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Soul Eater 1-5
All these years, the intro sequence in Soul Eater has stayed with me: dark, narrow cobbled alleyways, with a freaky-stylish Halloween aesthetic (which kinda reminds me of KH Halloween Town/Nightmare Before Xmas), as an overly large moon sits psychotically smirking in the sky. A monster with claws is busily hunting/murdering women, before the heroine wielding a scythe appears. What follows is sakuga animation as blows are deflected via twirling her scythe, culminating in 'Jack the Ripper' being killed with a mid-air slash from atop stairs. Bones were pretty awesome, back in the day, as 2D animation during the digi-era goes~

The whole show, budget and execution, could never live up to that beginning. The first trio of eps are nonetheless memorable as each introduces a different lead character: the scythe-wielding Maka, Black Star (a Narutarded ninja-wannabe not in orange), and Death the Kid armed with his unsymmetrical, transforming twin handgun waifus. I had long since forgotten how during the FMA era that shounen comedy was so... spazzy-chibi. It cannae go a minute without pulling meeee out with its silliness and watching now, as a grumpy old(er) sod, 'tis irritating. Unlike FMA, Soul Eater doesn't have the depth to balance out Armstrong's muscles as Maka's dad imitates Maes Hughes' daughtering non-stop.
Not sure I'll carry on. Already been a week since^. 5/50 revisited might be my genkai. On the plus side, it deffo isn't a 480p BD upscale. Looks more native 720p. Yay?

Cyberpunk 1-7: I like Dave. Ep6 is one of the best anime eps in decades: high budget mind-break as Maine loses it, ending with death metal(?) trauma. Shame the rest of the series oft looks cheap/less detailed in comparison.

Angel's Egg: A girl, her egg, and wannabe Jesus carrying his cross. I have no idea--it numbed my brain during the non-dialogue portion. 'Tis pretty, though... in a static, lingering-way-too-long shot celporn kinda way.
 
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Lonely Castle in the Mirror (dub)
Kokoro, a hikikomori girl is sucked through her mirror to a lonely castle! Wait there's more! Waiting for her is a young girl in a wolf mask who introduces her to 6 other children roughly the same age as Kokoro. The Wolf Queen, as she calls herself, then tells them that hidden in the castle is a key to a room where one of them will be granted a wish. They can come and go as they wish, solve the puzzle or not, but only have just under a year to do so. The only rule being that the castle is only open between certain hours and if they break that rule there life will be forfeit!
The opening hour or so is very slow as we get to know the group as they gradually open up to one another, but gets more interesting as more and more revelations are made and the ending is quite a tearjerker. It's one of those things that seems quite clever as you're watching, but on reflection plot holes emerge and from reading comments on MAL seems plenty had to be cut to fit it into film format even a 2 hour one, so reading the LN or Manga seems to be recommended.
The art was alright and the animation OK, but some of it seemed a bit stiff.
Still, I enjoyed it overall.
7/10
 
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