So, here’s Pretear. I seem to be the one of the few people who didn’t absolutely love it. Read on to find out why. Spoilers within, of course.

(more…)

I never gave much thought to this before, but I like the Japanese title (Boku no Chikyuu wo Mamotte) better because it conveys who the person saying it is. In the anime, in fact, Rin actually says pretty much the exact phrase.

(more…)

Natsu no Himei is by far my favorite story of the volume. It’s also the shortest and a straight up horror story, which allows the plot to seem much less contrived than that of the first two.

The summary behind the cut contains spoilers, of course, so don’t read more than the first real paragraph if you care about such things.

(more…)

Also, my poor old scanner is slowly dying. Please excuse it; it’s still trying its best.

(more…)

I liked Black Sheep’s translation of Mononoke better, but the files were so big that my poor laptop really had to struggle (it’s not that old) and the video would lag sometimes (of course having Azureus open as well probably didn’t help). Just a warning.

Music
I wasn’t sure what to make of the OP. The music fit the show, but the vocals were kind of “eh.” The ED was just your usual ED fare. Often underwhelming or strained otherwise, the music isn’t what makes Mononoke good.

Art/Animation
Someone sure liked their Klimt references! If you’ve seen Bake Neko, you know what the crumpled colored paper style is like. The sceencap up there? That look is what it’s all in. It’s similar to what Gankutsuou did, just with “paper” instead of patterns, and also mixes in a lot of traditional Japanese looking imagery. I was suprised at the continually high level of the animation itself, as I wouldn’t expect an artsy show like this to receive a high budget. Nevertheless, it managed to look phenomenal.

Story
Bake Neko worked so well because everyone was pretty much insane. It was fun. Mononoke is different in that, for me, the most important element was no longer story or even the characters but the overall style that everything was told in. The visuals are important, but with this I’m refering more towards the way people, particularly our protagonist, talk and the way the story unfolds. I’m floundering a bit for words here, but the essence it that Mononoke’s five stories or the characters inhabiting them were not as interesting (I was occasionally bored.) as the way in which they were told, which was superb.

Final Verdict
Not Bake Neko but still good, in a different way.
8/10

Gonzo actually managed to spew out something good in the form of Bokura no.

Music
The OP was absolutely the best for the Spring 2007 season! I believe it’s the only one, aside from The Skull Man, that I sat through each and every time I watched an episode. The BG music was almost good enough for me to go find the OST.

Art/Animation
CG robots still aren’t really my thing, but Zearth looks decent. The best part of the battles was the realistically slow motion of them, as giant robots, if we assume their possible existence for a second, aren’t really going to be zipping around. Otherwise, a presumably low budget unfortunately shows, although it’s not bad enough to really distract from the story. A few decent scenes, such as the one in the screencap above, are sprinkled here and there, but that’s it.

Story
I’ve never read the manga so I can’t really draw comparisons, but I’m aware that the anime version is apparently toned down. On one hand, I’m happy with what I saw, as it was tragic but still had a relatively happy ending, but on the other, I don’t know if the happy ending really fit. I’ve seen Narutaru, after all, and the brutality was kind of what made it good. I don’t like the lovey-dovey resolution; I would have liked to see absolute despair.
In any case, one of the best parts was the characters, particularly Ushiro. A show has to be pretty good to turn my most hated character into my favorite.
The worst part was the middle. It’s not that nothing happened or that there was a lot of filler, but it felt a bit lackluster and boring comparing to the beginning and end. I wish that they hadn’t focused so much on the military and economic happenings but instead of just the children.

Final Verdict
I now want to read the manga, which is a good thing. (For average shows, I’m glad that they’re over and done with.) Bokura no was fairly good overall, but the middle kept it from being great and there was just something missing that would’ve made it excellent.
7/10

Baccano is probably the best thing I’ve caught up on and finished watching since Gurren Lagann.

Music
One of the few shows sporting a purely instrumental OP, the music, as far as I can remember, is catchy and jazz-like. It seldomly stands out but provides excellent background music. The only weak point would be the ED; I didn’t care much for it.

Art/Animation
Great! There are a few dips in the quality here and there, but they’re easy to overlook when considering the droolworthy combat scenes. (Fingers being sliced off never looked so good, I would imagine.)

Story
The storytelling is splendid. It basically follows three different parts of the storyline, taking place mostly in 1930-32, and jumps back and forth between them while gradually piecing everything together. It’s so disjointed yet makes so much sense and all comes together well to form a coherent whole. Really, It’s amazing. The characters, too, were great when you consider that there were so many of them and only 13 episodes, yet by the end I was completely attached. At the same time, this is also quite possibly the most violent anime I’ve watched this year (last year, I mean), but even with two crazy killers romping around and grinding people up on train tracks, among other things, it never feels gimicky or even overly focused on it.
It’s just so… good. And so much fun. I really can’t think of anything bad to say about it.

Final Verdict
The most important thing to mention about Baccano! is that I’m left wanting more. I want the light novels, even though they’re in Japanese and my Japanese-skills aren’t good enough (yet) for anything past the dialogue found in manga aimed at elementary school girls. I want the manga, too, and I want the anime to get licensed. Most of all, I want a sequel, because, as far as I know (from Wikipedia), this covered the first four novels or so out of the thirteen out by now.
9/10

P.S. Happy New Year!

Oh, Heroic Age, I really wanted to like you. As for that image up there, it’s sadly the best sceencap I took of the show since my last entry on it. Sorry.

Music
Everything was decent, just not great. I don’t know what else to say; mediocrity is the hardest thing to write about.

Art/Animation
This went down the drain rather quickly and didn’t recover much. I suppose there’s not that much to recover when your characters are designed by Hisashi Hirai (whose style I hate with a burning passion), but the Nodos had at least some potential to look decent.

Story
I have two main complaints. 1) Why were the brothers alive? Their spaceship got blown up and pretty much every person blogging this show (all 2 or 3 of them) had a little party over the most annoying characters finally being killed off, but then they just miraculously reappeared a few episodes later. I don’t get it. 2) Everyone, meaning the different tribes, suddenly got all happy and friendly with each other, and I didn’t like it one bit. If it was that easy, it kind of makes all of the fighting pretty pointless. Pointless for the characters but also for the viewers having to watch it.
Other than that, I believe I’ve already voiced what else is wrong in the entry I’ve written about it: starting off with a super strong mecha which doesn’t get much stronger isn’t very exciting at all when your focus is on said mecha fighting things in pretty much the exact same way. I guess the nicest thing I can say is that the ending was well executed and the cliffhangers that (almost?) each episode ended on actually made me want to watch more.

Final Verdict
Heroic Age had the potential to be pretty awesome eye candy, but then it stopped being awesome and good-looking and turned completely average.
5/10

The Skull Man was yet another show I wanted to see because of bones. I haven’t read this manga or any others by the mangaka, so I had no clue where it’d go and also missed any references to other works that may have been there. (Apparently there was some reference to Cyborg 009 - I had no idea.)

Music
The OP was probably my favorite from the season, and the rest of the music was decent. I can at least remember the theme that played when Skull Man would show up, but I wouldn’t buy or even bother to download the OST.

Art/Animation
A comparison with Darker Than Black makes it clear which show got more money thrown at it. This one is pretty far below other shows bones has put out recently (that I can think of), although a few top notch scenes, usually showing the Skull Man himself, were interspersed among the mediocre rest. To be fair, the last few episodes got a bit better, too.

Story
My main complaint about The Skull Man is that I don’t really know what in the world it’s trying to be. Most of the time, it seems to be a murder mystery with lots of political intrigue, but then monsters appear who look out of place and completely ridiculous. To make matters worse, those military freaks got involved, and the ending turned into absolute insanity. Insanity can be nice and all, but when you go from quoting Nietzsche and Shakespeare to fighting lizard-like monsters, it’s kind of weird. How am I supposed to take the whole theme of “humans are evil” seriously when that kind of stuff is in there?

Final Verdict
I liked The Skull Man when it was good, but the greater focus on action toward the end left a bad taste in my mouth. Had the show been about supernatural action and fighting from the start, it would have been fine, but the beginning and end didn’t really go together well for me at all.
6.5/10