CX anime reviews

[CX]

Coyote Ragtime Show
(12 episode OVA)

This was actually a pretty good anime; fun to watch, with a good pace, entertaining storyline, and interesting characters. This show reminded me a lot of Firefly, or at least aspects of it did - a sci-fi action following a small ship and its crew of misfits looking for the next big payoff. In other ways, it reminded me of Chiko, both in how there was one under-aged girl traveling around with a band of thieves and acting as their cook (you know, since she's a girl).

This show wasn't good in the normal sense –it wasn't some deep, thoughtful drama or anything- but what it had was a lot of over the top action and never bothered to take itself all that seriously. Basically this is the kind of show you'd want to watch for some mindless entertainment. There is a lot going on, and it's one wild ride, but while it would have been easy for this show to get bogged down with politics or some other kind of message, that was mostly averted. There was some, but it wasn't as in your face as in other animes I've seen, and it thankfully wasn't the focus or even integral to the story.

Otherwise, this show has a lot to enjoy and laugh at, like say the killer androids that look like cutesy anime girls dressed in Victorian goth style clothing, laughing gleefully as they slaughter people by the dozen. There's also plenty to keep gun geeks entertained, as the people who made this probably crammed as many as they thought possible into this short series.

There's also a certain romanticism of piracy present in this show, which is what the name "coyote" is supposed to be standing in for, given the context. That makes it a little more amusing considering the people who are actually called coyotes tend to actually be pretty bad people. The pirate theme is still played through pretty thoroughly, including a scene in a pirate-themed bar, with pirate music playing in the background before the big bar fight breaks out. Then there were the bad guys, who looked like more modern versions of the soldiers in Jin-Roh, yet somehow made me still think of the faceless Cobra mooks from G.I. Joe. Despite absurdities being present, it was pretty much all acknowledged in a kind of tongue-in-cheek manner and played for laughs from what I could tell.

About the only things I didn't much care for was the female inspector, Angelica, constantly chasing the coyote simply referred to as Mister, the protagonist of the show. She did add a little to the show, but naturally she ended up being played as secretly being in love with the over-the-top pirate. She also was played as a voracious eater, which I guess is supposed to be funny, but really wasn't. Also not funny was her partner, Chelsea, who while supposedly being a police officer, was actually so stupid she couldn't read much above a grade-schooler's level.

Those are the only real down-sides to this show, and it was mostly just fun. I'm definitely adding this to my list of favorites. 8/10.

[CX]

Cromartie High School
(26 episode series)

It isn't very often that I get to finish an entire series in a single day, even if it's one of my days off. Of course it helps when each episode is only about 10 minutes long.

I'm not really sure how to describe this series, other than that it goes out of its way to be as over the top as possible, and that it's both hilarious and awesome because of it. A lot of shows will make fun of themselves or other shows like them, so in that way this series isn't any different with them, but it's still pretty good. It touches on a lot of subjects, including the anime fandom, the manga vs. anime argument(s), and stupid things like getting into arguments on the internet. There are also times the show actually gets thoughtful and discusses things somewhat seriously, usually to comedic effect. In a way, it's kind of like South Park ... but not really, that's just the closest comparison I can make.

Other than that, I can't really describe why this show is awesome and hilarious, so I suggest you watch it for yourself if you want to know why. I'm going to give this an A/Z.

[CX]

Cybersix
(12 episode series)

This was actually more like 12 episodes of disappointment. I'd read some things about this series that made it sound promising (you mean you can't believe everything you read on the internet?), and the opening sequence even made it look like it was in the same vein as Batman, only with a cybernetic chick in a stripperiffic costume. Even the first episode made it look more interesting than that, because the "hero" of the show was actually going around hunting the bad guy's Frankenstein-looking henchmen so she could feed on them (sort of) in order to survive. So really there was potential there for a kind of anti-hero who wasn't fighting crime, but was instead only incidentally foiling the plans of the bad guy through her interference. Unfortunately all of this potential for awesomeness vanished before the first episode was even over, and it quickly became apparent that this show was aimed at an even younger age group than Batman, the Animated Series. Oh, sure, there's some humor derived from that, given that the Cybersix is basically a Clark Kent, only instead of just glasses, she also brushes her hair slightly differently, and dresses up like a nerdy high school literature teacher (though the high school looks more like a stereotypical university). There's also the humorously stereotypical way some Japanese characters were drawn, especially as this series was animated by a Japanese company. Yes, there are those things, but it wasn't enough to make me overcome the boredom I felt watching this series, and since most of the humor is the type you would find in an American Saturday morning cartoon aimed at the kiddies, well, if anything this show is actually slightly bad instead of just staying safely within "meh" territory. If anything, the more mature elements that were apparently left in from the source comic book series seem to be more like artifacts from that source, or maybe a parental bonus at best. Not really worth it to watch, and frankly, I'm surprised I put up with it for the six episodes I did watch. 2/10.

[CX]

Cyborg 009: Legend of the Super Galaxy
(1980 movie)

You know all those stereotypes about anime and sci-fi (especially the two mixed together) everyone loves to make fun of? This movie has pretty much all of them: a horribly bad English dub with laughable dialog, a retardedly stupid plot that's just full of holes, characters that know everything despite just encountering something or someone or leaping to conclusions that happen to be right, and a really dated appearance and soundtrack.

Speaking of appearance, it was made by the same people who made 009-1, so it has about the same character design, which is a bit cartoonish and looks like something from the '70s. Of course in this case it pretty much was from the '70s.

As for the plot, well, some big bad wants to conquer the universe, and it's up to our plucky group of cyborgs and their alien friend to stop him. Along the way, a lot of time is made for the cyborgs to angst about being war machines despite wanting to live peaceful lives, and other such clumsy attempts at drama. Oh, and one of the cyborgs is an infant who can levitate, talk, and has telepathy.

As you can tell by my lack of any real effort on this review, I don't really want to waste much time writing it, which should tell you that you don't want to waste time watching this movie. It might be good to watch to make fun of, and it would probably be improved with a Rifftrax, but other than that, it pretty much just sucks. 0/10.

[CX]

Cyborg 009: The Cyborg Soldier
(51 episode series)

Probably the most notable thing about this series is that it does a fairly decent job of blending the old character designs with a more modern visual direction. A "darker and edgier" reboot, I'm afraid I don't have any real basis for comparison other than the 1980 movie I reviewed not that long ago. Compared to that, there is quite a bit of difference, first and foremost that there aren't any aliens or secret evil plans to conquer the entire universe. Instead, a secret evil mercenary group plots to keep the world at war with itself so it can make money and because it just gets off on that kind of thing. The big bad of this series also bears a striking resemblance to Darth Vader, albeit actually somewhat more comical in appearance (almost friendly-looking, if it wasn't for the ruthless killing part). As I tried to watch this, giving it the requisite 3 episodes to sort itself out, I couldn't help but feel that this series was aimed at a younger age group due to the abundance of some rather immature humor.

I tried to get into this series, I guess because I was hoping that it was at least as good as 009-1 or Casshern Sins, but while those series weren't much above okay, they did have something to keep me just interested enough to keep watching. This series, however, lacked any real draw that I could get into. I might not have been as quick to give up on it if it had been shorter, but I'm just not willing to sit through 50+ episodes that might all be just as boring as the first 3 episodes. So I guess I'll pass on this one, but throw it a bone for at least trying to do something: 1/10.

[CX]

Dante's Inferno
(2010 movie)

This was a pretty good movie with a coherent if basic plot, considering that it was made using quite a few different animation studios. I've seen this kind of work before with Halo Legends and Gotham Knight, but this is the first time I've seen all of the different segments edited together as one story – the others were collections of shorts each animation studio produced. So this movie is impressive in that way.

Story-wise, it was a pretty basic premise of a crusading knight going quite literally to hell in order to save the soul of the woman he loved. So basically it was a visually impressive hack n' slash, without much depth. Famous names were dropped and ancient Greek myths were shoe-horned into the Christian view of hell. Yeah, you could say I was a bit turned off by the viewpoint being presented. The movie did try to make up for this by pointing out that the Crusaders were a bunch of hypocrites, and that the holier-than-thou protagonist was one of the worst sinners in hell, but it was still selling a viewpoint on religion I just really can't agree with.

As for the characters, the fall-back to a lack of a story, well, not much depth here either, but I didn't really expect that much from an action-oriented movie. There were some occasional tales of woe and attempts at drama, but I didn't really get into it.

Don't get me wrong, though, I'm not coming down all that hard on this movie. I didn't like it, but I didn't exactly dislike it either. Confused? Well, I like it as a kind of guilty pleasure, because it's full of action-packed ass-kicking. It might be worth a watch if blood and gore and the like aren't going to upset you, because this movie seems to go out of its way to gross you out. But if you want some mindless action and don't expect much out of this movie, I'd say go for it. 4/10.

[CX]

Daphne in the Brilliant Blue
(26 episode series)

It was clear from the title sequence that this series was pretty much just about fan service. Basically it's a lot like Burn Up Excess – a group of women fighting crime for money while wearing as little as possible. There's even a loud mouth, violent, lazy blonde who's perpetually in debt. That might mean I'd actually like it, except that it actually tends to be a bit boring to watch, and what comedy there is just isn't really all that funny. I'm a little surprised to say this, but for all the fan service, I just don't find much interesting about this series, at least not enough to watch the whole series. Hell, I was getting so bored watching this series, I started doing some other writing as I let it play in the background.

At first I thought it might be something akin to a space opera, only underwater with the elite ocean agency the main character was trying to get into in the first episode. But as it turned out it was basically just another girl cop show like every other one I've seen. By now I guess I'm just bored with them. 3/10.

[CX]

Dead Leaves
(2004 movie)

As I write this, I'm still trying to figure out just what the hell it is that I watched. No, really, I have no idea. Considering what I've come to expect from Production I.G, the visual direction was very abstract, and well, I really don't understand what the plot was supposed to be about. Basically it has the same kind of gross-out humor as Super Jail (and vague memories of Cool World), with the kind of "what the frak am I watching?" style of FLCL's storytelling. I think the movie was poking fun, but I'm not sure what at exactly. There are guns and explosions, a hot chick, a dude with a TV for a head, and a guy with a giant drill penis all trapped in a prison in the tattered remains of the moon. I really don't know how else to explain the movie. I mean, honestly, as messed up and confusing as it was, FLCL still made more sense than this movie. Don't get me wrong, it does have a kind of appeal, as in something to laugh hysterically at that doesn't make any real sense. I bet watching it drunk would be even more fun. In any case, I can't really rate this movie higher than a 4/10.

[CX]

Puella Magi Madoka Magica
(12 episode series)

Wow, this has to be about the only magical girl anime I've ever actually enjoyed, or at least to this extent. What does it say about me and my tastes that it's also hugely depressing and that, well, there are some similarities to Higurashi?

I'll try not to spoil you too much, but you have to keep in mind that this is one of my reviews, and I tend to like to talk about the stuff I wished I'd known about going into a series. Speaking of which, I totally knew that this series would be a lot more serious and depressing than pretty much any other magical girl anime in existence thanks to another reviewer's brief commentary on this series, and in fact it's the only reason I bothered to watch this series, because as you know, magical girl anime is not a genre I typically watch unless I'm looking for some fan service or it's something that's making fun of the genre. In this case, this series is more like a deconstruction of the genre.

For the most part we follow Madoka Kaname, a 14 year old girl with a househusband father and a cutthroat businesswoman mother. You know, the average middle school student of the future, where schools look like glass cages (as they should). Like most teenagers, while she doesn't really have anything to complain about, she still wishes her life was different and more exciting. Since this is a show, naturally that's exactly what happens.



Actually the show starts us off right from its very opening with this weird South Park-ish magical world where all the fights take place, and in doing so it not only introduces us to the kind of weirdness seen above, but gives us a hint that this show isn't so much about magical girls taking skyscrapers to the face as it is about them getting worn out and suffering deadly consequences if they fail. Yup, that's right, in this show magical girls die and are not brought back to life. Oh, for the first couple of episodes the show tries to fake us out, in more ways than one. The first is by introducing Homura Akemi as a strange transfer student who comes off as a possible villain. It isn't until later that we learn the reason why she's so hostile toward Madoka and her friend Sayaka Miki. Of course by that time, we've already seen a magical girl die a horrific death by being eaten by the cutest witch/monster caterpillar ever.

And that's a big part of why I liked this series. It's kind of like Higarashi that way – it contrasts cuteness with horrific things happening. And this in turn contrasts this show with other magical girl shows, because while other shows of this type tend to play up how awesome it is to be a magical girl because they have flashy cloths, fight monsters, and save the world while balancing school and a social life, this one shows us what's being glossed over. These are children. Constant combat will wear down even adults who are mentally prepared for it, and the consequence of failure is death. Most of the drama in these shows is derived from the possibility that the magical girls might fail, but they always win in the end. It's even been brought to my attention that Sailor Moon actually died to push this even further, but she was still brought back to fight and defeat the bad guys in the end (as far as I know). That doesn't happen here.

Like pretty much every magical girl show, there's a cute little magical animal companion, usually a cat. In this case it's kind of like a cat, but instead it's an alien named Kyubey and his job seems to be recruiting young girls into making contracts with him to fight and destroy witches. He'll even let the potential recruits tag along on missions with current Puella Magi to get a taste of what they're in for. Like any recruiter he plays up how awesome it is to be a magical girl, and he even promises to grant any wish the girls can think of in exchange for a life-long commitment to serve as a Pulla Magi. If that sounds like making a contract with the devil, well, they kind of gave that away by giving Kyubey beady red eyes. I don't care how cute and cat-like an alien is, you just can't trust a face like this:


God he's creepy....

In any case, though they witness the horrific death of a Puella Magi and are constantly being warned off by Homura that they are getting in way over their heads, Sayaka is guilt-tripped by a boy she likes into making a contract because he really liked playing violin and because of a crippling accident, he can't anymore. You can guess what he wish was? And since this show lives on being depressing, the little bastard doesn't end up hooking up with Sayaka, and she spirals into self-destruction, just so we can see exactly what witches are, and how horrible and alien Kyubey really is. Which to be fair, his being horrible has mostly to do with his being alien, what with completely lacking human emotions and anything resembling morality. Which just makes him all the creepier. Then, to depress us even more, we get to find out just how like Higarashi this show is by the revelation that Homura's magical power is time manipulation, and she's actually been going back in time multiple times in a so far fruitless effort to keep Makoda from becoming a Puella Magi and dying soon afterwards while fighting a hopeless battle against a really powerful witch. So, much like Rika Furude, Homura isn't exactly the pleasant moe blob she started out as anymore. The really fun part is that in one time loop she tried to warn them all, but seeing the ultimate fate of Puella Magi, one of the especially nice and friendly ones goes nuts and kills most of the rest of them.

The one let-down for me was kind of a big one in that the ending was pretty much a cheat. I have to admit that there isn't a whole lot they could have done because they'd essentially written themselves into a corner, but this is probably because the pacing had been set too slow for such a short series. Now, I'm not saying the show was boring, and to be fair, I tend to like it when a show takes its time, slowly unraveling everything for us, but when there were only 12 episodes to play around with, saving the resolution for the last episode kind of made it come off as very sudden and a cheat. I say cheat because the ending basically was a way for the show to have both a happy and a depressing ending, both resolving the series and leaving it unresolved. It could be that the creative staff is trying to hook us for another season, but at the same time there isn't a lot they can do without again cheating, the same way Code Geass did.

The characters in this show were for the most part kind of "meh." The focus is fairly limited, so we don’t get to learn all that much about anyone other than Madoka, Sayaka, and Homura. To be honest I didn't care much for Madoka. As was pointed out by Homura in the show, she's kind of selfish and honestly seems to be depressed about nothing. She has a loving, wealthy family, at least two close friends, and yet feels like something is missing in her life even before the whole magical girl thing comes up. So I found her kind of boring. Sayaka, honestly not a whole lot better. For me, Homura was the interesting one. She went through hell and was very versatile despite not having the kind of flashy powers the other Puella Magi had. Instead, she used her time manipulation power to steal guns that she hid in her own version of hammer space. She was also a very pragmatic character, and I dig that. The only other character I much cared for was ironically Kyubey. I thought he was written fairly well as far as the alien aspect of him. Much like the Borg from Star Trek, he honestly thinks he's doing these girls a favor, even if he's actually doing something quite horrible to them. He honestly doesn't understand why the things he does end up disturbing some of the girls he makes contracts with, because an alien probably wouldn't.

While the ending was kind of a let-down, I would still recommend that you check this series out, even if the whole magical girl thing isn't normally what you'd watch. If you stick it through to the third episode, this series will surprise you, hopefully to your enjoyment. 8/10.

/人◕ ‿‿ ◕人\

[CX]

Dead Space: Aftermath
(2011 movie)

I'm afraid I have to start this out by saying that even though the "so okay it's average" nature of the first Dead Space movie made me not really expect all that much out of this movie, I still came away disappointed. And it's not even that this movie sucks so much as there is basically nothing of substance to it.

We start the movie by seeing some random military ship dock with a derelict ship named the USG O'Bannon, which is in orbit of what's left of the planet we saw the USG Ishimura carve up in the first movie in order to recover some odd alien artifact they call "the marker" which makes most of the crew go batshit insane and kill most of their fellow crew members so some flying sting ray can turn them into alien zombies. The O'Bannon, as we soon see, suffers much the same fate, having been disabled when the planet went all Genesis on them and it failed to get away, lacking the ability to jump to warp like a certain Klingon Bird of Prey. No one can blame them, though, because there was just no Kirk or Scotty to be found, even though the captain was himself Scottish.

The somewhat amusing aspect to this opening sequence is that the faceless marines that board the O'Bannon actually seem to be somewhat concerned for the loss of life they see around them, and it actually looks like they're there to rescue the four survivors they find, right before one of them kills their supposed would-be rescuers. I find this amusing, because Dead Space is all about some vast conspiracy between a cultish religion, the government, a large mining corporation, and military which wants to get the alien marker so it can basically end the world, so sayith the church's scriptures. This is easily Dead Space's greatest weakness, mainly because it's so clichéd that it makes me roll my eyes, since it essentially comes off as cheap pot shots at whoever made this franchise sees as evil, namely religion, corporations, the government, and the military. Where this movie is concerned, the amusing aspect comes from the fact that these few faceless marines who genuinely seem to care about the people they rescued for the most part must be the only ones on board who aren't part of the evil conspiracy, and they probably got sucked out into space when the most insane of the survivors thought he'd just go outside and join the hallucination of his dead daughter.

SyFy recently replayed Dead Space: Downfall to celebrate the release of Dead Space 2 along with this hour-long ad for it. Naturally there was plenty of praise for both by the people who made them, but one thing that was supposed to be so awesome about this movie was that it was made up of four different stories as told by the four different survivors. Naturally they showed off some short clips of the show in order to convince people to watch, and what can I say, it worked. Of course what I thought I was getting into was a decently animated mystery movie, because those four stories were said to be treated like witnesses' testimony that had to be deciphered by the rescue team so they could figure out what actually happened. That actually sounded kinda interesting, but the actual movie wasn't what the man on the TV said it would be. I know, shocking. What actually happened was that the four survivors were tortured one by one for their "testimony", which was actually just to determine if the survivor they were questioning had come into direct contact with a shard of the marker the Ishimura had found. I was also fooled into believing that this was a completely animated film, and well, technically it is, it's just that the framing sequences all the torture takes place in is computer generated, and looks about on par with the cut scenes in StarCraft, as in the first one. It really made me understand why the only clips they showed of this movie were from the traditionally animated flashback sequences, which all looked okay, I guess.

The part about four different stories is actually true, though. We see most of the movie as flashback scenes during each survivor's interrogation, and as is the case with eye witness testimony, the parts where the stories overlap aren't all the same. Just to over-emphasis this, each sequence has a different animation style, which is marked by completely different character and art design – the characters, the clothes they are wearing, and the sets all look completely different in each sequence. This bothered me, but not nearly as much as how everything was a completely predictable story leading up to where the movie started. The last survivor that was interrogated even finished everything off with the clichéd, "you know the rest." The story is a lackluster rush job with lackluster characters that can't come even close to rescuing this movie by being even remotely interesting – the movie never gives them a chance to be. While the first movie actually moved a bit on the slow side to the point of being somewhat boring, this movie ties to make up for that by moving so fast that the characters are never really delved into beyond bare minimum needed to keep forcing the movie forward. As a result, there is never any reason to feel anything more than apathy toward them, or their fates.

As you might guess, the evil overseer (yes, he's actually called "the overseer") sees to it that all of the survivors are either killed or meet a worse fate. One apparently shows up in the second game and ends up in a cryo-tube right next to the game's protagonist, Isaac Clarke. The other, who pulled double duty as the movie's fan service, was lobotomized and brainwashed into being the scapegoat to explain the loss of two ships and a mining colony. Cue evil cackling and the establishing shot of where the game this is a prequel of is going to take place.

So as you can tell, I don't like this movie, and while it's not horrible, it definitely isn't good either. No, not even the tits it threw at me in a last desperate attempt to make me interested in it helped in the least. Despite its much too fast pacing, this movie still managed to be boring, and actually felt much longer than the hour it took to watch it. It was just another shallow zombie movie, and while I know both this and the last movie were just ads for their respective games, that doesn't excuse them from their many flaws since they're still supposed to pretend to be movies. I'm really only throwing this movie a bone because it had an interesting premise that it simply failed to live up to, and another because of the quality of the voice acting, which was an improvement over the first movie. It looks like there was some anime voice talent there, but the one I recognized the most was Christopher Judge, who you might know as Teal'c from Stargate SG-1. Here he played Nick Kuttner, a large scary black man, and the nucking futs survivor who spaced himself. It's a shame such good talent was wasted on such a bad movie.

Don’t bother watching this movie – it'll leave you wishing that you had an hour of you life back. 2/10.

[CX]

DearS
(13 episode series)

You know, it's hard at times to separate crap that I just can't get into, and crap that I can. On the surface, this series was pretty much like Chobits or Ah! My Goddess, but whereas I hated Chobits and was barely able to keep watching Goddess, I actually liked DearS, just probably not the way one was expected to.

Don't get me wrong, there's plenty on the shit list, like the whole slavery fetish, and the female protagonist/love interest being back of the short bus special, and it did annoy the hell out of me, but there was way more for me to laugh at. The humor written into it could have its moments, but really, what I was laughing at most of the time was all the stereotypical stuff I like to make fun of about anime. I mean, there was even a catgirl who constantly said "nyah". You know, the kind of stuff you would probably just think was weird if you didn't know anything at all about anime. There's just so much there, I was cracking up quite a bit. Hell, they even threw in a couple of stereotypical "cool dudes" with the lamest come-ons and innuendos I've ever heard just for fun.

Of course they also threw in weird kinky S&M sex tidbits, and some of that even involved minors, and that was just so very wrong. And I never got into the whole romance plot either, even though that's basically what the whole plot was, played for laughs with the usual "shy, nerdy dude has hot chick foisted on him" stuff that's in basically every show like this. And hey, if you’re into that kind of thing, here you go. But even if you aren't, then there's plenty here to make fun of without being bored out of you mind while you wait for it. 4/10.

[CX]

Demon Fighter Kocho
(Single episode OVA)

Since this OVA is pretty much all about the fan service, I wasn't expecting a whole lot out of it, and that's pretty much what I got. The story is told mostly from Kosaku's perspective, a young male college student. There is a teaser opener that plays out like pretty much every teen slasher movie you've ever seen, where a young promiscuous couple end up having bad things happen to them. We're told right afterwards that they're in the hospital and weren't actually killed, but we never see them again so it's not like it really matters.

The whole rest of the story is mostly devoted to seeing Kocho naked so both Kosaku and the old man acting as their Astrology club advisor/teacher can drool over her (and subsequently get beat up by her). Just to make that angle even more fun, even though it's really obvious that Kosaku and Kocho want to hook up and the nutty professor just wants to watch, Kocho's sister shows up and literally throws herself at Kosaku. The "love triangle" bit of Kocho and her sister competing for Kosaku was obviously meant to be funny, but mostly it came off as the tiresome teenaged male fantasy that it was. Not that seeing animated boobs and camel toe doesn't just brighten up my day or anything, but the humor pretty much fell flat. Probably the only thing that got much of a chuckle out of me was when the professor had a magical girl transformation scene, complete with a black dot to cover his bits.

Oh, there was also a plot going on that had something to do with the ghosts of some young master (who turns out to be really young) and his servants haunting the community college this OVA takes place at. Kocho kicks one of them in the nuts, they swing some katanas around, and that's about it.

While anybody who knows me knows that I don't mind fan service at all, or a show not having much of a plot as long as it's funny, I have to admit that this OVA was kind of ... "meh". It was okay-ish, and that's about all I can sum it up as. Burn-Up W and GoldenBoy were both a lot more entertaining and had a lot more laughs despite not having much of a plot and consisting almost entirely of fan service. Demon Fighter Kocho just lacked jokes that worked very well, or characters that I could really like, even as a lovable buffoon. I'll throw it a bone though for trying and give it a 3/10. It didn't completely suck, but I wouldn't really recommend it to anyone. I guess if you do want to bother watching it, it only wastes about a half-hour of your time, so that's something.

[CX]

Desert Punk
(24 episode series)

Though it is set in a post-apocalyptic future in which humanity has devastated itself and its planet, this series is in fact a comedy. An awesome, raunchy comedy.

Following the exploits of Desert Punk, aka the Demon of the Desert, aka Kanta Mizuno, this series doesn't really take itself seriously, at least not until the end. Punk is shown to be competent at being a mercenary, at least at first, so much so that there are rumors that he is actually a demon and supernatural. The series starts with what have been another successful job, but thanks to his obsession and weakness for large breasted women, he slips up and lets himself get beaten by Junko Asagiri, who will turn into a recurring foil for him for the majority of the series. This is something of a turning point for Punk, as none of the rest of his jobs go well for him, and we get to watch and laugh at the results.

The series itself is very episodic until the last few, with Punk and some of his fellow mercenaries being hired to do random jobs, sometimes on the same side, and sometimes on opposite sides. While the series does have its serious moments, and it doesn't rely all that much on absurdity, it still manages to be very funny. Most of this humor tends to be sexual or toilet humor, though there's also some dark humor thrown in for fun. This is also the area where the dub especially excels, because the cast really does well, and the humor is definitely more fitting for an English-speaking audience. Eric Vale is the star of the show, and for me this is the role I will always remember him for, because he is so awesome as the perverted, smug Desert Punk.

Along the way, Punk picks up an apprentice named Kosuna, a young teen-aged girl who wants to become the desert's number one power babe (her words). At first Punk doesn't want to go for it, but Kosuna manages to talk him into it by showing him a picture of a busty bikini-clad woman she claims is her mother. Punk, being the pervert he is, agrees to take her on as an apprentice in what is apparently a long-term goal of getting laid by a busty babe like he's always wanted.

As much as the series focuses on comedy, the episodes are all interesting in and of themselves. In some of the later episodes this actually involves learning a bit more about what happened prior to the apocalypse that created the massive desert the series takes place in. Unfortunately this also marks a turn in the series toward a more serious tone. The last few episodes in particular lose pretty much all of their humor and focus on a storyline that involves the reawakening of old weapons of mass destruction and the possibility that humanity might be finished off for good instead of just severely reduced in number like the last time it happened. Or at the very least one of the four governments existing in the desert world will get sole control over these weapons and devastate anyone who doesn't do what they want them to. So, much like Burn-Up W and Burn-Up Excess, this series is somewhat spoiled by getting a serious ending. Other than that, though, it's very good.

The characters are part of what makes this series so great, too. I already mentioned what a pervert Desert Punk is, but he's also pretty believable as an expert mercenary, too. Kosuna isn't nearly as perverted, but she definitely has her moments, too, especially when it comes to hating on Junko. She also makes a pretty good apprentice, and when she ends up on her own, she does fairly well for herself as another Desert Punk with an apprentice of her own. Junko, despite being very much the Ms. Fanservice of the show is also very intelligent and uses her body and sexuality to her full advantage, but she doesn't depend on them. She makes a great foil for Desert Punk, because despite being continually fooled by her, he still sets himself up for another one of her schemes, even if he tries to take precautions against it. Plus there are some hints that she might actually like him a little. Another great foil for the Punk is Rain Spider, a fellow pervert and also an expert mercenary with a reputation for being good at what he does. Both he and Desert Punk play well off of each other. And last but not least are the Machine Gun Brothers, three of Desert Punks friends from when they were all kids and also fellow mercenaries. They aren't nearly as good as the others, but they still prove their worth from time to time. They also add a lot to the humor, and not just from being somewhat stupid.

Now I have to admit, I'm somewhat at a loss for being able to describe just why I like this series or what makes it so great, so all I can do is show you this clip, which is a compilation of some of the best lines from the show at its best. I just cannot express the awesome that is this show. Just go watch it, trust me. 9/10.

Oh, and have blooper reel as an added bonus.

[CX]

Detroit Metal City
(12 episode OVA)

I guess this could be called Japan's answer to Metalocalypse, mostly because it deals with an insanely popular death metal band that has a legion of obsessive fans. Of course while Deathklok from Metalocalypse lives the kind of far out "metal" life that the manager of the title band Detroit Metal City wishes its members would live both on and off the stage. The thing is, only the drummer is like that, with both the bassist and the lead guitarist/singer being more or less normal. But then the Death Records President judges how good songs/movies/concerts/whatever are based on how wet they make her, so there you have it.

Oddly enough, with a character like that, there isn't really all that much in way of fan service (fan dis-service if anything). The focus of the series actually is on a male protagonist, Soichi Negishi, a somewhat meek character who you would never take to be the very metal band member Johannes Krauser II. Negishi claims to only be doing it for the money and at a few points actually threatens to quit the band, but really he's just too good at being Krauser. Actually, a lot of the humor is derived from the fact that things tend either work out to make it look like he's being very much in character even when he isn't trying to be, or how he'll get caught up in the moment and instead just slip into being Krauser, usually when he's trying to woo a girl he knows from his days in high school.

Of course the idea of a death metal band living very normal lives that are nothing at all like their band personas while their fans insist on living as "metal" of lifestyles as possible is entertaining as it is. This also separates it from Metalocalypse, which is pretty much just played straight. It's actually a bit unfortunate that there couldn't be a bit of a crossover there somehow, but the closest it gets is in the form of Jack ill Dark, a death metal artist from the United States whose "metal" lifestyle turns out to actually be true, unlike the members of DMC, who have all made up stories to go with their death metal characters.

I've read that all of this is actually based somewhat on KISS or is at least a tribute to it, which can kind of be seen in the form of the makeup and costumes of the DMC band members.

This is definitely a fun little series, and I'd definitely suggest it to you if you like Metalocalyse, because it is very much in the same vein. I'm not actually sure what to rate this, since it doesn't really fit into any of the normal categories I tend to rate things by. The characters are fun and the series is fun, and that's mainly what matters, so I guess I'll give it a 9/10. If you're wondering why it's not higher, there were still a few times that it felt like things were dragging, and the jokes involving Negishi telling his love interest that he wanted to rape her and/or kill her got a bit old after a while.

[CX]

Devil Lady
(26 episode series)

I can't say that I really cared for this series all that much. For as much fan service as there was (combined with lesbianism), I still frequently found myself bored while trying to watch this series. And while it was supposed to be a horror series, I can't say that it really ever got particularly scary or creepy, at least not in my opinion.

The series follows a Japanese supermodel, Jun Fudo, who as it turns out is a monster. The basic premise of the series is that humans are evolving into these strange beast-like creatures (simply referred to as "beasts") who have a tendency to kill humans in horrible ways that usual involve dismemberment and/or eating them. Some of them seem to be able to go between looking like a monster and looking like a normal human, and Jun happens to be one of those, who can also keep her mind intact while in her "beast" form.

Now, turning into monsters would put most people off just by itself, but seeing as most of them tend to kill any humans they can find, it's not hard to understand why Japan has reacted to this problem by having the military and a special police force blow them away as soon as one reveals itself to them. That doesn't stop the series from repeatedly sermonizing that this is somehow wrong and humans are just evil bastards. Mostly this comes after they've turned on Jun, though they claim that she is the traitor. Kind of like the other beasts accuse her of being since she's being used to kill them by this special police force and the psycho lesbian/tranny in charge of it, Lan Asuka. I found that amusing, too, because she only ever killed any of these beasts after they tried their best to kill her first.

Pretty much what the series turned into was a very formulaic format where Asuka would say some pretty mean things to Jun, Jun would cry, some monster would appear and kill a bunch of people, Jun would be forced to fight it, the monster would make some attempt at being a sympathetic character, and Jun would either be forced to kill it or someone else would finish off the monster for her. Either way she'd end up being lectured, and Kazumi Takiura, the young girl she saved from a bunch of other beasts who killed her family, would mope about Jun never being around to sleep with –I mean spend time with, and some creepy little boy monster would threaten to kill Jun and Kazumi. When every episode of your series can pretty much be summed up the same way, I'm sorry but your series kind of sucks.

Now there was a kind of ongoing evil secret plan involving Asuka in the background, but it never really came out much until towards the end and we see that Asuka is pretty much exactly what you could tell she was from the first episode. I guess there is the odd gender switch that never really got explained (Asuka started out as a man and then somehow became a woman), but that doesn't really count as much of a twist or surprise.

There's also some US-bashing, but in the end that turns out to be more amusing than anything.

Now I know some people may like this, but really the whole monsters fighting each other every week thing doesn't really appeal to me. It ends up getting so boring that I end up fast-forwarding through a lot of it, which is exactly what happens here. In fact the only reason I didn't just stop watching was the fan service, so this review owes most of its length to me being a pervy bastard who likes seeing animated breasts and girl on girl action. In this case the girl on girl action wasn't as nice though, because most of it ended up being rape. Yay. 1/10.