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It was in the early 90s, when TV stations in Germany realized that there was a market for Anime in the west, before that time we only had shows like He-Man or Saber Riders, they were fun to watch but their main focus was on fast paced action and a paper thin story. That's probably one of the reasons why I was fascinated by the tale of the courageous Mila(that was the protagonist Kozue's name in German), a fragile girl on a journey to overcome her health issues to become the best volleyball player there is. The theme was rather dark at times, so to ... me it was a completely different experience compared to the action packed American animation shows. That said, there was enough action to be found, I remember being quite surprised as to how interesting watching something like volleyball could be and my younger self got quite invested in the sometimes episode length volleyball matches.

I never was a sports guy and watching sports events on TV felt boring and dull to me, especially if it wasn't something like car-racing for example, where at any minute there could be a fabulous crash, I didn't really think about the consequences of human life's ruined or lost by such accidents as a kid. However in Attack No.1 there were also accidents but they were much more intimate and it had a lot of "put your life on the line" scenes, like most Anime after and probably before it. I don't want to spoil too much about the story though, not that I really could as I was watching this anime almost 3 decades ago and am planning on re-watching it in the near future.

So what's it all about? Kozue is a transfer student at the start of the Anime and quickly finds her way into the schools volleyball team, impressing the coach with her innate talent, that naturally brings about some rivalry with the current top dog in the team. Kozue finds herself challenged by balancing school, social life and sports from the get go. Trying to make friends at a new school and also training to make her mark as a top volleyball player, while not failing in school is no easy task after all. In the later episodes, when Kozue grows up, we also see romance unfold but I can't go into much detail here, from what I remember it was a love triangle story of sorts, nothing special but still enjoyable I guess. So, yeah, besides Kozue's injuries and her fight to be accepted by her peers, there was more than enough drama to be found.

I wouldn't consider Attack No.1 to be the perfect Anime but you will probably not regret finding the time to watch a 100+ action and drama packed episodes of Kozue's way to the top. She's truly a great main character but by no means perfect which makes her struggles all the more relatable in my opinion.

Why did I gave this a 10 while the two seasons scored lower? Simply put: This Movie is a masterpiece if you've watched the first two seasons completely you will simply be blown away! While I didn't like the series because of the almost non existing plot(other than there being espers, aliens and timetravelers) I still watched them for being quite unique and fun and for the cheerfulness of haruhi, which shines in the movie like never before, even though she doesn't appear that much.

So Why is it a 10? It's because this Movie has a really good Story, characters that shine and is really ... enjoyable to watch(also compared to the series). I will keep this short, cause it's 4 am in the morning and I made the mistake to think that movie lasts only your average 90 minutes and am quite sleepy now. In fact it felt like 90 minutes to me, time passed rather fast watching this masterpiece. I highly recommend everyone to watch this movie after seeing at least season 1 of the original show, watching season 2 as well isn't really necessary because there aren't that many references to it(at least as far as I remembered).

The Character Development in the movie was really something, if you're a fan of the two seasons before then you will be blown away by the things that happen here, I won't spoil anything though and will go to bed now :) - I might enhance this review later or earlier by traveling back to time to warn me, to not watch an almost 3 hour movie about some crazy world at 1am in the morning, cause I will lose the sense of time while watching it :)

Well I shouldn't have had high expectations to start with but I thought the average scores for it had no real basis, oh man, was I wrong!

First 12 EPS: 8/10 - The Rest: 3/10 - Conclussion: 5/10 - It's watchable but not really enjoyable if you watch it completely, it tries to develop characters but they just feel unreal and you don't really care what happens to them other than perhaps Inori, but even she loses much appeal after the first 12 Episodes...

The Anime clearly tries to go the way Code Geass went. The only problem here is, that the main protagonist isn't fit for ... the role of Lellouch and the Anime overall wasn't able to build up any relationship with the characters as a whole.

They should have made this a 13 EP Anime with a good Ending EP instead, then it would be worth an 8 I think. That way it's just a 5 for mediocre, with a stupid plot and uninteresting characters but at least with good visuals and audio.

Bleach is a mixed bag, I'd love to give it a 8 for the first 63 Episodes which where really good, with a bit too long fights though. They could've easily made bleach a 36 EP Anime and I might have given it a 9 for being pretty amazing.

But they didn't. If you want to watch bleach then enjoy the first arc, the first 63 EPs and stop it. I don't know how many of the 360 EPs are fillers, but my guess is 50% or more. In This Anime there are actually only 2 Arcs that matter and those two are the first 1-63 ... and the second stretched around the next 300 Episodes filled with endless flashbacks and side stories no one cares about.

The second story arc isn't really bad to start with, the main problem is it's endless length and that is interrupted with many many fillers that don't really contribute to the story in any way and flashbacks that tell the story of gaining ability XY to finish that enemy off. Worst of all seems to be the pacing, if there aren't fillers or flashbacks, then there are fights that are fought not only one episode, but 3-10 episodes! How do they manage this? Easy! They give you a summary of what happened before in every episode, that summary is so long that about 10 minutes including the intro are not contributing to the story at all...

If bleach where a 63 Episodes Anime, it would have been great. But it isn't, the first 63 EP deserve at least an 8/10 the rest a 2/10 - on average it should have been a 5 but honestly after watching 330(or so I don't really know) EPS to see the second(and final) arc ending, I can't rate it anything higher than 3.