By all rights, an anime OVA series made for the anniversary of Cup Noodle feels like it should be bad. However, while Katsuhiro Otomo didn’t write Freedom, the fact that he got involved enough to get into character and mechanical designs should be a sign that this show could actually be pretty good. It turns out that not only is it good, but it’s good enough that I’d consider this something of a hidden gem.
Continue readingTag Archives: 2000s in anime
This month we’re taking a look at both seasons of Moyashimon. Moyashimon is available for streaming on Crunchyroll.
Anime Review – Texhnolyze
So, the second of the anime series on my New Year’s Resolution list that I’m done with is one I’m dropping – Texhnolyze. I did give it a reasonable try – getting about a cour through the series before I had enough, and because I had the show on my resolution list, I do feel it’s important to talk about why this series failed for me when two other Chiaki Konaka projects – Serial Experiments Lain and The Big O – were fine.
Continue readingIt’s time for the inaugural installment of Nasuvember, as we take a look at the first anime adaptation of a work by creator Kinoko Nasu: the 2003 version of Tsukhime.
Den-noh Coil: Anime Review
Sometimes you stumble across an anime that makes you realize that if more people had watched it the genre it’s a part of could have become tremendously different. Den-noh Coil is one of those anime series. If this show had gotten a better release when it came out, if it had gotten better exposure, this could have been a show that redefined the perception of the cyberpunk genre the same way that Bubblegum Crisis, Ghost in the Shell, and Akira did. Sadly, because of the issues with its original release, it hasn’t really hit an option for mainstream visibility until now. Hopefully the authors who need to see it will get a chance to, and will be equally inspired.
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Anime Video Review: Boogiepop Phantom (2000)
This time I’m taking a look at the anime that came out before 2019’s Boogiepop and Others, but is set after the novels that anime adapts.
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Boogiepop Phantom: Anime Review
Boogiepop Phantom was an anime that came out in 2000 that very much served as a counterpoint to Serial Experiments Lain in the eyes of American anime fans. Both works are dark psychological suspense works containing conspiracies and supernatural elements. Both works are heavy on suspense, and depict their high school-aged protagonists dealing with a heavy weight of intense personal dread, psychological pressure, and often with that trauma based on the burdens of society and how they play on their peers.
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Bakemonogatari: Anime Review
Bakemonogatari is my first introduction to Nisioisin and to Shaft as an anime studio. I had tried to watch the show in fansubs when it first came out, as it hadn’t been licensed, and I remember being struck by the visuals of the series and the level of visual style – I could tell that the show was doing something – but I couldn’t tell yet, and I ultimately decided that I’d get around to it once the show had finished. And then I forgot about it entirely until this past year, when I decided it was time to finally get around to watching the damn thing – and I’m glad I finally have.
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Tekkonkinkreet: Anime Review
Tekkonkinkreet is an anime that I’ve been meaning to watch for years, but just never gotten around to it. It’s a film from Studio 4*C and fits a sort of middle ground between their more art-for-art’s sake films like the Genius Party anthologies and Mind Game, and the more clear-cut adaptations like their Berserk trilogy. It’s also an outlier in that it’s an anime film that is directed by an American (and not a Japanese American either) who didn’t come up through the industry.
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The Big O: Anime Review
I have some significant gaps in the classics of Toonami. I watched most (though not quite all) of Gundam Wing when it first aired. Same with Outlaw Star, and a fair amount of Dragon Ball Z (at least through the end of the Namek arc). However, I never really watched much of Yu-Yu Hakusho, and I never got around to watching any of The Big O. Maybe it was the title of the show – it certainly wasn’t the aesthetic – the retro-futuristic style grabbed my interest. However, it wasn’t until recently that I finally got the opportunity to watch The Big O in its entirety – and it’s an interesting show to unpack.
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Negadon: The Monster From Mars – Film Review
There’s something to be said about a short film that gets in, does what it sets out to do, and gets out. Negadon: The Monster From Mars does exactly that.
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