Mission-E – 08

by psgels, posted in Mission-E



Short Synopsis: Chiyoko Soraizumi and Nietzsche Kafka may have eloped together, but Chinami isn’t planning to end things that way.
Highlights: Great opportunity to see some different sides of Chiyoko and Nietzsche.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
Oh boy, it’s hard to believe that we’re still talking about the tough Maori and Adol (or as they introduce themselves in this episode: Chiyoko and Nietzsche) in this episode. They were totally different persons from what they usually were, though it does make sense in a way. Some people can show very different sides of themselves, depending on the people they’re with. Maori usually has to deal with Chinami, which requires her to be the responsible one. Amongst her classmates, she neither finds the chance to really open up, but with Nietzsche, she finally has someone to look over her, and shows a much more female side to him.

But really, did neither of them recognized each other? I originally thought that Adol was trying to lure her into some sort of trap somehow, but it turns out that they just coincidentally ran into each other when they were both having troubles with work. It takes away a bit of the believability, but I’ll forgive this series for it, since this episode did flesh out both of them really well. It was fun to watch, despite being nothing more than a dating-sim.

And it really seems that Adol’s biggest reason is revenge against Chinami for what she did to his sister. I wonder whether the creators will be pulling the famous plot-twist of bed-ridden major characters: will Mils regain her personality at the most convenient/inconvenient moment. With this series, it could really go anywhere, but I hope that the creators will go for the less clichéd way and make her get back to senses, a few years after he major climax in this series.

On a side-note: the graphics looked really nice in this episode. Lots of nice poses and facial expressions. Glad to see that the animators are trying to experiment a bit.

Natsume Yuujin-Chou – 08

by psgels, posted in Natsume Yuujin-Chou



Short Synopsis: Natsume meets a person who used to be able to see Youkai.
Highlights: That feeling of separation.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 9/10
Oh my god… just when I thought that this series couldn’t get much better than it already was, it surpasses itself. This episode was downright heart-wrenchingly awesome. I remember how, when this series first started, the biggest criticism against it was that its format or returning names could get old very easily. Well, let me tell you that this series has PLENTY of inspiration for its stories. Heck, this episode wasn’t about returning names at all.

Nearly everything about this episode was perfect. For starters, it makes Natsume think about something he never could have imagined: that his ability to see youkai would disappear as he’d become an adult. After all, when we see Reiko in a flashback, she always appears as a child of the same age, hinting that she compiled the yuujin-chou when she was a high-school girl. There’s a very good possibility that she didn’t lose interest afterwards, but just became unable to see youkai. Otherwise, you’d think that she’d leave Natsume with more than just a yuujin-chou.

But the real star of this episode was the ayakashi that Natsume meets. It once was a firefly, and she made friends with that person when he still could see Youkai. His ability suddenly disappeared in one night, even though their bond couldn’t have been closer. Like all other Ayakashi in this series, the firefly just patiently kept waiting beside him, even though he couldn’t see her anymore. They always used to meet at one particular lake, and even though they can’t see each other, they still kept returning to this lake. At the time of this episode, this is about to change, though, when the guy is about to get married, and plans to not return to the lake.

The firefly isn’t able to do anything about it, and would rather return to a firefly, just so he could see her one more time (which she does at the end of this episode). It was really sad to see the two of them apart like that, with no chance to get back. The climax, where the sky was filled with fireflies, was a beautiful conclusion.

Oh and on a side-note: I loved Nyako’s suggestion to name her after a bunch of noodles. ^^;

Beck – Mongolian Chop Squad Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Beck is a lot like the younger rebellious brother of Nodame Cantabile. While the latter is about students, classical music and orchestras, the former is about a bunch of middle and high-school kids who try to start a rock band. Nodame Cantabile was very much up-beat and a positive series, while Beck is much darker, more down-to-earth and loved playing with the darker sides of humanity. Still, both series are about a passion for music and the chemistry between the people you play with.

In terms of music, Beck draws on the shorter end, though. Don’t get me wrong, the rock-music that the creators selected for this series is excellent, but it doesn’t feel as part of the series in the way that Nodame Cantabile did. There seems to be no difference in a song when one of the band-members is missing, and that’s a bit sloppy. Koyuki, the lead character in this series was supposed to be an awesome singer, but I could never really see why. Sure, he was good at singing, but his singing was full of Engrish, which hardly anybody (even the Americans) seemed to notice. Okay, perhaps it wasn’t the best idea to watch Beck right after Nodame Cantabile (which paid attention to even the slightest mistakes), but this was a rather annoying flaw.

Thankfully, there’s more than enough to make up for that. Beck has a cast of downright excellent characters, with an almost haunting chemistry between them, due to the realistic approach it chooses to portray the Japanese Indie band scene. There are so many good amateur rock bands out there, that it’s going to be very hard to stand apart from them, and even as this series nears its end, it’s still a huge mystery whether the guys from Beck are actually going to get famous or not.

Koyuki may not have had the best voice-actor, but apart from that, he’s an excellent character, who grows a lot through the series. He starts out as an insecure little kid, and he gradually loses his insecurities, to become more outspoken. Nearly the entire cast is also well-defined and has its clear purpose in the series.

Then there’s the romance, which was actually pretty good. There was this strange sort of realism that actually made the bits of romance in this series engaging, rather than annoying, which is where most teenaged romances seem to head for, especially when they’re not the main focus of a series. There’s something memorable in the bond that develops between Koyuki and Maho, in the way that the creators keep teasing the viewer, although the creators may have spent a bit too little time on it in the series’ second half. They could have played with it a bit more, I feel.

Certain parts of the series are a bit unbelievable, though. Ryuusuke’s age of sixteen years old feels a bit unbelievable, considering the things he’s already done, or certain plot-twists seem to come from nowhere, which will raise some eyebrows at the realistic nature of this series. Nevertheless, though, Beck is a very memorable series that combines slice of life and the struggles to form a successful rock band excellently.

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

Blade of the Immortal – 04

by psgels, posted in Blade of the Immortal



Short Synopsis: Rin visits an old teacher of her to request assistance.
Highlights: Bee-Train hasn’t forgotten how to make great action-scenes at all, despite this series’ limited budget.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
Well, so it really seems that this series is going to air every two weeks, instead of the weekly schedule of 99% of all other anime. Ah well, it may take a long time to wait for the next consecutive episode, but this does allow the creators to take their time, and produce a very solid series, rather than trying to rush it. Blade of the Immortal has been consistently awesome for me so far, so I don’t mind waiting an extra week for each episode. It’s much better than those random unexpected hiatuses that come from nowhere that plagued gems as Kaiba, Saiunkoku Monogatari and Dennou Coil.

I just love the style of this series, and this episode was the most enjoyable so far. It may not catch the specific style of the manga, but the creators nevertheless have enough ideas to make the action-scenes more than just a few slashes of blades. Sure, the budget is very limited in this series, but to make up for it the fight coordination is really enjoyable, and it almost turns the fight scenes here into a work of art. The fight in this series made excellent use of the characters’ various traits and personalities. It’s really something I kept missing at Soul Eater: the fights were there, but they never were anything special. But then again, this comes from the guy who loved the fight scenes in Gunslinger Girl – Il Teatrino, so it may just be my strange taste. ^^;

The flashback of Rin’s parents getting killed is also typical Bee-Train: every episode so far has seen that shot, and you see the same technique in many of their best series: Noir, .Hack//Sign and El Cazador. At first sight, it doesn’t make any sense: repetition in storytelling can very easily get annoying. At first sight, it seems rather uninspired. However, it does make sense: Rin’s parents were killed in front of her eyes. Of course this made a huge impact on her, and she’ll very often recall that moment. Those flashbacks merely try to mimic what’s happening in Rin’s mind. They don’t seem to add anything to the story, but they’re excellent for fleshing out characters.

It’s strange, but Blade of the Immortal is shaping up to be my favourite series of the season, along with Natsume Yuujin-chou. It definitely doesn’t shine in terms of realism, but it’s so much fun to watch the series and characters, and this is just after episode 4, with a second season already in the works.

Nodame Cantabile Review – 90/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Ah, I managed to finish this one just in time for the second season that starts in October. Nodame Cantabile is a series about classical music: it follows the rise of a brilliant conductor named Chiaki, and how he spends his college years. If for some reason, you needed any more reasons as to why noitaminA rocks, then go and watch this series, because it’s among the best series that came from an already excellent timeslot.

Finally, an anime comes and pulls off an accurate portrayal of a genius. After all, it’s easier to write a stupid character than to write a smart one, let alone a brilliant one. You really need to be well-versed in the classical music-business to pull that one off, and the creators actually did it. Okay, I know hardly anything about good music, but I still could see that this “Chiaki”-guy was going to make it big someday. Through the series, you’ll get to see exactly what this guy’s thinking, and what’s pushing him forward, what he finds important and why he became so good with music in the first place. It’s for this reason that Nodame Cantabile is an incredibly inspirational anime that can motivate you in a slightly different way than most other motivational series (which are often about an underdog, rather than an already established genius).

The rest of the cast also shines in this series. Every major side-character (which are quite a few, actually) gets his or her time to shine. With the exceptions of the characters that only appear in one or two episodes or random orchestra-members, every character is interesting, and has a bit of depth. This really is a series that shines because of its characters.

The only oddball is the female lead: Nodame. She’s just about the polar opposite of Chiaki, and for the major part of this series, you’ll be wondering what she’s actually doing in this series. She feels like this series’ Yuki Cross (from Vampire Knight): she’s there, she gets admired, but she doesn’t do anything important for the story. Thankfully, as the series goes on, her purpose in this series becomes very clear. I’m not going to spoil anything but let’s just say that her character-growth is very admirable and the highlight of this series’ finale.

There’s also plenty to laugh at in this series. It’s not strictly a comedy, but that doesn’t stop the characters from having fun and providing laughs from the beginning to the end of this series. The creators know exactly when they need to be funny and when they need to be serious.

There’s a slight downside with the use of CG, though. Since this is a series about classical music, there are obviously lots of instruments being played, and the creators used a motion-capturing technique in order to show characters playing the piano/violin/oboe/whatever. This makes sure for lots of movement that would never have been possible with traditional animation techniques, but it also looks fake. The 3D hands and instruments just don’t mesh well with the 2D characters, which makes the visuals in this series rather sloppy. Thankfully, it’s able to make up for that with a downright excellent soundtrack. Not only were many classical pieces played throughout the series, but these pieces really felt like how the characters would play them, rather than a background piece that would just start on cue and sound the same everywhere.

Overall, noitaminA is a timeslot with two faces: post high-school antics and horror, all with some kind of experimental touch (save from Honey and Clover perhaps, but I haven’t seen that one yet). noitaminA is a very charming series about a bunch of conservatory-students. On paper, it’s one of the duller concepts that came from the timeslot, but it makes up for that with a number of downright awesome characters. I can understand why this series happily sat on top of AniDB’s ranking for more than half a year.

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

Nijuu Mensou no Musume – 18

by psgels, posted in Nijuu Mensou no Musume



Short Synopsis: The old scientist shows what he’s been doing for the past decades.
Highlights: Lots of depth for Nijuu Mensou.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
So in the end, the energy from water-arc wasn’t as good as the doll-arc, but this episode was still pretty awesome. While it first looked like this arc was just a copy of the previous one, this episode showed that the purpose of this arc was very different from the Doll arc. This episode was really meant to show some different sides of Nijuu Mensou. Even though the minions from that scientist individually weren’t as strong as the doll-woman, they proved to be much more trouble, since Nijuu Mensou and Chiko were in the minority: they were too busy to fight these one-on-one, giving the scientist the time he needed to fire his energy-beam. I do wonder, though: why did he need Chiko in order to fire it? I failed to pick that one up.

This episode showed that Nijuu Mensou never really was happy about the research he conducted, and it finally showed his past from his own perspective. It seems that it’s especially his research on the energy from water that caused his change of heart. It just wouldn’t work, even though he captured the basics. That got him thinking about the ethical issues (especially since he nearly destroyed his laboratory in a failed experiment). It’s there when he decided to stop his research and burn his evidence, though (as we already know by now) that left many people unhappy.

With a bit of luck, Haruka will mature a bit after this episode. She wasn’t hurt in this episode, but hopefully she realizes that Chiko’s life is nothing like the life she imagined, and that there a lot of nasty sides under Nijuu Mensou’s appearance. Nijuu Mensou has also been hurt at the end of the episode, so he finally can’t run away from Chiko anymore. The next episode should prove to be fun.

It also turns out that the woman we saw with Ken is the woman back from episode eight, with a bit of a changed appearance. Again, it would prove to be interesting when she meets with Chiko, now that Nijuu Mensou can’t run away anymore. There are four episodes left, so there’s probably one major climax coming up. Something tells me that that woman is going to play a big role in it. And what about that washed-up cleaner that we saw, nine episodes ago?

Telepathy Shoujo Ran – 09

by psgels, posted in Telepathy Shoujo Ran



Short Synopsis: This episode brings us Telepathy Shoujo Ran’s version of the story where a ghost has been waiting under a sakura for her loved one to return for ages.
Highlights: Just when I thought that the banter in this series couldn’t get any better.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
Okay, so apparently, the nine volumes of the original light novels that this series is based on turn out to be just a bit too short to fill in 26 episodes, hence why this and the past episode have treated us with anime-original material. I’m not going to use the word “filler” for it, because that term seems to have become something incredibly negative in the fandom, while in fact the past two episodes were highly entertaining, though not in the way you might expect. ^^;

In this episode, the creators did exactly what they’re good at: sending Ran, Rui and Midori on an adventure and having Ran and Midori bicker endlessly in the process. I think the big problem with anime-original episodes is that it’s here where the writers of the anime have to show that they can write for themselves, rather than copy somebody else’s work. This episode showed that the creators of this series most definitely know how to write. With series as Claymore, it’s entirely the opposite: its writers were excellent at copying and pasting, but when they went with their own storyline they fell flat on their face.

The story wasn’t that special, and it’s been done many times before: two lovers who were once separated by a war. The lady is still waiting under a Sakura for her loved one to return, and over time they became youkai. But then again, this series was never about its originality. I remember World Destruction doing a very similar story (if I recall correctly, I dropped that series after that exact episode), and it never tried to spice things up, even though it was dealing with a very dull storyline that would never work on its own. Telepathy Shoujo Ran, however, knows exactly how to spice things up, with the above-mentioned banter between the characters, and the plot of trying to find the tree that the woman waited under, even though it already had been cut down. And of course how their romantic reunion was disturbed by a bitch-slap instead of a heart-warming and overacted hug.

Birdy the Mighty Decode – 08

by psgels, posted in Birdy the Mighty Decode



Short Synopsis: Senkawa and his friends from school are invited to Nakasugi’s summer house.
Highlights: That second half…
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
Seriously, is it me, or is this series really getting better and better with every episode? The build-up in this episode was downright excellent, and it went seamlessly from a quiet and light-hearted mood in the first half to a much darker second half. So what if the first episodes in this series goofed off? They did what they were supposed to do: flesh out characters in this series.

The past few episodes have continued to push Nakasugi’s powers more and more dramatic. In this episode, she even destroys an entire neighbourhood, and this is probably going to continue to get even worse in the future of this series. I liked how the police arrived at the house at the end of the episode. It shows that you can’t just destroy a building and get away with it in this series, adding to the believability. But what was that book that Natsumi was looking at, the one about the destroyed buildings that had the younger version of Shamalan on it? For some reason, Nakasugi wanted to distract her attention from it as quickly as possible, suggesting some sort of connection between her past and Shamalan.

The question also remains who those footprints on the wall belonged to. If they really are from Capella, then why would she go and play around with Senkawa and the others? What did she hope to achieve by walking on the walls and leaving her footprints?

I like what the creators did with the background music in this episode. The tune that the doll played in the previous episode returns multiple times in this one. I remember how Kaiba once did the same, and the technique works out pretty well.

Bonen no Xamdou – 06

by psgels, posted in Bonen no Xamdou



Short Synopsis: Haru receives Akiyuki’s letter
Highlights: Haru, you seriously rock.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
I think that with the arrival of Akiyuki’s letter, the introduction of this series is finally over and the plot can start to really develop. The time for mourning about the tragedy of Sentan Island, and it’s time to move forward. Furuichi joins the military, and to my surprise Haru does so as well! I sort-of suspected that she wouldn’t sit still for the entire series, but to think that she’d actually join the army. That really makes her much more interesting than most other female love interests, whose majority seems to degrade into a damsel in distress.

Toujirou also doens’t seem to be the bad guy I originally thought he would be. There are a lot of parallels between him and Dominic of Eureka7: they’re both young leaders who have troubles with their subordinates. Toujirou in this case is fundamentally against these experiments with the Xam’d, and this episode gave him reasons enough to worry when one of these Xam’d that was supposed to be dead revives and starts rampaging. I guess that this is another way that a Xam’d can turn into, without the help of Nakiami. This begs the question: why can Nakiami safely control the Xam’d, while a scientist from her people can’t do the same, and ends up with the Xam’d going berserk?

Akiyuki’s fight against that humanform reminded me of Eureka7, where Renton suddenly realized that he’s been fighting humans. I’m surprised at how different this was done in Xamdou with its subtle approach. But then again, Akiyuki is a lot more mature.

I’m also reminded of another series, which disturbs me a bit. I just keep comparing Haru and Nakiami with Shirley and Karen from Code Geass, even though the former two managed to get about as much depth in six episodes as the latter did in 46 of them… It’s strange, there are of course a few similarities, but also just as much differences, but I just can’t seem to stop comparing them..

Macross Frontier – 20

by psgels, posted in Macross Frontier



Short Synopsis: This is the episode… where all hell breaks loose.
Highlights: Sheryl, Kuran and of course Michael.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
So this is where the big climax of Macross Frontier begins. Ranka’s pet has finally revealed its true colours as the larvae of not just one Vajra, but an entire Vajra colony who go rampant as soon as they’re hatched. To make matters worse, the Vajra’s from outside have noticed this ad come to help their new comrades. Leon manages to make use of the confusion in order to successfully carry out his coup, but that still makes me wonder how he’s planning to solve that Vajra-problem he’s ended up with.

I really liked Sheryl in the episode. I remember how in the first half, she was one of the more annoying characters, but her character is really the one that received the most development through this series, and it’s really beginning to show now. Like expected, in this episode, she overcomes her anxieties and provides the support for not only Ranka, but also for the people who are hiding for the Vajra. Her character is really getting stronger with every episode, and I appreciate that a lot.

I wish I could say the same about Ranka, though. That girl is getting more annoying with each episode, and especially here she keeps whining and clinging to Alto, now that the shock of seeing Alto with Sheryl caused her song to lose its power over the Vajra. At this point, she really is my least favourite character of this series, and that’s not a good thing, seeing as how she’s the central character in this series. I really hope that she doesn’t end up ruining the finale of this series.

The real climax of this episode was of course the scene between Kuran and Michael. It’s the creators’ way of saying: “yes, we mean business” by killing off Michael so easily, just after he officially became a couple with Kuran. It’s an often-used plot-device, but the interesting thing is obviously going to be how this is going to affect both Alto and Kuran for the final five episodes.