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One Outs is a sports anime based on the long-running manga of the same title by Shinobu Kaitani, one of my absolute favorite manga artists. To call One Outs a sports anime is a little misleading. While it does revolve around a baseball team, the anime is more concerned with the psychological workings of its main character, Tokuchi Toa.

Tokuchi is a gambler by nature. At night, he can be found playing a very popular game called One Outs with a platoon of stationed American soldiers. The rules of the game are simple: pitcher versus batter. If the pitcher manages to strike out the batter or ... make the batter hit the ball within the infield, the pitcher wins. If the batter manages to hit the ball outside of the infield, the batter wins. People place bets on either the pitcher or the batter, and major money is on the line.

Tokuchi is always the pitcher.

Always.

And he’s remarkably good. While he only pitches roughly 75 mph (slow in comparison to most major league pitchers), his record is practically flawless. He strikes out batters like nobody’s business and is an arrogant prick about it too.

Enter Hiromichi Kojima, a famous major league baseball player in Japan comparable to Sammy Sosa out here in the States. However, in all his long years of playing baseball with Lycaons (a fictional baseball team) he’s never won the championship, despite his individual prowess on the field.

Kojima challenges Tokuchi to a game of One Outs with “their arms” on the line. If Tokuchi wins, Kojima will give him a ridiculous amount of money. And if Tokuchi wins, Kojima gets Tokuchi’s arm. Tokuchi Toua will be forced to join the Lycaons.

Now I bet you can all guess that Tokuchi loses. After all, the show would be pretty damn boring if Tokuchi won a butt load of money and went off to buy a yacht or whatever. So now Tokuchi has been thrust into the world of professional baseball and is pitching for the Lycaons.

The main device of this story, however, is Tokuchi’s contract with the crooked manager. Tokuchi believes in merit equaling pay-out. To that end, he sets up this deal:

“For every batter I get out, I get 5,000,000 yen. But for every run I allow, I pay you 50,000,000 yen.”

The manager thinks he’s struck gold when it comes to this dumb rookie pitcher. But Tokuchi’s skills prove otherwise, and the manager has to think of dastardly ways to take down the miracle newbie.

The show follows Tokuchi’s adventures with Lycaons baseball team as he tries to protect his yearly salary and make a killing in the ultimate gamble. He comes up against a variety of tough opponents, each one needing to be outwitted or outplayed.

One Outs is an interesting series to swallow. First of all, you don’t necessarily need to like baseball to like this show. In fact, if you’re a baseball fan, you may find this show hard to stomach at first. (I know I did.) There are things about the way these guys play baseball that is just not realistic. In fact, some stuff is just plain ridiculous. But if you ignore the glaring flaws when it comes to the baseball logistics, you can actually really enjoy yourself.

Tokuchi is an interesting main character. Not necessarily likeable, as he pretty much is entirely self-driven and seems to only care about money. Still, his selfish motives end up helping a lot of other people out indirectly, so you can forgive him for that. He’s also disturbingly anti-social and kinda scary to look at. However, he is just a bit of a genius, and watching him take out his opponents one by one is both frightening and exhilarating.

The supporting characters are somewhat well done. Unfortunately, most of the time, they exist to simply explain Tokuchi’s genius and stare dumbfounded at just how damn smart he is. Kojima is redeemable in the fact that he’s the only one on the team who doesn’t positively fanboy over Tokuchi.

Ideguchi, the catcher, is another story. He’s pretty much Tokuchi’s number one fan, and while he’s certainly likeable (rookie catcher = kinda adorable), he hardly ever gets to do anything cool himself. Most of the time, he’s just following Tokuchi’s instructions. Then again, he arguably becomes Tokuchi’s best friend on the team (catcher and pitcher relationship for the win!) and you forgive him his initial ignorance as he matures and wises up over the course of the show.

There are few characters who are purely comic relief, but they do it well, especially considering the main character of the show is about as funny as a petting zoo catching on fire. After so much “bazball iz seriuz bzness!” you need a bit of a break, and these guys provide it just fine.

Tokuchi’s opponents are actually very well done. They’re not complete dopes at all. In fact, most of them are quite skilled and give Tokuchi a real problem to work his way out of. I wish the final opponent had been a bit more threatening and epic, but eh, twenty five episode anime is twenty five episodes.

The OST is generally pretty good, although the opening and ending themes leave something to be desired. The actual BG music in the show is pretty good though. I wouldn’t mind DLing it and giving it another listen for nostalgia’s sake.

Unfortunately, the anime becomes very “villain of the week-ish” after Tokuchi joins the Lycaons. Don’t get me wrong, the baseball games last more than one episode – in fact, some can span as many as five or six. But the formula is more or less the same for every single opponent and Tokuchi never really grows as a character. In fact, no one really grows that much. The Lycaons decide they actually want to win, but other than that, no single character really discovers anything about themselves. The main device of the plot is Tokuchi and his money. Which can get a little old after awhile.

Visually, the anime is pretty stunning. It followed Kaitani-sensei’s original designs pretty well, adding in a bit more detail and attractive coloring to make a generally great looking show.

The anime, unfortunately, is only one season long and cuts off before the original manga ended. So the ending is not exactly unsatisfying, but incomplete. Sports animes should end with the team winning the god damn championship. That’s how it works. Unfortunately, time constraints meant that this anime would have to settle for ending after a semi-important game.

Overall, One Outs is one of those shows that you watch purely for fun. If you enjoy puzzles/psychological thrillers/sports/blonds, then you’ll probably enjoy this show. I’m a fan of sports anime and of psychological stuff, so this one was a winner in terms of enjoyment for me. Is this one of my favorite animes? Eh, not really. But it was fun while it lasted. But having a main character who is hard to relate to can isolate audiences. If you can’t find a reason to like Tokuchi, you won’t like this show.

But I do like Tokuchi. It’s fun watching him pick apart his opponents’ psyches. So I really did enjoy One Outs.

Overall: 8/10

(But the OP really is ridiculous.)

Air Gear is definitely an interesting series to review. I'm a rare breed -- a person who watched the anime before reading the manga, and thus, I think I have a fresh perspective on the story. I'm not comparing it to the manga as many fans do with anime adaptations. "OMG! They left out my favorite scene with the spatula!!11oneone This anime suxxr0rs!" is an exaggeration of a complaint voiced by fans of a certain series: the adaptation isn't true to the original work, therefore, it isn't as good as the original work. I, however, had nothing to compare this anime to, so I believe ... my review will be free of "fan-bias".

So what did I think of this series watching it from a fresh-faced, new-minded, open-hearted attitude?

Air Gear is an interesting piece. The premise is about motorized roller-blades (Air Treks) that allow you to skate fast and even fly in the air. (Awesome, right?) The premise sounds like a fabulous set-up for a futuristic shonen sports anime. However, this description doesn't accurately describe what Air Gear is all about.

The series follows Itsuki (Ikki) Minami, the leader of a small Junior High gang made up of his two best friends, Kazu and Onigiri. Ikki gets into loads of fights and is pretty much a deliquent. But when he gets thoroughly beat down by a group of a team of Storm Riders (those who ride Air Treks) he wants revenge, and he wants to do it their way.

Ikki gets a hold of a pair of Air Treks from the Noyamono sisters, a group of four (sexy) girls who have looked after Ikki since he was a small child. Rika, the oldest, is level-headed and maternal, but can lose her temper at times. Mikan, High school aged, is short-tempered and tomboyish. Ringo, who is Ikki's age and has quite a crush on him, is smart, sweet, and talented. And Ume, the littlest, is a bit creepy at times, but mostly cute. Little does Ikki know that these four used to make up Sleeping Forest, a top-ranked Air Trek team with serious street cred.

He learns to ride Air Treks and it becomes clear from early on that Ikki has talent. A prodigy, some might say. After various Air Trek adventures, he forms his own team, Kogarasumaru, made up of himself, Kazu, Onigiri, a former rival named Buccha, and a little psychotic Storm Rider with MPD, Akito/Agito.

The story chronicles Ikki's journey with Kogarasumaru, but it focuses more on Ikki has an individual. I wouldn't call this a "sports anime" by any means -- it's far too dramatic for that. Now, while I know sports anime can get pretty serious at times, this "sport" ended up being so dramatic, it came to life and death. Storm Riders do not compete for fun -- they compete to survive, to rise up, and to become the best.

Which brings me to the biggest question I have for this series:

Why?

To me, Air Treks sound like a bunch of fun. You get to skate around and fly in the sky and be awesome overall. So why in the world has this been reduced to such serious business? There's a whole hierarchy of Storm Riders, and super parts called "Regalias" that only Kings can possess. Oh, and if you want to be the Sky King, you have to defeat everyone else in a big Tower Tournament thing (it was explained rather poorly. Considering the anime never even got to the Tower, I didn't pay it much mind.) Throughout the whole series, I was stopping and saying, "Wait a minute...this is supposed to be fun, right?"

I'm going to say this right now. Air Gear had the potential to be fun. But it isn't. It's funny at times, but it's never fun. I never get that sense of frivolity and joy watching it that I get when I watch other sports anime. I'm never saying "Go Kogarasumaru!" because I'm too busy saying, "HOLY SHIT KOGARASUMARU YOU'RE ALL GONNA DIE!". Seriously, some Air Trek battles are nothing but street brawls on roller blades. How boring is that? The biggest team fight of the series is nothing but a big violent fight on Air Treks, and I think, "The hell? Take off the skates and just hit each other."

Now there have been pretty crazy premises in some anime. Far more crazy than this. I think the reason I don't buy this whole "I'm going to use this super fun piece of technology to beat people up so I can be the best" is because there is never adequate reason given. Why do they want to be the best? For the sake of being the best. Okay, so...why? To me, it makes no sense. They try to explain it with some mumbo jumbo about wanting to "grab the sky" or "fly as high as you can", but it all reads very forced instead of endearing or captivating.

Speaking of the "grab the sky" stuff, there is FAR too much time wasted in this series pontificating at length about how Ikki is going "to be the one to grasp the sky in his fists" or some Japanese random inspirational dialogue. If I heard one more person talk about Ikki flying in the sky, I was going to scream. "I get it!" I wanted to yell, "FLYING IS A METAPHOR FOR FREEDOM! Ikki flies without worry! I get it! You can stop it now!" The pontificating of Ikki also got on my nerves. One more revelation about Air Treks and how they've built his character, and I was ready to just vomit.

Now, all this makes it seem like I didn't enjoy the series. I'm not going to lie. Air Gear is by no means fabulous. It's not a gem of anime by any means. At times, it's downright boring. But when it comes to this over-the-top, far too heavy tale, the characters become the saving grace.

The characters of Air Gear are very real. I can imagine knowing them. Despite Ikki's annoying monologues, he's an endearing hero, and you actually want to see him succeed. His friends are great, although I wish they would've been explored a bit more. Ringo, who is explored very much, is by far my favorite character in the series. She has so many levels, she isn't just the "cute anime girl with the crush on the hero" by any means. She kicks more ass than Ikki on Air Treks, she's sweet without being a pushover, and she's flawed. She's overbearing and tries to hard to protect the ones she loves, which is such a human quality. Akito/Agito are also great. Both are very distinct, although I wish Akito would have gotten more screen time. We spent too much time on the rough and harsh Agito in my opinion. I can tell why most Air Gear cosplayers cosplay Akito/Agito. He's very lovable.

Another great thing about this show is the animation. It's detailed and clean, and the Air Trek battles are animated with style. I love effort being put into the art of an anime, and this one definitely shows effort.

The music is also FABULOUS. BEST music I have heard in an anime in a long, long, time. I found myself bopping to some of the tracks. The OST of this series is definitely on my wishlist (or my torrent list, lol.)

What this series, and all of Oh-Great's mangas, is full of is gratutious fan-service. That's right, busty babes wearing pretty much nothing, showing off what their momma gave them every chapter. People have complimented "Oh-Great!" on his "fabulous females". I assume they mean the art, because besides Ringo and Simca, every female in this series is nothing but a pair of walking, talking tits and ass. I don't blame Oh-Great! He knows what the readers like, I suppose.

Air Gear has been heavily criticized for its ending. It just kinda...ends...in the middle of the manga. There were only 25 episodes produced, and thus, the series ended rather strangely, with plenty of plot holes. Still, I thought the ending was handled very well. It was an ending that brought closure (not much, but enough) and gave me that "okay, now it's over" feeling. I think, however, it would have been in their best interest to have continued the anime. Maybe the ratings just weren't supporting it.

Overall, I think Air Gear is a great idea executed mediocrely. The series is too dark, too heavy, with no adequate explanation for its tone beyond some random flying and wings metaphors. Still, it has some good things to offer: great characters, fun animation, awesome music, and the opportunity to fantasize about flying roller-blades.

However, I've decided that I'm going to give the manga a try and see if it's any better than the anime. I've heard great things, so why not? I'll just catch up gradually I suppose.

Overall: 7/10

Tenshi Na Konamaiki is a show about a beautiful girl named Megumi Amatsuka. She's so gorgeous, in fact, that some people even call her an "angel" (hense: Tenshi). But behind the pretty face lies a shocking secret: Megumi used to be a boy!

When Megumi was nine years old, (s)he came across a magic book with genie inside it. When Megumi, a rough and tumble elementary school boy, wished to be "the manliest man in the world" the tricky genie granted his wish backwards! Megumi transformed into a woman, and everyone around her seemed to forget she had ever been a boy at all. The only ... ones who remembered her past life as a male were herself and her best friend, Miki Hanakain.

Now, six years later, Megumi is a gorgeous High school student whose still stuck on being a boy. She's loud, rude, violent, and too blunt for her own good. Miki tries her best to make Megumi into an upstanding lady, but her efforts are in vain: Megumi's determined to stay in touch with her manly side!

Unfortunately for Megumi, her looks get her into more trouble than she can handle. First, the notorious school bully, Genzo Soga, falls head over heels in love with Megumi, transforming from a bad-boy into a blathering love-struck idiot. Then a group of well-meaning boys form "The Megu Group" in order to help protect Megumi from anything. And she'll need protecting! Megumi gets into more trouble than any teenage girl should! (Mostly because she picks fights with anyone who goes against her "manly" code of honor.)

Tenshi Na Konamaiki is a shonen comedy anime with a romantic undertone. It's abundant with jokes, action, and sweet moments between characters. At first, I had a lot of trouble classifying this anime because it did so much at the same time. Shonen? Shojo? Comedy? But I soon realized that Tenshi was pulling off all three at the same time, and quite effectively.

What really makes this series stand out is the cast of characters. All of them are insanely endearing -- from "average" Fujiki to the sweet best friend Miki. Genzo, an annoying weirdo who would get on anyone's nerves in real life, is fabulously fun to watch. I genuinely felt for Genzo as he tried to get Megumi to like him by being a "true man". Each character has many levels of development, and Miki-chan, who starts out as the normal "best friend" character grows into one of the most dynamic characters on the show.

The romance is done very well -- it isn't shoved in your face with a bunch of "omg!squee!" moments, but is instead built gradually, like a real relationship. I felt as though I really was watching these characters become closer and closer with each episode until they were inseparable. There's something about watching a group of best friends that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. And I always felt, before the romance, friendship was the first priority for the "Megu-Group". Even the villains are done well - some are hilarious while others are downright sinister.

The music for this show was really done well, especially the classic "heart-wrenching moment" track. God, that gets me every time. While the BG music is fabulous, the opening and ending themes vary in quality. There are a total of two opening themes and four ending themes. Of these, Grand Blue, the first opening theme, and Tears Go By the third ending theme, were my favorites. The others weren't bad songs, just uninteresting -- the kind you skip through.

There was actually a fair amount of action in this show -- Genzo and Megumi were beating up bad guys at least once every other episode. And Megumi kicks major ass by the way. Her super-powered kicks send bad guys flying. But the rest of the Megu group hold themselves pretty well, including street legend Genzo and Samurai-in-Training Kobayashi. Even Miki has her moments of bad-guy-butt-kicking. The fight scenes are animated very well.

Speaking of animation, the style of animation is actually very detailed and well-done. The style is a little accosting at first, but you get used to it rather quickly and even find it endearing after awhile. Megumi's long hair is also animated gorgeously, with plenty of highlights and motion effects. And the many moments of Chibi-Genzo are so adorably drawn. (I especially love the little board meetings that go on in Genzo's mind, where the many sides of his personality meet to discuss a current problem. Oh Genzo, you adorable dork.) I found that the animation actually got consistently better as the series went on. Might just be my imagination though.

The voice acting is great. I can't really comment on Japanese voice actors in terms of acting skill, but the voices for the characters were all enthusiastic and fit their personalities fabulously. My favorite Seiyuu was definitely Genzo's -- he gave Genzo such a wide range and put 100% into every line. Megumi's seiyuu, Megumi Hayashibara, (ironic, no?), was also one of my favorites. She gave Megumi a tomboyish sounding voice that fit her perfectly.

As for the plot, I'm not going to deny that there are a few holes in the story. I've heard the manga clears up some plot points a lot better than the anime does. For instance, the secret behind the magic that turned Megumi into a boy is a little fuzzy. And apparently, the ending in the anime is slightly different than that of the manga. I really should pick it up sometime. It's licensed by ViZ and all 20 volumes are out right now.

Also, sometimes, I will admit that the plot slows down for a good ol' fashioned pointless romp through fun-times. Now, while this is perfectly acceptable from time to time, I felt that in the beginning Tenshi had far too many "filler" episodes if you will. I really wanted to know more about Megumi's curse and I felt the series took a bit too much time to get there. But I'd say, after episode 13, I got totally hooked. There are parts of this show where you will literally not be able to stop watching. Happened to me around three or four times, where I watched around four episodes in a row just because I needed to know what was going to happen next. This happened especially towards the end. Episodes 39-50 are must-see-right-nows (I watched these eleven episodes in the span of two days. No joke. It's been a long time since I stayed up until 1:30 AM watching anime.)

The ending of the series was cute -- a little rushed -- but certainly cute. It was very open-ended, which is something I usually don't like in animes. But at the same time, I felt satisfied enough by the ending and felt that it just enough open for interpretation.

What I really love about this show are the themes it addresses: what is it to be a man? What is it to be a woman? How do we decide who we are on the inside? What is "manly" -- standing up and fighting or letting go? I love the issues with gender that are brought up here as Megumi struggles with her identity. It's just so interesting to think about as you watch our heroine go through her trials.

This show is currently unlicensed, but I can see why. It's very Japanese. It has a lot of Japanese puns and Japanese culture references, and just the way the characters act is very Japanese. It would be a challenge for any company to bring this over for an American release without butchering the content. A dub of this series would have to write around all the corny little Japanese puns -- no easy task. I don't really mind though. Although this series might be cute in English, the Japanese version is fine as is.

I don't know what it is, but I've been reliving my childhood a lot lately. Maybe, as college approaches, I want to remember all the good times I had as kid. I got into anime in the fourth grade via Sailor Moon (didn't everyone?), and once Toonami started airing anime all the time, I got hooked. I don't know exactly when I discovered the wide world of anime outside my TV, but if it wasn't for Cartoon Network bringing it over, I probably wouldn't be such an avid member of the anime fandom.

One show that Toonami aired was Zoids: New Century Zero, or, as the ... dubbing company named it, Zoids. I loved watching Zoids after school, it was definitely one of my favorite series. So I picked it up again, torrented the dub, and watched it start to finish. Serious blast from the past.

The plot of the show works rather well, and it's very fun to see the Blitz team pull out one victory after another. The Backdraft group is a little cliche at the beginning with their, "oh ho ho, we're the bad guys and we're going to beat you do-gooders into the ground", but as the series goes on, the members of the back-draft group get a lot more fleshed out and become interesting villains. Still, some remain stale, with little to no explanation of their motivations except "I wanna be powerful, lol".

Sometimes, though, I felt Bit and the Liger were too powerful. I can only remember one instance of the Liger losing, and with twenty five plus battles, you start to get annoyed by the Liger's uber skills. In the beginning episodes, the other characters hardly get any action at all, and powerful warriors like Brad and Leena even start to seem like hindrances to Bit and the Liger. However, as the series goes on, this remedies itself, with Brad getting a tricked out Shadow Fox and Leena blasting away opponents with her Gun Sniper. Jamie even gets a share of the action in his flying Raynos.

To tell the honest truth, I think this series needed to be longer. Brad doesn't get his Shadow Fox until Episode 20 out of 26, and Jamie only gets one or two episodes to totally kick butt as the Wild Eagle, his alter ego. The show gets a lot of fleshing out too late, in my opinion.

But what I've written makes it seem like I didn't enjoy the show. Quite the contrary, Zoids is a great series, despite its slow build-up to the uber awesome. Every character is fun to watch, from the fun-loving Bit to the "shoot first ask questions later" Leena. Brad's misery behavior is very funny, and Jamie shows off more than once that he is the most mature of the team, despite being the youngest. Steve Torros' impulse buying of things that are "big and shiny" is always chuckle-enducing. Harry Champ is also hilarious to watch -- he's desperately in love with Leena, but she refuses his advances (probably due to the fact that he's a total dork).

The writing, I will admit, sometimes dissolves into the classic shonen anime "long stare off into the sky with determined expression" cheese. But some passages of dialogue are very funny. So it's a mixed bag.

The art of this series is actually one of the things that makes it stand out. For 2001, the art is really clean and polished, and the amount of detail is astounding. All the Zoids are animated in full 3D CG, which makes for some pretty stunning battles. Watching the action on this show is hardly a bore -- everything is animated beautifully, and all the Zoids are designed fantastically.

The music is also something that sticks out. In short, it kicks ass. You WILL find yourself bopping up and down to some of the tunes, especially the "uber dramatic action" songs that got me bopping my head. Whoever did the music handled it VERY well. I watched the dub, so I didn't hear the Japanese opening theme/ending theme, but the American ending theme isn't so awful. No singing, just some cool rock music -- a good choice, in my opinion.

As for the dub, I can honestly say that Zoids is probably one of the best dubs I've seen. A few of the lines are little "whut?!" but for the most part, across the board, the acting is good and the voices all fit great. They did a bit of editing (Bit walks in on Leena in the bath -- they disguise it as Leena being mad because Bit took her scheduled time slot) but it really wasn't annoying. I mean, I'm not the sort who goes, "OMFG there shuld b more cursin!!1 lol" so I think whatever edits they did were appropriate and non-obtrusive to the storyline.

Really, I watched around eight episodes of this series in a row. It's that good. Definitely will keep you entertained, and probably get you invested along the way.