Okay, this was meant to be my Christmas review but it got delayed, hopefully there isn't anymore mishaps.
Made by Filmation of He-Man fame as a sequel to Snow White, the Christmas special focusses around Snow White II, a white haired young girl who sometimes looks older compared to the actual Snow White and her desire to give a Christmas to the children of the Kingdom. But an unusual incident revives the Evil Queen who wastes no time in unleashing a curse on the Kingdom freezing everyone.
It's up to Snow White II, Grunyon and the 7 Giants to break the curse and stop the Evil Queen and save Christmas.
This film is so corny, I guess I can't expect much from an early 80s fairy tale but I half expect Snow White II to not be as gullible as her mother, nor do I expect the giants or Grunyon to be so incompetent, especially when the Evil Queen really unleashes some creative ways of taking out Snow White II.
The voice work is really good at least; overall the film is corny, cheesy and very forgettable as it doesn't do anything that hasn't already been done by better Christmas specials. But the animation is at least decent and the voicework is top notch.
Been a while since I did a throw away ova and this one is no exception.
Tokyo is run by the internet,,,again! But having it do everything just encourages people to hack it.
Enter Alice and her friends Rena and Juri who can enter the Internet world known as Cyberland to stop malevolent viruses from taking over guided by a mysterious voice coming from a program known only as Lucia.
This may as well be a 20 minute advert for the game as it plays exactly like one. It establishes everything the game would've already told you in animated form in a slighty messy way but it simply does it's job of advertising the game and nothing else.
No dub, I doubt even the game left Japan.
Final Verdict: It's fine, it does it's job as an effective advertisement for the game but you'll forget it by tomorrow. Doesn't help that the plot is over used.
Before I begin, I don't hate romance anime or romance in general so take this review with a pinch of salt.
Miki was living a relatively normal life until her parents announce that they are divorcing, this happens because they met another couple on holiday and they decided to switch partners. Obviously more than a little upset and not really warming up to the other couple's son Yuu, Miki now has to deal with this unusual situation, however as the series goes on Miki starts falling for Yuu but the romance web has only just begun as ex-girlfriends, long time friends and even other couples get drawn into this large scale romance fest.
If the premise is anything to go by this will feel complete bullshit but if you watch soap operas this will be the closest anime to one along with other such titles as Ai Yori Aoshi, Maison Ikkoku and Kimagure Orange Road which sadly means it's very dated, very much 90s aesthetic.
It's not a bad series per say, the writing is at least solid and the romances are threaded together well even if it feels like a rollercoaster at times, honestly the only really terrible thing about this show is that the series had to start on such a bullshit premise, even as an adult and at the age where this sort of thing is not uncommon, I find the parent's nonchalant attitude to all this rather jarring.
Early dubbing is fine and non offensive, nothing special.
Final Verdict: A carefully woven romance story that needed such a bullshit premise just to start, it's fine if you like soap operas but alot of the modern romance anime like Toradora and Nisekoi are much better with the genre.
If you read my new top 100 you'll see a big rise for this anime, now let's find out why.
Actually a sequel to Shonan Junai Gumi, Great Teacher Onizuka is about the exploits of Eikichi Onizuka as he attempts a career in teaching, initially to pick up girls but discovers a unique passion for the job when he starts helping out his students, helped by the fact that he has a strong moral compass. When tasked with the job of being homeroom teacher to Class 3-4, a notorious group of students who bully teachers out of their jobs, it's up to Onizuka to restore the class' faith in teachers using any trick he has under his belt, no matter how absurd or how much it crosses the line.
GTO was a strong series in it's day and that still holds true now, especially for me as I never really appreciated the series until now; Onizuka is a strong character whose unconventional style of teaching is an experience to watch as he breaks down each unique problem.
To list a few.
Literally breaks down a wall with a sledgehammer in order to get a girl's family to communicate more.
Instead of punishing a student for making scandalous composite photos, Onizuka gets him to make composites of models in magazines.
Frequently saves students from suicide including the same person twice.
That's just the first few episodes.
You feel invested in what Onizuka does next and how he overcomes each student's attempt to get rid of him. If I had issues, it's more to do with certain characters, let's just say that certain motives make a couple of characters outright irredeemable, kind of expected in a show where a teacher goes up against a class of bullies but if were supposed to support them by the end they didn't do a good job in making that way.
Dub I've been told is good, but the best experience is in the sub, I also recommend the live action version as well.
Final Verdict: A strong series that really draws you into it's world, you'll wish that Onizuka was your teacher.
Our final review today ends on food.
Murata Genjirou is the Taste Emperor of the Ajiou Company, a place where Japan's best chefs train; always looking for new talent he discovers a boy named Youichi who runs a local restaurant with his mother. Upon trying Youichi's Katsu-don, Genjirou is impressed by his skills and invites him to Ajiou to be a chef but after an altercation with an Italian chef, Youichi challenges him to a cook off, beginning a path to the top of the culinary world as he battles his way through Ajiou's chefs along with rival company chefs.
This is 80s Food Wars, no joke, this is 80s Shokugeki no Soma, it's the same plot only the protagonist is younger, the food reactions don't contain visual representations of orgasms and there's far less drama but everything else is exactly the same.
But because it is essentially Food Wars in a more primitive form it also feels dated. Youichi has confidence but acts way more immature being that he's a child and with a less well defined supporting cast, the series relies heavily on how creative Youichi can get meaning he essentially has to carry the whole anime, not helped by the fact that the only subtitled version I can find is very poorly translated.
No dub either but it was pitched to Food Network only to be turned down.
Final Verdict: Very primitive by today's standards but is an interesting anime to watch when it is basically 80s Food Wars, seeing the evolution between this show, the popular Iron Chef TV show and Food Wars makes for an interesting study in the history of Food based anime.
