Tenpou Ibun Ayakashi Ayashi was supposed to take over from Blood+ on the Saturday 18:00 timeslot, the number-one prime-time spot for anime, which also housed series as Full Metal Alchemist and Gundam Seed Destiny. For this, it had to live up to some great expectations, and it came with a story about Youma-hunters, during the Tenpou era of Japan.

If I had to say so myself, then Tenpou Ibun Ayakashi Ayashi definitely lived up to these expectations, but it’s so not suitable for the prime-time spot. Timeslots like these are meant for popular shows with lots of fanboy-pleasing action, not an intelligent show like this one. Because of this, the series’ original length of 52 episodes was cut in half, leaving only 26 episodes for this anime to work with. This, in fact, is the only really bad point of this series.

Like I suggested above, this series’ great strength is its storytelling. It consists out of small arcs, ranging from usually two or three episodes, which all centre on themes, deeply rooted in the history of Japan and its religions. I’ve almost never encountered an anime which did so much research for its stories. As a result, the individual tales just sparkle with creativity and originality, while they still hold a large amount of realism. To give a small indication, brothels have often appeared in historical anime (to name a few, Samurai Champloo, Peace Maker Kurogane, and quite some more), but never was this concept so fleshed out as in the three episodes Tenpou Ibun Ayakashi Ayashi dedicated to the subject.

Because these stories have such a good base, the characters also can be really fleshed out. Every important character has at least one arc in which he or she stands in the spotlight, and even though the character-development is incomplete, because of the reduced anime-length, the development that we do see is truly fascinating. To add that, nearly each arc has one major climax, and perhaps with exception of the first arc, each of these climaxes turns out to be really captivating, and full of tension.

Even in the graphical and musical department this series delivers. The background music makes sure that the climaxes work even better, while the character-designs are really lifelike. I remember commenting about how these characters looked so standard when I first saw them, but the fact remains that every single character looks unique in this anime, instead of being a clone of character A with different hair and eye-colour (something which seems to plague other anime). Add in a couple of great special effects, and you’ve got yourself a visual treat.

Because of the reduced length, I can’t rate this 90% or higher, because I feel that this anime would have been even better if the remaining 26 episodes were added (and not to mention the rushed ending), but I definitely recommend giving Tenpou Ibun Ayakashi Ayashi a try. It’s probably one of the few anime with a guy in his fourties as a main character, and this works perfectly. Just be aware that the dialogue can be quite intensive, so this isn’t an anime that you can just watch leisurely

Satoshi Kon comes with another movie, called Paprika. This is the same person who directed Paranoia Agent, so I undoubtedly looked forward to it a lot. So, after having seen it, how did it turn out? Well, disappointing. It’s not bad or anything, but I expected something more.

Paprika comes with another psychological theme: dreams. About 50% in this movie happens in dreams, and they show what happens when humans start messing with them. Overall, it was quite interesting, but I’m surprised to say that the pacing was rather slow, compared to Paranoia Agent, which continuously kept the flow of events high. Paprika definitely is different, as it seems to more focus on its characters than paranoia itself. When you look at it this way, it turned out pretty good, with interesting choreography at times, and all accompanied by very unusual characters that you probably won’t see in any other anime.

Still, there are two rather bad points about this movie. It’s repetitive, and it doesn’t use its amazing soundtrack enough. Seriously, if you loved Paranoia Agent’s soundtrack, you’ll love the theme song. It’s a great song, but the rest of the anime is filled with rather mediocre background sounds or just plain silence. I kept longing to hear the opening track again, which unfortunately only happened when the ending credits rolled. Regarding the first point, it’s quite a few times that we see scenes that we’ve already seen before. I guess these scenes were meant to illustrate the changes in the anime, but when a strange parade passes the screen for the fifth time, its novelty has worn out.

Overall, if you’ve got some time to burn, you can check this out, as it’s quite a good watch, but there definitely are better movies out there.

Short Synopsis: Sora’s naivety is proven when she nearly kills herself, Sekichi and Ginjiro in her enthusiasm to go to the moon.
Good: Sora, the ending, as hilarious as usual.
Bad: This show definitely needs more attention.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10

I can’t believe what a great combination of comedy and drama Ooedo Rocket has. It’s definitely the funniest series to debut in the spring-season so far, and to top that, it’s got a captivating story. Especially the climax of this episode was great to see, when Sora gets a bit too enthusiastic and starts helping Sekichi a bit. It seems that her spaceship still has a bit of gunpowder left, so she mixes some of it with Sekichi’s usual mix of gunpowder.

I laughed when Sekichi tested this out, and sent a ceramic bowl high up in the sky. Later, he tries this on a larger scale, trying to send a local shrine into orbit. Sora, however, already believes that this will be enough to send her to space, so she hijacks the shrine. Luckily, Ginjiro and Sekichi can get her out just in time, as the thing flies about ten meters into the air, before exploding.

This does make me wonder… how is he going to do it when even Sora’s super-gunpowder isn’t enough? It’s also strange, this anime has a huge number of side-characters, but for some reason, they don’t feel out of place. The people from Sekichi’s neighbourhood definitely liven up things, and they make me believe that we’re really the city of Edo right now. I also wonder what the black alien is. He seems to have something against Sora, but for some reason he can’t take the form of a human, unlike Sora can.

I really hope, by the way, that Ooedo Rocket is going to take 26 episodes. I’d like to see how this would turn out if the plot really takes its time to develop, instead of trying to cram its story into thirteen episodes.