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They Were 11 (movie) So-so Discussed here. Not sure about this, but it's only 90min.
Oh, so the 11 are all guys except one enby. Bleh, so much fuss over one person being enby. Well, I suppose it is from 1986.
Ah, I take back what I said about the enby/trans character being treated seriously. They first say they'd rather die than become a woman, then later when the group seemingly fails (and they wouldn't be able to become a man), suddenly decide to marry (as a woman) one of the guys. Then when it turns out the group passed the exam after all, they still become a woman. Yah, I suppose it makes sense from a cis POV that they were always a woman, but from a trans or enby POV it feels fake.
Other than that, the story's okay. Not too exciting, but not bad either. The way Frol's character was handled kinda spoils it for me though.
(The) Third: The Girl with the Blue Eye (TV) Decent Trailers for this anime on several DVDs caught my interest. For some reason (OP? setting?) it feels quite Bee Train, even though I can't find any specific connection to them. I was wondering why the English title has 'eye' singular instead of plural, but that is clarified in ep.4.
Ep.7 was clearly a low budget one. The art was very off-model for most of it. Oh, it happened again in ep.11. They should've improved that for the DVD release. Ep.12 was quite bad as well, and it looks like ep.13 will be too. I hope the art goes back to normal soon. It's seriously detracting from my enjoyment of this anime. Phew. Ep.14 was back to normal, and ep.15 seems to be good as well.
And finished. In the last two eps. the art went a little wonky again, but the art is only part of why this anime was disappointing. With the premise it has, this anime should be awesome, but apart from the action scenes and a few early story bits, it never really delivered. Despite a lot of talking, there was almost no character development at all. Iks, Paife, Joganki, Fila, none of their backgrounds and feelings/thoughts were explained. Honoka's and Paife's powers were adjusted randomly as the plot required. Millie got some development, but she was mostly passive, and was moved aside for the rest of the series. The ending was rushed in a ridiculous way. All in all this anime is an example of unfulfilled potential.
Three Leaves, Three Colors (TV) Decent Came across this in a Shelf Life entry. Slice-of-life:cute/random, so I figure I might like it. The first ep. looked okay, but not really special.
Hmm, that wasn't bad. A bit too weird for weird's sake at times. I can't call it great, but it's really not bad. I think it's the characters being stuck too much in their respective roles/quirks. There's a good slice-of-life anime in there, but it gets hampered a bit by the characters not being allowed to really escape their assigned corners even though they keep showing hints of more depth.
Time of Eve (ONA) Excellent Hey, this looks pretty good. Someone went a little overboard with the CG bloom though.
The only flaw in this anime is that it is much too short. I want it to be a full 26-ep. series at least.
Time of Eve (movie) Excellent As a compilation of the original series it's fairly good. I think only some details were left out. The framing story is expanded only a little, mainly with photos from Nagi's past life shown during the ending credits and a short scene afterwards. Serious fans of the series will want to see the movie's ending as well for completeness sake, but otherwise the two are interchangeable.
Toaru Kagaku no Railgun (OAV) Decent See the main series for comment.
Tojin Kit (movie) Decent Part of Genius Party Beyond. Kind of desaturated. It looks as if there's more to the setting and story, but what's shown is only a short and pointless part of it. If it was intended as pilot for a longer story, I guess they would've made it more colorful, so.. :/
Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 (TV) Very good Whoa, this looks pretty good. The character designs remind me a little of those of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Summer Wars. I guess that's just the recent style though. The mouths look a little weird here.
Mirai seems quite depressed about her life. Scary way to have things shaken up though.
Wow, the ending was surprising. At first I was a little disappointed, but on second thought it all worked quite well.
Tokyo Mew Mew (TV) Decent For a magical girl anime the characters get rather sketchy introductions. I hope they get more depth later on or this is going to be a long series.
A little over halfway through. Despite some episodes focused on particular characters, overall it is still all about Ichigo, and very little about the rest of the Mew Mew group. The main plot advances with sudden twists that aren't properly foreshadowed (so they feel completely random), and the rest of the story is episodic, without any coherence.
Overall it's not really a waste, but definitely not a top magical girl anime either.
Tomoe ga Yuku! (OAV) Decent Not sure why or how this was on the to-watch list. Tomoe is kinda cool though.
I think this anime abbreviates the manga a lot, but it's probably more actionful this way. Not super great or anything, but not bad either.
Toward the Terra (TV) Weak The beginning reminds me a little of Please Save My Earth. At 24 eps. I don't think this one will be cut off prematurely though.
So far (ep.8) it's pretty good. Nearly all characters are guys, which varies between slightly irksome to annoying when one of the few women is just shoved aside by the plot.
It's getting predictable that whenever someone gets acknowledged by one of the main characters (all guys), they die or are otherwise removed from the plot shortly after. This fridging then serves to motivate guy in question to plot-inducing action. Blegh. If I weren't so close to finishing this I'd drop it.
Well, all the tension that was built up kinda fizzled at the end, with some characters having hard to believe changes of heart, and many dying unnecessarily. Although that last bit is kinda par for this anime. All in all, it has some major flaws, and focuses more on big dramatics than on individual characters, despite pretending otherwise in regard to the main ones.
(The) Tower of Druaga: The Aegis of Uruk (TV) So-so Eh? Is this meant to be an adventure anime, or just silly comedy? I'm almost half way through and it still hasn't decided. The adventure aspect isn't great so far, and the comedy is worse.
Well, toward the end the adventure theme won out, but it never became great. The ending is just a big hook for the sequel.
(The) Tower of Druaga: the Sword of Uruk (TV) So-so Uhm, did the art quality just plummet? The bad comedy is mostly gone, but the fantasy adventure still isn't all that great. Most of the characters are more interesting than the hero Jil. Also, all the women are support characters and wear sculpted armor and high heels. Bleh, there are too many bad points to list them all. Now that it's out of the way let's move on to something better.
Tropical-Rouge! Precure (TV) Good Another year, another season of PreCure. This one started off colorful and with slightly slapstickish humor. Already strongly dislike the makeup theme though. 3-8 year olds don't need that kind of thing modeled. Nice to see a not quite so pink first Cure, though I don't doubt she'll get lumped in with the Pinks regardless. Looking forward to undersea adventures.
My bet's on Laura growing legs/transforming into a human at some point (probably fifth Cure then too). There's of course the Little Mermaid background, but Laura's been crawling closer to being a participant than an observer for the past few eps. (now at ep.12 btw), and there was also one time (ep.10 or so?) when she presented her lucky color at the end instead of the usual Cures. Also, there isn't really anyone else who's the right age&familiarity to become one.
Yup, Cure La Mer. Well, Mermaid was already taken, and calling a mermaid Mermaid would be a little too simple. She's also no longer a mermaid now, so I guess we'll get some drama later on about her either having to change back or remain human and give up on becoming queen.
Oh, in ep.36 we suddenly get some plot again, though it can't be the final stretch yet. And ep.37 extends it with the dramatic twist that all mermaids are supposed to lose their memories of humans. I suppose it works as a preservation of the original fairy tale's tragic story, but it doesn't quite match. New group attack too. And we're only on ep.37. I wonder where this is going.
Oops, forgot to mark this as completed. Goes to show how much attention I pay to PreCure lately.. ^_^;
The ending was decent. They did get to the "mermaid has to disappear/be forgotten" thing, with all the resulting drama, but then undid the forgetting part after all.
Tropical-Rouge! Precure Petit Tobikome! Collabo▽Dance Party! (movie) Decent Part of the Healin'Good PreCure×Yes! PreCure 5 GoGo! movie. Just a little 3min. short at the end of it, introducing the traditional dance ending with a little ToroPuri battle to get there.
Tweeny Witches (TV) Decent Oh, this looks fun. An unusual art style, cool main character (at least so far), and an interesting setup.
It's pretty cute. The ep. plots are a bit simplistic at times, but there's definite hints at more complex stuff. The eps. do seem a bit short though.
Arusu seems a little too good at times. Hmm, not only is she too good to be true, now she's even destined to become the saviorof the world (sic). And the big bad just happens to be the only dark-skinned in this anime.
And then the ending is rather abrupt and simplistic. I'm kinda disappointed with this anime. It started out very promising, but in the end didn't live up to that.
Tweeny Witches: The Adventures (OAV) Decent This OVA seems to be some standalone stories. Ah well.
Hmm, the resolutions to some of these stories are pretty clumsy. Kinda like the ending of the main anime. Otherwise fun but unremarkable.
(The) Twelve Kingdoms (TV) Excellent Highly recommended for two reasons. One, a really admirable and kick-ass woman for the main character, and two, a very elaborate and deep fantasy setting. Everyone loves (or should) the former, but if you have trouble learning a lot of new words and concepts then you might find Twelve Kingdoms a little hard to get into. Youko is totally worth watching this anime for though.
Not all of the original light novels were adapted into the anime, and the author is still writing new (short) stories, so I hope there'll be a second series some day.
2nd time watching. Wow, it's been ages since I first watched this. Youko is still cool (at least after the first few eps.), but I must say the tension sags a bit here and there. The second arc moves pretty slowly. There are several recap eps., and each ep. starts with about a min. of recap. The action parts are pretty cool, but not really common. Another thing I noticed is that there are only a few old guy voices. As there are quite a few of those characters, it gets a little confusing who's who after a bit.
Twin Angel: Twinkle Paradise (TV) Weak Wow. If you tried to make an ecchi lolicon magical girl parody you'd have a hard time making something worse than this.
Well, I ended up watching all of it. The plot has some decent elements (the enemy twins, the teacher), but also tons of plotholes, and is told really clumsily. Not enough to save this anime from being pretty bad overall.
Twin Spica (TV) Good Could this be like Rocket Girls? The first ep. hints at it. It's also very sweet.
Yes, it was like that. I get the feeling that the ending was put there for the anime while the manga continued, but it was nice anyway.
Second time: There's a lot of flashbacks. Just about every other ep. is an extended flashback. There isn't actually that much astronaut training as a result. It really feels like they had only a limited amount of manga to work with. Maybe I'll check out the manga to get the rest of the story.
Ultra Maniac (TV) Good Despite the title, this seems to be shoujo rather than seinen. Minus: in ep.2 Nina is called a child because she likes Ayu best instead of a boy. Hmpf.
It's fun to decode the magic kingdom rune writings now and then :)
It seems Nina is about the only one who isn't weird about same-sex attraction. Bleh.
Well, the ending was rather rushed and a bit info-dumpy, but overall the story was fun. Pity about the homophobia though.
Ultraviolet: Code 044 (TV) So-so Hmm. A dark and somber cyberpunk setting. It reminds me a little of Armitage III. Meh. The beginning is okayish, but the middle is a little boring, and the ending is rushed.
Umi Monogatari (TV) Decent Directed by Junichi Sato.
There's some fanservice, but it's not super bad. The reset ending was rather abrupt though. It would've been better without the old turtle. All in all this wasn't a bad anime, but not particularly noteworthy either.
Urahara (TV) Decent Fashion plus magical girls, sounds like an interesting combination. The ANN review mentioned it gets a bit post-Madoka, but not too much.
Oh, the art is certainly unique. The story doesn't make much sense, but it looks pretty cute. Urahara as in backstreets of Harajuku, where the small, non-brand indie designers have their shops.
Around ep.7 things go sad, which leads to a several eps. long mix of depression and flashbacks for most of the cast. Could've done without most of the depression really. Post-Madoka indeed. It's not necessary to draw that out so long. The early eps. were much more fun.
Well, the last two eps. are okay again. Overall it was fun. The sad part in the middle is drawn out too much (and repetitive now and then), but the rest was fun, with a unique colorful style.
Usakame (TV) Decent Hmm, I think this goes before S6 of Teekyuu? It looks a little different. Maybe less animated? There's an ED this time too. The actual eps. are the same length though. I like the girls' voices. They seem like interesting characters that I'd like to see in longer stories. As it is, 2min. per ep. is too short to really get anything more than a bit of silliness.
Uta∽Kata (TV) So-so Possibly slightly shoujo-ai. Hmm, the first ep. is rather vague. There's a lot of pointless fanservice camerawork. This anime moves rather slow.
Yeah, it's really slow in revealing what's actually going on. And then in the end it's just kinda weird without a proper explanation of things.
Uta∽Kata (OAV) Decent It's nice to see Manatsu and Kai visit again, but this extra ep. still doesn't explain what's up with them and Saya :/
UTOPA (movie) Good Anime Tamago 2016
It looks nice and colorful. The story's cute, but it's just a short episode out of a much longer story, so there's not really a conclusion.
Vampire Princess Miyu (TV) Decent This reminds me of Hell Girl a little, but supernatural, and very '90s of course. Distracting at first, but later on more weird, is the lack of details in dialogue. There seems to be no reasons for several important relationships, and when they're revealed, nothing is really explained any better. Overall, it's not bad (although it looks dated of course), but felt unsatisfying.
Venus Versus Virus (TV) Very good A very nice, but short magical girl/supernatural/action/comedy/drama anime. Oh, and don't forget the gothic lolita fashion. Venus Vanguard is after all a fashion store, at least on the outside. There isn't much to say about it really. It is short, but everything is explained well, and the story wouldn't have stretched that much longer without adding side stories and stretching out the action. There is a good mix of drama, comedy and action. There isn't much suspense, but the story never drags either.
I don't know who added the 'yuri' theme to the encyclopedia, but that just isn't true. Even if you really look very hard, Lucia's feelings for Sumire aren't more than friendship, and Sumire herself spends much of the anime in love with her boyfriend. The eyecatch/ED shots are suggestive of course, but that's to be expected these days.
(The) Vision of Escaflowne (TV) So-so It turned out better than I expected, though not all great. Hitomi became a little more active later in the series, and especially the relationships and backgrounds got more developed. From about halfway through, there were numerous plot twists, sometimes a little deus ex machina like (or machina ex deo even). Towards the end it seemed as if the writers were in a hurry to resolve the love polygon between Van/Hitomi/Allen/Milerna/Dryden, and although not exactly badly handled, there were some resolutions that didn't ring very true. The very end (last minute or so) of the series was not as good as it could have been either. Overall, it is still a good series, interesting at least in its attempt to combine shounen and shoujo styles. I think it could've been better with more episodes. Too often some plot device was introduced only to be abandoned two episodes later.
The music of Escaflowne is by Yoko Kanno, but I didn't find it as interesting as Ghost In The Shell: S.A.C.'s.
ViVid Strike! (TV) So-so Appears to continue right after the Vivid manga. New main character, but the main cast from Vivid is there as well. The OP shows a few others, but I suppose the old cast was too ridiculously large to include here.
Well, Rinne's story was okay, if kinda predictable, Fuuka didn't have all that much of a story. The rest of the anime was really just either fighting or little bits of training or talking about fighting. The two mid-season OVA eps. were short interludes, the final OVA ep. was only fanservice. Overall, I think for me everything after StrikerS SoundStage X was unnecessary. There's no larger plot other than tournaments of fighting. Even the Vivio/Einhart/Sieglinde/Crozelg/Ixpellion subplot was mostly intrigue without much action. This anime only had Rinne's backstory to make things more interesting than just the fighting, and it's not really deep either.
ViVid Strike! (OAV) So-so Bonus ep.13. Only fanservice really. There's some flashback to what happened to the cast after ep.12, but that's just a few minutes at the start.
Voices of a Distant Star (OAV) Good Quality animation and art, but it's a little too short to really tell a complete story.
Waka Okami wa Shōgakusei! (TV) Decent Looks a bit KamiChu?
Seems there's this TV series of short (~11½min.) eps., and a 95min. movie version. They probably cover the same story. They have the same name in JP, although ANN lists them with different English titles. Anyways, let's start with this.
Hmm, not a whole lot of ghosty stuff going on, it's mostly inn stuff. Oh, in ep.13 the ED changed to a slightly different art style and shows a bunch of new characters. Seems it's from the movie. Maybe I should give that a try too then.
And from ep.17 we get a straight romance. Not really what I was looking forward to in this anime. After that the last four eps. are a mixed inn stuff/supernatural arc again, a decent ending. Overall this anime is okay I guess. Not great, but okay.
Wakaba Girl (TV) Decent Looks like it might be somewhat KinMoza or GochiUsa-like? Hmm, yes it is. This one feels a little too girls-as-exotic-creatures :/ The eps. are short though, so I guess I'll finish it.
Seems the exoticism was only at the start. The rest is mostly "Wakaba being an ojou-sama out of water" 4-koma-style gags. It tries to add a little friendship drama into the story at the end, but it's been too short really to make it work well. The OVA ep. is maid-uniform fanservice. Nothing nsfw, but it's a little different in tone from the rest of the series. Overall it's okay, but doesn't really have enough depth.
A Wake in Garakuta Town (OAV) Decent Part 5 of Sweat Punch, discussed here.
Oh, this one was actually kinda fun. The art and animation were both nice too. This one was the best of the set I think. Not that that's saying all that much.
Overall, this Sweat Punch (aka Deep Imagination) set is interesting to watch once, but I wouldn't really recommend it.
Wandering Son (TV) Excellent This reminds me of Aoi Hana both in visual style and tone. Not surprising, as they share both mangaka and animators.
This is such a lovely sweet story, but it feels incomplete. The anime tries to cover a huge span of manga in just 11 eps. I think for the first time since Nausicaä, I'll go buy the manga to get the full story. That'll take a while though, since the first translated installment is coming out next month, and the manga has been running in Japan for eight years already..
Wanwa the Puppy (movie) So-so Part of Genius Party Beyond. The style reminds me a little of Fuujin Monogatari, except messier and crayon. It looks colorful, but it's too messy really to make out what's going on half the time.
Wasurenagumo (movie) Good A mixture of cute, creepy and weird. I'm not exactly sure what happened at the end. Did Mizuki turn into a spider herself, or was that a spider taking her form? And what about Suzuri? Was he still bewitched? Anyway, good animation, but the plot is a bit sketch-like.
Welcome to THE SPACE SHOW (movie) Very good Space is fantastic. Just watch this movie to see how fantastic it is. Adventure in bright colors.
A Well-Ordered Restaurant (movie) Not really good Another Kenji Miyazawa story. This one seems to have another version as well, which is not listed on ANN.
A color pencil sketch-like style, which makes the animation a bit shaky now and then, but no less impressive. No speech, but there's a bunch of signs (I guess those are the 'many orders'). The ending was a little weird, a few sentences that could have been expressed visually at least partly.
The other version is quite different. Well, lo-res and bad video quality, but aside from that also a different style. The two hunters talk quite a lot, the cats are seen from the beginning, and the progress through the restaurant is much more straightforward. This one has the hunters' fate also visible, though still with a little narration, but I guess that's unavoidable.
When Marnie Was There (movie) Excellent What a lovely movie ^_^ For a while, Anna & Marnie looked kinda romantic together. I guess that's the closest to yuri we'll see in Ghibli movies. Even though it wasn't, it's still a really nice story. Another one for my Ghibli collection.
When They Cry - Higurashi (TV) Very good Nice structure (repeating similar events in the same setting, but with different viewpoints and victims), nice combination of mystery and thriller/horror too. Reminds me a little of those British and Swedish police/psychological murder mysteries actually. From seeing some screenshots and fan-made pics, I was expecting to find blood dripping from my monitor, but I wasn't quite expecting it to be this gruesome. Not only are there numerous bloody murders, but also torture and abuse (both physical and verbal/psychological). A little jarring is how the story switches from cute to gruesome and back again. Or maybe the violence hits you harder because you come to care about the sweet characters. This series is well-made, but a little past the top for me. Recommended for adult anime fans who can stand it, but definitely not for kids.
When They Cry - Kai (TV) Very good Continues where Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni left off and finishes the story. It's a little lighter than the first season, more cuteness and less blood and paranoia. Instead it focuses more on the characters figuring out what is going on and escaping the murders. There is still quite a bit of violence and abuse though, so not for kids or others who can't stand it.
Whisper of the Heart (movie) Very good A lovely little romantic story :) I'll have to see what the relation between this and The Cat Returns is. There are a few Ghibli references anyway.
Just watched this again, after many years I think. Yup, quite a few Ghibli references. I didn't realize this movie is where the Iblard world (from Iblard Jikan) first appeared. The DVD even has a short video of Iblard BG art that is just like that OVA minus the animated bits. It's nice that the romance here isn't too dramatic, even though it's clear how complicated Shizuku's feelings are. That's another nice thing, the movie is completely from Shizuku's perspective. Seiji is there, but not the main or focus character.
Windy Tales (TV) Very good Oh, this looks like it'll be fun. A pretty unique, slightly messy art style, but a really interesting setup.
Yes, very interesting. Slice-of-life, with a little magic/mystery. The art sometimes gets really messy, but you get used to it.
Wish Upon the Pleiades (TV) So-so Complete remake of the ONA (the movie was turned into the TV series instead).
Lol. What the beep is this? Magic brooms that make car engine and tire sounds XD
There is a lot of technobabble philosophizing though, and things move around too quickly to tell proper stories. This might be one of those anime with good potential but poor execution. It feels like someone had heard of magical girl anime, then tried to cram in a whole bunch of car-related stuff and fauxlosophy without really understanding how or why such anime work. The result is an anime that does have a few fresh ideas (the way magic works, the alien, some visual aspects), but mostly just tries to do too much that doesn't fit, and ends up neither making sense nor telling a proper story.
Well, add astronomy mumbo-jumbo (that isn't inaccurate per se; just doesn't really relate to how the plot deals with it) to the list of things thrown in just because they look or sound cool. Which they do, that's true, but that doesn't make for a good anime, only for one with potential (no pun related to one of this anime's buzzwords intended). And this anime doesn't work it out into something good. So, maybe watch it for the visuals, but otherwise not really recommended.
Witch Hunter Robin (TV) Very good A very good series. Good story, good characters, good ending even. More straightforward (less complex) than some other series, but I think that's a good thing given the controversiality of human genetic engineering. The opening and ending themes are great too.
Watched this a second time. It must've been many years since I watched this the first time. It's still good. No fanservice is a relief. The ending could've used a little more resolution. It's kinda hard to believe the whole humans fearing Witches problem would suddenly be all better with Robin, or even how that would work. It's still a decent ending though. For a long anime (24 eps. used to be the standard, but it seems very long nowadays) there isn't that much development really. Events are slowed down rather. Too bad it doesn't mean more character interaction and development. The team members other than Robin don't really get much background or development at all, and Robin herself doesn't talk all that much.
Witchblade (TV) Very good A woman who lost her memory and possesses a mysterious superpower and her precocious daughter against the big bad world. Interesting premise.
Well, there is indeed a lot of fanservice, but at least it isn't of the juvenile groping and pantyshots kind.
Aside from that, this anime has amazing depth. From the synopsis/trailer/promo art I was expecting lots of darkness and action (and fanservice). The action is definitely there, but it never gets really sinister. Instead there is a whole lot of sweet (and bittersweet) character development and drama, mixed with some light-hearted fun now and then. I would highly recommend this anime to fans of action like Speed Grapher and Claymore, as well as fans of deeper stories.
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