Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei Review – 81/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews


There’s one big pitfall that strikes quite a lot of comedy-series: getting increasingly less interesting as the end nears. Generally, there are two causes for this: the insertion of forced drama at the last minute and a refusal to develop the cast of characters. The second season of Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei manages to avoid the former, though I wish I could say the same for the latter.

It’s a shame, because Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei starts out better than ever. In the first half, there are a number of priceless episodes that really deserve to be watched (my favourites were the art-one and the gibberish-one). Episodes have also been divided into three parts to prevent them from getting boring, and for a while, this series overflows with laughs. But as is goes on, it becomes increasingly apparent that the creators shot themselves in the foot with their cast of stereotypes.

The thing with stereotypes is that they may be funny when they’re introduced, but there’s no way for them to remain funny for 26 full episodes without some development. In this series, it takes longer than usual, but the final six or seven episodes just lack the spark that made the rest of the series so great. Only two or three characters receive minimal development, and that just isn’t enough for such a huge cast. The social commentary that was once so interesting degrades into “social commentary of the week”, and ends up getting dull.

It’s a shame, I really thought that Shinbou had seen the light, but he still has a bunch of weaknesses, despite his unique style that made Shaft stand out. The second half of Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei is still funny, but nowhere near the standards that were set by the rest of the series. Still, if you finished the first season, then you at least need to watch the first half of the second season.

Rebuild of Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone Review – 58/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews


Let me start this review by stating the following: I did manage to finish watching Neon Genesis Evangelion a couple of years ago, before starting this blog. I ended up really liking the second half, though the first half of the series was a pain to get through. So yeah, after watching a movie that does nothing other than recapping episodes 1 to 5 (or 6), of course I’m in a bad mood. I want those 90 minutes of my life back!

Really, I fail to see the point behind this movie. All it does is follow the exact same storyline as the series did, with perhaps better graphics. To make matters worse, the only scene I was looking forward to (Unit 01’s little “itadakimasu!”-moment) ended up being cut out, for goodness’ sake! At least Death and Rebirth had a clear purpose: to silence the angry fanboys who were upset with the ending of the original series.

If you were planning to watch this movie, and you already saw both Neon Genesis Evangelion and Death and Rebirth, then don’t. In that case, this movie is just the same as a recap-episode. In fact, it’s even worse, because it’s freaking five times longer than your regular recap-episode, making you sit through scenes you’ve already seen for an eternity. I guess that if you’re one of the few who hasn’t seen the original Evangelion, you might give this movie a try, but I don’t see why you should pick this movie above the original series, apart from flashier graphics and a slightly shorter length. Gainax: stop trying to milk your dead cow!

Himitsu ~The Revelation~ – 05

by psgels, posted in Himitsu ~The Revelation~


This is going to be another two-episode arc. I like how the creators have managed so far to relate Aoki’s ordinary problems to the extreme cases that we see portrayed in the cases that have to be investigated. This episode is all about privacy and the intrusion of it.

In this episode, a girl murders nearly her entire family, and her father ends up taking all the blame and smashes the victim’s heads while the daughter hides for three years until the case dies down. The father then passes away (I didn’t quite catch how), and Aoki how the girl had murdered these people. The problem however is that for some reason, Aoki is not allowed to reveal the information he discovered. I didn’t exactly understand the reasons, but I think it has to do with the fact that Kinuko (the girl) claimed a loss of memory, and she would end up being released anyway.

Aoki basically doesn’t want a killer like that to go unpunished, but at the same time, Maki reminds him how acting like this won’t bring the dead ones back. There’s one thing I don’t understand, though. I mean, what guarantee is there that the girl will never kill someone else again? If I’m not mistaken, then one of the purposes of throwing killers in jail is to make sure that they won’t repeat their actions in the future.

In any case, in the next episode we’ll probably discover why Kinuko ended up killing her parents. We already know that her father invaded her privacy once, when she was “spending time” with her boyfriend, but that doesn’t yet explain why the father was the only one surviving and the rest of the family died.

Crystal Blaze – 05

by psgels, posted in Crystal Blaze


Why I’m not bothered by Manami’s brattiness:
– She’s not THE main character of this story.
– She’s an interesting combination with the rest of the cast.
– She’s fleshed out pretty nicely. She’s an idiot, she’s naive, and yet she’s easily afraid.

The thing I have against most annoying and stupid teenagers isn’t the fact that they’re annoying, but that they’re badly written. Take Lala from To Love-Ru for example. Sure, she’s an extreme case, but the reason why she’s annoying is because the creators spent no effort whatsoever in making her believable. She instantly falls in love with the male lead with no subtlety whatsoever and I couldn’t spot anything that made her really seem like a living being, an being an alien is no excuse.

I think the biggest reason for this is the creator’s desires to make teenagers important at places where they shouldn’t belong. A teenager who occupies a high rank in a military organization doesn’t usually make sense, so writers make these characters a bit too perfect for their own good, in order to help them survive and remain at their position.

The thing is with Manami, that even though she’s an idiot, the creators never portray her as some kind of hero. The only thing that she’s good at is providing emotional support for others, but this episode showed yet again that she often gets way too ahead of herself and tries to get involved in places she shouldn’t belong.

I still wonder why this series has become so neglected, though. Is Manami such a turn-off? Or does this have to do with Poririn? I admit that he was rather disturbing in this episode, wearing the gala-dress and all, and trying to pee while wearing it… Still the reason why I like this series so much is the chemistry between the different characters. The cast of Crystal Blaze is varied and interesting, and one character’s weaknesses are complemented by another.

RD Sennou Chousashitsu – 05

by psgels, posted in RD Sennou Chousashitsu


This episode was… strange…

Here I was, expecting a serious story about some freakish killer that was on the loose, after watching the next-episode preview of the previous episode. What I got was an episode that was way sillier than I expected. Episode five seems to be a popular time to insert a bit of silliness: first we had Macross, then Code Geass, and now Real Drive as well. Still, out of all three, I believe that this episode did its job best.

Shortly summarized: Haru is absent in this episode for a medical examination, as an android that’s meant for wrestling goes out of control and attacks everyone who comes into his sight. It wears a bunch of sunglasses that seem to be the latest fashion, though at one point these glasses break. It then runs into an unfortunate Minamo, who just bought an exact same pair of glasses. I guess that his internal AI switches to item-retrieving-mode, as it tries to gently get its glasses back without breaking them (Minamo should be lucky that she actually wore these, otherwise she’d just have been beaten up). At the same time, Souta laments the fact that he isn’t strong enough.

I should be getting angry at the coincidence at which Minamo bought her glasses, but at least this made this episode surprisingly fun to watch. I also liked how the creators showed how the android wasn’t completely fine-tuned: when the lights went off, he suddenly lost his target, he’s completely useless when he needs to take something from someone without hurting it (I guess it was never programmed to retrieve items that could escape, being a wrestling-android and all).

One thing I appreciate of this series: it’s diverse. Every single episode so far has been different, and that will really work in its advantage for the future episodes. Series that often take place in the same mood for episodes after each other have a bigger tendency to get boring when compared to series like this one. It helps keeping the series fresh, and series like Bokura no showed me how successful these techniques can really be if they’re handled well. So far, Real Drive has managed to be diverse and yet it kept advancing its story and introduced new things. This episode showed interesting insights in how androids are built and used, in relation to the metal.

In this episode, it was quite fun to watch an android, trying to do something it wasn’t programmed for. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a thing in anime tackled like this, but I of course have yet to watch the Ghost in the Shell-series. ^^;

Soul Eater – 05

by psgels, posted in Soul Eater


Now this is more like it! This episode showed none of the weaknesses I spotted in the last episode, and delivered both an entertaining fight and good comedy. This is exactly what I look for in a shounen-series, because series of this type shouldn’t take their story too seriously. Soul Eater so far has managed to deliver a pretty good combination between serious and semi-serious scenes.

I’ve noticed that the creators like to use anti-climaxes a lot. They build up tension, only to go into a completely different direction when the tension’s about to reach its height. This should prove to be quite interesting once they start playing with it as the series progresses and develops. One thing I do hope that the creators realize is to not make the fights go on for ages. Kekkaishi did this well: only the big fights went on for longer than one episode, and even that felt too long. Fights are the best when they’re short and sweet.

Frankenstein has indeed proved to be an interesting character, who likes to perform experiments no matter what. He also used to perform lots of experiments on Maka’s father when he was asleep. 😛 So far, it also seems like he’s not totally dependant on this stereotype, and this sounds more like a part of the guy’s personality. A lot of comedies need to learn that energetic characters don’t need to be energetic all the time, ill-tempered people don’t need to be ill-tempered all the time, et cetera, et cetera. Showing a carefree person suddenly getting serious isn’t development, it’s just fleshing out the guy’s character.

Porfy no Nagai Tabi – 18

by psgels, posted in Porfy no Nagai Tabi


This was the most light-hearted episode of Porfy no Nagai Tabi in what felt like ages. The tragedy has finally settled down a bit, and it’s time for Porfy to move on and search for Mina, as he travels to Italy.

Porfy walks around the harbour, searching for the place that sells tickets to the boat that travels to Italy. When he finds the ticket booth, he’s confused by all the complicated talk, and ends up ordering the cheapest ticket. The woman behind the counter then wonders where his family is, and gets a worried look on her face when she finds out that Porfy’s alone, and especially when she finds out that Porfy has no relatives whatsoever in Italy. She also warns Porfy that it’ll still take a long while until the ship departs, so that he doesn’t need to worry and take things easy, and also to buy some food in the harbour, since the stuff they sell on the ship is expensive.

Porfy buys a sandwich and waits a bit, and talks to Apollo. A girl then arrives, a few years younger than Porfy is, and she gets interested by Apollo. She wants to give him a few candies, though Porfy notes how owls don’t eat sweets. The girl is disappointed, and then her parents come and pick her up. She gives two sweets to Porfy, of which he saves one. Mina loved candy, and he wants to save that one for when he meets her again.

Porfy then falls asleep and nearly misses the boat, though Apollo wakes him in time for him to barely catch it. The ship departs, and Porfy looks at the ever-shrinking shore of Greece (if you ever believed that this series didn’t have quality-graphics, then this scene will prove you wrong). The small girl then arrives again, and introduces herself as Marika. She too wonders where Porfy’s parents are, and Porfy says that they’re not there. In response to that, Marika drags Porfy to her parents. Porfy then explains what happened to him. All three become worried about him, but Porfy says that he’ll be fine. He leaves them after tasting some of their cheese-pie that reminds him of the cheese-pie that his mother made.

Porfy then looks at the ocean, and reveals to Apollo how today is supposed to be his thirteenth birthday, and he gets a bit nostalgic again. When it’s evening Porfy looks for the cabin he’s supposed to sleep in. To his luck, it’s also occupied by a bunch of scary truck-drivers. These guys mean no harm, but of course they seem scary in Porfy’s eyes, so he runs away when one of them tries to touch his backpack with his father’s tools. Out of all places, he ends up falling asleep at the same spot that Mina slept at, two episodes ago. So sweet.

The next morning, Porfy is woken up by Marika an her parents, who are of course wondering why Porfy didn’t sleep in his room. They offer him breakfast, and then Marika grabs a piece of bread, and manages to feed it to Apollo. Marika’s father then suggests Porfy that some of the people boarding this ship might have been on it when Mina boarded it, like truck-drivers who went to Greece to stock up. In the end, one of Porfy’s “roommates” (they’ve all been wondering how he spent the night, by the way) remembered having seen Mina, along with a gypsy-woman. They then tell Porfy that the two of them left with a car, and had no idea where they went afterwards.

Porfy is a bit sad to still be far away from Mina, but at least he now knows that she’s with another woman. The ship arrives at the port of a certain city in Italy, and the episode ends.

One thing that’s really caught my attention in this and the previous episode is the emphasis on the kindness of humans. I’ve seen so many series now with a lot of focus on hate and other dark themes, which it’s quite refreshing to finally see how humans also have a side that helps out others. One series that especially looks like the complete opposite of Porfy no Nagai Tabi is Kaiba, where people and human lives are considered as trash at times. Incidentally, those are two of my favourite shows at the moment. ^^;

One thing that I really miss in nearly every anime is the ability for characters to just walk up to random people and make a small talk, without that character suddenly turning out to be really important for some sort of side-plot. I can understand how you’d usually ignore random by-passers, but when a character is alone on a ship like in this episode, and needs a bit of time to kill, it would make much more sense to find a random person and have a small chat with than just sit around and do nothing. It’s a shame you don’t often see that, because it’s exactly those things that make the world that the story tries to create come to live. Not every character needs to spawn his entire live-story if he’s introduced, and Marika and her parents did very well as serving as random people you just run into, without ever putting the focus on themselves, and instead they just try to help Porfy. I hope this rambling made sense.

There’s also one long-term thing I’m really curious about: what age will Porfy be at the end of the series? I’m intrigued at how the creators are planning to end this series. Will he just be like Damon, and remain a traveller for his entire live, or will he settle down? Will this series just like Les Miserables feature a major time-skip? Will Porfy remain a kid forever? Or will he grow up? Will he ever see Zaimis again?

I also wonder: how are the creators going to handle the language-barrier. Porfy obviously doesn’t know Italian, though I’m fine if the creators just ignore this. For as far as I know, NO series (or movie or whatever for that matter), whether anime or not anime, has ever managed to handle the language-barrier perfectly. Black Lagoon’s attempt, for example, failed horribly. Kishin Taisen Gigantic Formula gets points for trying, but that series too got hammered down by horrible Engrish.

Nijuu Mensou no Musume – 04

by psgels, posted in Nijuu Mensou no Musume


Excellent, Chico is already growing up, and this episode skips ahead one year. This episode did well in just being believable enough. While it’s a bit hard to believe that in just one year, Chico would turn from a fragile girl who always stayed in bed into a master knife-thrower and how she has no problems with holding onto a rope for so long, the creators did handle her fighting-abilities very nicely. One year of intense practice should be just enough to learn how to execute a basic judo-throw, and a kick in the groin by a cute girl should always be enough to throw an unsuspecting guy off-guard. Although I do admit that it’s a bit hard to believe that a fully grown and trained man would get knocked out just from falling down a bunch of stairs.

I do wish that the creators showed Chico practicing her lock-picking skills a bit. That rather came from out of nowhere, when Chico was in the elevator and suddenly disconnected the suitcase that was attached to one of the policemen by a pair of handcuffs like it was nothing.

One thing that’s interesting to note is how Chico may be a child genius with all the intention to be better, she does lack experience. Right now, she’s moving forward and forward, though this has to end somewhere. She has a lot of book-wisdom, but there will be a point where her confidence will shoot her in the foot. I guess that when Nijuu Mensou disappears, it’ll have a pretty interesting effect on everyone, and I commend this series’ ability to build up for this.

Amatsuki – 05

by psgels, posted in Amatsuki


Seriously… how good can this series be anyway? Even though this episode took a step down from the previous episode, it was still an excellent one, and the thing is that I’ve got no idea what the creators did to make this series so great. Sure, it’s got a great soundtrack, but it’s not the best one this season. The art is pretty, but there are other series with better art. The incredibly complex dialogue probably helps, but even then I only understand half of what people are saying. I really can’t exactly put my finger as to what makes this series so great, but there has to be some reason why this series suddenly stands out, while most other series need episodes of building-up before they can reach such an emotional level…

I also have a question to those who’ve read the novels for Amatsuki. I recently found out that Amatsuki is only going to have 13 episodes, and I can’t really think that that would be the right length for this series. If I’m not mistaken, then there are 7 volumes of the original Amatsuki manga, and after episode five, at which point in the manga are we currently? If we’re just at the end of the first volume, then there’s a possibility for a second season, though if we’re up to the third volume already, then this’ll be a bit more difficult.

From what I understood in this episode, Tokidoki and Kon finally meet the princess’ real form. I first wondered a bit why so many priestesses were needed for just a simple audience, but then it turns out the princess’ body has been long dead, and it takes a whole ritual to get her spirit from that doll we saw in the previous episode to that body. Another surprise: this “princess” turns out to be a guy. Meanwhile, Tsuyukusa follows the spirit of a broken fox-statue.

From what I picked up and read on on-line forums, the “princess” and Bonten seem to be on opposing sides, and both want to use Tokidoki’s strange abilities. I’m glad that in this episode, we saw a more human side of Bonten, getting annoyed at Utsubushi’s worrying. Bonten and the Princess seem two out of four beings who can at will change bodies. The other two are a strange priest that hasn’t been introduced yet and the spirit that created this world. The names of all these four seem to end with “ten”, meaning heaven. I’m not sure about the intentions of these guys yet, though.

Kaiba – 04

by psgels, posted in Kaiba


Okay, so while the introduction of weird accents didn’t exactly help my ability to understand this episode, I still loved every bit about this episode. Really, I’m trying to think of one part of this series that doesn’t stand out, but so far this series couldn’t have progressed better. I absolutely LOVE the pair of Kaiba and the guard (I think his name was Vanilla) as they travel through various world. They stand so incredibly far apart from your usual travelling-companionship. The two of them are without a doubt my favourite characters of all new shows this season, apart perhaps from xxxHolic.

I originally thought that Kaiba would switch bodies with every new episode, but this episode proves us wrong. He just has two bodies: one of the stuffed animal and one of the girl. Both bodies are very different from the Kaiba we saw in the first episode, and it felt especially weird when the stuffed animal suddenly started talking. It turns out that normal rules don’t really apply when you’re into the mind of a person.

What’s also interesting: we see Vanilla into Kaiba’s mind this time, and there, we saw the body he was in when we found him in episode 1. The thing is also that this doesn’t seem to be his original body (because yes, this episode also gives us a small shot of Kaiba when he still had his memory). There’s nothing of that fancy outfit we saw. And really, what the hell has happened to Popo? He hasn’t appeared for four episode, and yet he seems like a vital character in all this, after the previous episode showed some hints that he was connected to Neiro.

In any case, this episode is about an old woman, who refuses to share her dead husband’s “treasure” with her two sons. They may be poor, but they’re always causing trouble for others, and don’t ever pay attention to their surroundings. Of course, the “treasure” turns out to be an ordinary memory-box, but still. The interesting thing is how this episode went into this old woman’s mind, as she’s still trying to forget her deceased husband. He fell off a lighthouse, but she never knew why. Inside her memory, she then finds out that he was just trying to pick a flower, in the hope of making his wife smile again. I probably missed the important point of this episode again, though, due to the above-mentioned dialect.

The art this time was also different from usual. It looked much more like Kemonozume than ever. While it’s usually not that good of an idea to have an episode with a different animation-style than usual (just take a look at Gurren Lagann 04), for Kaiba it works surprisingly well. Perhaps it’s because the changes are there, but not quite radical.