Chrno Crusade anime review

Chrno Crusade

by IchigoKuro

I'd been wanting to watch Chrono Crusade (also known as Chrno Crusade because of a typo in the first volume logo) for a while before I actually did, mainly because I was looking for a romance anime to kind of calm down the amount of action anime I'd been watching. So I watched the first episode and hey, it turned out to be an action/romantic comedy. But here's the thing: this anime owns.

The story is hard to describe because of how many different plotlines there are: Rosette searching for her younger brother Joshua, Satella searching for her older sister, Aion searching for the seven Apostles and of course, the love story between Chrono and Rosette. To put it simply, the story is fantastic with the amount of plot twists and revelations, and it just seems realistic given the circumstances of a nun in a relationship with a demon.

                           

The animation is great. It's one of the best animated ones I've ever seen. And this may seem like a minor note, but when Rosette is releasing Chrono's true form, it's fantastic to watch. The animation is consistently smooth and fast paced, and the final battle between Chrono and Aion is stunning.

The sound just blew me away. Between the opening and voice acting, it all sounds great. The opening is calming and soft, and the voice acting is spot on. Rosette's voice acting in particular is brilliant. It may interest you to know that Rosette's voice actress also voiced Sui-Feng in Bleach. That's a bit of dynamic character acting, am I right? And that's not to say that the rest of the voice acting isn't top notch, because it is. Aion, Chrono, Azmaria and Remington are all very well voiced.

Holy crap, I love these characters. This is one of those anime where there's not a single character that I hate. Aion is a bit of a douche, but he's still a great villain. Azmaria is a bit slow, but she's a great asset and pretty damn adorable. Satella can be a bit bitchy, but she's very good-hearted and I kind of felt sorry for her when she breaks down in tears after it is revealed that her sister is alive. Steiner is very much like Watari from Death Note, except that he is not a sniper rifle wielding old man. Chrono is an insanely well developed character, with his ever growing relationship with Rosette and Azmaria. And then we have Rosette. HOLY CHRIST, is she a good character. She's very upbeat, cheerful, easy-going and laid-back. At the same time, though, she is constantly haunted by Aion and despite her carefree demeanor, she can be very serious when the going gets tough.

I also need to point this out: if you don't cry at this anime, you have no soul whatsoever. I was sent into a state of depression after watching this anime. I'm not kidding. You'll understand when you watch it yourself.

Overall, this quickly became one of my favourite anime immediatley after watching it. It's practically flawless. Sure the plot can be a bit confusing and Aion is a tad douchey, but that's an unimportant argument. To conclude, I rate this anime a 10 out of 10, and you NEED to watch it.

Rating: 10/10

Code Geass: Lelouch of the rebellion anime review

Code Geass

by RayEightPie

Code Geass is pretty much an attempt at 'the next Death Note', but geared towards more mainstream audiences with High School crap and romance thrown in, and with most of the intelligence scrapped.

Story: Pretty good on the whole, but it focuses too much on showing how 'smart' Lelouch is and doesn't spend enough time actually showing what he does that makes him so smart. The whole thing ends up just being psuedo-intelligent and only giving the impression that real strategy is going on. Sometimes he'll have his moments though where you'll actually see him doing something smart. It also doesn't help that all of his opponents are completely braindead and not a single person, even a military veteran, is a match for one High School student with a background in warfare coming from chess. Romance is terrible, some episodes are almost completely filler. The grand scheme of things makes up for all that though, providing a nice, spanning story that's much better than most anime.

Animation: Decent art style, good animation. The fight sequences are very well done.

Sound: First OP was great, second was terrible. I watched the dub for this, JYB did a great job as always, the rest of the cast were also pretty good, but I noticed a few voice actors being recycled as extras. General music was decent, could have been much more variety though.

Characters: A lot of really stupid and unbelievable characters, nobody was very standoutish or good. I found myself liking Lloyd though.

Overall: As much as I h8 on it it's still worth a watch, just more as an action than a meeting of minds type thing.

                

Rating: 9/10

Shugo Chara! anime review

Shugo Chara!

by therik

I have absolutely no business liking Shugo Chara!. The series is aimed primarily at an audience with approximately half my age and precisely double my X-chromosomes, and at no point does it betray its target market by veering wildly off the well-trodden mahou shoujo path. As such, the fact that the show found a place deep with in my heart - somewhere between ice-cold beer and mid-week football - is the result of either luck or utter, blinding awesomeness. And I don't believe in luck.

It would serve this review well to point out that the series' allure is not down to it resonating with the mature sections of my cranium or gratifying the unabashedly masculine reaches of my brain. Instead, Shugo Chara! makes a simple but irresistible appeal to my inner child, who is only too happy to leap out at the first mention of the show, and greedily guzzle down its contents like they were vanilla milkshake. There's nothing clever or considered about the plot, the characters or the humour and yet this anime makes me gasp, smile and chuckle just as much as any other you could care to mention.

It may seem an odd thing to highlight, particularly for what is essentially a textbook mahou shoujo romp, but Shugo Chara!'s ability to present action scenes is worthy of praise. Although there are no enormous robots or fancy martial arts moves to be found in the traditional "transform and battle" sequences, the series borrows from the library of shounen tropes in order to augment its combat. As well as a powerful sense of timing, Shugo Chara! has a habit of establishing unspoken rules on how battles will proceed and what capabilities the characters have before breaking said rules with such panache and glee that the only natural reaction is a dropped jaw, clenched fist, and silent mouthing of the word "awesome".

But the fighting is not even Shugo Chara!'s strongest point. Perhaps what makes the show so endearing is the irresistible and irremovable feelgood atmosphere which pervades its every nook and cranny. Of course the anime is every bit as cute and lively as you would expect but it also has an unerring ability to deliver some fantastic moments of emotion. The series is, after all, about attaining one's dreams, and - while avoiding the saccharine sweetness which could have easily consumed it - Shugo Chara! offers many heartwarming moments, which more often than not form a hugely satisfying conclusion to the episode.

                       

Equally ubiquitous is the humour, which tends to make the show an absolute blast to watch. Although many of the jokes are repetitive, there is enough genuine wit on display to ensure at least one honest chuckle per episode. Surprisingly for a show that isn't primarily a comedy, Shugo Chara! has a habit of springing jokes at the most unexpected times, including during serious story moments and intense fights. Unwelcome though this comic intrusion may seem, more often than not it serves as a reminder that this show's primary aim is simple, commendable, and can be summed up just three words: to have fun. There is drama and there is action, but the anime's often rambunctious energy is spent wisely, and it never loses sight of this goal.

Rating: 8/10

Into The Forest of Fireflies' Light anime review

Into The Forest of Fireflies' Light 

by SoulraiderX

I married my best friend...but she wasn't always my best friend. My wife and I met standing next to each other playing handbells in college. She said little more than "hello" to me each week. Yet over the course of the year, we became closer. On a fateful musical tour where we wound up stuck in the middle of a Pennsylvania blizzard for several days, sparks finally started to ignite. There's plenty more to the story, but over twenty years later, I remember those early days of friendship like they were yesterday.

Into The Forest of Fireflies' Light is a romantic journey of sorts along a similar path, and saying so might be a bit of a spoiler. Yet this magical show is one where the trajectory of the plot isn't nearly as important as how it all plays out on the screen. When I described the concept of the 45-minute film to Catha, she immediately guessed where it was going, but I had to tell her, "No, it doesn't quite wind up how you'd expect." In a sense, it's what Mushi-Shi would have been like as written by Jane Austin and directed by Makoto Shinkai. It's beautiful, haunting, and emotional, even sad, and yet also encouraging and winsome. It's just about perfect.

Six-year-old Hotaru is lost in the forest. Visiting relatives, she's wandered off and gotten very confused. And this is no ordinary woodland, either...it's rumored to be filled with spirits. Hotaru gets proof when she is rescued by Gin, who seems to be a normal late-teenage boy, save for the cat-fox mask he wears. He's willing to lead her out under one condition -- she may not touch him. For a spirit like him, coming into contact with a real human being would make him vanish for good. She doesn't quite get it, and Gin has to bonk her with a stick a couple of times to keep her at arms' length, but soon she is on the road home.

Hotaru isn't one to take that kind of favor lightly, and she returns the next day with a gift for Gin. They slowly become friends over the summer, and though she has to return home for school, she promises to come back the next year to see him. She is good to her word. Over several summers, Gin and Hotaru grow closer...Hotaru ages as we all do, while Gin seems to stay almost 20 forever. They talk, they play, they laugh. As Hotaru comes of age, they both look forward to their interactions with more and more anticipation. Both of them begin to long for the touch that will always be just out of reach...
                        

From my description, you might be able to guess what all transpires, but I kind of doubt it. Even if you can, you'll miss the beauty with which it all unfolds. The first layer of beauty is just the artwork itself. There are no technical missteps, as far as I'm concerned; it's a sumptuous world of greenery and not-quite-ghosts, and the effect is immersive. I was captivated, and while I recognized that what I saw was visually pleasing, it wasn't overkill, either. I was too interested in Hotaru and Gin.

That's what makes Into The Forest of Fireflies' Light so powerful. While there's an unusual setting and surprises along the way, it's mostly the story of two people coming to care about one another. Without other significant characters, it doesn't take long before we're invested in these two. While it's not exactly a conversational film like the Before Sunrise series, it has that sense of personal intimacy with the lead characters.

At the same time, there's a sense of glorious naivete. Because physical contact is totally off the table, the love that develops is not oriented around lust but personal connection. When every modern romantic comedy has the leads in bed before they even have their first argument, it's nice to see a film that recognizes that deep bonds of friendship can be the most potent aphrodisiac. Beyond this, there's a sense of wonder to even the most mundane events. If you've watched a dozen anime in your life, somebody's gone to a local festival; it's beyond cliché at this point. There's one in here, too. Yet because of the bonds established between the characters beforehand, it was as if I'd never seen one before. The film shows it through different eyes that made it more poignant.

Because it's not a long film, I don't want to tell you more than I already have. I simply want to encourage you to seek it out. It's excellent, and if you're an old-school romantic at heart, it's a must-see. Here's the best encouragement to see it I can give you: there are anime I write up that I cannot remember even 24 hours later. Due to my own wackadoo schedule, I saw Into The Forest of Fireflies' Light not quite a month ago. The details from a single viewing are still in my brain as I type. It stuck with me. I think it will stick with you.


Rating: 7.5/10