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--- Warning: Contains spoilers ---

Most series can be summed up in a few words, and regardless of their implications, some descriptions may throw you for a loop. When you hear the words triangles, music, missiles, more music and even more missiles, what is it that you think of? Most well-versed anime viewers should be thinking of the Macross franchise, as this can effectively sum up a great portion of what it's all about, ranging from the original series to the latest installment entitled Frontier.

Macross Frontier happens to be a fairly ordinary anime that in its simplicity, loses direction as it progresses, only to attempt ... to get back on track after wasting lots of time. When you break it down, at least half of the episodes are fillers, and a majority of the rest are short arcs that don't really connect and flow together to form a solid plot like any good series would. Since this is not an episodic series, this format begins to hurt itself in the long run, as only little bits of crucial information about the grand scheme of things are revealed throughout the series. This makes the progression of the main plot very slow and unnecessarily dragged out. It's not until the final third of the series that it decides to focus on what can be considered the main plot. Up until this point, the plot was nothing more than a simple "Defend the human race from unknown aliens", which is already weak in and of itself as it's really just a poor excuse for some mecha action, but it decided to take a sharp 180 and go down the oh so wonderful conspiracy route.

With this development that couldn't help but be expected many episodes prior, everything starts to become a giant mess. This was hinted to a few times throughout the beginning of the series, usually only for a very short time period in select episodes displaying things like undercover discussions or trades, so it's not like it came on unforeseen by the audience. If anything, it happened far too late, as the motives behind Grace and Leon who were originally working together are hardly delved into, and they simply play the bad-guy role because the series needed a better antagonist than random aliens. Both individuals having very grandiose goals of wanting to rule the universe, you can't help but wonder how they actually planned on executing this in the first place. It is only explained after Grace O'Connor, the great evil mastermind behind everything, had her plans proceed to completion without any hitch at all. Now, having full control over the Vajra, it's pretty safe to say she holds much more power than anyone else currently, yet, of course, is defeated by the power of... music (Catchy j-pop music at that). A lot of build up was wasted in favor of going this predictable route, and it is basically the equivalent of beating the bad guy through the power of friendship. At the very least, they tried to give some basis for this being possible with information from earlier episodes explaining the power of music within the Macross universe.

Seeing as this all happened in the span of a few episodes, it's safe to say that pacing became a huge issue, and solidified the fact that most of the other episodes were nothing more than "filler" and short arcs. They could have used this time to begin to develop the plot, but that wasn't the case. They may as well have cut out these episodes in favor of getting straight to the point, rather than extending the series unnecessarily. With the remaining episodes not being devoted to plot advancement, some character development should be expected in them, however, it's nowhere near as much as there should have been for how much time was devoted to this aspect. A majority of the remaining episodes used most of their time focused on the love triangle between the three main characters, but the events and developments that took place were usually undermined due to the indecisive and undeveloped protagonist of the series, Alto Saotome. He is also better known by some of the characters as Princess Alto, and for good reason.

And while it may not all necessarily be because of him, he is directly involved in many of the simple plot conveniences used to keep the love triangle from moving forward. Whether it be going out to fight against the Vajra during a crucial time when he was supposed to be with Ranka, or Ranka seeing him with Sheryl and then wallowing in her own sadness about it afterwards. However, with Alto being the resident princess of the series, it's not a far stretch to say he certainly can act like one at times. Ranging from his daddy issues leading to him running away from home to become a pilot, or how he likes to ignore any real problems that he faces, there's almost nothing about him that doesn't scream "Princess". He even has gorgeous flowing locks of hair to accentuate this. In fact, I have no doubt that some would start to question his manhood, as he practically ignores any advances from both Sheryl and Ranka, which goes back to him being largely at fault for the triangle never progressing. Any time it seems like he's made up his mind about who he wants to be with, the next episode has some bad news for you, as he basically does the equivalent of saying "Just kidding!", and begins to show what can be considered interest in the opposite girl. As for the whole "Princess" nickname and his daddy issues, they are touched on briefly, but it comes off as nothing more than the writers quickly throwing together some semblance of a back story so that they could pass him off as more than your average self-insert main character.

Having Alto bounce back and forth between who it seemed he was interested in clearly shows which characters are supposed to be the selling point of the series, and of course, I can only be talking about Ranka and Sheryl. Long winded fan boy name calling and debates aside for now, they both have their ups and downs as characters.

Ranka, who is easily the character who receives the most focus in the series, happens to be the one who receives the least development for all the time she spent on screen (Go figure). She manages to slowly get over her timid nature when it comes to singing, but only because of the encouragement Alto gives her throughout the series. Although this was good however, even with her having the most interaction with other characters and general screen time, she never developed a reason for singing past doing it for Alto's affection. Due to the fact that the time spent on her was poorly utilized, her development was hindered in the long run. This is made especially apparent when you see that a few of the side characters have more motivation for their actions than she does. For the sheer amount of focus the series gave her character, seeing them do nothing with it past the first few episodes was disappointing to say the least.

Sheryl, on the other hand, plays a much more interesting role in the series. Many pass her off as "Bitchy", "Overly arrogant" and many other demeaning terms from the moment she appears on screen, but she manages to easily become the best character in the cast. With her status established right from the beginning, it's not unfitting for her to act much like she runs the place. Providing a stark contrast from Ranka, Sheryl is confident and domineering to an extent, yet still caring of others, shown by her attitude towards Ranka and Alto. She eventually softens up a bit, mostly due to her feelings for Alto since he doesn't worship her like everyone else in the colonies. The struggle she goes through while falling from the top as Ranka took over is far more believable than anything Ranka or Alto went through. Having to cope with her fall from stardom, as well as her impending death due to a disease, she accepts these facts and still tries to move forward, doing the only thing she can do: sing. This made her far more endearing to the audience by the end of the series, as this shows her confidence wasn't simply based on her status as the Galactic Fairy, but her strength of will that was built up through living her old lifestyle of complete poverty. While she did remain mostly static, what she went through didn't feel contrived, much like the case was with Ranka.

But of course, like many other series, one of the biggest problems Macross Frontier presents is the ending. Again, I find myself questioning Alto's sexuality, as the ending provides zero closure for what is considered the main focus of the series: the love triangle between the three main characters. This is Macross, the plot is only there to help move the romance forward, and that's one thing Frontier severely failed at. Not only was Alto himself preventing it from taking a big step forward with his indecisiveness and constant character changes, the sheer amount of conveniences that kept the character's relationships from developing sure didn't help either. Like I mentioned, the filler episodes would mostly focus on the love triangle, but focusing on it is not the same as actually having it progress. Regardless of how much it actually progressed by the end, a conclusion is needed, and that's something the series never provided. While it was very heavily suggested that Sheryl "won" before the finale, the final moments of the series throw the entirety of the few episodes Alto was together with Sheryl right out the window, and has Ranka enter the competition once more.

As we all know, Alto has a major fascination for the sky, more so than for the two girls who fawned over him for the entire series. So what does he do? He doesn't clearly choose either girl, but instead chooses the mother fucking sky. Whether it was intentionally done this way so that the Sheryl and Ranka factions wouldn't destroy the world due to a simultaneous outburst of angry fan boys crying over the fact that their waifu "lost", or because they wanted to leave it up for interpretation, it doesn't change the fact that giving no closure severely impacts the series in a bad way. And when one of the main selling points of the Macross franchise is left untouched, it leaves nothing more than disappointment in the eyes of fans and newcomers alike. While making no decision on which girl the main character wants to be with may be a common occurrence in most harem series, it should not be the case when there is only a love triangle at hand. When ample time is given to devote to two characters and their interactions with the main character, going down this route is nothing more than a bad decision as it should be nearly impossible to get fans to feel satisfied with this kind of ending. It was a shame to see them use this kind of cheap exit strategy after putting forth the effort to develop the relationships in the series.

After all of this, there's nothing left but disappointment in the series. There may have been good j-pop, great action scenes, as well as throwbacks to previous entries in the franchise ranging from songs, to name drops and simple phrases, but that only adds to the enjoyment factor. And as most intelligent people will know, even that isn't enough to save a series which continually makes mistakes along the way. At the end of the day, Macross Frontier had a lot of potential, but unfortunately it was ruined by Alto who could not manage to keep the series flying smoothly.

--- Warning: Contains spoilers ---

When it comes to anime, the horror genre is a tricky one. A fatal flaw arises right from the beginning, as each person has their own definition of horror depending on how imaginative they might be. While some may immediately think of a bunch of gruesome killings, others may think of more eerie supernatural events, and the list goes on, but because of this, the genre has a high chance of failure depending on each person's perception of horror.

Unfortunately, Another just happens to fall way outside my definition of horror, and seems to fit very nicely within comedy.

But hold on a ... second, this anime isn't just a horror, it's also supposed to be a mystery as well. Every year we're usually greeted with at least one mystery anime per season that I only consider mystery simply because that's what they are labeled. This is because, more often than not, anime that are supposed to be predominantly mystery, surprise, have no mystery to speak of in them, and Another is no different.

Alright, well, saying there is absolutely no mystery might be a bit of an exaggeration, but can you really consider Another a mystery? When you get down to it, it was ultimately about finding out who the "Another" was so that they may be able to stop the curse that has been running rampant for 26 years. The problem with this is that for the first four episodes, it was all about Kouichi figuring out who Mei was, seeing as she had the same name as the girl who died 26 years ago, which is what people believe started the curse in the first place. So when we figure out that she is just a normal girl, everything up until this point felt like nothing more than another useless time sink.

Here is where it gets into episodes that are completely wasted in favor of cheap shock value to try and keep the viewer hooked. Until episode 10, what did they actually learn about the Another? Nothing of any value. Where's the mystery in that? I don't find random deaths to be mysterious or horrifying in any way, and this is what the series focused on the entire time. One could argue that this narrowed down the possible suspects, but the characters did nothing with this. Even though they might have not been able to do anything to stop the curse, they could've at least devoted more time to actually trying to figure out who the Another is rather than waste time with other daily activities.

Throughout the entire series, there were only two episodes that truly served any purpose, one of which was the beach episode. Now, where would any anime be without a beach episode? It's practically mandatory these days, however, it wouldn't be Another without a token death scene in almost every episode now would it? The only good thing this episode did was provide us with one of the bigger clues, which made it very easy to figure out who the Another might be, as it proved that deaths could happen outside of Yomiyama. Meaning that the Another had to be on the trip. The only problem is that the explanation they gave in the next episode made any speculation as to who the Another was entirely useless. It was said that the person who died actually had gotten a brain injury while still in Yomiyama, and would've died later that day regardless of him being run over and torn to shreds by a boat on the beach. With this, it was practically back to square one since you wouldn't know whether or not the information given could be trusted or not. Although, any good mystery relies on misdirection, and this is one thing I can credit Another for at times, as it did try to send you down a wrong path or two as the series progressed, but this small aspect alone doesn't make up for how horribly executed everything else was.

The only other episode that had any purpose was episode 9, and regardless of it being the most frustrating one, it did provide some crucial information. As the events played out, Kouichi and his band of half-wits found a tape telling them how to stop the curse from continuing. Now, here comes the frustrating part, one of the geniuses amongst the group had the brilliant idea of ripping the tape out of the tape player to stop it from playing, instead of simply pressing the pause or stop button. You seriously have to invent an entirely new level of imbecile to describe something so moronic. Considering the current standards for incompetence in modern society have set the bar so ludicrously low, this newly discovered form of stupidity deserves some kind of fucking award. The author clearly was looking for an easy out so that they could extend the series just a bit longer, which resulted in the wonder that is the final two episodes.

However, there was one thing that was the ultimate "Fuck you" to all of the viewers. More so than the whole tape fiasco in episode nine, and that's Misaki Mei. Not only did they try to make her seem far more important than she was for the first half of the series, but, in one of the worst reveals I've ever had the displeasure of witnessing, they confirm that she was able to tell who the Another was from the very beginning. So with this, anything of relevance that happened in all of the previous episodes was for naught, and that's just absurd. She could have at least tried to speak out and tell the other students that she knew who the Another was, and before you say they wouldn't believe her, take a second to think about this. All of these morons in Class 3 believed in a completely nonsensical curse that was nothing more than superstition until it was proven to be true in the final episode. Yes, nothing could've been done regardless if she told someone or not, but due to the fact that she actually knew the entire time, the mystery was already technically solved since the beginning. It was only a matter of figuring out how to get rid of the Another, which took seven episodes of cheap deaths, one episode to figure out how to stop the curse, one episode of half the class dying and/or killing each other, and half of the final episode to reveal and kill the Another.

Am I the only one who sees a problem here? There was no actual deducting or piecing together of the puzzle. All Mei had to do was convince Kouichi that his aunt was the Another (which went over far too easily by the way), and it was over. I'm not saying that all the deaths could've been avoided, but I'll be damned if Mei isn't partially to blame for sitting around doing all of nothing for the previous eleven episodes. This is in no way a mystery. The beginning of the series could be considered an infinitely better mystery than the latter half, as you really have no idea who or what Mei is and what role she actually plays in the story until half way through the fifth episode.

Not only was the "mystery" handled very haphazardly throughout, but the horror and supernatural aspects were as well. Even now, this series isn't listed under supernatural, most likely because horror usually blends with supernatural in some way, but knowing that this series has supernatural elements only makes everything far worse. From the beginning, we're introduced to the central plot point: the curse that started 26 years ago that still takes the lives of people today. The problem with this is that throughout the series, the curse felt like nothing more than superstition. Almost every single death throughout the bulk of the series, and especially the ones in episode eleven could be logically explained in some way rather than only explainable by taking supernatural elements into consideration. There was only one death that truly felt so farfetched that it could only seem like the work of the supernatural hand , and that was the elevator death in episode four. However, no matter how small the chance of it happening is, it was still within the realm of possibility. I understand that hospital elevator cables snapping may seem ridiculous, and it really is, but you can't rule out this having happened at least once in documented history.

As for the rest of the deaths, they're all easily explained. The umbrella death in episode three? Dying by falling down a flight stairs is entirely possible on its own, but regardless of this being in the original source or something P.A. Works changed, Dead Girl #1 falling on the umbrella was purely done for trying to hook the audience, and there is no easier way of doing that than making some over-the-top death scene which all the mindless little sheep will endlessly ejaculate over. Episode five? Heart attack. If I honestly have to explain this one, I'll probably lose what little hope I have left in humanity. Episode seven? Simple suicide. The real question here is why did the teacher who commited suicide have to make such a spectacle of his death? Here's a hint: shock value.

And they aren't don't yet, oh no. Not only were most of the deaths earlier on in the series blown way out of proportion, P.A. Works felt the need to try and make episode eleven able to rival the entirety of a series like Higurashi in terms of deaths and overblown character reactions. So here we have a bunch of teenagers scared for their life each and every day, wondering if they'll be the next ones to die, and through the magic that is the adolescent mind, one of the previously mentioned half-wits lets two unstable girls listen to the tape so that they may also learn the marvelous way of how to stop the curse. Queue a ridiculous amount of jumping around between scenes that would make even Shinbo jealous of their artistic direction. To say this episode was shizophrenic would be quite the compliment.

Even though there may seem to be a lot going on in this episode, there is absolutely nothing to it in the end. It's just a meaningless massacre where everyone is dying from a series of random events like having a pillar falling on top of them, being incinerated by flames or simply being killed by one other in some twisted way due to mass hysteria, paranoia and/or plain idiocy. This all goes right back to Mei, as this entire thing could've been avoided if she had spoken up sooner about who the Another is, instead of letting the entirety of Class 3 believe it was her. Even once she revealed to Kouichi that she in fact knew who the Another was (we heard this twice), Kouichi never bothered to ask her who it was the entire time before or after they were being hunted by everyone else in the mansion and Mei never brought it up again. Not only was there no real mystery to begin with, withholding the information that could've easily solved this "mystery" a couple episodes ago puts her at fault for just about everything. Not the Another.

Either way, no matter how you look at it, every single death in this series was very highly dramatized to the point of absurdity for the simple sake of selling Blu-Rays. People like nonsensical violence, that's just how it is. Many series have success through using shock value (Madoka, for example), so I can't necessarily blame P.A. Works for this, as they were just trying to make money like everyone else in the world, but that doesn't excuse the fact that it was all completely superficial with no deeper meaning other than people dying for the sake of dying. If I wanted to see that, I would just turn on the news.

So, what exactly was Kouichi's role in all of this? Being the protagonist of the series, one would imagine that he would be the one solving the mystery by piecing together the puzzle; yet he's just as useless as the rest of the cast. His purpose was finished once he figured out the story of Mei and why she was being ignored by their class in the first place. After this, he, just like everyone else, was tagging along for the ride until the conclusion finally came around. Did he piece together evidence based on everything he's heard and encountered to come to the conclusion that the Another was his aunt? No, that was Mei. The only purpose he served in the end was providing us with irrefutable proof that his aunt was the Another by recalling memories that even he forgot until Mei spoke with him about it during the final episode. While this wasn't necessarily bad, as he does get points for not being a beta protagonist like you would imagine him to be, it certainly wasn't good.

Now, assuming you're not counting the death fodders that people like to call characters, by simple process of elimination, Mei is the only character left to go over, and she is by far the worst character in this series. Random Dead Kid #92 was more memorable and even had better characterization and development than she ever had. There was no real depth to her character, and unlike Kouichi, she served no purpose other than actually causing more problems for everyone around her, making her more of an antagonizing force than the Another was. Add in the fact that if she didn't have something unique to her design, she's completely indicernable among the myriads of Ayanami Rei clones out there. So what, she has a sad past, but who hasn't gone through something like losing a loved one nowadays? It could've been much worse, and I actually expected it to be seeing as just about everything else was expanded upon so ridiculously in this series. The only ounce of development that actually she received was during the mid-point of the series, which is arguably the only decent portion of it, and that's just because you finally learn about her as more than "The bitch that no ones gives two fucks about."

However, among the countless death fodders and pitiful excuses for characters, there is one who stands among the rest, simply for being one of the ones I hate to see the most in any given work: and that's the catalyst for an overdramatized event. In the case of Another, it would be the woman who owned the mansion that Class 3 went to on their trip. She had all of maybe 3 lines the entire time she was on screen, and was viewed as a side character of no importance, yet, out of nowhere, she decided to go on a random killing spree. This came on suddenly and was completely unwarranted, which just detracted from the main focus of the finale. During the final episode, they did decide to leave us with one terrible justification for her actions: she was said to be emotionally unstable due to the death of her grandson, but this should in no way trigger her actions seeing as his death happened earlier in the series, and by the fact that she went on the murdering spree BEFORE the news was leaked about Mei presumably being the Another. She merely served as a catalyst to help drive home the paranoia in the already unstable kids staying at the mansion, thus triggering a few of them going batshit insane after they found out that Mei was believed to be the Another. I don't even consider the old woman to be a character, but a horribly written plot device that was bad enough to actually be addressed.

One of the biggest problems with this series is, of course, the ending. Stating the obvious, they need to kill the Another so that the curse will be stopped. The only problem with this is that, while the curse is stopped for this year, each person whose life was taken by the curse has a chance to be brought back to life the next year. So, in the end, killing the Another does nothing for anyone in the future, only for the present year. Not only is the curse absolutely ridiculous, it adds on yet another layer of absurdity to everything by giving a nonsensical reason for how it started and why it continues today. Said given explanation is that 26 years ago, the people of Class 3 decided to believe that their classmate who had recently died, wasn't actually dead. Due to this, the curse continued to run rampant each year simply because it could, and it can never be stopped. In the end, the supernatural aspect is nothing more than a terrible excuse to shovel garbage down the throats of the people who eat up pointless deaths. And that is not how horror should work.

If there is any credit I can truly give to Another, it's the simple attention to detail that's present in things like the background, exemplary of almost every P.A. works anime. Sadly, this is quite easily the strongest point of this series. The atmosphere was great at times, yet seemingly over done at others. The main problem with this is that an anime can't be successful with only a few parts out of the many that make it up, especially not something like the atmosphere which requires other aspects of the series to be good in such a manner that it enhances the experience. More often than not, the atmosphere was ruined not because it was actually overdone, but because the scene taking place was horribly executed. In turn this made everything that took place work against any positive aspect the atmosphere might have provided. In combination with the overbearing OST that sounded like an angsty teenager turning their stereo up to over 9000 in some apparent misguided sense of rebellion against society; it more than kills any good mood that a scene might have been giving off in record time.

At this point, I think it might be P.A. Works who is cursed. Every anime they've produced has had a strong beginning, a core that gets progressively weaker and ultimately yields a poor conclusion. This trend hasn't changed through any of their work, and Another is no different. It had the potential to be a good mystery, but started to focus on all the wrong aspects as it progressed, and became nothing more than another twelve weeks of my life wasted.

To start off, I must admit that it's sort of intimidating writing a review for such a masterpiece. However, I will try my best to convey to you all as to why this show is truly a masterpiece that transcends the medium as a whole.

GONZO is finally back in full force after a 2 year break. Now what do they have to show for after these 2 long years? That would be Nyanpire. During these past few years, anime has been filled with pointless moe, excessive fanservice, and are completely lacking of any substance. Because of this, Nyanpire is a bright light of hope for ... the industry in these dark times.

Moving on to the story. GONZO shows a certain brilliance that has been lacking in anime for quite some time. The ability to use such a simple premise, yet execute it flawlessly has been almost completely lost in today's world. At the same time, the messages that they are trying to convey are something to be admired. GONZO really does care about the anime industry, and I must say, they are here to save it.

Yet again, GONZO shows that something so simple, if used properly, can become something great. The art style is so very simplistic, it seems like any average person with no prior experience could draw this show. What I draw from this (no pun intended) is that they are telling everyone that the art doesn't need to be excessive in any way (I'm looking at you, SHAFT) to serve it's purpose. Now, I'm not saying overly done art is bad, it just doesn't automatically make a show good, and they prove this with Nyanpire's art.

Sound, what can I say about the sounds of Nyanpire other than it's simply perfect. From the Seiyuu chosen, to the miscellaneous SFX used, and even to the ending theme done by Hyadain. It just screams perfection and will not leave you disappointed.

Now, for the main focus of the show, the characters. Nyanpire is truly a tragic character. Left to fend on his own after becoming a vampire-cat by drinking the blood of a vampire. His struggles to find blood to drink so that he may live on will truly fill your heart with sadness and despair, but at the same time, hope. Hope that he may one day get the blood he needs to continue living on in this world that shunned him long ago. The life of Nyanpire will truly strike the hearts of anyone who watches this. I personally cannot wait for the other characters to be introduced so that I may be immersed into this masterpiece more so than I am now. I can already tell things are going to get real heavy once Masamunya appears.

The enjoyment factor of this show, to put it simply, is one that cannot be rivaled within this lifetime. It has everything you will ever be looking for in this medium, and only after 1 episode. If they continue on this course, there will never be a need for any other anime to be made. They will have obtained the unobtainable.

I never imagined this day would come, when something so amazing comes along that it leaves me in complete awe. I've gone back to edit my score for this repeatedly, but I just cannot fathom a rating that suits it. A perfect 10 would never be enough. GONZO has finally done it. They're back and here to save anime with this masterpiece called Nyanpire.