Hunter X Hunter Anime 2011: Chimera Ant Arc is coming soon

Hunter X Hunter 2011 Anime is now in it's 66th episode. The Greed Island arc has started and is progressing in a good pace so I decided to analyze a little bit how long is it going to last and when we are actually going to see story of Hunter X Hunter that is yet to be animeted: The Chimera Ant Arc.

In Hunter X Hunter manga Gon and Killua stepped on the Greed Island at the end of episode 60, which in manga represents chapter 127.

However, in episode 66 we saw Killua pass the 288th Hunter exam, come back to Greed Island, roll some dice and finally we saw some of the Gensuru's group doing their evil stuff. Alone this episode 66 contained 4 whole manga chapters from chapter 148 to 152, so I'm going to use this as a baseline for our progress.

 The Greed Island Arc ends in chapter 185, which means that in terms of manga chapters there's only 33 chapters to go where Hunter X Hunter anime is now. If we assume that the anime progresses in pace of 1 episode / 4 chapters, it would take 8 or 9 episodes to go to finish the Greed Island Arc.

I'm going to take it safe and say that the Greed Island will end in episode 67, which would mean that there's 10 more episodes to go. It's however possible that it could drag on as far as from 12 to 15 episodes long if the animators decide to make some scenes more longer than expected.

Well, in the end it isn't too long of a waiting time if the anime airs every week without breaks.

After all, we'll be seeing an amazing arc which hasn't been animated, Chimera Ant Arc which honestly trivials me a little bit. In manga it was very brutal which will definitely give some headache to the animators who obviously try to make the anime for the whole family or something. Anyway I'll be following how it turns out to be and most likely start writing recaps and comments of the Chimera Ant Arc.

I also hope we also get to see the Election arc after the ants: it was an incredible one.

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Magi episode 17: End of the Dark Djinn

Comments:

At first I'd like to say that Magi's animation is superb. Aniplex is definitely keeping the quality high and it's very enjoyable to watch anime which doesn't fall into "getting lazy", which is apparent especially in the weekly mainstream animes. Watch the screencaps which I took, they were a good example of nice animation, but didn't obviously limit to them.

The episode itself was a good one and what I especially like in Magi anime is that the pacing is very well done. There are lots of stuff included in the episode and it doesn't make me feel like there was too much stalling like (once again) in the mainstream anime adaptations. In this episode we got a name for the antagonist of this story: Al Sarmen, it however didn't say is Al Sarmen a organization or a person who conquers the villains. Anyways, the story of Magi progresses very well and it's nice to watch it as it has lots of quality.

Recap of Magi episode 17:

-Aladdin used his recently acquired Solomon's wisdom for the first time. He then encourages Alibaba to continue fighting.

-Aladdin then uses Halharl Infigar on Alibaba to revive Amon's sword.

-Alibaba charges towards the Dark Djinn and hits him hard. The Dark Djinn however sucks Aladdin inside him.

-Aladdin either consciously or unconsciously uses Solomon's wisdom which makes Judar fall unconscious.

-Scene changes to "inside the Dark Djinn" in which Kassim and Alibaba argue. They argue about the differences between them, which Alibaba denies. They go through flashbacks and mental battle.

-Finally Cassim dissolves along with the Dark Djinn.

-The mysterious dark person takes Judar with him and escapes. This person is seen afterwards watching the city making a mention of the fourth magi and the solomon's wisdom. He promises to indulge them all in darkness, but then Sinbad's group (him and Jafar + Masrur) come to fight against him. Masrur uses his household vessel Balalark Kauza and Jafar uses his: Balalark Sei.

-Sinbad uses his Balalark Saika and decimates the mysterious man. The man's head is seen drowning and a snake escapes it.

-Scene changes to mysterious place in which there are several characters whose faces are not visible. They talk about Aladdin, his Solomon's wisdom and Sinbad. They also mention that it's another case of Solomon's arrogant intereference which happens every couple of centuries.

-They are on Al Sarmen's agenda.

-Aladdin uses Solomon's Wisdom to show Aladdin his parents.

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Fairy Tail ep 168: Laxus vs. Raven Tail

Comments:

Fairy Tail 168 was a good episode. Millianna vs. Semas was sort of a filler battle, Eve vs. Rufus battle was interesting one to watch, however the final bomb came with Laxus vs. "Alexei". I had already forgotten about this whole "Lumen Historie" case in Fairy Tail, so it was a surprise even to me as I've read the manga. Next episode which is titled as Wendy vs. Cherie will be interesting as we will have conclusion to the Laxus vs. Raven Tail battle as well.

It indeed was a clever twist to make others see just a illusion of Laxus and 'Alexei' fighting.

Recap of Fairy Tail episode 168: Laxus vs. Alexei

Third day of the Grand Magic Games: 

-Raven Tail is holding the first place currently, Lamia Scale second, Sabertooth third, Mermaid Heel fourth place with the Fairy tail A team, Sixth place goes to the Fairy Tail B team. Blue Pegasus and Quatro Puppy are 7th and 8th.

 -First match of this episode is Millianna of Mermaid heel vs. Semas of Quatro Puppy.

-Semas uses Wild Spin and starts spinning around with his huge Body, Millianna counters with Cat Binding Tube, but it doesn't have effect.

-Millianna uses Cat Blast which actually strenghtens Semas.

-She uses Cat Binding Tube once again but this time he manages to stop Semas and beats him, Millianna wins the first battle of this episode.

-Second match of this episode is Rufus Lohr of Sabertooth versus Eve Tilm of Blue Pegasus.

-Eve starts the battle with Snow magic: White Fury, which doesn't hit.

-Rufus confuses Eve and hits him to the back. After that Rufus attacks Eves snow clone with magic.

-It is revealed that Eve belonged to the Council before.

-Eve attacks Rufus with White Blizzard.

-Rufus counters with Memory Make, ancient spell (magic) which gives form to memories. He uses Rage of the Burning Earth which hits Eve hard. Rufus of Sabertooth wins the second match of this episode.

-Third fight begins, Laxus Dreyar of Fairy Tail B vs. Alexei of Raven Tail.

-"Officials" of the event as well as Fairy Tail is keeping an eye for the Raven Tail.

-Alexei attacks Laxus instantly with physical attacks. It looks like Laxus is getting his ass kicked.

-However, it's all an illusion, hallucination magic so that everyone else can't see or hear their true bodies.

-All of the Raven Tails elite appear begind Alexei and Alexei takes off his mask and turns out to be Ivan, Laxus' father.

-Ivan wants to know the location of Lumen Histoire.

-Laxus vs. Raven Tail battle is about to begin.

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One Piece 584: Shichibukai Trafalgar Law

Comments:

In my opinion 584 was a pretty decent chapter: nothing much happened really except that Law appeared, which by itself is pretty awesome.

Couple of pointers:
-The remark of marines mentioning is the first hint of Aokiji and Akainu fighting on Punk Hazard, which explains its weird climate.
-The centaur boss Brownbeard-sama only has 80million beli bounty, he may not be powerful
-It's interesting that the huge laboratory is vegapunk's former one, which explains a lot of stuff.
-We may be seeing some amazing Law vs. Marines stuff next episode!

Recap of One Piece episode 584: A swordplay showdown! Brook vs. the Mysterious Torso Samurai!

-G-5 Marines are approaching the Punk Hazard, on board are Smoker and Tashigi. They feel like they are being watched by Akainu and Aokiji - this is where their 10 days long battle happened.

-Brownbeard, an alligator centaur with 80 060 000 beli bounty is introduced. The centaurs shoot Luffy and others who are on banana boat on the middle of the lake.

-Kung-Fu raccoon, as in Chopper, Nami and the kids are running through a corridor. Franky and Sanji are fighting in the previous room. Kinemon makes a remark that he's fighting with someone formidable with his Torso (who is Brook of course)

-We have a scene of some room in which one of the punk hazard "soldiers" report of the situation to "master" of that place. The master seems to be formed of gas.

-Law appears saying that he could take care of the marines approaching.

-Marines harbor in fron of Vegapunk's former laboratory and Smoker pushes the doorbell repeatedly. Finally the door opens: it's the new Shichibukai, Trafalgar Law.

-Law collected and delivered one hundred hearts of pirates to become Shichibukai.

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One Piece Ep. 583: Brook fighting with a torso

Recap of One Piece episode 583: Save the Children - The Strawhats start to fight!: (Comments at the end of the text)

The strawhats are now on this mysterious island that is covered with ice / snow on the other side and fire on the other.

Sanji, Nami, Franky and Kinemon are now on the ice side, inside a mysterious facility. They have arrived in a biscuit room where they encounter giant children. The whole room looks like a day-care place, with no adults on sight.

The kids look at Franky utterly amazed by his robotic looks, Franky likes to show some of himself to them (not in a perv way) ie. showing different hairstyles etc.

The kids were talking about people who were frozen, but we get no answer to this at the moment.

Kinemons head starts shouting to the kids whether they have seen Momonosuke and the kids soon run away scared. At the same time some troops find out that the door to the daycare is open and are running towards strawhats.

Meanwhile on the other, burning side of the island Usopp, Luffy, Zoro and Robin are watching beside a lake wondering how to get to the other, cool side.

Usopp shoots with his new skills, or rather plants, he uses Special attack: Green star - Fan Grass and Boaty Banana.
That's pretty awesome, they got boats made of banana and Fan Grass as oars.

The centaur however got after them and tried to throw a huge boulder on them, he then blows in to a horn yelling for his boss to take care of them, who apparently is on the other side. Soon we see them being on the cool side waiting for the strawhats.

Sanji's group inside the "day-care" are running away and the children around them are saying to help them. The kids are saying that they are not sick any more. It seems that the people wearing the suits are obviously speaking propaganda to the kids saying that they are there to protect them. Some of the kids are still asking for strawhats to help them.

We get an emotional scene about the kids and then Nami turns around saying that they should help the kids.

The troops are nearing them and decide to shoot even the kids too. Nami is running at them, but suddenly something happens.

Sanji starts burning up and uses Diable Jamble Collier Strike to beat one of the suited guys.
Overkill anyone!?

Chopper joins in and goes into Kung-Fu (boost) Point which looks very fun and at the same time pretty effective.

Franky decimates one of them with strong right, the troops realize that the strawhats are not to kid with. Sanji says to Kung-Fu Raccoon (:D) to go with Nami and the kids.

Meanwhile, Brook is playing with snow near the Thousand Sunny, wondering what's taking Robin and the others so long. Someone draws a sword near him and cuts snowmen he made just a while ago. He realizes that the one cutting them was only a torso.

Comments

Episode 583 was a pretty good one. I find it nice how it managed to relay the "emotionality" with the kids better than the manga, in the manga I really couldn't give a crap about the children but this was a whole different story. In this episode it was great to see some new stuff from Usopp and especially Franky's strong right was beautifully animated.

In the end of the episode it is pretty obvious that Brook is fighting against Kinemon's torso, but it's pretty amazing how skilled he is in sword fighting even though he doesn't have feet or ability of sight and hear (in other words he misses the head). I think that Kinemon will make a remark of fighting someone strong with this head to Nami and others in the next episode 584.

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Hunter X Hunter and endless hiatus (Review)

Hunter X Hunter is about Gon, who decided to become Hunter. Hunters in this series's world are respected people who have various set of skills and goals. He's basically trying to follow his fathers, who has been gone all his life, footsteps. The exam to become Hunter can be described as ruthless. At the Hunter exam Gon meets Killua, and they quickly become friends. This is how the story begins, but is nowhere limited to it.

Hunter X Hunter is one of my long favorites. I watched the original anime through like 10 years ago and absolutely loved it. Greed Island OVAs which aired a lot later were also good quality and a great watch. I've also watched the new 2011 anime, but haven't really noticed any improvement regarding the original story. I have sort of high hopes of the new anime if it ever gets to the Ant arc which is brutal and at the same time very exciting. I pretty much enjoyed it as manga. What actually bothers me in HxH is that its author Yoshihiro Togashi is taking very long pauses in between releasing new chapters. Can't really remember how long it took for him to complete ant arc but it sure was a long time. The arc after ants was amazing and we finally got to see some sides of characters which people had longed to see.

The art has been for the most part good, but can be as of after the Greed Island arc to be called as varying. I remember the art being honestly like crap too often in the weekly jump when Togashi was being sick and sometimes it was from decent to even good. He improved his art when the chapters were about to be released in volumes (tankobon format). It never bothered me too much since the story was so good and interesting to read, but it is as it is.

The character development and friendship between Gon and Killua has been very enjoyable to read and they have personalities that fulfill each other very well. Kurapica and Leorio I consider decent or good at the best, but it doesn't really matter since Yoshihiro Togashi seemed to realize this too by showing less of them. But the main characters in this series (even though they are good) are not the best thing, but it's the villains and the side characters that excell in Hunter X Hunter. Villains such as Hisoka (which is one of my all time favorite villains), Genei Ryodan etc. are excellent and Hisoka may easily take the top 1 place in my villain ranking if I decide to make one in the future. As for side characters I have to say that this is where HxH really does it's job well: Hunter Organisation's president Netero, Gon's father Gin, Kaito etc. are characters that aren't shown much but have had a huge impact considering the development of the series.

The story is a very good one and Togashi has managed to make it linear but very varying. When considering the beginning of the series and going through all the nen training finally to the ant arc it's great to see how the characters have developed power wise and that the series had managed to always make itself better, even though ant arc wasn't as excellent as the others. After the ant arc I have to say that Hunter X Hunter managed to make itself so good that it  was truly enjoayble to read it week after week before it going back to hiatus. The cliffhanger that we have been left currently was an excellent one.

So what makes Hunter X Hunter such a good watch and read? I'd have to say that I really can't descibe it. I've sort of grown with the series for many years and I believe that if I'd begin watching or reading it today I wouldn't appreciate is as much as I do right now. Originally the originality of typical shonen power ups intrigued me greatly. Now the new plot developments which happened after Ant Arc really kept me going since Togashi managed to spin all the beliefs about the "world" around. You have to see it to feel the excitement.

All in all I really can't do anything else but to recommend HxH to anyone who appreciates better than decent shonen.

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Gintama Review, crazy humor anime

Gintama may be Shonen Jumps most weird and twisted manga. Gintoki Sakata is a former samurai, and now a kind of freelancer or jack of all-trades who is trying to get along with his taste for sweets and rent payments. Gintoki has no option but to try to knock money by doing odd jobs involving miscellaneous persons. And things are certainly helped by the fact that the aliens have taken all the jobs...

 Gintama milieu is in Tokyo sometime in the Edo period, where UFOs landed and developed land to their liking. Series creator Hideaki Sorachi has clearly been sitting on history lessons, because characters and the course of events refer directly to the Meiji Restoration. Gintokis old friends are samurai legends Katsura and Sakamoto, as well as in Shinsengumi maintaining the law. The names of these historical persons are edited, but recognizable.

Animation in this series in my opinion deserves some praise, even though it's been going on for so long it's always been pleasing to watch.

This series is pretty much character driven comedy anime "sit-com", if I should somehow describe it so the character part of this review is the most important one: the humor relies on watcher being familiar with each and every one of the characters and their habits from which some of the humour is pulled off. That being said I think that the author has been somewhat successful in creating a bunch of characters that are somewhat original and manage to please the watcher.

 At worst, there's idiotic feces humor, but the characters at their funniest verbally whip themselves pretty well. Some of the humor hits to today's events and pop culture. So humor is ripped from soap runs as well as gender switching.Another peculiarity is the (at least until what I've watched) the complete lack of a big plot arc. .

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Akagi Review, gambling anime and manga

Nobuyuki Fukumotos Akagi story starts a rainy night, Akagi Shigeru, ends up into Yakuza mahjong cave after fleeing from the police. Nangou, gambler is in bad shape, he was going to pay its debts to the Yakuza by mahjong, but the situation does not look good, this evening he has already lost almost everything. Akagis mere instinct manages to turn this situation to Nangous favor and ends up playing Yakuzas into "swamp".

 
This is the beginning of Akagis travel saturated with sunglasses, cigarette smoke and underworld.
He is a cold-blooded and quite ruthless guy who is not afraid of anyone or anything, even at the risk of his life and does not shy away from ways to win. Akagi is not content just to beat his opponent, he wants to crush them to self-destruction.

At worst, Akagi may even cause interest in Mahjong itself, which is not in this case, the one that comes with Windows, but a complex, somewhat comparable to poker gambling.

Akagi has been published in Kindai loader (Modern Mahjong) Journal since 1992, for 21 volumes and series still continues. In 2005, the manga was made into a 26-part anime, and in mid-90s they also published two live action movies.

Art/animation of the Akagi varies from bad to decent and the characters can't honestly be praised: the main character Akagi himself is honestly a decent, even a good one, but he can't save the whole series by himself. Apart from not having very good characters and character designs the "story" relies a lot on the individual games and the wittiness of the author. It's up to his cleverness whether it is a good idea to continue reading/watching Akagi.

I have to admit that I still don't like those character designs even after watching all episodes.

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Beelzebub works better as anime (Review)

Beelzebub tells us a story of very strong delinquent called Oga Tatsumi, who happens to stumble upon a baby, who is heir to the demon lord. This baby Beel forms a contract with Oga which means that they can't go further from each other or Oga dies..

Beelzebub just might be one of those rare series that work better as anime than a manga. The flow of the series and anime adaptation feels entertaining and that's what's most important. Somehow Beelzebub manga's style didn't have as strong effect to me and I found myself a bit too bored. It's like Beelzebub is made for anime adaptation, as it works like that for me a lot better. Beelzebub anime seems to channel better it's comedic style. So I have to lean on actually recommending Beelzebub anime rather than manga. The best option of course is to find out yourself which works better.

Animation of Beelzebub has been done in a good manner, it's such a fresh series to have been animated so I don't really wonder. It may be that they put in their best in the first episodes, but I had to admit that at least the first one was very impressive in terms of animation. After watching couple of dozens of episodes I at least didn't recognize same stuff that has lately been going in One Piece anime: after Enies Lobby the animation quality dropped tremendously for one reason or another.

Beelzebub is very much character driven series. It revolves pretty much around Oga, Baby Beel and various side characters that vary from good to bad. I believe that the author intended at first Beelzebub to be somewhat similar to Gintama in terms of story flow. It's easy to recognize that the author has at least tried it, but in my opinion the humor half of the series' pales in comparison to the other half of the series: battle shonen which can be considered as promising.

Story of Beelzebub is pretty generic, as it involves demons, contracts between them etc. However the way that all these things are shown to readers/watchers is a relatively fresh one. What I myself hate about Beelzebub is that it tries to be partly a humor gag manga in which it doesn't succeed, but that mostly means that I basically have never liked that type of manga anyway. However what somewhat saves what left to save in Beelzebub is it's "traditional battle shonen" qualities which I mentioned earlier that manage to make the series some continuity as well as make it a little bit more interesting.

When I several years ago almost completely switched from anime to manga mostly because of low production values, it got harder and harder to watch actual episodes in continuing series (One Piece, Naruto in example).  Now I realize that I'm slowly making a small kind of transition back to anime - Of course I'll most likely never let go of manga as I did with anime adaptations, but I'll be most likely spending more time watching some episodes than trying to find new series to read. This is very positive, since anime at it's best is very entertaining, but it usually requires some production values.

It hasn't been long since I watched all 87 episodes of Toriko which are all that have been released at this point and I must say that I enjoyed them. Of course there are some minor obvious stuff that animators make to "stretch" the story to fit into anime episodes, which I will never get used to, but overall I certainly liked Toriko as anime. It may of course be one of deciding factors that I think Toriko is an exceptionally good series.

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Full metal Panic: Fumoffu Review, funniest stuff ever

I wasn't a big fan of full metal panic first season even though it was a pretty decent watch. The story didn't get me going with it and I'm not that big fan of mechas. Full metal panic Fumoffu is the second season of the series and it's absolutely nothing like the first one. Fumoffu still follows our main characters Sousuke Sagara and Kaname Chidori, but in their school life.

This second season is the funniest shit I've ever seen. It makes a complete turnaround from the first one which was very serious by nature. At first I was very hesitant to watch the second season but I heard very good reviews about it so that I was finally encouraged to give it a shot. And thank God I did.

Animation of Fumoffu is excellent. You can clearly see some quality production values that make the watcher actually appreciate the makers of this stuff. It only furthers the enjoyability of everything that it offers.

Characters of the series are it's definite strength. Main characters are interesting and the humour that is basically the whole point of Fumoffu gets drawn out of them magnificently. The only bad thing is that it's somewhat important to actually be familiar with the characters by watching the first season of Full Metal Panic, but I promise that it's worth it.

The Story is the least good thing in the series because it really doesn't exist, there's no continuity. Fumoffu relies on it's individual episodes which manage to be well directed and composed for 20 minute length. Since there's no continuity it doesn't matter in which order the episodes are watched, but honestly I didn't really care for Fumoffu not to have any 'good' or 'continuity' in the story. The humour and the individual episodes that are all very well made were enough for me and many others.

It pretty much consists of 12 different episodes which each have a unique story and there's really not much to tell about them. You just have to experience them by yourself. It may be a good idea to watch the first season first so you will get the hang of how the characters behave and what they are like.

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PlanetES Review, one of the few space animes / mangas

Planetes is Makoto Yukimuras four-piece scifi-manga, which was published from 2001 onwards. In addition to Japanese and English, Planetes has also been translated into Spanish, Italian and German.

 

Planetes milieu is located in space and there floating planets and space stations. The human race has evolved by leaps, making the space another human environment in which travel between the moon and the space stations is common. Despite the evolution of technology there is still one big problem, space debris. Rampant floating debris are a danger to space vehicles, and if you thought that the space didn't require garbage drivers, guess again.

The story follows space debris collection vessel's crew called Toy Box, which includes the Hachimaki, Fee and Yuri. Hachimaki is an ambitious waste collector, who dreams of one day owning his own space ship. Fee is the ship's hard-bitten female pilot, who sits inside the vessel while others drag scrap into the ship's cargo hold. Yuri is silent, but a hard-working employee who lost his wife in the crash shuttle. Together, they clean up space satellite and other junk that has been forgotten, but Hachimaki dreams of his own spaceship and freedom. In order to obtain the money to his vessel, Hachimaki is searching for the work of the first manned flight to Jupiter. The road to Jupiter is not completely straightforward, but it is complicated by an armed terrorist organization, Hachis dark side, and even Death himself.

I'd say that PlanetES is kind of like Mushishi, but it still isn't. The animation is pretty well designed and sometimes as it flows with the story it brings me some sense of calmness.

The series is however very much character and character interaction based, they have pretty solid banter and at times it's a bit enjoyable to read about them. I have to say that this series in my opinion doesn't really have any truly memorable characters who stick to mind, but more as a average guys in space that do their daily stuff.

Story of PlanetES is in my opinion maybe its weakest side: it really doesn't offer anything for me who is some kind of action / swift plot twist junkie. The pace of PlanetES is such that it doesn't hurry anywhere: it takes it time and brings the reader along with it.

In addition to Manga there is also a 26-episode anime.

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Mushishi Review, relaxing and captivating

This series is about Ginko who travels around the world and simply helps people, usually unconditionally.

Mushishi consists of individual stories which revolve around specific Mushis. Mushis are invisible to human eye and they all have some kind of ability which may or may not be helpful people near them. Ginko usually focuses on those that have negative effect on people but also encounters Mushis that do positive things.
I think the scenery in this series deserves special mention which only adds to the previously mentioned feelings that are mostly made by the combination of pleasant sceneries and Mushishis quiet and unique lingering presence.

Animation of Mushihi compliments very well it's intentions. The whole idea is the stillness and relaxing atmosphere, the animation succeeds very well in everything that it intents to rely to the watcher.

The characters of this series is of secondary importance, but still they are good enough. Ginko is a great "protagonist" who isn't really carefree, but keeps his calm composition throughout the series and that suits very well with the general flow of the show.

The story or should I say stories are the strong side of Mushishi: the entity that are the "villains" in the series can't be categorized as evil or good, they just are as they are. Our main character knows of this very well and in the end the story ends up having so much more depth because of this: nothing really doesn't need to be categorized. When there isn't labeling, there's only stillness that calms and gives the watcher some peace of mind.

This series doesn't need a long plot line since I was absolutely captivated in almost every episode by their relaxing and quiet feeling. I recommend Mushishi to everyone who likes to watch something that isn't about continuous power ups and fighting, but relies on clever use of silence and relaxing atmosphere. Needless to say I myself enjoyed Mushihi very much, but I believe it has something to do with lucky timing: some other time it's possible that I wouldn't have enjoyed it as much as I did.

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Schedules for mainstream anime and manga

This is something I planned for myself but might as well share it here. These are mostly scan / sub weekdays, japan airdates are most likely at day before / same day.

One Piece
Anime - Sunday / Monday
Manga - Wednesday / Thursday

Naruto
Anime - Thursday
Manga - Wednesday / Thurday

Bleach
Anime - ??
Manga - Wednesday / Thursday

Toriko
Anime - Tuesday
Manga - Thursday / Friday

Fairy Tail
Anime - Saturday
Manga - Friday / Saturday

Historys Strongest Disciple Kenichi
Anime - ??
Manga - Friday / Saturday / Sunday

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Berserk Golden Age I Review: Egg of the High King, amazing film

Oh, boy oh boy, where to start! This film I expected like the rising moon on the last days of the year.  The biggest fear before the release was related to Warner Bros's presence: will this be like original Kentaro Miura dark classic manga where the blood and nudity amount is suitable for such a manga or will they actually tune it down because of such companys presence. Did such thing happen as I feared? Fortunately, no.

At the first glance animation looks very promising.. Even though it is computer-aided animation, smooth animation viewing is always a true pleasure, in comparison especially normal Sunday evening Japanese anime are are a bit budget constrained in this area.The difference can be clearly seen in comparison to berserk. I think I like the technology used in the film, such as how Sony's Motionflow technology, to give 23.67 fps BluRay-picture looks like "natural,".

 Berserk movies well made backgrounds do not lose to any previous anime movies I've seen. Backgrounds are mostly manually constructed. In fact, Berserk is one of the few animes which with the background and sometimes people can not be separated. All blends so harmoniously together especially in a few apparently specifically for "scenery poeple" manufactured scenes, except that it is only now, at this writing I woke up to the fact that I really don't have a lot to say about backgrounds in this movie.

Blood, nudity and grotesque artwork is berserk's bread and butter. How did Studio 4C together with Warner Bros manage to do this? Very well. Trailer had received the impression that violence is twisted to a minimum. It doesn't overdo it, but it is certainly enough for pleasurable watch. 

The most important thing: Berserk Golden Age plot arc has always attracted myself specifically because of character development. Berserk movie is obviously not capable of miracles, lasting a little more than an hour, but Griffiths and Guts's genuine friendship and the high degree of trust is evident. All in all, taking into account the time constraint, the character development is carried out well. The film is simply does not have any unnecessary scenes in which there would have been reason to go pick another beer.

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Soul Eater, pretty decent shonen

I made a mistake of watching anime before manga. Even without comparing the two anime was really terrible. I'm actually pretty proud of myself having finished all the little over 50 episodes. They changed the plot from the original to something unimaginably bad and I remember how I had to after watching that to check from manga did the artist really make something that undigestable: thank god he didn't.

Soul Eater manga which is still going on is actually pretty good compared to the anime adaptation. Story goes on in a nice flow and art looks good. Too bad that the anime left such a crappy taste in my mouth that it must have affected to my enjoyment of the manga. Anyways it's pretty decent shonen, nothing less.

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Winter anime 2012-2013

December - February animes, OVAs and home movie releases in one picture. Props

I myself am most likely going to check out most of them: a lot of interesting series incoming.

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