Another Anime Post *groans* - New season first impressions

What with it being a new season of anime and all, there's a ton of stuff starting, and, as i've now finished Noein, i've watched the first episode of a couple of the new shows. Actually i ment to post this a week back but o forgot. So in some ways this post is now pointless, but meh.

Kurenai - Being done by Brains Base, who did the kick ass Baccano! Last year, i had high hopes for this. But alas i was disappointed; the characters seem flat, the music is repetitive (im all for piano but not all the damn time) and frankly it bored me. The only hint of something interesting was the kid's arm, which went all weird at various points though out the episode. Oh and WTF was up with that op??

Watch more? No, not unless the animeblogs suddenly jizz all over it

Soul Eater - Overhyped but still good stuff. About this girl and this guy who transforms into this badasss weapon. The storyline seems pretty shite / non existent but the animation is delicious enough to make up for it. Get it in HD, its worth it.


Watch More? Probably

And i also randomly went and watched some more old skool stuff. Well not old skool but just not new.

Samurai Champloo - Awesome, awesome, awesome :D Really good first episode, im liking the Hip Hop soundtrack. The question is whether or not it will have a more an overarching... story arc than Bebop did. I never had the motivation to watch Cowboy bebop cause of it's episode structures. Interesting to see how this develops


Watch more? Yes, definitely

Welcome to the NHK - Pretty dumb but immensely enjoyable; im glad it was recommended to me, as from screenshots and summaries i would no way have watched. It's about this guy, a geek, or otaku if you wanna get technical, who spends all his time in his room, doing squat. Then one day some girl comes and challenges him to change his lifestyle. Anyways, its good fun and I can see it becoming abit of a guilty pleasure of mine. And the music pwns aswell ;D

Watch more? Yeah go on then :P

As I said, I finished Noein. I was way too tired to take in the ending when i watched it though... fucked with my head. Ill watch the last episode again one day.

Aww now i feel like a proper animeblogger

Game Impressions

So i picked up No More Heroes and 2 DS games. First game i've got for either system for a while.

Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker - Bought this cause i have fond childhood memories of the came boy colour games; Dragon Warrior Monsters 1 and 2. Seems pretty similar and it looks absolutely sweet for a DS game. Haven't played that much yet so i'll have to wait and see if the breeding system still holds up or whether its been dumbed down. Oh and also, teh lead character looks like an absolute prick.

No More Heroes - Initially a disappointment; looks pretty shit graphically - this coming from someone who couldnt normally give a toss about graphics - but seriously, i mean i was playing Burnout 1 for gc earlier and it looks way better. And the bike is a real load of suck / pain in the ass. But oh my jesus the bosses are where it's at!! Motion controls seem to be implemented very nicely, very satisfying to use. Generally the game oozes with style as well, though fuck them for leaving out blood. I mean seriously, this is England, why do the yanks get it and not us?

Advance Wars: Days of Ruin - First in the series that i've played since the original. Seems like not much has changed; perhaps for the best. Nice idea post-apocayptic premise, and already the story seems at least slightly of interest.

Death note - Sorry, Dexter

Having missed it on ITV the other week, i downloaded the first two episodes of Dexter (unfortunate name - it reminds me of that crap cartoon, Dexters laboratory) and watched them. Now while i am 100% loving it and am extremely impressed, i have one little gripe... i'm getting a serious case of Deja Vu.

To quickly explain the basic premise of dexter, it's about a man who appears to lack real human emotion, who, unknown to his friends and family, is a serial killer who goes around killing criminals and other such bad dudes. meanwhile, his day job sees him on the 'other side'; working as a forensics guy who looks into blood splatters. So no doubt he'll end up doing the whole 'chasing himself' charade at some point in the series. Add to this the fact that his father (and sister) are on the police force, that he is extremely clever, annoyingly good looking and is seemingly a bit of a ladies man, and if you are a fan of anime, you will most likely be raising an eyebrow around now... Basically, this is Death Note, only without the Deathnote.

The similarities to Death Note, the geniusly gripping japanese manga and animation which ended it's 36 episode run late year are painstakingly huge. Not like this is a bad thing in any way; Death Note completely fucking rocked, and so does Dexter.



So download it, ITV it, just watch it. If you loved death note you'll be right at home. And if your loving Dexter, seriously, check out death note on the web sometime. If only to see what the Dexter writers watch in their spare time.

Edit: Oh and if you do, make sure you watched subbed not dubbed. Because a quick look on youtube has shown me that they made Ryuk have a ridiculous voice.

Baccano! - Impressions

Well as you might but probably don't know, i been looking for a decent anime to watch ever since i finished Death Note, but nothing has come close to being as good as it, and i kept giving up on shows after the first episode. But the other day i remembered about this one that id been meaning to watch; Baccano! (yes, the ! really is part of the name)

Anyways its freakin awesome, i mean how can it not be, its an anime about the fucking mafia!!

It has great animation and character design, fitting Bebop-like jazzy music, and decent action scenes, with not shortage of blood and gore. Most cruicially, though, it has an interesting and dynamic plot.

There is a huge ensemble of characters; especially for such a short show of 13 episodes, as you can see from the OP below. The plot cuts between them frequently, as they cross paths and shiz.



So then, Bacanno! seems to, unlike many certain other animes i have watched, have a plot that every episode seems to be contributing to; rather than just a bunch of mini arcs; it almost seems more like live action drama shows like 24 or the sopranos at times than your average anime.
It revolves around this bunch of dudes who have the power to regenerate, this giving some awesome scenes as people are literally ripped apart with miniguns, only to get up, unphased, just a few minutes later.

I shall have to see if this greatness can be retained through the rest of the show... i shall most probably finish by sometime later this week... (!)

Ghost Hound first 4 episodes - Impressions

Well i was trying to hold up on writing about Ghost Hound until i'd got some sort of grasp about whats going on in it. However, it soon became apparent that that wasn't going to happen any time soon.

For those of you who don't know, (read: everyone), Ghost hound is an anime (yeh, sorry) that started last month, and will be running for 22 episodes. It has been hailed already as the 'gem of the fall season' so i tought id try it out.

The plot focuses on the paranormal, following Toro, a kid who, after being abducted with his sister 11 years ago, has had OBE's in his sleep (outter-body experiences) that he trys to make sense of. The whole him and his sister storyline seems to be the main one throughout the show.

The characters range from great to fairly generic; the feeblish underdog in Toro, Makoto as the cool grumpy kid, the mysterious Miyako, and the brilliantly camp Masayuki; who is later revealed to having a very interesting dark past...
All the characters, like like Toro, experience OBEs throught the show, achieved by a variety of means; Makato, for example, getting them through use of his guitar.



Sound is a key part of the anime, all setting an extremely atmospheric tone that fits the genre well. Speaking of sound, check out the op, its one of the best i've seen^^

Anyways, Ghost hound is an anime with alot of potential, and i havn't quite decided if its extremely boring or extremely interesting. Time will tell....

Galaxy & Creed

So i went and bought both games earleir today, and have so far had about an hour and a bit on each. GOD THEY'RE BRILLIANT

Assassin's Creed - Prince of Persia meets Hitman meets GTA meets Shadow of the Collosus (sorta) Doesn't get much better. The whole freerunning stuff works a treat and is fantastic fun to do. Even the story seems somewhat interesting, with the whole duel-timelines thing; reminds me of 'Spies' abit; book im reading atm. Apparently the game gets pretty repetitive after a while but we shall see...

Super Mario Galaxy - Eek and squeak it looks great so far. The whole mini worlds is just awesome Best looking wii game so far. In fact best wii game in general it might seem. Probably why its currently holidng the top gamerankings average score ever then.

Anyways id love to stay and write some more, but to be honest id prefer to go back to playing them. Or more likely, getting some sleep... o_o zz

NARUTO: Shippuuden ep. 34

Okay so im banking on the fact that pretty much everyone who has somehow stumbled accross this blog and read it couldn't give less of a flying fuck about anime. But you know what? Screw you okay?

Because lately Naruto Shippuden (or should i say shit-uden, ahahaha... no) has been wasting hours of my life and i want them back. Particularly evident with the last episode; 20 minutes of absoloutely nothing happenening. Fucking waste.

For a little background on naruto, it began with a series that ran for an original 220 episodes, which up until 130 were, on the whole, seriously good. Then there were about 20 years oif filler, or 90 episodes, half of which i didn't bother watching. This ment that litterally nothing happened to advance the plot in any way. Then, earlier this year, a new series begins called Naruto Shippuden, set 3 yearsish after the original series.

So everyone has been looking forward to it, but so far it's been laregly a load of spun out fucking drivel, exceptions of a couple of good episodes.



This guy was looking to be a good new character, but then in the last episode, he started wearing this extremely mind-scarring-disguisting-tank-top type thing. WHY?!?!

Meanwhile, after seeing the original series being completely ruined, destroyed, murdered by the horrendous cartoon network dub while i was in the US, i feel even more like a loser for watching it.
/rant

Anyways i should be picking up Super Mario Galaxy and Assassin's Creed laters so maybe i'll do some impressions....