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"Though i Devour Five Lands and Drink the Three Ocean Dry i am powerless Against the Sky,for i have neither Wings,nor Legs nor Hands.i am the World Snake and My Name is Jormungand"
Jormungandr is originally a son of Loki the Norse God and the enemy of Thor(his uncle).a great snake that is known as the World Serpent.although Jormungand anime is not directly connected to the mythology it uses the name to represent Koko's personality.she looks innocent and cute at first but with a look at her eyes you can see she is a Dragon without wings that devours the world.(she even has complexity with the sky like the original Jormungandr.as one of her men always says "nothing good comes from Koko and the sky")

Story and Characters

Jormugand starts with a young boy named Jonah that hates weapons but has nothing else to depend on and have to use them.an arms dealer named Koko hires him and they travel the world with Koko's team.in their travels and missions Jonah Learns about each of the team member's past and skills and we also learn why he is sticking around.(he also has to learn school stuff from the gang too but he ditches his classes most of the times).

every arc features an story about one of the Jonah's Squad mates,their background and their abilities in battlefield.even those that might seems less capable at the first glance can take your attention when they finished showing off in their own arc for example Mao seems like an empty character at first but when you find out that he is a family man and can rain six thousand steel arrows on his enemies with ease you see there is more to him.there are also characters that can get your attention and love from the beginning like Lehm or Valmer (my favorites from the squad)

throughout the story the squad get involved in some awesome fights featuring Guns,Blades and Blood(what more do you want?) but that's not all we get from Jormungand.behind every fight most of the time there is a mind game going on between Koko and her rivals.while the talk of blood and tricky games gives a serious theme to the series it always managed to have its own style of comedy as well which is mostly shown at the start of every arc(R going perv on Valmer or Lutz playing Paintball with Jonah).another good thing about Jormungand is that no one is invincible in it and in every mission you get the feeling that someone may die specially with the way they adopted the manga.(like Ugo's scene that they made a cliffhanger out of it).even the mighty Lehm can get Knock out anytime like real humans.although you will see some unreal things in this anime as well like dodging hundreds of bullets...

Animation

you can feel the animation getting better through out the series.it always tries to be in synch with the ongoing theme for example you can feel a dark shade most of the times on battle scenes and a light one on comedy scenes.the character design is good as well although it doesn't completely stays true to the manga.

Sound

"her name is Koko she is Loco i said Hell Yes!"
with good action scenes there is always a need for a good music as well to gives you enough adrenaline rush and Jormungand is successful at that.the BGM and OSTs in this series are one my favorites.also its worth mentioning that the series has a good Opening theme done by Mami Kawada named Borderlands as well.
also they did a good job at voice casting and it has .Valmer and Lehm are perfectly fit from the beginning and we heard their voice on similar characters before so that helps as well.you might think that Koko's Voice is little of at first but the more you get to know her the more you see that it suits her well.they even brought Isobe, Tsutomu as Bookman which is nostalgic since he voiced Dutch in Black Lagoon(a similar anime.also both of their mangas are being published in the same magazine)

Enjoyment and Overall

Jormungand might not seems like something complex at first but the more you get to know it the more you feel its not just a simple gunfight anime and that the creator actually put a lot of thought and feeling behind the story and characters and the staff did a good job at bringing it to life.


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"Being a hero is something time-limited,when you grow up it's hard to call yourself one"
With the success of the first season the creators just passed the hard part and it was time for them to harvest what they planted before.this time the end is near and no one is safe and there is no place for honor nor false hope in this world anymore and those seeking it will only face failure.

The 2nd season starts right after the last episode of the 1st season with the battle against Caster.it uses the chance to show that most of the servants are actually heroes that count innocent lives above their war for a grail but it also shows that Fate universe is not kind enough to accept this kinda behaviors too often.even though most of the characters survived the previous season as we all know in this survival game there is only one winner and so the elimination game begun.
In this season we also get to know more about those that are less explained before like Kiritsugu.four episodes of flashbacks tries to justify Kiritsugu’s actions for the viewer specially after a cruel move and make him Sympathetic but at the same time it shows us the reason behinds his failure as a hero.as Kiritsugu was living with his past Kirei just forsaken it and became someone new(or old depend on if you played or seen F/SN before this).he finally finds his reason to fight and bought himself a one way ticket to insanity land.also Waver finally mans up and even imitate Alexander’s “lolololo" or w/e! in final episodes viewers will doubt their little hope for any good ending and Kiritsugu’s meeting with grail confirms their doubts.as for the final it had so much to wrap up so it mostly favor those that already read the Light Novel and felt kinda rushed for the others.on the other hand you can say it was one of the few moments in an anime that one could enjoy Shirou.(although he is awesome in VN you know how he turned out in F/SN anime.he was ok in UBW movie too but could be way better).the moment when he tells Kiritsugu that leave everything to me and Saber gets Lights of Hope on herself was Priceless as one of last moments of the series.

With a lot of important fight scenes the animators had a lot to deal with this season and they managed to do a good job and they kept it up until the end.the music had to goes all out this season too,using most of the soundtracks from before in the first episode of the new season.also Kiritsugu and his master got their own theme with an special ED song as well.the promised OP song by kalafina for this series also is worth mentioning cause its one my favorites.as for the voice actors they finally found some challenge this season and they did a good job specially Miyu Irino (Kiritsugu’s Voice actor) as he stole the end with his emotional talk with Shirou.you could feel everything that happened to him with his voice alone.also Ayako Kawasumi (Saber’s voice actress) had some material to work with and handled it well.

This prequel managed to gave the viewer a better understanding of every character in Fate universe and what they had to go through and it also showed us the dark depths of the Holy Grail Wars.Fate zero Season 2 did justice to the Light Novel and while it puts an end to this epic struggle it marks an start for another and with all its strength or weaknesses it will always be remembered as one of the great animes of this era.
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its nearly one year since the second season of Gintama has started and the loyal fans can remember the Joy and the life it gave us back then when it was aired again.the story that once was supposed to be about an school for demon dispellers and then about the Shinsengumi finally turned into something bizzare called Gintama which u can say is the Golden Work of Hideaki Sorachi.

the beginning of the second season is a perfect example of a great parody episode with updated jokes about famous Mangas which will make you burst into laugh if you only know about the parodies.although i am not suggesting to start this anime without watching the first season.but that's not the first thing that will get your attention.that would be Opening and later the Ending.yeah they are catchy and Gintama-like and thats a Plus for me.the rest is your regular Gintama.normal funny episodes with some serious arcs between them that focuses on the main story.well some say Gintama doesn't have a main story but i disagree.the first serious arc focuses on Gintoki's Mother Figure character aka Otose and her background story which introduce a monster that was in love with Otose.as a final touch for this arc we have the Takasugi group and their progress as well as the new Kamui and Takasugi alliance which can be a real threat for Gintoki since Kamui is like the Second King of the Night and Gintoki had to gang the first one up to defeat him.this arc is filled with emotional scenes and a lot of characters from the previous season which is a good way to start the news season.the later serious and important arc is a Thorny arc about the beloved Shinsengumi with a new semi cool villain that uses a combo of Sword and Gun.oh and lets not forget the cool collaboration of GintamaxSketdance which is created by Sorachi’s previous assistant and have the same theme as Gintama.this episode also used the chance to parody the latest collaboration between Onepiece and Toriko.all and all unlike the first season this one starts pretty good since it is already shaped before and the timing was good as well.

Characters in Gintama Have many chances for development even in normal comical episodes because of Gintama’s bizzare storyline.you can almost see most of the important characters in normal episodes.although they are just there for the sake of the comedy they are adding features to their own characters or at the very least sometimes they make them selves look cool which in results give them more fans.but since they have these chances often and all of em have potential its still a shame that they couldn’t use them better.(except for those that won’t show up for a long time even though they could).thats why although all the characters in Gintama are likeable pretty much the only one that most of us can call special is either Kagura or Gintoki himself (sorry to other character’s fans.i am a Kamui and Tsuki fan myself but if I have to make a list of top favorite characters they won’t be in the top 10…)

as i said before the first thing you will notice about this season is the music.the ost used in the first serious arcs is a great piece of work and i love how they make special soundtracks for each serious arc.the voice actors in this anime are experienced and well known ppl that we all have good memories from them with previous characters they voiced which you may find this as one of the Gintama Jokes like how Toshiro uses the catch phrase of “Let’s Party” which belongs to another character also voiced by the same voice actor.although some of the voice actors didn’t had any real challenge or opportunity to show themselves in my opinion Gintoki’s Voice actor didn’t do as good as the first season and he seemed more lively to me in the first season but still he did great and professional job and its just an expectation I had from him based on his previous works.

as for the animation you can say the budget is saved for serious arc or battle scenes like the graveyard scene but still its better than the first season so it’s a plus for the fans of the previous one.the art is still as good as always with little improvement and its easy on the eyes

as for the score I will give it a 9.5 from 10 but will round it to 10/10 in here.all and all Gintama is a bizzare anime that managed to catches this bizzareness from manga pretty good and i think the animators and the studio did a great job and gave life and color to the manga with each episode.
its a shame that the series is coming to an end again but in my opinion its better this way since they finished it like a boss without filling it with fillers and will probably come back like a boss as well.
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Ufotable probably used the Holy Grail and granted the fan's wish.most of the fans turned their attention to fate/zero the moment they heard about the involvement of ufotable since they knew they could expect great things with other works they had seen from them.as we all know just having a good story won't make an anime good.how to adapt it and include the parts of the story,the good use of music and art and many other things are playing a big role in an anime.this anime didn't disappoint and tried hard to bring out the awesomeness.

Starting with the story the anime made a good use of the rich materials it had and the story can be considered one of the great parts.the Events of the story and the dialogues are not cliche or random and most of them happens for a reason and should be taken seriously since fate/zero is not just about battles.Fate/zero happened 10 years before Fate/stay night and the wars of the Holy Grail are about to begin once again.(those that are familiar with the wars can skip this part.the grail first appeared when three great Magus family decided to share their knowledge with each other to summon the holy grail in order to achive the roots of all knowledges.but they realized that the grail can only grant one wish and since they originally had different wishes the wars for the holy grail got started.in each war some masters with the desire for the grail gets chosen and will be granted a servant and three command seals.these masters will have to fight with each other under the control of a judge to win the grail that can grant them their wish.the servants are heroic spirits from our past or future or our legends and the masters are mostly magus with great power or desire for the grail.
now the 4th war is beginning and the Tohsaka family had a good history with the church and got help from them.the Einzbern family hired the famous Magus killer Kiritgusu Emiya and Zouken from the Matou family is using any mean possible to attend this war or getting prepared for the next one.there are other masters as well like Kayneth from the Archibald family or even masters without any famous magus family that got their chance to participate in this war by luck or their hidden desires.)
even though there are some unexplained things in the anime it is still very enjoyable because of the unexpected events and good character design .a good example of character design can be seen in the combination of Masters and Servants.you can almost be interested in all master and servant combinations.for example even if you find Velvet character uninteresting his servant will make up for it big time.as for a bad example i can name assassin since in my opinion the fate universe doesn't like this class.another good thing about it is the protagonist Kiritsugu Emiya which although has a cliche emo attitude he is still enjoyable more than Shirou Emiya in Fate/stay night Route at least but then again this is a matter of opinion.most of the characters are complicated and this makes them interesting and force the audience to think about them.although one things that may bother you is how they survive most of their battles several times even though their death flag is up but still it is enjoyable.one of the great things about F/z is that you can understand F/sn character's background which left unexplained in f/sn anime Specially Sakura and Kotomine.(which is a good thing for those that are not familiar with the VN or LN).speaking about Kotomine he is one of the best examples of character development and the audience can see how he became what he is with the temptations of Gilgamesh with his snake-like eyes at the end of episode 12(tokiomi used the first skin of snake that got shed to summon him ironically)

the art looks very good at first glance considering this is a TV-series anime since it reminded me of another work of Ufotable named Garden of Sinners which was an OVA(and another work by TypeMoon).while the enviroment is dark the battles are flashy and when the art is weird you should expect something big since they are saving the budget for the real deal like the 10th episode with Alexander's Noble Phantasm.they also did the Berserker design in CGI which was weird at first but it fits him and makes him special.the art is clean,shiny and devilishly mysterious that fits the story well.

the Soundtracks may not get your attention until the very end of episode 1 when the summoning begins.and after that there is the next episode OP(counts as the first episode ED)which i think Lisa did a great job.after that there is the real ED from Aoi Air named Memoria that can be seen in the next episode which also gives us a little peak to the servant's legends which is cool.after all of these the battles finally got started and here in my opinion they did a great job on each character's theme specially Berserker which you can here the enchant of Berserker in it like the Sephiroth soundtrack(One-Winged Angel)in FFVII Series.as for voice acting they used some real talented people and most of the people from the VN or f/sn anime got their roles back.they have the sweet voice of Sayaka Ohara for Irisviel(although i think she could do better),and for the protagonist we have the voice of Rikiya Koyama which is the best choice for these kind of characters.for Zouken they got Masane Tsukayama and he did a great job in Kaiji as Hyoudou and both characters resemble each other(and most of the people can recognize him since the second season of Kaiji aired recently).although there are characters that are not talking yet like berserker since he will only make noises for this season but the awesome soundtrack makes up for it.overall they did a good job in this part and used an epic-dark theme in their songs that fits the fate universe.

I tried and recommended the show to some of my friends.some liked it for its historical references or the art and some for its story even though some of em didn't even like animes before.this cannot be considered for everyone and i can't say that this show is for every kind of taste but since it didn't just count on one aspect like story,while it can have its own flaws it can satisfy a vast range of audiences.
combination of a good story and character design,good soundtracks and good art makes this one of the good animes of 2011 that is recommended for those that needs some adrenaline rush. read more