gleipnir

Teenagers, time travel, body swapping, natural disasters, and one of those cross-dimensional fated romances.  Haruki Murakami's already done all of it, and done it better. I've always been kind of "meh" about Shinkai's work, which is probably why most of it is lingering, started but never finished, on my "want to watch" list.  So maybe I'm not the right audience for this.  In any case...it's cute, and a fine way to waste a couple hours, but I'm not gonna run around recommending this to all my friends and family as the "must-see" anime movie.  Sorry, but... See full review

Story: 5/10
Something wicked is haunting classroom the local junior high school. And it’s killing off the students in classroom 3-3 one by one.  Transfer student Kouichi Sakakibara makes it his goal to figure out what's going on and what all this has to do with the mysterious Misaki Mei.

Much more would spoil the story that Another tries to tell through a combination of plot twists and everyone juggling the Idiot Ball.

The problem with Another's big plot point is, in part, that it gives mention of this plot point just once. A basic tenet of story-telling is that if something is... See full review

Story: 2/10 Q: “How much of a plot can we squeeze out of a 4-koma consisting entirely of ‘kids who don’t look their age’?”
A: Not much. Q: “How many child molester jokes can we make before the censors tell us to quit?"
A: Too many.

Q: “How many times can we make an 11-year-old boy fall on his 20-something teacher’s boobs?”
A: Once is plenty, but make sure to occasionally zoom in on them jiggling like water balloons (the boobs, not the characters).

Animation: 4/10
Q: “How generic can we make our characters... See full review

Story: 5/10
A giant walking steamed bun with the ability to transform into other things fights another giant steamed bun in an unknown Japanese city while three high school students wrest control over these creatures out of each others' hands (or, more accurately, minds). Giant steamed bun number one, whose actual name is Cenco, is handled by a young teen named Tetsu.  Cenco has a mind of its own and while he's generally content to listen to Tetsu, there are instances where their relationship takes a turn for the dark and grim. ... See full review

Story: 4/10
Hide and seek is a game with a long history throughout the world, in part because of its simple premise: hide and hope you're not found, or, if you're "the seeker," use your skills to track down the others.  Kakurenbo's version of hide and seek, Otokoyo, changes up the rules.  Players have an entire abandoned city at their disposal, you have to wear fox masks, and no one ever comes back alive.

Our main character, Hiroka, loses his sister to this twisted game and makes it his priority to find her by taking part in the game himself.  Upon starting the game, he... See full review

Story: 3/10 What do you get when you combine sharks, the smell of decaying sea life, and machines that have no business existing?  You get Gyo, an anime that takes all three things and mashes them together in hopes of creating something scary.  In it, we follow the adventures of Kaori, a girl-next-door who rushes back to Tokyo to find her boyfriend, who's caught in the worst of a sudden and unexplained "fish-on-legs" epidemic.  To say much more would spoil what little plot there is in Gyo, but suffice to say there's not much of one anyways. However, let's get this out of the way... See full review