I think that the end of 2007 will be the best time for this, so yeah, I’m going to drop Shugo Chara so that I won’t take it along into 2008. I’ll still continue watching it, but I don’t feel like blogging it anymore, for a variety of reasons:

- First and foremost: the 51 episodes. I don’t mind covering long series, (heck I did blog Jigoku Shoujo and Les Miserables with no problems whatsoever), but this length is just way too long for a series like this.
- I also have to admit that Shugo Chara didn’t turn out as interesting as I hoped it would be. I expected deep characters, what I got was random shoujo-fluff.
- While it was nice enough to cover it during the not-so-spectacular Autumn-season, there are enough excellent series that will be starting with the winter-season, and you can expect a lot of series that I’m going to end up blogging, and I feel that blogging Shugo Chara will feel more and more like a chore, so I’m going to drop it while it still feels enjoyable.

Unfortunately, 2007 has been a horrible year for Mahou Shoujo. I hoped that Shugo Chara would change this, but unfortunately it didn’t. Nothing about the series has stood out so far, and I don’t feel like blogging about 30 more episodes of fluff to get to the good parts.

Yup, just like expected. Even though it’s a bit early, the first Christmas-episode has arrived. Interestingly enough, it went very different from what I expected, though. The focus is way more on Utau and Ikuto than on Christmas itself, as the two of them get quite a bit of development. Both of them are still quite angsty, but they’re getting less and less annoying, and this episode worked out quite well.

The only bad part about this episode was the revelation that Utau turns out to be an idol. Of course, in such a series it was unavoidable to not have some kind of idol somewhere, where so many members of the cast are popular, cool and good-looking. I’m also not sure why being an idol can help her and her manager to find Embryo. Could Utau perhaps be the link to Embryo?

In any case, in the later parts of the episode, Ikuto distances himself from both Amu and Utau, when he collects a huge amount of X-eggs in front of the former and refuses to come to an appointment with the latter. One thing I do want to see is a good explanation of why he’s so incredibly angsty. What the heck has happened to the guy? Bad childhood? There really has to be some kind of episode in the future that shows how he and Utau grew up together.

Yup, just like expected: a winter-resort-episode. I’ll eat my hat if next episode doesn’t turn out to be the Christmas-episode.

Still, this was definitely the best episode of Shugo Chara yet. It was hilarious, had lots of Chara-Changes, the characters had a lot of fun with each other and yet it provided a lot of development on the relationship between Hotori and Amu. There were no Batsu-Charas and neither of Ikuto, Utau or any of the other bad-guys showed up. This really was an episode for the characters, and it worked perfectly.

I’m glad that I can finally be completely positive again about this series. The previous episodes were nice, but they had enough dull moments; they all could have been more. Finally, this episode delivers, and as an extra bonus it seems that the animation-quality has gone way up.

And the irony: Hotori is in love not with Amu, but with Amu’s Ran-transformation. That scene seriously rocked. :)

So, this was basically a Su-episode: she gets lost thanks to Ikuto’s Shugo Chara causing trouble, and she spends the episode, trying to find her way back, along with the dog of Amu’s admirer, who seemed to have been lost as well. Overall, it wasn’t such a bad episode, and I like the development that Su has gotten now. The fact that the creators are already mentioning a Christmas-tree in episode ten seems to suggest that we’re in for one heck of a Christmas-special for this show.

Also, for the first time I liked Utau and Ikuto: for the first time, Utau actually came in action, instead of looking at Ikuto like she usually does. It now also becomes clear that she’s searching for Embryo for Ikuto. It does make sense. I’ve aways wondered why Ikuto had a Shugo Chara, while he’s much older than all the other characters of the series. It’s probably also got something to do with this.

This episode also finally shows us Amu’s Su-transformation, one which uses honey to change batsu-charas back. I still find everything going a bit too easy for Amu. I mean, all she has to do is transform and unleash her powers to save the day.
Shugo

After Yaya and Kuukai, we now have the Nadeshiko-episode. All that’s left now is for Hotori to get his own episode, and after that this anime can move on. I’m glad that there was no bad egg this week, and instead the creators opted for the obligatory haunted-house episode, as Nadeshiko appears to live in a huge mansion.

It’s all fairly cliché so far: Kuukai has soccer, Yaya has ballet and now Nadeshiko turns out to be well-versed out in the classic Japanese style of dancing. Obviously, the animation for this turned out to be too much to handle for the animators, so they just went and showed a bunch of still-frames. It’s a shame, as especially dancing-scenes like these ones are the perfect chance for them to show off their skills.

The “ghost” of this episode turned into the Shugo Charas, who were trying to chase a mouse out of the mansion. It was all fairly standard, though the development for Nadeshiko made up for it, and how she tried to hide her hard-working self from Amu. The manga-readers also mentioned something about Nadeshiko’s “true identity”, though we don’t get to see that in this episode. It’s clear that the creators plan to use the first season of this series for fleshing out the character amidst random stories.

This really was a fun episode. Until, of course, the Batsu-chara appeared, but by now that shouldn’t really be a surprise. This episode was all about a girl who had a crush on Hotori, and I love how it further developed his relationship with the girls around him. The interesting thing also is that we’ve seen how Hotori claimed that he already has a girl he loves, but we’ve yet to see confirmed who it actually is. All arrows point to Nadeshiko, but I think that he sees her more as a very good friend in which he can confide than a loved one. This episode showed him telling her about his worries about his chara-changes, and if the two of them were really dating, they’d be much closer, and if he really had a crush on Nadeshiko, but never had the courage to mention it he’d be much more nervous around her.

In the meantime, it looks like we aren’t quite rid of the batsu-charas, as the teacher will just keep hatching bad eggs until one of them turns out to be Embryo. Where Ikuto and his girlfriend come into the picture isn’t clear yet. The two of them obviously have a mission they don’t like, as they’ve been quite angst for the past few episodes. Also, are they full-time employed by the bad guy, or do they need to go to school as well?

In any case, I liked this episode. The girl of this episode is a real teenager, gawking over the boys she loves, who change every week. I like how she brought back something that Amu said in the first episode, where she confessed her love for Hotori. It really gives a feel of continuity, aside from the plot by the bad guys. I also liked the attention to the different faces that people put up in front of others. That was the thing that originally attracted me to this series.

2007 has really been a bad year for the Mahou-Shoujo genre. I’m not really going to expect Shugo Chara to become better than Sasami Mahou Shoujo-club of last year. This episode also showed that the creators are going to settle for the story of the manga with fillers now and then to fill the time of a 26-episode-series, despite how I hoped for them to just go with their own version of the story.

Still, this episode wasn’t that bad. It had no bad egg of the week, and finally put someone other than Amu in the spotlights. The result is a silly adventure where Ami and the Shugo Charas go on a treasure-hunt. Quite fun and random. The other characters also go through a bit of development, and we meet three new bad guys: the one who’s behind everything and tries to look evil behind his “Easter”-desk, a red-haired woman and the yellow-haired girl we’ve been seeing in the OP.

It’s indeed like expected: Amu has Embryo. Otherwise, there’d be no way to explain why she has three Shugo Charas and can transform, while the others can’t. It’d be great if the creators showed why Amu of all possible people has it. I’m still not sure whether she’s going to be a good main character for this series, though. On one side, her case is interesting, about the facade she puts up in front of others, and she’s got a nice sense of humour. On the other hand, her whining against the Batsu-Charas for the past few episodes grew more obnoxious with every episode.

I may have chosen the wrong shows to blog this season with Shugo Chara and Suteki Tantei Labyrinth. It’s ironic, at the start of the season, I tried my best to predict which series would turn out the most interesting, and I somehow ended up choosing these two above Mokke, which is getting better and better with every episode. It’s going to be a nice experiment, though. I wonder whether both series will be able to turn out excellent in their second halves. It’s not like these two series aren’t fun; actually, they’re quite enjoyable, but I just can’t see them become among the best series of the season.

Last episode featured a character related to Kuukai, this week it’s Yaya’s turn. This time, however, the character in question is much more talented to Yaya. The episode was enjoyable, and her case was built up well. But seriously, someone do something about the extreme predictability of this series. The script itself is nicely written, but whenever time gets spent on the storyline, this series provides nothing original. Random kid gets down-hearted, meets the teacher, hatches a batsu-chara, with Amu conveniently being in the neighbourhood, the character in question then utters how everything is impossible, only for Amu to shout “NO, you’re wrong!” and beam the batsu-chara back into its egg and the character has magically learned from his or her mistakes and has stopped being evil and down-hearted.

I have no idea how this could have happened. The director did some episodes of Noein and Boogiepop Phantom for god’s sake, two series which didn’t suffer from this problem at all. If I had to guess, then he’s being held back by the original premise of the manga and the guy behind the series composition. Even though the latter may have been behind the fantastic Kaze no Shoujo Emily, the other series he’s worked on are rather mediocre and often even notorious (Koi Suru Tenchi Angelique, Nanatsuiro Drops (which also sucked at its storyline attempts) and Ie Naki Ko Remi (the final old World Masterpiece Theatre Series after which this went down for ten years)). It’s a shame, the story has so much potential, but I feel like there’s too much holding this potential back.

Thankfully, the script was fun to watch. The story about ballet was nicely done, even though the animators couldn’t take it at times. ^^; I liked the focus on Yaya, and how she turned into more than a cheerful crybaby. I’m just a bit annoyed at how her chara-change turned her into a crybaby who can’t do anything. The “weapon” she threw had no affect on the Batsu-chara, so that Amu would be the only one to take her out.

So, according to Hinano this episode is supposed to be a filler. Still, I liked it a lot more than the previous episode, which seems to have come from the manga. The storytelling for the case of this episode (a guy who loves playing soccer, but isn’t the best at it) was way better than the messed-up stewardess that attacked with bad Engrish.

Sure, the thing was still as predictable as ever, but it’s not like Shugo Chara has been known for its dramatic twists. This actually makes me hope that the director is going to go for his own storyline, as the previous episode did show that he’s got some troubles with trying to convert the manga-format in anime. This episode also convinced me that the best things about this series are the Chara-changes. It’s hilarious to see the characters act beyond their defined characters in a totally outrageous way.

Then there’s also the matter of the heavy Utena-influences. I hope that the creators did realize that the thing that Made Utena great is how it developed its elegant characters, and not the fact that it had elegant characters in the first place. :P The best example would be Hotari’s admirer and the strange old tv-presenter-woman. It’s very unlikely that the creators will go for it, but it would be awesome if the two of them actually get their own piece of development at some point during the anime, which will make them more than just stereotypes.

Hmm, this episode wasn’t as fun as the previous ones. It also alerted me of one major flaw in this series: why the heck is Amu the only one who can transform?! In this episode, we saw another kid’s evil egg hatching, though Amu is the only one who tries to stop it, despite the fact that the student council has many chances to do so before she gets there. Why didn’t they transform to their powerful form, just like Amu does?

This episode also introduces the main villain for this series, who cleverly disguises himself as a clumsy teacher, in order to get as much access to down-hearted children as possible. Makes sense. The girl for this episode was someone who was about to be transferred to America, and got scared because of this. Because of this, her evil egg hatched and a strange black Shugo Chara started attacking everyone with very, very, very bad Engrish.

It’s not really the best of all stories, and it felt rather mundane to me, though I guess it serves as a nice build-up. One thing I did like was the scene between Amu and Neko-guy, when he tried to pay her back for the cake he smashed in the previous episode. There’s some funny chemistry between the two of them.