Sora no Otoshimono

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets his own god-mode android angel servant.
Well hello… fanservice. Well, at least this shows knows its target audience, but it still puzzles me why they don’t just turn these concepts into hentai-series. Here we have a series in which an android angel servant falls from the sky, and the lead character just happens to be at the right time and place to have her bump into him so that she makes a contract with him and fulfills every of his wishes. The guy is your typical teenager, so you can imagine how he ends up abusing these powers. The series has the typical flaws of a harem-series: lots of clichés (he gets woken up by a cute childhood friend, there’s a huge magical sakura tree near where they live, et cetera), pointless fanservice and a male lead of who you wonder why he’s even popular with girls. I think the biggest flaw of this series is the lead character himself. Sure, there have certainly been worse versions of him, but his attempts at being funny just end up as annoying and his voice-acting is pretty annoying to listen to. I liked the white-haired guy, but overall this is just a waste of a perfectly good budget.
ED: I presume that the animation is going to be filled in the next episode. The song is nothing special, but not particularly bad.
Potential: 10%

Miracle Train

Short Synopsis: Our lead character tries to help troubled ladies along with his team of bishies.
Aha, Iyashi-kei! It’s been a while since we had one of those. This episode really had that typical calming atmosphere of the Iyashi-kei series, but at the same time it also has a lot of issues. Most notably, the bishies. I like the idea of personified subway stations helping passengers through their worries, but did they really have to look like a bunch of ugly bishies with ridiculous hairstyles? Most of the time they’re acting like stereotypes as well, especially that yellow-haired guy was obnoxious. Especially the scenes in which they talk to each other are cringe-worthy. Nevertheless, when push comes to shove it does manage to pull off a nice down-to-earth story for the troubled passengers. If the future episodes can focus more on those passengers and less on the bishies, we could have something very interesting here.
OP: Cheesy J-rock. Move on.
ED: Slightly better, but still generic J-rock
Potential: 50%

Natsu no Arashi! Akinai-Chuu

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is surrounded by lots of cute girls.
Like White Album, I’ve been heavily debating whether or not to blog the second season of Natsu no Arashi. Sure, the first season was very good, but this is Shinbo, after all. No matter how good the source material, I have this feeling that he’s going to take its style to extremes again while forgetting what’s really important. And really, it didn’t help that this episode was probably the worst of the entire series. It was a beach-episode, but the thing is that it just wasn’t funny. The whole episode was just a string of random fanservice-jokes, and lacked the wit or subtlety from the first season. Among the rest of the jokes were also lots of recycled ones (the creators are still going on about Hajime vs Jun, the salmon-thing returned yet again and the creators were even desperate enough to recycle a joke from Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei and the Samurai-Jokes from Pani Poni Dash!). Sure, this series might pick back up, but this episode just showed too many signs that the creativity of Shinbo has run out, and I don’t want to blog this series just for the sake of finding out whether I’m right or not in this. Also, why the heck are the creators hinting at a romance between Jun and Hajime?!
OP: Like expected from Shaft, at least it has a pretty good OP. Creative visuals and nice music.
Potential: 30%

In today’s age, there are few things that could still be considered truly original and never done before. Especially in anime, in which about 90% of all the series are based off of something else, true originality is even harder to come by. Nevertheless, out of all the series for the past year, Basquash stands out as the most original. I mean, to base a series around cars with arms and legs that play basketball? How the hell do you think of this?

But yeah, this unique setting of Basquash is what prompted me to start blogging it weekly. Overall, it really is the single most inconsistent series of the past half year: it has moments of brilliance, fun, stupidity, boredom, excitement, intrigue, chilchés, depth and shallowness, all packaged into 26 episodes, which makes it really hard to determine if it’s worth watching.

The first eight episodes are especially awesome. They’ve got this real sense of chaos, in which everything is going on at the same time, a lot of characters are developed at the same time, and even though Dan is an impulsive teen-aged lead, he definitely has his charms in his innocence and how he continuously tries to make up with his sister who is in a wheelchair after an accident. It’s all good and very unpredictable fun, but after a while the show becomes much more straightforward, predictable and uninteresting.

To me, it seemed like this series never really knew what it wanted to be. Sure, it gives variety, but some parts of this series are incredibly stupid, and are best watched by not taking the series 100% seriously. At other times however, this series nearly begs for the audience to take it seriously when it spends ages on slowly exploring and developing its characters, which demand a much more personal mindset when watching it. In the end, these parts don’t mesh really well and the drama feels shallow because of it.

Personally, I liked the beginning and finale for this series. the middle part just took itself too seriously among the far-fetched premise of this series, and I felt it hard to care about the characters. The series closes off with a pretty exciting finale though, combined with some absolutely gorgeous visuals. In the end, this series is a great watch at some times, but really dull at others.

Aww, it’s still good to see a great ending from this series, considering what an incredibly bumpy ride it’s been. The past two episodes were definitely the most visually pleasing episodes I’ve seen the past three months. Satelight really dominated in terms of Visuals during the past season. Their animation may be rushed but damn, these people surely know how to make things look good.

This episode also succeeded in terms of storyline. All Dan had to do is create a Basquash strong enough to save both Earthdash and Moonies, and sure it took a lot of effort to get there, but they managed in the end. The creators didn’t try to create some forced twist in the end like with Macross Frontier and its Vajra-twist.

Instead, the episode was spiced up with a number of twists on the side-characters, that were surprising and yet didn’t get in the way of what was really important in this episode. Do not ask me how that moon-giant was able to fly to Moonies on Flora’s butterflies, or why Slash turned into a 4-year-old of all things, but they fit inside the series well enough to not be much of a problem. In any case, this episode really returned back the series’ roots of fandom: sure the performers are nice and all, but the fandom can also kick ass, and that was portrayed really nicely in the side-characters as they tried to save the various Moonies citizens that were about to float off into space.

The aftermath was also nice and concise: it slightly developed the characters and actually remained subtle about them, leaving a lot of things to our imagination. I especially liked seeing Coco walk again. A nice twist and perfectly logical if you can accept the fact that Slash of all people invited her to Moonies to begin with.

But yeah, the things I liked best about this episode was that it knew that it was supposed to end with a bang, and how it suddenly found its subtlety back. With the current director, I never expected that to happen. I mean, this is the guy who made Dan fight the police with Basketballs. :P

Reflecting on all of the different series that ended this season, I’m really impressed. Usually during these times, a lot of series end with rather lackluster endings, but this time it’s different. There were perhaps two or three endings that I watched that didn’t deliver, but apart from that all of them closed off nicely. That’s very impressive, especially considering how I watched around 17 endings this month.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Guin Saga: epic fantasy done absolutely right. It’s based on a series of light novels, counting in at a whopping 130 volumes, and these 26 episodes animate the first 19 volumes of the story. It’s a terrific combination between classic fantasy and politics, Satelight did a great job in bringing the whole story to life.

There’s a lot of things at which this series stands out, among which is its absolutely HUGE cast of characters. Despite this size, a lot of them still manage to stand out as individuals, with their own roles, motives and purposes. it’s also no wonder that the story in this series is incredibly complex, successfully combining king-level politics together with small-scale battles and fights. A lot of the major characters go through quite a bit of development throughout the series, and especially the developments of Remus and Amnelis, who both start out as the most useless characters of the entire cast, is memorable.

As for the graphics, the story Guin Saga is so epic that you’d need the budget of a Hollywood movie in order to fully do it credit. Satelight obviously didn’t have this, but they definitely tried. Despite the limited budget, this series is full of eye-candy. The graphical designs in this series are absolutely amazing. The architecture and landscapes are incredibly imaginative, the character-designs make every single character unique, even the most insignificant ones that don’t have any dialogue (with the only exception those soldiers that always have their helmets on). On top of that it also has an amazing soundtrack to complement the epic atmosphere, with an OP and ED that I would rank among the best of the past half year.

But yeah, in order to make these amazing graphics possible, sacrifices had to be made. The animation is often jerky and rushed, but this series especially shows its weakest side during the battles between huge armies, which end up just as an onslaught of repeated frames and bad animation that fail to capture the grandeur of such large-scale battles. Thankfully, the creators realize this and as the show goes on they focus more and more on what they’re good at: short and sweet action-scenes, politics and character-development. And they do this really well.

I wouldn’t exactly recommend Guin Saga for those who are looking for just action. There’s Shin Mazinger for those people. Instead, the Guin Saga has a bit of everything: politics, action and character-development. If that sounds interesting to you, then by all means give this series a chance, because it’s one of the most epic shows to have come out in the past year along with the new Mazinger.

What an ending. Out of all of the shows that ended in the past weeks that still need a second season (which really are a lot), Guin Saga deserves it the most. This episode only made this series even more intriguing, but at the same time it’s also a bit disheartening that out of all those shows, no second season has been announced at all, apart from a small OVA for GA. I have this fear that in these times of economic crisis, only the series that sell really well end up getting their second season, and that really puts the Guin Saga at a disadvantage.

But yeah, in this episode we get the first real hint that the thing that possessed Remus isn’t going to be an entirely good thing for him. Sure, it made his testicles drop and gave him the much-needed courage, but there has to be a reason for the thing to have done this, and I doubt that it did this for Remus’ sake.

The fight between Istvan and Guin was also very intense. When this series animates one-on-one fights, they really kick ass, and the creators really manage to portray the sheer force of Guin’s strength. I was a bit afraid that Guin was going to remain in Parro after he saved Remus and Linda, but at this point it really looks like the second season, if it’s ever going to show up, is going to focus on him on his own, rather than as Remus and Linda’s bodyguard.

Overall, my top 3 of series that aired during the past spring season is at this point pretty much 1) Phantom 2) Shangri-La 3) Guin Saga, although there are still three strong series that still haven’t finished yet (Konnichiwa Anne, Full Metal Alchemist and Cross Game), and there is a chance that one of these is going to take over one of these places if they manage to finish with a really strong final part, but for now Guin Saga really stands among my favourites of the past half year. It really was nearly everything that epic fantasy should be, save from the large-scale battles.

The ED, which was played in its entirety in this episode, really deserves to stand among the greatest EDs that aired this past half year. The singer really has an amazing voice, and the whole song really complements the epic nature of this series.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Canaan is, without a doubt, the series with the biggest budget and best graphics of all the series that debuted the past Summer Season. With this, PA Works have really established themselves as a company with a number of amazing artists, with an amazing attention to detail. Canaan is a bit iffy on its plot, but it nevertheless turned out to be a great action series.

Especially the first episode is a masterpiece in terms of direction: there is so much happening at the same time, and there’s lots of stuff moving ont he screen at the same time. The rest of the series is toned down a bit in comparison, but nevertheless continuously puts forth well-animated and directed climaxes, in which the action ranges from subtle to over the top, but always packs a punch.

The problems in this series come from the fact that it can’t seem to decide whether it wants to be taken seriously or not. On one hand, it has this deep subplot of Canaan’s past, and her friendship with Maria. On the other hand, there is the American President and Liang “Psycho Bitch from Hell” Qi. These characters are so ridiculously over the top that it becomes really hard to take them seriously, especially among the rest of the series that does want to be taken seriously.

The back-story behind this series is also nothing special, and the plot has no real surprised. It’s something about a virus from some village being evil, and Canaan’s mortal enemy Alphard having something to do with it. This really is a series for the action.

Thankfully though, the rest of the cast manages to save this series from being yet another action series that fails to stand out at everything else. Canaan, Maria and Alphard are a great cast of main characters, and the side-characters also have their own issues that make them interesting to watch. The cast is colourful, and while nothing like the best of this season, they do manage to carry the weight of this series.

There have been a lot of action series during the past half year, and while Canaan isn’t the best, it did manage to stay interesting, and despite the few over the top characters it did manage to pick itself up again and delivered a very strong finale that only has one real problem: breaking the “people die when they’re killed”-rule. Some of the resurrections in this series are a tad hard to buy. But hey, it’s an action-series, so it shouldn’t be that surprising.

The past spring season was a good one for fantasy-series. Among the best ones of this genre was Pandora Hearts. It takes the air of modern-day fairy-tales, and gives them a dark and twisted… twist, resulting into quite a unique series that focuses on themes as the past and forgiveness.

What sets this show apart is its distinct and dark style of storytelling. It has a heavy emphasis on twisted dialogues that are well delivered by the voice actors, and once it gets going, it just keeps getting more and more intriguing. This series has the very interesting characteristic that whenever you think that the creators couldn’t possibly pull any more plot twists, they do. This series is delightfully unpredictable, and just about every plot twist makes the setting more intriguing.

And what an intriguing setting it is! While at first it might seem like nothing special, but soon this series evolves into a multi-layered mystery-series that only gets more and more complex as the revelations come. Combine that with a deep and varied cast of characters and you’ve got a recipe for success.

As for this series’ flaws, it’s that the lead character Oz isn’t always able to carry the series. Whenever Oz starts angsting he tends to drag the entire series along with him, and his times of inner retrospective are deep, but also tend to drag along a bit too much. And overall, the cast could have been more fleshed out. At the end of the series, I only started to feel like I was beginning to get to know the characters. Add the fact that it’s not yet sure whether a second season will come to animate the remaining manga chapters, and you’ve got an incomplete series that desperately needs more screentime.

Nevertheless, Pandora Hearts really is a gem of a series, and when it delivers it really does over and over. Xebec created a really unique graphical style that combines the art style from the 90s and the past decade, and a lot of shots really are visual feasts in terms of aesthetics. The music by Yuki Kajiura may not be her best work, but still shines in every single way. Now if only that second season would get announced.

I have a question for the manga-readers: was this episode really anime-original? I mean, it was a standalone episode and all, but at the same time it gave out a lot of new information about a certain character, it actually showed the current Sabrie and it also developed Oz a bit and it was well paced with a very nice insert-song at the end.

But yeah, Oz’s father was a very nice way to close off this series. It very nicely ties in with the beginning of the series, and it really is a major bit of development for Oz, getting over the trauma that was caused by the neglect of his father. He did angst a bit this episode, but he had enough reasons to do so, after finding out that his father made a contract with a Chain, became a member of the Baskervilles and forced Oz into the Abyss! I’m not sure about the coincidence that allowed him to meet up

The question still remains whether that second season is going to come or not. This episode gave no hints whatsoever about the creators’ intentions. Or rather, the sponsors’ intentions to finance another sequel. Let’s really hope that that’s going to be the case, because there is a lot of potential left in the second half. It’s going to be a bloody shame for the story to be just cut in half like this.

Overall, Pandora Hearts ended up as a really enjoyable series, despite a few bumps along the way. It always knew a creative way to develop its story and every time I thought that it couldn’t pull any more plot twists, it did. the characters all have a strange charm to them, though I wouldn’t count them among my favourites of the past season.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Okay, time for me to review my favourite anime of the past Spring and Summer Season: Phantom, or Requiem from the Phantom. It’s based on a visual novel by Nitroplus, and while it starts off as a Noir clone at first, it develops into something much more. It shows a story about a couple of assassins inside the modern American mafia.

It sets itself apart with an amazing cast of characters. Especially Ein and Zwei develop into a bunch of strong and sympathetic characters, but also most of the side-characters are memorable. They’re all incredibly well acted; the voice actors really managed to capture their characters, and there’s always a lot of subtlety in their actions and development.

This is all accompanied by a terrific execution. Dialogues between people often move slow, but a lot of things are said in-between the lines. The creators have a great sense of build-up, and know exactly how to deliver the plot twists with as much of an impact as possible. Despite the subtlety, the action-scenes also pack a punch. This show knows that gunfights between excellent marksmen can last very short, and they made excellent use of this in their build-up.

Since this is a Bee-Train series, the music is without a doubt excellent, but at the same time you can see that they’re trying out a few new things here and there. The use of music throughout the series is downright excellent, but what amazed me the most is the incredible size and versatility of the different background tunes. Hikaru Nanase, who also did the soundtrack of Noein and Zone of the Enders, created an incredibly versatile set of tracks for this series. The drawings are also continuously crisp, without hardly any distorted frames, and the animation itself is also pretty decent.

A bit of a lesser point of this series is that there are sometimes strange leaps in logic. One character may have escaped death a bit too narrowly, and this series also forces you to assume that with the right training, a bunch of teenagers can become much better at handling guns than any adult out there.

Nevertheless though, I personally loved this series. It’s a show that’s constantly evolving, even within its distinct three arcs. The major theme of this series, in which the best course of action doesn’t always get taken due to a sad combination of circumstances, is excellently explored by the cast. The characters in this series are deep and complex, and often you find them saying things while in reality they actually believe in something completely different. With an ending that you’ll either love or hate, this is a great recommendation if you like dark yet slow-paced series and don’t mind teenagers in your anime.

Whoa, wtf…

Throughout this episode, I had no idea what the people in the shoutbox were talking about. I mean, it was an awesome episode that did just about everything it should have done: exciting gunfight, after which Scythe dies and Reiji and Helen live on, trying to search for Helen’s origins. After a bit of searching, they find that she was taken from Mongolia when she was little. It was a very fitting ending for my favourite series for the past half year.

Then the episode actually ended, and I understood. That really was daring from the creators: just when everything seems solved, they pull such a surprise ending that nobody saw coming, and they don’t even dare to explain what happened. Out of nowhere, a gunshot sounds, and both Reiji and Helen die. No extremely long death speeches, no overdramatic buildup. It’s just there, and less than a minute later they’re dead. it’s entirely left up to our imagination what happened.

And yet, somehow it made me like this ending even more. My theory of what happened is that McGuire is behind it. Something like “don’t mess with the mafia”, and he probably ordered assassins to track Ein and Zwei down. He previously left this to Scythe Master and Drei, but since the two of them failed he tried to do this a bit more subtle. Whatever assassins came, they figured that the most likely place that they would be able to find them was Ein’s place of birth. They knew this through Scythe, and they probably picked up a hint somewhere that Reiji and Helen were searching for it. After that, they only had to wait and snipe them when they arrived.

It just shows that there’s nothing like a happy end in the mafia. I really liked this ending because it didn’t try to overglorify the death of the two protagonists. It was a really subtle finale, and that’s something I can really appreciate. I admire Bee-Trains’s guts for trying to pull such an ending.

Overall, this has been such a wonderful series. It’s definitely in my Top 3 of Bee-Train series, along with Popolocrois and .Hack//Sign. It had such an amazing sense of subtlety, and yet at others it packed such a punch. With a fantastic soundtrack and a terrific sense of characterization (well, for me at least), I really consider this series to be the best of the past half year, and I’m looking forward to Bee-Train’s next series in 2010, whatever it may be about.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

EDIT: crap, I misunderstood this ending. Only Reiji died, Helen remained alive. Still, that doesn’t change my opinion, this episode rocked. Unless you want happy endings, of course. ;)

EDOT2: Major SPOILER for El Cazador!
After this, I still want to add a bit to the huge rage of people that seem to be unhappy over this episode. Watch El Cazador. that one has a happy ending in which the two progaonists live together happily ever after. Ironically, I remember how that ending also wasn’t well received. Ironic, isn’t it?