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Review: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (ひぐらしのなく頃に)

Posted by ranpha on 13th July 2007

Posted in: anime review - reposted. Tagged: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (series), Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (ひぐらしのなく頃に). Leave a Comment

A question you lot will be asking throughout the series.

Today you will have the review of the brilliant yet frustrating supernatural-cum-thriller anime series Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni. Simply one of the most brutal anime I watched in quite some time since Gantz.

Story:-
The story is presented like a dating simulation game, where a guy is surrounded with 5 beautiful girls (a couple seems to be suspiciously underage). But instead of having the guy exploring storylines that leads to him screwing one (or more) of them, the audience instead will be presented with storylines that will lead to which character will go totally insane and kill the others. Annoyingly that there are no sexual contents whatsoever :(

The series is supposed to be divided into 2 parts, a Question Arc and an Answer Arc. Each part is divided into 4 storylines. This means that the series has 8 storylines, but only 6 of them are shown in the show. The further 2 seems to be animated in the second season, which I have already started downloading. All Question story arcs has been presented but only 2 from the Answer Arc has been presented.

The storylines are presented the way a dating simulation like Kana – Little Sister or Shuffle! does. This means repetitions are quite common in the storylines, just like the way those games forces you to unlock all the endings (in this case, mostly bad) before you got the happy ending. Overall, the storyline are uneven; while the 2nd question storyline and its answer combined to make a brilliant story, the 1st question and its answer combined just to serve as a fact-filling filler which tells you what really happened.

I have high hopes for the second season, it can only be good they mimicked the brilliant combined storylines of the 2nd question and answer.

Character Design:-
The character design here is similar to those you can see on those dating simulation games. Black hair? Nope, such things are rare in here boy. Meanwhile we got two green-haired babes here. Big eyes and big boobs are also common here.

Voice acting:-
The voice acting of the main characters are excellent. Voiced by talented voice actresses such as Yukari Tamura and Mika Kanai, each and everyone of them can bring out the demons of each character they played as they chopped/slashed/nailed/hacked their own closest friends. I dare say, that voice acting here is better than the one in Haruhi Suzumiya (not Nodame though).

A good preview of the anime

Music:-
Great OP, but for everything else I have nothing good to say about them.

Animation/Direction:-
The animation is pretty decent, and the blood, yay! It is hard to comment about the directing, whether it is really good or was it helped by the great storyline this show have. I tend to lean on the latter. The violence is very well choreographed though.

Conclusion:-
8 out of 10. Unoriginality in character design and forgettable music make me dock 2 points here. One of the 2006 anime that can challenge Kiba the TV animation, but fall just short.

Murderers, you all!

Review: Sumomomo Momomo – The Strongest Bride on Earth (すもももももも～地上最強のヨメ～)

Posted by ranpha on 10th July 2007

Posted in: anime review - reposted. Tagged: Sumomomo Momomo – The Strongest Bride on Earth (すもももももも～地上最強のヨメ～). 1 comment

Some of the crazy scenes in this anime.

Finished being fansubbed about a week ago, so here is the review of Sumomomo Momomo: The Strongest Bride on Earth. Man, I always forgot the extra -mo in Sumomomo.

Story:-
Inuzuka Koishi, the son of a legendary martial art practitioner, finds himself being engaged with the lusty daughter of his father’s best friend whose aim is to bear his children no matter what. A top student in his school, he proudly declared that he wants to become a prosecutor while hiding the fact that he is a coward and do not know any martial arts despite his lineage. With his engagement, he becomes the target of numerous assassins who wants to stop the marriage, and have to rely on his fiancee to get his ass covered.

From a promising start, this story quickly turned into some kind of harem-romantic-comedy anime, and just as quickly, the story went down the drain. Up to one-third of the storyline covered pointless episodes that revolves around the characters’ life but do not contribute to the main story or characters’ development. The story that matters probably can be crammed from 22 episodes to the standard 13 without any noticeable difference. The pacing of the story suffered because of this as I endured watching the middle sections of the show. The ending is decent and kinda open-ended, but there are no signs of a new season.

The only reason why I finished watching the series at all is because the series is actually very funny in numerous parts of the show. The efforts of Momoko to have Koishi impregnates her are hilarious. Not to mention her various fantasies about Koishi making love to her etc. She is one of the biggest reasons why this show is watchable in the first place, saving the show from the boring plots and predictable ending.

The reluctant SM-loving side character.

Character Design:-
The overall character design is good, I think, although there are no one that really stands out from the rest like Enma Ai. With the exception for Momoko, the rest are stereotypical designs that are suitable to the role they play.

Voice acting:-
Voice acting here is average overall, and Hirano Aya did not show the performance she did in Haruhi Suzumiya.

Music:-
The first OP theme is good, the OST and the rest of the themes are not. No 3-straight great music here unfortunately.

Animation/Direction:-
Probably the best point in the series. The animation is fluid and seamless, inclusive of the CGI scenes. Fighting choreography is actually pretty good too, with pretty CGI special effects. Plot directions though are not exactly great.

Conclusion:-
6 out of 10. The very slow pace of the story in the middle of the show ruins it. And the story is not exactly spectacular anyway.

‘Rape me please’ say Momoko to her fiancee.

Review: Genesis Climber Mospeada (機甲創世記モスピーダ)

Posted by ranpha on 6th July 2007

Posted in: anime review - reposted. Tagged: Genesis Climber Mospeada (機甲創世記モスピーダ). Leave a Comment

Your compulsory bishounen character.

A review of an old series, but still quite good to watch. Read this review of the not-quite-mecha series Genesis Climber Mospeada below.

Story:-
The future Earth has been taken over by aliens from who-knows-where and humans who are based on other planets such as Mars and Jupiter struggled to retake Earth back. An assault goes wrong saw Stig Bernard lost his fiancee to an alien attack and he found himself stranded on earth. Hunted by the aliens, he assembled a crack team of soldiers and civilians as he aims for the alien’s headquarters.

I watched this anime when I was still kids, and I still think that this anime is pretty good. It has a simple but solid story without any bull-sh*t plot-twists whatsoever. Watching this anime, I yearns for the old-days where shounen mecha anime has a more straightforward storylines unlike the crap like Gundam SEED, and has generic character developments (no outstanding characters). Although if you watch this anime, you have to really ignore the questions such as why the aliens are so bad at aiming while the sadistic good guys really have to insist on carrying handguns that won’t even scratch the aliens unless shot at that alien’s very tiny weak point.

Character Design:-
I guess for its time, the anime has pretty decent designs, and some characters is still quite good even today especially the soldier-cum-singer bishounen character above.

Voice acting:-
Uhmmm…. the voice acting here is mixed bag. Over-exaggeration are pretty common especially from certain characters. But this series is a classic so maybe forgivable?

Music:-
For 2 straight reviews, both OP and ED themes as well as the OST are great. Plenty of good usage of insert songs here. I wonder if I can see three good anime with perfect music section in a row.

Animation/Direction:-
The animation is just average actually (I wonder if this quality of animation are common at that time). The directing is quite decent, with vastly better action choreography than the one in Yamamoto Yohko.

Conclusion:-
8 out of 10. A return to the days where mecha anime is still decent. When will those Japanese learns not to create the next Evangelion or Gundam (those cannot be duplicated) and return to the roots of good mecha anime?

Your compulsory comedy outlet.