No, mine would look like Totoro…or a podracer using Jato packs. d: I’m sure a picture exists on the web somewhere.
I hear you, or how about the Cat-Bus? That would be sweet! 
That’s what I meant. Lack of sleep didn’t help me there.
I have given up on Madlax, I suffered through four episodes and that is it; to quote Popeye, “Its all I canz takes, I can’t takes no more.”
Here are the highpoints, the animation is all over the map. Some good, much of it poor, a few scenes even exceptional. The writing is what sinks this, the writer has obviously never been in the service or even held a firearm much less been under fire or or even in a fight (or talked to anyone who has). The dialog is insipid and stupid; and the storytelling is incompetent. The voice acting only serves to exacerbate the horrible dialog. I did a lot of wincing and groaning during these episodes.
Episode One Rant:
Their first attempt to humanize Madlax is to have her musing before her jump into enemy territory over what she will eat for dinner, “Pasta, I think I will have pasta.” Really? This is the best you could do? Having her thinking about food? Not about her mission, or the people dying down below, or the suffering this stupid civil war is causing? She is thinking about food? I rolled my eyes.
Next she jumps from the helicopter and dives down and down, disappearing into the treeline. I am thinking, “Wow, this bitch is even stupider than I thought, she never deployed her chute. This will be a short episode.” And yet later we see her hanging from from her chute, snagged on a tree. WHAT?! We never saw her deploy it! This means one of three things- a) the animators are too frakking cheap to animate the chute opening. b) she is so stupid she forgot to open the chute until she hit the trees canopy. c) she is an adrenaline junkie and deliberately did not deploy until the last second and did not die in doing so because she is a cyborg or something. I was leaning toward a combination of all three.
A voice starts talking to her while hanging there. Where is this voice coming from? She is not holding a phone, or a walkie. Nor is she wearing a headset, is the voice in her head? After an abrupt deceleration which would kill a normal person it is no wonder she is hearing voices. Or maybe she has a chip in her head, this strengthens my cyborg hypothesis. No attempt is made to explain who the hell she is talking to.
After a lot of mediocre animation a memory is triggered and Madlax has a vision, this is the only GOOD animation in the entire episode it has some very nice effects in it so this tells me the sequence is likely going to be used over and over and over again during the series. Much like the watch sequence in NOIR.
The big action sequence finally arrives and our heroine with the annoying smirk starts capping trained soldiers with nothing but her handgun, and somehow (they are too cheap to show us how) she survives having a Humvee blown out from under by an armored car. She then blows up the armored car and for some unknown reason strikes a ridiculous pose in the middle of the road so the officer can vainly empty the entire magazine of his sidearm at her. Why? I dunno, because she is stupid and arrogant is my only guess. Her dialog certainly encourages this idea. But wait, it gets worse…
During this entire gun battle they make numerous quick little cuts to a Huey Cobra Gunship that is making its way to the area. Each time they make a point of showing us all of the impressive weaponry it is bristling with, OK OK we get it, it has rockets and a chain gun no need to keep hitting me over the head about it sheeesh! And yet after all of this build up, it never does anything except creep in close enough for her to shoot it down with one shot of a bullpup assault rifle. Oh, and of course she had to strike another silly pose first, oh and I forgot to mention the best part. Her eyes were closed. God forbid she should actually aim at the damned thing.:rolleyes:
Lame. Lame. Frakking Lame! Not only will small arms fire not take out a Cobra, but why would it even come in that close? If all contact with the friendly units in the area were to suddenly cease the pilot and gunner could safely assume that all assets in the vicinity were lost. And they would just sit back and saturate the area with 7in FFAR, goodbye Madlax next series please.
So at this point my theory was this: Madlax was a vacuous and stupid secretary who worked for a criminal organization and one day stepped out in front of a bus. They took her and made her into a battle cyborg infiltration unit, and they send her off on missions in order for her to pay back the debt of her surgery. It would explain the voice in her head, how she survive the chuteless drop, why she is unafraid of bullets and how she survived having Humvee blown out from underneath her. Why she always has a stupidly happy expression and never says anything intelligent.
Episode Two Rant:
Fell asleep and had to sit through it again. :eek: This Heather girl is even worse, wholly crap she makes Madlax seem like a MENSA candidate! She has no personality, she is not cute or naive or childlike… just stupid. I like her even less than the supposed mercenary, and who are these other people? The little girl in the desolated landscape, no explanation is even attempted. New characters are introduced but I am given no reason to care about any of them.
Episode Three:
SIGH
Episode Four:
It is like two only worse. And as if there weren’t too many characters already even more are introduced as well as another subplot. A subplot? We don’t even have a main plot yet… No one is developed, I hate every character except the frakking maid and now you are trying to introduce a subplot? Forget it.
Noir hooked me with episode one right away, I never cared much for Mireielle but Kirika more than made up for it. El Cazador was much the same, I fell hard for Nadie with that awesome scene at the café with the telephone. And Ellis was adorable! They missed the boat with this one though… at least for me. Others may enjoy this but I couldn’t stand it, my tastes obviously differ.
Strange. Madlax came out after Noir. I do remember liking Noir better, but I didn’t Mind Madlax. I liked El Cazado the least. I can’t even remember anything about the series. Maybe I had my fill of Guns and Girls at the time.
Then again, I loved The Third, but you didn’t. And, you don’t care for Trigun. shrugs
Break Blade (AKA Broken Blade). 5 out of 6 episodes are out, but I’m giving this an FC recommendation. It’s a mech anime. But, what stands out for me is that it doesn’t start with the pilot “magically” knowing how to operate the mecha or using a frakking manual to learn during combat. Plus, the story is more mature than a typical Gundam series.
Go watch. You won’t be sorry.
A Wind Named Amnesia would be a nice frak during this memory arc, unfortunately my old copy is somewhere in storage and it is not readily available on Netflix… 
(sad panda)
Still not crazy about Brain Powered, but it is sorta growing on me.
Watched four episodes of Corpse Princess last night, it has a strange style to it that takes a little getting used to. And it is written towards a far younger audience than myself but it has some interesting elements to it, might keep watching it.
Have started season two Corpse Princess, and even though it is clearly targeted at horny teenage boys I kind of like it. It has a lot of good concepts, some of which may not be handled well but it still has merit. And I really like the opening music.
Tried a few episodes of Kaze No Stigma but could not get into it, in fact it kind of annoyed me at how weak it was. Esspecially when the lead during the opening credits keeps quoting that stupid poem about ‘eyes of azure blue’ and how it signifies a user of wind magic. Because the only time he has blue eyes is during the opening credits, at no time during the series do the animators ever show him with blue eyes, he always has red eyes like all of the members of the Kannagi clan do. Lame.
But I am really enjoying Tokyo Majin, I like the art design and magic system, the music isnt bad either and I like how the characters interact, quite believable and not too angsty.
I went through a phase of dark series recently out of happenstance. I’m glad that phase is broken up for now.
Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou -
Harem anime, but good comedy. I howled a few times laughing.
DOGS -
Pretty solid series. Modern day, guns, and action based.
A-Channel -
The latest Azumanga Daioh, Lucky Star, K-on!, etc., series. I enjoyed it. Very good humor. I howled more times watching this than Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou.
Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls -
Some people prefer gun action series. Others prefer martial arts. I prefer watching a series with katana/swords (like Claymore). That said, this was a harem series even though only two girls really wants the guy. Lots of ecchi and nudity though. Glad I watched, but I prolly won’t watch again because the nudity was too gratuitous for me.
Valkyria Chronicles -
This was a good series. If you like tanks and WWI/WWII era warfare (minus air combat), you may like this. At the start, I thought this would devolved into another harem anime. Thankfully, I was wrong. At times, the combat strategizing made me think of Legends of Galactic Heroes (great series btw). There’s also some magical girl-ness in this series, but I can’t call it a magical girl series. This series has more of a She, The Ultimate Weapon (Saikano) or Gunslinger Girl quality, but way less serious. I’ll give this an FC recommendation if you like series of this genre (the tanks and pre-modern warfare bit).
Edit: Btw, Valkyria Chronicles has a nice soundtrack. The composure does video game (which Valkyria Chronicles is based from) music.
Finished GA Rei Zero last night, really liked it. It starts in a rather confusing fashion going from one team to another and then another, and then going back in time to reintroduce you to the two main characters. But once it gets going it is a very good ride.
I found it exciting, touching and sad. I like the magic system, and the universe and concepts it introduces are believable and consistent.
Working on Elfen Lied now, the love story is a bit of an eye roller but the rest of it is pretty good so far. Though Netflix had two of the episodes out of order which made things kind of confusing and frustrating…
Ga Rei Zero is one of my favorite series (girls with swords et al). I recently rewatched it a few months ago. I read the manga shortly after.
I’ve seen Elfen Lied, but honestly cannot remember much other than thinking it was ok.
Finished Elfen Lied, the beginning of the first episode is pretty much the best part. It does have moments, but the SciFi components are very weak and there is never a good explanation for the supposed new mutation or well… anything else for that matter.
The writer toys with the viewers emotions in a rather heavy handed way, there is no subtlety at all. You jump from affection to horror and revulsion, to anger to compassion with no real cooling down time. You are all over the map with little reward for enduring it, it felt like a young lovers/harem anime that wanted to be a SciFi-Horror anime but could not make the transition.
The horror seemed to simply exist for sheer shock value, it really did little else other than provide gratuitous gore. There was little if any suspense or psychological horror…
The one good thing I got out of this was being introduced to Lilium, the opening song of the series. It is woven throughout the show too, in fact it is one of the only subtle emotional components of the series. I have added the song to my music library.
Now working on Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood part 3.
Finished Blue Drop last night, it was a fun ride. The Science Fiction element was weak and barely explored at all but the slice of life/academy portion of the story more than made up for it. I enjoyed the cast of characters and taking a peek at Japanese life and watching the protagonist adjusting to life at the academy.
The character designs were great, and it was nice to see an anime where all of the girls did not have the exact same body type and just have different heads attached. And it did not hurt that the main protagonist looked a helluva lot like Nausicaa…
The mechanical designs were nice too, Blue was a gorgeous ship and the fighter was sweet too. The enemy ships were a nice assortment and each capitol ship sported a different main weapon.
The art style was very enjoyable, and I was surprised at how much detail was given to the series. There were scenes that had so much depth, layering and atmospheric lighting to them that they looked movie quality. And I saw almost no recycled footage, just a little and it was used for flashbacks; so quite forgivable.
The music was good too. So overall a pleasant experience, I don’t know if I would ever want to re watch it but it was a well produced show. Hoo-frakkin-rah!
Black Butler
I have given up on this series, I could not get through even three entire episodes. It is just too wacky and inconsistent. It is all over the map and cannot make up its mind what it wants to be, a comedy, dark supernatural, steampunk or slice of European life. Not my cup of tea…
Awe snap. There’s a new Blood series. Looks like a reboot/restart. And, it’s made/will be made by Clamp. Wow, that’s a good match imo.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=12857 (series)
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=13228 (2012 movie)
Production I.G. too? muted seanscream
If you haven’t seen the original movie and TV series (in that order), you may be missing out.
Tried watching Chobits, I hated it… (made it through the first episode but that was it) not for me. I tried Sands of Destruction, I hated it (made it through episode one but that was it) not for me. I am sensing a trend here…
I watched some Birdy the Mighty… I liked the animation, and her costume but not much else, the story was lame and in episode two when they introduced the body swapping element I switched it off right away. Not for me…
Just got done watching ten minutes of Negima!?, frakking unbearable… I guess I need to go back an finish some of the other series I had started earlier.
I almost stopped Chobits after one episode too, but I’m glad I finished it as I got to discover a good song (to me) at the end of the series.
I had to look up Sands of Destruction. I know it as World Destruction. I liked the opening song and finished the series, but the series was meh imo.
I liked Birdy the Mighty. But, I started with the 1996 OAV, then the 2008 retelling. I’m glad I got to see the continuation of the series after a decade. d:
I’m avoiding Negima like I avoided Love Hina. I’m thinking about Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (Goodbye, Despair Teacher) though.
The last episode has been out a couple of weeks, and I just finished. Excellent series. Great story and excellent visuals. Do yourself a favor and watch. Then, pray to whatever supreme being you worship that they’ll continue the story.
[u][b]Tales of Earthsea:
[/b][/u][SIZE=2]I wish the movie had been longer and delved more into the characters, history and politics of the world. Because we never got any back-story on the main characters or got any real development during the course of the story, moments that should have had real emotional impact either fell flat or left you going… “What?” Do to the gaps in the story.
The animation itself was a bit uneven, whether this was due to poor coordination or due to time constraints I do not know. Some of the art was close to the level we have come to expect from Ghibili Studios, but because of the inconsistency of the quality, the glaring gaps in storytelling, and the lack of attention to detail that his Father ( Hayao Miyazaki )always showed his films; it felt like a ‘knockoff’ rather than a true Ghibli film.
While far from an unpleasant experience, once it was over it did leave me pining for a real Miyazaki film…
[u][b][SIZE=5]Blue Gender: the Warrior
[SIZE=2][/SIZE][/b][/u][SIZE=2][/SIZE][SIZE=2]I have never been able to get through the series because it is just so damned depressing and bleak, plus I found the behavior of some of the main characters rather disturbing. So when I saw that Netflix had a Blue Gender movie available I jumped at the chance, thinking that I could finally view the story arc without having to sit through 12+ episodes. Well I was wrong… In order to squeeze the story into 100 minutes they cut so much out that the final movie literally did not make sense. It jumps around more than Hayden Christensen in that teleportation movie, and then when the finale comes you are left going… WTF???
I literally had to go and Wiki the series to try and make sense of what happened. There was a Frak-ton of stuff missing, and the whole thing about B-Cells finally made sense once I looked it up, and the ending is not even close to that of the series. But whatever; don’t waste your time with the movie. Though I must admit I was surprised there was a somewhat happy ending, as hopeless as the series seemed.[/SIZE][/SIZE][/SIZE]
Series was a major let down. I’m bummed. It had great fights, but not much else. It’s gonna be hard for me to build motivation to watch any sequels.
The original movie and Blood+ is where it’s at.