May 7, 2010
Sarai-ya Goyou - 04
This series just surpassed itself. This really was a wonderful episode that wasted no time to get to the bottom of its characters, this episode was all about subtle hints at the background of various characters. We learn about how Matsu met Yaichi, and also that Otake knew him for the longest.
But the best thing about this episode was again the interplay between Masa and Yaichi. The way in which Masa tries to find out more about the Masa who never talks about his past was really well portrayed. Especially when Masa hit the nail on the head: Yaichi doesn’t seem to be doing the kidnappings for the money. The way he throws around money… it’s just as if he’s asking for it to run out faster so that he can do another job.
Then consider what Matsu said: he has really changed. Could it be that this change started when he started the kidnappings? Like Ume said, they haven’t done even 10 of them, and Yaichi was already involved with three of them, so they probably started quite recently. Because of whatever caused him to change, he started getting interested in Masa, and doing stuff that wouldn’t really be important contrary to what he would have done when Matsu first met him. Either that, or Matsu always had the wrong image of him: you never hear the other characters talk about his change.
On another note, it’s a shame that even though Noitamina is currently so well written and produced, with Sarai-ya Goyou and Yojou-han, the tv ratings have reached a depth for the series. 1.7%… that’s even less than Kuchuu Buranko. I have a hard time grasping the cause for this, actually. Noitamina has always been a timeslot that was also popular amongst non-anime fans.
It seems that the best-rated shows of the time-slot play in modern settings. There are exceptions, like the early Honey and Clover and Paradise Kiss, which aired when the time-slot was still young, and Hakaba Kitarou (the best rated Noitamina show ever), which made use of its huge nostalgia factor, but Nodame Cantabile, Moyashimon and Hataraki Man all are about down to earth characters that anyone could relate with. The same with Eden of the East and Tokyo Magnitude: it’s very easy to relate to these characters. And I guess that that’s something that Yojou-han and Sarai-ya Goyou do not have: it’s hard for your average person to sympathize with a bunch of kidnappers, or a ridiculously fast talking loser. This trend is probably going to continue for the next summer. And don’t get me wrong, I’m really looking forward to Shiki, but again: it doesn’t look like the mainstream will have much to relate to there either.
It’s interesting how the people in charge of Noitamina don’t seem to be marketing geniuses. And that’s a shame, because Noitamina is such a great timeslot because it has proven that in order to go mainstream, you can also appeal to adults: instead of trying to win viewers with panty-shots and yelling teenagers, it has shown time and time again that anime is also very appealing for adults. While I love Sarai-ya Goyou and Yojou-han, I’m a bit sad that they’re doing so badly in the ratings, defeating the entire purpose of the timeslot. The thing I’m worried about isn’t exactly Noitamina changing, but rather that the ratings will end up in a downwards spiral, causing it to get cancelled. That’s what I’m most afraid of.
Rating: *** (Awesome)
May 6, 2010
Yojou-han Shinwa Taikei - 03
This series really is why I love episodic series. The bad ones obviously suck beyond belief, but when shows like this one make optimal use of them they can really turn into something unique, and the short stories can allow for ideas that would normally not fit within a linear storyline. A lot of things have to be done right in order to get a good episodic series, though, but to me the key seems to be creativity, along with somehow finding a way to build-up: connecting the different episodes together. I believe that if these aren’t present, you’re just better off with a linear storyline in order to get the best out of your characters. But Yojou-han has both of them.
This seems to me a study of all types of losers. Watashi is socially inept throughout all the episodes, but every time it is in a different way. In the previous episodes he created his own problems by his pranks, but in this episode he just was another one of those losers who didn’t fit in because he had no athletic skills. Ozu instead of trying to get him into his pranks instead left him completely out of it for once. Interestingly though, I do believe that Watashi’s character has remained the same throughout the first three episodes: what we just see is him, reacting to different situations in a different way. That definitely is one interesting way of character-development. You can see his reckless parts in the way that he flew into his death at the end of this episode: it’s exactly those parts that we saw in episode two when he created that crazy video.
Whether Akashi and Ozu are the same… I’m not sure yet. This episode showed that Yojou-han is a show in which Watashi, Akashi and Ozu hop between different clubs, all three with their own agendas, while the rest remains constant. The actor of the previous episode still is an actor here. Akashi in this episode proves that she’s actually a very good cyclist. In this episode she loses her strap again, but there’s no promise scene. The cake is also gone. She’s a lot less cold than what she was in the first two episodes as well, it seems. As for Ozu, if he indeed also is the same character in every episode, then he strikes me as a guy who always grabs every opportunity to make someone’s life miserable, finding the right allies to accompany him. In this episode there probably already was some sort of bike-stealing club, which is why he didn’t really need Watashi. The second episode in contrast only needed him to show what a guy that actor really was: Watashi himself just did the rest.
Either way, I love the concept of this series: showing how the same people in different settings can be so different.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
Ookiku Furikabutte - 32
Team building. I like how this series uses the quiet moments in between the matches in order to do this, rather than scheduling in a random episodic adventure somewhere. A lot of stuff happened in this episode, and it immediately started with the message that the opposing team that the lead characters faced in the previous arc isn’t done yet.
In this episode it also becomes more than clear that Abe and Tajima are taking turns in dealing with Mihashi. There’s actually a tiny bit of development here: Abe is getting more and more relentless with Mihashi, so much that even the teammates are really noticing how much on Mihashi’s lip he’s sitting. His reaction after Mihashi suddenly asked whether or not he’s going to stop catching was the most over the top we’ve seen of him so far. There’s a bit of a danger here with the creators going over the top with that, however. Like, the creators using a gimmick that worked well in the first season to extremes in the second.
Oh, and we learn a bit more about the coach: she’s a 23-year old college student. It’s still a bit of a mystery how she became the coach, but there are more characters like that who have yet to reveal their backgrounds despite very obvious hints (I’m looking at you, Hamada). This episode also introduces… fangirls. The fandom was always a bit downplayed in this series: even though it was mentioned a few times, you can really see that the creators were focusing on what happened on the field. At this point those girls are still a bit too one-sided at this point.
Rating: * (Good)
May 4, 2010
Rainbow - 05
Holy crap. I’m not often disturbed by gore in anime, but there are a certain number of exceptions (from madhouse series, of course). This episode was such an exception: what an amount of detail they put into that broken hand.
Normally I really don’t like it when a show pulls a Murphy. Not enough drama? Let’s throw in some punks! Let’s nearly kill someone! Let Easter and Christmas take place on the same day! But seriously, this show does it with such force. It’s so incredibly determined to show a worst-case scenario. As much as I hate the extreme cheesyness of this series, I’m still glued to the screen from start to finish.
Here is a tip for this series however: during the lighter parts, stop playing that ridiculously cheesy music. I really feel that the first half of this episode would have been a ton better if just no soundtrack was played at all. It’s a very simple choice the director could have made. I like series that have a lot of emphasis on music, but these shows should know when to use it with subtlety. It doesn’t really work to play sad music every time. If the music is good enough, then okay. It can be awesome to play really outrageous music during just a simple and random conversation. But not this kind of cheesy stuff.
Psycho guard’s absence in the first half did show that he’s just a special case. Most guards actually can be normal people. It’s just that this is one ridiculous nutcase that gets to run free. The question is of course his portrayal: insanity is often a very tricky thing to portray in anime. It’s just so easy to go over the top with it. The same as the punks that were introduced in the second half. I admit that I know very little of how punks like them used to behave in Japan in 1955. They were just kids during the war, their role models probably ended up to be criminals. Can it really go so far, though?
Then there are the idiots. Mario really took the cake in this episode, which really surprised me. In a way though, I can really see a teenager do that. It’s stupid and annoying, but at the same time I can see how he wants to be kind-hearted, but really fails to think of the consequences of his actions. The thing with these things is obviously balance again. Stupid teenagers is one thing, but they’re not that much of a moron. Compared to just about everything that this show does over the top, Mario’s actions actually feel pretty believable.
Overall though, out of all the brilliant directors that are stationed at Madhouse, it’s a shame that Hiroshi Koujima got allocated to this series. I haven’t seen the other series he directed, but the stories I heard about them all reeked of mediocrity. Rainbow is set to be his best work, but that’s only because the rest of the staff is so excellent. The manga won a bunch of awards (and I can really understand why), and Hideo Takayashiki has more than enough experience to plan out the series correctly. Sure, he may have screwed up at Kaiji, but most of his works were really excellent: Ride Back, Maison Ikkoku, Souten Kouro, One Outs, Akagi, and then there’s the script of the Hi no Tori Movies, Oniisama E, Master Keaton. And it really shows: for all that it’s worth, there really has been nothing wrong with the pacing so far. This episode was yet again well paced, combining both the light and the dark moments with each other. It’s just a shame that the director has no idea what the word “subtle” means.
Rating: * (Good)
May 3, 2010
Senkou no Night Raid - 05
I’ve been thinking… most of the criticisms for this series stem from not the fact that it’s bad, but rather because of its ambitions. If this was any regular series, I’m sure that I would have cut it a lot more slack than I’m doing now. This series may indeed not be realistic in some ways, but on the other hand I consider this to be along with Yojou-han the most innovative series of the season.
I mean, compare this to Rainbow: there, the acting is just bad, no matter in which context you put it. But because of the huge risks this series took, it’s much harder to pull this off correctly than, say, a romantic comedy. What I actually love is how Anime no Chikara has really been trying to put an international flavour to anime, and not just by focusing on one culture at a time, but blending a whole lot of them together. Most series that focus on foreign countries usually just focus on one of them at a time, but here it’s different. Sure, it may be funny to listen to the “German” that Kazura gargled up in this episode, but would the alternative (just pretending that everyone can understand Japanese) really have been better?
So you know what, screw the criticisms of this series: I like its guts. This episode was actually very good, despite not being that realistic. Kazura’s past acquaintances however were handled with a lot of subtlety: they worked on opposite sides, and yet the creators didn’t try to turn it into some cheesy drama. Instead they gave Kazura the chance to see his friends one more time, knowing that it was only a matter of time before he would get assassinated.
Also, I’m glad: the photography really remains a major theme throughout the series. It’s a chance to see the characters busy with something that isn’t life-threatening, and adds a bit of character to them, instead of being just a one-episode gimmick to never return.
The big constraint is obviously going to be time. I swear that this is looking like a 24-episoded series at this rate. It’s in any case completely different from what I expected when first starting this. To think that the creators would go for the episodic approach to flesh out the setting and characters. It’s definitely more varied, but what about the climax? Please don’t let it go down the same path as Sora no Oto.
I’m also digging the character-designs more and more. It’s definitely better than the big-eyed brightly coloured style that anime has become infamous for. Also, is it me or do the creators get better and better at their detail? Look at the corpse at the end of this episode and the way it was twitching. Very well drawn.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
May 2, 2010
Uragiri wa Boku no Namae wo Shitteiru - 04
Well, that’s it for the introduction, after this the show will start for real. We can only hope that it’s going to be as good as these first four episodes. Episode four wasn’t the best, and it pretty much concluded the introduction like we thought it would, but the atmosphere still was more than good enough to watch.
It was a bit of a stretch that Yuki didn’t bother to clean his face of all the blood on it, before going to the children though. Heck, I’d be freaked out as a kid when seeing such a thing, but it was a nice twist though. The acting was a bit too over the top here, but it’s nothing major yet. There’s also that part in which the characters were bickering and the lead character suddenly stared a weird laugh (seriously, characters in anime laugh really weird…), which gave me serious deja vus. How many times has that exact same scenario been used in anime by now?
But I digress, with this episode the lead character showed that he’s no wimp at all. He knows what he wants and stands for his own choices and morals. The big difference between him and your average shounen lead who jumps into everything is that he knows what’s best for a situation. He strikes me as open-minded, rather than the simple minded idiots that you see in those tons of generic shounen anime. So far, he could have been more balanced between his angsty phases and his more mature side, but it shouldn’t be a problem if the rest of the series makes up for it.
My big concern now is the villains. Please let us get to know these people, and don’t make them into these average incompetent idiots who take bloody ages in getting their job done.
Rating: (Enjoyable)
Giant Killing - 05
Ah, this is awesome. It’s clear now that Giant Killing is one of those series where the matches are written to get the best out of the characters. Right from the start, it looked like this match was all about Tsubaki: making him lose his rookie status and establishing himself as a great player. However, in the middle of this episode, the creators went “nah, that’s just too predictable”. And instead they went back and made Murakoshi take over the spotlights, leaving Tsubaki as the main cause behind the two goals they got against them. I love how balanced this show is: at any point, it’ll decide to focus on a completely different character.
This is really why I love Studio Deen. Who cares about their cheesy stuff as Hakuouki; it’s series like this that show again and again how well these guys know their characterization. Tsubaki’s downfall, as well as Murakoshi just throwing on the final five minutes. With average characterization they would just have been really really cheesy, but they actually pulled it off here. The atmosphere within the football match really fitted, from celebrating the goal to simply those people running to catch up to the ball.
This episode also started playing some new background tunes, if I’m not mistaken, and the soundtrack only became even better because of them. The soundtrack here is very simple, but SO effective. I’m also very impressed with the character-development that the creators have already gotten into just five episodes: Murakoshi is bound to change after this; it’s very impressive of the creators to go with this right from the start. Just a shame of the speedline abuse in this episode.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
Heartcatch Precure - 13
Seriously, when was the last time a shoujo-series aired that kicked this much ass? This episode yet again had some wonderful action, probably amongst the best I’ve ever seen in a mahou shoujo-series. This episode that focused on Cure Moonlight was everything I hoped it to be, and a worthy closure of the first quarter of the series. Now the question remains: what do the creators have in store for the rest of the series?
This episode made me think a bit: there aren’t that many single mothers in anime, are there? Usually when characters have a dysfunctional family, it’s either both their parents who are gone, or the mother simply isn’t there. Yes, that “all mothers are weak” stereotype seriously needs to freaking die already. In any case, out of all the dysfunctional families, I’ve noticed that the single mothers are often portrayed the best. This episode was no exception. Heck, I’m really surprised that the creators even gave Cure Moonlight a family: usual anime don’t bother with those kinds of things for characters of her calibre. It added so much to her character, though. That bond between Cure Moonlight and her mother was subtle yet awesome.
One issue I did have with this episode was that it did fall into one particular cliche (very rare for this series to slip up like that): the “I’m about to kill you but I won’t”-stereotype. The reason the creators provided didn’t make too much sense: Dark Precure is about to kill Erika and Tsubomi, but her boss stops her from doing so because he ordered her not to involve herself with Cure Moonlight anymore? What do these things have to do with each other.
Nevertheless, this episode had really well directed action. The camera-angles, animation, it all fitted. Let’s hope that Toei can keep up this standard for the rest of the series!
Rating: *** (Awesome)
Full Metal Alchemist - 55
I love how this episode showed that Izumi Curtis was really the one who taught the Elric brothers alchemy: their tricks are based on the same principles: manipulating their surroundings, often making them end up as a fist. I’m still not sure why Hohenheim and Father fight in the same way, though. Is it coincidence, or does this have something to do with Father’s plans of using Ed, Al and Izumi for something?
In any case, this episode closed off the first part of the finale: the takeover of the imperial castle. The annoying clone army seems to be decimated by now, Sloth is dead, and the good guys are at the moment in control of the main capital… just as Wrath gets back. I was hoping for a bit more on Hohenheim vs Father action, but their action-scene was surprisingly short, concluding on an annoying cliff-hanger.
As for the flaws of this series, Thomas made an interesting comment about it:
“Generic bad guys (looking at you, evil clone army that has no purpose whatsoever), illogical character choices and motivations, too many “last minute saves” and last but not least: too much repetition.”
I disagree about the repetition being a flaw: there has been plenty of new stuff amongst the repeated parts. The series so far hasn’t exactly started dragging to be bothersome, and it’s still all building up the storyline. I’m also not sure about the illogical character choices: I can’t recall having seen that many to really become bothersome. The “last minute saves” are becoming a problem, though. This episode again: the Armstrong siblings are about to be beaten… and who knows? Izumi arrives at the exact right moment to save their lives. The show is indeed at the point at which they’ve pulled a few too many of these twists, and I hope that it’s not a trend that’s going to increase for the rest of the series.
Nevertheless this again was an excellent episode. It was especially interesting how none of the major characters were in the spotlights: it really was all about the side-characters, from the major ones (Armstrong, Hohenheim, etc) to the minor nameless ones. It’s a great fun action-packed way to spend 20 minutes.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
Full Metal Alchemist - Brotherhood - OVA - 03
Sorry for the delay, that’s just me being lazy.
There isn’t much to say about this third OVA, though. This OVA was all meant to show who Izumi was when she was 18, and how she once wasted a whole month on a damn mountain, but it never asked how and why. Why was she so set on becoming an alchemist? Why did she come to Briggs, of all places? How did she grow up? I feel that the creators could have used this subject matter better, instead of having her go on a silly adventure like that.
The best part was that epilogue that told about how she met her true love. Why couldn’t this episode have been about that?
Rating: (Enjoyable)
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