CX anime reviews

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Re: CX anime reviews

Postby CX » Wed Sep 07, 2011 4:58 pm

Yukikaze
(5 episode OVA)

This is one of the better shows I've watched. While it's superficially about humans fighting it out with aliens and flying cool airplanes that aren't very aerodynamic, it also touches on a few other things that are actually somewhat contemporary.

The most obvious one is how this conflict is treated on the home front. Initially, when a mysterious portal forms in Antarctica and some aliens (eventually called the JAM) randomly attack an Antarctic research base, people all over the world are shocked and the world rises up to respond against this new threat. The UN manages to pull together and coordinate a military response that successfully pushes the alien invaders back through their portal. A special military force is then assembled to take the fight to the other side of the portal, in order to keep the aliens from ever making it back to Earth, or so the story goes (and yeah, it's obvious where they were going with that, too). But after the war moves to the other side of the portal and is no longer obviously visible, people start pretending that the war never even existed, to the point that when an author writes a book about the ongoing war, it's popular and sells a lot of copies, because everyone says it's a well thought out science fiction novel. When some pilots from the other side of the portal briefly reappear on Earth, they're treated somewhat coldly by the naval force gathered to keep an eye on the portal, even though these pilots just saved a lot of their asses. In other words no one wants the conflict to be there anymore, so much so that they pretend it doesn't exist, and they shun any reminders that it does. Fortunately at least some of them manage to pull their heads out of their asses, but by then the JAM are stepping things up.

The other contemporary issue touched on is the introduction of AI controlled combat aircraft. Not everyone is sold on the idea, and in fact the weaknesses of AI-controlled aircraft are shown quite often. However, the series focuses on the idea of a pilot and an AI developing a kind of bond that makes the both of them together practically unbeatable. The suggestion seems to be that we shouldn't be afraid of technology, but rather than make it do everything itself, we should develop a kind of symbiotic relationship with it.

For me, though, the interesting part was the conflict with the JAM. They were tough to beat as it was, but during the part of the conflict that the OVA covers, they've developed some new strategies which made things a bit more interesting. Basically this involved the same old cliché of "conquered from within", because as we find out, the JAM have figured out how to imitate humans and their aircraft. This is also the point where things tend to get a bit confusing, because not only is it hard to find out who may have been replaced with an alien, but the show seems to skip around a bit and it almost feels like I missed something at a few points. In one instance it appears that the main character, Lt. Fukai, his friend, Maj. Bukhar, and the fighter they're flying in (Yukikaze) have been replaced by copies, since they are attacked and it appears beaten ... except they weren't, apparently.

There's plenty of action, and it's all quite visually interesting. They even managed not to go completely overboard with things like having impossible missile barrages ... at least until the end. The mad dash back to the portal so all the remaining humans can escape and close the portal behind them is naturally the biggest battle, but this is also where things tend to go way over the top, at least as far as the attacking JAM forces. Mostly this comes from the fact that the writers have essentially set the JAM up so that they are impossible to beat, because they have millions of these tiny aircraft that can literally swarm the human aircraft and rip them to shreds. Yet somehow the humans win, spontaneously developing some new laser weapons, just because, apparently. I'd say the ending is somewhat unsatisfying because of that, and because the short epilogue doesn't really do justice to the massive battle, it just sort of ends and wraps everything up quickly without telling us much.

As for the characters, none of them really stood out that much. Lt. Fukai and his plane, Yukikaze, are both stereotypically "mysterious". At points both of them come out a little, the plane even admitting to being afraid a couple of times, but for the most part they are stoic, pragmatic, and do pretty much whatever they want while getting away with all of it because they are just so awesome at killing aliens. Hell, they even figure out that the JAM are replacing humans for everyone so the plan we see come into fruition at the end of the OVA can be developed. Major Bukhar is supposed to be a kind of buddy commander to Fukai, I think, but they tend to go over the top with him. At one point he's actually pretty pathetic. It was just hard to like him at all because he tended to either be a whiny loser or a prick. Pretty much all the other characters were just kind of weird and until the end kind of hard to figure out.

Probably the most interesting "character" was the JAM. Their nature and purpose was always shrouded in mystery, and while the human characters made some guesses about them, the JAM are simply left as being the mysterious creatures (or creature) that they (or it) are. The idea that the entire planet and all of the JAM were in fact one single entity was especially intriguing to me, as was the idea that the war was just its way of studying humanity and testing itself.

Overall it's pretty fair to say that I was fairly impressed by this OVA. It's not perfect by any means, but it's still pretty good and I'd definitely recommend it. 9/10
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Re: CX anime reviews

Postby CX » Thu Sep 08, 2011 4:32 pm

Zipang
(26 episode series)

This series was both good and frustrating, frustrating mostly because of how it ended.

The story revolves around a modern Aegis destroyer named Mirai, which gets sucked back in time to just after the Battle of Midway. While in an American show the natural impulse would probably be to have the futuristic ship and crew get into the action (Final Countdown comes to mind), here they decide to try as far away from everything that they can because they're afraid not only of any unforeseen consequences to the timeline, but also of the implications of picking a side. Displaced from their own time, they have no allies, not even the Japanese, because as it is constantly pointed out, they aren't like the Imperial Japanese of this era. Unfortunately for them, they find themselves getting more and more drawn into the war thanks to finding and rescuing an Imperial Japanese officer, and they end up getting involved in some very big ways.

If you're thinking that this will be an epic adventure with awesome action scenes, well, prepare to be disappointed. This series definitely comes down on the cerebral side of things, making even the action scenes full of dialog, whether it's to agonize about having to kill in order to survive, or to philosophize about the future and politics. This isn't all bad, and in fact I found most of it to be quite interesting. The problem is that they went so fat with it that it made the action scenes stale and drawn out.

The series tends to focus on the Mirai's first officer, Lt. Comm. Kadomatsu, and the Imperial Officer he rescues from a crashed seas plane, Lt. Comm. Kusaka. Basically the crew decides to let Kusaka read through the ship's library to find out what he's in for, but as it turns out Kusaka is a pretty slick individual who ends up basically stabbing them in the back, though it's not entirely clear that this is what he intended. Kusaka is probably the most interesting and the most frustrating character of the series in that it's pretty hard to figure him out. Toward the end of the series he makes it clearer what his actual ambitions are, but things involving him tend to stay somewhat ambiguous.

I have to say that I also found the politics and discussion about time travel and its possible consequences pretty interesting, too. While I wish that there had been a bit more about how the Mirai managed to travel back in time and how they might get back, the series never really went there, focusing instead on the philosophy of time travel and how one might manage to inadvertently cause themselves to never have been born. Their agonizing over even the smallest bit of interference from them might cause them to fade out of existence like Marty McFly is thrown for a loop though toward the end of the series, when a crew member's father is run over and killed as a child. By the end of the series, though, the crew has pretty much decided that they are stuck in the past and are just trying to stay as far away from everybody as possible, for fear that the Mirai will be taken from them and used in the war. There's actually quite a bit of complexity that goes into making that decision, but it would make this review a lot longer if I tried to explain it all.

At the end of the series, there is still quite a bit going on, Kusaka's plans and actions still somewhat shrouded in mystery. And that leads me to the biggest disappointment of the series: it just ends. The last episode doesn't come off as a series finale so much as a season finale that ends on a cliff hanger. I know the real reason for this is because the manga hadn't been finished yet, but since there hasn't been any more news on this since about 2005 as far as I can tell, I'm more than a little frustrated by the fact that this series might go unfinished.

So while I would say that this is a pretty good anime to watch if you're into a more cerebral show that combines history and sci-fi, just know going in that the series is actually incomplete. 7/10.
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Re: CX anime reviews

Postby CX » Thu Sep 08, 2011 4:36 pm

Whelp, that's all for a while. Hope you enjoyed them.
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Re: CX anime reviews

Postby Distracted » Fri Sep 09, 2011 1:22 am

Thanks for all of your effort. 8)
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Re: CX anime reviews

Postby CX » Fri Sep 09, 2011 3:41 am

Durarara!!
(26 episode series)

Brought to you by the same company who brought you Baccano!, this is pretty much the same type of show, only not quite as scattershot in its storytelling. The opening titles even helpfully name all of the show's many characters for you, and show you relevant scenes from previous episodes it's going to pick up one or more of its many storylines from. The only catch was, for me at least, it was easier to keep track of the storylines than the characters, although part of that may be because when I watched this, I was on some pretty serious pain medication to help me recover from some surgery. Of course in Baccano! I could never keep track of all the characters either.

The story mostly follows Mikado Ryūgamine, seemingly an average high school student from the country who's just moved to Ikebukuro in Tokyo, Japan in order to attend an academy one of his childhood friends is at, along with a female dullahan named Celty Sturluson, who's in Japan looking for some head-I mean, her head, which was stolen from her some 20 years ago. She now exists in Ikebukuro as an urban legend – the black, headless rider who rides a black motorcycle at night with no light and no sound, except when it brays like a horse. There's also a cluster-frak of other characters, including some of who are larger than life, like the guy who can toss vending machines around like toys and punch a guy out of his clothes. There's also a group of four otaku (including on yoai fan girl) who seem to have not much else to do but sit around in a riced out van all day.

I'm not going to lie – when I started watching this show, while I got all the meta and referential humor in it, I just wasn't really interested in Mikado and his friends, or in his fish out of water story. It wasn't until the show focused more on Celty that I got more interested, though to be fair, a lot of the characters also had something to like about them. And while there is a story, this show seems to mainly be about having fun. Not that that's a bad thing, exactly.

The story itself was about how basically everyone had some secret about them and how everything intertwined together, mostly due to the effort of an information broker. He ended up in possession of Celty's head, and he had convinced herself that she and other dullahans were actually the same as valkyries from Norse mythology, or to but it another way, like a grim reaper. He was convinced that the only way to make Celty's head wake up so he could see what happened was to manipulate the many different parties in Ikebukuro into conflict. So then along the way we learned things about the different characters and about the different groups involved, such as the dollars gang and the yellow scarves gang, that were twists on what was initially told to the audience about them. The narrative tended to set all of this up and reveal it in a very round-about way, which I have to admit kept things fairly interesting to watch, though this could also be a bit frustrating. Thankfully only one episode went out of its way to tell its story out of chronological order. Of course a side-effect of having so much going on is that, like so many other anime, there was a wealth of expositionary narration just to explain everything to the audience. This was somewhat offset by making the narration from the limited perspective of some of the different characters, but I've never been a huge fan of narration.

As for the characters, they and the large amount of humor are pretty much what make this series. There are way too many characters for me to have any real hope of going into, so about the best I can tell you is that none of them were really bad in the sense that I wish they hadn't been in the series. There was a creepy woman who loved her brother in, you know, that way, and even a magnificent bastard who loved to manipulate everyone, nut no one I really hated. Actually most of them had a humorous side of them as part of the show basically just being about having fun with itself. Kind of like how Celty, essentially an invincible eldritch abomination, was afraid of some unusually aggressive motorcycle cops. Probably the only annoyance I got was from Mikado and the large-breasted high school girl he had a crush on, and how their little ... relationship was basically the same as every other socially awkward "romantic comedy" type thing you usually see in the moe crap that's been making up most of the anime coming out of Japan lately.

So while this was a fairly fun anime to watch in many ways, I wouldn't really count it among my favorites either. It's worth watching at least once, just for the fun of it, but I'm guessing only the more seasoned anime fans would like this one, because people who are new to anime probably wouldn't get a lot of the humor. 7/10.
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Re: CX anime reviews

Postby CX » Sun Sep 25, 2011 8:54 pm

Gasaraki
(25 episode series)

This is another military drama series, for the most part anyway, with a heavy focus on giant mecha. I can't help but reiterate how silly the idea of a giant humanoid robot being physically piloted is, despite all the technobabble explanations and excuses given for the "Tactical Armor system" in this series. They try to claim something like this would be as fast as any rapid armor by running, but as an engineer I can't really see that being the case with such a design. The other informed abilities, such as being highly maneuverable and the like are also pretty bullshit, simply because of the size of these machines and the fact that having a humanoid structure would actually tend to limit how well they can move around. And as if to prove my point, for the most part that's exactly how these TA's are presented – as lumbering giant robots, slowly and sluggishly moving around, except of course when the plot needs them to move around really fast so they can evade and take out traditional armor. I guess if there's one positive thing about this, though, it's that in this case the giant robots actually have their weapons built into them, instead of having ridiculously huge rifles or pistols they have to physically carry around in their robot hands.

Really the only reason I'm bothering to bitch so much about it is because of how much the story revolves around these giant robots and how supposedly awesome they are, even though the story itself really isn't about them. Instead, it follows protagonist Yushiro Gowa, member of the large family owned military industrial company Gowa Industries. He's being used as a tool to bring back some kind of ancient beast/weapon known as the title name drop, which he can apparently do by doing some kind of weird ancient traditional Japanese dance, or just by being pissed off enough. Initially the series tries to build up a lot or mystery about him, along with another test subject just like him named Miharu, who pulls double duty as the love interest. She's being used by an international mega-corporation called Symbol, which starts wars for fun and profit, apparently. Fortunately, both Yushiro and Miharu develop personalities as the series progresses, or I might not have made it through this series.

So as I mentioned, the giant robots play a big part in this series. We're shown the TA system being tested out by a small group of JSSDF officers in Japan, with everything being finished up just in time for a war to start in some made up Middle Eastern company run by a Castro wannabe. Basically the US picks a fight over what they believe to have been some kind of WMD test in this country, though everyone important to the narrative knows that this is actually the same kind of summoning that Yushiro Gowa was trying to do early in the series by doing his weird dance. This ends up turning into a UN sanctioned, NATO backed invasion of the small fake country of Belgistan. *snerk* Anyway, the Gowa family manages to arrange for their new TA's to make their debut in combat by going to this country, after the US-led invasion forces have been devastated by some other giant robots. These are Symbol's, which they call "Fakes", and they're doing basically the same thing Gowa is.

I'll say right up front that this is basically the most interesting part of the story for me, mostly because it's a fairly straight-up military drama with some mystery and intrigue thrown in for fun. While it's obvious that Gowa isn't on the up-and-up itself, Symbol is the big bad mega-corporation pulling the strings, with their fingers in basically everything. Symbol actually has US military assets, as well as military assets in other parts of the world, which they try to use to capture Yushiro. The Belgistan campaign is also where the JSSDF group that Yushiro is a part of has more of a role, which was nice because they were a fairly interesting group of characters. Yushiro and Miharu also come face to face here, first in combat, and then in secret as they try to meet up and escape capture by Symbol. This is also where Yushiro stops being a boring automaton, doing everything his family wants him to do.

Of course, Miharu ends up being recaptured so there aren't too many questions that actually get answered yet. The action then moves back to Japan, where there's a conspiracy to overthrow the Japanese government and install what certainly sounds like a fascist government led by a very old-fashioned douchebag. This guy only dresses traditionally, and carries a katana around with him, which he actually used to blind himself because he couldn't stand to look at modern Japan. Everything this guy said led me to believe he was another bad guy and that he was going to complicate life for Yushiro and our band of JSSDF heroes, and to be frank even though the story took another direction, I still view him as a bad guy, who really was no better than Symbol. Really the only difference is that Symbol wanted to take over the world (Of course!), ol' scar face only wanted to take over Japan and rule it with an iron fist based on the rigid, supposedly ancient ideals that the earlier fascist government made up to control its people back in the 1930s, all so he could get rid of the foreigners in Japan, basically, and to get the Japanese people to give up such decadence as personal wealth and self-determination. Oh yeah, later on, this guy gets made out to be a good guy, but at least before the half-way point of the series this was looking like a fairly interesting drama of sorts, even with the little jabs here and there at the US.

Things really looked up as the truth started to come out about Yushiro, and he grew a pair and ran off with Miharu, who had been captured in an attempt to infiltrate Gowa's research facilities. The two of them do make a good run, and find out the truth of their pasts, but this is actually where the story started to go downhill for me. Coincidentally, this is also where the series wasted a few episodes showing us a revised history of 11th century Japan, with many of the same characters as earlier incarnations of themselves. Naturally, they all looked exactly the same. This is also where the series really started to grind an axe against the US, which was apparently being a douche to Japan for no reason other than that apparently Symbol wanted to, for reasons which were never really explained beyond taking over the world. And supposedly everything started out with the USDA, being the evil entity that it is, lying through its teeth in an official report claiming that grain harvests were way down. This set in motion a convoluted plan that scar face was going to try to take advantage of to meet his aims, and to allow the series to show the US acting as a terrorist force to attack Japan, you know, because. Oh, and this is also the point that scar face and his plan is made out to be in the right, probably because this is someone's fantasy. After all, so much of this series devotes itself to being fan service to traditional Japanese ideals going back to ye olde days of the samurai and such, supposedly. Really the best part of this was the way scar face repeatedly whipped his katana out and used it as an allegory for pretty much whatever the hell he wanted in order to justify his ambitions.

Speaking of ambitions, the Gowa family was naturally involved in this plan, which would see it put in place as a powerful military industrial complex that was the real power, in the shadows, pulling the strings, because that sounds awesome to some people, I guess. This is also where Gasaraki comes in as the eldest son seizes power of the company and family from his father, and plans to use scar face's plan of domination to his own ends in true bad guy fashion.

Anyway, as you might expect, while the US was totally going to go to war with Japan for no reason, the President apparently saw the light (read: made a sane decision) and called everything off, including the embargo on grain exports it had put in place for no reason, which is what had started everything off to begin with. Why the US had it in for Japan or how a ban on exports to the rest of the world was somehow specifically a slap in the face to Japan is never explained, everything just kind of resolves itself. Scar face suddenly sees the light himself (impressive for a blind guy), and after calling off his own plan to hurt the US economically, he commits suicide, in the way you might expect a self-declared samurai to do.

This leaves bad guy Gowa to carry out his own fiendish plans, which involve the use and abuse of his annoying little sister to bring on Gasaraki and give him the ultimate power (TM). This is also where all that time wasted in medieval Japan comes to bite the series in the ass, because everything is resolved at the last minute and there is no real closure. I guess the fun part here was the obvious rip-off of the last couple of episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion through the use of abstract imagery and live action footage mixed in with still imagery. You know, the stuff NGE did to try to look cool after their animation budget had run out before the series had a chance to end.

When it came to characters, Yushiro was kind of interesting, at least once the series got going. He finally started to resent the way his family was treating him and finally resisted it, though in my opinion he should have been a bit more active than just trying to run away, and later on just basically yelling at his oldest brother for being an evil bastard. Miharu got the short end of the stick as far as development was concerned, because while she was also starting to resist due to the treatment she was getting from Symbol, after the pointless trip to medieval Japan she basically lost all of her personality and basically became a defenseless damsel in distress that Yushiro had to rescue. I was also somewhat disappointed when it came to that group of JSSDF officers Yushiro was initially assigned to, because they also seemed kind of interesting, and they really deserved some fleshing out and development that they didn't really get. Actually, for some pretty long stretches we didn't even get to see any of them, until the series just decided to focus on them as part of the larger story, which unfortunately was executed in a somewhat sloppy fashion. So overall there was a kind of blandness when it came to the characters, and between that and the story, which was somewhat interesting, I found myself somewhat bored watching this series at times, especially during the middle portion.

I guess if there's anything positive left to say about the series, it's that it tried to make all the sides fairly ambiguous, rather than making everyone just straight-up evil for no reason. That was left to the oldest Gowa brother, and for an earlier ancestor who did pretty much the same stuff back in medieval Japan. The downside is that while parts of this series were interesting, large portions of it were pretty boring for me, and it actually became something of a chore to watch. It picked up more toward the end of the series, mostly because it had to in order to resolve the story, but even there it was pretty lacking, and we never get to see the fallout of what happened over the course of the series. So really, overall this is an okay series, not especially bad, but definitely not very good either. 6/10.
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Re: CX anime reviews

Postby CX » Fri Sep 30, 2011 4:41 am

Time of Eve
(6 episode OVA)

I'm honestly of mixed opinion about this short OVA. On the one hand, it actually is kind of touching, and I honestly would have liked to have seen the rest of the story play out. On the other hand, it was kind of corny, and I couldn't help but think of geeks who relate a lot more with the women on their computers than with the flesh and blood women in their lives. I mean, why else would you make androids who look like gorgeous women, right?

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Okay, to be fair, the story goes a lot deeper than that, and the image above isn't actually what it looks like, at least not as far as who the android is there. The story follows protagonist Rikuo Sakisaka as he comes to discover that his family's android maid has apparently been taking side trips to a small coffee shop named The Time of Eve. Here there's a rather unusual rule, which is that humans and androids are to be treated equally, which is stated on a large sign in the shop's entrance. This makes more sense when you realize that the vast majority of androids look just like human beings except for a holographic ring that floats above their heads as required by law for that every reason. Here, the rings are turned off which really means that it's hard to know who is human and who's a skin-job, to borrow from another sci-fi, especially since, for some reason, a lot of androids act very convincingly human. So basically the story arc deals with how Rikuo overcomes his own prejudices toward androids, and the mocking from society at large that this kind of liberal attitude usually entails.

In a lot of ways, I'm honestly not surprised that this is essentially a thinly-veiled allegory for bigotry – a time-honored tradition of sci-fi, really. In this case, it was even pretty well done. In others, I find myself disappointed that that's basically what this show boils down to. Here, androids are treated basically like crap, and the big twist that most "normal" people would reject is that these androids are fully capable of experiencing emotions and of essentially being human. Oh, and the few people who stick up for androids are lumped in with the kind of people who marry their hentai video games and given the label "android-ohalic." Now, I've written before about the ethics of creating what amounts to a slave race in an essay that can be found here. As you might guess, I find the idea pretty messed up. I've also already bitched about becoming too dependant on technology in my review of Summer Wars, so I won’t repeat my short rant about it. Of course, this show does kind of take a shot at people like me, in a way. But really what it comes down to is that I find this kind of allegory rather tiresome now, and I can't help but feel that a lot more interesting questions are being glossed over thanks to the bigotry issue.

The story focuses mostly on Rikuo and his home-bot Sammy as they learn more about each other and basically fall in love, or at least develop a kind of friendship. Or something. Rikuo's kind of a dick until he undergoes a kind of personal epiphany as the story progresses, actually. For me, though, the odd thing is in the kinds of questions being asked, which is to say not to many were asked about the nature of the androids and how they became self-aware and basically human, all while electing to not conduct a robot revolution and remain in servitude. So while Rikuo asked questions about how long Sammy has been going to that coffee shop, I would have been asking about how long androids have been self aware, and how it is that they came to be self aware, along with other questions relating to that. This is, in part, because I'm an engineer, so the idea of a machine becoming self aware is both interesting and somewhat disturbing, because really when you think about it, the androids in this OVA have no reason to be any more self-aware than what you’re reading this review on. Androids should only have software, not souls; they shouldn't get happy, they shouldn't get sad – they should just run programs. So for me, the idea that they could become self aware is the interesting part, which would then be more Ghost in the Shell territory I guess, or more like what Star Trek: The Next Generation did with Data. That's why I'm disappointed this show went the more standard bigotry route.

Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, the show kind of took a shot at people like me by making people who are uncomfortable with the idea of having android slaves, or with humanity becoming too dependant on technology this show's version of racists. It's a group of people that calls themselves an "Ethics Committee," and they seem to be a pretty powerful group, which dedicates itself to an anti-android/robot agenda. They hate places like The Time of Eve and can apparently have people arrested if they treat androids too much like people, too, thanks to the connections they apparently have. As it turns out, Rikuo's best friend, Masakazu Masaki, is the son of a top-ranking member of this committee. Oh, and Masakazu had been going with Rikuo to The Time of Eve up until Rikuo started to soften on the whole android issue. Naturally there's a reason behind this, and it goes back to something that happened during Masakazu's childhood, because even though his father hates them, he apparently has had a robot to help out around the house for a very long time. Of course, the Ethics Committee apparently already knew about The Time of Eve and has been spying on it for a while, so that kind of leave's the coffee shop's fate a bit up in the air at the end of the OVA.

I'd be more butthurt over the portrayal of the Ethics Committee as the stereotypical bigoted people who just don't understand the androids, but honestly I can't get very worked up about it. And while I was somewhat disappointed with this show, I still found it somewhat charming, and interesting enough that I'd totally watch a full series of it, presuming one got made. But this show was brought to you by the same people who brought you Pale Cocoon, so that probably isn't going to happen.

The show also had plenty of genuinely funny moments for all the others I didn't find particularly funny, like the reference to Blade Runner, and the part were a really old robot came into the place with Terminator vision and a soundtrack to match. There are also plenty of other references to other sci-fi works that I recognized and smiled at, like a robot named THX, for example.

The downside is that it also had some other things that tended to annoy me, like the whole "socially awkward male nerd and the women who love them" crap that's so horribly common these days in anime. That and the Moé. Like the 4-year-old girl who's brought to the coffee shop by her grandfather, erm, foster father, or whatever on a regular basis.

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She insists that she's a cat, too. Isn't she just cute enough to make you want to puke rainbows? Did I mention she's given free reign of the place and likes to steal things from people so they'll play with her?

Oh god, I can feel it coming on again... Must... resist... urge... to growl...

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"Get off my lawn..."

Okay, I guess I'm better now. ;)

Another thing that annoyed me a little was the simulated camera work. This isn't exactly something I would normally make a point of complaining about because, let's face it, it's anime, but they did the whole thing with bits of shakey-cam, and really wild pans and tilts, and it was a little hard in some ways for me to watch it because of that, mostly because it was a bit distracting from what was actually going on. It does look pretty good otherwise, though.

Anyway, as I might guess, I'm not exactly a huge fan or anything of this show, but I still found it somewhat interesting and worth watching. I would still recommend this OVA, even if I'm not exactly counting it among my favorites. I'm sure some of you wouldn't be bothered at all by the stuff I found annoying or disappointing, and each episode is only 15 minutes long, so it's not like you're out a lot of time by watching this. 7/10.
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Re: CX anime reviews

Postby CX » Mon Oct 03, 2011 4:43 am

Geneshaft
(13 episode series)

This was an okay-ish series, but mostly I found myself disappointed from the get go. The series starts off with an opening scroll not unlike Star Wars, explaining the background of the little universe the series is based in. Basically, there was some big war that nearly wiped out humanity, so the survivors formed an extremely authoritarian government and set about making the "perfect" society. Humans are now completely genetically engineered and are expressly made to fulfill a particular role within society. Emotions are likewise supposed to be limited, with love in particular being singled out for elimination. One would have thought emotions like anger and hatred would have been eliminated, but nope, just love. Oh, and they apparently decided to make the female to male ratio 9 to 1, because, well, sexism mainly. Yeah, they try to explain it all, but really it comes down to gender roles and stereotypes, not to mention an excuse to have a bridge staffed full of bridge bunnies under the command of one man.

Actually, some of the women have been specially bred to be completely emotionless in order to serve as "registers" to the few men that are around to keep track of what they say and do in order to make sure they don't get out of control, and to also do pretty much everything they are ordered to do – like a secretary and a political officer all in one. Based on the premise described in the beginning of the series, I would have thought that all of humanity would be more like the registers than what they ended up being shown as, which was essentially as normal human beings. So what could have been something like Gattaca meets Equilibrium kind of fell on its face, though to be fair that's mostly from the nonsensical charlie foxtrot way the series was executed in lieu of simply failing to live up to its own premise. While there were a few token "lessons" learned about the nature of humanity, and how abhorrent the idea of humanity becoming what to me would be a nightmare, for the most part it was like the series only paid lip service to that aspect, and wanted to be something else it just couldn't quite figure out.

On the one hand it was something more along the lines of 2001, which copied both themes and imagery from, but on the other, it was mostly a generic anime that wanted to be funny more than anything. It tried really, really hard at being funny too, between the insane token lolis and the stereotypical bitch fights between some of the female characters, but I was more annoyed than anything. Which is where the disappointment really comes in, because while it was obvious that this series was going to be kind of bad from the first scene on, it was also obvious that the series could have had potential in the hands of someone who took the subject matter more seriously. And on top of that, there was also a lot of good voice talent involved (speaking of the English dub) – it had both the Major and Togusa, and Spike and Jet even showed up to visit for an episode (that turned out to be basically pointless).

And just think, I haven't even gotten to the story or characters yet. ;)

The story follows protagonist Mika Seido, a teenaged girl who has just been assigned to a special mission to investigate a mysterious ring that's taken up an orbit around the moon. We're quickly introduced to some of the supporting characters, including Mika's best friend, Sofia Galgalim. But before any of them can do anything, there's a terrorist attack on the surface of the ring, which apparently provokes the ring to open fire on Earth, taking out part of the station Mika and Seido are on. Fortunately, the ship they were supposed to be posted to for their special mission was docked there, and they were able to get there before the station self destructed, presumably to prevent large debris from falling to Earth. But not before a touching scene where a character we never know and who I don't think even had a single line dies all to establish that Mika really hates her new captain, Hiroto Amagiwa, because she blames him for the death of one of her friends and is utterly convinced that he's a heartless bastard. To be fair, he and pretty much every other human in this show's universe are, though.

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Too bad the Master Chief wasn't there to solve this one for them.

On the orders of a character named Lord Sneak (not kidding), humanity's newest battleship, the Bilkis, springs into action and manages to destroy the ring, but not before the ring takes out a small fleet of warships which were actually there to prevent the Bilkis from attacking on its own initiative. Lord Sneak then sends the Bilkis to the Jupiter moon Ganymede, to check out some ruins that he says are related to the rings. As you might have guessed though, he's hiding things from the crew of the Bilkis, as well as from Earth's governing "Council of Elders". I mean, who would've thought with a name like Lord Sneak that the guy would be sneaking around behind the scenes putting his own plan in to action?

The vast majority of the series pretty much just involves the Bilkis, which looks like a giant sting ray, flying around space attacking and being attacked by more of the gold rings, with the help of its giant mecha, which they, for some reason, have named "the Shaft". I'll admit that it was kind of fun playing with that name in my head, and that it was a lot more funny than any of the actual humor the series attempted, which mostly involved an insane loli forcing some computer geeks to resolve the buggy operating system of the Shaft. Then there was the other part, which was mainly about how Mika really hated Hiroto, and another bitchy woman named Mir Lotus, who is supposedly genetically perfect. Oh, and then later she suddenly starts caring about both of these people she was supposed to have hated so much, and to be frank really deserved to be hated by any sane and decent human being.

There was also a throw-away episode involving the space shuttle Columbia being transported to the future with Spike and Jet on board, all so they could meet the Mika and the others and comment on how completely messed up humanity has become. Naturally they react the way any normal human probably would by attempting to fight back against it by taking over the Bilkis, so if nothing else they can see Earth one last time. And then a ring shows up to transport them away, and nothing ever really comes from it aside from the message Gattaca gave much better.

When it comes to the characters, I have to say that I really didn't care for the vast majority of them. Really the only one I liked who didn't disappear within the same episode they were introduced in was Mario Musicanova, voiced by Crispin Freeman in the English dub, mostly just because he was the most normal and well-adjusted character. He also had a lot more interesting about him than the main character because he had become fascinated with how humanity used to be, and with the concept of love. Most everyone else was either bitchy, psychotic, obnoxious, or otherwise annoying, so I really wish in some ways that there had been more done with Mario's character.

And as an aside, damn the names on this show are lame.

Worth mentioning, I guess, is the giant mecha. I can't help but laugh at the idea of a humanoid robot being used for space combat, but I suppose something this particular giant robot has going for it is that it looks kind of unique. The Wiki article describes it as being "crane-like", but really it reminds me a lot more of a willow tree. It also reminds me a little of the derelict ship the aliens came from in Alien, which I suppose makes sense given the way this show rips off- I mean, pays homage to other sci-fis, and that the Shaft was made using plans from a mysterious race of giants. It also lacks a traditional head and has two projections of some kind mounted to its shoulders. Oh, and it's named "the Shaft", and its main weapon could almost be seen as being like ejaculation. Just saying. ;)

Believe it or not, though, I can actually do a little more analysis of this show, because it actually managed to have a little depth. Well, it wasn't really deep, per say, because it was pretty obvious, but I guess it was a little deeper than most of the bad shows I've seen. I'm not an expert on Japanese culture by any means, but that seems to be what the show is getting at, because there's a heavy emphasis on people being forced to serve roles within society as a duty and responsibility. From what I understand of Japanese culture, there also seems to be an emphasis there on that. This is contrasted by the 21st century humans that show up, who are real big on things like individuality and being able to be whatever they want to be. They also just happen to be Americans, who are generally seen as being all for those kinds of things. I guess if nothing else, it was nice to see the US in a somewhat positive light in an anime.

I think the best thing this series has going for it, though, is that it's fairly short, at only 13 episodes long, so if you really want to check this series, out, you aren't wasting as much time with it as you would be with a 26 episode series. To be honest, that's the biggest reason I stuck it out through this entire series. It did manage to have a few moments that I actually found interesting, but for the most part I wouldn't really recommend this series. It isn't horrible, but it is kind of obnoxious and disappointing. 3/10.
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Re: CX anime reviews

Postby CX » Fri Oct 07, 2011 12:59 pm

So, anyone ever watch any of these? Dis, you ever finish Gankutsuou?
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Re: CX anime reviews

Postby Distracted » Sat Oct 08, 2011 4:26 am

Nope. I lost interest and then things got busy. Not much time to watch anime these days.
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Re: CX anime reviews

Postby CX » Wed Oct 26, 2011 1:10 am

Black Lagoon – Seasons 1 & 2
(24 episode series)

Put succinctly, this series is a valentine to action movies on both sides of the Pacific. Not a hold you down and have its way with you valentine like Star Trek: Enterprise's last episode, either, but something people who enjoy old action movies from the '80s and '90s would actually appreciate.

Now, just to be clear, this isn't exactly what I would normally consider "good" per say, but you might notice that it's still ranked fairly high on my favorites/recommendations list. Why? Because this series is fuckin' awesome, that's why. It's awesome the same way the movies RED and The Expendables are awesome. Shows like that don't try to sell themselves as anything other than mindless action, with plenty of explosions and fight scenes thrown in, but without being completely stupid. They wink and smile at what they are and have fun. That's what Black Lagoon does. It also references plenty of other cool action movies, which tells me that the people who made this movie are as big of film nerds as I am. Das Boot and Terminator 2 are probably the most obvious references, but there are a few others, along with some Japanese action schlock just to round everything out.

At the same time, this series is more than that. If I could directly compare this series to anything else, the closest I could come would be the short-lived series Firefly. It takes place on an old PT boat called the Black Lagoon, captained by an old war vet (or so we're led to believe), and crewed by misfits. However, this isn't the captain's story, it's Rock's. Once known as Rokuro Okajima, he was a typical business yuppie who took any amount of flack from anyone just so he could maybe someday move up that corporate ladder. One fateful day, he was asked to carry a disk with some of his company's dirty secrets on it, and as it just so happened the Russian mafia knew about this and decided to do a little blackmail, and so Rokuro met the crew of the Lagoon and became Rock.

There is no overall arcing story to the series, which instead is split up into a number of multi-episode story arcs. Well, I guess that's not entirely accurate – the overall story arc is how Rock changes from the business yuppie into someone harder, someone who can survive in the dark underbelly of Asia that is Roanapur. Not to mention someone who can survive having sexual tension with someone who's a breath away from blowing his brains out.

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Kind of makes the typical "Pride and Prejudice" bullshit seem laughable in comparison, really.

But the main point is that Rock not only survives, but begins to thrive, becoming a full-fledged part of the Lagoon Company, and impressing all the very bad people who make crime their business in Roanapur – people like Balalaika, the boss of Hotel Moscow. Hotel Moscow, just so you know, is a part of the Russian mafia made up entirely of an elite military group that fought in the Soviet-Afghanistan conflict.

The stories that make up the series tend to be pretty interesting by themselves, too, in a usually messed up kind of way. At one point they even managed to kind of make me feel a little sorry for some psychopathic little murdering kids. Most of the time, though, it's mostly about awesome, over-the-top action, at least until it turns into the Rock and Revy Show in the last part of the second season.

Honestly, the characters are a big part of why this series was enjoyable. Rock makes a pretty decent protagonist, who actually manages to break away from the whiny Japanese male stereotype every once in a while and actually stands up for himself. Revy is very much the Ms. Fanservice of the series, on top of being the ultimate action girl. She's nicknamed "Two Hands" thanks to her ability to accurately fire both of her handguns at the same time. She also apparently has the ability to jump something like 20 feet or better. As I hinted above, there also seems to be a bit of a romance ... thing going on between Rock and Revy, though definitely not in the traditional sense. They each seem to be drawn to aspects of the other, and other characters even call them one it, and while part of me kind of would like to see that, I guess I'm not like the typical fanboy because I can't get past how certifiably evil Revy is. She is very much the Jayne of the show. I guess that's why I was kind of disappointed when the show kind of tended to push aside Dutch and Benny so much, because those two were fairly interesting, too.

Dutch is the captain of the Black Lagoon, and the owner of the Lagoon Company, which does odd jobs for whoever pays the most. Benny is a computer nerd and the information expert of the company. Both of them are pretty laid back characters who keep themselves calm and collected.

There are also a number of minor characters who have their own little quirks that manage to make them endure themselves to the audience, even if they're bad people. Actually that's part of how the show goes over-the-top, because I think Benny is the only character who isn't messed up in some way. You know, like Balalaika, who just happens to look on the outside like she is on the inside.

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Go ahead, call her "Fry Face," I'm sure she won't mind.

The only characters I wasn't terribly impressed with were the yakuza types in the last part of the series. The show kept trying to impress me with how badass they were, and how noble some of them supposedly were, but, let's face it, they're yakuza.

Oh, and as an aside, swords could never cut through a gun. Sorry katana fanboys, but no matter how sharp they are, they aren't hard enough to cut through a gun barrel.

Anyway, as you might guess, I thoroughly enjoyed this series. It isn't remotely the kind of thing I would normally call "good," rather, it's carried by the sheer power of awesome. If you enjoy action movies, if you enjoyed Cowboy Bebop, Outlaw Star, or Firefly, you will definitely enjoy this series, too. 9/10.
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Re: CX anime reviews

Postby CX » Fri Oct 28, 2011 1:10 pm

Sekirei
(12 episode series)

Sekirei? Moar like Ecchirei, amirite?

Okay, for those of you who don't know what ecchi is, that basically translates into lots and lots of bare boobs, with the nipples actually drawn on them. Or, put another way, that fine line separating an R rating from an NC-17 rating, because showing genitals is one of the few taboos Japan seems to have, at least in their normal television programming. And what I'm getting at is that this show is one of the most pathetic excuses to show as many tits as possible. Now those of you who have been keeping up with my reviews on a regular basis know that I have nothing against fan service per say; I even prefer to have them show the bits instead of using anime anatomy if they're going to bother. No, what bothers me is when that's the entire point of the show. Oh, there's a plot, and even a weak story, but mostly this show is about how many different ways it can get women topless, and how many ways said women can practically throw themselves at some pathetic loser only for him to act like he's bloody afraid of them.

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You know, like every harem anime ever. Oh yeah, that's the other thing, this show is also all about pairing this guy up with almost every woman he comes across, and even one small girl in order to cover all the fetish bases. Oh, I'm sure some people will claim it was all innocent, and they were just playing that tiresome moé trope straight. After all, most of the time she calls the loser protagonist "big brother", but later one when one of these women insists that being kissed by him make her his wife, she was fighting over him like all the others (don’t worry, I'll explain that part a bit later). Oh, Japan, what is it with you and loli?

And just as a brief explanation of what moé is, basically it's the really cutesy character with the big eyes who talks very meekly in a high but quiet voice, and is also usually really clumsy. This was supposedly to instill the "big brother" instinct in viewers, but apparently for a large number of anime nerds it actually causes a boner. Don’t ask me to explain; I don't understand it either.

For me, though, one of the more amusing/pathetic aspects of this series was that despite it was all about throwing as many female characters as possible at the whiny male protagonist, it apparently felt the need to cover all of its bases. So not only was there an implied lesbian couple, but there was some implied boy love, too, and even a really femmy looking boy for a female character to fawn over and even dress up like a girl. You know, to hide him, I guess.

Anyway, I suppose I should actually get around to explaining what this show is actually supposed to be about. Sekirei are actually a race of aliens which just happen to look human, and most of whom happen to be attractive, large-breasted women. Their ship crashed on Earth in 1999 (the show takes place in 2020), and it was found by some crazy frakker with a dream of world complex. He names himself the game-master, and founds a large military organization called the MBI Corporation out of nothing. He then sets in motion the "Sekirei Plan", which basically involves all these large-breasted women fighting each other, sometimes to the death, because apparently there can only be one. The idea, though, since they’re magic and stuff, is for them to find a human and kiss them, thereby getting their "wings", which unlocks special powers they can then use in their fights. These humans are called ashikabi. Minato Sahashi ends up becoming one such ashikabi one day when Musubi literally falls out of the sky and into his lap. You have no idea how common something like this is in the "romantic comedy" genre of anime, and in fact when this first happened, I thought this was going to be a "magical girlfriend" series, which basically entails some pathetic loser suddenly getting the perfect girlfriend one day, who is really awesome at cooking and doing other household chores while also usually having some kind of special powers or abilities. But since Minato ends up with five or six of them, that makes this a harem anime.

It all started because Minato helped Musubi out against a couple of other sekirei, who were trying to take her out before she could become "winged". As a way of saying thanks, she kisses him, which causes her to become "winged". It also means she basically belongs to him, so you can guess where that kind of leads, or would lead anyway if Minato wasn't afraid of women who want to have sex with him. But since he lives in an apartment rented to him by an old fart who had a morality clause in the lease, he loses his apartment and ends up living in a boarding house of some kind, where it just so happens that a bunch of other sekirei also live, which includes the landlady by the by. He then ends up collecting sekirei, either by rescuing them, or because they seek him out and sexually assault him.

The fun part of all of this, though, is that supposedly at least in the beginning, all these fights are supposed to take place in secret. That's funny, because right from the start these fights were taking place in the open. The other fun part is how the fights usually result in shredded clothing and mostly naked women, because their clothes are apparently made out of something even weaker than tissue paper – just getting punched is enough to shred clothing.

Anyway, as the series progresses, Minato meets other ashikabi and sekirei, including one pair of them that actually wants nothing to do with the "Sekirei Plan" and wants to get the hell out of dodge. This kind of becomes the "drama" of the series, because by this point, MBI has completely taken over Tokyo, and for some reason the JSDF is powerless to stop them, though the series never bothers to explain why. Minato agrees to help them get out of the city, and talks most of his harem and another ashikabi with two sekirei he's managed to befriend into helping him out with this plan. But naturally things go wrong, and drama supposedly happens, including a part where Musubi is defeated and it looks like she's a goner. Then the show pulls a miraculous recovery out of its fourth point of contact that makes no sense at all, but somehow involves a multiple personality that Musubi has.

I guess if there's one positive aspect to the series, it's that Minato actually shows a little character growth from the beginning of the series – a little. Instead of being a whiny pathetic loser that cries at the drop of a hat, he's a whiny pathetic loser that cries at the drop of a hat, and actually throws a punch to defend himself. Of course he manages to knock himself on his own ass in the process, so there you go.

I'm not even going to discuss the characters any further. There are a lot of them, but there isn't a whole lot to them. Of course this show is about boobs, so I guess that's to be expected.

I'm sure some of you are probably wondering why I bothered watching this series since it's obvious I didn't like it. Well, to be honest my friends talked me into it. Every once in a while they pick out a show they know is going to be bad and subject themselves to it, and since this one didn't seem as bad as say My Little Sister Can't Be This Cute or Ouran High School Host Club, I decided to go along with it. I'm just glad it was only 12 episodes long, or at least that's all that was on NetFlix at the time. As it turns out there's an OVA and a second season, but I'm not going to bother watching those, and if you actually like this show you probably wouldn't want me to review them.

I was going to rate this a 1, but then I remembered that I rated Ah! My Goddess a 1, and that show was more interesting and less painful to watch. To be honest I can't really think of anything positive about this show anyway, so, 0/10.
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Re: CX anime reviews

Postby Snorpenbass » Fri Nov 11, 2011 4:32 am

Just read some of your latest reviews and wanted to point out that the big MacGuffin in Titan AE isn't a space ark, it's something that actually makes sense when you know what it is.

Okay, bear with me here.

The Drej is a race made of energy. They can manipulate it freely and make hard-light constructs (their ships). This basically makes them the Green Lantern Corps in a Star Wars universe, and thus pretty much invincible (when you can make a Death Star in ten minutes just by gathering up a bunch of guys and asking them to shape one out of random ambient energy, you get to be top dog).

...if it weren't for those primitive hairless apes who just figured out the one thing these guys can't really fight: energy-to-matter conversion.

That's right, the Titan is a giant Trek-style Replicator. It takes energy and rearranges matter to the codes on board the ship (genetic, soil samples, minerals, etcetera).

*That's* why the Drej are trying to kill the humans. As proven by the ending where the Drej use their Ultimate Deathray and all it does is help juice the conversion process.
http://www.fanfiction.net/u/2315451/

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Re: CX anime reviews

Postby CX » Sun Nov 13, 2011 6:45 am

That would have made for an interesting aspect of the movie. It's a pity the movie never really articulated that idea very well if that's where they were actually going with it. Well that and if the movie had just settled on being serious and somewhat mature. :shrug:
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Re: CX anime reviews

Postby CX » Thu Dec 08, 2011 12:28 am

Night Raid 1931
(16 episode series)

I hate to say it, but probably the most positive thing I can say about this series is that it tried. I mean, compared to the moé/fan service –filled crap that's been coming out more lately, it was nice to see a new series that didn't revolve entirely around boobs. By comparison, this series was actually pretty mature, though it did still indulge in a bathhouse scene.

This series is a bit like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen meets Forest Gump in that it follows the exploits of a secretive group of spies called "Sakurai Kikan" during significant historical events, yet has been lost to history. Oh, and these spies all have special talents, like telepathy, Nightcrawler-like teleportation, and the ability to deflect bullets using some kind of kinetic field. This show uses something of an ensemble cast of characters, so there isn't really any one protagonist. If anything, there's something of a big three between the characters of Aoi Miyoshi, Kazura Iha, and Yukina Sonogi.

The story has both stand-alone filler episodes and story arc episodes that revolve around a plot by a rogue group of Japanese soldiers who have disappeared in Manchuria. This also just happens to coincide with the Manchurian Incident, which as you might recall was a fairly transparent excuse that Japan used to invade and occupy the region so it could exploit its resources. As you might guess, the story is very involved and somewhat dramatic as our group of spies tries to figure out what's going on, as the Manchurian Incident is only just the beginning of another plot. The stand-alone episodes serve mainly to break up the tension a bit, and to do a little character development.

The thing is, while I like a good steady pace, and a series that takes its time to unravel a plot and let us get to know the characters, there just wasn't enough interesting in this series to really hold my interest. I like history, and I'm even something of a history buff, but there just wasn't enough here to keep me interested. If the series had focused more on the real historical problems, or just more on the group of spies, it might have been a bit better, but as it was, I never found myself much caring about any of the characters or what was going on around them. For a brief time there, I was thinking that this series was taking an alternate history route because the big evil secret plan was for the development and deployment of an atomic bomb in the name of creating a world-wide peace, because, you know, the Cold War was an awesome, really peaceful period in our history that never threatened to turn hot at any point. And then of course there's the whole destroying Shanghai and spreading nuclear fallout all over the Chinese countryside thing that was an integral part of their plan. But, much like The Daughter of Twenty Faces before it, despite everything that happened, including a telepathic attack that made a huge number of people experience a nuclear detonation, everything was neatly wrapped up and never spoken of again so history could resume the course that we're all familiar with.

I wanted to like this series – really, I did. It was a break from the usual tripe that makes up most of anime these days. But, it just wasn't very interesting to me. Others may feel differently, but overall my experience was very bland. It wasn't quite boring to the point that it was a chore to watch, but it certainly wasn't compelling or dramatic either. It tried, but it just didn't quite succeed, at least not with me. 6/10.
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