Back to Sippeatea's Profile Sippeatea's Profile

I’d just like to review this quickly fresh off from watching the ending. There aren’t that many reviews here on MAL for whatever reason coming off from an amazing original series.

Looking back 3/4 of Yamato 2202 I quite liked a lot. A space adventure of epic proportions where the Yamato is placed in outlandish situations that it somehow manages to escape from every time. A few twists and turns here and there and I enjoyed it up until the end.

The art is beautiful and the character designs are pleasing. The CGI is iffy at times, but I think the show looks great.
A somewhat negative ... is the enemy is faceless. It’s sad an unfathomably large race out to destroy all of humanity is represented by 3 characters at best.

Even at this point I didn’t see where the negative reviews were coming from, until I watched the last two episodes. The show hints at its mystical, beyond life and death, god … whatever you want to call it themes but my goodness it is laid on THICK at the end.

Yamato 2202 had no business pulling what reminded me of the original Mobile Suit Gundam merging of consciousness deal at the last possible moment. It doesn’t earn the right to do it. I mean the show is practically done and it’s busy preaching about human bonds and grasping for the best possible future … I mean … what am I even watching? is what I was asking myself. It’s like what’s the point of all of this? It all ends normally anyway.

Even still, I recommend watching Yamato 2202 if you’ve seen the original. Its more of the same anyway of what you’ve enjoyed before, until the ending that is, and even then, it’s not that bad.

If you've never seen Dragon Ball Z, this is the version to watch. Asides from a preference to American dubbing, Kai's better focus by cutting out filler does wonders. The hand drawn and remastered animation without a doubt still hold up, the fight scenes still feel visceral and impactful. There's not much to say, it's Dragon Ball Z without filler and without that crappy Funimation music job. There's nothing here that's going to blow your mind, but there are many moments engraved into anime culture that's worth watching it for.

Seitokai Yakuindomo’s humor is definitely an acquired taste. What appears at first as another slice of life high school harem / comedy hybrid quickly and subtly begins delivering sexually charged jokes one after the other. The sex centered humor is either going to make or break your opinion of the show, that or if you thought this type of humor was childish to begin with. If you begin to start picking up on the sexual innuendo setups before the punch line hits then you my dirty-dirty friend will probably like the show.

The entire cast is a sexual riot, well except for our male hero lead ... Tsuda who is caught in the middle of it all, forced to join the student council the moment he stepped on school grounds. Suzu also joins Tsuda in the normal group; though she’s used to taking the brunt of all the short jokes. I always did love the random arrows that showed she’s actually in the scene because of her height, just a part of her pigtails barely visible at the corner of the screen. Shino and Aria round out the rest of the student council members and everything from masturbation, sex toys, and all that jazz do not escape these two. I also can’t forget their sex hungry teacher and student council supervisor Yokoshima who at any moment will jump on the opportunity to hit on any of her male students.

By no means is the show explicit in its jokes, as it’s all supposed to be taken light-heartedly at the end of the day. The show does not even have any fanservice scenes to speak of, shocking right? I think it’s the fact girls are doing the jokes that help to lighten the mood, if it were the other way around with three guys, this would be viewed as creepy.

Jokes aside, there’s generally a tangible story to keep the episodes moving and each character is adequately developed to make sure they aren’t just joke dispensing machines. If you’re not even smiling in the first episode, forget it, this is not for you as the general format of the show and topic of the jokes stay consistent all the way to the end.

Seirei no Moribito is a simple and straightforward story of Balsa protecting a young prince bestowed of the water spirit from a kingdom and father out to kill him in fear of the water spirit being born. Seirei no Moribito was not afraid of making you sit down in front of your screen and making you read 24 minutes of extremely well written dialogue. On the other end, Seirei no Moribito was not holding back when it came to its action sequences either. These were some of the most intense battle choreography I have seen in a long time. The early chase/fight scene between Balsa ... and the King’s hunters come to mind immediately. Coupled with an excellent, I do mean excellent soundtrack, these scenes were keeping those eyeballs glued to the screen.

The animation on a weekly basis did not falter; on the contrary you were always asking yourself how the hell the show looked so good on a consistent level every week! I cannot forget the single lone reason that made Seirei no Moribito as good as it is. Balsa, the main heroin lead is such an amazing character. From bad-ass spear master to a motherly figure to a child (not her own) destined for doom she was the perfect character for this show. I find no fault with her. She wasn’t a typical stock-character, that and she looked god damn sexy all the time and had a very sexy voice actor, in a matured woman kind of way. The supporting characters were just as good. Chagum, carrier of the water spirit is a kid. If I hate anything in anime shows it’s when kids are the main characters. Most of the time they are whiny, follow no logic, and flat-out show killers. But you know what? Chagum grew on me. He had a lot of smarts in that noggin of his. He was smart, didn’t whine like a little bitch, and stood up for himself and showed those lowly scamming peasants their place in life in one episode. Tanda was cool also, but you just have to feel sorry for the guy, he never got any action with Balsa, which just makes you wish every time the show had even a small hint of romance.

A complaint to some, enjoyed by me personally, the slice of life / filler episodes did slow down the story considerably during most of the shows run. Coming to a close, Seirei no Moribito was a show I will not forget for some time. It had a gripping start, slowed downed in the middle for a bit, and finished absolutely perfectly. Very little flaws with the show on a whole, great characters, visually stunning animations, well choreographed fight sequences, suspenseful music, well written dialogue and well-developed characters, Seirei no Moribito simply had it all.

The title caught my attention, but sadly the story did not. I did quite enjoy Wataru and Sophia’s short travels together through the wastelands of the American West and the characters they meet along the way in the first half the movie, but there’s not much else here. A Wind Named Amnesia portrays the outcome of humanity losing their memories with society reverting towards a primitive and barbaric state. It’s a pretty jumbled mess in the latter half, and I all I came away with is that humanity got screwed. Don’t bother watching this one.

In a world where Touch and Cross Game exists, H2 is arguably the weakest out of the three. H2, Touch, and Cross Game, are works of Adachi Mitsuru, a man who has a bad habit of using the same character designs, character types, and story set ups during his long career. However, despite the rehashing of his work, I find H2, Touch, and Cross Game all endearing and innocent pieces of anime. I think Cross Game is the absolute perfection of all his years of work, but H2 stands on its own, while it lasts.

Yes once again it's about high school baseball, yes it's about ... another overpowered pitcher and his struggling team, and yes it's all about getting to that mother effing Koshien, Japan's nationwide high school baseball finals. This time around its Hiro and Noda's battery that take center stage as they help their newly established baseball team out of the rut.

Now here's the problem, despite the 41 episode count, H2 in my opinion wastes a lot of time, roughly the first 10 episodes or so of not so great character building and generally dilly-dallying around. With Hiro's broken shoulder and Noda's broken back, their doctor instructs them to never play the game again or risk permanent damage. So the two are practically drifting for 10 episodes doing much of nothing and the story not progressing at all. For a while Hiro is just getting bullied by the soccer club with the story at a stand still until his very first baseball game.

When the story does finally get into gear, things are great, fantastic even. The victories wholly satisfying, the losses saddening but hopeful. The baseball side of the story is great and equally the romance is sweet and innocent. I love it, devoid of any modern anime cliches, just a bunch of baseball loving teens discovering and growing into their love interests.

And ultimately here's the major problem. It's unfinished. All ongoing storylines, whether baseball or romance are just unresolved. Not sure of the circumstances, but I can just assume it caught up to the manga at some point and just had to end abruptly. So sad.