THE PROGRAM

Anime seems to be the one genre that can fairly regularly get away with sticking to a series of genre staples. In "Broken Blade" a set of six, 50--minute OVAs adapted from the manga of the same name, the staple is giant mechs, known in the series as "Golems." The interesting spin "Broken Blade" puts on things, is along with Golems, many fantastic pieces of technology are powered by Quartz, which can be manipulated by magic. However, the test of any good saga is the strength of its characters and "Broken Blade" starts off on shaky ground by introducing the hero, Rygart, an "un-sorcerer" (the series' words, not mine) who is unable to do magic and thusly, unable to control Quartz. Despite his status, Rygart is still trained in military strategy and alongside his friends, is able to control a unique Golem that no other person has been able to control, and from there, all hell b...Read the entire review

Grave of the Firefliestakes place during World War II. From the opening scenethe audience is prepared for a difficult and unsettling drama. Thestoryunfolds by introducing protagonist Seita, who is a 14 year old teenageboy. Hepasses away at the beginning of Grave ofthe Fireflies. From there on, the story is told ...Read the entire review

THE SHOW:

Talk to that pretty girl sitting over there and potentially face rejection or sit here and knock out a few more levels of this video game?...if this is a question you often ask yourself, then boy do I have a show for you. Gaming takes on real-world consequences in The World God Only Knows which proves to be a sly take on the harem subgenre of anime. It bothers to set up a fairly interesting premise and is moderately successful whenever it actually manages to stay on point (which isn't often enough).

Keima Katsuragi is known as the God of Conquests because he has a way with women. Alright, that may be overstating the matter. He has a way with virtual women. You see, he is an expert when it comes to playing dating sims. These video games allow the teenager to take on a wide variety of digital beauties and woo them by mashing furiously on ...Read the entire review

The Show:

I knew what I was getting into when I first picked up Samurai Girls. The generic title alone should have been a warning sign, but I normally look past superficial things like that. The cover, well...scantily clad girls attempting to cover themselves should have been an indication, but I never judge an anime by its cover. No my friends, it was the description on the back that lead me to the inevitable conclusion that I was about to watch an ecchi harem show.

"The samurai code was never this sexy. Muneakiru Yagyu is a gifted student of the samurai way, but until he arrived at his dojo, he never knew just how gifted he truly was. There, beautiful girl Jubei falls naked from the sky and right into his arms, and when they kiss, he magically transforms her into a powerful master samurai. So, naturally, every beautiful girl at the dojo can't wait to kiss him now! And some, like...Read the entire review

You know, when High School of the Dead was announced I was super excited. I mean, "zombies + anime = win", right? It's only logical. Well, I didn't quite catch the stream of the series, but I read responses to the show and a collective groan from much of the anime community. After mostly negative response from a few early episodes I figured I'd reserve judgment for myself. And here we have the complete series being released on DVD by Sentai Filmworks.

Prior to checking out the anime, I actually read a couple volumes of the English translation of the manga. I kind of saw what people were talking about. As much as zombies, or "Them", were a focus for the franchise, the torpedo shaped boobs and gratuitous fan-service really bogged down an otherwise good concept. The show unfortunately follows suit and is ridiculous with the amount of bouncing bazooms that fil...Read the entire review

Earlier this year Sentai Filmworks released Koihime Musou on DVD. You can check out my review for the first season here. If you want me to save you the trip to that page, all you need to know is the series was light, fluffy, and full of fan-service and yuri elements. It wasn't terrible, mind you, but it wasn't exactly refreshing or worth your money. Does the same hold true for the third season?

In case you're wondering what happened to the second season review, well...I haven't watched it. The set never arrived and I'm going straight from the first to the third, which naturally leaves some stuff out of my realm of expertise. Then again, considering the material I probably wasn't missing a whole lot anyway.

For the third season, Shin Koihime Musou: Otome Tairan<...Read the entire review

Guin Saga touts itself as a "Sweeping anime epic for the ages" and is "based on the multi-million dollar, best-selling Japanese novel series", but I'll be damned if I haven't heard of it before. I've got my finger on the pulse of the anime community and there has been virtually no buzz on this series, either when it was aired in Japan or when it was announced for Region 1. And so I head into the series with no expectations, and maybe a little speculation. What's the verdict?

To my surprise Guin Saga has actually been around since the late 70s in book form. For over two decades Kaoru Kurimoto wrote novels for the series and it's become something of a mainstay fantasy franchise in Japan, though she passed away in 2009. Here in the States there's apparently only one book that has been released. The anime, produced by Satelight (Heat Guy J, Hell...Read the entire review

Needless is frigging crazy. It's a whacked out show along the lines of Gurren Lagann and it retains most of the tropes. Super-powered characters, over the top attitude, and a sense of style that is unabashedly in your face are just a few of the things that make the series stand out. Then again, being loud and ostentatious means nothing if you don't have the quality to back it up. Does the series have it where it counts?

Originally released in Japan in 2009, Needless is a product of Mad House and Director Masayuki Sakoi. The show lasted for 24 episodes and was based on an ongoing manga by Kami Imai. Sentai Filmworks has acquired the license to the series for release in America, and today we're looking at the first collection, which takes the first twelve episodes and presents them on two DVDs.

Needless takes place far into the future ...Read the entire review

Hey, what do you know? It's another anime show that was originally an eroge visual novel! Lately these kinds of projects are a dime a dozen, though I suppose the industry should stick to what works. In this case, 11eyes was actually released as a PC title in 2008 and became an animation one year later.

Produced by Dogakobo, who has handled key animation in several popular shows, 11eyes is a twelve episode series based on the game and manga. The series has been licensed by Sentai Filmworks for release here in the States. The twelve episode series is presented on two DVDs, though the additional OVA is available in this collection as well.

Let's get one thing straight right away: 11eyes isn't all that and a bag of chips. The show's premise is rather generic, the characters are one-dimensional and never really stand out, and for the majority of...Read the entire review

"Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is familiar territory to anyone weaned on material from Japan. Video games, manga, and anime have tackled the Three Kingdoms for a long, long time. Koihime Musou is the latest example of that, though this time around the concept leans heavily towards fan-service and ecchi material.

Originally released in 2007 as an eroge PC game, Koihime Musou skews the "Romance" story a bit and introduces a bevy of busty babes. The game was popular enough and it was later turned into a manga and three subsequent anime series. Sentai Filmworks/Section23 has obtained the license for the first season, and today we're looking at the two disc collection.

With twelve episodes and an extra OVA the first season of Koihime Musou is pretty to look at and fun at times, but ultimately it's an empty shell. This is one of those shows that...Read the entire review

Often times you'll hear me bitch about how fan-service ruins otherwise great concepts or shows. It's simply too prevalent in the industry these days and far too many shows use boobs as a crutch to get viewers or make themselves stand out, but that's an argument for another day. Today we're looking at Nyan Koi; a charmer of a show that has a fantastic premise, but falls short due to fan-service elements and distractions.

This latest release by Sentai Filmworks/Section23 comes from a production by AIC. Nyan Koi was originally released in Japan in 2009 and received twelve episodes to call its own. There's also a manga available, though no English release has been announced yet.

The show follows the exploits of a high school boy named Kousaka. He's severely allergic to cats and one morning he wakes up to his family's cat harassing him. Any cat owner k...Read the entire review

Canaan is a modern-day mystery/political thriller with an intriguing premise for superpowers: survivors of a supposedly incurable bioweapon develop special abilities. The series is actually a sequel to a Japanese video game entitled, 428: F&#363;sa Sareta Shibuya de, which has no English translation. I'm not certain whether playing this game increases the effectiveness of this 13-episode series, which hits a lull after the halfway point that it never recovers from.

When photographer, Maria Osawa, and magazine journalist, Minoru Minorikawa, arrive in Shangai, China to cover an international anti-terrorism conference, they find themselves entangled with a terrorist organization known as Snake--no relation to G.I. Joe's Cobra. On their first night there, in the middle of a street celebration, ...Read the entire review

Sentai Filmworks/Section23 continues to venture into the world of Blu-ray and have stepped up their game to give FUNimation some competition. The publisher has released some of their series in high definition so far, but more are on the way. Recently Tears to Tiara came out as a 2-disc complete collection. How does this 26 episode series fair in HD?

Tears to Tiara certainly doesn't have a unique background or story about how it came to be. Like so many other shows this one evolved from a PC ero-game, which happened to have caught on enough to warrant an animated version. We've seen it several times before and I'm sure anime publishers aren't going to stop looking to PC games for releases any time soon. Generally speaking that's a fine thing, but I must admit that not every endeavor of this sort is met with success. Quality is often hit or miss. Thankf...Read the entire review

I'll be perfectly honest, when Sentai Filmworks/Section23 announced Xam'd I said "Huh?". I knew absolutely nothing about the series and had never heard of it before. Even more baffling was the fact that the title was being released on Blu-ray. Typically it's the higher profile shows that hit Blu-ray, so when I heard that a show was coming out I knew nothing about naturally my interest piqued. What was this series that slipped beneath my radar?

Xam'd was a 2008 to 2009 series that lasted for 26 episodes. Produced by Bones the series has a rather interesting background due to the fact that it was made available via the Sony PlayStation Network first, before being shown on television. A manga was released in the latter part of 2008 as well. But what's it all about?

To be perfectly honest Xam'd is kind of a mech show with some light supernatural ...Read the entire review

One of the things I love most about anime is the creativity that goes into them. There are some shows that truly break the mold and aren't like anything else on the market, especially in the U.S. Sure you'll hear Bobby, John, and I complain about "me too" anime, clichés, and a sense of déjà vu that comes from watching shows nestled in specific genres, but Shigofumi is cut from a different cloth.

This 13 episode series (12 episodes from season one and one OVA) from J.C. Staff was aired in 2008 and has been licensed for a Region 1 release by Sentai Filmworks/Section23. It was originally a series of novels by Ry&#333; Amamiya, though the books are unfortunately not available with an English translation.

Shigofumi puts forth an interesting premise. Basically the show takes place in a world where the recently departed are given the opportunity t...Read the entire review

Eyeshield 21 is a surprising gem of a sports anime series. This second set of 13 episodes continues the Deimon High Devil Bats' journey to win the Christmas Bowl. The first volume introduced Sena as Eyeshield 21, a miniscule and mysterious runningback with sprinter-like speed and great moves. It also established the core players of the team as well as several rival opponents. In this volume, the Devil Bats continue to gain credibility as a football team and an American rival player is added to Eyeshield 21's rogues gallery.

With the addition of great skill players such as Eyeshield 21 and Monta, the Deimon High Devil Bats have suddenly established themselves amongst the upper echelon of Japanese high school football teams. With the...Read the entire review

When Golgo 13's animated OVA hit the States back in the 90's I became an instant fan. Unfortunately it wouldn't be until 2008 that an actual series based on the classic manga by Takao Saito. This new show ran for 50 episodes and the Region 1 license has fallen into the hands of Sentai Filmworks.

If you've never seen or heard of Golgo 13 before, all you really need to know is that he is the ultimate badass. Basically the show is about an assassin who goes by the names Duke Togo and Golgo 13. He's a Japanese native who operates around the world, though primarily in the animated series he works in the United States. All assassins pretty much have a set of skills they master, and in the case of Golgo 13 it's an inhuman ability with a sniper rifle.

It's that unparalleled skill at sniping that has made him world renowned. Frequently in this first collec...Read the entire review

Licensed by Sentai Filmworks, Brighter than the Dawning Blue is the latest example of an anime title that originated as a PC game. This adult visual novel was very successful in Japan with several iterations including a version on the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable. There was later a series of novels, some manga, and in 2006 a 12 episode animation was broadcast in Japan. It may have taken a few years, but we finally have this series in hand. Was it worth the wait?

Brighter than the Dawning Blue takes place in a world where humanity has colonized the moon. The problem here is that a rift formed between the folks on Earth and the people on the Sphere Kingdom. A war (named the Oedipus War) erupted and needless to say it was a while until peace between both worlds was made. The United Nations eventually worked out a deal that opened diplomacy to ...Read the entire review

Jigoku Shoujo (Hell Girl, if you will) has blossomed into a very popular franchise in Japan. Multiple seasons of the animation, manga, and even a live action show have come out since the first show aired in 2005. To say it has been a success would be an understatement, and here in the States the series has garnered its own audience as well.

The first season is licensed by FUNimation, though for some reason the second wound up in the hands of Sentai Filmworks. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, mind you, but fans of the first release may be disappointed with the lack of an English dub, as is standard from Sentai Filmworks. No matter what dub you enjoy listening to, Hell Girl is a very entertaining series, and I'm pleased to say that the second season, Two Mirrors meets expectations.

Hell Girl's basic premise follows a mysterio...Read the entire review

Masamune Shirow is one of the most prolific manga artists of all time. His works such as Ghost in the Shell, Dominion Tank Police, and Black Magic have all proven to be popular. One of his more successful franchises, however, has been Appleseed.

Originally released in manga format during the mid-80s, Appleseed took readers to a future where humanity's wars have ruined much of the planet. In an effort to save the species and home world, another race known as Bioroids was created to balance out the population. The Bioroids were more or less artificial humans without the powerful emotions, thus they would never start war. There was obviously more to the story than just that, and much of it is explored in the animated film of the same name.

To date there have been two Appleseed films, and the first was a license held by Ge...Read the entire review

As a lifelong fan of "American football," I have always been completely mystified about how the United States is fanatical about the sport and the rest of the world just doesn't get it. To that end, I have no idea how soccer is in any way, shape, or form considered entertaining. Cultural differences aside, I never knew that football had nearly enough interest in Japan to warrant an anime series, much less one that has achieved some modicum of success. Eyeshield 21 is a surprisingly good anime series about American football that spans 145 episodes and a couple of OVA's for good measure. It has also spawned video games for ...Read the entire review