Archive for category Anime

Anime Review: Claymore

In a world where humans coexist with sentient monsters called Yoma (妖魔?) that feed on human innards, an organization has created an order of half-human, half-yoma warriors to protect humans from the yoma, for a large fee. The people of this world have dubbed these warriors “Claymores” based on their swords. They are also referred to as “Silver Eyed Witches”, based on their appearance and seemingly cold nature toward others. Each Claymore has a rank number which is based on their strength and ability. There are 47 ranks corresponding to the number of regions of the land/world.

A Claymore known as Clare saves a small town by killing a Yoma living there, and meets Raki, a boy whose parents were killed by the Yoma. Out of gratitude, Raki ends up following Clare from town to town during her Yoma-killing jobs.

Note: I forgot to mention in the past reviews that I was handed an “Epic List” of anime that I missed over the years for some reason. This meant that anything in that list is considered epic and I should be ashamed if I did not see them. This list includes new and old anime as you might notice I started with Ippo then Death Note. So now I’m just gonna follow that list in no particular order.

Review: This type of anime is new to me. Basically it’s an all women cast (More than 95%) and I’m not used to that. Change is good and Claymore showed me a different way of looking at women in anime. Usually women are helpless if not the least strongest as anime such as Bleach and Naruto show me. Claymore like Death Note, is pretty short and has no fillers so big ups for that! The story started off strong but became weaker as it got to the end of the series with minimal twists and turns. To my understanding the manga is still continuing even though the anime ended. Also the series used an alternate ending than the manga and that might have screwed with the gist of the story. The story was a little undeveloped and sometimes left you wondering just wtf happened. Don’t get the wrong idea, I loved Claymore! The action scenes and voice acting were very well done. Seeing that Claymore is pretty new compared to the old “epic” ones, it is expected. But not all series do it like Claymore. Overall, Claymore was enjoyable and very exciting to watch. The only objection I have is the last episode. I personally didn’t get closure from the story and it didn’t really answer many of my questions. There are endings that kind of let you answer those questions yourself like GTO but Claymore went a different way. I kept checking online to see if it was the ending and unfortunately “that” was the ending. I feel like Claymore could have went on but unfortunately I guess no one thought that was a good idea. I so want to relate the ending to other series but I don’t want to ruin anything.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Next is Soul Eater, because it sounds cool lol!

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Anime Review: Great Teacher Onizuka (GTO)

Plot Summary: The story focuses on 22 year-old ex-gang member and virgin Eikichi Onizuka, who becomes a teacher at private high school teacher at Holy Forest Academy, in Tokyo, Japan. He sets out to be the greatest teacher ever and in his quest, he discovers three important things: He has a conscience and a sense of morality. This means taking advantage of impressionable schoolgirls is out; but their unusually attractive mothers are a different matter; He enjoys teaching and most of the time, he teaches life lessons rather than the routine schoolwork; He hates the systems of traditional education, especially when they have grown ignorant and condescending to students and their needs. With these realizations, he sets out to become the greatest teacher ever, using his own brand of philosophy and the ability to do nearly anything even when under enough pressure. He is hired as a long-shot teacher by a privately operated school to tame a class that has driven one teacher to a mysterious death, one tonervous breakdown, and one to joining a cult. He embarks on a mission of self-discovery by breaking through to each student one by one, and helping each student to overcome their problems and learn to genuinely enjoy life.

This anime has been on my mind since middle school. I still can’t believe I finally saw it and how I missed it! GTO can be described in two words: Hilarious Wisdom. The whole series was hilarious yet had very benefitting wisdom and philosophy. I wish I saw this back in middle school, might have helped me in some situations in high school. I enjoyed this series so much till the end. To my understanding, the show started with the manga then veered away from the manga arc and continued on. The ending was satisfying, much like an ending to a movie. It answered all questions and left room for a sequel.

Rating: ★★★★★

There a few flaws in the show but nothing that effects the rating, its more my opinion. The opening songs were just annoying! It’s one of those songs that are english and japanese. Another thing is that you can’t watch this anime everywhere. It is kind of dirty in a way so it might sound weird if your not the one watching. My friends sometimes come in to see a weird scene (to them) but because they don’t know the story or what happened before, it was kind of embarrassing. Even though this is an anime, I really benefitted from their philosophy and way of life. Deservingly this anime receives a 5!

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My March Watchlist

I realize most of them are stuff that I should have seen way too long ago. For some reason I never got the chance but this is my line up for March and seeing that I don’t think I will be going anywhere for Spring Break, this might be a good chance to catch up. Hell I saw Fight Club last summer and Ippo last month, thats how late I am to these movies and animes!
Movies:
  • Law Abiding Citizen
  • The Godfather Trilogy
  • V for Vendetta
  • Goodfellas
  • American Gangster
  • Casino (Want to see again)
  • Taxi Driver
  • State of Play
  • American History X
Shows:
  • Spartacus
  • Psych
  • Penn & Teller Bullshit!
Anime:
  • Great Teacher Onizuka
  • Claymore
  • Miami Guns
  • Special A
  • A bunch of OVAs

So its just gonna be me and my PC for a while :P ! Any recommendations or “must sees” please be my guest, I am open to suggestions :) .

Anime Review: Death Note

Plot Summary: The series centers on Light Yagami, a high school student who discovers a supernatural notebook, the “Death Note”, dropped on Earth by a shinigami (death god) named Ryuk. The Death Note grants its user the ability to kill anyone whose face they have seen, by writing the victim’s name in the notebook. The story follows Light’s attempt to create and rule a world cleansed of evil using the notebook, and the complex conflict between him, his opponents and a mysterious detective known to the world only as L.

Last December a friend recommended Death Note and seeing that I am catching up on my anime I figured I could give it a look. Death Note is one of the darkest anime I have ever seen and also one of the smartest. Not one second did I laugh because I was so tense. EVERYTHING is connected, no joke there. I have never have seen this much suspense in any series since Prison Break. Thank god it ended lol. Death Note is like a mix of Dexter, Prison Break, and Leverage in the weridest combination. The story overall was very well written compared to other animes. No fillers at all the story just kept going on and I appreciated that. The plot of the story was predictable yet so unpredictable (in other words your wrong). By far I think this is the best ending to any anime I have ever seen. I almost lost interest after the 20th episode (out of 37) but once you get hooked, your bound to finish it. I really recommend this anime to anyone who likes those shows because it really does combine elements from each.

Rating: ★★★★☆

I gave Death Note a 4 because I don’t see it as a 5. For some reason I have no explanation, it’s like one of those things that you have to be there to laugh, only you have to see it to understand. It might be because I am not used to these kinds of anime, it’s usually fighting/sports/ninja crap I usually watch. Anyway if you want to watch the series, you don’t need to download it you can watch it via Hulu.

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Anime Review: Hajime No Ippo

Plot Summary: Ippo Makunochi is a very shy high school student who never had the time to make friends because he was always busy helping his mother run their family-own fishing business. Because he kept to himself, a group of bullies got into the habit of picking on him. On one particular day these bullies decided to give him a rather serious beating, but a middle-weight professional boxer who was passing by stopped the bullies and took the injured Ippo to the Kamogawa Gym, owned by retired boxer Genji Kamogawa, to treat his wounds. After Ippo awoke to the sounds of boxers training, the boxer who saved him, Mamoru Takamura, tried to cheer Ippo up by letting him vent his frustrations on a sandbag. It was then that they had their first glimpse into Ippo’s talent for boxing. After that incident, Ippo started his regular training and began his path in Japan’s professional boxing, beginning with two spars against the talented Ichiro Miyata who is the same age as Ippo.

This is a really old anime and one of the most popular and for some reason I did not see it. Sports anime was not really my thing, its usually fighting magic and ninja crap I have been seeing for a while. I started watching this in January and was hooked ever since. One thing about most anime is that they are predictable. You know that the main character can’t die and mostly must win otherwise the story does not go on. In this anime it has many twists and turns to keep you guessing until the very last punch. The surprising thing about this anime is how hilarious it can get. Sometimes I just pause the episode and laugh it out till I’m calm again. Another thing I noticed is the lack of fillers. Fillers are episodes that anime writers use to prolonge the story after a certain saga even though the episode has nothing to do with the story. I can’t consider those episodes fillers because they actually build the story. The timing of the music in the series is flawless in my opinion, it really pumps you up for a match. My only dissapointment in this anime is the ending. For some reason they added a filler as the last episode and that kind of ruined the mood. If the writers took off the episode then they would have ended with a bang.

Rating: ★★★★½

The ending really disappointed me but overall amazing anime. I recommend you to watch it on youtube if you don’t want to download. I think downloading it now would take forever because it is 76 episodes and it is quite old. I am currently watching the new season which came out in January 2009 and ended June 2009, very interesting so far as it just continues where it stopped off before.

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