A Japanese science fiction fantasy anime directed by Keiichi Sato.
Deomons, spirits, kappas and city guardians duke it out in Shinjuku. A police detective is trying to figure out what is going on and there is a young woman wandering around.
Most of this was not so great. The plot was vague and muddy, so I didn't really know what was going on. There were a few fights and good scenes here and there. Then the ending happened. It made it all worthwhile. I'll just say that there is a long fight. The animation style mixed traditional anime with digital editing and really looked cool. I was watching the last 2 episodes, wondering what to write about this and that's all I got. I rate this adequate. You might want to just watch the last 3 episodes.
A Japanese science fiction anime directed by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko.
A reporter from Earth and a motorcycle racer are caught in a war on Venus.
One of the classic anime that I watched on the Science Fiction Channel before it became known as syfy. I remember overplaying the VHS that I recorded from TV. The song, "Shakunestu no Circuit" by Eiko Yamane/Joe Hisaishi still plays in my head when I think of this movie. The single-wheeled motorcycles were a great touch, which carried over into military vehicles. Heroes named Hiro are all too common in anime though. Late '80s / early '90s anime visual and audio style are too divine to express in words. I rate this best. Watch it!
A Japanese anime romance by Makoto Shinkai.
Takaki Tono is in love with Akari Shinohara, but they move far away from one another for school. They meet once by train, but continue living at a distance. Takaki has 2 girlfriend (consecutively), but can not forget Akari.
Almost cool. The sparse and inconclusive plot was very realistic, as was the intention of Makoto Shinkai. The characters were a little vague. I was having trouble determining whether the boy or girl was the same or different in each episode. I liked the animation style because the settings were extremely realistic, but the characters looked "standard anime" to me. It reminded me of FLCL and some Miyazaki films. The audio was in Japanese and the version I got had hard-coded English subtitles, but that meant I spent most of the duration reading, rather than watching the animation. I rate this adequate. If you're into slower anime without monsters and spaceships, this would be a decent choice.
A Japanese animated science fiction directed by Osamu Tezuka.
A boy's father finds a cat near the lab where his scientist mother works. When the cat begins to act human, she escapes to avoid problems. 9 years later, they are reunited and search for the now cat-woman's origins. Finding the lab, they travel to South America to find the boy's mother. She has been genetically engineering plants and animals all along. The cat-woman and boy escape the South American lab, but are separated. Years later, the boy, now man is hired to hunt and kill the cat-woman.
Pretty cool and very much of the time and place. The non-linear plot held my interest very well, as Ryosuke relates his story to a boy named Chico while they are hunting Bagi. The animation style looked like most anime of the time. Think Dragon Ball (1986) and Vampire Hunter D (1985) with wider looking characters and bold blocks of color. The Bagi character is animated in an extremely seductive way. Wikipedia says that the plot was criticizing Japan's genetic research. I would recommend this for those who like mid-80s anime and sexy cat-women. I rate it good.
A Japanese anime directed by Katsuhito Akiyama.
A high school boy finds alien technology which attaches to his body, making him into a strong warrior. He faces a secret corporation and their monsters called Zoanoids.
This held my attention pretty well. It seems to have been designed with a male audience in mind, considering that most of it was monsters and violence.I had seen some of the 1989 series in the late '90s and thought that this was it because I did not check dates. Hopefully, you will soon be able to read about the 1986 and 1989 OVAs here. Fans of Dragonball Z would appreciate the conversation-filled fight scenes, powering up and blast battles. The only thing that I found mockable was the Guyver's "boob beam" or "lactating laser" attack (image). There's really not much to say about this. I rate it good.
A Japanese anime directed by Tensai Okamura.
A group of reverse-werewolves (wolves which can become human at will) are looking for paradise and are convinced that a woman made from a flower will lead them to it. Unfortunately, a technological military group called Nobles are trying to keep the woman for their own purposes and an old man is on a wolf-hunting revenge quest.
The premise seems great and the first few episodes (maybe first season?) went really well. That was where it broke down. Episodes 15-18 were a recap of episodes 1-14 and then the ending was all messy. The plot became convoluted and muddy and the ending was inconclusive. Like Chrono Crusade, it would have been better to just have the 4 wolf guys run around dealing with problems on an individual episode basis. This was worse than that because it was so serious. So serious, in fact, that the animation style was in low contrast and low color saturation. The credits theme songs were terrible and it didn't seem to matter where the opening credits ended up in the episode. opening credits 5 minutes in? Sure! Why not? I found the whole set to be boring and it did not hold my attention. I rate it o.k.
A Japanese anime directed by Naohito Takahashi.
A mercenary with a large sword joins a group called "Band of the Hawk". The leader is ambitious and they have military victories together. Then politics go sour and then they go to hell.
Not worthwhile. I would rather have just watched the Nosferatu Zodd fight and the last 2 episodes. Everything else was battles and politics, except the flashbacks. I didn't care about the characters, the plot did not hold my interest and the ending was inconclusive. Actually, it starts at the end, so everything from episode 2 to 25 is a flashback. I have 2 good things to say about it: There was lots of violence and blood. Some of the background textures looked like abstract paintings. I would not recommend this. I rate it tolerable.
A Japanese fantasy anime directed by Masaaki Yuasa, starring Kana Hanazawa.
A young woman goes out to some bars, visits an outdoor used book market, participates in an unlicensed school play and visits people who caught a cold.
I was blown away by this. The story and characters would have been a little mundane if presented in traditional animation and stuck in "reality". The animation style is what made this so unique because there were many forms used. It moved from traditional anime to rotoscoping, into simplified minimalism and I think some of the scenes showed Miyazaki levels of detail. It was all very expressive as well. The audience can see the characters' thoughts and emotions. The subtitles are a little bit heavy because the dialogue carries the story and it goes by quickly. I saw this at the theater where it was given only 2 days of showtimes and then found a copy online. I rate this best and would recommend it even for those who don't like animation at all. It's that good. I would not, however, recommend it for those who dislike subtitles.
A Japanese anime series directed by Shinichiro Watanabe.
A pair of bounty hunters travel through space, looking to earn money by turning in criminals. They pick up a dog, a woman who has forgotten her past and a young computer genius to accompany them.
This was much slower paced and more deeply thoughtful than most other anime in the shonen/funimation genre. 26 episodes seemed too short because I liked it (having watched some episodes when it originally aired on TV). The plots were mostly single-episode, but some spanned 2 episodes and there was a general plot/timeline that all of the episodes existed in. I liked the characters and cared what happened to them. My favorite was comedic relief, Ed. All of the dialogue was written very much in-character and the English voice actors did a great job. The animation style was mostly traditional anime cartoon, but I think that there was some computer work done somewhere in there. Everything was drawn expertly and in great detail. Audio seemed to be mixed correctly. Given the musical name of the series, there was a heavy metal episode, but I would have liked more of that kind of theme-ing done with different genres. T.H.E.M. anime reviews gave it 5/5 as did Kyle Mills of DVD Talk. However, I would hesitate to give it a perfect score. Nonetheless, I did like it quite a bit and rate the series good. This would be one to watch.
A Japanese anime directed by Hayato Date.
A misbehaving orphan boy goes through ninja training and is sent on missions with his peers.
220 episodes of Naruto is a little bit much for anyone over 20 years old. The fast pace held my interest though. The basic premise of the plot allows some writing freedom and was rich with side-plots. I don't think I've ever hoped for the death of the main character sooner or more continuously than while watching this. Everyone else was relatively deep in comparison to this brash little crap-hole. The humorous episodes of side-plots are what I like about anime is series format and this was no exception. My favorite comic relief was Jiraiya, the "Pervy Sage" and Naruto's supposed sensei. Naruto's dialogue immediately irked me with his repeated phrase, "Believe it!" but that stopped soon enough that I could finish watching the series. Shikamaru always says everything is "a drag". Otherwise, the dialogue and acting were not bad. Too many flashbacks is where this series really went awry. There were even flashbacks within flashbacks during decisive battles. It was a real drag. The animation looked more computerized than Inuyasha, but retained the hand-drawn traditional form. Some of it also looked a little bit lazy and repetitive, but I would have done the same thing if I were animating over 200 episodes of something. I liked the audio for the most part. Naruto and Gaara's English voice actors were not to my liking and the music was a little repetitive. It was good music, though. The Oroshimaru theme reminded me of the intro to Michael Jackson's Thriller and there was some fast rock/metal for battles. The style of the series as a whole seemed a little juvenile to me, but this is a cartoon made for teen boys. It's supposed to be that way. Overall, it was just slightly less good than Inuyasha (which I rated good). This makes Naruto adequate.
A Japanese Anime directed by Masashi Ikeda, Yasunao Aoki and Toshiya Shinohara.
An extremely mature middle school girl falls down a well and ends up in the Feudal era where she releases a demon who has been sealed to a tree for 50 years. The demon was sealed because another demon played him and his girlfriend against one another to get a sacred jewel. The modern girl and feudal demon team up with a child fox demon, a lecherous monk with a vacuum hand, a 2-tailed cat that grows and flies and a demon slayer woman whose group has been killed by her younger brother.
I watched the entire duration of 197 videos. Most were 20 minute TV episodes, besides the 4 hour and a half movies. It's a lot of Inuyasha. The plot seemed standard and stereotypical for anime, featuring mainly searches for characters and items, fights and comic relief. I liked comic relief the most in this series. There were episodes devoted to secondary characters that entertained me more than the main plot of the series. Because it was made for TV, there were frequent "plot recaps" to inform viewers who were not watching the whole series straight through what was happening. There were tons of characters and many of them had similar names: Naraku, Kohaku, Kagura, Kaguya, the list goes on. I know I'm an American, looking at Japanese names from an etic perspective, but they seemed too similar to me. What I liked about the characters was variety. There were humans, half demons and demons in every available Dungeons & Dragons alignment. Each of the main characters had identifiable personality traits that were demonstrated at every opportunity. An example of this is the monk touching the demon slayer's butt. Much of the dialogue was characters saying each other's names: "INUYASHA!!" "KAGOME!!" which got old quickly. The English voice actors fit the Japanese animated characters well enough for my tastes. Only Final Act was subtitled and not dubbed. I found the Japanese voices disorienting because I was so used to the English dubbed version, having watched 167 episodes by that point. On a side note, I heard a few phrases so frequently that I rewrote them as qwerty keyboard and sexual innuendo references: Sexomaru, No-cock-u, Titsaiga, Bitcoin jewel and Inutrasha's famous attacks: Spacebar , Backslash wave\\\\, Ampersand Barrage&&&& and Cheesy Beaver Hole Feeler. Animation style was a mix of traditional anime with some computerized effects. I could tell the difference, but a person less versed in digital video effects may not be able to discern between the two. They were blended very well and the CG was used extremely tastefully and sparsely. As with any TV series, the music was repetitive. There were a few theme tracks for battle, comedy, drama, etc. that just got copied and pasted where they were needed. The anime series was quite popular and the 4 movies got 7.5-7.9 on IMDB. My real anime comparison test is Dragonball. This was goofier than Z and GT, but not as goofy as original DB. It was also not as good, but Goku and friends set a pretty high mark to beat. Inuyasha is nice to have in addition to Dragonball though. I rate it good. It must have been for me to still like it after watching that much.
A Japanese mystery adventure anime directed by Hayao Miyazaki, starring Yasuo Yamada, Kiyoshi Kobayashi and Sumi Shimamoto.
A thief and his friend are looking for adventure when they happen to rescue a princess who drops a special ring. The thief already knows the princess and follows clues that he learns from the ring to find her. She is engaged to a count who runs a money counterfeiting operation. The count calls in the thief's nemesis, Inspector Zenigata to prevent the thief from disrupting the wedding.
This was alright. It seemed to be a mixture of the team who made Lupin III and Miyazaki style. I could almost see the boundaries where they met on-screen. The most obvious instance is of Lupin and Jigen sitting on a Miyazaki set. The plot held my attention, but you really have to have seen some Lupin III to appreciate the characters. The funniest joke was Lupin swimming up a waterfall. Overall, pretty much as expected. I rate this adequate.
A Japanese war comedy anime directed by Hayao Miyazaki, starring Akemi Okamura and Akio Otsuka.
A WWI fighter pilot has been turned into a pig. After rescuing a child swimming team from pirates, his plane is shot down by an American. He enlists the help of his mechanic's granddaughter, who accompanies him as he seeks revenge on the American pilot.
This was actually pretty good. I had been reluctant to watch it because it sounded boring to me, but am glad I saw it. The plot held my attention and the main characters were unique and memorable. Animation style was Miyazaki. There was one scene with a "shot" from a plane circling part of a castle that really impressed me. Animating a changing perspective like that is no easy task. I watched a dubbed version in English and the audio was clear. The soundtrack was pushed far into the background so that dialogue could take over. Hayao Miyazaki is on my list of those who can do no wrong. Overall, it was very well-made and I ended up liking it. I rate this good. If you've been putting off watching it like I was, maybe it's time for a viewing.
A Japanese fantasy anime directed by Hayao Miyazaki, starring Chika Sakamoto and Noriko Hidaka.
Two sisters move into an old rural house with their father. The mother is in a nearby hospital for undisclosed reasons. After hearing rumors of the house being haunted, the girls stumble upon strange creatures that they may be imagining and may be real.
This is one of the classics of the genre. Although it is geared toward a very young audience, the animation is great and the fantasy element is interesting. The plot was a little vague in some areas and this may have been intentional. The characters were all very good and fit their roles correctly. I watched the Disney English dub version. My favorite part was the cat bus. Overall, a regular anime that's fun to watch, but not very thought-provoking. I rate this good.
A Japanese animated drama romance directed by Hayao Miyazaki, starring Hideaki Anno and Mirai Shida,
A boy grows up to be an aeronautical engineer and falls in love with a dying woman. He has dreams of conversations with an Italian engineer in which they discuss airplanes.
This was not too shabby. The plot was a little on the dull side for Miyazaki. The characters were good though. As with all of his works, it had that trademark Miyazaki style of animation that I like. What was missing here was the strong fantasy element that is so present in the other films. Overall, it was well-made with beautiful animation, but nowhere near as wild and interesting as other works by this director. I rate it adequate.
A Japanese anime directed by Hayao Miyazaki.
A girl who is being chased by pirates and the military falls from an airship into a small mining town. The necklace that she wears has magic powers, making her float down slowly where a boy catches her. The pirates turn out to be their friends and together they compete with the military on a quest to find a floating castle.
This is a classic anime. If you like this style of animation, you need to see this. The plot and characters are good and everything is animated very well, with a great level of detail. There are some characters from other Miyazaki films in this. Kamajii the boiler man from Spirited Away is the mechanic on the pirate ship whose female leader is Yubaba and the pet fox-squirrel-cat thing from Nausicaa lives with the robot in the flying city. As with most anime, the boisterous lead pirate is female with male subordinates and they are implied to be pedophiles by their seemingly romantic interests in the young girl. Overall, one of the best anime ever made. I rate this best.
A Japanese anime directed by Makoto Shinkai.
A teacher and his student travel to an underground fantasy world. The teacher seeks to resurrect his dead wife and the girl is chasing after a boy.
This was really good up to a certain point. The beginning started slow and built up to good adventures with wild monsters. The ending is where it fell apart. It was very inconclusive. What happens to the characters after the climax? Credits roll, that's what happens. I liked that they used various mythological words from around the world and tied things in with world history enough to make it believable. The guardian monsters were the best. Overall, great middle with no end. I rate this adequate.
A Japanese anime directed by Hayao Miyazaki.
A princess rides a jet-propelled hang glider through a fantasy world of poisonous forests and giant insects.
This is brilliant. I saw it a long time ago before starting this blog, but it was cool to see again. The plot held my interest and the main character was well developed. The animation style is very Miyazaki and exemplary of traditional anime. One thing to note is the princess' lack of underwear. Overall, great. I rate this awesome. Watch it!
A Japanese science fiction anime directed by Shoji Kawamori and Noboru Ishiguro.
A giant space station is attacked by giant male alien warriors. A pilot then takes his singer girlfriend out for an illegal joyride on a fighter-jet/robot and they are captured by the aliens. Upon escaping, they land on Earth to find it completely destroyed and discover an alien spaceship/city from yet another race of beings. They are rescued and a final battle is fought between multiple space-based civilizations.
This was typical of '80s anime, but that's why I liked it. The video was very good and they did a great job of traditional anime. The version that I watched was English dubbed and missing some audio. The epic plot was clearly communicated and the main characters presented well. I think I've covered style pretty well already. The pacing was very slow, but this allows the viewer to get comfortable with a scene before moving on to the next. Overall, standard, but good '80s anime. I rate it adequate.
A Japanese anime directed by Masahiro Hosoda.
A powerful god of destruction awakens and hears of super saiyans. He goes in search of a super saiyan god and finds Goku and friends.
Though generally fitting with the series and very similar, this was somewhat of a departure. The use of CG was the most noticable change and the decision to use so much humor as well as such a light plot is different. I'm used to seeing all traditionally drawn animation with a slightly more serious and involved story. Dragon Ball fans will be happy to see so many of their favorite characters featured as well as some new faces. Beerus seems well-designed, but lacks a visual transformation and Whis is reminiscent of the Kais. Some strange sub-plots emerged that would potentially make Dragon Ball GT incorrect, if followed through as part of the main story. There was a budding romance and a 1/4 saiyan pregnancy announced. Overall, I thought it was similar enough to the DBZ franchise for fans to enjoy, but also enough of a departure to upset some long-term viewers. I rate it adequate. It might be fun to watch if you don't take it too seriously.
