I must say, this episode caught me off hand. With the tons of random characterizations that never really progressed neither the story nor the characters forward, I was expecting this episode to be again one of those episodes that’s just there to flesh out the characters, without any real substance. But here this episode came and proved me wrong, it looks like things are finally getting a bit more interesting.

Seeing Gauche’s backstory animated was definitely the best part of Letter Bee so far since Gauche himself left. We’re finally getting to a bit of intrigue here: what was up with the government airship that crashed, and why of all things did Gauche’s memories of his mother get erased just like that? It was pretty sad seeing Aria in the middle of it, who couldn’t believe that Gauche just forgot the most important person in his life.

As for the rest of the episode… yeah, it was pretty typical. Sylvette turns out to be a terrible cook (like we haven’t seen those people enough in anime), Lag in true shounen fashion actually shoots with too much power (you can never have too much power in a shounen-series), and Nichi still refuses to listen to anyone but Lag. Still, I’m happy. That Gauche flashback was exactly what I was waiting for. What I’m hoping for right now is that the creators put such a thing in every single episode from now on, rather than creating very long build-up arcs, just for a few episodes of climax.
Rating: * (Good)

Well, Lag is a bee now.With a bit of luck, the introduction should now be over and the real story should start. It was a bit embarrassing to hear him claim to want to become the best Bee ever. While I guess that he has been majorly influenced by Gauche and all, but all I could think of when I heard that was Naruto and Ash Ketchum. And that’s a direction I definitely don’t want him to go into. O.o

A majority of ths episode was spent on a really long flashback, that didn’t really tell us anything we didn’t know already. At least, nothing major. It did raise a few subtle questions: why did Gauche change guns? Why did he want Lag to have his old gun? Where did he get such an expensive and unique gun? And why was all important information that would explain all of these questions conveniently left out of the flashback, even though those fragments are meant to be from his soul? Oh, and there seems to be some sort of organization that plans to overthrow the goverment, but yeah: every show has those.

Also, more crying! Sylvette reveals why Gauche became friendly with Lag: Lag reminded him of Sylvette. These two should enter crying competitions, seriously. I also feel that this series is using its soundtrack a bit too much. What I mean by this is the following: in this episode, it yet again wastes a bunch of beautiful tracks during relatively unimportant scenes. If the soundtrack for this series is big, then there’s no problem, however I fear that those tracks are going to lose their impact when they’re played too often.

I may be overly negative right now, but this wasn’t that disappointing of an episode. Uneventful is a better word. Unlike many other series, I really feel that Letter Bee has potential, but there’s no way for me to know for sure whether it’ll be able to deliver in the end.
Rating: (Enjoyable)

While still formulaic, this show has just gotten an a bit more interesting. We’re still in the formula of “Lag meets someone related to the plot, Lag cries, lag tries to save”, but the plot in question has gotten quite a bit more interesting now, and this episode did well in exploring it.

Right now, this series’ biggest enemy is cheese. This episode kept it within bounds and even Lag’s crying felt genuine, but that was because it was simply building up. The next episode is going to have to put in some real effort in preventing this episode from going down the same route as episode 6. That plot definitely has potential, and I like the subtle ties that are created between the different characters (that blond-haired office Bee turns out to be a former friend of Gauche, for example).

What stood out in this episode were Nichi’s weird antics again. I’m not sure what’s up with her, but she constantly manages to amuse me, even when she’s supposed to stay in the background while Lag is talking to someone. It’s not much, but it’s things like these that keep me from getting bored during the more quiet parts of this series.
Rating: * (Good)

The thing I have with Letter Bee is that for every scene of cheese, it also has something nice to make up for it, like for example the Broccoli forest, a cute moment between the characters or a surprisingly genuine scene of Lag. That’s what’s keeping me going with this series.

And yeah, apart from that there’s not a lot of other stuff to say about this series at this point: you can see that it’s obviously building up and taking its time. While a bit boring, it’s a good thing. I’m seeing enough hints that this show knows what it’s doing, so the only thing we can do at the moment is wait.

This episode was nothing special, but I enjoyed it. I think the things I liked best were the stories of how all of the other bees managed to get past the giant centipede-ish Gaichuu. And after all, a Dingo like Nichi that can launch you into the air does make it a lot easier to attack that bugger. I also liked how Nichi kept acting in the background when Lag was busy with something.

Anyway, next episode should spice things up a bit. Gauche suddenly stopped being a Letter Bee? This could get interesting.
Rating: (Enjoyable)

In a true headdesk moment, I have forgotten to actually post this episode’s impression. Thanks dreamer for bringing it to my attention, and apologies to those who were waiting for it.

Unfortunately, the text for this post is gone now and I don’t feel like rewriting it, but thankfully it wasn’t a major episode. The conclusion to the Jiggy Pepper story was a bit too cheesy and standard, and didn’t really stand out. It wasn’t bad, but not exactly good either.
Episode Rating: (Enjoyable)

This episode was actually pretty good. It’s still the kind of drama we’re used to from this series: simple and emotional, and on top of that this episode simply showed the story of a random person who happened to cross Lag’s path at an unfortunate time. However, the way in which letter Bee sets itself apart from all of the other dramas this season is the way in which its drama feels really genuine.

Normally this episode would have been very cheesy indeed: we have this girl who has lost her little brother, and the final wish of this brother is to send a message to a Letter Bee who used to be friends with them. However, this episode was surprisingly well told: the creators added lots of small details that spiced up this episode, like the way in which that girl first deceives Lag, Nichi who wants to be called a Dingo while Lag wants to return her to a place in which she can grow up safely (still not recognizing that he’d be absolutely screwed if it wasn’t for her), the traveller and his falcon, the villagers, the background music. It all amounted to a surprisingly good climax.

Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but if you exclude the still frames, then the animation is actually pretty good, isn’t it? And with that, I mostly mean the in-between animation. I think that that’s also the thing that Studio Pierrot is especially good at. I especially noticed this when I watched Kaze no Youjinbo: its animation is either incredibly good or incredibly bad. And you can also spot those really good parts of animation in the opening episodes of GTO. I’m hoping that the awesome animators who were responsible for those good parts are going to return here as well. This episode was at least an indication that the creators are going for a very good frame-rates.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Like expected, this episode was somewhat hampered by the stereotypical and badly acted evil circus directors. What I didn’t expect was that this episode would make up for it with the “Forest of Broccoli”. How awesome is that?

In all seriousness though, I didn’t expect much of this episode because of those circus directors. I really feared for some clichéd storyline in which Lag has to save his damsel in distress from these evil people. Nevertheless, the creators seemed to realize this as well, so they quickly abandoned the circus-plot, in favour of focusing on the growing relationship between Lag and Nichi, along with their newly acquired friend, a small animal called “Steak” (yeah, Nichi named him that way; it really seems like names in this series are quite a bit different from normal ones. Both their sound, their meaning and their symbolism).

The thing with this episode was that it was a very mixed bag, but I actually found lots of stuff that I liked. It was a bit messy for the creators to suddenly abandon two story-lines (the circus and we also never see the people whose camel Lag blatantly stole), but the scene in which Nichi sat next to Lag just shot up his memory in order to protect her was definitely charming. She’s a damsel in distress, but a very un-typical damsel in distress at that: she didn’t really need to be saved, but nevertheless, when Lag who is completely useless in fights aside from that godmode beam of his, tried to save her, this wasn’t meant to show how weak she was, but rather how she never has been treated kindly due to her powers. It is cliché, but also well enough executed to work.

Also, it took me a while in noticing this, but Letter Bee has a surprisingly good soundtrack. It’s not exactly the best of this season, but nevertheless it’s varied, simple and yet effective and powerful when it needs to. The composer up till now did the soundtracks for… Saiunkoku Monogatari, Juuni Kokuki and Victorian Romance Emma. Talk about difference…
Rating: * (Good)

As your typical shounen-series, we’ve now gotten to the point in which Lag is going to have to take the examinations of the Letter Bees. This isn’t bad at all. Although overused, even the best shounens as Hunter x Hunter used it, with a number of great results. As long as Lag grows beyond the crybaby that he currently is, there shouldn’t be that much of a problem.

In the meantime, we learn what’s going to set Lag apart from all of the other Letter Bees: he’s going to have a human Dingo. The creators just keep hinting at this, so something really weird is going to happen if this isn’t going to be the case. It’s really standard shounen stuff again: the lead character comes across a cute girl, he helps her and somehow she’s thankful enough to become his companion. Again, while this is definitely annoying, as long as the rest of the series makes up for it, I guess it’s a good enough for setting up the story. And really, I’ve seen many, many series who did this premise worse than what we saw in this episode.

What I found interesting in this episode was how we basically glaze over the past five years, and yet we know that Lag hasn’t been sitting still. While the camera was off,he studied hard to be accepted as a letter bee, and he even met a bunch of them, including the one who likes to eat, whose name turns out to be Connor. I like how the creators made it seem like Connor was going to be a dumb stereotype through the OP, yet he had an actual personality when he shows up.

Also, what is up with the names in this series? “Lag Seeing”? “Niche”? “Love Someone Down”? Ah well, I can imagine how this could be a stylistic choice. The only real complaint I have about this series is the following: based on the architecture, while people don’t live in luxury, they don’t seem to be that poor. Is Lag really the only one who felt sorry for her? Were there really no passers-by who felt sorry for her as well, and tried to help her out?
Rating: (Enjoyable)

Okay, this episode convinced me to start blogging this series. It had a bit of an uneventful first episode, but you can see that it was holding back. This episode showed a bit more of this series’ potential, and showed that it can very well write a nice dramatic scene. Lag is a bit too much of a crybaby in this episode, but thankfully: he grows up. Nevertheless, it still remains a question whether or not the creators are going to be able to pace the story properly, get the best out of the setting… and somehow solve the problem that they’re dealing with a still on-going manga…

The director is a new guy, as in he’s never directed an entire series before. This really can go anywhere, and at this point he seems decent enough. You can see that he’s not trying out or adding a lot of extra things, but the adaptation so far seems faithful from the perspective of someone who hasn’t read the manga like myself. He however was the technical director of Kaze no Youjinbo, which does show a lot of promise. Especially since Kaze no Youjinbo started off really slow and uneventful as well, and only became memorable as it went on. Perhaps this is the guy who can bring Studio Pierrot back to their standards before the Naruto and Bleach-era.

In any case, while a bit cheesy, that scene where Lag carried Gauche on his own was quite endearing. I like how the creators chose to start this series off with a young version of the protagonist: this way we can really get to know him. I just hope that he became less of a crybaby, but five years can change a lot of things. And apart from the crying, I liked how this episode really took its time to show the conversation between Lag and Gauche.

Apparently, there are going to be 7 DVDs. Since the first is going to contain the first two episodes, my guess is that the final six will each contain three, making for a total of 20 episodes for this series. Seems enough to get a nice story out of it.
Rating: * (Good)

Letter Bee

Short Synopsis: Our lead character delivers packages and fights monsters.
Usually, series have a tendency to start out with a bang. Letter Bee however, is different, and instead very much takes its time. The scope of this episode is very limited: we just see three characters: a postal worker with a magic gun, a kid who lost his parents, and the postal worker’s dog. This episode progresses very quietly as the two of them meet and travel together, learn to deal with their differences, and explore each other’s problems (a very convenient power of the lead character seems to be that when he uses them, anyone can look into his heart). So yeah, because of that this wasn’t the most exciting episode of the new season, but if it picks up in the future it could be something interesting. The storytelling was solid, the characters are all fleshed out. Now all that’s left is the creators, making use of this.
OP: The song has nice vocals but fails to stand out otherwise, visuals are pretty basic foreshadowing.
ED: Again an impressive singer, but not really an impressive song.
Potential: 60%

The Sacred Blacksmith

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a rather incompetent teen-aged warrior.
Ah, I hate it when these series come that can really go anywhere. This series has absolutely gorgeous graphics and monster-designs, a snappy direction that really brings the best out of the different sword-fights that for once aren’t just focused on just slashing swords around, but also concentrate on the quality of each weapon. The characters are far away from stereotypes as well, and seem to have well-motivated back-stories. But yeah, on the other hand the lead character remains a moe teen-aged tsundere, and her love interest is a genius swordsman and blacksmith, despite also being a teenager. While on one hand, the lead character strikes me as an ambitious girl who takes initiatives, there’s also so much potential for this to turn into yet another one of those generic fantasy-series that never really goes anywhere, where she’s stuck as the eternal damsel in distress that always needs to be saved. The execution really rocks, but if the rest of the story doesn’t go anywhere then it’s just a waste to put such a powerhouse as Manglobe behind this series.
OP: Mostly just standard J-Pop with cheesy Engrish parts thrown into it.
ED: Again very generic J-Pop and the animation attempts to be cute but ultimately isn’t.
Potential: 60%

Shugo Chara! Party!

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets bugged by an overmoralistic elementary schooler.
I figured that I might as well check out what became of the extremely fillerish series that I once considered as something with potential, but oh my god. WTF have they done with this series!? The creators successfully brought the target audience down with six years with this episode, this now has turned into a series that you show to four-year olds. The entire first half of this episode was nothing more than the voice actresses for the different cute mascots of this series as they “attempted” to talk to their audience throughout the TV. Heck, Sesame Street is more mature than this… thing. The second half was actually animated, but there too you can see that the creators are going for an entirely different target audience this time, when they introduce an elementary schooler who is probably going to hog Amu’s place as a lead character with her powers to talk to X-Eggs. I disliked this series for having too many fillers, but this is a treatment that it definitely doesn’t deserve!
OP: THE proof why live-action should stay FAR away from anime. Cheesy J-pop at its worst.
ED: The live action! It burns! At least the song didn’t.
Potential: -50%