Ranked #2095

Mirage of Blaze

Want to watch some cool bishounen? Check out this story about Takaya Oogi, a regular high school student trying to lead a normal life. I looked at this series with curiosity of how shounen-ai would be used. But, I found the story more interesting beyond what I imagined.

Although everything, in the story, at first seemed peaceful, a major turn in events surprised me. But, once the story unveiled itself after time, the fear of freaky spirits disappeared from my system. I grew interested in finding out what happened with Takaya.

First of all, I want to say that I found the artwork incredibly impressive. I think the animation could have been just slightly better in certain scenes, but the art style was well-designed. Itsuko Takeda's character design has always made, especially in Mirage of Blaze, anime, as a whole, much more interesting to watch. From such amazing art, I immediately grew to love each character. Not only was the art style very appealing but also the character development. I found that each protagonist had complex and almost "realistic" personalities. Sometimes, there were a few forced and cheesy moments that made the main character act somewhat unnormally. But, for the most part, each character had several intriguing characteristics.

Second, the sound added to the effects in a helpful and colorful way. "Suspense" and "horror" were mostly detectable by the sounds used in the anime. Each background music section blended well with each scene and circumstance. As for the opening theme song, I would say it could have been better in ways, but I found that the shot sequence followed reasonably well with the music. The song itself was quite nice. I thought that the lack of an Ending theme song did not take away from the show.

Third, the graphics were not entirely adequate to my tastes, but they were effective and appropriate. The special effects during certain scenes lacked well-timed and flawless animation. But, altogether I found all of the effects unique and useful.

Fourth and finally, the story definitely had a rather wacky concept behind it. But, I found the absurdity of the plot quite entertaining to watch for development. This anime ended up being more than a rather "twisted" love story. There were many moments of drama and action mixed in with some adventure. Really, I found it hard to stop watching because it was so thrilling and interesting to continue watching till the end. The storyline really brought me to enjoy this series very thoroughly. Although a few things were a bit predictable and funky, I loved to watch the story unfold. The finish of the anime left a rather unsettling impression, though, in my opinion. Even so, I recommend this story to all slash/shounen-ai fans. It's a romance story that you cannot miss!

(Meh, I might be a bit biased with my review because I love shounen-ai... But, I still think my ratings were rather valid (inspite of the fact that many people do not agree with such high ratings)). read more

So this was playing in the "yaoi" (not really) room at Fanime 2007, and I parked myself and my luggage in there since I did not yet have my badge or a hotel room in which to store my stuff. (Con advice: make sure at least one person from each travel party has a name on the hotel reservation so you can get a key upon arrival.)

Guh. GUH.

Admittedly I was interested in this anime upon seeing the previews. The character designs reminded me of "X" and "Tokyo Babylon" (the main character is a Seishirou ripoff liek whoa), and there was some nice scenery. I have a weakness for urban fantasy, and like every girl, I'm crazy for a sharp-dressed man.

That isn't enough to hold my attention more than ten seconds, unfortunately. And that is where this show's good aspects end.

The story sucks. The dialog sucks. The anime itself DRAGS with filler that fills in the gaps between a story that is boring enough in-of-itself to feel like filler. It's filler within filler. There are some gratuitous shounen-ai-esque touchy-touchy moments. Woo-hoo.

It was so boring I don't even really remember what happened, something about a war and the main character being reincarnated and zombies. Sounds like it has the potential to be interesting? It's not.

Just watch "X" and save yourself the grief. read more