Texhnolyze

Title: Texhnolyze
Alternate Title: none
Genre: drama, psychological, sci-fi
Run time: 24 minutes
Episode count: 22
Vintage: 2003
Review:

Texhnolyze is an anime by the producer of lain. Its a hard hitting anime built around a town that was locked underground by the rest of humanity and themes around human evolution. This anime has a highly original story line that is influenced heavily by cyber punk.

The animation for this series was phenomenal. The whole world his highly muted and drab with tons of textures and grit, which is perfect for the storyline. Its done in a similar visual style as lain with hidden themes through out the background and setting. Normally I don't bother to mention sound, but that's where this anime excels. The soundscapes in this anime are truly amazing. You can hear when a light flickers and when water drops even if its off screen. This is a huge part of why I continued to watching during slow moments

The anime is fully serious and dark. There is no humor but there is a nice amount of blood and action to keep the story moving. However, even with the action and blood sequences this anime still drags. There is no real way to fix this and still tell the story. The story makes it fully worth any slow part.

This anime is truly amazing. At the end it leaves you thinking with more questions than answers. This is something anime currently is lacking for the most part. So since the only problem I have with this anime is some of its slower parts I will give it a 9 out of 10

Next Up:
Full Metal Panic Fumoffu

Tokyo Underground

Title: Tokyo Underground
Alternate Title: None
Genre: Action, Adventure
Run time: 24 minutes
Episode count: 26
Vintage: 2002
Review:

Tokyo Underground is an anime based on a group of people being taken underground and researched do to their ability of being able to control nature's elements. This anime was centered around a plot that could have been well done. However, it falls short. Its basically another boy saves girl with help of friends story mixed with a little bit of slap stick humor to keep the average consumer watching.

I expected good things out of this anime and it failed. With the story line it is written from it could have been a great serious or action adventure anime, but it comes off as a semi serious comedy when all is said and done. They even throw in the obligatory fight tournament like other series such as YuYu Hakusho and Flame of Recca. Even that is done poorly and shortly.

The animation is standard. There were no wow factors or anything innovative. They didnt even mix animation styles. This is your basic consumerism anime (make it fast, cheap and just enough fun for people to buy and forget everything else).

Now, they did do one thing right they made decent fight sequences that were interesting. They used elemental powers in unique ways and everyone had a special skill. This is the only thing they did even remotely well.

This anime is just too generic when it could have been so good if the writters and animators had put any effort into this at all. Because of this I rate them a 6 out of 10. Nothing great but it wasn't horrible. Just bland.

Next up: Texhnolyze

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Title: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
Alternate Title: None
Genre: Slice of life, comedy, psychological
Run time: 24 minutes
Episode count: 14
Vintage: 2006
Review:

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is a slice of life anime based on a story about a girl who can control the world to make it fit with what she believes is interesting. Nothing is cookie cutter about this anime. To make it even more original there is a trick to it. The first episode is out of sequence. The first episode is really the last episode. This throws off the average consumer, which is really a shame because this anime is so unique. If watched it outshines most other animes in this genre if not all of them.

The animation is relatively well done. They use a few different styles. They use the typical slice of life style animation, a home movie style animation, and an imposed monochromatic video overlay in one episode. This is nice it uses elements not typically seen in anime.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is full of humor based of of characters that are the extreme versions of stereotypes, however each character plays a double role. There is a ditzy pretty girl who is a time traveler, an esper who is part of an elite organization, a bookworm who is really an alien gathering data, a normal depressed male who is the shows narrator, and then the lead is that typical out there space cadet but she controls the world with emotions.

This anime is a constantly changing with unique plots and stories up to the very end. However, there are a couple of things I did not like. I hated the show being driven by the male leads internal narration. It gets old you have to pay super close attention to see when he is actually speaking and the voice is drab. The other thing I disliked was the home movie episode being the first episode. It will make alot of people not watch the series, however after the series is watched you get the joke that is told throughout the home movie and it quickly becomes a favorite episode. I suggest watching the other episodes first or at least know going in that the first episode isnt intended to make sense till the end of the series. For that reason I give it an 8 out of 10.

Next Up:
Tokyo Underground

Full Metal Panic

Title: Full Metal Panic
Alternate Title: None
Genre: Mecha, Action
Run time: 23 minutes
Episode count: 24
Vintage: 2002
Review:

Full Metal Panic is set like most modern mecha styled animes. Its about a girl born with special technology embedded in her brain. Who has a secret "good guy" organization protecting her from a secret "bad guy" organization. Mix this in with a love story and comedic situations and you have an enjoyable anime that you can sit back and watch with out having to think to hard.

The animation was done beautifully. The colors are bright, the faces are expressive, and the mechs are gorgeous and creatively done. Every mech product is different. They even did a good job of making the mechs look worn after battle. They made good use of multiple geographical backgrounds. This is nice. Too often are mecha animes either based in a boring space atmosphere or in the same place on the planet episode after episode.

Full Metal Panic is full of situational humor do to the fact that the male lead doesn't understand social sensibility in any manner. However, this is coupled with heart racing action in both mech fights and war style battle scenes. Add a little drama from secret organizations running around and you have a show that never slows down.

This anime is great for anyone looking for a fast paced show that is easy to get into. This would be a wonderful anime to start with. Its full of characters with real personalities, has amazing battle scenes and a delightful little love triangle. This anime has something for everyone but not everything for one person. I give this anime an 8 out of 10.

Next Up:
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Ai Yori Aoshi

Title: Ai Yori Aoshi
Alternate Title: Bluer than Indigo
Genre: Comedy, Slice of life
Run time: 30 minutes
Episode count: 24
Vintage: 2004
Review:

Ai Yori Aoshi is a slice of life anime based on two people who were arranged to be married in childhood. With that being said, the anime starts off with the male lead being in college and by chance running into the female lead.

The animation of this series is done quite well. The colors are vivid. The female lead constantly wears kimonos and they are vividly colored as is her hair and the landscapes. It seems they didn't cut corners anywhere in the animating process. If any corners were cut I could not see them.

Ai Yori Aoshi is full of slapstick humor and off the wall cuteness. However, this doesn't make up for the fact that almost all of the characters are one dimensional and never grow. I think that if they did cut costs in this series is was in the script.

Ai Yori Aoshi leaves a lot for the fans to make up for themselves. Constantly you get a small glimpse of the past and what could happen in the future. However, they stick to the slice of life theme. There is so many places this anime could have went that would have made it a tad more interesting, but for some reason the developers were locked on this slice of life story line. This actually hurt this anime, because for a slice of life it is not very original. Its the archetype of harem and slice of life animes such as Love Hina.

This anime is a fun watch if you like anime with slapstick humor, Japanese cuteness and zany characters, however, it falls short of series such as Azumanga Diaoh. Over all I give this a rating of a 7 out of 10 due to the fact that it is a generic series with many plot points unexplored.

Next Up:
Full Metal Panic

Flame of Recca

Title: Flame of Recca
Alternate Title: Recca No Honoo
Genre: Action, adventure
Run time: 23 minutes
Episode count: 42
Vintage: 1997
Review:

Flame of Recca at first glance is just a copycat anime. It copies animes like Yu Yu Hakusho with the story line. The characters are rather ordinary. You have the usual I will win no matter what you throw at me main character, the usual dumb beast character who over powers opponents by brute force and luck, and for good measure you have the character on the leads side even though he hates his guts. With that being said this anime does have a bit of flair. It takes its story line from a baby ninja of the hokage clan being sent forward in time with his arch enemy and brother. Add in some fantastic weapons based on spirit and controling natural elements and you have something decent and fun to watch without being overly long like its predecessor.

The animation was rather good with nothing flashy. Its typical of the same style animation as was used in Yu Yu Hakusho. However, they did do a good job with the use of blood. A lot of animes go over the top with mass amounts of blood spewed in every direction or the total of absence of blood. This anime is right in the middle not to much and not to little.

Now for the rating. The fight scenes were top notch and it had the typical I have to talk thing that ticks me off, however, the monologues where of minimal length and it always had to do with that inner battle so I wont take points off for that. However, this anime is not original in the least it steals all of its elements from other animes so I will dock it a couple points for that. Over all I give it a 7.

Next up: Ai Yori Aoshi

No E In

Title: No E In
Alternate Title: To your other self
Genre: Sci-fi, drama, adventure
Run time: 30 minutes
Episode count: 24
Vintage: 2005
Review:

First off, this anime was visually stunning. I had countless different animation styles used. Not only that but it used them in the best ways possible. They even used sketch styles which normally means skimping on production costs. However, they used it in a stylized manner to emphasize emotion and battles. This anime did a great job of delving into theoretical physics. It made physics interesting even to the casual watcher. The battle scenes were amazing even though they were few between. This anime was more about psychological development and physics than action. So when they spiced in action it was a real treat and masterfully done. Even the recap episode placed in the show was done with finesse and style. I give this anime a 9. It loses one point for the slow moving plot in places. I don't think they could really help that with the story line and themes and they combated that as much as possible with a few action sequences.

Next up Flame of Recca

Silent Mobius Movie 1 and 2

Silent Mobius movies were a bust they are 80s style versions of the story and after watching the series I just couldn't sit through them. They did nothing to further the plot of the series. They seemed more like hour long pilots for the series. With that being said I am highly upset with them and rate them a 5.

Next up Noein. I am excited to watch this one because its supposed to be a visually stunning anime series with multiple styles of animation

Silent Mobius the series

Title: Silent Mobius the series
Alternate Title: none
Genre: Sci-fi
Run time: 23 minutes
Episode count: 26
Vintage: 1998
Review:

So I first decided I wanted to see this anime when I caught a snip a few years a go on sci-fi tv. Well it didn't live up to what I expected. The ending pissed me off. Its completely open to a second season. Its like the writers got bored and gave up right before the real climax of the story. Other than that it was a decent anime. The plot was good however the story left a little to be desired. I think either they foreshadowed too much or the the twists and turns were just too predictable. However, they did do a good job of making interesting deep characters. Hopefully the plot is finished in the movie but for now I have to rate it a 7.

School Days

Title: School Days
Alternate Title: none
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Psychological
Run time: 25 minutes
Episode count: 12
Vintage: 2007
Review:

I expected it to be your run of the mill Harem anime. This anime was dark and twisted and did so in just 12 episodes. It was wonderfully poetic. Its about a guy who doesn't know how to run with the girls if you catch my drift. So he gets set up by his friend and then this friend teaches how to make girls happy. Then she falls in love and he becomes a play boy. At the end it becomes horrible tragic and violent. I rate it a 9