Arusu the Adventure – 02

by psgels, posted in Arusu The Adventure, Mahou Shoujotai


This episode was a more serious story. Unfortunately, it wasn’t some kind of continuous story, and got solved at the end of it. It also felt a bit too rushed. It seems that the creators wanted the same addictive pacing as in the TV-series, but this time, they failed a bit at that. Even the original series had building up, but it was one of the rare series that could push its story forward and build up at the same time, and I missed that a bit here.

Still, even though the storytelling left things to be desired, the story itself was very good nonetheless. It features a witch who had been sealed in the past, because she gained too much power and went berserk, a bunch of decades ago. Ever since, she split off herself into two personalities, a good and a bad one. The bad one wants to be unsealed, and wants Alice to do this for her. She picked Alice because she was just about the only one, along with the children, who didn’t know about this witch.

In the end, Alice does what she’s good at: believing in her own ideals, naive as they may be and unseals the witch, because in the end, both the good and the bad personalities were nice to her. It’s an interesting idea: the “bad” one just wanted to be noticed, while the “good” one tried a bit too hard to prevent the “bad” one from reaching her goal. In the end, they both acted, based on their own morals and values. Oh, and nothing goes wrong in the end, because while she was sealed, the witch had learned to control her great power. While this may be a nice idea it did come from nowhere, actually.

Well, it seems clear now that Arusu the Adventure will never become anything special, but I’m happy enough to see the characters, getting fleshed out some more. It’s clear that all of the major trump cards were played in the series already, but at least this episode reminded me again why I fell in love with the original characters. Every single one of them was forced to seriously look and reflect at his or her own morals and values as the series went on, and there isn’t just one kind of right. This episode featured the same, though the storytelling just wasn’t up to the sky-high standards of the original Mahou Shoujotai.

Ghost Hound – 16

by psgels, posted in Ghost Hound


God, that was intense. I really love how this series has progressed so far, and this is another major episode. Makoto and Tarou finally meet Makoto’s mother, after her new husband introduces them to her. Makoto really was planning to stab her, though it seems that he didn’t realize what kind of mental efforts it would cost to pull off such a stunt, so he runs away. After that, Tarou spends the night at Makoto’s mother’s house, while Makoto himself still didn’t return.

I like how this episode turned Makoto’s mother and her new husband into real characters, and we finally get to know them a bit. Makoto’s mother seems really nice at first sight, and she seems to feel genuinely sorry for abandoning her son right after her original husband committed suicide, but later that night, Tarou sees a whole different side of her, and she seems to be suffering from huge mental problems. Something tells me that they too need to pay the councillor a visit.

Meanwhile, things get just as interesting with Michio and Masayuki. It seems that their attempts to find out the password of Masayuki’s father’s computer failed, and while Michio attempts a few more things, Masayuki falls asleep, and finds out that he too has left the monkey-stage in his out-of-body experiences. He’s also ended up at the research laboratory where his father and the female scientist work.

The next part was a tad hard to understand, but it seems like the female scientist has manipulated Makoto’s father so that he’ll do whatever she wants. He seemed like a little lap dog at times. For some reason, there also seem to be ghosts floating around certain areas of the research centre, ad they start to attack Masayuki at one point, showing him strange signs I didn’t understand. In the end, none other than Michio saves him. I still don’t quite understand what triggered Michio to have out-of-body experiences as well, though if I had to guess then hanging out with Masayuki was probably the reason.

Hakaba Kitarou – 07

by psgels, posted in Hakaba Kitarou


I must say, this series is a master of surprises and twists. It really feels refreshing from the usual anime. If you’re looking for something different then Hakaba Kitarou is definitely recommended, because there are very few series that combine mystery and horror with comedy. 😛

I originally believed that this entire episode would be devoted to getting rid of the water-spirit. Well, turns out it didn’t. The only thing that was really needed for the story of this episode is that Nezumi Otoko captured Kitarou’s father and put him in a jar. The water-spirit story gets wrapped up nicely after only five minutes, it first swallows up Kiterou’s clone, after which a newly introduced character drenches it in gasoline and ignites it.

I think this also means that two recurring characters have now been killed off for good, because we don’t see any signs of bad Kitarou and Mizuki returning. In fact, Kitarou doesn’t even seem to remember that the one who took care of him for years is gone now. All he seems to care about is his father, apparently.

In any case, this newly introduced character turns out to live two doors next to Nezumi Otoko. In between, there lives a “beautiful”(*ahem*) woman who both of them fall in love with. Ever since last episode Nezumi Otoko has been blackmailing Kitarou with his father. Because of this, he ends up delivering a love-letter for both Nezumi Otoko and this character (who turns out to be a werewolf, by the way). Then it turns out that the woman is going to be moving out, and Kitarou throws away the love-letters while Nezumi Otoko and the werewolf know nothing about this.

When they find out, they decide to take revenge for this by putting Kitarou in a coffin and dumping this coffin into sea. At least, that was their plan. Instead, Kitarou’s father escapes and enters Nezumi Otoko’s body to confuse him, while Kitarou escapes. The empty coffin then gets dumped into the sea, and then it’s time for Kitarou to play a prank on them. He uses his connection from the underworld to deliver the coffin back to Nezumi Otoko and the werewolf. When they decide to take a trip to the underworld, to check out what went wrong, they instead are taken into a hallucination into an old train that went out of service decades ago.

This part actually drew an interesting parallel to Mononoke, or the Bake Neko arc, to be exact. There we see the mayor jump out of the train and get devoured by the Mononoke. So when the werewolf jumped out of the train as well, I thought he was gone as well, especially when a loud bump followed. Instead, he just landed on a very unfortunate rock outside and got knocked unconscious.

I really must say that the dialogue for Hakaba Kitarou feels refreshing. The bad guys all have a personality and don’t feel stereotyped, and in the meantime the good guys can be considered the bad guys as well, depending on how you look at it. This is one of the reason why I like experimental anime so much. It just feels delightfully different from usual. One of the others is Mahou Shoujotai, of course. 😛

Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji – 19

by psgels, posted in Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji


Call me gullible, but I’m not really pleased to find out that my praises for the E-Card arc of a few episodes ago, where I finally hoped to see some complex mind-games between two masterminds, turned out to be one big mistake. How I hoped to see both Tonegawa and Kaiji outsmart each other with complex tactics… well, it now turns out that Tonegawa has been cheating. Sigh. The episode was quite intense, and it wasn’t bad at all, actually, but it’s the whole attitude of this series that bothers me.

I finally think that I know where my problems for this series lie: with those cursed expectations again. A couple of years ago, I watched the first arc of Akagi. I’m still not sure why I didn’t continue it, but I loved the complex tactics that it brought into Mah-jong. Shion no Ou is currently doing a similar thing with complex and character-based tactics. So yes, I was hoping for the same kind of experience, where Kaiji would use his head while gambling, and come up with nice ideas to win money. It was even advertised, how Kaiji would “enter the dangerous world of gambling”.

Instead, we get 26 episodes of bunch of yakuza who like to bully a bunch of defenceless young adults. It’s nice and all, but it’s so different and less interesting (in my opinion, at least) from what I expected from this series. I also see no reason why this couldn’t be cut into just thirteen episodes. That would have been the perfect length for a concept such as this one. Each arc thus far has featured Kaiji enter a challenge full of confidence, dive into the deepest pit of despair imaginable, only to rise up again and survive with one masterful insight. In that way, the Boat-arc has so far been the best arc so far, because at least that one did have a bit more than just the formula I described.

Now I also understand why I’m so bothered with the slow pacing of this series, even though I usually don’t have this problem at all. The arcs are just so formulaic that I find myself thinking “just get on with it”. I mean, the creators really try to keep the episodes interesting, but the fact that Kaiji will rise from his despair and will at least do something that wasn’t part of Tonegawa’s plans are just way too apparent. It doesn’t even matter whether Kaiji wins or loses, because by the nature of this series I’m already expecting that Kaiji will walk away without any money, yet again, and that the creators will find another way to keep Kaiji on their leash so that he can enter the fourth and final arc of this series.

So, how is it that Shion no Ou is currently my absolute favourite series, even though it too is in the middle of a tournament-arc with a similar premise as that of Kaiji? Well, Shion no Ou makes sure that there’s enough going on for me not to care. It’s hard to explain, but it feels like every character there has his or her own goals and morals. In Kaiji, it just feels like they exist to carry Kaiji through the storyline.

Arusu the Adventure – 01

by psgels, posted in Arusu The Adventure, Mahou Shoujotai


Finally! After more than TWO YEARS of waiting, with numerous delays, Arusu the Adventure is finally here. I originally intended to wait for the subs, but I’ve gotten so impatient that I couldn’t wait to check it out. In the end, this OVA consists out of six episodes, all about 20 minutes long. I’ve got all of them on my PC, and I’ll be blogging them whenever I have the time. After watching the first episode, my initial verdict of Arusu the Adventure is simple: it’s awesome, but totally not what I expected from it.

It turns out that there isn’t going to be an overall storyline, and instead this OVA will feature random adventures of Alice, Shiela and Eva. Ah well, the story of the original Mahou Shoujotai may have been one of the best I’ve seen, but that wasn’t the only thing that originally made me fall in love with this series. The art-style was amazing, the character-designs were excellent, the setting was really imaginative. In short, it was outstanding in every single way.

I’m not going to say what happens in this episode. It’s really one of these things that you just need to see for yourself, otherwise it’ll ruin everything. Seriously, I really hope that this gets subbed fast, because I laughed really hard at times. I admit that I didn’t like waiting so long for this OVA to come, but it was SO WORTH THE WAIT. It’s the perfect chance to showcase a few of the ideas that the creators couldn’t use for the original series.

Review Index: OVA Impressions

by psgels, posted in OVA Reviews

Since the summer of 2010, I’ve had a different method of reviewing OVAs. I found that simply reviewing them did not fit together with Movies and TV-series, and the standards were just too different, especially with those OVAs that just released one incomplete episode of which it wasn’t even certain whether or not it would get any more episodes. That’s why I decided to simply review every OVA episode individually with a different rating system than what I usually use.

Alphabetical
.Hack//Quantum – 01 – 8,25/10
.Hack//Quantum – 02 – 8,25/10
Angel Densetsu – 7,25/10
Appleseed XIII – 03 – 8/10
Armored Trooper Votoms – Phantom Arc – 03 – 8,75/10
Armored Trooper Votoms – Phantom Arc – 04 – 8,5/10
Armored Trooper Votoms – Phantom Arc – 05 – 8,75/10
Armored Trooper Votoms – Phantom Arc – 06 – 8,5/10
Bannou Yasai Ninninman – 7,5/10
Black Jack Final – 01 – 9/10
Black Jack Final – 02 – 8,75/10
Black Lagoon – Roberta’s Blood Trail – 02 – 8,25/10
Black Lagoon – Roberta’s Blood Trail – 03 – 8,5/10
Black Lagoon – Roberta’s Blood Trail – 04 – 8,5/10
Black Lagoon – Roberta’s Blood Trail – 05 – 8.5/10
Black Rock Shooter – 7,5/10
Buta – 7,5/10
The Epic of Zektbach – 6/10
Goulart Knights – 3,5/10
Gyo
Hen Zemi – 01 – 8/10
Hen Zemi – 02 – 8/10
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kira – 01 – 5/10
Hiyokoi – 01 – 6,5/10
Houkago no Pleiades – 7,25/10
Kara no Kyoukai Epilogue – 8,5/10
Kizuna Ichigeki – 7,5/10
Koi Sento – 8/10
Kyou, Koi wo Hajimemasu – 02 – 7,75/10
Licca-chan – Fushigi na Fushigi na Yunia Monogatari – 8/10
Mars of Destruction – 4/10
Mazinkaiser SKL – 02 – 6/10
Megane na Kanojo – 6,5/10
Mirai Nikki – 7,75/10
Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn – 02 – 7,75/10
Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn – 04 – 7.75/10
Nichijou – 7,5/10
Norageki – 8,25/10
Ojii-San no Lamp – 8/10
Roujin Z – 8,25/10
Seikai no Danshou – 8,25
Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi – 7,5/10
Tales of Symphonia – 07 – 8,75/10
Tales of Symphonia – 08 – 8,5/10
Tales of Symphonia – 09 – 8.25/10
Tamayura – 01 – 6,75/10
Tamayura – 02 – 8/10
Tamayura – 03 – 7,75/10
Tamayura – 04 – 8/10
Tansuwarashi – 8/10
Toriko – 6/10
Trava – Fist Planet – 7,75/10
Votoms Finder – 7,25/10
Wasuregumono – 8,25/10
xxxHolic Rou – Adayume – 8,75/10
Yondemasuyo! Azazel-san – 8,25/10
Yozakura Quartet – Hoshi no Umi – 01 – 8,75/10
Yozakura Quartet – Hoshi no Umi – 02 – 8,75/10
Yozakura Quartet – Hoshi no Umi – 03 – 9/10

Rating
Black Jack Final – 01 – 9/10
Yozakura Quartet – Hoshi no Umi – 03 – 9/10
Armored Trooper Votoms – Phantom Arc – 03 – 8,75/10
Armored Trooper Votoms – Phantom Arc – 05 – 8,75/10
Black Jack Final – 02 – 8,75/10
Tales of Symphonia – 07 – 8,75/10
xxxHolic Rou – Adayume – 8,75/10
Yozakura Quartet – Hoshi no Umi – 01 – 8,75/10
Yozakura Quartet – Hoshi no Umi – 8,75/10
Armored Trooper Votoms – Phantom Arc – 04 – 8,5/10
Armored Trooper Votoms – Phantom Arc – 06 – 8,5/10
Black Lagoon – Roberta’s Blood Trail – 03 – 8,5/10
Black Lagoon – Roberta’s Blood Trail – 04 – 8,5/10
Black Lagoon – Roberta’s Blood Trail – 05 – 8.5/10
Kara no Kyoukai Epilogue – 8,5/10
Tales of Symphonia – 08 – 8,5/10
.Hack//Quantum – 01 – 8,25/10
.Hack//Quantum – 02 – 8,25/10
Black Lagoon – Roberta’s Blood Trail – 02 – 8,25/10
Norageki – 8,25/10
Roujin Z – 8,25/10
Seikai no Danshou – 8,25
Tales of Symphonia – 09 – 8.25/10
Wasuregumono – 8,25/10
Yondemasuyo! Azazel-san – 8,25/10
Appleseed XIII – 03 – 8/10
Hen Zemi – 01 – 8/10
Hen Zemi – 02 – 8/10
Koi Sento – 8/10
Licca-chan – Fushigi na Fushigi na Yunia Monogatari – 8/10
Ojii-San no Lamp – 8/10
Tamayura – 02 – 8/10
Tamayura – 04 – 8/10
Tansuwarashi – 8/10
Kyou, Koi wo Hajimemasu – 02 – 7,75/10
Mirai Nikki – 7,75/10
Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn – 02 – 7,75/10
Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn – 04 – 7.75/10
Tamayura – 03 – 7,75/10
Trava – Fist Planet – 7,75/10
Bannou Yasai Ninninman – 7,5/10
Black Rock Shooter – 7,5/10
Buta – 7,5/10
Kizuna Ichigeki – 7,5/10
Kung Fu Cooking Girls – 7,5/10
Nichijou – 7,5/10
Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi – 7,5/10
Angel Densetsu – 7,25/10
Houkago no Pleiades – 7,25/10
Votoms Finder – 7,25/10
Tamayura – 01 – 6,75/10
Hiyokoi – 01 – 6,5/10
Megane na Kanojo – 6,5/10
The Epic of Zektbach – 6/10
Mazinkaiser SKL – 02 – 6/10
Toriko – 6/10
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kira – 01 – 5/10
Mars of Destruction – 4/10
Goulart Knights – 3,5/10

For an indication of what the ratings mean:
9+: Fantastic, really well executed, and a roller coaster ride to watch.
8-9: Not good enough to really be a masterpiece, but still really enjoayble and wholeheartedly recommended.
7-8: A p retty decent way to spend a bit of time. Nothing special and often quite flawed (especially the lower score ones), but still quite enjoyable, and it kept me busy.
6-7: Usual some gimmicky OVAs that simply fail to tell a good story, though do one or two things right.
5-6: Poorly executed and a chore to watch.
5-: this is the point where the creators just didn’t care.

Wellber no Monogatari ~ Sisters of Wellber – 21

by psgels, posted in Wellber no Monogatari ~ Sisters of Wellber


An intermezzo. Wellber no Monogatari spends this one with the much-needed background story of Voljurac. It’s probably the least interesting episode of the second season so far, but then again, the second season was just that good, and a bit of background for a side-character can only work in the series’ advantage for the final episodes. He now feels more than just a random tank.

Basically, Voljurac breaks down, and he needs to be fixed. The only person that Voljurac knows who can do this thing is the guy who created him, or to be exact: the daughter of the guy who created him. Renaldo Vinci, thirty years ago, met with Voljurac when he was still a human. It indeed seems that in the end, he transferred Voljurac’s spirit into a tank he made, after the guy had been shot lethally. Basically, Renaldo once worked for the Kingdom of Wellber, but once his health deteriorated, he quit, though his superiors didn’t like this. Voljurac was sent to kill him, but the two of them became friendly too much, and Voljurac betrayed his superiors. As a thanks, he got shot to death.

This episode also answers a question that I’ve been having ever since Rita went undercover: are there more machines like him? In short: yes. Renaldo may be dead now, but his daughter hasn’t been standing still, and she’s created quite a company, producing all sorts of interesting machines. It would have been more interesting to see some of these machines actually on the street, but this is just a minor detail.

This makes me wonder… there’s one important character left who still misses background, apart from the obvious Rita’s brother, of course. Will Sherry also get an episode for herself? It would be quite interesting, but on the other hand, there are only five episodes left, and I don’t think that the creators can just waste another episode. Or will we perhaps get a third season? That would be quite interesting…

Suteki Tantei Labyrinth – 20

by psgels, posted in Suteki Tantei Labyrinth


This episode featured one of the best fights of this series yet. I mean, what’s not to like about Seiran, driving his van off a cliff, jumping out of it just to get to Mayuki faster. Talk about an entrance. Also Byakko’s new weapons were quite creative. I’ve seen these claws before, but never were they attached to the feet of the wielder. You can say a lot about the director, but he does know how to create a good fight if he wants to. 😛

About the rest of the episode, there was a lot of talking much more than usual, which means that I’ve had more trouble than usual trying to understand it. Apparently, Sanae’s mother plays a quite a big role in this as some kind of neutral party, when both Seiju, Chien and Seiran visit her. Seiju apparently wanted something from her, in her memory. According to Byakko, this is supposed to be the “path that leads to god”. In a flashback, we see how Byakko thinks that Seiran has it.

This episode also continued to develop Byakko and Seiran, probably the ones who suffer the most from the conflict between the three brothers. We see Chien feel pity for what happened to Byakko, though we don’t see the reasons for this yet. Later this episode, she yet again tries to go after Mayuki, though as she’s about to kill Seiren (who randomly appeared with that entrance described above), Seiju yet again stops her from doing so. Seiran in the meantime is getting more and more desperate to get rid of Seiyu, especially now that he knows

Gunslinger Girl – Il Teatrino – 07

by psgels, posted in Gunslinger Girl - Il Teatrino


I’m getting more and more convinced that there is no such thing as a main character, or a main group of characters for this series. The girls are definitely not the ones who receive the most airtime. Heck, in this episode they yet again didn’t appear at all, and the focus shifted to Franca, as we get to see her background, why she met Franco in the first place, and how she got her code-name Franca in the first place.

It seems that she spent her college-years with none other than Patricia, Marco’s ex lover. Franca was actually the one who introduced Patricia to Marco. Oh, and her name was Catherina back then. It turns out that at one point, her father died and she wanted revenge. For that, she sought the help of a guy named Franco, son of a famous bomb expert and who helped his late father many times in the past. When she met him it seems that he had lost any motivation for the passion that his father once had.

I’m not sure what happened in between, but the two stuck together. When at one point, a bunch of old friends of Franco ask him what Franca’s name is, and instead of answering “Catherine”, he replies with “Franca”. This was all eight years ago, and both of them have matured greatly since then. It really feels like two lost souls have found each other, and grew, depending on each other. Even though Franco doesn’t show it, it does seem like his encounter with Franca gave him a reason to live again.

Sure, the story of the girls is nice and all, but the adults are really stealing the show for this series over and over again. I just love how this can quite possibly be one of the very few series that has important characters of all possible ages, except perhaps of high-school-age (the most annoying age anyway), depending on how old Pinocchio is. I really like how this series has tried to make every single character count, and it succeeded pretty well at this. I’m not sure why, but I always tend to like series with lots of important characters.

Pinocchio also developed a bit this episode. This probably was the first time he showed any emotion towards anyone other than his uncle. In the week he spent with Franco and Franca he barely said anything, and just kept to himself most of the time, but after saving Franca, he did show a few signs of friendliness. During said incident, Franca also got pretty beaten up, so Pinocchio’s uncle decided to give her a visit. When Pinocchio sees him again, it becomes clear that he really wants to mean something to his uncle, and he wants to be complimented.

Oh, and on a side-note: the animation for the OP changed to the traditional method. Again, it’s pretty well done, and it seems to consist out of a combination of recycled cells and original animation. Ah well, at least you can see that the creators are trying, despite the limited budget. Franco’s typing at the beginning of the episode was just bad…

Gundam 00 – 19

by psgels, posted in Mobile Suit Gundam 00


This was probably the first real character-based episode of Gundam 00. The story has become a tad dull for the past few episodes, but thankfully the characters are making up for it. One of the things I like about them is how the creators know that their ideals are cheesy, and because of this, the characters themselves realize this too. The way this is used has become pretty interesting.

The fight unfortunately ends with both sides retreating, after Tieria realizes that the thing that Nena altered in Veda was the data in Nadleeh. Johann also reveals that he’s been watching the Gundam Meisters through Veda all along, and that Setsuna was involved with the organization that killed Lockon’s parents. We see the head of the United Nations (forgot his name) smile as this happens, and he also mentions that Stage 3 has begun now. He claims to be just an observer, but it seems that he knows every detail of the complot.

One thing that surprised me was how Nena was actually surprised when she saw Nadleeh, even though she was the one who hacked into Veda… The episode ends with a bunch of people, entering a mysterious base in Antartica. I’m not sure what was up with that, but we’ll probably learn this in a few episodes. The plot had better get moving fast now.

On a side-note: I did like how Lockon didn’t go all emo when he found out that Setsuna was affiliated with the ones who killed his parents.