WATCH THIS: Awesome Animes
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January 27, 2010 • Chris "the Ninja" Snider
Filed under A & E, Opinions and Views, Student Life
Earlier, Catlin Carter wrote an article about how people seem to be flocking to their computer screen rather than their television screen for their entertainment. I have to admit that I am one of those people, but the reason is that the Internet is the only place to watch most animes. Granted, many animes have been dubbed and aired on television, but they are usually mainstream annoyances that are lousy with filler episodes, which take away from the plot.
Thus, I wanted to review some lesser-known animes because, quite frankly I’m a nerd (and proud of it) as well as to get the word out that not all anime involves dudes with overly spiky hair trying to blast the living daylights out of each other.
Note: All of these animes come with age recommendations. Please be mindful of them if you decide to view these animes at your leisure. I will not be reviewing mainstream animes like Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, etc. Finally, at the end of each review, I will give the anime a letter grade to show my approval rating.
Air Gear (17+)
Air Gear follows teenager Minami Itsuki, nicknamed Ikki, when he first discovers a new invention: Air Trek. These rollerblades are equipped with a motor that has the
Ikki just loves riding Air Trek (AT) and is one of the most gifted riders. The strongest Storm Riders are given the title of King or Queen. The greatest of these Kings is named the Sky King, a title which Ikki plans to achieve since the spot remains open.
same horsepower as a typical automobile. These have become excessively popular since they allow the rider do perform dangerous stunts and “turn everything into a road.” However, they are also the favorite weapon of gangs, called Storm Riders. Ikki finds that his adoptive family was once one of the best Storm Rider gangs ever, and Ikki also discovers that he has the potential to be greater than all of them. Ikki and his friends form their own gang and with their combined prowess spread their influence as their territory grows. Ikki’s ultimate goal is to become the “Sky King,” the greatest AT rider.
This anime impressed me, not with its plot or storyline, which are only slightly above average at best, but rather the characterization. Instead of having some romanticized vision for the future or some noble cause, Ikki just wants to be a great rider. He is very much an antihero. Rather than give annoying monologues about being acknowledged or being a great protector (like in Naruto or Bleach) Ikki just wants to ride and get better with his friends. Ikki is really just a normal teenager, albeit a perverted one, which is mostly the reason for the high age recommendation.
While the story is pretty short, only 25 episodes which spans over two months of Ikki’s life, it’s still really cool to see all of the characters develop: Ikki improves his skills and becomes a leader, his friends build confidence for themselves, Ikki’s sexually-traumatized teacher becomes more relaxed and caring, Ikki’s adoptive sisters realize they have to let Ikki go so that he can grow up, Simca becomes less of a “promiscuous woman” (well.. some habits die hard), and the ex-G-man Agito becomes less homicidal while his split-personality, Akito, falls madly in love with Ikki. (I told you the characters are interesting.)
The story isn’t great and the characters occasionally give annoying speeches about their beliefs or changes, but the characters themselves are really fantastic. They are too interesting to ignore and are also rather deep with their occasional poignant moments. It’s one of the few sports-type animes and, according to Amber Hysell, “Air Gear is actually really good if you like the whole ‘I’m going to beat you in a rollerblading race’ type anime.” All in all, I give Air Gear a B.
Black Cat (13+)
Train Heartnet is a trained assassin who works for Chronos, an organization that controls a third of the world’s economy and is bent on world peace, at whatever the cost. Train works as one of their Erasers and is so good at killing his targets that he is assigned to an elite group of assassins called the Numbers where he is assigned the
(From Left to right) Train Heartnet with his gun Hades (the bell around his neck is an allusion to one of Aesop's Fables), Sven Vollfied the gentleman Sweeper, Eve the bio-weapon with transformation abilities, and Rinslet Walker one of the world's most accomplished thieves.
number XIII. His reputation spreads and is nicknamed the Black Cat by the criminal underworld and Sweepers (bounty hunters) alike due to the fact that anyone assigned to him is out of luck. His prowess with a gun is so great that he can block one bullet with another.
However, he eventually meets a girl named Saya, who teaches him that to kill anyone that does wrong is a terrible deed in and of itself because it denies that person any chance of redemption. Train falls in love with her and begins to adopt her ideals. When he leaves Chronos, not only is he put on their black list, but Saya is also murdered for “poisoning his mind.” After he quits, another group bent on world peace raises its head: a group of Taoists (magicians) called the Apostles of the Star.
These people want to control the world using their other-worldly abilities which can take down even the strongest of the Numbers. Chronos wants Train to rejoin them to help them fend off these magicians, but the Apostles also desire Train’s abilities, but both threaten him with death should he refuse. Holding fast to the ideals for which Saya died, Train refuses them both so that he can remain with his new friends: a good-natured, gentleman-Sweeper named Sven and a girl made entirely out of nano-technology, the bio-weapon named Eve.
In contrast to Air Gear, the story line in Black Cat is really impressive. Very little is predictable and there are plot twists up until the final episode. Quite frankly, the fact that the writers fit such an epic plot line into 26 episodes is impressive in itself. However, the big downside to all of this is that the series is lousy with melodramatic characters. Train will blather on about not wanting to kill and likens himself to a cat on way too many occasions, Number 1 never shuts up about having to sacrifice her humanity for the greater good, and Creed (the leader of the Apostles) goes on for what seems like eternity about how he will reshape the world.
Honestly, the only redeeming character is Sven because he has a huge heart and strong paternal instincts for Eve, yet he’s hilarious and will do anything to live up to the code of the gentleman, which includes cross-dressing on one occasion. Plus, he has an eye patch, and “who doesn’t love eye patches?” asks Megan Fife. Megan also commented that Black Cat is “pretty awesome. I mean it has guns, eye patches, psycho-killers, and a girl that can transform into weapons. The only bad thing about the anime is it can be fairly hard to follow if you haven’t read the manga first.”
The plot is great, the characters aren’t terrible but are definitely imaginative and creative with plenty of depth, the plot twists are impressive, but the melodrama made me want to vomit, but Sven kind of looks like a pirate (win!): I give Black Cat a B+.
Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom (17+)
Sometime in the not-too-distant future, America is home to an elite mafia named Inferno. Inferno plans to unify all of the greater mafia gangs so that they may take
Ein cannot remember being normal or having any feelings, which is a boon for an assassin, but when Zwei comes into her life she begins to fall in love. Zwei, on the other hand, begins to surpass his predecessor even though he hates to kill. The two are forever enslaved due to their talents and instinct to survive.
control of the world’s most powerful governments and thus rule the world as they see fit, bringing world “peace” to everyone. They plan to do this with the world’s greatest assassin: Phantom. Her real name is unknown, even to her, but one day a young man witnesses her commit a murder, but when targeted, his assassin instincts rival her own, thus he is allowed to live and becomes her apprentice. After a fierce regimen of drugs and brain-washing hypnosis the man awakens without any knowledge of his past or even his name, just like the Phantom when Inferno first found her. He only knows one thing “If I do not kill, I will be killed.” The Phantom calls herself Ein and names him Zwei, and the two are forced to serve Inferno. At first Zwei does not want to sacrifice his humanity and kill, but the punishment for disobedience is death, and his natural instincts, combined with the hypnosis and his intense training, actually prevents him from consciously making a decision that he knows will lead to his death.
Zwei convinces himself, with help from Ein, that it’s all just one never-ending dream where he must be a mindless puppet. However, the truly interesting thing is that Zwei, unlike his predecessor, maintains a fierce guilt-complex and has strong protective instincts as well.
I have only recently started to watch Requiem for the Phantom, but it is obviously very similar to Black Cat, except it has more of a physiological thriller aspect to it. The best way to describe it is that it’s like a chimera made out of Deathnote (which is described later), Assassin’s Creed, and Black Cat; in other words: EPIC WIN. Watching this anime is almost like reading a novel for an upper-level English class as it is lousy with symbolism. In one scene, Zwei is seen reading The Catcher in the Rye, in another Ein is covering her skin an a lotion that will make her appear Caucasian because “no one would expect something so white to be a killing machine,” and there is also a motif of masquerade-style masks.
This anime has caught my eye because, like Black Cat, it deals with the question of capital punishment and the value of human life, but instead Zwei isn’t given a choice because he is a physical prisoner of Inferno (which is reminiscent of Dante’s Inferno) as well as a prisoner of his own mind. It’s very deep and loaded with hidden layers of meaning. The characters of Ein and Zwei are very interesting because Ein says that Zwei reminds her of herself back when she first started, but Zwei desperately wants to become anything but Ein, thus bringing up the question of Fate. The only true downside to this anime is that the moments of comic relief are almost nonexistent.
I can’t give an accurate rating since I have yet to finish this 26-episode long anime, but it seems promising. It’s deep, the story is pretty good thus far and the characterization is extremely impressive; I give the first part of Requiem for the Phantom an A-.
Yu Yu Hakusho: Ghost Files (13+)
Yusuke Urameshi is a typical good-for-nothing. He constantly skips school, he’s always getting into fights, and he doesn’t really care about anyone because he hates the world. Unexpectedly, Yuske dies in the very first episode (how’s that for a plot twist?) because he sacrificed his life to save a child. This is so unexpected that even the afterlife didn’t see it coming, thus Yuske must be special. He is hired by the
Yuske (far left) is the Earth's Spirit Detective and wields a variety of spirit attacks, his trump card being his SPirit Gun. Kuwabara (top) can channel his enrgy into a sword while Hiei (bottom) uses a physical sword and infuses it with various spells. Kurama (far right) is a very brutal fighter with a kind heart. He manipulates plants, both from the human and demon worlds, as his weapons.
afterlife to be a Spirit Detective, which involves hunting down demons and evil spirits that threaten either the afterlife or the human world. Yuske teams up with his once arch-rival Kuwabara Kazuma and two demons that he was originally supposed to kill in his first mission: Kurama and Hiei. The four of them eventually get involved in a number of cases all of which determine the fate of humanity.
I’m not too thrilled with this anime as it is too similar to Dragonball Z, although in the one year that Yu Yu Hakusho was on television, it received better ratings than DBZ. There isn’t a set story, instead it is mostly just one adventure followed by another. The characters aren’t very deep since their only motivation to fight is for the sake of becoming stronger or because they feel obligated to do so. The only redeeming quality of this anime, in my opinion, is Kurama’s character since he’s the only one that doesn’t win fights solely by blasting his enemy, but rather plans things out. He is also the only character with any identifiable weaknesses or flaws: he loves his adoptive human-mother too much. Other than Kurama, everyone else is overly dramatic and very two-dimensional.
The initial season is interesting, but anything after that is just filler in my opinion. However, if you liked Dragonball Z, or are of the same mind as Max Gazda, who says that “Yu Yu Hakusho equals complete and total pwntatiosity!” then have at it.
Because this anime only derives entertainment by showcasing a bunch of guys (and one old lady) beat the snot out of each other rather than give any characters depth or develop any recognizable plotline, I give it somewhere between a D+ and a C-.
Fullmetal Alchemist (13+)
Young Edward and Alphonse Elric are geniuses at alchemy, the “science that makes you feel like you’re doing magic.” In an attempt to resurrect their deceased mother, the boys ignore alchemy’s greatest taboo and attempt to create a new body and soul
Edward Elric as seen in the piolot episode. After losing his arm and leg, he is given artificial limbs that react to brain impulses. It is ironic that he is named the Fullmetal Alchemist (all alchemists employed by the State are given such nicknames )) since only half of his body is made of metal while is brother is made entirely out of a suit of armor.
in her likeness with the intention of giving it life. However, “humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return; to obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is Alchemy’s First Law of Equivalent Exchange,” thus to create a life, the boys must lose one, and Alphonse is killed. To keep his brother’s spirit from passing on, Edward sacrifices an arm and a leg (literally) in order to anchor Al’s soul to a suit of armor.
The boys decide that playing God is a dangerous game and now seek the legendary Philosopher’s Stone so that they can repair the damages done to their bodies. However, they aren’t the only two to have attempted to resurrect the dead, and what happened to those bodies that were labeled as failed experiments? (Spoiler: They created a homunculus, a homicidal human-like creature without a soul, much like the creature in Frankenstein.) The path to the Philosopher’s Stone is a well-guarded secret and is paved with misery and death.
Fullmetal Alchemist is probably my favorite anime, so I’ll try and keep my bias in check. It’s a very deep anime that is racked with various themes: the value of life, the definitions of a man, punishment for “stepping on God’s toes,” the individual versus society, nature verses artificial creations, appearance versus reality, etc. It’s also laden with heavy emotional moments; Chelsea Neal admits that she “cried in a few episodes of Fullmetal and a lot at the movie, which is also the series finale.” Watching FMA is akin to taking a philosophy class, which is to be expected since it is very much a bildungsroman (coming of age) type anime and Freud referred to the journey of finding oneself and forming one’s own beliefs to the search for the Philosopher’s Stone. Nearly every episode involves challenging the theory of knowledge or questions religion, and Edward could easily be compared to Sisyphus and be an absurd hero.
Amber Hysell put it best when she said “if you like the idea of never knowing your father, having your mother die, and having the embodied versions of the seven deadly sins trying to defeat you in the search for the one object that can return your brother’s body, then FMA is for you. It’s serious but has enough comic relief that you don’t feel like you’re watching an animated action/soap opera type show.” Ultimately, I give Fullmetal Alchemist an A, for “awesomeness”.
Death Note (17+)
Light Yagami is a genius high school student that sees a mysterious black notebook fall out of the sky. Inside the book is a set of rules, the first of which being “The human whose name is written within this note will die, without exception.” Light is given the powers of a shinigami (literally: “death god”, essentially an Angel of Death or a Grim Reaper-type creature); Light can kill anyone at anytime with any cause of death. Light Yagami(-gami meaning “god”) develops a God-complex and seeks to rid the world of all those that he does not see fit to live in it. “I will pass righteous judgment on the wicked. I will create a new world filled only with people who are honest, kind, and hard-working. This world is rotting and I will clean it up one name at a time. I will be the god of this new world! …Why do I do it, Ryuk (the original shinigami that owned the notebook)? Well, I guess because I’m bored,” declares Light in the pilot episode.
No one can trace the murders back to Light and his genius makes sure of it. Thus, the
(Right) Light Yagami - the first Kira, eventually Light makes several Kiras in order to confuse L (center) Ryuk the shinigami only dropped is notebook into the human realm for his own amusement. (Left) L: not much is known about him except that he has a sugar addiction and is renown as the world's top genius. Light Yagami is often seen with an apple, symbolizing the fall of man. He is in a mental battle with the mysterious L; the battle ends when one discovers the other's identity. In an odd plot twist, the two meet and become friends, but L and Kira remain fierce enemies.
UN brings in the world’s greatest detective, known only as L. Light is actually praised by the majority of the world for lowering the world’s crime rate by over 75% and is nicknamed “Kira,” from the English word “killer.” L and Kira are locked in a battle of wits where the first to discover the other’s identity loses their life, but will one of them lose their sanity first? (And you thought identity theft wasn’t serious.)
Light, like any other serial killer, sees himself as a heroic martyr. He willingly uses the Death Note even though he will not be allowed to enter Heaven nor Hell. (It’s sugested that he will become a shinigami, but this is never definitively stated.) However, Light freaks out and has spastic moments of insanity whenever he is accused of being a common criminal and an evil person since he has a vendeta against such people. It’s all very interesting to watch because this is actually typical killer behavior; the writers obviously did their homework when creating the characters.
This anime has been attacked on several accounts due to its sacrilegious nature, but let’s face it; most classic literature is also a bit sacrilegious. One of the main attractions of Death Note is that it is so raw and in your face. Light flat out declares that he is a god yet maintains a calm and collected persona. However, anytime he is declared evil, his eyes change shape and his writing suddenly looks like a demented person’s, showing just how mentally unstable he truly is.
It’s a psychological thriller and will be enjoyed by anyone who also enjoys the Saw movies, since Light has a very similar method of thinking and methodically plans every possible outcome and uses it to his advantage. Viewers will be dumbfounded by both L’s and Light’s ability to think five steps ahead of the average person that it’s almost frightening.
What is truly interesting about this anime, though, is that one is never truly sure if they are following the story of the hero or the villain. Light, like most serial killers, believes that what he does is right and the audience is influenced by his thoughts, but whenever the audience is given L’s point of view, it’s obvious just how over-the-edge Light has become.
Because of its controversial nature, I feel obligated to dock some points, but other than that, the plot is phenomenal, the characters are very well developed including the all-important minor characters, “the relationship between L and Light and L and Kira is just very developed,” (Amber Hysell) and the artwork is a cut above most other animes. Thus, I give Death Note and A-.
If you want to check out these an other animes, head over to animefreak. The link is below.
Anime Freak
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Nerds are my favorite. I must say that my sister is in love with Death Note and the few times she made me watch it, i thought it was great(:
I completely agree with the “mainstream annoyances” statement. SInce you love anime so much, try watching xxxHolic. I promise the xxx means nothing, though i am not positive of the age group. Originally, the anime was a manga, which the New York Times rated the #6 manga.
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Chris Snider Reply:
February 18th, 2010 at 10:54 pm
I’ll give it a shot, though I’m currently in the middle of Tengen Toppa Guren Lagann. And, while I don’t know your sister, she just earned herself like 5,000 cool points! (Note the gravatar; L is my favorite anime character EVAR!)
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