May 17, 2009

Full Metal Alchemist - Brotherhood - 07

Filed under: Currently Watching:/Full Metal Alchemist - Brotherhood



Well, the pacing is subtly getting slower, which is a good sign. The storytelling has as much energy as usual, but this episode spent quite a bit of scenes to the lighter comedy scenes when compared to the previous episodes so far. That’s definitely a good sign as we approach the point where first series went into its own direction.

In any case, this episode shows the library-arc and introduces Sheska. I liked her when she was first introduced, though her role in the second half of the series was just terribly redundant. Nevertheless, in this episode she was fun to watch, even though she only appeared for like, three minutes or something.

I also was surprised that Barry the Chopper does exist in the manga, meaning that the creators wrote an entire filler-episode just to introduce the guy. It was a nice idea, but the problem was that his story was just too filled with coincidences: he just “happens” to kidnap Winry who just “happens” to visit Central City, then he gets sent to prison and just “happens” to get turned into an armour rather than being turned into food for the Philosopher’s stone and after that he just “happens” to meet Ed again. Really, the creators of the first series had good intentions, but they simply weren’t the best storytellers out there.

And yeah, there was a lot of comedy and deformed characters in this episode. The contrast with the otherwise dark nature of this series works surprisingly well and it’s made this series much lighter than the original one. The downside of the new season is of course that the characters aren’t as fleshed out as they were in the original series at this point, with more than eleven episodes cut and all, but technically it’s been doing a very fine job: there haven’t been any headdesk-worthy moments, Ed and Al aren’t getting on my nerves and overall, the animation now is much more solid and detailed and overall I like it a lot more.

Rating: * (Good)
Lots of light moments, and we’re finally getting near the part we’ve all been waiting for.

Cross Game - 07

Filed under: Currently Watching:/Cross Game



At times, it really looks like Aoba is the lead character of this series, rather than Kou. Especially when it comes to baseball, it’s her who keeps stealing the show, while Kou, who is supposed to be the main character, just keeps hiding, watching and staying in the background. Really if it wasn’t for the fact that he gets the most screentime you really wouldn’t suspect that he was supposed to be the central character in this show. He just feels so far away from your average male lead. The only thing he has in common with them is his huge talents.

And yet again, this episode rocked. In the current spring season, there are three shows against which I have yet to find a single significant complaint: Eden of the East, Basquash and this one (Phantom has its questionable portrayal of the mafia, Pandora Hearts has its cheese and Natsu no Arashi had its first episode; all excellent shows too, but these do have their flaws, in comparison to the three mentioned above). This episode shows how the coach of the high school team visits the middle school team, and notices how solid Aoba’s performance is, and so he invites her for a few practice pitches, though not with the best of intentions.

This episode really did an excellent job of making me feel sorry for Aoba. For one, she’s never going to get as good as Kou, she’s not going to have any chance of playing solid baseball as soon as she hits high school, and she was really made fun of this in this episode, even though you can see that she has passion for the sports in the way that she continued pitching despite being terribly exhausted.

Kou meanwhile continues to shine in a completely different way. I absolutely LOVE his sense of humour. This episode reveals that he has yet another talent of impersonating voices of other people, which he puts to great use in teasing the hell out of Senda.

Rating: ** (Excellent)
Especially great episode for Aoba, but all of the characters still rock.