The horror genre isn’t one of my more favorite genres. I like the occasional psychological suspense title but anything that’s considered a gore-fest I steer clear of. This show was billed as a psychological suspense so I had to give it a go.

Rating: 11/12 A+

Takki, our obsessed anime otaku, lives by himself in a shipping container on a roof. He only has a hazy hold on reality as shown by his propensity to hallucinate events that are common occurrences in eroge games as actually going on in real life. For example, he thinks he sees his sister take a drink of cola from a bottle he’s already drunk from but in reality, she’s poured the cola into a cup.

Under normal circumstances, this wouldn’t be much of a problem but a string of disturbing murders and suicides are occurring in the area around where Takki lives. He even stumbles upon the person that appears to be responsible in the midst of killing another victim but he runs home thinking that he’s hallucinating because the scene matches a picture he saw the day before.

She's totally not really there

All-in-all this was a very good first episode. While I was watching this episode I was reminded of Higurashi in that this show seems to be trying to mix horror with another genre. In Higurashi’s case it was horror and a school comedy and in Chaos;Head’s case it appears to be horror with a harem show. The harem elements felt very clichéd and at odds with the horror but I’m wondering if they’re supposed to. As viewers we’ll have to remember that the show is being filtered (so far) through Takki’s eyes and as an unreliable narrator it will make actually determining what’s really going on difficult.

I really liked the first episode and hope the series turns out to be the great psychological suspense show that it looks like it’s capable of being.

Continuing with more fall anime impressions, it’s time to check out one of the comedies of the season Kemeko DX. This one had me interested because Jason of DbD raved about the manga earlier this year and Hal Film Makers are the animators behind this show, known for great slice-of-life shows like Aria, Sketchbook, and Seasons Dreamer’s season 2. Will success in one field translate into success in another genre?

Rating: 10/12 A

If episode one is any indication, this could be a very funny comedy or it could quickly devolve into a boring mess of a show.

The story goes like this: our main character – Sanpeita – is a seemingly well-adjusted high school student except that he still pines for his first love from 10 years ago. She had to move away and all he has is a picture to remember her by. One day a group of large mechs break into his room but they are stopped by a rather homely girl (actually a woman piloting a mech that looks like a short, rotund girl). The mechgirl declares that she is here to marry Sanpeita but he escapes to school. Of course the mechgirl won’t take no for an answer and shows up at school. This puts Sanpeita in a bind but luckily she’s there because a giant rice cooker robot shows up looking for trouble. Mechgirl saves the school but is injured in the process. Various other things happen to finish up the episode but I think you get the idea.

Girl on the left pilots the mech above (yes the mech is half her size)

One of the strongest vibes this show gives off in the first episode is FLCL. For example: there’s the strange company that opened up in town recently, a strange woman that shows up that sees this company as the enemy, Sanpeita has some sort of weird power that makes his forehead glow green. Even the giant rice cooker robot looked like it walked out of FLCL. This isn’t a problem as far as I’m concerned; I’ve always wanted more FLCL and I welcome any show that can pull off that type of comedy but I wonder how long they can keep this type of show up.

Since I made such a big deal of the anime-added fanservice in Kannagi, I should talk about this shows use of fanservice. To put it bluntly there’s a lot here. In this show’s case, however, I’m okay with that because it fits with the type of show Kemeko DX is. Shows like this one or Maid Guy, Sumomo, and Magical Pokan use fanservice to add to the comedy of the show and as long as the makers remember to keep the show funny – the show remains an entertaining show.

Looking at the season as a whole, their isn’t a lot of comedy or slice-of-life shows, many seem dark (like the next show I’m reviewing) and I will need a decent comedy as balance so if the show can remain funny and not become stale then I’ll continue watching.

Next up are my reviews of the new fall anime shows Yozakura Quartet and Ga-Rei Zero. One tried to it’s best to make me forget about it and the other attempts to wow us with a Shyamalan ending.

Yozakura Quartet

Rating: 8/12 B+

I’m writing most of these fall impressions a few days after actually watching the episode in question. This hasn’t been a problem so far, I record the score right after I watch the episode and I remember what impressed me and why when I write about the episode. Last night as I was getting to this entry I found that I couldn’t really remember much of anything for this episode. The one thing I remember well was the introduction because I liked watching the city grow through time.

I rewatched it and agreed with my initial rating but there’s a problem with the show when it fails to leave a impression (positive or negative) on the viewer. The animation is okay, neither terrible or outstanding. The characters don’t seem too clichéd or memorable. I could go on but you get the idea - this show has potential but at the same time I can’t help but compare it to To Aru Majutisu no Index because at least right now they seem like similar shows: people with powers, a special city that it takes place in, and good guys fighting evil people. When compared to Index, Yozakura Quartet doesn’t seem to match up at the present. I will watch a few more episodes and hopefully this show can find it’s unique voice.

Ga-Rei Zero

Rating: 9/12 A-

One of the blogs that I’ve really been reading a lot of recently is Star Crossed Anime Blog and this show’s first episode was ranked pretty good so I thought I’d give it a go.

The show didn’t exactly wow me at first. Sure the animation was above average and the action was pretty good but when I don’t really know the characters then action for action’s sack really isn’t that awesome. I was interested, however in the flashbacks the main character has where one of the bad guys (are they demons, vampires, or something else?) has converted his girlfriend into one of the bad guys. He shot her at the time but still feels bad over this.

To make a long story short, the good guys dispatch the Class B bad guy and are relaxing, drinking tea and right when we think this is the end of the episode the main character’s girl shows up from the dead. Good place for a “To Be Continued” but instead we watch as she quickly slices everyone but our main character to death. Okay, I think to myself, killing off most of your main cast in the first episode is certainly different but our main character will must surely make it out alive – you can’t kill your entire cast in the first episode. As the girl advances to our main character, he can’t pull the trigger on his gun because it’s her. The episode ends with her definitely killing him and the ending credits roll with no music and to top it off there’s no preview.

I’m definitely intrigued about the show but I have no clue where it’s going to go now. Are they going to introduce a new group of people, bring these ones back from the dead somehow, or was this the ending of the show that we just saw? I don’t know but hopefully another episode will clarify this show for the viewers. If they wanted to get viewers interested in this show, they did a good job – now they have to deliever.

Shikabane Hime: Aka probably had the highest pressure of any anime this season to be awesome right out of the gate because this is Gainax’s first series after the wildly popular Gurren Lagann. I continue to love Gurren Lagann to death but I realize this is a completely different show and one that will hopefully yield a different experience. So how does this episode turn out?

Rating: 12/12

Quite well actually.

Some reviewers that I’ve read are complaining that there isn’t a whole lot of action in this episode and thus it was boring. I think these people are looking too short-term and not thinking long-term. One of the reasons that Gurren Lagann was so good was that you cared for the characters and worried if they were going to live through a fight or not; they weren’t just cannon fodder. That 10 minutes or so that they developed Simon’s character and the 5 minutes on Kamina’s character during the first episode pays off almost immediately and continues to pay the rest of the series.

Likewise, I think we’ll see that the time they spent developing the character of Ouri, Makina the corpse princess, and Keisei the monk will be nicely paid off in the future. For instance, I find that I already like Ouri because the younger kids at the orphanage obviously like him a lot and because he ran to Makina’s side to help her instead of going after his stuff that fell down the hill. Then there’s Makina; it appears that she was killed horribly, most likely by a group of Shikabane, and now wants revenge. I feel for her and want to see her get to the goal that she desires. And finally, I have the feeling that the monk Keisei is trying to atone for letting Makina die by standing by her side now to help protect her along with running the orphanage that Ouri is living at. So, as you can see, I’m already hooked on the characters of this show.

That’s pretty much all I wanted to say about the show, nothing else really stands out. The animation is as good as you’d expect from a Gainax show - pretty and gives the city a nice atmospheric feel to it. No OP this week. The ED song was above average but the animation was just a montage of what happened in the episode – a little ho-hum but still okay overall. Overall, I think I have more confidence in this title being great then something like To Aru Majutisu no Index.

I miss my cat, Smokie

This was a cool scene, the action in the background is actually a mirror

Did they misspell ATM because it's copyrighted over there?

Holy melonpan Batman! I think we have a winner.

Rating: 12+/12

After being pleasantly surprised at how good J.C. Staff’s other new fall show - ToraDora! - was, I don’t hold much hope for this show. Statistically speaking what were the chances that they could do 2 good shows at once? Ever the optimist, I popped this one in and To Aru Majutisu no Index proved me wrong. This episode had it all and was full of awesomeness.

The first thing that was apparent was that the production values where probably the highest I’ve seen for a J.C. Staff show outside of Shana. The animation was wonderful and the special effect touches like the lightning were jaw-dropping. You’ll notice I’ll use the word Shana-esque a lot to describe this show – I can’t think of a word that works better. To go along with the quality animation was the action scenes that where exciting and heck, even the city was impressive to look at.

The next thing that spoke of how awesome this episode was the music. I normally don’t really notice the music outside of the OP/ED unless it’s distinctive and good and it was both here. They used bits of the opening song along with other pieces that really complimented what was going on in the show. Also, I was particularly jazzed that we got an upbeat-techno opening song by Mami Kawada.

Animation and music can take a show only so far, for a show to be successful we normally need good characters and a decent plot. At this point I can only speak about the first episode but it appears that we have both.

Character-wise we are introduced to our main character Kamijou Tohma, voiced by Xam’d’s Akiyuki, whose right hand can nullify any sort of psychic ability or special power. This works great in battle but it continues to work outside of battle which is a pain since it nullifies his own good luck, hence the stepping on his debit card and cell phone and accidentally dumping a plate of food into the sink during this episode. We are also introduced to a nun named Index because she has 103,000 prohibited books of magic locked away somewhere (I’m guessing in her mind). She’s on the run from a group that wants the prohibited magic books. Also introduced is Misaka Mikoto, a combative middle-schooler that likes to create railguns and lightning blasts (voiced by Minami-ke’s Haruka-neesama) and Tohma’s teacher, who is apparently only 5 years old.

Don't make your teacher cry

The plot so far is very interesting and makes me want to see more of the show. There’s so much they can do with people that are psychically-augmented through science and the existence of magic. If this show can avoid the pitfalls that Shana fell into, I was about ready to shoot the next character that decided they liked Yuuji, I think this has the chance of being better then Shana even when Shana’s at the top of it’s game.

So if your looking for an good-looking, action packed show that even takes the time to make you laugh, check out To Aru Majutisu no Index.

Running from bad guys makes a person hungry

Alas, he doesn't have any cabbage

My first unplanned anime title of the season. I have a younger brother who’s re-re-replaying Tales of the Abyss right now and I thought he might enjoy watching the anime. Since he’s only twelve, I wanted to watch a couple of episodes to make sure nothing would be objectionable if he was to watch.

Rating: 4/12 C

That was a chore to get through – the things I do for my little brother. In the end I decided not to even mention the existence of this anime to him, his time is better spent elsewhere.

The show starts off on the wrong foot with at least two minutes devoted to introducing the world. Don’t they realize almost the entire audience for this show is made up of people that has already played the game and don’t need an introduction? Then there’s the storytelling principle of showing and not telling. It’s better to show the reader/listener what’s going on instead of just telling what’s happening. Sometimes a narration is necessary but that wasn’t the case here.

In Hyakko, they can jump out of the second story window

Merely saying this first episode was blandly generic doesn’t do this show justice. Towards the end of the episode when our “hero” faced a group of animals, I was seriously wishing that the animals would win just for something expected to happen.

I’ll stop here, I’m sure this is someone’s cup of tea – just look at the dozen or so groups that are subbing this – but it’s not mine. Personally, the next time they make an anime adaptation of a video game, I’m hopeing for Katamari Damacy done by either Shaft or Gainax.

Never a good idea to interrupt a couple when there fighting :)

I found the maids and gardener to be the most interesting characters of the episode

Time for more anime impressions. This time it’s Kannagi, one of the titles I was particularly looking forward too. This show had the distinction of being the only one of the season that I was familiar with the source material. Will that help or hinder the anime adaptation in my mind?

Rating: 7/12 B

The answer is, at least for now, that knowledge of the source material is a hindrance.

It’s not because the anime changed the manga around because they remained pretty faithful to it. The hindrance comes from being able to compare the anime to the manga and see the differences. If you remember the director of this show -Yutaka Yamamoto -is the same person that, as director, was removed by Kyoto Animation after the fourth episode of Lucky Star. I really feel for him, it must of hurt badly to have something like that happen. Therefore, as his first project after Lucky Star I’m rooting for this show to work out but I’m troubled with the amount of fan-service that got added to this episode.

In the manga, when Jin turned on the tv, it was already on the magic girl show and not on the (what I’m guessing) Victoria Secret’s commercial. Also, there was no scene where Jin gets an eyeful of Kannagi’s unmentionables in the laundry basket or where he goes to the store and buys Kannagi a spare set of clothes, undies and all. Then there’s the scene where Jin answers the phone. In the manga he’s fully clothed, and the joke is that he mentions the reason why he wasn’t in school was because his art project is ugly and is trying to fix it. Nagi is right there and takes offense and puts Jin in a headlock. In the anime, the joke was that the phone call was right when he was bathing and thus had to answer it with only a small towel partially covering his nudeness.

I’m not against fan-service in all cases; there is a time and place for everything. However, the time spent on needless fan-service is much better spent on getting us to like the characters more, especially for the first episode when I’m deciding if the story and characters are good enough that it’s worth sticking around.

On the other hand, the animation was top-notch. A-1 Animation even did a pretty credible imitation of KyoAni’s sun beams through leaves as seen during the Tomayo OVA. The opening was different in a good way, but that can be expected from the guy that gave us the Lucky Star opening and the Haruhi dance. I’ve still have hope that this series will turn out to be a good one but the clock is now ticking.

Yeah for good openings

Posted in anime, first impressions       ]]> http://thenullset.wordpress.com/2008/10/09/fall-anime-impressions-%e2%80%93-kannagi/feed/ thenullset autumn19786 autumn01187 autumn035861 http://thenullset.wordpress.com/2008/10/08/weekly-anime-review-sept-28-oct-4/ http://thenullset.wordpress.com/2008/10/08/weekly-anime-review-sept-28-oct-4/#comments Thu, 09 Oct 2008 00:03:43 +0000 thenullset http://thenullset.wordpress.com/?p=1827

An exciting week in anime – the summer season is finishing up and the fall season is starting. The last couple of weeks I haven’t really had a lot to write but now I’ve got multiple series reviews to write and first impression posts to write. I’m not complaining, the more I have to write about the better – it means I’m watching shows that I want to talk about. Let’s get to the weekly scores now.

The scores:

Ryoko’s Case Files, episode 12 – 12+/12

Birdy the Mighty Decode, episode 13 – 12+/12 (end)

Xam’D: Lost Memories, episode 12 – 12/12

Soul Eater, episode 25 – 11/12 A+

Somedays Dreamer’s S.2, episode 6 – 12++/12

Natsume Yuujinchou, episode 12 – 12+/12

Wagaya no Oinari-sama, episode 19 – 12+/12
Wagaya no Oinari-sama, episode 20 – 12+/12
Wagaya no Oinari-sama, episode 21 – 12+/12
Wagaya no Oinari-sama, episode 22 – 12/12
Wagaya no Oinari-sama, episode 23 – 12+/12

Clannad S.2, episode 1 – 12/12

Toradora!, episode 1 – 10/12 A

Akane-iro no Somaru Saka, episode 1 – 5/12 C+

Hyakko, episode 1 – 8/12 B+

I'm going to miss Wagaya no Oinari-sama when it's done

Thoughts and Highlights

First off, for the in-depth reasons why I scored the new shows how I did, you can refer to the previously posted impression posts.

The biggest surprise, and one that was quite pleasant, was the number of Wagaya no Oinari-sama episodes I was able to watch this week. This show has been one of the most consistently fun shows to watch this year and this group of episodes continue this trend. It’s mix of light comedy, dorama, and loveable characters is a perfect balance – just look at some of these episodes: one episode dealt was a Halloween episode that included the god of poverty showing up, another involved a mystery at an onsen, and yet another involved Sakura trying to stick to a diet. I don’t know how much source material is left but I’d definitely watch a second season of this show.

The best episode of the week comes from Somedays Dreamer’s season 2 but since it’s slice-of-life, it’s difficult to describe why. I’m happy that someone is working on subbing this show – beyond the whole question of if you like the animation style or not, it’s a very solid show.

Everything else pretty much stayed awesome. I did want to mention that this week’s Soul Eater was a transitional episode to gear us up for the second half of the show. The students of Shibusen played basketball and Shinigami-sama called a conference to map out what they should do now that the Demon God is escaped. Anyone else think it’s time to for a new opening? I like it but it’s been the same for the first half of the show and I’d like to see something new, maybe with some hints as to what to expect for the second half of the show.

Be very afaid, Ryoko's smiling.

Posted in anime       ]]> http://thenullset.wordpress.com/2008/10/08/weekly-anime-review-sept-28-oct-4/feed/ thenullset weekly28130 weekly15173 weekly24737 weekly29775 http://thenullset.wordpress.com/2008/10/08/fall-anime-impressions-%e2%80%93-clannad-season-2/ http://thenullset.wordpress.com/2008/10/08/fall-anime-impressions-%e2%80%93-clannad-season-2/#comments Wed, 08 Oct 2008 17:00:26 +0000 thenullset http://thenullset.wordpress.com/?p=1808

Next up is one of the most anticipated shows of the fall season – Clannad season 2. The first season was partly my favorite KyoAni/Key show yet and partly my least favorite KyoAni/Key show. At the end of season 1, I was less then totally thrilled that Kyoto Animation was going to be doing the second season next (and pushing back the second season Haruhi further) but my interest in the show ratcheted up a few notches after the Tomayo OVA.

Rating: 12/12 Perfect

KyoAni’s choice to start this season with a baseball game was the perfect choice. Not only did this episode provide us with a means to reintroduce all the characters again but it was useful in cleansing our palates – the Tomoyo OVA, while awesome, messed the Nagisa/Tomoya pairing in my mind. Also, since this is a Key adaptation, I know the tissues will be needed in the future so anytime we can get a light-hearted happy episode – I’m a happy anime watcher.

Sunohara to bat

He apologizes for the double-play

There’s not much more I can add at this point except to say that the animation looks the same as the first season – gorgeous, I think I like the OP a bit more this time, I miss the Dango ED and Sunohara continues to be one of the better reasons to watch this show. Now if only I had AMV-skills, I’d create a Haruhi/Clannad baseball AMV.

Kotomi up to bat

A hit is a hit

Best line after hitting a grand slam - "Sorry. I made us lose the ball."

Why didn't Tomoya show her how to swing?

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Speaking Rie Kugimiya, here’s another show that features her along with another of my favorite voice actresses, Aya Hirano. This would normally get me excited for the show but this time they’re appearing in a eroge game adaption. This type of show really isn’t my cup of tea but I figured that I’d give it a shot.

Rating: 5/12 C+

And it definitely didn’t exceed my expectations. This first episode was pretty much mediocre in all aspects. Heck, even the school uniforms were mediocre – who would pick a color like that for a uniform color? It’s like all the other better schools of the area got to pick their school uniforms first and that was all that was left. I’ll probably catch only one more episode to see if some redeeming quality makes itself apparent with this show before I drop it.