genre: action, thriller
The year is 1931. The place, the demon capital of Shanghai during the Japanese Occupation. In the shadows of history, there existed a group of spies known as "Sakurai Kikan". They possess special abilities and maneuver covertly through many missions. Among these is one which has world-wide ramifications, the mysterious disappearance of an army corps. -AnimeNfo
Links: Official, ANN, AniDB,AnimeNfo
Rumbel - Episode 01
Last edited by Buffalobiian; Fri, 04-09-2010 at 09:51 AM.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
Runbel is back in the game? I used to love those guys
Sounds like a good watch too, i'll give this a go
That was okay, I guess?
Not much to say. I'm rather skeptical about the rest of the episodes, however. The powers thing kinda feels similar to like Book of Bantorra or something.
Characters seem a lot more likable in comparison though.
Book of Bantorra had a great plot, with cool fight scenes. The characters just sucked.
Peace.
It certainly beats Book of Bantorra by including a cute, female lead. I've seen moles on anime characters before, but twin-moles, and cute ones at that, is a first.
This episode didn't "wow" me, but it certainly got me into wanting to know more about what's going on.
The Chinese was....weird. Naturally I tried listening to it, but halfway through I had to force myself to ignore the sounds and read the subs. It screws with your brain less. Funnily though, the way they spoke Chinese was exactly the way they spoke it in Sword of the Stranger.
They never animated Yukina picking up her hat after that fall, or wearing it after, so I wonder if that will form their first trail.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
It was a decent episode especially action wise. Jumping right into the middle of the plot made it a bit harder to learn the characters but maybe it's actually a really suitable approach for an agent story. I'm also happy there's the girl in the company.
I expected the setting and situation to grab me the way it did with Sora no Woto, but it didn't. I like the inclusion of the powers (I especially liked the way they animated the teleports) but they didn't really get into enough of who is who and why they are there.
Twin moles aside, It was okay, but somehow I expected quite a bit more out of it.
I liked her VA though. Sounds a bit like Nakajima Megumi (Macross F, Kampfer) but with more "youth" to it. Her character ends up coming off inexperienced, which fit in nicely with things like almost getting blown up and her bad landing from the tree. The male VAs are good as well, though the lead (the TK guy) seems a bit off for some reason.
Ryl hit it on the head, the setting wasn't as intriguing as i hoped it would be. and, good god, can't we ever have an anime about normal people? the powers in this show are a little interesting (if not some ridiculous hax), but i'm more than a little fed up with everyone being a child of destiny or superhero....
thought the action was a bit clunky in parts. the fight in the rebel army base was decent, but the chase was just awful... music was okay, but didn't really do much
biian, i think so too (about the hat), but i actually liked that they had them speaking Chinese
i do want to give this a chance...
Humans are different from animals. We must die for a reason. Now is the time for us to regulate ourselves and reclaim our dignity. The one who holds endless potential and displays his strength and kindness to the world. Only mankind has God, a power that allows us to go above and beyond what we are now, a God that we call "possibility".
Speaking Chinese was definitely a good move, and they'd lose some serious realism points of they didn't. I just wished they spoke it properly, that's all.
(From memory, I believe CANAAN and Eden of the East were two shows that got their foreign languages correct).
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
I knew the Mandarin sounded weird somehow, but since I only understand very very few words of Mandarin and speak Cantonese I couldn't exactly tell what was wrong.
They seemed to over-exaggerate the accent or something.
The accent was weird, some of the wording they used were weird (though not outright wrong), and speech was hard to make out in general. (the way it was slowly spoken too reminds of those language-learning tapes)Originally Posted by animus
I know that if I understood less Mandarin, or if there were Chinese subtitles of the exact script, that I would be perfectly fine with this. It's when the audio is in Mandarin while the subs are in English, trying to concentrate on both but having them mismatch that completely screwed me over. (I'll think I'll make this my last rant)
It's similar to how I get ticked off by [gg]'s "Americanised" subs (characters call each other by their surname, but subs show their given name because "that's how we address people in the English world"), but with a slight increase in complexity.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
I watched episode 2 from SFW and I ended up liking it better than the first episode. This one had a proper structure and while in a certain sense we are already supposed to know the characters after the first episode, I still feel like this did better job introducing them (it didn't actually introduce them mechanically, of course, but they did get softer treatment like you'd expect from the beginning of a show) . But of course it's not possible to unwatch the ep1 to see if that would make any difference.
Nevertheless, with the good music and everything this episode made me decide to keep watching the show.
What i like the most about this series is that foreign voices are genuine and Musician's russian was more russian then any russian i heard and his translation was like 60% correct
"Life is hilariously cruel" by Bender
Episode 3 - SFW
Seems like there are espers employed by many agencies. But then again, I guess that's the easiest way to make things balanced enough. It's good they apparently plan to continue following the girl's brother's storyline. It will hopefully establish some coherence that the first episode sorely lacked.
In an anime where events are pretty much "dead serious", Yukina's innocent cuteness just shines. From episode one's falling on her butt from the tree, to episode 2's shocked crying when the Russian committed suicide, to the latest "kyaa!" at Aoi's explosion immediately after diffusing, she's got me hooked and smiling.
Twin moles are seriously alluring for some reason, and just as interesting is how her hair mysteriously forms into something resembling a rose.
Good job nailing the esper too. It seems to read people's or object's memories, she has to take a wiff of that flower first then touch them, but neither is required to communicate with her team. There might be a difference between "team chat" and "mind invasion", but there's not supporting evidence for that yet.
As for the music, I've not nothing to complain about the soundtrack. The OP isn't something I liked. After listening to it twice it still felt a bit random and unengaging, but HIMEKA's ED was just soothing.
I really want to know who are the couple in the final photo. The unfamiliar hairstyle makes them hard to identify.
Last edited by Buffalobiian; Sun, 04-25-2010 at 10:05 AM.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
I was mainly referring to the violin playing in the previous episode.
The "kyaa!" scenes are always great when it's a normally serious and even brave character.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
This show is pretty disappointing, but that is mainly because I was expecting it to be a lot more solid as Sora No Woto's successor.
I don't like the characters much, and the one that I may potentially care for has a very inexperienced (or downright incompetent) voice actress.
Peace.
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