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September 9, 2008

Blade of the Immortal - 05

Filed under: Finished Series: Horror/Blade of the Immortal



Short Synopsis: Next up: the swordsman who walks around with Rin’s parents’ sword.
Highlights: This series quite possibly has the fastest-paced start of any Bee-Train series so far.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
Ah, screw the manga that this series ruined. I might end up reading it as soon as the series is over, but for now I’m really enjoying this series, manga or no manga. You can really see that Bee-Train is trying out something new, and it working out really well so far. It’s amazing to think how much has already happened in this series, especially since in your average Bee-Train series, the first ten episodes are spent fleshing out the characters instead. The past five episodes, though, have kept pushing the storyline forward.

What I really liked about this episode is that everything just happens with minimal exposition and yet it works. This series knows what it is, and is built around its action-sequences. And okay, so the action-sequences themselves are rather dull, everything around them rocks.

The guy from this episode, Magatsu, is one who thinks he’s special because a samurai killed his sister in the past, up to the point where it almost sounds like he’s proud of it. He never really learned to let go of the horrible experience, to the result that it continues to haunt him even though it happened decades ago.

As it turns out, a major theme in this series is acting out of impulses. Rin was already guilty of this, but in this episode Manji also shows that he can be quite the impulsive bastard, and go running off without notifying anyone. This episode also shows that the Ittou-Ryuu have more enemies than just Asano Rin. This could become interesting.

And I’ve also been wondering: why do the eye-catch and the ED show the characters in a modern setting? Could the creators be planning to set the second half of this series in modern times? Did this happen in the manga as well?

Mission-E - 10

Filed under: Finished Series: Storybook/Mission-E



Short Synopsis: Chinami does what more anime characters should attempt: try to talk things out.
Highlights: A bit forced, but it’s good to see this series heating up.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10
So what first seemed to be a standard calm-before-the-storm episode turned into the introduction for the finale of this series. While there is some potential, I do admit that I’m rather afraid of what this series is going to turn into. Mission-E was at its best when it focused on its characters and the fun action-sequences, so I’m not sure what a dramatic climax can add to that.

At the moment, I still like Code-E better. But then again that’s just me, since Code-E was hated by just about everyone else, it seems. It’s a bit hard to explain, but I feel like Code-E’s dramatic climaxes had more impact than what we’ve seen in Mission-E, where the whole issues around Maori and Adol may have been interesting, but just a bit too much on the clichéd and predictable side. You can especially see this in this episode: like expected, Milsslowly starts to awaken after Maori visits her.

Then there’s also the new suit, that arrives exactly at the right time when the bad guys have found a way around the original power-suits, and Adol, who was just about to switch sides, but dies instead. It all feels just a bit uninspired. The thing I appreciate about this series was that it really tried to be different. Instead of Code-E’s slow style of combining the mystery with its short but effective climaxes, Mission-E has chosen for a more upbeat style, and a more solid sort of storytelling. It takes GUTS to do this, but at the same time, it’s also very difficult, as this series has shown.

Looking back, this series wasted too much time with Maori’s conscience-crisis. She’s an interesting character, but unfortunately the overall storyline had to take some huge sacrifices for this. When looking at the small picture, this is a very entertaining series. It’s just that the big picture has a few problems deciding what it wants to be.