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So this daughter of a billionaire named Carol is into archeology and her family stumbles on the tomb of a young pharaoh that happened to have a sister named Isis who knows magic well enough to traverse time and guard (poorly mind you) the body of her dead brother in the 21st Century. This sister kidnaps Carol to carry out what everyone is calling the mummy's curse and takes her back to a time when Egypt was divided into Upper and Lower where Carol becomes the love interest to Pharaoh Memphis and many other world leaders of the time which all fight over either her ... or Memphis. Where do I begin? The story is trying to portray a love transcending time over a millennia and the many things getting in it's way from BOTH eras while also giving us a history/ancient politics lesson. It almost fails in in both. For the historical portion, NOTHING is accurate! I study Hittite, Babylonian, Sumerian, and Egyptian history for fun and also because I'm considering writing my own novel. Pharaoh Memphis doesn't exist (in fact they would have been better making him King Tut given the age), Prince Izumi (or whatever his name is; the translation I read kept changing with translators), and the events happening in Hattusa are either askew or didn't happen. And no, this isn't because she's a person in the past screwing up history because the writer actually TRIES to place real live events in here. The problem is that most of these events didn't even happen in the SAME CENTURY! For example, the fire of the Hittitie empire wiped out Hattusus, NOT some no name city and that was in a time when Egypt was ONE nation, not split into Upper and Lower. The other part that's supposed to draw you in is the love story and it's BOGUS! He's abusive and abrasive EVERY chance he's finally got her alone with him, even breaking her arm at one point and she for some reason SHE can't explain, is head-over-heals. Any other time, she needs rescuing and he's the knight-in-shining-armor despite knowing she's going back to a situation worse that the one Rhianna and Eminem were trying to portray in "Love the Way You Lie". The whole of the story circles around her constantly getting kidnapped and him going to save her and him getting in trouble and her going to save him and THAT'S IT! Damsel in Distress for the moment, make a historical story out of it.

The characters are so one dimensional it's infuriating. Oh the author TRIES to make them dynamic and interesting but it falls harder than a newborn giraffe. She is smart and understands how to create clean filtered water and build empires with the possession of weapons (while the Egyptian empire NEVER thought of it) and escape dungeons that how even the most desperate of men and REVERSE THE FRIGGING FLOW OF A HUGE RIVER TO BRING DOWN THE WALLS OF A CITY MADE OF DRIED MUD!!!.....but can't manage to evade one man trying to kidnap her? LAZY WRITING!!!!! And she also can't figure out that maybe a physically abusive tyrat isn't someone you should just readily resign to marry. Then there's the Pharaoh: Memphis is devoting and caring and protective and understanding....when he's not forcing you to starve and rot in a dark dirty dungeon simple because you don't want to kiss him. Oh yeah! He does that! Then regrets it like a child regrets getting caught by his parents: he's not sorry, he's sorry it got so big and he got busted. Granted he's pharaoh and no one would think to punish him (further spoiling him) but he's not making much effort to LEARN from his mistake. He breaks her arm and feels bad but he still abuses her WHILE her arm is healing. He's a king but he acts like a spoiled brat rather than a tyrant, he doesn't think to steal weaponry and needs a woman to point that out to him and doesn't consider SELLING his newly conquered wealth to build an armory, he's as gullible as a TODDLER, yet he's often out-of-nowhere portrayed as a worthy military leader! The other characters exist either to separate the lovers and/or try to conquer/steal their hearts and/or country. On top of that, EVERYTHING that happens seems to require a massive over-reaction. "I dropped a plate", "I found a sharp object", "I see my beloved or his enemy" *SUPER MEGA ULTRA CHOCOLATEY-COATED SPECIAL DESU-DESU MOE-MODE GASP!!!!! every moment is played up like a climax so you can't bask in the quiet moments or appreciate any subtlety.

On the other hand, the art starts our weak but then most manga do that because the artist is still in the process of perfecting a unique artstyle or look for a character. When that art style is established, you see something resembling the walls of a pyramid. Profile bodies, the way Egyptian drawings depict hands and object and poses, all of it resembling ancient Egyptian calligraphy. There are the frontal and rear and diagonal shots but when you see a side shot, the whole room turns into an ancient tablet, it's stunning. The character designs are unique and you can easily tell characters apart even if you forget their name. The Babylonian king LOOKS like he's from Babylon and if you aren't familiar with ancient dress code, it does a decent job of separating each look by country, class, and gender. You can tell the difference between a slave and a really poor commoner without seeing chains and whips. If not, their mannerisms are portrayed well enough to separated them. But then there's the over reactions to everything. It gets old when all the heroine knows how to do is gasp in fear and anxiety when she could just look and react (they actually have multiple panels and sometimes pages of *SUPER MEGA ULTRA CHOCOLATEY-COATED SPECIAL DESU-DESU MOE-MODE GASP!!! for one character).

So as you can see, I didn't finish this. There's two reasons for that: 1) I've been reading it online and I could only find it in English up to Chapter 62 [the chapters between 62 and probably 81 that I could find were in Vietnamese and I know how to navigate my way around multiple mange and non-manga site to find what I'm looking for] and 2) I realized that the only thing I was enjoying was the many ways this girl found an escape, how resourceful she was, battle strategies, and ancient politics. The love story didn't ignite me as ALL it had going was "save the dumbass that just portrayed himself/herself as some that can take care of themselves, and the characters were infuriatingly stupid from gullibility to falling in love with someone KNOWN to be violent to BASIC COMMON SENSE AND SURVIVAL SKILLS. I'd love to learn more about battle strategies and historical dilemmas and ideals but I just can stomach ANYMORE stupid characters and weak plot line and blatantly inaccurate historical references. It's fine for a while for those who have read "Red River" (or "Anatolia Tales" for some) and want to see the Orient in a different light or from a different point of view but I'd recommend reading this BEFORE "Red River" as it fails miserably in matching up and ANY of the above categories. Id rather have read this then moved up to something better than to see writing at it's best then see what happens when the writer doesn't care about being accurate or giving their characters AND story depth. My score total was what I averaged from the categories and "Mediocre" fits my opinion of this manga perfectly.

AWESOMENESS!!! THE DRAMA!!! AWESOMENESS!!!
This certainly was a different approach to a story. You have about 20 or so characters, some not even human, living out their everyday lives in an ordinary town run by color gangs and a mystery gang named the Dollars. A VERY eventful day happened and they take the first few episodes introducing the characters and telling their story and what they were doing on that Eventful day. You got three high schooler (one into girls and bad jokes, one that just moved there and is still adjusting, and one that is so shy that she clings to others for comfort), the ... headless biker chick, a shady doctor, an INSANELY strong man who vows to kill a mysterious trouble maker, a stalker gone missing, the obssess guy involved, the list goes on a little more. The next few explain how all these random people coincidentally connect through some careful planning and great plot twists. I'd say the biggest plot twist of all is that the most ordinary people have the most INTERESTING stories. The opening and ending themes were AWESOME and the art was great. This is THE anime to watch if you haven't already.

Getting this out of my system, MOANING WHILE MWERGING GIANT ROBOTS! LOL!!!

*ahem* The first half of this story was great but the second half, I'd have to say was AWESOME! There was more drama, more conflict, fewer annoying characters, and the art was WAY better. The colors really came out better than in Sousei no Aquarion. The music, like the other one, was a must get and there were a few I could play all day just because they're THAT GOOD. And the characters, though most were semi-1Dimensional and only one really annoyed me (sadly it was the heroine; she kept getting childishly jealous ... over misunderstandings with one guy after making NO effort to take him for herself), were fun to watch.

The story starded with a love triangle 24,000 years ago between two male angels and one female human (angel 2 likes angel 1 but angel 1 gave up his wings for the girl, it hurt angel 2 badly) 12,000 years later (Sousei no Aquarion) they reincarnate and the same story repeats. angel 1 reincarnates as a human and falls for the girl again leaving angel 2 lonely. In the end, to save the world, the angels' souls come together again and angel 1 prmoses to meet the girl again in another few thousand years.

BUT, 12,000 more years later (Aquarion EVOL; takes place on earth when another planet is abduction their women and they have to fight again) angel 2 realized during the soul merge 12,000 years ago that he was trick and now he's back for revenge on the new reincarnations. I won't DARE spoil anything for you but the Plot twist are wonderful and this I will say, the bad guy is pulling ALL the strings and this story is ENTIRELY in his hands.

This is worth a see and the best part is you don't have to see Sousei no Aquarion first (though I highly recommend it) to understand what's going on, they give you full backstory (even more than the first actually). I LOVE the anime.

I Love Studio Ghibli and this was CLEARLY one of their more earlier films. I give them credit for a movie of that time period because it REALLY look like anime was just starting to make aname for itself and the few elements that hold it back are a product of that era in animation and story telling.

As far as classic anime goes, it wasn't that bad. The chorus of people every few minutes got terribly annoying and some of the character were bland but the story had a very classic theme to it; slay the demon, save the maiden, win the hearts of the ... people. None of that was easy considering the only weapon that could slay the demon was unusable until about the third act. Also, the maiden not only had to be saved from the demon but also herself as she's feeling the evil in her own heart growing and it tore her between clinging to life and clinging to her humanity. And finally, as Horus was a newcomer to the village, he not only had to earn their trust (especially against a power-hungry man of the village) but also prove that they were in danger as he was the only one who could see it.

Where the characters were uninteresting, the story somewhat made up for it. The animals looked like they were drawn by an elementary schooler but agaiin that was a product of the times. Anime was just starting out and the detail we see in scenes and characters weren't yet realized. Still, this is a classic and I have to say as hard as it was finding this in english sub, it's worth a see...if you can find it or if you understand japanese.

SO! COOL!
This was one of those video-games turn anime. My friend told me about the game (hard-core gamer, most of the VG Animes I have or will watch will probably be by his recomendation) and how awesome Karas was and told me about his OC that he based visually off of Karas so I decided that I had to see this. It didn't disappoint.

It would be outside my abilities to competantly praise this anime. The artwork was 1st rate, the music was calm when neccesary and vice versa with the suspence. The characters seem to have this ordinary feel about them but all in all, ... they come off very intersting as they interact with the supernatural situations unraveling around them.

The story was, at some times, hard for me personally to follow but maybe that's because I didn't play the game. As far as I understand, this was a continuation of the game so I may never know the full story unless they have a manga. However, as it carries along, it becomes easier to understand and the fight scenes are so fast and cool and bada**. From what I could get, a Karas is a protecter of a city; he/she is the barrier between the human reality and the invisible youkai (supernatural creatures of Japanese folklore) living hidden in plain sight among them. But since humans believe less and less in youkai, they're disappearing. Because of this growing phenomenon, the former protecter of the setting city wants to destroy it and pruge it of the 'disease of humans'. The youkai realize that this is not in their favor since thay need the humans to survive and that he uses the lives of other youkai to achieve his goals. So they all fall to the new Karas to save them and the humans and he doesn't diappoint.

The anime is already somewhat dark but it leaps into blackness as the climax comes. It's very graphic and when someone is getting sliced to shreds, they not only don't hide it but they give us 1st rate animation to show it even delving into the use of 3Dimensional characters. It's worth watching and, my guess, worth playing too.

I was surfing through google images and stumbled upon a picture of Munto. I Loved his design but I couldn't get any of my friends to identify him so after months of staring at his picture and looking for ANY tag that would help me id him, I finally found out about his anime. After reading a bit of the plot, I'd honesty have to say that I was more intersted in seeing this design in action than the actual story but I gave it a chance. From the pictures I saw, I saw promise but after seeing the anime, I was bored senseless.

The ... plot, though somewhat interesting, wasn't as riveting as I hoped. You have two people from two dimensions parallel to each other and it's near imposible to cross over but the girl has to cross over to save the other dimension. These are the beginings of a good plot, so what happened? Well, the characters are as ineresting as mud, they take FOREVER to get to something exciting in the plot, and there's no music to help with the atmosphere of the scenes to make them more bareable.

In one world, you have a group of unnamed bad guys destroying King Munto's kingdom in the sky (and their HOME) just BECAUSE THEY CAN (really, no real motive was EVER revealed, A holy crusade for the greater good would have been nice) and people sitting around and LETTING THEM while saying hope is not lost as long as we withhold our troups and have faith in Munto who has leaped into an area where him just being there is slowly and PAINFULLY killing him while he tries to convince this boring little middle school girl, who is the only one that can see beyond the barrier between them (and that's the only thing interesting about her, everyone else thinks she's a liar instead of crazy), to help him.

In the other world you have the boring everyday life of said boring girl and her friends. She know Munto NEEDS her to help him and that COUNTLESS lives are at stake but even as he lays DYING in front of her, she still says "you have the wrong girl, I don't know what you're talking about, leave me alone" instead of HELPING him like a SENSIBLE person would if a person was dying in front of them. Also, it's a MIRACLE she has just been tagged as a liar and NO ONE has thought to AT LEAST get her couselling. Who wrote this, a 4YO?! Hey, if she was at least considered mentally unstable by the general public, it would make her half of the story more interesting as she is strugling to find answers (is the floating kingdom real or do I really need STRONG medication?), but no, we get this half-a** piece of sh**.

I was excited to see Munto but after watching the OVAs and finding out that they were just a portion of the story and the anime has the whole story, I gave up on it. Usually when anime's chop up episodes into OVAs or a few movies, the pull the highlights of the anime and if THAT was the highlight, I say it's not worth it. Thank GOD my dignity overwhelmed my curiosity to watch them because I don't know how much more of that I could take.

EPICNESS!!! The story, the characers, AWESOMENESS!!! It's a tale about a boy, Haru Glory, who stumbled upon destiny when a weird old war-veteran and his weird, white creature came to his island and gave him the key to stopping the well renowned Demon Card, the first of five artifacts called Rave, his creature named Plue, and a sword called the Ten Commandments (I know they cencored the name for it in the anime due to obvious religious references but this name DOES sound EPIC). He meets an amnesiac girl with a weird way of seeing things and a boy who can shape-shift silver for fighting ... and WAY too many more strange people to get down; they're all weird in their own way but it's the kind of weird that you see naturally in a person and you can't help but laugh at it. This manga switches back and forth between serious and wtf funny - the seriousness ranging from intense to end of existance (literally) and the funny from quirky to can't breath and tears for several minutes and the more you think about it, ther worse it is. The plot twist are the best I've seen in manga, anime, famous novels, anything and these characters strive through with the intent to die for it everytime. Their die-hard passion is unreal and inspiring and it makes the best of us cry at times seeing them constanly fighting for what they believe in. There are times when they'll get discouraged but to see them get back up and evolve is so heartwarming. As for the art, the funny moments look alot like One Piece and the detail of the serios moments is exceptionally superb. I Love this manga and if you take the time to read it, so will you.

I LUV this manga. I originally read the Dragon Ball Z half first and went back later to read the Dragon Ball half and I have to say that the first half had this child-like, playful tone to it compared to the more serious nature of Dragon Ball Z but I love how well it transitioned.

In the first half, it's seen virtually from the eyes of a really powerful kid as he travels around with friends he meets along the way in search of 7 ballls that grant 1 wish when gathered together. This kid is Goku and let me tell you, he's naive, ... he's oblivious, he's cocky, he's childish, and he's a bit of a show off, but all his flaws are what make him likable because time and again, he'll notice his flaws and overcome them as if they were a pebble in his shoe. He's so young and opitmistic that it's contageous and you can't help but root for him to get back up and keep trying. The other characters are a RIOT! Krillin, Roshi, Bulma, Lunch, gut-busting everytime and the motives or personalities of the villains are so petty (with the exception of the Picolo's) it's too much NOT to laugh. The art is simple but suitable and every once in a while, they'll throw in a 4th wall (panel) joke. The Dragon Ball half really captures it from the eyes of a kid and thet's refreshing every once in a while.

In the Z half, the tone gets more serious as Goku grows and matures but he still has that innocence about him. When new, more powerful, and far more serious villains show up, the lives of more innocent people are sacrificed and that number grew with each new villain. Even though you know they'd bring all them back with the Dragon Balls (which, by the way, have been reduced to a meeger plot device as the story progresses), the fact that they were up against people who could erase planets with a flick of the finger as opposed to King Picolo's destroy-one-city-anually plan, you were scared for them. Our favorite heroes fought honorably and died many times and you were TORN to see it. But what I love is that even though you could say there was a happy ending, there technically wasn't. It was happy but there seems to be no end as you see Goku fly of into another adventure as the Acknowledgements show up.

Overall, this was a good manga and for those just planning to read certain parts like I did, chapter 194 is the separater fyi. I may never get the chance to redo my childhood (as I am a 90's girl but missed out due to parental units eg. mother-censorship) and watch the anime but I'm glad I at least got to see the original in all it's glory.

Too many awesome characters (antagonist, protagonist, neutral, or other) that you can't help but fall in love with. The protagonists really push themselves to the limits and always come out stronger. Each new challenge leaves you wondering if they'll even make it out in one piece (literally, they broke so many bones, I was scaed they'd never be able to fight again). The better of the antagonists are really passionate and are willing to risk it all on one fair fight. Their values are questionable like any normal bad guy but they have some morals that stand out and make them somewhat admireable. And the ... plot flows but always keeps you guessing (like I said, you wonder if they'll make it out alive). It's a classic worth keeping.

THE COCKINESS! THE MANLINESS! PERFECTION!!! This is what anime should be like! The characters are so loveable and the two main characters are so courageous and manly that it effects even the shyest viewer to be just as passionate and strong. Also, this is the only anime I know that can kill off a character early on and he's still the #1 favorite character throughout the ENTIRE SERIES! The animation has this classic feel to it and the story has this larger than life sense that just explodes in your face. You fall in love with this anime so easily and it's worth keeping a ... copy of it. I recommend this one over any others I've mentioned.