Hetalia: Axis Powers – 05

by psgels, posted in Hetalia: Axis Powers



Short Synopsis: For whatever reason, Japan, Germany and Italy end up stranded on a desert island.
Episode Rating: 7,5/10 (Good)
Easily one of the most nonsensical episodes of this series yet. Again, it emphasized on how Italy only thinks about food. In this episode, he offers Germany some of his local dishes in order to seal the alliance between him and Germany, and builds a castle of Spaghetti (as a reference to the tower of Pisa, of course ^^;). Next episode, the rest of the countries should arrive, so that should prove to be fun.

Still, with this entry I’m going to stop blogging this series. It’s not because of the political incorrectness of the series, the stereotypes or the negative comments I’ve gotten about it. I still like this series a lot, but I hardly have any inspiration to write about it for every single episode, so I thought that I’d better quit while I’m ahead, before I burn out completely. It was a nice experiment definitely, and when I started blogging this series, I hoped that it’d be like Master of Epic (which was a lot of fun to blog for me when it aired), but the episodes are just too short for that. Perhaps I’m going to do some compilation posts along the way, but I’m not going to promise this.

Saishuu Heiki Kanojo Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews


One of the things I like about Gonzo: they take risks. That’s really where the best ideas come from. Sure, they definitely have their screw-ups; but then again: who doesn’t? In any case, another product of Good Gonzo is Saishuu Heiki Kanojo, or Saikano or She: The Ultimate Weapon as it’s known as as well. However, this isn’t just going to be the case where I simply list everything that it does right and just get things over with: like a lot of Gonzo’s series, it has a lot to like, but also a lot to hate about it.

Ultimately, whether or not you’re going to be able to enjoy this series is how much you can stomach teenaged angst, because BOY, do these characters WHINE in this series. On top of that, it loves to pull those plot twists that add extra drama: death, destruction, extravagant love triangles, for this series it can’t get sad enough for the lead couple, and the result is that the characters hardly every stop crying an whining.

I really was expecting a huge tear-jerker when I started watching this series, and I believe that the creators also intended this series to squeeze as many tears out of the viewer as possible, and yet I didn’t cry once, nor felt the inclination to. As a tear-jerker this show lacks subtlety. There’s just too much angst and sadness. This series just keeps bouncing back and forth between love triangles here and war is bad there, and I guess that this format failed to impress me.

Instead, I was sold on this series through completely different things. The characters just feel incredibly genuine. No matter what kind of overly sad plot twists the creators pull, the characters act believable and charming. The dialogue is consistently of a very high quality, and especially the voice acting made a lot of impact on me.

In fact, this series would have worked for me even if the lead female character, who is an ultimate destructive weapon that can wipe out entire cities at once, had been completely removed. What this series excels at is portraying how a huge war affects ordinary people, and how their lives are majorly impacted by it. The quiet moments in this series are so much more memorable than the obvious sad tear-jerker moments when the umpth character kicks the bucket.

In the end though, I can’t call anything about this series truly bad or flawed. Sure, the romance had its annoying moments, but for each annoying point it also had more than enough charming ones. Sure, the setting is overly sad, but I’m not going to deny that it made impact. In the end, the creators managed to create a provocative and hard-hitting series, that may not be perfect, nor hits any heights, but has enough that makes it worth watching.

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

Sora wo Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai – 07

by psgels, posted in Sora wo Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai



Short Synopsis: Munto tells Yumemi about the past of his country.
Episode Rating: 8/10 (Excellent)
Ah, finally! It was a long wait, but finally we know a bit more about what the heck is going on in this series. Finally we see a bit of the elf country when it’s not fighting. While it’s certainly not enough yet, it’s definitely a good start, although again the dialogue was pretty complex, meaning a lot of trouble for me to understand it. ^^;

So if I understood correctly, the past of Munto’s world looked a lot like it in terms of technological advancement. Then from out of nowhere (or from somewhere that’s yet to be explained) and started wrecking things with their huge amounts of powers. They then discovered the parallel world that Munto lived in, and created a link to it. Eventually though, they destroyed this link again when they became obsessed with their own powers, resulting in lots of destruction. In order to prevent this from happening again, I suspect that the outsider was born. This went fine until the strange evil guy who appeared in the previous episode appeared, and Munto tried to use Yumemi’s help to get rid of him, while Gntarl and his allies didn’t support his decision. At least, that’s what I understood from it.

One thing that worries me though is that the pacing still is as fast as ever. Even though this episode was a quiet one, it still rushed the history of Munto’s world through in less than half an episode, which was an especially bad sign for my hopes of seeing this series continue for more than thirteen episodes. Things really can go anywhere at this point, but if the creators do plan to squeeze the entire story in only one season, then the second half of the series is going to have to be consistently solid and excellent if it doesn’t want to end up the same as the very unfinished OVAs. This episode thankfully met those requirements, but but for this series it’s going to be a matter whether the big picture can deliver or not in the end.

As for the animation, I’m glad to say that now that the series has started its original material, the quality hasn’t gone down too badly. While things obviously look less detailed and impressive when compared to the first six episode, the creators thankfully still have lots of movement. Some details were lost in the process, but it’s better than just resorting to safe drawings with mostly still frames.

Natsume Yuujin-Chou – 21

by psgels, posted in Natsume Yuujin-Chou



Short Synopsis: Natsume and his two classmates pay a visit to an old inn.
Episode Rating: 7,5/10 (Good)
Yeah, now I’m sure: this series SO needs a third season. What this series needs now more than anything is some sort of continuing story, and according to the manga readers, that indeed is about to appear, though there’s no way that the creators are going to fit that in only five more episodes. Let’s hope that the higher-ups of Brains Base feel the same way. ^^;

In any case, this episode was a great way to flesh out Natsume’s classmates a bit more, as they invite Natsume to an inn in order to spend some quality time on their homework (read: goof off). The second half of the episode deals with the story an old woman who in her childhood used the blood of a mermaid to save a friend she looked up to a lot.

Most of the episode was about both the woman and the mermaid coming to terms as to what they had done, so that both of them could receive proper closure. A standard story for this series, but it’s still a really charming story.

Book Log

by psgels, posted in Special Articles

A few months ago, I was asked if I could do a post once in a while about some of my other interests aside from anime. It took me a while to think of something interesting to write, but I figured that I might as well use this post to keep track of the different books and novels I read from time to time. Do note that this list is over the scope of a couple of years: I’m a very slow reader, and usually take three months to finish one book. These all have nothing whatsoever to do with anime or Japan: most are either American thrillers, fantasy or European history, or a combination between these. Do note that some of these entries contain spoilers.

The Dreamers 1: The Island Thurn – David Eddings & Leigh Eddings
A story that takes place in a fantasy world, where a huge focus is spent on building up, and setting everything up correctly. While it’s a bit too caught up in its need to do everything by the book, give every single character background and enough time to develop, up to the point that there’s not much excitement along the way (nothing really happens through the first three quarters of the book), it does deliver nicely in the end, although nothing spectacular.

The Magic Circle – Catherine Neville
The prime example of how you can also get too convoluted. This novel set out with grand ambitions, as it attempted to tell a plot that spreads across 2000 years, with a story containing a huge amount of symbolism, referencing Jesus, Hitler some Roman Emperors and other notable historical figures all caught up in it. In the end, though, it becomes clear that it never really knew what it wanted to go for, and the story didn’t really accomplish anything, other than establishing the ridiculously complex family history of the female lead character. Seriously, in the end the twists about her family became so formulaic that you can almost predict the exact page at which the next increasingly ludicrous plot twist would arrive. It’s got a lot of nice trivia, though. The author really did some intensive historical research on this one.

The Collectors – David Baldacci
A very nice in-depth look in how con artists do their jobs, as we follow a group of four of them as they try to get away with a multi-million dollar scam. Great attention to detail, and a huge focus on careful preparation, only ruined by a joke of an ending which forsakes everything that the story has been building up for and instead goes for a nonsensical action end. The other story that runs parallel through the book also isn’t the most interesting: a bunch of old people solving a murder may sound good on paper, but it’s not the most exciting thing out there.

The Golden Compass – Philip Pullman
Excellent book, and I still need to get my hands on the continuation of this one. The whole idea of every person being accompanied by his own daemon (a sort-of animal that accompanies him everywhere; they even can change shapes for children) is fleshed out really well. The lead character may be just a little girl, but she’s a very likable lead. This is one story that gets increasingly better as it goes on.

Gone Baby Gone – Dennis Lehane
Absolutely fantastic. There’s no other way I can say it. The sheer imagination with which such a police thriller is told still amazes me. It’s an in-depth look at police cases involving missing children. It tells the story about two detectives, looking for a missing four year-old girl, and continues to keep the reader in the dark throughout the largest part of the book. But when a second child disappears, it finishes with an incredibly strong final quarter. I can safely say that this has been the best book I’ve ever read.

The Lost Labyrinth – Kate Mosse
This book tells about two stories as they intertwine: one about 12th century Carcasonne (France), and the other, happening about 8 centuries later. The former one is really good, with a likable female lead and a story that gets increasingly more interesting. The latter, however, just feels like second fodder in comparison. It’s full of plot holes, lacks detail and especially the romance that pops up near the end from out of nowhere feels a bit jarring. It’s got quite a few nice ideas, though.

Deverry: Daggerspell – Katherine Kerr
I’m only nearly halfway through this one at the moment, but I’m having a lot of trouble to get through it. Basically, this book is the first one of a large series of fantasy novels as it tells of a series of very annoying romances. Seriously, we have this guy who already was screwed in the head. His father dies and he continuously angsts and throws tantrums about it. He then proceeds to screw his sister and kill his best friend (no, really). When the bugger finally dies, you’d think that the annoyance finally stops, but no: he reincarnates, and the annoying romance starts all over again. Sure, in the end the story might have a very good conclusion, but I’m about to just drop it because people continue to behave like complete and unlikable imbeciles.

So yeah, one thing I noticed is that each medium has its own share of strengths and weaknesses. The things I noticed with these novels is that in nearly all cases, the thing that decides whether they succeed or not is their final quarter, the rest is all or mostly build-up. Nearly all of the above-mentioned ones either had very promising first halves, only to fall apart completely in the end, or fairly uneventful first halves, only to come together wonderfully in the end.

Another thing I can appreciate is the large diversity of lead characters. Okay, I may have just picked out the right books for this, but it feels like every lead character of the ones mentioned above comes from a different age group, as opposed to anime which tents to usually pick out teenagers. Still, the reason why I prefer anime to novels at this point is that novels lack the ability to suck me in and create an atmosphere. I’m a big fan of all sorts of things multimedia, and the thing I like about anime is how it combines all these things (audio, visuals, storytelling, etc) in order to create a coherent story. So yeah, in the end it’s just a matter of personal preference here, though with some of the above mentioned books, I’m glad to be able to have read them. Especially in the case of Gone Baby Gone. There are geniuses in every single kind of medium.

I may update this entry in the future as I read more. In the meantime, what are some of your favourite novels? I’m really a noob at this medium, so some help in deciding what to read next is always appreciated. ^^;

Angelic Layer Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews


One of the things I like about Clamp is that not only do they have a lot of imagination and a great sense of style, but they always try to go for something in a new genre, as opposed just doing the same genre over and over in order to milking their same old cash cows that brought them success (after all, they use their infamous cameos for that ^^;). Angelic Layer is their shounen fighting series: it’s about a nationwide tournament where people battle against each other with children’s toys brought to life. So yeah, it’s a notorious genre if anything, but along the way this series made me drop my scepsis and doubts completely.

It’s hard to see this from a distance, though. Nearly every single battle follows the same formula: Misaki (the lead character) enters battle, Misaki has trouble defeating her opponent, Misaki wins battle. As this series deals with a tournament, the opponents and outcomes for each battle is very heavily influenced by the writers in order to keep the plot on the correct path (after all, you wouldn’t have much of a series if Misaki lost and got kicked out of the tournament halfway through). But it all just doesn’t matter in the end, because Misaki is SO DANM adorable.

In fact, aside from the above mentioned predictability issues, I don’t have any problems with this series at all. This is simply a series that’s fun to watch, and throughout the series it never forgets that it’s supposed to have a consistently fun and fast-paced atmosphere. Even though you know that Misaki is going to win, you just can’t help but root for her, and during the fights it’s always fun to see what’s happening behind the scenes. Most of the characters are fleshed out and developed really well, and this prevents all of the battles from getting boring, and they continue to deliver.

In terms of eye candy, this series also delivers. Bones may not be the perfect studio, but these guys do know their animation. The character-designs look simple, yet very appealing (as expected from Clamp), and they’re brought alive really well in animation. The fights also consist out of mostly hand-to-hand combat, and while the action doesn’t look flashy at all, it is full of life and emotion. When the characters are fighting, there are hardly any close-ups or other cheap animation tricks used. Instead, we get real nicely animated fights that remain fun to watch.

What also sets this series apart from all other shounen fighting series is the lack of a villain, or for that matter any character who even bears a resemblance to one. In this series there is no “I’m going to use the powers of a bunch of child’s toys in order to somehow destroy the world. Mua ha ha ha”. There is an overarching storyline, but for once this is aimed at the characters, instead of the plot. Because of this, this series may abuse the “parents gone”-trope a bit at times, but the results make up for it.

To close off, even though we have a manga adaptation here, it is one of those few manga adaptations which fits perfectly into the time frame of 26 episodes. It’s especially surprising since quite a few of Bones’ series have their pacing issues, but Angelic Layer never feels too slow or too fast. No episode feels wasted or useless and the creators did a really good job in planning this series correctly. Obviously you don’t want to watch this series for a complicated plot, or heart-wrenching drama, but for those who are looking for a fun fighting series with adorable characters that may sacrifice its plot at times, then this series isn’t going to disappoint.

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

Birdy the Mighty Decode – 20

by psgels, posted in Birdy the Mighty Decode



Short Synopsis: The second half of Birdy’s past
Episode Rating: 9/10 (FUCKING EPIC!!!!!!)
Oh my god. This episode was utterly incredible, the best of an already superb and magnificent series. I still can’t believe how amazing and outstanding this show has turned out. I knew it had a splendid director already, but that’s not always the reason to get your hopes up since in 50% of the cases, they just don’t live up to his previous works. Well, I’m glad to say that THIS ONE CERTAINLY HAS! If it continues to get better and better like it is now and the ending doesn’t mess up the story, it could actually make my top 10. The second season is simply brilliant, rich, grandiose, glorious… and I’m going stop now before I run out of adjectives.

Those flashbacks that we kept seeing were incredibly sneaky. Birdy has had deal with a pretty cruel event in her past, and yet we were given no hint to that until this episode. All the scenes that we saw were either from right before or right after Violin got killed. And holy balls, I thought that the terrorists simply detonated a bunch of bombs in central tower, but they slaughtered the entire place completely. Now I also understand why Nataru is so hung up on his past, because what happened there was downright terrible: Ryunka was abducted and protected by the ones that we saw Nataru kill off in the past few episodes. That’s why he hates them so much, because they pretty much ruined the life he could have had with Birdy.

Violin’s death was especially sad since Birdy grew up seeing her not as an android, but simply as her mother. When she got destroyed, this image of her broke completely and Birdy wasn’t even allowed to say a proper goodbye to her, since in her mind, Violin turned into someone completely different from who she grew up with.

And oh my god, the animation! The godly animation! This episode looked downright awesome, especially when the incredibly messy visuals appeared. It looks like Kazuki Akane plans to go further with his specific style than he did in Noein, which is promising SO MUCH goodness for the final episodes of this series. While at first it indeed seemed to be going into the direction of Kemonozume, but the end of this episode truly looked unique, and even went where Kemonozume didn’t go.

The question now remains: who the heck was the person who carried Birdy away later? The only one who he reminds me of is the grown up Natoru, but this show doesn’t seem to be about time travelling, unlike Noein.

Jigoku Shoujo – 72

by psgels, posted in Jigoku Shoujo



Short Synopsis: A scientist calls Jigoku Tsuushin
Episode Rating: 8,5/10 (Awesome)
This was definitely the best episode of the third season yet in terms of solid storytelling. Now this is EXACTLY why I’ve become such a big fan of the franchise: it’s nearly always entertaining to see the different revenges, but the real goodness pops up once the story starts touching the main storyline, which is purposefully saved until near the end.

In the third season, where most of the revenges simply looked like each other, this episode stands out as a really unique one, in which it attempts to combine technology with the supernatural. Faking a grudge with the help of a machine. Most of the time, magic is something… magical that no technology can touch, and here we have a very practical example of how technology can manipulate the human body, and so affect the magic in this series. And of course, any episode in which Ai appears for more than three minutes is nothing short of awesome.

And yeah, it’s AWESOME to see Tsugumi back again. To think that it’s been twenty years since the first season. Now all that’s left is for Hajime to make his reappearance with more than that very short cameo in the second season, and I’ll be really happy. It’s also interesting how Tsugumi doesn’t address him with “father”, “dad” or any other Japanese equivalent, but instead addresses him with “Hajime-chan”. That just signifies how extraordinary the relationship between the two has become (well, okay I know nothing about how this goes in the Japanese society, but at least it’s pretty rare for anime; I can only recall one other series which did the same: Arusu in Mahou Shoujotai, which immediately makes it something awesome).

White Album – 08

by psgels, posted in White Album



Short Synopsis: Yuki and Touya finally get to see each other again.
Episode Rating: 8/10 (Excellent)
Whoa, so many things happened in this episode, and yet it felt like a really quiet and slow-paced one. At this point, it’s pretty certain that this is one of these series that’s continuously building up for one big finale, and it’s also pretty sure that Touya and Yuki are going to break up with each other. The question is just going to be: how? And how are the two of them going to end up afterwards?

So this whole time, Touya has been trying to live his own life, I think also trying to find something to be busy with in order to forget how often he’s apart from Yuki. Most people indeed wouldn’t put that much time into the wishes of someone else like he’s doing with Misaki, but I think that he unintentionally tries to seek distraction, and with that he’s also getting more and more distanced from Yuki. I’m starting to get the points that this series is trying to make like this.

I also loved the very subtle sense of humour in this episode. The jokes around Haruka were fun, but not meant to be laughed at. Still, it was pretty cute when Touya discovered how she broke into his apartment that evening. We do need to see a bit more about Haruka, though. Something’s clearly bugging her: she’s jealous of Yuki, and probably looked up to her, since she apparently spent a lot of time with Touya since her childhood and was never really able to let this go, but I just know that the creators are still hiding something from her. That breakdown of hers isn’t just explained through simple loneliness.

My only problem is that this series the umpth one that is overplaying the “dead parents” trope a bit too much. I know that it’s a good way to evoke sympathy and all, but when it’s becoming an exception for a character’s parents to be both not missing or dead, then you know something’s going in the wrong direction.

And what the heck was up with Yayoi at the end of this episode? This really is the first episode where Touya definitely cheated on Yuki, but why Yayoi of all people?

Mobile Suit Gundam 00 – 45

by psgels, posted in Mobile Suit Gundam 00



Short Synopsis: Lyle tries to talk some sense into Anew
Episode Rating: 7,5/10 (Good)
I have a HUGE hate/love feeling about this episode. Some parts were really well done, excellent and points where things came together really nicely, while other parts were downright abysmal. Huge bad signs for the finale of this series. At this point, this series still has the potential for an excellent finale if it does everything right, but the potential for a trainwreck is just SO BIG. Agh!

But first the good part: Lyle vs. Anew. A bit cheesy perhaps, but Lyle’s attempts to get Anew back were surprisingly genuine. Anew’s death was very sympathetic, and I especially loved how Setsuna didn’t hesitate to kill his former friend. I’m surprised as well, but Setsuna has turned into a really nice main character: none of the problems I have with this show have to do with him.

But yeah, there was lots of bad stuff in this episode as well. the creators really did the seemingly impossible in this episode: they made the Saji vs Louise plot-line even MORE annoying: they introduced brainwashing! It’s like saying: we need drama! Let’s brainwash a bunch of people into doing bad stuff so that they won’t listen to people reasoning with them! The brainwashing effectively eliminates any form of free will, and turns the characters involved in brainless fighting machines. How the heck are they going to get good drama with that?!

And yeah, this episode pretty much hinted that the creators are going for an “everyone dies” ending. There are so many couples whose finale can resemble that of Anew so much that it’s going to surprise me a lot if half of the cast still alive in this episode doesn’t end up getting killed in some way. Anew’s death worked well, but if the creators are just going to repeat the same thing over and over again, the fun quickly dies. No pun intended, by the way.