Broken Blade

A fairly standard anime mecha series that is well animated and has some nice things going for it.  Sometime in the future humans can control quartz mentally.  From this odd little skill a whole new  technology is formed that they call magic.  Using flexible alloys peppered with quartz they've created mecha robots.  Our hero is genetically incapable of manipulating quartz so he can't use all this cool technology.  They do find out that he's the only that can control the incredibly ancient mecha that they found so he becomes the typically reluctant pacifist hero often seen in anime.  He only fights because he has personal feelings for the royal family and if they lose they will be executed.  Things are further complicated by having a friend on the other side and a team mate he doesn't trust because he's three gallons crazy in a two gallon bucket.  The series itself does a good job in humanizing characters on all side of the conflict and there are various side plots to keep things interesting.

The animation is good and smooth.  The story, while nothing special, moves along well.  If there is any problem it is that there is some unneeded "fan service."  Really we don't need scenes like, "excuse me if I take off my clothes before we eat dinner."  It just dumbs everything down.  Other than that it's a perfectly fine mecha anime.

X-men the Anime

I don't know how essential this latest installment in the X-men saga is.  After all, there has already been several cartoons here stateside involving everyone's favorite mutants.  But, I suppose it can't hurt to try to take Japan as well.  It's a little odd though, because while faithful it's also off in odd ways.  Just in the grammar of body language it feels just a little wrong.  Specially the character of Wolverine who is played more like the ronin in the classic version of "The Seven Samurai." 

The basic plot is that the X men are called to Japan first to find a little mutant girl and then to solve some bigger mysteries like why does the Professor's mutant detector doesn't work in that area of Japan.  There are some bad guys named rather cheekily "U-Men" who look nothing like humans.  They are robot/cyborgs who are interested in harvesting mutant organs.  They save the Japanese girl and Emma Frost who both join the team.  The girl, Hisaki, is a brilliant little piece of patching two cultures together.  Her mutant power is basically creating a psychic mecha.  So we have our giant robot even though this is an X-men show.  The animation is smooth and impressive.  I like how they handled the Beast.  The big mysteries are little "meh" but the action is pretty spot on.  Cyclops is still a massive buzz kill, but what can you expect? 

Overall, worth a watch.

Dream Eater Merry

An interesting little anime series.  People's dreams are being invaded by dream demons.  Some dream demons are total jerks and take over people's bodies.  Others like to live a more symbiotic lifestyle seeking a balance with people.  Our hero can spot these dream demons or see when they are about to emerge.  He himself has been chased by John Doe the Chaser and his army of cats.

Luckily he has Merry on his side.  A dream demon who for some reason is here without having to take over a human body, she kicks the ass quite well.  The series explores why dreams and hopes are important while not stinting on the action.  The character designs are quite nice and if you like anime definitely give it a try.

The Japanese Are Weird: The World God Only Knows

I've said it here before and I'll say it now, the Japanese can be muy weird.  It's like the knob sometimes fall off on their volume control for strange and it's left at 11.5.  Dating Sims are a good example of this.  It's a sub genre of Japanese gaming that is just plain strange.  Guys try to seduce digital girls by manipulating the situation and their feelings.  Yeah, sort of a groddy feel just describing these things.  "The Worl God Only Knows" take the world of dating sims and runs with it.

Our hero is a geek who plays these games so well and so often he's called by fans "The God of Conquests."  In real life he's a geeky nerd who dresses emo goth and doesn't really have any interests in girls in reality.  One day he accepts what he believes to be a challenge from some anonymous email.  Bad move charlie, what he accepted was a deal with the devil.  This is explained to him by a pretty female demon with a broom.  The details are this, there seems to be a lot of loose souls running around.  They are hiding inside the hearts of pretty girls and the only way to free them is to open their hearts as demonstrated by a freely given kiss.  Our hero either does this, or he gets a head shorter.  Let the games begin.

The problem is that of course reality is not a game.  He finds himself stymied by simple things like the girl track team not having their hair up.  Everyone of course knows that girls on track team have their hair up.  Luckily his demon can change reality in little ways like that which everyone finds very weird.  He then tries to put his moves on real women with on again, off again success.  Of course he wins his kisses and loose souls, but the real question is will the hero stay a proto-sociopathic geek or will he somehow learn to really connect with people?

Kekkaishi is not a Cereal

This is a pretty standard anime but I liked it anyway. There's a school you see, there's almost always a school. The rule is no one is to be at the school after sun down. There's good reason. Under the school is a source of huge spiritual energy. Any bad spirit that gets on the school ground can use that energy to grow really strong. Luckily there are a pair of Kekkaishi (that I assume is translated as "demon buttkickers") to take care of the problem. They come from different families so they are something of friendly rivals. Of course outside forces forces them to fight together.

I like that the series flits from their childhood to the present. It gives both a bit more character than in most animes of this type. I also like their range of powers. Each is armed with spirit dog thing that can sniff out evil. Also they have the same spells. They can create a square force field. They can destroy any spirit in the forcefield and then send that energy to the afterworld. I like their creative uses of a square forcefield. Overall this is just a fun little show.

Coicent

Anime can be a strange place just because of being unfamiliar with the culture.  I have just through osmosis learned a lot about Japan and other Asian cultures but there are still things that elude me.  In this slight, though cute, little anime I really don't know what the significance of the deer is.  I've seen deer in other temple settings before (Latest was the talking deer in Judge Dee), but I don't know WHY they are there.  What is the story behind it?  I just don't know.

Coicent is set in the future.  There's a big festival and our hero is hoping for a little fun and maybe meet a girl.  Being a typical Japanese Nerd type he's going to need help.  So a talking white deer takes first his bag and then him on a wild ride.  It just so happens that on that ride a girl literally falls into his lap.  She's escaping an irate (if not necessarily evil) corporate boss and she's some sort genetically enhanced being.  Between the two of them they fall and love and have adventures as they try to keep away from corporate goons.

It's a light little tale but it is fun and well animated.  Oh by the way, "Coicent" is a corruption of the original Japanese title "Koi Sento," so its not some weird mispelling of coincident or something like that. 

Redline

I've been a fan of anime since I saw my first fan dub of "The Bubble Gum Crisis" at Norwescon. It's a beautiful medium with a lot of potential. Unfortunately, it generally wastes it. It's easy to get annoyed at anime with the same five plots and the same three characters. Then, just when you are ready to chuck it all you see something like "Redline," and if it doesn't restore your faith in humanity it at least makes for a funky time.

Now "Redline" isn't really original, but what it lacks for in originality it more than makes up for in energy and bugaboo whooting chaos nutso crazy. I've never seen anything like it, oh wait I have. The last time I saw animation this crazy it was attached to a film called Party 7.



Redline comes off like someone gave Ralph Bakshi in his prime a bunch of LSD and cocaine and then sent him off to Japan to make an anime version of the "Wacky Races." So the plot such as it is has our hero with hair so big it counts as an extra limb trying to qualify for the redline the biggest race in the galaxy. He loses because his no account friend and mechanic is working for the mob. He wins a place in the race anyway when it's announced it's going to be in a war zone which causes a lot of folks to drop out. The rest of the movie has our hero meet the other racers including the very cute Cherry Boy Hunter. Then of course there is the race, followed by the cyborg troops sent out after to kill them, magical princesses, and huge akira style monsters. It's an amazing movie where literally anything can happen and probably shouldn't. Cars probably shouldn't morph into beautiful girl robot with tires on her hips and her drivers enclosed in the silicon(?) ta tas, and it shouldn't be doing a funky dance that takes out cyborg assassins.

Clearly, this is a film that doesn't give a hoot about traditional notions of story telling, logic, or normalacy. Luckily, the music helps bind the craziness together. A song like "Yellowline" is less music and more a drug that synchs your heart into this ten thousand miles per hour movie.

Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva

Professor Layton is a character in a series of games for the Nintendo DS.  Very popular games so I gather.  They are games based on mysteries and puzzles and from what I could seem they look like a lot of fun.  "Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva" is so far as I know the character's first foray into film.

Professor Layton is a triple threat; he's brilliant at puzzle solving, he's a gifted archaelogist, and he's the perfect gentleman.  He's aided by Luke a young boy who wants to learn to be just like the Professor.  Aparently, this film takes place early in the Professor's career, but since we don't see anything like an origin story it doesn't really matter.

The plot starts when the Professor receives a letter and two opera tickets.  Turns out an old student of the Professor has made it in the world of Opera.  There is something amiss, though, as a friend she thought dead turns up in the body of a young child claiming she has won eternal life.  That her current opera is also about eternal life she wonders if there is a connection.  The Professor agrees to look into things.

The Professor soons find himself in a dangerous game with hundreds of people seeking to win eternal life.  There are puzzles to solve and bad guys to smite and a mystery to solve.   This was fun film that was light and light hearted.  The look was very nice reminding me of "The Castle of Cagliostro."  The mix of 2d and CGI animation didn't mesh 100%, but it worked well enough.  I like the main characters well enough, but I have admit my mind was weirdly drawn to the comic relief cop character.  I have never seen anyone who had a pompadour for chest hair.  You don't see that every day. 

Koihime Muso

sigh....

You know one thing I liked about anime is that it often features strong female characters. On the other hand, they then stick them in a series like this. On the face it sounds like a good idea. All the men in china at this time are off at one war or another so bandits are going across the land taking everything not nailed down. Only our plucky gal martial artists stand between them and the common people.

Sounds good. Then we get the big boob jokes, and the lesbian jokes, and the just plain weird jokes. I mean, I must be missing a cultural clue but I don't get dressing girls in nothing but a pair of panties with a huge swan head poking out for an entrance exam for a government job. Color me weird like that. Anyway, it's no better or worse than the fifty or so other animes of this stripe.

Pet Shop of Horror

This is really a silly idea, but its present in such Twilight Zone intensity that it sort of works. In China Town Count D runs a most odd pet store. Oh it has the usual bundles of joys, but in the back of the shop are the special pets. Things that can grant your heart's desires. Trouble is that each pet comes with strings attached and a contract that says the store takes no responsiblity if the owner breaks a condition of ownership.

They always do.

The owner is a rather odd duck. His name is Count D, and he's an emo goth type with a flying bat bunny and a sweet tooth. He drives one cop right out of his mind cause he's SURE that he's some sort of super criminal rather than just the humble seller of dreams that might come true.

11 Eyes

For some reason, at one point in anime eyepatches became the in thing. Not quite sure who. I know there was a historical samurai who had an eye patch thing going. I know at one point there was a weird fetish for pictures of girls in eyepatches and casts. Who knows, maybe it was a Johnny Depp Pirate movie that set it all off. At any rate there was a space of a few years where every anime had one character with a funky eye patch.

Since there are six people and 11 eyes, you can guess that yes one is wearing a funky eye patch. That would be our hero. A rather morose orphan who's only real friend is cheery girl friend who is also an orphan. Suddenly, one day they find they keep falling into an alternate tokyo filled with monsters called the Red Night. They find others who also can enter the Red Night and they start trying to figure out what's going on. Why do the bad guys refer to them as fragments? Who is the girl in the crystal?

This isn't a bad anime at all. It has some interesting designs, and some good ideas. Nothing too original mind you, but its fun.

Needless

Probably not a great thing to name your work. "Needless" easily plays into a critic's hand if it is indeed ... well.. needless. So is it? Eh, let's say it doesn't cover new ground.

It's the future, but its the gritty post nuke future. But that's ok, cause folks sometimes get super neat mutant powers. Even though they can kick everyone's ass, they are called "Needless." Now a rogue corporation is hunting Needless for testing and spare parts. Whatever resistence there was was slaughtered and the only survivor is on the run. Luckily he finds the one Needless who can stand up to the corporation. His power is that he can take other people's powers. His weakness is he is highly distractable and doubly so in the case of pretty women.

So this is pretty standard anime. Some fighting, some hijinks involving near naked ladies, and some humor. Pretty much everything you've seen before.

Sorcerer Hunters

Apparently in some fantasy worlds Sorcerers are horrible pests. The Sorcerer Hunters are basically bounty hunters and exterminators of these mystic pests. Of course it's not easy to take out someone who can sneeze thunderbolts. Luckily our crew has a secret weapon. His name is....Carrot. Carrot is an idiot, and a rather lecherous one at that. However, he has within him the power to become an ultra powerful demonic being who can take out sorcerers. That of course leaves the problem of what do you do with an ultra powerful demonic being who's a tad upset. Well that's why you have two girls with whips.

Yeah I had to read that last sentence twice myself. Definitely far more farce than action, it's as low brow as a cave man after a stroke. Proceed with caution, you've been warned.

Hell Girl

Hell Girl is a very cute little girl from hell. She has servants who are spirits and she has a rather odd job. See there's a web site, and if you follow the instructions and do it at the right time Hell Girl will come to you. If you have someone you really, really hate she'll offer you a deal. She'll give you a little figure with a red string around it. If you still have hate in your heart just remove the string and then Hell Girl and her servants will remove that person to hell right now. The catch is, someday when you die you will also go to hell. So is it worth damning yourself for vengeance?

As you can guess the series is less about Hell Girl than the individual folks who petition her service. Since they are generally young folk I can only feel that they are damning themselves for practically nothing. I mean damning yourself to send a bully to hell? Truly karma is a bitch.

It's a beautifully animated anime, but in the end I find it rather empty and repetitive. Just remember to say no to hell people no matter how sweet the dream seems.

Guin Saga

Well this is pretty classic sword and sorcery done anime style. We have the last two living heirs of a dynasty on the run. They are cute, but cute isn't going to save them from sword swinging knights. Luckily, they meet Guin. Guin is like Conan but with a leopard for a head. He becomes the kids protector and he makes sure all the derring is do'd and the swashes buckled. This is fairly watchable but nothing to out of the ordinary.

Gravitation

Well this is what happens when you order blind from the library. I put in "Anime" into the search engine and out pops out a dvd called "Gravitation." I figure it's a sf type thing. I could have looked up more information, but I like keeping things as blind as possible. Surprises are half the fun.

Boy was I surprised.

First off, no sf. This is a soap opera style story of kid trying to make it big in music world. Perhaps he shouldn't have named his band "Bad Luck." I was more surprised when there was an extreme lack of a female element. It certainly quickly goes all brokedown mountain as our hero finds himself attracted to a prickly author. Will they find true love? Will our hero get a number one hit? Honestly, it's not that much different from most anime, just a bit not my thing. It was interesting to see how another culture dealt with homosexual themes which in this case was "no big deal." Sort of wish we could handle the same without hand wringer.

Kickin' it Old School

Before anime got what little respect it enjoys today, it was very much of a secret thing. Fan tapes passed hand to hand. Bits and pieces seen at conventions. It was very much a process of discovery. There was no context given for what we were seeing. The translations were inconsistent, and if you did find something dub it was often very off model (one famous example was giving Captain Harlock a John Wayne voice!)

I remember that one of the very first anime badass I saw was Cobra. The scene was perfect overkill. Our hero was riding a futuristic motorcycle and being chased by a ship easily as big as a Star War's Star Destroyer. He turns around and then something happens to his arm. It becomes a gun. Suddenly there is a cut to the ship and this one poor red shirt is wetting himself and he just has enought time to say.. "PSYCHOGUN!!" Then Cobra shoots the damn ship out of the sky with one shot.

Add an obnoxious personality that somehow was a babe magnet, his own personal spaceship, and his android Lady and you had Cobra who was sort of an anime version of Han Solo with a much bigger gun. I was amused years later to see the animation show up in the video Girlfriend.




Hyper Police was also another early favorite. It was like a weird version of the Gamma World game. Mutants and other creatures were the majority and justice was handled by various bounty firms. Our heroes are an unlikely team of a cat girl and a fox spirit. It just is a super wacky combination of gritty action and cute. Yet it worked for some reason.



One of the few times anime broke near the mainstream in the early days was on the budding Science Fiction Network (before it became Syfy) Even though I had seen it before I was thrilled when "Tank Police" was shown on TV hosted by Ralph Bakshi! It was something of a vindication that we weren't just being weird.

Tank Police was also something of an odd mixture of cute and gritty. Set in the future things were so bad that the cops now ran around in super large tanks. The plots were incidental to massive property destruction.



Of course besides mindless violence fans were attracted by the infamous Puma sisters. No doubt early viewings of the Pumas did a lot to encourage the Furries. Hey no one is perfect. My only question was, where did they hide those guns?



Of course you can't think of the early days without thinking of Lum. The most out right silly thing one is likely to see, it was like I dream of Jeanie on acid. That we didn't get 90% of the jokes based on Japanese culture didn't stop it from being screamingly funny.

Kamichu!

Well apparently in some animes you can just be declared a god. Obviously I'm born in the wrong end of the space/time. Anyhoo, this happens to young Yurie Hitotsubashi and her world is never the same. Well except that it is. She's still often late for school, blushes at the drop of a hat, and still can't get the boy she likes to look at her and remember her time. Truly, it's tough to be a god, specially when you aren't sure what you are the god of.

This is a sweet little anime. In fact, it falls directly into the range of cloyingly sweet. It's not bad, it's just something that is far too geared for japanese schoolgirls at around the age of 13 to work for me. I can appreciate its fine art work, and its gentle story telling, but it doesn't ring my bells.

Legend of Black Heaven

This is an interesting variation of the "Magical Girlfriend" genre of anime. Instead of the typical young Japanese nerd, our hero has a bit more experience. He was once a heavy metal rock and roller. Times have moved on though, now he's just a salary man with wife and kid. Things change though when aliens discover that his music can win their battles. So they send pretty female agents to earth to coax him to play his ax for glory. His wife is suspicious of all this female attention on her man, and there are many misunderstandings and other hijinks's.

It's fun, and light hearted and its nice seeing an older protagonist.  It's also nice to have music just a little heavier than the standard japan-o-pop.  Nothing earth shattering, but a nice diversion.

Gatekeepers

Gatekeepers is a fun little anime of the retro persuasion. Set in 1969, our heroes are students who have the ability to open "Gates" that grant them great powers of an elemental nature. So one person controls the gate for air/wind and another flame, etc. etc. They are recruited by a super secret organization that just happens to be built under the local high school (they have to create fake dust storms when mobilizing so no one guesses there's a super secret lair under the gym.) The foe is called just "the invaders," and they are sort of creepy. They look like MIBs and can fuse into various weird giant forms.

As I said, this is great fun. All done with a light touch and a fun sense of design. Being set in 1969, makes for an interesting time to fight funky aliens. There's an enormous sense of optimism. We could use more of that.