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YuruYuri Review — B

Reviews,

With both YuruYuri and Nichijou airing, this season has been a great one for comedies.

YuruYuri follows in the footsteps of Azumanga Daioh, Lucky Star and K-On in chronicling the lives of a group of high school girls. The main variation on the theme in YuruYuri is the abundance of explicit yuri elements. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

When watching a comedy, there is only one question that matters to me: is it funny?

For YuruYuri, I can say yes. The jokes are generally fresh and funny, the pacing is tight and upbeat, and the characters are unique. Kyoko, in particular, is a joy to watch— she is always full of surprises. Akari’s eternal invisibility is amusing, as are her opening eyecatches, and Chinatsu is downright evil, which makes for some good fun too.

On the negative side, one joke in particular goes a bit too far— the nosebleeds. When Kyoko and Ayane do anything suggestive, Chitose takes off her glasses, puts on her yuri goggles, and bleeds out her nose. Her visions were funny, but after twenty or so times it was a bit much.

Otherwise, it was a great comedy— funny, fresh and with characters who can keep your attention. Assuming you don’t mind the yuri, of course.

  • Plot / Script – B – Consistently entertaining and funny.
  • Characters – A – I loved Kyoko especially.
  • Production – B – Who cares as long as it’s funny.
  • Overall – B

Recommendations – K-On, Lucky Star, Softenni, Saki

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Sacred Seven Review — D+

Reviews,

Arma has the power of the sacred stones within him! Ruri, a rich girl with her personal army of maids, and Kagami, her butler, visit Arma and recruit him to join in their fight against the darkstones, evil stones which are… evil. We follow the adventures of Arma, Ruri and the rest of the rock collecting club.

We can already tell from the premise that this is going to be bad. But how bad? Well… pretty bad, as it turns out. With maid armies, Egyptian pyramids, and the power of rocks, the plot is dumb and predictable (you can tell the scientist will be the final boss the first time you see him). The characters are annoying and uninteresting, especially the two leads.

With that said, it could have been much worse. The creators seem to realize how hopelessly dumb the premise is, and for the most part, they don’t take it too seriously. For example, see all the dumb jokes revolving around rocks and Hellbrick. Of course, it’s also possible that I’m putting thoughts in the creators’ heads, and they approached this whole thing seriously… but in a way, that would only make it funnier.

The battles, which are the main focus of the show, are well done and entertaining in an over the top way. Don’t expect any sort of realism or logical consistency here: it’s just full out hot blooded action, complete with transformations, mecha and maid armies.

Overall, it’s a dumb show,  but good for some clean brainless fun and explosions if you’re in the proper mindset.

  • Plot / Script – C – A terrible premise, but I guess they make the most of it.
  • Characters – D – Boring, cliched and annoying.
  • Production – B – It looks fine.
  • Overall – D+

Recommendations – Tengen Toppa Gurren Laggan, Full Metal Panic

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Usagi Drop Review — B+

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Daikichi’s grandfather passes away, and at the funeral, he discovers that his grandfather had an illegitimate child, Rin. Instead of sending her to the orphanage, Daikichi takes her in, and begins the life of a single parent.

First of all, in a medium where most shows are about teenagers whose parents are conspicuously absent, I have to give Usagi Drop credit. It takes on parenting directly, and its main characters are a thirty year old man and a six year old girl.

With that said, the relationship between Daikichi and Rin is one of the weakest parts of the show. Rin’s main role is to act cute and need Daikichi. In many ways, she’s too “perfect” as a child to be believable— she cooks all the family meals, never throws fits, and she and Daikichi get along perfectly from the get-go. There are occasional conflicts, like Rin wetting the bed, but again, this falls in the cuteness category. In the sense of getting along with Rin, Daikichi’s job is too easy.

Fortunately, the relationships between the other characters are much more interesting. In particular, we have Yukari and Kouki, a single mother and a child of Rin’s age who befriend Daikichi and Rin. Daikichi takes on a fatherly role for Kouki, and there is some chemistry between him and Yukari. We also have Daikichi’s extended family interacting with Rin to good effect, and Daikichi’s meetings with Rin’s biological mother provide some food for thought.

All in all, this was another good noitaminA show, following in the footsteps of Hourou Musuko and Ano Hana.

  • Plot / Script – A – Never feels rushed or boring, with thoughtful dialogue.
  • Characters – B – Daikichi is a bit simplistic, and Rin is more or less a placeholder, but otherwise strong.
  • Production – A – Gorgeous, bright animation, that resembles the drawings of a child.
  • Overall – B+

Recommendations – Hourou Musuko, Kurenai, NieA_7

Note: I’m going to be experimenting with giving letter grades instead of the odd 0.25 increments I used before, let’s see how it works. Thanks to Marrow for suggestions.

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Steins; Gate Review — B+

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Steins; Gate tells the tale of Okabe Rintarou Hououin Kyouma, a mad scientist who has developed a time machine that allows him to send text messages to the past. He experiments with it, changing the future slightly, only to discover that his friend is fated to die. The rest of the story chronicles his efforts to save her.

There’s a lot to like about Stein’s; Gate. We have a great setting, complete with time travel, paradoxes and international criminal conspiracies, led by the most evil organization in history, CERN, with their diabolical plan to construct the Large Hadron Collider.

But the best part is simply the characters and their interactions. I enjoyed watching them hang out in the lab nearly as much as I enjoyed the time travel. Okabe is a fun character, hovering on the border of insanity. It’s mostly an act, but it’s still a pleasure to watch, especially with the excellent work done by his voice actor. The best evil laugh since Lelouch?

Okabe only gets better coupled with Christina, who argues with him all the time. Steins; Gate sports the sharpest and wittiest dialogue of the year.

The show’s biggest weakness is the harem setup: there is a sequence of episodes whose sole purpose is to add girls to the harem. Ruka in particular seemed utterly pointless (and Feyris to a lesser extent). But this only lasts a few episodes.

Otherwise, it’s a great show, with enjoyable characters and a mystery that keeps you guessing. Go watch it if you haven’t already. El Psy Congroo.

  • Plot / Script – 10 / 10 – The best dialogue this year.
  • Characters – 9 / 10 – Mostly strong, although a few of the haremettes are weak.
  • Production – 9 / 10 – A dark, gritty feel. Superb voice acting for Okabe.
  • Overall – B+

Recommendations – Noein, The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi, Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni

Towa no Quon 1 Review — D-

Reviews,

No, not THAT Quon. Instead we get some punk kid.

The movie starts out with a decent Sacred Seven style fight scene. Then it self-destructed.

The first words out of this brat’s mouth are “I want to save everyone!” This is pretty much a secret keyphrase for people who watch enough anime, which indicates that the show is going to suck. This and “You’re you, ____!” are the defaults for creators who can’t be assed to come up with an interesting conflict.

Right after this exciting revelation, we learn that our protagonists are an organization of kids whose secret base is in an amusement park. They’re the Attractors, and they can change feelings into power. Good lord. They’re trying to save their own from a secret organization that’s trying to kill them because… well, because they create disorder.

Next some girl walks up to Quon, pulls her shirt down to show him her breasts, and shoves her butt in his face. He runs away, and the girl screams at some random passerby, “Stop staring at me, you pervert!” At least Fractale centered the pervert jokes around a character who was at the scene of the crime and had a name.

This all took place in the first five minutes after the initial fight scene. I’m not going to bother boring you by discussing the rest of the movie. It doesn’t get much better.

  • Plot / Script – 5 / 10 – I guess the battles were ok? As in, a bad version of Sacred Seven’s.
  • Characters – 4 / 10 – The most interesting was Quon, whose defining characteristic is that he wanted to save everyone.
  • Production – 6 / 10 – I guess the animation was decent? It is Bones after all. The music was awful though.
  • Overall – D-

Recommendations – Go watch Rahxephon? I’m not going to recommend anything like this movie.

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