[Ended] Shakugan no Shana III: Spectacular Conclusion

Rarely a good series has a great sequel. Even more rarely, a second sequel manage to surpass both previous series become the most spectacular of them all. Of course, I think the it probably has more to do with the book that the series is based off. Nevertheless, without a good execution, even a great story could be ruined. J.C.Staff has indeed done a superb job in bringing the story to the screen.

About the series itself, while it started off a little slow, once it picked up the pace, not only it didn't slow down, it managed to get faster and more explosive all the way till the end. Being in such a fast pace, however does have its negative sides: because of the scale this final series is covering--a war between all Flame Haze and Crimson Denizen, there are just way too many characters involved in the story that if it were to cover the background and ability of each character, they could expand the series for an entire long season. What they chose to do, is just dropping characters in the middle of the story out of blue and hoping the audience could understand by using the context of the story flow. For the most part, it worked. But from time to time, I find it a bit irritating when some random people just shows up and somehow become one of those key people that could swing the war one way or the other. You pretty much have no clue why, you just have to take their words for it.

Aside from that little down side, this series is full of excitements and spectacular battles. In fact, I'd give it

Long Season Action Anime of the Season for October 2011 Season

Final scoreboard:

Drama: 92 (On and on)

Comedy: N/A

Action: 98 (Spectacular and explosive)

Art/Animation: 90 (Still as good)

Sound/Music: 93 (Love the music)

Character: 84 (Good character building, but too many are missing the background)

Plot: 90 (Great series finale)

Ending: 97 (Wraps up really well)

Re-watch value: 80 (Lots of information, might be able to pick up more details)

Overall: 93 - Spectacular Conclusion

Recommendation:If you liked the previous Shana season at all, you ought to love this one. Endless excitements, guaranteed.

[Ended] Guilty Crown: Pretty and Full of Holes

If you draw an analogy between animes and Hollywood movies, Guilty Crown is more or less equivalent to big Michael Bay style action movies: it got all the right actions and explosions to make it a very exciting to watch; at the same time, leaving plot holes everywhere that are large enough to drive two 18-wheelers through side by side.

Don't get me wrong, I liked this series, it's just every once a while, decisions a character made, an action a character took just makes me hang my head side and think "seriously? you could have just solved the problem right there and right then, why you have to go take the long way?!"

Final scoreboard:

Drama: 81 (Good, but a little excessive)

Comedy: 80 (Little, and not that great)

Action: 90 (Everywhere)

Art/Animation: 91 (Very pretty artwork)

Sound/Music: 92 (Very good)

Character: 81 (Somewhat flawed)

Plot: 68 (Holes, giant holes)

Ending: 87 (Ok)

Re-watch value: 30 (Once is more than enough)

Overall: 83 - Pretty, with bad plots 

Recommendation: This is one of those series that I'm on the fence about. It's a decent enough series I think it's worth watching, yet there are so many huge plot holes that I don't really want to recommend it to anybody.

Another: One, Only One More To Go!!!

Currently finished: Episode 11

For those who's already tired of my endless praise for Another, I do apologize. But at least you only have to put up with me for only one more time.

If the series up to episode 10 is a steel cable being stretched tighter and tighter each episode, then this episode 11 is the rupture that is sending pieces of steel cable filament flying everywhere. But this, is only the precursor of what to come in the grand finale--even though the filament started to fly, the core is still hanging on. It is the last episode where we would see the end of all. This is indeed the big excitement we've all been waiting for.

I do, however, as a fair critic, like to point out a minor problem I noticed: in an attempt to push the plot one episode further, they decided to conceal the most important piece of clue when they had plenty of chances to reveal it. Even with all the disruption, I don't see why couldn't they just spill the name when they have all the time to stare and awe for seconds even minutes. I can see how traumatizing those sudden events could be, but as calm as they are, especially when they have the will to go finish what's needed to be done, I don't see why wouldn't they just spill what they know so more supports could be gained in the process so the job could be done easier.

Put that aside, this has been indeed an amazing ride thus far. At this point, I don't think there's anything they can possibly mess up in the last episode that could derail the greatness of the show. For now, I'll just keep my finger crossed and hope there isn't any Nice Boat event to disrupt one of my most anticipated series finale, ever.

[Ended] Nisemonogatari: Still Intriguing

To be honest, I really wasn't impressed by this sequel of the highly acclaimed Bakemonogatari series. While everything is still typical SHAFT style, it seemed they pushed the envelope on ecchi content a bit too much. Every corner it turns, they tried to stuff more ecchi scenes. It was amusing in the beginning, but half way through the series, when they keep doing the same thing over and over again, you'd stop and say, "seriously? again?" While the story is indeed very clever, this excessive ecchi'ness in my opinion serves as more of a distraction than anything else. I think at some point people at studio SHAFT need to pull back a bit on their greediness and get a bit more realistic on what they're trying to do.

Aside from that, however, I would say the series is...um...above average. I'd probably give it an over "B" grade, that is until I watched the final episode. That episode, in my opinion, was enough to propel it to an "A" grade anime. But I think it has more to do with how the story wrapped up rather than the episode quality itself. It actually managed to fill all pretty much all the blanks of the story, (except for the part about what's going on between Hanekawa and Senjougahara, which I think we'll probably see in its OVA release, just like Bakemonogatari) and explained in depth the meaning of its title. (p.s. while it's not really necessary, I think a little understanding of kanji would help out quite some in the last episode when they explained the word "Nise" in the title, the philosophy in my opinion part of what made this final episode so good).


Final scoreboard:

Drama: 94 (Intriguing)

Comedy: 90 (Amusing)

Action: 90 (SHAFT style)

Art/Animation: 88 (Overly ecchi but interesting)

Sound/Music: 90 (Very good)

Character: 92 (The sisters)

Plot: 92 (Final episode makes it)

Ending: 96 (Great finish)

Re-watch value: 80 (Would be interesting to catch more details)

Overall: 91 - Not as great as Bake, but still very good

Recommendation: All in all, Nisemonogatari inherited most good things that Bakemonogatari brought to the world of anime. While the overly excessive ecchi content was a bit more disruptive to the plot flow than I would like, you would slowly get used to it after a couple of episodes. As of now, I haven't met anybody who watched and didn't like Bakemonogatari, but I wouldn't deny the possibility of existence of such people. So unless you are among those few individuals, you should be able to thoroughly enjoy Nisemonogatari, given you've already seen Bakemonogatari and a little excessive ecchi'ness doesn't bother you too much.

Inu x Boku SS: Different than Expected

Currently finished: Episode 8

Since I was busy with other matters in life, I was a bit behind on a couple of series, and this, is among those that I really haven't watched anything past episode 2....

My friend danchou (who has made couple of guest posting here a while back) told me among the new releases of this season, this one really isn't any good. Having only seen one episode at the time that had given me a rather good initial impression, I said, it had a rather interesting setting and introduction, I don't see how bad could it be. Well, now I have to eat my own words

For the most part, I think it has more to do with not meeting the expectation the first episode had put me up to: it painted a picture that it's going to be something similar to Kuroshitsuji or Natsume Yuujichou. But instead, as the series progresses, it became something more like a weird version of Love Hina blended with Fruits Basket. On an absolute scale, I don't think it's bad, rather, it's the fact that it took on a direction that is completely different than it initially made out to be left a rather unsatisfactory feel.

At this point, while I don't think it's bad enough to drop it right here right now, I have to say it has become largely a "background noise" anime where its purpose has largely become to occupy my idle brain cycle while working on some other stuff.

Another: Suspenseful

Currently finished: Episode 9

Soon enough, I think people going to start calling my blog "praising everything about Another" blog.

Well, I guess that isn't really an understatement--Another is the most blogged anime from this season (not that there are much posts for this season, I'm working on it...). But it is so for a good reason: for one, I am a HUGE fan of well made horror series (psychological horrors, not gory horror, I hate those so called horror where more blood means more horrifying), and so far this is about the best horror series I've seen in two years.

Two, everything I've seen so far is just so well crafted: while being suspenseful is one of the biggest selling point for psychological horror series, there's also a need for keeping a good balance--if it puts too much tension on the string it's pulling, people might start to feel they're just being teased unreasonably. Another manages to slowly but surely feed clues to audience, yet it still manages to keep the critical piece of puzzle hidden. That is indeed very crafty story writing.

So the bottom line is, regardless how it turns out in the end, this series in my opinion is already worth a while just to experience everything it creates up to this point. If you haven't picked it up, you should, unless you're just not into suspenseful horror at all. And if possible, you too should watch it in a proper environment: late at night, alone, with all lights off, surround yourself with complete darkness, and have the volume up to maximum acceptable level. It's an amazing experience.

Highschool DxD: Crude and Blunt

Currently finished: Episode 8

When it comes to animes that crosses boundary into the hentai land, my friends tell me that I have quite strange tastes regarding to what I think is good and what I think is bad. For example, I was not very fond of Highschool of the Dead due to its pointless fan service insertion but liked Sekirei; I couldn't stand Rosario Vampire but enjoyed Seikon no Qwaser and Queen's Blade. I think it mostly has to do with the expectations--the latter ones, I went in knowing what I'm going to get, but instead, there are far more than what I was expecting. On the other hand, the former ones, when they tried to sell you the series, they make them to be something different, but when it actually comes out, it turned out to be far less than I was expecting because everything was overly drenched with fan services. So it's all about whether the series is oversold or undersold.

That brings up the main point, which category does Highschool DxD fall into? You probably have guessed by now, it belongs to the undersold category, meaning it has turned out to be a better series than I was expecting. Honestly, I totally didn't expecting it to be anything other than some boobs bouncing harem series with some stupid fart jokes very much like what Rosario Vampire was. I know many would disagree, but the rather crude and blunt approach in both character building and humor is actually much more interesting than I was expecting. Since it's already crossed the hentai line, much like Seikon no Qwaser, it actually freed itself from trying to push the limit on the tease factors of the near hentai animes and simply use them as an element to build the story with. When you get used to it, it's actually quite fun to watch.

Shakugan no Shana III: The Final Showdown

Currently finished: Episode 20

Unlike previous series, this final season of Shakugan no Shana has no slow point in the middle of the series. Ever since episode 6, the excitement  has been nonstop. On top of that, it has been escalating, in a rather rapid pace nevertheless. While it's nice to have a rapidly progressing series like this, I find the lack of explanation on some of the key characters is a bit bothersome. I can kind of see how it would be unpractical to have all those people introduced. But, in my opinion, the story would be much more interesting to watch if they could have just extended the series for another short season or so to add in some of the background information about some of the key characters.

With the wrap up of the final showdown right around the corner, this one for sure is a hot one to watch for series ending in March.

[New January 2012] Black Rock Shooter

Japanese title: ブラック★ロックシューター
Info: http://myanimelist.net/anime/11285/Black%E2%98%85Rock_Shooter_%28TV%29
Download: available through http://www.nyaa.eu/
Genres: Action / Drama?
I've watched: 3 episode

Summary: A girl is trying to become a friend with this other girl who has this strange relationship with another girl that is preventing her to make friends...(confusing, right? yeah, took me a bit to figure out too...)

First impression score: 85 - Kind of Weird...



Personal comments: The first episode is just as strange as the OVA series which didn't make much sense at all. However, episode 2 cleared it up quite a bit, and start to looking like somewhat complicated version of what happened in Bungaku Shoujo. Stories of this kind always interest me, even though I wasn't fond of the OVA series at all, I think I'm going to see to the end of this.

What Matters in Life

I don't know how many of you guys are out there actually read my blog (I'd like to think there are, but the likelihood is that I'm just grossly overestimating myself), but I have been getting a couple of messages lately noting the lack of posts in this blog. So I'd like to just go ahead address that.

Life has been on the rough side lately. While for the most part I'm still keeping up with viewing, I haven't really been able to find time that I could put down my thoughts on this blog. Normally it's done while I'm watching a different series, but now even that is being occupied by many matters in my real life.

There has been times I felt I should just throw in the towel, but this has always been a portal for me to express the feelings or emotions I felt watching animes. While I do have friends in real life to talk about these "anime matters", it's never the same when you were able to capture it and express it at the peak of your emotions. And that, is the purpose of my blog--giving an opinion to the prospective audience on what an anime series could bring to them, without spoiling it for them.

So basically I'll be probably on and off with my blogging business until life settles down--real life matters take priority.

[Dropped] Papa no Iukoto wo Kikinasai!: Not very Impressive

Last Episode Seen: Episode 6

Sometimes it just pains me to drop a series half-way through the season, because I've already invested so much time into it yet I just couldn't find a good enough reason for me to keep watching it.

The reason I'm dropping isn't really because what it has, for the most part, is because what it doesn't have. What it's lacking is something keeps progress through the plot so people would stay interested: ever since episode 3, the series has been turning circles at the same place without any real progress in the plot is being made. Since it's already half way through, unless something very significant happens or the pace become extremely fast in the second half of the series, I don't see it getting anywhere by the end of the season. So I'm going to just cut my loss and call it good now.

Another: Who Is the Dead

Currently finished: Episode 5

It's hard to believe that it's only been 5 episodes--it has been quite a routine for me on Tuesday night to grab the newest episode of Another, wait till sometime late at night when all noises are settled, turn off all my lights and start watching it in the darkness.

While I'm actually quite easily spooked, still, I think setting up the environment to match the darkness is the only right way to watch any horror series, especially for mystery horror like Another.

So far, Another has been more or less the best horror series I've seen for a while. The last semi-decent horror series I recall seeing was Kaidan Restaurant which came out in 2009 and was somewhat oriented towards kids.

Episode 5 of Another reveals some pretty big thing we've been puzzling since like episode 1. However, doing so didn't quite make things clearer, in fact, it made it bit more complicated because now a new puzzle is revealed in front of us and waiting to be solved. But I do like where this series is heading.