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Has this series changed or have i?

I'm just not sure anymore. The first Minami-ke series sits comfortably in my all time best shows, to me this was the defining slice of life comedy to which i compare all others.
Okawari's change in studio annoyed me, the visuals were unfamiliar, this shows pacing gives you a great deal of time for such grievances to fester, but the content was still enjoyable.
I watched an episode of Okaeri and left it at that, the problem has gone beyond a minor annoyance.

With Tadaima the studio was again changed again, and they've done a decent job with the visuals, so ... why am i not loving the show again?
The characters are the same, the style is more or less the same, the art is good. I'm wondering if the shows simply played on the same running jokes a little bit to long, it's all starting to seem a little to familiar. Kana and Chiaki don't seem to have quite as hilarious a chemistry playing off each other.
The expanded cast do not do the show allot of favor's, we get allot of sketches, only partially involving a Minami sister, or sometimes not at all, i usually greet these with a sigh, they're not all that engaging, the Makoto gags seem to have been done to death, they just generally seem to be animating the same material over and over.

The bulk of the pittance of a MAL following this show has, must be existing fans, so is it just me? Or has the show run its course for premium content.

Why is know one watching this show? Literally not one person i know has even considered it.

I've not watched much of the original Zettai Karen Children, the age of the cast, and tone of the show, suggested i wasn't going to get remotely near 50+ episode interest levels.

But both short comings are now gone, the show is an appealing 12 episodes, the original cast are all several years older and supporting characters, with a significantly older cast put in place, and the tone seems far more serious. Think the difference between Fate Zero and Fate/Stay Night.

Any prior knowledge of the franchise seems completely ... optional, I've had no trouble following the events and characters to this point, the pacing is fast and entertaining, the art is reasonable enough, people regularly die, and most of the main cast seem less than indispensable. Theres a reasonable story going on, with the character loyalties remaining up in the air, and lots of morality themes.

Not unmissable, but far more people should give this show a try, any fans of action shows, or anything with espers/power users should find this a good watch.

Papa no Iukoto wo Kikinasai! A somewhat difficult show to review. Decent premise, some good characters, pretty art, but still doesn't really convince me it worked as a show.

The story is a relatively interesting premise. Yuuta ends up taking in 3 of his nieces after their parents die, to stop them going off to different homes and ultimately being separated, he feels so strongly about this because his older sister and the mother of the youngest niece raised him when their own parents died. As you may have guessed from the last sentence Yuuta is only blood related to one of the girls.

The biggest issue ... i have with this show is that it tries to draw upon far to many ideas and genres, for a half series to really succeed with any of them. Sometimes it wants to be a slice of life drawing upon all the hardships of a poor college student trying to raise 3 girls on his own, other times it pushes lots of screen time into Yuuta's college life, mainly the strange club he joins and the love interest there with Raika, other times it wants to run with the oldest sister Sora having romantic feelings for Yuuta, and heads down the whole possible incest route. Then it remembers it could just flood the show with fan service and cute moments. The way the theme changes often several times in any one given episode makes it very difficult to really get into the show, given you'll probably like 1 or 2 aspects and be unhappy when it strongly overplays the others.

If you look at some of the more popular shows with this sort of subject matter most of them succeed by largely focusing on one theme and running all others as small scale extras, Usagi drop quickly jumps to mind, for keeping its focus to great success.

I liked the characters, the youngest sister Hina is cuteness overkill, Miu is crafty and wise well beyond her apparent age of 10, and Sora the oldest sister is semi in love with Yuuta, which will appeal to some.

Art is pretty good, i'm genuinely excited Feel are doing the new Minami-ke based on this showing. Art is distinctive, bright and generally well drawn.

In conclusion this sounded a great idea, that didn't really come off with all the demographics it's tried to cater for and squeeze into a relatively short run time.

That was..... actually pretty good : O

Well i expected nothing but disappointment from this movie, i scored degeneration a 4, and didn't see what was going to be much different in this one from the clips i'd seen.

Following on roughly from around the events of resident evil 4, the story follows Leon (of RE2 and 4) as he continues his adventures as an American spy/super special solder of some sorts. He ends up in some obscure soviet resembling war zone, amidst freedom fighters and government soldiers, with rumblings of monsters being involved in the fighting.

If you've seen any cgi game adaptation made in the last ... few years, the art and sound are going to be entirely familiar, its the same stuff used in exactly the same way. In fairness, they don't slaughter the facial animations in the way degeneration and tekken did, and generally it all works. I watched the dub, which is not the norm for me, but proved to be sufficient, fairly sure Ada and Leon are voiced by their game VA's so all good on that front.

Content wise, the films starts off very poorly, all of the freedom fighters made me want to self harm, as soon as they starting spewing dialogue, and the plot seemed ridiculous as expected from anything from RE these days.
Do not fear, it does infact come together towards the mid sections, and builds up to a dam right impressive finale. What was particularly satisfying was after all the early games going on about the various viruses, being used to create bio weapons, only for them to continually get defeated in their beta stages by single human opponents, we do actually get to see monsters deployed in a war zone, and they actually work well. Getting to see the perfect form tyrants in action was particularly satisfying, i was almost in awe when the first one showed up.

Overall, if you have any remaining love for RE give this a watch, at least as good as the 2nd Final fantasy cgi movie, if not the best cgi movie made.

Whoever composed the trailer for this film deservers some sort of award for editing, because i for one was whole-heartedly anticipating this film a great deal.

Given the sheer amount of characters and character turnover, and the fact we're now approaching the 6th generation of games, the story has been somewhat of a shambles for some time. That said they do attempt to the focus the story on a handful of cast members, with the odd cameo appearances from Tekken regulars.
Xiaoyu, Jin, Kazuya, Anna and Nina make up the main stays, joined by newcomer from the most recent game Alisa Bosconovitch.
Xiaoyu is recruited by Anna ... on behalf of Kazuya to investigate Shin a former class mate of Jin's. I frankly have lost track of if she's still looking for Jin as was the case at some point, but i assume this to be her motivation for going along with this.
The story was, even by Tekken standards pretty terrible, poorly constructed and largely unnecessary, the story merely serves to gather all the characters behind the scenes together for big show down, rendering the leads as little more than spectators.

The CGI doesn't seem to have made any real progress from the first Final Fantasy film. It generally all looks very nice, and the action scenes flow very well and look highly impressive, but they've still got a long way to go with the character models. Xiaoyu looks down right creepy at times, any time they attempt to animate anything facially the whole process falls down horribly, and looks terrible and often deformed. Alisa came out better, but there's still plenty of off moments. Claire Redfield's model in Biohazard: Degeneration single handedly destroyed the film for me, and with that setting the bar pretty low the efforts here have not done much better.

Xiaoyu and Alisa's friendship in the film actually worked for me and was one of the better aspects of the film. I'd not learnt anything of Alisa from the last game, but her voice acting was good and most of her scenes with Xiaoyu were enjoyable. The rivalries between Jin and Kazuya and Nina and Anna also feature heavily as a secondary focus, none are fleshed out in any meaningful manor, but this was clearly aimed at existing fans, so entirely forgiveable.

Now i doubt many people expected much from the story, so what about the fights? The answer is very hit and miss. All the early action is very average, Xiaoyu and Alias's mid way fight was probably the high point for me, with the end 3 way show down being hugely disappointing, although i did enjoy getting to see all the devil forms in action. There's allot of wasted potential here, I'd have enjoyed nothing more than seeing Jin and Kazuya go at it as often as possible, there's a total lack of focus, or downright epicness to the fights, i was left feeling largely unsatisfied and would have no real desire to re-watch any of the sequences, there just not that technically good.

Overall there's just allot of wasted potential, i get that they couldn't do anything to drastic to the Tekken universe, but the fights we did get were just hugely underwhelming, the story wasn't well thought out and there's not allot to praise, i can't help but wish one of these game film adaptation's would adapt the actual game material, the events between Tekken 2 and 3 would have made for an excellent story, hint hint.

To begin with i only picked up this show when i realised the art was identical to Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai, which I've grown quite fond of this season, comparisons shall be drawn.

I've not scored this show all that highly, and it could have very easily been much, much higher.

The story is actually pretty deep, Makoto moves into a new town, with his 39 year old Aunt, because his parents have moved over seas for work, pretty standard scenario. Upon his arrival it turns out his Aunt has a child, his cousin, now a young girl of the same age as him, of which ... the rest of the family has never been told about; again hardly ground breaking stuff here. The interesting part, she's a complete loon, who spends all of her time rapped in a futon, ranting about alien conspiracies. The interesting part here is that rather than being a loveable odd ball, like just about every other show, Erio genuinely has some mental illness/trauma here, and working through it, actually makes this show a little complexed in a good way.

The art is well exactly like Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai, i wouldn't know i was watching a different show if the characters started crossing over. For those who haven't seen either, the crux of the art is that the character models are very detailed in terms of facial features, lips and such, character models are all pretty much excellent, backgrounds and everything else is also massively detailed and really bright and cheery and genre suitable.

Sound, Op is really different and i really liked it, despite the fact i'd never have played it a second time had i come across it as an actual song, very suitable for the show, good selection for the show from the staff. I'm not so impressed with the voice acting, i have no doubt the cast play the roles they're given as instructed, but its very flat, in stark contrast to Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai which manages to get away with allot of average material purely on the strength of the voice acting, watch both and you observe!

Character is kind of a let down, Erio and Makoto are both kinda one tone, slow paced folk, the energy comes from Ryuuko and she annoyed me really quickly, Makoto's aunt was very cliche, although i did like the third love interest Maekawa, but that might purely have been by default. If you're watching these kind of shows, you should be only to aware that the cast are far more important than the story, and the short comings of the cast do hold this show back allot.

Enjoyment wise, i wrote a good chunk about the story being deep, but it doesn't really come to anything, what actually happened to Erio to get her this way is never covered. The romance comes to nothing and Makoto never ends up with anyone, and generally it all feels like it went know were towards the end, with the climax being some largely irrelevant base ball game. The pace never changes, and it really should be shifting up a gear towards the second half. This might be down to purely faithful adaptation of only a part of the material, but still as an anime it is lacking for it.

Closing comments, this is worth watching, it's short enough to be forgiven for pretty much any short comings, the art is always great, the story is light and easy, although ultimately comes to nothing, give it a shot if it sounds appealing to you.

I can't help but feel this show got a little to mainstream for it's own good, hopefully without descending into a rant this show has evidently been watched by many users who knew full well they had no fondness for this sort of show going into it.

Ore no Imouto is at times nothing short of brilliant. While not quite up there with shows like Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu, when contrasted with more standard efforts like Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu this show it truly special.

Our story follows Kyousuke who inadvertently stumbles across his seemingly perfect younger sister Kirino's secret obsession with little sister's (in games ... and anime). He reluctantly chooses to support her and they progressively grow closer through Kirino's hobby.
It's not the greatest idea for a story, especially straight off the back of Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu which had little else going for it bar the novelty of the idea. The premise does serve to give the show an excuse to delve around Otaku culture and scenario's it would other wise struggle to incorporate into this sort of show.

Depending on your tolerance and standards there is allot of subtle, or at times not so subtle fan service in this show, the character models are distinct and fantastically realised, the backgrounds are rich and vivid, the whole experience is visually cheerful and vibrant. If you hold this up against pretty much any comedy it's right up there with the best of them animation wise.
The sound track complements the cheery atmosphere of the show well, i wasn't overly fond of the dramatic score they used for every dramatic scene, it seemed a little over the top at times. The voice acting was first rate, again distinctive injecting genuine individuality into a first rate cast of characters, production values are something to rave about here, AAA standard all the way.

The characters for this show are truly exceptional, i'd rate the supporting cast as the best i've ever come across in a show bar none, all this considering i didn't especially like Kirino at any point in the show. Kyousuke can be compared with the Kyon's and the Tomoya Okazaki's of anime, exactly the same mold slightly sarcastic darkly likeable male lead. Kirino is loud, bold, spoilt and dominant, not my favourite among the female cast by some distance, but her personality is necessary to drive the story forward.
Supporting cast member's Ayase, Kanako, Saori, Ruri even Kiriko's father, are simplly first rate, my only complaint would be they didn't get more combined screen time, an excellent mix of weird and wonderful characters who often overshadow the leads.

Enjoyment wise for all my positiveness there were a good few episodes that were genuinely tedious, the episode they spent pitching an anime to studio execs springs to mind fairly quickly. This should not detract from the good 75% of brilliant material, many genuinely laugh out loud moments, a fantastic pacing and energy to the whole experience and a surprisingly good spread of themes, episode styles and character face time.

Overall it is a crime in my eyes that both the front page reviews score this show to be 1 point above an average show, this was easily among the best shows in what was an especially strong season, and one of the better slice of life comedies you could hope to come across, do not be put off this is one of the easiest watches you will come across.

I really want to like this show, i've made every effort to enjoy this show, but i can't quite bring myself to recommend it.

Deadman Wonderland is the story of Ganta, a young man sharing a staggering resemblance to Eureka Seven's Renton (same mangaka) who is wrongly imprisoned in the futuristic Deadman Wonderland, a theme park were the convicts serve as the attractions.

The first thing that became apparent is that 12 episodes was never going to be enough screen time to do this show justice. The first few episodes drive us through the series of event's that lead us to Ganta's imprisonment, now i personally ... had wrongly assumed the wonderland would be a dark and dreary affair, initially this is not the case, the prison is futuristic in appearance, lots of shiny scientific looking facility's and park itself looks like an amusement park all bright and cheery. We're introduced to the idea that the convicts are given a battle royal style neckband which will deal them a lethal dose of poison should they not take the antidote candy every 3 days, these candy's can be earned via participation is the wonderlands various death themed activity's, i would have assumed this to be the basis of the show, as we're introduced and grow to know and appreciate the cast and the environment.

Sadly not to be, Ganta (far to) quickly discovers he had some strange new powers and is declared a Deadman and moved to G block, the dark drab place i was expecting from the beginning, and all the stuff about antidote candy and the rest of the park is forgotten, now i've not seen Ganta consume any more candy, i''ve lost track as to if only 3 days are supposed to have past over the course of the entire show, or if it's a highlight real of months, and they just got bored with the idea? Never really touched on again, so thanks for that.

The show then drives us head long into the Deadman universe, as quickly as possible attempting to introduce us to the Deadmen (those with similar powers to Ginta) through altercations with Ganta and then the Undertakers, a Bleach Captain styled band of throw away Nemesis's for the Deadmen.

The whole thing never really has a chance to catch it's breath and never really shows us enough interaction or actual screen time for the various characters to give them any depth or real significance in the show. By the 10th episode we've still got the major character's such as Crow refusing to assist poor Ganta, and rightly so, they've met exactly 3 times ever.

I'm at a loss of what to say about the characters, Ganta's kinda pathetic throughout and plenty whiny, and just doesn't get the time to grow, Shiro's random switches between psychotic and adorable are fun and all, and the various Deadmen we've seen so far have all been pretty cool, in the 10 minutes or so screen time they've had to share with god knows how many throw away characters, all of the under takers seem pretty cliched, but what can you do. I'd honestly say the cast has allot of potential, but your certainly not going to see any of it realised, if this is the first and last season.

The art and sound, are really good, i love the opening, and this was most of the reason i started the show, i was intrigued by the opening sequence, and it perfectly sets the tone. No complaints on the voice acting, i thought Kana Hanazawa did a stand out job as Shiro, nailed the character for me. Art although not setting any new ground, is all high end, and i suppose is the up side to such a short show, i'm not going to go crazy over it though, i've no doubt it's the main reason this show still average's an 8+ rating while genuinely good shows like Fairy Tail sat below the 8.0 mark for months and months.

Enjoyment wise, i just expect more from a modern show, the bar has been set really high, by the popular shounen crop of recent years, and this hasn't got there. I really wanted to like this show, my intrigue lasted a good few episodes, before i finally realised no significant ground was ever going to be covered. It's by no means a bad show, but it's one that needed to spend longer setting up the atmosphere and building up some suspense.

In conclusion the manga folks really should have held out for a better adaptation offer, this has by no means done justice to what i'm sure was good material.

Considering 2009 was the first year i really started to notice that fewer shows were getting released year on year, it is truly surprising this project got the go ahead at all. Guin Saga is truly a faithful depiction of classic Fantasy/Adventure story telling, for better and for worst.

The story sets up and has the potential to be an epic masterpiece, the scale and complexity of the tale is vast, and ambitious, and while the scale of the story is rarely an issue, the show doesn't quite get there.

What the show does well, is what i would describe as the political aspect of the adventure, ... the various countries, their royal families and the various stages of the conflict and occupation of Parros are engaging to watch and really set in around the early mid stage of the series. This steered me quite happily from episode to episode without any complaints.

What the show handles poorly are the day to day events following Guin and the Remus Twins, my interest in the events didn't last long beyond the introductory episodes to our protagonists. Now while i quite enjoyed watching the Remus twins and their adaptation to the situation they find themselves in, everything regarding Guin came off as underwhelming. Guin is very much our all action straight laced hero, sadly this show is all about the bloodless violence, every time the show went into a small scale battle, i would always be left disappointed, there's simply no edge to any of the action, it's predictable and stole screen time from the events i did find enjoyable.

The art is strong worthy of a 2009 anime, the character models for better are classic fantasy designs, nothing of the current moe trends, far more reminiscent of years gone by. The background animations are reasonable, albeit lazy at times, they do a good job of bringing a huge world to life. The sound was reasonable, if not overly memorable, the voice acting was functional if not a little repetitive (blame the scripting as much as the voice acting)

The characters actually grew on me quite a lot, by the end of it i had grown genuinely interested in what was going to befall the Remus Twin's and even Istovan finally showed another dimension to his character, which i appreciated.

Overall if you like fantasy shows you'll almost certainly enjoy this show, i happily breezed through the 26 episodes in 4 nights without any real complaints. There's plenty to poke at if your looking to not like this show, but all in all it was a good not great introduction to what i'm sure turned out to be a fairly epic story, the show could have been a great portrayal in it's on right, had it taken a few more risks, but settled for being a fairly standard affair in the end.

I'm going to start off by saying after reflecting, Shiki was my favourite show of 2010, and i watched an entire 3 shows!

Shiki does an awful lot of things extremely well, but you might be surprised as to which aspects it excels. This is not an action packed show, and nor is it a frightening show, although certainly graphic at times. I'd define this show more as a study of how people react to a highly unusual situation that is pushed upon them.

The story is a relatively simple one, in an isolated rural town, the Kirishiki family have built and then move into ... a large Western style mansion, and immediately after people begin to die under mysterious circumstances. The story is both classic in content and simple in execution. I'd also like to give a nod for the length of the series, whatever the reason for cutting off 4 episodes, the pacing of the show was much improved as a result, the mid part of the show could have dragged down the pacing if extended and i much appreciated the non stop pacing of the final third of the show.

The art and sound were fantastic, the colours are memorising at times, the character models were original and well drawn, i believe allot of people came to dislike the strange way in which the eyes were drawn, but it gives off a great sense of 'otherness' in a highly unusual way, and it added to further the uniqueness of the visuals. The voice acting was fantastic throughout, the music ranged between eerie and atmospheric and i genuinely can't stop playing the second opening. If nothing else about this show you will distinguish it from other shows by the visuals and they should stay with you for some time to come.

The show has a simply huge cast and i feel it's unnecessary to go into specifics, it spreads screen time amongst them all, the range of characters works fantastically as they are steadily divided into two opposing factions in the those rising as Shiki and the surviving town people. Shiki gives you an awful lot to ponder in terms of character motivations and the grey area between right and wrong, i was certainly unsure of were i was sympathising by the end.

I was intrigued by this show from the first episode, and this lingered some way into the early episodes, the show falls into a recurring pattern as the story progresses, but when the events come to a head during the second half of the show it's nothing short of engrossing, and highly thought provoking. This show takes a very simple premise and turns it into something extremely special and i recommend anyone looking for something a little bit different gives it a try.