xxxHolic – 29

by psgels, posted in xxxHolic


The big improvement, aside from the increased graphics-budget, of the second season is the inclusion of foreshadowing. The first season was very good, but the stories all felt a bit disconnected from each other, aside from the occasional appearances of the Rain and Vestal Sprite. The second season however has cleverly been inserting small introductions of the upcoming arcs in the past few seasons. My guess is that this second season will feature three major arcs: the spider-queen, the current one with the psychic girl and the final one will be Himawari’s background, with in-between small stories like in episode four. It really gives the viewer something to look forward to, and brings more unity to the whole series.

This episode mostly introduced the young girl, and her relationship with her mother. The mother is a typical case of a parent who’s become too obsessed with how famous her daughter has become, and starts seeing her just as a tool, and she’s clearly suffering from a lot of stress. The atmosphere about this episode was just perfect.

In this episode, she was asked to remove the spirit of a dead woman from a sakura-tree. I believe that with the help of Watanuki, she managed to move the spirit to one o the sakura-trees around Domeki’s house. The big questions for the next episode are of course: why does Watanuki feel so drawn towards her and why does she feel so drawn towards Watanuki?

Kurenai – 05

by psgels, posted in Kurenai


Ah, what an adorable episode! Hardly anything new was introduced, and yet it was so much fun to just see the characters. This is exactly what I mean by a well-written series. Everything about this episode was just so enjoyable.

I love it in a series, where the characters are coming together. This series shows how far you can come with realism, because Murasaki and the five-year old sister of Yuno felt so real together. It’s just like how real little kids would spend their time when bored and not used to each other. And poor Yayoi! Everyone was having fun and eating at the end of the episode, and she was standing out there in the cold, getting hungry.

There’s nothing much else about this episoe to say, though. This really is an episode you need to watch for yourself, rather than read about it. I do want to say, though, that if this is really going to be a 13-episode series, then it’s well on its way to become a classic.

Macross Frontier – 05

by psgels, posted in Macross Frontier


At my April summary, I remember noting how this series is a bit too silly for it’s own good at times…

Well, this episode definitely didn’t solve that problem, as it basically degenerated into a dating-sim/love-triangle/idol-episode. Sheryl and Alto have a little date, while Ranka and Mikhail also spend the episode together. Predictably, at the end of the episode Ranka finds out that Alto is starting to fancy Sheryl. Been there, done that. Ah well, at least this episode was enjoyable. I remember how Souko no Strain was one of the very few series who actually made such an episode work, but that series took much more risks than Macross Frontier does right now.

Still, thankfully the episode could have gone much worse. At least this episode gave some background on the Zentradi for those who’ve never seen anything of Macross like me. Before this episode, I really thought that they were some kind of lost race with just a handful members still alive, though it seems that they’re still living in quite large communities. We also know that Ranka’s song somehow strengthens the Varja, which does explain why one of them suddenly popped up, just as she started singing. For that, I have to give the creators of this series credit: I originally thought that they just timed Ranka’s song and the battle together for more excitement, but there is an actual explanation for why that happened.

Ranka’s song this episode felt a bit wrong, though. I wish that the creators would stop to make a huge spectacle about Ranka’s songs. In that mood, an a cappella-song would have suited much better, but instead the creators suddenly introduced instruments from nowhere and made no attempts to hide the fact that that song was recorded in a studio. Series like Sasami Mahou Shoujo Club and Red Garden have shown that songs that sound spontaneous sound much better than the over-rehearsed ones.

Allison to Lillia – 05

by psgels, posted in Allison to Lillia


With this episode, I guess that we’ve reached the second novel of the original “Allison”-series. It does worry me a bit that the creators are trying to stuff 10 volumes of light-novel material into just twenty-six episodes (For the sake of comparison: Soul Eater with its 11 volumes has 52 episodes to work with, and Saiunkoku spent 78 episodes for 12 of them). Apparently, there are going to be six story-arcs in this series, with the latter ones taking up two volumes. This means that each arc will be about four or five episodes long.

While the chance for a rushed story is quite big, this short format does keep the story fresh. I’m really wondering whether the director will be able to pull it off. I think the biggest reason for this short series-length is the budget, which you can also see in the animation, which has always been not that special for this series. In any case, at least the director has already shown that he’s very good at characterizations, which should be more than enough to keep me interested.

In this arc, it’s not likely that Allison and Will will board some kind of airplane, and the story is actually quite similar to a random arc of Kino no Tabi: Allison and Will end up in a hostile town, in the middle of winter. This town seems to be very afraid of outsiders (especially if they come in a military car). In the meantime, Benedict follows them, because he’s worried that Allison and Will might have run into trouble due to an unexpected blizzard, after which he meets the mysterious girl we see in the ED. Also, throughout the episode, we can see Allison trying to find courage to confess to Will. She’ll probably propose properly around the end of this arc.

April Summary

by psgels, posted in Monthly Summaries

So, most series have had four episodes aired now. So far, the season is looking quite promising, with many good series that have debuted. I’ve been noticing an on-going trend though, about how much more 13 episode-series appear. It’s a shame, because a lot of these series could have easily been lengthened to 24 or 26 episodes.

#39 (new) – To Love-Ru – (4,6/10) – If it was only the fanservice, then this show could have been good, but everything about this series is crap: story, characters, nothing stands out whatsoever. Dropped.
#38 (new) – Kamen no Maid Guy – (5,5/10) – Ugh… This turned out disastrous. Any potential in this series has left due to the incredible overuse of unfunny fanservice-jokes. Dropped.
#37 (new) – Kanokon – (5,7/10) – Well, I guess nothing much can be said about this series that hasn’t been said yet. If you like young boys getting it on with horny fox-spirits, then this is a must watch. If you don’t, then stay far away from this thing. Dropped.
#36 (new) – Kyou Kara Maou – Third Season – (6,5/10) – The episode I watched was decent, but in no way did it make me eager to check out the rest of the series. Dropped.
#35 (new) – Monochrome Factor – (6,5/10) – Okay, so here’s a potential trainwreck. Stay away from this one. Dropped.
#34 (new) – Neo Angelique Abyss – (6,6/10) – Mary-sue, anyone? Dropped.
#33 (new) – Naisho no Tsubomi – (6,6/10) – I am so NOT the target audience for this. Dropped.
#32 (new) – Penguin Musume Heart – (6,9/10) – A very strange series, but I doubt that I’ll continue it with so many good series this season.
#31 (new) – Zettai Karen Children – (7/10) – The fun in this series quickly dies. Dropped.
#30 (new) – Net Ghost Pipopa – (7/10) – Good show for kids; not for me, though. Dropped.
#29 (new) – Kyouran Kazoku Nikki – (7,3/10) – This might become funny, but I don’t feel like finding out. Dropped.
#28 (new) – Nabari no Ou – (7,4/10) – I wish I could watch every series that came out this season, but unfortunately I can’t. Nabari no Ou wasn’t bad, but neither did it impress me. Dropped.
#27 (new) – Special A – (7,5/10) – I decided to drop this series after finding out that it’s only going to feature 13 episodes. Four lacklustre starting episodes may be excused for long series, but one-season long series really need to have delivered at least something at this point, and Special A never really seems to want to go anywhere.
#26 (new) – Golgo 13 – (7,6/10) – Duke Togo is an interesting protagonist, but 50 episodes may be a bit too much for a concept such as this. I’ve dropped it for now.
#25 (new) – Code Geass – Lelouch of the Rebellion R2 – (7,8/10) – Well, it’s getting pretty hard to take the different plot-twists in this series seriously, ever since the infamous episode 22 destroyed my suspense of disbelief, but I admit that Code Geass has been solid enough so far. However, I KNOW THIS SERIES. I wouldn’t be surprised if Suzaku ends up slaughtering the entire world population near the end of this second season, seeing as how this series is so eager to copy parts of the first season.
#24 (new) – Junjo Romantica – (7,9/10) – Yaoi aside, I admit that the romance in this series has been pretty good, and it actually does have a sense of humour. That said, I still don’t know why I continued to watch this series…
#23 (new) – Chi’s Sweet Home – (7,9/10) – It’s amazing to think how deep the creators dived into Chi’s mind. The adventures of Chi are an innocent way to spend 2 minutes
#22 (new) – Druaga no Tou – The Aegis of Uruk – (7,9/10) – Okay, I admit that this series turned out better than I expected it to do after watching the second episode. The band of idiots does make sense so far, but I really wonder what the creators plan to use to get them to the top of the tower when they already struggle at the first level.
#21 (new) – Toshokan Sensou – (7,9/10) – A good show, but for Noitamina, this seems to be missing something. Kaiba would have fitted this timeslot much better, I think. It’s just not a good sign that in an 11-episode series, the characters already start feeling a bit annoying after the third episode.
#20 (25) – Bus Gamer – (8/10) – A nice enough short series. The characters were dynamic enough to keep me interested.
#19 (7) – Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei – (8/10) – Well, it’s taken a bit longer than usual, but Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei is finally feeling the repercussions of the fact that it refused to develop its characters beyond their stereotypes. This series is still fun, but nowhere near as brilliant as it used to be.
#18 (new) – Vampire Knight – (8,1/10) – Solid so far. I personally like a healthy dose of angst, and Vampire Knight so far has done well in staying away from emo. However, the bishies and squealing fangirls are just as annoying as the hot babes and drooling guys in the shounen counterparts.
#17 (new) – Soul Eater – (8,1/10) – So far, Soul Eater has been a really stylish show. Now let’s hope that it’ll know how to remain fresh for 52 episodes.
#16 (new) – Allison to Lillia – (8,1/10) – This series has an engaging atmosphere so far. This series feels genuine, and it really succeeds in bringing across its sense of adventure, even though it sometimes struggles with believability.
#15 (new) – Wagaya no Oinarisama – (8,2/10) – A surprisingly fun and down-to-earth series for me. Great music, and finally the male main character looks at least a bit different from his counterparts in other series.
#14 (21) – Gintama – (8,2/10) – While Gintama has definitely been better, the transvestite-joke was priceless.
#13 (new) – Macross Frontier – (8,3/10) – At times, it’s a bit too silly for its own good, but the likable characters and godly production-values have really made up for this so far.
#12 (17) – Persona – Trinity Soul – (8,3/10) – Persona has developed into a pretty solid mystery-series so far, but I do hope that the creators have been saving the best for last, because this series still feels like it’s missing something.
#11 (new) – Blassreiter – (8,4/10) – Surprisingly, this turned into my favourite GONZO-series this season. It’s got the best action-sequences so far, and the characters are pretty likable so far. Now let’s hope it doesn’t go trainwreck somewhere in the middle!

#10 (new) – Nijuu Mensou no Musume – (8,4/10)

Great character-development so far, although it’s sometimes a bit hard to believe.

#9 (new) – Itazura na Kiss – (8,6/10)

Without a doubt the best romantic comedy this season. Heck, this series has the potential to be the best romantic comedy since years if it keeps up with this pacing.

#8 (new) – Kurenai – (8,6/10)

Without a doubt the best voice-acting this season. More anime should record the voices before the animation-process.

#7 (new) – Crystal Blaze – (8,7/10)

The animation and graphics may look just average, but to make up for it, Crystal Blaze has delivered us a very solid cast of believable characters that have already started to develop within four episodes. A recommendation for any mystery-fan.

#6 (new) – RD Sennou Chousashitsu – (8,8/10)

This series intrigues me like no other. It’s got a fascinating concept and a pretty good execution so far. It’s away from any stereotype so far, which also makes me very happy.

#5 (new) – Amatsuki – (9/10)

A surprise hit for me. I already somehow suspected that this series would be more than just pretty pictures, but I never expected that it would turn this dark, deep and emotional in such a short time.

#4 (new) – xxxHolic – (9,1/10)

What a wonderful way to start the second season. xxxHolic Kei has been just as good as the best parts of the first season so far, if not better!

#3 (new) – Himitsu ~The Revelation~ – (9,2/10)

I’m an absolute sucker for these kinds of series, and Himitsu has shown that it’s by far the cleverest series of the new season. Great themes, great characters, a terrific concept. This really is one of my favourites of the season so far.

#2 (new) – Kaiba – (9,3/10)

Without a doubt the best new series to air. Everything about this series has delivered so far! It’s a series that makes you think, and at the same time it’s got a wonderful story and cast of characters.

#1 (2) – Porfy no Nagai Tabi – (9,5/10)

April has been a sensational month for Porfy! Every episode delivered, there was no weak moment, and everything about this series was just so gut-wrenchingly sad. With this, this series earned it’s title of “World Masterpiece Theatre”.

Himitsu ~The Revelation~ – 04

by psgels, posted in Himitsu ~The Revelation~


Really, this is clearly the cleverest series to have come out this season. Kaiba may be good at other points, but Himitsu is a master in dropping hints that might solve the mystery. This series really draws you in like no other, also with the help of the terrific soundtrack. You really need to watch an episode at least twice in order to fully understand it.

The way the creators also revealed that Nanako fancies Aoki was also quite creative. Most series just show a very obvious and unsubtle blush, though Nanako instead just misses her chair, and you can also constant see her around Aoki, without him noticing it.

And the theme of this episode… it was really pushing taboos, as it reflected an issue of modern society that even Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei didn’t want to enter: the bother that elder people are to their younger generations. The culprit is a guy who ritualistically kills off older people who aren’t wanted by their families due to poverty. That one scene where the kid asks when he can get his own room: “you’ll get your room as soon as grandfather dies”. “Oh, I hope he dies soon then”.

On a side-note: there’s something I’ve been wondering. It rather annoys me a bit how many people are dismissing this series because it looks “gay” (what’s wrong with homosexuals anyway?). But at the same time, you don’t hear anyone saying this about Death Note (a series that shows quite a few similarities with Himitsu, by the way), even though that too featured a number of *ahem*”bishies”, that even ended up washing each other’s feet at one point.

Crystal Blaze – 04

by psgels, posted in Crystal Blaze


Heh, this episode finally featured an actually funny fanservice joke. When the horny doctor first appeared, I feared the worst, but his nurse’s BSDM have turned out to be quite hilarious. Especially the dog’s outfit was brilliant. Really, if series as Kanokon realized this, they would have been quite fun, though instead they just can’t think beyond the tried-and-true formula of groping, blood-noses and panty-shots.

Fanservice aside, I’m still surprised at how much I’m enjoying this show, seeing as it’s turned into one of the dark horses of this season in the rest of the anime-community. The budget is indeed quite low. Studio Fantasia is no Satelight or Madhouse, so the drawings and animation are quite simple. And yet this has never had a weak episode so far, in my opinion at least. This episode again was a great one, and it finally pushes the plot forward again.

We learn that the one who changed all the women to glass was indeed that little girl. This time, she kills Yuumi, who indeed went on her solo-debut, dropping Seiji without him even knowing it. The glass women like her and Sara were meant as humanoid weapons. Hence why the bad guys are so interested in retrieving her. They’re currently in the process of testing out their work, which has finally shown its fruits.

One thing I also like is how this series has managed to make characters likable who would have been really cliché otherwise. Especially Shu and Manami would have been incredibly annoying if they didn’t receive any development. Manami, however, turned into a really sympathetic character, who’s just finding out how naive she’s been in the past episodes. She’s a girl with real fears, instead of contractor-like behaviour (a la Darker than Black) of knowing what to do in any dangerous situation. Shu meanwhile turned into quite a refreshing main character, who neither is a stereotypical ambitious guy nor a carefree “cool dude”. This guy doesn’t care about being the best; he just cares about the people around him. For some strange reason, both of them have really turned into my favourite characters in this series.

RD Sennou Chousashitsu – 04

by psgels, posted in RD Sennou Chousashitsu


This series continues to intrigue me, for some reason. This episode was clearly meant to flesh out the concept of “Metal”, now that the introduction is finally over. Knowing the director, and the fact that this is an anime-original story, just like Chevalier, I think we can expect lots of building up in the first half, that’ll cleverly be used in the second half of this series.

Still, even though it’s building up, this series still manages to remain interesting due to its concepts, and the fact that it didn’t play all of its trumps in the first episodes. In this episode, while the person in question who has been trapped inside the Metal isn’t that relevant to the story, this episode does offer a lot of new things about the metal, and finally things become a bit clear, as to why Metal turned so important. It’s not only used for things like power plants, but civilians can also use it. In this case, a salaryman uses it to escape from reality and be surrounded by loads of beautiful woman.

The problem is that this episode a lot of complicated monologues, so it was pretty hard to understand what the assistant of this salaryman was trying to say. Apparently, he was quite an important person, yet at the same time he remained a regular guy due to his sexual desires. If I understood correctly, then he was inside the metal when the power went down on the island (I guess that the cyber-divers used a emergency back-up power-system to enter the power plant, back in episode 2), and his brains went down. Later, the corrupted data seems to have turned him into one of the women, and this same data tries to affect Haru, as he tries to get the guy back. Minamo then proves to be the mystery-element in this series, when she somehow manages to connect to Haru from outside, and apparently they can reach each other no matter what’s happening.

There also seems to have been a bit of influence from outside. They probably made alterations to Zouhen(the salaryman)’s data, to change him into a woman and prevent him from re-entering. I’m not sure about their motives, though. Heck, I couldn’t catch anything that looked like it explained this.

This episode also introduces the two characters in the OP who make strange faces, along with Minamo and Haru. I was surprised to find out that they’re both guys, (that big guy really looked like some GAR woman in the OP). On top of that, they seem to be brothers. The little guy seems to be a cyber-diver as well, and he failed to get back Zouhen earlier.

I also must say that this series has the most solid OP and ED this season. They really fit the strange nature of this series. With the heavy J-rock, combined with the strange images. I also like how the episode previews don’t spoil anything about the next episode, but instead provide an introduction to the concept of the next one. One reason why I often avoid next-episode previews on series is because you’ll never know when they’ll spoil you too much for the next episode. Especially Naruto was a heavy offender of this, though RD seems to use them very nicely.

Soul Eater – 04

by psgels, posted in Soul Eater


I’m wondering… why does Tsubaki get naked when she’s in weapon-mode, and yet Soul gets to keep his clothes? I mean, I can understand how a bit of fanservice here and there is nice and all and how this would scare off the guys who are afraid to see other men without any clothes on, but at least keep things a bit consistent.

In any case, this episode started a bit disappointing, where Maka beat up Soul a few too many times. Jokes like these stopped being funny ever since Love Hina overused them. Thankfully, as this episode went along, it introduced a few new things, including a resonance-mode that goes wrong. And a Black Star who is actually calculating when he doesn’t need to ambush anyone.

Having said that though, this episode was the least funny of this series so far, since more than half of the jokes were just reused from the previous ones. The bad guy of this week, a teacher turned zombie that uses his own gravestone as a weapon, didn’t feel that inspired. This can mean two things:
1) This series already used up its best jokes and has run out of inspiration. Things would be pretty bad if this was the case.
2) Seeing as it’s 52 episodes we’re talking about, the creators cleverly decided to use their best jokes for later, when the characters are actually developed. Sortof like the Law of Ueki, which also was rather dull at this point. The next episode should be better, as it’ll introduce another major character: a certain Dr Frankenstein who used to partner up with Death Scythe before he met Maka’s mother (speaking of which, what happened to her? Heck, where has Shinigami’s wife run off to?)

Popolocrois Story 1998 – 25

by psgels, posted in Popolocrois Story 1998


Ah, what an adorable ending. It was a bit cheesy here and there, but overall it reminded me why I originally fell in love with this series. To think that I took two years and four months to fully blog this series. That’s been longer than any other show I’ve blogged, even Saiunkoku Monogatari, Jigoku Shoujo or Higurashi. It’s been a wonderful ride, that’s for sure, and Bee-Train’s debut surely showed a lot of promise in the studio that they were to become.

I decided to not write a review about this series, simply because it’s been too long since I watched the real meat of this series, and my memory is too fuzzy about it. (Plus, I’m rather tired right now, which probably also plays some kind of factor) If I did review it, I bet it would rate high, though, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it ended up above 90/100. I do remember how this has been the best RPG-adaptation made, simply because of its wonderfully charming cast of characters, and definitely recommended to any fantasy-fan.

With that said, I’d like to thank Wyrdwad and the other ones who contributed to the fansubbing-process: you ROCK! I also must say that I really enjoyed reading the different episode-notes for each release. They provided interesting insights in the Japanese language and culture. Most times when fansubbers try to insert something personal in their work, it doesn’t really work, and most of the comments end up being in the sense of “yea hot!”, but Wyrdwad’s writing style is really fun to read. When watching a raw series, I now keep chuckling at characters who use “ore-sama” or “Otoko no ROMAAAAN!!!” 😛

Now with that said, I’m really curious to the final episodes of the 2003-series. 🙂