Review: Maria†Holic (まりあ†ほりっく)

Posted by ranpha on 25th May 2011
Posted in: anime review. Tagged: , . 1 comment


The main title ‘female’ protagonist with ‘her’ secret already uncovered right in the first episode.

After watching a few more episodes of Gintama (I have a big reservation about the third season – read about it in its review some time in the future), I stopped again and then started to watch yet another Blu-ray rip in the form of Maria Holic. A second season of this is currently running, and I don’t feel like waiting for it to finish in time for a combined review the way I do it with Kuroshitsuji. Maria Holic is a 2009 anime, but the current holder of the ‘Anime of the Year 2009’ title Zan Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei has nothing to worry about. And the latter has quite a little bit of connection with the former, which would be explained later below.


An apt description of the main title protagonist.

Story:-
Our main protagonist transfers to an all-girls school so that she can relive the memories of her parents’ romantic encounter in the past. Being a closet perverted men-hating yuri-fag that she is, she quickly was attracted to the blonde-haired aristocratic main title protagonist whose grandmother used to be the chairwomen of the said school. But in double-quick time, she inadvertently learned the shocking dirty perverted secret harbored by the seemingly innocent main title protagonist. Fate then decided that the two perverted main characters are to share the same dorm room too, just in time for the new school year to start.

This anime is basically a character-driven title, with the two main protagonists being the core of this anime. The main storyline mainly consists of the character developments of the main protagonist as she started a new life in the school, alongside her new (in)famous roommate. The main protagonist  is quite similar to the main protagonist of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei in their tendencies to use plenty of monologues. As for the main title protagonist, ‘she’ reminded me greatly of the main protagonist of Seikon no Qwaser, with the supernatural powers being replaced with pure malice and the perverseness for breast sucking replaced by cross-dressing tendencies. The mannerisms are too similar for me to ignore.

References and parodies exists intermittently in this title, but the one series that are referenced multiple times is Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. Not only the main protagonist of this anime acted similarly with Nozomu Itoshiki, but some aspects of  Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei’s presentation were also copied verbatim. The good thing is this anime doesn’t copy the terrifying pacing that plagued the first two seasons of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. Storyline developments isn’t problematic either, although the way the plot goes can be bonkers sometimes. The comedy in this anime is decent too, but not up there with the likes of Guu. Another thing I like about this anime is how it doesn’t somehow manage to turn into a harem title, which would have been a bane of this kind of anime series.

This anime has a couple of weaknesses. The first one is the main title protagonist has too little airtime. Her case here is not as bad as Index is, but it is not too far behind. Because the main title protagonist is also one of the best characters in this anime, this anime isn’t able to reach its greatest potential with the amount of airtime ‘she’ received that is pretty typical for secondary characters. In fact, a couple of the secondary characters in this anime may even have more exposure than ‘her’.


The constant dilemma our main protagonist has to face.

The second weakness of this anime is how, sometimes, the direction of the plot tends to go bonkers, testing the limits of suspension of disbelief. The perverted monologues of the main protagonist often leads up to awkward situations, but the problem is those awkward situations usually were disconnected from previous scenes. Some episodes are simply bad in quality, like the penultimate episode. Incidentally, the best two moments in this anime are when the main title protagonist’s ‘brother’ makes ‘his’ appearance (the family is sure full with perverts). The ending is not exactly an ending, it looks like a regular episode, with a little bit of cliffhanger at the very end. But knowing Japan, the second season will surely fudge upon it with more silly plot misdirections.

Character development is uneven. The main protagonist has a lot of them, but the main title protagonist character building is very minimal. The latter in particular has minimal differences in character structures/essence between the first and the last episode. Still, both of them are definitely the best characters in this anime, with the main protagonist edging ahead of the main title protagonist. These two characters is a good tsukkomi pairing, and the former is so disgustingly perverted, she makes Darling and Raou looks like Virgin Mary. It may have to do with the fact that Darling and Raou are open with their perverseness while she is simply a closet yuri lover (but with her true nature being open to the audience on the other side of the 4th wall). But this is why I like her the most; that unbridled perverseness that sometimes scared even the main title protagonist. I hope that the main title protagonist has more airtime and character developments in the second season though.



The two main protagonists of this anime surely shared my view about this kind of hairstyle.

Character Design:-
The character designs in this anime is good, especially the design for the main protagonist that perfectly fits her secret-pervert profile. Black hairs are rare, but do exist. And that hairstyle above…


This anime is quite simple actually, storywise.

Voice Acting:-
Voice acting gigs in this anime is uneven overall. The voice acting for the main title protagonist is excellent, but the other main protagonist is just ordinary. And that isn’t a good thing considering the amount of airtime she has. She and some other characters like the school council president (with chocolates cones hair) has a lot of room for improvement (and they will really need it).

Music:-
The OST is decent, but you cannot say the same thing for the OP and ED themes.


This anime sure like its steampunk-inspired black rains.

Animation/Direction:-
The animation quality in the Blu-ray rip version I watched is excellent, overall. Understandably, fast-paced scenes and choreography are basically non-existent in this anime. The directing is decent too, or at least it wasn’t flawed (assuming of course, that he didn’t write all of those bonkers plots).

This anime sure does its rains better than the likes of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and Legend of Legendary Heroes. The rains in this Blu-ray rip are almost comparable to what you can see in Makoto Shinkai works.


This shoujo-style character depictions are commonly used in this anime. If you ask me, they are not necessary at all.

Conclusion:-
6 out of 10. A bigger involvement by the main title protagonist should, in theory, improve this anime’s quality.

Oh BTW, I will start the audition for the inaugural ‘Anime of the Year 2011’ winner in the next entry. The tentative list of titles in the audition can be seen at the right-side of this blog. As for Gintama, well, it may have to wait for quite a bit, although I will watch a few episodes at a time.

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

Review: Eden of the East TV, Eden of the East: King of Eden & Eden of the East: Paradise Lost

Posted by ranpha on 7th May 2011
Posted in: anime movies, anime review. Tagged: , , . 4 comments


The main protagonist of this anime, in one of his self-inflicted pinch.

In my last blog entry, I mentioned that I want to watch the 4 whole seasons (201 episodes) of the Gintama series. But because of a certain reason that I will make known during the review of the said series, I stopped watching it continuously and will instead watch other anime titles while still watching Gintama intermittently until it ends. Currently I have watched about 110 episodes of what I have, so it will be quite some time before I actually go to review the series.

Therefore here it is, my review of the long-awaited (at least for me) Eden of the East series. What I have watched is the Eden of the East TV series that has 11 episodes, and also the two follow-up movies titled The King of Eden and Paradise Lost. I won’t watch the third movie because I have learned that it is just a big full-length recap movie (why on earth Japan wants to do this I don’t know). The TV series started airing in 2009, therefore it will also challenge Zan Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei for the ‘Anime of the Year 2009’ title.


I am watching the Blu-ray version of the anime. Surely there is no need to censor anything right?

Story:-
A Japanese female university student is visiting Washington D.C. for her graduation ceremony, and she finally fulfill her longtime dream of seeing the White House with her own eyes. She then tried to hurl a coin into the North Lawn’s fountain but failed, and is about to get arrested for her troubles. But just before the authorities shipped her to Guantanamo Bay, our nudist hero appeared and saved her bacon. From there on, she become deeply involved in a deadly reality game of which her savior is a participant, as Japan started to be rained with Tomahawk missiles.

This anime is basically a cross between the manga Mirai Nikki and the Bourne trilogy movies (referenced in this anime – movie references are abound here), but not as thrilling like the former and not as intense like the latter (I only watched the first 2 Bourne movies though). Still FWIW, the storyline is quite good for a shounen title. The pacing in TV series is quite slow though for the kind of the storyline it has (a similar anime series titled Speed Grapher has better pacing than this one) but when the movies comes in, the pacing picks up considerably.

This is why I’m glad that I waited for the movies to come out first before watching the series. The TV series by itself are written to set up the stage where most of the actions will be played in the movies. If I were to watch only the TV version, the scoring for this anime would have been lower. If you plan to watch this series, you should do so by having all the TV episodes and the two movies too; the experience would have been more complete that way. Despite the discrepancies of pacing between the TV episodes and the movies, the flow of the story develops nicely and smoothly, and was capped with a decent ending that doesn’t really permit an extension.

Character developments were mostly done during the TV series phase, and as expected, the forgetful main male protagonist is the best character in this series. The main female protagonist only become more useful in the movie phase. The only blot in this series is how some of the Seleção members only has peripheral roles in the series; it made me feel that the anime’s settings are not exploited to its fullest potential.


This scene is epic yet hilarious if you ask me.

Character Design:-
The character designs in this anime is more realistically seinen than shounen, and is good in general. The designs of the main male and female protagonists in this anime reminds me a lot of the designs of the main protagonists of The Sky Crawlers and Spirited Away, respectively. Black hairs are common in this modern Japan, which can only be a good thing. A positive aspect for this anime.

But for god’s sake, that was some futuristic handphones that the Seleção members have, even if you ignore the concierge access and the 10 billion yen credited into it. Not even the white iPhone 4 can be compared to it. The phones really shows that the flip form-factor phones can be awesome, and how touch-screens isn’t always desirable.


Quoted For Truth. I have 2 myself.

Voice Acting:-
Voice acting in this anime is flawless, yet largely uninteresting overall. Nearly all the voice actors has done their job well, but no one stands out from the rest.

Music:-
The OST is sparse but is excellent. But none of the OP/ED themes in the movies or the TV series  are any good though, even for the Oasis track.


This scene is one of the places where 2D and CGI doesn’t really mesh well.

Animation/Direction:-
The quality of the animation in this anime is great, even in fast-paced scenes. There are surprisingly very little choreography in this anime though, unlike in the Bourne movies or in Speed Grapher. Sometimes the integration between traditional animation and CGI videos are not done seamlessly though, but you can see some stunning scenes in this anime especially in the movies. The directing is competent to say the least, at least I don’t see any problems except for the writing that doesn’t take advantage of the situation.


But this anime sure have some stunning scenes in it, comparable to what you can see in Makoto Shinkai’s works.

Conclusion:-
9 out of 10. Not good enough to dethrone Zan Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, but it is still a recommended watch for anyone who like some thrillers in their lives.

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

Review: World Destruction (ワールド・デストラクション ～世界撲滅の六人～)

Posted by ranpha on 21st March 2011
Posted in: anime review, STOP THAT BLURRY ANIMATION TECHNIQUE NOW!, The Scream Painting spoof in anime. Tagged: . Leave a Comment


The main male protagonist and his future kidnapper a.k.a. the main female protagonist.

Another effort to reduce my anime backlogs sees me watching yet another 2008 anime title titled World Destruction. Just like Ga Rei Zero reviewed in this blog before this one, this series has been rotting on my hard disk drive for years already. These two anime titles are similar in  their incapability to even threaten One Outs’ position as this blog’s ‘Anime of the Year 2008’ though. And I don’t really see any 2008 titles doing so in the future, that’s how strong its position here.


But this beastly member of the WDC is the actual hero of the bunch.

Story:-
In a fantasy world where humans are beastmen’ bitches (think of all the hentai materials that can be concocted in such a setting), our main male protagonist is offering his ‘services’ at a beastmen-only restaurant. Unknown to him, one of the customers that comes to the said restaurant is a member of the feared World Destruction Committee or WDC. Out of the blue, a squad from the World Salvation Committee or WSC raided the restaurant to arrest the wanted criminal, but the criminal took our hero hostage and escapes with him. Towed around the world by the genocidal criminal, our hero then contracted the Stockholm Syndrome and started to help his kidnapper to achieve the WDC’s plan to destroy the world.


Here, the main male protagonist completely bypassed the main female protagonist to have a hot dinner date with his beastly lover.

The main attraction of this anime is definitely the main male protagonist, and to a lesser extent, his two comrades-in-crime in the WDC. Because of them (they are also the best characters in this anime), this anime turns out to become a character-driven series (more like Urusei Yatsura – but of course, not as good) than a story-driven series such as The Sacred Blacksmith. Their character strength helps balanced out the underwhelming storyline this anime has.

The storyline itself is similar to what you can see in Square Enix’s The Last Remnant. Oh BTW, this anime itself is based on an adventure RPG available on Nintendo DS. The similarity between the main protagonists of these two titles are almost uncanny (the plot twist is pretty much identical in both titles). This also mean that this anime storyline is pretty much predictable, but at least it has less plot holes than The Last Remnant’s. The WDC bunch has this bad tendency of being jailed numerous times though, and the pursuing WSC antagonists has this creepy tendency to do their hunting half-heartedly. Even Team Rocket has more motivation at doing their jobs than the WSC guys are here.


The WDC team members has great tendencies of being kidnapped/enslaved/jailed et al. numerous of times.

As for the storyline presentation, the pacing of this anime is quite slow, mainly because this anime focused more on the WDC characters rather than on this anime main plot device (the Destruct Code), or the group main goal (annihilating the planet). Many parts of their journey around the fantasy world this anime was set in is basically purposeless story-wise, but contributes greatly to character developments. This is why I said earlier that this anime is character-driven, and this is a rare thing for a fantasy anime. As a comparison, the previous two fantasy titles reviewed here before, The Sacred Blacksmith and Legends of Legendary Heroes are both story-driven titles. Meanwhile the flow of the plot is good, regardless of the uselessness of the storyline.


It took only 7 episodes (out of 13) for the WSC members to realize their mistakes when chasing the super-villain group the WSC. Only 7 episodes.

The ending is also predictable, just like what you can see in The Last Remnant, but at least there are no ambiguity within it. Perfectly executed, there are no plot holes left as the ending credits rolls in and it was made perfectly clear that there will be no second season or something like that, and I don’t think this anime served as a prequel to the game this anime is based on like .hack//ROOTS is.


Quoted For Truth!

Character Design:-
Character design in this anime is excellent (especially human female designs – thus the hentai comments above), but is pretty much similar to what you can see from The Sacred Blacksmith or Legend of Legendary Heroes. Lack of black hairs are common and forgiven considering the setting this anime is in. A positive aspect for this anime.


After being taken prisoner for the umpteenth time by the beastmen, our hero wondered whether their life is going to be hell or not…

…but it seems they do not have anything to worry about.

Voice Acting:-
Despite being quite heavy in the dialogue section, voice acting in this anime isn’t exactly outstanding. In other words, while there are no bad performances here, there is also no outstanding voice acting gigs here. This anime could have benefited from a better voice acting gig here.


If there is one thing the writer has got it right in this anime, that would be the naming conventions used for many of the beastmen characters.

Music:-
The OST is good, and so are the ED theme. Not so for the OP theme though.


Cookies will be given to anyone who can spot something seriously wrong in this scene.

Click here for the goodies!

Animation/Direction:-
Unfortunately, this anime copied one negative aspect that both The Sacred Blacksmith and Legend of Legendary Heroes has, and that would be the usage of the blurry animation technique that I always hated. Therefore, 1 point will be docked from this anime final evaluation.

Apart from that, the animation quality in this anime is good, even in fast-paced scenes. There are no problems with character animations. Choreography is quite decent too, that teddy bear has some good techniques up its sleeve. The director is notable for being able to close all loose ends in the storyline (I actually expect that he doesn’t by the time I watched this anime halfway – there are some surprising scenes happening in the anime that makes me thinks so) and also for the great character developments.


But if there is one thing this anime has that The Sacred Blacksmith and Legend of Legendary Heroes doesn’t, that would be yet another The Scream painting spoof in an anime title.

Conclusion:-
6 out of 10, the same score that The Sacred Blacksmith managed to get. One Outs will still keep its title for the time being.

The next anime that I will watch next is the biggest anime series reviewed in this blog, titled Gintama. At 4 seasons with 201 episodes, the next review will take quite a long time to come. It took me around two months to watch Urusei Yatsura TV series that has 195 episodes, so expect the same for my next review. Maybe the time needed can be cut if I can find more free time to watch it though.


Will this super-villain group finally managed to destroy the world? Watch this anime and find out!

Shortlink: http://wp.me/prgSo-mt

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