I’m firmly convinced Chiwa Saito is Shinbo’s pet project, because hard as it is to top her role in Bakemonogatari, they’re trying their darn hardest here in Madoka as well. Episode 10 of Madoka will probably go into the annals of anime as one of the most ambitious efforts at infodumping ever in its history. For all of Madoka’s excess in visuals it’s really the beautiful stark simplicity of its storytelling that really captures the imagination. Now all that’s left to cement its place among the greats is the final act.
P.S:Nice fight there. Who said the series only did surreal? Not that it isn’t weird in its way…..
The DX Chogokin toys from the second Macross Frontier movie were announced some time ago but I totally missed it. Proper photos have just been released though.
I got to say the machine is a little underwhelming. While it certainly isn’t ugly, it just looks like the VF-25 and the YF-19 from Macross Plus mashed together, only flashier than both in a bad way. A little too busy, perhaps. I quote:
In the production of Macross Frontier, the VF-171 was chosen as the main fighter of the New U.N. Spacy because it was felt that the previous main fighter, the VF-19 Excalibur, looked too much like a “hero” fighter…
This one looks more of a “hero” fighter to me.
The roots of the design is especially obvious in gerwalk mode. Compare:
Of course, it could be I’m just bitter at how poorly the Macross Frontier series ended.
Sometimes you wear stretchy pants in your room. It's for fun.
One of my early hopes for the season is turning out to be a little underwhelming. The pace seem to have slackened after that inspired first episode. Episode 3 has a few fine comedic moments and a little plot development. Unfortunately the rest of it feels like a too large chunk of fan service filler. Not something I’m opposed to but given the potential the series has exhibited so far it felt unnecessary and thus disappointing. I have to wonder what liberties the adaptation took with the light novels source (having never read the books, and not having a desire to).
Still, it was a decent enough episode (it’s not Beelzebub) and it is early days yet. A lot of time to turn things around and I certainly hope that it does.
Beelzebub was perhaps the one show I regarded as a safe bet prior to the start of the season since the manga is one of the stronger WSJ titles (not that impressive of a feat, let’s be honest). This is a show that got just about everything wrong. Its biggest sin is clearly failure to stick to the source material. How difficult can that be? The story is already there dammit! Instead, we get inferior and incoherent changes to the story, some truly retarded filler scenes in front of the school food stall (the bread and the milk scenes…), and never mind in the first minutes we already have the electric shock joke and the pee joke.
There are other problems. Sub-par art (crying Baby B’el’s pacifier looks like a clown nose, why?), poor casting (Baby B’el sounds bad, a problem when he “speaks” all the time) and poor pacing. Hilda’s introduction to the family was probably the best scene but only because it was played completely straight. Problem though, Oga slept for three days before that and Hilda and Baby B’el were presumably already staying in his house for that period of time. Like I said, incoherent.
This attempt at adaptation is like aiming for the moon with the rocket in Jules Vernes’ novel, and already off by a mile before exiting the atmosphere. Disappointing and heartbreaking. Just go read the manga and forget about this mess.
WALK INTO 
