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Let me preface this by saying that not only do I not watch sports anime, I hate sports in general. Nothing interests me less than athletic competition, especially since I find most sports to be horrendously boring (I'm not counting martial arts in the category of 'sports' here, or I'd find very little shonen I'm able to enjoy).

YowaPeda is the exception to the rule, and boy what an exception it is.

I almost don't really think of it as a sports anime, as it makes use of all the shonen tropes we know and love. Red Oni/Blue Oni, Hot Blooded heroes, plucky underdogs, and of course, ... Nakama Power.

Story: 9

The series makes great (if frustrating) use of cliffhanger endings to help the story flow together. I was glad that I waited until this portion of the series was over to marathon it, as it flows so well from one episode to the next.

Art: 8

The CGI is sometimes rather conspicuous, but it gets extra points for making use of shonen power-up sequences while being about racing bikes.

Sound: 10

The battle theme is catchy and gets in your head, and I defy you to watch this and not find yourself humming the theme to 'Love Hime', a fictional anime that the main character loves.

Character: 10

Onoda is a great main character, overcoming the odds in the traditional shonen fashion. It also helps that he starts out as an otaku with no interest in sports or bike racing, but has built his stamina up from years of biking 60 kilometers to Akihabara and back on his single-speed 'momma bike'. The villain of the Inter-High is the creepiest SOB you'd ever want to meet, and just begs to be punched in the face.

Enjoyment: 9

Loved this anime from start to finish, and the ending segments are not to be missed.

Overall: 9/10

I've always had a soft spot for Illya von Einzbern. The adorable and dangerously unbalanced young Master of Berserker, with her strange brother complex for Shiro, is probably my favorite loli character of all time. Nevermind that she's 16 in the anime and only looks like she's 11.

In Prisma Illya, our Einzbern princess actually looks her age, and adventures through a strange mirror of the Fate universe with her magical girl powers. In the first series she teamed up with fellow magical girl Miyu for fanservice, yuri subtext and fighting berserk Spirits trapped within seven cards. This time, while investigating an imbalance in the ... ley lines, Illya accidentally creates a clone of herself, Kuro Illya, who possesses the formidable abilities of Archer. The initial conflict between the two, and their subsequent friendship, are a major part of Prisma Illya 2wei's story focus.

The early episodes are somewhat low on the action, resembling a Slice of Life comedic anime in their overall style. The fights that we do see are fantastic, with excellent use of CGI and top-class animation that you expect from a ufotable Fate project. There's plenty of yuri fanservice in this part of the series, which may make some uncomfortable and others unduly excited. The second half contains an amazing fight that reminds us what the Fate series is all about, amazing fights between beings of truly mythological power.

The Star Driver movie was on the disappointing side. While it starts out strong, with some new animation set after the end of the series, everything after that is just Star Driver recut into a feature-length 'story'. Of course, cutting that much out leaves a lot of abbreviated scenes without context, and I doubt anyone who hadn't seen the series would have understood what the heck was going on. The animation was pretty good for TV, but extremely underwhelming compared to the sort of animation quality we get out of most movie or OVA productions.

On the other hand, some of the glaring problems with the ... series, such as the extremely repetitive cybody battles, are glossed over nicely, and while I found Wako to be rather annoying in the series she has less time to irritate me in this abbreviated version.

Would have greatly preferred to have seen the movie continue on from the first five minutes, which occur after the story and leave us with a lot of new questions that the original animation does not, of course, solve in the least. A sequel following that plotline further would be greatly appreciated and likely would receive a much higher score.

Wow, that was ... creepy.

If you enjoyed the Ring, you'll probably enjoy Toshi Densetsu Monogatari Hikiko (Urban Legend Story Hikiko), the same for if you're a fan of Silent Hill. The CGI is somewhat dated, in my opinion, but it's a creepy and chilling horror anime that doesn't skimp on the scares. There's a hell of a twist at the end, too, one that Shamalan might have come up with.

Story: 8 - Like the killer big sister, it starts out slow but builds relentlessly, coming straight for your throat.

Art: 5 - Dated CGI is dated. Watch the new Appleseed movies and gawk ... at how far the technology has come in a short time. Some nice detail on the faces, but the arms look all gangly and wrong.

Sound: 8 - Great voice acting and use of dramatic music.

Character: 7 - About as well-developed as could be expected for a 45-minute movie.

Enjoyment: 9 - I was pretty damn riveted, and scared to boot.

Overall: 7 - Not the best, but I enjoyed it.

Urotsukiidoji, also known as "Legend of the Overfiend", is one of the most infamous examples of tentacle hentai known to man, second perhaps only to La Blue Girl in notoriety. The movie summarizes most of the original 5 OVA series in a single feature-length form, with the bits about Munihausen and the 'Evil King' showing up in the Legend of the Demon Womb, a 'sequel' film that actually happens in the middle of the first.

The plot holds that there are three worlds, those of humans, man-beasts and demons. The human world is largely oblivious of its neighbors, the man-beasts are isolationists ... waiting for a savior no one really believes in and the demons go around raping everyone and everything they can get their cocks into. Anyway, a 'God Above All Gods' called the Choujin (Overfiend) is supposed to come around to unite the three worlds, but his coming is somewhat less propitious than our hero, Amano Jyaku of the man-beasts, would have hoped. Most people who are hoping for a new world to be born conveniently forget the old one has to die first, and death by Godzilla-sized monster spewing laser beams from its cocks is rarely pleasant.

Overfiend may not be the best-written hentai in existence, but it does have an epic plot and some good fights thrown in among all the thrusting and screaming. If you get off on tentacle rape or just want to watch one of the legends of the genre doing its thing, Choujin et al is for you.

Breakdown:
Story 7 - Pretty well-done horror film fare
Art 8 - Horrific, erotic, often both at once
Sound 6 - The dub was pretty awful, with monotone voice acting abounding ... Japanese voices much better
Character 8 - Amano Jyaku is pretty kickass, and you really feel sorry for the kid who ends up as the Choujin ... he doesn't *want* to rape the world to death, but it's his destiny n all
Enjoyment 8 - It's a classic, worth watching if only for sheer WTF value
Overall 8 - Bring a tissue

I watched Vexille not long after watching Appleseed; Ex Machina, and if the two weren't made by the same studio one of them needs to sue the other. However I found the CGI to be even more amazing in Vexille, a true feast for the eyes with razor-sharp action scenes and beautiful cel-shaded characters. If you hate 3D anime you may find yourself turned off by this, but unlike most 3D anime it's actually well done. It still feels like watching a two-hour video game cutscene at times, but at others it feels like watching a live-action movie, the animation gets so ... photo-realistic. If anime characters came out of the monitor and interacted with us, they'd probably look like the ones in Vexille.

The story features Vexille, an American secret agent trying to infiltrate Japan along with a team of SHIELD ripoffs (SWORD in this case), who manages to get inside Japan's high-tech isolation shield and joins your atypical group of resistance fighters trying to struggle against the evil tech company that turned the country into a wasteland. It's nothing original, really, but the classic elements still fit well and there are a few nice swerves in there too. Vex herself strongly reminds me of the girl from Appleseed, both badass CGI babes part of a paramilitary outfit who try to protect their much larger, stronger male counterparts. She's tough but has more of a heart than the icy leader of the resistance, Maria; at one point the latter shoots a child point-black in the face without blinking.

Overall a pretty excellent piece of animation. Recommended watching, you can stream it on Netflix if you have that service (and most people seem to these days).

Story - 7 (nothing too original but the familiar pieces work well)
Art - 10 (some of the best CGI I've ever seen in a 3D anime)
Sound - 8 (good voices on the dub, nice BGMs, lots of explosions)
Character - 7 (again, nothing original here, but badass hot chicks are badass and hot)
Enjoyment - 8 (the fact that I fell asleep midway through is unrelated)
Overall - 8 (recommended for those who like action, CGI and/or cyberpunk themes)

'Tales of a Streetcorner,' as this is known in English, is a unique and very artistic film that reminds me of early Disney animation. I'd have never even heard of this hidden gem had a friend not directed me towards it, and it was well worth the half-hour or so it took to watch it.

'Streetcorner' has not one word of dialogue (not counting the print on the posters, which I can't read anyway), communicating mood entirely through music and expression. Not only that, there is only one actually human character, a gender-ambiguous child who is never named or speaks. As ... such, it's hard to get a hold of the plot, which seems to be largely a metaphor for the wars that wracked Europe in the first half of the 20th century. The streetcorner's true life comes from the posters, oddly enough, the advertisements filling the walls with life and music until being brutally stamped out by war propaganda posters. In particular is a big, blue mustachioed man who appears to be a combination of Stalin and Hitler (mustache resembles the former, the 'seig heil' salute the latter), who covers everything with his monotonous image of death and loyalty.

Our heroes consist of a mouse who befriends a child's lost teddy bear (or tries to; the bear is unresponsive, being only a stuffed animal) and a pair of posters for musicians, a violinist and a pianist, who fall in love only to be separated by the omnipresent dictator. There is also a mischievous moth who appears to have its own agenda of causing trouble, possibly a metaphor for America. This movie bears re-watching, in order to sift through the layers of metaphor and hidden meaning.

Story: 4 - Not really anything unique, and it's pretty buried in vague metaphor
Art: 7 - A unique art style, with touches of period Disney ... captures the time wonderfully
Sound: 9 - I loved the music, which is good since there's no dialogue
Character: 6 - Amazing how much personality a piece of paper can have
Enjoyment: 7 - It kept me captivated for all of its 35 minutes or so
Overall: 7 - A fantastic score and unique art style make up for the lack of human characters

Saki originally attracted me through its moe schoolgirl designs, as I've not the slightest idea how to play Mahjong (and I have to admit I have only slightly more of an idea now than I did before watching it). The mahjong scenes, interestingly enough, turned out to be some of the most riveting variations on 'battle' scenes I've seen in awhile. If lightning blasts and magical girls really popped put when people slapped down the tiles, I'm sure this game would be much more popular in the US.

In its two cours Saki develops a huge cast of girls, both Saki's teammates and their ... rival schools. I kept waiting for Saki and Nodoka to make their obvious yuri love official, but other than some suggestive scenes of sleeping together there's never even a kiss. There's a LOT of implied yuri in this series, but again, nothing beyond excessive blushing at one another and sparkles. Well, and Saki ogling her girlfriend's huge boobs, but so does everyone else in the series. There are virtually no male characters to speak of, and those that exist are mostly ignored since every one of the girls is a raging lesbian. Mahjong makes little girls gay, I guess?

The massive cast is as much a weakness as it is a strength, as you almost can't help but pity all these girls who have motivations for winning but are going to get steamrolled anyway by the monster that is Saki. Seriously, as OP as Ichigo is in most of Bleach, Saki is in her own show. There are some tense moments where the show almost convinces you she could lose, but a glance at the episode count and/or title will remind you of who the mistress is.

My scores:
Story 6/10 (largely revolves around two tournaments, a brief training arc, and yuri)
Art 9/10 (who knew mahjong could be so badass?)
Sound 8/10 (nice and dramatic soundtrack, stellar cast)
Character 7/10 (some are a bit shallow but you could fall in love with almost any of them)
Enjoyment 8/10 (I followed this when it originally came out, and it kept me riveted from episode to episode)
Overall 7/10

I suppose, having watched as much anime as I have, I should stop wanting everything to make sense and happen for an explicit reason. Then I might be a little less 'WTF?!?' about this OVA. I enjoyed it a fair amount, I must say, though I found the slice-of-life portion to be fairly bland and the post-apocalyptic battle to be excllent and intriguing, but tragically unexplored.

Story: 7/10; good ideas, but much is left unexplored.

For a plot synopsis; two girls meet in a junior high school, become friends, and then drift apart. At the same time, two warriors resembling the schoolgirls are engaged ... in a battle to the death. The two parallel stories don't unfold on the same time scale; more than a year passes in the school, while all we see of the alternate universe is a single battle. The two parallel universes seem to be linked in some unexplored way, but why the two warriors are fighting and what the consequences of their fight are in the real world is left entirely unexplained. Maybe the creator wanted the audience to fill in the blanks themselves?

Art: 8/10; excellent fights and smooth action, but meh school scenes.

Unsurpisingly for an OVA, the art is excellent, especially in the post-apocalyptic battle. There's really only so much you can do with schoolgirls in fuku, though, and sometimes the real-world scenes seems like more of an afterthought to the dialogue between characters (which is mostly Lucky*Star type inane chatter, without the humor and otaku jokes).

Sound: 8/10; nice soundtrack, but some dialogue between our two fantasy girlies would've helped.

The music suited the mood well and I especially enjoyed the music that played throughout the battle sequences. The voice actors did well for what they were given, though in the battle story it mostly consisted of grunting without even calling out move names.

Character: 5/10; who is this devil girl and why is Rin's sister trying to kill her?

You'd think with two versions of each character, the main girls (Yomi and Mato) would be pretty well-developed characters. Not really, they're not really fleshed out much beyond basic character archetypes (sporty girl and quiet, mature girl), and we don't know anything whatsoever about our mysterious fighting girls, not even learning the protagonist's name until the very end. Still, I liked the character designs in the fantasy world, especially Yomi's succubus-like attire, so that's worth some points.

Enjoyment and Overall: 7/10; not sure what I just watched, but I liked it!

I wish more had been explained, but I've almost come to expect that from anime. They're not too great about filling in all the blanks, but perhaps I'm spoiled in that regard by American movies and television. The fight between the girls was killer; I'd have enjoyed it more if they had spent a lot less time on the slice-of-life BS, and more on what happened to the fantasy world and why BRS is fighting Devil Girl.

This is one of the most utterly insane movies I've ever seen, which is saying a fair amount from someone who's endured 'Mulva: Zombie Ass Kicker' and 'Manos: Hands of Fate'. Let's do the breakdown:

Story: 6/10 - The story is largely incoherent, and it doesn't really matter much anyway. Two people (or a person and a guy with a TV for a head) wake up naked on Earth, go on a crime spree and wind up in some kinda superjail on the ruins of the moon. Hijinx ensue.

Art: 8/10 - Like Gurren Lagann on a blood-soaked acid trip.

Sound: 8/10 - ... Voice acting pretty solid on both dub and Japanese versions, pretty impressive. BGM effective if unremarkable.

Character: 9/10 - Memorable if nothing else. Why does the racist black stereotype have a drill for a cock? Why the hell not?

Enjoyment: 10/10 - I was laughing myself half to death throughout a lot of the movie, even if I didn't care much for the toilet humor. Fortunately, there's not a whole lot of that, but an overabundance of loud, bloody violence.

Overall: 9/10 - Not quite a masterpiece, but one of the most unique pieces of anime I've seen in a long time. Definitely keeping this one around :)