anime review – reposted

All reviews written when the blog is still at Windows Live Spaces. Usually shorter and inferior in quality. Not used anymore.

Review: Buzzer Beater 2007

Posted by ranpha on 19th February 2008
Posted in: anime review - reposted. Tagged: . Leave a Comment


At first I think English has survived the assault of the Japanese in the far future….

Today, I will review a sequel of an anime I watched before this blog is started, titled Buzzer Beater 2007. From the title you would have realized that this is a Nodame Cantabile’s challenger. Just in case you did not know, Takehiko Inoue of Slamdunk does the story, so do not keep your hope up.

Story:-
Continuing from the previous series, the all-human Earth Team is now challenging alien’s invasion dominance in basketball at the Intergalactic Minor League. While doing that, the team will have to contend with all typical problems a sport team will face. Imagine a story about a high-school sport team that aims for the nationals, except that it happens far in the future where aliens and humans can interbreed.

Apart from the context, the story is not that different from your typical high-school sports anime, with the exception that the main protagonist is already awesome and need little training. Watching the first season is a must, or else you will be lost in an alien story. Character developments are carried on and continued well, but the ending is probably not very good, although YMMV.

My only gripe is that the basketball games actually takes a back-seat compared to the story itself, or else how then you can explain episode 10 where the hero wiped out a 15-point deficit all by himself instantaneously.

Character Design:-
Well, the hero is blue-haired but there are fair amount of black hair in this one. With this anime being set in a futuristic setting, I would not have complained if there none at all. Anyway, the character design is quite realistic and a positive point of this anime.

 
…just to find out it did not escaped unscathed.

Voice acting:-
The main protagonist is excellent, and so the other character named Lazuli. While the rest is not that bad, none is as good as the two above.

Music:-
The ED theme is decent, but not the OST. There is no OP theme here.

Animation:-
This 2007 anime, unlike the majority of its counterparts, has awful animation quality. This is really obvious in fast-paced scenes, and this anime has lots of them. At first I think Media Player Classic dropped some frames with the EVR custom presenter, but subsequent tests shows that this is not the case.

The directing is good, with the exception where the final league game in aforementioned episode 10 being watered down a lot.

Conclusion:-
7 out of 10. Nodame is still number one.

 
Basketball is serious business.

Review: Comic Party (こみっくパーティー) + Revolution (こみっくパーティー: Revolution)

Posted by ranpha on 15th February 2008
Posted in: anime review - reposted. Tagged: , . Leave a Comment

Naruto Abridged 12 – the video that started everything.

I come to know about this Comic Party anime from the Naruto Abridged video above, which were used for the Chuunin exam. After some time, my curiosity breaks me down and here we are with the review of the said anime, a title that makes Sasuke scratching his head during the exam.

 
“Who is she?”. The first thought that comes to my mind at the start of second season.

Story:-
Kazuki Sendou, a procrastinating third-year high school student, was coaxed into drawing doujinshi by his erratic close friend Taishi Kuhonbutsu. As he ventures into the dark world of doujinshi all the way into his college years, he meets plenty of beautiful girls (the reason will be outlined below) and that’s about it.

Yet another series based on dating simulations like AIR, the first season started slowly with a story that is actually decent. It wasn’t great, but not bad either. It is in the second season where the series took a head-first plunge into a deep ravine. This is because this series seem to require you to PLAY THE GAME BEFORE WATCHING THE SECOND SEASON.

First complaint about the second season is the introduction of characters that was in the game but not in the first season of the anime. When Subaru Mikage appeared onscreen for the first time, I was like, WTF at that time. This also applies to similar new characters like her. If she was introduced properly like what about 99.99% of anime out here has done, I will be OK with that. But here I have a feeling that she (and others) was inserted into this anime just like that, without proper introductions and with all character developments being done off-screen (I suspect it was in the game).

Second complaint about the second season is the disjointed storyline. With the first 4 episodes being the adapted OVA episodes, transition from the OVA-based episodes into the next 9 episodes is bumpy at best. Actually, it feels like watching 2 different storyline in there. The main 9-episode storyline also suffers the same syndrome.

The ending of the 2nd season is also lame, unlike the decent one in the first season. Meanwhile, I resented the fact that many of characters development for new characters are done in the game (it has to, or else how then the main protagonist can be so familiar and friendly with them). Overall, this is just like School Rumble, but worse.


The moment she comes out, I resigned to the fact that the second season is going to be awful.

Character Design:-
Same as AIR, the design comes straight from a typical dating simulation game. Except that black hair is quite common. Hahahaha.

 
The main protagonist is a To Heart crossdresser.

Voice acting:-
Voice acting in this anime is good in general, with no outstanding talents of note.

Music:-
Sorry, but just like the second season, the music overall stinks too.

 
Usually a Windows-based laptop did not blue-screen when liquid spills on it. Most of the time, it just blacked out, or if you are lucky, it will explode.

Animation/Direction:-
Probably only the positive point of this anime, the animation in the whole series is good. The directing is not bad, with the exception for the mess that is the second season.

 
IRL, there are no cosplayer as good as her.

Conclusion:-
5 out of 10. The first season alone should have scored at least 7 but the awfulness of the second season drags the score down.

 
Please do not, OK Japan?

Review: Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (さよなら絶望先生)

Posted by ranpha on 8th February 2008
Posted in: anime review - reposted. Tagged: , . Leave a Comment



Quoted For Truth.

Today we will have a mini-review of an anime that I have been hoarding for quite a while, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. Any anime will do, as long as I can delay watching Myself, Yourself as long as possible. Oh, and BTW, this is a 2007 anime, but from the looks of it, Nodame can rest easy.


Our hero Nozomu Itoshiki.

Story:-
Nozomu “Mr. Despair” Itoshiki, a high school teacher, has a tendency to try and commit suicide everytime he fall into despair for various reasons. His (mainly female) students have to work hard at preventing him from dying. And that’s about it.

The story by itself is a roller-coaster, with some good episodes and others that are meh. Just like Lucky Star and Cromartie Koukou, this anime makes lots of references to other anime/manga/TV shows. Particularly, I really like the parody for the OP of Alias (yeah, the one with Jennifer Gartner).

The second feature that makes this anime “different” despite its ordinary storyline is the unorthodox “presentation”. The first thing I notice about this anime is the pacing. They are almost perpetually in fast-forward mode, even faster than Lucky Star. Kudos to a.f.k. group, because this anime is surely a hellish series to sub. The <space> and CRTL + left/right button combos in Media Player Classic is my greatest friend here. They are needed or else you will miss a lot of things. I wonder how the Japanese who only watched this series on TV can enjoy this without taping it first.

Character development focused more on the students than on the main protagonist, and that’s probably a good thing. Although I may have noticed that his suicidal tendencies seems to peter out towards the end. The second season is now underway and I hope the series can be better, preferably story wise.


She is the best character in the series. She is totally awesome and need more airtime.

Character Design:-
A plus point of the anime, this is the first time for quite some time where I can see black hair (the default hair color for real Japanese) on many (if not majority) of the characters. Plus, the characters are beautifully designed too.

Voice acting:-
Another plus point of the anime, the voice acting in this series is excellent all-around. The main protagonist is good, but his female students are even better. The only “drawback” is that the best character in this series rarely uses her voice.


One of the things that can cause our hero to hang himself.

Music:-
This anime has good character design and voice acting, but the music is a letdown. There is virtually nothing I can say about the OST or the OP/ED themes.

Animation/Direction:-
Another big letdown of this series, the animation quality in this series is not up to par with other 2007 anime I have reviewed here in the past. This is despite the text-heavy presentation that should not complicate matters even if it was faster. Meanwhile the directing is great, mainly because of the unique presentation. That for sure is hard to do.

Conclusion:-
8 out of 10. Has a lot of room to do better in the second season.


You may not allow your child(ren) to watch this series.

Shortlink: http://wp.me/prgSo-1K

Pages:  1 2 ... 9 10 11 12 13 ... 34 35