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In my mind, Cowboy Bebop is the perfect show for people you know who say "Anime? What are you, 12?"

It's slick, it's funny, it's serious, and it knows how to avoid anime stereotypes. It has characters that you'll never get tired of, plot twists that will keep you watching up late at night, epic fight scenes, and a soundtrack that is worth shelling out for.

With that said, let's roll.

Story: 9

Though it wanders on occasion, I'd like to say that nearly 100% of the time it's to develop characters further or to add a bit of humor. The Star Trek parody episode was a bit ... over the top (but enjoyable), and to me it's hard to enjoy enjoy the filler episodes as much as the ones where sh*t really gets real. But let's delve into those. WOW. The last two episodes of the show are as good as it gets in anime. Not to mention the 5th episode, or the back-to-back ones that take place on Mars. I won't ruin any story elements, but look forward to these. If you take anything from this review, take this: those 5 episodes are worth watching over, and over, and over, for any anime fan.

Art: 8

It's tough to write a review now for a show that took place as long ago as it did, but I'll give it a shot. It's well drawn, and well animated, but it's nothing mindblowing. I remember seeing the first episode fight scenes and being thoroughly impressed, but for me the main draws of the show were always the music, the characters, and the story. I can't say I've ever been much of an art critic, but for the most part is was aesthetically pleasing. I was certainly impressed by the character design, and the world that the artists created was both interesting and desirable.

Sound: 10

Yoko Kanno honestly outdid herself this time. In all my years of watching anime, this is the first time I've really felt like I NEEDED the soundtrack. Great OP, great songs throughout, great everything. So impressed with what she did here.

Character: 9

How can you not love Spike Spiegel or Faye Valentine? They're the ones that you'd like to be in real life. To me, it's not just how badass the characters are, it's the ideals they represent. Honor, bravery, and an unwillingness to let anything stand before something that you know in your heart is right. The only comparison that I can make here is a show called Firefly, which isn't an anime but in some ways reminds me of Bebop. Great design, great execution, and I wouldn't get sick of any of them even if the show went on for 100 eps.

In an anime world filled with stories surrounding shinigami it is often difficult to sift out what is worth watching and what to avoid. After hearing countless comparisons to Bleach and other such shows and witnessing its popularity rise at an astounding rate, I was immediately skeptical of Soul Eater. After having recently finished watching the 32nd episode raw the other day I feel as though my transformation from skeptic to believer is complete, and I will extrapolate on why.

The first few episodes of Soul Eater are really nothing to write home about, and honestly almost turned me off to the show. The animation was ... impressive, certainly, and their were some well done action scenes and timely humorous episodes, but it didn't really seem to be going anywhere. The two aspects of the show that really made me want to keep watching, however, were the music (somewhat reminiscent of Bleach, though even better at setting the mood), and the dark and strange world that the show takes place in. After a few episodes however, the story began to pick up and the strengths of Soul Eater really began to shine through.

One of the best things the show has going for it, especially in the first 26 episodes, is the pacing. There was practically no filler (apart from an episode regarding excalibur, which although many hated, I found to be hilarious), and the flashbacks did not go to the extremes of shows like Naruto and Bleach, keeping the viewers intrigued but not bored. The characters are well rounded and all are interesting in their own ways, especially in their neurotic intracacies (Death the Kidd being a perfect example). The humor is often and yet not overpresent, as the storyline remains fairly serious, and the characters combine enough realistic traits with ideal and heroic behavior to be excellent protagonists in the story.

Perhaps the crowning aspect of Soul Eater, as I mentioned before, is the lack of filler episodes, and while I feel that as of late this may be wavering a bit (episode 31 was the only one that really had me on the edge of my seat), I still look forward to a new one every week, and the story is progressing quite nicely. Soul Eater is a very original series in a time in anime filled with copycats and unnecessarily drawn out shows, and it is a most welcome and entertaining change.

Kino's Journey is a show that I had meant to watch for a long time, after stumbling across the light novel in a Barnes & Nobles and reading it all in one go a year or so back, and it turned out to be everything that I had hoped for, even more surprising to me because I watched it dubbed, which I usually try to avoid at all costs.

The one aspect that really sticks throughout the show is the feeling of dreamlike wonder at the world that Kino and Hermes travel around in. Everything in the show feels simultaneously as something part of a ... distant dream while connecting situations, aspects of human nature (especially more base ones), and a hardness of reality that create a world in which everything is relatable emotionally and yet seemingly distant. A particular theme throughout is the concept of a "utopian society", approached on many different levels and idealisms. The show does not tear into these concepts (though it does display their absurdities often), and the part that Kino plays through these episodes is often more observer than participant. The tagline "The world is not beautiful, and therefore it is" rings clearly throughout as a main theme, as a multitude of human atrocities are displayed, from brutality to indifference, but there are little bits of hope and possibility everyone, even in the darkest of places.

Seemingly unmentioned before, the soundtrack really does well to set the mood throughout the series, as does the artwork, and though both are fairly minimalistic they do quite well in setting the tone during each episode and as a whole in the creation of the world that Kino and Hermes travel through. An unexpected and pleasant surprise were some fairly well done action scenes throughout; I hadn't expected the quality of these interludes to be as high as they were. That seemed to be the recurring theme throughout watching the show: even though I'd read the book, I still found myself enraptured in each episode and impressed by the variety of styles and genres that they were able to tie in to a 13 episode series. Each episode seemed to place almost in a different world, and could stand alone as a great work of art.

All in all Kino's Journey is a series that I think anyone can enjoy, anime fan or not, for it brings just about everything to the table that you could ask for: great writing, philosophical questions about human nature, solid action scenes, a world similar and yet different to our own, and a protagonist duo that you can really feel for and relate to. Watching Kino's Journey is an experience in anime unlike any other I have been through, and I envy anyone who has yet to stumble across the dreamlike masterpiece.