My collection of short anime reviews

Is this guy the main male protagonist of this anime?

I’ve chosen Cross Game as the next anime to be reviewed in this blog over the final season of Nodame Cantabile, mainly because I want to wait until its 12th episode was aired and released. A 2009 anime, naturally this anime will compete with ‘Anime of the Year 2009’ title holder Zan Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. But this anime’s quest for glory will be hindered by the fact that I will apply both the sport and romance genre handicaps to this anime rating.

Or maybe the main male protagonist is this character instead (Hint: Look at their faces)? Watch this anime to find out.

Story:-
Our main male protagonist loses his love interest in an accident, therefore he wants to fulfil her dream of seeing him pitching at the jam-packed Koushien Stadium. Helped by his love interest’s younger sister who is a pitcher herself, he builds up his skills and abilities to become an ace baseball pitcher who eventually carries his team to the nationals.

Just like the twin handicaps indicates, this anime is basically a romance and sport anime enrolled into one package, splashed with plenty of slice-of-life additives. The romance part of this anime is excellent, in fact, this anime is one of the better romance anime I have watched. My only complaint about the flawless romantic part of this anime is the essence is too conservative; you actually know what will happen next if you have read or watched the author’s past works. This is actually the first anime of his that I watched, but I have read the manga versions of Touch and H2 before. That’s why while I have the anime version of Touch in my collection, I never watches it.

This anime is also a decent slice-of-life anime, but the sport part of this anime is definitely not up to par when compared to its romance part. This mainly have to do with the fact that less than one-third of this 50-episode anime are devoted to the games the baseball club play. There are more episodes where the team is shown in training, but more often than not these episodes are also used to advance the romance part of this anime rather than helping its sporting aspect.

This is very evident in the training camp arc in the first half of this anime, which are used completely differently than the similar training camp arc in the baseball anime Ookiku Furikabutte I’ve reviewed before. In Ookiku Furikabutte, the training camp is used primarily to power-up the newly formed baseball team members, where you can see the team members training their heart out to become better at this baseball thingy. In this anime, the training camp arc is used to advance the relationship between the main male protagonist and main female protagonist. Situations like this is why I think Ookiku Furikabutte (there is a second season OUT NOW, yay) is a better baseball anime than this title.

This girl here is the mother of all flashbacks seen in this anime.

The presentation of this anime is excellent; while the pacing of the story is a bit on a slow side (unavoidable I think in this 50-episode series), the storyline does develop nicely with the possible exception in the last 10 episodes where I think the plot is moving too convolutedly. Another notable aspect of this anime is the frequent use of flashbacks. But even if this anime doesn’t have as many flashbacks, proportionately, as Saki has, the execution is arguably not as smooth as the one Saki have done. That recap episode at the middle of this series probably soured my view of this for this anime.

Character developments in this anime are excellent all around. The two main protagonists in this anime are definitely the best, and are assisted by plenty of equally good side characters. Even the introduction of a certain character midway into the series are done seamlessly and flawlessly (learn from this anime Umineko). The ending, while sadly predictable, more than make up for it with excellent storytelling that culminates towards a happy ending for everyone.

The violent main female protagonist…

Character Design:-
Characters’ design in this anime is decent, and that pretty much it. Plenty of black hairs, and that’s a very good thing in real-life Japan. A positive point for this anime.

…is about to punch yet another random innocent law-abiding civilian. Don’t blame her, you have to see the first screenshot above to see why she is so jumpy.

Voice Acting:-
Meanwhile, the voice acting in this anime, as a whole, is just average. There are no outstanding performers in this anime for this aspect.

The main male protagonist’s love interest is very well known for her pushiness when it comes to birthday gifts.

Music:-
The OST is quite decent. All ED themes meets my standard, with the exception for the 3rd ED theme. The OP theme is also forgettable. Somehow still a positive point for this anime.

Much of the baseball anime/manga from Japan has baseball team that aims for this common ground. Will we ever see a title that aims a little bit higher, such as, the World Series?

Animation/Direction:-
The animation is great, even in fast-paced scenes. Choreography for the baseball scenes are also done well, without any exaggerations. The directing is tight and good, with minor exceptions.

Just a few of the side characters that helps the main male protagonist qualifies for the Koushien and also getting his woman.

Conclusion:-
Despite the twin handicaps, this anime still scored a respectable 7 out of 10. Would have been higher if the sporting aspect of this anime matches the quality of the romance part. Zan Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei still retains its throne for the time being.

This anime also has the sing-while-you-are-drawing feature prevalent in Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei series too, and IMO this anime has it better.

Short code: http://wp.me/prgSo-cm

The main female protagonist.

It takes me a bit more than a month to read Ookiku Furikabutte manga (actually very good) before deciding to watch Paradise Kiss first over Clannad After Story. Paradise Kiss is yet another of those anime that was screened on Animax Asia but I do not watch (even if my house has a subscription), and that’s the main reason why I went around and watched it. A 2005 title, it will not compete for any of those ‘Anime of the Year’ titles (not that it will win any) and also this anime will be judged with the rating-damaging romance genre standard. I have an announcement to make here, but you should read this review first before reading it at the end of this post.

Ass shoving: Just one of the shocking things that the 4 members of this knitting club does.

Story:-
The depressed main female protagonist was offered to become a model by a mysterious fashion house high school knitting club for an upcoming fashion show. That club contains members that engaged in some shocking behaviors that almost always put the main female protagonist off. Being a complete n00b when it comes to all things modeling, she has to learn from scratch while dealing with her high-school love life.

This anime has a decent storyline, although this may not be apparent for the first few episodes. It only get more interesting when the emo protagonist runs away from home not too long before the show. With very good pacing and story developments, this anime springs up another pleasant surprise by having an unpredictable ending. The execution is not flawless, but at least the ending is somewhat original. All in all, I think the overall story is not too suitable for a supposedly romance title, but that is not a negative point against the anime.

The main female protagonist reminds me a lot of the emo main female protagonist in La Corda d’Oro primo passo, except that the latter doesn’t have the hot temper the former has. Most of the time, this issue can sink any given anime title to oblivion (La Corda and Myself Yourself comes to mind), but in this case, the strong character of the main male protagonist and, to a lesser extent, the story too, saved this anime from suffering the same fate as the two aforementioned anime titles. The main male protagonist is surely the best character in this anime by a distance.

The main female protagonist’s younger brother.

Character Design:-
The over-the-top character designs in this anime are awesome, with the exception of the main female protagonist. I can actually forgive the lack of black hairs in this anime’s Japan. Just like the over-the-top character designs, the fashion designs in this anime are also out-of-this-world, probably only can be seen inside real fashion schools drawn by hopeful fashion designers of the future. Definitely a positive point for this anime.

Her younger brother is an awesome character in this anime, so here is another screenshot of him.

Voice Acting:-
Voice acting gigs in this anime are largely excellent, except for the main male protagonist who are too ordinary. The outstanding characters in this regard is the pink-haired girl, her eerily similar older sister and the she-guy patterner. Even the main female protagonist has done well here. Definitely a positive point for this anime.

Music:-
The OST is non-existent, but the OP and ED themes are excellent. Another positive point for this anime.

The word ‘big’ refers to what? Make your own assumptions, or better, watch this quite good anime yourself. The answer will surprise you!

Animation/Direction:-
The animation in this anime is good, even in fast-paced scenes. No choreography comment in this non-action anime. The directing is just competent enough but exactly inspiring.

Conclusion:-
6 out of 10. Announcement: I will not watch Clannad After Story for my next review, because some higher priority titles just found themselves inside my anime queue.

Quoted for truth, in the context of this cruel world.

What the heck is ‘United Nation Spacy’?

The first entry for this month is the review Makoto Shinkai’s third work, Hoshi no Koe. At 30 minutes, it is considerably shorter than his first two movies reviewed here, plus it will also be judged with the usual higher standard I use for romance genre titles.

The usual beautiful sceneries in Makoto Shinkai’s movies is also present here.

Story:-
Two middle-school friends were separated when one of them (the female protagonist) was selected to fight aliens in outer space. They keep in touch via e-mail (or is that SMS?) but as the space fleet travel further towards Sirius, the time for the messages to go back and forth become longer and longer. The girl then gets to battle space monsters with awesome mobile suits while her male friend has to worry whether he will get the next message or not.

The story is excellent, better than The Place Promised in Our Early Days but inferior to 5 Centimetres Per Second. The presentation and pacing are done very well, but character development is minimal at best (it’s just 30 minutes). The part that really stands out the most is the ending, which is simply magnificent. This short movie’s ending is vastly superior to the endings of the first two Makoto Shinkai’s movies I have reviewed here before, or the huge majority of the anime I have reviewed here too.

That Sir, is how you wrote an ending. Note to Japan anime writers, WATCH THIS SHORT MOVIE FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!

Well, there are not many things I can say about this short movie anyway, except for good things only.

You were chased by a hungry horde of space monsters. What will you choose? A. Retreating like hell to the safety of your mothership that is about to enter hyperspace. B. Looking around frantically for your mobile phone so that you can send a message to your boyfriend.
From the screenshot above, you would have guessed what she has chosen. Women, just like man, minus the reason and accountability.

Character Design:-
Makoto Shinkai’s influence can be easily seen here, thus the character design is of the realistic type. As usual, brown is the new black, but then again the setting of this anime is somewhere in the future. A positive point for this anime.

Mecha/monster designs in this anime are very well done too.

Voice Acting:-
The voice acting in this anime is pretty good, but not on the same level as the previous 2 movies reviewed here though. There are no outstanding characters too (as if you can choose between only 2 of them).

The mecha design is surprisingly very well done.

Music:-
The OST is good, but the ED theme is something else. The ED really complement the awesome ending perfectly. Definitely a positive point of this anime.

Animation/Direction:-
The animation in this anime is excellent, just like you expect from Makoto Shinkai’s brainchild. There are no problems with fast-paced scenes either, and the choreography for the mecha battles is decent and intense. Speaking of that, I think Makoto Shinkai watched too much of The Legend of Galactic Heroes when doing some of the armada battles. The directing, as you may suspect, is the best from all three of his movies reviewed here to date. You will have no complaints for sure.

Conclusion:-
9 out of 10. With the higher standard I use for romance genre titles, this is as good as 10 out of 10 already. The next review will be special, and you should tune in to see what is in store next.

Even if this is not high-definition, the rain effect is still good to watch.