More Than Meets The Eye

Like a lot of people Ninja Scroll was one of the first anime movies I had the luxury of watching.  After observing how unique it was compared to other ‘cartoons’ I had seen over the previous years I began to do research to find similar productions.  Of course, back in the 90’s I didn’t realize a lot of shows I was currently watching were actually imported from Japan.  After learning the difference I understood the first genuine anime show I actually watched was the Original Transformers.

Since then I’ve watched everything from Princess Mononoke, Gungrave, Black Blood Brothers, to more recent stuff such as Kingdom.  I may take a little bit more of an old school approach to stuff I see today in large part due to the fact I believe Xenogears is the best game of all time in my opinion.  I previously played games along with watching anime prior to Xenogears, but it helped facilitate the foundation for my enthusiasm in all things anime/game related when ID tossed the Yggdrasil on Bart. (The graphics are cheesy compared to today’s standards I know.) (more…)

Hello world! Whilest I could start with an apology for my unplanned hiatus due to exams, my new-found python obsession and dealing with Kamikaze monkeys from hell, this review takes precedence. I’ll do the world a favor and get straight to the point.. Zetman sucks. I remember in a previous post I said:

“So the spring season has started and I must say that there are quite a few shows that caught my attention. Zetman for instance 🙂 I love how we have an initial episode giving us some background then in episode 2 we jump 5 years straight into the action.”

Although at episode 2 I felt I was barely keeping up, there seemed to be so much potential in this show that it had to be good right? Wrong. By episode 4 I realized that hey, things were not right. By 8 I confirmed that theory and today, episode 13 I was scratching at the screen screaming ‘MAKE IT STOPP!! DEAR GOD!! MAKE IT STOPPP!!!!!’

The root of the problem is that the original Zetman is basically the cross between a western (Marvel) comic and Japanese manga and while that sounds like a pretty awesome mix, they completely failed at the adaptation into an anime. The main character Jin is…. sigh… (more…)

Pretty 🙂

Air: An Overview

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Air, it’s the story of a homeless man, Yukito, and his journey as he stops in a quaint little town by the beach. He is searching for the Winged Maiden (sounds so pretty, doesn’t it?), a woman his mother would tell him about as a child who was cursed and bound to the sky. He meets a young girl named Misuzu when stopping in this town, and suddenly everything changes for him. So that’s the basic plot line. Now you don’t have to quickly google it before reading this article.

The Air Anime

Story: The anime first appealed to me because it was short at only 13 episodes and because the artwork is stunning. Where the story is concerned, it’s sloppy and all over the place. The Winged Goddess story line is choppy and poorly explained…well maybe it isn’t but I was just bored by the time they got down to specifics. A huge reason for this is the large and pointless cast of secondary characters who are tolerable at their best and horribly annoying at their worst.

Characters: Misuzu, Haruko (Misuzu’s foster mother), and Yukito are all fairly well-developed characters. The problem is the obnoxious bunch of secondary characters who are supposed to make this a more dramatic show but make it slow and all over the place. Misuzu goes beyond your typical cute girl. (more…)