Anime Reviews (50)
Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt - Complete Series (DVD) Review
Written by Salvador Mateos
We all remember the innocent and cute Powerpuff Girls and Puffy Ami Yumi. Ok, now take those two shows and add them to a blender, then add a little Invader Zim and a lot of vulgar language, a few adult toys, and a lot of panties. Just for extra measure, add a few pounds of sugar, and mix well. What do you get with this crazy mixture. Well, it would be the new Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt, a thirteen episode plus one series made by Gainax Studios and brought to us by our friends at FUNimation.
Packed with magic, destruction, comedy, and epic battles galore, Hiro Mashima’s Fairy Tail has been a series that I personally have followed closely ever since I read the first chapter of the manga. So you can imagine how excited I was to hear that the animated series, which has over 120 episodes aired in Japan, was being licensed and released in North America. Fairy Tail Part Three was released for English speaking audiences by the lovely folks at FUNimation earlier this year.
Tales of Vesperia: The First Strike (Blu-Ray/DVD) Review
Written by Stephanie Hii
The Tales of series may not be as famous as the Final Fantasy franchise in terms of J-RPG games, regardless, it has managed to spawn nearly as many games as its Square Enix counterpart with fourteen main titles, and sixteen offshoots. It should come as no surprise that sooner or later there would be animation adaptations for the more popular Tales of titles. Tales of Vesperia: The First Strike was first shown in theatres in Japan on October 3, 2009 as the first theatrical film ever made of the Tales of series. Three years later, FUNimation picked up the film for English release.
Where can you find tengu, chupacabra and crop circles all in one place? Waldstein Academy of course! NIS America’s recent release, Occult Academy, focuses on the abnormal and unexplainable phenomena that happen in Waldstein Academy, or “Occult Academy” as it is called by the individuals who live nearby. Occult Academy focuses on Maya Kumashiro and time traveler Fumiaki Uchida as they scour the city looking for the key of Nostradamus that will cause an alien invasion on July 21, 1999 while battling against all the occult creatures that get in their way.
Dragon Age: Origins is one of BioWare's bestselling titles and continues their rich tradition of creating gritty worlds, complex characters, and mature plots. When I first heard about Dragon Age: Dawn of the Seeker and that FUNimation was going to be working closely with BioWare and Oxybot to produce it, I felt cautiously optimistic. Could this possibly be the first step towards properly adapting Western intellectual properties (IPs) into a Japanese medium? With too many flops and not enough solid, let alone exceptional, titles of this breed out in the world, it was hard to be too excited. Does Dawn of the Seeker finally turn the tide? Hit the jump to find out.
When was your first time? For me it was not very long ago; actually, it was a few months ago and it was kind of confusing and there were a few people there too… What? Wait, don’t stop reading and don’t think dirty thoughts! I was talking about my first time hearing about this anime with some of my friends. I too was confused with the title -- I had a totally different idea of what Yamada’s First Time was about, to tell you the truth. Since I was assigned to review it and it came from FUNimation, I felt it safe, but boy was I wrong. I began to watch it and soon found out this is not the anime to watch with little kids around.
Nitro+ is back again with an anime adaptation of their visual novel, Phantom -PHANTOM OF INFERNO-, in the form of a twenty-six episode series called Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom. Phantom is animated by Beetrain and has a script written by Gen Urobochi, Hideki Shirane, and other staff writers. The plot follows a tourist named Reiji who unwittingly becomes a part of the assassin group Inferno, which is based in the United States, after witnessing their ace assassin, Ein, finish her most recent kill. He is then taken and brainwashed to become Inferno’s next assassin with no memory of his past.
Kimi ni Todoke is an anime adaption of Karuh Shiina's romance shoujo manga serialized in Bessatsu Margaret. The manga won the Best Shoujo award in the 32nd annual Kodonsha Manga award, and was nominated for the first Manga Taisho award. The show aired in Japan from October 6, 2009 to March 30, 2010, totaling 25 episodes. A second season was released a year later in January 11 and ran until March 30. A live action film was also released in August 25, 2010.
Demons, demon wolves, grim reapers, Victorian England, murder, and melancholy: these are what you’ll get in droves with Black Butler. Heir to the Phantomive estate and toy company, Ciel Phantomhive is a young boy who lost his parents years ago and formed a pact with a demon cum butler, Sebastian Michaelis, to avenge them. When Sebastian finally kills those responsible for murdering the late Mr. and Mrs. Phantomhive, he will consume Ciel’s soul. Trust me, you won’t be able to explain this show to your friends without using the word "melancholy."
We will now review Dragon Ball Z KAI Part Seven released by FUNimation. Wait, stop, just keep reading! This set contains episodes 78-88 in two DVDs that cover the ending of the android saga and the beginning of the cell games. I know that people who read this will think of two things: slow paced fights and Mr. Popo turning blue, but that is not the case. The fights move at a faster rate then the original Dragon Ball Z episodes and Mr. Popo is not blue. Mr. Popo’s color change only takes place in the Toonzai CW version and not the FUNimation release of Dragon Ball Z KAI.
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Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood: the Sacred Star of Milos (Blu-ray/DVD) Review
JM Alcala
When the final episode of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood aired in Japan in 2010, a teaser showed up once the credits finished rolling. Eagle-eyed viewers spotted that there would be an upcoming movie in 2011; on November 2010, the first teaser trailer aired on the official website. In 2005, the first Fullmetal Alchemist movie, Fullmetal Alchemist the Movie: Conqueror of Shamballa, was released in order to tie up the loose ends from the first series while the second movie, Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos is actually set within the middle of the manga storyline.
A direct sequel to last year’s release of Heaven’s Lost Property, Heaven’s Lost Property: Forte is a great example of a sequel improving on the quality of the original. Much like Francis Coppola’s Godfather II, as fun and entertaining as the first series was, the sequel improves on it in both story and entertainment value.
If you were given a sexy, busty, female android who would do anything for you, what would you do with her? If you’re anything like me, you would make her get down on her knees and give you fanservice. Not that kind of fanservice you sick minded person, but rather “fan” service as in using a traditional bamboo hand fan to cool off. Hey, it’s hot here in California and I have a robot that will do whatever I want! That’s the premise behind FUNimation’s fourteen-episode ecchi series, Sora no Otoshimono or Heaven’s Lost Property, where run-of-the-mill protagonist Tomoki Sakurai gets the chance of a lifetime to experience true bliss and yes, he’s a lucky bastard for it. At first, though, he finds the idea rather repugnant.
As of February 14th the, .hack series has returned to American audiences nationwide in the form of a three episode long OVA series called .hack//Quantum. FUNimation Entertainment announced they had grabbed the license for this particular installment in the .hack world during Anime Atlanta last year, and have just released the OVA as a pretty Blu-ray/DVD combo. It has been awhile since I’ve seen anything related to the .hack series since I watched the first episode of .hack//roots when it first aired in Japan. However, I have been a big fan of .hack//sign and was eager to give .hack another try.