The big problem that I have with anime movies is that I never get a real chance to see them in the theaters. With the exception of a lot (but not all) of Studio Ghibli, I would assume the bulk of these offerings never leave the Land of the Rising Sun. On those rare occasions that they do, it is a really limited release over the course of one weekend, in a movie theater that the bus lines don’t get to, at an outrageous ticket price (I had a chance to see “The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya” like this, but the tickets were $20 each!) and with a grand total of five showings.

Thus, when I do encounter a movie, I give it a look-see, and I will potentially not get another shot at a look-see. This means it is pot luck at best. Like the Mystery Bag, whatever is whatever. I had a chance to see “Rakuen Tsuihou” (“Expelled from Paradise”), a film I heard nothing about at all, even though it has been out in the US for theoretically five months.

It is the future. Most anime is about the future. Angela Balzac is an agent at the space station DEVA, whose inhabitants have no physical bodies, their minds digitized and processed into a virtual reality environment. She has a day off and is ‘lounging’ at the ‘beach’ on a ‘wonderful day’. Seriously, if this is all VR, it’s not much different than the Matrix, right? Anyway, after some Village People clone tries to hit on her, the beach scene deteriorates, as they have been hacked by some initially unknown entity. (more…)

“Karen Senki” is a show that has a good story to tell, but perhaps the way it was done was not the best approach. You see, it’s all CG and there are still a few bugs in the system with regards to that. OK, on to the plot. Karen kills robots. It is the world of the future and robots have become sentient. They also decided that the Robot’s Three Rules were for sissies and they have decided to eliminate humans once and for all. But it’s just that they do it so badly.

I mean, you just march in and start killing everyone, right? Or maybe a well-coordinate air strike (there are flying robot craft). Well, no, as there are whole communities of humans, eking out a living, rarely under attack. Now, since Karen is a fugitive and Public Enemy Number One and a Justin Bieber fan, she MUST be eliminated! But the robot forces just can’t seem to do it. Between her enhanced powers and a pair of 45s she sports (hey, I’m talking about her pistols. What DID you think I was talking about?), she is formidable as she wipes out the enemy forces like an errant catsup stain from her cheek.

She has been asked by a shadow group, Eleven, to join in their cause, as they feel rather than having individual rogue elements, as a cohesive whole, they can do things better to stop the menace. (more…)

When the first season of “Psycho-Pass” came out, I enjoyed it, as it was a crime drama with a hinting of horror. When the second season came out, it was now a horror show, with a hinting of a crime drama. That changed the pitch of the show…..and badly.

I think it’s been about two years since the incidents of the last season (can’t tell for certain) and the cast has changed and been added to. The new line up, from left to right, consists of:
Nobuchika Ginoza (was an Inspector, now an Enforcer), Sho Hinakawa (new this year, Enforcer), Joji Saiga (seen last year, now being ‘rehabilitated’), Akane Tsunemori (now head of Division One), Shion Karanomori (another holdover, she is Data Analysis), Mika Shimotsuki (was a student last season, now an Inspector), Yayoi Kunizuka (another Enforcer holdover from last season) and Sakuya Togane (new Enforcer and very cloistered).

The show came in with a great premise: What if you could keep you hue clear? You see, the Sibyl System rates a person by the color of their hue (or stress level). If it goes over 100, you are to be taken in to custody for ‘rehabilitation’. If it goes over 200, the only cure for that is death, as you are a real latent criminal. The Dominator, that gun they possess, can rate a person’s hue and will allow you to shoot it. If the hue is below 100, it will not let you fire it. But you, as an Inspector, can override the gun’s setting and allow you to stun the person, not kill them. For some odd reason, that aspect is absent, so we are treated to a lot of people being killed. (more…)

This is an entry in the ever-increasing popularity of the school-magic show. You have seen it with “The Familiar of Zero”, “Blade Dance”, Magic Craft Works” and “A Certain Magical Index”. So, what makes “The Irregular at Magic High School” that different? Well in one aspect, it isn’t that different, as we cannot decide on the title (Mahōka Kōkō no Rettōsei, “The Poor Performing Student of a Magic High School”), but ‘poor’ is a very poor choice of words, but this is revealed during the run of the show. Also, rather than being a magic show with a school setting, it is a school show with a magic background.

It is the future (almost the end of this century). Magic is an established fact, has been for about 100 years and many countries train those with magical ability to, eventually, become soldiers to defend the country. In Japan, there are nine Magic High Schools. I do not know if the numbers mean anything, but we focus on First High School. Ah, but we use magic differently, in that we don’t going around, proclaiming “Accio!” or “Deletrius” or “Hakuna Matata!” Rather than casting spells with chants or other traditional forms of spell casting, mages use a Casting Assistant Device, better known as a CAD. The bad thing is the device looks like an iPhone6. (more…)

This is another of those ‘Alternate Universe” shows, but isn’t that what science fiction is about? (or as Harlan Ellison said, “It’s Speculative Fiction.”). Welcome to “Aldnoah. Zero”

In 1972, during the last Apollo mission, an ancient alien hyper-gate was discovered on the surface of the moon. Using this technology, humanity began migrating to Mars and settling there. After settlers discovered additional advanced technology, the Vers Empire was founded, which claimed Mars and its secrets for themselves.

Some years later, the Vers Empire declared war on Earth, and, in 1999, a battle on the Moon’s surface caused the hyper-gate to explode, shattering the Moon and scattering remnants into a debris belt around the planet, an event referred to as Heaven’s Fall. Cut off from Mars, the remnants of the Vers insurgents established several massive orbital space stations within the debris belt (they are referred to as Landing Castles) and a ceasefire was established. (more…)

This is one of those shows that drop you into the action without much to go on, although the show might have been better to be called “Red Gender” than “Blue Gender”. Disclosure Time: I bailed out on this show after three episodes, as it did violate Rule Three of Anime (“If you feel the show is not going to get better, leave it. It is NOT going to get better.”). In my opinion, this is one of the worst animes I have seen this year (fighting for that title with “Terra Formars”) and the worst anime I have seen since “Peach Girl”. Now, this differs from one I don’t like. There are some shows that just miss for me or aren’t worth my time from the capsule description. This one I at least watched to draw my conclusion (and my repeated open).

In the year 2009, Yuji Kaido (that mullet-head up there. What is that hair style? Was it ever popular?) is an average young adult male diagnosed with a serious disease (the “B-cells”) and is put into cryogenic stasis until a cure is found. Twenty-two years later, he is awakened in the midst of a raging battle between armored soldiers and insectoid beings called the “Blue” which have overrun the Earth.

This group of soldiers is from an orbiting space colony, collectively called Second Earth. They had orders to recover “sleepers” around the Earth. Among them is the soldier Marlene Angel, (can you find the girl?) who at first appears to be heartless toward others. On the journey to the space colony, Second Earth, Yuji meets many of the humans that were left behind during the evacuation due to limited resources. Standing orders for Marlene and the other troops are to consider any human survivors on the surface to be already dead, which greatly troubles Yuji.

The problem with this is that it is terrible science fiction, terrible war and terrible horror. It seems these insectoids, which look like giant spiders, when they capture you, ball you up and will eat you later. Well, as you have seen, most people do not roll up well, so there is a lot of physical compaction. Adding to this is that Yuji has zero idea what is going on, except that he is the only one from his facility to survive, as the others are lost. His tube broke open and he was awakened; the rest were still in their tubes and sank to the bottom of the sea. (more…)

This is another of those “Girls Who Save the World” shows, but with a bit more tragic results, potentially closer aligned to “Gunslinger Girl”. Welcome to the world of “Black Bullet”.

It is the year 2021. Mankind has been decimated by the Gastrea, a parasitic virus, and is forced to live within this ring of Monoliths, which are created from Varanium: a metal that is able to subdue Gastrea. (And where did we discover this metal?) Soon, children are born with the Gastrea virus. They have superhuman abilities as a result, but people are so terrified of them, they are dubbed “Cursed Children”. Because the Gastrea threat is still out there, the Cursed Children (who are all girls) fall under the jurisdiction of the Civil Securities. You now have a pair of fighters: the Initiator, (the child) and a Promoter, (the guy). We follow the adventures of Rentarō Satomi (the guy with the gun), a high school student who is also a Promoter in Tendō Civil Security Agency owned by his childhood friend Kisara Tendō, along with his Initiator, Enju Aihara (red head), who try to prevent the destruction of the Tokyo Area and the world.

OK, so we will take a break so you can take this all in. It’s quite a lot. (more…)

This can be properly categorized as a ‘witch show’, but this is no ‘magical girl’ show. It might be closer aligned with “Black Rock Shooter” in the caliber of despair that it generates, but I get ahead of myself. This is an unhappy show. Not a sad show. A sad show is like “Air the Series” or “5 Centimeters per Second”. This one is unhappy is that everyone…it looks like I’m taking the chute back to Square One, as I’m getting ahead of myself.

“Brynhildr in the Darkness” (“Gokukoku no Buryunhirude” “Extreme-Black Brynhildr”) is an odd cat of a story, mainly because it doesn’t know what it wants to be.

Ryouta Murakami is head of the astronomy club. They even have this far out observatory to use. (No, I mean far out; he has to take a couple of bus lines to get to the thing) Too bad there isn’t a single other person in the club. I mean, what gives? I know if there was an astronomy club at my high school, I’d be there (we had a chess club. If I had joined, I’d be called ‘Carpet’, as I’d have been laid out the entire time.) (more…)

This is a rather odd series for me, on a variety of levels, in that it could be seen as a giant fighting robot show that I like. Yeah, call “60 Minutes” on this.

“Knights of Sidonia” is set in the future. It has been one millennia since the Earth was destroyed by these massive space slugs called The Gauna (and please, do NOT mispronounce it as the Guano, OK? Already been there). Maybe they are more like squid, with their tentacles and such. People fled in these enormous space ships, which look like a derringer barrel shoved though a piece of pumice. Look, when you are in a hurry to leave, niceties like beauty get in the way of things. Well, quite a lot happens in 1000 years, so the population is maintained via cloning. Aside from getting rid of having boring sex, it allows one to tinker with the genetic structure, so a lot of these folks have human photosynthesis (oh, and immortality, but that’s not for you to worry about).

Into this mix comes Nagate Tanikaze (smack in the middle), who has lived in the underground layer of Sidonia since birth, raised by his grandfather. Since he is all by himself, for amusement he trains himself in an old Guardian pilot simulator every day, eventually mastering it. His grandfather’s death forces him to the surface to steal food and whatnot, but he is eventually caught. He is a genuine throwback and no one knows what to do with him. (more…)

You kinda knew that there would be a sequel to this show, as much was left undone, so the parent company gave us “Date A Live 2”, which is both a continuation of what went down the first season with newer complications, one of which is a shorter season.

For those playing catch-up (and those who haven’t read the review of Season 1), the world has been bedeviled by these spacequakes, which are discovered to be caused by these space maidens (called “spirits”) entering our dimension. They cause untold damage and people are killed (think of an earthquake, but far more devastating). It was determined that if these ladies could have their powers sealed, this would cut down on problems. To this end, the standard anime male schlub of Shido Itsuka is used to get these ladies to fall in love with him, so he could kiss them and seal the powers.

Second Season has more ladies showing up, especially the Troublesome Twins of Kaguya and Yusuru (those bodacious gingers at the far right). You see, it’s kind of like spinning plates on small sticks. We add more and more plates, but you still have to tend to the plates you already have spinning. Now, this may come as a bit of a surprise to many of you, but girls tend to get jealous when you say you love them, but are seen by them in the company of another girl or girls. Since Shido has 10 plates spinning, I mean, trying to deal with 10 girls at once, who get jealous that he is spending time with other ladies, he has his hands more than full and things get out of hand. (more…)