Break Blade is a series of six movies following Rygart, a man who is extraordinary because of his lack of magical ability, in a world where everyone can use magic to control quartz and operate giant golems. An ancient golem is unearthed, and Rygart is the only one who can pilot it. He fights in the golem to save the kingdom which is beset by enemies on all sides, but mainly to save the life of his friends Sigyn and Hodr, the king and queen, fighting against their old classmate who fights on the opposing side.

From the description, Break Blade sounds like every other mecha show: boy finds mecha, only he can pilot it, and he does so for great justice, battling with his rival. In this sense, it has been done before, but it’s in the details where Break Blade is so interesting. First of all: these characters aren’t teenagers. There’s no teenage drama or coming of age or whatnot. The characters have already come of age and lived through their share of drama, and part of what makes Break Blade interesting is seeing how they have adjusted to it years later. As one example, this show had a love triangle where there is a mutual attraction between Rygart and the queen, Sigyn. Except Sigyn is married to Rygart’s best friend. To make things even more interesting, the marriage has cooled and the king encourages the two of them to get together. This makes for some very interesting relationship dynamics, to say the least.

The setting is unique as well. Instead of being powered by electronics or steam, the mecha are powered by the magic to control quartz. Quartz-powered mecha don’t have machine guns or laser beams or missiles. Their only weapons are hand to hand or a larger version of a blowgun. This makes the battles more interesting than in, say, Gundam, since there are no laser light shows or naked pink people, and instead we actually get good choreography and action.

Finally, the production quality is worthy of a series of movies made by Production IG. The backgrounds are fantastic, and I can’t praise the music enough.

My only complaint is that I wish it were longer. It had a satisfying conclusion, but I feel like there are more unanswered questions. Cleo especially was kind of left as a cliffhanger, and Rygart’s rival just kind of disappeared. It definitely deserves a sequel, but I doubt we’ll get one, at least not in the immediate future. The manga (which is also excellent, by the way) is at the point where the movies are now, so it’ll probably be a few years before anything else in the series is animated.

• Plot / Script – 9 / 10 – Exciting story of the fall of an empire (I have a fetish for this kind of thing, like Simoun).
• Characters – 9 / 10 – Strong love triangle, villainous and interesting villains, and Girghe… wow. Just wow. (don’t want to spoil anything)
• Production – 10 / 10 – Beautiful backgrounds, and some of the best music in anything I’ve seen recently.
• Overall – 9.0 / 10

Recommendations – Simoun, Isekai no Seikishi Monogatari, Gundam

Kujo transfers from Japan to Europe to become a student, at a time when great changes are afoot in the world. At the top of the library tower, he meets a petite girl with blond hair who seems almost like a fairy, named Victorique. He plays Watson to her Holmes (complete with pipe) as she “assembles the fragments of Chaos” and solves mysteries, often involving fairy tales and the occult. Later on, she unravles the story of her own past.

Gosick is a tough series to review, because what I should really do is write two reviews: one for each half. The two halves come across as completely different. In the first, Victorique and Kujo attend class and solve random mysteries. The second half is a set of more closely connected mysteries revealing the secrets behind Victorique’s birth and the future of Europe.

The thing is, most of the mysteries in the first half are plain dumb. It’s painfully obvious who the criminal is for most of them. Sherlock Holmes is a genius, and this is illustrated by putting him on a completely different level from Watson. But Watson is also very intelligent. In Gosick, they try to make Victorique be a genius by comparing her with Kujo. But Kujo is an idiot (at least in the first half). To top it off, the side characters are annoying: the classmate in love with Kujo, the clumsy teacher with glasses, Victorique’s brother who needs her to solve all his cases for him and whose hair is shaped like a unicorn horn.

At this point I was toying with the idea of dropping the show. But then everything completely changed. They dropped the random obvious mysteries, and Gosick turned into a top-notch adventure series, exploring the story of Victorique’s past and her relationship with Kujo. Sometimes shows use the first half to better develop their characters and setting for the finale. But I can’t really convince myself that this was the case with Gosick. The initial episodes added very little. And oddly enough, the ending felt rushed. So they didn’t need to pad for time. I’m honestly not sure what the creators were thinking for the first half.

But the second half is great. The adventure is exciting, all the characters are fleshed out (even the guy with unicorn hair becomes a non-joke), and the mysteries are interesting. We even get some good politics and a bit of romance. Overall, I would probably rate the second half a 9, but the first half only a 7.

• Plot / Script – 8 / 10 – Huge divide between the first and second half.
• Characters – 8 / 10 – Most of the cast is well fleshed-out in the second half. Kujo’s classmates remain fairly weak, however. Kujo is too dumb in the first half.
• Production – 8 / 10 – Consistent (this is Bones after all) but I can’t help but feel even the animation improved in the second half. This may be my imagination.
• Overall – B-

Recommendations – Kamisama no Memochou, Dantalian no Shoka (for more moeblob detectives)

Makoto moves to a small town to live with his aunt while his parents are away, and meets his cousin Erio, who claims to be an alien and walks around wrapped in a futon. He forms a harem with two other girls, Maekawa and Ryuuko, and embarks on a quest to gain as many puberty points as possible.

Denpa Onna is cuteness overload, and this is the show’s main draw. Erio is sparkly and acts like a little kid, Ryuuko more or less is a little kid, and Maekawa’s main task is dressing up in random cute costumes. Makoto’s aunt is also disturbingly cute (see the image below). If you are obsessed with all things moe, you’ll love Denpa Onna.

If you aren’t… well, it still has its good points. It’s a SHAFT show, and Shinbo has managed to tone down his style to levels where it complements the story rather than dominates it.

As for the characters, most of them are excuses for more cuteness. Maekawa, Makoto’s aunt and Ryuuko are definitely entertaining to watch, although they aren’t particularly deep or anything. Erio really annoyed me though. She really starts out as nothing more than a moeblob who gets carried around wrapped in her futon in her cousin’s bicycle basket. She develops some over the course of the story… but not much.

The male lead, Makoto, is an improvement over your usual spineless harem protagonist. For one thing, he can hold his own in a conversation (he plays the tsukkomi). In addition, he’s a bit cynical and recognizes how boring he is in his accounting of the puberty points he earns each episode.

The dialog is fast paced and witty, as expected from SHAFT. As for the plot, we get to see a bit of Erio leaving her shell, but otherwise there isn’t much. The focus really is the cuteness.

• Plot / Script – 8 / 10 – Fast and witty script from SHAFT, not much of a plot.
• Characters – 7  / 10 – Moeblobs, but still entertaining (aside from Erio).
• Production – 9  / 10 – The usual SHAFT stylistic effects, but managed not to go overboard.
• Overall – C

Recommendations – Bakemonogatari, Haruhi, Arakawa Under the Bridge

Astarotte no Omocha is about a succubi princess, Lotte, who lives in a magical world. She employs a human, Naoya, in her harem so that she can gain magical energies by drinking his juices when she becomes an adult. Naoya also happens to be the father of Lotte’s step-sister who moves in with them at the castle.

I wasn’t initially impressed by Astarotte no Omocha, but I decided to continue watching it. The people who’d read the manga seemed to be saying that the story became something touching involving family as it wore on. Even if it didn’t seem great from the get go, everything was done passably well. The characters and premise were… unique, to say the least, and the story could have had some potential.

Unfortunately, the rumored touching story never materialized, and it turned into a rather unremarkable harem show. I suppose the story did involve family… as in, it tried to develop a romance between a little girl and her stepfather. There are different cultural norms and all, but I feel like I should draw a line somewhere. The touching part of the story, I guess, is about Lotte growing up and becoming a woman… or not, as it is revealed in a bizarre anti-climax in the final episode where it turns out that everything was a misunderstanding resulting from a mosquito bite.

In addition to the problematic story, at least half of the show’s “jokes” surround a little girl not wearing underwear. To make matters worse, the lead character is a little girl voiced by Rie Kugimiya. Lotte is a vast improvement over both Rose from Dragon Crisis and Aria from Hidan no Aria, but still, she’s annoying. The other characters seem like they could be interesting, but never really get a chance to shine. Most of Lotte’s castle staff end up becoming glorified errand boys.

With all that said, if you can look past the premise and the plot (or lack thereof) Astarotte no Omocha isn’t terrible. For one thing, I wasn’t bored while watching it. The show managed to mostly keep my attention, and it used its time effectively. The stories are somewhat episodic in nature, and each of the shorter stories were interesting, even if everything didn’t come together as a whole.

But Astarotte no Omocha also isn’t particularly good. And herein lies the crux of the problem: the show lacks ambition. The creators seemed to set out to make a passable story, not an excellent one, and they succeeded. There were no real risks taken: everything is done by the book. I’d much rather watch a show like [C], which at least had some interesting ideas, even if it did end  in a spectacular explosion of nonsense. Astarotte no Omocha takes the safe path, and ends up the lesser for it.

• Plot / Script – 5 / 10 – Unambitious, although the script kept my interest.
• Characters – 5 / 10 – Only the three main characters really get their turn in the spotlight… and all that comes from that is learning that one doesn’t like wearing underwear, one isn’t sure about whether or not he should date his stepdaughter, and the third is a loli voiced by Rie Kugimiya.
• Production – 6 / 10 – Average, like everything else.
• Overall – D-

Recommendations – Hayate no Gotoku, other Rie Kugimiya series if you like that stuff (Shakugan no Shana, Zero no Tsukaima, etc.)

While Ganta is sitting in class, drearily staring out the window, a man in red clothes appears before him, floating in midair. He breaks through the window, and kills all of Ganta’s classmate. Ganta is accused of the crime, and sentenced to prison in Deadman Wonderland, a prison which doubles as an amusement park where spectators watch death row inmates compete for a lease on life. Ganta soon learns that he has become a Deadman, who can activate powers using his blood, and must fight against other deadmen in underground fights to survive.

The world of Deadman Wonderland is cruel. All the characters have to deal with unbelievable shit. In just the first episode, the main character’s entire class gets murdered, he is sentence to death, and his defense lawyer turns out to have been the prison warden. Body pieces get chopped off like nobody’s business. Ganta is forced to fight in death matches, where if the loser survived they play a penalty game of losing a body part by roulette wheel. It’s a dog eat dog world.

With the shounenesque superpower and tournament setup, I was initially worried that Deadman Wonderland would devolve into some sort of power leveling competition where the power of friendship won. Fortunately these fears were completely unfounded. The games to stay alive are forgotten after the first few episodes. There are the underground battles, but the focus isn’t really the fighting but the characters: there’s some drama surrounding both of Ganta’s matches, and he ends up befriending both of the people he fights. The real foci of the show lie in revealing the secrets of the prison and showcasing the inhuman cruelty of both the prisoners and management.

Deadman Wonderland has some strong characterizations: Ganta’s fellow prisoners are twisted beyond belief due to their environment, but still maintain some level of human decency. Shiro and Hummingbird, two of the female characters, initially seem cute and innocent, but their darker sides are later revealed. Some of the strongest characters, from my perspective, are the show’s villains. These guys redefine what it means to be evil. Especially the promoter who acts as Ganta’s defense lawyer, he is messed up beyond belief.

Unfortunately, Deadman Wonderland’s biggest weakness is its protagonist Ganta. In a show filled with ridiculous levels of cruelty and badassery, this guy is just pathetically weak. And to make matters worse, he spends half the show whining about how weak he is.

Aside from Ganta, though, Deaman Wonderland made quite a strong showing. It had some great characters and explored the depths of human darkness. It really needs a second season though— let’s hope it gets one.

• Plot / Script – 9 / 10 – Excellent dark setting.
• Characters – 8 / 10 – Ganta is pathetic, otherwise interesting.
• Production – 8 / 10 – Serves its purpose, not stellar.
• Overall – B-

Recommendations – Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, Higurashi, Mirai Nikki (manga, but getting animated in the fall, can’t wait!)