The best episode of Hanamaru Youchien yet! I’m not sure whether this is because I just watched Working!! today, but it did make me think: Hanamaru Youchien is currently doing a lot of things right at which Working completely fell flat. It’s a show about a job in which we actually see adults working. The characters all have their quirks, and yet they’re also just actual people: their quirks aren’t the only thing about them. It’s got this innocence for both the adults and the children, as compared to the cast of Working, which really was trying way too hard in its first episode.

This episode was surprisingly witty, and all about different perspectives. Yamamoto always was a bit of a bimbo, but this episode shows that her sister is the same, and she actually knows this about her sister as well. It made the one-sided love of Tsuchida a lot more interesting. It was also very funny to see the three kids in this. The sharpness of their comments was just priceless.

But the best part of this episode was the second half. What an awesome way to flesh out each and every single character, simply by letting her tell why they chose to work at a kindergarten. The chemistry between these teachers is fun, but subtle and doesn’t try to shove the quirks of these characters down your throat.

Oh, and as for the role playing; Hiiragi’s deconstruction of the space adventure genre was brilliant. ^^;
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Did you know that a Precure Movie is going to premiere in a number of weeks? Well, if you didn’t know, the OP is here to remind you.

In any case, while the previous episodes have all focused on the lead characters themselves, this was the first episode to completely focus on a random kid who feels down. It’s a staple of most mahou shoujo, and especially the thing that kills most of the bad ones. The mood of this episode is completely different from the previous ones and a lot of the comedy is gone now to focus on a more serious story.

However, despite all that, this episode passed its test with flying colours. With this episode, it completely trashed all of the bad episodic series, by showing how simple it is to make a great story out of just one episode with a random character. With just a few modifications to a really overused formula, it showed the power of episodic stories.

Tsubomi really wanted to help Miura, who had a very mundane problem; as he grew up his father couldn’t give as much attention to him because of his ramen shop, yet he couldn’t say anything about it because he didn’t want to disturb his dreams. I’ve seen this used quite a few times now, but this episode made it so genuine that it actually works. Being turned into a monster didn’t necessarily make him stop angsting, but rather it alerted his father about what made him worry, which lead to a pretty heart-warming conclusion.

Also, with these monsters you usually see them wreck random buildings and people that nobody is going to care about. And here this guy was, about to hit his father! That’s some hardcore stuff for a kids’ show.

And also, mind that we’re only at episode five yet. We’ve seen like, four monsters at this point, and yet this episode introduced yet another villain, instead of letting the previous ones try again. Could this be another sort of hint?

NB. At this point, when it comes to the currently airing season, I actually consider Toei to be my favourite animation company. Bones, David Production, Brains Base, A-1, Madhouse and SynergySP may also do a great job this season, but they all have just one amazing series that’s currently airing. Toei has three of them: Kaidan Restarant, Marie & Gali and this one. While all three of them may just be kids’ shows, they’re all amazing in their own way, and for once they’re kids series that don’t look down on kids by making cheap stuff, but instead try to make something actually good and engaging.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Contrary to the large scale of the past number of episodes, this one was nearly entirely focused on the group of Ed, Greed and those two Chimera. But that still didn’t prevent it from being as excellent as usual. I really have to admit that the way in which the action scenes of this series is written is stuffed with a ton of creativity. That fight against pride was really excellent, especially in the way that we finally get to see one of his major weaknesses.

What I also liked is how this series shows that not all human experiment victims are dissatisfied with their bodies, and want to go back to who they originally were. Like the two chimeras in this episode said: at times it’s pretty convenient to have such a body. With Al, it’s of course an entirely different story. Convenient as it may be to have a mechanical body, he’s completely under Pride’s control now, not to mention that the link between the armor and his mind can sever any minute now.

There was a little Deus ex Machina in this episode, though. While it’s awesome to see Lan Fan back, I do wonder how she 1) knew where Lin was at the time when Ed put a lot of emphasis on secrecy, and 2) knew where the heck she should look for in the total dark.

In any case, I’m expecting a very long finale here. I mean, the promised day is like what? The next day? At this point there still are 16 episodes left. Overall though, I’m very glad that for once we get a series that gets enough time to tell its entire story, rather than it being cut off at a random point.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

I’m not exactly sure why last week suddenly introduced a hiatus, but it was probably the Olympics. But seriously: it was SO WORTH THE WAIT. This episode was amazing, it was just one huge chunk of atmosphere. It was exactly what this series is best at. And on top of that the character-development is finally kicking in!

Despite the wonderful characters, Cross Game up to this point always suffered from two flaws: first of all the baseball (on which I’ve commented often enough), but the characters also were pretty static for most part after the first episode. Right now however, everything is coming together and you can really see how everyone’s evolving. Senda is growing up from the idiot he used to be, Kou, although this is very subtle, is also growing up and isn’t the kid that he once was. Aoba is throwing her Tsundere-side away, the bond between every character and Akane has also changed considerably from when we first met her.

I truly believe that this final arc is all about transcending into adulthood. Not necessarily about the increased responsibilities, but rather leaving the past behind, and growing up. I fully remember that a few months ago, I commented on how I couldn’t see this show surpass itself anymore after that point.

Well. I was wrong.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

So this is going to be the final arc that closes off this series, spanning the final four episodes. So far, I must admit that I’m intrigued: here this series comes and gathers 13 people for a mission… only to kill off more than half of them throughout this episode without any information whatsoever as to who they were.

The remaining ones are actually pretty similar to the group that was there at the mountain climbing arc: we have the token chick and assassin combined into one, then there’s the guy who bears a grudge against Cobra and the siblings are also there, although this time they’re less friendly with each other. The Geronimo of this story will probably be the King.

Despite the similarities, it wasn’t a boring episode at all. One of the reasons for that was of course the unpredictable bloodbath that occurred in this episode, but this arc also has a lot more time to get interesting, compared to the mountain-climbing arc that was just two episodes. There’s also that matter of who it was that called everyone, as none of the people who made it alive seems like a good candidate. The siblings are just too stupid for that, the bird wouldn’t call everyone together without knowing about Cobra, the woman would not have invited Chaos Troopers, and Cobra would have been a lot more careful with choosing who he wants to work together with, if something would cause him to have to find back-up for some reason.
Rating: * (Good)