My anime reviews

[Myrodis19]

Hey Hicks question, are you active on this site other then posting your reviews? Its just i never see you on durring the day

[Hicks]

Occasioanlly I pop my head into the main Anime and Manga forum. I also make suggestions in other threads wihin this forum. What does it realy matter?

[Hicks]

Tank SWAT 01

(single episode OVA)

This OVA seems to be unrelated to the others, aside from sharing some of the same characters. Having read about it, it seems to have a connection to what is essentially a reboot of the Tank Police story. Leona and the twin cat girl Puma sisters are still there, as is the little tank Bonaparte, but here Bonaparte isn't unique and things aren't quite as wild or exaggerated as the other OVAs, at least not in the same way. Instead, this comes off as a pretty typical future police show that at least tries to take itself seriously. I say tries, because at one point there was a fat android using a golf club against the police the same way Sauron used his mace against the men and elves at the beginning of Lord of the Rings.

The visual style has been significantly changed, not only bringing things up to date from the old '80s style the other OVAs had, but by using computer animation. Basically it looks along the lines of the more recent Appleseed movie (not the sequel), with computer models and texturing meant to give it an animated look. Here it doesn't really look very good, probably because they just didn't have the kind of budget Appleseed probably did.

As for the plot, well, there isn't much of one. There seems to be something involving discs that contain the identities of everyone in Japan on them that some evil corporation stole, and the police are sent in to retrieve them. There are some other AI controlled tanks they have to fight and the android somehow sets up a bomb that manages to wrap itself around the neck of the cop who is carrying the discs. Most of the "drama" is derived from whether the android is lying about disarming the bomb or not in exchange for the discs. You can probably guess how this turns out, which is to say that this isn't an angsty show with a downer ending. We never do learn anything of significance, like what company is actually behind all this, or to what end.

As for the characters, this is only one short OVA, and most of it is focused on action, so there isn't much of a chance for any of them to develop past whatever cliché they happen to fit into. One of the more annoying ones was the female cop who had the bomb around her neck, mostly because of how completely useless and pathetic she was. I know some might argue that having a bomb wrapped around her neck might've made her that way, but I just didn't get that feeling from what I saw as I was watching this.

I almost feel like it was a complete waste of time watching this OVA, mostly because not a whole lot happens in its 25 minute length, and there don't appear to be any kind of continuations for it, at least not anything that isn't manga. If you really want to see this as part of your Tank Police experience, well, it's there I guess. Otherwise, it really isn't worth it to bother watching. 2/10.

[Myrodis19]

Occasioanlly I pop my head into the main Anime and Manga forum. I also make suggestions in other threads wihin this forum. What does it realy matter?

Oh no it doesnt lol, i just never saw you on and was wondering why

[Hicks]

Probably because I spend most of my free time watching anim and writing reviews of it instead of on the forum.

[Hicks]

Dragon Half

(2 episode OVA)

Pretty much the entire premise of this OVA is to make fun of anime clichés, particularly those associated with the ones set in a medieval fantasy realm. I haven't seen many of those, mostly because I just have no interest at all in that genre, so I might actually be missing out on more than what I caught. Of course, there's plenty of other stuff to laugh it, including the portrayal of anime fangirls. A stereotype to be sure, but definitely based on something, as I've had the misfortunate of witnessing myself. Of course that also makes this OVA a bit annoying, mostly because high-pitched squeals just have a way of annoying the hell out of me.

Visually, it's pretty average, or at least as average as low budget anime goes. Actually one of the things about this OVA is that it bounces back and forth between a more typical visual design, and something more like a super deformed chibi style. It was trying to be so cute that I wasn't sure if I wanted to vomit rainbows in disgust or just laugh at it. Given the context of making fun of cutesy anime, I pretty much just decided to snicker a bit, though to be honest I probably would have anyway if it'd been played straight ... right before I turned it off and tried to forget about it.

Naturally, this OVA also makes fun of fan service, or maybe it just used it as an excuse to have some of its own. It's probably a mix between the two, as there was a little lampshade hanging, but that doesn't stop it from throwing in some animated boobies at the very end. I guess that's a perk of being an OVA instead of something aired on TV.

There actually was a plot hidden in amongst all the fluff, but it really wasn't much of one. What plot there actually is just parodies any anime where a female character has to go on some convoluted quest in order to change herself so she can be desirable to the object of her affection. In this case, there's the kind of long-haired effeminate warrior type you've seen in every anime like this who kind of pulls duty as a singer/star/celebrity. He's supposed to be a dragon slayer, too, which I guess is supposed to be funny since the main protagonist, Mink, is the title half dragon who he is on a mission to slay. There isn't much in way of plot resolution, though, as the OVA stops short of finishing the manga it was based on.

The characters are actually kind of annoying, but then they're supposed to be. All of them are based off of some stereotype that's showed up in pretty much every show like this and played for comedy. The downside to that is that none of them are particularly interesting. The brainless muscle character Damaramu was probably my favorite out of all of them, though I can't really explain exactly why.

This was a fairly fun OVA overall, and it is mostly just fluff. It isn't the best parody anime I've seen by a long shot, but it isn't bad or boring, either. I wasn't bored either, and I did find myself chuckling from time to tome. I'm not sure if I'd recommend it or not, but if you do decide to watch it just know going in that you can't expect a whole lot out of it. 6/10.

[Hicks]

E's Otherwise

(26 episode series)

This was one of the most boring and pointless series I ever bothered to watch all the way through. It is entirely my own fault that I did, though. I can't even really explain why, either, other than being mildly interested in what the big evil secret plan was, and the continued hope that things might pick up and that something important might happen. It pretty much takes more than half the series for that, though.

The series takes place in a kind of dystopic future that is run entirely by competing mega-corporations, which almost seems like something out of the '80s. It follows Kai Kudou, a psychic who works for ASHURUM, one of the twelve mega-corportations I mentioned. The term "psychics" is used a bit more loosely here to mean anyone who is either telepathic or who can use telekinetics, which is apparently way more common here. Of course they also tend to be referred to as "E's," which gives the series its name. In any case, Kai is caught up between the conflct between humans and psychics because it turns out that Ashrum wasn't what he thought it was, and neither was the mission it sent him on.

As cool as the premise of the series sounded, it really didn't turn out to be much about this conflict or whatever these evil corporations were up to. Occasionally the series would touch on something, but mostly it seemed like a distraction from the somewhat typical slice-of-life anime that had developed following Kai being found by some random girl and brought to the home she shared with her adopted brother, you know, instead of to a hospital. Well, in this case there's a kind of reason for that, but still, it kind of turns into this thing where Kai is the fish out of water and the two people who took him in have fun, wacky adventures, like dressing Kai up like a chick and finding a lost cat. Oh yeah, there's this rebellion thing going on, too, but it isn't entirely clear who the rebels are or who they're fighting for quite a while into the series because apparently the adopted family thing is more important, or something.

Eventually we find out that Ashurum is brainwashing psychics in order to use them as weapons, and that both it and Kai's boss, Eiji Sagimiya aren't what they are initially supposed to appear. Shocker. Oh, and the big secret evil plan involves basically destroying the world as we know it by killing pretty much all of humanity.

Just like so many other anime outings I've watched, including Code Geass just recently.

So you might say I'm a bit disappointed, mainly in that I didn't follow my initial instinct after the standard 3 episode trial and just stop watching at that point. I would have spared myself from the cookie-cutter plot, all the attempts at cuteness and being funny, the annoying asshat of the series's antics, and the lame sequel hook. Oh yeah, we never do find out what happens to good guy Kai, bad guy Eiji, and a few other characters after the big battle at the end. The series just sort of ends, while making a very lame attempt at suggesting that there might be more to follow. Honestly, this series was mostly filler, and it could have done everything in 12 episodes and probably still had plenty of filler to make the big evil secret plan still feel like it was falling into place over time. Maybe the quality of the animation would have been better then, too.

Probably the most fun I got out of this series was unintentional. The series opens itself up for pedophile jokes way too easily, all though part of that is thanks to the character design. I don't know how old Asuka, the girl who found Kai is supposed to be, but at one point a feminine man shows up and wants to marry her. He also has a thing for candy, so one of the first things he does is to ask her if she likes candy. Seems legit, right? Then there's also the standard Catholic Church pedophile jokes when it turns out some cardinal is keeping a bunch of children locked up. So yeah, it's safe to say that the only fun I really had out of this series was unintentional, because lord knows the running gags of Asuka not being able to cook and all the cross-dressing crap wasn't funny.

I honestly would recommend skipping this series if you're thinking of watching it. About the only way you'd probably enjoy it un-ironically would be if you're a fan of the adopted family hijinks type shows, and even then you'd probably lose interest when the plot finally kicks in and people try to kill each other 9and sometimes succeed). It's sad, but I actually enjoyed Divergence Eve more than I enjoyed this series, and by that I mean the actual plot of it. 1/10.

[Hicks]

Eiken

(2 episode OVA)

I wasn't even sure if I should have bothered with this one, and I could see within about a minute or so that I'd made the wrong choice. Being the glutton for punishment I sometimes am, I decided to finish watching the hour long OVA all the way through, mostly out of morbid curiosity. I'd heard that this OVA was bad, and now I've seen for myself that it is.

I've read that this anime and the manga it's based on are fairly popular in Japan, which makes me giggle a little on the inside. I also read that this was horribly panned in the US. At first I was thinking that it might just be an overreaction to the obviously large amount of fan service. Being a pervert, I thought maybe at the very least I'd get some laughs out of it. I didn't. About the only way this show is even remotely funny would be to take clips of it out of context and add some humorous music, you know, just like AMV Hell, where I first saw clips of this show.

This OVA tried really hard to be funny and sexy, but it failed at both. The entire premise is built around boob jokes and panty shots, and while I know this is supposed to be a parody of fan service, it still manages to not be funny. Hell, normally I might just say something along the lines of how a joke done constantly over and again becomes unfunny, but in this case all the boob jokes and innuendo were never even funny to begin with. As for sexy, same thing. I'll admit right up front to actually liking most fan service, so theoretically I should like something full of it. Of course, it might help if the women being flaunted were even remotely attractive. In fact, I usually found myself grossed out a little. There's not only the impossibly huge breast thing going on, there's also how most of the fan (dis)service also tended to pour out of their stockings and other clothing, rather like a marshmallow being squeezed out of the end of a smore. You're welcome for that image, by the way. Disturbingly, I've seen this kind of thing at anime conventions before, when overweight women have cosplayed in costumes not unlike what were in this show. And just to add to the grossness, the chick that wants the main character, Densuke Mifune, so bad that she literally throws herself at him and practically rapes him is his step-sister, which while technically not incest is still close enough, especially since she constantly refers to him as "brother".

Amazingly enough, there actually was a plot, only it was the stereotypical "guy must win competition to win girl" plot. And the contest was just another excuse for even more fan service. That was about the extent of the plot, though. Pretty much this was just an hour's worth of seeing how many ways Densuke could feel up extremely busty school girls (and his teacher) and how embarrassing all that was supposed to be. Basically situational comedy for pervs.

Needless to say, I recommend that you stay the hell away from this OVA. Even if all you're looking for is fan service, you'd probably be better off just watching some porn. If you think there might be some actual comedy to be had from this, there really isn't. If you decide to watch this anyway, well, I warned you. 0/10.

[Hicks]

Elfen Lied

(14 episode series)

This is both a stunning and a disturbing series. Right away audiences should be clued in to the adult nature of the series by the beautiful opening theme that features quite a bit of female nudity, but if it didn't, the opening scenes of Lucy's escape should do the trick. So right up front, let's just make clear that this is a graphically violent show that features a lot of blood and guts thanks to some invisible hands literally ripping people apart. Confused? So is this series.

Honestly one of the oddest parts of this series is how it can jump back and forth quite suddenly between what could be a more typical anime along the lines of Cobits, and something that could give you nightmares. This owes in large part to the split personalities of the main focus of the series, Lucy. I'm not sure if she can be considered an out an out antagonist or a protagonist, all I can say is that Lucy is pretty much just a heartless killer. It's true, as the series goes on and we learn about her past, she actually becomes somewhat sympathetic. Of course that doesn't change the fact that she will kill anyone who happens to get within two meters of her simply for being human. In the first episode, there's actually something of a prolonged set-up just to illustrate this by introducing us to a clumsy assistant who can't even manage to keep a cup of coffee balanced on a tray as she walks down the hall. Unfortunately for her, she happens to literally stumble right into Lucy's path as she makes her bloody escape from the secret installation she's been held prisoner at since she was a child. Lucy doesn't even hesitate to kill the bumbling assistant and then use her headless body as a shield right afterwards. But just as Lucy manages to get out of there, she catches a .50 caliber anti-tank round in the side of the metal helmet that had been on her head and Nyu is born.

Nyu is like a child. Actually she reminded me a lot of Chi from Chobits in that she can basically only say one word over and over and it becomes her name. That and her "innocence" means she doesn't understand the concept of modesty and tends to wander around naked at first. Actually I probably would have been annoyed and just stopped watching if not for the fact that Nyu was for all intents and purposes a blood-thirsty killer.

Kohta and Yuka are the first ones to see Nyu/Lucy as she wanders naked up onto the beach. Kohta is pretty much the obvious protagonist of the series opposite Lucy/Nyu. He and Yuka have a history going back to their childhood, and it seems the two of them (especially Yuka towards Kohta) have a thing going for each other. They also happen to be cousins. Yay.

Anyway, Kohta also happens to have a connection to Lucy going back to their childhood, and it has something to do with a day that Kohta has repressed from his memory. Naturally there is a lot of mystery surrounding this and Lucy's origins, which is a big part of the appeal of this series.

The characters are all fairly interesting, and I have to say that most of them are pretty messed up, too. The series does so a pretty good job of making the majority of them actually somewhat sympathetic, though, while it plays with a lot of themes involving prejudice, abuse, revenge, regret, and human emotions.

For instance, Lucy belongs to a new species called Diclonius, which is made up mostly of females with pink hair and two horns protruding from their temples that have something to do with their other feature – invisible arms that can rip through pretty much anything quicker than a human can blink. All the women also seem to be infertile yet there are constantly new births happening, almost as if a virus is spreading and creating them. This is eventually explained, but I'm getting off track here. The thing about these girls is that soon after they get the use of their invisible arms, they start killing people, usually starting with their parents. However, there is a lot of question there as to whether the Diclonius are simply born horrible killers, or if they are driven to this by how they were treated up until they discovered their abilities. Thanks to the horns, most of them are shown to be mistreated by pretty much everyone they meet. Lucy wound up at an orphanage and was bullied mercilessly, at one point being forced to watch as her bullies beat a puppy she had recently found and started caring for to death with a flower vase.

I really can't say enough about this series. It has an interesting and engaging story, the characters actually have some depth to them, the music did a good job of setting the mood, and the animation is very well done. That's not to say that there aren't some plot holes (most of which get lamp-shaded) and that the series isn't at times seriously messed up. I will say this, though, of the graphic nature of the violence – it's not really much different than what one would find in a Hollywood slasher film. My only real disappointment with this series is that it ended the way it did. It's pretty obvious that there was supposed to be a continuing storyline, and a look through the Wiki article confirms this. There are a lot of plot threads left hanging, and while Lucy's fate was left ambiguous, it wasn't that hard to guess who was standing on the other side of the door at the end of the series.

Edit: I've since changed my mind about this series. Please look for the second review of this series to see the new score.

[Hicks]

Ergo Proxy

(23 episode series)

This is an amazingly well done series. The artwork and soundtrack are beautiful, the story is intriguing, and the characters actually have some depth to them.

Technology as presented here is pretty interesting. Everything is obviously pretty high tech, and yet it all has a kind of art deco look to it that seems to hearken back to the 1920s view of the future, actually kind of mixing modern and past visions of the future. For instance, while there are androids (referred to as AutoReivs), they look nothing like the tin can versions or ridiculously human versions seen in other sci fi. Instead, they manage to look both interesting and creepy, looking more or less human in shape, but with faces that look more like porcelain masks and bodies that seem to resemble canvas. About the only exception to this are AutoReivs that resemble children, like Pino.

Taking place in a post-apocalyptic future, it seems that earth's environment has been devastated, ironically in an attempt to create a clean energy alternative. Most of the story is focused around a domed city called Romdo, which could almost be a city from the TV movie adaptation of Brave New World. People are grown in artificial wombs and programmed to serve a particular function within this artificial, dystopic city. They're also constantly encouraged to spend and buy new things, while throwing out all things. Outside the dome, people eek out an existence off of Romdo's scraps in the desolate landscape while dodging Romdo's many robotic patrols. There were also obviously other domed cities at one point, but they are either empty of human inhabitants or destroyed.

This series has two protagonists who share the focus fairly evenly. The first is a man named Vincent Law. An immigrant from another failed city, he works as an AutoReiv disposal worker. AutoReivs have started getting a computer virus that makes them become self-aware, and the disposal unit basically hunts these down and kills them. Romdo is a very structured place, so people and Auto Reivs that don't fit into their pre-determined place in that society are basically just hunted down and killed. Vincent, though, has something of a mystery surrounding him, and soon after we meet him he ends up being whisked away outside.

The other protagonist is Re-l Mayer, a police officer as best I can tell. In some ways she reminds me a little of Ricker Deckard, at least in some aspects. She's investigating a series of murders perpetuated by infected AutoReivs when we meet her, along with her AutoReiv partner, Iggy. She actually hates Romdo and its structured society, though this at least in part seems to be out of resentment for her grandfather, who runs the city. Naturally life gets complicated for her soon after we meet her and she meets Vincent. She develops a strange kind of obsession with him, especially after she first encounters what will come to be known as a Proxy.

While there is some sporadic action, if you’re looking for some kind of sci fi action piece here, you'll be disappointed. Instead, the series focuses a lot more on the frame of mind of the protagonists as they are taken through the story. Vincent has a mysterious past that he's determined to remember, and to do this he goes on a long journey into the devastated landscape he finds himself in. Re-l catches up with him and ends up going with him on his journey, along with Pino, who is the only one to be there with him the whole way.

Neither Vincent nor Re-l are perfect, either. Thankfully the series doesn't go too over the top with their flaws, making them feel a bit more real. For instance, Vincent is kind of a wuss, and he also is more than a little into Re-l, to the point he comes off as somewhat creepy. Re-l, on the other hand, is pretty much a selfish bitch who at times can be very difficult to sympathize with. But, like I said, at least they aren't too over the top.

The story could at times get a bit boring, but for the most part it was intriguing, and left me wanting to find out more. The first few episodes in particular drew me in as everything was set up, and they tended to end as cliffhangers. It's say Ergo Proxy's biggest faults lie with what were basically just filler episodes. Basically Vincent, Re-l, and Pino would come across another dome or habitation of some kind and one or two of them would have some kind of strange adventure. These were somewhat mitigated by what self-discovery was made by the characters involved, and what little additional information we learned about Vincent and his past, as well as about the Proxies (incidentally related, to spoil you a little). The worst offenders though were the episodes that broke the fourth wall just to give us some exposition. The book store episode and the game show episode were especially bad that way. And then there was the Disneyland episode, which was more about having Pino have something to do than anything that actually contributed to the story. Basically, when the story was good, things were interesting and occasionally would tug at my heart strings, but when it was bad it was pretty much just boring and seemed more diversionary than anything.

I'm going to do something odd for me and not actually reveal all that much about the story. Instead, I'm just going to encourage you to watch this series. Some may not find it interesting, but if you're into more cerebral sci fi, you just might like this series. 9/10.

[Hicks]

Excel Saga

(26 episode series)

This series is very safely in the refuge of absurdity. In fact its entire purpose is to make fun of as much as it possibly can. Every episode tackles a genre and mercilessly parodies it. For the most part, it tends to focus on anime, though it expands itself somewhat to include American animation for one episode. There have been a lot of shows that have done the whole "make fun of anime" thing, but this one is definitely one of the better ones I've seen.

At first I wasn't entirely sold on it, because it seemed like just another anime in the same vein as FLCL and Dead Leaves. That isn't to say that it was bad, or that those shows were bad, but I was a bit bored for the first few episodes. The three episode rule definitely applies here, though, as the series seems to pick up after that. It helps to have watched a fair amount of anime to recognize all the references in this series, though. Actually it wouldn't surprise me if I missed a lot more than I caught. Probably the most obvious ones for me were the references to the Captain Herlock franchise. But really if you're familiar with any of the genres Excel Saga parodies in any of its 26 episodes, you'll probably get at least some enjoyment out of it. But that's just because the people who made this did such a good job, that they managed to make an episode that had no gags into one big gag itself, mostly because all the clichés being played straight on purpose ended up being just as funny as the usual treatment they got in the rest of the series.

I'm not really sure what else to say about this series, other than that it's worth a watch, of course. There is literally so much that it's a bit overwhelming, and I feel like I'd either have to go into detail about everything, or just not bother getting into it. So I'm just not going to bother getting into it.

This is definitely a weird show, but it's very enjoyable to watch. If you can laugh at yourself about being a fan of anime, or already like to make fun of the many clichés that tend to show up in anime, you'll probably like this series. If you like to take anime seriously, you probably won't. It's pretty much that simple. Either way, I'm giving this an 8/10, which isn't bad for a parody series.

[Koby]

Elfen Lied

(14 episode series)

I really can't say enough about this series. It has an interesting and engaging story, the characters actually have some depth to them, the music did a good job of setting the mood, and the animation is very well done. That's not to say that there aren't some plot holes (most of which get lamp-shaded) and that the series isn't at times seriously messed up. I will say this, though, of the graphic nature of the violence – it's not really much different than what one would find in a Hollywood slasher film. My only real disappointment with this series is that it ended the way it did. It's pretty obvious that there was supposed to be a continuing storyline, and a look through the Wiki article confirms this. There are a lot of plot threads left hanging, and while Lucy's fate was left ambiguous, it wasn't that hard to guess who was standing on the other side of the door at the end of the series.

If you can handle the graphic nature of this horror series, I would definitely recommend that you see it. 9/10.

I agree fully with this review although I gave it a 10/10 though I don't exactly rate based on all the varying review factors but rather simply out of my enjoyment of the show itself. Had I actually gave a review it would not have the same rating as my enjoyment factor, lol. Elfen Lied is different, but it's great at what it does and there are very few like it.

[Hicks]

Shiny. :cool:

Puni Puni Poemy

(2 episode OVA)

It showed up toward the end of Excel Saga as a show within a show as a gag to make fun of the magical girl anime, so it shouldn't be all that surprising that this gag would have been followed up on. Actually this OVA is pretty much just episodes 27 and 28 of Excel Saga, parodying magical girl anime, yuri (lesbian) relationships in anime, and of course fan service. Yes, I imagine they had a lot of fun making fun of fan service. The anime anatomy and other self censorship kind of ruined that a little for me, but all the cracks about it made up for it, a little.

The major running gag of this OVA is the constant breaking of the fourth wall. I didn't really find it all that funny, but then I didn't find it unfunny either. Basically Poemy constantly refers to herself as the name of the Japanese voice actress who plays her, and just to rub it in, said voice actress actually shows up in the opening theme as she sings it, and at the very end of the OVA after the credits. It loses a little of its effect that she's dubbed over, you know, in the dub, but I have to admit that it was still a little amusing, especially since she was cosplaying as the character.

There actually is a plot about aliens trying to

, but it's actually pretty pointless and pretty much just serves as a means to set up the jokes.

You're welcome.

In any case, if you liked Excel Saga, there's a pretty good chance that you'll like this, too. I mostly did, though I have to admit that I didn't really enjoy it as much as Excel Saga. To be fair, that might just be from overexposure, but either way I'm giving this a 7/10.

[Hicks]

Fist of the North Star

(1986 movie)

Ah yes, another anime "classic." Well, I can't say this was really to my liking either. In pretty much every way, this anime is the stereotype that everyone and his uncle loves to make fun of, and that's pretty much where I derived my enjoyment from.

It has a pretty basic story. A nuclear war has happened, and it pretty much leaves the landscape and people looking like something you'd expect to find in a Mad Max movie. Actually pretty much all the guys look like some variation of Lord Humungus, the only real variations being the outlandish armor and hair style they happen to have, and how big in relation to one another they are. Apparently the nuclear war has caused men to grow into giants even though there's a distinct lack of food and water. Of course they can also glow and pull off impossible fighting moves that can bring down skyscrapers on their own heads that won't even make them flinch. On the other hand, most people seem to be made of pudding, and certain "skilled" warriors can just stab them or cut them to shreds using nothing but their fingers, or better yet, they can use some made-up martial art fighting move to touch all the right pressure points to just make people spontaneously explode. So really the only way to enjoy this movie is just to turn your brain off and accept it as the over-the-top kung-fu action flick that it is. Otherwise you're bound to notice things like how characters who are strong enough to shred all their clothing by just flexing will suddenly have them back again, and how the bloody mess of the person they just made explode is suddenly not there anymore. I'm actually reminded of Sengoku Basara in just how over-the-top and manly this show is, or at least tries to be, except that Sengoku Basara is completely tongue-in-cheek and this movie isn't.

Where was I? Oh yeah, the story, I kind of got of track there. Like I said, the story is extremely basic. The protagonist, Kenshiro, loses the love of his life (who was actually just betrothed to him by his would-be father-in-law) to his former best friend. Apparently humanity is divided into sects of North and South, and the two sides have slowly been moving toward peaceful coexistence. Ken is from the North, and his old buddy who backstabs him, Shin, is from the South. The chick he was supposed to marry, Yuria, is also from the South. So Shin kicks his ass and takes Yuria for himself. Ken also has a couple of evil brothers who basically want to be the special successor of the martial art style they've all been learning from a master of the art, and one of them set up the whole thing while the other just decided he wanted to take over the heavens, starting with the planet. So that one kills their master while the other dumps the mostly already dead Ken off a cliff so he can take his place as successor to this martial art style. Some time later, Ken appears out of no where to save some innocent kiddies and goes on a roaring rampage of revenge. And that's pretty much all there is to it. And Ken manages to not even really win in the end. He doesn't kill his asshat older brother Raoh, and Yuria just kind of disappears, like she found hammer space or something. Ken just ends up wandering everywhere to try to find her again, but in the end he doesn't. Logic would've suggested she ended up somewhere in the rubble of all those skyscrapers Ken and Raoh knocked over during their fight, but this movie is the opposite of logic.

Reading about this movie prior to watching it, I actually elected to watch the Japanese version first because of all the flack the English dub was getting. Having seen them both, I can't see I noted a lot of difference there. The English dub changed the story a bit, unless the subtitled version I watched was wrong in its translation, but as far as quality, well, it sounds like a cartoon from the '70s. It isn't the most horrible dub I've heard, but I can sort of see where people were coming from. But honestly the Japanese dub wasn't any better.

As far as suggesting this as something to watch or not, I'd say it's only something to watch just to see and make fun of yourself. There isn't much point to the actual movie itself since nothing of the story-line is really resolved, and there wasn't a whole lot to the story to begin with. I will throw it a bone for the unintentional entertainment value, though. 1/10.

[Hicks]

New Fist of the North Star

(3 episode OVA)

A reboot rather than a sequel to the 1986 movie, this OVA manages to change a lot of the details without really changing the story. Mostly what's different are the characters and the roles they play. We no longer see Kenshiro's origin, and he's no longer been betrayed by his best friend or his brothers from as much as I could tell. But there's still a big bad that has to be fought and a kidnapped woman who has to be rescued, even if it isn't his girlfriend.

To its credit, this OVA does try to improve on the old movie, and to an extent it does. The artwork is a lot better even if the animation really isn't and the use of CGI can be somewhat distracting. We're introduced to a sympathetic set of characters before Kenshiro is introduced rather than showing his origins, and the OVA even plays a bit with drama. Some of it even works a little, but then it's easy to tug at heart strings by killing a child, especially a sickly one. The story also tries to be a bit more expansive, introducing a city called "Last Land" where most of the story takes place as well as a group of fighters which has sworn itself to seal away the weapons and the secrets of the nuclear war that devastated the planet. This OVA has also practically made Kenshiro into Superman. For all the fights he's in, he's never actually hurt and he tends to just devastatingly defeat any enemy that fights him, no matter how many people that might be. He also seems to have about the same sense of justice, only killing people who really seem to deserve it and committing selfless acts to help others despite having no real connection to them.

But in the end, this OVA is still just a bunch of impossibly well-muscled dudes fighting each other. There are still two big bads Kenshiro has to fight and defeat, with the last fight stopping short of actually killing the other combatant. There's still a busty blonde woman who is kidnapped and must be rescued, and there is still some random kid who Kenshiro feels the need to defend against anything for. Then there's the typical over-emphasis on fighting style, with each pressure point that's touched being loudly called out with an accompanying expository description of what exactly it does. The only difference there is that these pressure points can also be used for insta-healing instead of just making peoples' heads explode.

The characters themselves are rather bland, and the mediocre dub doesn't really help anything. Kwnshiro himself is the stereotypical mysterious short-spoken hero type, Sara is the hot chick whose purpose in life is to heal and who hates seeing violence, and the other characters are pretty much just defined by their role. Then there's Toby, who started out somewhat sympathetic, but ended up suddenly turning into a giant douche and locking Kenshiro up, and then attempting to become sympathetic again in time for him to die.

So really if you liked the first movie, this is pretty much the same as it, just longer. It has the same kind of fighting, more or less the same style of character design, and the same story, with just a bit of fan service and nudity thrown in for fun. That may appeal to some people, but it doesn't really appeal to me. It's about as enjoyable I guess, because while it lacks the corny charm of the first movie, it is just a little entertaining on its own. 1/10.

[Hicks]

Flag

(13 episode series)

While short, this was an effective, fairly good series. The vast majority takes place in a fictitious country of Uddiyana in Central Asia, which is in the midst of a civil war between the two major religions of this country. The United Nations has been called in to help, with its fictitious UNF military force securing and bringing order to the country's capital city. At the time of their arrival, some of the locals made a makeshift flag from a UN flag that became a symbol for peace after a young Japanese photojournalist named Saeko Shirasu snapped an iconic picture of it. The UN is supposed to be setting up some kind of a peace treaty that will bring a permanent cease fire to the country between the warring sides. As one might expect, holding this flag up as a symbol made it a target and it was stolen. A special military unit, the SDC, has been put together to recover the flag, with Saeko going along as an embedded journalist.

This is a fairly typical "documentary" style series, except of course for the fact that it's an anime. It's a somewhat different way of telling a story, as everything is supposed to be from cameras which were on the scene recording everything that's been happening. There's also some heavy hinting that the narrator and character Keiichi Akagi, another photojournalist, is going over all of the raw footage and editing it for us, which is also we see his part of the story. I have to admit that the attention to detail is pretty impressive, and I both liked and disliked this unique storytelling technique. The reason I disliked it at times was that it could get a little obnoxious at times. Since doing it in a completely realistic way would really restrict what could be seen and heard, there tended to be a lot of shots taken that realistically wouldn't have been. That and all the camera guides and indicators superimposed over the image could get a bit annoying at times.

As for the story itself, we get to see everything that's done to recover this stolen flag. It soon becomes apparent that there are some sinister dealings going on behind the scenes, as the terrorists end up packing some pretty serious hardware that normal terrorists wouldn't have access to, like say attack helicopters. The UNF is also made to look pretty shady, which is a little different since anime tends to practically glorify the UN. It brings into light the frankly quite corrupt way the UN tends to do things, and how ineffective they can be. For instance, when their headquarters in the capitol city is taken over an occupied, none of the numerous remaining UNF forces want to do anything. And then there's the way the upper echelon is more interested in saving face then in actually accomplishing the mission. So when a mission they planned to recover this flag goes wrong, they try to make a scapegoat out of one of the SDC pilots involved in the operation rather than accept responsibility for themselves. Then there's how the morning pres briefings try to tell one story when the journalists were are following know that the opposite is true. Of course there also tends to be something of an anti-military tone to all of this, and I can't help but think that the people who made this had a somewhat unrealistic expectation out of the UNF's military strikes. With all the complaining about collateral damage and demonizing of the UNF for it, one wonders what short of just not being there is expected. After all, if they did leave, the country erupts into civil war again and the UNF would be blamed for leaving. Of course this is also somewhat realistic as a reflection of the real world where the impossible is expected of the participants in any military conflict.

Most of the time, though, we follow Saeko as she hangs around with the team tasked with finding and retaking the flag in time for the all-important peace treaty signing, and the personnel she documents are very sympathetic. While somewhat stereotypical, especially the Japanese pilot, they were for the most part very human and it was easy to like them. None of them was really singled out much as comedy relief, though the mechanic could at times be a comedic foil to Saeko since he often took pictures of her at awkward moments as a kind of karmatic way to get back at her for always taking pictures of them. It was also nice to see a female commander who was strong-willed, competent, cared about her people as much as her mission, and who wasn't ever put on the spot in any way because of her gender, unlike say Argento Soma.

Keiichi Akagi is also very easy to like, though he isn't seen a whole lot in the series until closer to the end. He actually comes off as somewhat stereotypically the dashing adventurer type, especially the few times we get to see him on screen – he very much looks the part. The other free-lance journalists he hangs out with seem oddly cooperative with each other considering the competitive field they are in. Mostly his part of the story is there to glorify photojournalism. To be fair some of the things they accomplish can be pretty cool, but this tends to really glorify them while tending to skim over their less admirable traits. His part of the story is also where some of the hammiest scenes come from, in particular one of the scenes where he is initially trying to reach Saeko during a battle both of them are documenting. At one point he stops trying to reach her and instead shouts all kinds of hammy encouragements at her to keep taking pictures, completely reversing his earlier shouts of how stupid she was to risk everything like that. I think that scene would have actually been way more effective had he not said anything, but that's me.

And now coes the part I've been purposely putting off until the end – the mechas. As the other "with a difference" aspect of this series, what is otherwise a show about war journalism apparently felt the need to add, "but with mechas" to its pitch/description. While not done in an overly obnoxious way, I still can't help but think it's a bit silly that they felt the need to make this yet another mecha anime. God knows how many of them I've watched up to this point. In my opinion that aspect of it brings this series down a little bit, especially since these mechas, called HAVWKs (or "havocs" phonetically) are depicted as basically being super-weapons. It's true that at least one of them is destroyed and that they tend not to come out of fights entirely unscathed, the amount of punishment they can take and their capabilities can at times come off as pretty ridiculous. I think it could have been a pretty good show without the mecha, but in some ways that’s what makes the story somewhat unique. It really helps, though, that the focus is on the characters and not the mechas.

The series does have something of a downer ending, though. It isn't really unexpected considering the extremely heavy foreshadowing given by the narrator. While a little anticlimactic, I can't help but note that real life just tends to be that way sometimes, and this series has made a point of trying to make this show as realistic as possible given the subject matter. It may not be the best thing ever, but it's still a good series and I'd recommend it. I'm thinking that I'll actually add it to my over-all recommends list. 8/10.

[nin10]

Great reveiws im going to check some of this animes

[Hicks]

Shiny. :cool:

Gall Force

(4 films and 5 episodes of OVA)

I'm combining everything that made up the "canon" Gall Force series into one review, because frankly, it's going to be a short enough review as it is. The thing is, everything about this series can be summed up as one part space opera and one part fan service. The entire franchise revolves around the same seven female characters, and let's just say that the action tends to be broken up by frequent shower breaks, and that one character in particular tends to wander around naked or at least mostly naked on at least two occasions. Actually, the first three movies are all about a war between a really weird alien that is actually some kind of living goo, and its mutually destructive war with a human-like species that happens to be made up entirely of women. Its hinted that they use artificial means of reproduction in case you were wondering, but for the most part this is just an excuse for fan service and to play up the cutesy "moe" aspect as much as possible. The fun part is when they all have dreams about a male version of one of themselves and act all embarrassed to wake up hugging and nearly making out with each other. After all, with no males and all...

The point of the first three movies, in between mood swings of killing people in horrible ways and trying to make us laugh, is to establish that humans are the product of a genetically engineered union between this race of women and the goo monsters. They do this by having one of the goo monsters rape two of the women. One dies and the other gets preggers. Conveniently they are able to just beam the embryo out and it rapidly grows up into an adult male version of the chick that was knocked up. One of the moe characters escapes to the eventually to be Earth with the dude in order to be Adam and Eve while everyone else dies. The war kills everyone and humanity is supposed to be like the future legacy of the two alien races. Part of this includes leaving a computer record of all their technology for when humans are finally advanced enough for space travel.

Then, much like Battlestar Galactica, all of what happened before happened again, only now the unwinnable war was between humans and their machine creations, which just happened to resemble the goo aliens when they were wearing their mecha suits. There is much proselytizing about how there should be a way for humans and the machines to peacefully co-exist, but the machines (led ironically by a computer called "Gorn") seems pretty intent on killing all humans no matter what, so suggesting to the humans to seek a peaceful solution is just as pointless as begging both sides in the first three movies to stop fighting each other. Naturally the war ends, with the reincarnations of the seven main characters showing up again to win the war.

Then it happens all over again in the last two OVA episodes. Gorn and the seven main characters are once again reincarnated out of nothing and Gorn does a pretty good job of killing all humans, who have once again decided to trust computers a lot more than they should have if they'd been genre-savvy. Basically the who point is to have the main characters on the run once more, constantly under attack. Then the OVA just ends, with them managing to escape but to an unknown fate. Obviously whoever worked on this franchise meant for it to continue in some way, but it looks like it never did, seeing as it was made in the late '80s and the only other things to be done with it were a reboot and some video games.

Probably the most fun to be had out of all these movies and OVAs involves the many shower breaks the female characters take. Even in post-apocalyptic Earth during the war with the machines appears to have a plentiful supply of showers in its ruins, specifically so the women can take shower breaks. So basically this is all just a cheesy space opera with plenty of fan service, which means that it's only worth it to watch if you can have fun with that. 1/10.

[Hicks]

Ghost in the Shell

(1995 movie)

When I'd first seen this movie, I didn't understand yet that it was actually unrelated to the series, which is what I'd seen first. So I was a bit understandably confused at the differences, not yet realizing that there are a lot of anime movies, series, and OVAs which are only related in that they are all different adaptations of the same source material. I'm told that this movie is closer to the source material than the series, though it's a bit slower paced than the original manga. I still can't hide the fact that I prefer the series, but that really doesn't mean that I don't like this movie.

Having watched it a few times since I first rented it, I can definitely say that this movie takes a more patient sci-fi fan to be really enjoyed. There is action at different points in the series, not to mention fan service in the form of the main protagonist Major Motoko Kusanagi stripping down for her invisibility camouflage to work, but the pacing is fairly slow. In fact, I'd say that this movie is more in the spirit of older sci-fi, from the late '60s and the '70s than more modern ones, excepting Blade Runner of course. Actually comparisons to Blade Runner wouldn't be all that far off.

The story follows Kusanagi and her fellow Section 9 officers, who deal specifically with technological threats and crimes. Even still, the focus of the story is more on the philosophy of what it really means to be human, and if a machine can actually develop a soul, though here they refer to it as a "ghost." This movie is also an old school sci-fi in that it actually does focus on what effect(s) new technology might have on humanity. In this case, not only are their androids, but people have become cybernetic to carrying degrees, some actually having their entire bodies replaced, like the Major and her friend/subordinate, Bateau (as it is spelled in this movie). So from there the movie deals with ideas like, can a person who's had their entire body replaced still be considered the same person, and themes of losing one's identity because those cybernetic bodies are produced in assembly lines. At points the Major sees what seem to be copies of herself, though we can never be sure if that's in her mind or not.

Actually, that brings me to another comparison to Blade Runner, namely that in exactly the same way there was some ambiguity as to whether Decker was a human or a replicant, Major Kusanagi is paranoid by the idea that the military has somehow secretly replaced her brain with a computer, and that she's actually just an android programmed to think she is human. So she tends to do some things that are very dangerous in order to feel human, much to Bateau's chagrin.

Then, of course, there's the idea that a person who has been cybernetically enhanced might lose their free will and even their own identity thanks to actually being hacked by someone else. Of course while I actually feel plenty of sympathy for someone like that, even in the face that person may have gone on to commit crimes because of that hacking, other characters in the movie seem to not really be all that sympathetic. Kind of another commentary of the effects such technology might have on humanity, I guess.

The nice thing about all this is that it all leads back into the plot. A mysterious hacker known as the "Puppetmaster" has been hacking a lot of people. That plot leads to more as Section 9 investigates the matter and makes them run afoul of certain military interests. This is where the idea of artificial life comes in, as it turns out their quarry is actually a military AI that wants to escape and to actually bond with a human being. Naturally those certain military interests I mentioned earlier want to both destroy the escaped AI, and kill anyone who knows about it in order to keep them from revealing the truth about the Puppetmaster and their connection to it.

That being said, the end of the movie is somewhat sad, mostly because the implication is that the human the Puppetmaster chooses to bond with effectively ceases to exist in the process and becomes a new life form entirely, and I was rather fond of that character. The new life form then escapes to an unknown fate. There is a bit of a sequel hook there, but really the story could have just ended there.

I honestly can't make any comparison to the original manga because I haven't read it yet, and probably won't anytime soon. All I can say is that this is an overall a good movie, and well worth a watch. The only caveat with that is that you are definitely going to need some patience to get through it. I, personally, don't see the slow pace as a bad thing, especially because the movie is just taking the time to explain the characters and set things up for the story rather than rushing right into the action, but at times I have to admit that the pacing would pick up just a little bit. I'd say the one that suffers more from that is the sequel, which is the review I'll be writing next. As for this one, it's a little tough to rate, actually. In some ways, I'm not entirely sure if I want to rate it at an 8 or a 9, but I think I'm going to go ahead and rate it as an 8/10. It just doesn't quite make a 9 in my opinion, and I don't really split ratings.

[Hicks]

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

(2004 movie)

With this sequel to the 1995 movie, pacing is definitely a bit of a problem. It tries to capture the same feel as the first movie, and to be fair, it does to a certain extent. I can completely understand wanting to take time to give viewers more clues and to try to mess with their heads a little while they try to figure things out, but in some cases this movie wastes this time where it probably shouldn't have.

With Major Kusanagi gone, Batou (the spelling now changed to something more familiar) is now partnered with the mostly human Togusa and leading an investigation into some strange sex-bot gynoids (the technically correct term for female androids) that have killed their owners and anyone else unfortunate enough to be nearby. Of course Batou is also dealing with the loss of the Major, whom he obviously had feelings for. That being said, this movie has a somewhat more depressing tone than the last one, and Botou is pretty much exclusively the focus of this movie.

Batou and Togusa's investigation eventually leads them to a cyborg company called LOCUS SOLUS, which makes the malfunctioning gynoids, which themselves seem to have actually been tampered with in order to draw this investigation. There seem to be some ties with organized crime and a rich eccentric hacker who apparently lives in a somewhat dangerous and lawless part of the world. This is where the movie drags a bit, because for all the time it takes to give the audience some clues while it messes with our heads, there isn't a whole lot of pay off. Not to mention scenes that seem to be more about showing off eye candy more than anything else.

The idea of having one's mind hacked naturally returns, and it seems that Batou becomes a victim in the course of his investigation. Actually he ends up shooting up a store and shooting off one of his own arms, thinking that someone is trying to kill him. Then there's the scene were they go to visit the rich eccentric hacker I mentioned earlier, as both Batou and Togasa almost get trapped in a computer-generated repeating hell. It's only thanks to a brief return by the Major in her new, entirely computerized form that Batou is able to beat this illusion. I have to admit, though, that the repeating kind of got on my nerves. I understand what the movie was trying to do, but after the second time I was ready for the movie to just get on with it already.

While at times this movie tends to drag on, there are some points that it is actually pretty good. Leading up to the climax, there's a scene where Batou boards an off-shore factory ship and wages a one-man battle against essentially an army. Togasa helps out by having into the ship's security system to open the doors for him, and the scene where Batou charges through them is pretty cool by itself, especially with the addition of the soundtrack. And just when it seems like Batou might lose this fight, the Major shows up to help him out, and there's a nice scene between them where she tries to comfort him a little. There's also a call-back to the first movie, because Batou has a thing for putting his coat on the Major when she ends up naked, and he ends up doing that with the gyroid she hacks into to help him out.

Now as it turns out, the cause of those gyroid malfunctions and the reason this LOCUS SOLUS company has been trying its damnedest to kill Batou and Togusa is that they've been having the mafia kidnap little girls to use I some kind of weird soul copying machine. Apparently whatever standard software might normally be used in these live sex dolls wasn't quite "real" enough to the sick frakkers that bought them, never mind that the bots didn't even look quite human to begin with, so LUCUS SOLUS decided that adding bits of the souls of little girls in order to effectively make their products into pedo-bots. Apparently, one of the people working there actually had a conscience and conspired with a couple of the girls to cause these killer malfunctions in order to draw official attention to what was going on to them so they might be rescued. On finding this out, Batou is a lot harder on them then I would be. Sure, it sucks that some innocent people ended up getting killed as a result, but most of the victims were the sick pedophilic owners of these sex-bots, and there is the whole matter of how these girls were kidnapped and were having bits of their soul taken away piece by piece from them until they died, and all so some pedophiles can get their jollies with a robotic sex doll. Of course Batou also feels sorry for the sex-bots that now effectively have human souls who ended up dead, too, but you can guess I'm not with him on that either.

The movie does try to get a bit philosophical, mostly dealing with how robots are becoming more human with things like this soul-ripping machine adding bits of should to robots, and how humans are becoming more like robots as with the Major. Unfortunately it also tries to do this by having Batou, Togusa, and the Major constantly quoting philosophers during the slow parts of their investigation. And this is where I feel the movie is really lacking. Probably the best it gets at being philosophical is when it comes to dolls and the comparison to humans to dolls, and vice versa. Actually the movie has something of an obsession with dolls and how creepy they can be with the right mentality. I wasn't really into that, so for me this aspect of the movie also became something of a bore for me.

As an aside, I also have to say that it just isn't the same without the Major, and the movie never really quite manages to move on from that fact myself. Batou is a pretty cool character, but he's no Kusanagi, and he doesn't really take her place very well as the lead character. Of course, who knows, maybe that was the point.

As for other things about the movie I never really got over, there was the very intrusive nature of the CGI used in the movie. While it was blended fairly well with the animation, it just tended to stand out to the point that one almost wonders why they didn't simply make everything, including the characters, CGI. I also didn't care for the visual design, as it seemed way too abstract to me. Plus, what can I say? I prefer my machines to look like machines, so having a tilt-rotor with wings that split up into feather-looking sections and flap made me cringe, among other such examples.

Anyway, I suppose this movie is still worth a watch, but be aware that it does tend to drag in some parts and actually feel a bit longer than it is. 7/10.