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I'd have to admit that this wasn't quite as bad as I remember, but it's still not very good at all.

The characters, art, animation, music and voicework are of the same standard as the TV show, so no need to go back over that. Where the show seriously fails is in the story department.

More to the point, the plot in this OVA is ultimately redundant. The 'problem' that Hatsuho sets out to solve doesn't exist because it was resolved in the TV series. Indeed, in the opening minutes it's revealed that Kei and Mizuho have no problems in that department and ... need no help. It's overall in bad taste, the dialogue is juvenile and not funny and Hatsuho's actions.....yeah, ewww. It's really a pretty poor excuse for softcore porn. The other characters show up pretty much to only say 'oh look, Kei's with some hot chick!'

If the OVA didn't come bundled with the TV series, I'd say give it a miss. It's not funny and there's just no point to it.

Onegai Teacher is an alright show with some interesting ideas and some good characters, but it's wrapped in a completely ridiculous scenario.

The premise behind the events in Onegai Teacher is pretty absurd. Oh, the alien side of things is OK, if fairly standard. There's nothing much to either endorse or complain about that. But I could not suspend my disbelief for any decent amount of time over Kei's illness, it was just soo silly. I don't like the 'mystery illness' plot device as a whole because it always seems so very contrived, and Kei's illness has convenience and contrivity coming out the ... wahzoo. Even though we get a faily bare bones explanation of what the disease is, what sort of stress brings on a standstill is applied pretty inconsistantly.

Fourtunately the show sidelines the illness for the first half of the show and concentrates on the characters. Aside from episode 4 being oh so very convenient, this part of the show is alright. But when we get to the reason behind the illness, it's difficult to take seriously. The conclusion to this is done via the introduction of a new character we only saw previously in a couple 1 second flashbacks. Because we know so little about this character and the relationship between Kei, this part of the plot loses a lot of impact. However, that part of the story does have a sound basis so it's not too bad. If the illness itself wasn't so absurd that part of the story would have been much better.

Where the show does shine is the characters. The relationship between Kei and Mizuho starts off quite timidly and grows at a steady pace, and even though the Hyosuke and Kaede thing comes out of nowhere the show runs with it and makes does a good job of it. The group of friends work quite well together. The only characters that didn't come off well were Ichigo and Mahou. Ichigo was just too flat and emotionless to be convincing, and I didn't like Mahou at all. I assume she was supposed to be a character like Skuld from Oh! My Goddess, but instead of coming off as someone who adores her sister, she looks like a vindictive, possesive bitch.

There's nothing much to say about the animation and artwork. They both do their jobs well, if not standout. Thought character designs do a good job of making each character look quite unique, and the artwork is quite colouful. The music compliments the show, but it's pretty standard stuff. The OP and ED are alright, but again, nothing particuarly great abou them.

The dub work was good overall. Bridget Hoffman does a fantasitic job as Mizuho Kazami, she portrays her timid earnestness very well. Ichigo's voice was far too deadpan, even for her character and Kei did sound a little too weedy, but the others did a good job overall.

The underpinnings of Onegai Teacher are too silly to take seriously, but it's got some good characters in it and some amusing jokes so it's not all bad. More a reccomnedation for fans of the romance genre.

I dare say that my view on this manga has been coloured by its anime counterpart, but I honestly am surprised that a show as good as that came from this manga. I didn't remember it being like this, only that I wasn't happy with the ending. Well, as it turns out the ending is not the only thing that I'm not happy about.

It must be said that I do like the idea behind this. It's a more creative look at fighting toys than others, and the overall plot is alright. But it moves at a breakneck pace. Training, first ... game, tournament BAM, BAM, BAM. There is little in between the fights, so much so that most of the manga is the fights. Precious little time is spent on any of the characters, including Hikaru. You've got your usual 'fight your hardest and you will win' and 'size doesn't matter' themes going along but because we run through it fast and spend so little time on the characters, these themes feel quite unfulfilled.

On the characters a little further, they are rather flat and boring. Each character has either one or two roles to play, one of which is always analysing and spouting off how great Misaki is during her fights. The other is dependant on who the character is, and possibly if they've been defeated or not . Tamayo is the tomboy, Koutaro is the punching bag etc. There are some chapters where we aren't in a fight and you get some semblence of who these characters are, but these moments are few and far between. You just don't get a feel for who these people are, and why they do what they do.

Now one of the things that does run through the plot is Misaki's mother, it's something that is constantly alluded to by several characters from the very start (yet there is no subplot to put any meat behind those allusions). When you finally get to the big reveal about Misaki's mother.....you're kidding me, right? That's it?! After the (what counts for) buildup to this rather important plot point, that would have to be the lamest motivation and ending I have ever read.

Onto the artwork, overall I didn't like it. When the characters were standing still it was good, but we spend so much time in blurred action littered with speed lines, it can be difficult to make out what's happening. The action on the whole was pretty poorly choreographed, I had no idea what was going in most of the fights. The characters spend quite a bit of time in chibi mode, and sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. I think the characters spend too much time in chibi mode overall, but there occasions were it was amusing.

Overall, I was really disappointed. It's got a good idea but it's rushed all the way to the end and it's so unsatisfying. Watch the anime instead, it fleshes out the characters, gives a better mother plot.....it's a far better take on Angelic Layer than the manga.

Fruits Basket is a truly wonderful story, it makes it's rather outlandish premise believable and interesting, the romantic story is very sweet but doesn't dip into sappy territory and the characters are quite unique and distinct.

The thing that stands out the most is the characters. They have somewhat cliché exteriors, but there are quite complex personalities and motivations lurking underneath that get revealed as the manga goes along, especially the leads. I was particularly impressed with Tohru, I never thought that your average anime/manga ditz could be so interesting. The main plot is also very interesting, with themes of love, loss and redemption. It's very ... sweet, and I really liked the ending.

There is a very large cast, 3 main leads and at least 15 supporting and assorted minor characters (that's off the top of my head, there's probably more). Natsuki Takaya does a marvellous job of giving every character a decent amount of time, each with a backstory and secondary plot that gets resolved.....I can't think of one that didn't get resolved in a manner I did not like. There were occasions that the story did make the happy to sad transition rather quickly that it was a little jarring, but on the whole the jokes and serious stuff are quite well balanced out. A couple of the plot devices did feel a little contrived, but they didn't look out of place.

But having such a large cast means that it can be difficult to follow what's happening to or with who, and it isn't helped by the fact that some of the character designs are very similar. There were quite a few occasions where I had to do a double take (like 'how the hell does Kimi know Rin?....Oh, wait, that's Kagura). But on the whole, I did like the art. Natsuki Takaya gets better as the series goes along, and she does a good job of changing her characters as they grow older.

I think I would reccomend Fruits Basket to just about anybody. I think it has something to offer to everyone, not just a romance story.

This is a pretty decent show, having a coherent plot and interesting (yet still mostly stereotypical) characters. There are some scenes that are very sappy, but being a show aimed squarely at girls this is somewhat forgivable. Yet I was saying 'stop trying to make me cry, dammit, it's not that tragic! (sniff)' at several points. Yeah, I'm a big softie.

The show manages to meld a couple sub plots involving the supporting cast that not only get good treatment, but are resolved in a satisfactory manner as well. On the supporting cast, outside of a couple minor characters whose only purpose is to further Misaki, ... they each get a good amount of screen time so you get a sense of who they are. I did find Hatoko pushing my suspension of disbelief, though. It would have been much more believable if she were 8 or 9 years old, not 5, and I found it easier to pretend that she was.

The fights themselves are very well animated, and quite well choreographed. Unfortunately, this is often at the expense of the rest of the shows animation, as it can be quite choppy at times. But since the fights take up much of the show, this is not a major problem. A nitpick about the fights: The show is inconsistent about the HP and damage done by the angels. Sometimes a punch will layer out, yet at others a mighty kick will do nothing. This leads to some fights were you're thinking 'hang on, wasn't she screwed just then?' It doesn't detract from the enjoyment of the fights overall, but just something I noticed.

The dub acting was well done, for the most part. The main characters did a good job overall. There were some flat spots, and a number of occasions were the English script had a noticeable pause in the line to let the mouth flapping catch up. The biggest problem is the little children. Normally this wouldn't bother me so much as little children don't have big speaking roles, but this includes all of Hatokos spoken lines. She sounds in no way like a 5 year old, either in voice or script. Whilst her voice wasn't as grating as the other children, it wasn't....right.

The music was entirely appropriate for the show, if somewhat forgettable. Overall, Angelic Layer is a pretty solid title, both for it's dramatic elements and its fighting elements. I think it manages quite a bit of universal appeal despite being marketed mainly for girls.

On a side note, though I haven't read the manga in ages, I quite clearly remember the anime being a lot better than it. Not because the aciton sequneces make a whole lot more sense animated, but the story was made much more believable and I remember the animated postscript being much more satisfying.

Ah Noir, one of the first series I bought. I remember it being awesomecool when I watched it for the first time. The story behind it is rather interesting, but it gets rather ambiguous when we get to the big reveal. It could have been somewhat more solid when it came to the who's the how's and the why's. Aside from a few pointless episodes, the show drips information at a pretty steady rate. Possibly a little slow, but I was rarely waiting for it to hurry up.

Then there is the flashback. I suppose everyone has heard of the flashback, and the show does repeat ... it a lot, and the one episode where it is entirely appropriate gets not enough of it. But I was surprised to find that this was not the only flashback that gets repeated. Many a time I found that events as recent as the previous episode got fairly lengthy flashbacks, and it was at these points where I was going, yeah, 'I know this already!'

There is also the issue of the soundtrack. Now I love the soundtrack, the OP is the only track I don't like but there is only 2 or 3 tracks used for the fight scenes and they get tiring after a while. Otherwise the soundtrack is very good and used in mostly appropriate places.

It's well animated overall, though the lack of blood still bugs me. The actions scenes are well choreographed, and one must mention the amount of detail put into the guns. Each weapon exists in the real world, and the signature weapons, a Beretta Model 1934 and Walther P99 are superbly detailed. The voice acting is pretty good. I felt the english track more.....suitable, given the situation, but the actors do a pretty good job. Of course there is Chloe and Kirikas habit......of speaking in......sentance fragments, but that's not their fault.

Noir is still a pretty good show, but it wasn't as fantastic as my memory serves. The story is, for the most part, sound and well paced, it's well animated with good music. The characters are distinct and memorable, but it's dragged down by the ambiguity of the big bad, and of the end and all the flashbacks taking up so much time, and limited use of it's great soundtrack.

FLCL is quite a good show. it's got crazy frenetic goodness oozing out of it, yet it does have an underlying structure so you can follow along with what's going on. Though I must say, even with some more years on me since I last saw it, I still don't quite understand what FLCL is about. The story is fairly sketchy, I could only extract a bare bones explanation of what is going on from the script. It felt as if the story was secondary to more philosophical part of the show. There are underlying questions about maturity and what it is to grow up ... and adulthood littered throughout the show, but I didn't feel like any sort of conclusion to those questions was put forward, let alone an answer.

Still, the story has enough meat to make sense most of the time, it's mostly background information that's missing. But in many ways this is made up by the amazing art and animation throughout the show. It is certainly very unique and quite eye catching. The character designs were quite distinct and the characters themselves rather interesting.

The soundtrack is simply awesome. It melds perfectly with the show, and stands on its own very well. I find The Pillows have a sort of Beatle-ly sound in this OST, and it's quite easy on the ears. Now the dubbing work on FLCL is par excellence. I think FLCL is second only to Cowboy Bebop when it comes to the dub. The actors all do stand up performances, getting into their characters very well. The script also includes a number of Japanese....er.....I don't what the technical term is, but Japanese sounds, like when lifting stuff or getting off the floor, those sorts of noises people make and that really helps.

So, despite the sparseness of the story I had a lot of fun watching this, and it's quite a good show to boot. I think it's worth the praise it gets.

I must say that I was pleasantly surprised by Steel Angel Kurumi. Oh, don't get me wrong, it's not a good show by far but it has a real sense of fun around it that still managed to entertain me even after all these years.

The art is bright and colourful, but the designs were what I'd call typically anime. Though I must admit that the costumes for each of the Angels was quite distinct and memorable. The animation was not so hot. Most of it was acceptable, but the fight scenes (where it really counted) were often animated very cheaply. A punch or kick was ... often done with a still, and a succession of punches was done with repeated cells much of the time. The fights overall were rather poorly choreographed overall, which made them actually rather dull. I was always waiting for the fighting to end so we could get to the funny bits. Each episode is 15 minutes, which is perfect for this show. If it had been the usual 25, then things would have had to been drawn out and it would have been far too long.

The story is pretty silly and on occasion pushes your sense of disbelief but it was adequate and is followable. The show does humour the best, I found Kurumi to be a fun character to watch. It takes a turn for the better when Karinka shows up, the chemistry between her and Kurumi made for some good laughs. There is a dramatic element to the show, but it has all the subtlety of an ancient Egyptian building block. The out comes of the villains actions and the big 'OH NO!' moment is telegraphed so early on you act shocked when it happens more out of obligation more than anything else, and its solution is so predictable that it doesn't have much of an impact.

The music was pretty bland overall and normally it wouldn't have even rated a mention if it wasn't for that goddamn OP. It's so cheery and poppy, grabs your cheeks and stretches them into a smile. It bores into your skull and it never goes away. Even 4 or 5 years after I last watched it, I could still sing along......love it or hate it, that OPs catchiness is an achievement in itself.

Now onto the dub. This was more of an eye opener for me. The dub itself had some very good individual performances, but it still didn't quite sit right overall. Now I say eye opener because in the past I would have described this dub with terms like 'worst ever' and 'bleeding ears', but honestly that's not the case. I think I can put that down to being a 'subs superior' prick when I was new to the hobby. Anyway Kelli Cousins Kurumi captures her every squee, giggle and other mannerisms so well it's scary. The Japanese genki girl does have a certain pitch of voice that Cousins doesn't quite reach, but the rest of her portrayal of Kurumi is so good it doesn't matter. Hillary Haag's trash talking, short tempered Karinka is quite enjoyable to listen to, and I think she matches the original voice in tone.

Though Shelly Calene-Blacks deadpan delivery worked well for Mirielle in Noir, it doesn't quite work for Dr. Amagi here, she needed to be a bit more animated. There is something not quite right about Saki, but I can't put my finger on it. The rest of the cast do an adequate job, there isn't one that does their role badly. But still, there still was something wrong. I think it comes down to the script itself. For a show set in 1920s, the script sounds very 21st century, and doesn't quite fit with the rest of the show. If some mannerisms and slang from the period had been written in, it would have sounded much more appropriate.

Overall, Steel Angel Kurumi, it's a fairly average show. It's silly and predictable and it doesn't do anything standout, but by the same token it doesn't particularly bad either. Actually I'd say it's probably decent enough show to introduce people interested in the whole robot maid thing, but at 15 minutes an episode I reckon it's an overall good time waster when you need to switch your brain off and have few laughs.

Chobits

I remember liking this show a whole lot back in the day, and unfortunately it hasn't lived up to what I remember. Chobits starts off well enough, but by the end it gets lost in trying to be profound.

The animation is good. It was consistent and fluid throughout the show, so no complaints there. The artwork.....I'm hesitant to say it was bad, because I don't think it was, but much of the character designs are all pretty much the same with different hair plonked on to distinguish them, and even there.....they all had the same sort of scraggy haircut. The only ones who are unique ... in design are Chii and Sumomo. Chii's design is extraordinarily cute, and all the various lolita outfits she get dressed up in enhance her cute factor, by quite a lot.

As for the characters, our main leads were disappointing. I found Chii to be mostly bland, and Hideki was a colossal idiot. He really did get on my nerves at times with his ludicrous outbursts. I just couldn't feel the chemistry between Hideki and Chii, it felt somewhat forced. The side characters were more interesting than those two. Sumomo was easily the best character there, she was energetic and unique. Consequently the side characters had more interesting stories as well. They did have some themes about the relationship between technology, society and people and while they weren't outstanding they were interesting to watch. The better episodes are the fillers, but even they wear down after a while because the same jokes are recycled over and over.

Now the bigger problem is the main plot. It starts out well enough, with the usual 'what is Chii?' stuff, and I was actually interested by how it was presented. But as it moves along it just gets confusing. By the end we had some new and important characters pop out of nowhere and I thought some of the plot points were outright contradictory, and the entire ending left me with that bitter 'wait, what?' feeling. I honestly have no idea what was suppose to happen in the end, the show just doesn't tell us.

On a good point, I really do like the soundtrack. It's got a wonderful retro sound to it, and it fits the show very well. There's nary a track out of place throughout Chobits, it's been timed quite well. The OP is quite a catchy pop song, and the EDs are a good listen. Though I do prefer the first ED to the second one.

The dub was alright. The actors did a good job (though, no offense to Monica Rial, but there wasn't much to Chii in the first place), a couple of the guys were a little bland at times, but there's nothing really more to comment on it, there's nothing wrong with it. Oh, Sandy Fox did a fabulous job as Sumomo, she does the squeaky voice exceptionally well.

I'm finding it hard to say that it simply sucks, because despite it's flaws I was at the least entertained most of the time. Chobits isn't a terrible show, it's cute, and quite a few of the episodes are fun but it gets tangled up and ends up confusing itself which drags the show down as a whole. It's another one of the switch of and enjoy type shows, if you don't pay to much attention to the attempts at being deep.