Anime is a HUGE world full of so many different genres, character types, and art styles. It can be really daunting, especially for people who are relatively new to otaku-dom. And me. So, I decided to visit those stream anime sites and watch the first three episodes of each anime in alphabetical order, then give a short summary and review for you guys. Keep in mind, my tastes are not everyone's taste. Even if I don't like something, if the summary interests you check it out anyway! I'll try to be as objective as possible.
At the end of each review I'll use this rating system:
0- A full frontal assault to all my senses
1- BO-RING
2- Pretty bad, but not the worst.
3. Not bad, but not great.
4. Better than I thought it would be, but I still have no further interest.
5. I'm impressed. I'd watch more.
6. I.AM.OBSESSED.
When I finish a letter category, I'll post a summary of the animes and their respective ratings. Hope it makes it easier to
have fun otaku-ing!
Summary: Yakumo Fugii, an ordinary Japanese student, inherits the care of Pai, a young girl from Nepal, from his dying archaeologist father. But Pai is more than she innocently appears to be. She is the last of a vanished magical race known as the Sanjiyan Unkara, or Triclops, and is in a desperate hunt against the forces of darkness to find the Ningen no Zou (Statue of Humanity) to turn her human. Yakumo nearly dies in a fight against a demon and to save him, Pai turns him into a Wu, a zombie bound to her service who cannot die. Together they must find the statue before the forces of evil.
This anime is from the manga of the same name by Yuzo Takada and debuted in 1991. It covers approximately up to volume 5 of the manga. Sazan is the Japanese word for 3x3, as in multiplication tables. It is also the nearest possible transliteration in Japanese kana of the English word "southern", and Takada's favorite music group happens to be Southern All Stars.
This is a 4 episode OVA anime, so I just decided to watch it all.
The Four Episodes:
1: Basically, read the above summary to get the gist of the first part of this episode. . . Yep so Yakumo and Pai rush to Hong Kong but fail to arrive in time to save the statue from being stolen. So they chase after the thieves with new comrade Ling Ling. They track it down but the demons are there waiting for them. Pai saves them from the attack, but when she uses her magic she gets a serious alter ego.It seems as if the statue is in their grasp, but it is sent up to the sky by a demon where a large blue hand grasps it and disappears.
2: Yakumo and Pai decide to return to a normal life. We meet Yakumo's school friends. Pai's alter ego tells Yakumo he can no longer live a normal life anymore. A frog demon attacks and Yakumo's friends see him die and regenerate, causing them to fear and run from him. The demon later attacks again and Yakumo sacrifices himself for his friend, prompting Pai's alter ego to save him. Yakumo's friends accept him, and he leaves with Pai on a search for the statue (again).
3: Ling Ling has tracked down the statue, but a bomb goes off and she goes missing. While wait for Ling Ling, Pai and Yakumo are attacked by a girl whose brother went missing in the explosion. The trio, realizing they share a common interest, set out to save both missing persons. They are attacked by a demon and iot turns out that Yakumo must save everyone. A lot of stuff happens you should watch it, but he does. Everyone reunites. The main villain awakens.
4: Pai and Yakumo prepare to take on the villain, Kaiyanwang. At the end we're left on a cliffhanger, which makes me want to check out the sequel series.
Review:
This anime is pretty old school, which is a positive thing.
The dub isn't bad, although sometimes I think I can hear microphone noise. The actors are decent enough, and I didn't actively hate any of the characters. In fact, as far as Japanese everymans who stumble into a beautiful mysterious girl of certain magical powers, Yakumo is among the more likeable of the lot. Pai is a bit more generic, but her alter ego kicks ass (without a skantacular outfit and instant breast enhancement, which is a nice change of pace). However, talking about herself in third person all the time is kind of annoying and Yakumo never opens his eyes so I kept wanting to call him "Brock". Also if you took a shot every time Pai screamed "YAKUMOOO!", you'd be dead. Come to think of it, I heard "Yakumo" like 25 times each episode. Seriously, you won't forget this guy's name.
The art overall is pretty decent for a more retro anime, there's some nice shadows mixed with darker colors, it really gives a nice dark tone. All the angles look correct to me and the action is pretty smooth. I really like the demon designs, they are really interesting and creepy. Pai's bird demon friend thing is cool, he wasn't the cute little mascot I was expecting. All the demons take on an animal look, but they never look completely like the original animal. The magic effects were also done pretty well, there's a couple really nice telekinesis shots.
Although a little slow at times, the plot moves along at a nice pace. Really, there's not much a story like this with only 4 episodes to it can go wrong. There's also a nice balance of tone, so you're not overloaded with too much depressing creepiness all at once. If you're into adventures that involve the occult and fairly likeable protagonists, check it out. If gore isn't your thing you may not like this one, although it's far from being the worst on that point.
Rating: 5
But here, check it out fo yoself!
Summary: Set in a gothic fantasy world. Teito Klein is an orphaned slave, sorry, sklave who became a top military academy student. He also has convenient anmesia and only gets snippets of his past through dreams. However, one particular snippet led him to be pursued by the forces of the Barsburg Empire. Now an escaping convict, Teito’s sheltered by the church and it’s law of sanctuary. Here, he discovered many mysteries surrounding himself, the church, and the Empire itself. So many new questions for Teito to boggle his brains over. Even the church is a place uncertainty: it is under the mythical 7 Ghost protection, but who are the Ghosts really? Teito’s future seems to have spiraled into an unexpectedly perilous path.
This anime debuted in 2009 and is taken from a serialized manga series of the same name. The manga won a double-first prize in the third Zero-Sum Comics Grand-Prix, meaning it was chosen for first place by both readers and editors, which is apparently very rare.
The First Three Episodes:
1: Teito and his blonde friend Mikage take the test to pass military school, which is killing a giant mutant criminal. Teito refuses to kill him, but an army commander with white hair, Cheif Ayanami, steps in and kills him instead. Teito later dreams of his past and it leads to him remembering Ayanami killed an important person in his past. Teito attacks Ayanami and is imprisoned. Mikage helps Teito escape, but not wanting to involve his friend, Teito leaves Mikage behind. He is shot by Ayanami as he flies off.
2: Conveniently, Teito is picked up by three guys who just happen to be part of the Zone of God, the only place the military can't get to him. Teito searches for more information about his past. We learn about these 7 Ghost characters.
3: Haha wow three episodes in and they still haven't taken his chains off. If this kid doesn't die via military, he's probably got tetanus infected wrists to take care of that pesky life thing. Teito stays at the "church" and begins to make connections with the "clergy". He feels guilt about leaving Mikage behind and tries to leave but the "clergy" stop him.
Review: For being an anime about a former sklave boy in a gothic fantasy world where the women to men ratio is apparently 1:5 bazillion, it's not half as fanservicy as you might expect. Also, these guys carry around some of the tamest porn mags I have ever seen in anime. Depending on what you go for in anime, you could take this either way. I almost felt like they wanted it to happen but someone upstairs pulled the cord on that idea so they had to replace the fan service with elegant scenery and piano music. Moving on, The art is pretty good, although not outstanding. Like I said before, most of the good stuff is in the backgrounds and character close-ups. The "action" was where the art was lost most. There really weren't any cool moves or interesting angles. It was that classic "pose and yell at each other and maybe sometimes magic happens" type fighting. Generally I found the whole series to be more talky and thinky than comical and action packed. Personally, I feel like this was a major setback. Not only was the action inhibited, but I feel like the characters as well. Honestly I can't say much about any of them because I feel like they were either evil military, a super nice friend, or the brooding protagonist. And man oh man, is Teito good at brooding.
Overall, I feel like this series has tons of potential, and who knows, maybe I just need to watch more, but the amount of exposition and lack of dynamic animation really stinted it. Overall I put it in the "Nope." category. It honestly isn't my type of anime to begin with; I don't usually go for the more serious melodramas. Also let me say I wouldn't necessarily rank this as a terrible anime, I can see why it would have a fan base. However, don't completely take my word for it, check it out for yourself!
Summary: In an alternate world, the Cold War has continued to persist for 140 years. As a result, the world was divided into two factions: the West Block, and the East Block. As the Cold War drags on, the tension between the two factions, as well as the amount of nuclear weapons they have, rise. Mylene Hoffman is a female cyborg who is a spy for the West Block. Together with three other agents, Mylene partakes in various missions issued by her superiors.The manga from which this was adapted was published as a serial in Weekly Manga Action from 1967 to 1974. This anime series was released in 2006, but it definitely makes more sense in a 1960s context. The animation is also more of a throwback to earlier Japanese animation style, vaguely resembling Tezuka’s work.
The First Three Episodes:
1: The "Mod Squad" of cyborg babes rescue a scientist and save some sort of peace conference(It wasn't super clear to me, but I just figured they saved the day.
2: The most depressing damn Christmas episode of any show ever. Mylene's Christmas mission is to accompany a mutant (psychic person) disposal squad and make sure its carried out... People Die. Merry Christmas.
3: Mylene is sent to stop a East Block sniper assassin called The Egg. It’s a spy vs. spy episode, and a pretty interesting one. To say anything else would give away some plot.
Review: I rank this in the "I'd pick it up again" category. The animation was a nice modern/retro combination and, although somewhat dated, the concept of a world in the midst of a 140 yr old cold war was depicted in a very interesting and probably accurate way. It is very gorey and the mood tends to stick on the darker side (almost film noir, which I personally liked), so if you're looking for a comedic tale of the zany adventures of a perky cyborg babe and her wacky friends, this is not your anime. However there are boobs. And the unsexiest lesbian sex you will ever almost see.
My main problems with this anime were A. the overly sexualized depiction of women (which I feel like will go without saying for a majority of these reviews) and B. that, save maybe Mylene, everyone else doesn't really have that developed of a personality. One, however, did sport a really bad cockney accent, which was terrible enough to equivocate 5 poorly developed personalities.
So yes, if you are in to shows with a darker noir tone, lots of action, and super cyborg babes, this is probably your thing.
Observe!
And there's the first post! Hope it makes it a little easier to
have fun otaku-ing!
