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How do you define an "ideal" human being? The perfect human understands his reality. All that we see as art, aesthetic, is just applied excellence. People always have to train to be the best at something, No one is born excellent, Some are born closer to and have an easier time acquiring skill. So, to think of perfection as something unnatural or Godly, would be to misperceive the reality of the matter, right?

The second season of medaka box, dubbed ‘Abnormal’ resumes following the somewhat mindblowing conclusion to the first season which saw a complete half revolution turn in the emphasis and plot of the whole ... series. In the second season we are introduced to a world of normal, specials and abnormals.

Normals here are defined as everyday folk such as myself and maybe even you, Specials are people who greatly excel in a particular field and Abnormals from their name itself we can guess possess some sort of strange ability and able to achieve great feats that leave us normal folks dumbstruck. One factor I was greatly impressed with about the abnormal abilities was that the series tries to explain to us the mechanics and how these abilities work and unlike most shows that introduce some kind of wild out outrageous and thought provoking phenomenon to do this, medaka box simply uses Biology and Anatomy. The abilities are explained as being born from some sort of efficiency or deficiency of an organ, enzymes or muscle in the body. This greatly enhances a viewer’s experience and even gives the show (dare I say it to a shounen anime) a sense of realism.

A scheme is later hatched by the principal called the ‘flask plan’ to perform research on a few Abnormals in the school so as to find out how abnormality works with the main aim of discovering some kind of method to transform normal human beings into abnormals or in other words make them perfect. The scheme itself i’m afraid to say isn’t necessarily original and without a doubt is a slight alteration from the all too familiar concept of a group of individuals who believe themselves greater than normal humans decide to rule over them. The principal also intends upon making this discovery to use the students of the school as test subjects for his experiments which could have adverse effects on them, and upon getting word of this of course, the student council consisting of medaka and co. try to stop the plan.

The highschool is divided into 13 sub classes ranging from numbers 1-13 and as it also happens, all the abnormal students are in class 13 of their respective grades. A group of these students have been selected to be the roots of the flask plan called the ’13 party’ and medaka’s objective will be to defeat this group thereby bringing a halt to the project. At the end of the first season we witness medaka defeat Unzen and at the start of the second season we are told that Unzen was a part of the 13 party, however due to his defeat he is unable to participate anymore and Medaka being the one who defeated him is now the most likely beneficiary to take his place. Feeling proud of their abilities most of the students in class 13 hardly come to school but upon hearing of the experiment most of them return with the prospect of attempting to take part but just as Medaka defeated Unzen to enter contention, they also believe they need to defeat her to have a chance to join, therefore presenting medaka’s group with a sizable amount of opponents. This of course was nothing more than to show us indeed how powerful Medaka was when compared to other abnormals and also for the viewer to hold highly in prospect the other members of the 13 party upon their introduction.

The school setting itself is seemingly devoid of teachers or any kind of academic activities for that matter. The main base of the experiment itself is an underground base on the campus; the base is divided into floors each holding one member of the experiment meaning medaka has to defeat them floor by floor making the series hold a sort of platform game feel to it which isn’t such a good idea. However giving the modern school setting and having super powered individuals, there will be a need to make use of an enclosed environment to demonstrate these abilities so the writers had a limited amount of choices in terms of location.

Gainax resume their duty of animation but however I will admit I’m not a fan of the art style used in the show, the use of extremely heavy pencil lines especially under the eyes give most characters a wild expression making them look as though high on cocaine with only voice actors and changes in facial expression making it otherwise. However when compared to some mediocre animation we saw in the first season, Gainax did a great job with animation on the second season. It has a number of fluid and nicely orchestrated action sequences here and there but these action sequences may seem dragged on a times by no fault of the animation but by characters overlooking a fight giving commentary on almost every little factor, something that should have been kept to a minimum or removed completely.

Minami Kuribyashi resumes her role as she again sings the OP, entitled ‘Believe’ and unlike the first season’s OP that had a happy-go-lucky beat and feel to it, this one had more of a melodramatic and serious tone thus accurately depicting the complete shift in emphasis of the series. BGM mostly consisted of instrumentals and the sound director does well to appropriate each instrument well into a scene. Tension, suspense and other moments are most of the time complemented with a nice instrument to get a better feel of the atmosphere but the series still could have done better with its choice of soundtracks.

The show also takes pride in its host of very peculiar and strange set of characters with their differing ideals and philosophies on humanity. Medaka herself retaining her honest do-good attitude has this stubborn ideal of believing that all humans have some good in them and will a times go to whatever length to protect this ideal, often times purposely falling into enemy traps which looked to me nothing more than a weak excuse to extend the story. Her tenacious personality may come off as a bit annoying a times but her die hard attitude will leave most people wanting more. Most members of the 13 party will leave audiences absolutely dazzled, just as it’s depicted in the show that normal people see them as amazing or on another level, I have to admit even I sitting on the other side of the screen could also tell. The show uses the personality of these characters very well to keep viewers hooked to the screen and this factor was without a doubt the series strongest point.

The beginning of the show I have to admit was amazing but as time went on it started to lose quite a bit of edge especially towards its climax but it was still an enjoyable experience in the end. The series main problem was not as a result of its execution or anything it could help but in my opinion the writers seemingly not giving enough thought or effort into the storyline towards the ending as they did initially and seemed to be running out of ideas along the way and finally adopting cliché basic shounen analogies in the end. Despite all this, it still manages to impress with its fluid animation, applied sciences and extremely strange set of characters. The second season was without a doubt a lot better than the first and with more material still to be animated we can only expect things to only get better in future.

“Knowledge is power. Information is power. The secreting or hoarding of knowledge or information may be an act of tyranny camouflaged as humility” - Robin Morgan.

War indeed can be viewed as an inescapable and integral aspect of human culture. Sources claim 14,500 wars have taken place between 3500 BC and the late 20th century, costing 3.5 billion lives, leaving only 300 years of peace, but one dynamic concept of war has always been the tools used to wage it. We’ve seen the early man start with stones and clubs to advance to swords and with the discovery of gunpowder, bullets have also come into the ... fray, and the deadly nuclear and atomic warfare have also taken flight. The latest addition to this devastation inflicting family is information technology, but does this seemingly docile and easily accessible piece of technology be considered the most deadly weapon man has ever created?

The second season of Jormungand, sub-named ‘Perfect Order’ comes with some changes in plot devices as the arms dealing takes a back seat in place of informational warfare. We are introduced to the fact that Koko has some sort of plan in the making as we see her send several rockets into space with the viewer kept completely in the dark as to what could be the reason for this. Although not a mystery series, the way the plot and secrets nicely unfolds is both smart and entertaining at the same time.

Unlike the first season, intelligence agencies such as the CIA play a bigger role in the story. Viewers kept in the dark as to Koko’s plans are smartly inserted into the shoes of intelligence agencies as they try to discover what it is she is up to, this somewhat different approach is a welcome addition as it requires a bit of intuition from the viewer to keep up with the story unlike most series that just require you to simply look at the screen and diffuse any useless information that comes your way. The prequel was never presented with an antagonist that seemed would be able to go toe to toe against Koko in terms of wit but the second season states a claim on this with the introduction of new characters such as Hex and George Black who definitely seem to have the potential to push Koko and her crew to the wall.

Just as in the first season the series progresses in bi-episodic arcs, while this is a good strategy that helps the writer to focus completely on one aspect of the story, it also poses a problem of connection. Once one arc is over, the connection between the previous and the next arc is most of the time thread-thin. Only very brief conversations about the previous arc serves as the basis to connecting two story joints which can make the series seems a bit disjointed a times. Fortunately only being a 12 episode show it manages not to suffer the long term effects of such a predicament as it poses serious problem to character growth.

White fox have of course done a great job with the visuals, some nice notables was the studios use of shading, shadows were nicely placed in appropriate locations such as faces that depicted facial buildup of the characters and especially on the clothes. Some stressed emotions such as rage are also nicely conveyed by use of shading right under characters eyes. Being a show that depicted modern warfare it also consisted of mechanical parts such as vehicles and helicopters, the studio decided to use CGI to animate this. The CGI most of the times remains seamless with the surroundings and impressively a times we see mesh perfectly when interacting with hand drawn characters however those CGI elements that used a somewhat darker color tone seemed a bit sloppy and carried with it all that most anime fans resent of CGI animation. The second season also placed strong emphasis on location, as the team traveled to a large number of different cities around the world and white fox of course did not slack off on doing their research to make sure they capture a city’s scenery and populace accurately into the fray.

The place where the second season seemed to outdo itself far more than the first was with its choices of soundtracks. The soundtrack of the first season was great and honestly it was really unexpected that it would be something that could be built upon, but regardless it was done and with brilliant execution if i may add. The soundtrack consists of tracks from the first season, remixes of those tracks as well instrumentals that spanned into several genres such as rock, rap and even electro. Insert songs were included that to my surprise even included some Indian and French tracks.

In the first season Koko has always seemed one dimensional in her emotions, always reserving a cool, calm and collected demeanor, so it was with great joy that this mask of hers is cast away at certain places as we see a different side to her emotions; Fear, grief and rage are ultimately introduced into her character in certain places that went a long way in making her character seem ‘human’. The relationship between Koko and Jonah is also put to the test as their already seemingly weird unpronounced relationship is put under serious strain in some places and the overall decisions and actions they choose to take make up a big turning point in the show itself.

One of the first departments the series decided to give attention to was with the development of side characters, an aspect that was left barely touched from the first season. We get to see the past of the remaining members such as Tojo, R and Wilee up to their meeting with Koko. Instead of the show simply showing an entire episode of a characters’ past, it approaches it smartly by interchanging events between the past and the present, this ensured both development and advancement of the story at the same time, a “killing two birds with one stone” strategy if you’d like to call it. The lack of development in the first season that would no doubt leave fans with either Koko, Jonah or Lehm as character favorites are immediately put at risk as characters such as Wilee are presented to us in such an entertaining manner that one has to re-think their plans of favorite character.

While we do get to see the whole characters in the series finally developed and create a stronger connection to them emotionally, the end- result however was never built upon. A character immediately having their arcs completed are afterwards seemingly put back under the rock from which they were picked up from and revert to be nothing more than filling spaces as they once were. This blatant disregard and ignorance on the part of the writers will prove to be an extremely wasted potential as it was basically a great chance that opened new pathways and possibilities that the series could have and should have advanced in but never did.

With a mere 4 months between the first and second season we didn’t see too many improvements to the overall series as a whole, but there are little improvements here and there as we see in the thickening plot and the music. The series does still harbor it’s set of entertaining gun fights that with the help of great animation from white fox will leave most audiences dazzled.

As time moves on, man will continue to advance his science and technology, and with information warfare being his latest weapon, we have to wait and see what new toy we can make in future to better and effectively kill each another.

It is commonplace to assume that the arms industry will observe a boom in demand during times of war and little during 'peaceful' times but unfortunately that isn't the case giving the sorry state of the world. Terrorism, uprisings and vast amount of budgeting for security has made arms dealing one of the most profitable modern professions today.

Jormungand was originally a manga by by Keitarō Takahashi. It follows the adventures and exploits of the young and cunning shipping heiress Koko Hekmatyar as she travels around the world selling weapons together with her group of bodyguards. The latest addition to her squad is a child soldier ... called Jonah who claims to loathe weapons and warfare but unfortunately has no choice but to use them due to his occupation and state of the world.

The plot in Jormungand is pretty straightforward and simple, selling arms, but how and the situation koko's group gets into to do this is both mediocre and exciting at the same time. Believe it or not, dealing in private arms is a perfectly legal profession in most countries. Most arms dealers that do get arrested aren't arrested because of their profession but because of import and export laws, or U.N. sanctions that are being circumvented and the series does hint at this in the first couple episodes.

Unfortunately its not all fun and games, the series being about selling arms gave alot of attention to 'arms' but the selling part was giving very little attention, i felt it would have been a nice addition and would have given the show a bit more sense of realism. At the start we are told that Jonah resents arms dealers due to his past but Jonah shows absolutely no amount of resentment towards Koko from the offset, a little resentment initially and gradually bonding would have been a nice way for the story to flow and build up their relationship but sadly it didn't. In Koko's defense though her personality is very likable and not something one can resent even if they tried.

White fox have done a nice job with delivering stunning visuals throughout the show, art was good, scenery and locations also. The design and facial details of characters made them stand out with the artists going for darker pencil lines and color tones that really made the dark aspect of the show stand out. The design of the weapons were done in good detail but i wished more attention should have been given as to what type of weapon was being used at the time. There are also certain firefights where for sure our protagonists would be in a pinch but would always seem to come out unscathed as if having divine protection from the animators.

All the voice actors were top notch but might intially take a liitle getting used to, in the end all gave astounding performances to even the supporting characters. The OP, Borderland by Mami Kawada is an upbeat J-pop song that really went well with the tone of the show, pumping up audiences for the episode to come. The ED, Ambivalentidea by Nagi Yanagi although a slow paced song seemed surprisingly a good fit and it felt as though it complemented the upbeat OP and in a ways bringing balance to the overall feel. The BGM were nicely done too and the OST CD is definitely a look out for whenever it comes out. The most important sound aspect for the show is inevitably the weapons and it received composite attention, all sounds were in line with real life.

The place the series takes a bit of a headfall is with character development, Koko, Jonah and one or two of Koko's team members are developed well but the remaining were given very little detail, at times i thought some characters were new additions to her team cause i had never seen them before but only to go back to a previous episode to see that they were present but just lack of screen time was hampering them. We cant really blame them for this since it s just a 12 episode show but the very little introduction brings the show down a bit. The number of Koko's team itself i felt was a bit of a problem, it's just too much and other arm dealers we encounter have a more manageable size of bodyguards .

Its not all bad on the characters sides though, the few people we did see development was done well and kept enjoyable, Koko's cunning is also fun to watch but the humor is something the show wasnt much good at and tries to apply it in situations rather than speech.

Dialogue between characters were handled professionally but there were a few places where audiences would be scratching their heads not knowing what was going on though. The choice of sometimes switching names of countries with simple letters like 'country T' i felt was not a good idea. The show seemed to somewhat over rely on the characters personalities a lot to deliver and not really on the story much.

Overall Jormungand is a good show and definitely one of the better shows of 2012, it is very enjoyable all through and one of the better thriller animes out there and makes enough impact to trade blows with shows like Black Lagoon any day. All in all you'll discover the life of an arms dealer is more than meets the eye and tricks such as being a professional in using different types of weapons wont get you much far and cunning and wit need to be added to the package.

"Children are a bundle of possibilities". While adults are too over occupied on the happenings and goings of the real world and have their thoughts rooted down to a sense of realism, the power of imagination of children is a powerful belief that can bring about miracles and sometimes transcend the boundaries of time. Magic Tree House is based on a collection of children's book written by Mary Pope Osbourne in 1992 and after 2 decades has found a way into the Anime world.

It is set in a town of Frogs' Creek and centers on 2 siblings Jack and Annie who one day stumble upon ... a tree house filled with books and upon pointing at a location in a book it is able to transport them there. A problem i had with this is the inability to control time, they are teleported to a location but dont have control over the time period but since this is an anime they always end up right where they need to be. Their objective is to gather 4 medallions which will inact a 'miracle' when brought together so they have to travel through different locations to find these medallions, unfortunately it is never pointed out what they stand to gain from this and are purely driven by a sense of justice, to do right, curiosity and to help someone in need.

The Art and Animation was quite decent, not too much sakuga animation was used, character designs were generic and had a kind of experimental feel to them because it seemed the studio attempted to mix both Eastern and Western animation together. An outstanding and probably the main standout point for me was the art directing. Locations were done outstandingly well, the different cities were designed very well and really made up a big back bone of the show.

Seiyuus did exceptionally well, especially Ashida Mana who plays Annie, although originally a singer this was her debut in voice acting and i have to say she did a wonderful job in bringing out the boyish and adventurous side of Annie. Soundtracks were decent enough, it was nice to see them use a dynamic soundtrack that changed depending on the time period.

The personalities of the characters were nicely depicted, they depicted what you'd see in most children put into situations such as this, a sense of wanting to discover and adventure. Jack plays the part of bookworm here, his knowledge on the time period helps to try to keep the audiences on route with the story. Annie however is somewhat hyperactive, and has a somewhat unorthodox lack of fear in the face of great danger and she has a strong sense of justice and of course a strong sense of adventure. Her escapades do warrant them getting into trouble atimes but that is essential in order for the story to progress though, so we can overlook it.

The Magic Tree House is a story of adventure, magic and the power to make miracles happen by simply believing in yourself. It bases strong ethics on friendship, adventure and a need to believe in one self which unfortunately we all seem to lose as we grow up.