Anime Reviews

If you want an idea of whether my tastes will agree with yours, you may want to read my review tastes and processes page. There are additional notes at the end of this page, including notes on review ratings.

Please keep in mind that for these ratings 5 is "average", not "bad". I wouldn't start avoiding a title until it hit 3 or so. :-)

Items marked with an asterisk were purchased in Australia, from a source not specialising in imports - i.e. you can buy and play the DVD in Australia. In some cases (eg. Sol Bianca) the DVD probably isn't widely available, but it *was* bought here. My aim is to post reviews for all R4 anime. Those I can't stomach I'm hoping to get a review from somebody else. :-)

All Reviews on One Page

Forthcoming Reviews:

3x3 Eyes
Ah! My Goddess The Movie
Black Jack (R4)
Armitage Dual Matrix (R4)
Boogiepop Phantom
Martian Successor Nadesico (R4)
Ninja Scroll (R4)
Oh! My Goddess
Perfect Blue (R4)
Ranma 1/2: OAVs Box Set
Sailor Moon S (Heart Collection 1)
Serial Experiments Lain (R4)
Slayers Book of Spells
Slayers: The Movie (R4)
Slayers NEXT (series 2)
Slayers TRY (series 3)
Sol Bianca
Tenchi Muyo (OVA)
Urusei Yatsura (vol. 1-4)
Wicked City (R4)
X: The Movie

If you live in the Sydney metropolitan area I may be willing to loan you my copy of a particular DVD. Summary of loan conditions here. If you live elsewhere in Australia I may still consider it.

Ratings

I give a number of different ratings for each title. All ratings are out of ten, from zero to ten, but the exact interpretation depends on the category.

Note that in general an average title gets a five. Also, in the overall ratings the other categories may not matter - a terrible title with great VA and animation will still get a zero. A great story with very ordinary animation may get a nine.

I may not succeed in keeping five "average", but I will try...

Overall	An overall rating on the quality of a title and how entertaining I thing it is. In this category I try to eliminate the "personal" slant - i.e. if I didn't enjoy a title but I can see the quality there such that somebody else might I'll give it a high overall rating but a lower Personal rating.
Personal	This is a much more personal slant, much more dependent on my own tastes. It will usually be close to the Overall rating but in some cases will differ radically - generally those titles where the gore or fan service get out of control.
Animation	Covers quality of animation - how well drawn characters are, how smooth the animation is, in general how well the animation matches the story. There are times when a more "spare" art style is appropriate, and I haven't marked those down.
Voice Acting	How well the voice actors have done their job. Separate marks for the Japanese and the English dub. If a dub is not present, I've marked it "N/A". If the dub is present but I haven't heard enough of it to form an opinion, it will be given a dash.
General Audio	General mark covering music, special effects, and generally how well audio is used to enhance a title.
Extras	A rough guide to the number and quality of extra features.
Packaging	A rough guide to the quality of the packaging. Extra points for well-designed box sets or just general good design. Points off for designs which risk damage to the DVD or make it difficult to extract the DVD.

In a lot of cases I've skimped on the later marks as I've only started this fairly comprehensive review format. As such, I plan to go back and fill in some of the gaps later.