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Oh boy, where to begin with this one.

Queen's Blade: Grimoire is the 4th animated series in the successful Queens blade series and is my first experience with Queens Blade as a whole and despite the action in the series being surprisingly competent with some perfectly timed comedic moments - it is completely dominated by fan-service, fan-service, fan-service (Boobs, Boobs, Boobs) all the damn time. If that's what you want out of your anime, then this anime is definitely for you. Key note is that this short anime OVA takes place in an alternative setting from the established Queen's Blade series.

Queen's Blade Grimoire looks ... at the misadventures of a character by the name of Alicia who is a court magician that ends up opening a portal where a character by the name of Kyuel who has bunny ears comes out of the portal and lures Alicia into the portal that transports her into a world by the name of Mel Fair Land where Alicia desperately wants to get back to her own world. If you can't already tell, this is an homage to the traditional story of Alice in Wonderland and while Alicia is in this world she desperately needs to find and capture Kyuel in order to figure out a way back home but not without a few battles and a lot of silliness in between. Queen's Blade Grimoire in two short episodes basically takes established fairy tales such as Alice in Wonderland, Little Red Riding Hood, and the Little Mermaid and re-tells them in a queen's blade kind of way. Many of the characters established in this two episode OVA are going to be potential fighters for the next Queen's Blade tournament in Mel Fair Land.

With an OVA like this, I think the episodes move at a really good pace and when the action happens, fight scenes tend to be really good and really entertaining but it's completely blinded and bombarded by all the fan-service throughout the anime. Any time, and I mean anytime a battle happens or one of the many comedic moments happen - your going to see a breast. It's pretty much going to happen. Yet, every time Alicia loses her clothes regardless if its after a battle or when she drinks a potion that causes her to increase in size completely destroying her clothes in the process, the mad hatter shows up out of the blue and cuts her a brand new outfit.

The first half of the first episode of the OVA, focuses on plot elements from Alice in Wonderland while the second half of the first episode focuses on plot points from Little Red Riding Hood. This episode probably has the most hilarious moments especially when flowers randomly pop up and mock Alicia when she puts herself in an embarrassing situation. Villains are easily established without much depth but I don't think anybody would really watch this for the story. The second episode of this OVA literally focuses on the many plot elements of The Little Mermaid while putting in a pirate villain (Liliana) just to keep the flow of the story going. In the second episode of the OVA you have a mermaid that desires to have legs so she can dance like a human, and an overprotective father that is not a fan of her rebellious daughter. The mermaid (Tiina) is pretty much topless throughout the entire episode minus the poor excuse of a translucent top that she is actually wearing. There is also a behind the scenes villain by the name of Seiten that sporadically appears in both episodes and is kind of manipulating things behind the scenes.

As I stated above, when the action does happen it is entertaining but I find it incredibly laughable that it doesn't take long before there is a sword slash, or attack that results in having one or both of a female's breasts exposed. I guess in the world of anime, sex does indeed sell and this anime is certainly a perfect example of that. If you took the mountainous amounts of topless nudity, I think it would be a lot more enjoyable. The art is really well done, the designs of all the female characters are actually quite nice and I do like a lot of the weapon variety of many of the female characters that get their hands dirty when it comes to fighting each other. Surprisingly there is a bit of blood in the anime as well, especially when Alicia is fighting the big bad wolf in the second half of episode 1. The music is fitting for each scene it is used, but the anime doesn't really have any opening theme. It's just a story element to set up the initial plot-line of the episode and then the title card appears. That's pretty much it.

Overall, at it's very core Queen's Blade: Grimoire is the very definition of a fan-service anime. You can't really expect the most intricate of plots, but if you desperately need to see breasts all the time then this anime is for you. The fan-service comes across more comical than anything else but it's really hard to focus on anything else when there is nudity all the time throughout the anime even during it's most tense moments. There can be a few things to enjoy about it, but it's strictly a story that is fixated on its fan-service that it's hard to take anything else seriously even when it tries to be serious.

Anime as an entertainment medium can delve into a lot of different topics but I often find that anime can often work its best magic when it can tell a very basic story but instead of being breathtaking or memorable, it abandons those to focus on pure simplistic charm. This is definitely the case with the film Esper Mami: Hoshizora no Dancing Doll.

Mami is a teenage girl that suddenly develops super powers and she has this ability to detect when people are in trouble and can automatically teleport to the area where she can help. She also has the powers of telekinesis and telepathy ... in order to aid her and the people that she lend assistance to. In this little adventure, she lends her assistance to a dedicated group of puppeteers that take great pride in performing puppet shows in order to bring joy into children's lives.

Mami actually comes across as an incredibly endearing character albeit a little naive and impulsive but her heart is always in the right place because not only does she truly care about helping people, but she likes performing tasks that increase her skill set because even though she is completely enamored with how much these puppet shows actually make the kids happy she actually gets into making puppets herself. For a film that is about 40 minutes long there isn't really a lot of story to tell, but it does cover a few mini stories that eventually get tied together at the very end.

One of the first stories that get addressed is a little girl that gets upset that her doll is missing because the doll was thrown out at the request of the child's father because ever since her mom died she has been completely fixated on the doll and nothing else which brings out concerns from her father. Mami and the puppeteers put on a random puppet show outside the girl's window to help her through this tragedy and reinforce the importance of her dad in her life. Another story focuses on a duo of gruff business men wanting to destroy the little shed that the puppeteers operate out of and they almost succeed with the use of a bulldozer and they almost succeed but Mami comes in to save the day with her superpowers and teach those degenerates a lesson. However, this entire ordeal has demotivated a lot of the puppeteers and they end up leaving the troupe. Even the two main members (Tomoko and Hideki) of the group are debating if they should continue, and the lead male (Hideki) of the group decides that it may be time to retire being a puppeteer and move back home permanently. Mami decides to intervene because she truly believes that his skill as a puppeteer should not be abandoned because of all the joy his puppet world puts into the world. While Hideki is resting in a park she uses her power to animate and voice the puppets to make him realize the error of his ways and it leads to a very heartfelt and very beautifully animated moment where the puppets are moving and flying on their own talking about how they won't be able to tell their stories anymore. Tomoko comes in at the very end to tell Hideki to not give up on his dreams, and that they should continue to make people happy.

The animation is really nothing to write home about and it's pretty standard fare for stuff that was released in the late 1980's but it has that animation style that you would see out of the 1980's astroboy anime. The music is nostalgic and a little better than average with a really cute opening song and proper music throughout some of the anime's more emotional scenes. I personally think it's a great anime for kids to watch and it teaches some very valuable lessons on how to overcome tragedy and to always follow your dreams. There are a few small scenes of Hideki smoking and drinking alcohol that may not be kid appropriate but I think the overall aura of the entire experience in this entire film is something kids could really enjoy. There are also a few cute comedic moments from Mami's dog Konpoko and some well placed comedy from Mami fighting off those gruff business men.

Esper Mami: Hoshizora no Dancing Doll is an anime that isn't going to blow you away and it's nothing you really haven't seen before if your well versed in magical girl anime from the 1980's. However, it's charming story is enough to keep the viewer entertainied with some really good lessons to take out of it. Always follow your dreams and always take advantage of an opportunity to help somebody because it could improve a person's life in ways you never thought imaginable.

We're delving into Pikotaro's comedy shenanigans in the second outing of his brand of humor with regards to children's bedtime stories. The length still remains the same for each of these episode are only 3 minutes long but instead of 3 episodes from the original net animation, we now have 9 episodes of his madness to deal with it. You know what's even more ridiculous is the fact that some of the humor in some of these episodes actually made me laugh which is why I'll give it a slightly higher score then the original net animation.

The premise is still the absolute same from ... it's first iteration. The animation is still stop motion characters that either vibrate, bounce, or move up and down on a single storybook page where characters are often zoomed in or zoomed out all depending on the insane plot that is present in any of these children's bedtime stories. They don't really make any sense all thing considering, but I often find that the longer I get exposed to Pikotarou's the more I'm kind of/sort of starting to understand his style and it does lead to some pretty humorous moments in some of his stories. I particularly liked his humor in the stories about Jack and Beanstalk and the Three Little Pigs.

The children's bedtime stories that covered in this 9 episode adventure of asinine insanity are:

The Ant and The Grasshopper
The Golden Axe
Jack and the Beanstalk
The King Has Donkey Ears
The Emperor's New Clothes
The North Wind and Sun
The Three Little Pigs
The Town Musicians of Bremen
Little Red Riding Hood

A lot of these episodes are purely nonsensical and they can have their share of funny moments as well, but even if the sense of humor and the animation style isn't your thing; the episodes are only three minutes long so it's not like it's going to suck up a considerable amount of your time. I personally think the humor works a little better in these 9 episodes than the first three episodes of Pikotaro's interpretation of classic children's bedtime stories but overall it was never that enjoyable or memorable to begin with.

This is probably the shortest review that I'll ever write because this anime only has three episodes and the episodes are only three minutes long, Yikes.

How can you sum up watching something that only lasts 9 minutes. It's really easy, this anime is absolutely not worth watching unless your familiar with Japanese humor or Japanese personalities and even if you are, you may or may not be able to make sense out of what is presented to you.

Personally I don't even have the slightest idea on who Pikatorou is. Just looking it up right now and I guess he is a Japanese Comedian ... and an internet star but I can definitely understand why he might not be known for a Western audience. The anime, if you can really call it that focuses on this character interjecting himself into children's bedtime stories where he voices all the characters and uses his offbeat sense of humor throughout a specific plot line of these stories. Unfortunately for a Westerner like me, the humor may come across as very obtuse and weird because I certainly didn't get any of the jokes or the point of any of these episodes but I am definitely not the audience of what this anime was designed for.

The stories for this 3 episode ONA are:

The Little Match Girl
Cinderella
The Ugly Duckling

The animation is not traditional animation of what you would expect out of a typical anime. It's more like the single page of a storybook where characters are animated through stop motion but they literally just briefly shake or vibrate around to mimic the characters talking or popping in and out of the scene. There is not really much in the way of music, but thankfully the episodes are only 3 minutes long because if these episodes ran any longer it would be absolute torture.

Ultimately, it's something I did not enjoy but I think this anime is one of those situations that if you knew the comedian or if you knew their sense of humor you would certainly get a lot more enjoyment out of it then I would.

When it comes to doing a review of this show I can't help but make comparisons to the TV version from the OVA version. The OVA version of the show did get released first and it's just unfortunate that our first time we got to enjoy Masuo's hopeless attempt at finding love was from a very lackluster product, but at the least the tv version of the show from my personal interpretations was much more enjoyable.

The overall plot between the OVA version and TV version of If I See You In My Dreams remains the same but at least in the OVA version we ... get to see the absolute beginning of what started Masuo's love life journey to begin with unlike the TV version in which Masuo was already aware of who Nagisa was and started hanging out at her school just to see her. In the OVA, we get to see how Masuo meets Nagisa for the very first time while he was walking down the street during a rainstorm and as another man was crossing the street knocked into him sending him to the ground and he ended up spilling his briefcase with all of his papers getting wet. Nagisa lends a helping hand by helping him retrieve his papers and giving him a handkerchief so he doesn't catch a cold and this act of kindness makes him completely fall in love with her and therefore starts his journey with regards to him trying to win the affection of Nagisa. We also get to see Masuo visit the fortune teller that tells him that he'll never have a girlfriend which absolutely crushes him and it was actually nice to see that playful interaction because it was unfortunately missing the TV version of If I See You In My Dreams.

The funny thing is while the tv version may have 16 episodes with each episode being about 7 minutes long for a total length of 112 minutes it manages to cover a lot more ground and make the series much more enjoyable because the OVA version of the show is 3 episodes with each episode being about 25 minutes for a total length of 75 minutes for the show. The OVA certainly has better animation and a much better musical score full of beautiful keyboard synth tracks and ambient jazzy tunes. The opening song is absolute fire and really a wonderful treat to listen to. The quality of the animation and the music are certainly the best parts of what this anime has to offer.

I think the biggest strike again the series as a whole is that it is nowhere near as funny or enjoyable as the tv series. There is only so much you can do in three episodes and the other girl (Miho) that is interested in Masuo doesn't really take an important part in the story until the 3rd episode of the 3 part OVA. I don't know if it's my personal preference when it came to dating as a whole in my youth but I think I would rather pursue the girl that actually wants to be with me and likes me for me then to pursue a girl that is overly emotional, irrational, and quick to anger. Nagisa really comes across incredibly petty, unlikable, jealous and rude throughout the majority of the anime. We do get to see her sweet side when it comes to her interactions with the kids that she teaches and when Masuo shows her kindness and also tries to win her respect and admiration. She has this disdain towards men in general just because she went to an all girls school throughout all of her life. Masuo uses all of the resources at his disposal in order for him to get close to Nagisa but for every kind act he performs for her, his constant lies end up making her hate him without giving him a proper chance to explain. Throughout the entire anime there are actually two other men that Masuo has to deal with that are trying to win the affections of Nagisa. Masuo does some really crazy things to try to get Nagisa to forgive him such as chasing down a car that Nagisa is in with another male rival that he ends up crashing his bicycle and goes to the hospital because Nagisa refuses to listen to his explanation and she is also incredibly stubborn.

Despite the problematic nature of the story line throughout this 3 episode endeavor, unlike the the tv series this version of the story does have a happy ending where Masuo does end up with one of the ladies that is prevalent throughout the anime's story. I think that is probably the best part of the story with regards to what is presented towards the audience. Surprisingly there is no nudity in this version of the story unlike the TV series where there was quite a bit of nudity.

I think if the OVA spent more time with Miho and showed more of Masuo's interpersonal conflict between what girl is truly right for him I think the story could of been a lot better instead of spending so much time with the men in the series that are also looking to charm Nigisa into their lives. These other male characters are far from being interesting and I don't think they add much to the story.

Overall, the OVA version adds a nice visual and audio quality to this story which makes it look nice but not even a heavy amount of gloss or polish can save the anime from a very unlikable female lead, little to no humor and a shallow cookie cutter story. The TV series is the one worth watching but the OVA is still worth experiencing for a definitive happy ending, great music throughout the series, an upgrade in animation and a really enjoyable opening song.

We are back into the world of the Vivid Strike ladies with a 3 episode OVA that not only gives us a more detailed analysis on some of the relationships that weren't fully addressed in the original 12 episodes of the original show while giving us closure with regards to the unresolved plot points that were prevalent during the final episode of the TV series.

The first 2 episodes of the ova focuses on the timeline between the fifth and 6th episode of the Vivid strike TV series. These first two episodes of the OVA only have a run length of 14 minutes each. The third ... episode of the this OVA is a full length 24 minutes episode and it pretty much continues from where episode 12 ended.

In the first episode of the OVA, Fuuka has won her first practice match against Corona and is incredibly pleased with her progress as she is developing her striker skills. Her trainer Einhard is concerned about her becoming cocky so she arranges a mock synthetic magical battle against two members of the Nakajima Gym (Rio and Corona) at different location. This is the first time throughout the entire story of Vivid strike that we really get to see the magical abilities of the vivid strike girls since all the other fights throughout the TV series are strictly hand to hand combat matches and in the main series Rio and Corona are the two female fighters that we get to see the least with regards to their fighting ability in the main TV series. These fights against Fuuka are pretty much the only action you'll see in this three episode OVA but they're still incredibly entertaining when it comes to seeing the immense magical power that both Corona and Rio possess.

The second episode focuses on Rinne and her relationship with the Frontier Gym and it takes a portion of the episode and the looks at the personal history of the gym owner of the Nakajima gym (Nove) and the character of Viktoria and her personal relationship with Rinne. It's a very dialogue heavy episode with very little to no action. I think the purpose of an episode of this is that it shows Rinne's mindset before her battles during the winter cup since the timeline of this episode happens just before episode 6 begins in the main TV series.

The third episode of the OVA is pretty much the epilogue of the entire tv series. The unresolved plot points of episode 12 are resolved within the first few minutes of the episode and the episode is pretty much the quintessential beach episode which is pretty common in the world of anime where we get to see all the ladies from the Vivid Strike series enjoy some relaxation at the beach while wearing their bathing suits. At least there is no uncomfortable nudity when it comes to this beach episode. We have a competitive beach volleyball tournament, some delicious food, and some great banter between all the ladies of Vivid Strike. At the end of this episode the biggest thing we can take out of the entire experience is that while the fighters of Vivid Strike are fierce competitors when it comes to being in the ring and they want to improve everything about themselves and their fighting ability, they can still remain the best of friends outside of the ring.

The animation is just as good as what was shown in the original tv series. The music is still good as the rest of the series. The OVA's don't have an opening song and it pretty much uses the same ending song as the tv series when each OVA episode ends.

The OVA is a nice appetizer into giving a little more insight in the word of Vivid Strike and it's nice to get a proper epilogue to the Vivid Strike story-line. However, the harsh reality is this short 3 episode ova doesn't really equal to the greatness of the original tv series. I don't think it needs to improve upon it because when it comes to an OVA of this caliber - it's not about exceeding what was originally put in front of you but it's about adding a nice addition to an overall pleasant experience.

This anime is such a strange anomaly but I think one of the greatest things you can take out of the world of anime is sometimes you can make a nice compelling viewing experience in 24 short minutes even if you don't see these characters or this world ever again. It shows in the world of animation that an incredibly short story can often be just as compelling as a feature length film or even a fully fledged anime series as long as you have a deep understanding of what your trying to present to the viewer.

The story of Buta initially focuses on a ... fox child by the name of Kitsune who is shown a treasure map by his father that shows the location of an immense treasure and that this map will be gifted to Kitsune for his birthday. As he is being told this, their house is being invaded by pirates (The Tufugu Priates), the pirates kidnap the fox boy (Kitsune) and take the treasure map for themselves. In another area of town at a local restaurant/bar the same pirates that invaded the home are reaching out to any able bodied warriors to help them with regards to finding the treasure and this is where they come across an apprehensive and disgruntled samurai by the name of Buta who is a Pig that has this silly irrational fear of cats. Buta ends up fighting many of the patrons of the restaurant/bar with relative ease and the pirates think he would be a perfect candidate to join their crew but he is not going to do it for free and there is always a price with regards to getting his help. I should also mention the fact that all the characters throughout this anime are anthropomorphic. They are all different animals of various sorts which adds to the anime's charm.

Once Buta is on the pirate ship he comes across the fox boy Kitsune, and he ends up tricking Buta with regards to helping him escape and therefore it starts Buta's reluctant adventure with this boy whether he likes it or not. Buta was never really suited for the pirate life anyway and he has taken up his responsibility with regards to getting the fox boy safe and sound with his treasure map in tow while the pirates are hot on their trail. For a 24 minute anime there really isn't a lot of story to tell but for the remainder of this adventure we get to see some really good bonding moments between Kitsune and Buta with a very hilarious and very epic finale that will give you plenty of laugh out loud moments.

When watching this title, there is an undeniable amount of charm that comes with watching a very easy to follow story such as this one. It's incredibly easy to compare it to something that we would see out of Studio Ghibli and I couldn't help but make very small comparisons to Porco Rosso while watching this short 24 minute adventure. There is some really good humor throughout this anime, and when the action does happen in this anime it often has this Looney Tunes silliness vibe to it because a lot of the humor will catch you off guard. The violence is not bloody but it doesn't need to be. The pirates are lovable incompetent idiots that can't do anything right and the fox boy has some really sharp witted dialogue.

The animation in itself is not the smoothest it could be but it doesn't have to be because it has an 80's to 90's animation aura to it despite it being made in 2012. It's also a great anime for kids to enjoy as well. The music doesn't really stand-out per se, but it's used fairly well throughout the entire viewing experience.

I think ultimately this is an anime that really understands how to make itself enjoyable within it's very short length. It knows when to be funny, when to give you the action you want, and it knows to keep things relatively simple because watching this is going to make you smile from ear to ear because it just has a simplistic enjoyable charm to it that is really hard to ignore. It's just a crying shame we never got more adventures with Kitsune and Buta, but for the short amount of time we got to see these characters on their little journey - it was absolutely worth it.

It is truly unfortunate that an anime that has beautiful action set pieces has to be undermined and ruined due to blatant creepy underage fan-service which is why this anime as a whole has been a big miss despite it's potential to be something truly enjoyable because it certainly started that way. It had a good enjoyable episodic formula for the first 4 episodes but unfortunately it disintegrated into inconsistent mediocrity bombarded by taking a long time to establish it's story, the motivations of the enemy, and the overall world building.

Vividred operation focuses on a character by the name of Akane Isshiki who is ... the granddaughter of an eccentric scientist who is responsible of creating something called the Manifestation engine which is an engine that has solved the world energy crisis by creating energy from the sky. This has created an era of peace around the entire planet but this peace is ultimately disturbed when an unknown alien force known as Alone start to abruptly appear to destroy the Manifestation engine and send the world into chaos. The Alone are these giant creatures that for all intensive purposes come across as bargain bin angels from Evangelion that are literally indestructible through conventional militaristic means. No matter how many jets, tanks, and battleships the government throws at trying to defeat these monstrosities they lack the ability to even do the slightest bit of damage to these creatures. In the meantime, Akane's grandfather Kenjiro performs an experiment that creates a key to give Akane access to the Vivid system which allows her to wear a Palette suit which is a special suit of armor that gives her access to abilities and weapons in order to fight the Alone. I wouldn't really call it armor because it looks like an outfit you'd see women wear if they worked at a maid cafe. However, she doesn't fight the Alone completely by herself. During the experiment of creating the keys Akane's grandfather inadvertently puts his soul inside an otter doll because I guess in the world of anime you have to have a cute silly animal mascot even though it really makes no sense why a scientist would exchange his body with that of a plush animal. There are other keys available (one for each of the main colors) that give her friends different abilities in order to fight the Alone. At least in this anime especially in the first 4 episodes, each episode is dedicated towards one of the female characters getting access to their key so the anime is smart in giving each of the 4 main female characters their spotlight and showcasing their evolving relationship in the overall plot while showcasing their power when they have the ability to transform. By episode 4, all 4 of the female characters have been established and that gives you the remaining the 8 episodes to watch their characters evolve with regards to their own personal character development.

Red Vivid Key - Akane
Blue Vivid Key - Aoi
Green Vivid Key - Saegusa
Yellow Vivid Key - Shinomiya

Thankfully, the anime does a good job of making the personalities of each of these female characters easily distinguishable and their personalities never feel overbearing or annoying. I think their personalities match well with their overall temperament. Akame is friendly, upbeat, and overly positive. Aoi is shy, timid, but resilient. Saegusa is prideful, stubborn, and brash while Shinomiya is incredibly intelligent, awkward and weird. It leads for an interesting dynamic on how Akane has to develop her friendships with these girls to make full use of their power from their vivid keys. There are other side characters throughout the anime as well but while they have some importance to the story of the actual anime their appearances are so brief, inconsistent, and useless that you'll barely notice when they actually appear on screen except for the Toy Otter scientist and Akame's little sister Momo.

With regards to their original power suits the girls have the ability to do damage to the Alone but in their basic forms it simply isn't enough to destroy them. Akane has the power of docking which allows her to combine herself with her friends for an incredibly powerful form that allows them to have an ability to destroy the Alone that their fighting. If Akane combines with Aoi, she has access to this incredibly large hammer that is capable of pulverizing anything that comes in contact with it. If Akane combines with Saegusa, she has access to this gigantic sword that can cut and destroy the monsters with a single slash. If Akane combines with Shinomiya, she has access to this gigantic brutal rail gun that can do an incredible amount of damage (my personal favorite). There is another combined form but you'll have to watch the final battle to see what it really is but it is incredibly devastating because it is used to defeat the final enemy in the anime. The basic transformation sequences are incredibly vivid and beautifully animated but are further enhanced when the combined transformation sequences happen. All the combined transformations look incredibly cool and there is a certain cuteness when the combined transformations happen because both both female characters have to hug and embrace each other and one of them has to kiss the other on the forehead in order for the docking sequence to fully develop because docking can only exist when Akane's friendship with one of the girls is at its absolute strongest. The biggest problem with these combined transformation sequences is that it does showcase brief underage nudity which is just incredibly awkward and unwanted to see.

Even though the enemies that the girls fight are nothing extraordinary minus the final battle, all the enemies have the ability to be further enhanced when a girl by the name of Rei fires an arrow into these alien creatures that make them more powerful. This character Rei is another girl in Akame's class and she is being ordered to destroy the Manifestation engine by an omnipotent force in the shape of a crow. Akane and her friends spend a considerable amount of time trying to befriend this girl unbeknownst to them that this girl is the one that is making their lives incredibly difficult with regards to their fight against the alien creatures. Despite the boring look of a lot of the Alone creatures even in their modified forms when they're hit by Rei's arrow the fight scenes involving them are incredibly well done. The action is very hard hitting and incredibly entertaining when the action does happen but unfortunately a lot of the fight scenes don't last very long because when the combined form is about to happen you know the Alone's destruction is coming incredibly quickly. The majority of the alone creatures are animated using heavy CGI which doesn't really give them the most intricate design. Despite the lackluster look of a lot of the Alone, the action in this anime is probably the best part of this entire anime.

The anime ultimately has a huge problem trying to keep it's focus because it jumps around too much with regards to what it wants to present us the viewer. It establishes a very formulaic approach in the first 4 episodes with having a new alone to fight and a new female fighter being established every episode but after episode 4 it kind of goes all over the place. Episode 5 and 6 are focused on character development with some really good humor being established during the beach episode in episode 6. Episodes 7 to 12 are kind of all over the place and a little scatterbrained because the anime struggles with when to deal with action and when to deal with proper character development.

The fights against the Alone are never as prevalent as what they were in the first four episodes and you can't help but make the comparison that the design and the tactics of the alien creatures are eerily similar to what the angels would do in Evangelion. Even in the final few episodes of the anime despite the lack of action there is some really good heartfelt character development with Akane's friends and we get to learn more about Rei's motivations to why she feels obligated to destroy the Manifestation engine. One of the biggest problems with this title is that it takes way too long even in a 12 episode anime to establish what the Alone are, why the Manifestation engine needs to be destroyed, and why Rei is being coerced to help with the destruction of the Manifestation engine. Even when you do discover these important plot points of this anime, it does come across particularly weak if we're being completely honest.

However, the biggest problem with this entire anime and I can't just dance around the issue is the unnecessary creepy underage fan-service. The topless nudity of some of the characters is absolutely unwarranted and not needed especially during specific bathroom or shower scenes that don't serve any purpose as far as I'm concerned. There is a monumental amount of scenes that don't even have nudity but there is too much emphasis on putting one of the characters butt in the frame as if that is what your trying to get the viewer to focus on when transitioning from one scene to another. There is also a strange perverted fixation on Akame's love of Mayonnaise when it comes to eating her food to the point that overloads her food with so much of the stuff. I think the anime's emphasis on it's unnecessary fan-service really detracts from the things that can make this anime enjoyable and I certainly would of enjoyed it a lot more if they kept away from this stuff.

The animation is incredibly beautiful especially when it comes to the action set pieces and there is great care put into the individualistic designs of the combined forms of the main female characters. The music can be a little inconsistent. It works especially during the action scenes and the opening track is tolerable. The anime does struggle with a proper ending track. For the first 5 episodes of the anime, there is a different ending song dedicated to which character the focus was on for that specific episode. It wasn't until episode 6 that the anime finally had a proper ending theme song which wasn't overly great to be perfectly honest. I do personally have a lot of fondness for the theme song that plays after episode 2 called We Are One.

Overall, there are some brief moments of brilliance throughout Vividred operation as a whole. The action is enjoyable, the characters are tolerable, it has a nice ending and the anime as a whole is drawn and animated incredibly well minus the cgi style monsters. However, it's negatives greatly outweigh its positives and due to it's creepy underage fan-service your better off avoiding it. Sometimes you should trust your anime enough on it's action alone despite a razor thin plot device that you don't need to cater to an uncomfortable amount of underage fan-service to get people to watch your product.

The wonderful world of a love triangle. So common when dealing with the concept of a romantic comedy no matter if it's in the realm of sit-coms, feature length films, and even in the world of animation. You know when it comes to a love triangle, decisions that should be easy aren't necessarily so when you have the weigh the pros and cons of the situation your in and you need to ultimately decide who is the right person for you and your own personal ambitions in what you want in a partner. However, sometimes your own morality can often make the simplest decisions in ... your life the most complicated decisions in your life especially when making the right moralistic decisions puts you in a far worse situation than you could ever imagine and it ends up undoing all the work that you put into what you truly want out of your own love life.

This is pretty much the overall plot of a little anime called If I See You In My Dreams, which focuses on a sales person by the name Masuo Fuguno who is incredibly unlucky in love and even more so when a fortune teller tells him that he'll never be with a woman for the rest of his life. However, he intends to change that through hell or high water due to his crush on a kindergarten teacher by the name of Nagisa Shiozaki. Nagisa, has had her own personal struggles with men which has led her to be a little shy, but also quick tempered when things don't go her way which often leads her jumping to conclusions without getting all the facts straight. As much as Masuo struggles to tell Nagisa his true feelings, he often has the help of his friend Isobe Namiko to help steer him in the right direction for a price (money) because apparently she is always broke and her help doesn't come for free. To make matters worse, there is another girl in the picture by the name of Miho Hamaoka who is a co-worker of Masuo who develops feelings for him due to his chivalrous nature of helping her out when she needs a little support in her life due to the predicaments she constantly puts herself in. The crazy thing is that starting off Masuo has no idea that Miho actually has strong feelings for him and that he is simply doing the things for her not because he is trying to court her but because he tries his best to be a courteous and respectful human being.

All these misadventures in Masuo's life are told in 16 7 minute episodes in this quaint little anime about not being able to catch a break with regards to his love life and how often doing the right thing can give him more trouble in his life than he actually wants especially when he truly wants to be with the love of his life so much.

Pretty much every episode follows this formula minus the odd exception, Masuo makes a little headway with regards to getting a little closer to Nagisa, things should go according to plan, but then something comes up - often involving Miho such as being trapped in an elevator with her, helping her when she is sick, protecting her from a perverted boss or perverted co-worker and despite doing the right thing by being a legitimate caring person it annoys Nagisa and she often gets the wrong idea that Masuo would rather be with Miho over her despite Masuo's attempts to prove to her that there is really nothing going on between them. This obviously becomes more complicated as the series progresses and Masuo realizes that Miho is really developing feelings for him but he truly feels that Nagisa is the right woman for him.

Masuo as a character I think is adequately well done. He does have a good moral compass and despite being unlucky in love, he does choose to make the right decision because there have been several circumstances in this entire story where he could of been a truly rotten individual but he decides to be the better man even though making the right decision means annoying Nagisa and possibly destroying his chances of being with her in the process. When things manage to happen that work in Masuo's favour you'll discover it leads to some incredibly heartfelt moments where your going to say d'awwwwww to yourself.

The comedy throughout this story is surprisingly solid and it's really fixated on a lot of physical gags mostly involving Masuo turning into some kind of substance such as rock, brick, sand, snow, or ice and completely breaking apart or sinking to the floor because he realizes that when he does something that completely backfires in his face and every time he turns into a material of some sort he often wonders if he can truly recover from this set up. It leads to some incredibly entertaining laugh out loud moments. He doesn't even have to turn into a material where he crumbles apart - he can sometimes turn into a flattened piece of paper and even fly away or wash away all depending on how dire his outcome is when it comes to specific events that happen in his life.

One thing that I will mention is that in just about every episode your going to see a little bit of nudity from both of the two female love interests. I suppose the anime has to do something to keep the viewer engaged and I find it somewhat laughable that even though the episodes are only 7 minutes long, the story has to have a reason for one of the two female leads to bare their breasts or be completely naked. It's more silly than anything else but for as attractive as the female love interests are, it would be understandable if the male audience wanted to see them naked. Masuo has had the opportunity to see his love interests naked at least once.

The animation is standard late 90's flare. There is nothing really about the animation that stands out from what you would see made at that time. It's still relatively solid but it's not really going to blow you away either. The music on the other hand is really well done. The ending theme is really nice, and there is a lot of excellent background music used throughout the entire anime. Your going to hear a good mix of synth tracks mixed with some very nice ambient jazz music during some of more the heavy dialogue moments of the entire anime.

If I See You In My Dreams is a competently made humorous romantic anime that doesn't really do much to keep it from being better or worse than other romantic anime out there. With a small cast, it manages to give enough time to all these characters in these short 7 minute episodes that by the end your going to have your favourite girl that Masuo should go after. Your going to have to wait until the very end to see which girl he ends up with or is he still going to be unlucky in the world of love. I just hope you can find a few things to laugh about it while you watch the misadventures of Masuo as he balances these two women in his life whether he likes it or not.

In the world of anime, you can often be misled into thinking that something you may think is cute and innocent by first glance can be actually a deep action packed experience. Time and time again we can often allow yourselves to prematurely judge an anime by how it looks with out any context on what a specific anime is all about to only be pleasantly surprised by what we get to experience. This is definitely the case in a series called Vivid Strike which is the 5th anime entry in the Magical Girl Lyrical series which started all the way back in 2003. ...

In a shallow superficial way, the story of Vivid strike is literally a bunch of 14 year old girls that love martial arts using their magical powers in order to punch and kick the crap out of each other. To be honest, that is what I initially expected out of this anime but as I personally got through more of the story I actually discovered a more compelling story between two longtime friends who have unfortunately drifted apart and the personal journey they take in order to become accomplished martial artists and to ultimately repair the friendship they've once had.

The story of Vivid strike focuses on an orphan girl by the name of Fuuka Reverton who is a bit of a rebellious sort, but after an altercation with some degenerates a girl by the name of Einhart comes to her rescue who see's her potential as a formidable fighter and invites her to a gym that she is a part of. Fuuka is not a fan of martial arts due to some bad blood and a deteriorating friendship she had with another orphan girl by the name of Rinne Berlinetta. These two girls grew up at the same orphanage together and during their time at the orphanage they would never leave each other and consider themselves the best of friends despite their personalities being complete opposites of each other. Fuuka is brash and good willed, while Rinne is very timid and shy. Unfortunately, Rinne gets adopted by a rich family and the next time Fuuka see's her friend again she has become this world renowned martial artist and during this transition into a martial artist is when Fuuka witnesses Rinne insulting her opponent's ability is what eventually starts her feud with her. However, as much as we might be led to believe that Rinne is an antagonist I don't think this is the case because while Fuuka may be considered the main character (protagonist) of the story, there is a significant amount of time spent with Rinne especially watching her transition from a shy and timid girl into an incredibly unrelenting fighter due to unforeseen yet brutal events that took place in her life after she was adopted. It's easy to see Fuuka/Rinne feud as an protagonist vs antagonist, but I see it more as a mirror image where there are really no good guys or bad guys throughout this 12 episode anime. What we have is two teenage girls who use martial arts as a way to find direction in this world and what they're willing to do in order to not only achieve success in life but to be ultimately happy with the people they have become even if they do realize that the direction they eventually ended up came at a cost. For as much as Fuuka is the main character of this story, we actually see Rinne in more fighting action in the entire anime compared to everybody else.

As much as this story is really focused on Fuuka and Rinne, there is actually some really good story development put into the coaches of both Rinne and Fuuka. There is also some really amazing story development put into some of Fuuka's teammates at the Nakajima Gym specifically Vivio, Einhart, and Miura. The anime does have a pretty big cast, but the anime takes pride on who it needs to focus on and when in order to tell the best story it can within these 12 episodes. There isn't really much action in the anime until the halfway mark when a few members of the Nakajima Gym are involved in this martial arts tournament that is called the Winter Cup. However, as much as we would like to think how the finale of this martial arts tournament is going to go, I do applaud this anime for going against the typical formula of where you might think the story is going to go and end up someplace else. Your going to end up pleasantly surprised because it does really help the story evolve specifically for it's two main characters.

In the first 6 episodes of the anime, we do get a small taste of the action that is yet to come. The anime almost treats the action in the first 6 episodes of the anime as a little appetizer. We get to see small snippets of the action that is yet to come and I think it's a brilliant way of building up what your trying to present to the audience because by the time episode 6 rolls around we are at the very start of the Winter cup which is when we get to see some of the best action this anime has to offer. Before the martial arts tournament starts Fuuka trains with all the members of the Nakajima gym. Each member of the Nakajima gym has some type of fighting knowledge to impart to Fuuka so that she can be the best fighter she can be. One of the most important parts of their training is when Fuuka gets to learn about Power mode which allows them to transform into adults so they can better utilize their fighting and energy attack capabilities. Each of the female fighters in this anime have beautiful and vividly animated transformation sequences. I do appreciate that no matter how major or minor a female character is - we do get the luxury of seeing their transformation sequence at least once. When the action does start, it's amazing how much attention they put into the action scenes when two girls decide to throw down and literally punch and kick the crap out of each other. There is so much detail put into each punch and kick that each of fighters throw at you that the sound engineers go out of their way to make sure that when a punch or kick connects your going to feel how hard they actually throw their attacks at each other. The animators put so much emphasis on putting an aura around the fists that these female fighters throw you can almost feel like that with every attack the fighter throws at you - it almost feels like it's one of their strongest attacks each and every time. One thing I did find surprising albeit it does not happen very often is this anime will show a little bit of blood and some really legitimate damage to the characters bodies such as broken ribs or spitting out broken teeth throughout some of these really intense battles. The preliminary battles with the unknown characters are pretty quick and uneventful but when you have a battle between two relatively skilled characters, you'll be quite amazed with how back and forth these fights are and the anime does an excellent job of building suspense because your really not going to know who the winner is of each fight until the very last blow because the anime wants to make sure that in each battle especially when it involves the main cast there is extra effort into making sure that the two characters have had an opportunity to trade blows back and forth.

The animation throughout the anime is incredibly smooth and every main female character of the Nakajima gym has a really great fighting outfit to compliment their colourful personality. The music is surprisingly solid with a really good and enjoyable opening theme. I do appreciate the attention to detail the vibrant amount of colour they use for each of the female fighters.

For as enjoyable as this anime is and I truly did enjoy it, there are a few problems with it. It does end on a very unnecessary cliffhanger that was borderline annoying since it was a plot point we were all anticipating as a result of Fuuka's progress throughout the entire story. The anime does have such strong character development that I truly think the anime could of easily been an over 20 episode adventure especially with how consistent and brutal the battle scenes have been and it would be nice to see the other fighters of the Nakajima Gym showcase their fighting ability that never had a chance to do so during the Winter Cup martial arts tournament. From my opinion, the final climatic match doesn't really equal to some of the other fights that we seen around the mid point of the actual anime because unfortunately in the final match there is just as much talking as there is action and that can be a bit of a downer since we've been waiting for this match right from the very first episode. The anime does have a little bit of uncomfortable fan-service but thankfully nothing too detailed or overly degenerate.

Vivid strike is an amazing entry in the Magical Girl Lyrical series and it proves without a shadow of a doubt that you should never judge a book by its cover. Cuteness and martial arts can truly be a deadly entertaining combination and you can count on a bunch of fierce fighting 14 year old girls to tell a really compelling story with some really good one on one action to boot.