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Hellsing Ultimate has everything you want and expect from a vampire series revolving around the greatest vampire of them all: Dracula. Only in this series we know him under the name of Alucard. This show is rated R for a reason, a bloody good reason. It contains blood, gore, big breasted female leads and even more blood.

The story is about a secret organization within the British Government, named Hellsing, who takes care of any supernatural beings that is not supposed to roam this earth. It is run by Integra Wingate, whom has a butler with the nickname "Angel of Death". This should tell the viewers ... enough about the rest of the story: A complete battlefield with multiple parties: The Hellsing organization, The Millennium organization run by the Nazi's who have a complete army of Ghouls and Section 13 of the Vatican, who also kills off any supernatural beings. Including 'pet' vampires that go by the name of Alucard. This three way war is waged in the streets of London, which is soon burnt to the ground.

There is not much character development in the series, but this series needs none. Alucard is the protagonist and by no means the 'hero' of the story. He has absolutely no morals and enjoys stripping even the smallest shard of dignity from his victims before he decimates them.
The one who is in charge of Alucard, the head of the Hellsing organization is Integra, whom we do not really get to know other then the cigar chain-smoker. You also have Seras Victoria, a girl who is transformed into a vampire at the start of the series. The antagonist is the Major, a war loving manic who seems quite the nice guy when you meet him first.

The art and sounds are just great. You have a lot of nice quotes about 'var' from the Major while you enjoy watching perfectly executed executions of people and beings that die in the most exquisite ways.

All of these things combine into what a vampire series should stand for: Blood, gore and even more blood. Like I said before, it is rated R for a reason. And you should watch it for that same bloody reason!

When I first watched Sprited Away as a child I had no clue of what kind of masterpiece it is. I watched it again and I now consider it as a Classic – this meaning it as a lasting significance. Considering it is often listed amongst the likes of the best movies of all time, most consider this the masterpiece of Miyazaki. Miyazaki has the ability to create works that are both emotionally touching and visually stunning, and this certainly is no exception.

The plot is about the 10-year-old Chihiro that gets trapped in the land of spirits. A boy named Haku helps her to ... embark on a journey to return home. The film is filled with scenes of inaction, a scene without any action. In an interview with Roger Ebert, Miyazaki explained the usefulness of the little extra scenes called ‘ma’. These are the scenes of inaction, where a character might glance off into the distance or sit quietly.

These scenes are a common occurrence in his films. The usefulness of these scenes are, according to Miyazaki; ‘If you just have non-stop action with no breathing space at all,, it is just busyness. But if you take a moment, then the tension building in the film can grow into a wider dimension. If you just have tension at 80 degrees all the time, you just get numb.’

The animation of this movie is also great because of the small details that Miyazaki paid close attention to. Small additions like the dirt on the bottoms of feet, chopsticks falling over when bumped, or a zipper catching the sunlight to contribute to the overall feel of the film. Outside this the art of the characters and environment is appealing to the eye.

Also the attention put to details is a useful tool for developing characters. Chihiro is supposed to be a typical ten-year-old, so she behaves as such. When she puts on her shoes, she does so with extra care and taps the toe of each shoe to make sure they fit properly. In another scene, the girl’s parents call for her, but she doesn’t answer until the second time.

All these things add up to make this movie the master piece it is, and why I regard this movie as a true Classic. I fear that I can write half a novella about all the great points that Miyazaki made in this movie, so I can only say that is a great movie to watch. It is not packed with action or drama, but the message it conveys is no less important. Spirited Away will always have a special place in the history of anime.

Fairy Tail was the first anime I had ever seen and when I look back to it, I have to say it was a great gateway to the world of anime. But that is about it. The main building blocks of any anime, plot & character could have been executed a lot – when I say a lot I really mean a lot, better.

The plot is quickly summarised as generic. The main team of characters, Natsu, Lucy, Gray and Erza come across some evil activity that has to be stopped. They are later joined by Gajeel and Wendy. When they find out who is ... behind this evil activity they have to stop them, by beating them. The first round they get beaten, but then the group will summon the bonds of nakama’s or the willpower of Natsu will be found and he beats the people who do this certain evil activity. End of story, repeat.
I fear that I have summed up and summarised every arc, including the fillers. The repetitious plot is also accompanied by jokes that get old very fast, like Natsu’s and any other Dragon slayers vehicle sickness.

Outside that the characters are flat, to the extremes. They are cliché stereotypes. It is defanatly not a good sign if you can summarize the characters in one word. You have the rival Gray, the over manly man Elfman, the pervert Makarov, the fangirl Juvia, the OP main character Natsu, the Damsel-in-distress Lucy, just to name a few. It also has inconsistencies, where Natsu at first is shown to the viewer as an user of an extremely rare kind of magic. Later you find out that there are three generations of Dragon slayers. So it is not that special after all.
The thing I dislike most about this show is that the story revolves around Lucy, but she rarely gets any screen time compared to Natsu. I sometimes wonder; “Why do these things always happen to Lucy?’ to then be reminded again, ‘Oh yeah!, she is the main character’. This is easily forgotten because of the immense emphasis put on Natsu.

The art however is not bad at all. The animations of magic are well executed and the characters look appealing to the eye. The art is solid, just like the sound. The voice acing was alright and Fairy Tail did have quite a few good OST’s.

Overall, I would say that Fairy Tail is a great gateway to the wonderful world of anime, but other than that, it is not worthy of being watched. If you had quite the history of anime that you have watched, I would suggest that you skip this show. The art and sound are the only real upsides of this anime.

Sword Art Online II Review,

I cannot deny that I am fond of the Sword Art Online (SAO) franchise, and that I am a particular fan of their ideas of the existence of VRMMO (Virtual Reality Massive Multiplayer Online) games. But I will do my utmost best not to let bias lead me.
The first season of SAO was a pleasure to watch and in my opinion it had its charms. It can be noted however, there were more plot holes then actual plot. But then again, they had to cover two years and an arc in a limited amount of episodes. The writers probably did ... their best, but it just did not work out. But even though it had its flaws, it was a fun anime to watch.

Please note though that the anime is an adaption of the light novel, so a few things that happen in the light novel are not explained in the anime. For someone who has not read the light novel it would already generate a plot hole why Kirito started playing VRMMO’s again. Asuna’s mother quite right pointed out that she found it weird that a SAO survivor would even want to use the AmuSphere, an invention that resembles the NerveGear after being stuck in Aincrad.
(Side-track:) Reasoning it could be said that there would be two logical first reactions after ‘waking up’. The first would be the one Asuna’s mother points out; You do not want to play VRMMO again and you would rather (exaggerating extremely) die than use it again. The other reaction would be that you have grown so fond of the world you were in (you have lived there for two years after all…) that you would rather live in a VRMMO than in the real world.

But back to season two, the plot exists out of three arcs; the Gun Gale Online (GGO), the Caliber and the Mother Rosario arcs. It can be noted that the creators made the same ‘mistake’ by having an anime that was split. In SAO there was the Aincrad arc, followed by the ALfheim Online (ALO) arc. In SOA II you have three arcs. It weakens the plot of the anime as a whole, if not executed right. The transition between the GGO arc and the Caliber arc was quite horrible, the viewer was thrown form one game to another. The transition of Caliber and Mother Rosario was already better, but that is only because they share the same game, and thus the same setting, namely ALO.

Not mentioning the bad transitions between arcs, the plot is inconsistent at times. The one I found most striking was the promise of Kirito to Sinon. He promises Sinon that he would always think about her when he uses the sword Excalibur. However when Kirito equips the sword and starts to yield it there is absolutely no reference to the promise. Not even a simple thought. The plot of also GGO lacks distinctive battles and realistically ones. If you are an agility based character and have some fine reflexes I can understand that you are able to deflect and arrow, that could be realistic. But deflecting bullets from a gun that is just a few meters away? Highly unlikely.

The main themes of SAO were the exploring of a fictional world. The world of GGO seems quite interesting with its desolate area’s and unique nature, but the world was hardly explored, like in SAO. There are monster raids for EXP and money, but no monster actually appeared in the anime. The setting of this arc is merely the Bullets of Bullets tournament, divided into a qualification tournament and the real tournament. The battles that were fought in the qualification tournament were far from exciting, lasting mere seconds. The battles in the real tournament were better, but even the finale was far from worthy. The plot continues with Caliber, a horrible transition.

The Caliber is a short side story that is very weak. Stretching only three episodes, it felt rushed. A master quest has to be done and, surprise, Kirito & Co had to save the world. The major character development was done in the GGO arc and was left behind in this arc. Especially Sinon’s development was left out. The atmosphere was also juxtaposed, from having to ‘finish business with the villain’ to ‘exploring dungeons’. Caliber can only be seen as a filler arc hardly worth mentioning.

The final arc, Mother Rosaria, had an emotionally strong plot. ‘Right in the feels’ as a 9gagger would say. It is very character-orientated, with Asuna joining the Sleeping Knights guild to help them defeat the floor boss. Later it is revealed why the Sleeping Knights are so keen on defeating the floor boss. The Mother Rosaria arc also zooms in on Asuna’s personal situation and her struggle with her mother. Today’s teenagers can easily relate with Asuna since having internet friends is a taboo. Put bluntly at least. The battles were better animated and also realistic – as far that is possible in a fantasy world.

One of the biggest points critics made was that SAO had little to no character development. In SAO II, there is a lot more character development, especially towards Asuna in the Mother Rosaria arc. The GGO arc is also character-orientated, but less in comparison to the last arc.

The GGO arc had character development, however it was not strong. The dialogue the two had, where it would go in-depth, Sinon was in suggestive positions and the camera angles were, kind of, ‘well aimed at the female curves’. In the other dialoge they had it was circular.
Kirito and Sinon both share guilt for murdering. I had more empathy for Sinon, because when Kirito killed the men it was a matter of having to kill, a ‘them or I’ scenario. In Sinons case however, she did not have to interfere with the robbery. While both share the feeling of guilt, in the Caliber arc, however this feeling has evaporated and Sinon becomes a flat character that instantly fits in the ‘crew’.

The Calibar arc is not worth mentioning here and the Mother Rosaria arc did what the writer should have done in the GGO arc. Asuna gets a good background story, where the viewer can finally relate with her struggle. Her mother hates that Asuna still plays VRMMO and considers it only as a waste of time, while for Asuna the virtual world has become her ‘real’ world.

The artwork has improved, in comparison with the first season. The battle scenes were well executed, but because of the lack in number, a full potential was never reached. So the quality of the artwork does not shine, like it deserved to. The GGO arc was juxtaposed to the ALO arc in artwork. The GGO arc had mostly a dark, grey and metallic colours, while the ALO arcs had bright colours which really stood out. But it was well done nonetheless.

The sound and music were not better nor worse than season one. The voice acting did not stand out, no sentences worth remembering. It should be noted however, that there was no voice ‘out of place’ or a voice that caused a distraction.
The OST does what it was composed for, delivering the extra edge to each scene. The OST in season one were in place and so were they in season two. Solid, but not extraordinary.

Overall I did enjoy watching the show. But again the first episode of the anime has a fan service scene which returns more often in the anime. Namely an extreme fixation of the female curves of Sinon. Not that I mind the shots, but it adds little to nothing to the anime, not even comical relief. It is not the best anime, not the worst. It falls, just like its predecessor, in the middle. One should note that the Mother Rosaria arc did what no SAO arc has done before, the good development of characters. Yes the anime had its flaws, but for the casual watcher, it could be an enjoyable anime. For the hard critics however, not so.