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For those of you who don't know, and I wouldn't blame you, this is a manga crossover between two creations of the Father of Combining Robots himself, Go Nagai. Specifically Getter Robo and Amon: Devilman. Now I know what you're thinking: Who/What is Getter/Devilman? Well, I can tell you. Both of them are creations, as I said, of Go Nagai, who created such things you may have heard of such as Mazinger Z, Steel Jeeg and Violence Jack. What possesed the man to cross over a giant robot with a man possesed by the devil is beyond me but hey, I'm not as badass as ... he is. Getter Robo is about a team of robot pilots fighting a Dinosaur Empire that live in the core of the Earth, using a powerfull energy from space known as Getter Rays. Now, I don't know much about Devilman at all really, but from what I can tell it's about a man named Akira who got possesed by a demon called Amon and he must now fight off Amons bride Silene who is trying to kill him, I think? I'm probably wrong but, whatever, I should read the manga.

One of the things that would immediately strike Nagai fans as odd, is that the Getter team in this manga is the version from the original anime, Getter Robo, and not the original manga. How do we know this? Well, Ryoma and Hayato are much more subdued and the Command Machine is in it (Though it does lead to a rather funny scene where Professor Saotome calls the Command Machine "Useless"). I've never read or watched Devilman at the time of this review, so I can't tell you how accurate his portrayal is, but considering most of the manga revolves around him, I would assume it's ok.

The plot revolves around Akira (Devilman himself) and his friend Miki visiting Saotomes lab, since apparently Miki and Michiru are friends...go figure. Of course the Getter team and Akira quickly start argueing. Meanwhile, the Dinosaur Empire is still trying to take down the Getter and Devilmans villan, Silene, approaches the Dinosaur Emperor Gore, suggesting they join forces temporarily to defeat their enemies. What follows is 4 chapters of Devilman fighting demons while Getter is actualy kind of useless most of the time. The Dinosaur Empire forces are easily taken down but Getter has some serious trouble fighting the demons, it's actualy a little disapointing in that regard. What we do get though are 2 entirely new robots that have no context outside of this short series, so if you don't want spoilers feel free to skip the rest of this paragraph. We get Getter Queen and DevilGetter! Getter Queen is apparently a prototype Saotome made before the Getter, but accidently made the cockpits too small and only women can pilot it, so obviously Michiru and Miki hop on in and start flying around, it looks alot like Aphrodai A to me. As for DevilGetter? Well, to fight the demons Devilman actualy possesses the Getter to form DevilGetter and...it's actualy extremely badass looking, makes you wish it was in more.

The artwork is pretty good for the most part verging on a little strange sometimes. Whoever drew it seems to have a fixcation with drawing bare breasts and butts at every available opportunity. We see Michiru naked, we see Miki naked, we see Musashi naked for some reason. I know with Silene you can't help it but woah! A man could die from that much exposure. Normaly I wouldn't be complaining, I mean, it's me talking here, but considering how short this series is, it felt like a little too much sometimes. The mecha drawings are nice, with the new ones looking pretty awesome and needing their own series if you ask me. Imagine that huh? Amon: The Darkside of DevilGetter...what? I'd read it.

So who is this for? Nagai fans? Probably, it kinda relies on you already knowing what the hell is going on beforehand although I suppose that is the staple for any crossover. If you're a Go Nagai fan, feel free to give it a try and if you're not, if you want a really, really short example of what Go Nagai works are like, give it a quick glance, just don't expect AAA+ entertainment here because you won't get it.

Final Score: 7/10

I think I'm going crazy.

Dog Days is, without a doubt, virtualy vapid. The main character is barely expanded upon from what we learn about him during the first few episodes, his motivation is lucid and those around him treat him like a piece of furniture for the most part. The entire show also seems to suffer from the same issues recent Final Fantasy games have suffered from, where it doesn't seem to understand who the main character is! The entire plot is circled around the main chracters love interest and the 'villan'. It's like in Final Fantasy 12, we all know Vaan isn't the hero, ... Ashe is. The animation is colourfull and fluid, yet nto very interesting and easily forgettable, all the music save for the opening is uninspired and yet...despite all of this...I like Dog Days.

I REALLY like Dog Days...

I think I'm ill.

I think I should, at first, explain why I watched Dog Days in the first place. If there's one thing I love, it's medieval themed anything. I'm probably one of the few people in the universe who can put up a defence for Zero No Tsukaima. Sadly, it seems to be an aspect that's lacking these days, and I was really happy to see something that not only looked interesting but also might be entertaining. When I found out it was by the same man who brought us Nanoha, one of my favourite series, I was pretty much hooked on the idea...but...

Allow me to explain both sides of the arguement, because if I don't I think I'll lose it completely. Let's begin, as always, with the plot:

We enter into Unnamed Magical World where two kingdoms are at war with eachother. The Kingdom of Biscotti and the Kingdom of Gallette. Now, wars in this world are a little different from the wars in ours. When you think of war, you think of guns, tanks, bombs that sort of thing. Or maybe swords, shields and medieval knights right? You'll find very little of that here. What does happen is this, a mysterious power source called Flonjar energy allows armies to fight to their hearts content without dying. Instead, when particular blows are struck, they turn into little fluff balls (although they do fight using swords, bows and other Medieval things, but you get the idea). Yes, these two kingdoms are populated entirely of Dog people and Cat people, FURRIES UNITE! Due to this, their battles are more like contests than actual 'battle'. They score points when enemies are defeated and both armies have to advance further than the other. Simple enough right? Except Biscotti is losing this war, and so their leader, the Princess Millhiore, decides to use magic to summon a Hero to help them out. As it turns out, this means dragging a human across dimentions to fight for them. In this case, it's a Junior Athletics champ called Cinque who just so happens to be pretty good with a Bo Staff. And that's just scratching the surface people, there's more to it. Unfortunately, I am unable to explain the rest to you without spoiling the rest of the series, so let's move on.

Strangely enough, Dog Days seems to suffer from Square Enix Syndrome: Being unable to decide on a main character. Despite first appearences, Cinque is not the main character. Although I'm sure many people can debate me on this point, allow me to remind you that Cinque gets absolutely no development whatsoever. This isn't that much of a problem, because he's not a bad character if you can stand him. No, the main character is Princess Millhiore. She the young, inexperienced leader of a nation that has to lead them into a war she didn't want and, as you'll discover, she doesn't even understand why it's being faught. To completely understand her development and her character though, we have to talk about Queen Leonmitchelli. Completely on the reverse end, Leon is the Queen of the enemy kingdom of Gallette. This wouldn't be a problem if it didn't turn out that both Leon and Milhi have been friends since they were little kids! Seeing the problem here? Leon herself is an interesting character, though she may appear sure of herself and maybe a little arrogant at first, her desire to protect her friend is apparent in the end and, through the plot, we learn of her real reason to declare war on her neighbouring kingdom. For what there is to talk about Cinque, I suppose I probably should. As a human who was magically wisked away from his home planet by a dog carrying a knife (no really), you'd think he be a little culture shocked right? Kinda like how Saito was in Zero no Tsukaima at first? Not in the slightest! In fact, once he's shown how it's actualy impossible to die in the war, he's a little excited to take part in it. You see, Cinque is a an expert gymnast and athelete, pretty good with a bo staff and eager to prove himself. The problem is that that's about all there is to him, he doesn't particularly advance from this point except the traditional main character route of protecting the romantic interest. His character isn't bad, I just feel like it could have been done more effectively. The rest of the character are, while not completely cookie cutter, are not really developed upon and serve really as litteral backup for the main characters. While good to have around, could be dropped and not much would, on the whole, be lost. With the possible exception of Eclair, the captain of the guard in Milhi's forces, who spends alot of time with Cinque either fighting by his side or argueing with him in wacky hijinks.

Dog Days is a concept created by the same man who brought us Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, and oh boy does it show. The magic they use in this show reminds me alot of Nanoha, just the general feel of it and how it's executed. I half expect the symbols on the back of peoples hands that they use for magic to start talking. Animation wise, Dog Days gets a 'good' at best to 'passable' at worst. While the art quality drops on occasion and the side characters suffer from Generic Face Disease, it's not unpleasent to look at 80% of the time. It's quite possible to say that the opening has the best animation, which is sad because quite alot of the action scenes in Dog Days could have used it's quality.

Sound wise, Dog Days gets a pass. The intro, once again in the style of Nanoha, Dog Days has it's opening sung by Nana Mizuki who always does a good job, if her singing style is your sort of thing. The opening song, Scarlet Knight, while not her best song proves that even when Nana Mizuki isn't amazing, she's still pretty good. Otherwise, the show has no particularly memorable songs. They're not bad, but not particularly memorable either, at least nothing you'll be bobbing your head to for any time to come. The dialogue is passable at times, verging on pretty damn good with the always awesome performances from Norio Wakamoto (Emperor Charles Zi Britannia, Code Geass) and Tetsuya Kakihara (Simon, Gurren Lagann) who voice General Godwin and Leon's brother Gaul respectively. And if you're a fan of her voice work, Nana Mizuki also voices one of the side characters, Ricotta Elmar. The rest of the voice actors/actresses do a good job aswell, I'm just naming some of the more interesting performances.

Where the series falls down majorly however, it's the execusion of the story. It's lazy, predictable and, as previously stated, deluding itself into pretending Cinque has anything to do with it at all. It's sad to say, but Seven Arcs seriously dropped the ball on this one plot wise. The ending is sloppy, which is where most of this issue lies. The main conflicting villan is defeated within a single episode, and the series stretches out for another 3 episodes that could have been used to boost the story and bump up this shows score.

Dog Days did quite a few things right, but the rest are wrong in such a big way it may be hard to enjoy for some. It's enjoyable for the most part, yes, but parts of it will rub the wrong way. If you liked Nanoha at all, I recomend giving Dog Days a watch. If you like medieval themes anime, I'd give it a go. If you like developed characters and an interesting narative, Dog Days might be worth avoiding. I half feel like the series wasn't done justice, being an original work it's able to do it's own thing without having to adhere to an already established plot and having to cater to a legion of fans who will pick apart every flaw with it. The issue, is that it makes you feel like it would be a whole lot better if they'd had more time to develop everything properly, establish the world a bit more and develop Cinque a bit more, we could have had a series that you would really want to continue. As it stands though, I don't see Dog Days continueing past this series. Perhaps a manga would be nice to see, but considering the original creator is still working on Nanoha Force and Nanoha Vivid, I don't see it happening in the forseeable future. Up untill the last 3 episodes, I'd pretty much set my heart on a score of 8/10, but seeing how it seems to have crash landed I'm bumping it down to a 7/10, and that's only because I found it enjoyable. I know someone who lumps this on the same level as Rio: Rainbow Gate, which is actualy kind of depressing when you think about it.

Final Score: 7/10

When I get the charts for the next anime season, I try to have at least one of everything. Is there a mecha show? I'll check it out. A comedy looking thing? On the list. And I will try to have at least one show that can be considered "serious business". This is actualy the hardest one for me to fill, simply because of one simple thing: I am very picky. Hard to believe I know, I think the third season of Zero no Tsukaima was good, I can put up a decent defensive arguement for Girls Bravo and I consider Neon Genesis Evangelion to ... be one of the greatest abominations to ever slap it's balls on the anime genre. As you can tell, I have bizare taste and, honestly, I first picked up GOSICK because there didn't seem to be anything better on that I could take seriously. Keep in mind, this was the season when I had the twin onslaught of Rio: Rainbow Gate and Dragon Crisis to deal with and I REALLY needed something with substance to ballance out the sheer amount of retardation presented to me by Rio, and the amount of eh given to me by Dragon Crisis. Now, allow me to say that I liked GOSICK alot, I mean ALOT. It was a refreshing breath of air in a medium that's currently being saturated in mediocrity or, worse, just plain badness. But enough of that rambling, let's get on with the content, shall we?

Now, I've never read the novel, so I can't tell you how well it holds up to it, but I can give you the gist based on what I've seen. We are thrown into the made up kingdom of Saubure in 1924. Kazuya Kujo, a transfer student from Japan (even in those days we had them huh?) and enlists in an academy within the country. As it turns out, people in those parts love mysteries, ghost stories especialy, and he just happens to stumble across one. One of the more famous academt stories proves true, as he discovers upon entering the academys library tower amd meets a mysterious girl called Victorique, a girl so hyper intelligent that she solves cases even the police and detectives can't solve for breakfast. The nice thing about this plot, is that it develops way past this simple tale into something much more complex and intertwineing and you'll often find yourself caught up in the momentum. It goes from simple murder mystery to political intrigue, snakeing into the power struggle within the country and the eventual outbreak of the Second World War. The only real issue is that some of the mysteries, the early ones especialy, are a little too easy and you'll find yourselves working out the answer sometimes even before the characters do.

The real enjoyment though, comes from the character interaction between Kujo and Victorique. Some people might find Kujo to be a little bit grateing at times, and with good reason. He sometimes falls victim to the narrative quirk alot of anime protagonists suffer from with being completely blind to another persons feelings, not through malice, but simply because he just doesn't pick up on it. He's been given the nickname by viewers "Denseman" for a reason you know. He can be very sweet an endearing when he tries however, and it's this that makes him more than tollerable to anyone willing to just go with it. Victorique is a totaly different story. Though being a little girl, she manages to keep up the haughty attitude even in extreme danger. At times though, it's clear that she's still young and vunerable, as when the series progresses the very thought of never seeing Kujo again makes her break into tears. Her intelligance can be debated heavily, howerver. Though they offer explanation for it in the show, it's not entirely clear where it comes from, how she got it or, indeed, when it can be used. It's as though she can't even make an educated guess untill she has all the necessary information. If I had to compare it, I'd say it's a little like Miss Marple, she quietly works it all out in her head and comes to the correct conclusion. She also has one of the best laughs ever, just saying, and can also be kind of cute when she wants to be. There are several other characters, and I could spend a long time talking about them, but it's not entirely clear how some of them develop. Thankfully, all of them are very strong and don't require too much of a change for them to fit nicely into the plot from begining to end.

The artwork is fitting, given the time period, with a nice amount of gothic archetecture thrown in. I'm sure there are alot of people who can pick out the small historical inaccuracies within it. The animation is also pretty fluid and pleasent to look at if that's your kind of thing.

Music wise, you'll barely notice any of the in-anime songs that play on occasion. While the opening never changes throughout the show, there are two ending themes. Both of them are by Lisa Komine and they reflect the dramatic change in story tone perfectly when it eventualy happens. The first is serious while keeping itself lighter hearted (and, of course, in the begining, all the interest is in finding out more about Victoriques mysterious past) and the second...well, you'll see for yourself. The opening, by yoshika*lisa, while not perfect does fit the show pretty well. And here's a neat little trick, mute the opening and play the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann opening song over it. Tell me it doesn't fit, I dare you. Aoi Yuuki (Mina Tepes, Dance in the Vampire Bund) does an incredible job as Victorique and deserves alot of credit for it. The rest of the cast do a decent enough job, while nothing particularly note worthy coming to mind.

GOSICK recieved quite a bit of hype leading up towards its release. Quite alot of people didn't believe it could live up to the novel, as we all know anime based off of books or manga are rarely as good or better than their source material *cough*SoraNoOtoshimono*cough*, but equaly I haven't heard any major complaints by these people either, so I hope they were pleasently supprised. I have to give kudos to Bones for this one, they did a very good job with GOSICK and I find it hard to even think of one single complaint I could have for it apart from the slight frustrations one might have with Kujo. Now, I'm perfectly aware GOSICK has both novels and manga as it's source material, but there's one, small problem. They were both distributed by Tokyopop. TOKYOPOP. This means that I am almost totaly unable to read them unless I hunt them down on the net or sink into my bank account and order them off of Amazon which is also likely to be close to impossible very soon. When all aspects are considered, I'd find it hard to live with myself if I gave GOSICK anything less than a 10. A 9 at the very least but, ever the optomist, my final score has to be:

Final Score: 10/10