Gundam 00 – 24

by psgels, posted in Mobile Suit Gundam 00


I’m not sure whether I should be happy or not to have been spoiled about the contents of this episode. In any case, I was right, and this episode basically built up for the major turning-point for this series that’ll happen in episode 25, but I never thought that it’d do this in such an extreme way.

There were several things wrong with this episode, though. And I’m not referring to the bloodbath. If the circumstances are right, then why not kill off a bunch of characters? It’s a great contrast with series that are just too afraid to kill off their characters because it’ll upset the fans or something. Just to give a small list of who died in this episode (obvious SPOILER warning)

– Tieria Erde
– Patrick Colasour
– Christina Sierra
– Lichtendahl Tsery

Which, if I’m not mistaken, brings the total body-count to ten important characters dead, eleven if Ali al Sarshes kicked the bucket as well.

In any case, my problem isn’t with these deaths. It’s with the sudden uber-technologies that suddenly got introduced out of nowhere. Okay, I can understand why Aeolia Scheinberg never put the Trans-am in his plans. It makes sense that he and his scientists discovered this technology at one point, but decided not to implement it due to the potential dangers of its limited usage. I can live with that.

But where did he pull such a huge space-ship from, and why the heck didn’t he use it?! With such a big cannon, it would have been perfect as an added safety-measure. Really, if the creators wanted, they could have used much better reasons to kill off the members of the cast. The enemies are really no idiots, and I could imagine a few sneaky battle-tactics that would have destroyed the Ptolemy anyway.

And this is just a minor detail, but Lichtendahl was badly developed. I only now realize this once he’s dead, but we should have gotten an introduction that androids or cyborg actually exist. The lieutenant… I still have no idea whether she was a cyborg as well, or just genetically modified. Before this episode, we hardly saw anything about him, which makes his death lack the impact it could have had.

But on the positive side: there was no Saji!

It really seems that Marina Ismael and Saji were meant to be characters for the second season. The next episode will probably kill off much more people, making the Celestial Beings disband without a doubt, and the survivors will probably be the main characters for the second season. Setsuna is the only one where I can say with certainty that he’ll live, as Allelujah also looked pretty bad in this episode.

This is just a guess, but it seems quite likely that the main characters for the second season will be Nena, Setsuna, Marina and Saji, with the major villains being Alehandro and Ali. Of course, there’ll probably be much more characters introduced, but I’m worried: these four are the most immature members of the entire cast. My biggest worry right now is that every sensible member of the cast will get killed off in the next episode. Please make at least one of Sumeragi, Feldt, Lasse or that mechanic-guy survive!

Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji – 24

by psgels, posted in Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji


When most other series build up for one big event, they usually have plenty of time with one episode that’s entirely meant to build up for that particular scene.

But Kaiji is different. Kaiji doesn’t need one episode, no. It needs three of them.

And so we’ve passed the second episode. All that’s left now is the final episode of building up, after which the episode where stuff actually happens will finally close off this series. The narrator was right: it has been a real night of lunacy, and I can expect someone to go crazy if you marathoned it entirely.

And although I admit that the pacing could have been a bit faster, I like the themes a lot. Here, people really try to outsmart each other, with carefully laid-out plans. This is much more interesting than a bunch of guys being scared to death on top of a beam that hangs 80 meters above the ground.

Shion no Ou Review – 94/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Shion no Ou


I doubt that I can write a review to do this series justice, but here it goes. Shion no Ou is an anime about shougi, the Japanese form of chess. The rules are quite complicated, but you don’t need to be able understand them if you want to enjoy this series. What’s much more important for Shion no Ou is the general strategies, and the mind-games that get played between the two players.

And don’t ask me how they did it, but the writers are true masters in terms of storytelling. While this series does take place mostly in a tournament-arc, they take everything that gets handed to them to spice things up. Every single character has his or her own style of playing that gradually evolves throughout the series. The police and the press often play a big role, as they support the main storyline and the main cast of characters.

And let me say that the story and characters are nothing short of incredible. The heroine, Shion, is one of the strongest female characters I’ve ever seen. Every single character is well-defined and developed. Every single episode pushes the plot forwards, without any exceptions. The original manga was also written by a woman who used to be a female shougi-player as well, and she made sure to show all the ins and outs of a shougi-tournaments.

The animation definitely is different from usual. You’ll either love it or hate it, and it does fluctuate from incredibly bad to incredibly good, due to a limited budget. But in exchange, everything looks unique, and you can see that the animators are trying everything they can to make the art stand out. The animation itself is messy, but the poses and camera-angles are creative and yet incredibly life-like, that turned this series into a visual feast for me.

Great anime usually have one or two aspects that turn out very polished, like a cast of terrific characters, or an engaging storyline, but the outstanding anime really deliver in every single department. Shion no Ou has it all: terrific storytelling, a great storyline, a cast of deep and amazing characters (both the villains, main and side-characters) that really comes to life in the second half, a terrific art-style and animation, excellent music and a good sense of realism, although you should note that Shougi is serious business in this series, and at times the characters do tend to take Shougi a bit too seriously. ^^;

Shion no Ou – 22

by psgels, posted in Shion no Ou


God… this series is over at last. Endings like this one always have a certain air of predictability. Shion was bound to win, Hani-meijin would definitely end up arrested, and there’d also be a pretty good chance that Shion would get her voice back in the end.

And THAT’s exactly where the creators of this series come into play, and their mysterious talent to make this series awesome, no matter what happens. I can’t believe that these guys really know what it takes to create an excellent series. I’ve heard that the manga continues on beyond this point, but there are absolutely not threads left hanging, and everything is somehow carefully wrapped up in this episode.

This is exactly why I love Studio Deen. Their series either reek of mediocrity, like Hatenkou Yuugi, Touka Gettan, Ginga Densetsu Weed or some of Hiroshi Watanabe’s works, and yet they’ve managed to churn out a number of true classics. These guys are not afraid to experiment and go with their own style, which becomes apparent in masterpieces as Jigoku Shoujo, The Law of Ueki, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Simoun and of course this one. They’re looking to be busy yet again for the upcoming spring-season, with Vampire Knight, Amatsuki, Kyou Kara Maou and Junjo Romantica (incidentally, all four are shoujo), so perhaps another potential classic is amongst these four.

So in the end, Hani-meijin indeed was and still is obsessed with Shougi. He basically killed off everyone dear to Shion, in order to make her more focused at getting better at Shougi, after the recommendations he heard about her. Even Kasumi had to die because of this. Oh, and I absolutely loved it when Satoru punched his brother in the face. That scene was simple, but so effective.

The animation was yet again excellent in this episode. And here’s an interesting bit I found out: the chief animation director (Seiya Numata) also did the key animation of the fourth episode of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, which was the one that spawned the outrage. The episode itself was pretty bad, it was directed and written by a supposedly good friend of the director (called Osamu Kobayashi if I’m not mistaken). But this does explain why that episode looked so strange when compared to the other episodes. Osamu Kobayashi must have been heavily influenced by the unique style of Seiya Numata.

The problem with that episode was however that it didn’t fit in with the consistency of that series at all. Like with The Third, such a different animation-style breaks flow. Arusu the Adventure has thus far been the only series where a change of animation-style has really worked, simply because it consistently changes its animation-style with every single episode. If there are one or two episodes where the characters look totally different from usual, it just feels like bad planning.

That’s why it’s great to see that in this series, Seiya Numata was in charge for the animation of all the episodes, so he could really go all out. And I really like how he made use of the clearly limited budget that this series ended up with. This series is the perfect example of how you can look great, even without the big budgets you see in series as Seirei no Moribito and Macross Frontier. Especially that punch from Satoru looked terrific.

In any case, it’s sad to see that this series is finally over. This has without a doubt been the best series of the past half year. I’m hoping that the upcoming spring-season features at least one more series with the same calibre as this one. A series that comes from nowhere, grabs you and never lets go until after it’s finished.

Shigofumi ~ Stories of the Last Letter Review – 86/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Shigofumi ~ Stories of the Last Letter


Shigofumi is another episodic series that takes an in-depth look at death. At first, it may seem like some strange cross between Shinigami no Ballad and Jigoku Shoujo, but it quickly finds its own style and identity to work with. The earlier episodes mostly focus on random cases, where Fumika, our lead girl for this series, delivers the final memories of a person who just died to his loved ones, while the latter episodes focus on Fumika herself, and why she ended up delivering these letters in the first place.

Shigofumi’s strength is how it’s able to deliver a quiet and engaging atmosphere, with the subtlety of a herd of stampeding elephants. One moment, you’re enthralled by the versatile characters, the next you’re freaked out by some disturbing plot twist that came out of nowhere. The interesting thing is that this series knows fully well how to combine its quiet moments with its eventful ones.

Another strength about this series is the cast of characters. The writers make sure that all the characters are likable before they start playing with them. Especially Fumika turns into a well-rounded character for such a small series. Her development is started early, and not at the semi-final episodes, which seems to be a mistake that many series seem to make.

But yeah, I mentioned that this series has the subtlety of a herd of stampeding elephants. This is in both the good and the bad way. If things seem a bit too quiet, you can bet your hat that a candle will fall over and set a house on fire, just too spice things up a bit, and the entire series is filled with these kinds of plot-twists.

The individual stories basically range from one particularly far-fetched tale of bullying, to very subtle and insightful views on death, and especially the people who have been left by them. Shigofumi definitely has its flaws, but because of this it also has its own identify. You may try, and Jigoku Shoujo and Shinigami no Ballad indeed at first sight seem similar, but you won’t find any series that’s really captured the same essence as this one. If you want a series that’s short, sweet, and yet still packs a punch, then this one could be worth to check out.

Shigofumi ~ Stories of the Last Letter – 12

by psgels, posted in Shigofumi ~ Stories of the Last Letter


And so Shigofumi has ended. Surprisingly, it didn’t go as I planned. Fumi didn’t turn into a psychotic killer at all, and she instead became surprisingly likable throughout the episode. It’s really sad that this series is so short, as it would have been able to do great things if it was allowed twelve more episodes. Shigofumi really has its own style, and I believe that it wouldn’t run out of inspiration with two seasons. Ah well, in exchange for its short length, it turned into a short but sweet series.

Basically, Mika went back into Fumi for a while and temporarily disappeared, so that Fumi would be able to lead her own life. Fumi, however, had a lot of trouble in her own life, and just wasn’t suited to be transferred to school so quickly. Everyone took pictures of her, she became paranoid, her own mother didn’t want to have her anymore. In the end, when she runs to Mikawa Kirameki’s house, Mika finally appears again, and smacks her for running away every time. While it wasn’t the best ending, it was great to see the “internal” struggle between Fumi and Mika. In the climax, it finally turned out that both of them had their own needs, but were holding back because of the other. Nice. I like it.

But why? For GOD’S SAKE WHY!? Who the heck found it a good idea to suddenly make Natsuko fall in love with Kaname? It comes from nowhere, serves absolutely no purpose, is very badly developed, and turned her entirely character into a joke. I suppose that the writers wanted to add a bit more extra tension, but that rather backfired on them, just like every umpth series that attempts such a freaking twist!

Ah, now that that’s out, I do hope that more series like Shigofumi appear. Series that create their own style, and don’t try to be like others. This really has been a series with its own identity, and even though the plot was a bit boggled up at times, I had a blast watching it.

True Tears – 12

by psgels, posted in True Tears


Okay, I was wrong… this episode didn’t feature the climax of this series at all. All it did was just build up for the next one, while the local festival took place. I do say that Shinichiro’s a pretty good dancer. And he’s probably the first harem-lead ever that actually performs during a festival, because it’s usually the other way around.

In any case, this episode built up very well, along with the previous episode. For a large part, it follows Noe, as she tries to make sense of what to do next, and it subtly suggested that Noe would indeed jump off of somewhere at the end of the episode. After all, first we have Shinichiro’s story, where the chicken that wants to fly crashes down. Then she can’t make her own chickens fly. Shinichiro is also in top-shape, and he really is able to find something to do as he performs, and the scene cuts to a couple of pigeons and seagulls that actually do take off.

The portrayal of Noe as a chicken and Shinichiro as a seagull is quite appropriate. Shinichiro has really developed over the past few episodes. You can see that he’s been trying to sort out his own feelings, and with success. He may zigzag between Noe and Hiromi, but every time his feelings do move from one to the other, he gets a bit closer to fining out what he really wants to do with his life.

Noe on the other hand, has been going nowhere. She too is in the middle of some sort of love-triangle, but in this episode, her brother has basically scared her off now that he actually made clear that he loves her. The fact that she’s weird is basically a double-edged sword. On one side, this perfectly distracted Shinichiro from his own lovesickness about Hiromi, but on the other hand she basically alienated everyone else. Now that she’s lovesick herself, there’s nobody else for her apart from Shinichiro, and he has been occupied with Hiromi for quite a bit. Added to that, while Shinichiro has his dancing and manga-writing, all Noe has are her chickens and her strange theories to distract her.

And these are exactly who she turns to. In this episode, she realizes how Shinichiro has left her behind, and tries to take off herself. This time, though, it’s in the literal sense, and she jumps off the same tree as in the first episode, though this time it looks to be a bit higher.

So, the big question: what the heck is going to happen in the next episode?! Noe will probably end up in the hospital, but then? I still have no freaking idea about who Shinichiro will end up with. He’ll obviously care a lot about Noe, and make sure she’s treated properly at the beginning of the next episode, but it’s not like Hiromi will just stand still and do nothing.

What surprises me a bit is that one major question still hasn’t been answered: if Hiromi and Shinichiro aren’t siblings, then why did Shinichiro’s mother hate Hiromi?

Clannad Review – 85/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews


Wha! Another series I had no idea ended so soon. The series of the past two seasons have followed an interesting trend of breaking away from the usual 26/24/13/12-episode-formats, with more series than ever with just 10 (Hatenkou Yuugi), 11 (Hakaba Kitarou) or 22 (Shion no Ou, Ghost Hound, this one) episodes, and I think that it’s a great trend, better than including a bunch of random fillers to fill time.

In any case, on with the review. Let me start by saying that before Clannad started, I hated Kyoani with passion. One of the reasons for that was simple bias, unfortunately. The first ten episodes that I saw of Kanon were nothing special, and the same goes for the four episodes of Haruhi Suzumiya that I saw. Especially Lucky Star bored the heck out of me, every time I watched an episode of it, and yet people were praising these guys as if they’re were some kind of living incarnation of God. At that time, I just saw Kyoani as a bunch of reasonably good animators who rely way and way too much moe and stereotypes, and couldn’t write an engaging script, even if their lives depended on it.

And then Clannad came, and somehow it succeeded in entirely changing this opinion. Amongst all the visual novel and hentai-game adaptations, Clannad most definitely stands out for me as the best. Even if you hate the genre, this series is still worth checking out, simply because it’s so delightfully different, and it breaks so many stereotypes.

For once, the male main character has an actual personality and his own story. He actually has weaknesses, and isn’t a huge stereotype. The male side-character that you usually see around him (supposedly, to show the difference between guys who get lots of girls and guys who have no chance at them), may be an idiot at times, but he’s actually not as annoying as you might think he’d be, and he often brightens up the situation.

Then there are the female characters in the series. Their characters aren’t as special as some of the other ones, but they do their jobs. What’s especially notable is that this is one series that realizes who its female main character is, and so it never delves into pointless love-triangles. Because of this, this series has much more slice-of-life elements than it has romance-elements.

In Clannad, the main character isn’t the one who magically solves all the problems of his female companions on his own. Sure, he plays an important role, but every time, it’s either a different side-character who ends up saving the girl in question, or the combination of all the side-characters together. The level of friendship that wouldn’t be out of place in Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai is quite astounding and gives a nice perspective to this series.

This series isn’t perfect; nearly every female character does fall in love with the main character at one point or another, for very weak reasons. Luckily, they quickly realize that the guy is already occupied. This series also tends to have a few plot-twists that are a tad too coincidental and convenient. Thankfully, it knows how to build up well enough, and everything comes together in the final episode like a charm. I must congratulate Kyoani for delivering a solid series, away from any stereotypes. But seriously, please make their next series take place at a place away from a high school.

Ghost Hound – 20

by psgels, posted in Ghost Hound


There are two episodes left, and we finally know the intentions of the “bad guys” of this series. Heh, it’s about time. There are basically two “villains”, each completely unrelated from the other. The first one is Noriko. In this episode, she basically talks Miyako’s mother into taking care of her while her father remains in the hospital, which gives me a lot of reasons to believe that she was the one who stabbed him in the first place.

Noriko’s intentions were indeed to take over the cult that Makoto’s grandmother started. This episode shows that she too has some connections to the spirit-world, and she apparently knew that Miyako was possessed by some kind of spirit. If she indeed stabbed Miyako’s father, then she would have hit two flies with one blow: first Miyako would be too weak to suppress the spirit that possessed her, and second of all, it would eliminate her father, who obviously would never allow Miyako to be used for some kind of weird cult.

The second villain is the green-haired guy whom we still don’t know a lot about. He shows his true colours in this episode, though. Reika and Masayuki were apparently working on some kind of homunculus. An artificially created living being, which was, if I understood things correctly, was made possible through the strange spirits that Masayuki saw in the lab a few episodes ago. In any case, villain #2 steals this homunculus and dumps it in the dam, so that it can be food for the spirits.

The question: where does Hirata fit in all this? I didn’t quite understand what he told Reika in this episode, and what it signified. It seems that he found out something, but what?

Makoto, meanwhile, is doing fine with his mother. She’s been released from the hospital, but her memory is still a bit jumbled up. It’s interesting how the previous episode made such an impression on him that he’s now fully taking care of her, and protecting her.

Tarou, meanwhile, has it tough. Notice how he’s unable to even utter the word “Miyako”? In the meantime, his mother’s having visions of her dead daughter. Whether she saw the spirit of her dead daughter, or if it was just in her mind, the fact remains that she’s hasn’t been cheerier. And this is the first time I’ve seen her genuinely smile in the entire series.

Oh, and to those who believed that the person in Masayuki’s house who kept gaming was his mother: you were right, and I was wrong. It indeed seems that Masayuki’s mother has disappeared off to somewhere, and her husband doesn’t even seem to care (which is of course rather logical, after he’s been walking after Reika like a young puppy).

Hakaba Kitarou Review – 88/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Hakaba Kitarou


The original Hakaba Kitarou (later renamed to Gegege no Kitarou) was one of the original pioneers in anime and manga, even before the legacy of Osamu Tezuka. Ever since it was serialized in 1959, it’s spawned five lengthy television-series, eight movies and one live-action movie. The problem is that all of these reduced the Kitarou-franchise to a kiddie-series. Enter Hakaba Kitarou, in its Noitamina time-slot as it attempts to remove all of the “kiddie”-roots from the franchise. And believe it or not, but it succeeds pretty well.

The result is a very rare combination between horror and comedy. But this series mostly stands out because it’s so refreshingly different from usual anime. The art really tries to go its own way, with character-designs in an original style, and a continuous filter, reminiscent of Mononoke. There are lots of interesting camera-angles and monster-designs, which make sure that this series turns into a visual feast that doesn’t rely on moe whatsoever.

This is also one series that completely shatters the boundaries between good and evil. It may seem like that Kitarou is the main character, and therefore the good guy, and yet he likes to play cat-and-mouse games with his victims, and he doesn’t even seem to care whether these victims end up dead or not. Nezumi Otoko, on the other hand, may be the series’ villain (he acts mostly out of greed and for money), and yet he stands so far away from the stereotypical anime villain. This guy is often rational and he doesn’t try to look as cool or evil as possible. He’s also often friendly, although he’s ready to betray any friend in favour of his well-being.

The same goes for all other side-characters that appear in one the different stories that have been put into the eleven episodes that this series consists of. Everyone is somewhere in the grey spectrum between good and evil. And all of the major side-characters have multiple sides and hardly have any chance to get boring. I’d also like to mention the ease at which this series seems to be able to kill off its characters. Seriously, some deaths really come from nowhere.

And that brings me to another good point of this series. Not every episode may have one, but the plot-twists will leave you guessing, and some will come as a huge shock, exactly what a horror-series should be. You can see that the writers have a lot of fun while writing this series, and building it up. Hakaba Kitarou has a delightful air of unpredictability that you hardly ever see in anime.

Overall, if you’re looking for something different, then Hakaba Kitarou is the way to go. Don’t get fooled into thinking that this is a series for kids. Simplistic character-designs don’t automatically make a series a kiddie-one. At eleven episodes, there’s hardly any chance to get bored. This is one reason why I like winter-seasons. Because not many popular series air, it’s the perfect chance for the less popular and under-looked anime that try to be different to get a chance. 2007 had Master of Epic, and 2008 continues this tradition with Hakaba Kitarou.