A Lull in the Sea is a 2013 anime serieswhich wasproduced by anime studio P.A. Works (Another, Angel Beats!).Theseries is set in a genre-bending sci-fi world in which people actuallyliveinside of the ocean (as well as on the land above). There aresea-people whocan breathe underwater and they live in homes under the sea, go toschool, and worshipa sea-god.

In the story, people once all lived in the ocean.The seaused to be the main home of everyone. Then humans split up and somewent to liveon the land while others stayed back underwater. There is an oldprophecy thatpredicts the end of the world sometime in the distant future, socharactersmust hibernate to survive and pray to the sea god with a festi...Read the entire review

Chronicles of the Going Home Club isanother slice oflife school club setting series. There certainly are many of them inthe animeworld. This series joins the ranks of others with a premise surroundingstudents in an after-school club and their ongoing comedic hijinks.Members ofthe "Going Home Club" are girls who haven't joined any other groupfor a afterschool club experience. Normally they would just "go home"but now they have a established group where they can hang out insteadofleaving school.

The series doesn't really have a sense of plot orstorytelling structure in the sense of being a series aboutstory. Thisis a series about having fun and it provides jokes and laughter foraudiencesmo...Read the entire review

The Eccentric Family is a short one-seasonanimeseries based on novel written by Tomihiko Morimi. The series takesplace in Kyoto,utilizes a modern-day setting, and focuses on the "eccentric" ShimogamoFamily. The Shimogamo's are tanuki who are able to shape-shiftappearances intoany other being or animal. The tanuki freely roam the wild earth butareendangered by humans living in the city and a group known as the"FridayFellows" who celebrate the end of each year with a giant hot-pie madeupof tanuki. How are the tanuki supposed to survive?

The core story revolves around Yasaburo Shimogamo,who isthe main character of the series and one of the members of the"eccentric" Shimogamo family. Yasaburo is a free spiri...Read the entire review

Genshiken Second Generation is actually asequelseries to the Genshiken anime production. While it's officiallyconsidered a "second season" it's actually the third season producedand there's even an OVA spin-off which preceded it as well. (The seriesevenmakes a referential joke to this odd fact in one of the episodepreviews.)  It's a continuation of thepopular animefranchise. The series revolves around The Society for the Study ofModernVisual Culture: an after-school college club which basically exists for"otaku" anime nerds to get together and be absorbed in anime andmanga.

This season introduces a number of new charactersinto theseries and is a re-launch of the s...Read the entire review

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From NIS America comes Love Live! School Idol Project - Season 1, a series about a group of school girls standing up for something they love and willing to do whatever it takes to save it.

The premise of School Idol Project is pretty simple. Otonokizaka Academy, a school that has been around for many generations, is announced to be closing down after the current year ends due to lack of applicants. This comes as a shock to a particular second year student, Honoka Kōsaka (Voiced by Emi Nitta), who loves the school due to her family graduating from the same school years prior. Honoka soon learns that even her sister wants to go to a rival academy due to the surge in popularity of a group of "School Idol's", musical performers who are still learning in their school and are not professionals.

Deciding she must do something about stopping this dilemma, Honoka recruit...Read the entire review

Cardcaptor Sakurais one of the most successful shojo anime(and manga) series ever created. Based upon the popular serializedmangacreated by the popular all-girl manga group Clamp, CardcaptorSakura became a huge success that spawned the creationof this equally beloved series, two feature films connected to theseries,books and video games. Following the fun adventures of Sakura Kinomoto,theseries is a fantasy magical-girl show that is smart and adventurous inequalmeasure.

The story beginswith introducing the lead character, Sakura. One day while searchingfor astrange nose emitting from her basement, 10 year old Saku...Read the entire review

Content: I was primarily an anime fan back in the mid 90's to the early 2000's, watching titles like Cowboy Bebop, Dragon Ball Z, The Big O and Trigun. After something like a 10 year hiatus, I began slowly getting back into anime and one title I was told about on a semi consistent basis was Toradora!, which was originally based on a light novel series by Yuyuko Takemiya. The simplified premise is that it's about a high school romance where two loners being in love with each other's only friends and decide to help one another out, only to find out that the love they seek is a bit closer than they actually realize. Now for the first time, this fan favorite series is finally out on Blu-ray and now equipped with a brand new English dub (also a first for the NIS company), is it worth picking up?

Ryuji Takasu (voiced by Erik Scott Kimerer) is a calm and kind seventeen year old high sc...Read the entire review

Fuse: Memoirs of a Huntress is an animefilmproduction released in 2012, which is based upon a classic Japanesenovelwritten by Kazuki Sakuraba. The film takes place in the Edo period ofJapan andis a new fantasy interpretation on this renowned story. Directed byMasayukiMiyaji (Xam'd: Lost Memories)  the filmhas a swiftly handled shift in the approach that was made to tellingthisstory.

This interpretation and retelling focuses upon thehuntercharacter Hamaji, and begins with the introduction to this character.She is a14 year old girl who was brought up living around the mountainsides,and who isnow staying by herself - and struggling to survive - following thepassing ofher grandfather. The story of...Read the entire review

Nyaruko: Crawling with Love (Haiyore!Nyaruko-san) isan anime series based upon a series of Japanese light novels. It hasbeen similarlyadapted into a manga series and into a video game.  Thisis sort of  the common result of a lot ofsuchadaptations and this series isn't one to really break from the mold inthatregard. The series is loosely inspired by the fiction works of H.P.Lovecraft,which conceptually is utilized as the starting point for the series.

The story beginswith a boy named Mahiro running away from a scary looking monster whoisactually an alien creature who...Read the entire review

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My first exposure to anime licensed by NIS America was a show I recently reviewed called Yuru Yuri, a series I thought to be quite abysmal and an overall dud. There was no originality to the aforementioned series, it was bland, it had humorless characters and was overall just a bore and tiresome to get through. Wagnaria!! has pretty much the same concept, yet it just works. All of the characters are unique in their own ways, the humor is on point, the story, while completely episodic, was completely enjoyable throughout, something of which I did not expect to see going into it to be completely honest. A pleasant surprise indeed.

Wagnari!! or better known as Working!! takes place almost exclusively inside of a family restaurant (also called Wagnaria!!) The series is pretty much about the daily lives of the staff as they deal with their own problems along...Read the entire review

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If you haven't heard of Yuru Yuri, let me give you a quick recap of season 1. Essentially nothing happened. Yuru Yuri is yet another slice of life anime with little plot. The series revolved around the lives of a group of 14 year old middle school girls in love with one another, who spend their time goofing off in the "Amusement Club." The Amusement club is a school activity club which was created after the Tea club was disbanded, basically to form a club where the girls do nothing but sit around and talk, goof off, and not much. To the people who have seen Season 1, Season 2 is absolutely no different.

Picking up where Season 1 of Yuru Yuri:Premium Edition, Vol.1 (Blu-ray) left off, we're reintroduced to our 4 lead characters... First up is the main protagonist, Kyōko Toshinō (voic...Read the entire review

YuruYuri isyet another anime series that sets out to be a slice-of-lifegem of a story set in a school establishment with a cast of kooky andwacky charactersto carry everything to a successful destination in the end. This isanotherentry in such a 'ordinary' anime world, supposedlysomething that aims to tell the story of a group of school-girls intheirdaily environment, with nothing particularly different to set it apart:oh,expect that all of the characters have girl-cru...Read the entire review

TheDailyLives of High School Boys is apretty silly anime series in virtually every regard someone mightconsider.It's not your typical comedic hijinks show either as it attempts toseamlesslyblend it's goofball humor with "slice-of-life" concepts that are lesscommon in regards to the anime art form. For these reasons, TheDaily Lives of High School Boys issomething apart from your typical high-school themed anime comedy.

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The fourth season of Natsume'sBook of Friends has arrived on home media in North America fromanimedistributor NIS America, who has once again delivered 'the goods' tofans with afancy premium edition set which comes with awesome collectibleover-sizedpackaging, an artbook with illustrations, interviews, an episode guide,and more.The set includes Blu-ray, DVD, and book. This is another excellentrelea...Read the entire review

Click onan image to view the Blu-rayscreenshot with 1080p resolution

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