Akiko NISHIO

Hey, Answerman!
This week on Hey, Answerman: what makes a fan a fanly fan? What is the true measure of a fan? Also: what's up with Hellsing Ultimate, a vastly less misleading photo of Answerman's office, a fox in a hat and your answers to last week's Hey, Answerfans! 2008-05-02

Buried Treasure - Patlabor TV & OAVs
Despite never taking off in the West, this sci-fi sitcom was years ahead of its time, and is considered a landmark show by many. 2008-05-01

Anime News Nina! - 04-30-08
Nina responds to some interesting reader mail. 2008-04-30

RIGHT TURN ONLY!! - Flavor of Life
RTO greets the springtime weather with reviews of Fairy Tail, Life, xxxHOLiC, an Import of the Month full of burning soul, and a Reader's Choice about eating souls! Well, sort of. 2008-04-29

The Third: The Girl with the Blue Eye DVD 5
An old enemy accompanies Honoka on a mission to rescue one of The Third as the final plot arc begins. Although these episodes do most things well, they fail to generate much of a sense of urgency about the series' impending end.

Red Garden DVD 3
List the qualifications the series had to pass to improve on its rocky opening—lose the embarrassing theatrics, focus on the mysteries, beef up the characterization—and you'll find that this volume does them all.

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.

Appleseed DVD
Beneath the lustrous exterior is just another save-the-world blockbuster action movie. The animation of Appleseed is an ambitious experiment with technology, but artistically, it's not all that clever.