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