vivafruit

The "horror" genre in anime has pretty much become a misnomer over the years; rather than attempting to be scary in any way, shape, or form, the animes almost always attempt to develop a slow, interesting and gruesome story. When the genre works well, it fosters a kind of morbid fascination in the viewer. Despite the fact that not a lot is happening in these shows, what does happen can be very interesting indeed. However, when the genre fails, the anime comes across as cheesy, predictable, and boring. Every horror anime walks a very fine line between being appealingly dark and appallingly... See full review

Story
Want to watch a tragedy? Sit through the entirety of Macross Frontier. Then, contemplate what could have been made if the talent behind the anime had been used to make something besides a creatively brain-dead retread of a 20-year-old franchise. In the tradition of Hollywood, Macross F represents an enormous amount of time and money spent on something spectacularly shallow. For a while, the anime is enjoyable on its production values alone, since Macross F has the slickest combination of animation and sound released in a series this year... See full review

Story
The creation of My-Hime most likely started with Sunrise designing an anime from the ground up. The show would boast amazingly entertaining melodrama, some fantastic action scenes, and hordes of famous seiyuu - in other words, the basic groundwork for Best Show Ever. There was just one chink in the entire concepts armor: when all was said and done, the animes story called for a ridiculously large amount of characters. Alongside Mai, the primary heroine, the storyline needed droves of supporting characters in order to be fully fleshed out. As a result of this... See full review

Story
A reviewer on AniDB has labeled this as an "identity" anime – namely, a Neon Genesis Evangelion/FLCL/Honey and Clover-styled work where the protagonist discovers himself as the story progresses. There is some truth to this; indeed, by the end of the movie the main character, Nishi, has transformed from a wimpy, whiny and worthless urchin of a human being into a fully developed and oddly admirable man. However, the movie is much more than a mere self-centered search for... See full review

Story
Describing Mushishi to those who have not experienced it is almost completely impossible... and yet, here I am, furiously pounding away, struggling to say something even remotely coherent about this wonderful work. What makes the show so difficult to write about? Well, for one thing, Mushishi is completely different from anything else that I've seen, anime or otherwise. Everything about the show, from its leisurely pace to its beautiful animation, seems to be on a separate wavelength from just about anything else out there. The closest comparison I've... See full review

Story
I’ve written about this several times now, but for the sake of completeness, allow me to complain once more on the general quality of lengthy series. The simple fact that long series tend to be filler-ridden, asinine and childish wastes of time is not a difficult one to realize. When it comes right down to it, a profitable 50+ episode series needs a big audience and a small budget, and thus most of these shows tend to appeal to the largest demographic (boys) while at the same time keeping the content per episode to a minimum. As evidence, I point towards the cancellation of ... See full review

Story
There is a kind of universal appeal to the storyline, which is part slice-of-life and part sheer undiluted fantasy. The two seemingly contradictory elements combine into a heartwarming tale about mismatched romance, dreamy nostalgia, and poignant farewells. For those who have seen Only Yesterday, there are definite similarities between the two plots, and I’m almost certain that those who liked one will like the other. Like Only Yesterday, My Beautiful Girl Mari’s main fault in its narrative is... See full review

Story
Macross Zero is an undeniably huge undertaking; this clearly has one of the biggest budgets to ever be granted to an OVA. Bandai has fairly deep pockets, but I’m sure even they must have been a little antsy about the huge capital investment involved in such a project. Thus, my primary concern when I started up the first episode was that the OVA, in the interest of "playing it safe," would create a relatively ambitionless plot that strayed little from what other animes from the Macross series have already done. My worries were not... See full review