Nankurunaisa

Have been sick for a bit so I could find time to finish Blood+. The ending is what you’d expect except for a few small twists, but overall a very well-done ending to a nice series, and very emotional as well. One of the best endings I’ve seen in a while… unrushed, well-paced and resolved most things neatly. Highly recommended!

Yuuuuukikaze!

Just finished Yukikaze tonight, a sci-fi OVA mixed with great aerial combat scenes. I said earlier that I like Macross Zero for its aerial fight scenes, but Yukikaze’s make up for the lack of flashy missle chases with very realistic cockpit-centric angles and stylish goosebump moments! The whole alien(JAMs)-human struggle backdrop is quite interesting, but I think the OVAs don’t have enough time to explore the complex story offered in the original novel. Which is not a problem, I really enjoyed the combat scenes! The first 4 episodes offered some really intriguing fights, but the last episode is something else. First we were treated to how Yukikaze singlehandedly (literally, since its pilot Lt. Fukai is not onboard) wiped out an army. There are some crazy Star Wars-like first-person view of Yukikaze going thru some complex flight paths… nice! Then in the last half we’re treated to the combination of Lt. Fukai and Yukikaze as a man-machine superior being that provides the crucial trump card. But Yukikaze doesn’t fight alone, it commanded 3 unmmaned clones of itself (Knights) in a spiraling formation.. OMGOMGOMG! Too cool.

Everytime I watched an episode I wanted to build a Mave. But now that I’ve seen the final episode version of Yukikaze LOADED with gazillion missiles, I want that version instead. It looks sort of insane with all those missle tail flags sticking out on top and bottom of its wings!

Jigoku Shoujo

I got a bit burned out from working on Four continuously for the past two weeks (and still have to fix some stuff ), so I took a detour and started watching Jigoku Shoujo (or Hell Girl).

Basically the plot revolves around a girl from hell who answer people’s wishes for revenge by claiming the souls of both parties involved, except the caller would defer the “payment” until his/her time’s up, while the anatagonists’ souls would be claimed immediately. For the first 8-9 episodes it was “revenge of the week” stories, and from that point on it’s slightly different with a reporter guy and his daughter got involved in figuring out what’s with the Hell Girl and her gang.

While the idea is pretty neat and the stylish execution is pleasing to the eyes, the stories got very repetive after the 3rd episode or so, people just for one reason or another hate someone, and then have them whacked. With the reporter’s appearance, the show started questioning the whole morale of vengence, but I thought it got there too late; but it looks like something’s going to happen so I guess I’ll keep watching it.

Blood+

I’ve finished the 2nd arc of Blood+, and I must say I’m liking the show a lot. The basic plot is pretty standard – evil corp turning people into monsters, girl kick-ass fighter, forgot who she is, lived peacefully with family until it got destroyed, trying to find herself. But the details somehow pull the show away from the deux es machina and complete predictability. Part of its focus is also unusual for anime of this genre, that family is very important, and the powerless family members somehow are still in the show contributing to events, and not just acting as plot devices (i.e. sacrificial victims and reasons for revenge). Looks like it’s picking up steam as well, with the 2nd OP and ED done by Laruku and Nakashima Mika respectively. Would be really interesting to see how this show turns out.

Robots replacing robots

I was test driving the neat “Google RelatedLinks” box at the bottom of this page, and saw this article about Gundam Wing past being its prime. It strangly echoes what I briefly thought about recently, that SEED is so much a better as a story than Wing was. Of course, being a more recent series, you have better animations and stuff in SEED, but my memory of Wing is mostly people switching sides all the time – often for no good reasons – just for the sake of the plot. That’s not to say SEED’s characters don’t do that, and SEED Destiny’s “sides” are even more blurred, but at least we have a smaller set of core characters that have believable motivations, and the story flows better. I mainly remember Wing by its final Endless Waltz OVA, which has very cool designs and a simple story.