#1: Polar Bar Cafe – 15: This show… is brilliant. Oh my god, I’m nearly dying from laughing here. This show managed to surpass itself yet again. – ***+ (Amazing)
#2: Tamayura Hitotose – 05,5: One issue that i still can’t find a good solution for is how to cover OVAs. The thing is, that I want to cover these things because I’ve often noticed that they suffer from a lack of buzz and people don’t often know about them, even though there is some very good stuff amongst them. The problem though is that in my experience, it’s too much of a chore to devote a single post to all of them. What I’m still searching for is some sort of catalog or easily accessible post or page that would briefly highlight the noteworthy OVAs out there. But for now I’ll just include them in these ratings. This episode was awesome and I nearly dozed off due to how relaxing it was. This is what I mean by using ovas well: this episode showed so much about Potte and her father. Awesome. – *** (Awesome)
#3: Computer Kakumei OVA: Computar Kakumei and the below listed Marimo no Hana are two OVAs of only 10 minutes long that have a surprising amount of talent within them (heck, both directors worked on multiple episodes of the Tatami Galaxy and Kaiba among others). While this didn’t come together for Marimo no Hana, Computer Kakumei is actually quite interesting. At first it seemed a bit of a sell-out with the lead’s female’s father suddenly getting hospitalized, but there was a surprising amount of heart to it. The visuals also look very pretty, but what caught my attention the most was how good the soundtrack was.In fact, for such a short OVA… I can hardly recall any OVA of that length that had a better soundtrack other than Comedy. – ** (Excellent)
#4: Tari Tari – 02: I’m not going to blog this series for the fear that it’ll be too short to make any real impact. But still this episode impressed me with how much went on there. I thought that the entire series would revolve around getting the choir club going, but with this episode this entire subplot has been resolved already. This definitely was a significant difference from the first episode and I quite like how the creators juggled around the roles for everyone and made everyone important in trying to make the joint recital. – ** (Excellent)
#5: Hyouka – 11,5: Again, I’ve gotten a bit tired about devoting full entries to OVA episodes like this, so I’ll just list this one here. It’s a pool episode, and while it’s not a very good pool episode (remove the pool part and this episode still would have been able to make the points it wanted to make), it is quite worth watching, if only for what they did to Oreki’s character and his boredom here. – *+ (Great)
#6: Binbou-Gami ga! – 02 – Unfortunately, this is as I expected: this episode was not as good as the first, by far. The new character introduced is just an overblown unfunny stereotype and this episode flowed far from as smoothly. On top of that, a majority of the jokes was very forced and fell rather flat. This is a bad sign. – (Enjoyable)
#7: Hunter X Hunter – 38: This episode only featured the same exposition I’ve already seen before. So yeah, I found this really boring, but it’s good to have all this set-up over with now; this part was even longer and more annoying back in the 1999 series. – – (Disappointing)
#8: Marimo no Hana – OVA: So, AKB0048 is currently very good. Interestingly, this 10-minute OVA is an example of how not to use them. Two of its members basically voice the main male and female. And the male one sounds like a girl. I mean, totally, without any question. And really, I’m not blaming the girls here, the producer here should have known that you can’t just throw idols everywhere and expect this to work out, and this really was a cheap cash-in with no thought put into it whatsover. Which is a darn shame, because this OVA has a bunch of really good animators working on it. – – (Disappointing)
#9: Yuruyuri 02 – 02: When I watch a comedy, I want to watch something that makes me laugh. Not something that dabbles on randomly while trying to annoy me. Dropped. – — (Lacking)
#10: La Storia della Arcana Famiglia – 02: I checked Amazon. And I could only find 6 DVD volumes listed, meaning that it’ll be highly likely that this show will only have 12 episodes. For that, it’s goofing off way too much, there is too little happening: go back to fun action scenes instead of having bishies talk to each other trying to act quirky while saving kittens. Dropped. – — (Lacking)
#11: Phi Brain – 39: Why, Phi Brain? Why!? There was so much wrong with this episode it’s not even funny. Why did you decide to bring back the single most pathetic villain of the first season? Why did you find it a good idea to bring back such a comically evil bad guy? Why did you kidnap Elena without involving Gammon in this at all? Did you entirely forget the romantic hints that the first season was building up to? Why did you take Nonoha instead? Why did she end up partaking into part of the puzzle now of all times, in which she was absolutely useless? Why didn’t you give her something to redeem herself with? Why did you make Rook appear from out of nowhere? Why did Rook’s helper arrive just at the right time? Why did they know about a kidnapping that even Cubic wasn’t aware of? Why did you suddenly introduce two game players, even though the Orpheus Order people have up till now always battled the main cast directly? There are just so many things about this series now that make no sense whatsoever from a storytelling perspective. It’s like this series WANTS to ruin itself or something. — (Bad)
#12: Campione- 02: I dropped this about 4 minutes into the episode, in which this show revealed itself as a harem, the lead female completely changed character and the male lead’s sister got jealous at her. —- (Terrible)
Tamayura Hitotose just gives you such a warm feeling. I couldn’t stop smiling and tearing up through the entire ova.
Agree 100% with you there. It really has that Aria (especially the 3rd season) type of feeling, except more emotional.
My only problem is that I’m too embarrassed to watch this show in company as I sit there grinning and sniffling at the same time.
That reminds me, I was lucky nobody was around when Alice passed her test ,I cried so bad/good when that happened. I was a mess .
I found the Hyouka OVA good in a final balance. The mystery wasn’t good at all, but the episode portrayed (instead of just forgetting it an moving on) Oreki’s conflicts after being tricked by Irisu. Even the usually bad seen fanservice was justified as part of Oreki’s infatuation with Chitanda so I think it was ok.
@Psgels: Did you watched Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate, I can’t find your first impressions about it, not that I’m expecting to much from the show.
The problem was that wordpress somehow ate that entry and I’m not motivated enough to rewrite what I wrote about it. The gist of it is that I found it to be very cliched and boring.
Got it.
I’m having a hard time seeing the visual difference between the three negative ratings. “Disappointing” and “Lacking” both look like two hyphens to me, but “Bad” is just a wide horizontal line. Not to mention on these short posts, there is often a hyphen preceding the rating anyway, which gets all confusing on the bad ratings.
Maybe just drop the symbols and stick with the (Good/Bad) text instead? Would also simplify the whole *- vs *+ vs ** as well.
Oh god, polar bear cafe, I laugh so hard my stomach hurt.
Shirokuma is ultra hilarious this week, both segments were excellent.
Binbou-Gami ga! will have its ups and downs, especially early on when it’s still trying to find that balance between slapstick and heart warming dramedy. Unfortunately a good amount of the long term cast and plot device are also introduced during that period, so it’s animated as is
I must admit, this is the funniest way I’ve ever seen a romance thread conclude.
Why cant he tell ? He’s a Penguin too
Identical septuplets? They even share the same workplace and the same taste in accessories! XD
Hm….I wonder if psgels will drop Shirokuma Cafe if it becomes a harem anime next week. LOL.
Binbou-Gami ga!was very disappointing, as for Campione!I was annoyed at first, but the episode itself was entertaining, at least interesting, I’m not sure if it will turn out well but I’ll stick around for a few more eps.
I double facepalmed my way through the first half of that episode but the end of it may have convinced me to give it another chance .
Yeah, it seems interesting, for now I like the vibe, the rest really depends on the execution, I try not to be biased, I’ll give it a chance
Oh god… I think it’s the first time I’ve seen you rate something (Terrible) lol
Good thing I dropped it at the 1st episode.
I think it might make an interesting premise for a renai fighting action or RPG game though. But of the several harem shows this season, I place it second behind Love, Elections and Chocolate. I like the chemistry there more.
I think you should check kokoro connect’s 2nd episode.
Just saying.
Seconded.
Thirded. It was good.
Fourthed?
I think it starting to prove quite cute, but there was an interesting level of “seriousness” behind it this time. Weight.
Please do.
I basically wrote a letter under the last kaleidoscope entry trying to convince him to watch kokoro connect T.T
or her…. i still dont know if psgels is a guy or a girl.
Following.
It seems to get MUCH better and better.
uhm the ending for computer kakumei ova was a bit weird o.O …..
The ending reminded me of Denno Coil, which is always a good thing.
Aaaw…..it’s a pity that Computer Kakumei is so short!!>.< I liked it btw, thanks to your review psgels, at first I'm kind of torn whether to check it or not but after reading yours, I decided to check it out & it's worth it. I hope there's going to be more of it in the future, whether it's just a series of ova or tv series, remind of Dennou Coil & Eve no Jikan(need more creative series like these 2 more in the future).
Heh, if anything, Binbougami ga! goes to show how much comedy is subjective. I thought the first episode was a bit disappointing and the jokes weren’t timed well. But somehow, you liked it.
I checked the 2nd episode and I found it bloody hilarious with comedy gold timing and a massive improvement over the relatively hit-and-miss 1st episode. But you didn’t like it and think the opposite.
I’m with our reviewer on this one (and thats pretty fuckin rare)
First ep was golden, second really fell flat for me
Thanks for this comment. I checked out the second episode, and it really was funny – I had dropped it after the first, which fell flat.
And comedy is the most subjective thing ever, agreed.
Well I found both episodes quite funny! That said, the first was a bit better than the second.
I suspect personality types may play a role in this, the 2nd ep was funny, but it just felt… like they were forcing it
To be honest, I found BinbouGami ga super good this week. If the manga is any indication, it will be the best comedy we’ve seen in quite some time.