I had the nostalgia lenses on when I decided to re-watch this show recently, but unfortunately it doesn't hold up to my childhood memory, except for the ending which I remembered as disappointing. I experienced a lot of push-back for the treatment that writers gave this story, it could have been much better if there wasn't the drive to push in more fight scenes near the end. As others have pointed out the good fight scenes occur early on in the show. Character say things that they expect the viewer to take on oath, but really it just left me scratching my head: i.e. that
...
Kyosuke is the taker of souls but what evidence did they even have to support that claim, why is he called the Soul Taker? Referring to earlier parts of the show we conclude that this was a code name given to him by the Kirihara group, but later on people who wouldn't likely have had any contact with the group refer to his ability to take souls. In other words this show should have been called something else, the name just sounds cool. His attacks and the transformation are never fully explained it is just something the viewer must accept. And the aforementioned soul-taking is highly downplayed as part of the story as a whole. Based on the intro song one may expect that he is a vigilante super-hero and while this is sort of the case, the artistic nature of the show is surely in full effect with all manner of Akiyuki Shinbo's directorial flair. Unfortunately there were some weird artifacts when I watched it where shadows appear blocky, although that may have been intentional, or it may have been something glitchy with the video.
The Soul Taker yanks its viewer around a lot for 12 episodes, dodging around details which could have been explained at any time by other characters, but these all important details are left out to keep the viewer interested, it’s easy to see the main plot could have been highly compressed if Kyosuke was given a straightforward answer from his father about the past, Runa, and all related details. But what is more irritating is the plot hole which is Kyosuke's life for the 17 years leading up-to him being sacrificed to activate his power during the first episode; did he always live in a world with such gotchic themes, how did he not know of the Hospital before, how did his adoptive mother shelter him so well, and what was this life like?!
*Spoilers:
The ending is the part which bothered me the most as I have already mentioned, moreover because the story has just been dragging its feet over the same theme for most of its run, to save Runa or to kill Runa, and then Kyosuke decides to take the low road much to my disappointment but then apparently through the magic of plot "saved her" and then somehow his mom is still alive during the very last scene of episode 13... What! I really wanted him to work out things with Runa properly i.e. through words and love -- not violence *sigh* -- and convince her to coexist with normal humans along with him... but no... I'm even all for their incestuous tryst given the fact that Runa has been all alone and Kyosuke has been who she has been hoping to save her, and they were separated at birth and don't remember each other. Clearly decisions on the writers end weren't being made with any care, since they must have been scrambling to finish the show, which they did but at the same time didn't present anything new that was interesting. They even reuse the same boring "what if we had a family and went to school" cliché that is also seen in Evangelion, seen here when Runa and Kyosuke spend a little time in Runa's idyllic fantasy land, which I felt was taking it safe... given Runa's confession it could have been something more sultry, seductive or interesting like maybe the two of them dating, which is hinted at but they were trying to remind the viewer that they were related which really wasn't necessary since their family was never together.
*end spoilers
The plot makes the (not so) clever excuse that the only way Kyosuke can communicated with others in his life is through fighting... what a load of bull... I almost want to fight it out with whoever decided that this even made sense.
Conclusion:
They fucked up what could have been a truly great show.
Watch it for the artwork, but don't hold your breath about the story, you will get disappointed very early on in fact, as the girl who saves Kyosuke in the first episode has the worst voice actor in Japanese of all the Seiyuu's, and her English voice ain't that great either. They voiced Kyosuke with the same actor that played Mousse from Ranma 1/2 in the English version which is interesting, this time around I watched it in Japanese, with subs from start to finish where before I only saw it dubbed--it holds up either way. I got bored so I even decided to play back both the subbed and dubbed on half my screen and compare them side by side to see the differences and they are minor at best in what the dialogue conveys.
Feb 24, 2018
The SoulTaker: Tamashii-gari
(Anime)
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I had the nostalgia lenses on when I decided to re-watch this show recently, but unfortunately it doesn't hold up to my childhood memory, except for the ending which I remembered as disappointing. I experienced a lot of push-back for the treatment that writers gave this story, it could have been much better if there wasn't the drive to push in more fight scenes near the end. As others have pointed out the good fight scenes occur early on in the show. Character say things that they expect the viewer to take on oath, but really it just left me scratching my head: i.e. that
...
Dec 30, 2017
Just Because!
(Anime)
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Check it out, its worth 1 watch...
Just Because conveys its messages through its themes, and symbolism; most of these elements can be parsed from the OP, and as you watch more you will see that it is indeed a reflection of the story. To those with a background in literary analysis, seeing these elements tastefully placed in an anime was satisfying. Ironically these symbols and themes felt like extra baggage that is irrelevant to conveying the story; this problem is most noticeable in the last episode when all manners of contrivance hinder the final key steps to the main romance's closure. This makes me question ... 
Nov 13, 2017
Dual! Parallel Lun-Lun Monogatari
(Anime)
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I watched this show at the suggestion of anime guru DigiBro on youtube. Some spoilers contained: And this show indeed has parallels (see what I did there) to Evangelion. It takes a completely different direction however. Instead of gritty action, tear shedding drama, an amazing score, brilliant animation and strong characters we get.... lackluster battle sequences with obvious plot tricks to have the main character fight his girlfriends, entirely muted drama under no circumstances is there ever a strong feeling of danger, the sound is actually serviceable or maybe I am just getting convinced by the fact that it seems to be an advertisement for
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