Some quick first impressions: Strike Witches, Birdy the Mighty Decode and Yakushiji Ryouko no Kaiki Jikenbo

by psgels, posted in Birdy the Mighty Decode, Some Quick First Impressions

Strike Witches

Short Synopsis: Our lead character becomes a witch that fights against alien forces.
Highlights: Lacks the style of the OVA.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 6,5/10
It’s a shame that the style of the OVA was abandoned for the tv-series. Still, overall Strike Witches did its job, I guess. Ironically, at the moment this seems to be the perfect series for Gonzo to get some of their funds back, because stuff like this definitely sells. There’s lots of fanservice indeed, but it’s nothing when comparing it to Sekirei. This episode was nothing special at all, but it did serve as a good enough introduction, although I wonder whether trucks can violently explode like that. There are lots of characters, which is going to be either this series’ saving grace or doom, whether or not the creators can develop them sufficiently within 12 episodes. I personally doubt it, but I’ve been surprised by such a series more than once.

Birdy the Mighty Decode

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets killed and ends up sharing his body with a female alien cop.
Highlights: Great style, awesome action, fun characters
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
This has been my most anticipated series of the season, and probably the weirdest most anticipated series I’ve ever had for a season. It doesn’t disappoint at all, though. What we have here is a fun action-series, sharing a deep contrast with the other action-series this season (Ultraviolet), which is much darker and melancholic. Birdy the Mighty is sortof like (and it rather disturbed me when I found this out) To Love-Ru done right. We’ve got an alien in a space-ship, but instead of the predictable princess, being chased, she’s a cop, after a bunch of bad guys. When she meets our lead character, she doesn’t instantly fall in love with him without any reason, but instead she accidentally kills him and feels sorry for her own mistake. She also has a dress-up robot, but he dresses up as a strange transsexual. Overall, it feels like much more imagination went into creating this anime, and it’s amazing what a bit of imagination can do to my opinion of a series. And of course, this is being done by the director of Noein, so of course: the fight scenes are bloody amazing. What surprised me the most during the summer previews is the bad reputation this series seemed to be getting, simply because of its name. I mean, what’s so bad about calling your series Birdy the Mighty?

Yakushiju Ryouko no Kaiki Jikenbo

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a policewoman, who gets assigned to supernatural cases.
Highlights: Glamorous look at the way of a detective, but at least the characters are interesting; good luck at explaining that plot-hole at the end of the episode, though.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7/10
Well, this one turned out to be different from expected. What I expected was a supernatural mystery-series, but what I got was a thriller: it’s pretty clear what the enemies are, and they need to be stopped. I may not work with the police or anything, but I do think that the depiction of inspector Ryouko could have been more realistic: she spends the entire episode buying bras, swimming and in fancy clothes, while doing her investigation that’s in no way systematic. That’s why her assistant is the interesting character in this series: he has to put up with her eccentric character, while trying to do his own job as well. I’d really wish for the bad guys to get some more depth in the next episode, because they were rather boring in this one. Ah well, at least this series is backed up by nice enough graphics and an interesting soundtrack that combines techno with eerie sounds.

Telepathy Shoujo Ran – 03

by psgels, posted in Telepathy Shoujo Ran



Short Synopsis: The villain turns out to be… a teacher. More importantly: Ran and Midori become friends.
Highlights: Excellent banter, though the evil teacher was way too evil.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10
I’m probably going to end up comparing this series a lot to Night Head Genesis, the in my opinion best series about psychics. There are a few things that Telepathy Shoujo Ran could have learned from it, and I especially mean how the lead characters grew up. Naoto and Naoya’s parents clearly loved them, but in the end they were taken away because Naoto kept causing trouble with his powers and quick temper. Telepathy Shoujo Ran’s reasoning turns out to be much less subtle: Midori and the teacher became hateful because they’re hated, Ran became cheerful because she has a caring family.

It’s really what this series needs: subtlety, because it’s bloody awesome in every other department: a terrific soundtrack, great graphics and especially an excellent sense of characterization. It just wants too much in too little time. Still, who knows where this series would end up once the characters start developing? This series is so much fun when something exciting isn’t happening, so I’m interested to see what this series can do once it has the time to build up and the characters have gained depth. For only that reason, I’m going to follow this series until the end.

The Kansai-ben was quite a surprise, I never expected Midori to come from Osaka, and this episode certainly changed the way you look at her character. I like how she’s witty, and doesn’t take everything for granted, although that Kansai-ben is a bitch to try and translate. I already have enough trouble with regular Japanese. It’s the same with Ghost Hound: the characters there too talked with weird accents. Ran’s brother also surprised me, in terms of the big role he had on Ran when she found out that Rui (Louie?) was missing.

Also… why were there sakura-petal on top of a school-building?

Junjo Romantica Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews


2008 came with an interesting trend: actually good shounen-ai series…. what? At least I liked them…

Granted, there’s no denying that this series is aimed at fangirls. Nearly every episode features some gay sex scene that… will feel rather awkward for any straight male like myself. The characters are way too quick to jump into bed with each other and make some hot steamy love. But at the same time, this series can brag about some very good romance, that even teach a lot of straight love series a thing or two.

Because the characters are nearly all adults, which shows an interesting difference with all the teenage romances out there. This series’ outlook on love and relationships turns out to be quite realistic. It’s about understanding your partner, (obviously) how they deal with sex, the sacrifices you make for each other and what it means to be in love with someone. Sure, the characters in this series are gay and all, but this series wouldn’t have been that different if it talked about straight couples. Apart from the fear of breaking the taboo of loving a member of the same sex, perhaps.

Because this series deals with three different couples, it can really take an in-depth look at gay romances, despite how disturbing this may sound, as it can take a look at different scenarios and situations and develop them. What really sold me in this series is the fact that it’s critical of itself. There’s plenty of self-jokes in this series and the pieces of comedy here and there are hilarious, preventing this series from becoming too dramatic for its own sake.

The graphics could have used a bit more work, though. Obviously, the visuals aren’t the most important thing in this series, but the character are very hard to keep apart for the first few episodes, which is the sign that the character-designer needs to feel ashamed of himself. The music does the job, although I do want to give attention to the excellent OP that this series has.

Obviously, if you’re one of those people who hates gays with passion, you should stay far away from this one. However, if you’re looking for some quality romance, Junjo Romantica is a pretty good recommendation. It’s an interesting look at how three different romantic relationships form and develop. The dialogue is witty and to the point. It may be a bit too angsty at times, but in terms of romance, it delivers. There seems to be a second season somewhere in the future, and I’m scared to say that I’ll be looking forward to it…

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

Batman – Gotham Knight Review – 77,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews


For Batman – Gotham Knight, four of my favourite studios Studio 4°C, Production IG, Bee-Train and Madhouse came together and delivered a collection of six short movies about the comic book legend of Batman. Much like The Animatrix, all have different art styles, though unlike the Animatrix, they’re much more tied together. They’re all action somehow, and share the same dark tone.

First up is Studio 4°C, with the movie “Have I got a story for you”, which is probably the most down-to-earth and different of the six stories, and yet it’s typical Studio 4°C, as they show a Batman adventure, through the eyes of four street-kids. It’s a great introduction, that gives a bit of mysterious air to the concept of Batman, especially for those like me, who haven’t seen too much of the guy. The next movie, Crossfire by Production IG continues this trend, by only showing a very few scenes of him, and instead focusing on a couple of cops. It’s perhaps the movie that makes the least amount of sense, and the ending feels like a rather Deus ex Machina. It’s a nice idea, but there are too many plot-holes in this one.

The rest of the movies then shed the air of mystery, and start focusing on Batman himself. Two show a bit of his background, and the other two show how he takes care of a bunch of bad guys. Field Test by Bee-Train tries to explain the things that happen in Crossfire. In this, it fails, but it does build up Batman’s character into more than just a main character, with the characterization that Bee-Train has always been good at. Next up is In Darkness Dwells, which is excellent for those who want action. The villains are a bit dull for those unfamiliar to the Batman universe, but at least they make the action-scenes tense, and a feast for the senses.

Studio 4°C then brings the fifth movie: Working Through Pain, which is probably the reason why this movie earned its PG-13 rating. It’s the most imaginative of the six movies, as they show how Batman deals with the concept of “pain”. The final movie is called Deadshot, which ends with a thriller. It’s the only one of the six where the main villain ends up actually interesting, and the extra bit attention to Batman’s character is also appreciated.

Overall, my personal favourites were Working Through Pain and Field Test, because they show something about the man behind the mask, and turn Gotham Knight into something beyond “just another action movie”, and they make the rest of the stories fun and interesting to watch. The movie isn’t perfect by far, and most of the villains are just one-dimensional, and uninteresting. The stories aren’t the most solid either, and sometimes they rely too much on the comic books, alienating those who haven’t read them. However, as a dark action-movie, it does deliver.

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

Macross Frontier – 13

by psgels, posted in Macross Frontier



Short Synopsis: Some sort of outside jamming crashed Ranka and Alto’s craft in the previous episode. In this episode, Ranka gets taken by the Varja.
Highlights: A couple of very intriguing plot-twists.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
Now this is what I’ve been waiting for! Finally the plot is turning into something interesting. The Macross that was discovered in the previous episode turns out to be some kind of disguised Varja-spaceship, and Sheryl’s manager reveals herself as a party of the bad guys. It also makes me wonder why Ranka’s photos were in that space-ship, and what the relation is between the Varja and these bad guys.

There was also some sweet romance in this episode, and the love-triangle also got some interesting development. This episode seems to suggest that the second half is going to be much more interesting than the first one, which was exactly what I was hoping for when I first decided to keep watching this series.

Some quick first impressions: Someday’s Dreamers: Natsu no Sora, Hidamari Sketch x356 and Antique Bakery

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Someday’s Dreamers: Natsu no Sora

Short Synopsis: Our lead character who lives on the countryside gets accepted on a magic school in Tokyo.
Highlights: Awesome art direction; warm slice of life; is the first season as good as this?
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
Usually, I refer to the titles of anime in their romanized form, but in this case I’m going to make an exception, simply because it’s so damn long. In any case, as a fan of experimental anime, I just have to say that I LOVE the art direction in this series. The creators actually used live-action backgrounds, and pasted drawings on top of it. The effect looks great, and it’s a very effective way to save a bit of budget without coming across cheap. The character also looks excellent. This episode was mostly slice-of-life on the countryside, and the real meat of this series is probably going to take place somewhere entirely different (a magic school in Tokyo, it seems), but I think that we can expect some great things from this series. It’s already been episode one, and it already introduced a charming love-story between two side-characters.

Hidamari Sketch x356

Short Synopsis: Our lead character enlists on an art school and meets her new neighbours.
Highlights: Energy; better than what I saw of the first season.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7/10
I only lasted for 3 episodes on the original Hidamari Sketch. It wasn’t bad; it just… didn’t catch my attention. I checked out this episode to test whether it had improved since the first season, and surprisingly, it has. For this episode at least. It feels more energetic than the first season, and I actually laughed a bit here and there. I do want to note, however, that Shinbou’s style of direction is getting a bit old. I first noticed this with Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei, but his way of adding random nonsensical shots or texts does tend to distract from what’s really important. Especially in a series that’s supposed to be slice-of-life (ie, relaxing), this works rather distracting. It would be interesting if the guy would try to evolve his own style a bit.

Antique Bakery

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets employed by a gay baker.
Highlights: Cheese, but knows fully well that it’s cheese.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
I’ve been purposefully keeping my expectations for this series low, since it unites the godly Nippon Animation with the Noitamina-timeslot, so I just expected this series would turn into a gay bishie-series. The scary thing is that I turned out to be right, and yet laughed my ass off in this episode. It’s been a while since I watched some good cheese, and this one seems a darn fine example of it. The entire mood is so depressing, with organ-music, and yet the characters are discussing cakes. The only gay character in this series is also portrayed in a pretty realistic way for anime, and his banter with the straight characters was just priceless. Now let’s hope that the creators can keep this interesting for 11 more episodes.

Air Review – 90/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews


All right, one more moe-series before I’m going to dive into some of the more obscure stuff again. When Air starts, it’s typical Kyoani: there’s the sarcastic male lead without any responsibilities, there’s the shy girl without any friends, the sick girl, the smart girl, the spunky parent, lots of physical comedy is used during the lighter conversations, the females have overly large eyes, strange magical things happen, etc, etc. But damn; it’s such a sweet story.

Like Clannad, Air starts out predictably: there are three main girls, and the lead guy hops from one girl to the other and watches her story unfold, only to become something completely different with the second half. Clannad decided to drop the supernatural stuff and focus on its characters and slice of life instead, and as it turns out, Air did the complete opposite: the side-characters get dropped completely, and instead it develops into tear-jerking mystery-series. There’s one particular plot-twist that really sets this series apart from every other dating-sim adaptation, though. It involves the lead guy, but I’ll refrain from mentioning it for the sake of spoilers.

Let me just say that Air is the perfect choice if you’re looking for a sappy drama as well. I personally couldn’t stop crying in the final two episodes, even though a similar set-up in Kanon left me completely bored. Simply said: Air has been the best eroge adaptation and Kyoani-series I’ve seen, and successfully removed some of the bias I had towards both the genre and the animation studio.

Peculiar in this series is the magic system. Like Clannad, it’s never really explained properly. Things just happen and get blamed on the magic that happens to be there, and the creators just leave it to the imagination of the viewer to try and make sense of it. Somehow, it works: the things that aren’t explained aren’t of the kind that really needs to be explained, but if you like your anime to be complete, then you will end up disappointed.

Overall, I think that Air is a series that you’ll either love or hate. The final episode is also a recap, which in a way is the best place for such a thing: you can just skip it, without needing to worry about that possible two minutes at the end of it that might or might not contain new important footage, since the story already finished anyway. My only real problem lies within the first episode, I guess. The male lead sure happens to walk into and befriend the right people, but there have been so many series that made the same mistake that I’m not going to hold this against this series.

I think that my biggest beef with Kyoto Animation was that when I was seriously trying to give them a chance, despite their huge hype, it rewarded my patience with Kanon’s Makoto-arc and Lucky Star, which both bored me to tears. As it turns out, those were just the worst works of the studio (in my opinion, at least), just how every animation company has its good and bad series.

Overall, Air is more than just a story and characters. It’s got something surreal added to it that makes it special, along with a terrific cast of characters for a 12-episode series. It’s got the best male lead of any harem I’ve seen thus far, and despite the number of plot-holes, I loved watching it. It’s series like this one that show the power that 12-episoded series can have, and thinks beyond the box. The first half keeps the viewer nicely busy with random stories, only for the second half of the series to develop into something really special.

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

Some quick first impressions: Ultraviolet: Code 044, Slayers Revolution and Sekirei

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions, Ultraviolet: Code 044

Ultraviolet: Code 044

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a famed and feared assassin, probably the best of her kind. In the futuristic world this series is set in, she spends the first episode on two different missions.
Highlights: Excellent action; a feast for the senses; isn’t just dumb action; TOO MUCH FANSERVICE.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
Whoa, in terms of first episodes, this one surely caught my attention. This is going to be an action-series, and this episode absolutely delivered in that department. The creators definitely wanted to start off this series with a bang, and the result is a very fast-paced introduction. The graphics were fantastic, and the music was awesome as well. The next question is obviously: will the creators be able to keep up this level. Even with 12 episodes, action series have been rather notorious of deteriorating after their first episodes. Still, this episode showed some good signs: there wasn’t only a lot of action, but also a lot of talking. The characters here aren’t just brainless, but they’re also critical of both themselves and their colleagues. Let’s hope that this proves to be good for the rest of this series. But really, there was too much fanservice. The creators took every chance to show as much skin as possible…

Slayers: Revolution

Short Synopsis: Our lead character apparently is hunted by many people, who in one episode already manage to destroy three ships and one city.
Highlights: Starts dull, gets more interesting as the episode goes on; the pirates suck, though
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7/10
Well, so this was the first thing I saw of Slayers. There were things to like, and things to dislike as well. The main cast needed a bit of time to warm up, but they ended up being an energetic and spunky bunch of people. I was rolling my eyes whenever the pirates were on the screen, though. I don’t hope that every Slayers-minor-villain is as dull as these guys, because they’re all a bunch of stereotypes and they’re just not funny. Same with the giant fish-head (why did it need to hold on to a log at the end of the episode anyway?) Overall, for a comedy it was a decent enough first episode, but I’m not sold on Slayers yet. The problem with comedies also tends to be that you can’t predict at all whether they’ll lose inspiration or not, just by their first episode.

Sekirei

Short Synopsis: A girl with no sense of shame and a typical loser team up in a battle royale.
Highlights: Boobs?
Overall Enjoyment Value: 5/10
I’ve been told that Sekirei is more than just fanservice, so for that sake I might as well try to judge this series, without paying attention to the excessive boob-shots in this episode. What we have here is that a bunch of super-powered girls rescue a young boy from some kind of facility. Ten years later, one of these girls is still in love with this guy and wants him to be her partner for an upcoming battle royale. The thing is that I can live with the battle royale, and the rather questionable enlisting procedure of kissing each other. My problem, however, is this: how come this girl, after ten years, is still in love with that main character. I find it rather hard to believe that in ten years, not one single male has tried to make moves on her, or tried dating her. That’s basically my problem with most series like this one: they seem to think that the main character is the only one allowed to date girls, which results in a huge number of plot-holes. Since this season is small, I have enough time due to holidays and there are only going to be 12 episodes, I might as well give an attempt to watch this one, but I really wonder whether it can deliver in that time…

sola Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews


Whoa, I might as well start this review in the same way as I did with my Rocket Girls Review: I really need to be more careful on choosing which series I want to drop. When sola originally aired, I basically dumped the series after episode one, without giving much thought to it. If I recall correctly, I dropped it because the characters looked too moe. Little did I know that I was ignoring a great mystery-series.

Sola indeed starts off slow, but it’s a series that carefully builds up its storyline until its own climax. Every episode, a little bit of what’s going on is revealed to the viewers, while the rest of the airtime is filled with how the different characters live their daily lives, and are affected by this storyline. There is a lot of symbolism at the sky, and even though the graphics may not look like anything special, the soundtrack has a sort-of soothing feeling.

The end result is excellent. In the final third of this series, the whole story comes together like a charm, with a number of excellent plot-twists and a surprisingly great ending for such a series. The characters have done a pretty good job of bringing this series alive, and it’s partly thanks to them that the finale turned out so well.

There are a few problems in this series, though. When you start looking at the details, a number of small plot-holes appear that could easily have been answered. Things like, where did Mr. Goatee get such a fancy sword? How did he learn about Matsuri, and other things I can’t reveal due to spoilers. This series, however, is at its worst when it tries to be funny, because quite frankly, nine out of ten cases, it isn’t. This becomes especially apparent in one of the DVD-specials, which degenerates into a boring pool episode.

Overall, Sola is another reason why Spring 2007 was an awesome season for me. From the outside, it looked like your regular dull harem series, so I never suspected there to be anything deeper beneath it. This is just one of these reasons why I need to give everything a chance, no matter how dull the premise looks. The mystery in sola was excellent, and despite a few flaws here and there, I’m happy to have watched this series.

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

Himitsu ~The Revelation~ – 13

by psgels, posted in Himitsu ~The Revelation~


Short Synopsis: The second episode of Maki’s background. We get more insight into why Suzuki went crazy.
Highlights: I’ve spent a few minutes, figuring what to write here without spoiling everything… but failed to come up with anything sensible…
Overall Enjoyment Value: 9/10

Holy crap… it’s episodes like these where Himitsu’s strength really shines. While watching an episode, it may seem like an average, though rather paranoid episode, but then the episode ends and everything comes together, and everything suddenly becomes 10 times more awesome. I still have no idea how the bloody hell the creators manage to pull this off, but this episode remains absolutely amazing.

The big revelation in this episode (which came quite fast, actually) was the fact that Maki had met this crazy mass murderer before he died. The guy tried to shoplift, but was caught easily by the shop owner. The guy looked miserable, so Maki decided to let the guy go with a warning. He even gave him some groceries, because he felt pity for the guy. After that, the guy started brutally murdering 28 people and caused Maki to kill Suzuki, which is the big reason why Maki is still being haunted by this event: there’s no way not to feel responsible for it. Suzuki also wanted to protect Maki from the truth, because as it turns out, the fact that Maki spared the guy had a major influence on the killer, up to the point where he fell in love with him.

However, after he just watched 28 bodies being mutilated beyond belief, there’s no wonder that his mind became unclear as hell. All he could think off was to not let Maki see what he just saw, though he failed to shoot his own brains. This is why his mind got preserved, and in this episode, Aoki finally got the courage to watch it.

On a side-note, I can’t wait for the eighth episode to get subbed and see the reaction of those who watched it.