I think that shows like Valkyria Chronicles at the moment really show how hard it can be to successfully adapt a game into animation. Unlike novels and mangas, where the only thing you have to worry about is how to properly translate the pages into animation, in most cases it just isn’t sufficient to just copy and paste the storyline (since it’s usually too short and overshadowed by the game-play) and especially the game-play. At this point, the creators are going to have to insert their own additions in order to flesh out the cast, and this usually fails so badly, descending the show into a string of uninspired fillers.

And here Bee-Train comes and yet again they pull off a very successful adaptation like it’s nothing. They did the same with .Hack//Sign, which completely dropped all of the fighting and instead went on to focus on its brilliant story, Popolocrois also wouldn’t make you suspect that it’s about an RPG, and instead turned into a fun and charming fantasy adventure and character-study and Wild Arms featured some of the best fillers out there in its second half. These all showed that they knew exactly what to do in order to spice these games up and make them work as an anime, and the same is done in Phantom, with the large emphasis on characterization and atmosphere. I’m not exactly sure how the original game played, but I have a really hard time imagining what the heck the game-play was about.

This episode builds up for the next one, and at the same time we fully get to see what happened with Zwei that made him end up as part of the Phantom. What’s also interesting is that Zwei is beginning to recover his memories, and turning into the guy he was before his mind-wipe. the thing is, though, that even if he were to fully recover his memories, he’s so far in the mafia, he’s already killed so many people that it’s going to be impossible for him to return to Japan and the life he left behind.

And the tension between Ein and Zwei really continues to increase, especially when Ein keeps distancing herself from Zwei since she’s scared of his skills. Before his mind-wipe, he already was able to outrun her for a couple of days, so something tells me that she’s fearing what he can turn into. In the next episode we’re going to see them in different missions, which makes me wonder how that’s going to end.

Rating: ** (Excellent)
Really solid and subtle art, great build-up episode, though lacking in action perhaps.

Oh my god… when I first started out this series, I never thought that I’d say this but… this show rocks. This seriously was an awesome episode and this series shows no signs yet of slowing down at all. At first sight, this might be yet another shounen sports series… but it really is so much more. Basquash! is a satire of shounen series that yet takes itself seriously and yet at the same time knows when to be a bit silly.

A common theme of these shounen heroes is their motivation to be the best [whatever] of the world: to get enough money to help out one of their poor friends. Dan is the same, but the major difference here is that Coco doesn’t want help. Dan was probably turned off by Coco’s initial disappointment of having lost her legs (which isn’t surprising: anyone would get incredibly upset after suddenly losing such important limbs). From that moment, Coco was able to accept her disability and grow further, while Dan simply stayed the same. Because Coco didn’t want any sympathy from the one who caused her her injuries, the two of them just grew apart more and more without ever trying to understand each other. In this episode, it’s indeed shown that their communication really is the biggest problem between those two, because you can really see that Coco is proud of her brother when he does what he likes: basketball.

Another common theme of shounen series is their “cheating is bad! you should follow clearly set rules!”-mentality. Well, that too gets completely smashed in this episode when James Loane tries to impose his own rules on basketball. Dan is very quick to remind him how basketball is meant to have fun, not be bound by all sorts of restrictive rules that fail to get the best out of the characters. Real fun basketball is supposed to be the kind that takes risk. And in that way, this series couldn’t possibly have chosen a better fitting lead character than Dan, because he may not be the most technically skilled basketball player, but his sheer guts and creativity when playing are what makes him unique. And really: a lot of shounen series struggle so badly to make their characters stand out. Yay! We’ve seen a teenager change the world. Why him? Why couldn’t anyone else do it? Nine out of ten shounen series simply fails to answer that, or has such a ludicrous answer for it that it’s hard to take seriously.

Some other shounen-tropes that are made completely ridiculous in this series: “screw the rules I have money” (which is really taken to the extreme by James Loane’s incredible wealth), the evil overlord who tries to look as cool as possible (James again, as he tries to look cool while blowing bubbles) and the overly obvious romance. Really, with so many girls in this series, with so much fanservice, there hasn’t been a sign of romance at all. Dan and Miyuki for once behave like real childhood friends, rather than them using it for cheap romance. Sera, while she has the hots for Dan as he plays baseball, she gets turned on by every good baseball match. I really hope that this series can continue this, because it’s felt SO refreshing so far.

But what I like the most in this series is the setting: it really feels alive: it really feels like this series takes place in a city with lots of different people, rather than a television set with a bunch of extras here and there. This has LOTS of promise for the future of this series. For example, the eye catch in this episode showed two people who I couldn’t recognize at all: I had no idea who they were. As it turns out, they were some random townsfolk who appear every once in a while and are just living their daily lives. It just shows how important Rollingtown is for this series.

Rating: *** (Awesome)
In this episode, Dan really showed why he is this series’ main character. Lots of extra depth for both the characters and setting, one heck of a successful episode.

I’m not sure what exactly this series has done to only warrant very low quality releases like this, because after last week’s cheese the show really is as good as it once was, and it really deserves some files of higher quality. Ah well, while the cliff-hanger of the previous episode ended with a bit of an anti-climax, the rest of the episode really rocked.

It really was meant as an episode to strengthen the bonds between Oz and Gilbert, who distanced himself from Oz out of the fear that he might not have liked the way he changed, and Oz and Alice, who has been continuously wondering whether or not to trust Oz, especially now that he seems to have found his childhood friend back.

In the meantime we learn a bit about Alice’s past as well, which indeed seem to have taken place in the house of Bezarius. The person she once was with looks like another member of the Bezarius-family. A hint is given that we’ve seen the guy before, but I can’t exactly place my finger on when that happened. And we also learn that there’s another Alice, who my guess would be was either the one Oz met in the first episode, or responsible for Alice’s memory loss.

With this episode, the introduction now seems really over and the characters are established, so I’m curious to see what the real meat of the story will be about.

Rating: * (Good)
The cheese is gone, good character-development and the mystery got a little deeper again amount to a very enjoyable episode. Plus, that bunny looked awesome.