Short Synopsis: Shouko goes on a big adventure.
Episode Rating: 8/10 (Excellent)
Another quiet episode with the goal of building up, but it’s an episode well spent, as it develops the character of Shouko a bit more. It was a bit silly of her to mistake Nataru and Shion to have a relationship, but the episode did its job really well, and especially the many other things that happened during this episode made it more than worth watching. And after all, she was about to be taken away from Nataru, so she needed something to vent off her frustrations with. Bullying Shion was the obvious thing to do. ^^;

But damn, I hate it when the creators pull that ‘character X is about to be killed off’-cliffhanger, especially since this show has already seen so many deaths. Now I really want to see that next episode, even though it’s going to take another week for it to air. My guess would be that the creators are going to let Nataru struggle for a bit more, make him escape with that power of his while heavily wounded.

Then, I wonder what Muroto’s purpose in this series is going to be. It’s been pretty small throughout the series, but now that he caught himself a ’scandal’ of Shion, then I really wonder what kind of repercussions it’s going to have. Shouko is probably going to find out, meaning that her role isn’t over yet, and this episode was probably spent in order to develop her character not just to have a complete cast and for the heck of filling an episode, but it’s actually going to be used somewhere later in the series. Nice.

A bit of a boring list this time perhaps, since it looks mostly the same as last month’s with perhaps a few small differences. Nevertheless, this was a very good month. The winter season has proven to be an excellent one, and quite a few series spent this month getting even better than they already were. Oh, and I dropped Kemono no Souja Erin for those who were wondering. Wake me up if it turns out to be more than just a World Masterpiece Wannabe.

#24 (new) - Fresh! Precure - (7,5/10) - … why am I still watching this thing!?
#23 (24) - Kurokami The Animation - (7,75/10) - I still can’t quite grasp where this series is going, but it’s still mostly building up and fleshing out the Mototsumita-setting. So far, it’s solid, though it hasn’t hit any heights yet. My highlight this month was the episode with the other Mototsumita who made a contract with a substitute.
#22 (33) - Hetalia: Axis Powers - (7,75/10) - Okay, so my attempt at blogging this series failed, but it’s still a pretty fun and random series with interesting historical references. I’m looking forward to see the other countries show up.
#21 (20) - Mobile Suit Gundam 00 - (8/10) - Oh, I just hope that the finale is going to be all right for this series. Some parts of the past months have been really good, but at the same time the action has been repetitive apart from the two episodes about the coup d’etat, and the Saji vs Louise storyline STILL hasn’t become better, even after nearly fifty episodes.
#20 (10) - Gintama - (8/10) - Ouch… This episode saw the subbed versions of the episodes that were jointly directed by the old and new directors of the series, and there’s one thing that immediately becomes clear: the jokes start feeling flat. It may just be me getting used to the new style, but the timing just felt off and most of the jokes missed their mark. Thank goodness the serious parts were still as awesome as ever, but I’m worried here. Let’s see what the new director can do when he’s alone in the director’s seat.
#19 (19) - Minami-Ke - (8/10) - I’m a bit behind on this series, but overall while it’s not proven to be something awesome it remains pretty enjoyable to see the different antics of the Minami sisters. There’s hardly anything annoying or flawed, so I’m glad to have picked up this series.
#18 (23) - Koukaku no Regios - (8/10) - This turned into a pretty sold series, and the stereotypes are getting less and less apparent and annoying. My only gripe is that horrible, horrible Engrish, but I’m interested to see where this series can go.
#17 (22) - Ride Back - (8/10) - I really have a hate/love relationship with this series. On one hand, it continues to tug on my suspense of disbelief (why out of all people did the younger brother get involved, and why was everyone shot down and brutally killed, while he managed to survive long enough or Rin to arrive), but on the other hand, the characters do remain excellent.
#16 (13) - One Outs - (8,25/10) - So in the end, this series didn’t turn out into a very deep or thought-provoking one, but instead one that’s just a lot of fun to watch. I’m getting more and more warmed up to the cast of characters.
#15 (7) - Tales of the Abyss - (8,25/10) - This month was mostly build-up for the big finale of this series, but it’s nevertheless been very solid. The development on the two characters who originally made me question where this series was going (the two little girls who rather felt out of place in a war between countries) was quite good and appreciated.
#14 (21) - Skip Beat - (8,25/10) - I have so many issues with this series that it’s going to have to need an entire review in order for me to be able to list them all. For now, let me just say that I may have chosen the wrong time to watch Glass Mask: the parts about acting in Skip Beat feel downright shallow and oversimplified when compared to that series. Still, I’m surprised that the different characters’ antics still remain hilarious.
#13 (8) - Natsume Yuujinchou - (8,25/10) - I’m still not exactly sure what I’m missing that the rest of the people do see with the second season. I still like this series a lot, but when compared to the stellar first season, there seems something missing, and my guess would be that the novelty of the premise is wearing out for me. Still, the soothing atmosphere is still there.
#12 (16) - Sora wo Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai - (8,5/10) - So, the glorified recap is finally over and this series can finally start filling in the huge holes that the original OVAs left behind. The pacing is still really fast, but I so hope that this series is going to last for 24 episodes.
#11 (17) - Druaga no Tou - (8,5/10) - This is really typical of Druaga no Tou. First you have episodes like the one with the shadows, which really were quite terrible and full of holes, and then when you’re about to give up on the series, it hits you with some really good and solid episodes that completely make up for the past screw-ups and silliness,and they fully explained what Neeba and Kaaya had been doing for the past six months.

#10 (14) - Tytania - (8,5/10)

A bit of a quiet month for Tytania with only two episodes aired, but there was some good stuff in it. This series sure took a long time to get fired up, but the end results are worth it.

#9 (12) - White Album - (8,75/10)

Ah, I’m so in love with the subtle execution of this series. It’s also proven to be quite a thought-provoking series: what does it mean to cheat on your girlfriend, and in what cases is it justified. There are lots of different opinions and ways to interpret this series, which I feel is yet another one of its strengths.

#8 (9) - Genji Monogatari Sennenki - (8,75/10)

Now this is what Noitamina should be. After seven episode,s this series is still going solid, with some beautiful eye candy along the way. Now let’s see if the creators can give this one a solid conclusion.

#7 (15) - Jigoku Shoujo - (8,75/10)

Muaha! It’s time for the real meat of the series to show up at last. I’m very excited to see what the creators have in store for the climax this time.

#6 (6) - Hajime no Ippo - (8,75/10)

Episode eight was pure slaughter, and yet this series is just getting better and better. If the original series was just as good as this, then I can understand why it became so popular.

#5 (11) - Shikabane Hime - (8,75/10)

Screw the shounen cliches, this series rocks! Especially the characters are excellent, thanks to all the build-up that the first season put into them, and there seems to be no end in sight for the character development of the second season.

#4 (3) - Michiko e Hatchin - (9/10)

As solid and fun as ever.Michiko to Hatchin continues its perfect balance between intelligence, action, fun, drama, romance, and a whole lot more things. Every episode this month has been a delight to watch.

#3 (2) - Casshern Sins - (9/10)

Everything is finally coming together for this series, and the results are awesome so far. The series is evolving, and yet the creators aren’t forgetting what made it so awesome in the first place.

#2 (4) - Clannad - (9,25/10)

Well, there you have it. The past few episodes have been nothing short of incredible. Ushio has pushed this series into a unique direction, going even further than Itazura na Kiss went.

#1 (1) - Birdy the Mighty Decode - (9,5/10)

I’m still amazed at how incredibly good and awesome this series has become. Nearly every episode so far has been utterly amazing, and I just have to love the animation style.

Short Synopsis: Genji’s second child is about to be born.
Episode Rating: 8/10 (Excellent)
I think that one of the hardest parts in trying to understand this series is keeping track of all the different characters, combined with how all the characters like to talk in old Japanese, though this surprisingly isn’t the most difficult series to understand in the end (out of the currently airing series, that honor goes to Munto). while watching, there were a lot of question marks that popped up, and scenes, I couldn’t quite grasp, but at the end of the episode everything came together wonderfully and suddenly made sense.

So in this episode, Genji’s wife gets pregnant, and it takes place during the nine months of her pregnancy. This rumour reaches the ghost woman, who becomes even more struck with grief, and so she attempts to kill Genji’s wife as well. After the second attempt (after the baby is already born), she succeeds. With four episodes left, I believe that the creators are saving her as the main villain of the series, but the little girl still has yet to be important, even though she’s supposed to have a huge role in Genji’s life.

And I also loved how this episode had more visual effects than ever, and as usual, they looked GREAT. Especially during the climaxes, the creators were throwing these effects and filters everywhere.

And here’s something interesting: Genji has currently gotten two women pregnant, and has been flirting with quite a few more. Now compare this to Touya from White Album, who also is surrounded by a lot of females, though less extreme. I’m still surprised at how much hate Touya gets for being unrealistic and a bastard to women, and how Genji doesn’t get any hate at all, while his actions have been much worse. Sure, it’s probably due to the lack of subs for this series, but it’s interesting to see that some series are easier to hate than others.

Short Synopsis: Keiichi and the others go to the pool
Episode Rating: 7,5/10 (There are going to be five episodes of this!?)
Uh… yeah. Here I was expecting Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei to deliver some more background information about the series, flesh some more characters out and all… yeah.

In the end, this turns out to be more Arusu The Adventure: random stories involving the lead characters. This one had everyone and his dog chase after Keiichi’s swimming trunks because it was supposedly cursed. In the end, the only clue that we have that it was indeed cursed was the word of the one who sold it to him.

In any case, the episode was as hilarious as it was disturbing (try to imagine Tomitake and Oshii in the pool….), and the thing turned into a huge self-parody. Interestingly, the original director didn’t return to the director seat, but instead the one who did the series composition created this… thing. And to think that there are four more episodes left!

On a completely different note, though: that OP rocked. It doesn’t quite beat the original OP of the first season, but I’m glad to see that it’s still experimenting with different exotic instruments and sounds. It works really well in this case.

I remember when Zegapain first started, I was really turned off by its first episode, so I dropped it without giving it much of a second chance. In the end, though, this series turned out to be pretty capable. While it starts out like any other series does, with a typical teenager who just lives a normal life and gets to meet a cute girl and pilot a big mecha (like an expert as well), it gradually evolves into a fascinating post-apocalyptic series, successfully degrading human beings in a bunch of computer bits.

This definitely is one of those series that doesn’t play all of its trumps right in the first turn. The whole mecha-fighting indeed does feel like a mere game to the lead character in the beginning, but gradually more and more about the setting of this series gets revealed. It’s basically the Matrix meets anime, though with differences I’m not going to spoil here.

The cast is likable, no character really feels wasted in the end, and overall it’s a pretty solid series, although it doesn’t hit any heights. My only gripe with the series is that the final bad guy hardly has any attention or development at all, and feels a bit shallow because of it. The action-scenes are also very prevalent throughout the series, but they hardly ever form any highlight. This is going to be a short review, because there’s not a lot that you can say about this series. Basically, there are some very nice ideas put into this series, and that’s the biggest reason why you should watch this.

Short Synopsis: The seven stars put Makina and Hokuto in one room. Fighting ensues.
Episode Rating: 8/10 (Excellent)
I’m still amazed at this series. I keep having these fears, for the huge amount of pitfalls that this series can fill into. And here it comes, and proves me wrong time and time again. The characters just keep saving this series whenever it’s about to fall apart. When boob-sama first appeared, I feared that she was just going to prove to be a source of annoyance, in the same veins of Saji and Louise in Gundam 00, and how she’d come back as a Shikabane Hime in order to form Ouri’s harem when she ‘died’. And here it turns out that she couldn’t be saved, and actually died for real with a pretty impressive finish. In the last episode, I remember noting how the rest of the seven stars looked like they were going to simply fight Makina in standard shounen fare, and this episode comes and it continues to provide very interesting back-stories for these guys. Heck, even the simple bash-fest between Makina and Hokuto turned out to be awesome somehow. I really didn’t see this coming when the second season started, but at this point, this series can hardly do anything wrong for me anymore. That’s how much I’m already caught up in this series’ pace.

So as it turns out, there’s a whole lot more to that simple flashback scene of Keisei and his former comrades than just them being at the same spot at the same time. It turns out to be a very important scene, having to do with Ouri’s origins. I didn’t understand it completely, but there seems to have been a shikabane that collected children, presumably this was Ouri’s mother. In their attempts to rescue them, Keisei and the others failed, and every child except for Ouri got killed off, and Ouri was brought to the orphanage. Also, did I understand this correctly and did Ouri’s mother turn into the cat? In any case, the biggest revelation in this episode was that one of these dead children was Hizuchi.

What I now want to know is why it’s so important for the Seven Stars to have Hokuto fight Makina, though this will probably get clearer once the creators start on her background.

It’s only a pity that the animation doesn’t feel as rich as in the first season. While it’s still much more than a bunch of still frames, and I can’t exactly put my finger to the big difference. I guess that the animation in the second season feels more standard and less inspired than what we saw in the first, if that makes any sense.

Short Synopsis: Ouji returns.
Episode Rating: 8/10 (Excellent)
I’m not getting my hopes up. I’m NOT going to get my hopes up this time. There is no way that this cliff-hanger is going to be real. This series is going to be one of the best things since sliced bread if Casshern DOES end up dead, but I’ve seen too many cliffhangers like this one in which the main character supposedly gets killed off before the final episode. The next episode is probably going to feature some kind of plot twist that is going to keep Casshern alive. It’s going to be an awesome one, that’s for sure, but as much as I’d like to hope for a series to kill off its main character before its final episode, it ain’t gonna happen.

But that’s enough ranting, because this still remains such an excellent series. In this episode, it becomes clear that Luna indeed is very different from your guardian angel. In the time before her supposed death, it was so bad that anyone who met her met with death. When Braiking Boss ordered to kill her, he basically ended up killing his own subordinates, it seems. Still, since Luna was seen as the sun, nobody seemed to either bother or notice. Still, Casshern for some reason wasn’t affected by her death-rays, he stabbed her, and got in touch with her blood, and that’s why he became immortal. Nothing to do with love, like I originally suspected. This however, still leaves a truckload of questions yet to be answered:
- Why didn’t Casshern get himself killed?
- Why did Luna’s powers change all of a sudden?
- Where did the ruin come from?
- How come Casshern got pulverized at the end of this episode, without regenerating?
- Did Dune get his nickname really from his own actions, or were all the rumours of the people the original Luna killed delegated to him?

And here’s one thing I’ve been wondering:: every single recurring character has his or her own purpose in the series, except for Friender. Seriously, what was the last thing that it ever did? Try to dig out Casshern from a bunch of rocks. Apart from that, it’s just… there. Is Friender going to be more than just a simple cameo fro the original Casshan series, or will it have an important role in the end?

Short Synopsis: For whatever reason, Japan, Germany and Italy end up stranded on a desert island.
Episode Rating: 7,5/10 (Good)
Easily one of the most nonsensical episodes of this series yet. Again, it emphasized on how Italy only thinks about food. In this episode, he offers Germany some of his local dishes in order to seal the alliance between him and Germany, and builds a castle of Spaghetti (as a reference to the tower of Pisa, of course ^^;). Next episode, the rest of the countries should arrive, so that should prove to be fun.

Still, with this entry I’m going to stop blogging this series. It’s not because of the political incorrectness of the series, the stereotypes or the negative comments I’ve gotten about it. I still like this series a lot, but I hardly have any inspiration to write about it for every single episode, so I thought that I’d better quit while I’m ahead, before I burn out completely. It was a nice experiment definitely, and when I started blogging this series, I hoped that it’d be like Master of Epic (which was a lot of fun to blog for me when it aired), but the episodes are just too short for that. Perhaps I’m going to do some compilation posts along the way, but I’m not going to promise this.

One of the things I like about Gonzo: they take risks. That’s really where the best ideas come from. Sure, they definitely have their screw-ups; but then again: who doesn’t? In any case, another product of Good Gonzo is Saishuu Heiki Kanojo, or Saikano or She: The Ultimate Weapon as it’s known as as well. However, this isn’t just going to be the case where I simply list everything that it does right and just get things over with: like a lot of Gonzo’s series, it has a lot to like, but also a lot to hate about it.

Ultimately, whether or not you’re going to be able to enjoy this series is how much you can stomach teenaged angst, because BOY, do these characters WHINE in this series. On top of that, it loves to pull those plot twists that add extra drama: death, destruction, extravagant love triangles, for this series it can’t get sad enough for the lead couple, and the result is that the characters hardly every stop crying an whining.

I really was expecting a huge tear-jerker when I started watching this series, and I believe that the creators also intended this series to squeeze as many tears out of the viewer as possible, and yet I didn’t cry once, nor felt the inclination to. As a tear-jerker this show lacks subtlety. There’s just too much angst and sadness. This series just keeps bouncing back and forth between love triangles here and war is bad there, and I guess that this format failed to impress me.

Instead, I was sold on this series through completely different things. The characters just feel incredibly genuine. No matter what kind of overly sad plot twists the creators pull, the characters act believable and charming. The dialogue is consistently of a very high quality, and especially the voice acting made a lot of impact on me.

In fact, this series would have worked for me even if the lead female character, who is an ultimate destructive weapon that can wipe out entire cities at once, had been completely removed. What this series excels at is portraying how a huge war affects ordinary people, and how their lives are majorly impacted by it. The quiet moments in this series are so much more memorable than the obvious sad tear-jerker moments when the umpth character kicks the bucket.

In the end though, I can’t call anything about this series truly bad or flawed. Sure, the romance had its annoying moments, but for each annoying point it also had more than enough charming ones. Sure, the setting is overly sad, but I’m not going to deny that it made impact. In the end, the creators managed to create a provocative and hard-hitting series, that may not be perfect, nor hits any heights, but has enough that makes it worth watching.

Short Synopsis: Munto tells Yumemi about the past of his country.
Episode Rating: 8/10 (Excellent)
Ah, finally! It was a long wait, but finally we know a bit more about what the heck is going on in this series. Finally we see a bit of the elf country when it’s not fighting. While it’s certainly not enough yet, it’s definitely a good start, although again the dialogue was pretty complex, meaning a lot of trouble for me to understand it. ^^;

So if I understood correctly, the past of Munto’s world looked a lot like it in terms of technological advancement. Then from out of nowhere (or from somewhere that’s yet to be explained) and started wrecking things with their huge amounts of powers. They then discovered the parallel world that Munto lived in, and created a link to it. Eventually though, they destroyed this link again when they became obsessed with their own powers, resulting in lots of destruction. In order to prevent this from happening again, I suspect that the outsider was born. This went fine until the strange evil guy who appeared in the previous episode appeared, and Munto tried to use Yumemi’s help to get rid of him, while Gntarl and his allies didn’t support his decision. At least, that’s what I understood from it.

One thing that worries me though is that the pacing still is as fast as ever. Even though this episode was a quiet one, it still rushed the history of Munto’s world through in less than half an episode, which was an especially bad sign for my hopes of seeing this series continue for more than thirteen episodes. Things really can go anywhere at this point, but if the creators do plan to squeeze the entire story in only one season, then the second half of the series is going to have to be consistently solid and excellent if it doesn’t want to end up the same as the very unfinished OVAs. This episode thankfully met those requirements, but but for this series it’s going to be a matter whether the big picture can deliver or not in the end.

As for the animation, I’m glad to say that now that the series has started its original material, the quality hasn’t gone down too badly. While things obviously look less detailed and impressive when compared to the first six episode, the creators thankfully still have lots of movement. Some details were lost in the process, but it’s better than just resorting to safe drawings with mostly still frames.