The Law of Ueki – 48

by psgels, posted in Law of Ueki



I kept fearing for the last couple of episodes do be horribly bland and dull. I just saw no way in which Anon could make for a good ending. Still, the creators keeps surprising me. They made Anon crazy enough to host an all-on-one battle against him. Add that to the fact that the side-characters played a big role this episode, and you have enough to make me see how wrong I was. But then again, we still have the ending. I’ll keep fearing for that bit.

The element I liked most about this episode was that there were SO MANY different parties playing a big role. We have Ueki and Mori together, Hideyoshi is alone, Sano and Rinko, Anon himself, Rihou, Margaret, the Ballow-team split up in three and not to forget, Kami-Sama’s assistant. Each of these parties gets sufficient airtime, everything somehow gets balanced into near-perfection. I loved it, even though the main premisse of the show is kindof cheesy.

Well then, Ueki and Mori were quite a distance away from Anon when he revealed his evil schemes, so it takes them a while before they can get to him. Before they get the chance, however, Margaret runs into them. He then reveals something very interesting about the protector-clan, which will probably give Ueki the advantages he needs to beat Anon for good. I have to say, apart from the convenient timing, that I like this. It really gives some background about the members of the protector-clan, and doesn’t just make them dull-characters.

The Ballow-team gets split apart. The punk-guy and the martial-arts-guy want to fight against Anon. The glasses-guy refuses to, and leaves with the intention of retiring. Ballow is just too stunned by Anon’s revelations that he’s become unable to move and react to the outside world. This is quite an interesting turn of developments. If they aren’t returning in the next couple of episodes, I’m going to eat my hat and like it. They still must have some role. In Ballow’s case, it’s a bit predictable, but in the glasses-guy’s case, this might turn out to be quite interesting. If this is done right, it can become really quite interesting indeed.

Sano and Rinko were quite close to Anon when he made his revelasion, so they try to hide themselves before Ueki arrives, trying not to be noticed. Rihou gets to be the first one to fight Anon. That’s not what I expected of him. The most often calm Rihou suddenly turned impulsive. Anyway, Rihou gets pretty beaten up by Anon, but it also appears that the sacred treasures don’t work on Rihou. Therefore, we get to see a long fist-fight. Of course, the creators turned into something reasonably interesting, but I do miss the strategy-element. Anyway, after a long while, Rihou gets smashed to unconciousness, and Sano and Rinko finally decide that they’ve waited enough. The way this was excecuted was pretty nice and original. Mostly, you see characters consider the options between going and not going. This time, you don’t. It’s a nice touch. Anyway, the next episode should be awesome: Sano, Rinko and the two guys from the Ballow-team versus Anon. They’ve got to do something to make him flinch in some way, and considering Sano’s tactics, it’ll probe to be incredible.

That may be fine and all, but the person I enjoyed most was Hideyoshi. Okay, he also ran away. But that’s the good part. He KNOWS he’s useless. He KNOWS he can’t do anything. He’s struggling with this fact. He’s been struggling with it all along. However, I’m going to eat my other hat if this was to be the last time he got some screentime. He still didn’t have his time to shine. Rinko, Mori and Sano all had this. Hideyoshi didn’t. Combine this with the power he has, and I can’t wait for the next episode to come by. Four episodes left to go!

Some quick first impressions: Gintama, Tokko and The Third

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

And more and more series get subbed, and the number of unsubbed series gets smaller and smaller. When not counting these three, Finalist, Fushigiboshi no Futagohime Gyu, Good Witch of the West, Hime-sama Goyoujin, Inukami, Janggeum`s Dream, Ju Oh Sei, Kirarin Revolution, Kishin Houkou Demon Bane, Love GeCHU, Saiunkoku Monogatari, Sasami -Mahou Shoujo Club-, Shibawanko no Wa no Kokoro, Shoujo Jang Geum no Yume, Tsubasa Chronicle, Witchblade, Yoshinaga-san’chi no Gargoyle and Yume Tsukai. On second thought… there still are a LOT of anime left unsubbed… Anyway, here are the three anime which feature katanas in unconventional settings. Combining tactical self defense with awareness and preparedness creates the best approach to protect oneself in various situations, whether it’s in everyday life or unconventional settings such as those portrayed in anime featuring katanas amidst fantastical or futuristic backdrops.

Gintama

The problem with this show is this: it works for 25% of the time. The rest of the airtime is just stupid. The comedy, for example really works in some situations, as the parodies on samurai-shows become truly brilliant. On the other hand, the creators tried to give the main characters interesting personalities, and failed. They look a bit too fake and directed. The story itself is also most of the time entirely ridiculous, though at the end of the second episode, I have to confess that I was pleasantly amused by the climax. The characters, as described above, don’t work in some cases. In other cases, however, they’re brilliant. This brilliance mostly comes from the side-characters, though.

TOKKO

Okay, never let people who believe Elfen Lied’s brilliance lied in the blood and fanservice make an anime. The result is TOKKO. The character design is rather ugly, the plot seems to revolve around fanservice, which seems along with the gore included for no apparent reason. I can see a small spark of potential, though. But I doubt that this’ll become a great series.

The Third

I was incredibly enthusiastic by this anime when I first saw the promos. After watching the first episode, I have to say that this certainly potential. Judging from what I saw, I’d say that this anime will attempt to delve deep into the main character’s mind. If it turns out to be that, I’ll already be satisfied. The battles also look to be more than just “slash-your-sword-and-win”, as a strategic element has been included. Combine that with the amazing battle choreography, and I’m hooked.

Makai Senki Disgaea – 02

by psgels, posted in Makai Senki Disgaea



The OP SO does not fit this anime. Right now, it seems like we’re dealing with some kind of high-school/mahou shoujo, instead of an RPG-based adventure. Apart from that, this was a very enjoyable episode. I like the way that this show takes its time to tell the story, instead of trying to rush everything into the first episode, like most of the new anime this season. The newly introduced characters also are a very nice addition to the cast. I never played the game, so I didn’t know what to think of them. They turned out to be quite interesting indeed.

Before I saw this episode, I kept wondering how a character could possibly name himself ‘Mid-Boss’. After this episode, everything became clear. I like him. His attempts to parody the bishie-rivals commonly seen in anime works extremely well. I hope we get to see more of them. Etna also was just amazing, including her penguin-squad. Her personality also was something different from what I expected. I expected a horribly evil character. Nothing more, nothing less. But it appears that she also got a good dose of slyness. I so hope that she will use this gift to its full extend.

The character interaction is where Makai Senki Disgaea shines. Every dialogue is just pleasant to see, nothing gets rushed, everything flowed pretty naturally and the atmosphere was just awesome. So far, this show turned into something different than I expected it to be. I was more like, expecting faster pacing. I still like this, though. We hardly see any adventure anime with a pacing like this show. I think I’m really going to enjoy this.

Tales of Phantasia Review – 90/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Tales of Phantasia

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Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

Tales of Phantasia is a small OVA, consisting of four episode and based on the RPG with the same name which came out about ten years ago. I truly recommend this to everyone who’s looking for something interesting to watch.

People might claim that this anime is only worth it if you played the game as well. That is absolutely not true. I didn’t play the game either and I totally loved this. Okay, in the beginning, you’ll see a lot of inexplainable thing happen. But don’t see that as a reason to quit this anime, see it as a reason to use your own head for a bit. Try to figure out what happened before. This way, you’ll be able to enjoy this OVA even more.

The graphics in this anime are totally amazing. Perhaps they even stand above the extreme quality of Tsubasa Chronicle Torikago no Kuni no Himegimi. In any case, they belong in the category of top-5 best graphics ever. The CG is just brilliant to see. There’s just so many attention put into the details, and don’t forget the incredible way the creators integrated these with the rest of the graphics. The character designs are also one of the very few today that really are unique. Each and every one of them stick to your mind like superglue. It doesn’t really plan to come off too soon. They look just too awesome, my favourites are Arche and Klarth. The music also is a masterpiece. Ranging from the OP to the ED, from the quiet moments to the dramatic moments to the battles, everything just perfectly fitted.

The characters themselves are also greatly developed. Especially if you consider that this OVA just takes a mere two hours to tell its story. I know some anime which couldn’t even come close to achieving this much character development in four times the same amount of time. I also liked the fact that every personality has something unique, which at the same time really characterizes that particular character. The way each character interacts with the other is also just amazing.

The story itself isn’t too complex. This, however, is greatly made up in the way it’s told. The creators somehow manage to make each second of this anime count. As the tale to be told is huge, and there are only hours available, the pace of storytelling is high. There are some rushed parts, but these take in no way at all away the power of these scenes.

There’s just one thing I don’t like about this anime. It’s just too damn short! I would have loved to see each of the characters fleshed out even more. I would have loved to see even more character developments, backgrounds, stories, et cetera. Maybe four episodes was a bit too little for such an awesome series. Still, I’m glad I was able to see this.

Final Rating: 95/100

Tales of Phantasia – 04 (ending)

by psgels, posted in Tales of Phantasia




Oh my… god. This episode was just utterly, utterly incredible. A worthy ending of an awesome anime.

We start of with the prologue of the great battle against Dhaos. We first see the representatives of a couple of races gather in the middle of the rain and place their trust into our heroes. Still, the soldiers are gloomy about the upcoming battle. Then, we switch back to our main party, who appears to have split up into three groups. It starts snowing, meanwhile (some of the best snow ever to be seen in anime, by the way. Muchas creditos to the animators). Cless and Mint come out of a café, and start acting nostalgic. Arche and Chester meanwhile get closer and closer to each other (figuratively, that is). Klarth meanwhile tries in the middle of the snow to talk some sense into Origin. It appears that Origin is not much of a talker, but Klarth still manages to find out that Dhaos did the things he did because he wanted to protect Iggdrasil (if I’m not mistaken, that was the giant tree from episode two). If you combine these three with each other, then the results get amazing. Even though they’re incredibly simple, they’re done in such incredible atmospheres, you can’t help but like it.

Then, the creators try to be smart and make good use of the time which was originally meant for the OP to roll in, because during the OP-tunes, the usual video-material has been replaced with our heroes combining the ring, Origin and the two swords in order to make Dhaos’ castle show up and enter it. This really shows that they make use of every single second available to them and use it as optimal as possible in order to provide as much storytelling as possible. I think that there should be more series who should attempt this.

Anyway, once in the castle, the group gets assaulted by Dhaos’ minions. A great thing to see about these fights were the actual strategy-elements which were inserted. They were especially focused on the importance of teamwork, with some terrific results. We then switch to outside the castle, where Suzu appears. Right next to her, several other ninja’s appear, apparently hostile. Suzu won’t let them pass, but before we get to see their fight, we switch back to Cless&co again. This time, the assaulting monsters get a ‘bit’ bigger and meaner, resulting in Cless getting separated from the others. He then ends up in a large mass of water, in which Dhaos tries for a final time to try and stop him with words. That doesn’t really work, even though Dhaos is partially right.

We then switch back to Suzu, who managed to finish off every enemy ninja, except for the leader (the one who appeared at the previous episode as well). That just shows how awesome Suzu can be. Anyway, it then appears that this ninja-leader is nobody else but her own father. To make it even more awesome. Despite this fact, it really does become clear that she’s even prepared to fight her own father if she had to, which was just too sad to see. At the same time, though, it only added up to the awesomeness of the episode.

Cless and the others, still separated, make their way through the castle. They’re getting pretty heavily beaten up, especially Cless, as he doesn’t have Mint with him. He then finally manages to make his way through to Dhaos’ chamber. In there, probably one of the best anime-end-boss-fights begins. Not only because it isn’t just a duel between the main protagonist and antagonist, as the rest of the team joins Cless soon, but also the way he is eventually defeated. It makes sense, sort of. In most cases in other anime, both parties try to attack with all of their powers, and finally one side ends up losing, mostly the antagonist. Variations include the antagonist winning, or both parties losing and dying at the same time. Still, it mostly ends up with a bunch of characters throwing a bunch of flashes to each other. This time, however, only one party charges to its full power, while the other clearly has trouble trying to survive. This ends in a very enjoyable climax. It’s predictable, of course, but I somehow feel the creators knew this and tried to make the best out of it. In my opinion, they succeeded.

The ending itself might be debatable, but I loved it. After all, the goal of this anime was defeating Dhaos, with the side-goal of Suzu defeating her own father. These are exactly the two scenes we get to see before the credits roll, including with two sentences explaining why Dhaos did what he did, a bit more in-depth than at the beginning of the episode. Afterwards, the episode ends. Most anime try to involve risking the life of some main character at this point, this anime doesn’t. I just loved it.

The Law of Ueki – 47

by psgels, posted in Law of Ueki



Too bad the title of the episode revealed what was to be happening at almost the end of it. It took away a bit of the power of that moment. Still, I never would have thought for it to be carried out this far and this horrible. Anon really is one heck of a bad guy.

But still, after this, he’ll probably have the entire world, including heaven, against him. Ueki’ll probably defeat him in the end anyway, though. That’s the only thing that an be said. We also still have to see the moment in which he gets his wings (the thing the OP and ED have been subtly hinting at since the beginning of the second season). I so hope that the side-characters will play a big role in these events.

Jigoku Shoujo – 23

by psgels, posted in Jigoku Shoujo



I just love Jigoku Shoujo. This episode was again totally incredible.

We start off with Tsugumi who has another vision. This time, involvind a plane descending and a couple of random sceneries including a hospital. She tells Hajime about it and the two set off. The victim this time is a nurse who works at this hospital. Hajime investigates a bit and comes to the conclusion that we have a horribly nice person here. Everyone likes her. Tsugumi still choses Ai’s side, but has problems with it.

Hajime keeps searching, and finally finds someone who holds a grudge against this nurse: the widower of a woman who died in the hospital. He was cornered, so he decided to blame another party, which ended up being this nurse. Hajime pays him a visit. Meanwhile, Tsugumi has her worst attack yet. She begins screaming afterwards. It was just too horrible to see.

That was the good part. Now the awesome part begins. It appears that this person’s never heard of Jigoku Shoujo in any way. So that means that another person holds a grudge against the nurse. Before we’re able to figure out who it is, it’s too late and she gets sent to hell. Tsugumi was just too sad to see. If it wasn’t even enough, she ends up connecting with Ai at the end of the episode. Apparently, there was some boy in Ai’s memory with which she used to share lots of happy memories. Combine this with episode twenty, in which only the words of killing your family managed to penetrate through her memory, and we’re in for some incredible final three episode.

I so LOVED this episode. Especially Tsugumi. She just keeps getting better and better. And better. It’s aweosme to see her struggle like that. What is the right thing to do: revenge or no revenge? I can hardly wait for the last episodes.

Some quick first impressions: Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni, Renkin San-kyuu Magical Pokaan and Himawari

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

These series, good and bad. You have to give them credit for one thing: the ones that have OPs, have amazing OPs. In Himawari’s case, I haven’t found anything to give credit to, though…

Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni

Oh, my. I think I’ll have lot of fun watching this. Even if it was because of the extremely enjoyable and powerful cliffhanger. I can imagine why this was so popular. It’s of course certain that the girls didn’t commit the murder themselves, as we see a man commit it at the beginning of the episode, but still, they have got something to do with it. I can’t wait to find out what. This will certainly be on my list to blog. The only thing I didn’t really like was the ridiculous amount of hair each character has, but I doubt that’ll cause a problem in the future.

Renkin San-kyuu Magical Pokaan
I really have diverging opinions about this series. On one hand, it’s just stupid, but in a good way. It doesn’t make any sense, all the scenes are Haruhi-ed together and the jokes sometimes really work. On. The. Other. Hand. It’s just stupid. In a bad way. Most of the airtime just consists of useless fanservice, when the jokes don’t work, they really DO NOT work, and the characters are just plain boring.

Himawari

I think I can describe this series in one word: mediocre. That’s what it is, mediocre. It isn’t totally bad, it isn’t totally good. We just have a classis love-story involving a wannabe-ninja and a normal person with an age-difference of about ten years. Of course, this wannabe-ninja has a background, she’s special in some kind of way. This normal person becomes a teacher in a ninja-academy, at which all the ninjas are after his life. This is nothing special, and judging by the preview of the next episode, it will never be.

Ayakashi ~ Japanese Classic Horror

by psgels, posted in Ayakashi ~Japanese Classic Horror~



This tale somehow manages to keep getting better and more beautiful by the minute. Okay, the “Horror”-part is still drifting in oblivion, but this certainly is one of the better love stories in anime. All tensions are rising high, and it seems that everything is ready now for a big climax.

We start with the guy, whose name appears to be Zusho-no-Suke (no wonder I couldn’t remember it. I’ll call him Zusho for the time being), and Tomi Hime have a little fun in the human town. Then the old woman finds them, and begs Tomi Hime to return. Once they do, it becomes clear that she has a very good reason to be against Tomi Hime’s feelings. Her love for Zusho caused the Forgotten Gods to weaken. In other words, making them mortal again. Tomi Hime then forces Zusho to leave her alone.

Zusho leaves the castle, and suddenly the other woman comes running up to him. The two end up marrying, though Zusho still thinks of Tomi Hime. When the woman finds out about this, she manages to make the landlord decide to attack the Forgotten God-castle. Of course, with them weakened like that, this will turn out to be quite interesting.

Anyway, Zusho finally can’t hide his feelings anymore, so he abandons the woman and heads back to the castle. In there, they see the torches belonging to the regional army rising. This will make for an awesome climax in the fourth episode. I can hardly wait to see it.

xxxHolic – 02

by psgels, posted in xxxHolic



This episode consisted of two parts. In the first part, Watanuki’s classmates, which we already met in the movie, are introduced again. Their relationship is just like in the movie, including all of the feisty dialogue between the three of them. Anyway, they don’t really play a big role in the episode, as they leave afterwards to do their own things. Juuko, meanwhile, feels like she wants to eat some very peculiar dishes. Guess who gets to do it.

Then the second part begins. What we have here is a story of a woman, who’s been lying so much, that she’s become used to it and doesn’t even realize she’s doing it. She suffers from a black smoke-like something, which gushes out of her every time she lies. As she lies more and more, her body becomes more and more paralyzed. Yuuko lets her figure out her problem on her own, which results in the girl ending up in the hospital. Watanuki isn’t really happy with Yuuko’s way of acting, so he asks her a couple of questions, at which she gives a satisfying answer, only to be followed with even more insane food-orders. Then, we see a serious side of Yuuko when she monologues about Watanuki’s usefullness.

The great point of this series is without a doubt the incredible dialogue. Whether it’s meant to be serious or comedy, this anime delivers. In the first case, there’s just so much room for debates, and moral questions. In the second case, seeing each of the characters just annoy the hell out of Watanuki and him responding back is just too funny to see. The mystery-department also is interesting to see, but it could have been better. Though I’m guessing that the creators just start off with the small cases, and end with the large ones. I’ll be waiting for those.