Gundam Wing

Gundam Wing is my favourite anime and perhaps is the only full anime series that I have re-watched for a few times. The first time I knew Gundam Wing from Endless Waltz which is actually the 'closure' of the series. I followed the main series on TV at Sunday mornings and I remember having to wake up very early. Because of violence, Gundam Wing was aired at 6am or something. I cannot remember if I watched in full as the only episode that was stuck in memory from watching this on TV is the fencing duel between Dorothy and Quatre. After that, I re-watched in laptop at least once in university and once in 2012. These were rushed watching so nothing much was stuck with me. Thus last week was my first time watching it properly. Although it took me only about 4 days, I did not rush and I stopped in between as and when I wanted to.

Gundam Wing story can roughly be divided in 3 arcs. The first one is the one making sense, followed by the confusing middle part, and finally towards the end that has nice fightings but does not really salvage the story. So I am not surprised and I agree that Gundam Wing may not be one of the better Gundam series in terms of the stories. A lot of history and loose ends become clearer after Endless Waltz or from reading the manga prequels and no wonder I was so confused when only watching the anime series. To be fair, let's consider it from a fresh perspective as if someone is just watching the main 49 episodes.

As with other Gundam series, Gundam Wing starts with the conflict between colonies and earth (governed by United Earth Sphere Alliance). The story begins at year After Colony 195 (AC 195) with Operation Meteor which involves the colonies sending 5 Gundams, disguised as meteors, to attack OZ, which is the major military arm of the UESA, on earth. The 5 Gundam pilots only know the existence of one another from their missions. The first part of the series on earth is the most exciting one as it culminates with OZ's plot to take over UESA and in the process making Heero kills all the pacifists from UESA. This effectively breaks down the peace-making effort and makes the colonies 'disown' the Gundams whose mission is originally to fight for the colonies.

Things start to get messy from here. With no support from the colonies, the Gundam pilots decide to return to space (i.e. the colonies). We learn that OZ is part of Romefeller Foundation which takes over from UESA and want to rule both earth and colonies. They are promoting peace by military strength and this results in militarisation of the colonies. With mobile dolls, there is no need of manned mobile suits so essentially Romefeller is selling weapons. Eventually the Gundam pilots come across one another in one way or another since they still have the same aim of fighting OZ. 

Meanwhile on earth, as a result of OZ revolution, many countries previously oppressed by UESA become more independent. Sanc Kingdom takes the center stage with Relena Peacecraft advocating total pacifism which puts her in direct opposite of Romefeller's militaristic view. Treize does not support mobile dolls and this results in OZ being split into his supporter against the rest. The situation in space is getting more chaotic and the plot involving the Gundam boys is getting more non-sensical so I shall just summarise that this part sort of ends with Quatre and Heero returning to earth to defend Sanc Kingdom which seems to be the only party opposing OZ.

The third part is the most action packed of the whole series. Romefeller is scheming to attack Sanc Kingdom with the excuse that Treize Faction is escaping to Sanc Kingdom to attack and Romefeller is coming to defend Sanc Kingdom. Relena turns out to be a badass: instead of fighting back, she decides to surrender to stop the war, staying true to the total pacifism that she is advocating. Ironically, Romefeller and Relena both desire peace just in different manner (i.e. militaristic vs pacifist). Romefeller sees Relena's influence and crowns her as Queen of the World in order to make all her supporters support Romefeller too. Relena reluctantly agrees of being 'used' this way but ends up using her position to continue advocating pacifism.

Meanwhile the newly completed spaceship, Libra, has been overtaken by a colony revolutionary group White Fang which declares war with earth. Suprisingly, Milliardo Peacecraft agrees to be the leader of White Fang against earth. Treize 'dethrones' Relena in order to defend this earth. Treize sends all mobile suits on earth to space for the final battle vs White Fang. The Gundams, now with Peacemillion, supports neither and their role in the final battle is to stop White Fang's attempts for direct assault on earth, firstly by its beam cannon and lastly by dropping the whole battleship on earth. It is then revealed that both Milliardo and Treize's aim is to have a massive war in order to traumatise everyone on earth and colonies so that both sides desire peace and no more war.

As much as I like Gundam Wing characters, each of them is very one dimensional. Cannot really blame them for that since this is a 90s series and things were simpler back then. The 5 Gundam pilots actually share very little screen time together so it makes their relationship, particularly towards the end when they are supposedly working as a team, rather weak. Sorry, but still Wufei is really a pain in the ass because his 'justice' motivation is so confusing. The rest is more simple minded but at least it makes them more understandable. In all, the whole dynamic of the characters and their interactions are another reason weak point of Gundam Wing.

I still think that Gundam Wing has the best Gundam designs compared to other Gundam series. The reason is simply because the 5 Gundams are so specialised and unique that they are very different from one another. Wing can transform into bird mode and it has its buster rifle for massive destructive force although it also has a beam saber. Deathscythe is specialised for stealth combat and as its name suggests fights with a scythe. Heavyarms relies on artillery. Sandrock is specialised for close combat with gigantic heat shotels. Shenlong is equipped for both close and distant combats with its beam glaive and its extendable dragon arms. Thus it is unlike many other series whose Gundams can be rather generic with each of them can fight with beam sabers and shoot some bullets.

I am not gonna discuss much about Endless Waltz other than it takes place a year after the main series (AC 196) and Wufei is still an asshole here. Haha..Overall the plot is smoother and makes more sense than the main series. How I wish they have more stories on what happens between the main series and Endless Waltz, especially on how the characters could have interacted with one another. At least that will explain how in Endless Waltz, the Gundam boys (minus Wufei) are more chummy and trusting with one another. And it is nice that the waltz in the title is not only a gimmick for an interesting name. It is actually explained that history is a repeated waltz of war, peace, and revolution.

Gundam Wing has a sequel with Frozen Teardrop and thank goodness it is only in novel. I read reviews to avoid this as it is going to destroy all the good memories with Gundam Wing. I am so tempted, though. So perhaps I just hope that it will never be translated to English hahaha...

Nevertheless, thank you, Gundam Wing, for being an anime that defines my childhood and my life. Life sounds exaggerating but even until now I will still collect Gundam Wing merchandises when I find any. Hehe...

Digimon Adventure tri

Digimon Adventure tri (subsequently I will say it as Digimon tri to make it simpler) is a sequel of Digimon Adventure and Digimon Adventure 02 to celebrate the 15th anniversary of Digimon. It is a series of 6 movies in Japan but is released online as an 26-episode anime for international market. The first movie was released in 2015 and although I was excited with the initial news, I could not be bothered about it. Firstly I find the graphics to be disappointing as it feels as if it is completely different anime from the the original series. I know the kids are growing up and so on but the style is just so different that it feels like different characters altogether. Thank goodness the digimons are still as cute. Secondly, I wanted to wait until the whole series is done and watch. I normally cannot stand waiting a week in between episodes and imagine waiting 6 months in between the movies. Time flies and suddenly it has been 3 years. I thought I was very late but that was not the case. The last movie was only released in Japan this May and the English version was only out in September.

Digimon tri is a perfect example of creators taking advantage of nostalgia from old series. As a sequel, the story is weak and sort of butchers the original storyline. I can tolerate bad stories and simply enjoy the characters and digimons. The thing that upsets me as a whole is the inclusion of Meiko Mochizuki. It ruins the original series to suddenly have an additional Digidestined who is never mentioned before. Not to mention that she is boring and adds nothing to the team dynamic so her presence is completely unnecessary.

I completely forgot about this but this is another reason why Meiko should not be introduced in the first place!

It is nice to see how the DigiDestined are teenagers now who not as innocent as last time and have to start thinking about real life consequences. The biggest bummer is the character development for Taichi and Yamato, supposedly the 2 most prominent characters that we can consider as the team leaders. I feel that their character development is mixed out. Taichi is the one more hot-headed and with the crest of courage but in Digimon tri, he is more wary of fighting because of worries with destruction in the real world. Yamato should be the one more cool headed but in Digimon tri, he is more eager to fight. Thank goodness the rest is not out of their original personalities: Sora still takes care of her friends (and sometimes neglects herself), Koushiro is still the computer geek, Joe initially struggles if he should prioritise his real life (exams and all that) or fighting, and Mimi is becoming less selfish and is nice to see her very warm towards Meiko. With Taichi and Yamato so badly written, I think Takeru and Hikari deserve special mention for being more mature and level headed.

It is unfortunate that the crests seem to be thrown out of the story entirely. In the original anime series, we only get see Agumon and Gabumon evolve to their Mega level. Gomamon and Palmon are the first two to evolve to their Mega level in tri when Joe and Mimi overcome their personal struggle and somehow show the values corresponding to their crests. After them, the writers do not even bother writing something similar for Mega evolution of the others and Biyomon and Tentomon's Mega evolution feels like simply it is their turn. Without the crests thingy and if the Digimons can simply digivolve when they want or need to, we might as well do without the DigiDestined as the kids literally do not do anything, well except Koushiro who is the only one actually does something important to solve the issue with his computer abilities. Still about the crest, Meiko does not have any and that is another reason for her unnecessary presence.

With tri being a sequel of the original Digimon series, we definitely cannot run away from Digimon Adventure 02 which is also a sequel of the original series. They are not the focus in tri and they are being 'removed' from the story in a very lazy manner. It does not make sense (or perhaps because the story does not even bother to explain) how they know more about Yggdrasil's plan without involving the others. When they disappear and are uncontactable, the rest of the Digidestined does not show any hint of worry. It is so weird, especially for Takeru and Hikaru to do nothing about it since they are part of the Adventure 02 team after all.

Maki Himekawa and Daigo Nishijima are introduced as members of the very first or original DigiDestined even before Taichi and friends. The original DigiDestined has been hinted in the original series so a bit more revelation on them here is pretty nice. My biggest issue is with Maki Himekawa. I can understand her struggle but I find it super stupid that after researching information on rebooting the Digital World for years, she does not know that all the Digimons will lose their memory while the other DigiDestined are aware of this fact. Gosh! Sorry but I can't empathise when she is shocked that her partner, Tapirmon, cannot remember her and then she falls into depression etc.

Another proof of poorly planned story line is the pacing of the story. Whether we view the episodes as movies or as anime, the pacing feels very haphazard. As movies, it is quite obvious that there are some parts which are just fillers and there are the action parts. When this is converted to the episodic format for the anime, it makes some episodes completely fillers and some are the story or action parts. Either way, there is a problem with the pacing and I can't help feeling bored. I will suggest to watch as the movie format since the episodic format does not really have the feel of continuity between an episode to the next.

Enough of the bad things and lets move on to the good things. One thing for sure: do not under estimate the power of nostalgia. I can overlook all the things I dislike simply because of the nostalgia. While the children are maturing, their partner digimons are still like their old selves. Some will find it irritating, childish, and may not fit the overall dark atmosphere of tri but I think it actually makes more sense that the digimons do not 'grow'. That makes the reunion more touching as it really feels like the DigiDestined are meeting their old friends. This bond between them is what makes tri so touching. I am not ashamed to admit that there are a lot of parts that made me cry such as the first time they reunite and when they have to reboot the Digital World with the partner digimons lose their memories and they start befriending all over again.

I also like the depiction of the real world in tri, especially the use of actual real life locations in Odaiba. Having been to Odaiba a few times and recognising the landmarks make it even more exciting to see these places being depicted. I don't know why they have to 'mask' the name of the real life locations and yet they omit the 1/1 Gundam outside the Diver City. Haha.. I can't help to think if really monsters are appearing in Odaiba, someone will ride their Gundam to fight. Lol. The second movie features the visit to Oedo-Onsen Monogatari. Now I know why last time there was a collaboration between Digimon and Oedo-Onsen Monogatari. Sigh if only I was 'into' this much earlier, I would visit Japan to see. Sadly the real life onsen is not as nice as what tri depicts. Haha.. I had the interest to visit but after reading the reviews, I actually changed my mind a few times and have never visited it.

The connection with the real world also extends to the 'fan-service'. It is interesting to see jokes related to the pairing that digimon fans often have such as Taichi x Sora x Yamato and Takeru x Hikari although we already know what happen in the official epilogue. They even include Taichi x Yamato and Yamato x Takeru moments. In fact, Takeru teasing Yamato for being his number 1 or more important than his 'girl friends' happens more than once.

Listening to the songs that we love as kids is very nostalgic. It makes it really sad as well to know that Wada Koji had passed away. When we remember Digimon, we definitely cannot forget the iconic Butter-Fly and Wada Koji. Despite more 'misses' than 'hits', I think the nostalgia elements are played, or exploited, really well. Nevertheless, overall I think Digimon tri is a nice tribute to Wada Koji and is definitely a project that he will be proud of.

Apparently there is a movie planned for 2019 to celebrate the 20th anniversary and I am praying hard it will be better than than tri.

Hataraku Saibou

Hataraku Saibou (or Cells at Work) perhaps is the most unique anime this summer that transcends the interest of normal anime fans as my friends at work were the ones who introduced to me. As people working in healthcare, we all studied biology before and Hataraku Saibou is basically biology as an anime.

I cannot remember much beyond the basic functions of red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets so I cannot really comment on the accuracy of the biology presented here. That is actually a good thing because it allows me to simply enjoy the anime as an anime, instead of looking out for factual accuracy.

Hataraku Saibou tells a story of anthropomorphised blood cells in a human body fighting various diseases in typical over-the-top anime ways. I enjoy the anime and find it hilarious as I view it as a fun 'biology in animation'. However, there are still serious moments when the narrator introduced new characters and their physiological functions or the disease conditions. This keeps the biology portion somewhat grounded.

Putting biology knowledge aside and watching this just as an anime, the series gets repetitive with each episode following the same formula albeit with new or different characters involvement depending on the featured diseases. There are attempts to break away from this formula with few episodes on the characters' past when they are younger and in training. These are done pretty well with reference to the actual physiological process of blood cells differentiation.

The characters tend to be one dimensional as like the actual cells, each cell is highly specialised with own functions and fits into a particular mold (no pun intended so I am not referring to fungi here lol). This is a double edged sword as it works well for the comedy through over-dramatisation of their characteristics but it makes little possibility of character development through the episodes.

I hardly follow in-season anime as I hate to wait a week for the next episode. Hataraku Saibou is interesting and special enough to make me following it weekly. I also think it is worth repeated watching for the biology part. I learnt and got reminded of few things here and there while watching this. It is unfortunate that the final episode does not leave a nice wrap up and feels anticlimactic. The penultimate episode sets up the severity of hemorrhagic shock really well as a possible doomsday scenario but the resolution with the blood transfusion is just eww... They do it so much better with the IV fluid during the heat stroke episode.

Thumbs up to the creators of the series as it takes great creativity to make boring topic of blood cells into a fun anime. Leave it to the Japanese and they can even add in touching moments. The episode on cancer cells is really mind-blowing. We associate cancer as a bad disease although in reality there are always cancer cells in the body. Watching these mutated cells have to be killed in an anime creates such a furore while in reality we all want that to happen with our bodies.

There is a spin-off manga called Hataraku Saibou Black which takes place in an unhealthy body. Hmm the word unhealthy is controversial here because even in the original one, the body keeps falling sick. Lol. A body in poor health (imagine chronic diseases) is more appropriate to describe the Black. I read the English translation and wow.. it really gives a completely different vibe.

After watching Hataraku Saibou and reading Hataraku Saibou Black, I feel more conscious about my health as it is quite poor thing for the cells inside me if I don't take a good care of my health. I am also pretty sure this series will inspire some kids who watch this to become medical professionals in the future. Who says anime cannot be a positive influence?

Anyway with the knowledge of the blood cells in reality, there are 2 things that bother me. First is how these blood cells and bacteria are depicted to bleed. Second but the most important is about the physiological age of these blood cells in the body, how will the mangaka approach this? Lol.

Ace of Diamond Season 2

Season 2 is a continuation of season 1 and there are 51 episodes. This season begins rather slowly with the first 3 episodes are just recap of season 1 but once the recap is over, we go straight into Fall Tournament. For Fall Tournament, there is no division between west and east Tokyo so there are new opponents with different styles which make the matches remain interesting and not repetitive. Unfortunately the match gets a bit boring for the semi final and while the final is still very exciting (despite knowing spoiler that Seido will win, my heart was still beating very fast when watching the episodes 49-50), the final episode is quite anti-climatic.

With the 3rd years graduating, there are new faces to make up the 20 members of the team. I feel that the transition is quite abrupt because from the first season, we do not even know about some of these faces. I feel that perhaps the author does not expect the series to run that long and hence does not really care about the "others" during the first season. It feels quite awkward to suddenly see some of these new faces when they are not really introduced as the second stringer or something.

Finally Eijun gets more spot light as the main character. He gets to learn new throws, he overcomes his yips, and he even pitches for 1 full match. Despite this, season 2 does not neglect the other characters for development. We also get to see how Miyuki has to step up as the new captain, how the team transition goes rocky at the start, and different players have their own spotlights. Kudos because really it is not easy to balance so many characters. Sadly Eijun's childhood friends seem to be forgotten. They came to support him during summer qualifiers where Seido lost in final and Eijun made a blunder but only Wakana appeared for this fall final match. Not to mention that there is not direct interaction between Eijun and her. Sigh..

One thing that irritates me the most is the use of injury plot point. It seems that Furuya has to be injured so that Eijun and Nori get the chance to pitch during official match. Miyuki has to be injured in the final to have him missed a few chances and that makes the match go very close. I mean seriously.. why is it only Seido team members are so unlucky to get all these injuries while the opponents seem to be all healthy. Recall that in season 1, Tanba is also injured so that Furuya and Eijun get the chance to pitch.

There are 2 OVAs which concludes this second season with the graduation of the year 3s. It is quite bittersweet to see them graduate as they play quite a huge role in the series. Nonetheless, Ace of Diamond is really a diamond among sports titles. It shows the struggle of the main character (instead of the usual noob turning into ace or a super ace main character), it is able to share the spotlight among so many members of the team, it is able to carry the story even after the year 3s are no longer playing (usually story will just end after the current match season ends), and finally the main character is able to reach that Koshien dream.

The OP and ED songs are still great and at the end of each episode, the cute illustrations are still there. I definitely will try to find the titles for the insert songs used in the anime because they never fail to make me feel emotional. I know the manga continues with act II and I definitely cannot wait for it to be made to season 3 of the anime (if it will ever happen).

I have a bit of regret of following Ace of Diamond late only after the manga is translated to Indonesian. Now I grow to like the characters and their figures are already out of stock. Haiz.. at least I still bought Eijun's one.

When I was writing for the first season, I could not find any of group pictures showing a lot of characters at the same time. Surprisingly there are a lot of group pictures for this second season. These are actually stills from the OP and ED songs.

Ace of Diamond

Ace of Diamond is not a new series whether for the manga or the anime and I know that the manga runs for quite a lot of volumes. I only started to pay attention to this seriously after Elex Media Komputindo released the manga in Indonesia sometime last year. Honestly the first few volumes did not really hype me up as the characters were somewhat lacklustre. I only picked up the anime after I felt so down after my project epic failed and I just wanted to find something to kill my time and to distract me.

Surprisingly the anime gave me a completely different experience from the manga. Within the first 2 episodes, I already cried seeing Eijun have to leave his friends to join Seidou T_T How the characters behave and interact in the anime is also more relatable and likeable than their manga counterparts.

Sports titles usually follow the tropes of a weak main character who suddenly becomes very good in a sport in a weak school and then magically transform the team into a strong one. Ace of Diamond is refreshing as it does not go this way. The characters are very humane: no matter how good or strong they are, they have their weaknesses. The main character, Eijun Sawamura, has a unique pitching form but is lacking the control or knowledge in other aspects of baseball. His rival, Satoru Furuya, can throw great fast balls but lacks the stamina. Other geniuses whether from Seidou or from other schools also do not always succeed in critical moments. All these make the matches more exciting as all the characters seem to be equal and both teams have chance to win. The characters' personalities are as imperfect as real humans can be that I find it difficult to like anybody.

With 75 episodes, I had my reservations that this would be quite a draggy show. There are episodes which I find draggy but overall, I feel that the matches are exciting enough even if 1 match can run for few episodes. For an impatient person like me, I always read spoilers first and I already know that Seidou will fail to qualify for Koushien. Yet I was still very excited to watch the match despite knowing the outcome. That shows how well written the matches are.

Usually a sports anime will end after 1 tournament and after the third years member retire. Ace of Diamond is the first anime that continues on and that is refreshing.

With so many characters and limited screen time, one main weakness of the anime is the character and team development. I cannot get invested in the characters or the team to like or root for them. The bonding and camaraderie are also not really there. When the seniors retire, suddenly we see so many unknown faces from the second-string team to be featured more although previously we don't know how good or bad they are.

Although Eijun is supposedly the main character, I do not feel that it is the case during the tournament. He can strike out or not giving any runs as any other pitchers but he is often underrated because his success is depicted simply because of his pitching form (batter is unable to see his throwing arm) rather than his skills. And when he is in a slump, the attention shifts to the rest of the team that it gets confusing if he is really the main character.

There are plenty of emotional moments at the beginning which is sadly missing towards the later episodes. I find that there are a lot of anticlimatic moments such as the ending of the final match and the farewell match of Seidou team. I was expecting touching moments to make me cry but none of that sort.

The OP and ED songs are worth mentioning too. They are pretty catchy and capture the atmosphere of the anime well. It is quite a feat not to skip the OP and ED songs for a series that runs for 75 episodes. In addition, at the end of each episode, there is always an illustration drawn by other mangakas so it is always exciting to see.

I have also watched the 3 OVA which are the back stories for Miyuki, Kominato brothers, and Kuramochi. I shall watch the season 2 after my new year holidays. It is quite funny that I am actually quite excited to watch the next season although I am not really invested in any of the characters and usually what makes very excited for a series is having characters that I like.

Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans (Season 2)

After done with Natsume Yuujincho seasons 5 & 6 and Yuri on Ice, I run out of idea on what anime to watch next. That's why I decided to give Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans season 2 a try despite the disappointing first season. I finished this in 1.5 months so it is not as terrible as the first season.

Season 2 takes a place a few years after the end of season 1. Tekkadan has grown to be quite big, even with an earth branch. Unfortunately, their ambition grows bigger than what they are capable of doing and this leads to their downfall. Orga seems to forget his dream to give happiness to Tekkadan and strikes a deal with McGillis who is overconfident that with getting Gundam Bael, he will have Gjallarhorn under his control and promise Tekkadan to be "King of Mars" -whatever it means. Sadly, despite getting Bael, McGillis does not gain the control that he is expecting and the tide of war is turned with McGillis and Tekkadan to be the losing side. Although it is too late, Orga realises his mistake in the end. Instead of going stupid to fight a losing war, he tries to find alternatives -even by an unheroic surrender- to ensure survival of Tekkadan members and ultimately realises his original dream of happiness of Tekkadan. 

It sucks to invest time in a series which end with the death of the main characters no matter how 'makes sense' as a story it is. The ending is sad but honestly I don't see any way that the story can go with Tekkadan being the victor of war. A lot of people hate that the war ends in favour of the antagonist, but just like real world, history is written by the winner. Rustal Elion does a lot of bad things and even fire the forbidden weapon, Dainslef, but noone cares since he ends the war. Does that sound a lot like how World War II ends with the atomic bombs?

Shit story aside, lets go back to this as an anime. As a Gundam title, Iron Blooded Orphans is underwhelming. It is being mentioned that there are 72 Gundam frames etc but only less than 10 appear eventually. With all the man-machine interface, it is no longer about who is the better pilot but it is more about which machine is stronger. The battles are disappointing and the deaths of the characters are stupid: Shino commits suicides (yes it is a suicide for going towards the enemy instead of backing of), Akihiro and Mikazuki die because of Dainslef barrage (imagine how on earth human can survive atomic bomb), Lafter, Orga, and McGillis all die because of gunshot (Lafter and Orga are shot by faceless and nameless characters too! urgh). Where are all the heroic fights and deaths etc? I have no idea what the heck Kudelia is actually doing in this series and for Mars independence. It seems that at the end of the war, Rustal just wants to focus on earth first that he is simply giving Mars over to Kudelia. It does not feel that it is because of Tekkadan's fight.

Characters are badly written and unrelatable. In the grand scheme of things, the war can be summarised as Tekkadan stupidly sides with McGillis' coup d'etat against Rustal. It seems that only McGillis has an agenda while Tekkadan and Rustal's Arianrhod fleet are just dragged into the war and story as a 'by the way thing' and do not really have a reason to be involved in the war in the first place. Everybody at all sides seem to be very stupid and brainlessly loyal to their leaders without any reason to justify their loyalty: be it Tekkadan members who mostly just follows Orga (don't they care of their own lives?), McGillis' nameless and faceless followers/army, as well as Julieta & Gaelio who do not seem to have any reason to fight the war and can be considered as silent supporters of Rustal's inhumane tactics and action.

Still about the characters, I am quite surprised with the threesome relationship between Kudelia-Mikazuki-Atra. Perhaps the creator wants to take a modern approach but their relationship is very cringey to watch. Occasionally sweet, but cringey most of the time. In addition, Yamagi is gay which is made clear and explicit and it is interesting that his object of affection, Shino, actually knows it and is pretty cool about it. McGillis is also revealed to be a toy boy in a brothel in his childhood. Not exactly his choice but it is still a surprising background story.

I usually like some realism in the fiction work that I read or watch. Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans depicts war story very realistically with the blurring of the line between good and bad as both sides seem to be justifiable with their actions. McGillis wants to end corruption within Gjallarhorn while Rustal just wants to maintain his position. While Rustal is ruthless in war, he is not exactly the enemy who corrupts the Gjallarhorn or starts the war. In that sense, he is not exactly the antagonist. This plot itself is okay. Unfortunately, other characters lack of believable motivation and they become mere plot devices and pawns. To me, that is the main reason that I find this Iron Blooded Orphans suck as an anime. I take Gundam Build Fighters over this any day :)

Yuri!!! on Ice

Yuri!!! on Ice (yes with 3 exclamation marks) is perhaps the most hyped anime of 2016. When the first time I heard the title -without seeing any visual of it-, I thought the yuri means girls' love theme. Well it turns to be the opposite as a lot of people are saying that this should be a "Yaoi on Ice" instead. It certainly does not help that the acronym for the title is YoI. Lol. And perhaps the most hilarious comment that I come across is someone suggesting that "Yaoi on Fire"is more apt to describe the series as well as all the attention it receives.

Anyway, jokes aside, Yuri is actually the name of the main character, Yuri Katsuki, as well as his rival Yuri Plisetsky. YoI is actually an anime about figure skating. After a series of poor performances, Yuri Katsuki is thinking of retiring when he goes back to his hometown. Surprisingly, the reigning world champion Victor Nikiforov decided to take a break from competition to be Yuri's coach to help Yuri revive his figure skating career.

YoI is essentially a sports anime. However, in the first few episodes, the creators use a lot of bishounen and yaoi undertones to get people interested in the anime. Thank goodness the sports elements eventually become more prominent.

As a sports anime, YoI does an excellent job to portray figure skating in a realistic manner: whether the characters, the clothes, the performances, the points, the kiss and cry scenes. It made me watch some Yuzuru Hanyu's figure skating videos as comparisons. Haha.. There are no crazy inhuman movements and scores and I got to learn a little bit about the point system and figure skating competitions in general. Unfortunately, things get repetitive in the middle when the same songs and similar movements are re-used for the competitions and even the Grand Prix Final. As a main character, Yuri starts as a Japan champion already competing in the world Grand Prix so it is not the typical underdog becoming a champion kind of story. However, I don't really see how Victor trains Yuri and it makes as if what drives Yuri's performance is the romance element.

The characters are likeable and each of them has unique personality. Even the Yuri Plisetsky's angst comes across for comedic effect most of the time instead of making him like the unlikeable rival/enemy. While I like the international casts, I am quite bothered that they all speak Japanese. There is no accent differentiation or stark difference in the character designs to depict that they are all from different countries.

As the series progresses, there is a difficulty in maintaining the momentum. I feel that the climax is at the China Cup which is at the middle of the series. Subsequently, things get pretty repetitive and boring before the final episode which is completely anti-climatic. The ending does not hit a high note whether it is for the competitive sports elements as well as the romance elements. Anyway I am not even sure if it is correct to say 'romance' since the Yuri-Victor's relationship is also ambiguous. They are trying hard to balance between not make it explicitly shonen-ai/yaoi to keep the series mainstream but they still want a shonen-ai/yaoi feel to make girls go gaga.

With all the hype, I hope there will be a second season in which Victor will be competitive again. It will be nice to see Victor and Yuri skating as competitors.

Natsume Yuujinchou (Season 5-6)

Whee... Natsume is back after almost 5 years break with season 4 ended in March 2012. Season 5 was released in October 2016 and season 6 just finished airing in June 2017, making this as my most up-to-date anime watching experience. Lol.

The overall feel of the slice of life theme is still very similar to the first 4 seasons which is a good thing as that is what makes Natsume Yuujinchou special and unique. The is some progress in the story as in these 2 seasons, it seems that Natsume has grown in his acceptance in his power to see youkai and is interested to learn more about his power. He is now also more open to Tanuma and Taki when it comes to youkai things. With the limited number of episodes, this is done at the expense of the slice of life portion of the story. There is very few releasing of youkai names and there is fewer story involving Natsume and his classmates. The one I miss the most is the lesser interactions with Natsume's youkai friends. Even my favourite Kogitsune does not appear at all in these 2 seasons T_T

The best episodes from these 2 seasons are those pertaining to the people around Natsume. There is an episode of Touko's life before adopting Natsume (the white crow thing at the end of this episode really made me cry) and an episode on how Nishimura and Kitamoto becoming friends with Natsume. Reading people's comments on the message boards for these 2 episodes make me realise that I am not alone. A lot of people have the same sentiments with me that how we all wish that in our daily lives, we have kind people like the ones surrounding Natsume. I think we all enjoy Natsume Yuujincho because in our real lives, we are tired of the wicked people around us.

What is Natsume Yuujinchou without nice theme song?

Opening song for season 6: Floria by Tomohisa Sako

By far, this is the best song from the series. The melody is uplifting and the singer has a really soothing voice.

Reading the comments that currently the anime has caught up with the manga, I think it will be another few years before we can see season 7. And I hope they draw Nyanko-sensei back to the older style because I think he is really fat in this season 5-6 sia...

Haikyuu!! Season 3

That's it.. I finished 3rd season in just a few days. Haikyuu!! Season 3 only consists of 10 episodes and features solely on the match between Karasuno vs Shiratorizawa. It is so long because this final is the only time that the winning team has to win 3 sets which open up the possibility of playing a 5-set game.

It is not fair to be biased just because I have watched other sports anime. However there is something about sports show which is addictive, even when the same tropes are being repeated all over again: teams with stark reliance on individuals ability vs teamwork principle, powerhouse vs underdogs, injuries, the emotion at the brink of loss, how the tide turns, etc. Anyway, the 3rd season does not wander too far off from the first 2 seasons in terms of what has been done well and what has been done badly. And similarly, there are more bad than the good things.

Pacing is terrible. I know there is no way that every points can be depicted and usually there are only so many exciting and emotional moments that can be used. However, to have 3rd set is over at a glance while the other sets drag longer is like showing that they really cannot bother at all to sew everything smoothly togther.

For a 5-set game, I think it is a wasted chance that they don't play the benchwarmers that much. On the bright side, Tsukishima becomes a focus in this season which is good and Sugawara gets to play a bit more. However, Ennoshita is back to a benchwarmer and Kinoshita and Narita (the other 2 second year guys) completely has zero match time AGAIN. Well nothing surprising since right from the start, Haikyuu!! is always crazy only about Kageyama and Hinata. Although it is still irritating that as usual, Hinata always gets the final point.

Instead of the usual brute force and luck in scoring points, it is quite refreshing to see more teamwork and team strategies from Karasuno. Facing Ushijima who is a great attacker, there is a bit more focus on receiving, blocking, and defense. Teamwork and team strategies come into play since none of Karasuno players can match Ushijima on one-on-one (hmm.. is there even a one-on-one in volley?). This is nicely built up even until the final moment of the match.

I am actually quite surprised that there is so much hate surrounding Haikyuu!! and the favourite word used is "overhyped". I don't really feel that since I don't really see a lot of Haikyuu!! figures or artbooks. Lol. Yes, what a barometer to use to judge a series popularity. Haikyuu!! is not the best sports anime out there but I think it is still not too bad. After all, tt still has those tension and emotion filled moments which make sports anime fun to watch.

Haikyuu! Season 2

I watched the first season in late 2015 (I wrote about it here) and it took me a year to watch the second season after it finished airing. Second season still follows the formula of the first season, which I find only so so at best, which makes it even worse than the first season.

Half of this season is so boring as it is about Karasuno's training camp where winning or losing makes no difference. Anyway they keep losing their matches as their players are still struggling to learn new skills so that they can overcome Aoba Johsai when they meet at the next competition. The action only begins formally at the Spring tournament in the second half of the season. Unlike the first season, I find the matches in the second season boring. There is nothing exciting, touching, or dramatic that makes me want to keep on watching the next episode. The only touching moment in this season is the match vs Wakunan when Daichi was out because of injury and Ennoshita and Yamaguchi get more change to shine. Karasuno gets a new manager, Yachi, and I am glad that she plays a greater role than Karasuno benchwarmers. Shimizu also gets more lines at this recruitment period.

Second season also still follows the same character development that the antagonists are likeable and make viewers can root for them. The schools at the training camp are more like rivals than enemies and everyone helps one another to improve. Although based on the story, it kinda makes sense since Karasuno is not from Tokyo so they can only formally compete if everyone gets into the national championship.

At the same time, a lot of characters are still being underused even in this second season. While I like Ennoshita and Yamaguchi get more screen time, I think it is stupid to 'force' to make use of the substitute only when the main players gets injured. For a sports story, I expect something more strategical in making use of the substitute like when they use Sugawara to have a gameplay with 2 setters.

I am already like one foot inside Haikyuu so although it is still a so so series, I will finish the third season as well to see how things go.

Gundam Build Fighters Try; Gundam Build Fighters Try Island Wars

Gundam Build Fighters Try is a 'loose' sequel of Gundam Build Fighters (which I wrote about here). Taking place 7 years after the original series, Seiho Academy (the school Sei comes from) fails to continue on his success and the Gunpla battle club is left with one member Fumina Hoshino. That is a problem because now Gunpla battle has become a 3-on-3 team battle and there is no way Fumina can join competition alone. Until one day a transfer student, Sekai Kamiki, appears and Fumina is desperate enough to get anyone to join her club. Lucky for her, despite being a total beginner to Gunpla, Sekai who is good in martial arts fall in love with Gunpla as he can use his martial arts skills there. With that, Fumina also convinces Yuuma Kousaka to return to Gunpla battling. Together, they form 'Try Fighters' team and aim to compete in the national competition.

I say it is a loose sequel because GBFT (to make it shorter to type) tries to be a stand alone series and avoid too many references to GBF. Yuuma is younger brother of China Kousaka (the main girl from GBF), Sekai's Gunpla is actually built by Sei and hidden behind the World Championship Cup in Seiho's Gunpla clubroom in hope of Reiji's return some day, Nils Nielsen has become a scientist in Yajima Trading which invented a way to still play Gunpla battle after the event at the end of GBF, Gyanko is a sister Suzumu Nazaki, Minato Sakai comes form the same Gunpla school that Mao came from, Lucas Nemesis turns out to be the grandson of Finnish's Gunpla team owner which invested in Aila to win the World Chammpionship. For the GBF characters, Mr Ral comes back as the coach for Try Fighters, Tatsuya Yuuki (as Meijin Kawaguchi) appears a lot as observer of the battles, Allan Adams become the coach for the Gunpla Academy team, China appeared for a few times, and Sei is mentioned a few times and his (half) face only appears once.

Sadly, this GBFT seems to be avoiding all the good things that make GBF fresh. In GBF, we are in World Championship so who will give a shit about school and national championship in GBFT. Pfft... The battles no longer show something original and exciting. The 3-on-3 format does not offer a better dynamic in the battles as most of the time it will still be a 1 vs 1 between the Gundams instead of a team effort. GBF still kinda makes sense with the fighters trying to add features to their Gundams etc but in GBFT this aspect is almost gone completely. It is mostly about raw power: whoever can shoot bigger beams and flashiest light effects will win -which is kinda WTF.

Sekai keeps repeating the same moveset right from beginning of the show and those get old pretty quick. That makes him quite unexciting as the main character. Thank goodness we have Fumina. Fumina seems to be the only one to put in more tactics/strategies with her Winning and Star Winning Gundam as well as how hers help Sekai's Build Burning and Yuuma's Lightning (at least that shows a teamwork). The only one that deserves special mention is Tendaiji's school Tryon-3 which reminds me of power rangers with combining of 3 Gundams into 1. But then, the marvel stops there because Tryon-3 is all about raw fire power as well. No strategy whatsover, just shoot those beams.

With 3-on-3 format, we are dealing with more characters in the series and that becomes a problem with the character development. Many characters are forgettable and "You are my rival" are spewed so frequently that it lacks the impact of what it means to be rivals.

In terms of the story, unlike GBF, there is nothing really Gundam-y this time as there isn't really any enemy or antagonist or even conflict. It feels like a school J-dorama of school kids achieving success in their youth and club activities. Perhaps that explains why the characters development and interactions are as what I mention in the paragraph above. The good thing about the J-dorama feels is the comedy (I must say that this is more hilarious than GBF) and all the friendship (I suck for this kind of thing and I cried a lot when friends sacrifice to help one another that kind of bullcrap haha...).

Gundam Build Fighters Try is basically another example of a sequel going bonkers which tries too hard to distant itself from the original series and ends up without all the good things that make the original series work and end up with all the unexciting things. There is not many easter eggs and references to other Gundam series here although the big surprise is revealed at the end that Jigen Haoh School's master is Domon Kasshu, the main character in G Gundam!!

Gundam Build Fighters Try Island Wars is a special episode which is considered a sequel of GBFT. Nils Yajima improves on Plavsky Particle and is experimenting to use it to enhance the Gunpla battle system. Several characters are invited to try on this new battle system. However, things go out of control which reminds us of the final event in GBF. The particles go out of control because of the presence of Arista crystal which belongs to a mysterious girl who at the end of the show is revealed to be Reiji and Aila's daughter.

I consider Island Wars to be a filler episode, rather than a sequel, due to the lack of plot and it is mostly just comedy for fun. It is like GBFT characters put together in an island for a holiday and having fun together. The battle tries to copy the epic finale of GBF with no originality and minus the excitement or the emotion. It is kinda rubbish if you consider this a sequel but it is kinda okay if you just consider this as a filler episode.

Gundam Build Fighters Try is a fun show but with its placement as a sequel of Gundam Build Fighters, I think it fails big time because I am honestly more interested in knowing what happen to Sei, Reiji, Aila, and other characters from the original series rather than the new characters.

Gundam Build Fighters

There is a criticism that Gundam anime series usually suck because Bandai's main objective is to sell Gunplas and the anime series are just mere gimmicks to advertise the model kits. Gundam Build Fighters completely fits into this stereotypes. In fact, it takes it further with featuring Gundams from other existing series and modify them specially for the anime. It made me a skeptics and I was only interested to watch this because of Bearguy III Double Happiness version that I bought during the Gunpla Expo this year.

Watching the first episode is like discovering a beautiful pearl inside a clam. It is unexpected good pleasure. I have to say that the whole idea of Gundam Build Fighters is bloody genius. The story features people building Gunplas for hobby (which is realistic) and thanks to the discovery of Plavsky particles, it creates a mechanism to make these Gunplas into a game in which the Gunplas really can move around and battle one another (which I consider to be the 'augmented reality' part). The reality and the 'augmented reality' are blended very well that the whole setup feels believable.

For Gundam fans, whether the anime series or the Gunpla, it is always our imagination to be able to control Gundams whether for games or for real battle. No doubt the series hits us on our soft spot very well. However, the flip side of resembling reality very closely, the actual plot is quite boring and draggy for a 25-episode series. The main character, Sei Iori, is an avid Gunpla builder, inspired by his father who was the runner up of the 2nd Gunpla Battle World Championship. Although Sei builds an excellent Gundam, he is a poor fighter. He has little chance of following his father's footsteps until one fateful day when he meets Reiji who can fight with Gundam well. Together they form a team to aim to be the World Champion.

Throughout the 25 episodes, we follow their journey from the regional tournament until eventually they reach the World Championship. After a few of the Gunpla fights, the fights get quite boring. The conflict presented feels very forced. Sei and Reiji are constantly being sabotaged by the tournament organiser. The main antagonisth, Chairman Mashita, is actually a thief from Arian colony who steals a treasure from the castle, gets teleported to earth, and create Plavsky particles. Reiji turns out to be a crown prince of Arian and Mashita is very worried that Reiji knows his identity and will capture him. The whole Arian colony and teleportation thing sort of destroys the whole realism that the series have and I feel kinda mess up the whole thing.

The whole setup for the final battle is quite bizarre too. The giant exploding Arian crystal under the stadium makes the Gundam battle setup a reality and suddenly the giant asteroid base (and the mobile fighters inside) becomes a reality above the stadium. The kids have to use their Gunpla to destroy everything before everything becomes a reality. It makes the final battle resembles actual fights from other Gundam series but the realism is simply thrown out of the window. Having said that, I still think it is one of the most intense fight in the series.

There is plenty of fanservice for Gundam fans with people cosplaying as or resembling characters from previous Gundam series as well as characters sharing same names and saying quotes of Gundam characters. To take note of the fanservice component from each episode is a nice thing on its own. I am glad my favourite Gundam Wing (Fenice) is one of the stronger Gundams here and I was very happy to see Mercurius being piloted by a character which resembles a female version of Heero Yuy.

Void of truly evil characters and killing, Gundam Build Fighters is really a feel good Gundam series. It is quite sad that this series is quite overlooked. Even finding an image to put here is a big challenge and the picture I put on top is a screenshot from gundam.info website. Jeez. Anyway, I am looking forward to the sequel, Gundam Build Fighters Try. I don't expect much but if it can be give a good feeling just like Gundam Build Fighters, that is good enough for me.

I almost forget but the opening and closing songs are great and complement the atmosphere of the series very well. The animation for the opening and closing is great too. I usually skip the opening and ending songs but I did not skip them when I watched this. That is quite a feat. The other series that have such impactful songs are Natsume Yuujinchou. So yeah, it is an accomplishment because usually Gundam opening and end songs can be quite 'randomly' done.

Opening 1

Opening 2

Ending 2

I can't find just the ending 1. Lol.

I don't usually put fanart picture but this is a perfect tribute of Gundam Build Fighters for the previous Gundam series :D

Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans (Season 1)

Gundam 00 left quite a bad impression for me and I have not watched any Gundam series from then on. Thanks to the currently ongoing Gunpla Expo at Takashimaya, I decided to give Iron Blooded Orphans a try. There seems to be more non-Gunpla related merchandises released for this series so I guess this is pretty popular and I decided to give it a try.

Gundam series are usually dealing with the conflict between colonies and earth. Iron Blooded Orphans takes the conflict one step further to Mars. Earth has managed to make Mars habitable but Martians suffer as most of the wealth are sucked by the businesses and governments from earth. Earth itself is divided into 4 factions and the 4 factions do not go to war thanks to an organisation called Gjallarhorn which helps to end the Calamity War 300 years ago and to maintain peace up to today. Kudelia Anna Bernstein is the poster girl of Mars independence movement and her goal is to go to earth for a diplomatic mission for Mars' sake.

Gundam series usually run for about 50 episodes so I kinda expect this 25-episode run is only the first season. With the 2nd season already announced, it is still too premature to judge the series. But from the 25 episodes, I have to sadly say that this is worse and less memorable than Gundam 00. Sigh. The story is patheticly 'thin' and it takes maybe 20 episodes for the journey from Mars to Earth and another 5 episodes to go from their landing point to the city of Edmonton.

The conflict presented does not make sense and has little believability. How can be an organisation as big as Gjallarhorn which maintains peace of earth and space for the past 300+ years unable to defeat Tekkadan which is just a group of mercenaries? Yes they have the arayashiki system and they have Gundam Barbatos but it is an 'outdated' machine and I am pretty sure Gjallarhorn is able to have more advance machines. 

Surprisingly, Gundam does not take a center stage in this series as Gundam is considered a relic of the war 300 years ago. That explains the absence of exciting or memorable fights. We only have 1 significant Gundam Barbatos vs other lousy mobile suits controlled by mostly nameless soldiers whose death or survival does not really matter anyway. It is pretty sad for a Gundam series not to have memorable Gundams and Gundam fights. It is mentioned a few times that there are 72 Gundams so I am not sure if somehow they will all make an appearance in the second season.

There are too many characters (I cannot even remember what names goes to which face) but too little character development. Tekkadan is a group of orphans coming together as a family but there is little shown about their bond as a family. They keep saying that they are doing this together because it is a job and it is for money. That basically kills all the emotional aspect which can possibly utilised. With all the talk about "job" and "money", I can't help but feel that Tekkadan is essentially a business and simply wants to complete its job to escorting Kudelia to earth. And that is not exactly a protagonist that we are rooting for. Not to mention the last few episodes make it worse for them to be blinded by rage and revenge. Of course if we are looking from their point of view, I can understand their desperation and fight for survival. If they don't give their all and complete their mission, they will simply perish on earth. However, from audience point of view, they are not exactly heroes that I want to root for.

I think it is quite sad that Tekkadan does not realise that they are simply a pawn being played by bigger parties with their own business or political interests. That is an apt reflection of what is happening in the world today: there are people, especially in conflict regions, who are doing their best to survive and thinking that they are fighting for the good without realising that they are just being used by other people to enrich themselves.

So yeah.. another disappointing Gundam series and I think that this is worse than Gundam 00 which I already dislike. Well at least I am able to remember the name of the 4 pilots from Gundam 00. Lol. It will be interesting to see how season 2 goes but honestly, I doubt it will be good.

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

I finished watching this before I went home for my birthday. My depressed mood made me look for something de-stressing and what a coincidence that Youtube has the full series complete with the English sub. The story and characters stay true to the manga but the effect is quite different. I find the manga very hilarious and can break me into laughter. The anime invoked a less subdued emotion from me although I am not sure if my mood makes me rather biased. I guess the format also plays a role. In the manga, each page feels like a comic strip and this allows the story from one page to the next not necessarily be connected. This becomes a weakness when translated into an anime. The scenes in the anime feel rather jumpy because of the lack of overarching story. 

I am glad that the anime faithfully follows the manga and hence retains whatever that makes the manga enjoyable to read. The mangaka makes the characters believable as each of them has their own quirkiness and sometimes the quirkiness is blown over the top for comic relief purpose. It is actually a good thing that the mangaka does not mind making the characters lame and ridiculous. The voice actors are doing excellent job too as each character gets their own share of serious lines as well as ridiculous lame lines.

With no overarching story, there is really no plot here. It is just telling a story of a group of school friends revolving around Nozaki-kun who happens to be a mangaka. With the manga is still ongoing, I don't expect to have a solid ending with the anime. However, the last 1 minute of the final episode is really a cliff hanger!! Grrah!! I am not usually into love story but I was really rooting for Chiyo in this last minute and I nearly fell over my chair when Nozaki misheard what Chiyo said and while leaning in to whisper he replied "I feel the same. I love fireworks.". Raaage!! Chiyo's laughter after that sounded like she was trying to hide her tears. Sob sob T_T

There are 6 additional short special episodes of about 3 minutes each. They are bundled for the DVD. I can only find episodes 4-6 with English subtitle in Youtube :( But yeah, glad that they still continue with the humour.

Haikyuu!

Haikyuu! caught my attention since a few years back since it has mixture of the things I like from anime/manga series: school theme, sports theme, and a sports which is not basketball or soccer. I was waiting for Elex Media Komputindo to release the Indonesia version of the manga before following this. That does not happen until now. That is why I was paying more attention towards Kuroko no Basuke. Currently the second season is showing in Japan but that is not the reason for me finishing the first season over the weekend. Lol. I watched this because it is available for streaming at the same website where I watched Saint Seiya; Soul of Gold earlier.

There are no surprises for Haikyuu! as there are limited plot options for school + sports genre. The story begins with Hinata Shoyo being impressed while watching a short volleyball player dubbed "Small Giant" jumped to spike during a match in TV. Fast forward to Hinata's first encounter with Kageyama Tobio during a match in their junior high school which ended with Hinata's team loss. After graduation, Hinata and Kageyama ends up in Karasuno High School Volleyball Club. Being rivals, they have to learn to work as a team and it starts Karasuno Volleyball Club's adventure with the super rookies duo.

I may be biased -because I come to know Kuroko no Basuke first- but I see too many similarities with Kuroko no Basket: super rookies duo having to learn to fight as a team, a match with rival school, the return of great players who go missing during the initial match for various reasons, competitions at the Interhigh which ends with a loss and the story continues in season 2.

In the midst of similar series in which the characters have special inhumane techniques, Haikyuu! bravely does not follow the same suit: the characters are all normal players without superhuman abilities during the match. Honestly, that makes the matches somewhat more uninteresting. Despite that, team development, team bonding, and the emotional roller coaster during the matches are still top notch and I am still looking forward to the second season. I admit that it is an amazing feat to still able to craft such plots even without superhuman abilities.

Another formula that Haikyuu! breaks away from are arrogant antagonists who wants to crush everyone else and schools which are undefeated champions an so on. For example, Toru Oikawa from Aoba Johsai -which eventually defeats Karasuno- is very likeable and I am not surprised if people can even be rooting for him instead. Haha.. This approach makes the characters, the story, and the rivalries more down-to-earth and relatable.

Haikyuu! has a lot of potentials with the characters which are sadly not fully developed. The characters are quite one dimensional: we have the cheerful main character and the socially-awkward genius, strict and feared captain, caring vice captain, a kind hearted with thug appearance senpai, reluctant ace, cool manager, the benchwarmers and so on. The only missing element is an injured player. The interactions between the characters are very superficial and I don't really feel that they are well united as a team. I really hope that they dig the characters deeper and develop relationship better for the second season.

Overall, I think Haikyuu! is so so at the very best. While I don't find Haikyuu! bad, it is not good enough to pique my interest to get the figures of their characters. That may be a blessing in disguise as I have no space for new figures and new series. Having said that, I still bought the artbooks, I will definitely be watching the second season, and I am still hoping that Elex Media Komputindo will release Indonesian version of the manga. And most importantly, Haikyuu! is good enough to have the privilege of being the 1000th post for my blog. Lol :)

Final shot to end season 1 with all members of Karusuno. Another similarity to Kuroko no Basuke? Haha..

Saint Seiya: Soul of Gold

The first time I came across this was in April when I was celebrating my holiday at home. The first episode was released on the web (for free!) before I flew back. As usual, I am not a person who is patient enough to wait 1 episode per week so I prefer to be patient and wait to watch after all the episodes are released. I only remembered about this on Sunday and after much difficulty, I managed to find somewhere to stream and watch this online. Yay!!

Gold Saints play important roles in Saint Seiya but their importance always put a back seat for Seiya and friends to shine. Soul of Gold is special as finally the Gold Saints can play the central characters. The story takes place in between the fight versus Hades. After the Gold Saints sacrifice themselves and die in order to break past the Wailing Wall, they are mysteriously revived in Asgard. As Athena and Hades are busy in the Underworld, Loki grabs this opportunity to conquer the world beginning with Asgard.

I have a mixed feeling about Soul of Gold as it has a lot of both good and bad points. Let's start with the good. For a short series of 13 episodes, the story is pretty well-crafted and the plot twists are really unexpected and surprisingly good. Just a warning: spoilers ahead. At the beginning, the Gold Saints are all confused and want to know why they are revived. We are lead to believe that someone revive the Gold Saints to save Asgard from whatever threat it is facing. The Gold Saints are actually revived by Loki, through Polaris Hilda's maid called Lyfia, as reviving dead people is considered a taboo in Asgard. Loki's purpose is to get Gold Saints' cosmos to give birth to the Spear of Gungnir. Thus it is nothing about Gold Saints saving Asgard. But wait.. The plot takes another turn as Lyfia is revealed to be Odin's representative on Earth and the one who revived the Gold Saints was actually Odin. What the..

Having Gold Saints as central characters mean we also get to know their personalities better. I have to applaud what Masami Kurumada does with Cancer Deathmask and Pisces Aphrodite who are depicted in a terrible light in the main series. I mean they are like the antagonists and the evil unrepentant Gold Saints. Here, we actually see the heroic sides of them and we get to see them in a different like. I was actually cursing when Aphrodite is the first one to be "killed". I mean what's the point of reviving everyone and then eventually killing everyone again. Gosh... Aphrodite being the first one to be "killed" and swallowed by Yggdrasil is actually the key of everyone's survival. Pisces is immune to poison and thus survives inside Yggdrasil. Subsequently, when the other Gold Saints "dies" and gets swallowed by Yggdrasil, Aphrodite protects them so that they can survive inside Yggdrasil for the final comeback. So yeah, Aphrodite is damn awesome despite his short screen time.

Deathmask is another character that gets a massive personality makeover. Considering all the evil things that he did in the main series, to see him caring for a flower girl secretly is heartwarming. He even says thank you to Aphrodite for protecting the girl as Aphrodite "died" after rescuing the girl.

We also finally get to see how Gold Saints' relationship become post-Sanctuary arc with Aioros finally meeting Saga, who ordered his assassination, and Camus who actually killed him as well as Aiolia who bears hidden grudge against Camus who killed his brother and Camus who is hiding his guilt for killing Aioros.

Here come the bad parts. Firstly, the battles are boring as they follow the same old formula: they have to kill/destroy certain number of people/structure, with people sacrificing their lives before the main character is able to finally fight the final boss. The battles feel rather short although that is understandable considering the number of episodes. In comparison, 1 battle can usually run up to 3-4 episodes in the original Saint Seiya. It does not help that we are used to over dramatic battles between the Bronze saints against the stronger saints. God Warriors, the antagonists in Soul of Gold, are on par with the Gold Saints and the matches are over after trading 2 attacks from each person. No excessive bloody scenes and they just die. It is boring but I can still justify the matches to be that way because both parties are of similar strength and power.

There are so many plot holes which contradicts the main series. Considering Gold Saints' devotion to Athena and that this story happens in the midst of Athena vs Hades Holy War, it is really out of character for the Gold Saints who is revived to be spending time in Asgard instead of going back to the Sanctuary or back to the Underworld. Some even state that they want to enjoy this second chance of life and want to simply live in peace. The other out of character example is the unleashing of Athena Exclamation. When it is first introduced during Hades arc, the Gold Saints are extremely reluctant to use this forbidden technique. Here, they dish it out freely as the last resort against Loki.

Since this takes place in the midst of Holy War, how is it possible that Hades let the strongest of Athena Saints to actually get out of Hell, which is Hades' territory, to be revived by other God? Deathmask can also freely uses his Sekishiki Meikai Ha which brings his opponent to the borders of the afterlife and Hades is not doing anything about this.

The God Cloth thingy are rubbish for me! Obviously they are just some money making scheme to have new costumes for the same old characters. The modifications to the original Gold Cloths are lame as they are all about adding wings which practically serves no purpose. Those wings make the Cloths heavier and more difficult for the wearers to move and fight. Based on the explanation of that the God Cloth thingy can happen because the Cloth has come in contact with Athena's tears or blood, why don't they manifest it during the fight against Hades? And considering that it takes 12 Gold Saints in their God Cloths to defeat Loki, Loki is basically many many times more powerful than the other Gods who are defeated by Seiya who occasionally gets help from 1 Gold Cloth: Sagitarius.

Despite having great potential, it is not surprising that Saint Seiya is slowly but surely losing traction. Same theme keeps being repeated and with repeated deaths and resurrections of the same characters, it makes deaths no longer relevant. This is repeatedly echoed in the Soul of Gold: I am actually already dead, this is my second life and I am not afraid to die anymore. I consider myself an old fan of Saint Seiya and perhaps it is the nostalgia that makes me think that this series is not bad. It is not that fantastic but still bearable.

Kuroko no Basuke Season 3

Hmm.. I am quite surprised that actually did not write anything about Season 2 although I finished watching it sometime in 2014. I guess Season 2 is too boring and unmemorable that I could not be bothered about it that much. That is quite sad considering that sneak peak at the end of season 1 seems promising with introduction of an old member who was injured and did not get any airtime during season 1. Yup, I am referring to Kiyoshi Teppei. Too bad his character is rather boring and his skills are rather boring too.

Season 2 marks the beginning of Winter Cup. There is a repeat of Seirin vs Shutoku as well as Seirin vs Touou which come way too close to the similar matches in season 1. While I admire 3-point shooters, 3-point shoot is not the most exciting thing when translated to anime. So I don't mind Midorima is that interesting. Kagami and Aomine's match is also boring as their skill set (beast instinct??) is just a matter who is faster. And gosh, I am sick of the Zone. The highlight for this season is the introduction of the next member of Generation of Miracles: Atsushi Murasakibara who is in Yosen together with Kagami's childhood friend, Tatsuya Himuro. The way Murasakibara speaks is very boring and irritating but I think his personality is quite interesting. The "conflict" between Kagami and Himuro, however, is way too childish. Which high school student will fight over: if you win from me then I shall not be your friends anymore?

Okay enough of season 2 but with that, I am not too hyped for season 3. I was looking forward to Akashi but his introduction at the season 2 makes him seem like a prick and a bad guy. I am glad that season 3 goes full throttle with all the excitement. A lot of focus and background of this season goes all the way back to Generation of Miracles' middle school days at Teiko. The first match features Kise and ex-member of Teiko basketball club that lost his position to Kise. We then move on to the semi-finals between Shutoku vs Rakuzan and Seirin vs Kaijo. Before the finals, there are 4 flashback episodes to Teiko days.

What makes season 3 special is the great combination of intense matches and the emotions/relationship between various characters, especially Generation of Miracles. Although I feel that the 4 flashback episodes are too long, they are very useful to understand the interesting relationship and personalities of the Generation of Miracles now. These episodes definitely change my mind about Akashi. He is not a prick. I can understand why he ends up behaving that way. Although I am not as bipolar as him, I also sometime swings from a prick to my normal self. I understand that sometimes you have to let your evil self surface to ensure things are under control. 

Right from the start, Kuroko no Basuke is unique as compared to other basketball series that usually focus on the relationship within the team of the main character. Kuroko no Basuke focuses on the rivalry of ex-team mates and provides a clear message: you don't have to be enemies to be rivals. It is definitely nice that the manga does not forget what he sets out to do at the very beginning because at the end of the series, the goal of having all Generation of Miracles back to their old self to enjoy basketball and realise the importance of teamwork is achieved.

By the last few matches, usually focus will be on the main characters. KnB takes a special twist that the usual subs gain more screentime. They not only play during the official matches, they score, and their growth in skills is shown. I like Koga so I am glad that give more opportunity for him to shine. Too bad that they did not give the same chance for Mitobe.

The final match of Seirin vs Rakuzan spans close to 10 episodes. Although in general I think the matches in KnB are rather lengthy, I am not complaining for the finals. Rakuzan players are given enough screentime for us to understand their skills and the tides keep turning as players take turn to lose hope etc. Usually nearing the end of a series, mangaka will be too lazy to keep up with new characters so again KnB is unique in this sense. Even Kuroko's long lost friend (who was introduced during the Teiko flashback) makes an appearance in the final to support Kuroko. Gosh.. That really made me cry. Haha.. However, despite Akashi's emo-ness that allows Seirin to catch up, I think Rakuzan should still win because they are the stronger team with 3 Uncrowned Kings as compared to Seirin.

I worried that the unique skillsets of each character will turn up the series to be more and more bizarre like Prince of Tennis. Although I love Prince of Tennis, I have to admit that some of the skills are supernatural like how Yukimura is able to remove his opponent's senses. KnB has more believable skillsets and no matter how skillful someone is, there is physical limitations such as fatigue or injury which make them unable to use their skills indefinitely. Initially I thought Akashi's ankle break is something similar to Yukimura. But after the explanation given, it sounds believable to have someone "loses his footing" in the middle of motion and have them fall down on their knees. That makes the skill very cool to have his opponents kneel in front him. It is even more cool that when he is in evil version, his Emperor Eye is used to see how his opponents will move while when he is back to his usual safe, he can use his Emperor Eye to predict how his team mates will move as well and that makes everyone in his team better.

I still dislike the Zone idea and now they introduce the True Zone. I was like "whaaa.....t???". Guardian of the second door to the True Zone... Whaa.....t the... ??? Anyway it seems that the most ideal state in a sports team is full trust and synchro with the rest of the team mates. PoT has this idea for the most ideal doubles pair and KnB has the same idea with the True Zone. It makes sense that Kuroko is the guardian of the door to the True Zone since he is the one always observing and thus can understand his team mates. But in the match, the True Zone is shown as if the rest is sync-ing with Kagami leh... Hmm.. I am confused.

Epilogues typically lasts few seconds to few minutes after the ending song of the last episode. KnB does this differently again with half of the last episode serves like an epilogue. The end also provides a closure to what happen to Generation of Miracles after all of this: they are back as friends and play together during Kuroko's birthday. T_T sob sob... I suck when it comes to this kind of thing sia... Haha... But then if you notice, in the locker room, the curtain is blown inside towards the room which is opposite to the wind direction that opens Kuroko's locker door. Oh well, it is obvious that they just want to show this photo:

The photo taken during Kuroko's birthday