Category: Anime Reviews

Black Lagoon is a perfect example of a series which starts out magnificent, but gets rather ruined later on by such small elements. It’s a real shame. It’s an action series, featuring a salaryman who ends up delivering a package for his company, somewhere in the Asian side of the Pacific Ocean, gets attacked by modern-day pirates, abandoned by the company he works for and in the end, joining the same pirates that attacked and kidnapped him.

The pirates appear to have a sortof delivering company. The first thirteen episodes showcase some random jobs who have to be accomplished, with some of these jobs attracting quite some dangerous people. I really have to say that these episodes were amazing to see. I loved how they sketched a realistic picture of the hell Rock (the new name of our main character) ended up in. This first season also managed to create some of the scariest antagonists ever. Especially keep an eye out for the maid with glasses. I also really liked the cast of main characters. Rock, Revy, Dutch and Benny formed an excellent combination when they were with the four of them, with each one of them having their own unique personality.

Then the second season came. It started out quite nicely, with a great tragedy about two siblings who give the term “killer loli” a whole new meaning. But that’s also where this series starts getting off-track. While the first season featured random jobs, the second season places our main characters into situations, just because Revy is looking for a fight. What the second season also does is place Dutch and Benny into the role of mere “side-characters”, even though they were a large reason why the first season turned out so good.

To make matters even worse, the second arc of the second season also contained way too much useless action and way too little substance. Sure, the fights were nice, the aftermaths for the side-characters were interesting, but during the fights, I kept wondering what their meaning was. The third and final arc could have saved this, and indeed, it had an interesting story, but I was too much bothered by the horrible use of Engrish in the beginning. The creators tried to find a way to show a good conversation between characters who only speak English and the characters who only speak Japanese, but that didn’t work at all, seeing that we’ve seen the English characters speak Japanese for ages.

It’s such a pity. This could have become one of the major series of 2006, but because of these small elements, it just didn’t make it. Still, I definitely recommend Black Lagoon, if it only was because of its first season.

And here we have the other of the two anime, being produced in fully cell-shaded CG. While FREEDOM consists out of a few episodes, Catblue Dynamyte is a standalone movie of about 40 episodes. Another interesting thing to note is that this one is entirely in English, with Japanese subtitles. It reminded me again of one of the reasons why I hate dubs: the American accent just doesn’t work. Still, when compared to other English dubs, this wasn’t really bad to listen to. The only annoying part was that Blue’s voice actress didn’t match her character too well.

When I first found out about this anime, I suspected that this anime would be all eye-candy with zero substance. And indeed, we have lots of eye-candy. When compared to FREEDOM, the characters move a lot smoother, especially during the fight scenes. Blue’s character indeed is very cute, seeing as she once was a cat. Everything looked quite well. The only thing is that the costumes of the goons looked rather hilarious when I first saw them.

About the substance… well, let’s say that it turned out better than I expected. The concept of a cat, turning into a person by drinking its master’s blood and being able to see and talk to ghosts is interesting, Bill was interesting with his doubts of Blue and her “talking to ghosts”, this was resolved quite nicely and Robbert and his idea to take care of things were nice to see. He also was good for a narrator, with a serious tone with your occasional sarcastic remark. I also liked the way that this anime omits some things that are taken to be obvious.

Still, the fact does remain that this anime follows the Hollywood action-movie format, which means that it goes from one action scene to another with your occasional focus on characters. While the action scenes are nice to see, they don’t really add much other value to the whole picture. While this OVA was interesting to watch, it’s definitely nothing amazing. It’s got an interesting art style, if you like experimental art styles in anime, it might be worth checking this one out, though if you’re more into your casual art style, stay far awaaay from this.

A hikkikomori, for those of you who don’t know, is someone who never comes out of his room. He doesn’t have a job, he doesn’t study. All he does is lie around in his room, too lazy to change anything about his life. NHK ni Youkoso is an anime about one of these hikkikomori, Satou. It follows how Satou meets a select number of people, and how these people affect his hikkikomorihood.

If I have to say so myself, NHK ni Youkoso has been a really great anime. Unfortunately, it doesn’t start out this way. First, we have twelve episodes of pain before this series turns worthwhile. These episodes were incredibly tedious to get through. They focus on otaku and their habits, Satou discovers porn and gets obsessed over it, and a lot of time is spent on making a hentai-game. It’s basically a fest of dirty guys drooling over figurines, with only a few good moments. These good moments kept me watching this series.

Then, at the end of the twelfth episode, this series suddenly takes a huge shift of focus and it actually turns out incredibly good. The following arcs all started to focus on the future of the different characters, seeing as all of them have their own problems. These arcs really were thought-provoking in their conclusion. Then the anime closes with a nice, though predictable ending.

When it comes to graphics and music, this anime manages to give no problems. Gonzo may have a lot of flaws, they do know their animation and music. The animation looks very good, and some interesting musical pieces have been put together for this series. Overall, this is a typical series which starts out horribly, though if you manage to get through the initial horror, you’ll get rewarded with an excellent second half.

Ah, how refreshing. Finally we have a modern-day series which doesn’t focus on a teenager, or even a person in his or her twenties or thirties. What we have here is a man in his forties in the middle of his mid-life crisis. A nice twist when compared to all the geeky schoolboys and the busty schoolgirls who seem to run after them. Though that’s not all. This is not an ordinary salary-man, he’s an ex-rock-star, longing back to his days of glory. Add in a love-affair, a bunch of quirky side-characters and a number of space-ships, and you’ve got yourself a great concept for an anime.

Yes, you read that last part right. This anime has a rather peculiar premise. Evil aliens are on a mission to conquer the section of outer space in which the earth resides, and the only thing which can stop them is “The Ultimate Weapon”, which can only be triggered by the main character’s “groove” when he’s playing the guitar. For a seven-year-old anime, it really had some fresh ideas. And, of course, seeing a bunch of middle-aged guys in business-suits play in a rockband was just extremely cool to see. Who said that all salarymen were boring? ^^

This anime gets accompanied by a really good combination of comedy, action and drama-scenes. The drama is very heavy at times, though the comedy-parts make sure that the show doesn’t drown in its own mood. This makes sure that you can really feel along with the characters during the climaxes, and get cracked up during the funny parts.

Still, despite these good points there are three major bad points in this anime. The first and most obvious one is the ED. Black Heaven comes with a great soundtrack. Seeing as our main character used to play in a heavy-metal band, the anime goes accompanied by several heavy-metal-songs, each of them lays a huge focus on the electric guitar, making this the perfect soundtrack for this show. The OP also consists of a rocking tune, combined with interesting video-material which makes you wonder whether the guys who did the OP for Sci-Fi Harry had any say in it. But then the ED comes, and somehow, the creators managed to slip a cheesy j-pop song in. God… the horror. Even for j-pop, it was an abomination, which made me rush to the stop-button as soon as every episode finished. Naturally this rather ruined the cliff-hangers.

The second bad point is the romance. Good romances, and especially love-triangles are very hard to do right, and unsurprisingly, Black Heaven isn’t one of these anime which provided a nice twist to this. It starts out good, however, with a rather comical note. See, the case is this. The main character has been married with his wife for a nice couple of years now, when he meets up with his newly transferred busty blonde secretary who actually happens to be one of the commanding aliens on the space-fleet which was assigned to defend earth, and the two fall in love with each other. His relationship with his wife is interesting. His relationship with his “secretary” isn’t. It’s just stale, poorly developed, boring and full of clichés.

The third bad point is a small one, though it did annoy me at times. I’ve watched a fair amount of anime up till now, but never, and I mean NEVER have I ran into one who realizes that there isn’t any SOUND in space.

Overall, this is an anime with its good points and bad points. though I really have to say that the good points majorly overweight the bad points. Especially if you’re a fan of heavy-metal it’s worth to check this out, simply because you’ll get to see how a ex-rockstar spends his life, what he thinks, and how he longs back. Though even if you’re not really into that genre of music, it’s worth to check this out. It’s got a great set of characters, it’s fun to watch, there’s a nice pacing so you won’t get bored and there’s a rather creepy final antagonist.

Kazemakase Tsukikage Ran really felt refreshing when I watched its first episode. I’ve been watching so many serious samurai-anime, full of realism, death, poverty and suffering that it was very nice to actually see a light-hearted samurai-series. This show doesn’t care whether it’s true to history or not, great for a bit of variety.

The overall story is nothing special. All the events tie around two travellers who keep running into each other, and get attached to each other. They’ve got interesting characters, though. Ran is a nice twist to the silent samurai due to her love for sake and Meow (yes, there’s a character named Meow in this show. You’ll understand when you see her) is actually an interesting variation of the annoying impulsive brat. Each episode tells the story of either one of them getting involved with some kind of local problem, and dragging (almost literally) the other along with her into it.

Especially in the beginning, these stories are rather basic, though it’s clear that that’s not the thing the creators decided to focus on. There are two elements this anime relies on: the comedy and the fights, both succeeded very well, in my opinion. Especially the earlier episodes cracked me up when Ran kept annoying Meow, and vice versa. The battles also are surprisingly well done, for a show of this nature. There isn’t much tension, but the choreography has been done brilliantly. These fights really reminded me of Jubei-Chan 2, though less extreme, perhaps.

The weak point, though, lies in the middle part of this anime. The anime consists out of 13 episodes, and with episodes five till eight, the novelty of the concept begins to wear off. Where the first four episodes managed to crack me up lots of times, these only made me chuckle once or twice, and the fact that the stories all look like each other (as in, Meow and Ran arrive, they run into people, they overhear bad guys, Ran slashes bad guys, Meow and Ran leave) begins to get more annoying by the minute. The fact that Ran is almost invincible and wins every fight with ease doesn’t do much good either.

Thankfully, the final five episodes manage to recover from this when Meow runs into a childhood friend. Starting from this point, the stories get more complex, and actually touching. Ran actually gets beaten by a likable enemy, and we see an old friend of her return as well. These five episodes actually managed to make me care about its characters. This series is one of the few comedy-anime which successfully managed to insert drama and serious scenes into its final episodes. Something which definitely deserves credit.

Overall, it’s been a nice watch, even though it was nothing amazing. It’s a good series for a quick watch, and it does belong in the category of successful comedies. I’m also still wondering why other shounen-series won’t look at the fights of this anime for inspiration, instead of continuing with their slow, uninspired fighting scenes.

Another case-based anime, how could I ignore it ^^

And indeed, if you like stories, you definitely should put this on your watch list. It’s a collection of short stories, all centred around Kino, as she travels an alternative world, which consists out of a large number of small countries. During her travels, she meets people, who tell her their stories. If you combine these stories with each other, the results becomes an interesting view of human behaviour, culture and rituals.

These stories really are meant to make you think. Some toy with ethics, others show the flaws in modern society, and in the end, there wasn’t even one story which didn’t make me think about its themes and topics. Kino herself also is a very interesting character. As she has travelled the world for a long while, she’s had many experiences, and this shows. She perfectly prepares herself for the journeys she’s making on her talking motorbike, called Hermes, she knows exactly what to say in order to keep people from getting offended at and involved with her at the same time. This turned her personality into a unique one. Still, there’s surprisingly one very simple which never gets answered. How does Kino get money? It’s strange, as this anime is a solid piece of work, and such a trivial matter is ignored.

In terms of sound and graphics, Kino no Tabi also delivers. Especially its graphical style looks like no other anime, while the background music accompanies this with some interesting background tunes. I also must give the creators credit for the scenes whenever we saw a gun or other fire missile fired. I’m not exactly sure what they did, but these moments were just full of tension and surprise.

While this is a great series to watch, the fact does remain that Kino no Tabi could have been better. Similar shows like Mushishi and Hi no Tori had a much greater impact on me. While Kino no Tabi was an interesting watch, half of its episodes seemed to somehow lack an atmosphere, dragged on a bit, or weren’t as interesting as the others. It’s also a bit of a shame to see that this anime doesn’t really have that great of an ending. It’s just the thing you’d expect from a series like this.

Remember this one? It’s a six-episode OVA, and got its first episode subbed back in January. The rest of its episodes have appeared in Japanese through the course of the year, though sadly, nobody picked it up. I was impressed with the first episode, so I kept waiting for the subs of the remaining five episodes, though after waiting for months with still nothing, my patience began to run out, and I decided to check the rest of this series out raw.

Before I continue, I must say that this is probably my most biased review yet. Wings of Rean isn’t a series you can watch raw without any problems, which I learned the hard way. The pacing is incredibly fast, there’s lots of dialogue, and to make matters even worse, the dialogues are extremely complicated, making them impossible to understand with my Japanese vocabulary. If I were to watch this series fully subbed, there’s a high chance that the rating will go up with about 10%, simply because the major disadvantage of this OVA is the fact that it’s so damn difficult to understand.

Anyway, the elements which really stood out while watching this has to be the graphics. They look absolutely stunning. The characters look unique, and the creators have come up with really interesting mecha-designs: insect-based mechas. The CG looks perfectly integrated with the drawn graphics, the animation looks gorgeous, and the background art are beautiful. There went a lot of attention and detail into the graphical department. It it’s eye-candy you want, you should definitely check out Wings of Rean.

Then the story. While I didn’t understand much of it, the two major themes did become clear. The first one is most noticeable in the visual side: Wings. All mechas are equipped with either butterfly-wings or the wings of a fly, and the Wings of Rean are a special pair of shoes which sprout a strange kind of wings, enabling the bearer to fly and cross dimensions. The second major theme deals more with the content of the series, and I don’t think I’ve seen many anime who actually seriously attempted the same: the fight between modern military technology and fantasy-steampunk technology. This series features mechas who battle against jet fighters, and battleships who battle against their fantasy-counterpart. It was very interesting to see.

I can’t comment really much about the story, seeing as most of it went by me without me getting any word of it. Like I said, the pacing was incredibly high, and people also just kept changing sides way too much in order to tell who was on whose side. Lots of politics also were involved, making things even more difficult. Still, when the last two episodes arrived, I do admit that the general picture was clear, the characters became touching and the series finished with a very interesting climax. The ending itself was a very strange one, but it actually did leave me with a good feeling.

I’m hoping that this review will give this OVA a bit more attention than what it’s getting now. I really want to see this anime get subbed, as it’ll be very interesting to see what really went on behind the huge amount of dialogue. Overall, it was a strange ride, though I enjoyed it. 🙂

This movie aired about half a year ago. The promo-art looked interesting, so I was looking forward to seeing this. When I started playing this, I suddenly found out Gonzo was involved…. ouch.

Still, if you’re expecting the same crap that is Gin-Iro no Kami no Agito, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. This movie didn’t contain the flaws which plagued Gonzo’s previous attempt at a movie so much, and actually turned out into an enjoyable watch. This movie definitely was focused at a young audience, as it’s about a young boy who winds up in an adventure inside a fantasy world, in order to save his parents. The crappy teenage romance has luckily been left out.

Still, that doesn’t mean that this is something I’d recommend. It’s a decent movie, the story is nice, but it’s really nothing special. This movie really knows its audience, and therefore its cases and stories have been kept simple, and not too deep. There’s one clear theme: sacrificing others, and the major focus of this anime is aimed at this. The plot also contains a few rather clichéd elements (for example, a couple of characters end up joining our main characters journey for no good reason at all, and in order to save his parents, our main character has to collect the infamously overused five crystals. The last, of course, being the crystal of darkness).

Still, there’s one thing I can be really positive about: the graphics. As this is a movie, it’s gotten a big budget for the graphical department, and the results are clearly visible. The animation looks very good, the character design turned out very interesting, the CG looks gorgeous, and the background art really was beautiful. The only thing is that the fights could have been better, as they were rather standard.

I’d say that this is definitely not the best movie around, but if you’re bored and need a couple of hours to burn, you could want to try this one out.