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Ok so..

I see that there are a lot of big anime franchise names coming around, such as Code Geass again, plus Dies Irae and a few other slick sort of kinda medieval-ish ones... and then like a bunch of other ones but really there's only one I care about and it's this anime...

Fate/Apocrpyha is like a friend described it the B heroes from history anime, sort of like the Fate series in general. The cool thing about Fate/Apocrypha though is that unlike Unlimited Blade Works, Fate/Stay, and Fate/Zero, Fate/Apocrypha seems to actually embrace the B hero status. It doesn't try to turn these people into ... massive superheroes.

Instead you get characters like Mordred who is easily my favorite Fate character, pretending to be a cat, cursing out anyone who refers to her as a woman as a kind of weak indicator, and I think her character design was really cool with the kind of slightly dirty blonde impression.

Plus, Jeanne D'Arc as ruler and a big eastern influence with Frankenstein, Vlad Teppes, and others.

Also Fate/Apocrypha changes the formula somewhat by having teams and different sides, and kinda goes right to the action..

The biggest weak point in my opinion is the repeat of Fate/Zero's purely sociopathic caster in the form of Fate/Apocrypha's caster, meaning Fate/Stay's caster is still probably the most interesting caster hero.

I'm not a Fate superfan or incredibly knowledgeable but I do know out of all the anime going on this one was/is the most interesting and I almost couldn't care less about all the other ones.

Sailor Moon is the GOAT

Why Sailor Moon is the GOAT

Ok, people, this is it, the ultimate, the final countdown, the experience you have all been waiting for, in the game of comparison of anime to this and that. Here ye, all, Sailor Moon is the BEST manga/anime ever and this is why.

The story of Sailor Moon is simple.

Yes, it’s just simple, a child could understand it. It’s the story of Tsukino Usagi, who is a 14 year old middle school student, she loves ice cream, talking cats (well, it’s an off and on relationship), video games. She’s friends with a wide array of people, ... a hardcore Otaku, a girl kind of next door personality. While frosty at first, she also makes friends with a super genius (Mercury), a level disciplined girl, (Mars), a back and forth with a fiery personality (Jupiter), a cool beauty queen (Venus).

In the process of forming these relationships and friendships, she becomes more and more confident and certain of herself, eventually becoming a super sailor guardian, and accepting her destiny as guardian of the universe and her role in defeating the anima-mates, the completely awesome group including Lead Crow, Iron Mouse, Aluminum Seiren, and others.

If you are keeping track, the story of Sailor Moon is kind of like a representation of Ancient Greek mythology. In the earliest Greek stories, Uranus was the cosmos, and the bringer of light and hope and such chaos, or what existed before. The triumph of light and hope over chaos is what spawned Ancient Greek civilization, as well as the titans, whose names and such litter Sailor Moon (Artemis, Luna, etc)

Of course, it’s more like, the Japanese representation complete with all kinds of bits and pieces that make it more like an enjoyable romp.

Honestly though, you can scour… not just manga… but ANY media, whether that’s film, television, etc, all these things, and you still will be pretty hard pressed to find anything that offers the effortless emotional brilliance and characterization/etc of Sailor Moon.

All the characters manage to feel real, they explore people’s weaknesses and frustrations, but don’t exaggerate them for comedic effect, they explore people’s courage and heroism, but don’t overestimate or overstate any one person’s role in creating an ultimate result.

In modern society, we have the concept of the unique individual, who triumps, unassisted over all the odds and such everywhere, they don’t need help from anyone, for they are the invincible deliverer of justice.

Sailor Moon makes the opposite point, there is no society without people, Usagi, the ultimate one who does, ok I guess it would be a spoiler, but suffice to say she is always relying on others. Later, the outer senshi are pivotal in the struggle against Galaxia, without their aid, it is likely she would simply perish.

It also is frankly the funniest manga/anime I’ve seen, funny because… they aren’t simply jokes intended to lighten the mood, they’re actually quite literally funny, or because you laugh to be nice, they’re just downright hilarious. The tiffs between Mars and Moon are my favorite in the series, but there are dozens of examples.

So imagine if you (lets just say, male otaku... something) had a girlfriend who was actually funny? Pretty cool, huh.

But in all, it just comes down to the fact that Usagi is ultimately just kind of a normal girl/person, with real fears/expectations and desires, she loves boys, but is also sensible enough about the deeper meanings and possibilities behind the connections. She wants the best, but doesn’t fret, and above all, she tries to understand and get along with different kinds of people.

This my friends, is a divine being.

Anyway, Madoka is great, Dragon Ball Z is awesome, Berserk is deep and mysterious, Evangelion strains to reach something deeper, Baka to Test is hilarious-ish, your favorite hentai/harem of choice is gloriously pornographic.

But what unites it all? The answer is simple, Sailor Moon, the pinnacle of manga, and the original anime frankly you can roam around, to all kinds of places, all kinds of histories, all kinds of stories, but you simply aren’t going to find something quite like this…. Ignore it at your peril…. Accept it to your pleasure.

Also I’ve not seen SM crystal but it looks bad, who knows though, for sure... maybe try it at some point.

Postscript in my opinion, the weakest character in the entirety of manga/anime has to be Mamoru (Tuxedo Mask), he starts of strong, but as the manga/anime goes on he becomes increasingly inept. I think perhaps, Usagi never really found the right guy for him, but being who she is, I'm sure she was able to accept and understand them anyway, yeah? Yeah!

Also for modern anime that capture the essence of SM pretty well, see Heartcatch Pretty Cure because that anime is awesome.

Madoka is nice too, don't get me wrong, this isn't a competition, or is it a competition, I don't know, just don't let people's opinions of things get in the way of enjoying your life, or favorite character, favorite manga, favorite anything.

Ultimately, anime and manga are like anything, they are propelled by their fans, the sharing and enjoyment is really the most important thing, when it's all said and done. Stories can unite, but the only true stories are the ones about people in the first place.

I would say that isn't really a problem for most people, but you know, PSA!

Code Geass! R1! This was quite an intense anime, I don't think I've seen anything this intense since possibly Evangelion or something around there. It's a very aggressive thing and kind of gets pretty crazy at times but at the same time I liked different parts of it so.. here we go.

Code Geass is basically about the story of Japan during an era of rule by a country that is very powerful and rules over a lot of the world, and Japan has a lot of conflicts within itself and outside.. it's basically not the best time, you could say...

In the middle of ... this, Japan rebels and is defeated, and this is where Lelouch Lamperouge, the central character in Code Geass, comes in..

Interestingly, Lelouch is actually not from Japan but a prince, but a very low level one, who came to Japan with his sister Nunally. There, he makes friends with Suzaku, the son of the prime minister of Japan and this is kind of the main backstory for Code Geass, the story of Code Geass is really one of Lelouch (and intermittenly) Suzaku's kind of rebellion in order to make Japan a more independent country against Lelouch and Nunally's original country and their father.

Lelouch was kind of interesting to me because he was seemingly often apathetic but then at times would be fairly nice and cool to be around simultaneously, like he was kind of very hot and cold type of personality, although you definitely frequently saw the cold and dark side.

So that's a lot of the backstory, but a lot of tha tin Code Geass tells you about the rest of the anime as well, and there are indeed a lot of points along that trip, trials and tribulations for all parties, to say the least...

..but the odd thing I can never really shake off is how similar Lelouch was in many ways to his father and the other country he came from, in many ways everything he did within his organization was similar to how it was done in his other country.

The thing is everytime Lelouch would be mean and freak out and blame someone for this or that, you could see like dealing with just his crush on Shirley you can see a more just kind of straightforwardly human side, so I kept watching.

Then.. wow.. I think up until very near the ending, I thought Lelouch and his friends were at least kind of interesting, maybe not always likable.. but it often seemed like they were somehow trying to find a way to make amends with their rulers so as to have like a better life and there was a lot of conflict, and they weren't always doing things so well, and things weren't always going so well, and it wasn't still my favorite anime at that point mind you it was still just kind of not fun, BUT I think a like a low 8 is pretty good for R1, because it did kind of engage me, and you did see some nicer sides to the characters and stuff.

However, R2 is completely different, and part of the reason comes at the very end of R1, which for spoiler and others reasons, I think should just be a part of "R2" which wow R2 was no fun at all, because without spoiling too much everything kind of flies off the rails in the last part, and that continues off into R2 which was really just not very fun to watch.

Because of all that, I was tempted to make Code Geass R1 like a lower score, but it came basically so far at the end I thought it was better to just lump that in with R2.

So even though R1 kind of ended strangely, I was still ok with it being like an 7, it wasn't my favorite anime, but it was kind of interesting at least if not necessarily fun at times.

Anyway! Phew, long review, but you know another thing is I think in terms of more gray kind of characters I still prefer like D from Vampire Hunter D, and so on, just because I feel like if you subtract out a lot of the political stuff Lelouch isn't super different from D it seems to me at the core.

On the other hand, I watched another kind of politically heavy anime Legend of the Galactic Heroes, which featured another kind of tortured figure in Reinhard Von Lohengramm, and honestly I'd have to say I'd probably prefer CG to LotGH, primarily because I feel like LotGH was kind of jarring at times with how screwy things get , I don't really know how to phrase it or summarize as a point here exactly but CG seemed to emanate more power a bit.

And in the interests of explaining the big thing about R1 and R2 I'll go with the spoilers past this point.

(SPOILERS FOR end of R1/R2)

Um I should totally write a separate review for R2 for this, but all I can say is that ending make like NO sense to me jeez his whole "All the hatred is focused on me" was a total cop out excuse there was no way that was the plan, because I mean one of the things that happened in R1 was the Geass malfunctioned when there was peace with Euphemia, and then it's like everything went wrong and all that happened was a bunch of excuses blegh I'd give R2 a 6 but even that's being generous it might honestly be like a 5 or 4.

Even that whole malfunction thing was screwy I don't know it just kinda started to tear apart and I was like yikes this is crazy, but as this is overall a review for most of R1, I don't think R1 should be low for that.

Edit: DISCLAIMER - I was told "Aria: The Origination" was fun so I tried this one but apparently there are two seasons before this one that set context and stuff. So this is from the perspective of someone joining partway.

So, I came to this anime because it was reccomended via a number of different channels, including MAL. I had never heard of it before but I had some experiences with slice of life that worked out all right like Azumanga Daioh and Lucky Star.

The best way to understand to Aria the Origination is it's.... welll..... pretty much exactly like Azumanga Daioh and Lucky Star. ... Instead of the jokes and comedy Aria focuses more on a kind of lightly dramatic experience, the slice of life shown in Aria is one of a group of what the show calls "Undines" who are basically like gondoliers in Venice, which makes sense also when the town is called Neo-Venezia.

The most interesting thing about Aria to me were the characters, Alicia, Athena, Alice... it's all very Greco-Roman I take it. Each of the Undines has a different kind of temperament like you see in most anime, the strong one, the gentle one, the confident and slightly reckless one, the novice, etc, you kinda see that like... in a lot of anime, to be honest.

One other nice thing is it doesn't like over-tax itself you are just watching these characters and it's fun to just get to know them, but it's just pretty boring and modest at the same time. I guess it hurts to say that because it's so calm and gentle but it's just not as exciting as a lot of anime. In many ways, I think I prefer Lucky Star more because that one had some pretty funny moments and Azumanga had some interesting middle-drama flavor missing from Aria..

The thing is though, Aria does have some charming elements, it makes Neo-Venezia into this kind of nice city about a few stories, but it just kind of felt overbearing and distressing at the same time which is really weird, ultimately, I just didn't like it that much.

Did not dislike heavily, but wasn't a big anti-fan either.. so, a 6.

Haibane Renmei was all right.


I honestly feel like I should leave it at that, why complicate things...?

I guess maybe I felt like Haibane Renmei was trying so very hard not to offend me.. but to be honest I guess it kind of did.. it seemed kind of straightforward in some ways

Characters on a journey? Check.
Destination unknown? Mega check.
Trials and tribulations? Check.
...
But where is this journey, who are the characters? Where are they going? Well the answer is Rakka and Rekki, the women of the Old Home, a place in some kind of unclearly defined countryside or other surrounded by a wall, with angelic wings sprouting behind them. They do tasks for the local village and their mysterious elder-type figures known as the Tohka.

So, translated, that's angelic aspiring super good aspiring angelic people doing tasks in a giant house for their elder-type masters who control every aspect of their lives.

Ok, still not getting it??

This is basically just a heavily masked story of majordomo control complex! It doesn't really have anything to do with where these people are going, it's just intended to affirm the notion that there really isn't anything in the world these angelic female people should care about, and that obedience to the masked elder-type Tohka is of the highest and most extreme importance.

Yep, if you look closely the themes of Haibane Renmei are arch-conservative in nature and hence it can all be really quite boring. I'm not going to spoil the story by hopefully saying it doesn't really go anywhere beyond those points. It's an affirmation of the safe space, but it's told with such incredible force that if you weren't paying attention you might not notice it.

As is, I can't say I couldn't stand it because that's not true at all, but I thought it would be more fun based on the things I saw about it.

So I was thinking about how in general I've seen anime and stuff that had kind of grimdark anti-heroic sort of characters and sometimes it works and sometimes not so much, Vampire Hunter D is the former category, and it's also named Evangelion and consequently people might be sort of less familiar with it.

I saw it because a friend had it awhile ago and I believe it's technically Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, a movie which came out in 2000 which I'm pretty sure is this one so here's hoping..

Anyway! Vampire Hunter D is about the Vampire Hunter D, who travels the kind of ... bleak post-apocalyptic world in search of treasure and in the back, revenge. It's not so much a startling sort of experience but there is something sort of charming about D, like something beneath the wide brim hat and this kind of introverted quiet sense that shows it isn't so much an anti-heroic character but more like a partially heroic one...

So isn't so much a world and character without purpose or cause, but kind of just like a crooked moral compass, one that functions intermittently. He is sort of without purpose in the grander sense, why go and fight a revenge against this guy anyway, why not go a different direction, and yet there's something about all the staging and kind of theatrics that makes it sort of compelling anyway. It's kind of like watching Phantom of the Opera or something, it's just like this sort of stagey drama that is just kind of like a romp into the night or something, you know what to expect and kind of what you feel but you end up just sort of magnetized anyway.

I couldn't give Vampire Hunter D a super high score, because on the one hand he's really kind of a jerk at times, he's not really like a super good character, but at the same despite all those things it really is so much more compelling an anti-heroic (or as I say, partially heroic character) than so many other things like Yuno Gasai or whatever that girl's name was that are more like fake-dark type of characters.

It's like, it's wrong and weird, and yet, it doesn't matter too much at the same time, because there's something about the whole aura and experience that is somewhat compelling.

D himself like I'm saying.. just something about those brooding eyes and this like torturous sort of thing, like... it's like there is this constant sense of doing things that are kind of questionable along with a sort of awareness of that.

Also, I'm not really a fan of AMVs but in this case I thought this was pretty well done and thought I'd put it here to generically primp the thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybyU0pdIu4Y

So yeah, I can't really give it a crazy high score because it is just kind of a messed up anime, but it's like the "good" kind of messed up, so I gave it an 8.

That's kind of a weird way to summarize the situation, but I think what's what the grimdark antiheroism thing was all about in the first place, it's not a neat thing all together thing all the time, but it would be unwise not to pay it heed.

Sword Art Online was kind of all over the place, sometimes I was like WOW and didn't exactly get bored, but wasn't really having fun either... it was hard to summarize how I felt exactly.

Mostly, it wasn't that fun though.

SAO is basically the story of Kirito and a few friends that get trapped in an online MMO game. Now, at this point I vaguely recalled the likes of .hack and other MMO anime which, as far as I know, people really liked and were quite entertained.

However, SAO is not intended to be that kind of happy experience, instead Asuna was like I ... said kind of cool but then she doesn't really have a major impact, it's pretty much all Kirito, who can be pretty boring in some ways.

I guess at the same time though it was kind of fun at times, for whatever reason the main friend of Kirito Klein throughout the whole thing was pretty amusing, he kept getting all upset and annoyed at Kirito and Asuna for being so reckless and crazy and I was like yeah no kidding!! He was really not a main character though which was one of the issues, I guess it just seemed like Asuna and Kirito were both just so into each other and then there's Klein like HEY GUYS THIS IS CRAZY. I guess he was like the voice of reason basically.

But that was just a tiny bit in what was really just a VN of maybe a not so good video game. Call me picky (or the gamer in me or whatever) but SAO seems like one really boring MMO, really you level up and pick that many skills from a list, you fight boars outside a main quest town? Tolkien called, he once his thing back.

Ultimately I think a 6 is pretty good which is like somewhere in the middle, because really this was just not fun at times, but kind of fun at other times.

Madoka Magica was so BITTER and SAD, but it wasn't bad...

The thing with PMMM is that it's kind of really similar to Sailor Moon.. which is one of if not my favorite anime! It's about 5 girls who fight for justice and transform into different outfits that give them superpowers, so... it's almost identical at this point to Sailor Moon in many respects, but without much of the spaces in between and stripped down to fight monsters with special powers, ok well that did happen in Sailor Moon but there's a lot more to it, you know what I mean??

As PMMM goes along that ... really doesn't change, actually the best way the situation can be described is things start falling apart, which, is probably the safest thing I can say without spoilering anything..

It's not really clear who is fighting what, when, why, or how long, and the other magical girls aren't even necessarily justice oriented after awhile, and actually there are some major spoilers there.

I don't know want to be so negative, I think Madoka was pretty cool! Bbut there are so many details that are just missing that would make me really excited about it..

Anyway, while the other Sailor guardians such as Sailor Jupiter could be tempestuous or aggressive, hot-tempered, but that's not really the same thing as Kyoko Sakura who is often just wholly antagonistic and consequently becomes much more difficult to get behind, she isn't a mean person but..

I feel like they were trying to tell me "wait, she gets to be nice later on" but I just was waiting too long for that part. I think it's true a lot of people have a kind of mean and soft side.. but her and the other PMMM characters I felt like took awhile to be super friendly.

Overall rather than fight for justice these girls seem content to fight halfway, they are supposedly fighting against... it's a strange show I guess...

It's not all not fun though!

I think Madoka is just a bit too bitter and sad, but it's got a hopeful energy at the same time. Like i said, they have their moments, Homura in particular seems designed to kind of say, yes it's tough being a magical girl, but she sort of finds a way to make it happen anyway.

I think Madoka is an expression of sadness and despair but not a lack of hope, it is an interesting show.. it's really my favorite but it's all right!

Anyway, all things considered, a 6 seemed somewhat appropriate for Madoka... but it's very solid as a 6, certainly in no danger of falling.

Hunter X Hunter is pretty.. well.. it it makes no pretense about it being pretty similar to Dragon Ball Z, so it's about a kid and his journey to become a Hunter like his father, but to get there, he has to meet all these martial and fighting achievements in order to obtain that.

Ok, so... just getting to the point was not a major fan of HxH, it was fine, but there really wasn't a single thing that DBZ didn't do better so far as I could tell.

In fact, one character whose moves are based on arcane finance and accounting rules ... such as compound interest, which is like whoa! I mean I think HxH is almost like a comedy in some ways not so much like a fighting thing in Dragon Ball Z, but this seemed to go far off into an almost parody direction basically.

Anyway, most of the characters in HxH are jerks. Meruem? Jerk. The Phantom Troupe? All jerks. Gon's dad? Seems like a jerk. Everyone in HxH is just kind of this reckless jerk and they don't really seem to care who they hurt, just as long as they get to fight.

It's kinda similar to Death Note, in many ways, there is the give and take, back and forth, ripsaw and such that you have there, but also as in the review with Death Note it's missing that extra-intense kind of rage really and chaos of Dragon Ball Z that made it so unique.

Instead, it's kind of replaced with this sort of mellowed out kind of genuine feeling but nonetheless not quite as exciting sentiment. There would of been a lot more to say about HxH if it came prior to DBZ, but as was not the case can only simply say it is simply like a very, very lite version of DBZ.

On the positive side, though, some of the characters could be sort of fun at times like Kurapika, Leorio, and Gon.

I think in some ways Killua is kind of the character that made HxH just not fun for me, it was really terrible how he would just assassinate people in the anime and not really feel anything about it. Gon was ok I think but Killua I just couldn't really get behind it at all in the end.

I think HxH is like that character that is super intense and knowledgeable about all kinds of things, but I can't help but think they were often that way because they were so afraid of things, what it was I can't say... but it just felt like there was a fear about the world or things that kept them in a state of great distress and such.

I mean, I feel like HxH could be realllly funny and engaging but it feels kind of stressed out dealing with certain things, I don't know, I feel like I should like it more or something but it just seems kind of troubled..

I didn't think HxH was bad really, but they really should have a nicer side to them or find one somewhere!

There is also a sense of emptiness that pervades other aspects of the anime, you don't ever get to see Gon's parents really for more than a few seconds or as part of a flashback. It's such an interesting comparison to DBZ also where Gohan and so on are such integral parts of the story...

Finally, there is the earlier version of HxH (96 or 97 I believe?) which based on the trailer and such looks quite a bit better.

Overall, Hunter X Hunter just felt pretty empty and distressing. So, a 6.

So I've written some pretty negative reviews about a lot of I guess kind of dark and bitter anime.. but here is an opportunity to make a more positive one! (Edit: I also edited to kind of change a few things.. sorry!)

NGE I remember people seeing it back when and it being renowned for being metaphysical, philosophical, perverted, goofy, running out of money, all kinds of stories and possibilities along with a controversial ending, and now the passage of time, seem to have obsfuscated this anime somewhat, which is a shame because it's still more interesting than a lot of those others which seem to ... have disappeared...

I think the thing about NGE is it is APOCALYPTIC. Sorry to use all caps there, ^_^. I mean, it's themes are very intense I think in many ways, the people of Tokyo-7 which is like this newer city built basically into the earth so that it can be defended against the attacks of angels, which are these crazy looking giant monster sort of things.

They are basically bent on reaching the internal level of NERV, which is like an Avengers styled secret defense agency which is like focused on defending against the Angel attack and so on and so forth.

The attacks sabotage and demoralize Tokyo-7 and it's citizens, all of them kind of suffering in the middle of this chaos. It's a very bitter and dark anime, lots of things go wrong and it gets really messy! However, I wouldn't say it was actually so un-fun as a consequence, in contrast to the idea that it was overly phiosophical or distant I thought it was interesting precisely because it was not metaphysical, philosophical, (particularly) perverted, or aimless.

No in fact what NGE demonstrates to me is some measure of restraint, and unwillingness to rely on particularly safe endings and instead opting for full destruction... and focuses more simply on people's day to day interactions and small differences of emotion or desire that make people better understand one another.

One part of Evangelion that people seem to take issue is this sense that the characters/ending are a bit chaotic and there's sort of this wild element, and that's sort of a running theme through the ending and what not, and which struck many as psuedo-philosphical and so on, and yet while true the series (and character) have a habit of spinning slightly out of orbit, it's never an excess that defeats the internal thematic power of Evangelion.

Moreover, the general tendencies for characters to spin out of orbit part and the chaos is part of the charm, the series isn't going to hold your hand, it's going to fly off the handle so if you want a more predictable experience better to stay away.

The funny thing is though even if you take all the aspects I don't like about NGE, add them together, and then take all the things I like it about it, there is still a fun thing there, despite it being fairly intense.

The best way to summarize Evangelion is that it's kind of like the ultimate "anime" anime, like, you are getting this experience of an anime at it's rawest, lots of the goofy elements, kind of there in raw form, the jokes, comedy (yes there are jokes and comedy), the kind of resentment towards traditional heroic themes.

It's easily the most intense encapsulation, the only other thing I've come across at similar intensity (for that kind of dynamic) is Bakemonogatari which is, for all it's theatrics, somewhat toned down.

So yeah. NGE was pretty interesting, but it's also not necessarily #1.. but if you are newer to anime and want to see one of the kind of core elements of it then you should definitely check out Evangelion because you probably won't find anything that expresses that ethos at a similar level.