Macross Frontier – 09

by psgels, posted in Macross Frontier


Thankfully Macross Frontier is back on track with this episode. Okay, the question remains whether it’ll stay this way for long, but at least I’m glad that this episode turned out pretty nicely. For once, the focus is on the side-characters, and it’s about time that they too got a bit of development. It’s about time that especially Kuran got some attention, because I’ve hardly seen anything of her in the past few episodes.

If I understood things correctly, then Mikhael lost his parents when he was young, and then continued to live on with his sister. is sister then got killed in a friendly fire-accident when she was a pilot of some sort. At the time, Kuran lived with them as well (suggesting a possible love-relationship between the two for the future-episodes of Macross Frontier).

It’s good to see an episode focused on giving background to the characters. This’ll definitely be useful for future episodes. The fight scenes were also pretty entertaining, and it’s here where you can really hear the greatness of Yoko Kanno’s soundtrack. At the same time, Ranka continues to do very random jobs, and showing that it indeed does take a lot of work to become a popular idol.

Also, who was it, spying on the meeting of the Macross Frontier leaders?

xxxHolic – 33

by psgels, posted in xxxHolic


Hmm, for the first time in the second season, an xxxHolic episode disappointed me a bit. It surprises me a bit, since this episode goes back to Kohane’s arc, but somehow this episode felt off and among the least interesting episodes of xxxHolic, along with the one about superstition.

I think my biggest problem was with how it just felt that Clamp tried to shove down it’s message through the viewer’s throat. The usual subtlety in this series was gone entirely, and instead we get an obvious story with an obvious message: “Here is Kohane! She’s hated and disliked by both her viewers, colleagues and mother! She receives death threats and gets beaten up! But she has special powers, and she’s always right! Now feel sorry for her!” Sorry, but I’m not buying it.

One series that I can think off that successfully dealt with the topic of psychics and the media was Ghost Hunt. Okay, Ghost Hunt had its own problems, but none of those lied in its themes and messages. The arc about the spoon-benders was really good at showing the relationships between kids who claim to bend spoons and the media, and the people who watch it.

I really hope that the next episode will offer a clever twists to the whole story, because I really know that the creators can do better than what they’ve shown here.

RD Sennou Chousashitsu – 08

by psgels, posted in RD Sennou Chousashitsu


One rather annoying side-effect of the recent arrests of the Share-uploaders is that the amount of fake files uploaded on Share has drastically increased. What adds to the annoyance is that the raw uploaders on Tokyo Toshokan don’t seem to check the files they get from Share, so there were times in which I downloaded the same fake file twice. That was not fun.

Oh and yeah. In this episode, the creators found it a good idea to stuff the Real Drive girls in swimsuits. That’s what I call pure guts. Anime nowadays are rather obsessed at making their girls (and boys often as well, though it’s less apparent) as perfectly-looking as possible. Overweight is already a large problem right now, so just imagine how the problem would look like in sixty years from now. It’s great to see some variety in them.

In this episode, I also noticed something strange, as that the episode was finished before I knew it. When the ending-credits rolled, I was like “wait, it’s finished already?” For some strange reason, this episode felt like only ten minutes, instead of twenty. Surprisingly little happened in it for a Real Drive-episode: it’s just the case of a virtual-reality girl who ends up at Minamo’s school and becomes known as a ghost. This ghost fools Minamo’s friends a bit, and then Souta arrives and explains what happened.

Crystal Blaze – 08

by psgels, posted in Crystal Blaze


The past week, I’ve gotten a few interesting comments, along the lines of “this post says nothing about the actual episode, what an informative anime blog” (with the last part being obvious sarcasm), and they got me thinking. It’s not the first part that got me (heck, I’m all for constructive criticism), but rather the assumption that every anime blog should have a summary for each single post. I’ve personally never seen Star Crossed as an episode summary blog. It’s more that I write about whatever catches my interest after watching an episode. Depending on my mood, I randomly summarize a bit and add a few thoughts on the episode in question. But are there more people who feel that I should put more focus on summaries?

Having said that though, I do realize how my past posts on Crystal Blaze have been mostly thoughts and hardly any sentence on what happened. I’ve been carried away by the many surprising good points of this series. So, for variety’s sake, here is a summary of the episode. And boy, was it a great one. 🙂

The episode starts where the previous episode left off: the swat team, who was assigned to put a stop on Kitou’s research, is inside the closed space where Kitou and Kirie unleash a glass woman upon them. This woman quickly slaughters the entire squadron, as bullets seem to not work on her. Kitou explains that with the help of a special ring, the glass woman knows who she should attack and who she should leave alone.

When everyone in the chamber has died, the woman goes after the rest of the swat team, who she defeats easily. Very soon, more glass women come and help her. Meanwhile in the same underground facility, JJ and Sophia witness this bloodbath, as Sophia tapes it, and they’re astounded at the capabilities of the glass women. Because the security is busy with the swat-team, they can move around quite freely and they end up in what looks like the main database. There they find out that Kitou has been using live women for his research, and he’s turned them into experimental subjects.

JJ tries to call the chief of police, though there’s no connection. While he’s rambling on ethical issues, Sophia tries to copy the data she’s found for evidence. Meanwhile back at the glass women: they suddenly freeze and shatter. Kitou’s research has improved, though the HW-series is still imperfect. Kirie then suggests using the BW-series from now on (I’m wondering: what does the “B” stand for? Bio-weapon, or something?). Kitou, however, is still interested in the experiment, mainly because of what a success HW9 turned out to be, which is why he wants to retrieve her: in order to figure out why she’s special. (does he know that she’s about to die anyway?)

Kirie and the rest of security then go on and clean up the rest of the swat-team that wasn’t killed by the glass maidens, while JJ and Sophia are discovered by a random guard that passed by. They manage to make it towards the stairs that lead to the exit, and at that point I guess that JJ wants to hold off the guards so that Sophia escapes. Sophia runs up the stairs and a number of gunshots sound, but we have no freaking idea what happened back then.

Meanwhile, outisde the base, the three members of the swat-team that left behind fail to make any contact to their comrades. Akira meanwhile is still spying on them, and listening to their communications. It’s then that the few survivors manage to make it back outside and report. Akira then tells this to Shu, as the chief of police enters his room. Shu then tells him about what his little nephew and Sofia have been doing, and is surprised how the chief of police didn’t know that.

As Sophia reaches the door to the exit, she realizes that it’s shut and that she can’t get out. She then calls Shu for help. She tells him where she is, but before they can finish the call, one of the guards discovers her and destroys her phone. The chief of police then wants to come along with Shu because of JJ, but Shu tells him, as well as Manami and Ayaka to remain where they are. Meanwhile, Kitou and Kirie inject Sophia with the strange liquid that turns you into glass.

Ayaka meanwhile finds it strange that all sites about the glass women have gone down. Sara meanwhile continues to be troubled by her left arm changing to glass. When Shu arrives at the hidden base Akira waits for him and both of them rush to the entrance, where they find a naked Sophia with one glass arm, and they take her to Doc as quickly as possible. It’s a bit strange that Kitou would just “let” Sophia escape, and indeed: she also received a bracelet when she was injected, and in this bracelet there’s a transmitter.

The strange thing is that Shu is just fine touching Sophia, and doesn’t get burned. The others arrive and are shocked at the glass arm, especially Sara, and the episode ends.

Kitou’s getting pretty decent for a pure villain. Often, the villains that get fleshed out are somehow misunderstood. While this is nice to watch, it’s also good to see someone who really doesn’t have any ethical values and is more than just a stereotype that’s used to keep the story going. He himself is a mad scientist, obsessed by his creations. The guy is much better than most other villains, who only sit in a chair and do nothing but look evil.

Soul Eater – 08

by psgels, posted in Soul Eater


A pretty decent conclusion of the previous episode. It’s nothing deep or special yet, but it does the job of keeping my interest. Soul and Maka were bound to get saved somehow, and so Stein and Maka’s father pop up at the exact right moment (was it explained how they knew that Chrona would be at the same place as Soul and Maka? I couldn’t quite catch that in the raw). The Witch Medusa also is also one of those villains with the “Sailor Moon”-syndrome (just put on a different outfit, and nobody recognizes you. I can understand Maka and her father not noticing this, but Stein seems like a sharp guy; he could have easily recognized her).

My favourite part of this episode was without a doubt the scene where Black Star suddenly barged into the hospital room. Maka was about to get a bit too angsty for her own good, and his entrance was perfect to lighten up the mood, and downright hilarious as well. This show really is at its best when it focuses at the banter between the various main characters.

Porfy no Nagai Tabi – 21

by psgels, posted in Porfy no Nagai Tabi


Wow…

This episode really screamed “Mushishi”, and I mean that in the most positive way. Here I thought that Porfy ran into an old hag who was after a quick buck. Heh, how I was wrong.

The episode starts with Porfy waking up, and Dora cooking breakfast, smiling very gently. Porfy starts his breakfast. As he didn’t eat anything the previous day, he eats as quickly as he can. Dora continues to treat him kindly in a way that’s almost too perfectly acted. Porfy then sneezes, and she changes completely, getting overly worried and wondering whether he caught a cold. Porfy tries to lighten the mood, but she quickly tells him to be quiet, and that he should tell her as soon as possible once he catches a cold.

She then turns off scary-mode and gives Porfy some more candy, saying how Porfy “loved them since he was small”. Before Porfy has the time to think what she meant, he suddenly realizes that his backpack is gone. Dora suggests that one of the homeless dogs ran off with it (but then again, what would a bunch of dogs want with a bag full of tools). Porfy runs away in order to search for them. When he’s gone, Dora says that he’ll return, since it’s his home.

Porfy looks around, and after a while he runs into the kid from the previous episode again. He wants to run away, but Porfy stops him. When the kid realizes that Porfy isn’t scary, he offers him to help search for it. After a few hours, they still haven’t found anything, so the kid takes him to his father. Soon, the entire neighbourhood is searching, and as it turns out, one of them saw Dora that night and followed her, so the backpack is safe. Surprisingly, nothing was removed from it.

In the meantime, we learn that the kid’s name is Chiro (or however that bastardization of Italian is spelled), and he indeed lived inside the town for his entire life, and hates the idea that he’s going to leave some day. But as his father gets older, he’s going to have to leave some day. Porfy can understand him, as he loved his own home as well. And Dora once had a child, who died. Chiro father also tells how the city they lived in was once a Greek colony, in the time of the ancient Greeks.

In any case, when the guy who found it reveals that he’s seen Dora carry the backpack, Porfy starts yelling at him, calling him a liar. He doesn’t believe that the nice Dora would do such a thing. Obviously, the guy gets angry, but his partner stops him, saying how everyone in town knows that Dora is rather eccentric. Porfy still won’t listen, but before they can continue their argument, Chiro’s father steps in between them.

Chiro’s father takes Porfy to the local church, if I understood things correctly, and he explains how Dora didn’t hide the backpack in order to harm Porfy, but instead she wanted him to stay, since Porfy is about the same age as her dead child. Porfy then returns to Dora, who is more delighted than ever to see him, though she then notices that Porfy has his backpack back. She then tells him that she hid the backpack because of what Porfy said that evening, how he was planning to leave the next day.

The then starts calling Porfy Antonino (her dead son’s name), and starts yelling that he’ll remember soon if he stays here. Porfy says that he needs to go away, in order to search for his sister. Dora then throws a wine-glass at him, screaming at him that he should leave. Porfy leaves, but after a minute, he finds that he can’t just leave things as they are and returns again.

He talks to Dora, through a closed door, and he reckons how Dora and he are possibly the same, and how he lost his family as well. Dora says how it’s painful to remember Antonio. Porfy reckons that if it hurts so much, it would be better for her to forget about Antonino, but he himself will never forget his family and the time they spent together. They then say goodbye, after Porfy tells Dora to stop drinking so much, and obliges to Dora’s request of calling her “mother” one final time.

We then cue to a shot of Dora, emptying all her wine-bottles, Chiro and his father happily doing their jobs, collecting firewood and Porfy and Apollo have left the city, while Porfy complains to Apollo how he keeps sitting on his shoulder and should instead fly for himself, and the episode ends.

I must say, that the scene where Dora suddenly started yelling at Porfy was really powerful. It was wonderfully animated, and I never suspected that she’d end getting so angry as she did, after all her nice acts against Porfy. But then again, when she saw Porfy as her own son, and her son suddenly rejects her and starts yelling, I can imagine how her mother-instinct would break down.

And indeed, Dora was a perfect person for Porfy to run into. I originally thought that this would be just a lesson to Porfy to stop trusting everyone, but as it turns out, it was meant to show him how there are people, suffering even worse than he does. Dora has been living all along, thinking about her lost son, so much that it becomes painful when she remembers him. He instead has the knowledge of Mina, being still alive that helps him.

Still, in any way, Porfy really grew up in this episode. You can see how he’s learned to accept his parents’ death a bit more, compared to his scared looks at the beginning of the previous episode, and he also learned to watch what he says to others, considering how Dora reacted to his words.

And really, such gorgeous background art! I was already getting used to the look of Simitra in the first quarter of this series to really notice, but the art in this series really looks beautiful, and to think that this is a travelling-anime we’re dealing with, so the creators are going to have to come up with many more interesting city-designs. I can’t wait!

Amatsuki – 08

by psgels, posted in Amatsuki


Flashback time! If there weren’t already enough reasons for a second season, then this episode added another one. Episode eight usually is the point for 13-episode series to start building up for their climaxes. If there’s going to be a flashback, it’s most often used as a revelation of an important mystery. This episode instead chooses to give more depth to a set of three characters: Kuchiha, Shamon, and one of the monks that works at the temple of the princess.

Especially the latter is a clear indication that this series is aiming beyond thirteen episodes. Heck, I never could have guessed that that guy was so important to have his own background story. It took me a long while to figure out who the heck he was again, but it seems he was the one who guided Toki, Kon and Kuchiha around the temple when they arrived, and explained their customs a bit. To think that he actually was more than a handy way to give background on the temple. The director is no idiot, so he wouldn’t have given background to such an obscure character at this point if he knew that it would be a pointless waste of time.

This episode also shows how Shamon came to adopt Kuchiha. The village she lived in used to shun her because of the huge demon in her. That’s why she’s always so gloomy when this demon gets mentioned. It’s nothing new, but it’s good to see this with more detail. I also really like Shamon; he’s a strong character, and yet he’s down to earth and has a sense of humour.

Overall, this episode was very enjoyable. The cast is really showing that it can be great, even without a heavy atmosphere. Oh, and I like it when an anime doesn’t feature its main character at all for an entire episode as well.

Gilgamesh Review – 87/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews


After the fun, light-hearted and brightly coloured Kero Kero Chime, the obvious next thing would of course be a mysterious dark and gritty horror-series. Enter Gilgamesh, a series that fits this description perfectly. Ad in the end, Gilgamesh turned out to be an excellent series, and a great recommendation for any Japanese-styled horror-fan.

In Gilgamesh, it’s not the storytelling or the dialogue that stand out (they both do their job, but they’re nothing extraordinary), but instead the story and characters themselves are the highlight of this series. A large part of the series is a character-study, backed up by an excellent story that knows how to build up and back up said characters. The characters are surprisingly down to earth and aside from some of the lesser important “villains”, every character is fleshed out and developed. This series continues to get better once it hits its second half, but the first half also has a couple of pretty memorable moments.

One thing I like about mystery-series is their ending: they’re either complete flops or pure excellence, depending on how creative the scriptwriters are feeling. As for Gilgamesh: you’ll either love or hate it, because the ending is unconventional to say the least. I personally loved the final episode, but if you prefer your endings to be along the lines of “Hero saves the world and gets the girl”, you won’t be too happy with it.

As for the bad points: the animation. The character-designs are actually gorgeous, and they will make you think that a good guy is actually a bad guy when you first see him (or her), but a number of shots in the first half have characters walking around like a bunch of thunderbirds, and this series also gratefully likes to re-use animation of previous episode. The storyline also has a few bugs here and there around the middle: in the world of Gilgamesh, computers are supposed to have stopped working, but at one point a character suggests to look up some information on a computer, but this is nothing major.

I also feel that the background of the lead children could have been a bit more elaborate. Don’t get me wrong, their backgrounds are complete, we just hardly get to see anything of it apart from a large number hints here and there. I guess that this was done to give these kids an air of mystery, but at the moment I’m still edging to know how Tatsuya’s mother changed, and in what kind of mess Fuko and Madoka were before the story began. Overall though, I had a great time watching this. I often had to force myself to stop watching in order to do other things, because the cliff-hangers kept making me hungry to see more of the storyline.

Kaiba – 07

by psgels, posted in Kaiba


This episode was absolutely incredible. There’s probably no better way to say it. It’s one of those very rare episodes that just blew me away due to its sheer awesomeness. Everything Kaiba has been building up to has come together perfectly. Seriously, Kaiba right now has actually a chance of surpassing Haibane Renmei as my favourite 13-episode series, if it continues on at this pace.

Seriously, in seven mere episodes, Kaiba did what other series usually takes other series 20. When I first learned that Masaaki Yuasa would direct this series, I had my doubts, seeing as Kemonozume, Mind Game and Cat Soup were all good, but seemed to lack something, though Kaiba really shows that he’s evolving as a storyteller, and Kaiba is the work of a genius.

Vanilla, sacrificing himself for Kuroniko indeed had it coming, and I haven’t forgotten the horrible things he did in the first and second episode, and yet his end was so incredibly sweet. The guy knew full well that Kuroniko didn’t like him, and he only got this confirmed with her disgusted look after he kissed her, after which he planned to send her away, back to the planet where it all began in the first episode.

And then Neiro’s past. Her memory is a bloody mess, and it’s especially interesting to see Hyo-hyo being so shocked about it. We now know that it’s got something to do with Neiro, but it wasn’t aware of what exactly was done to her. There are also more Hyo-hyos than just Hyo-hyo, so I guess that it was just assigned to do a simple task: keep an eye on Warp, and I have reason to believe that that ostrich was also part of the complot.

I suspect that, assuming that everything Kaiba saw inside of Neiro’s memory came in chronological order, Warp once got attacked by Kaiba, and got his memory copied of some sort. That’s how Kaiba was born, and Kaiba was the one who got close to Neiro and fell in love with her, at the displeasure of Warp, so he tried to shoot her, like we saw in this episode. I have no idea how Neiro managed to survive, but if I had to guess, then Popo came to their rescue. He then messed with the memory of both of them, in order to manipulate them. I’m not sure what kind of purpose Kaiba has in his plans, though.

Oh, and I HATE TENNIS. Two freaking weeks without Kaiba!? $#!!$#$!@!@!!!

xxxHolic – 32

by psgels, posted in xxxHolic


Another very solid episode from xxxHolic. This one too goes back to the first one, and is another one in the collection of “stories about girls and women with mysterious problems” that were featured in many of the episodes of the first season. It’s episodes like these which are especially important for this series, because they take the focus away from Watanuki and instead are all about their characters. This makes the viewer both enjoy the character in question more, and look forward to seeing the next serious story about Watanuki. Besides, I love it when main characters end up taking the roles of mere spectators.

The case this time is about a girl whose house is being haunted. She can hear sounds, as if people were living there. What’s actually happening is that she’s the ghost, and doesn’t realize that she’s dead. In the end, Yuuko gives the girl a number of bells that would amplify her presence in the house. In this way, the real residents would be so freaked out that they’d call an exorcist.

I must say that that was a very interesting way to exorcise the ghost. Yuuko refused to let the girl know that she was a ghost, and she refused to exorcise the ghost herself, and I wonder why she did that. Is this called “thou should never kill thy customers”, or something? Or did she decide to just leave things to the professional exorcists, who know how to properly get rid of a ghost?