If you have yet to see this episode: STAY AWAY FROM THIS ENTRY. Seriously, this is one episode you don’t want to be spoiled about. This is an extremely important episode in Saiunkoku Monogatari, featuring lots of major plot twists. This sentence is meant to fill some space on the blog-aggregators like animenano and animeblogger to prevent spoilers from showing up there. So, this should be enough.
Sakujun lives!!! We’ve been given enough hints to suggest that this was the case, but now we actually see it confirmed. The question now remains: what the heck is he up to? He definitely made clear that he wanted to meet Shuurei, with his fake name of Li Senya. While this makes his death less beautiful, he could be providing some interesting scenes for the future, especially combined with Riou.
Ryuuren gets to be the one to save Eigetsu. We also learn that he didn’t do that, just because Eigetsu was his bosom buddy, but because he actually felt responsible. After all, on numerous occasions he forced Eigetsu to bring out Yougetsu, without a second thought whatsoever. This is actually a very interesting development for someone like him, who acts as random as possible. Shuurei and Eigetsu have quite succeeded into “taming his personality.
Also, the leader of the cult finally reveals his plans, though unfortunately I didn’t understand any of it. All I picked up was that his mother was involved, and he wants to do something with a strange body. And where the heck did small Riou run off to??]]>
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni – 28
If you’re wondering why I haven’t picked up any new series apart from Higurashi for the Summer season, then don’t worry. The really good stuff just airs relatively late for this season. I’m definitely going to blog Mononoke and Baccano!, with Miyori no Mori as a wildcard. The other good series may have been good, but they didn’t seem worth blogging. Especially since my blogging-list already is huge.
If there ever was a polar opposite of the previous episode, it’d be this one. It seems that the previous episode wasn’t the seventh arc at all, it was just an epilogue of the sixth arc. It’s too bad, because I would have loved to see more attention spent on it. The people who watch Higurashi because of the “killer lolis” probably disagree, but now that I think back at the episode, I really liked it, especially the flashback Rena had, at the end of the episode.
So this episode was the obligatory introduction-episode of the real seventh arc, original to the anime. Since most of the episode looked a lot like the first half of episode 22, I won’t be giving a summary. But there were still lots of interesting details in this episode.
But first I wanted to talk about the new animation, which definitely is different from the first season, and it’s a bit of a double-edged sword. The budget has really increased for this show, and it shows. Chie-sensei finally looks different from a blue-haired Rena-clone, and overall, the characters look more detailed than before. This should make the scenes with the distorted faces more bearable.
On the other hand, this episode had more distorted chibi-figures than the entire first season combined. This just doesn’t work, and it distracts from the ‘feel’ that the first series established. These drawings look really out of place, and I hope they’re limited to the comedic moments.
The main character for this arc: Rika! I suspect that the missing plot-holes that the first series left (like the rather major event that happened in Keiichi’s past for example), the remaining TIPS will be revealed, and hints will be given for the eighth arc. I’ll also refrain from reading any more TIPS from now on, because of this.
One question this episode really asked was the following: to what extend do the different arcs influence each other. The fact remains that Keiichi has become closer to his friends with every successive episode. This could be because of pure luck, but I’m really beginning to think that he subconsciously remembers the fun times he had with them. In this episode, for example, Satoko came with a line that Keiichi used in the previous arc.
The thing that will distinguish this arc from all others starts with Satoshi, who asked Shion to take care of Satoko. The question now remains: what happened? It’s been a bit too long since I saw the fifth arc, but if I had to guess then it seems that Shion’s feelings for Satoko are different for the different arcs, and may be one of the reasons of why they turn out so differently as well. In the first and sixth arc, she was completely absent, suggesting that she decided to forget Satoshi. A similar thing happened in the third arc, but she then ran into Keiichi for the sports-tournament (the tournament was a baseball-tournament, wasn’t it? I suddenly realize she became manager because of Satoshi$, and she decided not to blame Satoko. For arc 2 and 5 she went berserk, and blamed Satoko for Satoshi’s suffering. In the sixth arc, she actually listened to Satoshi’s request, and she was willing to change her entire life for it. The big question now remains: up to what extend was the disease responsible for this?
The syringe also makes another appearance in this episode. By now, we’ve already established that it’s used to cure the disease, but it remains interesting to wonder why Satoko is using it. The third arc showed that Satoko also suffers from the disease, and Keiichi awakened that one early during that time. I think that this is another sign that Rika is trying ut random things. I suspect she somehow tricked Satoko into taking the cure for the disease, to see what happens.
I’ve also been wondering about the two Rikas. Are there really two people living in her body, one grown up and one little girl? Or is the little girl-Rika just an act of the grown-up one. I suspect it’s the latter. The times in which we saw Rika in “Oyashiro-sama”-mode she probably stopped caring about hiding her cute self. At one point in this episode, we also see her drink a glass of alcohol, which seems to enforce this theory.
In any case, I wonder who it will be, where the disease activates too early. Every arc so far has had three main characters, one infected by the disease, one major character who isn’t affected by the disease, and tries to help the former, and a major side-character, who provides a bit of background information on the story (at least, that’s been the general pattern I discovered, with a bit of imagination). Arc 1 had Keiichi, Rena and Oishi, Arc 2 had Shion, Keiichi and Oishi again. Arc 3 had Satoko, Keiichi and Irie, arc 4 had Rika, Sakisaka and Oishi (okay, not exactly, but you get the idea), arc 5 had Shion, Mion and either Satoshi or Mion’s grandmother, arc 6 had Rena, Keiichi and Takano. For arc 7, the supporting character will be Rika, the main character for this arc. We should probably get our first clues about the diseased character and the major side-character in the next episode.]]>
Some quick first impressions: Moetan, Zero no Tsukaima Second Season and Mononoke
Moetan
It took a bit of time to get used to the fact that the main character had the same voice as Akazukin from Otogi Juusi Akazukin. However, while Akazukin was awesomeness, Moetan remains an utter failure. I was hoping for it to be at least a good comedy, but nearly all of the jokes are blatant and unfunny fanservice ones. The “story” revolves around a highly skilled magician, who flees his world, turns into a duck, and forces our female main character to become a mahou shoujo, without any particular reason. The duck also turned into an annoying pervert, the transformation-sequence is blatantly obvious and the additional romance where a ten-year old girl has fallen in love with a fourteen year-old boy tell me that this is just otaku-bait. Even the very few engrish-jokes don’t work.
Zero no Tsukaima Second Season
Sometimes, I give second seasons of series that I originally dismissed a second chance, just in case I misjudged them. I discovered Sasami Mahou Shoujo Club this way, so why not? And I do admit it’s not as bad as I remember it, there were a few cute moments here and there. It seems that the characters definitely made more progress than Shakugan no Shana in its entire series. Still, I’m not going to continue watching this series, simply because the main character remains an idiot. After watching this episode, I admit that this series could have been good, if it didn’t throw us a fanservice-joke whenever it had the chance. Seriously, about half of the episode is spent on this main character, drooling over the bosoms of the different female characters. I also wonder why the queen of a country would come to him, simply because Louise’s powers are useful for the war. Can’t she just leave that to one of her military officers?
Mononoke
Excuse me while I fanboy for a moment, but THAT WAS AWESOME!!!! It’s exactly what I hoped it to be, even though this was just an introducing episode. It takes its time to introduce the case and the demon that has to be slain, but it already provided lots of good scares. The summer-season is proving to be an excellent season for the horror-fans, when it comes with two excellent horror-shows. Shigurui will be focusing at gore, while Mononoke’s scares are all psychological (do not miss seeing the guy get killed, that most probably was one of the most intense moments I’ve seen in quite a while). I am currently SO excited about this anime, and it had delivered without question the best first episode out of the entire summer-season. In fact, it’s got the best first episode of the entire 2007! If the same level of Bake Neko will be achieved in the future episodes, we’ll be looking at one of the definite highlights of the year! Oh, and don’t worry about not having seen Ayakashi ~Japanese Horror, there is enough background given to just watch it without having any background knowledge. I can’t wait for the second episode!!!!]]>
Ooedo Rocket – 15
Today’s focus was rather difficult to really pinpoint, as there isn’t really a character who asks up most of the attention. Central in the episode, though, was a new experiment by Seikichi and Shunpei: what happens when the rocket is launched from a great height? Shunpei also tweaked the rocket-designs a bit, so that the exhausts would move when unbalanced, to keep the rocket in a straight line. Of course, things go wrong when Akai shows up. ^^;
Also, I finally noticed something. Notice the jackets that people wear in the Op, among other places? The ones with the random characters on it? These are actually the first hiragana-characters of the individual names of the characters! Okay, it’s an unimportant detail, but it’s nice to see that the creators spent so much time on this.
One thing I loved is how Santa, Shinza and Rokubei used a steam powered engine that Gennai invented to make Leonardo Davinchi’s flying machine take off into the air. Take that, brothers Wright! ^^; Don’t you also love that Seikichi’s reaction when the finds out that there is no air in space merely comes down to “I don’t care”?
Still, the major appeal of Ooedo Rocket remains the support that everyone’s giving to Seikichi and Shunpei. They definitely are not alone, and everyone around them helps them as much as possible, which all makes for a very fun series. In this episode, Santa, Shinza and Rokubei also try to prove themselves with that flying machine of theirs. We also see Ginjiro and his friends help to the best of their ability, in order to get a kite with Seikichi, Shunpei and Akai on it back to the ground, after it went out of control.
There wasn’t much of the blue monster of the sky in this episode. She spends most of her time in bed (ripping it apart in the process). I do wonder how she’s going to be for the rest of the anime, especially now that matters have become personal for Akai with the inclusion of Seikichi.
Ooedo rocket is just one of these anime that is fun to watch, when it comes with a great combination of characters, music, story, detail and creativity. Okay, it’s not the best series of the spring-season, but definitely one of the better ones. :)]]>
Claymore – 15
This episode was slow. A bit too slow, if you ask me, and needlessly drawn out, so that the next episode would be able to feature a big fight. As the end of the episode draws closer, this becomes more and more apparent. And I actually like slow episodes usually, but this one just didn’t fall right for me.
One of these reasons for this was that it completely wrecked one of the major reasons why I liked this series: the fact that everything made sense. With only one or two exceptions, events happened in Claymore because they had to happen, and it was completely logical for these events to happen, with no apparent signs of predictability whatsoever. And then it comes with this.
First of all, how often do you see people arguing about a stranger they met, TEN friggin’ days ago?! And how often does that happen with Claire in the neighbourhood? Furthermore, why did Claire chose the perfect timing to visit a town, at the exact moment when four claymores were slaughtered by an organized team of awakened beings?
Raki is also more stupid than I originally thought. You’d think he’d pick a landmark that was easy for both of them to find, and yet we see him now, wandering in the middle of nowhere. Doesn’t he want to meet Claire, no matter what? And what was that about Youma, not usually being in groups? This isn’t the first time we’ve seen groups of Youma together. And don’t you just love it that these Youma tell their strategy before it even worked?
Anyway, I liked how we finally get to see the people who control the organization. Now all that’s needed is some development for these guys. Galatea also gets sent to go after Claire, seeing as it’s been three months after the previous episode (now that I write this, it doesn’t make sense, actually. When Raki talked to the couple, he was supposed to be covered in wounds, but at that point, he already was supposed to have run for more than two months and two weeks. That’s more than enough time to heal these kinds of wounds).
And I was wrong with my prediction at the previous episode, since it seems that this episode introduces two villains who probably don’t have anything to do with Priscilla. They’re also quite full of themselves, and they actually are confident to think they’ll be able to beat the top Claymores combined. Obviously, they’re not, since Claire is going to beat them, but the matter of an organized group of awakened beings does have potential.
Also, we finally know a bit more about the two Goddesses, It seems that the name of the second god is Teresa, alongside Claire. I now understand why Teresa chose the name of Claire.
Okay, next episode should prove to be more exciting. Claymore: surprise me!!!]]>
Bokura no – 14
And so, Bokura no has stopped being a case-based series, and it’s currently on its way to develop its storyline. While the main theme of the first half of the series focused on children, saying goodbye to their lives, this episode showed that the main theme of the second half will be: saving the children. Personally, I really like this, and it’s definitely one of the most realistic directions that could have been chosen Out of all the series to have come out in the spring-season, I have to say that Bokura no is the most realistic one.
One thing, though, is that it’s going to be much more difficult to follow this series due to the complex dialogue that was used by the adults. The children’s language is pretty easy to figure out, though these adults use lots of big words.
The question that remains now, though, is whether the director will pull a Mai-Hime ending or not. At least the children won’t be saved with the help of magic, and I’d actually love to see the final children saved, but if the director really wants to save every child, it’s going to need a lot of development. At least this episode made a good start. ^^
Also, is there a reason why Tanaka never really started to investigate about Ushiro’s mother? At least, that’s what I understood from this episode. Kana keeps impatiently asking Takana how progress is going, but Takana lies to her every time. Did she perhaps find out something she didn’t want Kana to know?
One thing I loved, by the way, was how Kanji manages to keep the entire group together, and yet he’s incredibly cold towards his mother, due to the fact that she’s continuously busy with her job of researching Zearth. It’s interesting how his mother has still feelings for him, and something tells me that she can’t see that Kanji needs more attention.
Kirie’s role was very surprising. Even though he’s the next pilot, we don’t really get to know him, and his most important role was as a victim. He had the most priority to be saved. I really can’t wait to see him as a pilot, because I feel that almost everyone has the most pity for him.
And I’m really in love with the new ED. Unlike the OP and the previous ED, it needs a bit of time to get used to, but it closes off an episode perfectly The overall background music also is as good as ever, and even though the art isn’t as flashy as with the other anime, I love the realistic look.
And finally, can someone PLEASE tell me what that cliff-hanger in the end meant? I can understand a bit of Japanese, but my kanji is horrible. -_-]]>
El Cazador de la Bruja – 15
Haha! It’s just as I hoped! Ellis and Nadie may have continued with their travels, the main storyline and characters now play a much bigger role than in the first half. This particular episode gives some major developments to all of its characters apart from Blue-eyes’s henchmen and the strange cult, and it even introduces a few new ones.
One major event is that for the first time, Rozenberg runs into trouble. If I recall correctly, then the guy he talked to in episode 13 now got arrested, so the deals they made are off. We also finally meet his superior (who probably won’t play a big role due to his plain character-design). It seems that Rozenberg is doing something that could become problematic; my lack of Japanese couldn’t pick up exactly what, unfortunately.
Ellis and Nadie, meanwhile, really were meant to get closer together in this episode. They spend their time at an onsen during this episode (which probably was one of the few onsen-episodes in anime where characters actually wore swimsuits), and at the end of it, they find out that they both knew that Ellis wasn’t a real human (something that has been quite bothering Nadie throughout the episode), resulting in quite an adorable scene (see screencap).
Ricardo and Lilio meanwhile also were quite interesting, as it’s the last episode where they’re assigned to trail Ellis and Nadie. The fact that Ricardo still didn’t reveal Lilio’s history must mean that they still have some kind of role to play, but at least we now know for sure that Lilio indeed isn’t his real daughter. I think the reason they were unassigned was because of the thing that happened with Rozenberg. At the end of the episode, we also see him in the building where he killed the professor, along with a mysterious woman.
Blue-eyes meanwhile also seemed to have changed her plans, when she tries to unassign Nadie from her duties, though that fails and Nadie refuses. Blue-eyes then dismisses that plan, and reckons that it’s fine if Nadie continues to protect Ellis as well. LA, meanwhile, gets even crazier with this episode. ^^
I really wonder… what could Rozenberg be plotting? Why was the governor who was arrested so important to his plans?]]>
Gedo Senki Review – 78/100
Gedo Senki, the first attempt of Hayao Miyazaki’s son, Goro Miyazaki at making a movie. From the things I read about it, it was supposed to have gotten rather bad reviews. But after having seen it, I have to say: it’s not that bad. It definitely beats Gonzo’s attempts of Brave Story and Giniro no Kami no Agito.
One thing that becomes clear quite soon is the fact that Goro just doesn’t have the same amount of imagination. Because of this, Gedo Senki didn’t turn out into such an outrageous setting as Howl’s Moving Castle, or Spirited Away for example. Instead, he comes with a children’s adventure, and tries to make up for the lack of imagination with a huge degree of realism. The different characters really feel real, and are fleshed out in a relatively short amount of time.
The thing I liked about this movie is that it doesn’t really try to be anything more than it is. Sure, it starts out with a king and a prince, with a dying country, but soon it boils down to just the adventure between Arren and Teru, the two adults that take care of them, and the antagonists Usagi and Kumo. I was surprised to find out that the fate of the world actually doesn’t play a big role, and that the focus really fell on the characters, unlike other movies of the fantasy-genre.
Still, the fact remains that Goro has a lot to learn. The fact remains that the start that seemed to suggest lots of dragons and politics is rather misleading, and many questions that were asked in this introduction weren’t answered (either that, or I didn’t pick them up when I watched the raw). There are also, despite the realism, quite a few convenient coincidences. The real bad part, though, is the ending. I don’t know why, but it seemed that Goro found it a good idea to go with a Disney-ending, complete with one heck of a blatant Deus ex Machina.
The fact that the biggest part of the anime doesn’t try to be anything big is a double-edged sword. The movie is focused now, and it takes its time, but on the other hand, it’s not a big spectacle. You won’t hear people talk about how awesome this movie was. Still, like most movies, Gedo Senki looks great in the graphical department. It’s interesting, as you wouldn’t suspect that it’s a 2006-anime, since there hardly is any CG, but the style fits perfectly.]]>
Les Miserables – Shoujo Cosette – 27
Okay, so this was a filler. At least it had a few hidden meanings, when compared to the fillers we see in shounen-fillers. This episode was really meant to symbolize the relationship between Cosette and her mother, when les amis, Cosette and Jean reunite a young girl with her mother, and AGAIN barely missing each other.
Still, I do wonder why this filler was included. After all, there is no danger at all that this series will catch up with its source material, so there has to be some other reason. If I had to guess, then I’d say that it’s to fill up a bit of time, and to make sure that the second half of the series, which has now officially started, doesn’t move too slow.
The third arc has really been building up so far. Basically, all it’s been doing is move the pieces on a chess-board, and developing them. And after all, especially Marius needs to catch up in terms of fleshing out.
Still, there were moments that were important for the storyline as well. I was quite surprised when Gavroche suddenly ran into his father! Luckily, the guy is too drunk to really take advantage of him, but I wonder what will happen once they run into each other again. Marius also reveals that he’s still interested in his “Yulle Shulle” (I really wonder how you spell that one in French). Also, the episode had one really good point: I really liked les amis after watching it.]]>
Shining Tearx X Wind Review – 34/100
Let me get straight to the point for this review: Shining Tears X Wind, is utter crap, and I can’t believe the creators were really serious about it. It really gives a bad reputation, The first episode starts off decently enough, but after that, everything falls apart with some garbage-level script-writing.
The characters are seriously horrible. Basically, we have a bunch of guys, accompanied by their personal harems, who get transported to another world, and save it. Why? No idea. The males are all fourteen ear-old brats and a bunch of Gary Stu’s, who are awesome for no possible reason, and the females have no roles whatsoever. Heck, if you’d replace them with potatoes, the only difference you would notice in the final product is a lack of fanservice (because yes, that’s all they’re good for: skimpy outfits and orgasms when their “soul blades” are drawn from their hearts).
The plot isn’t much better off. It tries being dramatic with lots of shocking plot twists, but the entire concept of “proper development” seems lost on the writers, and the episodes also get cheesier and cheesier as the anime progresses. The graphics and music are the only two parts that actually come a bit close to decent.
Still, it can be fun watching this when you’re with a couple of sarcastic friends. Especially episode 12 is the epitome of stupidity and cheesiness, which can become hilarious when you’re watching it with the right person. If you’re planning to watch this one alone, though: don’t. When I watched episode 12, I fell off my chair out of agony.]]>