Macross Frontier – 11

by psgels, posted in Macross Frontier


Nothing exciting happened in this episode, but it’s a vital one for the love-triangle between Alto, Sheryl and Ranka. With this, I don’t think there’s much chance of Ranka and Alto getting back together, now that the guy just stood up on her and went to fool around with Sheryl. Especially since the creators have been “subtly” hinting that Sterne will get involved with her somehow. I’ll eat my hat if that fluffy animal won’t make the two of them hook up in one way or another.

The rest of the episode was filled with the usual stuff, including lots and lots of fanservice (I knew that it was only a matter of time before the creators decided to stuff Sheryl into a school swimsuit…). Still, I’m surprised at how sneaky Sheryl turned out to be. At first I thought that she’d just let Ranka do with Alto as she pleased, but this episode made very clear that she’s trying to keep Alto away from Ranka. That’s what you get when you start dating a pop idol who’s used to get what she wants. ^^;

I also liked the small bit of politics that was introduced in this episode, with the 33rd fleet and all. It’s good to know a bit more about the Macross universe, especially since I haven’t seen the other series yet. At the same time, Alto also got some more background. So while it was a bit of a boring episode, it certainly wasn’t a waste.

xxxHolic – 36

by psgels, posted in xxxHolic


Now this was an awesome episode! I’m glad to see that the creators were able to play with the manga chapters in such a way to save the best story for last. In fact, I wouldn’t mind if the Himawari-arc would close off the xxxHolic anime, because in this way, the series would leave you in the best way possible, instead of how the first season ended with a random side-story. It’s just like Mushishi: that one stayed episodic until the end, but it did save one of its best stories for last, with great effects.

I really expected this final arc to be even darker than the spider-arc, and what I got was an incredibly heart-warming episode. The bond between Watanuki, Himawari and Doumeki is really something special, and its wonderful to see everything the past thirty-five episodes have been building up for come together.

At this point, I really can say for sure that without taking the manga into account, xxxHolic has been Clamp’s best work for me. Clamp is far from perfect, Tsubasa Chronicle seems to be getting more ridiculous with every plot-twist, Chobits had a lot of boring moments and the character designs of Code Geass are more aimed to attract fangirls and fanboys than some creative masterpieces, but in a series like this one and Cardcaptor Sakura, you can see that they’ve shown their best sides.

Kurenai Review – 86/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Kurenai


Kurenai is quite possibly the most solid of the series that came out during the past spring season. It’s a well-written series. If you liked True Tears and want to see how it would have been with a bit less romance and a bit more action, then it’s likely that you’ll like Kurenai. This series is not going to hit any heights, but it’s perfect for a quick watch.

Aside from the solid writing, Kurenai has another thing it can boast about: its voice-acting. It joins Mahou Shoujotai and Red Garden in the very short list of series that have their voices recorded before the animation-process. The result is that the voice-actors are less restrained, and have more freedom in portraying their characters, which leads to a number of excellent dialogues, with the highlight being episode six.

Unfortunately, because the writing is so solid, the inconsistencies tend to stick out like a sore thumb. There are two or three points in this series that make you wonder what the creators have been smoking, because they don’t make any sense at all in the light of the involved characters, especially around the second half of this series.

With Brains Base, you can of course expect gorgeously animated fight-scenes, and indeed, whenever characters start fighting, the animation shines. Overall, Kurenai is probably too short for the story to make any real impact, but it’s got a likable cast of characters, great dialogue, excellent animation and terrific voice-acting.

Kurenai – 12

by psgels, posted in Kurenai


Ah, glad to see a solid ending for this series. It’s not anything special, but it closed off this series very solidly, without leaving any threads open and with a satisfying conclusion that goes beyond the “save the girl and return home”. The final fight was also really nicely animated, the car-chase was pretty nice. About the only thing that didn’t feel right was Yayoi recovering so easily, and beating Lin so easily when she should have been heavily bruised, even if she did somehow regain her consciousness in time.

Overall, I can’t really say that this has been the best work for either the director and Brains Base: both Red Garden and Baccano were better than this series, but still it’s been an interesting ride, and like True Tears a very solidly written series, apart from a few inconsistencies here and there. Overall, it was a good series for a quick watch that doesn’t hit heights or lows.

Crystal Blaze – 11

by psgels, posted in Crystal Blaze


Talk about an excellent first half of a finale! 12-episode series shouldn’t have “calm before the storm”-episodes. It wastes a precious episode that could have been used so much better, and all these episodes to fill time until the next episode, when the big climax is going to happen. Granted, this way you end up with a great climax, but at the same time there’s a dull build-up that breaks flow a bit.

This is why I really like Crystal Blaze’s style of storytelling: first it spends five minutes as an aftermath of the previous episode, sets a few pieces of the puzzle right and prepares a bit, and very soon it heads into a new direction with an action-packed climax. This keeps the series exciting and the flow of storytelling remains roughly consistent. Perhaps I’ve become bored by series who abuse “calm before the storms” and aftermaths too much, who know.

So basically what happens in this episode: Kitoh has to leave his base (obviously because it’s been discovered), so he kills off his entire staff apart from his research subjects, Kirie and Doc. Doc indeed was just faking to have switched sides in order to get a close look at Kitoh’s research, and because of his obsession to finally find a scientist who is interested in his work, Kitoh never doubts this. BW-alpha also turns out to be able to transform into a huge monster, but as expected she’s still imperfect and rather weak to the blood of a humanoid weapon. The episode ends as Sara is about to turn into crystal and Shu is about to shoot her, which will make her blood come into contact with BW-alpha and kill it off.

What surprises me is that in this series, no attempts have been made to make the viewer care about BW-alpha. Even though she’s a little girl, she’s portrayed at nothing but a monster. Usually in anime that don’t focus on children, young girls like that have the “she’s little! care for her!”-mentality (see the Kohane-arc in xxxHolic). Quite refreshing that this is indeed a story about “adults”.

I’m really interested to see where this series will end. There’s one episode left, and we know that Sara is going to die, though considering the rest of this series, it seems unlikely that the creators don’t have a few juicy twists left in store. I must say that Crystal Blaze has been the big surprise this season, along with Kaiba. I admit that I was really looking forward to it when I saw the promo-image, though when I looked at the character-designs, this enthusiasm faded a bit. “Everything looks generic, so it’s probably going to be generic”. Hah, the creators sure managed to deliver an awesome series with these generic ingredients.

Himitsu ~The Revelation~ – 11

by psgels, posted in Himitsu ~The Revelation~


With an episode title of “Don’t reach for that neck”, I obviously became intrigued as to what this episode could have in store for us. Now that I finished this episode, I understand. This episode is about the thriller-part of Himitsu: a murder has occurred in a small mountain village, Aoki needs to get the victim’s body to headquarters, but the major problem is that there’s a huge typhoon going on. The road is blocked by a landslide, the car he’s in is stuck, and Maki can only pick him up at an open spot, about a mile away. So indeed, he ends up cutting off the head of the victim’s body so that he’s able to carry it to safety in time. *ehrem*

As for the thriller-part: the guy who was killed made an enemy out of the entire village with his arrogant behaviour and how he mistreated a certain woman. There were lots of people who could have killed him: her mother, her brother, a local guy who looked up to her. In the end, many potential victims end up chasing Aoki to make sure that he doesn’t deliver the head. So in the end the real culprit turns out to be the policeman who kept helping Aoki, and the others just acted because of their bonds of living in the same village, not wanting a comrade to end up in prison. I admit: the creators had me really fooled, and I never took that for a possibility.

This episode was really sneaky: it kept and kept throwing all sorts of red herrings over the place in order to mask the identity of the real murderer. Normally it would have been easy to spot the real murderer through this: the one who gets the least amount of attention is the culprit. The interesting twist however, is that the viewer is completely tricked to think that this policeman is just helping out and doing his job. This probably is because the guy had no intention of going against Aoki. Ah, I love how this series likes to play around with irony.

Porfy no Nagai Tabi – 24

by psgels, posted in Porfy no Nagai Tabi


It’s a bit of a shame that Porfy stays so long at the same places. I was hoping that he’d continue to travel as soon as the issue between Iralia and Rebecca was solved, but instead it seems that the creators have bigger plans for this arc. Considering the nature of this series, I have absolutely no idea what to expect. Especially considering Les Miserables’ strange behaviour at this point: episode 26 was the only filler in the entire series, and after fooling me like that the tension suddenly sky-rocketed in the episodes afterwards. Will this be the same for Porfy no Nagai Tabi, or will this arc be more heart-warming in nature?

Porfy’s attempts to convince Iralia to go and see Rebecca fail, and she runs away. Maximilian and Porfy then try to enter Rebecca’s house, but she refuses to respond. The next afternoon, Iralia goes shopping again, and takes Porfy along with her. They stop by a local cafe to buy a drink, and Iralia buys some chocolate cake for Porfy as thanks of all the hard work he’s done.

Iralia then apologizes for the thing she did, and how it’s not so easy to just see Rebecca. Porfy can’t understand why people would try to be so difficult on this matter, and he then offers to make Rebecca want to meet her. Obviously, directly asking her is pointless, so he takes away her small glass statue, with the note that if she wants to have it back, that she should come to the cafe.

Unfortunately, Porfy didn’t realize that there were more cafe’s in the same town, so he and Iralia end up waiting at the wrong cafe. Hoping that they aren’t too late, they rush to the right one (which was supposed to be Rebecca’s favourite cafe). Iralia and Rebecca make settle their differences surprisingly fast, and they’re on good terms again once Maximilian arrives to check up on them.

Another surprise guest then shows up: Daisy. Apparently, she too went shopping with her father. Her father then suggests putting up a poster about Mina in the local city hall. A lot of people get there, and a friend of Daisy’s father once found his cat back through this method. They go back to Maximilian’s house to gather some paper and make said poster (including a very bad drawing of Mina by Porfy). Porfy and Maximilian then go to the city hall to put up this poster.

A problem arises, though, when Porfy needs to go to the toilet and he ends up fighting with the local mayor over the only available urinal. The episode ends as said mayor looks at the poster, with a rather angry face.

The most notable thing about this episode is the ease at which Iralia and Rebecca just made up like that. Usually, I would be face-palming at the ease at which such grudges are settled, and it’s true that lazy anime often use this technique in order to get “it over with”. But here it got me thinking, and it does make sense in a way. The biggest reason why Iralia and Rebecca refused to talk to each other was not their love dispute between Maximilian, but instead it was the fact that they refused to talk to each other. Because of this, fear took over and they started forming melodramatic theories of why the other wouldn’t want to see her, and through the years, this just escalated without the two of them ever getting a chance to make up.

RD Sennou Chousashitsu – 11

by psgels, posted in RD Sennou Chousashitsu


An episode about Kushima. Again, this episode is about the things people leave behind in their past, and at the same time it’s a great chance to get some more insight into his character. As it turns out, he used to be an excellent violinist when he was young, though he quit at a certain time.

I first thought that he quit due to the wound he received when he tried to stop Haru from plunging into the glowing red sea, but instead his decision to quit was a bit more complex. My lack of Japanese didn’t understand his exact reason, even with a dictionary, but it’s basically that he saw no reason to continue to improve his skills anymore. He already was at the top, and there was no practical use for his talents anymore. He lost his passion, so he quit.

Since this is probably the only anime apart from Milennium Actress with characters that age for more than fifty years and explores more than just “suffering”, it can really show us some interesting stuff. I have no idea when exactly Kushima quit playing the violin, but it’s likely to be around forty years ago. Not only is he still carrying around the things he did, but the people around him who admired his work also still carry those memories. In this episode, we meet a violinist who became great due to his urges to be accepted by the far superior Kushima, who already was very businesslike back then. Am I also right that he once was a girl, and then changed genders?

I’m looking forward to the next episode, as it seems to be going back to the supernatural roots of this series. That girl has me intrigued for some reason.

Soul Eater – 11

by psgels, posted in Soul Eater


In terms of the serious side of Soul Eater, this was surprisingly the best episode yet. It’s indeed really good to see Tsubaki finally do something on her own, without watching from the side-lines. The fights themselves in this series may be nothing special, but the characters really succeed in bringing them alive.

Black Star getting repeatedly bashed on the head by these villagers may have been a bit too much, but it does show that the guy is an excellent spectator. Guys like him often are great when they just watch a fight and don’t interfere with it. I guess that it’s fresh from the usual where the energetic ones are fighting and the quiet ones do nothing.

Overman King Gainer Review – 83/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews


I first learned about Overman King Gainer through its OP that you’ll either absolutely love or absolutely hate. In my case, it was the former, so I just had to watch the series, hoping that it would be more than just a cheesy mecha-show. As it turns out, twenty-five years after creating Gundam, Tomino still knows how to make a good anime.

As it turns out, he left the realism as seen in Mobile Suit Gundam for what it is (after all, after creating 200 episodes and various movies of Gundam, how much more can you play with realism?) and instead he decided to focus on creativity. The result is a series that might be nothing special when concentrating on the big picture, but is filled with lots and lots of details that sparkle with creativity. The setting in the middle of Siberia, the Exodus where entire cities travel for hundreds of miles, looking to “break free”, the mobile suits designs, you can see that a lot of time has been spent to make the setting as original as possible, and it really works.

Tomino also didn’t forget how to pull off good action. In this series, there are no episodes dedicated to intermezzos or aftermaths. Every single episode has something fun in store for its viewer, leaving hardly any chance to get bored. So much is happening on-screen. This is really an anime that’s meant as entertainment, and I call this mission accomplished.

Interestingly, Overman King Gainer has the same weakness as Mobile Suit Gundam: both have a main character that becomes the pilot of the main mecha through very questionable reasons. This one needs a bit of minutes to get the hang of it, after which he can pilot the thing as a master, only because he happens to be good at video games. This will indeed give you improved reflexes, but there’s also the matter of getting accustomed to the new controls, and learning to endure the physical strain on your body while fighting.

The plot overall isn’t the most solid ones around by far. During some fights, the writers pull random powers out of thin air, just to keep the story flowing smoothly, and there are quite a few sloppy explanations that rely too much on the viewer’s imagination. The ending also goes on for too long. I really feel that this would have been perfect for 22 or 23 episodes, simply because the climax takes bloody ages, becoming a bit too serious for its own good. Thankfully, this series manages to finish with the bang that it was supposed to deliver, but the road to this descends to a generic “stop the world from getting destroyed”-plot that moves too far away from what made the rest of the series so enjoyable.

It’s interesting to see the evolution of such a prominent director. Overman King Gainer isn’t better than Gundam, but instead it’s fresh and fun. If you liked series as Gurren Lagann or Code Geass, you’ll probably like this one as well, and personally I enjoyed this one the most: it’s got the fun and down-to-earth factor that Code Geass seems to be lacking, and the engaging storyline that I was missing in Gurren Lagann. It’s far from perfect, but very enjoyable nonetheless. I wonder what Tomino’s up to right now. He hasn’t released anything since the Wings of Rean, has he?