This was a show that started off with a lot of promise, but dissolved into standard tropes and traps of a girl-heavy anime. This is ”Gabriel DropOut” (“Gavurīru Doroppuauto”). We are in Heaven (but I can’t seem to find the gift shop!), attending a graduation ceremony. (more…)

This is a very slow-moving anime, in that most (if not all) of the pieces have to be in place before the ultimate plotting show up. This means really hanging tough until the meat of the deal gets to arrive. This makes for a very odd anime, called “ACCA: 13” (“ACCA 13-ku Kansatsu-ka”, “ACCA: 13-Territory Inspection Dept.”). And, yes, we need that capacious cast to tell this capacious tale that initially looks like a capacious travelogue. (more…)

Yes, this is a brand of magical girl show, done a lot better than the ‘mow-‘em-all-down’ approach we currently have, but not as mindlessly frothy as previous versions. For this go-around, we have “Urara Meirocho” (“Urara Labyrinth City”). You see, Meirocho is a town filled with fortune tellers known as Uraras, who each specialize in different forms of fortune telling (Ooh! Ooh! Can I do tyromancy?) (more…)

Wow, I’ll be honest, I did not think I was going to like and/or enjoy this series, and there were some fits and starts to it, but once it got on track, it became rather compelling. We are talking about “Saga of Tanya the Evil”, (known in Japan as “Yōujo Senki”, “The Military Chronicles of a Little Girl”) and it is not as straight-forward as you might think. (more…)

Second seasons of any show are scary. They are scary as you are not certain if whatever you saw in the first season can be maintained in the second. True, a lot of this is based on however the original manga unfolded itself, but you can take liberties with things. The problem for me with “The Numbers 2” (“Nanbaka 2”) is that it became the Dragonball Z Syndrome: endless fighting amid endless fighting, when we are not endlessly fighting. This is what you get in the second go-around. (more…)