It a dark and stormy night, when Nangou finds himself on a losing streak in a game of Mahjong against the local Yakuza. He is already deep in debt, and if he keeps losing, there’s no doubt in his mind that he will be killed for not being able to pay.

A young boy suddenly opens the door, completely drenched. He is denied access to the Mahjong parlor because of his age and the late hour, but Nangou convinces the local Yakuza to let him in. After having watched a few games, he gives Nangou a piece of advice in a do-or-die situation, and despite how insane Nangou finds it to be, he follows the advice, throws away his last safety line to his life and ends up winning the hand because of it. After this, Akagi offers to play in Nangou’s place, despite having never played Mahjong before.

A few games after, the police barge in, searching for a boy who had played a life or death game chicken on a cliff (the other driver had become seriously injured). Akagi tells a lie, and everyone else cover for him, but the inspector still has his suspicions and decides to stay behind to witness Akagi’s matches. As the game proceeds, the stakes become higher, to the point of Akagi not only staking all his winnings in a double or nothing game, but even his own life…

•The anime is 26 episodes long and is based on the manga of the same name, which is a prequal to the manga “Ten” featuring the later life of the main character, Akagi.
•It is called 闘牌伝説アカギ 闇に舞い降りた天才 (Tohai Densetu Akagi Yamini Maiorita Tensai) in Japanese, and Mahjong Legend Akagi: The Genius Who Descended Into the Darkness (it’s direct translation) and Legend of Mahjong: Akagi in the English.
•It was cut short because it caught up to the storyline in the manga.
•The manga was adapted into two movies, because of its immense popularity.

In snack-sized bits
•Shigeru Akagi – In the beginning of the anime, Akagi is a mere 13 years old, even though he looks much older (I thought he was in his early 20s). He has a keen insight into the minds of people and is well able to manipulate others. He also possesses amazing instincts when it comes to gambling. To many people, it may seem that he has a death wish, but that is not entirely true. If it had been, he would no doubt have offed himself long ago. What he has is a desire for the ultimate thrill which can only be found when you gamble with your very life on the line.

I’ll try to keep this as simple as possible, since there’s a lot to remember. Note that for obvious reasons, these apply to Japanese mahjong (though many of them also apply to the mahjong rules of other countries).

•Dead Wall – A wall of 14 tiles that may not be drawn from during the game.

•Pond – A “pond” of a players discarded tiles. The tiles are placed face-up, so everyone can see them, to avoid cheating.

•Pon – Three of a kind. Can be called on a draw or any opponents discarded tile. Turn skips to the person to the right of you. Meld is exposed to everyone by placing it in the player’s right-bottom corner of the board.

•Kon – Four of a kind. If the fourth tile is drawn, it’s a concealed Kon (two tiles face down), if the fourth tile is a discard that you call, it is an exposed Kon (all tiles face up). I think it is possible to turn a Pon (your own, of course) into an exposed Kon, if you happen to draw the fourth tile. On a Kon, the player gets an extra turn. Also, a tile from the dead wall is turned over which becomes a bonus tile.

•Chii – Three suited tiles in sequence. Can be called on a draw or a discard. From what I’ve later read, only a discard from the player on the left, unless it is a Chii resulting in a Ron.

•Ron – Calling Ron means that you’re calling the tile discarded by another player resulting in your winning hand. In case a discard leads to two players calling a Ron, the player closest to the right of the player discarding the tile, gets priority. This is referred to as a head bump.

•Tsumo – Same as calling a Ron, except with a Tsumo, you notify the other players that you yourself have just drawn the piece resulting in your winning hand.

•Riichi – From the English “reach“. A Riichi is like a promise of sorts, that is usually made when you are one tile away from a winning hand. When you declare a Riichi, you pay a 1,000 point deposit and promise to discard any tile you draw if it isn’t a winning tile. The advantage of a Riichi is, that if you draw or call the winning tile before the end of your next turn, you get a bonus when you win. You place your discarded tile sideways in your pond, to signify when it was you declared a Riichi.

I honest to God did not get the scoring rules at all. If you want to know about them, read here. These are not essential to watching the anime, unlike the terminology, which can add to the suspense if you understand them.

Nantoka Nare (It’ll Be Fine Somehow) is performed by Furuido and used through-out the series. I found it to be extremely Bob Dylan-esque. The voice, the style, the music, everything. All it was missing was the harmonica. But in my opinion, it’s a very good song and it has these tones of old times and nostalgia which helps with the the setting of Akagi, which takes place in the late 1950s to mid 60s. So the song feels “at home” with the anime, if I can put it like that.

The animation is nothing really noteworthy, but it has a slow tempo, so it fits with the song. You basically see Akagi wander around town (on the way to a match, perhaps?).

Akagi is performed by MAXIMUM THE HORMONE and was used in episodes 1-13. I hated it. It switched between 3-5 different rock/metal styles through the 1-minute ending, that it was simply too hectic to like. Had the stuck to one, maaaaybe two, it would no doubt have been far more likable.

The animation is essentially Akagi in many different colors, fitting to the rhythm of the music (you’ll know what I mean when you see it). Somewhere in the middle, it switches to parts of an actual game of Mahjong, again with a tempo fitting the music’s.

S.T.S. (Silent This Side) is performed by Animals (not to be confused with the 60s English music-group “The Animals”) and was used in episodes 14-26. I liked it for reasons I’m not aware of. It’s a style of music I call “cute rock”, which I am sure music fanatics will hate me for. It’s like the band wants the song to sound badass, but not really, and somewhere in your mind, you just go “aaaaaw“. But it’s actually pretty good. The full version sounds a bit more “rough” though.

The animation was something else. It reminded me of “newbie” flash animations, where you draw the body in parts and move them separately. Either that or a stop-motion picture. Or actually, better yet, a modern touch to the drawing style seen in in Japan a century or two ago. Regardless of style, I thought it looked awesome. As for storyline, in a nutshell, it’s Akagi playing Mahjong, winning, taking a walk, and watching the sunrise/-set.

I loved Akagi, I really did. I was taken aback a bit by the art, because it was something I had expected from maybe a Canadian/French animation company, and not so much by a Japanese one, but it was refreshing, in a way.

One of the things a liked so much about the anime was Akagi himself, despite him looking somewhat like a parrot (because of the hair looking like feathers). His ability to skillfully read and manipulate people during a game, and his amazing gambling and playing prowess was a total jaw-dropper for me.

Another good thing about the anime is how it takes a “time-out” every once and again, to actually explain how Akagi comes to the conclusions he comes to. These time outs are set in between rounds, as the conclusions are usually explained by Akagi to the bystanders (which would make more sense, logically) rather than the viewer hearing his entire thought-process during the actual game (though you will hear his thoughts every so often). There’s even an entire episode dedicated to him explaining how he knew his opponent would throw the winning tile, which really shows the depth of Akagi’s manipulative and “mind”-reading abilities.

The only bad thing I can say about Akagi, is it abrupt ending, which was placed at the very climax of the game that gave him true legend status. They spring thirty-some years forward and show you who won (though it is rather obvious right from the get-go), but you never get to see just how he did it or what went on. So if you want to know how the game played out, read the manga. Other than that, simply amazing anime.

I hated it so much, I won’t bother trying to sell it off by making it sound good. Either read about it on Wikipedia (click here), or read my ultra-short summary at the very bottom of this page. The only thing this really had going for it was its amazing animation. Story sucks, characters don’t evolve enough and you get little to no back-story, so they suck, and the most important part of anything with a storyline, the ending, also sucks. The only way this could possibly suck more, is if you DNA fused/transmogrifed a 5-dollar-hooker with a puffer fish and a high-powered vacuum cleaner. Madhatter may disagree.

•The anime is about 124 minutes long and is based on the manga of the same name. Despite this, the differences in stories are great.
•Akira is the anime considered a forerunner to the surge of anime fanboy-ism in the west, thanks to its amazing animations.
•The western music-world has featured Akira in either lyrics, such as with Linkin Park’s song “High Voltage” (both original and remixes), or music videos (most recent has been Kanye West feat Daft Punk – “Stronger”, where almost the entire spot was molded after the Akira Anime).

In snack-sized bits
•Kaneda Shōtarō – The main protagonist and the guy with the giant weapon on the movie poster. He is the leader of a biker-gang and has a custom-modified motorcycle. He cares for Tetsuo like a brother, but teases him all the same. He falls in love with a girl, who, unbeknownst to him, is part of a group of anti-government guerrillas. He is later kidnapped by them, but manages to free himself. During his escape, he finds out what the group is about and decides to stay with them in hopes of finding Tetsuo, who had gone missing.

•Shima Tetsuo – A member of Shōtarō’s biker-gang. He has a inferiority complex that is off the charts, and greatly admires his fellow biker-gang members, while at the same time resenting them and himself for his reliance on them. When his powers manifest themselves, he goes so far as to killing all his former friends in order to “prove” that he is now more powerful and no longer needs their help. He has desired Shōtarō’s modified bike ever since Shōtarō revealed it to the rest of the gang. Even after Tetsuo’s powers manifested, he desired the bike. Not really as a mean of transportation (I mean come on, the guy can fly now), but because of what it symbolized in his mind.

•Akira – A young boy who was also the strongest esper alive. He single-handedly destroyed all of Tōkyō, without even trying. His remains were later found and experimented upon, but when doctors failed to figure out what happened, he was dissected and placed in several jars in a cryo-chamber for later generations to re-examine.

•The rest – I could mention a bunch more people, but here’s the gist of it: Everyone else you see, with the exception of maybe 50 people, (10 storyline characters, rest just bystanders), are gonna try to kill someone else and/or die. Sheep for the slaughter.

Esper – Children gifted with the power of ESP (hence the name, Esper). There were supposedly 28 of these Espers (or I guess 29, if you count Tetsuo), but 1-24 died either due to the stress from the tests conducted on them by the military or by Akira’s hand, when he destroyed Tokyo.

I consider Akira to be an experiment by the Japanese. They probably asked themselves: “If we made an animation which is incredibly well drawn, but with the crappiest story this side of the most recent Dragonball spin-off, how long will the western critics praise it before realizing what utter bullshit it is??“. We are reaching 20 years in 6 months time (considering when this was written), and the critics are still completely oblivious…

Anywho, like I said the animation itself is very well drawn (at least when it comes to scenery and details, like lip-syncing), but the story is hopeless. It’s like they tried to cram a shit-load of well-written story-lines into a little over two hours, and they fucked up. Worst part is, there’s no aftermath. It’s like they went: “yeah okay, so a lot of strange shit happens, and uhm… he like, morphs into a giant mutant creature, and uhm… is transported into an alternate dimension, or something, then fade out and let the watcher figure out what the fuck happens next.” It is just bad beyond belief.

You end up seeing so much weird stuff, far out deaths and whatnot, that after 15-30 minutes, nothing phases you anymore, and you end up suffering, because you figure: “Hey, this anime is hailed by professional critics, it MUST get better at some point“, BUT IT DOESN’T!!! Let this be a lesson to you. NEVER TRUST A PROFESSIONAL CRITIC!! They base their judgement on things you don’t care about, like how well it did according to its budget, what some completely far-fetched social and traditional something-or-other is parallelled in the film and a bunch of other worthless junk. They don’t even try to wrap their heads around what is actually happening. I read this one review in a Danish paper about “Happy Feet” (or… had it read to me is more precise), which essentially started of with “Events that take place that the North Pole” (it takes place on the South Pole and there are no penguins who live on the North Pole), and she said it had too many songs in it (IT’S A FREAKING MUSICAL!!! It’s like saying, “hey, this sentence has too many letters in it, we could do without some of those.“) The idiot… Errr, I got sidetracked, sorry.

But if you planned to watch Akira, I’ll save you the two hours of suffering. Kid grows up with severe minority complex and is picked on for being weak, gets super-powers, kills all his enemies for bullying him and kills his friends for protecting him from the bullies and because he felt dependant on them, thinks he should now rule the world because he’s all-powerful, the army disagrees, he tries to destroy Tokyo, fails, tries to kill another super-being, fails, gets sent to alternate dimension, fade to black, the end! And yes, that was the entire plot of Akira in less than 20 seconds, and trust me, other than the good animation, you missed nothing of it…

The year is 2059 and the Earth is threatened by frequent alien invasions from giant, metallic aliens. Kaneshiro Takuto, the protagonist of the series, receives an e-mail from his girlfriend, Agata Maki, who had been missing for some time. In his search for her, he enters the office of Dr. Noguchi, as this is where the e-mail was sent from. Here, he finds out about the organization “Morgue” just before being taken in by the UN army’s military police.

Takuto is taken to Morgue where he learns that in an attempt to better understand the aliens, Dr. Noguchi and Maki (his assistant) are creating an alien of their own from the body parts of destroyed aliens. They name the being Frank, likely due to its likeness to Frankenstein’s monster, and employ Takuto to help them revive it. However, due to outside interference, the revitalization goes awry; Frank is revived but the entire staff, including Maki and dr. Noguchi die in the accident, leaving Takuto as the only survivor.

While in the hospital, recovering from his grievous wounds, he is secretly approached by a charismatic, red-haired man with a silver tongue (metaphorically speaking). The man (Mr. X) gives Takuto two options: either forgive Frank, whom Takuto blames for Maki’s death, or take his revenge. After some time, he chooses the latter and Mr. X injects him with a sleeping agent. Upon waking up, he realizes that he has been given a new identity, Souma Ryu, and that he is to become the newest SARG (a giant, transformer-like plane/mech) pilot for Funeral, a military-like organization which specializes in confronting and killing the aliens and that managed to capture and detain Frank and use him as a weapon of their own. Now, Takuto/Ryu bides his time fighting other aliens on the same team as Frank as he plots his final revenge for the death of his beloved Maki…

•The anime is 25 episodes long with an OVA serving as God knows what (it’s from before the main storyline of the series). This is one of the few anime series I know that is not based on a story in a different media (e.g. manga, game, movie, etc.).
•The title of the anime, Argento Sōma, is meant to mean “Silver Body” in Greek, probably referring to the alien robots. The anime writes the title in Greek letters as “ΑΠΗΕΝΤΟ ΣΟΜΑ” which is incorrect as “Π” is the letter “pi”. I only ever noticed this error because I can read Cyrillic (yay for Serbian upbringing) which uses the same symbol for the letter “p”. After some discussion with a buddy of mine, Faethin, who knows a little Greek, we came to the agreement that the correct spelling is “ΑPΓΕΝΤΟ ΣΟΜΑ“.
•The naming of each episode was extremely interesting to me. It would always consist of two nouns and the particle と (in this case meaning “and”) twice. The second noun would then become the first in the next episode. For instance, the first episode was named 再生と死と (Rebirth and Death), the second 死と少女と (Death and the Maiden), and the third 少女と出会いと (The Maiden and the Meeting). The name of the last episode (not counting the OVA) then completes the naming circle by being named 愛と再生と (Love and Rebirth).
•Episode 5 seems to have a minor error, as Ryu’s discoloured eye gets… well… discoloured. In stead of the usual blue of his injured eye, it was coloured brown (the colour his regular eye has). And since we are already in the realm of mistakes, there were cases of Engrish where “LOCK ON” was romanized as “ROCK ON” XD

In snack-sized bits. Click names to see images.
•Kaneshiro Takuto – Takuto is a young man with a brilliant mind and an interest for outer space. In his search for his girlfriend, Maki, he is dragged into reviving a giant alien they named Frank. When things go awry and everyone, including Maki, are killed, he blames Frank for her death. In order to get his revenge, he makes what appears to be a deal with the devil and is given a new identity. As Souma Ryu, he becomes a member of the organization Funeral which specializes in exterminating the aliens that approach Earth while he “plots his revenge”. Personal Note: He is completely consumed by his hatred and grief and quickly becomes the least liked character because of it.

•Harriet “Hattie” Bartholomew – A young girl who became an orphan at a very young age during the first invasion (a few years before the main storyline) which left her heavily traumatized to the point that she has relapses and shuts down whenever she hears gunfire, since she associates the noise with the loss of her parents. She was raised by her grandfather who dies during the second episode (also from an alien attack), leaving Hattie without any living relatives and with her dog Walton as her only companion. She has the unique power to communicate with Frank, which is later theorized to because she has alien shrapnel embedded in her body. Personal Note: She lives in a fantasy world of elves due to her grandfathers many stories to help her get passed the trauma of losing her parents. This is why she is always searching for the land of elves, which she has been told that all dead people go to (she wants to be reunited with her parents and grandfather).

•Frank – Is an alien composed of the body-parts of other aliens. Frank is probably derived from “Frankenstein’s monster”, which was also created from the body-parts of others. Funeral and the army gave him the codename EX-1 (Extra-1). His background story is revealed towards the end of the series.

•The rest – Everyone else more or less takes a back-seat to the above three characters, but are still important enough to deserve an honourable mention (which is especially important if you heed the advice in the “The Opinion” section), so I’m keeping it short.

• Dr. Ernest Noguchi was the man mainly responsible for the creation of Frank. He was very passionate about research and science and was the boss (and idol?) of Maki. Personal Note: Like most scientist trying to create life, he seems somewhat deranged and probably has a “the end justifies the means” type mentality.
• Agata Maki was Takuto’s girlfriend. She rarely expressed herself, which greatly annoyed Takuto to the point were I actually said out loud “Dude, chillax… O.o“.
• Mr. X (he was never called this in the anime, but was addressed so in the credits) is mystery man with many connections. His identity is revealed later in the series, but until that point came I called him Lucifer because of his looks, habit of quoting Shakespeare, and love for apples. So very stereotypical Devil in human form.
• Commander Lana Ines is the commander of Funeral. She sacrificed her family life for her career, which she now, after the death of her young daughter, regrets. Personal Note: She believes that every decision made concerning her by her superiors is due to her being a woman. It becomes bothersome having to listen to her asking “Is it because I’m a woman?” all the time.
• Captain Michael Heartland is the leader of the group Takuto joins. He seems to be among the most balanced in terms of ethics and military duty. Before becoming the leader of the Funeral team, he lead another team (probably regular army) where first lt. Simmons also served under him. Personal Note: His “mother hen” like attitude towards his subordinates is due to having lost his former team in the line of duty.
• First Lt. Dan Simmons is from a British noble family and eager to prove himself as the best mecha pilot on the team. He takes an instant disliking to Takuto when Takuto joins the group, probably because he feels his spot is threatened, but also because he is unable to figure out Takuto’s intentions. Personal Note: his brash behavior and reason for joining the military is from his dissatisfaction with his father’s reaction to his mother’s death. He joins the military to be on the front lines instead of just “pushing papers and counting deaths.” He still keeps in touch with his sister.
• First Lt Guinevere Green is probably the most humane of the bunch, acting as a an experienced, level-headed older sister to the group. Little is however revealed about her. Personal Note: She often hints that she is in a similar position as Tukuto and that she got there the same way he did. This is however never fully explained.
• Second Lt. Sue Harris is the youngest of the group and the pilot of the transport aircraft the team uses to get from location to location (the aircraft also carry the SARGs around). Sue is truly a child at heart which is why she is the one that took care of Harriet in the beginning.

Alien
Alien is the name given to… well… the aliens which all seem to share a collective mindset. There are essentially two types of aliens, a regular type and a “progressive alien”. As the name suggests, a Progressive Alien is an alien that has progressed (“evolved”) into a more advanced type of alien, increasing its deadliness by having an additional new power which corresponds with the type it progressed to. In the duration of the series, Heat, Liquid, and Composition/Gravity types, among others, are seen. Frank is unofficially classified as an Alchemist type, which is similar to Composition. Common for all aliens (except Frank and the parts he is made of) is that they can fire a laser from just in front of their heads. Their six crystal “eyes” seem to indicate their state of mind, aqua/green-blue for docile, red for aggressive. And for some reason, they all sound like whales…

Pilgrimage Point
The Pilgrimage Point is the military codename given to the point on Earth that all the aliens seem drawn to. While no one knows why this is despite dozens of tests on various parameters, as per one of the scientists, the military is quite certain that if an alien reaches the point, it will be game over for Earth. This is why Funeral was originally created, to prevent the aliens from reaching the Pilgrimage Point at any cost. Towards the end of the series, it is revealed why the aliens flock towards this point.

SARG
SARGs are major mecha/aircraft transformers that are Funerals primary offensive measure against the aliens. No real details are given about them, except that they run on “alien engines”, the same engine that power the aliens. In that sense, the SARG pilots are essentially piloting dead aliens. The army later creates an upgraded, but far more dangerous and unstable version called the TOD.

Silent Wind
Silent Wind is performed by Eri Sugai. The beginning of the song sounded strangely familiar, but I have thus far been unable to remember where I heard it (or something similar to it). It’s a decent song with some sad undertones to it (the lyrics deal with loss and loneliness), but I can’t really say that it’s too memorable. It appears to use an array of instruments, but for some reason, all I could focus on was the sad, but strong-willed violin that was particularly noticible at 0:40-1:03.

The animation is a bit… I dunno. The first 30 or so seconds emphasize the music and lyrics really well by showing the main character as a scarred angel missing his left wing, trying to catch his lost love as she vanishes into a cloud of angelic feathers. The rest is shown to contrast the song by Funeral setting off to engage the enemy.


Horizon
Horizon is performed by Sphere. It was so totally the kind of music that would play during the credits of a 1970s action series and it made me want to do silly, retro dance moves, but other than that, it did nothing for me. Not bad, but not good either. It’s the kind that if you had an old style radio with a tuning nob, and you’d accidentally tuned into that song, you do some silly dance-like moves and then 5-10 seconds later tune away.

The animation seemed somewhat simple. Pictures of astronauts lay spread around, and as the camera zooms out, a person (Takuto?) can be seen on the right in what seems to be an extremely light astronaut suit. The person stays as the background first changes to a spaceship exiting earth’s gravitational field and then again later to outer space. It should be mentioned that all three backgrounds are seen in three different episodes of the anime (one per episode), albeit only for a second or so.

The English voice actors are pretty bad, because as it unfortunately usually is with English voice actors, it’s like they lack any emotion other than melancholy when voicing a character. The only ones that sounded remotely good in English version were Hattie and Sue. I will however give them props for at least trying to give Dan a British accent, though it wasn’t completely successful. Needless to say, I watched it with Japanese voices and I suggest you do the same.

Aaaanywho, I have mixed feelings about the anime, though leaning mostly towards that it was bad. I was not too fond of the drawing style, since in my opinion, the characters all looked like mannequins of the 1990s; like they were lacking noses. The music, at least what I can recall of it, was decent enough though. The characters were not really relatable and were in fact rather shallow since you, as the viewer, only get one random flash-back or comment to justify why the characters are the way they are (written as the personal note in the character section).

The story was not that great either. More than half of the episodes were probably made so that the viewer could get a better impression of time passing and see the team get used to working together and with Frank. So let me say this: Time passes, they get used to working together and with Frank! Now, just watch episodes 1-4 and 18-26, the rest are, in my honest opinion, worthless filler episodes with sub-par storylines and are so mind-numbingly boring that if I hadn’t been asked to review the series, I would have quit after the 6th episode.

I will say this one good thing about the anime though: if you manage to drag yourself through the painstakingly boring episodes that make you wanna go “This is almost as bad as Tekken: The Motion Picture…” and reach episode 18 (or maybe it was 17, I’m a bit unsure now), you’re in for some decent, sudden plot-twists that even I didn’t see coming, and I’m usually good at figuring out stroylines early on. The last few episodes are also what brings morale and afterthought to the themes, such as perception of humanity, human action, and good and evil, however, it is too little too late. Instead, I would recommend watching Kaiji which deals with similar themes, albeit in a far more extreme, yet successful way.

If I were to grade this anime on a scale from 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest), I’d give it a 4 for the most part and 6 for the last few episodes.

“A lone flower blooming quietly in the backstreets of Ginza. One such bar, one that you might overlook if not paying attention, is Eden Hall.”

And that is, for the most part, the setting of the anime. Sasakura Ryū, a young bartending prodigy, opened the bar after having worked as an assistant to a senior bartender to gain the valuable experience needed to handle owning and working the bar by himself. During the course of the anime, various troubled souls enter the bar, be they rich or poor, and are treated to a drink, and receive the guidance needed to help them overcome the problems that have burdened them so.

The help they receive from Ryū comes in many different forms, or rather, cocktails. His insight is uncanny, as he is able to find the Menu of the Heart of all customers that enter his bar. It is not only the drink itself, but also the story behind the drink he serves that inspire the characters and help them realise what they should do to overcome whatever problems they face.

•The anime is 11 episodes long and is based on the manga of the same name.
•After every episode a featured cocktail is shown, along with its recipe. It is usually the cocktail that “saves the day” in that given episode that is featured.
•You will hear the tag line, “that was the beginning of the mystery of Bar Eden Hall” at least once per episode, so I suggest you get used to it.

In snack-sized bits
•Sasakura Ryū – Ryū is the barkeep (meaning he is the bartender as well as the owner) of “Eden Hall“. He is somewhat of a prodigy when it comes to bartending and is extremely knowledgeable when it comes to the history of the drinks he serves and spirits he uses during the course of the anime. He is infamous for being able to serve the “Glass of the Gods”, and is rumoured to have never made a mistake when it comes to giving a customer just the right drink, however, as revealed later on, this isn’t completely true.

•The customers – I’m not going to introduce the customers, because that would take away one of the main points of the anime. Each episode introduces one or two new customers and tell their back-story and reason for being invited. They will then reappear as a sort of visible narrators in the following episodes.

Menu of the Heart
The Menu of the Heart is a reference to a specific, unspecified drink (sounds complicated, no?). What it means is, that among the hundreds and thousands of different drinks, styles, and cocktails that exist, there’s only one drink that is truly in the heart of a customer, at any given moment, and it is a bartenders job to be able to open up the customer’s heart and find it.

Glass of the Gods
Glass of the Gods is like “part II” of the Menu of the Heart. It refers to the ability of making that drink (the one in the heart of the customer), and any other for that matter, perfectly. Ryū is able to do this, which is why he has earned the title/nickname of the bartender who serves the Glass of the Gods (kind of obvious, I know…). In the manga and anime, it is explained as “the one last drink which rescues the souls hurt by solitude, and has nowhere else to go.”

Bātendā (Bartender) is the opening song and is performed by Natural High featuring Junpei Shiina. It is absolutely made of awesome. I found it old-school in terms of music (it has a piano, a sax/trumpet, and a drum-beat, that’s it) and it is extremely catchy. The woman sings beautifully, and the rhythm in the part that Jinpei sings is just awesome. I dare you to listen to it and not start bobbing your head or snapping your fingers. I’m listening to it as I write this, and I’m dancing in my chair, that’s how good it is. The lyrics are kind of ambiguous though, and if you take them too literally, quite perverted.

The animation is is very hard to explain, so I recommend that you just watch it. I found it to be nice way to showcase all the characters that are going to be in it, though.

Hajimari no Hito (The First Person) is performed by Natural High and was used as the ending theme. In my opinion, this song is the only negative thing about the anime, other than that it was so short. I really have nothing else to say about it, it just wasn’t my thing.

The video was however far more interesting. It is divided into to parts and changes back and forward between the two, pretty much like a real music video. One part, the one with Natural High, the goldfish that float in the air, and whatnot is always the same in all the endings. However, the other part differs with every episode, because what you see here is an actual bartender making the episode’s featured cocktail. I thought that was a kick-ass detail to add.

This is probably the best anime I’ve seen to date. Everything about it is just made of awesome. The opening song is catchy, the overall drawing style is beautiful without being “over the top”, the scene changes are well made, the characters are likeable and relate-able, the voices are great (especially the narrator’s), and the variety from episode to episode will keep you wanting to see the next one.

Throughout every single episode, you’ll be laughing, crying, pondering, and a bunch of other “-ing”s, because it’s just that good. I simply cannot praise it enough. I have yet to watch an anime that has the same type of atmosphere or give the same kind of insight to the mindsets of the ‘minor’ characters. It had me hook already on the few short lines said by the narrator in the beginning of the first episode, and it only got better. I’m kinda sad about that it only had 11 episodes, but I also believe that if they dragged it out, it would ruin the show. Nevertheless, I would have liked if they had made 2 or 3 episodes more.

But the immense awesomeness of this series made me seriously want to become one of those old-school bartenders, much like Ryū is (none of that club-bartending for me). And that’s when you know you have a good anime. When you aspire to be like one of the characters, while still retaining a sense of realism of your abilities. I mean… a lot of people would like to be ninjas, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to Kage Bunshin no Jutsu their way out of going to work/school any time soon (I just broke someone’s hopes and dreams, didn’t I?).

It is that atmosphere of “unrealistic realism”, in the sense of “everything you see, could very well happen in everyday life in a bar. It’s not very likely, but gosh I hope it does” that helps set the entire mood. It’s calm, welcoming, and the setting just affects you somehow on an emotional level without you ever really noticing it. After a while, you want a bar like Eden Hall to exist and you want there to be a bartender like Ryū to serve you cocktails and to whom you can open up to.

When comparing it to the manga, I would have to say that the manga does a better job at explaining things, is more extensive in its storytelling, e.g. the first episode in the anime is actually a combination of parts from two completely seperate events in the manga (chapters 1 and 3, respectively), and it is also much sillier, but in a good way. However, the anime does a far better job of drawing out the amazing atmosphere thanks to its soft background music, amazing scene changes, and soothing voice of both Ryū and the narrator. In conclusion, watch this utterly, utterly awesome anime, I’ll guarantee you that you’ll like it.

Devil May Cry revolves around Dante, a demon slayer who himself is half demon. One day, he gets the job of protecting a little girl who has been targeted by demons. She is to arrive at a disclosed location before a deadline, as described in a letter she has received, if she is to collect her inheritance. However, nothing is at it seems, and unbeknownst to them both, this is but the first part of a major plot to destroy the world as we know it.

•The anime is 12 episodes long and is based on the game of the same name.
•Chronologically, it is placed after the first game, but before the fourth, making the order DMC3 -> DMC -> the animoo -> DMC4 -> DMC2 (according to Nelo).
•Dante’s two guns are called Ebony and Ivory, and as the names suggest, one is black and the other is white. His enchanted sword is called Rebellion. This has no storyline significance whatsoever, I just mentioned it for good measure.

In snack-sized bits
•Dante – Dante is half demon, half human. His father, Sparda, was known in the demon world as the strongest demon swordsman who ever lived, but also as a traitor, because he chose to oppose the demons in favor of humans. Dante “followed in his footsteps” and became a demon hunter. He has an odd fondness for Strawberry Sundays and never seems to eat anything other than pizza (without olives!). Despite what he earns, he is always in dept, usually because of his poor gambling skills, bad bets he makes (and loses) and tendency to destroy his surroundings while on the job.

•Lady – Lady is a demon hunter that always manages to sucker Dante into helping her out, usually by making a bet with him that she then wins. She renounced her real name, Mary, when her father, Arkham, the main antagonist of Devil May Cry 3 ,killed her mother. She was then simply referred to as “lady” by Dante because he had nothing else to call her (also in DMC3), which is a name she has used since. While only a normal human, she is highly skilled in the use of firearms and in close quarters combat, and succeeds in bringing down hordes of demons. As an interesting bit of trivia, the name of Dante’s shop is taken from a line Lady said to comfort him when he was mourning the death of his twin brother, Vergil (though not admitting it): “Maybe somewhere out there, even a devil may cry when he loses a loved one. Don’t you think?”

•Trish – Trish is an artificial creation by Mondus, the main antagonist of the first Devil May Cry game. Trish was created in the image of Eva, Dante’s human mother, in order to make Dante believe that she was still alive, as part of Mondus’ plot to lure Dante to a a desserted island in order to kill him. She has two guns similar to Dante’s Ebony and Ivory, as well as demonic powers (superhuman strength, agility, and the ability to generate lightning from her hands/fingers). Since the game, she partnered with Dante for a while, but later went solo as a demon slayer. Dante does however remark that she is welcome to return as his partner any time.

•Morrison – Morrison is a human character who acts as Dante’s liaison, informing him of various jobs. From time to time, he also repairs stuff around the Devil May Cry office, for a price of course.

•Patty Lowell – Patty is a young girl, who lived in an orphanage, introduced as the first job for Dante. He was to protect her from demon attacks during her travel to collect a large fortune that she supposedly had inherited. This later turns out to be a scam set up by the real Patty Lowell, who used the girl as a stand-in so that she could collect her inheritance without being targeted by demons. Thanks to Dante, the girl was paid a large sum of money for their troubles. She has since then spent most of her time with Dante at the Devil May Cry office, and despite not wanting to admit it, Dante becomes very attached to her. Unbeknownst to Patty, she is in fact a descendant of a very powerful magician, a fact that will come into play late in the storyline.

•Sid – Sid is a demon who is as low on the ladder as can be. He has plans of grandeur, wanting to become the most powerful demon to have ever lived. Sid serves as a the red thread in the storyline, often appearing for no apparent reason in various, collecting parts of other demons slain by Dante.

Guess what it’s short for… Anywho, D.M.C. is the opening song and is performed by Rungran. It doesn’t feature any lyrics, but hey, that’s cool too. It has a nice… eh.. bridge? (I’m not a music analyst, so if your gonna get all technical, then bite me). Anywho, it has a nice segment in the middle that sounds kind of classical, with a sad slow-mo feel to it, while the beginning and end are more slow-mo “violent intent” (by “slow-mo” is meant it could be used for a slow-motion bit in an anime, featuring the mood described directly before or after). It’s an awesome song never the less, and I imagine guitar fans go nuts about the violent intent parts and wanting to find the tabs/cords for it.

The animation is kind of a bite-sized “here are the characters, here are some of the demons, here’s how the demons are brutally slaughtered“. Actually, not really, but it is kind of a demo-reel of what the anime is all about.

I’ll Be Your Home is performed by Rin Oikawa and was used as the ending theme. It’s kind of a sad, bittersweet song, but actually pretty good, even though the lyrics are pretty abstract and hard to make sense of. The style of the chorus reminds of Coldplay, for some odd reason. Or.. well, it reminds me of somethingand Coldplay was the first thing that sprang to mind. If you just forget about making heads or tails in the lyrics and just listen to the music and the voice of the singer, it makes for an extremely niceties song that goes well if you feel kind of down, because it makes you smile in a sad kind of way. So on a rainy night (if you the type, who unlike me, get kinda sad and moody when it rains), listen to this, though I suggest looking for the full song.

The animation is all about the mood, and is as cryptic as the song. The sun is setting, and you see the inside of Devil May Cry. Dante is sitting on his desk with a drink (whisky?) in his hand. The “camera” (POV, whatever) changes to various place of Devil May Cry, where the different characters are seen resting. At the end, Dante gets up, and fades away. Like I said, very cryptic and hard to explain, so I suggest you watch it for yourself.

I’ve read a couple of reviews of the (Run)DMC (hir hir hir) animoo, and the main point most people came with was “It has no plot” and “all it does for the first 10 episodes is show how “cool” Dante is“. They are idiots. It isn’t supposed to have a 13 episode long “to be continued“-type plot. Every episode has a plot of its own (save the last 2-3, which actually do use the “to be continued“), which all come together in the end. And you damn Skippy they show what a cool character Dante is, because he is a cool character, but more importantly, they try to establish who Dante is, what he does, and what his relationships with the other characters are. This is especially good if you’ve never played any of the games, because there’s no need for having an expansive knowledge of the DMC universe before-hand (though playing the games will make it easier for you, but then again, so will reading the character section of this review).

Even so, there actually is a red thread through all the episodes, which all play out to reveal a greater scheme that has been going on behind the scenes since the very first episode. EVERYONE who whined about the anime and its lack of plot seem to have completely missed this point, probably because you really have to stick by it to the end, and be a bit forgiving here and there, for it to make proper sense.

Anyway, Devil May Cry is a nice anime, but it isn’t really the “greatest” anime. It’s good for a few chuckles here and there, but they really put the focus on demon slaying and trying to expand the character of Dante, possibly to make people more curious about the DMC universe so that they’ll buy the games. I say, watch the first 3-4 episodes and if you then decide it isn’t for you, don’t bother with the rest. The ending does sort out the threads very nicely, but chances are, if you don’t like the overall style and tone of the anime, you won’t like the ending either.

When watching the first episode, Hell, when watching the first couple of minutes of the first episode, you’ll know that this isn’t your average anime. What you’ll essentially see is a naked chick in her late teens, wearing an iron mask, brutally slaughtering dozens of soldiers and personnel using her vectors, whilst escaping the military facility where she has been held captive for roughly 7-8 years.

During the last part of her escape, she is shot in the head with a .50 BMG (in layman’s terms, a REALLY big bullet), however, because of her iron helmet and the partial deflection by using her vectors, she manages to survive, albeit wounded and with brain damage. Unconscious, she falls into the sea below the cliff she was standing on.

The story from this point on essentially switches between your everyday Harem/love story anime (usually when Nyuu is dominant), a complete slasher/slaughter horror flick (when Lucy is dominant), the inner workings of the “facility”, and finally, flashbacks revealing what really happened with Kouta when he was a child.

•The anime is 13 episodes long and has a single-episode OVA, which, chronologically, takes place between episodes 10 and 11.
•It was produced at the same time as the manga, in the story therefore differs quite a lot.
•The first seven minutes of the first episode are known as some of the most provocative anime, because of its strong graphical content.
•The titles of each episode are in German, which seems to be the case for any anime that has to do with the occult or something dark and supernatural.
•If you go to most other websites, they’ll say that “it is an anime based on the German poem, Elfenlied“, but I don’t see it. Other than the title and a single word from the poem (which is actually taken from an opera), there are like ”no” similarities whatsoever. Not that I care, I just mentioned it for good measure.

In snack-sized bits
•Lucy – A ruthless and sadistic Diclonius, who escapes her confines. She was a quiet as a child and always alone, since all the other children in the orphanage was afraid of her because of her horns. She was often teased by three sadistic bullies, who even went as far as beating the stray dog she had befriended to death right in front of her, just to make her cry. They had heard about the dog from the only person Lucy had trusted in her life. This finally pushed her over the edge, making her lose all faith in the human race, and she lost all regard in human life, now thinking of everyone not like herself as “non-humans”.

•Nyuu – Lucy’s split personality, who was created due to the damage from the shot that hit Lucy’s head. In the manga, it is said that this persona was partially fabricated by Lucy, because she was afraid to face Kouta. She has language difficulties (all she could say at first was “nyuu”) and has regressed into a childlike state of mind. She is essentially like Chii from Chobits. Nyuu has no control of her vectors, nor does she seem to know they even exist.

•Kouta – A boy in his late teens, who unofficially becomes the caretaker of his cousin’s family’s inn. He suffered traumatic events as a child, but suppressed them, making his memory of his past very hazy. During the storyline, his childhood is explained, as well as what happened to him as a child. He is very protective of anyone who reminds him of his late sister.

•Yuka – Kouta’s cousin, who has had a crush on him since childhood and is still very much in love with him and becomes jealous whenever Kouta shows any affection towards another girl.

•Mayu – A young adolescent girl who ran away from a broken home. She lived on the street with a puppy she named ”Wanta” (a dog’s bark in Japanese is “wan”), having nothing to eat but the bread crusts she got from a baker. She is later taken in by Kouta and Yuka.

•Nana – A young Silpelit sent to recapture Lucy. Unlike other Silpelits and Diclonius, she has never shown any murderous intent towards humans and refuses to kill anyone, even when she herself is in mortal danger. Her name is based on the ID number she had at the “facility”, #7 (”Nana-ban” in Japanese).

Diclonius
Diclonius is a word from Latin, meaning ”double sprout”, and is a reference to a common trait for the Diclonius, the two cat-ear-like horns sprouting from their skulls. According to the statements I could “gather” from the animoo scientists, Diclonius are mutants, described as the ”queen bees” of a bee colony because of their shorter and lower amount of vectors (compared to the Silpelits) making them “weaker” in combat (again, compared to the Silpelits), and for their ability to reproduce. They have a lifespan and age rate similar to regular humans.

Silpelit
Silpelits are sterile Diclonius and described as the ”worker bees”, because of their sole purpose of killing off the human race (as said by the scientists). Some of them can however still spread the Diclonius Virus by touching a man’s pineal gland (a part of the brain) with one of their vectors. They age at approximately twice the rate of normal humans.

Vectors
Vectors are the “extensions” of Diclonius and Silpelit used to manipulate the objects around them. They appear in the anime as invisible, intangible arms (they become tangible when the user “wills” it), though far longer and stronger than human arms, which extend from the backs of the Diclonius and Silpelits. When not in use, they are inside the body.

Other than the obvious use as extensions, they can be used to deflect bullets and objects that do not have to much force (essentially, the higher the calibre bullet, the harder it is, while armor piercing bullets add to the threat) or to cut through objects by vibrating them at a microscopic level. The strength of the vectors increase with age. While the vectors of Diclonius shown in the anime have a max range of 2 meters, those of Silpelits have a minimum range of 3 meters and the thus far longest range of a Silpelit’s vector has been 11 meters.

It seems to require a certain amount of concentration to use the vectors, and if one inflicts enough pain to break this concentration, the vectors will not come out. As evident by Nana, the vectors can also be “turned off” temporarily by disturbing the pineal gland.

The opening song is called ”Lilium” (Latin for the flower, ‘lily’) and is performed by Oguro Kumiko, though not written by her. It is used a couple of times in the anime itself, e.g. Lucy was humming it during the slaughter of soldiers in the beginning of the anime and again in the end. It is also the tune played by the music box Kouta bought when he was about 10-11 years old. The song itself is sung in Biblical Latin and seems to be based on a hymn as well as a few stanza from “the good book” itself. Personally, I think it’s a really, really beautiful song and kind of sad as well. I simply love the singing and the music is pretty good too, but oh(!!!) the singing… It’s not like it’s the ”greatest” voice I ever heard, but it’s so pure and she varies it so well to follow the music, so it’s probably still among my top 3. I would advise against the full extended version (7 minutes and something long), because they added so much crap, including a male voice, which just sounds awful. The regular full version (3-4 minutes) is also kinda odd, but still good though.

The “story” of the animation is somewhat cryptic, but all the images seen are heavily influenced by the works of Gustav Klimt (Thank you Mindi for making me realize this ^_^), but features all the main characters rather than the actual models. Those that are not directly taken from his works are drawn in the overall same style.

Here are the works I’ve been able to recognize thus far, as well as the time-stamps of when they appear (Note that my German is rusty, so the titles may be slightly off, and also, this is original research that took me several hours, please do not re-use elsewhere without giving me proper credit): Right-most part of ”Stoclet Frieze” (0:03-0:27), the young woman and child from ”The Three Ages of Woman” (0:28-0:31; 0:32-0:35; 0:38-0:49 (background unknown, possibly based on right-most girl from ”Water in Motion”)), ”Adele Bloch-Bauer’‘ (0:31-0:32), ”The Kiss” (0:49-0:50; 1:03-1:11), The old lady from ”The Three Ages of Woman” (0:51-0:57), The woman facing forward in ”Water Snakes I/Friends I” (1:12-1:19), possibly based on, but not same as, ”Water Snakes II/Friends II” (1:19-end). The words vaguely seen on the side of all the pictures are the lyrics of the song, and also use the same style as the writings in Gustav Klimt’s paintings.

To be honest, I never heard past the first couple of seconds, because I felt it clashed too much with anime. It’s a happy-go-lucky J-pop-rock song (reminds me of Avril Lavigne songs with a mix of a young Janet Jackson) which just didn’t fit in with the mood set by the anime, the contrast was just too great. I’ve heard that people believe that it is “a reflection of the relationship between Nyu and Kohta“, but I think that that is simply fan-bullshit that started off as a tired guy or girl being pestered with questions about the song until he/her just said some random crap that people decided to believe in (I am <-this close-> to making a cheap shot at the Bible, but since most Christians can’t take a joke directed at themselves or their faith, I choose not to). In another anime, I don’t doubt I would have liked it better.

I have no idea of what the animation is, seeing that I never watched it, but since it has the same image in the beginning as it does in the thumbnail (which is taken from the middle of the video), I’m gonna guess it’s a single image with no changes. Like the opening, the image is based on a painting by Gustav Klimt, this time being the one called ”Danaë”.

Elfen Lied was a total shocker for me, but it was nice to see an anime “breaking the mould” of the gazillion anime we’ve seen already. Well… at least it tried to, but I’d say it succeeded for the most part, even though you could see the distinct Love Hina “One-guy-multiple-girls-living-in-the-dormitory-like-House-that-he-is-now-the-caretaker-of” Harem scenario at times. Other than that, it is a brilliantly gory and psychological animoo, though with a bit too sugar-sweet ending (from what I hear, the manga is far more sadistic and emotionally ruthless throughout the story).

A thing I find unfortunate is how short the anime is. Not because longer series are always better, but because the anime grazes many psychological aspects of the characters, but fails to expand on them in any way, leaving the characters somewhat hollow. For instance, it is revealed that Mayu ran away from home because her stepfather sexually molested her and her mother did nothing to prevent it or help Mayu, because she was jealous of her, and yet Mayu doesn’t seem to have any psychological after-effects of these traumatic experiences and the issue, from a storyline point of view, is never dealt with. The ending of the anime (which I will not reveal) has essentially the same “problem”.

Regardless, it shows themes not usually depicted in anime (at least realistically), such as sexual molestation of minors, social alienation/”racism”, repressed psychological trauma and several other psychological aspects, not to mention the extreme sadistic tendencies and complete disregard for human life seen in many of the characters, and is well worth a watch, if you aren’t to squeamish about sudden decapitations, bodies cut in half and limbs slowly being ripped off.

Taniyama Mai is a young girl with a great love for scary stories. During a story-telling time with her two friends, a young boy comes across the classroom they are sitting in, scaring them half to death.

She later finds out that the young boy is Shibuya Kazuya of Shibuya Psychic Research (SPR), a ghost hunter who had been hired by the school principal to investigate the mysterious circumstances concerning the old, former school building which have even resulted in people’s death.

While Mai initially doesn’t care, her curiosity gets the better of her when she passes by the old school building, and she decides to peek inside and notices a camera at the entrance. Even more curious, she enters, but is startled by another young man rushing in, yelling not to touch the camera.

She accidentally hits a set of lockers which threatens to fall over her, but is saved by the young man pushing her aside and getting hit instead. Kazuya enters to reveal that the young man is his assistant, Rin. Because of Rin’s injuries, he cannot work for a while, and Kazuya demands compensation, not only for Rin, but for the extremely expensive camera that was broken. The compensation is not in the form of money, but rather that Mai should become his assistant while Rin is hospitalized.

So while Rin may have pushed Mai out of the way of immediate danger, he unintentionally also pushed her into a whole new world of death and the supernatural; a world of ghosts, evil spirits, and mysteries that she would never otherwise have know of or experienced…

•The anime is 25 episodes long and is based on the manga of the same name. The manga however revealed far more information on the characters, but because this is a mystery anime and I don’t want to spoil the fun, I’ve decided to write spoilers in the character section at with a white font, which means that to read them, you have to highlight them.
•Despite the heavy use of terms in the anime, that I doubt that many people know, I’ve decide not to make a term section. This is simply because whenever you come across a new term, Mai is there to “not get it”, and Naru will then explain it “for her sake“. The only term I don’t think he covers is “Onmyōji“, which is a practitioner of Onmyōdō, a mix of natural science and the occult influenced by Buddhism, Shintoism, and Taoism.

In snack-sized bits. Click the names for character images.
•Taniyama Mai – Mai loves ghost stories, but never expected that she’d be in one (oh yeah, Pirates of the Caribbean reference, how ya like me now? XD), yet that is exactly what happened when she interferes with an investigation by the SPR. After having accidentially caused damage to a camera as well as to Rin, Shibuya’s assistant, Shibuya demands that she take Rin’s place and aid him in his investigations.

After the first case is solved, she’s is employed part-time and would, during cases, have dreams of Shibuya smiling at her and giving her hints about the case at hand. It is revealed that she is in fact an orphan and has been living on her own for quite a while.

[spoiler]It is revealed during the course of the anime that she is an esper, i.e. has the powers of ESP, however, these powers are latent and manifest via her dreams. One thing not revealed in the anime is that the boy in her dreams in fact isn’t Shibuya, but his deceased twin brother.[/spoiler]

•Shibuya Kazuya – Shibuya, nicknamed Naru (short for narcissist, narushishisuto) by Mai because of his behavior, is the leader of the team and CEO of Shibuya Psychic Research. He shows great knowledge of the supernatural and relies on his intelligence, his technology, and the abilities of his friends to solve each case. While typically acting cold and, to put it bluntly, like a bastard at times, he cares deeply for his friends.

[spoiler]Shibuya is in fact an extremely powerful telekinetic, though he cannot control the output of his powers properly without his brother, Eugene, who died before the storyline of the anime. His real name is in fact Oliver Davis, who is mentioned a few times in the anime.

His true identity is never stated directly in the anime (it is in the manga), but various hints point to it, such as his inability to read kanji despite appearing Japanese, losing his temper when Mai calls him Naru for the first time, demanding to know where she had heard that name (a nickname for Oliver is “Nol”, which he was called back home, and is pronounced “Naru” in Japanese, so he thought she knew his real identity), his ability to bend a spoon in one of the episodes without exerting any significant physical force and Rin’s outburst when he heard about it, which confirms the presence of his psychic powers, and how quickly he dismisses the fake Oliver Davis, which implies he has knowledge of who the real Oliver is (himself).

Some viewers will probably argue “but the spoon bending was fake, Bou-san caught him red handed“, and for that I must reply that you weren’t paying attention. The second time around, it really was fake, but notice that the spoon is bent in the opposite direction, which means that he couldn’t have used that technique the first time around.[/spoiler]

•Rin Kōjo – Rin (possibly translated as “Lin”, I actually don’t recall) is Shibuya’s assistant. He is Chinese and a damn tall one I might add. Anywho, he seems to have rather mundane jobs, such as setting up equipment, going through hours of video and audio recordings, checking readings, as well as writing reports and logs which he seems to do in English.

He has a strong hatred for the Japanese people due to the conflicts China and Japan have had in the past (the Sino-Japanese wars, look them up on Wikipedia or something), a hatred he admits is not entirely rational when he directs it at singled-out people, such as Mai.

[spoiler]Rin is very powerful onmyōji, capable of excorsism and spirit summoning among various other things. I say this here because it would have somewhat spoiled cases 1 and 2 if you knew beforehand. He also has four familiars that he doesn’t summon until the last case.

He is a childhood friend of Eugene and Oliver’s, and is helping Oliver find the body of Eugene that had been thrown in a river by a hit-and-run driver and apparently made it all the way to Japan, thus explaining why they are there.[/spoiler]

•Takigawa Hōshō – Takigawa is trained as a Buddhist monk which is what led to Mai calling him Bou-san (Monk-san), a nickname that stuck with the group. Despite his training, he considers being a monk a side-job while his real profession is that of a bass player in a band.

Takigawa is one of the more potent members of the group when it comes to exorcising spirits from the real world, but what he has in spiritual strength he lacks in finesse and he is unable to remove spirits from objects without breaking them, which is why he has never attempted to exorcise a spirit from a human being.

His “style of exorcism” is reciting Buddhist mantra which are apparently powerful enough to exorcise several spirits at a time. During the course of the anime, he and Mai develop an elder brother-younger sister type relationship.

•Hara Masako – Masako is a famous spirit medium with her own TV show. She is able to see spirits and communicate with them, as well as “call on them” (let them communicate with the outside world by possessing her body) via a seance.

She has a crush on Shibuya, but is too shy and well-mannered to confess to him. Because of this, she is also jealous of Mai, since in Masako’s eyes, Mai and Shibuya have a special relationship.

[spoiler]At one point, when Masako makes Shibuya do her a favor, despite him declining when Mai asked, someone (I think it was Ayako) said “maybe she has something on him“. This is actually spot on. Masako knows Shibuya’s true identity.[/spoiler]

•John Brown – John hails from Australia and is a Catholic exorcist priest, despite his young age (19 years old). Along with Bou-san, he is one of the more potent members of the group when it comes to excorcissing spirits. While nowhere near as strong as Bou-san, he has far more finesse, and can exorcise spirits from human beings without too much effort and without the person taking any damage.

He exorcises spirits by reciting prayers from the Bible and spraying/splashing holy water. He is the cause of some lingual jokes because he speaks Japanese in a Kansai dialect, which along with his natural accent makes him sound somewhat odd. He also is not always aware of dual meaning of words in Japanese, which sometimes leads to confusion.

•Matsuzaki Ayako – Ayako is a “self-styled” Shinto priestess, in the sense that she was not raised at a shrine and is in fact the daughter of a wealthy doctor’s family. Whenever she appears at a “crime scene”, the first thing she says is usually that is the work of elemental earth spirits, a thing that Bou-san makes a joke about later in the anime, when she is running late.

She exorcises spirits by reciting a Shinto prayer, but always falls short which lead the other members to believe that she is useless when it comes to these sort of things. She is however fully capable of making protective charms and use defensive sutra (she even taught one to Mai).

[spoiler]Despite her many failed tempts at exorcisms, she is in fact extremely powerful, but under certain conditions only. She has the power to communicate with the spirits of living trees and use their power to exorcise spirits (this is her condition, she needs to be near living trees).

Her pride prevented her from telling it to the group, as she thought they would just consider it a bad excuse, which is why she waited until she could prove it.[/spoiler]

•Yasuhara Osamu – Yasuhara is technically not a member of SPR, but a client. He is 3rd year high school student who was introduced in File 6 and was the one who approached SPR and spoke on the principal’s behalf when his school was haunted.

He is at the top of his class and his sharp wits and intelligence became an asset to the team. After the case about he school was solved, he continued to help out SPR, despite not having any powers of his own.

Main Theme (no title given in the opening credits) is composed by Masuda Toshioe and was used throughout the series. If you feel like you’ve heard his name before, then I can reveal that he composed all the in-anime music of Naruto.

Anywho, the song is eerie and I like it. It fits great with the anime, and it speeds up your heat rate by a few beats and really gets you pumped for watching an episode.

The animation is actually a two-part animation. The first part is shown up until episode 13, after which part two begins (along with File 6). The video to the right is of part one. I have not been able to find part two online. Part one is essentially just a bunch of spirit balls for the good first half, followed by moving smoke where you can see blurry images of something going on.

It then ends with the camera looking up and a flash of light appearing. Part two starts with that flash of light, and the rest is too hard too explain, but it’s quite eerie and well made, with various shapes that you can “see out of the corner of your eye”, just to bring up your pulse a little.

Ending Theme (no title giving in the ending credits) is composed by Masuda Toshioe and was used throughout the series. In my opinion, it fits the anime incredibly well.

It has that slightly eerie, but fairytale-ish sound to it that gradually calms you down from having just seen something scary that has your hair standing on end.

The animation is various spirit balls ascending. It is quite beautiful actually, it reminded me of the pyreflies from Final Fantasy X, only without the “rainbow trails” they left behind. The background sky changes 2 times to a lighter hue, whether or not this is symbolic, as in “Life and death goes on, and as time passes by the days will begin to look brighter“, I cannot say. Saying that would likely be reading too much into it, but what do I know?

I have somewhat mixed feelings about Ghost Hunt. I mean, there’s great diversity among the characters, the art is good, and it’s fun to see the mysteries be solved, but it’s just missing that special “umph” for a great deal of time. A good thing about it is that each case only last 3-4 episode, which I think is an excellent amount of time, otherwise, you’d start getting restless and feel like there’s no real progress.

Ghost Hunt is not so much an occult mystery series as it a mystery series that just happens to have a few ghosts and spirits in it, in the sense of, it just isn’t that spooky or “Holy crap, I think I just heard something, where’s the light switch? WHERE IS THE LIGHT SWITCH?!“-nerve wrecking, which I consider a necessity for it to be called an occult mystery series.

Only “File 7: The Blood-soaked Labyrinth” had this, which made it my absolute favorite story arc of the series. I was fucking scared! Sitting in my chair, all the lights turned off, hugging my knees cause God forbid my feet should touch the floor, and my heart was racing, and I was like “HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, WHAT WAS THAT?!” and checking if something was moving in the hallway every 5-10 minutes. Best four episodes ever (18-21).

The other episodes had me more like: “Ohh… yeah okay. Wait, why is th- ooooh, NO, DON’T GO IN THERE!! DON’T GO-ARRRGH!!! See?! SEE?! I told you to not go in there, you idiot. YOU BROUGHT THIS ON YOURSELF, FOO’!!“. As you can see, they were more of a joke than actually scary, but they were extremely good mysteries despite of this.File 8 had the potential to be as scary as File 7, but turned more and more into a bad zombie flick, which I find unfortunate.

All in all, it’s a very good mystery anime, a very good one indeed, but if you want suspense and something that will have your heart racing from fear, this isn’t really it. The horror element is sort of missing, except for the last few episodes, but the characters are very likable to the point that you might start quoting part of a mantra or prayer or whatever (I took “on sunba nisunba un bazara un hatta” to heart XD).

But still, there are a lot of loose ends, and because of this, the story doesn’t feel finished at all (mainly because it isn’t). It would still advise people to watch it though, if nothing else, to become a bit more familiar with Shintoism, Buddhism, and so on, as well as to watch File 7, which is friggin’ awesome.

Onizuka Eikichi was a former biker gang member, who wanted to become a high school teacher in hopes of getting one (or more) of his female students to become his girlfriend/lover thanks to the “mystical and powerful influence” teachers had over their students. How he came to this conclusion is seen in the manga, but left out in the anime, which is why I am telling you ^_^

Anywho, with this in mind, he starts his teacher training at a public high school where he meets the girl, Mizuki. While she initially seduces him to set him up to have embarrassing pictures taken with her (teacher-student relationships are a no-no), so that she and some of her male classmates could blackmail him, she later opens up to him, after he saves her life when she jumps of his motorcycle (he was giving her a ride home) and into the path of an oncoming truck. She tells him that she doesn’t want to go home because of how loveless her parents’ marriage has become and various other problems sprouting from that. Onizuka tells her to calm down and go home, and that he, as her teacher, would help her fix her problem.

I’m not gonna tell you how he does it, but it is kick-ass funny and extreme, yet it makes perfect sense, despite the destruction of private property (now you’re really curious, aren’t ya :P). But she becomes the first of many students he helps out, and after that point, he swore he would never “prey” on impressionable school girls, but instead listen to the problems of his students and help them open up to the world

However, in all of his “hyped up”-ness, he forgets to take public teachers’ civil service exam needed to become a public teacher. Thinking his dream to be destroyed, he gives up and decides to become a truck driver, until he hears from his friend, Ryuuji, that he can still become a teacher in a private school, and that he has an interview with one (the Holy Forest Academy), only a few hours away. Needless to say, he gets the job (otherwise, it would be a pretty short anime) on the condition that he lives on school property, and begins teaching the most feared class in the school, Class 3-4. An this is where the fun begins…

•The anime is 43 episodes long and is based on the manga of the same name. However, after episode 14, the anime starts a storyline of its own.
•Several minor character and events are, compared to the manga, never explored fully or in some cases, never even mentioned.
•A live-action series, 12 episodes long, has also been created, and the anime has some references to it. The last episode of the live-action series was the most watched television program in Japan at that time.
•GTO is a sequel to two other manga series, Shōnan Junai Gumi and Bad Company.

In snack-sized bits. Click for images.
•Onizuka Eikichi – Nijunisai, yoroshiku~ A 22-year-old ex-biker, gang leader and virgin (when you watch it, you’ll know why I mention this as well). He is extremely athletic and often compared to cockroach by some of his students because of his ability to appear out of nowhere and for how hard he is to kill (he survived things any normal human would surely have died from). While he initially wanted to become a high school teacher in order to “get down and dirty” with high school girls, he soon realized what it truly meant to be a teacher and swore not enter relationships with any of the female students of his class (their mothers are a different story).

•Danma Ryūji – Onizuka’s friend since his biker-days and the other half of the famous Onibaku duo (Onizuka being the first half). He has since gone straight and owns his own motorcycle shop which has earned him a great profit. He generally care about Onizuka’s well-being, mostly because they are friends, but also because of Onizuka’s million yen debt to him. While he always helps Onizuka out of pinches, when he gets in over his head, he doesn’t just agree to every single request, believing that Onizuka needs to start taking responsibility for himself.

•Fuyutsuki Azusa – A 22-year-old, attractive female teacher and the love interest of Onizuka. She is quiet and shy, and has a hard time saying no (in a strict and believable manner). All the girls in the class she teaches have a grudge against her because all of the boys have crushes on her, and they believe she is purposely “leading them on”.

•Class of 3-4 – The class is known for being wild and absolutely ruthless to any teacher assigned to them because of an event involving their former teacher and their former classmate, which left them with a disdain for all teachers. After that, any teacher assigned to them has had nervous breakdowns because of their reign of psychological terror. Onizuka is assigned this class because the chair(wo)man hopes he can “tame” them with his unorthodox ways.

•Driver’s High is performed by L’Arc~en~Ciel and was used in episodes 1-16. I can’t say I really like it for what it is, but the guitar riff (or whatever it is) in the beginning and the end was WAY awesome and you’d endure the entire song just to here that and also the catchy “rhythm” of the stanza right after the chorus (or the last part of the chorus, I dunno what it is).

The animation is a is done it black and white, but in a somehow really cool way that is really emphasized by the music.

•Hitori no Yoru (Lonely Night) is performed by Porno Graffitti and was used in episodes 17-43. While not the greatest song in the world (it’s pretty average), it really is catchy, and I mean really catchy. So you may not go “WOW, SO AWESOME!!“, but you will most likely listen to the entire thing, and maybe bob along.

The animation used is kind of a… I dunno… Cinderella themed dream-sequence with a biker gang-member twist, but it works pretty good.

•Last Piece is performed by Kirari and was used in episodes 1-16. It’s kind of a… I dunno… J-pop-RnB-ish rhythm, but it’s a decent song, even though the music gives it a sugary sweet taste. However, it freaked my out when I first heard it, and it still does actually, because the music sound so EXTREMELY familiar, and I’m certain I’ve heard it in another song, but I can’t remember where.

The animation is fairly simple, and is pretty much just Onizuka smoking a cig on the roof of the school.

•Shizuku (Drop (of water)/Drip) is performed by Miwaku Okuda and was used in episodes 17-33. The song itself wasn’t really “all that”, and I feel about it like I do with Driver’s High; I endured it to hear the music at the beginning and the end (this time it was a guitar anda piano playing though). It has a sad sound to it, which is probably why it is named Shizuku (imagine a tear falling down). This is purely theory though.

The animation consists of Onizuka sitting in a classroom, reflecting on past events which are shown in a “fade/semi-merge” effect on the screen (so you see the events and the classroom at the same time). In the end, he gets up and leaves.

•Cherished Memories is performed by Hong Kong Knife and was used in episodes 34-43. And I hate it. If you’re into mediocre 60′s J-rock, then this is for you, if not, don’t bother.

The animation retains the fade/merge theme from Shizuku, but in a higher pace to fit with the music. It’s again stuff that has occurred in the anime, plus what seems to be walking through a major city.

GTO is probably one of the funniest anime to deal with real-life situations (albeit in pretty exaggerated and hilarious ways), but only as long as you watch it in the original Japanese. The English dubbing, and I shit you not, managed to suck out the marrow of the anime’s funnybone. Even the minor sentences like the threat given by two punks in the beginning of the first episode where completely destroyed by the immense stupidity and incoherency of whoever wrote the English lines. Worst of all, Onizuka sounded like one of those “sweet-talkers” that uses hours at the gym, and in the evenings, goes to bars in an attempt to pick up women with lines that simply DO NOT WORK and goes home after having 4-7 half-finished drinks thrown in his face. So be sure to watch the JAPANESE version with subs. It is of course completely obvious to watch any anime in its original language, but in GTO’s case (and Naruto’s too), it really can’t be stressed enough.

The abundant references to movies, people, anime, and whatnot only add to the fun, if you can understand them, that is. Despite the light tone, the anime does have some rather serious themes, like attempted suicide, mobbing (for you Americans who probably never use the term, it’s like bullying, but a wider term), loveless marriages, teacher-student affairs and so on. Onizuka tends to “fix” these problems in his own special way, which is usually pretty extreme (and will leave you laughing or with your jaw hitting the floor, sometimes both), but somehow very effective.

If you decide watching the anime, I suggest watching a couple of episodes a day, and when you’ve watched episode 41, stop. Wait a couple of days and then watch the last two episodes. I say this, because the change in the mood is pretty abrupt, and if you watch it without the “long” wait, the ending somehow “spoils” all the fun of the previous episodes, due to seriousness. It’s kind of like watching a stand-up comedian being extremely funny, who then halfway through a sketch stops, walks up to you, pulls out a bloody knife and says “I used this to kill your parents before I came to the show“. Well not exactly, but it has that “funny –> extremely serious” shock-effect. Never the less, the last two episodes are very important to understand the anime as a whole, especially to understand the actions of all the students of class 3-4.

Kaiji is a young man who graduates from high school and enters the working force during the mid-90s, which is during the Japanese recession after their bubble economy burst. Because of this, and because of his demeanour, he is unable to hold a job for very long and is almost constantly in debt.

At the beginning of the series, he is talked into co-signing a loan for a co-worker for the amount of 3,850,000 yen, but is left shouldering the hole thing (plus interest). Unable to pay back the loan with his wages (900 yen per hour – living expenses), he is given the opportunity to board the gambling ship, Espoir (French for “hope”), where he, if successful, can win back the entire amount of the debt and more. However, when aboard the ship, Kaiji realizes that the stakes were alot higher than he initially thought and he quite literally ends up betting parts of his body, and even his life, in the many insane gambles during that one night of do or die…

•The anime is 26 episodes long and is based on the manga of the same name. The anime only covers the first part of the “trilogy” manga.
•The “zawa zawa” noise heard in the anime is a Japanese onomatopoeia often used in manga to emphasize an uneasy atmosphere.
•Because Kaiji was written and drawn by the same mangaka as Akagi (Nobuyuki Fukumoto), the art style of the two anime are the same, as are the themes (psychological suspense and gambling). As an Easter Egg for true fans, Akagi’s silhouette takes the place of Kaiji during an explanation in episode 18.
•As a funny “coincidence”, another similarity between the two series is that the voice actor of Itō Kaiji, the main character of Kaiji, is the same who voiced Akagi Shigeru, the main character of Akagi. Further more, the main antagonists of both stories, wealthy, old, eccentric socialites (i.e. complete whack-jobs with a more money than God) who seek pleasure in gambling with the lives of other people, are also voiced by the same voice actor.
•The title of the opening song is taken from what was written on page 4 of the first Kaiji manga.

In snack-sized bits. Click names to see character images.
•Itō Kaiji – A young man in constant debt and a habit for small gambles that he never seems able to win. However, when pushed to the extreme limit, he becomes fully able to analyse the situation and turn the odds in his favour. He boards the gambling ship, Espoir, in order to win enough money to pay back a million-amount loan, which he was talked into cosigning by a co-worker, to the Yakuza.

Mirai wa Bokura no Te no Naka
Mirai wa Bokura no Te no Naka (The Future is in Our Hands) is performed by Kaiji with Redbourn Cherries. I don’t know why, but I’ve taken quite the liking to this song. Maybe because of it’s simplicity? :/ regardless, I like it, it just feels nostalgic somehow, like that kind of music has become rare since the mid-90s or something.

The animation and lyrics seems to relate to Kaiji’s state of mind. Not needing the morals and rules of society, and the the future is something you mould yourself based on your decisions and actions. It also shows his desires (enough money to start his life over) and his actual situation (on the run from money-collectors).

Makeinutatsu no Requiem
Makeinutatsu no Requiem (The Loser’s Requiem) is written and performed by Hakuryuu. There’s not really that much to say about it, as I didn’t really like it. It reminds me of the music in cowboy movies, where the cowboy slowly rides into the setting sun, leaving behind a sad señorita who cries as she looks the man she loves depart into the horizon *fade to black*. And for some odd reason, when the artist gets a bit more vocal at about 00:28, I almost go “VIVAAAAA LAS VEGAS!!“, Elvis Presley style. Not sure why…

The animation can be over-analysed quite a bit. On the left side you see the silhouette of Kaiji constantly walking, while the images in the background show him moving through society (work, other people, etc.), which could mean that he finds no place there for himself. It’s not until he reaches what looks like a dump that he stops, has a smoke, and seemingly finds his place (seeing how he is considered as “trash”). But that might just be me, analyse it however you wish.

Having already watched Akagi, which I simply loved, I had gotten passed the entire “Holy crap, weird art style”-phase and was able to immerse myself in the story right from the get-go. And what a story it was! It brought together many of my favourite elements: suspense, human psychology, manipulation of odds to gain the upper hand, and odd gambles.

What Kaiji does so beautifully, which I have yet to see another series do, is tap directly in the despair and desperation of the people considered the “trash” of society when faced with a debt they have no chance of repaying under normal circumstances. Many of the challenges/gambles are designed to emphasize that when shit hits the fan, people look out for number one (i.e. themselves, in case you aren’t familiar with the analogy), even if it means backstabbing the people who have helped them.

Another thing I found interesting was that I didn’t sympathise with any of the characters, except for Kaiji at times. Because while it is made clear that the rich people, who bet on the outcome of some of the races and who enjoy watching “the trash” squirm for their lives as despair gets the better of them, are monsters in their own right, it is also made clear that all the contestants brought these things upon themselves. They borrowed insane sums from that Yakuza, with no real chance of paying it back, and agreed to trying to win it all back in one fell swoop instead of choosing to go with the payment plan otherwise offered (unfair as it was, it beats the high chance of further increasing one’s debt with millions and get severely injured on top of it, no?).

Anywho, if you can get passed the “unusual” art, you will find an incredible story that at times will have you on the edge of your seat going “DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN!!” with eyes wide open, your heart racing, and you body pumping you so full of adrenaline that you could go “RRRROAARAUUGH!!!” and punch a wall at the end of the episode. Okay, that last part was maybe a bit extreme, but it gets pretty freaking exciting at times (though admittedly, it has a few dull moments too).

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Info

•Also known as “Kino’s Journey”. The anime is based on a series of light novels by Keiichi Sigsawa. There are also two games and an alternate universe style spin-off series.
•The anime has 13 episodes, with two 30 minute OVAs.

Synopsis

Kino is a traveller – her (yes, Kino is female) life consists simply of travelling around “the Beautiful World” with only a talking motorcycle as a companion. Each episode focuses on her visiting a few “countries”, or telling stories about countries she has visited before. The format is rather episodic, but rather than being arc-based, the stories are linked together by their overarching theme.

In her travels, Kino sees countries with bizarre traditions and amazing technology; horrific, unexplainable tragedies and simple pleasures. She’s always a passer-by – she spends but three days in each location, and is almost never touched by the events that she sees. In this way, she exemplifies a dream of being able to move throughout “a beautiful world” and simply see the sights, rather than being caught up. However bizarre the traditions of each land may seem, they reflect facets of life in our world.

Although the themes touched on in each episode are different, a general one is outright stated by Kino: “Sekai wa utsukushiku nanka nai. soshite sore yueni utsukushii,” “The world is not beautiful. And so this, therefore, makes it beautiful.” Despite the cruelty, violence and unneeded horrors of “the Beautiful World”, there are also many beautiful things which exist within it, and are all the more precious because of the “ugliness”.

Characters

Best not to mess with her

Kino – The young protagonist of the anime, and quite possibly the most awesome Reverse Trap ever. Kino seems to be designed in such a way that anyone will be able to, on some level, relate to her. Perfectly neutral, her defining traits are her love of travelling and how she never judges anyone. Whether this is a good trait or not is left up to the viewer to decide. On a side note, her perpetually neutral expression is rather creepy.

Hermes – What can I say? He’s a talking motorcycle (or Motorrad) and Kino’s only companion on their journey. Hermes tends to be a lot goofier and more “human” (despite obviously being, er, not) compared to the generally solemn Kino. They balance each other out – he provides the speed, she the balance.

Personally, I found Kino a fascinating character – she’s one of the more interesting takes on a True Neutral character. Kino doesn’t “grow” much in the anime: instead, we see what shaped her and how she became a traveller. I was a little disappointed that the backstories of Kino’s “Master” and the original Kino weren’t explored. Hermes provides a nice contrast for Kino, although once again, I wish his story could have been expanded.

Graphics

The animation is distinctly…odd. Kino herself is your basic anime style, while a lot of the “country” characters are drawn in an abstract manner. The landscapes were pretty, but not really anything to go “wow” over. I prefer the official artworks, myself.

Songs

The opening is called “all the way” and is by Mikuni Shimokawa. It’s kind of upbeat with nice instrumental work, but I found it kind of generic. The images are mostly from the anime itself. I liked the ending “The Beautiful World” (sung by Ai Maeda, who voices Kino) more, as it suits the tone of the anime better. It’s a rather quiet and pensive song, with lovely lyrics and a vaguely “traditional” sounding intro. Fitting the subdued tone, the animation features faded images of Kino and Hermes on the background of a landscape.

Final Opinion

I won’t deny it – I loved Kino no Tabi. It’s a very philosophical series, but manages to avoid the tendency of many such works to moralise – instead, the viewer is allowed to make their own decisions about Kino’s experiences. This is a rather heavy series, so I wouldn’t advise watching all of the episodes in a single go. Nor would I recommend it to those who prefer action or a lighter series. For me, Kino’s world, storyline and themes were like a refreshing breeze after so many more story or action orientated series.

The timeline is confusing at first, and it is often difficult to tell which events occur before which. Overall, a very surreal feel is achieved by the series (particularly the “Land of Books” episode), and I loved how many different concepts were examined. The number of unanswered questions left me wanting more, however.

Kino no Tabi is not a series which will have you on the edge of your seat. Its beauty lies in its deceptive simplicity and the themes it tackles, with such a gentle pacing (and yet it never seems slow). The story and world is incredible, and it’s definitely one of the more unique series I’ve watched. By the power of the Flaming Ninja, I implore ye to watch it. O.O

Note: Watch the Japanese version – Hermes’ voice in the English one is very grating. It might also help to think of the countries as separate “universes”, despite resembling towns.

Ciel Phantomhive is the sole heir to the Phantomhive noble family’s estate, companies, and wealth after the tragic death of both his parents in an arson. Ciel manages to survive, but is captured and sold as a slave. His buyer bought him for the sake of sacrificing him in an occult group ritual, but desperate to survive and to punish those who have humiliated him and those who killed his parents, he summons and makes a contract with a demon; his soul in exchange for the demon’s services and protection until the criteria of the contract has been fulfilled.

The demon takes on the form of a human and is given the name “Sebastian Michaelis” by Ciel and from that point on becomes the butler of the Phantomhive family as well as Ciel’s bodyguard, completing any order given to him by his master.

•The anime is 24 episodes long and based on the currently still ongoing manga of the same name by Yana Toboso.
•The title, Kuroshitsuji (黒執事) means “Black Butler“.
•The manga series has, other than the anime, spawned several books, an audio drama, and a game by Square Enix (who also publishes the manga) for the NDS.
•From what I can gather from the various historical events present in the anime series, it takes place from the summer of 1888 (Jack the Ripper appears) and up to early/mid May the following year (completion and opening of the Eiffel Tower).
•A recurring theme in many of the episodes is the music and/or lyrics to the nursery rhyme “London Bridge is Falling Down“. The lyrics are sometimes in English, sometimes in Japanese. I think every stanza was present, scattered among the episodes, except for the last stanza (“Then we’l set a man to Watch“).

In snack-sized bits. Images to come.
•Ciel Phantomhive – A 12-year-old Earl and master of the Phantomhive estate that he inherited after the death of his parents. Like his family before him, he serves the Queen as her loyal guard/watch dog, eliminating any proof that may shine a bad light on the Royal Family, so that it never reaches the eyes of the public. As such, he has many ties with prominent figures in the underworld, despite his young age.

•Sebastian Michaelis – A demon with whom Ciel has made a contract. He takes human shape and serves Ciel as his butler and bodyguard. In the anime, his true demonic shape is never fully revealed.

•The staff – Ciel also has a small staff to help maintain his mansion, three of which were hired by Sebastian for their special skills.

• Tanaka – The house steward who also served under Ciel’s parents and, though not explicitly stated in the anime, was present during the arson and murder of Ciel’s parents. Despite his title, he does very little around the house, and his job is more or less done by Sebastian. In the manga, it is explained as being because he was stabbed in the back during the arson and is thus unable to perform physical labor. In the anime he is mostly seen in chibi-form, with his non-chibi form being described by the other characters as “Real Tanaka” which apparently runs on steam.
• Bardroy – Also called simply “Bard”; Bardroy serves as the cook of the household. He was once a sergeant in the British army whose entire platoon was killed in an ambush when his superior officer overruled him concerning how and where to charge their enemies, despite Bard pointing out that it was an obvious trap. He chose to become a cook because it required patience to master, though because he easily gets anxious due to his past, he ends up trying to prepare food using flame-throwers or sticks of dynamite.
• Meylene – The household maid. She is extremely clumsy and wears very thick glasses which she treasures dearly, despite the prescription no longer being sufficient, since they were given to her by Ciel. Before becoming a maid, she was a sniper assassin whose extreme far-sightedness meant she had no use for a scope. She appears to have a crush on Sebastian and has a rather sexually perverted personality in the anime (it doesn’t seemed as strongly portrayed in the manga).
• Finnian – Also simply called “Finny”; Finnian serves as the gardener, although he typically ends up destroying the garden rather than tending it. Before being employed by Sebastian, he was held captive and experimented upon by a group of scientist trying to discover superhuman strength. Finny appears to have been a succesful specimen, but managed to escape during which he was approached by Sebastian. He chose to become a gardener because he gets to be outdoors as much as he wants, an option he didn’t have when he was being experimented on.

Contract
The Contract is a Faustian Bargain. Upon summoning a demon (or just when approached), the summoner may make a contract employing the services of the demon in exchange for their soul, which is collected when the requirements of the contract have been fulfilled. In the case of Ciel and Sebastian, the contract ends once Ciel’s revenge on the killer(s) of his parents is complete.

Seal
The Seal is like a sort of “signature” for the contract. Both the demon and its “master” get matching seals as a symbol of the demon being bound to its master will. The more obvious the location, the stronger the seal, which makes it easier for the demon to find its master whenever the master requires protection. This, however, also means that harder to escape the demon once the requirements of the contract has been fulfilled. In the case of Ciel and Sebastian, Ciel’s seal is placed in his right eye (which is why he wears an eye patch) and Sebastian’s seal is place on the back of his left hand.

Monokuro no Kisu
Monokuro no Kisu (Kiss of Monochrome) is performed by SID. It was the opening song throughout the entire series. It’s an okay song, I suppose, very upbeat, but I just feel it’s a bit mismatched with the animation and actual themes of the anime. If I were to guess a genre from the TV size song alone, without having seen the animation, I would have thought it would go well with a slightly ecchi action anime series with young teens and potentially a mecha or two.

In all honesty, I’m tired and the the animation is hard to explain, so I’m not gonna bother. Just watch it. As far as I can tell, it signifies the contract being made, Ciel and Sebastian’s time together, and then the contract being completed (Sebastian taking Ciel’s soul).


I’m Alive!
I’m Alive is performed by BECCA. It was used as the ending for episodes 1-13 What surprised me about this song is that it is one of the few anime endings/openings I’ve ever heard that was actually written and performed by someone not Japanese. It’s actually a pretty damn good! Almost as if it’s “reaching for Heaven! ♪” Anywho, bad puns aside, I think it’s an excellent song, and if you like stuff like Paramore, you’ll like this too.

The animation is super adorable; it portrays a standard day in the life of Sebastian in a chibi-cinema like way. Chibis ♥


Lacrimosa
Lacrimosa is performed by Kalafina. It was used as the ending in episodes 14-24 (finale). I liked the beginning of the song, very Enya-like (or something; it was familiar at least), and the rest was not bad either, but it didn’t strike me as a song you’d care to listen to unless you were in a specific type of mood. If I were to describe it as an emotion, it would be “energetic depression”.

The animation shows a dead Ciel being transported by Sebastian, in a gondola filled with white flowers, to a small rock island to have his soul consumed as per the their contract.

Kuroshitsuji ended up being one of those “meh” series that start out weak, gets significantly better within the first two-three episodes and maintains that high standard until the finale, at which point it crashes and burns at below mediocrity.

One of the things I absolutely LOVED were the many allusions and depictions of actual historical events true to the era, albeit sometimes a bit altered (naturally). This include, but are not limited to, the killings of Jack the Ripper (correct names of victims and dates of death), the opening of the Eiffel Tower, the Opium Wars (aka the Anglo-Chinese Wars), the introduction of heroin in Britain (called “Lady Blanc”, mistranslated as “Lady Brown”), the character Fred Abberline, etc. However, I only spotted these awesome reference because I actually know Chinese history (due to PALCS during my prep year of Japanese) and some British history as well (due to being bored the weekend after watching “From Hell”). So for people not interested in history, these references are somewhat lost and unimportant.

Other than that, when you get past the first few episodes, it actually turns into a very interesting series. It has a few murder mysteries, some comedy, a bit of perversion here and there, and a cooking contest between a demon and a former savage murderer; what’s not to love? XD The only negative thing about this is that since it does many things, though quite well, it never really immerses itself into a single genre to make it truly great. I for one would have loved the anime to have had a darker, slightly more sinister mood to it, all things considered (Ciel’s past, ties with the underworld, mysterious killings striking panics into the hearts of everyone, etc.). The slightly light, humorous undertone kinda kills the dark aspects of the series, but it is still pretty interesting to follow and a few episodes will have you sitting in suspense; dying to find out what happens next, and the staff members serve as excellent comic relief for a quick laugh every now and again.

The finale is however sub-par, but necessary to close off the storyline. It can basically be described as “shit hits the fan and everyone dies, or not, dun dun duuun” since you don’t really know what happens to people other than Ciel. Also, the climactic battle between Good (albeit mentally unstable) and Evil was pretty anti-climactic… It lasted a full 10 seconds and everything occurred off-camera.

All in all, despite it’s cruddy ending, it’s a series worth watching. On a scale from one to ten, I’d probably rank this at about 7-7½.

Ueki Kōsuke, a young boy chosen to represent one of the 100 God Candidates in a battle that will decide who of the Candidates becomes the new God.

The kids representing the God Candidates have their own agenda though. All are after the “Blank Zai”, which can more or less, make their biggest dream come true, if used wisely. However, there are those who would use it in evil ways, such as being able to control the actions of people, of even the destruction of mankind. It is up to Ueki and his friends to win the tournament, and make sure that the Blank Zai will not be used for evil…

•The anime is 51 episodes long and is based on the 16-issue manga of the same name.
•It is called うえきの法則 (Ueki no Hōsoku) in Japanese and La Ley de Ueki in Spanish.
•Several minor character, no matter how important they may seem, will just dissappear without explanation, never to be heard from again (or at least not for a great many episodes).
•The tree theme of the anime can also be seen in the names of the three main characters, 植木 (Ueki, which also means “garden shrub“), 森 (Mori), and 小林, the bold kanji meaning “tree”, “forest”, and “grove”, respectively.

•Ueki Kōsuke – A 13-year-old boy chosen by Kobayashi to be his representative. Initially, Ueki refuses, but after Kobayashi destroys a tree to show one of the many powers Ueki would be able to choose from, Ueki asks for a power to “fix” the tree. His power then becomes the one to turn trash in to trees. His personality is the atypical lead of any hero-type anime in this genre. He is somewhat of a dunce (or rather, he becomes one), and will disregard his own safety and even life in favor of protecting his friends and, just as often, total strangers.

•Kobayashi – A God Candidate with a strong sense of justice and Ueki’s classroom teacher. He chose Ueki as his representative because Ueki showed the same type of justice that he himself did. During the course of the anime, it is revealed that Kobayashi is actually the reason behind Ueki’s strong determination, as he saved his life when Ueki fell off the roof of his elementary school, making Ueki want to be just like him. He is nicknamed “Koba-sen” (I assume it’s short for Kobayashi-sensei).

•Mori Ai – Ueki’s classmate. When she is first seen, she’s stalking Ueki, and after witnessing his powers, believes him to be an alien (which I suppose was sort of right… at least if you ask the Integration Office). Initially powerless, she gains the ability to turn her opponent into a glass lover, which is apparently extremely dangerous, as according to Anon, despite the completely ridiculous requirement of being in a “goodie-two-shoes” pose (hands near the mouth, right leg bent in a 90-ish degree angle or more). He personality is over-energetic and often extremely irrational, but she cares for her friends.

•Sano Seiichirō – A young boy with incredible battle sense. He has the power to turn towels into iron by holding his breath. He is probably on of the more creative power users, using his powers to fashion iron springs, spears, shields, boomerangs and whatnot from his towels. He prefers to jump right into things and take them as they come, which has often lead him into trouble.

•Rinko Jerrard – Initially a part of Robert’s 10, she found a friend in Ueki, in fact, the first one she had ever had. This, along with the complete disregard by Robert in regards to the former members who had lost to Ueki, made her betray Robert despite being in love with him. Like Sano, she has found inovative ways of using her ability to turn beads into bombs in order to make “rocked shoes” and several other weapons. Unlike Sano though, she prefers to think things trough before doing anything, which ironically gets her into just as much trouble as Sano. She has an incredible weakness for animals and anything she finds cute, but also has quite an evil side to her…

•Sōya Hideyoshi – Hideyoshi, a self proclaimed master of tricks. He has the ability to “paint portraits” of a persons voice onto any object up to 10 meters away, on the condition that he can bend a finger or a toe. He can then turn it back into a voice in order to deceive his enemies. While weak in battle, he will still fight for his friends and use his tricks along with his power to make constant surprise attacks.

•Tenko – Tenko is a Heavenly Beast who had been held captive in Hell’s Prison for thousands of years on a false charge. He was broken out by Koba-sen and sent after Ueki. Despite threatening to eat Ueki, Ueki manages to persuade Tenko into helping Ueki with defeating Robert. Tenko has his great size due to a birth defect, which allowed him to bypass the changes to his DNA made by Heavenly Beings (this had been done to all Heavenly Beings). His eyes are able to tell what level a Heavenly Being is on. For each start level, on of Tenko’s eyes will light up (he has a total of 10).

Zai
Zai are like the natural abilities of a person. For instance, if one had the Zai of Doing Back flips, one would be naturally able to back flips, without having to have tried it before. This is not to mean that it will be impossible by someone not possessing a Zai to do the same, but in their case, it will require effort and hard work in order to achieve the same result. Zai do not have to be active abilities, they can also be passive, like the Zai of Being Like by Animals.

All people are born with a certain amount of Zai, and what exact Zai they are born with differs from person to person. On of the rules of the contest Ueki enters, is that every time a power user defeats/knocks out another power user, the winner will gain one additional Zai. However , if a power user uses their powers to harm a non-power user, they will lose one Zai for each hit. One can get around this by using brute force.

Blank Zai
The Blank Zai is, as the name suggests, a blank Zai. When one power user fights another, the “prize” Zai for that battle is predetermined and the power users have no “say in the matter”. However, the grand prize, the Blank Zai, can be written on by the winner of tournament and give them one ability of their liking.

Power Restriction
Power Restriction refers to the Achilles’ Heel of every power. It’s a requirement that must be fulfilled for a power user’s power to activate. The restrictions can be material, e.g. Ueki has to be in possession of trash, otherwise he has nothing to turn into trees; they can be physical, e.g. Sano’s power only works while he’s holding his breath; or they can even be somewhat abstract, e.g. Robert has to give up a year of his life every time he uses his powers to create ideals (but may use that ideal however often he wishes after that).

Jingi
Jingi means “Sacred Treasure” and are weapons/equipment usable by Heavenly Beings only. A Heavenly Being can rise up to 10 so-called “star levels”, and for each level, they become able to use a Jingi corresponding to that level. The higher level a Jingi is, the more powerful it is. If a Heavenly Being has a special power, they can fuse that power with the Jingi to make them even more powerful as well as give them a new appearance.

•Falco is performed by Hitomi Shimatani and was used in episodes 1-32. It has a sort of Egyptian techno-feel to it, and during the first few seconds of music, I find myself making weird, fluid hand motions, Ejipshun stail! That’s probably what hooked me to it. The starting music that allows weird, fluid hand motions. It’s a pretty decent song, and the chorus is ½ a nudge up compared to the rest of the song. It’s odd in the way that even when you don’t really like it, you still like it, just to be able to do the hand motions and bob your shoulders and head from side to side.

The animation is taken from various scenes featured in the anime, and the single “portraits” have been drawn especially for the opening.

•No Regret is performed by Kumi Koda and was used in episodes 33-51. If you’ve ever played Final Fantasy X-2, you can blame her for the two songs in it. She is somewhat of a hottie though… Anywho, the song is in her regular style (of the song’s I’ve heard from her), a kind of poppy, upbeat music, with lyrics going a tad darker. The chorus is decent, and even somewhat catchy, but I can’t say it’ll leave an impression. It’s the kind of song you’d listen to at a “mellow” club, before it really sets off (i.e. 20 minutes before/after it actually opens), I suppose.

The animation is once again clips from episodes in the anime, with a few added stills.

•こころの惑星～Little planets～ (Planet of the Heart ~Little Planets~) is performed by Aiko Kayo and was used in episodes 1-15. It’s a slow, slightly sad song, but it’s really good. First verse in every bridge/chorus (I’m not sure what it is, the part with “Planeeeets” and everything with the same rhythm…), ruins it slightly though, but overall, it’s a great song. The music is excellent, and it complements the singer’s voice beautifully.

The animation is a “slide show” of still pictures focusing mainly on Ueki, Koba-sen, and Mori, but still features the remaining main characters during the chorus.

•Earthship ～宇宙船地球号～ The title is as close as it’s gonna get to the Japanese without sounding weird. Otherwise, it would be “The Spaceship, Earth”. Anywho, it is performed by SweetS and was used in episodes 16-32. I’m not too fond of it. I like the music, and the guitar riff is actually extremely cool, but mixed with the added vocals (which by themselves aren’t bad), it sounds very messy, and after listening to it a couple of times, it actually started giving me a headache. Not a bad song for a single listen or two.

The animation features the main cast of the anime, each with different foregrounds or backgrounds. The background is always the one moving, while the foreground is static. Whether the character is on one or the other, differs.

•この街では誰もがみな自分以外の何かになりたがる (Everyone in this town want to become “someone”, except for myself) is performed by The Ivory Brothers and was used in episodes 33-42 and is a pretty fun song. The singer is clearly talented, and after the first verse, it goes into a 70s-80s disco kind of thing á la The Jackson 5, but it works! This song is so corny that it’s awesome, I can’t put it in a better way.

Once again, the animation features “stills” of all the characters. Everyone seems to have been given a color theme though.

•ボクたちにあるもの (…) is performed by Romi Paku and was used in episodes 43-50. Earthship made my head hurt, this made my ears bleed… If you’re into Jap songs trying to sound Greek by having a person start hyperventilating while playing the pan flute, you’ll enjoy this song. If you don’t, you’ll want to go into a rage and slaughter anyone who says anything slightly annoying while this is playing, just to get it out of your system.

I don’t know what the animation is, I saw it once all the way through, and I regret it because of the song, so I’m trying to suppress the memory of it. What I can figure out from the bits I still remember is that it’s right after the final fight with Anon.

•True Blue is performed by Hitomi Shimatani and played in the final episode only. It’s not really an ending in the common sense of the word, since the final episode doesn’t have such a sequence. Rather, the song plays during the final parts of the epilogue. All I can say is that it’s a nice background song.

I’m having mixed feelings about this anime, I really am, so I think I’ll write it as a two-parter, giving the good and the bad sides of it.

The Good: The anime had a very good idea to keep the viewer plastered to the the screen and follow the series, cause every time something started feeling somewhat stale and reused, there would be an “upgrade” of sorts. Ueki gets powers to turn trash into trees, interesting, reuse, reuse, reuse, gets boring –> Oh, he’s a heavenly being and can use Sacred Treasures, interesting, reuse, reuse –> oh, he gained some new star levels and gained some new Treasures, interesting –> Oh, there’s a level 2 to his powers, so now he can use several Sacred Weapons at the same time, interesting –> oh, that was a side effect of his regular powers, and not his level 2 powers, which have yet to be revealed, interesting… Well, you get my point. Anyway, this constant change is enough to keep you hooked, even in the slightly boring episodes, because you know something is gonna get upgraded and you wanna see what odd powers people have.

The Bad: While you will get hooked and likely watch it to the end, when you finally get there, you will have this feeling of something missing. Don’t get me wrong, it does have an epilogue of sorts, that tells you what happened to all the characters, but that’s not what I mean. When it ends, it a sorta “… Oh, well… uhm… yeah” feeling you get, and then you move on with your life. You haven’t really learned anything from it, an you don’t really have a desire to do anything related to the anime after seeing it, like e.g. after watching Bartender, you might want to learn how to mix a few cocktails. So it’s kind of hollow (first one to make a Bleach joke will receive tons of hate-mail from yours truly).

The Law of Ueki fun, and it has all the right things, but the “umph” that sets it apart from every other anime is sort of missing, which makes it not very memorable. So while you watch it, it is made of Teh Awesome, but as soon as its over, it’s just another anime not really worth remembering.

Yako, a young girl, returns home from school only to find out her father has been killed. Because the room he was found and killed in could not be entered from the outside (doors and windows were locked, with no signs of forced entry), the police ruled it a suicide so they could close the case, despite the fact that there was no way he could have killed himself in such a manner.

6 months later, while moving into her new apartment and starting life alone (her mother had left for South America after the father’s death), she is suddenly approached by a man standing on the wall, offering to help her solve the mystery about her father’s death. All he asked for in return was for her to work for him and become his front in the human world. While reluctant, she wants to know what truly happened on the day her father died, and quite figuratively, strikes a deal with the devil…

•The anime is 25 episodes long and is based on the ongoing manga of the same name. The anime however takes several liberties in terms of storyline and characters.
•It is called 魔人探偵 脳噛ネウロ (Majin Tantei Nōgami Neuro) in Japanese. In English, this means “Demon Detective Nōgami Neuro“, however, its official English title is “Neuro -Supernatural Detective-“.
•Two drama CDs have been made about Majin Tantei Nōgami Neuro.
•Neuro’s name seem to fit his person quite well. Neuro is a common prefix used for things related to the brain, while the kanji for Nōgami (脳噛) can be translated as “brain eater” (while he doesn’t literally eat brains, he eats mysteries which are created by the minds of people).

The Characters

In snack-sized bits. Images to come.
•Nōgami Neuro – A demon who feeds on mysteries. He comes to the human world after having consumed all the mysteries in Hell, and chooses Yako to be his front in the detective agency. He is incredibly insightful when it comes to solving mysteries, but has admitted various times that he does not understand the human psyche. Neuro has a vast amount of powers, all which seem to fade with in accordance to when he consumes a mystery, how complex it is, and the time he spends in the human world. He has hopes for Yako becoming able to solve the mystery of her father’s death by herself, though he rarely ever shows it. He is actually rather mean towards her, and frequently insults her or inflicts her pain. Even his compliments comes off rather sardonic.

•Katsuragi Yako – A young girl who was approached by Neuro after her father’s death. She loves food and is able to eat a ridiculously large amount without getting full (she once finished off an entire buffet for probably around 50 people by herself, and was still hungry afterwards). Other than her insatiable craving for food, she has a real knack for the human psyche, a trait the Neuro himself does not possess, making her rather irreplaceable. Some of the cases could not have been solved without her input on the trains of thought by some people or their emotional and psychological state. In fact, she would quite often give a minor lecture about moral and whatnot, after the culprit has been pointed out.

•Kaitou Sai – A ruthless killer with no memory of his past. He possesses the power to alter his cell-structure making him able to change his physical appearance in rather drastic ways, but does not have complete control of it. His memory loss is a side-effect of his powers, as his brain cells are very unstable and “resets” to zero memories every 6 months. He wants to know who and what he is, which is what makes him kill and dissect people. When he finally meets Neuro who also possesses powers out of the ordinary, he becomes obsessed with dissecting Neuro in the hopes of finding out how he himself works.

•Shinobu Godai – former member of a gang of money collectors, possibly for the Yakuza. He starts working for Neuro after a series of events explained in one of the episodes. For the detective office, he is a jack-of-all-trades; working as a chauffeur, gathering information, acting out roles to help with the investigation, etc. Neuro typically refers to him as “Slave number 2” (Yako being slave #1), which often leads to loud and amusing outbursts.

•Akane – A braid of hair that is apparently possessed by a spirit (assumed to be the corps found in the wall of the office Neuro took over). After being found, she works as a secretary by using the end of the braid as a hand to type with. She later receives a “battery” from Neuro (one of the triangular things he wears in his hear), which allows her to leave the office for a while, usually attached to Yako’s cell phone.

•Sasazuka Eishi – A senior police officer who worked the case of Yako’s father’s death. While not happy about it having been ruled a suicide, he was forced to let it go. He has a rough exterior, probably due to reasons that were completely absent in the anime version (his family was killed on his little sister’s birthday by Sai). He is usually very kind to Yako, probably because he can put himself in her situation, and often allows her and Neuro to work alongside with them, and makes the arrests when Yako points out the culprit of a case.

•Ishigaki Jun – Eishi’s new partner, after the case of Yako’s father. He is rather young, and as such a fan of a great many anime series, often buying toys (which are usually destroyed by Eishi) or asking for time off if he forgets to set the recorder to record one of his shows. He is very green around the gills in terms of police work, and absolutely worships Eishi, despite him often smashing whatever Jun buys for himself. While he doesn’t have anything against Yako and Neuro personally, he is very clear about his dislike about having civilians interfere with police cases, despite the number of cases Yako and Neuro have solved.

The Terms

777 Tools of the Demon World
As the name suggests, these are tools of the Demon World (Hell), of which there are 777. Neuro will typically say this, before exclaiming which one he is going to use. A common thing for all of them are that the names start with “Evil”. Each tool has its own specified use, many of which aren’t completely obvious if one was just to look at them. For a full list of the tools Neuro has used in the anime and manga thus far, please go to Wikipedia or click here.

7 Tools of the Demon Emperor
Powerful weapons of the Demon Emperor, usable by only a select few demons, they’ve only been summoned a few times in the course of the anime. This is most likely because that with their amazing power, it also takes a lot more out of Neuro to summon them, energy that he quite frankly cannot spare unless he has no other choice. Again, for a list, go here.

Crossing the line of humanity
Not as much a term as it is an occurrence. You’ll often notice that the culprits turn into some kind of monster after having been exposed. Yako explains this as when humans cross a line of what is human, they turn into something else, something ugly. In all the cases, what they turn into has some relation to their obsession or how world view. For instance, one believed that humans had become nothing more than tamed dogs by following society’s rules and norms, and thus turned into a dog-like monster. One was obsessed with family and such, and had a branch suddenly sprout from his head (“family” –> “family tree” –> “branches of a family tree”). I thought it was a pretty cool detail actually.

The Songs

DIRTY
DIRTY is an alternative/rock/grunge/whatever song (so I’m not good with distinguishing genres, sue me) performed by Nightmare. I think it’s pretty awesome actually, especially since it changes to a different style halfway through, but without losing its awesomeness.

The animation introduces all the main characters (let’s face it, almost all opening themes introduce the main characters…), as well as some of the most common themes in the series, e.g. Yako’s love for food, Neuro inflicting pain on Yako and breaking her neck, and the “The culprit is… you!” followed by Neuro consuming the mystery scene played whenever the mystery is solved.

Kodoku no Hikari
Kodoku no Hikari (Light of Solitude) is performed by Kagami Seira. It is by no means bad, I just found it to be a little too sugary sad (yes, emotions have tastes, shut up…). It starts out as a 70s love song, and then gets sadder as it progresses.

The animation consists of Yako walking alone through the streets of… err… the city she lives in. As the animation progresses night time falls, an the street lights turn on, and she sees Neuro. While I have no ways of confirming it, I think the single bird in the beginning is meant to represent her, which is why she is walking alone. When the bird then finds its “flock”, i.e. where it belongs, she find Neuro.

The Opinion

I found the anime to be quite entertaining, though as a mystery, I have doubts about it. The author of the manga described the story as “a straight forward entertainment book wearing the skin of a mystery“, which is probably pretty accurate, because while it is extremely entertaining to see Neuro solve the mystery, you, as the reader/watcher, have no chance in Hell to figure it out. You might get one of the things, such as the culprit, the motive, or how a murder was committed, but more often then not, you aren’t given all the clues needed for each case to be solved, which leaves you kind of “out of the loop“.

Another “problem” I have with the anime is a pretty standard one. As a common rule of thumb, the manga will always outshine an anime, perhaps with the slight exception of sports anime (since the sense of speed doesn’t always succeed as well on paper). This is no exception. Many of the characters which had major roles in the manga (such as Yako’s father’s real killer, I mean come on!) had only non-speaking cameos in the anime, and some were not show at all (such as the New Bloodline). The characters that were still shown had been made more “hollow” and simple. For instance, in the anime, Kaitou Sai was an obsessive, sadomasochistic killer instead of <spoiler>a failed clone of Sicks (leader of the New Bloodline), who never made an appearance or was even mentioned. She (yes, Sai was born a girl) is being hunted down by the New Bloodline because he is their guinea pig, but is helped by a woman named Ai in creating and maintaining the “Kaitou Sai” persona while he figures out what makes a person an “individual”, which s/he believes can be found out by examining the insides of people</spoiler>. The reasons for the mysteries and characters being simplified, and the ending taking “the easy way out”, is most likely because they only had 25 episodes to work with.

In short, if you plan to watch this anime, I would strongly suggest that you don’t, but that you read the manga instead. It may be a bit slow to start off in comparison to the anime, but the characters and mysteries are so much more well-developed in the manga. That being said, the anime is not actually bad, and if you haven’t also read the manga, you’d be quite satisfied with the story (though the ending is still kinda… sucky). But I still recommend the manga over the anime, especially if you want the real story.

Kojima Hiromichi is the clean-up batter (the 4th one to bat in the rotation and usually the strongest batter on the team) for the professional baseball team, the Lycaons. Thirty years prior to the main storyline, the team had their very first Japan Series Championship, but has since then fallen into a slump and become the worst team in the baseball series. Kojima, despite his amazing talent for batting which have earned him several awards, has never been able to win the championship with his team, which had earned him the nickname of the “unlucky genius batter.”

While on a mini-training camp in Okinawa, Kojima’s life was to forever change when he encounters Tokuchi Toua, the undefeated king of the game called “One Outs”, a one-on-one duel between a pitcher and batter. Despite only throwing relatively slow fastballs at easy courses, Tokuchi could seemingly read the mental state of his opponent and create a trap from their intentions, thus always coming out on top. But in the battle between the pitching prodigy and the genius batter, how would Tokuchi fare..?

•The anime is 25 episodes long and based on the manga by Shinobu Kaitani of the same name.
•The anime ends long before the championship finals which has caused many fans to demand a second season. I heard a rumour one such being in the works, but honestly think it was just wishful thinking. I, personally, would have loved for the story to have gone on. I actually don’t even know how the manga ends :/
•It was announced that Shinobu Kaitani, the mangaka of One Outs, was going to relaunch One Outs in time for the premier of the anime in October last year. I have however been unable to find any information regarding its progress.
•A man bearing likeness to Owner (as well as having the same family name) appeared in the second chapter of Liar Game – Roots of A, another manga by Shinobu.

In snack-sized bits. Click names to see images.
•Tokachi Toua – Tokuchi is a fearsome pitcher who, despite never throwing any breaking balls (it’s not that he doesn’t know how, he just opts not to) and having a fastball of only about 120 km/h (which is rather slow for a fastball, which is usually +150 km/h), he has never lost in a game of One Outs (a ‘duel’ between pitcher and batter). By the time he faces off against Kojima for the first time, he had the impressive record of 498 straight wins, 0 losses. He achieved this amazing record from his incredible insight of the human psyche and unwavering spirit (which he honed through a life of gambling) and his ability to induce chaos into the minds of his opponents. He is extremely observant of things regular people would pay little to no attention to, which makes him all the more fearsome.

•Kojima Hiromichi – Kojima is the cleanup batter for the Lycaons and an amazing baseball player whose batting talent has been recognized by many top teams as well as the baseball federation. In his 21 years with the Lycaons, he has been awarded “Rookie of the Year“, “RBI Leader” (seven times), “Home Run King” (five times), “Batting King” (eight times), and “Triple Crown Winner” (twice). Despite this, he has never been able to win the Championship with his team. It is on Kojima’s recommendation that Tokuchi is allowed to join the team.

•Owner – The owner of the Lycaons. I honestly forgot his name since he’s only refered to as “owner” anyway. Anywho, despite being the owner of the Lycaons, he couldn’t care less about how they perform as long as they rack in the dough. To him, the team is just a way of making money and outweighing the losses from his other businesses (due to the recession of the 90s). Since signing on Tokuchi to the team and losing vast amounts of money due to Tokuchi’s salary contract, he tries to sabotage Tokuchi at every chance he gets, e.g. by making him pitch all innings in three consecutive games, in order to earn his money back.

One Outs Contract
The One Outs contract, referred to also as simply “the contract”, is a 100% performance based contract rooted in gambling concerning Tokuchi’s salary for the year (as opposed to a ‘fixed’ yearly salary). It relates directly to the amount of outs he scores versus the amount of runs he gives up. For each out he earns, he earns 5 million yen to his salary, while for each run he gives up, he must pay 50 million yen (which would’ve left 80% or more real-life pitchers in debt back in 1996). When the initial contract was made, this was all it says, but after the first game where Tokuchi shut out 21 players (earning him 105 million yen), the subsequent perfect game (no batter of the opposing team reaching a base) and remaining pre-season matches, the owner added the following clauses to the contract for sake of ‘clarification’:

1) Always follow orders from the dugout (i.e. pitch when told to pitch, regardless of situation or time, stop only when told to stop). Breaking the clause results in a fine in the amount of 500 million yen. Being unable to follow orders due to own negligence (e.g. being thrown out of the game by the umpire or being sick or injured or anything else that prevents Tokuchi from pitching when he is asked to pitch) still results in the fine.

2) A run is any run, not just an earned run. This essentially makes Tokuchi responsible for all runs lost during the time he is on the mound, even if e.g. it is by defensive error (the ball passing a field player or a player dropping the ball or similar which gives the runner more time to reach the plate).

3) The contract rate can be adjusted depending on the importance of the game. While the ratio remains at 1:10, the rate can go up or down depending on how important winning the game is for the team’s standing in the league. E.g. for an unimportant game, it can drop to 2.5 million yen per out vs 25 million yen per run while for an important game it can be 20 million yen per out vs 200 million yen per run. The owner will decide this prior to each game and phone it in.

4) Do not reveal the existence of the One Outs contract to anyone. Breaking this clause invalidates whatever was earned up to that point as well as induces a fine of 500 million yen.

Bury
Bury is performed by Pay money To my Pain, also referred to simply as P.T.P. The song is sung completely in English which is apparently the modus operandi of this nu metal band. I loved it from the moment I heard it and opted to hear it every time I watched a new episode, rather than just skipping it. Some of you may even recognize it as the song that made it to number 1 in Music of the Moment #8. I can’t really explain why I like it; I think it isn’t so much the meaning of the lyrics as it is the music and the way it is sung that just appeals to me somehow. Even now, more than 6 months after hearing it for the first time, I still listen to it on a daily basis.

Moment
Moment is performed by Tribal Chair. It stays in the same genre and mood of the intro, and it is in all respects a good song, but for some reason it just didn’t appeal to me in the same way that Bury did.

It. Was. AWESOME!! I actually watched it ages ago, while it was still airing on Japanese TV, but didn’t write a review becaaaaause… Well, I kinda forgot and then assumed I already had written one since I planned on doing it the day after the last episode aired, so yeah ^^’ Anyway, I re-watched it just recently and I still think it’s amazingly awesome! It is probably on of my favourite anime ever, second only to Bartender, and a very close second at that! The first two-three episodes might be a bit slow, but will give you a decent idea of what will be in store for you. It then picks up the pace with the remaining episodes being brilliantly thought out and exciting to watch (the third in-season game between the Lycaons and the Mariners being my absolute favourite since it was so extremely far from conventional [boring] baseball).

The first thing people will notice is probably just how much Yoichi Hiruma of Eyeshield 21 physically, and to some extent mentally, resembles Tokuchi (at least that’s what I did, though I never noticed all the other resemblences). And just for the record, it’s Hiruma who looks like Tokuchi, not the other way around; the One Outs manga pre-dates Eyeshield 21 by half a decade (get it right, people! >:3). Anywho, the awesomeness of Tokuchi does not end there; he has the same type of insight in the human psyche as Akagi from Akagi, and whenever he ‘does his thing’, the anime gets the same atmosphere of “O.O!!“-suspense as in Kaiji. So if you loved either of those shows, then you should definitely watch this one (or vice versa)! Coincidentally, the same seiyuu voices all three characters (Akagi, Kaiji, and Tokuchi).

Now, I don’t usually watch sports anime for the same reason I don’t usually watch real sports on TV; I find it mind-numbingly boring. One Outs, however, breaks the mold of more conventional baseball anime, like e.g. Major (where coincidentally, the main character also didn’t throw anything other than a fastball, at least not for the first 4-5 seasons), since rather than relying purely on throwing strength or a wide variety of throws, psychology and mind games play major parts in defeating the other team. This makes the show that much more interesting since traditional baseball, for me, is just a bunch of guys hitting a ball and running in diamond, some being a bit luckier or more talented than others. Sure, it’s fun to play, but as an audience member, it’s so extremely boring and uniform that it makes you want to knock yourself out and spare yourself the agony. One Outs, however, manages to keep it fresh by always adding different challenges and obstacles that must be approached in new and different ways, often requiring taking unusual advantage of the rules or thinking way outside the box.

Sure, the show ‘lacks’ a few things; there isn’t any real depth to the characters, there’s no fan-service for all the closet-perverts, no life-altering themes, and so on. But the thing is, you don’t really miss any of it and adding it would seriously screw over the show. All those things are to One Outs what breaking balls are to Tokuchi’s throwing arsenal; completely unnecessary. You watch the series for essentially one reason and one reason only: You want to see Tokuchi do his thing and completely destroy the other team. Nobody wins, but him >:3

In the not too distant future, a device called the DC Mini was, which allows the people wearing them to share their dreams, is invented. However, it ‘strayed’ from it’s intended romanticised course, and was put into use as part as a psychotherapeutic treatment called dream therapy. However, before it could be authorized by the government, three unfinished DC Minis are stolen and a series of acts of dream terrorism set it, showing the dangers of the DC Minis, when in the wrong hands.

The fate and sanity of the world now lies in the hand of Paprika, a rogue, female character who uses a DC Mini to perform unauthorized acts of dream therapy, as well as her most recent ‘patient’, police detective Toshimi Konakawa.

•The anime is about 90 minutes long and is based on the 1993 novel of the same name. It later spun off a manga series.
•The author of the novel, Yasutaka Tsutsui, voices one of the bartenders in the anime.
•During the end sequence, where detective Konakawa goes to the cinema, the movie posters seen above the ticket stalls are all of anime directed by Satoshi Kon, who was also director of Paprika. The only exception is the movie the good detective actually goes to see.

In snack-sized bits. Images to come at a later time.
•Atsuko Chiba – The leading authority in dream therapy and the true identity of Paprika. She seems somewhat cold and ever sardonic at times, and unable to commit to her feelings and let loose, which is where Paprika, the ‘spice of her life’ (har-di-har-har), comes in.

•Kōsaku Tokita – A morbidly obese genius, who is a child at heart, and a bit on the naïve side. He is the inventor of the DC Mini, but while having a brilliant mind, he is unable to comprehend that his actions have consequences, which leads to a lot of trouble.

•Toratarō Shima – The chief of the department researching and developing the DC Minis and, in extension, dream therapy. He is one of the few who knows of Chiba’s identity as Paprika, and one of the first to fall under dream terrorism.

•Morio Osanai – Chiba’s co-worker who has a giant crush on her, but at the same time feels inadequate and has an inferiority complex towards her.

•The Director – I don’t think he was ever name, and if he was, I forgot it. He sees dreams as something of humanity’s “holy ground”, and therefore hates the DC Mini project with a vengeance, since he considers entering the dream world unnaturally as sacrilege. And I think he’s a major fan of Charles Xavier (If you like X-Men, you’ll get the joke when you see him…)

•Toshimi Konakawa – A police detective with a recurring nightmare he doesn’t understand why he is having. He hears about Paprika from Shima, who is his old school buddy, and enlists her help in trying to figure out what his nightmare means.

I had many expectations about this anime, since I heard from both Madhatter and South Korea that it was made of awesomesauce with a cherry on top, and in all honesty, it truly is.

Visually, it was just breath-taking. Being something of a fantasy anime, it really had a lot of room to work with, and it fills out the space wonderfully with beautiful scenic backdrops and successfully fluent changes between the scenes, not to mention the keen sense of detail. And for those of you who only have one kind of visual in mind, yes, there are boobie scenes…

Audio-wise, it is just as awesome. Paprika has probably the best soundtrack of any animated film I have seen thus far. I still prefer “Cry” by Big Life from the Japanese soundtrack of Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie over any of the songs from Paprika, but as a whole, Paprika’s soundtrack is far, FAR better.

In terms of plot, I have mixed opinions. It is very straight-forward, simple, and easy to follow, which is good, but you don’t get any background story of the characters, the technology (and its political issues), the process, or anything of the sort. Everything is pretty much just dumped on you and it is expected that you’ll just “get it”, which actually sucks quite badly, since it means you can miss a point entirely if you weren’t paying attention at some critically important time.

The only other bad thing I can say about the story is directly related to how the anime just tosses you into the story without any explanation. There is actually a love story mixed into everything, but you won’t know until the last 5-10 minutes were it is exclaimed that “she’s finally being true to her feelings“, which is the only hint you as the viewer will ever get of this relationship (until everything is explained on screen, of course). But it just seems rather forced and makes it stick out in a sorta bad way, which is what makes me wish they wouldn’t have added it. I can only assume that it actually made some sort of sense in the original novel, but that due to time or financial restraints, it was just screwed over in the anime.

All in all, it’s a visually superb anime with an awesome soundtrack, and it is WELL worth watching just for this, as the plot as seen in the anime is kind of thin despite its great concept. I think it would have done better story-wise as an eight episode OVA of 23-28 minutes per episode, rather than a single movie of only 90 minutes, but that’s just me. But nevertheless, I recommend watching it.

After the mysterious disappearance of Iba Tsukasa, the first president of the magician dispatch service and Mage’s Society known as “Astral”, his son is forced to take his place as president despite having no knowledge of the world magic. He is in fact, quite ironically considering his position and company, not even a mage. Nevertheless, he manages to get himself and his team thrown into various supernatural problems, whether it be intentionally (by accepting a paying job or formal request so the company can meet its quota) or unintentionally (due to his self-sacrificing and always helpful, albeit slightly naïve, nature). These ‘adventures’ become the focus points of the anime series, as well as their clashes with rival companies, and the pasts of the members coming back to haunt them once again.

•The anime is 24 episodes long and based on a light novel of the same name. The episodes are not broadcast in a chronological order.
•The chronological order of the episodes is: 13, 02, 05, 06, 04, 11, 01, 03, 15, 08, 07, 09, 10, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 21.
•The serie’s finale, episode 21 (broadcast order), has a sequence that features Cannon in D as the background music. This has no relevance whatsoever, I just thought it was kewl.
•Despite the HEAVY use of terms that I’m decently sure a vast majority of the people reading this won’t have ever heard of, I’ve decided to not make a term section. This is simply because that section alone would be several pages long, and I just can’t be bothered. Besides, after each episode, Shinsen Fansubs have been so kind enough as to explain the specific terms used in that respective episode (therefore, watch the versions they subbed), so there’s no real reason for me to do it, especially considering they do it so much better.

In snack-sized bits. Images to come later.
•Iba Itsuki – Itsuki is the son of Astral’s first president, Iba Tsukasa, and because of this, became its second president when Tsukasa disappeared. He is a kind, well-mannered, and shy boy who, despite his position as president of a magic rental service, knows very little of the world of magic. He wears a magical eye-patch that seals off his “fairy eye”, called Glam Sight, because of its sensitivity to spell-wave contamination (think “magic radiation poisoning”) and because he is inexperienced in how to use it, which could have fatal consequences. Whenever he does use it, however, his personality changes into something more confident and “leader-like” and he becomes able to see the flow of magic allowing him to give precise instructions/orders to his team.

•Honami Ambler – A childhood friend of Itsuki’s, though he doesn’t remember their time together as children as those memories were locked away. She was present when Itsuki’s Glam Sight became tainted and feels a deep sense of guilt over the incident, as A) she was the one who made him enter the Haunted House where it happened; and B) it became tainted as a result of him trying to save Honami from the spiritual creature that was hunting them. Years later, Honami is a prodigy in the arts of Celtic magic and Witchcraft, and managed to revive the otherwise lost magic art of the Druids in merely two years, a feat that was otherwise described as something that would take even the most gifted an entire lifetime to accomplish.

•Katsuragi Mikan – The youngest member of the current Astral and a Shinto specialist. She is a member of the Katsuragi clan of Shintoist, which she left to prove that she wasn’t just a replacement for her older sister (this is the topic in a two-episode storyline).

•Nekoyashiki Ren – An expert of Onmyouji and a former member of the original Astral. He has four Shikineko (cat familiars) named af the Four Symbols that can aid him in battle.

•Kuroha Manami – The newest member of the current Astral who is employed in one of the first episodes. [spoiler]She is a ghost and can thus only be seen by other ghosts or people with a sensitivity to magic (though, she still sometimes hides from normal people for some reason, even though they can’t see her).[/spoiler]

•Adelicia Mathers – A descendant of King Solomon, thus able to use King Solomon’s magic (summoning demons), and quite skilfully at that. She is the hereditary master of one of Astral’s rival companies, Goetia. She attended the same magic school as Honami and the two consider eachother rivals still.

Sora ni Saku/Faith
Sora ni Saku (though I have no idea of how 宇宙 can be read as “sora”), and its English version, Faith, are performed by Lisa Komine. The two songs were used interchangeably and I was unable to find any distinctive pattern in when either was used. It should be noted that while the music is the same, the lyrics are obviously not translations. Anywho, I was actually quite fond of the rhythm and music in the songs, though I admittedly enjoyed the Japanese version a bit more because of her accent. For some reason, it reminded me of D.Gray-man, though I’m not entirely sure why.

The animation more or less does what every opening animation does and showcases the characters. I’m actually starting to wonder why I even write this section when the video is right there :/ Anywho, as something unique, the lyrics appear moving lines forming a cross.

Aruite Ikou
Aruite Ikou (Let’s Go for a Walk) is performed by Jungo Yoshida. The version on the right, however, is the one by the voice actors of the show, since I couldn’t find the real one. I liked this one more anyway =3 The title actually confuses me a bit, since the lyric actually goes “Aruite Yukou”, not “Aruite Ikou”, even though they both have the same meaning and are written as 歩いて行こう

The animation shows all the main characters having gone to rest. It retains the “lyrics flying over the cross” theme of the two openers.

Rental Magica is, in a nutshell, Ghost Hunt, but without all the stuff that makes [certain parts of] Ghost Hunt cool. There’s not thrill, no mystery, no red thread, nothing to make you WANT to see the next episode for any specific reason other than because it’s available. Also, because it isn’t chronological, it’s a pain in the ass to try and watch in the broadcast order. I watched maybe the first seven episodes that way and would probably have choked my computer out of frustration if it had a neck. After that, I watched everything in chronological order.

Also, if you don’t know that much about shintoism, onmyoudo, magic of Solomon, etc., then I strongly suggest you go in with an open mind and ignore any attempt to understand the terms, prayers/mantra, and references made in anime as you will drown in them. For a Westerner, I probably have above average knowledge of Japanese myths, legends, etc., and I was still O.o in many of the episodes. So just accept whatever is thrown your way and if something doesn’t make sense to you, just assume that it’s important and they did whatever they did for a very good reason.

Other than that, it just isn’t a very memorable anime. The characters are very likeable, but the plot, as presented in the anime, is pretty thin and by the time the anime has concluded, there are still a looooot of unanswered questions, loose ends, and whatnot, so the anime just feels incomplete (again, similar to Ghost Hunt). Therefore, save yourself the trouble, don’t watch the anime, read the manga instead.

The only episode I can recommend watching is episode 12, entitled “Seiya ni Sasageru Rekuiemu” (A Requiem Offered on Christmas Eve), which is a fitting title since it aired on December 23. Anywho, I got all teary-eyed when they sang in the church, and it was a damn good song too! ;_; So that episode gets lubz from me also due to the a cappella version of the ending song used around halfway through the episode <3 It is also the first of two episodes where the voice actors are the ones singing the ending theme (and Nekoyashiki's three second solo is to die for XD).

Shion, a young high school girl has a burning desire to become a great shougi player as well as the talent to make it happen. But when she finally makes it to the pros, she starts getting more attention than she thought, which leads to a traumatic event from her past being brought up to the surface of her mind.

8 years ago, she witnessed the brutal murder of her biological parents, after which he played a game of shougi against her. The shock of the event combined with the killer’s threats rendered her unwilling to speak, and over the years, the memories of that night became twisted or repressed. The story now follows Shion’s determination and course to become a great kishi (shougi player) as well as finally solving the mystery surrounding the killer’s identity and motive for the brutal murder of her parents…

•The anime is 22 episodes long and is based on the manga of the same name, however, the anime received the subtitle “The Flowers of Hard Blood” (I do not know why, but I have theories).
•It is called しおんの王 (Shion no Ou) in Japanese. In English, this means “Shion’s King” (“King” is referring to the shougi piece). In Korean, it is called 시온의 왕.
•An NDS game based on the manga has was released only a few months ago (10 April, 2008) in Japan. It is apparently an adventure game, though I’ve not seen any gameplay videos and cannot say for sure it’s true.

The Characters

In snack-sized bits. Images to come.
•Yasuoka Shion – A young girl of 13-14 with a traumatic past; she witnessed her parents getting killed when she was just 5 years old. The shock left her unwilling to speak, and she communicates with others by writing it on a large paper notepad. She is rather adorable and sometimes acts in funny, exaggerated ways because she doesn’t know how to deal with the situation.

•Saitō Ayumi – A 15-year-old boy with a sickly mother. He cross dresses to enter the world of the female professional shougi league in order to raise money for his mother’s hospital bills (as well as having part-time jobs). The underlying reason for having to cross dress is that the male shougi league has a long qualification period (about 2 years, I think) which is required before you are allowed to enter money tournaments. The female league does not have this period (oooh, the irony XD bad joke, sorry).

•Hani Makoto – Also called Hani-meijin, as he is the current grandmaster of shougi. He set off to be a professional kishi after the death of his mother, and abandoned his brother to do so.

•Hani Satoru – Hani-meijin’s younger brother who has become a succesful businessman. He hosts an open tournament so that he, not being a professional player, could have a chance to go up against his brother and finally settle the score between them (quite literally, they’ve played hundreds of games and are currently either at a draw, or Satoru is down by one). He comes off as as a very cunning and somewhat backstabbing person.

•Nikaidō Saori – A young female kishi who just worships the ground Hani-meijin treads. Everything she does, she does to get his recognition. She becomes a fan of Shion because of Shion’s skill and cuteness.

•Yasuoka Shinji – Shion’s foster father, and the man who taught her how to play shougi. He always supports Shion and the choices she makes, and is somewhat of a comical character. He has won several prices in Shougi, which he attributes to Shion inspiring him to do so, and he holds the rank of 8th dan.

•Yasuoka Sachiko – Shion’s foster mother, and a downright awesome lady. She loves and supports both her husband and Shion, even though she does not always agree with the choices they make. She also keeps Shinji on a short leash, whenever his antics are about to get out of hand.

•Hisatani Touru – One of Shinji’s students. He takes on a big brother like role in Shion’s life, and often cheers her on during her matches.

•Kamizono Osamu – A seclusive man, who is stern to the point of coming of as an evil, grumpy bastard which earned him the nickname, “Akuma” (demon). In reality, he is a kind-hearted man with phenomenal insight in the human mind and heart. He takes on Ayumi as his first and only apprentice so that Ayumi could earn money for his mother’s bills, and he was the only one to support Shinji when Shinji wanted to adopt and raise Shion as his own. His skills have earned him the rank of 9th Dan

The Terms

There were literally TONS of terms in the anime, and I remember none of them. This was mostly because that like with chess, shougi has names for various offensive and defensive “positions” of the pieces (strategies), when seen as a whole. However, most were only ever used once, so I didn’t really both with them.

The only terms I recall are more like vocabulary than actual terms. These are tsumi (詰み) which means “checkmate“, kishi (棋士) which is the collective “term” for shougi players (though it may only apply for those who play professionally, I’m not entirely sure), and meijin (名人) which means “master” and is the highest rank a kishi can attain in the world of shougi.

The Songs

LADY LOVE
LADY LOVE is an alternative/rock/grunge/whatever song performed by RIZE. I liked it enough to hear it the first few times, but I grew annoyed with it didn’t find it to be a song that is all that memorable actually. It did have some decent 1½-3 second passages with good rhythm.

The animation is does what it is supposed to. It portrays all the characters, and gives a brief glimpse of the murderer’s interaction with Shion. It’s nothing really noteworthy, and quite simple for the most part. The last couple of seconds with the shougi pieces falling and rotating in the background was well-drawn and caught my attention.

My Dear Friend
My Dear Friend is performed by Teruma Aoyama. It was awesome in a subtle and simplistic way. No excessive instruments or background voices, just one chick with a clean, beautiful voice and music that emphasize her voice and rhythm instead of trying to “hog” the song.

The animation is simple. It’s an animation with Shion sleeping while the credits roll on the notepad she uses write on when she wants to “say” something, and later scenes from the anime is shown on it. A nice touch in my opinion.

The Opinion

In my honest opinion, Shion no Ou failed as a mystery. By episode 3 or 4, I had narrowed it down to 2 suspects, and by episode 7, I knew with 95% certainty who the killer was and had figured out the motive. In retrospect, I could probably have figured it out an episode or two earlier, as would most people, since it is painfully obvious if you just take a minute to think about it. You should probably have guessed the motive simply from reading the second paragraph of this post.

As a “sports anime”, it didn’t do all that much for me either, other than convince me that I’m never gonna learn how to play shougi, even at a level so low that one would lose to infants randomly throwing the pieces around. I mean, after watching e.g. Akagi, I could at least picture myself getting good enough to play for fun, and perhaps even win a single dealing or two on a lucky hand and a lucky draw or five.

The fact that I don’t get the specific strategies of shougi didn’t help much either, so while I’m sure shoigi players where like “Place it there, THERE!!! *GASP!!!* Why did she place there instead?!?! *cliffhanger, DUN DUN DUUUUUUN!!!!*“, I was more like “Why did everyone react like that? *read dialogue* Oh, it was and odd move. Why was it an odd move..? *more dialogue* aha, I see… *waits for story to progress*” Luckily, there’s a character in the anime who is just as ignorant about shougi as I was, and he actually asked the other characters these questions for you. Lucky us non-shougi players, huh?

Long story short, while the overall plot and the “sales pitch” sound extremely interesting (it sure did to me), the story delivers very little. The characters are likeable and the complex relationships are interesting to follow as they evolve, but as a mystery it fails miserably. I only advice you to watch this anime if you a) aren’t that good at solving mysteries, meaning that the suspense will last longer than 5-8 episodes, or b) are just in it for the likeable characters and complex relationships (this is what kept me watching, Shion’s and Ayumi’s relationship in particular XD).

Ryu (no last name) managed to beat Sagat, a world champion fighter, in the final fight of the first World Warrior tournament. Ever since that time, Ryu wandered the globe in hopes of perfecting his skills as a fighter, unaware of the evil intents of the Dictator, who had been trying to track him down ever since that fight for the purpose of using him as a weapon. In the meantime, US Air Force officer Lt. Commander Guile and Interpol agent Chun-Li, two people brought together by fate and a shared hatred for the Dictator (on a very personal level) search for the stronghold of the Shadaloo, the Dictator’s organization.

After various unsuccessful attempts to track down Ryu, the Dictator learns of another fighter, Ken Masters, who uses the same fighting style and techniques that Ryu had used in the battle against Sagat. Acknowledging a possible connection, the Dictator kidnaps Ken and brainwashes him in an attempt to get his hands on Ryu. Just as Ryu is told the news of Ken’s kidnapping and subesquent brainwash, Ken himself arrives and battle between the Shadeloo and Ryu, Guile, and Honda ensues. But will Ryu be able to reach his best friend who has been brainwashed into becoming a killing machine or is it already too late..?

•The anime is about 98 minutes long and is based on the game Super Street Fighter II Turbo and every character from the game i featured.
•It is also called “Street Fighter II: The Movie“, which leads to a bit of confusion, I suppose…
•The two versions of the animation, Japanese and American, have their own soundtracks, so the music differs greatly in the Japanese compared to the American version.
•The first five or so minutes, where Ryu is fighting Sagat, is from the final boss fight in the very first Street Fighter game.

In snack-sized bits
•Ryu – The main protagonist, a stoic, wandering warrior. Unlike most stories where the main character is always running away from someone or something, or searching for someone or something, Ryu basically just “is”, he takes things as they come, and people are the ones searching for him. He has no “beef” with the main antagonist of the movie, and has in fact never even met him prior to battle at the end, which I suppose makes him an odd main character… He has immense power potential though, which is why he is chased by the Dictator. He is seen performing the Hadouken, Shouryuuken, and Tetsumaki Senpuu Kyaku.

•Ken Masters – Ryu’s friend and rival during their training together. During their sparring sessions, Ken always felt like Ryu was never giving it his all, and to this day still seeks a one-on-one battle with Ryu without any “pulled punches”. Since his training, he returned to America where he made quite the name for himself as a street fighter and later on became the U.S. Martial Arts Champion. At a point in the story, he becomes brainwashed, which for some reason alters the color of his skin, hair, and eyes (they darken), a character design that would later be used in the games for “Violent Ken”. Ken is seen performing the Hadouken and Shouryuuken.

•Guile – An officer in the United States Air Force. He has a grudge against the Dictator, who was responsible for the death of one of Guile’s friends (Charlie in the US, Nash in Japan, though he isn’t named in the anime). He is (according to Chun-Li) ordered to work along side Chun-Li in bringing the Dictator down, but his need for revenge make him turn his back on her. It is not until he learns of Chun-Li’s motives that he comes to understand and care for her. Guile is seen performing his trademark Sonic Boom, as well as a Somersault Kick (though he doesn’t say its name and seems to be “powered down”)

•Chun-Li – Chun-Li is an interpol agent hell-bent on bringing down the Dictator, who killed her father long ago. She tries to enlist the help of Guile, but despite being ordered to help her, he says that the Dictator is his to bring down, and his alone. It isn’t until she reveals her motive; revenge for the death of her father by the hands of the Dictator that Guile begins to warm up to her, as he has gone through a similar experience. She performs her signature Hyaku Retsu Kyaku move against Claw.

•Dictator – The Dictator (M. Bison in the US, Vega in Jap) is the main bastard of the movie and leader of the worldwide criminal syndicate, Shadaloo/Shadowloo/Shadowlaw/etc. (I wish Capcom could make up their minds…). He seeks the ultimate fighter (Ryu) so that he may turn him into a puppet using his Psycho Power and thus further increase the powers of his organization. Even without using his power, he shows great fighting prowess.

•The rest – Several of the other fighters were only shown for roughly 1-4 minutes each, during a fight where they displayed one or more special moves, a special characteristic, or both (please note that I have never played the game “for real”, so if I miss an attack or name it wrong, please correct me in a comment, and yes, I do feel stupid for not using the Japanese names…). In the order they appear in:

• Sagat was shown fighting Ryu and gaining his infamous scar. He uses the attack called “Tiger Knee“, I think. He appears throughout the anime, but he doesn’t really do anything, beyond the fight in the beginning.
• Cammy was shown as a “terrorist”. I have no idea if that throw of hers is from the game, but her “characteristic” was that she had been brainwashed. She also wears the red cape with hood seen in one of her intro-animations.
• “Boxer” (M.Bison in Japan, Balrog in the US). I… honestly don’t know. He appears throughout the anime, and even fights E. Honda, but I don’t think there was anything special about him. He does do his headbutt throw though. Because of his freaky eyes in the anime, I liked to call him Bubba…
• “Claw” (Balrog in Japan, Vega in the US) is also shown throughout the anime. He fights Chun-Li in her apartment at a point, showing his maniacal behavior based on extreme narcissism when Chun-Li bruises his face. He also displays his incredible speed and flexibility during their fight and does a roll to a sliding kick.
• Fei Long appears shortly in a fight with Ryu, as well as a few minutes before and after. He performs a Rising Flaming Foot which connects, but then eats Ryu’s Hurricane Kick.
• T. Hawk has a short-lived fight against Ken. I don’t know if there’s any special characteristic.
• Akuma (far left) makes a minor non-speaking, non-moving cameo.
• E. Honda appears fighting Dhalsim, and befriends Ryu after the fight is over. Later on, he fights Boxer. During his fight with Dhalsim he performs his Hundred Hand Slap attack (I guess…) as well as his win animation mid-fight.
• Dhalsim appears only during his fight with E. Honda, during which he performs his Yoga Spear. He also levitates while in a lotus position (win animation?) and extends his limbs to attack, though not to the same extreme degree as in the games.
• Dee Jay only appears when he is being warned about being marked by the Shadaloo. A few seconds earlier, he is seen beating up some rockers, while moving to the rhythm of music (according to the sign, his own recordings).
• Zangief appears in a high-roller hotel as part of the entertainment. He fights Blanka and during their fight, performs the Spinning Piledriver. The way he enters the fight is the same as on of his pre-fight animations (removing a red cape)
• Blanka briefly appears in his fight with Zangief, in which he performs his Roll Attack and Electric Shock attack.

I must say, I was friggin’ surprised. I honestly thought this was going to suck as bad as Street Fighter Alpha: Generations, or even worse, as bad as Tekken: The Motion Picture. Another thing that made me think it would be like Tekken was that there’s a shower scene with Chun-Li, much like there was one with Anna Williams.

Anywho, I was fortunate enough to get my hands on a dual audio version of the anime, so that I could compare them. Obviously, the Jap version was better than the US version by far, but the US version was not completely without charm. Ryu yelling “nnnnDAAAAAH!!” in the US version, instead of “HADOUKEN!!!”, was a big minus though, and the pronunciation of Japanese names of characters/techniques was horrible… I will however give the American writers/translators credit for switching the names of Vega, Balrog, and M. Bison to fit how they are named in the American games, it’s a minor detail but an important one, so thumbs up for that.

Among the things I liked about the anime was that every character from the game was in it, for any period of time, and during their screen time showed at least one of their special moves or characteristics. While not really a fan of the SF series, I believe fans of characters, that are considered minor in the canonical story, would be somewhat pleased to see the trademark moves of their favorite SFII character.

When it comes to soundtrack, the Japanese one was once again far superior, in my opinion. The US version had a lot of grunge/alternative music, and I seem to recall some of them being big-hitter names in that genre, like KoЯn and Alice in Chains. However, more often than not, the music ruined the atmosphere of the anime and was poorly added over, meaning that the dialogs were sometimes hard to make out because the music was too loud. The Japanese version had more success with having the music emphasize the atmosphere, without being over the top. And the song that plays during Chun-Li’s fight with Claw is BRILLIANT (“Cry” by Big Life).

Anywho, in conclusion, it’s a good anime and probably one of the few that can still be enjoyed when viewing the American dub along with it’s soundtrack (though I by far still prefer the Japanese dub and soundtrack). The story isn’t “all that”, but it isn’t bad either, and if nothing else, watch it to see your favorite SFII character in a fight. Oh, and as a final tid-bit, for all you people who still say that Ryu would win in a fight between Ryu and Son Goku, give it up. I’m no Dragonball fan, but I do know my mathematics, and Ryu’s power level just isn’t OVER NINE-THOUSAAAAAAAAAND!!!!! I’d just wish they’d join forces instead of fight each other so that the could create the ultimate beam attack; Kamehamehadouken!

As a child, Kazuya was thrown off a cliff by his father, Heihachi, to prove he was worthy of being his son. However, the fall nearly killed Kazuya, who was then approached by Devil. In return for Kazuya’s soul, Devil would give him the chance to exact revenge against his father.

Several years later, the chance finally arises. The hosting of the King of Iron Fist Tournament, where all the greatest fighters assemble in order to win the grand prize of $1 billion and the title as “World’s Strongest”, if they can defeat all their opponents and finally, the current head of the Mishima Zaibatsu, Heihachi. However, not everything is what it seems, and the fighters are not aware of what nasty fates await them on the island where the tournament is hosted…

•The anime is about 57 minutes of pure desire to kill yourself for being dumb enough to watch it, and is based on the game series, Tekken.
•The anime was originally a two episode OVA, but I figure that when they found out that anyone not out of their mind wouldn’t watch the second episode after having watched the first, they decided to merge them into a single movie.
•It is also called “Tekken: The Animation“, probably to avoid the confusion of people thinking it’s an actual movie (like the one being released in 2009). I just chose the “The Animation” poster (in contrast with the title I chose for the post) because it featured more characters, so it’s not a mistake on my side.
•I have nothing more to add. I’m seriously only reviewing this so I can bash it for being insanely bad.

In snack-sized bits
•Mishima Kazuya – The main protagonist though hardly your average good guy. When he was thrown of a cliff as a young child by his father, he made a deal with Devil and swore revenge. Since that day, he renounced his family name and trained ferociously with nothing else in mind than the day were he would get the chance to kill his father.

•Mishima Heihachi – Heihachi is the father of Kazuya. He wanted a strong and ruthless son who could take over the Mishima Zaibatsu and continue its war-monger ideals in order to create a “better world”. It is because of this he throws Kazuya off a cliff, when he started showing compassion towards Jun, in order to install the hatred in him to make him the Devil himself.

•Lee Chaolan – Heihachi’s adopted son who has dreams of grandeur. He is obsessed with showing that he is better than Kazuya and wants to take control of the Mishima Zaibatsu, no matter what it takes. He even uses the tournament to forward his own agenda.

•Devil – Devil is the entity to whom Kazuya sold his soul in order to be saved from death, so that he could exact revenge on his father. It is described as a cold and evil spirit. Devil resides inside Kazuya and grows stronger the more hate and anger Kazuya feels. In the anime, he for some reason makes Kazuya’s scar glow.

•Kazama Jun – Jun works for the WWWC (a wildlife protection organization) and is sent to investigate the Mishima Zaibatsu, who are suspected of being in violation of the “Darwin Treaty”, a treaty related to genetic experiments in some odd way not fully explained. She has psychic abilities due to her Kazama bloodline, and is able to sense the spirits and intents of other living beings. In the Tekken game, Jun had a sweet and compassionate personality, without being over the top. In the anime, she is an obnoxious goodie-two-shoes who should just be shot for being an idiot who can’t keep her nose out of other people’s business. They should consider changing WWJD? from “What Would Jesus Do?” to “What Would Jun Do?“, because both are trying to save the friggin’ world by getting rid of the Devil, and both have only ever been heard of in fiction, only difference is, she succeeds… Oh yeah, I went there.

•The rest – There are a bunch of other fighters who have medium (they interact with the main characters somehow) to no relevance whatsoever (cameos). So to save myself the trouble, see the list here.

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST this sucks!!! I think the critics who hailed Akira must’ve seen this one first, because after seeing Tekken: The Motion Picture, you’ll hail anything as brilliant. It has absolutely nothing going for it, NOTHING, other than the occasional song from the soundtrack and a single ½ second nudity scene. The scene wasn’t even good, but it was without a doubt the highlight of the ENTIRE movie. Additionally I don’t even think the English translators have any idea of what the concept of Tekken actually is, because what the Hell was all the crap they spewed whenever the word was mentioned?

The reason most anime fans watch anime in Japanese is because English anime voice actors are, in 99 cases out of 100, completely without talent. Tekken is of course no exception. In fact, it is quite possibly the worst piece of crap voice acting this side of the Universe EVER. If you ever want to see just how bad English voice acting can get, watch any 30 seconds of Tekken and you’ll know. And here’s the kicker; The only version of Tekken: The Motion Picture you’ll ever find, is the English one, the Japanese one is just GONE. Anywho, it’s like the voice actors have never heard of emotions before. Whether the character is happy, unhappy, upset, angry, surprised, whatever, their voices never change in tempo or pitch, and the few times they do, it sounds so incredibly out of place that you’d wish they hadn’t said anything at all. That’s actually a suggestion. If you’re ever stupid enough to watch it, just mute the damn thing.

And what the Hell is with the ending?! Some sort of philosophical mumbo-jumbo that is pushed into the last few minutes so they could somehow justify its creation by saying “We were trying to teach the children a valuable lesson about peace and love and… ehm… stuff“. THEY FAILED!! You don’t want to spend an hour sitting through an absolutely grueling story (or extreme lack of) only to be given a really bad four minute lecture.

The art was so-so. Compared to anything I draw, it was of course kick-ass, but compared to other things I’ve seen, not so much. It was very Dragonball-esque, to the point that if it was ever broadcast on TV, and you accidentally turn to that channel and saw Kazuya, your first thought would likely be “What the Hell is Vegeta doing there? And why is he dressed like that?“. One thing to note though, is that they got much of the character designs and coloring OH SO WRONG! Even the artists failed miserably on that one.

So that’s pretty much my conclusion. If you are a fan of anime, DON’T watch it. If you are a fan of Tekken, DON’T watch it. If you are a fan of the art style in Dragonball, watch some of it on mute. Else, you may end up punching you monitor to death from frustration of how insanely bad it is. Remember, I re-watched it for you people, so you wouldn’t have to go through the mental pain and suffering. The only thing that kept me going was yelling “HADOUKEN!!“, “SHINRYUUKEN!!“, or “SENPUUKYAKU!!” whenever someone connected with an attack.

So if you ever decide you want to see the anime that punched through the bottom of the barrel and drilled its way to the center of the earth, either because you’re a masochist or because you’re doing it on a dare (there is absolutely no other reason for any human being to watch it, unless they are blissfully unaware of how bad it is), remember to shout those things, it helps you from having a mental breakdown and start crying. It’s the perfect “I hate you“-gift though.