This will be the final review of this month.
Lina Inverse is quite the well known sorceress whether it be for taking out bandits, claiming treasure or causing destruction where ever she walks, she one day crosses paths with a swordsman named Gourry who possesses the sword of light, something Lina seeks to take but the two end up as travel companions, later joined by the justice loving princess Amelia and the shrine maiden Sylphiel.
When Lina's group cross paths with Zelgadis, a plot unravels involving the blind priest Rezo as he attempts to revive the demon ruby eye Shabranigdu, with Zelgadis switching to Lina's side and the fate of the world on the line, Lina and her party must put a stop to Rezo the Red Priest's demonic plan.
For a first season, Slayers is incredibly rusty with it's story telling but it's a strong fantasy franchise with a deep lore and a protagonist strong enough to fit the setting, I still get goosebumps everytime Lina unleashes the Dragon Slave, one of the strongest regular attacks in anime history, and while she is supposed to be on the side of good, I like that she's more chaotic than most, I'm also glad she has more characters to play off of, something Slayers lacked in the prequel OVAs.
I'd say it's the weakest of the original trilogy as it's only a taster of the world on offer and the mid 90s humour is kinda cringy in places, not helped by the dub as you cannot unhear the Pokemon dub casting for the main cast.
Final Verdict: A slow start to an otherwise great fantasy franchise with the promise of more to come from the original trilogy.
We're almost at the end now, next up is a nice surprise.
Moka along with her companions Buruman the cat theif and Kiriman the kangeroo/dog mute mage are adventurers for hire but don't have the best success rate, after a scuffle with a few thugs, they get scouted to retrieve the dragon's head at the fire temple, after destroying the temple, freeing it's people and obtaining the dragon head, the head speaks to them persuading them to go to the water palace to obtain armour and finally to the tower of wind where their employer reveals their true intentions, aided by Moka's sentient sword Espre, Moka and her party must stop a major catastrophe from happening to the world.
I went into this expecting nothing but got way more than I thought, the setting reminds me of Dragonball's world where humans seemingly co-exist with animal people, in fact it looks directly inspired by Dragon Quest so the comparison is relevant.
It's not that refined but I find the rough story telling one of it's biggest strengths, while nothing else was taken from the manga, the stuff they did take was a good starter and I wouldn't mind seeing this again.
Dub I don't think would be necessary, one of the characters is mute, so it really would be an empty gesture to try one.
This comes under hidden gem and I'm happy to have seen this, every now and again you need a reminder of why you like anime so it's always good to dig out something only a select few know of and just enjoy it without having to deal with the baggage and that's the strength of a good OVA, if it's bad you haven't really lost anything, if it's good then you have that good feeling inside knowing that you discovered a lost treasure, there's more to anime than just Dragonballz, Pokemon and Sailor Moon.
Final Verdict: Very rough around the edges but works in it's favour, a pleasant fantasy adventure with a decent soundtrack, great setting and likeable characters.
I have alot to say about this one and not a lot will be good.
Makoto arrives in Tokyo to study under the famous magician Mamoru Hoshisato, as well as reuniting with Mamoru's daughter Hatena, his childhood friend, no sooner does he arrive when Hatena reacts in horror as Hatena didn't realize that Makoto was male, hostile at first Hatena grows to rely on Makoto as a reliable partner when she becomes a phantom thief to steal back her mother's artifacts, items imbued with magical properties such as Hatena's sentient muffler and Makoto's own magical wand. With Hatena's mother stuck in her family's unreasonable demands, an aunt who were still not sure is a villain of not and a younger sister battling social insecurities and her own developing powers, the unity of Makoto and Hatena will need everything to complete their task.
I'll get the good out the way quickly, it's nice looking animation wise, Yumemi, Ema and Jeeves are superb characters, everything else, is just terrible.
Start with the pacing, three episodes spent on abusing Makoto, three episodes spent on Yumemi's social issues, three episodes spent on training to be worthy and the final three episodes on plot already wasting a good chunk of time there.
Even though I mentioned three characters being good in reality the entire cast are all offbrand versions of better characters, none of them felt unique to say that they only come from this anime.
Hatena is just not likeable, she reacts worse than most twitter users if someone dares to argue with them, I was almost tempted to drop the whole thing after two episodes because I didn't sign up to a romantic comedy of bitch slapping the male lead for existing when he doesn't deserve it but like a good reviewer I soldiered on and while that element doesn't stick around, Hatena doesn't really improve her attitude much, kinda feel bad for Makoto as I don't think he signed up for this either, a late character introduction gives him a rival who hates him for no reason.
This anime was released in 2020 and I'm guessing it didn't live up to anything as I was able to watch it on youtube perfectly without any edits which was uploaded just after it finished airing in about June 2020, stuff like this gets hit with the copyright bot straight away but I only finished this anime today, it's so bad no one will even claim the copyright for it on YouTube.
I avoided the dub but considering how characters act, it's probably not good.
Final Verdict: Poor pacing, offbrand of better characters and a lead who is unlikable in any sense, I was lucky not to waste any money on this.
This was brought up recently, so let's see how we do with it.
Fumizuki Academy prides itself on it's unique testing system where by your class is based on your testing score, A being the highest and get the best equipment where as F being the lowest get all the crappy equipment.
Using an avatar based Augmented Reality, the students can summon them to battle with the stakes often being better equipment, how strong your avatar is, is based on your test score also.
Himeji falls ill on the day of the placement test, forcing her to join Class F and their unique set of students, Akihisa feeling bad for Himeji, wants her to be re-tested as she's actually a genius. Sensing a chance to takedown the system deeming it unfair to the lower classes, class rep Yuuji sets the students on a quest to use the summoner test war to bring down the whole school proving that you shouldn't underestimate the lower classes.
This is a very anime way of explaining that test scores don't mean everything, something that a number of school systems need to remember. It's definitely the characters that make this series work, Yuuji is more intelligent than he let's on as his real reason for going to class F was to avoid a stalker, Akihisa clearly has learning difficulties as his avatar can do things others can't, Minami is German and can't read Kanji, Himeji herself maybe book smart but is socially bankrupt, then you have Hideyoshi with the running gag that no one can tell his gender (he's male but looks more feminine than his twin sister)
It's a delightful cast of characters that really make the anime work, the plot is a little too much and way more anime than most.
Dub is fine and features some great moments.
Final Verdict: A great cast of characters in a school series that goes way too anime at times.
Even the name of this anime can summon one of the greatest openings of all time.
Ikki is a typical punk kid who gets into hundreds of scraps but after getting humiliated by a gang wearing a new form of skating gear known as air treks, his adopted sisters take pity on him and introduce him to the world of Air Treks and the very gang like world it has created; becoming entranced by the extreme skating craze, Ikki forms an air trek team with his friends and a couple of former rivals called Kogarasumaru as he aims to dismantle the establishment on his way to the top, completely unaware that Ikki's adopted sisters are part of a more legendary team known as Sleeping Forest.
The art style, the setup, the lore, they didn't need to go hard on it but hard they did and my god is it over complicated but still friggin awesome yet not much of the manga was covered in the anime.
I dabbled in skater culture in my teen years and I discovered Air Gear a little too late to really push that interest further, the aesthetic, that killer opening and some of the best urban art of display, it's a perfect canvas of the edgy 00s.
Dub was fine, prefer the sub.
Final Verdict: Finishing this series can be a chore but the experience is a good look into the early 2000s culture, there are very few other shows in any genre that could do the same.
