Jigoku Shoujo – 59

by psgels, posted in Jigoku Shoujo



Short Synopsis: A transfer student from Tokyo arrives at the school.
Highlights: Only this series can come up with those kinds of plot twists.
Overall Enjoyment Value: Objective: 6,5/10 (Lacking) Subjective/Biased: 8/10 (Excellent)
One thing I love about Studio Deen, besides the masterpieces they churn out once in a while, is that in some of their other adaptations, they’re downright crazy. Incidentally, Hiroshi Watanabe’s name is very often tied to these cases, but the fact remains that some of their series just feature plot twists that no other studio would have the sanity for to include.

This episode was just awesome, but SO for the wrong reasons. I have no freakin’ idea why I liked this episode so much: you could see the big twist coming from miles away. Ever since the classmate started to involve himself with the poor transfer student who got abused by his mom, there was no way that he was going to send his mom to hell and let his classmate live. And yet the conclusion felt awesome, seeing the guy turn just as crazy as his mother. Seriously, at this point I’m convinced that for the third season, Hiroshi Watanabe weaselled himself somewhere in the production-team someway and kept throwing in his own suggestions. There’s no other explanation. ^^;;

One other thing I absolutely loved about this episode is how Ai’s dolls were having the time of their live inside the punishment scenes, and they never tried to feel pity for him. It’s logical for Kikuri, but Wanyuudo, Hone Onna and Ichimoku Ren have really changed in the period between the second and third season, and they’ve become less emotionally attached to the different cases, unless it involved them directly, like in the previous episode.

I guess the message in this episode yet again that there are times in which you shouldn’t stick your nose too much into other people’s business. While the case in this episode was definitely an example of a family that actually NEEDED help, but too often I see in anime characters that needlessly involve themselves with those in trouble, without giving them the chance to solve their issues for themselves.

Tytania – 06

by psgels, posted in Tytania



Short Synopsis: Turandia is screwed, since they practically declared war against Tytania in the previous episode.
Highlights: The very first space-battle in five episodes… was rather underwhelming…
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7/10 (Enjoyable)
I’m really getting curious about the second half of this series. I mean, so far the series has been much brighter than I originally suspected when I watched the first episodes, so what will this series be like once it really gets fired off? The fact remains that the director and original writer once came up with Legend of Galactic Heroes, so they should be able to deliver something worthwhile. But then again, Ryoko’s Case Files was also written by the writer of LOGH, and I dropped that one after only two episodes…

In any case, this episode was solid, nothing more, nothing less. Idris gets a sneaky plan to have Ariabart fight again against Turandia, because a loss would mean a definite degradation of his, and one less annoyance to be bothered about. Ariabart, however, blows the enemy forces away with a very simple tactic. The battle really was the least interesting part of this episode. I mean, it was over before you knew it. In fact, it’s hard to call it a fight, and it just felt like another political action that happened to involve a bunch of spaceships.

In any case, Tytania is one of the few series this Autumn season that I’m watching and not yet sold on in some way or another, but that was sort-of to be expected. With all the build-up that’s required for the setting, I’m not going to expect anything amazing for this series during its first half. What it needs to pay attention to is just flesh out the setting and characters, so that it can have a second half that makes up for the first half.

Shikabane Hime – 07

by psgels, posted in Shikabane Hime



Short Synopsis: An old classmate of one of Ouri’s classmates turns into a shikabane.
Highlights: Wonderful animation.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
Really, at this point you can consider me a fan of this series. I’m not often impressed by Gainax (at least, not as much as most people seem to), but I can’t deny that they’re a very unique production-company, and they can make some real hits when they get a concept right.

What was so awesome about this episode was the animation, in the way that it EXACTLY showed what happens if you combine the Gainax that likes bombastic visual effects with the down-to-earth and subtle director of Gilgamesh: it takes the best out of both worlds. This episode was really nicely animated, but the animation never forgot to remain realistic. There were so many subtle touches added that added a really raw feeling to the different fight scenes. there were no cheap visual effects used.

I’m also still surprised at how much I’ve come to like Ouri. He’s a whiny teenager who involves himself with the others against their will. Normally I’d hate his character, and yet I hardly ever feel annoyed at the guy, and he’s perfect to shed light at the strange nature of the Shikabane Himes.

In terms of the plot, since Keisei still is out of the count, this episode gave a proper introduction to another Shikabane-pair, who’ve taken over his duties while he remains out cold and unable to heal Makina’s arm. It seems that he and Keisei were introduced to the concept of Shikabane Himes by last week’s bad guy. Whatever he did with his own Shikabane Hime still remains a mystery, I guess.

Casshern Sins – 07

by psgels, posted in Casshern Sins



Short Synopsis: Casshern meets a woman who wants to create a bell for her church.
Highlights: Interesting twist on religious themes.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
The thing I like best about this series is not the main storyline, of how Casshern has supposedly killed the unkillable Luna, but rather the random stories that shape the world around it. At this point, I really don’t care how Casshern killed that Luna, all I want to see is those excellent stories, where Casshern walks around and meets random people, who each have found their own way of living after the apocalypse he caused. The fact that it happened is at this point just necessary backstory.

This episode is about a robot-woman, who wants to be create a bell in order to proof that she can bring something new to the world. I personally loved the architecture of the factory that she planned to put it on, and the one who came up with it deserves a lot of credit. She actually tries to turn Casshern into that bell, but that one obviously fails.

In any case, I really love what the creators tried to tell with this episode, how the girl tried to create faith by sounding the bell to lonesome travellers in the area, and how the robots alongside her just want to play games and not care about anything.

And well, I guess that Ringo and Ouji are this series’ Ricardo and Lilio (from El Cazador). There’s no reason for them to go the same path as the lead characters, but they just do. Just like El Cazador: it was annoying at first, but after a while it just became part of the series’ premise, and I got bothered by it less and less, and the same thing applies to Casshern Sins. In fact, I found it a nice touch to see them meet up with the woman after Casshern left her, so that we could exactly see how she developed.

Michiko e Hatchin – 04

by psgels, posted in Michiko e Hatchin



Short Synopsis: Michiko meets a local party-girl with a few problems of her own.
Highlights: Drunk Hatchin was awesome.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10 (Awesome)
With this episode, I’m convinced: Michiko e Hatchin is going to be an excellent series. The big question was of course whether the creators would make the random stories that will form the large part of this series well enough, and this episode proved that the creators are excellent at even that. This was one of these episodes where everything felt right, just like every single episode of this series since the second one.

I’m especially a big fan of how this episode progressed, and we got to know more and more about Pepe: she started off as a cocky whore, but then it turns out that she didn’t chose for that life of hers. She once was a rich lady, but lost everything when her parents died. It sounds really cheesy on paper, but the way the episode presented it made it really exciting.

I also really like Hatchin, even though she just had a supporting role in this episode. Seeing her getting drunk on what she thought was orange juice was hilarious, and I was also really surprised to see her still working at that restaurant, and how he hasn’t been sacked yet for just running off after the previous episode.

Kurozuka – 06

by psgels, posted in Kurozuka



Short Synopsis: Kuro and the others attempt to vend off the attack from the bad guys.
Highlights: Very nice mid-boss fight.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10 (Good)
Whoa, talk about the huge contrast with the relatively quiet previous episode. This episode just had one purpose: action, action and more action, and it did a really good job at that. So yeah, there isn’t much to say about this episode so this post is probably going to be rather short. I’m just a bit disappointed at the animation. Don’t get me wrong: it was of a very high quality in this episode, but I really hope that at least one episode in this series will return to the huge animation-quality of the first episode. Come on, Madhouse: you’ve made us hungry with that first episode, now provide something that at least comes close to it in terms of animation.

In any case, I must say that Kurozuka has become a pretty similar series to Ultraviolet: both are action-series with a plot that doesn’t try to be anything special, yet is fun to watch, both rely heavily on their style in their storytelling, both have similar character-designs in Kuromitsu and 044, and both make a lot of use of CG-overlays. I think the biggest difference between the two is that Kurozuka has a large animation-budget, while Ultraviolet had Osamu Dezaki.

Mouryou no Hako – 06

by psgels, posted in Mouryou no Hako



Short Synopsis: Toriguchi shares his theories with Akihiko.
Highlights: I can’t recall having seen any episode for the past year that had more dialogue in it than this one…
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
Wow… just wow. When I thought that the previous episode was full of dialogue, this episode becomes even more extreme: the entire episode, safe for a few flashbacks and the intro, took place in one room, featuring just three characters talking. Like mentioned above, the only episode I can think of that matches the amount of dialogue here is from Seirei no Moribito, when Barsa got her spear fixed. I really love these sorts of episodes, which are really mind-boggling to try and understand. But yeah, the hard part comes in understanding them.

I think that the first half focuses a bit on a side-story, when Akihiko shares a bit of background on the spiritual roots of the series. The drawing with the four gates that Toriguchi draw reminded me a lot of the four Gods that watch over Kyoto from the four different directions, but it also seems to be a drawing of a shrine that Toriguchi once visited, which resided on a mountain and had four different-coloured shines in the different wind-directions. I originally thought that that was something only Kyoto had, but it seems that there are more shrines of this type, with a smaller scale.

I think the whole point of that first half is that they’re discussing what Akihiko’s powers might be, and they move across different possibilities, like fraud or spiritual powers (which Akihiko both denies), in order to get a good comprehension of what he can and can’t do (which will probably be of a vital importance in the series’ second half, when these guys will probably start solving the case around the boxed murders). What caught my attention is that this series fully acknowledges that most mediums are frauds, despite being a supernatural series. I’ve only seen this at Ghost Hunt before, and it’s an interesting effect, giving the real supernatural effects even more of a mysterious flavour. Especially in this series, since we still haven’t got a bloody clue what went on back there in the research facility.

In the end, it seems that Akihiko prefers to be called a medium, as that’s where his powers seem to fit in best. I don’t believe he explained how exactly how power worked, but I don’t care whether he did or not, those are just mere details. The fact remains that this series is doing more than just basing itself off a few cultural references randomly grabbed from Wikipedia, but instead tries something much more complex, that goes beyond mere customs and folklore.

In any case, I found it pretty amusing that Akihiko thought that Sekiguchi and Toriguchi were merely visiting him because they wanted that background on his powers, but of course there’s much more than that. In the second half of the episode, Toriguchi reveals that he’s discovered quite a bit about the case with the boxed limbs. A strange guy came to him with a story he wrote (it seems that Toriguchi is also some kind of editor, explaining why he knows Sekiguchi), and his story sparked a few strange parallels to the box-murder-case. The guy didn’t seem to care how much he got paid for it, as long as it gets published.

When Akihiko analyzes it, it seems that the manuscript was written by a woman, and the writer somehow stole it from her. Toriguchi also suspected this, so he paid the guy a small visit at home. He wasn’t there at the moment, but he got greeted by an middle aged woman and old man, in a house with a room full of boxes, of the same kind of those who were found earlier, but the old man then scared him away. If I understood correctly, then the woman used an excuse of how the old man still needed to drink his tea to buy a bit of time for him, but then I wonder why he didn’t hide the boxes.

Toriguchi then tells about a how he spoke to a guy who lives next to the house f the old man who scared him away. People seem to call him Hyouei (or something that sounds like that). It turns out that he once was a famous box maker (hence the boxes, I guess). He seems to have become that because his father was also one, and it also seems that his grandmother had some sort of spiritual ability. He was quite famous, but at a certain point he became unable to create his boxes. He seems to have a wife and son, but Toriguchi couldn’t find out where they went.

The episode ends as Toriguchi tells how he found an old letter that Houei’s grandmother seemed to have written. It talks about a piece of paper, if I understood correctly. This piece of paper contained the word “Mouryou”.

So lately, I’ve seen some discussion about why we watch raws. I do so for a bunch of reasons: it’s consistent, I’m impatient, it’s the only way to watch unpopular shows as Les Miserables and Porfy no Nagai Tabi, and without subs and I can focus more at the visual expressions and effects instead of trying to keep up with the subtitles. This episode was obviously an extreme case of an episode that’s very hard to watch raw, but at the same time I love a bit of convolution once in a while. In this episode, when I watched it for the first time, a lot went over my head, but at the second watch, when I grabbed myself a dictionary, things suddenly started to make sense. And I can also rely on some of the commenters for filling in some of the gaps or mistakes I made (especially many thanks to Zerozaki for his patience to continue pointing out the things I missed or misunderstood for every episode. ^^;)

Bonen no Xamdou – 14

by psgels, posted in Bonen no Xamdou



Short Synopsis: Furuichi freaks out once he sees Akiyuki again.
Highlights: Furuichi, obviously.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10 (Awesome)
Finally Bonen no Xamdou is back! And what a way to return with such an episode; it’s here wehre Furuichi’s development finally comes together, and I really loved the way this episode unfolded itself.

Furuichi losing control was one thing, but what especially made an impression on me was how he behaved afterwards. I originally thought that the guy would simply die, but he till managed to survive the whole ordeal and got taken in by the forces of Sentan Island. After that, he escaped, and went back to the old couple that took care of him, in a perfectly calm mood. I don’t think the guy committed a real suicide, and that his real soul seems to be somewhere else. This is indeed the point in the series to suggest that there’s something deeper than just what the first half of the series would have us expect.

This episode also successfully eliminated my fears at Akiyuki ending up at a harem, because the episode ends with him, away from both Nakiami and Haru, when it seems that he now has amnesia and has been captured by what I guess are a bunch of circus-performers. I have no idea why the creators decided to schedule a hiatus right after the previous episode, instead of this one, which seems to be far more appropriate.

Furuichi’s animation was also wonderful, there was so much attention to detail, and I’m glad that the Xam’d fight with their bare fists. This turns the fights into much more than just throwing a bunch of flashy beams at each other. This series also really makes telling sound so easy: just progress everything naturally and don’t rely lazily on clichés, and yet it feels so much more creatively written than most other series.

Cromartie High School Review – 80/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



In terms of describing Cromartie High School, I think Jascii put this the best way: Cromartie High School is not about delinquents; “it’s about a bunch of morons who look like delinquents”. It’s Production IG’s shot at a comedy, and while it’s not one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen, it’s a very capable comedy-series nonetheless.

The fun in this series comes from the fact that even though the characters are all a bunch of idiots, they still try to be smart by engaging in huge debates over nothing, and they keep doing so with a straight face (many thanks to the animation, which remains consistent throughout the entire series). Every time a fight is about to take place, you can bet your hat that the characters will just talk endlessly about how they’re going to fight, and in the end they lose interest because of something else completely random that caught their attention.

That, along with the originality of this series make it a pretty funny short series (the episodes are only 10 minutes). The creators really try to toss everything they can think of at the viewers. We’re talking here about meteors, aliens, robots, grown men in bunny-suits and a Freddy Mercury-lookalike. This is more than enough material to keep the viewer from getting bore, so this series also doesn’t suffer from a lacklustre second half…

…although the characters do remain rather one-dimensional. There are also a bunch of characters with really inconsistent personalities, especially the main one: he changes from a complete moron to someone with actual intelligence, depending on the writers’ mood. There is character-development, but it’s pretty much become useless because of the episodes that seem to be aired in random order (one particular character is moves to America for a number of episodes, and yet a few episodes during this period show him like nothing’s ever happened).

Nevertheless, Cromartie High School is a quirky little series that’s good for a nice laugh. It’s got enough material to fill its airtime with (although it does at times overuse its running jokes too much, mostly the Afro-guy gets a bit too much airtime then what’s good for him), but I laughed a lot during this series.

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

Porfy no Nagai Tabi – 45

by psgels, posted in Porfy no Nagai Tabi



Short Synopsis: Paris is big. Mina isn’t there yet. Porfy’s out of money. So yeah, he’s still going to have to kill some time.
Highlights: Calm before the storm!!
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10
Porfy no Nagai Tabi is a very good series, but as I’ve mentioned before: overall just isn’t as good as Les Miserables, but one thing that it did do right was the OP: it fits for the entire series. In Les Miserables, people at one point were fighting and dying for what they believed in, and the OP still showed a bunch of little girls. ^^;

The episode starts as Porfy walks around one of the rich parents of Paris. Obviously, it’s not the most wanted part of the town by fortune tellers, so everyone acts annoyed at him, especially if he continues to bug them. A kind baker then directs him to the right places, and how it’s not the time for the fortune tellers to show up yet. Porfy then feeds some of the local pigeons and gets reminded of Apollo again.

That evening, Porfy sees the first cards since his arrival at Paris and idiotically mistakes the owner as Carlos. The supposed “Carlos” pushes Porfy away, who then hits one of the waiters, dropping one of his dishes. The waiter is very annoyed, although Porfy doesn’t seem to realize this because all he’s interested in is the food he just ruined: it’s Greek. Porfy says that he came from Greece, but the waiter obviously couldn’t care less. He then forces Porfy to the cook. Since Porfy doesn’t have any money and is familiar with the Greek dishes, he offers him a job. Porfy’d rather search for Mina, but the waiter, Xalupurous (Christ, what a difficult name), reckons that he can just search for Mina if he’s not working.

Alex(?), the cook, then shows him around and offers him a bit of food, since he’s a nice guy. It turns out that the restaurant desperately needed a new waiter since they recently sacked one of their old staff, and none of the French people was able to remember the right dishes. While Porfy washes the dishes, he chats a bit with Alex. It turns out that he was born in France, but his parents came from Greece. Porfy then accidentally breaks one of the dishes, making the waiter (I’ll just call him the waiter, since Xalopuro-thingy is just too complicated) gets even more angry. Later, when Porfy is peeling potatoes, he complains again because there’s too much of the potato wasted this way. The waiter then sends him to take away the dishes that are done.

One of the guests, reading a book, is getting bothered by a drunk. They struggle a bit, and she eventually pushes him onto one of the other tables. She however gets blamed for what the drunk did. The waiter tells her to leave, and even though Porfy tries to say that it wasn’t her fault, the waiter doesn’t listen and the woman leaves in anger, leaving her book. Porfy then brings it back to her.

A bit later, Porfy and Alex are finally done with the dishes. The waiter then pays Porfy with an incredibly small amount, due to the plates he broke and dishes he wasted and because of the book he brought back to the woman (he wasn’t supposed to). He then orders Porfy to be on early the job the next day as well. Porfy says that he doesn’t have a place to stay, but the waiter refuses to let him stay at the restaurant. Porfy then walks away, and runs into the woman from before again, who wants to thank him for bringing back the book. Apparently, she has been waiting for him, and overheard how he doesn’t have a place to stay. She introduces herself as Rose.

Porfy then tells her about how he’s searching for his sister, and lost just about everything, but Rose tells him to cheer up. She shows him around the house, and suggests how he should sleep on the couch in the living room, and of course take a bath, since he’s been sleeping outside all this while. When Porfy is watching outside, she takes him to the roof where they can get a better view.

They look at the stars for a bit, and then Rose says that she’s about to get to work. She puts on lipstick, and notes that it’s hard for a woman to be living alone. When she’s left, Porfy notices one of her paintings which has been flipped over. One of the faces of the painting has been crossed out with lipstick, and looks a lot like the actress Mina used to admire and the episode ends.

So yeah, it was a bit coincidental, out of all the woman Porfy could have ran into, but it’s a fascinating idea nonetheless, and the sacrifice the series has to make for it is more than worth it. I really like how, just before the finale of this show, the series decides to reserve two episodes to flesh out Mina’s love form movies a bit, by giving a bit of background for her favourite actress. After that, it’s really anything that could happen, and it all depends on how much time the creators want to spend on the series’ aftermath. There are seven episodes left, six if you count the next episode, which will conclude Rose’s story. I’m really curious to see how the final reunion will work out. The reunion with Alecia was downright awesome, and it’s now time to see whether the creators can make full use of nearly fifty episodes of building-up.