Thursday, October 12, 2006

   Hehe...
Ok, so I've been gone a while. I apologize. I went to college, got addicted to the evil of facebook, and forgot about my wonderful site of otakus...

So, allow me to atone by continuing my reviews. >_> Because that's all I do here.

Also, I'm going to be reviewing some fall ones, too, because I actually am keeping up-to-date with them! These won't be reviews of the series, obviously, just what episodes are out when I make this post.

FULL METAL PANIC (I, II and III)
Premise: People called "Whispered" have innate knowledge from before birth called "Black Technology" - mainly, technology that isn't neccessarily possible, but works. This drives the engine of the mech units they fight with - Arm Slaves (AS's). Mainly, our two main characters are a Whispered and the pilot of one of these AS's, fighting against those that want to get her knowledge. In their way is Mithril, the internationally independent military force that employs our main character, Sousuke.
My Opinion: Awesome. The animation quality is a little above average in the first season, then goes way up for the second. Fumoffu, the "third" (it takes place during the second), is basically all the filler episodes they could have put into the second season but didn't (yay!) The whole series is immensely amusing, however, as Mr. Martial (the pilot, Sousuke Sagara) tries to adapt to everyday life so he can be Kaname Chidori's bodyguard. It's very well-done, with pretty constant character development and nice plotline. The leaves a bit to be desired, perhaps, though I like the ending song for the first season enough that I got it, and I like the opening of The Second Raid.
My Rating: 9.5

RECORD OF THE LODOSS WAR
Premise: After a battle between two gods, the world was left in an uproar, and the country of Lodoss was divided into many city-states. Both gods were knocked out of the ring after their battle, so other than working through their clerics, they can do nothing. The war left most people without magic, since that war also was between mages and normal people (who were kind of like their slaves at the time), and so the mages mostly passed out of existence. However, one in particular survived by possessing different bodies throughout time. There are two swords, one dark and one light, imbued with special powers by the two opposing gods. These swords have the ability to slay dragons and conquer armies, and this sorceress (Karla is her name, I believe) intends to gain possession of one of them, and then use another item found in a dragon's lair to resurrect her dark goddess. In her way stands Parn, a young son of a soldier who has never had any official training, Deedlit, an elf who falls in love with him, Ghim, an old dwarf who travels with them, Etoh, a cleric of the goddess of light, Woodchuck (for a bit), a thief, Orson, a berserker, Slain, a sorcerer, and Leylia, a priestess. (Note: they all aren't together at once - they come and go throughout the story. We start with Ghim, Deedlit, and Parn, then add Slain, and things happen, some leave, new ones join) They must find the mysterious object and stop war from overtaking Lodoss once again.
My Opinion: Great! It's done in a bit of an older style (it is a little old, though not too much), but the animation quality is nice enough, and the music is rather nice. Classical in nature - think the music of LOTR, if you want a feel for it. The story is a bit predictable, in my opinion, though not bad, and definitely had the epic feel down pat.
Note: they remade this into an OAV - Record of the Lodoss War: Chronicles of the Heroic Knight. Don't watch this. They kid-ified it. It's weird. Opening and ending songs are nice, though. Same with the original - I liked them both. ^__^
My Rating: 8

EUREKA SEVEN
Premise: Wow. Where do I start? A kid who's father was a hero, a girl with a secret past, a mecha they both pilot. A group of people who stole said mech (and others) and a ship from the government/military and are working against their propoganda while trying to find a peaceful solution to the worlds most hidden and crucial cirses: sharing the space with another sentient being, the Coralians. That's as much as I can say without writing a novella...
My Opinion: Awesomeness on a stick! However, it's not for you if you're impatient with long series. It's 50 episodes, and there are a good number of filler, but the filler is still interesting enough that I watched them without feeling too much like I wanted things to move along more. It is slow, to put it plainly. However, if you're ok with that, then there's a great deal of plot and character development to be had. Usually a series will be heavy in one or the other, but given the length, they can capitalize on both! The music is nice, complementing the action on screen well, though I don't remember it very much. I do have the OST's, and I really like the Shounen Heart opening (first, by Uverworld) and the last opening, and some of the in-episode music is good, though some is repetitive to listen to on its own. Animation quality is awesome - but given who's animating it, it's not not unexpected (done by Bones animation).
My Rating: 8.5

ROZEN MAIDEN: TRAUMEND
Premise: Second season of Rozen Maiden, this season focuses more on Shinku's emotions, as the actual Alice Game starts, and the battle commences. A couple new characters are introduced, including Barasuishou and Kanaria, and the overall alloting of power starts taking effect. **SPOILER ALERT FOR FIRST SEASON** Lines are drawn and Shinku is faced with the horror of destroying one of her own (Suigintou), and comes to the conclusion that she will not fight. However, the battle is brought to her, and she has little choice is doing something...right?
My Opinion: Pretty good. I'm not sure I'm fond of this concentration on one character for each season - it's ok, but I'd much rather have development on more character's levels than just on one character. Like...what about Jun in this season? He's there, but he doesn't grow much in this season, and we don't learn much more about his ability to fix Rozen Maidens (like in the last season, with Shinku). However, it is interesting, and by the end a LOT of stuff happens, so I'd reccomend watching it if you liked the first. In other areas, the animation's pretty much the same as last time, the music - I really like the ending, but the opening, also done by Ali Project, same as first, is...spazzy, same as the first season's opening. (opening and ending animations are fun to watch, though)
My Rating: 8

ZERO NO TSUKAIMA
Premise: Saito, your normal Japanese student, is summoned to a magical world by Louise, a student of magic who has never successfully completed a spell, to be her familiar. As such, he must learn to be a familiar (everyone else has an animal familiar). In the world view, we have a power-hungry Duke (or something) in a nearby country that wants power, and so plots to overthrow the current royalty, and then continue taking over other countries around them, including the country that Louise and Saito are in.
My Opinion: Good lord, don't watch it. It was so horrible... I don't mean to say to watch it was to want to commit suicide, but of all the ones I watched this last season, it was the most predictable and least interesting. I was hoping, as I was watching it, that there would be more depth to it, and there never was. They never went very deep at all... The music was forgettable, the animation ok, the story, well, like I said, shallow and predictable. There you have it.
My Rating: 5

NEW ONES THIS SEASON
Where I put up some info on new one's I'm following or at least checked out.
BLACK BLOOD BROTHERS
Premise: Vampires vs. humans. They're trying (ish) to live together, though a lot of humans are anti-vampire, though we haven't seen a lot on the vampire side of things. Our main character, Jirou, is an Old Blood vampire, and loved a human. This world has rather traditional vampire settings, with vampires of certain bloodlines living together in clans and forming 'families' that are extremely close. Weird point: most vampire books have this thing where when a human's blood is taken, they experience...pleasure. Weird thing is they do actual show that in the show so far. Slightly...hm. Borderline hentai? It's not hentai, but it's kinda interesting they actual show it. And weird.
The story is about, so far, Jirou and his little brother, Kotarou, getting to Japan and the Special Zone, which is a place for vampires to live without humans and in peace, apparently. There is more story behind Jirou - he had a family ten years ago, apparently, with the woman he loved and another vampire named Cassa - but something happened, the one he loved died and Cassa abandoned him and made a new family. Now it's just him and his new younger brother, Kotarou. Animation's fine, music - opening sucks, ending rocks. *meh*

D GRAY MAN
This is the first anime I've watched from manga to anime. I really hope they don't mess this up. Akuma - machines run on the energy of a soul brought back from death - exist to destroy humanity and bring about the next destruction of the world (like in Noah's Ark's story of the bible), and akuma are created by the Millenium Earl. In there way are exorcists who utilize the power of Innocence to fight them (what is Innocence? I'm still in the dark on this one. I have NO BLOODY CLUE. They kinda pulled it out of nowhere; it has no biblical reference. They are weapons that synchronize with their user, some just plain weapons, some weapons that are inside their users body and transform their user when they fight.) In any case, the characters are cool and the story is engaging. The opening song's cool, though I always skip the ending. Animation's average (TT__TT), though so far they're staying with the manga story-wise, which makes me very happy. And the style of drawing is close to the manga, too, which also makes me happy. ^__^ I only hope they don't mess it up. More on this later!

KANON
I didn't watch the original. However, this is done by Kyo Animation, so there's going to be no doubt as to which is going to be a better quality. I'm pretty much only watching this because it's pretty. I harbor no illusions. I may not even be interested in the plot (seeing as I only have one episode, I don't know yet). On a side note, if you watched Air, you'll watch the first episode and be forcibly reminded of it. And I don't mean "oh, that kinda resembled such-and-such from Air." I mean "Holy shit, this IS AIR." Not a snowball in the face. AN AVALANCHE. WITH STONES IN IT. AND TREES. Even the music sounds the same... O_o Well, we'll see how it goes. I certainly liked Air (though, just to let you know, in retrospec, I'd rank it closer to a 9, not the 10 I originally gave it).

AVATAR
Ok, so I know it's an American anime, but I like it, dang it! And I don't feel like rating the first season. *lazy* So whatever. It's awesome. What more? Well, yeah, there are a lot of filler, but it's cute and it's nice to have matching lips, for once. Quality's not bad, and music can vary from average to good. I just wish they'd get rid of that irritating introduction, already. It's second season, man, I think we know what's going on!! Anyway, yeah, just go watch it already.

BUSOU RENKIN
I'm not sure about this one - I just started watching it. However, it looks amusing. ^__^ So we'll see what happens. It appears there are some specific with powers, and our main characters of course have them. The girl is trained with it, and knows what's going on, and the guy doesn't, really. He kinda...dies in the first episode. The girl gives him a kakugane, a kind of artificial heart, and it also gives him the powers he can use. Oh, and people get turned into monsters, basically, when certain things attack the spinal cord and take over the body. These monsters and the people who make them are what our characters are fighting against. It's a little weird though, since they steal a lot of terms from FMA, with alchemy and homonculi. But it's rather fun. ^__^
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