Originally posted at myanimelist.net.

This is like Die Hard, but with angry spirits, a medicine seller, in Edo-period Japan.

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Originally posted at myanimelist.net.

If David Lynch’s son grew up in Japan and became a filmmaker like his father, and if his brain had a mouth, it would vomit Boogiepop Phantom onto our screens.

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Originally posted at myanimelist.net.

I was expecting a dark Satoshi Kon style satire on hikikomorism; the dehabilitating affects of media as represented by the NHK broadcasting company and post millennium conspiracy theories, but instead this anime merely uses hikkomorism as a backdrop for melodramatic relationship angst and blues.

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Originally posted at myanimelist.net.

Kekkaishi is basically one epic siege story. The very fact that its based around protecting one piece of land (conveniently the main protagonists’ school) only at night time, is the show’s main hook, and it fulfils its interesting potential throughout.

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Originally posted at myanimelist.net.

This film starts off with the most illogical SWAT attack on a building ever, consisting of Deunan just basically throwing herself at the enemy, not a care in the world if she alerts other bad guys either through her bullets blowing crap up or the dispatched baddies not reporting in.

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Originally posted at myanimelist.net.

The story is intriguing and has moments of awe, but is overall generic and subpar. The premise of having the main protagonist from America and treating Japan like current-day hermit North Korea is very cool but not expanded upon creatively.

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originally posted at myanimelist.net.

Don’t downgrade this review because it’s negative. Downgrade it because you’ve yet to grow out of this genre and realise that this anime is the equivalent of a McDonalds happy meal: planned by a committee, packaged prettily but ultimately tacky, cynically driven and bad for you.

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Originally posted at myanimelist.net

There is some excellent production in this cyberpunk thriller/road trip set in an eerie utopian futurescape filled with robots and starring a female protagonist in the vein of Ghost in the Shell’s Motoko.

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Originally posted at myanimelist.net.

I decided to check out this anime based solely on Yoko Kanno’s involvement. From the first five minutes, the Matrix vibe was so heavy I thought Trinity was going to show up any minute. After the opening ‘homage’, the Matrixy stuff is toned down and reduced to the landscape. It’s a green-hued city populated by people with powers…

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Originally posted at myanimelist.net.

It’s weird as hell and builds to a climax that’s like Neon Genesis Evangelion humping Akira in the leg. Not a keeper, but worth watching for the hilarious opening credits alone.

Read it here.