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People - N

Death Note DVD 3
Builds suspense with masterful skill, seizing the attention at the beginning of each episode, and holding it with twisty plot developments and clever mind games until there are simply no more episodes left to watch.

Pumpkin Scissors GN 2
Even without the glamour and spectacle of other military-themed titles, the second volume of the manga is still good entertainment, especially as it starts to reveal new layers of plot.

Witchblade DVD 5
Even those who got into the series originally for the action and sexiness may still find that all of the relationship and story development in this volume makes it the best one yet.

Kite Liberator DVD
Many will hate Kite Liberator. Its story is nonsense. It chops and splices genres in the silliest way possible. But taken as a gentle, self-reflective Tarantino-style satire, it works. And lord, if it isn't a whole lot of fun...

Yozakura Quartet GN 1
It has all the ingredients of greatness: distinctive characters ... action-adventure potential ... But processing those ingredients into something successful is obviously going to take more work.

Strawberry Panic! Sub.DVD 1
If you like seeing girls blushing and getting flustered over other girls (with no guys around) then this may be a series for you. Although it does improve, its merits are otherwise only barely enough to sustain it.

Monochrome Factor GN 1
This ripoff of a ripoff does such a good job of copying everything else in the supernatural genre that it's hard to tell where the imitation stops and an original story begins.

Kitchen Princess GN 5
Yakitate Japan for girls? All right, so Kitchen Princess doesn't quite have the insane humor, but Volume 5 shows that it contains all the other essential ingredients for a great cooking series.

Kagetora GN 8
This story of a young ninja and his cute but incapable charge/student wallows in an intensive display of utterly stereotypical romantic comedy content, but looks good doing so and still manages to be mildly entertaining.

The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service GN 6
The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service may be a shining jewel in the supernatural genre, but even this masterful series has its off-days. Volume 6 is one such disappointment.

Brigadoon - Marin and Meran DVD 3
Understandably, the original intention was to produce a unique series that was able to combine the dramatic throes of a sci-fi series with the hyper hijinks of Marin & Friends, but it comes off as simply unrealistic. Just be prepared to have your emotions jerked around on a chain.