The Law of Ueki – 38

by psgels, posted in Law of Ueki



Whoa! This episode really reminded me why I love the law of Ueki. It couldn’t have been done any better. It starts out mediocre, with Ueki and Marilyn fighting, Marilyn bragging and Ueki discovering her power. Then we switch over to Sano, and the fun stuff begins.

To begin with, Sano gets all beat up. This is indeed logical, as he’s been fighting for quite a while now, and he took quite a lot of punches. Then he discovers his level 2, in a very amusing way. It couldn’t have been a better level 2. It offers so many possibilities for strategy. It’s like he said: “I can do a lot of fun stuff with this”. And Sano really demonstrates this to us. I’d have to say that this was the best fight yet. At least in the second half.

Next up will be Mori! Yay! I’d just love to see her fight again!

The Law of Ueki – 37

by psgels, posted in Law of Ueki



This episode was split into two parts. In the first part, Hideyoshi came in the spotlights, along with the total randomness as usual. We get to see a bit character development on his side, as well as some pretty funny scenes. We also get to see Marylin using her power for the first time in the series. Unfortunately, I’ve been spoiled for it, so I already knew what it was. I’m wondering what my reaction would’ve been if I wasn’t. I’m therefore urging everyone talking about spoilers to put some kind of warning up for it. It may be me being allergic to spoilers, but I doubt I’m the only one who’s bothered by this.

Anyway, enough rants for today, the second part featured an announcement which outlined what would be happening in the following couple of episodes, as no one other than God himself gave away a couple of hints to winning the battle. The hints for the Marylin Team had it coming. Afterall, if it didn’t, the tension would so be taken away. As for the Ueki-team, well… let’s just say that God was being very evil. You’ll understand when you see it.

The next episodes will be extremely cool, as we get to see three one-on-one fights. I can hardly wait for them.

Tales of a Streetcorner Review – 75/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Okay. Whoever thinks that all 44-year-old anime sucks, should seriously check out Tales of a Streetcorner. That’ll certainly change his or her mind. This is the proof that even some of the first anime are awesome.

This anime tells the story of several animate and inanimate objects: a little girl, a tree, an old street lamp, a curious little mouse, a mischievous moth and a relatively large number of posters on a wall in an alley, which include a violinist, a pianist and a bar girl. Believe it or not, but each of these actor has its own interesting story.

The largest part features an introduction of the “characters”. I put “characters” between quotation marks, because technically, the term would not be right for some of the roles. Although I do have to say that each of them has several characteristics of normal persons. Anyway, we get to learn all of the “characters”, we get to know their problems, personality, daily lives, et cetera. Along with this, we get to see a huge load of different posters, all with people living their daily lives on it. It was good to see that the creators actually put some jokes in this. I’m not going to spoiler all of the different stories here, but do have to say that most of them are really adorable. They’re so simple, yet I think thats the reason they work so well.

At the last ten minutes, or so, this show takes a turn you would so not expect from a show with this nature. It really had me shocked for a while. But after thinking about it a bit more, it does begin to make sense, as this was made no less than ten years after World War II (1962, to be exactly). The ending it features is probably one of the best endings ever. I enjoyed it a LOT.

The graphics are, of course nothing special. But for some reason, I wasn’t really bothered by the old-looking drawings. The music is another strong point in this anime. It’s really the type of sound that sticks to your mind like bubble-gum, and won’t come off for quite a while when left alone. The sound effects also work really well. They’re mostly there for comedy reasons, but they’re really consistant, and contribute to the unique atmosphere of this anime.

Overall, I’d say that if you’re thinking of trying out a very old anime, you should definately check out Tales of a Streetcorner. And even if you’re not, you should.

And it’s done.

by psgels, posted in Special Articles

Okay then, I finally managed to get everything over, although it didn’t come without sacrifices, as I lost every comment that has been made. Okay, there may have been only ten of them, but I do feel that I lost a small part of the sitewith this.

Anyway, The past week gave me a good chance to evaluate the pros and cons of Blogsome when compared to Blogspot.

Pros:
– So many possibilities to customize. You aren’t limited to html-only anymore.
– The template is much easier to edit, and it comes with some good documentation.
– Categories. <3
– Custom fields are also possible with Blogsome. I’ll probably use them to rate individual episodes and anime, because then I’ll be able to sort anime and episodes by their ratings. I know something like that’s possible, but I’m still working on it, though.
– The possibility for custom pages. I have no idea what to use it for, but it’ll surely come in handy someday.
– A decent in-site Search Function.
– A Calendar, the most popular posts and links to posts I made a month ago. Always useful.
– Creating a blogroll made easier. No longer do I have to edit the template in order to add a new link.
– Better statistics. Okay, it may not seem useful, but who knows.

Cons:
– Uploading Images will be a hell.
– Blogsome’s pretty difficult to understand.
– The Wysiwyg-editor needs a lot of improvement. For some reason, it doesn’t really give me the freedom in posting, furthermore, it creates nasty extra space for new paragraphs. Something I’d like to do myself. Thank god there’s a way to turn this off.
– I have to be careful with using smilies from now on. This is because in the template, I defined each image to have a small border (as you can see when looking at some random screenshots). This looks great with screenshots. But for some reason, the all of the smilies also got a border. The result is this: 🙁
– Transferring posts was horrible, as I had to do it completely manually. That wasn’t really fun.
– Although the categories are great. You have to have a default category.

Woot! 100 Posts!

by psgels, posted in Special Articles

Yay! Over the past three months, I managed to make a massive one hundred posts in this blog. *does a happy dance*

Anyway, this seemed a good moment to announce that I’ll be moving from blogspot to wordpress (or at least, a variation of wordpress). I should have it done round march 1st. Most likely sooner, but it takes a while to fully set up everything. Plus, converting the entries I already made doesn’t go automatically. ^^;;;

Noein – 16

by psgels, posted in Noein


Recap episode. Well, at least something that looks like a recap episode, as there is tons of new information revealed. I keep wondering how the creators of Noein manage to show these huge amounts of new information each episode.

Anyway, we learn the following things:
– The person Haruka’s Father’s working for is an incredible bastard. His role will probably be a big one, later in the anime.
– The battle scene shown in the first episode finally gets explained and we learn how Haruka was found by the people of La’Cryma. We also get a few hints of what might’ve happened to Haruka in the future.
– Noein makes a shocking statement in front of Yuu. I have no idea wether this might be true or not, but if it is, then we’ll be in for some really awesome scenes, later in the anime.
– We still don’t know who the man with the hat is, and why he keeps popping up in different timespaces.
– The Yuu of the current timespace finally manages to say what he wants in front of Karasu.
– Noein is not invincible.

The episode ended peacefully for once. There was no sign of a cliffhanger this time. I believe that this episode was supposed to be the mark between the first and the second part of the series. Some things we’re sure to expect in the second part:
– The truth about Haruka. (duh)
– We get to know what the boss of her father is planning, and what his influence will be.
– La’Cryma also hasn’t played all of their trump cards. They will certainly be coming back.
– The two researchers will probably learn about everything, and try to stop the further development of quantum particles.
– Optional: Tobi’s child version.
– The meaning of that damned telephone.
– The explanation of how Haruka got her dragon’s torque.

Bleach – 70

by psgels, posted in Bleach


This episode consisted of two parts. A part in which the Bounto featured, and a part in which they didn’t.

The former wasn’t really entertaining. The only good part is that we now know that we aren’t dealing with 2-dimensional villains (Well, at least one of them isn’t). The snake-guy also wan’t really something to be looking forward to. Okay, he’s got a power that’s completely original. But the way he uses it, it’s just as if he just learned how to deal with it.

The latter really was enjoyable to see. The character interaction was top-notch as usual and had me smirking for quite a few times. It was really refreshing to see Rukia’s normal side again, instead of her constant worries.

But there’s one thing that’s been bugging me… Rukia lost all of her powers… didn’t she?

Noein – 15

by psgels, posted in Noein


"Shangri-La is a fictional place described in the novel, Lost Horizon, written by British writer James Hilton in 1933. In it, "Shangri-La" is a mystical, harmonious valley, gently guided from a lamasery, enclosed in the western end of the Himalaya. Shangri-La has become synonymous with any earthly paradise but particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia — a permanently happy land, isolated from the outside world. The story of Shangri-La is based on the concept of Shambhala, a mystical city in the Buddhist religion." – Wikipedia.

Noein’s image of Shangri-La tries to explain the mysteries of this utopian place. It’s indeed a perfect world, with no problems what so ever. Although the thoughts behind it are horrifyingly realistic.

Once again, we see that Noein is excellent in creating the physical settings of the anime. This goes for Shangri-La, but even more for La’Cryma and the current timespace. Especially the latter one sticks to your mind. Why? Because the creators make such effective use of the tools given to them. For example, the Aeral Tramway to the mountain lookout. This gives a nice overview of the city, which actually makes sense (instead of the usual copy-and-paste-city-views usually seen in movies) and I’m actually able to recognize some of the places encountered in the anime. The fact that certain locations are just unique and keep on returning only contributes to this fact.

Anyway, about the episode. A LOT got revealed this time. We finally get to see Haruka’s father as he is in the current timepace, including the troubles he suffers from. The researchers come in contact with Toby and Karasu, thus learning a few things. A certain unwanted guest makes an appearance, and some critical information is shown about Shangri-La. Another pleasant-looking surprise is that the Ouroboros may be something much bigger than we originally thought of. It’s always been there, and I took it a bit for granted. But it seems that it’ll get a gret role in the end.

I can’t say that I didn’t love this episode. Therefore I won’t. Everything flowed so brilliantly, the music was awesome as ever, there was just one tiny fight, which was better then most anime can accomplish, and the cliffhanger just makes me thirsty for more. (Now that I think of it… the cliffhanger showed in episode 14 hasn’t been mentioned at all…)

Jigoku Shoujo – 11

by psgels, posted in Jigoku Shoujo


Our case this time: an editor of a corrupt newspaper published an article thta made some guy’s father go to prison, thus destroying his whole family. Some guy wants revenge for this and calls for Jigoku Shoujo. The special thing about this episode (skip this part if you’re just like me and allergic to spoilers) is that we have the guy who’s been returning for the past couple of episodes (is it me and my memory, or are their names never even mentioned?) meeting up with him, and learning about his plans.

This certainly was a "guy-who’s-been-returning-for-the-past-couple-of-episodes"-episode (I think I’ll call him the Reporter from now on, until I get to figure out his name). We get to know his character, we see why he’s so interested in Jigoku Shoujo, his struggles to prevent her from delivering her revenges and a satisfying ending.

I just had two issues with this episode. 1: Why did the Reporter coincidentally meet up with a victim of Jigoku Shoujo? And why does he have such perfect timing? This episode just let an aweful lot depend on Lady Fortuna, unfortunately. 2: I’m also getting kinda bored with the revenge-delivering scenes. I don’t know why, but they seem to be getting boring and repetitive, which is a strange thing for a show like Jigoku Shoujo. It’s like that the creators threw these scenes in out of pity. I’m not really happy with this, as these scenes do for a part of the climax.

AOMM Anime Blog Quality Rating

by psgels, posted in Special Articles

Ah well. Every anime blogger suffering from an inferiority complex can breathe easily again. I just compared Jason’s newest masterpiece of Anime Blog support, the anime blog quality rating, with Star Crossed. You can see the results below. Let’s just say that you’re currently reading on the worst Anime Blog yet, as I don’t think that anyone will have a lower score.

+1 point for viewable on small (i.e. 1024 x 768) monitors.
+1 point for using good HTML techniques, i.e. specifying width and height tags for images and description tags for links.
+1 point for using e-mail address.
+1 point for about page. (If you count the puny page I have…)
+1 point for at least ten posts a month.
-1 point for any day with more than five posts. (What can I say? I almost always reserve one post per episode. And at some days, I watch a lot of anime ^^;)
+1 point for keeping a blogroll.
+1 point for lack of comment spam.
+1 point for RSS or Atom feed available.
+1 point for valid and Magpie parsable RSS or Atom feed.
+1 point if posts are categorized by series or some other system that makes some sense.
+1 point for screenshots.
+1 point for punctuation.
+1 point for spoiler warnings.
+3 points for not being afraid to go against popular opinion.
+3 points for bringing something new to the table.
+3 points for blogging about shows no one else is at the moment.

This makes a total of 21, otherwise known as a horribly low score. But ah well, you know what they say: the more mistakes you make, the more you learn. 🙂