Forum: Anime, Manga and Video Game Reviews

Some of the best movie and TV moments are when you see the perfect con worked out by professionals – or at least actors playing professionals. I just finished the first two seasons of Great Pretender on Netflix Streaming. Makoto is a small time Japanese con artist who finds himself involved...

Well, here we go with another high school anime. Just what we need, right? It has all what you would expect from a high school anime, but wait! Kamichui! is a bit different. Yurie is just like any other 14-year-old trying to break into adulthood and not totally being sure of who she is or...

It’s time for another school anime – as if there were not enough. Nagi-Asu: A Lull in the Sea does have a different twist, but does the twist manage to carry the series? Hint: There are 26 episodes and I got only as far as episode 10. We get the usual middle school drama. Boys and girls are...

The Fate franchise has a loyal following, but really? How often can you get away with the same-old same-old? What is needed is a new twist. Fortunately, Fate/Grand Order – First Order delivers. The Chaldea Security Organization exists to ensure that humanity has a future by going back in time...

Three homeless people, a drunk, a drag queen and a runaway teenager, find an abandoned baby on Christmas Eve. Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, doesn’t it? But actually it is the premise of one of director Satoshi Kon’s most popular works, Tokyo Godfathers. It’s been ten years since...

Season three of Aggretsuko breaks the rules. This series is a light-hearted spoof of the anxieties, frustrations, and pressures of the modern young professional women. Now get ready to go where Aggretsuko has never gone before. Retsuko is a panda. Finally I figure out what she is supposed to...

Weathering with You is the most recent anime feature from Makoto Shinkai, who also directed Your Name, The Garden of Words, and The Place Promised to Us in Our Early Days. That’s quite a resume. We start out with a teenage runaway named Hodaka. He comes to the big city of Tokyo because. . . . ...

Michiru was a normal schoolgirl who had a happy life. She loved her friends and she loved basketball. Then one day she woke up and found herself to be a half-tanuki. Welcome to the world of BNA. OK, let’s gets some things straight first. BNA stands for Brand New Animals. I thought it might...

Of course I have seen this film before. It was time to watch Spirited Away again. Many consider this to be writer/director Hayao Miyazaki’s masterpiece. I won’t go into comparing one movie to another. But re-watching does give me a new appreciation for the work. Ten-year-old Chihiro is...

Monthly Girls Nozaki-kun is a high school anime. Yup! Another one of those. Only this one seems to have an interesting twist at the beginning. Now just try to get to the end. High school girl Chiyo has a crush on her upper classman Nozaki. When she confesses her love, Nozaki gives her his...

Here is a sci-fi, horror, action, dark comedy anime. That’s a lot to say. Dorohedoro seems to have it all – including lots of blood. Things get bloody from the first scene when we see Caiman and his muscle-bound female companion Nikaido attack a couple of sorcerers. Caiman has a bone to pick...

I have just finished the first two seasons of Haikyuu!! I don’t know what the word means or why exclamation marks are part of the title. But I do know this is an exciting series well made and well worth watching. We start off with a middle school student Hinata who falls in love with...

The first thing you have to know about The Law of Ueki is that there are dozens of plot points. I can’t list them all, but to summarize: The Celestrials are giving powers to junior high students so they can battle, with Ueki having the power to turn trash into trees, although this does make it...

The first rule of time travel is don’t change anything. Anyone who has ever watched Star Trek, Doctor Who, Red Dwarf, or any one of a number of sci-fi shows will tell you that. Young Makoto had to learn that lesson the hard way in The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. It looks like Makoto’s life is...

As far as I am concerned, Drifting Dragons gets off on the wrong foot. This anime series is about an airship manned by dragon hunters, known as Drakers. They hunt and kill dragons for food an oil, but in the most inhuman way. Hearing the huge beasts cry out in agony is a bit much, especially...

If Franz Kafka wrote an anime, would he have more than one bug? OK, let’s skip the highbrow literary references and go straight to the world of Cagaster of an Insect Cage. In the future, a disease with ravish the world by turning people into giant insects who devour people who have not turned...

Legoshi (named after Bela Lugosi?) is a typical 17-year-old. Tall and lanky, but awkward physically and socially, Legoshi is trying to figure out who he is and what his place in the world will be. And he has to fight his primeval urge to kill and devour. After all Legoshi is a wolf. I mean...

From what I have gathered, Iria: Zeiram is a prequel to an earlier live action series. Iria is a deputy bounty hunter working for her older brother. They are brought along on a hostage rescue, only to face an unkillable monster named Zeiram. Iria is the only survivor of the battle -- maybe. ...

Exactly what is anime? Is it simply any animation from Japan, or is it a distinctive style regardless of where the series or movie were made? Seis Manos is an American production with the art and animation done in South Korea, judging by the names in the credits. The art style is not what one...

Finally we get what we all have been waiting for – an anime series which opens with the sound of bagpipes. That is the series Master Keaton. Taichi Keaton-Hiraga, the son of a British mother and Japanese father, is a former SAS agent, ex-college professor and lecturer, and a trained...

Do you really know your cat? A Whisker Away will make you wonder. Miyu aka Muge is a young teen with problems. Still not recovered from her mother walking out on the family, she must now deal with her father’s fiance who has just moved in. To make matters worse, Kento, the boy she has a...

A short time back, I did a write up on the movie No Game, No Life: Zero, a prequel to the series No Game, No Life. You would think this would clue me in as to the nature of the original series. Nope. Based on the movie, I expected something a bit dark. Instead I find a light hearted action...

Okko’s Inn opens with a happy moment. Okko and her parents are at a festival, and clearly they are one happy family. But that does not last long. On their way home, they are involved in a horrific traffic accident which kills Okko’s parents. Okko somehow escapes alive. Okko’s Inn is a...

Growing up can be such a pain for a four-year-old boy, especially when you are no longer the only child. This is the premise of Mirai, directed by Mamoru Hosoda, who also gave us Summer Wars and The Boy and the Beast. Kun is having a hard time adjusting to being a big brother to baby Mirai,...

OK, then. Where did we leave off? In season one of Hi Score Girl, Yaguchi Haruo, a grade school student, cares for nothing but video games. One day he sees his rich classmate Akira Ono in an arcade pretty much cleaning up all challenges. To Yaguchi, she’s a rival. But Akira is a girl with a...

It’s not from Studio Ghibli, though it certainly looks like a Ghibli film. Actually, Modest Heroes, Vol. 1 is from Studio Ponco, formed by various former Ghibli artists and animators. They aren’t shy about utilizing the Ghibli look. But then again, why should they be? It’s a good look. ...

Can they still call this series 7 Seeds if some of the teams lose members, or gain members, or if teams combine? Let’s not think too much about it. Rather let’s talk about season two. Season two of 7 Seeds deals with fewer characters, which make things easier to follow. Would be rapist and...

The seasons keep getting longer, but that’s OK. There are more plots, stories, and complexities in season three of Castlevania than the earlier seasons. Season one was only four episodes. Season two had eight, and now with season three we have ten. So when season three starts, we see Alucard,...

And now for some bloodletting action and a bit of comedy, with a dash of darkness. It’s called Pumpkin Scissors. We start off in the Empire, which has never fully recovered from a destructive war. Or at least the peasantry has never recovered. There is joblessness, homelessness, and hunger...

Once upon a time, there was this schoolboy named Kai. That’s about as good a way to start off as anything. Because essentially Lu Over the Wall is a fairy tale. In a small fishing village struggling to survive, Kai is going through life without direction, except for a slight interest in music....