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Okay... now, how to mess with one of the most beloved anime franchises out there? Well, let me begin by saying that Gintama is outstanding. Some of its humor is probably the funniest I have ever seen in anime. Some of the running gags this show has provided will probably stay with me for the rest of my life. Justaway! JUST DO IT! NeoArmstrongCycloneJetArmstrongCannon!! All the good stuff.
The thing that breaks its back however is also one of the show's biggest virtues:
its transparency.
Let me explain.

Gintama introduces itself as a show about an alternative timeline Meiji era where aliens have taken over and ... modernized Japan's culture so that it almost resembles our present time. We meet Shinpachi, Gintoki, Kagura and the gang who have to deal with all kinds of problems in this unnatural society with its alien oppressors etc. Gintoki apparently has a tragic past in the war while Shinpachi is concerned with keeping his sister's doujo going. Blah. Anybody seen Rurouni Kenshin?

Not that it matters, though, since after a short while you realize that this is not at all what Gintama is about. It's more or less about a shounen series trying to keep itself from being cancelled. It's as meta as it can get. And that's great! Gintama puts its characters in the weirdest situations taking apart all kinds of shounen antics along the way. Having a showdown between your heroes and your villains? Why not let it take place on the public toilet where it's all about the last piece of toilet paper?! That kind of thing. The meta transparency goes as far as to allow the characters a short visit at Sunrise Studios to look over their animators shoulders (not even talking about Gintoki himself taking over the Gintama manga as a Jump editor assistant).

This is one side of Gintama. Besides some rather repulsive poop jokes and some inappropriately rude remarks on real life people, it's 10/10 ++ material so far. But there is another part of Gintama which poses as a counterpart to the silly parody nonsense. And that part irritates me everytime it shows up. Because from time to time, the quirky clever anti-shounen parody show turns into exactly the thing it is making fun of all the rest of the time:
a generic shounen show.

And generic it is. Here is how a serious Gintama arc usually works: A new character appears who is in one way or the other tragically bound to a member of the main cast. Said main cast person turns from a silly parody character to a tragic plot device with a traumatic past. The dull plot unfolds. In the end they fight. Gintoki does the final strike and says something righteous. The new character goes away again and nothing changes. After a ton of episodes of that apparently significant stuff nothing changes and we go back to the usual silliness.

Were it for a normal shounen type show I couldn't care less. It's the blatant obviousness of it all that perplexes me. In the comedy parts of Gintama the characters make fun of their own serious story arcs and explain how ridiculous the whole thing actually was, just to turn to another serious arc that repeats the pattern. I simply don't understand how to relate to any of this. How can I buy any shounen life lesson from a guy who in the rest of the show is depicted as the laziest and most unambitious person in the world? And coming back to Gintama's transparency: They are just characters in a show and they know it. Why should I care about any of their tragic pasts? I often enough found myself relating more to Gintoki's voice actor than to the character himself. It is a mystery to me why so many people highlight the emotional value of Gintama when the show itself depicts these drama moments as the generic shounen antics they are in the aftermath. That's like Son Goku going Super Saiyajin on Freezer after K****n's death, just to turn to the camera afterwards saying: "he's going to come back anyway, it's a shounen!". That concept doesn't work. If there is no emotional attachment to a drama moment, the drama does not work. Which is why in the later parts of Gintama I just found myself skipping through the serious arcs to soon come back to the comedy bits. Because they are not generic. Because they are worth watching.

Gintama is really two shows in one. Unfortunately enough, however, one is the parody of the other, drawing every bit of gravitas from it. That is by far the weirdest concept of a show I have ever seen.

Here's a little preface: I watched Evangelion 2.22 a long time ago. Just once. I couldn't handle watching it for a second time. Back then I thought it was the most horrible disfigurement they could have come up with for my favourite TV anime series. What happened in Eva 2.22 that appalled me that much? Please read the crazed rant I composed back then in an attempt to somehow express my anger and leave it all behind. But to sum up what happened in Eva 2.22: it trivialized. It basically took everything about the fascinating characteristics of the original and pressed it into bite-sized stereotypes. ... This review again will be deeply personal. But if you expect another rant for the next installment of the Rebuild series, I'm sorry to disappoint. It is true that I think it is even worse than the second one. But I don't have any energy left for anger. Just apathy. Let's get this over with.

What is it that we watch Neon Genesis Evangelion for? What is the decisive factor that polarized (and thus touched) so many and started so many debates? Is it the engaging mecha fights? Or the intriguing mystery about recreation and death? All the mystic shenanigans? It is true to say that all these perfectly executed elements shape the image of the original series. However, it is in fact the human aspect of Eva which always lifted it up and apart from all the other good anime out there. Characters interact with each other, show us their innermost personalities and weaknesses. It's a plea for the understanding of human fragility. Whereas other shows just glisten with the shiny (but eventually empty) message of "Get your act together! Be a man! Trust in your friends and all will be well!", Eva dared to show as a protagonist who cries, doubts himself and breaks under the pressure as a human being. It was criticised for that. No doubt it is scary to face your own weaknesses and realize you are actually a fragile construct instead of the blazing icon you'd like to see yourself as. I don't feel any disdain towards people who hated Eva for that. It's a truly human reaction. But you know what I hate? When the director who made me realize this basic aspect of humanity suddenly joins this group of people and tells me to "Get my act together!".

- The Characters:

In Eva 2.22 they replaced the beloved human characters of NGE with stereotypes. Bad enough. But at least they had some characteristics to relate to (even though only on the most basic of levels). Evangelion 3.33 replaces almost all of its characters with some kind of John Connor No Future variation. A version of the character who's heart is closed. Forever. Love has failed and hate prevails. Apparently, Hideaki Anno and his friends lost the slightest bit of interest in who these characters are or were. All we get now are tough, soulless war machines where once we had people of perceivable emotional warmth. I have a personal symbolic character for that: In seeing the new version of Ibuki Maya, I suddenly realized how much the insecure and inconspicuous desktop worker of the original series meant to me. Well, we don't have any of that anymore. Emotions are for kids. You don't want to be a kid. You want to be a man. Easy as that. Gaki Shinji now replaces Baka Shinji. Get your act together!

- The Story:

Again, it is something completely different from the original series. Yes, it again resembles the likes of Kill La Kill or Gurren Lagann more than anything Eva related. But that's old news. New news is that we now lost all traces of story relatability. It's a blatant mess. We have a mixture of inconceivable over the top action sequences, a lot of "the world has gone to heck and it's your fault" trash talk and some slice of life content inbetween. Not much makes sense. It actually left me quite speechless and it's hard to say anything about it. My biggest guess is that after boiling down Eva to a run-of-the-mill Mecha Shounen in the last movie, they wanted to recreate some of the mystery and grit of the original series. That being said, it's not like you cannot understand the plot. But it's not really leading anywhere. It's also not something that you can or want to think about, because it's just impossible to relate to it in the first place.

- The Design:

Wow. Now that stuff is all over the place. The appearance and disappearance of weird objects, the sudden transformations of objects into other objects while particles fly through the air and the world turns upside down play a major part in the confusion within action scenes. Is it a design flaw if you cannot tell which is which and who is who? Probably. It's a pain to watch, that is for sure. And all in 3D. When in Eva 2.22 we had the problem of bad 3D cg models blending in on 2D backgrounds, this movie turns the table around and makes 2D drawings look out of place in the completely 3D rendered environments. You can say about 3D animation whatever you want, but please keep in mind that 3D animation is usually cheaper and less time consuming to make than traditional 2D animation. Everytime you see a 3D action sequence in this movie, it is thus basically a discount 2D animation scene. A proper scene that you have missed out on. As for the character design, it's Sadamoto again. And almost every character has their John Connor No Future design update. Oh, and Asuka is now wearing a wooly hat with cat ears on top. Kawaii deshou~? Get your act together!!

- The Final Conclusion:

Sorry for not going into as much detail as I did in my review on Eva 2.22, but I am sick and tired of this movie. It managed to sink even further down than its dreadful predecessor and not only trivializes the issues and problems of human interaction and intimate exchange of emotions, but actually actively tells me to forget all about it and grow up already. Don't show fear. Don't show doubt. Don't show pain. We don't give a damn about what you feel. Oh, and besides killing the original idea of the franchise it also illustrates absolutely no action dynamics, no story relatability, no real emotional character interaction, some really bad 2D animation (just look at the way Shinji moves while playing the piano. or at the inconsistency of Kaworu's design) and some horrible over the top videogame 3D sequences.
If it was Anno's goal, he finally succeeded in throwing me off this train. I am leaving the stage of the next and final Rebuild movie to the fans of random 3D action, nonsense mystery and style over substance. Eva is dead, baby, Eva's dead. In mind and matter.

---

Oh, I'm still going to watch it though, the next one that is. Whenever (and if ever) it comes out. And I will most probably be devastated again. I guess I won't be getting my act together anytime soon.

I suppose there are countless ways of approaching disability in fiction for contemporary authors. And countless ways to fail doing it. It is a rather difficult field to tackle with so many trapdoors to fall into and so many people to offend. How do we treat handicap in fiction? Is Daredevil really a blind man when he can actually sense whatever is happening around him due to superpowers? Is Professor X really a proper representative of people bound to wheelchairs when he can move whatever he wants with the power of his mind? And does it really matter?
Katsuhisa Kigitsu, author of the brilliant and ... incredibly repulsive dark satire manga series "Franken Fran", confronts us with Takahara Helen, a young girl who lost her speech, eyesight and hearing in a horrible car crash. She soon realizes, however, that she also developed a peculiar psychic power: she is now able to talk to her guard dog Victor through telepathy, turning him into her eyes and ears.
Instead of forcing the readers to pity the girl for her unfortunate situation, the author (in an unexpectedly gentle and optimistic fashion) illustrates Helen's life full of wonder and fantastic adventures that shape out the well-written characters of the girl, her dog, her loving uncle and her growing social environment. However, the moment when we readers realize that Helen is more troubled by her newly gained powers and their consequences than by her disabilities is when the true colours of this strong character begin to shine through.
In that manner, by facing challenge after challenge with the iron Miyazaki-esque will to selflessly help others despite her own problems, Helen makes her way through this episodic 18 chapters supernatural manga, which, instead of dissecting disability, illustrates a character with both handicaps and growing superpowers and her curious everydaylife with her dog, her uncle and her friends.

Your typical shounen hero is a saint. No doubt about it. Whether they are challenging the strongest guys in the universe on planet Namek, traveling the endless oceans on their way to become the pirate king or gathering the most exquisite ingredients to complete their full course menu, these perfect human beings will overcome any challenge by propagating the three golden principles of the Shounen Jump Magazine: friendship, effort and victory.

The main question is: do you really buy it?

- The Story:
Although it may at first glance look like a blatant Suzumiya Haruhi rip-off, Medaka Box actually deals with the afore-mentioned question. We follow the adventures ... of the abnormally perfect Kurokami Medaka fulfilling her duties as the student council president. Accompanied by her more than sceptical childhoodfriend Zenkichi Hitoyoshi, Medaka dashes off to help every student on campus, whether they are really in need or not. There are no boundaries for this student council president as she resocializes even the most notorious delinquents.
The storytelling is more or less character-centered and engages the consumer with its many humourous moments and crazy situations. The numerous student requests lead the student council to join wacky escapades while the audience discovers layer neath layer of what can be assumed to be Kurokami Medaka's psychological profile. Is she a saint or a monster...?

- The Characters:
To be honest, this is probably the most striking element of Medaka Box. While the scenario, as described above, the concept of an energetic girl forcing a cynical boy to join a club against his will, is not new, the characters that fill the roles of Suzumiya Haruhi, Kyon, Koizumi etc are very well written and invite you to actually understand their competing world views as well as their fascination with the main heroine. And that fascination is not without cause.
This show stands and falls with its main character. Kurokami Medaka, the saint-like student council president, knows how to get what she wants, which is most likely something for the good of everyone. She definitely is one of the toughest female main characters in a Shounen franchise that I have ever seen. Talking personally here, after seeing countless of these pseudo-strong heroines fall to being protected by their male counterparts revealing themselves to be the actual strongest in the end (talking about Saber, Shana, etc), it was completely refreshing to see a female character taking the lead role in a Shounen Jump series, actually being in charge of most of the butt-kicking action while her male partners rather support than supress her power.

- The Design:
Although its scenario appears as your typical highschool setting, the character design already underlines its actual focus. Most of the students are weird looking, starting by their unusual school uniform look and ending in their crazy hairstyles or extreme body shapes. Those differ from certain elementary school kid sized students to brawny muscle guys or girls like Kurokami Medaka herself being overly sexy. This style adds a more than trashy vibe to the already weird contents of the Medaka Box adventures and gives you an idea of how to really handle the show.

- The Final Conclusion:
Although the first season of Medaka Box only covers a small percentage of the actual Shounen Jump Manga series, it really appears to be more or less complete within itself dealing with the simple matter of constructing and introducing Kurokami Medaka's saint-like character and posing the question of whether we trust our perfect Shounen heroes or not.

If you are sick of your typical pseudo-strong heroine please feel free to experience something different within this student council.

Extreme violence in dark action and horror shows is an ambivalent thing:
The integration of gore can create a certain tension by making you fear for your favourite characters not to end up being shred to bloody pieces. It can also underline a dark atmosphere, telling you that the environment the story takes place in is harsh, brutal and knows no mercy for people making mistakes. That is something we all know (or should know) from series like Berserk, BLAME! or (to mention animated material) Umineko. Of course, this terror-spreading bloodstained medal of gore has another side to it. Let's talk about Blood-C.

- The Story:
To ... be honest, (although not being completely satisfying) Blood-C actually follows an interesting base frame considering the storyline. The story of innocent shrine maiden Kisaragi Saya, who is fighting against demons for the sake of her village, starts out as your typical monster of the week action show. This section is, looking back after seeing the whole picture, well made and pretty enjoyable. The action is exciting and Saya and her schoolmates are sympathetic and easy to get used to. While watching her slaying demons and handling her school life, there are always little hints, weird moments and mysterious lines that keep you on your guard for some bigger mystery behind the scenes to emerge sooner or later. The problem is, when that happens, rushed explanations and plot holes keep you from being satisfied. By then, it's already too late to save the show, anyway... More of that in the next paragraph.

- The Atmosphere:
The big problem of Blood-C is NOT the excessive depiction of gore and violence, but its purposelessness. Saya's battles with the demons often take their toll on casual bystanders. In the first episodes it is still shocking, to see what the demons are capable of, when Saya is too late to rescue someone from being devoured alive.
After a while, though, the attentive audience starts to wonder:
"Well, she COULD have saved this poor bloke BEFORE he was turned into a bloody pulp, couldn't she?"
And once you realized this, you'll start to ask yourself, if there maybe is a hidden purpose to this depiction of innocent people being gorged on (while the main heroine humbly waits for the monster to finish dinner), or... if this show is just about gore and brutality... for the sake of gore and brutality.
By the end of the show, after seeing countless people being tormented to death without identifiable reason, you are so fed up with random violence that you don't care about explanations anymore.

- The Design:
As for the character design, there's not much to be said: It's CLAMP. Long, thin bodies with typically formed eyes and messed up proportions. You either hate it or like it. Looking at the design of the demons Saya has to face, most of them are designed rather well and have a unique feel to them. Regarding the quality of animation, although you get the feeling that some episodes use smaller budgets than others, most of the animation is done well and most of the fighting sequences feel dynamique.

- Final Conclusion:
Before realizing that most parts of the show emphasize violence for the sake of violence, Blood-C serves well as a typical dark monster-of-the-week action show with a mysterious subplot beneath it. The purposelessness of the extreme level of depicted gore and the (for me) unsatisfying and rushed conclusion in the final episodes of the show corrupt what could have been an exciting and interesting dark action mystery experience.

I've been trying to overcome the 'great depression 2.22' that came over me and lasted for over a week now after watching this movie and the only way I can do it is by writing this review. I hope you'll bear with me here, this is going to be a bit of a personal review, but I'll try to be fair. My anger has vanished in most parts although if someone says the words "sabisu sabisu" for a tease I still feel like kicking his butt delinquent-style.

There never was an anime series in my entire life as an anime-consumer that moved, influenced and fascinated me ... as much as Hideaki Anno's original NGE series. I can not describe every single detail about the original series' ingenuity for it would take too much space in these few lines (since this is a review about the second rebuild film). Let's just say that I have never encountered another anime series with more finely written, intelligent, charismatic, understandable and individual (probably the most important characteristic considering the whole bunch of archetypes today) characters combined with an exciting and cleverly told plot and a superb atmosphere from which we can learn a message that is important in all periods of our lives.

When I first heard about Anno and the old crew directing a series of Rebuild movies, I didn't really know what to say. He said that the old NGE series was not fit for newer generations and that he would have to update it for them. He probably meant problems that emerged in society nowadays, so I trusted him. I was quite happy after watching the first movie that stuck pretty much to the original first quarter of the series and was looking forward to the second movie which should integrate new elements (although I was REALLY afraid of that new character wearing a pink (!) plugsuit). Then I saw the ratings on MAL and my excitement grew. What did they change? The answer: everything.

- The Characters:
In general, we can say that every fascinating character from the original series just turned into some kind of stereotypical alternative version. There is not a single trace left of what once was a psychological profile given to them. Not only did they simplify the characters, but also gave away their backgroundstories in some kind of 'in-your-face!' manner, so that subtlety became a foreign word. Of course, you may say, this is a movie and you can not rebuild complex characters within such little screen time. It's not like they do not get any screentime in the movie, there's plenty of it around, but the creators don't use it at all (except for dull slice of life sequences and ecchi fanservice)!
I'd like to take a look at the changes from the original series and analyze what the new character's personality is like, so as for people who haven't watched the thing yet I'll write down a

[SPOILER TAG]

here, so I can go into detail:

Shinji Ikari:
Original: Lost boy who gains some confidence while working for NERV but always feels left alone, feels rejected by everyone, trying to find a personality on his own, craving for affection from anyone ----- 2.22 Version: your typical shounen hero and also a harem lord
'I wonder who of my love interests can cook better?'

Asuka Soryu Langley:
Original: Lost girl who strives for affection from anyone by any means necessary, is still haunted by past, inferiority complex ----- 2.22 Version: Violent tsundere archetype randomly in love with the harem lord while being exploited for lots of fan-service:
'Kyaah ecchi!'
(oh yeah, and she's talking to a sock puppet, now THAT's subtle)

Rei Ayanami:
Original: Scientific abuse incarnate, an artificial lifeform that is torn between substitutability and development of personal feelings towards society and her creator ------ 2.22 Version: Kuudere archetype who discovers her random love for the harem hero
'Whenever I think about him, my chest feels warm...'

Misato Katsuragi:
Original: Being left alone by her father's death, she has to encounter a harsh world after the second impact and makes her way to the top with discipline, although she hides an easy-going side inside which she only shows to people dear to her, craving for affection from anyone ------ 2.22 Version: Supporting cast who's just there to tell you EVERYTHING you need to know about the EVA mystery 'in-your-face!'-esque. Misato's fate is shared by every other character in this movie (except for Kaji, he's there to make you laugh with silly attempts to speak the english language, best scene in the whole movie), so I spare you the ranting here.

and finally, my 'favourite' 'character' from this 'movie' (ok, that last quotation mark was just for fun)

Mari Makinami Illustrious (yeah, that's her name, folks, I didn't know it either, but I read it on the package of the DVD after watching the movie):
well, Mari, she... she's... yeah, she has a nice rack... and... aaannnd... she wears glasses and... a pink plugsuit... and she is the most UNFITTING 'CHARACTER' FOR THE BLOODY DAMN NEON GENESIS EVANGELION FRANCHISE!!!!!
...
Ahem, sorry for that, but it's true, a 'character' who's there for the whole purpose of fanservice and hollywood action scenes has nothing to do with the (let's say) 'realistic' world of Evangelion. She's even enjoying the EVA fights, what's this?! they always depicted the war against the angels as a terrible burden for the youngsters (which it IS) and she's enjoying it?! And what about that parachute, ahh, nevermind, let's go on...-.-

[END OF SPOILERS]

- The Story:
Now, what I can say about the story in general is that they really tried to create something different and the way the movie ends, it really is possible they are going to change it into something else. But this doesn't mean it's going to be good, really.
The whole purpose of the background story in the original series was to be discovered by the audience bit by bit so that they could put all the pieces of the puzzle together and create their own interpretation of what's happening. Now, Hideaki Anno assumes that kids these days don't use their brains anymore so he presents the story with every bit and every little mystery directly in your face. You do not need to think about it, the characters will tell you everything you need to know. This simplification destroys everything the smartly presented plot of the original show stood for.

- The Design:
This is the most surprising thing about the whole movie. People tell me everywhere how great this thing looks and how smooth the 3D animations blend in. But you know what? It is not true, it's simply not true! The 3D evangelions look like ingame graphics from a poorly programmed ps3 game. Not only do the 'great' 3D effects make EVA02 blend in like Krauser II on a K-On concert, they also allow us to discover silly programming mistakes like transparent school desks (if you don't believe me, take a look at shinji's classroom). And for the design changes... sheesh, you shall see yourself... ('Test-Plugsuit' and 'Za biisuto' eh, gosh...-.-)
Of course the drawings and character designs are ok, it's Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, the original designer, after all (he tends to go for the 'one piece' hip, but that's ok here).

- The Final Conclusion:
I am absolutely sad to say it, but 'Evangelion 2.22: You can (not) advance' is one of the worst pieces of celluloid anime movies I have ever seen, considering its predecessors. There is not a single shred of intelligence left in this bleak version of a once brilliant series. I trusted Hideaki Anno and his nakama, for I thought they were some of the few people left in the business taking their job seriously and trying to really give something to the audience instead of just taking their money for cheap entertainment. But that's what happened and that's what Evangelion 2.22 is, cheap entertainment. I still can't really believe it.
And what's even more important: What's up with all the people who love this movie and call it masterpiece? I really could understand it if there are people who don't know or don't care about the original work (archetypes substituting real characters is common today) or watched it for tits, they will have their cheap thrills with the hollywood action and the countless fanservice ecchi moments and maybe really like it as the Gurren Lagann it wants to be (hey, GL is great, but NOT NGE!). But for the Neon Genesis Evangelion fans who loved the series for everything it stood for, all the attributes I mentioned before, everything that EVA 2.22 destroyed and spat upon, I do not understand them at all...-.-

----

Oh yeah, and here's a little speculation to round out the review that requires a

[SPOILER TAG]

Just a little conspiracy theory, my only hope that keeps me from screaming 'zetsubou shita!':

All of this ridiculous nonsense could just be Shinji's first attempt of creating a new world, but based on his teenage dreams and thus filled with bullshit teenagers might find interesting and kakkoii. As a conclusion Hideaki Anno once again could draw the ace up his sleeve here and say: "This is nothing but fantasy bullshit, it doesn't have anything to do with reality! Get a life, kids!" kinda like he did in the original series. That wouldn't really make this movie much better, but it would not kill the whole franchise.
Until the next movie comes out, I'll just pray every night that "sabisu sabisu~" was just an ironic hint to that outcome!

[END OF SPOILERS]



Thanks for reading

A big breasted well tanned mature beauty wearing a half opened shirt posing in a quite lascivious manner with a pearl white grin on her face. Yeah, right, you watch this show because of the deep characters and the exciting and intelligent story, don't ya?

-> Exactly.

- The Story:
The Book of Bantorra features a whole new world full of superpowers and complex rules and organisations surrounding the endless battle for happiness and salvation at Heaven's door. And the best thing is: it does not tell you a thing. This show is NOT something you can just watch without paying attention. If you want to take a ... dive into the Armed Librarians' world you have to stay focused and think about what you see. The anime gives you the puzzle, but it demands you to place it yourself. Doing that, Book of Bantorra, unlike Serial Experiments Lain or other complex works, never really leaves you in the dark, but gives you just the information you need to deduce for yourself. Every single story arc is presented in a very intriguing manner, introducing multilayered characters and creative scenarios, dealing with the dark secrets the world of Bantorra contains.

- The Atmosphere:
If you are willing to follow the show's lead, take all the info you get and try to figure out all the untold stuff, you will find yourself drawn in by the group called "The Armed Librarians" and its many interesting members. You will get to know characters who seemed unlikeable at first, understand their motives and soon you will get emotionally attached to them (although it really takes time in some cases). The tension that is created here is pretty high, because the show features a certain degree of realistic and merciless violence towards the show's characters. In most cases, death is abrupt and unpredictable, so you're always reminded of the fact that your heroes and heroines may be able to use super powers but are not immortal.

- The Design:
As I hinted at the beginning, some of the characters' designs are quite questionable. Looking at the show's main character, Hamyuts Meseta, I'd say her design may be quite deterrend for people looking for a serious anime instead of some breast bouncing ecchi show, because she NEVER buttons her shirt and there are more than a few shots on her decollete etc. BUT, despite having a body Shirley Yeager would be envious of, Hamyuts Meseta is a very intense character and her design (and those of other female characters here), which seems to originate from some puberty dream, only contrasts her complex character and history. As for the rest of the crew, there are some other strange costume designs like brash colored uniforms or medieval-esque fantasy magician coats, but, after watching a couple of episodes you will get used to the shows strange design style.

- The Final Conclusion:
There are many many popular anime series out there, scoring their 10/10 points every now and then, only containing a fraction of Tatakau Shisho: The Book of Bantorra's ingenuity and dramatic resourcefulness, deep characters and wonderful scenarios. This is one of the many very underrated and unfortunately unpopular anime series here on MAL, probably due to its complexity and challenging narration style which does not feed you chewed for cake.

Update:
I've been thinking a lot about how the show ended, because I had my problems with the way they did it. Don't want to spoiler anything, but I have to add that there are a few plot lines forgotten along the way, while the ending itself felt a little inappropriate in terms of style. That's why I'll downgrade Tatakau Shisho to 9/10.

A lonely boy surrounded by living dolls in the form of little girls in gothic lolita dresses going on his nerves with their child-like character traits. Sounds like some stupid lolicon-fantasy to you? Well, that's actually what Rozen Maiden looked like to me reading the first volume of this series. I disliked the characters, the scenario and pretty much everything about it.

So, let me tell you about living dolls in the form of little girls in gothic lolita dresses, their adventures in the sea of the unconsciousness and how I completely changed my mind about this manga:

- The Story:
The story seems to be something you ... have seen many times before. A boy getting involved in some supernatural business, just like Shiro in Fate or Yuji in Shana. Those stories can be much fun of course, but they also have this quite plain and shallow connotation. What differs Rozen Maiden from those storylines is the depth of the characters presented here. After a while you get to know all the characters of Rozen Maiden much better, you will take a look into their subconsciousness, understand their feelings and really grow close to them. In the end I found out, that these characters are not just your typical shounen plot devices but multilayered characters. Once you get to know these characters, you will experience many great moments of sadness, humor, mystery and excitement surrounding the Alice Game and its participants.

- The Atmosphere:
Well, as mentioned before, at first you will find yourself in a generic shounen adventure. The only special thing that might catch your eye are the typical 'Guardian Beasts' or 'Summoning Creatures' being dolls in gothic dresses. The exciting atmosphere of sad and hillarious scenes won't arise before you spend a couple of hours with this manga. But alongside all the inherently consistent atmosphere there are some scenes that might disturb you as they disturbed me. Most of the time the manga succeeds in presenting the dolls in a more moe way, so that even non-lolicon people may like the child-like heroines. But there are still scenes which made me feel uncomfortable. Those scenes feature some quite ecchi moments featuring the dolls, which I found most unappropriate. But there are not that many of these fan service scenes, so it doesn't trouble the whole opus.

- The Design:
This manga is the second work of the mangaka duo called Peach-Pit. Comparing Rozen Maiden's drawing style to their first work called DearS (which was quite awful in visual as well as in contentual terms) you will see that their style evolved and they were able to create more convincing characters. Another thing that seems to be special for Peach-Pit's drawing style is the use of constant scribble-like drawings between larger panels. While these scribbles became rampant in DearS, where the bigger panels of serious drawings appeared to be the exception, they reduced the use of this drawing style in Rozen Maiden to nearly a minimum of scenes, in which it underlined the humorous aspects.

- The Final Conclusion:
Rozen Maiden is not what you'd expect it to be after reading a couple of chapters. If you like exciting supernatural storyplots mixed with lots of psychological approaches, a mysterious background and some cute humour you should take your time with this manga. It may take a while but in the end it will drag you into the twisted world of the Alice Game.

Oh, by the way, don't know if that spoilers you but there is a brutal cliffhanger ending at the end of the manga, so you better expect to read the second series as well!

Something has to be wrong with the author of both Higurashi and Umineko no naku koro ni, since both series are extremely twisted, violent and have some kind of sick focus on violence against kids...

...BUT, at the same time this guy has quite a talent to get people hooked up to his visions of mystery and horror and that's what makes his works pretty outstanding from many other mystery anime series. Once you started the first season of Higurashi no naku koro ni you were fascinated by the tension surrounding the secrets of Watanagashi. That's exactly what happened to me watching Umineko, I was completely ... sucked into this world of terrifying witches and gruesome murders.

To make one thing clear, I never read the novel or anything, so I basically had no background information on the story or scenario. This is quite important because people call the Umineko anime a bad adaption, so for me it was possible to watch it without being influenced by the original.

- The Story:
The basic story of Umineko no naku koro ni is very complex and complicated. At first you will find yourself in some "who-is-the-murderer"-scenario, but pretty soon the story reveals its true face. On the one hand, this complexity of multi-layered storytelling is exciting and makes you want to dig deeper into the mystery, but on the other, due to some pretty confusing sequences, it becomes pretty difficult to follow (especially in the last arc). Sometimes you have to sit down and arrange all the information you got from the anime in your head to really see through. Since there are many characters in this anime, you cannot expect to get to know everyone in detail, but there are more than enough flashbacks of the important ones to understand their motives.

- The Atmosphere:
Similar to the first season of Higurashi no naku koro ni, there's a special atmosphere surrounding the storyline of Umineko no naku koro ni. The level of tension is high most of the time. The anime plays with people's thoughts and feelings pretty often and you will find yourself surprised and confused by sudden story-twists as well as shocked by the level of gore and violence presented. As for that part, the violence in Umineko no naku koro ni is very harsh. While you travel into the puzzling nightmare of the witches, you will witness many scenes of brutal massacre and torture along the way.

- The Design:
Compared to the novel's deformed and quite bad original character designs (which I have seen at a friend's before) the design of the anime characters is more than satisfying. Of course there are some minor flaws with details such as the exaggerated chestsize of most of the female characters older than 9 years (Yet another witch called Yoshika Miyafuji would probably like this design). All in all, the design fits the characters, Battler is a terrific protagonist while his opponents are evil and scary as hell.

- The Final Conclusion:
Umineko no naku koro ni has many good elements. The story is complex, exciting and in most parts far more convincing than Higurashi's story plot. This anime's problem is the presentation of said complexity. You have to be on your guard to catch up to the plot all the time. I have to admit that I lost it in the last arc a couple of times as well, so I can understand the people who prefer the novel, which probably gives you much more time and information to understand the storydevelopment. BUT that does not decrease the fun I had watching this mystery horror anime series.
I even had a nightmare of the endless golden witch herself last night, so trust me when I tell you: Beatrice EXISTS, uuuh~

What did we see in Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni so far?

Well, it's been an amazing journey through the depths of human psychology, telling us that everyone is capable of becoming a killer under different circumstances... Watanagashi's mysteries were quite fascinating and there were specific scenes and moments the watcher won't forget that easily, in matter of psychological tension or brutal violence. The season ended with a slight glance of hope to escape the murder scenario repetition going on, so the watcher was looking forward seeing the resolve of that twisted maze.

Then there was Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni Kai... ...and the tension was gone.

The ... second season of Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni was successful in erasing every intriguing aspect of the first one.

- The Story:
The second season tells you every answer you need to understand what's going on in Hinamizawa, not only once, but plenty of times, so that even the most distracted watchers would understand. Maybe because of that, the answers presented seem very odd and the excitement level drops. The rest of the screentime is used in more unnecessary scenario repetitions, which feel quite inappropriate, because you already had a complete season using this method and it becomes boring. The higher quality of exciting psychological mystery plot vanishes and gives way to some kind of youth adventure filled with plotholes, similar to Spielberg's The Goonies...

- The Atmosphere:
Higurashi was all about the tension created by the menacing situation the main characters were in. Well, because of the disappearance of most of the elements concerning that, the atmosphere becomes dull and you start to loose the contact to the characters. Also, because of the trivial answers you get to the big mystery, the enigmatic factor in atmosphere gets lost as well. In the final part of the season, the watcher will find himself watching some kind of Arnold Schwarzenegger movie with oneliners, shootouts and fistfights... THAT completely destroyed the mood...

- The Design
This is one of the few minor improvements Higurashi went through. The character design looks far smoother than season one's did. Also, the rate of SD usage was increased, which makes the humorous sequences more enjoyable than in season one.

-The Final Conclusion:
Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni Kai destroyed most of the precious elements of the first series. The psychological mystery disappeared complety, the disturbing scenes of violence are not disturbing anymore and the twisted plot gets cleared in a most trivial way. Even without comparing the second season to the first, you will still find yourself bored by the redundant scenario repetitions and the more than unnecessary flashback sequences.