Category Archives: Anime Reviews

Ah! My Goddess!: The Movie – Anime Review

By | March 8, 2006 at 1:09 pm | No Comments

The Essentials

Ah! My Goddess: The MovieName: Ah! My Goddess: The Movie, Gekijouban Aa! Megamisama!
Genre: Comedy, Romance, Science Fiction
Episodes: N/A
Released: TV: Decmeber 21, 2000
Based On: Oh! My Goddess manga by Kosuke Fujishima, Oh! My Goddess OVA by Hiroaki Gohda
Director: Hiroaki Gohda, Makoto Bessho
Produced By: Dentsu, AIC
US Distribution By: Pioneer/Geneon

Major Japanese Cast

Belldandy: Kikuko Inoue
Keiichi Morisato: Masami Kikuchi
Celestine: Hiroshi Yanaka
Morgan Le Fay: Ayako Kawasumi
Urd: Yumi Touma
Skuld: Aya Hisakawa
Peorth: Rei Sakuma
Megumi Morisato: Yuriko Fuchizaki

Major English Cast

Belldandy: Ruby Marlowe
Keiichi Morisato: Rafael Antonio Oliver
Celestine: David Lucas
Morgan Le Fay: Lia Sargent
Urd: Melissa Williamson
Skuld: Sherry Lynn
Peorth: Anne Sherman
Megumi Morisato: Stephanie Greene

Scores

Animation: 10/10 (x 4 = 40 pts)
Story: 8/10 (x 4 = 32 pts)
Music: 9/10 (x 4 = 36 pts)
Coherency/Story Arc: N/A
English Dubs: 9/10 (x 1 = 9 pts)
Gut Score: 8/10 (x 5 = 40 pts)

Total: 157/180 (87.2%)

Review

Ah! My Goddess: The Movie is loosely based on the Oh! My Goddess OVA series in the sense that it is supposed to exist in that telling of the Ah! My Goddess franchises’ universe, but nothing specific that occurs in the OVA series has an effect on the movie.

Ah! My Goddess: The Movie is about a god – Celestin – who believes that all lifeforms that exist in the universe should be on equal footings with the gods and goddesses. In the past he defied the will of The Almighty in pursuit of his goal and, as a result, lost the ability to transform into his corporal form on his own and was imprisoned on the moon. Move ahead quite a bit into the future, 3 years after Belldandy arrived on earth. A fairy princess whose human form is named Morgan Le Fay arrives and unseals Celestin from his prison and who is able to lend her body to Celestin, allowing him to turn into his corporeal form.

With his ability to take on his “human” form back, Celestin goes to earth and meets up with Belldandy, who happened to be his apprentice in heaven. He infects Belldandy with a virus that wipes all of her memories of Keiichi and, through her connection to Yggdrasil, infects the heavenly computer.

While Keiichi, Urd, and Skuld try to find a way to bring Belldandy’s memory back on earth, Peorth and other Yggdrasil administrators attempt to stop the progress of the virus from getting even deeper into the system as the mystery of what is Celestin’s connection to Belldandy and what Celestin’s true goal is unraveled.

Probably the only real negative I can say about this movie is that one may not fully understand exactly what is occurring during the climax of the movie. I’ve seen the movie many times, and I’m still not sure I completely understand exactly what is going on, though I clearly get what, generally, Celestin is trying to accomplish.

I think the animation is of pretty high quality in this movie. The music is also very good and fits the mood of the movie. The dub is also pretty good I thought. I think most people who are even just a aware of the basic premise of the Ah! My Goddess franchise will be able to appreciate and enjoy this movie.

First Watched: March 2006
Do I Own: Yes
Do I Recommend: Yes

Angelic Layer – Anime Review

By | March 6, 2006 at 3:28 am | No Comments

Angelic LayerThe Essentials

Name: Angelic Layer, Battle Doll Angelic Layer, Kidou Tenshi Angelic Layer
Genre: Action, Science fiction
Episodes: 26
Released: April 1, 2001 – September 23, 2001
Based On: Angelic Layer manga series by CLAMP
Director: Hiroshi Nishikiori
Produced By: BONES, TV Tokyo
US Distribution By: ADV

Major Japanese Cast

Misaki Suzuhara: Atsuko Enomoto
Ichiro Mihara: Masaya Onosaka
Hatoko Kobayashi: Yuri Shiratori
Tamayo Kizaki: Satsuki Yukino
Kotaro Kobayashi: Jun Fukuyama
Ohjiro Mihara: Souichiro Hoshi
Sai Jounouchi: Houko Kuwashima
Kaede Saito: Ayako Kawasumi
Shoko Asami: Kotono Mitsuishi
Shuko Suzuhara: Kikuko Inoue
Masaharu Ogata: Tomokazu Seki

Major English Cast

Misaki Suzuhara: Jessica Boone
Ichiro “Icchan” Mihara: Andy McAvin
Hatoko Kobayashi: Sasha Paysinger
Tamayo Kizaki: Monica Rial
Kotaro Kobayashi: Kevin Corn
Ohjiro Mihara: Chris Patton
Sai Jounouchi: Tiffany Grant
Kaede Saito: Tiffany Terrell
Shoko Asami: Kelly Manison
Shuko Suzuhara: Christine Auten
Masaharu Ogata: Mark X. Laskowski

Scores

Animation: 9/10 (x4 = 36 pts)
Story: 8/10 (x4 = 32 pts)
Music: 9/10 (x4 = 36 pts)
Coherence/Story Arc: 10/10 (x2 = 20 pts)
English Dubs: 8/10 (x1 = 8 pts)
Gut Score: 10/10 (x5 = 50pts)

Total: 182/200 (91%)

Review

One of the first things that I notice when watching Angelic Layer is the music. Even after watching several other series, the music still stands out for me as one of the best things about this series. It’s crisp. It’s vibrant. Both the action and the non-action background music are excellent. Many series seem to go for the good opening and closing credit music but skimp off on the background music. Angelic Layer has both.

Angelic Layer is a cute series that, on the surface, may sound boring – essentially girls fight against each other in matches using dolls – but is actually pretty good, with several interesting storylines that add to the 20-something battles that occur over the course of the series. The characters are also well developed, each having their own quirks and issues.

I also think that the battles are different enough – and there is enough on the line in each of them – to make each battle uniquely exciting. No two battles are the same.

As is sadly the case with many series, the final episode is the weakest link in an overall excellent series. In reality, the final episode never really needs to happen, which is the battle between Misaki, the main character, and Shu, the “Queen” of Angelic Layer who Misaki discovers is her mother. I think the series could have ended with that and left often who won the final match between the two, but the series felt compelled to have that final fight as well.

The animation is pretty good, especially in the battle sequences. The art may be more “cartoonish” than sharp, but the quality is excellent.

Overall, this is a very cute anime which people of all ages would enjoy.

First Watched: November 2005 – December 2005
Do I Own: Yes
Do I Recommend:: Yes

Oh! My Goddess (OVA) – Anime Review

By | March 3, 2006 at 8:53 am | No Comments

The Essentials

Oh My Goddess OVAName: Oh! My Goddess, Ah! My Goddess, Aa! Megami-sama!
Genre: Romance, Comedy, Fantasy
Episodes: 5
Released: 1993, 1994
Based On: Oh! My Goddess manga by Kosuke Fujishima
Director: Hiroaki Gohda
Produced By: AIC

Cast

Character Japanese Cast English Cast
Belldandy: Kikuko Inoue Juliet Cesario
Keiichi Morisato: Masami Kikuchi Scott Simpson
Urd: Yumi Touma Lanelle Markgraf
Skuld: Aya Hisakawa Pamela Weidner
Megumi Morisato: Yuriko Fuchizaki Amanda Spivey
Tamiya: Kiyoyuki Yanada Mark Matney
Ootaki: Issei Futamata Sean P. O’Connell

Review

Keiichi is a loser to attends college at Nakomi Tech. One day when watching over his all-male dorm, he calls a wrong number when trying to order delivery and accidentally dials up the Goddess Help Line.  As a result, Belldandy, a goddess, comes down to grant Keiichi’s wish.  Believing it’s a joke set up by his dorm-mates, Keiichi wishes for Belldandy to be his girlfriend forever.

Unfortunately (or fortunately) for him, it isn’t a joke, and suddenly Belldandy has to stay with him forever – backed up by the power of Heaven’s “system force.”  Also, girls aren’t allowed in Keiichi’s dorm, so when his dorm-mates return to find a beautiful woman with Keiichi, they kick them both out, forcing Keiichi to ultimately find refuge in a nearby temple, with the help of Belldandy.

After a while, Belldandy’s older sister Urd comes down from Heaven in an attempt to spicen up their relationship while her younger sister Skuld comes down in an attempt to persuade Belldandy to come back home.  However, things soon start to go seriously awry around the temple, and it appears to be because of Belldandy’s presence.

The main weakness of this series may be that it is so short and compact – 5 episodes and about 2 1/2 hours of video time. The first half of the series, consisting of the first three episodes, introduces all of the important cast and is more of a comedy as Belldandy and Keiichi live their lives. The second half of the series – consisting of the last 2 episodes – is more of a drama as a mysterious force created by the interaction of Belldandy and Keiichi starts causing havoc, requiring that they must remain separated.  It’s quite a sudden jump of genre, and the show probably really could stand to flesh things out a little bit more.  On the positive side, the animation and music appears to be pretty good for a series in the early 90s.

I think that, overall, this series could probably be considered to be about average. It isn’t bad by any stretch, and if I saw a good enough price, I’d probably even buy it, but I wouldn’t really consider it one of the top series that I’ve watched, either.  It’s probably still short enough to make it worth giving this show a try, though.

Scores

Animation: 4/5
Story: 3/5
Music: 4/5
Dub: 3/5

Overall: 3/5

First Watched: October 2005
Do I Own: No
Do I Recommend: Yes

How I Rate Anime

By | March 2, 2006 at 12:14 pm | 4 comments

Before I add any more reviews, I’d like to share my way of rating anime. Its not perfect and is rather subjective, of course, but these are my ratings, not some complex quantitative analysis.

While my ratings are from 1 to 10, “average” is more along the line of a 7 score and not a 5 score.  An 8 would be seen as slightly above average, 9 would be significantly above average, and 10 would be fantastic.  Meanwhile, a 6 would be below average, a 5 would be bad, and anything below that would be pretty hard to get unless something was just atrocious.

Animation
I take into account three factors for this:

1) The time the anime was released (I wouldn’t expect an anime released in 1996 to have the same quality as one released in 2006)

2) How was it released (movies are held to higher standards than OVA, which are held to higher standards than TV series)

3) The “look and feel” of the anime. If the anime is goofy and has goofy looking anime, I won’t necessarily hold that against it.

I’ll say now that I’m not exactly an animation expert and so I don’t necessarily know about (and thus don’t necessarily notice) the more specific nuances of animation.  Basically how I rate it is…if it looks good, I rate it high.  If it doesn’t look good, then I don’t rate it high.  Pretty simple I think.

Story

Also, pretty subjective to whether I like it. Does a suspension of disbelief exist? Am I laughing with them or laughing at them, etc. How well thought out is the story. Is it something I’ve seen a bazillion times before? Do they focus more on, say, fan service than the story? Things like that are what I take into account. An anime which has a lot of fan service or action, but little story won’t do well in this department.  Meanwhile, if there is a plot, and episodes actually follow the plot, it will do better.

Music

Again, partially subjective to whether I just like it or not.  However, I do pay attention to  whether the music helps define or confuse the look and feel of the anime? Is it an action anime with romantic music (just as an example) or vice versa? What is the music quality (which can also partially be influenced by when the anime was released)?

Coherence/Story Arc

This is one of the hardest things to grade. Basically it goes like this: Is a goal and/or some sort of story line established (or seemingly established)? Next, how well do the following episodes progress this story line or the achievement of the goal?

Of course, this is imperfect. If there is an anime where the real story in different from what one perceived it, then I would look more at how the story was told to conceal this fact, etc.

Series with a lot of “filler” episodes, or which appear to be aimless until their “conclusion” won’t do well here. The only exception I might make is if it is clear from the very beginning that the show isn’t meant to be watched with a central plot in mind – but that largely depends on how the series is executed.

Also, I’m requiring a minimum episode count of 12 episodes for this to be applicable, so series shorter than that (like Oh! My Goddess or Video Girl Ai) won’t have a score for this.

English Dubs

Not all anime will have a score for this because either 1) they haven’t been dubbed yet or I’ve seen it, but haven’t heard the English dubs.

Basically I look at all the major characters and see 1) is the voice actor/actress any good. In other words, does the dialog sound authentic or like they’re reading off a sheet of paper. 2) Does the voice match what I would expect for the character. In other words, does it match the personality and looks of the character, and if it doesn’t, is there a good reason for it.

I can usually forgive minor characters unless there are just a lot of bad dubs for them.

Gut Score

Basically, if I had to pull a rating out of a hat, what I would give it.

Weights

Since I deem my gut score, music, animation, and story to be most important, they get high weights.

“Gut Score” is multiplied by 5
Animation, Story, and Music scores are multiplied by 4 each
Coherence/Story Arc score is multiplied by 2
Dubs score is not multiplied by anything.

Since not all shows will have a coherence and/or a dub score, the actual total points each anime is given changes.  An anime with a score in both story arc and dubs will have a score out of 200 points. However, a story with no story arc score will only have a total out of 180, an anime without a dub score will only have a total score out of 190, and an anime without either will have a total score out of 170. For this reason, my final score will be a percentage of total possible points, and not the number of actual points.

For me, getting into the 90% means the anime is excellent and that I probably already own. An anime would have to be virtually perfect to get a score higher than the low 90s.

Scores in the 80% means the anime is good, that I have or probably am considering buying it, and that I would recommend it.

Scores in the 70% means that the anime is OK. I’d buy it if I saw it cheap, probably. I may or may not recommend it.

Scores in the 60% means that I wasn’t very impressed by the anime. I probably wouldn’t buy or recommend.

Anything in the 50% or less would pretty much be considered trash.

DNA2 (Squared) – Anime Review

By | March 1, 2006 at 12:32 am | 1 comment

DNA Squared

The Essentials

Name: DNA2, Dokokade Nakushita Aitsuno Aitsu
Genre: Comedy, Romance, Science Fiction
Episodes: 15 (12 TV, 3 OVA)
Released: TV: Oct. 7, 1994 – Dec. 23, 1994; OVA: 1995
Based On: DNA2 manga series by Masakazu Katsura
Director: Jun’ichi Sakata
Produced By: Bandai, Nippon TV

Cast

Character Japanese Cast English Cast
Junta Momonari: Keiichi Nanba Liam O’Brien
Karin Aoi: Miina Tominaga Jessica Calvello
Ami Kurimoto: Hiroko Kasahara Rachael Lillis
Ryuji Sugashita: Takehito Koyasu Tom Wilson
Tomoko Saeki: Megumi Hayashibara Veronica Lake
Kotomi Takanashi: Hekiru Shiina Lotus
Oharu: Eiko Yamada Barry Banner
Yokomori: Ryunosuke Ohbayashi Tristan Goddard
Lulara Kawasaki: Sakiko Tamagawa Rebecca Miriam
Mori: Jun Hazumi Michael Alston Baley

Review

DNA2 is about the typical high school loser, Junta, who runs into Karin, who has come from the 100 years in the future. Her mission is to find the so-called “Mega-Playboy” who is destined to father 100 children, passing his Mega-Playboy jeans on to them, causing each of them to have 100 children, and so forth. This obviously creates a massive population boom and it is Karin’s job to shoot the original Mega-Playboy with a bullet filled with DNA Control Medicine to re-write the Mega-Playboy’s DNA so that he becomes a normal person before he even has the chance to father any children.

Unfortunately for Junta, Karin identifies him as the future Mega-Playboy and shoots him with her bullet. The only problem is that Karin took the wrong bullet back with her – a bullet which, instead of wiping the Mega-Playboy DNA from Junta, turns him into the Mega-Playboy. Luckily for Karin, Junta’s DNA isn’t stable immediately after shooting him, and she spends the rest of the series trying to fend of Junta’s Mega-Playboy side while at the same time trying to hook him up with his childhood friend Ami, hoping that her influence will but the Mega-Playboy DNA within Junta into submission.

Dna2 was the first full anime series I ever watched, and to me it left a good impression as can be best evidenced by the fact that I’m still watching anime.

I thought this show was pretty funny, with comedy being the primary base of the series, at least through the first 8 or 9 episodes or so. However, the series takes a much darker turn in the final 6 episodes or so. One might think that switching from primarily a comedy to primarily a drama in the middle of the series would be an issue, but I actually think it works pretty well as the series switches over from the hilarity that ensues with Junta fighting his Mega-Playboy side and transitions into a pair of story arcs which deals with the danger of DNA manipulation and a conspiracy in the future to use the Mega-Playboy’s powers for their own purposes.

This is definitely an older series, running in 1994, so some parts may not be as high a quality as more recent series, but the story is still pretty solid overall. Given when it was released, I don’t think the music was about average, and I think the animation is actually pretty good. The English dubs I think were also done fairly well.

Overall, I think this is a series that quite a few people might enjoy. The switch in genre in the middle may turn off those who would watch the series for one genre or the other, but I think all-in-all quite a few people would enjoy this series.

Scores

Animation: 4/5
Story: 5/5
Music: 4/5
Dub: 4/5

Overall: 4/5

First Watched: August, 2005
Do I Own: Yes
Do I Recommend: Yes

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