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Over the past few months, I have watched many good anime, but none of which I would consider fantastic or that would be a contender for one my all time favourites. But then I watched Baccono! and it has been the exact anime I've been looking for all summer; absolute entertainment that sets it apart from anything i had ever seen before.

Baccono! takes place on the train The Flying Pussyfoot, which comes attack and has many people fighting for their lives against armed terrorists and a mythical monster. Also it’s about two mafia families at war with each other. And a little girl searching for ... the whereabouts of her brother. And a group of alchemists trying to secure the secret of immortality. And each of these stories take place in a different time zone told at the same time as each other. Plus the fact it’s not told in a chronological, linear fashion, with the end at the beginning, and the middle all messed up makes it both unique and confusing. But it managed something I wouldn't have thought possible, all of the times zones ended up connected in a way that everything makes sense by the final episode.

The anime doesn’t really focus on one single main character throughout its 13 episodes, but instead it switches constantly from the gangsters to the alchemists; to the passengers of The Flying Pussyfoot and the psychotic killers. It would be impossible to list them all but a worthy mention has to go to Issac and Miria for being two of the most likeable characters as well as being some of the best comic relief I have ever seen.

However one problem with this unique style is that in the first half, you are just gonna be extremely confused. It will be hard to keep track of characters names or what gangster family they are part of, or who is immortal or not. But at the end it doesn't really matter, as it does become clear.

Now the majority of this anime is set in 1930's New York, so I would recommend watching the English dub. Not only is it very good, but it created the feeling that I was watching a gangster drama, rather than an anime. So in a way it's like Cowboy Bebop as they is barely a trace of anything remotely Japanese. Plus the opening is not a standard J-Pop affair but is really jazzy., which suits the setting perfectly.

Ultimately the reason why I love this anime is that manages to make everything work, from its bad ass actions, to its different setting: to the psychotic characters to the whiny, insecure ones. Everyone and everything develops really well and I just love the combination of action with plenty of gore, drama and comedy, and even some mild horror and romance. They all come together and form a fantastic anime. This is definitely an anime that I will not only watch again soon but also deserves its official release purchased as soon as possible.

I think I could pretty much summarise what was going through people's heads when they watched the first season of Higurashi: what the fuck is up with this show?! The entire main cast, which on the surface appeared the average Joe, developed a serious case of insanity, which would result in a barbaric bloodbath. It made for excellent, yet sometimes nauseating entertainment, yet we still didn’t have a clue on why this messed up stuff was happening. I love a good mystery and that’s exactly what it proved to be. It wasn’t perfect but I hoped that the second season would make the franchise even ... better. Well there’s good news and there’s bad news.

Let’s start with the good elements first, which is primarily the solution the show provides it audience to the many, many questions. We finally discover whether the curse of Oyashiro is the retribution of a wrathful god who has been killing off the enemies of the village or not. There’s this brilliant plot twist half way through the anime that not only sheds light on this issue, but is just so shockingly unexpected. As for the other mysteries, the answer to why people are going insane, is a little bit far- fetched when you first hear it but in the wider scope of the plot it actually works pretty well. Overall I feel that the answer s that are given makes the first series even better, as I can tell it’s been well thought out and written brilliantly. Everything just slips into place by the end.

The whole repeated cycle of time that was used for each of last series’ arcs is present here once again. Not only is it explained why time is in a seemingly endless cycle but it’s actually used better. How it was used last series was basically seeing many of the same events from a different angle or seeing how a different event may have any effect on others we know about. It was all about focusing on different perspectives of the victims or the murderers of the show. It was very good mechanic to the whole first season and I’m happy that Kia has made it even better. Of course most arcs would result in either Rika Furde’ death or the release of a deadly virus, and with Kia, we see Rika trying to prevent this from happening. This brings us to another important observation between the two seasons; the characters.

If you haven’t read my review for season one, what I really liked about the main cast was that they were just the normal stereotypical anime character and the show had them do the most insane, inhumane things imaginable, usually against one another. Series two doesn’t do this, at least to the extent of torturing and murdering a loli, or cutting corpses into pieces. Heck, the craziest thing we see serial offender Shion do is hit someone with a chair... which they shrug off as if it was nothing. What the show does, and does well is show just each of the main cast is capable of great inner strength, against the odds that seem monstrous or impossible to defeat. A personal highlight of mine was when Satako finally stood up to her abusive uncle and how everyone gives it their all in order to help Rika. And it all happens without excessive violence committed by them. This makes the overall message of the show you must not resort to illegal methods in order to help others, and that everything, to con artists and fate itself can be overturned by the bonds of friendship. Its sounds cheesy, and isn’t even something that’s new to anime. But it does work pretty well.

Despite the praise I have for the plot and characters, there’s one major flaw with it; the atmosphere. Now some people may be able to live without it, thanks to the reasons I mentioned above. But fans like me who relished the horror of this show will feel let down. I was on the edge of my seat for almost the entire first season. With Kia I wasn’t, due to the horror just not being present at all. It doesn’t even try to be scary. The show spends too much time uncovering the mystery, for there to be room for this atmosphere.

At the end of the day, I think if you just want some answers, then you will probably really enjoy Higurashi Kia. But if you care more for horror, you will be definitely disappointed. Personally I’ m always going to regard season one as the better series, because it was scary which made it stand out from anime I had seen before.

Well I hope you enjoyed reading this review. Please let me know if you found helpful or if you have any comments on it.

Have you ever bothered by the slice of life genre? I don't mean in just anime, but in other television programmes like soap operas or a romantic comedy film. Personally I find a great deal of it mundane and just plain dull to watch. Let's use K-ON as an example. Now I really like this anime. The music is good and there’s plenty of good light-hearted comedy. But the one area I find it the most weak in is its take on the slice of life. It’s just very standard, nothing special, something that anyone could whip up. I can understand that mostly life is ... like that, but I just don’t think it can be very good entertainment This is not the case with Higurashi. In fact the end result is quite the opposite.

What this anime has done is taken one of the most common elements of anime we have seen throughout its history: the loli character. The cute young girl stereotype, the one individual who from the audience point of view would never harm a fly. That stereotype has been ripped to shreds by this anime. And does it so brilliantly.

The anime is told through a series of arcs, following the encounters of a close group of friends, the majority of which could be filed under loli or at least something close to it. But as time goes by, each are reveals that each one of them has skeletons in the closet which, when discovered drastically change the dynamic of their relationships, whether it be friendship, family or love. Everyone has their lives derailed in an insane manner.

And the way that this is one is just fantastic for the slice of life genre. To begin with anyone could be fooled into believing its simple school/slice of life anime, the kind of one that can be found almost anyway these days. Then BAM! This illusion is shattered, whether it is what a person suddenly says or a certain event. The atmosphere changes form pleasant everyday scenario to having you on the edge of your seat. And from that point you are left like that. Higurashi has become a ticking time bomb with the viewer completely aware of it, yet at the same time wondering could possibly change these almost princess peach style characters, to psychotic murderers who would stab Bowser in the face if he so much as coughed within a few metres. It's intriguing to watch but also scary: the first anime to actually do so which is impressive in itself for me.

But the good stuff doesn’t stop there. There's this real feeling of mystery about the whole series, about why the girls have all turned psycho, and the background events that occur. And as the series progresses, pieces of the puzzle slip into place, something will happen that will destroy all your detective work and cause to revaluate it again and again. I really liked this, because if it were easily solved, I feel that some of that atmosphere, that tension would have been lost. The series just feels like pure chaos at the end with no obvious solution to some of the biggest questions. And in this lies the fear of something unknown. In fact, the only thing I know for certain is that I'm never gonna be able to look at the loli stereotype in the same way again.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this review and please give me any feedback on it.

A good friend first told me about this manga months ago and it various traits; the vampires and monsters, the school setting and the fact it was meant to have a action sub genre instantly reminded me of the American hit Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It was a really cool show that worked really well and I had expectations back then that R+V would be the same. Sadly though I later had a bad experience on how to ruin the same concepts listed above. And of course I don’t think you even need half a brain cell to know what I’m referring to is the ... Twilight series. God I hate it, with its emo, disco ball vampires, to its laughable werewolves, and just plain god damm awful characters and themes.

So when I made the decision to start reading the manga I was extremely cautious. And by the time I had finished reading it I honestly had mixed feelings about it.

Let's get the sticky question that I had hovering over me when I began reading: is the main character, Moka, actually a vampire? The answer, thankfully, is yes... well kind of. She's definitely no Edward Cullen but she isn't on the same level as Alucard from Hellsing, who I feel is the embodiment of a good classic vampire of the night.

I' m gonna have to go into spoiler territory as to why this is the case so if you don’t won't to be spoiled stop reading right now!

When the two leads, Tsukune and Moka, meet, the writer does this really good gag with how Moka's vampire nature burst through and she bites Tskunene's neck , but rather than doing it in the bloodthirsty traditional way, but it’s done with comic effect making it first appear as though she gonna embrace him. This scene is used again and again throughout the series and forms one of the best running gags I've seen. It not only funny, but it serves as a really good twist of the traits of a vampire.

So the comic relief concerning the vampire lead is good, because it actually funny but also stopped me worrying about the issue I mentioned earlier. Oh but we aren’t nearly done yet, because the best is yet to come. You see, Moka' true vampire form is actually sealed away in the form of a rosary. Vampires are weakened by crosses in their mythology, even more points scored for her and the writer in my book. Though not many as I will now sink my teeth into the other issues of this manga

The other main characters, is Tsukune who is the only human in a school full of monsters , and said monsters often try to kill him or his other classmates . Interestingly despite being human, he seems to think he would make an adequate hero or even human shield when trying to save or protect others. If I didn’t know better I would have thought he had some kind of death wish. I mean, here he is, the only human in a school of monsters, and on a daily basis seem to try and kill him. And he just shrugs off any attack. If I was in his shoes, I would run home crying to mummy. But no, simply having a gorgeous vampire potential love interest who likes to feast on your blood will make it all better. In writing it appears funny, but really it’s just stupid.

But of course Tsukune’s idiotic behaviour has a rather unwelcome effect on other female characters, which make up a harem. Yes, a monster harem! Now this could have worked, if the other girls had been even likeable. We have to contend with Kurumu, who’s a succubus or the term slut would be more accurate. She forms the vast majority of the ecchi genre; by often getting her tits out whenever she sees or even thinks Moka and Tsukune are have a cosy moment. Then, there is Yukari, who’s a witch, but sadly also, the loli of the harem. And last there’s Mizore a yukki- onna, which is a being with ice powers. But again she would be better described as a stalker. Though to be fair to her, this attribute of her is actually rather funny, as she would often appear in the most random of places, so she always made me chuckle.

The odd thing is that even though they oppose each other at first, they do come together as friends. But this doesn’t change the fact they all want Tsukune , the human shield, and will just bitch at each other. Never mind the bonding we share throughout the series. Let’s just bitch about a man rather than do the honourable thing and just get over their feelings for him. It seems clear as day that Moka and Tsukune will get together, so much that the other characters do is just hindrances to these two least annoying people getting together. I could try to see that the writer was trying to be funny with the concept of harem, but I barely laughed at any of these scenes.

And now finally there’s the plot, or the lack of it be precise when you do read the first chapter, expect almost the exact same thing to happen almost endlessly. It’s so formulaic and repetive down to the scenarios, to the generic school bully villains, the really frustrating combat, that just so dull. Inner Moka just seems to get an instant knockout with a single kick, in fact sometimes I would feel she just wants the reader to see up her short skirt rather than fight generic henchmen.

Now that I got the bad stuff out of the way, I will admit that the design for many of the monsters is very good, many of them ranging from many different mythologies all over the globe. This I quite liked, making it only one of the few things I liked about this series. I mean even when this series does slightly improve along the way it only really very average, and just very predictable. Moka was the only one I actually liked, both her true vampire form and her general personality. It a real shame it’s not enough to compensate for a manga series which at its best is average and at its worst is terrible and frankly rather annoying.