My collection of short anime reviews

Still paranoid main protagonist.

The end of the ‘Anime of the Year 2010’ audition is nigh with the eighth review out today, for the 2nd season of Ookiku Furikabutte titled Ookiku Furikabutte Summer Tournament. If not for the customary sport-genre handicap I dished out for all sport genre anime titles I reviewed for quite some time now, this anime would have given the current front-runner of the audition a run for its money. The first season of this anime was favorably reviewed by me here last year. The second season did not actually matched its predecessor in general, but with a caveat, the whole series so far is still a very good watch and deserved a third season.

Quoted for truth!

Story:-
Fresh from their first victory in the prefectural tournament, the team trained for a bit (no training camp this season) then played the second game, which the team won. Then, then is more training before the third round match, of which the team also won. Lastly, there are more training done and then the far more important fourth match come, which will decide the winner for a quarterfinal place. Watch this anime to know the result of that game.

The second season started right off the bat from where the first season finished off, and you will be forgiven if you think you are watching the 27th episode of the first season instead of the first episode of a new season. There will be no recap or flashbacks from the first season to refresh the memory of the viewers. Watching the first season is definitely mandatory to understand what really happened in this newly minted second season.

As far as the story goes, nothing has changed from what you can see in the first season. It is still your typical clichéd sport-genre storyline where there are plenty of positives traits such as determination, never-say-die attitudes, hard work and things like that (and of course, the Koushien). Instead, what have changed in this sequel is the presentation. Taking a leaf from the playbook of the second season of Nodame Cantabile, the pacing in the second season has been vastly accelerated with very minor omission from the manga. This is very noticeable during the baseball team second game, which spanned only 3 episodes. This makes me unable to follow the action in that game sometimes, wherewithal of all of the fast-paced scenes and abnormal amount of dialogues. If the same pacing of the first season applies to that particular second game, it will definitely take two or three times longer to finish. The torrid pacing slowed somewhat in the fourth game, but the damage has been done.

Just like the storyline, character developments in this season continues where the first season left, and this aspect is actually where this anime has improved from the first season. With more games (3 of them, 2 with significance), the members of the team grows almost exponentially compared to their rates in the first season. Just like what I wrote in the first season’s review, this is what I hoped will happen in its subsequent sequel(s). The main protagonist grows rapidly during this season as expected, but so are some of his fellow club mates, like his nagging boyfriend.

The ending is even more awesome in the second season, and I hope a third one will come some time in the future. If the manga is any indication, it will not be anytime soon.

His relationship with his boyfriend can never get better.

Character Design:-
My comments for the same section in the first season’s review still applies.

Voice Acting:-
My comments for the same section in the first season’s review still applies.

Music:-
The OST is still hard to notice at all (hard to blame this anime for this though due to its nature), but the OP and ED themes are good.

Animation/Direction:-
For animation quality and choreography, my comment from the first season still applies. The director screwed up somewhat with the pacing, but apart from that his directing is up to par with what he has done in the first season.

Conclusion:-
7 out of 10. Just a little bit off the track compared to the last season. Durarara and B gata H kei, which one will be next? 

The team shouts this slogan every time the team something good.

Shortlink: http://wp.me/prgSo-fI

The main protagonist, and also the best character in this anime.

The end of an era beckons, as the long-reigning ‘Anime of the Year 2008’ title holder Wolf and Spice has finally been deposed from its throne. After nearly two years, the wolf girl has finally been swatted away out from the baseball stadium by a part-time baseball anime, full-time psychological thriller titled One Outs. Read on to see how this anime tramples over the sport genre handicap like it is nothing as the anime obtained the elusive 10 out of 10 rating.

And this is why he is so awesome.

Story:-
A legendary clean-up batter from a weak minor league baseball team is training himself in the off-season to prepare for the new season. There he meets with the main protagonist in a modified 1-vs-1 baseball game called ‘One Outs’. The batter miraculously wins the game and subsequently took the main protagonist into his baseball team, aiming for the championship (not Koshien thank god).

This is the main antagonist behind the curtains that always wanted our protagonist to fail.

No matter how you look at this anime, comparisons with the likes of Akagi and Kaiji will be inevitable. Just like Akagi, the main story is basically non-existent, but the baseball games are awesome. The games in Cross Game or Ookiku Furikabutte is nowhere as brutal as the games in here. The main protagonist doesn’t have a 160km/h fastball like the protagonist in Cross Game, but the former is so dangerous with his ability to read people minds, getting his teammates or foes to do what he wants, engaging in mind games and psychological warfare. He is even better than Akagi in that he made his own luck instead of having it handed to him.

But more often than not, or actually all the time, he will have his ass handed to him by the main protagonist.

The presentation of the baseball games are done very well; there are no games that takes too many episodes, but still allows for the awesomeness of the main protagonist to be shown. The presentation is excellent and the pacing of the games are impeccable. The arc transitions, whilst not perfect, are also better than the ones in Akagi (one of the blips in that anime IMHO). The ending is probably too tight, which has the double effect of making the ending too rushed, but also open-ended. Uhmmm… can we have a second season of this anime Japan?

And this is his face as he sees his debts increased.

Character development is the only part of this anime that is markedly inferior when compared to Akagi and Kaiji. In Akagi and Kaiji, their main protagonists started each series as n00bs who will then VERY QUICKLY learns their way in their respective high-pressure environments. Here in this anime the main protagonist is actually very good from the start, and all he has to do is to plot the downfall of his foes on the opposing team (and the high-ups in his own team). The far simpler character development strategies of our main protagonist here mean that he at the end of this anime is the same character that starts at the first episode. He wasn’t really helped by his opponents who are too weak, so far.

His teammates are in awe as they watched the main protagonist trolling another opponent.

Character Design:-
While this anime is seinen just like Akagi and Kaiji, the character designs in this anime are definitely well within shounen genre territory. There are quite a lot of black hairs here too (and so are brown), even if the main protagonist is blonde (probably dyed). A positive point for this anime.

And the baseball team manager of course would want to use the best pitcher in Japan as much as he can.

Voice Acting:-
Unsurprisingly, the same voice actor for Akagi and Kaiji also voiced the main protagonist of this anime, which will automatically makes him the best voiced character in this anime. He has far more dialogues in this anime compared to Akagi too. As a whole. voice acting in this anime is flawless. A positive point for this anime.

WARNING: If he smirks, someone is going to get shafted in the ass.

Music:-
Only the OST in this anime is good, but not for any of the OP/ED themes. Definitely inferior overall to Akagi and Kaiji.

Another screenshot of him, complete with an apt description of him.

Animation/Direction:-
The animation quality in this anime is good, even in fast-paced scenes. Choreography in this anime is just average though. I have nothing to complaint about the director here.

Another picture of him, after pulling yet another miracle.

Conclusion:-
As mentioned above, 10 out of 10 despite the sport genre handicap. And of course this anime will replace Wolf and Spice as the best anime in 2008. If I were to compare this anime with Akagi and Kaiji, this anime is better than the latter but not the former. This is mainly because the mahjong games in Akagi are more intense and exhilarating plus it has better character development strategies.

More pictures of him looking down on his opponents, and you!

Shortlink: http://wp.me/prgSo-cp

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