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.

Like the Animatrix DVD which was released after the Matrix movie trilogy, Halo Legends is comprised of stories produced by some of the best anime producers in Japan, such as Bones, Casio Entertainment, Production I.G., Studio 4°C, and Toei Animation.

But unlike the Animatrix, the anime in Halo Legends is more like a hit or miss affair. Some of the stories and animation is great but some are not so. I think what the producers did is to cater to a wide range of anime styles, which is why there are some episodes that are very artististic, serious and has great production values while there are some that tries to be funny and is targetted to a more younger audience, like the one produced by Toei Animation that has a lot of Dragonball elements, such as super-powered beings. Just imagine Goku hanging out with a Spartan!

The gems in this DVD is “The Duel” and “The Package”, which was done by Production I.G and Casio Entertainment, respectively.

The Duel follows an Arbiter named Fal who does not want to follow the Covenant religion, which irked one of the Prophets, who accuses Fal of heresy. The Prophet then sends another Elite to kill Fal’s wife in order to drag him to a trap.

This episode is classic Production I.G, having very strong action scenes and a stylized approach to the animation. It’s like watching a water-colored painting come to life. Very cool!

The last episode is The Package and is purely 3D CGI animation. Although the animation of the characters is sometimes stiff, the non-stop action more than makes up for some of this episode’s shortcomings.

All in all, this DVD would really cater only to the Halo fanboys, but if you still want to watch this and skip some of the lamer episodes and just watch the good stuff, then I highly recommend The Duel and The Package.

Rating: 5/10

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

After watching this movie, I must say that it is exactly what I expected. A Japanese B-movie with a weak story, lackluster acting, lots of swordfighting and hot Japanese chicks. Its almost like they made a movie so they can showcase a bikini-wearing babe swinging a katana. But you can’t fault the producers of this movie for that ‘cos they based this movie on a video game. And that is exactly what you have here. Lots of zombies to kill with a big boss fight at the end. Somewhere in the middle though, the movie explains a little bit of the back story for the lead character Aya (Eri Otoguro), her sidekick Katsuji and their traveling companion Reiko (Manami Hashimoto) and why they’re out killing zombies. Like duh! Do you really need a reason to kill zombies?

The movie isn’t just R-rated for the gratuitous violence, fake blood and cheesy special effects but also for a nude topless scene. Too bad it doesn’t involve Aya or her companion Reiko but some no-name girl extra who did a love scene with an equally no-name guy extra before they get attacked by zombies. After which, they become zombies too. Nice touch.

It’s hard to say what type of audience the producers are aiming for for this movie. Is it the gamers or the B-movie watchers? Or maybe both. So, if you liked Jap B-movies such as Princess Blade or Machine Girl, then this movie is for you. But if you like good, beautifully choreographed action movies with sword-fighting chicks in them like Hero, House of Flying Daggers or even So Close, then better look elsewhere.

Otherwise, if all you want to see is the gorgeous Eri Otoguro in a two-piece red bikini showing off her hot bod, then by all means watch this movie… or just view/ drool over her pics here. Your choice.

Rating: 6.9/10

It’s still too early to say which anime is highly recommended or not since most of them are still in their early episodes but having watched some of these early episodes, I’ll just give you a short review of what to expect for each series.

Casshern Sins

I had strong apprehensions about this one at first since I’ve watched the live-action Casshern movie before and although that live-action movie had strong visuals and good action scenes, it was too brooding with long drawn-out scenes that can put an audience to sleep.

Casshern Sins is also guilty at times of those brooding long drawn-out scenes thanks to its main emo character, Casshern, but it also has some very interesting characters that gives the story life. Not to mention that the animation and the visuals in this anime is top-notch. Think dark post-apocalyptic earth with 70’s-style anime but done fluidly.

Review based on: Episode 1
Preview Rating: 8/10

Ga-Rei -Zero-

This one started off OK, but when it came to the action scenes… they play Techno music in the background?! I’m not saying I don’t like Techno, I love it. But when you use it as background music in what is supposed to be a supernatural horror scene, it doesn’t work. It simply doesn’t work! What did they expect the spirits/ghosts to do? Dance like in Michael Jackson’s Thriller video?! @_@

The animation was fluid and the story and character designs were OK but I just didn’t like the music they chose for some scenes. I was about to rub this series off when the ending just blew me away. It ended on such a cliffhanger that you have no choice but to watch the next episode.

Review based on: Episode 1
Preview Rating: 7/10

To Arusu Majutsu no Index

Ahhh… this one I like! ^_^ It had all the elements needed to make a good anime series but didn’t stick to too much cliche and still gave a refreshing twist to everything. You probably already know the drill by now… high school boy meets an unknown girl with powers due to weird circumstances… high school boy has a quarrel/ fight with girl school mate… high school boy gets into a fight with unknown people trying to kill the unknown girl… etc.

Sounds familiar? This scenario has been done a lot of times already in other anime like Fate/ Stay Night and Shakugan no Shana. But does those anime suck? Nope. And so does To Arusu Majutsu no Index. It has enough new twists and elements that make it fresh but familiar at the same time.

Review based on: Episode 1 and 2
Preview Rating: 9/10

Kemeko DX

This one’s weird! Hilarious but weird!

Just take a look at that pic… a nice voluptous young girl goes into a sort of humanoid-mecha (Kemeko) that is so ugly that it would make Dolores Umbridge in Harry Potter look like Jessica Alba in comparison! @_@

Oh, why couldn’t she just use that mecha just for fighting? Instead, she stays inside Kemeko 99% of the time! Even when she goes to bed and invites Sanpeita for *censored*, she’s still inside Kemeko! But that’s actually what makes the scene really funny. Add to that, Sanpeita’s sister catches them in bed together! WAHAHAHA! XD

Animation at times wasn’t that good. Some scenes looked drab and washed out. But still, you have to watch this just for the pure comedic factor.

Review based on: Episode 1 and 2
Preview Rating: 8/10

Shikabane Hime: Aka

The only reason I watched this is because Gainax made it. If it were made by any other production outfit, I wouldn’t have given this a second look. But seeing as Gainax has a stellar track record, I gave this one a try.

The 1st episode didn’t give that strong an impact as the 1st episodes of Evangelion and Gurren Lagann, but it still gave a good first impression and it will be interesting to see how this series turns out.

Review based on: Episode 1
Preview Rating: 7/10

Tales of the Abyss

Thank God this didn’t turn out like some other RPG-turned-anime series such as Shining Tears x Wind, which is just pure crap. >.<

Although the intro is plagued with too many convulted terms and a somewhat hard to understand storyline, you’ll soon learn that the story revolves around a Prince and that the world is divided between two kingdoms at war.

The animation is pretty good and the action scenes done well. It still has some elements of RPG like partying and killing random monsters in the forest, but judging from the first two episodes, this one seems to have a good plot and is very watchable unlike the aforementioned craptastic Shing Tears x Wind! >_<

Review based on: Episode 1 and 2
Preview Rating: 8/10

Toradora

Although a romantic-comedy anime isn’t what I usually watch, this one is an exception. The lead characters are interesting enough and the story does its best to give you a slice-of-life of what it’s like being a love-struck high-school student.

Review based on: Episode 1
Preview Rating: 8/10

Kurogane no Linebarrel

What a big disappointment this is! Out of all the new animes to be shown, this is the one I was looking forward to the most. Thanks in part to the cool mecha designs. But sadly, those mecha designs is the only saving grace for this anime.

The story and characters has pure cliché written all over it. The plot is so predicatable that its not even worth mentioning. And the lead character comes off as cheesy! “Hero of Justice”?! O_O I think not! If it was Zero (Code Geass) who would say he’s a “hero of justice”, it would sound cool and with conviction. But if it was Kouichi, the lead character in Kurogane no Linebarrel, who says it, it just sounds lame.

Epic fail! ’nuff said.

BTW, the Linebarrel mecha still looks cool and I’m definitely gonna buy a model kit of that. ^^

Review based on: Episode 1
Preview Rating: 5/10

Gundam 00 Season 2

This is a no brainer! I love Gundam 00 Season 1, and Season 2 just picks off where Season 1 ended, so this is a must watch series for me! ^_^

Review based on: Season 2 Episode 1 and the whole of Season 1
Preview Rating: 10/10

I’ve been holding off on doing this review for a long time (re: too lazy) but seeing as how “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time” is becoming popular nowadays (its been shown this year at UP-AME and in several anime/ film festivals in the US), I might as well write up my own review. ^^

I first saw the poster pic for this movie last year and thought that this might be a good anime to watch but then forgot about it. =p

I then saw this anime mentioned in one of Danny Choo’s older posts and that sparked my interest enough to go and look for this anime. After watching the film, I can easily say that this is one of the best anime movies I’ve seen in a long time. I’d even go so far as to rank it up there with the best Hayao Miyazaki films. It is that good.   It’s so good, in fact, that it won several awards already and was recognized as “Animation of the Year” at the 2007 Tokyo International Anime Fair.

This film doesn’t have the extravagant effects of some Miyazaki films such as Howl’s Moving Castle but instead it has one of the most endearing characters to be drawn in anime and a story that’ll move you to tears. The lead character, Makoto Konno, is your typical Japanese high school girl who gains the ability to literally “leap” through time and that’s what most of the film focuses on, time travel and the consequences of having such an ability, which reminds me a lot of the Hollywood movies on time travel such as “Somewhere in Time“, “The Time Machine” and “Groundhog Day“, all of which has a love story background hidden in the premise of a time-travel movie.

What sets The Girl Who Leapt Through Time apart is that you’d never know that it has a love story in it from the beginning. It’s only towards the end of the movie that you’ll realize all the events that transpired were building up to its tear-jerking climax. T____T

Anyway, enough spoilers and go watch this movie!

Rating: 10/10

Full trailer below.

Links:
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time – Wikipedia entry
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (movie) – ANN

After watching this movie and then seeing the ending say “To be continued”, I was like “huh?!” @_@

I thought that this movie was a stand-alone synopsis of the entire series of Neon Genesis Evangelion, but then I thought that would be almost impossible to do since cramming 26 episodes of the TV series into one 3+ hour movie would leave a lot of holes in the story, granted that Evangelion is already a complicated anime series as it is.

After a little bit of googling, I found out that there are 4 movies to Rebuild of Evangelion and that the next one (Evangelion: 2.0 Division) will be out next year. Since this 1st movie was released last year, the time in between movies should have been shorter considering that they’ve reused most of the animation from the TV series. Rebuild of Evangelion 1.0 is basically a retelling of the 1st 6 episodes of the TV series, but more condensed and with a lot of CGI work done. The CGI rework doesn’t distract much from the story but when done in the right places, such as when Tokyo-3 rises up from the ground, you can’t help but say “whoah!”.

Thankfully, Rebuild of Eva still retained those moments where Shinji is portrayed as a troubled and lonely individual, which is an integral part of the story and is the basis for his inner conflict in piloting EVA-01. As for the design of EVA-01 and the Angels, well, if you’ve seen the original TV series, then you’ll probably notice some changes, such as with the weapons EVA-01 uses and most especially with the fifth Angel, Ramiel.

If you’ve watched the original TV series of Evangelion and loved it, then you’ll definitely need to see Rebuild of Evangelion, as it has captured all that made the original series great! Since this is still the 1st movie and there’ll still be 3 more movies after this, judging from how this 1st movie turned out, I think this 4 movie series is a must-watch for any EVA fan!

Rating: 10/10

When I first heard Soul Eater’s premise, I thought “hmmmm… another anime focusing on Shinigami… how very original… NOT!”. Well anyway, the Shinigami in this anime is just one character and he really is the Death God. But the anime doesn’t revolve around him but instead it revolves around the students at Shibusen, a school being run by who else, but Shinigami! Students at Shibusen is comprised into two groups, Meister and Weapon. Before the school term starts, each student is asked if he/she is a Meister or a Weapon. One Meister will then partner up with a Weapon and it will be the job of the Meister to collect 99 evil souls and 1 witch’s soul to transform his/ her partner (Weapon) into a more powerful weapon which can be used by Shinigami.

There are 3 main partner groups (Meister and Weapon/s) that the anime focuses on and most of the time each episode would just show one partner group’s adventures but there are also times when the anime would show them as a group, as when they converge in Shibusen for their classes.

Maka Albarn (Meister) is one of the top students at Shibusen and her father is actually Shinigami’s main weapon. Her partner is Soul Eater (Weapon) whose weapon form is a deathscythe, same as Maka’s dad.

Black Star (Meister) is the only remaining member of the Star clan, which is sort of a ninja clan and his partner is Tsubaki, who is the only Weapon (so far in the anime), which has different weapon forms. If you have been watching the series, you would see how she gains the ability to take on a new weapon form.

Last would be Death the Kid, who is actually Shinigami’s own son. Kid is somewhat of a control freak and has a very obsessive-compulsive disorder involving symmetry. Kid is also the only one who has two Weapons/ partners, Liz and Patty Thompson, a.k.a. The Thompson Sisters. Appropriately, the Thompson sisters turns into identical guns.

The first few episodes of the series would just focus on one group and their adventures, which is sort of an introduction to the main characters. It also had a lot of comedy, which almost led me to believe that this was a more comical version of Naruto or Bleach. But then, the later episodes showed more action and was more serious this time. It still had a touch of comedy but it wasn’t as often and as hilarious as the first few episodes.

Overall, this is one of the best animes to be shown this year and since Bleach is now on a filler arc, I’ve been looking forward to watching Soul Eater every week.

Rating: 9/10