It’s interesting how episodes like these show how much the creators know about marksmanship, and the correct way of using a gun, even though in El Cazador they simply glossed over it. In any case, it’s really charming that Reiji recognizes Cal’s talents, and is planning her to get as far away from Inferno as possible when everything is over, so that she isn’t going to end up the same as him. You can really see in this episode that Cal is opening up his shell, even though she was completely different from Ein.

I also liked the references to well known actors (deNiro, etc). I guess that the creators can’t use titles of movies due to copyright, but this works as well, especially since action movies are a major part of the American culture. It would have been weirder for these movie references to not pop up.

It’s just a shame that this episode again got the shorter end of the budget. There again were lots of far away shots that makes the characters easier to animate. Ah well, at least it’s better than showing lots and lots of still frames. Overall I do think that the graphics budget is handled pretty nicely: there’s no money wasted on “cool” shots like hair and clothes moving in the wind, and instead the animation is focused to making the characters come alive.

One thing I noticed is that this series has gotten quite a bit lighter since Cal arrived, but that of course can also be attributed to the very cold relationship between Ein and Zwei: they hardly talked, and were constantly trying to figure out each other. Reiji and Cal are much more open to each other, but their excellent characterization still remains.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
Cal + Reiji = awesome. Very nice build-up episode.

So the Jack Bezarius of the previous episode was just a fragment of Alice’s memories; we have yet to find out what happened to the real bugger. I really thought that he was going to be one of the major bad guys in this series, but the complete opposite seems to be true, and he seemed pretty genuine in this episode.

But damn… to think that the tragedy at … was caused by Break, of all people. And Gil was there too?! For some reason, that tragedy caused them to plunge into the abyss, and return 100 years later (if I assume correctly, Break appeared 10 years before Gilbert; at the moment I can’t remember whether we saw him along with Sharon in episode 1). To make things even worse, one of them killed Alice, when she still was A NORMAL PERSON. Something then happened that not only turned Alice into B-Rabbit, but also created white Alice, and possibly even that Dark Alice that we saw in one of these shots… Alice then got plunged into the Abyss and remained there until Oz came along for who knows how many years.

Damn, I have to say that I’m impressed. Pandora Hearts is turning into a really well-crafted mystery-series. I really hope that Xebec is going to be smart enough to make a second season of this one, because it truly deserves it.
Rating: *** (Awesome)
An awesome string of new developments and revelations.

Errm, no.

While not entirely bad, this movie certainly isn’t a good one. It’s mediocre: it entertains but its content is flawed and often nonsensical. The best way I’d describe it is “shallow”. This is the sort of story that I’d label as pretentious. There is A LOT of dialogue throughout the movie, but you quickly realize that it’s not really about anything.

There’s a lot of talking spent on explaining the setting for the movie, but hardly anything is done to develop it or go in-depth. The movie also has its share of symbolism and moralism, but the symbolism either is overly obvious or doesn’t make any sense (especially Anemone’s ramblings are part of the latter), while in terms of morals this series never really gets further than saying “killing is bad” over and over, being a hypocrite in the process when Renton kills a bunch of enemies while he didn’t really need to do so.

But the biggest offender is the relationship between Renton and Eureka, because BOY has it turned cheesy. 99% of the lines between the two are directly copied from any other romance story. The lines they use are so incredibly ambiguous that they fit in any sort of situation. When they’re not angsting and repeating these lines over and over, they behave totally incomprehensible; their actions make no bloody sense and feel like they have been thought up on the spot by the creators.

Since this is a movie, it does have a number of kickass action scenes, whenever the characters aren’t talking. But here’s the deal: this is Bones. When you compare the animation in this movie to what they showed in Eureka 7 and especially Bonen no Xamdou the animation actually feels inferior. It really makes you wonder where the budget for this movie went, if the TV-episodes were animated so beautifully.

So yeah, when the story is supposed to come together in the end… it doesn’t. the plot twists, revelations and insights don’t make any bloody sense and the movie falls flat on its face. I usually like anime with lots and lots of dialogue (see Amatsuki and especially Mouryou no Hako), but this was just… shallow and rushed. Do yourself a favour, watch the amazing series, skip the movie.

Looking back, the only thing that the tournament arc was good for was the character-development: the actual matches themselves weren’t that interesting, but if you can see this as a way of character-building, then it did accomplish its task. In this episode, Dan matured up, he finally passed a ball to Sera so that he wouldn’t be the one to score and take the credit. Sera herself wanted to take revenge on her father, but in this episode some random dude comes up and kills the guy, and with this episode Iceman’s worries about his past have also been solved and we know that he has a fake arm. So yeah, while this episode itself wasn’t that interesting, it did create a lot of potential for the future. I’m glad that this arc is over, though. Aside from episode 12, it was a bit tiring to have to sit through it.

What this show needs to do now is make this second half interesting. This is also where the new director comes in when he’s going to take over: he needs to understand what this series is good at, and needs to make a storyline that brings out the best of this, instead of simply degenerating the series into “Dan’s quest to save his beloved Rouge”. It’s going to be really boring if that turns into the main focus for the rest of the series.

On a side-note: this episode showed a new OP and ED. To be honest though, they weren’t as good as the first ones. The OP is a cheesy j-rock song, and especially the new ED isn’t as catchy as the old ED, and simply became a generic j-pop song. Reeeaaaally not my taste.
Rating: (Enjoyable)
Rather dull basketball match, but lots of character-development

Taishou Yakyuu Musume

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets invited to play baseball by one of her friends.
Chance of me Blogging: 10% (With such a strong season it’s unlikely)
I really have to say that this has to be one of the best starts of a season in a long while. Of the seven shows I’ve seen so far, only two of them weren’t interesting and fun to watch. There hardly have been any annoyances so far. Anyway, Taishou Yakyuu Musume is the winner of this season’s WTF-moment when the lead character starts singing and dancing rather badly from out of nowhere (those poor typesetters, by the way). It’s a really nice series, though. It’s a slice of life shows about a bunch of girls, living around eighty years ago who plan to start up a baseball club. It’s an interesting premise, and while the slice of life hasn’t been as good as in Aoi Hana, it’s still enjoyable and relaxing. The lead characters are naturally charming without being forced or overly moe, so overall I’m quite pleased with this show so far.

Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters know magic.
Chance of me Blogging: 0% (There are too many good shows this season)
The only thing that sucks in this season is the character-designs: all so far are bland, don’t try anything new and lack a visual identity. Apart from that, nearly every series has been enjoyable for me (and besides, the character-design problem will probably go away once I watch Bakemonogatari). I think that that’s a prime for me. Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou granted is the second-worst TV-show this season, and yet I enjoyed this episode. It’s strange: it’s a premise that I usually hate with passion. Here we have a bunch of teenagers who happen to know magic and do… stuff. But strangely this episode really amused me. At first sight we do have a bunch of stereotypes, but they work well together and I liked the chemistry between them a lot. What made this series better than the average moe comedy for me is that it never felt forced: it was the characters who wrote this series, not the scriptwriters. It’s a series that doesn’t pretend to be anything more than it already is: it’s just a bunch of girls having fun with magic, nothing more. Granted, the hot spring part at the end was a bit too much, but heck; I liked the rest of this episode. What’s happening to me!?

Bakemonogatari

Short Synopsis: Our lead character meets a girl who has no weight.
Chance of me Blogging: 70% (I’m impressed)
Whoa, people weren’t kidding that Bakemonogatari was going to rock this season. This episode only gave a small taste of what is to come, and yet I’m very intrigued already. It has pretty much the best OP of the season. Horror series have always had downright excellent first episodes, and this episode really proved the same, as this episode was my second to only Aoi Hana this season so far. It’s great to see that Shinbo still has enough inspiration to try out new kinds of animation and visuals, so this series doesn’t feel like a rehash of one of his previous shows. It’s also great to see that he has planned out this series very well, and is even willing to extend the amount of episodes beyond the amount that can be broadcast, simply to avoid this show getting rushed. Seriously, more series should do that.

Aoi Hana

Short Synopsis: Our lead character enters high-school and meets with an old childhood friend.
Chance of me Blogging: 80% (Lots of potential)
Now this is more like it. Noise has done it again, as this seems likely to be the third hit in a row for the time-slot. It’s obviously not going to be for those who want a fast-paced storyline, but I personally loved the subtle yet poignant drama between the two lead characters who meet each other again after having been separated when they were kids. The tall girl is a bit of a crybaby, but she definitely has her charms. The rest of the cast also feels alive, rather than being a bunch of 2D Stereotypes. There wasn’t any annoyance about this episode, aside from the fact that I just know that the rich and detailed animation of this episode is probably going to disappear after the next episode.

Needless

Short Synopsis: Our lead character loses his sister and meets a weird priest with strange powers.
Chance of me Blogging: 20% (With so many other great shows this season? Not likely)
It’s strange: the character-designs in this series are abysmal; their style is uninspired and too similar to most other anime and the costumes make EVERONE look like an incredibly ridiculous fashion-victim. The rest of the visuals however, are really sweet. The animation was really good, the gun-designs rocked, and the shots in which the characters weren’t doing bland things really rocked with their visual style. Overall, this was a typical first episode in which the creators go all out to make it as exciting as possible, and for me they did a pretty good job: this episode was a lot of fun to watch, with a lot of adrenaline-pumping action and an interesting cast of characters so far. This series feels the most like the next Koukaku no Regios, so let’s hope that this time the creators do know how to handle the rest of the story, as it definitely has the potential for a fast-paced action story. I liked how the main characters are of all kinds of different ages: we have a kid, a teenager, a guy in his thirties and an old guy. Definitely makes the series varied.

Cue the awesome people at Saiei who were nice enough to bring out a Japanese version of the series. So yeah, this is another one of those raw-reviews, so unless you happen to know Greek or Japanese, don’t bother to ask me where to get it. One of the purposes of this review is to give some more attention to this series, with the hope that it might get subbed one day, because this series has a lot to like. Sure, it also has its share of things not to like, but it’s one of those crazy and wacky comedies that definitely demonstrate that the eighties had a great sense of humour.

So yeah, this series is basically another one of those high-school comedies with a weird cast of characters. It runs around the premise of a kid who has been trained as a ninja for all his life by his evil grandfather, moving into a school whose headmistress has a crush on said grandfather (who now is dead, by the way). The big twist is that this kid (Igano Kabamaru, hence the title) is the most incredible goofball you have ever seen. He runs around the series screaming, yelling, making the silliest jokes, behaving like a little kid, and eating.

The major fun in the series comes not from him, but from the rest of the cast. These people are all some sort of parody of the romantic genre (we have the cute girlfriend, the rival, the pretty boy, the elite ojou-sama, and a lot more). Every character has something amusing about him or her, and they’re also hilarious in their attempts to deal with such a weird and uncontrollable lead character, and be sure to expect lots of nervous breakdowns. Hopeless overacting in most cases is a bad thing, but in this case it makes for a number of hilarious scenes, with my personal favourite being the marathon-episode.

Unfortunately for this series, it also has that nasty thing called a plot. The show gets really dull when the focus falls back to Igano’s traumatic past, and the time he spent with his best friend Hayate. It just keeps dragging on, and nearly completely takes over the series once it hits its second half. Because of that reason, the second half is a lot less fun than the first one, and the comedy that’s there is nowhere near as fun as in the first half.

To the show’s credit though, it does have a kickass finale. It’s worth watching through the second half, if only because of the awesomeness of the final two episodes. I was originally planning to give this series a much more negative review before I watched these two episodes, but they really make up for the rest of the disappointing second half. Episode 24 feels like the creators wanted to stuff as much creativity in 20 minutes as possible, while episode 23 has a brilliant conclusion that nobody will see coming.

So yeah, don’t expect much innovative parts, since there are a lot of clichés in this series, even for a comedy (like how this show proves that the Tsundere was already a staple more than twenty years ago). The serious parts suck, but there are a certain number of comedy episodes that are absolutely hilarious, and are in no way inferior to the comedies of the past ten years. This series is crazy, but in a good way.

In any case, with series airing a week before the rest of the season, it’s always hard for me to decide whether or not to blog them, because I have no idea whether or not there are going to be any better series turning up later. For Umi Monogatari it’s the same, as the majority of the new season has yet to air. Still, this episode definitely showed me that this series has a lot going for it, and I can always drop it if even more better shows pop up.

I’m obviously not blogging this series for the aestetics. While the animation is great, I first want to see it remain great for the next couple of episodes, and the art style itself is rather plain, with your average collection of moe stereotypes (one of the lead characters has yellow hair, one has red hair and one blue hair. Gee, those are the three primary colours, where have I seen that one before?). There’s lots of fanservice and all, but thankfully it’s handled tastefully: you don’t see any close-ups to jiggling boobs or strange crotch shots. That’s enough to keep it from getting annoying.

What caught my interest with this series was its characterization. The spring season already had a lot of series with an excellent cast of characters, and Umi Monogatari sounds like a nice addition to them. The three main characters feel realistic and very sympathetic. There are a lot of emotions in this series, but none of it feels like cheese, and it’s surprisingly genuine. It’s the charms of the main cast that really makes me want to watch more, and it makes for a pretty relaxing series with still a lot of drama.

The storyline is obviously going to need a bit more work (evil demons have been unsealed and need to be stopped by a certain sea priestess and air priestess), but I like how this series toys with your expectations. Along with unsealing those evil powers, the little mermaid also unsealed a rather strange turtle. That one I didn’t see coming.

Rating: * (Good)
Successfully carries the atmosphere further with some great animation and characters, even though the plot is a bit clichéd.

It’s interesting how this one of the few mecha-series that aired between the original Mobile Suit Gundam and Zeta Gundam, and because of this it has the advantage of being inspired by the more serious and realistic Mobile Suit Gundam, but not the repetitive emo-fest that was Zeta Gundam. This allowed Ryousuke Takahashi to really play with the formula, and significantly improve on it in a lot of areas. And he succeeded at this really well.

Chirico really is the antithesis of all those wimpy teen-aged leads you see in anime through all ages. As an adult, he stands out as being a regular soldier, following the duties from his superiors. He is cold, heartless and can’t live without fighting, and even though he slightly softens up throughout the series he never loses his hard edges.

Another thing that’s been bugging me a lot about Gundam series is that while they start out diverse and different, for some reason they always start looking too much like each other, with the final quarter being a string of random battles that look like each other and most of the time hardly resolve anything. Again, Votoms aired before this trope was even created, so it beautifully avoided this. It’s basically made up out of four arcs of about 13 episodes (or 12 episodes and a recap), with each of these arcs being distinctly different from the others, and all of them get better and better as the show goes on. There really is plenty of action, but the creators manage to make the battles count: each of the battles has a point or purpose in the story, even if they’re very small. This really allows the story to evolve continuously.

There are some lighter parts in this story though: Chirico spends the series with three rather silly henchmen around him who are the ones who sometimes provide the comic relief. While at first they may seem annoying, this series knows very well how to handle them. They’re not just there to brighten up the mood and prevent the story from getting too dark, but they also prove to be surprisingly useful to the plot at times; they help to develop Chirico’s character, and tend to remind him what a socially awkward idiot he can be. While they’re not often the most pleasant to watch, without them this series would have lost one of its sparks, and looked a whole lot more generic.

This series does have its flaws, which mostly lie in small plot-holes throughout the story. It really is a series that continuously evolves, but for that it had to sacrifice a few things in the plot, like bringing a bunch of characters from one point in the universe to another instantly when it’s necessary for the plot, or characters knowing things that they aren’t supposed to know. And really, I’ve seen 52 episodes of this series now, along with the 12 episodes from the Pailsen Files, and I STILL don’t know what the “Votoms” in the title stands for. It seriously never gets mentioned in the entire series.

But yeah, those are just nitpicks. Votoms is a great recommendation if you’re looking for something old and dark, away from most cliches and teen-aged stereotypes. There is a romance in the series, but it’s handled really well and forms a central part in the series without dragging on. Ryousuke Takahashi is one heck of a talented director, and he already showed this in his first major series.

“So yeah this show is about a guy and he trains to become a boxer and then they fight and he gets beaten and beaten and then he manages to find his inner strength to win from his opponents!!1!1!1″.

It’s true that this show is formulaic, but it’s also SO INCREDIBLY ADDICTIVE. The sheer intensity of the boxing matches is nearly unrivalled, and the only way you can really get an idea of how incredibly good this show is is by watching it yourself. This series knows exactly how to pull the right strings during the boxing matches, and even though most boxing matches take up multiple episodes, they just keep you glued to the screen and only make you want more.

New Challenger forms an excellent introduction to the franchise for those who find the 75 episodes of the first season a bit too much of a commitment. It’s an excellent standalone series to watch. I myself watched nothing of the first series and yet I was perfectly able to follow it; some of the references to the first season that it made were perfectly explained for those new to the franchise, and the characters were already strong enough to carry the show on their own.

What’s also interesting about this new season is that while you might expect this show to be mostly about the titular Makunouchi Ippo, it’s actually one of those series that doesn’t have a clear main character. Instead, we get a bunch of arcs that each focus on a different character, and Ippo only plays the central role in one of them (that arc, by the way, also was arguably the weakest of the bunch; the thing with Ippo is that he’s by no means a bad character, but he is one of the least interesting members of the cast). Especially the Brian Hawk-arc was absolutely epic.

So yeah, Hajime no Ippo stands out in its simplicity; for every arc you know exactly what you’re going to get: an incredibly intense boxing match with sympathetic and strong characters and awesome graphics. And it never gets old. It’s the perfect series for if you want to blow off some steam.