Review | Anime | AzuManga Daioh

AZUMANGA DAIOH : AzuManga Daioh is a simple story of the
lives of a group of high-school girls as they spend their summers, holidays and school days together. Chiyo, the 10-year-old child prodigy; Tomo, the immature ball of energy; Yomi, the most mature member of the group; Sakaki, the shy and quiet girl with a secret adoration for cute animals; Kagura, the athletic girl who loves to compete with Sakaki; and Osaka, the transfer student one sandwich short of a picnic. Together, sometimes with their two insane teachers Minamo and Yukari, they'll share their ups and downs as they survive school life until they can finally unite in the summertime.

I came across AzuManga Daioh in a bookstore where I saw a picture of one of their frequent cat characters which fans refer to as "Kamineko". The animators draw the cutest animals and I had to look itno the show. Judging from the plot summaries you get, you wouldn't think AzuManga Daioh would have very much to offer, might even be a little boring, but I'm extremely impressed with this show.

Despite claiming to be a Seinen anime (Seinen targets 18-20 year old males) this show is incredibly shojo, I really don't know that any male would have any interest in it. The only male character worth noting is Mr. Kimura, who also might be a warning for parents that are looking into this show for their children. Mr. Kimura is the Classical Japanese teacher at the school, who admits without shame that the only reason he became a teacher is for the high school girls. He's obviously got a few screws loose, as one can tell by observing his mouth almost always hanging open, and through the series he is usually seen around the female students observing them as they're swimming or being measured by the school nurse. His behavior is noticed by the girls and they find this extremely uncomforting, and usually react by running away. He's even mentioned in front of them that "he wishes he could watch them change [clothes]."

Other than Mr. Kimura and Yukari's occasional profanity whenever she's in pinches, this might be okay to show a child, but a parent should be standing by just in case they think they should skip through the parts I've mentioned.

This is one of the only animes I've seen that is down-to-earth, much different from most animes that are based around fantasy in some way. So if you're just getting started with anime and you don't want anything too unreal, this may be a good one to start out with.

Overall Rating:
/ 5

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Ending Theme : Raspberry Heaven
Opening Theme : Soramimi Cake

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Review | Anime | InuYasha

INUYASHA : Kagome Higurashi's family owns an ancient shrine that dates back thousands of years, and as much as her grandfather boasts its history, she never pays it any mind. One day, while going to retrieve her cat in an old shed, she falls down a dried up well, and wakes up in feudal Japan. While still trying to recollect herself, she stumbles across a strange boy pinned to a tree by an arrow. When Kagome is attacked by a demon monster that bites a mysterious "Sacred Jewel" from out of her body, the boy awakens and tells Kagome to pull the arrow from his chest. The boy, a half-demon named InuYasha, quickly kills the demon, but now he wants this "Sacred Jewel" for himself. No sooner is the Jewel removed from Kagome does another demon steal it, and in an attempt to get the Jewel back, she shoots the creature with an arrow and accidentally shatters the Jewel into shards. Now Kagome and InuYasha must join forces to find every shard of the Jewel before other demons find them and use them to become all-powerful. But can the stubborn duo set aside their differences long enough?

After the response our dog demon friend InuYasha has gotten, who wouldn't want to check it out? I watched the first episode on YouTube to try it out, and upon becoming very interested in the story, to Netflix I did go.

I was finally able to catch up with this series, which had already ended (abruptly) before I began the series. Eventually I did find out that the episodes ceased production on a cliffhanger. I attended a guest panel with one of the producers of InuYasha at an anime cosplay convention. When asked if they would ever continue the series, they were left with merely a "maybe" (which, for producers, is just a polite version of "no".) So alas we may never find out if the Jewel Shards are all collected, and Naraku may never come out of hiding.

I had been hearing so much about InuYasha it was mind-boggling. It took me a while before I decided to give it a try. I really like this show a great deal, even though some of the drawing could use improvement. Different villagers Kagome and InuYasha encounter along the way are just bizzare-looking, like the animators wanted to hurry up and get them over with.

On occasion the episodes can be a little slow and stretched too far, but other than that I'm happy with them. I don't think I'd show this to a child right away, as there is profanity and frequent violence, and a few perverted moments, courtesy of a character that appears later in the show. There are also monsters in the show's episodes that are really not that scary, but a child might find them a little scary. Again, there is a lot of blood involved in this show, but not so much that you would get queazy, it doesn't look much like real blood.

This would be a good show to watch if you're trying to catch up on the popular animes. Just don't get too close to Miroku! You've been warned.

Overall Rating:
/ 5

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First Season Opening Theme : Change The World

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Review | Anime | Ouran High School Host Club

OURAN HIGH SCHOOL HOST CLUB : The ultra-prestigious Ouran High School's popular Host Club is a group of boys who make profit through the charming and casual entertainment of girls who attend the school. When Haruhi Fujioka accidentally breaks an expensive auction piece owned by the Host Club, the Club president makes Haruhi join the Club and become a server to pay off her debt. Because of Haruhi's short hair and boyish clothing, they mistake her for a boy, and therefore finally make her a host after acknowledging her skills. When the other Club members finally do find out her secret, they allow her to remain a host under the condition that she never reveals her true gender to the girls they cater to.

Despite the main cast being mostly boys, this is very much a shojo anime. It's very dizty and glittery, and the cast's males are very clean and pretty and not very masculine at all. People who can get put off easily by things that are a little too perfect and prim may not enjoy this anime right away. My favorite part of the episodes are probably the different crazy faces the characters frequently put on. Any person that's familiar with the art of anime is aware that animes usually always include their characters making strangely unnatural facial expressions and bodily movements, and has come to expect it from any anime they look into. Ouran Host Club's characters are seen to make such expressions usually in response to something Haruhi does, or to something that they find "common" or generally repulsive to their status in society, since Ouran High School is where the children of very rich families are sent, while Haruhi comes from a lower middle-class family accepted through scholarship.

I would really say that this isn't a show for young kids to watch. There are some implications throughout the show of homosexuality, usually coming from the Host Club, however, so far nothing confirming this has happened, besides the members occasionally behaving flirtatiously towards each other. Twin brothers Hikaru and Kaoru may also be something to watch out for. The members of the Club each have their own charm tactics to add variety to their selection of hosts for customers to choose from. Those who request Hikaru and Kaoru as hosts are most likely doing it to be wooed by the twins' "Brotherly Love" manipulation, in which Hikaru and Kaoru react with each other in an incestuous manner though nothing extreme ever happens. The customers seem to find this tactic adorable. As a gesture to make the Club's president jealous, the twins also flirt with Haruhi on a daily basis.

I can't remember where exactly I found out about Ouran Host Club, but if the issues I've discussed above are things you're against, this would probably be a show to avoid, because some of the subjects listed are a huge involvement in the series. But if you enjoy anime's signature physical expressions, this may be one to check out.

Overall Rating:
/ 5

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Review | Anime | Naruto

NARUTO : Years ago in the village of Konoha, a nine-tailed demon fox terrorized the village and killed hundreds of ninjas, until the leader of the village sealed the demon away in the body of a newborn child that had been orphaned. Now, twelve-year-old Naruto has been mistreated all his life by his fellow villagers for something he was completely unaware of until the day a rogue ninja attacked him. Naruto's dream is to become the Hokage of Konoha so the villagers will look up to him rather than disrespect him. With his friends Sakura and Sasuke, Naruto will learn to be the best ninja he can be, while fighting other rogue ninjas that intend to destroy his village.

Naruto hasn't struck souls quite like Pokemon did when it was first introduced, but people are definitely responding to Naruto in a big way. I was hearing so much about it nonstop all over the Internet, I hated it already. Only when it came on TV one day did I really decide to sit down and take it in, and I must say I'm impressed.

The characters are very easy to identify since they are each given unique physical traits. However it's not very easy to attempt to warm up to every single character in the show, since new characters are constantly added.

According to my sister, who has gotten a little too into the series since I suggested she watch it (me and my big mouth), the original Japanese version has pretty much no limits to the kind of language they use, but the American dub of course is a lot cleaner since they're aiming it at a young audience. From the mangas of Naruto I've read, the language is almost as bad as the original undubbed anime. Any parent that is deciding whether or not to introduce Naruto (either the anime or the manga) to their child may like to be warned of prankster Naruto's biggest gags towards males that he addresses as his "Sexy Jutsu", in which Naruto shape shifts into a nude woman barely covered by puffs of smoke. The anime version of this technique is a lot more modest than the manga's version where the anatomy is a lot more detailed and the puffs of smoke are a lot less thick. Another warning for parents is Jiraiya, who appears much later in the series. Jiraiya, a middle-aged male ninja, writes a popular string of of books that are implied loosely to be pornographic (an adult main character in the show is seen frequently reading a volume though the contents of the books are never shown.) Jiraiya is also a shameless womanizer that attempts on a regular basis to peek at naked or barely-clothed women for what he calls "research" for his books. There is also a large amount of violence for parent that would prefer their child not watch violent shows.

My biggest complaint against the series is that it is mind-numbingly slow. The writers will dedicate 2-3 episodes on one certain subject that they attempt to stretch way too far by making the characters monologue more than necessary, and eventually any suspense that might have been there dwindles almost as quickly as the viewer's interest. The monologues are extremely dull and useless to the show, the characters pretty much include everything in their monologues except cooking recipes. If you suspect that stretching will occur in any of the episodes, I would say it's safe to skip the next episode.

Despite the slowness in the series, I highly recommend the show to teenage audiences and older, but a parent may want to investigate further on the show first before letting a younger child watch it.

Overall Rating:
/ 5

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Sasuke's Theme
Naruto's Theme

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Review | Movie | Death Note Movies

DEATH NOTE THE MOVIE/DEATH NOTE THE MOVIE: THE LAST NAME : The live-action version of the anime/manga series. Light Yagami, a successful high school , finds a mysterious notebook on the ground entitled "Death Note". Curious, he takes the notebook home and reads it. The book's instructions state that anyone whose name is written in the book will die within 40 seconds of a heart attack, or if the owner wishes a different death upon the victim, the details of the death must be wirtten within 6 minutes and 40 seconds. Light tests the Death Note by writing the name of a gangster who boasts his name right before attacking a woman. The gangster dies soon after. Realizing the book's power, Light concludes to use the Death Note to rid the world of evil by killing every criminal he can. The police begin to string the series of heart attacks together and soon find that a detective known as "L", who has completed every single investigation he's ever taken, is soon on the case. Light, nicknamed "Kira" by the public, is soon L's suspect, and Light is determined to finish L before L finishes him.

Usually live-action films annoy me because all I keep thinking about is, "That doesn't look like them!" or "That never happened!" It's a filthy habit of mine. But I liked these films a lot. It was a little odd to have English songs for the first film though, such as "Dani California" by The Red Hot Chili Peppers. They could have easily found an equally good Japanese song which wouldn't have made it perplexing. (personally, i find most japanese music better than any english song.)

These movies stay true to the anime and manga, but there are also some parts that serve themselves rather than what happens in the others. I'm happy with the actors they got for the roles, they serve the movies quite well.

I'm definitely happy with these, I'd probably watch them again and I might buy the movies if they're around. I'd recommend it to any Death Note fan that hasn't gotten to see them yet. they've still got Death Note films coming out and I'll definitely be one of the ones seeing them.

What I like about these films is that even though they stay true to the anime and manga, they still put their own twists on things and mix it around a bit so it'll be a new experience to those familiar with the anime. This includes a gender change for Misa's shinigami Rem, who is implied to be female in the series but is male in the films. Their talented ensemle has no problem conveying the same suspense and interest that held fans of the series.


Overall Rating:
/ 5

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