Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo

Name: Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo
Type: Television Show
Episodes: 24
Rating: TV-14
Runtime Per Episode: 24 min
Director: Maeda Mahiro
Produced By Gonzo
Year Produced: 2004

Ignoring the totally yaoi covers and pictures that I found online, I have my own opinion of this show.

Since I have a hard time being mean, I'll have to say this...

It was... interesting.  In a good way, though.

The whole story is vaguely reminiscent of the actual classic... The Count of Monte Cristo, written by... I don't know and I don't particularly car, I'm nowhere near a literal guy.  If the book isn't loaded with pictures and speech bubbles, I don't usually bother with it.

I kind of remember watching that one movie: Man in the Iron Mask, or something like that, but I don't remember well enough to cross-reference.

The story behind this one version is that in the distant, distant future, you've got a bunch of noble brats... and then a heroic soldier from I dunno what campaign.  As you can tell, I already have a slight bias, but not debilitating (and I didn't like the soldier much better than the others, it was just that I agreed with him a lot more than say... I dunno... Albert (pronounced "Ahl-bhere", since he's French... wait, that explains it!)).

Albert is the son of a famous General (famous from some other campaign), and some rich princess-kind of person.

Bored with his mundane life of... whatever the hell it is that young nobles do, Albert and his friend Franz go on some kind of vacation to another world.  They arrive just in time for some big festival, and during the course of it, Albert meets a mysterious, pointy-eared, freaking green tall noble, who drops his pocket watch.

Like any good conniving upstart, Albert uses the return of said pocket watch to have a meeting with the mysterious man, who is introduced/actually introduces himself as the "Count of Monte Cristo".

Now the big question running through my head right now is: "If this is space, and most of the humans alive in that age probably haven't even heard of Earth, then where in the hell is "Monte Cristo", or is that not even a place?".

Anyway, the two get together and CoMC (... you know, I'm not even going to explain it to you.  If you get it, good, if you don't, then you've got a problem) invites Albert and Franz to brunch at a... public execution.  What the fuck?  Have people in the future reverted back to some kind of medieval entertainment system?  Then again, this is based on a classic set in those times, so maybe this is supposed to be happening.

And so their wild and utterly annoying time together starts.  If you know the story of the Count of Monte Cristo, then you know where this story leads, and if you don't... then I guess you'll just have to watch it, won't you?

I actually watched a bit of this before I even decided to do this blog, so I had a good idea what I was getting myself into, and I choose to anyway because this anime had a couple of things that I wanted to talk about.

First of all, the director Maeda Mahiro was staff on a couple of other animes that I liked, such as a couple of Miyazaki movies like Kaze no Tani no Nausicaa, Castle in the Sky, and even Porco Rosso (all of which are coming up in quick succession), and he also worked on Samurai Champloo (which I just recently watched... it wasn't bad), and Last Exile (which I didn't love at first, but after watching it a second time a while back, am starting to like).

Maybe because of all of his work on stuff that I already liked (though he didn't direct any of those), or maybe because he's just good, I found the style and such of this anime to be really cool... it was just the characters that pissed me off.

The other thing that I'll bring up is the clothes.  I don't know if this is unique, or something Maeda Mahiro's take from one of his other animes, or what, but the way the clothes were animated was really interesting.  Since I'm an aspiring mangaka myself, I'll let you in on a secret.

Mangakas, being people who don't want to work themselves to death on every little detail have come up with something called a Screen Tone.  What that is is like a sheet of a "tone" with a given pattern on it.  What they do is cut it down, then basically glue it over the parts of their work that they want... toned.

... Like all that black in night scenes... do you really think that the mangaka spent about three days coloring all that shit in?  Well, maybe, yes.  But probably not.

For those of you who are reading this without any frame of reference in this anime or manga, then I'll tell you... that you're out of luck.  You might as well just close this down and go watch the anime I'm talking about.

For those of you who are following me, then I'll just finish up with; "What made this anime worth reviewing is the fact that they use a stable tone on the clothes.  So there's no crinkles or anything, it's just a shifting tone on a body.  It's really kind of cool and new."

Since this is from a book, I couldn't tell you if it was "true to the original work", but it seemed to flow nicely and keep a good pace.  Actually, I don't really recall a down moment, there was always something weird or aggravating going on.

Character development was good, actually.  The Count's history came to light in bits and pieces, though if you had half of a brain, you could usually see the plot "twists" coming from an episode away, but that's okay.
Albert's history and personality... I don't really give two shits about.  He was a little prick, the end.  In this show, I found myself liking the supporting cast way  more than... Albert.  The Count was okay though.

The animation style, I've already said everything that I want to about that, but still, even if it's just for the first episode, I highly recommend checking it out just for that.  It was a really mind bender the first time I saw it.  No matter how much I plug it though, I actually didn't find it all that appealing.  It was new and all, but it kind of distracted me for a while, not that the story line was keeping me enthralled.

Japanese or English, it doesn't matter, Albert was still weird.  Actually, both versions were good enough.  And in the English one, Albert's wimpy side was made all the more clear by the actor, so good job, man!

The music was... harsh on the ears in the beginning.  I dunno what that guy was on when he wrote that, but the dumbass tried to cram too many syllables into a line, then he scratched on another, and all kinds of weird stuff happened.
All in all, I wouldn't have kept that take... or the song, for that matter (I thought the song in general was crap too).  Eugenie's version wasn't bad though... mainly because nobody was singing it.

The ending themes were pretty good, more to my style of music, and when you're following up "We Were Lovers", it's hard not to be better.

Okay, I've bashed this enough for the visible section... oh, and I watched this from a borrowed DVD, so that's why this post isn't overflowing with pictures and stuff.

Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo Minitheatre

Coming up next!

Miyazaki Week... and then some!

Day 1: Kaze no Tani no Nausicaa! 

Ookami to Koushinryou

Name: Ookami to Koushinryou
Type: Television Show
Episodes:  25, 1 OVA
Rating: Intellectual
Runtime Per Episode: 24 min
Director: Takahashi Takeo
Produced By the Spice and Wolf Production Committee
Year Produced: 2008

One of... the best animes... EVER!!

The End.

... Okay, I'll write more, I mean, it's not totally fair to let you off so light, no rant even, granted, I have been kind of tired lately.

Craft Lawrence... or Lawrence Craft, I'm actually not totally sure how it's supposed to go, check this out.  This guy lives in a medieval time period, consisting of traveling merchants, and the Church on it's rise to power, and thus the abolishment of the old "Pagan" ways.
That being said, is his name Lawrence (First Name, in theory) Craft (Last Name, in theory) because he's not technically living in Japan... actually, decidedly not, unless everyone there went suddenly English.
Or is it Craft Lawrence, since this is a story written by a Japanese guy (in theory)?

Real mind bender, yeah?

Either way, like I said, this guy's a traveling merchant, trying to make enough money to settle down and start up his own shop.  He's living in this day and age where the biggest cooperation is the Church... so pretty much any time that the Church existed.
He's made the tour several times, and established a trade route and good relations with the townspeople all over, and has even got an apprentice or two.

That's Chloe... from the village of Pasroe, Lawrence's next stop.

Pasroe is considered to be a pagan village, but nobody actually cares enough to go and burn it down, so they just let it be, I guess.

The reason that they are considered pagan is that they worship their God of Harvest; Horo... the Wise.

A wolf god, Horo is responsible for good harvests and such.  There's a bunch of sayings in the village, all of them involving Horo (usually referred to as "The Wolf") and wheat, the village's main source of income.

When Lawrence gets there, the whole village is having their annual harvest festival, full of more obscure games and rituals that probably never had any foundation in reality, but I'll try to break it down for you.

The people cut all the wheat, and the person to cut the last batch of wheat raises it over their head, howling like they also sliced off one of their own fingers.

This year's unlucky citizen is Chloe.  Tough luck, honey.

The person then has to flee in terror from their own neighbors, all of whom are armed with sickles and other sharp and curved implements.

 Get back here, BITCH!

The townspeople band together, driving the poor soul into a large barn, then lock them inside, despite pitiful and desperate pleas for help, and the frail, weeping resistance put up by the victim.

With nothing to eat except the raw wheat, the accused will be doomed to live out the rest of their unhappy lives locked in that God-forsaken barn.

When they have reached the deepest abyss of Hell (the ring saved specially for pagans), they will sell their soul to the Devil and be returned to the land of the living to exact revenge on all the mortal beings that condemned it to the barn.

Lawrence came back at the wrong time of the year.

The End.

... Actually, it's just a game which is based in the idea that Horo is in that stalk of wheat, and thus must be imprisoned to keep it from escaping.  So they lock it, along with the unlucky soul in a barn for a week.  Not much better, yeah?

Lawrence finishes up his trading with the town elder or whatever (Chloe's balding father), then heads out again.

He stops by a river for the night, and as he comes back from the riverside, he notices something stirring under the tarp.  Now remember that this is the age of devils and possessions.  PAGANS, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE (literally).

So Lawrence reaches around and closes his hand around the cool handle of his... what is that, a butter knife?

Why yes it is!  Big, bad Lawrence is traveling through a land crawling with the previously stated devils and possessed, God-less souls, not to mention bandits, mercenaries, wild dogs and wolves, and the worst; other merchants, and he's got a 3-inch dagger riding on his ass.

That dude should be packing no less than an 18-inch machete with a serrated edge for close-combat purposes!  If I was him, I'd also mount one of those miniguns on the back of my cart.  Maybe just upgrade to the Humvee.

When he throws back the tarp, he finds the furs that he had originally, and a little something extra; a woman.

HOLY SHIT!!

"Obviously a ridiculously cute girl with a cosplay fetish", thinks Lawrence.

When the mysterious wolf-girl sits up and lets loose a howl that would kill anyone of uncertain heart condition, Lawrence starts to get a little bit suspicious.

The girl then says this.

... Horo.

... cute name.

... GAYAHHHH!

She tells him that she's the wolf god... dess that is responsible for the harvest in the village of Pasroe.  Hot Damn!!  That's quite a stroke of luck!  Then she says this.

How could you say no?

So Lawrence goes and acts like an asshole, waving his excuse for a knife around and demanding a show like she's some kind of carnival side-show.  So she kills him.  Well, with his intelligence and sensitivity quotient, she'd probably been better off with someone else.

Turns out she's not lying, and nearly tears his head off when she eats some wheat and her arm practically explodes into a wolf paw.  Lawrence totally overreacts to the situation and falls off his cart, and lies in the grass cringing.

When he stands up again, Horo is gone.

Too scared to stay out in the wild any more, Lawrence goes running back to Pasroe's mayor's house... thing, and spends about ten minutes actually there.

During the rest of the night, he is hijacked by Chloe, who's managed to escape from her would-be prison to pick him up for a date, and he is visited by Horo again (still naked, woot!).

Horo presses her original question, and tells Lawrence her final destination; The North.  Damn, that's helpful.  Actually, she's going to Yoitsu in the North.  Practically no better because nobody's ever heard of it.

Thinking, thinking, thinking...

Reject Horo and you...

1. Piss off a God...

2. ... and a cute one at that.

3. Loose any and all benefit her godly powers would bring.

4.  Not have the excuse to travel with a cute girl for an unspecified and possibly indefinite period of time.

Accept Horo and you...

1. Get the opposite of everything up there.

2. And a brand new toaster-oven.

... YES, OF COURSE!

What are you, BRAIN DAMAGED?!  Say YES!

So Lawrence finally makes the right decision and agrees.

 So Lawrence and Horo set off on their difficult and difficult to understand journey.  Good luck to them!

Oh, and all the action that Lawrence was probably ever going to get was in the first episode.  Naked Horo and inciting Chloe.  And this question...

HOLY SHIT, YES!

Once again, both you and I are either reading too much into this question or are just misunderstanding it, but damn!

The plot line was awesome!  With one slight problem.  It's really fucking difficult to understand.  You'll undoubtedly have to pause/rewind several dozen times just get the general idea on a couple of episodes.  So the real reason that I'm not going into depth on the plot is because I don't have the energy.  I don't think I ever will.

The character development was well rounded, and I didn't feel that I had any question by the time the series was over.  As you could probably, I'm a big Horo fan.  She's one of my all-time favorite characters.

Horo's got serious insecurity and unloved feelings.

UNTRUE!!

She's all alone since the village has converted to Christianity in return for better harvesting methods.  Ha!  They can get all the threshers they want, but when nothing grows, you'll just have to shove those new tools, won't ya?!

Lawrence is... pretty much a vaguely good-willed, slightly business-smart... incompetent fool as represented by his only facial expressions.

Slight Worry

Downright Fear

He hardly ever actually looks like he has any kind of plan or direction, let alone a cool side.  He needs like... an eyepatch or something to at least give him the "Fuck Off" vibe that he so desperately needs because he's just this side of gutless.  But to be fair, he's got strength when he needs it.  Unfortunately, he doesn't have the brains to use that strength to save someone else like, I dunno... Horo, when she actually needs it (that's twice that I can recall right now).

The drawing and animation style were seriously different from the manga.  I don't quite now how to explain it... the manga was a lot more like... soft and chibi-ish.  Since there was no action for a good part of it, the animation frame-rate around the action sequences were good.

Again, stick with the Japanese version.  In this case, it's a little less realistic, but hell, have you ever heard of a place called Pasroe, let alone Yaitsu?

The music was better than half of the stuff that I've seen so far.  Good intro number, but the outro was sung in English for... bad reasons.  I don't know the real reason, but whatever it was, it was a bad reason.

Personally, I think it's a bad idea for anyone whose not a native English speaker to sing a song in English, but it's a strange... I guess obsession with the Japanese.  Using English words in situations where a Japanese word would just sound so much better.

Ookami to Koushinryou Minitheatre 

Coming up next!

Gankutsuo: The Count of Monte Cristo

Mugen no Juunin

Name: Mugen no Juunin
Type: Television Show
Episodes:  13
Rating: TV-14
Runtime Per Episode: 30 min
Director: Mashimo Koichi
Produced By Production I.G. and others
Year Produced: 2009

Otherwise known as Blade of the Immortal, Mugen no Juunin was originally a manga by the mangaka Samura Hiroaki, who is renown for his art style (kind of sketchy pencil looking drawings, very cool).

The anime follows the quest for revenge by Rin, the only surviving daughter of the Mutenichi-Ryuu dojo, and the last member of her family free.

Her father was murdered by a band of dojo-smashers (a term that I just made up, and since I don't have the patience to figure out the correct term, I'll just explain this one.  Dojo Smashers are people who go around and slaughter members of a dojo or sword style and eventually destroy the dojo or style.  The end.).  Her mother also fell into the hands of these men and was taken away from Rin.

Two years later, Rin is on looking for her mother and for revenge on her father's murderer... only one problem.  She can't beat her opponents by herself.

So she seeks the aid of Manji, a mysterious warrior with... a swastika kimono.
Okay, yeah, I know.  It's not a swastika.
... Well, it is, but it started off as a symbol for any number of things in any number of more Eastern religions before it was adopted by the Nazi party.

Either way, Rin convinces Manji to go on this epic quest with her to hunt down all those who have done her wrong... a time-consuming and dangerous quest to say the least.

That's... a foot, right?

The plot line and the characters were quickly defined within their first appearances, especially since many of the character's weren't alive by the next episode.  The main thing that I noticed about this anime was that there was a lot of indecision.  You'll see what I mean, right around episode 12, things get really confusing because they start to repeat things, but then argue with themselves, then... you get the idea.

I liked the animation style.  I was a fan of Samura Hiroaki after I read Mugen no Juunin, and I remember reading online forums discussing worries about the anime because people were afraid that the art wouldn't be true to Samura Hiroaki's style, but it didn't seem that weird.

Oh, and the reason that I like the animation was mostly for the battle scenes.  They were a lot more... physically possible and accurate than normal samurai-sword slashers.  It was cool to see the hero stumble around a little, and what's more was that the weight seemed to be in the right place.
You may or may not know what I'm talking about, but in a lot of fighting shows, the character's are like... anti-grav, it's kind of epic.

I've done a little bit of martial arts and... you could call it fencing, but you'd probably be wrong.  Even though I'm pretty comfortable with my weight and balance and stuff, I can't do half of the normal shit that fighters pull out in those animes, it's just not humanly possible.  If it is. then please make a video of yourself, post it, and send me the address... and tell me how to do it.

I strongly encourage you to watch the Japanese version only, but if you don't feel like dealing with subtitles, then I suppose the English version wasn't too bad, but in Japanese, it makes a lot more sense.  I mean, you'd laugh your ass off at a white samurai, I know I would.

In my opinion... the music was bad.  I don't care much for wailing, and the songs that were sung in the intro, outro, as well as those songs that geishas play with the shamisen were all like that, so I wasn't having a great time.  I know this isn't technically music, but I also don't get haikus at all.

Even though the anime was decent, I'd still say you should just read the manga.  It's an experience, not to mention freaking long.  The anime doesn't even cover to the end of the first couple of books (roughly, I download mostly, since I'm too cheap to afford the bound books) as it is, but I understand that they will producing a second season, so that's good.  Even though it wasn't the best, I'll be watch it.

Mugen no Juunin Minitheatre

Coming up next!

Ookami to Koushinryou

Midori no Hibi

Name: Midori no Hibi
Type: Television Show
Episodes: 13 (Containing Suspected OVA)
Rating: Teen (Male), Any Age (Female)
Runtime Per Episode: 24 min
Director: Kobayashi Tsuneo
Produced By Bandai and others
Year Produced: 2004

... Otherwise known as Midori Days, Midori no Hibi was inspired by the manga of the same name by the mangaka (God, woot); Inoue Kazurou, who is also the author of some of my personal favorites (in case you couldn't tell) like Aoi Destruction and Ai Kora, and a couple others that look interesting, but I am too lazy to translate for myself.

Either way, this anime is the first that I am doing that was (more of less) directly translated from the manga.
And... it held up really well!
I don't know if Inoue Kazurou consulted on this or not (since it didn't credit him or anything), but it was still really funny (to me, there were apparently a lot of complaints about Aoi Destruction, but then again, it might be either an acquired sense of humor... or just inspired lunacy).

I'm not sure how to tell this without spoiling it, but the story's essentially a slice-of-life comedy about a delinquent (with a good heart, obviously) who's reputation has built itself around his "Devil's Right Hand".  The man's name is... Sawamura Seiji.

Surprisingly accurate depiction of a beginner...

... 20?

As you can tell, Seiji has been having some "Lady Problems"... he can't get one (that's about the worst Lady Problem).  Girls are afraid of him because... well... he might pull a shiv and shank them.  Either way, it is his fate, no, his curse never to have a girlfriend... ever.

Teens

Twenties

Thirties

Retirement Home

That's pretty bad.  All he's ever wanted is to have a girlfriend, live a normal, happy school life, and buy a scooter...

But the fates and the common sense of every Japanese school girl are conspiring against him.  Poor guy.
Little does he know that there is a girl out there who understands his poor, tortured soul... well, not for long.

How rude.

Yes, you've seen it now, the secret behind the whole story.  He finally got himself a girlfriend!  And she's always close at hand, literally!
I hope you'll excuse the poor joke/pun/whatever, but it's true, a dream come true!  He should be happy, right?  Well... maybe not, but still, what a turn of events!  Just thinking about it, you shouldn't have been able to see this one coming!

Now Seiji has to get used to having a girl (Kasugano Midori) who's totally into him... as his right hand.

 

What'll happen to his delinquent life?!  Well, it'll have to keep going because he's built up such a reputation that everyone wants a piece of him now!  An unfortunate situation, you might say.

The slice-of-life comes from the fact that the anime is mostly about their daily life together, but with the underlying main story of trying to get Midori back into her original body (which is sitting in bed all this time with a mysterious illness), and trying to get Seiji better understood by his classmates, with some classic Inoue twists, turns, fan service, and plenty of...

Full...

Frontal...

Nudity.

... I am so getting banned.

... Um... Yeah, okay, could you... stop staring and let's... get back to the re... view...

... Okay!

Since I read the manga before the anime (as I am want to do, whatever this means, since the literal translation does not make any sense), I had a hard time figuring out how to write about the character development.  It was... good?

The characters remained true to the manga, I can say that much without a doubt.  Each character was allowed enough flash-back time to make their point, and the relationship between Seiji and Midori was integrated into their characters over the course of the show.

The art style was awesome, as a huge fan of Inoue Kazurou, I also came to appreciate his classics.

And my friend's personal favorite...

Okay, granted.  The second one isn't exactly and original, but it's still a classic and funny as hell.

The animation was smooth and flowed well, there were even a couple of fight sequences that were pretty good.

More importantly, there were also some sequences that weren't technically action, but rather random mayhem, which I can't display here because I don't have the skill.  Basically, most of them are in the first episode during house-call by the gangsta' girls (is this in correct form?).
There's also an epic car-punching sequence in there.

The Japanese version of this anime was really good, and the English one wasn't so hot, as usual.  Actually, you should probably just stick to listening to the Japanese acting exclusively unless I tell you that the English version is worth a try, which isn't very often.

The music wasn't bad, but it wasn't quite to my tastes.  I'm more into rock music than what appears to be the norm for anime intro and outro music.

To put it as simply as I can, watch this anime, and then read the manga... or the other way around.  Inoue Kazurou is awesome at what he does, plain and simple, and even if it is a take-off of Love Hina, Ai Kora is the best manga I've read in a while.  Too bad nobody's WORKING ON IT!
I'm pretty sure that I still like the manga better, but the best thing about this anime is that it didn't hurt my view of the manga at all, and it actually brought up some stuff that I never thought about before I watched the anime, cool, yeah?
Oh, and this is one of the main reasons that still I like the manga better...

'Nuff said, x2.

Something gets lost in translation, I'm afraid.

If you've agreed with anything that I've written here, then you should check it out... even if you're an adult who doesn't give a crap about anime and manga and shit for teenagers like that, you should still read it.
Just do it!

Midori no Hibi Minitheatre

Coming up next!

Mugen no Juuin!

DNA²

Name: DNA²
Type: Television Show
Episodes: 12
Rating: Any Age Able to Handle Underwear
Runtime Per Episode: 26 min
Director: Sakata Jun'ichi
Produced By Bandai and others
Year Produced: 1994

In the future, there is an overpopulation problem.  "Yeah, what else is new?" is probably what you're thinking right now, but fortunately, I have good news for you!  It's not your fault!
It's his fault!  That one in the middle, middle right, dammit!

His name is Momonari Junta, and he's your average high schooler... well not exactly, I mean, if he was, then what would be the point of an anime?  Has there ever been an anime with a truly normal character with normal, common surroundings?  If there has been one, then was it any good?
Actually, now that I think about it, Junta is about as far away from a normal guy as you could get without having a sex change and moving to another planet.

For a start, he reminds me of SSJ4 (and just what the hell does the "J" stand for?  Super Saiyan... what?!) Goku.

Junta

 

Goku

... that's okay, you don't have to see it.  I actually don't really see it just looking at it like this, but when you see the anime (if you want to), you'll see the DBZ... almost blatant ripoffs...

 

   

Junta also can't talk to girls.  At all.  And he really has trouble in more... intimate situations.

Cause and...

... Effect.  Note the chunks there.

Granted, that would be a rather awkward situation for anyone not used to it, but... damn.

Either way, you're probably still confused at how this... pathetic soul could be responsible for the overpopulation problem.  I mean, the dude can barely stand to look at a woman wearing a swimsuit, how could he possibly make one pregnant?

I'll tell you how!  When he gets shot by a time-traveling woman from the future, sent back in time to stop the "Mega Playboy" (that's supposed to be him, by the way)!  Major gear shift, yeah?  Well, I'm sorry, but I couldn't think of any better way to introduce it, so here I am.

Her name is Karin, and she's from the future... and she's got a crazy hairdoo, but then again, all of them do.  She also reminded me of something out of DBZ.  Probably because of the outfit.  It kind of reminds me of something that I saw in one of the shows.  In case you haven't figured it out yet, I haven't ever actually watched a whole episode of DBZ.

Anyway, she was sent back in time to prevent Junta from becoming the Mega Playboy by shooting him with a DNA bullet.

As far as I can figure this one, it's a new invention that ultimately destroys a DNA strand, or something along these lines.  But... wouldn't that kill you?  I'm not a geneticist, so I'll just go with it.

Only problem is that when she actually shoots him with it, he turns into the Mega Playboy (what a good name).  That's right.  Got the wrong bullet.  Now that she's turned the total pansy into the unstable Mega Playboy, Karin has to stay behind in the past to try and find a way to keep him from impregnating 100 women.

Character development was... practically non-existent.  A little harsh, but this wasn't the greatest anime that I've seen.  I like it over a couple of others, and it's funny enough to keep my interested (especially in the end), but the story and character personality and depth were kind of lacking.

As I understand it, this was adapted from a manga by Katsura Masakazu (who also did Video Girl AI.  I didn't read it (though I found it once and was planning on reading it, but I ultimately didn't)), but now I kind of wish that I had.  Then maybe I would have understood it better, or at least appreciated it more.  Maybe I'll read it now and try watching it again.

I've already said everything that I can about the art style, and that is that it really reminds me of DBZ.  But when you think about it, most animes in that time period had the same look to them.  I don't know if Toriyama Akira went with the flow of the age, or if the art style followed him, but there you go.

It had some classical moments in it, which were good.  I haven't seen a good sledgehammer in a long time.

BITE IT, ASSHOLE!

And I don't want you to think that this anime was without attractive qualities beyond the sledgehammer...

That was from the first episode... like, within the first five minutes!  Damn.

The Japanese version of this anime was pretty good.  I agreed with all of the character choices, and I especially liked Tominaga Miina who was Karin.  Then again, I liked Karin hands down.

The English version... don't bother with it.  I don't know how to explain it, but there's something about lip-syncing to Japanese words is really hard for English-speakers, even more so when you don't know what you're doing, which is most everybody (especially back then).

Decent intro and outro music, if you like slightly depressing songs (though the intro wasn't that slow).

Since I was kind of out of my depth for this anime, I don't really know what to say about it.  If you're not a big fan of the old/classic style of animation and drawing, you should probably move on, but if you prefer stuff from this age, then you might want to watch it.  I don't know if this is good or bad by the standards of the time in which it was produced (since I'm not a big fan of that style), so I can't tell you how good this is in comparison, so you'll just have to watch and figure it out for yourself, sorry.

I also don't know if you should read the manga and watch this anime, or if you should do only one, or if you should do neither.  All in all, I didn't consider watching this a waste of time, and it didn't give me an annoyance headache, so it was pretty good, just not outstanding.  Make you own decisions, I'm sick of being asked to do everything for you, dammit!

DNA² Minitheatre

Coming up next!

Midori no Hibi!