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: Pretear (新白雪姫伝説プリーティア)

Posted by ranpha on 17th June 2006

Posted in: anime review - reposted. Tagged: Pretear (新白雪姫伝説プリーティア). Leave a Comment

Anyone expecting more screenshots like EDEN’s Bowy in this review of Pretear will be disappointed, as there will be only 2!! Muahahahaha.

Story:-
A shoujo anime with magic in the mould of Sailormoon, a girl in an immensely rich family suddenly finds out that she has to become a Pretear to save the world from someone called Princess of Disaster. Unlike Sailormoon though, she is surrounded instead by handsome men and pretty boys who served as her knights and also her trainers as she learns to use her powers before the final battle with Princess. That’s child soldiers for you. Basically you won’t really find anything new in this title.

Unoriginal story, predictable plots, unexplained and unexpected power-ups and a cliche happy ending and no one dies. Not exactly my cup of tea.

Character design:-
Average and not really outstanding.

Voice acting:-
Average and not really outstanding. For everyone.

Music:-
Average and not really outstanding. Applies to OP/ED themes and OST.

Animation/Direction:-
Animation is great in quality. But direction is average and not really outstanding. I want to complain about the overused shaking eyes thingy (the one used in dramatic scenes) but then again I realized that this is just your typical shoujo anime.

Conclusion:-
At the end of probably the shortest review here is the award of the 5 out of 10 rating for this anime.

Review: EDEN’s Bowy (エデンズボゥイ)

Posted by ranpha on 12th June 2006

Posted in: anime review - reposted. Tagged: EDEN’s Bowy (エデンズボゥイ). Leave a Comment

The review of EDEN’s Bowy will be the one with the most screenshots to date. Screenshots that mostly consists of a particular neko-dictator!!!

Story:-
Another of your common fantasy shounen anime with some mecha/puppet actions; a boy discovers that he is a legendary God Hunter, and with it he gets the prize of having a goddess accompanying him while being chased by 2 competing flying superpowers of the world who wants him dead or wants his powers, respectively. Then he found another God Hunter, whose job in the whole series is to chase the newly-annointed God Hunter boy while preaching about the story of a scorpion and the frog. That boy also wants a new fur coat, which can only be accomplished by killing the sister of the goddess that is accompanying him. And bla bla bla.

Wasn’t really an outstanding anime storywise. But it wasn’t bad either. But there is nothing really to comment about this underwhelming storyline.

Character design:-
Mixed bag. The character design for female characters (inclusive of the prominently-featured neko-dictator in the screenshots) are good. The male character design is not. Sakura’s character design is better than the main protagonist’s. Mecha/puppet design are not that good either, unless you want to count Hairra in.

Voice acting:-
The voice for the boy hero is underwhelming. Must be Kappei Yamaguchi’s not-so-stellar gigs. Overall, the voice acting is also mixed bag like the character design, where the female characters outdoing their male counterparts.

Music:-
The only bright spot for the anime. Both OP and the second ED themes are in my iPod. The OST are not really good though, with the exception of the music tracks playing at scenes at Yulgaha.

Direction/animation:-
Some neat mist special effect are used in this anime, presumably 2D. The animation is quite decent overall. Direction is not well polished, the director failed to manage some of the characters’ reaction after encountering an event or hearing a dialogue. Happens quite plenty of times, making the character’s visual acting plastic at times.

Conclusion:-
Unlike Kaikan Phrase, music here is quite a strong point but not so great in other areas. 6 out of 10 is what I rate this anime.

Review: Kaikan Phrase (快感フレーズ)

Posted by ranpha on 9th June 2006

Posted in: anime review - reposted. Tagged: Kaikan Phrase (快感フレーズ). 2 comments

Pardon me for the small image, but the anime is VHS-quality only.

I have another review of another music-based anime titled Kaikan Phrase (after BECK and Gravitation below there), with no fighting, magical powers, alternate dimensions, sex scenes or fan service. You still got big eyes and big breasts though.

Story:-
Well, basically a bunch of troubled young men forming a J-ROCK (edit: more like visual kei if you ask me now) band and trying to be professional. They did become professional and thus have to deal with a lot of issues, such as corporate wars, rival bands, complacency, love problems, maniacal fans, family opposition etc.

The story is quite simple really, but the good thing about it is that the story is unpredictable unlike quite many anime titles out there. The ending is obvious though. The way the band members deals with the pressure that comes with the issues listed above are portrayed beautifully, and the story flows along very well. With only 1 recap episode, this 44-episode anime title is worth your money to buy (or time and bandwidth to download).

This is an anime that relies more on good story presentation than a substantial plotline as its greatest strength. That’s why I put up with the LQ release of this anime and watched it until the end.

Character design:-
I viewed a LQ release of the anime, thus my judgment may be compromised here. The band members are overtly designed to be extremely handsome/bishounen/kawaii. The female ones, such as the high-school lyricist are your standard Japanese female character with big eyes and big breasts while the more matured/older ones with smaller eyes but still with big breasts. I just want to question whether the lyricist was supposed to be beautiful or not. If yes, then the design is correct but the attached storyline doesn’t seem to indicate so.

Voice acting:-
I wonder whether Masaya Matsukaze really sign those songs or maybe it use a double like Koyuki in BECK. If he does sing them then he is really an outstanding artist. Other band members voice acting are pretty good too. Generally no complains here with the above average overall voice acting.

Music:-
Despite this anime being music-oriented, unfortunately the music depicted here are not really that good. At least the ones that I can review anyway because some of the episodes has their OP and ED themes cut out (sometimes both). I come to understand that most of the themes are songs sung by the band and others too in the series, so I guess I do not miss much as they like to sing those repeatedly. Meanwhile, the OST is really average and doesn’t seem to be there at all. You can say it that the OST is almost unnoticeable.

Direction/Animation:-
The animation is top notch; very fluid and noticeable even when seen with a LQ source. Any aspiring fansub groups out there can become famous if they get a R2 DVD set and sub this anime again. 3D CGI and 2D animation blending are done better even when compared to Galaxy Angel. There are problems with some part of the animation though, as shown below:

Towa’s eyes can be seen through his hair in this scene.