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Yesterday I finished the Shaman King and I liked it. Do I think it's as high on my favorites as say, Death Note or others? No. However I will say that this anime is a classic, made in 2002. Yeah it's pretty old, but even old things can be pretty good. Like a grandma baking cookies.

So let me give the idea of what Shaman King is for those who have never seen Shaman King. There's an early teen-age kid named Yoh and he is a shaman. His goal, but not really a goal he wants by choice, is to become the Shaman King by defeating other Shamans in multiple Shaman Fights. Along the way he also meets friends and as well as enemies. Now the reason I say Yoh doesn't want to be a Shaman King by choice is because his fiance, seems to be forcing it upon him. It seems he only wants to relax but his fiance won't marry him unless he's the Shaman King.

My explanation was pretty vague but that's the best I can do without really spoiling anything.

Shaman King is pretty good, the animation seems to be a cartoonish anime style(like Dragon Ball but a bit brighter) which looks really good and the music is good although repeated at times. The characters are also really good, there were those characters that I hated but only because of their actions, not really because a character is just plain bad. So characters were all good.

Except for one, and this is a pretty big one. The character I hate the most in Shaman King is the main character Manta(or as it seems to be in the English version, Morty). Manta is just pointless and very ridiculous. He gave a sort of Jar Jar vibe except not as strong. There were times where he seemed important but ultimately didn't really change anything. Hell there were even a couple times when he got in the way and caused problems for the other main characters. Sorry if someone is in love with the kid but he really gets on my nerves.

Other than that, Shaman King is pretty good. I'd recommend it to people who enjoy action and anime like Dragon Ball(I've never watched Dragon Ball, but I've been told it's almost like Dragon Ball).

By the way, does anyone know if Soul Eater is good? I'm not sure whether it's worth watching or not.

I've never watched Dragon Ball, but I've been told it's almost like Dragon Ball

Dragon Ball is very goofy, often times focusing on humor more than action. It's heavily based on Journey to the West and is not afraid to use crude humor. All of which makes it very different from DBZ. I'm not sure I would really compare it to Shaman King though, with the exception of the last season of DB Shaman King tends to be a lot more serious thanks to its inherent connection with death and the lack of magical wish granting balls to nullify consequences.

By the way, does anyone know if Soul Eater is good?

Soul Eater is one of the funniest anime shows ever. The ending is rather disappointing, but that's because the anime got cancelled while the manga continued on and the writers were expecting more seasons. There are some fanservice moments, pretty much all of which are played off as "boys lose it around attractive women" for comedic affect. It's also chock full of nightmare fuel if you're easily scared.

I would highly recommend Zankyou no Terror

I know like 3 things about FMA:B because the guy who sat in front of me in Calc was finishing it. I watched maybe 1.5 episodes somewhere around 50-60 (I think). I saw a lot of the last episode as well and the guy explained most of it to me, so I don't think I can watch it, knowing what happens in the end. It looked good though.

Now, I'm here asking for opinions on Mushishi and MTNN. Mushishi I've started reading the manga for and it seems all right. MTNN, I've done nothing with yet, but I've heard good things about it (and it's by the guy who wrote AssClass so that seems good).

Also on a note only pertaining to manga and not anime, does anyone know when Ajin will update?

I watched Princess Mononoke yesterday. I very thoroughly enjoyed it.

Now I'm very prejudiced towards watching subbed when it comes to movies, I've been that way since before I even watched any stand-alone anime movies. Anyways, I heard that it had a very good dub so I started off watching it dubbed, I made it about 2 and half minutes before I didn't like it because A****aka sounded like he was 30. I switched to subbed. He still sounded 30, but I made it 10 minutes, and deciding that both VA's were equally bad and it was just a matter of convenience, I switched back to dubbed. That lasted about a minute and a half before I realized that the dubbed was actually much, much worse *I did eventually get used to A****aka's voice and didn't mind it*

As for the movie itself, I really liked it; but somehow, there's really not much else to say. I definitely thought it was loads better than Spirited Away. I was going to watch either Akira or Laputa but for some reason it just didn't seem right to watch another movie the very next day.

@R2D21999 Yes, I would recommend it, but purely as a comedy. There are moments when it seems like the plot will be good, just ignore those moments, those hopes will just be crushed later on.

@TheMostManlyMan
Akira is violent and cool, but don't expect much in the way of anything else. That's not to say it isn't good, it's pretty great, but it's not a very deep work. Also, it gets trippy, especially near the end. Actually, I think I made a good metaphor when I first watched it... Ah, here we are: "Basically, it's the cinematic equivalent of being beaten round the head for two hours, but in a good way."

Laputa is fantastic, on pretty much every level.

I watched and finished No Game No Life today and I will admit I had low expectations for this anime as it seemed it was going to be another SAO in terms of plot.

However, the moment I began watching No Game No Life, I knew I was in for a treat the entire ride.

Let's begin with the story. There is a brother, Sora 18, and a sister, Shiro 11 and they're gamers. However they're not your average gamers, they're gamers who will stay up for days playing a game, even a game of chess. And here's the kicker, they've never lost a game of anything. Ever. They're known as Blank or " " when they're together playing a game. They're very serious about games.

However, because of their extreme seriousness for games, they don't care for the normal world that they inhabit. So when a god(Yes a god) from another world asks them if they'd like to join his world, a world where everything is decided on games, they just couldn't refuse. So when they first begin, their first plan is to become king of one of 16 races, before eventually claiming it all.

No Game No Life has the idea of a video game world, like SAO(sorry, really nothing else I can think of which I can compare it to in terms of games), but with some Death Note psychology and a few hints of comedy and fan-service.

However, just because I've bashed anime about fan-service before(*cough* Rail Wars *cough*) doesn't mean I don't believe that an anime can't have that and a good story, and that's exactly what NGNL proves. It's a very well done story and that psychology feel, my gawd it's so good.

So, how about that animation? Well considering it's Mad House making the visuals I would expect no less. The music is also really well done. OP and ending were great and anything in between was spot on.

My only complaint is that there's 12 episodes and they left at a major cliff-hanger with no second season announced. However that's just me wanting more.

I'd suggest this to anyone who loves a good psychological feel, action, and a few references thrown here and there. However those of you who don't like fan-service(I will admit that at times the fan-service will get extreme.) might want to stay away from this.

Also for you dub lovers, there's supposedly a dub coming out for it at some point this year.

Edit: There's also specials that I forgot to watch. Whoops. Never mind the specials are just strange things.

No Game No Life has the idea of a video game world, like SAO(sorry, really nothing else I can think of which I can compare it to in terms of games), but with some Death Note psychology and a few hints of comedy and fan-service.

Log Horizon also takes place in a video game world, but I wouldn't compare NGNL to either. I'd say it's more akin to series like The Tower of Druaga where characters are in a world with video game rules but the world itself is real. As opposed to SAO and Log Horizon where people are unwillingly dragged into a video game world and have to learn to cope with the game mechanics being a part of their new life.

Here's some NGNL lore for those interested, it's explained in the series but this isn't really a spoiler. In a world parallel to our own exists many gods and magical creatures. But this world was not a peaceful place, it was a world ravaged by war as every race fought for dominance while the gods were busy fighting among themselves. The war went on for years destroying entire species and leaving whole nations uninhabitable wastes until one day a single god, Tet, rose above all the others. Tet became the supreme deity of that world and made a declaration that no being shall harm another. Instead dominance shall be decided with games. So long as the two sentient beings agree on the terms and rules of a game anything can be bet, even the very lives of the players. Tet then divided the world into 16 nations of sentient beings rated by their raw magical power with the other gods ranked as the #1 nation and humans as #16. Anything that does not fall within these 16 nations is not considered a sentient being and has no rights. Each nation was given a chess piece to symbolize their nation, if that piece is lost in a game they lose their rights as a sentient race including Tet's protection from being harmed by another being.

Log Horizon

The Tower of Druaga

Hmm, perhaps I'll check those out once I'm done with Black Bullet.

And I have indeed finished Black Bullet.

Black Bullet felt sort of average. Really if I could rate it on a scale of 1 to 10 I'd say it's a 7.

So here's the story, it's 2031, 10 years after the outbreak of insect creatures called Gastreas. These Gastreas used to be humans and now they're not because of a virus or something... I don't know it's never really explained how it began. However these creatures almost drove humanity to the brink of extinction. So now there are several places surrounded by monoliths made of varanium, a black metal that the Gastreas hate(that's the reason for the anime's name.) so Gastreas pretty much stay away.

As well as what happened 10 years ago, women who were pregnant with girls during that time, the girls were infected by the virus and mutated their abilities and even possibly their appearance. They're identified by their glowing red eyes and were shuned by society because of their probability of eventually hatching a Gastrea. They're only accepted by Civil Security, a society that fights the Gastrea, because of the Cursed Children's enhanced abilities.

Rentaro Satomi is one of these Civil Security officers and his Cursed Child loli, I mean partner, is Enju Aihara and they protect the Tokyo Area in modern day Japan.

That's all I can give you without spoiling anything. I'm sure some of you have noticed that the story sounds very similar to Attack on Titan with the whole verge of extinction and 'walls' to keep out the creatures. And well I can't say anything that would make a difference. Hell even Satomi is voiced by the same guy who did Eren Jaeger, AoT's main protagonist. However while AoT's enemy threat was more about the titans, BB's threat was both the Gastreas and the people because of the whole Cursed Children thing. Plus there's lots of lolis in BB so there's that.

So characters, characters were pretty great. Satomi is at first a sort of happy kid, although he's kind of emo with his past 10 years ago. However as the season goes on he turns more emo as he sees more and more of the Cursed Children being abused by the people, he then questions what he's supposed to be protecting. Lolis are your average 13 years and younger lolis and the other characters are great but I can't talk about them because of spoilers.

Animation is great, although at some of the night scenes it's sometimes too dark to tell what's going on. Music is great, OP is by Fripside and they're probably the reasons that got me into anime in the first place.

So like I said, overall Black Bullet was pretty average. I'd recommend this to anyone who likes a good apocalyptic feel, blood, and lolis. However I don't recommend this to people who are too squeamish for blood and despise lolis.

a good apocalyptic feel, blood

I started watching Mushishi anyway. I think it's pretty good. Ginko is a lot like a more human version of Decim (even down to looks), but watching it at 3 in the morning is strangely soothing.

So someone should tell me about Arslan Senki instead, since I hear that it's kinda interesting.

I finished another anime today. Oh boy, I must have been bored today.

The latest one is Akuma no Riddle and I'm kind of on the border with this one because of the ending. The ending pretty was pretty much a gigantic face palm.

So here we go, a girl named Tokaku Azuma is an assassin sent to a private girls' boarding school to target a girl named Haru Ichinose. Along with those two, there are 11 other girls who are also assassins sent to kill the very same target, to get a huge reward out of it. So while Tokaku is roommating with Haru, Tokaku randomly decides to protect Haru(it's told in the end why Tokaku suddenly does this) from the 11 other assassins. The assassins then suddenly decide to have a game with the assassination. The rules are, they have to send a letter to the target to tell her that they're going to kill her, and they must kill her before 48 hours after sending the letter or that assassin is expelled.

The story is kind of bad and I mean it's pretty bad. It seems to have difficulty grasping on what it's really supposed to be about. However when it came to the assassins and their reasons for being there, those were great, I even felt bad for some of them.

I'm going to talk about my problem with the ending so there's going to be some spoilers. Near the end it showed a fight between Tokaku and another main girl, and then Tokaku and Haru were then seen fighting. It seemed Tokaku made a fatal blow on both of them. However, minutes later it showed both of them just fine. However that's not my biggest problem. My biggest problem with the ending is that every assassin girl who 'died' throughout the whole show, showed them alive. It made the two assassins on episode 6 little issue seem pointless as they basically killed themselves in the end of that episode. The ending is bs for that reason alone because it basically kicked mud at what was supposed to be one of the saddest parts in the whole show.

K let's talk animation. Animation is alright, nothing really stood out though.

The music, lots of music but the only one I'll really remember is the OP and even then I'll forget in a couple of hours.

Characters were alright. As I said before, the assassins' backstories were pretty good. Character I had the most trouble with though... oh boy... that freaking teacher. He was so positive he was getting on my nerves really fast. He wasn't even important to the story in any way whatsoever but the show kept showing him off as if he's supposed to be. He doesn't even realize the whole point of his class is to kill a chick. As the only real main character that's a male, he's pretty annoying.

So yeah, Akuma no Riddle, I'd recommend this to anyone who... well... likes assassins I guess. It didn't really have anything going for it from the moment it began.

In the past I watched Sword Art Online and I'll admit, I gave it a lot more credit than I should have as SAO was really lacking in story(they brought in characters that were never seen again and the whole thing with SAO transferring to that elf game... pls no.).

However I've just watched(notice I said watched instead of finished) almost 2 seasons of Log Horizon, which is also an MMORPG anime. While SAO was lacking in story, Log Horizon was lacking in action, which made it boring and at times the story was pointless.

Alright first season, players are trapped in a game and some 23 year old gamer is trying to bring order to some video game city that I forgot the name to. Despite how exciting that may sound, it was really boring. For about 15 episodes the main problem was, and I am not kidding you, that the food needed to taste better. I wish I was lying. There's also no 'main antagonist' until the last episode of the first season and that brings me to season 2.

That last episode was probably the reason I stayed for most of the second season. Since it showed an actual antagonist I was thinking 'Maybe they learned from their mistakes and will actually make this season exciting.' Somehow, and I don't know how, but it felt worse than the first season. There was more action yes, but most of it was very slow, repetitive, and tedious. Episode 10 literally spent the whole episode with a guy making a speech on how they shouldn't care about losing. Eventually I got sick of it and left after episode 21.

Now let's get to the characters, first one we have is Shiroe. He seems like he'd be the most overpowered character in that MMO. However because there's little to no action, you see little excitement from him. Instead you mostly see him at meetings and at his desk.

The second main character is some assassin chick, who just follows Shiroe around and because of her following him around so much, she eventually has a crush on Shiroe. Because she follows Shiroe around, she eventually becomes background noise. I don't even remember why she started following him.

The third is some kind of buff 20 year old who has the maturity of a pre teen and all he does is fantasize about panties.

Probably the only character I like is some cat dude. He's pretty cool and he appears to be like one of those wise old men, like in most cartoons.

Animation/art was ok. Compared to other anime it's very average. Music is alright, nothing you'll remember though.

I wouldn't really recommend Log Horizon unless you like video game anime and politics(?). Log Horizon was bad.

Shaman King <3
Hate how it breaks away from the tourney tho ;-; I wanted to see ice dude win it all with his adorable companion~

This talk of SAOS and Log Horizon makes.me want to get back to watching .hack//

I need to take anime slow sometime.

A friend I know at school suggested me Mekaku City Actors and after months of laziness, I finally decided to look it up. MCA is pretty good, it's better than most of the anime crap I watched this week. However it's very confusing, at times you think you will understand but then another episode rolls around and it confuses you again.

I can't talk about the whole story without giving much away or trying to make it less confusing. Instead I'm just going to explain what happens in the first episode.

So some shut-in kid named Kasaragi(spelled correctly on first go, oh yeah!) comes outside after more than a year of being inside on the computer. The reason he's finally outside is because his female human virus named Ene scares him, causing his soda to spill onto his keyboard, rendering it useless. So now, he's heading to a mall to get a new keyboard, when all of a suddenly, the mall is attacked by terrorists, he is of course now a hostage. However, he then becomes free along with two other boys who have some interesting abilities.

Sorry if that felt rushed at the end, I just didn't want to drag on. By the way the terrorists don't really have anything to do with the story. They're only there for the characters to come together.

The story is very confusing at times. There are some episodes that skip to something, without warning, to something that seems completely irrelevant(of course it eventually does become relevant.). However, as the show goes on, it does become clear on what the story and objective are.

Characters, the first couple of characters are great. However, there's at least two characters near the end that felt like they were just shoved in, and one of them wasn't even important.

The art style was unique, however at times I felt that it was lazy at times. Especially with the bystanders. Anyone not important to the story is just a very white person(Shaddup). Character designs are pretty much the one problem, otherwise it's all good.

Music was also good. That opening will be memorable for awhile and that end song feels great.

Despite the complaints throughout my whole review thing, Mekaku City Actors was doable. I'd recommend this to anyone who likes powers and characters who feel like outsiders.

Any good anime with a qt trap?