There are a variety of shows that tell a story, but don’t really go anywhere with it. I call them “Pointless Shows”. They aren’t really pointless (not like “Piano”, which was an exquisite waste of time), but go nowhere. “Pani Poni Dash” and “Lucky Star” are two, but rarely do you see one with boys.

“The Daily Lives of High School Boys” really is about (left to right) Hidenori Tabata, Yoshitake Tanaka and Tadakuni (the fourth guy up there is Motoharu, but more on him later) and their regular lives. The episodes are really disjointed, in that they don’t honestly need to be seen in order and they are presented in ‘skits’ (for want of a better term) and run between two and seven minutes.

You come to learn that they are just as perplexed about things (especially girls) as anyone else is. The cast is actually much larger and we don’t always focus on those three, but the results are more or less the same as they muddle from day to day.

Now, there is nothing wrong with the aimless story approach, as it does free one to chase down any angle they see fit and you know as they grow older, they will grow apart, but the journey getting there is fun to watch. You also see a lot of the malarkey and over-thinking that guys do in relationship to absolutely everything they do. It’s a wonder they can get out of bed in the morning, as they are sometimes rather conflicted. (more…)

I am not a big fan of ‘historical’ anime, as they always seem to play fast and loose with the rules. Modern sensibilities, placed on a different era, sometimes equal a show that just doesn’t make it, either as anime or history.

“Shigurui” plays out more like a Kurosawa film, akin to “Rashomon” or “Yojimbo”, but the level of mayhem and violence places it within the realm of “Gantz” or  “Deadman Wonderland”.

The story begins in 1629, as we are seeing a tournament between, perhaps, two of the country’s best swordsmen. However, they are using real swords and not wooden practice ones, so this will be a fight to the death.

The two men participating, Fujiki Gennosuke (who has one arm) and Irako Seigen (who is blind) not only have a history, but each has a history together. The show is a flashback as to how these two ended up here and in their current physical situation.

It all begins at the Kogen dojo, where Gennosuke is the star pupil and Seigen is the brash upstart who puts Gennosuke in his place. Kogan Iwamoto, the head of the dojo is, for most of the year, mentally unbalanced and is slowly rotting away, but for a brief period once a year, he becomes lucid and coherent and makes decisions that affect the dojo for the next year.

Seigen, blinded by his arrogance, carries on an affair with Lady Iku, who is looking for something away from Iwamoto. Well, the sensei finds out, which leads to their physical travails and both are sent packing. However, years later, Seigen comes back, seeing revenge by brutalizing the students of the dojo in savage ways. (more…)

Its been some time since I’ve seen an anime that made me get up lazy self up and write a review. Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai (literally ‘Anohana: The flower we saw that day’  or ‘The Blooming flower of that summer’). Is one of those one in 1,000 anime where from the getgo it has you hooked right up to the end. For those who are familiar with Ano Natsu de Matteru, it was created by the same team and so has a similiar feel throughout.

Like Ano Natsu de Matteru, it revolves around 6 early adolescents and features a love pentagon. The main difference would be that in Anohana. It follows the issue of the death of one of their friends and the repercussions it had her family and everyone around her. It is truly a profound piece of work which (from what I saw in the little research I did) caused of quite a bit of ‘man-tears’ (ill be sure to write up a rant on man-tears later).

The story tells of six young children who drift apart after one (Menma) dies in an accident. Each growing up emotionally affected in one way or the other by the incident. The ghost of Menma appears to one of them (Jinta) who was the so called ‘leader’ of the group back then. Coming to the conclusion that she was unable to pass on and enter heaven because she had an unfulfilled wish here on earth, Jinta rallies the other members of his group to help Menma pass on. Throughout the ordeal, hidden feelings of resentment, envy and love are uncovered as they try to accomplish their goal of sending their lost friend up to heaven. (more…)

Synopsis
Every day life is harsh for high school student Kenichi Shirihama.  Known as the “Olympic Punching Bag” Kenichi has to sneak in and out of school every day to avoid being ejected from the planet by angry martial art thugs, and members of the schools most notorious gang Ragnarok.  While at school, he meets a new student named Miu Furinji, who offers to help him seek out the martial arts training he needs to take care of his ever growing problem of foes.

Weak Knees
The weakest kid is school also happens to be the most naïve in school.  Kenichi is a kid with many names, none of which are good for marketing value.  The story starts off in a somewhat typical Anime fashion that gives viewers a prequel type of buffer for the first few episodes.  The series itself doesn’t really have anything of special significance plot or action wise until around the 10^th episode.  However, Kenichi is also a comedy with plenty of ecchi that TMS Entertainment figures will keep people watching until the story picks-up some traction.

Kenichi takes a play from the popular 1984 Karate Kid movie where Mr. Miyagi offers to train Daniel Larusso after being beaten up by local high school bullies.  This sets the foundation for the first half of the 50 episode series.  After being bullied by the local karate club members, Kenichi gets the opportunity to train from six martial arts masters who all specialize in different styles ranging from Judo to Muay Thai boxing. (more…)

OK, the series is perverted enough as it gets, as there are some major bust queens in this show. The series is now ‘between seasons’, so now would be a very good time to truck out an OVA and have ourselves a good laugh.

The club is going to the beach, but since they can teleport there, they change out in the club room. They call Issei Hyodo in on this and he, magically, busts in on them when they are in various stages of nakedness and they bust him up like a cedar plank at a karate club. Once at the beach, well, all bets are off. The president of the club, Rias Gremory, wears a Borat-style swimsuit (and if you have seen “Mahoromatic”, Shikijo Saori wears the same style in Season 1, Episode 4).

Rias lies down on the beach and there is no cloth touching her body from just past her ninnies all the way to her crotch, Wow, talk about a superstructure! Anyway, she asks Issei to put some suntan lotion on her and ‘not to miss any spots’. Well this is that suntan lotion that doubles as some kind of lubricant, so it pops out of his hands and Rias gets soaked while Issei is manhandling and fondling and squishing her all about. She is upset about this, but the more they struggle the worse it gets. (more…)

Did you ever see the “Shawshank Redemption”? What are the three rules you have learned about prison?

1)      Prisons are not nice places.
2)      The people guarding the prisoners are at least as psychotic and, in some cases, MORE psychotic that the people they are guarding.
3)      No one is truly your friend, just someone who won’t stick a shiv between your ribs.

The year is ‘the future’ and an incident referred to as the Red Hole triggered a massive earthquake that ravaged Japan’s mainland and destroyed most of Tokyo, sinking three-quarters of the city into the ocean. It also created a bizarre side effect in that some people were given unusual powers. Well, you know about unrestrained power: people go nuts and there seems to be no way to counteract these abilities.

To this end, a new prison is constructed on parts of ruined Tokyo and it would be Japan’s first, and only, private prison: Deadman Wonderland.

We now fast-forward 10 years. 14-year-old Igarashi Ganta, is a seemingly ordinary student attending Nagano 4th District Middle School. He and his classmate are working on the school field trip to Deadman Wonderland, as it is a prison-amusement park. While making their plans, a strange person, covered in blood and crimson armor, floats outside his classroom windows. (more…)

Sigh….

A few days ago, as usual I woke up and headed over to my favorite anime streaming site. First thing I did when I arrived there was to check for the recent anime updates (for the newest Naruto, Fairy Tail, One Piece etc) and saw something very… unexpected. Premiering on June 30th (subbed) was Code Geass: Nunnally in Wonderland. Seeing as the original Code Geass series is easily in my top 5 anime of all time I was obviously very excited. So there I went and clicked play…. and they could NOT possibly have destroyed my love for Lelouch (no homo) any more completely.

The plot is basically a spin-off of Alice in Wonderland with a comical and ecchi twist. Lelouch plays the role of Mad Hatter while Nunnally, C.C and Suzaku plays the roles of Alice, Chesire cat and the Knight of White respectively. All the other supporting characters have other mundane, sometimes even ironic roles (like Charles being the softspoken King of hearts).

To be honest after episode 1 I won’t even be giving the other episodes a second thought (update: its actually an ova so there aren’t any more episodes. Thanks to Son Gohan for pointing that out). Code Geass used to be a pleasant memory, it was always attributed in my mind with the tags ‘Kickass Story’, ‘Badass Main Charaters’, ‘Strategy worthy of praise by Light Yagami himself (Death Note) ‘ and ‘Huge robots kicking butt’. I now have to add ‘sappy characters’, ‘Fanservice’ and ‘Tries to hard to be funny’ to that list and believe me I want someone to pay!!! *HULK SMASH*. (more…)

A similar problem horror shows encounter is taking things away too soon. I remember when I saw “The Shining” for the first time. I had Jack Nicholson come on screen and I already knew he was nuts, so his slide into insanity was not only not a surprise, but had me wondering why it took so long for him to achieve it.

This show is creepy right from the get-go, so the slide into uncertainly is effectively removed. That only leaves us with what I refer to as the Death of the Week…but I get ahead of myself.

In 1972, at Yomiyama Middle School, in Class 3-3, there was an honors student who was good at sports, very popular among his peers and even the teachers were fond of. However, when Misaki suddenly died, the shocked class decided to carry on as if Misaki was still alive. However, when the class’s graduation photo was taken, they saw someone in the shot who should not have been there—Misaki. (Enter kettledrums and violins.)

We now fast-forward 26 years. Kōichi Sakakibara is going to school there, but starts off the year in the hospital, owing to a punctured lung. Just about to leave the hospital, he sees a strange girl wearing an eye patch, who descends to the basement of the hospital to ‘see someone’. But on that floor is the morgue. What gives?

As Koichi goes to school, things take a turn for the weird. He sees the girl again, but no one talks to her at all. It is as if she does not exist. Well, nature abhors a vacuum, so he starts to ask questions, but is told to “stop hanging out with something that doesn’t exist”. So, does this settle the issue? Did Freddy Kruger stop at one? (more…)

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…)