Welcome to my latest page, where I rate the anime that I've had the fortune of watching.
Feedback?
Explanation of Ratings Back to the Site Index
Explanation of Ratings Back to the Site Index
Ryoko decides to stay with Tenchi and soon falls in love with him. When Ayeka and Sasami, Jurian princesses who are searching for the long lost Jurian Prince Yosho, wander by Earth, a battle erupts between Ryoko and Ayeka. With everyone soon stranded, Ayeka and Ryoko begin a great rivalry over Tenchi's heart. The rivalry thickens as Mihoshi, a ditzy Galaxy Police officer, and Washu, Ryoko's creator and a super genius, arrive and vie for Tenchi. Tenchi soon finds himself protecting the girls both from intergalactic villians and each other.
After the final battle in this saga, the Namek Saga begins. Gohan, Bulma, and Krillian must travel to the planet Namek to find its dragonballs to wish back their fallen comrades. They find Vegeta and an even greater power, Frieza, competing for the balls and must sneak around until Goku arrives. Vegeta finds himself allied with the earthlings when they challenge Frieza, and Piccolo is revived to help. A great battle finally results as Goku and Frieza face off one on one. Goku first transforms into a Super Sayian near the end of this battle.
After this climatic battle, the Cell Saga begins. The mad scientist Dr. Gero, an old enemy of Goku's, has returned to seek revenge on the newly returned Goku. Gero creates three killer androids and a creature made of cells from all the Z fighters. This creature, aptly named Cell, soon becomes a threat to the whole planet as it absorbs the androids and reaches a level far above that of a supersaiyan. Goku, Gohan, Vegeta, and Trunks, Vegeta's future son, must all train hard to reach a new level of power in time for the great contest Cell is planning.
The last part of the series, the Buu Saga, covers the epic battle against the magical creature Buu that causes most of the world to be destroyed. Buu has been summoned by an ancient wizard and it is up to the surviving fighters to defeat him. Goku is resurrected from the dead again and with the help of Gohan and Vegeta is the best hope for destroying the nearly unbeatable Buu.
There are five groups of near earth colonies , LP1 through 5, and each colony has secretely developed a Gundam in an attempt to win their freedom. The pilots of each Gundam were selected and sent to earth to wage guerrila warfare on the Alliance and OZ. Each customized mobile suit has different weapons and styling which fit their pilots. The Gundam pilots work independantly at first but find that they must work together to survive once their colonies abandon them and Oz takes over control of the Alliance. The most powerful Gundam, Wing, piloted by Heero Yuy, usually somewhat leads the others because of its flight capability and its great power. This Gundam is later replaced by the much more powerful Wing Zero Gundam. The Gundams are often forced to flee from the numerous OZ forces, especially from the top OZ pilot, Zechs Merquise.
A massive alien spacecraft suddenly crashes to earth on a small island, disrupting the worldwide wars gripping the planet. Fearing an immenient alien invasion, a new government, the Unified Nations of Earth, is formed to keep the peace on earth and defend it from attacks. The new government quickly begins repair on the badly damaged craft and over the years Macross City, a small city of 70,000 people, grows up around the ship. Eventually the repair work is finished and the day of the first test flight of the ship, dubbed the SDF-1, arrives. Using technologies discovered within the ship, a large number of Veritech fighter planes have been created that can transform from plane to Batteloid robots. One of the greatest Veritech pilots aboard the SDF-1 is Commander Roy Fokker, who flies the Skull One. On the day of the test flight his longtime friend Rick Hunter arrives to see the liftoff of the huge ship.
Before the ship can even leave the ground, they are attacked by aliens, the Zentraedis, who have come to recover the lost ship. Rick is caught up in the battle and manages to save a local girl, Lin Minmei, from the aliens. The SDF-1, in danger of being destroyed, decides to make a fold jump away from the earth, even though this has never been tested. The ship survives the fold but manages to transport the entire island and some of the surrounding ocean almost to pluto's orbit. The city and it's inhabitants are quickly rescued and they soon rebuild Macross city inside the collosal SDF-1. The ship now must make its long voyage back to the Earth and withstand repeated attacks by the Zentraedi forces that threaten to destroy them. Rick Hunter soon becomes a Veritech pilot in order to protect his friends, but after he becomes close to Commander Lisa Hayes, his relationship with the rising star Minmei becomes strained.
Banner of the Stars follows Jinto and Lafiel's adventures after they graduate from the military academy. Lafiel is the captain of the Assualt Ship Basroil, and she has selected Jinto as her supply officer. They are embroiled in the war that began in Crest of the Stars, fighting the United Mankind forces. It pretty well follows the Abh fleet in the first part of this war.
The end of Evangelion does not give a very definative conclusion, but instead leaves things up to the viewer's imagination. That is an oft used device in anime these days, but they didn't do a great job of it here. I found myself wondering what the hell is going on quite a bit during the last moments of the movie. The last half hour or so is very surreal. Upon further viewing the ending made more sense, but still things were left vaugely unfinished feeling. I understand that Gainex wanted to move on from Evangelion, but the way to do that is to provide some closure to the characters, not leave people eternally wondering what happened. Leaving people forever wondering is also known as being too lazy or uncreative to finish things properly. All in all, the craziness and massive amounts of repeated material makes me regret the money spent on them. If they had just made one movie, it would have been much better, but then they couldn't charge for the price of two. Greedy Bastards.
Kiki's business starts slow and she spends more time waiting on bakery customers than doing deliveries. As the movie goes on Kiki makes several deliveries around the city and meets many people. One boy she meets soon after arriving, Tombo, is fascinated by Kiki's flying and persistantly tries to befriend her. Kiki gradually warms up to Tombo and they are good friends by the end of the movie. Things seem to be going well until Kiki's powers disappear. She must try to become inspired again so that she can continue her delivery business.
I watched the Disney produced version, dubbed of course. I also watched it awhile in Japanese with subtitles. I have read some bad things about this dub because of Phil Hartman being cast as Jiji. There is alot of difference between the subbed Jiji and the dubbed Jiji. Jiji dubbed is a much more sarcastic and fun cat to listen to, in my opinion. Phil did a great job with it. Jiji gained quite a few lines and alot of personality during the dubbing. While the bonus features aren't extraordinary, I did enjoy the second disc, which featured the movie's beautiful storyboards along with the dubbed audio. Overall this was a great movie.
The next day both the pirates and the government come to the mining town looking for Sheeta. After giving them both the runaround Sheeta and Pazu are captured by the military. Pazu is set free in exchange for Sheeta's cooperation in finding the legendary floating city of Laputa. Pazu goes home to find the pirates waiting for him. Learning that Sheeta will likely not be kept alive after her usefullness is over, he joins with the pirates. They embark in a desparate rescue attempt to save Sheeta and keep the power and wealth of Laputa out of the government's hands.
The major obstacle in Lupin's goal to become the greatest gentleman theif is Inspector Zenigata of Interpol. This trenchcoat and hat wearing detective is always two steps behind Lupin. Usually Zenigata doesn't come near catching them, but often he foils their plans. From Rio de Janiro to Lake Nesse, Zenigata continiously tries to put Lupin behind bars.
Up in the heavens, meanwhile, the Goddess Urd has been watching the happy couple. She decides that her little sister Belldandy and Keiichi need a little help to further their relationship and tries in her overly agressive way to help out. She ends up banished from Heaven for meddling with the couple and living with them. Keiichi just rolls with the punches. Next Urd and Belldandy's little sister Skuld gets sick of being all alone and trying to kill system bugs. She comes down to see what is keeping Belldandy away and decides that the only way to get her sister back is to break them up. She ends up liking Keiichi somewhat and not wanting to hurt Belldandy. Things seem to be working out good for Keiichi until system bugs start multiplying and messing up things on earth. Until they can figure out the cause and stop the problem, Keiichi and Belldandy's relationship seems doomed.
The adventures themselves vary wildly. The three (Urd, Skuld, and Gan) do everything, including testing out flying vehicles,treasure hunting, fishing, mountain climbing, and adventures in love. Gan tends to be the heavily punished one in this series; he takes a ton of abuse from Urd and often suffers from the inventions of Skuld. Belldandy is always kind to him, and he seems to be in love with her, but he also often falls for rats and tea kettles and such.
Next, is the 3 Pretty Sammy OVA episodes. These cover the first few adventures of Magical Girl Pretty Sammy, who has been selected by Tsunami of the magical realm Juraihelm to bring happiness to people. Opposing Sammy is Pixy Misa, a girl hypnotized by Tsunami's rival Ramia. Sammy's real identity is Sasami Kawai, and she lives with her brother Tenchi and her mother Chihiro. Her best friend is a girl named Misao, who is secretely Pixy Misa. Tenchi is always being torn apart by Ryoko and Ayeka, as usual. Kiyone and Mihoshi work at Chihiro's music store. Sammy must face foes such as love-love monsters, Bif Standard, and a globby alien with Ramia's memories and hatred of her.
The Nadesico is an amazing ship built by the private company Nergal Heavy Industries. This ship was crewed with a full esemble of people who, while very eccentric, are the best in their respective fields. Akito manages to get hired on as a cook and a part time mecha pilot after he chases Yurika to the ship. The ship soon becomes involved in a two front war when Nergal decides to disobey the orders of the UEAF and travels to Mars in a hopeless rescue mission.
Akito's troubles are just begining. Yurika is immediately infatuated with him and will not give him peace for five minutes. The ship's communications officer falls hard for him. He has to battle in the mecha even though he hasn't been trained. All the men in the ship envy him because he is so popular with the ladies, but all Akito wants to do is learn to be a better cook.
The entire crew of the original Nadesico, minus Akito and Yurika of course, are brought together to crew the very powerful new spaceship the Nadesico C. Their mission is to stop the Martian Successor group. The reason for this reunion is unknown since once they reach the jumping facility it only takes Ruri and the computer mind from the original Nadesico to completely take over all the the Successor's computers and weapons. The only other people who do anything are the old pilots led by Ryoko and a newcomer from the Nadesico B. They fend off an attack by a crew of Mecha led by a mad man whose mind was destroyed by bosun jumping experiments. The crazy leader is killed by the possibly insane Akito in the battle. The Martians surrender and Yurika is recovered by the Nadesico C crew in apparantly ok condition, but Akito just leaves. Ruri says that he will come back, and if he doesn't, they will find him, because he is very special to him.
After seeing the series I expected this movie to be good, not a jumbled heap of tragedy, confusion, and darkness. Very dissapointing. As far as looks go the movie is very well drawn and animated, the mechanical designs are nice, and the music fits the mood, but the storyline seems like it was written by a crazed goth writing crappy fanfiction. The writers of this should really look hard at what made Nadesico good and try writing something along those lines. This movie simply didn't need to happen. It is so different from the series that one gets the feeling that they just made it include the Nadesico crew to increase sales. I will simply think of it being like Tenchi in Tokyo was to the original OVAs. An alternate universe situation that is just a what if, not the official way that Akito and Yurika end up. I just hate the thought that they could take a series that was all about laughter and fun and basically ruin all of the main characters' lives.
**Updated Review**
I have now watched this movie again. While I still did not like the movie, I didn't hate it as much as the first time through. It would be an ok movie if it didn't have the Nadesico title and characters. It is definately not a good sequel. I have read that the original creater of Nadesico didn't like the series after it was done because he was more into creating darker and more serious stories. I guess they made the mistake of letting him have more control over this movie. A good sequel second movie would do alot to restore my faith in this movie, but I cannot imagine a second movie will get off the ground after this.
Kyusaku Natsume was a brilliant scientist who fell in love with Akiko Mishima, the heir of the superconglomerate Mishima Heavy Industries. Funded by Mishima, he began work on a highly advanced android called NK-1124. The two had a son, Ryunosuke, together, and everything seemed to be going fine. Until Kyusaku learned that Akiko planned to sell the android for military purposes. He promptly grabbed Ryunosuke and the prototype android, divorced Akiko, and took off in a jeep.
Akiko, furious, sent her minions after him to retrieve both the android and her son. While the two were on the run, Ryunosuke found an alley cat and wanted to keep it as a pet. At this moment their jeep was spotted and the two sped off in a high speed chase. Their jeep crashed unseen to the pursuing craft, and was accidently riddled by bullets from the angered Mishima pilots.
The cat was mortally wounded by a bullet, but Kyusaku used his genius mind to transplant the mind of the cat into the android. Thus was born Nuku Nuku.
The rest of the short 6 episode series mostly deals with the attempts of Akiko to regain custody of her son and destroy or capture Nuku Nuku. With the full arsenol of Mishima Industries at her disposal, she ends up constantly throwing heavy mechs at Nuku Nuku, who manages to stomp everything that comes her way.
Go Takarada is a rash young man who dreams of going on adventures like his archaeologist parents do. The trouble is that there are not many adventures and treasure in the middle of the city. That all changes one day when a tiny blonde elf suddenly appears naked before him. The elf, Princess Rane, is searching in this world for the Four Hearts, a mystical item which protects her land. Go, meanwhile, is convinced that she is there to lead him into adventures and to treasure galore.
Mari Yumenokata, the daughter of the owner of the Yumenokata Foundation, Manzo Yumenokata, is Go's neighbor and is secretely in love with him. When he suddenly rushes off with Rane, she becomes jealous and hurt that he doesn't ask her to come along. Suddenly another elf named Leen shows up before her. Leen is out to kill Rane and get all the glory of finding the Four Hearts herself.
On top of all this craziness is the fact that Go has at least 6 identical twin sisters who appear throughout the show. The pink haired beauties are Mizuki the gaurdian priestess, Natsuki the firewoman, Haruki the assistant from the Yumenokata Foundation, and Kazuki,Saki, and Yuhki, the three girls of the band Nature's, just back from a world tour.
This movie does not follow the same timeline as the original TV series does, rather it is an alternate retelling of that series. The movie covers the adventures of the depressed teenager Hitomi Kanzaki after she is mysteriously transported to the world of Gaea. She happens to arrive at the same time that Van, a gifted warrior, has captured an enormous machine, Escaflowne, from his enemies. It turns out that Van was meant to be king of this land, but his insane brother slaughtered his parents and began taking over everything. Van's only friends now are a ragtag group of resistance fighters. When Hitomi arrives from the sky, Escaflowne disappears, leading them to believe that she is the Wing Goddess, destined to help them succeed. Hitome and Van must somehow find Escaflowne and defeat his brother before the entire world of Gaea is destroyed.
This is the heartrending story of a immigrant construction worker named Pedro, who is killed in a freak accident. He now exists as a ghost who only wants to be reunited with his sexy wife and his son. Join Pedro on his uplifting journey towards regaining his life and defeating the man who has stolen everything Pedro holds dear.
This is the story of a small dog named Menchi, doomed for the stomach of her insane owner. Follow her quest to find a home where she does not have to fear for her very life. See the friends she makes along her way, including the brave dog Wolf, leader of a pack of mutts who want only freedom from the harsh tryany of the HOUNDS group.
This is the story of an cute alien race,the Puchu in the midst of a civil war. See their epic space battles as one faction attempts nothing less than the complete invasion of earth. Watch as the Puuchu attempt to integrate themselves into human society while secretely regrouping for one last desperate attack.
And while we are at it, this is the story of Excel Excel, a fast talking and possibly insane red headed girl who is a senior officer/agent of the Secret Ideological Organization Across. Excel works tirelessly out of love/loyalty towards the leader of their division of Across, the great Lord Ilpalazzo. According to Across,the world has become corrupt, and the ignorant masses need to be educated. While eventually world conquest is their goal, right now Lord Ilpalazzo and Excel are starting small, focusing on the city of F. The only problem is that Excel is utterly unreliable when it comes to getting anything accomplished. And she seems to be good at causing alot of trouble.
Excel is soon joined in her exploits by the beautiful alien princess Hyatt, a dark haired woman with the ability to cough up blood and fall over dead repeately within minutes. The two still fail in attempt after attempt to further Across's goals. They also must worry about food and rent money, as Across apparantly doesn't pay much for failure. This is where Menchi comes in. Excel found the dog one day and decided to keep her as an emergency food supply. Menchi, understandably, does not enjoy this situation.
Excel Saga is pure genius. This anime is, of course, a comedy, but every episode experiments with belonging to different genres of anime. There are animal adventure episodes, a sports episodes, a survival horror episode,a robotic catgirl episode, etc. Each experiment fails, usually due to the fact that Excel is unfit to be in any type of genre. With her around, things never go in the usual direction and Across remains with its goals unfulfilled.
The show parodies everything it can as fast as it can. While there is a plot to the series, it is a rather slow paced one. Well, it is pretty fast paced when they are really worried about having a plot. Volume 1 and Volume 6 have alot of plot development, but in between there is alot of craziness which, while it doesn't particularly move things along, makes the series very enjoyable. The inbetween shows are pretty well the documentation of the girls taking every anime they can, spoofing it, and somehow messing up Ilpalazzo's plans in the process. The series also takes the idea of a subplot to a new level with the adventures of Pedro. Not to mention the random subplot with Nabeshin. Let's just say a space butler is involved....
This series covers the adventures of 17 year old Jimmy Kudo (Shinichi Kudo originally.) Jimmy is a brilliant high school sleuth who is obsessed with mysteries and detective work. He wants to be a famous detective like Sherlock Holmes and seems well on his way. He is already famous around town for helping the police solve many hard cases with very little clues to go on.
Things begin to sour for Jimmy after he follows a suspicious black clothed man and witnesses the man extorting money from another. Jimmy is spotted and poisened with an experimental new pill that is supposed to kill without leaving any traces. They leave him for dead but the pill instead transforms his body into that of a 7 year old's.
Jimmy is afraid to tell anyone of his condition because the men might come back to finish the job or hurt his loved ones. He takes the name of Conan Edogawa and moves in with his former girlfriend Rachel Moore and her father, the washed up detective Richard Moore. Conan manages to tag along on Richard's cases, usually solving them discretely while keeping a lookout for a clue to the black clothed men who poisened him. Jimmy is certain he will find them sooner or later because,as he always says, with a key eye for details one truth prevails.
It has been 22 years since a great cataclysm was brought on by mankind. At that time the doorways between the world of monsters, gods, and humans was opened. This created the present world where creatures of all sorts live on earth alongside a now endangered population of humans. In order to keep the peace in this often violent world, private bounty hunter companies have been formed. A half human half cat monster girl named Natsuki works for the Police Company, one of the smaller and less successful bounty hunter agencies in the city of Shinjuku. She has a crush on her partner, a werewolf named Batenen, but is too shy to act upon it. What she doesn't know is that Batenen is totally in love with her as well, but is afraid to woo his young partner. Things grow more complicated as the duo are split up, with Batanen's new partner being the young and often clumsy wereworlf Tommy, and Natusuki being paired up with a nine tailed fox woman named Sakura.
Unknown to Natsuki, Sakura has only joined their company in an attempt to steal Natsuki's powers for herself and gain her ninth tail. Natsuki is much more powerful than her tiny form indicates; she can create powerful electrical blasts utilizing two parasites named Fujin and Riajin, and she is extremly agile and deadly with a blade. As the show progresses their relationships to each other slowly changes and the four gradually work more closely together. By the end of the series Natsuki must repeatedly make decisions about whether she wants the world she lives in or a world where monsters and humans live seperately.
After Mizuo Kazami is given a license by the Galaxy Federation to be an observer of Earth, she lands her ship in a small lake beside the small town of. She teleports to the nearby shore and is suprised to find that a young man named Kei Kusanagi has witnessed her arrival. He runs off into the night, but it is not his last encounter with the red haired alien. She shows up the next day as his beautiful new homeroom teacher, and later, to his suprise, as his new next door neighbor. Kei offers to help her move her things inside, but after he learns she was the alien from the night before, she begs him not to tell anyone else. The next day she teleports him into the school's storage room for a private conversation to explain why she is there and make sure he won't tell anyone. After the two are found locked in together by the principal, Kei's uncle Minoru lies and says the two are married. Now, to save Mizuo's teaching job and her observation mission, the two must actually get married but keep it secret from the others at their school.
And that's where the trouble begins. One of Kei's beautiful classmates, Koishi, has a crush on him and he is reluctant to tell her that he's not interested in her. His male friends all want to get to know their beautiful teacher better. On top of all this, Kei is afflicted with a rare disease that puts him into coma like standstills when he is nervous or depressed. Kei and Mizuo suddenly have to try and adapt to married life with someone they barely know while keeping their relationshop from everyone. As the show progresses the two deal with the fact that marriage is just not all love and games, it is fighting, making up, and resolving differences.
This series is a riveting one that kept me watching all the way through its too short 13 episodes. What really makes the show so fun is the characters. Kei is a bit of a stereotypical loser who doesn't know what he wants and is often too weak to act when he does, but he does remain firm in his desire to be with Mizuho and keep moving ahead in their relationship. Mizuho, on the other hand, is unique in her character depth. Instead of falling into the usual agressive sex starved woman or completely innocent and eager to please maid roles that all too many characters fall into, Mizuho is much closer to real life. She gets jealous when Kei is hanging out with Koishi, actually spies on him, and has several petty little arguments with him about his poor grades, but she remains comitted to being his wife. While the two are obviously attracted to each other, they are both realistically shy about making the first move.
The major problem with the series that costs it a star are the fact that the other characters delight in interrupting every tender scene and generally bugging Kei at every possible opportunity. The show could have focused more on the trials and tribulations of the two's growing relationship, but instead it became a bit crowded with the distractions of Kei's classmates. Rarely did the two have five minutes where they weren't split up by circumstances. Even on a beach trip honeymoon the two are split up early on by the unwelcome appearance of these classmates. There is simply too much useless distraction from the main plot.
As for the artwork, the scenery is a beautiful rendering of small town life. The characters are well designed and easy to recognize, and the colors are crisp and bright. This show isn't about comedy, unless you find people not being left alone for five minutes funny, but people like Minoru add a touch of humor here and there. Overall it's a very enjoyable show that becomes a bit frustrating from unwelcome distractions.
