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Hey now here's an obscure series you should watch! Yeah!

The first thing that'll stand out when you look at Mononoke is the art. I'm not going to mince words: Mononoke is the best-looking animated show I have ever seen. The art is styled after traditional Japanese art, which means it's brightly colored, detailed, and everything feels kind of flat. I can't say enough about how amazingly gorgeous the art and color is in this series. It's used to maximum effect too, because the series is filled with all kinds of surreal visuals to let the art really stretch out.

Conceptually, Mononoke could be ... thought of as a really sinister version of Mushishi: The Medicine Seller shows up at a place and deals with some sort of haunting by a spirit, a Mononoke. Whereas Mushishi trades in a sense of tranquility though, Mononoke is effectively a horror mystery series. In order to exorcise a Mononoke, the Medicine Seller needs to figure out the spirit's Form (what it is), Truth (why it's here), and Regret (what it wants). Of course these are always tied into the secrets of the people the Mononoke is haunting, so each episode is an attempt to figure out what bad thing the characters did that caused the Mononoke to show up in the first place. Sounds formulaic, but each arc (which consist of 2-3 episodes) puts a new spin on the search for truth, and the show never repeats itself.

The only persistent character in Mononoke is the mysterious Medicine Seller. A strange fellow who looks like a Final Fantasy character in the middle of feudal Japan, he's... uh... enigmatic. He's also kind of an asshole. Unlike Ginko in Mushishi, The Medicine Seller isn't really made out to be a truly sympathetic or relatable character. He's mysterious and sinister, and it frequently seems like he cares more about vanquishing the Mononoke than the safety of anyone involved. Not to mention everything about him is left up to interpretation, there's no expanding on his character or history at all, although his personality does get some subtle development (such as in the Incense arc when he reveals a bit of a sense of humor). This isn't really a criticism though, he just plays a different role in the story than you might expect.

All of the other characters only show up for an arc, but they tend to be well-developed. After all, the stories pretty much all concern the character's histories and actions, so it's natural they'd be pretty well developed. They also tend to be the more relatable characters for the audience. They're the ones who are confused and freaked out by all the scary stuff going down, while the Medicine Seller remains constantly cool and mysterious.

The music is pretty nice, although there's not that much in the show itself. The opening is a nice piece that's less ominous than you might expect, and the ending is a fairly typical ending ballad sort of thing. What really does stand out though is that the sound itself is absolutely fantastic. Visually, Mononoke isn't actually that creepy. Oh sure it has it's moments, but an enormous amount of the tension comes from the sound design. When the creepy ambient noises pipe up you know something creepy's gonna happen. Or maybe not? When's it gonna happen? Tension!

Mononoke is an absolutely outstanding series, and definitely a new favorite of mine. The stories are great and the art is dazzling. It's not for everyone, some might be put off by the slow pace, but it really is a great show.

Since its release in 2008, Michiko to Hatchin seems to have somewhat flown under the radar of many anime fans. This is a real shame, because MtH is a great show.

The setting will draw you in right away for being really unique. It takes place in an unnamed pseudo-Brazilian country, complete with favelas, tropics, and an enormous desert (that last part isn't in Brazil). The setting is really well realized and feels like it could be an actual country in South America, but the fact that it isn't allows them much more artistic license with the setting.

The premise of the story is ... simple, you can read it up at the top of the page: Hana Morenos lives with an abusive foster family before escaped con Michiko Malandro shows up and saves her. Together they set off to find Hiroshi: Hana's father and Michiko's old lover while being hunted by Atsuko Jackson, the Zenigata to Michiko's Lupin III (although less comic). The series is mostly episodic, especially for the first half, concerning the duo's trials and tribulations as they track down Hiroshi. I'm not a huge fan of episodic shows, but the overarching goal in MtH lends a nice sense of a direction to the show, and I will freely emit that there were many scenes throughout the series, especially near the end, that made me emotional.

Like most episodic series, we've got a really strong character focus here, and thankfully it's not squandered on bad characters. First off, the two protagonists are great. The immature adult/mature child dynamic may not be the most innovative, but it's used very affectively here. One of the problems I have with a lot of episodic shows is that there's often a lack of lasting character development, but MtH manages to gracefully duck that problem. The best way of describing the development is as smooth. They don't do the cheap thing where there's one revelation episode and then Michiko is like "Oh man I'm not a very good mother figure for Hatchin" and completely reforms, they develop gradually through a variety of experiences. Y'know, kinda like real people? Only when you look back on the beginning of the series will you really realize how far they've come and how much the duo have grown together. Likewise, most of the side characters are also pretty well developed, especially the ones who show up throughout the series like Atsuko and mob boss Satoshi. In fact, the only one who doesn't get much development is Hiroshi himself, but that probably serves the story better.

MtH also excels wonderfully on the audiovisual side. The audio is directed by Shinichiro Watanabe. If you know that name you know that's basically a seal of quality. The music fits the setting perfectly, with a great mix of jazz, bossa nova, samba, and other appropriate genres to give everything that exaggerated exotica flavor, without sounding cheesy. Special mention goes to the great opening song Paraiso, by the most bizarrely named of all the jazz bands, Soil & "PIMP" Sessions.

Visuals! Visuals are also great! The art is vivid and brilliant, capturing all of the many colors of the setting, from cheerful festivals to bleak alleys and seedy clubs. The animation is definitely among the top tier I've seen in an anime, generally avoiding most of the budget cut pitfalls like characters standing perfectly still while their mouth waggles, or sliding motionless across the screen. The animation and character designs both strike a nice balance between realism and exaggeration, being very expressive while still feeling like they could be real people. Most importantly, characters actually change clothes! Yeah, it's crazy, all of the characters will actually wear different outfits on different days. This lends a bit of realism to the proceedings, as well as keeping the character designs fresh. It has also completely spoiled me on 99% of other series.

Over all, Michiko to Hatchin is a great show, a new favorite. It's got an exotic setting, great characters, plenty of emotional bits, and fantastic art and music. Check it out! Really! We can also toss it into the gateway anime pile along with Baccano and Cowboy Bebop.

Legitimately one of my favorite anime, although really not for everyone.

The Diary of Tortov Roddle is a series of wonderful, beautiful, surreal, wordless (aside from text from Tortov's diary) shorts, starring the traveler Tortov Roddle and his strange long-legged pig mount and companion. There's not really a story to speak of; the series is essentially a series of short vignettes. Tortov goes somewhere, experiences something odd, and then moves on.

What somethings they are, though. The series is surreal, but unlike most uses of surrealism, it's not really symbolic. The surrealism doesn't represent the mind of a character, or the author's opinion ... of the Vietnam War, it's simply a weird, wondrous world that Tortov is exploring. The series has a very Japanese focus on fleeting moments. The events Tortov encounters aren't big, they're things like a fish jumping out of his coffee cup in a cafe, or watching a cartoon projected on the back of a bear, and once Tortov moves on, they're not mentioned again. This sense of transience, along with the quiet, contemplative nature of the series gives everything a slight feel of melancholy that adds a bit of weight to the wonder.

The art is gorgeous, and perfectly suits the series. It really doesn't look like your average anime, instead going for a painterly story book look that's really nice to look at, and suits the dream-like nature of the show. The use of color is also very well done, there's a lot of unified color palettes in the episodes to give things certain atmospheres. It really does feel like a moving story book at times.

The music is very nice. It has a kind of French feel, with liberal use of accordion. It's suitably whimsical, and again slightly sad. It doesn't feel particularly prominent, but it's not really meant to.

If you don't appreciate an effectively storyless series, or this sort of simplistic wonder, you probably won't like Tortov Roddle. If you do though, you'll probably find it wonderful.

Dorohedoro, as a series all about the plot twists, is kind of hard to describe easily. It takes place in a gritty magic-punk dual world: The high-class world of the magic users, and the slum-like Hole, the world of the non-magic users. The story centers around Kaiman, a man with a lizard head and no memories. He hunts down magic users, eats their head, and then the person inside his mouth evaluates them, looking for someone. And that description does absolutely no justice to the series.

Q Hyashida loves 'er plot twists. Yes, this series is filled with twist after crazy ... twist, but, and this is a big but, it feels coherent. In some series you get the impression an author came up with a cool premise and then basically made things up as they went along, but Dorohedoro, in all its twisty madness, feels like it's going along a very purposeful route.

It helps that the characters are great, and really hold the whole thing together. Despite Kaiman and his friend Nikaido ostensibly being the protagonists, the series spends about equal time with all of the important characters on the various different sides of the central conflicts. They're all well-developed and lovable, and you'll likely find yourself not quite knowing who to root for during the battles.

Now, the word people often use to describe Dorohedoro is "gritty" and, well, it is, yeah. Especially in the art, which is thick and dark, with lots of cluttered environments and greys everywhere. It might take a bit of getting used to, it's a somewhat unusual style, and some of the anatomy is a little weird early on, but once you do get used to it you'll grow to love it.

The series is gritty and violent, but it's not as bleak as you might expect. It's cut through with a REALLY goofy sense of humor to give things balance. I've always liked series that balance dark and light, and Dorohedoro pulls it off really well. Another slight break from traditional grittiness is that the characters are pretty much all lovable. They're pretty much all anti-heroes, but almost everyone has a good/adorable side to them. There's no real mopey angsty types or bad-ass murderers whose only thought is murderification. The creator describes it as "a song with really dark lyrics, but a melody that's so happy that you want to dance to it," and I can't really put it better.

Over all Dorohedoro is definitely one of my favorite manga series. If you like unusual worlds with cool art and an interesting story, definitely check it out. Apparently it's ending fairly soon as well, so that's something to keep in mind.

Good for fans of the game - And no one else.

Persona 4 is a great PS2 JRPG and blah blah I'm not going to review it here. Persona 4 The Animation is an animation based on the game (shocker!). The set-up is thus: Yu Narukami, the protagonist, has just moved to the town of Inaba for a year because his parents are out of the country, he quickly gets caught up in a murder mystery, a mysterious other world, and a bunch of dorky high-school students.

Over all Persona 4 the anime is good, but you have to attach a giant BUT to that: ... It's very much fanservice (the non-sexy kind). The plot kind of assumes you already know what's going on from the game, the characters are more shallow and one-note than before, and really a lot of the fun of the series comes from just seeing how scenes of the games are translated. To make things worse, the thing was produced on a shoestring budget, and rushed at that, which shows most in the art. The art is horribly mediocre. Some still close-ups look very nice, but in movement the characters go off model all the time, and everyone is generally pretty ugly.

With the negatives out of the way, though, we can turn towards the positive. Even if it's a somewhat shallow adaptation, it's still a competent one, and it does a good job of capturing the feel of the game. The show also does have some legitimately great moments that even exceed the game. If you watch the dub, the VAs from the game are here, so it's high quality and feels legitimate. I also have to give them credit for the protagonist. They did a pretty nice job turning a silent protagonist into an actual character without betraying the feel of the protagonist from the game. The music's also quite nice, featuring tracks from the game and new music by their composer, Shoji Meguro.

So, yeah, PLAY THE GAME. But then after you have, I'd freely recommend Persona 4 The Animation to you, you'll probably have fun.