As for the series I’m not going to blog:
– Brave10 is too much stupid action without a good storyline. I mean, I understand that it takes on its own version on history, but even then I at least expect to be convinced that these are the guys who helped to create an empire. Not random bishies who try to look cool. Oh, and I take it back what I said about the female lead. She really is annoying.
Another perhaps isn’t the best horror series out there. Its big flaw is that it tries too hard at times. Get rid of those random doll shots. Get rid of those scenes that just scream”find this scary!”. Trust your atmosphere; trust your pacing, and let things evolve naturally. That alone is good enough for this show, and it’ll lead to a much more natural pacing.
A good example for this is the beginning of this episode, in which that classmates drew The Scream of all things. The symbolism is a little too obvious here. The doll shots are also like the cats in Kimi to Boku: completely pointless, and a waste of a good budget that could have been used to animate the characters more fluidly, which is a bit of a problem with this show. The doll shop in this episode was plenty to create a creepy atmosphere.
Don’t get me wrong though, I like this show a lot. However, I’m a big horror fan, and I’ve been really spoiled with a ton of great horror series, so my standards for it are quite high, especially for the type of atmospheric horror that this series is trying to go for I really love it if a show can really build up an increasingly tight atmosphere using its own mystery and intrigue, combined with either a little gore, or some psychological games. Another probably won’t bring anything new to the table, but so far it has been quite solid. The atmosphere worked, and in particular the use of music is done well.
I unfortunately also have to give this show the “worst animated television series of PA works”-award, though. They usually are very careful with their cleanup and inbetween animation, but here they seem to go for the money shots, and don’t bother to fix awkward movement. Granted though: these dolls really look great.
Also, there was this one scene in this episode, in which the lead character suddenly broke off a conversation with his classmates, closing a door right in front of their faces, acting like they weren’t even there (also, main character can walk through chairs!?). I really wonder how those classmates felt after realizing that he wasn’t coming back out.
Rating: * (Good)