Nijuu Mensou no Musume – 09

by psgels, posted in Nijuu Mensou no Musume


Aah! And things went so well for this series! What the heck were the creators thinking at that fight-scene?! Suspense of disbelief is very important for this series, because it’s dealing with the topic of a child prodigy, which is very easy to overglorify in anime. In this episode, Chiko and her new friend have to fight against two grunts that are after Nijuu Mensou’s treasure map for God knows what reason. The way the first one goes down is already hard to believe: one judo-throw by someone who has just been practicing Judo for a year (which reminds me, has Chiko been continuing her judo-training ever since she got back?) will not knock out someone for hours. It’ll startle them a bit at most, especially considering how he was a full grown guy.

Still, that could have all been ignored if not for the blatantly insulting way that the second one went down: he takes Chiko’s friend hostage, so Chiko uses a hand mirror to blind his eyes. If that wasn’t enough, Chiko suddenly is also able to deal out powerful kicks from nowhere. Still, that also would have been sort-of acceptable, if the guy wasn’t stopped in his tracks by some toys that Chiko’s friend threw at him. He even got knocked unconscious because he simply slipped. No amount of explanation is going to set that one right…

I’m going to see this one as a bad day for the creators. Possibly a bad writer was in charge of this one and not the amazing previous three episodes. Thankfully, the parts about Ken made this episode at least a bit worthwhile: we actually see confirmation that Nijuu Mensou is still alive (dressed up as a police-guy), and that he never attempted to contact Chiko. It also took me quite a while to find out that half a year has already passed. I originally thought that Chiko would grew up to like fifteen years old, but it turns out that the major part of her story will take place at the age of only thirteen. I hope that her hormones won’t get in the way of good storytelling.

Kaiba – 08

by psgels, posted in Kaiba


It’s been a long wait, but finally my beloved Kaiba is back. And what an episode does it return with! For once, Kaiba doesn’t appear in it at all, and instead it’s all about Popo, and how the bastards killed off his own mother to keep up his appearances. As it turns out, she once changed his body, which is against the rules of the organization Popo works for. That does make me wonder why Neiro was just allowed to change into Ger and all…

In any case, we indeed learn that there is another Warp besides Kaiba. This guy probably was the one who shot Neiro. If I understood things correctly, then Neiro’s body was shot, and she ended up in Hyohyo. It seems that her memory got split in two: one part works for Popo, and the other one went along with Kaiba.

That still leaves the question to: which Warp is the real one? What we know is that the body that Kaiba was in in episode one was the genuine indestructible body of Warp. I believe that the Warp we see in this episode is the real Warp who killed off those hundreds of people. Then at one point, he ran into this “Kaiba”, which stole his body. Kaiba then met Neiro and the two fell in love. Warp then tracked down Kaiba and destroyed Neiro’s body, though what I suspect is Popo’s meddling, Kaiba escaped him, somehow causing Kaiba to lose his body and get that hole through his body, after which episode 1 started.

What interests me the most is the real link between the plant Kaiba and the human Kaiba. We know that that plant has a lot of an appetite and that it eats memory, but what I want to know is how such a plant ended up being turned into actual memory. What I also want to know: who are on Kaiba’s side in this story, and most importantly: why? Why would the ostrich be working for such a plant? What’s the connection to the memory-guy to all of this?

I must say, that this series knows EXACTLY what makes a good mystery-series. I totally forgot about this, since 2007 was a bad year for mystery-series, but a good mystery-series doesn’t just ask questions, but it forces its viewer to form his own theories about what happened. This is what sets the genre apart from series that have to rely on some obscure side-story that you can only understand if it’s spelled out in front of you.

And indeed, even though I originally thought that Crystal Blaze would be a mystery-series, its mystery turned out to be just a simple back-story and the story focused on storytelling and characters instead. Instead, Shion no Ou’s mystery-plot was simple, yet it knew how to make its viewer guessing about the identity of the murderer, and most viewers already knew exactly what happened when facts were finally revealed. Nijuu Mensou no Musume is about to do the same: the simple question is: what happened to Nijuu Mensou, and there are several theories possible, and enough clues to keep you guessing.

Another great approach to mystery is the one used in Himitsu: it offers you the pieces of the puzzle for each episode, and they only really fall into place when you connect these pieces. Ergo Proxy and Boogiepop Phantom are yet another story: they just provide a few clues here and there and apart from that they make no attempt to help the viewer figure out what happened.

I now see that the series that just feature a huge setting, but withold some of this information at the start aren’t necessarily good mystery-series, and rather use the appeal of the unknown to create tension. I personally loved Dennou Coil, but it was excellent because of its plot, characters and the amount of imagination that was put into the setting. Not because of its mystery, and I’m surprised it took me so long to realize this.

At the moment, I’m wondering whether Real Drive will be able to pull off good mystery. Right now, it relies a lot on the appeal of the unknown, and it’s definitely got my attention about its concept, but interestingly enough, it hasn’t started asking focused questions yet. When this’ll happen, I wonder whether it’ll allow the viewer to speculate about the setting, or whether it’ll just carry the viewer along with its revelations.

Amatsuki – 11

by psgels, posted in Amatsuki


For the past few years, I’ve been using AniDB to keep track of the anime I’ve watched. It’s got a clean look with a lot of options for statistics, and I especially like how you can assign priorities to the entries in your wishlist, which helps to give a clear overview over my huge to-watch list. Unfortunately, there are enough reasons to dislike AniDB, and recently another one of them got introduced: the tag-system.

The tag-system basically enables visitors to add their own tags to different anime. I’m not complaining about the ones as “action”, “lost technology” or “randomness” (although I do wonder what makes these so different from AniDB’s category-system). My problem is mainly with the more subjective categories as “Boring”, “Utter Crap” and “Emo Fag”.

So yes, I’m indeed mentioning this in this particular post because Amatsuki has been labelled as “Utter Crap” by god knows who. Other entries I majorly disagree with are Wellber no Monogatari, Mai Hime and Crystal Blaze (under that same tag), and Ergo Proxy, Flag, Higurashi, Jigoku Shoujo, Voices of a Distant Star, Seirei no Moribito, Evangelion, Trinity Blood and Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, which have been labelled as “Boring”. I also wonder what the category “Emo Fag” really contributes…

My problem with these categories, other than that some of my own favourites are amongst them, is that they do absolutely the opposite of promoting anime. If someone was looking for a show to watch, stumbled upon Crystal blaze, only to find it amongst the utter-crap tag, there’d obviously be a small percentage of him, actually checking it out. I’m perfectly fine if you want to say bad things about a series; heck, that’s what stating your opinion is for, but the tag-system is such a ridiculous 4chan-way to do it. It never allows you to state the reasons for having that opinion. Besides, AniDB also has comments, tags and reviews for stating opinions. Heck, I’m still not sure about the difference between all these.

I’m really feeling that AniDB is about to drown into its own features. What’s the purpose of the mylist and why isn’t it integrated with the vote-system? And there are more of these details that gradually make you unable to see the forest because of all the trees that are in the way. So yeah, if any of you knows a better site to keep track of the anime you watch (besides the obvious myanimelist.net), would you care to share it?

Okay, I’ve gone off-topic for a bit too long now… Back to this week’s episode of Amatsuki. This finally sheds a bit of light on Heihachi’s fate. AS it turns out, Tsuyukusa never abandoned him, but instead he saved the guy from being killed by the fox demon. In exchange, he became some sort of servant (?) to the fox-demon. The thing that Bonten did to him in the previous episode was just to read his mind to find out what happened.

I also now finally know the mission that Toki and Kuchiha were going to do: they were going to check up on the guy who cut down the tree that housed the spirit that the fox demon grew up with. It now all makes sense: she was trying to get it back, and because of that rumours of Ayakashi probably started floating around. Now all that’s left is to figure out where the heck Tsuruune and Benitobi have gone to.

And oh my god, Toki and Kuchiha are really cute together as a couple. I’m surprised to see that even the romance in this series went well: it’s there, but it knows exactly when to appear and disappear.

In any case, yet another great episode. Let’s hope that it won’t be over in just two episodes.

Kurenai – 11

by psgels, posted in Kurenai


Just like xxxHolic, after two weaker episodes, Kurenai is totally back on track. The finale might be a bit shorter than I expected (only two episodes), but this episode was an excellent conclusion, and it made up for a lot of time that got wasted on the previous episode.

In this episode, Shinkurou, Yayoi and Benika try to break into the Kuhoin main house, and the result is an utter failure. Yayoi gets beaten up to the brink of death, one of the servants (the one who helped Murasaki escape) gets brutally killed off by Lin, Murasaki is so afraid of her brother that she refuses to come with Shinkurou, so Shinkurou and Benika end up retreating. The episode ends with Shinkurou going back, while Benika was retrieving Yayoi’s body. A perfectly fine stage has been set for a solid ending.

Because things can’t go many ways from now (I mean, what else could happen but Lin getting defeated, Ryuuji getting humiliated and Shinkurou and Murasaki getting back together?), so it’s all going to depend on the scriptwriters for the final episodes. They’ve done some great work up till now, but writing a good ending still is something different, and I hope that they’ll be able to pull it off.

xxxHolic – 35

by psgels, posted in xxxHolic


Ah, thankfully this episode managed to restore my faith in this series. The Kohane-arc just disappointed, but this episode was a terrific foreshadowing of the final two episodes of xxxHolic Kei.

The creators really know the key of good horror: build-up. During this build-up, the attention of the viewer is grabbed as much as possible, after which the major revelations and plot twists get unleashed. xxxHolic has also had the advantage of having spent many episodes already on fleshing out and developing its different characters, and the result worked perfectly.

The end of this episode also goes back to the major climax of the first season, where Watanuki met the woman. The guy is just so damn stubborn around the ones he loves, that he forgets all about himself.

I’m wondering: are there enough stories without Tsubasa Chronicle left in the manga for a third season, or does the manga basically become the back-up manga for TRS after this arc?

Himitsu ~The Revelation~ – 10

by psgels, posted in Himitsu ~The Revelation~


Another excellent episode from Himitsu. This time, it’s about mass murderers who have been arrested and have gone crazy ever since. In this episode, one of these guys gets murdered during a power outage. Because the security-cameras weren’t working at the facility where he was kept, there was no evidence except for his own brain.

As it turns out, it was a suicide. Being confined has a strange effect on mass murderers, and most of them will end up haunted by the people they killed. This particular guy has found emotional support in a white mouse, who he keeps talking to. When the power went out, his eyes blackened out, and he thought that the mouse was gone and on a whim he killed himself.

This was also a means to test out the capabilities of the MRI-team by a rather ambitious and annoying guy who was in charge of the facility, and as it turns out, the entire suicide murder was set up for this reason. This again brings up the question: these people are utterly useless to society, so do we have the right to just kill them off? I also couldn’t help but think “why don’t they kill the mouse and look at its brains”? This episode really showed how convenient it can be for someone to die, even though it’s morally unacceptable. It’s amazing how critical this series is of modern-day society.

Crystal Blaze – 10

by psgels, posted in Crystal Blaze


Now that’s an aftermath! I’ve lately noticed that a lot of aftermaths in anime after a big climax are relatively boring, where characters do nothing but angst and try to let the events of said climax sink in. It may be because I’ve seen things like these for too many times, but they’re often disappointing and break a bit of flow.

Crystal Blaze does things right, though. It may be an aftermath, but it wastes no time to not only let the characters catch a breath, but it also wraps up the involved parties and sets up the interesting stage for the next episodes. It was really fun to see all the different parties do their own thing throughout the episode, but that’s just a personal preference of mine.

And of course it was obvious that Manami and Ayaka would screw up and get captured. She still has her attitude of wanting to do something important, and in her worries for the wounded Akira, she forgot to pay attention to hide herself. There was nobody there to stop them, so it’s in any case much better than Shinkurou returning home in Kurenai. What surprised me was how sensei swapped sides so easily. Could this be a trick to fool the enemy, or is he genuinely interested in Kitoh’s research?

I’m curious, though. There are two episodes left, and with a plot this fast, there’s got to be more than “Ayaka and Manami are saved, Kitoh is dead”, especially with the pacing of this series. It would be a shame for the pacing to die down at this point.

Hataraki Man Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews


Hataraki Man joins Omoide Poro Poro on the very short list of anime with a female main character who’s older than 25. It’s another series to have aired in the famed Noitamina-timeslot. It’s an anime about a workaholic. I originally dropped this series because I didn’t think that such a concept wouldn’t be worth exploring. So I was wrong.

Hataraki Man is a series that’s always critical of itself and its characters. Throughout only eleven episodes, it shows how the female lead (Hiroko) and her colleagues deal with their jobs, how they manage their stress, why they work the way they do and what goes on inside their minds. Every episode focuses at a different side-character, along with Hiroko. What we have here is a well-written series with characters you can connect to. Some episodes also refer to events that happened in past episodes, creating a series that feels whole, instead of a bunch of random episodes.

It’s almost a shame when the final three episode take the focus more away from the side characters, onto Hiroko. Don’t get me wrong: it’s here where the series manages to deliver some powerful climaxes, but somehow it feels a bit out of place in this series. Because of the extra attention to Hiroko, several side-characters end up left behind without development, even though they had enough potential to be put under the magnifying glass. The final three episodes also try to stuff a bit too much bad luck for Hiroko in too little time, and the result feels sort-of soap-opera like.

Nevertheless, we’ve got ourselves a very fine example of Noitamina here. It’s got energy, a good rocky soundtrack, OP and ED, the setting is very original for an anime, and I feel like anyone who’s dealing with stress. Although the animators do need to pay attention to their romanji a bit. ^^;

RD Sennou Chousashitsu – 10

by psgels, posted in RD Sennou Chousashitsu

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Yet again I notice that strange effect with this series, where every episode just feels like it’s just ten minutes long instead of the actual twenty. This episode goes back to the diving, as a computer with a highly advanced AI named Eliza is discovered on the bottom of the sea-floor, and it kidnaps Haru.

I’m not sure how to explain it, but this episode combined the first few episodes of this series, where Haru would dive and Minamo would guide him, with the mystery-roots of the following episodes, which were more focused at exploring one particular issue in the metal. Minamo this time ends up diving in the metal inside a special suit, to go after Haru, although you can see the disadvantages of not being “cyber-ified”, because her body is struggling heavily to get through it. This episode was both meant to strengthen the bond between Minamo and Haru and to show a bit more about the capabilities of AI.

The question also remains: why was Haru the only one whose consciousness was taken away, even though Eliza seemed to talk with many different people? This too can be related to the accident Haru had in the past. I’m looking forward to the next episode, because according to the preview, it’ll deal with Matsuda. I’ve been dying to see some background on the guy.

Soul Eater – 10

by psgels, posted in Soul Eater

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First, I’d like to thank everyone for voting for Star Crossed at the Anime Blog Awards. While it was indeed obvious that Random Curiosity would dominate the category for “Best Episodic Blog”, I’m glad to see that I managed to walk away with the bronze award.

Anyway, about Soul Eater: this episode was another one o those building-up episodes. Tsubaki’s brother seems to be causing trouble, possessing his victims and forcing them to go on a killing-spree, so Tsubaki goes after him. The next episode should tell us more about why the heck he’s ended up doing things like that.

But really, is it me or is Black Star a bit too similar to Naruto? Sad past? Check. Shunned for things that aren’t his fault? Check. Acting highly energetic because of this? Check. Stupid haircut/outfit? Check. It’s good thing that he’s not involved in any rivalry, and his relationship with Tsubaki has done a lot to make up for this. I especially liked how he doesn’t seem to care whether Tsubaki uses him for her own goals or not. I’m still not impressed by the fights in this series, but the special bonds between the weapons meisters and their weapons have been getting better and better.