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Phi Brain: Kami no Puzzle is a very quirky anime. There's a lot of seriousness, but also a lot of comedy. There's a good balance between the two.

Story:
The thing that makes Phi Brain strange however, is that the seriousness is about something you'd never really think of in that way; puzzles. There's constant talk of "setting puzzles free". Sounds ridiculous, but the show takes it very seriously, and I actually find that I go along with it. Despite the strange sound of such a statement, the seriousness of it is not ruined. The story is actually quite good, despite the strangeness, and I feel quite ... compelled by it.

Art:
The art is fairly nice. I don't think it's anything majorly amazing, however.

Sound:
Same as the art. The music fits the atmosphere, however, it's not spectacular. You tend not to notice it; it just blends into the atmosphere.

Character:
The characters in this show are actually quite interesting. Kaito, our main character, is a very ambitious guy. I think as far as diversity goes, Cubic and Anna are quite interesting. I won't spoil the surprise about Anna, but Cubic is quite determined as well, and although he seems to be a cute kid, he does some strange things for the sake of his experiments. Rook is a very enigmatic character, and as a "villain", I think he fits the role well, despite his strangely styled hair (can't really decide if it's cool or just weird; it varies per shot.)

Enjoyment:
The only thing about this show that deters from me liking it more is the fact that they never show you the legwork through the puzzles. The characters just always take wiki walks and arrive at the conclusion with no evidence that they even solved it. Also, despite the cool idea, I feel like Kaito's Armband of Orpheus is a little bit of a cheat. He never really has to solve the puzzles normally, because it activates the rest of his brain so he can use 100% of it to solve the puzzle. Good idea, but a little bit cheap when it comes to the progression of the story.

Overall:
I think this show is actually really good. The seriousness regarding puzzles makes it a little weird, but I find that I really like it. If you like chess type situations between the "good guys" and the "bad guys", you'll certainly enjoy this show. Overall, definitely worth a watch even if it only sound mildly interesting to you. At first I was unsure of it, but when I started watching, it was better than I expected.

If you read the book, and you're looking for a good adaptation, don't bother with this. The plot for this movie has been changed a lot from the book, and the art and music don't make up for it.

If you haven't read the book (you should), then really, DON'T watch this. If you haven't already enjoyed the real story, this wouldn't even have the appeal of being loosely related to that.

I highly recommend the second movie Bloodlust, as it captures the essence of the series much better, and is a better movie overall. The original movie is entirely skippable, as the second movie is quite ... self-contained.

The story of Bloodline was not bad in itself, however, it could have been longer. I'm not going to write a long review but here are some things about it;

-The art was alright, but it was very hectic. I had a hard time understanding who was who and what was going on.
-In addition to that ^^^ it's supposed to be read from right to left, but the pages switched randomly back and forth between right to left and left to right, which made the hectic art REALLY difficult to understand (I'm not sure if the mangaka did this, or if it was flipped during scanning, ... or what).
-It was a nice plot, but it could have been explained a little better.
-Ends up feeling a little short, even for a one-shot.

So there's an outline.

I've been waiting since June to see this manga be made into an anime, and I wasn't disappointed. The anime starts when Nitori-san and Takatsuki-kun enter junior high school. It does accommodate the story of the manga before they entered junior high school, and I think it does a pretty good job of explaining to people new to the series the premise and what happened before this time.

Story
As in the manga, the story shows an accurate view of what transsexual children/teenagers must face in their life. My only quip is that it doesn't show quite how depressing those feelings are in the manga or anime; ... however, if it did, the story wouldn't be very good because the main characters would be depressed all the time.

Art
The animation was done very well; all the drawings are uniform in appearance, with nothing seeming out of place. The overall style of the anime still shows the very simple style of the manga, which really helped to make it feel right. The art itself is done in light, but very vibrant colors. It gives a very simple and beautiful appearance, which belays the depth of the issues in the story.

Sound
While I wasn't greatly impressed by the music, the simple piano tunes fit with the animation very well. There were a few pieces that I really liked, and the rest wasn't too bad, either. Not my personal choice, but it fits.

Character
The characters are still wonderful; showing depth in their issues and relationships.

Enjoyment
This is where I feel the need to put a "Your mileage may vary" warning. This anime is very beautiful to me, but to some, it might be boring or offensive, if you happen to have something against transsexuals (obviously, it's not meant for you, then). If you happen to be a transsexual like myself, or some other type of gender variant, than you will probably find this anime enjoyable just for being able to relate to it. If not, then you might just find it interesting. Either way, it's really a "You'll enjoy it, or you won't" kind of deal.

Overall
I loved it, and would recommend it to anyone who I thought would like it. I would, of course, suggest reading the manga too. A resounding 10, for the beauty of the characters and the story, and for being able to portray such a difficult topic in an understandable way.

Story
Hitsuji no Uta is an interesting anime, and if it had more time to develop it would have been really good. The anime as it stands at 4 episodes manages to tell a good story, even though it is short. What I found cool about it was that, instead of the low budget taking away from the enjoyment, it actually added to it. The repeated images and switching between black and white and color make the anime a little more stylized, rather than hindering the interest of the story. The way they show Kazuna's attacks also adds quite a bit of tension to the experience.

Art
The ... art style looks good most of the time, but sometimes ends up looking a bit off from the way you see it normally. This only happens in a few scenes, and it doesn't really disturb the presence of the theme. And like I said before, the low-budgetness of the anime actually stylizes it and makes it unique.

Sound
Really, there's not much here. There's about one song plus the ending theme. The one song in the anime actually fits in most of the situations, so even though there's not a large variety, it adds a familiar atmosphere when certain events are happening.

Character
The characters weren't that developed, mostly because there wasn't enough time to get to know them all. But by the end, you have a feel for the personality and ideals of most of the important characters.

Enjoyment & Overall
I enjoyed Hitsuji no Uta quite a bit, and because it's so short, the story doesn't get distorted and twisted around until it's unrecognizable. I would recommend it to anyone; I'm sure anyone could find something to like about it. Even if you don't like it a ton, you're only with it for 2 hours of your life, so you can watch it and add it to your repertoire of anime knowledge without too much effort.