Binbou Gami Ga!
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2.0
Kill Me Baby
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Seitokai no Ichizon
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School Days
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Kannagi
Alternative titles:
Kannagi: Crazy Shrine Maidens
かんなぎ (Japanese)
神薙 (Chinese (Taiwan))
.hack//Roots
Alternate Titles: None
Original Japanese Release Date: April 5th, 2006
Episode Length/Run-time: 26
Summary:
.hack//Roots is the prequel to the .hack//G.U. videogames. It follows the story of Haseo, a Multi-Weapon and member of the Twilight Brigade guild. In the year 2015, CC Corp. Building burnt down, and with it, most of its data for The World. By splicing data from what would have potentially been another game, CC Corp. created The World R:2 and released it in 2016.
Review:
Set six months before .hack//G.U., Haseo logs into The World R:2 for the first time and falls victim to the PKs that reside within The World R:2. Pking has apparently become a big problem. He is saved by Ovan and Shino, which prompts him to join the Twilight Brigade. The Twilight Brigade members are on a mission to find the Key of the Twilight, however, the TAN guild opposes this because they want Ovan’s character data due to the device in his left arm and will stop at nothing to keep the Twilight Brigade from their goal. The twist is when Tri-Edge shows up. Things briefly pick up in the series when he turns up, making for a short run of episodes that were actually fun to watch. Makes for some good drama and some action scenes.
If you plan to watch the series, without playing the game, don’t. You need to play the games to finish the story and let me tell you, the game suck. Badly. You may go insane playing them. But without playing the games:
- Many unexplainable events
- Characters aren’t fleshed out enough you miss out on a LOT of character background. things just happen without any reason for this being given
- The ending leaves SO many questions unanswered
This anime has extremely large periods of nothing happening. What the hell is the director thinking? Everything happens very slowly. Long periods of characters just starring off into space at the sky or at something in particular. Really weird. It’s a bit how you’ll notice in an anime how sometimes they will just be like a really long still image. Also it takes characters a long time to decide to do something and then an even longer time to execute. It makes things ever so boring.
The anime totally abandons the “MMO inside an anime” theme. .hack//Sign had scenes that would show the person using the computer or would have very video game like character traits for the in-game avatars. .hack//Roots totally dumps this trait. You never see the out of game players and the characters in the series are just way too emotion filled and “real” to be ingame avatars. As a result, it doesn’t really feel like you’re watching an MMO. Many of the characters are pretty unlikeable in the end as well. They don’t get background and they really don’t feel that vibrant. Even the main character Haseo is just a shitty emo character.
The visuals and music are very nice the animation and the overall art is very nice. The character designs for .hack are always very interesting, and the artwork in general is of an excellent standard. This is a good thing, because you are forced to stare at pretty visuals in which very little happens for a long, long time. The music is fantastic as well. The theme song and was played at the start of tonights podcast, “Silly Go Round” Is quite awesome and even the BGM features famous melodies such as the “Queen of the Knight” Aria from Mozart’s “Magic Flute”.
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Cat Soup
Alternate Titles: Nekojiru-so
Original Japanese Release Date: 2001
Episode Length/Run-time: 34 Minutes
Summary:
A cat is trying to save his elder sister from death. When he does her soul is ripped into two. He returns half her soul to her but it is not enough to bring her back all the way and she becomes a shell of her former self. He then embarks on a journey to return his sister to her former self.
Review:
I’m just going to say it on this one. Cat Soup is one of those anime that no one has any clue what’s going on. But, because it is presented in a surreal, whimsical, and many times lovely in that odd psychological way people suddenly seem to think it is deep and rich with story and purpose. Because it presents itself as an intellectual soiree into some deep and engaging subject matter or commentary the educated minds that watch it feel as though they are missing something (I’m sure) so to cover and not appear stupid they praise its value and its deep presentation.
Really, Cat Soup is 30 minutes of “huh?” Pretty in many ways, but still “huh?” Random scenes are thrown in there to evoke feeling such as the atomic bomb blowing up, a pig eating itself, prisoners of war being shot. But it’s thrown together in such a haphazard way that it leaves the viewer being more confused than evoked. I get that they’re going through a dreamscape, but nothing other than the fact that it’s a dreamscape really seems to have anything to do with the protagonist or his sister.
What I can, however, praise it for is that it did have a beginning, middle, and end. For 30 minutes, this is pretty good. Even if the presentation came off very animation student project trying out different things for their final requirements it did have the bones of something over being nothing other than those random scenes. The anime also lacks dialogue, which is also impressive to convey a story under such circumstances.
It was directed by Tatsuo Sato, who really hasn’t done much other than being the series director of Ninja Scroll, which could explain a lot now that I think about it…
Overall, this series isn’t a total waste of your life given that it’s only 30 minutes. But I likely wouldn’t buy it from a bargain bin.
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DOGS Bullets & Carnage
Alternate Titles: None
Original Japanese Release Date: May 19th, 2009
Episode Length/Run-time: 4 Episode OVA
Summary:
Set in a crime ridden city, DOGS follows the story of four people as they search for their own life stories, sometimes crossing paths as the story unfolds.
Review:
There isn’t much to say about this anime other than its not very good. Seeing as its own a grand total of 60 minutes in length, the show’s plotline doesn’t really have an opportunity to be anything but bare bones and the generic characters in the series really get no development and therefore, we don’t really care if they live or die. This is quite unfortunate because all they do in this anime is kill each other. I recall a shootout in a graveyard with a bunch of mafia members. How ironic they they’re killing each other in a graveyard. The bodies won’t need to go far, or be dropped in a river in concrete galoshes. There were only a couple things that kept me from giving this anime the score of “it might as well be a hentai”. Number one, the action entertained me, just a bit. Number two, there were no hot girl characters in it and therefore, it would have to be a yaoi hentai and we all know how feel about that.
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Basquach
Episode Reviewed In: Episode 13
Alternate Titles: None
Original Japanese Release Date: 2009
Episode Length/Run-time: 26 episodes
Summary:
Dan JD is an average boy on the planet of Earthdash. He looks up at the moon with the planets other inhabitants in awe at the thriving civilization up there. He gets caught up in Big Foot Basketball, a traditional basketball game made faster paced and played with giant robots and dreams of someday going to the moon.
Review:
It’s really sad when you hear the director is scrapped halfway through and you’re happy because it means it will end!
The anime seemed kind of new and fresh, mecha playing basketball? But it doesn’t really deliver on any originality. It has no plot, all they really do is run around and play basketball and don’t seem to really get anywhere the whole show.
It’s like one big Nike ad, all the mechs are wearing shoes with the large Nike swoosh and it’s put throughout. It’s even listed in the beginning during the opening so it’s clear it’s basically one big ad campaign. It’s hard for anime because it ruins the feel of the show by destroying the world.
While it is something that’s fresh it’s really bad and falls into a lot of bad cliches (giant tits because she’s from the moon?). But it’s not worth a hentai rating because you don’t even want to see the characters naked. They’re unlovable at best and jail-bait that’s not worth it.
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All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku
Alternate Titles: Bannou Bunka Neko-Musume
Original Japanese Release Date: 1992
Episode Length/Run-time: 6 Episode OVA
Summary:
After Ryunosuke’s cat dies, his father, a genius inventor, puts the cats brain into the body of an android. The androids name is Nuku Nuku and she has only two main tasks. The first is to be a friend and a sister for Ryunosuke and the second is to protect Ryunosuke’s father from his crazy ex-wife who works at a conglomerate making weapons of mass destruction.
Review:
Nuku Nuku is a very silly anime. The basic plotline allows for a monster of the week chain of events in which Ryunosuke’s mother attacks her ex-family each episode with a new weapon she has created, usually a a robot of some sort. The show even takes this opportunity to try to be funny. The weapon will be a cross between a washing machine and a nuke launcher or something to that effect. Regardless, Nuku Nuku always puts the threat down with her super speed and strength.
The school that Ryunosuke goes too is very weird as well and the other students follow the typical cliche framework. There is the Ojou-sama, the emo girl, the sports people, the nerds, and some random dude that always is singing while playing the guitar. This attempt at comedy might have been funny the first time but it gets old very fast and afterwards just serves as an annoyance.
The relationship between Nuku Nuku and and Ryunosuke is clearly one of love and affection, though it doesnt really get and clearer until the second OVA series of Nuku Nuku Dash. At this point Ryunosuke becomes a little older. Nuku Nuku is just as hot as ever. 🙂
The show doesn’t really bring too many positives to the table. I suppose the most enjoyable parts are the family life between Nuku Nuku and her family which is probably the only time that the show is away from the cliche ridden school setting and fight scenes. The show really isn’t that recommendable. There are many many things that you could be watching that are much better and funnier.
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