For Those Anime Haters

There are too many people who hate anime that simply don't understand. I find rather irritating when people make fun of me for liking anime, so I'm going to tear down all the arguements I've heard against it one by one.

Do not judge anime as a whole after seeing: Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Sailor Moon, Digimon, Yu-yu Hakusho, the many Yu-Gi-Oh posers, Bleach, One Piece, or Naruto. Aside from the last three, most anime fans hate these animes and wish they would just disappear so they can stop doing damage to anime's reputation. For the last three, yes, there are many fans for these, but they're just too average and rather sterotypical. Many anime fans start with one of those and move on to better ones.

Anime usually has an intelligent plot. Once again, usually due to the aforementioned animes, people may think animes have no depth. I've seen plenty of anime's with plots as deep as CSI and they have made me laugh as hard as Family Guy. If you watch Ghost in the Shell you will get a whole lot of deep storyline in every single episode.

Not all or even most anime has a ton of girls with large breast. If you are a concerned parent that doesn't want your child to be viewing inappropriate material, beware the following words: ecchi, hentai, yuri, yaoi, shounen-ai, and shoujo-ai.

The only other arguement I've heard is that it's animated. Do you like Family Guy? If not, is it because it's not clean humor? Imagine it without dirty jokes. If you still don't like it, you're weird. But that's okay, because that means at least you shouldn't hate anime because you think it's weird and might have an actual reason for hating anime.

If Ninjas Dressed in Business Casual...

Business casual + ninjas = Nabari no Ō. Nabari no Ō is currently ongoing anime/ manga. "Nabari" is the term for the entire ninja community. "Ō" or "Ou," pronounced like "oh," means king/ruler. So the title can translate as Ruler of Nabari. The anime adaption is fairly new, having started a few months ago in April. The manga started in 2004.

Nabari no Ō is set in a world where all ninjas lead a double life as ninjas, and as normal people. The main character (see picture) is a perpetually apathetic boy in high school named Rokujō Miharu. The japanese put their family name first, so Miharu would be what an American would use as the first name. In the beginning Miharu is informed that he is the vessel for the Shinrabanshō. I'm pretty sure that translates to Omnipotent. The Shinrabanshō contain all the wisdom in the universe, going beyond humanity's ability to comprehend, and enables the user to control all of creation. Miharu is now a target for all of Nabari.

What makes Nabari no Ō great would probably be the character: especially the main, and how they do the ninja part. There are plenty of animes and mangas featuring a main character that started out really normal and then accidentally discover or receive some powerful thing inside them that get them dragged into some cool adventure. Though I'm not saying it's unoriginal, just the opposite. When I find an anime that starts like this, I always hate the part where the main character takes a bunch of episodes to get used to it. But in Nabari no Ō, he just didn't care. I thought that was funny. I was very happy to find that this main character was very different from the other ones in other action/fantasy animes. One other good thing I noticed about Miharu, is that he is actually planning ahead for a lot of the plot events and from the very beginning was making decisions about what he wanted to do about stuff pertaining to the overall plot, instead of crossing that bridge when they get to it. That's something I've never seen before.

The other cool thing about Nabari no Ō is the action part. For once the fighting and special powers in an anime are'nt overdone. Unlike better-known animes/mangas like DBZ, Bleach, and Naruto it doesn't seem like they're moving at the speed of light all the time, and "very powerful" doesn't mean you can destroy entire city in one strike: or even a whole building. Yep, in this one the character humans, with human muscles, that can make them move at human speeds. Though I'm not saying it's entirely realistic, it's still in the fantasy genre, and they're still summoning fire out nowhere n' stuff: but not too much fantasy.

Another one with a perfect score.

I think it's got a cool site.

Opening song-Even cooler

Air Gear

Air Gear is both an anime and manga. It's in the sports genre mostly, but the sport, air trek, involves a ton of combat. Air trek (A.T.) is like inline skating, but the skates have tiny motors in them. They're really strong motors that are even able to keep with a car. Air Gear's plot largely revolves around competition between storm rider teams (storm riders are the people who participate in A.T.), and Ikki, the main character, becoming "Sky King."

The manga version is much longer than the anime, and is still ongoing. The anime's original run ended in September of 2006. I don't care too much for how the anime ended, I felt it left too much unanswered, but you can pick up where it ends in the manga, no biggie. Air Gear features a bit of a symbolic theme. But it's not one of those complex symbolic themes that requires close attention to catch, and you probably won't have to look it up on Wikipedia later. It's usually just an animal metaphor used to describe a particular person. Also worth noting is that the manga version contains some mild to comfortably spicy ecchi scenes, so you might want to be careful when you read it, but more often that not you'll be completely or mostly desensitized to it.

The artwork in the manga often gives characters really exagerated comical expressions like many other mangas do, but these are heavily exaggerated comical expressions: sometimes looking as if they were drawn in three seconds (undoubtedly intentional though).

Overall, I give it a perfect score.
Anime's Opening Theme Song

D. Gray-Man

Been forever since I last posted, again. D. Grey-Man is an anime/manga in the supernatural genre. I heard of it from a friend. In a nutshell, it's about a war between the humans and the akuma, monsters born from tragedy. It's got a lot of action. It's really well drawn. Theres a bit of a goth theme, but not like a ton of skulls or anything like that. It has a really good plot too: stuff just keeps getting more complicated. It's currently on-going, the anime is at episode 87.

More Than A Paper Cut

R.O.D. TV is the coolest thing EVER. The storyline, is so well written. The storyling focuses on interpersonal between the characters a lot. I also has WONDERFUL battles scenes (episode 8 >.<). It's about these three paper masters; they're sisters. Paper masters can manipulate paper to do number of things like: stop a bullet, rescue planes, cut metal, fly, and even make clothes. This is usually done in an origami-like fashion. I dare not say anything about the story-it's too wonderful to spoil even a little bit. It was first a movie, then a TV series, then a manga. The manga, at least through the first two volumes, is nothing like the anime. I suggest you hold off on that until you're a fan(watch the movie/TV series).

Legal Drug

OMG, it has been forever since I last posted. Sorry. Today's post will be about Legal Drug manga. This manga is yaoi-ish, or well, there's only a vague hint of it in the beginning (enough to worry your mom), and then it gets really yaoi-ful in the third volume. It's about a guy who has visions and can collect memories form his surroundings. He is found one day in the snow after running away from home. He's taken to a pharmacy where he now works/lives. The manager is always giving him special jobs often involving something supernatural. The manga is pretty good, unfortunatlely something got cancelled and there are only three books available.

OMG, They're Gay

Wow, a whole giant genre of gay anime. It's called yaoi. I'm sure your average American would find that a little strange. Apparently it's a common thing over there in Japan. Though it really doesn't suprize me, given the history of Japan.Their long long period of isolation in the past has allowed them to go to other places. Most female anime fans I know love this gay form of anime. One of my friends has passed around a game known as Enzai around some of my girls (despite being male, all my friends are girls). Enzai happens to be a game about this guy, he get accused of crime, gets some prioson rape, and has a gay relationship, sorta. That's what girls are watching these days, cool huh? Yaoi oftens features girly men, sparkly scenes, and crossdressing. There's also another genre for guys, yuri. Don't know so much that... but isn't it interesting?

Azumanga Daioh

Azumanga Daioh is the funniest thing ever. It's a show about a group of girls in high school. This anime has no real storyline, but there's a pattern of events as they go through all three years of high school (Japan has 3 years in high school because their elementary schools have 6). For example there are 3 episodes about the cultural festival, one for each year. The characters are all very different, and they all have funny problems they have to deal with (and almost never solved). I think the most interesting character is Chiyo (see picture). She is 10 years old and skipped five grades. She was always the shortest one even before she skipped five grades. There's a lot of humour derived from her, especially in Osaka's dreams (not Osaka-a place in Japan). Osaka's dreams often feature a visual joke on the the appearance of Chiyo's pigtails. In these dreams her pigtails make Chiyo fly, move on their own, control Chiyo's mind, might kill her if removed incorrectly.

Even More Depressing

I found an even more depressing anime: Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni. It's a murder mystery show about a town named Hinamizawa. In this town time repeats. Every year on the Watanagashi Festival, someone dies. The show focuses on the festival of 1983, this is where the time repeat is. In each repeat someone different dies, each with a different depressing story behind it. The deaths often have lots of gore. Aside from that, the story is quite interesting.

Depressing Anime!!!

Overall this is the greatest anime I've ever seen. It's depressing. It's not going to make you cry, but close. The story starts a bit faster than most shows do at the beginning, but without seeming like it's in a rush. Claymore follows the adventures of Clare, a Yoma killer. Yomas eat human guts. Clare is part of a super secretive organization with the purpose of exterminating Yoma. In order kill a Yoma, you have to be half Yoma. This method has some side effects. When you use too much Yoma power, it goes out of control and you turn into one. At this point you usually get one of your comrades to cut your head off. Great.

This Bleach Isn't For Cleaning

Bleach. It's an anime. It's almost as big as Naruto, I like it more than Naruto. It's about a guy named Ichigo. He's able to sees spirits. One day he see a bad spirit monster, called a hollow, being pursued by a shinigami, spirits that slay hollows. The hollow eventually goes after Ichigo, then Rukia, the shinigami he saw, comes to save him. She gets wounded, leaving Ichigo no choice but to take her powers if he wants to live. Their adventures begin.

The story of Bleach have nothing to do with actual bleach. Though I vaguely remember seeing some as Ichigo was running from a Hollow in his house, but that's it. The storyline is actually pretty good. There's a couple cool plot twists, but not a lot, though there enough. There's no repetitiveness after you're though the introductory episodes. Any Naruto fan should watch it.

Witchblade?, that one moving around behind you

I found this awesome anime called Witchblade. I've seen like, 3 episodes. I looked it up on Wikipedia. It turns out it's based on an American comic of the same name.

I stumbled across the opening theme on You Tube and decided to watch after. I really like the song. It was XTC by Psychic Lover. The show was not nearly as revealing as the picture I posted, it's only like that in the DVD version. It's about a women who was discovered in the dead center of where a massive explosion had just taken place. She has no clue of anything about the explosion, the tattoo on her arm (the Witchblade, which becomes a bracelet upon initial activation), nor any of her life before her discovery. She was found with Riku (little girl in the picture), who is believed to be her daughter. The Witchblade is known to certain government people as the, or one of the, most powerful weapons ever. It transforms the user into THAT (look at picture).

I also looked up the comic. It was OK at first. Then I went off to see some pages from the comic. Not a great idea. What I found was a shirtless villain hugging a woman wearing two nipple-shaped gold plates and a thong. I read some reviews and they said it about no storyline at all. The only similarity between the anime and comic is the Witchblade. There are even differences in the Witchblade, such as, in the comic it could produce a wider variety of weapons, like whips, swords, and any other thing a fighter of justice/masochist would need.

First Ever

Hi!, this is the first post on my first blog. I'm into the media, anime, and gaming. I hope you like my blog.