Nobunaga The Fool

Nobunaga The Fool is a new anime just released this January.  It features a cast of some interesting characters.  Jenne Kaguya d'Arc and Leonardo Da Vinci meet on one planet to meet their destinies on another planet.  Their fates lead them to an interesting young man and his comrades,  Oda Nobunaga (nicknamed 'the fool'), Akechi Mitsuhide and Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

This anime is an interesting mashup of modern and ancient technologies.  The characters also share an interesting fusion of old and new world ideologies.  However, since the characters worlds are unique, all the ideas fit together nicely and their world doesn't feel awkward.

However, will this Noble's son, Nobunaga, be able to bring peace to this feuding world?  And with two worlds full of political alliances and war, will he have an honest chance at falling in love?

For more information about this anime, click here:

Silver Spoon - 銀の匙 - Gin no Saji - Season Two

Silver Spoon 2 is a continuation of the story of Yugo Hachiken's life at an agricultural school.

The second season appears to be addressing the relationships between friends, classmates, and the animals they care for.  Season one did revolve around Hachiken's relationship with his friend Baccon, but this season addresses his developing relationship with the horse Melron.  It's pretty fun to watch Yugo struggle with his dislikes and likes of horses and farm life in general; that is one of the features that makes Silver Spoon so enduring.

It's a great anime to start off the 2014, the year of the horse!  Enjoy!

For more information about Silver Spoon, click here

Wake Up, Girls! - 七人のアイドル - Shichi-nin no Idol (Film)

Wake Up Girls is a short anime movie about the creation of an idol group.  The young group consists of 7 young girls who want to change their lives and a talent agency that is pinning all of their hopes on the future of the group.

For more information about this anime, click here:

Nagi no Asukara - A Lull in the Sea - 凪のあすから

Nagi no Asukara is a breathtaking anime, due to one of it's surreal locations, under the sea.

A Lull in the Sea is about some high school friends that experience a rare event that threatens to pull them all apart forever.  Will they find each other again?  Will they be able to grow up with their families and those that they love?  

For more information about this anime, click here:

Pale Cocoon - ペイル・コクーン

Pale Cocoon is an eerie short anime consisting of only one episode.  It takes place in a modern era after the world has died.  Many people have given up the hope of seeing such beautiful, colorful things the world had to offer.  Until one day...  

Pale Cocoon's anime style and coloring is really well executed and is very beautiful.  Although it's story is short, it's so well executed that it's complete and leaves you yearning to know more.  It's not surprising to find out that it won the 'Best Screenplay' award at the Sapporo International Short Film Festival.

For more information about this anime, click here:

Hunter X Hunter (Recent Addition) - ハンターハンター

Hunter Hunter is an ongoing series released in 2011.  It's basically the story of a young man who becomes a 'Hunter' to learn more and to meet his long absent father who is also a hunter.  He meets some great friends a long the way and they end up having some crazy adventures together.

To date, 111 episodes have been released and the story can be so far broken into roughly six parts. 1) Gon (The main protagonist in the story) leaves home to become a hunter. 2) Gon goes to find his friend Killa 3) Gon and Killa learn how to pass the secret Hunter exam. 4) Kurapika's hunt for the Phantom Troupe, A.K.A. the Spiders. 5) The pursuit and completion of Greed Island. 6) The battle with the Chimera Ants.

After these story lines the anime turns to movies to complete the story. The first movie, Phantom Rouge, has been released and explores Kurapika's journey to reclaim his kinsman's red eyes.

The last movie, The Last Mission, has just been released in Japan.

Artistically speaking, Hunter Hunter is interesting to me because it's not always consistent.  However, the story is interesting, the characters are endearing and the character designs are solid.

I would recommend Hunter Hunter with a 4 out of 5.

For more information about this anime, click here:

Silver Spoon - 銀の匙 - Gin no Saji

Silver Spoon is a fun anime about a young high school student who leaves his family and home to study at a rural farm school.  Since he is from the city everything he encounters is new and strange.

The relationships portrayed in Silver Spoon are rich and meaningful as is the entire plot line.  The artwork is well done and has some nice design touches for an anime that is so heavily grounded in reality.  

With only 11 episodes the first season is just a bit short, but they did tie up the first instalment neatly. 

I give Silver Spoon a 4.5 because of the story is really well thought out.  I'm looking forward to seeing season 2.

For more information about Silver Spoon, click here:

Gingitsune - Silver Fox - ぎんぎつね

Gingitsune is an anime about a family who lives and takes care of a Japanese Shrine.  Shrine families are really interesting because there is always one member who can see the shrine herald.  The herald is an animal messenger for the gods.  Ging is a large silver fox who looks after the shrine in this anime.

I particularly liked this anime because I personally didn't know anything regarding the differences between Japanese Temple and Shrine culture.  I feel a little better informed now, so I can enjoy shrines and temples all the more when I visit Japan next.

Gingitsune's story is very simple but it's heartwarming and acts as a nice companion to the shrine and temple life being shown.

The artwork and animation is good but nothing groundbreaking.

I give Gingitsune a 4 out of 5 for its originality in displaying educational/ cultural ideas while keeping the viewers interest.  The story writers also did a good job completing the first instalment of this story.

For more information about this anime, click here:

Kurenai - Crimson - 紅

Kurenai Shinkurou, at age 16, is already both a master of an arcane martial art and an experienced, professional mediator.  However, Kurenai may have met his match when his boss and role model, Benika, responds to his request for a more challenging assignment by giving him the task of protecting the young Murasaki Kuhoin.  

I found the character development and the plot development in this anime to be well done, but it is a strange story that may be based on some version of a true story.  (It just seems to messed up to not be.)  

Some of the character silhouettes are really nice and remind me a little of the early Capcom silhouette designs. 

Overall, Kurenai has some really nice features and I give it a 4 out of 5.

For more information about this anime, click here:

Spice and Wolf

Spice and Wolf feels like a cross between The Last Unicorn and Maoyuu Maou Yuusha - The Hero and The Demon King.  Which I think is a pretty beautiful match.  This anime features a travelling peddler and a rare, wise wolf and follows their journey together as they make their way North to a long forgotten town.

Spice and Wolf has successfully completed 2 seasons and now we are eagerly awaiting season 3.  

The artwork and colouring is a little darker than other animes but I think that really suits this anime as it feels like an ancient story.  The character development is really apparent, particularly in Lawrence, the peddler.  I am seeing it with the wolf as well, but I think the writers are putting that on a slightly longer timeline, which is fitting as the wolf lives much longer than humans. The story is also interesting to me because not only do they explore the mercantile trade in depth, the writers describe it in a historical context.

I believe the creators of Spice and Wolf set up a really good 'mood' with this anime and have been preserving it well throughout the stories development.  I give Spice and Wolf a 4 out of 5.

For more information on Spice and Wolf, click here.

My Wife Is A High School Girl

My Wife Is A High School Girl was a strange anime to me.  It features a young couple whose relationship would cause real people to frown.  I say this because not only is the wife underage, but her husband is her high school teacher. I suppose the plus side to the drama is that the writers  do mention some of the problems that the social age gap would create.  

The art work and story were not exceptional in any way but I'm happy that they finished off the season.

I give the romance anime, My Wife is A High School Girl, a 2.5 out of 5

For more information about this anime, click here.

Infinite Stratos

Infinite Stratos is another high school girl themed anime.  However, the angle of this one is slightly different because all of these international high school girls are considered to be 'elites'.  This gives them the opportunity to use a type of 'mech' called IS or Infinite Stratos.  Other than the robot fighting scenes though, this is a romance themed anime.  All the girls have a huge crush on the only male student to attend the academy and mini battles erupt in an attempt to win his attention.

The artwork is slightly better than your average anime and some of the IS silhouettes are interesting, but nothing ground-breaking.  The story and character development is also good but again, nothing that stands out.  IS is just a fun watch that might be a good choice if you're looking for an anime to appeal to both genders.  However, the anime does lean more to the girly side.

I give IS a 3.5 out of 5.

For more information on IS please click here.

Moretsu Pirates

Moretsu Pirates is a fun anime that is now heading towards a movie release in Feb. 2014! It features both high school girls and young adults, which is a pretty fun mix up.  The main character is a high schooler that gets thrust into the family business of "pirating" when her estranged father suddenly dies due to food poisoning.

I really liked the mashup between historical pirates and space pirates in everything from the sound effects to their futuristic physics mock ups.  It really bridges the gap between hard to understand space travel/ cyborg clone wars and reality for me.  Which was a surprising benefit to this series.  I personally don't usually like space anime/ gundam war type shows.  They are fun to watch but they always feel cold and far from my reality... a little like space.  Mouretsu Pirates did a really good job bringing those lofty ideas back down to earth.

The art and anime is good, but not stellar.   However, I really liked some of the space suit designs.  They actually looked pretty functional like something modern astronauts or maybe some type of athlete could wear.

The character development was not bad and the story does wrap up nicely by the end, but there are some little threads of story that just begin towards the end of the anime...  I thought that worked really well.  They weren't important enough to the story to be considered a full fledged "loose end" but they definitely opened a door to develop the series.

I give Moretsu Pirates a 4 out of 5.

For more information about Moretsu Pirates, click here:

Makai Ouji: Devils and Realist

Makai Ouji: Devils and Realist is a pretty good story but it steps on some pretty sensitive ground.    It wasn't that long ago when Katy Perry got into her fair share of trouble from mixing up and culturally appropriating her favorite parts of asia. To see Kotaku's explanation of Katy Perry's appropriated geisha act, click here.  I think the same idea can be applied but in reverse here.  Makai Ouji: Devils and Realist delves into a pool of Jewish/ Christian/ Muslim belief systems without accurately portraying any of them.  Let's just say that I am happy not to be the author of this story.  However, if you are able to and don't mind separating all of the actual cultural stories from Madoka Takadono's story, then it's not a bad anime.

The artwork has some pretty nice designs in it but nothing of the coloring or the backgrounds makes a big splash.  The character development definitely could use some more work, but it's fairly complete for the central characters.  The story itself could be fleshed out a bit more but for 12 episodes, I think the anime team did a good job.

I give Makai Ouji: Devils and Realist a 3.5 out of 5.

For more information about this anime, click here.

Blazblue Alter Memory

Blazblue Alter Memory is a strange anime to me.  The story starts by dropping you off in the middle of the story, which is fine.  However, there are a lot of characters with vastly different backgrounds and the explanation as to what they are doing, what their motives for doing it and how they came to be doing it are extremely slow in coming out.  This is a new release, so there are only 8 episodes out thus far, but I'm really hoping that this anime is going to be more that 12 episodes, because I can't see anything important to the story being concluded in only four more episodes.  There are definitely some interesting ideas at work in the story, but right now it seems a little more like a jumbled mess.  I'm really hoping that the concepts can get ironed out so these ideas can start to make an interesting tapestry.

As for artistic development, I find a number of the character silhouettes to be quite strong, as to be expected from an anime developed from a video game.  However, there isn't a lot more that distinguishes the look of this anime.

My fingers are crossed that this anime is going to be longer than 12 episodes and that the story is going to come together.  For now, I'm giving Blazblue Alter Memory a 3 out of 5.

For more information about this anime, click here.