji continues his string of seductions, but this time he gets caught by his latest victim: Roku no Kimi, who seems to be one of the new emperor’s concubines. At the moment, I know nothing of how the family ties worked back then, but does Roku no Kimi have the same last name as Genji, meaning that she’s some sort of family of his?

In any case, he gets found out and this creates a very big scandal, and especially Roku no Kimi is very upset because of it basically putting him under house arrest by the new emperor (apparently, I was wrong when I claimed Genji’s son to be the future emperor, since the Emperor already had a crown prince selected, it seems).

So at this point there’s just one episode left. It obviously doesn’t look like the series will reach the end of the novels, but I can’t think of any logical situation in which this series could lead to a disappointing ending. If the creators just animate the next chapter, I’ll be happy enough, because unlike shows as Tytania, this isn’t really a story that needs a conclusion. This series is more like, we’re given a glimpse at Genji’s life, and at some point it stops, and it’s not like most series out there, which are really building up to their climaxes.

Tytania – 24

by psgels, posted in Tytania



Short Synopsis: Zalish moves in to destroy Fan and his allies.
Episode Rating: 7/10 (Enjoyable)
While I want to call this series a flop, I just have to admit that I was touched by the ship crashing down. That mechanic has been a very strange character, but seeing all of his work and pride destroyed like that definitely made impact.

But yeah, there is no way that the creators are going to come up with a satisfying conclusion. As things are looking now, the finale is only going to focus on Zalisch vs. Fan, but there are so many other threads that are still hanging open. what’s the whole point of having Ajman, Ariabart and Lydia in the series? Is Jouslain’s plan going to work? How about Idris and his scheming? There’s no bloody way that you can fit all of that into just two episodes.

Even taking into consideration that the big climax of this show has yet to happen, the middle part of this series was so much more interesting. The best parts about this show definitely were seeing the Alsas storyline, and seeing what a big mess the Tytania family has turned into through the centuries. Fan pretty much stopped being interesting after Lyra died. I kept hoping that he’d become more interesting, but in the end he just hogged up too much of the airtime. I understand how he’s vital to the plot, but his development just came to a grinding halt after he got revenge on his girlfriend in the end. It’s definitely original, but also gets too much in the way of what’s really important in this series.

It’s a shame, but yeah, I think that Artlant overestimated themselves in the past season by producing too many shows. Both Earl and Fairy and Tytania had lots of potential, but both in the end just turned half-hearted. It’s a shame, because in earlier years Artland established itself as a company that really took its time to get the best out of its series: Legend of Galactic Heroes was released over the span of seven years, with Mushishi ad Bokura ga Ita you could also see that a lot of time went into producing it, and making them as good as possible (and especially the huge amount of different EDs, up to the point where every single episode seemed to have a different one). It seems like they want to do a bit too much at the moment, which is a pretty darn shame, because the production department has already shown that they like to take a risk to try out something new every once in a while. But yeah, this risk turned out to be not such a good one. My hope right now is that they can at least make something interesting out of that climax, and that their next experiment will fare better.

Tytania – 23

by psgels, posted in Tytania



Short Synopsis: Fan is nearly captured by Tytania again, and is helped by a few new allies.
Episode Rating: 7/10 (Enjoyable)
I’m not too sure about this series right now. Here it is about to hit it major climax, and it first wastes an episode on character background that could have been done ages ago, and right now yet another episode is completely wasted when Fan goes out to flirt with a character completely unrelated to the story.

I mean, at this point I have no idea what the major climax of this series is going to be about, but in this case it’s a bad thing, since there has hardly been any build-up for it, other than Fan being on the run completely. There wouldn’t be some sort of second season announcement or something that I missed, would there?

So yeah, at the moment I’m disappointed in this series. With all the build-up, it promised to be something epic for its finale, but so far it hasn’t surpassed itself at all. The episodes centred around the different members of Tytania have been good, but Fan is really getting more and more useless with every passing episode.

Shikabane Hime – 24

by psgels, posted in Shikabane Hime



Short Synopsis: Akasha finally reveals why he’s doing the things he did.
Episode Rating: 8,5/10 (Awesome)
Seriously, is there no end to this series’ awesomeness? While the second season started out with a bunch of really bad and questionable episodes, it picked itself up so well after that, and delivered one hit after the other. I really must thank this series for giving me back my faith in shounen fighting series. Ever since the Law of Ueki, I’ve found myself disappointed by these series so many times, but this series really has been everything a good shounen series should be. This is exactly what I was hoping for when I found out that the director of Gilgamesh was behind it. Love it or hate it, but it had lots of interesting and imaginative stuff, and Shikabane Hime is the same: it knows exactly how to deal with its viewers’ expectations, and go completely beyond that.

And really, to think that this series is a manga adaptation. I really wouldn’t have suspected this: Ever since episode seven of the first season, there hasn’t been any filler, there are no wasted episodes, there are no pacing issues, and it looks like everything is going to be solved in the next episode. It may be that the story of the manga fits the 25 episode format exactly, but what’s more like is that the creators tweaked the storyline a bit so that it would fit into this time-frame. Seriously, a lot of series should try to follow this show’s example.

And this episode yet again continued this show’s string of awesomeness. We were promised Akasha’s background, but we got so much more. From the BEGINNING, he was planning on betraying the seven stars and use the strange cube to take control over Hokuto. The reason why he looked like such a weakling for the past number of episodes was because he simply let himself get pushed around, since at the time he couldn’t risk it to go against the bug guy. His duty was to protect Hokuto, and since the previous episode pretty much distracted him from this task, he grabbed his chance.

His background also rocked beyond belief. And while it was the kind of “I lost my loved one so I want revenge!”, there is so much more added. He actually was the victim of something that happens to every monk who makes his Shikabane kill 108 corpses. When that happens, they simply turn back into an ordinary Shikabane, just as if their contractor was killed. His Shikabane Hime also was his former girlfriend, fully tying this into the theme of “Shikabane Hime aren’t people, they’re a bunch of dead bodies” that has been explored by both Ouri and Sougi in detail, and continues to build further upon it.

So yeah, right now you can pretty much consider me a fan of the director, Masahiko Murata. Both Shikabane Hime and Gilgamesh were simply awesome, and I’m getting more and more interested in his other works and see what he can do. This guy really has talent, and is not afraid to use it.

In any case, only one episode left, and it really is promising to be yet another action-packed one. The big difference is that the first season really was building up to that big climax of its, while most of the build-up at this point has already been used. Let’s see whether the creators can give us one final surprise with this series.

Michiko e Hatchin Review – 92,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Michiko e Hatchin



Ah, time to review one of my favourites of the past season. Manglobe always manages to come with some fun, interesting and innovative series, and this one’s no different. While Samurai Champloo had its action, Ergo Proxy had its plot, Michiko e Hatchin stands out in its characters. But like the other two, it really has so much more to like about it.

I often criticise anime for taking place too much in Japan, while there are much more interesting sites in the world to explore. This series does that exactly, giving an incredibly accurate portrayal of Brazil in the 1980s to work with. From the police driving in beetles to the busy cities, everything just screams “Brazil” throughout the entire series. The only other series that I can think of that play out somewhere in south America are more than twenty-five years old by now.

And like mentioned above: the characters are the true highlight of this series. While at first this seems like your average strong character travels together with weak character, it soon becomes clear that the relationship between Michiko and Hatchin is much, much different. Michiko is a sleezebag, she constantly causes trouble and knows nothing about raising children. Hatchin is neat, tidy and ordered, but hates laziness with passion. The personalities between the two constantly clash, and it actually takes a very, very long time for the two of them to get used to each other, but when they do, they really complement their own weaknesses. Especially Hatchin grows into an awesome character, who is constantly fun to watch.

This series can also boast one of the best villains out there in a long, long time. Satoshi doesn’t appear on the screen a lot, but when he does, you instantly know that this guy is incredibly dangerous, and yet at the same time he stands so far away from your standard “Muaha, I’m going to destroy the world because I’m evil!” that you seem to see in nearly every anime nowadays.

What also made this into such a great show is that it’s incredibly varied. It’s a show with many different faces, rather than just one general tone that keeps up for the entire series. One episode may be fun and full of comedy, while the next is an incredibly dark one about the inner clashes of street gangs, while the next may turn into a fun action-game sequence. You’ll never know what the series is going to focus on next, but it’s always going to be fresh and interesting.

Right now, I’m trying to think of a big flaw in this series, but all I can think of is some tiny flaws, like how for some characters the introduction seems to be missing, so you’re often thrown into the blue, or how the ending doesn’t answer all of the questions that you might have gathered through the series, but those are just mere details.

The thing is, that Michiko e Hatchin is an awesome, stylish and mature series and it excels at just about everything that it does. There is a fantastic dynamic between the characters, and never once does it feel childish or anything, despite Hatchin being a 10 year old and all. It’s really got a bit of everything, and it’s my personal favourite series of a studio that had already a record of putting down the most amazing series.

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

Michiko e Hatchin – 22

by psgels, posted in Michiko e Hatchin



Short Synopsis: It’s time for Hiroshi to make his appearance.
Episode Rating: 8/10 (Excellent)
And so it has ended. The ending was good, and in a way it was the only ending that would have made sense. I really like how the creators didn’t try to stuff too much into this episode, but also saved enough for this episode to happen. the whole gang wars and Satoshi storyline all ended in the previous episode, and this episode was just about Hatchin, Hiroshi, Michiko and the police. The creators could have kept Satoshi alive in order to create some chaotic ending, or like Samurai Champloo, they could have saved him for the big fight, like with Samurai Champloo, but this ending was very focused, and indeed served very clearly its purpose.

So yeah, while it would have been nice for Michiko, Hiroshi and Hatchin to live happily ever after, that just isn’t realistic. Michiko is wanted by the police. It just isn’t realistic for her to raise a child while she constantly has to look out for the police, and the only reason why she took the huge gamble of busting jail and running away from the police was to let Hatchin meet her father. Even though she definitely wanted to see Hiroshi back, and probably still loves him, she knew all along that she’d be returning to jail when she ended up meeting the guy, and Atsuko saw that as well.

And then of course it would have been nice for Hatchin to grow up along with her father in Mexico, but the dude ran away for a reason. There’s no way that he’s suddenly going to have a change of heart. He indeed quickly left Hatchin to chase after another woman. I didn’t quite catch where Hatchin’s kid came from, but that’s not really important for the story. In any case, Hatchin renames herself back to Hana and starts working quietly as a restaurant’s cook for a bunch of years, to wait for Michiko to sit out her time in jail. And so, when the latter gets released for real, she of course immediately heads to where Hatchin ended up living (she probably knew this because Hiroshi left her the address). Oh, and grown up Hatchin looks awesome, by the way.

The only disappointment with this ending really was that we never knew who exactly was Hatchin’s mother. Sure we also don’t know exactly what happened during Hiroshi’s bus accident, but we don’t need to: he clearly faked his own death in order to run away from the likes of Satoshi and the other gang members he got on bad terms with, but I’d love to have seen Hatchin’s mother, though that would probably be one of the countless women Hiroshi hung out with, only to dump afterwards after making her get the wing tattoo.

I don’t think that this is going to be one of the best endings of the season, though it is probably going to be the most realistic one. And furthermore, the rest of this series definitely has been one of the most enjoyable ones out of the ones currently airing, apart from Birdy the Mighty. It was definitely fun blogging this series (and fanboying about Hatchin), and I’m looking forward to about two years from now, in which we get to see Manglobe’s next epic.