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Dec 31, 2008
I can say with absolute confidence that Trigun is one of the best series I have ever seen. It had a very good story, one of the most interesting and complex main characters, an excellent soundtrack, great action, hilarious comedic moments and some pretty serious drama, especially in the latter half. If you watch anime, Trigun is a must-watch.
The story starts off a bit slow, we got this cool, yet goofy dude who has a 60 billion double-dollar bounty on him, and for the first half of the series it's pretty episodic, Vash goes to a new town, followed by Meryl and Milly, causes some
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destruction and laughs, shows that he's a good person in spite of his enormous bounty. To some it could seem that the story is going nowhere. However, in the latter half it takes a new direction, a darker and more mysterious road. The story unfolds rapidly, Vash's past is revealed, the reason for his bounty and these people who want to harm him are also gradually shown. To me, the story just starts off slow and gradually accelerates, without going over the speed limit. Good pacing.
The art and animation is quite good considering this is from 10 years ago. Vash looks kickass with that red coat and those shades of this, especially when he's out kicking some ass. However, there are some QUALITY moments, such as still shots when you can see that some bits are lacking detail, but it doesn't spoil the series much.
The soundtrack is pretty awesome, it has some awesome electric guitar, heard in the OP and kickass moments, yet it also has some peaceful, acoustic guitar pieces which fit in really well with the emotional and dramatic scenes. And the Trigun dub is of extreme high quality, I actually like it more than the sub, mainly because Meryl's Japanese voice was too soft, and it really fits well with the Western theme of Trigun.
The best aspect of Trigun definitely lies within its character, especially Vash. Vash is seriously one hell of a character. He's hilarious and goofy but he can be serious when the situation calls for it, is an expert gunman, has values and a mysterious and tragic past. Some may call Vash a Mary Sue or a moralfag, because he is an extreme pacifist, cool and awesome, but I heavily disagree.
True, he may come off annoying with his 'no killing' values, but he is truly a character who believes in peace and love straight to the heart, and it's quite evident from flashbacks to his past and as the story progresses. And it's very touching to see how far he is willing to go to stick to them. Also, all this horrible shit happens to him in his past, and during the series even though he's done absolutely nothing to deserve them, yet he is still able to maintain such a positive, empathetic and compassionate personality. He is truly incredible as a person, and this is strengthened by his twin brother Knives, who is the polar opposite of Vash ('Survival of the fittest', loves to cause harm and destruction, especially to Vash).
Truth be told, it really hurts to see Vash, who is such a wonderful person, suffer so much in the series from stuff that would change any person. Yet, that also allows us to see that Vash is truly incredible.
The other characters are also quite outstanding on their own. Nicholas D Wolfwood, a travelling priest/fuckawesome gunman, is quite different from Vash, yet similar and just as complex. Milly and Meryl are great for comedic relief, and they allow us to see Vash as a character through different angles. The villains and bad guys, some of them are not actually evil, and they themselves also have some very interesting backgrounds and reasons why they want to hunt Vash. Basically, there is a lot of character development in just about everybody.
I enjoyed Trigun hell of a lot, I loved watching Vash and Wolfwood go shoot shit up, Vash's hilarious antics, the awesome soundtrack, the interesting story, it's really entertaining to watch, and it really makes you think about why Vash acts like how he is, and (in a non-preachy way) how important it is to care about others and be empathetic. It also shows you true pain and suffering, and how it has detrimental effects on everybody, even to those who inflict it, and that there is always a chance to turn back despite the evils one might have done. It's probably the most dramatically interesting and touching series I've ever had the luck of coming across. If you're in for action, comedy, good characters and some serious drama, this is an excellent series for you.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Aug 7, 2008
I'm assuming that you've already watched the original EVA series before watching the movie before reading this. If not, spoilers abound.
So yes, this is basically a retelling of the original Evangelion in movie mode, and it's the first of 4 movies. This first movie covers the first six episodes of the original series, therefore not exactly innovative or anything shockingly interesting about the story. However, they did remove most of Shinji's self-pitying/emo-ing/bitching moments, so it's definitely one improvement from the original series.
The art is simply fabulous. The original series already had excellent artwork for its generation, and they've managed to improve it. Introduction of
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CG was definitely a great move, and it made scenes even better, especially the fighting parts. They completely redid the scene with the Angel Ramiel, replacing traditional hand-drawn Ramiel with CG designs. Needless to say, that scene turned into absolute eye-candy. Other uses and integration of CG were more subtle, such as introducing it into the graphs, computer charts, and background. The human character designs were sharpened a bit from the original, but otherwise remained unchanged. But it was integration of CG into this remake which really stole the light.
The sound remained mostly the same, but they did add new sound effects, most notably to the EVAs and Angels, and an excellent new ending song.
Characters remained virtually the same, except they cut out a lot of Shinji's bitching/whining, so definitely a good move. Made the movie a lot more enjoyable, as we only seen about 5 minutes of whining, opposed to the half episodes of manbitching in the original series.
Seeing this movie was definitely fun to watch, because they basically took the original series, and remade with better graphics, with a few minor changes, so that it's enjoyable to watch without feeling it's the same as the original series, yet not different enough that it strays away from its original roots. This definitely will bring back nostalgic feelings from older fans whilst giving something new for them to watch and admire.
This movie is actually a good enough retelling that a newcomer to EVA can watch this instead of the original series, and will be able to know nearly everything that happened. (Of course, it's not really recommended, seeing how it's the original that was so profound and revolutionary.) After seeing this, I have high hopes for the following three movies, although I am a bit doubtful about the last one.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jul 21, 2008
Gundam 00 was the first Gundam series I've actually finished, and I actually found it very entertaining. Hearing about the failure of its predecessor, Gundam Seed Destiny, I initially approached this series with some apprehension, but that was all forgotten at the first episode.
Story: The plot of the story is...unusual. Basically, 299 years from now, there is a private military group main objective is for the eradication of armed conflict through their Gundams. Basically, to destroy war, they will fight it (Quite ironic) The story of Gundam 00 is filled with politics, and on average, an episode will consist of more than half the episode
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containing political matters. Despite it sounding tedious, the political significance in Gundam 00 is what makes it stand out, and it shows us the World of Gundam 00 through a different perspective. Another thing unusual about Gundam 00 is that there is no clear "good" or "bad" side. The show is viewed through 3, main different perspectives; The civilian's, the main factions, and Celestial Beings, and whilst Celestial Being's goal sounds like a good idea, the views from another perspective show it differently, such as their interference with global conflict caused terrorist groups to attack innocent civilians. This element alone makes Gundam 00 very interesting to watch, and it doesn't follow the cliche that the main characters are the "good" guys, and their goal is marred by the "bad guys", but rather, it shows the good and bad of all perspectives.
Art: I will say, the art in Gundam 00 is very good, and it is particularly outstanding when showing mobile suits. This is nothing like Gundam Seed/Destiny, absolutely no stock footage reused. The battle animations are all of extreme high quality, and they are amazing to watch. Unfortunately, battle sequences tend to be quite short, tending to last less than 3 minutes. The mech designs also look very well designed, whether they be the Gundams, the Overflags, the GN-Xs, etc... The people themselves also look very nice, and the females of their series look particularly beautiful with their "00" figures (Great breasts).
Sound: The sound quality is on the same level of Gundam Seed/Destiny, but it sounds completely different. Whilst GS/D have excellent pop music accompanying the series, the music in Gundam 00 shines particularly during battle sequences. The battle music is plentiful, and there is a lot of variety to match the many moods of the fights throughtout the series. The OP and EDs are, surprising, all great tracks, particularly the two OPs. The VAs also did very well, although it was a bit odd seeing Rie Kugimiya voice Nena Trinity (Who had a very well developed figure, in contrast to the loli figured characters Rie Kugimiya is famous for voicing).
Character: This is where Gundam 00 falls a little short. The main characters did not really recieve any character development until halfway through the series, and were generally quite bland. Tieria in particular was quite an unappealing character, because he felt the current Gundam Meisters were not fit for their roles, until later on, when he started to warm up and the Meisters truly worked as a team. Saji and Louise are shown frequently in Gundam 00, and were quite annoying until the death of Louise's family caused by Celestial Being near the middle of the anime. There is a lot of character history as well, and it is often shown how it has affected them and why certain characters act in a certain way. Overall, character development really accelerated for the main cast shortly after the Trinities appeared.
Enjoyment: Gundam 00 was a very enjoyable show to watch every week, because the show content was interesting, the fights were beautiful, the political dialogue was intriguing, and because it was different from all the other shows. I definitely like how the battles were evenly matched when the Gundams were outnumbered, when their opposition as superior stratagetic thinking, and when the factions obtained same-level mobile suits, to show us the flaws of Celestial Being and the fact that they are not all powerful.
Overall: I consider this a very realistic (Compared to all the animes out there) anime, and it's quite pleasing to see that they managed to merge real-life issues (Post 9/11 mood) and present this show in a "grey" view, as opposed to the usual black and white. I recommend this show for anyone who truly appreciates quality over quantity (battles), an interesting story and mechs. This is only the first half, and the highly anticipated second half airs this fall.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jul 18, 2008
I marathoned this over 2 nights, and guess what? This anime is the most awesome anime I've ever seen, I was overwhelmed by the massive amounts of hot blood, epicness and manliness (This was the 2nd time I've ever encountered an anime which was considered epic), and I'll fucking tell you why.
Story: You should already know it, I'll tell you what I think. Before I watched this show, when I heard the plot, face robots fighting, I thought this sounded utterly retarded, and very unappealing. But somehow, during Christmas, I was bored, downloaded GL, and my views took a quick 180 turn. The story was
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simply genius, only you had to see it personally for yourself. It started off rather small and humble, and as the anime progressed, the magnitude of the story started increasing, and it kept spiraling up until they were fighting to save and free the universe from the Anti-spiral. And it flowed smoothly. It wasn't all sudden and rushed, they built the story up until the end, and then finally unleashed it.
Art: The animation in Gurren Lagann was fuck-awesome all the way, be it battle animations, character animations, etc. It's drawn in quite a "rough", rugged form, which many may not truly appreciate, but it was what made Gurren Lagann stand out so much, because it allowed for crazy-ass facial expressions, explosions and fights to look really great. They also used a whole range of colours, making this show a wonderful visual experience. My only pet peeves were episode 4 (I almost dropped it because of the QUALITY animation) and that in a few cases the characters look over-simplified.
Sound: Know what? Throughout the show, the positive, inspirational music gave me the shivers whenever I heard it. It was that awesome. Tracks like Libera me from Hell, Omae no XXX de Ten wo Tsuke!, Sorario Days, they made the anime truly stand out in those instance of manliness and awesomeness. The VAs, especially Kamina's did a fantastic job into putting emotions behind their character's voices (Although Simon's pre-timeskip VA didn't quite have the manly vibe as he did later on).
Character: Yeah yeah, "they're so cliche"- FUCK YOU. True, the characters seem quite generic, but they often take their cliche and take it to the max, in a positive way. Also, if you look closely, the characters do not totally fit into their cliche, they always have something which defies it e.g. Simon, who was cowardly and pessimistic in the beginning, but did have rare instances where he showed true courage and determination, and he actually became the opposite of what he originally was, and not by a sudden whim (He actually spent 3 episodes going emo before he changed for the better), which made it all so more fitting and natural. The characters were also extremely enjoyable to watch, and likeable, especially Kamina, whose charisma, determinism and manliness made him so damn appealing. The only thing that felt out of place was that they don't focus much on the side characters until near the end, where their unforgettable sacrifices helped the advance the Gurren-Dan.
Enjoyment: Did I enjoy Gurren Lagann? Every fucking minute of minute, from the beginning to the end. I loved the awesome Ganmen fights, the crazy inspirational speeches Kamina gave, and especially the fucking epic final fight (Throwing galaxies around? How can you get more awesome than this?) I got those shivers every time there was a big fight, and I wanted to shout out and cheer the Gurren-Dan on, because it was THAT enjoyable. This anime simply makes you want to become a part of the goddamn action, and it was the only time I cried manly tears because a character died. I also enjoyed the gratituous fanservice that was abundant throughout the whole show, although I did sadface a bit when it was tuned down during the later episodes. This show is not for the tight-panted, uptight pricks who feel that logic and reason have to apply for everything, and it even declares it itself, " OVERCOME THE IMPOSSIBLE AND KICK REASON TO THE CURB". Forget higher thinking when watching this, just enjoy it as much as you can.
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is currently my number one, favourite anime. It took manliness, determination, epicness and hot blood all the way to the max. It was so positive, optimistic and hopeful, it's like the cure to all things pessimistic (Ant-EVA much?) It is impossible not to enjoy all this GAR and epic awesomeness which is presented to frequently throughout the series. TTGL is simply a masterpiece, and whilst it is not perfect, it comes damn close of it, and it is one of the few animes which truly deserve the overall rating of 10. Don't believe me? Watch it yourself, I will guarantee you that you will enjoy it (But you'll probably go beyond and fucking love it).
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Jul 18, 2008
Allow me to say: epic final battle was epic, spoilers abound, etc
Story: Definitely interesting. In broad, it seems quite cliche (Aliens attack space colony, humans fight back), but if looked closer and given more detail, it's actually quite an intersting, but not totally original story. So far, it had focused a lot on developing the characters while throwing out the occasional dogfight and twist (Episode 13 = major twist), but it is laid out so it fits together well, and it's very interesting. Unfortunately, it suffers pretty bad pacing, which is very noticable towards the end, where they crammed tons of information and sudden revelations,
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resulting in information overload. I thought they could've lengthened it by a few more episodes to properly fit the whole story in, but wouldn't want the ruin the 25 theme (25th anniversary, 25 episodes, final episode aired September 25th, VF-25, etc). There are also many references to previous Macross titles, such as some Macross 7 songs and titles, Deculture, Macross Zero and the movie, pineapple salad, so it will appeal to the fans of the whole franchise.
Art: I have to say, the CGI in Macross F is the best I've ever seen in an anime. Dogfights between the Macross Frontier Galaxy fleet and the Vajra are absolutely stunning, with flowing visuals and beautifully rendered variable fighters and Vajra. They certaintly didn't skimp on this area of animation, and it must have cost shitloads to make. Some people do complain that it feels "out of place" and prefer hand-drawn scenes. I myself think that this addition and mix of CGI and traditional drawn scenes is very innovative, and feels natural (Unlike GONZO LOL quality CGI) The CGI alone is enough to warrant a 10. However, the character art and animation are not so pleasing. Out of scenes using CGI, I would say that the animation is mediocre, and looks out of place compared to the near flawless CGI scenes. The characters are sometimes badly animated, and aren't drawn well. Ultimately, the mediocre character animations bring down the overall quality of the art to an 8.
Sound: I do know that Macross is renowned for its music, and Macross F does not disappoint in this area. The quality of the music is consistently high throughout the series, and it actually gets even better towards the end. The music is probably the best as it can get nowadays. They've managed to weave quite an amount of music into the anime without it sounding out of place or inappropriate, resulting in some kickass scenes, notably episode 7, where a massive dogfight took place with Sheryl singing Infinity at the same time. Aimo is also a very nice song, but was overused in the 2nd half. The best scene where the music truly shines the brightest is the final fight, where Sheryl and Ranka duke it out in a duet that lasted more than 8 minutes, and coupled with the epic final battle which was taking place at the same time. tl;dr: Music is nothing less than awesome.
The VAs are also very good, especially Ranka's because she actually sings some of the songs, and she is a newcomer into the VA industry. Fantastic stuff.
Character: Macross F has a wide plethora of characters, and the main characters are shown in the plot without overwhelming the numerous side characters. The characters are all very interesting, whether they be main characters or side, and so far there is lots of character development and interesting background information pertaining certain characters. The events portraying side characters are just as, if not more exciting than the main characters' event, and it's quite pleasing, as most animes and mangas focus too much on the central, main characters whilst leaving the side characters out. However, I disliked Alto, because he was extremely indecisive about his relationship with the two girls (Love Triangle), and it didn't feel right about how he was handling the situation. Hell, the side characters are actually more likeable and interesting than the main characters, like Bobby, he was just plain greatness as a GAR pilot for the Macross Quarter, and hilarious when not battling.
Enjoyment: Macross F is a damn interesting anime, and it almost never fails to grab the interest of the viewers, especially during space fights, which don't occur often, but when they do, it is a huge dose of awesomeness. The music too is very enjoyable to listen to, and live performances with Sheryl in them are simply an excellent blend of above average character animation and fanservice. Fanservice is not uncommon in Macross F, and it is often used more for humour's sake than just showing body parts to the viewers. Which reminds me, the humour in Macross F is sometimes spontaneous, but when it is, it is generally very enjoyable. The music, and the mecha porn is what makes the series so fun to watch and springs forth the "WHERE ARE MY MACROSS F SUBS FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUU-" sort of attitude. The love triangle will probably frustrate you to no end, however, as it's not much fun watching Alto acting like a massive idiot when it comes to the two girls.
Macross Frontier was a great anime, with great music, great artwork, and an interesting storyline, unfortunately marred by somewhat bad main characters interaction and bad pacing. It wasn't quite epic win as I earlier predicted, but the final battle was more than enough to redeem it.
It's a great watch for both fans of the previous Macross series and newcomers, and it will definitely catch your attention. I say go for it, if you haven't watched it yet.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jul 7, 2008
Now, I read a bit of the manga before watching it, was alright. Then, I saw advertisments for the anime in magazines, and damn, it caught my eye. So when the subs came out, I downloaded them every week, watched them, and this is what I thought about it.
Story: There wasn't really much of a story, as this anime was quite the slice-of-life anime. Every episode was basically Chizuru and Nozomu trying to seduce and get into the pants of the main character, Kouta. There was a fair bit of comedy, but not gut-bustingly funny. Drama around the last few episodes were very meh, it
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didn't really have much effect. Every episode, I'll admit, was repetitive, but the action definitely made up for it, as I will explain below.
Art: Oh damn, out of all the ecchi animes I've watch, this one has the best art, especially the characters. Tons and tons of bare skin, to the point where people blogging the show asked if this was a soft-core hentai. The bodies, especially Chizuru, were drawn oh-so-well, really showing her figure well. The other characters were also drawn well, the animation was solid, and it made use of lots of different colours and settings effectively.
Sound: Voice acting was good, but I hated Kouta's voice. This boy must have no balls, because he has the highest pitched voice in the anime, and it got DAMN ANNOYING after a few episodes.
Characters: Very cliche. Kouta is the typical useless/ball-less harem lead, and I didn't like him much, due to him always trying and avoid Chizuru's advances. Chizuru was the big breasted, main character loving female character, always trying to seduce him, but I never got the impression that she was slutty much. Maybe determined is a good word. Nozomu is the silent loli also wanting to get into Kouta's pants, and she was boring to watch. I thought that the side characters were more interesting than the main characters to watch, especially Tayura and Asahina.
Enjoyment: This is where the anime shines. Hordes and hordes of wonderful, life giving, bloodloss-inducing, bouncy ecchiness. I loved it, this show was intended to be eye candy, and it performed very well. Hell, the ecchiness alone is enough to warrant rewatching the series, and I do plan to do that sometime.
Overall: It was a very fun ride watching Kanokon every week, it was interesting enough to keep you watching it, it had more than enough action to get your blood rushing, and it was generally enjoyable to watch. Definitely one of the better ecchi/harem animes out there, and if you aren't the type to analyse every bit of the plot, characters and logic of animes, you will like this.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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