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This is certainly the first time I've ever given a 10 to everything, but i just couldn't find a reason why anything should be less than such.

Binbougami ga! at first glance might appear to some like your run of the mill comedy manga were a supernatural being and a human end up living together and the humans life is made miserable by said free loader, no doubt I myself suspected as much when i first read the synopsis. I'm glad to say however that I was not entirely wrong but not entirely right either. you'll get what i mean by the end. needless to say ... this is by far the funniest manga i have ever read, and by far the most enjoyable.

in my opinion binbougami ga is to manga what azumanga is to anime.




STORY

what makes this manga's story so much better than those of other similar manga's is the fact that the humour doesn't repeat the same trope over and over again (god or demon using normal human methods to defeat the human protagonist only to be thwarted) for comedic effect, Momiji puts a lot of thought and effort into using every possible advantage at hand including Ichiko's friends - once she gets some - as well as items that she orders from the world of the poverty gods, in order to usurp Ichiko's happiness energy.

There's a certain sense of believability in here as well not only because the task at hand would be a believable job for a poverty god, but also because the characters and events in Ichiko's life make sense when you look at how she turned out and how she treats the rest of the world. As well as this something which you don't see very often in these kinds of manga is the fact that Momiji and Ichiko are equally matched and many of the funniest parts of the manga occur when they enter into an epic duel that lasts ages, which brings me to another point. in most manga like this the supernatural being is so humanized and displays so little power or sign of their divinity that often times you forget that their supposed to be a powerful entity all together.

This never happens with Momiji, she is the first depiction I've ever seen of a poverty god in manga or anime where she actually seems like a god and not just some unlucky chump who makes everyone poor and miserable. she is able to turn into a spirit she can increase her size to whatever she wants she can materialise objects out of thin air as well as clothing, you never get the sense that she's human as she always uses her godlike powers throughout the manga which makes for a nice change from the pitiable poverty god who you're meant to feel sorry for.

ART

the art in Binbougami ga! is fantastic for functional reasons. while the art is not ga-rei level it certainly is appealing to look at however the art style they've gone for functions extremely well within the manga particularly for the comedy, there's an element of exaggeration in all the characters designs but this gives the artist the freedom to alter their images without it messing up the flow of the manga an example would be the scene where Ichiko is trying to hide from a certain character who she dissed previously and who just transferred into her class and her method of hiding is to not appear like herself and thus she takes on a very intense atmosphere and the artist displays this seriousness and intensity by altering her appearance so she looks pretty much like a more muscular version of He-man to which Momiji feeling competitive and not reading the situation decides to compete with her and dons a similar appearance and before long most of the class has taken on this appearance which ultimately draws more attention to Ichiko. It was hilarious to say the least.

CHARACTER

here is were the series shines brightest, as the characters are fantastic and incredibly deep for a comedy manga. They are all developed and portrayed very skilfully for example: while Ichiko may appear to be a selfish and apathetic person at heart as you learn more about her history and as she learns more about making friends she shows a more vulnerable and weak side to herself that leaves you feeling blown away by not only how believable it is but also how complex she is in reality. while Momiji's character is less developed she does seem to develop a certain level of care for Ichiko and this is shown by how she cuts her plans short when they leave Ichiko too upset, however she is the primary joker of the manga and most of the humour stems from her and the way the people around her respond to her shenanigans.

this manga has some of the best facial expressions I've ever seen in manga the sheer level of absurdity that they take is not only unexpected but hilarious.


the mangaka is well aware of the comedy tropes in the manga world and he makes this abundantly clear by making the trope itself the focus of the joke, for example in a scene where an ojou sama type character appears trying to kill Ichiko, Momiji responds by saying she is the typical ojou sama character and she's probably gonna start saying ohhohohohoho any minute now. in essence the mangaka is as sick of the tropes as we are and so he turns the idea on its head and makes the tropes very existence a source of comedy.

ENJOYMENT

how could you not enjoy this manga, great plot, great characters and ab buildingly funny comedy what more could you ask for.



you should definitely read this manga you certainly won't regret it .

When it seemed that 2011 would be another year of generic romance comedies that reuse the same old plot lines and character archetypes over and over again, along came Nichijou with a surprisingly fresh and ultimately silly look at day to day life. This show was a gem from episode 1, and what made it so good was the sheer unpredictability of the show's plot. Everything that happens is random; as if someone played 'spin the bottle' with the plot since nothing happens which can be expected...most of the time.

In essence this series seems to evoke the love-child of Azumanga and Zetsubou Sensei ... and as such Nichijou could probably be surmised as "cute chaos", since it seems to go for the Moe factor with its art and character design but keeping it elegantly simple without seeming childish and unapproachable, and creating a chaotic and unpredictable plot which uses facial expressions and character behaviour to exemplify the jokes. This may sound like an odd pairing and were they to present this idea to me originally I'd probably say that they mix like water and sand; it can be done but in the end you get mud and no one likes mud; but in this case they've managed to mix it together and create something totally unexpected, you could probably say that this is successful animation alchemy. The moe elements and the dark comedy mix surprisingly well and create an anime that is a lot more approachable than Zetsubou Sensei ever was (especially to foreigners).

The show has 5 main protagonists, Mio, Yuuko, Mai, Sakamoto (cat), the professor (7 year old kid) and Nano (robot created by the professor having an identity crisis). The show follows these main protagonists through their day to day lives in a format similar to Azumanga with incidental and trivial events that occur normally in every day life like dropping your favourite food item from your lunch box onto the floor and evoking the 3 second rule when you catch it just as it hits the ground, and turning them into ridiculous parodies of the real events by exaggerating the events considerably to hilarious effect.

The show's plot is deceptively simple and many of the events that occur in the series, while being ridiculously exaggerated, are reminiscent of the every day events that anyone might have experienced during their time at school. The characters are diverse and have a deceptive quality to them as they wear the mask of a common character archetype while under the surface they have a completely different take on that character for example: Mai fits into the archetype of the emotionless apathetic monotone girl that has become ever popular lately in anime comedies, while under that exterior she is a veteran prankster often taking every opportunity to pull a fast one on the people (and sometimes animals) around her.

As far as voice acting is concerned the main characters are well voiced and their behaviours and expressions as well as their outbursts and sudden accent changes truly show that they pushed the voice actors skills to the limit and produced a decent result. One thing is for certain, this show will never get an English dub, English voice actors tend to have problems expressing themselves properly when doing dub overs and this show is all expression 100% of the time. It didn't really work with Azumanga and it's level of expressive comedy was tame by comparison, thus they won't even attempt it in my opinion.




Now, let's get to the important issue at hand that many of you may well have wondered about. "If you have such high praise for it why did you drop it?", well I think it's time to draw attention to the elephant in the room. This show is good, unique, new and fresh all of which get a thumbs up from me. Where I have a problem is with the progression in the series. While the jokes and ideas in this show are good after about episode 13, they start to run out of ideas and just repeat the old ones, and the problem with Nichijou is that unlike Azumanga their jokes aren't particularly intelligent and rely heavily on the unpredictability of the events in order to be funny, and while it's funny the first time it's not really that funny the second or third or fourth time. Once you take away the surprise and unexpected qualities of this series you're left with an anime that quickly falls into repetitive monotony.

As well as this, once Nano starts going to school the show starts to take on an episodic format and abandons it's old chaotic bit by bit structure. At this point it is important to make a quick distinction; while this show much like Azumanga Daioh focuses on the lives of a group of school girls, Azumanga's comedy is almost entirely character driven whereas this show is a straight up sitcom, every comedic moment in this show is based around the characters reaction to situations; and what makes this show funny is the variety of reactions they have to situations. It ceases to be funny when the characters use the exact same reaction over and over again to different situations. As such this show is a one time thrill and should ultimately have had only 12 episodes.

While the 'my ordinary life' segments where funny the halvetica standard and short thoughts segments where not, halvetica standard in particular seemed to be trying too hard without really hitting the nail on the head. Short thoughts didn't really seem to have any comedic parts to it at all.

All in all, I really tried to get passed episode 20 but ultimately I got bored of the series repetitiveness. That does not however overshadow the brilliance of the shows first half and you should definitely see it but like I said, you can only really find it funny after watching it once and then maybe again only once you've forgotten about it, which if you have a good memory....is a sad day for you.

This anime's name is tremendously long, therefore I'm gonna refer to it as 'railgun' from now on.

Having watched To aru majutsu no index and enjoyed it, I went into this with relatively high expectations, especially considering how likeable Mikoto is in Index.
Unfortunately, like that neighbour who you always thought was a nice person but who'd actually been poisoning your plants these last few years and leaving dog shit on your doorstep, Mikoto is not all she seems, or perhaps she was in index and they just wanted to create a character who could out-self righteous the main character from index (to the point that ... it would make the characters from freezing seem open minded) in the spin off.
Whatever you want to believe one thing is for sure. Mikoto is not a likeable character in railgun. But we'll get to that in the character segment.

STORY

The plot of this show is arc based, like Index, with an overarching plot that revolves around a teacher/scientist with a chronic condition that causes her to get the impulse to strip suddenly without warning and usually in public (whom I will henceforth refer to as stripper teach) and her quest to save the kids she unwittingly sold to a doctor death type scientist who enjoys human experiments that go bad simply because it gets him up in the morning... OK maybe that last one was a bit exaggerated but it is essentially the gist of the problem.

Like in index, those rascally scientists are still trying to create the elusive lvl 6 super esper and like in index they've taken a less than moral approach to it and it's up to Mikoto and her chums to save the day and stop the bad guys.

now don't get me wrong, I'm quite fond of science tbh and I'm also in favour of a little morality in science and thus I enjoy a show which prizes itself on highlighting the dangers of abusing science for your own gain. And while this show is just such a thing, it does it incredibly badly.

The level of immorality in the science in this show is just damn awful and unbelievable, and considering how strict and highly regulated this city is they sure get away with a tremendous amount of mass murder. But perhaps we should address the regulators in this city.

the police force are divided into two groups, the SWAT like group and the main investigation and minor arrest group called judgement, the latter of which is almost entirely run by....kids. Whose great idea was that. And it just so happens that Mikoto's sexually frustrated lesbian friend Kuroko (whose suicidally unrestrained lust for Mikoto is only marginally shown in index) just happens to be a member. With kids running intelligence no wonder the cities full of lunatic eugenicists.

All in all, whil;e index had a ridiculous plot of it's own this show outdoes itself to the point where it becomes an "are you kidding me" kind of series. but never the less it'll get your emotions boiling which is to its credit, however most of your anger and outrage will be directed at how poorly this city is run.



ART

The art and animation in the show much like in index is superb and very modern without adding the obvious 3D effects in. It's highly polished and fluidic so it is a sight to behold, the battles between Mikoto and her enemies are quite breathtaking but I feel that the animators didn't experiment enough with her ability and end up making it seem somewhat underwhelming at times.

SOUND

The sound effects where pretty good and the crackling sound of Mikoto's lightening is visceral and realistic. The music is modern and has that electronic rock sort of feel however while the main theme is good and works as a finisher song for when Mikoto finally decides to do what she could have done at the beginning of the fight to finish them off, the rest of the music is barely noticeable and relatively uninteresting.


CHARACTER

Now to get back to my panning of Mikoto as a character. She was likeable in index because she had that Yankee quality to her mixed in with a cute personality that sort of came through beneath the surface which coupled with her insecurity about her tastes (many of which indicated her childish character) made her seem genuine and cute, but once you drag her character into the main heroine chair she quickly cuts the appeal away. As a side character whose childish attitude conflicts nicely with Touma's realist and defeatist attitude but as a main character her childishness just makes her irritating.

Especially when she's spouting her self righteous, "quite complaining about being weak and try to become strong" speech...sheesh, she sounds just like another group of people I've heard about, hmm, who where they?, oh yeah it's the republican party in America who always like to say "why don't quit complaining about being poor and just work harder", I digress, but you can see the similarities and I'm not entirely convinced that her character wasn't created to draw attention to this problem with governments around the world, since she's just as hypocritical.

During the anime we get a glimpse of how Mikoto's path toward god-like power began with a scientist helping her raise her power to the max when she was a kid because her power could save lives....uh huh...right. So basically she talks about working hard, but like the republicans she was given the advantage over everyone else, in this case, help from an expert to get where she needed to be. Never the less she tries to tell people off for saying they can't do things cause their lvl 0 that with her power she finds easy (usually fighting more powerful opponents).

Basically Mikoto is naive to a stupendous degree, since she believes that people without power shouldn't complain and work harder despite living in a city where having esper powers is everything and if you have none to speak of you're basically cast aside as useless cannon fodder for the various people who abuse that power. (only about half way through the show do they actually start helping these people develop their abilities, or develop abilities period) and Mikoto tends to come save these people by using her electric power to kick the bully's ass then turns around and basically says see how easy it was for me you should be able to do the same....see how unlike-able she is?

That's basically like a tiger going up to a dog that's half dead because he picked a fight with a lion and saying "I could have taken that lion on easy, you're pathetic" despite the fact that the dog is small and at a greater disadvantage. Again I digress, needless to say during the anime Mikoto's fantasy world where everyone can become powerful if they work hard is usually shown to be complete nonsense regularly and she tends to constantly make naive and stupid decisions despite the clear and obvious answer (refer to the last arc, where she has to choose between stripper teach and crazy ponytail chick with a chip on her shoulder.

Mikoto has power but no responsibility, and do you think she learns from her mistake? sorta, but not really. She makes the same damn mistakes over and over again like a rat that still hasn't figured out that the left button gives a shock but not the cheese, and every time she makes a mistake that puts other people in jeopardy she never pays for her mistakes and in fact the very fact she was the one who put them in that position because of her stupidity is never addressed by any of the other characters and they act like it never happened, no one goes up to her at the end and tells her that it's her fault and she should live with the consequences of what happened or could have happened, therefore she doesn't have to feel the weight or guilt of her mistakes and so she doesn't really learn form them. In reality, she would have been slapped and told that she's too stupid to be trusted with big decisions and she tends to always make the big decisions because she's powerful and hat gives her opinions precedence and she does use that power to force her opinions on others. Yet she's fighting the guys abusing their power, how ironic.

Regarding the other characters Kuroko's depravity and obsession with Mikoto was so understated in index, in this show she's essentially a rapist exhibitionist who gladly drops the soap if you catch my drift, she is so disturbingly debauched in this anime that I couldn't believe my eyes, and her character is so all over the place, one minute she's serious and strict the next minute she's salivating at the mouth and man handling Mikoto despite the fact she gets shocked almost every time (seems Mikoto isn't the only rat looking for the illusive cheese that never seems to come from pressing the left button) her level of debauchery and tantamount rape make her equally unlikeable and ultimately disturbing. as for the other two Saten and Uiharu their characters are so weak and overshadowed by the insane and over the top behaviour of Kuroko and your anger at Mikoto that they just seem pretty negligible and only seem to be there to balance the power tables of the group since they have practically no power what so ever.

ENJOYMENT

Whether you can enjoy this anime or not is dependant on how much you like the fight scenes really since their pretty awesome, but the characters just tend to irritate you or in the case of Kuroko disturb you, so it's a matter of preference, and honestly there are only two likeable characters in this show, stripper teach since she seems to be the only character with a decent attitude to the world she lives in, no fairy tale outlooks, no preaching about how she's better than you, and she seems to be the only character that's really had any development in this series, and accelerator since he doesn't take crap from anyone and seems to be somewhat responsible with his power by comparison, (using it to keep everyone from disturbing him rather than using it to get an edge in life).


overall I've ranted quite a bit, but meh, this show isn't as good as index by a mile but there's certainly some enjoyment you can get out of it.

reading some of the reviews done by other users i realise that their compliments to the story and characterisation along with other aspects excluding art and sound, can be primarily thought of as praise for the source material rather than the anime itself. I find it hard to understand their enthusiasm when watching this tripe.

don't get me wrong, the manga was brilliant and although many of the characters where generic it had situations that where altogether new and exciting and to a certain degree the comedy and romance aspects mixed well. But that is in the manga. THIS is the anime.

Where to begin?

Honestly, thia ... anime is so badly done that I felt insulted by the animators, and i'm not even the mangaka, and we all know how he felt about this anime (notice the lack of a second season). There are simply too many problems here that rather than speaking of inexsperience or time/money constraints speak of an inherrent laziness that would make you think that the animators spent most of their time reading the manga instead of animating, since there's so little actual animation in this show.

As far as the story goes, it's good. And in the beginning it follows the source material pretty well, for the story alone you could actually enjoy this anime, if it weren't for the equally fitting half assed attempt to sub this anime which considering this anime was licensed was devestatingly terrible. Entire scenes would go by without any subs and when the subs do appear their in a horrible yellow text that's often blurry and at times just popped in for a few seconds then vanished rendering them pointless. The fact that it began so close to the source material adds further inclinations toward the creators laziness, since copying text from the manga means you don't have to come up with anything new for people to say.

Where the biggest problem comes (and the laziest part of this anime) is with the animation itself (which I dare say hardly qualifies as animation at all). This show has some of the laziest animation I've ever seen, so lazy that it's an insult to the animation industry. Let me break it up into percentages for you:

80% of the anime is just still images from the manga with voice acting over them, and some zooming and panning from the camera.
The remaining 20% is 'gif' like animation where characters move erraticly but consistantly the same way over and over again again, with voice acting over it.

What has the animation industry come to when this kind of shoddy excuse for animation is passed off as consummable by the general public who are, honestly, expecting actual animation to take place. As if that wasn't lazy enough they also couldn't be bother to use colour so the 80% of the anime that remains stationary is in monochrome like the manga. Honestly why bother, you may as well read the manga since this is just audio over the manga 80% of the time.

on the topic of audio, the voice acting in this anime isn't half bad, but this show's budget must have been dreadful, since there are literally only 3 pieces of music in this entire show if you exclude the opening an ending creds. After you've heard funny music for umpteenth time, and romance music 1 and 2 for the umpteenth and a half time you get so irritated and tired of it that you want to smash your face through a combine harvester. Each piece of music is used with respect to situation and quite stoicly at that since there are only three types of situation throughout this show, comedic situation, awkward romance/issue situation, and romance resolved situation. The manga was more detailed and explored more of the characters and their history whereas this show just acts melodramatic hoping you won't notice the rotting cheese they left all over the frames.

The characters are waaaay too melodramatic and although there are plenty of you're average manga character in this it's good to see a stronger female lead, and her friends and character are funny at times but arima is just too boring in this anime since they don't explore his character much beyond aluding to a hidden self which only makes his character seem inhuman since he hasn't really got a very emotional V/O artist.


all in all you should read the manga instead, it's waaay better and not so lazy and half assed like this bargain basement garbage. You might be able to watch it and enjoy it superficially and maybe find the characters interesting. It's justa shame about the cheese.

*MINOR SPOILERS*

I say minor because: whether or not it's a spoiler is dependant on whether or not you've taken a moment to read the character bio's. Never the less i will try and keep the spoilers to a minimum.


If you want a basic idea of what hellsing ultimate (which i will refer to as HU from now onward) is all about then it's essentially Shakespeare meets Dracula meets Mien Kampf.


story:

I consider myself something of a fan of the more Gothic horror stories and HU certainly doesn't skimp out on the Gothic pizazz; the grim and gritty melodrama is certainly there but alas I never thought ... I'd see such an abundant overuse of melodrama, and that's where the problems with HU's story begin. The anime is trying so hard to be miserable, dark, dramatic and at the same time poetic that it forgets to ever hit the brakes and seems to go out of control in it's own narrative, to the point where at times characters will be doing something such as fighting or trying to reach a certain location and will forget to explicitly tell the audience why this is happening and on the rare occasions where they do explain they mince words and give explanations that make no sense or portray the characters as psychopathic sycophants thus preventing the audience from caring about the "good guys".

You could say that the characters are supposed to question the validity of good and evil but alas this is where the second problem comes in, and that is believability and limitation. In film, television. anime and other media there is usually an unspecified but well recognised line that usually should never be crossed. Now this line isn't to do with taboo subjects (although, there's plenty of that in HU) but rather limits of believability and audience tolerance for that lack of believability. Now, there are those in other industries that choose to turn a blind eye to this line or ignore it all together,
*cough*Michael Bay*cough*
but never the less the line is there for a reason because that line keeps your story under control and makes sure that nothing too ridiculous gets added to the media which ends up hurting your film/anime/tv show.

HU crosses that line with fine strides and then some, and this is primarily due to the decision of the director, producers and writers to challenge the concept of good and evil by using a character like Alucard, who, for all intents and purposes, is immortal, practically invulnerable, posses power enough that he has to be sealed away and is practically a walking WMD. Now, faced with a protagonist like that, the enemy he must ultimately defeat by the end of the series would understandably need to be able to match his own power.

Enter crazy Nazi fat-ass hell-bent on creating a vampire Nazi army, and in response:
enter crazy army of priests dressed like the Ku Klux Klan.
, it's like a joke you should never mention at a fairness and equality summit. And is probably just as poorly received

Thus we have plenty of enemy pie for Alucard to busy himself with, and if you didn't spot the moment where this got ridiculous you need your eyes and your mind checked. I honestly never thought I'd encounter something that was more ridiculous than Michael Bay's magnum opus 2012 in my entire lifetime, even 'surf Nazi's must die!' wasn't as ridiculous, and that was ridiculous. suffice it to say, the anime kinda goes off the rails after a few episodes and becomes so unbelievable that it's hard to take the show seriously although if characters could stop spouting poetic nonsense that has nothing to do with anything and stop glorifying every action they do by talking about it while their fighting it might have some semblance of tolerability.


Art

Criticisms aside, the art in HU is fantastic, and really gives off that Gothic feeling. The spectacle is truly impressive but alas so was the spectacle in 2012. The art manages to save this show to some extent and is somewhat reminiscent of black lagoon which I also felt had great art, and it makes it somewhat watchable. The battles are given an added sense of spectacle by the art and despite the ridiculous proportions of the characters particularly Integra and Alucard.


Sound

The sound has some pretty good Gregorian and choral tracks that fit the Gothic mood of the series but it suffers from a basic problem many Japanese anime that are meant to be serious tend to suffer from. I'm not sure if it's a difference in music tastes but a lot of serious anime tend to have one or two tracks that off-put the balance of the shows mood by playing during scenes they shouldn't. It's strangely hard to explain but when you watch the anime and pay attention to the backing music you'll be able to spot it.

The other sound thing I had major issues with was the voice acting, which sounded like a high school stage play. The vocal work is overdone and lacks any clear emotion, or any emotion that is meant to be conveyed sounds so stiff that it's like listening to a child learning to read as they pronounce each sentence in turn. Honestly the vocal work was disappointing, but I don't blame the voice cast as much as the writers as they're the ones who came up with the ridiculous script for this show.

character

This is a show that heavily relies on its characters appearing to be bad-asses, unfortunately in the process they turn into self-obsessed psychopaths. This effectively numbs you to their suffering, which is meant to be traumatic but ultimately seems dull and forced on the audience who are expected to sympathise with a bunch of characters whose actions, dialogue and personalities are so ridiculously over the top that they become like parodies of themselves by half way through the show. The worst ones are Alucard and Integra, who both feel the need to explain every situation and revelation by mincing words and talking in general to the thin air (since most of the time no-one is listening) about figuring out what a persons reasons or intention for doing something is, however we never fully understand how she or he come to these revelations since they seem to come to them like a vision from Christ.The worst part is whenever Integra gives Alucard an order; she tends to give the order then give it again with different words then shout and repeat the order despite Alucard kneeling right in front of her; this ultimately makes her seem even more manly (not that I didn't wonder which gender she was through the first part of the series, since sometimes male characters are voiced by female seiyuu) and makes her seem like an idiot whose trying to look cool and sound cool, not that every character in the series isn't trying to do the same thing, but ultimately just sounds melodramatic, ridiculous and unnecessary.

bleach manages to make their characters look like bad asses without sacrificing their believability or integrity as a character so perhaps they should take a leaf out of their book.


Enjoyment

Usually for something like this I'd say it's a switch-off anime but for this anime the level of insanity and over the top ridiculousness will require you to switch off even more than usual, like go into a vegetative state switch off. Only then can you enjoy this anime truly. now saying that you can just watch the violence and spectacular fight scenes and just ignore the dialogue, if it isn't gnawing at your earlobes like a spider that's crept onto your pillow, then you might be able to get through all 8 episodes that are currently out. It would be easier if each episode was only 30 mins long because after about that long you start to wonder when it's going to end and you keep checking the play bar to see how much longer you have left. This series is tolerable at best.

Azumanga daioh is one of those rare gems that comes out of Japan, (at least for us westerners) because the Japanese have a very specific type of humour which for us westerners is often a bit incomprehensible or sounds lame, but that's a cultural difference more than anything else. I found that when i moved from South Africa to England that the jokes and comedians in South Africa where lost on the British.

But every now and then something comes out of a country which is universally hilarious and azumanga daioh is one of these gems of comedic genius and I'll tell you for why! it's ... because azumanga doesn't focus on humour that relates particularly to Japanese customs or ways of life, and in the rare occasions where they do it cleverly crafts its characters so that their mannerisms are what creates the humour rather than the cultural reference. In this respect anyone can find it funny, because its humour comes from the souls and personalities of its characters.

story: 10

Azumanga is based on a 4 panel comic, so it's set up as a series of small stories which revolved around specific characters. The stories aren't profound or new their just every day happenings in the lives of the 6 schoolgirls and their 2 teachers, and it's here that everyone can relate to the story because it's just an easily recognisable environment rather than just something the Japanese people would recognise.

But overall the stories are simple and don't linger and every second of every story is important and there are no throw away moments throughout the show, but perhaps one of the greatest achievements of this show is its pauses. Pauses are part of the basics of comedic because a well orchestrated pause can intensify the effect of the punchline, however, pause for too long and the punchline can suffer, you could say that there's a goldilocks zone when it comes to pausing. Azumanga's pauses are flawlessly executed and the effect is a punchline that leaves you in stitches, or sometimes there isn't really a punchline but rather the characters give you an expression then repeat what the other character has just said. either way the result is high class hilarity.

art: 10

Some people would think the art is a bit too childish but i beg to differ, it's all well and good to say that art should look modern and sophisticated but the simple art style of azumanga is by no means poor, in fact it is perfect for this particular type of show. The art in Azumanga allows the characters expressions to b exaggerated and the movements can be quite minimalistic which also adds to the comic way the characters express themselves. The art is almost as fundamental to the comedy as the characters themselves.

sound: 9

The sound is very good if not repetitive, but this doesn't damage the show at all in fact it fits the show like a glove and is as minimalist as the art in its execution. The sound effects are exaggerated and sudden which also helps carry the humour of a particular scene.

character: 10

Here is where the humour comes from in full force. The characters in this anime are brilliant with the child genius, the hyperactive one, the tall cool beauty with a fluffy personality, the weight obsessed glasses girl, the jock, and the air headed southerner. All have distinctly unique personalities which play off each other so well that you'll be laughing till you lose your voice. All that being said, the queen of comedy in this show is by far, Ayumu AKA Osaka who has the best seiyuu I have ever heard and her voice and mannerisms fit so well that you'll miss her if it switches to a different character. She literally steals the show as soon as she's introduced, and has some classic one liners that will floor the audience particularly when related her obsession with sea slugs.
one thing that I found interesting is that she is ditzy but isn't incredibly stupid and she often talks to others about things she's noticed about the way words are said or written in Japanese only to follow the silence with a particularly stupid remark. This plays with the audiences expectations quite nicely as it makes the audience think woah, that's not that dumb how odd, then when she remarks in a stupid way we are brought back to reality realising ah, yeah she's still dim.


enjoyment: 10

Only people with no personality or life experience or emotions could possibly not find this the funniest anime they have ever seen, because this anime could keep you laughing no matter how many times you watch it through.

overall 10

World class humour, and sure to be a classic for decades.

OK, now I'm a BIG HP Lovecraft fan to the point where my coursework for college was based around him. Now, that aside, this anime is a blatant mockery of Lovecraft and all his work, which angers me greatly, but that's not good enough let's piece together the thought processes of the people behind this tragic piece of wasted pixels.

"you know i hear that HP Lovecraft guy is quite popular now, and so is gundam.....i know!!! let's combine the two so we get the audience from both"

MORONS!! is all i can say to that.

HP Lovecraft wrote most of his work in the late 1800's and ... early 1900's and he was very old fashioned so he used many archaic words in his writing, this show doesn't do him any justice what so ever, so let's look at it piece by piece.

story: 1

How they thought this would go down well with Lovecraft's fan base is beyond me, because it is shocking how they've butchered his work. In terms of actual story there is one but it mainly comprises of intense mecha battles between the protagonists and the worst depiction of Herbert West i have ever seen. This show throws HP Lovecraft references around like they don't actually matter at all which is sad really, because if they'd actually taken the time to read HP Lovecraft's work they'd find animating it as it is would probably bring in more of an audience than this crap.

art: 3

the art is about as unique and special as a butter knife, poorly animated and for a show made during the mid 2000's it is a shame that they didn't put more or any effort into it.

sound: 3

the music in the show is exactly the kind of music you'd expect from a mecha anime, so much so that it is uninspiring and lame. big explosion sounds and poor dialogue make for a beyond mediocre attempt at leaving an impression on it's audience. An anime who's music fits the bill will be remembered but this music and sound just make the anime seem even more disjointed than it already is.

character: 1

The characters are shameful, particularly Herbert West, who's madness is so over-exaggerated that it just seems cheesy and stupid. They attempt to put a love story in there, occurring between the two main characters but it just seems so boring and obligatory that by the end of it they both irritate you so much that you hope they both die tragic deaths in the end that goes with Lovecraftian custom.

enjoyment: 1

The only possible way you could actually enjoy this as an HP Lovecraft fan is amongst friends mocking it. If you aren't an HP Lovecraft fan there is no way you can enjoy this because it uses so much Lovecraftian terminology so flippantly that most who don't do their research beforehand would be left thinking "what the hell is going on?". Besides why would you bother doing research beforehand just to watch this trash? don't bother, go buy some silly string and run around the neighbourhood shouting "phorgsnarfle!!!" while you spray it everywhere, because that's a far better use of your time than watching this.

overall: 2

View works, a little advice next time you decide to venture into anime, (although this is the only anime you've made, and I can see why) an anime that insults the work of the person who's fan base is your target audience, is definitely not the way you make money in the anime industry.

Just sayin.

The fact that number 4 on the rating scale indicates decent while number 5 is mediocre is beyond me, but none the less, I'll give it a 4 anyway since that balances out the scores nicely.

now, let's look at the premise to begin with: it's based on a character that is found on a slot machine, with big breasts.
I haven't even begun to really review it yet and just reading the premise you already get an idea of the motivations behind making this into an anime.

But i know what your going to say, "no, mlmatlow0, you overly critical fool, just because the premise sounds ... terrible doesn't mean the anime is as well"

well sadly my optimistic friend, it is as bad as its premise might suggest. Although I have only watched the first 2 episodes, it is enough to come to a reasonable judgement about the show. So let's look at the facts.

story: 1

One thing Rio has that her predecessor on the slot machine didn't is a story, albeit a pretty damn lame one. I don't even have to tell you what the story is actually about, you can figure that much out just from hearing about two of the characters.

Rio is a sexy dealer at a casino with bug breasts and big reputation, her boss, the head of the casino, loves cosplay almost as much as he loves making money

already we can see that the show is mainly him having Rio cosplay in various outfits, mainly for his own enjoyment but sometimes for the promotional purposes of his casino. It's all well and good to say that that's all the show comprises of, but as one might expect from a show who's only redeeming quality is that it has an attractive main character, the climax is a showdown between her and the villain of the day....with added cosplay.
The final showdown plays out as if it where from an episode of Saki, the main difference being that in Saki's case it actually works whilst in RRG it doesn't, in fact it just makes the show seem even stupider than it already is.

So the story doesn't really have much going for it, and it all seems so ridiculous that you wonder how they got producers to back the show to begin with, and then you realise once Rio herself appears and the shots suddenly switch to a series of shots of the faces of the people around her with each one followed by a close up shot of Rio's breasts, that the main motivation behind making the anime was to exemplify Rio's sex appeal; of course what they didn't even consider whilst making this anime was that constant focus on sex appeal goes stale after a while and you have to make up for this with an at least tolerable story which will at least increase the chances of your anime getting at least a second season where you can actually try and make a good story, because that's the only way it will get a third season (this is why there isn't a 3rd season of Rosario + vampire). This show will be lucky to get a second season in my opinion.

art: 7

All that being said, the art isn't all that bad. however, in terms of more recent modern anime the art could have been better. in this case the art and animation is pretty normal and not very unique. so....I gave it a rather boring 7, since the the animation on Rio's breasts seems to have seen the render button a bit more than anything else in the show.

sound: 5

the sound is nothing special, exactly the sounds you'de expect at a casino and the music as well, it all sounds far too cheesy to be honest, and has the sound of something funded by a casino as well, for I'm sure the casino Rio's slot machine comes from has a stake in the shows profits.

character: 1

The main character's in the show are Rio's breasts, since they tend to have an unnatural amount of screen time, but joking aside, the characters are as hollow as an empty ink cartridge. They have no depth to their character, and their dialogue is poor, opting more for long winded explanations of trivialities such as why Rio is wearing a specific outfit, when they could have just said "the president is a pervert".

all in all the characters seem to not matter that much in the scope of who the producers of the show find to be more important. Rio's "assets".

enjoyment: 2

I gave it 2 for enjoyment mainly because there are people who will enjoy this show, as some people just like to switch off and watch a show no matter how crap the dialogue or how stupid the premise, I'm just not one of those people.

I find it hard to enjoy watching something where you can so clearly see the cheese that it's erupting out of the walls like that necromorph jam in dead space.

overall: 4

Overall, this shows smells like a money making scheme aimed at men's carnal desires, and the poetic irony is that it will probably work and make some people (probably people who read the daily sport - a newspaper in England which is as close to porn as a newspaper gets without raising eyebrows)stupidly rich.

"the jungle is dark, but there are diamonds there" - Arthur miller, death of a salesman

vampire films and TV shows have made a rather big comeback since the humble days of Dracula and the night flyer, but the comeback seems to have taken the horror genre out of the equation all together, with twilight dominating the vampire genre at the cinema and true blood, moonlight and blood ties (to name just a few) being the main proponents of television. these romantic and melodramatic takes on the vampire genre stray so far from the accepted view of vampires that it would leave any vampire fan with ... a bad taste in their mouth.
so as you can imagine I went into watching shiki expecting to see it suffer the same fate as the other vampire films which mock the genre all together (looking at the poster with Natsuno among the graves lead me to have these expectations as it seemed melodramatic and somewhat twilightesque)

needless to say my preconceptions where as hastily obliterated as they where conceived, for shiki does something that vampire films haven't done in decades: STUCK WITH TRADITION!
I say it stuck with tradition but that's mainly in terms of the vampires themselves, the actual setting has elements of modernism that are in conflict with the traditional ways of the older members of Satoba's community however I'll get to that later. let's do a run down of the show.

story: 10

the story starts out quite slow with the first few episodes establishing the characters and their views and opinions whilst presenting the mystery of the sudden deaths in the village. After this the show starts to gain momentum, which steadily increases until about the last 5 or 6 episodes at which point it's pace switches to full speed ahead. the first few episodes I must admit can be rather tedious as the pacing is very slow and doesn't progress much in that time, and those who don't have a lot of patience may decide to drop this anime because of this, however those who are patient will be greatly rewarded in later episodes where mystery, horror and madness come together to play with the audiences preconceptions and expectations like a rag doll. What I mean by that is that this particular anime has a very curious power to it in particular with the way it wields catharsis. The anime moulds its audience to its will by manipulating their emotions but at a certain point it will suddenly flip your original feelings on their head, so for example: they will show you a horrific travesty and the one responsible which will persist for several episodes but then it will switch from the victims point of view to the perpetrators and suddenly we find ourselves feeling sympathetic for the perpetrator.

there are several themes that are explored in shiki, some of which are quite unexpected, for example one theme which we would expect to see more in westerns than in horror is the theme of the old world making way for the new world. although this particular theme has been used in vampire films before such as interview with the vampire, in this case the way they explore this theme is somewhat confusing as, in shiki, it is the vampires who represent the new world and the villagers who represent the old world.
another theme which is explored is prejudice which is explored mainly through Ozaki and Natsuno, who's prejudices against the vampires lead them to form a campaign against them. however, although the prejudice against the vampires is for the most part warranted, as we begin to explore the vampires psyche's we begin to realise that they still possess some element of humanity which in turns makes us pity them.

and finally the main reason i think this story is great is its traditional view of vampires. in particular their traditional weaknesses are all there for example, they cannot go out into the sun or they will turn to ash, they can't enter a persons house without invitation etc. with all the romance films where they either sparkle in the sunlight or it just has no effect at all this is a refreshing reminder that vampires aren't cuddly creatures or wishy washy melodramatics.

Art: 9

the art is an acquired taste, and harkens back to the higarashi series. at times the characters movements can seem quite basic and minimalist however this reflects the atmosphere of the series as the series is patient in its execution of the story and the minimalist action creates an ethereal almost dreamlike atmosphere which since the vampires attack their victims while they sleep gives it that extra atmosphere. but where the art truly shines is in the characters expressions, particularly their expressions of madness and despair which the art style seems to exaggerate so there's no way the audience can't know what the characters are feeling at that particular moment.
the characters hair is somewhat insane, and here it feels like the character designers became artistic as the hair of the characters come in every possible colour under the sun as well as every shape, from the neat school boy cut, to the downright absurd with hair appearing to defy gravity, it is here that i felt the art fell short as this seems to make the characters appear somewhat silly and somewhat ruins the atmosphere of the show.

Sound: 10

the sound was superb, and every piece of music fit every scene like a glove from the haunting and creepy child a'ccapella pieces erupting into a full on choral and orchestral epic, to the simple atmospheric pieces with harpsichords piano's and harps. all the music reflects the sorrow, anger, madness and pain that encompasses every episode. in particular i found that every piece of music that played while Seishin and Sunako where together and talking fully reflected the feeling of pity and remorse felt by both those characters. so in shiki's case the music isn't just to reflect the atmosphere but to intensify the emotions of the characters and mirror them to the audience so that the audience better understands the characters themselves.

although one would expect to find a lot of Gregorian and
Gothic choral pieces there where none to be found in shiki, in fact the majority of musical pieces where lullaby-esque and intensified the dreamlike atmosphere. one element which i found particularly new for a horror anime was the complete and utter lack of pathetic fallacy (weather reflecting the emotions of the characters) which is used quite extensively in most horror films particularly when the characters find themselves in a thunderstorm meant to represent their fear, shiki does not do this which sweperates it somewhat from the horror genre, but in that respect I would call it a thinking man's horror series.

character: 10

this is where the show truly shines, each character is distinct and unique and many of them are characters that you rarely see, such as for example Ozaki Toshio, who reminds me so much of house that I wondered about his uniqueness for a long time, but if you watch the anime through you notice that he couldn't be more different.
the characters are excellent with perhaps the exception of Natsuno who i felt was too melodramatic, however this does not hinder the show that much despite him being a main character, the characters truly create the show however the characters that steal the show are Ozaki, Seishin and Sunako who the shows creators use to play with the audiences ideas and feelings in particular with the audience's growing sympathy with sunako and Ozaki's clear descent into madness we find that the line between who the bad guys are and who the good guys are becomes so blurred that we can't truly say who we should be rooting for. the characters are part of the philosophy in particular they represent a statement about morality, that it is not set in stone and that no-one is all good or all bad.

many people will hate Megumi throughout the show but she is perhaps one of the best characters because of the power her emotions have on the audience as the audience remains consistently against her to the point where they feel she deserves whatever is coming to her. but it only takes one 10 minute segment in a later episode to make the audience feel incredibly guilty for feeling that. to understand what i mean you'll have to watch it through to the end yourself.

Enjoyment: 10

this show will mess your emotions up in a good way, and through this it will open up avenues of thought that many of the audience may not have considered before but overall this show is very enjoyable and although it doesn't have the re-watch ability of other anime's it is still something worth seeing every few months.

Overall: 10

Overall this is an excellent show and perhaps the best one i've seen since casshern sins came out. highly recommended