Change Your Image
senseihEnRY
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Lists
An error has ocurred. Please try againReviews
Haibane Renmei (2002)
The Most Beautiful Anime Ever
Haibane Renmei is an anime series based on Yoshitoshi ABe's (Serial Experiment Lain) doujin with the same name. Haibane Renmei tell us a story about a girl that wake up from a dream as an angle-like creature. She doesn't have any memories from her past so she need to accept that now, she's part of the Haibanes (Grey Wings) humans with grey wings and halo.
At first you might think this as a light hearted anime as the main character, Rakka (a name given to her) try to settle in the new town where she live now. Guided by the other Haibane and the Haibane Renmei (Haibane Federation), Rakka try to live her new identity as good as possible. But then the direction of the series begin to change. Haibane Renmei change from a simple slice of life anime to a complex psychological drama that questions one's value and purpose. Themes like sin, despair, sacrifice, death, and even suicide are illustrated beautifully either explicit or implicit in the story. Every characters are built with depth and it's hard not too love them. It took quite a thinking to explore the hidden message or the meaning for every symbol in the story but it sure is one of the best story in anime history.
Unfortunately, the animation of this anime is not the best. Inconsistent character design, lack of detail, and lazy animation are the main issues of this anime. From 13 episodes of this anime, maybe only half of them that have really good animation. But i love the atmosphere of the world of Haibane Renmei, although the world is peaceful and full with kind people, there are mystery and gritty darkness hidden in every corner.
The music by Ko Otani is amazing. Mostly, Haibane Renmei's scores are sad and depressing, but it's beautiful and it really fit with the tone of the story. The voice actress are amazing, Ryo Hirohashi as Rakka and Junko Noda as Reki are extremely good at bringing their characters to live.
Haibane Renmei may have a slow pace and the story might not fit for everyone but if you can capture the beauty inside, there is no doubt that this is the most beautiful anime ever.
The Avengers (2012)
Pretty Cool Superheroes Movie for Marvel Standard
Marvel's The Avengers is a movie like nothing else, it's a movie that play a role as the finale from 5 different movies: Iron Man (2008), The Incredible Hulk (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010), Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), and Thor (2011). It's a movie where you can see some of the finest, and most popular superheroes of American comic packed together in action-heavy sequences for more than 2 hours.
But, just like the other Marvel Studio's movies, The Avengers is simply a sci-fi action that purpose only to entertain the watchers with its flashy special effect and outrageous action.
Joss Whedon (Buffy The Vampire Slayer) did a good job directing this movie, every superhero get the same amount of role and enough background story (although it might not necessary since 4 of 'em have their own movie) so no one feel left behind. The story is pretty standard with Thor brother, Loki try to rule the earth by borrowing Chitauri's Army which he'll bring to earth using the power of Tesseract, hidden in earth. The Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. Nick Fury decide to run the Avengers Initiative to collect the earth's mightiest soldiers including Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, and Black Widow to fight against the global threat. Of course, Thor join the force later because, you know, he have responsibility for his naughty little brother.
Most of the movie contain heavy action sequences but one thing that i really like is the filmmaker try to show us that collecting these superheroes and force them to fight together is not always gonna work right. They are, however, just humans with their own personality and ego. The problem is, when they finally settle their problems, nothing more interesting happens in the movie. I like action movie but maybe because there's too many superheroes movie out there and every one of 'em always using heavy special effects (to destroy a major city of USA), the action become bland and sometimes boring. There's no jaw-dropping moments, no tense, no thrill, it's just the same 'America getting' attack by the alien again' movie.
Robert Downy Jr. of course steal most of the attention here (he's the freakin' Tony Stark!). Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner also act remarkably. The rest of the cast is pretty standard, yep, including the badass Academy Awward winner, Samuel L. Jackson. Tom Hiddleton as Loki is good but seriously, why the writers decide to make Loki look very, very weak? he's far from threatening, he can be easily defeated, he's the main bad guy but he post no serious threat to the Avengers (he even become part of the joke in many sequence).
It's hard not to compare Marvel's The Avengers with another big superhero movie coming out this year, The Dark Knight Rises but looking at how The Avengers come out, i have no doubt that Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises will kick The Avengers ass.
Alien Nine (2001)
It might end abruptly but it still a great OVA
Alien Nine is an OVA based on seinen manga by Hitoshi Tomizawa (Battle Royale II: Blitz Royale, 2003) with the same title. Animated by J.C. Staff (Azumanga Daioh, Shakugan no Shana, Bakuman), produced by Genco (Elfen Lied), directed by Jiro Fujimoto and Yasuhiro Irie (Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood)
The story set not so far in future where human and aliens live together. Unlike E.T. or Predator or The Thing, these Aliens are more like mindless animal. Because most of them are not too harmful (more on the annoying side), each school made a team to capture these aliens that coming to school. These team equipped with tranquilizer gun, roller blade, net, and of course, a guardian alien on their head. Our main character, Yuri Ootani is a quite girl, easily scared, and easily cry on nearly every event. Together with her other team member, Kumi Kawamura, and Kasumi Tomine, they must work together to get rid the aliens from their school although, it's not as easy as it look.
I like the story because it focus on how Yuri try to do her duty despite her fear toward the aliens. How Yuri try to develop herself, to overcome her fear, to get along with Kumi and Kasumi which are stronger than her, and to properly fulfilled her duty are portrayed in realistic way. It's not easy and sometimes it's harsh and brutal.
The animation is superb although it's obvious because it's an OVA, very detail and very fluid. The character design is especially unique (because it follows Hitoshi Tomizawa's unique drawing style).
The cast are great. Juri Ihata as Yuri is incredibly awesome. Her voice acting really reflect Yuri's emotion in awesome way. I rarely like the English dub but the English localization team did a great job on this OVA.
The music by Kuniaki Haishima is very catchy and cheerful, it might not perfectly fit the nature of the series but it still great.
The only downside is the story ends abruptly. It's not surprising because it only cover half of the first 3 volumes of the manga (there are 4 volumes). There are still no news of continuation or reboot of this series, so for now you must read the manga to know the rest of the story.
verdict, it's a great OVA with strong story, great animation, music, and voice cast. As long as you can forgive the ending, i'm sure you can have a good watch with this one.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)
After 'Revenge of the Fallen' we can't hope much for this
After the disappointing Revenge of the Fallen, director Michael Bay and producer Steven Spielberg release the latest entry of their Transformers series. I'm not hoping much from this one because well...Michael Bay rarely make a good sequel, and my prediction is right, Dark of the Moon is a standard action adventure movie and just like other sci-fi series, flashy special effect won't help much on the third
The leader of Autobot, Sentinel Prime, carry an invention that can end the war between Decepticon and Autobot. Unfortunately, his ship crashed on the moon and the invention is forever lost, well, until the autobot come to earth. Dark of the Moon's main story is the fight between Decepticon and Autobot to retrieve this invention because whoever possess it have the power to turn the tide of the war. The story actually pretty good if only Bay didn't mixed it (probably in 70/30 portion) with Sam's story. The human side of story in Transformers is not only unimportant, it's annoying and take too much of the film. I don't care about Sam's hardship to get work and settle down, i don't care about Sam's romance story. I watch Transformers because i want to see Transformers, i want to see Optimus Prime!
Dark of the Moon is just as boring as the 2nd. The last stand on Chicago is definitely too long to enjoy. Too many unnecessary scenes and the continuity and logic of each scenes is simply bad. The special effect is good but like i say, on the third, it doesn't matter anymore.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) 6/10