Argento Soma is one of the post-Evangelion series. Like series as Betterman, Reideen and Dai Guard, and even awesome series as Figure 17 and Bokura no, it features a series of smart and very hard to destroy monsters that need to be destroyed, and the lead characters have some sort of huge mecha that can do the job. There’s a lot of potential for this kind of formula and granted, Argento Soma isn’t the best of the bunch, but it’s a fine attempt nonetheless.

Argento Soma chooses for a slow-paced approach with some subtle angst, and I must say that it works quite nicely. For once we don’t have any teenagers piloting the giant mechas, but instead we have a team of people well in their twenties. In fact, there is only one child in the story, and with her it’s made clear over and over that she actually doesn’t belong in the military. Central to the story, and the definite highlight, is the relationship between the two lead characters: the young girl and one of the main pilots that is to fight the evil “aliens”, as they’re called in this series. They’re both heavily traumatized and scarred by things that happened in the past and through the series they help each other growing over their troubles.

A major theme in this series is also symbolism. There are two particular characters who have a habit of comparing the situation they’re in to either random anecdotes or figures of speeches. This show also has a nice little pattern with its episode titles, which are all emphasized at the end of each episodes. In some cases the symbolism is a bit silly, but most of the times it works pretty nicely.

You don’t want to watch this series for the battles, which more often than not take just a back-seat to other things. Central to this series is its cast of characters, which develops nicely throughout the series. There are a lot of episodes that don’t have anything to do with fighting, but instead focus on other things, like one episode is fully dedicated to politics (a very well done episode, by the way), and there are quite a few episodes dedicated to character-development. The battles themselves quickly turn repetitive though. There are also a few random plot-holes that pop up near the ending, and I also think that Soma’s voice actor isn’t fully able to make his character believable once he starts angsting. The villains in this series are also very stereotypical and really lack any sort of impact.

This series does stand out in its soundtrack and character-designs: both give this show a unique feeling. Overall though, this series could have done with a bit more ambition. It never really reaches any heights: the story is very simple if you start to see the bigger picture, and the characters themselves do feel like they could have been fleshed out a bit more, but that too has its charms: it’s not trying to become the best thing since sliced bread, but instead just puts down an enjoyable little series with a bit of depth, yet doesn’t hit heights and at that, it succeeds.

I have two problems with Umineko: Eva is too much stuck in her Takano-voice, and Maria is trying too hard to sound like Rena. Especially Maria gets on my nerves. I’m not really bothered with how she’s a little girl, but the way the camera keeps giving her close-ups when she’s making Higurashi-faces for no reason. I mean, one thing is that you can almost hang a sign on her with “Yo people, I am evil”, but the stranger thing is that nobody even seems to notice this. I mean, doesn’t anyone find it weird that a nine-year-old can quote and redraw exact passages on the bible?

But yeah, apart from that I’m getting really fond of this series: it’s basically one really big murder mystery so far in which the characters themselves try to find out what the heck is going on. This episode even continued to reduce the body count by killing off Eva and her husband. That killed off just about all of the direct heirs and their partners, aside from Natsuhi. Also, if the killer was just after the money, then why did Gouda and Sharon also die?

Right now, the most suspicious ones are Natsuhi, because she now is the most likely to succeed Kinzou and has shown to be the least emotionally stable of the cast, and Genji, who was alone outside of Eva’s room for a while and therefore could have made the blood drawing. Since the chain wasn’t cut or anything, it was very likely that Eva’s body already lied on the bed when he opened the door, but he skillfully hid it from Kanon.

Rating: ** (Excellent)
I’m going to remove these blurbs after this entry, because it’s getting tedious to write them for every single episode. Episode ratings will remain, though.

At the moment, there is no doubt for me that Aoi Hana is the best series to debut this summer season, and this episode only reinforced this. From the very beginning, it’s been a consistently excellent yuri series with believable and charming characters. I’m also really glad to see that the great animation wasn’t just something of the first two episodes: this episode yet again looked great, with detailed animated shots and some great artwork, despite the down to earth character-designs.

This episode also surprised me with how the two lead characters didn’t become a couple. Instead, Fumi started dating the captain of the basketball club, while Akira had simply been going out with her friends and is still looking. But then again, this is anime. Has there ever been a romance story in which two childhood friends did not fall in love with each other at some point?

I’m curious as to how many episodes there are going to be. Unfortunately, the episode page of ANN is completely messed up in this case, so there is no way of telling whether there are actually going to be 11 episodes, or whether there are going to be more. Interestingly, the manga this is based on only has two volumes. That’s pretty short for a manga, and yet it feels perfect for a short story like this one.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
Very nice romantic developments, especially for Fumi.