Inuyasha

I had now officially completed the whole series of this anime as at 27th April 2010, after watching the very first episode at almost 10 years ago! This was due to a huge gap 5 years for them to come up with remaining 26 episodes to complete the series. However, I feel the ending losses its climatic feeling after watching the heroes & heroins battling their archenemy throughout soooooooo many episodes (though there are some sub-enemy spawned from the main enemy).

In total there are 193 episodes inclusive of the recent 26. The story focuses on a girl named Kagome who is actually a reincarnated priestess from feudal age of 500 years ago. She went back to the feudal age time by chance and meet a half demon dog (dad is demon dog, mom is human) named Inuyasha, who was struck onto a tree with an arrow and was unconcious for the last 50 years. There she learned that the person who struck him was her original self as a priestess named Kikyo that died right after shooting Inuyasha with the said arrow. The story then reveals that Kikyo and Inuyasha were actually lovers that tried to kill each other due to huge misunderstanding caused by their archenemy, Naraku. By then Kagome and Inuyasha met Shippo, Sango and Miroku along their journey and joined forces in their mission to defeat Naraku.

Since Kagome looks exactly like Kikyo and being together thru thick and thin in their missions, Inuyasha starts to develop feelings to Kagome and likewise. Things then get complicated when Kikyo gets resurrected and Inuyasha tries to make amends with Kikyo.

My favourite character of the show is Sesshomaru, Inuyasha's older half-brother and is a full-blooded demon. He hated Inuyasha so much that he tries to kill Inuyasha on few occasions. But it was his cool and calm attitude that won many people over (not to mention very good looking too). He was more of a side character initially but then getting more involved in the show as the story moves on. There are many Sesshomaru's fans out there that create mini manga of his side story ;).

Dragon Ball Kai

For all dragon ball fans, this is a re-mastered HD version of Dragon Ball Z and it does seem shorter as well due to most fillers are being removed out. Rumours has it that the original Dragon Ball Z episodes of 291 will be cut short to only 100, besides following closely to its original comics. As of now, I've watched upto episode 33 and Goku is already now fighting with Ginryu in Planet Namek!. One interesting fact is that it includes re-recording of voice from its original casts, so every characters still sounds the same :)


The opening and ending sequence of the series had been changed as well, and you can clearly see that its characters are drawn with more vibrant colours and actions. But I still miss the original sequence since it is cuter, being nostalgic and all. The show is still running in Japan and we'll need to slowly wait for the complete series.

Natsume Yuujinchou (Natsume's Book of Friends)

Been wanting to post a review of this anime for quite sometime ever since finished watching both seasons but just preoccupied with so many other things. First to give acknowledgement to this "http://www.minitokyo.net/Natsume+Yuujin-Chou" link for allowing me to get this nice picture (lazy to take a snapshot of the DVD casing that I have). Let's start with the plot summary written at the back of the DVD casing first:

"Natsume Takashi has the ability to see spirits, which he has long kept secret. However, once he inherits a strange book that belonged to his deceased grandmother, Reiko, he discovers the reason why spirits surround him. Containing the names of these spirits, a binding contract was formed between the spirits and the owner of the book. Now, Natsume is determined to free the spirits and dissolve the contracts. With the help of a spirit cat, his days are filled trying to return the names to these spirits."

Though it is something similar with xxxHolic and Mushishi, this is more light weight and extremely funny. The main plot in each episodes are not continuous, but some of the characters are repeated in certain episode, thus you will still need to watch it in sequence to understand why certain characters behaves in that manner. I especially love the spirit cat, which Natsume fondly calls him Nyanko-Sensei. Most of the comic scene comes from the cat *love love*.

The opening and ending theme songs of both seasons is very nice as well, which I planned to get the full version soon. The opening clip of the 2nd season is especially interesting. At first my hubby miss it alot of times, until I told him that it is a repeat clip, but with spirit included at the 2nd part that he realised its specialty. The tune of the song accompanying the clip gives it more depth.

One Piece

I've started to watch this series if not mistaken for the last five years and I've just watched upto episode# 354 last week. Will still need to wait for a long long time till the story actually ends. One nice thing about this series is that it always gives you surprises in each episode. Furthermore, there had not been any boring moment throughout the whole series when compared to other long running series like Dragonball, Naruto, Bleach, Inuyasha etc. (hope i did not offend anyone by saying this.. haha)

While it is always full of funny moments, there are many touching episodes that makes you cry, especially when revealing the dramatic past of each characters concerned. It even manage to make the audience felt very touched when their beloved ship burned down and sink into the sea. The writer must have really thought of the storyline very very well, as the recent episode that I had watched in fact is very very much related to previous episodes way way back, also many years ago :P

The story is about a group of pirate, each with their own agenda at first but soon developed a strong commitment and bond to stay together and see thru their adventure in venturing thru the great ocean to find the ultimate treasure called One Piece (though each will still want to achieve what they had wanted when they first joined the crew). Though the long running series, they still did not have a complete crew yet of a pirate ship and yet, they are powerful enough to fight with other group of pirates and make enemy with the world government while rescuing one of the crewmate in the earlier episodes. In fact, the recent episode that i watched was actually in the process of wanting to recruit a new member into their crew, which is a skeleton musician and will then make the total of 8, along with their idiotic caption, senseless first mate, sexy navigator, lying sniper, pervert cook, gullible doctor, smart archaeologist and a cyborg shipwright.

Refer to this link <<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Piece>> for more information of the stories and characters, as the story is running for soooo long, it will be tiring to re-write the whole thing again. My favourite character??? Well, it all of them! But I think you really need to watch the whole show to really understand what I mean.

Mushishi

Similar with Girl From Hell, it was the live-action movie that prompts me to purchase the anime version. However suprisingly, I prefer to watch the live-action rather than the anime version, perhaps because it had a closure to the main character's past rather than the anime version. Though the story is not that scary, but it is very chilling and touching to certain aspect that I had disturbing dreams (can't really categorize it is a nightmare) for few nights after watching the anime version. The manga version is still ongoing though, perhaps that's why the anime seems incomplete.



The story is about another type of living creature that exists in the world known as mushi. However, only limited number of people is able to see mushi. Those who able able to see mushi may understand what these creatures are while some mistaken it for evil beings such as demons or ghost, or even god. A majority of people that is unable to see these creatures will also treat that those people who are able to see them as crazy or even accuse them as the cause of disaster or strange events that occured in their live. Ginko (the main character) is a mushishi (mushi master) that researches different kind of mushi and helps people in dealing with mushi along the way. In the live action, Ginko's clothing is more forgiving but in the anime, his clothes are too modern for the era that the show is based on (though as a child, his clothes does match the time period).



In my opinion, the live action explains more than the anime version, and makes it more easy to watch. However, I can't really comment which one is closest to the manga as I have never read it before. It may be possible that the closure to the live-action is made-up by the movie producer as I do not see these in the anime version at all. It is a recommended show. In fact I finished the whole anime series (26 episodes) in just 2 nights.

Le Chevalier D'Eon

Now this anime was highly publicized by Animax recently, prompting it was one of best animation in 2007. It has 24 episodes in all, and so far i only manage to watch the 1st half of the whole series. The anime is drawn in very nice detail, especially the lighting effect on water, background layout and the internal castle structure.

As I have not completed the whole series, so i can't really comment much on the show. The characters recite alot of words in the bible though. As the story is loosely based on historical facts, i can say that the creator of the series is very creative instead. The historical character, d'Eon de Beaumont as written in Wikipedia tells about a guy working as a spy for France, was insisting that he is infact a woman, and dressed up as a woman as well during his spy missions. In the anime series, it tells that the character had a sister named Lia (non-existant in the history) who also worked for the King of France, was killed during one of her own mission. As both d'Eon and Lia are very close to each other, the spirit of the Lia ends up possessing the brother at times. Of course to make the anime more interesting, you'll see people that can cast spells and control gargoyles to attack our heroes.

There's lots of blend between actual historical events in the anime. Of course, you can't really depend in watching the show in order to score your history exam. The examiner would not know what the heck you're talking about.

Girl from Hell (Jigoku Shoujo)

Animax channel is a good media to introduce animes to the public. Usually i would use it to gauge whether it's worthwhile to buy or not by watching one or two episodes when time permitted.



As for Girl From Hell, Animax actually runs the show for quite sometime but i did not bother to really watch it then. It was the japanese live-action series that really made me interested in watching the whole show. But i can seriously tell you, better watch the live-action series before watching the anime, else you may get disappointed with the series instead. It does not have much impact when compared to the anime version plus some scenes are based on the anime instead, but most of the stories really make you hate the villain very much that they really deserved to be sent to hell.



As for the anime version, some stories are quite disturbing as those sent to hell are actually victims of circumstances. Some grudge holder are soooo stupid that you felt that you wanted to slap them.



Anyway, the story is about a website called hell correspondence, and this website is only available during midnight. Anyone with a grudges can access the website at midnight and enter the name of the person you hate. Once the request had been accepted, hell girl named Enma Ai will visit the person who submitted the request and pass to him/her a straw doll with a red string tied around the neck. If the requestor really want to send the person that they hate to hell, they would just untie the red string. However, once the person is sent to hell, the requestor's soul will go to hell also once they are dead, and their soul would forever roam in hell.



The soundtrack for both live-action and anime was very nice. Infact, the singer (OLIVIA) who sang the ending song for live-action series also sang for Nana anime series as well. Hmm... now tempted to buy her CD instead.

Gokusen - 1 & 2

For those who liked GTO, would have like this series as well. It is a comedy that tells a story about a young lady named Yamaguchi Kumiko from Yakuza (japanese mob) family who strives to be a successful teacher. As her parents died when she was young, she's the next person in line to become the head of the Yakuza group in Tokyo. Equip with gangsterism manner and combat skill, she is different from other teachers in school. However, she struggles to keep her identity a secret as to prevent her from being fired.

After graduation, she is assigned to a private school and become a class teacher to a class full of bad students. The students in her class always try to bully her to make her resign but without success due to her life experience. Furthermore, instead of wearning normal office wear to work, she is instructed by the school to wear tracksuit as to allow her easily run away from her class should anything happen. Throughout the series, we'll see how she manage her relationships between the students and teachers in the school, as well as turning her students towards better understanding of life itself.

There's also an anime of the same title, but the storyline differs abit though the main plot is the same. The anime gives the feeling of better fighting sequence due to expressions of characters drawn when they hit each other. Furthermore, it is more funny compared to live action series due to the ability to exaggerate certain funny situations where this cannot be done in live action. In all, both are recommended show.

The anime version