anime review

All reviews written since I moved the blog to the wordpress platform. Default category.

Review: Toaru Majutsu no Index (とある魔術の禁書目録)

Posted by ranpha on 6th April 2010

Posted in: anime review. Tagged: Toaru Majutsu no Index (series), Toaru Majutsu no Index (とある魔術の禁書目録). 1 comment

The main male protagonist.

As promised in this blog’s last entry, today’s review is for a 2008 anime titled Toaru Majutsu no Index, therefore it will compete with Wolf and Spice for the ‘Anime of the Year 2008’ title. This series side-story A Certain Scientific Railgun that I originally planned to watch after this title has to be shelved temporarily, because 2 high-priority titles had just been finished. I will tell you what they are at the end of this review.

Story:-
Our luckless main protagonist wakes up in one very hot and humid morning just to find an amnesiac Catholic nun being ‘dried up’ outside his veranda. He sneered at her claims that she is a magician with shitloads of magical grimoires carved into her brain. But he instantly found out that her other claim that she is on the run from other magicians is true, and from there on he has to defend her from being kidnapped by mysterious bad people.

This anime is very comparable to the recently-reviewed Kaze no Stigma, which has the similar multi-arc plots format. But while the story in the former is better than the latter, the latter has a better main protagonist. This anime’s title main female protagonist is better than her counterpart in Kaze no Stigma, and that’s a good improvement.Unlike in Kaze no Stigma, this anime doesn’t crap out after the first arc, which is another good improvement. But even that, the quality of the story arcs are uneven; some of them are decent, others excels at being bad. The arc-switching process is seamless, without being peppered with filler episodes as it was done in Kaze no Stigma.

One interesting tidbit I have noticed in this anime is how the title main female protagonist disappeared right after the first arc (arguably the best one in this series – alongside with the arc about the Accelerator and MISAKA 20001) and only reappeared in the final arc. In-between these two arcs, her role in this anime is restricted to biting the main protagonist on his hospital bed or being buried alive at the beach etc. For a title protagonist, the lack of airtime she has stunted her character development relative with the main male protagonist and a couple of other characters.And this is a damning fact for her considering that the main male protagonist has a static character development path (just like his counterpart in Kaze no Stigma), despite of what had happened to him at the end of the first arc.

The last arc of the anime, while a little bit retarded, did fully indicate that a second season will come. If an anime like this series’ side-story A Certain Scientific Railgun exists, a second season is definitely in the cards, unlike Kaze no Stigma…

Some snarky lines from our main male protagonist.

Character Design:-
Aesthetically not that different really from what you see in Kaze no Stigma, except that the main male protagonist has black hair. Which is a good thing because everyone else (ha ha ha) hair colors are very colorful to say the least. Big eyes, unrealistic body shapes and unnatural boob sizes (either they are flat-chested or overly buxomed – almost nothing in-between) are common here.

Voice Acting:-
Just like Kaze no Stigma, voice acting in this series is just average, but the main title female protagonist is outstanding. A pity though that she barely featured in nearly two-third of this anime.

Not really sure why I took this screenshot though, so I will leave it alone.

Music:-
Only the OST of this anime is good. The OP and ED themes are pretty much forgettable.

Animation/Direction:-
Animation quality in this anime is great (maybe it’s the Blu-ray rip that helps this anime here), with no problems even in fast-paced scenes. Action scenes choreography doesn’t match the animation quality though, even the average Kaze no Stigma is better in this aspect. The directing in this anime is decent, with no problems with the presentation.

Conclusion:-
7 out of 10. Wolf and Spice is still the reigning ‘Anime of the Year 2008’ holder by a distance. A Certain Scientific Railgun will be put on hold because the final season of Nodame Cantabile is now over, and so are the long-awaited Cross Game anime. Can the former recovers from the screw-ups done in the second season? Can the latter overcome the twin handicaps of romance and sports genres? You have to wait…

The main male protagonist with one of his other women.

Review: Minami-ke (みなみけ) S1

Posted by ranpha on 28th March 2010

Posted in: anime review. Tagged: Minami-ke (みなみけ). 1 comment

The main characters of this anime.

So, between Minami-ke and Toaru Majutsu no Index, I picked the former. And oh boy, I do regret my choice. Actually I see that this title is a joint project between Anime Empire (that subs Capeta) and Saizen fansub groups, therefore I think this is a sport anime, and I downloaded it. Only when I started watching it I found out how wrong I am. This slice-of-life anime is a 2007 anime, therefore it will fight a vain battle against Bokurano, the current holder of the ‘Anime of the Year 2007’ title.

Story:-
See the screenshot below for an apt explanation:-

The first sentence sums up the anime. The second line is a warning that you should take seriously.

Imagine the recently-reviewed slice-of-life anime K-On, stripped out of its (not so good) story and Hirasawa Yui, and we have an anime that is on the same level as Hayate no Gotoku and Myself Yourself, amongst others. This anime has lame storyline and its characters’ roster are boring. Character developments is basically non-existent, with the 3 main characters being the same from the first episode until the last one. I even thought that the cross-dressing elementary schooler is better than them.

The only thing that this anime doesn’t manage to screw-up is the comedy. Some of them are genuinely good, but plenty of them are ordinary. Well, this anime is maybe at the same level as K-On in this aspect. The ending is basically non-existent, just like Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei series were. In the course of writing this review, I found out at ANN that there are 3 seasons of this anime, therefore that must be the reason why the ending is structured that way. The fact that this anime has 3 seasons is very disturbing though.

The lack of a coherent storyline in anime like this one is forgivable, but at least there should be at least one interesting/powerful character(s) in this anime. K-On would have been even crappier if it doesn't have Hirasawa Yui propping up the series. Oh BTW, I won’t watch the subsequent seasons of this anime, unless you want to pay me for doing so.

The comedy is the only silver lining that this anime has.

Character Design:-
The character designer of this anime suffers from the same affliction that plagued the likes of Naruto, Hayate no Gotoku and Initial D, and that would be the inability of the designer to draw beautiful female characters. The three titles I have mentioned gets away with this because the main characters for each series is male, but this anime doesn’t have that luxury, for obvious reasons. The other Minami family, which is almost all guys, has far better character designs. Oh BTW, black hairs are rare in this slice-of-life anime that takes place in present-day Japan.

Voice Acting:-
Voice acting in this anime in this anime is very good, especially for the second and third Minami sisters. Definitely a positive point for this anime.

Music:-
Another positive point for this anime, the music aspect of this anime is flawless; the OST is decent and there is also two good OP and ED themes.

Animation/Direction:-
The animation quality in this anime is good, even in fast-paced scenes. No comment about the choreography because this anime doesn’t have any action scenes. The director probably cannot do anything about the lack of storyline and characters in this anime though, so I will give him/her a pass.

Conclusion:-
3 out of 10. Toaru Majutsu no Index or A Certain Scientific Railgun will be the one reviewed next.

The craziness of a certain delusional character in this anime helps brightened this anime up.

Review: Umineko no Naku Koro ni (うみねこのなく頃に)

Posted by ranpha on 23rd March 2010

Posted in: anime review. Tagged: Umineko no Naku Koro ni (series), Umineko no Naku Koro ni (うみねこのなく頃に). 2 comments

The spirited main male protagonist and one of the best characters in this series.

This review of Umineko no Naku Koro ni marks the beginning of an avalanche of, well, more anime reviews that will come in quick succession. It has been quite some time since I last done this,and this should be a good thing for this blog that needs more new contents. Umineko no Naku Koro ni is a 2009 title, therefore it will compete with Zan Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei for the ‘Anime of the Year 2009’ title. Read on to see whether this anime managed to do so or not.

And this is the uncultured main female antagonist, also one of the best characters in this series.

Story:-
The head of the wealthy Ushiromiya clan finds out that he has only 3 months to live, therefore he arranged for a family meeting to select a new successor to be held at his private mansion located on a private island, far-far away from civilization. All of his sons and daughters attended the family gathering, and so are nearly all of his grandsons and granddaughters. In the first night, a typhoon comes, cutting all communication lines to the mainland. Then, the brutal murders started… Written by the same people who wrote the Higurashi no Naku Koro ni series (referenced sometimes in this anime), the story is eerily similar to any of the homicide cases in Kindaichi Shonen no Jikembo that happened in similar settings (quite a few of them). I compared this anime to the Kindaichi series rather than the likes of Meitantei Conan because the main male protagonist is also similar to the protagonist in Kindaichi series. Just like the latter, the former will have to face a formidable foe a.k.a. the main female antagonist who is a high-ranking witch. The main male protagonist here doesn’t have even a quarter of Hajime Kindaichi’s abilities though, or else he would have made short work out of the witch. The witch is also not the brightest criminal ever unlike the cunning and cruel magician in the Kindaichi series, or else she would have reached Golden Land in less than 13 episodes.

The battle of wits between these two is what this anime is all about.

Just like the Higurashi series, the anime (based from a visual novel just like Higurashi is) is divided into several arcs. This anime has 4 of them, and as of now, the game is now in its 6th arc. So it is almost certain that there will be a second season at least. The first arc introduced the story, the island setting and almost all the characters that matters (more of this later). The second half of the last episode of this arc is very important, because there is one easily missed important fact about the nature of the witch that will be revealed to you. The second arc is where the battle between the two main protagonists started, and this arc concentrates mainly on character developments for many of Ushiromiya family members. In the 3rd arc, the witch concocts an elaborate offensive move with the help of her magical powers which caught the main protagonist unaware until far too late, but he was rescued by a new character that comes out from nowhere. This is where my first complaint about this anime come, which is the introduction of an important character (the character is the main male protagonist little sister) far too late into the series, without any hints or warning whatsoever. Some of you may argue that the new character is similar to Hanyuu a.k.a. Oyashiro-sama in the Higurashi series, but in her case there are plenty of hints about her existence even from that series’ first arc. In this anime, the first two arcs doesn’t even have a hint about her, and there is only one off-hand mention of her by the main male protagonist in the third arc.

A familiar remark I have read in a certain Japanese manga…

My second complaint is, because of her dramatic entry into the storyline, a significant chunk of the 4th arc were spent on the character introduction and development of one single character (read: 2 consecutive flashback/flashforward episodes, plus many more of them after that in the 8-episode 4th arc). This took the focus away from the main male protagonist, and to a lesser extent, the main female antagonist. With these two characters out of the spotlight, the steam is taken out of this arc. The inconclusive yet dramatic showdown between these two main characters in the second half of the last episode doesn’t manage to salvage the 4th arc from the mire it found itself in. Well, the ending is set up nicely for a second season, that’s for sure. Character developments in this series is uneven, and happened depends on what arc is playing. There are plenty of them in the 2nd arc, while, due to the nature of the plot, none of them happened in the 3rd arc. The 4th arc concentrates on the newly minted character and to a lesser extent, another two of the Ushiromiya family members. The best characters in the series is definitely the two main characters, and there is plenty of room for their (and others too) developments in the next season, which in my estimation, should happen in 2012 at the earliest (assuming of course, if there are 8 arcs in the whole game).

A great insight of the Japanese legal system.

Character Design:-
Just like in the Higurashi series, character designs in this anime will be home in any dating simulation from the Land of Rising Sun. Big boobs and big eyes? Hell yeah! Black hair? Hell no. How about blonde hairs? Plenty of them here. Definitely a positive point for this anime.

The child beater of the Ushiromiya family…

Voice Acting:-
Voice acting in this is good overall. The two main protagonists are outstanding, and so are Eva and Maria Ushiromiya. Also a positive point for this anime.

…doing what she does best.

Music:-
The OST is decent but not so for the OP/ED themes.

Her reason for doing so is understandable though. Even I would do that if I were her.

Animation/Direction:-
The quality of the animation in this anime is flawless, even in fast-paced scenes. Choreography is average though. The directing is definitely better than the one seen in my previously reviewed anime Asura Cryin’, but not that good either.

Just one of the discourses between the two main protagonists.

Conclusion:-
8 out of 10. Due to the nature of the story, there is still plenty of room for improvement. Not good enough to dislodge Zan Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei from the ‘Anime of the Year 2009’ throne though. The next anime reviewed here will be either Minami-ke or Toaru Majutsu no Index. Which one will come next, that will have to wait until the next entry.

Witty lines like this one is one of the reason why the main male protagonist is one of the best characters in this series.