Ah screw it, I’ve got so much to catch up to when I get back that I’m just going to combine all episodes that air in the last two weeks of the season into one post. A wrap-up will follow once I finish everything.
#1: Phi Brain – 50: Well, colour me surprised. That was actually really good. Seriously, this was a terrific conclusion that wraps everything up and delivered a really heart-warming conclusion for Freecell. The art was also much better than usual with the cell shaded detail. Congrats Phi Brain, you redeemed yourself there. – 6/8 (Awesome)
#2: Polar Bear Cafe – 26: So this was the episode to close off the first half of Polar Bear Cafe. Since episode 25 dealt with the past of Polar Bear and Grizzly, I was wondering how the creators would follow up with that in orderbring a good end to the past half year. Well, they did so with the best episode since the Penko episode. The second half of the episode in Grizzly’s Cafe had me completely in stitches. This show can really be brilliant when it wants to; I haven’t laughed this hard in months. – 6/8 (Awesome)
#3: Hunter X Hunter – 47: For this episode for the first time in quite a while I checked back on the same episodes in the 1999 series. I shouldn’t do that anymore. The differences again stood out way too much, and unfortunately, the thing is that the voice acting and animation still is better. I also now know why: the 2011 series has a lot of voice actors who keep doing one hammy voice over and over again, while this was more restrained and balanced in the 1999 series: the actors knew when to be subtle and when to raise their voice. Those differences unfortunately undermine the actual story and the fact that what happened in this episode was really awesome. – 5.5/8 (Excellent)
#4: Kokoro Connect – 12: And with this, the third arc already is better than the second one. It’s much more than jsut people yell at each other, and two members of the cast definitely showed some depth to their characters, and were able to overcome some of their weaknesses. Very well delivered, also making this show one of those series in which romance is something that can change. – 5.5/8 (Excellent)
#5: Phi Brain – 49: Finally! One episode before the end we finally get to see the meaning of Nonoha pulling her hair down; it’s about time! And really: this was an excellent episode with its focus on conflicting emotions and Freecell’s character. I’m very glad that he ended up the final villain here, because this would not have worked with that other guy still around. – 5.5/8 (Excellent)
#6: Saint Seiya Omega – 25: Whoa, I thought that this was going to be the climax. Instead this series makes three characters come to terms with their past. A pleasant surprise indeed, especially considering the charms with which it did it. The acting has really improved over the course of the series here and I’m beginning to like the cast more and more. That’s a sign of good character development, although I’d wish that this show cut some of its early episodes to make them not such a pain to sit through… – 5.5/8 (Excellent)
#7: Polar Bear Cafe – 25: We’re near the halfway point of the series (I found out about that very recently), and it shows. This episode shows a lot of new things about the cast. The first half was about the interests of the different characters, most notably Penguin and his painting hobbies (which were quite hilarious), the second pulled the adorable card by showing Polar Bear and Grizzly when they were young. – 5.5/8 (Excellent)
#8: Kokoro Connect – 11: So the third arc has started, and it has been revealed what the characters are going to have to suffer through next. And I have to say that this fits much more than the second arc. The second arc was too direct, and in the end it was hard to really use it well without descending into melodrama. Here however, the way in which everyone gets turned into kids has a much more indirect lead to drama. It brings up some great things about the past of the cast and it also forces the cast to look at what they were, and how they changed. That’s good, now keep it up! – 5/8 (Great)
#9: Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon – 24: The big climax in which the creators just go and throw as much action involving weird powers as possible. It was basically just one whole episode of fighting. It was quite entertaining, albeit that with this the meaning of the individual fights was lost a bit. Still, I have to admit that I enjoyed the baseball team and the chaos during the busiest part of the episode when a ton of different characters were involved. Also: Aoi’s contribution to the episode: threatening to actually do something. There’s your main character. – 4.5/8 (Good)
#10: Phi Brain – 48: L33t h4x0rz episode that made no bloody sense, but was fun. Background was solid, nice plot twists. Looks to be a fun ending, but how on earth did this get a third season? – 4.5/8 (Good)
#11: Saint Seiya Omega – 24: So after all the build-up of needing to find someone who masters the thunder element in order to break the final ruin… someone who has that conveniently shows up right at the exact moment. I mean come on, you could at least have shown the cast search a bit before running into her. It’s not like this show is hard-pressed for time or anything. After that though, some pretty good character development on Eden and Aria made up for this. – 4.5/8 (Good)
#11: Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon – 23: A very, very sentimental episode that was supposed to be the climax for two of the big romances in the series. It was nice I guess, but it could have been more. Overall, I’m not too impressed with how Horizon decided to handle its huge cast. It doesn’t come together quite as well and none of them really has much depth or stands out anymore, and that is quite a shame considering the wide variety in characters. – 4/8 (Nice)
#12: Hunter X Hunter – 48: Back to Gon and Killua again, a fairly dull episode, though it did have interesting information about appraising items… that I already watched before once. I remember again how these things also tended to break up the mood in the 1999 series. – 3.5/8 (Enjoyable)
#13: Tari Tari – 12: One thing that could have improved the past episodes is by having people other than the main characters motivated to keep the school festival going. Like what was stated before: a lot of clubs have passionate people who like what they’re doing. This sudden twist that they’re all too scared or unmotivated to do something… it doesn’t really work and feels rather forced. The stereotypically evil corporate businessman behind the whole plan didn’t really make things better. – 3.5/8 (Enjoyable)
#14: Tari Tari – 13: So it had it coming that the big climax of Tari Tari would be a musical singing number, and with this, we’ve finally gotten to the ending. Unfortunately though, the creators really rushed through that song there. Instead of taking its time and delivering something heartfelt, they turned into a montage! That’s now that I signed up for. It turned this whole ending into a rather cheesy climax, and the epilogue that showed how they all moved on was just too little to make up for that. Tari Tari definitely had potential, but unfortunately it didn’t really realize this. Have more guts dammit. – 3.5/8 (Enjoyable)
oh w8 till you get to the michi random arc after this its the best one out all of them xD its rather sad that we wont be able to see Nise random or Yume random get animated 🙁
oh and 1 thing about the current arc as it isn’t explained i think when the transformation ends and they become themselves they remember a thing from the time of their lives in to which they were transformed too
Aoki kind of did that in his conversation with Taiichi, he say familiar feeling remains, memories and sensation felt at the time
Inaban nearly stopped my heart in this episode. This show remains my favorite. And yeah man, you miss one or two weeks of anime and all of a sudden you have a bazillion episodes on your plate.
You mean Nakid Inaban or the criminally cute chibi Inaban
Criminally cute.
Why can’t I hold all these feels?
Both are nice.
I think what your seeing in the differences between the 1999 series and the 2011 series might be due to the fact that the 2011 series is rushing a bit more to get to the Greed Island Arc. The subtlety in the dialogue in the 1999 series took up a lot more time due to how extensively they developed the setting and to the ubundancy of pauses in the script. Hamming it up takes up a lot less air time. When they start getting to new material, I think they might start taking more time to build the setting like the 1999 version did. I could be wrong, of course, but there’s no harm in speculation…
I find this version Greed Island arc to be less boring and less draggy, overall.
Also the music in this version is a lot more cohesive than the 1999 version. I did enjoy the 1999 version’s music a lot, but it was more tailored for the Yorkshin ark specifically and would not have been nearly as good when used in any other setting. Hunter x hunter 1999 was designed to be a shorter series, which is why they could put so much more focus on setting development and dialogue. That is also a huge reason why the Greed Island arc suffered afterwards.
Also Yorkshin instead of Greed Island*
Never saw the old HxH so like it plenty, mood is interrupted but I enjoyed the ep. Phi Brain, yeah. Honestly I think Klondike was a great villain who I really wanted to see more of, but meh, it’s phi brain right? And yeah 3rd season? I’ve enjoyed it all so far though, hopefully next season we see some real plot/character development though.
Actually, some episodes ago Kouga mentioned that Shaina (who was confirmed as a Thunder user back in the first episode) had contacted him and was heading to the Thunder Ruins to meet the team there. Yuna even lampshaded how convenient it was that Kouga’s teacher had the only element they lacked.
They were inmediatedly sidetracked by Aria’s kidnapping, and Shaina isn’t a very prominent character in Omega, so it’s easy to forget this detail.
In Omega’s defense, they did said that they sent her a message to meet at the Lightning Ruins back in episode 20. So they didn’t just happen to find her there.
So I really adored the epilogue for Tari Tari. The song and dance number was awful though. They literally just threw all the other songs together with some cheesy effects and then auto-tuned the hell out of it.
I wanted to hear them actually sing as a choir once. It was cute to see how they had really bonded over the music in the epilogue though and the beginning of their lives after high school was very moving. It’s sad that I still feel moved by that sort of thing, but it is a major life event!
Cue PA Works and their tearjerker graduation scenes!
Speaking of which, I’m still finding Silver Link’s Kokoro Connect consistently awesome. It stands out. I will probably remember some of its more gripping scenes a year from now. And that says a great deal…
omg, Kaito looks so badass in that screenshow, I have to catch up this series!
Heheh, to me he always pretty much looks like he desperately needs a haircut. What is it with “high energy shounen leads” in marketable series having absurd hairdos? It’s like “the extra few feet in my hair…gives me super strength(TM)!”
But admittedly, I digress.
I think it’s because there are too much characters in the industry. If you want your character to be “unique” well, the hairstyle would be the perfect way to make it original. X)
Given that Phi Brain is pretty much Yugioh but replace card games with puzzles, I’d say the hair style is much more sated . Yugi’s hair is not even possible
For Saint seiya Omega 24, you complain about Shaina being here just when it’s needed, but Koga said int episode 20 he give her rendez vous at the Thunder ruins, so it’s logical she was here to wait them.
Yup. And Ophiucius Shaina special attack is called Thunder Claw, so there you have it =)
Sad to see Horizon rank so low, but considering that you said you dont care about any of the character, it’s not a surprise. To call Tori the main character of the show would be a drastic misnomer, in fact if you watch it as a series with Horizon and Tori as the hero and heroine, you’d sorely disappointed. Maybe you just don’t pay as much as attention to them as they keep switching and you already aren’t invested in any of the characters. I feel like every character that received their fair share of screen time had their own little character moments and struggles. The Tachibana Gin fight, the moment that led to her surrender and the flashback was a wonderful sequence that highlighted her
oh, the guy still does not understand anything horizon, it hurts to have a little geek
tori is a leader who does not need brute strength, he has the ability to motivate and move his people in their own way.
he knows the skills and abilities of your group, is like gasoline motor that moves the carriage
Horizon is a world where they have to recreate the story together from the great battles that allows all kinds of negociacioes THROUGH the policies that each country has proposed
and manager of that record, observe and record events in the Testament Union THROUGH Testament
Each country has to comply with laws based on the T.U.
but that does not mean that all countries will do so loyal to obey the law as mandated, so there arises the interpretations of each country to seek their own benefit
example three that use their boats Spain ancient battle of Lepanto and not use existing buildings or trying to win the war that is fated to lose.
Some of these countries feel the weight and discomfort of repeating history, Mushishi is determined to save a person who has to be sacrificed for “the sake of history” or the desire to recover weapons of sin (considered weapons of destruction mass) and can not have those weapons because Musashi would generate the imbalance of world order.
and also get involved as well mercearios to intervene in other wars that does not belong to not alter the orden,etc
are many positions that are being generated and that causes conflict worldwide
A lot of the basic rule has to carry over from season one, if you forgot, you’ll be confused again. He does say he find the politic interesting, but the characters lacking. Everyone has their own opinions, he finds Phi Brain’s cast charming, but I find those characters overly dramatic and ridiculous half the time
sees that politics is interesting but does not understand much either.
not fun just because the characters are crazy , weirdos
I like the characters are charismatic, funny, girls and boys are interesting because they are considered unique
futayo is a warrior but in matters of sex simpleton
masasumi good in politics but bad at jokes
makiko that teacher makes her class is fun
Asama is a priestess and makes his antics are not only attached to prayers
kimi lover girl dances be cool but it’s like his brother teasing banter
nate gentleman and good meat lover but it’s easy to annoy
Malga and Margot are good in the passing game
tori live your life your way to nudity but pervert
ously money shiro fully
neishanbara good strategist and is an otaku
tenzou is good boy but another pevertido
and there are many who destancan gin, tachibana, joanna, felipe2, velasquez, the maid, suzu, etc.
give me that hurt, not fully enjoy it.
There are too many cute lovebirds
horizontal x tori
gin x tachibana
heide x shiro
Juana x felipe 2
tenzou x maria
neshibara x shakespiare
each has its own problems and difficulties that have been solving
also do not know why Tori’s behavior, he has to be happy can not be sad, so he has to see life in a different way to others, to laugh, do crazy and naked out there and there, has to be moving.
ie, can not load on his shoulders the weight of pain, sadness, negative feelings etc, but still does not forget his duties as leader, to motivate and encourage their people to do what they can do. and leave the impossible to the
great time to make a good review. he is not the main presonaje have to be all let others be the stars also.