Reviews - Anime Vice

Another Anime Review

Elfenlied1012 — Fri, 25 May 2012 08:14:35 -0700

0.206549316544 out of 5

It’s a lovely Friday and it’s time for my wonderful rendition of is this good. Today I review horror anime, Another, a recent and rather strangely big stir within the anime community and from what I hear has made it the butt of many pie jokes due to the joke that the ending is a romantic comedy about pie, well first off, no, the ending is not romantic nor does it involve pie, lot of f’d up stuff, not a lot of pie though.

Well Getting more to the point Another is a rather final destiny esk horror meets competent mystery story. Supposedly years ago this class 3 of the junior high Yami North of its 9 grade class had a horrible tragic death of everyone’s favorite student and to cope with the pain everyone pretended the student was still alive, and apparently inviting the dead to join you has some very potent consequences. This is all unknown to the protagonist who has moved to join class 3 in between the year and notice a quiet girl with just one eye named Mei who seems to be visible only to him.

That’s the story and I assure you it involves quickly into a real plot but that would be a spoiler so I’ll leave it there and focus on the real qualitative question. Well for that I think we need to build on what a good horror a good mystery story require then address if it met the standards, surpassed them, or lost the point entirely.

A horror story must be foremost tense or freighting. An excellent horror story makes you feel uncomfortable with it but intrigues you enough to keep at it despite your fear, hits tools for this are good atmosphere and visuals, a frightening enemy or threat, then just sound design. As for a mystery the components of a good mystery demand a internal question with an answer, the answer should always be within the ability of the viewer to realize before the revelation in the story and should be somewhat in your face, but a good mystery knows how to keep you from realizing the obvious answer with the help of red herrings and warped perspective, it should never lie, just trick you into making false assumptions. These are the key components another would need to pass or do well on as well as hopefully excel at along with good characters and plot.

First off does it make you afraid and uncomfortable? This is difficult for me to fairly say because horror tends to not work on me in this kind of media, it can be tense but the “threat” is often obvious and doesn’t come as a surprise at all keeping you from really feeling afraid. It’s visual style is creepy yes and it does build some decent atmosphere over time but its severely weakened by the sound design and music, Ali project of .hack//roots and Code Geass fame worked on this and as usual its good but the issue is Ali project is anything but subtle and that kind of music makes Another seem more corny then atmospheric. So as a horror its subpar plain and simple.

Second, the mystery. The series actually has a good one to be honest, though a bit generic at first the “rules” of the supernatural remain constant and the mystery meets all the requirements, the answer is obvious and for once in a while I did not guess it ahead of time due to Another’s gifted us of red herrings or fake clues designed to distract you from the obvious, beyond that the obvious answer is actually meaningful to the characters and doesn’t rely on an end plot twist (A introduction of a character or plot device that changes the plot in a way the audience could not have figured out) to be shocking. As a mystery Another is a winner excelling in one of the two genres it attempts to be.

Otherwise in terms of story movements the characters can be iffy tough generally likeable and interesting even if stilted and often overly dramatic, and the Final Destination comparison is true but is not quite as, well, stupid as it sounds. It’s clever but dramatic even if uncomfortably so and is far from perfect but far from bad.

I can’t help but feel deceived about the whole pie thing I constantly had to fear the whole story tanking because of that ill informed joke. Oh well looking at the core of it all a good mystery pushes this otherwise mediocre series In to a comfortable 3.5 umbrella spears our of 5 which I remind those that have not read my scale means that it is pretty good and worth your time.

This is M reminding you, you can't stick it in her eye thats rude.

fan-service baby!

tomoki — Tue, 22 May 2012 22:43:05 -0700

0.0 out of 5

I love this show! I mean who doesn't love angels with big breast and a total perv! Trust me sometimes when I was watching the show I wished I was in tomoki's amazing position! I really love sexy fan-service! Moving away from the fan-service part of the review the voice actors really fit the roles well. The animation is pretty awesome (mostly in the breast area). There are some really killer fight scenes that I loved alot! The story line is a decent one with some meaning to it. I would recommend this to anyone over 16 or 17. I f you want to see tomoki and the whole gang come watch heaven's lost property!

An anime that earned two scores in 25 episodes

Elfenlied1012 — Tue, 22 May 2012 21:14:06 -0700

0.206549316544 out of 5

Well time again for another wonderful review from everyone’s 7 favorite reviewer. This time I’m throwing down with a series I have a very personal love for, Persona and in this case Persona 4 the animation something I find near and dear to my heart, and for that reason I’m applying two scores to this one series. The true score for the series in and of itself unrelated to its father product Persona 4 the game and the second score, or fan score that is based around if you have played the game. (Note the star score will reflect how it is by itself aka the true score)

Persona is a series that is very familiar to whiskey media brought to most of our attention by either Persona 3 if you’re old like me or by the ever popular persona 4 endurance run done by Giant bombs wonderful Jeff and Vinny. So I might be just regurgitating things we already know when I explain what persona is. A series that is entirely based on the fundamentals of social psychology and the morals of social contracts that define much of morality in Japan, it even dives in the nature of mans obsession with illusions, but that’s getting ahead of myself. So how does it express this allegory? With teenagers fighting with “Personas” (Summon able creatures based on the mentality of the user) against Shadows (distractions and illusions) by going into the TV world with their teddies bear side kick, why you ask? Cuz someone keeps trying to kill people with the TV world and they need to keep up their social life all while the game stays fresh and with a new visual esthetic and theme with ever new game while keeping some of the old school RPG in it. In a game it works fantastically but what about in this animation?

Well for me and my base of knowledge the whole animation seemed fantastic, it kept the visual flare and the esthetic style, matched the fun and bright feel of 4 while remaining heavy and dark where its suppose to, streamlined and simple is how it explains the story leaving nothing except (something at the end only perfectionist managed to get) out. Small to big everything is there for a persona 4 veteran to find fantastic and fun, the references are great and their presentations hilarious, for once in a long while I laughed out loud during an anime something even the best “comedy” anime failed miserably. This makes persona to someone that watched it one of the most fantastic and best additions to your persona library of memories. Hell some good action bits and the addition of one new fun flat faced character is nice to the mix. Feels laughs and some decent action leaves persona 4 to be one of the best Anime’s I’ve seen in a long while, EXCEPT

Except what? Well simply if you did not play or watch someone play persona that wonderful humor and established relationships all fall apart and become just a bit too disjointed and confusing to be meaningful who are these people he’s friends with? Why is this fox awesome? Why does the main character have multiple personas? What is fusing? These questions are obvious to anyone that has played the game but to someone just exposed themselves to this world it seems rather plot hole filled and not super meaningful like it was in the 100 hour + story. It does some stuff to stream line naturally and for what it loses in meaning it doesn’t in terms of visual identity and nicely done subtle commentary on media as a whole, but the strange tie that persona games have with your heart earned with 100+ hours simply can’t be replaced by a series of short sweet and while funny not that sensible a package.

What does this all mean for Persona 4 the animation? It means that the persona series continues to be one of the best something only 100 hours can foster in someone, which can make that attachment so meaningful it’s worth the watch to absorb it again, that’s what this anime was for. It knows it’s purpose and doesn’t cater to much to people it’s not for in the first place, and in my oh so humble opinion that’s exactly what it should be earning for those with the persona background a 4.5 s-links our of 5, however, I can’t give that score because as a personal rule and anime should, unless it’s a established sequel, stand on its own, and in this form it can only manage to gain a still not bad 3.5 bear suits out of 5. With that said I cann’t recommend to anime PS2 owners enough persona 4, if you don’t have it watch the fantastic endurance run on whiskey medias very own giant bomb. It is by far one of my top 5 games of all time.

Well this is M reminding watchers of the endurance run ghoul continues to not be invited.

BESTIES: Arrietty

etragedy — Tue, 22 May 2012 19:54:08 -0700

0.0 out of 5

'The Borrowers' series has been adapted to the screen (large and small) several times before, but never very successfully. But Hiromasa Yonebayashi (better known as 'Maro'), a rising star at Studio Ghibli, and the probable successor to Hayao Miyazaki, has done what none of the others could.

The Secret World of Arrietty is an animated film that has all the wonderment of the great children's fantasy tales like The Wizard of Oz and E.T. combined with the open-ended realism of independent film. It tells the story of Sho, a boy with a heart condition who is sent to the country to rest before a heart operation with a dim prognosis, who befriends a tiny girl named Arrietty, one of a race of 'Borrowers', tiny people that live beneath the floor of the house. But Sho isn't the only one that has discovered the Borrowers, and their friendship seems destined to be short-lived, no matter what Sho's prognosis.

It also seems that after 50 years, the frequency of quality dubbing is finally becoming more regular. At least the UK English dub of this film is quite well done, and I suspect it has laid the groundwork for the US English version to follow.

The Secret World of Arrietty ranks right up there with Spirited Away as a modern classic for all ages.

Future Diary (Mirai Nikki/未来日記)

hopemaster — Fri, 18 May 2012 12:35:17 -0700

0.0 out of 5

The Future Diary series was a great anime series about a young Man named Yukiteru Amano. He is a quiet and lonely Teenager who discovers his imaginary Friend; Deus Ex Machinma is a Real God who grants Yukiteru a Cell Phone. This cell phone has a extra-ordinary feature - It Predicts the future for up to 90 days in advance! In return for this amazing new thing, Yukiteru is forced to compete in a Survival Game involving 11 More Players to kill each other. The last man Standing wins the game and becomes the new God of time and space (Previously Deus Ex Machinma). However, I enjoyed it so much I want it to continue until the day I die! 26 Episodes just wasn't enough for me.

Calm and emotional

animebookworm7 — Tue, 15 May 2012 20:51:23 -0700

0.0 out of 5

First there is no doubt Bokura ga ita defiantly goes in the top 5 for romance, comedy manga. it's the fact that the emotions in this manga aren't forced at all the emotions literally fly of the pages and into the reader.
The story starts in the best way possible with a joke and love at first sight. It only gets deeper and deeper form that point.

He turning point is defiantly when Nana admits to herself that she loves Yano, from that point it's more then obvious that they are gonna be together. The moment when they fell in love was very calm without much resistance or hatred. Just a peaceful aura that seemed to be there from the very start.

This manga can be divided into 2 parts. He first part captains the high school life of this couple. Then 5 years pater the couple meets again and they reconnect. The first part is troublesome and stirs the audience into hr plot which helps them read on the the very end. The emotions are so plain and simple, jokes are cute and classic and by the time you reach the second part you know that the couple will gt together which is that peacefully aura again. If anyone is looking for an above and beyond calm, romantic, emotional manga, this is the perfect one for you.

A Brave 10 Review

jnw93 — Sun, 13 May 2012 12:48:34 -0700

0.0 out of 5

Now, a certain group of fans really dislike how this anime is set in the same era and same genre as Naruto, but really, that is really stupid reason to dislike this anime.

At first I was not sure if this anime was worth my time because of the negative reviews, but then it really suprised me with the positive comments inside.

The animation is good, the story is yet to tell but so far it really is what a supernatural anime should be. Sure it has ninjas, samurais, assassins and the "substitute jutsu" in it but it should not be a reason to compare Naruto with this Anime. Those are not something that are uniquely created but rather some ancient myth in Japan.

So overall, yes, this anime is worth a try. If you want something unique then this anime might not be for you, but then, good luck on finding an unique anime...

Remember that summer that seemed to last forever?

etragedy — Sat, 12 May 2012 19:22:05 -0700

0.0 out of 5

When science fiction was new, stories that just dealt with space travel were good enough. Eventually though, space opera had to move on to something more substantive. The same is true with time travel. By this point, every permutation of time travel stories for the sake of exploring time travel has been done - the time traveler who changes the future, the time traveler that learns that nothing can change the future, the time traveler who goes to some cool place in the past, the time traveler who learns that the most insignificant thing he does in the past can radically alter the future, the guy that gets stuck in a time loop, etc. etc. So, like space travel before it, a good time travel story nowadays is one where time travel doesn't take center stage, but is used to explore a broader story. And that's exactly what The Girl Who Leapt Through Time does.

Based on a bestselling Japanese novel, TGWLTT tells the story of Makoto, a high school senior in that most crucial time of life - the last summer before college. A time when friends part and the future opens wide. Makoto inadvertently develops the ability to leap through time, something that helps her fix her mistakes and change the future... and maybe, just maybe it can make this magical time last. But she soon learns the meaning of the old adage, 'time waits for no one'.

A very human science fiction tale, TGWLTT is reminiscent of films like The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It's a wonderful, bittersweet story of friendship, love and loss, and the days of endless summer - a time we all wish we could go back and revisit.

My MS-G-00 review

jnw93 — Sat, 12 May 2012 14:05:03 -0700

0.0 out of 5

It's been years since I've last watched a Gundam series, Gundam SEED Destiny being the most recent. Destiny unfortunately left a bad taste in my mouth, so despite all the hype I had heard about Gundam 00, I was cautiously optimistic going in.

By reading the plot you'll get the general idea of what's going on in the world of Gundam 00, but as the story moves along, there's so much more to it than that. The story takes place hundreds of years in the future with flying robots, laser beams and SPAAACE, but the issues it draws upon can be seen in our time, simply by turning on the news. Religion and politics. Two things that if implemented poorly can ruin a series. But in the case of Gundam 00 it was executed superbly. There's also a bit of romance floating around, not nearly as much as SEED or Destiny, but enough to satisfy the hopeless romantic in ya.

What seems to be the standard in every Gundam series that I've watched (The 08th MS Team, Wing, SEED, and SEED Destiny) is that the animation is top notch. Gundam 00 meets and exceeds that standard. Most of the characters were drawn beautifully and the animation flowed in such a way that felt very real to me. I was also impressed with how well the CGI was used. I normally find that the use of CGI animation in an anime is forced, like whatever objects that are being shown, don't belong. Gundam 00 does an amazing job of making it look natural.

The Gundam pilots where great, my favourite from all Gundam shows, although there is alot and it can take a while to get your head around who is who and what their role is.

Finally, what's a great Gundam series without some kick ass openings??? The animation and music selection for the 4 different openings were simply amazing! And for the most part, while not the best that I've heard in anime, the musical scores did a decent job of assisting the scenes that they were accompanied with.

Overall, Gundam 00 is a wonderful series that I recommend not only to fans of mecha, but anime and a must see for fans of the Gundam franchise!

First Anime review in nearly a year and it’s not even an “anime”

Elfenlied1012 — Fri, 11 May 2012 10:46:38 -0700

0.0 out of 5

M: well even with nearly a year leave of absence I am still one of the top reviews on the site, now that I am proud of, however I hope I can make up for that however by pissing off all the anime purest and reviewing Avatar the last air bender. I decided to watch it due to pressure from my friends and the fact that I had never seen it during its popularity due to my general distaste for nickelodeon.

Aang the Avatar master of the four bending styles

M:Avatar as a production is in of itself a complete left field move for Nickelodeon at the time, if I was to stipulate, which I will, I would say Avatar itself is a reaction to nickelodeons biggest competitor, Cartoon networks insanely successful Toonami broadcast that capitalized on the action cartoon market by bringing forth the highest quality ones available, the ones being made in Japan. Hoping to break into this Avatar was released with the idea of matching the quality and depth of its competitor while remaining original and in spirit still nickelodeon. Although not as successful as Toonami being so influential it changed the entire social outlook towards visual media for an entire generation, avatar was still an instant hit a sparked the one of the biggest debates in anime over simply, what is anime? Is it a style or a piece of national identity that could only belong to the Japanese?

Fire nation red, Earth kingdom Yellow, Water tribes blue, and air grey

M:Perhaps I’ll get into that debate later but for now the question is still a much defined one, is it even good? Well to start that we need to see what its core components are and whether that would even interest whoever reads this drabble of mine. Condensed into a paragraph the world is basically divided into 4 cultures and four spiritual and martial disciplines called bending, The Water tribes (Inuit peoples) who do water bending (power to control water a move for move identical martial art to Wing Chun),The Earth kingdoms (feudal china) Who do earth bending (power to control earth move for move is iron fist and iron chest) The Fire nation (steam punk Japan) who do fire bending (Thai Chi and Muay Thai) and lastly the Air Nomads (Tibetan monks who do air bending…I have no personal experience with the martial art they perform) And well all these nations are kept in peace by the avatar who can do all four styles and is reborn in a pattern so he’s always present, well 100 years before the show takes place the Avatar disappeared and the fire nation invaded everyone and f’d up most of the other nations. Now a hundred years in the future some water bender (katara and her none bending brother sokka) find this avatar (Aang) frozen in ice that happens to have been 12 and only knows air bending, so basically he’s got to learn the other three and then fight the fire nation while they are being hunted by the banished prince of the fire nation (Zuko).

M:Well that’s shockingly well thought out and mature for a nickelodeon show, but still is it good? Well the answer is unsurprisingly yes as its popularity suggests, but now why is it good and why is it not great? Don’t worry I haven’t forgotten my job yet.

Toph blind master earth bender

M:Well normally I go bad then good but as time goes on I feel like that set up doesn’t play as well, so in that I’m going to flip it and start with where Avatar proves its worth. I feel the biggest and most memorable element of Avatar is the perfect application of real world martial art, their philosophies and cultures with unreal superpowers in such a way that it felt just right at every moment. The moves do what they should all seem natural and performable while all being familiar human and different, such attention to detail makes each wonderfully choreographed scene seem just well beautiful, this is especially true with the fire benders leaving me to personally believe the director has more than a little experience with the martial arts. It’s this master of knowing what to be fast and what slow and more so what movements should bring about the elements that make it kind of breathtaking, I actually was taken aback during the final fight between Zuko and Azula (his sister) by simply how perfect the martial arts were, but perhaps this is do to my own experience with the thai martial arts that is the primary arts in fire bending. The world and story has established and strong rule sets as well as cultural and political ideas that show a interesting re-imagination of established cultures. The format makes each bending art have their own time to be explored and are the given entire seasons devoted to them. These make the exploration meaningful and give the world and the events of it scope. The characters are at best fun and loveable and at worst are just mediocre, the voice acting goes from okay to actually really good and while the main three characters are just okay important side characters like Toph and the oh so wonderful Iroh make for some of my all time favorite characters to date. The fact that one scene of a nickelodeon show actually made me tear up is something that kind of goes as far as disturbs me. While the show is American it captures the spirit and quality of a anime very well and I would argue is the one memorable thing that nickelodeon has brought to the fray that wasn’t just okay at best, and again uncle Iroh is the shit and I cannot begin to explain how much better he makes it.

Uncle Iroh is annoyed by your immaturity

M:However Avatar is not ANYWHERE near perfect, some issues are just there, the main three characters are far from the best, Aang is often annoying more than fun but his age helps explain that, and plot points constantly are started and then kind of just left In the wind I.E. zukos mom, Irohs connection to the spirit world, the blue spirit, the hunt for Toph, The white lotus, The face stealer, blood bending, and Aangs propensity to be a total wuss…wait never mind. watching it through to the end however I noticed every issue aside from a few scattered ones could be blamed almost exclusively on the fact that it’s nickelodeon and OF COURSE they would chose to do some idiotic kid friendly bull. The humor is just as childlike and completely stupid half the time as it is funny and clever mostly due to fantastic blind jokes from the blind earth bender Toph. Its attempts to be silly and zany are weak and out of place causing the sense of seriousness to become cracked and fragile. While the fighting is good it pulls the G.I.Joe thing of not letting death on screen happen unless its magic, but the fact that nickelodeon let death on at all is a shocker, it gives this impression of a continues struggle for the show to break the bonds of its network and be something bigger and more impressive. This forces it to remain childlike instead of evolving into something mature that could have possibly even maybe get kind of close to something like Full metal without changing any of the Characters personalities or views, just allowing things like death on screen. The fact that a broad sword user fights near 100 men and only breaks their weapons is stupid, the fact that people get out of tanks before they explode is ridiculous. I don’t want gore everywhere or cursing, I just want sense, I want the humor to be cleverer and less zany, I want fire to burn and blood bending to kill. I want war to seem like war not a arm wrestling competition. I want concepts to be fully explored like the white lotus and the blue spirit then just blatantly shown and dropped to avoid complexity I suppose this is greed but I want this amazing idea and very talented writers to not be wasted on a nickelodeon show.

M: This hold back is the main sticking point and for the series and keeps it from really investing me in the world as much as it should be, this shattering of my suspension of disbelief and pulling me away from the experience. Maybe this just shows that I’m too old for the series to be as effective, or perhaps they are real issues. Either way my gut gives it a very generous 4 platypusbears out of 5. Well now I’m off again I hope you enjoy it, I might post a review of something else later if times allow it and sorry if I’m rusty.

I leave you with the comedic styles of a blind girl

Heavens from above

Odis — Tue, 08 May 2012 08:13:23 -0700

0.0 out of 5

The first time I have seen this. My mouth dropped with excitement, If you are one of those people who loves to see angels with big breast etc. then you should most differently watch this or even read the manga! Sora No Otoshimono or as most english people know it as Heavens Lost Property, is one of the best of animes I have ever seen. This anime/Manga is the one that got me back into it because I took a break. Other Than that I do have to say... WATCH IT.. Its Indeed Worth the time.

Romance Dawn Part Deux

FoxxFireArt — Tue, 08 May 2012 04:47:23 -0700

0.0945312066519 out of 5

One Piece Volume 61 Review

One Piece Vol. 61 US (Mar 2012)

Publisher: VIZ Media

Author: Eiichiro Oda

Rating: Teen

Genre: Action / Adventure / Fantasy

MSRP: $9.99 (USD)

Contents: 9 Chapters / 200pg.

This volume in the ever growing ONE PIECE series closes out both the Dawn Island Arc and the Grand Line Saga, but begins the Fish-Man Island Arc and the New World Saga. Very much a landmark issue. The Straw Hats have taken a two year break from their journey to finally train and prepare for the threats ahead. But in their absence impostors have stepped in to claim the title of Straw Hats,

The two year break is pretty much a Shonen Jump standard for their long running series. It's an effective way of instilling drastic change in your cast in a short period of time. Time skips are classically sudden, but Oda has been building to this for years by having Luffy either being defeated repeatedly or failing in his ultimate goal to save Ace. It's the only way to make such an innocent protagonist realize he's not ready for what's to come.

The Good

One of my biggest concerns about the time skip was that Luffy would come out of this as a more serious character, and his charm is in his innocence. This volume clears up all concerns that the crew you've grown to love have changed. There wasn't a single chapter that didn't have a chuckle or right out laugh in it. Oda's ability to mix comedy, drama, and action is well on display here, and we get an appropriately brief glimpse at some of their growth.

Zoro's bit of numbering the crew by order of their arrival is one of my favorite running gags of this volume, Nami's defiance against the Fake Luffy's advances was pretty bad ass, and I honestly love that moment when Sentomaru meets Luffy's impostor. As I think about it. Fake Luffy is one of the best punching bags since Buggy.

When it comes to the volume's added content. Not only are there the classic SBS Question Corner and voice actor interviews. Volume 61 actually has Oda's design sketches of how he was trying to work out the crew's new look for the post time skip. There is no version of Nico Robin that I don't love.

The Bad

Besides the rather pointless introduction of these new pirate rookie captains that exist only to be PX Cyborg fodder. My only real complaint with the volume is in some of the translation issues in relation to the Haki abilities. VIZ's choice of terminology is perplexing. Just to cite an example, and sort of in VIZ's defense. Busoushoku does literally translate to Color of Armor, and they translate this literally as "Color of Arms Haki". I'll just never understand their erratic choices in their use of literal translation. It's the use of the term "color" for all the Haki abilities that makes no sense. If the translation of a fighting technique is this awkward, it's better to tweak or use the actual Japanese terminology. "Haki" itself actually means "ambition", but they aren't using that. For some perspective, the word "Gum" is the Japanese term for "rubber". Could you image reading Luffy going "Rubber-Rubber" for every technique? It wouldn't have the same vibe. FUNimation found the best balance in their translation.

Verdict 4/5

I think it's important to remind people that the crew have been trying to get to Fish-Man Island since they left Water Seven in Volume 45, and they are only now on their way. That's dedication to long term story telling. Even if the action of the volume is very limited, but the story is a lot of fun. This is a landmark edition for any ONE PIECE collection. This is a great place to stow away for this epic adventure.

Favorite Moment: CH. 601 - Sentomaru - vs - Fake Luffy

Least Favorite Moment: CH. 600 - The New Pirate Rookie Intros.

WTF Moment: CH. 603 - Nosebleed Rocket

Favorite Character This Volume: Roronoa Zoro

Persona 4 episodes 5 and 6

DXmagma — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:18:50 -0700

0.206549316544 out of 5

Every Day.

Every day.Alright I'm jumping ahead of myself here. Persona 4 is a HUGE game, 80 hours huge. Over the course of these 80 hours you'll experience these social links moderately, you'll only finish about a hand full of these and completely miss others. Persona 4 The Animation is 12 and a half hours long. That would shorten the social links to under a minute a pop, about the length of the splash screen that currently shows Yu's stats, which are considerably more important.

So instead we get these glorified filler episodes about select social links. The first one follows Kou and Ai, the Strength and Moon Arcana social links.

The first thing I want to do is go over Kou's social link in the game. In Persona 4 Kou's the head of the high school's terrible Basketball team who is also at a cross roads in his life. Kuo's adopted and his family seems to have some influence in Inaba, and sees the sport to be a childish hobby and wants him to focus on studies. Over the course of the S.Link Kou wrestles with this issue and tries to find his birth parents, only to find they died sometime ago and gave him up because they had no one to make his god parent, and all they truly wanted was for him to be healthy and happy. At the end of it Kuo gains the support of his parents and decides that his bonds with others are what make him, not his parents.At the end of it all kou decides to make his own path in life, where he'll probably fuck his best friend Daisuke because whoa that guy is gay.

Kou's social link has a lot of weight to it. Statistically speaking Adopted children having quite a few problems genetic ones don't. Of course to be adopted one has to be given up, which has a huge impact on one's self confidence, and these feelings often lead to trying to impress their parents in order to feel, well not worthless. The later half has a lot more weight in Japan, where one's lifetime achievements are considered worthless unless one has a successor. Because of this there's a lot more stress on children to adopt their parents way of life, especially if they're notable.

So what's Kou's story in The Animation? He likes Chie! yup. Now do you see why I'm upset? In the game Kou's story line has a lot of depth to it and resonates with a lot of people. In the show it's downgraded to him having a crush on a girl that's already taken. I don't care what you say, she's taken. There is some mention that Kou's parents want him to quit basketball, but there's nothing about him being adopted or coming to terms with himself. It feels very detached, and less like he's confiding in you and more like he's just letting you know what's going on. Yu is Kou's personal Twitter follower.

The next story line is Ai's. In the game Ai is the quintessential High School popular girl. She's vapid, mean, bitchy, and all around unlikable. However she's cool, and wants to cut class so she's probably easy. Over the course of this story we find that Ai is a facade. Her father moved to inaba after coming into a large sum of money and decided to reinvent her self as the barbie girl everyone adores. By the end of the social link Ai decides to quit the act and become her real self, breaking up with Yu in the process since she never really liked him and just liked the idea of being with someone.

Ai's story line is treated a lot better in the transition to animation. For the most part episode 5 is about Ai forcing Yu to be her boyfriend. Yup.

Alright in all honesty I do like some thing's in the Animation more then the original route. For the most part Ai is a bit more likable then her game counter part. In the game we get about 4 S.Link ranks of her just being catty about things and it really makes it hard to continue. That fat is trimmed in the Animation and AI comes off as a lot more likable because of it. Now for the bad part!

There's no closure to Ai's route. No really, at the end of the episode Ai doesn't come to terms with who she really is, she doesn't become a better person or realize how vapid her and Yu's relationship really is. She just gets in a fight with Chie and decides she likes Kou more and leaves Yu, which sounds like it would hurt but it's a blessing in- well it's really just a blessing.

The entire point of the S.Link, hell, the entire point of the game is lost. Persona 4 is about 1 thing, accepting who you are and becoming a better person for it rather then burying these problems and letting them grow out of control. That is completely lost in the animation.

Now for good news! I do like what the series is trying to do with the social links by combining them. I know I complained about the show doing this earlier, but in the games Yu doesn't really seem to do much in these friendships. Everyone just kind of tells him stuff and uses him as an excuse to better their lives. The show tries to get past that by mixing the links together and giving people friendships outside of Yu. Kou and Ai's S.Links are both about their parents and how they deal with them. Kou was being pressured to be more like them, Ai was his them as an excuse to become something different. They're very similar in premise but also entirely different, which would make them ideal to combine. it doesn't really work here as the ratio has too much Ai in it, but down the road it gets refined into something a lot better.

For all the crap I'm giving it, I really did enjoy the episode. Even if it lacks the depth of the original S.Links, that's to be expected. The things I mentioned don't actually start until half way through the Link when we're already pretty connected to the characters. As we find out down the road trying to force viewers to feel for someone we're not properly attached to is just as bad if not worse as dumber it down.

At the end of it all I don't regret watching Episode 6 of P4. It's fun, has some really good gags, and is leagues above most filler. Even if it didn't tug at my heart strings like the game did.

The next episode is episode 6 and I should let you know I don't have anywhere as much to say. Simply put there's not a ton to talk about this episode.

By now you've probably figured out how the formula for Persona 4 works. An episode about finding the next victim, saving the victim, talking to the victim, victim joins the team, S.Link episode. By looking at that you can probably tell which episodes are going to be worth watching and which ones will be drags to sit through.

Despite the inevitability of Kanji being the victim seeing as he's IN THE FUCKING INTRO (JRPGs really gotta get better at that) the episode manages to be entertaining. In terms of adaptation it's pretty straight (LOLOLOLOLOL) the Seekers of Truth try to stalk Kanji and fail miserably. The added touches of Chie ordering take out do break up the monotony of it though.

One thing I do dislike isn't exclusive to the Animation, and that's forcing Yu and Yukiko together. In the game no matter who you pick when asked who you want to split up with you're always going to be stuck with Yukiko. It's done to establish a Social link early on, but it always feels forced. both the show and the game are very good at making these points where characters open up to Yu seem sincere and fluid, but this one always feels forced.

But that one point isn't enough to ruin the whole episode. Regardless of Yukiko confiding in Yu during the middle of a murder investigation, it's a fun little episode and It reminds me how fun Persona 4 can really be. But one complaint is that I don't think the Japanese VA for Kanji is nearly as good as Troy Baker. When i heard he voiced Kanji I was a little skeptical but after some 40 hours I can't see anyone else voicing him. But we'll talk more about that next week.

Persona 4 remains a really good show. While some things are lost in translation from game to show it's still really good and manages to capture both the unbridled fun and tension of the show. It's biggest downfall is it's a little redundant. It doesn't really expand on the original and if you've played the game there's not a whole lot of purpose in seeing the show. But if you don't have 80 hours to waste or a ps2, or a Vita then P4: The Animation is well worth watching.

The Best Movie-Long Chase Scene You'll Ever See

AK_the_Twilight — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 11:27:57 -0700

0.0 out of 5

Let me get this out of the way first: I LOVE Dead Leaves. It’s easily one of my favorite anime movies I’ve ever seen, but I cannot in good faith say that everyone should see it. Anyone looking for substance and meaningful relationships in their anime will throw up their breakfast after sitting through the entirety of Dead Leaves (or even the first 10 or 15 minutes). Dead Leaves has adrenaline pumping through every vein; it’ll definitely keep viewers interested or at least in awe of the over-the-top action that breathes in each moment. It’s an animated rush that puts the action genre into a stunningly presented and gorgeously weird light. Yes, it’s blatantly flawed, but what it does do, it does without any hesitation or restraint. That’s a damn good thing.

The story of Dead Leaves begins with protagonists Retro (a TV-headed hotshot with a penchant for destruction) and Pandy (a calm and collected superwoman with an identical thirst for rampage) discovering each other naked in a wasteland, both without a memory of who they are and how they got there. After getting clothes and causing a bit of chaos in the city, the duo are arrested and sent to a space prison on the moon. After adjusting to the living conditions and having sex, the two destroy their confinements and embark on a frantic demolition spree to escape the prison, with a crew of derelict clone criminals along for the ride. There is some sort of metaphor of a caterpillar eating leaves or something, but Dead Leaves never takes that particular idea to heart. A brief mention of Pandy’s past mixing in with some disturbing family issues are briefly, BRIEFLY noted, but the rest of the OVA is pure adrenaline rush. To be fair, there is a remarkably connective relationship between the two protagonists (and not just because of the sex) and the end result is actually a pretty well-versed one. In the 50-something minutes that the OVA runs, however, not much time is offered for the depth to bloom, resulting in what is essentially a massive chase sequence with sci-fi intrigue peppered on top.

Dead Leaves isn’t a show that goes down easy. In fact, even if you’re looking for an intense and action-packed feature, Dead Leaves will exceed your expectations, for better or for worse. Random occurrences are common, surprise battles will appear frequently. There isn’t any moment in Dead Leaves where the characters or even the designers stop to catch their breath. However, this all comes at a significant cost. Everything seems incredibly meaningless in Dead Leaves; random violence and bizarre situations are thrown about like rag dolls, and the entire question of “why” is nearly ignored. Note that it “seems” incredibly meaningless, because the ending does take some time to reflect on the characters as a whole, but Dead Leaves still feels more like an energy drink than a calming cup of warm milk. Still, there is definitely a group who will love the hell out of Dead Leaves and a group who will hate its guts. It really depends on your thirst for violence and over-the-top battle scenes or your desire for significant substance in your anime. If you are the former, however, Dead Leaves is the top of its class. Its riotous pacing and inability to slow down makes it something beyond other action OVA’s released in the last ten years.

Dead Leaves’ alternative art design contains some of the most over-the-top and disorienting action sequences that you’ll ever see in any animated feature. It makes FLCL look like interpretive dance. Interestingly enough, Hiroyuki Imaishi, designer of other hyperactive, adrenaline-drenched anime like FLCL, Gurren Lagann, and Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt created Dead Leaves, which puts all other animation styles to utter shame. Exploding onomatopoeia, insanely choreographed gunfights, and comic-book-esque bursts of color and texture make Dead Leaves an INSANE ride. It’s by far the most energized anime you’ll see. The dialogue is just as lewd and bizarre as the rest of the animation. Retro’s obsession with being a crime lord in a past life is contrasted with the fact that he is forced to defecate when in the prison (like I said, lewd). Pandy, who doesn’t get as much dialogue, is a collected badass girl who does have a lot of character (she’s a perfect match for keeping Retro in line). However, the only secondary character who feels pertinent to the story is an inmate with a giant…um…drill. Every other character feels just as expendable as they turn out to be. This makes the other characters pretty unremarkable, but since the entire story is focused on Retro and Pandy, it’s explainable to a degree.

Dead Leaves will not make friends with everyone. The meaning and purpose behind the characters’ actions are framed loosely, storyline is near ignored, and the chase scenes move for over 20 minutes at a time (and that’s putting it lightly). For those who do love action films, Dead Leaves will entice and reach out at that primal desire for over-the-top antics without any restraint. It’s the ultimate anime drug trip. Dead Leaves pioneers an engaging and “WTF”-inducing animation style that has yet to be duplicated (even in Imaishi’s later works). It’s significantly designed and difficult to turn away from. Dead Leaves is the most flawed masterpiece you’ll see on DVD or your local streaming service, but if you can overcome those flaws, you’ll return to Dead Leaves over and over and experience one of the best assault on your senses you’ll find in anime today.

Yu Yu Hakusho Review

Ashwyn — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 15:36:23 -0700

0.0 out of 5

Due to Anime mostly always having '' Story Arcs '' or '' Sagas '' I'm not going to try to say any spoilers or at least anything that's really gives what exactly happens in the Anime away, so here it is.

The Plot:

The main character Yusuke Urameshi is an every day street-brawling punk who has an oversized tough guy attitude to everything in his life; this is mainly because his mother Atsuko, a raging Alcoholic, gave birth to him at the tender age of 15 and took a backseat in raising him.

Yusuke is basically the type of kid who has a seat reserved for him in the principal's office.

However, taking everyone by surprise he shows a certain type of Heroism one day and saves a young boys life by pushing him out of the way from a speeding Car...

Yusuke then dies from the Cars impact himself and goes to the afterlife. Kind of Ironically Yusuke is informed by the Grim Reaper no less; that the young boy would have avoided the crash course with the car and had it not been for him the boy would have had one less scratch on his shoulder from where Yusuke pushed him out of the way.

After showing that people still care about him the Leader of the Spirit world, Koenma, a baby like man who has lived for hundreds of years revives Yusuke and is recruited into the Spirit world agency in which ( you guessed it ) he works as a spirit detective on earth investigating demon goings on.

Sooner or later Yusuke comes into spiritual powers of his own and enlists help of numerous friends along the way from human world, spirit world and even the Demon world.

What I have wrote there Is just a brief summary of what happens through out YuYu Hakusho as just like I said before I don't want to spoil anything incase you want to go and see it for yourself.

Ok but from now on there may be spoilers!!!

Now what I found out while watching the anime was that it very much resembles Bleach in a heck of a lot of ways, these include:

•1. Both Sort of lose there powers (Bleach: Ichigo loses the ability to use his Bankai)

•2. Both main protagonists seem to get stupidly powerful when their friends are in danger ( well that could really count for all main hero's of anime )

•3. Both main protagonists have some form of evil demon powers ( Ichigo with his Vizard powers)

•4. Both protagonists get whooped a lot the first fight with a bad guy, but then kick there ass the second time.

I hope my points been proved XD

Now what I did like about the story is the way they explained that a certain bad Demon '' Toguro '' which took an entire Saga to beat (Dark tournament) was only a middle class Demon and that there are Demons stronger and faster than him on the A, S class of Demon. I found this a good way to kind of explain that there will be bigger and harder fights to come for 2 reasons.

•1. After watching through the dark tournament Saga and seeing what Toguro could do first hand and beaten him, Yusuke is relieved and thinks it's over and that he must have been the strongest demon ever. Me as the audience also thought this after watching and was greatly surprised to find out that Toguro was only a B class and was weak compared to A and S class demons, so it makes you think like the main character and leads you in to a great shocker.

•2. Super strong bad guys don't just turn up without hardly an explanation and start killing everything,( DBZ ) of course if YuYu Hakusho was longer this proberly would have been a different story all together but the Plot was just long enough to stay smart for the most part.

Ok what I didn't like about the Plot...

*SPOILERS*

Towards the ending of the anime it left a hugely bitter taste in my mouth because it just felt way to rushed after episode 105 or around there, plus it didn't stay smart like I was hoping it would around the end as Yusuke gets his ass whooped and then gets killed..

But oh wait, he suddenly has Demon blood in him and he's half bread!!!

WTF?!?!

Where is that come from?

So for the past 95 episodes Yusuke hasn't ever like suddenly felt this demon power like Naruto or even Kurama,who's in the same anime,but because he's dead the all of sudden has had this demon power since he was born?

BULL****!!!

When watching this particular Saga and watching the episode where Yusuke awakens his demon side confused the **** outta me because of that fact.

Main Charaters:

Yusuke - Yusuke is the toughest kid in Sarayashiki Junior High School and has a typical tough guy approach to everything. He becomes a spirit detective after he dies and is revived by Keiko's kiss. His main attack is Spirit Gun where he can manipulate his Spirit Energy and fire it into a projectile. He learns many techniques and abilities from Genkai. He mainly grows in strength from all of his different battles, because he responds to danger by unleashing his full strength.

Kuwabara - Kuwabara is the second toughest kid in the school, and resents Yusuke for it. Originally rivals, Yusuke and Kuwabara would start a grudging friendship that only strengthens throughout the series. Although human, Kuwabara has high Spirit Awareness shortly after accompanying Yusuke on missions, he is able to manifest a Spirit Sword.

Kurama - in his human form - Kurama is a demon with the ability to summon and control plants. He was originally the powerful and infamous thief, for demon Kurama or Yoko Kurama until he was wounded by a hunter. Managing to escape by inhabiting the body of an unborn human baby, he grew up as the human child Shuichi, and planned on abandoning his "family" once his demonic power returned at the age of ten, but grew to love his human mother. Kurama has a wide variety of techniques, because of his ability to control a wide variety of plants, including the often seen Rose Whip. In the Dark Tournament Saga, Kurama was given a potion to aid him in his transforming to his Yoko Kurama state, but in later episodes seemed to be able to transform at will, which is never explained that well.

Hiei - A Fire Demon who specializes in the Jagan ( third eye ) as well as swordsmanship, and can move at Super Human Speeds. His artificially created Jagan amplifies his power and enables him to summon the black fires of Demon World and channel it as an energy attack, often in the shape of a dragon. He's a bit of a hot head and often bickers with Kuwabara. Hiei is also a bit short.

Genkai - The aged Spiritual fighter who rigorously trains Yusuke in the Spirit Wave technique Though her manner is often gruff, she cares for Yusuke and the others, and constantly tries to help them grow stronger.

The characters of the anime are pretty much what you would expect from the plot of YuYu Hakusho.throughout the series they interact really well and none of the main characters feel out of place like several other anime and this is also a rare anime that not one character is extremely stronger than another as is proved nearer to the end of the series when Kurama, Hiei and Yusuke areCLA.SSED as to have STY.PE demon powers and of course Kuwabara is the strongest human alive and actually is only defeated in the anime by a demon called Rando and Yusuke himself as all the other defeates are all cheap and dirty moves.

Plus the relationship between Kurama and Hiei is more than just two demons that fight together as Hiei states while fighting the four saint Beasts but of great Friendship which is shown throughout the series, but as Hiei is the stubborn character of the anime (much like Vegeta in DBZ), he never truly admits it.

Animation:

To say that the animation is sometimes bad is proberly the understatement of the century in my opinion as throughout the later stages of the Dark tournament Saga the facial expressions of a few of the characters don't look right..

E.G. in one particular episode Yusuke is telling Toguro that he is going to '' pay for what he has done '' but his eyes are closed, luckily this is only a very brief scene that goes past quickly and apart from that moment the Animation stays steady.

Another big thing that's wrong with the animation is something that is in every Anime series that I have watched to date and that is recycled anime.

Recycled anime gets on my nerves for the sheer fact that it's obvious that the staff of the series felt lazy and just used old clips, YuYu Hakusho is no exception to this curse and in on episode the same clip of Yusuke fighting hand to hand ( forgot who ) is used at least 3 times in quick succession.

Oh and lets not forget the great Old-School animation the series has just like Dragonball, here it works possibly a little bit better in some areas and worse in others but overall,im glad the animation was done back in the 90's.

English Dub:

The English Dub isn't half bad (I've seen a lot worse), of course it's not perfect because it seems with most anime there's always a Sub character that has a bad ass character model but then as a thick Scottish accent or something like that.

Again YuYu Hakusho has this with two of its sub characters, Jin; the Shinobi who Yusuke fights has an Irish accent and Chu another demon who Yusuke fights has an Australian accent, I mean Chu's accent fits the personality perfectly and I mean Jin suits his pretty well too, but it just feels disjointed in a Anime series.

Apart from that the English Dub is all you could expect with Yusuke having a great Hero type of voice and like I said in my First impressions blog, Chris Sabat as Kuwabara.

Overall, YuYu Hakusho stays true to the Heroism Anime and it works really well for the most part and although the ending quarter to the series may feel rushed and leave you with a confused brain, YuYu Hakusho is a hidden Gem because it has abit of everything mixed in as if you like Bleach, you'll like YuYu Hakusho, you like Naruto, You'll like YuYu Hakusho, you like DBZ, you'll more often than not find YuYu Hakusho worth checking out.

Plus although the end quarter wasn't as strong as the first three, in my opinion, when it ended it left me wanting more episodes.

Overall Score: 87%