My blog has moved!

You should be automatically redirected in 6 seconds. If not, visit
http://psgels.net
and update your bookmarks.

February 23, 2010

Kobato - 19

Filed under: Finished Series: Slice of Life/Drama/Kobato



Oh, how I love Madhouse. Kobato has never been among their big-budgeted series, but in episodes like this they just go all out, and produce an absolutely gorgeous episode that has among the best eye-candy I’ve seen this season. The way they handle their CG is miles above most other animation companies.

And about this episode… I can only say how adorable it was. It was all about Kobato and Kiyokazu, and the development between the two was basic, but very heart-warming. Show this as a random episode and it’ll probably fall short. The reason why I enjoyed this episode so much was because of how the characters were already developed at this point. Kobato is the kind of series that doesn’t offer much in the short term, however it’s a gem on the long term.

Also, while he played just a very small part in this episode, I loved Ioryogi. He was just adorable, both in the way at which he kept reminding Kobato (who is more and more trying to avoid that matter) of the konpeito-bottle, and the way that he ended up celebrating Christmas. I really thought that that white creature didn’t want to talk to him anymore, but here this episode proved me wrong. This will offer even more opportunity for the creators to get the finale right. The main focus is going to be on two things:
- What will happen off the nursery?
- What will happen to Kobato?

The former will probably result in a good ending, but I don’t care about that: I’m only interested in the role that every single character will have in it. The latter however has been built up extremely well. It’s about the reverse of Chobits: in there the main storyline started off incredibly intriguing but became less and less interesting as the show went on. Here, I’m looking more and more forward to that ending. I blame Kobato: she’s become such an adorable character at this point.

(Not that I consider Chobits to be bad or anything, of course, but what made Chobits stand out was its collection of themes and subject matters, not the main characters).
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Sora no Oto - 08

Filed under: Finished Series: Slice of Life/Drama/Sora no Oto



A calm before the storm episode… through a really weird one. I admit that I didn’t expect such an episode at this point of the series.

So yeah. The fluff in this episode was very unconventional. After the hard-hitting previous episode, you’d expect the fun and games to be over, but instead we get a really uneventful episode in which Kanata waits for a phone to ring. The part in which she was about to wet herself was rather uncomfortable to watch. It was well written however, there’s no doubt about that.

However, we finally know what the final arc of this series is going to be about: saving the country. This has been a very down to earth series, but it had it coming: there were a few very clear hints pointing to this. The first one was the legend of the five priestesses: very basic foreshadowing. And then there’s the matter of the princess of the country being mentioned a number of times. This episode also confirmed that Rio has a very high status, and basically came here, running away from that.

The final five episodes are basically going to take care of that, and I bet that they’re going to be completely different from what we’ve seen from this series so far. I really hope that the creators weren’t too ambitious with it, I’d much rather have seen a finale that would focus on the characters. For this final arc, the creators are really going to have to take care to not overdo it and suddenly have our five-some god-mode themselves through this war. That’s the thing I’m most afraid of.

Oh, and Kanata in this episode proved that airheads can use their brains as well, when she revealed that she knew about the secret practices of the platoon. God, more anime should realize this.
Rating: * (Good)