Gatchaman Crowds - If Zooey Deschanel Had An Iron Man Suit

Speculative Review of Gatchaman Crowds

By James U.

Speculative Review at a Glance:

Rating as of Episode 5:

2 out of 5

Highest Point:

Certain stories focus on the average citizens rather than the main cast. The bystander’s point of view can get pretty immersive and enhances the believability of the setting.

Lowest Point:

A very unrelatable and uninteresting main character. She’s almost too perfect to the point that she devalues the other characters because everything she does is always right anyway, even though she acts on a whim almost all the time. Her happy-go-lucky demeanor even when things go south, while admirable and very shounen hero-like, still doesn't make her fun to watch since it seems like she’s not taking things very seriously even when people’s lives are at risk.

Recommendation:

It’s been a while since I've seen a Henshin Hero type of anime. While I’m a total sucker for such things, it’s not enough to pull me into it. There are just too many things that drag it down, plus it’s only meant to run for 12 episodes. It’s filled with bad cliches, it’s kinda bland, and the main character is insufferable. I don’t recommend it.

Overview

Gatchaman Crowds is a transformation superhero sci-fi anime set in modern-day Japan. It’s loosely based on the old 70s anime Science Ninja Team Gatchaman (It was localized as G-Force: Guardians of Space). It’s directed by Nakamura Kenji, a guy who storyboarded Karas and directed that weird economy-based combat anime C: The Money of Soul and Possibility of Control. Crowds started airing July 13, 2013 and is scheduled to have 12 episodes.

Devil Survivor 2 The Animation; If Pokemon and RahXephon Had a Demonic Baby

Devil Survivor 2 The Animation Full Review

By James U.

Review at a Glance:

Rating:

3 out of 5

Highest Point:

The monster fights are fantastic. The choreography is pretty decent, the effects are awesome, and it’s coupled with some of the best music I’ve heard since Guilty Crown.

Lowest Point:

Most of the cast is unsympathetic, with little background on them and even less character exploration. The pacing didn’t help, but certainly wasn’t the only cause since there were enough filler scenes that could’ve been used to flesh them out.

Recommendation:

Devil Survivor 2 is a decent anime adaptation. What it lacks in story-telling it makes up for fantastic fight scenes and potentially deep lore. It’s got a very tight pace which makes it easier to watch, but it also means there’s not that much time to look around. I give it a recommendation on the grounds that it’s decent overall without any deal-breaking issues.

Overview

Devil Survivor 2: The Animation is an anime adaptation of Atlus’ Shin Megami Tensei video game series of the same name. It’s directed by Kishi Seiji who also did the anime adaptation of Persona 4, another SMT game from Atlus, which was actually pretty good. It aired from April 5 to June 28, 2013 and ran for 13 episodes.

Hataraku Maou-Sama!; You Know It's Good When The Devil Is A Part-Timer

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OreImo; A Decent Enough Anime, Completely Ruined By One Terrible Character

Ore no Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii Wake ga Nai Quickie Review

By James U.

Ore no Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii Wake ga Nai (My Little Sister Can’t Be This Cute) or OreImo for short, is an anime adaptation of a Japanese slice of life light novel written by Fushimi Tsukasa. Season one aired October 3, 2012 to December 19, 2012, and directed by Kanbe Hiroyuki. Season two on the other hand, started airing April 7, 2013 and is expected to run for 13 episodes.

High School student Kousaka Kyousuke is the estranged older brother of Kousaka Kirino, a middle school track and field star / part-time model. One night he finds a copy of his sister's eroge (erotic video game), inadvertently discovering her hidden otaku side, and sparking an odd "life counseling" relationship between the two... for two entire seasons. And I hated every bit of it until I finally had enough.

That's right, I dropped this fucker like a bad habit. The truth is, there's a lot to like about this anime. The characters are likable (Kyousuke and the other side characters), the plot lines are more or less decent, and the comedy is fairly competent. There's really only one fucking thing that I hate about this anime, and that's Kirino, the younger sister. She's an absolute fucking bitch, and everybody lets her get away with everything just because they know how she really feels. "Oh, she's just like that because she can't express herself very well." Really!? Fuckin' REALLY!?

Ok, let me back up for a bit. See, the thing about Kirino is that she's incredibly bitchy towards everyone, even to those who share her secret otaku passion. She's always on a high horse, acting as if she's better than everybody else; she's cranky all the time even when people treat her nicely, going so far as to step on the respect she has been given; heck, she's not even trying to be nice when she needs something from other people. It's unrealistic how her attitude doesn't drive everyone away (yes, it's THAT bad). The fact that everyone, especially her cool older brother, tries to please her ensures that this character stays as still and stagnant as the diseased water in my garage. Kirino is the one thing wrong about this anime, and while her friends weren't driven away by her asshattery, I (and hopefully the audience) sure as hell couldn't stomach her any longer. I endured one season of this anime because she wasn't so bad; only to see her be twice as terrible in the second season. Hell, I even endured the incestuous undertones since everything that WASN'T related to her was fun to watch.

In the end, there is no emotional payoff for this. Kirino rarely, if ever, gets her comeuppance and even when she does, it’s often subdued and unsatisfying. She's an asshole, and a bully who pushes everybody around, but doesn't get any form of punishment for it. I can only hope she gets bitch-slapped by a sledgehammer later in the series, but that's not enough of an incentive for me to stick around.

I didn't think it was possible for just ONE character to ruin an entire series for me until now. Seriously, if you’re struggling to find some sort of satisfaction from this anime, then stop wasting your time and drop this title now. You'll thank me later.

Kakumeiki Valvrave; There's Something Off About This Sunrise-Produced Mecha

Kakumeiki Valvrave Quickie Review

By James U.

Kakumeiki Valvrave (Valvrave the Liberator) is a new sci-fi mecha anime produced by Sunrise (of Gundam fame) and directed by Matsuo Kou (Rozen Maiden, Red Garden, and Storyboard for Gundam 00). It started airing April 12, 2013 and is expected to have 12 episodes.

High school students Tokishima Haruto and his classmates were having a normal high school day until the militaristic country of Dorisa attacked their space colony; a collection of city spheres in owned by JIOR, a neutral country in the middle of a space war between Dorsia and ARUS. In the midst of the chaos, Haruto falls into the cockpit of JIOR’s experimental Gunda-- I mean superweapon and proceeds to cut through those invading fools.

If that bit of premise sounds familiar to you, it’s because it practically copies almost every other Gundam premise in the genre. Case in point: the original Mobile Suit Gundam, Gundam SEED, Gundam AGE, and probably a lot more mecha titles that escapes me at the moment. While it’s pretty cliche, it does have some fantastic animation, and a likable cast (more or less). As fun as Valvrave is, there’s just something about it that puts me off that I can’t quite put my finger on. Expect a Speculative Review after the fifth episode or so.