Anime Review 2014

2014 is over and 2015 is rushing in.

The new anime season has just started with the latest entry in the Monogatari series and the third season of the odd moe anime Milky Holmes. So before the new anime season really gets going I'd like to talk about some of The Good, The Bad and The Oddball animes of 2014.

And remember that these are my personal picks so feel free to disagree. We all have a different sense of humor and get annoyed by different things.

Winter

Must sees

Hoozuki no Reitetsu

I can't get enough of this. Hoozuki is just a delightfully sadistic Oni that works in Japanese hell. He will see to it that you get the most befitting punishment, be it by the Lake of Blood or by bunnies with wooden oars.

Noragami

Instant hit! Well written story and characters, cool action scenes, good comedy, the freakiest goldfish you'll ever see and an excellent opening by Hello Sleepwalkers.

Surprisingly entertaining and well made

Youkai Watch (only seen a little so far)

Now if you can't stand shows made for a younger audience you probably shouldn't watch this one. This was funny and higher quality than I though it would be and if we do get to see the original game in Europe I might actually buy it. This is sort of the new Pokémon in Japan and they are planning on bringing the franchise overseas.

Disturbing
Pupa

Monster sister sustains herself by eating the flesh of her immortal brother, complete with erotic moaning. Watch at own sanity risk.

Spring

Well worth a watch

Captain Earth (Not quite finished with it yet)

Watch: http://www.crunchyroll.com/captain-earth

For me this one feels like a combination of Gundam SeeD and Evangelion but with a really really positive main character. I think of Evangelion mainly because of the man with the Ikari-papa hair cut, I keep thinking of him as douche for that reason alone. But anyway, nice mechas with an interesting story and likable main characters. The self pronounced magical hacker girl is a favorite.

Soredemo Sekai wa Utsukushii

I found this interesting, charming and also a bit heart breaking at points. I just have to remind myself that the king is supposed to be older than he looks or else this gets weird and creepy.

Hitsugi no Chaika

Watch: http://www.crunchyroll.com/chaika-the-coffin-princess- season one and two

My expectations were really high since the Scrapped Princess team had come back together for this anime, a little too high I guess. It didn't quite live up to the hype but the story did start to get interesting and it's really well animated so in the end it became one of my favorites of the spring season. I haven't seen season two yet so I'm looking forward to that!

You're gonna have to put up with Chaika's way of speaking because she doesn't change.

Bad

Escha & Logy no Atelier: Tasogare no Sora no Renkinjutsushi

Just plain dull. I've only played through one Atelier game and I liked that one. At the same time I could imagine what an anime of an Atelier game would be like and it lived up to my expectations. It was utterly boring and flat.

Kamigami no Asobi ~Ludere deorum~

Reverse harem and a spectacularly bad one at that. The only "good" thing about this anime is the ridiculous transformation scene in the first episode. Aaaand the next time they show it the "special" part has been cut out - read: censored.

Gokukoku no Brynhildr

Well it's harem and there's not anything special about it. If you're looking for harem with a little bit of death and censored gore you can get that here.

Guilty Pleasure

Love Live! 2

Watch: http://www.crunchyroll.com/love-live-school-idol-project

Well what can I say? I'm a sucker for music themed anime. I highly recommend AKB0048 if you like anime like Love Live!

Summer

Must sees

Aldnoah.Zero

Fan of Fate/Zero, Madoka Magica, Phantom - The Animation or Psycho-Pass? Well Urobuchi Gen has had a big hand in these and Aldnoah.Zero is his latest with a second season starting January 10^th and a new anime, Gunslinger Stratos, coming in April.

Barakamon

Watch: http://www.crunchyroll.com/barakamon

Pure delight, heart worming and funny. A bit of slice of life, the search for yourself and inspiration with a good portion of comedy. It has the best Dragon Ball Z reference since Binbougami ga! (go watch it if you haven't already!)

I could not care less

Akame ga KILL!

Sorry, I just really can't. Tatsumi is probably the most harem main character I've ever seen without it officially being a harem-series, complete with twin tailed tsundere and an assortment of big boobs. And the animation only holds up for a few seconds of every action scene. Pretty good theme songs though.

Biggest disappointment

Sailor Moon Crystal

Watch the latest episode here: http://ch.nicovideo.jp/sailormoon_English
Not because of the art style or the bad quality of the animation. I don't mind the style, it has grown on me and they fix the animation for the BD release. What I can't stand is the bad pacing, unimaginative camera angles, unnecessary changes from the manga (which they were supposed to follow) and over all lack of animation. It's cheap, clumsy and awkward. It all just makes for bad storytelling. Sure it has its moments but they don't nearly make up for everything they're doing wrong.

Fall

Must sees

Akatsuki no Yona

Watch: http://www.crunchyroll.com/yona-of-the-dawn

Give this one a few episodes. It's a bit messy at first with a lot of forward and back flashes so you need to get past the introduction faze. The banter between the characters is wonderfully hilarious and I just love it. Well written characters, good story and well placed bits of comedy. Can't wait for next weeks episode!

Parasyte -the maxim- (Kiseijuu - Sei no Kakuritsu)

Watch: http://www.crunchyroll.com/parasyte-the-maxim-
To be honest I was a bit unsure of this one at first. But not because I thought it was bad but simply because I didn't see it as my cup of tea. However, as I continued watching I got really into it. The only thing I find strange is the ending. It seems so ill-fitting that it creeps me out. However, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas does an excellent job of setting the mood with the opening.

Yuuki Yuuna wa Yuusha de Aru

Watch: http://www.crunchyroll.com/yuki-yuna-is-a-hero
Magical Girl, a little bit of slice a life and bit of Madoka Magica. And the cation scenes look really good! Giant swords ftw!

Amagi Brilliant Park

Kyoto Animation does it again! I've come to trust KyoAni to only animate good stories and this one is no exception. Well told, well animated and a lot of fun. I really hope that they'll get to do a second season or I will have to go read the light novels.

Bad

Ore, Twintails ni Narimasu.

This one had potential to be funny, maybe even hilarious but it really wasn't. It was just awful and insulting. I guess it was supposed to be a parody but it still wasn't funny. I'm usually all for gender-bender but preferably not in combination with moe and ecchi.

Special mention

Gugure! Kokkuri-san
Watch: http://www.crunchyroll.com/gugure-kokkuri-san

If nothing else, watch the first episode. The whole series is funny even if the Inugami character is rather off-putting. But go watch the first episode, it is Inugami free! That and you have to see the opening.

Then there is still a lot of anime from 2014 I'd like to try out:

Buddy Complex, Gin no Saji Dai-2-ki, Inari, Konkon, Koi Iroha., Wizard Barristers
Ryuugajou Nanana no Maizoukin, Mushishi: Zoku-Shou, Sidonia no Kishi, No Game No Life
Survival Game Club!, Black Butler: Book of Circus, Zankyou no Terror
Shingeki no Bahamut, Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso, Magic Kaito 1412, Fate/stay night Unlimited Blade Works

Aquarion EVOL

I recently finished watching Aquarion EVOL and felt that I had to give a little warning, mostly to the fans of the original series Sousei no Aquarion (Genesis of Aquarion).

(This post is spoiler free but contains my general opinion of the ending)

I won't say what it's about here (please use the ANN link above for a summary) just that it's in some ways a lot like the original series (you will hear the familiar "Aqua~rio~n"-theme every now and then) and in others very different. I'm not a huge fan of Sousei but I thought it was OK. I was more easily swept away by EVOL (sweet romance will do that to me), in the beginning of the show anyway. Sometimes if felt like they were making fun of Sousei... almost like some kind of light parody. As a whole however I did like EVOL it's just that the ending ruined it a bit for me. A bit too unresolved and a bit too silly. And in general I don't approve of conveniently adding story that changes things in the original if it was not planned that way from the beginning. And I doubt that this was.

My warning:
If you're a fan of Sousei no Aquarion and don't want the original story tampered with, do NOTwatch EVOL.
I did like one of the points they made that connected to Sousei (ah sweet romance) but I can imagine old fans not wanting the relationships and reincarnations of the original fiddled with.  

The first opening theme for EVOL though - I absolutely love it!



AKINO did the opening for Sousei as well and I would really like for her to release more music!

Supernatural THE ANIMATION

I recently finished watching the anime version ova of the American TV-series Supernatural. So here's a little about the anime from the perspective of a fan of the original series.

First of all, the anime covers the first two seasons of the original series in 22, 22-24 minute episodes. This means that they've compressed a few of the original stories to half the length, skipped a lot of them and then added some new anime original ones. Several of them containing Japanese lore.

Secondly, they also added a small piece of background story where they give Sam and Dean a housekeeper-ish person (demon of course) and make Sam blow up some demonic bull with his mind right in front of Dean. They also screw with Dean's personality a bit. In "Roadkill" he ends up burning his leather jacket for a no good reason ( leather doesn't even burn very well) and then he goes and puts on some ugly ass jacket that not even apple-pie-life-Dean would wear. However, the leather jacket does mysteriously reappear at some point. What's worse is that in one episode the Impala gets hit by another car and Dean doesn't even drop one line about it. Sure, they were still being chased and all but the real Dean wouldn't have let it slide without a comment in any situation.
Another sad thing is the new design of Bobby. They made him a short, plump, bald man. They even took his cap away. Bobby is awesome and he deserves way better!

I don't mind that they change how the story plays out as long as they end up at the same ending but when they start adding things to their past that should have changed how they see things or start messing with the characters, I get upset. Don't mess with Sam, Dean or Bobby!

And lastly a bit about the voice acting.
Now this was released with both a Japanese and an English dub. And this is the first time that I can't say that the Japanese is better.

In the English dub Sam is voiced by Jared Padalecki throughout the whole anime but Dean is voiced by some Andrew Farrar. Only in the last two episodes do we get Jensen Ackles as Dean. It does help with the chemistry of the series but doesn't take it all the way.
As for the rest of the cast it's more or less like any other English anime dub, generally bad but perhaps a tiny bit above standard since it seems like they used some original dialogue and the fact that it's actually set in the USA helps.

I didn't think it was going to work in Japanese and I'm sad to say I was right. It just sounds wrong. The witty jokes and most other lines get kind of butchered. Imagine taking away all the sarcasm from the entire series. I mean the dialogue makes more than half the show and it's just not the same without it...

Both Padalecki and Ackles really do a good job voicing their characters. I'll admit, not as good as the acting in the original series but close enough. In general the acting of the Japanese cast is better (well duh) but the what really makes the series what it is, is lost.

One of my favourites things about the anime is that they use this image and Carry on Wayward Son as the theme song. Sung by Japanese but they do a decent job.

If you're a fan of the original series I can't really recommend the anime... Maybe it'll be better if you haven't seen the original. But then again, if you've yet to see anything Supernatural at all, just skip the anime and go watch the TV-series!

But if you are gonna watch it, remember to watch the bit after the ending too or you'll miss part of the story and might end up feeling very confused at the beginning of the next episode.

Anime - Worth a watch

OK, so I've been finishing some anime again. Some of them were so-so but there were some pretty good ones that are worth watching :D

So yes, these are all anime that I think are worth watching but are not must sees. Spice and Wolf especially since it's not really my style but it is interesting and well made.

Claymore

It's about women warriors that are half human half demon. Working for an organisation they travel from town to town killing demons.
It's a really grey-toned series coloured only by the red and purple blood of humans and demons :P A well-made series with lots of slashing but without going overboard. I'm not really that into this type of anime but this one is good so if you like this genre I recommend it :D

26 episodes, licensed, anime original ending, manga 19 vol ongoing

Kamisama Kazoku

Samatarou lives with with his parents, two sisters and an angel. Oh, yea and his father is God and his mother a goddess. Samataro goes to school to learn how humans live and the angel Tenko goes with him to help.
His family is the kind that whenever they do something they tend to be really annoying but it doesn't go completely over the top. You just have to live through episode two. That's the worst one. They don't do that again. It's a comedy, half crazy, one third serious and with a little bit of romance. The two main characters are pretty level-headed so as long as the family stays away it doesn't get that silly. I like this one, it's funny and interesting.

13 episodes, not licensed, manga 5 vol complete

Spice and Wolf

Lawrence is a young merchant who is travelling with a god wolf named Horo. She helps him get good deals and always makes him buy her tons of apples.
This anime is pretty calm but has it's moments of thrill and action. Horo is wise, clever and very god at making things go her way. Even in human form she still keeps her ears and tail but without going all moe. A big plus. You can clearly see both her ferocious side as a wolf and her cheeky and girlish sides as a woman. I think both she and Lawrence are good character and go very well with the story.
The animation is nice and has nice theme songs. The ending especially is very cute. It's completely in engrish and I don't get what's it's about but it has charm.



There is also a second season for those who liked it.

13 episodes, licensed, 5 vol ongoing

Fall dorama - Q10

Happy holidays everyone!

I just finished watching one of this fall's doramas called Q10 (pronounced "Kyuuto") It's about a high school boy falling in love with a robot. I may sound strange and like the beginning of a bad comedy but it's actually very well done if you ask me. First off, it's not a comedy. It's about love and not just the lead character but about those around him.

Usually I don't like the concept of falling in love with a robot like in Chobits or Zettai Kareshi but this one is a bit different. In Q10 the robot girl is always what she is supposed to be, a robot. Her way of moving and speaking is always mechanical and it is obvious that she can not show real emotion or expressions. I like that. It's realistic in it's own way. Here I'd like to give the actress, Maeda Atsuko, some praise for doing a believable robot. And I think the lead, Sato Takeru, portrays his character really well too.

To me this was a heart felt romance and yes it did have me crying at the last episode. When I say romance I don't mean one of those filled with a major annoying dramatic events around every corner and rivals trying to make everyone's lives hell. It's just a plain old nice romance dorama that takes on a little of what may happen in life. OK, if you add a robot, an otaku and a girl from the future to the mix it may not be so plain but they do give a nice twist to the story.

I like this dorama and I'll probably want to re-watch it a few years down the line.

If you want some more info, go here.
http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Q10