Wednesday, March 30, 2011

[Ended] Letter Bee Reverse: The Lord of Anticlimax

If you ask me to use one fitting word to describe Letter Bee Reverse or in that matter, the entire Letter Bee series, I wouldn't think twice before giving you "Anticlimactic". This ought to be the most anticlimactic anime I've seen, ever. It amazes me how they can make so many scenes that are meant to be grand, heart pounding, and tear jerking into something that you can barely feel. So many times throughout the series, I felt the plot building up to a point that I was all excited to see an event's resolution and outcome. But instead of a magnificent showdown from all the right things they've done to the pre-climax moment, it merely fizzles, left you scratching your head and ask "That's it? I thought it'd be more explosive than that..." It leaves no satisfaction what so ever seeing an end or resolution of an event.

To kill every single naturally occurring climax repeatedly in a story like this, that's some directing talent--a talent no director should ever have. This director should be barred from directing any thing with a climax, just like Shyamalan should be barred from directing any movies that isn't his own original work.

Aside from anticlimactic directing, everything else in this story is actually quite well made. In fact, I think this would be an excellent anime if the directing hasn't been as anticlimactic as this. The story is pretty well written, the character is pretty well developed (although, I still think Lag lacks of depth).

Final Scoreboard:

Drama: 69 (Highly anticlimactic)
Comedy: N/A
Action: 80 (Not bad)
Art/Animation: 84 (Pretty well drawn)
Sound/Music: 78 (So so)
Character: 79 (Well developed, but still feel two-dimensional)
Plot: 83 (Pretty good story)
Ending: 72 (Anticlimactic)

Re-watch value: 30

Overall: 77 - Anticlimactic to the extreme

Recommendation: My feeling towards it is mixed, as much as I liked the story, my heart just can't take the repeated abuse of giving me hope of something magnificent then fizzles in the most anticlimactic manner. But if you actually like anticlimax, then look no futher, this is your anime. Otherwise, watch it with caution.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

[Ended] Wolverine: Cheese to the Extreme

Back when Iron Man anime aired, this could be an every interesting trend of new anime genre they're setting up to take off...until I saw the ending.

Then enters Wolverine, the second installment of Madhouse licensed Marvel franchise. Unlike Iron Man, I was totally unimpressed by the early episodes of Wolverine because one, the skinny pretty boy just doesn't fit the image of Wolverine, and two, the story just feels...cheesy. Quoting one of my Canadian friend's words: "I feel cheese oozing out of the screen." (His comments wasn't referring to this anime, but nonetheless that's his words)

So about to 3 episodes into the series, I started to treat it as a background anime, meaning it's not bad enough for me to drop it, but it's definitely not good enough to deserve my full attention while watching it. If there is any redeeming value about this series, it's the ending. Although you can see it coming miles away (I kind of suspected that's how they're going to end it by episode 3), they didn't resort to the happy go lucky everybody good gets saved ending. But like I said earlier, the entire series is so drenched in cheese, a slightly redeeming ending doesn't really help its overall less-than-mediocre performance throughout the series. Plus, the death just don't seem...meaningful.

Final Scoreboard:

Drama: 72 (Cheesy)
Comedy: N/A
Action: 81 (Acceptable)
Art/Animation: 78 (That is NOT Logan)
Sound/Music: 82 (Kind of like the music)
Character: 71 (Very two-dimensional)
Plot: 71 (Cheese, oozing out)
Ending: 80 (Somewhat acceptable)

Re-watch value: 0

Overall: 72 - Do you by any chance want some cheese?

Recommendation: Whether a hardcore marvel fan, or a hardcore anime fan, I just can't see this anime appeal to either side.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Fractale: The Arrogant Brat Syndrome

Currently finished: Episode 10

In fiction or in real world, I'm always annoyed by idealists, especially those arrogant brats who thinks they can take on everything. Unfortunately, it is a very popular plot devices in animes.

If a know-nothing brat is at the center of a story, it's almost guaranteed that at some point, despite of a plan already in place for best course of action, he or she would just arrogantly follows his or her "ideal plan" to fix things as he or she sees fit. That's really annoying.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Kore wa Zombie Desu ka: Well Written or Cheap Tricks

Currently finished: Episode 9

Just as I thought the series has cashed in its best chip and went back into the slump again, Kore wo Zombie Desu ka manages to pull out another heart-rending episode of carnage (well, sort of...ok, not really, but I can't seem to find a clever word to fit here, so, just pretend the word makes sense here).

As much as I like the moment, it got me thinking: are we actually witnessing a cleverly written story or is this just a series of cheap tricks for emotional shock value accompanies with loads of ridiculous nonsense? It is especially suspicious when this second emotional climax event literally came out of nowhere unexplained and was more or less bolted onto the ongoing thread without much of a lead in except the introduction of the character itself earlier. Having said that, however, there are some unanswered question at the moment, which could potentially explain these unexplained event on the long run. Still, I'd like to just throw there out for the record so I could later come back say "I told you so".

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Black Lagoon: Roberta's Blood Trail: The Hidden Plot

Currently finished: Episode 4

If you plot the explosiveness and ridiculousness level with the episode number, you'd see they're almost completely proportional to each other. This arc, being the latest installment of the series, is really as far-out as the series have every been. At this point, even though the story itself is loosely reality based, you'd really have to start throwing away realities one piece at a time in order to be able sustain the story without getting overrun by the far-fetched'ness it brings.

But having eased them in through 26 episodes, it really doesn't feel that bad, so long as you didn't skip the first two season before jumping into this OVA. In fact, the entertainment value is quite high. On top of that, ever since the second half of season two, they've been focusing on the character development of "Rock". This OVA, is actually a showcase of what "Rock" actually became. It's pretty easy to be distracted by all the bullets and rockets, but underneath them all, there's a hidden agenda, one that has been there since episode one but only starting to surface in episode four. I'd be quite interested to see what actually becomes of it when the final episode shows up.

Monday, March 14, 2011

Freezing: Now Show Those Aliens Some Boobies!

Currently finished: Episode 9

So, after some boobies showdowns between each other, boobies from Genetic Academy finally start to take their ultimate boobies showing skill to the battlefield against the aliens, the supposed reason these girls were made into fighting machine at first place.

In addition, we got some more complication between the untouchable queen and her limiter. It really looks like one of those very typical tricks they use that we've seen too often when the relationship between a couple requires reinforcement.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

[Movie] Broken Blade 4

I've been long suspecting that there is a side thread aside from the main one, (yes, of course it involves Rygart, and no, I'm not going to spoil it for you :), this episode finally had a quick touch and go. I'm actually quite interested in how it develops. But I somehow don't think it will resolve by the end of the series.

Aside from that, I think this episode advances the plot a bit more than the previous two. The movie ends in a cliffhanger, but if you ask me, it's much better than an anticlimactic one. Unless they decide to introduce even more new characters, it seems that all pieces of the game at this point is set. All we need to wait for is how they will resolve the main conflict (and the side thread :).

Having said that, however, I do hope they don't make it to a cookie-cutter ending. Because with two episodes still left to go, I'm already seeing lots of signs that indicates the ending is likely to be one of those very typical "truth and resolution" one. Being predictable is always boring.

Since the last installment (episode 6) of Broken Blade is scheduled to hit theaters in Japan on March 26th, I wonder how or whether the natural disaster occurred recently would affect that. Let's just hope for the best, for both Japan and animes.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Some Bad News

When natural disaster strikes, everybody feels the pain. When the biggest earthquake hit Japan a couple of days ago, we knew it will impact anime release schedules, we just didn't know what kind of magnitude it would be. Well, several series have been confirmed for being suspended airing temporarily:
  • Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika
  • Toaru Majutsu no Index II (AT-X will still air as normal)
  • Level E
  • Kimi ni Todoke 2nd Season

These are indeed some high profile suspensions. Let's hope the best for Japan and the anime series.

(This, however, is a good chance for me to catch up some of the backlogs I've piled up lately.)

Friday, March 11, 2011

[Movie] King of Thorn

This has been on my to watch list for a while, but for many different reasons, I never got a chance to watch it. But since the anime society I'm affiliated with scheduled it to be shown for this spring, I just went ahead waited till then.

Well, I'm  kind of glad that I did: it probably would have taken a bit longer for me to sort all the confusing part of the story out by myself than discussing with other people--the collective intelligence of a group is almost always greater than the individuals within.

It's really difficult to describe what this story is, or for that matter, any part of the movie without spoiling anything, so I'm not even going to try. But what I can tell you is that this is one of those stories that make your brain play twister with clues that are being tossed at you one piece at a time. Even more interesting, for most part of the movie, you aren't even aware that you're playing this "brain twister" game. That, is indeed some clever plot writing and excellent directing.

Anyway, back to the story itself, the setting is near future (more precisely, 2015 if I didn't remember it wrong), a pandemic called Medusa threatens to wipe out mankind. A hand full of people have been chosen to be put into "cold sleep" in hope of a cure could be found in the future. But when they're finally awake, they are greeted by a strange world that is far from what they remembered before they went in the chamber.

That's as much as I can give you without spoilers. You really need to just watch the movie, meaning this is not something could be appreciated by simply reading a synopsis.

Score: 90

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Kimi ni Todoke 2nd Season: Oh, Someone Stab Me!

Currently finished: Episode 9

Shoujo animes and I have always been in this love and hate relationship. Kimi ni Todoke, I think, actually manages to push it to the extreme.

I've always liked shoujo anime, because aside from dark and twisted tragedy, this is pretty much the only other type of story that could potentially reach deep into my heart. However, unlike the tragic tragedies, to "feel" a shoujo story, there's usually a somewhat significant cost you have to pay: frustration. In fact, I think the the greatness of a shoujo anime is proportional to the level of frustration you get from watching one.

Kimi ni Todoke is a excellent story. In fact, I'd even go as far as considering it to be one of the best shoujo anime of all time. That, however, also means this is probably one of the most frustrating animes you've ever seen. Season one is somewhat frustrating to watch, but it's nowhere near what this sequel brings. I literally wanted someone to stab my brain out during some part of the show, but damn it's such a good shoujo anime.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Hourou Musuko: Relationships, Weird and Shocking

Currently finished: Episode 7

Well, I originally thought this is just a simple anime about the cross dressing guy and the cross dressing girl. But I should have known, being a noitamina anime (which is one of the best anime program ever created), it's never as simple or plain as that.

It took off from this seemingly simply (well, depends on what you call simple) concept, spins around and around while throwing out more and more weird and twisted offshoots to be tangled together.

Take this episode for example, there are some weird development in relationships. It's difficult to describe why this hit me like a curve ball, but it nevertheless threw me off completely. My head literally hung side way for the two minutes while my brain is still trying to turn the corner.

This is so interesting in a very strange way--they manages to serve up a huge dose of brain fuck using a completely normal setting in a completely casual manner. Seriously, I'm so glad that I didn't drop it early on because it's fast becoming one of the most interesting series of the season.

Although, I have to say, this anime fits a very particular acquired taste--probably not everybody would appreciate it the way I do.

Dragon Crisis: Impressive Yet Unimpressed

Currently finished: Episode 8

I think it's somewhat impressive everything has been compact and fast moving without slowing down a bit.

On the other hand, however, when you start to think what we've seen so far, you'd realize despite all these fast paced flash and bang, they're actually no more than simply harem building. So, all the sudden, it's not all that impressive any more.

What this story lacks right now is a overall plot line--You have the individual arcs that keep introducing new characters, but there really isn't a main villain that everybody is trying to fight against. I can potentially see when the black dragon makes a return, they're going to cash in all the favors to take it down. But if that is to happen, it just totally further cheapens the series--it's too cliche. I'd probably downgrade it from its current mediocre good rating to mediocre bad.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Toaru Majutsu no Index II: This Is It

Currently finished: Episode 21

After a short filler arc break (ep 17 and 18) that actually served as a lead-in to this final (I think) arc which has gotten very bloody very quickly, literally. They have gone on a big killing spree where people are just getting slaughtered left and right, and they're not afraid of showing blood. While at first glance it may seem that they have gone off to yet another offshoot again right before the season is going to end, as the arc progresses, it has become pretty clear that this may well be the arc that is the ultimately tie-in for everything in the story we've come to know so far. This, probably is the ultimate showdown we've all been waiting for since the beginning of the series. So if episode 17 and 18 somehow disappointed you. Don't be, because they aren't just some random offshoot filler arcs--they are actually the beginning of the end (I think).

Thursday, March 3, 2011

[Poll] About the Poll Results

My January 2011 new anime poll is now closed. The result, I have to say generally falls along the line what I was expecting, although GOSICK coming out on the top was a slight surprise. As you can see, out of the random sample of all anime viewers (I like to think that, it makes my poll numbers look more important than they really are), it's pretty clear what I predicted early on in the season was correct: there are no clear "winners" in this season, the poll numbers are all over the place. However, we do have some clear losers, but they're not worth discussing about so I'll just jump right over to the pole positions. The top 5 according to the poll lines up like this:
  2. Yumekui Merry
  3. Beezlebub
  4. Dragon Crisis
  5. Level E
and within one vote to the No.5 position, we also have IS: Infinite Stratos and Kore wa Zombie Desuka? It's sad that Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika didn't make it onto the list because that is one damn good anime. I think it might have something to do with people tend to stereotyping magical girl animes and just skip out on it without even looking.

While I can see GOSICK deserves a top five spot, and understand why it holds the top spot, it's still be bit surprise that it had pull that far ahead of everybody else. GOSICK is literally a puzzle anime that feeds you one piece of the giant puzzle at a time, at this point, there's still a lack of compelling central plot to follow up on. But I do admit everything else has been pretty well done.

Yumikui Merry, Dragon Crisis, Level E are all among my picks for the top five, I'm glad to see that most people out there think the same.

In the case of Beezlebub, more I watch it, more I learned to mentally block out the naked baby when it appears so it doesn't bother me that much any more. I'd agree it probably belongs in the top five.

Then there's Kore wa Zombie Desu ka? I think it had a late surge in the poll because there are some turning events that made it so much better than it was. If it had arrived a tad earlier, it would have a really good chance in getting in the top five.

Now, about IS: Infinite Stratos. Apparently, harem sells. I really don't see anything in the plot at the moment that would justify it being anywhere close to the top five of the season. It literally is just a simple harem building process so far. As I stated in previous posts, there's not even an compelling reason that anybody should be so interested in IS. So if you have voted IS to be in the top five, would you mind telling me why you have chosen it instead of...anything else?