Koihime Musou
Short Synopsis: Our lead characters finds a twelve-year old orphan who is a genius at fighting.
Highlights: Overglorifies its own setting
Overall Enjoyment Value: 6/10
This sort-of reminds me of Prism Ark, and although I admit that the writing is more solid, it does have the same weaknesses. At least there’s no country named “The Untied Kingdom” or “Poleland”, but as things look now, it seems that all the major army commanders are a bunch of little girls in frilly dresses. First of all, who in his right mind would take such a thing seriously? And second: what happened to the males or older females? Did some kind of disease wipe them all out or something? Still, this could have been ignored if it wasn’t for the little girl, mentioned above. She’s living in a regular village, her parents died, and she’s been living by herself for a while now. Then why the heck is she wearing the fanciest clothes in the entire village? How did she become so good at fighting? Who taught her? Why the heck is her house all nice and clean, why does she have a futon that’s not worn out in any single way? I mean, I know that this series isn’t supposed to take itself seriously, but in my opinion, being a comedy is no excuse to be lazy or historically inaccurate. Besides, this episode wasn’t that funny anyway.
Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu
Short Synopsis: Our lead character discovers that the most popular girl at school is a closet otaku.
Highlights: Oh boy…
Overall Enjoyment Value: 3/10
I must say that I’m surprised at how the series this season featured a very low amount of stereotypes, even series as Seikirei, Koihime Musou and Antique Bakery had at least an enjoyable cast, with perhaps a typical loser male here and there. I was happy with this, but then Nogizaka Haruka came and ruined everything. Seriously, so many stereotypes come together in this series: horny teachers, a clumsy girl, a male lead who isn’t bothered by his hormones, the entire male school population who is, the perfect girl, and I could go on and on for a while. To make matters worse, these stereotypes don’t make any sense either. The above-mentioned horny teachers have the amazing ability to drink as much as they want and never get a hangover. If Haruka is so incredibly clumsy and a cry-baby, why did it take this long for her secret to be discovered? It’s not like this episode described her as a master of keeping secrets. How did such a shy girl become the most popular girl anyway? I could rant on an on about this series. The animation may have a considerable budget, but the characters end up looking dull and uninspired. The OP and ED are incredibly annoying. In other words, I don’t like one bit of this series. Every season has its worst show, and the worst show of Summer 2008 is for me without a doubt Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu.
Blade of the Immortal
Short Synopsis: Our lead characters has a curse on him that makes him immortal.
Highlights: Awesome soundtrack, excellent atmosphere, terrific OP.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
I’m an absolute sucker for samurai-stories and Bee-train, so when the two are combined, there was no way for me not to love this series. The summer-season has already brought a lot of good stuff, but Blade of the Immortal has without a doubt delivered the best first episode of all the new series. It’s great to see that Bee-train is willing to experiment with new styles, because this series is absolutely nothing like their previous works, and the only similarity it shares is the same attention to the awesome soundtrack that this series has. The animation itself was quite decent, but especially the OP features some beautifully choreographed swordfights. Still, everything looks really nice. Great to see Bee-Train back!
Lol.
BoI soundtrack :
“The musical direction is simply horrendously terrible. They’re trying to go for overly serious here, but Bee Train’s idea of “serious background music” is wailing chants that are louder than the foreground vocals. Maybe their audio muxer was drunk. It’s overly pretentious anyway, but you’d think they’d at least be smart enough to not have the BACKGROUND drown out the foreground. I’m not even going to get started on the OP. If you ground down orphan fingerbones into a sharp point and ran them across a chalkboard, you’d get a similar sound.”
http://blog.seiha.org/?p=960
I agree with you on Nogizaka Haruka. I’m not gonna watch it because it has fan-service (I don’t like it with a passion). I’m glad I’m not gonna watch it.
As for BoI, I won’t complain much if the quality continues to be like this.
I just really hope that the things happened for Tsubasa Cronicle don’t happen…pleasepleaseplease
But we all know how first episodes are always great, and everything gets dissapointed after awhile.
Anyway, I’m also glad to see Bee Train is back. Go Bee Train!
Awesome soundtrack? WTF?! Not sure about Noir since I haven’t watched much of it yet, but El Cazador de la Bruja & Madlax had the best soundtracks I’ve ever heard, and this new series is the worst i’ve seen from them (from all standpoints other than the music) – bland and awfully choreographed.
Bee-Train is not back, they dug themselves into an unescapable pit.
where can i find blade of the immortal it sound interesting but i cant find the torrent anywhere…help anyone
Dima: The soundtrack for Noir is unbelievable. I only watched five episodes before putting it On-Hold, but at least the music in it is so bloody awesome.
Ignoring Koihime Musou and Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu; I might watch the first episode of BoI if I get the time.
Okay, it looks like it’s safe to check out Blade of The Immortal now.
Personally, I disagree: the first episode of BoI is bloody awful. I have to admit that I don’t like BeeTrain at all (the one and only BeeTrain anime I appreciate is Hack//Sign), but this studio was probably the least suitable – along with, ugh, Gonzo – to adapt Hiroaki Samura’s wonderful manga (the most suitable studio would’ve been Madhouse, probably).
I think I’ll pretend that for me this anime doesn’t exist at all.XD
[quote]Dima: The soundtrack for Noir is unbelievable. I only watched five episodes before putting it On-Hold, but at least the music in it is so bloody awesome.[/quote]
Not really. My favourite ones are from Madlax and El Cazador. Noir for some reason is far inferior to my ears.
please anyone…help:(
where can i find/download blade of the immorotal
If you like the BoI Anime, you might want to check out the manga, wich is awesome and features a LOT of developement.
I’m curious as to what they’ll do with the storyline in the anime, as the manga runs at 21 or 22 volumes now and still shows no sign of being finished… (without monster-of-the-day crap)
I am kinda…irritated at all the naked women in the OP though…I can’t remember there being so much of them in the manga…concerning the characters shown in the OP in general, I guess the story will progress quite fast.
The episode went quite well, apart from that :)Though what Hyakurin was doing there, I have no idea…they’re not supposed to meet up quite so soon…
The soundtrack isn’t exactly mine either…
Still, I love Manji’s voice 🙂 My favourite seiyjuu of all times ^^ (though I’m not entirely sure it fits him…fits the clean animation style I guess…)
@ Frotee: The manga will end with volume 25-26. Samura has stated that the current storyline will be the last.
thanks for the feed back guys ill check the manga but i still wanna check out the anime any suggestions
I wish Bee Train stayed dead. They completely took a dump all over one of the most artistic and unique manga ever created, and turned it into some sloppy, generic mess.
The music is horrible, the characters make no impact at all, Manji seems like a far cry from Samura’s envisioning, the art direction fails in all regards to capture even a hint of the manga’s style, the atmosphere is lost, and as usual, the animation work by BT is subpar.
I agree with Davide…Madhouse would’ve been a far better choice.
Well, you would have to be quite….adventurous to try and capture the manga’s style – and have quite a lot of bughet, for all those details…
Since the manga isn’t exactly manstream, I guess this animationstyle was the safer approach.
And I don’t see you problems with Manji, really oO I have hardly ever seen a manga charakter which was so instantly recognizable in the anime…
But well, tastes differ 🙂
I prefer the manga, too – but see this as a way to promote Samura’s work 😉
“Since the manga isn’t exactly manstream, I guess this animationstyle was the safer approach.”
Yeah. That’s the word. Not the best approach, but the safest… Which makes the BOIT anime dull, at best.
And the screenplay? They emo-ized the protagonists, they cut off Samura’s humour… And what the f@ck Hyakurin and Habaki are doing there?
Have you seen ” Noir”? It’s by far the best series produced by Bee train! And one of my favorite series of all times!!!