CX anime reviews

[CX]

Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. 2nd GIG
(26 episode series)

A great follow up to the first season (or series, technically), this is actually the first anime I ever actively got interested in and made a point of watching. And while I really didn't fully understand what was going on because I caught it toward the end of its first showing on Adult Swim, it is a testament to its quality that it still had me hooked from the first time I saw it. I found it so interesting that when Adult Swim re-ran it, I made sure to watch everything from the start of the first SAC series.

Once again the series kind of easies us into the plot. Theoretically we should already know everyone, but the first episode makes a kind of point to reintroduce everyone and briefly recap what happened in the first Stand Alone Complex series while it simultaneously introduces us into what will become a major plotline. That does weaken the first episode a little, but not a whole lot.

The major difference in this sequel series is that we are introduced to a major plotline up front, from the first episode. There's some kind of conspiratory group calling itself "The Individual Eleven" which has been carrying out terrorist attacks, and has gone on to threaten Japan's Prime Minister. There also seem to be some similarities with the Laughing Man incident in that some of the people involved seemed to have gotten their ghosts hacked. This gets Section 9 on the case and investigating. This leads comes to a head, with a lot of people ending up killing themselves due to a virus that makes them think that they are a member of the Individual Eleven. This in turn leads to even bigger things, and a conspiracy that at least attempts to make the one from the first season look small by comparison. In the end, though, this does seem to give us something of a false plotline, as that plot was only a lead-in to another plot, which in turn made what was initially a relatively minor character take on a much larger importance.

This series also carries on the first one's tradition of breaking things up with some stand alone episodes which allow us to explore the characters a bit more in depth, including Major Kusanagi herself. For 2nd GIG, these episodes focus a lot more on the character's backgrounds, which is how we learn about the circumstances that resulted in her getting a completely prosthetic body, as well as what turns out to be a connection to the main antagonist of the series. Of course they don’t really make it that hard to figure out, either.

Of course, everything seems to have a way of leading back to the main plotline, though there are still a few things left unresolved, like whatever ended up happening to a woman that Togusa saved at one point. Things like that seem to have been overlooked or forgotten in favor of putting the puzzle pieces in place for the main plot, which involves a revolution to establish an independent nation within Japan that's mad up of refugees from a recent war in Asia (I think that's where they're from anyway). The leader of this movement is one of the Individual Eleven who managed to overcome the virus and stop from killing himself. He apparently has some even loftier goals, which he sees as the next stage in human evolution. This is, of course, a very sci-fi idea, namely that humans could simply choose to evolve into something else. In this case he thinks humans could all exist on the net, without the need for physical bodies. His goal isn't quite as sympathetic as the Laughing Man's, but whatever.

Everything leading up to the conflict at the end of the series is pretty exciting, as is the final conflict itself. Everything was very fast-paced and action-packed, and I have to say that this is a big part of why I got excited about this series even though I didn't know what was going on when I first saw it. The nice thing about it, though, it that even with all the action, there was still an undercurrent of some very sci-fi themes, including the main Ghost in the Shell philosophical theme of existentialism. I actually ended up writing a short paper citing this series as an example just on how it treated artificial life alone, and as annoying as they could be at times, the Tachikomas played a big part in that. After all, they had developed sentience and in the end they chose to sacrifice themselves yet again to save Japan from another nuclear attack.

Speaking of, I can't help but note the undercurrent of anti-Americanism yet again. About the only difference this time is that instead of being complete buffoons, the "Imperial" Americans were just shady types willing to conspire with some Japanese attempting a coup of their own government. I won't get into it too far so as not to spoil anyone who hasn't seen it too much, but while it does take a while for all the details to be clear, it isn't all that hard to figure it out say an episode or two before hand. Apparently taking a shot at the United States was more important than not making their somewhat complex plot completely predictable.

Still, it's a good series, and it was pretty fun to watch. I'd say that this season/series was just as good as the first one, even with its flaws, and the complete series as a whole remains my favorite anime. It's also one of my favorite sci-fis, period. 9/10.

[CX]

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex Solid State Society
(2006 TV movie)

The end of the series did leave something of a sequel hook, if only in the form of making the audience wonder what Major Kusanagi would do following the death of her love interest and how Section 9 might turn out when the dust cleared. It wasn't all that surprising to find out the Major quit Section 9 and went off on her own, nor that Batou refused to take her place. Naturally, the first part of the movie pretty much revolved as much around getting her back on the team as it did setting up the plot of the movie.

Speaking of the plot, I can't say that it made all that much sense to me, and what parts of it did make sense were essentially a retread of what the first movie had explored. It seemed that there was some big conspiracy involving old folks somehow ghost-hacking people in order to kidnap children to adopt as their own. As with in the series, this first part is actually only a lead-in to another one that is a bit bigger. I won't say that any of it is bad exactly, but I'm somewhat disappointed with where this went.

There were a few good moments, and there were a few odd ones too that didn't make any sense, like Section 9's ace sniper giving his target warning instead of just taking him out.

Still, in the end it was all about getting the Major to confront this oddly Puppetmaster-like character so they can have a kind of philosophical discussion. It never is clear just who or what this hacker is, and it seems that the goal was to combine with the Major, just as in the first movie.

Overall, this movie just seemed to drag a bit. In some ways, the magic from the series was there, but it was like it was missing something. In some ways, I wish that they'd simply not done this movie. It's not that it was bad, exactly, it's just that it was kind of pointless, and it didn't really live up to the series, in my opinion. I can't even bring myself to say all that much about it, or even to recommend whether or not anyone might want to watch it. I guess if you were a fan of the series, you might want to watch this movie, just to see what happens to everyone, but other than that, all I can really say is "meh." You really wouldn't be missing much if you didn't see this movie. I kind of wished they'd kept the series going since the way things were set up, they really could have kept going for several more seasons if they'd wanted to. On the other hand, if this was all they could come up with in way of a story, maybe it's better that they didn't. 6/10.

[CX]

Golden Boy
(6 episode OVA)

This is something of a guilty pleasure of mine, simply owing to the fact that I happen to be a pervert, though not as big of a pervert as Kintaro Oe, the main character of this show. While I can definitely understand his obsession with the female form, I have to say that the toilet fetish is definitely something I don't, even if I do still find his kinks hilarious. And that being said, this anime definitely isn't for everyone, because it makes other sex comedies look absolutely charming by comparison.

Basically the whole point of this OVA is to follow Kintaro around on his adventures as a "student of the world", going around getting some random job each episode despite the fact he would have a law degree if only he applied to graduate. His goal is to learn as much from life as possible, which is why he does this. He'll also scribble down any random bits of knowledge he finds "very educational" in a little notebook he has, often right next to sketches he makes of the various good-looking women he encounters. His mantra is to, "STUDY STUDY STUDY STUDY!" He's also pretty much just a clumsy, socially awkward, mostly inept, perverted idiot who tends to massively screw something up during the job he happens to have during a given episode, only to be revealed to have somehow done something really good during his time there, or as in the first episode completely make-up for it by basically doing something impossible. You wouldn't guess that he's actually quite intelligent and capable from how he looks or how he acts, but at the same time, I personally didn't really care because I was too busy laughing my ass off.

Now, I've seen other reviews that tend to give this OVA a hard time due to its heavy use of clichés and the crude nature of it humor, but to me the humor is just hilarious, and the clichés are a big part of that. If anything, this OVA makes fun of the kind of fan service and awkward romantic buffoonery one might see in other anime that's actually playing everything completely straight and completely seriously and just cranks it all up to eleven. Take, for instance, breast physics. I've poked fun of this kind of thing before in shows like Divergence Eve, where breasts will jiggle about at even the slightest movement of a female character, but here they not only do that, but they make it obvious that they're making fun of it during certain scenes where Kintaro is being verbally ripped to shreds by a female character like Madam President. This is where the clichés come in, and why the woman he ends up helping in each episode tends to be a different cliché. Madam President is the stereotypical Ms. Fanservice, wearing skimpy clothing everywhere, including to her office job as a software developer. In another episode, there's a stereotypical manipulative school girl who likes to play innocent to her father (the Japanese TR) and get various men into trouble. Kintaro naturally calls out all these stereotypes for comedic effect, so I can't really understand complains about clichés and stereotypes because that's pretty much the point of the show. If you’re looking for something that takes itself even remotely seriously, this is not the show for you.

Everything from each episode ends up with Kintaro not only proving himself, but usually with the end result of the woman he helps each week wanting him. This all leads up to the last episode, where Kintaro finds himself working at an animation studio, and ends up calling in favors from all of the women he's helped. Then, as with all the other episodes, he disappears and leaves all the women to chase after him.

So you could definitely say I found this OVA very entertaining, and in fact my local anime club has made it something of a tradition to show it once a year during finals week of spring semester. It's something you can turn your brain off for and just enjoy the hell out of. It has some very perverted humor to go along with everything else it makes fun of, so don’t watch this and then complain about how crude it is. Here's a trailer, have a look. And this. And this. So, with the full knowledge of what you'd be getting yourself into, I would definitely recommend this OVA. Actually, you could probably watch all of it on Youtube. 9/10.

[CX]

Gurren Lagann
(27 episode series)

Yet another post-apocalyptic offering, this series is definitely more in the "over-the-top" category, much like Desert Punk. Just as Desert Punk is set in a world that has been devastated and reduced to a desert due to some past cataclysm, depends heavily on over the top humor and action, and isn't really meant to be taken even a little bit seriously, so to is Gurren Lagann. It does have its serious moments, mostly dealing with death, but I never much got into that, I guess, but then that was kind of how I felt about the series at times.

There are actually a lot of things about Gurren Lagann that I normally hate about anime, and actually caused me to stop watching this when it first aired on the Sci Fi Channel (now SyFy). One is the heavy use of mechs. It’s a staple of a lot of anime, about as much as samurai swords and magic-based attacks that require the attacker to loudly announce their attacks in elaborate manners, which this show also does. So, like I said, I pretty much tuned out of this show when it first aired. Based on the advice of my friends, I gave it another try, and it did fair slightly better with me this time, mostly because I realized the things I mentioned above were being done to be funny. Part of me was still annoyed by it, but the other part was just laughing.

I'd have to say that the appeal of this show is pretty much summed up not long into the first episode: kicking logic to the curb and doing the impossible. That's pretty much what the show does, and we even got a catchy theme song out of it. With all the themes of fighting progressively impossible fights and coming out on top in the end, I can see why this show has caught on with quite a few people. It's my understanding that in the UK, there was a poll on the possibility of updating the Union Jack, and the version that won was the addition of the Team Gurren symbol from this show. I actually kind of like the idea myself, to the point of wanting my university to change its sporting name to Team Dai-Gurren, with the symbol as our new mascot.

Then, of course, there's the fan service. Yokko definitely has to be the show's other big draw, what with constantly running around in nothing but a bikini top and short-shorts for the majority of the show. She doesn't play as much of a role as I, personally, wish that she should have had. Mostly she was on a supporting role, and had an unfortunate tendency to have a thing for guys who wind up dead.

Speaking of, I was somewhat surprised when a main character actually died, and only about a third or so into the show. What made it surprising was that this character had been through a lot and lived earlier in the show. But I find I actually liked this aspect of the series, not so much because it was used to occasionally pull at our heartstrings, but because it meant that the show actually did evolve a little, adding new characters and in this case losing at least one of them.

That tended to get lost in how the show pretty much was just one progressively larger battle after the other. What started out as a battle against one and then a few mecha, here called "gunmen" pretty much just turned into fighting larger and larger versions of these things. At one point there were actually gunmen being used to pilot larger gunmen being used to pilot a gunmen that was literally the size of the moon. I personally found that kind of boring, because it was becoming basically the same thing over and over again. So really at its base, it's the humor driving this series.

Some people have complained about the ending, and I won't spoil it too much for you, but I can't say that I see it as a bad ending. I've seen much worse, whether it's that a show simply ends without resolving anything, or that it very quickly and sloppily tries to resolve everything at the last minute (see Blue Gender for an example of that), that's more what I consider to be a bad ending. In this case, the series ends on somewhat of a downer note, but only in the sense that the hero doesn't accept staying on as some great leader figure and seeks life as a wandering homeless man offering small bits of help to strangers while others rebuild the empire, so to speak. I'd actually argue that this makes sense, because this character had tried to be the great leader once, and that didn't work out so great.

Which brings me to the one thing that I really disagree with this show about. At one point there's what I would consider to be a major betrayal, with two of Team Dai-Gurren betraying their leader, conducting a coup, and going as far as sentencing their former friend and leader to death. The show and the betrayed character instantly forgave them, much in the same way Battlestar Galactica did when Commander Adama carried out a coup against his president. I never really understand when a show or the characters in it suggest that such betrayal should be forgiven, but then I don't take betrayal well.

Anyway, while I didn't like this show nearly as much as I did Desert Punk, it was still fairly good. There isn't a whole lot to it, but with shows like this, there doesn't have to be. The characters were likable, and it was funny. It's worth a watch, if nothing else so you can see it and decide for yourself if you like it. You might want to try sticking it out to at least episode 6. 6/10.

[CX]

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: Gurren-hen
(2008 movie)
&
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: Lagann-hen
(2009 movie)

I'm grouping these two together, because really they're just one big compilation movie of the series. Which is basically its biggest fault. I have yet to see a compilation movie that does the series it's compressing into movie length much justice. These two movies come close, but that has mainly to do with the extensive bits of reanimation and how the story has actually been rewritten in a number of areas. However, it still suffers from the bane of compilation movies, and of just movies in general that try to shove a bunch of stuff into a small amount of time – montages. The first movie in particular was guilty of this, having more than one in just the first half-hour of the movie. I understand the motivation behind this – to speed things up – but here is where the rewrites do much better than montages. So much is skipped over that later scenes don't entirely make sense, and in the montages themselves, you have to be familiar with the series to know the significance of what's being seen.

I guess that only really becomes a problem if you see the purpose of a compilation movie as telling the story of a popular series for movie audiences, thus sparing them the time it takes to watch a large number of episodes. I guess it could also be seen as just an alternate take on the story, and given the large number of rewrites that happened to the basic Gurren Lagann story, there is definitely something to that viewpoint. But that kind of goes back to the montages and how they brought the quality of the movie down. Since there was already so much being changed to make everything fit into two movies, why not re-do the story a bit in the beginning to eliminate the need for montages?

As for the alternate take on the story of this series, I can't say that there was anything I either liked or disliked about how the story was changed. In Blue Gender, the redone parts introduced some things that might have improved the series, even if the movie itself sucked. In this case, there was nothing that really stood out that way to me. But then, I was never all that attached or drawn in to the series, either, so someone who is especially attached to the series might feel differently. I think of the two, though, I preferred the series, simply because while the series tended to have some filler, I just prefer the experience of the series making its way through the story to the experience of the movie rushing through it. 6/10.

[CX]

High School of the Dead
(12 episode series)

Ever wonder what it'd be like if Japan did its own version of a zombie movie? Well, this is pretty much it. Like most modern zombie shows, it constantly refers to zombie movies and has fun with the fourth wall. But then, it never really does seem to take itself all that seriously, and a lot of that has to do with the massive amount of fan service the show has. Not only do all of the women who end up surviving have large breasts, but at least once every few minutes we see them bounce around in an exaggerated fashion and/or a panty shot of some kind. So shots like this are very common, right from the first few minutes of the show.



Even the occasional zombie gets this treatment.

Other than that, the only real difference from most zombie shows is the flashy way in which zombies are dealt with, and how quickly people who are bitten die and become zombies themselves. There also seems to be a mix between the classic shamblers and the more modern sprinting variety. There's also the way the world apparently isn't satisfied with how quickly the world is ending, so a bunch of world powers decide to nuke each other. Other than that, it's a fairly typical story about how our main characters have to balance hardening themselves so they can survive without becoming completely inhuman themselves, contrasting this with other survivors. Believe it or not, that story was actually somewhat interesting, enough so that I actually marathonned this overnight when I had only intended to watch an episode or two before turning in for the night. The only real disappointment there was that the story didn't really end, and it's doubtful it ever will get an ending, at least in anime form from what I hear.

It takes getting past all the blatant fan service and the harem aspect of this series to really enjoy it, but the show doesn't make that easy. In the first few episodes, it goes as far as to use silly cartoon sound effects for the busty nurse's various parts as they bounce around. The opening titles also let you know what the show's real focus is, so it's easy to tell that the show isn't really taking itself seriously the way most other zombie shows do. At first it made me laugh, but after a while it just made me roll my eyes, and this is coming from someone who actually kind of likes fan service. Still, I couldn't help but be reminded of Divergence Eve, which had a sci-fi plot that might have otherwise been taken somewhat seriously, but instead focuses on fan service.

As for the characters, there isn't a whole lot to say about them. The leader of the group and the protagonist of the show is Takashi Komuro. He's the "average" high school student with the typical drama issues when the zombie apocalypse first arrives at his school. He's also the apparent romantic interest of pretty much every female survivor in his group, except for the token loli they rescue along the way. In fact, the only other dude in the group is a gun nerd, who's there to make gun nerds feel good about how useful their knowledge would be during a situation like this, and to help the show pander its other form of fan service – guns. Other than that, there isn't much interesting about the characters specifically, aside from the one who apparently gets turned on by violence. Yes, at one point while slaughtering zombies, they actually have her inform the audience that she's wet. At some points the characters are somewhat sympathetic because of everything that's going on, but at others the characters, in particular the female characters, are just bitchy and annoying.

If you like fan service and you like zombie movies, you'll probably like this series. If not, you'll probably just find this show every bit as obnoxious as it is. 5/10.

[Cogito]

It is probably ironic, or something, that you have included a gratuitious 'panty shot' in a review in which you complain about gratuitious panty shots.

[CX]

That's because I'm making fun of it, not complaining. I think it's so horrible that it's hilarious.

[CX]

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (When They Cry) &
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai
(50 episode series)

This is an exceptionally well put together series, which approached the story from many different angles and kept me hooked from start to finish. That’s actually why I’m including both the first and second seasons together in this review, because it’s only together that they make a complete story. That’s what makes it that much more unfortunate that the second season apparently wasn’t picked up for a dub like the first season was. The story was just as good even if I had to read subtitles, but to be honest I’d gotten used to the dub cast, and some elements just weren’t as effective in my opinion as in the dub because what’s said has to be filtered through emotionless subtitles.

Moving on, as much praise as I’m giving this series, I’m going to say right up front that it’s hardly perfect either, though its flaws aren’t anywhere near being a deal-breaker, at least for me. While the story itself is actually made up of repeating time loops in which are main characters each tend to do things a bit differently and things tend not to end well for them, I can’t help but feel that there was also something of an anime within an anime here. While I liked the main anime, which was a murder mystery/psychological thriller, with plenty of drama thrown in, I didn’t much care for the anime within it, which was the kind of typical, cutesy, moe, slice-of-life anime I just don’t like. As the main character who serves as the primary protagonist for the first season, Keiichi Maebara is also the only male character among the other main characters, who also form an after-school club in their small, one-room school located in the village of Hinamizawa. This has all the makings of a harem anime, and to be honest the anime within the anime seemed to pretty much be that. The character designs kind of added to this, and was somewhat disarming to the horrible murders that take place in this series, while simultaneously making it somewhat amusing for that fact, just like Elfen Lied. I feel that the cutesy slice-of-life bits distracted from the story somewhat, but while I would have done it differently, I completely understand why this aspect of the story was done – so we’d care about the characters.

Since the story is pretty much TNG’s Cause and Effect or Groundhog Day with a murder mystery, it’s pretty important that the audience gets to know and care about the characters, otherwise, there is no point to watching them die and/or kill over and over again other than as gore porn. That’s what I feel is a major failing of the vast majority of most horror films, because it isn’t so much about the characters (who are usually too stupid to live anyway) as it is about seeing the horrible way they meet their end. Gore porn, in other words. With Higurashi, however, we learn a lot about the characters and their village each time the story makes its way through the fateful events of June 1983. Sure, it’s a bit over the top that each of the characters has some kind of a past shame that makes them kind of scary in some ways, and that the village has such a sorted history as well, but this is also what makes the story interesting. I also have to admit that this is where the moe slice-of-life bits actually help to add to being able to care about the characters, as we get to see them when times are good, and it makes it that much more tragic when things got to hell. Often it involves one of the friends losing it completely, betraying, and killing all of their friends.

The first season doesn’t really explain all that much. Actually this is where one of the more annoying flaws of the series stands out, because information we already learned as the audience tends to be constantly repeated. I’m cool with the way information was slowly learned with each new time loop, and in fact I actually liked that and the pacing it set, but I really hated hearing the same information repeated. It was better when the story changed to focus on other main characters, though. I also liked how each new time loop started with a vision of the horrible ending it would have, with everything then adding up to what we saw it start out with. The thing is, it becomes apparent very quickly that more is going on, involving a conspiracy of some kind with parties unknown committing some of the gruesome murders in Hinamizawa valley. At first we’re lead to believe that people in the village itself are responsible, but much like having Keiichi act as the protagonist for the first season, this is somewhat misleading.

The season ends with Rena Ryugu, one of Keiichi’s friends going psycho and killing a couple of people, who to be fair were conning her father for basically most of what he had. Her friends help her to hide the body, but eventually she gets paranoid and takes her entire school hostage, apparently intending to kill all of them using a gasoline bomb. Keiichi manages to talk her out of it, however, and the next season starts from here, only about 25 years later, with Hinamizawa being the abandoned site of a disaster that had apparently killed everyone but her, and which we see happen more than once with a different main character as the sole survivor each time. At the start of season 2, this is Rena. We also get the first really obvious clue that what’s going on here was definitely an external conspiracy.

While season 1 was the build up, season 2 is the climax, finally explaining all the mysteries. To begin with, as it turns out there actually is a Bill Murray character who technically then would be the true protagonist of the entire thing, though here she’s only the protagonist of the second season. Kind of surprising considering that in the first season we only got a few hints she knew more than she was letting on.


Meet Bill Murray, aka Rika Furude.

Rika is the shrine maiden for the local deity, Oyashiro, a supposedly wrathful and vengeful god who has been said to be killing and disappearing people every year for going on the fifth year. This naturally isn’t actually the case, and as it turns out, Oyashiro is actually Hanyū, a meek spirit who was apparently an ancestor of Rika’s who was sacrificed to bring peace to the village, and who originally set the rules meant to keep the local disease or parasite from spreading further or getting out of control. She has been watching everything go down, though she is unable to do anything but watch, and it is because she wants the village to avoid being destroyed that she brings Rika back to some prior point in history after Rika is killed in June of 1983. Apparently this has added up to over a century of time, and the two of them have become somewhat jaded for that reason. Fortunately, and somewhat conveniently, other main characters start to remember events from previous time loops, and are able to fight their fate.

Along the way, we learn more and more about what is going on, who is involved, and what role they play. For the most part, the pacing is perfect, though at one point we go back and see how one character apparently became the monster that they are in 1983, and I felt the story dwelled a bit too long on that part. Seeing the conspiracy that was first hinted in the first time loop come together was definitely interesting and important to the story, however, especially when it becomes apparent that the event that kills the entire village is not the tragic natural disaster it was initially thought to be by authorities.

The final time loop and climax to the story is a fairly good payoff. The only disappointment in my opinion is the lack of any real punishment to the main big bad of the series, who is responsible not only for the massacre of the entire village in previous time loops, but for the butchery of Rika in order to set that massacre in motion, and for other murders which occurred prior to June 1983 and are not undone by Rika and her friends. Actually, one of the people she consistently killed in each time loop and tried to kill in the last one ends up being sympathetic toward her and lets her cry into his shoulder. How disgusting. Yes, the point of this last time loop was that there weren’t supposed to be any losers, but it’s also a little too perfect that not even any of the bad guys wind up dead in what was supposed to be a life and death battle. The final battle was kind of lame that way, because it consisted of a bunch of kids setting non-lethal traps for people who were instructed to kill all of them on sight and were armed to do so. But, the end was still pretty satisfying when everything that had been building up came together in the end and the grisly fate of Hinamizawa was finally avoided.

As far as other weaknesses, for the most part they’re nitpicks. Things like Mion and Shion Sonozaki packing a revolver and no one noticing or mentioning it, and never actually using it when it would have made sense to do so, or Hanyū showing up in physical form for the last time loop, but still having horns, only no one seems to notice and never get mentioned. The thing I personally hated and found to be the biggest flaw, however, was the sexualizing of the younger girls, and taking this further by having an adult character have a sexual attraction to one of these girls (we’re talking grade school age) and playing up his pedophilia as being funny and a joke. Fortunately this doesn’t come up very often, or it might have effected my ability to enjoy the show. The other major weakness of note is the ending. Basically it suggests that an adult Rika or Hanyū has gone back in time and has successfully managed to keep the major event that leads to the big bad becoming the big bad from happening. That actually kind of ruins things considering everything the story has gone through, and the way the characters fought so hard for their happy ending. Not to mention that it doesn’t make much sense in how the series established the time loops happened to begin with.

That being said, I can’t recommend this series enough for you to watch, especially if you’re interested in murder mysteries and psychological thrillers. However, be warned that many of the murder scenes are somewhat gruesome, and if the thought of cute little moe characters going crazy and killing people disturbs you, you might want to pass on this series instead. If that doesn’t bother you or you otherwise think you can handle it, definitely watch this series. Just skip the last season and don’t bother with the live action movie. 8/10.

[Cogito]

That's because I'm making fun of it, not complaining. I think it's so horrible that it's hilarious.

In case you're in any doubt, I'm not making fun of it, I am complaining. I don't think that's an appropriate image to post on a publicly accessible site about Trip and T'Pol. No doubt there are plenty of 'toon porn' related sites where that sort of thing would fit right in, but IMO this isn't one of them. It's not as if it added anything to your review. Surely we all know what 'panty shots' means without having to be shown an example?

[CX]

I don't think that's an appropriate image to post on a publicly accessible site about Trip and T'Pol.

A site which also hosts actual porn on it in the form of written word.

'toon porn'

And you just got on my bad side, even if it is a show like High School of the Dead.

Surely we all know what 'panty shots' means without having to be shown an example?

And maybe I like using visual aids to emphasize a point I'm making, like every other image I've used in every review I've posted them in. Pictures are worth a thousand words, or so the saying goes, so maybe you can explain then what about that image offends you so, Helen Lovejoy, and why you felt the need to insult me.

[Distracted]

Please take this discussion to pm, gentlemen. Thank you. - Admin

And thank you very much for editing your post in the interest of peaceful coexistence, CX. Oddly enough considering my usual rather prudish tastes, I really didn't find the image that offensive, but Cogito evidently did. I'm grateful that you were willing to make the change based on his objection. When everyone's a team player it makes my job so much easier.

[CX]

I would've been nicer about it, but he didn't seem very interested in that. If he thinks anime is porn, though, it makes me wonder why he bothered looking through this thread.

[Distracted]

There are many types of anime, just as there are many types of live action films, CX. Your selections do tend to be more for adult audiences, though. Not everyone enjoys that. Do you think you might be able to find some lesser known anime with more classic sci-fi features and less fan service, like Ghost in The Shell and Cowboy Bebop? (I know you reviewed them already. I'm just using them for examples). Maybe that might broaden the audience for your reviews.

[CX]

I'm just posting what I've already reviewed before, alphabetically down the list. I started doing these reviews because I felt compelled to share, and not just to sing praises of good shows or to bash bad ones, but to give people an idea of what they might be interested in or what they might want to avoid, or what they might even want to see out of morbid curiosity. While I may be biased toward my own interests, I do still try to be fair and at least give anyone who read my reviews an idea of what they'd be in for if they watched the shows being reviewed.

As far as fan service, there tends to be plenty of it in all forms in anime, just like any other medium, as I explained in my 2001 review. It's true most people think of sexual fan service, and it's also true that there's plenty of it in anime or any anything else intended for older audiences. For instance, those shows you gave as examples both feature it, they just don't have uncovered nudity, except in one case in Cowboy Bebop, presumably because the character was supposed to have been a dude who underwent a freak accident that made him into a trap without having to get surgery or hormone treatments. Ghost in the Shell, the movie, also had a lot of actual nudity, and the series had strategic nudity in a few episodes, and the Major in a skin-tight outfit, not unlike T'Pol, in basically every episode regardless. Actually I'd be hard pressed to think of an anime I had that didn't feature sexual fan service of some kind, so like any other cliche, even if I might enjoy it to an extent myself, I tend to highlight it and make fun of it