Most of Genius Party’s animation is hand drawn or animated with cells. Deathtic 4 instead is nearly entirely CG, and feels the most like a platform to try out new CGI techniques. On top of that, the characters are all zombies and talk in some strange kind of Scandinavian-ish language that nobody can understand. The director is Shinji Kimura, a guy who mostly is involved with background art for big hitting movies as Akira, Angel’s Egg, My Neighbor Totoro, Steam Boy, Tekkkon Kinkreet and Prime Rose, and he also took care of the art of the first short of the Gotham Knight movie.

So as expected, the background art is very good. I didn’t notice it at first, but the he designed a very original city that at the same time doesn’t distract from the real art in the foreground. You can see that a lot of time went in designing every single building. On the opposite side though, the story and characters feel among the dullest of what Genius Party has to offer. It’s straightforward, there’s no real symbolism or depth to the story. It just feels flat.

But this is really the power of Genius Party: because it has directors with so many different backgrounds, there’s lots of stuff that you can see. Baby Blue had a director who is excellent at characterization, and so that short had the best characters. Instead shorts like this one, Toujin Kit and Wanwa the Doggy that are directed by animators and background artists have a very distinctive visual style instead. This is why I’m a fan of these compilation movies, and I can only hope that in the future, more of them are going to be released.

On a side-note, anyone know what happened to Le Manchot melomane?

Haha! To think that some of the best romance of the season (only surpassed by Phantom) comes from not a slice-of-life series, not a full fledged romance show, nor a drama, but instead a series that advertises itself as an epic fantasy series. I did not see that coming, but what makes the romance in this episode stand out is the fact that it’s completely void of any wimpy characters and for once kissing becomes something normal, rather than something sacred that should only happen once or twice.

My biggest surprise here is that Istvan and Linda have become a couple now. I especially loved the look on Remus while they were making out: for once it’s not the look of some siscon (which seems to be really common in just about every anime that has siblings of different sexes and similar ages!), but rather it’s the look of someone who dislikes inefficiency, and would wish that the two of them started to think about things that mattered.

And of course, Guin turns out to be fine, but what interests me is that even he didn’t remember what the heck it was that happened to him: he just… woke up at that island, nothing more. It probably has to do with where he came from, but apart from that I have no clue of what went on.

There was also plenty of eye candy in this episode. The island had some wonderful designs, and the newly introduced characters (are they? or did I forget about their introduction) all look great, with even the unimportant side characters having distinctive designs. The fight scene this episode also rocked, and for once it didn’t look rushed, which also was a plus. I’m really excited about this series right now.

So, how about a second season?
Rating: ** (Excellent)
Lots of romance, plot development and eye candy. Exactly what this show is good at!

Okay, so this as an episode that set up the next baseball match, but boy was it an exciting one. The nature of the upcoming match is going to be much more than the first one: the fate of both teams are at stake, one of the coaches is going to get fired afterwards, if the Farm Team loses it’s going to be disbanded, Aoba has offered to become the Farm Team’s Right Center and at the same time Azuma isn’t going to be playing. With this, it can really be anyone’s game.

It’s a shame that the character pages of Myanimelist are evil and full of spoilers (seriously, a bit of spoiler warnings would have been preferable!), I already received enough hints to know how that match is going to end when I tried to look up the names of a few of the characters a couple of weeks ago, and besides I also don’t think that it’s going to be that hard to predict how the match is going to end anyway. As long as the creator keep the length of that match a bit under control (and not like last time stretch a simple match for more than three full episodes…), it’s going to be very interesting to see how it’s going to play out.

And in any case, this was an excellent episode for the character. It really allowed us to see some different sides of theirs. I loved those little touches of the old guy, noticing that it’s the task of the manager to do a team’s laundry. That guy turn out to be the Farm manager’s grandfather, by the way. At this point, I have no idea what the point of this guy in the story is going to be, especially since there have been plenty of hints that this guy is obsessively hiding something.

KouxAoba also continued in this episode. It’s always small things that show them how much Wakaba is still affecting them. This time, it’s the remark that Kou made at a certain point, quoting how she would say that she’d rather die than give up, which has him worried. The chemistry between the two of them really revolves a lot around Kou taking light sayings like that seriously. Since Wakaba died in such a simple accident, it’s indeed no wonder that they’re like that.

I also like Miki a lot. I at first thought that he was just going to be another one of those stereotypical evil teammates that needs to be overcome, but the past few episodes have shown that he definitely has his heart in the right place. Despite his rather serious look, he’s one who wants to play baseball for the fun and teamwork.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
The introduction of the next baseball match and lots of potential character-development

With this episode, I understand a bit more what’s wrong with this series: Marysville. Every single character introduced in the Marysville arc is dull, cliche and boring, and that’s why the previous episode was especially bad, because it was entirely centred around one of these characters. The Thomas family however, is a different story. They are the ones who make this series. With this, Anne has also shown that she doesn’t have the strength to carry this series on its own, and she really needs the Thomas family for this to make the series complete.

So, this episode starts during a lunch-break, in which Mildred is showing off her huge box of lunch. Anne’s lunch is small, so Randolf offers her a bit of his, but she declines. Mildred then mentions that for the upcoming pick nick she’s going to have an even bigger lunch. Anne obviously wants to join the picnic, but for that she needed to have donated to the church like everyone else has.

So, the question becomes how to get money in order to go to the picnic. Randolf comes with the idea of trying to search in a crow’s nest, but Anne thinks that it’s a better idea to ask Johanna. Johanna however, has just had a bad day because the well is giving trouble. She obviously declines giving money, since she believes that God isn’t there for the penniless.

Horace and Edward meanwhile are fascinated by a local tortoise salesman. When Bert gets back, he smells like tobacco again and Johanna scolds him again. He then comes with the news that he’s managed to get a promotion (or something similar that’s going to give them a bit of extra money), and his salary is going to triple in the process. Anne and Johanna are obviously elated when they learn of the news. They spend the dinner trying to figure out what they’re going to do with the money. When Bert asks Anne what she wants to do, she obviously answers that she wants to go to the picnic. This results into a fight between him and Johanna, who believes it to be a waste of money. Dinner ends with all four kids sitting outside because they kept yelling. At that point, Anne mentions how perhaps they can get stuff from crows nests.

A bit later, Johanna comes outside with the news that Bert has promised to stop smoking so that she can go to the picnic. Anne obviously is elated when she finds out. That evening Anne and Johanna spend a bit of time talking on how Johanna has never been on a picnic, and how she’s forgotten by now whether or not she ever wanted to go. Bert meanwhile gets the “brilliant” idea to wager the money he got in horse races.

The next day, Anne prepares to go to the picnic while Bert tells her that he’s going to bring her to the church, as he himself was planning to go to the horse races. Johanna however overhears him, and the two of them start fighting as usual. They get interrupted by Horace and Edward, who are stuck in one of the trees. Apparently they thought that crows really kept expensive things in their nests, but when they started climbing they got too scared and fell off. Bert manages to save them, but he hurts his shoulder in the process. He is okay in the end, but he can’t lift heavy things for a week. Yeah, that’s going to help with his work.

Everyone is down, aside from Anne, who still starts fantasizing about going to the picnic, but she quickly stops when Horace and Edward start crying about their tortoise. Bert then just shrugs everything off, and promises Johanna that he’s going to work hard to make up for the work he missed, and even for Johanna’s part. The family then spends the rest of the day picnicking at their own location, since Bert doesn’t need to go to work anyway. Anne then gets to see the sea for the first time and the episode ends.

The Marysville arc has been quite boring, though. It’s much lighter, but in most WMT series the slice of life parts are just as interesting to watch, but thanks to those brats at school it’s getting a bit tedious to watch. Still, in this episode we finally got a bit more foreshadowing of what’s going to happen in the future, and I just hope that once Anne moves to her second family, the annoying brats are going away too. I’d really wish to believe that, but the fact that they’re in the ED while Elisa wasn’t does worry me a bit.
Rating: * (Good)
Finally the focus is back at the Thomas family.