Death Note: Yagami Light finds himself a notebook, dropped by a Shinigami: the Death Note. If you write down the name of a person in this Death Note, he’ll die, no matter what. With this new Death Note, Light begins to create a perfect world, killing off all criminals. Then, a detective who goes by the name of “L” gets assigned to catch him.

Let me first state that Death Note is unique amongst shounen-anime. There are nearly no fights, and nearly the entire anime consists out of people planning and plotting to outsmart each other. Through the course of the anime, Light makes optimal use of the Death Note, and he comes up with a number of really smart and careful plans.

Because of this, the main good points of Death Note, especially in the beginning, are its surprises. Some plot twists are ingeniously incorporated in the storyline, and they make sure for maximum shock-value. This makes sure for a number of really intense episodes, even with the lack of fighting or other forms of physical action.

The graphics and music only contribute to this. The art that is used in Death Note is unique, and incredibly detailed. The animators made some really creative “action”-scenes, which you won’t be seeing in any other anime, and they really makes sure that these scenes are as creepy as they can get. The music consists out of a number of very addictive choir-songs, which fit the mood perfectly.

Still, despite the awesome climaxes, this series didn’t make it in the 90/100-range for a reason, as it’s got quite a few humps and bumps along the way. The most obvious one is the middle part of the series. Death Note has an excellent beginning, and an awesome ending, but the Yotsuba-arc in the middle was so bad that it made me almost lose my faith in the series. The climaxes stop being interesting, and the creators turn the series in some kind of joke of itself. Luckily, the anime picks up again with episode 24, and delivers an awesome climax, but the thorn remains. The beginning is also filled with a couple of nasty coincidences, for example Light’s father being the police-officer who is in charge of catching Light.

There are also a number of rather annoying characters in this anime. I’m referring to the ones that mainly exist for comic relief like Misa and Matsuda. They usually have no purpose at all, and they whine too much to really become interesting. The characters that are introduced later in the series also need a lot of episodes to get enough development to stop getting annoying. There are also quite an amount of people that lack a bit of background. To give one example, we learn just as much about Aizawa’s (a minor character) background as L’s (a major character) background, and believe me, that isn’t much. There’s also a time-leap somewhere in the middle of the series that just lacks proper development as well, with the result that it makes no sense in lots of areas.

Still, despite this, there are a lot of good characters with enough background to become interesting. Light himself is a fascinating person, and it’s interesting to see how he develops and eventually declines. Some temporary and side-characters also turned out really touching, and L, despite his lack of background is well developed and turns into a really enjoyable character.

Overall, it’s not the best anime out there, but it’s definitely worth a watch. It has awesome climaxes, but the fairly low rating comes from the fact that it just has too many areas that could have been improved.

And so we’ve come to the end of Death Note. I’m going to post a bit of random sentences in order to avoid some major spoilers from showing up in the blog-aggregators, in order to avoid me spoiling people. I can’t imagine that there’d be souls alive that weren’t spoiled somehow about how this anime would end by the manga-fans, but you’ll never know. Okay, this should be enough.

So, Light dies. I have to say, that even though I knew what was going to happen, I really enjoyed this episode. The ending was quite good, especially for a shounen-show. The only thing it lacked was an aftermath. I would have loved to see how the survivors went on with their lives. But ah well, you can’t have everything.

My favourite moment of the episode was Matsuda, I did NOT expect the guy to shoot Light, who tried to kill Near in a final desperate attempt. Seeing the once so confident Light finally cornered with no way out was also really nice to see, overall it made sure for a great episode. In the end, Near did notice Mikami’s strange behaviour, we just didn’t get to see it. It feels a bit cheap, though, but the reaction of the characters definitely made up for it. That’s why Mello was so down when he kidnapped Takada, he was doing it in order to get killed, and make Mikami do an unnecessary move.

I must praise Death Note for being the ONLY shounen-anime whose main character declines, instead of grows. Every other shounen-anime features a main character who keeps getting new powers in order to be able to handle stronger opponents, but Light is different. As the anime progresses, he gets more careless and more careless.

I just wish Ryuk had a bigger role in the second half of the anime. But then again, his role was more of an observer and to introduce the elements of Death Note. He’d indeed become a bit obsolete when everything is known and clear about it. Overall, it’s been a nice anime, with a number of bumps here and there, but also with a number of awesome moments.

A light case this time, and it’s also the first episode of Bokura no to incorporate humour in its storytelling, it worked well, but I don’t think Bokura no needs it. It’s good enough without the humour, unlike other anime, as it distracts a bit from the things that are really important. The creators make use of the current case to develop the storyline a bit more, and they make sure to do it thoroughly, since she gets two episodes for this.

The biggest revelation probably came near the end of the episode: there indeed is a war between planets going on, and similar machines like Zearth are fighting each other. Zearth is just a bit stronger than the others. This does ask a huge number of questions:
- Where did the technology come from?
- How many planets are fighting each other?
- Is Zearth actually destroying the planets of the robots it destroys?
- Is every planet against Zearth, or are they destroying each other as well?

Also, I must congratulate this anime for coming up with the most original alien civilization I’ve seen in a long while: one that’s actually on about the same technical levels as the earth, with a few subtle differences. There really is some kind of party that’s been handing out robots to different planets, and Kokopeli and Koemushi work for them. What purpose do they have?

In any case, I’m glad to see that the creators keep eliminating the least-interesting characters. Let’s take a look at the ones who still are alive:
Kanji
Yosuki
Jun
Takami
Aiko
Yoko
Kana
Takana
Seki
Where Kana and Yoko will remain alive. At least, I assume this. The amount of development that Jun is getting suggests that his character is special somehow. Is this because he, in fact, is the child that’ll live, or are the creators building up for his story that needs more development than the others?

In any case, I’m looking forward to the stories of these children, and I’m especially curious to when we’ll see Aiko (due to the fact that she often gets emotional), Yosuki (I’d love to see his case), Jun (after this episode, I’ve become really curious about him, see a bunch of paragraphs below), and Takana (what will she do when she finds out she can’t protect the children anymore, and what kind of effect will this have on the children?).

Maki’s case this time was cute, but it was rather overshadowed by the developments we saw about Jun and the story. Still, it’s by no means bad. Her problem is that she barely misses the birth of her new brother, and her story is about how she can support her mother, and accept her rather strange father who constantly watches anime and buys mecha-figurines. I wonder how much the next episode will focus on her story, since she’s not dead yet, and she’ll probably die until the end of the next episode. Obviously, a lot of development will be spent on the plot, but it’ll be interesting if the creators bring another twist to Maki’s mother.

There’s also this matter that somehow Zearth’s name has been leaked out. It’s interesting to see how far Zearth’s influence goes, and it’s obvious that companies would try to exploit it somehow. The fact remains, though, that Zearth was not publicly known. I assume some guy in the military accidentally let it slip, but what if the information that Zearth is piloted by children becomes known to the public?

And holy god, Jun. I really want to know more about him. He doesn’t go to school, he slacks off all day and he lets Kana do all the housework, and in this episode he even went as far as kicking her in everyone’s presence. Now I see how special it was for him to come out in episode three, since he never comes out anyway. Still, I love Kana’s bed. I do wonder how she put that together, since it obviously can’t be Jun’s work, and you don’t see such a thing in the stores.

It’s interesting to see such a shift of focus when compared to the first eight episodes, by the way. While these episodes were dark, the current ones are light. If there is a pattern, we should see another change of focus after episode sixteen, where I’ll assume that the story will be providing some more darker elements.

The thing I liked about Maki’s case was, by the way, that it shows that we’re dealing with normal children here. To compare, Narutaru only had one normal child, with the rest of the cast being composed of outcasts. Narutaru had an excuse to make these characters outcasts, and thus providing some dark story-elements. Bokurano’s kids are not all outcasts, they’re just random children on a summer-camp, which means that you can’t just go and give each of them a twisted background. That’s why I really like the subtle ones we’ve been seeing for the past few episodes. Was this the same in the manga?

PS. Another reason why I liked this episode so much: for some reason, it’s giving me a huge amount of inspiration to write about. This is the perfect example of an entry that I really enjoyed writing. :)
PSS. (See, I keep adding things ^^;) After thinking a bit more about this episode, I realize that my opinion of Bokura no is similar to that of The Third. It isn’t really as emotional as other series, but somehow I’m drawn to it way more than with other series. Now THAT is a sign of a good show! For The Third, it was Honoka who created this effect, but I can’t put my finger yet on what it so intriguing about Bokura no, though.

Holy ****!

I kindof knew what to expect from this episode, but it still turned out really good. Poor Luna, Wyrdwad was right about how dark this episode was. I originally thought that her mother would turn against her, but now it seems that every water spirit has been turned into a dark one. I’m not sure whether they can be returned or not when Zephys is destroyed, but the fact remains that some of them let themselves get killed in order to save Luna.

I’m looking forward to the next episode, as I can imagine that the aftermath of this episode is going to be really emotional. There’s also this matter of the curse, that can only be undone when Zephys is defeated, and that she’s about to unite with her forest-part. I’m eager to see some more development on her part as well, which I assume we’ll be getting in the next episode too.

“If you, too, are a real man, then you will protect Hyuu.”

Wooot! The next instalment of Popolocrois has been released again by Wyrdwad. The current episode wraps up the story-part of this anime. It fills in the parts of the story that were still left unexplained, and it set the stage for the final episode, which will be very character-centric, if things go on. I do wonder what exact path it’ll take, though. Popolocrois is unique as an RPG adaptation in the sense that it’s focused on characters, instead of battles.

Gamigami was definitely one of the highlights again, and his speeches were the epitome of manliness. Even though he stopped being significant to the story, his “Otoko no Roman!!!” remains truly memorable. ^^; (Notice how Pietoro just literally drops Gamigami on the ground as soon as he’s done talking? :P)

Anyway, the major revelation in this episode was the reason why the Wind-kind were travelling in the first place. It’s like this, when the Anemoritos blew up, there had to be something done to prevent such a tragedy from occurring again. The solution was to split all kinds. The Dragon-kind would settle in the heaven, the Human-kind would settle on the earth, and the Wind-kind would continue wandering from place to place without destination, basically taking their biggest wish of freedom away. Right now, Pietoro and Hyuu are struggling with these decisions that were made.

That was really deep, and I loved it! ^_^

Still, it’s sad that there’s only one episode left. At this point, there is no other series that I blogged longer than Popolocrois 1998. It feels strange to let it go, especially Gamigami, who turned out to be one of, if not THE most original and likable male character I have ever seen. Let’s hope the final episode closes off with lots of Otoko no Romaaaaaan!!!!

Yay for plot advancement! I knew that the creators were going to devote episode 13 entirely to the plot, and it doesn’t disappoint. This episode features tons of revelations, and finally we get some character-development of Ellis. After this episode, we should probably get a few more normal episodes, but if Noir taught us anything, it’s that the second half is probably going to be much more plot-centric than the first one. :)

Basically, Ellis and Nadie arrive at the place where Ellis was created. It’s all abandoned now, but it’s of course the perfect place to find out a few things. Ellis gets separated from Nadie, and then she runs into our good friend LA, who finally makes contact with her again. He then explains a few things about Ellis and the witches.

It seems that there once was a family of witches that could manipulate flames and wind (I was surprised about the wind, but it does make sense, as Ellis used wind in order to put out the fire in episode 11). They were, however, destroyed. Probably due to the witch hunts that episode eleven talked about. Because of that, artificial witches were made, and Ellis is one of them. To make things even better, LA is also one of them, explaining his obsession over her. LA doesn’t have any magical power, though his physical abilities exceed that of a human. There were originally five witches created, though Ellis and LA are the only ones left at this point. It’ll be interesting to see what happened to the others. The professor was assigned to take care of Ellis, while people were probably doing experiments on her. When LA tries to take Ellis along with him, she refuses, though and goes back to Nadie. It’s definitely clear that Ellis has grown after this, and this episode definitely brought her closer to Nadie.

Regarding the side-characters, things get even more complicated as another party appears: hunters with gas-masks. The woman we saw in the previous episode seems to work for Blue-Eyes, and has been ordered to trail Nadie and Ellis. Ricardo and Lilio keep protecting the two of them as well on orders of Rozenberg, who in this episode meets a new character with whom he makes a mysterious deal and Blue-Eyes is meanwhile in some sort of helicopter. The question, though, is where did the green-masked guys come from? Blue-Eyes seems to think they come from Rozenberg, but that doesn’t make any sense, since he hired Ricardo. They can’t be allies with the Blue guys, since they can only have total freedom at night, and this episode took place during the day.

Ah well, looking forward to the second half. The 26-episoded series of Bee-Train have had the tendency to be slow for their first half and then explode during their second half.

Just like Toward the Terra, Les Miserables is in dire need of a new OP and ED. It feels weird to see the characters still in their child-forms. ^^; Still, I suspect that either with episode 26 or 27, we’ll get a new one. Speaking of which, I wonder what the creators have in store for us to close off the first half of this series. Now that I think of it, I have reason to believe that the current episode was slowly paced on purpose, in order to save a big event for episode 26. After all, it seems that Eponine will be breaking into the house in the next episode, and something tells me that something’s going to happen to her.

This episode, meanwhile, slowly spends its time developing the relationships between Jean, Cosette, Marius and Eponine, yet again we see how the events of seven years ago still haunt Cosette and Jean. I didn’t realize it, but Jean continuously stayed with Cosette up to this episode. This episode, we see him go out and buy a present for her, and she immediately begins to feel lonely again. Jean, meanwhile, learns a bit more about Cosette’s feelings, as it seems he’s been quite oblivious to them. Javert also still is heavily on his mind, since he actually moved out when he suspected Marius to be a spy of the police!

I’m also curious at the amount of money that Jean possesses. Obviously, it’s a lot, but it’ll have to run out someday. Especially when they’re living in such an expensive building with an expensive dinner every night, I really wonder how much money he still has left. I’m looking forward to the next half of the series, and I can’t wait to see for the fourth arc to arrive. Right now, the anime is still building up, but based on the things I’ve heard about the second half, I can’t wait to see how Cosette and Jean will turn out.

If you’re wondering what Dash! Kappei is doing in this entry, it’s a request by Maria, who asked me to blog about this series and it was a nice opportunity to wrap up the quick first impressions before the start of the Summer-season, since I needed one more series for that.

ICE

This is probably the first anime of the past few years to actually look like it’s made in the nineties, based on the characters at least. If you’d look just at them, you wouldn’t suspect that we’ve got ourselves a 2007-OVA here. This anime really gives the unique experience of mixing old character-designs with new CG, but unfortunately the fact also remains that the characters just look ugly. The animators also really screw things up with the random nonsensical Engrish that passes the screen, so the visuals shouldn’t be a reason for you to check out this anime. The characters themselves could have been more interesting. Still, that doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy this episode. The story and voice-acting really made up for the flaws. Especially the story, this OVA carries the concept of a world where all men have died out way beyond its basics, and it provides a nice number of plot twists and imaginative concepts you don’t quite easily think of. I also loved how the characters who died or got injured where remembered and taken care of. The voice-acting is unique, most characters have some kind of unique voice, which really works well if you get used to it.
EDIT: I wrote this blurb about a week ago, and now that I think back at it, my opinion of this show has become even better, and I’ve kind-of forgotten all the bad parts. This definitely is an OVA that needs a bit of time to sink in, which always is a good thing.

Dash Kappei

Dash Kappei is quite an old anime, it’s about a small boy named Kappei with extreme sports skills. In this episode, we see him get recruited for the local basketball team at school. Unfortunately, I’m not really enthusiastic about this show. It’s got nothing to do with the age, but rather the main character. In fact, I found myself liking every scene in which he wasn’t featured, and hating every scene in which we did see him. The dog was brilliant, and the team captain was adorable, but Kappei was horrible. He likes looking at the panties of girls and dedicates himself to the girls with white ones. He’s arrogant and he’s skilled in basketball with no signs of training whatsoever. He’s arrogant, his goofy facial-expression looks horrible, he never takes things seriously at all and his chemistry with the other characters is awful. I know that this is supposed to be a comedy, but with a character like Kappei it’ll just be impossible for me to enjoy this series. If you like panty-jokes and don’t mind old graphics you may give it a chance, otherwise: avoid it.

Tetsuko no Tabi

Tetsuko no Tabi definitely had the most peculiar premise of the spring-season: we follow a mangaka who records her travels along with a train otaku and her assigner (Ishikawa), and the entire anime is completely non-fiction. So, after having seen the first episode, how does it turn out? Well, awesome! The entire anime just sparkles with energy, perhaps even more than with Manabi Straight. It’s a perfect example of a feel-good anime, and the chemistry between the three main characters is excellent. Basically, they travel down one trainway, and make a stop at every train-station. The mangaka, who expected something entirely different when she first took on the job (aka, lots of delicious food), just keeps getting freaked out by the otaku’s antics, and Ishikawa’s fascination at them. Lucky Star had better watch out, as it’s not the only series focusing on modern Japanese culture and otaku anymore, and as things are looking right now, Tetsuko no Tabi will beat it in every department apart from parodies. Unless you need battles or cute girls with obscene hair-colours in your anime, you should definitely check this one out.

Seriously, it’s going to be extremely difficult choosing a number one for my upcoming June summary. This episode was once again excellent, and really heart-warming. One thing’s for sure, though: Kaze no Shoujo Emily definitely is the best slice-of-life series of the season and I urge every slice-of-life fan to check this series out as soon as it gets subbed. Seriously, why are shows like these unpopular with the fansubbers?

When it comes to feel-good humour, Kaze no Shoujo does a much better job than Lucky Star, in my opinion and on top of that it provides some excellent drama. This episode focuses on Emily’s relationship with Jimmy, and her poetic character causes some misunderstandings again. Jimmy shows her the local newspaper where every week a different poem from a reader gets featured, and he urges Emily to enter as well. Obviously, the poem wouldn’t make it, but Emily spends lots of time, fantasizing about what would happen once her poem appeared in the newspaper.

It’s strange. Usually when we see people fantasize it gets annoying. People fantasize about ridiculous things as a means of comic relief, but with Emily, it’s really a part of her character, and therefore very well developed, resulting in me, loving these scenes. Things get even better when Jimmy tries to prevent Emily from finding out that her poem didn’t make it, by buying up all of the newspapers from the local store.

Jimmy really was adorable. He seems to really enjoy seeing the energetic Emily happy, and every time he saw her enthusiasm, we saw him with a smile on his face.

Another thing I love about this series is how it takes place in Canada. The thing with anime is that most of the series just take place in Japan, while it’s fascinating to see other cultures portrayed. That’s why I usually dismiss anime that have Japanese high-schools as their setting: it’s been done so often, what can possibly be added by the umpth series focusing on it? The Canadian setting of Kaze no Shoujo therefore is really appreciated, and the difference is really noticeable. This episode introduced the winter-clothing of the different characters, and it may be me, but I never saw such outfits in Japan before. That’s probably because the winters in Canada are so much colder than those in Japan.

Toward the Terra continues to push forward one of the most complex plots of the season, and it does such a good job at it. I especially love the current Nazca-arc, and I can only imagine what the second half of the anime has in store for us. For this episode, there is another time-leap: three years. I advice you to pay attention from the beginning, since only two episodes in the episode another person dies, and quite sudden as well.

It’s Yui, the father of the first child born on Nazca. Sam, meanwhile, turns out to be alive, but heavily brainwashed, up to the point of insanity. Mother’s influence turned out to be too much in the end. Swena also saw him again for the first time in years, and it seems that Shiroe is still on his mind. I also loved how much Swena has changed since she was in love with him.

Later, when he arrives on a space-ship, he meets a Myu that didn’t get picked up by Blue. He’s already able to read people’s thoughts, and Keith was really scary when he found out. In the end, though, Keith takes the Myu with him, since his ability is useful, after all.

Back at Nazca, the conflict between the old and the new Myu finally escalates in a fight. The younger ones have nothing to do with Terra, they haven’t been oppressed like the older ones, who want to return to the planet of their dreams.

Overall, this was typically an episode to progress the plot. Along with Seirei no Moribito and Saiunkoku Monogatari, this is the series where I look forward to episode 13 the most, as most story-focused anime try to have a big spectacle at the end of a season, and the story in these anime already is awesome.