A few short lines on shows I've recently watched / am watching:
Seirei no Moribito
You can swim in the visuals, and the stand-alone episodes are really good, but the overall plot could have been made simpler if people of importance actually bothered to talk to each other. And even despite this, I never got the impression that anyone was in any
real peril at any stage.
Rah-Xephon
The show that does its level best to throw a hissy fit on Der Krieg's stage. Superior in almost every way to The War. The ending even doesn't make any more sense than The War's.
Gun x Sword
Moments of thematic awesomeness combined with moments of sheer, unmitigated bollocks. The lone wanderer cliches were practically fossilised when Trigun threw Vash the Stampede into the role. Van, who looks vaguely like Spike Spiegel gone a bit wrong, has some basic character traits that never change, regardless of whatever happens. In fact, very few of the characters actually develop in the series. The most interesting ones are the villains, who are all seriously ill in the head.
Matantei Loki Ragnarok
26 episodes leads to not much in the way of resolution.... Loki and the other gods are still living on the Earth with Loki not having resolved (unsurprisingly) his issues with Odin. Considering we're introduced to a new character from the manga in the final seconds of the final episode, this makes the show look as much an advertisement for said manga as the Berserk anime does. Just not as successful. On almost every level. An amusing diversion, not much more.
Giniro no Olynssis
There are shows that should never have been made. For the first half this was one of them for me. Then the second half arrived and I actually wanted to know how it ended. Strange how these things happen.
Kannaduki no Miko
Yuri continues its less than successful foray into anime. This show needed to be twice as long to really get something out of the characters (there were far too many, and some spent the series sitting on the sidelines, looking like random character-designer supporting efforts) but 12 episodes was a chore to get through, even when it came to the conclusion, so 24 would probably have killed me.
Kemonozume
I enjoyed this little foray into horror comedy, though even my willing suspension of disbelief was challenged by the final few episodes as the villain went into full, near-unkillable crazy bastige mode. Oh, and it has the ugliest character designs in tv anime history, though they fit in with the show....
GateKeepers
Amazing how Gonzo can keep screwing up shows. It's like they have a knack for knowing what
not to do, and keep taking that path. GateKeepers was an amusing, high-energy foray into 1960's nostalgia, complete with cliche high school students fighting mysterious beings using magical powers. Then, somewhere along the line, it got all serious and spoilt the fun.
GateKeepers 21
Which is probably intentional, because this was its followup. Set 32 years later, GateKeepers 21 is a show that reminds you how unfun the modern world has become, hammering home the message every few minutes by having horrible things happen to people, and having a misanthropic, father-hating mürrisch girl making a running commentary. Until she gets shot, which is when things get
even more serious. This was better than the original by truncating itself to just 6 episodes. Sadly, that wasn't really enough. If GateKeepers should've been half its length, GateKeepers 21 should've been twice as long.
Tekkon Kinkreet
My brain hurts.
Heroic Age
Seriously.... If people can't put up with Gundam 00 and its repeated usage of words like "Celestial Being", they'd probably want to stick a pointy object through their ears with this show, because you can have a drinking game for every time words such as "Nodoss", "contracts" and "labours" are mentioned. At least there won't be a second season with this show. It ended satisfactorily. And I'm sure everyone was so willing to follow Dianeira because she had a nice tail, because, lets face it, until she helped the Argonaut find Age, she really was just a do-nothing princess....
Betterman
Reviewers have said that, even though there are far better anime than Betterman, no anime does "creepy" quite like this one. Betterman is like Gaogaigar and Godannar, just with next to no lighting (ie don't try and watch this from a distance in a well lit room... you'll see nothing), unseen monsters killing people on (or off) the edge of the screen in the aforementioned darkness and lots of creeping psychological horror. The plot and fanservice are also not much better than Gaogaigar or Godannar, but we can't have everything, now can we?.
Sketchbook - full color'S
This show leaves me with a silly
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/biggrin.gif)
on my face as I watch it. Sketchbook is what you'd get if the producers of Aria made Hidamari Sketch. Quiet-paced with eccentric characters and lots of cats. Only the cats talk. In Cat-Japanese, no less. Sora, the main character, is like Osaka on valium, almost completely oblivious to anything that doesn't catch her whim. Also stars Kate, the blond Canadian wee-a-boo girl, whose seiyuu manages to mangle both Japanese and English in a way no foreigner in Japan is likely to.