Forum: Anime, Manga and Video Game Reviews

Go forward a few pages, and you will find a review of the anime series Violet Evergarden. It’s the bitter-sweet story of an orphan trained to be a killing machine in a war. But when the war was over, alone in the world with no purpose, Violet gets a job as an Auto-Memory Doll, that is someone who...

So as a guy who loves fighting games I figured that I would take about one of my favorites in the genera. Dead or Alive was release in 1996 by Tecmo and became a huge success. This was mainly due to graphical upgrades done at the time as well as the feature of attractive female fighters. Over time,...

Veteran Studio Ghibli animator Yoshiyuki Homose set out on his own with this directorial debut. Ninokuni is a fantasy adventure about two friends trying to save the life of the girl they both love. High school kids Haru and Kotona are a couple, with Haru’s best friend, the wheelchair bound Yuu,...

I was wondering what to expect from a movie titled Girls und Panzer der Film. It is based on an anime series I have never seen. A panzer is a German tank used in World War II, right? So is this about a group of young, female Nazis? Naw, couldn’t be. Although in the interest of bad taste, one...

So in the future, our consciousness will become digitalized and can be repeatedly downloaded into new bodies called “Stacks.” Got that? Altered Carbon: Restacked is available on Netflix Streaming. It is based on a live action series, also on Netflix Streaming. I haven’t heard of the series...

I am not sure if Domain of Murder is meant to be a stand-alone work, or if it is part of a series. Whatever. It’s still a pretty good story. When a woman thinks a wanted murderer is her missing husband, private detective Goro Nanase takes the case. Eventually teaming up with a cop, who is an...

Is it Wrong to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? We may never know the answer. We certainly don’t get the answer in season one. So here’s the premise. The gods have come down to Earth, and after forming groups called Familias, they empower human Adventurers with the skills and abilities to go down...

All of a sudden, a new continent appears on Earth. Named Magmel, it is a land of riches and deadly monsters. Fortune seekers, adventurers, scientists, and others are drawn to this strange new world, but mostly badly prepared for what awaits them. This leads to the development of a new profession...

I missed this one when it was in the theaters a few years back. Now I finally get to see what I missed. The Boy and The Beast is an adventure story, an action anime, a coming of age story, a story of the bonds of family and friends, and a few other things thrown in. Ren is a nine-year-old...

Here is a film which is hard to forget; not that you would want to. Millennium Actress is directed by Satoshi Kon, the director of Perfect Blue and Tokyo Godfathers. Here he gives us surrealistic storytelling using the plot device of a filmmaker shooting a documentary interviewing the subject...

There are trillions and trillions of cells in your body working to keep you healthy and alive. Now image those cells as anime characters, and you have Cells at Work. Feisty Red Blood Cell is new to the job of delivering oxygen and nutrients throughout the body. She is always either getting...

Ocean Waves is one of the lesser known creations of Studio Ghibli. According to imdb.com: "This TV movie was an attempt to make anime solely by the young staff members, mostly in their 20s and 30s. Tomomi Mochizuki, who was 34 years old then, was brought in to direct. Their motto was to produce...

So here we are back on Mars, and once again human ingenuity has made it into a livable planet. Only Mars society relies a little too much on AI; that is, artificial intelligence. Even the music of Mars is written by and human performers controlled by AI. All except Carole and Tuesday. ...

Tales from Earthsea gets off to an odd start. Young Prince Arren murders his father and steal’s his sword. Running away from home, his life is saved by a mage named Sparrowhawk, and perhaps his soul by a farmwoman named Tenar, and the girl she cares for named Theru. Only can the world be saved...

This version of Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress, currently on Netflix streaming, is a shorter version of a longer anime series. So don’t expect too much plot development, too many subplots, or any great character development. Everything is whittled down to three episodes. The Kabane have risen...

In the distant future, engineers redo the entire planet of Mars to create Aqua, a planet of water. The most beautiful city on Aqua is Neo-Venezia, modeled after Venice on Earth. A series of gondolas, piloted by young women, roam the waters providing a relaxing experience for tourists. Akara is...

If you consider anime more of an overall genre than just simply Japanese animation, then anime is not just Japanese anymore. MFKZ is a French/Japanese production co-directed by French illustrator/animator Guillaume Renard, who also co-wrote the script, and Japanese animator Shojiro Nishimi, who...

No, this is not the anime series. This is the vintage anime movie on which the series is based. I guess we can call it vintage. It is 40 years old. Toward the Terra is set in the future after mankind has pretty much destroyed Earth. I guess it takes place around 2025 or so. Anyway, the...

This one goes back a ways. The Dagger of Kamui is a rather routine Japanese anime action flick. Set in the 19th century, a young man named Jiro is falsely accused of murdering his adoptive mother and sister, later tricked into killing his own father, and is then falsely accused of murdering his...

Well, not everything is so easy to explain. Fireworks is among them. The Japanese title is Uchiage hanabi, shita kara miru ka? Yoko kara miru ka? I like Fireworks better. This is a coming of age story, with a twist. Nazuna and Norimichi have a crush on each other, only Nazuna is going to be...

Imagine major corporations settling their disagreements and disputes outside the usual business realm, and outside any courtroom. Instead, they settle things fist to fist via hired thugs. So this is Kengan Ashusa. Ohma, a rouge fighter, becomes the main battler for the Nogi Group. He is put...

So from what I can gather, No Game, No Life: Zero is a prequel to the anime series No Game, No Life, which I have never seen. So theoretically, I really do not need to see the series first to understand the movie, though I have a feeling it would have helped. The Dwarves, Elves, and several...

Netflix streaming has two seasons of Record of Grancrest War, for a total of 24 episodes. I made it through a third of those. No more. It starts off with a pretty good premise. Siluca is a female mage about to enter into a contract with a prestigious nobleman, until she meets Theo, a commoner...

Here’s a work of beauty. The Garden of Words is a visual delight. Made with a combo of CGI, rotoscoping, and hand drawings, each shot looks like a cross between a fine art painting and a photograph. The details are breathtaking, the movements realistic. This is the best animation I have seen in...

Not exactly a classic, nor an anime you will remember in detail for the rest of your life, If I See You in my Dreams is still an entertaining little exercise. Nebbish Misou has never had a girlfriend, primarily because girls don’t like him. Then he meets Nagisa, by chance. She’s a kindergarten...

Cannon Busters has it all! An immortal, two robots, mecha fighters, and practically every anime action cliche you can think of being overused -- badly. Yes, you have seen this all before, and done better. Sam is a female friend robot who is also, unknown to her, a cannon buster. That's a...

Before we get into Love, Chunibyo and other Delusions, we first need to define what chunibyo or chuunibyou, is. According to the Urban Dictionary: As a middle schooler, Yuta was a chunibyo, calling himself the Dark Flame Master and possessing super powers. It pretty much ruined any chance...

Kids can be so cruel, but cruel kids can also carry a lot of baggage. So let’s look at The Shape of Voice, aka A Silent Voice. Shoko is the new girl in the 6th grade, and she’s deaf. Shoya leads the bulling which reaches a point to where Shoko must transfer out to a new school. Though others...

You think you’ve got problems? Yuzuku Otonashi wakes up with no memory. The first person he meets is a cute girl named Yuri, who is aiming a high powered rifle at another cute girl she calls Angel. It seems that Yuzuku is dead and that the afterlife is a high school. I can take being dead, but...

Time for a fantasy adventure! Lyria is a cute, young girl with powers that The Empire wants to exploit for war. Lt. Katalina takes pity on the girl and together they escape, meeting a young guy named Gran and his best friend Vyrn, a flying something-or-other. Anyway, Gran gets killed trying to...