Interlude Review – 75/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews


Interlude is a dating-sim mystery anime. It’s an OVA, containing three episodes. It’s really one of these anime you need to think about in order to fully understand it. We’ve got our main character, living his everyday life. Until he meets a strange girl, alone at the station. Starting from that moment, he’ll learn that something huge went on in the past. Especially the first half is covered with small flashes in which our main character, along with his girlfriend lie mortally wounded next to each other, which is enough to keep you excited.

The mystery-part definitely was worth it. Especially in the first episode, when nothing is revealed yet. The background story slowly gets unravelled, and it’s full of creativity. In just three episodes, the storyline gets told, revealing a bit more every time. I have to say, though, regarding the flashes mentioned above. When their meaning gets revealed, it sortof lacks impact. It’s the case with most other revelations as well. Together, these revelations form a great concept, but individually, they aren’t really that exciting.

When the anime turns to the dating-sim-part, however, it goes nowhere fast. In a bad way. A large part of the second episode just consists out of our main character, trying to hit on a girl, and the first and third episode also contain rather boring romance scenes which didn’t really move me in any way. The creators also somehow found it a nice idea to throw in lots of useless fanservice, which didn’t really do this anime any good.

The characters themselves, however, are a major plus in this OVA, though not in the way you’d expect it. I have to admit, while watching the third episode, they became a bit annoying at times. But when the episode was over, and I began to think about the characters a bit (especially the side-characters), only then I realized what they’ve gone through. Only then I realized the horrors they experienced. That’s the strength these characters have. Especially Tama got my respect at that point. Still, this effect could have been bigger if some unanswered questions were answered. Some things just are never explained, which sortof hurts this OVA.

The character art used in this anime is most of the times very high-quality. Most of the characters have interesting character designs. The creators also liked to play with lighting effects, which gives an interesting result. Still, I’ve got one complaint. The main character just looks ugly.

Overall, I’m glad I’ve seen Interlude. It was a very interesting watch, which really requires you to think in order to fully enjoy it. A good example of an anime which has more than just what we see on the surface. Still, it could have been much better executed at certain points.

.Hack//Roots – 22 – The Meatball Brigade

by psgels, posted in .Hack//Roots


Seriously. I hope the creators are planning to animate .Hack//GU when this series is done. .Hack//Roots is just one big prelude, after which //GU picks the story up and continues it. It’s like the creators are expecting the viewer to play the game in order to fully enjoy the anime. Well, due to the fact that none of the .Hack games ever made it to Holland, I doubt I’ll be able to get the chance to play it.

The episode is a Meatball Brigade episode. The three goof around for a bit, until Touta gives them a bit of advice. When compared to the latest bunch of episode, I have to say that this one was above average. It had some interesting moments in it. Kuhn also plays a big role in this, when he is the second person to awaken. Wait… does this mean that Haseo didn’t awaken? In any case, there’d better be an extremely good reason to explain why Kuhn was able to awaken.

Kuhn telling his guild-members about his resignation was an interesting scene. I’m also actually interested whether the Meatball Brigade will actually be successful. If they continue to annoy Haseo, and continue to gain members, things could become interesting. But in order to do that, the final episodes had better feature a huge increase in pacing!

The Third – 12 – Awesomeness

by psgels, posted in The Third


This episode ends the Gravestone-arc, and what a great ending it is! I really adored this episode.

Honoka, Paife an Ikus all have an encounter with Gravestone. Ikus with Gravestone himself, Paife with a copy of Gravestone and Honoka with a copy of herself. Ikus tried to convince Gravestone to stop, though it seems that he decided not to force him to make decisions. He does tell Gravestone (and us) some details about the great war. It seems that a certain “everyone” died. Ikus would like to explain it to him, though he claims that he doesn’t have the permission nor right to tell him. This suggests that he works for some kind of superior. Ikus also tells Gravestone that he’s met similar cases. There are more people like Gravestone. While he tells this, we see weapons of mass destruction attack planets. It would suggest that Ikus witnessed all these events somehow.

Honoka, meanwhile, has a duel with her copy. Here it really seems that she can’t even draw her katana in order to defend herself. She just can’t cut another human. Her copy then tries to play with her mind, by trying to make her believe that she hates everyone else. In the end, Honoka finally gets her piece of character development when she realizes that all of this is nonsense. In the end, she meets Gravestone in person, and she manages to change his mind. Awesome.

Paife, meanwhile, finally gets the chance of trying out the plan she tried to use against Honoka, but failed. The Gravestone copy seems to be immune for guns and bullets, so she decides to use her fists and ki. Though even that proves to be useless. Her final trick is to use some kind of barrier, with one small opening. Force a huge amount of ki through that opening, and the pressure creates an explosion. This is too much for the copy, and it disappears. This is another reason why the narrator comes in handy. He actually explains the fighting strategies of the different characters. It’s a nice touch.

In the end, it seem that Gravestone was a young boy, who died during the Great War. His father was an important scientist, who tried to save his son by turning him into this. By letting him retain his child-form, he’d never have to fight or be used in the war.

I’ve also seen the preview for the next, infamous episode. Let’s just say I can understand the rumours. The art looks SO different. I’m glad that it’s just for one episode. Let’s hope it’s not too bad. This episode, in any case, was awesome.

Otogi Juushi Akazukin – 11 – Baru. In a dress!?

by psgels, posted in Otogi Juushi Akazukin


Ah, okay. Akazukin and the others weren’t heading for Cendrillion’s castle, they were heading for the magic school, in the hope that their teachers might be able to find out her location. This episode was a Ringo-episode, though almost every character played some kind of role in it. Except for Akazukin, perhaps. She remained in the background as usual, doing the things she’s supposed to do. I’m dying for an Akazukin episode.

In any case, Ringo has a problem. She can’t do anything. This becomes clear when she gets lost and almost gets killed by a wandering Nightmarian. She then asks Ibara, of all people, to teach her a bit of magic, so that she isn’t totally helpless. In the end, she doesn’t get very far.

Shirayuki, Akazukin, Baru and Souta, meanwhile have somehow ended up in the local school play (a festival is going on inside the school). Souta plays the prince, while Shirayuki, Akazukin and Baru (yes, you read that right: BARU) play as princesses. Randagio and Gretel also decided to invade the school festival, and then they notice this strange play. They decide to just play along with them. Well, in the end, this ends up in chaos in which Gretel hypnotizes Souta and takes him away.

Next, they’re on a roof, along with Ringo and Harmeru. Harmeru makes Gretel drop Souta, and Ringo jumps after him, thinking that she can fly. Of course, she can’t. Shirayuki get to be the one to save them with her magic, though Ringo believes that it was her own magic that did it.

If Ringo wants to learn magic, why doesn’t she start with the basics? Why doesn’t she try to start from the beginning? And why didn’t Ibara advice her to do so? I’m suspecting that there’ll be a moment in which she’ll actually learn some (seeing the length of this series). For some reason, she’s really reminding me of Eva from Mahou Shoujotai at this point.

There was also a lot of cosplaying in this episode. With a small exception of a certain wolf, every character looked so cute in their outfits. Especially Akazukin. ^^ Apart from that, there was lots of cute stuff in this episode. Shirayuki and Ringo’s fight over Souta, for example. And Randagio’s evil plans and seeing them fail.

Ergo Proxy – 19 – Smile!

by psgels, posted in Ergo Proxy


I loved this episode! It was another wacky one, but seriously, I kept smiling over the entire episode. Heck, I’m even smiling as I type this. Pino was SO awesome during this episode. Not to mention the huge wave of symbolism. If you ever need to smile for one reason or another, watch this episode!

The case is like this: we have a Proxy, in yet another dome. This one has created his own world: Smile World. It’s a world in which everyone keeps smiling continuously. But now, Vincent is approaching. In a last desperate attempt, he contacts Pino, in order to find out his weakness. Instead, she opens up his eyes with her smile.

Pino starts out in the local garbage dump. Smile World is full of all sorts of fun attractions, though the unpopular ones get discarded. In the garbage dump, Pino meets up with two discarded cartoons: Hanapeko and Pure. They’re incredibly happy and carefree, even though they’ve been considered trash. An interesting note is that they’re actually auto-raves. They then begin to make a wish, in order to get out of trouble: meet the creator of the world: Will B. Good, aka, the Proxy.

Something very interesting is a poster, advertising a movie about the end of the world, in which Vincent in Ergo-Proxy-mode is destroying a huge number of buildings. What if these prophecies actually have some truth into them? What if Vincent is destined to destroy the world? In any case, every Proxy seems to know Vincent, and his reputation.

Then, a strange cricket appears. He’s very serious and goal-oriented, in contrast with the care-free Hanapeko and Pure. His name is Hopper, and he tries to get Pino to dump her new-found friends and take her to Will B. Good. This doesn’t really work. The foursome escapes from the garbage dump, which gets filled with water afterwards. Hopper gets annoyed by the carefreeness of Hanapeko and Pure, as they seem to have changed their goals yet again: go to Will B. Good and find out the reason they were created. Interesting questions, coming from them. I especially like the way their personality seems to clash with that of Hopper’s. He just can’t accept that there are people who live for the moment.

Hopper then begins to ask Pino about Vince’s weaknesses, which indeed reveals that she’s with some kind of Proxy. What happens afterwards is Pino, Hanapeko and Pure discovering the surface, and they get to see the amusement park of the Smile World. As they’ve got no tickets, they’re in trouble and some dogs with very large heads appear. Pino has great fun evading them in one of the attractions. While she does this, everyone begins to notice that she has an incredibly sincere and real smile. Something everyone in Smile World is lacking. She was SO cute at that moment.

Later, the foursome has been captured after all. Pino also mentions Raul for a moment while Hanapeko and Pure change their goals yet again: become real customers and have real smiles. They then get interrogated by the same guards as before. For some reason, the reason for the dogs to have such big heads is that they were wearing masks. In any case, the interrogators are so impressed by Pino’s smile that they forget their initial reasons.

Hopper then loses his patience and sends them directly to Will B. Good. Will reveals that it’s extremely difficult to give people a constant smile. That’s why he needs total control, in order to protect this perfect smile. It’s ironic that all these smiles are fake. Each citizen of Smile World is ignorant about everything happening outside of the surface. That’s why they can remain to be “happy”.

Will then starts asking Pino about Vincent’s weaknesses, and his treasure. He does this by putting up a fake smile. His creations recognize the fakeness of his smile, after having seen Pino, and they turn against him. Will then resorts to his last option: beg Pino to stop Vincent. If Vincent and him meet, they’ll have to fight. When they fight, Will will lose, and everyone in Smile World will die. Including the friends Pino made. Pino then wakes up, and she manages to convince Vincent to stay away from Will. Especially the way the episode ended was awesome.

It’s a happy end, isn’t it? On the other side, the citizens of Smile World still have all of their freedom taken away. They still know nothing. They still keep smiling forever, with a fake smile. Unless Will has learned something from Pino. It’s interesting to wonder what he’ll be doing afterwards. I don’t think we’ll ever get to see what happens with Smile World after this episode.

Also, the fact remains that Pino is an Autorave. Just what is the Cogito-virus anyway? Why has it been released? If I remember it correctly, it was released to stop the Proxies, but it backfired. Still, Pino showed how the Cogito-virus can work effectively. She got love and care from Vincent. Iggy got ignorance from Real. That’s why they ended up the way they did. But to think that Pino would be so life-like. She’s actually making her own decisions during this episode. She doesn’t copy from anyone, like she did in the earlier episodes.

Ayatsuri Sakon – 11 – Kyouichi, Futaba, Miho and Shiho

by psgels, posted in Ayatsuri Sakon


I now realize that most people don’t really know how to obtain this series. The easiest way is through the link below, in which the Ayatsuri Sakon Project has provided downloads for episodes 1-10 and fifteen. Episodes 11-14 can be downloaded through regular bittorrent.

http://asp.dryfire.org

Anyway, about the episode. It promises to be a great arc once more. This time, it’s about a man with a mask, who’s been killing random villagers with a cursed blade. Sakon’s visiting the family who plays a major part in this murder drama. Let’s get on with the characters:

Sakon. He’s been rather cute at the beginning of the episode, when he got so much appraisal by the different members of the family. He remained a bit in the background this episode, in order to let the problem fully explain itself.

Shiho plays the role for the important side-character this time. She’s innocent in any case. Why am I so sure of this? Because she appears in the OP, alongside all of the other important side-characters. She’s the only one who believes in her brother’s innocence. I think this is because he used to play with her very often. She’s got a typical big-brother complex. She’s a bit rude to Sakon in the beginning, though this changes when she sees Ukon in action.

Kyouichi is the eldest brother of the four children of the family. He stole the sword, Byakko, crafted by the famous Muramasa, from his father and ran off with it. Afterwards, three murders on random villagers occurred and he never even returned. It’s indeed easy to label him as the main suspect, but I doubt that he actually was the one. It’ll be very interesting to see his back-story, though.

Akizuki Soushirou is the father of the family. What happened to the mother, we never know. He’s an old man with an obsession for swords, old weaponry and puppets. Around the middle of the episode, the message gets in that yet another villager has been killed. He then secretly leaves the house, rather nervously, to meet up with Kyouichi. This ends up with him getting killed by the killer. At the end of the episode, we find his body at a place, other than where he was killed. Why would the killer go through so much trouble to move a body?

Miho is the third daughter of Akizuki. She’s the one who suspects her older brother with the most enthusiasm. It seems that it’s been quite a shock when she found out what she did, and somehow, she convinced herself that her brother did it, and couldn’t be trusted.

Futaba is the second daughter of Akizuki. She also believes that Kyouichi was the murderer, but she does manage to stay a bit calm when she talks about him, unlike her sisters.

Kikuchi is Futaba’s fiancé. He’s the typical innocent guy who got caught up in events, and now is scared to death. I think he decided to at least find out what’s going on, so that he doesn’t actually get killed because of his ignorance.

Fujita Zenkichi is a reporter. Probably for a local tv-station. He’s got an overall laid-back attitude. An interesting fact is that he was supposed to show up at a performance of Sakon, at the beginning of the episode, but for some reason, he couldn’t find it. During the end of the episode, when everyone travels to Akizuki’s corpse, he also somehow forgot to take his camera along with him. That isn’t really professional behaviour, is it?

We’ve also got an unnamed maid, working for Akazuki. She picks up the phone, every time a mysterious person, thought to be Kyouichi, gives a call. Apart from that, she didn’t really have a big role.

Yoshida is a police-officer. He drops by in order to deliver the message that yet another villager has been killed, in the same way as a year ago. If that’s the only part in this story he has to fulfill, I’ll eat my hat. Especially if you consider what happened in the first arc.

Our main suspect, however, is Oki Katsumi. When you look at the silhouette of the murderer, he is one of the few who could be able to meet it. We also saw Akazuki getting killed. Afterwards, Oki barged in the room. When the phone rang for the second time, Oki was the one to grab it out of the maid’s hands. It’s never certain that he actually talked with Kyouichi in the first place. He also made a small mistake. He was so keen on guiding everyone to Akazuki’s body, that he forgot that nobody knew that he went to do something other than studying. He seems too focused at carrying out his plan that it’s obvious.

Another theory is that Oki and Yoshida are working together. After all, when Oki drove to the place of Akazuki’s body, he drove so fast and missed a turn. Someone who knew the area wouldn’t have done. This could suggest that Yoshida killed the guy and dragged it to the riverbank, while Oki distracted everyone. After all, someone had to be the one to make the phone calls.

And what was up with the guy with car trouble? Anyway, overall, this arc has started very promising. I really like the different characters it features.

Some quick first impressions – Angel’s Feather, Sky Girls and Naikaku Kenryoku Hanzai Kyousei Torishimarikan Zaizen Jotaro

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

A strange patch we have this time. All of these shows were especially made for the fans of one certain niche. These shows are mostly for the yaoi-fans, lolicons and people who like to gouche their eyes out with a spoon.

Angel’s Feather

This is an ova, set at an all-boys high school. It remains shounen-ai, but it’s one of the first of its kind which managed to have caught my interesting. For an OVA, the creators have thrown in a fairly large amount of characters, and all of these characters interacting with each other does provide interesting scenes. Especially if they’re filled with doubt, betrayal, angst and love. Still, the plot isn’t flawless. Only descendants of kings are said to have wings, but right now, it seems that every single character has them. The reason why wings give you superpowers also is oblivious.

Sky Girls

This series is like, 35% action, 60% fanservice and 5% plot. Or in other words, garbage. It’s basically an excuse to please all the lolicon fanboys out there. The plot makes no sense at all and remains uninspired. The graphics are nice, but not something to make you jump up from your chair. The characters also don’t seem to have any personality. About the only good thing was the time pressure given from the government officials.

Naikaku Kenryoku Hanzai Kyousei Torishimarikan Zaizen Jotaro

Seriously, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was to go down as the worst anime of the century. We´ve got a secret agent who’s probably the richest, bravest and coolest person in the world who fights against corrupt government official. A decent premisse, but it has been executed in a horrible way. For example, our hero gets introduced while flying in a jet fighter. He then uses the ejection seat and lands on the ground with a parachute. What happened to the fighter, we never know. The rest of the episode featured even more of these strange events which don´t make any sense at all. The art isn´t much better. Everything looks incredibly low budget. Seriously, though. Stay away from this one.

The Third – 11 – Gravestone

by psgels, posted in The Third


Great to see another episode of The Third released. Thanks a lot to FnT for subbing it. This episode was another great one. 🙂

Last episode, we saw the strange huge glowing thing. This time, Honoka, Boogie, Paife and Ikus get trapped inside of it. The thing seems to be Gravestone. I’m not exactly sure what it is, but it seems that it’s a young boy with special powers. After the great war, he went to sleep. When Ikus came to this planet, he accidentally woke him up. Right now, Gravestone has been engulfed by hatred, and plans to destroy the earth which is planning to destroy him.

Especially Paife got a healthy dose of character development this time. It seems that she was so interested in Honoka, a few episodes back, that she begged the employer to let her go with her. She’s become really interested in Honoka. Ikus reckons that the two of them are on very good terms, because of all their bickering. After all, they like talking happily about each other’s flaws.

I’m not sure what Gravestone wants with Honoka. He’s been calling her, but why? And why does he send the Honoka-clone after her? Perhaps it’s because she was cast away from The Third? It also seems that she’s still haunted by having killed a human. That should prove to be very interesting. Jouganki and the other Third also have an interesting discussion. It seems that both of them are more interested in Honoka than they’re in Ikus. Just what is Honoka? What’s her secret?

The next episode should promise to be very awesome. But what’s up with the rumours about episode 13 being very bad? I hope they aren’t true.

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni – 22 – This totally made up for the horrible fifth arc

by psgels, posted in Higurashi no Naku Koro ni


Now this is more like it! Finally, the horrors of Shion and the fifth arc are over, and the sixth arc begins. And it starts out really great. It seems that Rena’s got some problems of her own, which could turn out to be really interesting in a couple of episodes.

This episode was divided into three parts: a prelude, Rena having fun with her friends and a part centered around Rina, Rena’s father’s new girlfriend. Th prelude was a rather strange one. Rena looks like some kind of prophet. Keiichi, Mion, Satoko and Rika all are watching her as she holds an interesting speech in the local garbage dump from episode 1. A bag containing Satoshi’s body is also seen. It makes you wonder one thing. Why hasn’t Rena yet encountered his body in one of her treasure hunts? I have a feeling that she’ll actually find it during the current arc.

The second part didn’t have anything to do with the story. Still, it was incredibly funny. The water-pistol-fight was awesome, and it was great to see Rena and Irie fangirling over Mion, Rika an Satoko. ^^

Then, the third part. It seems that Rena’s parents have been divorced, and her mother wanted to force Rena to come and stay with her. Let’s just say that Rena didn’t agree. I think that that’s the reason she walked around in school, smashing all of the windows in. In any case, she now lives with her father, who finally got a girlfriend: Rina. The only problem: Rina works together with Satoko’s uncle, and they’re a bunch of hooligans. Rina’s planning to use Satoko’s uncle in order to steal all of Rena’s father’s money through blackmailing. Rena finds out about this. We end the episode with Rina being alone and Rena following her. I wonder what’ll happen. ^^;

Shion (*twitch*) also appeared during this episode. Thank god she wasn’t serious. She’s actually a decent character when she is just having a bit of fun. Just don’t let her get serious. (*twitch*)

I’m not doing a full summary this time. Nothing regarding the main plot really happened. Except for the prelude, perhaps. Still, the prelude looked very promising. If that’s how this arc will go, I’m really looking forward to the remaining four episodes of Higurashi.

xxxHolic – 20 – Picture

by psgels, posted in xxxHolic


A very interesting theme yet again: the burden of murdering someone. It still remains interesting how fast Watanuki and Yuuko can switch from playful and bickering to serious, as showed in this episode. This also is a case in which Yuuko is the main character, with Watanuki just as a bystander/observer.

The case is like this: a woman killed her best friend by pushing her off a cliff. Somehow, a photo of this got taken, and it keeps haunting this girl. It’s interesting that she couldn’t throw it away or burn it. It keeps haunting her unconsciously. She asks Yuuko to keep it in keepsake, sealed away. But even Yuuko’s seal isn’t strong enough. In the end, the girl begs Yuuko to erase the picture from the face of the earth, at the price of anything. Not a wise thing to say in front of Yuuko. She erases the picture, though the price is high. If the girl ever gets captured on photo, image, video, etc, that picture will appear instead.

It’s like Yuuko said. The burden when you kill someone is high. The picture gave her a huge psychological pressure, as it kept reminding her of the things she’d done, while it couldn’t be thrown away or burned. After Yuuko erased the picture, the pressure will probably lessen. But in exchange for that, she has to be careful for her entire life, avoiding all cameras at all costs. She won’t have a minute of rest, unless she’s at her own house, with the curtains closed.

That’s not a good way to live.

In any case, xxxHolic is just like Mushishi in a way. It doesn’t seem that it can produce bad episodes. Or bad moments for that matter. I really enjoyed this episode, it’s another example of the greatness which xxxHolic can achieve.