Negima!?: Master Negi Magi

Genre: Comedy/Romance
Age Appropriate: Pre-teens/Teens
Emotional Response: Awww. How cute! Go get 'em, team!
Notable Features: cute girls, mages, vampire, 10 year old teacher
Language: English
Length: 2 seasons, 26 episodes
Overall Recommendation: Pretty Good :)

"...in a good way." - Matsu

Negi Springfield is an apprentice wizard sent to Mahora Academy to teach a class full of pre-teen girls (31, actually). He is working on his magic apprenticeship with the goal of finding his father, The Thousand Master! The twist? Negi Springfield is 10 years old. However, he IS a wizard. There is a prohibition on him showing his magic at school, but the series basically follows how much he doesn't succeed at this. In order to avoid the wrath of the Academy of Magic, Negi goes into "probationary contracts" with the students who discover that he's a wizard. Each contract comes with "Pactio cards," which determine the form that each girl will take when called upon. The drama twists more because the only way for the girls to enter into a probationary contract is by kissing Negi! It helps that most of his class think he's adorable.

The Academy of Magic keeps their eye on him with the help of two funny looking characters: Shichimi and Motsu. While they look like a cartoon cat and a badly drawn frog, they're surprisingly adept at popping up at just the wrong moment for Negi. As Negi doesn't willy-nilly show off his magic, his magic failures only really happen in emergency situations while fighting/saving girls from whatever villian is around. This leads to the unending line of girls that end up on Team Negi - who masquerade as the Chupa(cabra) Club.

The villains range from a vampire stuck on the island to and evil fairy who takes over minds. There is a desperate search for the pieces of a magical crystal, a mysterious baron and a shady professor friend who is obsessed with ramen. There is even a ferret-looking "fairy" companion with a dirty mind.
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First, two words: HARRY POTTER

Moving on:
I actually re-watched this one to write the review. That wasn't the best idea. There are some things you can watch over and over again and enjoy and some that just feel redundant. That aside, I really do like Negima!? It's sweet and innocent - certainly more innocent that Ouran High School Host Club! A lot of this series involved head-smacking situations and comments by the girls - who show a great range of stupidity to keen intelligence and compassion. If you can think of a "typical" stereotype tween - geek to popular girl - they are likely represented...in a good way. Seriously. There are so many little things for each girl that are entirely amusing that I can't actually write them all down and have this end up being a pointless review.

It starts a little slow. Usually, I'm wishing for more episodes, but this one is a little too drawn out. Or, maybe, this is just one not meant for immediate consumption. There is a certain amount of light dirty humor, but a lot of it would probably fly over a younger person's head - frequently either the overly dramatic narrator or the dirty little ermine. Key Note: The are hilarious references to pop culture that should be watched for (e.g. Rocky Horror Picture Show), if you can find them. The music is fun, though. The opening theme starts out sounding like an old school video game. I would say this is a great follow up to a serious drama anime. The best though? The writing on the wall. Literally. There is writing on walls, chalk boards, signs, floating in the air...etc, and it's always hilarious and bizarre. I enjoy watching Negima!? just for that! It's all just a bunch of cute. Not my favorite anime ever, but a nice diversion nonetheless.

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And now....: Neo Angelique Abyss

*SPECIAL NOTE: In an effort to be less crazy, I'm going to be more consistent. Reality being that I really can't watch that much anime at once with limited overlap. SO, I'll only be posting reviews Monday and Thursdays. 

Ouran High School Host Club

Genre: Comedy/Romance
Age Appropriate: Teens
Emotional Response: *giggles*
Notable Features: cute boys, cross-dressing, young love
Language: English
Length: 2 seasons, 26 episodes
Overall Recommendation: YAY!

"The Ouran High School Host Club is a place where the school's handomest boys, with too much time on their hands, entertain young ladies, who also have too much time on their hands." - Tamaki-senpai

Ouran High School Host Club features Haruhi Fujioka, a freshman entering Ouran Academy on scholarship (therefore a "commoner"). Haruhi, confused by this new world of rich kids, runs away to Music Room #3, in an effort to find somewhere quiet to study, and discovers the Ouran High School Host Club. The club members are completely confused by Haruhi's presence and somehow in their inquiry Haruhi accidentally break a Y8,000,000 vase! As such, Kyoya Otori - the clubs VP and money man - calculates Haruhi's debt and offers a job as the Host Club's "dog" (read: gopher), until the debt is paid. The "dog" however cannot be seen in the shorts and baggy sweatshirt that Haruhi is wearing and upon removing Haruhi's glasses, Tamaki - the President - falls madly in love with Haruhi's eyes. The Twins - Kaoru and Hikaru are immediately set to the task fo make-over and Haruhi comes out SO adorable tha the club insists that he be made into a host instead...BUT WAIT! During a costume change something strange happens! While changing into a new uniform, Haruhi gets walked in on and OH MY! He's a She!

And so begin the shenanigans of the Ouran High School Host Club....

The series features different sterotypical character types which the boys play off of when they are meeting with their lovely female clients. They are, as follows: Tamaki Soua (The Princely Type), Kyoya Otori (The Cool Type), Mitskune Honenozuka (Boy Lolita), Takashi Morinozuka (The Strong, Silent Type), The Twins - Kauro and Hikaru Hitachiin (Mischevious Type), and Haruhi Fujioka (The Natural). They all have their parts to play in the club and each character gets specific attention, primarily as related to Haruhi. The supporting cast (Renge- the manager and resident Otaku girl, Ranka - Haruhi's Dad, The Lobelia Girls - from a nearby academy) add a little extra fun to each episode. It is Tamaki's goal of making every girl happy that leads them into many early adventures, and expands as the boys progress through high school.

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*Swoon* Oh, the boys of the Ouran High School Host Club. I think I have a girl-crush on half of them - none more so than Mori-senpai. Go figure. They all have their own appeal to any girl. Honey-senpai IS adorable, in a snuggly little brother kind of way. Otori-senpai is super cool and manipulative - great for girls who enjoy guys with a cool aptitude for being in powerful, behind the scenes roles. Mori-senpai, a brooding silent type who is the constant companion to Honey-senpai, and actually has the most inconveniently distracting poses. The Hitachiin Twins are cute and mischevios, like 5 year olds who've realized that they can have more fun as young adults, but they play up their taboo homosexual tendencies to a T, and therefore feel less accessible as girl-crush material for me. Tamaki, while pretty, actually is kind of a moron. Haruhi is a cute, young lady who somehow gains the respect/heart of each club member. This group of hilarity really opens up some warm-hearted joy and giggles.

Like most anime comedy series, OHHC begins as something funny, with no pressure to have a deep meaning. It was a mix of making me laugh and making me giggle like a 13 year old. I adore this anime. It was a great break from the previous entries which were really serious, and somewhat horrifying. Bit by bit, the story edges toward coming-of-age and teen drama, but it never loses it's innocence. Even in the end, there is no major, stressful emotions invokes, and it works. The purpose of the Teen rating is actually for some of the homosexuality references that may be more appropriate for teens. I hesitate to write more, because I'll start giving things away. SO! I recommend this whole-heartedly to any girl (or guy!) looking for something fun, stress-free and giggly. Super Highly Recommended. I've even considered it for Top 5, but we'll see.

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Next!: Negima!?: Master Negi Magi

Elfen Lied

Genre: Action/Drama
Age Appropriate: Older teens+/Adults
Emotional Response: Wow, look at all that blood.
Notable Features: Blood, psychic killer, clueless teens
Language: English
Length: 1 season, 12 epoisodes
Overall Recommendation: WTF

"Nyu?" - Nyu/Lucy

Elfen Lied opens with a mysterious woman in a serial killer/Silence of the Lambs situation. She's naked with a creepy helmet, somehow supposedly protection for others. When guards enter, as she telepathically begins bending the bars on her prison, she begins telepathically ripping them apart. Blood everywhere, bones visibile, head popping off and hearst exploding out of chests is pretty common as she makes her escape out whatever facility she's been held in. Guards attempt to stop her, and fail miserable (hence the telepathic dismemberment) and she gets out of the prison with a little mysterious help with last door. At some point she removes her helmet and we see a young woman with pink hair, and pink, discerning eyes. As she leaves she's shot in the head by a sniper, but apparently misses the vital shot, and she jumps into the sea.

Next, we see Kohta and Yuka - young college Freshman - meeting up at a station and walking together to what will be Kohta's house, a former traditional Japanese restaurant owned by Yuka's family. This ends up being the home-base of sorts for the easier storylines. When Yuka and Kohta visit the beach they happen upon a mysterious girl, who says nothing but "Nyu," and bright eyes, and pink hair. The take pity on her situation and bring her home. At this point, we realize she's the deadly girl from the beginning and drama ensues, and it seems that she's lost her memory.

There is a mad scientist or two, a mercenary/military bad guy, a young homeless girl, another young girl like "Nyu" (a "diclonius") and an adorable dog!  Between certain characters' bizarre memory loss, a strange romantic obsession between the mains and breaking through brainwashing with the girls, this series has a lot of complicated situations, if not a complicated storyline.
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First off, let me say that while there are some nude girl scenes, they are in general not in any sexual nature - usually during a bad situation or a comedic situation. My primary focus on the Older Teen/Adult rating was the high level of outrageously bloody, disturbing violence and dismemberment in scenes where Nyu becomes her other self. I, personally, prefer implied beheadings than looking at a head psychically popped off and floating around with bright red blood pouring out of the bottom. Maybe that's just me?

At some points I felt that the story was going kind of slow, and with the two storylines taking so long to converge, it seems somewhat disjointed. While I certainly see the appeal to some audiences, this series was not for me. Unlike HOTD, this didn't pull me in at the end, making me see the anime series light, as it were. The ridiculous grotesque bodies really give it the WTF rating, but it is a whole different type of messed up from Rin. I personally wouldn't recommend it to mini-geek girls like me, and definitely don't recommend it for anytime after the sun goes down. In the end, the best part of the series (and it is a seriously awesome part) is the opening theme "Lilium."
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Next time on....: Ouran High School Host Club

High School of the Dead

Genre: Action/Drama
Age Appropriate: Older teens+
Emotional Response: gross, sadness, anticipation, GO TEAM
Notable Features: ZOMBIES
Language: English
Length: 1 season, 12 episodes
Overall Recommendation: Not bad

"I like turtles" - Hirano

High School of the Dead is essentially what it sounds like. It's an anime series about a group of high school students battling the living dead, aka ZOMBIES. You can't have a review of anime series without zombies, right? The zombies are traditional, stumbling, bumbling, mindless creatures who only respond to sounds. The infection/disease is spread through bites. The transition doesn't take very long, actually. The only difference between this anime series and a typical zombie movies is live action vs. animation.

There is a set of main characters that meet up in the first few episodes; primarily focused on Rei and Takashi - a set of friends with an unbalanced romance. Each group member has a specific role to play: geek weapons guy, kendo captain, school doctor...etc. They attempt to make their way to safety outside the high school while picking up stray survivors along the way. The main focus of their travels is to reach each other's families in the hopes that their parents are still alive, and throughout their journey they ride on motorbikes, drive an SUV, jump fences, and have multiple group battles agains the evil dead forces.

I'm shocked, really, at how much I ended up liking this series. I admit my primary decision to watch it was because I realized that I've pretty much liked everything I've reviewed and wanted to give myself a chance to delve into something I wasn't sure about. Oops. I'm still not a huge fan of zombie movies, but if I had to, this would work for me. Perhaps it's just live action zombies I don't enjoy.

The characters are actually pretty intense, and when they're not brooding and yelling, they're doing ridiculously inappropriate things. Sometimes the timing felt a little off for shenanigans but they were definitely necessary to make it through. There are quite a few T&A shots, in true anime fashion. Good anime for typical guys actually.

While I felt that it started a little slow and depressing, by the end I was shouting encouraging things at the characters - because, you know, that helps. Some of those fight scenes were pretty cool. Given the zombie battlegrounds, there was plenty of grossness, but not as much as you might expect. I've definitely seen worse. I think my "Older Teens" rating is much more for lewdness than violence. Recommended for zombie fanboys and girls with zombie fanboy boyfriends - or zombie fangirls.

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Next for Mini-Geek Girl: Elfen Lied

La storia della Arcana Famiglia

Genre: Action/Drama
Age Appropriate: Pre-teens+
Emotional Response: a little fun, a little sad, a little GIRL POWER
Notable Features: Family, Mafia, magic powers
Language: Japanese - Eng Sub
Length: 1 season, 12 episodes
Overall Recommendation: Not bad

La storia della Arcana Famiglia follows a young woman names Felicita, the daughter of Papa Mondo (the family head/"father") in a coming of age story loosely based on stereotypical mafia depictions. The "arcana" comes in with each major character having a specific magic power that comes with a contract agreed upon with an arcana card (from tarot). For example, Felicita's power is discovered to be The Lovers, which grants her the ability to see into other people's hearts.

The story begins with Papa speaking to the famiglia on his birthday, annoucing a family-wide battle for the right to be the next Papa, any wish granted, and Felicita's hand in marriage. This causes a great disturbance as the other men in the family now have to battle it out in a Duella Arcana, but also have various reactions to the idea of marrying Fel. The twist in this basic plot? Felicita, as an arcana holder herself, also gets to battle it out with everyone - securing her own future. With the agreement of her young friends, Nova and Liberta, they will fight to win and either of the boys will agree to make their wish freeing Felicita from marriage.

As Fel and her mother, Sumire, are the only females in the cast, the extensive cast features males of all types - each with their own abilities. The storyline focuses some part on the early lives of each character to some degree - all of which lead to their reasons for wanting to win.
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La storia della Arcana Famiglia is actually a pretty good coming of age story for a teen girl  - thus making it actually a relatively appropriate story for a pre-teen. The guys hit on each typical type a girl might be interested in, too! There really isn't any "eye candy" per se, as there are no inappropriate shots, but the attitudes say it all. For the most part though, I found that I was rooting for Fel to kick butt with girl power, and what was left was rooting for Liberta and Nova, knowing that they were planning to help a girl out. Still, even my own emotions were conflicted between the two boys. At no point did I find myself wanting her to end up with any of the other characters, but as it was supposed to be that way, I guess it's ok.

It's a pretty fun anime in general, but I really had no strong feelings about the story or the characters. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it wasn't compelling enough for me to shout out to the internet "WATCH THIS NAO!" For that it got a "Not bad" review. Because it really is "not bad," but I don't think I'll feel the need to watch it a second time. If I went with my typical movie reviews, I would say it was worth a matinee. For anime, I'm happy to watch it for free, but I won't be buying it.

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Next Time: High School of the Dead

Tears to Tiara

Genre: Action/Comedy
Age Appropriate: Pre-teens+

Emotional Response: laughter, fun, excitement

Notable Features: Magic, epic battles, King Arthur, dragons!

Language: English
Length: 2 parts, 26 episodes total
Overall Recommendation: Top 5

"Whack, whack! They defeat the enemy!"

Tears to Tiara is an epic-type anime including Arthur, elves, magic and one Demon King to boot. It's actually quite an extensive cast. It's a story of the Gael clan (Irish) versus the "Diving Empire"(Roman), and the Gael clan's opposition to the Empire's occupancy.

The story begins when Arthur's sister, Riannon, is kidnapped by an Empire toady as a sacrifice to awaken the Demon King - with the expectation that the Demon King will help the little peon take over the world (of course). To force her cooperation, he uses small children to force Riannon to give up her "true name," thus granting power over her. True names are important later too. So, Arthur returns to their village, meets up with his clansmen and harries off to save Riannon from her terrible fate. As fate would have it, the Demon King awakens! A true turn of events appears when we discover that he's a pretty cool guy, with no interest in taking over the world with the jerk who stole Riannon. So, Arawn - The Demon King! - saves Riannon by waking her up in her magical dream state, kills the evil doer and then must face her brother Arthur. To save Arawn from having to fight Arthur - or save Arthur from hurting Lord Arawn - Riannon gives Arawn her red scarf. It is a symbol of clan leadership, essentially marrying Riannon to Lord Arawn and making him clan cheiftain. There is much bickering between the two until Arawn points out the problem of evil dead creatures coming after them. In their fleeing they hook up with Saint Ogham (mage) and fight their way out....it just gets more complicated from there.

The cast builds then to the elves, the emperials, another clan, some spare dragons, a necromancer, white spirits and a terrible foe. Also included: epic LOTR battles. Well, mini LOTR battles on the island of Albion (England), at the castle of Avalon.

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This is totally in my Top 5! It was a great follow up to the messed up-edness of Rin. It's funny, and exciting, and a little sad. I even loved the soundtrack - which is rare as I don't usually notice one. It's that kind of music that's heartening during a fancy speech or the end of the battle and haunting during sad parts and the beginning of battle.

I love the relationships between the characters. The whole brotherhood, warrior comraderie (not strictly for boys!) and family strength is awesome. If you look deep enough, and feel like seeing it, there's a little romance between Morgan and Octavia, maybe. Otherwise, not much blantant romance going on. It really does hit on a number of traditional characters needed for a good epic story. Serious when it needed to be, but fun when it didn't. It was one of those anime series that was really easy to get sucked into. I'm not sure if was the was terrible accents (haha) or the fact that it was in English, but my husband couldn't keep away from watching/listening. So, yeah. Highly recommended for the whole family. I only added a Pre-Teen rating because it can get a little bloody, but I think that the violence is softened with it being animated. So, if you need something light hearted (especially if you've been following along and just watched Rin ::shudder::), watch this. Srsly.

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Next Up: La storia della Arcana Famiglia

Rin: Daughters of Mnemosyne

Genre: Drama/Action
Age Appropriate: ADULT
Emotional Response: Confusion, intrigue, car-wreck fascination
Notable Features: Immortals, evil angel creatures, disturbing
Language: English
Length: 1 season, 6 episodes (45min)
Overall Recommendation: WTF?

"Vodka is water in Russian, you know." - Mimi

Rin: The Daughters of Mnemosyne follows a woman named Rin, who is immortal due to altering by a "time fruit." This makes her immortal (females only), and leaves her vulnerable to the evil angels (male only; only called angels because of their winged appearance). Rin Asougi works as a private detective with her handy assistant, Mimi - also an immortal, and their new friend Koki. Each episode is shown at a different time - mostly exemplified in Koki's aging. Rin and Mimi seem to have a different kind of relationship as well.

The immortality/angelhood is the result of having a time fruit from the tree Yygdrasil. Apos, the seemingly evil primary antagonist is a sadistic other being who eats the tree fruits by stealing them from women and angels. There is a significant amount of adult-age material involved with Apos and his minions. For most of the series the Apos' endgame is a mystery, but in the end all is revealed. As it's a short series with only 6 episodes, I'll refrain from giving any more details.

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Rin: The Daughters of Mnemosyne is probably the most messed up anime I've seen. EVER.
I've seen a lot of bloody anime, and a lot of psychologically horrific anime. The mix of good and evil, grotesque blood and torture, and screwed up sexuality really bring together a confusion unparalleled by any other anime I can recall to date. The content is probably something I would only see in anime form. While the series isn't about sexuality issues, they are certainly present. I could see this running late night Showtime style, but maybe under a Horror setting.

It's actually really well done. I'd seen it before, but not in awhile. Somehow, it's more disturbing having seen it once already. I'm not sure how that works. The ending was a little meh, but if this type of show might be within your genre preferences, and you don't have a particularly weak stomach, I might recommend it. It's definitely psychologically taxing, but so was SAW and Titus. Just don't mistake it for something else in the beginning. I gave it a WTF? rating simply because I thought it a good warning for people only interested in easier to normal life anime series. *THIS IS NOT FOR CHILDREN*

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Next Time:  Tears to Tiara