Let's return to the 80s with a magical girl series.
Pastel Yumi is part of Studio Pierrot's big four magical girls along with Creamy Mami, Magical Emi and Fairy Persia, the difference with Yumi is she relies on her magic to aid the situation rather than relying on becoming a teen idol. The setup is the same, other worldly beings grant Yumi magic as a result of her kindness and she takes each scenario as it comes. Her magic is formed through drawing, summoning anything she desires but with a time limit, Yumi must be more creative in each approach to succeed.
It can get really 80s at times but it's largely one of the more tame ones and Yumi's charm makes her the strongest in personality of the four girls as well as having the strongest plot.
No dub, none of these shows ever made it to English speaking territories but you can grab any of the shows in every other major European language.
Final Verdict: Removing the teen girl transformation does alot to clean up the narrative hazards of the show and is much better for it. Yumi is a charming, whimsical magical girl show worthy of it's target audience, 80s-isms not withstanding.
You'll never be ready for the insanity I'm about to unleash.
Miki is a former college art student hoping that managing entertainment can break her away from the constant sketching of stone sculptures, sadly the boy band she's been asked to manage are four stone head statues of famous individuals of Greek and Roman history. These are the Sekko Boys, literal talking stone head statues with the boy band personas to match; aided by idol singer Mira, Miki will attempt to manage the four rocky singers to the heights of stardom.
This really isn't the Anime to show people that the medium takes things seriously, granted this is deliberately silly and barely over five minutes per episode means the whole 12 episode series can be watched in an hour but something in your mind always asks why? What person thought that statues of Greek and Roman historical and mythological figures would make a boy band?
It's utter disregard for common sense just makes it baffling and all you can do is either embrace the chaos or avoid it.
No dub to speak of but it would be chaotic to see one.
Final Verdict: It's a chaotic short series that will either entertain or confuse you depending on your taste, I'm fine with it myself but then again I've watched over a thousand anime.
This is from the regular project 1000 and was planned before the special stage.
With mankind expanding into space, a galactic police unit known as the GOTT is formed to combat crime across the universe. Utilizing 12 young individuals with unique superpowers known as the ES Force, even the biggest crimes can be stopped.
Our main story focusses on two low level ES members named Eclair and Lumiere who take on missions under the watchful eyes of a Galactic Auditor. Eclair possessing super strength triggered by lipstick while Lumiere can manipulate and hack electronics by just merely touching the ground.
All seems well until a public protest triggers the duo to go against orders making them the enemy of the GOTT, as they avoid getting hunted down, the pasts of these girls starts to reveal itself showing that they aren't as they seem.
A lot of care went into building this unique universe from it's characters, their powers along with the universal laws the plot follows and it's unique mech and battleship designs, however this extreme attention to detail works against them with Eclair and Lumiere.
This is only really a spoiler if I show them what they look like towards the end of the series as they look radically different from the picture I used which is their appearance at the start of the series. This might be just me but when you change a character so radically, you start disconnecting with them to the point that it's hard to see them as the same character, since I can't spoil this I'll use Disney's Cinderella as an example; her official design from the 1950 is iconic and one of the most recognisable faces of Disney but in the last decade she was given a younger look to try and make her more modern, but she now looks less Cinderella and more someone trying to cosplay her; while makeovers and redesigns are not an uncommon sight in anime especially when the characters are supposed to grow up if allowed, Eclair and Lumiere look like completely different people when it happens to them and it only gets more complicated from there.
Dub is really good especially when this was Colleen Clinkenbeard dub voice of Luffy and Erza Scarlet's first major anime role.
Final Verdict: While the world building and universe are sublime, the complicated back story of the two leads makes me disconnect from them and leads to an overly complicated mess of a 2nd part.
I'm running behind with alot of things so I wish to catch up soon.
Ai has just moved to Animal Crossing village and Tom Nook is quick to put her to work, while trying to find her place in the village she befriends Rosie and Margie as they talk about their dreams, particularly aspiring fashion designer Margie.
Sadly Margie leaves the village leaving Ai in despair but reassured by her friends and a number of bottled messages, Ai will soon discover her calling.
This is Animal Crossing in it's most accurate form, I'm not kidding, this is the single most accurate video game adaption anime of all time, they leave nothing out, everything you regularly do in the game is on display, does that make it good? Simple do you like Animal Crossing? If yes, then this is perfect, if no, it passes for a harmless kids anime film which it means it really doesn't do anything spectacular, it just gives you Animal Crossing probably the least offensive video game on the planet.
Never released in English but easy to locate subtitled with the English names of the cast.
Final Verdict: A movie about a peaceful village of Animal People based on a game about a peaceful village of Animal People, what more do you want?
There will be one more review after this and trust me, that one will be hilarious.
Misaki is a young girl with not much confidence, upon arriving in Tokyo she witnesses a fight between dolls on the big screen, this is Angelic Layer, a combat sport where dolls controlled with a special helmet allows them to move freely on an arena known as a Layer through mind link.
Interested and persuaded by the eccentric scientist Icchan, Misaki gets drawn into the sport and quickly becomes the miracle rookie of the tournament with her doll Hikaru, yes that one from Rayearth. But Misaki may yet be reunited with someone unexpected as she continues her progress in the tournament.
We meet again Clamp, but this time you done good, kind of. The manga was awful, so it's left to the anime to fix the issues and it did so in a good way, giving a proper insight as to why the sport of Angelic Layer came to be what it is and why, showing the complexity of Shuko's dilemma when facing up to Misaki with her neurological condition reducing her to a wheelchair and why she's so good at Angelic Layer.
On the other hand, Misaki created my favourite trope to take the piss out of, the "Miracle Rookie" someone who clearly has never done this before yet manages to battle their way to the top usually relying on dumb luck or something seen earlier in the episode to win, another name for it is plot armor and Misaki is coated in it and it just makes everything laughably predictable even when Hikaru takes hits that knock out other dolls in one hit.
Clamp just can't give me anything without giving me a mountain of problems to spew about but at least the story was fixed in the anime so it's at least a better attempt than their other works.
Dub is fine but Misaki over acts a bit.
Final Verdict: It's good action and the story is a lot less degrading than the manga version but it's laughably predictable with Misaki's oh so thick plot armor.
