5 Days Of Christmas Animes!!! Pt. 4

Pt. 4!!!

Vandread

Air Date: December 5, 2000 

Episode: Season 1, Eps. 10  “White Love”

Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Mech, Romance

My Rating: *** (3:5 stars)

Its christmas time on the ship and the women are going all out decorating! Even the captain is in a festive mood dressing up like santa. Just like most things on ship though, only the Womens really know about christmas. The men are clueless to what this holiday means and what it’s about.

Pypro trys to explain what christmas is with no such luck. The only ‘festival’ the men know of was more like war games lol. Head is of course quickly interrupted by Dita who comes flying into then and takes of with Hibiki. In the process of trying to get Hibiki to help getting things ready on the ship for Christmas, they happen to uncover a room that bad been hidden since the colonization times. In it they find a curious movie that the group decides to play throughout the ship. What’s even more curious is what’s on the tape! A man and a woman together! With kids no less! This sends the ship into an uproar. I mean a man and woman together?!? How dare they lol.

Meanwhile Parfet is attempting to make a show machine for the big day. Which is not really going well. At this point Hibiki finds out that he is expected to give Dita a gift which leaves him baffled and of course pissed to have to do something to stupid in his mind. Even though head thinks it’s all stupid, he sees that Parfet is having issues with the snow machine and overhears BC saying that the comet they will be passing w have to do for snow this year which gives him an idea. Head heads out into the comet storm to grab some ice. It also happens that Meia is headed out on patrol. Of course bad luck follows and they run into a few enimes in the comets tail.

Back on the ship the rest of the men are learning that ALL of them, not just Hibiki, are expected to give the women they are normally around gifts! This sends then into a slight panic as gift giving is not something they do back on their planet. Dita is running round like a chicken with itself head cut off looking for Hibiki who is still in the comet with Meia fighting the enemy robot things. As the fighting is coming to an end and the countdown for Christmas has started on the ship, a shower of comet particals comes down around the ship looking just like snow.

Since Parfet’s snow machine looked like it was a bust, it was a nice substitute! Turns out though that her machines turn on at just the last-minute.
Cute episode overall but it goes quickly. It’s a nice addition to your list though for Christmas animes!

 

via my personal anime list on MyAnimeList.net

Anime For Valentines Day!!!

So I have to apologize. Its been more than a minute since I have been on here. :c) I have had a major case of writers block/side tracked by MAL. I have been working like crazy on 2 clubs (yes there is a shameless plug coming up) the Anime Bloggers Union and the Pacific NW Anime Club. Trying to take over both from people that haven’t been running it since like forever has been a task and a half lol!!!

Since I felt bad about neglecting my poor blog and the mini handful of readers that actually read this I decided to do a half and half Valentine’s Day Anime List! The reason I am calling it half and half is because half will be for you lovely dovey, card buying, oozing sappiness people. The other half will be for the people like me that think Valentine’s day is a joke of a holiday. I mean hell, you don’t even get the day off and I have to have people at work bug me for candy and I have to see pink everywhere. I HATE PINK! Yeah I’m a girl and I freakin hate pink with a passion.

To start the list, it will be for you people that love to love and love all things pink and red! :c)

1. Ouran High School Host Club

• I love this anime! Too freaking cute and the different themes that the club puts on is awesome. The love story in it between Haruhi and Tamaki is also cute but really doesn’t come to a head until the end of the anime.

2. Honey and Clover

• This a longer anime that follow a group of student through art school, graduating and work. There are numerous love triangles in this anime.

3. Fruits basket

• One of my favorite animes and also features a live triangle. Great anime to watch but a word to the wise after the last episode you need to pick up the manga at where it left off to get the full ending.

4. Clannad and Clannad After Story

• Supposed to be one the best love story anime’s out there. I have only started watching it and its cute. Don’t know if it would call it the best…

5. Paradise Kiss

• Love, fashion, deceit, fashion, craziness and did I mention fashion? This was an awesome anime that seriously brought a tear to my eye with the ending.

6. Nodame Cantabile

• Love in the music word mixed with college life. You HAVE to watch the OVA in addition to the anime to get the actually ending. Odd how they worked that one but the story is cute and worth waiting to watch the OVA.

7. 5cm per second

• This a short story anime film that is broken into 3 parts. With each part follow the main character through different stages in his life and the stages in his relationships.

The second half of the list is for you fellow anti-valentines day folks!

1. High School Of The Dead

• How can you beat a full worldwide outbreak of zombies?! GREAT relief to the valentine’s madness! There is even a love triangle mixed in!

2. School Rumble

• Could have put this in the first half but the constant madness that is School Rumble makes it more of a laugh riot than anything else. The mistaken love interest and love triangles make for a very funny plot line!

3. Shikabane Hime

• Priest falling in love with dead girls that roam the world killing off demons and the possesed? Another great relief from the valentine’s madness lol!

4. Shiki

• A story about a girl that is obsessed with a boy she meets and haunts him even after she dies. Throw in vampires and the undead and you have a great non fluffy romance/stalking story.

5. Dance In the Vampire Bund

• A love story between a werewolf and vampire surrounded by death and lies. You also get a story of a fight between vampire clans and a fight to the death between beast people.

6. Big O

• No we are not talking about that O! The story revolves around a city that has lost their memories. All that is left are these big mechs that feel the need to beat the crap out of each other. There is also a love triangle between the main character, his android and a woman whos group she works for is working against him.

7. XXXHolic

• Your avegage nerd that also happens to be plagued by seeing yōkai and ayakashi. He is in love with one of his classmates and does everything he can to fight the yōkai and ayakashi in order to get them to leave him alone so that he can try and pursue her. Well that’s at least the story in a nutshell from the romance point of view.

I hope everyone had a happy and safe valentines or anti-valentines day!

 

via my personal anime list on MyAnimeList.net

Baldr Force EXE OVA

Air Dates: October 11, 2006 – April 4, 2007

Episodes: 4

Genre: Action, Mech, Science Fiction

My Rating: **** (4:5 stars)

Baldr Force EXE was another great find on Netlix that I just watched. It’s a VERY short OVA with only 4 episodes. Even though there was a lot cram packed into the 4 it was actually really good! There were a few things that irked me a bit though  like the fact that while watching it I kept feeling like I was watching the love child of Hackers the movie and Ghost in the shell with a mix of The Matrix. Also on a side note this anime was actually created based off the video game Baldr Force.

The main arc of the story revolves around Tōru Sōma who is a member of one of the best hacker groups called Steppenwolf. The group consisted of 5 characters Tsukina Sasagiri, Yūya Nonomura, Akira Nikaidō, Tōru Sōma and a member that you don’t see until the end, Bachera. The reason that I say this seemed like the love child of Ghost in the Shell was because not only is the story set in a future time were computer are more integrated into everyday life but, people have chips/hookups in their brain to literally hook up to the net. Just like Ghost in the Shell . They sit in a computer system chair and have a cord that goes into the base of their skull and they are ‘wired’ into the net. The net is actually called ‘the wire’ and is separate world where everyone can live and interact together. Just like The Matrix. Also Just like the matrix you have to log out to leave and if you are killed in the wire you are killed in real life.

The story starts with Steppenwolf deciding that they had a good ride but it was time to disband since things were getting too hot and their last couple of jobs got them almost caught if not killed. Tōru belives this is because of Bachera who only recently joined their group and has been getting them into tougher and more dangerous jobs. The thing about Bachera though is that no one has seen him. Tsukina, Yūya, Akira and Tōru decide to do one last job before they close the doors on Steppenwolf. You know the whole one last score thing that you always see in movies or you hear about criminals doing. You know how those always work out… Steppenwolf decided that they were going to go big or go home on their last hack and try to hack into FLAK. FLAK is the military police of the internet and out to catch hackers and terrorist. Just as the group breaks through their firewalls they realize they fell into a trap set by FLAK to capture terrorist. Just as Akira was able to get out but just as Tōru and Yūya go to logoff they are ambushed and Yūya ends up dying. Tōru was unable to help him since he was in the middle of logging off. When he woke up back in the real world their hideout was under siege by the local police, the rest of the team was being arrested along with him and Yūya was dead.

While all of this is going on there is a threat in the wire that can be summed up as a virus that was devouring all of the wire. FLAK was sending in their best assault teams and they were getting wiped out left and right as they were trying to locate and kill/capture the virus. The leaders of FLAK are at a loss on how to control this new virus that they had never seen before. With that there is a separate group that is also interested in the virus called VSS who are the main creators of chips/hardware/programs for getting onto the wire.

While Tōru was being questions by the local police one of the officers from FLAK comes in and makes him an offer. Help us at FLAK and avoid going to jail. Tōru agrees with this grudgingly with the intent that if he works for FLAK he can seek out whoever killed Yūya and make them pay. He also make a deal that he will work for FLAK if the rest of his team can be set free which they agree to. He starts working for FLAK right away and is sent into the wire to stop hackers from getting into a system. There is where he meets the last main group in the anime the Fei Dao. They are a group of rebel hackers that are out to cause trouble and bring truth to what is really going on in the wire.

As the story progresses he discovers who Yūya’s killer is and it is a surprise that they were right under his nose the whole time he was at FLAK. But he also finds out more about his past then he wants to that ends up dealing with the virus itself while fighting with the virus and Fei Dao. The last 2 episodes have twist and turns left and right and leaves you with this huge revel of his past that is kinda like wtf where did all this come from. Again this is a really short anime that they crammed a lot of stuff into less than 2 hrs of run time. Overall it is really good and I wish that they had expanded more on Tōru’s past and what happens past the end.

Sorry trying not to make this too much of a spoiler and with only 4 episodes its kinda hard not to on some parts!

via my personal anime list on MyAnimeList.net