November 4, 2008

Kurozuka - 05

Filed under: Finished Series:/Kurozuka



Short Synopsis: Kuro gets brought to the place where Kuromitsu is.
Highlights: Calm mood for a Kurozuka-episode, but still powerful.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
Ah, a build-up episode. The series takes a bit of time to catch a breath, and uses the time to give the viewer a few more glimpses of the major bad guys. The pacing in this episode was very slow, but like mentioned above, I really liked how it slowly progressed, while providing a bit more background on what happened between episode 2 and 3, and making the viewer anticipate when Kuromitsu might turn up again.

And of course, the visuals were better than ever in this episode. This also really was an episode in which the art director could go all out, and the number of beautiful and diverse sceneries he created is astounding. It’s interesting: while Porfy no Nagai Tabi still stands as the currently-airing series with the best outdoor background-art, Kurozuka definitely wins the fight in terms of indoor-background art. The use of CG really works, and it actually made a CG-car not look out of place somehow.

Anyway, about the plot, I think the first part of the episode showed the boss of the bad guys. I’m not exactly sure what he was doing, killing all these random people, and why he’s still doing that after centuries, but he seems to be after Kuromitsu, explaining the attack that started at the end of this episode. It looks like Kuro’s new allies allowed him to meet Kuromitsu again, and although I didn’t pick up the exact reason either, she seems to be vital for their survival as well. My guess is that it has something to do with how she turned Kuro into an immortal being.

For the next episode, I want to see the gorgeous animation from the first episode back. The animators have already shown that they don’t lack any sort of inspiration, but what really would make this series is the combination between the awesome art that this episode had, along with the detailed animation of the first episode. Now that would seriously rock.

Tokyo Majin Gakuen Kenpuchou Tou Review - 72,5/100

Filed under: Other:/Anime Reviews



For the past few months, I’ve watched a lot of shows that I originally dropped which turned out to be surprisingly engaging. It can also go the other way of course: some shows are better off just being dropped. Tokyo Majin Gakuen Kenpuchou Tou is such an example. It starts of with a really exciting episode with excellent fights, really neat animation and characters with potential. Unfortunately, that first episode is the only thing that stands out about that series.

What we have here is a typical series that blew away all its budget in its first episode, and then doesn’t have anything left to fill the rest of its airtime with. The overall animation is still pretty above average, but never does it meet the huge expectations it created with that first episode. The real problem is the plot, though. It follows the pattern of first half demon-of-the-week second half prevent Tokyo’s destruction. It’s a solid set-up, but for that to work you need to provide interesting demons-of-the-week to keep the viewer busy, and an interesting threat that can destroy Tokyo. And this series fails at both.

The thing is that the viewer is never given the chance to get accustomed to the characters, and never gets a reason to care about the main characters. Half of the characters lack a proper introduction, and never get the chance to establish their character, while members of the other half take turns into angsting about how cruel the bad guys of this series are and how they need to protect their loved ones. Obviously, this is mostly all talk and in 75% of the cases, they fail to protect, leading to only more angst. Especially that Aoi is guilty of this. She keeps on whining about saving others through the entire series, and eventually ends up as a brainwashed damsel in distress.

Because of that, the major climax ends just in one big disappointment. And yeah, I know that this series has a second season and all, but that’s no excuse to just go lazy and let the power of love solve everything. Overall, there are one or two subplots that do deliver some genuine scenes, but apart from that we just have a series that’s too caught up in its own angst and cruelty so that it never lives up to the interesting character-dynamics and action that the first episode promised. If you’re intrigued by the premise, just watch the first episode as a standalone story and then just drop the thing.

Storytelling: 7/10
Characters: 7/10
Production-Values: 8/10
Setting: 7/10