On a completely unrelated side-note: consider Soul Eater dropped at this point. I’ll still continue to watch it, but I just don’t feel like blogging it anymore.

Short Synopsis: A woman with red high heels commits this week’s murder. The question: who do they belong to?
Highlights: Interesting twist to the love-triangle.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
Interesting how this episode didn’t feature Aoki or Maki as the main character, but instead it showed how Okabe stood in the centre of attention. We’re back to regular stories, and the victim this episode turns out to be a rich businessman who was fooling around with a few too many women. The twist, though is that two of these women used to be each other’s lovers as well. Really, women can be scary when they’re serious…

In other news, this post by Usagijen got me thinking. And now that my initial fanboyism over the premise seems over and I look back at the past episodes of the series, then I do agree that it hasn’t been perfect. I agree with Usagijen at how this series lacks subtlety in its messages. The messages are definitely there, but they feel much more like a list of taboos than that they’ve really provoked any real thoughts. I once mentioned how Himitsu was the smartest series of the spring-season, and with this I take that back. That honour falls much more to series as Amatsuki and Real Drive.

Another big minus for this series is also that it’s not that good at characterization. To compare it with Jigoku Shoujo (now that I think about it, a rather similar series), that series knew perfectly to first establish its characters and then to start toying with them, and it did so for fifty episodes with excellent results. It feels that the characters in Himitsu lack a bit in personality.

And then there are the abundances of male fanservice. As the same with a female’s clothes getting ripped apart á la Sekirei: it’s annoying, and this episode has a good example of it when Okabe and Aoki have to pretend to be a gay couple (pelvic thrusts included) in order to find out information. (is it me, or are people quicker to whine about fanservice for fangirls than the fanservice for fanboys?).

So, why do I still love this series? Well, for one thing it does have a great sense of storytelling: it knows when to reveal what and how much, and how to keep the viewer interested, but that isn’t the most important thing. It’s the way it plays around with irony, and that’s something that it does perfectly. I first noticed this with the infamous episode eight. The murder itself already was disturbing, but what made that episode so incredibly awesome was that it took an innocent girl who even could spark some romance, and at the end of the episode showed that she was the entire opposite of that. After that, this series has continued to play these games, for example in episode 11, where the real culprit got revealed, or episode 13, where Maki basically could have saved the lives of 30 people. This episode has it too: it continously refers to women with high heels being murderes, and at the end of the episode we see Okabe, having a date with his wife who wears red high heels. That’s what makes this series so great.

World Destruction

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters form an organization to destroy the world.
Highlights: Nice ideas, but flawed (see below)
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7/10
This series has a lot to like, and at the same time a lot to hate. It’s probably the first time where humans are actually the oppressed race in a fantasy-series, especially if they’re oppressed by a bunch of cats. The different races that walk around the world are full of imagination, and the idea of a bunch of humans (and a bear, okay), joining together to destroy the world has some definite potential for the second half of this short series. The animation is really messy at times, but it looks excellent. Yoshihiro Ike, one of my favourite composers is behind the background music, and he delivers as usual, though perhaps it’s not his best work. Agh, if only the messages of this series weren’t so blatantly obvious! The lead characters themselves are fine, but it’s the way how they’re presented that gets me. This is one of those nationalistic anime that tries to shoves the message “humans rock, the rest sucks” down your throat, and the rest of the episode really need to work to develop the other races in this series. It would be interesting if through this series, the lead characters will actually be portrayed as the bad guys who will in fact destroy the world, but for that to happen, the cats need to stay away from stereotypes. Right now they’re funny, but I can already see this series go south in a couple of episodes if it doesn’t try to develop them.

Natsume Yuujin-chou

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters can see spirits and has a book of names of these spirits.
Highlights: Low budget, but very solid scriptwriting.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
The first thing that came to my mind when I started watching this is: is this really Brains Base? This really has to be their series with the lowest production-values to date, and things actually look pretty normal, and really different from their usual vivid animation style. Still, their sense of storytelling didn’t degrade one bit, and the director of Baccano and Jigoku Shoujo shows that he still knows how to tell a great story. This episode was nothing sensational or spectacular, but it was a very solid introduction for a series about spirits and ayakashi. This first episode already shows what the ayakashi in this series are made off, and like most of them, they act because of their grudge that was caused by something, and aren’t purely evil for the sake of being evil. I guess that that’s why I like stories about ayakashi so much.

Mission-E

Short Synopsis: Our lead character… has changed a lot since the first season.
Highlights: The huge character-development….; same fun climaxes as in the first season.
Overall Enjoyment Value:8/10
Holy crap! This actually takes place years after the first season! The lead characters have set up an organization to deal with the Type-E users, in order to protect them from the guys we saw in episode 11 and 12. Now here’s a twist you don’t usually see, and I’m really enthusiastic about how it was carried out. The interesting thing is that there seemed to have been no adult to guide them when they set up that organization, and it seems that they had to figure out everything by themselves. They also found a new girl to work with them in the meantime. In any case, before I start rambling, it was awesome to see how every character has changed during the absence of this series. The action-scenes were exaggerated, but they were fun and I can’t wait to see the rest of this series!

Short Synopsis: First half recap, second half the return of the scuba-diving brothers.
Highlights: Interesting art direction, but a recap remains a recap.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 6/10
So… yeah. Don’t look too much forward to this week’s episode of Real Drive, because the first half is basically Minamo, making a phone call with her grandmother and telling her about the things she did throughout the series. The second half features original content, but that neither is the most exciting, as the scuba diving brothers go scuba diving with Minamo, and teach her the basic principles. It was charming how Minamo now realized the world that captivated Haru, but throughout the episode, you could see that tons of cost-saving animation techniques were used: live action images, still shots, cameras away from faces, etc. It gives an interesting effect, but exciting is different. Although I do admit that Minamo looked surprisingly good in scuba-suit…

Also… what the heck was up with the next episode preview? All it showed was the different kinds of food that we’ve seen throughout the series…

Short Synopsis: 044 continues her hunt for the mob boss.
Highlights: The subtle characterizations.
Overall Enjoyment Value:8/10
While I’m waiting for Mission-E to appear (seriously, what the heck happened to it?) I might as well watch this one. Since the past Spring season featured a lot of good 13-episode series, and relatively few good 26-episode series, I can blog lots of series this season. If I end up dropping Soul Eater (which seems pretty likely at this point) and Kaiba doesn’t go into yet another hiatus, I’ll be able to blog seven new series. There are lots of promising series this season, and one of them is Ultraviolet.

When I watched the first episode, the character-designs looked familiar somehow, and one look at the staff-list made me understand why: they’re done by the same guy who did the character-designs for Osamu Tezuka’s adaptations, such as Hi no Tori and Black Jack, but he also seems to be Osamu Dezaki’s standard character-designer. The result is pretty interesting, as it brings some of Tezuka’s innocence to such a dark and gritty setting.

I must say that Osamu Dezaki knows how to spice up his fights a bit, even when his budget isn’t unlimited. The screen, split in three is indeed something you’ll either love or hate, but I personally quite like it. It’s got an interesting effect.

In any case, the reason why I’m going to blog this series is that it’s definitely something different, as it tries to look into the mind of a killing machine. Much like Elfen Lied, in a way, but without the gore and the naked children. The thing I was waiting for in this episode is some more development for 044, and not just another action-scene, and that’s exactly what I got. We still don’t know what that strange voice is, but in this episode, it makes 044 save one of her original victims who fell in the ocean.

On a side-note, this series is quite a bitch to try and understand. Tuesday really seems to be the day of complex dialogue: Real Drive, Himitsu and Ultraviolet all have very complex dialogue that really takes a while to understand. In this episode, I’m still not sure what the Mob boss’ story about the vampires was all about.

This series does have its flaws, 044 could have been more subtle in trying to hide her own presence, but I suppose that as an almighty killing machine, she might not have any worries to hide. This indeed doesn’t seem to be a series about a main character, trying to complete her mission, but instead it’s much more about 044 herself.

Obviously, this series isn’t for everybody, and it sure has gotten a lot of bad reviews since it aired. I like it, though. It seems like another solid series from Madhouse, and I’m willing to stay with it for 10 more episodes.

Short Synopsis: In this episode, Jack attempts to propose to the girl he loves.
Highlights: Fun episode, though André’s character-development could have been more subtle.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10
After the previous episode, I remember doubting what kind of new element this arc could bring to this series. This episode answered these doubts: humour. Porfy no Nagai Tabi has never been a comedy, but this has definitely been its funniest episode, where you’re meant to laugh at and with the characters.

Jack, Porfy and Michael drive to Monica’s house at night, where Jack reveals that he used to work in the army during the final parts of the war. Andre meanwhile is still sulking about Jack’s actions of the previous episode. As it turns out, the biggest reason why he hates the guy is because he’s American, and the Americans killed his father (an Italian) during WWII. Monica tries to talk him out of it, and how Jack didn’t have anything to do with the pilot who shot down their father. André has been drinking, so obviously he doesn’t listen.

We then switch to Porfy, Michael and Jack, who stand next to Monica’s window, trying to get her attention without notifying André. Apollo provides the solution by softly pecking on her window. When she opens it, Jack ruins everything by yelling at the top of his lungs about how he loves Monica. André’s reaction was priceless, and thankfully Jack (or should I say, Porfy, Michael and a love-struck Jack) manages to get away before André catches him.

n the next day, Jack and Michael help Porfy to search for Mina, but nobody has seen her, but Sicily is just way too big. Michael then gets the idea to check during the next church meeting, because lots of people will be there (including Monica). The next day, the pastor agrees to help Porfy (and Jack) execute their plans for that day.

When Monica and André arrive at the church, Andre goes to a local bar to drink, while Monica heads for the confession booth (or however that’s called). To her surprise, it’s not the pastor sitting at the other side of the booth, but Jack, who’s hiding from André. Porfy and Michael are meanwhile hiding, to avoid being spotted by André, but they then see a suspicious pair of legs, coming from under André’s car and Porfy decides to check it out. The guy quickly runs away when he discovers being spotted, but as a result, André’s bodyguards suddenly turn up and start chasing them. Things get from bad to worse when they also run into André, who captures them and realizes that Jack must also be in the church.

In his anger, he runs right into the confession-booth, and thinks that Jack was hiding at the other side of it, throwing all kinds of curses at the pastor, who obviously gets rather angry and starts chasing him with a cross. When things have settled a bit, Porfy tells him about the strange guy who was messing with his car. It turns out to have been some kind of bomb, set to detonate when the engine starts. Nobody knows how to detonate such a bomb, so the solution that comes up is to push the car into the ocean (which is quite far away, though).

Jack helps André and his bodyguards, and the two forget their differences a bit. This was the only part of the episode that felt a bit fake, as André’s development was a bit too sudden. In any case, Monica, Porfy and Michael follow the car in their own, as Jack and André reach the coast and push the car in. André finds it a pity, because he liked that car, but Monica suggests him to just buy a new one. André then leaves, with the message that he won’t object to Jack’s marriage to Monica.

Next episode should prove to be interesting, as the focus should shift back to Porfy, trying to Mina. This episode may have been fun, but I can’t help but think that this is the weakest part of Porfy no Nagai Tabi. Since it’s a travelling anime, it doesn’t have the advantage of keeping its characters, and it must continue to introduce new ones. The abandoned city was the best example of this, but now that Porfy’s development seems to have stalled a bit, this series needs something new to be introduced fast now. But then again, knowing this series, it’s probably building up for something.