I just wrote a post about this one, only to click the window away due to lack of motivation, spaced-out-ness and that annoying popup of photobucket. In any case, the end is near. At least withing twenty episodes. Ishida was kindof good, while Strawberry was boring. And some other things, but I forgot.

[Update]I’ve decided to stop Blogging Bleach. When I started blogging it, I imagined that I needed some kind of show to bash, but in the end, I’m finding much more joy in blogging about the shows I like. Out of all the shows I’m currently blogging, Bleach is the only one which feels like a chore. I’ll still be watching the series, though I don’t have the motivation at all to keep blogging it. [/Update]

Noein is an outstanding anime. Heck, at the moment, Mahou Shoujotai is the only anime I can think off which has made a bigger impact on me. This anime is that incredible. It’s a science-fiction series, but it cleverly stays away from all of the clichés that the other science-fiction shows are so often plagued by.

Noein has so many good qualities, I don’t know where to start. The story, for one, is something very simple, it contains some often used elements, though it’s extremely creative in what it does. So many interesting plot twists happen during the course of the anime. It really always leaves you guessing. The characters are also amazing. Noein features a huge range of characters, and for some reason it manages to fully develop, explore and give the player the chance to know them in only twenty-four episodes. The result is that you can’t help but care about them during the entire course of the anime.

The pacing also is another very interesting issue in Noein. During some episodes, mostly the intermezzo’s, the pacing is slow. Perhaps a bit too slow, but their contents made up for everything. At other times, the pacing is incredible. So many episodes feature events which succeed each other in an extremely rapid pacing. Surprisingly enough, nothing felt rushed at all.

The moment I saw this anime for the first time, I knew I was looking at something special. The first episode really contained something unique, and as the episodes progressed, the scenes began to get more amazing by the minute. Then, around episode ten, the episodes started to become incredibly good. episode 15 continued with the normal awesomeness, only for the last three episodes to whack me down with scenes which actually managed to be even better than the anime has ever been. The way it ended definately belongs in the category of amazing endings. Even though some issues were left unexplained (PHONE!!??).

And I haven’t even started talking about the graphics and music yet! Seriously, both of these departments are outstandingly done. The entire anime is done in a very experimental art style. Characters and animation look extremely messy, but somehow the effect this has is incredible. Especially if you combine this with the OST. It really is one of the best OSTs ever, and the creators really knew exactly when they had to use it. The battle scenes also are a huge joy to watch. This anime features some amazing looking battle choreography. This works especially good with the character art, as it becomes even more messy during these action scenes. Needless to say that the result is awesome.

Okay, so the anime has a few flaws when you look at the detail. Some of the technobabble may work confusing at times. Especially when you don’t know anything about physics. At times, Haruka may look a bit too much like a damsel in distress. And there are more things like these. But believe me, the good parts totally make up for these.

Overall, I seriously recommend you to check Noein out, if you haven’t already. It may be a science-fiction series, but most of the airtime is actually spent in a normal timezone, instead of the futuristic one. The art is awesome, the characters are awesome, and the antagonist is one of the freakiest one of his kind, able to play his role very well. Watching this anime was amazing. Really amazing.

Thanks A LOT to Cos, for mentioning the fact that Noein 24 had actually been released for a couple of weeks now. The fact is like this: at July 9th, the French fansub group BFT released the final episode on Tokyo Toshokan. They told in their description that they translated the final episode from Chikyuji’s fansub (who released a French fansub two days earlier) because Shinsen Subs was so slow. Unfortunately, they wrote this in French, so the only ones able to understand these words were french people, who didn’t even need to know this as they already had their final episode subbed. When I saw this at first, I only noticed the word vostfr, which stands for the french fansubs. And I have a suspicion that I’m not the only one who reached the same conclusion. I can understand a bit of french, but most of the time I’m not motivated enough to spend effort in trying to figure out what it says. A huge mistake. Thanks again to Cos, for making me realize this.

Long story short: if you want to see Noein 24 with english subs: download BFT’s version. It is indeed in english.

Anyway, about the episode. It was utterly, utterly INCREDIBLE!! This episode SO belongs into my list of best endings EVER! The entire episode was so incredibly touching, the pacing was extremely exciting and not to mention the fact that the graphical and musical department worked overtime this episode. And both of these departments already were amazing!

Like I said before, I don’t cry a lot during anime, and even if I do, It’s just a bit, not much. But Noein has managed to do the impossible. During the entire final part of the episode, I had to cry. I’m sortof embarrased by this. But that’s how good this episode was, folks.

I would love to do some kind of summary on this episode, but I do feel that I wouldn’t do it justice. So many things happen at once. Everything was just perfectly directed. In the end, Noein proved to be worthy of being one of the best anime ever. It’s too bad the series ended. I would have loved to see more of this. Let us hope that in the future, more anime as Noein will appear, not afraid to experiment with the boundaries animation.

Memorable Moment: The Entire Episode. If I do have to select one of them, it would be Tobi’s last scene.

The Summer Season continues once more with a huge load of garbage. Thank goodness Binbou Shimai Monogatari managed to change the flood of bad anime, but I’m really getting impatient now. Much of the gems of this season have yet to either air or get subbed, so I’m hoping for Kemonozume, Flag and quite probably Angelique and Night Head Genesis to arrive quite soon.

Binbou Shimai Monogatari

Binbou Shimai Monogatari is one of the better series we’ve seen this season. Okay, that doesn’t really say much, but the fact remain that this series remains entertaining. It’s indeed a slice-of-life series, about two sisters, who have lost their mother and their father has run away because of huge depts. They now have to live together. Most of the time, I’m not really into slice-of-life series, though this series managed to keep me interested. The fact is that the two girls love each other. A lot. But because of their situations, they doubt a lot, making mistakes and solving them again. It works very inspirational this way. Still, I do have to admit that there are a lot of boring scenes, but the overall picture was good enough for me to keep watching.

Innocent Venus

I’m probably one of the few persons who didn’t like this one. This anime has achieved lots of popularity since it aired, though I’m not able to see the good side of it. Basically, what this anime tries to do is provide the action scenes with as much darkness and tension as possible. It tries to for the picture of a horrible world, in which the main characters have to survive. Unfortunately, it tries too hard. The action scenes are dull, they’re not exciting at all. They only consist of a bunch of mechas killing each other and people shooting innocents in the head, while trying to spill huge gallons of blood with each shot. Like I said before, the main characters have to survive in this world. So far, they’re uberpowerful for some reason, and uberannoying as well. The only good character was the clown-like person. Some elements also don’t make any sense at all. For example, why did the military name the girl “Venus”? Venus is a yellow plannet full of sulphur, or she was a greek goddess (who wasn’t really what you’d call innocent). Huge hurricanes also have gotten the names Hyper Hurricanes, which which sounds more like a bad name for a fighting-move. A map of the current world, after it’s been flooded also gets shown, and it doesn’t make any sense at all. Right now, it seems like tectonic plates have been moving, instead of a bunch of huge hurricanes.

Project Blue Chikyuu SOS

But when you think that Innocent Venus is bad, just wait till you see Project Blue Chikyuu SOS. This anime is just horrible. For starters, the two main characters are a fourteen-year-old brat who holds the position of company president, with the massive amount of 200 billion somethings in assets and a guy who graduated for the MIT at the top of his class. To make things even duller, they’re able to beat any ordinary adult who comes their way, and they even manage to outsmart entire armies. Yeah, right. Well, then, the plot isn’t really what you’d call exciting. Aliens have been preparing for five years, in order to start an invasion. They, of course, conveniently start with just one attack, instead of going all out at once. The plot consists of convenient meetings and events that make as much sense as an igloo in the desert. Seriously, stay away from this anime.