Blue Flames
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2.5
Hiiro no Kakera
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Oda Nobuna no Yabou
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Chrome Shelled Regios
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Super Robot Wars OAV
Alternate Titles: Super Robot Wars: Original Generation – The Animation, 超級機器人大戰O.G.
Original Japanese Release Date: May 2005
Episode Length/Run-time: 3 Episodes
Summary:
A new model of super robot has come out and everyone’s excitement suddenly turns to fear and chaos as these new robots become the enemy and start attacking everyone and everything around their inaugural celebration. Upon thwarting the enemy there was a mysterious lack of casualties. The ATX and SRX teams must discover the reasoning behind the attack and what happened to their friends.
Review:
This anime delivers on its title, it has a lot of super robot wars. Wasting no time, as it shouldn’t being only 3 episodes long they quickly establish the world and characters with a few scenes and simple dialogue and move right into the initial attack. The fight scenes are pretty sweet, despite some of the characters corny lines and jokes to”lighten the mood.”
The mystery about the new robots is just enough to keep you, as the viewer, engaged in them. At the end of the first episode a rather graphic image of a naked woman suspended painfully with clips throughout her body in a strange fluid drops out and you learn of the perhaps sinister ODE system.
One thing I really have to tip my hat to in this OAV is how they give the information about the world and characters. Its on a need to know basis which works well. In three episodes they don’t have time to elaborate on everything or go into every last little thing and they don’t. They also don’t make the common mistake of bombarding you upfront with all the information either, which works well.
The animation is nothing impressive, given the animation look and style I actually thought it was about 5 years older than what it was. Now that’s not all bad, I like the look of the old style, but for 2005 its lacking in a few scenes I think, particularly the action scenes. The music is decent, nothing astounding either but they seemed to have a fair amount of pieces for such a short series and it fits the mood and fight scenes well to create the mood. Plus, the opening is pretty good!
Overall, for three episodes they do a good job of packing a story with some suspense and desperation along with some good action scenes in there. It wont change your life and the originality is nothing astounding, but I would say it’d be a good way for someone who isn’t sure about the mech genre to try things on and see if they like it. The time investment to enjoyment for this series I’d say is pretty high. Overall it is is pleasantly average series.
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Yumekui Merry
Alternate Titles: Dream Eater Merry
Original Japanese Release Date: 2011
Episode Length/Run-time: 13 Episodes
Summary:
Fujiwara, a stereotypical good-hearted yet slightly oblivious high school boy, possesses the ability to see people’s “Dream-auras,” a colored haze surrounding a person which indicates the type of dream which they will have. One day he meets Merry, a dream demon who is looking for a way to get home. They end up teaming up as Merry enters his daydream and saves him from his own dream demon who was seeking to possess his body and enter into the human world. The effort to return Merry home soon becomes locked in struggle against the dream demon Engi, who seeks to destroy others.
Review:
Dream Eater Merry is based off a manga which began back in 2008. It currently has 6 volumes and is still ongoing. As a result the series suffers heavily from two main things. One, operating from a story that has yet to reach a conclusion and likely won’t for some time (like a FMA versus Brotherhood situation). And Two, as a byproduct of one, being far too short.
This anime is one that could have easily been great.
The animation alone is a notch above the rest, even among modern animation standards. Everything flows smoothly and fight sequences are animated flawlessly. But high-gloss colors and quality movement is a dime-a-dozen now a days. What really takes Yumekui Merry above and beyond is the camera angels. Shot like a high-quality cinematic film the angle for the images is used in both artistic and creative ways. The style of art is a cross between dream-like and surreal. Painting an astounding picture of each original dreamscape.
What further improves the atmosphere is the music. Dreamlike, whimsical, and sometimes haunting the music of this show is fantastic. A perfect example of how you don’t need a full blasting orchestra to create fitting and evoking music.
So right now, this anime is at a 5/5. Unfortunately, it was doomed to failure from the beginning.
The anime, as mentioned before, is only 13 episodes long. This is not nearly long enough for this series. The first arc focuses on establishing Merry and Fujiwara’s relationship and overcoming his demons. Now about one third of the way through the series the focus shifts to returning Merry back to the dreamland. In comes a slew of interesting characters and dream demons, a number of battles, and a thickening plot. Each character begins to get fleshed out with decent back story and elaboration on the important parts. Some more would’ve been nice and had it been longer we would’ve had the chance, but we didn’t. Then around episodes 9 and 10 the creators went “oh shit, we have to finish this” and employed an arc that wasn’t even in the original manga. As a result the story seems to jump from this careful development phase to a thrown together ending which feels forced and awkward, despite answering the necessary questions.
The premise of the story is cool, really cool, this connection between dreams and reality. But the fact is they execute it poorly. They don’t have nearly enough time to both set up this elaborate world, flush out the characters, and unravel the plot before the ending is upon the series. As a result, it’s just about average.
11eyes
Alternate Titles: イレブンアイズ (Japanese)
Original Japanese Release Date: 2009-10-06
Episode Length/Run-time: 12 Episodes
Summary:
One day, shortly after losing his sister to suicide, Satsuki Kakera finds himself transported into a terrifying and unnatural world later called the “Red Night.” Together with his friend Minase Yuka, they find others from their high school and vow to discover the secret of the Red Night and why they were forced into it. Magical powers, dark secrets and reluctant heroes are revealed in their desperate journey for escape.
Review:
This anime left quite a bit to be desired, the plot development starting off slowly only to grow slightly before slamming to a sudden and, like I said, underdeveloped end. Back stories found little opportunity to be revealed, and when they were, it felt forced or rushed, all attempts at characterization belittled in the effort. The characters themselves, outside of that, are average at best, from the squeaky voiced, first sort-of and then completely annoying moe love interest, the boy who tries too hard to be the hero and is completely oblivious to the love interest’s plight, and the girl with all the power but the inability to love… until HE comes along, to the badass rule breaking hot guy and the girl who switches personalities every time she takes off her glasses. Verbatum. And that was just the protagonists.
The animation style is decent, standard for its genre, and the fight scenes, as few as there turned out to be, weren’t poorly done, but in the overall scheme of things, it did little to help its score. While on the other hand, the music was apparently mediocre enough that it was forgettable. Nothing much can be said about 11 Eyes outside of the fact that it held some interest. I didn’t find myself waiting for it every week, but when it came down to it, I wasn’t bored or dying to claw my eyes out, just wishing for a little more of this or a whole lot more than that. As for the ending, like the rest of the anime, it left more to be desired than I’d hoped. But it WAS an ending, unlike some anime are cursed with, so for that at least, I applaud it, letting it slip into the 2.5/5 range.
Mahoromatic Tadaima Okaeri
Alternate Titles: None
Original Japanese Release Date: 2009
Episode Length/Run-time: 2 episodes
Summary:
After the war between the aliens “Saint” and the earth two combat robots (Minawa-chan and Mahoro-san) are allowed to live normal lives as “maids” due to their excellent service. They live with Suguru Misato and have a bunch of fun experiences such as opening a maid cafe. However, in the middle of this they are attacked by robots.
Review:
This is a sequel to the harem anime Mahoromatic Automatic Maid. Which at is core is basically a harem anime but it does have some substance to it because they show how long she has left at the end of each episode. This anime is a special that’s an addition to this original series.
The first half of this anime is cute and fluffy. As the two maids are learning how to be better maids for their school festival. Randomly they are attacked because of who they are and someone wants their technology. Of course Mahoro steps in and saves the day.
That’s about it, it’s simple and not wonderful and filled with cliches. But it’s just a follow-up special so for what it is it doesn’t do a bad job.
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Sacred Blacksmith
Alternate Titles: None
Original Japanese Release Date: 2009
Episode Length/Run-time: 12 episodes
Summary:
Cecily Campbell is the last in the prestigious Campbell line. Coming from a prestigious family she has decided to become a Knight in honor of her family. Despite being confident she is a clumsy swordsman and is fearsome of true battle. One day because of this clumsiness she is saved by Luke (with his assistant Lisa) who is a legendary blacksmith capable of forging Katana and powerful swords capable of fighting demons. Cecily asks him to forge her a sword but he is skeptical of her and she must first prove herself first.
Review:
Don’t let this review or the seemingly original concept/title fool you into thinking this is an anime you want to watch because it is most certainly not. I made the mistake of being excited for this anime the season it was coming out and, behold, I ended up being disappointed.
Cecily is your traditional anime girl, large boobs which the other girls are never shy to point out, clumsy to a fault and of course pure intended and true. The most frustrating thing I found is she was supposed to be a knight and ended up being saved by everyone else throughout the whole show. Even when she tried to stand on her own she ended up faltering almost every time.
As the series progresses they throw more girls into the mix so the series ends up basically becoming Luke’s harem.
The problem with this series is that it had a lot of good ideas. A legendary blacksmith, swords that became people, magic, impenetrable evils, and Knights! Anime these days just doesn’t have that traditional fantasy flare. But the problem was it felt like a huge brainstorming session that was never developed. Like if they had all these good ideas in there it would make a good anime but this sadly isn’t the case.
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Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi
Alternate Titles: Magical Shopping Street Abenobashi,
Original Japanese Release Date: 2002
Episode Length/Run-time: 13 episodes
Summary:
Sasshi has grown up in the Shopping Arcade Abenobashi for all of his life at his family’s bath house. However, due to urban modernization projects the bath house was torn down, and the rest of the shopping arcade is next. To make matters worse Arumi, his best friend, is leaving for Hokkaido with her family. As everything is happening around them something mysterious occurs transporting them into alternate realities of their shopping arcade.
Review:
Abenobashi is made by studio Gainax, but don’t be fooled by this, the ending is not in crayon.
It is basically Gainax’s rendition of the anime parody genre. Think Excel Saga but with little kids instead (and not nearly as funny). The problem with the jokes are that they are sometimes too pop-culture or Gainax specific that they can be lost as easily as they are found entertaining.
The characters of the story range from tolerable to loveable with a relatively generic cast. Clueless yet well-meaning boy, more responsible best friend, girl with large breasts who is slightly ditzy, and of course multiple other sub-characters who always fill convenient rolls within the plot.
The animation is Gainax’s style, not as polished as other features but that might lend to why it has an ending. The music is average to bad but it isn’t anything terrible compared to the series.
Abenobashi’s ending is kind of “whaaaaa?” but it somehow works along with the rest of the cracked-out-ness that is going on with the rest of the show. It’s kind of like the twisted love-child of FLCL and Excel Saga.
Overall, it’s not very “good” from a technical standpoint, but it’s good at what it does which is be funny. Slightly specific jokes aside everyone finds something to laugh at in this series.
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