Mobile Suit Gundam 00 – 39

by psgels, posted in Mobile Suit Gundam 00



Short Synopsis: Gundam goes Macross as the Ptolemy needs to escape last episode’s battlefield.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
Haha! I knew it! Sunrise is really planning to make this the next Gundam Wing: a coup d’etat is brewing inside A-Laws, and the way it looks like it’s actually going to be well executed. I remember how the rebel forces in Gundam Wing came from bloody nowhere, but in this series it’s instead carefully introduced, before it finally can hit its climax. At this point, I can only wonder how the creators can bring back Marina Ismael to the Relena-clone that she once was…

This episode was also great in terms of original content. I like the added bit of irony that Ribbons was the one who scouted Setsuna in the first place, and made him a Gundam Pilot. That also just show that innovators age a bit different from normal human beings. Either that or Rivonze was a very gifted child…

Then there’s of course the Macross-ish singing, which for once didn’t save a good guy, but rather kept a villain alive. I’m really not a fan of the invisible speakers that Marina somehow managed to conjure out of nowhere, but he idea is nice and I wonder how far the creators can bring it. At the moment, the Gundams are at the top of their abilities, and I don’t think that they’re going to get much stronger than they are now, so it’s now up to A-Laws (and the future rebels who plan the coup d’etat) to catch up with them in terms of technology again, and this episode showed the first steps to it, in terms of Mister Bushido’s new mobile suit. I have a strong suspicion that he’s one of the people planning the Coup d’etat, especially because of his connections with Zechs.

Also, there seems to be indeed a spy on board of the Ptolemy, but it doesn’t seem to be Anew Returner. It’s probably someone who’s been in the shadows for a while… how about the new girl who replaced Lichty in the second season?

As expected, this episode showed the new OP, while we have to wait an episode for the new ED. And as expected, it’s a nice song with nice visuals, but nothing really special. It’s a pity, since Gundam Wing was the one with the best OPs of any Gundam I’ve seen so far.

Jigoku Shoujo – 66

by psgels, posted in Jigoku Shoujo



Short Synopsis: A girl who misses her train calls Jigoku Tsuushin.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10 (Usual revenge, but Yuzuki is finally coming in action!)
And with this episode, everything suddenly becomes clear: Yuzuki was indeed meant to be the next Tsugumi, and she’s also going to play Hajime by trying to stop the revenges in the rest of this season because of what happened to her best friend. It’s definitely a better motivation than Hajime had, who simply was fundamentally against revenges. Yuzuki, instead, has a very good reason to hate Ai.

This episode played with the anxieties that the elite have about their reputations. I liked how the lead girl in this episode may have been a bright student with good grades, but she nevertheless was a normal girl. I’ve lost count of how many great students in anime have been portrayed as the perfect human beings, brilliant at every thing they do. While the lead girl did know how to avoid the biggest kinds of trouble, she did put her trust into someone who later turned out to be a criminal and ended up sending him to hell when a picture of both of them was taken that could have damaged her reputation. I actually had a lot of respect for the two of them before the creators went and showed the huge weaknesses of the both of them. ^^;

The interesting thing is how the creators are going to play in the future episodes, with Yuzuki trying to prevent Ai from taking her revenges. Compared to Hajime, she’s really shy and not very charismatic, and that guy failed nearly every time trying to convince characters that were a lot more sane than the people we’ve been seeing in the third season. I’d also love it if the creators threw in a bunch of psychopaths in front of her. Yuzuki has a lot of potential to grow, and I’m really curious to see where the creators plan to go with her.

Some quick first Impressions: Birdy The Mighty Decode 2, Major 5th Season and Kemono no Souja Erin

by psgels, posted in Birdy the Mighty Decode, Some Quick First Impressions

Birdy the Mighty Decode 2

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets assigned to track down a bunch of escaped convicts.
Chance of me Blogging: 100% (Hell yeah!)
Whoa, a bit theme of the sequels this season seems to be angsting over what happened at the end of its previous season: first Shikabane Hime, then Druaga no Tou, and now this one. Still, Birdy the Mighty did this the best of the three, simply because it had so many other things to do in this episode so that Senkawa didn’t have too much time to remember Nakasugi. And unlike the previous two, this series has yet to show what it can really do with its potential. This episode promised a grand story, lots of new characters were introduced and some characters who seemed as mere fillers in the first season show up again as well. The new OP and ED are also much better, there’s a brand new OST, so overall all signs point in the direction that the second season is going to be much better than the first. Just, what was up with that strange insert song at the end?

Major 5th Season

Short Synopsis: Our lead character spent the fourth season in a foreign country and finally arrived back home, it seems.
Chance of me Blogging: 10% (Yet to see the first four seasons…)
Seriously, is there no end to the sequels this Winter-season? In any case, I watched this episode in an attempt to get motivated to watch the first season. So, it’s a bit unfortunate that there was hardly any baseball whatsoever in this episode, but nevertheless I enjoyed the quiet mood of the episode. The characters were nostalgic about things that I obviously never saw, but it nevertheless was an enjoyable episode. I might try to follow this fifth season, depending on how long it remains interesting to me and whether it can prove to be significantly different from One Outs (since two baseball shows airing at the same time may be a bit too much).

Kemono no Souja Erin

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets is the daughter of a famous dragon caller
Chance of me Blogging: 50% (It would be 100% if it wasn’t for the producers)
Now this is what I’m talking about! This series is definitely the most creative and original out of the new shows that aired this season. I love the stylized look of the main character, or the very stylish animation when the dragons attacked. The slice of life moments in this series were also wonderful, though there’s one big problem with this series: its creators. I took a small look at the different staff members that are working on this series and it looks like we’ve got the worst people on the Production IG-arsenal working on it: Trans Arts. While I liked Wellber when it aired, I now see that it was way too cheesy, Toshokan Sensou was unbalanced and Chocolate Underground was just plain bad, and they still get to produce series? Why hasn’t Production IG simply fired them, and more importantly: what happened to their good people? Did they all quit at the same time to join Madhouse, or something? I loved this episode, but I can already see it going downhill: the series composition was done by the guy who did the series composition of Real Drive and Blood, and the production coordination was done by the guy who did the production coordination of Saiunkoku Monogatari and The Twelve Kingdoms: all excellent stories on themselves, but the former two were really unbalanced, and the latter two had no conclusion, and I have enough reasons to believe that these people were directly responsible for their series’ respective flaws. Just think what might happen once you combine them all into one series!

Tytania – 13

by psgels, posted in Tytania



Short Synopsis: Fan Hulic versus MISTER BUSHIDO!
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10 (Awesome)
I very much doubt that Legend of Galactic Heroes was awesome because of the same reasons, but nevertheless I really can’t deny that Tytania has its own unique charms. I’m not sure exactly where on the way everything went right, but this episode was simply awesome and the characters of this series are so much fun to watch.

Ah, and to think that the creators only kept Alses alive for one measly episode, simply to flesh out the rest of the cast a bit more. I really thought that he’d become some sort of psychopath villain through the series, but in this episode it became apparent that he’s stopped being a threat whatsoever: he descended into a simple psychopathic coward. The only reason why he was involved in a battle was because Fan Hulic wanted revenge for Lyra’s death.

It’s great to see that Idris is now basically dancing on not only the grave of Alses, but also the one of his ambitious subordinate whose name I forgot. In the meantime, I’m also interested in how Zalish is going to deal with his mother, now that her favourite son is dead, and at the same time Jouslan and Ariabart are still happily drinking tea with Lydia. Let’s see how long that’s going to last. ^^;

Some quick first Impressions: Abunai Sisters, Druaga no Tou – The Sword of Uruk and Asu no Yoichi!

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Abunai Sisters

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters are a couple of “sexy spies”.
Chance of me Blogging: -50% (…)
Here’s an interesting one: I’ve actually been contacted by the company that produced this series, asking for me to review the first episode of this 3-minute 10-episoded OVA, animated by Production IG. While I’m excited to actually have been contacted by professional companies like this, it doesn’t stop me from being perfectly honest with this series: Abunai Sisters is bad. In fact, it’s the worst series I’ve seen in years; even Musashi Gun Doh features better writing than this thing. These three minutes were full of the most obvious sex jokes you can imagine. It’s nothing more than a bunch of air-headed celebrities (the Kano Sisters, in this case) who want to insert themselves into an animated adventure. Still, at least it’s got a bit of entertainment value: it really is one of these series that’s so bad so that it becomes somewhat strangely enjoyable again. Something tells me that the writers also had no intention whatsoever to take this series seriously, and they did everything they could to make the Kano Sisters look as stupid as possible.

Druaga no Tou – The Sword of Uruk

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters has been angsting about the ending of the first season for… six months?!
Chance of me Blogging: 30% (I didn’t blog the first season, but who knows with such a lacklustre season so far?)
Aaand yet another sequel. It’s a good thing that most of these sequels are from good shows, but the lack of new series really bugs me. In any case, I was a bit surprised that Jill has been doing nothing but angsting for six months after what happened at the ending of the first season, but it’s a pretty nice twist to see him suddenly hooked up to Fatina, who went through pretty much the same as him. The series also hasn’t lost its sense of humour, so there is a lot of potential for this series to be just as good, if not better than the first season. I’m just worried about one thing: please let Jill and Fatina be a real couple, and don’t turn this series into a sort of indecisive harem once Kaaya gets back.

Asu no Yoichi!

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters gets to live in a house with cute girls.
Chance of me Blogging: 0% (No)
AIC sure is lazy this season: first they try to rip off Gonzo, and now they continue to rip off every harem imaginable. This really is the wrong season to look for originality. In any case, the only thing I can be positive about is this series is the characters: they were likable enough for me not to get bored, and I guess that the main character who has lived in a forest for his entire life, getting accustomed to the modern world had a number of amusing moments, but the rest of the series was either mediocre or simply bad. The character-designs are unimaginative, what kind of pickpocket flees away upstairs, characters are stereotypes, and it’s never afraid to use the biggest clichés in the book. Still, the fanservice jokes were so incredibly bad that they became strangely amusing again, so it’s not entirely a dull series.

Bonen no Xamdou – 22

by psgels, posted in Bonen no Xamdou



Short Synopsis: Akiyuki’s father meets Kakisu at the Sentan Island war memorial and MAJOR SPOILER ALERT.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
Those who’ve been following more of my entries for the past weeks must have noticed the lots of 8/10s for the episode ratings, but that’s exactly what nearly all of the shows I’m currently blogging are: consistently excellent with hardly any weak moments. The same goes for this episode: despite the slow pacing it was yet another really moving instalment.

With as highlight of course the death of Kakisu. It was a very subtle death, exactly what you’d expect from this series, and it was also wonderfully animated. When Akiyuki’s father shot, I was really surprised that the screen didn’t black out, followed by the sound of a gunshot. I only realize it now, but such a trick is very often used in anime as a cheap trick to avoid having to draw a bit of gore. On top of that, the amount of blood that was gushed in the process felt about right: there were no galleons of blood spilled, as many shounen-series tend to do in these sorts of situations. All of that gave something very creepy to his dead body.

Fusa was also as good as ever with her monologues. Akiyuki and Haru meanwhile find out that the gathering of the Xam’d comes along with a mass suicide and as expected: the white haired guy has a much different perception of human life than Akiyuki and Haru, who went through the horrors of the assault on Sentan Island.

The rest of the episode focused on building up for the series’ finale, which most likely is going to focus on the all-out war between the north and the south, and possible other fractions. Midori is being moved to the battlefield as we speak, while Raigyo and Benikawa are also busy helping their allies. Tessik village also has its own super weapon, so it’s definitely promising to be an interesting finale, especially since Akiyuki, Haru and Nakiami, who are supposed to be the main characters of the series, don’t play a major part in it, apart from Haru’s connection to Midori. I really wonder what the creators had in mind for them for the final episodes of this series, because at this point I have no idea.

Shikabane Hime – 15

by psgels, posted in Shikabane Hime



Short Synopsis: Makina again gets the chance to meet the ones who killed her.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7.5/10 (Good)
Whoa, there surely have been some changes between the first and second season. Some were expected, others not, and both seasons now have their own advantages and disadvantages. Thankfully this episode was much better than the first episode of the second season, so all hope is thankfully not lost. Anyway, here’s a list of changes between these two seasons:

Season 1 < Season 2 - Characters are fleshed out and some of them are developed by now: they're easier to connect to and more enjoyable to watch. - AWESOME lighting effects: the second season looks even better than the first one due to the increase of lots of CG for lighting. - The monster of the week-theme seems to be gone now (not sure about that one, though). - Faster pacing. Potential for even better fight scenes. Season 2 < Season 1 - The second season now really is a shounen series: group of good guys fights group of supernatural bad guys with large powers. - Too much angst about Keisei's death. - The sense of humour is much worse. In the first season, the humour was there before you knew it, and then gone again, while it feels much more unbalanced in the second season. - As a sacrifice for the lighting effects, the animation quality went down. - What the heck is up with that Idol Shikabane? Very weird and out of place fanservice. I really am not sure whether the second season is going to turn out well or not. It all depends on how well the creators manage to do the rest of the battles of the series. What it absolutely MUST NOT do is end every single battle like they did in this episode: with Makina struggling without any will to fight, only to awaken to her desire to avenge Keisei and release hidden powers. Things like these are good once or twice (like what this series did with this episode), but a very nasty habit of shounen-series is to overplay this cliché way too much. It's been ages since I watched a really good shounen-series like this one, and I really hope that the creators can pull this one off. One big advantage that this series has is that the antagonists are by now means too powerful. They retreat too when cornered, the only advantage they have is that they work together as a team. Compare that to many other shounen-series, where we have a near-impossible to beat enemy, and so the creators have to mess with power-level inconsistencies as large as a black hole in order to make the main characters win in the end. What I’m really hoping for in this series is an all-out war between everyone in the finale. But yeah, the two major factors that are going to decide whether the second season is going to be worthwhile are: 1) the amount of Keisei-angst from Makina and Ouri, and 2) the laziness of the creators during the fights. The fanservice is definitely annoying, but it's not going to make or break this series.

Michiko e Hatchin – 11

by psgels, posted in Michiko e Hatchin



Short Synopsis: Hatchin gets used to life within the circus, when she meets a certain Michiko
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
Seriously, Hatchin is an awesome character. At this point, I don’t care what kind of direction this series is going to go into: when she’s around, it’s going to be lots of fun either way. Another thing I like so much about this series is that it rapidly switches from hilarious comedy to powerful drama, and especially this episode was good at that. The news reporter in this episode was hilarious, even though he was trying to deal with such a serious topic as child exploitation.

It seems that Michiko didn’t have to search long for Hatchin. I’m not sure what part I missed where she found out about the circus, but I expected a lot more time to be spent on it. I’m still surprised at how long it took for the two of them to make up: normally things like these are resolved in one episode, in extreme cases two. The way they made up was also delightfully far from cheese, and it felt really true to their characters.

In the end, Michiko’s pride and Hatchin’s responsibility just remain adorable. I loved it when Michiko found out that Hatchin preferred her to the fat lady Michiko, and Hatchin, even though she despises Michiko, did rescue her in the end. There are a lot of things in this series left unsaid by the two of them, but that’s also what makes them such great characters to watch.

Casshern Sins – 14

by psgels, posted in Casshern Sins



Short Synopsis: Ringo and Ouji get separated.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
Okay, so either this series got its timeslot shifted to Tuesday somehow, or the Thursday timeslot went into a hiatus and the Tuesday timeslot didn’t. Anyway, about the episode: CasshernXLyuze: you were right. Casshern and Lyuze are indeed the main couple of this series. The final few minutes of this episode were wonderful, as they showed that Lyuze finally accepts that she can’t kill Casshern if he has the potential to get rid of the destruction, and Ringo realizes that she belongs with Ouji. Oh, and the surprise guest at the end of the episode only made things better. 🙂

Regarding the rest of the episode, Dio and Leda are my two least favourite characters of this series, so it didn’t rank among the highlights of the series for me. I’m not sure why, but they just aren’t as likable as the rest of the cast, and I hope that the second half of the series is going to change that. Right now, all signs point to the direction that Dio isn’t going to stupidly chase after Casshern anymore, and I really want the guy to develop and turn into someone completely different, and with a bit of luck Luna is going to make sure of that. The same goes with Leda.

In any case, the arrival of Luna is definitely going to make the second half of this series incredibly different from the first half. I’m not sure whether this was actually THE Luna, but nevertheless the despair of the early episodes will be turning into hope. Whether Luna is real or not doesn’t matter, but she is going to have a very big placebo effect on humans and robots alike.

Oh, and this episode finally showed the real new ED of the series: the previous episodes merely showed an insert song. While the song still isn’t exactly of my taste, the visuals are still awesome as ever.

Some quick first Impressions: Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo, Hajime no Ippo New Challenger and Viper’s Creed

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is best friends with a flying potato with a train fetish…
Chance of me Blogging: 30% (Nice ideas, but…. what?!)
In my previous entry, I remember noting how this season lacked originality. I never thought that this series would listen to me, although it definitely has its own share of problems. Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo is weird. In fact, nothing of this series made any bloody sense whatsoever… the lead character moves from an innocent schoolgirl with an annoying sister to the henchmen of a weird mechanical space eye-ball… The character-designs are also way too moe. Still, I do have to appreciate the huge mount of ideas that was stuffed into this series, even though most of the times this is for the wrong reasons. This series is so incredibly stupid that it actually becomes enjoyable. The bad thing about this series is that it’s Sunrise again: the title is meant to cash in on Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo’s popularity, and the Lelouch-eyeball at the same time tries to squeeze more money out of the Code Geass-franchise.

Hajime no Ippo New Challenge

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a very good boxer.
Chance of me Blogging: 10% (Have yet to see the first season)
In this season, I’m looking for new and fresh content. I’m not sure where I got that idea, but this clearly was the worst possible season for it: yet another sequel! The only original and imaginative premises I’ve seen so far are from Akikan and Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo, which… definitely were in the complete opposite direction of what I was looking for… Nevertheless, laying this aside I pretty much liked this episode. The characters were immediately likable, even though I missed around seventy episodes of the first season. My biggest concern with this series is: what’s its point? The lead character has worked very hard through the first season to become world champion (or similar), so: what’s next? There are so many Madhouse series that are in dire need of a sequel, so why did they pick this one?

Viper’s Creed

Short Synopsis: Our lead character fights berserked robots on a motorbike.
Chance of me Blogging: 20% (Only if the rest of the season is baaaaad)
Well, so it’s yet again a series that isn’t strong on the originality-department, but nevertheless it does have some good and exciting action-scenes. I didn’t notice anything familiar on the opening credits, but could this perhaps be the next Gonzo-series? It fits their style perfectly anyway: motorbikes, an all-female back-up team, lots of CG and camera-work, rock soundtrack. Still, this doesn’t look like Bad Gonzo; there was a delightful absence of stupidity that plagues these series oh so often. And this series has one big advantage: it doesn’t revolve around teenagers! The lead characters are trained professional adults who have been specifically prepared to fight crime. There were no angsty teenagers whatsoever. If only because of that, I’m going to keep watching this series. This is no Blassreiter, but still pretty entertaining.
Edit: ah, so it’s not Gonzo after all, but AIC Spirits that tries to look like Gonzo. Let’s see how long these guys can keep this series interesting (hint: plot!).