anime review

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

Review: Busou Shinki (武装神姫)

Posted by ranpha on 31st May 2014

Posted in: anime review. Tagged: Busou Shinki (武装神姫). Leave a Comment

This scene is definitely the best event of this anime.

Today’s blog entry is going to be an anime title that pissed me off to one end because of certain reasons, titled Busou Shinki. This anime is definitely not the worst title reviewed here before, but in this 12-episode series, I nearly dropped this series halfway through its run. But I decided not to do so and watched it to the end so that I can throw some tantrums below.

Story:-
In a futuristic version of Japan, sentient female small robots called Shinki has become integral to people lives. Those dolls can be seen performing numerous tasks, from covert counter-terrorism military units to unassuming office lady work. Shinki dolls also participates in a yearly world-level tournament that decides who is the strongest robot of them all, and our main male protagonist and his 4 Shinki dolls just moved in from overseas in the neighborhood of the Shinki doll that has become a finalist of the previous year’s tournament.

This anime opens with a scene from the aforementioned tournament above, and I say ‘oh boy, this is going to be a hell of a ride’, that kind of a series. Then I waited for an episode, then two, then three episodes, but nothing happens. I then waited until halfway of the series before I realzied that I have been duped: This anime is not an action title, but a slice-of-life series instead.

In other words, no hope for me to see some tournament action for the main 4 Shinki dolls. Only the other neighborhood Shinki dolls does. Meanwhile, for the vast majority of the series, you will be served with multiple episodical slice-of-life plots instead, with the minimum amount for doll fighting as possible that the writer can get away with. Did I mention a main male protagonist in the synopsis paragraph above? That character is merely a side character here.

After my hope of seeing dolls in a tournament setting like in Angelic Layer, or dolls in a fantastical action setting like in Rozen Maiden has been dashed, I think I should look at this title as it is: a slice-of-life title. Is this a good slice-of-life title, the way K-On!! is?

This character above with low air-time is arguably the best character of this anime.

In K-On!! we have a very strong individual character that is the series’ main female protagonist, who actually carry her series forward. This anime does not have any characters like her within the 4 major Shinki dolls. All four of them are diversely one-dimensional, not unlike the K-On!! cast without Yui. Personally, I think the aforementioned tournament finalist in the screenshot above is better than all of them, and the twin cat Shinki dolls in the screenshot below do their job as comic relief better than the doll in the group designated to do the same thing. All with far less airtime. Character developments is non-existent at all in this anime, and even for a slice-of-life title, I do not think that is a good thing for this anime specifically.

As for the anime’s contents; apart from the final two episodes, the rest of them are your standard slice-of-life episodic contents. Examples includes a cross-country journey, part-time working events, one episode dedicated specially for the delusion of the oldest Shinki doll, participation in a racing sporting event and things like that. Thankfully, there are no real beach episode, plus there are no romance in this anime. If there is one, that would be very disturbing.

Comedy in this anime is more miss than hit; far less home runs than a foul ball. Even with the ones that are home runs, the quality is nowhere near Guu’s level, not to mention Daily Lives of High School Boys. As mentioned above, some of the side characters are better with the comedic contents better than the major 4 Shinki dolls too.

The flow of the stories in this anime and the pacing are actually spot-on; the presentation aspect of this anime is excellent and probably the only thing this anime has done right. The last two episodes that makes up the ending arc, is the only episodes that do not lie in the slice-of-life territory genre. While the ending may make you cringe sometimes, it is quite decent actually. I do not see a second season out of this unless the writer decides to keep the slice-of-life genre in the future.

And it is going to be hard for me too against their case of being the better comic relief characters compared to the blonde one in the main group.

Character Design:-
Character design is just average overall. Except for the side character that is the main male protagonist, there are no other humans at all, and his character design is simply unassumingly ordinary. Following their owner traits, the 4 main Shinki dolls are also ordinary in this aspect. Makes me wonder why because some of the designs of the Shinki side characters are actually really good. Mecha designs are hit and miss; I’m really impressed by the Santa Claus’ red Shinki sleigh and so are the for the armor set used by one of the main four Shinki dolls (I’m talking about the blonde one that was supposed to be comic relief of the group), but not for the rest of the cast.

Voice Acting:-
From the four main Shinki dolls, the wannabe-comic relief and the aloof one has outstanding voice acting gigs; the other two are good too but not near the same level as them. I do not see any side characters doing badly in this regard too. This is another thing this anime has done well, and a positive aspect for this title.

Music:-
While this anime has done very well in the voice acting section, a complete reversal of that happens in the musical section. Both the OP and ED themes of this anime are forgettable and so is the OST.

Animation/Direction:-
The overall animation quality in this anime is good. Integration between 2D and CGI animation not seamless though with the CGI parts being too obvious. Choreography of action scenes(?) is actually quite good. The director has some good moments with camera works in some episodes like the one in the racing event and also the Christmas Eve episodes.

Conclusion:-
6 out of 10. An anime with a great setting is ruined by the slice-of-life elements. If this is an action series, that would have been nice.

Shortlink: http://wp.me/prgSo-Dw

Review: Ao no Exorcist (青の祓魔師（エクソシスト）)

Posted by ranpha on 30th April 2014

Posted in: anime review. Tagged: Ao no Exorcist (青の祓魔師（エクソシスト）). Leave a Comment

Quoted For Truth.

My blog entry for today is a review of a 2011 shounen anime series titled Ao no Exorcist, a series that has been sitting on my hard disk drive for over a year. While this series is quite decent as explained below, this anime will not threaten to dethrone the holder of this blog’s ‘Anime Of The Year 2011’ title anytime soon. This anime has some unique compositions in it, read on to see what it is.

Story:-
In a distant future version of Japan, where existence of demons is actually an acceptable fact of life, the main male protagonist finds out that he is actually the offspring of Satan, plus the fact that he can use destructive blue flames to burn the world to ashes. With the slightly inconvenient change of status, he will then have to deal with a father that is hell-bent on kidnapping him to Hell, as well with pesky Vatican exorcists that also shared Satan’s vision, although in their own ways. Faced with very limited options, the main male protagonist then sold his soul to another demon, so that he can master his demonic powers and push back both Satan and the Vatican.

Ao no Exorcist differ from very many of the anime series I have reviewed before because this action series prioritized character developments far more than storytelling, in an unbalanced way. This would have been normal if if this anime is of the slice-of-life variety, but is definitely highly unusual for an action-filled series. The largely episodical character developments sees very little plotlines but there are some generous character developments not only for the main male protagonist with satanic powers, but also for some people that is close to him too.

Only then when the anime arrived at the pivotal event where the main male protagonist was finally captured by the Vatican and was condemned for simply being Satan’s Son in a trial, does the anime started to expose and advance the main storyline with more urgency. After the last episode finished playing, I can say with confidence that the quality of this anime’s storyline is just ordinary, and not as good as the ones in the worst title in this blog’s previous ‘Anime of the Year 2013’ audition, Strike the Blood.

But unlike Strike the Blood, this anime has a far better and more likable main male protagonist, helped partly because of the humongous character developments, and also because he lack the wimpy personality his counterpart in Strike the Blood has, despite the latter’s supernatural powers. This anime’s main protagonist, easily the best character of this series, alongside the demon whom he sold his soul to, would have made Strike the Blood much better if he was transplanted into that vampire series and then put the main female protagonist on her righteous place. His character strength more than make up for the weakness in the storyline’s quality, and he was ably assisted with many side characters from his cram school. Oh BTW, this anime does not have a main female protagonist, and no, that short haired girl is not one.

The period where the anime focused more on character developments do some its own drawback though. The most noticeable one would be the slow pacing during the aforementioned period. Only after the trial event and when the storyline started to emerge more to the fore, does the pacing started to pick up. Not as bad as Shingeki no Kyoujin for sure, but not as close to what seen in Kakumeiki Valvrave as I would have like. No problem though with the pacing of the storyline; it is fluid despite the fact that storytelling only earnestly begins well within the second half of this series.

The ending of this anime is quite good though despite the quality of the storyline. There are some very obvious loose ends and unanswered questions though, but I do not see any news about a second season even after 3 years since this anime was aired. I wonder whether I should read the source manga instead.

What does this program has anything to do with opening the gate to Hell?

Character Designs:-
Character designs in this anime is intentionally less generic than your typical shounen titles like Strike the Blood or Kakumeiki Valvrave , with the fact that deformed faces are quite normal and ugly mugs being quite common. Probably the only typical character designs that would fit the stereotypes seen in Strike the Blood would be the main male protagonist himself, his classmate with the purple long hair, and the paladin. The rest, like the eminently remembered Konekomaru and the red-haired busty chick is the poster child of this anime’s unconventional character designs. Black hairs are common in this anime that takes place in demon-infested Japan, which is a good thing. Even better, the paladin is blonde too.

Voice Acting:-
Voice acting in this series that has quite a lot of dialogues for an action title is good. It could have been better, but at least there are no bad voice acting gigs like the one in Strike the Blood. The main male protagonist, his younger brother, the aforementioned red-haired chick and also the demon that the former sold his soul to have noticeably goo voice acting gigs here. A positive aspect for this anime.

Music:-
The OST of this anime is excellent. So good the OST is in this anime, none of the titles in the newly concluded ‘Anime of the Year 2013’ audition has a soundtrack as good as this anime’s. Shingeki no Kyoujin did not have an OST as good as the one in this anime despite the fact that they shared the same OST composer.

Unfortunately, all OP and ED themes of this anime are mostly forgettable. If only this anime has a couple of power metal OP themes just like Shingeki no Kyoujin did, it would have been nice. That would fit the theme of this anime perfectly too.

This anime also has excellent production values in its Blu-ray version.

Animation/Direction:-
Just like Strike the Blood, this anime cuts many corners in character compositions just as seen above. This is different from when the director decides to just make ugly faces, because this problem happened in scenes where it was not supposed to happen. Animation quality in this anime is quite decent though, but integration between 2D and CGI animation are not seamless at all.

Choreography of actions scenes varied in quality; some fight scenes are good like the one between Satan and the red-haired chick but very many of the others are just meh. The director has done a relatively better job than his counterpart in Strike the Blood and is actually better in cinematography techniques too.

Conclusion:-
7 out of 10. The lack of blurry animation techniques do help this anime’s scoring some more alongside the character strength of the main male protagonist and the voice acting gigs of certain characters. Will there be a second season?

Shortlink: http://wp.me/prgSo-D2

Review: Strike The Blood (ストライク・ザ・ブラッド)

Posted by ranpha on 22nd April 2014

Posted in: anime review, STOP THAT BLURRY ANIMATION TECHNIQUE NOW!. Tagged: Strike The Blood (ストライク・ザ・ブラッド). Leave a Comment

The main male protagonist.

This blog ‘Anime of the year 2013’ audition ends today with this entry, and there is no need to wait for 5 months unlike the last one. Here in advance, I want to congratulate Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru for winning the audition even with a non-perfect score of 9 out of 10. This is because Strike The Blood, the final entry of the audition, is nowhere near the modest hype it has on the Internet. This is easily the worst entry in the audition, and you will know why below.

Story:-
Continuing from a story arc that probably will be made into a money-spinning OVA or movie, the main male protagonist started his first year in high school. As he returned from extra studying sessions, he was followed by a strange girl who doesn’t know that her cover has been blown. After confronting her and makes her go away, he witnessed her assaulting two random civilians. He then decided to ensure the rule of law is being upheld and then delivered the appropriate justice to the stalker girl.

For the synopsis above, I adapted the one from what I have used for my Bakemonogatari review more than 3 years ago. Comparisons between the two will be inevitable, after all these two has many similarities; from the nature of the vampiristic main male protagonists, the futuristic settings, their harem aspects and many more.

Just like Bakemonogatari, this anime has a storyline that spanned multiple arcs. I think there are 6 of them. All of them are decent enough in quality, especially the first two arcs and also the final one. When the final episode finished playing, there are so many loose ends left, and the final arc itself is written to accommodate a second season that I have not heard about yet. If you only strictly consider the qualities of the plotline alone, this anime will not lose at all to Bakemonogatari.

The single biggest reason why this anime is the worst entry in the audition is definitely the main male protagonist. In hindsight, I should have seen this coming much earlier. Actually, within the first five minutes of watching this series, the very first complaint I have is how incompatible the the main male protagonist’s voice acting gig is compared to his supposed age. This should be put on the voice acting section below, but the main male protagonist has a voice of a person at least 10 years older than his age.

The main male protagonist is basically a cross of his counterparts from Infinite Stratos and B gata H kei, with those two anime’s main male protagonists’ weaknesses amplified to the max inside the vampire of this series. His negative beta mannerisms, combined with the nagging voice acting qualities of his, gets to me quite a few times, especially with his dealings with the main female protagonist. Here I wish the vampire of Bakemonogatari replaced the one in this anime, because that would have made this anime much better.

The main female protagonist of this anime is actually a very good character, far outshining her opposite number. I dare say she is better than her counterpart in Bakemonogatari too, although not as good as her peer in B gata H kei. She only has the misfortune of being paired with a weak nearly-impotent main male protagonist, and this caused her character to go out of control a few times in the course of the anime. A true immortal vampire like the one from Bakemonogatari would have cut her down a few sizes and put her in her place.

The presentation aspects of this anime is quite problematic too. Sometimes the flow of the storyline is jerky, like in the third arc in the transition between the event where the white-haired girl giving cats away to other people and the event where the main male protagonist finds out that the white-haired girl is an angel-killing machine. Plus in the same arc, the writer failed to connect cleanly the pre-event at the start of the arc and the night-time event at the deserted island where main male protagonist finally meets the other white-haired girl. This problem doesn't happen at all times though, because this doesn’t exist in the first and last arcs for example.

The pacing of the storyline is OK though, it is even better than what is seen in Kakumeiki Valvrave, mainly due to its more consistent pacing. Character developments in this anime are done well too, even for the main male protagonist with its typical action hero development strategy. Of course, the best character in this anime is still the main female protagonist, who herself has her own flawless character development strategy. For many of the characters, especially the main male protagonist, there are plenty of room left for future character developments. Now all we need to wait for is a second season, of which there are no news about it at the time of writing.

Character Design:-
Character designs in this anime is good, at least better than what is seen in Kakumeiki Valvrave. But a certain issue that I will mention further below ruined this anime somewhat in this regard. Black hair is quite common here in the future version of Earth, balancing out the non-insignificant number of characters with white/silver hairs.

Voice Acting:-
As I mentioned above, the voice acting gig for the main male protagonist does not really match the character being portrayed. If this anime get a second season, the director must fire the current voice actor for the main male protagonist and replace him with any of the voice actors that played the main male protagonists in Bakemonogatari, Hataraku Maou-sama, Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou amongst others. If the current voice actor is retained, the director has to tell him that he is voicing a teenage high school boy, not an adult.

As for the rest of the characters, voice acting gigs for them are mainly good and flawless, and that’s it. There are no outstanding gigs here at all, to counteract the effects of the poor voice acting gig of the main male protagonist. At least no one of them should be replaced though if a second season comes out.

Music:-
The OST of this anime is good, but only the 2nd OP theme is something I will put on my portable media player. Quite the same as Kakumeiki Kalvrave too.

This anime has excellent production values.

Animation/Direction:-
This animation used the blurry animation technique in many of its actions scenes, therefore a point will be docked from its final evaluation. While the animation quality is decent, character composition can be awful quite a lot of times as shown in the picture above. Integration of 2D animation and CGI are not seamless, causing some scenes to look very plasticky.

Choreography of action scenes is decent, probably held back by incompetence of the main male protagonist when it comes to fighting and overdependence on his familiars. The director has done a decent job here, almost flawless except for the weak presentation aspect mentioned above (and also the main male protagonist voice actor).

Conclusion:-
5 out of 10. The blurry animation technique really doesn’t help this anime’s case here. Therefore Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru is now this blog’s ‘Anime of the Year 2013’ title holder, and will be listed at the sidebar of this blog. Plus, I have heard that it will have a second season too, of which I will definitely watch for its main male protagonist alone.

Shortlink: http://wp.me/prgSo-CW