All posts by draggle

Hanasaku Iroha 07 — Commander Tomoe

Hanasaku Iroha,

This episode focused on developing the personality of Tomoe, the head waitress. Her parents want her to go home for a marriage interview, but she decides to stay at the inn to take care of her cute underlings.

I feared that the survival gamers were going to become a corny gimmick, but it actually turned out well and was pretty funny. Tomoe’s decision to scare away the survival gamers and get fired simultaneously was definitely not the most well thought out plan, but somehow worked out. The survival gamers’ biggest problem was a lack of an opponent, and Tomoe was more than willing to provide.

So we’ve gone through episodes about most of the characters by now, I think the only ones left who haven’t had their full time to shine are the grandmother, beanman, head chef, and the girl from the other inn. The past few episodes have been fun, but I do hope we can get back to the drama of the first few episodes soon. A visit from Ko-chan or some rivalry with the other inn would spice things up right about now…

Also, these survival games actually look like a lot of fun (well, if we ignore the stalking and peeking they actually did and consider what they’re supposed to be doing). I actually shared a campground with some of these people a few years ago, but stayed well away from them and didn’t realize what it was all about.

Puella Shoujo Madoka Magica Review — A-

Reviews, ,

I held off for nearly a month on writing this review because I forgot was thinking deeply about what to say. Madoka by far was the most popular show of the spring season, and with good reason. For me, the best part of the show was all the twists and turns in the plot— it really kept you coming back for more, wanting to know what would happen. Madoka was the show I looked forward to each new episode of the most since Code Geass aired. I won’t spoil any of the plot twists, but will just say that many were shocking and unexpected. Everything is wrapped up in the end, although the ending for Madoka was kind of silly.

Madoka also stands out for its excellent cast of characters. The weakest is the titular Madoka, but her indecisiveness serves as the main driving force behind the show. The villain, Kyuubey, will be remembered for a long time. This is how you make a great villain – not someone who cackles evilly while destroying the world, but someone who considers what they’re doing good. Sayaka, Kyoko and Homura also turned into detailed, sympathetic characters.

Shaft went all out on the production for this, and it shows. The battle scenes especially are spectacular. Shinbo needs to do more shows like Madoka and forget about all the crap sequels and moe shows that SHAFT has been churning out lately.

Anyway, don’t be deceived by the title— Madoka Magica is a show about magical girls, but it isn’t a show for little girls. Expect something dark and violent.

  • Plot / Script – 9 / 10 – Plenty of twists and turns, great mystery development.
  • Characters – 9 / 10 – Excellent, especially for Sayaka, Kyoko and Homura
  • Production – 10 / 10 – Beautiful, especially the fights and witches’ worlds
  • Overall – A-

Recommendations – Noein, Mai-HiME, Narutaru

C: The Money of Soul and Possibility Control 05 — Paying the National Debt

C: The Money of Soul and Possibility Control,

The fights in C continue to be excellent. I was glad that Kimimaro didn’t become suddenly great at fighting since last week, but actually lost his fight this time due to not talking to Mashu. Really, I’m not sure why he doesn’t talk to her more. It seems like she would know a lot more about the financial district than him. And she’s even complaining that he doesn’t ask her. Seems like a perfect opportunity. Mashu is the weakest character of the show right now, and needs either some backstory  or more of a personality. She also needs some cool power like everyone else seems to have.

The revelations about Souichiro and the financial district continue coming in— he uses the guild money to bail out the Japanese government and buy the pharmaceutical company that failed due to a loss in the financial district. Later in the episode, Souichiro says it’s obvious that the world requires the influx of Midas money and Kimimaro agrees with him— but why do they need the Midas money? This isn’t obvious to me at all. If they’re just getting more money into the financial system by getting Midas money, couldn’t they achieve exactly the same effect by printing the same amount of normal money? There must be something about the Midas money which they aren’t telling us. Based on the name of Midas money, I’m wondering if it has some ability to make the people who touch it crave even more money. Perhaps people would be less motivated without it (although it’s unclear if this is actually a bad thing).

Hidan no Aria 05 — Wow

Hidan no Aria,

This episode redefined the meaning of the word terrible. I actually praised Hidan no Aria’s last episode, mainly because of Riko, but this time I couldn’t forgive the nonsensical plot and actions of the characters even with Riko and Kinji in hysteria mode.

Let’s look at what happens this episode. Aria gets shot, and to treat her wound, Kinji takes off her clothes, straddles her, and gives her an injection. I’m pretty sure this is not how you should treat bullet wounds. Then Aria immediately wakes up, and does the usual routine of yelling at him for being a pervert. Her voice is one of the most annoying things I’ve ever heard. Kinji kisses her to enter hysteria mode.

Riko finds them, and they team up on her and cut her hair (Kinji cuts a bullet in half with his sword). Riko enters Medusa mode, and then runs away. Later, Kinji corners Riko on the plane where she has surrounded herself with bombs. She blows the wall out, jumps out of the plane, pulls off her school uniform, and uses it as a parachute. At this point I completely lost it. Riko quickly follows up with a missile barrage which precisely takes out two engines. I guess those were hidden in her uniform too.

From this point it only gets worse, as Aria and Kinji collaborate with their classmates to land the plane. The government, to control damage to their image, decides it’s better to shoot down the plane themselves than to let it potentially crash land at the airport. Whoever made that decision had better get sacked after this.

The next ten minutes are a snoozefest of radio calls and looking at the fuel meter. When they land at the school ten minutes later, their classmates have prepared hundreds of spotlights powered by their own individual windmills to light the way to the landing strip. Right. The remainder of the episode is some corny drama about Aria leaving again, getting stopped at the last minute and jumping out of a flying helicopter. (I’m sure there’s more to complain about in there, but I wasn’t really paying attention anymore).

I’m actually thinking about picking this show up mid-season for blogging— it sucks, but there’s certainly a lot to say about it. If next weeks episode is either good or terrible I’ll probably pick it up, if it’s average I won’t.

Ano Hana 05 — As Tears Go By

Ano Hana,

Lots of crying this episode. I wouldn’t say it was over the top though, they were certainly appropriate times to cry, aside from Menma’s fit at the end.  She’s a little kid though so we can forgive her. Matsuyuki’s tears were tears of MANLINESS that only someone wearing a dress can shed, so that’s all good. And Anaru almost got raped so getting teary-eyed is ok.

I really liked how they dealt with Matsuyuki’s cross-dressing in this episode. In most other shows everyone would be making fun of the guy who cross-dressed. But aside from the intial shock, his friends are actually really supportive. Anaru calls him a cross-dresser and runs away from him, but you can tell her heart isn’t in it. And Matsuyuki’s relationship with Jinta has actually improved from revealing his hobby. This is really the reaction that makes the most sense, and it’s nice to have such reasonable and accepting characters.

As for Anaru, she really needs to ditch those “friends” of hers. Talk about bitches. I didn’t think anyone played the “maybe we shouldn’t be friends with you” game after elementary school. Tsurumi’s observation about both Anaru and Matsuyuki needing to change clothes was spot on. I’m really looking forward to the episodes featuring Tsurumi. Hopefully they’ll let her become something more than just the smart person. Same thing goes for Hisakawa except without being smart.

The extra segment from the past was not what I was expecting. A love quadrangle among eight year olds. I have difficulty imagining children of that age falling in love, much less feeling the same way more than five years later. Perhaps this is more reflective of me than the anime. But regardless, the future flashbacks are going to need more temporal variety. I feel that they need to look at more than the day of Menma’s death to fully flesh out the characters’ past relationships.