vivafruit

Story For series of this length, there’s a fairly intriguing piece of conjecture that I occasionally enjoy trotting around. According to the theory, no matter how awesome the original premise, no matter how charming the cast of characters, no matter how competent the studio, every long series will tank after about 75 episodes. As evidence, a myriad of lengthy anime can be cited that begin excellently and then slowly degenerate into recycled material and filler. Kenshin was excellent until some genius decided to deviate from the manga. Kodomo no Omocha was... See full review

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In many ways, Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion is uncannily similar to Sunrise’s own My-Hime. Both have extremely large ensemble casts, superb production values and a surprisingly engaging narrative. Unfortunately, both also suffer from inert character development, nigh unforgivable pacing and a largely disappointing ending. Code Geass is almost certainly at its best when the protagonist must use his intelligence and questionable morals to overcome a seemingly overwhelming task. These parts... See full review

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Darker than Black wants to be Cowboy Bebop so badly, it hurts. There is such a noticeable similarity between the two series that comparing them is virtually unavoidable. The problem, of course, is that Darker than Black is not Cowboy Bebop. To be sure, Black isn't a total carbon copy. The series' plot is, at least superficially, very different. Also, Darker than Black, true to its title, starts out somewhat moodier than Cowboy... See full review

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Angel Beats borrows ingredients that are achingly familiar and mashes them into something miraculously entertaining. The series cheerfully rips off Suzumiya Haruhi's titular character, adds her to a Sunrise-inspired ensemble cast, and plunks them into a rehash of Haibane Renmei's basic premise. There's an all-girl rockband, a shy warrior angel, and even a dude who hypnotizes people... See full review

Have you ever craved fast food? Well, there's an anime-related analogue; sometimes, all I want to see is some cheesy shoujo. I don't always want a hip crossover title like Nana, or a "normal" male-oriented romcom ala Toradora. No no no, sometimes, all I want are episodes where the characters do nothing but talk about their feelings. Sometimes, all I want are too-perfect boys that sparkle when they smile. Sometimes, all I want is a story about a girl that overcomes hardship with the power of FRIENDSHIP. Sometimes, all I want is a goddamn shoujo. Kimi ni Todoke will scratch that itch, if you let... See full review

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The story starts in a fairly disorienting manner and then moves quickly from there. After about 20 minutes of confusion, however, the anime soon finds its feet and I began to be able to follow what was going on. At around 40 minutes in I was actually somewhat interested... and then, the anime falls apart under its own philosophical weight. Apparently, the creators of this anime thought that they could substitute all semblences of plot with random scenes that supposedly have symbolic meaning. A quote from Roger Ebert's movie glossary comes to mind: "If you have to ask what it symbolizes, it... See full review

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The strongest episodes in the Ouran High School Host Club are essentially nothing more than character development. In them, the show will take one of the characters and crack his very soul open for all to see. The standouts are by far Kyouya, a self-proclaimed egoist who ends up being anything but, and the identical pair of twins, whose need for personal individuality conflicts with their inability to relate to anyone else. Unfortunately, excluding both the brilliant beginning and the fantastic character-building episodes, much of the storyline... See full review

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Please Twins, if nothing else, is a prime example of missed potential. Here we have a truly brilliant premise that is pretty much completely ruined by its follow-up story and ending. So much more could have been added to the following episodes to keep the story interesting, but no: the plot instead sinks into autopilot, and the result is horrifically boring and uncreative. Of course, I am exaggerating when I say “truly brilliant premise.” Much like Please Teacher before it, Twins aims for pretty much the... See full review

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The public high schooling system has become one of the most depressing institutions in the history of mankind, right down there with the Spanish Inquisition and the Nazi regime. Where else can you see bright young youths transformed into jaded, apathetic and thoughtless “adults?” When I finished high school, I graduated with a plethora of facts in my head, but little motivation to use them. My sole goals were to go to a third-rate, easy college in the middle of Kansas, and to work as little as possible for the rest of my life. School doesn’t just turn the students into... See full review

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There are many individuals online who seem to believe that all anime, regardless of its genre or general quality, is art. According to them, each and every series is something to be admired from a suitably safe distance, and any sort of criticism is basically heresy. The problem with this theory lies in shows like Hana Yori Dango. The show seems interested in nothing but catering to the lowest common denominator, and throws all manner of clichés into the work to do so. If Hana Yori Dango is "art," so is fast food. The shows... See full review

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Few will deny that the anime begins well. There’s a flurry of buzzwords, well-choreographed action scenes and some genuinely awesome sci-fi themes, thrown at the audience with enough precision and style to suck them right in. It’s in this I-don’t-know-what’s-going-on-but-I-don’t-really-care stage that the anime is at its best. Flash forward to midway through the show, and the story is still quite reasonable. The anime employs the parallel universe interpretation of quantum mechanics to explain its universe, and, surprisingly enough, does so in a way that is both... See full review

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Ergo Proxy’s storyline is a disaster. A hopeless, irredeemable disaster. No one will deny the incredible ambition of this series. The production values, for one, are on par with the best that modern anime studios have to offer. The storyline is epic, sweeping, and complex. Moreover, multitudes of challenging and varied themes are woven into the science-fiction narrative. At arm’s length, Ergo Proxy looks, feels and smells like it could be a defining classic of this decade. Instead, Ergo Proxy is a tragic disappointment, an almost... See full review

Shounen anime tend to be like Kraft cheese singles; they taste delicious when you are young, but as you get older you realize they are actually awful and have too much filler. I kind of miss the days when I could watch Naruto and enjoy it, but there are only so many meandering, waste-of-time 100 episode wankoffs that a person can reasonably enjoy before they become completely jaded. Have you read my sappy, cloying review of One Piece? I actually hate that show now. Given this, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is something of a miracle. Unlike 99% of shounen anime (including the original Fullmetal... See full review

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Ef ~ A Tale of Melodies so slavishly follows the formula set by its predecessor that it's almost unwatchable. Even with low expectations coming in, it’s a letdown. Like Ef ~ A Tale of Memories before it, Melodies’ plot covers two different sets of tangentially related characters. Unlike Memories, Melodies utterly fails to engage the audience. Instead, the series plods along with trite, uninteresting character development for five spectacularly uneventful episodes before... See full review

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With 5 Centimeters per Second, Shinkai Makoto has polished the elements that made his previous anime so heartbreakingly poignant and produced a wonderful work. If the film did not have a disappointing third arc, this would be his best work thus far and probably the best of the year. 5 cm’s story will feel warmly familiar to those who have already had the pleasure of watching the director’s work. Makoto is still very much obsessed with capturing the sheer, unrivaled beauty of an impossible love. No matter how cruelly fate... See full review

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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

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Jigoku Shoujo is the latest in a long and celebrated tradition of "horror/suspense" titles that don't really have either horror or suspense. The anime tend to go for sheer style over things like character development or logic and generally end with gruesome deaths tinged in irony. In the case of some of the shorter works, the formula tends to work: Vampire Princess Miyu, Pet Shop of Horrors, and even the more recent and slightly longer ... See full review

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In many ways, Ghost Hunt reminds me of Jigoku Shoujo. The two anime each start out with a relatively interesting premise, but ultimately are undone by their absolute unwillingness to take any sort of risks with their story. Instead, both series dutifully trudge along the path of least resistance, and the result is depressingly conventional. Granted, Ghost Hunt is not nearly as monotonous as Jigoku Shoujo. The series’ several plot arcs are distinguishable enough from each other to not be absolutely... See full review

In all honesty, I’m not entirely sure what score to give this anime; I’m torn between two completely different opinions. Because of this, rather than just picking one, I'm going to list both. For the purpose of this review, they will be personified as "A-san" and "B-san." --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pretentious, snobbish, pseudo-intellectual self: A–san Unsophisticated, ritalin-munching, mindless self: B–san A–san: Night on the Galactic Railroad is, without a doubt, a work of... See full review

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Ai Yazawa’s work is so distinctive that no one could mistake Nana as being written by anyone else. While the series isn’t perfect, it can be considered to be one of the frontrunners of modern shoujo romance. I emphasize modern because of how backward and traditional other romance anime seems when compared to Yazawa’s work. While other shoujo series are still mucking about with idealistic conceptions of the One True Love, the feelings of Nana’s characters are much more complex, layered, and believable. Nana is amazing not only for... See full review

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At its core, Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo is really just a standard shoujo slice-of-life show. There’s the plucky, cheerful protagonist, there’s the myriad of possible romances just waiting to bloom, and of course there’s the lazy summer afternoons spent loafing around in idyllic Japanese suburbia. The closest analogue is most likely Ghibli’s own Whisper of the Heart. The only noticeable differentiation from its counterparts is a time-traveling plot device introduced early in the show. ... See full review

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Note: Nope, haven’t read the manga yet. Almost nothing is better than watching a show that exceeds all of your expectations. I jumped into this series expecting a polished rehash of the same old theme that almost all ecchi shows have: namely, one (or more!) cute girls inexplicably falling for an insultingly spineless Keitarou-clone loser. However, this GONZO work is not, by any stretch of the imagination, your average nerd-meets-girl. On the contrary, Welcome to the NHK! is a remarkably strange series – one that happens to be among the best... See full review

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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

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Of all the general themes in anime, one of the most thoroughly overdone ones is the “with friends, we shall prevail” motif. In these, the protagonist can only overcome some seemingly insurmountable task with the help of his or her group of friends. Even those who haven’t seen much anime can probably name at least one series that does this; they’re literally everywhere. One trait that sets Shinichiro Watanabe’s work apart is his refusal to accept this Japanese conformity. In his anime, all of the characters define themselves by their individuality, fighting for... See full review

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A note: This review covers both Black Lagoon and Black Lagoon: The Second Barrage, and the score is a composite of the two series. If I were to rate the two seasons individually, I would most likely give season 1 around a 7.5 and season 2 around a 6.5. Black Lagoon looks like a mindless action series. It smells like a mindless action series. However, it is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a mindless action series. To be sure, Black Lagoon almost certainly has mindless action in it... See full review

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From the summaries I had read, I was expecting Paradise Kiss to basically be teenie-bopping wish fulfillment. Namely, the kind where an average chick somehow stumbles into an easy and comfortable lifestyle through little actual effort on her part, ala Princess Diaries. Fortunately, this is not an air-headed, chauvinistic Cinderella story of some girl swept off her feet from poverty into economic dependence and financial stability. Rather, at its core, this is a simple but compelling coming-of-age story, in which a previously ambitionless and enervated... See full review

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Despite being a remake to a kitschy 70’s anime “classic,” Casshern Sins begins promisingly. In the first few episodes, the creators lay out a post-apocalyptic setting that manages to feel both unabashedly retro and grimly bleak at the same time. The resulting mix of camp and angst is weirdly intriguing, especially when the solid supporting characters and mysterious titular protagonist are factored in. Sadly, Casshern Sins fails to live up to its initial promise due to its unfocused overarching narrative. Rather than develop any core... See full review

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Understanding is overrated. Incomprehensibility is the new clarity, and contradictions are the new consistency. Confused? Good, so am I. Some stories can only be enjoyed through understanding, while others must be enjoyed through experiencing. Paprika, for one, firmly falls in the second category. Comprehending Paprika on an intellectual level is comparable to nailing Jell-O to a wall: the harder a person tries, the more hopelessly confused he’ll become. Those familiar with Satoshi Kon’s other works (particularly ... See full review

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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

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If Hikaru no Go is to be credited for anything, it would be for practically teaching me the definition of a love-hate relationship. No other anime has been more successful at making me hate the show while simultaneously making me watch more of it. Hikaru no Go, at its best moments, ranked as one of my top animes of all time (a long time ago, the series had a 9.5 on my animenfo account). However, at its worst, an uncontrollable, irrational desire boiled within me to murder the creator with a sack of go stones (or some other similarly ironic... See full review