^ I'll probably look into reading it at some point. Right now I'm not in manga mode; I haven't touched any for awhile.
Tales of Phantasia: 6/10
Not having played the game, I felt no connection to a clearly rushed version of a seemingly simplistic story, full of plot holes.
If it's that easy to jump through time, why not do a Terminator and try to erase the point of origin? That'd be what a smart person would do. On the other hand, jumping to the future to fight the same person isn't what a smart person would do.
The hero is your standard white knight, the 'girlfriend' is a plain as can be white mage who can talk to trees and there's little to no character development. There's just nothing beyond the nice visuals and fast pacing to make anyone not in love with the game care.
Golden Boy: 8/10
As perverse and silly as Golden Boy is, it's also excellent entertainment. Boobs and laughs - what more does a guy need to be happy? This OVA is close to being the ultimate anime for men looking for a fun ride. Time flew by as I watched the lead try to get close to different (and often very attractive) ladies, with humourous results. Being the perv I am, my favourite episode has to be the second; the one where the school girl teases the 'poor' lead.
I'm kind of glad it ended where it did, though. From what I've seen, the manga turns into a full-on hentai, with sex and all after the opening volume. And, from what I've read, it becomes disgusting, with bondage and piss drinking replacing the early comedy.
Hitsuji no Uta: 4-4.5/10
I'm rather fond of Lament of the Lamb; the original manga. Though the art is sketchy, it managed to convey the beauty of Chizuna, and it looked very nice. And, despite the sloooow pacing, I found the first four or five volumes to be absorbing; pulling me into its depressing world and making me see the world from the viewpoint of its hopeless characters. Before the final few volumes, I actually rated it 9/10, and I managed to read the first four or so volumes in one sitting; staying up to like 6 AM.
If only the OVA had been anywhere near as good...
The first thing wrong with this OVA is that it had no budget. It has to the cheapest anime production I've seen yet. Often, there wasn't even any animation for mouth movement, let alone anything else, and scenes just shown were often re-used straight away after. Not even the art looked nice, it having lost all the beauty of the manga, and Yageshi(sp?) appeared to have a head bigger than her other body parts, as if she was deformed.
I'm not joking when I say there are around two music tracks included, one sounding more like a combination of sound effects. It was made THAT cheaply.
To top it off, some of my favourite lines from the manga got cut. Kazuna never had a conversation about why he dreamed about biting the neck of his friend and how lust/love and violence are connected, and he never called Chizuna a "twisted woman" like in the manga. Also, the argument with his aunt was simplified.
So, in the end, even though it only lasted four episodes, it looked far worse than 100+ shounen titles. And, even though the needless content included in the manga got cut, too much of the good earlier dialogue got cut along with it. A very, very poor effort - so poor I'm unsure why it was even made.
Kikoushi Enma: 7/10
Lots of death, lots of blood (including demons 'exiting' from
down there), some fan service, high production values and enough comedy to stop it ever being truly depressing. There's undeniably a lot of good contained within this fairly recent OVA offering.
The problem? There's little to no plot. Demons exploit the weakness of the human heart, using their dark side to possess them... which isn't very original. And, similar to in Kara no Kyoukai, there's a group of supernatural hunters that hunt the demons... That's pretty much all the story you're going to get, and there's no character development for Enma, none for Yuki and very little for the kappa.
But I was ok with that. The first two episodes had entertaining and twisted standalone stories, involving a father craving the body of his daughter and a 'doll' carrying out the dark desires of a depressed woman. I was really into it at that point....
...however, then came the final episodes. Random people, with no connection to each other, got trapped in a building with no exits, and one by one they were killed until only one remained. If that description sounds familar, it's because episodes three and four are a lot like Saw 2. There's some rather average CG used for zooming around corridors and supernatural goings on, but it's hard not to think of Saw 2 whilst watching. The main negative of these episodes are that they're slow and not as enjoyable as the first two. And, disappointingly, there's no real ending, with the ending to the final story not even making any sense.
It was fun to watch but it's difficult to recommend to anyone looking for depth.
Black Jack: The Movie - 5-5.5/10
I think the low-star Amazon ratings sum up my feelings for this film, so I'm not going to go on.
In short, the movie is like watching the worst of the OVA stretched to 90 minutes. It's incredibly dull, with no characters to relate to and only a silly story about super humans there to keep people interested. It even looks and sounds like the OVA; not movie quality at all.
I recommend people avoid this and watch the OVA instead.
Porco Rosso: 7-7.5/10
A movie about a flying pig, with a very simple and straight-forward story about bounty hunting and piracy. It's a trademark Miyazaki film, where pirates actually listen to attractive ladies when they have them surrounded on deserted islands; not thinking about anything naughty.
The film was ok. Not amazing, not bad and not quite average. 7.5/10 pretty much sums it up. There wasn't much in the way of plot, or character development (why did the lead turn into a pig!?), but the interactions between the characters, namely the pig and his younger sidekick, kept it interesting. The last setion was fun to watch, with a plane duel and a mini-boxing match.
Pom Poko: 6-6.5/10
Pom Poko is a film with a strong message and a hell of a lot of worthless content. The ending, where time was re-winded to show how the newly developed city looked before it'd been built, was powerful... but what came before wasn't.
For one thing, it was hard to take it seriously when raccoons were shown wearing clothes, using magic and attacking humans by blowing up their testicles and bombing them. Add onto that lack of realism a huge amount of buffer, which was required to extend the film to a needlessly lengthy two hours, and you have something of a failure. Worsening the problem, the story wasn't told from the viewpoint of any one character, making it hard to care about anything.
+1 for the message, -1 for the actual film
La Maison en Petits Cubes: 7.5-8/10
A 12 minute film, with no voice acting and unique art. It was a surprisingly enjoyable watch.
As you'd expect, nothing about the water-world setting was explained, but that didn't really damage it. As the old man went lower and lower, going down through the building he'd kept building on top of to survive, reliving old memories as he progressed further, it moved me. No words were said; all the director needed was pictures to tell his story, and he managed to express himself well.
...Still, the scenes from the old man's memory were hardly original, and there's only so much a 12 minute story can offer. I don't see what's so stunning about it, but I did like it.
I'd want to beat Hikaru with a dildo if he messed Minmay around for longer, still ending up still making the wrong choice to top it off. I doubt it'd be worth enduring the art for an ending like that...