Soul Eater

to me, soul eater was the type of anime that you can say reminded you of many other types of animes put together. off the bat, i thought of a naruto and bleach fusion. with an animated style using exessive bold borders, it also reminded me of the gorillaz music videos.

in a nutshell, soul eater is about students under the shinigami (mythical character known as death in english) that battle witches. every student(meister) is paired with a weapon. the weapon can also take on a human form. the fundamental goal for a meister is to collect or consume 100 witch souls, which then the weapon will reach its final form called the death scythe. as the story continues, the plot goes far from the basic premise of witch vs shinigami.

similar to fma, this manga turned anime is one of the few animes that actually strayed from the manga story line. im not even quite sure where the story is in the manga. but one thing i appreciate from soul eater is that the anime was able to finish its within 2 seasons, unlike its predecessors (bleach and naruto) that seem to drag on endlessly. though in the ending, there was a lot of room left for assumption, so hopefully a movie or a 3rd season can come along in the years to come.

ps. this is one of the few animes with a female leading character, but im not a fan of her voice.

the 51 episode series was subbed by many subbers, but the episodes can be found here: Soul Eater 1-51.

roddy's rating: 8.9/10

Rideback

a friend recommended that i watch rideback and said it's about motorcycles, so i figure it'll be a motorcycled version of initial d, or even maybe like motorcycle circuit racing, but i was way off. rideback takes place in the not so distant future japan where the military, government, and public struggle for power and truth.

ridebacks are motorcycles that can shift into a mecha form. when in mecha form the rider sits on the back or shoulders of the machine, hence the name rideback. given the setting and nature of these motorcycles, one would think that this story is another gundam type of tale, but its a lot less complicated.

the direction and animation style is a lot more artistic than the usual gundam narration. the main character, ogata rin, is a former ballet dancer, but due to an injury, she finds that she can no longer dance. soon after, she finds that she can channel her creativity through ridebacks. watch and see how the world responds to her ballet as translated by her rideback.

this 12 episode series was subbed by Frostii, but Srsly jumped in midway and was able to pump out the episodes faster. u can find it here: Rideback 1-12

roddy's rating: 8.5/10

Kurozuka

if you put the words samurai, post apocaliptic earth, and vampires together, what do you get? nope not wesley snipes, but kurozuka. this manga turned anime is the refreshing short story that i've been waiting to see for a while. its only 12 episodes, but that pretty much means they cut out all the excess fat and leave only the juicy story and action. i was able to burn through the series in one sitting :)

the general vibe of the anime style is a lot like the ninja scroll movie. lots of action with plenty of violence and a deep plot to keep you guessing. even though the quality of the drawings looks a little old, dont' let it fool you. there are a lot of scenes that mimic the matrix style movements like super slow motion and 360 degree camera movement.

only a handful of subbers were able to produce the show, but Ureshii was one of the only fansub groups that completed the entire series. here's a link to the torrent for the whole series. its only about 3 gigs so its not too bad: [Ureshii]Kurozuka1-12

roddy's rating: 9.1/10

The World Reflected in the Eyes of the Girl who Looks Up at the Sky

probably one of the longest titles to any anime i've seen, but i guess it makes sense. in japanese its Sora o Miageru Shōjo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai. the show actually follows a two part ova called munto. so the show is sometimes simply called munto tv.

did you ever watch any of the old disney movies, like cinderella or sleeping beauty? remember how the characters moved? the animators tried to capture a sense of realistic movement in their characters, where as now most animation is just a fixed cartoon type movement. well, munto tv has those old elements of the disney movies, which is rare in an anime tv show. maybe in a movie would this animation style be acceptable, but the animators cleverly adapated the style to the series.

the show is a little dramatic and slow, which was almost enough for me to actually skip watching the whole series. but just as i was about to close the video, action is introduced. similar to the disney type movements, the quality of action put into munto tv is that of the action seen in anime movies. its very illusive and fluid, rather than the simple kick, punch, fireball, and 10000000 hit combo. the action does have a lot of dragonball -esque fireballs, and one of the main characters even looks like vegeta, but its refreshing to see the old style of anime that originally brought me into liking anime.

the story seems like it was pulled from a miyazaki story like spirited away, so its ok for the average non anime watching person to watch this and actually understand what's going on.

anyway, the show is still somewhat new, so downloads should go pretty fast. took me about a day to dl most of the episodes. m.3.3.w is subbing the series and here's a link:
[m.3.3.w.]Sora o Miageru Shōjo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai

roddy's rating: 7.2/10