Anime Reviews: Stardust Crusaders, Book of Circus, Nobunaga Concert thus far

Still from Nobunaga Concerto

As usual, I don't catch up with anime unless it's JoJo really good to the point I can't stop watching it. It makes me sad that a couple of anime series have already ended. Fortunately some of them will continue soon. I'm excited that Psycho-Pass season two is starting next month. I've been waiting for it since last year and I hope the story is just as good as the last season. In this entry, I'm reviewing four series that have been completed or are close to completion.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders

A lot of old fans are watching it as well as the new fans. I give this series 10/10 because everything is top notch from animation to music to art direction. It is a matter up to the audience whether they enjoy this kind of subject matter. Maybe it's just too BIZARRE for some people. For viewers that enjoy this kind of bizarreness, welcome to the world of JoJo. Props to the animators for doing their very best to capture the Araki's never ending always changing drawing style. I already talked about the soundtrack in my previous post. I also think that the humor in the show is absolutely hilarious and one of the selling points. The story is very close to the original manga with very minor changes. Almost little to no change for trivial scenes. The voice acting is spot on for the characters. I may have mentioned in previous anime posts that I thought Ono Daisuke added a different quality to Jotaro's character. I had doubted his ability before due to previous voice roles, but I now revoke that opinion. Now that the series has ended temporarily, fans will have to wait until January for the studio to pick up on the Egypt arc. The reason given was to ensure consistent quality which I agree very much.

Kuroshitsuji: Book of Circus

For some of us, we had wondered why season two of Kuroshitsuji had wandered onto a different story line completely ignoring the original source material. It basically stopped any future development for the series. Book of Circus animates the Noah's Ark Circus of the manga which should have occurred as the true season two. Though season one already had a couple events changed, the story flowed well. Book of Circus doesn't stretch out too much, but the ending wasn't exactly too satisfying. Due to the time slot it was broadcasted most likely, some scenes ended up being censored which ruined the mood for me because Kuroshitsuji is a lot about the disturbing images and psyche. I get that Lord Kelvin is suppose to be a very twisted man and his "children" followed his orders despite that they knew what they did was wrong. However, it fell flat when everything was simply revealed to be an illusion the characters were pursing in the name of protection. Book of Circus didn't have the same element of surprise/revelation that season one had. It still has a bit of humor in it like how Sebastian teases Ciel and the sad deaths of certain characters. Did they deserve to die because they were tricked in the first place? Or was their death justified because they too executed gruesome crimes. I rate this season 7/10.

Nobunaga Concerto

It attracted me at first for its unique animation, but later I think I found the story more intriguing. Through each episode, Saburo is reliving Japanese history as Oda Nobunaga and is making sure he doesn't screw up the timeline. For me, it's like testing my own knowledge on Japanese history and trying to connect the events together. Overall I think it's a light series, but I do sense some heightened drama towards the end of the series. I am now anticipating how things will end with Akechi Mitsuhide and Nobunaga. We know in history Mitsuhide betrayed Nobunaga, but how will things unfold in Nobunaga Concerto? I learned a lot of new things like how historical figures often changed their names entirely as a sign of allegiance or for any personal reasons. Historical figures are given a new voice in this series due to some quirkiness in each character. As opposed to villainous tyrant, Nobunaga is laid back and perceived more as a fool due to his antics. Toyotomi Hideyoshi is acting as a lowly servant, but is a very shady and scheming individual. Tokugawa Ieyasu likes to surround himself with women because Saburo gave him that "erohon" from the future. I give this series 8/10.

Kindaichi Jikenbo Returns

There are some ups and downs in this series. They still had interesting cases for the most part. My least favorite cases were the middle school flashbacks because they weren't edgy enough. The original run of Kindaichi had creepy cases like a haunted well or something. The animation is very minimal and also the least interesting part. It isn't provoking like current running animes and could use a lot more work. For the cases that were very interesting, I like that it's still very suspenseful and there are some twists in the story. My favorite so far is the "Kenmochi is a Killer" episodes. Though I find it unreasonable that Kenmochi would get himself framed, deciding who was the culprit had me stumped for a while. I thought it was X but it was actually Y all along. I rate it 7/10 because the good cases make up for the crappy drawing.