And now for some anime reviews and ratings! Each section contains a few paragraphs summarizing the plot of a given anime and provides some analysis. Please note, of course, that this page contains many spoilers and reflects my personal opinion, and also that it remains very much a work in progress.

Rating system

1 - Complete and total tripe

2 - Mostly garbage

3 - Mediocre at best

4 - Below average

5 - Watchable though unimpressive

6 - Decent but not stand out

7 - Highly recommended

8 - Among the better shows

9 - Nearly flawless

10 - A genuine masterpiece

Ichigo Kurosaki is just an ordinary Japanese teenager, except for his ability to see the spirits of the dead (and his bright red hair, but it's anime, so that shouldn't surprise anyone). His life changes forever, however, when he meets a shinigami or Death-god (translated as soulreaper in the English dub, presumably because they thought the straight translation would be too scary for us Americans) named Rukia. Disappointingly, she does not demolish cities to the tune of Mozart's Dies Irae as her intimidating title would suggest, but instead battles "hollows", ghosts gone bad who feed on souls, to prevent them from wreaking untold havoc on the world. She reveals that she has come from a place known as the Soul Society to escort souls to the afterlife. Somehow, this all has something to do with the titular household cleaner, though exactly what I can't yet be sure (curiously, at this point, the top Google search results for "bleach" include more links for the anime than for the cleaner).

After several weeks of guarding the human world, Ichigo finds himself faced with the unexpected when soul reapers arrive to arrest Rukia for capital crimes.

While hardly a groundbreaking concept by any stretch of the imagination, this premise does set up a lot of potential for an entertaining and action-packed series. Nonetheless, it gets off to a somewhat sluggish and repetitive start despite the many scenes of action and danger interspersed with exposition introduced in a suitably tongue-in-cheek manner. The hollows, for all the threat they pose to the world and their suitably grotesque forms, are not the most sophisticated of adversaries and their rudimentary agenda of eating souls lacks more than a superficial level of menace. Unforunately, it seems that Bleach is one of those anime series of indefinite length and entire seasons of filler (see my review of Inuyasha below), the sort of thing I have never particularly enjoyed. This poses some difficulties for a review of the series, so I will simply have to go on what I have seen (the first fifty or so episodes). Future developments may shift my opinion for the better, however.

Conclusion: To be decided

Rating: 4 / 10

This anime is essentially a continuation of the notoriously short animated film Blood: The Last Vampire, which centers on a young vampire girl defending a military base in Japan from a race of blood drinking demons called chiropterans. The story begins with Saya, a teenage girl living in Okinawa who begins a journey into her mysterious past and true nature when a chiropteran attacks her school. Following her on this quest are her adoptive family, a cello wielding servant, and a secret organization known as Red Shield that battles the chiropteran menace. The campaign against chiropterans takes Saya all across the world from Vietnam to Europe and finally the US. Along the way she meets her archenemy Diva, a young vampiress who resembles her apart from differing eye color and temperament.

Conclusion: To be decided

Rating: 7 / 10

The year is 2071 and humans have colonized much of the solar system (and its about time I suppose, though they still haven't gotten around to making many flying cars). Naturally, criminals take advantage of space travel to evade the law and it is up to a new breed of bounty hunters, colloquially known as Cowboys, to track them down. In contrast to many anime series, this show tends toward a richly varied assortment of self-contained episodes with the main plot thread, which involves the hero Spike Spiegel and his nemesis Vicious, much less prominent. Naturally this makes summarizing the plot somewhat difficult.

Of particular note is the nice soundtrack (for anime at least, but that's a whole other rant) by the famed and versatile composer Yoko Kanno, with many pieces in a quasi-jazz style (hence the name of the show or was it the other way around?).

Conclusion: Cowboys plus jazz equal win!

Rating: 7 / 10

Conclusion: Undecided

Rating: Undecided

All seems well in the coastal Japanese city of Kamakura, but the peace is broken when the super-hot but psychotic diclonius Lucy (presumably the result of Valerie Solanas being reincarnated as a catgirl) escapes from the island lab off the coast, paving a path of carnage behind her. A sniper's bullet blows the strange helmet containing her head off and reveals a good meter of flowing purple hair (it's only a matter of time before they go all the way and introduce hybrid hair colors and styles now), but also knocks her into the ocean surrounding the lab. The resulting brain trauma causes both dissociative identity disorder, a split personality in layman's terms, and retrograde amnesia (the anterograde form remaining, as usual, rare on TV). Not long after, she is found naked and with a different, more amiable personality on a beach by the protagonist Kouta and his cousin. Due to the fact that she can only utter the syllable "nyuu", this personality becomes known as Nyuu in contrast to Lucy.

Conclusion: Beautiful but deadly

Rating: 8 / 10

In the distant future, on an oh so mysterious yet familiar planet where the air is filled with a substance known as trapar, both humans and mecha alike use the trapar to "surf". The story begins with a whiny 14-year old boy Renton who thinks the world sucks, naturally, and longs for a life of excitement and escape from his home with his grandfather (his father having died saving the world, though how that happened is not revealed until near the end of the show). Renton's idol is Holland, who leads a countercultural micronation known as the Gekko State (no, not that lizard from the car insurance commercials, it's Japanese for "Moonlight") aboard an airship replete with pirates, stoners, and other rebels who seem to enjoy the strange sport of reffing, or surfing in the air, and annoying techno (which seems to point to a future when music has discarded melody, harmony, and even actual instrumentalists entirely in favor of endlessly repeating drum machine beats). As it turns out, one of the Gekko-Staters includes a beautiful but shy and unearthly pallid teenage girl (strange, I keep having a sense of déjà vu) who needs repairs for her mecha, the famous Nirvash Type Zero.

Like RahXephon, Eureka Seven suffers from the whole Eva clone issue, though fortunately, it isn't nearly as bad about it. Unlike the decidedly turgid and overly "epic" RX, it doesn't seem to take itself so seriously and feels much more fun. At the same time, it comes off as somewhat meandering, particularly early on, lacking a sense of purpose (except maybe to sell action figures, it seems). Finally, near the last leg of the series, it starts to delve into a message of tolerance and peaceful coexistence (represented by the relationship between the human Renton and the Coralian Eureka), though by this point, it becomes a case of too little too late, as though they needed a moral. Confusingly, however, the ending manages to undermine this with a sudden and almost anti-climatic resolution to the Limit of Life issue, which involves the Coralians departing to another dimension along with half the human race (the obvious side-effects of which go totally unmentioned). This allows both races to avoid the cataclysm and conflict, pursuing alternate paths of evolution in the hopes of finding a solution to said problems. Far from resolving the plot, however, this separate-but-equal ending pushes the actual conclusion to some indefinite point in the future (how convenient for the writers) and all but undoes the theme of coexistence.

Conclusion: Evangelion with surfboards...and techno

Rating: 6 / 10

This series starts in a quasi-retro setting with a world resembling western Europe circa 1910, aside from the existence of a cybernetic technology called auto-mail (whose function in the plot I don't quite understand) and the enigmatic science of alchemy. Young Edward and his brother Alphonse both display a knack for alchemy at an early age and their mother Trisha allows them to study the alchemy texts of their father, who has left the family for reasons unknown.

Conclusion: Sign me up for Alchemy class!

Rating: 7 / 10

The one that started it all, Mobile Suit Gundam is famous for launching a major anime franchise and revolutionizing the concept of mecha by introducing "real robots" as opposed to "super robots". Basically that means it treated gigantic robots as semi-realistic military weapons rather than fanciful superhero-like craft.

The plot follows a 16 teen year old Amuro Ray, who spends his days on the colony Side 7 fiddling with electronics, until an attack by the Principality of Zeon turns his life upside down. Enemy forces launch an assault against a military base in Side 7, where Amuro's father works and where the Earth Federation is developing its own prototype mobile suits. Thrust into the helm of the powerful prototype Gundam, Amuro escapes the collapsing colony with the neophyte crew of the White Base. He quickly develops a rivalry with the mysterious masked pilot Char Aznable, who has a hidden agenda and a penchant for the color red.

Conclusion: Undecided

Rating: 7 / 10

As implied by its somewhat verbose title, this series takes place in the Cosmic Era as a sequel to Gundam SEED.

Conclusion: More like Mobile Suit Gundam WEED

Rating: 4 / 10

Conclusion: Undecided

Rating: 7 / 10

Kagome Higurashi is an ordinary Japanese schoolgirl who's life changes forever (as usual) when a demon drags her down a well leading to the 1500s. Within her abdomen lies the Shikon Jewel, a pearl-like object with great power. Fortunately for Kagome, a dog-demon named Inuyasha (which just means Dog-Demon in Japanese, apparently) slays the demon. Later, a crow demon swallows the jewel and Kagome shoots it with an arrow, scattering jewel fragments across the land. Inuyasha and Kagome must put aside their hostility to recover these fragments before they fall in the hands of their arch-enemy, the evil Naraku. Remarkably enough, Kagome seems pretty unperturbed for a schoolgirl surrounded by Japanese demons (isn't that just asking for trouble given what other anime has told me about demons?). Along the way, Kagome and Inuyasha make a number of friends, including Shippo, a fox demonling who doesn't seem to be good for anything, Miroku the lecherous monk, and Sango the tragic survivor of a dastardly plot by Naraku. Naturally, since demons are ubiquitous in the Feudal era (amazing how such powerful beings disappeared so completely in only 500 years), the group has a lot to worry about.

Inuyasha actually starts out as a pretty good series (though by no means a great one), with humor, action, and plenty of fun, but also some drama as well. Like the energizer bunny, however, it just keeps going and going...and going...and going... By the 100th episode, what was once a fun series has become a bloated morass of endless filler (entire story arcs of it, no less). Numerous opportunities to reach a satisfying endpoint are avoided for no apparent reason, with the next opportunity delayed by entire seasons of filler. Plots and jokes that sucked when they first appeared return ad nauseam (such as the ludicrously overplayed lecherous monk gag) and do nothing to distract us from the utter lack of character development. At least one character who should never have existed to begin with dies, comes back to life, dies again, and then returns (allowing for more filler and deus ex machina of course). In all honesty, it probably deserves a negative rating later on, but since it started out enjoyable, I decided it deserves a 3 out of 10 over all.

Conclusion: So...much...filler

Rating: 3 / 10

See this page for the full review.

Conclusion: Better than the version told in the Bible

Rating: 9 / 10

RahXephon is a show with an interesting premise. Start with some Wagner, add some Meso-American imagery, and mix in a locale off the coast of Japan and what do you get? Japanese schoolboys piloting giant clay Valkyries and battling other giant clay valkyries (piloted remotely by people wearing Mayan-styled masks) with the power of song. In the near future, a race of literal bluebloods, the Mulians, have taken over Tokyo (seriously, that city must be cursed or something) and encased it in a strange dimensional barrier, and humans have developed a secret organization, TERRA, to fight them. Our hero, Ayato, lives in Tokyo, unaware of what is really going on, until one day, he escapes from the city, discovers the mecha RahXephon, and leaves with Mis-, I mean Haruka, who leads him to TERRA where he eventually uses his mecha-piloting skills to battle the Mulian's arcane clay craft (called Dolems, which for some reason usually attack one at a time, as the Mulians never realize the obvious advantages of sending a whole squadron).

RahXephon's largest weak point is undoubtedly its similarity to Neon Genesis Evangelion. The parallels draw themselves, from the mysterious mecha that isn't really a mecha to the stream of consciousness sequences with flashing colors and pseudo-surreal imagery, down to the apocalyptic theme. A number of plot holes bothered me as well. Why did the Mulians build such baroque (no pun intended) craft as the dolems when they could have made something far more streamlined and efficient? Why did they repeatedly send only one dolem at a time only to watch the humans defeat them again and again (I suspect the answer to both questions lies in the cloning from Eva). The musical motif, as well, was a wasted opportunity, and shows up largely in the clumsy naming scheme of the Dolems, which are christened with various musical terms such as Allegretto and Sforzando. A more clever and subtle integration of the music theme (symbolism involving the circle of fifths or counterpoint, for example), might have helped.

RahXephon, it seems, tries hard to be the next Evangelion and fails, perhaps for just that reason. The borrowed images, settings, and themes, rather than contributing to the show only reveal a distressing lack of creativity and originality. It ends up feeling rather turgid and confused, particularly by the end when the apocalypse finally comes. Yes, there were some nice touches, such as Ayato's discovery of his true nature and the music, but my rating stands. Personally, I think RX should have followed through with the Wagnerian theme and ended with Ayato riding RahXephon into a flaming pyre ^_^

Conclusion: If only it had ended like Der Ring...

Rating: 5 / 10

This was one of the first anime series I saw in full and it holds a special place in my heart for that reason. In the long tradition of anime's often perplexing naming conventions, its title is both misleading and yet ultimately accurate (when I first heard of it, I assumed it was nothing but gunfighting). Like many works of anime, Trigun has a strangely hybridized setting, in this case combining the distant future with a sort of Old West steampunk (often with some comic results). Trigun presents us with an enigmatic hero, a gunman with (literally) superhuman skill yet paradoxically unwilling to kill no matter what pressure he faces. Throughout the first dozen or so episodes, the show carefully cloaks the backstory in a veneer of light comedy, leaving us only with the sense that he is no mere mortal. That all changes with the introduction of the Gung Ho Guns and their leader Millions Knives.

Conclusion: To be decided

Rating: 7 / 10

Sometime in the distant future, Earth is left in shambles by a massive apocalyptic war. Now, the world is populated by both humans and vampires (not sure why, really, but hey, vampires are cool so I'm not complaining). For some reason, the Catholic Church has become the de facto ruling power in the human race (Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, and so on having presumably thrown in the towel and converted long ago) and sends its secret operatives, including the protagonist Abel Nightroad, a goofy mild-mannered priest with a long and secret past (coughVashtheStampedecough) to protect humans from rogue vampires. Naturally, Abel has an arch-nemesis, named Cain (yet another bit of anime name-dropping) who runs an evil organization known as Rosenkreutz (because as we all know, when something is in German, it means it's evil).

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Trinity Blood glosses over the checkered (to put it delicately) past of the Catholic Church and focuses on a heroic, benevolent portrayal of the organization that is somewhat at odds with the reality of an institution that masterminded campaigns of terror against anyone who dared to question even minor points of doctrine (a clue to what happened to curiously absent Jews and Protestants, perhaps, but let's not turn this into a rant on religion). In contrast to this rather conservative, straightforward background, the futuristic, uniquely anime quality sticks out, with priests going toe to toe with vampires and later the aforementioned evil German dudes, complete with what look to be Nazi uniforms and no shortage of cool weapons of their own. Even more frustrating than religious aspects is the pervasive monarchism, with virtually every character either an aristocrat or a member of the clergy (as if the common laity doesn't matter anymore).

The decided lack of originality and surprise and gratuitous tubthumping for the Church and royalty do much to push the rating down. Nonetheless, I cannot deny its mostly effective sense of style and atmosphere, even the perpetually muted tones have come across as black and white to a casual viewer I talked to. Now, if Abel had a line like "Nobody expects the Japanese inquisition!"

Conclusion: Passion of the Christ SF style

Rating: 5 / 10

If I were to guess who two of among the most notorious writers of the 19th century were, I would have to nominate Friedrich Nietzsche and the Marquis de Sade. Legend of the Overfiend combines the worst of both into a diabolical work of Nietzschean misogynism, Übermenschen, and Sadistic perversion. In the doomed city of Osaka, the disturbingly decadent Nagumo lives a fairly ordinary life, attending school with the beautiful Akemi who he lusts after hopelessly. In what is undoubtedly a strange twist, however, Akemi is summoned by her teacher, who turns out to be a tentacle demon (thus founding a new genre of hentai) that rapes her. Fortunately, the nigh-immortal "beast-man" Amano slays the demon and with the help of his sister, Megumi, seeks out the Overfiend. Believing that this mighty being will bring an age of amelioration and peace, Amano and the others soon learn with horror that the Overfiend has come to bring just the opposite (which should have been obvious given the fact that he was called the Overfiend I suppose).

Conclusion: Thus Spake Zarathustra meets 120 Days in Sodom

Rating: 2 / 10

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