Archive for July 2012
Guilty Crown Review
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“Why do people fight, hurting one another?”
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As of recent years, among all the overrated anime, Guilty Crown may perhaps
be one of the most over-hyped series yet.
After the “Lost Christmas” virus outbreak, Japan had been under control of
GHQ, a military force backed by the United Nations which helped Japan in
maintaining the virus outbreak. The main story focuses on Ouma Shu, a
high-school student who got dragged into a war between the “Undertakers”, a
group of terrorists, who are fighting against the government. Shu has a strange
ability called the “Powers of Kings”, where he can extract tools or weapons
from the hearts of other people, which are more commonly known as “voids”.
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| Inori |
Guilty Crown may sounds interesting at first, but their storytelling
dampens on the overall potential of the show. The anime’s main problem
story-wise can be easily summed as unoriginal and unorganized. The anime is
filled with numerous cliches and the plot is one big jumbling mess. The writing
is really bad, as if the creators are just doing whatever they want with the
plot as the show went on. This problem is present until to the very end,
resulting in awkward and unnatural plot twists, due to silly reasons or logic
behind some character’s actions.
Because of bad writing, I had been watching the whole show at face value,
even when there were drama, tears and even death, I watch all of them with a
poker face. I can’t feel anything, due to aforementioned issues. Of cause, this
is still somewhat okay, but even the characters are horrible.
The whole shows focuses on Ouma Shu, a seemingly bland male lead at first
who only desires an ordinary life. While his character development to a more
matured and decisive lead would had been better with a more flowed pacing, the
creators messed it up. Latter part of the series, he looks like a complete
imitation of Lelouch from Code Geass, a very bad imitation at that. I would had
pitied and sympathize his role, but again, with the unstable pacing, I just
watch him running about with a poker face once more.
The other characters are no better, Inori, for one, is incredibly dull and
serves nothing more but just a plot device. Arugo at one point mentioned that
Inori had been reduced to nothing more but Shu’s servant, or something along
those lines, and he’s completely right. Gai, on the other hand, “plays” leader
at one point, and “plays” the bad guys in the latter part of the show, again,
with a pretty illogical and dumb reason which the creators probably just came
up with as soon as they arrive at that particular scene. The rest of the
supporting cast doesn’t even look that appealing too, or perhaps Tsugumi’s
waving her ass around while hacking may be the saving grace as characters go
by.. wait, whut? I almost got blinded and was about to judge Guilty Crown in a
biased manner, whew.
The true saving grace for Guilty Crown, may be the sights and sounds. The
visuals are nothing of cause, compared to the likes of Nisemonogatari or Black
Rock Shooter, but on it’s own, it is already a sight to see, literally. The
backgrounds are astonishingly detailed, and gives a post-apocalypse atmosphere,
which the show is obviously going for. Animations are damn smooth too, which
results in great action sequences.
The music is nice, though some English tracks can be heard from time to
time, not to say they are bad, but they doesn’t quite match with Guilty Crown.
The openings and ending tracks are amazing though, and both Koede and Chelly,
who sang most of the opening/ending tracks, are awesome singers. Of cause, any
songs which are involved by supercell one way or the other will never
disappoint for sure.
Guilty Crown had a huge marketing budget, and was given a 22-episodes
timeslot. They had more then enough episodes to create a more organized
storyline. As of now though, Guilty Crown’s plot and characters are just a huge
blatant rip-off from other popular titles, creating an anime far more cliche
one had never thought of. That is actually okay, if Guilty Crown had a decent
execution, even a typical plot element can be great, but Guilty Crown falls
short at it’s way of presenting it’s storylines.
Overall, Guilty Crown is disappointing, and it’s best not to expect too
much from this show, despite the hype over it. I heard Nitroplus is going to
adapt a Guilty Crown spin-off visual novel, well, here’s hoping Nitroplus will
do the anime some good, some way or the other…
Katekyo Hitman Reborn Review
Katekyoshi Hitman Reborn Review
“Zero to Hero”
Hitman Reborn lasted much more longer then we thought. Aired on 2006, the series ended on Sep 25 2010, airing for almost 4 consecutive years total of 203 episodes. It is not exaggerating to say that Hitman Reborn is pretty much a veteran, especially in regards to the shounen genre, excluding the comparison of The Big Three that is.. since those three are quite incomparable.
Hitman Reborn’s story revolves around a teenage boy attending Junior High whom everyone calls “Tsuna”. He is known to be bad physically and academically and top of that, he is unpopular and had no friends. His life however, takes a sudden and extraordinary change when ‘Reborn’(ciaos), an infamous hitman from the Vongola mafia family, takes a flight to Japan and trains Tsuna into becoming the 10th boss of Vongola.
One main flaw in Hitman Reborn’s storytelling is the plot inconsistencies, not much planning can be seen in plots department. That’s the sole reason why Hitman Reborn’s story changed so much drastically over the years. First, we have normal everyday school life with humors and styles that could easily turned into a harem show. Then, the actions come in and the anime finally became what it is more intended for.. shounen. It is at this time where arcs like the Kokuyo Arc and Varia Arc (no more underwear transformations! Yaaay!) emerged. And for the most recent one, it now turns into a bizarre arc which even involved time traveling on a large scale. Ironically, it seems this franchise gotten more known just when the actions started kicking in. And I myself, also prefer the more technical and bizarre plot too, with all those time traveling, guardians, rings, boxes and deathperation flames, in contrast to the former harem-y situations.
Hitman Reborn is very good at character developments. Out of all the characters, Tsuna is probably developed the most. From one who had no friends to someone who has his own mafia family (although he denies it), from one who is physically weak to someone who can fight bravely, from a wimp to a 10th generation mafia boss. Basically, he turned from zero to hero. For the other characters, I found them a bit annoying at first but after learning more about them, I grew to love them and each of their special traits the characters possesses.
Hitman Reborn has a big character cast and I can’t help but find that some of them are nothing more then just plot devices. Besides, some of the characters could even be removed and the show would have been perfectly fine too. Especially when it’s nearing the end, there’s the main character and his guardians, the Varia, the Arcobaleno, Mukuro/Chrome and the rest of the gang. In a way, it’s like Nanoha. After some epic fights, the bad guys are defeated but they usually don’t die. Then after a while, the bad guys return and help the protagonist. Rinse and repeat and that explains the huge character cast. Having so many characters made viewers lose focus on the main characters, namely Tsuna and his guardians. Nevertheless, Hitman Reborn still has some good characters. I eventually found myself liking all the guardians and some of the supporting characters like Xanxus and Squalo.
For an anime that started in 2006, it has quite a decent level of art and animations. Though I found their battle animations looking a bit stiff at some points but that is nothing to fret about as most of the elements are illustrated thoroughly. The art styles is well designed and the characters and settings did not lack too many details from the original artwork.
Hitman Reborn has a lot of great openings and endings. One of my favorite is LM.C’s BOYS & GIRLS. I also like LM.C’s 88, CHERRYBLOSSOM’s DIVE TO WORLD and Ame Ato by w-inds. The voice acting is good too. I think the only voice acting I don’t like in this show is Gokudera. He sounds too forced, especially when he had to shout during battles, doing tsukkomi or when he had to show sincearity in his voice. I do like Mukuro’s distinctive “fufufu” and Hibari’s “kamikorosu” and Squalo’s “VOOOI!!!” Lastly, I applaud Ryohei’s with his ‘extreme’ voice acting. Kiuchi Hidenobu certainly did a fine job in delivering the ‘extreme’ qualities with his voice much needed for Ryohei. Both the sound effects and background music are good but seems reused a lot as you watched the more later episodes.
Now that this anime had ended, some people found that it’s good since they don’t want Hitman Reborn to turn into another Naruto/Bleach. Yet, some miss the show and wish for more. Well certainly, Reborn had a good run and it did a good job coming so far. If you don’t like the beginning of this show, give it a chance. The plot starts to build up later on and that is when this show starts getting more interesting and exciting.
*Spoiler Alert*
The Manga is still Ongoing has three more Arcs from where the Anime left Off we Met Enma.Demon Spada, and finally the mystery why Reborn and the others are Arcobaleno. (super babies)
Beelzebub - Review
Beelzebub refers to a deity in Hell's realms and his name means "Lord of things that fly" his full names are Kaiser de Emperana Beelzebub IV(bellbo). The story follows the "strongest delinquent" in a "delinquent school" as he takes the role of a father over the demon lord's son, who has a mission as he grows up, to destroy mankind.
The story follows Oga Tatsumi, Beelzebub, Hildagarde, Aoi Kunieda and "The Loser" Takayuku Furuichi.
Oga Tatsumi who's title was Kata Middle School's Ogre and reigns as one of the strongest at Ishiyama High School despite being a freshman. He shows many qualities of an ideal demon: strong, audacious, and self-centered. Through a series of events, he is bound by a sacred contract as the "father" of Beelzebub.
Beelzebub is the son of the demon king and is the person that is to become the future demon king. Ever since his contract with Oga, he exhibits behaviors such as clinging to Oga obsessively that even Oga can't shake him off.
Hildagarde also known as Hilda, is a demon maid that was assigned to take care of baby Beelzebub. She is well-known for her appearance of a gothic Lolita with huge breasts, but is also known for her brute strength and power as a demon.
The storyline is very original. A powerful delinquent named Oga is chosen to be the "father" to the son of the devil. Along with the son of the demon is a demon maid, Hilda who is to take care of the demon's son as the "mother". She moves into Oga's house in order to take care of the Beelzebub. Although the story may sound serious, there's always a light mood in this anime with ridiculous moments following Oga and Baby Beel all the time, though as the story goes on the viewer may be turned off by the repetitiveness of the plot, just like i was.
The animation is well made and the art is good. It offers the viewer a great experience of demonic auras and magical blasts.
The sounds give a nice tune for your ears. The openings and endings are fairly good aswell as the OSTs which give a good feeling for the anime.
Personally i find Beel and Furuichi hilarious not to mention MOKU5. I didn't really find the Touhoushinki amusing at all (The delinquent gang of Ishiyama). Chiaki is cute, but I don't really like the barking milkmachine (The ginger girl).
The anime is enjoyable overall. Worth a check.