Review: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai (ひぐらしのなく頃に解)

Posted by ranpha on 8th July 2008
Posted in: anime review - reposted. Tagged: , . Leave a Comment


Our new main protagonist is asking the question that played in the minds of people who has watched the first season.

There will be two reviews today, and the first one is the promised Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai, the sequel to the anime I reviewed this month last year. This title bring the series to a closure, but unfortunately this sequel suffered from the usual “original >>>> sequel” syndrome, usually seen in Hollywood and also in Japan’s anime industry. Read on to see why.

Story:-
The series continued from the ending of the first season. We get to see more murders, before the ‘happy’ ending sets in. That’s about it. Watching the first season is a mandatory requirement here, and you can see my review of the 8 out of 10 first season here.

The last 2 stories in the Answer Arc and another original storyline make up the series here. The story’s presentation and development is still the same as the prequel, but frankly speaking, I do not think the arcs in this sequel are as good as of the first one. For example, the first story in the Answer Arc of the first season where Shion went mad and basically killed everyone else are orders of magnitude better than any stories in this sequel. And it has the legendary Rika’s neck-stab scene too, which is one of my unforgettable anime scenes of all time. Basically, this sequel did not have the tensions, the thrills, the suspense and most importantly, the grotesque violence its prequel has. In the review of the first season I wrote that I have high hopes for the sequel, but it is safe to say that it (the sequel) disappoints me greatly.

Character development is also carried forward from the prequel, and was very well done. Here, main protagonist is changed from the main male protagonist Maebara Keiichi that is dominating the first season to Rika the shrine maiden, but I do not think she performed as well as Keiichi does in the first season. The ending is decent, but you should be able how it will form from miles away anyway.

I heard that there will be a sequel to this and I wonder what will be in it. Should I get my hope up? Whatever it is, I will definitely watch it.


Meanwhile, our displaced ex-main protagonist is asking a question that played in the minds of all hot-blooded men.

Character Design:-
No changes from the first season, unlike the second season of Lodoss War. The design that is common in dating simulation is still there, and basically my comment in the review of the first season still stands.

Voice Acting:-
The sequel failed to repeat the great gigs you can see (or more accurately, hear) in the first season. The same voice actors/actresses are blander than their performance in the prequel. I blame the context of the story for this.

Music:-
The OP theme is good, but the OST and the ED theme failed. Exactly the same comment I have in the prequel too.

Animation/Direction:-
The animation in this anime is good, even in fast-paced scenes. There are less action scenes and violence here, but their choreography is still decent. The directing is just average, now he/she is not aided by good storylines anymore.

Conclusion:-
7 out of 10. This sequel is just a little inferior to the prequel. I forgot to inform you that this anime is a contender for Nodame Cantabile’s throne, but from the scoring you should be able to see the result. 7 is less than a 10 anyway. The second review will come later today.


One of the WTF moments in this series: a fully-functional phone booth in the middle of nowhere.

Review: Record of Lodoss War – ロードス島戦記

Posted by ranpha on 30th June 2008
Posted in: anime review - reposted. Tagged: . 1 comment


Our hero that will save the world from EBIIIIIIIIILLLL!

As promised, here comes the mini-review of Record on Lodoss War. Originally, I planned to watch the whole series, but after a few episodes of the second season, I have decided to drop everything apart from the first season that has 13 episodes. The reason will be outlined later below.

Story:-
The continent of Lodoss was threatened by the rising of an ancient goddess of destruction that, based on her job’s description, wanted to destroy the world. A bunch of adventurers went out to save the world by preventing the goddess from being resurrected.

The story in the first season is actually excellent, especially for its time, even though it is very predictable in today’s standard and laden with genre clichés too. But the story did not really develop smoothly, with plenty of scene transition problems and some holes in the plot. These problems affect the transitions between the arcs, making it not as seamless as it can be, plus there are things that happened in the series that simply can’t be explained, even at the end.

The character development is not that great because of 2 reasons; the low episode count and development methods that are too typical of the genre. Still, I do think the main protagonist has a lot of appeal, thus making him the best characters in this series. The ending was very well done too, although some of the questions posed in the series are not answered.

With the sequel in hand, I started watching the second season hoping that questions in the first season will be answered, but the very first episode floored me out, the way first episode of Comic Party season 2 does. That exact episode makes me wonder whether I am watching the sequel of the first season, because it seems to me that I am watching a sequel to a fictional remake of the first season. I then watched for another 4 episodes or so and then I decided to drop it mainly because:-

– The artwork has regressed; character designs look better in first season than the second one. Even Comic Party Revolution did not do this, although Di Gi Charat probably has.

– Almost zero continuity from first season. In fact, I wonder whether the recurring characters in the second season are the same one as the ones in the first season. Even Comic Party Revolution did not do this.

Nevertheless, scoring for this anime will strictly be based on the first season only.


The EBIIIIIIIIILLLL minions that our hero and friends has to defeat.

Character Design:-
This anime has great character designs, with that elf standing out from the rest. This is definitely a plus point of this anime. Why on earth the second season’s designs being dumbed down unnecessarily is still a mystery to me. Black hair is rare but then again this is a fantasy anime, thus it is forgivable.

Voice Acting:-
The voice acting in this anime is just plain average overall, with no outstanding character(s).

Music:-
Another positive point for this anime, all themes and the OST are great.

Animation/Direction:-
The animation in this anime is just average, although did not really affect any of the fast-paced scenes. Choreography for this anime is a hit-and-miss, but then again this is an old anime. Directing is not really good, for the reasons mentioned in the story section above.

Conclusion:-
7 out of 10. Well, that’s about it. Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai comes next, or is it?


Another evil antagonist who does not read Peter’s Evil Overlord List.

Review: Kodomo no Jikan (こどものじかん) + OVA

Posted by ranpha on 21st June 2008
Posted in: anime review - reposted. Tagged: , . Leave a Comment


There’s something wrong with people not removing hair ornaments when swimming in a pool.

My plan is to watch either the Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai or the Lodoss War series, but then I found out I have to go outstation next week, thus not being able to watch either of them in a single sitting. With only 12 episodes, the heavily censored Kodomo no Jikan (a 2007 anime) will instead feature as my newest blog entry and maybe, just maybe, I will watch either of those two anime after I returned.

Story:-
Aoki Daisuke, a newly minted elementary school teacher-in-training, was assigned to a problematic class with a trio of girls at the center of everything. One of them is hell-bent at sending our protagonist to jail for sexual assault on minors, and the other two has their own issue for our protagonist to deal with.

This anime is not only watered down compared to the manga (which I read before watching the anime) but also infested with one of the most excessive censorship I have ever seen in an anime. I can accept it if they only censor questionable scenes like the way they do it in Chocotto Sister (pretty common anyway in Japanese anime aired on TV), but the overt and very frequent bleeping of dialogues is really something else. Not only had the bleeping muddled the plot, affecting the storyline in a negative way, but also it takes the shine off the performances of some of the main characters. This takes at least 2 points off the final scoring. Watching the uncensored DVD version is a must, and with a few of those DVD episodes I watched, the difference between the censored and the uncensored is almost like night and day.

The story by itself is pretty good, despite being just a watered-down version if the manga is taken into account. In the second half of the series, the director tried merging independent story arcs into one package (usually spanned within an episode) with admittedly mixed results. The story developed very well with excellent pacing (this is actually the main strength of the monthly manga) but the original ending which deviates majorly from the manga storyline, is just average. How the director will reconcile the ending with the expected second season (hoping that they cut down on the bleeping) is open for scrutiny.

Characters development is decent with the main protagonist standing out from the rest, and if not for the consistent bleeping, Kuro Kagami would have joined him too. This is why I hope that the second season, the excessive censorship will be cut down so that the second season will be more palatable to watch.

edit: Just watched the OVA, which does not differ than a typical regular TV season episode. So no alteration to the scoreline.


One of the scenes that does not make it to the TV screen.

Character Design:-
The character design for this anime is excellent, definitely the positive point of this series. The main protagonist and Kuro Kagami both have black hair, which is a good thing. The amount of hairs is unnatural though, but I think I can overlook that.

Voice Acting:-
Unlike the character design, the voice acting in this anime is just average overall. Still, Kuro Kagami stands out from the rest, just like the prince from Mars in Dragonaut – the resonance.


Another one of the ‘censored’ scenes.

Music:-
This anime has good OP/ED themes, but the OST is almost non-existant.

Animation/Direction:-
The animation in this anime is good, and do not suffer in fast-paced scenes, if any exists. There is no comment about the choreography, which did not apply for this series. The directing is decent, with improvisation to the original manga storyline taking the cake.

Conclusion:-
7 out of 10. Would have been easily scored 10 if the censorship can be reduced and not too many deviations from original storyline exist. Nodame Cantabile is still the no.1 anime in 2007. Record of Lodoss War/Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai; one of them will feature in the next review.


Sae Shirai is one of the better characters in the manga. I hope her characters will get more attention in the second season because I feel she can become one of the best characters in this series.

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