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Back in my "Maison Ikkoku" review, I mentioned that it seems that fans have a tendency to neglect some of the old classics that made the creators they love big in the first place. Either that or they turn a blind eye to them, seeing as they're "old". I'll probably get some flack for all that, but it's just so prominent in today's anime fandom that the latest things out there are "the best anime ever" one day, and when "one year later" rolls its way by and/or when the series ends, it would be a thing of the past.

And the cycle ... goes on and on. This is the way everything in the media and life is unfortunately. But there are still series out there that can still be remembered by the vetran anime fans and are held in high esteem as being influential to many manga artists (Like "Dragonball" for example. Eiichiro Oda, one of the people influenced by DB went on to make "One Piece", which is freakishly popular in Japan), and "Urusei Yatsura" is no different. Heck, reruns of it still play on Japanese primetime and the manga gets reprinted constantly!

The story is about Ataru Moroboshi, who, as normal as he looks, is the unluckiest and most girl-crazy being in the entire universe. His mere existance attracts unnatural bad luck towards himself and the people around him.

But one day, Ataru comes home to see that the leader of a race of alien oni is sitting in his house. It turns out that he has been randomly selected by computer to race in the major sport of the Oni's planet: the game of tag. He's challenged to race the leader's daughter, the beautiful, tiger bikini-clad Lum. Ataru has to chase Lum for ten days and grab her horns, or else the race of Oni aliens will take over Earth.

This seems easy to Ataru at first...that is, until he finds that Lum can fly, taking the difficulty level way higher than he expected. On the night before the last day, Ataru's childhood friend Shinobu promises to marry him if he is able to win. Full of a new burst of confidence, Ataru grabs Lum's horns in the final minutes of the game and shouts, "NOW I CAN MARRY HER!!" Unfortunately, Lum misunderstands what he means and takes his victory cry as a marraige proposal to her, which she accepts promptly and starts calling him "Darling".

At first UY may seem like another "Love Hina" type of anime, where the show lives to only show fan service and nudity. Other then some little things and unexplicit nudity, the show's pretty clean, depending on which episode it is (there's only two I know of that featured nudity), but seeing the art quality and film quality making them look less detailed, I doub it'll infect anyone. Other than that, it's nothing else than what you would see on BayWatch: four alien chicks in bikinis.

Though it's definitely a good example of 80s anime. Sure, it's incredibly cheezy and the kind of funny that makes you laugh because of how dumb (in a good way) the show is, but it plays like a dream.

Another thing I might want to bring up is that some sites cite this series as a "harem anime". Sure, there's a bunch of women in it and a central male loser character, but keep in mind that most of the women in UY hate Ataru. Despite his barely controlable libido, Lum loves him no matter what. D'awwwww.

The story is very lighthearted and wacky, with all sorts of bizzare references to Japanese mythology and cheesy puns on the language. The artwork is colorful and very cartoon-esqué, but the main target that the show wants is plain fun. It creates a happy mood for the viewers and freely takes you on a random and crazy ride through all the characters.

"Urusei Yatsura" has probably one of the biggest casts out of Rumiko's other stories (next to "Ranma 1/2"). We have Lum's fire-breathing cousin Ten, who hates Ataru with a purple passion and will do whatever it takes to make Ataru look bad, Ran, a redheaded alien with a split personality, the noble Oyuki, the motorbiking Benten, and an assortment of many other weird monsters and aleins.

There's a good balance of humans too, like Shinobu, who can come across as sincere but can get so angry that she's able to lift ridiculously heavy objects and throw them, Lum's fanclub at Tomobiki High, consisting of a bunch of nerds that are ready to reprehend Ataru if he commits a misdeed related to Lum, Ryuunosuke, a girl raised to be a boy by her sexist father, the rich and handsome Shuutaro Mendou, and Ataru's (REALLY) whiney parents who do hardly anything but mourn that the wish they never had Ataru.

Take all these characters and put them in a regular environment, and it's one wacky romance-comedy thoughout all 195 TV episodes, 4 movies, and 6 OVAs.

But one thing that can strike someone funny is Ataru's character. He's a far cry from the meek yet determined Yusaku Godai, and Ranma Saotome and Inuyasha, who are characterized with bravery and great fighting skills.

However, as much of an idiot and a pervert that Ataru makes himself out to be, he's actually a very caring person, and an intelligent one at that. His legendary bad luck and resistence to injury has convinced him to be otherwise and that's the reason why he acts the way he does. And as much as he dismisses it, he truly loves Lum as much as she loves him.

With a strong amount of sotries and characters, along with loads of laughs and catchy songs and BGM, "Urusei Yatsura" is an anime that is particularly hard series to get bored of.

I find it a bit disheartening that most fans part of the "Rumic" niche are sometimes too focused on a lot of the hyped stuff and all the battles and action that come with it. I don't have anything against the new action series Rumiko creates or anything, but I feel that a majority forget that it was Rumiko's comedies revolving around romance that made her so well-known in the anime/manga world.

The story focuses on Yusaku Godai, a struggling, daydreaming student that is resident to a rundown boarding house "Ikkoku-kan". Godai is constantly being tortured ... by the other tenants whose main purposes in life seem to be making his life hell and have drinking parties in his room on a daily basis.

We have Hanae Ichinose, who probably loves consuming alcohol and gossiping more than life itself, Hanae's son Kentaro who thinks of himself as the only sane person in the boarding house, the peeping Mr. Yotsuya whose life is a complete mystery, and the redheaded, boozy bombshell Akemi Roppongi (who always seems to be hungover).

When Godai feels that he's at his breaking point with these people and decides to leave, he finds that the old manager of Ikkoku-kan left, and the new manager has just walked through the door with her bags. The beautiful manager is named Kyoko Otanashi and has been recently widowed, looking for work. While the other tenants don't find her to be much of a big deal, Godai takes great interest in the new manager, falling in love with her instantly.

The story revolves around Godai overcoming a lot of his personality flaws, like indecisiveness and being socially inept in some cases in order to prove himself worthy of being with Kyoko. However, like a lot of the pairings in Rumiko's works, there are twists in the pair's relationship and others get involved and tangled in some complicated messes. Like when Kyoko signs up for tennis lessons, the tennis coach Shun Mitaka falls for her also. He has looks, success, great ethical and financial background,...and is basically everything Godai isn't. This makes some complications for Godai and with two women that have their eyes on him as well as the nosy tenants miscarrying information, things get even messier.

For characters, Rumiko has proven to be a genius with handling them realistically and diversely in each series she makes. Sure, you feel a little "sameness" with some of them (like Inuyasha and Ranma Saotome, with their transformation problems, attitude and all), but what makes the characters practically human with complex personalities and relationships with each other.

The animation is about hte same quality as "Urusei Yatsura", which would be a little grainy and stretchy. But heck, this is pretty old, but the animation shouldn't turn people away from a gem like this.

The story of "Maison Ikkoku" is very touching and cute. The characters are mostly likeable, the development and progress of the story flows nicely. It's no wonder it's considered one of the best romance animes by so many.

It's funny. I'm not the type of person that would sit in front of the TV all day, watching CSI series, but somehow, "Detective Conan" really changed that outlook.

'Detective Conan" is about a teen detective by the name of Shin'ichi Kudo (known in the dub as Jimmy), who has a charismatic skill of solving crimes that leave the police force and its leading investigators baffled and astounded. One night, when Shin'ichi is at the amusement park with his childhood friend Ran Mouri, he whitnesses two strange men dressed in black carrying out an illegal trade. While watching, he's ... accosted from behind by one of the men, forcefed a drug intended to kill him, and knocked out.

When Shin'ichi wakes up, he finds that the drug didn't kill him, but has caused his body to shrink down to the size of a seven-year-old boy. Shin'ichi confides in his neighbor, the crazy scientest Hiroshi Agasa, who informs him not to tell anybody else about his condition for the safety of those around him and provides his with gadgets to help him around, such as a bowtie that can duplicate any voice and a wrist stun-gun used to put people to sleep. Shin'ichi then goes under the alias "Conan Edogawa" to conceal his identity. In order to get information about the men responsible for his small body, he lives as a surrogate brother to Ran and helps out her father, Kogoro Mouri, who is a mediocre detective with poor deduction skills.

Following Kogoro on cases assigned to him, Conan tries to help behind the scenes any way he can. The problem is that no professionals want to listen to a kid's advice, so "Conan" deducts as other work. After balancing out all the evidence, he gets everyone's attention through knocking Kogoro out with a stungun, hiding behind him, and dupliicating his voice while explaining the case.

While not that popular of an anime in North America (despite finding a fair audience among Americans), Conan has a great amount of success in Japan, spanning more than 450 episodes(and STILL GOING!!), 55 tankoban, 10 movies, and 16 OVAs.

At first I thought this anime wasn't all that interesting and was poorly animated (stopped thinking that after finding it was made in 1996), but after watching the dub more on Adult Swim, I got more attached to the characters, storyline, and everthing that made the show so admirable. For two years I watching both the English and Japanese versions, bought merchandise, and tried to work my way up to the current story development in the manga.

Leaving off the personal experience bits I thought about putting in, I'll get to the qualities that make "Detective Conan"such a favorite to the Japanese and other nationalities as well.

Now starting with the artwork, I'll have to go out on a limb and say that it can take some adjusting to at first, with the pointy, "barely-there" noses, the round eyes, and "jug ears" and all the other oddities in the art. It'll eventually grow on you, nonetheless. Also, the artstyle advances to higher quality in both the anime and manga as animation methods and improve as well as Aoyama's drawing skills, so the artwork still is able to better itself.

The background music for the series really gives it that "classic detective drama" feel. It's a combination of jazz, some saxophone jams both slow and quick, as well as some themes that play in the background on occasion. It sets teh atmosphere and tone for the format and purpose for the playing of the episodes.

The cast of characters starts to build thoughout the series, from the tough but sensitive Ran and the overconfident Kogoro to the brooding Ai Hiabara and the individual members of the Metropolitan Police Force. All of them have distinct personalities that may not develop quickly, but are interesting to explore while watching this long series.

The cases, murder cases, suicide cases, puzzles, kidnappings, and cases involving those men in black and their organization, are so brilliantly laid out. You just want to watch every darned bit of the episode to see the conclusion. The way Shin'ichi uses his logic in each episode just makes one think, "Whoa. This show's amazing." And the series can get somebody hooked with just deductions alone. However the episodes play out in almost the same format, kind of like Law & Order, with the same episode formula, but different twists and clever setups in the cases that keep viewers coming back for more every time.

Overall, "Detective Conan" is all that and a bag of chips, being possibly my ultimate favorite as well as the favorite of many other fans. It can be a bit boring for those that hate being overloaded with details, but mystery fans and intellectuals are bound to love it.