Animé Weekly Review

After three episodes you usually know which shows are going to be good and which ones are going to be bad. Looks like this season’s highlights are UN-GO, ChyahaFure, Fate/Zero and Last Exile Fam, The Silver Wing for me.

Fate/Zero episode 5

Riiiiiiidddddeeerr! + /facepalm resume the start of this episode.  So after Rider shows up, he asks all other servants watching to do the same (appear) and Gilgamesh (Archer) and Berserker do so. Gil gets all annoyed by Berserker looking at him, so he use his noble phantasm (ultimate skill: Gate of Babylon) to attack him. Nice sword work by Berserker here, he’s really a strong opponent. Lots of fighting in this episode. The whole thing turned into Berserker+Lancer vs Saber until Rider interfered and everbody went back home.

Once again we get nice battle animation. There was also a lot of Gilgamesh’s “I’m mightier than thou” attitude. I’ll have to get used to it.

ChyahaFuru episode 4

Back to the “present.” We learn a bit more about karuta. It seems like it’s a bit more complicated than just memorize 100 poems and learn where they are on the mat. Chyaha makes it to her Class A rank too, and she gets Taichi to play again with her. Yeah! Teenage Taichi is a much better character than kid Taichi too; well, at least improved. The episode ends with some bad news about Arata though: he doesn’t want to play karuta anymore. I really wonder how Chyaha will solve this little problem.

Persona 4 episode 4

We are still on Monday and the episode starts right into some action. Chie is making good use of her Perona. Also, Yukiko has some weird fantasies; well, her shadow does. Lots of background about her in this episode, felt a bit like an info dump, because we didn’t see much of her in the preview episode. The whole “bird in a cage” was really sad, though. Oh, and we learn that Chie is Yukiko’s Prince Charming. The show still has nice animation, but I find the design of the Persona to be a bit on the ugly side. Yukiko’s winning the totally fugly prize here.

Horizon In the Middle of Nowhere episode 4

I guess this is where the real plot starts? Strangely, the real fighting scenes didn’t have fanservice in them and they were well done, but the rest was a bit too blah. This show is trying to be too many things at the same time. Somehow I feel that if they focused only on the plot and action, but left the fanservice and comedic aspects out, it would have been much better.

Guilty Crown episode 3

Never transfer a pop idol into a high school. Is it normal that I think the setting of the show is a hundred of times more interesting than the main character? Anyway, we get a bit of exposition and learn a few secrets, but in the end the most important character in the show is boring to watch. I’m dropping this.

UN-GO episode 3

When the episode ended, I went all, “That’s all?” but the preview showed it was a two-parter and I felt much better about it. It ended rather “sharply” without any real conclusion, despite the “truth” being revealed. The mystery was easier to see through than last week, but there are quite a few questions surrounding it that still need answers. We also get a bit of character development for the Chairman’s daughter (the Chairman is the guy who controls all the information). Seems like she doesn’t agree with her father coming up with made-up solutions to crime cases to hide some truth or another.  I like this development.  Bonus: Inga was as Inga as usual and next week have a mad doll.

Gundam AGE episode 3

More fighting. Not much happened besides a lot of cheese and cliché here. Everybody was saved, the bad guys ran away, more Newtype powers were revealed and there’s no hint at where this is really going. The art style isn’t Gundam AGE’s main problem, the lack of a defined setting is.

Last Exile Fam episode 3

Cooldown episode with character development. This was much welcome. We also get lots of info about the world. Milia gets lots of character development and we learn a few things about Fam’s past. Also, now I can’t hate the Ades Federation people, they are so nice toward each other. All the characters felt a lot more human after this episode. If this show continues to do its action episodes and cooldown ones this well, it’s really going to be the best of the season, low quality 2D arts or not. The 2D was fine in this episode, but there are a lot of close-ups.

On the down side, the Ades Federation generals get introduced and they are voiced by famous voice actors, which make this all kind of strange to me. Hearing Code Geass Zero talking about strategy without the fabulous was really strange actually.

This show has a lots of potatoes, too. The Sky Pirates mostly eat potatoes and their city/hideout is called Kartoffel (potato in German). Not sure if this is a joke, but it’s kind of funny…

Also, Shinigami (God of Death) Silvius is talked about by everybody (the Ades Fed and the Sky Pirates) and I can say that she’s going to show up next week (we see her in the preview). This is the show “Cool Ship.” Also, I saw a red vanship in the preview for next week. Fam is so gonna regret her last word this week: stealing the Silvius. That red vanship was my favorite vanship in the first series. In other words: I can’t wait for episode 4!