Gedo Senki, the first attempt of Hayao Miyazaki’s son, Goro Miyazaki at making a movie. From the things I read about it, it was supposed to have gotten rather bad reviews. But after having seen it, I have to say: it’s not that bad. It definitely beats Gonzo’s attempts of Brave Story and Giniro no Kami no Agito.

One thing that becomes clear quite soon is the fact that Goro just doesn’t have the same amount of imagination. Because of this, Gedo Senki didn’t turn out into such an outrageous setting as Howl’s Moving Castle, or Spirited Away for example. Instead, he comes with a children’s adventure, and tries to make up for the lack of imagination with a huge degree of realism. The different characters really feel real, and are fleshed out in a relatively short amount of time.

The thing I liked about this movie is that it doesn’t really try to be anything more than it is. Sure, it starts out with a king and a prince, with a dying country, but soon it boils down to just the adventure between Arren and Teru, the two adults that take care of them, and the antagonists Usagi and Kumo. I was surprised to find out that the fate of the world actually doesn’t play a big role, and that the focus really fell on the characters, unlike other movies of the fantasy-genre.

Still, the fact remains that Goro has a lot to learn. The fact remains that the start that seemed to suggest lots of dragons and politics is rather misleading, and many questions that were asked in this introduction weren’t answered (either that, or I didn’t pick them up when I watched the raw). There are also, despite the realism, quite a few convenient coincidences. The real bad part, though, is the ending. I don’t know why, but it seemed that Goro found it a good idea to go with a Disney-ending, complete with one heck of a blatant Deus ex Machina.

The fact that the biggest part of the anime doesn’t try to be anything big is a double-edged sword. The movie is focused now, and it takes its time, but on the other hand, it’s not a big spectacle. You won’t hear people talk about how awesome this movie was. Still, like most movies, Gedo Senki looks great in the graphical department. It’s interesting, as you wouldn’t suspect that it’s a 2006-anime, since there hardly is any CG, but the style fits perfectly.

Okay, so this was a filler. At least it had a few hidden meanings, when compared to the fillers we see in shounen-fillers. This episode was really meant to symbolize the relationship between Cosette and her mother, when les amis, Cosette and Jean reunite a young girl with her mother, and AGAIN barely missing each other.

Still, I do wonder why this filler was included. After all, there is no danger at all that this series will catch up with its source material, so there has to be some other reason. If I had to guess, then I’d say that it’s to fill up a bit of time, and to make sure that the second half of the series, which has now officially started, doesn’t move too slow.

The third arc has really been building up so far. Basically, all it’s been doing is move the pieces on a chess-board, and developing them. And after all, especially Marius needs to catch up in terms of fleshing out.

Still, there were moments that were important for the storyline as well. I was quite surprised when Gavroche suddenly ran into his father! Luckily, the guy is too drunk to really take advantage of him, but I wonder what will happen once they run into each other again. Marius also reveals that he’s still interested in his “Yulle Shulle” (I really wonder how you spell that one in French). Also, the episode had one really good point: I really liked les amis after watching it.

Let me get straight to the point for this review: Shining Tears X Wind, is utter crap, and I can’t believe the creators were really serious about it. It really gives a bad reputation, The first episode starts off decently enough, but after that, everything falls apart with some garbage-level script-writing.

The characters are seriously horrible. Basically, we have a bunch of guys, accompanied by their personal harems, who get transported to another world, and save it. Why? No idea. The males are all fourteen ear-old brats and a bunch of Gary Stu’s, who are awesome for no possible reason, and the females have no roles whatsoever. Heck, if you’d replace them with potatoes, the only difference you would notice in the final product is a lack of fanservice (because yes, that’s all they’re good for: skimpy outfits and orgasms when their “soul blades” are drawn from their hearts).

The plot isn’t much better off. It tries being dramatic with lots of shocking plot twists, but the entire concept of “proper development” seems lost on the writers, and the episodes also get cheesier and cheesier as the anime progresses. The graphics and music are the only two parts that actually come a bit close to decent.

Still, it can be fun watching this when you’re with a couple of sarcastic friends. Especially episode 12 is the epitome of stupidity and cheesiness, which can become hilarious when you’re watching it with the right person. If you’re planning to watch this one alone, though: don’t. When I watched episode 12, I fell off my chair out of agony.

Apologies for the late entry, but for some reason the raws took an unnaturally long time to show up n Share. I don’t like it, but it seems that even in Japan, this show isn’t that much viewed. I can imagine that Emily would be a hard character to swallow in a culture so often polite.

In any case, in this episode, Emily gets into a fight with Ilse, and it exactly shows the reason why I like this show so much. In most anime, the serious fights like this one almost always lead to some kind of worst-case scenario, or it at least takes till the final episodes before it gets resolved, but in this show, it just brings the different characters closer together. Another charm of this show is that even though there may be the better and worse episode, for episode I just know that it will give me a warm feeling during watching. Compare that to other series, where it’s always a question whether an episode will feature some amazing plot twists, or just spends its time building up. I suspect that Aria is another one of these kinds of series? (*note to self: watch it someday*)

By the way, one thing that surprised me was the fact that Teddy did spend most of the winter with his mother, inside the house. It’s not really put in the spotlights, but his mother does remain overprotective, and the only reason why he was probably allowed to go to the beach this episode was because he never really went out much during the winter. I think that’s the only really bad point of this series: Emily is an excellent character, but I want to see the other characters stand in the spotlights as well.