Girl's High #8 - Watch it free on ANN! What were the girls like in middle school? And how did they become friends? You can bet it sure didn't come easily, or without sparks flying. (USA/CAN only, TV-14) 2009-02-12
Buried Garbage - Ki•Me•Ra According to this OAV, vampires are really aliens, lived amongst unicorns and dragons in a generic fantasy kingdom, have tentacles and reproduce like bees. Needless to say, it's not that smart. 2009-02-12
Claymore DVD 3 Though this volume begins to weave more typically shonen-styled elements into the plot, Claymore's ruthlessness lingers, and with it a brutal edge that keeps it perched firmly atop of the action anime heap. 2009-02-12
The X Button - Innuendo This week: why Street Fighter IV is huge, why Dead Rising 2 looks great, why Atlus will conquer the game industry, and why Ar tonelico II is depressing. 2009-02-11
Rozen Maiden Träumend DVD 3 As far as unsatisfying endings go, Rozen Maiden Träumend ranks somewhere on a level with the Major League Baseball All-Star Game that ended in a tie. 2009-02-11
Hai Fidelity - Eri Kawai: Himawari Rachael examines and appreciates the memorial album for Eri Kawai, the singer-songwriter behind themes for Aria, Bamboo Blade and Sketchbook. 2009-02-10
Chicks On Anime - Fansubs (Pt 2) The fansub debate continues this week, in the final installment of our discussion with Freelance Fansub's getfresh. 2009-02-10
Ramen Fighter Miki #7 - Watch it free on ANN! Who can be the nicest to their customers, Miki or Megumi? The question, really, is who can hold back from ripping the other's face off the longest? (USA/CAN only, TV-PG) 2009-02-10
Interview: Takashi Miike on Yatterman Best known in the West for films like Audition and Ichi the Killer, Miike's newest film is the live action adaptation of the classic anime Yatterman. The day before its premiere at New York Comic Con, he took a few minutes to talk with us about his new film and its place in his very long filmmaking career. 2009-02-09
Shelf Life - Tetsuooooo!!! All good stuff this week, with a remastered classic, some funkadelic samurai, and some seriously awesome women.
- Afro Samurai:Resurrection
- Akira Blu-Ray
- Claymore v.3
- Story of Saiunkoku S1 Pt.2
Claymore DVD 3 Though this volume begins to weave more typically shonen-styled elements into the plot, Claymore's ruthlessness lingers, and with it a brutal edge that keeps it perched firmly atop of the action anime heap.
Rozen Maiden Träumend DVD 3 As far as unsatisfying endings go, Rozen Maiden Träumend ranks somewhere on a level with the Major League Baseball All-Star Game that ended in a tie.
Dragon Ball Z Movies 7 & 9 DVD Those who already enjoy DBZ will enjoy these films, and those who don't, won't. Whether they will fork over for a re-issue of DBZ ephemera is another matter altogether.
Death Note DVDs 7 + 8 Although this run of episodes, which involves some key transitions, initially marks a step out of the Dark Age into which the series had fallen, the reprieve proves only brief. These volumes may have some strong content, but on the whole they stray far from the series at its best.
Yatterman (live action movie) If Miike was out to recreate the parental discomfort of the TV series... well, mission accomplished. It's just too bad he also recreated the aspects that make cartoons like this Kryptonite to anybody who's gone through puberty.
Slam Dunk GN 2 In the age of Kobe, Lebron, and Boston's three-headed monster, can a relic straight from the Jordan era still succeed? As this volume shows, fascinating characters and high-flying action are timeless qualities.
Castle of Dreams GN Any manga-ka can set out to create a deeply emotional story, but it takes a talent like Tsuda's to make the reader feel it.
Kiba DVD Collection 1 Instead of a rollercoaster of tried-and-true thrills, Kiba is a warehouse full of rollercoaster parts—plenty of potential fun, but without the investment of energy to make it work.
Black Sun GN Black Sun, Uki Ogasawara's second BL work to be published in English is a seamless blend of historical fiction, comedy, and beautiful boys.
Overman King Gainer DVD Complete Collection The 26-episode animated television series Overman King Gainer is a mecha fetish extravaganza cooked up according to the following proportional recipe of creative ingredients: 85% action, 10% plot, and 5% character development. So much for the nuanced far future politics that make its director Yoshiyuki Tomino famous.
Neon Genesis Evangelion: Resurrection Though it doesn't provide any stunning new revelations or radically affect the show itself, the director's cut of Evangelion presented in Resurrection does provide a refined view of this modern classic more in line with what director Anno originally had in mind.