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good song and trippy animation, old 3D has an uncanny look and feel to it that makes it unique and i like it that way. i have this dvd, it seems to be easy to get where i live, but very obscure everywhere else. it was released by a norwegian company called escapi, a record company that decided to venture out into other things, one of them virtual idols. there were 3 dvd's released, a 4th called Yuki Terai: Virtually Real was supposed to come out but it never did, there was no explanation, even going through different versions of their website on wayback machine ... the announcement which featured a release date sorta just disappeared from their site. after that they slowly regressed over time, they stopped producing dvd's and went back to just records, then they disappeared completely, sad. it is obscure, but not hard to find, just look it up and you can watch her dance, she is a nice piece of uncanny valley polygonated ass.

UNCANNY VALLEY POLYGONATED AAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

Virus buster Serge is like an in between for bubblegum crisis and tokyo 2040, in fact there are a ton similarities to 2040. as well has having surreal moments similar to evangelion. So if you enjoyed those you will like this. its set in Neo Hong kong during the 2090's, people carry implants in their brains that allow them to enter the 'NET', but a virus has spawned can infect people and merge them with machines.

the story is interesting, its told in a abstract and indirect fashion and doesn't hold your hand, you have to piece it together yourself. i think i managed to piece ... it together, though it does leave some unexplained things.

the art style is great, sharp angles and exaggerate features make it unique, after all anime is the last medium in the world which people should argue about realistic character proportions. the animation is somewhat limited but the choreography is great. the surrealistic moments are also where the art shines, when the characters have cryptic flashbacks, or have to go into the NET(sorta like the matrix) and face physical incarnations of the virus. these often take place in distorted landscapes which contrast against the setting outside the NET. another way these scenes contrast is the coloring, one sequence has a landscape completely in white, black and red, and my favorite one has warm and hazy glow over everything, when one of the characters is somewhere nostalgic.

The soundtrack is very good, and well handled. it is a mix of rock and techno with some jazz. its more ambient tracks are especially good. its used well here, the music fits the scenes and the scenes are timed to fit the music. though one part i didnt like, was when a important fight at the end began with some very emotional music, i thought it would continue but they just used some of the normal music from other fights. my favourite is this https://youtu.be/dc5WVCcOSjU?t=2971

this should probably have been a 24 episode show, as the characters, outside of the main character serge do not get time to be fully developed. though they are well designed(this show has a lot of fanservice for both men and women) and have strong personalities, that makes up for it for me, but that could put off a lot of people.

though one thing, i wish that the NET was a much bigger part of the setting, its a very interesting concept, a place where everyone in the world can connect to each other to work or play, from anywhere. but it does not show its inner workings, and when we do see it, the characters are entering their own personal realm where its just them and the virus. from what i hear the NET is a much bigger part of the story in the sega genesis game, i will need to get it someday(but it is untranslated).

the dub is pretty funny at times, but serge's voice actor great at playing Milan, also brain lizard was really good too.

Edit: also i found out that this anime was not based on a game. they were both made at the same time, and based on the same concept. the producers wanted two groups to make something based on the same idea but get two very different things out of it. if anything the anime technically comes first, as obari first created serge and erika, and they were redesigned to be used in the game.

Shigurui is something new for me, coming in after samurai champloo and samurai gun. its a show set in a historical setting, and has a much more grim tone.

the story is great for me as it is character focused, set around a dojo and the people within it. they have a motto, "show them our way, then send them back with a new look" that i love. this dojo is barely holding together and they will resort to desperate and dis-honorable measures to be sure that it continues. the structure of the story could have been better, it has alot of flashbacks, showing us an ... event, flashing back before it for a while then flashing back after. it could have been re-structured.

the art is great. its dreary and grayed out, fitting well with the grim atmosphere. the gore is my favourite part of the art, not the blood but the deformation of the bodies. people getting struck across the face to have their jaw shatter and turn to elastic with their eyes bulging, the injuries plastered across peoples bodies, you meet a character who looks like they are always smiling until he opens his mouth and you see the strings of meat hanging between his cheeks and the best part is CGI intestines.

the music is good. the opening could have been better if they didn't have the violins and stuck with the traditional instruments, a male chorus would have been better. the ending was better but not much better. the music used during episodes was great, it wasn't something made to be listened to alone, but is used to enhance the scenes to great effect.

my favourite thing out of the whole show was the fights, i'm not a big fan of sword or katana fights in anime they are often weightless and boring to me. in shigurui the fights don't have alot of action, instead it shows us what is going on inside the bodies of the samurai, the tension in their muscles, the cracking of their bones, the amount of power they put into each strike. it adds incredible weight to each fight. it also explain the techniques that the samurai use which is cool to understand. this is the height of the art and the sound, as during the fight, the background will turn white and the samurai's will become naked, the sound lets us hear what is going on inside their bodies too. when the samurai look at each other, they see the internal organs of each other, almost as if they see opponents as bags of meat rather than people. while it is less animated and more drawn out, i much prefer this style of fighting compared to that of samurai champloo.

the characters are great, especially Fujiki, Irako, Kogan and Ushimata. the rivalry between Fujiki and Irako is very well done, my second favourite thing about this anime is that despite it leading you to believe that one is more evil than the other, if you pay close attention to their actions and their thoughts, you see that this is not the case.

i watched the Dub, the main characters were voiced well, but the side characters and the narrator were bad. it got better towards the end though. the main problem i have with the dub is that it seems to have been translated more literally than others. it is probably a difficult task to translate something like shigurui, which was made to be historically accurate, especially in the way they talk, but they could still make changes to make it sound more natural without changing the meaning. like mentioning peoples honorifics all of the time causes them to talk very fast, a way around this would by to only mention this when in their presence or when it is important. the worst line is this. "Right... an imitation sword, you said when his head was put out in public an imitation sword was put in his mouth". the narrator was bad, it was useful to explain the setting but the voice actor was really bad. this may be more to do with the anime itself as it has a confusing structure, causing the narrator to mention the date many times over the show. he sometimes explains things when we already know whats going on which breaks the immersion a bit. i still thought it was worth it for the main characters, especially Ushimata, but dammit it coulda been amazing and they missed it and that really makes me angry. i really hope i don't come across more dubs in the same situation as this..

i'm giving it a 10 because i either love something or throw it away all together, i don't think the dub should have an effect on the score(unless its great). this is only coming after i had watched the show and know where it was all leading to, while i was watching it i was questioning whether i liked it or not as i didn't have any idea where it was going, so you will have to finish it before you can appreciate it, if you don't like rough starts then you won't like this.

one thing i almost forgot, this is only half the story, they never got to make a second season. i hate it when people say that anime is just an advertisement for manga, even though i will read the shigurui manga one way, there is no way the fights will be brought to life like it was in the anime.

i always look for animes of a specific style, the same style of trigun and cowboy bebop. heat guy j has that style, and something the rest of them dont have.

bagpipes, a whole lotta bagpipes.

its structured in the same way as cowboy bebop, its mostly filler, a story episode in the middle and then it finishes with a bang in the end. most of the interesting stuff comes from seeing the characters and their backstory's, how they get along with the other characters.

the art is good, nothing out standing, but it has its own unique style. all the backgrounds and vehicles are cgi and the ... characters are animated in 2d at all times, even fight scenes. it doesnt stand out, the characters fit in with the 3D enviroment perfectly and allows for the camera to be played around with alot more.

the music is great, everytime the android, heat guy 'J', gets into a fight bagpipes start playing. the opening and endings are great and i never felt like skipping them, the second ending i didnt like first but it grew on me. but the music has its own unique style to it.

all the characters are bad ass, it doesn't always focus on the main characters, all the side characters have their own story and develop throughout the show and i grew to love them.

when i watch an anime i either absolutely love it or i forget about it all together. a big factor is how re-watchable it is. something could be great like hellsing ultimate but after watching it i dont feel i need to see it again. an anime can be flawed like hellsing tv but much more memorable this is a flawed and very memorable anime that you will come back to every so often.

one thing that i dont like is that each episode has a case to be solved, and there is a buildup to that case being resolved, the climax of each episode is very short, they find the bad guy fight him in a cool, but short scene and then case closed. they could have made these sequences longer.

even though i said its flawed im giving it a 10 because i either absolutely love an anime or forget about it all together, and i absolutely loved Heat Guy J.

Edit: forgot to mention that this has a great english dub. all the voice actors fit the characters perfectly. i watch the dub whenever possible(though i do check if its good first) and this is safe to watch in english.