My collection of short anime reviews

Review: No Game, No Life (ノーゲーム･ノーライフ)

Posted by ranpha on 22nd October 2014

Posted in: anime review. Tagged: No Game, No Life (ノーゲーム･ノーライフ). Leave a Comment

This blog’s annual ‘Anime of the Year’ audition for the year of 2014 starts today with my review of No Game, No Life, a potential Xeroxed copy of last year audition candidate Mondaiji-tachi ga Isekai kara Kuru Sou Desu yo? (damn you Japan and their long-ass anime titles). With both anime’s main protagonists having exactly the same grand entrance sequence when they arrived to their own fantasy worlds, comparisons between these two titles is definitely going to be inevitable when you read this review further.

Story:-
Our two main protagonists; two hikkikomori siblings with penchant for video games, none more important than the other, was invited (or forced?) into ‘Disboard’, a mystical fantasy world vastly different from their version of Japan. In Disboard, the game geniuses that they are will be able to challenge other mystical races in non-violent games, so that they can save Disboard’s version of humanity from oblivion.

The first obvious similarity between this anime and the anime with the long name above, is that both of them has multiple main protagonist. This anime has 2, the other one has 3. Personally speaking, I think this anime has better main protagonists than the other one for several reasons. The teamwork between the main protagonists in this anime is much better, while the main protagonists in the other anime series works more independently off each other, with inconsistent results unlike the achievements of this anime protagonists. Synergy in this anime is simply much better than what can be see in Mondaiji-tachi..

It is not that the capabilities of the main protagonists of Mondaiji-tachi is inferior than the abilities of this anime’s main protagonists. For example, Mondaiji-tachi’s main male protagonist’s abilities easily exceeds the combined abilities of this anime’s main protagonists. Not only that his intellect easily matched them, his physical prowess towers over them by a long way. Hypothetically, if he is the one that was invited into Disboard instead of the hikkikomori siblings, he would still be able to win all the games that the protagonists of this anime has won, and probably with less effort too. With his physical abilities, if he really get serious, he would be able to win the first-person-shooter game against the Werebeasts in less than a minute even if his opponent is cheating.

Still, this anime’s main protagonists is still better than him mainly because the writer of this anime has a done a much better job at showcasing the siblings’ abilities in this anime, unlike his/her counterpart in Mondaiji-tachi. There are many scenes in this anime where this anime’s main male protagonist is channeling Aizen Sousuke as the siblings trolls their opponents, especially in the Werebeasts arc. The act of the trolling isn’t significant per se, but their mannerisms, especially the older brother's, is what makes them awesome.

The second similarity that these two anime titles has is that both use a similar plot device: games. Games in this anime are more accessible to mere mortals like us; from coin flipping to chess, while games in Mondaiji-tachi are more esoteric like the notable Black Death-Pied Piper combo game. Both of them has approximately the same balance between the requirement of skills and intellect too. Therefore it is really hard for me to say which anime has better set of games.

But then again, the main characters of this anime has a better approach, better interactions and better planning with their own set of games than their counterparts in Mondaiji-tachi. Then again, this has to do with the aforementioned synergy above, which really shows the siblings’ abilities better than their counterparts in Mondaiji-tachi. Winning games decisively and with panache and style too, means that this anime played its games better than Mondaiji-tachi ever does for now. Doing this even when there are no major gap of abilities between the two sets of protagonists, makes this anime a winner in this aspect.

Another similarity those two anime series has is that both titles takes place in a fantasy setting, with both set of protagonist coming from real-world Japan. In this case, ‘The Garden’ that is sectioned into 4 points of the compass, has layers which number has not been revealed yet and is larger than the sun, is much better than ‘Disboard’, which is apparently only sectioned into 16 regions. This distinction is important because the settings affect their storyline greatly.

Unlike very many anime titles reviewed here before, including Mondaiji-tachi, the plot of the WHOLE series has already been laid out: the two main protagonists must defeat all 16 races of their respective regions so then they can resume the game against the main antagonist that they have already partially won back then in their world. I will put my head out there and say; that just like a Spanish telenovela, that they will win the said finale, and now only the writer is the obstacle between the main protagonists and their goal. And from what I have seen so far in this anime, I am not really impressed with what I have saw.

Blame this to the meeting between the protagonists and their final opponent right after the event when they are crowned the kings of humanity, because that was the exact point the writer forced the main storyline to the corner. With a lackadaisical main plot, this series as a whole (not only what this anime shown so far) will need to lean on the portrayal of the brilliance of the main protagonists as they approach their future games. This series can actually succeed and gloss over the weakness of the main plot if they can keep up the intensity of what have been seen so far in this anime. This is of course if this anime gets a fully deserved second season, of which as of writing I have not heard of one yet.

Some of the parodies in this anime.

Unlike Mondaiji-tachi though, the story seen in this anime is written to fully accommodate the fact that the anime has only 12 episodes; there is no messy planning like what is seen in Mondaiji-tachi. The pacing of the storyline is excellent, and the flow is flawless. Unlike Mondaiji-tachi, this anime likes to make external references to other games, anime and manga like is shown in the screenshot above. The ending is structured to have a second season, but as mentioned above, there are no news of one yet.

Character developments in this anime is actually not really good. Due to the fact that the siblings in this anime has comparable when it comes to abilities, unlike their counterparts in Mondaiji-tachi where their protagonists’ abilities has disparate gaps between them; this anime’s main protagonist character developments are actually quite static. I can easily said that the main protagonists at the end of the anime is almost the same as the ones that plunged head-first into Disboard at the start of the anime. The flat-chested girl who has an elf as a friend, and to a lesser extent, the princess whose throne has been usurped by the main protagonist, all of them has better character developments than them. Still, the main male protagonist is still the best character in this anime, as he leveraged all of his and his sister’s experience and abilities accumulated back in Japan to troll their enemies in Discord.

Character Design:-
Character designs in this anime is uneven; designs for the main protagonists in this anime are just ordinary, but some designs for the natives of Disboard such as the girl in the library and the flat-chested girl are actually good. When this anime is compared to Mondaiji-tachi, the latter wins this one hands down due to its many exotic races such as the bunny girl. A consequence of having a much better setting, that for sure. Black hairs are also rare here, but then again this anime takes place in a parallel fantasy world.

Voice Acting:-
Voice acting is another aspect where Mondaiji-tachi wins over this anime. Voice acting in this anime is just plain average overall, with the possible exception of the girl from the library. The main male protagonist could have had his character be fleshed out much better if his voice actor has a more commandeering presence in his gigs. I’m not asking for a Toua Tokuchi-level of voice acting gig, but the one at Lelouch Lamperouge level would have done wonders at enhancing the main male protagonist’s character even more.

Music:-
This anime is similar to Mondaiji-tachi in the fact that all of its OP and ED themes are utterly forgettable. Then these two anime differs based on the fact that the OST of this anime isn’t any better too while in Mondaiji-tachi its OST is actually good.

Animation/Direction:-
The animation quality in this anime is good, in both character animations or just general ones. There are quite some times where character composition problems can be seen though throughout this anime. Integration between CGI and 2D animations is seamless. Choreography for action scenes in this anime is just average though, this anime isn’t the one to watch if you are expecting excellent action scenes. The director has done a largely good job at not being bad, although it is obvious that scene composition and camera works are not exactly his/her virtues.

Conclusion:-
8 out of 10. Eclipsed Mondaiji-tachi by the virtue that this anime does not employ the blurry animation technique the latter does.

The 2014 audition will be shorter than the last year’s, maybe 3 to 5 titles only. The next anime I will review next for the audition would be Aldnoah Zero, but I will keep the identity of other 2014 anime titles I will review under wraps for the time being.

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

Review: Eyeshield 21 (アイシールド21)

Posted by ranpha on 18th September 2014

Posted in: anime review, over 100 episodes, sport genre standard. Tagged: Eyeshield 21 (アイシールド21). 1 comment

The main protagonist...
The main protagonist…

For this blog entry, I am going to review a sport anime title that aired in the last decade, titled Eyeshield 21. It has some notable distinctions; one being the first title that has more than 100 episodes being reviewed here in years, another is that this anime aired in the same year as with the best ever anime title I have reviewed in this blog, Capeta. The latter is the main reason why I always apply the sport genre handicap to all sport anime titles I reviewed after it, including this anime too.

...and this is his job.
…and this is his job.

Story:-
The anime starts with the main protagonist just enrolling at Deimon High School. Unfortunately for him, the lite version of One Out’s male protagonist forces him to join the school's American football club. To ensure that the main protagonist’s running power isn’t associated to him, he becomes the anonymous main title protagonist of this anime instead, while the real him acts up as the club’s secretary. As the size of the club grows, he, the One Out’s main protagonist and the others set their aim at the Christmas Bowl event, which is Japan’s high school version of the NFL’S Super Bowl.

My biggest pet-peeve about this anime is definitely the fact that the series has not ended, despite having 145 episodes, the second longest anime title reviewed here after Urusei Yatsura. I would not have complained about this if this anime does not have enough episodes, but this is not the case here, which I would explain more below.

By the time the final episode finished playing, the series is at the semifinal stage of the Kantou playoff tournament. Spoiler: for the record, the Deimon Devil Bats won that particular match and in theory, should go on to the finals of the said playoff tournament. But the final and the Christmas Bowl are not shown, and heads will roll because of this.

Pacing-wise, this anime is quite OK up until the end of the regional third–place playoff game that ends somewhere between episode 80 and 90. Quite a little bit slow between games, but generally spot-on in in-field episodes. But the ~25-episode gap between that third placing game and the first round of the Kantou Tournament is fatal to this anime. The gaps between previous games has never been this long before this part of the series, and it is almost big enough to fill in a normal 2-cour anime series today.

There are another two issues this anime is having; both of them are related to the 25-episode gap issue above. The first one is the gap between the first round of the Kantou Tournament and the semi final game. The gap is quite large too if compared to the ones that precedes the gap before the former. The second one is the pacing of the final game of this anime (the semi final of Kantou Tournament), which is the slowest when compared to all the games that was played before it.

Therefore, with great confidence, I can definitely say that if the last two non-playing gaps has normal lengths as just like the ones that comes before it, and that if the pacing of all games are similar (maybe gives two or there more episodes for Christmas Bowl), this anime would be able to accommodate the Kantou Tournament final and also the Christmas Bowl easily. I’m really pissed that I am not able to at least watch the former, especially when this anime has already set up some events leading to the game that Deimon Devil Bats are supposed to play. Is there any need to show Gaou stopping a truck if we are not goping to see the main title male protagonist going against him?

That pivotal moment right before an explosive burst of character development. You will see this a lot in this anime.

Storywise this anime is actually quite good in quality. The Death March arc in this anime is definitely the best power-up training regime I have seen in a sport anime to date. Not only it helps the members of Deimon Devil Bats upgrade their abilities and advance their character developments at that time, Death March was also used to do those two things again and again in future episodes, usually in-game using flashback sequences, in a slick and believable way that does not off-put the audience. Not only that, the Death March also helps advance the plot multiple times long after the arc finished playing.

Speaking about the Death March, the writer tried to replicate that arc in the aforementioned 25-episode gap above, but failed miserably.

As this is a sport anime, with a huge episode count at that, it is natural that this anime has extensive character developments, especially for the recurring characters, and to a lesser extent, the one-off characters from the team faced by the Deimon Devil Bats too. The best character in this anime is definitely the club captain, followed closely by the main title protagonist. It really helps too that there are no romance elements at all in this anime; there are no main female protagonist here at all.

This anime has the most informative eyecatches section I’ve ever seen, which is useful for those who doesn’t know American football. Recap episodes and repeated scenes are a staple of this anime, and they are done largely well. The issue with the pacing of this anime has been largely explained above, and that problem do affect the flow of the story in a negative way. There are many comedy events in this anime too, and they can be hit-or-miss.

This anime has its share of quirky teams with equally quirky character designs too.

Character Design:-
Character designs in this anime is very notable for its diverseness. You can see character designs that comes out straight from a typical shounen anime title like Naruto or Bleach (like the main title male protagonist), then you can see designs that is common from a shounen-ai titles, then shoujo titles, then seinen titles (like the One-Out-esque quarterback) and more. The huge character cast, many of them at least semi-recurring ones, do help this anime in this regard. A positive aspect of this anime.

Some asinine questions too during the eyecatch section.

Voice Acting:-
Voica acting for core characters (the Deimon Devil Bats members) are largely good, with the sore exception of the main male title protagonist, which is just about average. The monkey receiver and the One-out-esque quarterback have the best voice acting gigs in this anime. Hirano Aya of pre-Haruhi Suzumiya era sure is more restrained as shown in this anime compared to her newer gigs.

The voices of other characters, recurring or not, do mirror the diverseness of their character designs. Many of them are good or better, while there are some of them that are just average.

Music:-
The OST of this anime is good; could have been better especially for scenes off the field. As for OP/ED themes, the good ones includes the 1st, 2nd and the 4th OP themes, then the insert songs in episode 28 and 116 (both of them played multiple times). But the best of them all is definitely the 6th ED theme, which is head and shoulders above the rest of them. A positive aspect for this anime because of that alone.

Answer: The main reason why I don't watch NBA and NFL games.

Animation/Direction:-
Character animations in this anime can be very jerky at times, usually in off-field moments, but sometimes also happens during a match. There are also numerous problems with the quality of character compositions, in numerous scenes in the anime, on and off the field.

General animation quality doesn’t seem to have those numerous quality issues that plagued the characters of this anime. This anime of last decade has already used 3D CGI animation, but integration with the traditional 2D animation is not seamless. As for choreography in this sport anime, you can consider them good if you enjoy normal American football techniques being overexaggerated with slow-motion techniques, contrails, after–images, special effects and things like that. If you don’t, well…

The director also has made some mistakes, in addition of the pacing problem above. One of them is plot execution. For example, some scenes like the main title protagonist’s second touchdown against Oujou High School in their first match-up, and also his visit to Sakuraba Haruto after that match, does not have the impact that those scenes should deliver. A better director would have used those scenes to manipulate viewers’ feeling much better.

The best ever name for a cruise liner in anime history.

Conclusion:-
6 out of 10. Even after 145 episodes, this anime is in dire need of a second season if you ask me. Blame this on the director for letting this happening.

Quoted for truth.

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

Review: Cardfight!! Vanguard – Link Joker Hen (カードファイト!! ヴァンガードリンクジョーカー編)

Posted by ranpha on 13th June 2014

Posted in: anime review, sport genre standard, STOP THAT BLURRY ANIMATION TECHNIQUE NOW!. Tagged: Cardfight!! Vanguard – Link Joker Hen (カードファイト!! ヴァンガードリンクジョーカー編), Cardfight!! Vanguard (series). Leave a Comment

This guy over here know the harsh reality of this game that Animax doesn't want to admit.

It has been quite some time since I reviewed a sequel of an existing anime series I reviewed here before, with the third Evangelion movie being the last a year ago. Therefore today I will review the third installment of the Cardfight!! Vanguard series, titled Cardfight!! Vanguard – Link Joker Hen. This anime is arguably is the best installment in the series to date, so let see if the third iteration will be able to overcome the double handicap this series is plagued with.

And even the main male protagonist will slowly admit what this game is all about.

Story:-
A year has passed since the start of the first season, and our main male protagonist is now a high-school student, enrolling in the same school as his card game teammate, the beautiful surly white-haired girl I mentioned before in my synopsis of the first season of this anime. Then one of the members of the Ultra-rare idol group transfer into his class and together, they created a Cardfight!! Vanguard club in the school so that they can aim for the nationals.

Cashing in from character builds up from the first and second season, the set up at the start of the anime is solid. New characters from the main male protagonist’s high school plus the possibility of a love triangle, the first half of this anime consists of the plot where the newly formed card-playing card trying to fight their way to the nationals. The first half of the anime is definitely its best part; it is like watching Cross Game, but with card games instead of baseball. And not much different compared to the whole plot of the first season.

Unfortunately, the second half of this anime consists of a ‘save the world’ plot again, just like the final arc of the second season. Unlike in the second season, this season’s ‘save the world’ plot takes up more episodes than it does in the season before it. Quality-wise, the story in this part is better than the one in the second season though, but still there are some issues about this part (and others too) that I will address below. The ending is typically predictable for an anime with these kind of stories, and whatever loose ends that are still left by the time the last episode finished playing may or may not be addressed in the fourth season that is currently airing. I will definitely watch one too in the future.

Quoted for Truth!

I have already mentioned some of the gameplay changes in this season in my review of the second season, so I will not repeat them here. The only new extra change I have seen after writing the second season’s review is the Quintet Wall, a vanguard-shielding technique that can be used by some of the card types in the series (the decks of the main male protagonist and the blonde Ultra-rare member can do so). I do not really like the fact that this technique are introduced fairly late into the third season, and without any significant deck reshuffling/reconstruction by the owners of the qualifying decks. If the main male protagonist has been able to use this technique in the first place during the first phase of the anime, why he did not use it during the qualification tournament for the nationals? That technique may be able to secure his team a spot in the nationals.

This deux-ex-machina card really does not help this anime one bit. And the user of the card still managed to lose even with that card.

As I have mentioned in my review for the previous two seasons, the card game that underpinned the essence of this series is basically a luck-based game. This has not changed in this season at all. A couple of things to note here. The first one is that the third season employs the ‘deux ex machina’ plot device more gratuitously like the one shown in the screenshot above. This is a weakness in writing because the antagonistic Link Joker deck’s locking system can actually be circumvented reasonably easily (without needing the trigger card drawing luck) with correct tactics. Now if the Link Joker deck has a certain power that the surly white-haired girl’s first deck in the first season has, Link Joker would have become virtually invincible.

The living proof of what the card game is all about.

Another thing I noticed about the gameplay in the third season is the lack of Persona Blast usage and that I have never seen any of the characters draw a stand trigger card during the battles in the ‘save the world’ story arc. And maybe in the ‘go to the nationals’ arc too. I can understand not using the Persona Blast tactic, which is a powerful tactic used in the first season, when alternatives like Break Ride exists. Persona Blast could have made for a more variety in tactics though, so it is a shame to not see it at all in the third season. I wonder what kind of skill can be triggered when two ‘reversed’ cards are used in a Persona Blast, I can only imagine that would make for an awesome augmentation for/of the locking system.

The lack of stand trigger cards baffles me though, that at the end of this season, I actually thought that stand trigger cards has actually been removed from the gameplay. But after watching a couple of episodes from the still running fourth season, it seems that that isn’t the case. I wonder if the characters in this third season actually removed them from their deck composition, which for me is suboptimal for tactics variation.

Character developments in the third installment of this series is at least better than in the previous one; no more character sabotaging by not letting any characters not being able to use new techniques that this season has provided. But in this season where almost all the recurring characters has matured; heck, the main male protagonist is now the strongest in the planet, character developments for those recurring characters are largely restricted to upgrades in their decks. The new characters, mainly from the main male protagonist school, are merely the protagonist’s sidekick at best in the card game club, and their character development reflects that too.

There is also a mystery I really want solved: During the ‘save the world’ arc, where has the biggest fan of Ultra-rare’s blonde member has gone to? Did he got ‘reversed’? Or did he fought the force of evil with his sidekick that has also gone missing while his idol herself is getting ‘reversed’? Or more likely, the writer just forgot about him? Character management really takes a nose-dive here in the third season. Not to mention the extremely large plot hole in the scene below.

Did the writer ever consider the huge plot hole this event will cause when writing this scene?

Character Design:-
Largely, my comment for this section in the first season’s review still applies. The surly white-haired girl sure has become hotter after cutting her hair to shoulder length.

Voice Acting:-
My comment for this section in the first season’s review still applies.

The tsundere of the series. What will happen if a tsundere character acquire 'yandere characteristics' as a result of being 'reversed'? Protip: Nasty things coming the way of the main male protagonist.

Music:-
The first OP theme of the third season of this series is the best ever so far across all three seasons, although this definitely will change in the fourth season. The other two OP themes are quite OK too. The first ED theme is also good, but not for the next two ED themes. The OST is still good just like in the previous two seasons.

The suprisingly cute main antagonist of this season.

Voice Acting:-
Despite the additions of new characters, my comment for this section in the first season’s review still applies.

Animation/Direction:-
The usage of blurry animation technique just like the first two seasons mean one point will be docked from the final evaluation. The animation quality in this season mirrors what is seen in the second season instead of the atrocious one in the first season. The director’s performance has really regressed though this season, with missing characters, missing cards and missing techniques.

One season too late for you to do this.

Conclusion:-
6 out of 10. If not for the aforementioned handicaps, this anime would have had the same score as the current ‘Anime of the Year 2013’ holder Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru, although the latter would still win though. The currently running fourth season would have a hard time matching this third season in terms of quality because it does not have a strong start like this one.

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