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(Originally Written: 25th August 2010)

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***WARNING - SPOILERS!!!***
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Hello again everybody! This is my review of the anime series Paranoia Agent. Once again, you are welcome to add your own thoughts to this, as long as they are suitable! Please take note of the SPOILER WARNING above though!

Well, if I were put in a room with a schizophrenic, a mad scientist and psychotic serial killer - I bet we'd have a hell of a party! We'd also probably create an anime very close to Paranoia Agent. That's how weird I am/the series was, seriously!

A little background for ya! So Paranoia Agent is a mystery/psychological horror/thriller series, created ... by Satoshi Kon and produced by Madhouse Inc. For me, all the series I've watched so far that have been produced by Madhouse Inc. have been great! I'm talking about this, as well as Death Note, Trigun and Monster. So when I saw who produced it, I just had to take a look!

Anyway, I was recommended this series by a friend and fellow anime fanatic, and having just watched Death Note, and seeing it was also a 'dark' series, I thought: 'Hey, why not?'

So right from the very start, the series had it in for me. The whole opening combined strange, haunting music with a series of lightly disturbing pictures. We see everybody laughing, despite being in distressing or dangerous locations (caught in a flood, in a rubbish dump, in the middle of a road etc). So the opening immediately sets the mood for the entire series.

So the series itself...well...it's kind of hard to describe, as I couldn't really get a total grasp of the plot, which kind of makes it hard to explain in a review, although I think I've done a pretty extensive job on this one! The basic jist of the series is that somebody's guilt becomes a physical manifestation that may or may not be real, and goes around killing people, or at least seriously injuring them.

Let's put some detail on that. So the first main character we meet is Tsukiko Sagi, a cartoon character designer who creates a one-hit-wonder design that she calls 'Maromi'. The cartoon becomes immensely popular very quickly, forcing the company to put pressure on Tsukiko to repeat her success. However, her pressure is soon relieved when she is attacked whilst walking home by the main villain of the series: Lil' Slugger, also known as 'Shonen Bat' in the Japanese version. He is apparently an elementary school (Primary School) student, who wears inline skates, a cap, and carries a weapon in the form of a bent golden baseball bat.

The main bulk of the series follows the other main characters and their scenarios leading up to them being attacked themselves. The exceptions to this are Episode 8 where the main characters are spared by Lil' Slugger because he is frightened by them (I came up with the idea that the 3 main characters may be ghosts), Episode 9, where the main character's husband is killed and Episode 11 where the main character fights him by talking about good things in her life. Over time, the number of attacks increases, however, the police come no closer to solving the mystery. Soon though, one of the main police detectives investigating the case, Mitsuhiro Maniwa, notices a pattern in the victims of Lil' Slugger. He seems to only attack those who are in a state of internal/emotional stress, whether it be through a runaway dual personality or jealousy of another person.

Maniwa gets hooked on the idea that Lil' Slugger must be some kind of supernatural force, that solves people's problems through violence. Meanwhile, the public fear for him is slowly growing larger, and consequently, is making Lil' Slugger stronger, leading to an increase in the number of attacks. At the same time, the character Maromi has a TV series commissioned, and continues to grow in popularity. It becomes apparent that Lil' Slugger's attacks and Maromi's popularity may be linked to each other somehow. On the night that the Maromi TV series is due to air, the two police detectives, not that they are detectives anymore, meet up again and confront Tsukiko who confesses that the idea for Maromi came from a puppy with the same name that she used to own as a child, but accidentely let die. Scared of what her father would think, she created the original story of Lil' Slugger as a cover-up for her own mistake. He returned to haunt her as an adult when pressured by the deadlines and then ran wild. But, when Tsukiko finally confesses to irresponsibly letting Maromi the puppy get killed, her guilt vanishes, along with Lil' Slugger.

(This is the part where I claim no responsibility for any loss or damage to brain cells caused by you trying to read and understand this!)

So it's a pretty immense series. The crators have done well to balance the information in each episode, so you don't feel like you're being overloaded with info. The individual character development is very interesting as they sometimes display or imply that they have slightly offbeat behaviour, but it is managed to the extent that you don't think they are insane or weird (although I think some of them were intended to be just that!) The plotline can be quite difficult to follow but if you understand the various bits and pieces crucial to the storyline then you should be able to make some sort of sense of it all. Lighting is quite a key feature in this anime in particular. I'd say more that half of the anime uses quite dull, drab, drained colours, like dull greens and browns. I believe this is to set the scene for the dark and mysterious foundations which the anime is built upon. Also it helps with the sadder, more sorrowful nature of the characters, who are often found in distressing, frustrating and emotional circumstances. There's some imagery in the series as well. The bent golden bat that Lil' Slugger carries is probably a symbol of the broken/damaged/weak mindedness of the characters in story.

Well, to conclude, I can say with certainty that this is definately the strangest anime I have watched to date, although I don't think it'll be my last. I'm going to give it 7.5/10. The main aspects of the plot (characters, story etc) are brilliantly done, but the series can sometimes throw you with it's weird spots, leaving thinking: 'Wait...what just happened?'

(Originally Written: 5th June 2010)
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***WARNING - SPOILERS!!!***
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Hello Everybody! This is my review of the anime series 'Ouran High School Host Club'. If you have watched the series then you're more than welcome to read this and add your own thoughts. For those who haven't watched it, are currently watching it, or plan to watch it, please take note of the SPOILER WARNING above!

So, Ouran High School Host Club, a very original idea in a typical genre. A heart-warming romantic comedy, that can be related strongly with the likes of Azumanga Daioh. In particular, I'm talking about how the host club members are held together by ... both friendships and hardships and always come out on the bright side.

Furthermore, the extent of mischief the characters get into has no limit, each episode has its own unique plot that differs from the rest, providing variation and the excitement of not being able to guess the outcome.

The best point of all was the characters, the differentiations in personalities was well upheld and funny to watch. Tamaki-senpai takes everything so seriously but can change his emotions in an instant becoming depressed, outraged, embarrassed, and that's funny to watch. 'Honey'-senpai's cuteness outranges any of his character type in any anime I have seen so far (although he may be on a level with Chiyo-Chan from Azumanga Daioh), yets he's like a younger Jackie Chan in terms of his martial arts skills. The twins Hikaru and Kaoru constant mimickery of each other, such as moving the same way and finishing off each other's sentences, always produces a laugh. And the list goes on!

Another good point was the amazing artwork, the way the animators and designers have sharpened the detail and made everything shiny and eye-catching is brilliant, and much more enjoyable to look at, and it really brings out the details in everything.

The series overall was very well constructed. At no point did I feel like an episode or the series was being dragged out longer than it needed (though of course, like most animes like this, I wish it were a bit longer than just 26 episodes, but that's just how long the manga can make it). No episodes fell out of place, and their unique little quirks had me craving for more.

(Originally Written: December 2009)
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***WARNING - SPOILERS!!!***
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Hello everybody! This is my review of the anime series Death Note. Once again, you are welcome to add your own thoughts to this, as long as they are suitable! Please take note of the SPOILER WARNING above though!

Well, what can I say. Since Wednesday 4th November 2009 until Sunday 20th December 2009, I do believe I may have been watching one of the all-time greatest animes ever written.

Literally, almost everything about the series including characters and their personalities, along with the whole storyline and the way everything panned out was near perfect.
...
But overall, there is not an anime I have yet seen that can even be compared to Death Note in the same sense of the amount of effort that was put into making everything about the characters pan out just perfectly.

Nobody was ever predictable, a hard feat to achieve indeed. And also the creators forced the viewer/reader to choose a side, Light or 'L'. Personally, I fell immediately on the side of Light, however, this was probably intended, mainly due to the fact that L doesn't enter the story line till episode 2 and doesn't come into his prime until a few episodes later.

This gives the viewer/reader a chance to build up a strong liking of Light. Hence, they develop a natural dislike to L when he first appears, as he appears to want to put a stop to Light's actions.

However, as time passes, I found myself becoming ever more interested in the way that L put across his methods of thinking. Most of his assumptions would likely be classed as mad guesses in the real world, however, seeing as this is based on a story, the characters believe him.

Another point is the way that for every single brilliant plan or idea that Light comes up with, L always seems to find a way to overcome it. However, the fact that this also happens in reverse. keeps the story in a well-maintained balance.

Personally, I thought that the idea that Light had everything planned up to the moment that he and L, now working together, managed to retrive the Death Note from Higuchi, was incredible in that it was so hard and yet so easy to believe he would've done it.

Then when Rem sacrificed herself to kill Watari and 'L', it came as a big shock as even I had not been expecting it to happen, and also not so suddenly. I believe this element of suprise is a key factor which is upheld throughout the series in order to maintain the audience's focus.

From then on, knowing that any conventional anime has only 13-26 episodes, once I found out that there was 39 episodes (38 & 39 being OVAs) I realised that the anime was far from over with another 12 episodes left.

When the USA got involved I felt kind of annoyed as it appeared that they were interfering with everything in the storyline. Eventually, I came to see that the way that Near thought and acted was meant to make you think that he was a kind of 'Son of L' so to speak.

He was meant to give the impression that even though the real L is dead, there's remains a feeling such as his spirit is still present in order to seek revenge upon Light, using Near as his medium.

And so another epic battle of wits insued until Episode 36 when they finally met: Light and Near.

At this point I felt almost certain that Light's plan was going to working, what with the USA tampering witht the wrong Death Note and Mikami Teru having the real Death Note.

How shocked/annoyed/confused I was to find out that Near had thought of this and also altered the real Death Note, and exposing Light undeniable as Kira.

When Light pulled the tiny piece of the Death Note out of his watch, I felt that there would be a sort of 'Romeo and Juliet' type scenario, where Light would write Near's name on the Death Note, killing him and also be killed by both his and Near's associates.

Unfortunately, Matsuda was too quick for him and managed to shoot Light's hand, stopping him from writing, then shooting him several times when he tried to do it again.

I felt incredibly shocked that after all that had happened, all of Light's efforts to make what he thought would be a genuinely good new world, were all in vein.

It was also quite sad to see him die at the end, knowing all that he had accomplished had been dashed in one fell swoop. And that also, he was eventually killed not just by the people he had been working with, but by the man seemingly the least likely to be able to accomplish such an act.

So, overall a very well constructed anime.

I have only one slightly negative point for this. Death Note appeared to suffer the same problem as Trigun, in that it rather dragged itself out slowly, but it was made up for by the multiple key points and developments that linked each episode.