"Better Than a Kick in the Teeth"

Utawarerumono - Episode 2

2006-04-14T14:47:00.000Z

Vague Summary: The Mutikapa (King of the Forest) attacks the village despite the altar being fixed by the villagers. She destroys a home and kills a family and is about to kill the nameless man and Eruru but suddenly flees when it begins to rain, which makes the nameless man realise the Mutikapa’s weakenss is water. So the villagers band together to defeat Mutikapa King of the Forest.

My Opinion: Damn good! The first episode was good but not a lot happened, but this episode was awesome, the villagers and Hakuoro (as he’s now known) grouped together to completely own the King of the Forest Mutikapa-sama, Hakuoro being the bait they lead Mutikapa into a trap, where she fell into a pool of water and was then stabbed by many a spear (Hakuoro landing the final blow), just when they’d gotten back Aruru went missing and came back with Mutikapa’s baby, Hakuoro being the softy that he is encouraged everyone to let Aruru keep the cub and now Aruru likes him, she even calls him father, you would think you wouldn't want any comparison with the chick you were trying to nail’s dad (he so is), as if that wasn't bad enough, he's then given Eruru and Aruru’s dad’s name, oh well, it’s a hard life in H-Game adaptations!

Episode Rating – B+

Air Gear - Episode 2

2006-04-14T13:26:00.000Z

Vague Summary: After beating the Skull Saders, Ikki goes about setting his own team up, but first he needs to learn the basics, when he should be practicing he instead goes to watch Simca do her thing, she notices him and gives him a present, an emblem from the “Rez-Boa-Dogs” team, but when the team themselves turn up and demand he gives back the stolen emblem Simca tells Ikki If he protects it, he will get his real present, Ikki will do anything for a pretty face so he ends up having a race to a water tower against the entire “Rez-Boa-Dogs” team.

My Opinion: I’m really ashamed to say this, but I enjoyed this episode, not in the “so bad its good” way that I enjoyed the first episode, but I really did actually like it, sure its absolutely ridiculous, and the music is somehow even worse than that of Bleach but it strangely works, I’m not saying this is the greatest anime ever made, nor am I even saying its even any good, but its just an enjoyable way to spend 25 mins, and when you’ve got characters like the oh so very meganekko Ringo and the lovely (but oh so very Maya Natsume) Simca, who needs plot?

Episode Rating - B

I couldn't resist :P

Naruto - Episode 180

2006-04-14T10:45:00.001Z

Vague Summary: The mysterious Shinobi who took Sumaru at the end of the last episode is revealed to be his Mother, but it wasn’t her who stole the Star in the first place it was Akahoshi. Naruto is then tricked into fighting Sumaru’s Mother but both end up falling into the poison mist because of Akahoshi’s jutsu.

My Opinion: You can see the animation staff are gearing themselves up for when they actually have to start working again when the fillers finish because parts of this episode were animated surprisingly well, the little fight between Sumaru’s Mother and Akahoshi looked surprisingly great, and making the Akahoshi guy evil makes it a hell of a lot more interesting. Now I’m not saying it was anything special but it was pretty enjoyable and hey! Only 2 filler episodes left! (hopefully).

Episode Rating – C+

Soul Link - Episode 2 (Short Review)

2006-04-13T15:24:00.000Z

"Cant it really be... this bad?"

My Opinion: Wow, this was so god-damn boring I couldn't even finish it, seriously why would anyone make this show, at least put in some fanservice to keep me watching it, I was bored to tears. Shuhei's seiyuu is hilariously wooden, the plot is boring, the cg is bad, its just generally a crap anime, this episode is about Sayaka's friend coming to visit but Sayaka can't see her because its against the rules (the most moronic rules may I point out) so Shuhei hatches an "ingenious" plan (sense the sarcasm?) which involves her getting eliminated from training and sneaking out to see her (stand aside Stephen Hawking, Shuhei is the new brain in town), surely doing this will damage Sayakas reputation aswell, what's the point in f*cking up your training to see someone you didn't even invite? While that boringness is going on Shuhei's older brother joins the badly rendered Space Station with some other blonde girl, at this point I really didn't care anymore and stopped VLC Player in its tracks. Final Verdict? Dropped

The best thing about Soul Link!

School Rumble Semester 2 - Episode 2

2006-04-12T17:22:00.000Z

Vague Summary: Akira initiates a survival game in the school to decide what the class is going to do at the Cultural Festival, a café or a play.

My Opinion: Holy crap! This episode was absolutely amazing, the action side of it totally worked and its also absolutely hilarious to think there's a Battle Royale type "death"match going on. School Rumble never ceases to try new things and this was definitelyy one of the best episodes (along side the Season 1 finale, that was hilarious). The episode starts out normally enough but then switches to a movie-esque widescreen ratio when the Survival Game starts, now I know there not really dying but that makes it all the more hilarious, the scene where the two lovers meet and the female shoots the male in the back and is then shot and there bodies are draped over each other had me in stitches, it really managed to bring out all of these cliché's and make fun of them but still be strangely gripping in the process.

Episode Rating - A

I couldn't resist :P

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - Episode 2

2006-04-11T17:56:00.000Z

Vague Summary: This week we get the proper story, we see how Kyon first met Haruhi and how the "S.O.S. Brigade" was formed.

My Opinion: Last weeks ep was absolutely fantastic, so I was quite looking forward to seeing what it would be like outside of the fake movie world, and un-suprisingly it didn't disappoint, while not as hilarious as the first episode it was still a great episode, we see how Haruhi formed the club known as "S.O.S. Brigade" (if that's not funny enough I don't know what is), and how she recruited the members, and she has a little rant about how Moé Asahina Mikuru (a girl she pretty much kidnapped and forced to join the club) is because of her loli face and her big breasts. But that happens at the end of the episode, its more about Kyon (as he doesn't like to be called ) and how he first came across the entity known as Haruhi Suzumiya, there's a few things mentioned about Haruhi's past relationships too so I'm thinking there maybe a little HaruhiXKyon action going on some time. Thankfully the awesome ending is still here partnered with a new (and great) opening, show of the season? Quite probably (I know I say that about all of the shows).

Episode Rating - B+

Dont you just love her!

Shinigami no Ballad - Episode 6 (END)

2006-04-10T17:42:00.000Z

Vague Summary: The series draws to a close as we follow a soul guided by Momo tracing back the events of her supposed suicide.

My Opinion: Unfortunately the series has ended, but did it go out on a high note? Hell yes it did, with the best episode of the entire season, we follow a young girl peicing together her memories of the events leading up to her attempted suicide and we also see how her friends and family are getting on, this episode was done superbly, it started off pretty dark and sad, seeing all her friends and family apparently doing fine without her, but then its revealed that she's not really dead but in a coma and all her friends and family do give a crap *yay*. Hopefully this wont be the last we will see of Momo and Daniel, I can feel a second season or a few Ova's coming, but regardless of whether SnB continues one day, I wait with anticipation to see this directors next project, with two great shows in a row under his belt how can he fail?

Episode Rating - A

Series Rating - B+

I leave you with a few poignant screencaps...

Kiba - Episode 2

2006-04-10T16:14:00.000Z

Vague Summary: Zed enters the mysterious new world and is already getting into scrapes with the local police and some Spirit stealing bandit.

My Opinion: The first episode was somewhat enjoyable, suprisingly this episode was a lot better, sure entire pages have been ripped out of the "Big Book of Shounen Cliché's" to write the script but its fun anyway, this episode we see Zed getting some lightsaber action (come on, they even sound like them) with the local fed's, getting put in prison and finally getting into a scrape over his female friend's Spirit with a local Bandit (presumably), all resulting in Zed's guardian revealing himself and owning some major spirit ass! So all in all a decent episode, nothing to write home about but a nice way to kill 25minutess at least.

Episode Rating - B-

"Coming soon to a toyshop near you"

Calm down Zed, it wasn't that good!

New Anime Batch Review - Nana, Zegapin, Utawarerumono and Air Gear

2006-04-09T17:26:00.000Z

Ok so today there's been a shit load of new anime subbed so instead of reviewing each in separate posts (which will take ages) I thought I'd do them all in the same post.

Nana

My Opinion: Damn, these Slice of Life shows will be the death of me, yet another superb offering from Madhouse, they seem to be in their element with this genre, Beck and ParaKiss were both great and this is shaping up to be the same. What really surprised me was that in Madhouse's previous SoL shows the budget seemed to have been quite low causing the animation to slip at times, but throughout this entire episode there was no trace of bad animation, its good stuff all the way with Nana so I'll definitely be continuing with this.

Zegapin
My Opinion: I'm partial to a bit of mecha, there's nothing better than watching big heaps of metal smashing the crap out of each other while the teenagers inside them scream. Sunrise are pretty much the most influential studio for mecha, after all the genre wouldn't be the same without our old friends the Mobile Suits would it? So It was with this that I sat down to watch Zegapin, now the promo's didn't do much for me from what I could see the characters looked pretty boring and the cg mecha looked equally bland, well how wrong was I! This was suprisingly pretty good, the action was awesome, the cg mecha's looked great, sure it stank of every mecha anime Sunrise have done (anyone notice the White Base rip off?) but it was still enjoyable as hell and left me wanting much much more, I'll definitely be continuing with it!

Utawarerumono
My Opinion: Having seen all of the promo's for this show I was quite excited, the prospect of a Fantasy show with violence and harem elements excited me somewhat, so far it hasn't disappointed, judging from the first episode we could be on to a winner here, a mysterious man wakes up in a town, he can't remember anything about himself nor can he explain the reason he is wearing an un-removable mask on his face, it may sound like a pretty standard set up but this could be great, if the opening is anything to go by there'll be a fairly large cast of characters and hopefully a violent battle or two, not much happened in this first episode but It was a nice set up, I look forward to seeing where this is going.

Air Gear
My Opinion: Let me start off by saying this, this didn't feel like a anime at all, It felt like It should have been some Megadrive game, this reeked of the old sidescrolling beat em up "Streets of Rage" not just because there's a kid with rollerblades in it (I think that was number 2) but the music literally sounded like it had been ripped out of it, the awful techno crap that was in that game had been stuck in this, and do you know what? It kind of worked, I'll say now that I read a few chapters of the manga (because I'm kind of a fan of Ten-Ten) and hated it pretty much, but for some reason the anime was somewhat enjoyable, sure it belongs in the 90s and is possibly the stupidest anime I've ever seen but roller blades + fanservice seems to have proven somewhat of a winning formular, now I could get very bored of it very quickly but then I'll still probably watch it just so I can laugh at how shit it is. More fanservice please though (I can't believe I just asked that).

Rec - Series Review

2006-04-09T11:52:00.000Z

Summary: REC tells the story of a young man called Matsumaru, he's got a dead end job at a company working in the advertising department, one night he gets stood up by a date, about to throw away the tickets he meets Onda Aka, a budding seiyuu (voice actress), later on Aka's house burns down leaving her homeless, so Matsumaru takes her in and their relationship begins... Well sort of.

My Opinion: This anime was great, I'm a sucker for Slice of Life anime and this show really did it for me, the animation was very original and colourfull, the music was great and so were the characters, the only complaint I have is about the length of the series, at only 9 12-15 minute episodes it felt far too short in my opinion, just as you really began to got into it it was time to wait another week for what was pretty much half of an episode, If it was a bit longer then I think it could have possibly jumped straight in in my top 10 anime's. But what we have here is an easy to watch, enjoyable, slice of life romance comedy show, this is definitely one to watch!

Series Rating - B+ (Would have got more if it was longer)

School Rumble Semester 2 - Episode 1

2006-04-08T10:17:00.000Z

Vague Summary: School Rumble returns with craziness and love triangles in-tact, when Harima wins a Manga competition he attempts to confess his feelings for Tenma-chan, but with rumors circulating about Yakumo spending the night at Harima's will Harima be able to set straight the unfortunate set of mis-understandings that have plagued him for so long?

My Opinion: I was delighted when I sat down to watch this, School Rumble is one of my favorite anime's ever made so you can guess I was very excited to see the continuation and see the rest of the gang again (especially Eri). And unsuprisingly this episode did not disappoint, it had everything that makes School Rumble great and then some (the word association gag had me in stitches). Before it had even started this was in the running for show of the season, now I've actually watched it I can say it definitely stands a great chance.

Episode Rating - A

Naruto - Episode 179

2006-04-07T15:52:00.000Z

Vague Summary: The Konoha ninja begin their search for the stolen Star.

My Opinion: The major highlight for this episode was the fact that theres an awesome new opening and equally good new ending (sung by Akeboshi who did the first ending). Music aside this was a shit episode, not much going on, about 2 seconds of action but that was it, Sumaru got kidnapped by the mysterious peacock shinobi (the sunabozu rip-off guy), and we find out the "shocking" truth, Sumaru's parents were killed *gasp* as If this kid couldn't get any more sasuke :(. My final thought today is - Please let 182 be the last filler episode or fear my wrath!!

Episode Rating - C (would have got much lower if it wasn't for the new opening and ending.

Soul Link - Episode 1 (Short Review)

2006-04-05T19:09:00.000Z

I can't really be bothered to write alot about this anime but I kind of enjoyed it so I thought I'd do a mini review on each episode containing 4 screencaps instead of my usual 12 and just my opinion instead of the summary aswell.

My Opinion: I'm not sure why I liked this but I did, it was pretty cliché, the cg was average at best and it wasn't anything original but there was something about it that I could see myself liking, its appears to be about a group of people training or something or rather on a space station, but who needs a plot when you've got lovely ladies like Soul Link has, but who's my favourite I hear you cry! Well its to early to tell but heres the contenders:

Episode Rating - C

GantZ - Chapter 229

2006-04-05T18:10:00.000Z

Vague Summary: Kikuchi the reporter who spoke to Kurono a few chapters back attempts to infiltrate the Vampire group.

My Opinion: As with the previous chapter it's still very much about the Vampire group opposing the GantZers, Kikuchi attempts to find out some info in return for one of the GantZers name and address, Kurono gets a call from a mysterious person warning him from an oncoming threat (Akira possibly), we end the chapter with a strange conversation between Nishi and Izumi on the train, two figures loom in the background as we hear the words from Kikuchi "there's going to be an attack... Today", and according to the mangaka "Big Things Happening next chapter", all I can say is I can't bloody wait, but un-suprisingly I'm going to have to because there's no chapter until the 20th *annoyed*.
Chapter Rating - B (One hell of a tease)

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - Episode 1

2006-04-05T17:03:00.000Z

Vague Summary: An epic new magical girl shoujo series has arrived, complete with fantastic animation, a great plot, and amazing music... ok that's not entirely true, its a horrifically bad home movie!

My Opinion: Wow! This has got to be one of the funniest episodes of anime I've seen in ages, the fake "bad" movies have always got me in stitches (see British comedy program "Darkplace") but this was the first time I'd seen it in an anime, an awful story with plot holes galore, amateurish acting and piss poor editing, topped off with a hilarious "Commentary Track" by the cameraman attempting to piece together this movie and you've got what is possibly the best single anime episode in a long time. The episode ends with the people who made the film one of which is an enthusiastic young girl (who I presume will be the focus for the rest of the series).

Episode Rating - A

Kiba - Episode 1

2006-04-03T16:54:00.001Z

Vague Summary: Zed is a bit of a delinquent, getting into all kinds of scrapes in his dark dusty wind-free post apocalyptic type world, he dreams of escaping his surroundings with his apparently mentally-ill mother, one day after smashing a gate up he flees from the police only to discover there's more to his mother than most thought as his teacher turns into a monster and tries to kill Zed, a battle ensues as Zed escapes only to find a portal in the middle of the sky, does he go through it? Of course, there wouldn't be much of a show other wise!

My Opinions: I was quite surprised after watching this episode because it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be, Id actually say it was even quite enjoyable, I couldn't help but feel it was somewhat influenced by Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira, the cityscapes and the car chases (I think they were cars) seemed too familiar, but I never particularly liked Akira that much anyway so what the hell. Something that surprised me about the show was that there wasn't any comedy at all, its all serious stuff, well for now at least. Of course this could all turn in to typical "We don't really care that the show is crap because our merchandise is selling well" type fare.

Episode Rating - B- (enjoyable but could go down hill fast).

Mieru Hito - Chapter 12 to 16

2006-04-02T11:55:00.000Z

Seeing as there's no GantZ chapter this week and because I was behind on chapters of Meiru Hito I thought I'd get up to date and blog them while I was at it, its a nice new Shonen Jump series which doesn't really feel like a Shonen Jump series, I highly reccomend it, its great fun, now on with the show.

Chapter 12: A mysterious ghost called Hase from Myoujin's past attacks Eiji, so the ghost and Myoujin face off. In this chapter we have a peek into a dream Myoujin is having, Eiji gets owned, Azumi cries, and a new fight is about to start.

Chapter 13: Hase's technique makes Myoujin's body allmost explode, he remembers his teacher (I presume) telling him what to do in the situation, then stops himself from popping. Hase has a nice long rant then dissapears, but not before he throws down the gauntlet, he and Myoujin are to meet at night (when there at full power) where they first met, for the final round.

Chapter 14: Myoujin tells of his childhood, how he went from being terrified of spirits to purposely pissing them off so he could fight them, we also see the teacher I mentioned earlier, who goes by the name of... Myoujin?

Chapter 15: Still in flashback mode we see Myoujin being thrown into training by Myoujin (confused yet?), we are then told about the time when the two Myoujin's did some serious ghost busting as they planned on taking on 40 spirits at at time, but with young Myoujin told to stand guard and the appearance of Hase, will old Myoujin survive?

Chapter 16: So the flashbacks seemingly draw to an end with older Myoujin sacraficing himself for young Myoujin at the hands of Hase, we see how he inherits Utaka mansion and the Myoujin name.

So that brings my batch of Meiru Hito reviews to an end for now, it was a nice set of chapters, some back story with some action is allways a good thing.

What can you expect from future chapters? Well I dont know but im presuming Myoujin is going to f*ck Hase up and all will be well in Utaka mansion for about another 5 minutes or so. Not entirely sure when the next chapter will be out either but I should have some more GantZ to review next week (if Oku actually bothers to do some work for once) so its all good as they say.

Batch Rating - B

Shinigami no Ballad - Episode 5

2006-04-01T11:39:00.000Z

Vague Summary: A year on from the first episode we return to Kouta and Blue as they help out a girl who's sister's spirit has unfinished business.

My Opinion: After last weeks slightly disappointing episode SnB is back on form with this great episode, it was nice to see Kouta and Blue from the first episode again but they weren't exactly the main focus of this episode, the theme this week was unfinished business between a girl and her dead sister, it was nicely animated and nicely scored as usual, there's still not been an episode to rival the 3rd episode in my opinion (because it was so strongly reminiscent of Zettai Shonen) and with only one more episode to go will the series end on a high note? Check back next week for my opinions and our farewell to Momo and Daniel (hopefully its not the last we'll see of them).

Episode Rating - B

Attack of the Promo's!

2006-03-31T13:41:00.000Z

Seeing as were 1 day away from the new anime season (yay) I thought I'd review a selection of promo's for the upcoming shows. Bear in mind that im watching all of these promo's RAW so they could be about incest or beastiality for all I know.

Kanon
Having never seen the original Kanon show Im quite looking forward to seeing its remake, you can never go wrong with these types of slice of life/romance shows as far as Im concerned.

Anticipation rating - B

School Rumber Semester 2
I am a total School Rumble fanboy, I admit it, which is why this is easily my most anticipated show of the season, now the promo is only 14 seconds long but we get a shot of Harima running with some bananas, that right there was enough to make me laugh my head off.

Anticipation Rating - A*

Kiba
When I first saw this promo I was pretty excited, but I re-watched it and realised something, it looks more like an american cartoon trying to be an anime (i.e. the newer He-man cartoon), the character designs at time look pretty rough, not what I expected from Madhouse, but then again there are a few money shots in the promo so It could still be worth a watch.

Anticipation Rating - C

.hack//Roots
I've liked all of the .hack animes up to now so I dont see why I wont like this one, the character designs look nice, the music of course is good, if its just the same as the previous series I'll be dropping it pretty soon but Im sure it'll be pretty good.

Anticipation Rating - B

Himiwari!
Hmm, I'm slightly intrigued by this, it sort of looks like a female version of Naruto but it could prove to be pretty entertaining, the animation looks really nice, not sure of the story but what the hell I'll give it a go anyway.

Anticipation Rating - B-

Ok thats all I can be bothered to do now, I would have blogged the Soul Link promo aswell but the awfull cg was making my eyes bleed.

High School Girls - 00

2006-03-31T09:42:00.000Z

Vague Summary: Eriko, Yuma and Ayano are soon to be starting high school, but they sneak in and have a look around before the term starts.

My Opinion: Ok so this is pretty much a taster for this series, at 9 mins long it was a pretty decent set up and it certainly got me interested in the show, I'll go on record here and say I thought it was bloody hilarious, sure most of the gags are about the menstrual cycle and things relating to it so they probably weren't aimed at me but I still found them hilarious, I'm having trouble working out just who this show is aimed at though, the previous mentioned jokes are obviously aimed at women in general but who is the copious amounts of fanservice for? Anyway it seems like a pretty simple set up but It could well be hilarious, I'll definitely be blogging it when the time comes.

My anticipating rating: B

Cd's

2006-03-31T08:40:00.000Z

Beat Crusaders P.O.A. Pop on Arrival

Sambomaster Sambomaster wa kimi ni katarikakeru

Naruto - Episode 178 a.k.a. "The one where the fillers are still going on"

2006-03-30T12:00:00.000Z

Vague Summary: A new mission begins, Naruto, Neiji, Ten-ten and Rock Lee are assigned to The Hidden Star Village, where they must protect a star of legend that fell 200 years ago into the village from "foreign" shinobi.

My Opinion: Ok so the filler is still going on, many of us had hoped it would end by this episode but alas no luck (early rumors suggest 182 might be the last filler episode), so here it is, the beginning of another filler arc. This time we see Naruto (and the same group as the Raiga mission) embark to the Hidden Star Village, a lesser known village that a star crashed into 200 years ago, which for some reason makes it a target for Shinobi to want to invade. This episode wasn't as bad as the other filler episodes despite the main character of this arc being an extremely boring mish-mash of Sasuke and Naruto, you see he vaguely resembles Sasuke but wants to become Hokage like Naruto (jeez who the f*ck doesn't these days). There was a decent bit of action involving Naruto doing his Kage Bunshin no Jutsu about 1000 times (seriously he does it way too much), and some guy with a gas mask and some crazy peacock chakara. So all in all a decent episode, but not great, fingers crossed the story will start up again at 183 because these fillers really are losing a lot of fans.

Episode Rating: C+

Anime

2006-03-26T21:09:00.000Z

Air Gear 1, 2

High School Girls 00, Dropped

Kiba 1, 2

Naruto 178, 179, 180

Nana 1

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya 1, 2

REC Series Review Finished (obviosly)

School Rumble Semester 2 1, 2

Shakugan no Shana 24 Finished

Shinigami no Ballad 3, 4, 5, 6 Finished

Soul Link 1, 2 Dropped

Utawarerumono 1, 2

Zegapin 1

Shinigami no Ballad - Episode 4

2006-03-26T20:10:00.000Z

Vague summary: Chiaki lives with her Father and younger brother, she does most of the housework and tries to be like a mother to her younger brother since their mother died.

My Opinion: While nowhere as good as last week's this episode was still quite nice, not a lot happened, Chiaki looks after her brother, the brother talks about a white shinigami, Chiaki thinks Momo's going to take her brother, she doesn't instead she's more babysitting him than anything, she also kind of likes some kid with glasses who seems to like her. So all pretty predictable stuff but still pretty enjoyable due to animation, music and Momo and Daniel being in it quite a lot. So all in all a fairly average episode, hopefully next weeks will be better, there's not a lot of episode's left so hopefully the series will end on a high note like Shana did.

Episode Rating: C+

Shakugan no Shana - Episode 24 (END)

2006-03-24T20:10:00.000Z

Vague Summary: In the last episode of Shakugan no Shana, Shana the flamehaze rushes to save her love Yuuji from Hecate while Wilhelmina squares up against Bel Pol and Margery Daw (1337) goes toe to toe with Shudonai in their animal forms.

My Opinion: This was one of the most enjoyable episodes of any anime I've seen in a while, I enjoyed it so much I ended up taking 234 screencaps of the episode (whittling that down to 12 is no easy task). The action was great, the animation was gloriously colourful as always, awesomely epic too, a bit heavy on the fan service at times but who cares eh? There wasn't much of an ending to the series, or much progression in Yuuji and Shana's relationship (apart from Shana telling Yuuji she loves him) but at the end of the episode there are numerous hints to a possible second season, and recent news tells us there's a Shana movie on the way, so this is definitely not the last you've heard of the Flamehaze and the rest of the gang.

Episode Rating: B+ (Not enough Margery in her normal form)

Album Review

2006-03-23T20:19:00.000Z

Sambomaster - Sambomaster wa kimi ni katarikakeru

The thing that struck me first when looking at the cover of this CD was "Wow, that is one strange looking band", the lead singer is to put it nicely - ugly, but that's what's so damn fantastic about Sambomaster, they don't rely on their image to sell CD's (like so many other Japanese bands) its all about the music. I first became aware of them when they did an opening for Naruto (it was the fourth opening If I remember rightly) and from then there was no looking back (they also did a superb ending for the TV drama "Densha Otoko").

This is their second album (the reason I'm reviewing the second first is because I ordered the wrong CD's from CDJapan) and to put it bluntly its amazingly good! This is feel-good music at its best, the main singer has an awesomely husky voice, the bassist is great at what he does (and can actually be heard), and the drummer is equally good. As for the CD itself I cant find a single fault with it, It gets better every time you listen to it and even if you can't speak Japanese (I can't) you'll be singing along to it in no time, its dangerously catchy.

Album Rating: A* (Pretty much Perfect)

Shinigami no Ballad - Episode 3

2006-03-23T18:21:00.000Z

I know I said I wasn't going to blog any anime until the new season but I couldn't resist expressing my love for Shinigami no Ballad so here goes.

Vague Summary: This episode is about a boy called Kantarou who used to live with his RPG obsessed Grandfather, the Grandpa dies but leaves a map for Kantarou so he can go on a RPG style quest of his own, Tomato (no relation to the vegetable/fruit) the class representative tags along with him.

My Opinion: This show is directed by Tomomi Mochizuki who also directed one of my favorites from 2005 "Zettai Shonen", his style is clear from the outset, thoughtful, artistic and with very vibrant colours, Shinigami no Ballad is very similar to Zettai Shonen but it stands its ground. The animation oozes colour, the relationships between characters are never spelt out in black and white which makes it far more interesting, and even though there's a new story every week you always manage to feel something for the new characters.

This was easily the best episode so far, the landscapes were fantastic, and Tomato was a genuinely good character, the story was really heart-warming without being overly soppy, Momo-chan didn't appear a lot but I'll let it go as long as she is in episode 4 a lot.

Episode Rating: B+

GantZ Chapter 228

2006-03-23T16:44:00.001Z

The latest chapters of GantZ have been focusing primarily on Kurono Kei since he left GantZ and lost his memory of it, this chapter however was a rather unexpected change, it doesn't feature Kei at all but his brother (the vampire, who looks pretty much exactly like Kei) Kurono Akira !

In this chapter we take a peek into an under-ground Fight Club (thankfully no Brad Pitt in sight) for Vampires. Where Akira and a Vampire buddy draw some human girl's into the club, but its ok, Akira is a nice guy really he keeps warning the girl's to leave, but they'll do anything for a pretty bishounen I guess.
Not much in the way of plot progression or explanation in this chapter but when you've got fighting vampires who cares right? Probably the highlight of the chapter is the last page which hints that the Kurono brothers may face off soon, I doubt it will be that soon but I can't wait.

One complaint I do have about this chapter is that it could have been the perfect time for some gratuitous violence but there was none, but maybe I'm just too bloodthirsty for my own good.

Chapter Rating: B+

Album Review

2006-03-22T19:26:00.000Z

Beat Crusaders - P.O.A. - Pop On Arrival-

This is my first review for anything, and what a CD! I first came into contact with Beat Crusaders via the fantastic anime "Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad" for which they did the opening "Hit in the USA" and numerous songs of theirs were used throughout the show (many of which feature on this CD). If you've seen any of their videos you'll notice they never show their faces, you may think this is odd but the strangeness of that quirk fits well with their style, let me just say that this album at times is f*cking insane, but In a good way of course, there's a song about Sasquatch (aka Big Foot), and another song which is sung pretty much in its entirety by a "robot". I wouldn't like to pick a favorite track because there all great in there own way but "Feel", "Japanese Girl" and "Love Dischord" definitely stand out as pretty exceptional.

Album Rating: B+

Spring 2006

2006-03-22T18:06:00.000Z

Here's the list of what I hope to be reviewing this season:

Black Lagoon

This doesn't get me particularly excited as I read a bit of the manga and It seemed like nothing special, but Madhouse are animating it so It'll hopefully be good.

Kiba

This one I am looking forward to, the character designs look good, as does the setting of the show, sounds slightly similar to Naruto and another shonen shows but I'll definitely give it a go. (Its another Madhouse one too XD)

School Rumble Season 2

This is more like it, this is definitely my most anticipated show of the new season, if its as good as the first season then It will be nothing short of excellent! (Eri-Chan ftw)

Gintama

I'm really looking forward to this too, I've read a volume or so of the manga and if its as funny as the manga is then It could be great fun.

Nana

This is my second most anticipated show of the season, I've never read the manga but I loved Madhouse's other Slice of Life shows "Beck" and "Paradise Kiss" so I can't wait for it.

Jyu-Oh-Sei

I don't know much about this anime except for its animated by Bones, and its a fantasy show, that's all I need to know, I'm sold!

Ok so thats the list I'll definetly be watching, here's a list of the other shows I may blog a few episodes of

Damn, its more than I suspected, oh well it's going to be an interesting season, hope I see you there!

The Dawning of a New Age (not really)

2006-03-22T17:45:00.000Z

Ok, so this is my new blog, I shall be reviewing mostly anime and manga with a few movies and CD's sprinkled here and there. I hope you enjoy reading it more than I do writing it because its already a pain to be brutally honest. The anime reviewing will begin with the new season which is in a few weeks, up until then I'll still be tweaking the layouts etc. I'll write up what shows I'm going to be watching so you can get an idea of what will be reviewed and when.