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Devil May Cry is something I desperately hoped would turn out great. Most things based off a video game- whether it be a movie, a book, or even an anime- are damned to fail. So for Devil May Cry, based on the video games of the same title, my hopes were that this work might succeed in its attempt to become a great anime. They might have been foolish, selfish wishes, but I wished that it at least would at least try.
Was this anime as good as it could have been? The general consensus is no, as it seems. Why? To illustrate how an anime ... becomes boring, a list, featuring Devil May Cry:

1. Dante doesn’t have flaws.
If he does, they barely exist. He’s a freaking blank slate. He always defeats every demon in his way, EVERY TIME. Conflict? What conflict. If there isn’t anyone he can’t kill, then why even bother watching. Even Dante is aware of his extreme powers, and is constantly bored by his opponents. If he’s bored, we’re bored. You won’t be at the edge of your seat, because you know he can defeat whoever comes his way. It’s healthy to have the character lose once in a while, because it keeps the audience on edge. It’s permissible to never have the characters lose, but at least let them break a sweat. If Dante ever breaks a sweat, which he won’t, it’ll be the cool kind, like a strawberry sundae oozing down his face or a pizza slice breaking out of his pores and sliding with a greasy trail down to his- scratch that, that’s disturbing. I actually wanted Dante to lose or die in the end, because it would be a major twist from the usual formula of ‘I can’t defeat this guy… just kidding’ that Dante relies on all too often. It’s a level of boring that can only be matched by watching plastic grass grow.

2. Being something all the time = boring.
Dante should not be cool 24/7. It gets boring and grating to watch. He’s cool when he sleeps. He’s cool when he eats his cool food. He’s cool when he walks all alone in the dark, in his cool outfit with his cool sword and cool shiny guns strapped to him and his cool poker face. He walks out of a fight without even a single speck of soil landing on his clothes and his hair immaculate. The coolness is great at first, but after the same thing all the goddamn time, you might even find yourself switching to “Mars of Destruction” instead of this crap. At least you can laugh at MoD.

3. The plot comes at the last minute.
Look at the picture for Devil May Cry. Go ahead, look at it. The white haired guy in front, as you probably know, is Dante. The other two guys are central to the plot, but show up at the next to last episode. That means the rest of the time was spent on NOTHING. The rest of the time is spent on Patty, who is basically Ciel’s fiancé Elizabeth from Kuroshitsuji mixed with Renge from Ouran High School Host Club. If you don’t know who those people are, the mishmash would be a grotesque mass of blonde hair, clingy personality, no point, and a really annoying tendency to appear at the worst times. That’s Patty for you, a girl who should’ve left after the first episode, but stuck around just to add another element of suck to the DMC headquarters.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, more about the plot. The plot is so rushed into the ending that they shouldn’t have even bothered. Most of the anime is just one episode dramas which have zero conflict because as I said before, Dante doesn’t lose. Ever. Devil May Cry is about Dante and friends having wonderful romps through their zany adventures of killing bloodthirsty demons. And Patty’s there too, I guess. It wasn’t very good, it’s very obvious it was based off a video game. There’s really no explanation of anything- I would have loved to hear the limitations of the demons, the limitations of Dante, or how Devil May Cry got started. Nobody gets that much of a backstory, no rules of the universe are explained, and no real emotional ties between characters are developed. It’s cripplingly average. The majority of the anime is Dante strutting around eating his strawberry sundaes and pizza and beer while shooting demons. It’s not very fun once you get passed the first episode.
On the technical side, it’s obvious that they did do a bit of demonology research, evidenced by names such as Baal, Modeus, and Dante. That, however, is to be expected and it‘s not very impressive.

Moving right along to the art, there are a few things that need to be said about the dreaded art. It’s blasphemous to see an otherwise gorgeous characters massacred by unsavory art. Dante’s really hot, but you wouldn’t be able to tell because the damn animation could turn caviar into feces with a garnish of roadkill. Trish the sexbomb was reduced to Trish the kill-it-with-fire bomb. Lady went from looking like Meagan Fox to looking like something a fox just killed. The animation’s boxy and has a freaking ugly style. However, it gets a four because it’s not bad enough to deter you from watching the series. Most of the other things might.

Right about here’s where characters are discussed, and it’s a real shame that they’re basically cardboard cut outs with traits slapped on to them. In fact, each character can be described in one sentence without fear of missing a personality aspect. They are all so flat that pieces of soggy paper say to their children, “Honey, some day you’ll be like Dante.”
Dante isn’t the only character at fault here. Lady is a chick who basically fills the screen when the animators take a break from Dante’s face, Patty is a chick who is there for comic relief, but it’s more like comic agony, and Trish is the girl who’s supposed to be really hot, but as I said before, the fault lies in the sub par animation. It’s notable that Patty is one of the few original (to this anime) characters here. The actual demons are transparent and you can see their explanations for their actions coming from a mile away (I wanted to battle the infamous Dante, I need to prove myself to master, I knew your father, etc).

The sound of the whole thing was okay. It was just alright. The choices were very obvious, like “DANT’S BAD@ZZ SO OBVSLY HE LURVES ROCKNROLL OMG LOL!!!1” It’s sickeningly mediocre rock, by the way. Nothing particularly hardcore.

As for the enjoyment, if you watch DMC, watch it for the ride. If you get tired of the same cool shtick over and over then watch a few episodes and don’t finish it, the ending does not carry a great payoff. Otherwise, I recommend this anime to those who are intrigued by badassery and badassery alone.

Have you ever watched a massive dump for a few hours gather flies? I have. It’s called Funny Pets!
Funny Pets is the tale of a sun thing and a moon thing and a poor excuse for a woman doing nothing IN CGI! This anime will change your life, mainly because it with make your eyes bleed so hard that they might just fall out of their sockets. On with the review!

Episode 1 is pretty slow. Nothing happens.
Episodes 2-5 things begin to pick up, with nothing happening even faster.
Episode 6 is pretty special, with nothing happening.
Episodes 7-10 is where it gets fun, with special attention paid ... to the parts where nothing happened.
Episodes 11-12, the final episodes- It got really emotional when nothing happened. I might’ve cried a little.

I’m expected to analyze the different components of this anime, but I find that I first must go over a crucial tidbit of information before we get to the real meat and potatoes, if the potatoes were grown in shit and the cows were reenacting a scene from “the Human Centipede.”
Before someone points out that it’s a kids show and that it’s meant to be simplistic, HAVE YOU SEEN THIS SHOW. It’s so violent at times (the moon at one point rips out his eyes and accidentally steps on them, something you too can experience after watching this), the moon looks creepy as fuck (enough to give a 10 year old nightmares), some scenes are trippy as hell and the girl has large boobs. And yet the pastel color scheme, the way they talk, and the simplicity lead one to believe it’s meant for children. And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for! The part where I shut up and REALLY review this thing.

First, the story.
Actually, no. There’s no story. There’s really no story. I wish I was lying.

Onto the art, you can probably guess how I feel about it. My experience with CGI and anime up to seeing Funny Pets was not pleasant. After seeing Funny Pets, my experience with CGI and anime was a horrific bloodbath of shattered dreams. The animation is something I could do better in my sleep. I am actually convinced that they walked into a preschool and had them work for fifty cents an hour (in American dollars so they couldn’t even USE the money) scribbling and drooling on the computer, and then walked out with what they called “Funny Pets”.
As for the character designs, I must say WHAT character designs. There’s a sun and a moon and a chick. Their designs barely exist.

This is where I’m supposed to review the voice acting, the opening, the ending, anything under the giant umbrella of “sound”. Haha, nope. If you can actually concentrate on the sound while gouging out your eyes, it may come as a surprise to you that they’re not speaking Japanese. They’re not speaking English either. In fact, the ENTIRE anime is spent with the three basically babbling incoherently in no language. You can turn the sound off and nothing will happen. The opening and ending is the kind of music that I’d expect to be played in the background of Rugrats or something. I don’t actually remember the opening or ending to well, considering that after hearing the dialog, my ears self-destructed with the intent of saving my mind.

Here comes the good part, the characters. The characters are the driving force of any story, but unfortunately I cannot review them because they, once again, barely exist. They don’t have any emotion, they only have this mind-numbingly frustrating blankness to them. However, the creepy moon sometimes has glimpses of a personality, but then, oh no, he’s just a blank slate.


I fully recommend this anime, if you like the self-infliction of pain. If you’re not a sadomasochist, then don’t stand within 500 feet of this anime.

I raise my glass for The Overated Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, otherwise known as the show with wasted potential. Dive into this review at your own discretion, as it may contain minor spoilers, but then again, there isn't anything you can say about this anime that would remain completely spoiler free. I've only seen the anime, so this review is solely based on this work. It's also based on the chronological viewing.


Scene: The conception of the Melancholy anime, as I imagined it in all it's inaccuracy.
Two executives sit at a round, wooden table. There is a man standing before them, nervously wringing his hands. One ... of the seated men nods his head, a signal for the man to begin his presentation.
Creator: W-well, I have this story, it's called "Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu"...
Man 1: Go on.
C: It's about this girl who has god powers and doesn't know it and the world revolves around h-
Man 2: Sounds good so far, but how about we add a few characters.
M1: Uh... book girl and fanservice girl.
C: But-
M2: Gotta have a mysterious transfer student.
M1: Oh yes!
C: Well-
M1: Rational narrator! That'll work.
M2: How could I have forgotten!
C: So as the plot goes on, w-
M2: NO!
M1: ABSOLUTELY NOT!
M2: We're sorry, plot alienates our viewers. Your plot was starting to sound a little too smart there. However, we like this series so much that we're even going to consult the dartboard for you, how does that sound?
C: What is that?
M1: Great to see we're on the same page.
[Man 1 stands up and walks to the back of the room as Man 2 produces nine darts from his pocket. Man 1, with a flourish, removes a curtain from the wall that wasn't previously there, unveiling a simple dartboard with little pieces of paper taped to it unfasionably.
M1 sits back down and M2 closes his eyes, dart in hand. Man 2 begins to hurl darts at the board as Man 1 reads the choices aloud.]
M1: Baseball! Classic. Bug episode? That's odd. Video game! Heater! We'll find some way to make that work, I guess. School Festival, how fun! Beach/Murder story, think of the lovely fanservice! Woah, it got hit twice, we can have TWO of those episodes! Film! Kiss! Looks like we've got some winners here.
M2: [Looks to creator] What'dya think about that! Isn't our way of choosing episodes spectacular?
C: W-well, actually I-
M2: Great! Let's start production!

Story:
So much potential, so frustratingly ignored. We have a concept that could go far, the concept of a god who doesn't know that she is a god, who can manipulate everything while still knowing nothing, and the world must bend to her selfish teenage wishes. In the first few episodes you have the promise of a great series. But once the climax comes, all you're left with is filler crap that they tie haphazardly to the plot. If you're looking for an anime about a wacky school club with an eccentric leader and minor filler watch Angel Beats instead, it'll at least make you laugh.

Art:
It's a slice of life, I don't really expect the animation to be fantastic. The famous ending is great, the motions are fluid, the opening's alright. But then... the CGI. DAMN IT. I had to deduct quite a few points for the horrible, clunky, distracting, hideous 3D animation. The character designs are pretty generic. If you were to dress one of the three tacked on club members who's names to me are "boobs, transfer kid, and gray haired book chick" in something other than their uniform and put them in a crowd of other anime characters I wouldn't recognize them.

Sound:
UUUUUUGH. Koizumi's voice makes me wince. His voice has a real sharp feel to it at times. It's like a dog whistle, only annoying to those who notice it, so don't let that nitpick throw you off. The other seiyuu were standard, nothing that special, except for Haruhi's. She captured the slightly crazed personality of Haruhi to a T and brought new personality to the character.

Characters:
Haruhi is interesting. Kyon is kind of interesting. The others barely exist. The club members are simple archetypes, and they could've been great if they didn't have the personality of yellow crabgrass.

Enjoyment:
At first, I was at the edge of my seat. Next, I was laying down. Then, I was on the floor sobbing and wondering why I was still watching this. After finishing the anime, I closed my laptop and penciled in my next exciting plans to watch paint dry.

Overall:
Watch this anime and see how you like it. You may love it or you may hate it. I hated it. It's up to you to decide.

Going into Claymore, my anime loving friends had all warned me that it would be a tearjerker. "The ending!" They cried with a fiery passion, "O, the ending! It hath plucked at mine heartstrings, it hath sliced at my heart with an oversized sword."
Taking their advice into consideration, I sat down, got my box of tissues ready, and plunged into the final episode. And as the ending music played, I found myself staring at the screen, stunned at how non-emotional it was. As I recall, I even scoffed a few times and smiled a little.

Story: One of the things that pisses me off about the ... story is Clare's rank. Clare is the main character, can be insanely strong sometimes, and is the LOWEST RANKED CLAYMORE. It's explained in the story that Clare's powers are inconsistant, so her rank is low, but most of the time she's really strong, especially towards the end. I could understand if she was in the 20's or 30's, but the lowest rank? It makes no sense. Moving on, the story centers on Clare being followed around by Raki, who I'll get to later. Raki is someone who is obviously just a device to insert more variety (because there are only so many ways one can draw a tall blonde girl) and a way to introduce Clare into the story. There are demons in the story, but they're boring and don't really add that much except conflict.
Towards the end I stopped caring about the story entirely and finished it for the sake of finishing it.

Art: At it's best, it was mediocre. At it's worst, it was downright hideous. The battles, which are supposed to be a main point of the series, consist of a shot of a sword moving, then a black screen with lots of diagonal cuts forming, the demon looking confused and frozen for a few seconds, and finally the demon spurting blood from wounds that seem to have a delayed reaction timer in them. When the artists try to draw Clare or anyone in a very beautiful way, it just causes me to hide behind my chair in fear. The facial proportions were terrible, the character designs okay (I give them props for being able to draw one sort of character 47 different ways), the clothing designs very good, and the youma okay.

Sound: It wasn't that memorable. It gets a five. It wasn't offensive to my ears, and it wasn't great.

Characters: Oh boy.
Raki is a useless little boy who has the personality of dead grass. He's on the sidelines, he thinks he can help, but oh wait, he can't, he's grass, and in the end simply gets stepped on by everyone.
Another character in particular annoys the hell out of me. Jeane, a Claymore who comes in later and I can't say much about her for fear of spoilers, is someone who is dedicated to returning a favor Clare did for her. And she does return the favor. Multiple times. Clare even says that it's not necessary for her to go to such lengths for her. Jeane then decides to follow Clare around. I only see "stalker" when I look at Jeane. Not "reliable friend".
As for the other characters, they were alright. Nothing to write home about.

Enjoyment: Ehhhh. Whatever enjoyment I got out of the first few episodes were vanquished in the last few.

Overall: What else is there to say?

Watch it if you enjoy long, drawn out fights, blonde women, and annoying protagonists.
Now, I have to go return the tissues I bought.