The Animatrix – World Record

by psgels, posted in The Animatrix



Whoa… this was actually quite interesting. Quite interesting indeed. It’s most definitely the best of the three films I saw so far. I’m impressed.

The art this time looks totally different once more. It seems like the overall picture had to endure a filter which darkened all of the colours, making it a grey world. Not quite like Matriculated, though. The backgrounds are a bit more simple than before. The faces of the characters aren’t pointy like in Matriculated, though neither as round as in Kid’s Story. It’s more like they’ve turned square. The animation is a combination of the smoothness in Marticulated and the distorted anatomy of Kid’s Story. The art remains fluid and crisp at all times, though.

The story’s another awakening. In Matriculated, an enemy machine got converted to join the human’s side by own will. In Kid’s Story, Neo sends messages to a kid, who awakens afterwards after seeing the truth. This time, we’ve got a case in which the main character awakens on his own strength. In mere eight minutes, the creators managed to deliver something extremely fascinating.

We see an athlete, getting for the world championships 100 metres while a narrator voice explains the background of the story. The runners stand ready, and the start shot is given. We then see a flashback, in which the same guy seems to have made the newspapers in breaking the world record in the preliminaries of the same contest. He managed to get right under 9 seconds (8.99 seconds, to be exact). However, gossip about him using dope are circulating around. Dan, the main character, claims that these are untrue in a phone call to his father.

Meanwhile, Dan lifts off. What follows is some scenes of him, running in slow-motion. This looked kind of creepy. Then, another flashback. This time with his coach. It seems that Dan has worked too much, causing his muscles to be at the limit of bursting. When this happens, his athlete-career is over. The coach is keen on stopping Dan, though Dan wants to run, no matter what. It seems that he wants a final chance to prove everyone wrong who’s been claiming that Dan’s old record was impossible to beat. The coach then abandons him. Or so it seems.

Back to the race, Dan begins to look more creepy by the minute as the animation keeps getting more and more distorted. We then see a journalist, looking at him. Another flashback: the night before the race. The journalist meets up with him, in an attempt for an interview. Dan claims that it releases you from your world. That you become totally free.

Back to the race, Dan’s leg is beginning to show signs that it can’t take much more. This is expressed quite graphically. While gross in one viewpoint, it did add up to the intensity of the scene at another viewpoint. Then, one of his legs gives up, and the muscles inside of it break, causing quite a graphical shock. He however, continues to run, even though his leg has given up. He actually continues running, and surpasses every other runner. This shows signs that he’s about to awaken.

Meanwhile, the men in suits have arrived yet again. They have to stop him from awakening at all costs, and some of the nearby runners also reveal to be men in suits, attempting to stop him. This however, fails. This is even more motivation for the guy to reach the finish line. In the end, right before he reaches it, he awakens in his cell. A robot sees this, and forcefully puts him back to sleep.

Back to the race, Dan crosses the finish line, falls and crashes. He managed to break the world record: 8.72 seconds. A quick shot of the matrix shows him fainting. We then switch to the hospital, in which Dan is in a wheelchair, being pushed by a nurse. He’s holding a couple of walnuts, though his face shows that he’s lost the motivation for everything.

Then, we hear the men in suits evaluate Dan’s case, as they see him in his wheelchair. It’s an interesting case, though they reckon it’s nothing to be concerned about. He’ll live in his shell for the rest of his life, not doing anything. His memory has been erased and he’s got quite a souvenir left from it, a world record nobody will be able to beat.

Dan then surprises everyone when he suddenly utters the word “free”. He then stands up, continuing to utter the word “free”. The walnuts he dropped begin to move on their own. Dan attempts to float a bit, until he collapses and the film ends.

It’s quite shocking that World Record features a guy, being treated in a way like this. His body and mind get destroyed throughout this film, though I think that that’s the reason it works. Especially when, after all the hardships his mind endured by both the machines as the men in suits, he still continues remembering what he saw. This just shows how complex a human mind is. When humans are ignorant, they’re easy to control. Though something goes wrong in this when they’ve set their minds to something. Especially the stubborn people. I guess that it isn’t easy to just forget “the truth” after you saw it with your own eyes.

I also liked the shortness of this movie. Both Kid’s Story as Matriculated dragged on a bit. World Record, however, felt like it had fully utilised every second of it. This makes Dan even more intriguing. We know almost nothing about him. Right now, I feel like I want to know more about him. And that’s actually in a good way. I think that, because the creators decided to focus on this case, and this case alone that it worked so well.

The audio-department also was a major plus. Matriculated did this below average. I can’t even remember whether they actually had sounds at this point. Kid’s Story featured interesting background music, especially during the chase. It contributed to the scenes, though it wasn’t anything special. World Record, however, made excellent use of the available background tunes. Changing from fast-beat techno for the race itself to psychedelic, apocalyptic tunes for the moments at which Dan saw the truth, they fitted perfectly.

The only point at which World Record looked clearly inferior to the other two? The background art. Especially Kid’s Story features high-quality background art, which are quite stunning to see. Matriculated also played with this in an interesting way. Not to mention the psychedelic surroundings. In World Record, however, the backgrounds are kept simple. Very simple.

Otogi Juushi Akazukin – 08 – The Other Musicians Have Arrived

by psgels, posted in Otogi Juushi Akazukin



This episode was extremely cool. Fandavale turns out to be a very interesting world. The newly introduced characters really work well alongside the others.

I was also very surprised when I found out that Randagio isn’t Puss in Boots after all. He’s part of the Town Musicians of Bremen. This really teaches to look a bit further into backgrounds. ^^ These town musicians were a donkey, a dog, a cat and a rooster, who head to Bremen to become musicians. Of course, these four animals don’t exactly produce operasounds. It’s more like a composition of yelling, barking, squeaking and screaming. Though a possible meaning of the original fairytale is to symbolize that Bremen in that time was a free trading city, in which there was a spot for every possible profession. I wonder whether the creators of Otogi Juushi Akazukin will be using this. Another strange thing is that the dog seems to have made way for a squirrel. I’ve got no idea why this is…

Anyway the episode featured a lot of talking, unfortunately. It made the episode awesome, though difficult to understand at the same time. Still, I do think that I managed to catch the most important details. I hope. In any case, we go to Fandavale, in which Souta and the others appear. The slide funnily enough continues in the sky of Fandavale. I think it’s named the “Otogi-Road”, or “Fairy Road”. This is what connects Erde and Fandavale.

In any case, the slide is quite rough. And long. However, this Fairy-Road seems to be breaking down. Shirayuki reckons that it’s because something happened to Fernando. It seems that he’s responsible for maintaining this road. Now that he’s gone, it breaks down. Unfortunately, Souta and the others are still on it when it does, so they fall from the sky. Shirayuki covers the ground with snow, in an attempt at a safe landing. She, however, makes the now a bit too fluffy, with hilarious results. ^^

We then see some bird-like creature (actually the rooster of the Town Musicians), in some kind of dungeon. One person is held captive. It seems that he’s refused to eat, or respond to anyone, in fact. The rooster teases him a bit, though he still remains as silent as ever. Then, it’s time for a flashback, explaining why he ended up the way he did.

The guy seems to be named Harmeru (I do hope I spelled that right). He’s a warrior in Fernando’s army. Quite an important one. The flashback shows him fight off some monsters who invaded. When he does, he runs off, and notices some suspiciously darkened grass. Probably a barrier. He then sees two Nightmarians attacking other soldiers, and he fends them off using some kind of magic horn, producing sound-magic. When the Nightmarians are gone, he notices the guy behind all this. Another new character: Datamarche (probably the worst way to spell it, but whatever). It seems that he once was a warrior for Fernando as well, though he changed sides to Cendrillion, Hansel’s master. Then, Datamarche seems to be attacked by his own Nightmarians, ironically enough.

We then switch to a meeting of Fernando and Harmeru. Fernando regrets that something happened to Datamarche. He also tells Harmeru that he’ll be leaving to do some tasks of high priority, which would explain his sudden disappearance. What kind of tasks these were, I couldn’t understand, unfortunately. Fernando then orders Harmeru something resembling having to wait for Erde’s key to return. In the end, he was captured by the enemy. They took over the castle, and locked Harmeru away.

Back to Akazukin&co, Shirayuki notices the same barrier from before, and they reach the castle. Nobody’s there at the moment, as either the soldiers seem to have left, been captured or they were all killed off. It’s indeed suspicious, so Souta and Ringo stay behind while Baru, Shirayuki, Ibara and Akazukin check things out.

Inside the castle, they hear weird singing come out from one of the room. They only can recognize the silhouettes of the creatures, so they think that they’re dealing with Nightmarians. The creatures also loudly sing about how they caught Harmeru. We then switch to Hansel and Cendrillion, having a talk. For some reason, Cendrillion is locked inside a huge mirror. Either she chose to do that herself, or she has been locked away or something. They seem to be planning… something. Didn’t understand that. Sorry.

Souta, meanwhile, is as happy as a cat in a fishstore with a sign “Cats Allowed”. Elementary, Fandavale contains lots of flowers an Souta really has a great time discovering this. He also discovers something else, nothing like flowers at all: a couple of tin cans. In the end, it seems that Randagio landed in the same place they did, and decided to take a little nap, leaving all of the canned food he took from Erde (see episode 2 ^^) for everyone to see. Ringo indeed wonders what something like that is doing in Fandavale, only to realize that Randagio has woken up. They then decide to hide themselves in his backpack, which inevitably becomes extremely heavy for Randagio to carry. ^^;

Back to the castle, in which Akazukin, Ibara, Shirayuki and Baru are about to attack the silhouettes who suspiciously look like Nightmarians. They’re quite surprised when they find a weirdly dressed rooster, squirrel and donkey instead. These three then prove their name by attacking with soundwaves. The rooster also puts up a talk, which made me suspect that they were never good at anything, though Cendrillion made them see their good points. He says this while being surrounded by a heavenly-looking light, which makes you suspect whether they really are evil. Shirayuki, meanwhile, creates a barrier, disturbing this strange monologue.

I especially like the squirrel and the donkey. They don’t say a lot, though they’ve got funny and interesting personalities. The rooster, meanwhile, heads for the basement, in which Harmeru is locked up. He then threatens to hurt Harmeru. Akazukin wonders why Harmeru managed to be locked up, as he’d easily have been able to escape.

The rooster also seems to have Harmeru’s horn, though Ibara attempts to steal it from him. This causes the horn to fly away, and hit Randagio in the head. Apparently, he just arrived, quite tired. ^^; Then, the four musicians introduce themselves: Randagio (the cat), Alekturne (the rooster), Anen (the squirrel, seriously, why a squirrel? It’s supposed to be a dog) and Ensel (donkey). Again, I hope that I managed to spell their names correctly. Katakana can be such a bitch at times.

They actually continue their introduction by singing a horribly corny and more importantly ugly song. Thank god Shirayuki ends this fast by dropping a block of ice on their head. Alekturne answers this by stepping on Randagio’s tail, making the poor guy scream, creating another attack with soundwaves even Shirayuki isn’t able to block. Then, when he sees that he actually did something good, he gets surrounded by the same heavenly light Alekturne was surrounded in earlier. Same cheesy monologue included.

Harmeru, meanwhile, has remained silent the entire time. Meanwhile, Souta starts speaking from Randagio’s backpack. Randagio’s look was priceless when he found out what he’d been carrying all this time. ^^; In any case, Souta’s presence makes Harmeru talk. He frees himself when he learns that Erde’s key has arrived. Alekturne grins, however, as he still has Harmeru’s horn. He gives it to Randagio, who attempts to blow it, though nothing happens. Then, Harmeru grabs a stray leaf, left on Souta, and produces sound-magic along with it. It seems that you indeed need to master the instrument before you can use it. That’s so much better than the ones who see a weapon and instantly master it without any training at all. The city musicians are experts on creating voice-sound magic. Harmeru, however, is an expert in sound magic using blowing-instruments (how did you call these again). (By the way, the leaf produces an interesting sound. You wouldn’t expect it from such a small thing).

In any case, the leaf makes the City Musicians fall asleep. We then return to the throne room, where the City Musicians are tied up and which Harmeru informs the others informs the others about Fernando. When that’s finished, it seems that the City Musicians have escaped. Later, Harmeru leaves the others in order to save Fernando. I’ve got no idea what Souta and the others are supposed to do, though.

I’m also not sure why Harmeru kept silent all this time, not responding to anything. Same thing with what happened to Fernando. In the end, it seems that he was captured by Cendrillion after all. Fernando told Harmeru afterwards to wait for Souta, though apparently, Harmeru took this a bit too literal, and did nothing but wait for Souta. There’s got to be a better explanation than this.

Overall, this episode was fun. Especially the City Musicians’ hopeless attempts at singing. It sounded rather cute in a way too. Apart from that, this episode also was surprisingly dark for a show with such a nature. There’s indeed an interesting plot being developed. Also, with episodes like this one, I really regret that I set the standard of just six screenshots per image. There are so many interesting scenes to show.

Just one thing… what happened to Gretel?

Popolocrois 2003 – 09 – Okay, Water it is.

by psgels, posted in Popolocrois 2003



Now I understand why Marco got his Seirei before Luna did, even though he was introduced later than she was. Marco’s purpose in the story isn’t focused on mystery. What we have here is a nice, unique guy. His element lies more in his background and personality, and the way he interacts with others. Luna’s purposes are to let Pinon have the first tastes of friendship, and her mysterious side.

We get our first major clue to this mystery during this episode. Luna has always been silent about where she came from, and Pinon never asked her about it. Indeed, she’s not a normal human. She’s some kind of water spirit. Quite possibly the water-version of Narcia, the forest witch. For some reason, if she uses Narcia’s key, she can transform to this form. She considers fish as dear friends, therefore, it’s hard for her to see her friends locked up in ice like that. If you also combine this with the fact that we saw her swimming with full freedom at the beginning of the show, it must mean that she either was able to transform, long before she got the key, or she’s always been free in water, without having the need to breath. I’m suspecting the latter, though I’m curious why she would need Narcia’s key to change back to her true form. After all, Narcia did it in order to hide her true form from the ocean, not backwards. Maybe Luna has fallen under some kind of spell?

In any case, I think that we’ve left the lightest of the episodes behind us, and they’ll actually be continuing to get darker and darker as they progress. The Seirei of Darkness only proves this, when it seems that he successfully managed to exploit Pinon’s weakness: his constitution. He distracts Pinon by summoning the usual guardian, in order to break the seal of darkness. You’d wonder why he needed Pinon to be in the neighbourhood in order to do this, couldn’t he just have done it without Pinon ever noticing? In any case, he seems quite happy, as nobody’s able to stop him now. Narcia indeed begins to notice a suspicious darkness coming from Popolocrois Forest.

Marco was quite funny during this episode. I especially like his spontaneous reaction to everything happening around him, and that he isn’t afraid to show his surprise when something doesn’t appear to be what he expected. He’s also got quite a big role in this episode, despite it being focused at Luna. It’s the same with the Fire-Seirei. Even though it was supposed to be Marco’s turn to shine, the episode actually featured Pinon, learning to trust and count on others. Same here, Marco gets some development as well when he finally steps out of Pinon’s shadow by getting helped by Bobo. It seems that he got quite annoying of Pinon, who kept standing in the spotlight. He was even making sarcastic jokes about this.

Interesting detail: Papu remained quiet when Chappii (the Water-Seirei’s name) appeared. We also see no scenes at which Chappii gets scared of him. He also remained suspiciously silent near the Fountain of Truth.

There’s also one thing I like about Kotoro: each and every one of his inventions has at least one major flaw. It’s also the thing in which he differs from his father. When Gamigami makes a mistake like that, his machine still ends up doing what its supposed to do. That’s what makes him a genius. Kotoro’s mistakes, meanwhile, are much more disastrous. And so he ends up with an drill, in which the passenger’s seat ends up spinning alongside the drill, causing the driver to get quite nauseous. Punpun has been getting rather dull these times. She should just use violence, grab Pinon and run off to somewhere unknown with him. She needs to get a bit more into the action, rather than fangirling over Pinon.

The Animatrix – Matriculated

by psgels, posted in The Animatrix



Matriculated is entirely different from Kid’s Story. Especially in terms of art, animation and style. While Kid’s Story had really messy animation, everything is moves extremely fluid n Matriculated. The extremely messy drawings have made way for a strange, futuristic-like look on one side, and very colourful, psychedelic CG-scenes on the other side. In this case, literally.

The story takes place outside of the Matrix. It deals with a group of rebels, one woman in particular. The overall air is dark, making the drawings fit quite well in their surroundings. The woman runs into a couple of robots: runners. They’ve got quite original designs, moving with extremely thin legs. In any case, after a small chase, the woman takes out both of the runners, and one of them gets taken to the camp of the rebels.

The goal of these rebels is to attempt to convert this machine to their side. Not by reprogramming it, but making it join their forces out of its own will. They do this by connecting both themselves as the runner to a Mini-Matrix (how did they call these again?). They get brought into a psychedelic world, in which an illusion is given to the runner that it can rely on the rebels. It’s quite interesting to see how they managed to do it. Slowly, the machine changes from machine into a humanoid-shape. We follow the runner, as it tries to make sense out of the virtual world. In the end, it gets converted.

Though then, it seems that reinforcements have arrived. It seems that the runner, before it was defeated, called for backup. This backup now has found the rebels’ main quarter, and are starting to destroy everything and everyone. In the end, the intruders get destroyed, but the price for this is high. The runner aids in fighting the intruders. When all is finished, the runner is the only one left standing, with the woman badly hurt, as the only survivor. The runner plugs the two of them back in the Mini-Matrix, in the hope of saving her. Inside, however, the woman is terrified when she sees the runner. So terrified, that she flees, and dies.

It’s indeed quite sad to see the woman who tried to convert you, the woman you believed was nice and embraced you, scaring herself to death by seeing you, only minutes later. Also, the fact that AI can actually be converted by toying with their morals also is quite intriguing. It’s shown something fake, though its AI isn’t able to determine that it’s fake. That’s why it works. The style of this film also was quite appealing. Both the colourful, psychedelic scenes, as well as the dark, futuristic scenes looked stunning. Especially the fluid animation was quite impressive.

Still, the voice-acting was once again a problem. I don’t know whether it was my version of the video, or it was meant to be like that, but the voices sounded really vague, which didn’t really work. I also feel that this film dragged on a bit too much. Currently, its length is 16 minutes. It could easily have been brought back to just ten of these. I also only began to like the ending when I watched it for the second time. Dunno what caused that.

Overall, it was quite an interesting watch. I think I liked Kid’s Story a bit more, though. But that’s mostly because of the themes which were more appealing, and the interesting art style.

Ergo Proxy – 16 – The Joys of Living Together

by psgels, posted in Ergo Proxy



I wonder what I’ve been watching just now…

There seems to be no wind, so the Usagi can’t fly. This means that Real, Vincent and Pino have to wait until the wind comes back. And well… that takes the entire episode… Meanwhile, we get to learn about the life on the Usagi, through Real’s perspective. It was an amusing episode. Okay, it was most definitely strange, but amusing as well.

Real makes good use of her diary in this episode, as half of the episode is told through the things she writes in her diary. She wakes up, while Vincent is still asleep. She brushes her teeth. Later, in the afternoon, Real goes outside with Pino in order to check out the surrounding area. She doesn’t find anything, though. It only confirms that they’ve landed in nowhere.

She also checks up the remaining supplies. Pino, meanwhile, is having fun doing absolutely nothing. In the meantime, Vincent has woken up by Pino, who has been playing with Real’s make-up. ^^; It’s 2000 more miles towards Moscow, which immediately explains why this journey of theirs is taking so long. Real realizes that they’re just wasting time. She has yet to understand any of the mysteries of the Proxies, and especially Vincent. Then the title of the episode appears, and it couldn’t have been more fitting: “busy doing nothing”.

Vincent wakes up, and bangs his head against the ceiling in his enthusiasm. Real is getting quite annoyed by this, as she writes, in big letters, “unacceptable” in her diary. Pino, meanwhile, is copying her, writing it. Still with make-up. Real spends most of her days, observing the actions of Vincent. This involves her, randomly pushing him off the Usagi. ^^; She’s also noticed that he’s left-handed. Later, we see her doing exercises, and get quite pissed when Vincent forgets to close the toilet-seat (since when was that a problem?).

Pino’s playing on her toy-flute, while Real scolds him about this. Later, we see Real play catch with Pino, in order to observe her actions. Pino is having quite some fun ding this. Later, Real attempts to cook. She makes a few sarcastic remarks, and lets the pan of hot water boil over, dropping the noodles she was supposed to cook on the ground and not being happy with the result. Later, she discovers a blemish on her cheek.

While Real prepares dinner, she notices another thing: Pino’s left handed. She confirms this by letting Pino perform certain tasks, and Pino always uses her left hands on this. Quite interesting, if you consider that autoraves originally are ambidextrous. When Pino ends up having to use both of her hands, though, the difference is very hard to spot. ^^;

We then turn to Real, who seems to be looking for something. Vincent helps her. In the end, it appears to be her pen which got lost. While she tries to reach it, she notices a very large and prominent hole in Vincent’s sock, and mentions it. Exercises again. Later, Real’s taking too long in washing her hair, wasting needless water. Vincent tries to say something about it, in vain. Pino, meanwhile, continues reading her book.

Next up. Dinner. Beans. Real then notices quite an annoying hair, Vincent forgot to shave off. This really annoys Real in some way. We then see Pino, playing a popular child’s game: two empty cans, put some strings through to them, step on top of the cans, hold the strings and walk! Later, it seems that Pino and Vincent have been sitting next to each other, staring into oblivion, saying nothing for three whole hours, looking quite happily. Real really doesn’t understand this.

Another dinner. This time, however, there aren’t a lot of beans present. Vincent tries to make it better to add salad dressing, of all things. In a sense, I do not want to know how such a thing tastes. Real, meanwhile admits that Vincents annoys her an awful lot. He’s just too carefree, and the situation they’re in doesn’t really make it better. Next up, exercises again, while Pino reads her book again, on top of Real.

That afternoon, Vincent still sits, staring into oblivion, for no reason at all. Real then notices Vincent’s drawer, and decides to take a small look. Suddenly, she discovers nine pair of brand new socks, stuffed away, and never used. ^^; Later, Real doesn’t like the fact that Vincent forgot to close the seat yet again. A firm kick in a nasty place is the punishment for this.

Later, the blemish doesn’t seem to go away. Real then discovers Vincent’s shaver. Later, Real sees both Pino and Vincent playing the child’s game mentioned earlier. She really doesn’t get it. ^^; Later, Vincent’s cleaning, and he discovers one of the noodles Real dropped earlier when she failed at cooking. Pino, meanwhile, still continues to play with Real’s make-up, and she also lets Vincent have a dose. Real then notices this, Vincent gets scared, bangs his head against the ceiling and messes up some of Real’s make-up tools. Real then leaves. Vincent heads out to apologize to Real, though Real hid herself in a fairly obvious place. Vincent, however, doesn’t see this, and runs into the wasteland, thinking Real went there. Still with make-up on.

The next dinner, Real confronts Vincent with the situation. Vincent really is carefree with the situation. He doesn’t seem to care whether there is wind or not. Real, however, has a good chance to dump her frustrations on him. She tries to force him to speak up when he has something to say, and stop getting indecisive. Though she fails.

Later, Real watches Pino putting on make-up again. Though this time, in mime-style, without the make-up. She’s quite talented in this. Especially when she starts performing some impressively accurate impressions of Real. ^^; Real however, begins to look more pitiful by the minute. The blemish still hasn’t disappeared either. Vincent, meanwhile, is cleaning. Real’s watching him.

The next day, Real awakens again. Then it seems that snow has fallen. She immediately goes back to bed, as she doesn’t want to wake up with such temperatures. Vincent and Pino, meanwhile, are having fun with the snow. Pino tries to get Real to play too, though Real gets stubborn. Then Vincent calls Pino, in order to show her the Aurora, a first see for Pino.

Later, Real wakes up again. She heads outside, and then sees Vincent, yelling at the top of his lungs, throwing various curses at the wind, in the hope of making it return. Real still doesn’t know what he’s doing. Later, Vincent continues with pathetic attempts to make the Usagi move. They’ll never work, of course, but he definitely has fun in the process.

To save energy, the crew switches to candles. We later see Vincent shaving. In the mirror, he sees Real speaking the words “come on”, over and over. Vincent doesn’t know what she’s talking about, but in fact, she’s getting extremely frustrated about that hair that he keeps missing to shave off. That’s just one of the few things annoying the hell out of Real. She’s really at the point of breaking.

We then turn to the next day. (Wait a minute… doesn’t the wind sound when they show a shot outside?) Real lies in her bed again. Pino sits, doing nothing, and staring in front of herself. This time, without an expression at all, surprisingly. Real sees this, and falls in a deep sleep. Real wakes up when Vincent and Pino are cooking some food. She keeps looking more pitiful by the minute.

That evening, Real grabs her chance, by pulling out that annoying hair when Vincent attempts to change candles near her. Quite a suggestive scene, wasn’t it? Later, Real sees the aurora for herself. This actually is what brings her some motivation, to stop seeing things so serious. Vincent, meanwhile, trips while going off the Usagi, and Real almost does the same.

Vincent, meanwhile gets hit by one of Pino’s dangerous snowballs. Real keeps staring to the aurora, and suddenly starts actually screaming at the top of her lungs, throwing the same curses Vincent did. It’s indeed something to at such a moment. It feels good. Pino, meanwhile, keeps throwing snowballs at Vincent, and Vincent gives her the same treatment. When Vincent keeps staring at Real, Pino has had it, and hits him with an extra large snowball. ^^; While chasing Pino, Vincent trips and Real actually laughs! Indeed a healthy thing to do in such a situation.

Then the wind starts blowing, and they can move out. For some reason, Real hadn’t closed her diary, so when the wind comes, all of the pages blow away along with it. The episode ends with the Usagi taking off, and a shot of the cans, used for the child’s game. Apparently, they were left behind.

I can imagine that the creators really had a fun time creating this episode. It really takes quite some creativity to make all of these every-day events happen. They most probably had a lot of fun, thinking of the things for Pino to do, for Vincent to mess up, and for Real to get annoyed at. The result is this quite peculiar episode.

Real’s realistic attitude really isn’t meant for situations like this. When you’re in such a hopeless situation, and you’re used to luxury, and like to see everything objective, you’re going to notice all of the small details which go wrong. At one moment, these details become way too many, and you get more frustrated. Real’s diary indeed was a good. symbol for this. Real wrote all the details she could find in it. Eventually, it became just a way of her to write down her frustrations. You could really see that in that unshaven hair of Vincent. At one time, she drew “BEARD” in huge letters into it. The pages, flying away at the end of the episode are a symbol of Real, letting go of these frustrations. I’m not sure what the symbol of the cans, left behind at the end of the episode are supposed to be, though.

Overall, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to figure out my opinion about this episode. At one side, it’s pointless. At another side, Real opened up. At yet another side, it may have been too much. At yet another side, it did feel complete. Still, one thing I do know about this episode: it was quite funny. Not just Pino, but both Real and Vincent were funny as well in their daily antics.

The Animatrix – Kid’s Story

by psgels, posted in The Animatrix



I’ve been taking a look at the shows which are to air during the Fall-Season, and I doubt that that will be an overall good season. Seriously, eight bishoujo-anime. Isn’t that getting a bit too much!? Apart from that, another majority of the shows seem to be either boring, or tasteless shounen stuff. That probably only leaves a few gems, which will probably be blogged. I’ll probably do a full preview of the fall-season at the August-Summary. In any case, most of the shows I’m blogging will be ending as the fall-season begins, which means more time to blog about some interesting anime which aired in the past. Not only Ayatsuri Sakon and Popolocrois, but also the interesting-sounding shows which I have yet to see and some more unknown gems. I’m also going to check out some of Studio 4°C. They’ve already proved that they can do awesome stuff by producing Mahou Shoujotai, and I’ve also noticed that they’ve got a certain unique art and animation style.

So I ran into the Animatrix. It’s a collection of nine short movies, regarding the Matrix. They’re all playing in the world of the Matrix. The interesting part is that it’s partially been written by american directors. Studio 4°C handled the animation, along with Madhouse and apart from that, several big names in the japanese anime-industry wrote/directed parts of it. I’ve only seen the first one of the Matrix-movies, but then again, it never stopped me from watching before. I also have no idea whether there’s any order at which you have to see the stories, so I decided to just randomly pick ones. The first is “Kid’s Story”.

The story’s like this: it follows the teenager named Michael Popper. He’s been having dreams, in which he fell from a height. Strangely enough, the dream feels more real that the life he’s currently living. Neo also seems to be sending messages to him. He then goes to school, and then it shows that he wants Neo to take him to the Matrix, as he keeps writing suggestive lines in his notebook (eg. “get me out of here”).

Then, his mobile phone goes off, in the middle of class. Needless to say that his teacher doesn’t like this, especially when Michael seems to be doing rather bad in his classes. When the phone goes off for the second time, even though Michael’s sure he turned it off, the teacher has had enough of it, and attempts to take away the phone. Michael picks up, and hears Neo. Apparently, dangerous men in black suits have come to get him, as he knows about the Matrix. Neo urges him to run away.

Michael then loses it, and runs away like crazy, making use of his skateboard, inside school, hurting countless of people and objects in the process. He eventually flees in the girl’s bathroom, and climbs outside a window. He then makes it to the top of the school building, though the men in black suits have already been waiting for him. He then drops himself from the same roof, with the message to Neo that he believes in the things he said. He then relives the dream he had, and hits the floor.

Everyone around him thinks he died, and he’s buried. People blame the fact that he was mentally unstable. That reality can be quite difficult to take for some people. This world must have been cold and alienating for such a boy. Meanwhile, outside of the Matrix, we hear Trinity’s voice. Michael begins to awaken. Trinity can’t believe that self-substantiation was possible like that. I think it means something like getting loose from the matrix without having to use the red pill.

The first thing noticable about this film is the unique art it features. It’s by no means pretty. It’s actually very messy. Some scenes really have look as if they were drawn by a pencil, and then colored. Overall, it does fit the mood, which is dark, grey and light at the same time. The action scene, in which Michael flees from everyone especially looked good. I really like action scenes in which the animation drops all boundaries, and continues with really messy art, and this was a great example of it.

The fact remains, however, that this anime is one of the few who has actually been made in english. This made the voices rather annoying, except for Neo and Trinity, perhaps. But that could be because they were voiced by their original actors.

The most interesting part of this short film was the reaction of the adults, at the end of the movie. They’re wrong, in a sense. They’re talking about reality, and how Michael couldn’t accept it. However, they’re the ones away from reality. Michael was the one who was trying to reach it. But the fact remains that they don’t know they’re in this fake reality. They’ve been told that the world they live in is real for their entire lifes. They never heard about anything close to the Matrix. The untruth, is truth for them.

Overall, this was an interesting watch. It’s also short, so I can’t say I was bored.

Simoun – 20 – Losses

by psgels, posted in Simoun



Simoun really continues its path of awesomeness. This episode was meant for the death of Mamiina to really sink in. It’s interesting to see the different reactions from the different Sybilla.

Rödoreamon tries to act strong. In the end, though, when she finds out that Mamiina cut her own braids, she breaks down. Aaeru can’t take it from the beginning, Neviriru gets to be the one to comfort her. Paraietta also breaks down even more, but surprisingly Aruti talks some sense back into her. Aruti herself seems to be planning to disappear from Kaimu, in order to make her smile again. For Furoe, this was the last drop, and she decided to go to the spring. I don’t know whether at the end of the episode, she still thinks like that, though. Neviriru keeps doubting even more, as she was one of the factors who killed Mamiina in the first place, though Aaeru’s crying makes her realize that she indeed has to survive. It really seems that everyone’s having trouble with this, though Yun, Morinasu and Kaimu seem to be the least affected.

One of the advisors also remained on the Arcus Prima, and he doesn’t really help to comfort the Sybilla. He keeps thinking of war and winning, not caring about Mamiina at all. Onashia also paid a visit to the Arcus Prima, in which she gave Yun Mamiina’s braid. I don’t know whether she had more purposes, though. In the end, a carrier is seen, transporting Mamiina’s coffin to the place she was born, before even a funeral was helt. At the end of the episode, one of the ancient Simoun comes, and shoots this carrier down. The last thing we see is Mamiina, lying in a field full of flowers.

Overall, this episode was nothing short of amazing, even though it was meant as an intermezzo. Simoun really is, apart from The Third, perhaps, the best series to have arrived in the Spring-Season.

Ergo Proxy – 15 – Q-QQ-Q!

by psgels, posted in Ergo Proxy



After seeing this episode, I knew. I totally knew. This anime’s crazy!

Finally, the subs of Ergo Proxy return. I think that the reason for this was a combination of Shinsen’s laziness (they only seem to be actively working on project which are subbed by other people. That’s why they’ve been churning out so many blood+ episodes right after Your-Mom started subbing that series) and the fact that this episode was supposed to be near-impossible to see. After watching the episode, I totally can understand that.

The case is this: we have a Proxy, who likes to kill his victims by using a fully fledged quiz show, complete with autoraves as the audience and he even broadcasts his show. The goal of the quiz is to accumulate 1000000 points, within 30 minutes. If the contestant manages to do this, the host, aka the Proxy, dies. If this goal isn’t reached, the contestant dies. By doing this, the Proxy has already managed to kill 24 other Proxies. It isn’t surprising that he plans to make Vincent as his 25th victim.

The first round: a fixed set of questions about general knowledge. We really get thrown into the episode, without any information about this at all. That only makes the confusion better, with some great effects.
– Question one: Which Philosopher said “Man is a reed, the weakest of nature, but he is a thinking reed”? Honestly, I have no idea what a reed means, but apparently, Pascal was the one who said that. Vincent doesn’t know this either.
– Question two: Which ancient Greek mathematician formulated the theorem that determines the length f the sides of a right triangle. That’s a simple one, Pythagoras. Vincent, however, doesn’t know about this. Things like these make you start wondering about what kind of education Vincent followed in his youth.
– Question three: According to the English author Lytton, “the pen is mightier than” what? Another easy one, and Vincent indeed knows the answer: “Sword”.
– Question four: What is the phenomenon that describes the pitch of a sound becoming higher as the source approaches, and lower as it departs? Another physics question. I’m ashamed to admit that I couldn’t think of Doppler at that moment. Neither did Vincent.
– Question five: At how many degrees centigrade is water’s density the greatest? Of course it’s 4, though again, I couldn’t think of the answer. Vincent also had t wrong.
– Question six is a peculiar one…: Which question is this? The sixth, of course. 😛
– Question seven: Who invited dynamite? The answer is Nobel, of course, though Vincent’s answer is quite funny: “Mr. Dynamite”.
– Question eight: In astronomy, the distance between which two celestial bodies is considered when defining an “astronomical unit”? Apparently, that’s the earth and the sun. I’m ashamed to admit that I didn’t know about it. Vincent also remains silent.
– Question nine is a brilliant one: What is the name of this song? Then the OP rolls.
It’s interesting. All of these questions are just basic knowledge, though this does show that time pressure can be powerful at times.

The introduction. It’s strange for a quiz-show to have one round first, and only after that round giving the explanation. Still, we already knew that this Proxy was rather eccentric. Apparently, the show is named Q-QQ-Q, and the Proxy introduces himself as MCQ. Then the explanation of the game follows, and I was startled a bit when I found out that MCQ would be dying as soon as the 1000000 points were reached. What follows was quite an amusing parody on a lot of different quiz-shows and then Vincent gets introduced to the audience. MCQ has a bit of a slow chat with the shy Vincent. Apparently, Vincent has accumulated 90000 points up till now. This means that, with probably 30000 per question answered correctly, Vincent does know the name of the OP. Quite interesting. ^^ Then, Real and Pino’s whereabouts are revealed. They seem to be in the supporters’ box, otherwise known as an unbreakable glass, soundproof tube. Both look quite pissed. ^^;

The second round: Who is this? We’re looking for a person. Every ten seconds, one hint is dropped. The more hints which are dropped, the less points you get.
– Hint one: He likes to wear black.
– Hint two: He’s got scary eyes.
– Hint three: He looks young. At this point, Vincent gives his first try: Real Mayer. She indeed likes to wear black, she looks young, and she certainly has scary eyes, especially in Vincent’s perspective. But she’s not a he, which means the answer is wrong, and I don’t think that Real liked it too much that Vincent saw her as someone with scary eyes. ^^;
– Hint four: He likes the cold.
– Hint five: He’s shy.
– Hint six: He thinks about Vincent a lot. This severely limits the possibilities. Vincent answers Pino, though that’s wrong again. She likes to dress in a bunny-suit, not black. Pino’s making some funny faces at that moment. ^^
– Hint seven: He’s quiet by nature.
– Hint eight: He’s tearful.
– Hint nine: He may be a two-timer.
– Hint ten: He always wins. This, indeed, has to be Ergo Proxy.
– Hint eleven: He’s naked beneath the blue sky. I’m suspecting that this is some kind of analogy.
– Hint twelve: A silhouette of Vincent, in Proxy-mode.
At the twelfth hint, Vincent also sees that the person is Ergo Proxy, and he answers. Very surprisingly, this episode suddenly turns from a strange filler to an episode dedicated to explain a few things about the background of this show. Vincent’s answer appears to be actually wrong. The right answer is Proxy One. This really is yet another one of Vincent’s aliases.

Round three: Mosaic Quiz. A distorted image is shown, and Vincent has to guess what it is. It seems like some sort of life cells, bearing a suspicious resemblance to the ones we saw in episode seven. Before we get to see the answer, MCQ gives a moment to the sponsors of the show, which appears to be the eye-catch. We never get to know the real answer afterwards, as we switch to Raoul. Apparently, he’s picked up the Proxy’s signal, and now knows exactly where Vincent is at that moment. This brings him back in the story. On the background, we hear Announcer-chan giving an explanation about something, though I don’t get it at all. The “Awakening” seems to have set a plan in motion, in order to attempt to preserve and transmit important data in the event the creator of something dies. In the land this takes place, there isn’t a need for a system to combat the planet’s environment, suggesting that there is some kind of place which isn’t poisoned and polluted like the rest of the world. For some reason, it seems that that’s the cause that the original bodies of some civilizations predecessors couldn’t be replicated so a new generation had to be constructed. Don’t ask me what kind of sense that’s supposed to make… In any case, this new generation was produced in a hurry, though they had nearly the same strength as the originals. In the end they weren’t strong enough for the project’s objectives, however. Still, despite these products being incomplete, he still embraced them. In return, these creations destroyed the world, so the creator failed to save the world that was.

Round four: Triple Chance. It’s the same as Round Three, but now Real and Pino have to guess as well. Real was quite funny when she got the chance to talk to Vincent again. What follows is a small history of the world, starting from the very beginning. Nothing new. Then, the distorted picture gets shown. It’s an unknown picture. Real doesn’t even bother playing along, and Pino pwns everyone once more by drawing a direct replica of the distorted picture. ^^ Vincent also has no idea.

And from this point, things really get interesting. The picture appeared to be a trump card, which was meant as a way for humans to escape the apparently fast-approaching Judgement Day. Apparently, at some point, humanity had gained the technology to migrate away from earth. It was created in a great hurry. The question remains: why was this technology never used? Or are we currently living in a world, abandoned by the humans who went to outer space? A world in which Humans have learned to survive after the Judgement Day? Quite an original setting for a sci-fi series, isn’t it?

Commercials: before the final round stars, a few commercials follow, and the stage for the final round is built up. The Proxy really stays in his role of host, even when the commercials have begun. Real and Pino are asked to leave, and it seems that commercials in the world of Ergo Proxy are exactly the opposite of what they are today: short.

The Final Round: More questions. A list of questions is asked, each correct one worth 30000 points. Vincent has to accumulate 910000 points, in order to win. Especially the first questions are very interesting, as they actually explain some valuable things about the world’s background yet again.
– Question one: What was the most important form of energy in the twenty-first century, formed by the compression of underground methane gas? Quite an impossible question for someone who isn’t into chemistry. The answer is methane hydrate.
– Question two: So, regarding that methane hydrate, a string of explosions in the reserves wiped out what percentage of the earth? It’s quite sudden, but it somehow does explain the current state of the world. At the twenty-first century, methane hydrate was the most important form of energy. This suggests that the substance is quite easily flammable, and that there were a huge amount of tanks, storing it. I’m suspecting that at one point, something went wrong, and one of these storage tanks exploded, causing a chain reaction in which a huge number of other storage tanks to explode as well. This wiped out 85% of the world population (the correct answer), turned the land into a wasteland and put the sky full of poisonous air. Still, there must’ve been a lot of methane hydrate in order to cause such a huge explosion.
– Question three: If you make an acronym out of the name f the plan to save humanity, you come up with double what? Another introduction for the next question. It appears to be Double P as the name of the plan to save humanity from these explosions. Vincent actually gets the answer, by trying things out.
– Question four is where the fun really starts: What is the biggest obstacle to the restoration of the human race? Proxy. Quite interesting. Especially when you compare it with the next question.
– Question five: How many Proxies were released as a result of the Double P, or Proxy Project? The PP was the plan to save humanity, though on the other hand, Proxies also are the biggest obstacle to the restoration of the human race. This definitely means that 300 Proxies (the right answer) were released, in order to stop the explosions, but this plan backfired horrifyingly. This, however, also means that Proxies were made by men. It also means that they were prepared. After all, you can’t just make them as if it’s nothing.
– Question six: What is the heartbeat of commencement? For some reason, it’s the end of the Proxy Project.
– Question seven: Cark Gustav Jung, a famous author on the subjects such as psychology and alchemy, revered which monarch? King of the Dead. I don’t know where this one fits in.
– Question eight: What was mankind’s other plan, which involved the creation of the Cogito virus? Boomerang Project. It’s got the same name as the rocket in the Triple Chance. Why are these two related? In fact, why was the Cogito virus released in the first place? In any case, it’s another plan of the humans which backfired.
Then, the questions stop informing about the background of the world, and show how Vincent keeps getting the answers right. This indeed shows that Vincent is special, even among the 300 other Proxies. There’s no way he’d be able to catch up this much in the final round, when twenty-four other Proxies have died before him. It seems that Ergo really wants to survive, no matter what. We’ve seen this before, though at that time, Vincent’s ability to survive was only compared to humans. Only now, it’s also being compared to the Proxies. I think the reason he’s special is because he’s Proxy One. This gives some clues that he was the first Proxy to be ever created/appear.

What follows is a small note about the Mistake Quiz. In which the audience has to find one mistake in the show. The previous show apparently showed some Koi Nobori, or huge fish flags, at which two scales missing. I have no idea where that came from, but ah well. I wonder if we’ll ever learn this week’s Mistake.

Then, MCQ says a final goodbye, in an interesting speech. Quite touching and original. Overall, I think this was a great episode. Not the best that Ergo Proxy has showed us, but it was definitely entertaining. I’m really loving these original methods the Proxies have for killing each other. Another thing I loved about the past two episodes was that you just get thrown into the scene, without knowing anything. And then at one point, you realize what’s going on.

xxxHolic – 18 – Spirits Have Interesting Rituals

by psgels, posted in xxxHolic



Haha! This was yet another great example of a good xxxHolic episode. The theme of the episode once again was fascinating, the Vestal Sprite was very cute once more, but especially Watanuki was very interesting again. And funny. ^_^

This episode is about the Demon Parade, or the Hyakkiyakou. It’s a gathering of spirits, which happens once a year. This episode, xxxHolic gives its own version of the Hyakkiyakou. Yuuko seems to be a frequent visitor of this event, though now she lets Watanuki go instead. During the parade, each of the guests present has to carry a Demon Lantern, otherwise known as some flower from some tree which looks suspiciously like a paper lantern. The parade then goes to a huge, talking tree, which will provide nectar to every lantern. It seems that Yuuko loves this nectar. ^^

When Watanuki and Domeki arrive at the parade, it seems that none of the spirits has any bad intentions, as Watanuki doesn’t feel sick or nauseous. Only when Watanuki accidentally lets go of the lantern, the demons immediately notice him. It seems that humans in the spirit world are a big taboo, and the demons get extremely worried. They then decide to eat him.

I liked how this episode enjoyed to toy with predictability. The vestal sprites helped Watanuki escape by offering one of their flying boards, so the Vestal Sprite herself had to be near. When Watanuki falls from the sky, it’s indeed obvious that she’d save him, like she did before. She indeed wants to help Watanuki and Domeki escape, though when she grabs his hand, she gets scared, causing Watanuki to fall. After all, she’s extremely shy, and she’s in love with Watanuki. When he touches her hand like that, she’s bound to have such a reaction.

In any case, Keith and his gang get to be the ones to break Watanuki’s and Domeki (who fell along with him)’s fall, though in a very unorthodox way. The other spirits, however, still are after Watanuki. You’d expect that the Vestal Sprite would talk them out of it. She tries, indeed, though she’s way too shy to make any impression. The saviour also doesn’t get to be the Rain Sprite. It’s the child fox from episode four. He shows the monster the Haja arrow. This only shows how important such an item must be.

When they return, Yuuko seems to have waited for them. She then reveals that she loves drinking that nectar. She also tells Watanuki that there isn’t any alcohol, though I doubt that that’s true, as Watanuki seems to be getting drunk after he drinks it. It also seems that he’s very easy to get drunk, and he quickly sleeps in. Then, Domeki brings up something he’s been wondering: why did Yuuko meet up with the two of them once they returned? After all, Watanuki and Domeki’d just go to the shop and deliver the nectar to Yuuko. It seems that Domeki doesn’t need to enter the shop. Only people who have a need to enter the shop may enter it, and Domeki would disrupt this balance. Still, this is weird. I could have sworn that I saw Domeki at the shop numerous of times. At the end of the movie, for example.

On a side-note… am I the only one who noticed the magic rod from Sakura, from Card Captor Sakura between Yuuko’s stuff? It makes you wonder why Sakura needed to pay her a visit. In any case, it was very funny to see Akari and Yuuko have a pleasant conversation, right on top of Watanuki. He had more of these funny moments like this in the episode. ^_^

I also think that I’m beginning to understand how Yuuko’s planning to cure Watanuki: by making him well-known in the spirit-world. Akari already said that many spirits have heard of him. This episode only made him more famous. I think something’s bound to happen when enough spirits know/acknowledge him. I’m also getting more and more interested about Maru and Moro. They’re bodies without souls, though they still helped Mokona write the letter.

Wolf’s Rain Review – 62/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Wolf’s Rain is quite an interesting anime. It’s an action-adventure series, with an overall dark and grey mood. Some parts of the story are very creative and original. A world in which wolves are thought to have been extinct for 200 years. The wolves still being alive because they can take the appearance of a human. A religion which believe that humans have evolved from wolves. A quest for the wolves to paradise. Quite interesting, isn’t it? The anime also features some interesting-sounding side-stories, which seem really good on paper. However.

This could have become a good show, weren’t for the fact that the plot was so badly written, to the point it actually becomes laughable. The largest problem was that it seemed that the creators were trying to test the boundaries of coincidences. People conveniently run into each other for no reason at all, at exactly the right time. Twenty times. Per episode. It really becomes funny if this happens so many times in one anime.

That, however, isn’t the only thing wrong with the plot of this show. The creators seemed to have thrown in certain events which don’t make any friggin’ sense at all. For example, wolves who travel for about a month through harsh, snowy terrain, making several pitstops at towns as well make as much progress as a hypermodern spacecraft. piloted by the bad guy. People also get hit by gunshots, and just keep walking around like nothing happened and it’s also nowhere explained why the wolves are so incredibly strong other than give the main characters an excuse to stand out.

And I haven’t even started to talk about the predictability of some of the scenes yet. It was quite funny to see the show take a predictable turn each and every time. The creators’ attempts at romance also totally backfired, as these were the most predictable and hilarious of the entire show. Especially when two lovers were portrayed happily dancing and running in a field full of flowers, and were actually serious about it.

The main characters also were a collection of clichés: tough, impulsive silent guy, annoying brat, carefree dude and hardened streetpunk. Especially the main character likes to go into fights without a reason at all. And these characters are also stupid enough to take a flower girl who needs only sunlight and water to survive into a forest so thick that sunlight and water don’t come through. Still, I have to admit. The side-characters definitely were interesting, when they weren’t entangled by the show’s predictability.

This show really surpasses every other show at episode 15, when it comes with not one, not two, but actually four friggin’ recap episodes. All these episodes do is tell the exact same thing, compressed in four episodes. It was really annoying, trying to get through these episodes. Then the show continues again, with it’s mildly interesting pacing, like nothing ever happened.

Then, at episode 26, this anime actually takes a turn for the better, and the final five episodes actually were surprisingly good and well-written. That is, until you realize the kind of ending the creators were going for, after which the thing turns predictable again. Still, I have to admit. Especially the first half of these final five episodes was worth seeing. But perhaps that was because they focused more at the side-characters than the main characters… hmmm…. In any case, the ending itself was rather dull. Still, the final bad guy was quite interesting to see.

And yes, I have to admit. This show’s got a big budget, which means pretty graphics and music. There’s nothing wrong with the art, and especially near the end, the music really contributes to the series. The art, animation and sounds are one thing not messed up in this anime.

Overall, I still enjoyed watching this anime. This really is a good example of an anime which is so bad, that it actually becomes good. If you really like to mock anime, I definitely recommend this anime, as it’s got so many flaws up to the point that it becomes laughable. Still, if you combine this with the good points, the result ends up being quite entertaining.