Review: 3x3 Eyes

Unfortunately in stopping a rogue demon (Pai's pet) Yakumo is grieviusly injured. To save him, Pai takes his soul and he becomes her "Wu" - and therefore immortal. He can be hurt, but his body always restores itself.

However, there is more to Pai than meets the eye. At times her third eye opens... and the elemental Sanjiyan personality takes control. Sanjiyan has the full experience and power of her three hundred years... and where Pai is essentially kindhearted, Sanjiyan is much less concerned with the welfare of others.

The anime follows Pai and Yakumo in their quest to become human (or, in Yakumo's case, to restore his lost humanity).

(There are further plot details in the spoilers.)

3x3 Eyes is the story of a "demon", the last survivor of her race, seeking to become human. It has a strong emphasis on action, with truly astonishing amou nts of gore (due to a second main character who is essentially immortal) althoug h the fantastic elements make these less disturbing than they would be in a more realistic milieu.

In many ways this is essentially heroic fantasy in a modern setting, with heroes seeking to protect the unaware "regular" humans around them, while yearning to be of them. The contrast between Pai and Sanjiyan adds an interesting twist, although Sanjiyan softens noticeably as the OAVs progress. At the same time, love grows between Pai and Yakumo - and somewhat predictably plays a role in resolving the plot. (It's a good love story, just a little predictable.)

The plot is wrapped up in a conclusion which is satisfying while avoiding the so rt of all-inclusive wrapup where absolutely everything is fine in the end. Probl ems remain, but they are such that the merely human can deal with them.

It's worth noting that Yakuma has a habit of getting torn limb from limb (or even shredded), so there are enormous amounts of gore in many scenes.

Voice acting is decent for both dubs (with Megumi Hayashibara voicing Pai).

Packaging is a little odd, Think in terms of two DVD cases pasted together. The result is an awkward size, but usable.

Review: Ah! My Goddess: The Movie

In brief: Oh! My Goddess gets serious. Retaining the basic characters of the OVA series, but with extraordinary animation quality and a much richer story. Really very, very good.

Review: Ai Yori Aoshi

Since Kaoru is no longer in the Hanabishi, the engagement has been broken, but Aoi has been raised loving Kaoru and thinking of him as her husband-to-be. However, Kaoru and Aoi determine to proceed with the engagement regardless, and to hide this the Sakuraba hire Kaoru as a handyman in a large house where Aoi is supposedly the landlady...

Several of Kaoru's rowdier friends (all female, of course) wind up moving in. Ai Yori Aoshi is almost a harem comedy, but with the romance very firmly rooted in the relationship between Aoi and Kaoru there isn't a lot of harem happening.

Ai Yori Aoshi is a charming romantic comedy. Almost every episode takes a timeout at some point to remind us of the depth of Aoi's and Kaoru's love.

It's quite sexist in many ways, with Aoi being in many respects the sheltered flower protected by Kaoru and Miss Miyabi, her guardian and protector. Aoi herself is strong in her own way, willing to face the unknown unflinchingly but not really equipped to deal with the real world.

There are aspects of harem comedy here, with Kaoru being the only male in the household and the two other women (Taeko and Tina) also having a romantic attraction to Kaoru. Kaoru only has eyes for Aoi however, and vice-versa; while there are occasional misunderstandings the depth of their love sees all problems solved, usually by the end of the episode.

The plot structure is mostly episodic, with developments in each episode mostly being in character rather than in circumstance; that is, we see more about an individual character, but the overall circumstance of everyone living together in the Sakuraba mansion changes little, except for the occasional injection of an additional character. In some ways this is a weakness due to the strength of the core relationship, since we never really doubt that things will work out, but there is also some development in the individual characters.

The traditional "hot springs" episode is unusual in that the actual hot springs do not feature. In fact the hot springs episode has less nudity than much of the rest of the series.

There's also a brief half-length episode (sort of a short episode 25) included with the final DVD.

Characterisation is simple on the surface, but there are surprising depths. Tina, choosing the door representing her relationship to Kaoru, sadly chooses the "just friends" door. Miss Miyabi, initially presented as the strict disciplinarian and voice of the Sakuraba clan, proves to have unexpected compassion. Kaoru is far from the typical wimp of usual harem comedies, facing up to some very powerful personal challenges.

The strength of the anime is mostly in these characters and their relationships. Even the "worst" characters wind up having a gentle side.

Animation is decent but not outstanding, with occasional forays into nonrealistic representations (such as Aoi's cat ears and tail, briefly, in disc 2). It lends charm without risking our trust in the "reality" of the series. Emotions are portrayed with remarkable subtlety at times; we are only left doubting a character's feelings when they are trying to hide them.

I have not listened extensively to the Japanese soundtrack. The English track seems to match character to voice quite well. The English dub also takes the relatively unusual step of using Japanese honourifics (-sama, -chan) which while useful to those with a little knowledge of the language may be confusing to others. The reason for this step is probably because the contexts in which they are used here are very difficult to translate well - Aoi calls Kaoru "Kaoru-sama", which would often be translated as "Lord Kaoru"... but in context that's not what it actually means. Similarly Kaoru's "Aoi-chan" has no easy translation.

There are some mismatches in the sub and dub translations, of course, but overall they match fairly well.

Other audio work is pretty good, with good use of incidental sound effects to create mood and set scenes, good background music in general, and outstanding opening and closing themes.

There's a fair bit of fan service here if you are looking for it, mostly as a result of Tina's and Taeko's antics, but nothing too risque'.

Packaging is a little above average, with each volume having a reversible cover, and a series box is available. Artwork on each volume is gorgeous.

Review: Akira

In brief: Classic science-fiction cyberpunk anime set in a future tokyo. Notoriously difficult to understand, the new dub included on this DVD makes what's going on somewhat clearer.

Review: Amon Saga

All sorts of anime put me to sleep when I'm tired, including some quite good titles; this one did a better job than most. It's utterly standard fantasy fare with little to recommend it. Think Lodoss War but taking itself twice as seriously.

Mini-review: Angelic Layer

When a weird stranger named Icchan drags her into Piffle Princess to kit her out with Angelic Layer goods, she starts to play seriously, leading in short order to the national Angelic Layer championships -- and a long and much-yearned-for reunion.

Angelic Layer is by turns dramatic and silly, but focuses on a wide cast of characters with various quirks, ranging from a child in elementary school to an idol singer. The characters are largely explored through the alter egos of their Angelic Layer dolls and the matches they play in.

Misaki is a charming protagonist who swiftly brings all of her opponents over to her side, to a degree that is almost annoying at times. However despite her bright surface she is quite lonely, due to the apparent abandonment by her mother years before. This thread is explored and concluded in the last few episodes.

In all it's quite fun to watch, and I found myself looking forward to the next DVD as they were released, but it will never be known as one of CLAMP's greatest series. It tries to be too many things to be truly great at any of them, although it's nice to see a creature combat anime with some semblance of depth.

Animation is bright and sharp, voice acting is solid, and in general presentation is excellent.

Review: Armitage 3: Dual Matrix

I can't really fault the English VA.

Other extras include a "Making-of" mini-documentary, character and mecha designs, and a small selection of trailers.

Review: Armitage 3: Polymatrix

His new partner, Armitage, is a little strange, and oddly sympathetic to the robots that some madman is killing around Mars. The Thirds, highly sophisticated robots living as humans, are being targeted by a strange madman who isn't always concerned about collateral casualties. It transpires that Armitage, too, is a Third...

As Ross and Armitage try to penetrate the twin mysteries of the murders and of the murders of the Thirds, Ross is forced to struggle with the question of what truly makes a human being human... and whether, perhaps, those not of flesh and blood can be as worthy of compassion as those born of Adam and Eve.

Pacing is pretty good - action sequences interleaved with quieter sections, with neither the too-hectic pace of action without a break (Sin, do you hear me?) nor the slow dribble of boredom followed by a huge conclusion that some shows prefer.

The plot itself is also reasonably involved and interesting, with the odd surprise or shock to keep you guessing. The only real weakness in the plot is that there are distinct break points where you can almost see the credits rolling, essentially, some sections feel like episodes of a series rather than part of a coherent whole. Fortunately such momnts are rare.

Similarly, the characterisation is tight, but the tight focuse on Armitage and Ross deprives the movie of the chance to explore the whole human/inhuman question with any thoroughness. Essentially we see Ross's evolving views and a bunch of extremists shouting slogans, but otherwise see very little of what the other characters thing about the issues raised.

Animation is cinematic quality; not as intricate as that of Spriggan, for example, and not as sheerly beautiful as Ah! My Goddess: The Movie, but still very good - certainly far better than in the average TV series. Both action and the more emotional moments are expressed with the appropriate boldness or subtlety, as required.

The DVD has no Japanese track. It does have stereo and 5+1 English tracks. The voice acting itself is excellent, although the voice actor for Armitage doesn't quite seem to fit the part, at least at the beginning of the movie. A younger, chirpier voice would have better fit the role. However, as the film progresses the oddity of Armitage's voice becomes less prominent.

Basically this is one of those films where I wish I could have heard the Japanese voice actors for comparison.

Other audio is very good, although quiet Mars has little background sound outside of the urban scenes. The music fits in well and is rarely obtrusive; on the other hand, neither is it particularly remarkable.

Packaging is a fairly standard DVD case with a butterfly hub clip, as Madman use on most of their recent releases. The cover design is grimly stark.

Review: Barefoot Gen

Everything changes when the first atomic bomb ever used on a civilian target is dropped over Hiroshima. Flesh melts away in the initial explosion; people are reduced to shadows on the walls behind where they stood. Firestorms blanket the city; people die of a mysterious and unknown illness. Gen and the remaining portion of his family struggle desperately to survive - but also lend help and dignity to others as they can...

The movie has at its core a simple statement: Life goes on. It is a subtext running through almost the entire movie, whereas the folly that led to the Bomb being dropped is touched relatively lightly. The statement you might expect - "This must not be allowed to happen again" - is there, particularly in the immediate aftermath of the Bomb, but the basic message of hope dominates.

This message is in marked contrast to that (allegedly) made by Grave of the Fireflies. As I haven't seen GotF yet, I'm not in a position to say much, but from what I've heard it's a terribly sad film with despair as its central theme, whereas Gen is primarily a message of hope in the midst of unimaginable horror.

No attempt is made to point the finger at the Americans for dropping the Bomb. If anybody is blamed, it is the Japanese high command, who choose to pursue a war which has already been effectively lost. The American bomber and crew are treated impersonally.

Animation quality is not generally high (especially for a feature film) but suits the subject matter. The images surrounding the explosion of the Bomb are horrifyingly well realised, however.

Audio is generally of decent quality, with the period of utter silence as the Bomb explodes focusing the viewer's attention on the horrifying visuals. So far I've only listed to the English dub, which was pretty good.

Packaging is poor - one of those cardboard-cover DVD cases. When the "hub" that holds the DVD breaks, this style of cover risks scratching the DVD, and putting the DVD into a spare case is difficult because the covers can't easily be removed from the remainder of the packaging.

Review: Bastard!!

Now the armies of evil have returned, and the leaders of Meta-Rikana have freed him from his curse. He's not happy about being imprisoned for fifteen years... but his soul is shared with that of the young boy he has been. Including his love for Tia Yoko, daughter of the high priest who defeated him so long ago.

Now Schneider is determined to get his own back... and protect his newfound love. And he's going to have some fun doing it!

If they wanted to make this any more shounen [aimed at a male audience] I honestly don't see how they could do it without crossing the line into hentai.

Sort of Dominion Tank Police where the bad guys hold the balance of force and in a fantasy rather than an SF setting.

The series repeats a particular formula a few times. Essentially, Schneider fights some nasty opponent and seems to lose (in some cases visibly, and messily, dying). Opponent gloats. Schneder mysteriously comes back to life, launches a massive attack, and wins.

There is more to the series than that - otherwise it would be little more than a tricked-up Dragonball Z clone. But in all honesty, there isn't much more to it. The variation in the basic formula - changes in setting, opponent, and what actually happens to the opponent - make it more interesting, and of course the character of Dark Schneider himself, about as anti- an anti-hero as you'll find anywhere, adds its own distinct feeling.

I have heard, but cannot confirm, that there are numerous references to Heavy metal bands and songs in the series, which may be a plus for those who are fond of Heavy Metal music. (Personally I avoid metal - my tastes lean towards a capella (unaccompanied) harmony, and Metal is anything but unaccompanied.)

The English dub is problematic. Particularly in the first few episodes, the main femail leads (who voice Yoko and Princess Sheela) just sound too old for their on-screen characters. The voices sound like they are in their mid twenties or older; the characters are in their later teens. Oddly this seems to have been largely fixed in the later OVAs. Dark Schneider himself sounds a little off, too - almost a parody of himself.

The Japanese dub, on the other hand, sounds pretty much right. Dark Schneider gives the right mix of chutzpah, confidence and vulnerabiity. The female leads give a good impression of confidence mixed with occasional doubt.

Animation quality is generally fairly good, with spectacular effects for spells and subtlety in expressions. General audio is usally OK, but nothing special.

The version I bought included an action figure, with the DVD case bound into a large cardboard backing piece with designs to blend into the front of the DVD case. The DVD case itself is nothing special, but the rest of the packaging was fairly good.

This is pretty seriously ecchi. There are a few occasions through the series where female characters have their clothes stripped off for no particularly good reason. Basically, if you're serious about avoiding gratuitous nudity you probably want to avoid Bastard!! It's not hentai - once the clothes are off, nothing much happens - but still a bit much to take.

Review: Battle of the Planets

For purposes of comparison, the R4 release is minus the G-Force episode (although it still has the two Gatchaman episodes per volume). I have also heard that there are problems with the (R4) subtitles, but this is strictly hearsay.

Whether you purchase the R1 or R4 release depends principally on whether you're willing to pay double to get the G-Force episode, and whether your setup can handle R1/NTSC DVDs. On a feature-to-feature comparison, basis, the R1 release is better. Whether the extras are worth $30-$35 to you is another matter.

Review forthcoming.

Review: Black Jack

In brief: Fairly thin medical thriller plot held together by the mysterious protagonist. Animation style is very bare at times. Watchable, but not outstanding.

Review: Blood: The Last Vampire

In brief: Short and violent but oozes style. Very "realistic" animation style. What's there is very good. Did I mention it was short?

Review: Blue Submarine No. 6

However, not all is as it may seem. Firstly, Zorndyke's agenda may not be as straightforwardly villainous as many believe. Secondly, the captain has chosen, for whatever reason, to recruit Hayami, a misfit pilot who always seems to do the right things for the wrong reasons... and Hayami's copilot, the inexperienced by-the-book young womaan Kino, does not appreciate it.

With the future of humanity teetering on the brink and the human forces hard-pressed, who will hold the ultimate victory?

On to the review.

Classy. Blue Sub No. 6 just oozes class. Animation is top-notch - of similar, if not better, quality, than titles such as Akira and Perfect Blue. In many ways the cel animation is strongly reminiscent of Ghost in the Shell.

While the plot is not nearly as sophisticated as the other efforts mentioned, this is still pretty watchable. First and foremost it's an action movie, so expecting sophisticated character development would be silly, but what is sketched in is solid. However, it's driven by the action sequences.

Which, it must be said, are quite good. This is submarine warfare the way you wish it was - dogfights in slow motion (and at times, not very slow motion). Both the mecha designs and the organics are interesting.

The plot is driven at times by the need for the submarince and its crew to survive, but it still carries some surprises, particularly towards the end. The only real downside is that the crew of the "Phantom Ship" - particularly the captain, who is pretty clearly modelled after a shark - seem at times to be deliberate caricatures of themselves, which distracts from the otherwise sympathetic view given to the "villains".

The ethics of the protagonists are also kept a little murky; the "villains" have some claim to the moral high ground. Not much of a claim in my opinion (basically it's the ecoterrorist "forced return of the world to nature") but still some. It makes for an occasionally confusing but generally well constructed narrative.

Quality of the animation is high throughout. There are places where the juxtaposition of cel animation and CGI doesn't quite work, but these are relatively few. The main problems with the CGI are with the above-water scenes. The underwater scenes conceal the too-smooth finishes typical of CGI with murkiness and low light levels, and as a result work quite well. The above-water scenes are too clean and bright to be believable.

English dub is quite decent (although the VA for Kino reminds me far too much of the VA for Nene in Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 - basically she sounds a little to whiney). The Japanese dub is a little better, and uses full surround sound rather than the straight stereo of the English track. However, the usefulness of the Japanese track is severely eroded by the lack of subtitles (except in the closing song).

Packaging uses a standard DVD case with the pain-in-the-neck "flower clip" to hold the hub. Cover designs are attractive but low-key.

Review: Boogiepop Phantom Evolution

Note: BP has now been released in Australia, but I have the US version.

In brief: Seriously weird anime. Interwoven plot and characterisation - some things that happen you won't understand until much later in the anime, if ever. Basically very good.

Review: Bubblegum Crash: Total Crash Collection

The Knight Sabers continue their campaign against rogue boomers. Firstly, they must fight the Illegal Army, a group of mercenaries giving the A.D. police trouble. But hang on, the leader of that outfit is dead...

Their next job is to recover a revolutionary boomer A.I. - an A.I. which is truly the equal of a human. But there is a mysterious Other who is homicidally determined to obtain the A.I. for themselves...

Finally they must confront a menace which is not only turning all the boomers in megatokyo into revolutionaries, but is determined to wipe out humanity altogether! It's up to the Knight Sabers to prevent a catastrophe.

The basic plot is not terribly detailed, although there are some twists along the way. The basic premise of disaster, followed by the police's ineffective efforts to fix it, followed by the Knight Sabers saving the say by the skin of their teeth, is followed fairly faithfully. Given that the format followed is essentially of a half-hour-episode format, there isn't generally a lot of room for depth.

However, what opportunities there are, are taken. Nene's fear that the Knight Sabers will break up, and Priss's reaction to being turned into just another idol singer - amongst other events - show the "human" side to the Sabers. So while there isn't a lot of characterisation, there is some.

Overall it's a pretty good watch, and is certainly more coherent than the original series. There's more action, as such, but less variety in the villains they're combatting.

Animation is of similar grade to the original series, which is to say, good for its age but nothing remarkable by modern standards. Music does not stand out as well as the original series, but is still fairly good.

Voice acting seems to use the exact same actresses & actors as the original series, and if of similar quality, which is to say, fairly good. Audio is used effectively, although given that it's an action series most of the sounds are of the bang-crash variety.

Packaging is OK, although the front cover seems to be trying too hard for the "Star Wars" look of dramatic figures and scenes against a dark background, and doesn't quite come off. The Liner Notes are described briefly under Extras and are recipe-card-sized notes on the series and its translation. The DVD holding clip is of a serviceable design - basically a "springy" version of the standard CD holding hub, and as such less likely to break.

Review: Bubblegum Crisis (Box Set)

As anti-boomer vigilantes, they fight some pretty nasty characters, as well as repeatedly coming up against Genom, the megacorporation which manufactures the boomers. As mercenaries, sometimes they pursue other high-priced commissions, which add a little variety to their work...

The Knight Sabers are a tightly knit group who don't always agree on what must be done, but do agree on their basic goals of doing the right thing while opposing some of Genom's more severe abuses of its power.

To be honest, in first viewing this, my expectations were not really that high. I had already seen (and quite liked) Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040, the second sequel series, and didn't see how a much older show could be significantly better. Good, yes, but probably not as good. I knew that fans of the older series preferred it but didn't expect to share that preference.

Well, I was wrong. And I'm not really sure why.

Perhaps it's the plot line. Overall, it doesn't have much of one. There are links between the episodes, but as a rule it's not a single plot arc as BGC: Tokyo 2040 has. This frees things up so that it feels like there is more variety in its six or so hours than in the eleven hours or so of the later series.

Or the villains? The villains are a bit more interesting, even though there are about as many (heck, they even mostly share names with the later series). The major baddie, Largo, just has way more personality than Galatea. Galatea has a cold, inhuman determination. Largo has passion.

Nene is less annoying in the original series. In BGC: Tokyo 2040 she seems like some weird savant version of C-ko (from Project A-Ko) but here she has much more personality. Here she has her flaws, but is basically just a more interesting person. The other characters seem more like real people and less like something a design board came up with.

Overall, I think it's just that the show has heart. Yes, it's a cliche. So sue me. :-) Everything is done with verve and style, and while the animation is a little primitive at times, the joy of the creators in creating shines through. 2040 on the other hand is a little more ... clinical.

Right. On to the category commentaries.

Animation is less realistic than many later series, but still quite decent. It doesn't have the fancy water effects and 3D animation of many other series, and the characters are much more stylised than BGC: Tokyo 2040, but there isn't any point where you stop and notice something wrong. Say something on about the same level as Slayers, which isn't bad going considering it's a decade older. The main problem with the animation is that the image quality is a little blurry occasionally.

Voice acting is pretty good in the English dub. Very believable, with a good variety of feelings done well. As is frequently the case, watching the dub in conjunction with subtitles can be amusing, but it's rare for the changes to be so extreme as to radically change the meaning of what is being said. I haven't yet watched the Japanese version with subtitles. I'll stick a mark in when I do.

Sound effects are generally nothing special - yes they fit, but there's nothing in there to make you sit up and take notice.

Music on the other hand is exceptional - each OVA often has its own start and end song. It's mostly 80s-style soft rock, with a strong beat and somewhat repetitive melody backed up by powerful vocals. It's a little unusual in that all of the songs have been translated to English, although the English translations are very "free" if comparison with the subtitles is anything to go by.

Packaging is four DVDs in fairly standard cases in a sturdy box. The individual case design is highly distinctive, with a "dazzle" look reminiscent of a disco ball, and is otherwise very "pink".

Review: Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040

However, there is more happening than meets the eye. Could the rogue Voomers be deliberate somehow? What role does the megacorporation Genom have in what's going on? And why is the leader of the Knight Sabers, Sylia Stingray, so obsessed with destroying the rogues?

Characters are fleshed out fairly well. The major characters all have some depth to them - nobody is perfect, and all are tempted from time to time by other interests. Sylia in particular is shown as a soul tortured by the unwilling role she played in the development of the Voomers and their subsequent corruption.

The series progresses well - characters evolve through the series,and the "war" with the Voomers proceeds logically to a point just short of absolute disaster. There's also a good variety of plots from episode to episode. It builds, with increasing tension and stakes, to a spectacular and satisfying ending.

Animation is very good, with seamless integration of CGI content, quality imagery, and smooth animation throughout. The English voice actors get their parts exactly right, from the determined anger of Sylia to Linna's torn-apart embarrassment as she meets her "arranged" partner when visiting her parents. I can't think of one instance where the English VA was off. I haven't yet watched the Japanese track.

Other audio matches the onscreen action quite well, but I didn't find it terribly remarkable. (Good, but not remarkable). Mostly the fairly standard mix of gunfire/motor/explosion effects.

Packaging uses fairly standard DVD cases with attractive cover designs. The fact that it's 6 DVDs rather than 8 (as with Evangelion & Gasaraki) is a bonus.

Review: Burn-Up Excess

Burn-Up Excess is a sequel of sorts to Burn-up W although it does not continue on from the events of the prequel series, just keeps the setting and basic characters.

Fan service, in sometimes jaw-droppingly large amounts - there are a couple of dressing room scenes, as well as an extended shower scene at the end which includes amongst other things a pan shot of each of the Warrior team naked.

Review: Burn-up W

Burn-up W is four episodes of large explosions and boucing breasts with a very light common thread concerning a new "virtual drug" which is not even partially resolved.

(Does Japan really have stores where large numbers of pairs of used panties are sold, complete with pictures of the original wearer? The mind boggles.)

Burn-Up W has little plot, some character development (including the death of a close friend of Rio, probably the most "developed" member of the team) but nothing like what many other anime have, but loads of eye candy. The eye candy is primarily in the form of the aforementioned fan service and big guns and explosions.

The main plot concerning the "virtual drug" isn't resolved in any way. Burn-Up W has every appearance of a series which was started then aborted relatively early in development.

It's fluff through and through, but entertaining enough if you turn your brain in at the door. If you think of it as Anime's answer to the Tomb Raider movie (but with a team of busty action heroines rather than just one) you won't be far off the mark.

Animation is decent (not spectacular) and sound effects fit in unremarkably. Voice actors fit their characters reasonably well. Overall, production standards are distinctly average. Packaging is a standard DVD case.

There are a number of fairly grisly scenes which may not be for the faint of heart. Basically, not for children, but you picked that up from the first paragraph, right? The gore is not overemphasised, just used as a plot element, thank goodness.

(*) Rio being the "most developed" is probably true in both plot and double-entendre sense of the phrase.

Review: Cardcaptors

Sakura's close friend Madison finds out about what's happening and volunteers (somewhat to Sakura's dismay) to assist in their capture... and in capturing Sakura's attempts on video. Madison also makes weird and, er, stylish costumes to suit each capture.

When Li enters the picture, as a powerful sorceror-in-training and successor to Clow Reed, the creator of the Cards, he is contemptuous of Sakura's somewhat dubious prowess and insists that she turn over to him "his" inheritance... but despite his rivalry, he does assist in capturing a number of the cards.

Each episode chronicles the capture of one or more Clow cards and Sakura's adventures in discovering and overcoming each card.

Note that Madman do not intend to release further titles in this series, even though the series is much longer (the subbed version is 19 volumes long, with 4 episodes for most volumes). Since the Australian version is incomplete and likely to remain so, I would strongly suggest either skipping this or sourcing later volumes from the US.

CardCaptors is a very cute series, in most ways aimed at an audience of young girls, but still has depth and interest to spare for an older audience. The plots are usually of the "puzzle" variety - what card is this? Or How do I defeat this card? which risks making the series formulaic, but the variety in cards and strategies means that this is rarely a major issue.

We get a fair bit of background information as the series progresses, and also hints at greater depth behind it. As with all the best series, it may be enjoyed on several levels; on the surface as straight Magical Girl anime, but at a deeper level for the mysteries that lurk beneath its surface.

The series is highly episodic, but there is noticeable character development as the series progresses, as relationships deepen. Of course it also has its silly moments, which are equally worthwhile in their own way.

Each episode ends with "Kero's corner", a lighthearted look at the fashions of the show. Kero praises the practicality and stylishness of the truly outlandish getups produced by Madison. The Kero's Corner segments may also be viewed as a group from the main menu by moving right from the menus to select Kero in the picture on the right.

While there are only three episodes (70 minutes) on each DVD, the release price is fairly low at about the $20-$25 mark, putting it on a par value-wise with most series with more episodes per DVD.

Animation is of fairly high quality; unusually for a "Magical girl" anime, the "transformation sequence" appears to be largely unique in each episode. There is some use of stock footage, particularly in the morning-trip-to-school which is shown in most episodes, but generally animation is smooth and imagery is attractive and colourful. Character designs can be a little dull, however, with many faces varying little beyond hair colour and style and eye color.

The English dub quality is fairly good; Sakura sounds exactly right, as do most of the other characters. The exceptions are Madison and Kero. I can't pin down exactly why Madison's voice sounds wrong, but it does... most of the time it's fine, but there's something about it which is offputting. Kero's voice is offputting in its own way - basically he just sounds dumb, in fact almost the classical "halfwit" voice. Neither are show-breakers, but they are mildly annoying.

There are no Japanese tracks or English subtitles in this release.

Other audio is reasonable, with particular care being lavished on the battles with the cards.

Packaging is standard DVD cases with a transparent cover allowing the inside cover design to show through. Designs are colourful and attractive, usually showing Sakura in one of the getups produced by Madison.

Review: Chobits

On his way to his new rental apartment, he finds a Persocom in the trash of the building next door. Persocoms are basically android personal assistants - usually in the form of cute girls (and Chi is definitely a cute girl) - but Chi has a few oddities... while very powerful, Chi is also a blank slate, bereft of previous knowledge or common sense.

The series describes the growth of Chi and Hideki's trials in dealing with them, as well as his other problems (some of which might not be best described as problems...) and echoes of Chi's unknown past.

The concept of Chi herself (and to some extent Persocoms in general) is a bit creepy. Personal androids willing to do any bidding of their master - this could easily have slipped into deeply hentai territory. The fact that it doesn't is probably something to be thankful for. (And if you think Clamp never touched on hentai... watch Miyuki-chan in Wonderland which while not Hentai, is also not even vaguely... "wholesome".)

The fan service in Chobits is usually more hinted at than blatantly revealed, but it is spread on a bit thick at times. Chobits so far is very shounen. It's enjoyable in its own way; Chi's innocence is used to great effect, offset enormously against Hideki's extraordinarily dirty mind.

Overall I would say it is enjoyable, but my enjoyment was tempered by the excessively ecchi elements.

Animation quality is extremely high; the characters all have their own highly distinct personalities and appearances. Motion is free-flowing and smooth, and the only digital artefacts were obviously deliberately emphasised to underscore the "computer" character of Persocoms.

The theme song is quite nice, probably one of the top four or five anime songs that I can recall. (The others that I prefer offhand - Ranma series 1 intro theme, the closing theme for Phantom Quest Corp, and the theme for Steel Angel Kurumi). Sound effects in general I didn't much notice, so I'll call them average. :-)

Voice acting in the English dub is a bit of a mixed bag. The voices generally seem to fit the characters; while I don't much like Chi's voice, that's probably because I find her too soft as a character - the voice is actually a good fit. The Japanese track I have not yet watched.

Packaging by Madman is excellent - the first volume may be bought with a collector's box (and free T-shirt). The box is sturdy, has good artwork, and the T-shirt features a prominent picture of Chi (but is too small for me, I wish they woukd stick to XL sizes).

Review: Cowboy Bebop

Stylish, smart, with an excellent dub. Basically a western set in space, but various episodes pull in everything from gangster flicks to James-Bondesque casino capers.

Well worth watching.

Cowboy Bebop is very highly regarded in the anime community; it seems to be a "breakin" series similar to Evangelion, in that those who see it become interested in seeing other anime.

Review: Dominion Tank Police

Leona's first job involves stopping a small team intent on stealing something rather unexpected. Unfortunately in the process she totals the tank she is driving (as well as substantial real estate on the way). This makes several people unhappy.

The remainder of the series involves a great deal more chasing around in tanks, destruction of property, and the occasional sympathetic look at the villains of the piece...

The first two OVAs are pretty straightforward in the scenario presented - basically it's mostly "chase" sequences (with the aforementioned collateral damage). The second two are more thoughtful, looking briefly into what it means to be human, and showing the villains as perhaps not all that bad. However, the core of the show is still explosions, fan service [nudity] and humour.

It's superior material of its type, and worth watching - "you will like it if you like this sort of thing". Personally I prefer a little more depth, which explains the strictly average ratings I've given it, but it's pleasant enough fare.

The fan service (particularly with respect to the cat girls) gets a bit extreme sometimes; the first extended view of Annapuma and Unipuma is basically a strip show (with naughty bits strategically concealed by their plentiful hair). No attempt is made to explain how they are abruptly clothed (albeit skimpily) moments later.

Animation is of decent quality, although there were some strong digital artefacts (in particular "jaggies" in outlines) from time to time. Nothing terribly outstanding. Sound was primarily large explosions and gunfire plus dialogue - lot a lot of variety, but then the subject matter doesn't much require it.

Packaging is a fairly standard DVD clip with a "flower" clip (i.e. plastic projections coming out of the case then out to physically hold the DVD). I'm not fond of this type of case as it can be difficult to remove the DVD without risking damage.

Review: Dragonball Z

DBZ is not a series I have watched extensively. What I've seen seems to show a grouo of poseurs each trying to demostrate that they are the "strongest", best fighter, and occasionally fighting off occasional invading opponents.

Review: El Hazard - The Magnificent World

The adventures just didn't capture my interest. Some of the plot developments seem to have been inserted primarily to force the adventuring group across yet another spectacular landscape; and no attempt is made to explain why a city earlier shown to have been totally destroyed later proves to be damaged but largely intact.

That said, the settings are spectacular, the voice acting is well above par, and the world of El Hazard is beautifully crafted. Animation is fairly well done, with the main letdown being the Bugrom who seem to be a little too caricatured to be believable as villains. Music generally suits the Arabian Nights feel.

I just wish more effort had been spent on developing the characters and less on the locations.

Packaging is absolutely gorgeous. The box set has three DVDs in a plastic foldout similar to that used for the Ranma OVAs, with a stylish watercolour on the main case showing through a window in its cardboard slipcover. The only faults with the packaging are (1) it's mildly difficult to extract the actual DVDs, and (2) there's not a lot of actual description of the contents.

Review: Escaflowne

Hitomi and Van are pursued across the world, and Van's magical suit of armour [mecha] Escaflowne and Hitomi's enhanced gifts prove to be vital pieces in a vicious game involving the fate of kingdoms...

The plot has some unexpected twists, particularly towards the end (see spoilers). Until about halfway through the series it's a little slow - there's a lot happening, but the really critical events don't happen very often, whereas as the series progresses life gets much more exciting. :-) Characters show their flaws and occasional stubbornness which makes them much more believable. Even the single "knight" who is otherwise shown as a paragon of virtue has a great deal of trouble keeping his hands off other mens' fiances.

Escaflowne has a reputation as a classic, and I can see how it's picked it up. I have seen other anime that I prefer, but it probably matches Evangelion for depth (suffering only because I find the cast of characters slightly less interesting).

Animation is decent for a TV series. Some sections are very obviously CGI, but I only noticed a couple of cases which were really obvious.

Both the original Japanese and the English Voice Actors do a decent job. Everybody seems to suit their parts fair well. (Note: I only listed to the English VA on the first two episodes, so things may have gone downhill from here.)

Music is well chosen and appropriately used, as are sound effects. Sound effects and foley are not really outstanding, but they do the job.

Review: Excel Saga

The secret idealogical organisation of ACROSS, led by the Lord Ilpalazzo, has world conquest as its ultimate goal. However, choosing to start small, initially their goal is to conquer just the city of F.

Ilpalazzo's first recruit is Excel Excel, a hyper "genki girl" who speaks at about mach three, but never seems to get the job done the way Ilpalazzo wants. His second is Hyatt, who seems to be an alien princess with the odd habit of dying and returning from the dead shortly thereafter.

Excel Saga consists primarily of a long series of episodes each of which makes fun of a particular kind of show - detective shows, dating simulations, "animal" shows, postapocalyptic dramas... if you can think of it, it's probably there. Everything is poked fun at.

Probably the best single word would be "wacky". Nothing is sacred; everything gets poked fun at, not least the creator of the original manga (who usually shows up in an introductory "approval").

Each episode generally picks a basic theme and the episode then uses that theme, bent utterly out of shape. The alien invasion has the Yamamoto (Star Blazers), Harlock and Emereldas up against the Gamelon fleet. The Dating Sim episode naturally has "kill her" as an option for Ilpalazzo (which leads to a quick Game-Over). The detective drama has the main detective as a bright young girl who adopts the mannerisms of her father when she puts on a haunted hat...

Excel, always willing to put a thousand percent into anything Ilpalazzo asks her to do, drives most of the show. She speaks incredibly quickly - I would frequently rewind a little trying to catch something I had missed. The "AD Vid-Notes", a special feature included on all the DVDs, very helpfully explains many of the more obscure references.

There are also a number of odd "side characters" including Menchi, Excel's dog (and emergency food supply) and a team of people (mostly Excel's next-door neighbours) who seem to spend most of their time tidying up the messes that Excel makes...

The result is a rollercoaster ride of bizarre fun that will leave you gasping and probably wanting more... though I'd advise an occasional break. Swallowing the entire series in one hit is not likely to be healthy.

It all terminates in episode 25... then episode 26 is reserved for maximum outrageousness. It goes out of its way to offend everybody. It's gorgeous in its own way.

Animation is brilliantly varied, frequently following in style the show being parodied; at times primitive but always startlingly effective. It's not gorgeously detailed (eg. as Spriggan) but it's extremely effective.

Voice acting is brilliant, particularly Excel of course; unfortunately Jessica Cavallero had to take a break after doing the first couple of DVDs as the part was destroying her voice, but I didn't particularly notice the break in voice actors. The Japanese track I didn't listen to, much, but seems to follow a similar standard. Following the subtitle track *and* the frequent "vid-notes" would have been next to impossible...

Other audio was again nicely varied and thematic.

Packaging was basically standard DVD cases with a yin-yang hub clip - basic, hard to break, usable. Cover designs nicely colourful and varied.

Review: Final Fantasy Unlimited

"The gateway to another world appears suddenly one day, and with its coming awakens two mysterious beasts of astonishing power. When the monsters appear to destroy each other, they vanish - leaving behind the inexplicable pillar of darkness and the unanswered questions of the natural world.

"12 years later, the twin children of two scientists who disappeared on the so-called Day of Conjunction go on a hazardous quest in search of their lost parents. Boarding a phantom subway, Ai and Yu travel to Wonderland, a chaotic world of amazing beauty and thrilling danger. Accompanied by Lisa, an enigmatic woman and Kaze, a brooding stranger with a demon-summoning gun, the twins begin an incredible journey that will lead to the mysterious heart of Wonderland."

To be fair, it uses some quite imaginative settings and characters. However, you're left with a very strong impression of having seen it all before. The episodes tend to be formulaic, even though the components ae often novel. The core party (two cute kids, a young but motherly woman, an mysterious and powerful man) is very familiar.

In many ways the anime is very true to its origins in the Final Fantasy RPG series. However, the RPGs are at least interactive, and frequently have a sense of humour missing in this anime. Essentially FF:U is badly let down by its scripting; even the fairly generic core cast could have been entertaining if well scripted, but as it is it has all the depth of a mud puddle.

I'm being a little unfair again. It's obvious that there's depth in there somewhere, it's just a pity that it's been tied down and tossed in a closet.

Animation is sharp and monster designs are imaginative (although the core characters are not). There's a fairly wide variety of scenery and circumstances passed through. Really the animation is pretty good. The repeated animations in some cases can get extremely annoying (particularly the Magun); I suppose that's also true to the RPGs.

Voice acting is fairly believable, characters sound about right. It's just a pity that what they are actually saying is so rarely of interest.

Volume one optionally comes with a sturdy and fairly attractive box, including a voucher for a FF:U T-shirt with a selectable size. This is a great idea, bypassing the main problem with earlier boxed releases which had great T-shirts bundled but many of which would not fit. The T-shirt design itself is fairly poor, sadly, mostly consisting of the FF:U logo front and back.

Review: Fruits Basket

One day on her way to school she notices a house, with a row of stones painted to resemble the animals of the Chinese zodiac. She goes down to admire them and meets the owner of the house, Shigure Sohma... and his brother, Yuki, who is idolised by the girls of her school.

When her tent is later crushed by a landslide (and Tohru is down with a fever), the Sohmas take her in, first simply to sleep off her fever, then invite her to stay as a guest (and live-in housekeeper... they really need a housekeeper). As she moves into her new room, a third brother, Kyo, plummets through the roof to challenge Yuki to a duel. In shock, Tohru falls over, accidentally embracing Kyo... who turns into a cat. Soon afterwards, as Tohru clutches Kyu's cat form in shock, she turns to Yuki and Shigure... who, when embraced, become a rat and a dog respectively.

And so Tohru discovers the curse of the Sohmas. There are thirteen members of the widespread family who each turn into a member of the Chinese zodiac (plus the cat!) when embraced by a member of the opposite sex or when under great stress. All have had some great pain in their lives; Tohru encounters a parade of human beings in tremendous pain.

However, Tohru is a personification of compassion and wisdom. She never puts herself first (to the sometime frustration of her friends and the Sohmas) and always has a kind word even for those who abuse her... despite her own painful past.

The series continues on to find Tohru and the others confronting and overcoming their painful pasts, eventually coming face to face with the core of the Sohma curse; all within fairly ordinary Japanese contemporary settings.

Calling Fruits Basket a comedy is to do it a vast injustice. It is a drama of conflicting emotions, of compassion and of anger; it is a romance (with at least three corners). Above all, it is a vastly human story. Evangelion is spectacular, Gunbuster will have you in tears, but Fruits Basket through its light touch will break your heart. It is a story of hope and redemption in the face of despair.

And it's also, when it's not jerking your heart, very funny.

The opening song states the overall theme: there is pain, but we will smile through it; there is suffering, but we will prevail. Together.

The plot leads us gradually through the Zodiac-cursed members of the Sohma family, while gradually leading us closer to the central, most painful parts of the Sohma curse. The show is fairly episodic, without much in the way of a story arc beyond the gradual introduction of new characters, but never forgetting the revelations of the previous episodes.

The characters are painted with varying shades of light and dark; from Tohru, always the shining beacon despite the recent death of her mother; to Momiji, who always dresses as a girl (because he's cuter that way) but was rejected by his mother shortly after birth; to the ever-feuding Yuki and Kyo - each loving Tohru fiercely in their own way, hating each other yet jealous of each other's good features.

OK, so the characterisation is great, and the plot cohesive if not particularly flowing. What of the rest of it?

Animation is generally not in-your-face spectacular, but it's smooth and effective, with stunningly well-chosen effects. Past scenes of Tohru's mother have an almost palpable sense of nostalgia and warm grace. The caretaker at the hot springs is a personification of Eastern European depression and apathy (when she isn't going completely nuts). Emotional effects are shown with tremendous subtlety.

I mainly listened to the English dub track. I don't think I've ever heard a dub done better. I've heard others to equal this, but not often. Every emotion is conveyed with perfection, and the characters - from compassionate Tohru to chirpy Momiji and wild Kyo - come shining through. The Japanese track was also fairly effective, although I only listed to about an episode worth of it (and I don't have much of an "ear" for Japanese).

Sound is high quality, with standard effects and foley well chosen. Music is used brilliantly, from the opening theme, to the almost subliminal use of themes as backing during emotional moments, to the final fairly upbeat closing song. The opening song in particular is very well translated from the Japanese, sung with sensitivity and feeling, and the words give a sombre but cautiously optimistic view of the hopes of life.

Packaging is pretty good, with colourful imagery on a sturdy box as well as on the individual volumes, useful episode summaries inside each case, and a fairly surdy yet easy-to-open DVD hub clip. I wouldn't call it remarkable, but it is definitely above average.

Basically a decent mix, but a little thin when spread across four volumes.

Review: Gasaraki

Then on the battlefield he meets the mysterious Miharu, who seems to share the same abilities. Yushiro discovers that he is a Kai, one of a long line of people with strange powers. Later they meet again; as they struggle to understand their own natures, the Gowa play politics with hunger and Yushiro's TA team is called upon to defend against an attack by an erstwhile ally...

And in the end they must confront what it is to be a Kai.

The setting for Gasaraki is recognisably modern-day, barring the introduction of the TAs.

While Eva leans heavily on a pseudo-Judeo-Christian background, Gasaraki depends much more on Japanese history and culture. Gasaraki is rife with references to Japanese culture. For the most part it's set in the real world, with occasional fantastic elements and a large dob of science fiction to cover the TAs.

Gasaraki is decent series, with some depth to the characters - including many of the minor characters and an intricate plot based around a fairly realistic world. It's rare for any significant suspension of disbelief to be necessary. It doesn't portray conspiracies-within-conspiracies so much as it does clashing conspiracies - the global conglomerate Symbol, with connections at the Pentagon and pretty much everywhere else, versus the Gowa family who have perhaps a little too much influence with portions of the Japanese government.

Personally I found it a little depressing, mainly due to the unrelenting seriousness of it all, and the fantastic elements could have been removed with very little effect. The whole Kai sub-plot takes up a great deal of time but doesn't feel like it really matters very much. Whereas Eva evolves and builds up to a staggering conclusion (albeit one of dubious merit), Gasaraki tries to maintain a constant dramatic tension. Unfortunately that doesn't really work.

Gasaraki is certainly worth watching. It takes a different approach to Eva, and while I didn't enjoy it as much its more serious and realistic approach may suit other viewers better.

Animation is generally very good, with a fairly realistic feel. You won't see superdeformed characters or face faults here; while not all the character designs are entirely realistic, such exceptions are very rare. Backgrounds and incidental objects are also intricately rendered.

The English dub is pretty good. There's a decent range of emotional expression, from the highs of combat to the lows of imprisonment and through the middle ground of home life and military comradery. The voice actors all seem to fit their parts pretty well; there was nobody whose voice stuck out as violently inapppropriate. It was mildly offputting to hear some of the voice actors from Nadesico in their new parts. :-)

I haven't yet watched the Japanese track. The sections I have heard were OK, but I haven't seen enough to form an informed opinion.

General audio is also quite good, with the TAs sounding the way you feel they should and gunfire and the assorted explosions also sounding believable. The "mystical" sections include suitably spooky music. In general, music is used well.

Packaging: Madman's standard DVD cases with butterfly hub clips and translucent cases. Covers feature key characters and items with colourful backgrounds. Inside covers mostly hold pictures of upcoming Madman releases.

Several of the "interviews" consist solely of someone turning the pages on a sketch pad while saying what's on each page. These are staggerly boring (and the picture quality doesn't show the sketches very well).

Review: Ghost in the Shell

In brief: Classic science-fiction cyberpunk anime. Ultra-realistic animation style. Reasonable depth.

Review: Golgo 13: The Professional

However, a massively powerful opponent is marshaling all his resources against Golgo 13... calling in adversaries the like of whom he has never had to confront. Can he survive?

Describing it as realistic would be pushing it. However, it is "realistic" in an action-hero kind of way - the feats it shows are physically possible, just so unlikely as to almost be laughable. A sniper shot through a building, then through bulletproof glass, is perhaps beaten only by the opening sniper shot at a passenger in a passing ocean liner.

Character development is essentially nonexistent.

The R rating is definitely deserved. There is remarkably little gore given the subject matter (although you can't miss it) but the fan service is in the form of fully fledged sex scenes rather than minimal level seen in most anime where it is present. Shounen (boys', or in this case mens', anime) at its most extreme.

Animation is of mixed quality; generally it works well with the subject matter, but the frame rate is pretty appalling sometimes, and the 3D "graphics" sequence near the end looks more like a computer game - an old computer game - than anything else. Basically this is the worst CGI I have ever seen in any movie. For the regular cel animation, occasionally the animation breaks into a heavily pencilled still image (as in Black Jack), which works well in some places but decidedly less so in others.

There is no Japanese language track in this release. The English voice acting is generally pretty good, although a little overacted, particularly the women. At times it sounds more like a soap opera than an action or anime film. However, it suits the B-movie feel of the remainder of the anime, so it's not all that bad; "so bad it's good." Or would if the movie was a little better.

Other incidental sound, barring explosions, gunshots and the occasional water effect, is pretty minimal.

Packaging is a fairly standard DVD case with clip holder.

Review: Grave of the Fireflies

In brief: extraordinarily sad movie about the fate of a pair of young Japanese boys orphaned towards the end of World War 2. Heartbreaking. If anybody ever tries to tell you that anime is "just cartoons", this is a very good counterexample. (Or you could go the hentai route, but that's not a good way to gain respect for the medium...)

Review: GunBuster

Noriko grows immensely as the series progresses, changing in a period of (subjective) months from shy schoolgirl to the heroine who saves the whole of the human race from the "alien" menace.

The series has an extra twist (reminiscent of Haldeman's award-winning novel The Forever War) in that relativistic effects mean that as only days or minutes pass in space, months or years pass back on Earth.

Noriko's journey from diffident rookie to confident heroine only a year or so later (in subjective time), while the world behind her ages beyond recognition is absorbing and riveting watching.

Basically Gunbuster follows the grand anime tradition of heroism: Noriko is challenged, given the chance (and every temptation and reason) to back out, but triumphs in the end. Her victory costs her; she loses almost everything that she values, but in doing so <cliche>finds herself</cliche>.

It's the sort of show which absorbs you utterly, and leaves you wanting to start it all over again... not a good idea in my case, as a 1am finish was already pushing it for a Thursday night. :-)

Animation quality was consistently high; the last episode is almost entirely in black and white which was a little offputting, but if the Wizard of Oz can do it why not Gunbuster? The transition plays a similar part, with the grey tones indicating humanity's last hope and desperate stand, with colour restored as Noriko's hope is restored.

The dialogue is excellent, with the different voice actors addressing their parts perfectly. Their joy, pain, helpless yearning; desperate fear and quiet despair, even childish innocence, all are expressed flawlessly. There is no English soundtrack, however.

Other audio is believable but in all honesty I didn't notice it much. I don't see this as a bad thing - there was nothing jarring, everything fit in as it should.

Some fan service, nothing too jarring or out of place.

There are also "Omake" (mini-features) after each episode describing the physics and some of the history of the Gunbuster universe. These are mildly entertaining but while they do flesh out the background they don't really add anything to the story. (And the omake which has a scrolling history as well as subtitles is incredibly hard to follow!)

A solid contender for "best anime I have ever seen".

Review: Heat Guy J

Through various investigations, Daisuke investigates crimes with the help of J and a small cast of minor characters; when Daisuke gets into trouble, as he almost always does, J rescues him.

At this point I've only seen the first DVD (4 episodes) so this may improve. Personally I'm not betting on it.

There are places where the anime imposes silly restrictions in order to increase the amount of action. The restriction to 4 bullets per mission due to budget restrictions is perhaps the silliest; bullets are cheap, and the restriction often results in excessive proprty damage. It's very obviously a mechanism to force Daisuke and J into a more visually exciting hand-to-hand combat form.

Plots in each episode are fairly minimal (Daisuke investigates a possible crime, criminals fight back, J rescues him) although there is reasonable variation between episodes; this is not a monster-of-the-week format anime.

Characters seem to be fairly shallow and except for J all the main characters are quite "pretty". J, as the archtypical tough guy, is "allowed" to look ugly; the only other ugly characters are old men and gangsters. There's not a lot of character depth either, the nearest thing being Daisuke's determination to destroy J if J should ever be reprogrammed to allow him to kill human beings.

Voice acting fits the characters quite well in the English dub (I can't speak for the Japanese version yet). There's a mix of background sounds that I didn't really notice, and the music for the series didn't really grab me.

Animation was smooth, effective and fairly varied. Character designs were attractive (too much so in my opinion) and the future setting, basically a "light" cyberpunk setting (computers, androids and hackers without the dark/broody bits) portrayed fairly effectively.

If you buy the first volume with the series box (as I did) you get a separate volume with special features and a sturdy box with decent artwork.

Mini-review: Hellsing

Of course Arucard in particular is not very tame. Hellsing (the show) is a gorefest; its horror elements are mostly subservient to its heavy focus on action. Much of the gore comes from Arucard reducing other vampires to their component parts, but the human members of Hellsing and various innocent victims come in for their own share of the punishment.

Ulimately Arucard confronts another vampire comparable to him in power, and with the fate of Hellsing on the brink...

It's certainly not light fare, and the rivers of blood can be disconcerting at times. However, excellent characterisation - Seiras' reluctance to embrace her new status as a vampire, Arucard's gloating superiority, Baroness Hellsing's lofty pride - and some unexpected twists make it a worthwhile watch.

Animation is high quality and voice acting of a typically high standard.

Review: His and Her Circumstances

Arima is simply a model student who gains Yukino's ire when he succeeds in topping Yukino in the high school entrance exams. He has his own dark secrets, but Yukino is dismayed when Arima discovers her true self.

This being a romantic comedy, you know what happens next. Although the details are constantly surprising.

Add a cast of amusng secondary characters and His & Her Circumstances proves to be an incredibly funny and inventive example of the romantic comedy genre.

No space ships, sorcery or high-tech hackery. Has to be boring, right?

His & Her Circumstances is incredibly inventive and original, taking anime in directions you've probably never seen before. It ricochets between being riotously funny and heartbreaking.

A large part of its charm is the core characters, particularly Yukino (played with excellent effect in the English dub by Veronica Taylor, aka Amelia from Slayers and Ash from Pokemon). Yukino's frantic inner dialogue and desperate desire to be admired lends a manic edge which keep the series moving in always-new and bizarre directions. Arima on the other hand is quite reserved, serving as a comic foil to Yukino, but is also surprisingly comical at times.

And of course Yukino's family, particularly her younger sisters Tsukino and Kano (who serve as a Greek chorus, constantly taking the mickey out of Yukino) add to the fun.

However, there's more to this series than comedy. As it progresses it gets more serious; the romantic side of things comes to dominate more, although with Yukino's self-centredness (and, in some ways, shyness) there's always a comic edge. The tragedies of Arima's past come to the fore in a couple of episodes. Later, after the romance is firmly established, the focus shifts to the more peripheral characters but remains entertaining.

As with any really good anime, it's all too easy to identify with the protagonists at times. (In my case, embarrassingly so, as I was a straight-A student myself - although more the nerdy outsider variety than the "popular" kind depicted by Yukino and Arima.)

Where Kare Kano fails is in its conclusion; it doesn't really have one. It stops abruptly, shortly before a major event (the play at the cultural festival), and leaving an enormous number of loose ends. The loose ends are addressed in the manga (the English release of which is ongoing, currently up to volume 9). In the end you're left feeling like you were on a rollercoaster whose tracks abruptly ended, leaving you sailing through the air.

It's a fun rollercoaster while it lasts.

The animation is difficult to describe. While the trademark Gainax stills are there, the style varies enormously - from traditional animation, to superdeformed characters, to pans over drawings and comics. Many scenes include reams of Japanese text flooding rapidly by. Fortunately there is a subtitle option to translate much of this material on the fly. Frequently the style breaks abruptly between scenes - so we see Yukino taking to Arima, but her uncomplimentary inner dialogue is spoken by an evil-looking face that pops out of the back of her own head.

While the Japanese dub is quite good, it's difficult to return to after Veronica Taylor's over-the-top performance as Yukino in the English dub. I couldn't flaw the English dub; I don't recall one instance where it was less than excellent. The Japanese track is also quite good, but the Yukino voice actor in the Japanese track is just nowhere near as manic.

Other audio is used pretty well, with spot sound effects and background noise, but use of music is particularly effective. With a range from light classical to bouncy JPop, there's a wide variety of music used and all of it is appropriate to its context within the anime.

Packaging is pretty decent - the first volume can be bought with a sturdy series box, and the DVD case itself is well designed with a "butterfly" hub clip. The cover design is a little busy.

One thing I should add here is that for some reason my DVD player would freeze up, or subtitles would start appearing in odd places. Popping the DVD and reinserting would normally eliminate these issues; my guess is that the player was having trouble coping with the stranger subtitles.

Review: Irresponsible Captain Tylor

Captain Tylor is extraordinarily lucky. He also seems to be a complete idiot. He manages to repeatedly defeat large enemy fleets with nothing more than sheer luck, and those scheming against him frequently find themselves coming out second best.

But is he an idiot, or some sort of odd genius?

In combination with an enemy empire which has numbers and technology on its side but would really rather not be fighting, and a couple of admirals who plot to kill Tylor off somehow, there are many peculiar situations the crew find themselves in - but Tylor manages to pull off the required miracles at just the right time.

The plot is a parody of a number of mainstream Japanese shows which feature a hardworking "salaryman" who advances through hard work and dedication. Tylor succeeds almost by accident. The "almost" is significant here as it later becomes clear that there is more to Tylor than it appears. Fundamentally his virtues are common decency and a determination that everybody should do what they can to lead a happy life. By the end of the season his crew are fanatically loyal to him.

Tylor's almost constant expression of lack-wittedness is superbly animated. Generally, expressions are very well done, although the TV budget shows through from time to time and the image is sometimes a little blurry. The image standard approaches VHS quality at times, but is still watchable.

The opening credits have the unfortunate distinction of being one of the most boring anime credit sequences I've ever seen. Basically it's just Captain Tylor walking, no background, with an indifferent song playing. So call it two minutes of repeated tedium.

English voice acting is quite good (although hearing Lina Inverse's voice coming from a pair of identical twins is a bit scary). There are no VA performances that I can really fault. I haven't yet watched this with the Japanese track. Other audio is serviceable but not generally outstanding.

Packaging is four average-quality DVD cases in a fairly flimsy box.

Review: Kimagure Orange Road: Summer's Beginning

The cover of the DVD leaves out the time travel element, and makes it sound like he had woken up after a three-year coma. That's not the case.

I found it to be a light, touching romance with few surprises (given that I was partially primed for the fantastic elements). Essentially it's a very human show, with the relationships between the main characters forming the core of the plot. The time-travel elements allow a chance to return to the past and live through the lost three years. On the whole this makes for a much more satisfying conclusion.

The "what if..." is basically, "what if I were moved into the future, so that all my dreams were three years behind me, my loves and life three years advanced?"

On the whole it's a little predictable, but I enjoyed it very much regardless.

Animation is a little rough in spots but generally follows a simple but effective style suiting the film. Music and sound effects fit the film well, with the "theme song", an instrumental piece of piano music, bringing a quietly lyrical feel to the score.

I found the English voice acting a little too melodramatic, with the dub showing a degree of conflict and betrayal that just isn't there in the source material. the VA for Kyosuke sounds by turns a little too strong and a little too weak to fit the part. The Japanese VA suited the film much better.

Mini-review: King of Bandit Jing

The animation is fairly good, and there is a wide variety of settings (ghost ship, city locked into time, musical island and so forth). The characters, while attractive, are pretty much paper cutouts unfortunately, not really excepting Jing and Kir (who are the only recurring characters). The show is highly episodic, with its reset switch flipped firmly at the end of each episode.

Part of this is the recurrence of a "Jing Girl" in each episode, being the romantic interest fo each episode. The Jing Girls are taken from a shopping list of stereotypes, from half-blind cute-girl-with-glasses (meganeko) to tough-yet-vulnerable revolutionary.

The result is an anime that looks great but feels profoundly hollow, a feast of visual eye candy that leaves you reminded of why your mother told you to limit your candy intake.

Review: Last Exile

Note that this is a partial review at this point, bt the quality is holding up so far.

For plot, Last Exile starts with a few episodes which introduce us to the main characters, in some cases pulls them back apart... but later brings them together again. At the same time the plot moves briskly along, covering a great deal of territory with great economy. The setting is quite strange on the surface but the attention taken to detail makes it all believable.

Claus and Lavi are very believable and human characters. Claus more or less drags Lavi along on the more dangerous missions; Lavi is much more conservative. The "minor" characters, of whom there are many, are fleshed out sparingly but believably - you will find no marionettes here, everybody is unique.

The animation is of extraordinary quality. There are times when the 3D CGI becomes a little too obvious, but these are relatively rare, a remarkable achievement given the quantity of CGI used. Characters move realistically; expressions are portrayed with startling acuity. It would be extremely difficult to do better without edging into photorealism.

This is one of the few anime where I prefer the Japanese track (keeping in mind that I have a general preference for the English dub, for reasons noted elsewhere). The main reason is Lavi's voice, which does not suit the character well. Other audio is very believable - the wind whistling by, the creak of the lifts, the noises in a street or a bar - all are quite evocative.

Presentation is good; the box design for the box set is a little boring but this is compensated by the inclusion of an Alvis figurine and the individual case designs.

Review: Love Hina

Fortunately Keitaro's grandmother is retiring as manager of the Hina Apartments (and hot springs), leaving the position open... so Keitaro can earn a small salary as manager while he studies for his next attempt.

What he doesn't know is that, since his fond childhood memories of the place, Hina has become a girls-only dorm. The residents are less than impressed at having a male manager - even if he is (so they think) going to Tokyo U. However without a manager the dorm will have to close down...

Keitaro winds up staying on as manager. Unfortunately while he has a good heart he does tend to wind up in the most unfortunate situations...

Love Hina is a fun "harem" comedy anime (one guy surrounded by a group of women who alternate between fawning over him and beating him up - although there is little fawning in Love Hina). There's an interesting variety of settings and plots - remarkable given that the apartments themselves are a key setting.

There's not a lot of depth here, but there is some; probably about as much as you find in most anime of this particular genre. There is a noticeable development of certain characters as the series progresses.

Much of the humour is cliched, but they do use some novel ideas. The "Video Game dream world" episode is sort o' interesting. For many anime, the introduction of a "hot springs" episode is an indication that the series has run out of ideas. I suppose that by being set at a hot springs, LH has nowhere to go but up. :-) LH depends heavily on slapstick; if you don't like slapstick (taken here to a ludicrous extent) you probably won't like the series.

Animation is solid, quite good for a television series, and in some places excellent. Voice Acting is good in both English and Japanese versions; I find the Japanese version a little "sharper", but the English VA is still quite good.

The songs in opening and closing credits are fairly good (and sung by well-known voice actress Megumi Hayashibara) although I find the percussion in the opening credits a little overdone. Other songs and effects are also quite effective.

Packaging is fairly standard DVD cases with attractive designs. Volume 1 may be bought with an optional box (to create a box set), which is sturdy and matches the case designs. Pretty good packaging overall, if not outstanding.

The fan service (nudity) in Love Hina has been described as excessive by some. However, personally I barely noticed it. There is a little, as you would expect from the setting, but what is there is fairly minimal and appropriate.

Review: L/R

The quest for the 15-year princess forms the core of the plot, which develops over the full course of the series and comes to a satisfying conclusion with a few twists... including a couple that are not all that easy to see coming.

The characters and music in L/R are quite good, but the first half or so of the series just seems pedestrian somehow. There's the odd minor twist but really nothing you haven't seen before - just secret agents being cool for the "camera". Fortunately when the main arc reveals itself things heat up a bit and the series becomes genuinely entertaining to watch.

The two lead characters, Jack and Row, and their supporting cast, are the epitome of the British secret agent (and let's not pretend they're not British, Ishtar being a thinly-painted-over clone of England). Jack is the James Bond type, always cool and gentlemanly under pressure. Row is more the rogue, operating with flair and careless ease.

The two operate smoothly as a pair, and form the core of Cloud7; it's easy to identify with them.

Animation is clean and stylish, with the flavour of England in scenery and characters alike. Colours are well-chosen with the colourful foreground set against the slightly grubby background lending a nice contrast, and no obvious cost-cutting in the animation itself.

Voice acting in the dub is pretty much spot on. L/R is one of those few anime where not a single character is obviously out of place. Its only weakness in this respect is that little is really asked of the characters; as Jack and Row cruise through their work, and few of the other chaacters show deep emotion other than the outrage of being suckered, you won't often find the voice actors really pushed. I have not watched enough of the japanese original track to judge it however.

Other sound effects and audio worked well but was rarely outstanding. The music was nice and moody, definitely above-average, but not at the level of Cowboy Bebop or Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Packaging is decent, with clear, well-designed covers and a sturdy box (if you get the first volume with box).

Review: Macross Plus

Isamu Dyson is the sort of hot-shot space-fighter pilot that no commander seriously wants in his or her squad. He's stunned when he's assigned to a position as test pilot for a new experimental transforming fighter.

When he arrives, he finds an old... acquaintance, Guld, is the test pilot for a competing transforming fighter. Old rivalries come to surface when Myung, an old mutual girlfriend, also returns to New Eden (where the testing is taking place).

Myung has long since given up her career as a singer and is now producer for Sharon Apple, the first A.I. to become an idol singer. However, Myung actually supplies the emotions for Sharon's performances - a fact which is carefully being kept hidden from the public.

As the rivalry between Isamu and Guld explodes into violence, and Sharon Apple proves to be a little more than she appears, the fate of the Earth is put at risk... and it is up to the test pilots to bring back the world from the edge of its doom.

Macross Plus is a sequel to the Japanese Macross TV series and has essentially nothing to do with the completely rewritten and rearranged variant known as Robotech.

Note, however, that Macross Plus stands well on its own; you don't need to have seen the original Macross series to appreciate this.

Macross Plus is a fast-paced action/drama series set a number of years after the original series (seven years after the protagonists broke up). The plot is quite detailed, characterisation is quite good with all major characters being well fleshed out. (There are some minor characters who are cardboard cut-outs, but that's what minor characters are for).

The plot moves quickly but has a series of twists and turns which render it fascinating to watch. It's not so much a matter of unexpected events, but of expected events unfolding in unexpected ways, with the events of years previously providing a subtle but firm grounding to the events of "today".

Animation quality is high throughout, with tremendous detail and effective use of colours and light and shadow (chiaroscuro if you want to be snobby). There's no obvious frame skipping - frame rates are good, and there is no sign of pixellation.

The English voice cast is fairly well chosen. None of the parts sound terribly out of place. However, the Japanese voice cast does fit the characters just a little bit better. Other audio is good, although use of the rear speakers seemed a little excessive. The music is very nice.

Packaging: attractive cover designs - although back covers are a little crowded - with "coming releases" shown on the inside covers. The DVDs themselves are a slightly stylised and rather dull design.

Review: Magic Knight Rayearth Memorial Collection 1

The girls cannot return to Tokyo until they have become the Magic Knights and revived the Rune Gods to save Princess Emeraude and save Cephiro. In doing so, they pass through dangerous lands, meet new friends, and face dangers both physical and "of the heart."

For Cephiro is the land of the heart where will rules all, and the strongest heart will always emerge victorious... but their opponent, Zagato, is also of strong heart and his motives are uknown.

While to some extent there is a fight-of-the-week formula in there the breadth of forms that the "fights" take is breathtaking. From an attack on the wing in the first episode to the confrontations in the Spring of Eterna, to the magical blastathons in the final episodes, the fights are never simple repeats and the resolution is never quite what you would expect.

More importantly the fights aren't always about destroying the opposition. In a couple of notable cases the Magic-Knights-in-training "defeat" their enemies by showing them the error of their ways... and the error is rarely the same. The show has a remarkable gift for avoiding simplistic solutions.

And of course the anime features one of the trademarks of the anime plot: the victories are frequently costly, where the victory cry is not necessarily one of rejoicing but of sorrow. When the "good guys" have won and you want to cry....

The animation is beautiful, as are the character designs. The characters have a beutiful fluid look, and the eyes in particular have the classic CLAMP "pools of liquid moonlight" look. You may want to compare with Cardcaptors, as Cardcaptor Sakura was also a CLAMP design. "Special effects" are also spectacular. I can't remember one case where I noticed a flaw in the animation.

There was one minor irritating note; in the earlier episodes, the "superdeformed" style is used frequently, to the point of distraction. This happens less as the series progresses and moves from a comedy to a drama emphasis.

Voice acting in the English dub was quite good; normally there's at least one voice which doesn't quite fit the character, but that's not really the case with MKR. I haven't yet watched the Japanese track extensively enough to form an opinion. I have to say I feel sorry for the person who was voice actor for Mokona - "Puu!"

Other audio is fairly good, with effective use of background music and special effects ("foley"). To be honest I wasn't paying all that much attention to non-voice audio...

Packaging is decent but has some flaws. The art design is wonderful, and the individual DVD cases also feature beautiful artwork. The DVD clip designs are fairly usable. The main problem is that the box opens at the top (with a lid) rather than at the side, so extracting an individual DVD is a chore.

I found some of the features didn't work with my DVD player; when I tried some features, the player would stop completely and return to the power-on DVD loading screen. Whether this was a fault with the DVD or my player remains to be seen.

Review: Maison Ikkoku

Godai starts to fall in love with Kyoko... but through misunderstandings and the machinations of his rowdy neighbours, nothing ever seems to go very smoothly.

Characters are portrayed with some sensitivity and subtlety; this is not a Ranma-style simplistic love/hate relationship, but a case where the core characters care for each other, come to care more as the series progresses, and sometimes hurt each other (intentionally or otherwise). Godai and Kyoko of course form the core of the cast, but the incidental characters are also important, with even the most simplistic occasionally evincing some depth.

The plot has not really progessed very far by the end of these 12 episodes - this is one eighth of the series and it has a long way to go yet - but there are very few "filler" episodes; each episode contributes to the progess of the characters and their relationships.

Animation is mid-eighties standard (it was made in 1986) - fairly simple but effective. Don't expect fancy CGI - but don't expect lousy CGI or Neon Genesis Evangelion telephone pole still scenes either.

The voice acting in the English dub is generally good and on occasion quite subtle; Kyoko's flat response to Godai when she sees him with another woman expresses a fairly complex mix of emotions quite well, for example. There is a Japanese track but I haven't yet watched it.

Other sound effects are also fairly effective if minimal - cicadas chirping, the Maison Ikkoku clock sounding the hour through the night - but the core of the show is the dialogue.

Packaging is decent - a reasonably sturdy box, good cover designs, DVD inserts but pretty bog-standard cases.

Review: Medabots

Ikki's parents won't buy a Medabot for him, so he has to save up. When he finds himself in urgent need, he spends all his savings on a very old model and uses a "medal" (the "heart" of a Medabot) that he found washed up in a river. He and his new Medabot, Metabee, return to welcome his friend.

Unfortunately the medal, while making Ikki's medabot, Metabee, very powerful, is not exactly a production model. Metabee is less than servile. In fact he has attitude to spare, and won't take any guff from Ikki.

What follows is a series of encounters, fights agains rival medabots as Ikki moves up in the highly competitive world of Medabot battles.

Kaleidoscope do yet another half-hearted job. This is a dub-only title with no Japanese track, no subtitles, and no special features beyond chapter selection. The show itself is watchable but not particularly remarkable.

It's only fair to note that this standard of presentation seems to be fairly standard for kids' animation for Australian releases. Cardcaptors, Speed Racer and Sailor Moon are all of similar standard.

Animation is clean but character designs are a little simpler and more stylised than is usual for anime. The animation standard is closer to what might be found in a typical modern American production.

The English dub is all right, of a fairly typical standard for kids' television, if by no means remarkable. With no subtitles, comparing against the Japanese original is impossible for me. There is no Japanese dub.

Other sound is not terribly remarkable, essentially minimalist aside from the Robattle sound effects.

Packaging is reasonably standard, a decent cover with a translucent DVD case and "butterfly clip" DVD hub.

Review: Miyuki-chan in Wonderland

Miyuki-chan in Wonderland is a Clamp "re-imagining" of the Lewis Carroll books, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.

The shows become a montage of beautiful images, almost an anime picture gallery; there is no real plot. It's also quite short (about half an hour long in total). Essentially it's all pure eye candy (but never pretends to be otherwise).

There are some mild bondage elements; this is probably not the anime you should first show to your mother.

Animation is not very smooth but includes some stunning character designs - mostly, it must be admitted, sparsely clad women. The background music is not bad but is pretty repetitive and will get old pretty quickly (particularly if you leave the DVD playing the menu screen).

Fan service, as hinted above, is plentiful. Packaging is a fairly standard DVD box with picturesque cover image.

Review: Martian Successor Nadesico

It's very funny, however, and packed with anime in-jokes and references. One of the best series I've seen.

Review: Amazing Nurse Nanako

Not that you would know that he cares, given the way Nanako is treated. But then Nanako is not exactly all that bright.

Add some odd side plots about the Vatican seeking to create a clone of Jesus from the Turin shroud and the US military experimenting with the corpse of an alien from the wreckage of a spacecraft recovered from orbit, and you get... something a little odd, ocasionally funny: Nanako.

Amazing Nurse Nanako is a comedy, mostly centred around Nanako's brainlessness and Kyoji's wacky ruthlessness. It contains a fair mix of fan service for its own sake but never makes the mistake of taking itelf too seriously.

Don't expect deep characterisation; we see something of the reasons for Kyoji's obsession in the later episodes, but his concern for Nanako is not generally made to shape his behaviour elsewhere in the series. He obviously cares for her, but at times it seems more as a research subject than as a human being.

But then, Kyoji's like that.

There's a mix of fairly stock-standard side characters but they really don't touch the central plot (such as it is) and could have been omitted pretty easily with nobody any the wiser. In many ways they're time fillers, there to give somebody for Nanako to be stupid to and Kyoji somebody to be ruthless with.

Animation in general is very good, with good character designs, well animated. Naturally Nanako takes central stage - an ADV-style "jiggle-meter" would have been an entertaining feature here but would probably have gone into triple digits very quickly. Her frequent expressions of absolute panic are a high point.

Voice acting is decent - the English dub sounds a little flat after the subtitled version, but both are pretty good. This won't be winning any Oscars for drama but the comedy comes across well. Other audio is good but I didn't notice anything outstanding.

Packaging is outstanding. While spreading the content across 3 DVDs is a little excessive (there's only an hour per DVD), the bonus booklet and poster are quite nice and the plastic slip cover over the main box reveals the, erm, "stripped down" versions of Nanako (lingerie and skinsuit) compared to what's on the slipcover (nurse outfit and power suit respectively).

Review: Neon Genesis Evangelion

Shinji and his fellow pilots are bent to breaking point and beyond in their defence of Tokyo 3 and the secret chambers below NERV HQ...

Eva explores the future of humanity through a fairly small group of people who range from the fairly innocent (Shinji) through the complex (Katsuragi) to the dark and menacing (Gendou Ikari). The fact that they seem to be battling against the agents of God shows that even the innocent are not above reproach. Basically it's all beautifully dark and convoluted.

The ending is somewhat disappointing. The first time I watched I didn't really notice, much, but on second viewing the ending really does ring rather hollow. The ending is the only thing which kept me from awarding a ten...

The Animation rating is pulled down dramatically by severe shortcuts in the final two episodes of the series. Until that point, quality is quite high, with the animation carrying the story very well. While the spare style of the last two episodes suits the subject material to some extent, the impression of a rush job is unavoidable.

English voice acting is pretty good, let down primarily by Spike Spencer (Shinji) who seems to be a two-note song - shy submissiveness and angst. A little more variety would have helped enormously. The rest of the cast does a good job, however, covering the full gamut from quietly sobbing despair to outrageous overconfidence and many degrees in between.

The Japanese VA for Shinji is much better, although the English VA for Gendou Ikari brings a slightly colder air to his role which I think better suits the character. This is a minor quibble, however.

Audio in general is excellent, with spot sound effects and awesome orchestral music backing up the action.

Review: Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death and Rebirth

Shinji and his fellow pilots are bent to breaking point and beyond in their defence of Tokyo 3 and the secret chambers below NERV HQ...

Then, when all seems to be resolved, bloody conflict arises again as the rest of the world invades NERV in a no-holds-barred fight for the future in which human lives are strictly disposable, and the Eva pilots represent a danger that must be destroyed.

"Death" makes very little sense unless you have first seen the series. It's more of a "what has gone before" recap than a movie in itself; most of the footage, perhaps 95%, is recycled from the series, although the dub is new. It's not exactly boring, as it does a decent job of drawing together the key themes and events of the series, but the avid fan won't find a lot of new material.

"Rebirth" is where the action is (after a bizarre 5-minute "intermission"). I won't go into a lot of detail, as to do so would spoil the plot. Suffice to say that there are buckets of blood, Shinji is his usual disfunctional self, and both Misato Katsuragi and Asuka are seen at their best.

While the gore is at times somewhat over-the-top, it's never entirely gratuitous. "Rebirth" portrays a violent time; showing some of that violence is appropriate. The overall theme (Rebirth) implies a time of pain, of blood and of change and certainly that's seen here.

Both parts show extraordinary depth, with layers of detail such that there's always more to discover. While the original series could be watched, at least at the beginning, as a fairly straightforward giant robot show, this version shows the "action" side of the series as more-or-less incidental, favouring the intricately convoluted conspiracies-within-conspiracies that come to dominate later in the TV series.

The English dub is very close to that of the original series, with all the high and low points that implies. In particular, Spike Spencer reprises his role as Shinji Ikari, with the manic-depressive dualism which drove me bonkers with the original series. The accompanying commentary praises him, which leads to the bizarre conclusion that the English dub producers wanted a lead role with no emotional middle range.

I haven't yet watched the Japanese dub. If it's of similar quality to the original, it will be startlingly good. Watch this space for an update.

Audio is quite good, atmospheric and appropriate, on a par with the original series. The English dub adds a bit of horsepower to selected sound effects.

Animation follows the Gainax trademark style - long shots of coffee mugs and hallways (with dialogue) interspersed with excellent, carefully crafted animation sequences. There is considerably more action in "Rebirth" than in "Death", but in any case while the style is occasionally spare it's always appropriate.

Packaging is the now-standard butterfly-clip DVD case that Madman seem to have standardised on, with a striking (if "busy") cover design.

Warning: the Magi archives do contain some spoilers.

Review: Niea under 7

The bathhouse is rarely even breaking even, and so is under continuous risk of closure. The series follows Mayuko's life as she tries to keep her life in some semblance of order, as well as the adventures and misadventures of the small group of oddballs who assist in running the bathhouse.

The series seems to have a great deal of trouble making up its mind whether to be a comedy or a drama. As a comedy, it's not terribly successful - it has its funny moments, but these are useful mainly in offsetting what is otherwise a terribly depressed mood running through most of the series. As a drama, it has an interesting set of characters who can occasionally be difficult to fathom.

While life seems to start looking up towards the end of the series, there is still great uncertainty. The story isn't really resolved fully, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing.

It's an odd series, which makes it difficult to judge. The convoluted realities of Lain and Boogiepop Phantom are not present, but occasionally you're jolted with the fact that you only have a very broad idea of what's really going on...

Animation is clean and well-defined, if occasionally sparse. Basically it suits the style of the series well. Sound is not particularly spectacular - there are few "oh, wow" moments - but does the job.

The English dub is excellent. I haven't yet watched it with the original Japanese soundtrack.

Packaging is attractive, with very nice illustrations, but the DVD case clips for this case design make extracting the DVD from the case mildly painful. This is compensated by the inclusion of cardboard stand-up figures of various characters in the last three of the four DVDs.

I have one friend wanting to borrow the series on the strength of the cover illustrations alone. :-)

Each episode is followed by an Omake with a very weird Indian guy saying incomprehensible things.

Review: Odin - Photon Space Sailor Starlight

The "Starlight" is the latest advance in space technology, significantly faster than any other space ship yet produced by humanity. During its initial testing trials, the crew goes to rescue the crew of a ship in distress, and recover a young, mysterious girl with flowing white hair.

The girl proves to have memories of a distant planet - Odin. After some fuss, the Starlight sets out for Odin...

There are holes in the science you could drive a truck through, but Odin pays much more attention to believability than most other anime series. Whether this is a good thing is up to you to decide. And in all honesty being more believable than most anime series is not hard. :-)

Science aside, this is a reasonably straightforward ripoff of Star Blazers. Some segments bear a striking resemblance to episodes from the Star Blazers series. While the driving force behind the plot is significantly weaker (not "save the Earth" but "let's see what's out there") Odin also more-or-less ends with a confrontation with forces determined to destroy the Earth.

In many ways it's a pity that the design of the Odin so consciously resembles a sailing ship, as this is the main place where suspension of disbelief breaks down.

The main problem with Odin is that it is fairly straight science fiction, and frequently takes itself a little too seriously. As a result it can get a ittle boring.

Animation is fairly ordinary by modern standards, but extremely good by early-80s standards - definitely better, if less luridly colourful, than Star Blazers. The style is a little more realistic and a little less stylised than Star Blazers. Altogether it fits the "serious SF" mood of the movie reasonably well.

The Japanese track fits voices to characters reasonably well; the English version does a reasonable job as well, although the Japanese track fits just a little better.

Audio is decent but by no means extraordinary.

Packaging is a fairly standard DVD case with a reasonable clip deign, featuring a large picture of the Starlight and a note saying that the feature is 235 minutes long. This is probably acurate for the combined lengths of the two versions, but not for either indiidual feature.

I watched the long Japanese version and the half hour of the shorter version with and English track; I didn't notice any huge differences in the basic plot, although some of the less interesting sections were cut out of the longer version to create the shorter version. The most important plot points remain the same, however.

There are no other special features.

Review: Oh! My Goddess

Review Forthcoming.

In brief: charming romantic comedy which moves away from comedy and towards more serious matters in the second DVD (the 3rd and 4th OVAs). Quite good.

Review: Orphen: Scion of Sorcery

Orphen must not only beat Bloody August - who doesn't always appreciate his efforts - but also hold off the Tower if Fang's attempts to beat him and kill Bloody August. (Her mistake is a great embarrassment to them.)

Tagging along with Orphen is Majic, his erstwhile apprentice, and Cleao (pronouced "Cleo"), a young girl just returned from school who is after a bit of adventure (and who has recovered from a brief crush on Orphen).

Gradually we learn more of the disaster that led Azalyn to the error that turned her into the Bloody August; and that all is not as it seems, as seeming villains prove to be allies in disguise, but unexpected enemies appear...

As the series progresses, it gets a little more serious, although the humour quotient never drops completely.

Characterisation is developed quite well through the series, with the different characters changing gradually over time. (I won't go into details here so as to avoid spoilers.) A couple of the characters show unexpected depths and hidden agendas.

The plot development is a little hard to describe. Until quite close to the end of the series it feels very episodic, even though there are actually remarkably few episodes of pure filler. Certainly there are some filler episodes; one of the flaws of the series is that some episodes that actually contribute significanly to the plot feel like filler until much later. As a result I wound up watching several episodes in a row waiting for something significant to happen. Sneakily concealed revelations are one thing, but there should be some more obvious substance in such cases.

However, it's basically enjoyable, and the last few episodes in particular are excellent as hidden secrets are revealed. However, the series would probably have been better if compressed to perhaps two thirds of its current length.

It's a little difficult to judge the voice acting. The English dub is a very... free translation, with Cleao being somewhat more aggressive (and one of the two troll sidekicks noticeably less bloody-minded). However, I wouldn't say it's worse; the text of the English dub misses some of the original jokes, but overall it's more lighthearted and funnier. But don't try to watch the English dub with subtitles; the two are different enough that it can be very distracting.

Oh, and in a definite first, ADV have found a part (the wimpy Majic) that actually fits Spike Spencer.

The Japanese voice acting is also pretty good. However, in this case I prefer the dub. This reverses a recent trend. :-)

Audio is pretty good; being an action show, there are lots of loud bangs and such, but the effects for spells also match the spells, and incidental effects such as a breaking glass are also decent. Music falls a little too close to metal for my tastes. However, I liked the closing songs, particularly of the second half of the series, very much.

Packaging is fairly standard DVD cases with the now-standard butterfly hub clip.

Review: Otaku no Video

Kubo is a young college student and active tennis player until he meets old friend Takawa. Takawa is into anime and meets in his "SF club" with a group of other otaku. Takawa gradually slips into the lifestyle of an Otaku, attending late-night anime premieres, cosplaying, helping design doujinshi... a transition his existing girlfriend does not like; she dumps him.

He decides to become an Otaku among Otaku - the Otaking!

The second OVA concerns his attempts to convert the world to the way of Otaku through various endeavours in big business. Despite setbacks, he and Takawa naturally triumph in the end in a weirdly science-fictional ending.

It must be said that this is very squarely aimed at anime fans. The series abounds with in-jokes and subtle digs at both fans and non-fans. If you're not an anime fan yourself, you'll probably miss a lot of what this is about.

That said, I didn't greatly enjoy this. Perhaps I'm too new a fan and just missed too much, but I didn't find much of the humour very funny or the drama very dramatic.

A large part of the problem probably lies in the way it is structured. The anime are broken into fairly short sections divided by perhaps eight or ten "portratit[s] of an otaku" in which Otaku are interviewed with questions ranging from the interesting to the silly. Some of it is interesting, but it seems pointless if the target audience is otaku - and much of the anime is pointless if it is not.

The "Portraits of Otaku" are basically live-action with an off-screen interviewer asking the interview subject a series of questions related to their interests. Many of the interviews are very obviously staged, however. (Why would the military otaku run into a bright light when trying to hide?)

The DVD menus give an option of skipping the animeted sections, the "Portraits" or playing both, as well as giving various subtitle options. This at least gives you the option of sticking to the core story. (And of course with DVD you can just skip forward. :-) )

However, there's enough interesting stuff going on that you may want to watch it anyway. I would definitely class this as "try before you buy" material.

Animation is in the usual Gainax style - which is to say that the important parts are animated with great care and detail, but use of still and/or panned images does stick out from time to time. The "Portrait of an Otaku" sections tend to use home-video quality footage (i.e. very poor indeed).

Audio is also decent, particularly in the final sequence, but again the "Portait..." sections are a letdown. Voice acting is good - while the script rarely stretches the capabilities of the seiyuu, the are very believable.

Packaging - the DVD case itself is average, cover design is good, and as always AnimEigo include excellent and comprehensive "liner notes".

Review: Perfect Blue

In brief: Quite good psychological thriller that messes with your head. Halfway through you're not certain what's real and what isn't. High-quality animation.

Review: Phantom Quest Corp - Perfect Collection

No review as yet - but one of my favourite closing themes.

Review: Please Save My Earth

Alice is a Japanese schoolgirl who has never though much about the past... that is, until her classmates, Jinpachi and Issei, tell her that they've been sharing the same vivid dreams ever since they were in junior high school. In the dreams, Jinpachi (called "Gyokuran" in the dream) and Issei (a woman named "Enju"), plus five other scientists, are on some sort of base or research station on the moon. The seven of them are involved in some kind of work observing the Earth, collecting data. Alice doesn't think anything of it... until she has the same dream.

However, after a while the focus of the series shifts more to a psychic warfare angle. While this adds some tension to the series as well as some much needed driving force for the plot, once this subplot crops up it quickly comes to dominate the series. What was shaping up as a decent shoujo series mutates suddenly into a second-rate Spriggan clone.

And since I'm not all that fond of Spriggan personally... of course, PSME predates Spriggan by about five years.

However, the shoujo stuff is very good and the "action" portions aren't really too bad. Please Save My Earth is one of the better examples of its genre. It came close to having me in tears in a couple of places. I just wish it had stayed a little more focussed.

The driving story is of Alice who desperately wants to not think she is one of the moon scientists, whereas the others believe that she is. In fact she's part of a love triangle. (Not quite a polygon, but heading in that direction.)

There is extensive character development, as would be expected in this genre, often in directions the protagonists may not want. There's also a fairly string plot running through the 6 episodes, although the ending leaves a couple of loose ends.

Animation varies from the simple but effective to the spectacular. Expressions are rendered well and with subtlety, and the action sections are suitably spectacular. This isn't animation on a level with Ghost in the Shell or Spriggan, but it is convincing.

English voice acting is fairly good; there are one or two voices which seem slightly out of place, but nothing spectacularly so. Generally the English dub is believable.

I have not yet watched enough of the Japanese dub to form an informed opinion on that track.

Other audio is generally somewhat nondescript - there isn't a lot of atmospheric sound. The effects that are there fit in, but there aren't many of them.

Packaging is fairly basic - a standard case with pushbutton DVD hub holder. The front cover design makes no bones about the basic shoujo nature of the anime, resembling a Mills & Boon novel more than anything else. The back cover is essentially straight text.

Review: Princess Nine

What Yo doesn't realise is that her dimly remembered father was once a brilliant pitcher in his own right; and she has gained the attention of the head of a famous girls' high school, Kisaragi Girls' High, who wants to break into the hitherto exclusively male boys' high school baseball leagues.

Princess Nine is the story of the formation and start of the team, starting with Yo and building up with additional members.

However, Princess Nine is simply brilliant. The animation is nothing exceptional (and occasionally shows its age), but the core of the show is in its characterisation. While Yo and a small number of other characters form a core cast (notably rival Izumi and love interest Takasugi) every character in the cast is distinct and believable. Caricature characters are limited to a couple of largely external characters who are mainly present to drive the plot along.

The plot follows a somewhat winding route on the path towards Koshien, the final of the league's season. It starts with introducing Yo, adds the various other members in reasonable context, then leads us through the tribulations encountered by the team as they come to work more as a team (and less as a bunch of unconnected individuals).

Naturally Yo gets the spotlight most of the time, but every character gets enough screen time that you come to know them and care for them. You feel Yo's heartache when she believes she has been betrayed; you can feel with the girls as they gain and lose confidence.

Oh, and there's some baseball in there too. I'm sure a baseball fan would be captivated by the action, but it all acts chiefly as a stage for the character drama.

Together the disparate elements merge into a seamless whole that had me and my brother eager to keep watching the series, and it now counts as one of my all-time favourite series. Princess Nine unashamedly brought tears to my eyes on a number of occasions, and I was utterly captivated throughout its length.

Animation is used effectively but is not generally very impressive. As is true of many other sports anime the action shots are typically handled either as freeze-frame or as backgroundless recycled animations. (For example, the same animation is used for Yo's "Lightning Ball" each time. It's a very nice animation, but the repeats don't add anything.)

The English voice cast is also exceptional. I can't recall a case when a VA fell out of character or acted less than believably, although the very rare caricature characters (such as the parents' committee) can seem a little overdone. The main possible exception to this is Nene, but this seems to have been deliberate as Nene is mainly used for comic relief.

The Japanese seiyuu I can't really comment on, as I have not yet watched it in Japanese.

Packaging is in one of those slightly annoying multiple-DVD black boxes (which sort of resembles four DVD cases stuck back to back). It's not a design I like, but it is relatively compact, fitting six DVDs into the space normally used for four.

Review: Project A-Ko

Then a huge spaceship from a planet of women comes for their missing princess, and things get strange...

There are three DVDs in the Project A-Ko series (the original movie, a collection of 3 OVAs in "Love & Robots", and "Uncivil Wars"). The first DVD is by far the best; the remainder are generally watchable but not as good as the original.

Briefly, Project-A-Ko fits the plot outlined above; the OVAs (Plot of the Daitokiji Group, Cinderella Rhapsody and Final) continue on from it; and Uncivil Wars place new versions of the original characters (with some changes) into an entirely new outer space setting.

A-Ko itself is deservedly regarded as a classic. The followup OVAs, while not as good, are still quite funny, with "plot of the Daitokuji group" in particular retaiing the over-the-top flavour of the original. "Blue" and "Gray" (the OVAs in Uncivil Wars) are a little disappointing but still watchable.

Characterisation is good and the plot somewhat sensible, but ultimately this is a parody and everything, wherever possible, is played for laughs. This is a good thing; it's not as madcap as Excel Saga, but it's a lot easier to track what's going on.

Cinderella Rhapsody gets sickeningly sweet at times, but the comedy never quite takes a back seat; A-Ko Final, on the other hand, is starting to lose its focus.

A-Ko was produced in 1986, and the animation shows its age to some degree. You won't find any fluidly animated CGI spaceships here. That said, I have no real complaints about the quality of the animation. Colours are bright, animation is for the most part fluid, and the characters shine out through their animation. It's 80s animation, but it's very good regardless.

Voice acting is also pretty much spot on, with each voice being distinct and conveying character well. However I haven't really even spot-checked the Japanese track at this point.

Packaging involves colourful box designs with fairly standard cases.

Review: Queen Emeraldas

Despite flying the skull-and-crossbones her mission is usually to defend against pirates; and in the early scenes we see her doing just that, saving a freighter and therefore the life of a young boy who is determined to make something of hiself.

Having done so, she finds herself caught up in the interests of a small group of people who frequent a bar on a barren planet... and single-handedly facing against a pirate empire numbering ships in the hundreds or thousands.

Anyway.

The plot isn't entirely predictable but the use of Emeraldas' ship as a deus ex machina to resolve everything instantly in the good guys' favour gets a little tiresome. The ship takes on entire fleets single-handedly and wins. This means that Emeraldas is never seriously challenged except when she is free to set the terms.

There is some minimal character development, but as in most anime of this particular universe, the key character seems to be above all earthly concerns. We are expected to invest our emotions in a small group of people who have come to depend on Emeraldas for protection but with the exception of the young boy, Hikaru, the characters are just not given enough screentime to give us any emotional investment in them.

Unless you are explicitly a fan of the series, Emeraldas is appallingly shallow but still a certain amount of fun. Seeing good guys blast bad guys out of space always has some attraction, but I just wish there was a little more to it.

Animation is decent (although the women all look the same, but that's a stylistic issue). The cat used in some scenes looks truly bizarre, but that's not really a bad thing as it lends some much-needed variety.

The English dub is decent; all characters are voiced competently, although Emeraldas sounds just a little bit "off". I have not yet watched this anime with subtitles. Other audio, the usual SF mix of laser shots and explosions, is decent but not particularly memorable or exceptional.

Packaging is basically a bog-standard DVD case with a reasonable hub clip design and a decent but not outstanding cover.

Review: Ranma 1/2 Digital Dojo (TV series season 1)

Shortly after the accident which caused this condition, he is pulled into an arranged marriage with Akane, an independent girl who is the third daughter of Soun Tendo. The series follows Ranma's attempts to live a relatively normal life under his curse as he deals with the assorted loonies who inhabit Furinkan high... and the odd character from his past.

There seems to be a consensus amongst anime fans that Ranma as a series has become repetitious and a little boring, with little character development. There also seems to be a consensus that the first season was by far the best of the series.

Personally I found the series consistently funny. The romance between Ranma and Akane (to which neither will admit, but which shows up in occasional acts of concern and kindness in addition to sheer jealousy) forms a core around which the humour moves. The frequent introduction of new rivals for Ranma (or Akane) helps keep the series fresh.

And of course Ranma's curse - and the similar cold/hot water curses of much of the rest of the cast - occasionally adds a bizarre twist. Upperclassman Kuno is a staunch (if clueless) rival of Ranma for Akane's affections... but he also falls for Ranma-chan (female Ranma) which does odd things with the chemistry of some situations. He refuses to acknowledge that the two Ranmas are the same person.

Regardless of the state of the later series, Season 1 of Ranma was hilarious and fresh. If you haven't seen the series before, I recommend it highly. If you have seen it before, you may (from what I've heard) find it a little too similar to what you have already seen...

I must make special mention of the opening song; it's the most infectiously bouncy song I've heard for ages. I haven't heard it for a month or so, but it still returns to haunt me. :-) Other than this, audio tends to be OK, nothing special but nothing too bad either.

Voice acting is of a reasonable standard. In the Japanese dub, Ranma-chan is voiced by acclaimed voice actress Megumi Hayashibara. However, I have not listened to enough of the series in Japanese to form a solid opinion of the Japanese VA. What I have heard is of a similar standard to the English dub.

Animation is decent, nothing spectacular, but conveying the story well.

Review: Ranma 1/2: Anything-Goes Martial Arts (TV series season 2)

Shortly after the accident which caused this condition, he is pulled into an arranged marriage with Akane, an independent girl who is the third daughter of Soun Tendo. The series follows Ranma's attempts to live a relatively normal life under his curse as he deals with the assorted loonies who inhabit Furinkan high... and the odd character from his past.

This is the second season of the Ranma 1/2 anime, released as a box set with the full 22 episodes of that season. It introduces more of the characters which stayed in the series in the long run. It also starts the phaseout of Dr. Tofu, who while prominent in season 1 is almost absent from season 2.

That said, and despite being warned that Ranma went downhill after the first season, this was still quite funny. A comedy series that makes you laugh cannot be fairly deemed a failure. :-) And I laughed quite frequently during this series.

Frequently the comedy is essentially slapstick, and frequently the characters show a lack of intelligence which would have them branded congenital idiots in real life. And, particularly, frequently the characters show an unwillingness to simply talk about why they are doing things which is simply nuts.

However, while the repetition of the basic formula does get a little galling, the humour quotient is still high and the occasional introduction of new characters from time to time lends some freshness.

The principle failure of Ranma 1/2 is that nothing ever changes. Since there are at least seven years of this, I can see why many fans have come to dislike it. But I'm nowhere near that point myself. :-)

Animation is roughly on a par with the first season, which is to say, adequate but unremarkable.

The English dub is fairly good; the main problem, again, is with the male Ranma's voice. The cast details on the final DVD reveal part of the problem - he is voiced by Sarah Strange, and unfortunately he does actually sound like a woman trying to speak like a man. She does a good job under the circumstances, but is handicapped by the role in this respect.

Japanese voice acting is quite good within the limitations of the material - that is, as comedy it's suitably over-the-top at times, but there isn't really a lot to stretch the expressive range of the voice actors. "Girl-type Ranma" (Ranma-chan) is voiced by the renowned seiyuu (voice actor) Megumi Hayashibara.

Otherwise the soundtrack is fairly standard for a comedy series. Not bad, not great, but it does the job.

Packaging is 5 DVDs in standard cases in a sturdy and fairly attractive box. The DVD cover designs all fit the common design well.

Review: Ranma 1/2 Hard Battle (TV series Season 3)

This is the third season of the TV series, and introduces Ukyo, the last major Ranma cast member to be added.

The third season has its moments - most notably, one episode where Ranma has a concussion and for a while becomes staggeringly feminine. However, on the whole the innovations are fading and genuinely new material is becoming more scarece. As a result it's just not as funny as the earlier seasons (or for that matter, the OAVs.)

The series has become quite episodic, with each episode largely standing on its own; the story arcs of the first seasons have largely disappeared. The characters are still funny, just... not as funny. It still has its moments, but they are getting rarer.

Animation is TV-quality; occasionally shortcuts in animation are evident. Also occasionally, some of the minor characters (particularly Kuno) are poorly represented, to the point where they are barely recognisalbe.

The dub has had a couple of characters changed, as far as I can tell (Kasumi?) It's not too bad, although Ranma (played by Sarah Strange) still does sound a little "off". The Japanese track I have not yet watched, but plan to sample shortly.

Other sound is strictly average, or possibly a little worse.

Packaging is pretyty good, with the five DVD cases each having a distinct and fairly attractive design and housed in a sturdy box.

Review: Record of Lodoss War: Chronicles of the Heroic Knight

Note that the original RoLW OVA series is supposed to be quite good, but this ain't it.

Review: Robotech

Review forthcoming. This is a very long series; trying to review in in one article may not be doing it justice.

Review: Rurouni Kenshin - Wandering Samurai

The Rurouni Kenshin series concerns Kenshin settling down with what shortly becomes a small "family" group centred around the Kamiya school - a kendo (swordsmanship) school which concentrates on the defence of the innocent.

Later developments force him to move out into the wider world. confronting a series of increasingly vicious opponents while protecting those he has come to care for and protecting his ideals.

As the series proceeds it gets more serious, until in the Kyoto arc from episode 28 it's almost straight drama. That's not to say there is no comic relief, but it becomes strictly a minor note as Kenshin is gradually forced to confront and in many ways revisit his past. The Kyoto arc is in my opinion correctly known as the best of the series; the episodes following it feel too much like an anticlimax. The later episodes do not lack merit, but just feel a little stale after the rollercoaster of Kyoto.

Overall the move from comedy in season 1 to drama in season 2 is an improvement. Season 3, the aftermath of Kyoto and a couple of shorter plots, seems like a step back.

While I enjoy comedy as much as anyone, there was an early risk of the series becoming stale, a "fight of the week" formula that wound up not eventuating. Instead the series becomes quite varied from episode to episode, and does not shrunk from introducing new characters... some to die soon after, but others to remain for many additional episodes.

In the meantime the existing characters are not neglected, with Kenshin's past being fleshed out (including some scenes from the OVAs) and the feelings and character of the other key people more evident.

Animation is generally decent but not remarkable (barring the superdeformed faces when Kaoru is beating up Kenshin, which I find irritating). The swordfights are very sparingly animated, but they put the basic idea across, and any attempt to be "realistic" would have put a severe dent in the series' premise.

Sound is generally adequate but nothing terribly special.

The English dub is actually quite good. The speech patterns of the different characters are quite distinct, and from what I understand reflect the Japanese originals quite will. The Japanese track for Kenshin (for example) doesn't quite have the home-boy timbre of the English dub, but if the liner notes are to be believed the dub is mainly following the patterns of the original.

NOTE: volume 2 has a "phase inversion" in the Japanese track. What this does with your setup depends on your sound setup. In my case it resulted in sound primarily playing through the rear surround speakers. At time of writing, Madman have said that they will replace copies of volume 2 on request. Personally, while I found it strange, it wasn't so offputting that I'll find this necessary.

Packaging is a standard DVD case with "clip" arrangement for the DVD hub holder, which holds the DVD firmly yet makes it easy to remove. The case liner is basically advertising for future Madman releases.

Review: Saber Marionette J

A poor but cheerful and hardworking young man named Otaru one day discovers a marionette in the basement of an old museum who is... different. Lime acts like a wide-eyed child - curious, joyous, protective... and loving. She's different from any marionette he's ever seen. Lime has a "maiden" circuit which gives here the capacity for emotion.

Shortly they are joined by Cherry and Bloodberry, two other marionettes with maiden circuits but with very different personalities. Cherry is the model "wife/mother" while Bloodberry is, well, basically a hot babe. :-) They two love Otaru in their own ways.

Their native country, Japoness, is being threatened by the forces of aggressive Gartlant; they must not only overcome the prejudice of their own countrymen against "mere" marionettes, but engage in a low-profile mission to visit Gartlant and stop the invasion at its source.

After that, things get interesting, as the world of Terra 2 is fleshed out and the ultimate goal of the marionettes is revealed - to bring womankind to Terra 2. But will they succeed? And will they pay the ultimate price in trying?

While rarely as laugh-out-loud funny as Martian Successor Nadesico SMJ is entertaining in a slapstick sort of way. The later episodes get more serious, with a couple of character "deaths" and consideration of the price of having a heart. There are some heart-rending moments, and it's not always the "good guys" who earn them; you're lead to feel genuine sympathy for the "villains".

You can see the marionettes "growing" and becoming more complex. You can also see Otaru struggling to cope with the contrary creatures that he comes to share his life with.

Essentially in the first half (or so) of the series we become familiar with the characters - with all but comic sidekick Hanagata having some depth - then the second half has us feeling with them. Most of what's shown is pain, but there's enough joy and sheer heroic challenge that it's a positive experience.

Animation is of television quality - that is, decent but nothing spectacular. Colours are used to set the mood; character designs are excellent.

The English dub for SMJ has received something of a drubbing from many anime fans. Most of the criticism has centred on Lime (voiced by Lisa Ortiz). While the interpretation of the character is somewhat different from Megumi Hayashibara's in the Japanese track, personally I enjoyed the English dub just as much, if not more, than the Japanese track, and the Lime voice acting was a large part of this. Basically the Ortiz dub focuses more on Lime's childlike qualities, and her infectiously bubbly "I love you, Otaru!" at the end of each episode was a highlight for me.

The low point is probably Hanagata (Otaru's affectedly gay friend) who just plain gets on my nerves...

The Japanese track features renowned seiyuu Megumi Hayashibara as Lime. Her portrayal is less bubbly and more sweetly innocent; I find no reason to complain. The first time I watched the series I did a spot-check on this track and found it rather flat, but watching the Japanese track from the beginning it's much better than I had originally thought.

However, personally I find the two tracks to be of similar (high) quality and was very surprised when I first saw the English dub criticised.

Other audio is basically decent - not outstanding, but fitting. Nothing terribly remarkable. General audio seems a little murkier on the Japanese track, but that may be my imagination. Spot effects (such as Lime's footsteps) are well chosen.

Packaging is reasonable - the series comes in three "collections" named after the three marionettes, and each collection has two DVDs with a hinged holder for one of them. Cover images are large, clear full-face views of the named marionettes. There are brief episode summaries on paper inserts.

There are also some easter eggs: additional subtitle tracks for the music videos (romaji and kana) and the third collection has a few other bits and pieces, such as creditless openings/endings, a mini-documentary of minor characters and a live-action section ("Japones Headline") with Megumi Hayashibara. There's a more comprehensive description of these on the AnimeonDVD web site.

Review: Sailor Moon

With the aid of the other Sailor Scouts (and the dark and mysterious Tuxedo Mask), Serena, as Sailor Moon, fights the forces of evil in repeated battles against the forces of the Negaverse.

Serena being the terribly airheaded crybaby that she is, Luna's job isn't exactly cut out for her...

The show mostly follows a monster-of-the-week formula. Master villain X (under queen Beryl; X varies through the series) discovers a new source of "energy" to be tapped. They tap that source, training people of energy, and when discovered by Sailor Moon and the Sailor Scouts, the energy is used to form an appropriately themed minor villain. For example, in the "anime studio" episode the villain is the "Gemini twins" - based on the spiral design of an animator's pencil. (I didn't say that the theme was always sensible.) The minor villain is defeated and master-villain-of-the-week X returns to Queen Beryl in shame.

The different Sailor Scouts have their own themed attacks (Mars has fire, of course, and Mercury has the extravagantly silly "Mercury Bubbles"). There's a certain amount of bickering within the team, which is frequently used as the basis of the extremely cheesy moral-of-the-week segment at the tail end of each episode.

It's extremely formulaic, and in various ways has been repeated by other "magical girl" anime, but a fair bit of imagination has been used in generating variants on the formula. Don't expect anything resembling depth here, but it's fun in its own way.

Characters vary from likeable to extremely annoying. Serena (Sailor Moon) herself is a terrible crybaby, and is frequently very selfish and scatterbrained. However, she does have the grit needed where it matters. Her friend Molly is mainly annoying due to her dubbed valley-girl accent.

Fortunately as the series progresses Serena matures and the extremely annoying, whiney crybaby found at the beginning of the series disappears in favour of a much more stable, determined and courageous Serena. (But she does remain a bit of a crybaby.)

Animation quality is somewhat mixed. The transformation scenes are well done, but are repeated every episode. In fact the recycling of animation footage can get quite obtrusive at times. This is common in the Magical Girl genre, but no less annoying. Other animation in the series is usually low-to-mid level quality. The second season (included in this release) revamps the animations to some extent.

If Sailor Moon S is any indication, it's a great pity that this release contains only the English dub. The dubbed version is watchable, however. The voice for Molly is incredibly annoying; other voice actors vary from poor to average.

Packaging is fairly simple - striking designs featuring the various sailor scouts and Tuxedo Mask, with the DVD hub clip being the fairly usable "butterfly" clip design. It's all very cute, although not to the extent of the Saint Tail menus. It's pretty obviously aimed at young girls.

Review: Sailor Moon S

In brief: Season 3 of Sailor Moon introduces Sailors Uranus and Neptune, mildly notorious in anime for an apparent lesbian relationship (nothing explicit, of course). Uranus and Neptune's role is a little ambiguous - they haven't joined with the Scounts, at least early in the series. Basically they know something the Scouts don't know, which makes the Scouts see them as villains when they're actually seeking the lesser of two evils.

The subtitled Japanese is much richer than the dub version - sections of the English dub would be funny in the extent to which they try to conceal mature content if they weren't so tragic.

This is the single title which most affected my tendency to give the subtitled version a chance.

Review: Saint Tail

Not everybody believes Saint Tail's purposes are entirely innocent, however. Her classmate, Asuka Junior, is the son of the main detective on the case. He realises that she only ever steals "for good", but she's still a thief, and he's determined to catch her.

Add a rival in the form of Takamiya, who is a little smarter than Asuka, and not as convinced of Saint Tail's good intentions - not to mention being a rival to Meimi for Asuka's affections... and life for Meimi looks like being very complicated.

I must confess some bias here. I found the main character endearing to an extent I haven't found since I developed an odd crush over Ariel from Disney's The Little Mermaid over a decade ago. Meimi is cheeky, feisty, but above all kind-hearted. Not to mention just plain cute. :-)

Yes, I have no life. I know it. Don't hassle me. :-)

The basic plot for each episode is similar: opening with "school stuff", then discovering some injustice (usually by way of a confession to Seira as trainee nun). Saint Tail/Meimi warns Asuka Junior of the upcoming caper, using some note delivered in an unlikely manner; he waits for her. She outsmarts him, takes what she's after, then disappears, usually teasing Asuka as she departs. Then, usually, a small coda back at school or showing the return of the "stolen" item to its original owner.

At some point during the caper Saint Tail uses one or more magic tricks. However, despite the link to her father as a stage magician, Meimi's tricks are frequently more spectacular - creating a gale of cherry blossoms is not in the repertoire of the average stage magician.

It's formula, but it's good formula. Basically good, clean fun - a bit of action, a bit of relationships, and a bit of ethics pleasingly mixed. The only real problem is how astoundingly thick Asuka is. :-) As Meimi's foil this is pretty much what you would expect, however.

The English dub is fairly close to the subtitled translation, except for occasionally excising religious elements. (References in the original to "May God be with us as we do good deeds" become "May good fortune smile upon us", for example.) Voices fit their parts quite well - nobody seems out of place.

Volume 1 is missing lyrics to the opening credits in the English dub track, which is irritating. This is fixed in volume 2. In general, I quite liked both the opening and closing songs.

Animation is pretty good. There is some use of stock footage in each episode (her transformation sequence, obviously; bounding from rooftop to rooftop; the "It's showtime!" sequence as she does her trick.) This is rarely an issue.

Normally I don't dwell on the menus, but these need a mention. Think ultra-cute, then add pink. Then make it cuter. The interface - particularly on the second DVD - is almost offensively little-girl cute. It is not unattractive. But if you are a guy, do not expect to be regarded as macho if your friends see these menus.

Packaging is fairly standard DVD cases (a button arrangement).

Review: Sakura Diaries

Problem is Urara loves Touma, and has for many years, since he helped break her out of a dark depression. The anime concerns the resolution of this three-way deception and the odd interactions between them...

The main problem is that the erstwhile protagonist, is very difficult to develop sympathy for. He pursues Mieko (who shows very little interest in return) while pretty much ignoring Urara, who does her best to cheer him up and who loves him quite deeply. Some of the other things Touma does are also pretty reprehensible.

By the end of the series, both Touma and Mieko have developed a bit, and Touma in particular is actually starting to seem human. However, maintaining interest when the main character is so unsympathetic is very difficult.

Animation is decent if nothing special - decent character animation (which is what is really needed in a drama) but there weren't any occasions when I was left thinking "wow, how did they show such a complex mix of emotions?" So, serviceable but not outstanding.

Voice acting was also pretty good - note that this is a sub-only release, so no English dub here - but performances were good; the problem wasn't with the voice actors but with the characters portrayed. (Urara is the only member of the central triumvirate that you wind up really liking.) Other sound effects are also OK but not outstanding, nothing much that I noticed there.

Fan service is a bit over-the-top at times (something of a trademark of the "U-Jin Brand" I gather, he's better known for soft porn) but I have seen worse. It's not actually as bad as the packaging would have you believe; there are a few core scenes where nudity is significant, but measured as part of the overall package there isn't really that much of it.

However, there are some scenes that are difficult to not find disturbing, in particular one scene which shows an almost-but-not-quite rape.

Packaging is in a thick DVD case with 2 DVDs and a cover with bonus extra pinkness. The colouring is the main annoyance as I was expecting something more shoujo than this as a result. But it's a good case.

Review: Samurai X

The samurai teaches him swordsmanship and encourages his love for justice while discouraging him from going out into the world to enforce justice with his sword - for ultimately all a swordsman can do is kill, and distinguishing between the just and unjust is not always an easy thing to do. Kenshin winds up as an assassin, killing for a master he believes to seek justice for the people.

But the constant killing leaves its mark on Kenshin. He is joined by Tomoe, a woman with a shrouded past who seeks to bring balance to Kenshin's life and return to him his humanity.

Samurai X: Betrayal: Concerns events while Kenshin and Tomoe live as husband and wife; it seems that the killing has been left behind. But their enemies - including an unsuspected traitor - reach out to ensnare them again, and Tomoe's past plays a tragic part.

(For further plot details, see the spoilers.)

The Samurai X (Ruruoni Kenshin) OVAs are much bloodier and more dramatic than the TV series. There is no real comedic content at all. What we have is a dark and moody drama about the progression of a young man from idealism, through inhuman cruelty, through to realisation that violence as a tool must be targeted very carefully and used as infrequently as possible to avoid miscarriages of the justice he seeks.

Sorry about that last sentence.

The Samurai X DVDs are set in a world where the right thing to do isn't always obvious, and placing one's trust in someone to use you as a tool is a dangerous thing to do. Characterisation is subtle and realistic; nobody is caricatured, everybody is fully human, with flaws and heroism in equal parts.

The OVAs also use symbolism extensively, from the discussion of lilies which thrive in the rain to Kenshin's scar which starts bleeding again whenever his conscience would be poking at him if he weren't so busy shutting it out... Even the taste of sake is used to reflect the characters' joy (or lack of same) in life.

Animation quality is quite good - you can see the frames flickering from time to time, but the movement of the characters is highly realistic and if you aren't looking for it you may not notice. The colour scheme is generally quite dark and dreary, save for the red of blood. Generally colours are chosen to reflect the mood - most of the darker scenes, emotionally speaking, occur at night. Thos that don't typically happen in the rain.

Sound is high quality throughout, with both Japanese and English dubs being exceptional. Background sound is also used to good effect, conveying seasonal variations and the almost-constant hiss of rain. The quality of the Japanese soundtrack seems to be just a bit better in terms of its use of the surround channels, however.

Packaging is pretty much standard DVD cases, with alternative cover designs on the flip side of the insert, and a fairly decent central clip design. Artwork is dark and moody, conveying the atmosphere of the series well. Menu design also fits the dark & bloody theme.

Review: Samurai X: The Motion Picture

Kenshin is visiting Yokohama with his friends Kaoru (female friend), Yohiko (Kaoru's apprentice) and Satsuke (tough guy). After a little trouble at the waterfront, the team gets involved with a group which is furious over some of the abuses by the new Meiji government and are determined to lead a new revolution.

Unfortunately not all is as it seems. Corrupt officals in the goverment and a traitor within their ranks are determined to lead the new revolutionaries into a trap. Kenshin and his friends hope to stop the revolution before the misguided revolutionaries are all killed.

The movie mas a much darker tone than the TV series, although it shares most of its basic assumptions - in particular, Kenshin's vow not to kill. It's still a remarkably bloody affair, with flashbacks to the time of the revolution when Kenshin was still an active swordsman, as well as numerous deaths and copious spillage of blood by other characters. Kenshin himself does not kill (except in the flashbacks) but there are a couple of swordfights where his opponent gets hurt.

In many ways the movie stands on the middle ground between the OVAs and the series. If you take the TV series and add some darker themes and bloodshed you might end up with this. And in fact they did. :-)

The basic story is involving, with a few interesting twists, but on the whole proceeds straightforwardly. Toki works well as the romantic interest for misguided revolutionary Shigure and pushes the movie away from what would otherwise be an excessive action focus. It would have been nice if there had been a few more surprises, however - the conclusion is a little bit predictable.

Animation is of similar quality to the TV series. This was a little disappointing after seeing the OVAs (where animation is of excellent quality). Perhaps I'm just put off a little because the OVA animation designs were more realistic.

Unfortunately the more cutesy character designs (particularly Yohiko) don't really fit in with the darker tone of the film. The attempts to make them fit in fall a little flat.

Sound lacks depth in the English dub, but the Japanese track makes better use of the surround channels. Both have a good variety of realistic effects as well as background music which fits the action well. Both dubs are quite reasonable in terms of voice actors, if not notably outstanding. The English voice actors seem to be different to those used for the TV series. I'm not good enough at recognising Japanese voices to say whether the same is true of the Japanese track.

Packaging is basically a standard DVD case. The cover slick is reversible; the design on the reverse features the Japanese title and is a much cleaner design, although it doesn't really resemble the TV series titles.

Review: Serial Experiments Lain

In brief: strange anime which questions the boundary between the "Wired" (computer network, think "Internet") and reality, and seems to conclude that reality isn't as real as we think. Generally very gentle in its handling of its subject matter.

Review: Sin: The Movie

In doing so, he rescues a young girl and also incurs the wrath of J.C.'s sister (another J.C.), a tough woman high in the ranks of military intelligence.

The young girl is kidnapped again and everything is traced back to one woman - Elexis Sinclaire, head of the huge pharmaceuticals corporation SinTEK. Elexis' goal is to force the evolution of mankind - even if humanity perishes as a result...

The basic plot is fairly straightforward and contains few real surprises. Basically Sin seems like a very empty movie; having watched it, I was chiefly left wondering why I bothered. The plot lurches from one set piece to another, chiefly driven by the need to force events in a direction which was predictable already.

It also feels quite short. Probably because it is; 60 minutes is shorter than what most people would be willing to class as a movie. In anime terms, it's more of a long OVA, although I can't say I'm sorry that the series stopped here.

Characterisation is fairly shallow, motives transparent, actions predictable. There's a little fan service, but you would hardly notice from the buckets of gore lavishly splashed around.

Animation quality is a little mixed. Use of computer effects (CGI) stands out enormously from time to time; the handful of detailed 3D models used are lovingly zoomed into and around. Meanwhile, scaling is badly abused to give a poor illusion of objects approaching from, or receding into, the distance.

Fortunately the dodgy animation is largely limited to external views; the conventional character animation is reasonable, although the low frame rate is rather noticeable at times.

Voice acting is strictly average (not great, not terrible). Ambient sound and music likewise.

One oddity of this release is that there are two subtitle tracks. One is essentially a dubtitle, reflecting the text of the English dub, which is quite different to the alternative subtitles.

Packaging is decent, with a fairly attractive cover design.

Review: Slayers Box Set

Unfortunately one of the things she picked up in the raid turns out to be extraordinarily valuable... if only she knew which one it was!

And so we lead into a labyrithine plot to prevent the resurrection of the Demon Lord Shabranigdo (think "Satan incarnate")... with lots of laughs along the way.

There is an updated release which fixes these problems (although the phase inversion is still present with some episodes, this is being fixed with a reissue). However, Australian anime fans are advised to purchase the R4 release planned towards the end of this year.

OK, on to the review proper.

Slayers is a comedy first and foremost. It does get serious from time to time. However, when it does, it usually takes time-out for a self-deprecating aside. All is doom... the world is about to end... and Lina announces that there is only one thing that they can do... which is to have dinner at a nice restaurant.

The anime consistently pokes fun at itself and at fantasy archetypes in general. For example, in the first episode Lina is about to fry a group of bandits who are attacking her when Gourry crops up to "rescue" her. She's about to help in the fight when she stops to think that, no, she's being rescued and so should act appropriately shrieky and afraid. :-)

The humour varies from the obvious (Lina's obsession with food) to the weird (the aforementioned poking fun at the fantasy genre) to the truly bizarre. Much of it is driven by the characters of the main protagonists - Lina as the greedy, brash but ultimately goodhearted "munchkin" sorceror and Gourry as the clueless but competent sword-swinger. Minor characters also play a great part, from Prince Phil, a pacifist who can mix it with the best of them ("Pacifist CRUSH!"), to Zelgadis, who principally plays the straight man to Lina's antics.

The series follows a couple of story arcs; there are occasional one-off episodes, particularly in the second half of the series, but for the most part there's a logical progression. For the most part it's pretty light stuff, with the occasional earth-shattering catastrophe thrown in.

Essentially it's a pretty funny series, with lots of variety, interesting characters, decent plot and a rich background. It's rare for it to be extremely funny, but it is consistently funny. I found the Ranma series funnier, but Ranma is far more episodic with a much thinner plot, whereas Slayers has more depth.

Animation is of decent quality - not outstanding, although there are oustanding moments, but the emphasis is on the humour and dialogue, not on the visuals. Some of the spell animations are spectacular.

The English dub is headed by Lisa Ortiz as Lina Inverse, who as usual does a sterling job. I honestly think she's the best anime voice actor for the English language around; I've never heard her in a dub I disliked. Unfortunately some of the others don't really suit their parts and drag down the English VA quality (it would be about a 9 if only Lina/Lisa were taken into account.) Note that some of the other actors are quite good, but the minor characters in particular fare badly. THe English dub is also a fairly decent translation of the Japanese.

The Japanese VA is similarly headed by Megumi Hayashibara, who similarly does an excellent job. Megumi, however, is backed by a superior cast for the other parts - unlike the English VA, there were no outstanding failures in the VA casting.

Other audio is of fairly standard quality for TV anime. Nothing terribly outstanding.

The Japanese track does suffer from a phase inversion issue; on my player this manifests as the stereo soundtrack playing through the rear speakers, which I found bearable but others do not. The introductory note for this review discusses this a little more.

Packaging is a mixed success. The box itself is reasonably sturdy, although the cover design is a little too "busy". The main problem is the actual DVD cases. The covers for the individual cases are better designed than the main box, but they have two problems. The first is that the DVD hub is of a design that is particularly easy to damage (and in fact did not survive shipping intact). The second is that the cover slips have material (such as episode titles) on the reverse, but the cases are black and hide all that detail.

DVD-ROM content includes: an art gallery, character gallery, English and Japanese cast details, additional pages from the graphic novel, character sketches, copies of some reviews of the series, and written versions of the the English VA interviews. The prize item is complete scripts for the English dub for the entire first series. So you, too, can act out a Slayers episode. :-)

Review: Speed Racer

Unfortunately racing is a serious business, and there are those who would go to great lengths to steal his father's engine designs or simply to win the race.

The plots of the individual episodes are fairly predictable and dialogue is very simple (if clear). Essentially these are cartoons in a sense that few people would argue with. Compared to Hanna-Barbera fare they compare well, but they lack the subtext found in much anime which makes it more interesting for an adult to watch.

Basically it's fun - but turn your brain in at the door, or watch it for nostalgia's sake. I've seen fan sites which praise the show for its campy dialogue, complex plots and puns, but I didn't really notice... although the dialogue is certainly campy enough.

Animation quality is poor - in many cases you can see the frames flip by, and in some shots of the races you can see cars change colours as they round a corner. Images and colours are clear and bright, although some characters and situations are rather caricatured. Given the 1966 authoring date, this is perhaps understandable, but there are other cartoons of similar vintage have better animation.

Audio quality is also of a fairly low standard; engine noises are generally a low drone (dopplered for passing cars, but otherwise with little variety). The richness of background sound found in much anime is missing.

Voice acting is straightforward, with little attempt to portray depth of emotion. However, such depth would not suit the rest of the show, and for the purposes used it is suitable. There is no Japanese track in this release (the original show was Mach Go Go Go, and was released in 1966).

Review: Spriggan

Yu is pulled into a conspiracy surrounding the rediscovery of Noah's Ark - a conspiracy that sees many of his colleagues gunned down in cold blood. At the centre of the conspiracy is Colonel MacDougal, a child with extraordinary psychic powers.

In a confrontation with the fate of the human species in the balance, Yu must face MacDougall and find a way to defeat a person who he can't even reach, let alone understand...

The plot is a mix between secret-agent action and supernatural peril and mystery. Overall it keeps the blood flowing and is rarely predictable, with a few unanticipated twists along the way and a largely satisfying conclusion.

The actions of the "bad guys" are a little unpredictable at times, switching from bloody mass slaughter to menacing threats with surprising rapidity. While this does lead to some of the aforementioned twists, it also means that at times they seem a little inconsistent. This is one of the few things I disliked about the film.

Characters are complex, with motives varying from the transparent (trying to save their own lives) to the incredibly murky (particularly MacDougall). Overall this is a good thing. Most characters are fairly realistic; there are a couple of common anime stereotypes (the maniac with the knife, the big guy with a chain gun) but these are rare and even these have some depth.

However, while there's nothing overtly wrong with Spriggan, I find myself liking it less and less with time. In many ways it's a Hollywood blockbuster in anime form - lots of flash, but fundamentally soulless. It's hard to care about the characters.

The quality of its animation is very high, on a par with, or perhaps better than, Ghost in the Shell or Blood: The Last Vampire. However, there were two problems. The first is that in some cases the frame rate would drop to a point where spotting the frames go by was quite easy. The second is oddly a consequence of the effort put into the animation; on rare occasions it becomes easy to see what's going on inside of peoples' mouths - not only is this a little distracting, but it's not even terribly realistic, as frankly mouth movements are rarely so obvious in real life.

The English voice acting is very good. Nobody seemed particularly out of place, although the "evil capering hand-to-hand nutcase" minion was a little overdone. :-) The Japanese voice acting was also very good.

Sound is very effective - a fairly standard action mix in many ways, but chosen particularly effectively.

Packaging is a fairly standard DVD case with butterfly clip - an attractive and fairly effective design.

Review: Star Blazers: The Quest for Iscandar

Earth's only hope is a mysterious message carried by the dying Astra from Iscandar in the Magellanic Clouds. Iscandar have the "Cosmo DNA", a machine which can eliminate radiation and render the Earth once more green. The message also carries plans for the Wave Motion Engine, which can be used to get to Iscandar... and which can be adapted to create the Wave Motion Gun, an immensely powerful weapon.

The battleship Yamamoto -- renamed the Argo -- is salvaged and refitted with these new technologies, and Earth's best are selected to become the Star Force. Their mission is to reach Iscandar, despite the opposition of Gamilon, and retrieve the Cosmo DNA.

(In the Japanese original, the ship remains the Yamamoto and this is reflected in the Japanese name of the series. However, this is strictly an English dub.)

Star Blazers shows a decent amount of character development, particularly in Derek Wildstar, the main protagonist, and characters in general are treated realistically - not as paragons, but as human beings with flaws. Some of the situations used are extremely derived, usually because the Star Force stumbles into a really tiny trap on intergalactic scales. However, basically this is space opera and a bit of fudging is understandable.

I found some of the episodes a little too episodic; much of the middle of the series is a little rigid in format, with a challenge-of-the-week formula which grew mildly tiresome after a while. Fortunately this breaks down as the series draws to a close.

I'm probably making this sound worse than it is. Even after twenty years, it's still enjoyable fare, and uses some situations I haven't seen in later anime.

The source footage has some fairly significant flaws; audio cuts out occasionally. There are cel artefacts (e.g. flaws in the image which move along with the Argo). There are also occasions where areas of colour bleed in over a few frames (usually red areas on blue walls) which can be distracting. Some frames jitter, with an image jumping to one side briefly. Some animations are also a little too jerky, with too few frames to support the action, but this is not very noticeable. There are also some "lip flap" mismatches.

There is no Japanese track with this edition. Voices in the English dub generally fit parts fairly well, although I found Starcia's voice infuriatingly high pitched - to an extent which started giving me a headache. (Normally I don't much mind high voices, but Starcia's was extreme.) Fortunately Starcia's appearances tend to be fairly short. Other audio is decent if unremarkable.

Packaging is decent; individual DVD cases are of a reasonable design; however, they are housed in a sturdy and attractive box which also includes an interesting booklet with episode outlines and information on the history and design of the series.

The range is large, but there aren't actually many extras per DVD - thus the low(ish) mark.

Review: Steel Angel Kurumi

Doctor Ayanakoji, Kurumi's inventor, is being hunted, both by the Japanese army and by the Academy (of whom more is learnt in later episodes). To this end, two more Steel Angels, Saki and Kurinka, are awoken and sent after Kurumi and her master. Steel Angel is the story of what happens and why...

For further details please check the spoilers section...

There are a lot of series more finely crafted than Kurumi; Lain is (far) deeper, Oh! My Goddess certainly far more romantic. Kurumi makes up for it with bubbly good fun. As such it's a personal favourite.

The plot moves along at a rollicking pace, assisted by the brevity of the individual episodes. Even those brief times when the pace slows down it is only to explore the characterisation or background a little. It does not have the labyrinthine complexity of Perfect Blue, but such complexity would not particularly suit Kurumi anyway.

Basically Kurumi starts as a Romance/action title, moves towards something resembling a harem comedy (and road trip), and finally shifts towards something between action and mystery with an apocalyptic ending.

The details above indicate the series is 28 episodes on 5 DVDs; actually the main series has 24 episodes on 4 DVDs, plus there is a 4-episode "encore" DVD looking at the life of the characters after the main series, mainly Saki's career in the movies.

Characterisation is mostly paper thin. Each character can be summarised in a relative handful of words: Kurumi is faithful and bubbly, Karinka scheming, proud and (eventually) caring of Nakahito. Nakahito is shy, caring and gentle; Doctor Amagi is motherly, intelligent and wistful. But the characterisation isn't poor as such; the characters themselves are great fun, and the joy isn't in their depths but in how they interact.

Animation is quite good, with the only real lack being in the usual visual shorthand common in high-speed action in anime (such as streaks used to represent moving characters). Character designs are nicely varied and the personalities of the characters is expressed well in the animation. Explosions and special effects are somewhat simplistic but effective regardless.

Voice acting is pretty good for both the Japanese and English tracks. However, it's worth noting that there are significant differences between the two - the English dub broadly matches the subtitles, but comparing the details they are quite different. Kurumi seems much more childlike in the Japanese track than in the English track, but this is reflected in both the voice track and the script.

Other audio is also well used and appropriate; sounds are evocative of the period (between the first and second World Wars). The music title track is one of my favourite anime theme songs (and the final episode contains an extended version, although unfortunately there is no translation for the later verses.)

There's a fair bit of fan service in the series, but it's rarely very obtrusive. The focus in that respect is on the cute girls rather than on their bodies. There are occasional naked or partly naked shots, but they are treated incidentally rather than as a core component.

Packaging is fairly ordinary, with a yin-yang hub clip and attractive cover designs featuring Kurumi, Saki, Karinka and Dark Kurumi for the main series and a montage shot for the Encore volume.

Review: Tenamonya Voyagers

They decide to head home to Earth, but are unexpectedly joined by Paraila, a former boss of a major crime syndicate, who has her own reasons for going to Earth. (Initially Paraila presents herself as a school student, but her extralegal attitute quickly becomes apparent.) The three head for Earth, with Paraila's methods being notable mainly for their indiscriminate attitute to the law.

Tenamonya Voyagers is a mindlessly fun SF/comedy series for which only four episodes were ever released. Expect madcap action and bizarre situations.

In a lot of ways this is one of the most "cartoonish" anime I've ever seen. The incredible pace and off-the-wall humour which dominates most of the series reminded me more of a Road Runner cartoon than anything else. It remains very much in the anime style, however.

Episode four is weird even by the standards of this series. They are in a spaceship where the air conditioning has broken down; throughout the episode the characters all dress in variously contrived bikini substitutes. These range from the strange to the utterly bizarre. Naturally this episode pops the meter on fan service.

Characterisation is fairly minimal - each character fits a stereotype and sticks to it closely. As for plot development, each episode is "aware" of the previous episodes and reflect developments in those episodes. However, the hectic progress of the series doesn't really require detailed plotting.

Essentially it's one of those anime which is good fun if you don't think about it too much. Sit down and enjoy the ride, but don't expect to be a better person afterwards. :-) Probably the nearest equivalent would be Burn-up W.

Animation is usually decent but at times the quality drops significantly. Oddly I noticed this mor early in the series than later.

The English dub is pretty good; Ayako sounds just as ditzy as her character plays. Wakana is much more level-headed and her VA is much more straightforward, if calculating. Paraila herself usually sounds suitably menacing.

I have not listened to the Japanese dub yet; as mentioned in the introduction to this review, there are no subtitles, and this makes the Japanese track useful only for someone which a solid understanding of colloquial spoken Japanese. This is an unfortunate early trend of Siren which they seem to have grown out of.

Audio is decent, if limited to what is basically a straight stereo track. Music is suitably hectic and spot effects are well chosen. However, while it's decent it's not really outstanding.

Packaging - the cover is reasonably colourful and attractive, but some of the text on the back cover is difficult to read. The title, particularly the "Tenamonya" uses a font which is painfully difficult to read.

Review: Tenchi the Movie 2: The Daughter of Darkness

On a hot summer day, a fetching young girl named Mayuka sppears to Tenchi, calling him Daddy! Jealousy and envy follow as Ryoko and Ayeka battle for Tenchi's attention with an apparently new rival. Who could the mother be?! Hiding in the background, Yuzuha, the Demoness pf Darkness, is about to get her revenge against Yosho for a grudge held for over 700 years! She begins her plan by using Mayuka to steal Tenchi away to the Dimension of Darkness. So it begins again, Tenchi must fight to save his friends and Mayuka, daughter or not!

Tenchi the Movie 2 is the second Tenchi movie; read the OVA series review for information on setting. For the most part, the movie follows the established basis for the series and for "harem comedies" in general. (Although in Tenchi, the girls' target is usually each other rather than Tenchi - who is basically a really nice guy).

The main flaw with this movie (besides being quite short, at 60 minutes) is that it is fairly predictable. Once you've read the blurb on the back, you can guess who Mayuko's mother is; if you are familiar with the backstory from the OVAs, you can probably guess how the climax runs.

There isn't a lot of character development, although there is a certain amount of gung-ho we-have-to-stick-together nonsense. The main interesting developments come from an unexpected direction, in the form of the ever-selfish Ryoko, who shows the full gamut of her emotional spectrum, from murderous rage to gentle mercy.

That said, it's still fun to watch - "you will enjoy this if you enjoy this sort of thing", "this sort of thing" being fairly mild harem comedy.

Animation quality is high, with some excellent use of colour and shadow, particularly on the temple stairs. No digital artefacts or frame jitter that I could see.

English voice acting is pretty good, using the same voice actors, as far as I could tell, as the original OVAs. I have not yet watched the Japanese track with subtitles. General Audio is good. There are a couple of quite good songs in there.

Packaging is a fairly standard DVD case and DVD clip - black plastic, a fairly crowded back cover design, and a front cover showing the threesome who drive much of the core of the story. The cover design is a little unimaginative but does the job.

Review: Tenchi Muyo! OVAa

I should mention that in this case I prefer the English voice acting cast to the Japanese... also the packaging is exquisite.

Review: Urusei Yatsura

This makes Shinobu, Ataru's main girlfriend before Lum forced herself on him, rather unhappy, particularly since Ataru's objections to Lum's presence are on occasion notably insincere.

The series tracks the various mishaps and disasters to which this setup makes Ataru prone. It's highly episodic, and continuity is rather lacking at times.

AnimEigo's release is subtitles-only with essentially no special features (except for the Morse Code feature documented below).

I found the first DVD a little dull. The first couple of times I watched it I literally fell asleep in the later episodes. It was late at night at the time, but other anime, even subtitled anime, has held my attention under similar circumstances.

Essentially the first DVD just isn't terribly funny. Mostly it introduces the characters. Fortunately it gets better in the second and, I hope, later DVDs. I've seen others, on rec.arts.anime.misc, comment that they found the first season dull and that it gets better in the second series (i.e. DVD 6 onwards). I can add to that that the series improves even afterthe first DVD - I'll have to watch a few more episodes before I can comment further on this.

Review: Revolutionary Girl Utena: The Movie