Rate the last anime you watched out of 10

[teonzo]

Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ

First of all I have to admit that I've been idiot: when I decided to buy this series I did not look for infos, so I ended up buying a damned bootleg from ebay. The quality was total crap: 47 episodes in 5 DVDs and probably the worst subs ever.
I was expecting a mediocre show and the first dozen episodes were worse than I could imagine: a sort of dumb parody of classic Gundam. After that, things became more serious and tragic, with nice characters and some good sub-plots. The biggest problem for me was that the overall plot was quite messed and disjointed, with a good amount of jumps and holes, but maybe a good part of this is fault of those damned crappy unintelligible subs. There were a good number of quality scenes and the ending is nice.
Pros: some minutes of Sayla, Haman, Judau is less whiny than Amuro and Camille, few Haro.
Cons: no Char (Haman is really good but can't compete), no Bright slaps.

Score: 6.5 / 10



Teo

 

[ayase]

the first dozen episodes were worse than I could imagine: a sort of dumb parody of classic Gundam.

See, I really enjoyed that. OTT comedy and self-parody was the last thing you would expect after the pretty bleak Zeta, but I thought it was a pretty hilarious turnaround which (for the most part) paid off due to the sheer audacity of it all.

Pros: some minutes of Sayla, Haman, Judau is less whiny than Amuro and Camille, few Haro.

YES. Judau for most likeable UC Gundam protagonist, by a country mile. But then I liked a lot of the characters of ZZ - I certainly felt more attached to them than I did most of their predecessors.

As for the lack of Bright-slapping, that was something I picked up on too. I don't know how your subs treated it, but at one point someone remarks how Capt. Bright is allowing the protagonists to "behave like children" and he resignedly replies "I've stopped trying to treat them as anything else". I think Tomino perhaps worried he had treated young characters too harshly in the past; Ideon and Bright-slaps aside, there was the thoroughly unlikeable Mr. Wong not just slapping but beating the **** out of Kamille in Zeta. If I recall correctly, Judau actually delivers his comeuppance via a quick kick to the stomach when he tries to get tough with him - Highlighting a fundamental change in how ZZ intended to approach things.

I always thought Haman was an excellent antagonist (aided in no small part by the mesmerising voice of Yoshiko Sakakibara) and the series is certainly helped by her being there, especially considering that Glemy is by far and away the weakest link in ZZ, and a poor replacement for the much better developed Jerid in Zeta. Luckily (IMO) we have the infinitely more entertaining Mashymre and Chara to make up for it... They could have had a Gundam spin-off of their own. I'd have watched it.

 

[teonzo]

See, I really enjoyed that. OTT comedy and self-parody was the last thing you would expect after the pretty bleak Zeta, but I thought it was a pretty hilarious turnaround which (for the most part) paid off due to the sheer audacity of it all.

I would agree, the problem is that I thought that it was really low quality as a parody, it's not a problem about the idea, it's a problem about the realization. Plus I didn't like that the parody element was present only during the first episodes (except some bits here and there).
This series could have been really good, if not great, if it was coherent from start to finish. I really don't like when a series changes register with apparently no reason. And I don't like when a series that tries to be serious is disjointed. Just for example the episodes about the "forgotten" colony (lol about forgetting about the existence of a colony) with the twin sisters (can't find their correct names) had almost no sense (at least watching the bootleg, cough cough).

YES. Judau for most likeable UC Gundam protagonist, by a country mile. But then I liked a lot of the characters of ZZ - I certainly felt more attached to them than I did most of their predecessors.

Agreed. ZZ does not have my favourite UC Gundam characters (Char and Sayla), but overall and on average it has the best "cast".

As for the lack of Bright-slapping, that was something I picked up on too. I don't know how your subs treated it, but at one point someone remarks how Capt. Bright is allowing the protagonists to "behave like children" and he resignedly replies "I've stopped trying to treat them as anything else". I think Tomino perhaps worried he had treated young characters too harshly in the past; Ideon and Bright-slaps aside, there was the thoroughly unlikeable Mr. Wong not just slapping but beating the **** out of Kamille in Zeta. If I recall correctly, Judau actually delivers his comeuppance via a quick kick to the stomach when he tries to get tough with him - Highlighting a fundamental change in how ZZ intended to approach things.

Yes, the series is more "children are the future, let them live it on their own".
But I always intended the Bright slaps as a metaphorical way to go against some characters, and not as what slapping a boy represents in real life. For example when Bright slapped Amuro I did not think "crap, violence is not good", but I thought "good for you Amuro, you whiny b**ch". Some metaphorical slaps would have been welcome.

I always thought Haman was an excellent antagonist (aided in no small part by the mesmerising voice of Yoshiko Sakakibara) and the series is certainly helped by her being there, especially considering that Glemy is by far and away the weakest link in ZZ, and a poor replacement for the much better developed Jerid in Zeta. Luckily (IMO) we have the infinitely more entertaining Mashymre and Chara to make up for it... They could have had a Gundam spin-off of their own. I'd have watched it.

Haman is really good, much much better here than in Zeta. But for me Char is THE anime villain/antihero/whatever (he is the main reason why 0079 and Zeta are good), so I need to complain about his absence.
Glemy (named Kurimin and some other variations on the bootleg, lol) could have been a good character, but he was developed really badly.
Chara had one of the worst voice actresses ever, totally the opposite of Haman. Her crazyness was a good point in the first episodes, but I think they ruined her at the end. As I think they could have forgotten about Mashymre, he was the parody I liked more in the first episodes.
About Jerid from Zeta, I agree that character was well developed (after all he became the "orange-kun" prototype). What I did not like about him was how all the fights against Camille were written: Jerid attacks, Camille is going to loose, deus ex machina and Jerid needs to escape. If Zeta had a non-whiny Camille and better fights between Camille and Jerid (meanng they were not the same photocopy again and again) then it would have been the definitive UC Gundam series (IMO of course).

I'm still cursing after that damned bootleg. I think the only name they wrote correctly was Haman. For Chara and Ple they used something like 10 different names (for Ple they used Puri, Puli, Purin, Palin, Pu-Li, Pa-Li and some more). I really can't understand them: once you are stealing the original video, then steal also the subs from a fansub, you already are a thief. It has no sense to give the "work" to make the subs to various people who can't write in English and will transliterate the names in 94398 different ways. Curse them.

Now I really want to watch Turn A, but there's no legit way, crap.



Teo

 

[ayase]

But I always intended the Bright slaps as a metaphorical way to go against some characters, and not as what slapping a boy represents in real life. For example when Bright slapped Amuro I did not think "crap, violence is not good", but I thought "good for you Amuro, you whiny b**ch". Some metaphorical slaps would have been welcome.

You're not wrong there. In which case you can think of the change of attitude simply sending the message that Judau didn't need slapping into shape to be made into a man, unlike Amuro or Kamille. =D

Chara had one of the worst voice actresses ever...

Well I though Chara's raspy voice was fair sexy (as were her nymphomaniac / exhibitionist tendencies) but maybe that's just me...

I'm still cursing after that damned bootleg. I think the only name they wrote correctly was Haman. For Chara and Ple they used something like 10 different names (for Ple they used Puri, Puli, Purin, Palin, Pu-Li, Pa-Li and some more). I really can't understand them: once you are stealing the original video, then steal also the subs from a fansub, you already are a thief. It has no sense to give the "work" to make the subs to various people who can't write in English and will transliterate the names in 94398 different ways. Curse them.

Now I really want to watch Turn A, but there's no legit way, crap.

Regarding Ple's name: it is a difficult one because Elpeo Ple was apparently a reference to Japanese magazine "L-People", but the sound of the second syllable of the word "people" in English is really better represented by the word "pull" than creating a new nonsense word "ple" which is then pronounced as "pull"... Which the Japanese then can't even say because they have no L and can't seem to use its nearest approximation (an R sound) without a suffix of some kind! What all the characters actually call her phonetically (and she calls herself) is "Puru", which personally I'm a lot happier with than "Ple" as the English transcription of her name (most native English speakers would see that combination of letters and presume her name was meant to be pronounced "Plea" or "Pleh").

My legit way of watching ZZ was to download a fansub and buy the official Hong Kong DVDs (yes, such a thing does exist). I do really still intend to improve my knowledge of Japanese at some point, so hopefully one day I can enjoy watching them.

 

[HdE]

I really can't understand them: once you are stealing the original video, then steal also the subs from a fansub, you already are a thief.

Yes! DAMN those unprincipled theives!

But , I do sympathise. It's so annoying that so much of Gundam isn't available in the west. Like I keep saying, if a little effort was made to promote it, i'm sure it could do big things. Alas, nobody seems inclined to try.

 

[teonzo]

You're not wrong there. In which case you can think of the change of attitude simply sending the message that Judau didn't need slapping into shape to be made into a man, unlike Amuro or Kamille. =D

Definetely, but some Bright slaps to Beecha and Mondo would have been fair.

Well I though Chara's raspy voice was fair sexy (as were her nymphomaniac / exhibitionist tendencies) but maybe that's just me...

This is just a matter of tastes, personally I don't like that kind of voices. The ideal voice for that character would have been the one of Haruhi (for my tastes, of course).

Regarding Ple's name: it is a difficult one because Elpeo Ple was apparently a reference to Japanese magazine "L-People", but the sound of the second syllable of the word "people" in English is really better represented by the word "pull" than creating a new nonsense word "ple" which is then pronounced as "pull"... Which the Japanese then can't even say because they have no L and can't seem to use its nearest approximation (an R sound) without a suffix of some kind! What all the characters actually call her phonetically (and she calls herself) is "Puru", which personally I'm a lot happier with than "Ple" as the English transcription of her name (most native English speakers would see that combination of letters and presume her name was meant to be pronounced "Plea" or "Pleh").

Thanks for the explanation, I'm totally ignorant about this stuff.

My legit way of watching ZZ was to download a fansub and buy the official Hong Kong DVDs (yes, such a thing does exist). I do really still intend to improve my knowledge of Japanese at some point, so hopefully one day I can enjoy watching them.

I bought what was described as "official Malaysian release", but I've been totally naive and got screwed. I didn't know about the existence of an official Hong Kong version, just looked on YesAsia but they are marked as OOP, plus they seem to not have English subs. Do you confirm about the lack of English subs? If so, I won't bother to try to track down that release.

Yes! DAMN those unprincipled theives!

I imagine you writing this while wearing a pirate hat and with a parrot on your shoulder. Please lie and confirm this.

But , I do sympathise. It's so annoying that so much of Gundam isn't available in the west. Like I keep saying, if a little effort was made to promote it, i'm sure it could do big things. Alas, nobody seems inclined to try.

You can blame us Italians for the lack of UC Gundam in western countries. Everything started when an Italian TV broadcasted 0079 without paying the copyrights (which was an idiot move, since in those years anime rights were really cheap) and butchering it (changing names and inventing dialogues). When Sunrise and Tomino discovered what happened they got really pissed off and became quite suspicious about the western market. If I'm right no other Gundam series was broacasted in western countries during the 80's due to that diplomatic incident. So it's just fault of those Italian managers that showed the worst side of our country.
Things could have changed if the recent re-release of 0079 were marketed properly. Unfortunately it wasn't so due to the Bandai mess that happened, so it doesn't seem that things will change, unfortunately. I'm curious to know how many copies it sold.
Here in Italy we got some good re-releases in the last years. 0079 got 2 nice boxsets with new dubs, now they are releasing the BDs of almost all the UC movies and Unicorn. But it's highly unlikely that Zeta will ever be released here: Mediaset, the network of mr B, bought the rights and dubbed it (total crap dub, but at least they did it), then aired some episodes and stopped without finishing the series; now Zeta lies in their warehouse, no chance for it to be broadcasted or released on DVD.
We just need to hope that one of the most fan oriented publishers, like Discotek or Madman, will have the courage (and money) to rescue these Gundam series. And maybe even Legend of the Galactic Herose and, why not, Future Boy Conan, since it never got an official English release and all the Miyazaki fans would be all over it.



Teo

 

[ayase]

Interesting stuff Teo. We tend to remain in the dark about what happens with anime in non-English speaking counties (apart from Japan, obviously). Shame you never got Zeta in Italy, but Gundam movie BDs are something I'd love to see released in English.

Well I though Chara's raspy voice was fair sexy (as were her nymphomaniac / exhibitionist tendencies) but maybe that's just me...

This is just a matter of tastes, personally I don't like that kind of voices. The ideal voice for that character would have been the one of Haruhi (for my tastes, of course).

Haruhi? Really? (Well we were discussing characters who need a Bright slap...) I can't picture that at all, but it's personal preference as you say. I may be somewhat warped as voices betraying higher levels of testosterone or several years of nicotine abuse will always sound better than girly voices to my ears.

My legit way of watching ZZ was to download a fansub and buy the official Hong Kong DVDs (yes, such a thing does exist). I do really still intend to improve my knowledge of Japanese at some point, so hopefully one day I can enjoy watching them.

I bought what was described as "official Malaysian release", but I've been totally naive and got screwed. I didn't know about the existence of an official Hong Kong version, just looked on YesAsia but they are marked as OOP, plus they seem to not have English subs. Do you confirm about the lack of English subs? If so, I won't bother to try to track down that release.

No English subs on the HK DVDs, correct. Extra Cantonese dub though!

 

[Vashdaman]

I may be somewhat warped as voices betraying higher levels of testosterone or several years of nicotine abuse will always sound better than girly voices to my ears.

You'd bloody love my voice then! lol, To be honest I'm not really sure exactly whether my voice sounds like a battered and rough, manly 'smoke wrecked' voice (I don't smoke, but did in my reckless youth) or an embarrassingly childishly sounding voice. I think it actually depends on who I'm talking to? Or maybe it just sounds like a 12 year old with a prematurely battered smoke wrecked voice?

Why did I even bother just typing that...

 

[ayase]

I may be somewhat warped as voices betraying higher levels of testosterone or several years of nicotine abuse will always sound better than girly voices to my ears.

You'd bloody love my voice then! lol, To be honest I'm not really sure exactly whether my voice sounds like a battered and rough, manly 'smoke wrecked' voice (I don't smoke, but did in my reckless youth) or an embarrassingly childishly sounding voice. I think it actually depends on who I'm talking to? Or maybe it just sounds like a 12 year old with a prematurely battered smoke wrecked voice?

Why did I even bother just typing that...

I... don't... know. More fantasy material for Rui though, trying to seduce me like that (I did mean women's voices by the way, just to clear up any confusion).

 

[teonzo]

Interesting stuff Teo. We tend to remain in the dark about what happens with anime in non-English speaking counties (apart from Japan, obviously). Shame you never got Zeta in Italy, but Gundam movie BDs are something I'd love to see released in English.

My problem is that I bought all the movies last year on DVD, so I'll wait a bit before double dipping. I'm not even sure I'll buy all of them. The 3 0079 movies are a must, even Char's Counterattack and F91 (I really liked that movie, the first 20 minutes are superb), but I think I'll never buy again the movies of 0083 and 8th MS Team.

Haruhi? Really? (Well we were discussing characters who need a Bright slap...) I can't picture that at all, but it's personal preference as you say. I may be somewhat warped as voices betraying higher levels of testosterone or several years of nicotine abuse will always sound better than girly voices to my ears.

Eh, as we wrote it's just a matter of tastes. I loved Haruhi's voice, I thought it was the perfect match for that crazy character.

No English subs on the HK DVDs, correct. Extra Cantonese dub though!

Thanks. I'll keep waiting (hoping) that ZZ will get a legit release with intelligible (for me) subs.


Since you liked ZZ for the parody factor, I suggest you to give a look to some episodes of the Time Bokan series. I've seen only Yattaman (or Yatterman) and Yattodetaman. These shows are pretty old and a bit repetitive (the usual episodic structure), but if you like parodies of mecha series then you'll have some good laughs. The Dorombo Gang is probably the best example (together with my avatar) of dumb villains in anime (with a strong accent on the word DUMB).



Teo

 

[ayase]

Since you liked ZZ for the parody factor, I suggest you to give a look to some episodes of the Time Bokan series. I've seen only Yattaman (or Yatterman) and Yattodetaman. These shows are pretty old and a bit repetitive (the usual episodic structure), but if you like parodies of mecha series then you'll have some good laughs. The Dorombo Gang is probably the best example (together with my avatar) of dumb villains in anime (with a strong accent on the word DUMB).

Thanks, I'll check it out sometime. I would like to see some more 70s anime; one thing I've never been able to find is a well subbed Mazinger Z - I downloaded what I presumed to be a fansub, but which turned out to be a rip of a bootleg with terrible subs like your ZZ DVDs:

 

[teonzo]

You'd bloody love my voice then! lol, To be honest I'm not really sure exactly whether my voice sounds like a battered and rough, manly 'smoke wrecked' voice (I don't smoke, but did in my reckless youth) or an embarrassingly childishly sounding voice. I think it actually depends on who I'm talking to? Or maybe it just sounds like a 12 year old with a prematurely battered smoke wrecked voice?

Ehm Vash, we were talking about this character:

I suppose you look a little different while you are not wearing your Versailles outfit.

Thanks, I'll check it out sometime. I would like to see some more 70s anime; one thing I've never been able to find is a well subbed Mazinger Z

I'd love to rewatch Mazinger Z, it was awesome. But last time it was aired here was in the 80's, and as far as I know there are no legit Italian DVDs (only a lot of bootlegs).

I downloaded what I presumed to be a fansub, but which turned out to be a rip of a bootleg with terrible subs like your ZZ DVDs:

Maybe they were referring to the Hover Pilder's airscrew:

I suppose you can beat some thousands eggs with that.



Teo

 

[Animefreak17]

I'm going to be blunt I want to get this out the way and it's dragonball and dragonball z and the dragonball/z movies was one hell of a ride it took me two bloody months or more to complete this series, from dragonball to z, I know I haven't watched gt yet and I know it's cheating not watching gt before finishing the hole series to make this but as we know the db and dbz series ( to true fans ) is the better series for so many reasons but I'l make a gt 10 of 10 review later, ok let's get started~

First off we know the dialog of the English version and it can be cheesy and some times they say the wrong things ( iv been watching it in subs) and in Japan this reframe from talking but In the English the keep talking.

I started with The movie bardock farther of goku in fact this is when goku first comes from (a superman back story) the movie wasn't bad but some of the dialog wasn't of that of a saiyan.

After that I watched dragon ball has a kid I only ever watched dbz and gt and the first time watchin it I did prefer it to gt, I think db was suppose to have been a gag anime cause that was how it felt like anyways for a series I think the tenshihan to the end of dragonball was my fav cause it gets down to the real fighting but there are a few scenes that I liked e.g. Jackie vs goku ( with Japanese On) cause the of the music during that fight and the RR saga where goku gose to there base ( in Japanese). Anyways I watch a few scenes in japanese where krillen is found dead * that scene was powerful * and I like the king piccolo saga too. But for the first half of the series it's all about the adventure of collecting the dragonballs, it's ok and all but my fav bits was the fighting and we can see how goku grew up from a boy to a adult and it fills in a lot of question when we watched dbz when it came to gokus childhood cause most of us watched dbz first and we didn't know there was a db at first and didn't know what they was talking about.

the series has aged really really bad but I bet at the time when dragonball came out it was all the rage back when it first came out but years later to me its not really all that great, I know it's the show before z and shows who goku is and what happened in his childhood and they do answer a load of question when we was watching dbz but on a hole Im not that much of a fan of db but I do prefer it to gt and that's saying a lot.

7.5/10

Dragonball z

This is the series that got me in to anime with it's kick ass action and it's bad ass music and that bad ass fights it was epic as a kid I really did enjoy, I even brought my first ps2 because I wanted to play the dbz budokai game, I was so hooked I went on the web sits I had loads of posters I had info of the show and what power levels they all had and models I was hooked like I was on pokemon at-the time I think thanks to bruce faulconer ( the guy who made most of the music for the English music for dragonball z and gt ) cause I font think dbz would be as famous as it was, the Japanese music wasn't as good as the English music but there were time where the music would do a 180 epic scene e.g. If you watch in Japanese when gohan turns ssj 2 for the first time it's awesome, anyways yeah the music dose kick ass in the engilsh music and sometimes the Japanese music. Now that iv watched it again it dosent hold up like it used to, don't get me wrong dbz if my child hood fav but after watching it again and watching it closely there are a few plot holes and it didn't have much of a story to it, all it has if just intense fighting everyone fights the bad guys then goku comes to save the day. but we do see how he gets stronger and stronger has the series progress.

My fav sagas are the namik saga, the buu saga and the freiza saga.
There are alot of fan who likes the cell saga but I don't, its because it has a really big problem * when trunk came to warn them about the dr gero and human said use the dragonball to find him and everyone said hey let's fight them instead of going with bulmas idea* also after the cell saga it 7 years later and they face buu but here's the thing what the hell happened to the buu in trunkes time. Anyways the cell saga isn't my fav cause they didn't use common sense to go with bulmas idea, but on the other hand if they didn't they would of been beaten by buu.

my fav person is android 17, I don't know why but for some reason I find him cool even tho you don't see him with the other z fighters after the cell saga ( he's alive at the end of the buu saga)

to be honest if it wasn't for vageta non of the villeins would have became stronger, have you noticed that-
Vageta was egging freiza on to transform
Vageta wanted to fight 17 and 18
Vageta allowed cell to absorb 18
Vageta became evil again and damaged goku and gave buu energy
And finally he freed fat buu from super buu which became kid buu.

It's all thanks to vageta that all these bad guys got so strong but also got everyone else stronger by training for these bad guys.

I hate bulma, youll know why if your a fan a the series lol

My fav fights is the
ginyu fight
Freiza fight
The buu fight * even tho the series gets goofy at this part of the series.

My fav movie is the

Broly the legendary super saiyan
And coolers revenge
And dead zone

I would of liked to watch the series if it had the sub was in dub but I like the English dub some times.

Anyways I rewatched it and it's not very exiting as it was back in the day, I loved the fights and music and animation But there little story but there is development, I has aged but iv seen a few new episodes of the series like the movie in the raging blast game but I think the other ones better, iv seen goku and his friends are back and the episode of bardock which kicked ass, dbz will always be my superman childhood series and I don't care what others say * dbz is a bad series it's crap ect* but I don't care it's still my fav and I won't be watching it anywhere close anytime soon cause I'm going to try and forget about it and if I do ( I hole I do ) I'l watch it again

I'l be watching gt after watching the last z movie.

9/10

 

[Vashdaman]

More fantasy material for Rui though, trying to seduce me like that

Well, I had to give it at least one shot *sigh*


Nice review AF. Though there is one glaring typo, but don't worry let me get that for you

90/10

There we go, sorted!

 

[Animefreak17]

More fantasy material for Rui though, trying to seduce me like that

Well, I had to give it at least one shot *sigh*


Nice review AF. Though there is one glaring typo, but don't worry let me get that for you

90/10

There we go, sorted!

It took me ages

 

[Vashdaman]

I could tell. It looks like your writing has improved a fair bit too (especially compared to when you first joined), so keep it up.

 

[sanji no 1]

Super Street Fighter 4 Juri OVA
6/10
Didn't really see the point of this tbh, apart from showing back story for Juri. The animation was decent for a Gonzo production and the fight scenes were interesting but overall they were nothing special. The biggest weak point was how damn short it was!

Probably one of the worst Street Fighter anime installments i've seen.

 

[Doraemon666]

Since you liked ZZ for the parody factor, I suggest you to give a look to some episodes of the Time Bokan series. I've seen only Yattaman (or Yatterman) and Yattodetaman. These shows are pretty old and a bit repetitive (the usual episodic structure), but if you like parodies of mecha series then you'll have some good laughs. The Dorombo Gang is probably the best example (together with my avatar) of dumb villains in anime (with a strong accent on the word DUMB).

Thanks, I'll check it out sometime. I would like to see some more 70s anime; one thing I've never been able to find is a well subbed Mazinger Z - I downloaded what I presumed to be a fansub, but which turned out to be a rip of a bootleg with terrible subs like your ZZ DVDs:

I have Mazinger Z on bootleg,3 boxsets contaning 12 dvds in total,the thing is the first boxset which has 31 episodes has really good subs,then all the episodes after that have the really bad subs,a fansub group did start subbing Mazinger Z last year and got to episode 5 but it seems they have given up the ghost as that was last march as far as i can remember and nothing has happened since,which is a real shame but it is a massive project to take on.

 

[alexrose1uk]

Watched a few different things these last few days.

Nisemonogatari (with my brother whilst he was back from Uni) 7/10

Not a bad show, and Kanbaru steals the show every time she appears, but fundamentally, I felt just wasn't as good as Bakemonogatari; the fact that a single plot arc which actually didnt feel that indepth got stretched over more than half the series didn't really help here.

That said visually its still an interesting if very 'Shaft' show, and if you enjoyed the first show it's nice to see a continuation and more of the characters, many of whom seem to have decided long hair is no longer in vogue (for shame!!).

It also seems quite unsure as to whether it actually ended on episode 11 or not! Certainly I felt the TV ending of Bakemonogatari was far stronger, even if that is influenced by me being a sap for romance subplots getting some closure etc.

As a show it also seemed to rely on mild fanservice a little bit too much, for no particular reason.

Kizumonogatari, given the subject matter, will hopefully be a little more fulfilling, as the relationship between Shinobu and Koyomi and its formation, and how Hanekawa ran into Koyomi are probably going to be of more interest to fans of the series and characters than the sisters whom are not really THAT interesting.

Redline - 8/10
Wacky races on some form of Japanese crack...that's all I can say about this one. The story and ending is a little mmmm, ok whatever, but visually it's stunning, especially for it's classic style that could almost be something out of a 60/70's comic book or graphics novel.

Definately worth a watch with a decent screen and surround sound if you get a chance. The level of bass activity this movie's soundtrack threw my subs way is almost unparallelled compared to almost anything else I've watched in recent memory, so I would perhaps avoid a late night watching with the sub turned up!


Musashi - Dream of the Last Samurai - 8/10
Not so much an anime or anime film as such, as more of a look at the life and what is known about the relatively famous Musashi, with some animated fight scenes and other scenes depicting some of what is described.

Interesting though, I've not seen many of this sort of film, and it's certainly an interesting way to try and spice up a documentary. It's not the most indepth documentary ever, but as something to watch in the evening as a bit of a change if you like history or Japanese culture, it's worth a watch

 

[sanji no 1]

Vampire Knight
6/10
A mate of mine let me borrow this. I dont useally watch anime like this, I useally watch Shonen or fighting/Action orientied shows, and even though i didnt think it was great, it was decent atleast.

I liked the overall gothic and dark tone. I thought it suited well with the theme of vampires. The first half was pretty good with Yuki finding out that Zero was a vampire.

Although the second half was VERY boring. I didnt see the point of Shizuka. She felt really forced taked on at the last minute. I didnt really like any of the characters eaither. They were so bland and had NO personality what so ever. I hated Yuki the most. She did nothing but talk about Zero and Kanemae. It should of focused on the other Night class memebers and there powers. That would of made the series ALOT better

The animation was pretty average. Nothing great but nothing terrible eaither.

Overall Not a terrible series, but an average one that could of been SO much better. A hit and miss show.