Crunchyroll review - Courageous soldier girls fight for peace

The girls of "Soranowoto" valiantly work for the common good in a post-apocalyptic world of warfare.

At first glance, there are numerous reasons why this series shouldn't work. The cute girls seem out of place in this period piece. The intense violence is shocking. The ending theme song counteracts with the serious tone of the show.

And yet, "Soranowoto" succeeds on so many levels, as a cheerful ode to the courageous work of soldiers. Although these military dogs appear too cute for their own good, the anime ends on an optimistic note of peace and understanding. In fact, the show was one of the best for this season.

The main narrative centers on a girl named Kanata Sorami, a rural villager whose parents died during the war in Helvetia. When she sees a female soldier play "Amazing Grace" on a bugle, she becomes inspired to join the military.

Yes, Kanata becomes a soldier because she wants to play the bugle. It sounds like the most ridiculous reason to join the armed forces. However, the single event helped her grow up to become a strong, vivacious teenager.

And even though Kanata initially loses track of the destination of her post, she discovers that her work is much more enjoyable than anyone would expect. She doesn't just learn to play the trumpet. She befriends a wonderful group of four soldier girls, whose mission is to help the villagers in the town of Seize.

Even though the character designs of "Soranowoto" look like they were taken straight from the other cute series, "K-On!", the story is rich with a unique blend of Mayan culture, Japanese food and European landscapes. This is an extremely idealized view of life as a soldier. Yet, this series was meant to focus on the few pleasures of life in spite of all the negativity and chaos surrounding them.

The violence sometimes reaches a horrific level, considering how adorable all the girls are. Bullets and mortar wounds literally can rip their bodies apart. The violence literally can tug at people's heartstrings with shocking images. The characters are constantly forced to courageously stand up against all odds, rather than fall victim to their traumatic anguish.

Unfortunately, the tone of the series fluctuates greatly through the 12 episodes. The ending sequence in every episode features opposing images of girls laughing and playing to some cheesy J-pop tune. The animation looked almost hypocritical, considering how frightening the last two episodes turned out.

Other parts are left unexplained. For instance, Kanata finds a mysterious underwater fossil of an angel creature in the first episode. Believe it or not, this fossil is somehow connected to the events which led to a post-apocalyptic universe. Knowing that it was an angel, the director might have wanted to make some sort of connection to the dystopian angel apocalypse in the film "End of Evangelion." We will never know about this angel.

However, we don't need to know all the symbolism and history of the angel fossil to enjoy this series. Every part of the series fits together nicely in its short 12-episode run. "Soranowoto" is about all the joys of working for the good of humanity, to understand everyone as friends and not enemies. Even though the series ends with a somewhat unbelievable scenario, it presents a hopeful dream of peace for everyone.

Image courtesy of photobucket.com

DVD Review - Soul power!

"Soul Eater" defies all expectations as a parody anime which turns into an incredible epic action series.

From the first three episodes, you'd hardly expect this show to garner any potential. The first episode focuses on a girl named Maka and a boy named Soul. The boy can turn into a weapon, which Maka wields to defeat evil people. Once Soul eats 99 evil souls and a witch's soul, he can turn into the ultra-powerful death-scythe.

The whole story is a spoof on the typical "gotta catch 'em all" formula in series such as "Pokemon" and "Cardcaptor Sakura." The two literally spend the whole episode trying to capture the soul of the voluptuous witch, because Soul faints every time she gets near him.

The second episode is an even loonier parody of Naruto, introducing us to Black Star. He's a spiky-haired ninja who hardly collects any souls. If he ever quits bragging openly to his opponents, one day he'll turn his female partner, Tsubaki, into a more powerful weapon. Someday, anyway.

The third episode focuses on Death the kid, a shinigami, or god of death. He wields a pair of girls, Liz and Patty, as twin demon guns. However, Death the kid suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder. He literally runs away from battle to make sure his room is completely symmetrical on both sides.

Based on these three "prologue" episodes, you'd think this series would turn out as a quirky comedy anime that only lasts about 12 episodes. Believe it or not, "Soul Eater" completely defies definition. Around episode seven and eight, two of the protagonists almost lost their lives in a fatal battle with a witch.

The two heroes, Maka and Soul, fight against the villainous warrior teenager named Cronos. The character possesses the Demon Sword, a dark weapon which forms out of Cronos' black blood. Cronos fatally wounds Soul, leaving Maka in a state of shock.

One of Maka's teachers rescues her in the nick of time. However, the damage was done. Maka now bears extreme guilt for putting her partner in danger. Worse still, part of Cronos' black blood flows through his body.

You have to wonder how such a series remains this unpredictable. This is partly because the series was adapted from a manga which was supposed to only last one chapter. Yet, the character designs and the slapstick jokes turned this manga into an unforgettable classic.

After 12 episodes, I'm literally shocked by the depth of this bare-bones shonen anime. "Soul Eater" is an anime based entirely on battles, but the characters move around with insane acrobatics, dodging life-threatening blows with the greatest of ease.

The most surreal scenes involve battles played out in the characters' minds. The power of the soul synchronization can literally enable characters to lose themselves in other peoples' subconscious. These scenes tend to resemble the psychoanalytical scenes of Evangelion, but the animators pepper the drama with violent battles and surreal, out-of-this-world environments.

Best of all, the female hero, Maka, is a force to be reckoned with. She slices and dices her enemies as if they were paper dolls. She doesn't even flinch when one of her teachers swings a tombstone at her.

But at it's heart, "Soul Eater" is a sweet romance between Maka and Soul. The two main heroes have completely opposite types of attitudes. Maka is the overachieving bookworm. Soul is the laidback slacker. However, they hold immense respect for each other, especially in a touching scene in episode six. Their powerful companionship literally becomes the source of their powerful moves when they synchronize their soul power.

The series garnished plenty of attention when it aired on the Cartoon Network. Although it appears to play out like a conventional shonen show, it grows into a massive, epic series involving evil forces, black blood and dreamlike drama played out in the characters' minds. As weird as this turns out, "Soul Eater" looks like a big contender for the best anime of 2010.

The first box set is available now on DVD. Stay tuned for a review of the second box in the upcoming weeks.

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Soul Eater - Who's who

I have a feeling that I've confused the bejeezus out of people with my "Soul Eater" review. There's almost too many characters to keep track of. However, the character designs are some of the best I've seen, so I'll show a few pictures explaining who's who.

These are the first few characters of the series. I'll post more character profiles later.

This is Soul and Maka. They're the two main characters of "Soul Eater." Although their personalities are complete opposites, they have mutual respect for each other. Soul can turn into a scythe weapon.

Maka's hoping to make Soul powerful enough, so that he attains the title of deathscythe.

This is Black Star and his partner weapon, Tsubaki. Black Star is the ninja, who acts very much like Naruto. He makes a grand entrance before attacking his opponent. On the other hand, Tsubaki is his patient, kind partner.

Tsubaki can turn into a variety of weapons, including a sickle-and-chain and a giant throwing star.

This is Death the Kid and his two partners, Liz and Patty Thompson. Liz and Patty used to live as gangsters on the streets, until Death the Kid met them. Now, Death the Kid uses them as a pair of demon guns.

Death the Kid is one of the toughest fighters in the series, but he suffers from an obsessive-compulsive disorder. Whenever he sees anything with both sides completely symmetrical, he has to spend time admiring it. However, whenever anything is out of balance, he blows it to pieces with his demon guns.

From left to right: Liz Thompson, Death the Kid, Patty Thompson.




Images courtesy of photobucket.com

Crunchyroll review - A headless fairy and Japanese gang wars

"Durarara!!" is a new masterpiece which combines a motley of unusual characters with a story rich with scientific experiments and controversy.

Produced by the same studio behind "Baccano!", this series has garnered plenty of attention for its fantasy characters. Some possess superhuman strength. Others are involved with genetic mutation experiments. One of them has no head. All of them live in the eclectic Tokyo neighborhood of Ikebukuro, where gang violence runs rampant.

This review covers episodes one through eight. Each episode is narrated by a different character in the series, with each person bringing their own unique characteristics and powers to the story. The series begins behind the perspective of an incoming high school student named Mikado Ryuugamine.

Although he comes from a rural neighborhood, he grows ever intrigued by the fascinating urban legends of Ikebukuro. Certainly the area is a dangerous hot spot for the Japanese color gangs, including an obscure group known as the Dollars.

But the area is also the home of a headless motorcyclist, known simply as Celty. Her background is based on a Medieval legend of the fairy named Dullahan, who carries her head under her arm and rides a headless horse. However, Celty isn't carrying her head anymore, because someone stole it. She's now a mere transporter who rescues innocent people. She's still hoping to find what she lost.

As far-fetched as the entire story is, the pacing of the series is excellent. There isn't any single time where you feel as if the characters are spending too much time in boring conversations. Something suspicious always runs amok in Ikebukuro. Gang members kidnap innocent people. Superhuman characters are battling hordes of gangsters. A sleazy gang boss calls his minions to kill off students.

And even if most of the story involves a bunch of high-intensity encounters with extraordinary fighters, a headless motorcyclist and a Russian wrestler, nothing ever feels wasted. Every event somehow progresses the plot in subtle ways.

This is a unique tale surrounding many people who are trying to discover something they loved which was lost. All the characters are caught in a swirling cloud of mystery, in a neighborhood where anything and everything is possible.

Image courtesy of photobucket.com

Click here to watch the series on crunchyroll.com

Eating Crunchyrolls - Winter 2010

I've been working on a slew of news stories and whatnot, but I should have free time this weekend to write some reviews of anime series on crunchyroll.com, the hottest anime streaming Web site.

Believe it or not, you can watch anime for free on this site, as long as you can stand all the ads which pop up from time to time.

It's a legit streaming site as well. If you want, you can pay a small monthly fee to watch anime at the same time as it is broadcast in Japan. This money will pay the bills of anime companies we know and love.

Right now I'm watching a variety of series. Look forward to seeing some fun reviews of:

"Soranowoto" - People have compared this to "K-On!", because it features teenage girl characters who act really cute. Actually, this is a war story about a girl who is inspired to join the military to play a trumpet. It starts off innocent, but eventually the series includes some frightening moments of post-traumatic stress.

"Hanamaru Kindergarten" - A show about an Dragon Quest 9 addict named Tsuchida, who supervises children at a Kindergarten school. The main story is focused mostly on a girl named Anzu, who tries to get Tsuchida to fall in love with her.

"Durarara!!" - A series set in modern day Ikebukuro, where color gangs are duking it out against each other and yakuza are kidnapping innocent people. An incoming high school student named Ryuugane Mikado is looking for fun and excitement in the city, but he ends up finding plenty of shady, dangerous characters as well.

"Gintama" - In the near future, aliens have taken over the world and samurai warriors are now out of work. However, three samurai are making ends meet, taking whatever odd jobs are available.

So look forward to whatever I think about reviewing next.

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