A different kind of magical series.

Spring is usually by far the biggest season of the year for sheer number of releases, usually of the highest quality as well. Unfortunately, I can’t really remember it as anything more than average at best. Maybe it was the general feeling that something had utterly lost its way and would never come back feeling of this season. I’m probably just imagining that though. It was probably a good season on reflection.

Today’s look back begins with Bus Gamer. Seemingly a three-part OVA which was supposed to a larger TV series that never happened. The premise behind this is major corporations recruit groups of three people off the street to participate in a series of street brawls. This was pretty flawed as who would include a group of 3 random people when it would better just to pay and train 3 great fighters at a much lower cost with respect to the prize. There was never more than 2.5 episodes of content in this anyway.

Next is another OVA in School Days ~Magical Heart Kokoro-chan~. The trailer for this was already special, using a Beretta as a weapon in a magical girl sense would be unique, but the actual OVA consisted entirely of self-parody. At least in one episode it can pull this off and still be entertaining to watch, though in typical fashion it has more to do with shock value than actual content.

There was also the To Heart 2 AD OVA. Like the first OVA series, it is largely single character dumps structured around some sort of slice-of-life background. Only two episodes here, and I’m having a problem remembering anything of note from either episode. Perhaps, that’s the biggest problem here.

My single-night marathon session of Chi’s Sweet Home took place before the birth of Lower Mid-Table, though that might be a good thing. As a children’s show it is at a high level, though I couldn’t resist drinking a lot as I watched. There’s not much of a story until the latter sections, where Chi befriends a larger cat, but it is mostly just Chi doing inane things around her owner’s apartment. Unfortunately, I can remember the pet shop employee having the most annoying voice I had heard in ages.

Kure-nai is a completely different animal to those four. It’s the story of a teenage body guard, who has to put up with the annoyances of his daily life, while worrying about taking care of the daughter of a rich family. This was probably one of the few shows this decade where I could tell that there was a fun on the production side, after all the musical episode was one of my favorites from last year. The story was a little cliche for my taste, but it was an entertaining watch.

To-LOVE-Ru is probably more interesting for the arguments that come from pronouncing it than the actual content. Week after week, I kept coming back to this hoping for anything encouraging at all. It never came, though it did pull off the feat of making everything else seem like a masterpiece in comparison. However, my opinion seems to contrast with the intended audience, so what can I say?

Kanokon would seem like a similar show at first, at least the fanservice in every shot makeup of the thing. However, Kanokon seems to be comfortable knowing exactly what it is and doesn’t do anything more that it should. It’s basically the story of a boy and the fox deity girl in the same school who likes him and would ravage him at the first opportunity. There’s nothing much more than that as the time and place change along with the introduction of a rival. Part of me hates to say this, but this might actually be the model to follow when it comes to modern ecchi-fest series.

Finally I wrap up with one of my favorites of the decade in Kaiba. I went into this with pitifully low expectations about 3 months after this finished mainly because the character designs would not look out of place in the early 1960s. That was easy to forget in the vivid worlds that seem to exist in the dystopian universe of the series. It’s pretty much a classic science fiction tale which questions the meaning of physical existence in a world where bodies and memories are freely changed and exchanged. It takes a bit of effort to get into this, but it’s something I would recommend to a lot of people.

Highlights from Unseen or Unfinished Items

The second season of xxxHOLiC seems to have a comically high average rating. It can’t be that good can it? I haven’t seen the first season either. Macross Frontier and Code Geass R2 brought established reputations to the table going in. Why haven’t I finished either and why do they seem to mark some sort of end to heavy real robot action? Itazura na Kiss looks like a pretty typical shoujo story, but highly rated nonetheless. I could probably say the same thing about Special A. Vampire Knight and Soul Eater are also highly rated. Junjou Romantica seems to be the one shounen ai series that is popular and good. Golgo 13 resurrected the classic series and the episodic action format worked in what little I saw of it.

Image via Wikipedia

The January issue of Kadokawa Shoten’s Newtype magazine is revealing on Thursday that an anime adaptation of Tomihiko’s Yojō-Han Shinwa Taikei novels has been green-lit for an April premiere on Fuji TV’s popular late-night Noitamina timeslot. Masaaki Yuasa (Kaiba, Mind Game, Kemonozume) will direct the overall series, while Makoto Ueda (Summer Time Machine Blues, Fujiko F. Fujio’s Parallel Space) will write and supervise the series’ scripts. MADHOUSE is producing the anime with character designs originally created by Yūsuke Nakamura.

The 2005 novel follows a nameless protagonist who is a third-year college student. The protagnoist looks back at the earlier years of his college life and his adventures with a particular circle (club).

[Via 2channel] (Source: ANN)

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Bamboo Blade

One of the great resources in anime fandom of late has been this guy. His charts have become almost indispensable when trying to figure out what to watch in the upcoming anime seasons. Recently, he’s started to compile these charts for previous years and the information that can be gleaned from these charts are extremely interesting and a real eye opener.

Last year, 2008, was the first year of this blog and as a result I watched many shows I probably won’t have otherwise and tried to make sure that I discovered all the “good” anime of a season so I could help other people discover these anime shows. So one of the first things I wanted to figure out was how much of the 2008 anime did I watch in the end.

Percentage of Shows Watched

This is the chart in question that I’m using; you can find it and more here. It lists 130 total anime shows that begun airing in 2008 and looking over these shows I realize there is a handful of shows that are aimed at very young viewers and these shows are never fansubbed, talked about, or licensed so the first step I’m going to do is remove these shows from consideration. I then tabulated how many shows I’ve watched, dropped and completed and I’ll summarize them here.

• 114 total shows (19 from Winter 07/08, 34 from Spring 08, 21 from Summer 08, 37 from Fall 08, 3 from Winter 08/09)
• 50 shows watched (5, 15, 9, 18, 3)
• 19 shows dropped (0, 9, 3, 5, 2)
• 31 shows completed (5, 6, 6, 13, 1)

I should note that the Winter 07/08 season was a season that I essentially took off. I needed the break and the only new show I watched that season while it was airing was Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei s.2. Yes, It is strange that I decided to start a blog during a season I wasn’t actively watching but that just how I like to do things. Because of this, the only shows I watched from this season where ones that I really wanted to see at a later time. This skews some of the results I’ll highlight below.

• Overall watched percentage by season – 26.3% of Winter 07/08, 44.1% of Spring 08, 42.9% of Summer 08, 48.7% of Autumn 08, 100% of Winter 08/09
• Overall watched percentage of 2008 – 43.8%
• Percentage of watched shows that were dropped by season – 0.0%, 60.0%, 33.3%, 28.8%, 66.7%)
• Percentage of watched shows that were dropped in 2008 – 38.0%

While going over the list of shows, I’ve noted that there were a few shows that I still have some interest in catching and could see myself watching at some point in the future, time willing.

• Possible unwatched shows that may be watched in the future by season – 2 from Winter 07/08, 2 from Spring 08, 0 from Summer 08, 4 from Fall 08, 0 from Winter 08/09
• Total unwatched but still interested in shows for 2008 – 8
• 2008 Total of shows watched and possible shows watched in the future – 58 or 50.9% of all 2008 anime shows

This leaves 49.1% of the entire 2008 year of shows as shows that I have not watched nor am I interested in doing so. Just looking at the raw number, it seems like I’m leaving a huge percentage of shows unwatched but looking over the shows the I’ve missed – I don’t think I’m missing much. I wonder how this compares to other anime fans.

Soul Eater

Excellent Shows and Strong Seasons

Next, I compiled a list of shows that I consider being the best of 2008 – the titles that I would recommend to other people and would be worthy series to own on DVDs, if possible. I was curious to see how these shows were distributed and if the general thinking about the spring and fall seasons being the strong seasons seemed justified.

• Excellent shows from Winter 07/08 – Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei S.2 and Spice & Wolf – (2)
• Excellent shows from Spring 08 – Wagaya no Oinarisama, Library Wars, Kaiba, Soul Eater, Kurenai (5)
• Excellent shows from Summer 08 – Natsume Yuujin-chou, Birdy the Mighty Decode, Somedays Dreamer’s S.2, Ryouko’s Case Files (4)
• Excellent shows from Fall 08 – Toradora, Clannad S.2, Shikabane Hime:Aka, Ga-Rei:Zero, Mouryou Hako, Kurozuka, Michiko to Hatchin (7)
• Excellents shows from 2008 – 18

Looking at the pure number totals, it appears that the fall season was the strongest season and that’s definitely on way to look at it but I wanted to see it from another perspective.

• Percentage of overall shows that were excellent by season – 10.5% of Winter 07/08, 14.7% of Spring 08, 19.1% of Summer 08, 18.9% of Autumn 08, 0% of Winter 08/09
• Percentage of overall shows that were excellent for 2008 – 15.8%
• Percentage of watched shows that were excellent by season – 40.0%, 33.3%, 44.4%, 38.9%, 0.0%
• Percentage of watched shows that were excellent for 2008 – 36.0%

Looking at the number of excellent shows in the context of the rest of the season shows, it turns out that the Summer season squeaks in front of the fall season as having the highest percentage of excellent shows. If the saying about how only 10% of anything is worth fighting for and the rest is garbage then one can’t complain about the quality of anime from 2008 since it beat that by a bit.

Kaiba

Why It’s Hard To Be a Fan of Anime Without Resorting to Fansubs

I want to say up front that I’m not writing this to defend fansubs per se nor am I trying to pick a fight – it’s been my observation for a while that oftentimes when an anime is announced as being licensed, I’m disappointed because it’s not one that I felt deserved to get licensed and I want to see if this observation is backed up by the data.

The first thing that needed done was to compile a list of what shows where licensed from 2008. I started with the list that animesuki keeps of shows that are licensed and thus they no longer list and then I checked out the various licensing articles from anime news network and finally I checked crunchyroll. I might have missed a couple but they won’t be enough to change the conclusions that I discovered. Onto some data.

• Total number of anime shows licensed from 2008 – 32
• Total number of licensed shows that I watched from 2008 – 13
• Total number of licensed shows that I completed from 2008 – 9
• Total number of licensed shows that I consider excellent shows from 2008 – 5
• Total number of excellent licensed shows that will come out on DVD – 3
• Total number of excellent licensed shows that will be dubbed on DVD – 2

I’ll note here that of the 19 licensed shows that I have not watched, none are on my list of shows that I might be interested in watching so those figures are final. Without running the exact numbers it’s pretty apparent what can be concluded but let’s run the numbers for completeness sake.

• Percentage of total anime shows that were licensed from 2008 – 28.1%
• Percentage of total anime shows that were not licensed from 2008 – 71.9%
• Percentage of licensed shows that I watched – 40.6%
• Percentage of licensed shows that I completed – 28.1%
• Percentage of licensed shows that I consider excellent – 15.6%
• Percentage of excellent licensed shows that will be released on DVD – 9.4%
• Percentage of excellent licensed shows that will be dubbed and released on DVD – 6.25%

The one glaring conclusion that I have to conclude is that the “anime fan” that the North American companies are going after is not me. If they were, I’d expect to see almost all of my excellent shows as having been licensed. (Afterall they should be picking the best titles to maximize the number of DVDs bought.) That’s not the case, though, and looking over the shows that did get licensed I find a lot of shounen/fighting shows, fan-service shows, and shoujo shows. I can’t help but feel that one of the results of a licensing pattern like this is that once an anime fan has been sated with enough shounen, fan-service, and/or shoujo shows that these fans discover they are no longer anime fans because anime has become either too childish or repetitive.

The reason I took the category down to excellent licensed shows that will dubbed and put on DVD even when I’m not the biggest dub fan is because there’s a segment of anime fandom that are people who like anime but don’t want to read subtitles and also want to watch on a TV. My one sister is like this and in the end she buys almost exclusively manga because she can find so little anime that interests her. When I was starting up my blog she told me that she’d read my site to find shows to buy but she quickly realized that this was not possible. I don’t blame her, of all the shows that I’ve watched and blogged about in 2008 there is a total of two shows – Soul Eater and Spice & Wolf that I could possibly recommend to her to buy and I don’t think she’d like Soul Eater. That leaves Spice & Wolf as the only anime out of the 114 anime that started airing in Japan during 2008 that I could recommend her to buy.

I feel like I should repeat that; for the entire 2008 year of anime, there is only one anime that I could recommend to my sister as being good enough that it’s worth buying on DVD. And these companies complain about the fans – maybe it’s not the fan’s fault.

I realize that 2009 saw a large increase of shows getting quasi-licensed on crunchyroll so by now it’s possible that my title about having to almost having to resort to fansubs may not hold as much water but I’ll leave that to a follow-up article in the future to see how the numbers work out. I want to hold off for a while to see how many of the 2009 shows get physically licensed and which ones will get dubs. Also left for a later article is my thoughts on how exactly to get the North American anime scene going in the right direction; here’s a hint, I don’t think there will be many people who will become fans of anime from having crunchyroll stream subtitled anime.

-
As an aside, if you happen to be looking to buy a good anime series on DVD (maybe for a Christmas present) and want a quality show that will get rewatched more than once, let me point out that Bamboo Blade is coming out soon. And there’s Spice & Wolf as well but it’s coming out the week of Christmas.

A photograph of a typical Blrnax, with Hal, and an Aloe Plant. Hal belongs to Masaaki Yuasa and appears in Kaiba

Well you know how this works by now!  Another 5 reviews after the cut – Hayate no Gotoku, Kaiba, BLAME, Hitsuji no Uta and Alien 9.

Hayate no Gotoku (Hayate the Combat Butler): Filled with parody driven comedic goodness – 4.5/5
PLOT: The show is quite episodic and fairly random – but not in a plotless way which is an added bonus to me since I’m not a fan of plotless comedy. Lots and lots of references to various anime are scattered throughout the show, as Nagi is a huge Otaku. Its quite a character driven show (necessary with the lack of a linear plot) with a large cast and each are likeable and memorable in their own right……..and there is a talking tiger and the narrator is Norio Wakamoto……what more could you ask for!?

ANIMATION: The animation quality was of a decent standard throughout – nice character designs too and I really liked the eyecatches. As you would expect from a comedy series there is extensive use of chibi’s, exaggerated facial expressions, bishie sparkles, unexplained showers of flower petals / lightening and comedy violence. It’s nicely put together.

MUSIC & VOICE ACTING: I remember quite liking the OPs and EDs – and was always entertained by the characters plugging their character songs at the end of the show! Voice acting was what really sold the show to me though – its excellent with Rie Kugimiya well within her comfort zone as Nagi, the delightful OTT-ness of Norio Wakamoto as the Narrator and Rie Tanaka as Maria the perfect (17-yr old) maid. The rest of the cast is just as high quality and sound like they are having fun with their roles.

Overall its an entertaining show and manages to be consistently good over its entire 52 episodes, quite an achievement for a pure comedy series…..there is a sequel currently airing, but for me its not providing the same laughs that this 1st season gave me – although more Hinagiku and less Nagi was a good move!

Kaiba: Weird, experimental yet strangely compelling – it gets 4/5

PLOT: Highly original plot and setting for this anime. It’s all about the concept of memories and what constitutes an individual. In the world of Kaiba memories can be stored on chips and an individual can implant these memory chips in any body they so wish – this leads to quite a bit of body swapping over the course of the series which was quite an interesting plot thread. Kaiba isn’t afraid to address quite adult themes and complex ethical issues – it’s a very interesting if unusual anime. Of course at its core its a mystery anime – lots of flashbacks and convoluted plotlines that don’t all get resolved at the end as we try to determine who the main character actually is. The ending is actually very chaotic and I’m not entirely sure if I know what happened! The show had quite a slow start while it was introducing the world and letting the viewer get used to the setting, these early episodes were very episodic and hit or miss for me. However once we got to the middle section and got to main meat of the plot the show became quite interesting indeed. Very good storytelling in this anime.

ANIMATION: Hmmm I still think my 6-year-old cousin could produce better character designs. I wasn’t all that fond of the very abstract animation in this show – however the lack of structure worked well for the concept – the world is just as fluid and changeable as peoples memories and bodies. Regardless I found it difficult to reconcile the weird childish style and the quite mature, complex subject matter and this hindered my enjoyment quite a bit. Still I appreciate that the creators where attempting to present something new and original.

MUSIC & VOICE ACTING: I really liked the OP & ED, both are quite melancholy ballads and fit well with the general tone of the show. The background score was also quite fitting throughout. Great voice cast as well – made it easier to sympathise with characters that sometimes looked like large multicoloured blobs

Overall an interesting show but fairly difficult to review. It was hard to get into at the beginning but well worth sticking with for its originality and engaging subject matter.

BLAME!: Weird, stylish but I’m not entirely sure what it was all about! – 3.5/5

No point in breaking down my review into sections like I usually do as BLAME! is almost as abstract as Cat Soup, but no where near as trippy. Instead it reminds me of the more convoluted parts of The Matrix and the Pale Cocoon OVA. Setting is a post-apocalyptic, cyber-punk world inhabited by androids and clones – humans are scarce, in fact the only human we actually see is the main character Kally. The structure is 6 shorts, which are basically snapshots of different parts of the timeline – its quite disjointed; there is no linear plot line.

These shorts are all about visuals and sound, dialogue is at a very bare minimum so the animation and soundscape tells most of the story. The animation is good, lots of black with striking use of bright neon colour highlights – character designs are quite generic though – however quite liked the giant baby-head machine thingys! Music is atmospheric, but a bit heavy in places.

Overall twas an interesting if abstract piece, but hey it only took 30mins to watch it all!

Hitsuji no Uta (Song of the Sheep / Lament of the Lamb): A slow paced, unusual vampire themed OVA – 4/5 .

PLOT: A very interesting premise, quite similar to Tsukihime in a number of ways but with the action element stripped away. Hitsuji no Uta is at its core a character study of the two central siblings and the way they cope with the vampiric illness the Takashiro family is cursed with. The pace is extremely slow but tense, with long pauses and meandering dialogue as it tracks Kazuna and Chizuna’s slow degeneration and their attempt to alienate their loved ones to spare them pain. Its quite touching, but the slow pace may be off putting to some – also the end felt rushed. Another episode would have been required to gain closure and I also would have liked more character development in order to give the end some more emotional impact. However these are minor faults and in 4 episodes this OVA managed to deliver angst and drama in buckets.

ANIMATION: I don’t think there was much of a budget for this anime, but they’ve really done well with what they had. The colours used are dull, almost monochrome – like all the colour has been leeched out from Kazuna’s world except for blood red – the brightest colour on display and it makes for a striking contract to the other pale colours. There are a lot of long static shots with wordy monologues too. The character designs aren’t the best in the world either as they’re rather plain.

MUSIC & VOICE ACTING: The music is very atmospheric enhancing the melancholic feeling, which permeates the entire anime. I also loved the song at the end of each episode and felt it fit perfectly with the feeling this anime leaves you with. The voice acting is great, the seiyuu do a great job of bringing their character’s emotions across. Kazuna’s confusion and despair, Chizuna’s quiet acceptance and tiredness are all clearly felt.

Overall a great vampire OVA – it does have faults which is why I haven’t given it 5/5, but an interesting watch nonetheless.

Alien 9: Quite an interesting and dark series, but has a very annoying lead and pacing issues – 3/5

PLOT: I wasn’t overly impressed by the premise and found the characters irritating – especially Yuri who did not stop yapping for the entire flipping series! But I really liked the atmosphere of this show. It immediately put me in mind of Boogiepop Phantom and the better parts of Narutaru, as Alien 9 can be extremely dark and disturbing at times. At other times I was bored out of my mind (the duration of ep 3 had this effect on me). Its a mixed bag which isn’t really a good thing considering this was only 4 eps – it felt a lot longer due to the tedious pacing. Again I was strongly reminded of Narutaru, which was unfortunately not a good thing. The last ep was strange, disturbing and it felt like nothing was resolved – which further added to my annoyance with this OVA.

ANIMATION: The animation is good as expected from JC Staff – not a fan of the character designs, but I liked the contrast between the cute little girls and the creepy ugly alien designs. The action sequences are smooth and well choreographed, with innovative use of the borg’s abilities.

MUSIC & VOICE ACTING: The OP & ED are not the best – I skipped over them after the 1st listen, but the background music is excellent at creating a good, tense atmosphere. Voice acting was unremarkable throughout.

Overall I wasn’t overly impressed by Alien 9 – granted it was nothing like I was expecting. I was fully bracing myself for a manic, comedic action series when I read the summary – it delivered something unexpected and dark. I would have scored it higher if the pacing was better, there was actual plot resolution and if  the characters more likeable :S

Another five down – god knows how many I have left!

well, this is one of the best ever shows i’ve seen. it is very engaging and the art style is gorgeous. there are a lot of things they go into in this series and it makes you think. it a great science fiction piece that show cases a lot of stuff.. i watched it a long time ago and now i miss it!!! 

it only has 12 episodes and i am in love with the opening song the show has: it’s called Never by Seira Kagami. freakin’ beautiful song. hhaaaaahhhh, i miss the show… right now i am scouting for a site to watch it from… =)

the show is intriguing from the very start. we have a younga man who seems to have lost his memories and as we watch on, he meets other people who are important in helping him find his identity. 

i absolutely love this anime series!

Tak jo, slibovany anime je tu. Jedná se o Kaibu, po grafický stránce jedno z nejzajmavějších videí, co jsem po dlouhy dobe videl. Rozhod sem se, ze nebudu vkladat vsechny videa.. pznka: da se to prehrat jen v tom malym okynku, po najeti mysi na odkaz..

Maxïmo Park jsem uz tu ukazoval, ale nasel jsem jednu vazne peknou pisnicku – Acrobat. Nic novyho, ale rytmus, vybrnkávani a vemlouvavy hlas na pozdi, pomalu odrikavajici slova.. pekny. a neni to official video, takze je to jen sestrihany z koncertu, kvalita zvuku ovsem uchazejici.

Dalsi objev MS – Bodies of Water. Pekna muzika, prijemna zmena od tech mladejch kytarovek.. hezky, zneklidnujici, zajmavy.

Kdyz sem prvne objevil openyourarms blog, byl jsem z toho mnozstvi muziky az skleslej.. tohle je jeden z tech, co jsem si vybral – MADENSUYU. Ja je radim do podobny skupiny jako Dianogah atd.. nekde jsem rikal Math-rock.. no proc ne.. Tohle je dobra muzika na praci, zadnej/minimalni zpev, nesourody melodie, rozervany rytmy.. da se:)

Jo a jeste neco: Graham Coxon – clen Blur (ten brejlatej vlevo nahore, aspon myslim). Tohle je jedna z rychlejsich veci.

A posledni je dneska netradicne reklama – ty Nike vzdycky delal paradni. USP? zapomente.. Nike umi zdimat emoce a vyplati se to.

P.S. zabrouzdal jsem na MNE – tady maj sjetej seznam TOP 100 alb indie rokovejch kapel z Amazonu. (v 1. dvanactce: Guided by voices, Pavement, Pixies, Sebadoh, Sonic Youth..). Nejak jim tam chybi vyznacny anglicky kapely – rozlobeny komentare si muzete precist v nekonecnejch komentarich, a o poradi se jiste muzou vest lity diskuze.. nicmene pro cloveka, kterej hleda furt novou muziku, je to minimalne poucny.. stastny lov:)

dobrou,

HE

I mentioned the ARC Awards previously and how they are a great place to go to pick up some suggestions for anime to watch.

Well, they just recently released the 2008 Anime Reactor Community Awards.

Here is a quick rundown on some of the winners:

• Best Overall, Best Story, Best Sci-Fi: Kaiba
• Best Romance, Best Drama, Best Slice-of-Life: Clannad
• Best Adventure/Fantasy: Ookami to Koushinryou (Spice and Wolf)

There are some others listed at the site as well as Jury picks – so go check a few of them out if you are interested.

I will say that Kaiba is completely original in its story telling and animation style – so original it may be a bit awkward for some people. If you are confused while watching it – just keep watching, it works itself out.

Also, if you’ve been following me on Twitter or Facebook you may have seen me mention an anime that was really excellent – that one would be Clannad and its second season Clannad ~After Story~. I highly recommend it as a drama/romance/comedy/fantasy/slice-of-life style story.

If you have any recommendations or comments about the ARC Award winners, shout ‘em out in the comments!

Probably the most underestimated anime against the big giants Shonen Jump animes is Kaiba. Maybe this anime doesn’t have the virtue of a good graphic for an excellent anime. However, don’t judge the book by its cover, this anime offers you a strong plot and reality theme with esoteric visualization.

Set in a future world where clone and memory transfer is available, the world has collapse into 2 parts which is separated by clouds. This cloud was made to secure the upper world who lives in luxury. Any people in the bottom part who tries to get passed to the upper world will be brainwashed and forgot all his memory.

The bottom part of the world is  filled with unfortunate people who lives in a slum. The first episode is started with a scene of a kid in a some kind of a void room. He seems to not remember who he was. All he know that he has a pendant containing a picture of a girl and a hole in the middle of his body.

The scene continue to go on as our main hero adventures to find who he is. This anime is very splendid in constructing the story plot. A lot of reality issues such as cloning and memory modification are wrapped up in an interesting yet esoteric way. However, this anime is not for you who are searching for a lite watching. Believe me, most of the episodes will be very very depressing and deep. It is good for a deep thinking watching.

Rating Factor: (Genre — Slice of Life, Esoteric Visual)
Graphics : 3/10.0
Story : 9.5/10.0
Music/OST : 8.5/10.0

Episode List – Status Completed

“What are memories? Souls? Spirits? This is a world where memories can be turned into data and stored. Even if the body dies, its memories live on, and can be transferred to another body. Bad memories can be erased, and good ones downloaded. However, this is something only the privileged can do. In a world like this, our protagonist, Kaiba, is travelling in another body with no memories of his own.”

Kaiba is a 12 episode series that came out in Japan spring last year, from Masaaki Yuasa (MindGame, Cat Soup) and Madhouse, which won the Excellence Prize for animation 2008. After the first 3 episodes, I can see why. Aside from the fact it’s like someone mashed together 50’s Japanese animation, the Yellow Submarine film and Richard Morgan’s harsh, ubernoir cyberpunk novel Altered Carbon (and its sequels), it’s a unique and surreal show brimming with emotion as well as a surprising amount of intelligence. And can’t wait to see more.

Before I carry on, I should say: If you are into surreal psychological SF, or interesting retro animation styles, go and watch the first three episodes of this now. I’m going to be giving some spoilers in this review and I think this is one of those shows best watched without knowing too much. A word of warning though, Kaiba is not a children’s show, despite the cute and cartoony character designs.

After seeing how much acclaim Kaiba had been getting, I took a look at the opening episodes and was completely sold. The story drops us in the middle of a surreal, colourful dystopia, juxtaposing character designs that look half Osamu Tezuka, half extra-vintage kids cartoon with some really quite bleak and twisted writing. It works fantastically, the highly stylised art style letting the show do things that would be incredibly harsh if done realistically. People die brutally, characters have their minds torn apart, and there’s even been what could be classed as rape during the second episode. Despite that, it’s only when you stop to think about it what you’ve just seen that the horribleness of what has been happening really sinks in, letting it all pass by like some kind of dream or nightmare while you watch it. The mash of tones can be unsettling, but the lightness the animation style brings also helps break up the more serious, cerebral elements of the story while giving the added bonus of making the show completely stand out from everything else released in the last couple of years.

Our story opens as a young man wakes up with no name or memories, his only clues to his identity being an odd symbol on his stomach, a locket with the blurred photo of a girl inside, and a perfectly round hole in the middle of his chest. And things get stranger from there on out. Our hero, soon dubbed ‘Warp’, is thrown into a world where strange flying machines can suck out people’s minds on small cone shaped chips—reminiscent of Altered Carbon’s ‘cortical stacks’—or steal their bodies to be used by the rich and privileged. With the help of some of the strange people he meets along the way, the protagonist stows away on a space ship and begins his journey through the stars to try and track down his identity. The world caught my imagination quickly, and in the three episodes I’ve seen the central idea of separating minds and bodies has been used fantastically. Warp has had 3 different bodies by the end of the third episode, one of which was a completely silent, toy hippo who’s form he had been put in so he could pretend to be luggage. Meanwhile, his benefactor had taken a shine to his first body, but realising she wouldn’t get anywhere with him, uploaded a copy of herself into it so she could have some ‘fun’. It does not end well. There’s some other very interesting ideas at play in it already, like what really counts as death if your mind and soul is always backed up, and what happens to people in a world where you can sell your own memories or body for money.

If this sounds like a lot of weird issues for a series to have raised so early on, that’s because it is… but it’s also a large part of why this show has made such a big impression on me. The art style is odd and taking a lot of getting used to, but it’s really growing on me, and works with the story far better than it looks like it should. To be honest, the sex scene in episode 2 really threw me and I almost stopped watching, as it cranked the weirdometer up a bit high even for me… but I’m very glad I continued watching. Episode 3 is a little more sane, but beautifully, brutally tragic and with a fantastic use of the soundtrack to boot. If these episodes are anything to go by, Kaiba is looking to be a really stand out show with some stunning ideas and fantastic visuals, on top of an emotional core that grabs you and doesn’t let go. The plot that is starting to develop is intriguing, but even the little stories of Warp’s travels have been more than interesting to keep me watching the rest of the series.

Kaiba the Revenge

Link:
http://rapidshare.com/files/92862951/Yu-Gi-Oh__Power_of_Chaos_KAIBA_THE_REVENGE.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/93233508/Yu-Gi-Oh__Power_of_Chaos_KAIBA_THE_REVENGE.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/92713633/Yu-Gi-Oh__Power_of_Chaos_KAIBA_THE_REVENGE.part3.rar

idioma: Ingles
tamanho: 260 mb

Well, not really. I supposed I should change that title before someone freaks out and really thinks the heir to the Kaiba zaibatsu really is was kidnapped. But oh well, too lazy. Anyways, Oto-sama decided to do more of his idea of father-son bonding. Which means I spent a day on the computers in the KaibaCorp building. What a surprise. I would have rather been chasing down Liza, who for some idiotic reason, got let out of the hospital. You would think that trained professionals would know better then to let a perpetually ill girl, a reckless teenager at that, out of the hospital early, without preforming necessary tests! And I swear, Kaa-san is no help at all. She just encourages it!  Writing it makes me so mad, I swear.

Oh. Mokuba-oji just called, he’s coming for a housewarming visit or something of the sort next week. I’ll have to remember to tell Kaa-san and Oto-sama.

Being a Kaiba basically means life sucks. Now, I’m not going to do a rant about it, because if the paparazzi gets a hold of this Oto-sama might skin me alive, but off the record, I liked it better when I wasn’t Matsuo Kaiba, heir to the entire KaibaCorp corporation and fortune. You could say that I’ve been disillusioned with life at the top–even before living it.

It’s high society at it’s worst. The old shunning us becuase we’re nouveau rich, the new a gaggle of partying drunks. Oto-sama tolerates it because it’s the price he pays for doing what he loves. Kaa-san loves glamour and always glides over the least important unpleasantries. Liza’s still young enough to shun that type of life and muck in the mud with her skateboard and commoners. My family doesn’t realize they’re living in hell.

If Kure-nai hadn't flubbed it's ending so badly, it might have made the list

We’re finally here, the last part of my reflection on the best anime of 2008 – the top 5 anime. If you’ve looked at the other parts then this list probably won’t be much of a shock so let’s not waste anymore time and get to the list.

5 Ga-rei: Zero

The show I called the second most surprising show of the fall season starts this half of the countdown.

I like to see animators willing to take chances with a series because that means creativity isn’t dead. The creators of Ga-rei: Zero could have just done a straight adaptation of the Ga-Rei source material; instead, they decided to create a prequel that would fill in the scant information given in the manga and explain how things got the way they did. Since this would involve a lot of character development and not action, they had to make sure to hook action-philes that might grow bored of the character development and they came up with a doozie. It was probably the best first episode hook since Haruhi and left me completely mystified and wanting to know more.

Overall the show kinda felt like watching the Star Wars prequels because you knew what was going to happen but Ga-Rei: Zero differed in that this show was actually good. I loved the character development, the animation was very well done, top-notch seiyuu work, action scenes where well done and cool weapons. All that and the animators gutsy-ness propelled this show to #5.

4 Bamboo Blade

I absolutely loved Kamina’s voice – Katsuyuki Konishi - and after Gurren Lagann, I wanted to hear more so when I saw that Bamboo Blade was going to feature him as the kendo teacher, I had to watch. After enjoying a few episodes of listening to Kamina’s voice I realized that I actually liked the show itself. It wasn’t a kendo sports show but a show about a group of characters that happened to all belong to the school’s kendo club.

In a lot of ways it’s similar to Wagaya no Oinari-sama. It let the characters drive where the story went, it blended a bit of comedy and drama into itself, and it never tried to be overly complex or forget to be entertaining. Where this show had an edge over Wagaya no Oinari-sama was the kendo actions scenes were suspenseful and generally very well done. I was really sad to see this show end and I hope when there’s enough source material to do a second season that a second season is made.

3 Toradora

I just adore Toradora.

Last year I mentioned that I could believe if someone told me that Gainax sold their souls to the devil in return for Gurren Lagann because it didn’t seem possible that Gainax could do something that great anymore. This year, I could almost believe that J.C. Staff sold their souls over Toradora because they haven’t shown this level of ability for quite a long time and their other show right now, Index, is no match for Toradora either. Is this really the same group of people that mutilated the first half of Shana 2?

I could spend 2000 words praising the different parts of this show that deserve praise like how the characters feel like real people and not clichéd character types or how they never act intentionally dumb to force the story to go in a certain direction or how well the individual episodes flow together or … you get the idea. This is one of the few shows that I think that any anime fan could watch and like a lot, even those fans that hate school-based anime shows. As an aside, I was just reading that the author plans to end the light novels series at 10 volumes so with like 6 episodes left and 7 volumes already covered, we might get a real ending to this anime series.

2 Natsume Yuujinchou

Natsume Yuujinchou, aka Natsume’s Book of Friends, was the best slice-of-life show of 2008 and definitely one of the best of all-time. Watching it felt akin to watching a world class orchestra perform – every note was struck perfectly and nothing felt out-of-place. Even when the show ran, late summer into early fall, helped contribute to giving the show a bit of a melancholic, reflective mood which I associate with good slice-of-life shows.

One aspect I thought real different about this show is that the spirits that appear are mostly very lonely creatures. If they want to harm humans, it’s often because of cruel things that humans have done in the past or because they’ve been lonely so long, they get all twisted up inside. This loneliness reminds Natsume of his own loneliness that being able to see spirits has caused in his life and this pushes Natsume to help these lonely spirits with their problems.

If the second season wasn’t already airing, I’d take this opportunity to complain about how it was only 13 episodes long but it’s running, so I’m happy right now.

1 Kaiba

No other show was discussed more on The Null Set this year then Kaiba and with good reason because it was the best show of the year. The story was definitely intellectual but at the same time it focused that on the individual characters and was able to remain compelling and entertaining. I was surprised on a couple of occasions that this show was able to get me to shed a few tears. The animation was artistic and unique but it never forgot that it needed to tell the story and impress the viewer. I remember there were several sequences that literally made my jaw drop.

I don’t know what else I can say that I already haven’t repeated several times by this point about Kaiba so I’ll just end now saying this show was awesome and one I’d really like to buy on DVD but probably will never see licensed.

Well, that’s it. I hope everyone that took the time to read this look back at the 2008 year of anime found it worthwhile. I tried my hardest to make it so. This year, I’m kinda sad that two of my favorite bloggers, Jason from Derailed by Darry and Jeff Lawson from Hop Step Jump, are taking a break from anime blogging and thus haven’t written their look back at the year. I wouldn’t want to see them forcing themselves to write when they didn’t feel like it but I do miss their writing.

Read Part 0 – Introduction and Anti-awards here.

Read Part 1 – Character Awards here.

Read Part 2 – Cast and Assorted Awards here.

Read Part 3 – Genre Awards here.

Read Part 4 – Music, Voice, and Animation Awards here.

Read Part 5 – Memorable Moments and Favorite Episodes here.

Read Part 6 – Top 10 Anime of 2008: #10 – #6 here.