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This show should be watched by aspiring writers. Its greatest contribution is that it shows how a project can have tremendous charm, good redeeming characteristics, and yet fail when considered as a whole.

A gruesome autopsy can be fascinating to a scientific observer; this show can be fascinating to a creative artist who hopes to learn how art projects can go wrong.

Let us start with the redeeming characteristics. The art designs are charmingly retro, featuring costumes, weapons, vehicles, and technology spanning a period from about 1930 to 1955. If you love World War II costumes, you might watch the entire show just to see the visual designs.

The lead voice talents are good. The music is initially redeemed by the opening theme, but the rest of the music is mediocre and the whole sound fails to inspire, draw the project together, or create a cohesive mood. (By contrast, [i]Ergo Proxy[/i] takes a similarly small selection of music and uses it to create a mood.)

The characters are somewhat stereotypical. Further, they are puppets in the service of an idiotic plot, so they behave irrationally. The characters are usually armed to the teeth with deadly firearms, but they are fervent pacifists, so they usually refuse to shoot. If they must squeeze a trigger, they are sure to fire warning shots or to target something nonlethal. This show prettifies warfare by showing shiny planes that can be wrecked with their pilots always parachuting to safety. There are tens of thousands of opportunities for death and destruction - and in 26 episodes, there are fewer than half a dozen injuries. Characters can stand a few yards away from a dynamite bomb, with no ill effects; but they can be rendered conveniently unconscious by punches. It's pretty standard for heroic anime teenagers to be passionately in love with each other and yet incapable of touching each other, but the shyness in this series goes beyond anime-standard silliness into self-parody. In the face of this idiotic pseudo-violence and pseudo-tension, the plot holes, though numerous and annoying, are scarcely worth mentioning.

Somehow I found the whole mess to be surprisingly watchable. There are some ambitious, artsy flashbacks that tugged my heartstrings, and some ambitious supporting characters that failed to move me. There were a few suspenseful sequences that actually evoked World War II era commando tactics; there were some cute moments; there was at least one good laugh. If nothing else, there is a morbid fascination in asking, "How much cheesier can this get?" because the answer is always, "Soooo much cheesier."

Some viewers have suggested watching the first half and skipping the second half. I disagree; if one is going to stare into this abyss, one had better do it whole-heartedly. I recommend that most viewers should skip this entirely, but aspiring writers should bear with the cheesiness for all 26 episodes. It builds character. read more

Story:
In the space of four episodes, this story manages to deliver one major epiphany, but every episode manages to crank the tension up a notch. The story-telling style relies heavily on flashbacks to memories, slowly mounting tension, and uncomfortable stretches of emotion-laden silence in the middle of conversations.

By the end of the story, I was left wondering whether the creators hoped to do further episodes, because they certainly left a lot of potential story arcs untouched. The themes of sickness and desire received a very interesting treatment. But this treatment might fail to satisfy hard-core fiction critics who have a broad basis for comparison.

Art:
Except for the ever-present tears trembling in eyes, this anime is almost a slideshow. Very often mouths are not animated when characters speak. It's impressive that they managed to produce this story in the first place, since apparently they had no animation budget at all.

Sound:
The voice actors certainly worked hard. The ending song is moody.

Character:
The characters were quite well-written. The introverted, forboding personalities were like something out of Faulkner or Walker Percy.

Enjoyment:
I was initially intrigued by the first episode, but after I watched the others, I felt that the series opened up too many questions and only answered one of them. Also, the slow pace was essential for the story -- if one tried to do the same story with normal pacing it wouldn't work -- but I was bored. This show will appeal to viewers who like slow-paced stories.

Overall: I don't recommend this as a first choice, but if you're a compulsive anime viewer, you should spend the two hours necessary to complete this OVA. If you hate it, you can skip past the ending song to make it move faster. read more

I can tell a show is failing to hold my attention when I pause the video and take a break from watching for a few minutes. This movie looked so good that I paused it several times and rewound the video several seconds just to take a second look at some beautifully depicted landscapes.

The story is shallow but very well-paced. It's not terribly original and the characters are not going to win a Nobel for literature, but the characters are likable and I enjoyed the story as much as I might enjoy a good Hollywood movie. The director is John Woo, so this feels much more like an action movie than a typical anime or sci-fi story.

There is no deep thought involved in the story. There are beautiful visuals and less sci-fi terminology than might be expected. The world does not feel cyberpunkish -- there's little brooding and grittiness. The heroes are staunch, stolid warriors who do not brag or betray. Even the bad guys are dedicated idealists who would be good if they weren't insane extremists. (By contrast, the same characters in the first movie seemed less likable to me. IMHO Deunan bragged too much in the first movie.) Whereas the first movie seemed to be dominated by frustrated sexual aspirations (IMHO) this movie seemed to focus more on love and loyalty with some sexual tension in the background.

Does the story indulge in action-movie cliches? Yes. But it skips a lot of anime cliches, and while this movie may remind the viewer of every other John Woo movie, the first movie had reminded me of every other Shirow Masamune project, so I liked this movie more than the first. read more

Great stories can be told about psychopaths who are obsessed with imprisoning their victims, whom they love and fear. Stephen King's _Misery_, for example, is a decent story about a writer who is held captive by a mentally imbalanced fan of his work.

"Don't Leave Me Alone Daisy" casts the psychopath as a lovable boy and the victim as a lovable, but terminally stupid and passive, girl. And then it deals with this horrific premise as if it were a light romantic comedy.

The opening theme song is notably good. The art is mediocre.

The characters are unlikable. It's bad enough being a madman who wants to imprison the object of his affection, but maybe a good actor could make such a character sympathetic -- much like Hannibal Lector became a sympathetic anti-hero. But when the madman is basically a boring nobody with a poorly-explained trove of advanced weapons and technology, there is no drama.

It's painful enough to watch a story about a girl who passively suffers, or a story about a girl who makes a doomed rebellion against her unjust fate. But the victim in this story communicates nothing other than her lack of consent. She will say something like, "Hey, don't do that, I won't let you," and then lapse into idiotic passivity. Somehow, watching a brainless doormat get tramped on is even worse than watching a sympathetic character get trampled on.

This anime is beyond salvaging. The victim-girl is already a doormat. Don't be a doormat. Don't watch this anime. read more

This show starts out with a decent premise: a Victorian romance with a touch of Celtic Twilight mythology. The heroine is a "fairy doctor," and throughout the show she demonstrates a touch of folklore, plus the useful ability to see fairies that are invisible to ordinary people.

However, the folklore and mythology references, which could have carried the show, are under-used. They are sprinkled over the top of a story which plainly is trying to drag itself out into the maximum number of episodes. Unlike better stories (such as, say, Tweeny Witches, or Magical Shopping District Abenobashi) the mythology and folklore doesn't seem internally consistent. Thus the setting seems painfully generic.

The character designs are decent; the scenery has a lot of eye candy for folks who like the visual trappings of Victorian mansions.

The animation is painfully sparse; pan-and-scan tricks are over-used. I give it a 6/10 for design but a 4/10 for animation, thus a 5/10 for overall art. I enjoyed the initial three or four episodes, but I started to notice flaws by the middle, and by the last third I was painfully bored and waiting for a plot resolution that failed to arrive. The ending seems to indicate that the producers would like to make a second season, but I don't know how much of the audience would stick around to watch it, were that second season to appear. read more

The soundtrack was done by Ali Project, whom some listeners hate. Ali Project did the soundtrack to Noir, so if you like the opening to that show, you owe it to yourself to listen to the soundtrack.

Sadly, listening to the soundtrack and reading the lyrics is the best part of this show. Overall, I found that this show got my hopes sky-high and then crushed them down again.

The setting was incredibly promising. The story could have had excellent sci-fi and drama. The first few episodes hinted at amazing character interactions. However, by about the fifth episode of thirteen, the story was flailing all over the place. The writers were trying to keep too many mysteries and not communicating any information. There were fight scenes, but the fighting was the least original part of this series. There is even an episode near the end that is told in a much different way than the other episodes, which is a nice touch, but it's nowhere near enough to rescue the plot or the lost opportunities for character development.

I still have the soundtrack on my MP3 player and I listen to it frequently. The show, however, is at the top of my list of how not to do an anime. read more

This anime starts out looking very derivative. For the first six or seven episodes, I was counting all the movies and anime shows that it seemed to be echoing. I thought it was going to be a competent and enjoyable re-do of old cliches.

Then, around the seventh or eight episode, the plot, which had looked to be formulaic, started getting deeper and deeper. The characters demonstrated considerable realism. In particular, the main bad guy of the series should earn the screenwriters some kind of prize. They managed to put realistic moral problems into a very shallow show and to make it fit seamlessly. At the same time, the generic setting got both visual and story-related depth.

The production values are very high on every part of this series. The director and writers ripped off all those old shows because they knew a huge number of old shows inside out, they could think about *any* show in terms of tropes, and they were determined to give their favorite tropes a new treatment.

This show is the goal to which many similar shows should aspire. In particular, if you thought the setting and themes of Avenger showed promise but failed to find a coherent story, and if you thought the characters of Shinkon Gattai Godannar showed promise but were too derivative, shallow, and cheesy, you owe it to yourself to watch Gun X Sword. read more

Mission-E wears its heart on its sleeve. From the opening sequence, one sees female superhero figures with character models that appear to have been inspired by Bubblegum Crisis. The story reveals that these heroines don't just wear high-tech suits, they also have minor electricity-related superpowers, possibly inspired by the paper-related powers of Read Or Die.

The voices are decent, the art is pleasant, the story is well within the bounds of what one might expect of a superhero technothriller. The realism level seems to be about on par with an old James Bond movie.

The ending sequence is not as well-animated as the rest of the series, and starting at episode 3, the ending song is remixed to sound as if it had been sung by badly-programmed computers.

I plan to watch all available episodes. This is solid, crowd-pleasing entertainment. On the downside, I doubt that there will be any major innovations or artistic originality. read more

It so happened that I had some friends with whom I would watch a diverse selection of anime.

And one of those animes was Nurse Angel Ririka SOS.

My major problem was not that it was aimed at kids. I watch a lot of shows that are aimed at kids. The kid audience doesn't make them bad automatically.

My problem was that this show was IMHO saccharine, insipid, and repetitive to the point of dreariness.

Slow-moving does not begin to describe this show. Aria is slow-moving, and Aria is still a fun show to watch. This show made the slow passage of time painful to me. read more

I would rate this a 7.5 if I could. It has a message, it has entertainment value, and it isn't as ecchi as one might think from a casual glance.

The female characters are surprisingly deep and I found that I knew real-life women who could be compared to each of them. On the one hand, one can watch this show as merely being a bit of fan service, counterbalanced by a male buffoon, thus making a compromise show suitable for viewing in mixed male-female company. I take the show more seriously; I think the writers are making a point about how an old-fashioned masculine man can get along with aggressive, independent female co-workers who are *not* romantically attracted to him in the slightest. I think it's trying to make a point about modern gender roles. I could be reading way too much into it.

At the same time, it's very intertextual, which is a fancy way of saying it rips off cliches from all kinds of sources that have come before it. IMHO the writers do a great job of ripping off a diverse selection of sources -- not just swords-and-sorcery, but also murder mysteries, martial arts stories, etc. read more