dtm42's Anime

But anyway, onto the actual show itself. It's very lovely with a low-key but pretty OP. The music generally was good and fitting with the period. The animation was fine for a mid-level series, but the art was quite good. The planes (and there were lots of them) were very detailed, which I appreciated. I'm not that into 1930s aircraft, but it's nice to see that the fanservice was limited to the mechanical side of things. The stories were generally well done and interesting, but every single arc had plot holes, some pretty serious. I can forgive a lot of it, but then we get problems like the aforementioned fourth arc, where Treize and Lillia end up in a morally reprehensible trap that the authorities knew about and yet allowed to go ahead. It was never explained, just hand-waved. I felt cheated by that. Both Allison and Lillia looked convincingly pretty as children, with older Allison deserving special merit for how beautiful a woman she turned into. I liked their feistyness, although Lillia came too close to the Tsundere mold. It was nice to see Allison be the strong and capable one of her duo and her efforts to subtly seduce Wil were always funny. Wil did sound strange as he was played by a woman (for Lillia's arc), but I thought his cluelessness was a more annoying trait. Also, his decision in episode thirteen felt too rushed, especially for something of that size. Treize was a more traditional male lead and I do feel sorry for him being paired up with the often irritating Lillia. But those two just didn't have the same chemistry as Allison and Wil.

The omnibus format of this is quite unusual. Normally such adaptations focus on one girl's story arc, to the detriment of the others. You can just tell which girl will get the guy in the end by the first episode or two alone, and the other girls exist only to meet fanservice and fetish quotas. This series however decided to show all the girls have their turn at love by resetting the calendar every four episodes and giving each girl her own arc. Most episodes do give the other five girls at least a cameo, however every girl is relevant for at least the length of her own arc. And if one girl, or the general writing in one arc, is not doing it for you, you only have to wait four episodes for a fresh new start.

But as good as the omnibus format is, it does have its downsides. Although arcs you don't like only last four episodes, arcs you do like only last four episodes as well. The rigid episode count - four episodes per girl, no exception made until the bonus seventh girl appears - means that most of the arcs are either stretched or squashed to fit precisely into the allotted timeframe. And of course telling a complete Romance story in just four episodes is a hard task anyway, let alone putting in character development and a story. The girls are rarely relevant outside of their respective arcs, which is a shame. I barely knew anything about them until it was time for the arc, and then - with the exception of fanservice courtesy of Haruka - we hardly hear from them again, except for the cameos.

Here's something people may have overlooked; if the guy is so important in turning the girls' lives around, or has such a deep connection with them, then what happens to the other girls every time he picks one of them? And as unfair as this may sound, the omnibus format cheapens the notion of true love. If he can fall in love with a different girl each time round, and often so quickly and easily, then where's the true heartache and longing?

Following on, I thought the writing was very uneven, dependent on the arc of course. Also uneven was the male lead. In some arcs he was almost a completely different person, at least in terms of his temperament, level of perversion, and depth of feelings towards certain girls. Finally, we had to sit through the same moments again and again and again. And then some. Some people find the beginning of a new relationship to be cute and lap this sort of thing, but I usually find them to be awkward and that was the case most of the time here.

I initially picked Amagami SS up because I liked the visual style of some of the images promotional posters I saw of it, and I'm glad I did. I liked this series, and it was easy to watch. In most cases the relationships progressed way too fast to be all that believable, but it certainly wasn't horrible. The omnibus format was novel, and for all the complaints I had it did work, though whether it was the novelty or not I don't know. The show is also worth rewatching at some point, if only because I now understand the characters better and can make sense of all the cameos.

Like most people, I was surprised and more than a little confused when this season was announced. I wondered what was left to show? Five of the six stories had already ended with official couples, so where else could the stories go for another cour? Of course there was Rihoko's arc to wrap up - she really had been shafted in the first season - and indeed they did. But it was poorly done, just like the rest of the season.

Basically, the writing was pretty stupid this time round, trying to force drama into arcs for which we'd already been told the final outcome. This made for some really bizarre scenarios. It also made for character and relationship regression, with a couple of arcs just retreading similar ground to the first season.

So the positives. The music was, in short, superb. The opener ranks as one of the best I've ever heard, the closer is the perfect degree of mellow, and the insert songs rocked (often literally; hah). The show offered some inventive and intriguing ideas about religion, God and the afterlife. The show had a good mystery and knew it, feeding us tasty morsels which always made us come back for more. The humour was really well done; episode five will always be one of my favourite comedic episodes in any Anime, and TK was a gem. And there actually was a proper conclusion, which is uncommon enough in longer Anime; in a show of thirteen episodes that's quite an accomplishment.

And then we get to the negatives, and boy are there a lot. The biggest one would be the characters. No, I'm not talking about how the designs of much of the cast (Yuri especially) were blatantly based on the cast of Haruhi (although it does bug me a little). I'm referring to how most of the excessively large cast were one-note (if that) roles. This is okay in a comedy, but it just doesn't work in a drama. How are we supposed to get behind and root for such shallow constructs? How are we supposed to care? A couple of supporting characters got development, but they were the exceptions that proved the rule.

Related to that was the way in which the series cynically - and tried to manipulate the audiences' emotions via the various back-stories. Characters got manipulative and relatively absurd back-stories that had the reverse effect. Instead of making us care for them it just gave us the opportunity to glimpse at some of the many flaws in the writing. Yuri's backstory was the worst, as it was so far-fetched as to be unbelievable. Characters also suddenly changed their natures at the drop of the hat, with no apparent reason why other than because the writing needed them to. It wasn't just one or two offenders either, but a whole bunch of them.

The plot was an interesting one, with lots of potential for cool twists and interesting discussions on a variety of meaty subjects. (That said, I'll never get used to the ridiculous emphasis Anime places on all-powerful student councils.) But the story wasn't nearly as developed, explained and explored as much as it should have and could have been. Part of this is due to the writers continuing to throw in brand new concepts and ideas right up till almost the end, meaning there were many things that simply never got resolved. Important things too, not just little throwaway scraps.

And part of the problem was simply the pacing. We are thrown into the deep end straight away, so the start moves fast, and many things do happen over the course of the show. But the resolution to the plot is hurried, leaving an entire episode for the resolution of the characters. Which sounds fine, but in a thirteen-episode show you simply do not have the luxury of wasting an entire episode like that on the characters alone (it did try to resolve some loose plot threads but instead only raised more questions; lovely).

I can just see the meeting room for the production team. After the team has come up with four or five excellent episodes, I can picture one random guy throwing up his hands and crying "what now?" See, the series lost momentum in the middle, shoving most of the juicy emotional and plot-related developments into the final few episodes rather than spacing them all out. The finale was especially jam-packed, with so many emotional scenes and plot-bombs crammed in that I became worn out and it struggled to affect me. The characters never really developed until quite late, although there was the occasional hint.

The whole Anime came across as the work of someone who really struggled to turn their great ideas into a workable eleven-episode show. Perhaps a movie would have been better, in fact I'm sure it would. But, what we got was still a really, really good show, with a pair of beautiful themes for the OP and ED.

Geez there was a lot of crying in this, mostly towards the end. It's just too bad that I couldn't join in the characters. The show's premise had huge potential for emotional impact and yet inexplicably struggled to really move me in any notable way. I did seriously contemplate giving it a grade of Excellent, but I just couldn't justify it to myself. I could have forgiven the series for the general plot, pacing and direction problems if I had felt that all-important emotional connection, but the series never quite got me there.

The writing is sort of lame, as is the use of names from Greek mythology for no apparent reason (other than they supposedly sound cool. Well, not in this case). We are also thrown into the deep end in terms of story set-up. There is a rich world history to be told, and we hardly get any of it because of the movie format and the emphasis on numerous (awesome) fight scenes. There is quite a bit of politics and social commentary, but they take backstage to the action. That said, the story is still far, far better than what can usually be expected from big-budget CGI films, and on a recent rewatch in 2011 I managed to catch a lot more depth than I did when I first watched it in 2005.

First of all it was as beautiful as the first if not moreso, except that it wasn't as enthusiastic about showing it's technical merits as the first one was. Secondly, the writing was even worse than the first movie, which is kind of painful because that wasn't exactly known for it's impressive plot. In this movie I could see plot twists coming a mile away and I wasn't even trying; it was just so predictable. The story tried to include some more politics but it wasn't interesting at all. And Deunan was so fickle I couldn't really care about her.

The whole point of this show was the very quirky, even bizarre brand of humour it exuded. If the show ever tried to become serious, the humour would always bring it back down to Earth. Unfortunately, making the humour so important means that you've got nothing to fall back in the times when the laughs stop coming and the cringe factor sets in. As happened not infrequently in these thirteen episodes.

The show is filled with witty and clever dialogue; no surprise considering the writer of the original Light Novels. However, the dialogue sometimes - okay, often - got too rambling, overbearing, or just plain started to go in circles. I did appreciate hearing what Koyomi was thinking, but we didn't have to hear every little thought he had, even if most of them were funny or insightful. The dialogue also sported many Japanese puns, especially when talking about the nature of the Oddities afflicting people. I fully accept that I am not the target audience of the show, but my viewing experience was not as good as it could have been. That may sound crass of me, but I am unapologetic.

The visual style was unique, and no, I am not referring to how the first scene in the entire show is a slow-motion pantyshot. I'm talking about the art. Bare-bones to the point of being minimalist, but with an almost fantasy touch. I don't know if the style was dictated by budget concerns, but given that SHAFT made it I would go out on a limb and say yes. However, given that this was made by Akiyuki Shinbo, I would say no. Hmm. There are some scenes which seemed unfinished, and of course the infamous Nadeko "fight" scene was a clear case of QUALITY. However, the frequent cuts to still images and text was no doubt an artistic rather than a budgetary decision (it does help that such cuts were a great way to save money, but still). Anyway, what I can say for sure is that the art style is sure to get your attention, oh boy yes.

Perhaps the show's biggest strength - okay, definitely its biggest strength - are the two main characters. Hitagi is a Tsundere who actually becomes likeable, but never loses her edge. She has her cute girlish moments, and she has her no-nonsense "I wear the pants in this relationship" moments, and both feel so natural. She doesn't have manic-depression, she isn't bi-polar, and she certainly does not have a split personality. I say that because modern Tsunderes are practically depicted as being mentally ill, what with their violent and sudden mood swings and all. And then there's Koyomi. He actually exhibits typical harem-male-lead behaviour such as being perverted, being dense, trying to help everyone, and getting whipped around by the girls. However, he is also sarcastic, witty, funny, insightful, calmer (as in, less easily flustered), and when it comes down to it, he's got the balls to be decisive. Even his negative traits are given interesting new twists; how many male leads would beat up and grope an eight-year-old girl, and then boast about it? Trust me, it is a heck of a lot more funnier (and less perverted) as it sounds.

Okay, so the whole "let's not talk to one another until we have achieved our dreams" bit is a horrendous piece of storytelling, but that's not the fault of the Anime. In fact, from what I can tell, the show at least tried to address the issue as best it could, mainly by focusing more on the characters and their relationships rather than make the actual Manga-making the main focus of the story. And this is why the show worked so well. Delights such as the two boys and their girlfriends, Hattori, Nakai and Nizuma, but many other characters too, really helped bring a standard Shounen formula to life. The subtle twists kept things relatively fresh, while the show's narrative was impressively executed.

Let's start with Gen's voice. It was simply abysmal. The Seiyuu, who was just a kid, wasn't good at all and shouted most of his lines in a horrible and irritating voice. Kids can be rambunctious, but for heaven's sakes they don't speak like that. At least he was the worst (the others could hardly have eclipsed him), although as the titular character he was the most important role.

One thing everybody expects when reading about Hiroshima is a depiction of the actual bombing. And unless you are shown actual footage then what you are watching is someone's interpretation. "Ah," I hear you say. "The director was actually there. He knew what it was like". But he didn't. He was just a child after all. A stone wall wouldn't have protected him as well as it did given the events happening around him, and how close he must have been to the epicentre. The progression of the symptoms was not correct. The way Gen lasted so long before rapidly losing only his hair was not accurate.

Basically, much of the depiction of the bombing and the aftermath was at least partially inaccurate and riddled with mistakes. People do not instantly die from drinking fatal quantities of radioactive water; unfortunately it is much slower than that. Another mistake I noted was that the bomb detonated only seconds after being dropped instead of the forty-three-second-delay, which is clearly wrong. That mistake should never have come up if the writers had done their basic research.

But the biggest problem I have with the movie is how it did such a great disservice to the dead. The movie tried hard to get us to like his family, and by and large it did. But I'm talking about the wider dead. It turned the walking dead into mindless zombies (as opposed to the Einstein strain of zombies). It might seem like a logical choice to make, but it dehumanises the dead, making their suffering seem trivial. Sure, with their eyes burnt out of their sockets and their mouths fused shut they would have looked like zombies, but to completely show them without humanity is one artistic choice I cannot agree with. Also, when Gen met the dying soldier it was treated almost comically. "Hah, his hair is falling out. Oh, he's pooped his pants. Oh no, he can't stand up". Not only is this not how radiation sickness progresses, but it mocked the victims of Hiroshima, something I'd thought would be the last thing the movie would do.

Without the weight of expectation that comes with depicting the bombing itself, this movie was far more natural and flowed really well. What I thought was going to be a tired plot about street youths surprisingly turned into a rather sentimental and emotional story about survivors suffering all over again by the actions of their own countrymen. The movie nicely covered the discrimination and mental and physical scars that they faced, as well as how they dealt with their predicament.

Gen's voice sounded too old for a nine-year-old boy but at least it was a far better performance than from the first movie (although it couldn't have been much worse). The movie did look noticeably better, and I was never distracted by the quality of the visuals, although I did experience lag between the audio and video.

But why did I watch the rest? What an effing waste of my time. It got so moronic in places that I should have just stopped complaining and simply dropped it. The fanservice didn't help, quite the opposite (because it was so blatant). The battles past episode five were largely yawn-inducing AT BEST. And the characters were poorly done. Perhaps I stuck around for the first ED music, which was very catchy and always worth watching.

It is obvious that this was a low-budget show. Reused animation, recaps and constant flashbacks pad the episode count. The background art can best be described as 'quaint', which is to say it looks like it was drawn by children. It does add a slightly surreal and whimsical atmosphere, but it also is further evidence that this show had budgetary problems. The music is heavily recycled, with the same tunes played over and over again.

And yet, it could have been so good, even with a limited budget. The world-building was almost non-existent - we never learn about any other country except for one notable exception - but the country building was fantastic. We were shown how the different aspects of the country worked together (or not). Everything felt so real, with the monarchy claiming direct descent from a goddess, the two rulers at loggerheads with one another over how to fix the ever-widening and completely believable rift that was enveloping the country, and the citizens of both sides ostracising one another for being either too selfish or too barbaric. The political situation was very well crafted, and not just for a children's show either. Which, if I had to guess, perhaps stems from the source material being written by the same author as Moribito.

It was also very violent for a children's show. Much of the violence was stylised but I don't think little children would be into it. Which probably makes sense, since raising the beasts was shown to be a dangerous and largely unrewarding task. This show was certainly no Pokemon. Add in political assassinations, poisoning adopted parents, hints of suicide, parents selling their child off for gold, a member of the royal family being a shameless womaniser, a major character losing digits on one hand and another major character being eaten alive, this is NOT a children's show despite the storybook look.

What I was most disappointed with was how - spoiler alert - Erin reneges on her own morals, and without explaining herself. I thought this was especially stupid. Another problem was the feud between the two brothers, which seemed to be so pointless and was started in a truly bizarre way. One brother defends the Queen and the other brother overhears and lambasts him for insulting the Queen? WTF? Then there was that dude from the Mist People who followed Erin around and never did anything. He gave the important backstory to her but then never helped out at all when it really mattered, making him just a walking exposition device. Finally, and I bet most people agree with me, the two 'comic relief' idiots were absolutely horrible and should never have been used.

But despite its problems, this was a solid show. Erin was a strong and sympathetic lead with her heart in the right place. She is also a rare example in fiction of a genius being portrayed accurately, not just in her knowledge but in her very mannerisms. Things like interrupting the class to ask questions because she's never been in a classroom and always had an intelligent adult to teach her one-on-one. It's a small but memorable touch. As for the touda and beast lords, both were quite scary. These are not cuddly little animals, they're true beasts. Even when you can befriend one you can never tame it. I liked that, and I also liked Erin's methods for dealing with them. When was the last time a Mon show put that much thought into the living conditions and behaviour of its critters?

Pretty much every little event in the first half is relevant in the second, when the pieces of the overarching plot come together and you go, "Aha! So THAT'S why..." And when was the last time you saw a show - any show, but especially an Anime show - invent an entirely new religion and have it make sense? Sure, it is not all that complicated, but the Church Of Drowning In God's Grace has a religious philosophy that is logical from their point of view, and they act on it accordingly. They are not all crazies, although they are inhumane (but then, few religions aren't), and they hold a dark secret. Which of course is linked to the Bantorra Library, and boy is it a big one. There's hidden depths to the plot as it slowly but surely reveals its secrets, and I can't say that about most shows.

The characters at first don't seem interesting either, but as they say, patience is a virtue. The action isn't the star of the show, and only acts as a complementary role. Which is a little annoying, given the wide range of powers and all the people who wield them, but it doesn't really detract from the show all that much. I certainly appreciated that the series was not another Shounen fight-fest, that's for sure.

This show is little seen, and the ratings given for it are not impressive at all. However, I wonder how many people were put off by the opening few episodes which were fairly confusing and seemed (but, we learn, were actually not) uncoordinated and irrelevant. Maybe the unfortunate choice of ALI PROJECT for the first opener was partially to blame; apparently, people really hate them. Or maybe the fanservicey character designs of Hamyuts and Noloty coupled with the Shounen-type powers had everyone running for the hills. I don't know.

The ending of Btooom! was alright on its own; it left a lot of threads dangling and there was a cliffhanger, but I still found it satisfying in how the characters had proven that they'd matured and also how the relationship was handled. However, this show absolutely bombed in Japan (pun not intended), and is unlikely to ever get a second season. Even though the ending we got wasn't too bad, it is holding the show back from a higher grade. If it did get a second season (big "if"), then the ending would no longer be a problem and I would be sorely tempted to bump this first season up to a Very Good.

The noitaminA block has always seemed to be a bastion of more . . . mature fare, intellectually speaking, but [C] incontrovertibly did its level best to destroy that sentiment. In it is a magical world so poorly conceived in purpose and intent that even the various incarnations of the Digital World from the Digimon franchise look like hard science fiction. The card battles are so bad they look like rejected prototypes from a Trading Card Game tie-in series; even Duel Monsters from Yu-Gi-Oh! makes more sense. And the economic "literacy" of the writers came across as even worse than high-school grade, a damning flaw in a show which wanted to be high-brow.

But those criticisms, valid though they are, are not the real reason I hated this title. It was just a crappy, crappy show. Not just mediocre, but actively bad.

The whole future versus present philosophical clash was mind-numbingly dumb in both ideas and execution, a final twist of the knife to a show which was already fatally wounded by that point. The love interest only existed to be a catalyst and was not a real character by herself. The male lead was all over the place personality-wise, so unsure of what to do with himself that the story suffered, which in turn did not know what to do with him. Classic chicken and egg scenario of fail. I guess the show's moralistic bent, that being financially responsible and having humble but fulfilling goals is something to be derided, probably didn't help matters. There was no rhyme or reason to anything that went on, we never really learnt what the [C] phenomenon really was or what caused it, let alone who ran the Financial Districts or even what the Financial Districts even were.

The first thing you notice is how good it looks. The animation budget wasn't very high but the artistry is simply amazing. Then you notice how it sounds, namely like a heartwarming Disney movie. And then gradually, as the episodes roll by, you start to realise that holy cow this is good. It's not in your face about it, it doesn't set out to deliberately impress you. The show is more concerned about assembling and fleshing out the characters (beginning with a highly unusual three-episode flashback), and it should be no surprise that they are its biggest strength. The actual game of karuta is nothing special, but because we care about the characters we can get into karuta, which admittedly is far more complex and interesting than the glorified game of snap it first comes across as. The humour is also a strong point, and not only the jokes funny but they are well-utilised.

Even after just four episodes Clannad was shaping up to be a great series, and the rest did not disappoint. Throughout the show there was an undercurrent of wry and often hilarious humour, which provided welcome breaks from the hard-hitting dramatical moments. And wow, the emotional punches landed on mark time after time, even though it was (usually) obvious that they were coming. The two biggest and most effective moments effectively bookended the show, coming rather early and very late in the series, but the rest were good too. Even a slightly subdued scene of the two Fujibayashi sisters hugging and crying had powerful weight behind it.

All this drama, and let's not forget all this humour too, and yet none of it depends on the Moe elements the series is so well known for. And that's what I think makes Clannad so successful. The Moe seen here is not a crutch to lean upon, it is merely a form of constant non-Ecchi fanservice for those so inclined. At first I hated the character designs as all the females look like they are some species of amphibious fish, what with their eyes so large and far apart. But once I got used to the designs (easily within the first five episodes), they didn't bug me anymore. I was too busy laughing and empathising with the characters to notice, let alone care.

There is more to Moe than just overly-cute designs. It often has a "normal" male lead who goes around helping several girls (all of whom are into him, to varying degrees) with their deep-seated problems. Except Tomoya was actually exciting and interesting to watch, Youhei always managed to be funny (at his own expense; hah), and the girls were not all damsels in distress. They often needed help, but they weren't completely objectified and came off as almost normal. Almost; this is still a Moe show. But I guess their personalities just didn't bug me, which is unusual since it so often does. I was a little annoyed with Nagisa's hesitation on the romance front, but her shyness is nothing that I haven't seen before. Heck, Sawako from Kimi ni Todoke was ten times worse.

Actually, the thought of romance leads me onto another point. Many harem shows attempt (very poorly) to tease the viewers about whom the male lead will choose, as if it is never obvious. Clannad always made it clear that Tomoya was only ever interested in one girl, and he didn't try to lead on the others. Even the other girls realised this fact, and it didn't take them until the end of the series. Nor did they pull out their claws or anything, trying to steal Tomoya away, so I was thankfully spared Shoujo-style antics. They accepted his decision - before he even made it, or was fully aware of his own feelings - and supported the couple, which I thought was really nice.

Please note that this has spoilers.

I rewatched much of this show roughly seven months later, skipping almost all of the first eight episodes which most people agree are pretty superfluous. Boy has my opinion of the series changed. I still believe that the show has some really, really strong patches of writing. But the gushing emotional impact is gone, and I don't see why I ever rated this as high as I did initially. It has some big flaws. Really big flaws. Like, almost fatal.

Now, I knew of the flaws when I was watching it, but I couldn't help be moved. I've since managed to get some perspective. The drama gets so forced it ain't funny. Or perhaps fake is a better word. Tomoya's quest to provide for his young family is very well done and still holds up magnificently. But Nagisa's school situation is even dumber than I first believed, and that's just the canary in the goldmine. Things really start falling apart from there. Nagisa and Tomoya are having sex - naturally, that's how she gets pregnant - but as far as the viewer knows they haven't even kissed for crying out loud. I don't even know if they've hugged, plus they sleep on separate futons and never shown to be entirely comfortable around one another. And all of a sudden Nagisa is getting morning sickness, even though onscreen they've done nothing except playing house (and awkwardly. at that). And then she gets very sick, and after much wrangling about where she's to have birth, she dies.

The melodramatic circumstances of Nagisa's death are tolerable, but quite simply, what happens next is not. Tomoya goes into a deep depression (okay, understandable) and his daughter is taken in by Nagisa's parents, with Tomoya playing no part whatsoever in her upbringing. What? Nobody extends a hand, and he basically has no contact with his own daughter for five years. For a supposed family-themed show it is disgusting how little help he is given. Sanae and Akio effectively told him that he was now a part of their family, and yet they never really stepped in and helped him. His friends too went AWOL and largely left him alone; guess they weren't true friends. Back in high school they never would have left him to mope and stew in his own misery for five days let alone five bloody years, and yet they all seem to not know what to do. Here's a clue; be there for him. Is that so hard?

Now we get to the most famous part of the show, the part where even many people who aren't fans agree that the show Gets Good. However, the circumstances of Ushio and Tomoya's bonding were contrived and poorly-written enough, but then we got her falling sick and dying too. This is possibly one of the dumbest twists I've ever had the misfortune to see. Just because we had that Other World business does not mean that Ushio's death and subsequent revival had been properly signalled and solid foundations. It just came across as stupid, probably because it absolutely was. It ruined any poignancy in Nagisa's death, felt cheap, and was unoriginal (no surprises there). It was just a horrible, horrible ending

It did have a very short run of episodes which were very, very strong, even though they themselves had instances of contrived drama. But with eight completely superfluous episodes, the weak Ushio arc and the clusterfuck ending, Clannad After Story has major issues. Although it looks strong, peel back the surface and you find gears and cogs rather than heart and soul. The emotional content is completely fake and manufactured.

You wouldn't think so just the the beginning, which is pretty standard and not all that impressive. It doesn't promise much beyond a typical children's adventure story with maybe a touch more darkness than you would allow kids today to see. Violence is pretty bloodless but it is there, and of course each episode opens with a seventy-second-long intro outlining how billions of people died in a war which sank the continents. But apart from the darkness, there wasn't much potential here. Or so I thought.

See, this was made by a couple of good mates called Miyazaki and Takahata. Yes, THAT Miyazaki and THAT Takahata; they are the founding men behind Studio Ghibli. Now, this show was made in 1978, six years before Nausicaa, but you can definitely see their prototypical ideas here. As such, the story starts off unassuming but grows into a multi-faceted Aesop about the horrors of war, the benefits of environmentalism, the spectre of greed, and a well-written arc of redemption for two characters (who, I'm pleased to say, have a wonderful scene together in a great final episode).

Anyway, I initially wasn't all that into the show, and then I actually liked it. As Miyazaki started to lay his cards on the table, I started to respect it. And then I began to REALLY respect it when he kept on laying more out. The writing is not particularly amazing and few of the characters are defined by more than just their respective personality traits; with a couple of notable exceptions there's actually very little character development.

However, Miyazaki and Takahata were experts in the art of storytelling itself even back then. With Future Boy Conan they kept things simple, accessible, and above all, fun. The spirit of adventure and wonder runs richly through this show's veins, and I found the show to be highly enjoyable despite it be ostensibly a show aimed at children. It also helps that despite all of the themes to the show, they are always naturally integrated and never detract from the impressive clarity of the story. The show is directed and story-boarded in what would become typical Ghibli fashion, with plenty of quiet scenes to let us take in the setting or the atmosphere. In other words, it's bloody good, far better than what you'll find in many shows made today.

I would encourage all fans to watch Future Boy Conan. Sure, it's old - 1978 was a while ago, before even Mobile Suit Gundam or Castle of Calgiostro - so it naturally looks old. Yet it doesn't look dated, except perhaps in the noses; the overall character designs are perfectly alright. The music is also fine, even if some tracks are frequently reused (but then show me a series where that isn't the case). So even if you are wary about watching old Anime you should still watch this; there's no excuse.

But it is entertaining and engaging, and notably well-executed for a Sports Anime. The direction and the music are excellent, and the flashbacks are integrated in such a way as to not only avoid being annoying, but as an actual integral part of the show. I also commend the show for its unique character designs. Though at first they are confusing, it doesn't take long to learn to differentiate between characters; those Anime that insist on impossible hair colours could learn a thing or two about subtlety.

However, as good as their designs are, the handling of the characters themselves is actually a bit of a let-down. Kou and Aoba have many great touching scenes together, but usually, Aoba's ridiculous insistence on being antisocial around him gets really tiring. I also thought that many of the supporting characters were woefully underused, and then there's Akane, who's inclusion I just never bought. Additionally, we never get to see the characters have real lives outside of baseball and That Dream, which sort of makes it hard to properly like them or - especially - see them as actual people. Yeah, I know they're not, but that's no excuse. They are all passionate, I get that, but their sole devotion to baseball above virtually everything else is almost inhuman. How many times did we see Kou in the classroom? Hardly ever. How often do characters have lives outside of baseball, such as relationships? Until the later parts of the show there was Nakanishi and virtually no-one else. It is a show about baseball, I know that, but the characters - merely high-school age, remember - come off as being weirdos in their obsession.

I went into this show thinking "It's most likely going to be bad, but Shaft might surprise me". I resolved to just watch one episode, convinced that this was going to be a Loli-fest where the main character's trait of wearing Very Little would be designed with Otaku in mind. And you know what? It was exactly that. It was shameless, lacked decency, and Mina's habits and clothing choices were Otaku-bait first and foremost. But what surprised me was how good it ended up being, despite (and let's be clear here, it was very much despite) such puerile executive decisions.

The show as I saw it had two strong points. The first was Mina's Seiyuu, whose convincing portrayal of a sad and lonely girl - and yet a frighteningly powerful princess - did much to help mitigate the otherwise massive flaws in her character. Not just the clothing thing, but how she fell for such a cliched line as "I'll protect you" (it was something along those lines), given by a prepubescent boy.

The second strong point was the writing, which took what could have been - nay, by all accounts should have been - a horribly cliched and hackneyed story and largely made it fresh and interesting. We got interesting scenes regarding vampire politics, vampire-werewolf relations, terrorism, class struggle, economics, the fickleness of public opinion, and how most members of all three races just want to live peacefully and without fear. The first episode was really well done, quite a novel approach although somewhat bizarre.

However, the writing wasn't all good. I must mark the show down for two points on it; the first is that the student council was portrayed as supremely powerful in the school after Mina, which might have worked in a pure comedy series but not in this one. I just hate that trope. The second is that the show was incomplete in terms of story. Indeed, the show could have been stretched out to sixteen episodes (giving more time for the characters to develop) and then used as the first two-thirds of a twenty-four-episode series. It was annoying that it ended when it did, because it had just set-up a very interesting mystery which looked like it was going to be the next arc.

The characters did nothing to break out of their moulds, but they sufficed. Perhaps the one that came closest was Akira, who wasn't a wimp or a fool, and who wasn't as bland as many harem male leads are. As for Mina, she was almost completely in type (bar her gross penchant for stripping onscreen), but she did it so well that I can forgive that.

Despite the confusing start I was upbeat. I was sure that the creators had an overarching plan and that pretty much every mystery that cropped up would be explained in due time. Yeah, well, twenty-five broadcast episodes later and nothing got resolved. I really do mean nothing; the ending was not rushed so much as not even attempted. Gah. Of course, the writers had so often written themselves into holes - especially with regards to the Contractors, their powers and their prices, not to mention Pai - that it probably would have been impossible anyway to give a sufficient explanation at the end.

Darker Than BLACK is often considered as being in a state of gestalt, whereupon the whole is greater than its parts. But in reality, it is the opposite. Considering the talent and ideas that went into this, what we got is a shocker. A disappointing show which could have easily scored a negative grade due to its craptastic writing.

Let's see. There's the fact that this came out before the OVAs and yet is unintelligible without them. There is the extremely rushed and confusing ending that drops all of the plot bombshells in the last couple of episodes, most of which made no sense anyway. What was going on was not even explained. Saving all the powder for the ending meant that the rest of the show was still confusing (because we got so little information) and felt stretched, as nothing much happened. There really should not be filler in a one-cour show, and yet the Sapporo arc just dragged bloody on and on.

Except for Suo who had a sympathetic backstory and some spunk, the characters weren't all that great either. Hei was a complete douche, Mao was useless, July was naturally a bore, Kirihara never accomplished much, and Yin was suddenly the most important person ever. The goal(s) of Shion and Madame Oreille was never explained, and how they (the goals) related to the end-of-the-world prophecy I have absolutely no idea.

It is a very, very well-animated and drawn movie. Everything is very fluid (although some parts are noticeably more fluid than others, sometimes distractingly so), and even simple things like characters putting on or taking off articles of clothing (which happens numerous times) are all done properly with no corners cut. Quite a bit of effort went into depicting the faces, like Yuki's eyes shifting nervously and how Kyon's eyes get progressively more tired and desperate.

In terms of characters I loved how Haruhi herself was missing for quite a good chunk of the movie. I know she's supposed to come across as being utterly obnoxious but we are also supposed to like her. However I really don't like her; in fact I hate her. So at the halfway point when Kyon finds her I internally groaned, because she is the biggest weakness in the entire franchise. Kyon however I did like, although I don't know if I agree with his decision. He was undoubtedly the star of the movie though; the other characters were almost forgettable.

I didn't rate this higher because of two big reasons. The first was the length, and the movie did suffer because of it. Not a heck of a lot happened in the movie, not enough to justify that runtime at any rate. So it was kind of boring with everything stretched out too far. Secondly, the movie was made by fans for fans. Either you'll think the movie is absolutely fantastic, or you'll acknowledge that it has a good plot and a good main character and great technical merits but little else; there's nothing here to really hold your interest if you aren't massively into the franchise already.

Also of note was that this is the first time I have ever watched anything from the Dragon Ball franchise in the original Japanese, isolated scenes not withstanding. I must say it was fun to spot the differences between the Japanese and old English dubs, not just in what the lines were but also how they were delivered. It is obvious that despite the Japanese Seiyuu often registering either too high or too low for my personal tastes, they are far better than the old English dub. Which is why I look forward to buying the boxsets and seeing how the new English dub performs; I've heard some really promising things about it.

For one, there is no silly one-upmanship, and the battles are as humourless as they are brutal and intense. Mirai Trunks has a great backstory, one filled with desperation and hopelessness, and anger, and loss. This special shows us that backstory, one slightly different and yet far more fleshed out than in the T.V. series. I was a little disappointed with Mirai-Gohan, as he wasn't given enough screentime to truly shine. But Mirai-Bulma just steals any scene she's in, which sadly is also too few. The androids here seem much creepier, truly evil and sadistic, and they make excellent opponents.

The bad? Everything else, just about. The biggest one is that the show had no internal consistency. Episode nine killed the show for good, after that it was just a zombie stumbling around, clumsily piecing together the most ridiculous sequence of events I've seen in a while. "Trainwreck" doesn't do this disaster justice. It's roughly comparable to a jumbo jet hitting the Hindenburg which then falls on top of an orphanage, at least in terms of how badly the plot and entertainment value are burned by the shockingly incompetent writing.

I'm not entirely comfortable with giving it an Excellent rating, but it is too well-made to be rated as just Very Good.

People always compare this show to Baccano!. I can see why; you cannot talk about Durarara!! without mentioning its (spiritual) predecessor. Both series of Light Novels were written by the same guy, both have large casts of memorable characters (which are introduced far too quickly in the first episode to keep track), and both have multiple storylines that intertwine with one another. Baccano! has a very impressive OP, and all four of Durarara!!'s OPs and Eds (but especially its first ED) are also top-notch.

That said, Durarara!! is much, much better than Baccano!. While Baccano! is a triumph of flashy but hollow style, Durarara!! has substance. It doesn't have as large a budget, but it has more heart, and despite its plot problems it is better put together as well. And the biggest advantage Durarara!! has is that it was not boring. Baccano!'s gore didn't turn me off, it was the confusing aspect to it. Since scenes often made little sense in their current context I got bored, even with all of the flashy visuals and larger-than-life characters (none of whom I liked). I found it really hard to finish the series. But in Durarara!! the gratuitous violence is gone, Isaac and Miria are gone - okay, so they do appear in a two-minute cameo, but that's it - and the show actually wasn't NEARLY as confusing. I like mysteries, I like trying to figure out what is going on, but Baccano!'s three timelines told in snippets was extremely unfair. Just like in the Haruhi franchise, telling a straightforward story out of chronological order does not automatically make the show better, it just is a fancy way to make an otherwise straightforward story look complicated. So I got confused for no real reason. Durarara!! didn't pull such a cheap trick on me, and I thank it for that. Where it did disappoint was in how it wove the separate plot threads together. At the two-thirds mark there was so much promise, and it looked like there would be one hell of a conclusion, but while the series didn't drop the balls of yarn (it was a pretty good effort actually,) the end result wasn't nearly as good as we had been promised.

The characters were a big mix of good and bad. Certainly the two lead boys - Mikado and Masaomi - were very sympathetic and likeable, but I can't say that much about Anri. She always came across as so strongly self-disparaging that I just couldn't relate to her. Shizuo is a fan-favourite, but as much as I liked him Celty was my favourite character. She was extremely cute at times, whether it be her over-reaction to the dreaded traffic cops or how she blushed when Shinra told her he loved her. She was very kind, always cool, and my favourite scenes of her was whenever she would "shake her head" (hah) in faint exasperation at Shizuo's actions. I have to give props to her Seiyuu Miyuki Sawashiro who did a wonderful job, giving her the right blend of womanly strength and girlish innocence and tenderness. Unfortunately, in the second half many of the other characters - most important enough to make into the second set of theme songs - were woefully underused. The blonde foreign girl in cowgirl attire, Shinra's dad, the traffic cop, Simon, Shizuo's brother, Shizuo's boss, Seiji, Mika and Yamie; they all either barely appeared at all or were shown frequently but never did anything to warrant that screentime. It seemed like a huge waste to introduce us to them and not have them do much, and it also bespoke of problems with the writing that could allow this to occur.

Speaking of problems with the writing, there are more than just a few plot holes here. The general story is quite well done, but the contrivances stretched disbelief. I get that in Anime if you are fifteen then it is almost expected that you live by yourself, but we got to see nothing of the three main children's home lives to compensate. Then a girl whose only problem is that she cannot walk stays in the hospital for eighteen months, and only ever gets two visitors. Never mind the incompetence of her doctors for not realising something rather odd about her (it's a spoiler, you'll have to watch it yourself). Izaya seemingly being omniscient and omnipresent is far-fetched, so much so that not addressing his information gathering abilities was an act of laziness on the writers' part. The origin of the Yellow Scarves was also odd; how does a middle-school student who must have been no older than thirteen at the time create a gang with so many older members? He is a good fighter, but it still seems strange to me. Finally, and most obviously, Izaya's whole plan involving Celty's head never actually happens. One can surmise that the kids stopped the war and therefore prevented the plan from being enacted, but there couldn't have been much more violence without the city erupting into civil war. How much violence did he need? And why was he even trying to do it in the first place; just to see if he could? His motivation was not properly explained, and "I love humans" isn't a motivation.

Let's start with the negatives. The episode where a girl caused a mass panic among the students was ludicrous and badly written. The male lead (well, the only recurring male character full stop) was too bland except at the very end. The blonde girl struggled to be relevant. It wasn't a problem when she was just comic relief but when mysteries started revealing themselves she wasn't useful. Kyrie with chips on both her shoulders was a bit hard to like. The fanservice was pretty And the characters claimed that it was weird that Yuuko never got angry when in fact she had gotten angry in the previous episodes, and when two of the other three characters had never gotten angry either. It seemed like less an oversight and more a case of bad writing.

Now for the positives. The music was good, and at times the art direction reminded me of SHAFT. The first episode is really funny and original, showing the same scene twice but in a fundamentally different way. I liked it. The revelations were almost perfectly paced. There was a good, dark reason why Yuuko initially came across as the perfect girl. The overall mystery was sufficiently explained and the show could be fairly creepy when it wanted to be. The male lead did eventually get a backbone. The final episode was very well done with great emotional impact.

Chihiro's arc was easily the most interesting, as her condition and outlook on life - and Renji's struggle to come to terms with all of this - made for some genuinely good drama. I will say that Chihiro's eyepatch was unnecessary; a physical injury on top of her memory condition is a tad overboard. The unsettling but gripping story that Chihiro writes was very strong and well-used as a metaphor to the themes and plot of her arc. I would actually read that story if it were real, and it seems like something that could win a literary prize. Needless to say, my favourite scenes were to do with the novel itself.

The other two arcs were far weaker by comparison, although Hirono was probably the best male lead. Renji was too weak for too long, whereas Hirono - despite his unusual lifestyle - was more normal in personality. I never could understand Miyako - she was one screwed up girl - but at least she was more interesting than Kei, whose fixation on a childhood friendship was a bit been-there done-that. At least she showed spine I guess in trying to put a claim on Hirono. Would have been nice to see her arc with Kyousuke getting some resolution but the arc was not completed and took a back seat for the final three episodes. The three arcs did not mesh very well, which is a shame. Chihiro's arc is pretty much standalone and that's a problem given that we never get to see Kei handling Chihiro's condition. It's interesting that the worst melodrama happens in Miyako's arc, not Chihiro's.

Musically the show was fine - I like the closer with the harmonica, and the opener was alright. But the music only occasionally grabbed me and made me go "wow". The backgrounds and art style were both pretty awesome - this show is quintessentially SHAFT - and while they did not completely cover up the limited animation budget they did a great job on their own. Shots were framed quite nicely I thought, so I'd like to tip my hat to the half-dozen guys who worked on the storyboards.

This movie is great to look at, and the sound ain't bad either. It moves along at a fair clip, and I had fun spotting the edits and outright changes. This is the NGE I love, with great battle scenes, intriguing mysteries, iconic characters, and just a general sense of "dude, this is good stuff". I still am irritated by the complete lack of psychological, emotional, and physical support and protection for the pilots. They are only like the most important people in human history, ever, and yet you allow them to get beaten up at school, go wandering around on their own, and won't give them even the most basic of professional counselling. And then of course they get blamed when the inevitable mental and emotional problems occurs. Newer series also have this flaw - including RahXephon - but it could have been at least addressed some way in this movie; it wasn't. That said, Shinji does seem a little more stable here than in the series, but that's no excuse.

The dub managed to be both acceptable and subpar simultaneously; how you view Hikaru's voice will make a big difference there. The chemistry between the girls was good (and it had better been given the huge screentime they got), and the battles did get surprisingly inventive occasionally. The slice-of-life elements were very well done, and Hikaru was quite cute whenever munching on food (which was a lot).

An interesting world and good production values - especially with regards to the first-rate and beautiful OP - are more than cancelled out by a veritable mountain of plot flaws, mind-numbingly dumb characters, not nearly enough explanation to fill in all the technobabble (a lot of which came in the last two episodes), a fascist eco-luddite "let's live as noble savages" aesop, and generally incompetent writing.

There is a reason why the 80s are over, and it has nothing to do with the march of time. I'm not talking about the character designs, which were fine, but rather the outdated sensibilities and almost outright bouts of plagiarism of well-known films and works. To make matters worse, some of the worst modern tropes were thrown in, like the short outraged Loli who calls the lead male a pervert every three minutes, or the creepy guy with the bowl-cut whom you just know is going to be evil.

Look, I was never a big fan of the first series. I just don't know why, but it never really grabbed me, and I kind of lost enthusiasm for it towards the end. That's not to say that it wasn't very good, quite the contrary in fact. I liked it, which is more than I can say about this version. Brotherhood is lucky I don't actively hate it, cause boy I came REAL close. I'm not harsh on it because I've seen some of the various big plot twists already in the first show. I have much more reasonable opinion about why it wasn't satisfying.

Much was made about how Brotherhood would be following the Manga the whole way, but what people overlook is that faithfulness does not equal superiority. Not if the original work is flawed. Not if the adaptation is badly handled. Both of these points ended up being true. I'm not going to go into a point-by-point analysis of what Brotherhood did wrong, as it would take too much time and invoke too many spoilers. Needless to say, I'll give an overview of the four main problems in Brotherhood:

The least problematic problem was the humour. I say that because as the series went on it got (spoiler alert: hah ha) darker, and therefore we got fewer and fewer instances of the absolutely crud attempts at humour. The Manga has often been criticised for the SD and the mood whiplash, but did we really need to see Edward getting annoyed at people calling him short for the third time in a single episode? Not really; it "grew" old, fast. Okay, my humour is not that good, but I'm not a famous Manga-ka gundammit. Still, the first series had a really good sense of humour in some episodes, but we never saw that in this version.

The pacing of the series was too fast in the first thirteen episodes or so, and then too slow during the middle and end. To have such uneven pacing is bad in itself, but rushing the start meant that some critical scenes - and I do mean critical - were poorly written and hurriedly stuck wherever there was space.

I flat out didn't like the characters by the end, although the final episode redeemed them a fraction (just a small one though). It is never a good sign when you begin rooting for the antagonists just because they are more interesting and less annoying. But then, the antagonists weren't treated very well

The amount of plot holes, scenes which broke my suspension of disbelief, scenes that just plain broke the internal boundaries of the depicted world, and instances of outright stupidity, were numerous and frequent, especially at the end. I just was not enjoying myself out there, because the show wasn't being internally consistent and that just pisses me off. In many cases it wasn't actively the writers' fault, as they were merely copying the Manga's storyline. They still should have tried to make improvements; it's not like there weren't plenty of legitimate areas.

Ga-Rei-Zero is intriguingly enough a proper prequel to the Manga and not a simple adaptation, and what it does right is provide emotional closure to many of the characters, not just to Kagura and Yomi. What it completely, horribly and utterly fails to address is the plot, specifically with regards to wrapping it up. Instead, the show leaves open massive questions, never explains what Lag Seeing's doppelganger is doing let alone what the heck he actually is, and it teases us by introducing an important new character in the last couple of minutes of the final episode. Yes, it is a prequel, so it assumes that viewers will have either read or will read the Manga, but that doesn't help me now, does it.

It is a very nice looking series and quite easy on the eyes, with every character (male and female) drawn in a semi-distinctive realistic style. The animation is notably good for a weekly airing show; the show obviously had an appreciable budget and a production team who knew how to make the best use of it. The monsters weren't fabulous or innovatively designed but they served their purpose, and I did appreciate the military hardware. As for the backgrounds, you can sort of tell while watching that some had been based on real locations, which allowed for some non-standard camera shots. It is the sort of thing I would expect to see in a movie or Shinkai OVA, not an action/drama show.

Ah yes, the action and drama. The violence struck a nice balance between being graphic and keeping off-screen. Basically, you got all kinds of amputations and stabbings and whatnot, but not everything was shown (a lot was though). Off-screen violence is easier to animate, and can actually be a more effective storytelling device if done right. The drama was interesting, as we knew where this was all heading, and Kagura and Yomi's relationship was convincing. But I think a bit too much was made out of the "not wanting to kill" angle that Kagura and another character shared. It made me annoyed with both of them, and unlike say Shinji from Neon Genesis Evangelion they were trained as warriors practically from birth. Hesitation to kill is one thing, and is actually expected at first, but the director drew it out a bit too much. Unlike Vash in Trigun, who had a philosophy and stuck with it through rain or shine, the two characters here had no moral arguments at all, let alone convincing ones. They just didn't want to kill human-looking apparitions (and of course one apparition in particular), even though they had no compunction in killing all manner of creatures.

I can't believe I have gone this far without mentioning the first episode. I had heard it was infamous, even notorious, but luckily I didn't know in what way. Curiosity got the better of me and I checked it out; it is actually on YouTube courtesy of FUNimation. I quickly forgot about the controversy until . . . well, I really can't say. You'll know it when you see it. I'll tell you what though, you'll either be so angry that you will drop the series or be so baffled and intrigued that you will want to watch the next episode straight away. Actually, now is a good time as any to mention that this was a very easy Anime to watch. I don't know why, but it wasn't because the story or character drama was engrossing or anything like that. I just found it easy to start the next episode, and I never found myself looking at the clock hoping that the episode would end. I found it odd, but in a good way.

The show spends too much time talking about psychological theories which may or may not have any bearing on the plot and characters. Yes, the show was quite intelligent, and the staff were obviously widely-read, but I feel they were showing off at times. The plot and characters are quite good, but the ending was a little rushed. I find the oddly low episode count - twenty-two - to be a little surprising, and I wonder if it wasn't cancelled prematurely.

I liked how this show focused on the professional side of sports rather than be yet another high school Sports Drama. Featured were sports writers, camera operators, serious fans, various officials, team management and administration that went beyond the high-school pairing of manager and coach; there was even a PR department, and the club had financial issues and relegation fears. Even on the players' side they had to worry about regular injury and being subbed out, while high-school Sports Dramas often have a fixed team with little subbing, and the spectre of injury only happens when it will most affect the plot, if at all. So much potential, so many relatively new avenues to explore and flesh out, but the show was let down by poor writing. And I'm disappointed about that.

One of the themes was that people who have fun play better. While team morale is of course important, it isn't a silver bullet that will immediately solve all your problems or make your players advance three levels of skill. There was a distinct lack of planning too. Oh, Tatusmi did come up with an impressive game-plan for the big game - which went on too long - but that was the exception which proved the rule. And even then, it stretches disbelief that a team as accomplished, as skilled and as spirited as their opponents were didn't put five or six goals away against ETU, intelligent plan or not. As a side comment, I thought there were too many slide tackles made period (let alone successful ones), and not enough interceptions.

The CG was pretty good, a much better effort than what I saw with Cross Game for example. The music was repetitive, which is a charge I've been laying against quite a few shows recently. At least the OP was good; you don't often hear that sort of English or Scottish sound in an Anime. The character designs on the other hand were just odd. The hairstyles were done well and looked like what real football players might have, but the overly muscular legs, the pointy noses and the weird art style the characters were drawn in made for a disconcerting viewing experience.

The whole business of people speaking French and Dutch and English was handled very, very badly. I do have to give the directors credit for trying, but it just did not work, the Seiyuu simply unable to do those languages justice. Dulfer was the worst offender; his inner monologues were simultaneously both in Dutch and Japanese, and it just Did Not Work. At all. Speaking about inner monologues, oh god, the worst problem the show had by far was that the players would be dribbling the ball and have these long conversations with themselves. Three seconds (if that) of game time turned into a minute or more about a characters telling us how determined he is or whatever. I hated it, just hated it.

I found this movie to be thoroughly enjoyable, with great humour and drama, and a good cast of characters. The story itself was solid, while the intriguing twist helped to set it apart from otherwise similar stories of time travellers. The budget was good, with moving backgrounds and beautiful background art more than making up for a sad penchant not to draw characters' faces when the "camera" was just a bit far away.

Now for a few gripes. First of all, as Justin Sevakis mentioned in his review of it, there were a few plot threads left unresolved. The painting was important, but only because it merely was; we were not told exactly why. And while it is obvious that the Aunt knows more than she lets on, we never get to see where she fits into all of this. Secondly, I didn't really like Riisa NAKA's performance as Makoto, who usually - especially for the more serious scenes - gave an unsatisfying delivery. I don't know what it was exactly, but most of her lines sounded unnatural, and the performance as a whole was a touch monotonous. Angry, sad, embarrassed, contemplative, she always sounded the same. It was an emotional story, and the character was likeable, but NAKA's performance didn't do either the story or the character justice. Thirdly, regarding poor Makoto herself, she is going to have to learn at one point or another that time waits for no-one. Anyone who has seen the very end will know what I mean.

But I have two related problems. The first was that the series never fully ran with the ideas it brought up, which made it seem light and fluffy rather than an actual commentary. But hey, it is a Comedy first and foremost, so I could it some slack. However, the second problem is that it doesn't do anything else. There's no overaching plot, it's just a collection of jokes.

Some scenes were absolutely riotous - like the roller-coaster - and Rika stepped up as a character. But this felt disjointed and unfinished. Yes it's only the middle arc, but other shows have had good or even great middle seasons, so Haganai's writing must accept the blame. The screaming matches were quite stupid, as was the cliffhanger, and there are far too many loose ends (some of which were only introduced a few episodes from the end). The drama had sincerity, but it wasn't genuine. I know that sounds weird, but though the characters meant what they said their thoughts and actions were just bizarre. In another sense, the characters were well-realised, but they weren't utilised properly.

There is nothing here that hasn't been hashed and re-hashed to death, barring the key point that the main characters are little older than toddlers. And yet, it is rather sweet, somewhat touching, and VERY funny. And it does not come across as toddlercon, which is what I initially thought it would be. Even when you know what's coming because you've seen it dozens of time before, this show managed to make those tropes enjoyable. Although, the Yamamoto sisters have to be two of the most clueless females in Anime (still kind of funny though).

I have to give a shout out to the EDs. Every episode has a different one, music, visuals and all. There is a great variety, and most are pretty good. My favourite is the Sci-Fi one, but then I'm biased towards that genre anyway.

So what did Heroic Age do right? Well, the character development for several characters impressed me, with many of the antagonists receiving better growth and development than the heroes. And they are only antagonists, as - minor spoiler alert - there is not a single true villain throughout the entire show. Although the show is fours years old the visuals are at times really impressive, especially when depicting alien worlds, the Nodos themselves or stupendously huge stargates. Hisashi Hirai's attractive character designs don't suffer from quite the same level of "copy-pasta" that he is (in)famous for, although you can still instantly tell he was the designer.

The show's mythos was pretty good, with god-like beings and a ship voyaging to find a legendary golden item. Ah yes, unashamedly the story of Jason and the Argonauts, but it worked well. It was at times fascinating, evoking a sense of wonder, and it knew where it wanted to go, as in, the show had a direction. I also appreciated the way the series would often take a step back and have characters consider things, whether it be their loyalties and duties, their grappling with emotions, or trying to piece together what the prophecies had in store with them. The contradictions between the various labors, the reasons for those contradictions, and the way the characters attempted to reconcile the various labors, genuinely impressed me. It showed a level of writing and wide base of thought that didn't need to be there to make the show "work" but was included anyway, and so was a big factor in why I rated Heroic Age as Very Good rather than Good.

I do have issues with the show, naturally. Let's start with the English dub, the version I watched. It was let down by Caitlin Glass's performance as a rape victim. Well, that's what she SOUNDED like. She used this really unnatural voice that I guess was supposed to sound all princess-like, but as it frequently had a constant tremor in it she came across as if she were begging for her life. I wasn't irritated by it all that much, in fact it was a great source of amusement as Glass filled scene after scene with unintentional innuendo. Still a negative though, no matter how funny it was.

Age, i.e. the main male character, wasn't much of a main character. He had no character growth or development, and therefore no character arc. Nothing seemed to bother him, ever. He was a happy-go-lucky guy in the beginning and stayed that way till the end. Although for a while his lack of angst was a refreshing change of pace to other Mecha and Space Opera shows, it became unnatural and then sort of grating. Additionally, he doesn't make appearances - at least as himself - for large tracts of time (often in multiple-episode blocks). He's the main male character but his screentime doesn't reflect that; something is a little wrong there.

I was annoyed and confused with the lack of any sort of internal consistency regarding timeframes, distances and the nature and origin of the powers that the various characters have. Some technical terms were not really explained properly, making it hard to figure out where they fit in. In most Anime the music is often repetitive; even titles in the Macross franchise recycled background music and insert songs every few episodes. However in Heroic Age it was very noticeable and a tad distracting. Especially the Doom Doors (google it), I noticed them every. Single. Time. (Luckily they weren't used all that often.)

Finally, while the almost inevitable expository dialogue wasn't too bad, I was a tad disheartened at how much of the early plot was simply given to us in the form of narration. I feel that the writers could have fit it in a little better. I realise that it is possible the story is meant to be "read" as an actual story of events gone by, with the narrator - Dhianeila - perfectly knowledgeable about most things. I mean, the style could be a linear story version of an Ancient Greek epic poem. Still, I wouldn't have minded the narration if it hadn't been used properly. I mean, it was the only source of information for what the heck was going on - and why - for quite a while until the various characters began filling in the details.

Obviously having BONES was a good step, as it meant good production values right the way through. Animation, art, music; all solid. And Stan Lee does have a formula which has been a winner time and time again. There's nothing here that is original or groundbreaking, bar the fact that Stan Lee is involved. But it was still entertaining, even though I'd seen everything here many many times before.

This could really work well as a Saturday morning cartoon. Being set in America helps, and the creators captured the feel of the good ole USA quite well. It is a little violent for young kiddies though, and the villain is not your bumbling idiot who fails each and every episode; he was one of the best parts of the show. It is too bad at how the end dumbed him down, turning him from a fearsome, cautious yet cunning leader into the the cackling arrogant stereotype we know and hate.

Speaking of the end, it didn't wrap up everything as well as it should have. Part of that was due to forcing an important flashback into the final episode when it should have been aired long ago. Joey's rival didn't get any closure, we barely got a scene with Joey and Lina, and there was a very dubious plot decision earlier on. Not to mention an impressive but largely unexplained powerup. Oh well. At least we got a juicy (although not unexpected) scene which leaves room for a sequel.

Okay, so it isn't boring all of the time. The show does tell a good story stocked with some intriguing characters, and it does sport a setting that isn't completely defined and is more interesting for it. Yet the style is so quiet, the pacing so slow that the show is almost - almost - sleep-inducing. The characters can be so unemotional at times (sort of an anti-angst) that it is hard to empathise with them. For all of their depth, they are very conventional. Also, the story is dragged out one or two episodes too long.

The character designs are quite ugly; I know it is a stylistic choice, but it is hard to take characters seriously when they look like that. The music however is uniformly good (except for the ED song), although a tad overused in my opinion. The OP and ED are fantastic visually, and the OP has a great song too. I usually watched both.

I say this without hyperbole; it is one of the best Anime I have ever watched. It is hard to voice why. When examined individually, most components are merely adequate, some even less so. It is impossible to find specific scenes which showcase its greatness. Each gesture, line of dialogue and sideways glance conveys weight only in relation to others. This is gestalt in action, humble imperfection quietly usurping dazzling spectacle.

But unfortunately, while the central relationship is strong, the show itself is far from it. Very slowly paced, entire episodes go by with little to no development and are pretty much filler. Too many side-characters are introduced and most of them are merely one-joke bit parts. The lesbian bodyguard, the big-breasted maid, the self-proclaimed delinquent tanuki; they (and others) were rarely more than superfluous and extraneous characters. The backstory of Miketsukami is withheld far too long and just dumped on us at the end in one big block.

It isn't amazing. It just isn't. Plot holes abound, the story is generic, the villains are monster-of-the-week, the final boss' identity is painfully obvious, Tony gets his arse handed to him in virtually every battle, people switch sides like this was social soccer, and scenes are ripped off of the recent two live-action Hollywood movies. But as Anime - or comic books - go it is pretty decent. There are numerous plot holes in this but no more than many (supposedly superior) titles I can name. The story is of a similar quality to what you'd expect to find in any American comic book, just set in Japan. They did use scenes inspired heavily from the live-action movies, but changed them up and gave them a slightly new twist. The monster-of-the-week episodes were set aside in the second half for a proper storyline, character designs were nice - a good blend of Anime style and comic-book sensibilities - and the voice work was passable at worst.

Katanagatari's rather unique release structure was both a good thing and a bad thing. Bad in that it was hard to drum up much enthusiasm between episodes with such a long wait between them. Episode twelve being the obvious exception, what with episode eleven's cliffhanger. That raises another (but related) problem. The first ten episodes were self-contained - one sword, one episode - although latter episodes did frequently mention earlier ones. It felt a bit stilted and formulaic as each story was wrapped up in the allotted timespan, and until the end there was not the drive to watch the next episode to see what happens next. Yes, the staff obviously intended for the structure to be this way, and they did take steps to mitigate the inherent problems with the flow of the show. The aforementioned nods to previous episodes helped, but only looking backwards, not when looking forwards to building anticipation to future episodes.

The structure did have its strengths. A whole month between episodes means the production team aren't under quite the same horrible time-pressure that bedevils most Anime series. Yes, it has double-length episodes, but each episode comes out a quarter as often. Therefore twice as much time can be spent on every episode - nay, every minute - of Katanagatari than on a normal TV show. Now you'd think this would mean much better art and animation, and I do have to say that the art was quite striking. Very simple, very basic, but incredibly colourful and vivid. Especially the design and colouration of the eyes. It seems as though every character either had a stock (but very odd) two-tone eye design but with their own colouration pattern, or they had their own personal brand of eye. Backgrounds weren't nearly as vivid, and I noticed at least two, possibly three instances of incredibly poor and exceedingly obvious recycled animated backgrounds, especially in the same scene. Y'ouch.

Speaking of the animation, generally it was quite disappointing. This was obviously a low-budget production, which happens. Some of my favourite Anime were made with little more than the smell of an oily rag, metaphorically speaking. But given the time that the animators had twice as long per minute, I expected better than this. I know I know, animators get paid per frame, so increasing the time allotted to them isn't going to automatically translate into better quality, but I was hoping, I really was. The fights are very basic, the action sequences being almost always very short with limited detailed movements. EVERY fight is padded out with dialogue. That is not too surprising, given who wrote the series of Light Novels this show is based on, but the exposition gets tiring in a number of fights. It's just another problem with the show's episodic nature. Sometimes you've got too much to fit into the episode, sometimes not nearly enough

This series has plot problems (not all the issues with the plot were holes, although some were). It has A LOT of plot problems. They piss me off but luckily do not detract enough from the show to make it unwatchable. Things depicted don't always correspond to the tech level of the intended time period; I'm not just talking about the blades here, as they are (partially) justified. Sure, there's magic, but the characters were the ones that brought physics into this, not me. (As an aside, I'm amazed that a feudal society would even know of the word "physics"; maybe it was just a mistranslation by the fansubbers.) And it may just be me, but I struggled to put together the actual behind-the-scenes plot, the whole point of the rebellion. But what was REALLY baffling were the show's finale and coda. They did not make sense. At all. Even someone with perfect understanding of the plot would not have understood - let alone forgiven - why the coda played out like it did. Shichika's decision in the finale was bizarre too, which when mixed in with some glaring plot problems did take a bit of impact away from the otherwise fairly exciting finale.

I liked Bakemonogatari. Nay, I loved Bakemonogatari. I knew that this show would be talky too. But twenty-five-minute long talky episodes are much easier to swallow than fifty-minute-long talky episodes. And Shichika and Togame struggled to match their counterparts. In fact they fell pretty far off. Also, for all of Katanagatari's uniqueness the general format of the series - a smart yet obnoxious girl paired with a guy akin to a fish out of water, who travel together to collect important artefacts - is actually pretty standard. Not tired, because there is some blending of different story elements, but it doesn't make a statement of "this is fresh". I fully understand and accept that most Anime are like this, which is why I haven't marked the show down for it. But I mention it because the execution is - 99% of the time - more important than premise. Yet by and large Katanagatari didn't try to supersede its not-so-special origins with great execution. It was good, don't get me wrong, but overall I feel it could have done better. That said, there were some notable instances which impressed me, and they spoke of the underlying quality of the show. No matter how dull or outright annoying the show got, there was usually a good reason to keep watching.

Worst of all, the emotional aspect was poorly handled and frankly AWOL on many occasions. There would be a huge event (a kiss, a fight, someone running away), and then a several-month timeskip. It happened not once or twice but obnoxiously frequently. It made the emotional tone of the series extremely disjointed and prevented us from seeing the immediate aftermath of all the highs and lows. It's hard to really care about a couple who have publicly confessed their love when BAM, three month timeskip. It is cowardly directing and cowardly writing from production staff who not only know better but ARE better than that.

That I watched Kimi ni Todoke right the way through should clue you in that this is a great show. Even though I knew (or thought I knew) how it would end it still seemed refreshing, funny, emotionally touching, and endearing. I wanted with all my apparently not-so-jaded heart that our two extremely likeable leads would get together. But, well . . . hmm.

And that's not all. The middle flopped very noticeably and very badly. The show's overall pacing was poor, extremely so in some places. There was too much screentime give to characters we just simply didn't care about as much as the two leads. It was simply too long, but also not long enough to give the audience the payoff we so badly wanted.

It would have been Masterpiece on the first three, maybe six episodes alone, and it could have still been Excellent if Kurumi hadn't wasted something like eight episodes on her lonesome. A great series that wasted even greater potential; so sad. So very genuinely sad.

I watched this because CLAMP has almost a reputation for starting out a series light and fluffy and then getting quite serious towards the end. This sort of followed the same formula, but the execution was not good enough. The connection between Kobato and Kiyokazu was kind of lame, the Yomogi Nursery storyline was not only poorly thought-out but wasted far too much screentime, and poor Ioryogi never had his background explained. Kobato was tasked with retrieving one-hundred candies in a year, which is one every three and-a-bit days. However, after several months she hardly had any, and then a couple of episodes later her jar is almost filled up with no explanation given. Here's a tip to CLAMP and/or the show's writers; don't set your protagonist a clearly impossible and easily definable task and then have that character basically achieve that task through events that could not possibly have happened under the clear and rigid parameters that you yourselves set. It breaks the audience's suspension of disbelief, surprisingly enough (that's sarcasm).

This can be a really hard show to watch at times, because apart from the one co-worker who is there for comic relief none of this material is played for laughs. Oh sure, there are some humourous moments, but anyone looking for typical Anime-style hi-jinks is going to be completely disappointed. When you have two such realistic leads and put them through the emotional wringer by way of a semi-taboo subject matter that makes many people uncomfortable, then it can be hard to struggle through several key scenes. I had to actually clasp my hands together at times because otherwise I would hit the pause button too often.

But you know, I'm glad I watched this show. It is so nice to see Anime actually treat such a subject matter seriously and with respect, instead of degrading it by playing it for laughs or introducing a cop-out ending. Real credit must go to the superb writing, which by the way was never judgemental, but the true star was the direction. I have read Theron Martin's reviews of the show's DVDs, and I strongly agree with him that every frame, every expression and even every line of dialogue is important, even if just to set the mood, foreshadow the future or provide some insight. The ending didn't actually do quite what I thought it would, and initially I thought it might have been a cop-out. I've come to realise (didn't take me long) that the ending I had in mind was not what they were going for. What we did actually get was something rather muted, but also rather satisfying. Keep that in mind if you ever intend to watch the show

Technically, this was never a show that required strong art or animation, and it kind of shows. They're serviceable and that is all they ever needed to be. However, I did notice how carefully Nanoka's hair was animated in some scenes, whether it be blowing in the wind or just slipping off of her shoulder when she turned her head, and the number of hairstyles and outfits Nanoka had was far more than what many newer series display. I liked the realistic character designs, especially Koushirou's. A lot of real-life men have that jawline and body type and yet most males in Anime are either very thin or rather ripped. As for the music, it was really good, but the true genius was knowing when to turn it off. The lack of musical cues means the audience has to think for itself. Some will find it just makes the show boring, but those who invest some concentration to interpreting the meanings behind facial expressions and body language will be rewarded.

Unfortunately I wasn't rewarded as much as I wanted, and that is because I never quite "got" the attraction between the two. I do applaud the writing for not making obvious scenes as to just where and when they fell in love. The siblings quite realistically just grow closer and closer, until they realise they have gone past a line that was never visible until it was crossed. However, because the line is not obvious it also feels that the developments in their respective feelings happens too fast in the second half. The physical attraction I can understand, especially on the behalf of Koushirou (Nanoka is rather cute), but actual romantic love? When did that happen? It is hard to reconcile Koushirou's Tsundere nature - yes, he's a rare male example, made even more rare by being an adult and even moreso by being played seriously - with Nanoka's feelings. I guess humans are really that strange, but it is disconcerting watching it on my screen.

Manabe is hard to like, being a perverted moron whose dirty thoughts makes him the designated punching bag. The grandfather is in a similar boat, being such an over-the-top pervert that he doesn't come off as genuine. Mifune's plotline is just hurriedly resolved in a dissatisfying way. Kotoura goes round in circles, beating herself up over every little thing - her development is extremely messy and goes in circles, repeating the same things over and over. And Mori, she made one extremely baffling decision that was completely bizarre and obviously counter-productive and we never got an answer as to why she did it. The detective and her arc were weak, especially the conclusion. In fact, another plotline concluded very weakly as well, and that was Kotoura and her estranged mother. It's like the writers realised that they only had the final episode to resolve it and so crammed it in, with little to no regard for making it seem sincere.

But the show's worst part was undoubtedly the first ten minutes, which were so disgustingly manipulative and filled with the most over-wrought melodrama that I almost dropped it then and there. The stupidity of those ten minutes aside, it was all so fake. And that's the show's defining problem; it's fake. A very good fake, with some moments of genuine and touching drama. But even as it tells us that Manabe should be applauded for being honest and sincere, the show is so manipulative that Jun Maeda would be beaming with pride. All stories wants us to feel something, true, but there's a vast gulf of difference between showing us a sad scene or a touching story and actually shouting at the viewer "THIS GIRL SAD. YOU FEEL SAD TOO!". For those first ten minutes, and in several other scenes, the show was so intent on getting us to feel something that it forgot to actually make a genuine emotional connection. Instead of feeling sympathetic for Kotoura I could only seethe in irritation and disgust for how fake and off-putting the drama was.

This was just an advertisement for the Manga. Except, because we get only the most hurried of explanations as to the backstory (the Anime does not start where the Manga does), the audience has not the faintest clue about what is going on. Why is he such a prick? Why does she like him? I don't know. And with such a short run-time there was no point introducing us to two secondary characters; at least Voices of a Distant Star knew where to keep the focus.

This OVA felt like the badly-done end of a twenty-six-episode series. But because we missed all of the previous episodes, we got no build-up, no explanations, no real chance for meaningful character growth, no enjoyment. The only bright sides were that the art style is easy on the eye, and that the setup does look like it has potential.

Baka Prince may have an extremely unlikeable personality, but he is hilarious as a character. The writing was generally very good, with the first and last arcs being absolutely top-notch and the rest ranged from alright to pretty good. The series was based on a fairly old Manga and so felt outdated with the Color Rangers episodes, but hey, even though they were the worst of the bunch they still had their moments. Both the OP and ED were solid, the production values were good, and the humour was a treat. And I just loved the intelligence and cunning the show displayed pretty much right the way through. As a viewer, getting successfully trolled - or in one stunning display of awesomeness, reverse-trolled - has never been so enjoyable.

The proverbial elephants in the room is that one of the girls has a huge crush on the male lead, and the fanservice is a huge problem. It is hard to have a heartwarming story when the girls are the subject of this level of fanservice. Everything from cleavage on a three-year-old (WTF?) to a ten-year-old rubbing her budding breasts against the male lead to really badly-done 'walk-ins' to a couple of pantyshots, one of which (in episode ten's endcard) was a step too far. It just made me groan, and if it had been a little worse this could have dropped a grade or two, because such lowbrow stupidity undermined the message that the story was telling.

The whole "fate is good, free-will bad" crap was gagging, and there was the old "the hero mustn't kill evil because killing is wrong" garbage that we've come to know and hate. Alibaba is so pathetic that every time he gains new confidence he immediately undermines it, meaning he fell into self-doubt about a dozen times over the course of the series, and each time his friends had to pick him up. Got real old real fast; cyclical character arcs are never fun.

On the plus side, Morgiana was a true delight, easily the best character. She stole the show. Sinbad was also pretty cool. I also liked the good world-building done here, and I liked the settings - nice to see some Arabian architecture for a change in Anime.

I've heard that this series makes big (and many would say unnecessary and destructive) changes to the Manga, altering events, locations, and even personalities of important characters. I can only base my assessment of the Anime on what I saw in the actual show, but I do wish that I had seen the same story as the one the highly-regarded Manga told. As it is, this show really felt underwhelming. If it wasn't for Morgiana, the rating might be even lower.

It is impossible for me to avoid comparing this show to Kimi ni Todoke. Both are Shoujo which aired close together (Kaichou wa Maid-Sama began when Kimi ni Todoke finished), and both had lacklustre endings and repetitive music. Kaichou wa Maid-Sama was superior in animation, artistry, elements of its humour, and had a much more interesting male lead. It put its characters into a variety of refreshing situations, avoided sagging in the middle (also, thankfully lacked a recap), and had (spoiler alert) The Kiss, which the other didn't have. It even had a better rival.

But it lacked the emotional punch of Kimi ni Todoke, had a less sympathetic female lead, and both Usui and Misaki never developed at all, let alone because of their mutual friendship/relationship (which by the way wasn't as realistic as Kimi ni Todoke's). The ending, although it had the pair as an official couple, completely failed to wrap up numerous plot threads. And I really mean that; I can think of at least six different loose threads. One of the most intriguing was Usui's past, and the obstacles that their relationship faces. His past was given only the slightest nod in the second ED. The Anime brought up the issue of the obstacles in the penultimate episode, but if you want to find out what they are you'll have to read the Manga spoilers.

- The setup was great; not just novel, but actually intelligent and with incredible potential.

- Maoyu herself was a fascinating character.

- The themes were good, like what it means to be human.

- The areas focused on - like religion and war and capitalism and agriculture - were interesting.

- Liked how the characters were doing cool stuff in clever ways.

- The very pretty art style and period-appropriate music were enjoyable.

But though the show had so much going for it, so much potential and such good ingredients, it almost descended into a trainwreck.

- The timeskips were like WTF. Yes, a plan like Maoyu's takes years to come to fruition, but felt the timeskips were missing out too many important details. And the characters were not evolving, despite such large passages of time passing.

- Too many characters. For a short series there were far too many characters demanding screentime.

- What happened to Maoyu in the latter episodes was really stupid.

- All the main characters had pasts that were barely alluded to, except of course the two young maids. In the case of Hero it wasn't too important, although I would have liked to see more of his upbringing so that we could understand his idealistic naive nature better. Maoyu was a gross offender; here was this girl who perceived the world in completely different ways than everyone around her, and yet all we see of her younger self is one short scene? I wanted so badly to know how she came to the conclusions she did and what spurred her to come up with her plan. And of course there's her friendship with Knight, which just kind of happens out of thin air.

- Mage - a complex character - was incompetently handled, as was Hero's search for her.

- Maoyu and Hero lacked chemistry. Well, okay, they had some, but not enough. They make a cute couple but not a convincing one. What really irks me the most is that they claim they are so in love with one another despite so little screentime together, i.e. such a scant foundation for their love.

- Too many loose plot threads, including some cliffhanger bombshells. This story was obviously unfinished yet it didn't even wrap up the season tidily. I am annoyed it only got one cour, this should have been a twenty-four episode show.

- The story - and the storytelling - were all over the place. I hate to say it, because this is going to sound petty, but I can really tell that the story was written by a group of people. If I didn't already know it was from 2ch, if you told me now then I wouldn't be surprised. Too many ideas, too many characters (the one-eyed villain attacking the town was unnecessary), no consistency and overarching plan over what got covered and when. Reminds me of Toru Nanamine; if you've watched or read Bakuman you'll know what I'm referring to.

- I was disappointed that Maoyu tried to solve many problems by just porting over technology from the Demon World. Seemed like a cheating way to fix things rather than do it herself.

- Silly love rivalry. Didn't like it at all, it felt out-of-place, and it ate up valuable screentime.

First of all, the battles. Virtually the entire second half of the two hour-long movie was fighting, and it wore me out real fast. With half an hour to go I was tired, and the action only stepped up from there. It also stopped any sort of meaningful character moments. Action for action's sakes is nice in small doses, I will say. But as Mr. Plinkett pointed out in his reviews of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, without invoking an emotional response from the audience large action scenes are just empty and exhausting eye candy. That said, Setsuna really was quite useless in the battles here. I can sort of see why - it is a bad look in an anti-war movie to glorify machines of destruction. Oh, and the 00 Quan(t) was supposed to end war, so it's even more important not to glorify it. However, this movie is unashamedly about the fighting and selling new model kits, so there's a dichotomy that the franchise has grappled with since the time of its inception. Also, as a matter of principle, having the most powerful Gundam only entering the battlefield in the final fifteen minutes of the movie is a bit cheap. We waited all that time, and it hardly did anything.

There were too many characters, many of whom were brought back for no real reason other than to appease fans of the series. Even the more important characters had little time to do anything much. Marina was as useless as ever. Tieria didn't do much except for a brief piloting stint and wearing a suit so skintight around the butt that Ned Flanders would have been proud. The whole Feldt pining over Setsuna thing was not only extremely boring but it did no favours to her character; she literally did nothing else the entire movie. And what happened to her thing with Lockon? Kathy was supposed to be a tactical genius but she played no part in setting up the battle plan. Her only role was ordering the firing of the massive supercannon that has been around for as long as Veda but which we never even heard of until now. Louise and Saji were as useless as ever. Setsuna went to Earth for the sole reason of saving their sorry arses; why would he bother? Speaking of Setsuna, he was about as interesting as Rei Ayanami - i.e. not at all - but at least he didn't spout meaningless pop-psychology at us.

The story was ridiculous, just like it was in Season 2. People will not stop fighting just because they understand one another. Ever heard of psychopaths? Sociopaths? No? People will hurt one another even if they know what they are doing is wrong or they understand how their victim feels. It happens a lot in domestic violence situations, a cycle of violence that is very unfortunate but isn't going to be solved overnight. Magical pixie dust is not going to address the underlying problems, and the underlying human behaviour, that cause violence in the first place. It certainly will not help the aliens find a new home, although they seems quite content to abandon their search and just form a giant yellow flower. Speaking about their new home, they seem plenty capable to me of just making a new one from scratch, given their massive level of technology. Lastly, and it has to be said, the ending sucks. Setsuna ex machina? I was savvy enough to stick around after the credits, and it did try to tie up loose ends. However it begs two questions. If a quarter of Earth's sentient population are now innovators, A: how was the inevitable conflict between humans and innovators resolved or managed, and B: how did a quarter of people become innovators in the first place? What is driving the innovation? Maybe I missed the memo, but I really don't know.

It is claimed that it has "realism", but when I look at the badly conceived characters, the implausible plots, and the numerous incidences where the show made fun of physics and geography, I struggle to see where this "realism" is located.

Moshidora is a very rare breed; a one cour Sports Anime. Usually they go on for two cour at the very least, and some shows have over a hundred episodes. Lots of episodes means slow pacing and plots that are repetitive as they are cliche. But, it allows the characters time to be fleshed out and mature, with clearly defined - if labouriously executed - arcs. The matches can be exciting and filled with tension as even the opposing teams are given the spotlight, turning them from nameless opponents into credible rivals. And of course, the more we see the characters strive for their goals, the bigger the payoff is at the end when they taste victory.

This series does it the other way around. Each one of its ten episodes is filled with meaningful developments, and there's always a sense of progress, but it tries to cram in too much into so little. Three seasons - the nine months from Autumn to Summer - go past over the course of the first six or seven episodes, and we hardly get to see anything. Very little training is actually shown, and with so little time events just happen on screen that should have been given a better buildup. Character conflicts are especially hard hit, as they just magically fix themselves with but a few words, whereas in other shows there would have been a whole episode exploring it in detail. I fear that in adopting such a quick pace, we were only shown the highlights and not the full picture, and the story, characters and drama all felt incomplete.

All that said, the characters were quite serviceable and the story was surprising well told despite the small episode count. The drama was a bit forced in episode nine but overall it was good, and the final episode was particularly stirring. The ending was spoiled each and every episode by the thirty-second narration that appeared before the OP, but it didn't detract one bit from the show's gripping climax. But most importantly, and most impressively, was the show's refreshing focus. Instead of wanting simply to "be the best", these characters actually approach sport from an intelligent and analytical perspective, with emphasis on innovation, identifying problem areas and improving outcomes (often in unusual but effective ways). And the coach's strategy was a bold and innovative move, not just on his part but also on the part of Natsumi Iwasaki (who wrote the original story). Whether or not it would work in real life is not all that important; what's important is that a story, which combined Sports with the somewhat Otaku-centric idea of a girl managing a boys' baseball team, actually had a brain. Wow.

This entire season dragged on with little direction or purpose, despite being focused on Hasegawa. She served as the weak-willed damsel in distress (what happened to the sharp-tongued top-dog from the first season?), and so much unfairly hinged on her arc. Unfortunately it was poorly-written and the France saga fizzled out, not that it had ever really had much impact in the first place. Earlier pre-France episodes were not hat great either. For instance, the mystery that Sawaki investigated with Oikawa was pure inconsequential filler which didn't go anywhere.

I was a bit confused at why the microbes were toned down from the first season. They mattered little to the overall plot and only seemed to be there to provide infodumps. But if they were to have a lesser role then the show should have expanded the characters more. However, as I mentioned above the focus was on Hasegawa, so much so that half the cast got left in Japan. Even the brand-new Yuuki doppelgänger Marie got more development in her four episodes of screentime than most of the characters in the Itsuki Seminar.

The characters are like real people who live real lives, who hold real dreams and who make real mistakes. This is not a show for those viewers who want to see silly Anime hi-jinks, fanservice of the panty-shot or breast-in-face types, or who want action action action. It is a character study, and a bloody good one. Don't be put off by the Shoujo either; you will notice it but you simply won't care, it is so good. And the music; oh God is it good. Instant classic stuff. I could have done without the woman trying to hawk stuff at the end of each episode, but she can be skipped easily enough.

So why didn't I give it a Masterpiece? Two reasons. The first is perhaps unfair on my part, but it didn't finish. Well, it sort of did, kind of, but it is open to a sequel, and by that I mean it had better get a sequel cause I want more. That's more like a gripe though. The real reason that I didn't give this a Masterpiece is because of a relationship that wasn't properly conceived. Er, pun unintentional. Now, this would be nothing, if the entire second half of the show's plot (and 90% of its drama) didn't derive a huge part of their power from the believability of this one relationship. Because it wasn't set up properly - the two just suddenly decided they were in love, with no previous scenes to suggest that they felt anything more than a platonic affection for one another - everything that it influenced was cheapened. Not by all that much, because it was very well done, but the second-half always had that unrealistic pedigree hanging over it. If there was one relationship that the show needed to get right it was that one, which is a shame because it pretty much nailed all the rest. Er, pun once again unintentional.

As for the rest of the show, it was bizarre and wacky, but in bad ways. I didn't enjoy the humour very much. The characters were not quite right; Niea herself was too Out There, and the poor-college-student-can-barely-eat routine is kind of cliche. There was no real plot to speak of. This show did have potential, and what world-building that went on hinted at an interesting situation.

One of the problems this show had was the superpowers. First of all, they were generic. Secondly, by and large their limits and nuances were ill-defined, and no explanation was given as to how the cast came about them. Although care was taken not to overuse them, they still seemed too "broken". However, the powers also highlighted many situations where the team faced a problem that could have been easily resolved if someone had only bothered to remember that yes, they had a useful ability. And no, I'm not lambasting Kagura's stance here, but giving a more general critique of the writing.

The show was boring in the first half. I have the feeling that the writers didn't know quite what they wanted to do with the show. The characters were "cookie-cutters" in terms of personality, and pretty bland too. The story was very episodic, and there wasn't a sense of Cool Secret Agents that could keep a person hooked. The show wasn't bad, but one got the impression that huge amounts of potential was being wasted.

Now for the good bits. There were a few good twists, and characters actually started doubting themselves and their allegiances, resulting in some surprisingly good bouts of drama. The villain was better than most (and wasn't a total prick or lunatic either), and the plot picked up and got intriguing. Not only was there an excellent shell game concerning the issue of colonial independence, but the show offered a thought-provoking "what if" situation. What if certain parts of the Japanese military knew about the ending of World War 2? What would they do then to counter that future? That's a very interesting question, and the answer the show gave was a logical one. Also, the time period and setting began to show through more, with talks of revolution and the Chinese chafing at the overbearing Japanese rule. The ending wasn't too bad either; it did offer a sense of closure while still acknowledging that the characters' lives and the problems of the time did not stop there.

Finally, the production visuals. The music wasn't a standout but it was pretty good, and the animation was fluid enough. The character designs were very pleasing to the eye (I don't mean in a fan-service type way), and the characters themselves stayed on-model. The voice work was good (although perhaps a tad bland in the first half), except when characters tried to speak in a language other than Japanese. The staff should get props for trying to include English and Chinese, but like in Giant Killing, having Japanese Seiyuu speak languages they aren't fluent at just doesn't work. As for the backgrounds, they could be a little spartan at times, but were otherwise serviceable.

Which strikes me as being weird, because it isn't a spectacular movie. I'm guessing that to those people, this movie opened their eyes to how Anime can produce adults-only content rife with sex, violence, and everyone's favourite, sexual violence. How fans must have felt liberated, which is nice and all, but it does seem to have caused an undeserved amount of nostalgia. Gateway Anime can be quite mundane and mediocre, or even worse. It doesn't have to be great, only new. See, just because "mature" content is gratuitously shown does not mean the production itself will automatically possess quality in other areas.

This is a pretty generic movie as far as I am concerned. The plot is just an excuse for fights, the villain is uninteresting (bad for the sake of being bad), and the rest of the characters aren't all that great either. I never really cared for them, because no effort was made to make me care. The action - often the fall-to area in productions that are struggling - didn't really excite me, which is almost terminal. I didn't fall asleep during the movie, however I simply cannot remember large amounts of it. It was that unexciting.

This isn't a bad movie, and I do not hate it. But man, every time I hear or see some idiot run their mouth off about how "great" it is, well I get irritated. Not annoyed exactly, just irritated. I don't go around saying that Pokemon or Gundam Wing are great, even though they're two of the five key shows that made me an Anime fan.

It almost never gets better than mediocre, and frequently gets worse. Two episodes of recap - including the freaking finale - is bad enough, but the characters are mostly boring, and the villains are a joke. The battle scenes are not worth boasting about; they're rather dire in fact. The pacing is often akin to that found in a long-running Shounen show, even though there were only twenty-six episodes to work with. General writing sucks.

So why was it watchable? You can thank Yuki-Onna for most of that. It was a travesty that such an adorable character was put into a show of this middling level. She alone boosted the grade up a level. And more generally, the actual show was simply better than the sum of its parts, in a phenomenon called gestalt. However, the parts were so weak that being better than them is hardly a cause for celebration.

Let's first talk about what was good. The character designs for the females cast - especially Maya and Mikaze - were amazing. Maya's clothing may be impractical but she herself is extremely well done, very girlish and sexy at the same time. As a guy I appreciate these sorts of things. The range of expressions on Maya's face is notable too for being amongst the best I've ever seen in Anime. When she is surprised she actually LOOKS surprised in the way that a real person would. Same goes for boredom, exasperation, horror, and furiously thinking. Watching her face was always a treat. And then there's the OP, which is really quite good. Lots of vivid imagery (including a lot from the Occult) combined with very vibrant colour palates makes for a viewing treat. Okay, that's the good stuff done. So what else is there to discuss? Oh yeah, the bad things. Specifically everything else. You know, unimportant things like the plot, the characters, the pacing, tone, random stuff like that.

Maya, for all of her visual appeal, was not a very likeable character. She was too much Tsun and not enough Dere. or not enough "normal", should I say. Her physical violence towards Fumiaki was overbearing and made her seem like a bitch. Hey, I was spot on with my assessment of her. Cool. Also, her continued insistence during the first half of the show that the occult was not real (despite her knowing more about it than virtually anyone else) was not endearing, and just made her seem contrary. Fumiaki was a loser, at least until the end. He had a character arc, and was a better and more confident person at the finale, but that does little to excuse the earlier eleven earlier episodes (he didn't appear in episode one except for but a brief moment). His life was crappy up till then, true, but he was annoying as hell and couldn't even stand up for himself. A genuinely troubled teenager like Shinji Ikari I can forgive, but not a guy in his twenties who was a bumbling idiot most of the time. The question of how he managed to get the gig of saving the world is utterly baffling, such was his incompetence. Course, that's more a problem with the story, but it reflects badly on his character. As for the other characters were either little-used (Smile and JK), overused (Maya's friends), or, in the case of Mikaze, completely ruined.

The story, pacing and tone all sucked. For a show called Occult Academy, set in an academy nicknamed Occult Academy, I could have done with more of the occult. You know, cause it's in the goddamn NAME. Instead we got the most horrible mashup between War of the World-style tripod aliens, the occult, demons, and in the end, witches wearing either stripperiffic costume or a Bo-Peep-inspired outfit. The show couldn't decide on one of these things, or even two, so it threw everything in the pot and turned the oven onto Fail. Why did it include Science-Fiction elements in a show about the occult, and then throw in Magical Girl transformation sequences? Why? The show also could not decide on the tone it wanted, and that was an even bigger problem. Many Anime out there start off light and fluffy and then get darker as time goes on, which is fine. This one oscillated between goofy antics and slapstick scenes, and a dark storyline about preventing the apocalypse. The imminent apocalypse no less, and yet time is spent on annoying filler in a series only 1-cour long.

Which nicely segues into the issue of the pacing. It was gosh-darn awful. And I'm not just talking about the filler. In episode eleven two massive (and related) plot twists get revealed (they're also incredibly daft, however that's not the point I'm making here), but there was no foreshadowing. No build up. They just happened. Sometimes with good writing you can pull it off, but this show didn't have good writing from the start. If the pacing had been better there could have been some effort made to prepare the audience, so that it doesn't look like it just got pulled out of the writers' collective arses, but the pacing wasn't good at all. All that filler did help - marginally - with establishing and developing the characters, but it forced the real plot developments into the last three episodes.

In the end I decided on what this show was most of the time, and that was a plain and uneventful Decent. It had some nice ideas, although the setting and themes were largely ripped off from Higurashi, as was part of the plot. It also had music that get in the way but which didn't do too much either, and character designs that were as serviceable as they were generic. The characters generally were sympathetic, and none annoyed me, although they rarely acted intelligently and realistically. We learnt very little about them, and only Nemuru got any sort of development and growth. The motifs too tended to hit as much as they missed.

See what I was doing there? I have to qualify EVERYTHING. That is this series in a nutshell. So why did I give it a grade of Decent rather than something lower? Well, three reasons, although the first two are somewhat connected.

The first is that the show had a pretty good plot, which was interesting and not quite what I thought it was. It was also complete, although (another qualification) additional background information would have been VERY handy. So, I at least liked it, mostly.

The second was that the series knew how to pace itself. Relatively-speaking, a lot of information was given to us, but it never felt like too much. The show drip-fed us information, yet the drops were certainly interesting, and helped keep me watching. That said, I ONCE AGAIN have to qualify it by saying that the last episode was bizarre, an omake episode in the regular season.

The third, and the show's best point, was the "villain". He had a good reason to do what he did, he was smart, he was dedicated, and he had an excellent plan. If he hadn't been so cocky he would have "won" (he couldn't really have won anyway, but we're getting into spoilers). Yet his defeat was a good one, full of pain and pathos.

And yet, though in a lesser series those faults would be damaging, in this one they are really inconsequential nitpicks. One Outs is the most entertaining Sports show I've ever watched bar none, and also the most cerebral Sports show I've ever watched bar none. It completely ignores the standard formula of such shows which espouses the philosophy of believing in yourself and in your team-mates, and winning through perseverance, hard work and natural talent. No, this series doesn't do any of that. In fact, it flips such thinking the bird and shows just how meaningless such a philosophy ultimately is. What wins games is not touchy-feely team spirit backed by years of training, but outsmarting opponent to exploit their weaknesses and turn their much-vaunted strengths into liabilities. One episode (episode spoiler[eight]) has the scenario where it is explicitly stated as fact that the team who breaks the most rules will win (and that of course applies to the 'good guys' as well); this is not your typical inspirational baseball show.

Scientific-sounding terminology is thrown around at the drop of a hat without thought to making it sound plausible; how the heck is a "Quantum Transition Field" supposed to allow vessels to liquefy sand till it becomes like water? That's not remotely close to what the word "quantum" would imply. The protagonists' vessel is only around twenty (maybe twenty-five) metres long yet is shown to be quite sizeable on the inside, moreso than a modern ballistic submarine which is seven cubed (343) times larger. The Monokeros weapon does not act as initially described, and it is very far-fetched how a guy and his brother could build out of junk something that could defeat something as large and as long-lived (not to mention as technologically advanced) as an Ozma. Then there's the mind-implanting technique which was never explained. I thought it would be a simple brain transplant but oh no, it was just like copying a file apparently. I had a gut feeling that Dick's (yes, his name is Dick) personality would resurface, and so it did. Gack. Finally, what is the relationship between the Ozma and Maya? Were there more than one Ozma? Did the people who created the Ideal Children also build the Ozma and the Zones? None of this was ever explained, or even hinted at, even though they are big and important questions.

Characters are also badly written. Whatever time Sam isn't being loud-mouthed, impulsive and useless, he is gaping into space with a confused and/or surprised expression on his face. He certainly doesn't come across as any sort of hero or everyday guy, just a little punk out of his depth whom I want to punch every time he opens his face-hole. Maya spends the majority of the show as an almost-emotionless waif, an object that drives the plot rather than a character in her own right. Then she's this mysterious goddess who can communicate with the Ozma with no explanation why. Mimei is the typical b*tchy love-interest. The female captain is made out to be this cool and tough chick only for her to become a mess once she finds out the face behind Gido's mask (as if his hair didn't make it completely obvious). Seriously, she just mopes for the last quarter of the show. We also never find out anything about the Natura, which I thought was important. Never even saw a Natura town or community, just a bunch of louts on the ship.

It isn't nearly as funny as Seitokai Yakuindomo, another recent comedy which used sex jokes, despite being way more out there in terms of pushing the envelope. A lot of the content just came across as gratuitous, especially the cursing; it's amazing that I think the humour hit (slightly) more often than it missed. The funniest scene was a suicide-bomber sexbot; freaking hilarious in context. The story - as in, an overarching plot - only showed up in the last two episodes, and even then it didn't really make sense and wasn't all that interesting. We did however get a hint of something far more substantial; the final episode had one hell of a cliffhanger, a shocking one which probably exceeds the infamous one found at the end of Code Geass' first season. But with no lead-up to it - it just happens - fans were understandably outraged. The art style was quite unusual, and got even weirder in certain episodes (like the B part of episode five). The less one dwells on the various puerile types of ghosts and magical powers the better. Ugh. As for the action, the battle in episode six probably has one of the all-time best Anime fight scenes. It was, quite simply, epic (I liked the Equilibrium homage), and superbly animated. Best ten minutes of the entire show, period. Ten of the best minutes you'll see in Anime, period. Completely over the top, but it worked.

However, the show's true genius was that most of the episodes and most of the jokes would have worked even if all the characters were human. In other words, the show did not need to rely on animal humour to spice things up, but was genuinely funny in its own right. The fact that the characters were animals was in many ways just a bonus. That doesn't mean the animal-specific humour was unnecessary, not at all. Often it was the highlight of an episode, or comprised a big part of some of the jokes. All I'm saying is that if you are afraid the humour is too childish or inaccessible then you have nothing to worry about.

Logic? What's that? The series is all over the place. There's too little world-building for starters. The story can't figure out what it wants to do, throws in as many different ideas as it feels like with no regard for making them mesh together properly (or at all), and actively undermines its own power levelling system and battle contract system. I've seen more sensible battle strategies in the Duellist Kingdom arc of Yu-Gi-Oh!. Problem Children should have been two cours long at least, not ten episodes, and really, really suffered as a result. Of course it was silly anyway, but some more time would have helped, at least to paper over some of the more glaring plot holes.

The characters are its strong point, but even they are not used too well. Izayoi steals the show as the cool over-powered anti-hero, but he has it too easy and the tension is low as a result. Jin is at the start of his character arc and will one day be a good leader . . . but right now he's overshadowed by the other characters. Asuka is more interesting with her struggle over her powers, but it tries to make her into an action girl when she isn't suited for it. Kasukabe on the other hand is a great action girl . . . when the show allows her to be. She's pretty much sidelined for the final battle for no discernible reason. Black Rabbit's personality is inconsistent, and at any rate she's mostly used as fanservice. Then there are the Lolis, each one is more powerful than the last. I am still wondering what Leticia, a supposedly super-powerful vampire, actually DID in the show's second half.

The initially bland characters are developed, the plot turns out to be quite fascinating and well-constructed once the one-shot arcs are out of the way (last one is episode six), there is actual detective work in this and it is quite good, the backstory is actually quite engrossing and holds some great twists, and the villain is deliciously evil. Whoa, I mean, DAMN. It got to be a very enjoyable ride. Final episode was really good, and I got a really nice and uplifting feeling from it, so much so that in a moment of madness I almost gave this show an Excellent grade. It isn't good enough to deserve that, mostly because the first half is pretty boring and not all that well written, but it is a solid show nevertheless. My biggest gripe - besides it taking so long to really find its feet - is that Nao was supposed to be deaf and yet on numerous occasions responded to people talking to her when she wasn't looking at them.

Yeah, that sums up this show better than a mere mortal like myself could ever hope to accomplish. I would still rank RahXephon higher, but there's not much in it.

I found it impossible to marathon due to its heavy subject matter, which involves stuff such as pedophilia, indentured servants (i.e. sex slaves), authority figures abusing their powers in horrific ways, Hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors), racism, sexism, rape, murder, and some incredibly graphic displays of injuries and violence.

Anyway, chalk this series down as yet another example of why in a artistic work the script matters more than the direction. Yeah, I know, I just said that the direction was lacklustre, but the show's real problem was that it's poorly-written. What we got was a nonsensical plot-hole-ridden devil-may-care mess. I'm hesitant to lay all the blame on Katsuhiko Takayama - the screenwriter - as he may have been dealing with crappy source material. He's done some good work in the past, and I've liked many of the shows he worked on. But ultimately it's his responsibility to turn out a good script no matter what the quality of the source material and he clearly didn't in this instance. What happened to the kind of effort he put into Ga-Rei-Zero, where he actually made valuable improvements on the weak source material? Maybe along with Shinbou he was phoning his work on Sasami-san as well.

I realise that I haven't talked about the actual show itself. But what's there to say? It is asinine in its fetishistic fanservice of Sasami and how the brother acts towards her; he has to be one of the most annoying characters ever. The plot makes little sense unless you are very familiar with some of the finer aspects of Japanese mythology (I had to take a crash course in it myself), and even then is just plain weird and often baffling. Minor characters are sloppily handled, and it was even hard to care about many of the major ones. There were some nuggets in here worth watching - the arc with the mother was pretty good for example, as was Sasami's growth - but most of the time the show was written and executed so very poorly.

Many parody shows focus on stringing together scenes from individual works, whereas this one has in its sights the entire high-school Comedy-Romance genre, Ecchi or not. From the lyrics and visuals of the catchy ED to the hilarious "stamped" messages that come up, the more you know about Anime and its various cliches the funnier it is. It loves to break the fourth wall and poke fun at not only other shows but itself as well. And then it has a few passes at the actual Anime industry, like when it claimed that a certain censored scene would not be uncensored for the DVD release.

Watching Seitokai Yakuindomo was so refreshing. As has been said many times before by other people, the style is very reminiscent of the 4-koma comic strips in Japan. A short and usually innocuous setup, a crazy and/or dirty twist, and the reaction from the "straight man" (which in this case was usually Tsuda). With such short jokes, any that didn't work - and they were rare - were quickly removed from the screen and replaced with something else. That said, the show still managed to have plots (of sorts). It didn't feel vapid or unsubstantial just because of the setup; indeed, having so many varied and interesting scenes did provide the audience with a great insight into the mind of each of the characters. There wasn't any development per se, but this is a pure comedy show after all. Any time the show looked like it was getting too serious the scene was immediately stamped on, usually by gently laughing at a particular cliche or trope (a heartfelt confession, walking under the same umbrella, you name it). I also loved how although there were hints of romance in the latter stages, it deliberately never went anywhere. It is difficult to poke fun at cliches if you are using them in a serious way.

One thing that cannot go unmentioned was how risqué and just plain dirty this show was. Masturbation jokes (both male and female) were a dime a dozen, and there were frequent mentions of S&M and oral sex. But hey, as long as you are in your mid-teens or older, there is nothing here that should genuinely offend. I was a little shocked at the "maturity" of the material that made it to air, but I didn't mind it. And the dirty jokes were often so funny (or at least outrageous) I couldn't help but laugh anyway.

This was tagged on as a bonus feature to the disk of Voices of a Distant Star. That was the only reason I watched it. I did appreciate the relative originality of basing it on the cat's perspective rather than his female human owner. And I do fully understand that it was made by just one man on his home PC (except the music, if I remember correctly).

We were treated to episode after episode of horrible events happening, the vampires got their just desserts - well, mostly - but there was no point to this. The series ran for twenty-two episodes and although it could have done with another two or four to give it a "proper" ending, it was already long since the point of being broken. However, with no ending at all there was absolutely no payoff, and nothing was resolved. The journey itself was not a reason to watch, given how badly-written, horrible and gloomy it was.

Starting from episode eighteen onwards it got very satisfying, but about the same time the show also deigned to have the most moral character make the most immoral decision. Morality was brought up occasionally - is it alright for people to kill others just so they can survive? - but in the very context of this show the answer was clear; No IT IS NOT. Taking an innocent human life by force just to live another month - yes, that's all people, one life every few weeks - is NEVER justifiable. This is obvious to me and I am a huge Light Yagami supporter. The show tried to justify it by having the Shiki suffer from uncontrollable hunger, but that ignores what happened with Ritsuko, and that for 99% of the time that the Shiki are lucid and completely in control of themselves. They could have suicided any time they wanted when they weren't feeding. That there was supposed to be some big debate about the morality present in the show is ludicrous. Sunako and her followers are dead wrong, and no, that's not a joke, so don't laugh.

I also thought the whole "God has forsaken me" part to be extremely irritating. Although little Sunako pretends she is so smart for spewing pretty quotes she doesn't understand and which are clearly not correct, she cannot see that there is no God. Trying to turn to an imaginary person to ease your own guilty conscience is extremely childish; how old was she supposed to be again (I don't mean physically)? While I'm here I might as mention the other characters. The cast was far too big, leading many characters to only have one distinctive personality trait. There was no real main character, although Natsuno looked like he might be one (he never was) and Toshio came as close as any. There was also a dearth of sympathetic characters, since many of those who were victims then went on to hurt others, despite knowing what they were doing was wrong and able to commit suicide any time they chose. I felt eminently sorry for poor Kaori, although the ending really didn't address how she and Akira made it to hospital or why Akira hadn't been killed yet.

Also, this a modern vampire story, with a bit of effort put in to achieve some semblance of scientific and medical accuracy, and yet it incorporates many unscientific myths surrounding vampires. These include that they hate loud metallic noises, that they cannot stand wooden crosses or folklore charms, that they can use hypnosis, that they are best killed with a huge wooden stake to the heart rather than a spear or other instrument, that they have fast-to-the-point-of-being-magical healing powers, and that they are cold blooded despite the human body being adapted for warm blood operation. The especially worst one was that they cannot enter a house or other dwelling unless given permission (no matter how oblique the permission was); what the heck is that nonsense doing in a supposedly realistic show? The other problem was with the "modern" part. The show is obviously set after World War Two, and yet no-one in this rural community has guns (until the very end), no-one has a UV lamp or torch, and the governmental system is outdated to the point of being feudal. Where is the media? Where are the infectious disease control plans? This is not the middle ages, so why did the villagers feel the need to tackle this all by themselves? Hmm? On the flip side, this is a village with a scant 1300 residents in the middle of effing nowhere and it has its own mini-hospital complete with five nurses. It is odd in itself but even if the village was well equipped there was no reason not to call in outside help. And given the clinic, you would think more of the villagers would suspect an epidemic, or treat it seriously.

But all that said, what really bumped the grade up from a Good to a Very Good was the enthusiasm. You could tell the staff and Seiyuu really enjoyed working on this Anime, and the script treated astronomy as almost its own character rather than just something to set the plot in motion, as a lesser series would have done. There was real respect and love for the stars and constellations on show, and that's what sold me. Fanservice was light, apart from episodes five and twelve there was only some pretty funny innuendo. On the show's one real downside, I wish there had been more of a resolution to the romance side of things (although it was implied one couple did hook up), but it was never a big deal, and I do not consider it important enough to drag the grade down.

Some of his biggest atrocities were barely even touched on, as were his biggest social and economic reforms. Apart from maybe one notable clusterfuck, he was like a Mary Sue. He wrote amazing poetry and seduced numerous women. He was a master huntsman, a strong tactician, a genius strategist, a born leader and a persuasive orator. He was also a swordsman capable enough of at least holding his own against the best, men who could and did kill dozens with a single swing. Where were his flaws? Where were his doubts? Where were his mistakes?

It wasn't a well-executed story, and the characters lack any real depth to them. But the show was plenty entertaining, I'll give it that. Seeing these larger-than-life personalities with their reality-defying superpowers was good popcorn-munching fun. It was easier to follow than I thought, mostly because it simplified a lot of things. But man, what a tease it was with some of the battles. There was a real dearth in superpower versus superpower action, although I guess that kept the show from descending into straight Shounen.

This show is a goldmine for hilarious animation mistakes. But it was a television series from the early eighties, so I'll forgive it for that. I won't forgive it for having one character die because he was too stupid to go to the hospital. And perhaps the most glaring error of the entire show was when our heroes try and escape the alien starship by slowly cutting through the airlock even though there is already a massive hole in the side of the ship which THEY made and which is in the same hanger as they are. It's such a mind-boggling error I can only surmise that the guy doing the storyboards was severely stressed that week. Maybe he found out his wife was cheating on him? Who knows.

Those two points aside, I have to say the plot was really interesting. I can see why this show became so influential in Japan (many Americans will of course know it as the first part of the famous Robotech). The Real Robot combat (not a single shred of psychic powers to be found: yay) plus a fascinating alien race that is so used to war it has forgotten "culture" makes this a huge breakaway from previous shows. Heck, if it was broadcast in the 2000s it still would be fresh. The scenes where the Zentradi expressed their various opinions on culture were always funny, but at the same time reinforcing how different their way of thinking was. I liked how the Zentradi weren't stock bad guys, and indeed feared humans as much as humans feared them.

Up to and including episode twenty-seven the show was very strong. Indeed, episode twenty-seven could easily have been the last episode with only a few minor changes and a couple of extra scenes at the end to wrap things up. But the show went on for another nine episodes, and I have to say it was a mistake. Continuing the story past the normal end point was a perfectly good idea, don't get me wrong. Seeing how the characters coped in the aftermath and the new direction humanity was taking was pretty neat. But the writers did not know how to handle it properly; it felt tacked on. So a good premise for the last arc was seriously let down by bad execution. I suppose this was the real big error in the plot, not the two I mentioned in the first paragraph.

In the last arc many of the characters got markedly snarkier and stupider; the ones who got shoved out of the way were probably the lucky ones. Kaifun became even more annoying than he already was, which I didn't think was possible. Minmay - saviour of humankind - just whined a lot while complaining that she didn't feel like singing. There was very little live singing in the final arc, and it was never important to the plot, which is a shame. Misa's only role was to fawn over Hikaru and be catty, although I liked her the most out of all the main characters. And Hikaru became a two-timing prick unworthy of either woman's affections and too immature to make up his mind. I can't believe how stupid and ineffectual the military became, making stupid decisions that caused several large towns and Macross City itself to unnecessarily suffer huge civilian casualties. It's the sort of military planning that even the Transformers would shake their heads at.

Gah I hated this movie. The characters were horribly conceived, the plot was tepid, and the direction was crap. The usual strong Ghibli technical merits aside, the whole think reeked of failure. It was supposed to be Goro Miyazaki's introduction, his chance to stamp his mark on the Anime world and prove he is ready to take over from his father. Well, he does/did have competent technical staff, I'll give him that (although the character designs are just too similar to Princess Mononoke), but he can't direct to save himself.

This is actually a fairly predictable story. But boy is the ride fun. Watching the nameless protagonist get himself into all sorts of bizarre strife all the while giving us an ultra-fast narration of his own misfortunes is great. House of Five Leaves got a lot more coverage, but The Tatami Galaxy is by far a more enjoyable, watchable, and interesting show. Especially the way the different plot threads come together so well.

The majority of the stories were episodic in nature, with predictable plotlines and stereotypical characters, but they were like munching through a bag of potato chips. Each one is pleasant, but not in the least bit filling, so you keep on eating more and more and then they're all gone. Most episodes of Letter Bee were like that, lightweight comfort food at its most addictive. It helped that the episodes were shorter than the standard Anime length; I don't think any of them topped out at twenty-one minutes or more.

I've got to put in a word for the characters; Niche is just thoroughly awesome, Lag is a naive crybaby who surprisingly never got on my nerves too much, and I thought Steak managed to be quite brave (living with a name that constantly reminded him of his ultimate fate in life). The other characters were not all that well-developed other than Gauche (kind and composed) and Zazie (tough-guy with a soft interior).

Letter Bee is a rather unusual in that not only is it a Fantasy work (fairly uncommon these days), but often, it seems more intent on delivering a moral than showing us a big fight scene (even though there are plenty of them). It hardly ever falls into the trap of turning its moralising into preaching, which is nice. For a series about heart, it should not be surprising that it contains a warm heart of its own.

Too bad the almost complete lack of a plot and the flat characters drag it down, but the second season largely fixes those. And since the sequel is more a direct continuation, you can think of the two seasons as one fifty-episode production. Therefore, it doesn't matter if there are apparent deficiencies in this first season because it is only setting things up for the second half.

It pretends it is soooo deep by having characters who hardly speak at all (and for Ran, only then in riddles). But having characters who are mute most of time is just a way to hide the fact that there's almost no substance to this show at all. It isn't a case of "getting" it, because there's nothing to "get".

First of all the music, which I didn't really notice but wasn't that horrible (so it was serviceable enough). The animation was well done and far more fluid than television shows, which is what you'd expect from an OVA. The mechanical designs were also very good, although perhaps a little far-fetched.

The character designs on the other hand were incredibly good, and quite realistic. I mean, if I was going to make an Anime, that's how I'd design them, except I'd render the characters without the heavy CGI. See, the faces looked all "plasticky", especially in the first episode. I don't know if it is because it took time getting used to them, but they really put me off. And the lips were one of the biggest disappointments, as there was almost no effort made to match the lips to the dialogue. This was very disconcerting.

As for the characters themselves, we never got enough time to really know them, which was a shame because there was nothing stopping them from being interesting except for extreme time constraints. The plots (yes, plural, as both episodes had their own individual plots) were both interesting, with some great ideas, but the second episode executed its plot far better than the first did. However, both episodes were guilty of numerous instances of weak writing and obvious plot holes.

Once again, time constraints meant that we never saw the full picture. Expository dialogue hinted at an interesting and wonderful universe, but disappointingly we only saw glimpses. So yet another argument can be made for the OVA being a series.

The biggest and most fundamental flaw of this series is painfully obvious; it was too short. It affects everything; the characters, the story, the enjoyability of the show. The first half was too slow, and confusing because things were happening and we had not one clue as to why they were. It featured characters that I couldn't bring myself to care about, because we weren't introduced to them properly. Instead we got endless scenes of them walking down dark streets or whatever, instead of learning anything important about them. Akira came off as cold to the point of robotic, and Keisuke was whiny as hell.

The second half of the show was the opposite. It was too fast. It was confusing too, but in how events were happening with no real explanation given as to what the F was going on. Terminology and the names of factions were dropped with no help given to the viewer as to what or who was being talked about, and how they fit into the story. Characters now received development, but largely in the form of numerous flashbacks to events that were not previously depicted, or even hinted at until the flashback was aired. This storytelling method is a sign of a rush job, and lacks the emotional power that could otherwise be shown. Also, superpowers being thrown in with absolutely zero foreshadowing. Not good.

I did like the character designs; although Rin is far too girly for my tastes, having at least one girly boy is apparently a feature of Shounen-Ai. And the show did well in setting a bleak and depressing atmosphere. Too well, given how the characters were already so gloomy. But the animation budget was pretty gosh-darn small, and in the final episode much of the action was done while the camera pointed at the ground or sky. Um, that's pretty poor form. Reused stills are chronic in episode twelve.

This show is not even a commercial. It is a one-cour treat for fans of the game, since you would have to had already played the game to not be so utterly confused by the story and disinterested in the characters. I suppose there's always spoilers online, but that kind of defeats the purpose. I wouldn't recommend this show to anyone who isn't a Shounen-Ai fan, as it is a poor introduction to the genre.

It has themes like forgiveness, redemption, maternal love, tolerance, family and charity. And those are just the ones I can think up off the top of my head. The characters seem stereotyped but are always deeper than you first believe. They compliment one another, grow on you, and by the end you want them to be happy. The humour knows exactly when to turn up, and it is very funny. Even some scenes that you might think were supposed to be all dramatic ended up being funny in a way, like when the ambulance crashes and the driver gets out and says he needs an ambulance.

I have asked myself why I didn't rate this a Masterpiece, and there are three reasons. The first is that while the story is enjoyable, I did feel it meandered a bit too much. The second is that the humour knew when to show up but it sometimes stayed a little bit too long, mostly at the start of the movie. The third reason is more personal; as an atheist I didn't appreciate the religious overtones as much as others might. But don't get me wrong, that isn't a criticism of the movie, just a reflection of my personal feelings.

The show's Ero-game roots are obvious, but it manages to do enough to avoid being bogged down by its heritage. The lead is bland but likeable, the initial setting fairly interesting for yet another feudal rendition, and the series does have some good humourous moments. The battle scenes showcase how a small budget can be expertly stretched without making the show look cheap. The science fiction parts didn't feel quite right, but the ending is a good solid one, always a treat in Anime. And the overall pacing is quite fast, especially at the start. The show doesn't slow down to catch its breath until episode eight.

So why would I give this a passing grade? Because of the visuals silly (the audio isn't nearly as good). And because it offers a new twist on humanity's relationship with machines. Many people liken this to Appleseed because of who made it but I actually think it is closer - at least in spirit and themes - to Ghost in the Shell. Oh, and a little bit of Dune, if only in a couple of obvious respects, but mostly the former. Vexille doesn't rip off that illustrious Anime franchise so much as be inspired by the ideas it raises. Sure, it only gives its themes a cursory glance, but at least they are there. And for an unabashed action movie in which the entire point was introducing mouth-watering visuals and mechanical designs, hey, it could have been so much worse.

On merit alone I would have given it a rating of Awful - it really is dreck - but despite finding myself in a near constant state of eye-rolling I did not find the show painful. Maybe it was Yukio's outfit that made things easier? My advice is to go in with the lowest possible expectations with regards to the characters, story, action scenes and the believability factor, and you may indeed find it tolerable. Just never forget that it really is a giant turd and an embarrassing entry in Madhouse Studio's portfolio. I mean come on, trashy Anime is like fast food; you expect a low minimum standard that is not at all hard to meet, and if the burger joint or studio cannot even meet that then they have TRULY failed.

The first two arcs of this show are great, and totally worth watching. That's the first three episodes by the way, out of twelve. In the first episode quite a bit happens, but the writing makes it work. The episode feels half again as long, because all that happened without coming across as rushed. The next arc - a two parter - is also good, with Keima having a plan and it coming to fruition perfectly. But the third arc - a three parter - has a badly developed girl (and that's not a crack at her actually impressive rack), the writing sucks, it is obvious that the writers didn't know where to go with it, and it just goes on way too long. As in, it wouldn't have filled up two episodes and yet it was stretched to three. The fourth arc is another three parter, and although the girl is far better developed as a character (and very, very cute), the arc is so slow and quiet I'm amazed that I didn't fall asleep. Maybe Moe is good for something after all.

Luckily, the eighth episode was an interesting filler story told through multiple perspectives. The twelfth and final episode wasn't a proper ending, but given that a second season had already been greenlighted at that stage it can be somewhat forgiven. It had a cool visual style, but the episode also had the worst ED I have ever heard. It seems as though it was made deliberately bad, but try telling that to my poor ears.

I say this about a lot of Anime, and this one is unfortunately no exception. There was potential, and yet it got squandered. The big shame was that it realised that potential straight off the bat, with episode one being really good (easily the best of the bunch). Watching the show get worse and worse, and more unfocused with each passing episode, really hurt. I'm not sure if this was the fault of the manga-ka or the staff of the Anime, but someone screwed up. I do not buy into the possibility that the first few episodes were an aberration.

The character interactions are surprisingly strong and there are some notable scenes and scenarios. The idea of [humanity - or what's left of it - being confined to looping worlds is an intriguing one, and the way the characters have to deal with and overcome the barriers was well-handled. I also found Ryoko's unique situation to be a fascinating one that really added a lot to her scenes in the show's second half.

You knew it was coming - the "but". See, this show may handle its core cast of character reasonably well, BUT, the writing outside of that sphere is very, very weak. It's so full of innumerable holes that if you simply start to think about them you could rip the entire show into tatters. Seriously, even I don't want to start, because I'm afraid I'd still be hours later trying to expand on just how flawed the writing is.

So where does that leave us? Good character interactions built on a foundation of writing that had some good ideas (borrowed liberally from other works such as The Matrix) but applied so very, very poorly. It also doesn't help that the show's CG visuals were truly awful. They clashed with the non-CG parts and looked like they were lifted directly from a video game.

And here comes the second "but". The show's writing of the setting and the plot was very bad, true, BUT, the characters make up for that. They aren't particularly special, but they are handled competently-enough and I could form an emotional connection. Plus, and this is important, the themes were very strong and well-explored.

In the end I thought I the narrative focus - which was on the characters rather than the plot or setting - was the show's saving grace. Yes, even though it meant an under-developed world, keeping the viewer's attention on the show's good points (characters and themes) was the correct decision. Lord knows that both the plot and setting weren't anything to write home about.

Of course it isn't going to get that second season, because this show doesn't appeal to many people, and that means it wouldn't be financially feasible to make another twenty-six episodes. That's a freaking crying shame, and also a decision which reflects on just how f!@#ing stupid most Anime fans are. This was an intelligent show for intelligent people, and so it doesn't appeal to the idiots who only want, well, whatever the crap idiots want nowadays.

You'll find no Moe in this, no Lolicon, no fanservice (not of the sexual kind; lots of the military kind), no moronic attempts to be "funny". There's only one female character who gets a recurring speaking role. All you'll find here is a notably intelligent plot driven by rather intelligent (and yet very human) characters. The pacing is slow, the animation nothing to write home about, the music solid but not incredible. And yet this is one of the best shows I've ever seen.

The mystery premise is actually somewhat intriguing, but the setting is cliched and this is basically your standard Otome game. But the real problem is the execution; the word 'insipid' is an understatement. Apart from the music, art and clean character designs (although what is with the funky eyes?), everything the show does is so boring and unappealing. The bishounen are not so much characters as they are walking fetishes, and the lead female's personality is so faint that a cardboard cutout would show more emotion than her. The dialogue is bland beyond belief, with no impact at all. And the direction is very, very clunky, which is surprising since both the director and scriptwriter are experienced and have done some good work in the past.

I just couldn't get into this show. I don't care if it was well-drawn and fluidly animated, it just did not draw me in and I could not care about any of the characters. As if that wasn't bad enough, it is a bizarre Super Robot show with the religiously prudish gender-segregation and the combining robots, and, well, I'm not partial to those at the best of times.

This isn't terrible; it's quite watchable in fact. Except it's not, because it sucks. Yeah, I know, I like being contrary.

The show gives off the vibe that it's a poor adaptation of a much better original Manga, and I'm hardly the only viewer to feel that way. It's confusing (apparently the Anime staff have messed around with the order of scenes a lot), it's got plot holes, it expects us to sympathise with certain villains just because they got their comeuppance, and the characters are so painfully cliched it's hard to bear. It has NO subtlety. Plus the plot is pretty meh, something you'd have expected from the nineties or early noughties. Even compared to shows of that era it doesn't hold up particularly well. The school side of things has been sorely neglected along with the cheerful Arata and the strangely-fixated bully. But even though future episodes promise more on that front it is far too late for them as they've lacked so much screentime I can't bring myself to care, because I haven't been given a reason to care. Of course, even Hinohara is such a wimp it is hard to like him. The show seems so scared of going into his backstory that it makes him unrelatable.

I knew it would be probably be bad and that I would probably hate it, but some of my most hated Seiyuu and staffers have worked in some really good shows, and vice versa. So I was keeping an open mind going into this, because you just never know. Yes, even the plot summary in those preview charts did not dissuade me. Unfortunately, it is as bad as I had feared, with such stupid twists, gaping plot holes and bad characterisation that I could only cringe in disgust. Even with all of the tolerance I've built up over the years I still cannot stand Tsundere Loli, especially when combined with horrible and hackneyed writing.

I stuck around till the fourth episode because . . . because . . . because I have no idea why I stuck around so long. But the second half of episode four was so abysmal it shook me out of my dying stupor and made me realise that hey, this is genuine crap and I shouldn't have to put up with it. Is the grade I gave it unfair? I do realise that there are a number of shows I've watched that are far worse than this in terms of ambition. I mean, is it really that bad? Episode four exclaims yes, yes it is. And I do not believe that Anime quality can be graphed onto a bell curve.

It's obvious that the show will now turn (as in, the next episode onwards) into a generic high-school battle series, so I'm getting out while it is still enjoyable. I mean, it's been fun so far, but there's only one way to go and that's down. The repetitive jokes are not going to stay funny for much longer, and there was never really much of a plot to begin with (barring the initial premise). I can only watch Baby Beel shock Oga for so many times before it kind of loses its lustre. At first it is hilarious, then it is like comfort food (as in "hah ha, they're using that joke again"), then it gets stale. I want to leave while the food is still fresh and the memories are still positive.

In most Anime, the characters pretty much make or break a show, and the cast of Beelzebub was pretty good. Jerk-with-a-heart-of-gold Oga was always good fun to watch. Interestingly, he is voiced by the same guy who did Kamina from TTGL, a character whom I loath. It goes to show that there is a time and place for BIG MANLY SPEECHES, i.e. a comedy, not a Mecha show. Anyway, Furuichi made a fine butt-monkey, and Baby Beel was played to perfection as a weak, immature but needy brat. And of course, I can't forget the ladies. I really liked Hilda and Aoi, both for their personalities and their really attractive character designs. Honestly, Shounen series have given us quite a number of strong, capable, fearsome - oh, and of course, sexy - female leads, a fact which often gets overlooked.

Despite the premise being par for the course in Anime, the execution was bloody awful. Physical violence is acceptable in fiction if it is cool or funny or to be realistic, but this was nothing like that. This was depicting characters going out of their way to inflict grievous bodily harm on innocent bystanders over half-priced foodstuffs. The employee even thinks it is natural, probably did it himself given the way he talked and acted. Heck, there's even a club just for people like that.

Don't get me wrong, physical violence can be great; think of Kaname and Sousuke in Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu. Here, it doesn't work.

If the show aimed at being a comedy or "battle Anime" then I might have - nay, probably would have - enjoyed this. But by actually depicting it in a more serious light - such as people (including the girl who was only a bystander) being knocked unconscious - it cannot claim any refuge in "it's a comedy". Because it is not. The tone is clearly not. And if it actually is, then it utterly fails at being one because I didn't laugh or even smile the entire time.

I used to love this series. I watched the Soul Society arc and revelled in just how awesome it was (for a Shounen show). And now look; I'm rating it as Weak, same as Naruto. But why? What happened?

You don't have to be a brain surgeon to realise what happened. The show suffered from two main problems; the Manga-ka kept on dragging the story out because he didn't know what to do with it, and the producers of the Anime decided that the show would air fifty-plus weeks a year. Which meant - you guessed it - that the show suffered from the scourge of filler. Not just those horrible filler arcs, but almost every episode - even of the canon material for crying out loud - had four minutes of filler in it; three at the start and close to one at the end. And no, I don't include the OP and the ED in that total. It isn't often that a show makes the oft-derided Dragonball Z look fast by comparison.

Now you might think that the canon material was good enough to balance out the filler, right? Otherwise, how do you explain all the people who tune in or download the show every week? Well, the canon stuff is better than the filler, but only just. To put it plainly, after the Soul Society arc, even the canon material sucked. The Hueco Mundo arc was simply a rehash of the Soul Society arc, only with garbage writing. Oh sorry, I used the wrong tense. The Hueco Mundo arc is STILL going. Orihime was captured in episode one-hundred and forty-one, yet even after one-hundred and thirty-five episodes later she still isn't anywhere close to going home.

Look, there's plenty to like in this show. Clean and crisp character designs, smooth and detailed CG shots, nice artistry, good music. This is a very good-looking and pleasantly-sounding series, so the series has the technical aspects down pat. But everything else? Oh boy.

The main character has little personality and seems like she's on valium or cannabis ninety-five percent of the time. Nothing ever really seems to bother her, she never displays proper reactions to major events. Okay, so she isn't a whiny b*tch, but she also doesn't come across as a normal relatable person either. Why does she want to go to school and work even after becoming a pirate? So we can continue to see her in various uniforms, silly. No matter that it would be so easy for someone to kidnap and kill her while she is away from the protection of her ship. Now, supporting characters are better and more interesting, but they do not make up for Marika, not even close. And what is with the princess who appears?

The setup is stupid, no two ways around that. The contrived circumstances around her inheriting the title of pirate captain is stretching it, but what really gets me is how piracy is handled in the show. Her planet belongs to a sort of galactic federation, but she and her crew rob a vessels from another member of the same federation. That makes no sense, it is like if a coastguard vessel from California robbed a ship based in Portland Oregon.

And the way the pirates go about it breaks any sort of realism the show is trying to develop. Marika swans around in a pirate costume so ridiculous and over-the-top that it looks like a Halloween costume. The civilians they rob in episode six are only too happy to hand over valuables while at gunpoint. And I do mean happy; even if you tell people that insurance will replace the items, are they really going to applaud you and greet you with a smile? One also wonders how taking nothing but jewellery and the money out of people's wallets would cover the costs of running a multi-million-dollar piracy operation.

The show spends a large amount of time attempting to deal with the nitty gritty of how battles are fought and what sort of tactics should be used and whatnot. In a series with more competent writing this might actually work, but such an ambitious undertaking can expose even more writing flaws if done poorly, and this is pretty bad. Electronic warfare is an interesting twist and is well suitable for piracy operations. Except, the future version of the Federal Aviation Administration would never allow vital systems to be on a network like that and be so easily compromised, especially without any form of manual override. Do you think a A380 for instance would come with a computer system that could be easily hacked from the outside and which caused the pilots to be completely helpless? Of course not, because there's no need for that and the safety concerns would be staggering.

But I think the worst part of the show is that it tries to make piracy cool and somehow just. Now, you might claim that with a Letter or Marque the crew of the Bentenmaru are really privateers, A.K.A. pirates who work for a country during times of war. In real life privateers were a semi-noble, even legitimate occupation that played important roles in naval warfare. But in times of peace they went back to being pirates. Marika's planet may have once found that pirates were critically important, but the times have changed and there is peace. She's no better than a thug now, and yet we are shown that as long as one works hard, preying on other people is a glamourous and exciting line of work.

The writing may have no understanding of warfare or how skirts are worse than useless in zero-gee. It may think that aerobraking is an amazing manoeuvre even though it is old-hat. The plot may call for a private girl's school owning a legendary and still-functioning spaceship, and then allowing a couple-dozen teens to operate it with only two adults supervising. Those things are bad, but they aren't what really got to me. It was the overall big-picture package that really made this show a chore and turned me off from watching it. We have Girl Power mixed in with the message that Thugs Preying on Civilians In Peacetime Are Cool spearheaded by an unlikeable lead character.

What is it with the Japanese? A baby is left in your apartment and the first reaction is to take care of it yourself? Why not call the police and social services? Oh wait, the person in question is fourteen years old and living alone, apparently with no relatives alive to look out for her. What a horrible cycle of ignoring the authorities.

No, I lie. I didn't even finish the first episode. In fact, I dropped it early on, when it was revealed that the teacher was wearing nothing but racy lingerie in class and getting off on the exposure. That was the moment I knew that DearS - which was shaping up to be a bad series anyway - was practically unwatchable.

I've been told by a number of people that this is a poor adaptation. What those people forgot to add was that this is a bad show fullstop. Sure, it looks nice, but the plot and characters are just . . . ugh. To say that they are "cliched" is obvious, but they've had no effort put into them and just come off as really trite and lame. Somehow my viewing experience was one of being interminably bored yet simultaneously cringing at every scene.

I remember very little about this show, except how stupid the Royal Knights arc was. I had also predicted while I was still watching Tamers that there would be a group of Digi-Destined who would become digimon themselves rather than have digimon partners. The writers were following a really clear path and they didn't try to do anything to deviate from it. Which is a shame.

Umm, so what else? I can't really say. I know that I was mighty disappointed with this show, especially since it came off the back of the excellent Tamers. I guess the show was just largely forgettable, when it wasn't being bad that is. I certainly do not recall any moments that I was impressed with it, let alone any Crowning Moments of Awesome.

Even though it was made for children, I found this show to be quite enjoyable. Yeah yeah, the animation is almost non-existent, the art is mind-bogglingly atrocious, and the same two voices are used for every episode. But it was kind of neat seeing traditional Japanese stories and folktales, especially since most of them were ones I'd never heard of before. Each seven-minute segment went by fairly easily and I only disliked a couple of them.

I do realise that this was based off of an old-school Manga, and it is funny in places. But I didn't really like it. It's a children's show first and foremost, even if you factor in the old lady in the bath-house or the monster who uses its own penis as a weapon. That is not to say an adult cannot enjoy it, but you would need to be a fan of the old-school art style and humour. The art style is largely fine (especially with some pretty good animation moving it), but I have little tolerance for the humour.

Boring and by the book, there's nothing here to hold my interest. I'm surprised I lasted four episodes.

This one takes me back.

This came from the same writer as Fullmetal Alchemist? Hmm. I never would have picked it, except the character designs gave it away.

The general writing was poor and the humour was mostly unfunny, but that's not why I dropped it. I just couldn't stand the characters anymore. Taito was beyond annoying (even his bloody VOICE was like fingernails on a blackboard), Laila was irritating with her antics, and most of the other main characters weren't much better. There were two good episodes - episodes three and seven I believe - and the rest were shoddy.

Not a good sign when I'm gagging just halfway through the first episode. This show is Hakuoki all over again. As usual the art and character designs were pretty nice, but this time the story and character traits were even more clichéd and unoriginal. Then there was the huge infodump given by the grandmother which highlighted how amateurish the writing and storytelling are.

Incompetent to a degree that is unusual for modern Anime. The music and artistry were alright, but everything else was terrible. Not only was the animation NOT up to OVA standards but it doesn't even measure up to many low-budget T.V. series. The directing was abysmal, foley effects were haphazardly integrated, the characters were zero dimensional, the dialogue was uniformly painful, and the plot absolutely laughable. Every component sucked to a degree that is embarrassing even for a low-rent title. Seriously, the people who worked on this should be ashamed. There was so much fail to be found that it created a thick miasma of staleness which choked what little life this Anime had in the first place.

The main characters are likeable enough, but nothing special. The whole examination thing is far weaker than that. Two episodes in and not only do we not know what hunters really do, but just getting to the examination is ridiculously difficult. Prone to seasickness? Too bad, automatic fail. Hop on the official bus? Ha ha, joke's on you. Captain doesn't like you? He can fail you for no reason. The criteria is so exclusive it's too farfetched to ever work, unless of course the show is aimed at kids. Which, luckily, it is.

Better than America's Next Top Model, at least in terms of Girl Power and being yourself. Less annoying too, although that's not saying much. My eardrums are still hurting from all of the screeching, however that's not why I actually dropped it. You've got to look past the gimmicky first episode, the pretty good animation and art (for this sort of show), and the large focus on the music (different EDs, insert songs with their titles appearing on screen). Because behind these things is an utterly cliched show with painfully stock characters and a story set up to allow more Okatku-pandering than I am comfortable with.

Do not be fooled into thinking that this is a Mecha show. It is a painfully by-the-book high-school "comedy" with a smattering of Mecha in it. It offers no laughs, only groans. It features stock characters so unoriginal that I correctly predicted their horrible and overblown personalities from the promotional poster alone. Hot glasses-wearing teacher who wears a short skirt and a low-cut top which reveals her lacy lingerie; check. Abusive older sister who is perfect at everything; check. Blonde British girl with princess curls who is snobby beyond caricature; check. Childhood friend who is also straight-laced-to-the-point-of-overreacting-to-everything; check. Incredibly stupid and weak-willed male lead who apparently reads the newspaper and yet knows nothing of anything and has to have everything explained to him in a series of info-dumps; check.

The IS Academy is most certainly not at all realistic in terms of how a real military (or even civilian defence force) trains. Let's list some of the things it does wrong in this regard. 1): The male lead is forced to share a room with a girl, when you'd think he would have been given a separate room. 2): There is only such academy in the world, which doesn't make sense. 3): Violence towards cadets is performed without consequence. 4): There is a student council. 5): Duels involving students who have only been attending for two days are allowed, even encouraged. 6): Students somehow know how to pilot their machines and do not have to be taught; what are they attending school for?

Now to the Mecha. No explanation is even attempted as to why only females can pilot the machines, or why this one guy is the only male in the world who can. IS' are only used for sports, even though I can think of no military vehicle in existence - bar ICBMs - that have been outright banned for war purposes. The IS' feature the ability to fly, indicating an advanced technology level, and yet so far - barring one instance of a hologram - the technology level of the world in the series is not consistent with such a tech level. The design of the machines themselves are ridiculous; no shielding for the pilots' heads, either from enemy gunfire or just the wind. No breathing apparatus either, which sticks out like a sore thumb since in the OP the machines are shown to operate in near-vacuum. Most piss-annoyingly, the IS' arms are not attached to the rest of the IS, meaning the pilot's own arms and shoulders has to hold the weight of the IS' arms along with the oversized swords, rifles and other equipment. This is Fail on a stupendous level.

Sometimes an otherwise good show just doesn't click, but this is not one of those times. Jormungand, I'm sad to say, has problems. I don't give a damn about any of the characters because the show hasn't bothered to make any of them sympathetic or likeable. It goes further than the fact that everyone - and by that I do mean everyone (bar the bit characters) - in the show is an unbalanced Bad Guy. Although I gotta say, it certainly doesn't help any. Are we supposed to like Koko and her gang? I know I sure don't. It's not her selling weapons that's the problem, it is her hypocritical justification for doing so.

Then there's the believability factor. Or should I say, the complete lack of it. A child soldier plucked fresh from the battlefield is somehow already a super-assassin rather than a drug-addicted, brainwashed wreck of a human. A young woman in her early twenties is leading around a heavily armed gang of highly-trained soldiers without having to worry about customs or local police arresting them for cold-blooded killings. Shootouts happen in the middle of highly-populated modern cities with no other cars or people around and no mention of any media coverage whatsoever. Assassinations are done by crazed psychos with heavy machineguns indiscriminately spraying bullets into a crowd instead of a sniper rifle or poison or whatever. CIA agents go round calling themselves names such as "Scarecrow" and personally physically threaten and assault civilians and military personnel in foreign countries. Oh, and satellite phones and INTERPOL apparently don't exist in this universe, while the concept of taking cover only exists sporadically.

But I think the show's biggest problem is that it just ain't cool. I mean, many of my favourite movies and books and whatnot have writing issues but were saved by simply being awesome. Jormungand does not have any coolness whatsoever, despite the show's best efforts. In fact, if a work tries to be cool then it almost always is not, since coolness is something that vanishes the harder you seek it. The only time the show's efforts to be cool actually worked was the "Her name is Koko she is loco" rap for the next episode previews.

This show is confusing, appallingly written, incredibly lame with its attempts to make the 'gangsta' characters seem all edgy and cool (when in reality they are class-A posers), has no concept of realism, and doesn't seem to know the meaning of the word "consequences". Then there's the bland lead who barely has any personality at all, a classmate who crushes on him in the most clunky way possible, a moronic swordsman who actually cooks for the very guy he believes is a cold-blooded murderer, and an obnoxious clothes-hating cat-girl ghost (or is that ghost cat-girl?) with her cheesy cat-themed defences and meow-activated warping ability. Finally, the show reeks of badly-done fusion cooking; you can't simply throw every trope within reach into a blender and then bake the resulting mixture until everything is overdone. It doesn't work like that.

This was actually a fairly okay and watchable show until the tenth episode happened, which featured not one but two characters suffering from sudden and absolutely STUPID mental breakdowns. Just completely left a sour taste, and ruined suspension of disbelief. To explain specifically how the breakdowns were moronic would delve into spoilers, but needless to say they were both pretty egregious, out of character and unnecessary.

The breakdowns may have been the reason why I dropped the show, but how did I even make it so far in the first place? Basically, it was light and fluffy enough to easily watch while still surprisingly dark and interesting. Of course, it did have its faults. The tournament itself was a bit silly (the creator of Alice in Wonderland can grant wishes, apparently), too much was unexplained (though my questions may or may not have been answered in the final three episodes), and the characters were pretty stock (bland lead male, his younger sister who is romantically in love with him, the big-breasted lesbian, et cetera). The execution kind of made up for the uninspired and suspect premise, and there was no real fanservice or tired harem hi-jinks to detract from the story. But still, this wasn't a strong show, and when episode ten happened I had had enough and bailed.

The fan service was not nearly enough to carry what is a painfully by-the-book series. There is nothing fresh about this, it is so cliched it probably wrote itself. The technical merits are crap and the male lead is supposed to invoke Shotacon or something. Really, he looks ten, maybe eleven at a stretch. Not fourteen or fifteen which is what he's supposed to be. There is no reason for the main girl to go after him, especially given his personality which is about as attractive as a soggy biscuit. Many of the secondary characters are also annoying.

So basically, this is about a genki green-haired girl who likes to swim in the nude and she joins a perverted high-school swim club, whereupon there is lots of breast-grabbing to be had. There's a sweet tale of a boy trying to get over his fear of the water but it's mostly buried beneath the antics of the club members.

Interesting idea, horrid execution. That's all I can about the faces that these characters have. The motion capture is shoddy, the mouths are disturbing and the eyes are plain creepy. If you don't know what the Uncanny Valley is, well here is a good example. It undoubtedly cost the show at least one grade and possibly two, that's how awfully distracting it was.

Now, the show wouldn't have been so bad if the fundamentals of story and characters were okay, but they too were found lacking. The story was pretty basic and displayed nothing of interest. Pacing was also pretty jarring. The characters were the true problem though, with Shin being so loud and dense so as to be obnoxious, and that evil prince came across as a twerp with attitude problems who just needs to get laid.

What started out as an angsty and uninteresting Sports Drama quickly turned into a tragedy which actually threatened to go in a somewhat engaging direction. Unfortunately it moved even faster from that to a series where the main character develops weird football-related abilities and saves a child's life using said abilities. That's right, he saved a kid with the power of football. I cannot stress how stupid that scene was. Just imagine it, Earth's greatest superheroes standing shoulder to shoulder: Batman, Spiderman, Superman . . . Soccerman. I've got walls for sale if anyone wants to bang their head without damaging their own properties.

Didn't like the first season all that much, and this is worse. The writing is poor and the characters - especially the sky pirates, but even MORE especially with Fam herself - are irritating and unlikeable. The reason I'm not completely trashing this is because of the good musical score and the (for a television series) amazing visuals. But writing and characters are more important than technical merits, and if every scene with the titular character in it grates on me then I can't be blamed for dropping this where it stands.

I get that Medaka was deliberately crafted to be a perfect person, but she ain't a perfect character. In fact, she's awful. She's as boring as hell. Where's the tension? Where's the relatability? Where's the sense that she has to exert any effort and that her achievements mean anything? Now the guy who follows her is interesting - he has interesting reasons for why he willingly puts up with someone as obnoxious as Medaka - but he can't carry the series by himself.

This was better than I expected, and I would recommend it to those who like Romance Anime. Characters were fine, humour was okay, animation budget limited but still passable.

Although it was perfectly fine, I've simply got too much else on my plate to deal with a series that doesn't really appeal to me. But it isn't bad by any stretch, and it is good enough to hold the interest of more than just the girl-with-glasses fetishist crowd.

It was awful to be sure, but not all at once.

Some parts where actually pretty good. But then you get the worst (not to mention laziest written) Gundam-jack ever animated, as well as that drunk perverted guy, and it suffers dramatically. The philosophy-spouting by Gato rolled my eyes, and the way the show ruins the technical continuity of the franchise is irritating. Finally, a Zeon space-ship used a wooden steering wheel taken from the Age of Freaking Sail to steer with.

Well, I take it back. I called this "Gundam kiddies" but it turned out to be a bit more darker than I had expected. Still, that doesn't mean show didn't have poor writing, because it most certainly did.

How and where does a failed colony get the technology to completely outmatch the still-intact nation that created the colony in the first place? How does a fourteen-year-old boy make a Gundam in the first place? Why didn't the Vagans/Vegans attack when they still had the overwhelming technological superiority? Then there's more of the stupid Newtype BS going on, this time with so-called "X-Rounders". I was also annoyed at how the frequent timeskips were handled, fast-forwarding past really important bits that (at best) we got to see in a montage. Stuff like Flit's relationship with Emily and Asemu's relationship with Romary moving beyond their respective friendship zones, and the eighteen months that Zeheart stayed on Tordia. All lead to important developments, but all are pretty much ignored. Also, let's not forget about the utter stupidity that was everything about Fardain. The entire arc was groan-inducingly atrocious. There are many other problems, too many to list here.

But I will list one more. The final straw (okay, a bloody I-beam) that broke the camel's back was episode twenty-nine. Specifically, the way Zeheart was content to - SPOILER ALERT - watch soldiers under his command kill unarmed, fleeing civilians, including children. In fact, it's highly possible he ordered such a high level of hostility, given his complete lack of qualms while watching them carry out the atrocities. This goes completely against his beliefs in the second generation and is absolutely reprehensible. He is after all a supposedly sympathetic character who holds the view of, "Hey I'm just trying to do the right thing for my people and make a paradise so no-one has to suffer anymore." This is the guy who made his peace with Asemu just an episode before, and now - one timeskip later - has a radically different personality with no signs of brainwashing or any other such explanation. It is so baffling and stupid and plain WRONG I refuse to watch another episode.

It may be unfair to drop it now, but I got seven episodes in and there's been no semblance of plot. It's a pure Comedy at this point. A funny one, yes, but that's all it is. The first season at least tried to do a bit more with a bit of drama, but I get the feeling I'd have to wait right until the end and the goodbyes before getting anything more substantial.

Saw the first episode in a NewType disk way back before I really knew about "this" sort of Anime. I was not impressed. I mean, the premise alone was just crazy, although not as bizarre as other shows (girl who literally turns into a guy's right hand, anyone?).

The girls were just the same face but with different eyes and hair. They fell into horrible type-casts, as if the creator was deliberately trying to cover as many fetishes as possible. The actual story seemed non-existent. It didn't even seem all that well drawn and animated.

The only reason this doesn't get a grade of Awful is because the first half of the episode was sporadically funny, and the brother actually stood up to his sister. That's not to say the first half was good mind you, just that it wasn't terrible like the second half was. We got introduced to three more girls (each appealing to a different fetish), except there were no introductions to be had. They just instantly appeared at the dorm with no explanation and wasted no time trying to get into the guy's pants. And the guy suddenly lost any personality he had in the first half and became Milquetoast Harem Loser Lead #812. It wasn't just insipid, it was actively atrocious and obnoxious, and the longer the episode went on the worse it got. And don't even get me started on how bad the sister was.

The moralising in this show is beyond a joke, and the drama is painful. If the CIA were on the ball, which they're not, but if they were they'd tape the Dramatic Yelling and use it at Guantanamo Bay. The rest of the dialogue fares little better.

Kirino must rival Shinji as one of the most annoying characters of all time, and yet unlike Shinji she doesn't have any reason to be so irritating. Kyousuke must go down as one of the stupidest older brothers in Anime history. Perhaps he's a masochist, that's the only reason I have. Ayase . . . oh, Ayase. What can I say about her that doesn't make her out to be the total bitch she totally is.

Manami on the other hand is a rare find; a nice childhood friend who is not ridiculously attractive and who is actually normal and sympathetic. Kuroneko is okay, obvious fanboy bait but whatever.

Watched it for the "lolz", simple as that. It's a horrible attempt to glamourise gambling using Yu-Gi-Oh! inspired "Heart of the Cards" cheating tactics. What casino would hire someone who gives good luck to the patrons? Maybe as a loss leader??? Oh, and of course, how could I forget the fanservice? Rio herself is completely bland - not a woman I'd want to date for her personality - and her ample cleavage is ruined by having shiny spots on them. Not sexy at all. Now, did we really need to see her wear a wedding dress to a poker match? Of course we did. If it wasn't for completely nonsensical fanservice there would be no reason to watch this show at all. Silly me.

To be fair, I knew I should have dropped this after the giant snake. I even told myself that I should. But I kept watching because it is a show that one can switch their brain off and just enjoy. The episodes are easily digestible and the art, animation, voice acting and music are all well done. Plus Ryouko herself is awesome. Unfortunately, you have to turn your brain off to enjoy this, because it sure is stupid as hell. The writing is so sloppy it borders on being actively bad. There's no character development (not within the first half of the series, at any rate) and only a vague ongoing plot that doesn't seem to be very interesting. I've watched the DVD extras, and the second one shows clips from virtually every episode. I paid attention to the clips of the show's second half and yeah, I really don't need to see any more of this stupidity.

This show will appeal to those nostalgic for the original series, those (probably female) who like seeing bishounen wear shiny outfits and pose constantly, and those among us who are children. Everyone else should stay away. It's not that this series is actively bad, it just doesn't offer anything that we haven't already seen done in a better manner many times before. The villain is so comical he's a joke, the lead character is nothing more than a brash obnoxious kid voiced by a Seiyuu who can't act, and the plot treads ground so well-worn it is merely following a trench dug deep in the landscape.

Okay, so this has nice backgrounds and good-looking (if unoriginal) character designs. Those two are the only positives this show has. Everything else is either bad or, at best, painfully mediocre. This is one of those uncommon but not unknown cases where I wish the show had rampant fanservice. But apart from three females showing off huge amounts of cleavage there is not even any of that, so what's the bloody point?

Look, I knew the show was going to be dull before I even watched it, but I was surprised at how utterly useless it is. There's no way I want to check out another episode, especially since I read about the character that Rie Kugimiya will play and how she apparently uses icecream-based attacks. Also, why does Hiroshi Kamiya play both Rick and Alvin, A.K.A. the two named male characters with speaking roles in this episode? It was bizarre to hear them talk to one another.

Oh my goodness, it was worse than I feared. The male lead speaks his dirty and shallow-minded thoughts out loud and powers up by groping the lead female's breasts and planting his face into her crotch.

My love hate relationship with BONES continues. This is a Super Robot show which tries to be more than combining Mecha piloted by GAR heroes screaming silly slogans at the top of their lungs. No, this is a Super Robot show which features retarded Mecha piloted by pretty-boy heroes merely shouting catchphrases (and bizarre catch phrases at that). Oh, and the plot from what I've read up on (it's at episode nine when I'm writing this) is none too special either. The setting mixes the tired student council/high school cliche with a lacklustre mysterious/important island affair, and the combination is let down by sub-par writing.

The exposition is stupid and ham-fisted, talking about things the characters already know. What makes it so much worse is that some of the characters NEED the exposition because - get this - they don't know it yet. That's right, two of the characters don't even know what their own powers are even though they've had them for goodness-only-knows how long and a part of a group who deal exclusively in these sorts of powers. The Lover and the Fool didn't know that when they made their respective pacts with the card they got the powers they had. It's so mind-boggling stupid and clunky that I can't believe this made it past the first draft.

Then of course the characters are all one-note stereotypes designed to appeal to Fujoshi senses. You know, the idiot one, the serious one, the hungry one, the eye-patch one, the cocky one, the smooth one, and so on and so forth. It's not surprising given that this is an Otome game, with a Reverse Harem that allows for wish-fulfilment but also maximises slash possibilities. I might have been surprised that the girl's mother is Japanese despite the show being set in Italy, but of course this is a stupid production anyway so why not?

Super Robot sucks, blah blah blah. Fact is, this show is worse than usual, since you not only have had to watch the previous season (which isn't a bad thing by itself), but you also have to have familiarity with the numerous games spanning a truly incomprehensible meta-verse. This show is for SRW fans only.

It's pleasant enough but not what I'd call a great title. Episodic Slice-of-Life with only the barest frame of a plot is a perfectly good genre, but works in it have to be dramatical and/or funny. Unfortunately, Tamako Market has very little drama (practically non-existent) and is not especially humourous or endearing. It's simply just there. Yes, it's very cute, adorably so. You have to hand it to Kyoto Animation, they are the masters at producing Moe character designs. And yes, the bird is quite amusing in his outrageous way. But the humour is simply not compelling enough.

As for the themes, they're not too strong either. It just seems to boil down to, "Isn't friendship wonderful?" Well, yes, but the extent of this show is merely to watch a group of kids and the adults around them interact in an idealised setting and living out snapshots of their lives; Christmas, New Year's, Valentines, starting school in Spring, enjoying Summer vacation, et cetera. That's it. If it were consistently funny then that would be more than fine. But as it's not, there's very little here of actual substance.

Of course, I could just not be getting the joke, or am not attuned to the particular brand of humour in the series. I disagree with that sentiment, but even if it were true, it just shows how one-note the series actually is. Humour is subjective, and putting so much emphasis on the spotty humour is like putting all your eggs in one basket. Okay, okay, the series is still incredibly cute. But that seems to be something that is audience-dependent rather than an actual merit of the show.

I've heard this show being called "weird for weird's own sake", and that is a succinct way to put it. However, it does leave out how the weirdness is oftentimes really off-putting. The stupid facial expressions that the main character exhibits when stressed are extremely dorky and not at all how people actually deal with stress. Said character is also going to save the world apparently, which is patently ludicrous; what's he going to do, scare people to death with his face? The grandmother allowing the alien to live in her house is an Anime staple but not handled very well; we're just supposed to accept it and move on. Then there's the alien himself. Completely obnoxious and asinine, he bullies the main character into doing what he wants with a water pistol that fires mind-controlling fluid. How daft is that? And the main character doesn't seem to have a spine at all to stick up for himself when the alien starts ruining his reputation and dragging them into stupid situations.

Okay, I only downloaded the first episode of this because I thought it was Umineko no Nako Koro ni. Needless to say, I was in for a shock.

Okay, I was watching it for the lulz. And it was kind of enjoyable, in a weird way, despite a complete absence of any sort of intelligent logic. The gun history segments were actually quite engrossing. But even so, after watching episodes five and six, I didn't want to watch any more. Namely, episode five has this one girl being downright evil and torturing others in between bouts of fingering herself, then in episode six there are no consequences for her actions. Does this school not have teachers and does this tournament not have rules and adjudicators? Oh wait, that's right, complete absence of intelligent logic and all that. Gotcha.

Well, this was obviously designed to appeal to the Yaoi-lovers, with several beautiful angsty guys. There were trenchcoats and crosses and other motifs designed to draw in the female crowd. Well, being a straight male, I sure wasn't going to watch just for all that. I was looking for a decent plot and characters that I could be interested in, if not support. But in the two episodes I watched nothing about the plot was actually explained, and there was only a little bit of effort put in to connect me with the characters. I just couldn't get involved, I couldn't really care.

Great animation, great battle sequences. But the rest of the show is pretty cringe-inducing. Mashing Mecha, Military and Magical Girl together to bait Otaku sounds like a recipe for success, especially with fanservice added on top. After all, it worked for Strike Witches. Vividred Operation looks like it too will be popular. But it's also stupidly-written, which should come as no surprise. The fanservice is blatant without even being particularly tasteful (or graphic for that matter). The writing doesn't even try to make the different genres blend in with one another, and the character drama is by-the-book at best; in episode two, a melodramatic line about disliking tomatoes is particularly facepalm-worthy. Two episodes in and it's painfully clear that the show has no interest in logic and probably hasn't even heard of the word.

So apparently there's supposed to be a plot, but the show spends so much time on fanservice - WEAK fanservice - that the common thread which binds the individual storylines together has still not been shown. If it even exists at all, that is. The first episode was to me pretty funny, but only because I made a huge error and thought that this was some sort of parody. Er, no. It's just another plotless Ecchi-Harem show with way too many similarly-looking girls fulfilling all the usual Otaku-bait roles such as Tsundere waitress/maid, ditzy younger sister, panty-flashing Loli, et cetera -you know the drill- et cetera.

It is unfortunate that I dropped this, since it seemed like the sort of romance story I would enjoy. I don't really want Tsunderes and Kuuderes and whatever, and nor do I want bizarre and far-fetched Romance storylines. I long for realistic characters in realistic relationships. And Winter Sonata looked like it could provide me with that fix. Plus, the character designs are really really nice. So what went wrong?

Part of what went wrong were the fansubs, specifically with regards to the speed. At the time of this writing all the episodes have indeed been subbed, but it took many many months for the series to be completed. I lost interest in the show, and couldn't be bothered to get the rest of the episodes. Now, granted, the show failed to really hook me in in the first place, but the long wait was the difference between (casually) watching it and dropping it.

Then there is the proverbial elephant in the room; the show is in Korean. That is not a racist comment on my part, but rather a linguistic(?) comment. I like the sound of the Japanese language, and through watching scores of shows I have gotten very used to it. Korean is horrible by comparison, at least to me. Stilted and seemingly monotonous (though sub-par voice work could be the reason behind that), listening to the dialogue grated on my nerves while simultaneously boring me.

First off, skip the first episode. Confusing the heck out of the audience by introducing too many characters all at once is a very bad way to start a show.

CLAMP's idea of fate reminds me very much of Norse Mythology. However, though their version of fate was absolutely critical to the story time and time again - seriously, the characters never shut up about it - it is clear that CLAMP did not rub two brain cells together when coming up with it. Such an important piece of the show - pretty much the story's raison d'être - was also its most overwhelming weakness. You don't have to understand anything about quantum physics or even believe in free will to realise that their version of fate would be simply unworkable. One character gets told the very reason he will die by a seer who is, we are told more than once, never wrong. What is to stop him from throwing himself in front of a bus, thereby invalidating the seer's prophecy? I suspect that fate would then collapse as much as this show's plot did.

The last big concern I have is something that is related to fate (given the nature of the show, everything is related to fate), and that is Fuma. Not to spoil anything specific, he undergoes a massive change for one of the stupidest and possibly laziest in-universe reasons I've ever witnessed in an Anime. It's utterly pathetic and infuriating, and it gave the coup de grace to a show which was struggling but still managing to hold on.

The character designs are totally nineties, I wish they'd been updated a bit. Also, the art looks rather poor for a series that for three months ran concurrent with RahXephon. The music was okay, they reused that one good theme a lot but that's normal for television Anime.

The English dub is simply unwatchable. As everyone before me has mentioned, the casting was very faithful to the original Japanese, as in the dub tried to match the voices wherever possible. Too bad that in some cases they chose fidelity over competence. Terrence Stone should be ashamed of himself.

You can tell that the show's creators had little faith in it. They must have thought - correctly, I might add - that it is very, very boring. The monotone, humourless dialogue in what is supposedly a Comedy. The absence of a plot. The reminisces of the past in which the characters are just as dull as they are now. The show is not funny and practically gave up trying to grab my attention before it had even started.

Realising they had such a dreary stinker on their hands, the creators chose not to actually spice up the show to the level of bland tofu. Oh no, they decided to leave it about as interesting as days-old grease. Instead, their answer was to insert numerous and frequent scenes of cats. They may have been trying to target the cat-lover demographic (which as we know is a huge percentage of people) but the scenes fell flat and were all-too obvious. It doesn't help that the felines are often yawning or sleeping, as if unconsciously mirroring the mental state of the audience.

Yes, you may be wondering why I would rate this so highly. The show never makes sense, it always has horrible dialogue, battles drag on for episode after episode, there's no real character growth, it is super cheesy, it exists only to sell an expensive card game to children . . . but it was Good Dumb Fun. Mindless, repetitive fun, the perfect thing to watch every day after school. That's it. Compared to the sorts of Anime I like nowadays the show is bloody awful, but to my pre-teen (and yes, it must be said, my teenage self as well), Yu-Gi-Oh! was something I looked forward to when I got home from school.

So, this is a fairly harmless - read boring - show. So, this show has absolutely no plot. So, the characters are uninteresting and unfunny. So, the technical merits are sub-par. So, I'm dropping this show.