Reviewed this week: Baccano! 5, Doujin Work 6-7, Oh! Edo Rocket 2-6, Seirei no Moribito 21, Sisters of Wellber 8
…and in manga: Akagi 5, Aria 24-5, Spiral 53-6, Tsubasa 166
ANIME
CURRENT SERIES RANKINGS
- Dennou Coil (1) – Don’t make me wait!
- SaiMono II (2) – I need the next arc, and soon
- Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (3) – I’m in despair!
- Baccano! (4) – I don’t know what’s going on, but I like it
- Oh! Edo Rocket (9) – bizarre yet fun
- Mushi-Uta (5) – best episode yet
- Mononoke (6) – masks, and lots of them
- Darker than Black (7) – caring at minimum
- Doujin Work (8) – this is becoming a guilty pleasure
- Koutetsu Sangokushi (10) – pure HARD GAY
- Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai (11) – evil uncle
- Seirei no Moribito (13) – Flashback Mode
- Romeo X Juliet (12) – what’s the point anymore?
- El Cazador de la Bruja (14) – useless Nadie
SLOW RANKINGS
- Shounen Onmyouji (1)- now getting its own musical!?
- Tetsuko no Tabi (2)- demoted to slow
- Sisters of Wellber (3) – predictable but fun
- Love GetChu! (4)- light entertainment
Baccano! 5: It’s been a while since I had any new Baccano, and whilst I still don’t have much idea of the overall story, it remains highly enjoyable. Whilst the events on the Flying Pussyfoot continue on course, elsewhere we learn more about the product that can render a person immortal, as well as see Firo join up with a mafia group. Memorable scenes include the well-choreographed knife fight, an evil boss sucking in this body and memories of an underling through his hand, and of course any scene in which the energetic Isaac and Miria appear. More of the same, please.
Doujin Work 6-7: It’s been a while, but now we have a double dose of Doujin Work, in which Najimi continues to pit herself against her newfound rival. Whilst episode six, in which both Najimi and Rival attempt to improve their drawing skills, is merely passably entertaining, the true hilarity returns in episode seven, in which Rival gets the wrong end of the stick and becomes convinced that Hoshi is HARD GAY for Justice. Yes, this joke has been done before, but somehow the series makes it amusing again.
*SLOW CATCH-UP* Oh! Edo Rocket 2-6: Oh! Edo Rocket is a strange series; along with the likes of FLCL it should be completely random and nonsensical, but somehow its bizarre elements combine to make a greater whole. Alongside the story of fireworks maker Seikichi trying to make fireworks that can go to the moon, we have sky monsters, Men in Black (complete with transformation sequence), a raccoon fetishist, chibis and much more, and yet despite the complete disregard for conventional storytelling or even the period it is supposed to be set in, the series seems tailor made for the more random side of my personality. The only reason I haven’t caught up yet is a simple lack of time.
Seirei no Moribito 21: This week on Seirei no Moribito, Balsa sits down and talks- about her past with Jiguro. Actually, I have to admit to a soft spot for this sort of character developing flashback episode, and with the return of decent action scenes for the first time since episode 3, this actually marks an improvement from “completely dull and pointless” to “largely dull and pointless with one or two good parts”.
Wellber no Monogatari ~Sisters of Wellber~ 8: Whilst Rita and Tina decide to speed things up by taking a boat to Greedom, our evil megane villain decides to return to the plot- only now he genuinely wants to marry Rita. This is another mildly enjoyable episode with some potential for parody, but the series still isn’t breaking into the league of true worth.
MANGA
Akagi 5: Very little happens in this chapter, in which the Yakuza guys call their rep player and Akagi explains his reasoning in the previous round, but as always, the series manages to be both absorbing and enjoyable. This is truly one series that can get away with being slow paced.
Aria 24-5: Volume five concludes with these two chapters, which again cover stories we’ve already seen in the anime- first we see Akira giving Akari and the others a training session, before Akari spends a pleasant afternoon at the Café San Marco. Once again, since Aria is so good, there is no problem in experiencing the same material twice, although I also yearn for new stories.
Spiral 53-6: Kudos to the scanlators for keeping up an insanely fast pace in translating this series, enabling us to reach the end of volume eleven only a week after I read volume ten. Sadly, these chapters are basically one long round of exposition, explaining the origin of the Blade Children, as well as Kiyotaka and Ayumu’s place in the grand plan- somehow, with all these revelations, the series is starting to lose its uniqueness, and so I fear this is the turning point where it all begins to go downhill.
Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle 166: Ah, Tsubasa, I now see that the reason for reading you is to see how many ridiculous plot twists CLAMP can throw in before the end. After the death of King Ashura, a secondary curse that was apparently set by Fei Wong activates, trapping our heroes so that they cannot move on to the next world- cue a scene in which Kurogane slices off his own arm to give vampire-Fye (it’s okay if you’d forgotten he was a vampire) the power to set them free. Syaoran-real is also supposed to be taking white Mokona’s earring to black Mokona for some reason, although I’m not sure what bearing this has on anything.
I’m glad I’m not the only one hideously confused by TRC. Having come late to the series I was absolutely hooked from the point real Syaoran comes onto the scene, and have kept reading since then, come what may. I just hope at some point Clamp return to that form, because ever since Sakura got stabbed it’s gone from complicated to incoherent in one easy step. Come on chaps, get it together!
Still enjoying Seirei no Moribito though, despite the sitting/standing and talking. The characters are good enough that they manage to keep me interested no matter what. Plus the flashbacks are actually good. They’ve made me fall in love with Balsa all over again, for a start…
Yay, someone else who’s equally confused with Tsubasa…right now I just wish CLAMP would wrap it up, and in an ideal world get back to their unfinished ‘on hiatus’ series *cough*X/1999*cough*.
The last few episodes of Darker than Black have been cool, so don’t give up on the show yet! Now that that everything is wrapping up…. 23 is the beginning of the end. I can’t see Darker than Black having a happy ending though, and that makes me sad. I know the show has been trying to emulate the story telling style of Bebop and no happiness came of that ending either.
Tsubasa is starting to loose my interest. CLAMP is off wallowing in their angst… God, it makes me miss the Piffle World arc. I’ve read several different translations of what the heck was going on in the last chapter and every single one contradicts the other!