Intrepid Anime

So let’s talk about the elephant in the room first, so I can spend the rest of this review convincing you to forget about the elephant, and watch this anime. The characters in this series are done in CGI, using what appears to be the same kind of process that was used in one of J.C. Staff’s other series: “Hi-Score Girl.” You’re either going to let that bug you, or you won’t. For some people CGI is a complete turn-off, and means an instant drop. For others, they don’t care. I’m kind of in the middle. I much prefer standard animation, not too big a fan of CGI, so when I saw the trailer for this, I was initially really disappointed; I’d read some of the manga, before the announcement that this was coming out, so I was pretty excited when I heard it got picked up, but when I saw the trailer I was crestfallen. I’m sure a lot of people had the same reaction. But, if you can, be a bigger person, and see beyond the CGI, you’ll find something pretty special. Since we’re already on the topic o

I’m starting this review off up front by saying that “Tokyo Revengers” is, for me, a 10/10 series, but I’m a big softie when it comes to anything unique. I tend to score things a bit on the higher side, so, for you it may be an 8 or a 9 (if you like the same kind of things I do), but I want to be up front that I think this is a great anime and that it absolutely must be seen. I’m putting this at the beginning of my review, because I’m going to sound pretty mean about this anime a bit later, but I want it to be known that it’s very minor stuff, mostly dealing with visual elements, and doesn’t change the fact that this series deserves near perfect marks for its originality, story, and characters, and by no means does the visual side detract from any of that. This was not a bad adaptation, it just wasn’t a legendary one. Premise is cool. Time travel + Delinquents. If you’ve got any interest in seinen/shonen, that should be enough to get you to watch it and also enough to keep you from a

It’s 2021. I’m at home. My Crohn’s disease is flaring, and I’m debating on whether it’s safe or not to go to the emergency room because Covid-19 is still quite widespread, and despite being vaccinated, the risk of infection is still there, especially with new variants on the rise. Health care workers are setting their safety aside to do battle on the front line in order to treat those who suffer and keep the general public safe. Given this current state of events, I thought it was only right that I should watch Triage X, an R+, hardcore echi series created by the character designer from Highschool of the Dead, Satou Shouji, which stars a varied cast of buxom women (and a token guy they can fawn over), who live as doctors and nurses by day, but by night, don their hidden personas as Black Label: a vigilante group of super-spy, ninja-assassins that move under the command  of a genius surgeon. Their mission – to purge the world of the many cancers that plague society (with bullets, swords

  Nakaimo is basically as average as you can get. So average in fact, I forgot everything about it, including having already seen it, and watched it again. I had this marked as completed on MAL for who-knows-how-long, but could recall literally nothing about it, including the answer to the titular question, “who’s the MC’s little sister?” This is a PLOT heavy show that is heavy on actual plot. The premise is that the main character’s father has passed away, and he’s soon to become the head honcho at his dad’s company, so he’s going to attend a new, elite school, where he’ll become a refined, adult, and find a wife… but, the catch is that his little sister, the illegitimate child of his father, also goes to the school; so, he’s gotta find a wife, and not ALSO bang his sister by accident in the process. This is a fan-service loaded, echi, rom-com anime that can’t decide if it’s for the incest, or against it. Honestly, I’m not a big fan of little sister incest plots. They have a bad t

I found Kill Me Baby when I was cleaning out my plan to watch list, wondered, hmm, why did I add this, took one look at the characters and remembered them from a whole slew of AMV dance mix videos and memes. This series may not be well known, or spoken of specifically, but Sonia and Yasuna, the main characters, are fairly recognizable when you see them together. I figured I might as well watch it. Laughed quite a bit at all the gags, and then looked for what to put on next. That’s the kind of show this is. It’s good when you’re watching it, but ultimately pretty forgettable. This anime is based off of a 4-koma comedy manga and has a teeny tiny cast of characters. Sonia, is a JK assassin, Yasuna is her idiot friend, and Agiri is ninja of dubious ability. There is also the “unused character” (played by Rie Kugimiya, arguably the most famous VA on the cast), and a few extras. The series is essentially a slapstick, gag comedy, in the manzai format, which is extremely popular in Japan.

Urara Meirochou is a series I picked up entirely because Kayano Ai voices one of the characters, and not even one of the four main girls at that, so it’s not been a priority on my ptw list for a really long time, and I just got around to finishing it. I think it’s a bit underrated, in the sense that I rarely (that is to say never), hear it brought up in conversation or recommended, but looking at the score I gave it, and the average score on MAL, I think it’s actual rating is pretty accurate. It’s good. Not a whole lot more to be said… But I’ll say it anyway. This series is a very strange mix of genres: despite being undeniably a cute girls doing cute things (CGDCT) show, it also shares lots of trope elements with shonen series. Power of friendship, hard work, practice, etc. It’s a supernatural, fantasy, slice-of-life, comedy, and apparently it’s in the seinen category, despite being about a bunch of fifteen year old girls. It also features a good deal of very weird fan service

Black Magic M-66 is an OVA by the author of “Ghost in the Shell” made several years before he began working on that iconic masterpiece. That sentence alone should be enough to get you to watch this OVA (it’s only about 45 minutes long, what is that, in the great span of your life really?), but because I’ve got a word count to deal with, I suppose I’ll write a proper review. According to some quick Wikipedia research, this OVA was based on one story from the original doujinshi published by Masanori Ota a.k.a Masamune Shirow in 1983. It’s short, and to the point. No complicated details about anything, for the most part; this film has a plot, some good lucking characters (and character design) and great set pieces. It’s a very simple action movie that doesn’t get weighed down with existentialism or any of that other cyberpunk philosophy stuff, and instead just sticks with the bare nuts and bolts. There’s a crazy military-grade robot on the loose, and because of a programming accid

  I found this film when looking through HIDIVE’s movielibrary , not really knowing anything about it. I had heard of it, probably through advertising when it came out, but didn’t know anything regarding the content and I had long forgotten anything I saw in the trailers (if I had actually seen them in the first place). This certainly isn’t a movie that comes up in weeb discourse on social media, so I was interested to see if it was a hidden gem, and I think it kind of is. First, let me say, if you were hoping for a cute story where a moe girl takes care of an adorable dragon’s oral hygiene, ala Dragon Maid, you’re going to be very disappointed. Prepare yourself for “Princess Mononoke”, not “My Neighbor Totoro”. So, definitely not a kid flick. This two-part film is an adaptation of an 8 minute ONA from novelist Ōtarō Maijō, someone who writes proper literature. It’s executive producer, Hideaki Anno, is best known as the creator of “Evangelion”, and with that knowledge, you can prob

I picked this movie out, at random, basically on a whim, when I was browsing Hidive’s film library. I had zero knowledge of it, or expectations going in. After about ten minutes in I was truly baffled, and went off to figure out what the fuck I’d gotten myself into. 15 minutes later, after taking down some notes on a nearby post-it, I had a rough idea of things. But in all honesty, still was pretty fucking lost. Kaiju Girls Black is a feature film anime sequel to the Kaiju Girls anime series, which I had not watched prior to screening this film while I played Minecraft; now I understood, at least in part, why I was so confused. This is the kind of movie that it helps to have gone into with some base level of connection to the franchise. Basically a movie made for the fans. In short, Kaiju Girls is a Gijinka (think anthropomorphic or furry, if you will) series in which various Kaiju (from Ultraman? I think, based off reading some wiki articles and watching a YouTube explanation vi