8 posts tagged “anime series”
During those days when I can watch anime from Youtube at work (without any worries of being monitored or caught), I was told by my sister to try out Gakuen Heaven. She said it was cute and funny. I researched a bit about the series and found out that it was an anime full of gorgeous boys, hahahhaa. So being the fangirl I am, I tried it out.
The series only has 13 episodes, to begin with. The story is centered on Itou Keita, your average nice guy who is polite and kind to just everyone in the school. He is the most recent transferee in Bell Liberty School which is famous for having students with great abilities and potential. It’s so prestigious that you can’t get in without a personal invitation from the administration. Since Keita didn’t have anything special going on with him, he was obviously surprised about the invitation.
Eventually, he meets the other (lovely) guys in the school. All of them are of course, great in some way. One of them has good leadership skills, the other is superbly athletic, and another is greatly skilled in the arts and so on. Even though Keita is different, they welcomed him to their “circle” of friends.
Later on, issues about Keita’s transferring are questioned because as said before, there’s nothing special about him. But Keita, inspired by his new friends, felt that he needed to assert his place there. Of course, the real reason surprised even him but I won’t go there because I don’t want to be a bad bad spoiler gal. :P
Yup, it’s a yaoi series but I kind of like the love story because there is depth and meaning. Kinda like Gravitation, I guess. As for the music, I prefer the ending song “Panorama”, it’s cute and relaxing.
What made this series funny for me are the beginning scenes every time a new episode starts, a pair of boys would only be heard saying “suggestive” things and then it would turn out that it was not sexual at all, hahahaha, LOL. Then the ending!! The boys as hamtaro mascots in a mini chapter called Hamu Hamu Heaven! Very very cute. :D
A-chan’s rating for Gakuen Heaven: 7 / 10
I absolutely love most of CLAMP’s works. And while I was still a budding anime fan, Card Captor Sakura was one of the most memorable series for me. I first saw it in local TV (channel 2) where it’s dubbed in Filipino. I didn’t know much about seiyuus before, but even now, I honestly think that channel 2’s dubbing of CCS was very good. I was able to see some reruns a year later, and I still like it. ^_^ Later on, I got my wish of owning my own copy of the series with the original Japanese audio and English subtitles. I watched it again, haha. And whenever I’m feeling bored and would just want to watch something I’ve seen, I’d pop in a CCS cd. :D
The main plot of CCS starts out in a simple, straightforward way. We’ve got Kinomoto Sakura who begins her story as a normal fourth grader who encounters or rather, awakens her magical abilities and became a Card Captor who finds the magical Clow cards and seals them to her power before they cause havoc. What I love about this anime is that the main character realistically changes and matures as the series progresses. From a childish fourth grader, she blossoms into a thoughtful sixth grader by the end of the second season.
The main character is not the only one that does the maturing but the plot as well. As the series moves on to the second season, more complex and serious issues are tackled. A lot of people (including me) would assert that it’s not your average magical girl (mahou shoujo) show.
Aside from Sakura, there are so many lovable characters to choose from. Ordinary humans, mascots, magical beings, you name it. You’ll have a hard time picking your favorite. :D
The series also has a good musical accompaniment to please your ears. A good number of OSTs with memorable opening and ending themes, image songs and a bunch of good bgm songs…ah, heaven. ^_^v
A-chan’s rating for Card Captor Sakura: 9.4 / 10
First off, I seem to have a fondness over cat-inspired boys. I love Fruits Basket's Kyou, I find Loveless' Aoyagi Ritsuka adorable (complete with ears and tail) and somehow I find Saotome Ranma's phobia over cats funny (but I love it when he got possessed by the cat and he snuggles to Akane, hee!). So when I found that there's a series by Gonzo about another cat-inspired dude, I checked it out as soon as possible.
The story of "Black Cat" started off as somewhat cliche to me. The main character, Train Hearnett (ze cat boy), is a lone wolf type of guy who works as a member of an assassin organization called Chronos where he is known by his number "XIII" and the code name "Black Cat"). But after a twist of events and tragedies, Train realized that he would very much prefer to have freedom and he'll be able to get that by leaving Chronos. Unfortunately, the organization and its members are not willing to let him off that easily - especially his sort of partner-in-crime Creed Diskenth who became so obsessed with getting the old heartless Train back (really, he's an obsessed freak when Train is concerned) that he ended up being quite a delusional character.
Train has his own band of co-members to join - the eccentric but well-meaning Sven Vollfied, the innocent bio-weapon Eve and the busty and energetic Rinslet Walker. Together, they meet more comrades (some were former enemies) that came in handy when they discover that what they were actually fighting a much bigger opponent than what they expected.
Perhaps what made me a little disappointed of this series is the slow pacing of the story. Too many characters were introduced but not much about their background was revealed and you're left wondering if they even had a role at all. All in all, it was somewhat a forgettable series for me.
The background music was satisfactory - the composer was the same person who did the jazzy music of the "Read or Die" series. The graphics and art were of course, very good since "Black Cat" was handled by Gonzo but other than that, I'm afraid I wasn't too impressed with this series.
A-chan's rating for Black Cat: 6.4 / 10
When we (women) see a bishounen anime character, we imagine them dressing up as a woman, right? Especially if the character is really beautiful (you'd say "No, you're definitely not a guy...but you are), you'd think frilly and lacey clothes are terribly entertaining. Princess Princess brings out this fantasy.
Kouno Toru is a freshman in one of the most elite all-boys school in the area. With his exceptionally good looks, he is offered a position in the Princess system. This is considered an honor and a great privilege because gaining a Princess title means all of your lunch and school supplies are paid plus you can even earn pocket money for your services. There's only one catch, you have to dress up as a girl and work as a cheerleader for the various sports teams of the school. In other words, be the embodiment of a living and breathing "girl" in a campus filled with women-hungry men.
When Toru arrived, there were already two princesses - Shihoudani Yuujirou and Yutaka Mikoto. While the former doesn't mind doing the Princess work, the latter is blatantly against it (but in the end, he still went along with it). The introduction of the whole thing made me laugh out loud. I thought that this is certainly just the thing that girls with "colorful" imagination would think of. Any excuse would do to get these beautiful boys in dresses and make-up! Lol.
Interestingly, while we have three beautiful cross-dressing boys, this isn't actually a yaoi series and they have no partners or love interests among themselves. One of the boys even has a girlfriend so the series becomes funnier because of this (he has to hide the fact that he is dressing up as a girl). The series also discusses different kinds of family issues.
Princess Princess also has a live-action series but I have only seen a bit of it. The characters and plot are quite the same but it seems that Mikoto becomes the lead in the live version. ^^;;
The anime series runs with only 12 episodes so if you want clean, ghei fun, Princess Princess is a good show to watch.
A-chan's rating for Princess Princess: 6.9 / 10
Once in a while, you come across a series that presents a new and unique plot, Kaleido Star is definitely one of them.
There are series that talk about stage performance (Sakura Wars came to my mind at once) but Kaleido Star takes it to the circus/acrobatic level. The heroine named Naegino Sora came to America all the way from Japan to pursue her dream of joining and performing in the prestigious and uber-famous Kaleido Stage group. In there, Sora meets various characters that challenge or help her in achieving her dream.
To me, Sora seems like a mirror image of Sakura Wars' Shinguji Sakura. Always thinking of the others' welfare before her own, Sora doesn't seem to have an evil and selfish bone in her body. But during the course of the series, Sora grows up into being a skilled acrobat with real determination to shine. At the end of the series, her dream is revealed to be to create a stage with no conflicts. A virtually impossible dream, but Sora believes in it. On the other hand, Layla Hamilton is very much similar to Kanzaki Sumire. But while Sumire always stresses her importance in the stage, Layla is more of the image of a real experienced performer. She's frank in giving her opinions and would not tolerate mediocrity in the stage. Both Sumire and Layla also end up helping and supporting the main character at the end of the series.
The pattern story of Kaleido Star is a little predictable at first. Sora goes through many hardships, challenges experienced performers and polishes her skill until she has that she has proven that she has the right to be called the true Kaleido Star. But later on, the series also discusses matters of the family, tragic deaths, business negotiations, betrayal and more.
I think what attracted me to Kaleido Star is their many references to classic stories and fairytales namely their performances of The Little Mermaid, Arabian Nights, Saiyuki, Dracula, Swan Lake and more. It's nice to see these stories rendered in acrobatic and circus style. Secodly, the roster of characters is very good! Everyone is simply entertaining especially the pervert spirit of the stage named Fool. He's supposed to be an important character yet he show a lot of his comical side. Plus, he's voiced by Koyasu Takehito (FY's Hotohori). A big LOL. :P
The background music had a considerable amount of memorable ones. The opening and closing themes didn't give me a big impression except for "Tattoo Kiss" which is a very LSS-worthy song. :)
The final episodes of the series are probably the best also. You'll get goosebumps all over, I promise. ^o^ And it definitely shows closure in the series, it surely won't disappoint its viewers. ^^
A-chan's rating for Kaleido Star: 9 / 10
You can almost never go wrong with a CLAMP title. ^^
The anime series Chobits was already so famous when I decided to try it out. And I could understand why many people were raving about it. Chii is definitely an eye-candy character much like CCS's Kinomoto Sakura and CLAMP seemed to have a lot of fun dressing up both of them. ^^;;
Chobits is quite a simple story on the surface. The main character, Motosuwa Hideki is a country bumpkin and a college exam repeater (called a "ronin" in Japanese), so he decided to move to big city Tokyo to get a better preparation with the help of cram schools. At this time, technology was at its peak with the popularity of humanoid persocoms (personal computer), something that is a must-have for every person. Hideki, being a poor and struggling student, cannot afford it but would very much like one (for educational and perverted purposes). While walking on the street one night, he sees a persocom thrown out in the dump. He takes it home and tries to operate her. He named her Chii and she is a girl full of mysteries. From then on, they live together and Hideki finds more things about Chii and the persocom world.
While the series is overall quite simple, cute and light-hearted, it is actually probing into a deeper and controversial issue of human relationships with computer. In the sereis, Hideki and Chii fall in love with each other and it would be considered as the ultimate taboo since a human and computer cannot have a normal relationship. More drama and issues arise from the other characters that have relations to persocoms as well and the viewer would realize that though they are different from each other, they are actually connected in some way.
All in all, I think Chobits is a really good series. It makes you laugh, cry and think. The characters are entertaining, the background music is good and the animation was definitely visually appealing.
Chobits was also very special for me for two reasons. One is because my first cosplay attempt was a Chobits character (that would be Sumomo) and second, Chobits is the subject of my first (and last..lol) article in Culture Crash. ^_^
A-chan's rating for Chobits: 8.8 / 10
I have wanted to see this series for a long time but I haven't had the opporunity to get my own copy until I discovered the wonders of Youtube and this has been one of those many series that I was able to watch (yahoo).
Before I watched it, I already had a somewhat imagined skeleton of the story: innocent and cute young girls trained to be assassins. The series did show most of this but what I overlooked is the deeper and in my opinion, the real backbone of the story: their relationships with their handlers.
"Fratello" is the term used to refer to the pair formed by a girl assassin and a handler. Relationships of fratellos are different according to the preference of the handler - some are very lenient, some are harsh, some are indifferent. Among the five girls, I liked Henrietta and Triela the most while I sympathized a lot to Rico's character. Triela is like the subversive girl who is the opposite of what people may have imagined a brainwashed and unemotional girl to be. I think Triela's relationship with her handler Hilshire is the best because they are casual with each other and yet, they can do their jobs impressively. On the other hand, Henrietta was the type who was still getting adjusted to her position and relied heavily on her handler Jose thus creating an almost normal and peaceful brother-sister (or father-faughter) pair. Rico, in my opinion, was the character who was happy and skilled yet at the back of her mind, she silently can't seem to understand why her handler Jean, is particulary cold and abusive to her.
The series is quite short yet everyone in the cast were developed and explored which I think is very good. It lacked the re-watching factor, though. It's not the series for people who like cutesy and funny plotlines but then, a change once in a while is good, right?
A-chan's rating for Gunslinger Girl: 6.8 / 10
It's so rare to find a series that can present "everything". By that, I mean a mix of comedy, drama, romance, magic and other main elements. Fruits Basket is one of those series that effectively used almost all of these.
When I watched the first few episodes, I kind of thought of it as a Ranma 1/2 clone with a female protagonist. But the later episodes show that Furuba can stand on its own with a great case and good storyline.
Honda Tohru is the average, transparent nice-girl character, in my opinion. She never gets angry and even if she does, it's hard to see it. Most of the time, I really didn't like this kind of character because it shows unrealistic depiction of a normal person. That aside, we know that Tohru is a really good and innocent person who suffered many things as a child and I can't help but wish good things for her. ^^;;
Of all the junishi characters, Kyou is the one I like best. Not because he's voiced by my all-time favorite seiyuu Seki Tomokazu (though he gained mucho points for that, heh) but because I really like his personality. Kind of a clash between violence and gentleness in one person (and it helps that Kyou's cat transformation is so damn adorable). I think Kyou's story is the best and most discussed one most probably because he's outside the clan and there had to be a lot of explaining for that (after Kyou's story, my 2nd and 3rd place go to Hatori's and Momiji's respectively). :D
The good thing about Furuba is that you'll never get bored with it. There's a story that everyone can relate to - love issues, identity crises and school pressures just to name a few. You can't help but sympathize with one or two (or all?!) of them.
The bad (hmm, maybe not bad but more of disappointing) point of the Furuba series is the sudden closure. Though it had been faithful to the manga, it was so sad that the Furuba anime stopped only until the revelation of Kyou's past. More new characters were not introduced and appeared exclusively in the manga. Still, I'm hoping for a season II (please, please!!) XD
A-chan's rating for Fruits Basket: 9 / 10
