Suteki Tantei Labyrinth – 19

by psgels, posted in Suteki Tantei Labyrinth


You know, it’s clear that I had a lot of doubts when I started this series. Especially the first half with its “mystery of the week” tested my patience more than enough. But with this episode, I can finally say for sure that I’m glad that I continued to follow this series. With the second half, this series has become so much better, and the things that were the worst about the first half (ludicrous mysteries and extreme focus on TEA) have been removed entirely. Instead, Mayuki and Seiran have gotten much more attention, not to mention that the comedy has turned out hilarious.

This episode was one of the most serious ones of the series, although there was plenty to laugh at as well (Seiran in a loincloth!? Oh my god) and a lot of background information has been revealed. We get to see how Mayuki met Sanae, how he met Hatsumi, how Byakko turned up three years ago and how Seiran transformed Hatsumi and Sanae into his servants. Oh and OMG TWIST: Seiju is Seiran’s brother. I’m looking forward to find out how that all came to be, and what role Chien plays in this.

The animation also was of top-quality this episode. You can say a lot about this series, but the fights are a feast for the senses, although the choreography could have been a bit better.

Also, it was kind-of strange to see Byakko so young. And what idiot just walks into a forest, sees a strangely specked red mushroom, and EATS it?

Gunslinger Girl – Il Teatrino – 06

by psgels, posted in Gunslinger Girl - Il Teatrino


Thanks to Windspirit, for pointing out that last week’s episode wasn’t a half-recap at all. It seems that I just had gotten a wrong file from Share, and it looks like there are no signs at all that the budget is running out. Of course, it was relatively small to begin with, but something tells me now that the creators knew exactly how to use it. After watching the first half, the second half also made much more sense, not to mention the bit of development for Triela.

This episode finally was about Henrietta again. I can’t really say that she’s my favourite member of the cast, but thankfully enough other things made this episode worthwhile enough. I especially liked the old acquaintance of Franca. He’s the member of a terrorist group, working at an antique repair shop. He originally joined the terrorist group in order to take revenge on his brother, who died a few years ago. But in this episode, he gets second doubts after meeting Henrietta, if I understood correctly. I like how he turned down Franca’s request in the end.

In this episode, Henrietta and Rico also have a small fight, after Rico accidentally breaks the Jose’s microscope. While it was enjoyable, I’d much rather see more of Angelica, Triela or Claes. Ah well, there are enough episodes left for them to shine. 🙂

Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji – 18

by psgels, posted in Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji


SO, this was clearly a building-up episode. It’s a bit disappointing, as I was hoping that Kaiji would turn the tables already with the seventh round, but instead the creators decided to use these rounds to bring Kaiji more and more in despair. Kaiji has now lost six times in a row, and due to his recklessness he will now lose his ear if he doesn’t win at least once, even while betting 1mm at a time.

It’s a bit of a pity to see Kaiji in despair this way. What I really fear is going to happen is that Kaiji is going to lose even more after this, after which he miraculously wins once on the twelfth round and saves his ear. I’d rather see a more… evenly matched battle between the two of them, and I hope that Kaiji can grab himself together early enough to not make his survival depend on the very last match.

I’m surprised that Kaiji didn’t figure out that Tonegawa can only use Kaiji’s body language when Kaiji is the first to deal his card. After Tonegawa revealed how he knows exactly when Kaiji deals his emperor, based on his body-language, you’d expect Kaiji to go for either the fourth or the second card, but instead he chose the first and the fifth. With that, Tonegawa doesn’t even have to break a sweat, and just put down his slave whenever he sees that Kaiji puts the emperor down. Come to think of it, the only time that Tonegawa really had to think was in the third round, which was the only one where he won and was the first one to deal. Come on, Kaiji. Stop being emo and realize this!

Porfy no Nagai Tabi – 06

by psgels, posted in Porfy no Nagai Tabi


I’d like to call this episode a subtle foreshadowing one. It had so many hints about what we may expect in the future of this series, after the earthquake takes place. Basically, Christopher’s car repair shop has been moving well, when at one point he gets visited by a father who travels along in a truck, along with his daughter. His next job is going to be a bit dangerous, so he decides to leave his daughter with Porfy and Mina for half a day.

At the end of the episode, this girl called Alecia (I hope I spelled this one right) leaves again, but there are many things that should be noted:
1: She appears in the OP.
2: She travels along with her father in a truck. When Porfy starts travelling, he just HAS to run into her at some point.
3: Her mother died two years ago, which is why she’s travelling around with her father.
4: As she tells this to Porfy, the creators show an image of Christ, hanging on his cross, with the nails through his hands as well.
5: Right before she leaves, she kisses Porfy.

Point 3 and 4 confirm what I’ve suspected all along: this series won’t be afraid to show death and dark scenes. Point 1 and 5 also show that she made a huge impression on Porfy for this part. She developed quite fast for a series as this one. It’s only one episode, and she went from a potential tsundere to a versatile and three-dimensional character, and it’s pretty safe to assume that Porfy made a huge impression on her as well. Porfy and Mina are probably the first friends she’s had in years, considering how reluctant she was when her father announced that he’d leave her behind for a few hours.

Like expected, Porfy no Nagai Tabi has been by far the most realistic of all 2008 anime, and it doesn’t look like anything will be kicking it from its throne. There are so many moments that feel nostalgic to me, from when I was a kid myself and the world seemed so simple. Porfy also remains an idiot, but I couldn’t be more positive with that. You just have to love how he kept ringing the church-bell, hoping that it would reach Alecia’s mother in heaven.

Gundam 00 – 18

by psgels, posted in Mobile Suit Gundam 00


Unbelievable. I don’t think that ten episodes ago, I would have expected to be glad when Setsuna showed up and acted on his own again, like he did at the end of this episode. It’s interesting how this guy has been fleshed out pretty well for the past eighteen episodes, and I hope that in the next episode, he’ll kick the Throne Gundams’ ass.

Basically in this episode we finally know why Saji and Louise have been included in this series in the first place. Louise turned out to be the victim of the first Gundam attack on civilians. She survived, but she lost her family and her hand, all at once. The culprit was basically Nena. It’s seriously been a while since I hated a character this much.

I realize how this of course is all of the creators’ intentions, but I have one major problem with the Throne Gundams, or the Trinities to be exact. In a way, they had it coming that they’d start attacking Civilians at one point, since there’s doesn’t seem to be any adult around them to keep them in check, unlike the original Gundam. Nena has basically the “dictator-syndrome”. My problem with this is that one of the reasons I came to like this series is how nearly everyone’s alignment is in sort-of a gray area. There’s nobody purely good, and nobody has been 100% evil so far.

But yeah, the Trinities are now basically portrayed as pure evil, and with this episode, they’ve also labelled the original Gundam Meisters as the good guys. This basically means that Gundam 00 is dangerously close to becoming a cheesy good vs evil-battle, instead of the political intrigue that made the previous episodes so enjoyable. I know that it’s only been three episodes since the Trinities have been introduced, but these guys seriously NEED some development! Why the heck did they end up piloting the Throne Gundams anyway?

A lot is going to depend on the next episode, and how the fight between Setsuna and the Throne Gundams will end. One major fight between them is okay, but I don’t want this series to end up with a long war between the original Gundams and the Throne ones. It’s annoying, this series was finally beginning to get developed, only to introduce some newly underdeveloped plot-devices who probably also need eight more episodes to fully unleash their potential.

Shion no Ou – 16

by psgels, posted in Shion no Ou


Oh my god. This episode was absolutely amazing, and quite probably the best of the entire series yet. And with Shion no Ou, that has to say something! Obviously with that, there are major spoilers following, because this episode turned so many tables around. You don’t want to read this entry without having seen the episode, and I’m serious about this. This sentence is meant to fill up space on the blog aggregators.

Now, the biggest shock was definitely the very first sentence on the first scene. From out of NOWHERE, we just learn that Ayumi’s mother freaking DIED. I hardly could believe my ears when I heard this, and how it came so incredibly suddenly. The first sentence was the last place I’d ever expect a twist so major as that.

Unfortunately, the only thing that wasn’t freaking awesome about this episode was the animation. Something went terribly wrong with the outsourcing this time, and some shots looked really off, even more than usual for this series. Thankfully though, the rest of the episode MORE than made up for it. Shion’s face when she found out about Ayumi’s mother was heart-wrenching. And yes, I admit that I cried a lot during this episode.

The thing also remains that Ayumi has now lost his main reason to play Shougi. Hani-meijin then comes into the picture, when he basically offers to make Ayumi his successor. With his loss against Satoru this episode, the female Ayumi has also died, and the episode ends with Hani-meijin, actually cutting off Ayumi’s hair!

And on top of that, Satoru also receives a truckload full of development. We see him this time at the apartment of a newly introduced friend of his. We receive the first clue that perhaps he wasn’t the one who killed Shion’s parents. It turns out Kazumi was indeed his lover, whom he met in high-school. She died, however, at the same time that Shion’s parents got killed. In this episode, we see how Satoru has actually asked this friend of his to investigate on the real facts of the death of Shion’s parents. Now why would he do that if he was the murderer?

We also learn why Hani-meijin and Satoru split up. Hani-meijin basically forced Satoru to stop playing Shougi, while he himself would pursue a professional carreer in Shougi. This had a major impact on Satoru, and he secretly kept playing Shougi with himself. It turns out that his ultimate goal is to have a real match with his brother, which is probably why he organized the tournament in the first place. Where Shion fits in this isn’t clear yet. But Hani-meijin is indeed the weak point for Satoru. When he finds out that Hani-meijin was late for his own match, his own game against Ayumi got a lot weaker. When the guy showed up at last, he easily won.

Seriously, this episode was all kinds of awesomeness, and to think that the creators haven’t even begun to reveal all of their trump-cards. Right now, only Shion, Hisatani, Satoru and Hani-meijin are left in the tournament. Quite an interesting line-up, if you ask me. If I understood things correctly, then Hisatani will end up against Hani-meijin if he wins his next match. Shion then has also has a match against an unknown opponent (I suspect that this is going to be the guy who beat Saori), after which she yet again has to play against Satoru, who of course wants to go to the finale where he can play against his brother (who’ll likely beat Hisatani). It turns out that there will be 22 episodes for this series, just as with Ghost Hound, and this should provide enough time to close off this series.

Shigofumi ~ Stories of the Last Letter – 06

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


This week, Shigofumi is about a rather extreme case of bullying. The bullies are ruthless in every single way, but this episode is told from a rather interesting viewpoint: from a guy who happens to be in the same class as the bullies, but in the beginning has nothing to do with them. He never takes any action, and finds the bullied guy rather pathetic (which in a way is true. The guy has really gone crazy under the pressure). Then, when the bullied guy asks for his help, he declines, and instead betrays the guy to the bullies (did anyone else think of Kaiji when that beam appeared?). After that, the bullied commits suicide, and the bullies find themselves a new victim in the main character, who now understand how hard it is to be bullied.

Well, I think that it’s clear now that Shigofumi lacks any form of subtlety. It knows how to build up, but it’s interesting how it never tries to go too deep, and instead presents its story quite straightforward. It’s interesting how basically the entire episode says “thou shalt not bully”, and how the symbolism with the puppies was quite straightforward. It kind-of matches Fumika’s approach when she delivers the Shigofumi as well: all that matters is to deliver the Shigofumi, and everything that’s in the way doesn’t matter. I usually like series with a bit more subtlety, but a series with a subtlety like this one also is nice once in a while.

There’s one thing I couldn’t understand about this episode, though. At the end of this episode, we see how the main character stabs one of the bullies with a screwdriver (quite an interesting method to get rid of them), which he posts on a local bbs, it seems. We then switch to a completely unrelated girl, who reads the bbs as well, and seems to get bullied too. She then makes a phone-call to an unknown person and the episode ends. What was that about? Did we meet that girl before? Or was that just an introduction to the next episode? I’m going to assume that it’s the latter.

True Tears – 06

by psgels, posted in True Tears


Haha! This was most definitely the best episode of True Tears yet! Episode six may have been a bit too early for such a deep drama to already start, but at least this episode turned out excellent. It’s interesting how well te creators have managed to build up the atmosphere, in such a relative short time, considering that most series need at least thirteen episodes to achieve the same thing.

Noe’s brother got a pretty large role in the end. This episode, he ends up dating Hiromi, just to get her attention away from Shinichiro so that he can start dating Noe. I assume that he intends to break up with her as soon as Noe and Shinichiro are a true couple. It turns out that the reason why he’s so close with his sister is that they’ve spent almost all of their time together since their grandmother died (I couldn’t pick up what happened to their parents), and now he wants someone else to take care of Noe so that he can go his own ways. It was also pretty fun to see Noe steal Shinichiro’s belt. It must have been pretty tough for the guy to spend the rest of the day. 😛

Aiko also finally gets her much-needed development, and we finally know why she started dating Miyokichi in the first place. It seems that she already had a crush on Shinichiro for a long time, but never had the guts to confess to him. Then Miyokichi came around, and fell in love at first sight. He did have the guts to confess to her, and she ended up agreeing, just because Shinichiro encouraged her. With this episode, their relationship also starts to fall apart, when Aiko finally gives enough hints to Miyokichi to make him see that she still fancies Shinichiro.

The really important part of this episode was about Hiromi, though. Shinichiro overhears one of the bad discussions between his mother and Hiromi, and he picks up how Hiromi refers to something that happened in the past between the two. Obviously, he wants to find out about it, and goes after Hiromi. As it turns out, according to Shinichiro’s mother, Hiromi is Shinichiro’s half-sister. Their father committed adultery on Hiromi’s mother, indeed confirming what many people have already speculated. This is why Shinichiro’s mother hates Hiromi’s mother so much: she basically took away her loved one, and she still can’t forgive Hiromi for that, even if this is subconscious.

Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji – 17

by psgels, posted in Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji


Well, the same complaints as usual. We’re one episode further, and exactly two and a half rounds have taken place. Considering how one round just consists of putting up to five cards on the table (in this case two or less), you can’t deny that Kaiji is slow. Still, unlike the beam-arc and the ship-arc, I found myself not distracted by this at all. This episode is really what I’ve been waiting for with this series: mind-games, between two people who aren’t just a bunch of idiots, plucked off the streets.

I’m no Tonegawa, but this episode did a terrific job in showing Kaiji’s thought-patterns to the viewer, and I was actually able to predict some of his moves, just as Tonegawa did this with Kaiji. Like expected, in this episode Kaiji tried to use very basic knowledge to try and outsmart Tonegawa, which didn’t really work. I expect that every time Kaiji and Tonegawa change sides, the game will get more intense. After all, after the sixth round, Tonegawa really has the chance to prove how much he sees through Kaiji, and after the ninth round, it’s Kaiji’s turn to outsmart him, when everything depends on him, winning as much on the slave-side.

I’m just a bit worried about the role of the guys who fell off the beam earlier. Their significance in this series stopped entirely ever since Kaiji rose above them (which was quite early). The fact that they got through the door, and into the room that Kaiji and Tonegawa have been playing in (these guys have healed quite fast, by the way) must mean that they’ll have some kind of role later on. I really hope it’s something better than being idiots, like they usually are.

Saiunkou Monogatari – 74

by psgels, posted in Saiunkoku Monogatari


There are just two things I don’t like about Saiunkoku Monogatari: the fact that the slow subs have forced me to watch it raw, meaning that I don’t understand half of most of the episodes without Impz’s help, and all these random hiatuses it’s been having. For the past few months, I realized that it’s really important for this series to continue on a weekly basis, otherwise it loses me a bit in the middle of the action. Thankfully, it seems that the final episodes of the second season won’t have anymore random hiatuses like that, so that eliminates the second point for now. ^^;

And really, Ryuuki stole the show this episode! Finally, he’s actually starting to develop, along with Juusanhime. His sadness on the boat towards Shuuei really surprised me, and it seems that he’s really regretting how he ran away from all of his responsibilities, yet again. There’s even a possibility that he won’t be able to return as the king, which is especially unnerving, considering that a few episodes back, we saw that one of these guys had plans to take over Ryuuki’s throne.

In her turn, Juusanhime finally reveals her history with Shiba Jin. It seems that at one point, her mother died (of which circumstances, I don’t know, though; I’m not even sure whether that was revealed). Shiba Jin was then sent to kill her off too, but he couldn’t. Eventually, after three days if I picked this up correctly, Shiba Jin ended up cutting out his own eye and went along with her to the main house of the Ran Clan, and ever since the two had been in love. The two of them spent most of their childhood years together, along with Shuuei, but at one point Jin killed his own father. I’m not sure why, but if I had to guess, then it’d be because he tried to do something against Juusanhime. Probably to finish the task that Jin never could complete.