Telepathy Shoujo Ran – 20

by psgels, posted in Telepathy Shoujo Ran



Short Synopsis: Rin gets a love-letter.
Highlights: Quite possibly one of the funniest episodes of the series yet.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
Okay, so this episode was just a standalone story, there was no real continuity and it didn’t really progress the series forth in anyway. That classifies as filler, doesn’t it?

Ah, who cares if it’s a filler! This episode was hilarious!

I think that the term “filler” has evolved into a bit too negative of a term. I mean, a bad filler is just as bad (if not worse) as a bad episode that does progress the story. I’ve also seen many episodes that were labelled as fillers that actually did progress the series a little bit (El Cazador’s episodes for example: are they fillers or not?). I mean, if the episodes are fun, interesting or well written, then who cares if it’s a filler or not? That’s why I rather dislike the use of this term.

In any case, I really loved this episode. It was all about Rin, and he really is awesome when he stands in the spotlights. Seeing this series lapse into self-parody in the second half was also really fun to watch, and there was plenty of hilarious banter throughout the episode. Overall, it’s an episode well spent and it pretty much eliminated my fears that this series would turn dull in its final quarter.

It’s just a shame that the creators wasted a lot of potential due to the format of this episode. It’s obvious that the love-letter was just a misunderstanding, because Rin getting a girlfriend wouldn’t exactly fit the rest of the concept. I’m not sure whether I should be glad or not that this series won’t introduce a love-triangle near the end, but it would have been interesting to see what this series could do with it.

And so, with only six episodes left, there’s one thing that I still really want to see here: an episode dedicated to Rui. It was pretty hilarious how he completely emerged from the background like a bloodhound as soon as the word “jiken” (case) got mentioned, but I want more: an episode where he can fully show off his character. Even the time with the other ran didn’t really give him the chance to give everything he had.

Sexy Commando Gaiden Review – 87,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Those who’ve been following my reviews for the past few months probably noticed that a lot of them started with something like “I wasn’t looking forward to the premise at all … but my expectations were proven wrong”. This pattern obviously isn’t going to last for much longer, since I’m about to get to the shows that I’m actually looking forward to, but before that happens I want to direct your attention to Sugoiyo!! Masaru-san, or Sexy Commando Gaiden, which is probably the epitome of this effect.

The promo-art in this case does absolutely nothing to prepare you for what this series is really about. Just take a look: it looks like some sort of mediocre wrestling-series, doesn’t it? Instead, this is a fully-fledged comedy-series, about a guy who uses his sex-appeal in order to win his fights (among others). I think that really nothing can prepare someone for the extreme silliness that is this series.

Still, it’s one of the better comedies that I’ve watched so far. It’s ten years old at this point, but it can easily drink many modern comedies under the table. Its big strength is its consistency. This may sound a bit weird coming from a series that uses a lot of randomness as the base for its jokes, but what I mean by that is that even though this series won’t necessarily make you laugh harder than other comedies, it will make you laugh longer. The episodes are only eight minutes long, but for every single one of them, you just know that it’s going to crack you up. There are no weak episodes, there are no disappointing moments, and every single of its 48 episodes delivers. Now that’s what I call a good comedy.

Through its entire length, this series knows exactly what it is: a comedy. Never does it try to gain sympathy by switching to pointless drama – the number one mistake that comedies can make. Even the ending has to be one of the best endings I’ve seen in a comedy, simply because even there the laughs continue to keep coming. Ending parodies are actually full of potential, but you unfortunately hardly ever get to see them since most comedies try to be bigger than they actually are and want to have a “satisfying ending” themselves.

Also part of this series’ success is of course the cast of characters, who managed to keep fresh through the entire run of the series both the main and the side-characters). Obviously, you shouldn’t expect rocket-science from these guys, but they’ve got enough sides to keep them from getting boring after a few episodes, and their quirks are fresh and original (which surprises me in a way: ten years, and still nobody has tried to rip them off?).

This series’ only downside is that at times, its tricks to fill up extra airtime get a bit too ridiculous. You can exactly see when the creators have run out of inspiration to exactly fill their eight minutes for that episode, because the episode randomly lapses into a cheesy insert-song that doesn’t have anything to do with the actual episode. Thankfully, none of these insert-songs feel repetitive, and the creators have enough ideas to prevent even these insert-songs from getting boring, but it does remain a little cheap. There’s also a 30-second recap of the previous episode at the beginning, and even though these recaps make no bloody sense at all, it does become a bit too much after every single episode, considering how each of them is only eight minutes long.

Nevertheless, if you’re looking for something to laugh at and don’t need any moe-schoolgirls for that, then I wholeheartedly recommend Sexy Commando Gaiden. Very few comedies can boast the same amount of consistent laughs as this one, and some of the jokes are absolutely brilliant. I wouldn’t be surprised if the creators of Gintama also got some inspiration from this little series.

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

Tytania – 05

by psgels, posted in Tytania



Short Synopsis: A planet-nation called Turandia just lost its king, and Tytania immediately plans to re-establish diplomatic relationships.
Highlights: Finally some politics again.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10 (Good)
You know, it’s taken me five whole episodes to realize the whole hidden meaning behind the OP and ED: The OP shows just shots of the Tytanians, while the ED is about Fan Hulic, Lyra and Miranda. It’s a very nice use of symbolism, although the dramatic visuals in the ED worry me a bit. I really hope that the creators aren’t going to focus too much on the romantic relationship between Lyra and Fan Hulic, because so far it’s been the least interesting aspect of this series. Especially those thorns bug me.

In any case, this episode went back to the politics again, which was very much welcome after the previous episode. It was an interesting idea that Turandia, after the loss of its ruler needed to re-establish its political structure. Juslan was sent to that planet to help that (apparently, he’s the half-brother of one of the dearest friends of the princess of the country), but unfortunately most of the Turandia-officials decided to turn themselves against Tytania. I didn’t expect these two to die so suddenly either. The coup d’etat was one thing, but instead of just capturing the princess, they just shot her.

This episode also showed the large implications that Ariabart’s loss had to the image of Tytania. They’re no longer the invincible force that needs to be reckoned with, which inspired the Turandia-officials to grab the courage to turn themselves against the nation. I’m not sure yet how the rebels and Fan Hulic are going to form the centre of this opposition, but I guess that that’ll be clear in the next episodes.

Shikabane Hime – 06

by psgels, posted in Shikabane Hime



Short Synopsis: The fight against the evil car continues, and Ouri gets more insight into the bond between Makina and Keisei.
Highlights: Nice fight!
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10 (Awesome)
Now THIS is exactly why I’m watching this series! Best episode so far, and the fight this episode was among the best of the season so far. My idea of a god fight might be different from usual, but my favourite fights nearly always contain the three following ingredients:
– Good music
– Good choreography/direction
– And most importantly: character-development. Obviously about characters I care about. ^^;

This episode had all three of them, and so it’s no surprise that I loved this episode, and it totally made up for my.. er… tantrum after the previous episode.

I really expected Ouri’s whining to get in the way of the fight scene this episode, but instead he actually contributed to it. Okay, the middle of a fight may have not been the perfect time to start questioning Makina about why she’s fighting, but it sure made everything a whole lot more exciting. I think that with this episode, he fully understands the strange bond that has developed between Makina and Keisei, how the two of them swore to protect each other while they both worked towards their selfish wishes.

I also really liked how the creators made use of the fact that this is a Gainax-series, and how it would have been inevitable for people to compare this to Gurren Lagann. This episode laid a lot of parallels between Keisei and a certain character from Gurren Lagann. The creators kept hinting at how he was going to die. At the end of the episode, we’re still not sure if he lived or not (I think he lived, otherwise the episode would have gone off with a bigger bang), but even if he did live, this can just be one big build-up for the guy’s real demise, which still could very easily happen in this series. In any case, it’s a great way to make the viewer care about the characters. That’s also the big problem I had with Gurren Lagann at this point: it was nice and all, but I just couldn’t find myself to care about the characters, and consequently about the big plot twist of that series.

Michiko e Hatchin – 03

by psgels, posted in Michiko e Hatchin



Short Synopsis: Michiko looks for Hana’s father while Hatchin finds a job.
Highlights: Number of episodes Hana’s hair lasted: 2,5.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10 (Good)
Three episodes in, and I’m finally beginning to see the huge strength of this series. I originally went into this series, expecting this series to be some sort of cross between Samurai Champloo and El Cazador, with fun characters in fun and exciting fight scenes. The OP seemed to suggest the same, and that’s why the first episode disappointed somewhat because it was so damn serious.

I now see that the direction this series chose might be even better than just a fun-filled adventure. There still is some enjoyable banter here and there, but what this series really is about is the really colourful characterization, and the immense attention to detail that’s put into the dialogue to make it seem as realistic as possible, while keeping a solid pace. This series has the potential to become one of the hidden gems of the Autumn-season, but that all depends on how it decides to fill in the rest of the series. There’s no end goal in sight, so who knows?

In any case, in this episode Hatchin (who officially changes her name to Hatchin and cuts off her hair in this episode) and Michiko clash again when Michiko buys (read: steals) Hatchin a pair of shoes. Hatchin then tries to work off the shoes at a local restaurant. I think that she just thought that she’d be handing out plates and dishes, but an unexpected part of her job is trying to stop everyone who’s out for a free meal. At one point she gets carried away and chases a bunch of kids far into the city. Before she can deal with them, they reach their gang, and Hana has to stand in front of a guy with a gun.

I found it typical of Michiko that she refused to acknowledge the guy she slept with because he found another woman and got married. At least, that’s what I think happened, we never see this actually confirmed, it could be that she indeed got the wrong guy, but I think that if that was the case then Michiko wouldn’t be as gloomy as she was gloomy as she was here.

Casshern Sins – 06

by psgels, posted in Casshern Sins



Short Synopsis: Dio is also out to kill Casshern, but it turns out that he knows quite a bit about him.
Highlights: The strange sort of sympathy from Casshern.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10 (Good)
This episode gives a proper introduction to what are probably going to be the main antagonists of this series. Dio claims that Cashern was actually made by someone, in order to destroy all life within the world. There seems to be a guy named Briking Boss, who once saved the world as well, and Dio hopes to follow that guy’s footsteps.

The interesting part of this episode was how everyone around Casshern seems to view him in a different way: Lyuze bears a grudge against him, and yet this episode showed how she doesn’t want other to kill him, Dio wants to be the one to save the world, so he wants to kill him, the weaker robots want to be saved, so they beg for his death, the big robots simply accepted that they’re going to die anyway, so why not die with a small percentage of living, Ringo, even though Casshern scared the heck out of her in episode one, starts feeling a variation of the Stockholm-syndrome for him, and Ringo’s caretaker seems to not care, or he knows that it’s impossible to defeat Casshern no matter how he tries. So many different ways to look at Casshern, and that’s what makes this series so interesting.

What’s also interesting is that even though Dio claims to know all about Casshern, he doesn’t seem to know that he’s impossible to kill. Ringo’s caretaker (god, I need to know the name of that guy) claims that Luna was the same as he was once: she too didn’t die, and yet Casshern killed her, so he probably inherited whatever powers she had.

Mouryou no Hako – 05

by psgels, posted in Mouryou no Hako



Short Synopsis: The fourth main character turns out to be a detective/psychic who gets hired to find Kanako.
Highlights: Too. Much. Dialogue!
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10 (Good)
This episode was an absolute nightmare for an inexperienced raw watcher as myself. During the previous episodes, I still was able to follow the general gist of things due to the visual drawings and stuff, but this episode’s different. For once, it focused on completely different characters (half of them new ones, as if the series hadn’t already enough of them), and nearly the entire episode, save for the few minutes in the beginning, consisted out of talking, talking and more talking.

So, let me see if I got this part correctly: the first part, before the OP, is always a scene from the novel from Sekiguchi? That makes sense in a way: he created his novels based on the boxed head he saw in the train (or was that part of his books as well?), rather than him, being the murderer.

The next scene was the most mind-boggling of all, since none of its characters had appeared in the series before. It centres around a professor called Fukurai Tomokichi and Mifune Chizuko. It seems to be Tomokichi’s duty to find out whether Chizuko is a psychic or not as she claims. At first, this seems to be the case, but the professor wants to do another experiment before believing this. In charge of the contents of the box that need to be guessed is a young guy called Fuji. Somehow he screws up, and lets someone break into his suitcase and take the note out of the box that was supposed to be read. Then something happens with a bit of film that I didn’t pick up, and Fuji somehow humiliates Chizuko in front of the media. This distresses Chizuko so much that she dies of an illness. Now… why would the creators bother showing such a seemingly irrelevant case?

The next scene finally introduces the final main character: Reijiro Enokizu, again a self-proclaimed psychic. There’s one guy, Noriyuki Masuoka who attempts to contact him, I’m not sure whether we’ve seen this guy before in the series, but he seems to be in charge of the case of finding Kanako. There was a lot of random chatter in this part because Reijiro refused to take Masuoka seriously, but the gist seems to be that there is another person looking out for Kanako’s body.

The final part of the episode goes back to Sekiguchi. At this point, I’m still not sure how exactly the guy is involved in the whole case, and how he (and Akihiko for that matter) can become a major characters when they’re primarily novel-writers. This episode shows how he gets visited by his friend Toriguchi, who tell him that Atsuko (apparently, Akihiko has a sister) did a bit of research into the building they ran into in episode 2, and found out that it was a medical research institute. Toriguchi seems to have come to Sekiguchi for a strange rumour he found out, and Sekiguchi introduces Toriguchi to a person who might be of more help than him: Akihiko. Akihiko ends the episode, pretending to be another psychic.

So yeah, this series was already very complex with subs, but it becomes an entire puzzle without them. I hope I got everything right, but a big theme of this episode seemed to be psychics, and whether or not they exist. It’s never confirmed nor denied, but I think that with everything that happened to Kanako, there definitely is some sort of psychic aspect about this series.

Kurozuka – 05

by psgels, posted in Kurozuka



Short Synopsis: Kuro gets brought to the place where Kuromitsu is.
Highlights: Calm mood for a Kurozuka-episode, but still powerful.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
Ah, a build-up episode. The series takes a bit of time to catch a breath, and uses the time to give the viewer a few more glimpses of the major bad guys. The pacing in this episode was very slow, but like mentioned above, I really liked how it slowly progressed, while providing a bit more background on what happened between episode 2 and 3, and making the viewer anticipate when Kuromitsu might turn up again.

And of course, the visuals were better than ever in this episode. This also really was an episode in which the art director could go all out, and the number of beautiful and diverse sceneries he created is astounding. It’s interesting: while Porfy no Nagai Tabi still stands as the currently-airing series with the best outdoor background-art, Kurozuka definitely wins the fight in terms of indoor-background art. The use of CG really works, and it actually made a CG-car not look out of place somehow.

Anyway, about the plot, I think the first part of the episode showed the boss of the bad guys. I’m not exactly sure what he was doing, killing all these random people, and why he’s still doing that after centuries, but he seems to be after Kuromitsu, explaining the attack that started at the end of this episode. It looks like Kuro’s new allies allowed him to meet Kuromitsu again, and although I didn’t pick up the exact reason either, she seems to be vital for their survival as well. My guess is that it has something to do with how she turned Kuro into an immortal being.

For the next episode, I want to see the gorgeous animation from the first episode back. The animators have already shown that they don’t lack any sort of inspiration, but what really would make this series is the combination between the awesome art that this episode had, along with the detailed animation of the first episode. Now that would seriously rock.

Tokyo Majin Gakuen Kenpuchou Tou Review – 72,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



For the past few months, I’ve watched a lot of shows that I originally dropped which turned out to be surprisingly engaging. It can also go the other way of course: some shows are better off just being dropped. Tokyo Majin Gakuen Kenpuchou Tou is such an example. It starts of with a really exciting episode with excellent fights, really neat animation and characters with potential. Unfortunately, that first episode is the only thing that stands out about that series.

What we have here is a typical series that blew away all its budget in its first episode, and then doesn’t have anything left to fill the rest of its airtime with. The overall animation is still pretty above average, but never does it meet the huge expectations it created with that first episode. The real problem is the plot, though. It follows the pattern of first half demon-of-the-week second half prevent Tokyo’s destruction. It’s a solid set-up, but for that to work you need to provide interesting demons-of-the-week to keep the viewer busy, and an interesting threat that can destroy Tokyo. And this series fails at both.

The thing is that the viewer is never given the chance to get accustomed to the characters, and never gets a reason to care about the main characters. Half of the characters lack a proper introduction, and never get the chance to establish their character, while members of the other half take turns into angsting about how cruel the bad guys of this series are and how they need to protect their loved ones. Obviously, this is mostly all talk and in 75% of the cases, they fail to protect, leading to only more angst. Especially that Aoi is guilty of this. She keeps on whining about saving others through the entire series, and eventually ends up as a brainwashed damsel in distress.

Because of that, the major climax ends just in one big disappointment. And yeah, I know that this series has a second season and all, but that’s no excuse to just go lazy and let the power of love solve everything. Overall, there are one or two subplots that do deliver some genuine scenes, but apart from that we just have a series that’s too caught up in its own angst and cruelty so that it never lives up to the interesting character-dynamics and action that the first episode promised. If you’re intrigued by the premise, just watch the first episode as a standalone story and then just drop the thing.

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

Porfy no Nagai Tabi – 44

by psgels, posted in Porfy no Nagai Tabi



Short Synopsis: A certain character makes her reappearance.
Highlights: Every single scene.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 9/10 (Fantastic)
This episode doesn’t need an elaborate summary. All that you need to know in order to understand it can easily be summarized into one paragraph:

Porfy continues travelling, but due to the loss of Apollo he forgets to take care of himself and just wants to go to Paris as soon as possible. In the end, he collapses due to fatigue as he nearly gets hit by Alecia and her father’s truck. Alecia tries to get Porfy back to consciousness, but Porfy only utters that he needs to go to Paris. The rest of the night, Alecia’s father then drives to Paris, while Alecia takes care of Porfy (SO INCREDIBLY CUTE). Porfy wakes up after having a good night’s sleep, and returns back to his senses. In Paris, he says goodbye to Alecia, and even though she wants to come with him, he declines.

First of all: PORFY YOU IDIOT! CAN’T YOU SEE WHAT ALECIA REALLY WANTED?!

Second of all, this definitely was the best episode of Porfy no Nagai Tabi since the earthquake-arc. Alecia’s return was every bit as good as I could have hoped. The summary is indeed very short, but the real power of this episode lied into the visuals, not the audio. After all, at this point, the series doesn’t need any more exposition. Enough has been said at this point, and it’s now really time for the characters to just do their thing.

Alecia was downright awesome, even though she only appeared in two episodes of this series. Her crush on Porfy was so incredibly heart-warming, and the scene of the two of them together, in the back of the truck was especially memorable . I really like how this episode also decided to go for subtle drama, and deliberately kept the mood of the entire episode dark and quiet, instead of upbeat and a bit extreme, like the previous episode.

It also seems that Mina finally returned to her senses as well, and she remembers everything that happened at the earthquake and how she saw Apollo in Rome. It really looks like the finale of this series is going to play in Paris (in other words, it’s going TO START IN THE NEXT EPISODE!!), and my guess is that the series’ big climax will be in November, where December will deal with the aftermath. My big question for that aftermath is Alecia: once everything is over, and Porfy and Mina are either together, or have split up again, will Porfy go back to Alecia. It’s just too much of a shame to leave such a beautiful romance like this.

Oh, and on a side-note: I just love how, at the end of every episode, the background artists decide to whore their awesome skills. I should have known that they’d go all out once they’d reach Paris. That bird’s eye view of Paris was downright awesome.