I was afraid of this. It may be the new trends to deliver up pure fan service. Now, I may be jumping the gun with this one, as there has only been one episode, but it is a fan service delight of perversity and voyeurism.

It starts off with Haruko Amaya in her school uniform, which is too tight in the blouse and too short in the skirt, so it shows off her interesting assets (no, she does not look like what’s above, but you shan’t be disappointed.) She gives some song and dance about how it is best to remain in shape and proceeds to do sit-ups in her school uniform, so you can watch her Balcony shimmy and shudder with every hoist. We eventually change angle, so it could be gynecological review, as we can see that she wears coffee-colored pantyhose, which is still not dark enough to disguise that she wears blue-and-white striped underwear.

Then, she has the temerity to chide us for not paying attention to what she is doing. Oh, honey, I am paying FULL attention.

With sit-up done, we now shift to push ups, as they help build your upper…..arms! Wait, how can she do that with those two zeppelins in docking mode? No problem, she just goes all the way down and squashing them right against the floor. Now, I can’t do a decent push up, as I have something in the way! (more…)

Horror has a big problem: balance. Show too little horror and people feel cheated. Show too much and they get turned off by the gore. Shiki tries this balancing act and it ultimately falls apart, but it did its best.

The story opens up in Sotoba, a rural village in the mountains, one of those ‘the road in is the road out’ type of town and everyone knows everyone and everything about everything. Another hot summer has descended and school has concluded for the break. Megumi Shimizu wants out of this place, longing for the bright lights and big city, perhapsTokyo, but she knows that is not going to happen, now or later.

She runs into the mysterious Kirishiki family, who has moved into the massive and impressive Kanemasa mansion that overlooks the town. Megumi disappears and later turns up dead, for no really apparent reason. She was anemic, but not enough to kill her.

Then slowly, ever so slowly, people are dying off. In a place where one or two deaths a year are expected, we are getting into one or two deaths a week. Is there an epidemic? Some kind of contagion?  An undefined disease?

The local doctor, Toshio Ozaki, who took over the clinic from his father, is baffled at what is going on and has no immediate answers. Not even the priest, Seishin Muroi, has an answer. Or does he? (more…)

There is often a complaint that anime is broken into two camps of female characters: the  shrinking violet girl and the tough as nails woman. The problem I have with the Toughie is that there is nothing ever soft about them. They are cold and hard and angular, although, for this show, it is a requirement.

“Murder Princess” is about Princess Alita. Her father, the king of Forland, is killed in a coup, foisted by the country’s former leading scientist, Dr. Akamashi and his two robotic minions, Ana and Yuna. As dad dies, he sends out Alita to find her brother, Prince Kaito, who is leading a diplomatic excursion to another land.

As she tries to complete her mission, she falls off a cliff, pursued by evil forces, with the nortorious female bounty hunter, Falis, joining her in their descent into demise. This near-death experience causes them to switch bodies and Falis is able to dispatch some of the local nasties, along with HER two minions, Dominikov and Pete Armstrong, (the former is a kind of shikigami, the latter a strongman).

Alita begs of Falis to return to the castle and defeat the forces that have taken it, but Falis has more important things to do. There are castles to rob and noblemen to hold up and all kinds of treasures to plunder. However, in return for the services, Alita offers Falis her body and soul (now, whether you want to take this as a caliber of yaoi or mere servitude, that is up to you). (more…)

This is one wild and crazy show that needs multiple viewings to make certain that you can figure out what it all means. You may fail, but this is a show that keeps you on your toes.

The basic plot is about Naota Nandaba (he’s the one in blue at the bottom). He lives in Mabase, a suburb ofTokyo. The city scenery is dominated by the Medical Mechanica building, which looks like a giant flatiron and I mean GIANT. While standing on a bridge, talking with Mamimi Samejima (ex-girl friend of Naota’s older brother, the smoker at the far left), Haruko Haruhara bursts onto the scene,  running Naota over with her Vespa scooter, then giving him CPR and finally hitting him on the head with a blue vintage Rickenbacher 4001 left-handed electric bass guitar (that dead-center maniac).

This creates a horn on his head, from which later on, a robot emerges from it. Now, if that wasn’t bad enough, Haruhara turns up to be a live-in maid at his house, making an already bad situation even worse for him. And from there, things get progressively stranger. Yes, it DOES get progressively stranger.

Can one really codify the show and not give away huge chunks of the plotting?  I mean, it is only six episodes and it a show that requires a real intensity of watching, because if you miss something, you really miss something. And since it moves at this breakneck pacing, playing catch-up is something you really don’t want to do. (more…)

Every so often, a show comes along that captivates and attracts and “Mushi-Shi” was that for me. From the very first episode, I was involved. Yes, it had the potential of turning into the “Monster of the Week”, but it was handled with such a deft hand that it never felt like that and, more importantly, you really connected with the characters who were in need.

The overall story is about Ginko, who is a Mushi Master. Mushi are beings with supernatural powers. Some are symbiotic, some are parasitic, but all are troublesome to some degree. His job, as he wanders the Japanof the late 19^th century, is to help people who are afflicted with these Mushi. What makes things worse is that regular people cannot see them. Ginko is ‘gifted’ (and whether it is a gift or a curse is for you to decide), but he cannot stay too long in any area, as he becomes a magnet for them and things really get out of control as a dangerous amount of them throw things out of balance.

He carries on his back a wooden box which has all that he needs and jars to capture a few Mushi or remnants of them. He knows Adashino, a caliber of medicine man and scholar who wants these items. Oh, don’t let his constant smoking bother you; it is done to keep the Mushi at bay. (more…)

Is this photo too risqué? Then you haven’t seen this OVA at all! The show makes this snap look like ‘Mary Poppins’.

Now, the plot of ‘Ladies vs. Butlers’ was a young man wants to better himself, but has a hard time of it, as he is surrounded by luscious ladies. The point of this OVA is letting you see them naked, as they coo on ‘I’m so embarrassed’. More like ‘I’m so bare-assed’.

Not a single ‘episode’ gets to four minutes, but I will tell you that there is something unsettling about seeing them gyrate about and lose their clothes and pose about and…..why are their butts so shiny?

I mean, since a lot of these girls come from rich families, I assume there is a servant has polishes up their derrieres. I would love to have that job: pulling out the Butt Buffer and running it over their fine, soft skin until it veritably shines in the sunlight and……..but I digress (or do I?)

You have to understand my take on these things. I really do not need anime to fuel my fantasies. Fan service is something that is meant as a treat, not as the whole dinner, so when you get something like this, I don’t know how to take it. It’s not goofy enough to be funny, but it’s too overt to be honestly sexy. I actually feel for them when they say they are embarrassed. It is like being at a strip club, for all that it’s worth. (more…)

I have an assumption that with a short-run show, since you are not really coming back to anything and you are going to crash and burn somewhere on the journey, you can go all out and leave only destruction in your wake. It’s just that the opportunity to see these kinds of shows are limited and if you do not know what to look for (or where to find it) a lot of stuff gets passed over. And since many channels are not going to take on a four- or six-segment show, it behooves you to find it. Oh, and this one is only two episodes, so you are really on your own to try and get to it.

“Puni Puni Poemy” is brought to you by the same maniacs that delivered “Excel Saga”. (In fact, in one Excel episode, they make reference to this show). It has all the hallmarks one sees in a short run: perversity, insanity, pointlessness, massive fan service and a ‘take no prisoners’ attitude. In this show, it works, but you will be scratching your head a lot. And it is an intentional two episodes. Think of one of those inverted roller coaster, but with no safety equipment. It’s all up to you to hang on. (more…)

Do you remember that scene from “Young Frankenstein” where Gene Wilder is in bed, tossing and turning with anxiety? Then he cries out “All right, you win. You win. I give. I’ll say it. I’ll say it. I’ll say it. DESTINY! DESTINY! NO ESCAPING THAT FOR ME! DESTINY! DESTINY! NO ESCAPING THAT FOR ME!

I give up. It’s that I feel many animes are going overboard with the fan services to the point that the show is impaired from being as good as it could be. Now, it seems some have dropped the pretense and are pure fan service, so if you are on the prowl for such offerings, here you go.

I have always had problems with Ikki Tousen in the fan service aspect of it. I mean, we are talking major league perversion. In the first series, Ikki has no concept of undergarments and is, for the most part, naked, her gigantic jugs heaving about for guys to grope and grab, and the guys grope and grab, as her gigantic jugs are heaving about. Forget conjugating verbs! And when these ladies fight, they are pretty much denuded while in their combat mode. I gave this the highest rating on my ecchi meter, not just merely for the nakedness, but the other aspects of it, mainly intent and implication. (more…)

This is a strange series (not “Eiken” strange, more strangely strange or oddly weird). Kekko Kamen is a parody of Gekko Kamen. It was originally a joke that Go Nagai, the original manga artist for this, expected the production company to deny. Instead, they embraced it whole-heartedly. Rather odd for 1991, both in idea and content. And all accomplished in a mere four episodes.

We find ourselves at the Toenail of Satan’s Spartan Academy of Higher Education (and try and get THAT on a bumper sticker if your child was an honor student), where students are put through rigorous educational and testing travails that serve no real purpose other than to abuse and denigrate. Our heroine in question, Mayumi Takahashi (topless, lower right), is really not that good of a student. Whether she lacks the wherewithal to be a better student or the academic structure does not allow her to thrive or perhaps she is misdiagnosed and really has ADD or some other learning disability, she is constantly at the bottom of her class. When the Midnight Test Session goes badly for her, she is removed by her teacher (the man dressed in hospital scrubs, including the face mask) and confronted by the Principal (The Toenail of Satan, another masked man who wear a jester mask; the two guys in upper right) who then proceeds to sexually humiliate our hapless scholar. She is trussed up with chains, spread-eagled across a wall, frantically awaiting her fate.

A new female teacher of discipline (who looks suspiciously like a Nazi of some caliber or ilk; that is her getting clobbered in lower left) comes in and proceeds to remove Mayumi’s clothing with a whip, stripping it away lash by lash. Before the final action can be done, before she is completely denuded, the Teutonic Terror is stopped by….Kekko Kamen! (more…)

This is what I consider to be part of the ‘new wave’ of anime. Now, I haven’t been watching anime as long or as intently as others, but I can still spot a trend and I do not really like things as they are going down. I gave a kind of partial comment of this show a while back, but I wanted to give this series a full opportunity to prove itself. It did, but not how I wanted it to go down.

The full title is “Maken-Ki – Battling Venus” (Pronounce that word ‘mockin’, as you feel that that you are being mocked).

Takeru Ohyama (the dweeb in the lower right corner) has been accepted into TenbiAcademy, which recently went co-ed. He knows absolutely nothing of the school, save that it would accept him. He meets Haruko Amaya (the one with the kendo staff in the center), who is an old childhood friend, but circumstances have kept them apart for at least three years. When he meets her, he is surprised that she has a massive pair of breasts on her…grown into a beautiful and mature woman. (more…)