CANAAN is the latest anime by Masahiro Ando and it's based on the Wii visual novel 428: Fūsa Sareta Shibuya de. But unlike most animes based on visual novels this one is based on one of its side stories and not the main plot and even though it’s a little enjoyable if you’re not familiar with the original you might want to look elsewhere. 

CANAAN starts midway through the story of 428, in Shanghai where a group of people including a mercenary with the power of synesthesia called Canaan, a journalist called Minoru Minorikawa, his partner Maria Oosawa who are covering an international anti-terrorism convention and an eccentric Chun-Li look-alike called Yunyun find themselves caught up in a mystery that involves an incestuous sadist woman, infected almost super-human people and the most awesome taxi driver of all time. 

Not being familiar with the original visual novel (and considering it hasn’t been released outside of Japan I doubt much people is) I found myself completely lost in CANAAN because it seems like the creators assume that everyone watching it has already played the source material. And that’s the biggest mistake they could’ve made in the storytelling. 

Yes, the story might seem interesting at first but once you realize that nothing is really happening and that it’s going nowhere you start wondering why they bothered doing it in the first place. And not only is the story poorly told but it also leaves a lot of thing unexplained. If you want to know what Canaan is doing in Shanghai in the first place, or who her employers are or just why they’re after the UA virus, well then you’re screwed because you don’t get the answers to any of that. 

The dialogue is also bad, but not in the way that’ll make you bang your head against the wall because of just how stupid it is, because it’s not terrible, it’s just incredibly pretentious and a lot of things are repeated to the point that it gets annoying…in fact, here’s a fun drinking game, every time “she’s my light” is said during the course of the series you take a shot! But I warn you, you might end up with a terrible hangover. 

Most of the characters are, like the story, uninteresting and forgettable, though their design is great. The main character, Canaan, is the typical misunderstood killer with a tragic past, combined with a childish personality that almost reminded me of Lucy, the protagonist of Elfen Lied. With this series I felt the same that I felt with Naruto, I might forget the character’s personalities but not how they look like. The only exceptions to this rule are Minoru Minorikawa, Yunyun and the Taxi driver, who don’t get nearly as much screen time as they deserve. 

It’s a real shame that the story is so poorly told because the action scenes are very well done. All the shoot-outs, car chases, knife fights and hand to hand combat are what make the series enjoyable to watch; in fact the two dialogue-heavy episodes that don’t have many action sequences are probably the worst of the series. It really makes you wonder just how great Canaan could’ve been with these action scenes and a better story. 

The animation, though not bad is also not great. There are some really nice looking effects like the balloons during the festival in Shanghai in the first episode and the previously mentioned action sequences, but others are less than stellar. It’s never terrible, but I feel like it could’ve been much better in terms of animation, especially coming from a director who worked as animator in great looking movies and series such as Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell and The End of Evangelion. 

In the end Canaan is a mixture of really poor story, forgettable but great looking characters and excellent action. If you’re looking for something with a plot don’t expect to find it here, but if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t mind the story too much and is here for a wild ride, then there might just be something to enjoy in CANAAN for you. 

 

I never really payed attention to Ergo Proxy when it came out as I really didn’t care for this type of shows, it was only after I rewatched Ghost in the Shell that I got interested, and I’m glad I did, because even though it’s not perfect or a must-watch I had a pretty good time with it.

The series, directed by Murase Shuko (Mobile Suit Gundam Wing) takes place in a futuristic society called Romdeau, a place where humans and robots coexist and is supposed to be a paradise for its habitants. Re-I Mayer, a member of the Citizen Intelligence Bureau and granddaughter to the representative of Romdeau is sent to investigate a series of murder supposedly committed by Robots infected with the Cogito virus, a virus that makes robots become aware of their own existence. During her investigation she encounters a monster, which she later finds out is called Proxy. She then meets an immigrant named Vincent Law, a person who’s driven to become a model citizen but has a mysterious past that involves the Proxy. Now, Re-I has to overcome a series of psychological dramas to find out the truth behind Vincent and the Proxy.

That’s the plot in a nutshell, and in and off itself it’s pretty good; however, it’s confusing and it gets more complicated and hard to follow as the series progresses. But somehow I feel that maybe that was on purpose, like the creators were trying way too hard to confuse the viewers and that ends up hurting the end result, making the story weak, pretentious and giving it a feeling that it’s building up to something that never really happens. 

The great thing about the story though is the characters, all of them have great personalities and they’re easy to get emotionally attached to, even if you don’t feel the same for the overall plot. The best ones are the little cogito-infected android Pino who is charming, innocent and cute and Re-I, who starts off as the protagonists but takes a secondary spot as the series starts to focus on Vincent, which sucks because she’s incredibly awesome. As I watched, I noticed that many of the characters borrowed from characters of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, but they have enough differences to make them unique.   

Speaking of Ghost in the Shell, Ergo Proxy has a lot of things that reminded me of it. And it’s no surprise since they were both written by Satō Dai, a mastermind who also wrote classic animes like Cowboy Bebop, Wolf’s Rain, Samurai Champloo and Eureka Seven. Both shows take place in corrupted futuristic utopias, both have badass female law enforcers trying to find out the truth behind a problem as protagonists, both have psychological drama and they belong to the Cyberpunk genre. Not only that but they both have similar structure since they’re both composed of a main storyline and a series of stand alone episodes, the difference here being that the stand alone episodes in Ergo Proxy are actually related to the main plot.

 While this worked fantastically for GitS: SAC, it makes a mess out of Ergo Proxy because these episodes are not pulled out well. For example there’s an episode that takes place in a Who Wants to be a Millionaire-type of game where the three main characters are playing, and while it includes a few hints to the main story, it feels completely pointless to have it there. And there are a few others like that, they feel unnecessary and in the end they only ruin not only the pacing, but also the overall quality of the series.

The art style and animation of the series are a pleasure to watch because it’s gorgeous. My jaw literally dropped when watching some of the scenes, they are absolutely mesmerizing and the few action sequences are also fantastically well done; there just aren’t many series that look as good as this one does. 

The music is another  high point of the show. It’s just epic and makes even the dullest of moments feel epic as well. The opening is great too, the ending…not so much.

Even with all the flaws in the story and the few dull and boring as hell episodes, Ergo Proxy is still enjoyable to watch, I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone, but if you can keep up with the story and tolerate the fact that it tries incredibly hard to confuse the viewer then a pretty good experience awaits you.

       

 

At first glance School Days is your everyday harem comedy filled with panty shots and tons of fan service, and unless you’re familiar with the visual novels you’ll be surprised at how fast it evolves from that to an incredibly sad and shocking soap opera.

The plot deals with a young student called Makoto Itou who is in love with a girl called Katsura Kotonoha who goes to the same school as he does. His classmate, Saionji Sekai notices a picture of Kotonoha in Makoto’s phone so she decides to give him tips on how to confess his feelings to her and after that on how not to completely screw the relationship up. During this process, Motoko and Saionji develop feelings for each other, which eventually lead to a romantic affair. And it’s not only Saionji and Katsura who are have feelings for him, but during the progress of the series it’s revealed that almost every major female character does.

Yes, you’ll find here your usual female characters; you got the tsundere, the shy girl, the best friend who falls in love with the protagonist and the insanely quiet girl who apparently knows everything about everything. And somehow Makoto manages to bang them all, but not before breaking a lot of hearts during the process. Not everything about it is sadness and drama though, the funny moments (mostly the ones featuring Makoto’s best friend Taisuke Sawanaga) will surely make you fall off your chair laughing

The fantastic thing about School Days is how every character evolves through the course of the series. The way their own selfishness and lust takes over their personalities making them completely unrecognizable from how they were on the first episodes and leads them to the ultimately unexpected and tragic ending reminded me a lot of Evangelion, meaning that this anime has a lot of psychologically disturbed characters.

Overall, School Days’ own dark take on romance and teenage relations is what separates it from other shows, it’s not the everyday “we’re all happy and in love” series, it’s a human story, one that will definitely make you think.    

If I were to describe The End of Evangelion in one sentence it would simply be “wow”.  No other movie, animated or not has had the impact EoE had in me, it’s beautifully shocking, jaw-dropping and most of all depressing. End of Evangelion shows us a world filled with selfishness, deception and misery, yet it pushes us to get out of that world and find happiness, something that will prove to be incredibly difficult and nearly impossible.

The first two minutes would set the tone of the movie for me, as I watched everything I loved about Shinji being flushed down the toilet while he masturbated to a comatose Asuka before telling himself “I’m the lowest”. More shocking would be to hear Asuka herself telling him that he could do whatever he wants with her, that she “would even watch him”. This is what End of Evangelion is all about, emotionally disturbed characters and the movie blatantly asks us “How are you any different?”

The movie perfectly combines the drama, action, psychology and pseudo-Christianity of the series in two parts. The first, Air/Love is Destructive, is a violent reminder of why we like Evangelion so much; the characters, the drama, the fantastic action are all here and better than ever. Here, we get our fair share of Robot action in one of the most beautifully choreographed battle scenes ever created, it also delivers some of the saddest moments I’ve seen in my life; one particularly powerful was when Asuka chanted “I’ll kill you all” with her hand reaching the sun before being killed and devoured by the Mass Production Evas, just a minute later Maya completely destroyed my heart into pieces when she screamed “Asuka is…Asuka is…” never finishing the sentence.

The second part, “Sincerely Yours/I Need you”, is a thought provoking and jaw dropping trip through Shinji’s mind as he decides the fate of the world (a task set to him by Rei/Lilith). It is tough for any Evangelion fan not to be shocked when watching all the characters you’ve learned to love and appreciate disgust you before dying a miserable death. It is especially difficult to see Rei, the most mysterious character, finally realizing what she is and watching her do the things she does, completing her pivotal role in the series.         

To say this is a masterpiece would be an understatement; Hideaki Anno is not only a mastermind in story development and a great director, but also a revolutionary filmmaker. This movie combines the usual animation with a sublime live-action sequence perfectly synchronized with a slow, almost melancholic version of Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Jesus Bleibet Meine Freude”. It also shows some postmodernism when some real-life shots of Gainax headquarters and a few death threats Anno received for the previous Evangelion movie Death & Rebirth flashes rapidly before going back to the “anime world”. There’s also a full live-action alternative sequence not shown in the original theatrical release which depicts Asuka, Rei and Misato as normal 25-year old women living in Tokyo, here Anno shows again his sublime directing using hand-held cameras that gives it sense of documentary, and makes us feel closer to the characters.

Everyone has their own theories about this movie. It is really difficult to understand, even for veteran Evangelion fans like me; that’s not much of a problem though, since the movie invites you to watch it more than once and it’s one of those weird case where every time you watch it, you find something new.  It is also filled with religious and psychological themes which actually made me want to find out more about that stuff. But unlike the series, EoE doesn’t stick to just Christian symbols and themes, it takes things a bit farther and includes Judaism and Kabala.

Whether or not this is a retelling of episodes 25 and 26 of the series or an alternate ending is a matter of debate. I tend to believe this is a retelling or that it is meant to complement the episodes  since both 25 and 26 give hints to events that happen in this movie such as Asuka being inside her Eva in a fetal position, Shinji being surrounded by cameras and Misato’s and Ritsuko’s death. The “reality” sequence is also showed here as I previously stated in a live-action sequence, while in episode 26 it is shown as an alternate world where every character has a different personality, they’re both different in their own way, but in the end the point is the same.

From an animation standpoint, End of Evangelion is a step up for the series. You can tell Anno and Gainax didn’t want to recycle animation, which was the main problem with the TV ending. Here, everything is new and the animation, while not perfect, is fantastically well done. Movements are fluid, backgrounds and characters are extremely well drawn, and the little use of 3D imagery is great, one example is when Lilith is capturing all human souls into her egg, just beautiful.

The soundtrack of the movie is just as incredible as everything else and I’m pretty sure the movie wouldn’t be the same thing without it. Shiro Sagisu is once again in charge of the music and he brings his best to the plate, creating one of the best soundtracks in any anime movie. His original songs fit perfectly well and are incredibly atmospheric, among the best we can find the sad “Yume no Sukima” and the exciting “Tanin no Kanshou”. We can also find Sagisu’s classic choral piece “Mother is the first other” reworked as “Hajimari he no Touhi”, which is played when Rei reunites with Lilith, giving the whole scene a fantastic epic feel.

But not everything is just Sagisu’s original work. He also takes a few songs from the master Johann Sebastian Bach. The first is “Air” which is perfectly used to choreograph the battle between Asuka and the MP Evas and the other is “Jesus Bleibet Meine Freude” which is transformed from a light and joyful orchestral tune to a heartbreaking piano piece which as I said before, is used with the live-action sequences. But the best of them all is the beautifully depressing song “Komm, Susser Tod” written by Hideaki Anno himself from Shinji’s point of view and sung by Arianne. This song, while it has a positive and optimistic tune deals with depression and suicide and it’s played just when the Third Impact begins.

In the end this movie makes us question our own existence and makes us asks us questions like why are we here? What or who do we live for? What is reality? What are dreams? It’s the kind of movie that likes to play with the viewers mind. Hideaki Anno combined everything we love about the series and transformed it into something nobody ever expected and got the results he wanted. A fantastic film that might just be the best experience I’ve ever had in my life.    

There is something that always attracted me to Evangelion; it’s probably the great characters who are so emotionally disturbed and yet I can relate to them in one way or another, maybe is the fantastic thought-provoking story, or it could be the sublime animation and awe-inspiring soundtrack. Yes, I’m a big Evangelion fan, I own every DVD, I’ve seen every episode and movies, read every manga and own various figures. So what was I expecting of Rebuild 1.0? Nothing more than greatness of course, but there was a part of me that was worried. That part kept asking how well the genius Hideaki Anno could adapt the first 6 episodes into a two hour movie and make it more appealing to casual watchers without disappointing faithful fans? And the answer was this masterpiece that teached me to never doubt Anno again.

Rebuild: 1.0 You’re (not) Alone is an alternate retelling of the events that occur from Shinji’s arrival to Tokyo-3 up to the fight against the angel Ramiel in episode 6. Maybe “alternate” is a bit too much to describe it since at some points it is a faithful shot-by-shot remake using new animation techniques and better quality. But don’t be fooled, some things do change; one example is Ramiel, the fifth angel, who now possesses shape shifting abilities. There are also a few added scenes such as a new personal hell traincar scene (the first in the Rebuild series) involving Shinji and Rei. The ending is also new and it sure will surprise you as much as it surprised me; to avoid any spoilers I’ll just say it takes place in the Moon and it involves The Human Instrumentality Comitee and a familiar character.

Rebuild is not as mind-raping or thought-provoking as, say, The End of Evangelion and its main focus is the fight against the angels, which is no surprise if you’ve seen the first few episodes of the series. A little disappointing is the lack of character developing in the movie, other than Shinji, Misato and Rei we don’t really get to see much of the rest of the cast. Though it’s understandable since it makes things less complicated and easier to follow for newcomers, which is the whole point of the movie anyway, so it’s a tolerable disappointment.

But all of this great action would be pointless if there wasn’t a good soundtrack to set the mood, thankfully, Shiro Sagisu is back and he brings his best with him. The soundtrack which was composed by Sagisu and recorded at Abbeay Road studios with help from the London Orchestra is mostly a collection of old tracks revitalized for this movie; some of the classics you’ll instantly notice are “Decisive Battle” and “Rei Opus V”.  My personal favorites are the two new songs “Angels of Doom”, which is played during the battle against Shamshel and gives it an epic feel and the beautifully melancholic guitar piece “Cruel Dilemme IV”. There are also two songs by Utada Hikaru, the first is the fantastic pop song “Beautiful World” and the other is a cover of “Fly me to the Moon (In other words)” which I didn’t really enjoy. As someone who owns the OST I must say that if you ever have the chance to get it, don’t miss it.

Another good news is that the complete original cast is back and they’ve still got it (thought I doubt they ever lost it). Everyone from Megumi Hayashibara to Mitsuishi Kotono are here and doing what they know to do best. Luckily for us, their voice hasn’t changed a bit in ten years. I don’t know if Funimation will include the original Japanese voice acting in their release but they totally should.   

The best thing about this movie though, is its sublime animation and character design. This is one of the best looking animes I’ve seen in my life. It’s surprising the level of detail and the effort they put into it, everything from the backgrounds to the Evas look absolutely fantastic, and let’s not forget the great lighting effects. The CG and 3D imagery is also heavily used here, giving the movie a more modern feel. This truly is a masterpiece in animation filled with jaw-dropping effects and fantastic character designs.

We also get to see a little preview of the next Rebuild movie You can (not) Advance after the credits, it seems like the next one is going to take place from episodes 8 to 19 and feature a new storyline because we get a sneak peek at units 02, 03, 04, 05 and 06, plus a new, never before seen character who’ll surely make things more interesting       

Rebuild delivers what it promised, it makes the Evangelion story accessible to newcomers and casual watchers alike and it includes several new story elements to keep longtime fans watching and it surely will get you pumped up for Rebuild 2.0. It doesn’t hurt that it has a fantastic soundtrack and kick-ass animation either. So watch Rebuild 1.0, enjoy it, feel it, love it, and then watch it again.  

I would never understand why so many people regard this as one of the best animes right now nor would I understand why people find its characters so appealing or its cliché story so good. Now, don’t get me wrong, I like Naruto, I like it as much as I could like a two star anime; I certainly didn’t have a bad time with it, I found the action and animation really good and especially enjoyed the music. It’s just that Naruto is so conventional, so conformist, so predictable, and so afraid of trying anything new that sometimes I wonder if all they did copy-paste Dragon Ball Z and added more annoying characters.

Naruto is so ridiculously popular right now that explaining its story would be a complete waste of time. To sum up my feelings toward the story: I don’t like it. It’s the typical shonen bad guy of the week- never give up- filler packed story. As I stated in my Mars the Terminator review, Naruto has its fair share of enjoyable moments, most of them involve the main character and his friend/rival Sasuke Uchiha, and the battles are also pretty well done, but like every other show of its nature it usually takes about two or three episodes to finish one fight.  

The other typical problem Naruto has is the filler. This is pretty much what kills a shonen for me as it was certainly the case with Bleach; with Naruto, I was able to skip around 50 or so episodes because I started watching it after the first season was over. This is something that really bugs me though, because in those filler episodes there’s at least one minute worth of story that’s going to be used for the next one. Now this is something I’ll never understand, Naruto is a show that could’ve been perfectly done in 26 or 24 episodes yet it runs for about 220 episodes, which makes no sense even commercially. I mean, shows like The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (14 episodes) or Ichigo 100% (13 episodes) have been commercially and critically successful, so why do these shows have to run for 220 episodes (150 of them being filler) to be just as popular?

I think Naruto is the only show that annoyed me in three different languages, I watched the show in Latin American Spanish, English and Japanese and the voice acting was equally annoying every one of them. How does people tolerate it is beyond me and there was even a point where I almost completely gave up on the show because of its terrible voice acting. Even more annoying is the main character’s chant “Believe it!” which he says twice per episode…And seriously if I have to listen to it again I’m going to destroy every single Naruto-related thing I can find.

But not everything about the sound is bad; I was pleasantly surprised with the soundtrack composed by Toshio Masuda. Sometimes if interferes with the dialogue, but considering the quality of them, that’s not a bad thing at all and it actually makes the fight scenes more enjoyable and exciting. Speaking of fight scenes, they are what make this series shine; you can tell the animators really put their best into them, but this is a double edged sword because the backgrounds suffer and the end result is a mixed bag which is better looked at from afar.

While the character designs look interesting and unique, the actual characters are anything but. They are the stereotypical shonen characters. Naruto is like a weird mix of Goku (Dragon Ball) and Monkey D. Luffy (One Piece), the sort of innocent, sometimes annoyingly adorable hero who never gives up and fights for his friends. Sasuke is the Vegeta-type of antihero and Gaara would be Piccolo, the former enemy who befriends the main characters. The only character I actually found unique (and sometimes adorable) was Hinata Hyuga. Like I said, the characters are very well designed but they lack any compelling features that make them memorable, you may forget who they are or how they act, but you won’t forget how they look.

Naruto has more bad things than good, but it’s certainly not terrible. Besides, it is a good anime to start for newcomers because it’s not a complex show and it does well what it’s meant to do, and that’s provide casual fun. You just have to put up with the annoying characters and voice acting and the terrible filler episodes. But for those who are looking for a deeper and exciting ninja anime, it’d be better for you to check out other options like Basilisk and leave this one for last.

    

Just how good is Mars the Terminator? Well, that depends on how bad your taste is. The six episodes of this thirteen episode series I watched were as painful to watch as this review is to write, just because of the fact that this review reminds me of the show, in fact I could just write “LOL this Series be teh Suxors LOL” and that would be the most accurate description of the show and the best review I’ve ever written, but that’s missing the point.  

Just what makes this show so bad you ask? Well for starters there’s the ridiculous story, which begins when a new island appears near the Japanese coast, in the island there’s a young red-haired boy who doesn’t remember anything about himself or why he is even there. He’s taken to a hospital in Tokyo where a man named Rush tells him that his name is Mars and his mission is to destroy the human race. This mission is set to him by the gods and he must control a giant robot named Gaia to complete his mission. But Mars, being the cliché good hearted anime hero that he is, doesn’t believe that the human race is bad and refuses to destroy it, Rush gives him the choice to study the race for ten days and that if he chooses not to destroy them, then the gods will use Gaia themselves to destroy the planet (which kinda makes the whole purpose of Mars useless). 

If the story sounds ridiculously cliché and uninspired to you is because it is. I’ve seen animes with bad story before like Naruto or Hellsing, but they both had some redeeming qualities that made them not completely dreadful. That’s one of the many things Mars the Terminator lacks: redeeming qualities. The characters are awfully uninteresting, starting with the leading man himself. The viewer doesn’t care about him or his struggle to see if he decides to destroy humans or not, we don’t care if he gets the girl, we don’t care what happens to the human race. Perhaps this is because of the way the whole story is put together.

Perhaps the thing I dislike the most about this anime is its horrible animation and visuals. I’ve never throwed up when watching an anime, but I was pretty close to when watching this one. Everything is too colorful, don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with colorful things, but this is just too colorful, and by that I don’t mean Hello Kitty colorful; in fact the show uses basic colors but they are so damn bright it makes my eyes hurt; though I can’t really blame that on the show, perhaps it was my monitor, but I never bothered to check twice (and with such an awful show who would?). 

Not only that but the whole series looks like it was animated in the late 70s or even before, parts of it reminded me of Speed Racer and Mazinger Z animation-wise and that’s inexcusable coming from a show that was produced in 2002. In the mists of that, the series also provides us with one of the most anti-climatic and boring soundtracks in the history of anime, I don’t know who did the music for this, but whoever it was needs to take a few lessons on how to make an exciting soundtrack.

The character designs are nothing special either, the main character looks kinda cool, if not girly, with his flame-red long hair, but besides that, none have any distinctive features that makes them pleasant to watch. Also, can someone tell me why Rosie the Robot maid is here? Because that’s how the mechas in this series look like. It doesn’t help that they’re poorly animated either.

I think there are three types of bad anime, the first are the bad ones that I dislike but still think they’re recommendable to others or have a few decent moments, like Bleach for example. The second are the “so bad it’s good” type of thing, I think post-third season Pokemon fits this category quite well, It’s bad, like really bad, yet it knows it’s ridiculous and somehow that ridiculousness becomes something watchable. And then there’s Mars the Terminator.

During the process of writing this review, I tried to be as fair as I could with this show, I tried as hard as I could to think of something positive about it but just couldn’t. And believe me, I’ve seen many terrible animes in my life, but this one takes the cake, I don’t “hate” it; I just think it’s a completely worthless experience and something that any fan of mecha or sci-fi anime is better off ignoring.  

Note: The score of this anime is Zero stars, it’s not a mistake that it doesn’t have any.

Now, Kodomo no Jikan is one of the most controversial animes of our time, so me, being the curious cat that I am decided to see what the fuss was all about since all I knew about it was that it involved a very young girl trying to seduce her teacher and that it was banned from the US, little did I know that it would be one of the funniest and most charming experiences I’ve had with an anime in my life.

Kodomo no Jikan deals with the adventures of Rin Kokonoe and her classmates Usa Mimi and Kagami Kuro, Rin is in love with her teacher Daisuke Aoki and often tries to hit on him by showing him her panties or doing other sexy stuffs. The problem here is that Rin is only 9 years old, and Aoki-Sensei is 23. Rin is also unaware of the fact that Kuro is in love with her, which is why Kuro is jealous of Aoki and often teases him and mocks him due to his lack of sexual experience.

That’s pretty much the story in a nutshell, and while many will believe this to be yet another type of lolicon hentai or whatever, it’s an emotionally charged show, and well yeah it does have its fair share of fan service but there’s more to it than meets the eye.

For starters, Kodomo no Jikan is well aware of the subjects it’s dealing with and it’s not over-the-top, instead it makes plenty of funny situations out of it, even if some of the things it does are not considered morally (or legally) correct, but that’s the fun thing about the show, it may be the pervert inside me talking but I always looked forward to see how Rin would try to hit on Aoki next or what Kuro would do to hurt him either physically (kick in the nuts for example)  or mentally (calling him a virgin, naïve, pervert lolicon or even go as far as telling Mimi that he is a masochist).

But there’s more depth to it than you might think (or even more than I was expecting). One thing Kodomo no Jikan does perfectly during its twelve episode run (thirteen if you count the OVA) is balance the comedy with the drama. There are many emotionally scarred characters in the show, such as Reiji Kokonoe (Rin’s guardian and stepfather) and even Rin herself, they both have to deal with the death of Aki, Rin’s mother and Reiji’s wife. Reiji also wrestles with the anger and loneliness of his traumatic childhood while at the same time trying to raise a child on his own; this makes him one of the most complex characters in the show.       

 The best thing about the show though is its extremely charming, interesting and funny characters. I couldn’t help to laugh at every one of Kuro’s insults and Rin’s antics; and always found myself rooting for Aoki to become better as I felt I was experiencing the same personal growth he was during the show. Another character that I simply love is Hoin Kyoko, one of the teachers in the same school and Aoki’s first friend when he got the job. Kyoko is secretly in love with Aoki, who is apparently too dumb to see the obvious signs, though she’s a bit dumb herself since she always screws every opportunity she has to tell him in really funny ways.

There are two versions of the anime, a censored and an uncensored. I went back to see a few episodes of the censored one after finishing watching the uncensored and wasn’t really impressed with the job they did at censoring it, so if you want a funny series but don’t enjoy all the sexual stuff you might want to look for another one.

Kodomo no Jikan walks a very thin line between hentai and non-hentai, sometimes I felt like perhaps the things done were a bit too much, but as I said, it all adds up to the final product. I wouldn’t recommend this series to everyone, but I sure as hell enjoyed it and now I look forward to see what the upcoming second season will bring.  

Samurai 7 is based on the iconic japanese movie “Seven Samurai” by Akira Kurosawa. The movie is considered one of the greatest of all time and a masterpiece, so doing an anime based on it is a risky business. Gladly this anime does a lot of things right, from the beginning to the end and doesn’t stay too far from the spirit of the original.

Just like the movie, the anime starts in the village of Kanna, who are being robbed by a group of thieves called “Nobuseri”. The elder of the village decides to send some of the villagers to recruit samurais, However, the village has no money and thus must find samurai willing to protect the village for a payment of rice. Soon they’ll find seven willing Samurais who go with them to the village and aid them in their battle against the bandits. But the Nobuseri are not the only bad guys, the son of the governor will also turn against them.  

Many changes have been done in translating the movie to anime however. Rikichi is no more the village’s group leader, he has been replaced with a water priestess called Kirara.

The overall styIe also suffered a drastic change. The anime can be called a combination of action/adventure, sci-fi and mecha. If you’ve seen the movie you’re probably wondering Mecha? What the hell? Yes the anime is set during the start of the Meiji era in japan, just like the movie. But normal samurais have been replaced with robotic samurais who used to be human but changed to be stronger.

The bandits, the shikimoribito and certain good samurai are also robots. Though most of these changes are not for the worst, they also aren’t for the best either, as the overall styIe will probably fail to impress those who are faithful to the film. The story has also changed a little bit to keep it from being predictable. The movie ended with the samurai defeating the bandits but the anime is a little longer.

Good news is the combination of drama and comedy of the original is intact, this story will make you laugh, cry and feel anger at times. The characters also changed, but for the best, they all keep their styIes. Kikuchiyo still is the crazy guy, Katsushiro is the young samurai without any experience, Gorobei is lighthearted like Heihachi and Shichiroji; Kambei is the calm, serious and experienced samurai and Kyuzo is a serious, stone-faced samurai and a supremely skilled swordsman. Their personalities haven’t changed much but they look much younger in the anime and not all of them are bald like in the movie.

The art is really good looking at times, especially during the second part of the anime where the colors and overall styIe of the mechas show up. And all the character models are well done. The music is good and fits the era, but somehow it feels anti-climatic during battle sequences, which is disappointing because it keeps them from being exciting. The voice acting is good too, very professional.

This anime is 26 episodes long, and the pacing is rather slow. But is a very enjoyable anime to watch, especially during the second part which takes place between episode 13 and the final episode.

After all is said and done Samurai 7 ends up as a great anime to watch and one that’s comparable (in some ways) to the source material, is a real shame though, that some of the new story elements such as the mechas and the new enemies don’t really fit well in the whole story, but they don’t detract from an enjoyable experience.

Dragon Ball Z is probably the biggest anime ever created, and of course it’s going to have movies, some are good, some are....pretty much garbage. This however is one of the good ones, in fact is probably the best DBZ movie so far.

The three of might was released back in 1993, it’s the second DBZ movie, preceded by The world’s Strongest. The original japanese name is Dragon Ball Z: Chikyū Marugoto Chōkesse, translated as: Dragon Ball Z: Super deciding battle for the planet earth.

Gohan, Krillin and Bulma are having a picnic day in the mountains, suddenly a meteor falls and the forest starts burning, they save the animels, but the forest is completely detroyed; soon they’ll be searching once again for the Dragon Balls and ask Shenron to restore the forest. It is revealed that the meteor is actually a scout send to search the earth for a good place to plant the “seed”.

It is soon revealed that the scout belongs to aliens whose plan is to plant the seed of the tree of might, a tree so powerful that it sucks the life out of the planet and leaves it a desert. The aliens get their way and soon the plant starts creating havok in planet earth, King Kai asks Goku and his friends to destroy this tree. And soon they’ll get into an epic fight with the aliens in a cIassic DBZ way: plenty of super powers and powerful attacks. It is revealed however that these aliens are actually working for Turles, a saiyan who bears a striking resemblance to Goku and whose plan is not only to destroy earth but to eat the fruit of the tree and make himself the strongest in the universe.

The story doesn’t seem to fit in any of the DBZ’s sagas or in the original cannon like few others do, it’s supposed to happen between the saiyan saga and the frieza saga, but there are many problems because Vegeta is not present in the movie, plus Yamcha, Chiaotzu, Piccolo and Tien are all alive. But once you stop trying to make it fit in the DBZ cannon you’ll get to enjoy it a lot because it’s actually darker than some of the later (more ridiculous) movies, though you’ll also encounter some old DBZ cliches like our heroes getting beat and then succeding, plus the whole “i won’t give up until i beat you” thing that is present in almost every DBZ movie or saga.

But the story is enjoyable nonetheless, as i said before, the darker tone and more serious plot are it’s strong points; there are little jokes and a fun side-story involving a young dragon and Gohan. The movie runs for about 61 minutes and that time is actually worthy.

Another thing that makes this the best Dragon Ball movie is the fact that you get to see forgotten characters like Yamcha, Tien and Chaotzu fighting, though once again they are defeated by a stronger enemy, but still is pretty nice to see them because they are forgotten in almost every movie. And the villain is great, Turles isn’t creepy or scary and it has it’s fair share of anime villain cliches but he is evil as they come.

The animetion fits the story a lot, it keeps the DBZ styIe but with a darker tone (how many times have i said that?). Though this is not necessarily a good thing, it could’ve been a lot more colourful, especially the attacks. For this movie the intro was changed; the music remains the same (Hironobu Kageyama’s Chala-Head cha la) but you now get to see Gohan and Krillin searching for the Dragon Balls. The musical score remains the same (at least for Japanese/south American translations) which is a great thing because that score is awesome.

Overall this is absolutely the best DBZ movie, terrific in every way; though somehow i feel like it should have Vegeta in it. Recommended for any DBZ fan, hardcore or casual and watchable for those who are not into DBZ.