Ultraviolet: Code 044

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a famed and feared assassin, probably the best of her kind. In the futuristic world this series is set in, she spends the first episode on two different missions.
Highlights: Excellent action; a feast for the senses; isn’t just dumb action; TOO MUCH FANSERVICE.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
Whoa, in terms of first episodes, this one surely caught my attention. This is going to be an action-series, and this episode absolutely delivered in that department. The creators definitely wanted to start off this series with a bang, and the result is a very fast-paced introduction. The graphics were fantastic, and the music was awesome as well. The next question is obviously: will the creators be able to keep up this level. Even with 12 episodes, action series have been rather notorious of deteriorating after their first episodes. Still, this episode showed some good signs: there wasn’t only a lot of action, but also a lot of talking. The characters here aren’t just brainless, but they’re also critical of both themselves and their colleagues. Let’s hope that this proves to be good for the rest of this series. But really, there was too much fanservice. The creators took every chance to show as much skin as possible…

Slayers: Revolution

Short Synopsis: Our lead character apparently is hunted by many people, who in one episode already manage to destroy three ships and one city.
Highlights: Starts dull, gets more interesting as the episode goes on; the pirates suck, though
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7/10
Well, so this was the first thing I saw of Slayers. There were things to like, and things to dislike as well. The main cast needed a bit of time to warm up, but they ended up being an energetic and spunky bunch of people. I was rolling my eyes whenever the pirates were on the screen, though. I don’t hope that every Slayers-minor-villain is as dull as these guys, because they’re all a bunch of stereotypes and they’re just not funny. Same with the giant fish-head (why did it need to hold on to a log at the end of the episode anyway?) Overall, for a comedy it was a decent enough first episode, but I’m not sold on Slayers yet. The problem with comedies also tends to be that you can’t predict at all whether they’ll lose inspiration or not, just by their first episode.

Sekirei

Short Synopsis: A girl with no sense of shame and a typical loser team up in a battle royale.
Highlights: Boobs?
Overall Enjoyment Value: 5/10
I’ve been told that Sekirei is more than just fanservice, so for that sake I might as well try to judge this series, without paying attention to the excessive boob-shots in this episode. What we have here is that a bunch of super-powered girls rescue a young boy from some kind of facility. Ten years later, one of these girls is still in love with this guy and wants him to be her partner for an upcoming battle royale. The thing is that I can live with the battle royale, and the rather questionable enlisting procedure of kissing each other. My problem, however, is this: how come this girl, after ten years, is still in love with that main character. I find it rather hard to believe that in ten years, not one single male has tried to make moves on her, or tried dating her. That’s basically my problem with most series like this one: they seem to think that the main character is the only one allowed to date girls, which results in a huge number of plot-holes. Since this season is small, I have enough time due to holidays and there are only going to be 12 episodes, I might as well give an attempt to watch this one, but I really wonder whether it can deliver in that time…

Whoa, I might as well start this review in the same way as I did with my Rocket Girls Review: I really need to be more careful on choosing which series I want to drop. When sola originally aired, I basically dumped the series after episode one, without giving much thought to it. If I recall correctly, I dropped it because the characters looked too moe. Little did I know that I was ignoring a great mystery-series.

Sola indeed starts off slow, but it’s a series that carefully builds up its storyline until its own climax. Every episode, a little bit of what’s going on is revealed to the viewers, while the rest of the airtime is filled with how the different characters live their daily lives, and are affected by this storyline. There is a lot of symbolism at the sky, and even though the graphics may not look like anything special, the soundtrack has a sort-of soothing feeling.

The end result is excellent. In the final third of this series, the whole story comes together like a charm, with a number of excellent plot-twists and a surprisingly great ending for such a series. The characters have done a pretty good job of bringing this series alive, and it’s partly thanks to them that the finale turned out so well.

There are a few problems in this series, though. When you start looking at the details, a number of small plot-holes appear that could easily have been answered. Things like, where did Mr. Goatee get such a fancy sword? How did he learn about Matsuri, and other things I can’t reveal due to spoilers. This series, however, is at its worst when it tries to be funny, because quite frankly, nine out of ten cases, it isn’t. This becomes especially apparent in one of the DVD-specials, which degenerates into a boring pool episode.

Overall, Sola is another reason why Spring 2007 was an awesome season for me. From the outside, it looked like your regular dull harem series, so I never suspected there to be anything deeper beneath it. This is just one of these reasons why I need to give everything a chance, no matter how dull the premise looks. The mystery in sola was excellent, and despite a few flaws here and there, I’m happy to have watched this series.

Short Synopsis: The second episode of Maki’s background. We get more insight into why Suzuki went crazy.
Highlights: I’ve spent a few minutes, figuring what to write here without spoiling everything… but failed to come up with anything sensible…
Overall Enjoyment Value: 9/10

Holy crap… it’s episodes like these where Himitsu’s strength really shines. While watching an episode, it may seem like an average, though rather paranoid episode, but then the episode ends and everything comes together, and everything suddenly becomes 10 times more awesome. I still have no idea how the bloody hell the creators manage to pull this off, but this episode remains absolutely amazing.

The big revelation in this episode (which came quite fast, actually) was the fact that Maki had met this crazy mass murderer before he died. The guy tried to shoplift, but was caught easily by the shop owner. The guy looked miserable, so Maki decided to let the guy go with a warning. He even gave him some groceries, because he felt pity for the guy. After that, the guy started brutally murdering 28 people and caused Maki to kill Suzuki, which is the big reason why Maki is still being haunted by this event: there’s no way not to feel responsible for it. Suzuki also wanted to protect Maki from the truth, because as it turns out, the fact that Maki spared the guy had a major influence on the killer, up to the point where he fell in love with him.

However, after he just watched 28 bodies being mutilated beyond belief, there’s no wonder that his mind became unclear as hell. All he could think off was to not let Maki see what he just saw, though he failed to shoot his own brains. This is why his mind got preserved, and in this episode, Aoki finally got the courage to watch it.

On a side-note, I can’t wait for the eighth episode to get subbed and see the reaction of those who watched it.