This is one fabulous show. “No Game, No Life” is a variant on the ‘stranger in a strange land’ approach, but does with far more intelligence and viewer involvement than you normally get or see in most animes.

You are an MMORPG player. You have a pretty good guild and you do well in your game. Then, you come up against Blank. You are dead. Sign out now and avoid the humiliation.

Blank is a team that has NEVER lost a game. They speed, their skill, their dexterity is phenomenal. How these four people work this well as a team lead some to think that they employ some kind of cheat. Well, it doesn’t matter; you are rabbit pellets when they are done with you.

Here’s what you don’t know: it’s only two people! The brother-and-sister team of Sora & Shiro, are classic NEETs. The only time they see the sun is if they are playing on the Sunny Field level. This is how good they are: not only can they play two characters at a time, they even have the ability to have one member play all four characters, using hands and feet with amazing deftness. Me? I can’t even cross the room without stubbing my toe on the table. (And why is it ALWAYS the baby toe?) (more…)

This is a strange series, as you really are left in the dark for most of it. We are telling a story that has no real purpose as to why we are telling it, but it needs to be told. I’ll explain as we go along.

“Haibane Renmei” (“Une fille qui a des ailes grises” and/or/either/both, “A girl who has grey wings”) has us look at angeloids in a different way. I mean, no one ever says the word “angel”, but they have wings and a halo, but if we took away those two features, they are no different than you or I. There are male ones as well, but the whole mythology behind it seems confused.

OK, I watched it, as it was On Demand and I needed something to see while I did the ironing, and it was there. It’s a show with a lot of promise, but it stagnates to the point where we are just going through the motions.

We are in the city of Glie. Although the time feels modern, there is still something kind of backwards about the town, as I don’t recall ever seeing a TV set, for example. And there is a huge stone wall that surrounds the town and environs. It appears that no one ever leaves the town, and certainly the haibanes can’t at all. (more…)

Part of the problem with magic shows is that everything is eventually going to link back to ‘Harry Potter’, and “Witch Craft Works” does have some touch-and-go moments to Harry, but it can’t fully commit to what it wants to be.

Takamiya Honoka is a regular student at Tōgetsu High School. He is a standard, typical anime male, in the fact that not only is he clueless, he pines on endlessly for the Most Popular Girl in the School. He also lacks the spunk or the desire or the lead in his pencil to speak with her. The person in question is Kagari Ayaka, the school’s “Princess”. She is everything you want your girlfriend to be: she’s pretty, she’s smart, she’s adored, she’s tall and (although you can’t see it in this shot), build like a brick chicken house. They have never spoken to each other and any small interaction between them immediately results in her fan club beating him for his insolence.

One day he is attacked by a quintet of oddly-dressed girls called the Tower Witches, who had been covertly making attempts on him. However, the attack is thwarted by Ayaka, who turns out to be a Workshop Witch and has been protecting Honoka for quite some time. No longer having to hide her mission, Ayaka decides to become friendlier with him, though their relationship earns Honoka the ire of a lot of his class mates. She also decides that he needs to become her apprentice so he can at least learn how to defend himself from these almost daily assaults. (more…)

OK, I made a huge mistake when I watched “Magi: The Kingdom of Magic” is that it is the SECOND season. One should really begin with “Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic”, as it explains and sets up the characters, although it did not really seem to make all that big of a difference, as between flashbacks and expositions, you are more or less brought up to speed on matters. It is loosely based on “1001 Arabian Nights”, as we have Sinbad (he’s the purple hair in the background to the left, next to that tall dude), as well as (right to left) Alibaba, Aladdin, Morgiana and Hakuryuu Ren (OK, it’s a safe bet that the fourth one wasn’t in the books). Oh, that girl with the big boobs at far right? Just ignore her. Yeah, as if. And, yes, she has a seashell bra.

It’s just that when the series starts, everyone is good friends and great pals and marvelous chums and we have some kind of magnificent feast before they all must go on their separate journeys of emotional growth and personal understanding and magical refinement. Of the four, Aladdin has the most arduous journey, as he goes to the city of Magnostadt to learn how to harness and train his power. Think of it like Hogwarts Academy, except there are no dragons. But everyone dresses as you imagine witches to dress (long, flowing robes and ridiculously wide, tall pointy hats). Aladdin is challenged at every turn, but learns about his abilities. But it’s no cakewalk for the others. (more…)

“Outbreak Company” has the strangest idea for an anime I have seen in some time: what if you could import your culture to another race?

Shin’ichi Kanōu (right on the midfield line) is a young otaku, almost a hikikimori, who is offered a job by Jinzaburō Matoba (not pictured; he’s a stiff, anyway) because of his vast knowledge of anime, manga and video games. Just after meeting his new employer, he is kidnapped, awakening in an alternate world with a fantasy setup. Shin’ichi then is informed that he was in fact selected by the Japanese government to help improve his country’s relations with this new world by establishing a company to spread the unique products of the Japanese culture to this raw, unexplored market.

Ah, but in a show like this, there are always dark motive and hidden agendas. A portal of some ilk has been discovered by the Japanese, which takes them to the Holy Eldant Empire. There, he is going to teach everyone about the glories of anime and manga and gal games and figurines and body pillows and whatever Akihabara has to offer….but at a stiff price. (more…)

Another demon show, “Strike the Blood” tells the tale of Akatsuki Kojou, who was a regular kind of student, until an incident turned him into a vampire, as well as the Fourth Progenator. He lives on an artificial island complex where all caliber of monsters, demons and other mystic types reside in peace and solitude. However, dark forces are afoot (don’t these guys have any place to call their home? They are always afoot, causing mayhem and driving up the insurance rates) as they seek to unleash horrors and terrors unimagined….like a Miley Cyrus tour.

As the Fourth, he is viewed with a great deal of suspicion from the other Three Bosses. Just his mere presence is enough to tip the balance of power and the other three feel it would be best if he was dead. Akatsuki? All he wants to do is go to high school and be left alone; he wants no part of this craziness. Well, he doesn’t get a say in the matter. Since it helps things if he was pushing up daisies, the Lion King Organization dispatches a Sword Shaman, but she is to observe the Fourth and then decide to dispatch him, should he prove a danger. That happens to be Yukina Himeragi, who is a mere 14 years of age, but as tough as they come. (more…)

“Beyond the Boundary” (“Kyōkai no Kanata”) certainly starts off strange enough. High school student Akihito Kanbara (blonde guy in middle) goes to save his fellow schoolmate, Mirai Kuriyama (red glasses) from committing suicide, as she is standing on the other side of the top-floor fence of the school building. Following his pleas not to hurl herself into the stratosphere, Mirai suddenly stabs Akihito with a sword formed out of her own blood. She is shocked to discover that Akihito is an immortal “half-youmu”: the offspring of a supernatural creature called a youmu and a human. Mirai herself is a Spirit World Warrior; a specialist who protects humans from being affected by youmu. She is also the last surviving member of her spirit hunting clan.

The series is how their lives become intertwined, as Akihito seeks to help Mirai gain the confidence to kill youmu…so that she may stop attempting to kill him as practice.

They are currently located in a photo shop that doubles as the exchange house and information center for the Warriors. You see, when you defeat a youmu, they leave behind what looks like a jeweled rock. That is worth money and (more…)

OK, give this show a chance. The problem with “Log Horizon” is that it starts out EXACTLY like “Sword Art Online”, in that you have these people with this Virtual Reality, totally immersive headgear, playing a game (in this case “Elder Tale”) and 30,000 are online when the newest upgrade patch is put in and now are trapped in the game. They refer to the incident as The Apocalypse and they are stuck, with at least no immediate way out.

After this blatant establishing shot, the show decides to take a differing approach to things. One of the ‘benefits’ explored (if you could call it that), is that when you die in the game, you are reborn, so you aren’t completely erased from existence (although even that creates problems). It’s just that you are in this game with absolutely nothing to do: quests are bland and there is a huge amount of Player-Killers, bored to tears as there is no goal and rather than sit on my GCI butt all day, I might as well make things hard for others.

Kai Shirogane (glasses in the middle), called Shiroe, had a reputation among other players, most notable the “villain with glasses”. He was a stunning tactician for the Tea Party Brigade (a non-guild guild where people just had themselves a ripping good time). With his friend Naotsugu Hasegawa, (hulking dude sitting down), Atasuki (far right ninja and assassin) and Nyanta (cat), they decided to do something with the game that the original approach would not allow: transform this into a living, breathing society. This turns out to be far harder but, ultimately, more rewarding, than merely searching for treasure. (more…)

I enjoy a good anime that takes a standard idea and turns it on its head. Much in the vein of “The Devil is a Part-Timer”, this offering, “I Couldn’t Become a Hero, So I Reluctantly Decided to Get a Job.” (“Yūsha ni Narenakatta Ore wa Shibushibu Shūshoku o Ketsui Shimashita” or “I, Who Didn’t Become a Hero, Reluctantly Decided to Find a Job.”) follows the tale of Raul Chaser and a career shift.

He went to Hero Academy to learn how to fight demons, as the Demon Realm was real and people needed protection from these attacks. However, the worst thing that could happen, did! Peace broke out! Man, I did NOT see that coming! Think of all those people out of work! No need for armor, even if it is Black Friday. The demon lord was defeated and now, there are no more demons to fight. Crfap, all that tuition money down the drain! Raul has, otherwise, no marketable skills. Sure, he can wield a broadsword, but it’s kind of pfffft! when he works as a mechanic.

“I will defeat you, evil devil bolt, with my mighty ratchet of freedom!” Yeah, it kind of loses something in the translation. (more…)

As I have always commented, long-form shows have a real problem in that you have to keep the interest going. I have heard that the creator of “One Piece” has enough tales to make 1000 episodes. But are they good episodes? Or are you Mario Mendoza? Mario Mendoza was a major league player for eight years with three different teams and had a lifetime average of .215. He got into baseball, but didn’t do much after that. The third year of Toriko was also like that.

Now, the overall goal is the finding of GOD, the greatest single ingredient ever, and both the IGO and the Gourmet Corp are in battle over it. To this end, Toriko and the other Four Kings do these insane training exercises and activities to help hone their understanding about the true food and what it can do. Sadly, we got to a point where it became the Dragon Ball Z Syndrome.

After some rather arduous training quests, the Gourmet Corp sent out these four hideous beasts that only the Four Kings could battle and condensed the world’s population into a ‘safe zone’ (think about the entire world’s population moved into the United States). These four battles eventually merged into one massive battle that gobbled up loads of episodes, as they battled and battled and battled to seemingly no genuine conclusion. When Komatsu helps turn the tide and the Kings were victorious, it was time for the Food Olympics (for wont of a better term), a competition held every four years to see who is the best chef in the world. But it is a combination of Iron Chef and the Iron Man Triathlon. (more…)