Jumping in Headfirst

Another nineties series I picked up, Saber Marionette R is three-episode OVA sequel to the far more "popular"/well-known series Saber Marionette J, penned by the writer of one of my favorite anime, Bakuretsu Hunters. The series is set three hundred years after the adventures of the original Cherry, Lime, and Bloodberry, and the hapless protagonist Otaru, and in a world that is apparently much worse off. Already, the series is off to a much less interesting start than the original, as darker and edgier is generally the more boring direction. In the end, what we are given is a far more forgettable, but more "action packed" version of Saber Marionette J. Hapless boy ends up with three hot cyborg girls. But where the original series had mysteries to solve and, (at least mildly) made one question what constitutes being a human, this series avoids all of that to shove weak fight scenes (it's not a fight if you don't have the HOPE of winning) and more misogyny ...

UFO Princess Valkyrie It is rare to find an anime with so much potential that is completely wasted, in my eyes. More often than not, when a certain anime sucks it simply is not surprising. I look at the premise and am disinterested, or it is an adaptation of something that's only one to two volumes old and the material is just not developed enough. That said, usually somewhere in a series that I DO find interesting is that certain something that makes it worth your time, if not a work of art. So as said, it's rare when I find a show which I DO think can be good, end up being terrible. Such is the case with UFO Princess Valkyrie. Before I'd watched the series and started, I did not expect too much from it. The description sounded interesting, but I've seen series before that have alien characters come out of nowhere, and they are not usually that good. It was not until I saw how they were playing the series itself that I grew interested. It takes place on an Earth ...

Early Reins Occasionally, stuff like this happens. As an anime fan, there are a few OVA releases every year, and it's a guarantee ONE of them is something you'd love as a television series. Early Reins is one of those OVAs. It's a simple set-up, but very cool. It's a story of a train hijacking in the 1800's. Admittedly, if this were the plot of a Gunsmoke episode...well, I probably forgot about it because I'm sure it IS the plot of a Gunsmoke episode, but as an anime, there's something about it that makes it...not necessarily cooler, but...more attention-grabbing? It also contains something ELSE I'm a fairly big fan of: Gender-swapping. Often times a cliched idea or story can be made more interesting by flipping the gender that's normally involved with that cliche. Here, the main characters are all female, and the story was cooler for it. Unlike Melty Lancer, where the girls were shown-up by everyone from their boss to their "THIS guy aga...

Mai-Otome One of my favorite anime series of all time is Mai-HiMe. So, much like with Kiddy Girl-and, I was looking forward to the semi-sequel that was Mai-Otome. Fortunately, it turned out a lot better than that mess. Mai-Otome does a far better (and, I'm assuming, more intentional) job of distancing itself from the parent series, likely to keep fans from wondering why they can't see certain characters from the original. (In my case, it keeps me from wondering where they are and why they can't handle things.) In fact, while nearly all of the original cast is around as identical descendants, none of them play any significant roles, those instead landing in the hands of the newer characters that were created for this series. If I'm being completely fair, there's nothing WRONG with the new characters, per se. Certainly there's nothing wrong with the world, which is completely different (for reasons explained in the story) from the one in Mai-HiMe, which conce...

Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam III: Love is the Pulse of the Stars Upon finishing the first film, I had to find out what was up with the timewarp Tomino was putting viewers through, so after some digging I discovered the films would have more new footage as they progressed, with Love is the Pulse of the Stars having 70% new footage. This makes sense, given much of the final parts of Zeta are reworked to tie things up in 100 minutes. The arrival of the Neo-Zeon forces to save the AEUG, the subsequent double-betrayal by the both of them, and the gigantic space war that ends the Gryps Conflict, all occur one after another in rapid succession. It feels slightly rushed, but only slightly, and overall not much was lost. Of course, Zeta is from Tomino's Kill 'Em All days, so most of the characters drop like flies in this film, but there's still a major difference in how the main character's own story is ended. Rather than the complete WTF the original ending gives you ("Comets...

Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam Movie II: Lovers The second part of the Zeta: A New Translation trilogy, Lovers, is generally a less distracting film than the original. With original footage down to around 50%, you find yourself pulled out of the film less often than the first, which is good, because the middle of Zeta likely contains it's strongest parts. Focusing on the AEUG's time on Earth after their Jaburo operation, this film is full of great battles, as the Earth's Federation is most powerful here, and excellent character moments. Slowly they drag Kamille out of the trauma-ridden events of the first movie, as he's introduced to war hero Amuro Ray, and potential love interest Four Murasame. Actually, it never occured to me until I watched Lovers how surprisingly film-like the time on Earth was to begin with. While often time movie versions of series cut so much they don't compare to their counterparts, Lovers , with the very specific goals it had to accomplish (in...

Part fifteen, coming your way. Melty Lancer Admittedly, when you talk to me sometimes, I can come off like a chauvinist. It's not *all* the time, but I'm willing to cop to it, primarily because it's mostly just jokes. When I feel like being funny, I do NOT pull punches, and sometimes people can mistake that for my being a sexist jerk. But jokes are exactly that--jokes. I love strong women, both in real life and fiction, and some series succeed or fail based on whether I think they pass the test of them actually *being* strong. (Same with the guys. Weakness does not entertain me.) This is how Melty Lancer made it on this list. I love shows set in space to begin with, but noticing the all-female cast of "special forces" police, I kinda figured there would be some badassery going on. This, is what I get for thinking. Initially, this six episode OVA displayed a group of characters that were just awesome as I wanted them to be...for about five minutes, and th...

Different anime, same bat-channel. Yozakura Quartet I'm guessing Yozakura Quartet is an awesome manga. I say "I'm guessing", because I've never really read it. I haven't read ahead, don't know any friends--but you can always tell. Japan has a habit of adapting manga that are not even close to completion (Or have just started. See: Omamori Himari) in order to fill out more programming hours. As a result, the adaptation always feels like there's chunks of the universe missing, the story incomplete. For most manga, this is a death knell (again, see: Omamori Himari), often reducing a decent plotline and interesting characters to stereotypical protagonists and a fluff story, but in YQ's case, the good parts of the original story come shining through. The incomplete part still remains though, as we're given a story about a city of humans and youkai who have slowly learned to live together, and a villain trying to destroy their harmony, that feel...

Let's knock out a few more of these. City Hunter: .357 Magnum I'd like to say I remembered exactly what happened in this movie, but man...I'd be lying. Now I know what they mean when people say it's better to be hated or loved, never in between. What I took away from this movie is that the main character, Ryo, is probably a bad-ass, which was obvious to begin with. His sidekick, who's name fails me at the moment (just checked--Kaori), is the start of those really annoying tsundere-types, and there's an assortment of interesting characters that surrounds Ryo. Other than that, it was a fairly forgettable use of about 87 minutes, but I'm not discouraged from continuing with the City Hunter franchise , as it's one of the few anime franchises that existed before the 2000 boom.

Project Otaku Powerlevelling continues! By the end of May, I had already completed 12 series--well on my way to finishing all 50 shows. But I was running into a different problem. I was running behind on the NEW anime I had picked up for the Spring season. So Traveler and I picked three OVAs we could finish within a couple days, and spend the first week of June catching up on the Spring shows. We picked: Iczer-One, Compiler, and Dangaioh. Let's start with: Iczer-One See, I should've known this series would suck when I checked MAL and a reviewer talked about how the series fell into the horror genre. But it fooled me with the random act of lesbian sex at the start. (Male readers are thinking: "Would've fooled me too...") Just as randomly however, we find innocent people being ripped apart by scary looking tentacle monsters from the inside, the main character is having nightmarish hallucinations, and my fun RAPIDLY comes to an end. I was MASSIVELY pissed abou...