This may be one of my more biased reviews, simply because I’m such a large Bee-Train fan. Their particular style of storytelling may aggravate some, but I personally love it. Still, there’s one thing about this series that nearly nobody can deny: the soundtrack is awesome. Yuki Kajiura is behind it, and some of the tracks are among the best of her works. But what about the rest?

Well, El Cazador is the final instalment of the girls-with-guns trilogy of Bee-Train, with Noir and Madlax as its predecessors. One thing that you should know before watching is that while Noir featured some excellent gunfight, El Cazador… err… doesn’t. Believe me, you do NOT want to watch this series for the action, because quite frankly: it sucks.

Luckily, the director realized this quite early on, which leads to a change-of-focus in the middle of the series. The first half is basically a case-based series. Ellis and Nadie basically travel, and as they travel they meet people and explore their cases. These cases are definitely interesting to watch and thought-provoking, and in the meantime the story slowly develops, with nearly every episode brining a small bit of new information to keep the viewers on their toes.

The second half, however, is where El Cazador really starts to shine. The change of focus I mentioned above basically means that the different cases for each episode get abandoned, and instead the characters start developing. Because they already had been fleshed out by the first half, the results turn out absolutely amazing, with an excellent Shoujo-ai relationship if I say so myself. This continues up to the point where Ellis and Nadie become amazing characters, no matter what they do. When the final quarter began, I found myself not caring about the plot anymore, as long as the characters were on the screen. Now that’s a sign of good development.

But yeah, the plot does move awfully slow. The creators chose a very original setting of rural Mexico for this anime to take place in, and it manages to really show this throughout its storytelling, though the plot remains very simple, and just a tool for the characters. I liked how it was so incredibly down-to-earth, though, and how we finally don’t have such a huge plot deciding the fate of the world and stuff. This series is just about Ellis and her strange powers, and the few people that get caught up in her story, nothing more, and nothing less.

The simple storyline does have another advantage: the ending, while cheesy, is finally another one of those endings that isn’t rushed at all. There’s probably only one character (Lilio) that needed more development and background, but apart from that the final episode closes off the series perfectly, without any bad feelings.

Regarding the graphics, well it’s Bee-Train, so the character-designs look great, and the background-art doesn’t look as impressive as with other shows, but it really gives off the feeling of Mexico, when compared to nearly 90% of all other anime, which are set in Japan. About whether you’d like this or not depends on your patience, whether you find the different guests of the first half interesting and don’t mind that at a few times, the show delves into cheesiness. If that’s the case, then you’ll get rewarded with some amazing characters in the second half.

(On a side-note: with Shoujo-ai, I really DO mean Shoujo-ai. There is no yuri in this series.)

Now this is what I call a terrific ending! It manages to flawlessly combine both the feeling of the first and the feeling of the second part of the series, and it still gives enough closure for each character in the series. One of my main gripes with Noir was how the final episode was so incredibly rushed, and it seems that the director realized this as well and learned from it, because there are no signs of rushes AT ALL in this series. This episode was everything a final aftermath-episode should be!

Okay, there were a few questions left unanswered. Most importantly, we never know what’s up with Lilio, and the cat and the guy in the mask we see in the ED actually don’t appear anywhere. Something tells me that somewhere in the beginning, the director changed one of his plans for the outcome of this show and decided to focus more on the characters than action and a huge plot. This could explain the huge change-of-focus of the middle of the series. Ah well, I’m not complaining, because I absolutely loved the second half of El Cazador.

In any case, Ellis and Nadie indeed settle down in a small town and start to work at a local inn, complete with different outfits and hairstyles. Of course, they end up travelling at the end of the episode, but what makes this episode stand out is when Nadie starts talking about staying at the inn forever, it just feels weird somehow. I could somehow tell that both of them secretly longed to go back to their days of travelling, even though they never really said anything about it.

Blue-eyes’s visit also was a nice touch to give the closure to the story of Ricardo and Lilio: they’re still travelling with each other, and while it’s still a bit disappointing that we never really got to know about Lilio’s mother, seeing her practice the Boomerang and trying to sing the taco-song was awesome. Blue-eyes also returned to being a business-lady, and got engaged with a guy who looks suspiciously much like Rozenberg. Seriously, that has to say something about the impression he made on her. ^^;

And the two bounty-hunters! I know their huge amount of weight gained is a tad improbable, but it’s awesome to see them back again. They really were some of the minor returning villains and they were really fun to watch while they lasted, and it’s great to see that they finally get a bit of development as well.

Saishu Shiken Kujira

Ugh… I was interested in this series because I read somewhere that it had mystery-elements, despite being only five minutes long for each episode. And fair enough, the first scene opens with the main character, staring at a huge whale that floats in the sky; an interesting start. But then, everything went down the drains when a cheesy pop-tune started playing and, indeed, a cute, pink-haired, well-endowed girl showed up from nowhere. And indeed, the guy is a sudden transfer-student. Seriously, what’s so exciting about transfer students?! Sure enough, the better series can make something good out of this, but Saishu Shiken Kujira spends the rest of its five minutes in pointless blabber, where the girl keeps spooning up to the main character. I’ve got bad feelings about this one.
(Edit: I wrote this blurb a couple of weeks ago, and since then I managed to see three more episodes. Let’s just say that it gets worse with every successive episode. Don’t even touch this with a ten-foot pole!)

Kodomo no Jikan OVA

Well well, the storytelling actually turned out cute. There were quite a few adorable moments and it didn’t turn out in the failure I originally thought it would be. Still, the excessive and blatantly obvious fanservice needs to stop. Like with nearly ever other-fanservice anime, it only hurts the production. Still, it’s not only the fanservice that’s the problem. The main character’s behaviour and obsession doesn’t match her age. I mean, how many 11-year old girls are already ready to spoon up to their loved ones? Overall, this could have become good if it wasn’t so keen on feeding the paedophiles out there…

GR -Giant Robo-

Yes, I know that I already id a first impression half a year ago, but I wanted to wrap up the quick first impressions before the start of the new season. It also gives me a good chance to raise some awareness that this series has finally gotten subbed. It could have been one of the big names of the winter-season, if it didn’t air on some kind of paid channel, and of course it was nice to finally see this with some quality sound and graphics. Anyway, I’ve been looking forward to more news of this series ever since watching the OVA, which aired ten years earlier. Daisaku seems to have turned eighteen, though it’s not yet certain whether it is THE Daisaku. We have yet to see his past, and there was no single mention of the Shizuma-drives. There are also no recurring characters except for him, and even Giant Robo has a different name now, this really was an introduction-episode. Daisaku runs into Elysion (the new Giant Robo, it seems) and the two of them make a contract, and that’s basically all this episode was about. I like the emphasis on diving, though. It’s nice and fresh, and the music really sounds excellent if you’re a fan of metal.