Yet another amazing episode. Last week gave us one heck of a mystery, and this week did a terrific job of playing with it. From the start it was clear that this was some sort of illusion, but the how and why were what made it interesting. I love how the start of this episode showed what happened to the rest of the cast during the previous episode (especially Izumi was hilarious).

After that they found a very neat way to bring back Shinjuurou back to his senses and have him solve the murder. Or have him use Kaishou’s deduction in this case. What makes this interesting is that the novelist probably would have gotten away with things if it wasn’t for the people around Shinjuurou helping him, in particular Kaishou and Kazamori. The murder mystery was also very neatly wrapped up, and it indeed made great use of the previous episode’s build up in which the three actresses had no idea what to make of the script.

What’s also interesting is that Shinjuurou doesn’t care about retribution. So far in these past eight episodes, there has been no showing of victims getting punished or arrested: that all happens off screen. This may seem rushed, but remember why Shinjuurou is solving mysteries in the first place: it’s not because he wants to fight crime. Instead, he’s doing all this because he happened to be unfortunate enough to meet Inga, and he happened to be very good at solving mysteries. In order to keep Inga from running rampant, he continuously has to solve mysteries. What goes beyond that simply doesn’t involve him anymore.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

If you want to be good, you have to suffer. Chihayafuru really nailed that in this episode without going overboard like most “hard work and guts”-series. This show has really convinced me that these kids are really good because of how they grew up, and not just because the plot demands it *coughSakicough*. I loved Chihaya’s mindset in this episode: it’s of course safer to just gradually introduce them to Karuta. But Karuta is a game about the mind. Being able to play against someone very talented is a much better way to get that mindset that is needed for this game. If you continue to play against amateurs, it’s much harder to.

My only complaint about this episode was that the creators have now completely forgotten that Taichi was supposed to have a girlfriend. In particular, no effort whatsoever has been spent into why he fell for her. At the moment it’s much like he figured what the heck and just picked a random girl to hang out with.

But still, there are two shows that really stand above the others this season: Un-Go and this one. Chihaya doesn’t just drag every character along with her, she also does so with the viewer. The final part of this episode in which Arata showed signs of life again only reaffirmed this. With this kind of reaction, he has the potential to become a really good rival, miles away from the usual rival.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Sato Junichi. Do yourself a favor. Get a cat.

Remember the episode from Aria? The one which was entirely devoted to President Aria? Well, for a moment, it actually looked like this episode would in its entirety follow around the big white blob that is Momoneko-sama. It got surreal at times, turning into this bizarre parody of the silent movie to narrate what he was saying.

THANK GOD though, the second half of this episode was about something completely different. And it was wonderful. It’s been a while since I watched such a down to earth portrayal of love sickness. The character it centred around only appeared in one scene before, but her characterization was already terrific.

With three or four episodes left, I do hope that the creators will use this time to do something special. I mean, this episode was a step into the right direction, but I want more. This show already has excellent characterization for just about every of its characters. Now use that.

Also, I’m not sure if I’m the only one in this, but I always really feel sorry for the voice actors who are tasked with voicing simple animals. This episode thankfully wasn’t as bad (seriously at least these cats had some really good voice acting, even though there was absolutely nothing feline about these… things), but it’s especially bad when a voice actor is called in to voice a cow in the background… doing exactly one “mooo”. Do these people feel any pride in their work?
Rating: ** (Excellent)

I like this show, but I do have a bit of trouble changing my expectations from what I expected it to be, to what it actually turned out to be. I expected this series to be a set of mind games with a ton of mystery and suspense. Instead, it doesn’t focus on building up mystery at all, instead of suspenseful it’s more over the top, and the mind games aspect of the show is rather held back by Yukiteru being a gullible idiot.

But ah well, I guess that that was the intent of this show: it needed someone who can both walk into just about every trap laid in front of him, be wimpy enough to be dragged around so that Yuno can shine, and still at the times where it matters find his balls and act like a skilled action hero. It’s forced, but it does carry the rest of this series, and I do have to say that the new villains here are pretty interesting, with a possibility to be the most interesting villains so far. Yuno in particular was great here.

Though was the underwear scene really necessary? I mean, this is no fanservice show. It’s almost if it’s a prerequisite for a guy to bump into a girl and expose her panties like that. And at the very least: if you’re going to do fanservice: make it creative. Pulling a scene like that only shows that you’re not really putting much thought into this.
Rating: * (Good)

What a difference compared to the climax of the first season this is. Back then, this was the point at which everything collapsed in a slew of dull fights after dull fights. This however is much more dynamic. There are a lot of things happening at the same time, and there is a lot of meaning put into all of the fights beyond just “bad guy evil, kill him”.

In particular the resurrection of Nue, or Abe no Seimei was well pulled off here, as a giant fetus floating in the sky. On top of that, there is the irony of Hagoromo Gitsune probably not being the one who killed Nura’s father, but it was some sort of doing from her human part. Beyond that there are a lot of different parties involved that all have some sort of agenda. That’s what makes this finale work. In the first season everyone pretty much melted together. Nobody stood apart.

And on top of that the execution also was a lot less solid back then. Again Studio Deen aren’t the best animators, and one of the hardest things to animate is a battle between small armies. With clever camera work and arc though, a lot of movement was created here. Thumbs up.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

The first half of this episode, I think it actually worked better than in the first series. It was simple and more to the point, just like Gon really. It had a nice build-up of “oh, this is going to take forever”, only to solve things in minutes afterwards. Although, Gon’s voice actress was trying a bit too hard again in this episode. It’s mostly her range. She’s very easy in just yelling all of her lines.

The second half however… it was a bit of a mess. And it’s not the pacing really. When you just look at pacing, then the new series is actually better than the first. It’s just that the voice acting is so much, much worse. The voice actors are trying too hard and especially the blue guy (why is he suddenly bright blue?) was hamming it up. Compare that to the first season, which had fantastic voice acting and which had voice actors who knew exactly when they should be subtle, and when to raise their voices.

What’s even worse is that we suddenly got to see entire inner monologues of that blue guy, which killed off all of the tension that was there already. It added some nonsensical stuff, while it cut out the stuff that made him quite charming (like the way in which he broke his fist, for example). Also, I’m surprised here: the way in which he refused to wake up, was actually a filler of the first season? I really would not have guessed. That really was something good they added back there.

And then there was Kurapika, who really managed to save this half when he saw the spider. It again suffers a bit too much from acting too hard when compared to the first series, but the moment where Kurapika got his red eyes: that was just wonderful. It wasn’t just a great scene. It also showed that the creators here know how to deliver the darker scenes.

Overall I’m quite positive of this series so far. The creators might actually nail it. However, there is one character who I’m positive that they’re going to ruin if they keep going on like this: Senritsu. I won’t say why, for the sake of the people who aren’t familiar with Hunter X Hunter, but I really cannot imagine her with the current focus on overacting from this series.
Rating: * (Good)

What mind created this? And what was he on while creating this?

So… this was the dreaded school festival episode. Usually it’s part of the pool of episode templates for creators who don’t know how to fill their episodes. In this case, it’s an excuse of the creators to dress up the entire male cast as women. Heck, just look at the screenshots above: Daimon Kaito had to solve a puzzle in a dress, in the middle of a burning circus tent, surrounded by very creepy melting dolls while Nonoha was turned into Snow White. A tent by the way, which was secretly constructed next to the school, making use of how everyone was too busy preparing for the school festival. How do they come up with these things?

Also, don’t get me wrong here: I am currently enjoying this series a lot here. It’s completely ridiculous when you think about it, and I’m not going to stop ranting about that. But that’s the fun part about it. The thing is, that I find being generic a much worse crime than making no sense. It’s anime. It should be crazy.

What’s even more important however, is the execution. And despite all my ranting… this show is doing that well. This episode was all about the student council president, and it actually worked. It’s bizarre, but the characterization in this show is simple, but effective. There are times at which I’d wish that this show would combine its characters more, like involve more characters with its puzzles at the same time, but ah well. This works as well.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

The golden rule of comedy: if you’re going to make sex jokes, then make sure that they are good ones.

I’m not sure what happened here, but this was without a doubt the worst episode of Ben-To so far. I’m not sure what happened. Did the light novels have this exact same chapter? Did the animators not have enough budget to animate any more fights? Did they pull in a bad episode director? In either way, this episode was the typical bad episode that bad harem shows use to fill their time.

This episode was meant to introduce the two major characters of the final arc. And they’re incredibly stupid. That’s what I really dislike about most moe fanservice shows: they reduce their characters to idiots, just for the sake of fanservice. This is something I thought Ben-To avoided, but this episode made this show a whole lot more generic.

It’s a good thing that the creators still know how to tell jokes, because things like Saito’s dive were absolutely hilarious. At the same time though: this also was the point where the Saito Pervert joke passed their shelf date. For one they were repeated way too much in this episode, and for two this episode tried way too hard. The jokes were fun when they were subtle, like for example in episode one. This was once again “let’s strip Saito and laugh, and have him generate inspiration for Hana. I knw that there are people in this world who no matter what automatically laugh whenever a penis is involved, but at least try to also cater to the ones who don’t…
Rating: - (Disappointing)

Mercilessly killing innocent young boys is nice and all, but the Kayneth gore scene in this episode was by far the most effective gore scene in this episode so far. Gore isn’t just abut blood, but also about making it look very painful. Breaking a finger may not be as bad as stabbing someone in the heart, or hinting at a bloody corpse off-screen, but the way it was portrayed in this torture-like way definitely paid off.

In fact the entire part around Lancer, Kayneth and that wife of his was one of the best parts of this series so far, because of how much change there was compared to the previous episodes. Seeing a suddenly helpless Kayneth with his wife now taking over worked as a really good development. Lancer’s pas was also excellent. We didn’t really get to see exactly what happened to him, but the hints were plenty to give him some new depth, and add that to his strong convictions of not betraying Kayneth, and yes: these are three characters who improved a lot in this episode.

The development of Rider and Waver is more slow and gradual. These two have banter, and over the episodes they grow closer together. It’s the standard stuff, but it works. Rider in particular still has some great lines, and he’s really well acted.

Also, I keep praising series for picking settings that aren’t overused. So of course I really like how Lancer dates back from the Celtic legends. In fact, nearly all the servants come from interesting times in history. There is a lot of interesting stuff in history, so it’s great that there are series like this that aren’t just “let’s glorify our history”. While interesting, I want to see them glorify the history of other areas in the world as well.

Oh, and what I also liked was how this episode turned magic into a science.It was a clever little trick to set up a systematic map of the town’s river and its magic use. But are sewers in Japan really big enough to fit in Rider’s entire carriage?
Rating: ** (Excellent)

And then there are these kinds of episodes, which are completely awesome, go against the childish nature of this series, are full of eye candy and are the full proof that Gonzo haven’t lost their touch. I mean like whoa, Gonzo. How much eye candy can you put into one episode anyway?

I know that I said at the beginning of this season that there would be no other series that would beat Guilty Crown in terms of graphics, but I’m going to have to retract that. The only thing at which Guilty crown is clearly superior is its character animation. Last Exile however just completely blew it out of the water in terms of background art and CG. Where Guilty Crown can’t get further than a bunch of sparkles here and there and futuristic backgrounds that all look like each other, the creators here stuffed a ton of different designs together. The vanship animation was just utterly gorgeous as well.

Also, Giselda. I’m not sure what it is about her, but she is wonderful in her role as supporting character, and this episode made her even better. She makes mistakes, but that’s the great thing about her: she’s not perfect, but the way in which she’s trying her best is just wonderful. With Fam being who she is, she needs someone grounded in reality. She actually realizes very much that Fam is very childish, but she accepts it and does the best she can to support her.
Rating: *** (Awesome)