Phi Brain: Kami no
Puzzle
Plot Summary: Not too long after the events of Daimon
Kaito's last battle with the POG organization, he must now face the Orpheus
Order, a group that views the Armband of Orpheus as a necessary step for human
evolution. Since Kaito ended up discarding his armband, he is targeted as a
primary enemy of the mysterious faction.
The first season was entertaining because it was something
new and puzzle-y and fun. This season used that exact same formula all over
again, except with the addition of the typical shonen fights (like naming
attacks, which translated to naming puzzle start phrases, overdramatizing
everything, and other such bullshit).
This season tried to do too much with what they had. What
they had was pretty one dimensional characters, some interesting backstories,
and a seeming unwillingness to do anything exceptional with any of it.
The few high points of the season were really just last
season. And there’s apparently going to be a third season. God knows that
they’re going to do with it, but I suspect it’ll be largely be the same affairs
with a new just as one dimensional cast.
Rating: 5/10
Knight in the Area
Plot Summary: Believing himself to be useless at soccer,
Aizawa Kakeru instead becomes the manager of his school's soccer team, while
his brother Suguru is its ace, and is even good enough to represent Japan in
the championships. However, Kakeru may have a yet unknown strong talent within
himself that only his brother Suguru can see, and they often get into arguments
over Kakeru's denial of his skills. Things are made more complicated with the
return of Nana, an old friend of theirs that Kakeru has a crush on.
The show went through a lot to get where it got to. Awkward
music cues, unnecessary drama, and outright stupid filler episodes abound, the
show was still entertaining, to say the least.
Knight in the Area
falls into a pretty formulaic shonen sports show format with the girl, the ace,
and the struggling protagonist with potential. Having not seen many sports
shows (Bamboo Blade probably being my
favorite, at least that I can think of having seen at the moment and I know
that isn’t the best the genre has to offer), this was welcoming to me. But also
having known the formula, it was redone at the same time.
It definitely has the potential to be something better, but
we get caught up a lot in the matches and not what they’re doing for the
characters. We get a bit of reveal at what the matches do to the characters
after the fact (like Araki’s miss in the shoot-out), but it should be evident
sooner. More so than Kakeru is trying to get to the world cup to discover the
dream of the brothers.
My knowledge of the manga is that it’s going and the anime
hasn’t caught up to it yet (based solely on episode and chapter count). Alas,
the show has ended. It’s something that I enjoyed watching every week, but not
something I looked forward to. It’s fun, albeit sometimes awkward and stupidly
humorous, but not really thought provoking. And the cast seemed to try to focus
on too many things at once when they should make Kakeru, Seven, Araki, and a
few other characters the focus. Instead, all the characters were left
relatively bland and forgettable.
Rating: 6/10
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