Faster than ever, another anime review!
Alright, not so long since the last review but let’s get into this shall we? This time it’s a combination of Fall 2009 shows and some sports anime.
Armed Librarians: Book of Bantorra
ANN page
The Good: When I started this series I wasn’t totally sold on it but continued because so many other people seemed to think it was the next hidden gem. Boy was it a good idea to stick with this, once it became clear that the various arcs wouldn’t all be self-contained and the connections between them started to appear I was hooked. It became a complexe story drawing on backstory and previous arcs to all end with a bang. A very satisfying end.
The Bad: Well, it took me a while to get into the story and the first arc starts “in media res” so it was hard to get into the first arc. And it takes a little bit for the connections to start becoming clear (probably because the first novel was written as a stand alone) so there isn’t a lot of incentive early on to keep watching. Perhaps it was just me, but I didn’t like any of the characters until late in the series, and then the ones I did like kept getting “put on a bus” or killed off, but I’m know other people liked the other characters from the beginning as well.
The Art: The art wasn’t anything amazing but it wasn’t bland either, it was in that nice middle ground. Oh, and the OP does get actual images a little ways in instead of just squares, I think the animation company (I think it’s called David Production, never heard of it before) was just behind.
The Music: The first OP was a lot more interesting after it got images and when I complained it wasn’t subtitled I found out that the very name of the OP is a spoiler. I liked the second OP and ED better than the first ones, although these came at odd places in the series which makes me wonder if the show had money issues.
Overall: 8/10 and I would love to watch this series again. I don’t know if this will get licensed in the US and I can re-watch it on DVD or if I would need to watch it streaming on CR again. Regardless, it was a surprise hit with me and I would like to read the novels as well (it sounds like it was fairly faithful but I don’t think the last novel got adapted).
Bamboo Blade
ANN page
The Good: I started this show with no idea how Kendo worked (although I was mildly interested in it), and I feel that I could probably follow a kendo match if I saw one now. The focus on the actual kendo was really interesting to me, the different strikes, footwork (as a former dance student I love seeing good footwork), and that’s not the entire focus of the show so people who aren’t as into sports won’t get too bored. And most sports shows aren’t just about the sports, it’s a slice-of-life genera with the emphasis being on the sport aspect and how it affects all the characters.
The Bad: I wasn’t too fond of the characters in this show. Probably because the show focuses more on the star of the kendo team, Tama, more than the other characters and I just didn’t like her. I don’t like child prodigies as much and the tournaments usually went “Oh Tama is so good but now she’s in trouble….oh and everyone else lost in earlier rounds” (although her obsession with a certain TV show played out much better than I was expecting it to). Would’ve loved to see the two male members get a little more focus but the show’s basis is the women’s kendo team, not both. Also just wasn’t happy how the school was handled when it started interfering with the kendo team. Yes I know, some schools suffer from micromanagement and this is Japan not the US, but the superintendent getting bullied by one person? Yeah, sounds rather unrealistic and that whole arc left me feeling quite cynical.
The Art: Pretty standard art here, the girls are all cute with big eyes and have different hair colors to help distinguish them. Nothing amazing, but the kendo scenes were done fairly well.
The Music: The OP and ED themes were J-Pop singles which, while catchy, didn’t stick with me as long as some other singles have. So again, average but not horrible. I watched this subbed and the voices worked nicely there; the trailer I saw for the English dub sounded alright as well so no preference here.
Overall: 7.5/10 and I don’t feel the need to buy this on DVD. Part of the problem is that, for most sports anime anyway, once you know how the matches turn out there’s not much to re-watch, although I would recommend this to someone who was trying out sports anime since this seemed to be a good example of the genera. I watched this streamed on ANN’s site, you can see the subbed version there (and on Funimation’s site I believe) completely and they have the first few episodes of the dub up as well.
Big Windup
ANN page
The Good: Even though a baseball team has a lot of players, and even though the show focused more on the pitcher than the other characters, I still felt like all of the players got a good deal of screen time to see their strengths and weaknesses. And something has to be said for a show that takes 11 episodes for one ball game and doesn’t make it feel like too long at any point. It’s really gripping actually, all of the moves were being explained, the characters were all having thoughts going through their heads, other characters were making plans, maybe the reason I didn’t like baseball before was the lack of constant inner explanations of the game. Even with all the talking (inner included) it felt very much like an action show with nothing dragging out.
The Bad: Some of the characters (like the aforementioned pitcher) start out as annoying (not in the usual sense though) and it can take a while before you either ignore them or they grow on you. Also, since there are only two games in 26 episodes and both take quite a while, there isn’t as much downtime between the games and I would’ve liked one or two more episodes that focused more on practice or even what was going on outside the diamond.
The Art: The character designs are a little different from the current mainstream designs but it’s nothing too jarring. And, not exactly an art thing, but the camera angles here aren’t what you would see from the stands, you get to see the close-ups of the swings, the catches, the slides, all of it. Viewers don’t normally think about it, but it’s a lot nicer to see what’s really going on rather than feeling you need binoculars to see who has the ball when.
The Music: I think there were two OPs and EDs but, while I can remember the second ones fairly well, the first ones aren’t sticking out as much. Nothing to write home about I suppose, and I had to watch the English dub for this since that was the only legal version I could find. I’d actually seen the first three episodes in Japanese so it was a bit jarring to change but overall the voices worked nicely. No one sounded a lot like each other but I was amused that some characters were given what I would call distinctively American accents.
Overall: 8.5/10 because this show not only had me sit through a 4 hour game (are real baseball games even that long? Mind you this was over 3 or 4 days though) and I had no idea what was going to come next in it. I actually want to check out a local game or two of baseball this summer and see if I like it better now that I know it better. As for buying it, like I said about Bamboo Blade, it feels rather silly to re-watch a sports anime one you know who wins how. I know that Funimation is not going to license the next season that’s coming out this spring (part of the reason I watched it now), but they still have the dubbed episodes up on their site for the R1 people to check out.
Kimi ni Todoke
ANN page
The Good:While shojo isn’t my favorite genera, I have read enough to know what a good example and bad example are and KnT is a rather good effort. It’s complex enough to keep the viewer interested but not so much that it feels contrived. It has heart-warming moments and the characters seem different but not too different from real people. It is a rather good and sweet story of high school love.
The Bad: I’m not the biggest fan of romances and it seems that I just don’t like stories where romance is the central part of it (like KnT) so this was not my favorite show of the season. Also found myself wanting to yell at the characters a lot for not being direct enough, not following their feelings, or any number of other events that came up. I know that a lot of romance lovers loved this series so I can only say that this wasn’t really my thing and that is wasn’t really bad in spite of that.
The Art: The art style here is similar to the art style in the manga and I thought it was refreshing and still nice to see. But the sparkles, and the shojo bubbles! Those really started to go overboard by the end.
The Music:Again, cutesy OP and ED but not really to my taste.
Overall:7/10, wasn’t really my thing but it wasn’t horrible (or I think so anyway). No interest in buying the anime or the manga (which is licensed in the US) but I might try a bit more of the manga to see if I can get more into it.
Kobato
ANN page
The Good: This has gotta be one of the few, if the only ending I’ve seen, where the deus ex machina actually make the situation worse. I won’t say any more but the ending was very satisfying (and makes me curious to see how the original manga will go). The anime also introduced a few characters earlier than the manga (who haven’t had much time yet) so that was a nice treat for the manga readers in particular. And the Wish crossover was pulled off better than I had hoped, more of a thematic crossover and the TRC and brief Holic crossover worked as well (although I’m sure people who aren’t up to date with those stories are were rather confused).
The Bad: While the manga hasn’t given as strong hints yet (or at least, hadn’t when the series started), it was fairly easy to tell this was going to be a romance from the very start. But I really like the portrayal of the various couples Kobato meets in the manga rather than the anime, and I really didn’t like how one major pairing was resolved. . The characters felt off in a lot of the episodes and Kobato was a lot more air-headed in the anime that she is in the manga which bothered me. The series also suffered from some very boring fillers toward the middle and didn’t give a satisfying ending for some of the side characters. I think it would’ve done better if it had been made after more of the manga had come out because the manga based episodes (and the one the writer directed) just felt better.
The Art: While Kobato didn’t have a new outfit every episode as it was originally said (with all the outfits she’s already had in the manga it wasn’t like would be a shortage) the art was good for the whole series. The art in the Christmas episode was the best of the whole series, I was impressed at how Madhouse was able to have such bright and vivid scenes without feeling garish (although both of the EDs were a bit of a cop-out art wise, one is the same animation over and over and another is panning over CLAMP art, only one of which was even a new piece I believe).
The Music: Wondering if Armed Librarians started a trend with having new OPs/EDs in odd places. I liked the second ED better than the first and the OP (just one) worked fine for the series. Neither were the catchiest Jpop/ballads I’ve ever heard but they weren’t bad.
Overall: 7.5/10 and I don’t feel like getting this when it comes out (and I believe that this one has a good chance to get licensed stateside). I wouldn’t mind watching it streamed again, skipping the middle fillers, but this is another series where I’m much more interested to see where the manga goes. So, CLAMP fans will like this, shojo fans will like it, but it’s a fairly fluffy piece of work overall.
Letter Bee/Tegami Bachi (names are used interchangably, it's a literal translation)
ANN page
The Good: Letter Bee is both a sweet story and a very depressing one, although it’s hard to remember that with how cheerful our lead is. A sunless world that is separate by class and the only way to communicate is to send letters across plains, deserts, and mountains filled with viscous mechanic bugs, it’s amazing how the story can remind you of that or make you forget depending on the mood it needs. But the ending to this series, it took just ten minutes for the final episode to completely switch gears, build up, and nearly made me cry (someone who even knew what was coming!). With a cliffhanger like that, no wonder a second season is coming.
The Bad: While not all the fillers were bad (a few were very bad, some were alright and a few, written by the manga-ka, were very good) there were a ton of them. Out of 26 episodes, TEN of them were fillers. It get’s rather tiresome after awhile to keep saying “yes this is a filler, it will pick up once it gets back to the manga.” Add that to the fact that Letter Bee starts off slowly anyway, we completed only two of the main arcs (and the pacing for Honey Waters felt oddly off) and if there wasn’t going to be a second season I would be feeling very distgruntled. As it is, the second season had better not have as many fillers (and thankfully the trailer seems to indicate that it will go through a lot of manga material).
The Art: One thing that was so distinctive about the Letter Bee manga was the coloring (lots of purples, deep blues, and sepia tones) and a certain quirkiness for the minor characters. While the anime has a more normal color scheme it did manage to capture that quirkiness quite nicely. And the art for both of the EDs was great, the first was much more manga art style/coloring and the second one was a great use of blacks and whites, both interesting to look at. The gaichu (the armored bugs) however were a sore spot in the art work. They're so complex that they needed CGI to animated them (understandable) but it REALLY stands out here. Hopefully they will be easier on the eye next season but it's understandable if anyone winces the first time they see them.
The Music: The OPs, EDs, and background music for the series all shared the slight yet underlying sadness/seriousness that the plot has and worked wonderfully. The music stuck out in my mind and wouldn’t mind having the soundtracks.
Overall: 8/10, would’ve been lower if I hadn’t known about a second season. I think I want to get the DVDs if they come out but that depends on how good the second season is but I’m optimistic. Also reading/buying the manga but I would love to have more of this story. It's streaming on CR and I hope they get the second season as well, fingers crossed in any case.
So, some stuff that wasn't to my taste but a lot of series with good endings despite that. Makes it little harder to review since, well, the last episode was great but the others weren't as much. Did this pretty quickly after the shows ended to so they are fresh in my mind, guess practice makes better here.
Armed Librarians: Book of Bantorra
ANN page
The Good: When I started this series I wasn’t totally sold on it but continued because so many other people seemed to think it was the next hidden gem. Boy was it a good idea to stick with this, once it became clear that the various arcs wouldn’t all be self-contained and the connections between them started to appear I was hooked. It became a complexe story drawing on backstory and previous arcs to all end with a bang. A very satisfying end.
The Bad: Well, it took me a while to get into the story and the first arc starts “in media res” so it was hard to get into the first arc. And it takes a little bit for the connections to start becoming clear (probably because the first novel was written as a stand alone) so there isn’t a lot of incentive early on to keep watching. Perhaps it was just me, but I didn’t like any of the characters until late in the series, and then the ones I did like kept getting “put on a bus” or killed off, but I’m know other people liked the other characters from the beginning as well.
The Art: The art wasn’t anything amazing but it wasn’t bland either, it was in that nice middle ground. Oh, and the OP does get actual images a little ways in instead of just squares, I think the animation company (I think it’s called David Production, never heard of it before) was just behind.
The Music: The first OP was a lot more interesting after it got images and when I complained it wasn’t subtitled I found out that the very name of the OP is a spoiler. I liked the second OP and ED better than the first ones, although these came at odd places in the series which makes me wonder if the show had money issues.
Overall: 8/10 and I would love to watch this series again. I don’t know if this will get licensed in the US and I can re-watch it on DVD or if I would need to watch it streaming on CR again. Regardless, it was a surprise hit with me and I would like to read the novels as well (it sounds like it was fairly faithful but I don’t think the last novel got adapted).
Bamboo Blade
ANN page
The Good: I started this show with no idea how Kendo worked (although I was mildly interested in it), and I feel that I could probably follow a kendo match if I saw one now. The focus on the actual kendo was really interesting to me, the different strikes, footwork (as a former dance student I love seeing good footwork), and that’s not the entire focus of the show so people who aren’t as into sports won’t get too bored. And most sports shows aren’t just about the sports, it’s a slice-of-life genera with the emphasis being on the sport aspect and how it affects all the characters.
The Bad: I wasn’t too fond of the characters in this show. Probably because the show focuses more on the star of the kendo team, Tama, more than the other characters and I just didn’t like her. I don’t like child prodigies as much and the tournaments usually went “Oh Tama is so good but now she’s in trouble….oh and everyone else lost in earlier rounds” (although her obsession with a certain TV show played out much better than I was expecting it to). Would’ve loved to see the two male members get a little more focus but the show’s basis is the women’s kendo team, not both. Also just wasn’t happy how the school was handled when it started interfering with the kendo team. Yes I know, some schools suffer from micromanagement and this is Japan not the US, but the superintendent getting bullied by one person? Yeah, sounds rather unrealistic and that whole arc left me feeling quite cynical.
The Art: Pretty standard art here, the girls are all cute with big eyes and have different hair colors to help distinguish them. Nothing amazing, but the kendo scenes were done fairly well.
The Music: The OP and ED themes were J-Pop singles which, while catchy, didn’t stick with me as long as some other singles have. So again, average but not horrible. I watched this subbed and the voices worked nicely there; the trailer I saw for the English dub sounded alright as well so no preference here.
Overall: 7.5/10 and I don’t feel the need to buy this on DVD. Part of the problem is that, for most sports anime anyway, once you know how the matches turn out there’s not much to re-watch, although I would recommend this to someone who was trying out sports anime since this seemed to be a good example of the genera. I watched this streamed on ANN’s site, you can see the subbed version there (and on Funimation’s site I believe) completely and they have the first few episodes of the dub up as well.
Big Windup
ANN page
The Good: Even though a baseball team has a lot of players, and even though the show focused more on the pitcher than the other characters, I still felt like all of the players got a good deal of screen time to see their strengths and weaknesses. And something has to be said for a show that takes 11 episodes for one ball game and doesn’t make it feel like too long at any point. It’s really gripping actually, all of the moves were being explained, the characters were all having thoughts going through their heads, other characters were making plans, maybe the reason I didn’t like baseball before was the lack of constant inner explanations of the game. Even with all the talking (inner included) it felt very much like an action show with nothing dragging out.
The Bad: Some of the characters (like the aforementioned pitcher) start out as annoying (not in the usual sense though) and it can take a while before you either ignore them or they grow on you. Also, since there are only two games in 26 episodes and both take quite a while, there isn’t as much downtime between the games and I would’ve liked one or two more episodes that focused more on practice or even what was going on outside the diamond.
The Art: The character designs are a little different from the current mainstream designs but it’s nothing too jarring. And, not exactly an art thing, but the camera angles here aren’t what you would see from the stands, you get to see the close-ups of the swings, the catches, the slides, all of it. Viewers don’t normally think about it, but it’s a lot nicer to see what’s really going on rather than feeling you need binoculars to see who has the ball when.
The Music: I think there were two OPs and EDs but, while I can remember the second ones fairly well, the first ones aren’t sticking out as much. Nothing to write home about I suppose, and I had to watch the English dub for this since that was the only legal version I could find. I’d actually seen the first three episodes in Japanese so it was a bit jarring to change but overall the voices worked nicely. No one sounded a lot like each other but I was amused that some characters were given what I would call distinctively American accents.
Overall: 8.5/10 because this show not only had me sit through a 4 hour game (are real baseball games even that long? Mind you this was over 3 or 4 days though) and I had no idea what was going to come next in it. I actually want to check out a local game or two of baseball this summer and see if I like it better now that I know it better. As for buying it, like I said about Bamboo Blade, it feels rather silly to re-watch a sports anime one you know who wins how. I know that Funimation is not going to license the next season that’s coming out this spring (part of the reason I watched it now), but they still have the dubbed episodes up on their site for the R1 people to check out.
Kimi ni Todoke
ANN page
The Good:While shojo isn’t my favorite genera, I have read enough to know what a good example and bad example are and KnT is a rather good effort. It’s complex enough to keep the viewer interested but not so much that it feels contrived. It has heart-warming moments and the characters seem different but not too different from real people. It is a rather good and sweet story of high school love.
The Bad: I’m not the biggest fan of romances and it seems that I just don’t like stories where romance is the central part of it (like KnT) so this was not my favorite show of the season. Also found myself wanting to yell at the characters a lot for not being direct enough, not following their feelings, or any number of other events that came up. I know that a lot of romance lovers loved this series so I can only say that this wasn’t really my thing and that is wasn’t really bad in spite of that.
The Art: The art style here is similar to the art style in the manga and I thought it was refreshing and still nice to see. But the sparkles, and the shojo bubbles! Those really started to go overboard by the end.
The Music:Again, cutesy OP and ED but not really to my taste.
Overall:7/10, wasn’t really my thing but it wasn’t horrible (or I think so anyway). No interest in buying the anime or the manga (which is licensed in the US) but I might try a bit more of the manga to see if I can get more into it.
Kobato
ANN page
The Good: This has gotta be one of the few, if the only ending I’ve seen, where the deus ex machina actually make the situation worse. I won’t say any more but the ending was very satisfying (and makes me curious to see how the original manga will go). The anime also introduced a few characters earlier than the manga (who haven’t had much time yet) so that was a nice treat for the manga readers in particular. And the Wish crossover was pulled off better than I had hoped, more of a thematic crossover and the TRC and brief Holic crossover worked as well (although I’m sure people who aren’t up to date with those stories are were rather confused).
The Bad: While the manga hasn’t given as strong hints yet (or at least, hadn’t when the series started), it was fairly easy to tell this was going to be a romance from the very start. But I really like the portrayal of the various couples Kobato meets in the manga rather than the anime, and I really didn’t like how one major pairing was resolved. . The characters felt off in a lot of the episodes and Kobato was a lot more air-headed in the anime that she is in the manga which bothered me. The series also suffered from some very boring fillers toward the middle and didn’t give a satisfying ending for some of the side characters. I think it would’ve done better if it had been made after more of the manga had come out because the manga based episodes (and the one the writer directed) just felt better.
The Art: While Kobato didn’t have a new outfit every episode as it was originally said (with all the outfits she’s already had in the manga it wasn’t like would be a shortage) the art was good for the whole series. The art in the Christmas episode was the best of the whole series, I was impressed at how Madhouse was able to have such bright and vivid scenes without feeling garish (although both of the EDs were a bit of a cop-out art wise, one is the same animation over and over and another is panning over CLAMP art, only one of which was even a new piece I believe).
The Music: Wondering if Armed Librarians started a trend with having new OPs/EDs in odd places. I liked the second ED better than the first and the OP (just one) worked fine for the series. Neither were the catchiest Jpop/ballads I’ve ever heard but they weren’t bad.
Overall: 7.5/10 and I don’t feel like getting this when it comes out (and I believe that this one has a good chance to get licensed stateside). I wouldn’t mind watching it streamed again, skipping the middle fillers, but this is another series where I’m much more interested to see where the manga goes. So, CLAMP fans will like this, shojo fans will like it, but it’s a fairly fluffy piece of work overall.
Letter Bee/Tegami Bachi (names are used interchangably, it's a literal translation)
ANN page
The Good: Letter Bee is both a sweet story and a very depressing one, although it’s hard to remember that with how cheerful our lead is. A sunless world that is separate by class and the only way to communicate is to send letters across plains, deserts, and mountains filled with viscous mechanic bugs, it’s amazing how the story can remind you of that or make you forget depending on the mood it needs. But the ending to this series, it took just ten minutes for the final episode to completely switch gears, build up, and nearly made me cry (someone who even knew what was coming!). With a cliffhanger like that, no wonder a second season is coming.
The Bad: While not all the fillers were bad (a few were very bad, some were alright and a few, written by the manga-ka, were very good) there were a ton of them. Out of 26 episodes, TEN of them were fillers. It get’s rather tiresome after awhile to keep saying “yes this is a filler, it will pick up once it gets back to the manga.” Add that to the fact that Letter Bee starts off slowly anyway, we completed only two of the main arcs (and the pacing for Honey Waters felt oddly off) and if there wasn’t going to be a second season I would be feeling very distgruntled. As it is, the second season had better not have as many fillers (and thankfully the trailer seems to indicate that it will go through a lot of manga material).
The Art: One thing that was so distinctive about the Letter Bee manga was the coloring (lots of purples, deep blues, and sepia tones) and a certain quirkiness for the minor characters. While the anime has a more normal color scheme it did manage to capture that quirkiness quite nicely. And the art for both of the EDs was great, the first was much more manga art style/coloring and the second one was a great use of blacks and whites, both interesting to look at. The gaichu (the armored bugs) however were a sore spot in the art work. They're so complex that they needed CGI to animated them (understandable) but it REALLY stands out here. Hopefully they will be easier on the eye next season but it's understandable if anyone winces the first time they see them.
The Music: The OPs, EDs, and background music for the series all shared the slight yet underlying sadness/seriousness that the plot has and worked wonderfully. The music stuck out in my mind and wouldn’t mind having the soundtracks.
Overall: 8/10, would’ve been lower if I hadn’t known about a second season. I think I want to get the DVDs if they come out but that depends on how good the second season is but I’m optimistic. Also reading/buying the manga but I would love to have more of this story. It's streaming on CR and I hope they get the second season as well, fingers crossed in any case.
So, some stuff that wasn't to my taste but a lot of series with good endings despite that. Makes it little harder to review since, well, the last episode was great but the others weren't as much. Did this pretty quickly after the shows ended to so they are fresh in my mind, guess practice makes better here.