Omurqi

If you are a fan of Daft Punk, you might've stumbled upon one of these music clips with blue men or something that seemed like a part of a story. In that case, you have unconsciously already seen one of the thirteen parts that make Interstella 5555 one long AMV. That's what it is, an AMV, featuring a whole album instead of just one song. The "story" of Interstella 5555 is a sci-fi one. It follows the members of a popular band on some alien "blue people" planet, how they end up on Earth and their escape from the villain. To be frank, the story and the characters were pretty bad and not... See full review

Due to my inability to write more than a few sentences in one go for the past week and a half, I’ll be doing this review a little different from my usual “full length” reviews. I’ll first briefly go over the separate components of the anime, followed by a small section in which I’ll try to explain the different aspects to this show using pictures. This, along with Bartender, is the best stress relieving anime I have ever seen. Creating a peaceful, idyllic and beautiful city full of canals, Aria the Animation created a city identical to my glorified fantasy of Venice... See full review

"A decent action-flick filled with hit-and-miss moments”, that’s how I’d describe CANAAN in one sentence. It had some honestly good moments, and lots of “somewhat funny jokes” and “somewhat engaging action”. Naturally, seeing this was being praised as being the action-flick of 2009, I was a bit disappointed, seeing there was only one action scene in this whole series that had me thrilled to the level Black Lagoons action thrilled me. ... See full review

Let’s get the most important question out of the way first: Is it as good as its predecessor? No, overall, GitS Innocence is worse than the original. It was memorable for completely different reasons though. The original Ghost in the Shell was, more than anything, a thought-provoking, philosophical, engaging cyberpunk movie. The beauty in the second movie however, wasn’t in its story. The beauty of Innocence lays in the details, its ambiance and above all, the absolutely gorgeous animation. There is almost no such thing as a storyline through Innocence. Batou is once again on a mission... See full review

As the "average to good" score suggests, this movie is exactly what I expected it to be, a rewatch of the original series, albeit a bit rushed. This was especially noticable and painful in the first ten-or-so minutes of the movie, in which Shinji gets picked up by Misato, and within those first ten minutes Shinji is already characteristically whining in front of his Eva model. I was seriously questioning the title at this point, thinking they might've just put the entire series in one movie seeing the pace they were moving in.The rest of the movie however didn't feel nearly as rushed. They have... See full review

It’s been a while, but I can proudly say that the little drama-queen inside of me was bawling manly tears at the end of this show, something that last happened at Grave of the Fireflies, half a year ago. First of all, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 is a disaster-flick, and a good one at that, with real people in a state of disaster, in a situation that could actually occur in the real world.  The show starts with… whining kids, basically. More specifically, one whining kid, Mirai, a first-year middle school student who “hates” her parents for working too much and not caring... See full review

First shout-out after finishing this: "WHHHH... FFFFFF, what exactly did I just watch?" As Otaku108 neatly described on IRC:[Otaku108] sometimes there aren't words in the dictionary to describe some things [Otaku108] usually I just cover them with "ZOMGBBQ"Yes, ZOMGBBQ is probably the best way to describe this beautiful monstrosity. Kemonozume is one big experiment in both animation as in storyline. The story starts out being quite solid, changing into a suspenseful romance with plot twists aplenty quickly after the intro. However, Kemonozume is like a good mindfuck anime... See full review

I was somewhat annoyed in the first few episodes, the way the characters acted felt very forced (probably my culture-shock from regular to shoujo anime >_>). That feeling went away after a couple of episodes and I actually started caring for the characters. The story is about a private school for girls, who have their own version of the Senpai / Kohai system, the "soeur" (French for sister) system, a much closer system in which the younger "sister" helps the older one out with minor tasks, and the older one takes the younger in her care. It follows Yumi, a freshman, as she gets... See full review

This anime really grew to me a few weeks after I finished it. Don't get me wrong, I loved it while watching this series, but this is one of those rare cases that got better over time. It's best described as a Drama / Action / Supernatural anime. It starts with great action (the first episode was what I hoped Canaan would be, awesome fast-paced action) and works hard on the character-development once you're a few episodes in. But really, with an OP like this, I was already sold at the very beginning: Check out the full... See full review

All visuals, no plot, thats it. The animation was gorgeous, but it was all there was to it. 8 minutes of shooting in the dark of night in a plotless fight between robots and tanks, with pretty much the only conversation being the shouting of teamnames when said teammember is in a pinch. Even though 8 minutes of shooting-action might sound exciting to some, it was not. They somehow managed to take away even the thrill of the battle. Watch this for the visuals only, if you must watch it.

Definitely my favorite of Studio 4Cs "Sweat Punch" project (Professor Dan Petory's Blues, End of the World, Comedy, Higan and Junk Town), and one of my all-time favorite short-movies in general. Comedy is a story about a swordsman who fights for whatever people ask him to, but only in exchange of books. A little girl in dire need of this swordsman in order to protect her village looks for a book to pay him, and asks the swordsman for aid. The visuals of this short-movie are... unique. It's mainly black and white, and while it doesn't look anything like the modern "high-end" animation... See full review

I really enjoyed this short-movie by Studio 4C, one of my favorite studio's if it comes to interesting artstyles and stories. The visuals are quite bad, but atleast they're all drawn, and it actually adds to the whole experience (in contrary to the horrible CG from Professor Dan Petory's Blues, from the same compilation-project). I liked the fact that while it was largely a big heap of randomness, it still had some plot going on. The viewer gets thrown from a "relatively normal" world into a completely bizarre one, but not without any explaination whatsoever. For as good as short-movies can get... See full review

Ugh, that was terrible. It starts out with a scene with a woman and a man in the background having a conversation. At this point, I had high hopes for this short-movie. These sparks of hope were crushed soon enough though: only 2 minutes in it takes a 180 degree turn from something with nice visuals and a somewhat promising plot into something HORRIBLE. From that point on, you'll only be shown CG. Not just any CG, mind you, quite possibly the very worst you've ever seen... The mini-movie is, in a completely random and incomprehensible way, trying to explain why UFO's are zigzagging. While this certainly... See full review

Looking back at this anime, it was really good, and I can see why it's getting all its praise, the last of the four episodes was beautiful and touching and is something you'll remember. However, the other three episodes weren't up to that level. Maybe it is because I couldn't really relate that well with most of the characters (with the whole Feudal Japan culture), but the first three episodes felt like an, even though executed well, steriotypical feudal Japan action story. Towards the ending it makes a change towards drama, and the shift is done very smoothly. It was only from this point onwards that I... See full review

This show gave off a huge "mediocre" feeling. I've been thinking on what to say about it, but there's just not that much to talk about. Almost everything about it has been seen a thousand times before, in most cases better. Basically, the show is about a girl who suddenly became the right hand of the guy she has had a crush on for years... Hold it right there, keep that feeling, because thats where the originality ends. The show consists of scene's with the super-violent sister picking on the guy, lots of ecchi scene's, all of which were mediocre at best and lots of shallow humor. Still, the... See full review

Can a show go from reasonably funny to complete and utter garbage just because of the way it’s animated? Dokuro-chan proved to me it can. From blood-fountains looking like something a 12 year old with “Flash for Dummies” came up with, to spastics looking at you with a face saying “Look at how funny my pain is, laugh, LAUGH!”, this show continually managed to screw up potentially hilarious moments into something completely unfunny. In short: for someone like me, who grew up with dumpholes like Newgrounds being popular among elementary scholar though boys , Dokuro-chan... See full review

Another confusing movie from the master himself, Satoshi Kon, just the way I like them xP. It was nice to see once again that his distinct way of storytelling isn't limiting the variety in his works too much: the message it gets across and the atmosphere of the movie were quite different from his other works, even though it was very recognizably a Kon movie. The movie follows the story of Chiyoko Fujiwara's "life", or whatever you want to make out of it, told by herself. It does this in a confusing, Kon-like way by telling stories within stories, intertwining into a complex plot, and is basically... See full review

Darker Than Black is a good show, full of cliffhangers. When I watched this, I had been out of the whole marathon-rhythm for a while, but I was still able to finish this in two days since I was constantly looking forward to the next episode. While it had a high want-to-watch value for me, it wasn't anything incredible. While most of the side-characters were fun at first, some of them got a bit old later in the series. It was a good action-fix though. Almost all of the fighting scenes were fun to watch and despite some arcs containing pretty much zero action, even most of these arcs had their strong... See full review

I've got mixed feelings about this... First and foremost, this anime is one big, predictable cliche, and does no attempt whatsoever to be even a bit original. However, this really worked for me for the first 2/3 of the show. I was constantly facepalming myself with a huge feeling of "oh no they di'n't" while they went from the "innocent perfect girl with one big otaku secret" to the "teasing loli sister" to the "silent and stoic head-maid" characters. The last 1/3 was painful to watch though. While the entire show didn't try to be anything but a shallow... See full review

This was one of those shows that makes you wonder about the human mind, and if it's possible for androids to have some kind of emotions. Those kind of shows are usually full of mindf*ckery and are more often than not filled with action, not this one! While subjects like discrimination are treated a lot, it manages to keep a calm atmosphere throughout all six episodes. It does this by not focusing on the fight for android-rights, but by taking the Bartender approach by laying the focus on the conversations and individual stories of the different characters... See full review

That was one bizarre, twisted and funny ride :P I have a strong "Lucky Star" feeling after watching this. Not because the humor or theme of the anime is the same (because it's not), but because when I first watched Lucky Star, I didn't recognize over half of the references. I still enjoyed it, but not half as much as when I recently rewatched it, and actually got most of the parodies. Paniponi Dash! has most parodies based on some of the older anime, from which I've seen very little. I'll probably rewatch this once I've seen some more classics. Parody section aside, Paniponi has... See full review

That was yet another strange, twisted and confusing ride. It's clear that this anime was made by Satoshi Kon. Even though I've only seen two of his other works (Perfect Blue and Paprika), his style is instantly recognizable, fans will enjoy this. I can't go too deep into the story without spoiling it, so I'll keep it short. The anime is about a boy who's skating around, while hitting people with a baseball bat. The show follows different stories related to the "Shounen Bat", in order to find out more about the mystery surrounding him. It does so in a way you'll also see in other works... See full review

It was so-so. Nothing special, but just passing the entertaining-grade, which is all I was expecting from this series. The setting was fairly original and it had a surprisingly good backstory, compared to most shows in this genre (like Shakugan no Shana). They actually explained how the ESP powers, the magic, and the whole academic city worked. The action wasn't epic and jaw-dropping in any way, but it was enough to keep me somewhat entertained. The story does try to get a bit serious, but never goes as far as making it painful for a fairly shallow genre like this. Another plus, unlike similar... See full review

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/BrCqUwkbO4U&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/BrCqUwkbO4U&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> I highly suggest playing this OST of Bartender while reading this review, as it... See full review

And here I thought I had a solid top 10 that wouldn’t get titles added one after another anymore. I couldn’t have been more wrong, with the last two series I’ve watched now both in that area; first being Kino’s Journey at #8, and now Haibane Renmei at #3! Needless to say, I was amazed by Haibane Renmei. It was quite possibly the only anime I’ve seen so far that excelled in both the journey and the (build- up towards the) conclusion to this level: leave one of the two out and it would still receive a spot on my top 10. Enough praising while you still have no f*cking... See full review