Rss

  • youtube

Archives for : Brain’s Base

My Little Monster Premium Edition (anime review)

Posted by :Patches On : July 11, 2015
1

Category: Reviews

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , ,

-My-Little-Monster-Premium-EditionTitle: My Little Monster premium edition

Director: Hiro Kaburaki

Writer: Noboru Takagi

Studio: Brain’s Base

U. S. Distributor: NIS America

U. S. Release Date: June 30th, 2015

Format: DVD/Blu-ray/ 13 Episodes / 317 Minutes

Genre: Romantic Comedy, Slice of Life

Age Rating: T for 13+ (PG)

Overall Personal Rating: B

Synopsis:

Shizuku Mizutani, who has no interest in anything but her studies, delivers worksheets to Haru Yoshida, a boy known for being a violent and uncontrollable monster. Though he hasn’t been to school since the infamous bloodshed he caused on the first day of classes, during their fateful encounter he unexpectedly becomes attached to Shizuku and returns to school. Amid the fights with upperclassmen and all kinds of antics that follow, the two teach each other what it means to care for others.

Commentary:

With all of the slice of life / romantic comedies being released I am beginning to get the feeling that some writers have lost their way. As for My Little Monster I would say that there was a very special understanding of the internal workings of these characters that the story stood out as more of a reality tail rather than a romantic comedy. This pressure between the stress of doing well in your pursuits and finding love highlights the natural way that many people end up growing up. In my own life I can see my wife as being Shizuku and myself being Haru, just not as big of a punk.

I wanted love so much that I would forgo anything for it and this is the deletion that Haru live with, even if it is because all he ever really wanted was a true friend. My wife may have wanted love in her life but I have a feeling that grades meant even more to her. Shizuku is that kind of person is able to repress those teenage urges and focus on her grade, but she can’t suppress all of her feelings.

Overall Grade: B

My Little Monster is a series that brings plenty to the surface, but leaves even more hidden away. The fact that it gives us a glimpse of something from what it means to discover what a relationship is. Even with it providing a touch of reality that is still a lost promise as the series ends on a huge question.

I liked My Little Monster and as a slice of life it stays true to the genre. As for a romantic comedy I feel like it was a bit of a let down. I am looking forward to the OVA and I really hope it gives us a little more finality to the series.

D-Frag!: The Complete Series (anime review)

Posted by :Patches On : April 29, 2015
0

Category: Reviews

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , ,

D-Frag!Title: D-Frag!: The Complete Series

Director: Seiki Sugawara

Written By: Tomoya Haruno (Original Story), Makoto Ueze (Anime)

Studio: Brain’s Base

U. S. Distributor: Funimation Entertainment

U. S. Release Date: April 28th, 2015

Format: DVD/Blu-ray/ 12 Episodes/ 300 minutes

Genre: Comedy, Harem, Seinen

Age Rating: TV 14

Overall Personal Rating: B+

Synopsis:

Kazama is a wannabe delinquent on a mission to rule the school, but a run-in with the cray cray cuties of the Game Creation Club derails his plan for power. Instead of conquering Fujou Academy with his fists, Kazama is plunged into a hilariously-twisted world where pain is the name of the game.

Ruled by the adorable underground boss Roka, the Game Creation Club is comprised of pretty psychopaths who enjoy snacking, setting things on fire, burying adversaries up to their necks, and tazing the ???? out of anyone who stands in their way! As Roka vies for ultimate control of the school club scene, Kazama scrambles to maintain his sanity and survive the whacked out games these girls play. There’s no escaping the Game Creation Club!

Commentary:

D-Frag! started off with a real dud for me. I was thinking how painful it will be to sit through 12 episodes of some rather base humor that looked to be going nowhere. It wasn’t funny, it was sad the way they introduced the characters and it felt like a bad derivative of some many other comedy anime that I just cringed. Although after the first few episodes I began to see the writing begin to come together and provide a few solid laughs and hit home on some rather quirky personalities that are always present in large group settings. Even if I do feel like they tended to go for the hyper caricature of a couple main personalities. Things did manage to come together and I thought the comedy is what saved the series.

Of course the plot was all over the place and tended to meander in the woods from time to time. I had a feeling that the writing was more concerned with the punchlines rather than have a plot that took us somewhere. I know that it is a honest genre option to stick with absurdity when it comes to following a plot line, but in the case of D-Frag! I don’t think it was intentional.

Overall Grade: B+

There is plenty to praise about D-Frag! and the animation itself was very nice. Brain’s Base proved why they are getting more and more work over the last 13 years. It is clear and clean with a color pallet to match the tone of the series. It would have been very easy to lean toward a fan service profile with the series but they didn’t. Of course there is the obligatory young lady who is well endowed, but it was the exception rather than the rule and because it wasn’t the focus to the story it help make some of the humor more viable.

D-Frag! gave me grave concern at the beginning thinking that it was another silly series that missed the boat when it could have been a very funny series, but instead it ended up making laugh out loud enough to praise it for the simplicity of where it takes us. I would have like to see the plot be a little bit tighter, but the laughs took me where I really needed to go.

If you are looking for a series that is all about the funny and doesn’t seem to need to turn to mean spirited pranks to make it funny, then I can say with certainty that you will enjoy D-Frag!

Amnesia (anime review)

Posted by :Patches On : June 23, 2014
1

Category: Reviews

Tags:, , , , , , , , , ,

AmnesiaTitle: Amnesia The Complete Collection

Director: Yoshimitsu Ohashi

Studio: Brain’s Base

U. S. Distributor: Sentai Filmworks / Section 23

U. S. Release Date: June 3rd, 2014

Format: DVD / 12 Episodes / 300 Minutes

Genre: Shojo, Romance,  Supernatural, Drama, Otome

Overall personal Grade: B

Synopsis:

She runs through the flaming building seeking escape. She struggles in the water, desperate to keep afloat. She wakes in the hospital, with no knowledge of how she got there or memory of who she was. People she doesn’t know come to visit her, but only the one whom no one else can see, the spirit boy who calls himself Orion, seems to understand what has happened to her, and he tells her not to let anyone know of her amnesia.

As the Heroine struggles to recall her past and connect the random recollections in her mind to form memories, one thing seems sure: time is no longer a constant, and the date of August 1st – the day she keeps waking up in the hospital – is somehow significant. So are each of the people she meets, though the stories that link her to them seem to shift like sands in an emptying hourglass. Will she be able put the pieces of the puzzle together, and what will she see if it becomes complete?

 

Commentary:

Amnesia is a wonderful example of a series developed from the visual novel / game known as Otome. These games set you up as the main character as you move through the different situations in the story. With Amnesia, we follow Heroine as she awakes with no memories of her prior life and discovers she is in a relationship with someone that seems to know her but she has not idea of who they rare. There are several young men in her life and every time there is a traumatic event in her life she awakes to find herself in a new relationship. She does have one constant and that is the fairy spirit that has attached himself to her soul and he ttys his best to help her out.

This jumping from one reality to another makes thing interesting, but ends up becoming a little frustrating as she ends up appearing more naive than she was early on. The reason for this frustration is because she does begin to remember the previous reality and she ends up playing the role of the dumb woman that is neither realistic or enjoyable. You know when you go to a bad horror film and you know the young lady shouldn’t go into the room or water and end up yelling at the screen “DON’T DO IT!”. This is a feeling that ends up becoming more frequent as there series progresses. It is not until the end of the series that she begins to have some semblance of intelligence. I never want to see anyone played out in this fashion, but this is what you get with Amnesia.

The animation style is right out of the manual of how to draw shojo characters. The girls are sexy and the guys ate almost stick men with strange but appealing close on that either make them look sexy or dark and mysterious. Of course they are beautiful with Heroine coming across somewhat plain compared to everyone else. This makes it easy to sympathies with characters who’s eyes we are seeing this through. I have to admit that the writer,Touko Machida, did a fine job of bringing this to life and interweaving the story that keep the real mystery lingering until the very end.

Overall Grade: B

Amnesia is a perfect anime for the love struck young girls and any romantically inclined fans, but if you are looking for action and adventure then you really need to look elsewhere. Visually it does a great job of living up to the genre it comes out of. Although, I would prefer somewhat less idealized stick figures. All I can think of is what would these young keen look like if they didn’t have their shirts on. I’m sure they would lack any type of muscle to their figures and look more like Jack Skellington rather than Brad Pitt or Orlando Bloom.  Being a guy I can say it does nothing for me, but maybe that explains why I didn’t have the much luck with the girls when I was that age, I just wasn’t skinny enough. Anyway, I think this is a great series for role playing and a wonderful example of the gaming style of Otome. So, if you are looking for a little romance and confusion along with it then Amnesia is right up your ally.