Heito is downright crazy! That fight with Akashi was nuts! He showed off his murderous tendencies. Grieving in his own way was definitely the wrong way to go about it. Making fun of Emiru’s compassion that she held for Akashi just showed how jealous Heito was. Such contrast to how Akashi feels about losing his own brother. This episode was a lot different than the previous one in enhancing its main characters.

The animation was much better here too. I like the imagery when Heito used the chain off the playground set to attack Akashi. Just shows how pinned down Heito needs to be to be a bit more normal to the rest of society. Not only that but here we finally have him awakening and attacking an unarmed Akashi! Such hatred for a guilt ridden murderer losing his other half [Emiru] yet the LIM was saving Akashi. Strange.

It’s nice to see how the LIM systems react to the emotions of their pilots, and I cannot help but wonder if the show has a hidden plot device for that very reason. Somehow the remnant emotions of the dead are encapsulated in the machines and that’s how they awaken. That’s my idea anyway. It would make sense. Rather unusual to see Sable react when it was Akashi that was being attack by Heito.

OVERALL IMPRESSION: 7/10

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This was the most depressing episode I’ve seen of this show so far! Emiru was just starting to get great buildup to becoming a strong character only to have her killed?! This series continues on strengthening its twists and turns! This was a fairly straightforward episode as we were finally able to see how each pilot was struggling to accept what was happening to Emiru. Grieving in their own ways. If only the animation was better in this show. The background designs weren’t the greatest in this episode and it didn’t mix well with the great character designs. Did Satelite studios run out of budget for this show? There were some moments in this episode that animation was pretty bad. I can tell now how emo this series is. At least there was some strong character changing events to enhance the episode as a whole here. Especially Heito. I thought this guy was crazy enough, but now he is overly worried which I hope he doesn’t turn into a side character in this show. Left behind on the sidelines so to speak. His struggle in losing his terror, Emiru was tough to watch because of how compelling Emiru had been in the previous episodes. Not as good as the last episode, but we were finally given some insight as to how the characters will continue to act for now.

OVERALL IMPRESSION: 6/10

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Oh my goodness! What an episode we had here. I did not see that coming at all! This episode has been so quiet for first half. There is a unique connection between Akashi and Sasame that Akashi is slowly trying to piece together. They’ve met in the past, and the song is a strong indication of that. Even more so is that we know the pilots have met in the past when they were children but how and why? I am sure this will be revealed later on.

The animation was just as good as the last episode if not better! So much development from about every character in this series all in 24 minutes! Wow. Akashi’s acceptance with piloting the Reaper and him coming to terms with his brother’s death. Kasane’s drunk scene was pivotal to her character. She holds a ton of regret in her heart as a scientist. Also she lost Akashi, the man she loved, yet I cannot help to notice there may be a lot more than what she knows. Heito’s joy in being paired with Emiru. She’s been afflicted with dark metal that was revealed to us in a previous episode, and her fragility in this episode was astounding. This episode was mostly about her. She cares for Akashi deeply and wanted to be paired with him. She lost her parents in the Lightless Realm, and her depression sank in. That conversation she had with with Akashi was so moving. She knew what she lacked, and she knew was she was gifted. Her body. Huge indicator that the dark metal was going to consumer her entirely eventually. I would not have it to expected so soon though!

The second half more than made up for all the poorly character building scenes we had in the past episodes! Heito was feeling despair and loneliness as he was losing Emiru to the dark metal. I did not think Emiru could create an Admonition so quickly from her feelings! Emiru’s fear was the motivation Heito needed in becoming stronger. He has gotten even more crazier than before! Her terror and his terror, and her fears and his fears are one in the same as he said. Truly frightening stuff here!

OVERALL IMPRESSION: 9/10

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I know it has been a while since I have posted about this series, I have not forgotten about it. This show does a pretty good job of creating an alluring atmosphere. We have kids piloting unusual robots that affect their behavior and vice versa. The story has unfolded pretty solidly yet slowly and we are finally getting to a point where some questions are being answered.

We have a strong director [Junichi Sato] whose never done a mech series that I can recall has some wonderful people working with him on this show. Mari Okada writing the series had previously done Gosick one of my favorite series. She has a lot of works under her belt with Toradora, Selector Infected WIXOSS, the incredible character study series Simoun, Aria, and Red Garden. That series was astounding, putting aside a few plot holes, overall it left a great impression on me as a musical anime series. This series has great potential, like I’ve said before. The music has been pretty well varied, and so far the story continues to run at a slow rate. It was announced this series will be a full 24 episodes. I hope it continues this pace, it could very well become a sleeper hit of the season. This show without a doubt is highly underrated, you cannot access the official website without living in japan, there aren’t very many PV’s for individual episodes, and not a lot of fansub groups have translated this either. Daisuki is however simulcasting it in English.

It is interesting to see how much of an experiment fighting those Admonitions. The higher ups which we saw with the principal in the beginning are hiding a lot of information from these kids. They were chosen for various reasons. They’ve yet to travel in the Lightless Realm as many parts of this episode hinted at the idea that there’s a lot more there than what they’ve been told. Akashi being chosen for the Reaper has allowed for this story to turn into a true coming of age mech series. Emiru has grown to be a very strong character in this series. We’ve learned she has been inflicted with the dark metal and she has hidden it all this time. I’m curious to see what will happen with her later on. The scientist whose name escapes me is intrigued with Akashi’s piloting skills of the Argent. From the looks of it I would say he thinks this is all a game.

There were a lot of problems with the animation this episode, especially in the beginning. I hope this gets fixed for its Bluray release. The CG in that fight was pretty bad, and what happened to the animation in the first half of the episode? Ended up being poorly animated there. The fight with Argent and the Admonitions was choreographed quite and if only the animation [more so pointing at the CG] were drawn better this probably would have had a much stronger impact. The ending here was very nicely done aside from those issues, considering now we know full well that the Admonitions are derived from humans. Just hope that the animation gets better in this series. Love this ending song. Yumi Uchimura is back!

OVERALL IMPRESSION: 7/10

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Yes! Finally we have got a really interesting original anime series! This is way different than anything Junichi Sato has directed. For him to do a horror series has piqued my interest. For the past few years we haven’t had an original horror series that was well-done in quite some time. Shiki was awesome but was adapted from a horror novel in 1998. This show is something quite new, and I really like it so far. Teenagers having the abilities to pilot strange robots, but this time they aren’t so generic like the Gundam series. The people here all have real feelings and their pasts ultimately molded them into the person they became. This was explained in pretty good detail on one person in particular. Come to think of it Bokura no was another great show that reflected this dark tone of a series quite well.

There are some messed up people in this show. That first scene was pretty graphic and hard to watch, yet for how short it was it shined in performance! Heito has two seiyu from what I noticed in the credits. That will lead to some pretty neat development. He had a disturbing background after being locked up was a huge indication of that. Heito is just as crazy if not crazier than Makishima Shougo and I wonder how that show would have turned out if it was from the perspective of him instead of on its protagonists Akane and Kogami. Refreshing having a main character like this!

There isn’t just one person here leading, its got a large range of characters to work with and the writers did wonderful work on the cast here! Emiru has emotional attachment issues as we see her trying to hook up with one of the guys. This pushed her into wanting an immediate acceptance from Akashi. Akashi is about the only character that has not developed a lot in this episode. With his brother being missing in the Lightless realm is about all we know. I’m intrigued to learn more about him. Iwato seems the most level headed of the group. Minashi acts like the child of the group of pilots, and his bizarre behavior where he licked the blood of the instructor was extremely weird. Looks like we may see more strange things from him. By far the most interesting is Maamu. She is such an oddball! She writes in diaries foreseeing a haunting future that is not so far off from the truth. She was very scared throughout this whole episode, and the most real person we’ve seen so far!  It did not take very long to have some deaths in this show. What a cliffhanger!

The music was quite varied here too! Was there more than one music producer for this show? Awesome series so far! The OP is slowly growing on me, and that ED by la la Larks is fantastic!

OVERALL IMPRESSION: 8/10

So now this is the final anime series to air for the spring season. Everything that I’ve been blogging about is really the only series worth mentioning. Aside from Knights of Sidonia being entirely 3D CG I am not really sure about the story on that yet or even if I will put an initial impression. Just haven’t been mesmerized by the show yet.

Oh Junichi Sato, is one of my favorite directors still to this day. Along with Kazuki Akane, Shinchiro Watanabe, Naoshi Shiyotani, and Sayo Yamamoto. He directed some classics! Sailor Moon and Kaleido Star were my favorites that he has ever done. They were true bishoujo series! He has done a few failures like Phi Brain, which I will give the first season credit for being decent, but the second and third seasons were awful.

Noein, Raxepheon, Bokura no. These series while Sato did not direct, were astounding series that took young kids even sometimes teenagers and had them pilot giant robots. The character development in those series really reigned supreme for their time. Noein was an incredible time-travel series that took the idea of having to save the world by going into the past. The story in that series left a huge impact for me.

M3 Sono Kuroki Hagane rekindled those same feelings. This episode conveyed quite a deep theme here. Death. For the beginning entry into this original anime series, this was a big impact! No one died out of the cast, but its the ideas and flashbacks running behind it telling the story that made this real captivating. There were these monsters known as Admonitions rumored to be from corpses of humans left in the other world known as the Lightness Realm. After they explained that, I figured we would see our cast fight there towards the end of the episode. Ha! I was completely off-base on this one! The otherworldly presence that this series set was quite haunting. Here is where having a school really works, because it’s not widely pivotal to the plot in the first episode. Its only there to pour out character development.

Surprising how bright this first episode was with the emphasis in darkness the trailer suggested. 5 pilots were already picked even probably well before this episode started in its timeline, and their reactions were splendid! They didn’t even look scared because they haven’t seen what these Admonitions could possibly do. It was really strange however that the whole school knew of Admonitions and chosen ones becoming pilots. Very refreshing here! Most of the time the main plot for the characters are hidden from the world around them.

They surely put their cards on the deck with the story on this episode! Hell, they even taught training classes out in the open! Can’t wait to see what Sato has up his sleeve for the final 3 pilots to be revealed. Pilots of the robots would travel there to battle the Admonitions, not knowing exactly what they were, how they came to be, what they were even after. It wasn’t until the very end that perhaps the rumors spreading around school were true. The animation wasn’t the high quality like many of the other series that have aired, it was rather in the character designs. Really thought they did wonderful work on the character’s faces! The CG on the robots were awkward and felt pretty out of place, which I hope they can fix within the next couple of episodes. It looked a little blurry, perhaps that was what they were going for but it wasn’t working here.

The music, oh my goodness! One of the best soundtracks of the season and it definitely helps that La La Larks is doing the ED theme to this! La La Larks vocalist is Yumi Uchimura. She was the vocalist from the now disbanded School Food Punishment who has done songs for Higashi no Eden, [C] The Money of Soul and Possibility CONTROL, and UN-GO. This new band rocked in this ED! The visual quality for this was superb they used the song and the timing greatly to their advantage! Not sure about May’n doing the OP, the animation quality is really neat there along with the instruments. Just not super hyped about the vocalist on this OP song.

Likely to Blog: 100%

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