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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.