Shounen News

Coffee Time With Evil Episode Three! Just for you! Technically the title is Shounen, Bishounen and Purple Hair, but I thought there might need to be some better explanation for why the third episode is posted on the forums while the others are just in blog format. Simple answer: I want to haz more views.

Found some better lighting, got some new hair, and I'm talking about a tonne today. No new manga, but you'll hear a woman's thoughts on Bleach and Gurren Lagann.
Please send in your questions as a PM on Anime Vice, in the comments below, In the blog on AV, or you can send them via e-mail to superevil225@hotmail.com
Make some suggestions for further anime for me to watch, as well as topics. If you want anything specific on the show, don't be afraid to ask. If you wanna hear about my life, writing, drawing, or rp'ing please ask. Your questions can be about anything: your life, my life, anime, manga, comics, movies, tv, kittens, est. :) Thanks for watching you guys! 
   
Oh! Sotyfan16's Dunce Cap topic!

In the past few years of my life as an anime fan, I find myself watching more and more shows online. Sometimes it's a simulcast and other times it's something from an archive on sites like Hulu or Crunchyroll.  One problem, albeit an awesome one, is that these shows have huge archives of content to shift through.  In my search for content to watch, I always thought that it'd cool if some kindhearted otaku was out there gathering links for cool shows that I could watch right now.  Well, today I've decided to be the generous otaku that I've been searching for. 
 
Every week I plan (keyword being plan) on highlighting one or two shows that I'm watching or have seen that are also available legally online.  Ideally they'll be free to everyone, but if they aren't i'll be sure to make a note of it.  I'll try to avoid shows that I think are super popular because, in all honesty, these shows have more than enough eyes on them and don't really need yet another person pointing them out.  So that means, no Naruto, no One Piece, no Haruhi, etc.  It's cool if it does, but I don't really intend for this to introduce a new person to anime and make them a fan.  I'm trying to introduce anime fans to shows that they might not have seen or heard of. 
 
Last week was bishounen and school girls so this week I decided to go with something a bit more in line with the type of shows that first got me into anime.
  

Kurokami (Crunchyroll Link)

The Basics 

There is a shadow world that everyday citizens are totally unaware of.  In this world, teams of people with magic powers beat the crap out of each other for the fate of the world.  For more details, please see the picture your right.

Described in Anime 
Take the Soul Eater style teams of alone we're not that great but as a team we're unstoppable!!!! who fight in a hyper-kinetic Dragon Ball Z style every episode.  Throw in mystery organization that is super powerful and secretly runs the world from Dance in the Vampire Bund, mix in a little My-Hime romance and you've got Kurokami.
   
Why I Like It  
 I like shounen.  Seeing people get the crap beaten out of them brings a smile to my face.  I've loved seeing that since I was 4 years old and at 27 I've come to the realization that i'll never grow tired of seeing someone put fist-to-face.  Kurokami certainly doesn't have the greatest story ever told.  A super important mystery world that regular people don't know about isn't exactly new and refreshing and the characters don't really do much to stand out amongst the crowd.  It's not so much that the story and characters are bad, because they aren't, but nothing about them really stands out.
 
So with all of that, why would I recommend this show?  The action.  The story and characters are serviceable enough to not make me change the channel but the action is what keeps me.  Every episode is packed to the brim with people opening up government issue 2-gallon cafeteria size cans of whup ass.  And these aren't your run of the meh-quality we're saving the budget for the real fight fights.  Imagine if every fight in Naruto looked as good as Sasuke vs Orochimaru or if every fight in Bleach was as awesome as Grimmjow vs Ichigo, Ikkaku vs Kenpachi or Kouga vs Byakuya. 
 
Kurokami delivers that for every episode and all of them are well animated, filled with acrobatics and extremely brutal.  The first episode sees the main protagonist getting hit with a baseball bat multiple times, have her face slammed through a car windshield and I believe she gets hit by car at some point.  But how does it end?  She gets up and does some insane 20-hit combo filled with rising uppercuts and spin kicks and completely crushes her opponent's face by the end of it.  You can't beat that with a stick.  If you like shounen action to any degree, you'll have a blast watching this.