[Personal notices] ...Yeah.

On 8th October, which was exactly two weeks ago, I announced I'd go on a hiatus until I get my laptop back. I got it back 4 days after posting that, on 12th. However, there have been no new updates since that. Why?

I finally read the manga Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles which I've owned for quite a bit now.

It got me pissed off. REALLY, really pissed off. It actually got me so pissed off I felt like I don't want to watch any anime or read any manga again.

However, that feeling kinda passed after a few days, but I've still not got a 'kick' for wanting to starting watching anime again. Only stuff I finished was Tsubasa Shunraiki, and NO I will be NOT reviewing it or any Tsubasa related stuff, I want to forget anything that has even the slighest relation to Tsubasa, ie. Chobits, MKR, X/1999 (actually it's the other way around...), and started watching Chi's Sweet Home, but reviewing that would be... Troublesome. But I might post a mini review of it when I finish.

Mmm so yeah... I'll post an actual review sooner or later. It'll most probably be of Silver Fang/Ginga Nagareboshi Gin, and if I review that, then the next one after it will be of Weed.

Until then, peace out.

[Personal notices] Goodbye, Jitsuni?

UPDATE #3: 8. October; I hereby declare this blog to be on a hiatus until I get my laptop back. I can barely watch anything with this piece of carp desktop because everything lags so much and I can't watch the series I want to. So, yeah. Might come back next week or two weeks after. Sorry bout this. <_>

My antidear second laptop called Jitsuni died last night, which means I won't be able to do the reviews I was planning on doing next. Fortunately I have an external hard drive which has some anime, however most of them are not full series and I'd have to watch them from beginning to the end in any case to do a review out of them. I'm writing this notice from my desktop.

The reason I can't really download any anime to this computer, called Nazrat, is because the internet I have to use for it is really, really slow, so it takes ages and ages to download anything. So that's that...

More good news though is that I'll probably have my laptop working again in a few days thanks to my dad. Hahaha.

In any case, if there's not any new reviews for a bit you'll know why. And yes, I do name my computers.

Update:
Ok, so it's the hard drive that got fucked up as far as I'm concerned... I'll get my laptop back on Tuesday I believe, so no new reviews until that, at earliest, sorry bout that.

Yeah, like I'd have any actual active readers anyway.

Update #2:
Meh, this is annoying. My laptop has been sent in for service, so it'll take at least a week but most probably two or so to get it back. I can't download anything with my desktop because I have to use a separate internet connection which is really, really slow. Due to this, I can't do the reviews I had planned due to not having screenshots (of course I could write them now and add the pictures later, but I'll only do that if I can't post anything else for a long time, which won't probably happen).

Luckily though, as I mentioned earlier, I have some anime on my external hard drive, and I'm in the middle of watching one series. There'll be a review of it when I'm done, most probably on this weekend at the latest. Sorry for the delay.

[Personal top 25] #1 Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Animeplanet rating as of today: #3

It's my new top #1 anime. I thought it was better than Rurouni Kenshin and Death Note, and the anime has to be extremely awesome to top those two series in my mind. I was originally planning on doing maybe just one review per week and the last one was released yesterday, but I don't really care. Haha.

Also let me say, it was freaking PAINFUL trying to fit 64 episodes into 6 pictures that represent the series. I didn't do too well, so my apologies. Also not to self: Next time when you're deleting episodes and you've still not taken any screenshots, DON'T freaking leave behind the few ending ones and the ones from the beginning! Maybe it's just that it's really, really hard to take non-spoiling interesting screenshots out of it. I don't know.

I also apologize for how small the pictures turned out, I was only thinking about the same width I've used for all the pictures so far which is 520 px, and they became so small. Sorry for that.



鋼の錬金術師: Fullmetal Alchemist
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
Episodes: 64

Also known as: Fullmetal Alchemist (2009)
Aired during: April 2009 – July 2010

* This is a completely spoiler-free review. *

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. You've probably heard of Fullmetal Alchemist before, it was a manga and it got made into an anime at 2003, which for the most part, had nothing to do with the manga. It was an OK anime, just not a masterpiece. Then, years later, at 2009 came FMA: Brotherhood. Following almost exactly the plot of the manga, it's undeniably one of the best animes ever made.

I own most of the manga, 19 out of 27 books, Finnish translations however. I haven't read all of them, but after finishing Brotherhood I read some of the manga randomly, and from what I saw, the plot followed it exactly and even some of the lines were the same from word-to-word. There are some differences however, there is a list of them available here, PLEASE note that the list contains HEAVY spoilers, and if you read the whole list you WILL be spoiled unless you've seen/read the whole thing.

Now, onto the actual thing.

Story [10+++/10]

Ed's automail hand.
'Four years ago two young brothers, Edward and Alphonse Elric committed a taboo in alchemy, human transmutation, in hopes of bringing their dead mother back. As a result Ed lost his left foot and Al his whole body. Desperately trying to keep his brother from disappearing completely Edward sacrificed his right arm in order to affix Alphonse's body into an empty suit of armor.

Edward gets his limbs replaced by automail and recruited to the military as a state alchemist, bearing the name Fullmetal Alchemist. Together with Alphonse they now set out to search for the legendary philosopher's stone in order to get their bodies back.'

The basic story may sound simple, and that's not really where the points come from. Where they do come from is that you can never in a million years figure out what is going to happen next, the series throws new plot twists in front of you continuously and makes you keep your jaw open. The plot overall is undeniably the best one I have ever seen in any manga or anime, topping even Death Note which I thought was pure awesomeness. The execution is perfect, the story flows on at a good pace and there's never a moment you'd feel bored because of watching it. The plot is a masterpiece by itself, it's just simply put amazing.

If I wanted to talk about it more, I'd have to tell stuff that spoils, and I was thinking of keeping this review spoiler-free. Maybe I'll do another one which has spoilers, just to show my respect for this series.

Also one more thing, the series contains quite a lot of... Humor, basically what it is here is reusing the same jokes over and over again, but it's not that bad. It disappears almost completely as the series progress, just emphasizing more on how serious the plot gets.

Animation [9.5/10]

Just saying, but I hated both of them.
So... It was made in 2009. It's hard for me to compare it with something, since I've barely seen any anime made in 2009, apart from maybe Umineko. The animation is basic. The artstyle is pretty simple, but it works out well. I wouldn't say FMA Brotherhood was made to be especially artistically beautiful, it has way more emphasis on the plot. You cannot say a lot about the animation to be honest. Shortly said, it's good and pleasant to the eye, but I wouldn't call it amazing.

Sound [8.5/10]

Winry's a bitch, and will always stay as one, NO MATTER WHAT YOU SAY!
Opening and ending
From an series 64 episodes long you would expect maybe three openings, maybe even two only. Instead we get five, yeah, five. Are they any good? Well, some of them are. The first one, Again by Yui, is my favorite out of all them, it's great. The second one is horrible, I only listened it once. Makes me think of something out of Naruto. Third one is good, but not great. Fourth one is, once again, horrible, however not as bad as the second one. Fifth one is good, and it suits the scenes well where it plays during the anime (apart from opening). So yeah, it's a combination of good and bad songs.

The endings... Uh, I don't know. I never listened to any of them fully, ha-ha-ha, what a surprise, I know right? I was too hyped about watching the next episode. The few seconds of an ending theme play quite often at the end of the episode however, and I think those parts suit the episodes well. So, bleh.

Voice actors
It has two of my all-time favorite voice actors, Romi Park as Edward and Shinichiro Miki as Mustang. The original cast is big, with all the major characters having their own seiyuus. They suit their characters well, then again I seem to say that from just about any anime. But that's just how it goes for the most of them.

Alphonse's seiyuu is the same as Karin and Nemu from Bleach. Edward's seiyuu is, again from Bleach, the same as Hitsugaya and Nana Osaki from Nana and also Temari from Naruto. Miki (Mustang) I remember the best from Bleach also (what), as the voice of Kisuke, from Pokemon as the voice of Kojiro/James and also as the voice of Takumi from Initial D. If I talked about all of them this list would never end, so I'll just leave it to that.

Background music
It's... A combination. Once again. Most of the time it just feels like you're listening to the same tracks over and over, even though there is a total of 93 tracks (including openings and endings) or a total of just over 3 hours of music. Listening to the soundtracks, there are three of them, after watching the anime I feel like I have never heard majority of the songs. One of those series with not too memorable background music, but I'm not saying it's bad. Some of the tracks are kinda meh, but most of them are nice. The music it had suited the scenes well and was pleasurable for the ears, and those are the two main things you want from anime's BGM in any case.

Characters [9.5/10]

Armstrong, Mustang, Riza and Havoc from left to right.
Guess what, it's a combination! A really uneven combination however. The 'bad guys' are 98% people you won't like. Edward is a likeable main character, much like, let's say, for some reason D.Gray-man's Allen comes to mind. Or maybe Ichigo from Bleach. They got something in common. Alphonse isn't an unlikeable one either, but I can't really help but to think he's a bit on the annoying side.

Then there's Winry. She's an annoying bitch, bluntly said. Almost every single anime has to have an annoying woman character who has to have something to do with the main character, and here it's Winry. To name a few other ones, there's Sakura from the original Naruto (she's OK at Shippuuden), Misa from Death Note, Kagome from Inuyasha, Kaoru from Rurouni Kenshin, Orihime from Bleach... The list goes on. You can't really blame the creator from making a character like that, but the worst part is majority of watchers seem to LIKE Winry. I don't really know what the hell is wrong with you if you're one of them. Okay, rant over.

Then there's all the other characters. I really like only a few of them, Mustang, Olivier and Hohenheim. There is a big amount of characters you only see a few times. Counting from all the characters I loved and hated from this series, it was 4 loved and 14 hated. I even seemed to find some of the really minor characters, for example Shou Tucker, really unlikeable. I don't know. The characters aren't bad, that's not the thing here, what makes them hateable is their personalities and how they act. They're all well thought out and not any single one of them resembles each other.

Overall [9.8/10]

Machoism!
How did I get 9.8 instead of 9.3? Because of the plot. You see all the + marks after the 10? Yeah. That's how good it is.

Overall, the 'new' Fullmetal Alchemist is a masterpiece and one of the top anime ever made to this day. I'm sure there will come along some series that will top it, but for now, it's the best one I've seen so far, out of currently 159 watched ones. Might not sound a lot maybe, but let me say, I'm picky with 5/5 star ratings, and only 10 other ones have reached it from TV series (excluding a few OVAs and movies). I will review all of them at some point.

What made this anime so great is still the plot. It's just so amazing, breathtaking. Only real complaint I have got about this series is that once you start watching it, you will have hard time stopping watching it... And still it took me about a month to finish it, and I even took a break lasting over a week (two of them actually) in the middle of series, after an episode that ended in a cliffhanger. Don't know what's up with that. Haha.

[I started and finished Futagohime in the middle of watching this!]

In any case, check it out. Seriously. Even if you're not into watching a lot of anime, check it out, and watch the whole thing. You won't regret it.

Over and out.

[Luché-lu-lun - Fortulet] Fushigiboshi no Futagohime

I'm a lover of the mahou shoujo/magical girl genre, I belive I got into that through Tokyo Mew Mew and then later thanks to Sailor Moon. The second review of this site goes to a magical girl anime not too many people know about, in fact the series never got subbed fully (only 49 out of 51 episodes), so I had to watch the last episodes in Japanese. Anyway, let's get to the point.

I also changed a bit of the review's layout for this review, think it looks better this way.


ふしぎ星の☆ふたご姫
Fushigiboshi no Futagohime
Episodes: 51

Also known as: Twin Princesses of the Mysterious Star
Aired during: April 2005 – March 2006

* This review contains mild spoilers. *

Now, before I even start. If you dare to come and say Futagohime has nothing to do with Pretty Cure or the basic concept of Sailor Moon I will smack you, because it does. Pretty Cure finished at January 2005, Futagohime started at April 2005. And let's face it, what 'normal' magical girl anime doesn't take influence from Sailor Moon? In any case, combine those two and add a bit from Wedding Peach and you're all set. And if you're still wondering how much the twin princesses have to do with Pretty Cure, then let's see this.


Dress, check.
In Pretty Cure only Honoka has a dress, but in Futagohime both of the main heroines do.

Two heroines, check.
This goes without saying.

Cute little creature(s), check.
At Pretty Cure we get Mepple and Mipple. At Futagohime we get Puumo and Buumo, the later having nothing to do with the main characters though. They look alike, and have a same kind of speaking style, pumo. You try to tell me they don't have anything to do with each other.

Similar plot, check.
Save the world, collect stones... At Pretty Cure Prism Stones and at Futagohime later on Grace Stones.

I could probably go on longer, but that's not really what reviews are for (comparing two series), so I'm sorry for getting a bit carried away with this. Now onto the actual review!

Story [8/10]

Puumo and Buumo.
'At the Mysterious Planet, there are seven kingdoms which each other affect the well being of the planet. At Sunny Kingdom exists the Blessing of the Sun, which brings light and hope to allover the world. However, recently, it's power has started to fade again. The twin princesses of Sunny Kingdom, Fine and Rein, meet the original savior of the planet, Princess Grace, and are granted a special kind of power, the power of Prominence, they must now use to save the Mysterious Planet before it gets taken over by the power of darkness.

But can these two princesses labeled as the most unprincesslike princesses of Mysterious Planet's history really do it?'

The plot, it's a cliché. Save the world from being destroyed, how many times have you heard it? You can't really expect anything more from a basic magical girl anime like this, however, there is a catch. Futagohime starts out a bit boring and low, but as some time passes on new stuff happens and every time you might feel like you don't want to watch the series any longer, it throws in a new plot twist which keeps you interested. That's one thing I really liked with this series, the plot may be basic but it's well thought out.

It's nowhere near the same level as with Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood for example, but it's up there. It's not bad.

Animation [7/10]

"And this year's creeper award goes to..."
I can't say I'm impressed at the animation, because I'm not. Futagohime finished at 2006, the same year stuff like Death Note and Code Geass got made, hence you might expect something a bit more from this. Sure it's supposed to be all cutesy and shoujo and aimed towards younger people, mostly children, but still. I'm also not calling the animation bad, because it's not. It's just a bit... Bland, I guess.

There really isn't a lot more that can be said about it. That scene with Nagiño that's in the picture under the animation text always cracks me up. It's just so wrong and creepy and hilarious at the same time. From episode 44.

Sound [7/10]

Dance scenes are more or less common in Futagohime. Get used to them.
Opening and ending
The series greets you with an overenthusiastic opening song, which is pretty damn catchy and most likely you'll find yourself dancing and singing to it in no time at all. I know I did. The song is good and suits the series well, creating a suitable atmosphere for it before you even start watching it.

For the ending songs I have nothing to say, once again... I'm not a big fan of ending songs. The second one's lyrics are a bit funny at the beginning though. Patatata run patata~

Voice actors
Okay so, we have a weird combination of more well known voice actors and some that aren't known basically at all; For example Mirlo's seiyuu hasn't been in any other series. Almost all the characters have their own actors, and they all suit their characters perfectly, great job there. To name a few:

Rein's seiyuu is Mikuru from Haruhi, Fine's is... No-one you'd probably know, but she was Sachiko Kawamura's actor from Nana for example. Shade's is Ritsuka from Loveless, Puumo's is Ushio from Clannad Afterstory. Interestingly enough Bright's voice is Natsu Dragneel's, the main character from Fairy Tail's voice. I don't know what to think, since I never saw even one episode of Fairy Tail and I didn't really like Bright's voice at all... Also Moon Maria is the same as Luna from Sailor Moon. Coincidence? No, I don't think so.

I've said everything more or less, but one more notification is that many of the characters' seiyuus have been either at Pokemon or at Mermaid Melody. Also the duo from FLIP-FLOP, the people who sang the opening theme make an appearance at one episode, they're called Aada and Iida at the episode.

Background music
To be honest I completely forgot all about the BGM as soon as the series ended. No memories at all about it. It wasn't bad, but nothing too great either. Once again, something you'd expect from a series like this. A bit like Sailor Moon -level kinda music.

Apart from the song Princess Pearl sings. I just can't get over how beautiful it is, and I have to say it moved me to tears at the both episodes it was heard in.

Characters [8/10]

This is the majority of all the non-main characters.
The cast of Futagohime is really big, even though there are only like six characters you see constantly, and only three during the first few episodes. All the characters have their own personalities, Fine is a big lover of food, Rein loves decorations, Altezza loves jewelry and so on... One I really like is the natural airhead Sophie. Nagiño is a complete weirdo you can't help but to like on the long run. Although many of them seem to have clichéish personalities, they suit their characters well and make them interesting to watch.

To sum it up shortly, the cast of Futagohime is well thought out, and one of the strong sides of the series.

Overall [7.5/10]

Fine's desire for fooood. Makes me hungry.

Overall, Fushigiboshi no Futagohime is not bad, not great either, but something you will want to watch if you're a fan of the genre. Otherwise, stay the hell away, you will hate it. Also if you enjoyed this series, check out Pretty Cure.

Oh man, I want to watch the second series so bad, but I'd have to do it completely in Japanese... I mean, my Japanese understanding skills on these kinda series is about 80-90% per episode, but it would still be nice to watch them with subtitles. Bleh. In any case, until next time, see ya~

[The worst and the best] Tanjou ~Debut~

For my first review I shall tell you about an anime, I swear 99.99% of you who read this post have ever heard about. I just know it.

Ranking: 12th worst
[3,809 out of 3,821]


TANJOU ~DEBUT
Also known as: Debut

Debut, or Tanjou Debut, is a 2 episodes long OVA made in 1994 by Studio Pierrot. In case you didn't know, they're the studio who made the anime versions of Bleach and Naruto, alongside with other well known animes.

Not many people know about this anime. I found it impossible to find any in-dept information about it even after some major Google-digging. The plot summaries seem to differ also... Apparently there was a video game made out of it, which I don't know anything about. The voice actors aren't big names, so if you happen to look at them changes are you've never even heard about them. I know I hadn't.

Moving onto the plot, Debut revolves around four high school-aged girls and as I said, consists of two episodes, which are both stand-alones. The first one is a short love story, where the characters don't know each other besides from Aki and Kumi. The second one three of them, the ones I just mentioned and Saori have been friends since childhood and now unite together to dig up an old time capsule they buried ten years ago, only to find something surprising.

And now, the actual review.


Story [6/10]

As I said, the first episode is a love story. Since the episode only lasts for under half a hour, you don't really get to know a lot from the characters, but I'd say it's enough to make you feel sad for Aki at the end if you're a sensitive person. Nowhere enough to make you cry or even teary eyed, but sad in general. I thought it was fine.

The second one revolves around a time capsule. Here a box is used, what has items from the girls who buried it into the ground ten years ago, when they were kids. When they open it, they discover something unexpected, but without spoiling the plot I can't really say anything else. The episode in general has supernatural elements, having to do with a ghost and weird unearthly stuff. The characters from the first episode are in completely different relationship with each other, apart from Aki and Kumi, as I mentioned earlier.

I personally liked the episodes. They weren't great, but they sure weren't anywhere near from the worst series I've watched in the past.


Look, a Sailor Moon reference! Somehow, this doesn't surprise me at all.

Animation [6/10]

I don't personally see what's with the complaining about Debut's animation. People keep saying it has horrible animation, and the medal you get from watching it [Anime-Planet] says 'even animators can have a very bad day'. Tell me, what's so wrong with it? Debut was made in year of 1994, same as Sailor Moon's third season for example, or Magic Knight Rayearth, and I would say the animation is close to it. The art-style isn't bad, it's just really basic. Nothing memorable really. I wouldn't say it's eye-candy or anything, because let's face it, it's not, but it's not something that makes your eyes burn either.

Only problem was the bad quality, but it couldn't be helped due to the episodes originally being released on VHS, hence it didn't affect my score for this series' animation. But no, I wouldn't call it bad by a long shot.


Sound [6.5/10]

Opening and ending
The opening is pretty happy going. It's not bad, but not something you want to listen over and over, hence I skipped it from the second episode. It REALLY reminds me of some other song, but I just can't get into my head what song that is. Such a shame. For the ending, I never listen to endings really... Unless they're really good. Debut's ending wasn't one of them. Same as with opening, it's not bad, but it's not great either, and not something you want to listen to when you can just skip to the second episode or end watching the series if you just finished it.

Voice actors
The voice actors of Debut aren't too big names, but you still might've heard them in other series. To mention them from series I've seen; Aki's seiyuu is the voice for Myojin Yahiko from Rurouni Kenshin, which actually confused the heck out of me because those two characters sound nothing alike. Saori's seiyuu is also the voice of Hououji Fuu from MKR. Kumi's seiyuu is Houjou Satoko's from Higurashi, thus the most likely for people to recognize, Jigglypuff's from Pokemon (this is also very, very confusing) and Shiina's from Vampire Princess Miyu. Sachiko's seiyuu is also the voice of Hikaru Shidou from MKR.

I've got no complaints here either. They suit their characters well enough and I personally think they're pretty good.

Background music
I wouldn't call it great, but it's good enough. Again, nothing memorable, but pleasant enough for the ears. Maybe it's a good thing, since it's pretty much impossible to find a soundtrack for Debut. Some tracks are pretty nice, those kinda you'd maybe want to listen for an extended period of time. But yeah, to sum it up, the music isn't bad either.


Characters [5.5/10]

You can't really expect to get to like the characters a lot or form a deeper understanding etc for them because the whole OVA series lasts for under an hour. I don't like the designs, apart from Aki, whose hair I just simply said love. Kumi's hair looks stupid, and Saori's and Aida's are just basic stuff. For their personalities there isn't much to say either. They're just characters that stick with you for two episodes and then disappear into thin air. They're not unpleasant though, and could've watched them for a few episodes longer. Not much else can be said about it.


Overall [6/10]

Overall, Debut isn't too memorable. I know I've said that a billion times during this review, but it's really the only word to properly describe it: unmemorable. You might want to watch it and judge if it's really that bad as majority of people seem to think, but I really can't recommend it to anyone. Even finding this series can be really difficult, due to it being anything but popular.

That said, I still think Debut is underrated, and it deserves a chance.