Next up is Naruto and to avoid unnecessary ranting I shall only review part one and not Shippuden.
I'll save the description, we pretty much know what Naruto is, for those who don't, Naruto is basically a Ninja story about a ninja boy possessed by a Fox spirit who goes through life trying to earn the respect and admiration of the village he lives in by becoming the best ninja around, and there's lots of crazy enemies and this is a Shonen Jump Anime.
Now these days, part one is kind of forgotten in a way, which is a shame because it was Shonen Jump at their finest; I will say that the definition of ninja in this anime is somewhat skewed but then again it's the same for pirates in One Piece. Naruto has never been afraid to take risks early on such as using character types that really don't fit in the show, (See Hinata Hyuuga review on Walk of Fame for an example) abandoning the mission format in favor of a tournament format then changing again to a save the world plot and then by the end of the canon story, switching to endless filler for a year returning to the mission format.
The last part of that was not a proud moment for Naruto, going through a year of filler is like Pokemon going on for months without a single captured Pokemon, it doesn't go anywhere fast and it becomes boring, special mention to the Shino laughing and Curry of life episodes for being the worst of the bunch.
Now I promised I wouldn't rant too much so lets talk about good things.
The cast of characters is amazing, there's never been a character I've hated until Shippuden, which says a lot about how well this show did so early on.
The choreography for the fights particularly with Rock Lee and Gaara are on par with some of the finest action anime on offer.
Naruto is also good at portraying drama, more so than it's peers; it will take a character death very seriously and seeing Naruto himself fail at retrieving Sasuke despite him being billed as the ultimate hero you actually feel sorry for him. Equally you take a lot of the other character's hardships to heart which makes characters like Rock Lee, Hinata & Shikamaru all the more special.
The stuff Naruto does well, it does really well, the stuff it does wrong, can easily be overlooked as filler doesn't do much for most anime anyway and filler seems to be the only thing wrong as the story canon has hardly any faults.
Final Verdict: The first part of Naruto deserves it's high ranking status and it's hype but the decision to end the first part of this long show after a never ending sequence of fillers didn't do it's legacy any good, but then again anything is better than what Shippuden is right now.
Moving onto our next review, it's Magic Knight Rayearth.
Magic Knight Rayearth is one of the earliest works by CLAMP, a manga group consisting of four women who all specialize in doujinshi.
It's about a group of three school girls named Hikaru, Umi and Fuu, the one's with the obvious red, blue & green color schemes who get transported to the land of Cephiro where they are told be a sorcerer named Clef that they must save Cephiro from destruction by becoming the Magic Knights and defeating the evil Zagato.
Now lets get a few things straight, I'm not an overly big fan of CLAMP, I find some of their stuff okay, but my general opinion of them is that they are better artists than story writers, which I give similar criticism to Akira Toriyama.
I say this because Rayearth is a horrid mess of a story.
The first season passes for a reasonable story but every episode seems to have the same structure; there's a problem, some slapstick happens, some angst happens, then the problem is solved, rinse and repeat, the only differences is that they change villain every couple episodes to keep things fresh but the pacing is so predictable that nothing strikes you as shocking, even the big twists near the end of season 1 don't seem that shocking; the art styling is gorgeous, but I wouldn't expect anything less from CLAMP; transformation scenes and major plot points look to have stolen most of the budget as it looks vastly different to the rest of the series.
When we get to season 2, Umi & Fuu get excluded from the main cast and it becomes a show all about Hikaru and her angst along with Yaoi bait Lantis & Eagle's bonds which is quite possibly where the term second season downfall may have originated as season 2 becomes a self indulgent piece to satisfy the artists and not the viewers; Hikaru cannot hold this story on her own and needs the other knights for support and don't deserve to be pushed out of focus.
This anime also has some of the most dire dubbing work ever heard with some god awful dub singing.
If you want to see a decent version of Rayearth, either watch the OVA or play the excellent Snes RPG, both need a separate review page.
Final Verdict: Rayearth started out as a fairly decent fantasy series before making bad decisions for it's 2nd Season. It's a terrible mess of an anime, it hasn't aged well, the dub is terrible and the whole story is in shambles but hey the art looks pretty.
My next review is for Lucky Star.
Lucky Star is about a group of girls talking to each other.............That's it.
Oh and the universe might be a TV show, much like Pani Poni Dash.
I'm sorry for the lack of plot but you really can't give such an in-depth description for this series, it really is just about a group of girls talking which can be the show's strength and weakness at the same time.
In one sense the fact that Konata Izumi is an otaku is meant to represent us as the viewer in what is literally our vision of how we think and act in real life at school which on the other hand is lost on not just Western and non otaku viewers but males in general as you can count all the male characters on one hand and none of them really interact with the main characters except Minoru Shiraishi who is the worst anime character of all time, is he supposed to be funny? I don't get him?
To elaborate, the only audience this series is going to be understood by, are the Otaku and Japanese girls; that's not to say the series is bad, it's genuinely funny, works well as a dub and very few people would argue that Konata Izumi makes a better mascot for anime than Hatsune Miku does.
There's too much comedy for it to be a true Slice of Life which has a radically different structure and relies heavily on the audience being mature. Lucky Star also relies far too much on the audience being otaku and ready to understand anime references and Haruhi Suzumiya and doesn't really open itself up to newbies or rookie otaku.
Final Verdict: Lucky Star is either a love or hate series depending on your views on certain genres and how much anime you watch. I enjoyed it but there's a lot of people I know who don't.
Now we move onto a Disney show, presenting 00s sensation Kim Possible.
Kim Possible is about a crime fighting teenage girl who is perfect at literally anything while her partner Ron Stoppable can't do anything. A typical episode would feature a colorful villain, usually Dr Drakken, (a rejected character design from Doug) coming up with an evil plan to take over the world only for it to be thwarted by Kim and Ron along with the assistance of computer genius Wade and naked mole rat Rufus; there's also a sub plot dealing with school, home or relationship problems come final season.
Now if you grew up in the 90s, you were led to believe that cheerleaders are evil, because of obsessions with vanity or just being an alpha bitch, where as the loveable loser remains a loser and will either become bully bait or overcome the problem in the weirdest way possible but Kim Possible sets out to make things different by giving Kim flaws and making Ron not only more capable but achieving something even anime characters can't do, which is leave the friend zone and come out as the boyfriend, this wouldn't be achieved again until Danny Phantom; and if you can come up with anime examples of leaving the friend zone, then I counter by saying "Leaving the Friend Zone without cheating" or the "gift of super horny powers" in some cases.
That's the main beauty of the show, it takes what you think is a bad idea and turns it around into something good, even the villains are more complex than you think, especially with henchwoman Shego who lampshades every mistake Dr Drakken makes but still can't take it upon herself to leave his side, which she also lampshades.
This doesn't even use the "hide your secret" trope as it's obvious to the world that she is a secret agent cheerleader, as she can simply call favors from random characters which explains why she can get places so easily.
Disney just seems to make the most positive of female role models without much effort and Kim Possible is another one to add to the collection on a TV cartoon level, joining other strong female role models such as Gadget Hackwrench, Rebecca Cunningham, Ashley Spinelli and Mabel Pines.
Equally Ron Stoppable is a very positive male role model for the socially awkward, which there are very few and difficult to name.
Overall you can't get much better than Kim Possible, proving that the 00s did manage to produce some great cartoons.
Okay we move on next to an Anime with a weird name as it looks more like a question than a proper title. This is "Is this a Zombie?"
Is this a Zombie? is about Ayumu, who starts the series by being killed, luckily for him he is revived by Eucliwood Hellscythe, a necromancer with so much power that she not only needs knight's armor to restrict it but can't talk because her power will literally kill anyone with just words. To add to his problems, Ayumu also accidentally steals the powers of magical girl Haruna which makes him a cross dresser to the rest of the world whenever he fights off Megalos as it requires him to wear a frilly dress in order to use Haruna's Chainsaw.
Joining the battle is the Vampire Ninja, Seraphim; (Yeah a Vampire Ninja, don't think about it too hard) together they battle Megalos and all fight for Ayumu's affection, except Eucliwood who becomes the subject of Ayumu's fantasy instead as if she was a dating sim character with each episode featuring a different voice actress in both Japanese & English.
I've seen the first two seasons of this and I have mixed views on it.
Season one has a decent story but season two quickly turns any and all peril into a harem comedy and that kinda spoils everything.
The comedy elements save it from being a total meltdown but ridding itself of it's action elements was a poor decision on the Director's part which sadly also affects the likes of Infinite Stratos.
Plus I find that making species such as a Vampire Ninja feels like pandering to the current popularity for Ninja & Vampires, yet Seraphim nor the other vampires really fit the description for Vampire Ninjas in the first place.
The animation looks nice and the comedy really works, especially when fantasy Eu gets going, but I find that it took away too much when it got into season 2.
Final Verdict: It's a fun series with plenty to offer but don't expect it to stay that way beyond the first season as it takes away it's action elements in favor of a full blown harem series for season two which isn't a popular choice for the series, only the comedy really saves it from falling flat.
