Best of 2005

I'm limiting this to shows released on DVD that had their final initial release this year.

Best comedy series: Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu - Funny funny stuff. Most laughs per episode.

Honourable Mention: Midori Days, Galaxy Angel Z

Best romantic series: Boys Over Flowers - You can't beat shojo for good romance. This series was more realistic than most.

Honourable Mention: Koi Kaze, Please Twins

Best sci-fi/fantasy series: Twelve Kingdoms - If you havent seen this you should. Great setting, great characters, great animation, great story.

Honourable Mentions: Patlabor TV, Divergence Eve

Best action series: R.O.D. The T.V. - Even with a less than stellar ending. Great style, terrific music, lots of action.

Honourable Mentions: Jubei-chan 2, Samurai Champloo

Best drama series: Elfen Lied Behind the graphic voilence lies a bunch of really great characters with great stories.

Honourable Mentions: Gunslinger Girl, Wolf's Rain.

Best overall series: Elfen Lied

Honourable Mentions: Twelve Kingdoms, Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu, Gunslinger Girl.

Best OAV: Patlabor: The New Files - So very, very good.

Honourable Mentions: Wedding Peach DX, Ghost Talker's Daydream

Best movie: The Place Promised in Our Early Days - THIS is high grade shit this is!

Honourable Mentions: Appleseed, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.

Best song: Elfen Lied (Lilium - Kumiko Noma)

Honourable Mentions: Patlabor TV (Midnight Blue - Kiss Me Quick), Wedding Peach DX (Merry Angel - Furil), Gunslinger Girl (The Light Before We Land - The Delgados)

Best character: Yomiko Readman (R.O.D. The T.V.)

Honourable Mentions: Rushuna Tendo (Grenadier), Mugen (Samurai Champloo), Harry MacDowel (Gungrave)

BEST OVERALL: The Place Promised in Our Early Days

Gantz 6/10

This show is the splatgloriest, character killingest, big brestesest, erection jokiest show I've ever seen. I was also going to give it a 5 but I'll explain that below.

Dating back to aught-four, Gantz is a Gonzo show so we see CG goodness splattered all over these 26 episodes. Most of the large areas are CG as are all the statue monsters in the 3rd arc and it all looks amazing. The rest of the show looks terrific with great character designs and good hand drawn backgrounds and such. I liked the score but the OP and ED didn't really catch my fancy. I really didn't like the OP. The VAs were about average.

This show is about a grade 10 student named Kei Kurono who dies after he gets hit by a subway train. His head comes flying off and everything. He was helping to get a homeless man off the tracks with a guy named Masaru Kato that he used to be friends with. Of course Kato bites it as well and they both wake up in a small apartment, alone with a large black sphere. Pretty soon other people start arriving by being "printed" with 3 light beams including the naked and very well-endowed Kei Kishimoto. Eventually everyone learns from the one person whose been there previously that the sphere is called Gantz, they're all dead, and have been brought back by Gantz to fight aliens.

Gantz offers cryptic messages displayed on the sphere instructing the people what alien to kill, how long they have, and provides weapons and a type of power suit to help even the odds since the aliens are crazy powerful. The players aren't given any information about how the weapons or suits operate and the guy who's been there before isn't forthcoming with any info though he does eventually cough up the details.

The suits grant super-human strength and protection from things like fire but aren't effective against blades, lasers, bullets, and the weapons they're given. They also run out of power after they've suffered enough damage. When fired the weapons simply flash a light then after a delay whatever they're pointed at explodes as if some type of explosive projectile hit it but there's no smoke or fire. They're given a time limit to defeat all the aliens and are not permitted outside a 1km radius from where they arrived or their heads will explode. Once the battle is over they're permitted to return to their normal lives but Gantz may teleport them back for another battle at any time.

The show basically covers the first 3 battles as according to the manga then has a final original battle for the TV series. Each battle consists of the new people having to be convinced that the whole thing is real. The new people who don't believe it being horribly killed. The people in suits with weapons being horribly killed with the alien dying at the end. Other rules of the game are that if you're dead you stay dead but if you survive any injuries you suffered are gone upon arrival back in the apartment. Some episodes deal with Kurono, Kato, and Kishimoto's lives outside the game and these are a nice respite from the splatfest of the battles. This allows Kishimoto to have a shower, have a bath, change her clothes, and be in Kurono's fantasies.

This show never really gets into the details of what Gantz is, why it does what it does, what happens if the aliens are killed within the time allotted, and what the real meaning of the scores Gantz gives at the end of the battles is. I WAS going to give this show a 5 since it's just a violent killing show with little redeeming value. Everyone but Kurono is killed in the 3rd mission and there seems to be no point to the whole thing.

Once I took a look at the manga's story things make alot more sense so I increased the score (+4) accordingly. Once you get 100 points you can either be set free from the game with your memories of Gantz wiped, bring someone from the game back to life, or get a super-weapon. If you don't kill the alien within the allotted time you just lose all your points. This makes all the killing of the main characters make more sense in the big picture. The last battle also really contradicts the spirit of the manga because it makes Gantz out to be something out to teach Kurono that you shouldn't kill just because you're ordered to. Gantz in fact couldn't give two shits about Kurono and because of the odd nature of these episodes I dropped the score back a bit (-2).

I really hate how they fucked up a cool concept with some dumbass morality in the last arc. This show would get a 10 if it continued along the lines of the manga. You may consider my score artificial because it relies on knowledge of the manga so this show gets a 5 as a standalone show but the concept is so good I have to give it a break. It's good if you like watching alot of people get spattered. This is easily the goriest anime I've ever seen. There's also some large breasteses along the way that are pretty good too.

Blue Seed TV 8/10

I may not know much but I know what I hate, and I didn't hate this. In fact I quite liked it. Considering how much I usually hate "demon" anime this one stands as one of the precious few good ones.

Dating back to the year of our Lord 1994 this 26 episode series harkens back to the days of yore where well produced, adult themed anime TV series were few and far between. This show is chock-a-block full of hand drawn and coloured goodness and maintains a near OAV level of quality throughout the series. There are some less then stellar backgrounds at times but the character designs are reasonably complex and have all the old-school goodness I'm so fond of. The music in the series is OK and I liked all the VAs, especially the main character Momiji who turns out to be one of Megumi Hayashibara's best sounding roles. She actually manages to sound girly and not as shrill as she is in other shows. The thing I HATED about this show was the fucking OP. I've NEVER liked this song and I never will. It's a horrible blight on an otherwise stellar outing.

The show is about a 15(?) year old girl named Momiji who is the Kushinada. The Kushinada has the ability to put plant demons known as Aragami into a long sleep with her blood if she is used as a human sacrifice. Of course she knows nothing of this until the Aragami start trying to catch her so they can kill her in a ceramic field that will nullify that power. During the first attack she meets Kusanagi, a half-human half-Aragami who has sworn to protect the Kushinada. Before this he had been protecting Momiji's twin sister Kaede, another Kushinada who has disappeared. Of course Momiji also didn't know she had a sister and ends up going to Tokyo to live with the anti-Aragami team T.A.C. to be protected.

It turns out that Kaede has teamed up with the king of the Aragami to turn Japan back into a primordial plant-filled land devoid of humans since humans, in general, suck. Momiji spends the first part of the series helping the T.A.C. defeat various Aragami that cause havoc in various places in Japan. We get a bunch of episodes introducing us to the T.A.C. team members and giving them some character development and they're all pretty entertaining. Momiji also falls for Kusanagi so we get some romance there that progresses as well.

The second half of the series is when Kaede and her band of bad guys start their master plan and each episode advances the story towards the final showdown with a Japan covered in giant plants, the Aragami betrayed by Kaede, and Tokyo about to be bombed into the stone age by the Americans' nuclear deterrent. The progression of the story here is very good, all of the episodes are interesting and each adds to the plot so none of them seems like filler.

I liked the writing in this show and the interesting mix of characters in the T.A.C. makes the slower episodes in the beginning of the series entertaining. This show is really great overall and if the OP wasn't so GOD AWFUL I'd give it a 10.

Arcade Gamer Fubuki 4/10

Oddly, this show is an OAV based on a show from 1982 called Game Centre Arashi that you nor I have ever or will ever see. This show takes loli fan-service up a notch. I suppose it's for the fans of the original show now old enough to be arrested for such fetishes.

Dating back to sometime in the 90's these 4 OAV episodes look pretty good. Consistent animation and lots of detail is once again the order of the day. I didn't harbour any particular hostility towards the music, OP, ED, or VAs. Nothing to really rave about either. I did like the character designs and they have a pretty unique look which I've not seen elsewhere that I can recall.

Fubuki is a grade 9(?) girl who gets roped into competing in an arcade tournament by her friend and wins by using the power of her Passion Panties. How, do you ask? Her friend blows her skirt up with a fan and she does a handstand on the arcade machine while using her super arcade game powers granted to her by the panties now clearly visible to the audience.

I am not making this up.

Seriously.

This show is really a 2 trick pony. The first is the sheer shocking amount of panty shots and how gratuitous the creators are about it. Fubuki battles a girl her age with black panties and the same move and she meets a large breasted American girl who plays DDR (You can imagine the jiggling). This would be OK if Fubuki wasn't supposed to be in grade 9. Yikes. I feel a little dirty after watching this. The second trick pony is the amount of retro arcade game footage the show has. If you grew up with the Sega arcade machines Fubuki plays it's pretty neat to see the various arcade games you played as a kid. Other than that the show really has just a bare plot to hold things together and some funny bits thrown in.

It's not a BAD show but it's kinda perverted with the whole panty thing. If Fubuki isn't showing them off someone is stealing them or taking her picture in them. At least she's embarrassed about it. I was.

Burst Angel 6/10

Supposedly a cross between spaghetti western and Hong Kong action movie, I'm not sure what part of this show is western other than Jango has a cowboy hat and spurs and Meg wears chaps.

Airing in JP back in late 2004 this show contains all the modern anime goodness such as detailed backgrounds, great animation (when it's not crappy), and decent music. I was not impressed at all by the animation at times, it seems that almost every episode suffers from horrible looking scenes. At least 1-2 in EVERY EPISODE and a few where 3/4 are terrible. I was particularity appalled at the quality of the samurai village episodes. Since this show was produced by Gonzo, who's resume hasn't had a show this poor since the first episode of Vandread, I was NOT expecting this over the 24 episodes. Since Gonzo is involved there are alot of CG mech fight scenes and they are all great so someone was doing something right. I wasn't a huge fan of the OP and ED and the VAs were only average.

Set in a future Japan, Burst Angel is about a team of 4 girls who work as mercenaries in Tokyo using a big mech named Jango to perform various jobs. This usually involves some sort of fight against a monster or big mech and these are all eventually tied to the overall storyline.

The first team member is Jo, the quiet, albino, angry, mech pilot who's battle skills and mysterious past make her the main fighter of the team. The next is Meg, she's Jo's only real friend and is of the red-haired, blue-eyed, huge rack variety of character. She's whiny and not really useful in a fight compared to Jo and her uncanny ability to get captured by the bad guys ends up as an ongoing theme in the episodes. The remaining team members are Sei, the quiet leader with gang ties, the only Class 1 license, and another large rack and Amy the little computer genius girl. Sei's the oldest at 19, Jo is 18, Meg is 15, and Amy is 11.

Most of the show is made up of 2 episode arcs where the team is hired to investigate some monster sighting or fight a runaway mech. Nearer the end of the series it's revealed that all the incidents were caused by a company called RAPT that's experimenting with mutated humans and mechs with insane green glowing brains in order to use them as weapons and rule the world.

I really thought the execution of the overall plot of this show was pretty weak. While watching, the viewer figures out what's going on pretty early in the series but since the team his no interest in investigating the connection between the incidents THEY only find out about it in episode 22 or so. By then there isn't enough time to really get into the details of the bad guy's plan, it's just a matter of now identifying what building to assault and explode in the final episode. Since the episodes were all 2-parters I suspect this show was meant to be eye-candy only and I don't mind that but I prefer something with a little more forethought before episode 22.

One thing that was great about this show was Meg (Sei's no slouch either but she's no Meg). This show has the most jiggling breasts and nipple prints that I've seen since Divergence Eve. Meg's melons are constantly being squeezed into tight outfits (no bra EVER) or she's being tied up and things are bouncing around all over. Her swimsuit in the beach episode is particularly impressive. No full nudity though. How odd.

Ah anime.

I'll recommend this show but keep in mind there's no deep meaning here. It's all explosions and Meg's nipple prints and that's not all bad.

DearS 6/10

An (unpopular/nerdy) (high school/college) student discovers a (naked/oddly dressed) girl (on his way home to/in) his one bedroom apartment. It turns out she's (an alien/a robot/a goddess/an angel/his fiancée) named (Chi/Ren/May/Aoi/Belldandy/Ran/Mahoro/Miharu/Yuna). Hilarity and fan-service ensues.

The 13 episodes of DearS aired back in 2004 so they look pretty good. The animation was pretty consistent but there were bits that were sub-par here and there. I liked the style and usage of the superdeformed scenes. The art and character designs were OK, the girls look pretty good but they should because of the type of show this is. The music was pretty forgettable and I was pretty indifferent to the OP and ED. I'll point out I didn't care for the "gnaw and taste" line in the OP, I gnaw and taste meat on the bone, it's not the most romantic lyric. The VAs were pretty standard but I REALLY liked the casting for the main girl Ren. Her voice was much more mature sounding than most female anime characters and I thought it was a nice change of pace.

So what's DearS about? An (unpopular/nerdy) (high school/college) student discovers a (naked/oddly dressed) girl (on his way home to/in) his one bedroom apartment. It turns out she's (an alien/a robot/a goddess/an angel/his fiancée) named (Chi/Ren/May/Aoi/Belldandy/Ran/Mahoro/Miharu/Yuna). Hilarity and fan-service ensues.

It turns out Ren is one of the DearS (pronounced DEERS) who are a group of aliens who've landed on Earth and taken up residence. A DearS arrival in a town to live is usually a much publicized event so it's odd that the main character, Takeya, finds one on the side of the road. He takes her home (of course) and quickly discovers she isn't like the DearS he's seen on TV. She can't speak (Japanese/English), doesn't understand clothing (of course), and other things. Meanwhile the DearS on TV are all very intelligent and friendly.

Ren IS friendly though. She refers to Takeya as "master" and makes it pretty clear she's now his slave since she kissed him when they first met. She also seems to be able to detect when he's sexually frustrated and offers to...well you know, interfere with him sexually.

The show carries on with the various misadventures of Takeya, Ran, his female childhood friend, another couple of DearS's as they attend school and such. The main plot thread of the show is about how Ren is some sort of special DearS and how the DearS community are deciding on how to deal with her. This results in the last couple of episodes where Ren is to be taken away and Takeya has to decide whether or not to keep her.

This show has some obvious plot holes, everyone seems blissfully unaware that Ren and the other DearS are SLAVES! They wear dog collars for fuck sakes! The show is pretty funny though and I wasn't expecting some award winning writing or anything. I was a little disappointed in the level of fan-service but what there was was OK.

Recommended if you liked (Chobits/Hand Maid May/Ai Yori Aoshi/Ah! My Goddess/Angel Tales/Mahoromatic/Girls Bravo/Maburaho).

Aquarian Age – Sign of Evolution 8/10

Based on a card game this anime is, stunningly, not complete crap. In fact it's pretty good.

Airing in 2002 the 13 episodes of Aquarian Age look really good. Lots of detail and consistent quality throughout the series. I liked the OP and ED, and music during the show is pretty good but I found some of the singing by the main character sucked HARD! I really liked the character designs since they were a little unusual and you could really tell that the animators liked drawing as many female characters as possible. A labour of love I suspect.

The premise is a little reminiscent of X in my opinion. The world has been engaged in a secret war for centuries. Five opposing factions with super powers vie for control but the overall war isn't really explained. Of course it wouldn't be an anime if the groups weren't completely made up of young girls (Ah anime!). The players are:

Arayashiki: All those Japanese priestess girls you see in every other anime.
Wiz-Dom: All the magic girls from the western countries.
Darklore: Cat girls, vampires, fairies, various other animal-girls.
E.G.O.: The psychic girls straight from the set of X.
Polestar Empire: Bad girls from another dimension. (Like the Splugorth but cuter.)

There is another group but they are less a faction and more another class of people, these are the male Mindbreakers. They can call and control girls of any faction and can awaken dormant abilities in previously ordinary girls.

We learn at the start of the series that the main character Kyouta is a mindbreaker. He's unaware of this of course and is in a band with his friends. He's a senior in high school and is sweet on Yoriko, a childhood friend who is a year or two older than him. We also find out that Yoriko is one of the Arayashiki and not only that but their new leader.

She rebels at this and with that and thinking she and Kyouta are drifting apart she becomes vulnerable to the machinations of another mindbreaker who plans to turn her to evil. He accomplishes this and the rest of the series is about Kyouta learning about his power and trying to save Yoriko from herself.

There are some pretty good minor characters in this show like the two E.G.O. girls who become Kyouta's friends and his wacky bandmates. Yoriko is also quite interesting as Evil-Yoriko since she becomes the bitch from hell.

Since the show looks so good and is pretty interesting I'll recommend it as a light romantic show. It has a pretty good ending but the epilogue was kinda crappy.

Mermaid Forest 7/10

Most would say at first thought that immortality would be a good thing. No one wants to die. But after a second thought problems appear. If you're the only one, everyone you've ever known will die. Everywhere you've ever been will change. You would have to move from place to place so no one discovers your secret as you'd be forever hounded by others seeking immortality. Any family you have would get old and die and you would only be able to watch helplessly.

Not all it's cracked up to be is it?

From 2003, Mermaid Forest runs 13 episodes. This show has some nice art and it's nice and colourful. The character designs are OK but a little angry looking considering the manga on which this is based it by Rumiko Takahashi. I was also a little disappointed at the somewhat dodgy animation quality at times. This is a Takahashi based anime! Where's the budget? The music was OK but I found the OP and ED pretty forgettable.

Say you're an immortal guy, aged about 22. Say only one immortal is created every several hundred years. Say you've lived 500 years alone and wandering from place to place searching for a cure. Meet Yuta who 500 years ago ate the flesh of a mermaid and it granted him immortality. Any small wounds heal immediately, larger wounds take a little longer, and even if he dies he comes back to life in about half a day. You'd think that with immortality being so easy to come by eveyone and their dog would be immortal but in reality the flesh is a deadly poison that usually turns those that eat it into big purple googly-eyed monsters.

He left his hometown once his then old wife died and has been travelling around Japan searching for a mermaid or anyone else that can return his mortality. He doesn't want to die as he could accomplish that by cutting off his head but just wants a normal life.

One day, following a lead from a local town he stumbles across a village filled with women that all look strangely similar and gets murdered by them. It turns out they're all a type of mermaid who kidnap little girls, raise them to about 15 or so, and feed them mermaid flesh in an attempt to make them immortal. Then they eat them.

Now meet Mana their most recent victim. She survives the mermaid poison and becomes an immortal like Yuta and he manages to rescue her before she gets feasted on. She's about 15 and spoiled but extremely naive since she's been a captive for so long. She decides to travel with Yuta and becomes his friend.

After the 2 episodes that introduce Yuta and Mana the rest of the series consists of 1-2 episode arcs that are either stories about Yuta's past life or adventures in the present with Mana. The shows all revolve around Yuta discovering some mermaid related nastiness in the town in which he's currently living (with Mana in the present). Each arc delves into a different price others had to pay in their attempts at immortality. Most of the arcs are really good and rather thought provoking.

I personally liked the developing relationship between Yuta and Mana best. Since Yuta has been alone for 500 years he's been desperately lonely and his discovery of Mana is like a miracle to him. Since she is so naive and he's a nice guy he's content to have her as a travelling companion but is extremely protective of her when she gets into trouble. Mana on the other hand doesn't seem to have any special feelings for Yuta at first but the final arc interestingly focuses a little more on her than Yuta for a change. When she discovers Yuta's life is in danger she gets truly scary mad at his attacker and defends him viciously.

At the end of the series after the fighting there's a scene where she sits by the sea with Yuta's dead head on her lap watching the sun rise. She has her hand on his chest and when it starts beating she starts to cry. I really liked that scene, softie that I am, and it made the series for me.

I recommend this series but I have to mention that there are some pretty bloody fights in this show. I guess since Yuta and Mana are immortal they figured it's OK to hack them up a bit. Mana dies like 3 times I think. Also, doesn't anyone have a gun to kill people with? What's with all the meat cleavers?

Angel Tales 7/10

We've all read my Sister Princess review where I ranted and raved about how not to do a harem anime with 12 female characters right? Here's the show THAT GETS IT RIGHT!

These 12 episodes dating back to 2001 look pretty good. Lots of colour and pretty decent backgrounds. The music is alright in the series but I got a little tired of the million different versions if the harmonica song. I liked the OP and ED even if the ED is...a version of the damn harmonica song (with lyrics mind you). Where this show deserves some credit is in the 12 character designs and voices for the girls. Instead of dressing them in crazy outfits (like a certain show did) they simply have different coloured and styled hair to identify them. It helps that they range in age from little girls to fully grown women but they almost all wear school uniforms that are just different styles and colours. That wasn't so hard was it SISTER PRINCESS!?

I really have to appreciate the distinct VAs that each character has as I mentioned earlier. A few of the girls have accents but most of the actresses are good enough to make themselves distinctive without going nuts. They also almost all refer to the main character using the same term for "master" unlike the 13 versions of "brother" a certain dumbass show came up with.

This show has a pretty original premise to explain all these girls. The main character, Goro is a bit of a loser (as all harem anime male leads are). He doesn't have too much in the way of job prospects, he's got no girl, and no real direction in his life. He meets a fortune teller one day who tells him his luck is going to change and it does. He ends up with 3 new female roommates who turn out to be his guardian angels and reincarnations of his former pets who died under tragic circumstances. At first there's a goldfish, a hamster, and a parakeet. This is quickly followed by a cat, a dog, a frog, a raccoon, a fox, a snake, a monkey, a turtle, and a rabbit. Because he was so kind to all animals and never forgot any of them he gets granted all these angels as a form of blessing to help him out in his life.

The show starts out just introducing everyone and moves on to various episodes focusing on the various girls. There is a plot here about some animal guys that represent 4 gods who want their powers and are keen to steal away some of the girls. This feels tacked on at the end but does add some concern that at least some of the girls will be taken away.

The best part of this show is simply how the girls get along. They're all really nice but being as they were originally animals there tends to be some friction between the more traditional animal rivals. They are all also constantly fighting for Goro's attention which tends to get pretty funny since he's so clueless. I figure I liked the little dog girl the best since she behaves exactly like a little dog with the whole wanting to go for a walk and running around like an idiot.

This show isn't everyone's cup of tea. It's pretty tame as far as fan-service goes and there's no real conflict. It's more of a warm comedy and I suppose it all depends if you find the turtle girl fighting with the rabbit girl amusing. I recommend it and I'm usually right.

Urusei Yatsura TV 9/10

The anime that preceded Maison Ikkoku, Ranma ½, and InuYasha. After having now seen the whole series I can safely say that Urusei Yatsura better than all of them.

Running a total of 195 episodes from 1981-1986 this is a pretty old show, from the days before the insanely high production values of current anime fare. Of course the quality is still not great on it's best day but there are some really crappy looking episodes. The look of the show also changes over time but for the better as the character designs evolve and look a lot better as the series goes on. The character designs are fantastic even if they're animated poorly, I mean a girl in a tiger fur bikini with long green hair, fangs, and horns? You've gotta love that. The music is quite good throughout the series with new background themes added over time. Since this show has 15 OP and EDs total there is a lot to choose from but there are only a couple of bad ones. My favourite of the lot would have to be the seventh ED “Open Invitation” which is really catchy with it's tropical feel.

The VA's for this show deserve special mention. There are so many classic voices here it's difficult to list what's so great about each of them. Ataru's lecherous laugh and ability to switch to his super serious voice in mid-sentence. Megane's ability to scream at the top of his lungs. Mendou's switches from cool rich boy to screaming maniac. Shinbou and Ran's quiet girly voices capable of changing to angry shouting in a flash. Onsen Mark's cries of frustration. And of course Lum's irreplaceable “DAAAAAALING!” as she administers her electroshock lynch hell to Ataru. This show has the best cast ever and I suppose that's one of the biggest parts of it's charm. Also once you learn some Japanese and are as familiar with it as I am the performances take on a whole new level of greatness.

UY doesn't really have a overall plot, it's mostly just a comedy with the occasional serious bit thrown in for good measure. The main male lead is Ataru Moroboshi, girl chaser extraordinaire who agrees to represent the human race against invading aliens in exchange for the chance to marry his classmate Shinobu. The battle is a game of tag against the flying princess of the aliens, our female lead Lum. Ataru wins and in a huge misunderstanding he ends up engaged to the electric shock administering alien girl who ends up living at his house.

The characters are what make the show and I'll list a few of them:

Mendou: Ataru's classmate and heir to the richest family in Japan. He's in love with Lum, handsome, rich, has a private army, and carries a sword to school.

Jariten (Ten): Lum's little flying cousin with fire breath, a quick temper, and a penchant for the ladies second only to Ataru and Mendou.

Shinobu: Ataru's classmate and a quiet kind girl, until she gets mad then she develops super strength and throws things.

Ran: Lum's childhood friend who lives in her pink spaceship and is all sugar and spice. Then she gets mad and attacks with alien robots and gadgets.

Sakura: The beautiful school nurse who's also a Shinto priestess. She's got a huge appetite and a quick temper.

Megane: Ataru's classmate and head of Lum's Stormtroopers, her fanclub. His soliloquies on his wasted youth and unrequited love are in dispersed between bouts of screaming madness.

Cherry: Sakura's uncle and a Buddhist monk with a huge appetite and a knack for always appearing out of nowhere.

The episodes usually involve some new alien, spirit, alien technology, or mysterious place the cast go to and hilarity ensues and when I say that I mean it. The majority of the episodes of UY are very funny and pretty original, you just have to see past the age of the show.

I can easily recommend this show but it's a lot to take in. So much of the show involves Japanese cultural themes it may be too much work for the average anime fan to bother even trying to understand it. I have to say this is one of my top ten shows of all time, every anime fan should at least know who Ataru and Lum are.

Scrapped Princess 9/10

There aren't a lot of fantasy animes out these days but Scrapped Princess is an excellent example of how to entertain this codgy veteran of several hundred fantasy novels.

Dating back to 2003 this show has pretty standard music through it's 24 episodes. The OP and ED are OK but I feel they were a little too cheery for the somber tone of the latter episodes. The art is well done and the animation is consistent throughout the series. What I really like about this show from a technical point of view are the great character designs of which there wasn't one in the series I didn't like. The best of the bunch was Winia, the red-haired girl with the freckles. Anime girls never have freckles.

Pacifica is the scrapped princess, destined by prophecy to destroy the world on her 16th birthday. She was supposed to have been killed after bring born but due to a series of kind hearted people including her mother, the queen of Leinwan she is spared and raised in secret by her new family. By the time the story starts her adoptive parents are dead and she's on the run with her adopted older brother and sister, Shannon and Raquel as her 16th birthday approaches. Shannon is a swordsman of some skill and teases Pacifica as all good older brothers should. Raquel is a powerful sorceress and is kind but a little ditzy.

The world is controlled spiritually by the church of Mauser who handed down the prophecy and under it's orders Pacifica is hunted by the Leinwan Royal Forces and troops controlled by the church. The series starts with the trio running from town to town, dodging assassins and soldiers, and making friends only to have them turn into enemies once they find out who it is they're helping. Over the series a few people take pity on cheery, harmless looking Pacifica and she escapes again and again with their help.

Shannon also meets Zefiris, an ancient dragon weapon he can fight with (but he doesn't trust). She normally takes on the form of a little girl that hovers around and tends to be less forthright with information than Shannon would like. He needs some firepower because the Peacemakers get involved. The Peacemakers are supposed to be the angels of Mauser, thus they are also hunting Pacifica and are incredibly powerful with their ability to control human minds and turn into big floaty beam shooty deals. Pacifica's powers manifest once the Peacemakers get involved since she has the ability to ignore their mind control and provide this protection to others.

The trio, along with the knight Leopolde ultimately end up in another land and get involved in an attack with ancient super weapons against Leinwan. Once the attack spectacularly fails, Pacifica and her siblings and friends are separated and she gets amnesia. It's about this time this show gets 10/10 good.

Pacifica goes to live with a man named Furet and after her friends find her, refuses to leave him. Eventually they can hide no longer and Furet is killed in the escape and Pacifica is at last captured by the Royal Forces. Here there is a truly sad series of scenes where a Pacifica with still no memory meets her mother in the dungeon who is dying from the effects of the torture she's endured hiding her daughter's location.

Shannon is brought before the King and when he rushes to save Pacifica once more she finally remembers her past and they eventually escape and meet up with their friends and await her 16th birthday. At this point she receives a message from her twin brother the prince and goes to meet him for the first time.

This takes you up to near the end of the 23rd episode and I can assure you the rest of the series is awesome. What happens to the scrapped princess? What is the secret origin and purpose of the Peacemakers? You have to watch to find out. I will say a big part of the charm of this show is the relationship between Pacifica and Shannon. While their fights are funny the quiet moments they have near the end of the series make you wish more animes with these types of combustible relationships had quiet moments as well. Highly recommended.

Overman King Gainer 4/10

How the hell can a show that looks so good have such crappy dialogue and disjointed plot? Tomino may be the godfather of Gundam (which is hit and miss anyway) but after seeing Brain Powered and now OKG I'm starting to wonder if he's a one trick pony. At least lately.

Airing back in 2002-2003 the 26 episodes here look amazingly good considering the story problems. I really love the character designs and the art and animation are really top notch throughout the series. The music and ED were standard and the OP is catchy but annoying. I really had problems with some of the VAs. According to the DVD extras there were some professional live actors in the cast and I bet I could point out who they were from the somewhat dodgy delivery by some of the characters.

The story is pretty straightforward but so poorly executed I had to watch the first 5 episodes twice just to figure out what the hell was going on. The story takes place in Siberia in the future(?). The human population has been relocated into domes located in remote, inhospitable locations on Earth since the good land is needed to grow food. The story starts with part of the population of one of the domes taking off with a bunch of dome parts they live in and dashing off to a place called Yapan where the land is arable. They never quite explain how the domes come apart like that and how they move but these questions are quickly lost under the massive onslaught of plot holes and unexplained events.

As the merry band travel east they're attacked again and again by the Siberian Railway who have alot to lose since they make their money delivering goods to the domes. If the domes have no people there's no one to sell to. The story drags on for the whole series with attack after attack with lots of boring mechs. The good guys have an Overman (a mech with fancy powers) piloted by the main character Gainer who fights the enemy Overmen. Once he beats one it's replaced in the next episode with a different one with increasingly ridiculous powers as the series goes on. An Overman that can shoot lightning or disappear I can understand, one that steals things or gives everyone telepathy is just retarded.

Other than the retarded Overmen what's the problem? The problem is that the show makes sense in the big picture but suffers from about a million little thing's that don't. So many things are never explained: The powers of the Overmen, where Gainer's one originally came from, why his parents were murdered, the significance of Meeya, the significance of her city, who the London guys are, why Cynthia's grandmother was frozen in ice, where the Overmen came from. These aren't nitpicky questions. For example, Meeya is in about every other episode travelling to Yapan but not with the main group. She's somehow related to an ancient girl named Meeya that has something to do with the Overmen but we get to the end of the series and she amounts to nothing as a character. Why have her in the show at all?

Another problem with the show is the dialogue. Characters are constantly shouting out the obvious. Two characters are walking in mechs. Blue lightning strikes a nearby tree. One of the characters inevitably shouts "Blue lightning just struck that tree!". This gets REALLY annoying. We're constantly being bombarded with lines that simply describe what we've just seen.

Another thing is that there are too many characters. So many in fact that some of them disappear from the story by the time we get to the end. An example is the blond girl Adette. She starts out as a main villain, defects to the good guys, ends up living in Gainer's room, ends up as a teacher at the school, starts her own team of mech pilots and falls in love with the ninja guy. These events all come out of the blue and are never fleshed out at all. It's like filler we don't need. Repeat this for about 10 other characters and you get why this is a problem.

I can't believe a show that looks so amazing is so difficult to sit through. This of course makes it twice as good as Brain Powered. Not recommended unless maybe you're blind and like having events shouted at you.