I needed something to watch. I need the mood to watch Tudors, i need time to watch Hustle, and everything else is just one episode a week—not to mention Bleach and Naruto are more of “professional interest” than of entertainment… I stopped watching them both ages ago, now i only quality check our hungarian fansubs for them…

So i looked around and started watching two series that seemed interesting. First is the Law of Ueki. Back when it was running i suggested that we sub it, but yet i didn’t get to watch it. The green hair of Ueki and his power to make trees out of trash seemed very interesting. Too bad so far (after six episodes) the series is simply dumb. Ueki is pretty much the only normal character, everyone else is either frickin’ annoying (see Mori Ai, which is a nice name (Forest Love) by the way for the “manager” of a tree technique user) or way too dumb to be funny. I’ll go on watching, but if it will be this stupid all the way, Ueki’s story will be the first series i actually drop…

On the other hand, Fairy Tail rules. I’m not reading the manga (yet), so don’t come at me with how it’s different or better or whatever. The anime rocks for sure.

After the movie, i decided to watch the original animated series of Avatar: The Last Airbender as well. It was definitely worth it. It was pretty much evident from the first five minutes that it’s way better than the movie, and except for three filler episodes, it kept going for the whole three seasons.

This is how story forming and character development is supposed to be done. Do you hear, SGU staff? It’s just right: not too slow, not too fast, not too furious. Just how the taoists teach, and the series get most of its inspiration from such ancient chinese ways. All four elements’ moves are from chinese martial arts, there are chinese writings everywhere and it doesn’t feel out of place either.

Take two totally unangelic angels, a priest and a city, write murderously hilarious stories and turn the whole thing into a strictly 18+ anime with the looks of Invader Zim and the Powerpuff Girls. That’s Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt. Panty is the slutty angel who uses her panties as a gun to kill ghosts, Stocking is the gothloli angel addicted to sweets who turns her stockings into swords and Garterbelt is their mentor priest-looking madman who gives the girls missions and seems to be just a bit too fond of young boys.

There’s no much story to this anime, but it’s frenetic. If one likes this kind of filthy humour, the adventures of Stocking and Panty will cause a warp in timespace: bringing infinitesimal amounts of fun in the very limited time of an episode. When i say the series’ humour is filthy, i mean it: if the above character descriptions are not enough, the continuous stream of shit and sex jokes will prove the point.

There’s also a cute doggie-like something that looks very similar to GIR from Invader Zim and dies even more often than Kenny of South Park.

And whenever the girls finish a ghost off, it dies exploding just how a stereotypical Kamen Rider Hibiki or Power Rangers enemy would.

You want light and easy entertainment? Here you get it. Hyakko is the perfect anime if you just want something funny without too much of a deeper meaning. It’s about a bunch of girls at school, their everyday lives, and how they get to know their new classmates at school. There isn’t much of a story—most of the episodes focus on one character, and that’s all. True, occasionally there’s a bitter aftertaste to some scenes, but i think that this level of drama can be passed without disrupting the entertainment much.

Not to mention that as much as i love the character design of Naruto, Kageyama Torako is pretty much the same, just in a girl version. Not necessarily only the hair and eye colours.

I first started watching Hyakko back when it aired, together with Toradora, but it ended up on a “hiatus” the same way too. Then this summer watching Toradora reminded me of the adventures of the Kamizono Academy girls. It was really worth watchin, i totally enjoyed it.

Above pic from アニメ壁紙タウン.

I first started watching Toradora! when it started airing, but then it just wasn’t interesting enough to watch. But this spring a girl from the music club said she was watching it, reminding me too. In the summer break, before heading off to my journeys, i managed to watch it all.

It was… Strange. Obviously, after watching loads of anime the final pairings get more or less clear in the very first episode, and with that, for me the anime gets more tense, since it’s a story between a startpoint i’m at and not infinity, but a known (or thought to be known) endpoint. It’s drama, and it’s funny, and it’s highschool. Crazy life, that i’m pretty sure doesn’t exist anywhere but anime (not in Japan for sure) with loads of hilarious but at the same time very touching situations. And we can see bonds forming and disappearing.

It was nice. I didn’t even pay attention to details like graphics or music–the character designs and the story were enough. After i finished it, i felt strangely down, but i guess that’s just natural from a single guy watching a romantic anime.

Also, the Suzumiya fan i am, i just had to use the pic above, from Drunk Weeaboo. Of course there’s no Hare hare yukai dance in Toradora.

I can’t even recall when i finished Samurai Champloo, yet another masterpiece by the creator of Cowboy Bebop, Watanabe Shinichiro. It must’ve been sometime back in the middle of august…

Yet, just as its older brother, Samurai Champloo is great. As Cowboy Bebop mixes blues with space and western, so mixes Samurai Champloo historical Edo period Japan with modern city underworld and hip-hop. As expected, both the graphics and the music of the anime is of insane quality. Fantastic puns and jokes, hilarious situations often burst into amazing fight scenes and/or tear-jerking drama parts.

The story is very well designed too. Through the loosely connected episodes of the heroes’ journey, a story worthy to be compared to a classical full-length novel unveils. In the meanwhile, sometimes strikingly harsh realities and brutal but just philosophies appear. And however matching this description is to Cowboy Bebop, i’m talking about Samurai Champloo, and despite these similarities, while watching it, it doesn’t feel like a “little brother” or successor, but a creation of great value.

Something you really should watch.

Above image from The Futile Podcast