Kaleido Star is yet another example of why Gonzo can produce really outstanding series when they really want to. It first starts out as your average shoujo series about gymnastics and acrobatics, complete with ultra-talented female rival, a just as talented male potential love interest and another love male interest. And yet, with these ingredients it grew into everything a good shoujo series should be.

What made this series work so well is its excellent use of its 52 episodes. The first 26 episodes are already a very capable series by themselves. They show perfectly how Sora (the lead character) rises as a capable rival for Layla, emphasizing guts and hard work, never giving up, and including a number of plot twists that make sure to emphasize that not everything always happens in the lead character’s favour. Overall it’s a very satisfying story by itself, and then the second half of the series comes and pushes this development even further. The new characters of Leon and May really manage to get the best out of Sora in terms of development and make her into a really memorable character by the end of the series, and both of them also pretty impressive by themselves.

Since this is a series about acrobatics, performances also play a huge part in it. And while the creators didn’t have an unlimited budget, the animation does look really nice nonetheless. Especially the costume design for the different parts that are played throughout the series are top-notch, and the creators know exactly how to use their camera-angles and lighting effects to create a great show, based on still shots and close-ups.

If I had to mention a flaw in this series… then it lacks realism. Some of the moves that are performed by the characters are near-impossible, while at other times they master top-notch moves with only a week of training, not to mention that this is a series where seals turn into dogs. But really, the characters shine enough to make up for this flaw, and it never really gets in the way of what really is important for this series. Neither is the romance, by the way. When I first started watching this series, I was afraid that typical silly love triangles would develop over time, but the romance only appeared once in a while, and knew exactly that it shouldn’t get in the way of the characters.

So yes, this series deserves all of the praise it gets. Even though it’s got 52 episodes, every single one of them is dedicated somehow to pushing one of the characters forward, and I especially liked how much of an in-depth look it gave into the themes of working to your dreams and never giving up. It’s a wonderful series, definitely the product of Good Gonzo.

Matsumoto Leiji: the founder of the space opera genre. While his first work, Space Battleship Yamato, lacked a lot of polish, his next work, Captain Harlock, would feature an improvement in just about every aspect. This is the series that would define epic, and would provide inspiration for the many other space opera anime that would follow. Thank you Live-eviL, for having the patience to fully sub it.

While the set-up of the series is again simple (evil aliens known as the Mazone are attacking the earth, and Captain Harlock is the only one who can stop them with his battleship the Arcadia), this series knows how to use its 40 episodes very well. This isn’t a simple series where the Mazones just keep throwing monster after monster until they eventually die, but every episode serves to flesh out and develop the members of its cast, so that the end of the series closes off with both the good guys and the bad guys feeling complete.

Especially the Mazones and Captain Harlock provide to be more than capable of being the respective villains and hero of this series. While the Mazones are most definitely evil, this series makes them more than villains who are just evil for the sake of being evil. Harlock on the other hand stands far apart from your typical lead character. He’s a character who knows what his duty is, no matter what gets in his way, and after watching, I can really understand why Harlock managed to capture the hearts of many when it first aired.

But yeah, you really need patience in order to watch this. The best parts of this series only really start to shine in the final quarter of this series, and the building-up parts can be really nerve-wrecking at times. Especially the middle part of the series can be tedious to get through, in its attempt to give every major character a sufficient amount of background.

Nevertheless, the result of this build-up is an epic series with a rock-solid final quarter, even though it’s already more than thirty years old at this time. While this is definitely not a series you want to marathon in the beginning, it’s nevertheless a series that has a clear purpose and has found a good use for its forty-two episodes. So it’s nowhere near Tomino or World Masterpiece Theatre levels, but nevertheless it’s among the better series to have aired in the seventies.

Touhou - A Summer Day’s Dream

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets targeted by a mysterious thief.
Chance of me Blogging: 10% (Very slim)
First of all, since this is a series that’s purely created by amateurs, I must praise the creators for doing an actually pretty good job at it. The character art is a bit crude here and there, but nevertheless the music is excellent and the background look pretty nice, and there’s actual CG in here. You can really see that a lot of time was put into this to make it look good, and it definitely beats the to be honest rather half-assed Animax Grand Prix series. I’m also glad that they went for a slice-of-life setting, rather than going to try and recreate the game’s virtually non-existent plot. But yeah, the entire story is about a mysterious thief who keeps stealing stuff. It’s just one big excuse to show as many of the game’s characters as possible and giving them some reason to fight, but nevertheless it’s an interesting way to spend 20 minutes.

Shikabane Hime Kuro

Short Synopsis: Our lead character trains hard to accept his mission.
Chance of me Blogging: 90% (I blogged the first season, so why not?)
Overall a decent start to the second season, but I have my worries here and there. The episode felt a bit dry with Makina being chained up for the largest part, but let’s hope that she snaps out of angsting over what happened at the first season soon. The side-characters also were mostly in the spotlights, and they did a good job of driving the episode forward… but what was up with those boob-jokes? Seriously, this episode had more fanservice than the entire first season together, and that has me slightly worried. Especially that new character… talk about out of place-looking characters. This is a horror-series, not a magical girl show.

Maria-sama ga Miteru Fourth Season

Short Synopsis: Our lead character participates in a school play.
Chance of me Blogging: 10% (Have yet to watch the first seasons)
well, so this is the fourth season of the much-loved Maria-sama ga Miteru franchise, but I’m not yet convinced. Based on the title and promo-art, I expected this to be some sort of combination between big brother and yuri, but in the end this is just another slice of life series on an elite school. Ultimately, this episode was simply dull; there was nothing that really made me watch the rest of this series, nor the first two seasons. What it did well was the bit of development for that one classmate, but nothing else even caught my attention. The lead character is annoying, in the way that she keeps poking her nose into everything. What made the previous seasons so good anyway?