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On the surface, Angel Beats! might look like your typical High School-type anime, given that the setting is a High School. But don’t let that fool you as this is not actually a real High School but the Afterlife, which means that all the characters are already dead and living out a semi-normal existence in purgatory masquerading as a high school.

The series starts off with Otonashi waking up next to a sniper-wielding school girl, Yurippe, who’s trying to recruit him to the “I-Ain’t-Dead-Yet Battlefront”. She also explains to Otonashi that he’s already dead and that the purpose of their Battlefront is to fight an angel, Tenshi, who is actually the School Council President. Their reason for fighting is not to get obliterated or disappear, which only happens if you have no more regrets from your past life. Tenshi as the School Council President is there to enforce school rules and make you accept a normal high school existence, which if you do means that you’ll disappear.

The Battlefront, headed by Yurippe along with a bunch of idealistic followers, doesn’t want to accept being “obliterated” due to their belief that they might be reincarnated as something else other than human, like say, a Barnacle. So, their ultimate goal is to obliterate Tenshi and seize the world that they’re living in.

To say that Angel Beats! is all original would be incorrect since it clearly sticks to some well worn standard anime conventions but what it does best is to turn those ideas upside down and come up with something new. Case in point would be the high school band in this series, GDM (Girls Dead Monster), which is clearly influenced by other animes featuring girl bands, such as K-ON. But what makes Angel Beats! different is that GDM is actually just a diversion for when the Battlefront fights Tenshi. The music still rocks, though! ^^

As such, I have to say that Angel Beats! is one of the best new animes I have seen this year as it completely turns some tried and true anime conventions on its head and gives us something new and fun to watch. Too bad that it’s only 13 episodes long.

Good things just never last.

Rating: 10/10

No, this isn’t a review about the game Halo, but rather a collection of anime short stories revolving around the universe of Halo.

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Here we go again.

Or maybe not.

After announcing an Afro Samurai sequel middle of last year, fans have been eagerly anticipating another over-the-top slashfest by the bad mutherfucker Afro in the movie sequel, Afro Samurai: Resurrection! But after seeing this sequel, I’m guessing those fans will just be better off watching again the original 5 episodes of Afro Samurai instead.

The animation for this movie, like the original 5 episode series, is still excellent and top-notch. The big problem is… that this sequel doesn’t live up to the original series. First off is that they made the sequel into a movie, thus shortening the length of the anime and the story. Afro gets to kill lesser bad guys and the story seems to be compressed just so that it could fit into the time-frame of a movie. Another thing that bothered me is the glaring lack of originality in some scenes. Take for instance, the opening scene which is almost a direct rip-off of the opening scene of another samurai classic, Ninja Scroll.

And during a fight with the wearer of the No. 2 headband, Afro runs away from the fight! @_@ Damn! Afro got soft! And he’s supposed to be a bad mutherfucker. Tsk tsk!

Add to that is the fact that Lucy Liu’s character, Sio, isn’t at all convincing as the tormented nemesis of Afro, who’s only goal is to make Afro suffer first before killing him. Sure, Sio’s brother Kuma suffered a lot ‘cos of what Afro did in the original series, but Sio herself wasn’t physically hurt in any way. We’re supposed to believe that Sio suffered mentally ‘cos of what Afro did? Hmmm… no dice.

And with the way that Sio is portrayed in the anime, with that hawt sezzy body and all… she has no nude scene?! How disappointing! ….. Oops! O_O

In conclusion, if you want a real samurai slashfest, go watch the original 5 episode Afro Samurai or Ninja Scroll instead. ‘Nuff said.

Rating: 7/10

Forgive me if this review is gonna be full of spoilers but I don’t think there’s any other way to review this anime if I don’t give some of the plot away.

First off, I did a preview of this back in October of last year during its initial episode. I initially gave that episode a rating of 7/10 due to its cliff-hanger ending. If it weren’t for that ending, I wouldn’t have continued watching the rest of the series and probably missed one of the better animes released during the last quarter of 2008.

At first, I thought that the series was about this group of highly-trained government agents whose job is to eradicate or exorcise evil spirits using different kinds of weapons. Later though, they all get killed by a katana-wielding highschool girl. The second episode then would show the real major characters of the series, such as Kagura Tsuchimiya and Yomi Isayama, the highschool girl who kills everyone in the first episode.

Like the first episode, the second episode would also end in a cliffhanger with Kagura and Yomi battling each other and where Yomi finally captures Kagura and is about to kill her.

Now this is where it gets frustrating and rewarding at the same time. The 3rd episode flashes back to 3 years ago when Yomi and Kagura first met. The rest of the episode and all the succeeding episodes continues from this point on showing the sister-like relationship that blossoms betwen Yomi and Kagura.

Kinda frustrating since you wanna know what happens during Yomi and Kagura’s fight but the producers of this anime probably thought that doing a flashback that builds up to their eventual confrontation would entice the viewers to watch each episode. I think they succeeded on that point since the rest of the series is much better than the first two, where there was a lot of governmental conspiracy nonsense and bureaucratic bull* that isn’t really necessary to drive the story along.

At this point on, the story revolves around Kagura living in with Yomi’s family, who like Kagura’s, is a family of exorcists.

There, Kagura trains under the guidance of Yomi with both wielding special katanas that can kill zombies and other types of evil spirits. Yomi’s katana is a lot more powerful than Kagura’s since it can also summon Ranguren, a lion-like spirit beast that she commands while weilding her katana. It is also this same katana that is handed down from generation to generation in Yomi’s family of exorcists.

Kagura’s family also hands down a material object to each generation that summons a spirit beast but this time, instead of a weapon, its a jewel-like object that can summon Byakuei, the most powerful spirit beast on earth.

The series is paced nicely up to its conclusion but what might disappoint some viewers is that the ending didn’t properly resolve Yomi’s descent into evil. Without giving away too much of a spoiler, the one responsible for Yomi’s change of behavior and subsequent killing spree got away scot-free! After a bit of googling, I found out that this series is actually just the prequel to the manga Ga-Rei (thus, the word “Zero” in the title) and that the real antagonist of this anime will be revealed later on in the manga (and hopefully, in another Ga-Rei series).

Rating: 8/10

Last October, I did a little preview of some of the new anime that came out during that month. One of those anime, Kemeko DX has just finished airing its last episode and below is my full review.

Just like a good, fun party with old friends, it was over before you know it. Kemeko DX ran for only 12 episodes but I have a feeling there’ll be a 2nd season since the anime didn’t really give a satisfying conclusion to the series plus it still had a lot of questions hanging regarding the major characters.

But if you haven’t watched Kemeko DX yet, then let me give you a brief background on what the series is all about. Sanpeita Kobayashi is like any other normal high school kid who sometimes dreams of his childhood crush until one day, a spaceship crash lands into the roof of his room (yes, his room!) and out comes a small fat lady (Kemeko) being chased by mechanical things. She of course, vanquishes all her enemies and later gatecrashes into Sanpeita’s class and proceeds with a wedding ceremony! O_O

Sanpeita later finds out that there’s a girl (M.M.) inside piloting Kemeko and she is just drop-dead gorgeous! Thus, begins Sanpeita’s no longer normal high school life. Add in the sexy, voluptous classmate, annoying kid sister, manga artist mom (wow! that’s a first), katana-wielding babe who tries to destroy Kemeko and Sanpeita then later becomes his classmate and reluctant friend, nerdy otaku classmate, villains from Mishima corporation and an army of Mishima robots and what you have is a potent mix of fun, laughter, gags, action and adventure! Whew!

But what really brings this together is Sanpeita and Kemeko/ M.M.’s chemistry. Much of the laffs involves these two, especially when M.M. tries to seduce Sanpeita while still inside Kemeko. XD In-between the laffs, there’s some action involved where Kemeko protects Sanpeita from Mishima corporation. The action sequences are pretty good and gives the anime a very fast-paced and frenetic flow which jives very well with the comedic sequences.

As expected, 12 episodes isn’t enough to answer some of the questions that viewers will have, like where did M.M. and Kemeko come from and how come she’s always inside Kemeko? The last episode did answer who M.M. was but didn’t give an explanation on why she’s piloting Kemeko in the first place. But in the end, that doesn’t really matter ‘cos the reason you’ll be watching this series from start to end is the endless gags and laffs that each episode brings. Not to mention some fanservice too courtesy of Izumi (Sanpeita’s childhood friend and classmate) and M.M., during the rare times that she’s outside of Kemeko. ^^;

Rating: 9/10