Hotarubi no Mori e (Movie)

Hotarubi no Mori e (蛍火の杜へ) is a movie adaptation of a short manga series, written by the same author behind the Natsume Yuujinchou series. On top of that, the animation studio, director, and even the guy behind the music, have all worked on Natsume Yuujinchou. That being said, my next comment should come as no surprise: this movie felt exactly like any other episode of Natsume Yuujinchou. The movie was nostalgic, bittersweet, mystifying, and simple yet refreshing. The story told a delicately short tale of a young human girl, and her interactions with a lonely youkai she meets in the forest.

The story itself is simple, perhaps even too simple, yet beautiful in it’s simplicity. The story revolves around Hotaru, a young little girl who gets lost in a forest, and befriends a lonely youkai who avoids being touched by humans. The two establish a relationship initially motivated by curiosity, and they play with each other every summer. Long story short, the girl brings out the human qualities in this lonely youkai, and they grow to care for each other over the years.

I oversimplified the movie a bit in my summary, but that does the actual movie no justice. The storytelling is subtle, understated, yet has the right mix of charm and seriousness that makes the cast a joy to watch. The plot centers around Hotaru and her youkai friend, and how their friendship gradually strengthens over the years. Simple little things, such as basking in the sunlight, wandering amongst the trees in the forest, and fishing at a small pond, serve to flesh out the genuinely innocent relationship between Hotaru and the youkai. Their combination of curiosity, playfulness, and seriousness, all mesh together for some excellent character development.

The production values themselves are understated, yet beautiful in their own right. Sure, the art doesn’t necessarily stand out for being spectacular or bold, and animation quality wasn’t exactly superb, but for a simple coming-of-age story such as this there isn’t really a necessity for anything flashy or excessive.

The major flaw to this movie is that, well, it probably shouldn’t have been a “movie” to begin with. The story’s pacing was extremely slow, and while that allowed for a lot of scenes where we simply watch Hotaru and her youkai friend innocently play around, a lot of these scenes could have been condensed without hurting the overall story. This movie felt as if the studio took a regular episode of an anime, and somehow stretched it out and padded the story until it reached 45 minutes of screentime. To put things into perspective, a single episode of an anime tends to be around 23-25 minutes long. This could have been much better OVA material, as opposed to the full movie treatment.

In the end, Hotarubi no Mori e has all the strengths that we’ve seen in the author’s other works, mainly Natsume Yuujinchou. The story is emotional, atmospheric, soft in tone, and bittersweet. The characters are charming to watch, and leaves you with a warm and fuzzy feeling during many scenes in the movie. The only downside is that the pacing is excruciatingly slow, where it’s quite obvious that the story could have been condensed much more. Nevertheless, for any fan of coming-of-age stories, Hotarubi no Mori e should be quite fitting with it’s charming characters, and it’s excellent storytelling.

Animation/Art: 8.0/10

Music: 8.0/10

Setting: 7.5/10

Characters: 8.5/10

Story: 8.0/10

Overall Enjoyment: 8.0/10

Screenshots are later in the post. Warning, there are a lot of screenshots.

Hayate no Gotoku – Heaven is a Place on Earth (Movie)

Hayate no Gotoku – Heaven is a Place on Earth (劇場版 ハヤテのごとく! )

Well, this movie is definitely more for Hayate fans in general. While the gags aren’t necessarily dependent on having experience with the original series, there are a good amount of gags that rely upon the quirky nature to members of the cast. For those that are unfamiliar with the cast, the jokes will be far less entertaining. The same applies to the story, where prior experience isn’t necessary, but would add to the overall viewing experience. In other words, this movie is practically fanservice for veteran fans.

All that being said, I have to say that this was rather disappointing as a movie. The production values weren’t anything worth noting, the setting was nothing special, and the story was utterly predictable and generic. The only redeeming factor to this movie would be the character’s jokes and gags themselves, and even then, the jokes lost a lot of their impact due to the serious overarching plot.

But hey, I guess this movie does serve as good “fanservice” for those that are itching to see the main cast of Hayate no Gotoku back in animated form. There are a few newly introduced characters too, mainly Kayura, Athena, and Ruka (though for Ruka and Athena, they were brief cameos). But yea, in terms of fanservice, there were plenty of moments for fans to get amusement out of. There was an unusually large amount of Hina scenes, where she was caught off guard and blushing on more than one occasion. Then there were the silly jokes about Nagi, and the surprise twist where Maria temporarily became the ojou-sama to Hayate (with fun results). There were cameos for virtually every member of the cast in some way or form, so veterans of this series will be happy to at least see everybody again.

Aside from the cameos, though, impressions for the rest of the movie are rather bleak. Bleak in the sense that there is absolutely nothing worth noting. The movie itself pretty much counts as filler, where the story has no relevance to the overarching main plot. On top of that, the episode proved to be extremely predictable with Hayate (once again) saving the day and rescuing Nagi in an orderly. One thing that really bugged me is how the conflict was far too serious, which clashed with the overall comedic nature to the series at hand. The story was definitely a negative, even if it did try to explore some random deceased-ghost-relative-of-Hayate that will probably never end up being important again.

I was also stunned at the lack of strong production values. Anime movies usually have higher budgets (and often result in gorgeous animation). While the animation was generally smooth, and no major errors that I could see, there was honestly nothing worth noting at all. Manglobe certainly didn’t try too hard here (and with this being an anime original practically-filler movie, I’m not too surprised). Some might complain about the strange alterations to the art design compared to the TV series, but I don’t think there was anything wrong with the different art direction. Anyways, music was also uninspired, and the random countryside setting wasn’t exactly very creative either. In other words, the only thing that kept this movie even relatively interesting were the characters themselves, and their goofy interactions. And even that failed to a large degree, all thanks to the super-serious plot about Nagi being spirited away by Hayate’s grandma’s ghost.

In the end, this movie ended up being mediocre in every possible sense of the word. Story, setting, music, and art were all mediocre to the extreme. Ah yea, I almost forgot to mention, there was absolutely no good character development either. Quite honestly, this would have served much better as a single OVA, rather than a full blown theatrical release. However, for fans, this movie might be a welcomed chance to see everybody in action again. As for everybody else, just save yourself some time and don’t watch this.

Animation/Art: 7.0/10

Music: 7.0/10

Setting: 6.5/10

Characters: 7.5/10

Story: 6.5/10

Overall Enjoyment: 6.9/10

Screenshots are later in the post.

WARNING: There are approximately 100 Screenshots for this post. For those with slower internet connections, be wary of long load times.

Macross Frontier the Movie II – Sayonara no Tsubasa

Macross Frontier ~Sayonara no Tsubasa~ (劇場版 マクロスF ~サヨナラノツバサ~)

With movies all the rage nowadays, it’s no surprise that Macross Frontier got the movie-retelling treatment, similar to the Evangelion movies. And indeed, the Macross movies note a radical departure from the storyline of the TV series, better in some ways, and more lackluster in others. On first impressions this movie is captivating, with spectacular visuals worthy of an anime movie production. However, this hides the issues with the story that arise. Mainly, the movie is crammed with plot twists galore, coupled with a ton of character development and a very fast pacing. This ends up detrimental to the movie’s overall story, which could stand to use a bit more work.

Like I already mentioned, the strong aspect to this series is the production quality. From start to finish, this movie is a dizzying spectacle of all that can be done with modern animation, from epic in scale action scenes, to intricate and beautiful concert scenes, and even the standard everyday scenes. Production quality is, without a doubt, one thing that Satelight and 8bit didn’t hold back on.

On the other hand, the story itself needed a bit more control. There were plot twists left and right, which really disrupted the flow to the overall plot. Not to mention, the pacing itself was pretty fast, making it difficult to have good character development. While there were some genuinely awesome moments of character development, they were overshadowed by how the fast pacing let little of this development sink in. The movie was far too busy, and with villains changing left and right, it was tough to get some strong buildup towards an ultimate final enemy.

That being said, this movie did touch upon a rather interesting theme; that humankind can be the best, yet the worst, of living beings. This movie goes through great lengths to show the ugly side of humanity, from dirty power struggles, to coup-de-tats, political scheming, and disrespect of life. Yet the movie does also maintain a positive overtone through the main characters, Alto, Sheryl, and Ranka.

In the end, though, I enjoyed this movie because it portrayed the wild journey that the main cast went through, all the way til the bittersweet end. Character development might’ve been a bit iffy, but it was still nice to see some proper closure. But yea, the main issue here is that the movie could’ve used some more structure and a slower pacing. Nevertheless, if you’re interesting in some visual eyecandy and some fast paced mecha action, the Macross Frontier movies can certainly fit the bill.

Animation/Art: 9.0/10

Music: 7.5/10

Setting: 8.0/10

Characters: 7.5/10

Story: 7.5/10

Overall Enjoyment: 7.9/10

P.S. For some reason, I found the brand new songs in this movie sorely disappointing. There was nothing memorable amongst the new songs, unlike stuff from the 1st movie. Where’s the good stuff, like Diamond Crevasse, Lion, and so on?

Screenshots are later in the post.

Amagami SS OVA – 02

OVA 02 –

Bundled with the DVD/BD releases are two OVAs, where in total 30 minutes are devoted to the six main heroines (each heroine getting 5 minute mini-stories). This second OVA covers Nanasaki Ai, Sakurai Rihoko, and Ayatsuji Tsukasa’s mini-stories. As you might expect from 5 minute mini-stories, there really isn’t enough time for much plot or character development. In fact, there’s not much of anything aside from silly little scenes involving Junichi and the heroines. In the end, these mini-stories are like add-ons to the main story of the TV series, but they’re still goofy fun nonetheless.

In Ai’s ministory, Junichi decides to try and cheer Ai up after she fails to qualify for her swimming contest. But dang, Junichi sure has some guts; who would run up to a girl and stuff both of his hands down her skirt pockets, and then tickle her? Seriously, that could be interpreted as assault by some people. But yea, based on Ai’s embarrassed yet somewhat calm reaction, Junichi’s bold actions do show that the two have become quite close to each other.

Rihoko’s, in comparison, was much more kinky in a way. I mean, a guy volunteering to cut a girl’s toenails is a bit weird, but I guess that’s also a good way to put the two in an extremely awkward situation. I wonder if Rihoko is still “friend-zoned” here, lol.

Ayatsuji’s mini-story was probably the funniest, where a simple little meal of melon bread somehow degenerated into a torture session where Ayatsuji forces the melon bread down Junichi’s mouth. Truth be told, I totally expected some sadistic twist towards the end of her arc, so seeing Ayatsuji tease Junichi so forcibly (and enjoy it, lol) was pretty funny.

Oh, and on a slight side note, we can’t forget our little stalker girl Risa, who once again makes two cameo appearances. Shame Miya doesn’t pop up in this OVA.

And so, with this OVA marks the end of all Amagami SS related anime releases. It’s been a fun ride with some rather quirky yet charming characters, all done through a rather odd “omnibus” style. Surprisingly enough, even though this OVA had two of my favorite heroines (Ai and Tsukasa), the first OVA was miles better in terms of charm and execution. While the story arcs to the series might have been predictable (and sometimes poorly written), at the same time they were just loads of fun, so in a way I feel kind of disappointed to see this series go. Nevertheless, this was an OVA that complemented the TV series well, and leaves things off on a rather whimsical yet memorable note.

Overall Enjoyment: 3.2/5

Screenshots are later in the post.

Karigurashi no Arrietty (Movie)

The Borrower Arrietty (借りぐらしのアリエッティ, Karigurashi no Arietti)

Studio Ghibli is quite renowned for it’s rather large portfolio of acclaimed family movies, and you could definitely add Karigurashi no Arrietty to that list. Ghibli usually makes two types of movies, either fantasy movies that focus on themes that are rather critical of problems in society (Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke and Nausicca come to mind), whereas in more recent times we’ve seen more slice-of-life fantasy adventure movies. Arrietty fits more into the latter, with it’s setting being modern day society with a small little twist; there are tiny, tiny people living under the house, and they borrow from humans to survive. Tiny as in maybe 5-8 centimeters tall.

One of the charming aspects to this movie is, without a doubt, the amount of attention paid to the little details that makes the presence of little people so believable. The creative, yet simple, ways in which Arrietty and her family are portrayed are captivating, such as the little toolsets Arrietty’s family made in order to explore the “human” house. They use everyday items like fishing hooks, double-sided scotch tape, and spools of thread to create their own little sets of backpacks filled with tools they use to make their lives a little easier, and make the characters fascinatingly believable. The creativity and thought put into the tiny details are awesome, from the fishing hooks and scotch tape, to the little neat cubes of sugar that fits like a well-sized package in the hands of Arrietty.

What I really enjoyed about this movie is how it is told from the point of view of little Arrietty as opposed to the perspective of us “regular humans”. Simple things that you could find in your everyday backyard, from Arrietty’s perspective, all of a sudden have a grandiose feeling to them. Things such as a simple vine you could find creeping across the wall of any old house transforms into an intricate ladder of leaves and stems to the rooftops, or a field of grass and flowers becomes a vast forest. This movie takes your everyday backyard, and turns it into a vast new world to explore. It doesn’t hurt that the scenery and artwork was vibrant and lush with color.

The soundtrack is especially fitting for this movie. The absense of Joe Hisashi’s music in this Ghibli film is instantly noticable, and while some of the pieces here may lack a slight bit of the grandeur of Hisashi’s works, the soundtrack is still well done. What is a bit unusual here is how the soundtrack was actually done by Cécile Corbel, a French singer and Celtic harpist, who was a huge fan of Ghibli works and sent samples of her work to the studio. The Celtic influence in the soundtrack is immediately noticeable, but it was definitely an excellent choice on Ghibli’s part.

Characterization of the actual characters wasn’t exactly anything mindblowingly original or exotic, but the main cast was rather believable for the most part, and had their own charms to them. I found the innocently curious, yet straightforward and resolute attitude of Arrietty quite likable. Her rather odd relationship with Sho, as well as how Sho perceived her, turned out to be quite fascinating and, in a sense, admirable. The subtle tension between the elusive tiny people, and the gigantic humans, are played upon quite well here, which adds quite a few tense moments between Arrietty and Sho. I’d say characterization was quite tastefully handled here for the most part.

And now, for the biggest weakness for this movie. The plot progression and characterization were all fine and all, but the conflict and villain were practically a joke in terms of setup. Seriously, what grudge did old lady Haru have against the little guys? They didn’t explain in detail why she was hunting out the little people, giving only a flimsy excuse that they’re “theives” in a degrogatory tone. The villain just felt very underwhelming, and just doesn’t fit in with this movie’s atmosphere at all. The conflict was kind of discredited in my eyes because of the poorly integrated main antagonist, and there is certainly room for improvement here. Plot progression, while fine and all, was also rather slow at times. While I personally didn’t mind the slow pacing (it lets things sink in more), there were definitely plenty of slowly-paced scenes in this movie.

What makes Arrietty a great watch is the tremendous attention to the details of it’s setting, the beautiful art and music, and the wonderful direction for it’s characters. The plot is admittingly lacking (especially the major conflict, oh boy could it have used some more work), but as a premier film for a new director, this film turned out to be an pleasant surprise. The ending does feel very open ended, though, with a lot of loose ends that feel as if they have yet to be tied up. While the likelihood of a sequel for a Ghibli movie is very slim, I would be totally fine with a sequel for this particular movie.

Animation/Art: 9.0/10

Music: 9.0/10

Setting: 9.5/10

Characters: 8.0/10

Story: 7.0/10

Overall Enjoyment: 8.5/10

Screenshots are later in the post. Warning for those with slower internet connections, there are over 100+ screenshots.

Break Blade – 05 (OVA)

OVA 05 – Horizon of Death 死線ノ涯 (Shisen no Hate)

This installment of Break Blade was definitely much more different in execution than previous installments of this series. The most noticeable difference here is the huge lack of much of the politics that has been so prevalent in this series up until this point. Instead, there is a huge focus on the battles in this episode (with battles taking up a majority of the screentime here). Break Blade has always been very good at showing gritty, well-played out action sequences, but the lack of balance between the battles and the actual plot progression was strikingly noticeable. We did get a bit of character development with the drama between Girghe and Lygart, but even their interactions were more like “extras” to all the action sequences in this episode.

Like I somewhat mentioned earlier, Break Blade is quite good with creating very gritty, realistic and well thought out battle sequences. You could clearly see the progression of thought, and battle tactics themselves, in this OVA quite easily. From the way in which Borcuse masterfully used Lygart’s momentum against him in their brief mech skirmish, to how Girghe quickly adjusts his aim with his weapon due to picking up a slightly uncalibrated gun, it’s quite easy to see how well trained, quick-witted, and tactical a lot of the pilots are. In the heat of battle, pilots need to be quick on their feet and adapt to the situation at hand (extremely fast, too). It’s pretty admirable how this series hasn’t done the typical mech “brawl-out” that other mech series are quite famous for (Gurren Lagann, Evangelion, etc). Don’t get me wrong here, those other mech series are perfectly fine, but Break Blade tries to take the extra step and add a sense of well thought out and choreographed battles.

Adding to the sense of realism in this OVA would be the actual way in which mechs fall apart. As a fight goes on, scratches, dents, crushed armor pieces, and other signs of physical damage are increasingly added in. A lot of the damage actually plays a role in how the fights turn out, from how a broken weapon is instantly seen as a liability and thrown out, to how a split second of hesitation leads to a cut off hand, and thus the inability to continue in a fight. I feel like I’ve focused on this point a bit too much, but Break Blade does a great job at portraying a semi-realistic way in which battles would play out. The only ace in the hole here, so to speak, would be how everything is based on “quartz technology”, which is probably the only thing keeping this from being (by definition) a real robot anime.

As for the character development and other aspects to this episode, they were simply lacking (or virtually nonexistent, at times). The only noticeable “development” would be the scuffle between Girghe and Lygart, and even that was cut off short by Girghe being shot dead (or at least, that’s assumed to be the case). It should be noted that this OVA deviated a little from the original source material manga, though the end result is virtually the same. Considering how few installments are left in this series, I’m kind of curious as to how the animation studio plans on ending this series, especially for a continuing manga adaptation. With only one more OVA left, hopefully this series won’t go the route of “you must read the manga to finish the story”, which would be a huge disappointment.

Animation/Art: 8.5/10

Music: 7.5/10

Characters: 7.5/10

Story/setting: 7.0/10

Overall Enjoyment: 7.6/10

Screenshots are later in the post.

Break Blade – 04 (OVA)

OVA 04 – The Land of Disaster – 惨禍ノ地 [さんかのち] (Sanga no Ji)

The latest installment of the Break Blade series had much less character development, and in its stead we got a lot more coordinated battles and action sequences. What I’ve always found great about this series is how the mechs really have weighty feel to them, which makes the actual battles much more realistic and nitty-gritty, so to speak. This installment of Break Blade felt a bit more unrealistic in that respect, though, especially with that battle towards the end between Girghe and Borcuse. In the end though, this episode served to up the stakes for both the invading Athenian army, as well as the Krisnan forces that are on the defense. Not to mention it is setting up whom appears to be the main antagonist, Borcuse, as the typical methodological evil guy he seems to be.

What was rather lacking here was the character development; while previous episodes all did well in exploring and developing the characterizations of Ryugart, Sigyn, and Hodr, this time around there was very little development at all. Sigyn did get some moments, though, with her memory of her failed confession to Ryugart coming back to haunt her. The fact that Sigyn and Cleo are now the fanservice providers for this series doesn’t quite help, though the moments that Cleo and Sigyn have together are rather calm, yet complex moments that really does well in giving some perspective to them both.

Other characters got very little development here, with the only exception probably being Baldr in relation to his son Girghe. While we do learn some interesting things about Baldr, we learn very little about Girghe and his characterization. The lack of details on Girghe doesn’t really help when he enters the battle later on, where he just feels like your typical elite soldier with a screw or two loose. I do wonder what significance Girghe will be playing in the future, if only because of the hints at a rivalry between him and Ryugart.

The big focus here was definitely the battles, especially the battle between Borcuse and Baldr. What was great about the battle here is that you really do get a sense for the scale of this war, with dozens of massive armed mechs fighting and firing on each other in the battlefield. What made this warlike atmosphere even more pronounced was the tactical battle decisions of the opposing commanders, which made for a very interesting mind game. Strategy is always a key part of a battle, and the way Borcuse used fear to gain the upperhand against his opponents, as well as Baldr’s move to turn that fear into the drive for revenge, did a good job showcasing that soldiers are only human, and on the battlefield those little details play a major role in battles as well.

While the large scale battle was rather interesting, unfortunately the individual battles were far less creative than they have been in the past. The battle between Cleo and the Krisnan forces in the last episode was especially memorable, and unfortunately this episode did little that could match up to that. We did get Girghe’s solo assault on the flagship units of the Athenian forces, but it felt much less tactical and much more outright shooting and smashing than anything else. The smaller battles could have been developed a bit better in that regard, but I guess at this point I’m just being a bit too nitpicky.

In the end, this episode was more focused on the actual war between Athens and Krisna, as opposed to how the previous episodes achieved a balance between focusing on the characters and the actual mech battles. While there isn’t necessarily anything bad with that, I do wish we could get some more character development of our main characters here and there (especially Ryugart). Overall, though, we get a lot of buildup as to what exactly is at stake in this war, how brutal things will be from here on out, and not to mention the very enigmatic yet ominous Borcuse, whose smile at the end of the episode definitely makes you think twice about him.

Animation/Art: 8.0/10

Music: 7.5/10

Characters: 7.5/10

Story/setting: 8.0/10

Overall Enjoyment: 7.8/10

Screenshots are later in the post.

Kara no Kyoukai – Epilogue Chapter (OVA)

Boundary of Emptiness – 空の境界 (Kara no Kyoukai)

And so, with this thirty minute OVA marks the end of the Kara no Kyoukai series, and what an interesting series it has been. I had actually planned on reviewing each of the seven movies before this epilogue was released, but time restraints kind of made that impossible. Anyways, onto the epilogue itself. The epilogue actually didn’t bring too much closure to the series, or at least it wasn’t as satisfying as how the seventh movie ends. Instead, this movie goes into a very long discussion about the origins of Shiki and her multiple personalities, a brief discussion on Kokutou’s oddities, as well as Shiki’s relationship to Kokutou. The thing here, though, is that a lot of the discussion is not exactly new news to viewers if they had paid attention while watching the prior movies. That being said, I guess this epilogue was meant to just leave us with a solid explanation for everything that has happened in this series as well as clarify some things that were not included in the standard movies, which I certainly do appreciate.

The Kara no Kyoukai series has always had one thing going for it; the amazing animation and visual quality courtesy of Ufotable. The epilogue definitely doesn’t disappoint with the visual quality itself, which has some very crisp and detailed animation. They definitely paid attention to small little details too, like how Shiki’s hair and kimono flutters in the wind, and other little details here and there that must have taken a ton of work to get right. What I did not like here was how the entirety of the epilogue stayed in the same, wintery snowy setting. While I can appreciate how great the setting looks, the fact that several scenes kind of just let us stare at the background for a while did annoy me a bit; I guess I’m just being a bit too nitpicky here, or perhaps my expectations were set a bit too high. Overall, though, the art and animation is beautiful, with my only complaint being that I wish Ufotable could have varied up the scenery a bit.

The “story” itself is pretty much just Kokutou having a discussion with the first “Shiki” he had met, at the exact same place where they had met all so many years ago. There actually really wasn’t much of a story at all here, as opposed to a bunch of explanations. Shiki’s presence in a kimono was definitely the blatant hint here that Kokutou was not talking with the Shiki we’ve come to know by the end of the final movie in the series. They get into a very lengthy discussion on the “Origin” of the two (or I guess in this case three) “Shikis” and how they are all related to the origin of “emptiness”. All this does explain why Shiki, or to be more specific her body, can see the lines of death in all objects; because she is a unique existence that has actually “experienced death”, so to speak.

Anyways, the chat between the two can actually get a bit confusing at times, but this epilogue does help me appreciate the story to Kara no Kyoukai as a whole much, much more. Some of the details mentioned here does make parts of the series make much more sense. What was nice here is that the creators know that at times, silence is golden and is best fitting for a scene, but the bits of music that do pop up are pretty decent as well. I appreciate how they use silence to reflect the very solemn, slightly desolate feeling to this epilogue.

I would be lying to you if I said that I completely understood everything that they talked about, but even so I feel that there is a beauty in how the exposition itself often has some very emotional, or mature, overtones, even if it isn’t easy to understand. That being said, this epilogue certainly isn’t for those looking for some sort of action packed or romance filled conclusion (though there is a bit of romance here, technically). It’s a very slow, dialogue heavy conclusion that really helps clarify certain aspects to the characters and the series itself, and though I personally liked the epilogue, I can easily imagine others getting bored or completely lost while watching this conclusion.

Animation/Art: 9.0/10

Music: 8.0/10

Characters: 8.5/10

Story/setting: 7.5/10

Overall Enjoyment: 8.3/10

Screenshots are later in the post.

Break Blade – 03 (OVA)

OVA 03 – Assassin’s Vestige – 凶刃ノ痕 – (Kyoujin no ato)

Break Blade (also known as Broken Blade) has been doing a pretty good job at building up upon the previous iterations of the series. The previous OVA/movies were solid, and this installment continues the trend with some intelligently done and realistic mech battles. Not to mention, this movie does a pretty decent job at developing some of the side characters, and in particular Cleo, who gets quite a bit of screentime here. That being said, this series still gives me a ton of Gundam Seed vibes, and for those that do know Seed, you would know there are some glaring flaws in there (I’m not a Seed hater, mind you). That being said, Break Blade also does a good job of avoiding some of the pitfalls that I had expected to see, especially concerning the main character Rygart.

With Rygart feeling guilty about the death of both Lee and Dan from last time, his naive persona actually seems to be taking more of a backseat, with Rygart taking on a more realistic mindset where he knows that he will be killing people in battle. This is rather different from Kira Yamato’s Rygart’s very carefree, almost innocent, mindset last time where he played the role of the ultimate pacifist and refused to let others die. This all culminates in an all out battle between Rygart and his long-time friend and now enemy Athrun Zala Zess in a pretty intense battle between Rygart’s Undergolem, and Zess’ Valkyrie.

What was interesting about their fight was how Rygart still had a bit of that pacifist in him when he went to fight Zess, which made his attack (aiming for Zess’ weapon) very predictable and a fatal flaw to his strategy. Honestly speaking, if Rygart hadn’t realized how foolish he was being with his pacifist mindset and converted over to an “all out war” mentality, he probably would’ve been killed on the spot by Zess. However, after some very quick thinking on Rygart’s part, he doesn’t hold back and lands a powerful strike on the Valkyrie’s cockpit, nearly crushing Zess to death (though Rygart stopped midway and prevented his death).

The aftermath of the entire battle ends up with Cleo, a member of Zess’ squadron, holding off enemy reinforcements until Zess was safely extracted and removed from harm’s way. Cleo’s strategy to buy time here was, admittingly, brilliant on her part with her elaborate tactics that let her fight on equal footing with a group that well outnumbered her. This is where it’s really easy to see how this series tries to be very realistic with it’s battles, where you really do get a sense for the weight of things, how tactical decisions determine outcomes, and how soldiers can actually die in battle. A lot of other mech shows tend to try and keep as many deaths offscreen (or no deaths at all) as possible, so Break Blade here differentiates itself a bit here by being much more conventional; to sum it up, Break Blade actually treats weapons like weapons, which means they can kill people (whether you like it or not).

The latter half to this episode was much less mech-heavy, instead with a central focus on the now captured Cleo. We do get some interesting glimpses into how the average Athenian thinks through Cleo, especially with how they mention the distorted history that younger generations are taught; that they are fighting against “barbarians”, and thus, don’t deserved to be called human. Cleo’s comment about Queen Sigyn reflects upon this, though I do appreciate how Sigyn is going out of her way to try and make peace with Cleo. An interesting thing to note here is that apparently Athens is enhancing people in some way (*cough*coordinators*cough*), perhaps via drugs or some other means. It would definitely explain our very mature looking Cleo, who has the body of a young adult (age 20 or so) while being a 12 year old. Athens seems to be very pragmatic about what they want to accomplish, and seem to be willing to do it by any means.

Anyways, Cleo herself gets quite a bit of attention when she ends up stealing Sigyn’s gun and attempting to sneak out of her imprisonment. This event turned out rather interesting, because for the first time Cleo seemed to recognize her opponents as actual human beings as opposed to the “barbarians” she’s been taught since childhood. Her experience with both Sigyn, as well as overhearing Rygart’s monologue about Zess, definitely shook the mentality that is vital to most soldiers in war; that the enemy is nothing more than something to be killed. During war times, often one country demeans the other so that citizens and soldiers feel less guilt when they kill enemies, and Cleo here was a prime example of how this mindset was quickly fading away in her mind. The very fact that she hesitated to kill Rygart has quite a bit of significance, even if there were no actual bullets in her gun.

What Break Blade, as a series so far, does very well is stay close to it’s themes related to war, along with the deaths and misconceptions that war brings with it. At the same time, we do see how even Athens isn’t involved in a war just for the hell of it; they have pretty legitimate reasons for war too, which does blur the distinction between which side is “good” and “evil”. At the same time, though, Break Blade does try to portray a more human side to everything amidst all the ongoing battles and deaths. The animation and music does a pretty good job at complementing the events of the show so far, though in terms of anime movies/OVAs the music and animation is quite standard. The character dynamics in this show involving much of the main cast including Rygart, Cleo, Sigyn, Zess, and Hotdr, is the main attraction here that keeps things interesting, though the battles and stuff are certainly a big factor here too. The funny thing here is that this installment would probably count as buildup, especially with the brief intro of general Borcuse along with another mysterious character. Now I wonder how the next OVA/Movie for this series will turn out.

Animation/Art: 8.0/10

Music: 7.5/10

Characters: 8.5/10

Story/setting: 8.0/10

Overall Enjoyment: 8.0/10

P.S. For those that don’t get the crossed out words references I wrote, you should check out the infamous Gundam Seed series. The characters are so eerily similar at times that I can’t shake the feeling that I’m watching a Seed redux of some sort, just taking place in a parallel universe or something >.>; Admittingly, Break Blade is better than Gundam Seed by quite a bit.

Screenshots are later in the post.

Houkago no Pleiades (OVA)

Afterschool Pleiades – 放課後のプレアデス (Houkago no Pleiades)

Hmm, well at least it looked pretty. I was wondering what the Gainax and Subaru (the carmaker) collaboration would be, but I didn’t think it would be a series of four mini-ovas that are to be aired on Youtube. That being said, with the entire story being told within the span of 19 minutes (this is including the credits) there’s no way you could expect an exceptional story of any sort. I don’t quite know what Gainax was thinking, but the art looked rather nice, and there was some decent music. Aside from that, though, the characters are pretty run of the mill average and the story is very uninspiring.

Admittingly, Gainax did experiment a little bit with the ideas in this show with the stars and all. Even so, the story was rather run of the mill typical “main girl gets thrown into a situation and becomes a magical girl and saves the day”. We’ve already seen this type of stuff before, but I guess you can’t really expect much from such a short little series. There is a little bit of drama in there, but it feels very forced and awkward at times, not to mention the conflict gets resolved rather quickly without much buildup.

The visuals were rather nice though. Animation may not have been perfect, but the artwork itself was very nice looking. The action scenes were okay too, though they were very short as well. You could tell they put a bit of effort into character designs as well, but the characters themselves were rather generic. I guess the cast just didn’t have enough screentime to get properly fleshed out. The music wasn’t terrible, but it doesn’t really fit in with the show itself too well.

Honestly, there isn’t much else to say about this show. I mean, I don’t quite know why in the world Subaru and Gainax decided to make a show like this, especially with some weird quirks like the magical brooms making an engine’s “Vroom” sound, and them collecting parts for some magical giant “engine”. Houkago no Pleiades was entertaining, but in a weird “questioning every aspect of the show” way; I guess this could be an indication of a full blown series, though if it’s similar to this, I wouldn’t know what to expect.

Animation/Art: 8.0/10

Music: 8.0/10

Characters: 7.0/10

Story/setting: 6.0/10

Overall Enjoyment: 7.1/10

Screenshots, ED theme, and JP streams of the episodes are later in the post.