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STORY: story of To Aru Majutsu no Index is long and complex. While at first it will look like every volume is a completely different story with little to no relations to another, later on all plot threads will slowly be put together and you will be surprised just how far into the future the writer planned certain plot threads.
Also, expect a lot of Scientific Exposition and Religious (especially Christian) symbolism.

ART: with this being a Light Novel, there is not much to say about the art tough most of illustrations are pleasant to the eye.

CHARACTERS: there are many characters in TAMNI, ranging from overpowered Espers ... and Mages to weak so called "Level 0's", most of them being unique from one another.
There are three main characters in the story:

Kamijou Touma - THE main character of the story. While being labeled a "Level 0", his power is Negation of other supernatural powers with his right hands... tough as the story goes on it becomes more and more obvious that there is more to the power that meets the eye.
Kamijou Touma himself is an unlucky guy who always ends up being dragged into some kind of mess concerning the Dark Side of various factions and being a true Hero (tough he never will admit to be anything more but a common person) he always chooses to help the good guys.
For many characters, especially later on in the story, he is the ideal that inspires them. They see him as a hero and inspired by his deeds, they gain unfaltering wish to fight against what is not right and for former villains, he is the list at the end of the tunnel on their road to redemption.
And thats his main role in the story: not to be a developing character with inner fights (that is left for others) but to be the ideal hero.

Accelerator - the most powerful Esper in the world. His power is the ability to control all kinds of vectors.
He starts as a villain early on, with more then 10 000 deaths on his hands. After his conflict with Kamijou Touma, the story of his redemption starts.
While being a mass murderer, Accelerator believes that "Pieces of shit that fell into the Dark Side" should fight only one another and never try to mix the innocent people into their games. So when he meets a girl that is target of many darksiders, he becomes her personal guardian and falls further and further into the dark side where he pleases us by giving evil villains their due.
However a question remains: can a villain protect an innocent life that is targeted by so much evil in the world?

Hamazura Shiage - while Accelerator is the strongest Esper, Shiage is a "Level 0". At beginning he is a member of a Level 0 group called Skill Out, a group that seeks to protect other 0's from Espers... and at the same time bully the Espers. As such, from the very beginning he is a dark-sider.
When Kamijou Touma beats him up, he leaves the Skill Out and becomes a grunt worker for ITEM, a dark side 4-member organization that uses illegal methods for good of the Academy City... or more exactly, for the good of their greedy and immoral leaders. There, he helps get rid of corpses and such.
But like Accelerator, he also will find someone that he wants to protect. And soon he will become an enemy of the Academy City. Can a powerless person like him protect himself, the girl he loves... as well as his friends... from the evil of the world they belong to... an evil that has powerful technology and Espers that would make armed soldiers shiver in fear?

SETTING: the story happens in a world similar to ours... with some exceptions.

First, in Japan there is a place called Academy City. That city is part of Tokyo and it is around 20 years ahead in technology. Their technology will never cease to amaze you, especially since it is nicely explained how it works.
It is also a place where people with supernatural powers called Espers are created, raised and researched. There are many different powers and you will always look forward to seeing those Espers in battle.
However, there is a dark side to this organization... brutal experiments over children, immoral scientists, mass murders, Soviet-like secret organization... all existing in shadows of people who just seek to lead a normal life... and that dark side threatens to make many victims world-wide...

Second, Magic exists and the world is mainly ruled by Religious organizations that act behind the scenes. Unlike the Academy City, these factions follow religious ideas rather then scientific and the spells the mages use are filled with religious symbolism. As a Christian myself I am amazed at how well the writer researched religion and how well he made it all work in this story.
There are hundreds of magical organizations but three are the main ones:

Anglican Purist Church or more exactly Necessarius - their main goal is witch-hunt and control of mages throughout the world. For most of the story, Kamijou Touma is their ally.
Like Academy City, they have a dark side which is mainly felt through their leader and some of their actions. While they were not villains through TAMNI, there is a high possibility they will be in TAMNI's sequel: TAMNI: New Testament.

Roman Catholic Church - most powerful organization in the world, claiming to have 2 billion followers.
But that size is also their greatest enemy and their primary goal is to hold Status quo in the world and use all means necessary to not let the Catholic power plummet. And because of that desperation, the dark side is powerful here and thus Kamijou Touma finds himself to be their enemy in most cases, weakenign their dark side little by little.

God's Right Seat - part of the Roman Catholic Church's dark side... and teh faction that actually leads the Roman Catholic Church.
It consists of four members, every of them wielding power of one of God's Archangel's (Uriel, Raphael, Gabriel and Michael).
Their main goal tough is not to protect Catholic Church but to sit right to the God... which means to become equal to him. Their leader will do anything for that goal, even if it means sacrificing millions of lives...

ENJOYMENT: TAMNI is definitely an enjoying read. It has everything you may want: action, Slice of Life, comedy, moral questioning, great characters, intriguing storyline, well built world... if you give this a try, there is really a great chance you will enjoy it.

Terra e... (Toward the Terra in English) is one of those anime's that are great but never got attention they deserved. So what does this hidden gem of Spring-Summer 2007 have to offer?

STORY: the unique setting is interesting and intriguing while the plot, with many timeskips, is interesting and easy to follow. In short, we have a conflict between humans who's society is controlled by computers on one side and the Mu, evolved humans with telepathic and other powers on the other side. However, unlike most series, the humans are the antagonists here, more because of their ideals and opinions then because of computers who ... actually just do what humans want them to do. The humans seek to destroy the Mu whom they are afraid of.
On other side, the Mu are peaceful and the only thing they want is to live on their own, without fear of being persecuted by their brethren species. But as the story goes, the leader realizes that just wishing to live in peace won't fulfill their dreams and that different methods will need to be used.
However, the story is actually about the humanity itself: what makes us humans? Is there such a thing as perfect society? Just how foolish is the human kind? Towards the Terra handles these topics well without annoying its viewer by annoying him with philosophical debates and such.

ART: in most cases, the art is pleasant and the concepts are often unique. However, there is one bad thing in this section: 3D art of space vessels often looks horrible, especially in earlier episodes. Still, later on it is less prominent and you will usually look at characters and not space vessels so this ain't really too much of a problem.

CHARACTERS: the best thing about Towards the Terra are no doubt its characters. Both the human side and the Mu side have interesting and likable characters. The main antagonist you will both hate because of his actions but also love because of certain personality traits and his depth. Characters you think you will hate (the main protagonist in the beginning, the antagonist later on and others) end being characters you like and watching their developments is both pleasant and exciting. And comparing them is the best thing of all!

ENJOYMENT: while it probably won't make you say "Hey, time to watch some Terra e... :D" when you wake up as it ain't so attractive all the time, once you start watching just one episode it will be hard to stop watching until you complete few more.
There is very little action (most of it is in the beginning) and later battles are one sided, but that is not to say that there is no excitement here: character development, developments of relationships between characters, excitement of when the main antagonist ends up on ship of Mu... excitement is not something this series lacks, even if is not filler with action.

OVERALL: as said in beginning, this is one of hidden gems in anime world. It is unique, it is deep, it is pleasant to watch, it is interesting and it is a damn memorable ride.

ADAPTATION: Phantom: The Animation is an OVA series that is supposed to be an adaptation of the Visual Novel called "Phantom of Inferno". However, only chapter 1 of the VN is adapted and more then half of scenes from there were removed and the rest have been changed completely.

STORY: Those who have played the Visual Novel or watched "Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom" anime series will see that the base of the story is the same, but that "Phantom: The Animation" changed almost every scene. In addition, some plot developments are useless (Zwei being offered his memories back didnt't serve the plot at all), we ... know nothing about the organisation whom Ein and Zwei serve, not even its reason for existence or why they are opssesed with killing various mafia bosses and a guy called Scyhte Master is here literally a evil genius with his own base with badass monitors and his own personal army.
Also, Ein and Zwei are for some reason LITERALY superhuman. While they are supposed to be superior to other people, "Phantom: The Animation" crosses the border by leting them ALWAYS fight against armies of enemies and usually kill their opponents with clean headshots while running around.

ART: Art is ugly, characters often look different from scene to scene and camera angles that are used screw up the character designs more often then not.

SOUND: Soundtrack, OP song and ED song are nice to listen to and are probably teh only good thing in this anime

CHARACTERS: Both the Visual Novel and the TV series depend on characters, their developments and their life in their cruel world of crime and killing. "Phantom: The Animation" also tries to make good use of characters, but it fails. Their relationship develops suddenly, them becoming enemies is not dramatic at all and they seem like real souless characters about whom is hard to care.

ENJOJMENT: If you are not picky and like to watch gunfights, you may enjoj this anime. If you are interested in good plot or characters, then don't bother watching this as you will waste 90 minutes of your life.

OVERALL: Bad plot, lack of character development and badly executed story are just some of things that make this anime a bad one. If you like the premise, I suggest picking up either the Visual Novel called "Phantom of Inferno" (which has been translated) or watch the TV series "Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom" which is a much better execution of the same thing.

Eden of the East is my third favourite anime of Spring '09 and is an anime that I would reccomend to everyone (ok, not everyone... shounen-only fans probably won't like this).

Story: The story of Eden of the East is its strongest element. It is unique, exciting,, humorous mysterious, touching, is a good representation of modern World and its social status and life style and may even make you think about the things it represents. The spotlight is given to Japanese NEET's, their reasons for being NEET's and their place in society.

Art: The art of background is detailed and beautiful. The scenes of surroundings will ... often cause a lose of breath.
However, the character designs don't look good to me. They often don't fit with the background, many characters are forgettable in looks and emotions they are supposed to show sometimes look weird.
However, I saw that many peoplel ike the character designs so I guess that the above comment is just my taste thus I will give it an 8 rather then a 7.

Animation: Because of the art style, animation is fluid and realistic.

Sound: While I didn't notice the sound most of time, there were some scenes where it improved the current atmosphere thus I gave it a high grade.

Characters: While the plot is great, the only truly deep character is Akira (tough even he could have been developed in a better way). Others have very little depth or they didn't get enough spotlight (not surprising since the cast is large and there are only 11 episodes here.)

Enjoyment: Trying to predict what will happen, trying to understand what is happening, trying to find answers on the questions you got just an episode before and good humour make this an enjoyable series.

Overall: One of the best series in Spring '09 which might have gotten a higher score if it were a bit longer (yes, I know that there will be (or are, depends on when you read the review) movies, but we are speaking about the series here) thus getting time to further develop other characters and make the relationship between Akira and Saki deeper.