Okay, no Mori. Still, one heck of an episode.

It starts with the aftermath of the previous fight. We learn that Marilyn has some kind of secret, as well as the fact that even God has trouble controlling his employees.

Then we switch over to Marilyn. And somehow, the battle finishes in this episode. I have to say, when compared ot other “boss”-battles, this was an extremely creative one. I would have expected Ueki to use some kind of strategy to win. But instead of that, we get to see Marilyn’s mental breakdown.

Anyway, in the next episode we get to learn Mori’s power. Yay! Still, I am wondering… why would they have Marilyn’s fight first, before her subordinate gets taken out. Don’t get me wrong, I love this kind of twist. It so much better than the beat-goons-then-boss-concept. But there has to be something else. I don’t know why, but I’m expecting the next episode to be one of the best episodes yet.

Whoa! This episode really reminded me why I love the law of Ueki. It couldn’t have been done any better. It starts out mediocre, with Ueki and Marilyn fighting, Marilyn bragging and Ueki discovering her power. Then we switch over to Sano, and the fun stuff begins.

To begin with, Sano gets all beat up. This is indeed logical, as he’s been fighting for quite a while now, and he took quite a lot of punches. Then he discovers his level 2, in a very amusing way. It couldn’t have been a better level 2. It offers so many possibilities for strategy. It’s like he said: “I can do a lot of fun stuff with this”. And Sano really demonstrates this to us. I’d have to say that this was the best fight yet. At least in the second half.

Next up will be Mori! Yay! I’d just love to see her fight again!

This episode was split into two parts. In the first part, Hideyoshi came in the spotlights, along with the total randomness as usual. We get to see a bit character development on his side, as well as some pretty funny scenes. We also get to see Marylin using her power for the first time in the series. Unfortunately, I’ve been spoiled for it, so I already knew what it was. I’m wondering what my reaction would’ve been if I wasn’t. I’m therefore urging everyone talking about spoilers to put some kind of warning up for it. It may be me being allergic to spoilers, but I doubt I’m the only one who’s bothered by this.

Anyway, enough rants for today, the second part featured an announcement which outlined what would be happening in the following couple of episodes, as no one other than God himself gave away a couple of hints to winning the battle. The hints for the Marylin Team had it coming. Afterall, if it didn’t, the tension would so be taken away. As for the Ueki-team, well… let’s just say that God was being very evil. You’ll understand when you see it.

The next episodes will be extremely cool, as we get to see three one-on-one fights. I can hardly wait for them.

Okay. Whoever thinks that all 44-year-old anime sucks, should seriously check out Tales of a Streetcorner. That’ll certainly change his or her mind. This is the proof that even some of the first anime are awesome.

This anime tells the story of several animate and inanimate objects: a little girl, a tree, an old street lamp, a curious little mouse, a mischievous moth and a relatively large number of posters on a wall in an alley, which include a violinist, a pianist and a bar girl. Believe it or not, but each of these actor has its own interesting story.

The largest part features an introduction of the “characters”. I put “characters” between quotation marks, because technically, the term would not be right for some of the roles. Although I do have to say that each of them has several characteristics of normal persons. Anyway, we get to learn all of the “characters”, we get to know their problems, personality, daily lives, et cetera. Along with this, we get to see a huge load of different posters, all with people living their daily lives on it. It was good to see that the creators actually put some jokes in this. I’m not going to spoiler all of the different stories here, but do have to say that most of them are really adorable. They’re so simple, yet I think thats the reason they work so well.

At the last ten minutes, or so, this show takes a turn you would so not expect from a show with this nature. It really had me shocked for a while. But after thinking about it a bit more, it does begin to make sense, as this was made no less than ten years after World War II (1962, to be exactly). The ending it features is probably one of the best endings ever. I enjoyed it a LOT.

The graphics are, of course nothing special. But for some reason, I wasn’t really bothered by the old-looking drawings. The music is another strong point in this anime. It’s really the type of sound that sticks to your mind like bubble-gum, and won’t come off for quite a while when left alone. The sound effects also work really well. They’re mostly there for comedy reasons, but they’re really consistant, and contribute to the unique atmosphere of this anime.

Overall, I’d say that if you’re thinking of trying out a very old anime, you should definately check out Tales of a Streetcorner. And even if you’re not, you should.