Short Synopsis: Not only are there lots of spirits in the school, they also devour each other. Creepy.
Good: Great tension! New ED! Lots of potential!
Bad: Why doesn’t Mai tell anyone about how Sakauchi was fond of ghosts and occult?
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7.5/10

Now that’s more like it! The pacing is much higher than in the third arc, which makes for some very nice scenes. In contrast with the fourth arc, which was comedic and the fifth arc, which was more touching, we’re really back to the usual arcs with Ghost Hunt, as they continue to develop Mai’s strange ability. You’d wonder why Naru-chan hired her. Because she looked cute, or because he knew that she had special powers.

Regarding the bad points, it’s very strange that she doesn’t tell Naru, as the fact that Sakauchi was a huge fan of ghost stories and stuff is actually the key to the events which happened. We see Naru-chan wonder how so many spirits managed to gather from just amateurs. It’s because Takeuchi wasn’t an amateur. He probably had some experience in calling spirits, and he used Kokkuri-san to strengthen the effects of his summons. He probably wanted to call a really nasty spirit for the teachers to cope with, but something went wrong and he ended up committing suicide. After that happened, he went to the spirit world, and saw the spirits he called forth. Because of this, he just couldn’t resist to stay at the school, and wait to see what happens. Then the biggest spirit came, which had been devouring the other ones, and it ate him just like a midnight snack.

The ending of the episode was pretty nice, but there’s something I noticed. It’s always the same people who end up fainting. Masako holds the number 1-title. Mai also knows how to collapse quite well, and Naru-chan also went down a few times. Bou-san, John, Lin, and Matsuzaki, however, have never had this.

Short Synopsis: Lots of things grow this episode: Eponine’s hatred towards Cosette, Zephine’s suspicions of Cosette’s mother and Javell’s suspicions of Jean.
Good: This anime really remains consistently good so far. Even though this episode mostly built up, I loved it.
Bad: It’s been one month and still no subs?! What the hell?
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10

I’m actually suspecting that Javell has known Jean’s identity all along. He just needs to get enough evidence for him, as you don’t suddenly arrest the major of a town without any proof for it. It seems that he was the main guard for Valjean, probably also one of the main reasons that got him locked up. Right now, he keeps dropping hints towards Jean, hoping for him to turn himself in, while he collects information about the guy. Jean, meanwhile, shows this episode how his character changed incredibly from his younger version. He’s become really dedicated not to let others follow the same path he did.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens when the entire factory knows that Fantine (that was her name, right?) has a daughter somewhere. I reckon that she won’t be able to work in the factory anymore, but will that be everything? There’s probably something else about to happen.

Oh, and Eponine was wonderful this time. With this, she really became a person, instead of a 1-dimensional stereotype. Toron(?) may not have been very interesting in the previous episode, he makes sure of some interesting events when he starts ignoring Eponine for Cosette. It’s strange, normally I don’t like love triangles due to them being overused as hell and their predictability, though I’m actually beginning to like this.

This definitely is another one of those anime who doesn’t deserve to get this neglected. I’m hoping for the subs to arrive soon, so that more people can get to see this little gem.

Short Synopsis: Rose’s training pays off; Hervé reveals more things to Kate; Interesting plot twist from Paula; Claire’s car breaks
Good: Hervé was brilliant as usual, I also loved Paula.
Bad: It’s already episode 14, and still no awesome episodes. When will they come?
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7.5/10

A large focus of this episode was training, and increasing your strength. Rose finally starts to become more than just a strange bystander when she too manages to leap into the air, and Kate even manages to master this power. Claire, meanwhile, works out during her job and Rachel also seems to be training, as her muscles have been getting into good shape lately.

While this episode was mostly about Rose, my favourite moments had to do with Kate. First of all, she finds out that Hervé lied to her when she drives past the restaurant he mentioned, which seems to be down for maintenance. Because of this, Hervé is forced to either tell another lie, or tell the truth, with certain parts omitted, of course. He chooses for the second, putting Kate in a very interesting situation. Right now, she still is fine during the fights. But I can’t wait to find out how she’ll react when she finds out that the people she’s been fighting are actually Hervé’s comrades.

And Paula, dammit. Lula has connections to the headmistress of Kate’s high school. The headmistress is Paula’s aunt, who seems to have told Paula about what happened to Kate, and told her to look after her. And suddenly lots of things fall into place. The question then still remains, why only Kate? Is she special because she’s in Grace?

Short Synopsis: Two normal schoolgirls find themselves in a strange fantasy world. The twist: they don’t get any new powers to fight with.
Good: Extremely likable characters; A great twist to a concept which has been used in many, many anime.
Bad: Even though it’s not a real bad point, the chibi-characters may be a turn-off for most people.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10

Okay, I’ve fallen in love with another concept. Now that Ayatsuri Sakon’s novelty is wearing off, and the subs for Popolocrois have been stalled for ages I’ve been looking for another old anime to blog about. I’m really hoping that the subbers continue releasing this project till the end, as I’ve been searching for this series for ages, and it deserves to be watched. That’s another reason I decided to blog this: the hope that more people will try to give this wonderful concept a chance.

The concept behind this anime is simple, but brilliant. Two schoolgirls are transported to another world for reason X. In normal situations, they’d meet up, act a bit bewildered, get in danger, and get ahold of some strange amounts of powers with which they save the world. Not this time, though. They ended up in a world full of small people, who are just as scared of them, as they are scared. Finally, two people are labelled as the “great protectors” for a good reason. After all, if you’d saw two giants in the middle of a war, you’d see them as special, wouldn’t you? ^^

The two main characters are also extremely interesting. One of them is just lazy and easily annoyed. The other is a goodie-two-shoe. She always abides by the rules, tries to please everyone, but in the end, she’s extremely annoying. Together, they form a great team. Eri obviously wants to help, since she doesn’t understand anything, though Yuki has no intention to help. This holds Eri back as well, as she doesn’t want to upset Yuki. When the enemy-soldiers attack in the end, however, and the two princesses of the tribe which took them in are in danger, Eri manages to scare them away by yelling, screaming and running to their place, Yuki follows her in this. I loved how Eri laughed when everything was over. You don’t expect that from a shy and reserved person at all.

Despite the chibi-characters, this is one serious show. It’s got comedy, but that takes a step back for what’s really important in this anime: the tribe’s struggles with their enemies, and the relationship with Eri and Yuki. The fights actually involve strategy, and this isn’t such a kiddie-show in which nobody gets hurt either. In fact, Yuki already got hit by an arrow in the first episode. She managed to use the element of surprise this time to scare the enemy away, but I’m really looking forward to seeing the enemy coming up with strategies to defeat the two of them. It shouldn’t be too hard, as they can be easily defeated if you send enough men at them, and keep hitting them. I wonder what the two of them will do against it.

For more information about this series and its subbers, you can go here (it also offers direct downloads, if you can’t use bittorrent for some reason):

http://z10.invisionfree.com/Church_of_Berserk/index.php?showforum=49

One final note: the background music has a great feel to this. It makes use of highly atmospheric tunes, which fit the style and story perfectly.

I like it when new shows get released in batches of three. It matches up nicely with these kinds of posts. In any case, this batch yet again shows how high the overall quality is in this season. At least, two of them do. -_-

Reideen

Oh my. This is interesting. Very interesting, actually. I originally dismissed this because I watched the first episode of Chouja Reideen, probably another remake of the 1980s classic, which was horrible in every single way. Thank goodness, Reideen managed to fix a lot of this, and comes with a believable, touching and big-budgetted mecha anime. I originally never expected anything from this, but if the other episodes are as excellent as this one, It’s going to be quite the series. The character animation is wonderful, and for one of the first times, we have mechas who actually fight slow, instead of the incredibly fast and unrealistic ones we usually see (after all, how the heck to those huge giant robots move their limbs so fast?). The male main character actually is interesting, and he’s actually unique, compared to other shounen-series with their copy-and-paste male main character. I’m pretty enthusiastic about this one. Perhaps, if both this series and Giant Robo turn out really good, I’m going to blog the two of them. :)

Yes! PreCure 5

There’s one thing that this series did: it made me appreciate the greatness of other Mahou Shoujo. Not because this show is so incredibly good, it’s actually pretty bad. Whereas most Mahou Shoujo have learned to be a bit original, this one is just full of clichés. First of all, the heroine doesn’t even know why she’s fighting. She’s the legendary PreCure who is destined to save the world. Come on, please, at least give her a goal or something. Sakura got her powers because she actually let all the Clow-cards escape. Sasami was born with her powers. Rain and Fine got their powers in order to save the sun’s blessing which was deteriorating. And to make matters worse, our main characters are the only people in the entire friggin school with obscure hair colours, and they fit all the stereotypes. Ignorant, talkative impulsive main heroine? Check. Best sports athlete of the entire school? Check. Pop-idol? Check. Main librarian? Check. Student president? Freakin Check. Seriously, couldn’t they really think of something more original? Please, if you’re looking for a mahou shoujo, go and check out a show like Card Captor Sakura, Futago Hime or Sasami Mahou Shoujo Club, and stay far away from this one.

Moonlight Mile

This actually turned out pretty good! Okay, i didn’t understand 50% of the dialogue, but I really like what I saw of this. It’s a science-fiction show, which somehow manages to combine mountain-climbing with astronauts. The character designs may be a bit awkward, but the CG is gorgeous. It’s got a great atmosphere so far, and the music definitely sounds interesting. I wish I could say something about the story, but I’m going to watch the subs first before I’ll actually get a good picture out of it.