Aria the Scarlet Ammo

Genre: Drama
Age Appropriate: Pre-teen
Emotional Response: um, okay
Notable Features: guns, historical characters, spy agents
Language: English/Japanese
Length: 12 episodes
Overall Recommendation: Good

"I'll pump you full of holes!" - Aria

Aria the Scarlet Ammo refers to a high school student named Aria. She appears when the main male protagonist is stuck in a Speed-like situation on a motorbike and saves him from segway-riding machine guns. Kinji, the young man in question, is a high school student at Butei High School - a high school for training special agents in weapons/strategy/hacking along side traditional education. He actually want to transfer out of the school, but through his interactions in the series never meets this goal. Part of his life includes his childhood friend, Shirayuki, who is in love with him and dotes on him in a way that annoys him. Still, he puts up with it - especially when she brings him food. After Aria saves the day, she decides that Kinji will be her slave (read: partner), and badgers him into working with her on  one case, which turns into the whole series. As part of the comedic side, she has frequent arguments (with weapons) with Shirayuki about their relationships with Kinji.

Aria's goal is to save her mother from her consecutive life sentences, given to her as a result of being set up by IU, a mysterious organization. This revelation brings in new characters to defeat as part of their end goal. These characters are also distantly related to historical figures. Through the process of learning their ancestral motivations, it is revealed that Aria is actually Aria Holmes Kanzaki. The Holmes is a nod to Sherlock Holmes! While it appears that Kinji doesn't have such a famous ancestor, this story does involve his brother, and his brother's death as a Butei.

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Aria the Scarlet Ammo is generally pretty good. I like some of the story line, and chuckled at some of the comedy. I don't think it was a waste of my time or anything. The addition of the historical ancestries wasn't necessary though. You'd really have to understand something about those figures (for the villains at least) to actually care about why it's been added, and even then the information doesn't seem to have any bearing on the situation at hand. It's nice that VillainB is a descendant of HistoricalA, but who cares? I thought I would like it more, but it was just "good."

I might have liked it had it been longer than 12 episodes. It could've used the time for a little more character development. It might be good if they end up doing a second season, although I haven't read anything about that being a possibility. It seems to be fairly new, though. Aside from some embarrassing moments (blushed included) there isn't anything inappropriate. There didn't even seem to be any innuendo type jokes, which wouldn't have worked anyway. However, the last episode was a little dark at one point. I did actually enjoy some of the weapons work, though! I also enjoyed Kinji in his special agent-type hysteria mode. It was funny. So, yeah, it was good. It's not at the top of my list, but I wouldn't stop anyone from watching it.

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Move Over!: Ozuma

Dance in the Vampire Bund (Halloween 5)

Genre: Drama
Age Appropriate: Teen
Emotional Response: Confused, Irritated
Notable Features: vampires, high school, werewolves
Language: English
Length: 1 season, 12 episodes
Overall Recommendation: Not so much

The series opens with a news broadcast, followed by a reality-type TV show based on a Fact or Fiction premise. The topic is whether the existence of vampires is true or false. In the end, the show has been used as a ruse to smoke out a rogue vampire and the truth about vampires is revealed. At the same time, Vampire Princess Mina Tepes comes on the scene to introduce the world to the reality of vampires and make known her plan to use a landfill as her new "vampire bund." This place is supposed to be a stronghold/home for vampires in the country, and the new ruling seat for Mina.

Akira is a 17-year-old high school student who lost his memories a year before. He's somewhat apathetic about life, generally happy with things the way they are. He has a good friend, Yuki, who seems to have more memories and more feelings toward him. After an episode or two, it's obvious that Yuki is the opening narrator. She uses storytelling to equate the series storyline with a fairytale.

Mina recognizes Akira from the TV broadcast and it's revealed that Mina is somehow part of Akira's missing memories. Akira is actually a sworn protector of the princess, both by family obligation and a promise he made to her when he was a child. Mina has the appearance of a young girl, and is frequently underestimated because of it. She manipulates things behind the scenes (in order to get her way with the special dispensation for the bund) but seems childlike and carefree when it comes to her interactions with Akira. The story becomes more and more complicated between the two as things progress, adding in a behind-the-scenes enemy near the end.

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Shockingly, for a vampire fan, I didn't actually like this anime much. It was very hard for me to sit through the whole thing. I was pretty into the beginning of the series, maybe about halfway, and then the story just started to annoy me. It's not that it was particularly poorly done, but more that I had no emotional connection with the characters, except to pity Akira and want to punch Mira and her devious bratty ways. The whole relationship is kind of creepy actually. It's hard to reconcile Mira's actual age with her appearance, but some of the creepiness implied at the beginning is actually on Mina's part. Ha. Well, there is some other creepycreep, but you have to get to the second part. It also seems that they throw in random characters that probably could've had some more development (and thus add something more to the story) but they fail to use them in any productive way.

I suppose I shouldn't be so negative. There are some poignant moments. The last part of the last episode is good. It seems like the season should've ended with episode 7, which might have been better. Episodes 8-12 are more of a separate season or storyline - new bad guy too! - probably because the focus is taken almost entirely off the difficult relationship between Akira and Mina. Moving away from the relationship storyline is fine, but it all seems somewhat disjointed as a result. The budding relationship between Mina and Yuki is kind of cute, though. With the removal of some of the angst relationship issues, though, Mina is better represented as a tragic hero/leader type (rather than a snotty, overindulgent, evil, manipulating, creepy, biatch - yes, I said biatch). Ok. The Dance with the Vampire Maids endings are pretty amusing.

I guess, I wouldn't really recommend it to anyone, but I wouldn't stop someone from seeing it either.

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Let's Try This: Demon King Daimo