The next fall series I finished watching was Yozakura Quartet.

Way back when I wrote my review of the first episode, I mentioned that the show didn’t do anything that really left an impression on me – positive or negative. Now that it’s done, the question becomes, was the show able to become memorable either in the good or bad sense or would it continue to be easily forgettable?

Final Series Score: 7/12 B
Rewatchablity: low
Pros: background music was above average, didn’t really do anything wrong, love a show that still uses eye-catches
Cons: every aspect except the background music was bland and average

Awards given to Yozakura Quartet by this blog

• none

Story

The story is set in a town where humans and supernatural beings (who mostly look like humans) live together. The group in charge of the town’s safety is made up of super-powered beings and one human that has the power to send any supernatural being to the spirit realm by ‘tuning’ him or her. It’s a relaxed life for this team since nothing much happens but that’ll change when a friend of the group returns, possessed by a spirit still angry about being sent to the spirit realm hundreds of years ago.

Thoughts and impressions

Sadly, this show was generic and bland but in the show’s defense it was always at least mildly enjoyable. If it had been painful or awful, I would have dropped it but it never gave me a strong enough reason to do so.

The super-powered teenagers that save the city motif is well-trodden territory and as a result, it’s exceedingly rare to find a show that does something genuinely new. To praise only those shows that somehow do something new is to disregard many great shows that are executed well. Therefore, when I say this show is generic and bland, I’m talking about how well it was executed and if it used all available resources. For instance, one character of this show can make things appear out of thin air. This power can be used in so many ways in battle but she uses it just to create walls, staffs and other simple weapons, guns, grenades and really big guns. I kept waiting to see her do something truly interesting with this power but she never does.

Another example was how the show used a ‘dues ex machina’ to resolve the ending. The leader of our super-powered group uses a spear as her weapon and during the episodes leading up to the final showdown, it was shown that she wasn’t strong enough to win. So in the final episode, one of the elders of the village gave her a super-duper awesome spear point, that he stored in a messy dresser drawer, and it was much more powerful then the one she used and she was able to beat the bad guy.

So, I can’t really recommend this show since there’s much better shows of this type; Soul Eater, for example.

Essential Information

• 12 episodes
• genre: supernatural, action
• animation studio: Nomad
• director: Kou Matsuo
• OP: “JUST TUNE” by savage genius
• ED: “Nagareboshi” by ROUND TABLE featuring Nino
• Seiyuus of note: Misato Fukuen, Miyuki Sawashiro, Saki Fujita, Yuuki Kaji, Tomokazu Seki

Why do bad guys almost always have white hair?

Let’s get this out of the way before I get back to the top picks of the fall season.

This was another good week of anime watching. Two shows I didn’t list below but I did want to mention was that I finished up a re-watch of Library War and the first season of Minami-Ke with my sister. The first thing that struck me was that hearing Marina Inoue featured prominently in both really drove home how much I enjoy listening to her voice and the roles she plays. Also it reinforced my belief that Library War was one of the most entertaining shows of the year and the first season of Minami-Ke is one of the best anime comedies of all-time.

The scores:

To Aru Majutsu no Index, episode 9 – 10/12 A

Toradora!, episode 9 – 12++/12

Soul Eater, episode 33 – 11/12 A+
Soul Eater, episode 34 – 12/12
Soul Eater, episode 35 – 12/12

Kannagi, episode 9 – 10/12 A

Yozakura Quartet, episode 9 – 11/12 A+
Yozakura Quartet, episode 10 – 10/12 A

Chaos;Head, episode 8 – 11/12 A+

Somedays Dreamer’s S.2, episode 10 – 12+++/12

Skip Beat, episode 8 – 10/12 A
Skip Beat, episode 9 – 12/12

Earl and Fairy, episode 8 – 11/12 A+
Earl and Fairy, episode 9 – 10/12 A

Shikabane Hime: Aka, episode 7 – 11/12 A+

Clannad S.2, episode 10 – 12+/12

Xam’D: Lost Memories, episode 17 – 12/12

Ga-Rei Zero, episode 8 – 12+/12 A

Kurozuka, episode 8 – 11/12 A+

Kemeko DX, episode 9 – 10/12 A

Which shows have momentum this week

Up – Ga-Rei Zero : The second most surprising good show of the season

Down – Kurozuka : Still a great show but it’s been living off it’s style and it’s beginning to let it’s weakly developed story drag it down

Thoughts and Highlights

After the first two episodes of Ga-Rei Zero, I really had no clue where the show was going and a sinking feeling that the animators where too ambitious by opening the show how they did and would be unable to keep the viewers interesting. It appears that I was wrong because I’m liking this show week-in and week-out. One thing that I thought would hurt this show, like the Star Wars prequels, was that I know one of the main characters ends up evil. In the Star Wars case, this prevented me from sympathizing with Anakin because I know he becomes Darth Vader but not so with Ga-Rei Zero. I got to really like Yomi in these flashback episodes and when we get back to the present, I’m going to feel very sad if they can’t save Yomi somehow.

I feel bad about picking Kurozuka for losing momentum this week but I have to at least try to be objective and these last few episodes have felt very underwhelming. I think it’s safe to point to the shows padding of a thin storyline as the culprit. Hopefully, episode 8 will be the last of this padding as we transition to the conclusion.

Love the Art Deco school building

As awesome as episode 9 of Toradora was, the best episode of the week was episode 10 of Somedays Dreamer’s S.2 which earned the absolutely highest rating I can give out for a single episode. There was a big revelation, which I won’t spoil, and it caught me totally off-guard. It really shouldn’t have since there had been a few hints but I really didn’t expect the show to go in the direction it now seems to be going. Nor was the revelation the sole reason for the high score, the way in which the show went about revealing it was perfect and the character’s actions throughout the episode were just right.

Episode 9 of Yozakura Quartet finally did something that made me really interested in this show. The Nana-gou trees that help protect the city were being altered and this caused the Youkai of the city to have a harder time controlling their Youkai powers. So, for example, the pair of vampire children had to start using umbrellas to walk around in the daytime. A little touch but it was the first original thing this show has done so far.

The past two episodes of Clannad have really covered a lot of territory and watching Tomoya trying to succeed post-H.S. is something that I haven’t seen much in anime and a nice change of pace. There was a small scene that encapsulated this so well – he was worrying over finding a cheap apartment and we see a high school girl with her friends worrying about her hair. The huge gulf between the two worlds couldn’t have been articulated any better and the use of shadows and also Tomoya’s loneliness only reinforces this.

And finally, if you dropped Soul Eater before episode 20, you should give the show another chance. The show’s pacing has picked up dramatically around then and it has been going full tilt ever since. I’m really enjoying just about everything about this show right now – we where introduced to a few more characters, the fights are awesome, and they’re intertwining many plot threads right now. Soul Eater is really showing why it’s the best shounen title right now.

Amy's weapon is my favorite new weapon

I think one of the great things about watching anime is that each season offers different types of shows. I am, personally, surprised by many of the shows that are my favorites of the season. Which just strengthens my conviction that it’s important to keep an open mind when trying to pick anime to watch.

The scores:

Earl and Fairy, episode 3 – 10/12 A

Kannagi, episode 4 – 10/12 A

Somedays Dreamer’s S.2, episode 7– 12/12

Clannad S.2, episode 4 – 12++/12
Clannad S.2, episode 5 – 12+/12

Shikabane Hime: Aka, episode 3 – 12/12

To Aru Majutsu no Index, episode 4 – 10/12 A

Kurozuka, episode 3 – 12+/12

Mouryou no Hako, episode 3 – 11/12
Mouryou no Hako, episode 4 – 12/12

Ga-Rei Zero, episode 3 – 11/12 A+

Ga-Rei Zero, episode 4 – 11/12 A+

Skip Beat, episode 4 – 12/12

Hyakko, episode 4 – 7/12 B

Toradora!, episode 5 – 11/12 A+

Chaos;Head, episode 2 – 12/12
Chaos;Head, episode 3 – 12/12

Yozakura Quartet, episode 5 – 10/12 A

Thoughts and Highlights

The first thing that jumps into my mind when reviewing the scores above is that a pair of shows – Mouryou no Hako, and Ga-Rei Zero – are doing better overall then their episodic scores would indicate. Both have shown very tantalizing hints of being awesome shows but at the same time they both are very ambitious in what they want to accomplish. How this will play out, will they ultimately succeed or come up short, is unknown at this time.

The best episode of the week was episode 4 of Clannad which was the conclusion to the Sunohara/Mei arc. The addition of a second male character and all that he adds to the show is one way that Clannad is superior to the past Key shows. Just look at the fight between Sunohara and Tomoya in this episode. It was emotionally real and different from what we’re used to see in shows like these and my sister and I couldn’t help but be glued to the screen. I will admit that, once the fight started, I wanted to see a Tomoya beating of Sunohara because as an older brother to four sisters, Sunohara’s actions made me very angry – you always protect your family.

On the flipside, Hyakko got put on probation this week, which means that if I don’t think the next episode is good enough and points to the series being good, then I’m going to drop it. I realized while watching this episode that my big problem with this show is that I actively dislike 2 of the 4 main characters and don’t have a good opinion of the other two. I want to compare this show to Manabi Straight since the set-up seems fairly similar and the character types match up almost perfectly and when I do the differences are stark. Just look at Mei from Manabi Straight and the aloof-girl on Hyakko. Mei is likeable and it’s apparent that she does have a nice side whereas the aloof-girl on Hyakko has not be anything but mean and aloof and frankly I wish the other three would just leave her alone.

Toradora has finally introduced the fifth main character and she’s a doozy. She has a real annoying helpless-blond personality around people she likes but a real curt and unfriendly personality around people she dislikes. I’m not sure how these five characters fit together but so far their relationships have been interesting and different and a bit Honey and Clover-esque.

And finally, one show that I’m starting to become slightly optimistic that it will turn out to be a good show is Yozakura Quartet. They’ve been developing the characters through these episodes which is always a plus and the world that this anime inhabits is also starting to intrigue me. I wonder if this will turn out like Wagaya no Oinari-sama where the animation isn’t that great but the story and characters are enough to make the show a success.

One more from Kurozuka. In both pics, he's in a special mode that makes killing easy.

Posted in anime, weekly anime review      

Marisa, drawn by DaDa on pixiv, wishes you a Happy (Belated) Halloween~

A bit late, but I haven’t been posting. That’s an unavoidable, inexplicable fact. I write more often on Lang-8, and that’s in Japanese, mind you. And I update Poupee more than I update this site |D Speaking of poupee, I found some guy who actually posted stuff there and dressed up his poupee and shtuff. *trauma trauma* And then I just LOL’d.

I’ll be talking about games I’ve picked up/ have wanted to pick up, as well as the anime I’ve picked up and dropped.

I figured I should try and use my holidays to play some game that I’d wanted to play, so I did. I’m playing Pi Story now, but I lag up in dungeons/ maps/ whatever you call the places the pi bring you to because the connection’s pretty bad for some reason. I don’t usually like to team up with strangers, so it’s quite horrible for me when all the monsters spawn like crazy (i.e. Petite Forest, with the dang orbs). I’d play Mabinogi, but I don’t live in North America. I tried the bypass thing but uh I kept getting problems. So I gave up. ._.u I considered the Japanese server but I couldn’t be bothered in the end.

RO2 is coming soon. I’m not sure I should join or not with my grades in the gutters already.

I think I shall make it a habit to post Miku fanart in every future post… or not. Fyi this is by ぷちでびる (read: puchidevil) on pixiv.

I’ve also picked up some new anime, such as Skip Beat! (quite horrible, but oh well the manga was good I heard and I can’t be bothered to read the manga) and Garei Zero (the plot kind of goes nowhere though ep 4 was funny, but I just had to watch each episode to get to the bottom of it but I’m at my limit and gonna drop it damyou). *Edit, I’ve dropped it. Although Kemeko’s not that bad, it’s just not my taste (Fanservice aka ’saggy bwbs’, and Crazy-with-barely-any-logic-nor-meaning?!), so I’m watching it with little enthusiasm. I’ve picked up Tales of the Abyss (just because it’s one of the ‘Tales’ and I liked the cheagles and Luke didn’t irritate me as much at first and I have no means of getting my Tales of Symphonia for my Wii since I’m broke), Kuroshitsuji (the butler’s pretty much the only character who prevents me from dropping this), Clannad After Story (I don’t quite mind KyoAni works), Toradora! (despite whiny tsundere Al-gone-wrong, the duo are funny) and Michiko to Hacchin (this has potential I believe) although none of these shine quite as much as Kannagi does. Do I have to add in a ‘Kya’ or ‘Squee’ to show just how much I love it? Kya~! Squee~! (I don’t normally do this, you know.) I just love the puns, the tsukkomi, most of all the comedy duo themselves, etc., so that might be my weakness, but the bottom line is I just love this anime. Also, Nagi, tsundere as she might be, doesn’t irritate me much since she’s more like Kana from Minamike than a tsundere. Kugyu voices too many tsunderes already, and I don’t even like her that much :\ 

I dropped Hyakko (bad art and bored me despite a Kana-like character, sorry Jazzu), Yozakura (average but boring too), DMC (too vulgar and way too random for me, dropped quite a while ago, although I did enjoy Gag Manga Biyori) and Index (average and reminding me of Mx0 but ohwell, nothing special). 

Ah, gone are the days when I enjoyed Mahou Shoujo and watched anime (as well as the Powerpuff Girls) in Chinese. Akazukin Cha Cha was one of them… Ah, fyi this is by yukke.

My gut tells me that at least 99.9999% of the people who bothered to visit this page just went ‘tl;dr’ as usual and to those who actually know me in real life, this post probably wasn’t relevant to your interests (I don’t really post about my life here so please do look somewhere else where I do if you can even find one in English |D). I wrote a lot of run-on sentences today orz. And I probably abused the parentheses a little too much.

In any case, to sum up, please do watch Kannagi if you haven’t/ don’t plan to |D ! Especially if you love funny anime

And the Kannagi Girls are (from left) Zange-chan, Nagi and Tsugumi. Jin, the main guy and chibi in the centre, is pretty funny, as are his fellow art clubbers. Especially Akiba-kun, who has the same voicer as Simon from Gurren-Lagann. Btw, this is high res so click for fullview.

*Technically, the above image was a highres scan that I had to tweak a little in Photoshop in order for it to look better.

Massive amounts of anime was watched this week by me and I still feel like I’ve not watched enough of the series because I’m skipping sequels to shows that I haven’t seen the previous season of. As a side effect of rating so much anime at this concentrated rate, I’m finding it easier to see the gradations of quality that separates a perfect episode and one that’s an A+ or A. Therefore, it’s now harder for an episode to get a perfect score and the ones that do, deserve it.

The scores:

Soul Eater, episode 28 – 12+/12
Soul Eater, episode 29 – 12/12

Ga-Rei Zero, episode 2 – 12/12

Skip Beat, episode 2 – 11/12 A+
Skip Beat, episode 3 – 12/12

To Aru Majutsu no Index, episode 3 – 12/12

Wagaya no Oinari-sama, episode 24 – 10/12 A (end)

Kannagi, episode 3 – 11/12 A+

Kemeko DX, episode 3 – 10/12 A

Earl and Fairy, episode 2 – 11/12 +

Chaos;Head, episode 2 – 12/12
Chaos;Head, episode 3 – 12/12

Kurozuka, episode 2 – 12/12

Mouryou no Hako, episode 2 – 12+/12

Yozakura Quartet, episode 2 – 10/12 A
Yozakura Quartet, episode 3 – 9/12 A-
Yozakura Quartet, episode 4 – 10/12 A

Hyakko, episode 3 – 9/12 A-

Toradora!, episode 4 – 12+/12

Daughter of 20 Faces, episode 20 – 10/12 A

(previously reviewed)

Michiko to Hatchin, episode 1 – 6/12 B-

Earl and Fairy, episode 1 – 9/12 A-

Thoughts and Highlights

Alas, this amount of shows this week make it impossible to mention them all. Writing in any form has always been difficult and time-consuming for me. If I write an email that’s a paragraph long, you can bet that I spent over an hour composing it. Someday I hope to get better at writing and that desire is one of the personal reasons for doing this blog. With that said, onto my thoughts and highlights.

The best episode this week was from Mouryou no Hako. I was wondering what they where going to do after the first episode and while I still don’t know for sure, it appears that something strange is going on. For instance, they keep talking about how boxes can hold people’s souls. It was done with the girl in episode 1 that was just a living head in a box and the doll-maker and the characters have mentioned it as well. As this makes me wonder about the building-size box that is shown at the end of episode 2. What is it and what is it meant to do? Also, there appears to be reason to suspect that the girl that fell in front of the train at the end of episode 1 was pushed for a reason. Both of the mysteries make me real anxious to watch the future episodes and the stunning animation doesn’t hurt.

Soul Eater continues to impress me on the shounen front. I thought the show was a touch slow in the beginning, even if I liked each individual episode as it aired, but since about episode 18 the show has kicked itself into high gear and the pace hasn’t slacked yet. If this isn’t the top shounen series right now, it’s very close.

Use of eye-catches is always a plus for an anime

I’m finding that I’m warming to both Kannagi and Yozakura Quartet this week but Hyakko is still not winning me over and it was the robot girl that secured the A- for the episode, if she wasn’t there then it would have been scored lower. In Kannagi’s case, it’s probably the combination of successfully forgetting the manga and giving the characters time to be more developed and thus likeable. Yozakura Quartet is still not matching J.C. Staff’s Index but episodes 2-4 where good enough that I want to continue to watching.

And finally, the two shoujo shows that I’m watching, Skip Beat and Earl and Fairy, both where very fun shows to watch this week. The first continues to excel at making us care about the main character, Kyoko, and root that she gets her revenge. The second has a talking cat, always a big plus, and is doing a good job at developing the three main characters.

I forgot to post this pic with the series review. This was a good way to end the series..

Posted in anime, weekly anime review      

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

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.