REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

1: Okasho

Upon graduation from Elementary school two close friends Tono Takaki (Mizuhashi Kenji) and Shinohara Akari (Kondo Yoshimi) have started to drift apart. Akari has had to move a great distance away, and while they write letters, they are not as close. When Takaki learns that he will be moving even farther away he goes to visit Akari before he is too far, but he is delayed and delayed on the way by a snow storm, finally coming in way too late, but she is waiting for him in the small station. The two walk in the snow, and talk about wanting to do this when the cherry blossoms fall. They kiss, and sleep in a small shack, but Takaki must leave in the morning.

2: Cosmonaut

Takaki is now in his third year of High School near the Tanegashima Space Center. One of his classmates Sumita Kanae (Hanamra Satomi) really likes him, but is too scared to tell him, though she waits for him, and tries to ride home with him (each on their scooters) whenever she can. She is always depressed because she sees him text messaging, but she doesn’t know he is just writing to himself. And dreaming of going into space and being on an alien planet. Kanae resolves herself that she will just be his friend, because he obviously cares for another.

3: Byosoku 5 Centimeter

Now in modern times Takaki is a computer programmer in Tokyo and Akari is planning on getting married. One day Takaki sees a familiar looking woman on a railroad crossing, but a train cuts off his view, and the woman is gone when the train passes she is gone. He knows it was Akari, but he realizes maybe it is for the best that they did not see each other again.

••••

A sad love story about people growing apart. So real, it really did not need to be animated. A lovely little film.

Once again in the post apocalyptic future, where the world is totally at war, there exists a city nation named Olympus, which is a supposed Utopian Metropolis run by Gaia a vast artificial intelligence computer. The society is kept Utopian by being run by genetically engineered humans called bioroids whose DNA has suppressed strong and negative emotions to keep an ordered society. Things of course are not always orderly, so the Country has not only police, but a Special Forces called ES.W.A.T. The two top soldiers are a team consisting of the lovely blond Duenan Knute and her cyborg partner Briareos, and they were lovers before he was so wounded to become a full body cyborg. The film starts with the team helping out another country with some terrorists, and of course Duenan rushes in as she always does, but these terrorists are different and turn out to be all cyborgs, though they manage to take them all out, but then the cyborgs start to explode, so Briareo pushes Duenan out, but he is caught in the blast and badly hurt. He is still alive, but must have his body worked on, so Duenan is given a new partner, one that will severally complicate things.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

The leader of Olympus, the bioroid named Athena, has a plan to stabilize the world, by putting all of the worlds satellites under their control, and thereby stop their use by terrorists, and hopefully to end war.

Briareos is worked on by the best Cyborg doctor Dr. Xander, but he will be out of commission for a few weeks.

Duenan is partnered with a bioroid named Tereus, and isn’t too happy about it. The reason being is that Tereus was made from the best warrior DNA, which happens to be Briareous. So he looks just like Briareos when Duenan and him were partners and lovers before he became a cyborg, so she is totally confused. She does not want to be his partner at all.

At a birthday partner for Duenan’s bioroid friend Hitomi, she sees Briareous has been fixed by Xander, but is not being partnered with another cyborg instead of her, while she stays with Tereus.

When Olympus is holding a conference to take the Satelites over, a bunch of Civilians, as well as Cyborgs, like Briareos’s new partner all go mad, and try to kill the people in the conference, but they are stopped, and eventually the zombie like riot ends. Briareos sees strange things, and ends up having to kill his partner, and they realize the birds are robotic, and have been sending out the signal.

Seemingly there is something connected to a huge mega corporation outside of Japan, where Cyborgs with their parts are being taken over and becoming terrorists, so the Cyborgs, and even Briareous are made to stand down.

Deunan and Briareous decide to go out, and take Tereus, but something has happened to Briareous and he goes mad and attacks a computer terminal, and hacks the Satellite control system, killing the first level, and the second has already been subjegated by Xander, who also put nano machines into Briareous, which has made him take control. Briareous is arrested and imprisoned, and won’t see Duenan. Hitomi comes in, and helps hi leanr more about Xander, who used to work for the mega corporation, and something happened, so Briareous escapes with Hitomi’s help, and ES.W.A.T. is sent out, but Deunan is told to stand down, but she can’t.

Briareous finds Tereus who tells him what he did to him, and that he will lose control every time his adrenaline gets pumping, and he tells him it is too late to stop it, and kills himself. The cops come, but Briareous escapes, but Tereus finds him, and is going to take him out, but Deunan catches up and stops him.

The Satelites then all go haywire, and many people start rioting and attacking the whole world over, it turns out it isn’t cyborgs, but a new in the ear computing system that everyone is using, and that Xander developed. And he uploaded everything in return for his girlfriend’s death in the past. Terues joins Duenan and Briarious and they head out to the ship of the mega-corp to find out what is going on.

They learn that Xander used to work for the corporation, but their unit got into mind control, and got out of control, and eventually his girlfriend was hurt in an accident, and the unit was shut down, but not early enough. And they tell them the location of their abandonded base, and with some backup and a new mech for Duenan, They head in and battle small machines, and mechs, and eventually go up against the central computer, which is in fact Xander’s ex girlfriend. They use the chemical they have used to help stop Briareous from losing it, and kill her, setting her free, and of course escape.

••••

Great animation, a simple, but good and fun plot. An enjoyable hollywood style adventure in a future world I have loved for many, many years.

We start with a brief history of what has been going on up until 2077, where Robots and Robotic machines are everywhere, but a Japanese Megacorporation named Daiwa Heavy Industries is found to be making Human/Robot Androids, and the world declares these illegal, banning them in all UN countries, so Japan closes itself off for 10 years. THey do this with a magnetic shield that blocks all communication and visuals, though they still sell their goods through cargo ships. A US Poliitcan heads for a meeting with a Daiwa Executive named Saito (Ohtsuka Akio) along with politicians from around the world, and they will be double crossed and killed. A UN Special Operations organization named SWORD working on a tipoff from a woman named Maria in Japan heads in to stop whatever is going on. The team is led by Commander Leon Fayden (Tanihara Shosuke) along with his girlfriend Vexille Serra (Kuroki Meisa) and best friend Zack (Kuroda Takaya). They find that Saito is an android, and Vexille manages to hang on to him as he escapes on the wing of his plane, but he cuts his own leg off and get away, and the team gets the politicians out, seemingly alive and find. To see what is going on the UN decides to send SWORD on a mission into Japan to break through the shield so they can see what is going on.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

The Team manages to get through the shield, and set up their device, which will take 3 minutes before it will break the shield, but they are attacked in the last seconds. Zak is killed, and Leon has Vexille escape into the water, since she has the only other transmitter, but the rest of the team seems to be wiped out.

Vexille wakes up in a dilapidated house with a young boy named Takashi (Paku Romi) and she escapes out into a slum market, filled with people, but she gets brought back by Maria (Matsuyuki Yasuko) who runs the resistance in Japan, and who send the message, and who was also Leon’s girlfriend 10 years before, but when he was expelled, she was not allowed to leave with him.

Saito comes to find Vexille, and she and Takashi go on the run, and are taken to the headquarters of the underground, though is first taken to the walls of Tokyo, where she sees that all of Japan is a wasteland, except the city, which is has huge walls keeping out giant mechanical sandworms called “Jags.” Also Maria has activated her Transmitter, so Sword can see in, and they see that the only human in Japan is Vexille. Vexille is told the story, that the surviving Japanese are all Androids now. 10 years ago the Daiwa corporation declared there was a virus, and had a mandatory vaccination of all Japanese, but in fact it was an experimental treatment to transform people into Androids, and it only worked a small portion of the time. Most the time it didn’t, and the people went to pieces and their pieces joined together and became the Jags which search for all metal to absorb. And the Andriods that did make it eventually are taken over and becoming just robots without their minds anymore, and go to the Daiwa corporation. Maria is fighting with her friends, and they scavenge metal from the desert that the Jags drop using fast 4 wheel vehicles. Now they plan to trail metal cable and run into the Daiwa corporation in the bay along the attachment corridors during an upcoming earthquake, and so bring the Jags in to destroy the place.

Vexille gets her power armor back and they all head out to do the plan, but of course only Vexille and Maria make it, and the Jags don’t.

Vexille and Maria are brought before the scientist who did this all Kisaragi (Morikawa Toshiyuki) who is about to inject the vaccine into Leon, and who plans on doing this to the US next, but Vexille cuts him with a blade she hides in her mouth, and he bleeds blood, proving he is still human, and this infuriates Saito who already replaced the earlier politicians with androids, and he attack Kisaragi who kills him.

Meanwhile the Androids in Tokyo realize they have been foolish and open the walls of Tokyo letting the Jags in, and into Daiwa as well. Kisaragi runs with the nano serum and they go after him, and Vexille manages to crash his helicopter, and as the Jags attack Maria grabs him and holds him as the Jags come and get them both, and Leon and Vexille are saved by Sword.

••••

An OK film, with great visuals. It is alright, but the Jags and their explanation is just silly. I can buy the other cyberpunk stuff, but that is way too silly to make sense. Oh well, no wonder this was only OK. Hopefully APPLESEED 2 will be better!

The film starts in the dream world of Detective Konakawa Toshimi (Koichi Yamadera), going from a circus, to a spy movie train, tarzan in the jungle, a wedding, and a long hallway, and the only real consistency is him chasing someone, and a lovely young woman with red hair named Paprika (Hayashibara Megumi). When he awakens he feels better, though everything is not resolved as of yet, but it turns out Paprika is using a psychotherapy device called a DC Mini which allows a user to see another person’s dream, and even go into them and explore them. And Paprika is in fact the dream going alter ego of Doctor Chiba Atsuko (also Hayashibara Megumi). She is helping the detective and his anxiety because he is best friends with her her boss, Doctor Shima Torataro (Hori Katsunosuke) a bespectacled and tiny man. When Atsuko returns to the institute she learns from her best friend, the morbidly obese Doctor Tokita Kosaku (Furuya Toru) who created the DC Mini, that in fact 3 have been stolen and can be used for ill. They 3 doctors plan to get it back, but then Shima loses it and jumps though a window, badly wounding himself. When they look into Shima’s dreams they recongnize Tokita’s assistant Himuro Kei (Sakaguchi Daisuke) and decide to go find him as he has not been to work. The dream is of a parade of inanimate objects, anthropomorphically dancing, with Shima in the center.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

Himuro’s place is a mess, but things are messed up, and Chiba gets drawn into a waking dream where she is in some sort of amusement park, and she almost jumps off the ledge of the building, but is stopped by Doctor Osanai Morio (Yamadera Koichi) who is a lesser doctor, but obviously likes Chiba.

The chairman (Tanaka Hidekyuki) whp rins the hospital, learns of the theft and bans the use of the DC mini. Of course things don’t stop and more doctors start going insane with visions from the DC Mini.

Meanwhile Tokita has tried to solve the mess and has gone into Himuro’s mind, but has gotten trapped as well. Shima and Paprika try to solve it and she dives into the dreams, finding that Himuro isn’t behind it, he is only an empty shell. Paprika dives into the insanity to try to find out what is going on. And eventually she gets trapped by the Chairman, who is the thief and Osanai who has given his body to the chairman and become his total lackey. Paprika gets taken by Osanai, who pins her down and rips away the Paprika personality away, then the Chairman takes over Osanai and is going to kill Shima, but Detective Konakawa breaks in and frees Shima.

Konakawa realzies his nightmares were in fact guilt over a friend that he made movies with in high school, but abandoned his dreams before college, and his friend who was sick was left alone and died. He finishes the film in his dreams and shoots Osanai killing him and hopefully the Chairman.

Chiba thinks things are over, but they aren’t and it seems dreams are merging with reality. Tokita is still mad and a giant child’s robot eats Chiba, but not Paprika who has split from her. A ghostly Chiba appears and reveals that she is in love with Tokita, and in coming to terms with her fealings, and her dreams which she is repressed is reborn, and grows to take out the giant form of the Chairman, and literally is able to eat him and revert the world to reality.

Chiba then sits at Tokitaa’s bed side as Konakawa and Shima watch her put her hand on his and leave, the old friends talking. Konakawa then learns that Chiba will be marrying Tokita, and takes her suggestion to go see a movie, which he hasn’t done in years (since he left his friend), and he goes and buys a ticket to go see a movie.

••••

WOW, WOW, WOW!!! This movie is insane and absolutely amazing!! Fantastic, another piece of genius by Satoshi Kon! He is really one of the best filmmakers in the world!

Hazumu (大佛 はずむ, Osaragi Hazumu played by Ueda Kana) wants to go to the aquarium with all of his friends. Yasuna (神泉 やす菜, Kurusu Tomari played by Horie Yui) and Tomari (来栖 とまりœ, Kamiizumi Yasuna played by Tamura Yuka) have made friends, and promised not to push the relationship past friendship for now, but Tomari has to go to sports camp for school, so it looks like Hazumu will be alone with Yasuna.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

They have a great day, and then buy everyone presents, and they take the train to go give the present to Tomari, but when she comes to get them Yasuna is hugging Hazumu because the train guard scares her because she can’t see her face. Tomari takes this as a betrayal. Hazumu and Yasuna miss the last train, and have to stay, and Tomari ends up going for a walk with Hazumu, and kisses him, and Yasuna sees it and it makes her vision problem get so much worse, so now she can’t see anyone anymore, not men or women, so she plans on leaving.

Hazumu is forced to finally make a decision, and he does, he decides to stay by Yasuna’s side, because he knows he can help her, and maybe that love can cure her, even though it will mean saddening Tomari. And when he confesses his love to Yasuna she is cured, and they become a couple.

Then six months later Yasuna realizes that Hazumu has cured her, and she can stand on her own, and she wants to, and then pushes Hazumu to TOmari, and the two who have loved each other for so long are able to be married as they had promised as kids, and can live happily ever after.

•••••

Weird, and it seems too forced to end this quickly. This series should have been allowed to be so forced into such a quick ending, because the story felt truncated.

This starts right where the last 2 end off, with Takeru (Namikawa Daisuke) and Kazumu (Shotaro Morikubo) are out on the surface running from robots sent out by the Eden government, who don’t want them to see that Earth is once again blue, and not the red inferno that they call it. They get help from Aran though and escape into the Eden underground, but the government is after them, and will take out all the people that Aran is protecting to get them. Aran sends them toward an old hidden escape shuttle from the company he works for, which preceded the Eden government.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

Takera, Kazumu and Bisu (Yamaguchi Kappei) run from the robots, and manage to escape with a little help from their old rival Tairu and his buddues, and Tairu wants to go with Takeru and Kazumu, though Bisu will just help them and then take off. The thing is, the Eden government is on their tale, and Kazume sends Takeru and Bisu on the way to Earth.

They end up crash landing on Earth, though they miss Florida and end up in Las Vegas. They can breathe and animals are alive, though the cities are destroyed, but they hear a radio broadcast from Florida, so they head towards Florida, though Takeru’s bike breaks down, but luckily a buss filled with a band of misfits finds them and takes them a good portion of the way. They then fix their bike, and they head off towards Florida, and into a small town.

THey try to find the girl in the photo, and a small kid runs from them, and right into the arms of the girl of Takeru’s dreams.

•••••

I do like this series, and would like to see the rest, but the whole series should be able to be purchased for less than $50, not $30 per episode!!!

This is the story of Mizuno Kanta 水野 灌太 aka Sunabōzu (砂ぼうず) the Desert Punk played by Suzuki Chihiro and Eric Vale in a post apocalyptic future, where mankind gets what it wants at the end of a barrel. Kanta is s desert handyman, or mercenary who is affiliated with Handyman’s leage, and is a young guy missing teeth who is completely obsessed with breasts and sex, but still manages to be the top mercenary in the desert, and would have no problems if it wasn’t for his female problems. Even Kanta takes on a young apprentice in Kosuna 小砂‚ played by Siato Chiwa and Luci Christian, who gets him to accept her by showing a photo of her mom, with her huge breasts, so Kanta thinks someday she can be his sex slave, and for now she can help out if only she stops messing things up. Kanta’s biggest rival and problem is the female mercenary Asagiri Junko 朝霧 純子 with breast she could knock herself out with. She has no scrupalls, and often betrays Kanta, but he always lets her go mainly because he wants a chance to fondle those breasts.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

Kanta has another rival, Rain Spider 雨蜘蛛, ›› played by Wakamoto Norio and Kenny Green who is almost the punk’s equal and supposedly the best collector in the desert.

Also there are the Machine Gun Brothers who Kanta grew up with, and eventually their sister Kawaguchi Natsuko 川口 夏子 played by Minaguchi Yuko and Jamie Marchi who we initially think was a love interest from Kanta, but in fact he terrorized her, fondled her breasts and blew up and outhouse she was in, causing her to change completely and join the military.

The show starts off pretty light, and we see that Kanta really is the best. He uses a back winch and balloons and a variety of other tricks to defeat his enemies and always comes out on top. Eventually he takes on Kosuna, and things stay light for the first half, but then the opening and closing titles change, and slowly he is drawn into the politics of the region, and even a fight with Natsuko and her group who are in open rebellion against the Government who have many secrets of the dark ages, before the apocalypse, and even fighting robots. Kanta offifically graduates Kosuna to a mercenary, and then tries to sneak away, but gets taken by government robots.

Kanta is presumed dead and life goes on with Kosuna becoming a mercenary and taking on an apprentice. And Natsuko organizes the rebellion, even getting Rain Spider in, but then a giant tank shows up led by Junko and Kanta who was captured and switched sides. He gives Kosuna a chance to switch, but she stays with her friends.

••••••

It is totally within Kanta’s character, because he only does care about himself, but it is still brutal to see him out trying to kill all of his former friends and quite the evil man. Still a good and enjoyable series. I enjoyed it.

Hazumu (大佛はずむ, Osaragi Hazumu played by Ueda Kana) and we start right where we left off, with Yasuna (æ¥æ – とまり, Kurusu Tomari played by Horie Yui) kissing him and Tomari (神泉やす菜, Kamiizumi Yasuna played by Tamura Yukari) seeing it, and running of. Tomari then starts ignoring Hazumu, and even announces Hazumu and Yasuna’s relationship to their friends. The thing is Hazumu still likes Tomari, and when he is going to kiss Yasuna he can’t because of Tomari, so he has to go to her, and she declares her love for him as well.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

Of couse we still have the Alien captain campaigning to push Hazumu into a relationship with one or the other girl, and their teacher chasing him, and the floating computer that looks like Hazumu Pu, floating around. We have an scary adventure in school, we learn more about their friends, Hazumu’s best friend who has fallen for him as a girl, and the girl who watches them all, but will never step up to the plate.

And of course we have a trip to the beach, and a trip to the local festival where we learn that Hazumu can never chose and loses things because of it, but learns that in this case, maybe he can have both…

•••••

More good fun. Sure this show is almost a fan service show, though without a lot of exposing shots, but the overall premise is. Still an enjoyable show.

This is a dual story of a 2 17 year old women with missing pasts, one a student in the calm peaceful country of Nafrece, and one a killer in the worn torn country of Gazth-Sonika. Both women lost their memory 12 years ago, and you are finding out how they are connected as things go on. The innocent one is Margaret Burton (Kuwashima Houka), who is served by her long time maid Elenore Baker (Uchikawa Ai), and her former tutor and next door neighbor Vanessa Rene (Yukino Satsuki) who works for a large corporation with ties to Gazth-Sonika. Madlax (Kobayashi Sanae) is an agent in Gazth-Sonika, and the best their is. They both end up being hunted by an evil organization known as Enfant, led by Friday Monday (Ebara Masashi), with his right hand who works at the same company as Vanessa, Corrossea Doon (Morikawa Toshiyuki) , who also has his own agenda, and a sniper he gets to go after Madlaz named Limedla Jorg (Hisakawa Aya).

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

There are also 2 children in a strange war zone, with 2 moons, and connected to Margaret and Madlax, a girl named Laetitia (Kaneda Tomoko) and a young boy.

Eventually Vanessa realizes her company is connected to Enfant, and heads to Gazth-Sonika to retrieve data that will prove that Enfant engineered the 12 year civil war. She is helped by Madlax, who is brain washed when she sees the data, and almost loses herself, but she manages to come back in order to save her new friend Vanessa from her enemy Limedla, who she is linked to, even though Limedla wants to kill her.

Margaret meanwhile has a powerful book named Secondari that Friday Monday wants and needs, and Madlax has one page of it from her childhood, in which the two were connected. ANd Carossea Doon realizes it, but doesn’t take it from her, because he realizes she also has the gift because she was in the incident 12 years ago. There is also a watcher named Quanzitta Marison (Hyodo Mako) and her follower Nakhl (Nakano Chikayo) who are not supposed to interfere, and who posses thirdari, but Nakhl eventually does give help. ANd Margaret heads to Gazth-Sonika to find Margaret.

Eventually they find each other, and want to go after Enfant, but instead they find the 3 books, and Margaret is able to open a door to another realm, where Laetitia is located, but she doesn’t open the door, but Doon does, and finds out his past, where he found Margaret as a child and saved her, and was shot trying to save her, but his will made him survive, but once he knew he could no longer survive. Margaret doesn’t open the door, but is taken with the books by Friday Monday, who brainwashes her.

Madlax, Elenore and Vanessa head into the war zone to find Margaret, and Vanessa is killed by Limelda, and Madlax shot by Margaret, but she heals, and she realizes what she is, and basically becomes the perfect killing machine. Elenore is also killed, but just makes it to Margaret before she dies.

Margaret opens the door for Friday Monday, and he uses it to send madness to the world and create more war, and destruction, just as he wanted to do 12 years before, but Madlax comes to help, and Margaret and her remember their past. That Friday Monday made Margaret’s father go mad with the magic words, and his codename was madlax, and he was going to kill Margaret, but she killed him, and because the door was open she split into 2, Madlax and herself with no memories, so they are on person, and Margaret manages to save the world from the madness, and she does not rejoin with Madlax and Letitia, but lets them live in the world as her little sister and her friend.

••••

PRETTY DAMN WEIRD IF YOU ASK ME!!!!

Taking place in the late 1970′s and early 1980′s this is the story of a mercenary force of fighter pilots fighting in a Middle Eastern country the Kingdom of Asran. The story follows a supposed newspaper reporter and photographer Goh Mutsugi who has come take photos of Area 88, but mostly of the haunted Japanese Pilot Shin Kazama, who we slowly see his back story, and find out why he is here instead of with his love Ryoko Tsugumo, the daughter of the CEo of Yamato Airlines who he is supposed to marry, but can’t get ahold of back in Japan. The base is run by Saki Vashtar, and the pilots are on 3 year contracts, and can only leave if they earn 1.5 million dollars, but they have to pay for their own planes, fuel and ammunition. Other pilots include the second best Mickey Simon an ex Vietnam pilot, the young Kim Aobai who flies a harrier, and eventually Kitori Palvanaff, the daughter of the king of Asran, and cousin of Saki Vashtal, who becomes interested in Shin as he is the best pilot.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

Slowly we find out that Shin was going to marry Ryoko, but his best friend Kanzaki Satoru tricked him into signing paperwork which forced him into the 3 year contract with the Aslan Area 88 Mercenary airforce, so he is fighting to make it to Japan and marry Ryoko. And Goh is sent to take a picture of his dead body, so Kanzaki can marry Ryoko and take control of Yamato airlines.

We of course also get some great action, and learn more about the other characters, but it is really about Shin and his quest to get out. And when he make enough money he empties his guns, and to save Kitori his plane is ruined and he crashed, and will have to buy another plane before leaving, but he finds out that Ryoko things he is dead and is set to marry Kanzaki, so he gets another plane and tries to run, but a major attack comes, and he is forced to give up on running, and would have been shot down by his friends anyway.

And Goh is kicked out for his actions, but he goes to Japan and at the wedding stops Ryoko from marrying Kanzaki and shows him a long shot of Shin in his plane, and she realizes he is still alive and will wait for him.

•••••

Not amazing, but an enjoyable series, that lived up the original OVA.

Once again following the secretive Japanes Section 9, set up to protect Japan under the leadership of the old man Aramaki (Saku Osamu), with Batou (OTsuka Akio) as he tries to find out more about the missing Major Kusanagi Motoko (Tanaka Atsuko), so th emostly humanTogusa (Yamadera Kohichi) has become more cyborized and is taking more of a lead in the organization, and they try and spread out and have more people to do more at 80% efficiency, vs. their full efficiency when Motoko was in command. This time they are dealing with cyber terrorism and a General given sanctuary by the Japanese government, but things are not of course what they seem, and their is a mysterious puppeteer that Batou believes is in fact the major, and something called the Solid State Society.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

Things get really bad for section nine and Togusa has his cyberbrain hacked and is going to have his daughter stolen by the Solid State Society, which turns out to be a government program, formed by someone as well as a gestalt of all the old people taken care of by the state in electronic rigs that take care of them, as they live in cyberspace. This Solid State Society steals children from the streets and who have been abused and gives them to these old people as their heirs, erasing the parent’s memories and giving the old people heirs to keep their money going, and keep their names alive.

The Major comes back to help, as they find the government organziation that is doing the kindapping, though it seems the actual culprit may in fact be a split from her own personality which the evil of her personality, and she comes back to Section 9, realizing she can’t do much on her own, and yet the Tachimochi (the robot’s that assist section 9, whose intelligence have been away helping the major, as does Batou who linked in with the robots when Motoko linked with the perp).

•••••

More amazing story set in this brutal world, that is so easily a believable future for us if we manage to survive that long. One of the best anime series around.

I actually made a mistake when watching the Region 3 Japanese DVD, since I ripped it to my iPhone to watch, I didn’t check the language track, and accidentally ripped the English Dub, with English Subtitles, so I saw the American version, which was a decent enough dub, though I usually prefer the original language if possible. Still Willem Defoe was great, so it was still enjoyable.

This story takes place in the land of Earthsea, a mystical world, where human’s rule the land, and Dragon’s live far away. They were both one race, but human’s became gready, and decided to take over the land, and dragons, lost all great and took to the sky. The film starts with a ship at see, witnessing for the first time dragons attacking and killing each other, presaging a forbidding change to the balance of the land. Meanwhile a good king is dealing with the issues of the land, drought and farmers leaving, and when he goes to his chambers to think, he is stabbed and possibly killed by his son Prince Arren (Junichi Okada / Matt Levin), who steals his magically created sword, and runs. Travelling in the desert is a lone wizard named Sparrowhawk (Sugawara Bunta / Timothy Dalton). Arren is attacked by a pack of wolves and is only saved by Sparrowhawk who brings the troubled young man with him on his journey across the land.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

Sparrowhawk and Arren head across to the land and to a large trading city where people are sold as slaves. Arren is amazed, and waits to meet up with Sparrowhawk, where he runs into a young girl his age named Therru (Teshima Aoi / Restaneo Blaire) who has a scar on half of her face, and is being attacked by a group of slavers led by Hare (Kagawa Teruyuki / Cheech Marin). Arren gets the strange scared look on his face he got when he stabbed his father, and when he gave up with the wolves, when he doesn’t care about life or death and fights off the slavers, but Therru runs from him, because she is scared of someone who cares so little about death. Arren wanders off and lays down on some stairs, and gets caught by Hare who returns with more men, and puts him in a slaver vehicle, but Sparrowhawk uses magic to find him, and releases him, and takes him to the farm of a friend of his. This is the woman Tenar (Fubuki Jun / Mariska Hargitay) who is feared by her neighbors as a witch, but is a good woman, who helps give their children medicine. Tenar also takes care of Therru, and Arren and her don’t mention how they met, but obviously Therru does not like Arren.

Meanwhile Hare works for an evil magician Cobb (Willem Dafoe) who wants his slaves back, and when he hears about Sparrowhawk, who turns out to be the Arch Mage he sends his men to get him. They first come and rough up the farm, as Sparrowhawk is gone to find Arren’s sword he lost when the slavers take him, but Arren in a fit of despair runs away, and is taken by Cob, who manages to get his real name (the basis of all magic in Earthsea) and take control of him using his fear of death. Cobb then sends Hare to take Tenar, and leave Therru to tell Sparrowhawk.

Sparrowhawk goes to get Tenar, but is captured by Arren. Therru then seas who she thinks is Arren, but is the part of his spirit that was evil, and is now the good part that is left, that gets her to bring his sword, and come and give him hope with his true name. And she goes and rescues Arren, and they go to save Sparrowhawk and Tenar. Arren manages to use his father’s magic sword, which shows that Cobb is in fact an evil old magician, who fears death, and is himself destroying the balance of the land, and he kills Therru, but she does not die, but becomes a dragon and kills Cobb and saves Arren. She then changes back and the 2 go to talk to Sparrowhawk and Tenar, and Arren decides to go back to his homeland to pay for the crimes he has done, because he has finally taken responsibility for his actions, but hopes to return to Therru someday.

•••••

An enjoyable film. Sure I don’t quite get why Therru became a dragon, or exactly why Arren killed his father, unless Cobb’s darkness had already taken him over. Still a good and well animated film, I might have enjoyed it more than Howl’s Moving Castle in fact. It is just too bad this won’t come out in the US until 2009.

The human race is on a moon base named Eden on the far side of the moon. It seems their was a disaster with an orbiting space station that destroyed the ecology of the Earth, and made it uninhabitable. Mankind had set up the moon base to colonize mars, but they gave up on it, and set up a system of total government control of all citizens, where people are punished for not doing what they say. This is the story of the teenager Takeru (Namikawa Daisuke) who wears an old Apollo jacket, and with his 2 friends he is modifying a cycle to race in the tunnels. Takeru’s 2 closest friends are the outgoing Kazuma (Shotaro Morikubo) who has a younger sister that Takeru likes named Chiyo, and the introverted Bisu (Yamaguchi Kappei).

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

Takeru has a rival named Tairu who has a whole gang of racers with him, and Takeru dreams of beating him in the races, though his vehicle isn’t quite up to it, and they end up getting caught by the authorities and have to do “volunteer” work on the surface. On one of his stints on the surface, Takeru sees soemthing crash into the moon, and finds a photo of a young beautiful girl in a place that looks like Earth. He then tries to find where the photo was taken, but can’t find the girl, but Bisu takes Takeru to see Aran, and old man wears an Apollo jacket much like Takeru’s, and knows about the Apollo missions. Takeru and his friends want to go to the other side of the moon, and take a look, but the authorities won’t let them, so they borrow Aran’s moon vehicle and space suits to take the trip around the moon, and they not only find more messages from Earth, but they find see the Earth, which is not red and destroyed, but green and blue and beautiful, but just then the authorities show up to arrest Takeru and Kazuma, but they run for it in Aran’s moon vehicle.

••••••

I like the story quite a bit, and love the artwork, but the animation is a bit strange. The Cell shading doesn’t quite work. I still want to see the rest of this series, but at these prices is more of a rental instead of a purchase (even though it is on HD DVD). Worth a rental for sure.

Nono ends up bending space and returning to Saturn, as Buster 7, and she seems to be the most powerful buster. The Twin brings the Alien Topless to life, and it is destroying many busters, and a good portion of the planet, as well as the space aliens, but then turns on the twins and kills them, and only Nono saves the day.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

We then get Nono’s back story, she was found in a comet 5 years before, talking about the Nono from the previous series, so she was named that, and it turns out that she was the controller for the earth defense system. After Earth ran into true space aliens, they closed off the Earth system and set up a defence system to stop the space aliens, but they turned on earth because they discovered the Topless were more like the space aliens. And Nono can control them. Meanwhile the Topless have been relegated to second place, and had their heads locked in special gear. The space fleet heads out with Nono, and Lal’C in tow. They go to deal with the space Aliens, and Nono lets them through, and they see a huge actual space alien, encased in a black hole, and the humans shot ends up releasing it. The Alien then attacks and almost destroys the fleet, and Lal’C only survives with Nono’s help, and then she uses the remains of Jupiter to try and smash the alien, though it does not destroy it. Nono then takes the space aliens, and the red shield encompassing the milky way, and forms a robot and disappears.

Lal’C then becomes the only hope of Earth, so she plans to take the Earth and throw it into the Alien, leaving Mankind on the moon, but Nono shows up and stops the Earth, and helps to fight and destroy the Alien, saving mankind, and Lal’C, who has lost her powers, but managed to use her Buster anyway to work with Nono.

We then cut to the future with Lal’C working with endangered birds on Earth as finally the original Nono from the first series returns to Earth, thanks to the work of the Android Nono who helped mankind survive.

•••••

An amazing ending to the series, and makes it fit in perfectly with the original series. Great animation and a good story, though without quite as much heavy science elements as the original.

In this we get more story development, Nono keeps working and trying to be a Topless pilot, which she can’t be, because she is an android. She works with Lal’C the Topless she idolizes, and seems to love her in her own way. Still Lal’C seems to push Nono away as much as she can. The hot and spunky Tycho who wants nothing more than to take number 1 from Lal’C comes into competition with Nono when she loses her buster machine, and must compete with Nono for the newest built Buster machine. Meanwhile Nicola, who all the girls like, is pushing Nono as a powerful possibility, but he is being pushed by the leaders of the Topless, 2 twins. The twins are over age (which means they should have lost their Topless powers), but they have a secret that is keeping their Topless Powers.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

An alien Buster is found on Saturn and being excavated from the bodies of the dead space monsters that have covered the gravity well. Nono gets in trouble for sneaking into the site, and ends up getting sent to Pluto by slow ship to try and bring to life an ancient Buster in ruins on the planet.

The Twins are setting up Nono, and when she gets to Pluto, half the space Aliens show up, and half go to Jupiter, but Nono stops the Aliens before the stop get to her.

•••••

The series is better than the first, but still hasn’t hit it’s potential, but then the original series did this as well.

The series starts off with 3 high school girls in a room in school, all incredibly cute, a dark haired girl is leaning in to kiss a red head, when a pony tailed blond walks in and sees it and drops all her books. We then move to the beginning of the story, following the young effeminate boy Hazumu (大佛はずむ,Osaragi Hazumu played by Ueda Kana) who enjoys taking care of flowers and plants more than anything else. On the advice of his friends, the aforementioned blond pigtailed tomboy Tomari (神泉やす菜,Kamiizumi Yasuna played byTamura Yukari), and his one guy friend, he asks out the girl he likes Yasuna (æ¥æ –ã¨ã¾ã‚Š,Kurusu Tomari played by Horie Yui). Yasuna is a flutist and is the black haired girl from the opening, and she turns Hazumi down. Distraut Hazumu heads out into the mountain near his house where, he first got close to Yasuna, when they found flowers together, but this won’t be a normal walk. In space is an alien spacecraft that is observing earth, but it has problems, and comes crashing down into the mountain, and into the spot where Hazumi stands. Hazumi is saved by them, but changed into a girl, and they reveal themselves to Earth, and let him go, and into the arms of Yasuna and Tomari.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

Hazumi must not learn to live as a girl, strangely his parents are overjoyed, as his mother always wanted a daughter, and that is probably why he is so effeminate, and his father is a letch and wants to bathe and take naked photos of his nubile young daughter.

Hazumu starts wearing a girls uniform and goes to school with his guy friend and Tomari, who though a total tom boy slowly shows him how to be a girl. Yasuna on the other hand ignores him, until he goes to her and tries to make friends again. And sparks start to fly when Hazumu again becomes close to Yasuna, and she confesses her love to him, and tries to kiss him, but is stopped by Tomari who is also wrestling with her feelings for Hazumu who she grew up with, and has always protected. The two girls begin to fight for Hazumu’s affection.

Meanwhile the Alien Captain has returned to Earth with the computer from the Aline spacecraft, which is in female form, in a body just like Hazumu’s, and they are observing the Earthlings and causing more mischief. Thanks to the Captain Hazumu realizes that Yasuna has some issue with men, from seeing her painting from the previous year and he(she) confronts her about it, and finds out that Yasuna stopped being able to distinguish men from when she was very little, even her father, until she met Hazumu, who was the first man she could ever see, and she fell for him, but she thought he would fade like her father did, so she would not return his love, and caused him to go the mountain, and now that he is a woman, she will never change, so she will always love her, and that is when she goes to kiss her again, just as Tomari enters, and the first volume ends.

•••

This actually keeps pretty close to the manga, except having Yasuna be more emphatic that she can only like women in the manga, much more of a lesbian element added quickly. Still this sticks pretty close, though the second volume does differ more than the second volume.

•••

Sure it is high melodrama, but I have gotten into these High School love stories thanks to Kare Kano which totally addicted to me, and so far this new series seems a worthy addition. I might even check out the manga. Well worth checking out if you go for these love stories.

This is the story of Nono (Yukari Fukai) a young girl from the Martian Countryside. She has big dreams, but she also has the amazing ability to break anything in half, which causes some major issues. Her dream though is to become a space pilot, and she runs away from home, and takes a job as a waitress at a bar next to the spaceport. Her dreams become a little closer to reality, when she is being bothered by some of the robot operators at the bar, and she is helped by Lal’C Melk Mark (Maaya Sakamoto), probably the top Topless pilot, one of those who defends humans from Space Monsters by flying Giant Robotic Buster Machines, using their own internal powers.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

Nono chases down Lal’C to tell her how much she likes her and wants to be one with her, and calls her onee-sama or big sister, and then ends up being around when a space monster attacks the Earth, which is why Lal’C is there. Nono wants to become a topless, but she is in fact not even human, but an android, and doesn’t really have a memory fo why she was created or that she is a robot, and she actually helps Lal’C defeat the space monster and goes to the space station where the Topless pilots are stationed.

At the station there is also Nicola Vacheron (Mitsuo Iwata) who seems to be Lal’C's boyfrined and another top pilot. And there is also Tycho Science (Miyuki Sawashiro) who doesn’t do much in these episodes,and there is the adult technician who helps them Casio Takashiro (Takumi Yamazaki).

An admiral comes and takes Lal’C into custody, mainly it seems because he is pissed off because he could not become a topless pilot, but when a space monster attacks, his fleet is almost destroyed, until Nicola comes out in the Buster Machine Vingt-Sept, and Lal’C calls out her buster Dix Neuf, not knowing that Nono is in it, and Nono does help her. In fact the Admirals ship is going to crash into Mars, but Nono convinces Lal’C to help it, and it is only with her strength that they manage to save the ship and keep it from burning up. And Nono is made a member of the team.

•••••

Enjoyable so far.

This takes place before and just after the ending of the New Generation of Robotech (based on the original series, GENESIS CLIMBER MOSPEADA) and right away we are introduced to the new character Marcus Rush (Yuri Lowenthal) who is the sister of Scott Bernard’s (Gregory Snegoff) dead girlfriend Marlene (Melanie MacQueen). Marcus is an alpha pilot, and he wants to join the legendary Skull Squadron led by Maia Sterling (Edie Mirman) who he is interested in. The fleet is waiting for the arrival of Admiral Hunter (Tony Oliver) in the SDF-3 with the Protoculture Matrix which will power the ships. Ariel (Kari Whalgren) is Scott Bernard’s invid girlfriend and she talks to the Invid Regess (Alexandra Kenworthy) and the Regess ends up leaving earth with all the Protoculture, and warns that the Shadow Masters on the way. So Ariel teleports to Scott with the fleet.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

Vince Grant (Rochard Epcar) takes his ship with his engineer Louis Nichols (Edddie Frierson) to find the SDF-3 and they find the SD3 in dire straights, but the Admiral sends them back to warn the fleet about the new alien threat, and the fact that the new missiles and Shadow Technology that they got from an alien race are in fact the problem.

The human’s end up going to Moon base, and getting a colony ship which does not have shadow or missile technology, and they get Alphas that are faster but without the Shadow Technology and they face off with the new Aliens, and head off to find the SDF 3 and the last protoculture in the galaxy.

••••

Really not very good. This could have been so much better, and is obviously just the start of a series. This could have been so much more, and should have been much more epic. I don’t see why they added these new aliens, or why they changed the look of everything and everyone. I would have much rather had the characters look the same, and done a better story, or a longer movie that got more into the story, instead of this which seems like a pilot to a series, but is not impressive enough to think they will be completing the series.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

This starts off with an adventure of Edward (park Romi) and Alphonse (Kugiyama Rie)during the original series where they go up against a man who developed a neutron bomb, and they had to stop him, but it turns out to be a story Ed is telling, 2 years after the end of the series, to Alphonse Heiderich (Oguri Shun) the double of his brother, as they both live in Germany and work on Rocketry.

Back in Ed’s world his brother Alphonse Elric is alive and well and no longer armor, though he has no memory of his whole journey with Ed, but he now dresses like his brother and is obsessed with getting his brother back, and has become a skilled Alchemist with the ability to easily transfer part of his soul into armor.

Ed become involved with his worlds double of Rose, who is a Gypsy named Noah (Sawai Miyuu) who has the power to read about people and can tell Ed also does not have a home. He takes her in to stop the men who are chasing her and want her, and it turns out they are also the men who start funding Alphonse’s rocketry work. These people are working with the Nazi’s who are planning a revolution to make Germany strong and kick out everyone except the Germans. These people are led by Dietlinde Eckart who is searching for a giant snake, that turns out to be Envy, Ed’s half brother and she is planning on using Envy and a alchemic circle to open a doorway to Shamballa and use it’s weapons to make the Nazi’s strong and defeat their enemies. Ed falls in with the double of the Fuhrer who in the real world is the Jewish Filmmaker Fritz Lang who helps Edward because he loves Germany, but is scared of this new movement that will make him leave the country.

Back in Ed’s world Eckart manages to send some soldiers in Armor through the portal though they die and become zombies attacking people and forcing many soldiers back into service like Armstrong, though the Colonel has seemed to have permanently retired. Ed draws a circle and because his own blood is used it opens and brings the dead soldiers back, so Eckart realizes Ed may be important and makes a deal with Noah to get his information so she touches him while he sleeps because she wants to go to Ed’s world.

Alphonese goes with Wrath to try and open the portal to Ed, and because Glutony attacks he uses their bodies to make the circle and it links with Eckarts to make a permanent portal. And Eckart sends her fleet of rockets into the world, but not before the real world Alphonse who is dieing sends Ed back home. Ed finds Winry who give shim a new automail arm and leg and the Colonel returns and with Alphonse they go to battle Eckart and win and send her home, but Ed decides to go with her because he must close the portal on the real world side, and the Colonel will close it in their world, but Alphonse comes with him, so they are both stuck in the real world. Eckart is killed and the Nazi movement seemed to have failed, and Adolf Hitler is arrested (just as what happened in the real world). And Ed and Al set out to find the Nuclear bomb that Eckart got from Ed’s world, and they can be with Noah, not only that but when Alphonse left their world he got his memories of their journey together back, so the Brothers are united again.

••••

Such an amazing film, and a great ending, though sad that Ed is still away from Winry and Rose who both love him. And Ed is becoming a real man with big responsibilities who will do anything to make the world a better place.

The animation is top rate, and this is a great film, I just wish I had seen it in the theater.

It contains a Japanese documentary talking about the making and the whole process. Interesting and informative.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

This is the story of the cute and blond 16 year old Rosette ( Kawakami Tomoko / Haag Hilary) who has partnered with the demon Chrono (Ishida Akira / Greg Ayres), making a pact, where for him to use his demonic powers she must give up part of her life via a special watch she wears around her neck. The time is the 1920′s and Rosette is a novice in the Religious Magdelane order who battle demons. She has a firm sense of justice, and fights as hard as she can often causing more trouble and damage than the demons she is fighting. They are watched over by Father Remington (Hayami Show / Jason Douglas) who has a secret of his own, being much like an angel, and they are supervised by Sister Kate Valentine (Sakakibara Yoshiko / Laura Chapman).

In their misadventures they rescue the young Azmaria Henrick (Chiba Saeko / Jessica Boone) who turns out to be one of 7 ordained by god with special powers, and her voice has the power to heal, but she loses her power’s and ends up tagging along with Rosette and Chrono on their adventures. They also run intoa Crystal controller named Satella (Neya Michiko / Tiffany Grant) who is rich and ends up becoming friends with them, though she hates demons as she wants to take revenge for her dead family and older sister.

Rosette is searching for her Joshua (Minagawa Junko / Chris Patton) who has fallen under the spell of Aion (Andy McAvin) who Chrono rebelled with, but eventually broke free from over a woman whom Rosette is the spiritual decendent of, even getting the scars on her body from God like her, and having her life taken away by Chrono.

This becomes very dark as we learn that Rosette is the one Aion is after, and she is turned to his side, and loses her mind until Chrono saves her, but at the cost of most of her life, and the 2 disapear together to have a happy 6 months together before they both die, and the world turns into darkness, the prophecies coming true of the Second World War and eventually the Assisination attempt on the pope, and we see Father Remington in the 1980′s seeing Aion again as it seem she was not defeated for good.

A good series, starting out silly but ending quite dark. Well done with like-able characters.