Pretty 🙂

Air: An Overview

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Air, it’s the story of a homeless man, Yukito, and his journey as he stops in a quaint little town by the beach. He is searching for the Winged Maiden (sounds so pretty, doesn’t it?), a woman his mother would tell him about as a child who was cursed and bound to the sky. He meets a young girl named Misuzu when stopping in this town, and suddenly everything changes for him. So that’s the basic plot line. Now you don’t have to quickly google it before reading this article.

The Air Anime

Story: The anime first appealed to me because it was short at only 13 episodes and because the artwork is stunning. Where the story is concerned, it’s sloppy and all over the place. The Winged Goddess story line is choppy and poorly explained…well maybe it isn’t but I was just bored by the time they got down to specifics. A huge reason for this is the large and pointless cast of secondary characters who are tolerable at their best and horribly annoying at their worst.

Characters: Misuzu, Haruko (Misuzu’s foster mother), and Yukito are all fairly well-developed characters. The problem is the obnoxious bunch of secondary characters who are supposed to make this a more dramatic show but make it slow and all over the place. Misuzu goes beyond your typical cute girl. (more…)

Today I’m going to attempt to review Trinity Blood but before we begin I would like to throw out there that this review will be affected by various factors. The first being that I watched it in french and while my ‘le français’ isn’t as bad as a monkey’s English it isn’t the most eloquent thing either thus I probably didn’t get as into the show as I could’ve. Secondly, before doing a general review I like to watch or re-watch (assuming it only stretches one or two seasons) the entire show in 2 – 3 sittings so that it’s fresh in my mind. This on the other hand I’ve been watching in groups of 2 – 3 episodes with extremely lenghty spans of time in between. So with that in mind, lets begin.

Trinity blood summed up is basically a poorly made Hellsing, okay maybe I shouldn’t use the word ‘poorly’ so instead I’ll call it a ‘lighter’ version of hellsing. I suppose that was a given as it was adapted from a light novel instead of an action packed anime but sigh, we have a potentially AWESOME protagonist with all the power he could possibly want with the personality of Vash the Stampede (Trigun) in a show with highly detailed artwork and a potentially awesome setting and they still found a way to screw it up.

The plot was unnecessarily complex and disjointed, we kept jumping from one thing to another and sometimes it seemed like we had 5 different people (with conflicting personalities) or at least one guy with a really serious case of multi-personality disorder directing individual parts of the show. But regardless here is what I believe the show was intended to be about: (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…)

Welcome to JurassicPark….I mean, Macademi Wasshoi! One of the finest magician’s academies anywhere, even though it does exist in an alternate dimension and it is a bit of a workout to get to it, but if you want to better who you are as a magician, this is the place to be.

Takuto Hasegawa (far right) lives in two worlds, spending a lot of his time at the Academy. Think of it like Hogwarts, but not as dark or imposing. One day, while preparing for a summoning spell exam, he happens to create a girl (look, I know it hard to get a date as a teen, but really!) whom he calls Tanarotte (the one in the Daisy Dukes soaring through the air). But this creates a problem. Tanarotte can either be a God or a Demon and this throws off the balance between all three worlds (Earth being in the middle).

When emissaries come out from the other two worlds to try and dispatch Tanarotte, they are pummeled into submission by her. She has not made the decision what she wants to be, but since she is hopelessly devoted to Takuto, it is felt that as long as he keeps her happy, things will be OK. To that end, the bulk of the show revolves around how Tanarotte tries to understand her surroundings. However, when she does not understand her full power, which is often, things get out of hand. (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…)

I always feel badly when I give up on a show. To me, it is a caliber of failure that I can’t tough it out to the end, but it then violates my Third Rule of Anime. (“If you feel the show is not going to get any better, leave it. It will NOT get better.”) Sometimes, the show is taken away from me. I watch a lot of Comcast/Xfinity On Demand and it seems they are always having an argument with the Funimation Channel. Someone calls someone a slob and the show line-up gets yanked away (which may have happened with “Case Closed”).

In some instances, I take this as a sign to give up on it (I did this with “Piano” and “Gundam Seed Destiny”). This show, I walked away from it, as nothing was happening over and over again. I got to Episode 10 before I said enough was too much. A typical show plays out like this:

Our victim (usually a girl between the ages of 14 and 24), is put upon by some horrible older person (mostly a man, but not exclusively). They do some heinous act and nothing can be done to bring the swine to justice. In their despair, the victim either remembers the Hell Girl site or hears about her by a conveniently passing person. You can only access this site at the stroke of midnight and when you do, you will type in the name of the person who needs some discipline.

Upon sending the name, Ai Enma, the Hell Girl, magically shows up at your place, which is creepy enough. I mean, it’s past midnight and I am in my darkened lair. I have done this deed and she is there mere seconds after the dispatch of it. Brrrrrrrr! She then launches into her spiel: (more…)

I resisted this one for a while, as the title initially put me off. “The World God Only Knows” sounded like one of those megalomaniac shows, where some power-hungry fiend wants to take over the world. No, it is a delightful romantic comedy that isn’t really all that romantic, but is quite funny, and a rarity that the second season is better than the first.

It tells the story of Keima Katsuragi. He is a caliber of NEET, in that he shuns all human interaction. Oh, he goes to school and gets amazing grades, but his entire focus is on conquering the hearts of ladies. He has, in fact, conquered 10,000 of them……..too bad they are all VIDEO GAME girls. He is so good, that he has a title, The God of Conquest. Everyone comes to him to ask for help in how to beat the latest dating Sims games. He has played them all, on all platforms and has almost every copy of them. (His room could be a caliber of museum, as he has every gaming system. I am sure there is an Atari 2600 in there).

One day, while going through his e-mail, he gets an oddly worded challenge, daring him to take on the task on wooing girls who have a void in their hearts. He takes the challenge, not knowing what it all means. The letter has come from the Demon World. It seems, owing to some bureaucratic bungle, souls have escaped from Hell and they need his help to recapture them. Demons, however, are not the sharpest bowling balls on the rack and they somehow thought he has conquered 10,000 REAL GIRLS. Also, he has to take on an assistant, the rather ditzy and clueless Elucia de Lute Ima, better known as Elsie (who has spent at least the last 300 years as a maid). (more…)