DVD Box set review - Epic gang wars never die out

In an earlier review, I criticized "Baccano!" for a plot which didn't make sense. However, I had only seen the first volume. After watching all 16 episodes, I really enjoyed this series as a whole.

The "Baccano!" box set released in December showcases the best qualities of 2000s anime--epic battles, splattering blood, dense storylines and incredible drama.

You probably won't understand the story of "Baccano!" from the first episodes. It looks like a mish-mash of random battles, mindless violence and unfinished storylines. However, the plot is quickly set into place in episode seven on the second DVD.

A group of alchemists meet a man named Maiza Avada aboard the Advenna Avis in 1711. He summons a demon to produce an elixir, giving all the passengers complete immortality. However, everyone also has the ability to devour other immortals to gain their knowledge.

The shrewd Szilard Quates plots to devour Maiza, but his plan is thwarted when the other people warn Maiza. He escapes by jumping overboard, only to reappear in urban America in the 1930s.

This anime is about far more than just defeating an immortal overlord. Characters such as Czeslaw Meyer suffer horrific torture from his immortal guardian. Eva Geonard is searching for her lost brother, who was captured by the Geonard family of immortals.

Meanwhile, the Camorra gang's new recruit, Firo Pinocacchio, bumps into a mysterious woman named Ennis, who is working for Szilard. Szilard's cooking up a new elixir which keeps people from aging.

To make matters even more confusing, a ruthless gang war ensues on a train known as the Flying Pussycat. The Russo family assassins, led by Ladd Russo, plan to kill all the members of the Laforet family. On top of this, a Rail Tracer is killing passengers on the train.

If all this sounds too much to handle, don't worry. It all wraps up nicely at around episode 14. There's plenty of gang wars, but the series isn't all about gangs.

"Baccano!" is all about the everlasting bonds the characters make as they regenerate throughout the series. Characters such as Isaac Dian and Miria Harvent spread their goodwill to everyone by stealing money from the gangsters and giving the money away to the public. Firo helps Ennis socialize with his friends.

Even newcomers such as the mute Chanel LaForet learn to escape from their gang affiliations by loving other people. "Baccano!" might features some of the bloodiest battles in anime history, but it has a big heart. This series is about the unbreakable love between friends, even as people kill them numerous times.

Although you could say this is an evil series about a deal with the devil, this series keeps the hocus pocus witchcraft to a minimum. Instead, "Baccano!" delivers a dazzling story about unforgettable acquaintances and friendships within some ruthless gang wars in 1930s New York. This is an absolute must-see series that everyone has to watch at least once.

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The most depressingly beautiful airplane anime

Director Mamoru Oshii has pushed the envelope once again with his newest film, "The Sky Crawlers."

The movie is a complex, but stunning film about teenagers trapped in a world of aerial combat.

The movie opens up at a snail's pace, with isolated, depressed male pilots known as Kildren, with no other amusement other than eating at the meat pie diner and having sex in the mansion with other women.

In their planes, they fight enemy planes from a country known only as the Loutan. However, most of their existence is a boring world, in which they never grow old. All they know is that they are children, who could never possibly gain access into the adult world. The only threat to their existence is the unknown airplane above the clouds, known only as “The Teacher.”

Perhaps it’s a somewhat excessive visual representation of the life of Japanese otaku, young men who trap themselves in their home, fearful of the criticism from the adults in the faceless corporate world. The characters have the most depressing and nonchalant dialogue ever heard in an anime. However, director Mamoru Oshii makes it all work.

The film is a deadpan “Catch-22”-styled story, in which the main character, Yuichi, is trying to figure out exactly who he is. He's only heard rumors that his love interest, Suito Kusanagi, shot her previous boyfriend in the head. Although Yuichi has hardly any memory of his past, he offers his girlfriend a new hope for change in their depressing life as Kildren.

Admittedly, the aerial dogfight in the end of the film is an impossibly excessive and violent end. However, given that the concept of the film is out of this world in the first place, it all works beautifully. Although some anime fans might find the film boring at first, “The Sky Crawlers” has plenty of earth-shaking emotional sequences, in which Kusanagi desperately plays with a gun in her hand on a particularly depressing night out.

This is one of the best anime films I have ever seen, filled with some spectacular dogfights with surreal imagery. But although there is plenty of action, the dogfights pale in comparison to the heartbreaking emotions throughout the film. While American audiences may be easily turned off, this is a true masterpiece by Mamoru Oshii.

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DVD Review: When they cry vol. 3

At this point of "When They Cry," I'm a little tired of more kids going insane and killing people. Volume three adds a slight twist--Keiichi becomes the murderer.

In the Tatari Goroushi (Curse killing) chapter, Keiichi's friend, Satoko, was abused and beaten by her uncle. Keiichi finally had enough, and now he wants to save Satoko by killing her uncle.

I hope no college kid in their right mind decides out of the blue, "Hey, let's kill my uncle!" Anyhow, Satoko is sick, so Keiichi decides to attack her uncle, who is picking her up. After smacking him with a baseball bat (ow), he buries him.

But Satoko is still in shock. Her friends say that Satoko's uncle is still alive, and that Keiichi was at the cotton-drifting festival at the same time that he killed Satoko's uncle. To say the least, Keiichi gets very, very confused. And the tone of the plot goes from wicked to horrific.

This is a more disappointing volume of the series. I'm starting to get a little tired of hearing Keiichi go emo and scream out in confusion and terror. I wish he would express some different emotions for once.

Thankfully, the Himatsubushi (Time Wasting) chapter is a change of pace. This chapter follows Akasaka Mamoru, an investigator for the Tokyo police. He is looking to see how the mob families, the Sonozaki family and the Furude family, are connected with the kidnapping of the prime minister's son.

However, the priest's daughter, Rika Furude, is keeping an eye on him. In fact, she even gets possessed by a demon and tells him never to come back. Is this just a coincidence?

While volume three only covers the first chapter of this story arc, it is one of the more interesting storylines, covering the mystery of Hinamizawa from the policemen point of view. Unfortunately, Funimation couldn't separate each of the complete story arcs onto individual discs, because they still want to sell all the volumes of the series.

Still, this is a solid anime. Just don't expect anything to deviate at this point. At least not yet.

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DVD Review - My-Hime offers compelling drama

Shojo anime doesn't usually hit American shores, and whenever it does, people don't usually buy them. However, "Mai-Hime" is a must-have series.

"Mai-Hime" may be the best new shojo action series, with intense fight sequences and some humorous jokes too.

It opens with a cruise trip gone totally wrong. Mai Tokiha and her brother, Takumi, are taking a boat ride to their school, Fuka Academy. They then discover a girl's body floating in the ocean. Mai resuscitates the girl.

Later at night, a person with a motorcycle helmet takes Mai hostage. Mai is forced to take the person to the room of the girl Mai saved. But when Natsuki enters the room and takes out her magical revolvers, the girl attacks with a giant sword. After an epic battle sequence, Mai saves the girl with the powers she didn't know she had.

Turns out that Mai is a HiME, a girl with the ability to summon Highly Advanced Materializing Equipment. In other words, she can summon fire rings around her hands and feet as weapons. Like other HiMEs, Mai also attains a Child, a robot animal with even more powerful weapons. And they were sent to destroy Orphans, monsters from outer space.

Yes, it sounds awfully typical for an anime series character to kill other monsters to save the world. However, the plot takes a complete U-turn when the girls learn what really happens when their Child dies--someone else dies.

Even though it's not an original series to say the least, "My-Hime" turns into a fatal tragedy. It resembles "Battle Royale," only the people closest to the HiMEs die in nerve-wracking succession. By the time one HiME is left, she is emotional scarred for life.

And even though the ending is almost way too optimistic for its own good, it is an excellent series with some of the best anime battles I've ever seen. Certainly My-HiME is not original, but it is entertaining and well-produced. Best of all, the entire series only costs $40 now.

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DVD Review: Claymore tops the best anime list

Claymore is one of the best anime of 2008, if not the best.

Not very many action anime are as complex as "Claymore." The female warriors are extraordinarily strong, but are emotionally fragile. This is one of the few series in which the gender roles in an anime are reversed, where the main female heroine is strong, but represses intense emotional anguish.

The plot is simple. Yoma are violent monsters who terrorize towns and cities in the world. The only way in which humans have dealt with these monsters is through the Claymore warriors, hired superhuman warriors who are half-Yoma, half-human.

Raki, a human boy, takes interest in the first Claymore who comes into his town. Her name is Clare, and at first she remains cold and unemotional. But Raki tells her that he wants her to kill the Yoma who murdered his parents.

While Clare says that she doesn't care for his revenge plot, Raki is saved by Clare when his older brother reveals himself as a Yoma. Clare slices the Yoma in half. However, because Raki had lived with a Yoma, the villagers exile him. They are frightened that he could turn into a Yoma.

Raki passes out in a desert, but is saved by Clare. Raki befriends Clare and travels with her, learning more and more about Clare's life as a Claymore.

The Claymores undergo some heart-wrenching moments. In episode two, Clare's best friend Teresa sends her a black card, indicating that she is about to turn into a full Yoma. Whenever a Claymore is sent a black card, it is a request indicating that they want their best friend to kill them, so that they won't terrorize other humans as a Yoma. Although they follow their chivalry code loyally, they clearly have a difficult time controlling themselves.

It's almost unbelievable how much the Claymores repress their emotions, even in near-death situations. Even though Clare is extremely powerful, if she harnesses too much of her Yoma power, she suffers the potential to lose control and kill other people. Thankfully, Raki is her best friend, and acts as her emotional support, even after devastating battles. Clare's emotional journey makes for one of the best stories I've ever seen in an action anime.

Very few anime are as excellent as "Claymore." This is definitely one of the best anime of 2008 so far. It's hard to find more drama and more emotion than this anime series.

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DVD Review: Great horror anime, horrible dub

"When They Cry" (Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni) is probably the best horror anime I've ever seen, with a complex plot in so many levels.

Just keep in mind that while the Japanese voices in "When They Cry" is great, this has one of the worst English dubs I've ever heard.

For the uninitiated, "When They Cry" is based on an older interactive novel game, also named "Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni." The plot is simple. Keiichi and his friends live in a rural town named Hinamizawa. Every year, the village has a festival known as the Watanagashi (Cotton drifting) festival. In the festival, villagers float cotton on a river to release the evil from their bodies.

However, this village has a dirty secret: for the last five years, someone has died after every Watanagashi festival. And this particular year is special, because in every short four- or five-episode part of the anime, the village has a string of genocidal murders.

In the beginning of the series, Keiichi kills Rena and Mion, and then kills himself by stabbing his throat with his fingernails. Don't worry--we don't actually get to see him kill himself. However, after each string of murders, the scenario replays again with the same characters, but a completely different plot.

This makes for some extremely brilliant twists in every rendition of the "When They Cry" story. For example, I didn't even expect that Mion actually had a twin sister named Shion. All the main characters also have a dark personal past as well. For example, Rena went berzerk after she left Hinamizawa, and broke the windows of her school with a baseball bat. She transferred back to Hinamizawa, hoping that she would leave these accidents behind.

While volume one has the most depressing storyline of the series, the Onikakushi-hen chapter, it also starts anew with the Watanagushi chapter. We also get introduced to Shion, Mion's twin sister. And ironically enough, she has a crush on Keiichi for all the wrong reasons, which have yet to be explained in later chapters.

I was afraid that this series would never see the light of day again, after Geneon shut down its American publishing branch. However, now that Funimation has picked up where the series left off at volume four, we can definitely look forward to seeing more chapters to the series. After all, there is nothing more fun than watching these characters die horrible, miserable deaths, only to live to die another day.

Oh don't worry, there is a happy ending. But happiness is pretty far away in Hinamizawa, at least for now...

By the way, do not watch this series with the English dub. The voices are so horribly generic. And they also replaced the cool Japanese ending song with a god-awful American pop song. Blech.

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Box set - Fantastic Children

One of the series that flew under the radar of anime fanatics four years ago was "Fantastic Children". Despite the simplistic, Tezuka-style drawings, this series is very intelligent and packed with scary mysteries to be solved. A box set of this series came out recently this year in March.

The series starts with a paranoid narrator rambling about the dreaded Befort children. They are searching for Tina, the girl who can help them at their home planet, Greecia.

However, the Belfort children are really seven gray-haired scientists who reincarnate into children every few years. They want to convince Tina to return to Greecia, their home planet. Apparently, she is the ultimate weapon for Greecia, but escapes to Earth to keep herself from getting involved with the countries at war. To keep away from the reincarnating Belfort children, Tina reincarnates every 10-20 years into a different person so that no one can ever find her. From the 1700s to the early 1900s, Tina remains elusive as a fugitive.

In the 1900s, Tina is now a young girl, named Helga, wearing a blue skirt and pink blouse. She is an orphan who doesn't want any association with guys either. Toma sees her lying on a statue at his secret island. Although she doesn't speak to him, he likes the girl, and he eventually saves her from the orphanage where she is mistreated. However, he has no idea that Helga have some association with Tina, and that these Befort children have robots, karate skills and fancy weaponry that Toma can't handle.

Although the opening episodes are definitely a confusing mix of separate scenes between a detective, the Belfort children and Toma and Tina, this series is incredible. I have never seen a more fluidly animated series in my life. Although the characters are drawn rather simplistically, they move very smoothly. The digital animation is also implemented well. However, the story is the true highlight of the series. This series is about provocative mysteries, such as dark mythic creatures, ghosts and family members who disappear to join a group of gray-haired children wearing black cloaks. On top of this, there are orphanages with bodyguards who imprison Tina, secret agent organizations experimenting on people and, of course, the reincarnating Belfort children. And there are even flying robots.

Trust me--it sounds like the worst seasons of "The X-Files", but this series is the best mix of Miyazaki children and Hitchcock horror that I have ever seen. Although this series is for kids, the spooky music and shocking revelations clearly distinguish this for older audiences. This is one of those series that really doesn't sound like it would work, but it does work. In fact, it is one of the best series I have ever seen.

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DVD - Welcome to the great depression

Although this is really volume three of the series which I am reviewing, "Welcome to the NHK!" is worthy of plenty of praise. Shown in the CSULB anime club, it is one of the most dramatic and hilarious series about the otaku culture of Japan, the anime and manga lovers of contemporary Japan.

In particular, "Welcome to the NHK!" focuses on the hikikomori culture, the disturbing trend of young unemployed people in Japan who are disillusioned by the working world. Japanese workers tends to frown on these depressed individuals. Based on this anime, the new otaku culture only breeds more of these secluded individuals who are afraid of the outside world.

In a short summary of the past two DVDs, the anime focuses on Satou, a twenty-something-year-old hikikomori who is convinced by a young teenage girl named Misaki to take her hikikomori rehabilitation course. On the side, Satou has been working with his friend to produce an ero-game, a dating simulation which rewards the male character with sexual scenes and pictures. He is hoping to prove that he will escape his hikikomori life with this new occupation.

In this DVD, Misaki takes Satou out to see a fireworks show. She's been getting closer to Satou lately, but Satou is getting awfully nervous about the sexual tension. He leaves Misaki to drive with his high school friend, Kashiwa, on an off-site trip with friends she made online. However, this isn't an ordinary trip--this is a trip where everyone will kill themselves on a deserted island.

So far, the series has gone pretty steady, but volume three is the start of the suicide club string of episodes, an incredible haunting section of the anime. Although Satou and Misaki's relationship has become closer, by the next DVD, their love will almost completely fall apart in a heavily emotional scene. I like the series. However, the next DVD may become a little overdone and a little too long for its own good. After all, the original novel didn't even include this off-site suicide meeting.

However, I'd have to admit that all the characters are still drawn pretty well. Satou may be the most psychologically distressed lead character in all the anime I've ever seen (aside from Shinji in "Evangelion"). And Misaki is still one of the anime gals I desperately want to marry. I still have to decide between Misaki or Yomiko Readman from "Read or Die".

Stay tuned. I still haven't seen the end of "Welcome to the NHK!", so I'll be looking forward to the ending.

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