And with this post I've just about made my midnight deadline GMT
55. G Gundam
Only Gundam could celebrate an anniversary year by ripping into it's founding robot forefathers. An insanely epic action show with some of the most off the wall mecha stuff you'll ever see.
54. Pumpkin Scissors
Definitely my favourite war anime, a compelling drama showcasing the damaging mental effects of being a specialist soldier and the often wide eyed idealist yet hypocritical aristocracy.
53. Super Sonico
This is how you do an idol anime, make her interesting, make her have relatable quirks and still make her appealing. It's also nice to see a plus size female lead for once.
52. Is This A Zombie
It's a harem yes, but it's quirks other than the fact that the lead is a walking corpse is the slient character Eu who speaks in notes, this backed up by silly fantasies makes it a joy to watch.
51. Digimon
While it makes for a better anime than it's rivals, it's real charm is it's ability to really tackle tough subjects, a rarity in a kids anime and certainly memorable.
No I'm not deliberately skipping series of Digimon I just really need to get this one out the way as we review Digimon Xros Wars.
Mikey Kudo finds an injured Digimon called Shoutmon, (really appropriate, he never shuts up) and feeling the need to help him ends up being dragged into the Digital World along with his friends in order to save it from the evils of the Bagra Army but other humans lead their own groups to try and stop the Bagra Army for their own gains.
Now I'm going to start by addressing the elephant in the room first, why does Mikey have friends with him that do nothing? The setup is similar to how groups of samurai act during what seems like a warring states scenario and it actually works well but neither Jeremy nor Angie actually do anything as Mikey seems to do everything from fusing his Digimon to activating power ups, while it's not unusual for a main character to steal most of the limelight it is unusual for ally humans especially in a franchise like Digimon not to have their own fusing Digimon, to make matters worst come season 3 they do a complete line up change and relegate every female protagonist to bit part players in a move I now call the Gormiti Scenario which involves ridding the show of anything remotely female to focus on what is essentially a bro fest thinking that an average male viewer doesn't want to watch female characters, it's never been done right and wastes the characters that were on offer in the first two seasons a trick also done with newer seasons of Beyblade and Yu-Gi-Oh; it's a shame that it had to come to that because the stuff it does right, the setup, the variety of the zones and the Digimon themselves are really good and it's one of the few dubs in the so called Children's anime tier to actually be good, it's just a pity that some decisions by the creators worked against them.
Final Verdict: It's worth a try but stupid decisions by the creators leave you questioning why certain characters are there and should you make it to the third season you wonder why those characters are suddenly cut.
Next up on Digital week is Digimon Adventure 02.
I've already reviewed the first season of Digimon so lets see if the sequel does any better.
Trouble brews in the Digital World as the Digimon Emperor conquers the lands, but most of the digi-destined from season one have moved on and are three years older with not only higher commitments but no crests and digivices to use as the Dark Spires built in the Digital World block digivolving. Using a new Digivice and recruiting three new kids, TK and Kari enter the Digital World to stop the Digimon Emperor.
Now lets start with the elephant in the room which is the new kids which consists of Davis, who is so not exactly the same as Tai, Yolei who keeps the Tomboy trend going and Cody who personifies the quiet geek boy better than Izzy and Joe combined. Apart from Matt, the three new kids are essentially perfect copies of the six digi-destined that retired with Yolei filling in for both Sora & Mimi and Cody with Izzy & Joe respectively and canonically speaking as well.
So yeah, don't expect this series to be as ground breaking as the first season, but the first story arc delivers well enough that it's only a nit pick and at least Yolei manages to break her predefined character traits and become her own character. The second story arc still hits the same notes as the first arc if a little bit slower while the final story arc leads to a bit of an anti-climax and a sickeningly sweet epilogue worthy of a fanfiction writer.
So yeah a few niggles but still a worthy enough successor to the original series, voice work and charm still intact also.
Final Verdict: Lack of originality aside, Digimon Adventure 02 is worthy to be called a sequel and while the story gets a bit stale towards the end it doesn't take away the experience that Digimon always offers.
I've been gone a while thanks to a combination of writer's block and a lack of time but I plan to make it up to you starting with this review on Digimon.
Just to clarify, this is only covering season 1.
We start off in modern day Japan as one night, a parrot and a dinosaur monster fight each other in front of a number of scared children with the dinosaur coming out victorious but both soon disappear. A few years later we arrive at a summer camp where seven kids end up being transported to a mysterious world known as the Digital World.
Our characters are Tai, Matt, Joe, Izzy, Sora, Mimi & TK who are each partnered by creatures called Digimon which take on many different forms such as dinosaurs, wolves and birds to name a few. These kids and their Digimon form the Digi-destined as they save the Digital World from the onslaught of Devimon and other assorted villains.
Now back in the 90s there was an intense rivalry between Digimon & Pokemon each believing to be rip offs of the other but both have their own merits and both are still going.
But to put things into perspective both were tv anime in the west but the term anime was in it's absolute infancy and was only associated with the ultra violent 80s era of the genre. Both shows were mixed into the cartoon label but out of the two, Digimon felt more like an anime, mainly because it took it's audience more seriously.
Looking back, while season one of Pokemon is sounding more and more like some sick joke, the first season of Digimon not only stands the test of time but is actually getting better with age.
There are plenty of memorable moments which are not just comedy or action scenes but tearjerkers, darker tones and major deaths; yeah those deaths may be bloodless but are still pretty gruesome in context such as some of the villain and allies deaths, yeah sure death is cheap and you revive in egg form but for some Digimon like poor old Wizardmon can never come back. It also manages to be threatening; with every major villain you always got the sense that when the heroes gained a victory there's always a loss. Even the kids aren't so clear cut in their character molds with each one having to deal with their own personal issues, such as divorced parents, adoption and quite a dark one when Tai nearly causes Kari's death for not recognizing Kari was sick, made all the more harder to watch when you hear Kari apologize to Tai for not being able to play soccer.
Yeah I agree that it's silly in a number of places and the music for the dub is corny as hell but everything else it manages to do and it does it so well that you have to give them high praise for it.
Final Verdict: It stands the test of time and deserves it's place among the greats of anime, in fact I think it deserves a place in an official top ten anime list.
Before I start I should explain Angela Anaconda.
Angela Anaconda was a Canadian Cartoon that used Cutout animation which is essentially a mesh up of flat images cut out from sources such as kids drawings or black and white photos in the case of Angela Anaconda. It's basically reverse gender Doug but Angela is a lot more obnoxious, ironically this was first made for Nickelodeon before Fox took it up for US audiences.
Now for this pile of shame; you see Fox had the rights to the Digimon Movie and decided to try and promote it with a shameless self promotion for Angela Anaconda.
The basic plot is Angela and friends are going to see the movie and all rush to get seats until local stuck up fake French girl Nanette and her teacher Mrs Brinks block the view of the screen, then using her imagination she digivolves into Angelamon and defeats Nanette. After her little self indulgent fantasy they realize they're in the wrong movie screen and all rush away leaving Nanette and Brinks in a mess.
Yes that was real and here is the evidence to prove it complete with my own personal reaction to it.
This is pretty much how Anime haters pictured Digimon and that's a sad thing to comment on; it certainly didn't set us up well for the film, if anything we all felt put off by it. Not that the film is any better, it was a huge mess of a story anyway but that's for another review.
However if you want me to expand on the abomination that is Angela Anaconda, then post your comments below and she'll go into the vault.
