| Seen all | Rating | Comment |
| AD Police Files (OAV) | Decent | The atmosphere and mood is pretty effective. Otherwise it's a fairly standard dark cyberpunk anime. |
| Afro Samurai (TV) | Not really good | It was what it was. Beautiful animation and great bloody action. Nothing in the way of story though. That combined with the fact that it was so short made it tough to get into it much. It was fun to watch these dudes kill each other, but ultimately forgettable. |
| Akira (movie) | Excellent | I didn't care for this that much the first time I saw it. I think it was because I saw it on TV and I wasn't paying quite as much attention as I could have been. It definitely took away from the overall experience and that's what makes Akira great. Upon a second viewing, this is one hell of a movie. The music is fabulous. Right up there with Bebop, Ghost in the Shell and Hellsing. The animation is top notch. Arguably the best I've ever seen. In fact, my one complaint was that it is so well animated that the characters movements and expressions are so dramatic, it essentially amounts to 'overacting'. The story is a little vague but also quite deep. Some things are never really explained in detail. It is by no means bad though. It isn't overly convoluted or full of holes or anything. Overall, Akira is just such an experience. The brilliant animation, music and crazy action all combine into one heck of a ride. |
| Appleseed (movie) | Not really good | Well, It was quite good save two glaring flaws. The animation and art was excellent...for the backgrounds and mecha. The humans on the other hand... To start with, the cell shaded look is just not very good looking IMO. This was magnified by the fact that it clashed horribly with everything else. The clean, very traditional anime style characters looked as if they had simply been pasted over top of the much more dark and realistic mecha and backgrounds. The humans also looked a tad awkward in their movement too. For this reason, things looked best when they stopped talking and got in their mechs and started shooting. The plot was surprisingly solid. A good concept with some nice twists. Where it was really lacking though was in the characters. Deunan is all tough and what-not physically, but shes such a big old crybaby. Brialeos just comes across as lifeless. The fact that he looks like a robot makes it tough enough to really connect or identify with him, and his major lack of emotion and especially personality make it far worse. |
| Baby Blue (movie) | Excellent | Shinichiro Watanabe is definitely a genius. He may have a reputation in some people's eyes as more of a fun and stylish action guy (which is true) but every one of his works also contains and extremely well developed sense of the somber and conflicted relationships between his characters. This really shines though here where he for the most part ditched excitement and action to focus on telling a emotional and bittersweet story of the relationship between two people. Unfortunately the brief bits of action here fail to excite or up the tempo as they should due to their quiet and low key music which while perfect for the rest of the movie, aren't really appropriate for a chase. Still this is an excellent short movie right up there with some of his other work. |
| BALDR FORCE EXE Resolution (OAV) | Awful | Lets start with the worst. The characters are just terrible. Every single one of them is nothing but a one dimensional, unappealing, cliche. They're mostly devoid of any even superficial personality too. The worst (although they're all bad) is the moe girl. You know, I can at least tolerate moe's existence as long as I don't have to watch it. Unfortunately it seems that moe is like an infectious disease. It festers in genres it has already infected and then oozes out from them into new genres. Moe! Stay the hell out of my sci-fi! Moving on. The plot is pretty poor. It's pretty cliche and frequently predictable although also sometimes strangely inexplicable. There are quite a few events that don't really make any sense. A whole lot is never explained either. There is one genuinely effective scene (the 'virtual rape' one) which is actually not at all exploitative as you might expect and in fact quite well done. Unfortunately it is rendered useless by the surrounding lack of development and failure to really go anywhere. The animation is fairly nice actually but only in the real world parts. The virtual world and particularilly the mechs look pretty poor. About on par with what you'd expect from a video game. I actually liked this at first as it helped create a sense that it was artificial. However, very quickly began to seem just lame. They move in a very jerky, twitchy way too which really takes away from the fights. Because of that, the series is actually pretty boring even during the action parts. It's a shame because this actually got sort of good in the last episode. (Turning the whole moe thing on it's head was neat). By that point though, it was really too little too late. You feel so apathetic and bored by that point that it's tough to enjoy much. |
| Basilisk (TV) | Decent | Cool characters, a deep and emotional story. Great looking art and animation and brutal bloody fights. I think it took things too far at times though. A lot of the sexual stuff was just unpleasant. |
| Batman: Gotham Knight (movie) | Weak | Contrary to ANN's listing, this really isn't a movie. It's a collection of shorts and that's the problem here. Each part is only about 10 - 15 minutes and while there's a minor overarching continuity, each segment takes on it's own premise. Because of this though, none of the segments ever really have time to develop. They're just a series of brief glimpses of events. None of them are allowed develop to the point of significance. The first segment is a neat concept but I think it may have worked better as a later segment. It was a novel way to introduce Batman but at the same time because it was first I found myself wishing they would get on with it already. The animation style was off putting too. Overall, the constantly shifting animation styles were bothersome. The second segment was probably the weakest. It was really rather pointless. The third segment had a solid premise that might have proved effective but it failed due to poor execution and limited time. Too much time was spent on the set up and the need to save the injured man was not effectively communicated. The fourth segment was probably my favorite. Instead of a more lofty concept it was what perhaps these shorts should all have been, a simple stylish battle between batman and his enemies. It ultimately disappointed as well however due to limited time and the short lived fight with Killer Croc. The fifth segment was a high point as well. It had by far the most depth of all of them. It actually managed to give some level of depth to the concept it presented. The final segment was a passable but lively and reasonably entertaining action sequence. All in all, this would have worked far better as perhaps 3 25-30 minute segments that actually carried some weight. As it is, unless the idea of it being a Batman anime is just that huge of a deal to you then this is pretty perishable. These ideas and Batman in general has been done so much better in so many other places. |
| Battle Angel (OAV) | Good | This is quite a little gem of an anime. It's really very well done. It looks great with very fluid animation, great character designs and a nice overall look. The premise is neat and while the plot isn't really note worthy there are no actual problems with it either. Where this really shines though is in it's characters. Gally is likable because she's sweet, cute and energetic but they don't overdo it like so many anime to the point where it's annoying. She is somewhat unsure of herself but also very forceful and strong when she needs to be. Overall she is well developed, as is Yugo and their relationship which is really quite well done. It's sweet and feels very real and believable. The secondary characters are well developed as well and all are brought to an effective resolution. This is impressive especially in light of the length of the anime. That said, this may actually have worked better as a movie. An added 20 minutes or so would have been nice if nothing else, just to give a bit of breathing room between the setup in the first episode and the conclusion in the second. |
| Beast Wars: Transformers (U.S. TV) | | |
| Berserk (TV) | Excellent | It had so much great bloody action and at the same time, such depth in its story and characters. They are all incredibly complex and developed. It is absolutely brutal but not in a lame, gore for the sake of gore, exploitative way. If you've got the stomach for it, I would absolutely recommend it to anyone. Although to be honest, you'd probably be better off to read the manga. I think the anime does a reasonably decent job of adapting it, but with the relatively weak art of the anime and the amazing art of the manga, you don't really gain much by watching the anime and the manga does go more in depth and of course covers the whole story. That said, even for what it is, the anime is still brilliant. |
| Black Lagoon (TV) | So-so | Personally, I could never get that into Black Lagoon. It's somewhat good I suppose. (Especially when you compare it to a lot of other stuff). Still, unlike Firefly or Cowboy Bebop to which it's frequently compared it lacks a certain uniqueness and sense of style as well as the memorable characters that made those shows really great. I also found it never really committed to the concept of gritty realism. It's still full of all the old inherently unrealistic action flick cliches. Characters are all assigned an arbitrary 'strength'. Revy is pretty much invincible because being the hero, she is the 'strongest'. That really doesn't mean anything specific. It's not like she actually does anything tangible to make her so good in a gunfight. She just always wins because it wouldn't be as cool if she was more or less, just as easy to kill as everyone else. Personally though, I'd much rather watch Spike who is tough, skilled and smart but still only human. |
| Black Magic M-66 (OAV) | Good | The plot is...just terrible. It's full of holes and doesn't really make much sense. It's largely irrelevant though which is why I still rather enjoyed this. There's really only a couple brief scenes of story and while many of the holes and inconsistencies permeate the action scenes as well, it's very easy to just sort of stop caring. Once you do that, this is a very solid action piece. The animation holds up quite well for it's time and I particularly enjoyed the unique way the M-66s moved. What really sets this apart though is the intensity of the action sequences. Particularly the second half in which they are pursued all the way through and to the top of a huge building with the M-66 constantly on their heels. It just keeps coming no matter what they throw at it right up to the climax at the very top of the building as it crumbles around them. The music plays a big role here too. It really helps build the tension. |
| Blood: The Last Vampire (movie) | Excellent | Without a doubt, Blood is the best 50 minute movie I have ever seen. The Art, Animation, beautiful. The main character manages to pull off the "super powerful young girl", a characterization I normally rarely find believable. (see Blood+) She is so intense and tough, that you honestly can believe she is who she is supposed to be. The pace here is excellent too. It gets going immediately, only slows to establish whats going on, and then dives right back into things until the end. I loved the realistic touch of mixing Japanese and English. Going back to my original statement though, Blood is the best 50 minute movie I have ever seen. It's a movie and its not even 50 minutes long. What the hell? That in itself is really weird. Obviously this meant none of the questions were really ever answered. Saya comes in, kills the bad guys, the end. Why? dunno. I even didn't mind this so much since It helped maintain feeling of the nurses perspective. They show up, and then just disappear. You'll never know who or what they were. Also the content fit the length perfectly. It felt neither stretched, nor condensed. I guess that comes with making a movie what ever length suits you though. It did irk me though that they include little details that were left unexplained. Whats the significance of her being the last "original" or more specifically, why are they just acting like they think shes the last original? Also whats with her reaction to any mention of god/religion? If you want to have an inconclusive plot, fine. It seems stupid to add little detail questions then though. It's too bad. Blood could easily be the first half of the best anime movie ever. That said, while it lasted it was still one of the best anime I've ever seen. |
| Blue Submarine No.6 (OAV) | So-so | If nothing else this is worth seeing for the visuals. Both the 3D and 2D animation look very good. (Although they don't blend that well). The overall art design is great, the various creatures being particularly nice. The lively music and quick pace all combine into a fun and visually pleasing experience. Unfortunately it never really achieves much coherence in the story department which stops this from being much more that just decent. It also means the final episode in which the pace slows to a crawl is fairly dull. |
| Cannon Fodder (movie) | Decent | The highlight of the "memories" collaboration. It's effectively bleak and militaristic. It doesn't particularly go anywhere or delve all that deeply into the concept though. |
| Comedy (OAV) | Very good | I absolutely love Kazuto Nakazawa's directorial work (or at least, what little of it exists). He clearly has quite the talent for unique visuals and stylization. This is a simple but elegant little story with a good musical score and great stylish animation. Definitely worth checking out. |
| Cowboy Bebop (TV) | Masterpiece | Why bother echoing things that have been said millions of times before. Go read almost anything pertaining to Bebop. It probably says the same things I would be saying here. |
| Cowboy Bebop: The Movie | Excellent | If I look at it a simply part of Cowboy Bebop then it pretty much gets the same response. This was essentially roughly equivalent to adding another two part episode. If you look at it that way it was perhaps one of the best "episodes" as well. It helped develop the characters a fair bit (not that they were lacking that without it) and set up well for the ending. The action and animation were also even better. |
| Cyber City Oedo 808 (OAV) | Decent | You know, something that I think may have become just a little bit lost as I've gotten increasingly into anime is how fun it can be. Not in the sense that it's super engrossing, interesting, or even good. Just old fashioned surface level fun. That's what Oedo is. It's not really good. However, it manages to be silly without being downright stupid. The characters are surprisingly three dimensional. The music is great (if also cheesy) and the solid visuals and action make it plenty lively. If you're looking for something silly and over the top but still fun, this is definitely a good choice. |
| Deathtic 4 (movie) | Not really good | It's nothing if not visually novel. The plot fails to really ever amount to much more than an excuse to show off the art design though and feels a bit rushed at times. |
| Desert Punk (TV) | So-so | Though it bordered on disturbing at times (I'm looking at you episode 11) It was overall entertaining. Punk's total lack of redeeming qualities made him a entertaining protagonist. Just the whole desert thing was cool. It did OK with trying to get more serious at the end but then took a nose dive once punk died. Kosuna was great as a sidekick but annoying as a main character. |
| Digimon Adventure (TV) | | I watched so much Digimon as a kid. |
| Digimon Adventure 02 (TV) | | So |
| Digimon Frontier (TV) | | Freakin' |
| Digimon Tamers (TV) | | Much |
| Dimension Bomb (movie) | Weak | Utterly incomprehensible. Too bad too because this seemed like it might have been pretty cool if it had just made a tiny bit of sense. |
| Doorbell (movie) | Weak | Sadly, despite it's potential the premise is never really developed or expand on. On top of that the low key music, occasionally sluggish and awkward animation and dreadfully slow pace make this a dull and empty experience. |
| Dragon Ball (TV) | Weak | Actually quite different from DBZ in my opinion. DBZ was all about uber-powerful men being all super powerful and fighting big epic explosive battles. DBZ is appealing because it's cool. (At least to the mind of a 12 year old anyway). Dragon Ball however wasn't all that cool at all. It was enjoyable because it was just a fun little adventure. I don't know that it would really be all that appealing to someone older but for a younger audience it's fun. |
| Dragon Ball GT (TV) | Worst ever | Failed where DBZ succeeded. The entire thing had already been beaten into the ground in DBZ. It sort of tried to go back to the more adventure based focus of Dragon Ball. However it didn't really capture the fun that made it enjoyable. |
| Dragon Ball Z (TV) | So-so | I think a lot of people miss the point of DBZ. Of course it's not really good in the traditional sense but that's not really the point. DBZ is all about uber-powerful men being all super powerful and fighting big epic explosive battles. That's really the bottom line. It's silly and over the top but that's all part of the appeal and what makes it cool. It's not going to be for everyone. A lot of people will be too old to find it cool. I can't really make a unbiased decision here as I watched it when I was younger and loved it. I still like it even now but that's largely nostalgia. |
| End of the World (OAV) | Bad | Why is it that just because something is short they feel they don't need to make any sense or adhere to any kind of logical flow. |
| Escaflowne: The Movie | Weak | Gosh, I only barely remember this. All I have is a vague feeling that it wasn't particularilly good. |
| Eureka Seven (TV) | Weak | I wanted to like it, I really did. The problem for me was that it was just too sulky. There was way too much time spend on people just sulking around due to their various hangups. Nothing was really happening. You could try to call it character development but it just seemed like nothing was really developing or changing. Just more of the same. Or even when Finally though it had gotten to the point where things are happening. Characters relationships are changing, the plot is developing, Its quite good. That lasted for a bit and then went back to its stale sulky self. |
| Fate/stay night (TV) | Good | I love the concept of summoning historical warriors to fight. Great dark atmosphere. The animation and art looked very nice. The fights were very good as well. The characterization could be better, but otherwise, this is a pretty cool series. |
| Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (movie) | Good | I've seen this both first as someone unfamiliar with FF7 and again as someone who is a fan of FF7. I enjoyed it both times. I guess part of it is that I love that fast paced camera and fight style. It also can't be denied that it looked awfully good. The first time I saw this, I didn't really follow the story but was still happy to sit and watch the cool fights. After I played the game I followed the story a lot more. It makes quite a bit more sense. The ending is still rather unexplained. Really just the very end though where cloud gets shot and reappears in the church. How exactly Sephiroth came back wasn't all that clear either. Otherwise though, if you understand the game's plot it makes sense and really that was what this movie was. It was a sequel movie meant to bring closure to the game. It didn't have some huge independent plot to rival that of the game but you can't really expect that from a two hour movie. It did have some character development though and dealt with the aftermath of the events of the game which was in dire need of a conclusion. |
| Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (US CG movie) | Decent | It immediately irks my fanboyism that it has absolutely nothing to do with Final Fantasy which really makes using the name nothing but a pointless money grab. Evaluated on it's own merits though, it's actually pretty good. Considering the level of realism it's going for the animation is really quite impressive. It's far from perfect but still quite impressive. The characters were a little generic but the story was neat. The ghost things were rather cool. Also, Steve Buscemi. All movies should aspire to have Steve Buscemi. |
| Full Metal Panic! (TV) | Decent | A nice balance of action, comedy, romance, etc. I don't know that it was really exceptional, but a good example of what an all around fun and enjoyable anime should be. It's also a perfect example of how one can create a 'moe' character who is actually an interesting, three dimensional, real person. (I'm referring to Tessa here by the way) She has that whole cute, helpless moe thing going but at the same time she clearly has a lot of spunk, personality and her own desires and motivations not to mention some pretty sweet submarine captaining skills. She's actually one of my favorite anime characters because the truth is, as much as it pains me to admit, I can kinda get into the whole moe thing (when it is effectively blended with a real personality and some robots anyway. And also when the girls not twelve). The other characters are quite effective as well and a lot of fun and you're kept constantly entertained throughout. Surprisingly, I found the series manged to avoid seeming blatantly absurd which when you think about it, it really kind of is. I think it just does such a good job of drawing you in and balancing serious action with comedy though that you never really stop to think about it. This is a huge help for me. It really distracts me from an anime if while watching it, I have to constantly be suspending my disbelief to such an extreme degree. |
| Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid (TV) | Not really good | I don't know...In theory I feel like I ought to have liked it but I just found myself disappointed. It builds on the first series well but I think they may have tried to go too serious and dark with it. The original series, despite some more serious parts was overall a pretty lighthearted and fun. It was a lot more enjoyable that way. Trying to get really serious with it just kind of gives it a depressing feeling. Also, it makes the few moments of comic relief feel unfunny and out of place. I just don't know that this ever really had the capacity to be this serious. I mean, it's such a silly series to begin with. The entire premise, is ridiculous. To it's credit though the ending feels pretty dynamic and powerful. It brings a effective feeling of conclusion even in spite of the fact that the story is woefully incomplete. |
| Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid (OAV) | Good | Wow. This single OVA alone is way funnier than all of Fumoffu. It's fresh, clever, charming, and brings a nice little conclusion (or rather intentional lack there of) to the relationship between Sousuke and Tessa. |
| Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu (TV) | Weak | I've got to be honest, I didn't really like it that much. The biggest problem I have with anime comedies is that they're usually really repetitive. Now with it's unique premise, it at least started off with some sort of new material. (I say sort of because I'd seen it to some extent in the original series already.) Anyway, it really didn't retain it's humor for the full series. So many jokes are just slight variations based on the same premise and it gets old. By disk 2 I was finding myself bored. It still had it's moments. It was definitely funny initially and the hot springs episode was particularilly funny. Anything involving Bonta-kun was really just annoying though and the last episode was awful as well. I knew they were obviously building to something which meant it couldn't really be appreciated genuinely. However, it was gloomy enough that it really nullified the jokes and makes it hard to really enjoy them. For that matter there weren't even that many. It was a massive amount of set up for very few jokes. |
| Fullmetal Alchemist (TV) | So-so | I really want to like FMA but I just didn't enjoy it that much. It's not bad I guess. I just didn't find it as great as some people seem to think it is. My main complaint is that it didn't really pick up until about half way through. The first half or so was really pretty bland. It certainly showed improvement throughout the second half. I found the ending itself lacked energy though. There was a lot of buildup and then the final conclusion just seemed....lacking. Too many antagonists just kinda disappear. The movie was very helpful here. Not so much just because it tied up the various loose ends (although that did help) but more so because it felt much more dramatic and gave a feeling of conclusion. |
| Fullmetal Alchemist: The Movie - Conqueror of Shamballa | Decent | It's tricky to know how to rate this. I actually am giving it a better rating than the series. The thing is that it wouldn't be that great without the series setting it up. It gave the series an ending that felt dramatic and complete, unlike the series. It had a really interesting and unexpected historical and political aspect too. |
| Gala (movie) | Decent | This is probably some of the best animation I've ever seen. However, it could also very much have benefited from a bit of back story or some kind of set-up. |
| Genius Party (movie) | Good | I generally dislike surreal or otherwise non-narrative anime. This however is pretty cool. It's more a music video than anything else. Despite this, it's rather captivating to watch. I really wish more full length anime would incorporate this level of creativity in their visuals. |
| Ghost in the Shell (movie) | Masterpiece | Beautiful art, character designs, settings and animation. The whole thing just looked great. It raises some very interesting questions regarding technology and humanity. What truly made it great was the presentation and execution though. A lot anime with philosophical themes take things too far and resort to beating you over the head with it. *glares malevolently at ergo proxy* In fact, in general they tend too often to feel fractured. Random bits of meaningless action mixed aimlessly with random bits of philosophical discussion. However, here it is so very well integrated. Both those aspects are perfectly intertwined. Both parts of one whole. That's what makes Ghost in the Shell a masterpiece. |
| Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (movie) | Weak | The first Ghost in the Shell was great because its themes were accessible but still relatively subtle and were build so well into the larger movie. Innocence unfortunately is the exact opposite. You're practically watching two movies. It was just so disjointed. It spend large continuous chunks taking the whole psychological/philosophical element and beating you over the head with it. By that I don't mean just parts focusing on it, I mean actual people standing around pretty much just discussing it. Now it wasn't all this way. Mixed in there were a few chunks of crazy action. I guess these were a good thing but it was hardly enough to make up for the rest. Not to mention I kinda expect more from GitS than just action. Finally there were big chunks of "look what we can do with CGI. Ain't it beautiful?" It was in fact quite nice but it contributed nothing to the story and only resulted in the already dull movie being even duller because it was punctuated by big chunks of "now sit and look at the pretty pictures". |
| Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (TV) | Very good | I liked this a lot more the second time I saw it. I think I followed it much better. The first time it was on TV so it was more spaced out. It's a very good balance between excellent action sequences, police drama, and a little psychological/philosophical discussion. That last one probably isn't as well intertwined as it could be though. The plot was still fairly well paced, bringing up the Laughing Man frequently enough that you didn't just seem like a sub-plot but at the same time it still worked as a episodic anime so the many unrelated episodes didn't feel like filler. In fact, those episodes were actually often better than the earlier laughing man ones. Of course it also looks just amazing. Probably the best looking TV series I've ever seen. The character designs are great. They've got a very detailed and realistic look but that the same time in a somewhat stylized way. |
| Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd GIG (TV) | Excellent | Ah, its watching this that I remember why I got into anime in the first place. The first half or so is very good as it is but once it hits the half way point it really takes it to the masterpiece level. There is a heavier focus on the central plot and that plot is a little less abstract compared to the first season and while it was still highly enjoyable, this makes the second season feel much more powerful. The music is a huge boost and overall, the series creates a great atmosphere. It's also great to see the setting and state of the world developed as well as some of the secondary members of section 9. |
| Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Solid State Society (movie) | Not really good | Okay, right off the bat I should mention that this maintains the same level of excellence in art and animation that I've come to expect from GitS. The music is also fabulous. The story is effective and the ending in particular is quite well done. That said, there were some problems here. In spite of the parts all being there, they aren't really put together that well. There are some major execution issues. The pace is rather sluggish. Traditionally SAC has been known to be what some might call a little dry. That isn't entirely the problem here. It is actually a lot of the more action oriented scenes that have trouble. There are several points where the music, while excellent, isn't quite appropriate and doesn't quite set the right mood. A lot of these scenes also feel rather flat dramatically. The movie never really manages to build any momentum. It just sort of chugs along and along and eventually you end up at the end. One definite upside was the ending itself though. The last 15 minutes or so are really quite effective. |
| .Hack//Intermezzo (OAV) | Bad | I saw this right after SIGN on TV. Same thing. |
| .Hack//SIGN (TV) | Bad | You know, I think the only reason I watched this all the way through is because it was on TV and this was back when I had just gotten into anime and I still operated under the delusion that all anime was automatically awesome. This is really pretty boring. I guess maybe it's better if you are into the games and have more of an idea what's going on. |
| .Hack//Unison (OAV) | Awful | I saw this right after SIGN on TV. SIGN wasn't good as it is but this was just totally pointless. |
| Happy Machine (movie) | Decent | If there was some particular underlying message here I'm afraid it was lost on me. However, it's experimental visuals are a lot of fun to watch and the surreal story is oddly compelling. |
| Hellsing (TV) | Excellent | Where Hellsing truly excels is in it's excellent creepy atmosphere and mountains of style. From it's opening and music to it's somewhat stylized look to it's absolutely insane characters. It sets this atmosphere that's not so much scary, nor should it be, but really spooky. It's so over the top (and I hesitate to use that term because it implies that it's cheesy or silly which isn't so much the case here) it has a certain quality that's almost psychotic. That's were it works so well seeing Seras who is a very nice, normal, (and actually rather charming) person trying to cope with her new life after she is suddenly thrown into the middle of this utter madness. More importantly though, there is Alucard. Bad ass doesn't begin to describe him. He's beyond that. He's so powerful and indestructible that he's almost apathetic towards what's going on. It's just a game, not a real threat. He's truly a monster. Both of these characters are enhanced by excellent dub performances as well. It's a shame with Hellsing though. It's arguably one of my favorite series but like several other favorites (Berserk, Blood) it is great in spite of it's lack of an ending. Technically Hellsing does have a conclusion, but it's such an absurdly incomplete one that resolves almost none of the plot. Despite that though, it's still a lot of fun and makes for a fairly climactic final battle. |
| Higan (OAV) | Not really good | Kinda neat but it despite the twist, it's really just a few minutes of pointless mecha fights. |
| Highlander: The Search for Vengeance (movie) | So-so | The plot wasn't strong. The whole immortal concept and the flashbacks to the past made things interesting though. The characters were pretty one dimensional. Largely, this is the stereotypical action movie. It is a successful action movie though as it exceeds in the category of action. The whole movie looked great and these were definitely some of the coolest sword fights I've seen in a while. That was about it though. |
| Inuyasha (TV) | Not really good | I would actually give the first season or two a good rating. Maybe even a very good. Though it slipped into downright random demon of the week syndrome a few times, the plot actually developed. I think this is kind of the norm with shounen anime to have it be a bit better in the beginning while it's still in the lather and rinse phase and has not yet hit repeat. However, Inuyasha was actually not too bad either. The characters were not exceptional though they were decently entertaining. It was overall pretty cool, with the whole demon thing, especially since it was a lot darker in the first couple seasons. Unfortunately it went seriously downhill as it got into the later episodes. It started to go in circles. The amount of villain of the week vastly increased. It became much much lighter and more generic shounen crap. |
| Jin-Roh - The Wolf Brigade (movie) | Excellent | For starters, this is a beautiful looking movie. The art and animation are absolutely top notch. I love the more conservative, realistic art style so commonly found in movies Oshii is involved in. The action sequences are brutally intense. However, they really aren't the focus. What drives this movie is it's extremely well developed characters and intriguing plot. It's extremely compelling. My only complaint is that it drags slightly in the early-middle. For the most part this section did develop the characters, but I feel like it could have been condensed a little to less disrupt the suspense of the movie. |
| Kill Bill Chapter 3: The Origin of O-Ren (movie segment) | Excellent | Now the high rating here comes with a little note. Obviously this is only a partial segment of a movie. As such, saying it's excellent doesn't really put it up there with full length features that I rate the same. That said, this is arguably one of my all time favorite animated action sequences. It's beautifully animated, dripping in style (and blood), plus it has some pretty good music to boot. My only complaint lies in the artwork. The character designs look great but I think cleaner, smoother lines would have looked better than the sort of scratchy art used (particularilly during the first part). |
| Knight of the Iron Dragon (OAV) | Bad | Again the awful character designs make it tough to take this seriously. The dialogue is very poorly written as well. The second episode was at least still somewhat enjoyable but this is just weak. |
| Legend of the Galactic Heroes: My Conquest is the Sea of Stars (movie) | Good | Neat. I find that's the best word to describe this. It kinda takes the concept of 'space opera' almost literally. It's clearly a very slow paced anime but it's oddly intriguing. I found myself quite captivated. A few aspects of the battles could be a little more clear (like what was the point of that business with the wind when he just destroyed them by other means instead, or what happened at the end with Yang. He's creating a diversion and being chased by several ships but then he just appears out of nowhere back in the battle). In spite of these inconsistencies though, this is still quite an absorbing piece. I look forward to seeing the OVA/TV series. |
| Limit Cycle (movie) | Awful | Pretentious bullshit, impenetrable and incomprehensible to the point it all just becomes noise. |
| Macross Plus (OAV) | Decent | A deep character driven story, excellent music, looked great, amazing fights. I don't know why though, but it sort of failed to especially blow me away. It just wasn't really memorable at all. I enjoyed it as I was watching it but once it was done I was immediately ready to move on. |
| Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi (TV) | Bad | Not really the kinda thing i would see normally. I only did cause a friend lent it to me. It had its moments. Especially initially. As it went on though the jokes got repetitive. The parts that were serious didn't really work for me. |
| Magnetic Rose (movie) | So-so | Fairly well done but it's just a little dull and not very compelling. |
| Mizu no Kotoba (special) | Decent | Okay...that didn't really make any sense. It was actually pretty cool though. The unique, fast paced cinematography is really cool and it's neat how all the dialogue sort of ties together. Certainly worth spending the 9 minutes it takes to watch. |
| Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket (OAV) | Weak | I may be selling it short but I just remember it being dull. I barely even remember it to be honest. |
| Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory (OAV) | Very good | I didn't really see it as standing out as a masterpiece. However it was all around very good. Interesting characters and story. High quality animation, good fights, cool mecha designs, all that.
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| Mobile Suit Gundam Seed (TV) | Very good | There were some issues such as reused animation and identical looking characters, but that aside I think this is the best of the gundam franchise. If you can get over the flaws, its a great series. |
| Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team (OAV) | Excellent |
I would say this is my favorite Gundam series. It took a much more realistic look at the franchise. (Yeah, I know that's a bit of an oxymoron with Gundam.) It wasn't so much an issue of actually being realistic but rather, applying the fun of Gundam to the more small scale and mundane aspects of real warfare. Instead of huge conflicts affecting the entire world, it was just one small battleground amidst an entire war. It's more of a military drama instead of a big mecha melodrama. Not only was that a refreshing change, it was a heck of a enjoyable anime. |
| Moondrive (movie) | Excellent | This is really fantastic. The art style is totally unique but still has a certain anime vibe to it. The hyperactive cinematography and exaggerated slapstick is very well done. The voice acting and interplay between the characters is so much fun. I'm really not doing it justice here. Go watch it. It's only 15 minutes long and you can find it on Youtube. |
| Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (movie) | Weak | By no means totally bad but I was really irritated by the hypocrisy of the people of the valley. You see, spoiler[it's all very easy for them to sit in their valley and preach about how the other people must not burn the toxic forest. They're sitting safe in their little valley which is protected from it. Nausicaa comes flying in with all these idealistic views, but ignores the reality that for the people of other kingdoms not doing something about the forest means death. They won't survive if it continues to spread. Even claiming that they shouldn't fight it and let it eventually destroy them would be one thing, but that's not even the case. She's essentially telling them all to give up and die, while her and her people will just go live safely in their valley. Her and the movie itself act all like they've got the answer to the problem when in reality they don't. Their solution is just as bad, if not worse than those that are trying to destroy the forest. Overall, Nausicaa is just too perfect. she's the single person who knows the way things should be and comes flying in and shows everyone the error of their ways. That would be bad as is, but then its multiplied by the fact that she's just as wrong as everyone else. It is so irritating to watch a movie that treats a rather whiny, preachy, hypocrite like a hero. Also the ending was a little shoddy. Of course Nausicaa swoops in and magically calms the Ohm and everything is all better (even though the world is still in the exact same situation it was before.) Also, from the moment that everybody starts crying and saying that Nausicaa is dead, you just know she isn't. Its just a typical big cheesy play up and then, she's alive!!!] Without a doubt there was also plenty of good to be found in this movie, but it was really quite flawed too if you ask me.
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| Neon Genesis Evangelion (TV) | So-so | There was a definitely a lot of good aspects, but there were also bad. The ending (or lack there of) ruined it all for me. In most cases I just accept it when an ending isn't actually the end of the story. This wasn't even really the case though. What killed me was they spend the entire series building up, adding more and more questions. Then with a couple episodes to go they were all set up for the conclusion in which they explain everything. Then nothing. Its just inconceivable. I know there is End of Evangelion and maybe one day I will go back and watch the entire series again followed by the movie. For now though, the lack of an ending just left me way too pissed off to want to do that. You can try to claim that it's deep or appropriate or what they were going for all along or whatever else. But in the end regardless, to abandon the entire actual narrative as such is just unacceptable. Its such a shame too because though it was often a bit rough around the edges unlike its more evened out companion RahXephon, overall up until the ending I quite enjoyed it. Also, It deserves credit too for pioneering the stuff RahXephon later perfected. |
| Ninja Scroll (movie) | Very good | Ninja Scroll is the ultimate action movie. It's super cool, stylish and bad ass, with a variety of freaks to be bloodily dismembered. It's extremely graphic. However I didn't find it pushed it to the point where it was disgusting. |
| Ninja Scroll (TV) | Worst ever | This is soooooooo stupid. It's like the polar opposite of the movie. It was super cool, bad ass, with a variety of awesome freaks to be bloodily dismembered. This is cheesy, lame and filled with the most retarded villains evar. The only way I can effectively describe it's stupidity is using internet speak: Epic Fail! |
| Outlaw Star (TV) | So-so | A good all around fun series. I don't think I could ever call it great since there wasn't really any place it was exceptional. Overall though it was an entertaining mix of various types of action, scifi, and comedy. |
| Pale Cocoon (OAV) | Decent | This is a neat little anime. It's quite captivating actually. Probably worth watching for the visuals alone. The grey lifeless environments stretch on endlessly and identically and contrast the few glimpses of nature. The characters are well developed for such a short piece and the ending provides a neat little twist. I found it a bit difficult to discern what if any deeper theme or message they were trying to get across here. There's some vague environmental themes but otherwise, I don't know. Still it was an enjoyable little experience. |
| Paprika (movie) | Not really good | All in all I was disappointed. Paprika is beautiful rich and detailed art and the animation is top notch. Initially it's quite interesting but as the dream sequences become more prevalent I found something of a fundamental flaw. The dream sequences are visually pleasing but they aren't really very compelling. The thing is, they don't really mean anything. Sure, there are deeper themes to the movie as a whole. However the dreams themselves, much like real dreams don't really make any sense. Except unlike real dreams which are strangely compelling, this isn't. it's just a lot of dazzling but nonsensical stuff happening. In the first part of the movie the dream sequences were just interludes to people's actions in real life where they were in danger of hurting themselves. As the movie went along though the exact connection to reality was lost. There is some mention of dreams and reality merging but how or why that is happening is never really explained. Twists towards the end of the movie also disappoint. Dr Chiba's love interest just comes out of the blue. Nothing before it in the movie gives any indication that there is any kind of romantic interest between the two. Also, the detective's dreams are one point that is actually rather interesting because of the mystery they slowly unravel. However, the ultimate truth is pretty disappointing as it is such a minor issue especially next to the level of dramatics presented in the dream. |
| Pokemon 2000 - The Movie | | See Pokemon. |
| Pokemon 3 - The Movie | | See Pokemon |
| Pokemon: The First Movie | | See Pokemon |
| Princess Mononoke (movie) | Masterpiece | I think there are plenty of obvious reasons why this is a great movie. The animation is great and the level of detail in the artwork is astounding. It's absolutely amazing to look at. This combined with the effectiveness of the story telling make it a captivating and magical experience. One particular place where I enjoy it however is that though it clearly contains strong environmental themes, it is not the usual vague 'save the planet' message that actually fails to present a real solution. It does not simply preach "save the planet". It presents the very accurate struggle between man and nature. The people aren't evil or anything. They do what they do because they have to in order to survive. For them to completely stop what they are doing would mean death. Nature as well is portrayed as beautiful and majestic but also dangerous, unpredictable and irrational. The movie shows that the only possible solution is for man and nature must to find a balance and coexist. |
| Professor Dan Petory's Blues (OAV) | | ... |
| RahXephon (TV) | Very good | I don't think can talk about this without comparing it to Eva. It was after all kinda Eva done right. All the good, a deep story with complex characters. But none of the bad. Also, not so many questions upon questions that it was tough to follow and more importantly, the questions were for the most part resolved, even if it was in a somewhat mystic way. The musical symbolism was much better as it didn't feel quite so pretentious and didn't carry a lot of tricky connotations. |
| Riding Bean (OAV) | Weak | The depressing grittiness of some parts feels out of place and a bit nullified but the utter absurdity of other parts. The 'man who is literally indestructible for no other reason than that we say he is' is a particular pet peeve of mine. The cars look great and the chase scenes are well done but otherwise this is just a bad hodgepodge of gloomy and stupid. |
| Robot Carnival (OAV) | Very good |
It's pretty impressive how captivating this is despite only a couple segments containing any real story. The art and animation are fantastic. There's such an incredible attention to detail and everything is so fluid. The music is extremely effective as well. Because of this, even the couple segments that are essentially music videos are really fun. The somewhat more visually inventive but even less story focused segments are quite good as well. The best of the bunch however are definitely the hilarious parody segment 'Tale of Meiji Machines' which pits two giant wooden robots against each other in Meiji era Japan. Hilarity ensues. This is enhanced as well by the fantastic, intentionally bad dub complete with awful accents. The Presence segment is excellent as well. |
| Roujin Z (OAV) | So-so | In many ways this is an excellent anime. The art is very detailed and the animation is very smooth. The characters are all quite well done both in terms of design and personality. Mr. Takazawa in particular thanks largely to the effective voice work. There are however some plot points that stretch the viewers belief even by the somewhat lax standards one would expect in something like this. I was also bothered by the fact that as much as the bad guy's actions are wrong, it's really Haruko and friends who are directly responsible for the bed going on it's rampage. What I really found hurt my enjoyment though was the somewhat awkward pace. Things move along fast enough but the level of energy never really manages to build thanks in part to the low key if not non-existent music. Still definitely worth watching though. |
| Samurai 7 (TV) | Good | A lot better than I expected. The animation was somewhat weak. The 3D CGI was fairly ugly and didn't blend well at all with the rest. The regular animation was so so. It looked pretty good but had quite a few places with major drops in quality. The art was rather stylish in some ways but also a little bit simplistic and ugly in other ways. The story isn't brilliant but isn't bad either. The characters are where this really shines though. They are all very well developed and all have a ton of personality and are very likable and a lot of fun. The action was also pretty good especially when you consider that the animation was sometimes so-so. |
| Samurai Champloo (TV) | Excellent | Really pretty similar to Bebop. Fun, likable characters, slowly developed over a series of independent episodes. Lots of great, stylish samurai action along the way. The ending was one of my favorite endings ever. It accomplished something Anime or anything for that matter rarely does and actually made me believe that [spoiler]they might kill one or both of the main characters. It really adds to the drama when you're honestly not sure who will live or die. Then when they didn't kill either of em, I was actually glad because it would have been awfully sad if they did. I still got the fun of thinking they might.[/spoiler] |
| Samurai Deeper Kyo (TV) | Weak | Here's the problem with Samurai Deeper Kyo. It builds and builds up for battles, but then abandons any actual fighting in favor of the bad guy turning into a big monster and the good guy destroying him with his super magical sword attack. Outside of that it was decent. A neat concept, story, characters. Too bad the action couldn't keep up. |
| Samurai X: Trust & Betrayal (OAV) | Excellent | |
| Shanghai Dragon (movie) | Good | I'm rather impressed that something so short can manage to feel so epic and exciting. This is quite the package. Simple and action packed yet still rather emotional. It looks fantastic with great animation and visuals that perfectly capture the childish imagination. The voice work is particularly well done especially in the case of the children. |
| Slipstream (OAV) | Good | Very well done. The animation is great, especially for something a bit older and the story and characters are well developed despite it's short running time. It's an overall very well executed concept that creates a very effective feeling of tension and conflict. |
| Sonic Boom Squadron (OAV) | Not really good | Though the animation is still quite outstanding the story and theme is very unfocused and only amounts to a vague condemnation of war. The character designs are very strange and generally ugly. They definitely don't seem appropriate for a somber war piece. |
| Spriggan (movie) | Not really good | It pretty much lost steam in the second half. It had a couple great scenes at first but then after the fight with the fat guy, there was the one scene on the snow tractor and then that was about it. After that the action was pretty mediocre if not non-existent and unfortunately, the action was really all this movie had going for it. Now I generally accept that in an action movie, but even so, I can't really give this a good rating since it really wasn't action packed enough to justify the weak plot and one dimensional and not particularly appealing characters. |
| Steamboy (movie) | Not really good | You know what this pretty much is in a nutshell? A big budget Hollywood action flick. There has obviously been mountains of time and money poured into the visuals and it shows. It looks absolutely brilliant. The level of detail is amazing and the animation is top notch. I wish they had put the same level of effort into the rest of the movie though. The pacing is awkward and although it evens out in the last third or so, it feels a bit overlong. The plot is somewhat incoherent and rather uneven. The chatter about science feels a bit pretentious and shallow. Like it's just been tossed on top just so they can play at being deep. Overall, the plot is just not really especially interesting or compelling. It seems like nothing more than a means to link together the series of shots of massive steam powered machines. Perhaps the biggest failing though is the characters. A movie like this can often be a fair success so long as the characters are fun. They're pretty dull here though. Ray has a bit of personality early on but that quickly evaporates. Also, Scarlet has to be the most awful, annoying, pointless character ever. She's a horrible, rotten, mean little monster of a child who spends the entire movie running around in her own little world completely oblivious to anything that's going on in even the most literal sense and nattering away at everyone about nothing. What's truly astounding though is that while normally you would expect such a character to at some point 'learn their lesson' or in some way come around, but she remains completely selfish and ignorant to the very end. I suppose this isn't awful. At least once the action gets going it's a mildly entertaining way to pass the time. It's an awful shame to see such animation go largely to waste though due to the lack of much real substance and inconsistency in plot and pace. |
| Stink Bomb (movie) | Weak | The concept is sort of problematic. It's so utterly absurd that it's tough to take seriously and yet in practice it's utterly tragic. I mean when you think about it, hundreds of people are probably killed as a result of this incident and thousands more injured. Unfortunately, the direction they choose to take things is down the middle with a semi-serious but also somewhat comedic tone. It really doesn't work at all. |
| (The) Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love? (movie) | Bad | This is by far the single biggest disappointment I've ever experienced as an anime fan. Let me get the positive out of the way first. This movie, especially for it's time looks just great. The fact that I give this an even vaguely decent rating despite how otherwise painful this movie is to watch is a testament to just how impressive it looks. My god though, what a waste of good animation. The plot here can be divided into roughly 50% 'what the fuck is going on?' and 50% just 'what the fuck?' Regarding the former, should I have seen Macross (TV) before watching this? According to a pretty reputable source 'The film version of the original Macross story is absolutely the best way to experience it' so I thought not. Apparently I was wrong though. So very little of what is going on is never explained and in the rare instances it is, it's in the form of a quick little expository rant. There are numerous elements that would seem to be significant but only make brief appearances. (The actual Macross ship really only is shown a fraction of the time and never in an especially significant way.) Numerous characters make only a couple appearances, and yet sort of act like they're supposed to be significant. Then there's the parts that are explained. You know, having to suspend your disbelief is one thing. This transcends that though to the point where it is simply sublimely stupid. I know Japan has this whole little freaky obsession deal with pop idols and their shitty music but I can't believe even they could take this seriously. Or maybe if it didn't take itself seriously but it does totally. Then there's the romance. The main character is generic and boring but lucky for him he just happens to fall into an extremely rushed and contrived relationship with the annoyingly cutesy idol girl. It's not even vaguely convincing. They don't seem to have any real connection or anything. They just get together because he's the male lead and she's the female lead and so it's what the plot calls for. now to be fair, this kind of thing is sort of a problem with 'romance' in most media. It's utterly contrived. (Although it's especially rushed and contrived here) I can generally tolerate it though because it's a sub-plot and not the focus. Here though it's pretty much the main focus for the first 3rd of the movie. The bizarre thing though is that after all that [spoiler]she disappears for most of the remaining movie. The main guy then goes on to for an only slightly less rushed and contrived romance with the other girl. (The one who is all tough and cold but secretly just wants to do dishes and play house because that's what women all secretly want right? :roll:) This results in a short lived love triangle when the cutesy one turns up again. It never really goes anywhere though. Then the aliens declare peace, then war again a few minutes later and then cutesy sings and that does...something and some of the aliens switch sides again but some don't so they blow up the ones that didn't and thus ends the longest 2 hours of my anime watching life.[/spoiler] Seriously, this was really downright painful to sit through. I think a good chunk of the problems here are due to them taking a 24 episode plot and squishing it down to 2 hours. It just doesn't work. It's hectic, all over the place and oh so rushed and poorly developed. Given sufficient time I believe this could actually work to some degree. Although...some parts are just oh so dumb and would be even with all the time in the world. |
| Sword of the Stranger (movie) | Good | A very pleasant surprise. I had expected a passable action flick. This is actually really good. It looks fabulous. The art is nice and the animation is very fluid. More importantly perhaps, the action sequences are all very well choreographed. It's fairly well paced and does a good job of building excitement as the movie progresses. However, I did find it lost it's energy briefly just before the climax. As soon as no name joined the fray though it picked back up. The characters are all well done too. Kotarou is a little brat at first but it's more funny than it is annoying because he's clearly trying way too hard. He has a lot of chemistry with no name who is a fun if somewhat cliched archetype. Rarou is an excellent villain. He has a certain Darth Vader-esque bad ass quality that makes him really cool. Oh and then there's the dog. The dog is awesome. This is overall can't exactly be called brilliant but it's a damned fun movie to watch. |
| Tenjho Tenge (TV) | So-so | Good? I don't know if thats the best word. Entertaining might be a better one. It was fairly ridiculous and not really what I'd call quality entertainment. However I can't deny that this was a fun show to watch. Really, it was two shows though. A martial arts drama wrapped in a fun martial arts action series. Both had pros and cons. The prior was good, but clashed with the utter silliness of the concept. The latter was a fun, but suffered from weak characters such as Aya and Masataka who were annoying and bland respectively. Bob and Souichirou were great though. It would have been nice if it got to the point where they were no longer constantly getting the crap kicked out of them. |
| Tenjho Tenge: Ultimate Fight (OAV) | So-so | I saw this immediately after the TV show. I didn't even realize it was a separate OVA. It definitely added a better conclusion. Obviously the ending wasn't an actual conclusion still, but it felt less like just a sudden stop. |
| Tojin Kit (movie) | So-so | Some interesting art direction that creates a very effective mood. The concept is never really built on or explained though. |
| Trigun (TV) | Masterpiece (dub & sub) | I should preface this by saying that I am a Trigun fanboy. What can I say? I just love it. I love westerns and I love Sci-Fi. I hadn't even really considered the concept of putting them together before this. More importantly though, Trigun is just so incredibly fun to watch. It does an amazing job of drawing you in and introducing you to its characters in a very casual way and slowly dropping details that develop them and explain the back-story. This is where I feel like it's such a step up from the manga which goes the opposite route and dumps everything on you right off the bat. |
| Twilight of the Dark Master (OAV) | Good | This isn't exactly the most ground breaking material and a lot isn't really fleshed out as much as it ought to be. However, what it lacks in plot it more than makes up for in style and atmosphere. The art design here is really fantastic. The use of shadow and contrast is especially cool. The overall atmosphere is excellent thanks partially to the aforementioned art but also due to some creepy and stylish music and a great dub. It all combines do draw you in so well that you pretty much forget about the story. |
| Twilight Q (OAV) | Decent | Though the first episode never lives up to the oh so pretentious 'warning' at the beginning it is still a moderately entertaining if also sort of pointless experience. The second episode is a definite step up though. Despite it's slow pace and the bulk of the story being told via narration with little to no visuals, it's quite a captivating mystery with an effective balance of surreal weirdness and practical investigation. What really makes it stand out though is how at the last minute, the reality that has been slowly revealed throughout the episode is suddenly pulled out from under you. Sadly, the way ANN lists this prevents me from giving a different score to each episode but if I could it would be a So-so for ep1 and a Good for ep 2. |
| Urban Square - Kouhaku no Tsuigeki (OAV) | Decent | There's something refreshing if not downright fun about an anime that not only realizes it's cliched and cheesy but actually seems to revel in it. That's not to say it tries to play it for laughs or be ironic. It just sort of rolls with it and you know what? It works. There's a reason all these old noir crime and cop show elements are cliche. It's because they're fun. It manages to be silly without being downright stupid, sets a nice tense and energetic mood and has some damn fine classic style action sequences. |
| Vampire Hunter D (OAV) | Worst ever | I've heard people refer to Vampire Hunter D as being pretty good, successful, etc. I don't really see how they could be talking about the movie but not the original. Therefore I'm pretty surprised. Maybe its just that this is so outdated, but I just though it sucked. Totally random at times. annoying, out of the blue fanservice, generic monsters and villains. Was this what was considered good back in 85 when this was new? |
| Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (movie) | Good | A great action movie using the traditional idea of vampires. It captured that old school vampire atmosphere which nowadays is usually replaced by one which is more standard horror (or god forbid romantic...eww). Although, come to think of it this did undoubtedly have a romantic edge to it. It was the good kind of Dracula-esqe romance. Not the lame kind of Twilight-esqe romance. |
| Vexille - 2077 Isolation of Japan (movie) | Not really good | Well, it definitely looked good. Some of the sequences involving the "Jags" were just phenomenal. The characters looked good too. Certainly a vast improvement over the more or less traditional anime characters pasted over a realistic CGI background that I disliked in Appleseed. Their movements seemed a fair bit awkward at times but then, no worse that other similar movies or most anime in general. The move was well paced and the action sequences were enough to keep me entertained throughout but weren't really especially impressive. Despite what could be an interesting concept the plot failed to really deliver anything of interest. Even the one big twist had no real impact on me. Maybe that stems from the characters lack of energy and feeling. They were all unexciting and one dimensional. Because of this you never really feel anything for them or care what happens to them. The bottom line it came down to was that the end of the movie I felt like I hadn't even watched it. I must emphasis that this again kept me very entertained throughout. I was certainly never bored. It just left no kind of lasting impression or impact though. Thus I can't really give it that good of a rating. |
| (The) Vision of Escaflowne (TV) | Decent | Definitely good. I felt like it sort of lost steam towards the end though. I can't quite put my finger on what I didn't like. Initially it was very good but as it began to go into the stuff about fate, Atlantis, Dilandau, it just sort of lost my interest. I wouldn't mind seeing it again and see if I like it better the second time or at least figure out why I don't. |
| Wanwa the Puppy (movie) | Not really good | Okay, but not quite as visually impressive as other similar shorts in this collection. |
| (The) Wings of Honneamise (movie) | Weak | I can see where this has the makings of a good movie. In fact, it's somewhat fun. However, there are a lot of things I find rather bothersome. For starters, I found the setting a bit odd. The mix of some realistic looking rural settings, some original stuff and some modern dayish stuff made it tough to get a handle on the time and place this was supposed to be set. Also, the latter two combined to create a fairly high tech feel which seemed at odds with the idea of this being the first man in space ever. The bigger issue though is the weird, messed up relationship between the main characters. I hate hate hate Riquinni. For starters she's clearly some type of religious nut. Shitotsugh is more than happy to take advantage of this fact to try and get in her pants. This really comes across as his main interest in her. Of course that's not happening which kind of creates a problem. (The funny thing is I can see their relationship having worked really well if this had been a problem arising later as a result of a genuine relationship and interest.) So naturally he tries to rape her. No biggie though, she just pretends it never happened like a good like little abuse enabler. Overall, she's generally just happy to let people walk all over her and doesn't seem to especially care if Shitotsugh is just trying to get some. She'll just keep leading him on if it gives her a chance to recruit him into her cult. It's strange too because Shitotsugh is, when not around her, a solid, likable character. If not for her and their messed up relationship this would probably have been a reasonably enjoyable movie. |
| Witch Hunter Robin (TV) | | I saw it was back in the day when I was both younger and also just new to anime. Also I saw it on TV and I think I missed a few episodes here and there. Because of all that, I don't think I'm really in a position to say how it was. At the time I didn't hate it but also didn't particularly like it. I've heard good things about it though so I would certainly like to see it again. |
| Wolf's Rain (TV) | Good | Wolf's Rain is an epic and beautiful series. It looks great. The animation is top notch and the art is quite nice. (I'm not too crazy about a couple of the character designs though). It goes beyond that though. The whole look of this series, the settings, etc are all very well done. The wolves as well as the series overall has a certain majestic quality about it. I particularilly love how the characters shift seamlessly between wolf and human. The fight scenes are great. They really capture the wolves ferocity well. However, I can't help but think that Wolfs Rain would have been a masterpiece if only it were condensed down to 13 episodes. There were those 4 recap episodes to start, but it's not just that. Wolfs rain starts great, really gets going towards the end, but is just too darn slow and scattered in between. It wasn't even bad by any mean, it just doesn't manage to carry nearly the energy nor the epic feeling of the beginning and end. |
| Wolf's Rain (OAV) | Very good | See now, if the TV series had only managed to be this good throughout it would have been a masterpiece. What an epic, powerful, moving, beautiful conclusion. |
| X (TV) | So-so | A very good series with great animation, an effective atmosphere, and a well told story with a great cast of characters. It lost steam towards the end though. I didn't like how it was very vague as to what purpose the other dragons was. They all start appearing and fighting. There's sorta some mention of them and something about barriers. There's a few battles but in the end they seem to get lost in the background and it all degenerates into Kamui fighting Fuuma. |
| Will not finish | Rating | Comment |
| After War Gundam X (TV) | So-so | Not bad I guess. I like the somewhat post-apocalyptic setting rather than a conventional one. A tad bland though. I'd actually somewhat like to finish this but I doubt I ever will get around to doing so. |
| Bleach (TV) | Bad | I kinda don't get what people see in Bleach. I'll take DBZ or even Naruto over this any day of the week. (And I don't really consider either of those good either.) Nothing about the series works for me. I find the characters to be generic and uninteresting and their designs rather ugly. The monsters are also ugly, silly looking and generic. There isn't really anything particularly cool about it. There was just nothing here to make this worth watching. |
| Blood+ (TV) | Weak | I have trouble buying the nice quiet young girl who is actually a super powerful vampire. It just seems silly. Even in a more general sense, the whole series clashed for me. It was too cute and friendly and light at times which didn't work with the dark side of it. Maybe I shouldn't knock it too much. I had high expectations because of the Blood movie. This really has little to do with that though aside from a similar concept and vaguely similar characters. |
| Burst Angel (TV) | Bad | Welcome to the world of Burst Angel, where apparently stuff doesn't have to make sense or be explained in any way because its the future and hot girls are blowing stuff up. Now there is some decent action and great looking animation. However its tough to enjoy this stuff unless you can repress your WTF reflex. That part of your mind that pushes you to wonder: "why can this girl transform into a monster that can control the minds of others?" or "what on earth do they keep meg around for?" or finally, "why oh why would someone build a giant lifelike robotic crow, which can inexplicably control other crows, that needs to kidnap people to use for energy, for a simple theft." yeah...WTF? |
| Colorful (TV) | Not really good | You know, this is not bad. In fact, it's probably the best ecchi anime ever. It cuts to the point. It's actually pretty funny and sadly, quite true. It's somewhat marred by it's overly jumpiness and sometimes awkward comedic timing as well as the incessant attempts to be weird and surreal during the between parts and in the end it does kind of become boring once the element of 'it's funny because it's true' fades. |
| Darker than BLACK (TV) | Not really good | Seen: ep 10 | I expected something different. Something a lot...darker. With the exception of a few parts, it felt relatively light-hearted. It was somewhat redeemed by the decent action. However it was severely lacking in plot. Though the characters showed promise, they were all so quiet that you never got to know them at all. Maybe it gets better but it started so slow that I can't be bothered to find out. |
| Death Note (TV) | Weak | I think I have a sort of love-hate relationship with Death Note. I bounce back and forth between loving it and hating it. It's a great story with twist after twist. The first episode was rather poorly executed and felt awkward and rushed but once the initial premise was established you're immediately hooked on the battle of wits between Kira and L. Unfortunately, Death Note seems to have an amazing talent for repeatedly irking me. For starters, Death Note has a improbability problem. It often feels silly or highly unlikely. L's whole existence, the number of cameras in Light's house plus how he got around them, etc. I would almost say it is the mental equivalent of DBZ. It's very cool and a lot of fun, but you can't help but think "come on, I get that he's a super genius/super strong but that's just silly." Also, I find that considering how smart Kira is, he sure is...well...stupid. I know obviously he is misguided but even if you do agree with his objective there is a massive flaw in Light's plan. He can only kill people already in jail or known to be guilty. So really, all he is doing is inflicting far harsher sentencing on people already convicted. He has no means whatsoever to punish those who haven't already been caught and punished to a lesser extent. Knowing that if you're caught you will die would deter crime, but as things are now people already know they stand an equal chance of being caught and punished to a lesser extent and obviously crime is still a problem. He isn't going to solve a damn thing unless he can kill people without them already being caught by the authorities. I would think someone as smart as Kira would see this glaring flaw. Also, L is an asshole. I get that there are extenuating circumstances but what happened to human rights? He puts camera's lights house and massively invades his and his families privacy based on next to no actual evidence that any of them have done anything wrong. That's even relatively minor. He basically kidnaps Misa and has her tortured to the point where she wants to kill herself and once again, based on what? That he found hair and fibers on the tapes!? That's a long way from definitively knowing she is one of the Kiras. Hell, even if he did know that definitively what he did is highly questionable. (It doesn't help how the show just sort of skims over these things like they're no big deal.) I mean this guy is supposed to be the "good guy" right? I would by no means feel bad if Kira did kill him. Not that I'm behind Kira either as he is the worlds stupidest genius and of course a douche all around. Even Misa who occasionally borders on likable is so pathetic and stupid in her obsession with Kira that its pretty tough to not dislike her as well. It's tough to watch a show when you hate all the characters. I don't know, maybe I'm taking it too seriously. I have a tough time not doing so because it doesn't really present itself in the somewhat cheesy way that other shounenish anime that can't really be taken entirely seriously do. It tries to take on heavy and deep subject matter but ultimately fails to live up to it. In the end, I've gotten tired of it and decided to drop it. |
| Ergo Proxy (TV) | Not really good | To me, Ergo Proxy is sort of like a bad version of Ghost in the Shell (A great example of an anime that is somewhat slowly paced but is still very good). In that regard I don't even hate Ergo Proxy [i]that[/i] much. It deserves a lot of credit for looking great with some stylish artwork, setting and character designs or for that matter, just for being vaguely original instead of the usual cookie cutter crap. The major problem however is that it's not even vaguely compelling or intriguing to watch. A good slow paced anime may move slow but it still draws you in and makes you want to watch more. Ergo Proxy does not. It just meanders gloomily along, reciting pretentious, unsubtle philosophy while not really going anywhere or even giving you any reason to want to see what happens next. Definitely a major disappointment because I thought it had a lot of potential. |
| Genocyber (OAV) | Weak | You know, it seems like it may have had some potential and I actually found a number of aspects were pretty well done. I can sort of see what Justin was referring to in his Buried Treasure Column. However, they never really develop or explain the concept enough and it all falls apart in the last half. The street kid just disappears and then turns up dead. I went back and checked and I can't for the life of me figure out why specifically. The bad guys suddenly go through these ridiculous transformer-esque change into big robot things. |
| Glass Maiden (TV) | Not really good | As a rule I think I should stop watching anime described as 'hard-boiled'. It's pretty much bullshit based on my experiences. They promise a tale of a detective in a scummy city being drawn into a dangerous mystery surrounding a beautiful young woman which does in fact sound like a hard-boiled detective story. That's not really what happens here though. Nearest I can tell from the first episode, this is the story of a detective (or something, I'm not quite sure) who lives in a nice big clean house in what appears to be a nice enough city with a couple cutesy young girls. They all live their happy little lives until they end up involved in a big action shoot 'em up and subsequent car chase involving a naked chick who is being chased by a bunch of other people. Also, this all apparently ties into some women turning into glass (literally). Did I mention there's a ridiculously over the top transvestite character? The funny thing is that this isn't even a bad anime. If it were billed as a typical light hearted, action fest with a bit of sci-fi nonsense, I would maybe call it a passable title. I'm really just too irked by how misleading it is though to appreciate it to any degree. I mean, fuck! The first image of it was a revolver and bullets sitting next to a glass of booze. If that doesn't indicate that this will be a more dark and serious detective story I don't know what does. |
| Gun Frontier (TV) | Worst ever | Gun Frontier was perhaps the worst Anime I've ever seen. I rarely drop series so short but this was an exception. Where to start: Firstly, the plot moved at a lightning fast pace. It was like they took a 26 episode plot and squished it into 13 episodes. In watching it felt more like I was just reading a summary of the plot. There was never any build up to anything, just "this happens and then this happens and etc." The characters were marginal. The art style was just ugly. Not even just poorly drawn, it was some weird non-anime style. I don't want to come across as some kinda purist. Im open to unusual art styles but this one just looked stupid and cartoony. Oh and the fanservice. Was the director sitting around and said to his friend "wanna bet how many times in a single episode I can have this woman take her clothes off?" The awnser by the way was 3. Again the speed of sound plot didn't help here. It would just be like RANDOM NUDITY for ten seconds and them jump to something else. Then a bit later they find another excuse for 5 seconds of random nudity. This is exactly the kind of fanservice I hate. I could only suffer through about 4 episodes of this. |
| Gungrave (TV) | Not really good | Seen: ep 12 | It seems like it would be right up my alley. I can see where this was good but for some reason it just isn't doing it for me. As much as I want to like it I just don't. I think maybe its that it sort of presents itself as this serious mob drama. But then it also has a ton of stuff that requires you to suspend your disbelief. Its not even just the heavy Sci-Fi element which at least makes sense if it was scientifically possible. There is other stuff such as the gun fights that just seem highly unrealistic. It really clashes. |
| Ikki Tousen (TV) | Worst ever | I saw this because I had heard alot of the same things (mostly bad) about it that I heard about Tenjou Tenge, which actually turned out to be pretty good. In retrospect, that logic was retarded. This basically failed in all aspects. It's not even worth explaining why it wasn't good in most aspects. I will say though, it even failed in the areas where this kind of show could succeed. Firstly, the fights were poor. Just simple, unexciting and dull. Secondly, Fanservice. Even if you're into that this isn't very good. The animation and art is mediocre and the style is overly cartoonish. Also, if you're going to basically build a show around girls clothes getting all shredded you could at least put some effort into it instead of just having them instantly vanish as soon as they take a single punch. Finally, the single most important characteristic in a fighting show: the characters. Having cool, likable characters can make or break a fighting show. Unfortunately the characters here were boring, annoying, stupid, etc. Also, the show constantly bores you will needless reference to the Three Kingdoms. It's neither clever or interesting though having them constantly pause to explain that "X character did this thing historically and now the character is doing the same thing get it cause it's like the same okay?" That would be bad enough it something that actually tried to be good but it's actually even worse here because even if you somehow manage to enjoy this as a silly, fanservicey action show you can't because you have to wade through all this crap. |
| Last Exile (TV) | | |
| Love Hina (TV) | Weak | Yeah...My friend got me to watch some of this. I don't really see the point. It's not really funny. I don't really see much serious potential here though. |
| Mobile Fighter G Gundam (TV) | Awful | I'm actually surprised how many people seem to like this. It's just so utterly terrible. A big ridiculous martial arts tournament series with all the inherent stupid except also with robots and racial stereotypes. |
| Mobile Suit Gundam 00 (TV) | Not really good | Seen: ep 5 | It should be said first off that this is a great looking series. Everything is sleek and smooth. The mecha designs are great. The Gundams are all highly unique but without looking ridiculous. The other mecha are also very cool. They are distinct to each faction and look specialized and like actual realistic military vehicles. The character designs are...so so. I have mixed feelings. In some ways they're nice, smooth clean designs. However I don't know that their overly cartoony look is right for the more serious military/political elements of the story. Members of Celestial Being tend to be the worst. A lost of the girls look absurdly young and many of the men don't really look like men at all. The 'guy' with the purple hair is particularity over the top. I completely assumed he was female until I was told otherwise. The whole premise of Celestial Being is just so ridiculous too. Now maybe if they were an under funded, under armed little group that by some chance had obtained the means to make some degree of impact but still had to fight like hell to achieve their goals, it would have been reasonable (and interesting). As it was it just seemed so silly. That's the other thing too though. It could at least have been a better action series if CB wasn't so overpowered. It seems too often like they're never really in danger. They walk right through their hopelessly inferior enemies. It's this kind of thing that made Wing boring as hell and the opposite that made SEED (especially the first half) so fun. |
| Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny (TV) | Awful | I can see the problems I've heard about starting to get worse and worse. It's going absolutely nowhere. No actual story whatsoever has really started to develop. I'm right around the point where I've heard it really completely falls apart. I've got better things to do than watch something that, unless almost everything I've heard about it is untrue, will be terrible. |
| Mobile Suit Gundam Wing (TV) | Weak | The characters were so boring and totally lacked personality. The Gundams were so powerful that most of the fights were crappy. All in all, just a really bad anime. That said, some people do like this and I can sort of see why. It's an okay introductory Gundam series and it's got a certain novelty in spite of it's flaws. |
| Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam (TV) | Not really good |
I don't see what the big deal is. It isn't terrible by any means but it isn't the masterpiece some people claim it is. I find the characters kind of lifeless. They're just going about continuing the plot without really being all that reactive to anything that's happening. Kamile is sometimes the exception sometimes but not in a good way. he's way to angsty, and mostly over stupid little stuff. I also find the political situation of the world vague and undefined. It just kind of follows along with what the good guys and a single group of enemies are doing as the pursue each other. It isolates them and makes them out to be the only military forces that seem to exist in the area. Also, whats up with all the people randomly slapping each other? This goes back to my previous complaint. They all seem to do this very casually and without energy or much emotion. It just ends up coming off as a weak attempt to make things seem more dramatic when the truth is they just aren't. Zeta does okay in the action department but it's poorly executed from a dramatic point of view. Apparently though, a lot of people think it's just fabulous so...I don't know. Maybe it's worth checking out anyway. |
| Naruto (TV) | Weak | What killed Naruto is all the flashbacks or back story to minor characters. As a simple shounen fighting anime it might have been OK. However sitting through 15 minutes of flashback about some minor side character every episode made this unwatchable for me. |
| Noir (TV) | Weak | I decided to give this a chance because I heard it got a lot better as it progressed. I'm half way through and so far no improvement. Nothing but overused flashbacks and generic repetitive plot. I'll give it a little credit for being somewhat stylish though. |
| Paranoia Agent (TV) | So-so | I don't know. I just don't really like it that much. Not really sure why. |
| Patlabor The Mobile Police (OAV 1/1988) | Weak | Seen: ep 5 | Gosh, I'm really disappointed. The first two episodes are okay. Not bad exactly, but just sort of bland. It's definitely a very slowly paced anime which is fine. It's just I kind of expected it to thus also be rather serious or deep or....something. It's not. It just sort of lightheartedly plods along. There's a bit of comedy and to it's credit, it's decently funny. It's just not hilarious and it's relatively few and far between. Not enough to make this a 'comedy' series. It's just sort of odd. I don't know what this is supposed to be. It's not even about mecha really. The first episode is the only one to feature them in any major capacity and even then it's rather limited. The first couple episodes aren't bad. In fact in spite of it being rather slow they're reasonably captivating. That this pulls out a half decent score in spite of what comes next is a testament to how decent they actually are. After that though...episode 3. What the fuck was that!? Utterly ridiculous, stupid and cheesy. I'm almost inclined to think it was intentionally stupid but it's presented completely seriously. Man, that was just awful. Painful to watch. Episode 4 is a step up but is pretty poor as well. It's roughly on par with your average episode of Scooby Doo. I think I prefer Scooby though cause while both are a thoroughly predictable and unscary mystery, the boring expositionary speech is limited to a few lines instead of like ten minutes. Episode 5 is also bad. Considering they spend an entire episode setting up what I assume will be covered in the final episodes, they could have at least developed it a little more. They just sort of leap into this massive conspiracy without any setup or build up. They don't even make it clear just what is going on or to what end. The army or some branch thereof, is attempting...some kind of coup? How and to what end? I don't think I'll bother to even finish it. |
| Please Save My Earth (OAV) | Bad | This is the most incompressible mishmash of a plot I've ever seen. It's as if someone took three or four unrelated plots and crammed them into one show. Now I normally wouldn't be so specific here but I feel it's the only way to accurately portray just how disjointed things are here. First off you've got this high school girl who whines about pollution for a bit and then reminisces about somebody telling her to "remember the dinosaurs". Apparently humans are following the same path as them to extinction by "growing too large for the planet". I was actually under the impression that the dinosaur's extinction was somewhat more...meteor related but whatever. The whole environmental aspect isn't brought up again at all for the rest of the episode. Anyway, this girl is tormented by a little boy who lives next door. He teases her and tricks her into letting him spit into her open mouth. (She's not the brightest bulb). Now of course instead of simply going 'eww', she spirals into depression and crying fits for the rest of the night. Later she gets stuck babysitting him and takes him to the zoo. We find out there that she has some kind of weird connection with animals. If that sound vague, it's because it's never really detailed. They all crowd around her and stare at her. Dunno what that means. This is where it goes off the rails. She runs into a couple guys we've never seen before but they evidently know each other because they immediately being explaining that they're not gay. What? Well in a flashback that they for some reason left till now to show, we learn that these guys go to her school and earlier she overheard a rather suggestive sounding conversation between them. As they explain though, they've actually been having identical dreams where one of them is a man and one of them is a woman and they're part of a group of people living on the moon. Now call me homophobic if you must but I would think the most plausible explanation for this is that its actually just a load of BS they've cobbled together to try and hide the fact that they're gay. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Anyway though, they launch into a big expositional story and explain who all the different characters are in their little moon delusion. Now back to the kid, she takes him home and he's being a brat and he ends up falling off the balcony and ends up in the hospital. This is where they really take it to a new level of crazy. When he comes to he has developed crazy Akira powers which he proceeds to secretly use to terrorize some biker kid. (Who we also had not met until this point). He's totally forgiven her for the balcony incident and actually kisses her which she takes about 5 seconds too long to pull away from in my opinion. Suddenly her parents are asking her in the most solemn manner imaginable if she intends to marry him. She faints and has a crazy moon dream of her own (which is actually quite unsurprising when you think about it seeing as they've just previously explained the whole thing to her). Bottom line, this is utter nonsense. I generally don't drop stuff after one episode but I don't really have any interest in pursuing something so incoherent. |
| Pokémon (TV) | | Who hasn't seen Pokemon at some point or another? I was totally into it back in the day when I was a kid and it was a huge fad but I eventually grew out of it of course. I don't really see the point in offering a rating on what is clearly a kid's show. |
| Real Drive (TV) | | I need to preface this by saying that I've not really given this a fair chance. I only saw the first episode. It's not terrible or anything. I just wasn't particularly impressed. The really weird female character designs and their massive thighs are rather off-putting as is the overly cute and annoying girl. The rest looks great and it seems moderately interesting but it's not something I particularly want to pursue. |
| RIN ~Daughters of Mnemosyne~ (OAV) | Awful | Seen: ep 3 | The first episode is ridiculously random. Things seemed to happen for no real reason. She is running from somebody who is trying to kill her (and she's naked for some reason). Then she meets a guy and for no apparent reason decides to help him because something isn't "right" and some guys are chasing him. Then they get caught and some random crazy lady tortures her with body piercings. Then it turns out she's immortal and he's a clone and there are zombies....ooooookay. It's one thing to have things that aren't yet explained but in this case it seems too much like a bunch of random events happening for no real reason other than because it would be cool if they did. Overall, the problem is its all hardcore and has a lot of graphic violence and nudity (which is sort of cool) but outside of that there really isn't much here. Also, while I'm pretty tolerant of the REALLY graphic stuff when it serves a purpose, when it doesn't I find it just tasteless and exploitative. The art and animation is was okay for TV but for an OVA I would have hoped for better. There was a couple cool action sequences but otherwise there just wasn't that much here. The second episode was a definite improvement as there was an actual logical flow to the plot. However, it still seems fairly light on substance in favor of an excess of graphic violence, nudity, and various sex related plot points. Again, it really isn't enough to carry an anime on its own. Episode 3 again managed to hit a bunch of random clichés. We had zombies so clearly cyborgs and killer viruses were the next logical step. Also, Death Island. Oh right, because Skull Island was taken. It had a bunch of mutilation and sex and as was bound to happen eventually, they threw the kid in there. (No. I don't care that she 'just looks like a kid'. That's a bullshit excuse and we all know it.) With each episode it has felt more and more exploitative and fucked up (and not the good, 'Dexter' kind of fucked up. The bad 'Saw' kind of fucked up). I'm definitely not going to be seeing any more. |
| Rurouni Kenshin (TV) | Decent | Definitely a fun show. Kenshin's whole not killing people thing got on my nerves though. A lot of the time it really just made me roll my eyes. I think the problem was that he did so without any real difficulty. Where as in Trigun for example, Vash's non-killing has consequences. It's really difficult to manage and frequently gets him injured. It's a struggle which gives it meaning and significance. Here, he just seems to do it as an afterthought. "I've beat you but I won't kill you because I'm all noble or whatever now". This sort of doesn't belong in will not finish. I saw up until the end of season 2. I won't watch the 3rd season since I've heard it degenerates to random episodic stuff but assuming it had been like the first two I certainly would have finished it. |
| Samurai Pizza Cats (TV) | | I don't actually remember it but I definitely remember liking it when I was a kid. It was on TV (heavily edited from what I hear). I recall it was actually pretty funny in a really weird sort of way. |
| SD Gundam Force (TV) | | I saw an episode of this. It's...well...what can I say? |
| Sengoku Basara (TV) | So-so | Well, I've only seen one episode but if there is one thing Basara has it's energy. If there's one thing it doesn't its a plot. Sure there is some talk about...something (I didn't really pay much attention). It more or less amounts to there are a lot of dudes from different territories and they are fighting. Watch them fight. It works okay in that manner too because it's extremely well animated. Also, because it is again very energetic, even if it's just a lot of mindless action it doesn't get boring (yet anyway). It's also clearly a rather silly show. I don't really have any strong feelings on that. It's not bothering me but I haven't found it all that funny either. Honestly, I only saw this because someone told me it was like the most hilarious thing ever. It's not bad but not great either so I don't think I'll see it. |
| Serial Experiments Lain (TV) | | What? I've heard good things so I should probably give this more of a chance but I have no @%#&ing idea what is going on. I haven't seen nearly enough to offer a rating (only a couple episodes) and I may even go back and try and make better sense of it. |
| (The) Skull Man (TV) | Not really good | In a good mystery each event is like a piece of a puzzle. They don't mean anything on their own but once you get a few you start to find places they fit together and when that happens you can see a little bit of the larger picture. As more are and more pieces are added more and more connect and the picture becomes clearer and clearer. Skull Man doesn't really do a good job of this though. It looks fairly nice and the lead characters are reasonably likable. However so far the story is poorly revealed. There are far to many characters introduced right off the bat, most of whom serve no clear significance at this point. Events don't seem to have any clear connection at this point or really expand what we know about the greater plot. Particularly the big event in episode 3, fails to really connect with anything else. (It also rather comes out of nowhere). I think this may still have the potential to improve once you get a little deeper into it and the pieces start to fall into place but it may just turn out to be junk so I think I'll just drop it. |
| Texhnolyze (TV) | Awful | If I wanted to see a series of unconnected and nonsensical images that don't really make any degree of sense I would take a hallucinogenic drug. Probably LSD. |
| Tokko (TV) | So-so | Better than I thought it would be. Its got a decent horror atmosphere. The truth is that it just isn't really at all exceptional. I might start watching it again some time if I've got nothing better but for now I have enough excellent anime to watch that I don't want to watch something mediocre. |
| Tokyo Underground (TV) | Bad | It is what it is, and when you consider that, its not that bad. Ofcourse its still just a generic, rather chezzy, and all around rather boring shounen fighting series. |
| (The) Twelve Kingdoms (TV) | Decent | |
| Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monster GX (TV) | Worst ever | Yeah...I saw a little bit of this. It's like: Lets take the original anime which wasn't good to begin with and then strip out the few little upsides and stuff it with any bad aspect and or cliche that the first series managed to dodge. |
| Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (TV) | Bad | Yeah, I was pretty into YuGiOh at one point. I watched the show, I played the card game, and I kept at it longer than I care to admit. Really though, I was probably more into the game than the anime. I mean the anime got me into it but I think by the end I had lost track of it and was just playing the game. To be honest though, I don't hate the show even now. Really, I would say YuGiOh's main problem is you have to be into the card game and furthermore be able to get some degree of enjoyment out of watching people play it. If that's the case though, for this kind of thing it's not bad. The whole Egyptian theme is neat and fresh. The story is actually has some relatively dark aspects. It's nice to see a main character who doesn't have ADD. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Yugioh is good. Just that it's not as bad as some other comparable series. |
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