While Naruto has been the bane of my existence recently (the annoying recap/flashback spanning multiple episodes), if the producers were simply working on this movie then it was definitely all worth it. Naruto movies have always been noted for bring pretty good (can’t say the same about the OVA’s) and this one was no different. This movie revolves around…. Hey! Instead of a boring synopsis, as they say a picture is worth a thousand words, so heres a video/trailer for ya! (Watch in HQ)

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As you can tell from the Trailer (assuming you watched it) Naruto gets accused of killing multiple people as well as for an assault on the Raikage resulting in him being sent to a shinobi prison. Now if you are an avid naruto fan throughout the the rest of this trailer your thoughts went something like this:

Of course poor goody goody Naruto couldn’t kill anyone so its clear he was framed but why? *pause* :O There seems so be something huge going on here *pause* :O Gamabunta (The Chief toad) was summonned which means there must be a really powerful enemy! *pause* :O Is that Killer Bee! *pause* OMG Sage Mode! *pause* ROARRRRR!!!! THIS IS GONNA BE EPIC! DOWNLOADD!! (or if you’re like me) WHERE CAN I STREAM THIS!!

(more…)

Ever had an experience where you decided to try something new and well after all said and done you think to yourself, “sigh, that was a waste of the last 23.5 minutes of my life”. Well that was exactly how I felt after episode 1 of this thing, true I not the biggest chibi fan out there but having chibi animation doesn’t give a show the leeway to create something completly ridiculous. Okay… maybe it does (  😯 ‘LEEway’ … rock-‘LEE’ )

To those who are familiar with the original Naruto (and I’m sure all of us are) you will notice that they tried to keep the personalities of each character intact (key word here ‘tried’) and while the entire show seems like it’s going to be a spin-off of the very worst filler episodes, I will give them that because of the extremely lighthearted feel it radiates they have the potential to actually be…. funny. For example medium awareness seems to be a very prominent factor in these episodes “he is also the main character of the main Naruto TV show”, “Do we even have electricity and gas in this world?”. There is also bad guys who, well apart from the part that its practically impossible to make a chibi look evil we have them on the level where they can say in response to Rock lee pulling down the leader’s pants “if we’re just gonna get embarassed like this, we’re never comming to this house again”.

One last thing I can’t figure about this show though, where in the main series does its timeline take place, because while Naruto has abilities like multi-rasengan and Tsunade’s face is already engraved on the Hokage’s mountainside memorial thing, both which imply Shippuden. Rock lee seems to have regressed back to early Naruto days when it comes to his abilities. Maybe this was done to boost the entertainment factor but we’ll just have to wait till episode 2 to see.

To be honest while the concept of this show is great (ninja comedy, thats new… right?) I feel it’s going to make the average fan of Naruto a tad bit disappointed but hey, I feel that i’m somewhat biased against this as light comical shows are hardly ever my thing and chibi’s well… lets just say i’ve had one or two scrubs with my die-hard chibi friends.

Overall, I suppose I should be unbiased and give it a 6.8/10. Don’t think I’m being fair? well bearing in mind that I gave naruto 6.5/10 and Naruto Shippuden 7/10 and I still call myself a Naruto Fan, I’d say its score is pretty good.

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…)

This was another show that got a lot of buzz. It just came off as no different when the AC kicks on and you hear the hum. A lot of noise for minimal results.

The plot revolves around Natsuru Senō, your typically clueless dense anime male. He wakes up one morning to find that he is a girl (the blue-haired one). What? How could this have happened? What gives? He is told by his stuffed tiger toy that he is a “Kampfer” (German for ‘fighter’) and that he has to fight other Kampfers. On his way to school, managing to regender himself, he meets Kaede Sakura at the bus stop (blondie, dead center). An old and dear childhood friend, suddenly, they are set upon by some mysterious red-tressed woman who tries to kill Natsuru. Fleeing the scene, he manages to switch back into his female form and defeat said fighter.

At school, things get worse. This might as well be the East Berlin School of Academics. Another girls-only school that went recently went co-ed, it is separate but equal. The guys are on one side, the gals on the other and there is a massive concrete wall, topped with barbed wire and packed with guards, to keep the boys away. In the library, Natsuru hooks up with Akane Mishima, the shy, bespectacled librarian…who tried to kill Natsuru. Yes, when she transforms, she becomes an Alpha female, packing a black Springfield M1911A1 .45 pistol and a mouth on her that would make Nixon proud. (more…)

There is a scene in “The Mummy Returns” where one of the minions, Jacques, goes “It is cursed! It is cursed!” That is how I feel about C³. That stands for “Cube x Cursed x Curious”. Now, I gave an overview comment of it a while back; this is the full review and it is another Frankenstein’s monster, in that it is made up of bits and pieces from other shows.

Yachi Haruaki lives by himself, as his father is always away on these buying sprees, where he finds rare and unusual objects. One day, another of these trinkets arrives, this one being a cube, black and heavy. Since he gets all kinds of weird objects, he thinks nothing of it. Later on that night, he is awakened by noises to find a naked girl, in his kitchen, noshing down rice crackers.

It is discovered that she IS the cube. Given a name, Fear Cubrick (Ice Blue on the right), we learn that she is a cursed tool, used for centuries to torture and kill thousands of people. She has been sent here in the hopes of purifying her and removing her curse. And for some magical reason, Yachi seems to be curse-resistant and the house is located in a kind of No Curse Zone, so nothing affects them (except a direct attack by some Guardian of Justice or what have you.)

Sadly, there are those that wish to destroy Fear and she is almost immediately under a direct attack by some Guardian of Justice or what have you. Peavey Barowoi tries to kill her, as Fear is mean and evil and vile and does terrible things to kittens and puppies. Coming to the aid of Yachi is Konoha Muramasa, a childhood friend. She and Fear are at loggerheads, as Fear constantly refers to her as ‘cow udders’. (more…)

Yeah, OK. I usually try to lull you in to reading my review, kind of disguising until the end as to whether I liked it or not. For this one, I’ll save you the time: I no longer like “Fairy Tail”. I have abandoned the show.

Now, I gave it a good damn run: 60 shows (“Case Closed” has taken me for longer at 130 and I still watch that. I would have watched “Inuyasha” and “Ranma ½” more, but foul circumstances took them away from me. And I am still working through “Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood” but that ends at 51). But I felt it treated me badly, like other long-format shows.

So, what got to me? It’s just that it took me that long to see the repetitive nature of the overall show. I had read the first five manga and really liked what I read (since I check them out of the library, someone borrowed Books Six through Eleven forever, so I had to give up. And I don’t read manga on the internet). When I heard they had done the show, I watched it with eager anticipation, but I started to notice a trend.

The Evil Folks show up. The Good Guys arrive on the scene, but are soon put to flight. The Good Guys regroup and through some personal effort, defeat the Bad Guys and send them packing. Then, we have beers all around for a Job Well Done. The next day, (more…)