| Slice, no Slash▲▼ | Rating▲▼ | Comment▲▼ |
| Azumanga Daioh (TV) | Masterpiece | Joy, joy, sheer joy. Exquisitely realized song of youth, friendship, life, and everything. This series has a heart the size of a whale, exploding with sympathy for its irresistible characters. There are times when falling in love with seven high-school girls is not only okay, it's mandatory. Pure delight. |
| Don't Tell Mother Maria (special) | Very good | Cute, very very cute short. |
| Gokusen (live-action TV) | Very good | |
| (The) Gokusen (TV) | Good | a.k.a. Great Teacher Kumichou. A pleasant little comedy with a nice feel for the mythology of Yakuza films (the segments with the wiseguys going all maudlin are hilariously spot-on). Madhouse's excellent character design and animation help the silliness go down easy. I'll confess that I'm a sucker for Madhouse chicks, and a meganekko with a wicked upper cut and a gokutsuma costume in her closet? Hubba hubba. |
| Gokusen (live-action TV 2) | Good | |
| Honey and Clover (TV) | Excellent | Have you ever seen the moment someone falls in love with an anime series? Have a mirror ready when you first watch this obsidian-sharp romantic comedy. A refreshingly adult romantic comedy anchored on careful, funny, lyrical writing and on gorgeous characterization. Beautiful set-piece after set-piece, beautifully written dialogue (my guess is that most lines scan), all come together to draw a perfectly modulated tableau of feelings that ring true, and characters that feel alive. |
| Human Crossing (TV) | So-so | Old-fashioned story telling. Very old fashioned, in fact: it feels like one of those early 60s live-TV theater shows. Nothing wrong with the actual execution of these well-produced morality plays, but they deliver their morals so heavy-handedly you cannot but laugh at their earnestness. Like all vaudeville, some numbers are better than other, and the high-points do compensate somehow for the silliness of the openers. |
| Maria Watches Over Us (TV) | Good | Lillian jogakuen sure has more shines than a footwear convention. And hell if all that maidenly restraint is not *hot* No wonder this gentle and understated shoujo-ai is a hit with the boys, despite the complete lack of fanservice. |
| Maria Watches Over Us Season 2: Printemps (TV) | Good | This bodice ripper without the ripping keeps going strong. The sheer amount of chaste yearning almost pushes it beyond shoujo-ai into (yama)yuri. |
| My Neighbors the Yamadas (movie) | Excellent | Thickest, juiciest slice of life ever filmed. Takahata showers affection on the small and the quotidian, with a portrayal of family that is as nuanced and delicately fresh as the Basho haiku that bookmark each episode. |
| NANA (live-action movie) | Very good | |
| NANA (TV) | Excellent | |
| Ocean Waves (movie) | Excellent | Kanto is Kanto and Tosa is Tosa and never the twain. The class issues delicately interweaved in this sweet love story makes it mandatory viewing for the sociologically minded. |
| Only Yesterday (movie) | Excellent | An evocation of childhood that is almost scary in its immediacy. I found myself whimpering as my own memories trickled down like raindrops. |
| Piano (TV) | So-so | The KISS principle is generally a good rule for life and for art. These guys sure keep it simple, creating a minimalist, ever-so-slightly dull story of growing up and self-confidence. It won’t shock your system, or haunt your dreams, but if you’re of a certain age, it will give you the warm and fuzzy feeling that comes from knowing *your* adolescence is over, over, over, the Lahd be praised. Essential for all those of you who had to endure Mrs McGillicuddy’s ministrations Tuesdays and Thursdays for eight years. |
| Salaryman Kintaro (TV) | Good | |
| She and Her Cat (OAV) | Excellent | Shinkai is a great minimalist. He must write some killing haiku. |
| Summer Wars (movie) | Decent | |
| Whisper of the Heart (movie) | Very good | A beautiful, calm tale on the need to create. It has a remarkable feel for voice: Shizuku's tale is exactly what you'd expect from her. Its representation of daily life is so uncannily on-the-ball that this movie should be mandatory viewing in Contemporary Japanese Society 101. |
