snivets

Action-driven yet human-focused, Teppou Musume does a fantastic job of keeping the tension high in this tale about a group of part-human, part-beasts who are terrorizing Edo. The story is fairly basic, driven by a hunter girl who moves to Edo to join her brother. There, they participate in the hunt for the "Fuse," half-human, half-dog beings who are eating human beings. Along her journey, she inadvertantly makes a connection to one of them. I thought the story was good, yet sparse, and not terribly deep, but certainly interesting in a "touching-on-themes" type of way. The characters... See full review

Despite the fact that KyoAni never intended for Free! to be anything more than a 30-second studio promo, I think they did an excellent and interesting expansion of the original clip. After the attention it got online they'd've been dumb not to take advantage of what was clearly a potential market--but it's still great to see a studio delivering such a grand product purely because the fans asked for it. Brief Summary: Childhood friends Haru, Nagisa, and Makoto realize that their other childhood friend, Rin, is back from Australia. Rin doesn't seem to want to relive their glory days of swimming... See full review

Shinsekai Yori really surprised me by developing some pretty heavy themes throughout the last two seasons. If you're a sci-fi fan, read on. Story: Set in a utopian/dystopian future (depending which species you belong to, I suppose), it is about a girl named Saki growing up, being confronted with problems of her society's own creation, and then piecing together the truth of her people's history while solving the various issues that crop up. The issues start small and ramp up, and the foreshadowing and doomsy, creepy vibe seeps into every nook and cranny of the story as it progresses. The storyline is... See full review

This is Ghibli the way I like it best, sans weird fantasy monsters (I'm looking at you, Ponyo), and heavy on the historical slice-of-life, which always rates high in my book. Story: I liked the story. I've seen some complaining that the drama wasn't dramatic. I guess if you're over-focusing on the romantic drama, that's true. "OMG we're siblings but we're in love?! Ooops, just a misunderstanding," is admittedly not anything revolutionary, however, I would argue that because Shun's adoption occurred on account of historical events, it's not as fluffy as it would seem. Remember how the adults... See full review