Review: Figure 17 (フィギュア17（セブンティーン）つばさ＆ヒカル)

Posted by ranpha on 25th November 2007
Posted in: anime review - reposted. Tagged: . Leave a Comment


This is still the case in many places all around the world you insensitive clod!

Bored with 2007 anime, I now picked another random oldies that I have downloaded but not watched yet, so here is a Figure 17 review. It is surprisingly decent, you know. I also helped myself at taking a sh*tload of screenshots too.

 
And the stories about them is what makes Figure 17 so great.

Story:-
Tsubasa moved school to Hokkaido (a Japanese locale rarely used in any anime) after her mother’s death. Then out of nowhere, a set of events nailed her a twin sister named Hikaru. But with such a present comes with excess baggage, which is to hunt alien lifeforms scattered all around Hokkaido.

This is one of the anime that are slow starters, taking about half of the episodes to get interesting. But the early episodes are not entirely useless, as the early stories mainly are used to develop Tsubasa’s character. Then the main story is slowly but surely gets introduced into the series. The story by itself is very well done, but not exactly a masterpiece. And the ending, while somewhat predictable, is quite good and polished with a proper closure.

Generally, this anime did not really have a weakness, and that can only be a good thing.

 
Teary big eyes common to this genre.

Character Design:-
Your typical shonen sci-fi anime demands a typical shonen character design. With the protagonist being only a 10-year old elementary school student, do not expect outrageous body shapes with big breasts. We still got big eyes though, but none of the outrageous hair colors (black excluded) that dominates shonen titles nowadays. Say hi to 2001.

 
She may be an emo, but the main protagonist is much worse so.

Voice acting:-
One of the better aspects of the anime, the voice acting for at least the twins is excellent. It is the rest of the cast that has generally only okay voice acting pulling the twins down.

Music:-
Definitely the best aspect of this anime. It has a perfect score here, with great OST and OP/ED themes. A two thumbs-up recommendation from me for you to download buy.

 
One of the twins that is not emo in a friendly pointless banter. Forgot already why I capped this one.

Animation/Direction:-
Probably the weakest point of the anime. Spoiled with great animation quality in the last few anime I have reviewed prior to this, the animation here is a few steps back compared to them. Surprisingly though, fast-paced scenes does not seems to be affected. The last episode reused quite plenty of scenes though, and this will be a concern. Choreography of the action scenes is also mixed bag, with good scenes in one episode just to be average in others. The directing meanwhile is great, managing the flow of the storyline even in the earlier slow-paced episodes and managed to keep the series interesting before the main meat at the awesome second half of the series.

 
The emo twin stared at the flower that direct connections in making her an emo trainwreck. It’s a shame that she didn’t become a berserker.

Conclusion:-
A 9 out of 10. Yeah, I do think this is better than Lucky Star. 1 point loss from the average character design and the animation (I am harsh dammit!).

 
One of the stories from the world of cows.

Review: Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (天元突破グレンラガン)

Posted by ranpha on 12th November 2007
Posted in: anime review - reposted, perfect score. Tagged: . Leave a Comment


This anime has its own whiny emo kid too.

My 4th review in less than a week, today comes my mini-review of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, another 2007 anime which automatically will put it in contention for my Anime of The Year 2007 award. Rated no.7 in Anime News Network as of writing, does this anime has what it takes to grab the title from Nodame Cantabile?

Story:-
Simon and Kamina lives in an underground village and Kamina always have the desire to go to the surface. After Simon found a strange artifact right before an invasion of the village by mecha-piloting strange being called Beastmen, both of them managed to get to the surface of the Earth. There, they found out that Earth has been colonized by the afore-mentioned Beastmen who has driven all humans underground. From there on, both of them set to a journey to free humanity from those evil Beastmen and their leader Spiral/Helix King (pick what is appropriate).

This anime is actually seems to be in the same genre as the likes of Zoid Genesis and Chou Sei Shin series, which are mecha anime aimed primarily for elementary school kids. You know, the type of anime TV-Nihon fansubbing group specializing in? In fact, the storyline itself is typical of the genre, therefore making it pretty predictable to the likes of me who watched this kind of anime while I am still a kid.

But what makes Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann different from the rest is that Gainax takes the typical mainstream story this anime has, then polished it as shiny as possible and presented it as good as they can. Just like Tonagura, the great strength of this anime is their execution and presentation. Plus, it takes a leaf from Nodame Cantabile, and presented Simon, and to a lesser extent, Kamina, as 2 powerful characters that are able to drive the series forward.

Gainax has also moderates some (but not all) of the bad clichés associated with this kind of kid mecha genre, making it palatable to a wider audience. This is why positioning the story to revolve around a small drill is somewhat believable and even enjoyable. This series definitely does not have a great story (for that go look at Seirei no Moribito or Claymore) but the presentation/execution and also the character strength of the main characters more than make up for it.


Yeah baby, yeah!

Character Design:-
Basically, the character designs for human and beastly characters and the mecha too are typical of the kid mecha genre mentioned above. There are no attempts whatsoever to make it resemble mecha like in the series like Gundam or Heroic Age. This fit the kiddy story perfectly, or else I will question the shape of the iris in Nia’s eyes and label it bad character design. For kiddy anime, a higher degree of suspension of belief is needed.

Voice acting:-
The voice acting here is generally good, especially for Kamina. But not all main characters have good voice actors, because Simon’s voice, especially when he is still a kid, is average at best. And don’t get me started with Nia, because her case is one of Gainax’s failures at moderating the clichés in this genre.

Music:-
The anime has great OST but the OP/ED themes are not.

Animation/Direction:-
The FLCL-esque animation techniques, especially in battles scenes, are awesome to watch. All of the actions are fluid (as it is with all 2007 anime I watched to date) even in fast scenes. Choreography can be way too fast though, but nothing that the CTRL + <– combo button in Media Player Classic cannot solve.

The directing in this series is phenomenal, just look at how the typical story that the series has being turned into a part of the package of an anime that is simply a masterpiece. Although he/she probably can do away with those overused flashbacks and also that single recap episode (yet another cliché Gainax fail to stamp out).

Conclusion:-
A perfect 10 out of 10, but Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann fails by a whisker to grab the Anime of The Year 2007 title from Nodame Cantabile. While both match each other in story and character design, Nodame Cantabile superiority in voice acting is cancelled out by Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann advantage in animation/direction. Nodame wins out at the end mainly because all of its OP/ED themes are great while this is not so for this series.


The resident emo kid just fired a fireball in anger.

Review: Darker Than Black ‐黒の契約者‐

Posted by ranpha on 10th November 2007
Posted in: anime review - reposted. Tagged: . Leave a Comment

 
This anime is brought to you by Pizza Hut. Not Sony Music or aniplex or whatever sponsor of the day you see at the start of an episode.

This is yet another assault on Nodame Cantabile’s provisional title as Best Anime of The Year 2007, coming from Pizza Hut-sponsored Darker Than Black. Will this corporate-sponsored title with one of the most blatant product placement advertising I have ever seen in an anime succeed where Lucky Star or Seirei no Moribito and other 2007 anime failed? No need to jump to the conclusion below, because the answer is a BIG FAT NO. Now, read on why this is the case.

Story:-
The Tokyo as we knows it is no more, because it is now play host to Hell’s Gate where all hell breaks loose that appears out of nowhere. That gate seems to bring out another human race that is called Contractors. Contractors are companies that compete for government tenders humans with super powers and huge thirst to kill. Our protagonist Hei is one of those superhumans, and he and his colleagues are out to do their thing that only a Contractor can do…. filing road potholes.

After watching a good story in Seirei no Moribito, this anime is a great reminder how awfully uninteresting and unoriginal a Japanese anime can be. This is one of many average anime titles Japan pumps out every year. A typical sci-fi shounen title which may look different on the surface, but in essence Darker Than Black has no innovation whatsoever.

Anyway, the story by itself is not bad, and it has a decent ending with some hints of a new season. I wonder whether I should download a second season if it becomes available though.

 
Watching anime at work is what I also like to do. In fact it has been several years since I watched anime from home.

Character Design:-
Character design here is actually good, with plenty of black hairs (as Japanese should have) to go around. To a certain extent, realistically it mirrors a typical demographic of modern-day Tokyo, of which I will not complain.

 
No typical shonen anime is complete without a talking pet.

Voice acting:-
Well, it wasn’t bad, but not that good either. I can’t say anything positive or negative in this aspect. Let just say that voice acting here is ‘mundane’.

Music:-
Again for several anime in a row, the OST is decent but none of the themes are any good.

 
No typical shonen anime is complete without a comic-relief.

Animation/Direction:-
The animation is great and fluid all around, even in fast scenes. Maybe all 2007 anime are like this? I have not seen any 2007 anime that has bad animation as of yet. The action scenes are not choreographed as well as the one in Claymore or Seirei no Moribito, but it comes down to the very many occasions where the protagonist is simply too powerful compared to his opponents. Fights between equals are good in quality but sadly, there are not many of those.

The directing is simply average with virtually no moments where I can say WOW.

Conclusion:-
6 out of 10. In no way those product placement advertisements affects the rating. Tengen Toppa Gurrenn Lagann will be next. If that one fails too, maybe I should watch some older anime before looking for another challenger for Nodame Cantabile.

 
The 2 powerful Contractors of which even our hero cannot get away from.

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