Anime & Manga Teh CX Anime Review Thread

[Captain X]

Boogiepop Phantom
(12 episode series)

While Baccano! managed to pull off the ADD editing somehow, this series made all the skipping around a bit annoying. It also tended to skip around in time and location, though each episode was basically its own self-contained story. Each tended to intersect with more than one other episode, however, so it could get a bit confusing to follow. There were also so many different characters that it became hard to remember their names, at least, to even really see how much each storyline might intersect with another. It also might have helped if I'd understood what was going on or what the show was even really about.

The title character basically goes around and disappears various characters that all have special powers of some kind, usually after chastising them for the use of those powers. She alternatively refers to herself as Death, and as "saving" the people she makes disappear, so it's hard to tell if she's a villain or not. I normally like ambiguity, but this was just confusing. I guess making them disappear into thin air (or cocooning them as is revealed close to the end) is somewhat better than the obviously evil "composite" humans who literally ate people who were supposed to represent evolution within the human species. The big evil organization they belonged to apparently controlled everything while actually preferring to just observe, except when it came to preventing change, as in evolution in humans. That's pretty much all I got out of the series.

According to my research (as in, I read the Wiki article), this anime was apparently made with the assumption that the viewer had read the source material, and that this wasn't an adaptation so much as an addition to it. That could be why the anime seemed to hit the ground running and never really slowed down to me, but even if that wasn't the case, I'd say that this series was severely lacking in story structure and development.

I guess if you like having your mind screwed with a bit, this might be worth a watch, but I'm guessing most would simply find this series confusing and hard to follow. 3/10.

 

[Captain X]

Burn-Up!
(single episode OVA)

This show was immature and actually a little painful to watch. It focuses on a mostly female police squad as it investigates a female slavery ring run by some gangster type. As one might expect, this means some fan service, but while I usually kind of enjoy this kind of thing, it really wasn't worth it to watch this stinker. The English dub was especially annoying, but having to read the moronic conversation taking place in Japanese didn't improve on anything. It was just stupid, both the plot and the characters. There's a certain amount of corn one might get some enjoyment out of, but I didn't think it was really enough to overcome the many, many problems this stinker has. The one thing it has going for it is that it isn't all that long, although it seems longer than it is. 0/10.

 

[prinCZess]

Aww, that seems a little harsh on Burn Up. I remember it being pretty watchable overall. Sure, it comes from the 'lots of energetic voice-actor screaming' era, but the side-conversations seemed amusing to me and I had no objection to the characters, rather stereotypical cutouts as they were. It's basically a cliche renegade cop story, with the obstructive police chief, car chase, and everything. And there's some amusing shout-outs to Alien, Rambo and Lethal Weapon as I remember. What's not to like?

Plus, you gotta give it corn-credit pity-points for the silliest tactical SWAT uniforms there could ever be imagined:

Yes. Body armor? No, let's go with onesies underneath unitard-corsets and shoulder pads! Badges? NO! Give them stockings with 'Police' printed on the side! That'll make it clear who they work for!

Sure it's probly not good by any stretch. But I didn't think it was that bad. Granted, might be worse than I remember since I watched it in the early-00s. I think?
The...I think sequel(s), 'W' and 'Excess'* are considerably worse as well, abandoning most pretense of plot or comedy/character for 'moar boobles! Moar panties!', so there HAS to be room for decline...though even they're still watchable in my opinion-- just not good.

*Then there's Burn Up Scramble, which...I vaguely recall as being similarly mediocre but with much more of an (increasingly fever-dreamish) Charlie's Angels vibe to things...If you don't like this one I'd bet you wouldn't like it, but it's not as bad as the others.

 

[Captain X]

I've probably softened a bit on the first two Burn Ups since I wrote these reviews back in 2010. I think W is now my favorite of them now, but this is going mostly on memories. I might go back and give them a re-watch at some point, like if I ever get around to doing video reviews. Most of what I remember from the fist Burn Up is being bored for substantial segments of it, which is why I made the comment about it seeming longer than it really is.

 

[Captain X]

Burn-Up W
(4 episode OVA)

This OVA didn't have much to do with the first one beyond names, so I guess it had that going for it. For about the first half of it, it seemed like it was going to be all nudity and comedy, not unlike GoldenBoy. There was a villainous plotline in the background the whole time, but it seemed like it was more about making a VR orgasm machine than anything really threatening or dangerous. Honestly I probably would have enjoyed the show a lot more if that were the case, but it turned out to be something actually sinister, and the show took a turn for serious with the third episode. Basically we got introduced to one of the character's friends only to have that friend wind up getting shot in the face. And even after the show turned mostly serious at that point, it still tried to throw some comedy and fan service out there, and that didn't really come off well in my opinion, because the mood shift had already happened and there was no going back, at least not for me.

Really this show would have been improved had it simply chosen whether to be serious or to be a comedy, because mixing the two just didn't work for it. 4/10.

 

[Captain X]

Burn-Up Excess
(12 episode series)

This series was actually fairly good as far as being basically a sex comedy. As with the 4 episode OVA, this series pretty much focused on fan service and comedy, which was mostly about the fan service. It's refreshing to see an anime that doesn't really take itself too seriously. Actually, this series reminds me a little of Desert Punk as far as how over the top the action and comedy can be without overdoing it. The problem is, much like Desert Punk did toward its end, this series just had to get serious suddenly in its last few episodes. We're talking a major terrorist plot here, along with major betrayal from characters who were supposed to be "good guys." It's somewhat frustrating that once again, the people making this series had to ruin what they had by introducing a serious plot.

As for the plot itself, well, for a while it was refreshingly episodic with some minor connection with the big evil secret plan that finally reared its ugly head at the end of the series. The character design and voice talent is the same as Burn Up W, which at first lead me to believe Excess was a sequel to it, but as someone turned up who was killed in the OVA, I guess there is no real continuity between the OVA and this series. Oh, and speaking of character design, the Warrior Squad's only male team member, Yuji, looks a lot like the main character of GoldenBoy, so that helped sell both the OVA and this series to me initially.

I'd say this series is worth a watch if you're up for some adult comedy. Much as with the OVA, though, the ending kind of spoiled my enjoyment of it, so I'm not going to score it much higher at 5/10.

 

[prinCZess]

The sudden serious turn of things in W and Excess is weird. I'm not sure if jiggling tits and panty-shots jive with 'serious' storyline attempts...Unless you just take it as some kind of meta-comedy all together? Dunnow...

Will say, since Excess came up in particular (and I lack much else complimentary to say about the series), that I do recall it having a rather interesting episode about an automated tank that gets attached to the main girl of the team. I think it's a sequence/storyline that might be ripped from other science-fiction stories in the same vein (I think Bolo books might've done something similar? I suppose 'AI becoming attached to human' IS a pretty generic plot point), but even though the tank can't communicate with words or text it becomes very memorably cute how it behaves like some kind of lovestruck teenager towards this character whose being a grade-A bitch towards it for most of the run-time...Downside being I don't think it ever gets referenced again (details subject to being incorrect since I watched this a long time ago--point being it's a memorable sequence solely because I do remember it even after many years).

 

[Captain X]

Burn-Up Scramble
(12 episode series)

This series features a new character design and animation style that frankly makes the older versions of this franchise look a lot better by comparison. This series also features a new voice cast along with having a new continuity completely unrelated to the other versions of the franchise. But what really makes this version suck, in my opinion, is that it's way too serious. It reminds me of other "future cop" animes which also bored the hell out of me so much. The fan service is still there, albeit much tamer and therefore less fun as far as I'm concerned.

I have to be honest, though, and admit up front that I couldn't watch this entire series. Even if I didn't have a massively huge list of things I want to watch and get through, I probably still wouldn't take the time to watch the entirety of this series, because at points I was tempted to quit before the first episode was even done. That being said, I only made it through the first episode. 0/10.

 

[Captain X]

Burst Angel
(24 episode series)

This is basically your stereotypical anime – giant mecha, girls with guns, and plenty of fan service. So, at least in my opinion, there's nothing really special about it and it's basically eye candy. For the most part, the series is somewhat episodic, though the "episodes" can actually last 2-3 episodes. There's the big evil plot in the background, though not all of it makes sense, particularly in how it manifests in each episode, which includes the requisite beach episode.

There is a lesbian couple, sort of, with a tomboy engineered weapon and a busty, not all that bright girly type, Jo and Meg, respectively. The series does try to do a bit of drama with them, and even finishes off with a heroic sacrifice, though it's not clear to me if Jo and her former boss actually died or not at the end of the epic battle that finished the series off. The idea that Meg would somehow take Jo's place was pretty amusing, though, seeing as she was pretty much the Daphne of the series, what with getting kidnapped in basically every episode and needing Jo to save her.

There is something of a fake protagonist in this series, though, a real whiny loser by the name of Kyohei who is a culinary student just seeking a job on the side for some extra cash. It was pretty apparent from the start that this was going to be a "harem" type comedy, with a single male character surrounded by hot female characters that he will never, ever get to be more than friends with. Like most harem comedies I've seen so far, Kyohei is whiney and pathetic, being impossibly understanding and pathetic. At the beginning of the series, Jo threatened to kill him more than once, including one time when he was infected by a nanovirus that was set to kill him in a few hours if it was not removed. As Meg was at risk, Jo used him as a hostage in an exchange, threatening to kill him if he didn't cooperate. And he just goes along with it, even going so far as to save her ass before that storyline was through. Personally I would have threatened to kill her right back, and probably would have tried to follow through with that threat as soon as the opportunity presented itself, but since Kyohei let himself be a doormat, apparently Jo decided he was now a friend and the series progressed from there. At a point later in the series, though, it becomes clear that Kyohei is nothing but a supporting character and that Jo is the real protagonist. Which is pretty lame, really. Apparently whoever made this was under the mistaken impression that they had to fool their perceived all-male audience into watching their show about hot women fighting crime with their giant robot.

Anyway, this was an okay watch, but it really wasn't anything special. The most noteworthy thing about it to me was that this was the first role of Monica Rial's that made me notice and appreciate the range her voice actually has by doing something that wasn't a cutesy moé voice. This series was an attempt at a comedy drama, or maybe a drama with a lot of comedy relief, and it marginally succeeds. I'd give it a 6/10.

 

[Captain X]

Burst Angel Infinity
(single episode OVA)

A prequel to the series and a sequel to the background episode where Jo and Meg first met. There isn't a whole lot more to say about the OVA, which really could have been just another episode to the series. The story itself is about Meg and Jo seeking revenge against a mechanized monster who hurt the youngest member of the gang of street urchins Meg was leading when they found Jo. Hints at widespread corruption in New York City (like that's anything new), where the story takes place, and an even more obvious anti-US message in that the big bad from the series shows up in NYC as its mayor.

As an aside, it's kind of amusing how many more times I've seen the "teen-aged girl leading a band of street kids who all live in an abandoned bus" aspect of this story pop up in other anime series.

Nothing is really added to the series by this OVA, and like the series itself, while not bad it wasn't really good either. 5/10.

 

[Captain X]

Canaan
(13 episode series)

This was one of the better animes I've watched from my list so far. I was only able to watch a subbed version, but a dub has been made since.

This series is more action oriented, and of the big bad conspiracy to develop a human super-weapon variety. It takes place mostly in Shanghai, China, which I find somewhat laughable considering that at least part of the conspiracy involves the US and China cooperating with one another, since everything takes place in China. I'm not sure I would label this one entirely anti-US, since most of the hate is focused on the CIA, and on intelligence organizations in general it seems, as Japan's own such organization is made to look pretty evil, too. I'd say the US is probably made fun of more than anything, as the President is made out to be a somewhat lovable buffoon. The war on terror is also made out to be fake, which is pretty stupid also, but I digress. Sufficed to say there is a somewhat hippy viewpoint presented about the "military industrial complex", with the group of terrorists showcased presented as far more like a conventional military than actual terrorist organizations are.

Aside from all the action and the big evil conspiracy revolving around a bioengineered "Ua Virus", there's also something of a romance between two women. Unfortunately we're later supposed to believe the two of them are only friends, but everything in the storyline is played as the two of them being romantically interested in each other. After all, Canaan, a super-soldier created by exposure to the Ua Virus (which is supposed to be 100% deadly, mind), is constantly protecting the much more feminine Maria, and the two constantly refer to the other being their light, go on about wanting to be together forever, etc. Even in the end, it's played as a bittersweet end, with the two of them being separated by fate. Insert a male character into the Canaan role, and I'm pretty sure most people would see it the way I did, but whatever.

There was also some messed up, incestuous infatuation going on between the main villain, Alphard (once also Canaan), and her (adopted) sister. Of course that woman was even more fucked up than Alphard in the head when it came to killing people, and just in general for that matter.

As you might guess, Alphard has a special infatuation with Canaan, due to the two of them basically being adopted and raised by the same man, a mercenary who was apparently paid to do so. He also named them both Canaan. Alphard is weird in that while she constantly hunts down Canaan and fights her, or kidnaps Maria in order to get Canaan to fight her, she never goes all out and kills Canaan.

A bit strange, but still enjoyable, with some comedy relief and fan service thrown in for fun. It's not an especially good series, and it does have an annoyance factor to it in the form of Maria constantly calling out Canaan's name, but overall I'd say it was fun to watch, and worth a score of about 7/10.

 

[prinCZess]

While I'm saddened you didn't give Burn Up Scramble a chance...I can understand why. It is the most off-'brand' of them, and the first episode isn't great...Nor is the attempt to actually make it more of a character drama when the characters stay pretty much as flat as in previous iterations. Still, I've always thought it had something of a cheesy fun to it--it really does become an anime Charlie's Angels analog in its 'serious' moments, and I enjoyed its comedy more-so than the others. *shrug* Different tastes. You're free to be wrong.

Never watched Burst Angel, but Canaan...Woo, boy, I remember it at least for the convoluted conspiracy plot and the crazed killer lady that's got the obsession with Alphard. It has some neat gunfights/action sequences by my recollection, but...yeah, the characters are pretty nothing--annoying rich-girl thew supposed-to-be-but-not love-interest in particular. I remember her getting on my nerves a lot--probably made worse by watching the dub where she's...screamy.
Honestly, Canaan always struck me like it was just riffing on the earlier Madlax, Noir and...There's a third one but I forget it's name, but that oddball subgenre of lesbian-bait girls-with-guns series that popped up in the 00s that had convoluted conspiracies and took themselves overly-seriously...Which Canaan at least somewhat sidestepped in the serious department, though it turned up the lesbian overtones that it M.Night.Shamalayned away from at the end for no discernible reason to 11.

 

[Captain X]

Casshan (or Casshern): Robot Hunter
(4 episode OVA)

Another post-apocalyptic story, this time brought on by robot overlords that humans created themselves, lead by an android whose designation BK-1 coincidentally works out as initials for his later name "Black King". That still sort of sounds like it could be awesome, even if there's an annoying message of hubris to sit through along with it, but really it wasn't all that good. Battlestar Galactica or Terminator this ain't, because while both of those franchises feature somewhat thoughtful takes on the whole "robots bent on destroying humanity" angle, in this case the robots ...excuse me "neo-roids" were created to help preserve and protect the environment or some shit like that. So, kind of like the movie I, Robot, BK-1 comes to the conclusion that the best way to do this is to take over things and to kill the majority of humanity, since humanity is a threat to the environment and all that. I found the environmental bit funny, seeing as the "Robo-Zone" the OVA begins in is a desolate wasteland that obviously once flourished with life.

The robots themselves are a big chunk of why I don't much care for this OVA, mostly just because the way they were written, they could have just as well been aliens or even an elitist group of humans. After all, they really pushed the whole Nazi angle with the neo-roid symbol and the stiff-armed salute (not to mention the speeches with flags in the background), so humans or space Nazis would have fit the bill a lot better than robots, especially since they acted so human. They weren't cold and calculating like the terminators or the Cylons, they piloted aircraft and other vehicles with normal instrumentation and controls, rather than the vehicles being neo-roids themselves, stuff like that. Kind of nitpicky, but I just wasn't sold on the robot angle. That and I had a really hard time believing all the major world powers' militaries could have been defeated by Black King and his robot armies because of how inefficient and ineffective they were.

Casshan himself was kind of a cool concept, but there was also the same problem with just being unable to suspend disbelief. He has this cool armor, and at some points he demonstrates the ability to deal out significant damage from a distance, but for the most part he just karate chops and kicks robots to death, one at a time, usually to save his girlfriend Luna, who is usually in some form of peril. Oh, speaking of, they did try some drama, including romantic drama between Luna and Casshan, but usually the action got in the way of that. To be honest what drama there was wasn't terribly compelling or interesting anyway.

While easier to follow than the live-action Casshern movie and considerably less boring, it still just isn't all that good, at least for anything other than some amusement. Fortunately this is only a 4 episode OVA, and each episode is only a bit over 20 minutes long. I'd give it a 2/10, because while a little interesting and somewhat riff-able (oh, and animated tits), it just really wasn't all that good.

 

[Captain X]

Casshern Sins
(24 episode series)

Wow, what a depressing show. Another take on the original Casshern story, naturally this is a post-apocalyptic story, but that isn't what makes this show depressing. Rather, we meet a lot of characters and get to know them just well enough for it to tug at our heart strings when they die. And pretty much everyone Casshern meets does just that, either by his hand, those of other robots, or from the super-rust that is slowly killing all robots along with the entire planet.

In this take on the Casshern story, Casshern actually started out as a killing machine under the command of Braiking Boss (the BK-1 character), and killed Luna, who was his girlfriend on both of the other versions of Casshern I've seen. Thankfully there was never (and is never) any romance between them, because this version of her looks like a creepy 10 year old. Anyway, somehow through killing her, Casshern becomes immortal, and the great robot plague called "the ruin" is created and starts to spread.

Different robot characters lamented the super-rust, which prevents them from accepting new replacement parts or from creating new robots as well as slowly killing them, but I kind of thought of it as karma coming back to even the score after Braiking Boss and his army wiped out most of humanity, which had somehow managed to achieve immortality by then. And not just the robots are affected, but the planet itself seems to be turning into a lifeless ball of sand, with few remaining areas of plant life, and every structure a crumbling ruin.

Overall this was a fairly interesting series, but I have to say that it did get rather tiresome at times. Every version of Casshern I've seen has lamented his creation and what he is, but this version of him was practically emo. He not only wanted to die, but there were a few times he actually let an enemy try to kill him, and at one point he even tried to rip his own heart out. And while the somewhat limited soundtrack could at times effectively add to scenes and help to tug at the heart strings, there was this one pop song with English lyrics that got old fast and at times didn't even really fit what was going on in the scene it was being used for. And while he was busy being depressed, Casshern basically just wandered around aimlessly, somehow still managing to come across random characters. This basically gave us each episode's story for about the first 2/3's of the series - Casshern comes across random characters, other robots try to kill him and/or the characters he just met, he fights them, and usually goes into berserker mode and ends up killing basically everyone within sight. I guess I can't complain too much though, as some of those episodes were actually somewhat decent. Still, it got somewhat tiresome, along with everyone hating him after they found out his name, even if he'd just saved their lives.

The character design was somewhat different than what I was used to, just to throw that out there. Some characters reminded me a lot of the anime movie Metropolis, especially Ringo, who was either some weird kind of robot or maybe a human/robot hybrid of some kind. Anyway, when she smiled and laughed, it was hard not to do the same. Casshern and a lot of the others were way more ... artistic. At times it was impressionist, and at others, it almost reminded me of a more American style of animation. Casshern and the other robots like him also all sported the ultimate popped collars.

I think I'll give this one a 7/10, which isn't bad considering that it started out so generically that I almost didn't bother watching past the first episode.

 

[Captain X]

Castle in the Sky
(1986 movie)

You know, I wasn't expecting a whole lot from a 1986 anime movie about a floating castle, but this actually wasn't that bad. Sure, it was kind of cutesy at times, and while the animation style kind of dates, the story still holds up pretty well.

The story itself is set in a kind of generic European country about 1900 or so. It's steampunk, though, so dates don't mean much. Cars and airplanes seem to be that very early vintage, along with artillery and small arms, but there are flying battleships and dirigibles that make it pretty steampunk. Actually in some ways this reminds me of Nadia, as far as everything revolving around a young girl with a special blue necklace who turns out to be a princess of a lost city. It's just that in this case the city is floating in the air rather than the water.

In this case the young girl is named Sheeta, and she doesn't even know what her true heritage is at first and has to kind of intuit it later on in the movie. Apparently she's descended from the royalty of a civilization that had huge cities that flew far above the ground. The movie's opening implies that some great catastrophe happens to make the majority of the cities crash. During the time the movie takes place, most people take this all to be myth, and for the few pilots who have seen the last remaining flying city, they tend to get treated like nuts. Apparently the government of whatever country this movie takes place in believes it enough to kidnap Sheeta and attempt to force her to show them where the flying city, Laputa, is, even though she doesn't know what they're talking about. Luckily for her the airship she's been absconded to is attacked by air pirates, and in the ensuing battle, she ends up falling. Normally that would be a bad thing, but like I said, magic blue necklace, so she ends up floating safely to the ground, and right into the arms of the standard good-guy and humble love interest Pazu.

There's some standard boy-meets-girl along the way, with some air pirates who aren't so bad thrown in for fun. The story is paced fairly well, not moving very fast, but not dragging things out unnecessarily, either. Naturally a movie like this has a message, which seems to be very strongly environmental. Not so much "save the planet" so much as over-emphasizing the importance of trees and wild animals. It also has something of a generic anti-military message, but then that tends to go hand in hand with the kind of friendly, romantic view of pirates this movie ended up having. So basically it's everything you'd expect from a Miyazaki film, it's just that this was my first of his.

There really isn't all that much else to say about this movie, other than that it's worth a watch. 7/10.

 

[Captain X]

Charger Girl Juden-chan
(12 episode series)

This series ... wow, I don't know how I made it as far into the second episode as I did or why I even chose to put it on my list of anime to watch. Oh, wait, I'm pretty sure the reason why was the fan service, and by fan service in this case I mean practically porn (the term is hentai, you uncultured swine! ). And by porn, I mean something for people even more perverted than I am. As for what I mean by that, well, it's a big part of why I just couldn't keep watching.

Believe it or not, at first I found it kind of funny, in a "let's make fun of weird hentai" kinda way; I mean, they even showed bits of a stereotypical tentacle hentai that the main character, Plug, would catch at random points on TV in a manner that pretty much had me convinced they were making fun of this kind of thing, along with the "magical girl" genre. Instead, it turned out worse.

I know Japan is somewhat disturbingly misogynistic, and this has shown itself in some of the stuff I've already watched, but this was just way over the top. Basically, while normal humans can't see or touch the magical girls who fly around and cure people of depression by electrocuting them (yeah, that's really the premise of the series), the male lead can, and he usually reacts to them by getting pissed off and hitting them in the head with a baseball bat, the usual result being that they would then literally piss themselves. This was played for laughs, and at the point I just had to turn it off, one of the invisible women he was doing this to was somehow developing an attraction to this man and actually stated that being beamed in the head by him actually felt good.

Now, a lot of people tend to confuse the fact that I like to drool over naked women means I'm some kind of troglodyte, but really I just love how great women tend to look nekkid. That doesn't mean I don't respect women, and in fact that's why I just couldn't take this series anymore – because a man beating women until they pissed themselves was played as funny and sexy.

So to sum things up, I really wasn't expecting more than some animated nudity and some sex jokes, but even those low expectation managed to leave me coming away offended and feeling a little dirty for having watched as much as I did. 0/10.

 

[Captain X]

Chiko, Heiress of the Phantom Thief (aka The Daughter of Twenty Faces)
(22 episode series)

This was actually a pretty good series. It wasn't quite what I initially thought it was going to be, and I have to say, I think it actually worked out better that way.

This series does have some of the standard clichés: a mysterious rogue, a young apprentice becoming a master, an evil plan being carried out by a mad scientist, etc, but it also tends to mix things up a bit.

At first, the series seemed to be a lot more about the Phantom Thief, who is a bit of a Robin Hood figure – stealing famous treasures and returning them to their rightful owners. It's in doing this that he comes across Chiko, a young heiress whose aunt is plotting to kill her for her inheritance. The Phantom Thief stealing her along with a famous ruby she happens to have just seems to be part of what the Phantom Thief is all about. But he is a mysterious character, and really he's pretty much impossible to figure out. We do learn bits about his past, which has something to do with the recently ended Second World War. Some of his jobs have also involved the destruction of things he was apparently involved in developing, like an impossibly huge airplane found sunken at the bottom of the ocean.

So basically, it seems like this series is going to be about Chiko traveling along with and becoming a part of the Phantom Thief's gang, which is naturally more like a family than an actual gang. The Phantom Thief even seemed to be setting her up to someday take his place. That's just when the series changes things up and kills almost every single member of the Phantom Thief's gang. There's a bit of a depressing transitional period, and then the real story starts to reveal itself, the pieces falling into place with each episode.

The pacing is fairly good, but I have to admit to a little disappointment with the large periods of time that are being skipped. I do understand, though, that it might drag things out unnecessarily otherwise. It's just that in the beginning, the series skips almost three years' worth of time Chiko spends with the Phantom Thief and the gang, effectively turning it into a montage of what will become the teenaged girl's memories when she returns to a more normal life. Then, at the end of the series, it skips three years again. Really the last episode is more of an epilogue than anything else. I guess that means it was an okay last episode, but it was a little anti-climatic given what had just happened with a mad scientist's evil plan ripping a huge hole in Tokyo and all.

Which leads me to a few asides. I have to admit, that I thought this series was going more of the alternate history route, even though it was obvious that the war that everyone was talking about having recently ended was WWII. Thing is, there were a few airships that showed up, along with that impossibly huge tank and that impossibly huge airplane. It all seemed so dieselpunk. The technology associated with the mad scientist's plan seemed that way, too, and given the aforementioned hole being ripped into Tokyo, well everything seemed to be pointing toward an alternate history story set in something like the early 1950s. Well, wrong again, they filled in the hole, built Tokyo Tower, and apparently forgot everything about what happened, along with the supposedly world famous Phantom Thief. Then there was Chiko's role in the gang, which along with becoming an awesome buttkicker, she was also relegated to being the cook, maid, and seamstress of the gang by virtue of being female. That's actually somewhat amusing considering that Chiko is a rich girl who has always had servants to do those kinds of things for her, yet she is somehow supposedly good at doing all of them and is happy to do them. Oh, Japan... And while the Phantom Thief is made out by the show to be made of awesome, he's actually kind of a dick because of how he messes with the feelings of Chiko and his gang (what ended up being left of it).

I would definitely recommend this series to anyone who might be interested in a kind of mystery/adventure story. There's some comedy relief, too, but thankfully they didn't go over the top with it. Over all this series was very well done, despite a few flaws as I noted, and a few nitpickier ones I didn't bother to bring up. I hope that an English dub will be made for this series someday, as in spite of its quality, it has yet to be picked up by anyone. 9/10.

 

[Captain X]

Chobits
(26 episode series)

This series is every bit as stupid and pointless as one of my friends warned me it would be. I have to admit though that I only even gave this one a chance because it looked like it could be funny and have some nice fan service, but the attempts at comedy just completely fell flat, or were done so much that it completely lost any comedy value something might have initially had.

Jokes about internet porn and a retarded computer shaped like a teenaged girl imitating everything the main character does might be funny the first time (not that they really were), but when it's constantly done it becomes grating. Probably the most amusement I garnered from this complete waste of time was that the main character was being voiced by the same actor who did Captain Tyler, in the same type of voice (the actor actually does have a bit of a range). That's probably because the main character was supposed to be a simpleton, what with coming from the farm and all.

I could tell that this was supposed to be one of those cutesy romantic comedy type shows, but frankly the idea of romance with a computer is pervy, especially given that Chi (the computer) looked like jailbait. Oh, Japan... And just think, there were apparently 26 episodes of this crap, and from what I read they actually left it open for even more. I could barely sit through 2. I admit that I probably gave Ah! My Goddess! more of a chance despite kind of being along the same vein, and maybe Chobits might have proven to have a few interesting mini-stories like Goddess did, but I just didn't see anything even remotely worth keeping me watching. At least Goddess had a few moments and characters like the Motor Club to keep me amused, but Chobits had nothing, nothing. 0/10.

 

[Captain X]

Chrome Shelled Regios
(24 episode series)

Yet another post-apocalyptic series with an environmental message. There are even giant bugs in this one, too. In fact, if there had been giant mecha, well let's just say I would have been a little more amused. Really though, I was pretty much just bored out of my mind with what I watched out of this series. It was very stereotypical in the kind of characters there were and the kind of fighting there was.

Basically, the world is a desert wasteland, and humans are getting by living in giant domed cities that can actually slowly cruise around in order to avoid the giant bugs, and so they can fight one another over dwindling resources. Oh, and there are special academic cities, since apparently none of the other normal cities are big enough to just have a university in them. One of the special rules of the cities fighting is that the university cities can only attack one another since they have so many military arts students, and the fights themselves are more like games of capture the flag, but with real weapons and real casualties. And while there are some guns, mostly they fight with weird weapons that morph from just a handle into a sword, whip, staff, or some other kind of weapon. Plus there's magic they can use to fight and do the physically impossible with. It comes off like a fighting game, really.

So while some people might be into the kind of stuff this series has to offer, I really wasn't. About the only thing I might have found interesting would be character drama, but there just wasn't enough in the first couple of episodes to make me even want to start watching the third episode. There was a little potential there, but mostly it was focused on setting the male lead character up with about 3-4 female characters, including the captain of his platoon. 0/10.

 

[prinCZess]

Chrome Shelled Regios is terrible. A notable amount of that terrible might be because I think the series shoves off most of the explanation of what the devil is going on and what things are to the stuff it's based on, and a good amount of it comes from, as you note, plot and characters so stock they could be mistaken for the basis of a chicken noodle soup. But even that stock might be able to do something interesting if it ever bothered to...do anything.
I make something of a point of pride to finishing books or series I start. I might run away when I'm done and cast aside the author/universe/whatever forever, but I just have a 'thing' for finishing stuff. Regios is one I got maybe sixteen or seventeen episodes into and, despite having a light at the end of the tunnel, I couldn't finish because I just didn't care and nothing ever happened. Or, things happened, but they failed in all ways to be at all interesting.

The only curious bit was a running...flashback or something, that (I think) presented the background of the main character or his city or...something...And it was pretty neat for a dramatically-shifted art-style. But it failed at being comprehensible in what I watched, and came in literal 30-second bits per episode (and it, also, wasn't exactly interesting so much as just sudden psychological-horror interludes in sepia-tone...so at least interesting to watch).

Only bit Regios really has is a (possible) place as one of the earliest examples of those terrible 'Random protagonist-man in post-apocalyptic future who is badass/lucky/out-of-his-depth is drafted into a team of supersoldiers (usually women) fighting evil things but in a school setting instead of a military one for some reason and it becomes a harem because OF COURSE IT DOES' Evangelion-remake shows that seem to have taken off. I think it's one of the first of the modern crop...Though I feel quite certain saying it's not the best despite not actually having seen any others that I recall.