All posts by draggle

Hourou Musuko 07

Hourou Musuko,

I was looking forward to this episode from having read the manga- the beginning of Shuusuke and Ana’s relationship was one of the best parts of the manga as well. It really came completely out of left field, which made it all the more surprising how well it turned out. But Shuusuke, dating your sister’s friends is still in bad taste.

The confession scene was particularly excellent, with Ana’s resposne of “so”? A great contrast to the dramatic, teary-eyed confession scenes we’ve come to expect. The creators have been doing a good job at generally making the relationships between the characters believable for how people of their age would actually act – immature, hyperactive, selfish, etc. Probably the one with the least believable personality is Shuusuke. Really, going on a date to the zoo? I thought that was uncool even for ten year olds.  Maybe zoos are more popular in Japan.

The fallout from Ana and Shuusuke’s relationship was enjoyable as well. The creators have done a great job portraying the complex interwove relationships between everyone by putting nearly all of the characters in every episode. It’s particularly impressive that they do this without the plot seeming to suffer from any issues with a lack of focus. But we get to see more deeply into Mako, Maho, Chiiba and Takatsuki from this event. The characters all have a lot of depth given how little screentime they get.

The only issue is, I would imagine that this show would be extremely confusing for those who haven’t read the manga. I would probably have trouble remembering all the characters who were introduced in such a short period of time. But it was probably a good decision, since with a larger introduction they wouldn’t have gotten very far within the brief timeline of the TV series.

Now for the obligatory Chiiba shots!

Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu Matsuri 01

OVA,

This OVA was a worthy entry in the series, returning to the fast-paced humor of the first half which unfortunately dragged out in the second. We had the same levels of ridiculousness that made the first season hilarious.

Flat-chest jokes generally make me cringe, but this background text was hilarious.

Comedy, it seems to me, is something that’s very personal. From trying to write this blog, I’ve realized that I don’t really have much in the way of explanation as to why something is funny. For example, I’ve been complaining for a while now about how Iroha’s stalking in Onii-chan no Koto just isn’t funny anymore since it’s been overused so much. But is that really the reason? Baka to Test reuses the same jokes over and over again – Himeji’s deadly cooking, Minami’s chest, Yoshii’s cross dressing, Voyeur’s peeping, and Hideyoshi’s… existence. Yet it’s still funny every time. It must be something to do with the delivery – when the two punks claimed they had kidnapped the most popular waitress, it was patently obvious they were referring to Hideyoshi in spite of Yoshii’s belief to the contrary. And yet when they arrived to find him, playing the game of Life with his captors, I just cracked up. They go the extra mile with their jokes to put extra layers on them. Plus, the pace is too fast for you to lose interest.

I’m looking forward to the second season of Baka to Test, especially if it can keep up this pace, as well as the second OVA which is due in a month. In completely unrelated news, I figured out how to include subtitles in mplayer! (for the curious, use mplayer -ass -vf ass,screenshot)  We also learned this episode that Voyeur-kun uses *nix and python. Finally an anime character who doesn’t use Windows and silly GUIs.

This was great too - the same as usual but with a twist.

 

Fractale 07

Fractale,

Fractale still has way too many “Clain is a pervert” jokes. Who thought it would be a good idea to make this the only joke in the entire show? It was painful enough to watch the first time. This show has the perfect setup for a fun adventure story – a fantastic setting, larger than life characters and a sense of childish wonder, but the “Clain is a pervert” jokes completely ruin this momentum.

Also, way too many things in this episode just came out of nowhere. I didn’t even know that the world of Fractale had cities – my impression was that most people were mobile and lived in mobile homes. And hear we find ourselves in a city. They could have at least mentioned that cities existed earlier… It’s the same thing with the villain of the week. He somehow went from being a peaceful, enlightened shepherd to a rapist and drug-dealer from out of absolutely nowhere. It wasn’t even surprising, either- we hadn’t even seen the shepherd enough to remember what he looked like. It was just completely random. The setting of Fractale is interesting, but not really consistent – the places they visit in the different episodes just seem so different from each other.

This is where I should pretend to be concerned and wonder what will happen in regards to Clain’s apparent death, but honestly, the show would be better off without him. I know we won’t be so lucky though. It would be kind of cool if he dies and is resurrected as a dopple, but this would give the creators unlimited fodder for “pervert” jokes by walking through walls, hacking cameras, etc.

Mahou Shoujo Madoka 09

Puella Shoujo Madoka Magica,

Nooo, Kyouko!!!! She went out with a spectacular bang, so I can’t say I’m disappointed though! Now all that’s left to see is whether the creators will be able to outdo themselves in the finale, and given this episode, that may prove difficult. But now they should have plenty of time to develop Homura and Madoka, who have largely been left out so far, since they’re the only ones left.

The second half of this show, particularly the battle scene, was simply beautiful. Shinbo’s style really worked out well here, with the orchestral music in the background, the concert hall, Sayaka’s crazy-awesome new form, Kyouko’s spear skills and Madoka’s crying. Everything just really came together in that scene – the animation, music, and voices, and blended together perfectly.

Another (of many) things this show does quite well is manage to keep you sitting on the edge of your seat. I don’t think I’ve anticipated the next episode of a show so much since watching Code Geass (well, it certainly did have other flaws, and let’s pretend the second season never happened). This is how you do a tragedy – something you know will be so terrible that you can’t look away. It manages to inject hope up to the point where you can believe that things could turn out all right, such as when Kyoko and Madoka head to help Sayaka, only to dash that hope with an even darker fate than before. Yet in spite of the dark fate of magical girls, we must conclude that all is well and hope overcomes despair, as Kyouko overcomes the darkness in her own soul and reaches out to Sayaka and Madoka.

If I had to nitpick, however, I was disappointed in Kyuubey infodumping all the secrets about his nature to Madoka. I feel they could have drawn this out a bit later to the end of the series. It seems that now there are few unanswered questions, except Homura’s past. I don’t doubt that there will be more surprises as we go along, but they could have found a more interesting way to reveal everything. Plus, aliens are lame. Things that walk in the darkness on Earth are way scarier.

Kore wa Zombie Desu ka? 08

Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka,

This show’s episodes have really been hit or miss with me – about half, such as last week’s and the whale episode, were pretty funny, but the rest have been very disappointing. Unfortunately this week’s episode falls squarely in the miss category.

The main problem is that Yuki is not an interesting character. Over half of this episode involved watching her blush about becoming a “wife”. It wasn’t funny last episode and it’s even less funny now. And this episode didn’t make up for it by having her defeat monsters with ramen.

The rest of the episode, with Haruna being jealous, was certainly an improvement in terms of boredom over the earlier parts. It did seem out of character for Haruna though. Why is she suddenly admitting that she likes him now? Well, whatever.

Pretty much the only part of the episode that made me chuckle was when Ayumu was surprised to see Haruna wearing clothes, so this was definitely a low-point on the comedy front. Even Eu’s voiceover was disappointing this week. I probably would have laughed at the background images before they left the Mask Donald’s, but my brain was still waking up from the rest of that scene.