Kara no Kyoukai – The Garden of Sinners – A Study in Murder (Part 1) Review – 77,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Kara no Kyoukai


Apologies for the delay of this review of the second movie, I totally forgot about it until the third one suddenly popped up. The second chapter of the Garden of Sinners tells how everything started, and how Shiki and Mikiya first met with each other. It’s obviously a chapter that’s more about building up and establishing its characters than about its stories. Overall, I liked the first chapter more, but at least A Study in Murder Part 1 is a lot more solid.

The whole setting is a lot more down-to-earth, as the entire story is just about two rather strange high-school kids. The graphics look as good as ever, but that’s to be expected with a movie-budget, and the strange emphasises on different foods are still there. The best thing about this movie is the cast of characters. They’re well fleshed out throughout the hour of airtime and even though they won’t hit any heights, they remain enjoyable to watch, and add depth to their versions that we saw in the first movie.

The story is a bit hard to believe, though. It’s impossible to accurately describe this without going into spoilers, but let’s just say that this movie tells about a series of gruesome murders, and the motives of the eventual killer will feel rather strange, and especially the way that Mikiya reacts to this gives Elfen Lied-flashbacks. The message of this episode was a rather weird one: “it’s okay to murder, you won’t get put in jail for it, everyone will love you anyway.” Now that’s going to stop the children from stabbing their parents.

Nevertheless, the movie served its purpose: the characters are fleshed out now and they have a background, which makes them more than just a bunch of cardboard boxes. Now all that’s left to see is how the rest of the movies will use this.

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

RD Sennou Chousashitsu – 16

by psgels, posted in RD Sennou Chousashitsu



Short Synopsis: It’s back to action and fanservice as this episode focuses at Souta.
Highlights: But what great action it is.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
The next episode previews are getting less and less helpful… they still give an indication of what’s to expect in the next episode, but they’re getting more and more cryptic with every episode. Still, that’s what I like about them. The reason why I don’t often look at these previews is that you’ll never know when they’re too spoilery for their own good. The worst offender that I ran into was Naruto, which once revealed the plot of an entire spoilerific episode in its preview. Still, RD knows exactly what it should give away, to keep its viewer wondering and not reveal any obvious spoilers. The preview for this episode, for example, considered of Souta and Holon fighting. And it was indeed an episode about Souta and Holon, but at the same time it also symbolized the romantic tension between the two, which was the main point about this episode. At the same time, the preview for the next episode features the entire same scene, with just Souta realizing why he keeps losing to Holon in training fights. It should be in the same vein as the current one, but we can only guess what it’ll really be about.

In any case, the current episode rocked. Souta, the guy who sleeps with the boss of his boss is actually secretly in love with Holon. This episode addresses the fact of falling in love with an android a bit differently than Chobits, though. This episode didn’t necessarily end with a happy ending, but rather with all the characters (except Minamo, perhaps) understanding what’s going on. There’s no cheesy confession scene, but instead a much more subtle approach was chosen.

There was one particular scene that caught my attention in this episode: it was where the evil android in this episode had just beaten Holon “unconscious” and threw her body away. That was the only time so far where Holon looked (and sounded) like an object, rather than a human being.

Himitsu ~The Revelation~ – 16

by psgels, posted in Himitsu ~The Revelation~



Short Synopsis: A blind director gets murdered by a strange figure with a kabuki-mask on.
Highlights: Finally! Some quality characterizations!
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
Blegh. Here I am, criticizing this series for failing at characterization, and then it comes and puts down a cast of great characters for this episode to work with. This episode was much, much better than the previous one, simply because of its endearing and well-defined characters. I may not have understood everything of it, and yet I loved this episode, and it finally reminded me why I originally fell in love with this series.

This episode was probably the best in terms of random chatter between the members of the MRI-team. The guy with glasses should speak more often, because his chemistry between the rest of the members is really interesting. But then again, this was really an episode where he could get into his element, with the victim being a movie director, and this episode revealed that he’s a fan of movies.

This episode also had an interesting parallel with a certain episode of Real Drive: the one with the blind artist. Both episodes show the imagination of someone who has lost his or her sight. Himitsu shows literally what it is that he sees. It’s mostly darkness, but I can imagine how he would sometimes get visions like that.

Ultraviolet: Code 044 – 04

by psgels, posted in Ultraviolet: Code 044



Short Synopsis: An intermezzo, without much action, but much character-development and introductions.
Highlights: The new characters should prove interesting for the rest of this series.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
Okay, so even though this was a quiet episode, it still delivered, as it made perfect use of the extra time for the characters to reflect upon themselves, and it also made 044 see how stupid she was acting considering her love. There’s no guarantee that when Luka wakes up, he’ll be in love with 044 too, and he’ll probably just return to his comrades.

In the meantime, she also removes the chip that Daxus II used in order to track her down. He’s just like 044 in a way: he too is obsessed over another human being, to the extent where she’s more important than his job, and he’ll use all of his influence to get her back. In the same way, 044 will use al of her powers in order to protect Luka, even though she hardly knows anything about the guy.

The new people introduced included some sort of cross between a gang-boss and a fashion-victim, who was after the reward put on 044’s head. This episode also introduces Luka’s comrades, who come and retrieve him at the end of the episode. It’s interesting how they seem to be connected to Mathilda somehow. Then there are some acquaintances of Garcia, who haven’t done much yet.

I must say that Madhouse is pretty much turning into my favourite production-company this year. They may have had certain flops with Allison and Lillia and Kamen no Maid Guy, but the majority of their series that aired this year all had interesting premises, looked fresh and had deep storytelling. The problems I’ve once had with the studio was when they kept disappointing me over and over with Kaiji, the second season of Black Lagoon, the finale of Akazukin, Claymore and Shigurui and the large amount of hiatuses and recaps from Dennou Coil and Saiunkoku Monogatari, but ever since the spring-season, these guys have been better than ever.

Mission-E – 03

by psgels, posted in Mission-E



Short Synopsis: The target of this week: a girl with her pet bat.
Highlights: Enemies get stronger and smarter as the series goes on.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10
I’m not sure who on Anime News Network found it a good idea to lump all of the staff of Mission-E all together as directors, but that information is obviously wrong. It takes some credibility away from the site, doesn’t it? In any case, it’s very interesting to see a series with so many high-profile people working on it (the original creator of Scrapped Princess and the directors of Simoun, True Tears, Niea, Shion no Ou and Full Moon wo Sagashite are all working on this thing), that doesn’t aim to be the best in any field, and instead just wants to put down a fun series.

In any case, this episode was clearly one of building up, especially meant to develop the bad guys a bit. They were faceless goons up till now, but this episode added a bit of personality to them, which is always nice. The main guy in charge of capturing the people with Type-E also seems to have a personal history with Chinami, as we see through a flashback in the beginning of the episode, where he got some sort of scar on his back from amongst the rubble. My guess is that this happened when that resort exploded, back at the end of Code-E.

Maori is also getting more used to her job, and isn’t afraid to talk to random people anymore. She’s still pretty much the outcast of her class, though, but that’s obvious, because she still hasn’t stopped distancing herself from everyone. The type-e case was rather mundane (I mean, a bat with type-E isn’t what you’d call exciting), but it did serve the purpose of showing that animals also can get type-E.

Persona – Trinity Soul Review – 77,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews


Watching Persona – Trinity Soul is like walking through a desert, complete with mirages and all, only to end up at an oasis. It’s a supernatural mystery-series, based on the persona-games, and its favourite habit was teasing the heck out of its viewers.

And I’m not kidding when I say that. Despite the fact that this series is full of mecha-like personas, the pacing is sloooooooow. It takes ages for something to actually happen, and when something interesting does happen, a cliff-hanger follows and the next episode acts like nothing happens and starts building up again.

Even after the first half ends, there’s still no sign of a speed-up in the plot, and the pacing even becomes even slower than it already was, as it reveals more and more of the mysteries that lie behind this series. And I must say that the overall plot is definitely interesting; you can see that a lot of imagination went into it. If only the pacing wasn’t so god damn slow.

Another flaw that pops up after the second half is the obligatory background for the main characters. A major problem with them is that these play around with coincidences a bit too much. Seriously, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a character that grew up normally, and didn’t lose his/her parents in some sort of gruesome way.

In other words, as the series went on, my interest in it became pretty low, and I had almost given up hope on it, and then those final five episodes arrived. And it’s exactly here where the quality of this series increases dramatically: the pacing finally kicks in, and everything that the entire series had been building up for finally comes together and delivers a very enjoyable finale that changed my entire opinion of this series.

Overall, I’m not going to recommend this series, but if you’ve started it, then you might as well finish it because of the excellent finale. I think that this series suffered from two major problems: it’s too long and it could have fleshed out its characters a bit more. If this series was just one season long, it would be a total roller-coaster ride, and even if there were only 22 episodes, this series would already have been much more enjoyable due to the lack of quiet parts. The characters can be blamed for these lacklustre quiet parts as well. I don’t mind a slow pacing at all, but if that’s the case, then the creators do need to keep the viewer interested during these quiet parts. I just didn’t feel like I could care about these characters. Persona is a good anime, but it could have been so much better if it weren’t for these small annoying flaws.

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

Natsume Yuujin-Chou – 03

by psgels, posted in Natsume Yuujin-Chou



Short Synopsis: Ayakashi can be… quite obnoxious at times.
Highlights: The extra depth given to Natsume’s desire to find someone like him.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
Okay, so for those who were wondering: there’s no Blade of the Immortal this week. The second episode of it airs next week, after which it’ll go into yet another hiatus. Ah well, I’m glad that these hiatuses are around the beginning of the series, and not the end.

In any case, without Blade of the Immortal, there’s no doubt that Natsume Yuujin-chou is my favourite series this season. It knows how to tell an excellent story and the cast of characters is also absolutely lovable. From the outside, it just looks like “Ayakashi of the week” (not that there’s anything wrong with that, but such a formula can get stale very easily), but every episode so far has added so much more than that. Since giving the name back to an Ayakashi is nothing special and just takes a few minutes, the creators can really start to colour outside of the lines.

This episode added quite some funny comedy to the mix. A couple of gods come and bug Natsume in order to get rid of some nasty Ayakashi that were bugging their shrine, and even though he refuses, they keep harassing and annoying him. What caught my attention the most, though, was the focus of Natsume, trying to find someone like him. And this is where this series sets itself apart from Mokke and xxxHolic: Watanuki had Yuuko, and Shizuru had her grandfather, but Natsume is all alone in his ability to see and sense spirits. At one time, he thought he had found a woman who could also see them, but she too turned out to be an Ayakashi. The only support he’s had so far is from other Ayakashi.

This episode changes this, by introducing two characters who finally understand him a bit. One monk who is looking for his daughter if I understood correctly, and one high-school student who can also see spirits, just like him.

Porfy no Nagai Tabi – 29

by psgels, posted in Porfy no Nagai Tabi



Short Synopsis: Recap
Highlights: Strangely enough, this was EXACTLY what this series needed…
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
Okay, so I’m obviously not going to summarize this recap-episode in detail. What I do want to talk about is everything else that happened here. I rated this episode high for a very good reason, because this episode may very well put itself on the short list of great recap episodes. The thing is that Porfy no Nagai Tabi has obviously turned a bit stale for the past two arcs. Porfy didn’t really grow, how he ran into the right people felt a bit awkward, and the drama nor the slice-of-life matched up to what we saw in the earlier parts of the series. The creators have shown that they can write great travel arcs (the abandoned city-arc was just amazing), but for the past months, Porfy lost a bit of its spark.

And that’s why it’s so great to look back at the amazing earlier parts of the series, when all of the characters still were alive/not missing. Porfy also had a very good reason to be nostalgic: at the airport of Rome, he ran into none other than Barnes, who had picked up rumours about a Greek boy that was lost in Italy. He then delivers him a letter from Zaimis, so this indeed was the perfect place to put such a recap. And of course, that little teaser at the end of the episode, that showed that MINA IS STILL IN ROME was just icing on the cake.

This really reminds me of the third arc of Les Miserables (about the first similarity that I spotted between the two series after their introduction-arcs): I remember clearly that very annoying episode where everyone in Paris kept nearly running into each other. And at the same time, it was such a great way of building up, for when the characters finally met with each other. Overall, this episode formed a pretty nice conclusion to the first half of Porfy no Nagai Tabi, and although we may have a few more boring travel arcs in store, the fact does remain that it’s still building up for the moments in this series that really matter: the reunion with Mina and Alecia. Porfy no Nagai Tabi doesn’t have the grand story of Les Miserables, but at the same time it’s much more personal, and I love how the two series are so different from each other, despite being both World Masterpiece Theatres.

Nijuu Mensou no Musume – 14

by psgels, posted in Nijuu Mensou no Musume



Short Synopsis: This episode follows Chiko and Ken, as they try to get the doomed zeppelin down safely.
Highlights: An excellent aftermath to an amazing arc.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
The previous episode was an absolute chaos, so it was only natural that the aftermath would be more straight-forward, and yet this was a very solid and entertaining episode, which really served to get the cast closer together, especially Ken and Chiko managed to settle their differences as they tried to get out of that bomb-filled zeppelin. An interesting twist was that all of the guests turned out to be alive, and the wine was just rigged with some strange stuff that quickly made them unconscious. The blood that they seemed to cough… just turned out to be wine.

One thing that my limited Japanese didn’t fully understand is what went on between Chiko’s aunt and Tome. The end result was Tome, blackmailing the aunt, but I’m not exactly sure how she did it. Did she feed her the same poison that was fed to Chiko, so that if she were to go to the doctor, her plans to poison Chiko would be revealed?

Overall, I’m really impressed by this arc, but the question remains: what is going to happen in the final eight episodes. Hashihime mentions something about the final parts of the series diverging from the manga, and turning into “detective girls”, and the ED seems to confirm this.

The detective-girls do have potential, and it’ll be interesting to see what kinds of mysteries the creators can come up with, but I’ve got one major issue with it: Haruka. The OP and ED continue to portray her as a major character, while her actual role in this series has been incredibly small. The only time that she did stand in the spotlights turned into a disaster, when she knocked a big strong man unconscious with a bunch of toys. If this series really is going to turn into a detective girls-thingy, then I fear that Haruka’s brattiness has the potential to ruin everything. She’s about the only member of the cast that feels stupid, and I really hope that the creators will manage to develop her sufficiently.

Rozen Maiden Review – 87,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews


This review is about the first season of Rozen Maiden. I first came into contact with this franchise through a bit of a strange way: I never watched the first season, but when the second season (Rozen Maiden Traumend) aired, I decided to give it a whirl and watch it. If I recall correctly, I lasted five episode before dropping it, because it just didn’t seem to go anywhere, and the annoying characters weren’t helping much either. To give a small indication of the annoyingness of one of the characters… I think that this video says it all…

In any case, Solaris managed to talk me into giving the series a second chance, and I’m really glad that I did, because the first season made an entirely different impression on me. What I saw of the second season goofed off way too much, but the first season is actually a very focused character-study of a bunch of dolls that came to life, and the humans that they made contact with.

Right from the start, this series knows exactly how to use its limited time of 12 episodes. The story continues to develop, and there’s always something interesting going on. The different subplots flow very smoothly into each other and never feel rushed, and the series ends with good conclusion.

The results of this excellent storytelling can be seen in the characters. Characters that got incredibly on my nerves in Traumend turn into likable and adorable characters, right from the start. The Alice-games, which play a central role in this series, which cause the different dolls to fight each other are interpreted differently by each of the characters. Some become obsessed over perfection, others want to break out of that tradition, others want to win, no matter what and others don’t care about these games at all, and just want to play like a little kid. In the same way, each of the dolls has a different understanding of what the word “doll” means to them. My biggest surprise was that Hina-Ichigo turned out to be more than just an annoying little brat, and how she had a very clear purpose in this series.

Peach-Pit’s adaptations have often been plagued by strange production-decisions (Zombie Loan was good, but way too short, Shugo Chara had the potential, but turned out way too bloody long), but this first season of Rozen Maiden is pretty much without any major flaws. The graphics also look pleasing, and although I fully agree that the ALI project should stop making all these OPs and EDs that sound way too much like each other, I do admit that their work on Rozen Maiden’s OP is their best one. The rest of the soundtrack is also pretty much awesome, which all results in a really worthwhile series. Now, I hope that the second season is going to turn out better than what I remember of it.

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