Hmm, not that far from a year since last post... Well no reason not to keep the thread slightly alive at least...
"Shion no ou" starts out 7 years after Shion´s parents were murdered,
very splattery murdered with her the sole survivor in the house, when found clutching a bloody Shogi king piece with a partial fingerprint from the murderer, the only such found... The shock caused Shion to be mute ever after, but she keeps playing shogi.
And thats pretty much the basis of the series, shogi competition and a murder case.
And its actually really, REALLY good. Characters, animation, story, everything is ok or better and the total is just
good.
Totally and highly recommended.
"Kimi ni todoke", poor Sawako, she has a natural scare factor high enough that pets and children are frightened of her, and looking just like Sadako from "The Ring" really does NOT help matters and eventually people has even forgot that she has another name and just thinks of her as her "nickname" Sadako...
Tries to be too cute at times and gets overly chatty and slow far too often. However, the balance between the two parts of "romantic comedy" is quite well done and overall i really liked it. I sometimes dont quite like "caricatured animation" but in this series its both well done and used almost only when actually suitable and becomes a clear plus rather than the negative it often is. Especially the earlier episodes has some really funny stuff.
Clearly recommended.
"Blue Submarine#6" & "Tideline Blue", two postapocalyptic navalcentered series, the latter is just barely ok while the former has some serious problems, neither is good but if you like submarine or postapocalyptic action they might be worth seeing once. If its a genre you dont like, dont bother with them.
"REC" a rather simple and basic romantic comedy, but still nice to watch. Welldone characters and character interaction so while not a blockbuster probably well worth seing once. A plus to the makers for actually making a "accidental meeting" plausible.
"Kurenai"... meh... somewhat odd, some decent drama and action now and then, perhaps worth seing but not memorable. A young "muscle for hire" sort-of agent "finds" himself the bodyguard of a little girl, which he eventually finds out doesnt officially exist...
"Ghost in the Shell", does this one need a description? Cyborgs, guns blazing crime fighter stories and some REALLY serious political scheming(and dodging of those schemes)...
Anyone who missed it should try it. The series is clearly better than the movies in my opinion.
Recommended.
"Puppet Princess", a movie about a girl out for revenge of the serious sort. Anyone who has seen Naruto can probably guess what kind of puppets she plays with.
Worth seeing if the genre suits you. Not good but not
that bad either.
"Sasameki koto" is about a girl in love with her friend but the friend in question has repeatedly stated how she is interested in the opposite kind of girls from Sumika, so she keeps quiet... Sounds lame doesnt it? It
is, but its well made, with fairlu good characters, development and quite a lot of fun stuff making it overall fairly ok.
Almost recommended, but not quite. Anyone who likes this kind of series, totally recommended.
"Blue drop" another yuri which is totally messed up scifi, romance and some fun stuff...
Alien girls invading earth??? Uh yeah, something like that. I did say it was messed up.
Still, a bit less quality overall and a lot less coherence in story than the above, it ends up in the just barely ok category.
Probably needs watching to decide if its something
you want to watch...
"Spice & Wolf (-S2)" travelling merchant who runs into a minor wolf deity who is thinking of moving homewards...
A very slow story overall but excellently done with lots of story and development in it, im totally waiting for 3rd season even though its not really my kind of anime.
Recommended for anyone that isnt too addicted to fastpaced stories.
"Rescue wings" is about a pilot aiming for fighter jets but washes out and finds himself assigned as a helicopter pilot and how he learns to eventually appreciate it and deal with reality. Realistic and not for the one who cant take a realistic tragedy.
Good enough and recommended.
"Madlax", third in the girls with guns trilogy started by "Noir". Although not nearly as good as Noir, Madlax has its own strengths, which if you can look past the oddities and the overly rampant mysticism that is a basic part of the series, is pretty good.
The girl who works under the name madlax, took the name because it was the only thing she could recall, she is an assasin and overall "firepower for hire" agent, with beyond real abilities both with a gun and facing one.
A second girl, Margaret, came home after an airplane crash shortly before miss Madlax herself appeared in the world, only recalling the name madlax and nothing else.
Another person is literally "dead man walking", but he doesnt know it so he´s fine anyway...
The full story is complicated to say the least and managed to keep me guessing for a very long time so i suggest anyone going to look at it not to run off and find spoilers because the story is despite its "far out"-ness rather well written. And its a series where anyone can, and does, die... Who was the original Madlax?
Recommended.
"Gokusen" is probably the only series sofar i found that i like which is stated as "josei".
Who better to straighten out a rough class in a rough school than a yakuza daughter? Noone of course according to herself. Problem is that the school would go nuts if they found out that little fact.
Fun, pretty good characters, decent animation and ok story even if at least i though the end was rather lame, overall its a good series. Good enough to spawn 33 series episodes and 2 movies of live action beyond the anime.
Recommended.
"Kenko Zenrakei Suieibu Umishou", another "boy meets crazy kind of girl", but decently enough done.
If you like romantic comedies, well worth watching, if you dont like those, you might still watch for the fun if you have nothing better to do or see.
Not exactly recommended but its a nice enough series for a rainy day.
"Sora o Kakeru Shoujo" is a scifi series that is somewhat sloppy made, parts of the storyline is really excellent while other parts are just lame. Still, the series manages to achieve some really major plottwists more than once and even manage to throw in some existential questioning far beyond what you might expect, and even more interesting perhaps doesnt try to force an answer to those questions.
Had the production team spent a bit more time and money, or maybe kept the writing more coherent i think this could have become an excellent series.
Still recommended.
"Ayashi no Ceres" is a rather warped story of Aya who has a rather shocking "birthday party" where she suddenly after a little test is told she needs to die because she is a curse on the family... Ouch.
It gets worse. Vaugely based off of a real myth.
Probably worth seeing at least.
So now, come on someone else and make a post or two!
