Telepathy Shoujo Ran – 17

by psgels, posted in Telepathy Shoujo Ran



Short Synopsis: Ran&co win a trip to a tropical island and lots of toilet paper.
Highlights: Nothing really new here…
Overall Enjoyment Value: 6/10 (Solid)
One thing that’s always bugged me with this anime is how as a mystery-series, it never really tries to hide its bad guys: so far, they’ve all got the bad guy evil-grin. I mean, this series is fun enough while exploring why they’ve got such an evil grin, but a bit more ambiguity on the scale between good and bad definitely WOULDN’T HURT. I mean, the bad guy in this episode would have made for a pretty interesting character, if his expression didn’t scream out “Evil!”. Thankfully, the creators realized that and wasted no time in establishing that he’s possessed by an evil snake.

There’s another thing that’s bugging me: this series is about to run out of episodes. Right now, it’s taken two episodes per volume, there are nine volumes and it’s currently doing the seventh one. If it were to continue with this pace, it’d run out of stories by episode 22, so how are the creators planning to fill its final four episodes? I imagine that it’s going to be some more original stories, but I hope that they’re going to be better than the first wave of original stories. They weren’t necessarily bad, but thinking back, they were the least memorable of the stories in this series. Since the original novels didn’t seem to have one big conclusion, ideally, those four episodes should focus on the development of Ran, Rui and Midori. I hate to say it, but none of them really developed through the series. Thankfully the creators have made up for it by fleshing the cast out really nicely, but I’d still like to see some sort of development at the end.

Nevertheless, this arc again promises to deliver a solid story, although perhaps not the best. It’s another building-up episode where the real meat will take place in the next episode, and in the meantime we get to enjoy some nice slice-of-life scenes as Ran and the others enjoy the island, known as Snake Island. The most interesting is of course that snake-spirit: what does it have to do with that shell Ran found, why does it stick to that evil guy and are the snake we see in the flashback and the snake around the evil guy the same snake?

Jigoku Shoujo – 55

by psgels, posted in Jigoku Shoujo



Short Synopsis: A famous idol has a past she’d like to not think back to.
Highlights: The theme of growing up versus staying the same.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7/10 (Good)
Okay, so in my next attempt to make the episode-rating a bit less confusing and more expressive, I’m trying to associate a word-rating with each number. It’s obviously incredibly inaccurate, but I hope it helps both the reader and me a little. Basically, the rule of thumb is that if the episode rating is six or higher, it means that I liked it.

In any case, in this episode a famous idol becomes the victim of Jigoku Shoujo. When she was a middle schooler, she was pretty much your typical teenager, and she grew up together with her best friend, as they both aspired to become idols. At one point, she ditched her best friend and went on to become a famous idol. Over the years, she grew up and realized what an idiot she’s been, though her best friend still can’t forgive her, and she also longs to be a famous idol as well, even though she can’t sing to save her life. Since she never grew up, she acts like the teenager she is and sends her former friend to hell.

In the meantime, it seems like the new boy on Ai’s party comes from Kikuri’s side, and is something like a servant to her (calling her “Hime”). One thing that felt a bit off in this episode was how Mikage just keeps running into potential Jigoku Shoujo-victims. I mean, I can understand how the Ai inside of her is directing her towards these cases or something, but I’d like to have that actually confirmed WITHIN the show.

In essence, the general formula of this episode was pretty much the same as in the previous two episodes, but that’s of course something to be expected, since the first and second season did this too. Right now, this series is busy creating a solid base, and of course the real fun is only going to begin when the stories start diverging from this base, and it’s always going to be a mystery as to when that’s going to happen. The base for this season seems to be a bit different from the previous seasons. Even though there were quite a few exceptions, the general formula was basically Ai and her minions handing out a strange sort of justice. In the third season though, Ai has only been carrying out the wishes of whiny and spoiled teenagers, with the great thing being that the creators seem to be having lots of fun to make all sorts of teenagers suffer as much as possible. I sense a strange sort of sadism in this season, which gives off a pretty nice effect.

I’m also glad to finally see another series that shows that recycled scenes aren’t necessarily a bad thing: you just have to know how to use them. Obviously, if they’re used as an impulsive way to save a bit of budget, it’s a bad thing, and at the same time the technique has been made infamous by various mahou shoujo. However, when they’re used for creating a sort of ritualistic feeling, they can actually contribute to the series they’re in. It doesn’t happen often, I only noticed this effect in Jigoku Shoujo and Revolutionary Girl Utena so far, but repetitive shows like these are excellent at creating a ritual that appears in every other episode. The fun then comes from everything that plays around it.

Oh, and one final comment: three episodes in, and I obviously can’t say yet whether this is going to be the best season of Jigoku Shoujo, but I can say one thing: it’s definitely going to be the season with the best visuals. It’s incredible: the graphics for this series already looked great, and the creators managed to succeed in making things look even better.

Starship Operators Review – 87,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Well, when I first started watching Starship Operators, I wasn’t exactly positive: the premise told about a spaceship, piloted by unqualified teenagers with extravagant hairstyles. My first thought was something along the lines of “oh, here we go again, with the subplot of having teenagers save the world because of some convenient superpower they receive”. Afterwards, Starship Operators continued to violently mutilate any sort of stereotype I could have had about the premise and threw them unceremoniously in the garbage bin.

Really, this is something I never suspected, but the focus on politics and realistic space-battles is huge. In fact, the creators actually succeeded in making a spaceship that’s piloted by teenagers plausible, by resorting to legal actions, and letting them buy their own spaceship with the help of a sponsor (a media-broadcasting network, which also makes sure for a number of subtle jabs against the modern media-culture). The rest of the series also continues to be moved very heavily through complex politics. It happens often when an entire episode is spent, just trying to sink one ship, because of all the preparation and planning that goes into trying to defeat the enemy.

Also, make no mistake: this is a series where people die when they’re killed, and the creators have made sure to let this sink in with both the viewers and the cast. None of the characters individually are particularly well-developed, but as a group, they absolutely shine. There are so many different characters with all their own roles. There’s a bit of angst here and there, but it never distracts from what’s important (which is exactly how you should handle angst: it can really make you care about a character, but if it’s overused it becomes disastrous and just plain annoying, which is something this series manages to avoid excellently).

Also, if you want to watch this series, you obviously have to like politics, because the production-values aren’t going to make up for it, save for a few very powerful songs (the ED, for example). Some of the CG doesn’t blend in well when it’s used alongside regular drawings, and there really isn’t any budget wasted on making the fight scenes flashier and more sensational. In this series, you have to be captured by the characters and politics, otherwise it’ll become a bore-fest.

Still, the power of politics is especially apparent in the excellent final episode, which definitely is the best one of the entire series, which is something nearly every series should aspire; everything the series has built up comes together like a charm, leaving no bad taste whatsoever. Overall, what we have here is a short but very powerful space-opera with an incredible focus on planning, rather than brainless action. It’s something you have to like, but if you do, then it’s going to be an excellent watch.

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

Some quick first impressions: Junjo Romantica 2, Michiko e Hatchin and Goku Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei

by psgels, posted in Michiko e Hatchin, Some Quick First Impressions

(note that I’m still experimenting with rating scale, so the numbers are meant to be low, though GSZS deserves it somewhat)
Junjo Romantica 2

Short Synopsis: Our lead character meets Usagi’s brother.
Highlights: Nice banter.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 6/10
This season really is the season of sequels for Studio Deen (APART FROM AMATSUKI!), where their only new series are continuations of some of their past franchises. Junjo Romantica pretty much continues where the first season leaves off, and introduces Usagi’s brother, who was mentioned a few times in the first season. I’m looking forward to more of this, because it’s one of the few series that takes a realistic view at being in a relationship with someone as it explores the give-and-take aspect of dating someone. Okay, so what if the characters are gay. It might make for a few disturbing scenes, but nonetheless there’s some nice chemistry between the characters, just like in the first series.

Michiko e Hatchin

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets picked up by someone who claims to be her mother.
Highlights: Rather one-sided.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 5,5/10
Well, so far it really looks like we’re dealing with the spiritual successor of El Cazador here. Both feature a strong woman, travelling with a weaker girl, they’re both about gunfights, they both have a strong emphasis on music and they both play in Mexico. The big difference is that the music is rather jazzy with Michiko e Hatchin, and it’s much more dramatic. And that’s my problem a bit here: the whole abuse of Hana is just too one-sided. It’s already established that Hana’s family abuses her after one minute. We don’t need 20 more minutes of this same abuse if that’s all that these characters do. Flesh them out a little more than that! Les Miserables did this the right way: even though Cosette was abused, there was a lot more going on inside the family than just that, while with Michiko e Hatchin, the whole life purpose of that family seems to be to abuse Hana as much as possible.

Goku Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is in despair.
Highlights: Much of the same, but with this series that’s a BAD THING.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 4/10
Well, so for this OVA, I decided to not wait for the subs and just watch it raw. The disadvantage of that obviously is that it becomes much more difficult to understand (especially with a series as focused on dialogue as this one), but the advantage is that the visual direction stands out more, since you don’t have to frantically try to keep up with the huge lines of dialogue. In any case, this pretty much was a standalone episode of the series, and that’s my big problem with it: this series has already gone way past its expiration-date, and it still tries to squeeze some cash out of the viewer. The jokes that once were hilarious have become stale because this series simply refused to develop its characters. And am I the only one who feels that the Otaku-jokes have passed their freshness by now? I mean, it was nice and all when they appeared the first time, but what the heck do the Lucky Star and Haruhi-references in this episode really add? Why show a bunch of stereotypical otaku when a truckload of other series have already done the same? I appreciate how Chaos;Head is trying to make an original story out of them, but this OVA was just nothing. It contributed in no way, and was overall just pointless.

Tytania – 02

by psgels, posted in Tytania



Short Synopsis: Ariabart screwed up, so he now has to face the consequences.
Highlights: No battles this time.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 6/10
Okay, first of all, about the rating. After dunno’s comments I got thinking a bit, and I’m experimenting right now with a different rating-scale for episodes, that uses a bit more of the available numbers. I still need to tweak this a bit, but in a nutshell:
5 – lacking
6 – solid, good, but nothing special
8 – excellent

So yes, this episode was pretty much a good one, and I liked it, although it mostly was an episode of building up without any real battles. Over the next few episodes, I’m going to tweak that rating a bit.

In any case, for those who remember my little contest: this series ended up winning it, so it’s going to be blogged Tytania is most likely going to be my “why the heck am I watching this raw”-series of the season, with the huge amount of political dialogue and all.

In a way, I was pretty surprised when I found out that Artland is handling the animation for this series. Still, it might actually be the perfect company for this series: we’ve already seen in Gunslinger Girl – Il Teatrino that they pretty much suck at fluid and high-budget action-scenes, but these guys really try to make up for it with some excellent fight coordination, which is EXACTLY what this series needs. With this, we’re assured that this series isn’t going to feature some impossibly moving spacecrafts, but instead a very large focus on tactics. I mean, the animation of To Aru Majutsu no Index was nice and all, but in essence it’s just about a bunch of people who throw a bunch of photoshop-filters at each other until one of them goes down, which isn’t really my idea of an excellent action-series.

And there’s also that strange talent of Artland to choose the exact soundtrack that fits their series the best. Apart from perhaps Happiness or Hakushaku to Yousei, each of their soundtracks has fit the mood of their series perfectly: the very subtle natural sounds in Mushishi, the dreamy music of Bokura ga Ita, the folky music for Il Teatrino. And Tytania really has a soundtrack that screams “build-up” and “epic”, which basically is the essence of this series.

In any case, about this episode. I managed to pick up that Fan Hulic was supposed to lose his battle of the previous episode, because of some deal that his superior had made with the Tytania-family, which brings even more shame to Ariabart. If I understood correctly, this means that Ariabart will be degraded in ranks, and he’s going to have to keep an eye on Fan Hulic. The question is of course: if any other member of the Tytania-family would have commanded that ship, would he have lost as well?

Porfy no Nagai Tabi – 41

by psgels, posted in Porfy no Nagai Tabi



Short Synopsis: Porfy goes along to the salesman’s home and wrecks a potential marriage.
Highlights: The pacing really gets faster and faster as the show goes on!
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
Well, there you have it. A few episodes ago, I wondered whether the soundtrack would change, now that Porfy’s in France. And here you go: this episode starts playing the accordions; I should have known.

In any case, the salesman grabs Porfy firmly, but he does offer him a ride to his house. There, it turns out that he has a daughter and two sons, who are living in a rather poor house. They offer him a couch to sleep on, and when he wakes up, the two sons have drawn a moustache on it. The salesman has already left for another job. Porfy then goes with the two of them (after having washed his face of course) into the town, to ask for Mina. He then finds out that they too don’t have a mother. When they look at one of the cars at the local toy store, he decides to make one from wood for them.

Back home, it turns out that Cecile, the daughter, is quite similar to Mina. She’s gentle, and likes acting and movies. She also dreams to become an actress, but she knows that she’s never going to make it. She even recites her favourite movie in front of Porfy just like Mina did. When she does, however, the owner of the house they’re living in pops up and tells her that her father is three months behind on rent.

A little while later, Porfy’s done with the car, and the two sons are very enthusiastic to see it, especially because it’s modelled after their father’s truck. Cecile offers Porfy to stay for as long as he wants, but Porfy leaves immediately after he realizes that he’s taking food from a very poor family, especially after the little sons start complaining that they haven’t had enough dinner.

We then see Porfy as he walks across a (beautiful) lake, and he sees a boat there. The only problem is that his money has finally run out, so he just goes there to look. He there meets a couple that’s about to marry, though the guy is telling a bunch of lies about his supposed family in Greece that was struck by an earthquake, in order to get some money from the woman, Matilda. Porfy, coming from Greece and having endured that earthquake, unknowingly exposes these lies while worrying about them, and Matila slaps the guy. But as it turns out, Matila was the one who was rejected because of Porfy’s meddling, and not the other way around. Matilda actually liked how he was nice to her.

Still, Matilda ends up buying a ticket for Porfy. (At this point, we don’t hear Porfy telling about his sister anymore, so I assume this gets omitted from now on). Matilda asks him what he’s going to do next, and so Porfy says that he needs to work for a bit of more money, and she happens to know someone who can hire him. The episode then ends as the boat arrives at yet another beautifully drawn town.

That beginning of the episode was really a nostalgic moment, which anyone will probably recognize from their childhood. That “oh, I screwed up and he’s going to punish me”-feeling, while the salesman just kept silent. He’s quite an interesting character; he hardly said anything and just accepted that he was fooled by Porfy.

This is also a thing that only took me so long to realize, but the pacing of this series just keeps going faster and faster. The series started off with a very sloooooooow slice-of-life arc that took up 12 episodes. The disaster-arc was also pretty long. Then came travel-arcs from three to four episodes, until Rome, after which the show became episodic. And now, as the series enters its final quarter, the stories become even too short for individual episodes, and every episode shows Porfy as he meets two different places. The only exception was when Porfy met the car mechanic and the woman in the abandoned city, but if you consider those as one standalone arc, then everything falls into pieces perfectly. Let me just say that this definitely ISN’T something I expected this series’ finale to turn into!

At this point, I consider Les Miserables to be a bit better than Porfy no Nagai Tabi, but that’s only because of the longer travel-arcs. Not only was their pacing slow, but their writing was just way too sloppy for this series, whereas Les Miserables was very thoroughly built up through its entire story, and had some very effective climaxes because of it. I don’t expect Porfy to become better than Les Miserables in its final quarter, simply because Les Miserables surpassed itself in just about every aspect for its final quarter, but it’s nevertheless getting interesting where the creators will be going. The pacing will definitely something to look forward to, as it removed just about the only flaw of this series out of these travel-arcs: the incredibly slow pacing. The creators have also shown that they’re masters at building up, so really… what the heck could they be planning?

Shikabane Hime – 03

by psgels, posted in Shikabane Hime



Short Synopsis: A number of people get killed after hearing the cries of a baby.
Highlights: Makina and Kagami
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
I think we’ve got ourselves a record here: it’s episode three, and the male and female lead still haven’t become a couple. Sure, they might meet each other a lot, but that doesn’t have anything to do with the bond between the two, but rather that cat which keeps pulling the strings from behind the scenes. The two of them are being fleshed out pretty nicely overall, with this episode giving a cold for Kagami to deal with. It’s also nice to see that his whining actually was justified in this episode, where the baby actually wasn’t the culprit. That removes the one-sided part about their relationship, where Makina was the strong one and Kagami the weak one. I believe that they’re going to grow nicely so that they can complement for each other’s weaknesses.

What I also like about this series is that apart from Makina and Kagami, there are actually lots of different and more characters. These first three episodes have introduced a significant amount of returning characters, even though we’re talking about episodic stories here. The cat and the strange guy who killed this episode’s bad guy, what are they plotting? This series is especially going to be interesting if the creators manage to give everyone on Kagami’s brother’s organization his and her own identity (the unimportant ones still feel too much like one single character at this point: replace them with one guy and you’d never know the difference).

I must say that with this, Gainax has clearly shown that they can make more than brainless action-shows, which I like a lot. What it needs to pay attention to is that male lead, Kagami. So far, he hasn’t been that annoying, but the FACT REMAINS that he’s an angsty teenager. The guy needs to develop quickly before the angst gets annoying.

Casshern Sins – 03

by psgels, posted in Casshern Sins



Short Synopsis: Casshern meets a man who travels alone.
Highlights: Subtle drama rocks!
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
Am I the only one who finds it ironic that the series with the most original and appealing character-design of the season is a remake of a series that came from the 1970’s? In any case, I really liked this episode. It’s a quiet, yet very powerful one. The past few episodes have shown us nothing but robots, and yet at the same time they suggested that humans were still alive. In this one, Casshern finally meets a human, and the episode is basically a character-study of this human.

He’s basically a human that continues to run away from the robots, and is critical of his own existence. He already has a bad health (probably due to that nasty apocalypse Casshern caused), and I guess that at that point, the company Casshern can offer the guy is like a godsent. He dies of his own accord, at the end of the episode, and yet the coincidence of which it happens only contributes to Casshern’s nickname of “Death God”.

It’s also a great episode for Casshern: we’re only at episode three, and the guy is already developing. This episode was really meant to silence the emo inside of himself, which is always appreciated. What was up with the dog, though? Why did it suddenly have a change of heart? That was a downside of this episode.

Then there’s that ending theme, which I’m certain that it’s got some double meaning. Why exactly does it show the little kid and that woman together, and ends with the notion that Casshern is gone? It could be pulling off the same thing Soukou no Strain did, where the ED was basically a well-camouflaged aftermath of the series.

Kurozuka – 02

by psgels, posted in Kurozuka



Short Synopsis: A violent killer visits Kuromitsu.
Highlights: Production-values are less than in the first episode, but nonetheless gorgeous.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
As for One Outs, I’m very surprised at how underrated that series has become, considering how well-received Akagi and Kaiji were. Nevertheless, I still remember the pain it was to blog Kaiji, so I’m just going to sit back and watch it without blogging.

Anyway, I guess I’m going to be blogging lots of different horror-series this season. Kurozuka, Mouryou no Hako, Jigoku Shoujo, Casshern, Blade of the Immortal, Shikabane Hime. Heh, I originally didn’t intend to blog so many of them, but all of them have proved to be surprisingly good in their own way, and all of them explore different sides of the genre, from the flamboyant Jigoku Shoujo to the upbeat Blade of the Immortal, to the subtle Shikabane Hime, the charming Mouryou no Hako, and the depressing and thought-provoking Casshern.

Kurozuka promises to be explore the action and raw psychological side of horror. It definitely has the best action-scenes of the season, as well as the best OP. If the creators can get the characters right, then this series promises to be something very interesting, especially with the director of Death Note behind it. My big problem with Death Note is how it felt very unbalanced, and the creators never really seemed to exactly know what kind of direction they wanted. I’m really curious what his style can do to such a short, focused and series.

There’s also plenty of mystery in this series. Where does the cut-off head come into play? Why bother showing that killer in the first place? What was that strange room he ended up in? What happened to that main character’s best friend? Who were those monsters that were after Kuro anyway?

I think that this series needs to pay the most attention to giving the bad guys a bit more background and personality. Right now, they feel a bit too stereotypical. Kuro and Kuromitsu will probably be fine, and slowly grow throughout the series, but when it comes to bad guys that die within one episode, this series really needs to pay a bit more effort to make their deaths count.

Mouryou no Hako – 02

by psgels, posted in Mouryou no Hako



Short Synopsis: Kanako’s family and relatives rush over to check whether she’s okay.
Highlights: I really hope that rumour of 13 episodes is wrong.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
Okay, so it was pretty obvious that I was going to blog this series. As for the ones I’m not going to blog:
– Vampire Knight Guilty: no way.
– Ga-Rei Zero has been very good so far, but the schoolgirls who are all awesome at handling swords still give me a few doubts here and there.
– Skip Beat is awesome. If some of the shows I’m planning to blog turn out to be disappointing, I’m probably going to pick that one up.
– Macademi Wasshoi at least didn’t lose as much inspiration as the rest of the shounen-comedies did in their second episodes, but I still don’t see much future for those perverted teachers.
– Oh, and I think that this is also a good point to note that I’ve finally managed to use this season as an excuse to stop watching Soul Eater. I don’t want to continue wasting my time on it if there are so many better series this season. I really think that it would have been better as a 39-episode series, because it’s taking way too long. Instead of filling up its extra time with cute slice-of-life moments, the creators decided to go with pointless exposition and dragged-on fight scenes to fill up their extra time.

There’s a LOT to like about Mouryou no Hako, and it’s at least my favourite new series of the season. It’s one of these very rare series that only pop up about half a year, that try to beyond the usual genres (Real Drive was this in the previous half year). While it’s technically a mystery-horror, it doesn’t feel anything like the other mystery-horror series I’ve seen so far. It’s got a bit of Shoujo-ai here and a bit of humour there. It’s got a story that saves its cards and doesn’t play all of its trumps at the first episode, and STILL it had one of the best starts of the season.

The second episode was much less dramatic than the first, probably because the focus shifted from teenagers to adults. It starts out as a basic aftermath, but soon continues to progress the overall plot like crazy, introducing important relative after the other that seem to suggest that there’s more to Kanako’s suicide attempt than we might think. Especially since a famous actress ran all the way from her busy schedule.

Another thing is this series’ subtle characterization. This series uses a lot of subtle non-verbal communication to flesh out its characters, like the incompetent policeman that worked on the lead policeman’s nerves, or his fascination with that lead actress. The subtle hints that suggested that the actress is hiding something.

And then there are those heads in boxes. I finally read the premise of this series, and it turns out that it’s all one big murder mystery around a bizarre serial murderer, and here this series starts with a seemingly unrelated suicide attempt. What’s the link between these two, and why did the creators decide to open the series with this?

The characters also look great. This is what happens if you combine Madhouse, Clamp and the character-designer of Simoun. They all seem to fit. I’m not sure what went wrong with Clamp when they designed the characters from Code Geass, but this series shows that they can also go for a much more down-to-earth style. They’re very versatile indeed.

(oh, and *note to self: Mouryou no Hako + Horrible Raws = bad idea. It’s not the lower quality, but those overly sugary Japanese commercials that keep interrupting it DO NOT FIT the overall mode of this series AT ALL*).