Sasami Mahou Shoujo Club – 05 – 08 – This series turned out great. ^^

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Whoa… I never thought that this show would be this emotional. The past few episodes have truly been excellent. We’ve got three episodes dedicated to Sasami and one to Misao. And especially the last two were just stunning.

A few names: Monta is Sasami’s male classmate, who seems to have an eye on her. Itoki is the rather energetic female who seems to cling to both Washuu and Daimon. Amitabu, or Ami-chan is the mysterious guy (yes, guy) who appeared in the second season in front of Sasami’s father. The reason he’s so mysterious becomes clear in episode six. During her stay in the magical world, Sasami runs into him, and immediately falls in love. The creators managed to bring the encounter between these two in an extremely cute and touching way, able to rival Akazukin.

But that’s not all, the creators went even further in episode 7, when Sasami returns and starts to miss him. The full episode got dedicated to Sasami’s lovesickness, and because the show took its time with these scenes, they turned out awesome. Monta also played a role in this. One thing I really liked about this episode was the fact that it didn’t really have one climax. It’s just one big chunk of emotions, it really created an atmosphere which lasted for the entire episode.

And then to think that episode eight was even better. ^^ It focuses on Misao, and her relationships with her other classmates. There’s going to be a school fair, and the class is to get split in four groups, with each group organizing its own stand. Unfortunately, the groups get decided on random. With this, the inevitable had to happen: Misao and Sasami ending up in different groups. Sasami is in a group with Monta, while Misao comes in the group with Chie and Kozue.

In Sasami’s group, everything goes fine. Sasami’s enthusiasm leads them to making a food stand and the group has lots of fun in the process. Misao, however, has more problems. On top of the fact that she’s incredibly shy, she’s in a group with people she doesn’t know well, consisting out of Chie and Kozue and a couple of demotivated wannabe-punks. The latter have no motivation to come with initiatives, so Chie and Kozue end up taking the lead. They, however, lack Sasami’s enthusiasm, so they go for something basic: an accessory shop. Preparing these accessories didn’t really look like a fun task, as the wannabe-punks were really ruining the mood.

Misao, however, does attempt to get closer to her classmates. Likely inspired by Sasami. As she’s too scared to do anything with people around her, she takes some beads home, and starts making them after school, with nobody watching her. She’s actually pretty good at this, and she puts a great deal of time into creating a great deal of rather pretty-looking accessories. Guess what happens when she comes to school at the day of the fair? Suddenly, the group has decided to quit the accessories, and go for a white t-shirt shop. Everyone in the group was phoned about this, except Misao. (excuses like, “I thought she would phone her”). Misao was so sad to see at that time. The episode ended in a beautiful way when Sasami and the other members of the mahou shoujo club attempt to brighten her mood a bit.

I knew it was a good idea to check out this series. It’s not just cute, it really showed that its characters are awesome.

Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto – 02 – This series seriously needs more love

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I don’t get it. I simply don’t get it. This is a samurai show with awesome production values. The music is stunning, the animation is gorgeous, the story is full of potential. People were anticipating this.

Why the heck am I the only one who even mentioned something about the first episode? Okay, this show is not the best of the season, but it doesn’t deserve this amount of negligence. Especially when you see hundreds of people just lining up to blog a show like Kanon. Well then, time to give this show some more love. I’m going to need a bit of help from the Japanese-understanding people, though. Lots of hard dialogue. ^^;

We start with a very smart use of the recap of the previous episode, as it seems to be Okuzuki’s (the main character) dream. After the end of the previous episode, fire broke out and the main character fainted. The theatre-people then brought them back to their base. I have no idea what they call themselves, unfortunately.

One thing I didn’t recognize during the previous episode was the fact that the main female character wears a wig when she performs. Because of this, I thought that they two were different women. ^^; Anyway, Okizuki wakes up, and plans to leave, like he did in the previous episode. The theatre-people try to stop him, but to no avail. The masked guy seems to be the one who saved him from the fire.

The theatre people wonder what to do now, though “sensei” reckons that he’ll be back. We then see a conversation between what’s likely to be the two bad guys for now, after which we switch to the scary guy from last episode. It seems that he’s hiding along with the police force. Not sure what he told them. He heads out for a small stroll, probably because he can’t forget what happened the night before. He walks around a bit, and soon he sees Okizuki. He follows him to a small temple, at which there are no people and a fight begins. The guy has some strange powers. He uses his sword to slash through ground and air to create some kind of shockwave. The battle is short, but Okizuki does discover that the weakness of this attack is water.

Back to the theatre people. They’ve got a small conversation, though I don’t know what exactly it was about. The masked guy seems to have found some information about the scary guy, though. Then, Okizuki returns. It seems that he knew that these people have some kind of grudge against the scary guy as well, and therefore he seeks their help. Or it may be another reason I didn’t pick up. ^^;

We then switch to that evening. The scary guy is heading out again, but this time the people from the police he was hiding with come along with him. I’m not exactly sure what hteir mission is, but the scary guy probably joined them because of the rather well-sized cannons they were carrying with them. The theatre people plan to ambush them, and are hiding in a forest where they predicted the scary guy would pass.

Then, this series is really starting to get awesome hen the old guy tells a bit about the background story he shares with the masked guy and the main female character. The latter two were the children of a rather important sea merchant. I think they’re siblings, though the masked guy could also have been this merchant’s novice. The old guy was probably one of his most important and trusted accountants. It seems that the merchant, his wife and the three were rather close together.

Until the same scary guy arrived, and killed both the merchant and his wife and set their building aflame. The scary guy then went after the main female character, and the masked guy tried to protect her. As he was just a kid, this obviously wouldn’t have a chance of success. But then a wall collapsed on top of the scary guy and the masked guy. The masked guy’s face was totally scarred, forcing him to conceal his face continuously, while the scary guy just got an injury to the left part of his head.

The old guy then decided to take care of the main female character and the masked guy. They joined the theatre group, led by “sensei”. It’s now pretty obvious why they’re trying to assassinate the scary guy: for revenge. The scary guy approaches the group, and when he’s almost there, another band decides to attack them. They’re skilled enough to keep this police busy for a time, which gives the scary guy enough time to carry out his plan: just blast everyone, friends and enemy, away with one of the cannons.

It seems that the scary guy has had some kind of history with Okizuki, as he knew that he’d appear in order to keep the number of casualties as low as possible. The cannon gets destroyed and Okizuki leads the scary guy to a field of rice. As this is covered in water, his power doesn’t work. A great battle follows, as the theatre people show up as well in the rice field. They’ve painted their faces and actually show off some of their acting. I think that this is their way to show their opponents that they’re serious.

The fight really was awesome. It was full of strategies used, combined with an awesome soundtrack, animation and art. If this continues, this show has the potential to become amazing. In the end, the guy gets beaten because he’s distracted by a gunshot, fired from an unknown person. Later, this gunshot seems to have come from a subordinate of one of the bad guys.

I’m having a bit of trouble to find out what exactly the relationship of Okizuki is to the main storyline. It seems that he and the bad guys have some kind of history, and the previous episode showed that he’s out to kill certain demons who appear, but apart from that, I didn’t manage to pick up anything. It’s also a bit of a pain that I don’t know the names of the different characters. I hate referring to “the masked guy”, “the old guy”, “the main female character” and “sensei” in this way.

Overall, this series needs more love. Seriously, someone has to sub this. The second episode also was even better than the first episode, so if you’ve seen the first episode and liked it, you haven’t seen anything yet. ^^

Asatte no Houkou – 02 – Be careful what to wish for

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I really can’t believe how emotionally strong this anime works. It’s already set a perfect mood, developed characters more than other series can only accomplish in one season, and the piano music accompanying all this works awesome. I’m really becoming a fan of this series.

It’s so interesting that while Karada and Shoko changed bodies, they didn’t change personalities. That makes both their reactions so different. Karada has always been wishing that she’d grow up fast. But that was nothing more than just a child’s wish. When it actually happens, she can’t seem to accept it. Shoko, on the other hand, keeps her worries more inside of her. Something strange has happened to her, but she figures that she’ll just have to live with it. And I think that Karada’s presence also helped a bit in this. I guess that she just had to act strong, for Karada’s sake.

The two of them spend the night in Shoko’s apartment. Of course, this would make Hiro worried. It was great to see that he actually couldn’t recognize the two of them. Or that he did, but something inside of him told him that he should stay away.

I wonder how the series will develop from now on. I’ll definitely keep blogging this. So far, it’s been an awesome series. 🙂

Death Note – 02 – Humans are Interesting

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After seeing the second episode I just had to blog this. Death Note will be an extremely interesting show. Most shounen-action series are bad, but when they actually involve complicated planning, they become awesome. The Law of Ueki showed this, and now Death Note shows this.

This episode introduces L. The detective, hired to stop Light. We start the episode with Light, who still continues school. He plans to keep his grades at the same level they’ve always been. Very interesting. It’s interesting that Ryuk actually decided to stay with him. Doesn’t he have to do his job, or anything?

It seems that Light has put some serious thoughts in his plans. He doesn’t continue writing all night long, because of sleep deprivation. Ryuk, however, is more easygoing. The fact that he hasn’t told Light that anyone who touches the Death Note will be able to see him. Because of this, Light finds a rather ingenious way of hiding the Death Note: take one drawer, and give it a false bottom. Put a diary on top of the false bottom, and the Death Note under it. You can just leave the drawer unlocked. After all, when it’s locked something precious has to be hidden, which raises suspicion. The only way to remove the false bottom is by using the cartridge of a normal ballpoint pen. Under the drawer, there’s a small hole through which it fits, so it lifts the false bottom up. If you forcefully try to remove this false bottom, a special mechanism burns the Death Note and all evidence. The mechanism works like this: there’s an open circuit running, right over the hole. The bottom part of the false bottom is made of rubber, so it’ll stop the electrical current. The cartridge does the same. But when there isn’t anything to fill up the gap between the two pieces of metal, they clap together, due to the tension of the metal. Then the electrical current starts running (I’m assuming he’s using a battery for this) and a little plastic bag of gasoline would ignite. The pressure in this bag is high enough to burn the Death Note in a second. It’s interesting that he does acknowledge that when things go wrong, he’ll have to burry the book. Most people would want to safe keep the Death Note for further use, but he very cleverly plans to destroy all evidence when things point to the direction of him getting the death sentence. It’s also interesting to note that Light has a very keen eye for detail. After all, this construction has to be perfect. Even one small design flaw and the Death Note turns to a bit of ash. Just think what would happen if the fake bottom wasn’t attached in the right way.

Interpol, or ICPO, meanwhile is trying to find out what to do with the suspiciously huge number of heart attacks on the criminal population. It seems that this anime highlighted two employees, their names haven’t been mentioned, for as far as I know. One is some kind of chief, and one is his assistant. As lost of people are attending in the meeting, things go rather chaotic, until L.’s name gets mentioned. Nobody knows his name, face, or voice, but he’s a brilliant detective, who’s solved a huge amount of cases worldwide.

There’s just one problem: nobody knows how to contact L. Then Watari appears, the only man who’s said to be able to contact him. His identity, of course, also remains a mystery. He’s carrying a laptop, from which the letter “L” appears. The laptop gets plugged in and L. starts speaking. He’s made it so that his voice gets deformed. Quite creepy.

In any case, L. firstly requests for full cooperation from both international police as ICPO, and then especially the Japanese government. L. reckons that the criminal is Japanese, or at least hiding in Japan. Later in the episode, he states the reason for this: Light’s first murder.

Meanwhile, the normal people are starting to notice that someone is killing off a bunch of criminals, and the first websites about “Kira the Savior” have popped up. I think indeed that some people would react that way. While Light isn’t exactly acting politically correct, technically, he is reducing criminality in the world. People also are starting to like him because of his mystery. It’s common knowledge that that what is unknown only awakens more interest. It’s how religions started to exist as well.

Then, the fun really starts when a live international broadcast from the ICPO interrupts the regular television. A person named Lind L. Tailor, or “L.” appears n th screen, claiming that he holds the entire planet’s police force. He claims that he’ll definitely atch the culprit behind the mass homicides, and claims that Light is “evil”. Light gets angry when he hears this, so he kills Lind L. Tailor off.

Then, the real L. appears on the screen. It seems that that was all a test by L., to see and prove that the criminal was able to kill people without ever laying a finger on them. Lind L. Tailor was just an unlucky bystander, a top-secret criminal, scheduled to be executed on that same time. This shows that the culprit doesn’t have access to that kind of information. To make things only better, the emergency broadcast only turned out to be broadcasted in Kantou, Japan. When you think about it, it’s logical. Ryuk intentionally drops his Death Note, but as he’s more of an easygoing guy (devil? do shinigami have genders?), he didn’t care where he dropped it. So it became a random location in Japan, or the location he knew best, which means the most populated and well known region, aka Kantou. When L planned his first broadcast, it was only logical to start with the most populated region, as it means more chance of success.

L. continues. He’s been doing some research. The first victim of the Death Note was the guy who hijacked a school, holding about 13 characters hostage. When you compare him to the murderous killers who died after him, his case does seem to be a bit small. L. noticed that. Light, of course, sees this as a challenge. It seems that both parties are trying to challenge each other out of their hiding place.

Still, even with such a good concept, I can’t help to be anal a bit. We see a few shots of L. For as far as things look, he’s a young adult, probably 20 years old. If that’s the case, how the heck did he manage to accumulate such a huge amount of fame, and how did he solve such a large amount of cases to make him internationally recognized?

Some quick first impressions: Super Robot Wars OG – Divine Wars, Red Garden and Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge

And another batch. The latter two turned out really well. But please ignore the first one. Still, all these three have in common that they’ve got a great soundtrack.

Super Robot Wars OG – Divine Wars
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Heh, I think we’ve found the winner of the most cheesy fighting anime of the season. We’ve got a guy, who’s an expert at a video game in which giant robots battle each other. And guess what? This game has exactly the same controls as the mechas who defend the country. So, when he gets the chance to sneak in one of these mechas, without any permission or thinking, he just abandons his friend who’s been buried under a pile of rubble to go and fight evil bug-like mechas. Seriously, I’m feeling real pity for the girl to be that guy’s friend. What idiot would choose flying in a cool mecha kicking bad guys without any reason over helping a friend in trouble?

Red Garden
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This is awesome. I’ve been looking forward to this show, and it doesn’t disappoint at all. Yes, okay. The character art looks different from usual, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad. In fact, the characters look great, and unique. The anime follows four girls, who somehow have something to do with the murder on one of their classmates. So far, they look like they’re going to be great characters. The song in the middle of the episode also surprised me. Even though it’s obvious that the girl can’t sing, it was quite touching. This will definitely be a very fun series to watch. Oh, and this deserves to be awarded with “Best ED of the Season”.

Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge
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I’ve heard from all kinds of sides that this anime rather ruined the manga it’s based on. But, having not read this manga at all, I don’t care. I’m glad to say that this anime really cracked me up. The main female character really promises to be an awesome character, and the four bishounen provided some really funny moments. The story is like this: four guys live in a mansion, and they get free rent if they turn the niece of the landlady into a lady. The only problem: this girl is an extremely dark, gloomy, solitary and scary girl. Another thing I really like about this anime is the soundtrack. Especially the OP, ED and the rock tunes which occasionally appear. One thing I don’t like is the male character design. Especially in close-up. Okay, it’s unique, but it’s also annoying. Overall, this promises to be a great series. Now let’s hope it won’t mess up like a certain Ouran.

The Third – 20 – Just What Is Ikus Anyway?

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Another awesome episode. I’m surprised that this arc will actually last for another episode. To make things even better, the situation seemed almost resolved at the end of this episode. This means that the creators did have something in mind for the next one. What exactly will that be?

And seriously, the moment Paife got stabbed was such a powerful moment! I can’t believe how well that worked. I guess that when characters are this well developed, you can do some great things with them. That’s why I’m looking forward to the final episode of this amazing show. ^^

Rona Fauna also continues to get more interesting by the minute. Her power’s fading, but still she tries to do things to Honoka, in order to keep her away from Joganki. She loses herself in this, to the point that she actually looks as if she’s going to explode. It seems that she picked to kidnap Joganki for a reason as well. They knew each other in the past, Joganki showed kindness to her, and she fell in love.

Honoka meanwhile spends her time descending Rona Fauna’s strange construction of nano-machines, along with Blue Breaker. A very interesting scene follows when Blue Breaker actually wants Honoka to destroy him. It’s interesting to see the way his AI has developed. It’s not as advanced as Bogie, but he actually can make his own decisions. Oh, and I loved the way Honoka saw through his empty gun. ^^;

Bogie, meanwhile, attempts to take out another one of Rona’s machines: an anti-tank helicopter. In the end, it seemed that this helicopter has had no combat experience at all. Therefore, the fight was easily decided. Ikus, meanwhile, gets shrouded in even more mysteries when he gets shot and turns out to be perfectly fine afterwards.

Overall, this was a great episode. Especially Paife was awesome. I really love this show. ^^

Sasami Mahou Shoujo Club – 03 and 04 – The team is complete

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This is probably the first time I’ve done two episodes in one post, but as I’m going to have to catch up to an entire season, things are more convenient to post them in batches. The third and fourth episode introduce the two final member of the mahou shoujo club: Tsukasa and Anri.

The third episode was rather bland. Washuu comes up with a few costumes, and the rest of the episode is spent on Sasami’s strange running behaviour and the introduction of Tsukasa. It seems that she’s a silent girl, because of her overly protective father. But the way she acted was nowhere as enjoyable as in the second season.

But with the fourth episode, the fun returned. First of all, it featured a rather difficult to follow discussion between Washu and Sasami’s father. I couldn’t understand all of it, but from the things I understood it seems that the two of them knew each other. I think that Washuu once was the underclassman of Sasami’s father, which suggests that he too can use magic. When the magic users went to their realm, some of them returned to the human world, in order to live with them. In this story, certain storytellers were important, and Washuu is one of these storytellers. In an even harder-to-follow part afterwards, the three discuss the dangers involved in everything. It actually seemed pretty serious. Could be interesting for the later episodes. Sasami then asks her father to go to the magical world as well, though he reckons that she won’t manage to do it.

Back to Anri. While Tsukasa seemed rather bland during the previous episode, this episode really showed that she can work great when combined with the other characters. Especially when Anri turned out to be an actual fangirl of her. She’s also got a rather strange power: give letters, written on paper a physical form. These letters then appear on top of Sasami and the other’s heads, literally. Quite a hilarious sight.

It was quite funny to see that Tsukasa grabbed a witch’s hat in order to cover it, and Makoto tried to do this with a party hat. Basically, Anri did all of this because they were too suspiciously friendly around Tsukasa (who keeps ignoring her, by the way ^^;). What follows is quite a hilarious chase to get Anri to remove all the annoying letters from their head.

Overall, Tsukasa and Anri are some very nice characters when you combine them with the other ones. Next episode introduces Washuu’s friend, the one from the karaoke. It seems that the two have a long history together.

Sasami Mahou Shoujo Club – 02 – Garbage Anime Doesn’t Mean Garbage Spinoff

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Oh, the irony. The beautiful irony. As this is a spinoff of Tenchi Muyo, I decided to check out what the show was about. After all, Sasami Mahou Shoujo Club turned out good, so perhaps Tenchi Muyo would be worth the watch as well. So, what do I get?
– Male main character;
– Releases strange girl from crypt;
– Is descendant of alien royalty;
– Gets chased by a bunch of girls, among which a space-pirate, two alien princesses and a space detective;
– All of these women falls in love with him;

I’m not going to even bother giving Tenchi Muyo a chance. With this bad of a concept, I can’t imagine how horrible the execution might’ve been. It seems that Sasami was one of the characters in Tenchi Muyo, and she now has her own anime. This shows that you can really create good anime out of garbage ones. It just depends on where you put the focus. ^^;

Anyay, about the episode. it was pretty funny. Washuu first starts by explaining a bit about Sasami and Misao’s background. At one time, wizards and normal humans just lived along with each other, but then the humans began to find the wizards strange, and after a while, the wizards were chased out of their territory. The witches then decided to hide their powers and mingle in with the humans. Apparently, both Misao and Sasami are descendants of these witches. This also raises some questions about Sasami’s father. It seems that he knows an awful lot about the magical world and the witches. He probably told Sasami not to show her powers to anyone outside of the house because he knew of this legend. If that’s the case, then where did he hear it?

The first lesson consists out of creating a typical magical girl-team pose. Yeah, Washuu’s idea. The janitor seems to be some kind of assistant for Washuu, not sure about his exact role. I think his name is Daimon, or something that sounds like it. The way to get out of the strange dimension also is a strange one. No teleportation whatsoever. Someone has to throw down a rope, the old-fashioned way. The pet, by the way, is named Ryouki. I liked, by the way, the fact that the cute pet of the series isn’t owned by the main character. It’s a good to have these things, which actually try to be different than usual.

This episode also introduced the third member of the Mahou Shoujo Club. Makoto. She’s a bit different from the version we saw in the second season, a bit more chaotic, and easily embarrassed, I think. Her power is that she can increase or decrease her size at random moments. I guess that during the first season, she’ll learn how to control these powers. She’s also got a rather strange toilet-problem, which I’d rather ignore.

The unnamed boy we’ve been seeing is apparently being known as Danshi. He’s got an eye on Sasami, though she doesn’t notice anything. Judging by the things I saw in the second season, the rest of the episodes will probably change his image of her a great deal.

I also loved the pieces of comedy thrown in during the episode. For example when Daimon tries to do something about the fact that trying to come out of the hole is rather troublesome, as we see him carry a whole pile of creative ways to get upstairs, or when Sasami and Misao were attacked by a piece of gymnastics-equipment ^^;

Next episode, the pink-haired girl will arrive. From what I’ve seen from the second season, she’ll make a nice addition to the Club.

Night Head Genesis – 11 – Many, many, many mysteries.

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And the Kariya arc has ended. It was quite interesting. We start with where last episode left off: Kurahashi’s assistant, Tadano, suddenly has trouble breathing and nearly collapses. It turns out that someone used mind control on him. Kurahashi meanwhile finally understood the message, and deletes her research records. The visions, however, only stop after Tadano freaks out and attempts to strangle Kurahashi, only to get shot down by a crossbow, coming from a rather enthusiastic fan of Kariya. Quite a nice scene.

Afterwards, Naoya gets a vision of Kariya, disappearing. And indeed, when they leave, the guy behind Kariya’s powers, Sonezaki, finally shows himself. Along with a shady character called Asano-kun. The vision with the gloves, the snake and the elephant never had anything to do with Naoya, but with Kariya’s own death. The gloves are Sonezaki’s. He first shows Kariya a golden elephant, as a symbol that his job is done. Afterwards follows the silver snake who turns into flower, as a symbol of Sonezaki, poisoning Kariya.

The thing I liked about this episode was the huge number of references to earlier episodes. Somehow, the case with the women dressed in purple got addressed again. We’ve got a reference to the suicide-arc, the golden elephant and silver snake of the past few episodes, Shouko gets mentioned again, new information about Naoto and Naoya’s parents turns up. Each of these pieces of information actually contributes something to the individual stories. That’s the beauty of having these arcs who look finished on the outside, but still contain a lot of mysteries on the inside.

Okay, so if I understood things correctly, there’s one guy who hires other psychics, in order to try and understand the whys and hows of Naoto and Naoya’s X-factor. For that, he hired the guy from episode eight, Sonezaki and Asano. Sonezaki was the one who gave Kariya his visions. Probably to make him manipulate Naoto and Naoya. The way Sonezaki laughed at the end of the episode probably means that he’s got some ideas of his own he’ll probably be executing in the near future.

I’m wondering how the next arc will be. This show showed that it can be both a strong drama and mystery series. I wonder whether the mystery-element will be even more emphasized in the next episodes.

Some quick first impressions: Busou Renkin, Tenpou Ibun Ayakashi Ayashi and Gin-Iro ni Olynsis

More shounen-action series. Not exactly the best genre out there, is it?

Busou Renkin
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There’s one thing I like about this series: its pacing. Okay, it’s a shounen-series, in which a boy gets superpowers because of a beautiful girl, and the two will probably fall in love, but it’s the little details which managed to save this show. Because of the pacing, the fights are nice and short, the main character’s whining doesn’t take forever (same with the main female) and the creators made very clever use while switching between scenes. But then again, apart from the pacing, this show doesn’t have much else to offer. The attempts at comedy are decent, but none of them actually made me chuckle, the fights, although short, lack any substance as well, and like I said. The main character will be falling in love with our main female character. One thing I did appreciate was the cast of side-characters. For probably the first time ever, our male main character actually has a sister who looks about the same age, instead of a obviously older or younger one, and his roommates actually tried to differ from the stereotypes.

Tenpou Ibun Ayakashi Ayashi
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The first thing that came to my mind when I saw the first episode of this anime was about the character designs. They just look so plain. The anime itself turned out mediocre. Perhaps the next episodes will be better, but this first episode wasn’t a good sign. My main issue with this is that our main character seems to have superpowers for no apparent reason. He just “awakens” when a big, scary monster comes charging at him. Ah well, at least his personality actually has been developed well. The kid-samurai also was a nice touch, except for the fact that you’d wonder how he managed to get such a high position at his age with his skills. I’ve also been asked about my opinion between Ayakashi Ayashi and Bakumatsu, as they both involve samurai-people who slay demons. If you don’t know which of the two you should check out: go for Bakumatsu.

Gin-Iro ni Olynsis
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You’ve got to be kidding me… The fact that so little was revealed about this anime made me somewhat curious. I can’t believe how disappointing this one turned out. First we’ve got a bunch of kids who drive mechas. Shouldn’t they be going to school? Second of all, one of these kids is the main character. One of his team-mates is in love with him. He then runs into a beautiful girl, who probably aims to manipulate him. Then, yet another beautiful girl appears (our main female character) and she (guess what) suddenly starts acting all lovey-dovey towards him. Supposedly because he did something he can’t remember anything from. It involves a giant robot. Seriously, I’ve got so many issues with this anime, it’s almost impossible to list all of them. Stay away from this one, it’s garbage.