Tytania – 17

by psgels, posted in Tytania



Short Synopsis: Making use of the bad organization of the enemy, Fan lets himself get caught, in order to escape again.
Episode Rating: 8/10 (Excellent)
Here’s an interesting one: for February, this show is going to be on and off: in two weeks it’s having yet another hiatus, though in March, it’s going to have double episodes for four consecutive weeks! That’s really got to be the point where this series needs to deliver. It’s been building up so much, so it’d better have a damn good finale! And with a bit of luck Lydia will also actually start DOING something.

It’s a shame that this series is always going to remain in the shadows of Legend of Galactic Heroes. I bet that if the connections with that epic were gone, this series would have been generally better received so far. It’s still a very unique anime to me (I refuse to believe that LoGH was awesome in the same way that this series is).

Fan… the guy remains strange. At first sight he has no big reason whatsoever to go after any other Tytanian than Alsas. There is no “my people are oppressed so I’m just going to bust Tytania to free them”, and neither is he a great moral knight that’s so typical of most of his counterparts in other anime. Now that I think about it, he doesn’t have any huge ideals and this makes this series step away from the moralistic themes that may be a bit too present in anime. For him, it’s just a simple game: he doesn’t care whether he dies or not, he just wants to see how far he can go. It’s rare to find a main character in anime like him. And I think that that’s why I came to like this show so much: aside from perhaps Miranda, every single character here is flawed, and unlike your average perfect character. And in a way, I’d much rather see how far Fan can go with his gamble than the umpth teenager who’s fighting for the power of love.

This episode also showed some surprise background for Miranda, including yet another surprising death. This show really likes to kill of characters at the time you’d least expect it, doesn’t it? ^^; It’s a shame, because the guy was pretty smart, even though this episode showed that he lacks the experience in practical combat. He could have grown into a pretty formidable foe. Though I guess that Miranda realized this as well, so she killed him before he got the chance to prove a threat.

Kara no Kyoukai – The Garden of Sinners – Paradox Spiral Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Kara no Kyoukai



For those who were expecting much of the same for the fifth Kara no Kyoukai movie, you’re going to be pretty surprised, because it’s really nothing like any of the previous movies so far. The length has doubled, the animation style has changed, the story is no longer simple, and the dialogue is a lot more complex than it already was. Ever since the second movie, every consecutive movie has been better than its predecessor, and Paradox Spiral is continuing this tradition. Do note though, that it’s going to be a movie that you’ll either love or hate.

At this point, the installments have become chronological again: the story of the fifth movie takes place after all previous four movies, unlike the previous ones which were in a random order. Still, the progression of events throughout the movie is pretty much the exact opposite of linear: the first three quarters of the airtime are filled with flashbacks, foreshadowing, shots of future scenes, and all pretty appear without any prior warning or explanation what the heck is going on. This movie aims to confuse, and does a really well job at it.

Along with that comes a very smart sense of dialogue, probably the best of the five movies so far. You’re going to need to pay attention for this one, otherwise you might miss something important. As the movie goes on, the story starts to take shape, and at the end of the two hours, most of the important questions asked are answered. The best thing about this story was definitely the huge amount of layers that it’s built up from. It doesn’t assume its viewers to be idiots, and neither does it for its characters.

Where this movie falls short, especially when compared to the fourth movie, is that it all feels a bit impersonal. This movie is definitely about its story, so the characters don’t get as much development as they should have gotten, but that’s indeed a choice you have to make with such a movie: the airtime is limited, so you have to focus on something, and this movie decided to focus on its complex storyline, in order to get the best out of that, and at least Shiki, Touko and Mikiya were already fleshed out a bit in the previous movies.

The animation style is also pretty interesting, as instead of the solid production-values of the previous movies, the animation team for this one decided to go for a much more messy style. Ufo Table’s trademark computer-shaded hair is gone as well, but in exchange for that we get to see some of the best animated fight scenes of the series yet.

Overall, while not as complex as your average Mamoru Oshii-movie, Spiral Paradox still is a very good recommendation for those who want a movie to make them think about the plot. It’s perfect for any mystery-fan who doesn’t like his meal to be handed to him on a silver platter. Overall, I’m pretty impressed by the Kara no Kyoukai franchise so far. It leaves a bit to be desired on its characters, but the mystery so far has been excellent and varied.

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

Shikabane Hime – 20

by psgels, posted in Shikabane Hime



Short Synopsis: Ouri vs. Boob-sama and Makina vs. the balloon… thing.
Episode Rating: 8/10 (Excellent)
Seriously, this show keeps surprising me. I thought that the Boob-sama story would be plain annoying, and Ouri’s female classmate who appeared from out of nowhere and started acting completely different from her usual character only contributed to that fear, not to mention that she opened up her shirt for no good reason either. Still, this yet again was a really good episode.

Mostly, this was because of the balloon Shikabane. The shounen-roots of this series may have a few serious disadvantages, but this is one of the few shounen-series that so far has yet fallen into one of the pitfalls that killed most of the series of the genre. And this series also has the big strength of the good shounen series: they created some really interesting villains with very imaginative powers. The seven stars really are formidable opponents that are fun to watch, and the balloon thing is the best example of that when this episode reveals that it’s just a little girl with a bunch of balloons, who died together with her family on an amusement park. Nice! The theme-park fight-scene was quite awesome to watch.

It seems that the seven stars are indeed after the destruction of the Hougonshuu, and for some reason Hokuto’s big enemy is among them. Right now, I wonder what the creators have in store with these guys. My biggest fear right now is that Hokuto seems a bit too much like your overpowered evil overlord. The balloon shikabane was so much fun because she used mind games and all that stuff in order to win, though Hokuto seems much more like your typical power monster.

Also, the big question for the next episode: is Boob-sama going to return as a Shikabane Hime or not?

Sora wo Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai – 05

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



Short Synopsis: Ichiko, Yumemi, Suzume and some other friends go to an amusement park.
Episode Rating: 8/10 (Excellent)
Ah, if everything goes right, then the glorified recap should only take one more episode. After that it’s finally time to see whether this series is a passionate attempt by the original creators to give this series the airtime it deserves, or a simple attempt by the Kyoani top-executives in order to squeeze some more money out of another one of their franchises. I so hope that it’s going to be the former.

In any case, this probably was my favourite episode of this series so far. Those Munto-episodes were nice and all, but we hardly know anything about the guy, or the world he lives in, and I’m also really hoping that once this series turns to its original episodes, its going to focus on all of these different elf countries that we saw in the previous episode. It’s interesting: when I first started this series, I simply thought that the series would end with the climax of the second OVA, while fleshing out the setting with new material in between the old scenes from the OVAs, but instead they’re just getting the story of the OVAs over with in the beginning, only to conclude the series with an original story. it’s good for those like me, who are new to the franchise (pretty graphics FTW!), though I imagine that it must be pretty dull for those who have seen the OVAs already, seeing the same thing nearly exactly all over again.

Oh, and Munto did get some background this episode, if only just a little bit. He seems to be your typical tragic hero right now: a prince who has lost his parents at a young age, and now is pretty much fighting for what his parents left him behind. I hope that the anime-original episodes will flesh the guy out a bit more, so that we actually get to see some different sides of him (i.e., when he’s not in fighting-mode).

Hetalia: Axis Powers – 03

by psgels, posted in Hetalia: Axis Powers



Short Synopsis: Okay, so this time Italy really allies itself with Germany.
Episode Rating: 7,5/10 (Good)
Ah, now things make sense: episode 1 was supposed to be the congress of Vienna (hence why France didn’t appear in that episode), episode 2 then fast-forwarded to the first World War, in which Italy was supposed to fight Germany but simply goofed off, and now we’ve come to the real meat of the story: the Second World War. This episode seems to be the prelude of it, where Germany is angry because France beat it in the first one. The end of the previous episode was just a preview for this one. I’m glad that at least something of this show makes sense. ^^;

The best thing in this episode was definitely the really weird song composed by Italy, which probably meant to highlight some of the cultural differences between the countries (German girls are bigger? They’re scary as tourists? lol). The karaoke may have been a bit too much, though. I never understood why fansubbers feel like they want to stuff the entire screen full of random text, saying the same in English, Romanji and Kanji. It clutters the screen and is hard to follow. And sure, for real songs I can understand… but such a silly song as that one?!

I’m interested whether this series is going to portray the Jews. It’s been a very touchy subject, and I can’t remember any anime about the world war that even bothered to mention it. But then again, Japan did a lot of nasty stuff in the second world war, but if my memory doesn’t deceive me they didn’t have a lot to do with the Holocaust. One ironic thing here is that Homosexuals were also among the ones who were systematically wiped out, and the Germany in this series has just “allied” himself with a guy whose preferences are… questionable to say the least. ^^;

(EDIT: oh wait, I now see that the song was already karaoked in Japanese already before the fansubbers touched it… what?)

Natsume Yuujin-Chou – 19

by psgels, posted in Natsume Yuujin-Chou



Short Synopsis: Natsume finds out that there’s a strange girl who doesn’t speak in his school.
Episode Rating: 7,5/10 (Good)
Oh, how rare: this arc is going to take two episodes. It sure is a haunting one: we have this girl who experimented with the occult, and in return once encountered an evil youkai. It wanted to play a little game with her: within the next 360 days, if she could catch it, it’d be her win, though if she’d fail to catch it, the youkai would not just eat her, but also everyone whose name she called. This forced her to spend the next year without talking to anyone, out of the fear that she’d accidentally call their names. That must be hell!

And it again shows how important names are for these youkai, and how screwed Natsume must have been if he didn’t meet Nyanko-sensei: what would he have done if he met that evil youkai instead? It would probably have eaten him immediately (speaking of which: nasty cliffhanger at the end. We know that Natsume isn’t exactly “eaten”, but I have really no idea what that youkai is planning to do with him).

An annoyance in this episode came from Natsume’s friends… I really expected better of these guys, but in one episode they were simply degraded into the stereotypical paper bags of the best friends of the lead character that you see in every anime. It’s all there: trying to hit on a random cute girl, and successively getting sad and angry when the lead character walks away with her. That’s really one trope that needs to stop.

Casshern Sins – 19

by psgels, posted in Casshern Sins





Short Synopsis: Casshern and Lyuze get attacked by a mysterious robot-duo.
Episode Rating: 8,5/10 (Awesome)
ZOMG, two full episodes, dedicated on nothing but Lyuze! Oh, how well this series makes use of it. This episode was simply awesome. There was surprisingly little dialogue between Casshen and Lyuze, but that’s also what made this episode so beautiful: the two of them didn’t need a lot of dialogue in order to develop the bond between them.

Speaking of beautiful, I think that the screenshots already gave some indication, but I absolutely LOVED the visuals in this episode. It felt like every single shot oozed with style, and there wasn’t even a single frame that didn’t impress me. Madhouse truly did a terrific job on animating this episode.

Anyway, about Lyuze: it turns out that my theory of love bringing immortality is wrong: Lyuze still rusts in this episode, though what’s interesting is that even though Casshen bleeds again in this episode, we never see him regenerate himself like he did a number of episodes ago, so the source of his immortality is still pretty much unknown. However, Casshern and Lyuze officially became a couple in this episode. It turns out that the entire previous episode was building up to that moment.

Then there are the two guest-characters who appeared in this episode: the female robot and her friend. It’s strange: I loved the two of them, even though we learn hardly anything about them. Their development really is minimal: they come from out of nowhere, attack, and disappear again. They only appear for what… three minutes? And yet they’re fully fleshed out for them to work. We know that they’re strong, care about each other and are obsessed with not dying.

Prime Rose Review – 75/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews


While Nagagutsu Sanjuushi was a bad example of a nonsensical anime, Prime Rose – A Time Slip of 10000 years is a good example of such a series. The result of combining Osamu Tezuka and Osamu Dezaki in a movie from the eighties is pretty weird. There are many times at which the movie simply didn’t make any sense at all, but it definitely was entertaining.

This movie too has some plot twists that simply lack build-up. We see the story about a time patrol unit who travels 10000 years into the future to save two entire cities. Why the time patrol only can send a young male and a ten-year-old brat is never answered, we’re just left to assume that things happen the way they do, and there are a few more plot twists like these.

But unlike Nagagutsu Sanjuushi, this movie has plenty of things to make up for it. The amount of imagination that went into this work is really Tezuka-worthy. The monster-designs in particular look really sweet, and you can see that a lot of creativity went into the making of this movie. That’s something I can really appreciate.

The characters are also interesting enough to keep the movie fresh, and especially Prime Rose surprised me: at the start of the movie we’re led to believe that she’s a simple damsel in distress, while she grows into a feisty warrior and the heroine of the movie. In fact, all of the major characters get enough screentime and development for the timespan of a one-hour movie. Oh, and I just have to mention the soundtrack, which is an excellent one: very varied with catchy tunes that never get in the way of the important scenes.

While nothing extremely special, this movie is a recommendation for any Tezuka-fan out there, it’s really typical of his works: not the most solid or realistic, but a whole lot of fun to watch with young-looking characters who somehow don’t end up annoying. There are a few cameos out there from his other works and Osamu Dezaki did a good job of making his manga come to life.

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

Nagagutsu Sanjuushi Review – 45/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews


Nagagutsu Sanjuushi is the second movie that Saiei released recently. It too dates from the time when there was no Studio Ghibli yet, and anime still tried to be like Disney. So, what does that mean? Talking animals, of course! Nagagutsu Sanjuushi is a western with a cat as main character. Unfortunately, it’s a lot less fun than Andersen Monogatari.

While it originally has the potential to become a good family movie, but it’s bad writing that got in the way here. This movie hardly takes any time to explain what the heck is going on. Often, characters do completely random things that make no sense at all, just to keep the story going. There’s hardly any time spent on explaining the how and why of things. In fact, this goes on so badly that NONE of the characters received any important background whatsoever. We never get to know who these people are, or why they’re doing the things they do. Especially in the case of the main character this is jarring: he’s just… there, without any possible explanation what he’s doing here or why he involves himself with the plot.

So overall, we’ve got a movie that’s a lot of bark and no bite. It’s badly written and the creators don’t care at all about continuity, and the endless stupidity of the characters doesn’t help either. Sure, I know that it’s a children’s movie, but even then you shouldn’t have characters with the intelligence of a baboon’s backside running across the screen. The only merit this movie has is one fun, but completely non-sensical chase scenes.

Storytelling: 4/10
Characters: 3/10
Production-Values: 7/10
Setting: 4/10

Mobile Suit Gundam 00 – 43

by psgels, posted in Mobile Suit Gundam 00



Short Synopsis: A building-up episode before the next big clash between A-Laws and Celestial Beings.
Episode Rating: 7,5/10 (Good)
At first I wasn’t that positive about this episode, as hardly anything seemed to happen at all. What I’m especially bugged about is how the Coup d’Etat really didn’t accomplish anything: the rebels are gone, A-Laws is back to being A-Laws. What the heck was the point of it besides killing off Sergei? I think that’s the biggest problem with the second season of Gundam 00: it’s just too damn one-sided. In the first episodes, we see the Celestial Beings fighting against A-Laws. Eighteen episodes later, and we still have the Celestial Beings fighting against A-Laws. It really hasn’t evolved that much at all.

Nevertheless, near the end of the episode I suddenly realized how good this episode was. There was hardly any fighting, but instead it focused on developing all of the major couples in this episode: Setsuna and Saji, Soma and Allelujah, Marina and the kids, Lyle and Anew (!?), Louise and Andrei, Claus and Shirin, Saji and Louise, Wang and Ribbons, Regene and Ribbons, et cetera. I especially liked how when everyone sortied, they said the names for the ones most important to them. For Setsuna this was his Gundam, and Tieria had Veda. Now that’s the reason why these two are some of my favourite characters of this series. ^^;

So yeah, while the plot really hasn’t been moving anywhere, the characters thankfully are making lots of progress, and especially Saji and Louise feel a lot less annoying compared to their stupidity in the first three quarters of the series. They’re actually preparing themselves to kill each other in the battlefield, and I like how Louise finally has a new boyfriend. It’s just a shame that she chose the third most annoying character of the cast…