Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso

Kill La Kill

Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad

Black Rock Shooter (TV)

Macross Frontier

Type: Anime

Status: Complete (25 episodes)

Premise: Earth has sent out numerous space fleets in order to find a new habitable planet to colonize, Macross Frontier consisting of civilians, military, even its own system of government to direct the entire fleet. Saotome Alto is inducted into the S.M.S. mercenary group after demonstrating his skills during an attack by a mysterious hostile enemy and continues to protect his friends as the crisis worsens.

Thoughts: This anime is styled to be a space opera of sorts, it has an amazing soundtrack that is used as a plot device on several occasions and along with some of the best and most fluid animations I have ever seen comes together to be quite a treat to watch. The plot is interesting if not its best feature, but it is solid non the less allowing for some good characters to develop over the coarse of the series.

Prose: Amazing soundtrack, wonderful animation with fluid movement and vary little stock footage makes this a pleasure to watch.

Cons: The plot is somewhat outlandish at times but for the most part it performs admirably, a weakness to the anime but not a crippling one. This anime is heavily influenced by the music that is played during the scenes, they are in Japanese so they are subbed BUT the conversations are also subbed and do often overlap with the music resulting in alot of reading and not enough time to do it in.

-Notes: Subbed only, and th viewing experience would be greatly helped by a dubbed version (I am not even sure that is in the works though).This anime is the 3rd set in the Macross universe, while the story does not specifically require previous knowledge of the other series I can't help but think that the experience would have been greatly aided by having seen the other series which would have provided a much better depth the story. 

8/10          (Ranka's cell phone is amazing IMO.)

Black Rock Shooter

Type: Anime?
Status: Complete (50 minutes TOTAL)

Premis: There is none. There I said it. Well you could say this is about two highschool freins that drift apart after they are put in seperate classes in their second year..... but I wouldn't.

-Notes: Alright there are a few things you need to be told going in hence my change in format. THIS IS NOT AN ANIME, THIS IS A MUSIC VIDEO. This OVA series was originaly the music video produced by a Japenease rock band named Supercell, they found the original illustrations (art depicting the fight scenes) on a blog by a guy named Huke and the band were inspired to write a song entitled "Black Rock Shooter" in its honour (I guess). There were originaly 3 short clips strung together forming the video but it was expanded to a full length OVA when the song took off, they re-released the entire thing in OVA format flushing out a modest plot and providing the music themselves. (ALL HAIL WIKIPEDIA! ALL HAIL WIKIPEDIA!)

Thaughts: Don't expect much, but do watch it. There is no inspireing story here and they never explain what is actualy happening you just kind of take a leap of faith. Basically watch it for the excellent soundtrack, interestning art style and decently heartwarming plot. It's only 50 minutes it won't kill you.

Prose: Soundtrack rules as you would expect from a music video, also the fight scenes are well coriagraphed, the artstyle for them is interesting as well.

Cons: Be prepared not to understand what the hell is going on, EVER. They never explain what exactly hapens at the end nor how it resolves itself.

7/10          (ROCK ON)