Sacred Seven – 11
Ah whatever. With this, at least this series entertained me like it should have done at the beginning. Finally this show just said “screw it”, and realized that it wasn’t going anywhere. Don’t get me wrong, this was bad. It pulled all sorts of ridiculous twists out of its ass and all, but for once it was action packed, like it should have been from the beginning. The main villain also reached the “so bad he’s good” territory here. His performance was ridiculously hammy, but that was far better compared to how ludicrously boring he was throughout the rest of the series.
Rating: * (Good)
Dantalian no Shoka – 09
Awesome! Three episodes in one week are experimenting with a new style, visual and direction. What a timing! This episode looked amazing, with its washed out colours, and it had a great premise behind it. Probably one of the best episodes so far. And the best thing is that we’re not even done yet. Keep an eye out for episode eleven: Osamu Kobayashi is going to return again. That should be completely awesome!
Rating: *** (Awesome)
Blade – 11
Yeah, Makoto is the best female companion out of all of the marvel series. She was much more than just a token female, and she actually got something out of Blade, and made him a different person. There was no attempt to make her as obnoxious as possible, nor was there any attempt to try to get her hog fall of the screen-time in favour of the main cast. This was balance. Now, as for the final episode, I really wonder how it’s going to fare. Iron Man’s ending was abysmal, and the ending of the X-Men significantly lowered my opinion of it, while Wolverine’s ending did about the opposite. Where oh where will Blade place itself?
Rating: ** (Excellent)
Sket Dance – 23
Anime needs to be more experimental and we need to see more episodes that toy with their animation style. Because of that, this week really delivered here. First we had Penguin Drum, but also Sket dance actually tried to shade their characters smoothly, plus throwing in all sorts of interesting visuals in the background. It was a bit of a silly episode, but it worked surprisingly well. It in any case was much better than the first kid episode, which was a bit annoying. Bossun’s frenetic energy worked well here though.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
Appleseed XIII – 02
This episode was actually surprisingly interesting. It was based around an interesting premise, and the dialogue of most of the characters was well written. The dogfights in the air were also quite interesting to watch, and the background music turned out to be excellent. It’s got its flaws, though. First of all, with a huge plane being jacked, the only people who are sent in to take care of it are two people on a holiday. That’s some serious understaffing if you ask me. Also, most of the cast is well acted, but Deunan is trying too hard. At this point I can’t blame it on her period anymore.
Rating: * (Good)
Kamisama Dolls – 10
You know, the thing about insane characters is that you can always try too hard. That made the first half of this episode amongst the most cringe-worthy parts I’ve seen of this series. The second half however got back on track thankfully. Overall I like how just the introduction of two characters answers a ton of questions that have been lingering since the first episode, and at the very least the creators did well and immediately got it on with that psycho girl’s background. It redeemed her a lot. The animation was also gorgeous, although it’s a bit of a pity of the CG.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
Am I the only one who’s enjoying Kamisama Dolls? It’s like shounen for college kids with the shounen stereotypes that are occasionally turned on their heads. Man, I wish you were blogging this, psgels.
I’m greatly enjoying Kamisama Dolls. so they finally show the past about the intro of the first episode. i went back and rewatched that again. hmm a doll that feeds on mental hate, which greatly explains why the main cast of the 3 kids are so broken now. Psgels was right the past clip did redeem the girl, which is why im happy they didnt wait to show it. 3 kids battling a relic of the past and barly surviving. epic
Even though psgels isn’t blogging this show, he has been giving it consistently good remarks on it through his kaleidoscope entrees. Oh, and I enjoy this anime as well. You’re not alone!
Kamisama has been always solid, but it has its great moments. the 2nd part of ep. 10 was one of those. I really wanna see Kyohei go crazy again
The fight in Kami-sama Dolls in the flashback was insane. Short, not complicated or flash, but still so insane…
I feel like the Sket-dance direction is too infantile. The original manga ranges from truly hilarious to moving in the normal shouneny way (like Gintama, especially early Gintama).
The heart of all of this is Bossun’s almost child-like enjoyment of life, honesty and loyalty. Switch, Tsubaki, and even Himeko are also pretty compelling characters. Unfortunately that doesn’t really get across in the anime and I feel like Bossun just screams a lot.
I also really enjoy a lot of Yoshino Hiroyuki’s other work so I don’t think it’s really his fault…
While I do agree that Dantalian looked absolutely stunning, I really did not like the episode. Maybe it was just me but I did not think the characters introduced were very interesting at all and the story was just kind of meh in my opinion. It is strange and awesome that 3 episodes in 1 week were this experimental.
I thought this was already the Osamu Kobayashi-made episode. It reminded me completly of ParaKiss, Beck and Mahou Tsukai ni taisetsu na koto: Natsu no Sora.
I rally liked it.