Time for the third Madhouse anime series of the season - Mouryou no Hako. I somehow missed this show when I was looking at the fall shows but the positive buzz from other people guaranteed that I’d watch this.

Rating: 11/12 A+

Well, Madhouse hits another home run with this show.

The story so far seems to be about two girls – one the daughter of a working-poor doll head maker and the other is super-rich, perfect, and excels at everything. The daughter of the doll head maker starts to hero-worship the other and the perfect, rich one starts to tell her that one in the reincarnation of the other and vice-versa. The two develop a very close relationship and all seems to be happy between them until they decide to runaway together.

Then there’s the creepy part at the beginning where this guy meets a rather odd man holding a large ornate wooden box. The guy hears a voice coming from the box and when the door is opening by the odd man, he sees a young woman’s head amongst flowers and she appears to be alive. It was creepy and disturbingly wrong and yet I’m really curious how this plays into the rest of the show.

Once again Madhouse shows off their animation prowess with quality that was almost too beautiful to look at and the character designs, done by Clamp, fit the mood and story of the show perfectly. And finally, of the three Madhouse shows, this one had the best OP/ED of the bunch.

You can't really tell but he's hallucinating bloody handprints on the windows

I guess you can find sad girls in more places then just snow

Totally shifting gears now, my impression of the first episode of Skip Beat. I thank those people that commented about this show back when I did my preview for this season because I probably wouldn’t have watched due to approaching my limit of shows I could possibly follow at one time but I’m glad I did.

Rating: 11/12 A+

As I watching the first episode, I found myself thinking two things: wow, I’m liking a shoujo show and Kyoko’s voice sounds familiar.

The second thought is the easier one to explain –her voice is familiar because it’s Marina Inoue, the voice of Kana from Minami-Ke and Yoko from Gurren Lagann. What gave it away was at one point she laughed just like Kana. Actually, though, the first isn’t that hard to explain either. The easiest way to my anime-loving heart is with good characters and this episode had that. We were introduced to a dastardly jerk that I will enjoy hating and a heroine that I feel bad for and hope to see her get her revenge against the jerk. We where also briefly introduced to Ren, voiced by Kamina, who I’m guessing – on pretty much a hunch and having no facts – is going to be the person that Kyoko ends up with. Or that’s who I’m going to root for since I still feel sad over what happened in Gurren Lagann.

Maybe I’ve been a shoujo fan without knowing it and I’ve just needed to actually watch one to become a fan of the genre but, more likely, the fact that Hal Film Makers (Aria, Sketchbook, Somedays Dreamer’s season 2) is behind this helped me enjoy this so much. Either way, at this point I’m pretty sure I’m going to watch this all the through.

She overheard a conversation she shouldn't have had

and her reaction

The beginnings of her plan for revenge

We also get treated to some Noh theater in this episode

Let’s continue with another batch of fall anime impressions and the first will be Madhouse’s Kurozuka. The only I knew about this show was that it involved a thousand year old swordsman so I was pretty much a tabula rasa with this one.

Rating: 12/12

Once again my curiosity in a title has seemingly paid off this season – this was an awesome show from start to end. It literally had everything that you’d want in a serious action anime show.

Our story starts with two men, one being the brother of the shogun, fleeing trouble in the form of armed warriors. The pair is pretty sure that these warriors are not from the shogun, even though the shogun wants his brother dead, because these warriors are not actually human. After fending off the latest attack they come upon a house set on a hill deep in the forest and the lady of the house allows them to stay. She tells the two of them that they can stay as long as they’d like, on one condition – that neither of them goes to the back room and look inside. The friend goes off to the local town for medicine, leaving the injured brother under the care of the lady. We know that whenever someone says not to do something then someone will go and do it and this time it’s no different. To the show’s credit, even though I knew we’d probably see something disturbing, I was still disturbed (in a good way).

Like I said earlier, this show had everything. The beautiful, lush animation was used to it’s fullest in this episode – helping the already well-done fight scenes look even more impressive as well as heightening the suspense that was felt throughout the show. The animators also did a good job teasing us with scenes of the modern day before shifting the show back a thousand years; I’m very interested in why he’s in a city that looks like it’s nearly destroyed as well as how the story connects the two.

Here's the friend, I wonder if we'll see him alive again?

Posted in anime, first impressions      

Those are this week releases:

• Escaflowne (Remastered) episode 18
• Votoms (Remastered) episodes 14 & 15
• Outlaw Star (Remastered) episode 20

Enjoy them.

Regards.

- The_Soulforged

I’m always on the lookout for anime shows that are different; partly because I like shows that are different and partly because it becomes harder to get bored of shows that aren’t different since they only make up part of what I watch. This anime was an example of being slightly different, not really different like Kaiba – just slightly different.

Final Series Score: 11/12 A+
Rewatchablity: high
Pros: great chemistry between Ryoko and Izumida, instrumental OP/ED, nice animation, entertaining and fun to watch
Cons: the cases involve creatures found in B-movies – giant animals, undead, killer robots and plants, etc. – which might be too absurd for some, the show feels very unconnected at the beginning

Awards given to this show by this blog

• Best Female Character for Summer 2008
• Best Couple for Summer 2008
• #3 Top Anime of Summer 2008

Story

Ryoko’s father is the current head of JACES, an independent security firm that is used to augment the local police forces of Japan. JACES also has a lot of clout with the police force because many of the high ranking police officers when they retire from public service will take lucrative jobs at JACES. This allows Ryoko, the next head of JACES and current detective, great power within the police force to go after cases she likes and to pursue them in the manner she likes.

By some special trick of fate, Ryoko will often attract “supernatural” cases to herself that test her crime-solving abilities. It’s a good thing that she’s very skilled at her job but she probably couldn’t do it all without her assistant, Izumida. The pair actually remind me a lot of Haruhi and Kyon in how they interact with each other. It’s even clear to almost everyone that Ryoko likes Izumida but all he sees in her is an outstanding boss.

Thoughts and impressions

When I was deciding on a grade scale for this blog I wanted to stay from being too precise because there isn’t really a difference between a score of 7.75 and 7.8. I also wanted a scale to be specific enough that I could accurately separate the measurable differences in quality. So in the end, I came up with this scale and it’s pretty good except it leaves me with a desire to split hairs sometimes, like in this case. I’d really like to give this an 11.5 but I’m going to resist the urge.

The reason that I couldn’t give this a perfect score is that the show felt too disjointed at the beginning which made it difficult to fully enjoy the show. Each episode left me feeling a little lost and it was only after watching 5-6 episodes that I felt that I had a handle of the show. Once that happened though, this became one of my favorite shows of the season. Reading around, I found a fair amount of people has a similar experience with the show’s beginning. Maybe if the show had a longer episode count, they could have done a better job introducing the series. It also didn’t help that I was expecting something like Ghost Hunt where each case had multiple episodes to be introduced, investigated, and solved. Without giving away the ending, the last two cases take up the last five episodes, and it’s really during these episodes that the show really excels.

What made the series slightly different was the characters of our show where adults, not school-aged, and the excellent instrumental OP/ED. I really don’t mind watching series that are set in school or where school plays a role but seeing an occasion series with adults is always nice. The same goes for opening and ending songs; I love Jpop and Jrock songs as much as the next anime fan but getting an occasional big band/jazzy instrumental song is a nice change of pace.

Characterwise, I mentioned the main ones, Ryoko and Izumida, already. They get a lot of screen time which is good because are fun characters to watch. I’d’ve wished if they had had the time that the side characters like the rival investigator to Ryoko, the other people that work at Ryoko’s office, Ryoko’s sister, and a pair of French maids/personal bodyguards would have been fleshed out more.

So, if you’re looking for a slightly different show to watch with good animation, a fair amount of well-executed action and that has entertaining characters and cases then I’d recommend this show. And, finally, lets hope this gets a second season – it deserves one.

Make a second season or else

Essential Information

• 13 episodes
• genre: Supernatural, Mystery
• animation studio: DogaKobo
• director:Tarou Iwasaki
• OP: “Thème Principal” by KATSU
• ED: “La Vie en Rose” by KATSU
• Seiyuus of note: Hitomi Nabatame, Hidenobu Kiuchi

One of the things that I’ve come to really enjoy about watching anime is that I have the chance to see types of shows that I would never see on American television. Natsume Yuujinchou falls into one such type – the supernatural slice-of-life show. As I’m typing this, I’m trying to think of an example of a similar show over here and can’t. This show also takes a different view of spirits then one I’m used to seeing; in that instead of being characterized as evil or good they are, by-n-large, lonely creatures.

Final Series Score: 12/12 Perfect
Rewatchablity: high
Pros: the animators create the perfect atmosphere for the show through their use of the OP/ED and animation style/quality and pacing, the characters Natusme and Nyanko-sensei make a good team as do their seiyuus, we meet a wide range of different characters through the course of the series and their stories never are boring
Cons: Natsume’s motivation in episode 1 didn’t make too much sense to me (manga does a better job of spelling it out), it’s only 13 episodes long

Awards given to this show by this blog

• Best Male Character for Summer 2008
• #1 Top Anime of Summer 2008

Story

Natsume was born with his ability to see spirits. As a child he didn’t realize that other people didn’t see the same things as he, which caused a lot of trouble for him especially after his parents died and he went to live with his relatives. These relatives found him creepy and he gets passed around until finally landing in the household of a distantly-related older childless couple. Natsume, not wanting to be a bother to them, covers-up his ability as best he can.

His life isn’t made any easier when the spirits of the area realize he is Reiko’s grandson. Reiko had the same ability and many of the same problems as Natsume. However, instead of trying to pretend the spirits weren’t there, she fought them and when she won, she would have them place their names in her book and she gained the ability to control them. This book is called the “Book of Friends” and when Natsume is made aware of it’s existence, he finds it in the stuff that he got when his grandma died.

The “Book of Friends”, as you’d imagine, is a very powerful item since Reiko defeated so many spirits in her time. As a consequence, many spirits would love to get their hands on it and many other spirits would simply like their names back. To help protect himself Natsume extracts a promise from Nyanko-sensei to be his bodyguard. So over the course of the series we get to meet spirits that want the book or want their names back or just Natsume’s help.

Thoughts and impressions

If you remember back in July when I did my initial impression post for this show, I talked about having a problem with Natsume’s motivation in returning the names to the spirits. I still feel the same way, in the anime Natsume mentions that he wants to finish his grandma’s work by returning the names to the spirits. From what the show says she was the one that went around collecting names, not giving them back so why was her work not finished? This issue was much better handled in the original manga by Natsume saying that he didn’t want trouble so if a spirit showed up wanting it’s name back – he’d give it back. That makes a lot more sense and I wonder why Brains Base didn’t go with that.

By the halfway point of the series, I’d completely forgiven the show for Natsume’s motivation in the first episode because we were being treated to episode after episode of slice-of-life perfection and this perfection continued on throughout the rest of the series. It was like a symphony where every part to the show played it’s part perfectly and together it was so harmonious.

One of the things that I particularly liked about this show was the slow evolution of Natsume’s character throughout the series. He starts off unhappy that he has this ability and you could tell that he didn’t much like the spirits either. This slowly changes as we progress through the series and by the end, it appears that he’s might actually be happy that he has his ability and that he enjoys the company of the spirits. This slow evolution reminds me of another show, Sketchbook, because we watch as Sora slowly becomes less shy over the course of the series and it’s not really apparent unless you watch the first episode again how much they have changed.

I’m almost positive that this show will end up in my top 10 shows for 2008 and with the second season starting in January, maybe it’ll be in my top 10 for 2009 as well. So, if you haven’t had the chance to catch this great show, I’d strongly recommend that you do.

Essential Information

• 13 episodes
• genre: Supernatural, Slice-of-Life
• animation studio: Brains Base
• director: Takahiro Omori
• OP: “Issei no Sei” by Shūhei Kita
• ED:“Natsu Yūzora” by Kousuke Atari
• Seiyuus of note: Hiroshi Kamiya, Yuki Eiri

View Poll

Busy week of anime – between the couple summer shows finishing up and the many new shows to catch, there was hardly time for much else. I’m pretty happy with the autumn season so far; many of the shows are starting off very well and there’s been a few that have even been able to surprise me.

The scores:

Soul Eater, episode 26 – 12+/12

Natsume Yuujinchou, episode 13 – 12+++/12 (end)

Ryoko’s Case Files, episode 13 – 12++/12 (end)

Toradora!, episode 2 – 12+/12

Hyakko, episode 2 – 8/12 B+

(previously reviewed)

Kannagi, episode 1 – 7/12 B

To Aru Majutsu no Index, episode 1 – 12+/12

Shikabane Hime: Aka, episode 1 – 12/12

Tales of the Abyss, episode 1 – 04/12 C

Yozakura Quartet, episode 1 – 8/12 B+

Kemeko DX, episode 1 – 10/12 A

Ga-Rei Zero, episode 1 – 9/12 A-

Chaos;Head, episode 1 – 11/12 A+

Thoughts and Highlights

Would you do it for a scooby snack?

Let’s start with the only holdover from the summer season that I watched this week – Soul Eater. I was impressed by this episode a lot. I think the set episode count of this series is causing Bones to eschew the typical structure of a shounen show. After letting the Demon God go, I would have expected this anime to show the main characters training to power themselves up (like after the end of the Soul Society arc on Bleach). Instead this episode shows that some of our characters getting dispatched to the next trouble spot. The other reason that I liked this episode was that we got a lot of Crona, who is fast becoming one of my favorite characters. I feel odd saying that but then again, Sylar on Heroes is becoming one of my favorite characters especially lately with the writers making Hiro act stupid beyond belief.

One more of the fox spirit, I hope he's back in the second season

I thought it was funny how everyone had a different name for him

Slice-of-life shows don’t, by definition, have a convenient plot structure that allow them to have an “ending” but it’s nice when some sense of closure can be given the viewer. I was really curious how Natsume would end, especially with the second season starting in the winter – would they try to give the show an ending or just act like the show was going on hiatus for a season? I wouldn’t have minded if this season didn’t have an ending but was happy that one was given. Having the chance to meet many of the ghosts and people one last time from the show was the perfect way to end one of the year’s best shows.

She's standing on a tank, in case your wondering

Ryoko’s Case Files’ last episode was likewise the perfect way to end the show. I hope this gets a second season, it really deserves it. If any of the fansubbers of [AonE-AnY] read this, thank you so much for providing a high quality fansub with a super-small file size.

Toradora

Finally, onto the fall shows that had their second episodes this week – Hyakko and Toradora. The first, Hyakko, didn’t really impress me again. I want to like this show but I can’t quite figure out what it’s doing wrong or what’s wrong with me. I’m not even holding the drop in animation quality of episode 2 against it. On the other hand, the second – Toradora – was very awesome. This is definitely shaping up to be a more original show then I imagined and they haven’t even introduced the fifth main character that shows up in both the opening and ending. Also, Toradora is reminding me of another of J.C.Staff’s wonderful shows – Honey & Clover; I don’t know if this is intentional or just something I’m reading into the show that’s not there.

Note the heights of the two girls on the right ...

... and compare that to this screen shot

Miku, Rin, Len, Meiko and KAITO ♥

I know, I know, (;_;) crai I don’t really lurk on Nico much, so.

I love this as much/ more than the Nico Nico Medley.

If you have a Nico Nico account, please enjoy the VOCALOID version here, otherwise you’ll have to make do with Part 1 here and Part 2 here on YouTube. It goes on for about 14 minutes.

I mean, this features lots of different otaku songs like Caramelldansen, Ievan Polkka, Danjo, Yatta! (lol), THE DANGO SONG, MY FAVOURITE CHRONO TRIGGER TRACK♥, and even a Yaranaika song in addition to a large portion of the rest of the “classic” Nico Nico Medley songs. It does get quite confusing when they overlay the songs, though.

I like the VOCALOID version much. KAITO makes me laugh. A lot. KAITORAMAN!

And there’s Miku; need I say more? みっくみっくにしてあげる~♥

Taituon’s version is pretty dang good too. It’s here on Nico.

I can’t recognise all the songs D: That’s a whole chuckload of songs stuffed into 14 minutes! This has all the annotations for each and every song (but it’s only Part 1 for now, and it’s the version by Taituon), though.

They're such a loving family.

Oo, 0verflow is releasing a new product called Cross Days sometime soon… I really hope it’s better than Summer Days, that piece of crap. And could they start using other characters other than the original set of characters in School Days already? Summer Days made me realise how sick and tired I was of them already.

The horror genre isn’t one of my more favorite genres. I like the occasional psychological suspense title but anything that’s considered a gore-fest I steer clear of. This show was billed as a psychological suspense so I had to give it a go.

Rating: 11/12 A+

Takki, our obsessed anime otaku, lives by himself in a shipping container on a roof. He only has a hazy hold on reality as shown by his propensity to hallucinate events that are common occurrences in eroge games as actually going on in real life. For example, he thinks he sees his sister take a drink of cola from a bottle he’s already drunk from but in reality, she’s poured the cola into a cup.

Under normal circumstances, this wouldn’t be much of a problem but a string of disturbing murders and suicides are occurring in the area around where Takki lives. He even stumbles upon the person that appears to be responsible in the midst of killing another victim but he runs home thinking that he’s hallucinating because the scene matches a picture he saw the day before.

She's totally not really there

All-in-all this was a very good first episode. While I was watching this episode I was reminded of Higurashi in that this show seems to be trying to mix horror with another genre. In Higurashi’s case it was horror and a school comedy and in Chaos;Head’s case it appears to be horror with a harem show. The harem elements felt very clichéd and at odds with the horror but I’m wondering if they’re supposed to. As viewers we’ll have to remember that the show is being filtered (so far) through Takki’s eyes and as an unreliable narrator it will make actually determining what’s really going on difficult.

I really liked the first episode and hope the series turns out to be the great psychological suspense show that it looks like it’s capable of being.

Continuing with more fall anime impressions, it’s time to check out one of the comedies of the season Kemeko DX. This one had me interested because Jason of DbD raved about the manga earlier this year and Hal Film Makers are the animators behind this show, known for great slice-of-life shows like Aria, Sketchbook, and Seasons Dreamer’s season 2. Will success in one field translate into success in another genre?

Rating: 10/12 A

If episode one is any indication, this could be a very funny comedy or it could quickly devolve into a boring mess of a show.

The story goes like this: our main character – Sanpeita – is a seemingly well-adjusted high school student except that he still pines for his first love from 10 years ago. She had to move away and all he has is a picture to remember her by. One day a group of large mechs break into his room but they are stopped by a rather homely girl (actually a woman piloting a mech that looks like a short, rotund girl). The mechgirl declares that she is here to marry Sanpeita but he escapes to school. Of course the mechgirl won’t take no for an answer and shows up at school. This puts Sanpeita in a bind but luckily she’s there because a giant rice cooker robot shows up looking for trouble. Mechgirl saves the school but is injured in the process. Various other things happen to finish up the episode but I think you get the idea.

Girl on the left pilots the mech above (yes the mech is half her size)

One of the strongest vibes this show gives off in the first episode is FLCL. For example: there’s the strange company that opened up in town recently, a strange woman that shows up that sees this company as the enemy, Sanpeita has some sort of weird power that makes his forehead glow green. Even the giant rice cooker robot looked like it walked out of FLCL. This isn’t a problem as far as I’m concerned; I’ve always wanted more FLCL and I welcome any show that can pull off that type of comedy but I wonder how long they can keep this type of show up.

Since I made such a big deal of the anime-added fanservice in Kannagi, I should talk about this shows use of fanservice. To put it bluntly there’s a lot here. In this show’s case, however, I’m okay with that because it fits with the type of show Kemeko DX is. Shows like this one or Maid Guy, Sumomo, and Magical Pokan use fanservice to add to the comedy of the show and as long as the makers remember to keep the show funny – the show remains an entertaining show.

Looking at the season as a whole, their isn’t a lot of comedy or slice-of-life shows, many seem dark (like the next show I’m reviewing) and I will need a decent comedy as balance so if the show can remain funny and not become stale then I’ll continue watching.

Next up are my reviews of the new fall anime shows Yozakura Quartet and Ga-Rei Zero. One tried to it’s best to make me forget about it and the other attempts to wow us with a Shyamalan ending.

Yozakura Quartet

Rating: 8/12 B+

I’m writing most of these fall impressions a few days after actually watching the episode in question. This hasn’t been a problem so far, I record the score right after I watch the episode and I remember what impressed me and why when I write about the episode. Last night as I was getting to this entry I found that I couldn’t really remember much of anything for this episode. The one thing I remember well was the introduction because I liked watching the city grow through time.

I rewatched it and agreed with my initial rating but there’s a problem with the show when it fails to leave a impression (positive or negative) on the viewer. The animation is okay, neither terrible or outstanding. The characters don’t seem too clichéd or memorable. I could go on but you get the idea - this show has potential but at the same time I can’t help but compare it to To Aru Majutisu no Index because at least right now they seem like similar shows: people with powers, a special city that it takes place in, and good guys fighting evil people. When compared to Index, Yozakura Quartet doesn’t seem to match up at the present. I will watch a few more episodes and hopefully this show can find it’s unique voice.

Ga-Rei Zero

Rating: 9/12 A-

One of the blogs that I’ve really been reading a lot of recently is Star Crossed Anime Blog and this show’s first episode was ranked pretty good so I thought I’d give it a go.

The show didn’t exactly wow me at first. Sure the animation was above average and the action was pretty good but when I don’t really know the characters then action for action’s sack really isn’t that awesome. I was interested, however in the flashbacks the main character has where one of the bad guys (are they demons, vampires, or something else?) has converted his girlfriend into one of the bad guys. He shot her at the time but still feels bad over this.

To make a long story short, the good guys dispatch the Class B bad guy and are relaxing, drinking tea and right when we think this is the end of the episode the main character’s girl shows up from the dead. Good place for a “To Be Continued” but instead we watch as she quickly slices everyone but our main character to death. Okay, I think to myself, killing off most of your main cast in the first episode is certainly different but our main character will must surely make it out alive – you can’t kill your entire cast in the first episode. As the girl advances to our main character, he can’t pull the trigger on his gun because it’s her. The episode ends with her definitely killing him and the ending credits roll with no music and to top it off there’s no preview.

I’m definitely intrigued about the show but I have no clue where it’s going to go now. Are they going to introduce a new group of people, bring these ones back from the dead somehow, or was this the ending of the show that we just saw? I don’t know but hopefully another episode will clarify this show for the viewers. If they wanted to get viewers interested in this show, they did a good job – now they have to deliever.