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ローゼンメイデン 
September 24, 2008 | 
16 Comments
This episode turns out to be awesome. Everything from the animation to the way the story unfolds just scream quality. The anime elongates the fight between Kishin and Shinigami a little bit but it is surprisingly well done. Also of note is the soundtrack that is used in the episode. I was especially impressed with the piece that was used as a background of Shinigami vs. Kishin fight. The episode pretty much concludes the Medusa arc but by the end of this episode, it's obvious that the arc will have a lasting impact on subsequent arcs in the series. Although I was rather confused with what the Kishin said to Shinigami about how they won't see each other again after this. I got the impression that Kishin is meant to be the ultimate chaos so I don't understand why he won't return to create some more shenanigans for Shinigami-sama.
September 13, 2008 | 10 Comments
I'm sorry for the lack of update but I have no choice but to go cold turkey on blogging since I had 2 important exams this past week. Anyway, this is a good episode but since I'm not that interested in Stein or Medusa, I find the episode feels a bit tedious. I keep wanting the action to move quickly to both Free and Eruka since much to my surprise, they are far more entertaining than I thought they'd be. For some reason, I like the humorous bad guys more than the outright evil ones in this series. Medusa just comes across as arrogant and a bit boring. I could barely understand what she and Stein were talking about as the two were fighting each other since they're talking about insanity. Free and Eruka, on the other hand, are strangely humane in their reaction to the Kishin. It's kind of amusing to see them struggling to keep themselves sane, especially when they start to hallucinate about the Kishin. I'm also surprised that both Kid and Black Star deal with the hallucination relatively well.
September 4, 2008 | 13 Comments
That scene where Chrona is being molested by Ragnarok always brings the LULZ. That scene also suggests two possibilities. The first is that Chrona is a girl and that's why Ragnarok keeps harassing her. The second is that Ragnarok swings the other way. That's why it is keen to check out Chrona's phallic good down there. See? Either way, it's still full of LULZ. The question is, would you rather see Chrona as a guy, a girl, or a sexually ambiguous character like he/she has always been? Personally, I just want them to decide the character a gender and stick with it. I'm tired of having to remember not to call Chrona using gender-specific words. Moreover, I don't see the point of withholding her gender like this except for some occasional LULZ like this episode. If you've read the manga, has there been a situation where Chrona's non-disclosed gender ends up becoming a major plot point? Anyway, if I have to guess, I think Chrona is a girl.
This episode turns out to be really good and full of character development. This is completely unexpected since I thought it'll just be full of character battles/power-ups but the writers actually have a really good story in between the battle. Also of interest is the modified ED theme, which has been given a different animation to reflect the story of the episode. I think this is the first time I've seen this kind of treatment given to the ED theme. I wonder if there is other series that has done this. Of course, there are series where the ED song runs at the same time as the actual story but that's not what I meant here. I'm looking for a specifically created ED that mirrors the story of the actual episode.
This episode explains why Stein wanted Black Star to fight against Chrona instead of Maka. I don't think we'll ever find out how different the result of the fight would have been if Black Star went against Chrona but you can debate it if you choose to do so. I think if this had been Black Star, he'd have dealt with Chrona more effectively. In addition to this, Maka and Soul probably won't have to deal with the repercussion of using the Black Blood to win the battle. Having said that, the whole Maka and Soul turning dark fits with the whole "the kishin closest to us" idea. It'll be interesting to see how they deal with the dark power that they have now obtained from the Black Blood.
Well, here it is the big battle between Stein and his students vs. Medusa and her underlings. It should be interesting to see since the students are not exactly inexperienced against fighting some of the enemies. Both Maka and Kidd have face-off against Chrona before so at the very least they should know what to expect. Black Star is kind of clumsy but Devil's Eye is not exactly bright either so it's a match made in heaven. As for Eruka, she doesn't seem to be that powerful but if she is, I'm pretty sure that Kidd can take on her easily. The only one I'm worried about is actually Stein since Medusa has proven herself to be rather powerful. But now that he has Scythe-kun with him maybe his odd is better. I also can't wait to see Blair against those stupid mouse. It should be an easy win for the sexy cat considering that she's powerful and has 8 lives remaining now.
Episode 17 was 30 minutes (well, more like 15 or so since I keep fast-forwarding the episode) that I'll never get back. I'm just glad that I didn't watch it on its own or I'd have lost enthusiasm for the whole series. Thankfully episode 18 is the complete reverse of 17 and delivers a lot of tense moments. I kind of wish that there wasn't that break between episode 16 and episode 18 because it feels weird going from a not-so-funny comedic episode to a serious one. Anyway, it looks like the next few episodes will be full of cool-looking battles between the Shibusen students versus Medusa and her freaky friends. I just hope that Square Enix gives Bones the budget to animate all of the fights.
As I thought, the interesting part of this particular arc lies in the second half of the story. It's like there are 3 separate stories here. The first one is the continuation of Chrona vs. Kid's fight, which is far more intense than Chrona vs. Maka's fight seen a few episodes ago. I think if Kid wasn't too pre-occupied with irrelevant things, he'd probably be able to defeat Chrona. The second story is the continuation of Maka/Soul's problem with the Black Blood and Medusa's involvement in it. It's nice to know that this particular plot is resolved right away. The last part of the story is actually a sub-plot of the second one but I feel that it actually gives side characters like Sid-sensei and Eruka a bit more exposure than what they normally get in this series. I just hope that this is not the end of their characters because I'd like to see how powerful the adults are in comparison to the students.
In comparison to last week's episode, this one is not as exciting or fun. Having said that, this is just the first of a two parter so hopefully the second half will be far more interesting. On that note, I think this is one of the episodes which would have benefited from a complete showing of the two-parter since the first half feels a bit slow. Having said that, I did find the whole "Kishin who's closest to us" interesting so hopefully that will be explored in depth in the upcoming episodes. As for this episode, for some reason seeing this makes me want to see Pirates of the Carribean again. I don't usually like pirate-type stories but for some reason that particular film made Pirate story seems kind of fun. It's probably becauase the story is mixed with supernatural elements just like this particular episode.
This episode is as hilarious as I thought it'd be. I'm mostly impressed with how the whole thing was edited and put together. You really have to see the climax of the exam scene where everyone else but Maka and Tsubaki going bonkers due to exam pressure. It really brings back memory of cramming for exam while I was in high school/university. Also props to Miyano Mamoru for making Death the Kid even more pathetic than Tamaki from Ouran High School. The way the character begs, pleads, and drives himself insane due to his OCD is just absolutely amusing. I'm also surprised that the writers decided to include the hilarious albeit creepy epilogue involving Maka and her father. I thought after the way they cut other naughty scenes from the series, they would have exculded this particular subplot as well. Thankfully that's not the case here. Although the scene is kind of hair-raising, it's also hilarious as well.
I don't know how BONES does it on a week by week basis but I'm surprised that even after one cour, the animation still looks consistently good. I mean it's not difficult to find other series where the animation has gone downhill very quickly even after the first episode. Maybe that ka-ching injections from Square-Enix does make all the difference. In other note, I thought the new ED theme will be included starting from this episode but that doesn't seem to be the case. Maybe it'll be released next week to coincide with all of the new episodes that will be released soon. I just hope that the new ED will be better than the current one because I can't tell if there's actually some kind of semblance of rhythm with the current ED.
I don't really need an extra distraction but somehow I just managed to give myself a new one. It's high-def gaming. Well, sort of. My TV is still a lame SDTV but I'm amazed at how good the games look even without HDTV. Anyway, I'll talk about this on a separate thread later on. Moving on, this episode is pretty good although clearly it'll be a while before any episode can top the last two's awesomeness. This one is pretty nifty though, thanks to its Twin Peaks reference. I do wonder how many people got that if they are not a fan of David Lynch or the TV series. This is also probably one of those scenes that is not that obvious when it was depicted in manga format. It's only through anime that one can see that the author wanted the scene to be some kind of a homage to Twin Peaks.
I'm glad I watch all three in succession because if I just watch episode 9 on its own, I'd have lost interest in the series. That episode was boring beyond belief even though it's clearly meant to be funny. Thankfully episode 10 and 11 are the reverse of episode 9 and it's full of character development and background stories. Plus, for once Black Star is shown to be a lot more than the big mouth that he normally tends to be. While the series has been impressive in terms of animation before, this is probably the first time that I've been impressed with the quality of the storyline. I did wish that the story had been a bit more specific about Masamune's past but I guess it's not really in the writers' interest to tell too much story about him when the main focus of the story are supposed to be Tsubaki and Black Star.
After last week's debacle about Chrona's gender, I decided to keep the character as genderless as possible. When I got around to do it, however, I found that it's rather hard to do so. It makes me realized how English language, or at least English language that I'm accustomed to use is very gender-reliant. The problem comes when discussing an action that Chrona performs or an object belonging to the character. Normally, this is where I use first person words such as his or her to avoid repetition of the character's name. It makes me wonder if others who write articles have the same problem as I do. I also wonder if this is also a problem prevalent in other language apart from Japanese. It's also kind of interesting how such ambiguity allows an author to not reveal the gender of the character until such a point. This also means that one has to be careful of some of the translation work out there because what's probably meant to be a secret up to a point, would have been revealed early due to the use of gender-identification words.
Because the majority of the characters in this show are kids, I often wonder how the show would fare if it's screened in other countries. The realization never occured to me before this episode but the kids on this show do get injured quite a lot. I am already used to seeing this kind of thing in anime so nothing fazed me but I can imagine that some people would not be happy seeing children violently treated in this series. The thing is, I think the show would be able to get away a lot more if they had used adults or at least teenagers in the story. I guess the reason high school kids are being used in this series is to appeal to the target market but at the same time, is it really necessary for the characters to be young so that high school kids would enjoy the series? Anyway, if you have a choice, what is the age range of the characters that you prefer to see? Personally, I think it'd be nice to see characters in the 20-30 years old range.
Although Death the Kid can be pretty stupid, Miyano Mamoru does a good job of voicing him. In a way, Kid reminds me a bit of Tamaki because the voice that Miyano employs for this particular character is pretty similar to the voice that he used for Tamaki. Death the Kid is not the only thing that is funny about this episode. The pairing of Black Star and Soul as partner is a pretty amusing concept as well. In fact, the whole Soul/Black Star vs. Death the Kid turns out to be very funny, making this the funniest episode thus far. It makes me wonder if I actually prefer this kind of comedic-based episode than the endless fight ones. Oh well, let's see what happen next week since that should be the one where the group goes on a mission again. But between this and last week's episode, I definitely enjoyed this one a lot more.
Well, this is a rather pleasant ending to Dr.Stein's mini arc. This is actually one of those occasions where I feel lucky that I haven't read the corresponding chapter. If you haven't either, then try not to read it until you watch the episode first because it's worth it. Unfortunately, the animation starts showing sign of degradation here. While it still looks good in general, it's not as clean and perfect as the past 4 weeks. As long as it doesn't degrade a lot more than it currently is, I think I'm going to be fine with it. Anyway, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news but the missing interrogation scene wasn't added in the late night version and we don't get to see it either in this one. Since Soul Eater is an evening show, I can understand BONES decision to excise the scene although it's a bit unfortunate as well because it's a funny scene more than anything else. This, however, makes me wonder about the purpose of the late night version. Is it just a way to increase ratings for the series instead of giving the ultimate version of the series?
The animation for this episode continues to be unbelievably good that it feels like BONES somehow obtains non-stop funding from Square Enix. The only issue that I have with this episode is the removal of a brief comedic scene from the episode. I was thinking that maybe it'll be screened on next week's episode but I am a bit doubtful now since the story has moved beyond that scene. I think this is unfortunate because the scene in question, while slightly juvenile, is actually quite funny. If I have to guess, the scene got cut out because it involves panty-flashing and may not be deemed appropriate for the time slot for this normal broadcast. It'll be interesting to see if the scene will be included in the late night broadcast because so far that other version has no added value whatsoever in comparison to the normal broadcast.
This is probably the most violent of the 3 prologue stories. While the first two episode showed the more playful side of the story, this one is pretty twisted. I certainly didn't expect the change of villain halfway through the episode. In fact, I thought the main villain they'll face in this one is the witch. Animation-wise, this episode is still as good as the first two. I guess having Square-Enix as one of your sponsors does help with the budget. Even mundane scene like Maka and Tsubaki wondering where their boys are look clean and well-designed. By the way, halfway through the episode, I was wondering why Kid sounds familiar to me and then it hit me that he sounds exactly like Light from Death Note. It looks like Miyano Mamoru uses his Light voice to voice Death and that voice is far easier to recognize than whatever voice he decides to use to voice Zero in Vampire Knight.
The second episode still boasts very impressive animation. It's really weird to see a shounen series like this getting such a high production value. Just take a look at the fight between Black Star and Mifune. Normally this would be one blurry mess but in this one, you can actually see each detail. Moreover, the whole thing looks stylish. It makes me wonder where the money comes from and how long can BONES keep up the quality of the series as it is now. The anime also makes an effort to connect Black Star/Tsubaki stories with Maka/Soul story from last week's episode by featuring the four characters in one scene. I am rather surprised to see the camaraderie between the four of them because I thought they'd be competing with each other. Instead, each one seems to have a good understanding of the other group even though they are basically competing for the same goal.
OP Theme: 「resonance」 by T.M.Revolution - AVI version (53MB) | PSP version (17.3MB)
This is quite an unusual treat for shounen series fans. It's quite unusual to see a shounen series with this kind of high-quality animation/character design devoted to it. The OP/ED themselves are quite a treat but much to my surprise, the animations within the episode itself are solid throughout. The only reservation I have so far is that the series is a bit cute for my liking although I have to admit that it's not too excessive. It's more along the lines of Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas in its character/background design. I personally like the first episode but is a bit hesitant as well because I know that shounen series can be a bit repetitive as well. I also wonder if BONES can keep up the awesome animation quality that is shown in this episode later on. The story follows the life of 3 Shinigami scythe technicians and their humanoid weapons. In this first episode, we get to follow the 1st technician, Maka and her weapon, Soul Eater, who is also the name of the series. Anyway, let me know what you think about the series and if it stays interesting in the long run.