Anime Review: Queen's Blade

If you are after a good story, you are probably looking at the wrong anime. If you are looking for fan service however... this anime is full of it.

Queen's Blade is a major tournament, which decides who will be the next queen. The main character of the story is Leina, who is the middle daughter of Count Vance. She is supposed to be the heir, but she doesn't want to take the position and runs off to enter the Queen's Blade tournament. As far as the story is concerned... it is pretty ordinary, and quite typical/predictable, but thats not really what you would watch this anime for =P

The other characters include;

Listy - self-claimed "chivalrous thief of the wasteland". Her primary goal is money, but it is in order to feed an orphanage. She is the first person Leina meets, and Leina looks up to her like an older sister and idol.

Tomoe - a warrior priestess from the East. After her fellow priestesses were slaughtered by an assassin clan, she vowed to win the Queen's Blade tournament in order to protect her homeland, which is in turmoil.

Shizuka - a compansion of Tomoe. She was the head of an assassin clan, but she left in order to serve Tomoe after having being defeated by her.

Echidna - an elven mercenary, who is extremely experienced in combat. She is the favourite to win the tournament. She has a very strong, but strange interest in Leina. She frequently makes comments suggesting that they should sleep together. The most bizarre thing about her, is that she has a pet snake that wraps around her groin area to serve as underwear (although it attacks her enemies as well).

Claudette - she is known as the 'Lightning General', and is Leina's adoptive older sister. She is very strong, and as her name suggests... she uses lightning-based attacks. She seems very cold towards Leina, and one of her primary aims is to bring Leina back to the castle so she can resume her duties as the heir.

Elina - the youngest daughter of the Vance family. She is the captain of the imperial guard, and has a major sister-complex towards Leina. I find her to be one of the more amusing characters, as she frequently tries to do anything intimate with Leina when given the chance, much to Leina's dismay.

Nanael - an angel from the heavens. The angels serve as 'broadcasters' of the Queen's Blade tournament, which everyone can view from the sky. She is very selfish and ambitious, so she's very amusing to watch.


There is a huge cast of characters, but these are the most prominent characters. I would say this anime is very borderline hentai. There are no actual sex scenes or anything, so it can't really be classified as hentai, but the maker of the anime/manga certainly pushes the boundaries as far as he could. I find it very unlikely that any girls would like to watch it (unless u enjoy watching these kinds of anime), but it's definitely made for the guys. I'd give it a 5/10 for storyline, and 10/10 for fan service... so an overall rating of 7.5/10.

I'll leave u with a nice fan-service pic of my favourite character, Airi. She is 1 of the 3 'demons' who serve the Swamp Witch. As suggested by the pic, she is a scythe-wielding maid, and she is also a ghost. In order to maintain her energy, she must suck the life-force out of people, which she does by kissing them (which seems pretty awesome to me =P).

Anime Review: Fairy Tail

Fairy Tail is an ongoing anime, and relatively new. It is about a world where magic is common practice, and many guilds for mages have been created. Fairy Tail is one of those guilds, and there are many others including 'dark guilds' for evil mages. So far the episodes have been mostly introductory, explaining the main characters' pasts and a few adventures take place. It is mostly a comedy, but it adds a lot of fighting elements into it... making it quite similar to the Soul Eater anime. The story seems to have begun to pick up, with the more recent episodes based on a rival guild attacking Fairy Tail.

There are a few main characters;

Lucy Heartfilia - A cute, busty, blonde haired girl. She is a Celestial Mage, who summons spirits from Celestial Keys. The most powerful keys are the Zodiac Keys (based on the star signs). She is the newest member of Fairy Tail, after joining early in the anime. She is very cheerful, but tends to suffer a lot for comedic purposes (usually due to something Natsu, Gray or Happy does).

Natsu Dragneel - He is a Fire Mage, although he uses it as mostly an enhancement to his fighting (such as making his fists burn with fire), and some projectile moves. He was raised by a dragon named Igneel, who he learnt his fire magic from before he joined the guild. He is constantly at odds with Gray, and he also desires to beat Erza in a fight. He suffers from an extreme weakness of travelling, where he gets completely sick when riding any form of transportation.

Gray Fullbuster - He is an Ice Mage that is always at odds with Natsu ever since they were young. He has an interesting habit of taking off his clothes, which even surprises himself when someone points it out. You find out a lot more about his past and why he takes his clothes off later in the anime.

Erza Scarlet - She is an Armour Mage, with an assortment of different armour and weapons that she can switch to using her 'ex-quip' ability. Among the main characters she is the strongest, and one of the top mages of the guild. She seems to have a huge amount of authority in the guild, and is quite close to the guild master. She is the one who is consistently breaking up the fights between Natsu and Gray through sheer fear, as she is quite hot-tempered and fierce. The entire guild treads carefully around her because of this.

Happy - He is a blue cat with the ability to use magic, which so far is to create wings on his back and fly. His flying ability is the only form of transportation that doesn't make Natsu sick. He is very close with Natsu, as you find out that Natsu had raised Happy since he was a baby. He is very childish, makes a lot of random comments (some of which are stupid, but all in good humour), loves eating fish and also tends to say "aye" a lot.

There are a lot of other characters, but they are not as prominent as these 5. The show is absolutely hilarious, and I really enjoy the magic fights. The story so far has been pretty decent, but I think it will get more interesting now that things are beginning to unravel. I'd give the show a rating of 10/10, as I can not find any flaws in the show at all. If you like good comedy, you should definitely check Fairy Tail out.

Below is a pick of the main characters from left to right; Natsu, Erza, Happy, Lucy and Gray

Anime Review: Bleach

Bleach is one of the most popular animes/mangas out at the moment, although the anime is probably losing its popularity now. The reason is because there are so many fillers, because the manga is being written too slowly. However, the manga has no fillers so its still very popular.

Bleach is a story about a teenager named Kurosaki Ichigo (Kurosaki being the last name... since in Japanese you saw last name first, but it sounds retarded if you convert it to a proper English way of saying a name), who is able to see spirits. One day an evil spirit called a hollow, attacks his family. A shinigami (death god) named Rukia, comes to save Ichigo and exterminate the hollow. However, the course of the battle forces Rukia to transfer almost all of her powers to Ichigo, who then becomes a shinigami himself.

The shinigami dwell in a place called Soul Society, and they are trained to exterminate hollow and also to help lost spirits move on to Soul Society (so in a sense, its like heaven). The hollow live in a separate plane of existence called Hueco Mundo, and they are created when a soul has died for too long without having gone to soul society. Hollow consume spirits or each other in order to live and evolve. Thus they enter the human world when possible to hunt for food.

The story is set up into major arcs. The first is the Soul Society arc, which starts off with a major intro to the story background, and also to show some of the history behind the major characters. It also introduces an incredibly large cast of characters both from the human world, and Soul Society. There are far too many characters to explain, so I'll just focus in the primary ones from the human world:

Kurosaki Ichigo - as explained earlier, he gained shinigami powers from Rukia. He is an extremely stubborn person, who does everything in his power to protect his comrades (so typical of every anime... I get tired of those sorts of characters to be honest). He is the type that is hard to approach, and early on you find out that it's because his mother died when he was very young, and he blames himself for it (you'll see why). After the death os his mother, he changed from a bright young kid, to a bit of a lone wolf. This changes once he gets his shinigami powers and gets closer to the other characters.

Hollow Ichigo - I don't think theres actually an official name for this personality, but that's what I refer to him as. Hollow Ichigo is the hollow version of Ichigo that resides inside Ichigo's soul. He occasionally tries to take over Ichigo, to fight his enemies. He is far superior to Ichigo in terms of fighting ability, but is also a bit crazy... especially in battle where he'll become quite bloodthirsty.

Kuchiki Rukia - she is part of the Kuchiki family, which is a noble house in Soul Society. She likes to draw a lot for whenever she explains something (abysmally) much to the dismay of Ichigo. She teaches Ichigo the ways of a shinigami early on in the show. As a shinigami, she is very gifted at 'kidou' which is a shinigami's magic powers, and she usually uses a spell that fires a blue fireball.

Inoue Orihime - she is a classmate of Ichigo, and appears to have a crush on him but is too shy to admit it to him. She has inhumanly large breasts, which prompts some jokes like 'the nutrients that were supposed to go to her brain, went to her breasts instead' being the most common one, because she's pretty dumb a lot of the time. However, she is a very caring person and wants to do whatever she can to help. She manifests special powers that are unique to her, that gives her the ability to heal, create a magic shield, and also to attack (though she seldom uses her attack).

Yasutora Sado - sometimes known as 'Chad' because Ichigo calls him that. He is another classmate of Ichigo's. He is part mexican, so sometimes you will hear him refer to his grandfather in mexican, rather than in Japanese. He is very tall and well built, yet he is a very gentle person and dislikes resorting to violence. Like Orihime, he also gains unique powers, where his arm will transform into a strange armour, and it enables him to punch much harder than normal, and he can also fire off some sort of spirit blast.

Ishida Uryu - he is a descent of the Quincy clan, who were a group of humans that were able to manipulate spirit particles to form bow weapons. They used their powers to fight off hollow, but were annihilated by the shinigami. For this reason, Ishida bears a grudge against Ichigo, yet he still ends up helping him and seeming to become friends.


Rating - 8/10. The actual storyline is fantastic, especially when you get to the end of the Soul Society arc, however the fillers have ruined it for me generally speaking. The first filler wasn't too bad, because it began after the Soul Society arc and seemed to fit into the timeline reasonably ok... and it had some nice fight scenes. But the more recent ones which have been occurring during the Hueco Mundo arc, make absolutely no sense because the filler will begin right in the middle of the storyline. So it will be like... at the end of the episode, they're still fighting someone in Hueco Mundo... and then the next ep will start a random filler back in the human world. So it loses points for that... but I really enjoy the main storyline. If it wasn't for the fillers, I probably would've rated it a 10.

Below is a pic of Orihime. I didn't really have time to find a better one, so this will have to do.

Anime/Manga Review: Soul Eater

The Soul Eater manga is still ongoing, though only released once a month... so it's a bit slow. The anime on the other hand, has finished... and since it ended while the manga was still going on, it means that the anime story diverted at the end. I actually didn't know this until I decided to look into the manga, and I do find it frustrating when animes do that, especially because the stuff that's in the manga but not in the anime... is actually quite good.

The story revolves around 'Shibusen' which is an academy started by 'Shinigami' (direct translation is Death God... which is what he is, but his actual name is just Shinigami). Shibusen is basically a school for 'technicians' and 'weapons'. Each student is either one of these, and work together in pairs, i.e each technician wields a weapon. The weapons have both a human form and a weapon form, which they can switch between. The final aim for each technician is to turn their weapon into a 'Death Scythe'. To do this, the weapon must consume 99 evil souls, and 1 soul of a witch. A Death Scythe is the ultimate form of a weapon, and have a very high status in Shibusen.

The main enemy in the story is known as 'Kishin', and he is a demon god that spreads insanity. He has been imprisoned in the past by Shinigami, but there is a witch named Medusa, who is trying to revive the demon god.

The main characters are;

Maka Albarn - The main character of the story. She is a scythe technician, and her partner is Soul. She is a very dedicated student, and is consistently at the top of her class. She specialises in 'soul perception', which is an ability that allows her to see the souls of others, and to detect the presence of them. She has a bad relationship with her father, because he keeps flirting with women, which was the cause of his divorce with Maka's mother. This is one of the ongoing jokes throughout the anime, as Maka's father is very obsessive with Maka.

Soul Eater - Maka's weapon partner. He is a scythe weapon. He is very laid back, and has a strange obsession with the word 'cool', and seems to apply it to a lot of stuff... although thats mainly just in the beginning, he doesn't seem to talk about it as much later on. He is very protective of Maka, and is willing to sacrifice his life for her.

Black Star - A descendent from a ninja clan. His partner is Tsubaki, who is a shadow weapon. Tsubaki can change into an assortment of weapons, making Black Star a very versatile fighter. Black Star is a very arrogant person, although he is still the strongest technician (aside from Death the Kid, since he's a death god). He is obsessed with being 'big', which coincides with his arrogant quality. Out of all the characters, he undergoes the most character development, so he's one of my favoured characters in the aspect.

Tsubaki - Black Star's weapon partner. She is a very quiet, kind and patient person. She seems to be the only person able to put up with Black Star's behaviour.

Death the Kid (normally referred to as Kid) - He is Shinigami's son. He insists on becoming a Shibusen student, despite his father telling him he doesn't need to. He is a dual-wield gun technician, and his partners are Liz and Patty Thompson. He has a major obsession with 'symmetry' (very far beyond Black Star's 'big' obsession), and is his major weakness. He needs everything to be in symmetry, or he'll become extremely depressed, or he will go out of his way to fix it. Sometimes he will forget whether he left something in his room perfectly aligned, and he will head back just to check on it, despite being in the middle of a mission. Along with Shinigami, they are my favourite characters in terms of humour.

Thompson Sisters - Kid's weapons. They are sisters of course, with Liz being the older one. Liz is a bit of a coward and finds Kid's obsession very annoying. Patty is very childlike, and finds just about everything amusing. Patty also has larger breasts than Liz, which Liz finds annoying when Kid points it out (because of symmetry reasons).

Dr Franken Stein - He is a teacher at Shibusen, and is also considered the best technician to ever graduate at Shibusen. He is very obsessive with disecting things, and wants to experience on basically everything. He has a great understanding of soul wavelengths, and can adapt his soul wavelength accordingly, in order to nullify someone's attack against him, or to be able to wield any weapon.

Spirit aka Death Scythe - Maka's father, and is sometimes known as Death Scythe, since he is a Death Scythe, but mainly because he is a scythe weapon. He is Shinigami's main Death Scythe, and he resides in Shibusen. He is obsessed with his daughter, and tries everything to get her to like him again. Yet he is a womaniser, and is commonly seen in seedy places.

Shinigami - Probably my favourite character, although Kid is very close as well. He is the headmaster of Shibusen. He has a very comical voice, and generally talks quite funnily. My favourite parts are when he uses his 'Shinigami Chop' to silence people, or to punish them.

Blair - a cat with exceptionally strong magic powers. She is not actually a witch, but she can transform into a human-form. In her human form, she is a very busty young woman. She is very shameless, and likes to flirt with Soul, which angers Maka. I actually like her a lot better in the manga, because I think she's a lot better drawn in the manga, than in the anime. The way she's drawn in the manga suits her personality a lot more... in that she looks a lot more seductive.


Rating - 10/10. Soul Eater has a good combination of both humour and action (leans more on humour though), and the storyline is pretty reasonable, though not on par to other animes like Code Geass. But despite that, I think it's still well deserving of a 10 because of the comedy in it. It is suitable to all audiences, and I'd probably recommend watching the anime first, since the manga is still ongoing (there will be more manga chapters waiting for you by the time you finish watching the anime).

Below is a picture of Maka Albarn, wielding Soul in his weapon form.

Anime Review: Full Metal Alchemist

If you were a writer, and you started off writing a story, but only complete 2 chapters and then give it to a few people and see how they would continue on with it... they are obviously going to come up with different storylines, but hopefully with a good interpretation of how you intended the story to go. This is sort of what happened with Full Metal Alchemist (FMA). There are actually 2 versions of FMA in anime form. The first is simply Full Metal Alchemist, and the second is Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood.

Basically what happened was... the manga for FMA was being written, and the anime was started shortly after. The anime only followed the manga's storyline briefly (probably about a couple of chapters worth), and then it diverted to the anime director's interpretation of how the story would turn out. FMA Brotherhood was then later developed a couple of years later, and it followed the manga's storyline. FMA Brotherhood is still ongoing, while the first FMA was finished a while ago now, with a movie tying up loose ends. It's quite interesting that although the first anime's adaptation had a completely different storyline and explanation for why certain things happened... it still made a lot of sense, despite being so different to how it is to the manga's intention.

On to the plot... FMA is set in a world that would be of similar time to World War 1 and 2. Also, there is a common practice known as alchemy, which involves the transmutation of one thing into another. The fundamental law of alchemy was that you can not create anything out of nothing, and thus why human transmutation is forbidden. The main characters, Edward and Alphonse Elric did not know about this when they were little, and they attempted to perform human transmutation on their mother who had recently died. Since you can not create live through alchemy, the transmutation failed and it resulted in Edward losing an arm and a leg, while Alphonse lost his whole body. Some quick thinking allowed Edward to use alchemy to attach Alphonse's soul to a suit of armour. Thus the general storyline is based on these 2 brothers trying to find a way to restore their bodies, and this is consistent in both versions of FMA. It's just the later parts which differ a lot.

Aside from the differences in storyline, the main thing I noticed was that the first FMA is of a much darker and more serious atmosphere, whilst FMA Brotherhood is more cartoonish and puts more emphasis on the comedy aspect of it (i.e Edward's personal hate of people calling him short). I'm not really sure which one I favour more, but theres definitely a clear difference in the way the animes are shown.

There are a heap of characters throughout the anime, but I'll just discuss a few of the main staples:

Edward Elric - Obviously the main character. He has an 'auto-mail' arm and leg, to replace the limbs that were taken during the failed human transmutation. It's essentially a fake limb made of metal, but it connects to the person's nervous system allowing him/her to control it as it if was an actual limb. A lot of people make comments about him being short, which he really hates, especially when they think Alphonse is the older brother due to his armour being much larger than Edward. He becomes a state alchemist in order to obtain more information about how to get their bodies back.

Alphonse Elric - The younger brother of Edward. He is superior to Edward in hand to hand fighting, although not as gifted in alchemy. While Edward is the hot-head, Alphonse is the calmer, thinking type. Both Alphonse and Edward are really soft hearted, but Alphonse shows it more... while Edward is more of the 'put on a hard face' type of person.

Winry Rockbell - The childhood friend of Edward and Alphonse. She is an auto-mail mechanic, and she maintains Edward's auto-mail. She is very enthusiastic about her work, and she gets extremely excited about anything related to auto-mail. Apart from that, she's a very typical kind of girl that you expect the lead female to be.


Rating - 9/10. I almost gave it 9.5, but it's not quite up to the standards of some of the other animes I've seen, although it has a great storyline. If you are going to watch FMA, I'd recommend watching the earlier version first, before you watch FMA Brotherhood. Main reason is that FMA Brotherhood is still on-going, but I think it's better to watch the more serious one first, before watching the one that focuses more on comedy. Also, it means you can see how the anime director interprets it, as opposed to how the manga writers intended it to be. However, if you're not a fan of dark kind of anime with a lot of gore, then maybe just watch FMA Brotherhood. I do admit that there are some pretty upsetting scenes in the first FMA, and some that made me cringe.

Below is a picture of 2 main characters; Edward Elric (left) and Winry Rockbell (right).

Anime/Manga Review: Hunter X Hunter

Hunter X Hunter is centered around a young boy named Gon Freaks (last name has various spellings... but I'll go with Freaks since its used in the subs that I saw). He was raised by his aunt Mito, who told him that his parents had died in an accident. It is revealed early on that his father is in fact still alive, and that he is a famous hunter. Gon is a very special kid, and the first sign of this was when he was able to catch a gigantic fish that no one else was able to catch. He leaves home in order to take the hunter exam and follow in the footsteps of his father Jin Freaks. He also wants to find his father, so finding clues about his father is another of his primary objectives. Along the way and through the hunter exam, Gon becomes best friends with Killua, Kurapika and Leorio.

A hunter in this story is a special title only given to very special people. In order to become a hunter, you have to pass the hunter's exam, which involves many various skills expected of someone with such a prestigous title. If you have a hunter's license, you are basically set for life... as even the license itself is extremely valuable. One of the main things that you need to know as a hunter is an ability called nen. It actually isn't shown until a bit later in the anime and manga, but its actually a pretty important to the storyline plot.

Nen is kind of like your inner aura, which has various applications based on your personal traits. Each person will generally have a different kind of usage for their nen than others. The types include:

Reinforcement - which enhances your physical attack and defensive strength. Also enhances your healing rate.

Emission - the ability to project your aura in some kind of form. Example, theres a character who has the ability to shoot nen bullets from his fingers.

Manipulation - pretty self explanatory... you can control an object with your aura

Transmutation - ability to transform your aura to mimic the properties of something else. For example, there is a character who transforms his aura into 'bungee gum' which has the properties of rubber and gum

Materialisation - can conjure and dispel an object at will

Specialisation - this is a pretty vague ability... and is quite hard to describe. It is anything that doesn't fall in the other 5 categories pretty much, but its also pretty unique. An example is there is a character who can write poems that predict the future.


The anime doesn't actually cover everything in the manga. So in terms of storyline, its probably better to read the manga, as there is a story arc thats not yet covered in the anime or any of the OVAs. However, the majority of it so far is in anime form, which is what I personally prefer. Anyway the main characters include;

Gon Freaks - main character. He is a very stubborn person, but also very loyal to his friends and would do anything for them. He is not very bright academically, but when it comes to fighting he's extremely intuitive and is very good at thinking up strategies on the fly. Not much else to say that hasn't already been said without spoiling anything.

Killua Zoldyck - he is from a family of the most powerful assassins in the world. Despite being so young (12, same age as Gon), he has already mastered many arts in killing and is 1 of the most dangerous people in the hunter exam. He becomes friends with Gon very quickly. Unlike Gon, Killua is quite intelligent as would be expected from an assassin, both academically and in combat. He joined the hunter's exam because he wanted a bit of a challenge.

Kurapika - the last member of the Kurta clan (I forgot what spelling was used in the subs, so I used the wikipedia spelling for it). His eyes turn scarlet red when he becomes angry, which is the reason his clan was killed, as their eyes were extremely valuable. His goal is to find the Ryodan, who are the ones responsible for massacring his clan. For this reason, he joins the hunter exam, because having access to the hunter database is the best chance of finding information on the Ryodan.

Leorio - he is an aspiring doctor, and he joins the hunter exam in order to get the money to enter medical school. In the past, one of his friends died of an uncurable illness... so his goal is to become a doctor who can cure anything. He is a bit of a comedy relief for this series, but at the same time he is a very loyal friend.

Hisoka - in a way, he can be seen as the main 'enemy' in the series, although he's not actually evil as such... however I would describe him as kind of insane, as the only thing he cares about is fighting and killing. He takes a liking to Gon and Killua (especially Gon) and often describes them as 'fruit' waiting to ripen. Basically meaning he wants to fight them when they become powerful. He uses playing cards to fight a lot of the time, however he is just generally ridiculously strong... and he would be the most dangerous person in the hunter exam. The thing I find funniest about Hisoka is that it is implied that he gets sexual gratification from fighting. This can be seen especially in a particular scene in the manga, where there is text and a large whitened out area covering his crotch area, which seems to emphasise that (you will see what I mean if you read the manga).

There are of course lots of other characters who come and go, but these are the main ones you'll see throughout the anime.

Rating - 9/10. A very good anime and manga with a good concept for fighting, and a pretty decent storyline. It also has some good childish humour to it. Its suitable for all audiences, and if you haven't seen it already then its a good time to watch or read it... as apparently the writer is going to continue on with the manga in 2010. Although I'm not certain if they'll continue making more OVAs for the anime for the missing story arc, or for the new ones.

Anime Review: One Piece

One piece is an ongoing manga and anime and is currently one of the longest ones that is still going. Some people are deterred from such long animes/mangas, but personally I think its well worth watching. Worse comes to worse... you'll at least know you always have something readily available to watch.


One piece is a comedy and fighting anime, based around pirates. It has a historical background, which is based on the "Pirate King: Gol D. Roger". Most people just refer to him as Roger... and he was the pirate who found "One Piece", which is a legendary treasure and gave him the status of the Pirate King. He was eventually captured and executed, but upon his death he announced to the world that he had hid it "there" and if anyone wants it they can go get it. After this, he was killed... and the age of pirates began, with many pirates trying to find One Piece. One such pirate is the main character, Monkey D. Luffy, who aspires to become the Pirate King. Thus the anime is based on Luffy's adventures with his pirate crew, which changes over time, and his journey into the Grand Lane, which is deemed to be where One Piece is hidden.


One important aspect of the story are the 'devil fruits', which is obviously something that someone will consume. Each devil fruit will give its user a particular power, depending on which fruit was eaten. Most of the fruits give very powerful abilities, or abilities that will eventually develop into something powerful. The downside of them, is that if the person falls into the ocean, they will lose all of their strength and simply drown... no matter how powerful they normally are.


Another important aspect is the use of bounties, which is a clever way to indicate how powerful people are... and I think its better than stuff like 'battle power' that you would see in Dragonball.


Luffy's pirate crew changes over time with new additions, but the main ones that you see during the early part of the anime are;


Monkey D. Luffy - Captain of the Straw Hat Pirates. He has an iconic straw hat, given to him by a pirate named Shanks, when he was just a kid. Shanks had also saved Luffy's life when he was young, and Luffy looks up to him as a role model. When Luffy grew up, he decided he was going to become a pirate and look for One Piece to become the Pirate King. He has eaten the Gomu Gomu devil fruit, which has made him a rubber man. So he is able to stretch his body out, and he can not be harmed by bullets, which just bounce off him. Like many people in the anime, he has a name that most people refer to him as... which is 'Mugiwara', which simply means 'Straw Hat'. He has a very laid back personality, and is very childish at times. He's not a very bright person, although when it comes to fights... hes quite innovative... and when it comes to sentimental times, hes also very thoughtful and compassionate. He is also quite stubborn, and if any of his crew are in danger, he will do anything to save them. He is the most powerful pirate of the Straw Hat Crew.


Roronora Zoro - The second member of the Straw Hat Pirates, and has the nickname of 'Pirate Hunter'. He is a swordsman, who developed his own style called 'Santoryu', which is a style that uses 3 swords (1 in each hand, and 1 in his mouth). Despite not having a devil fruit power, he is extremely strong and skilled with the sword. He aspires to become the strongest swordsman in the world, thus he wants to defeat the current number 1 swordsman called 'Hawkeyes' Mihawk. He has the worst sense of direction imaginable... and always gets lost whenever he has to navigate on his own. He is the second strongest of the Straw Hat Pirate crew.


Nami - The female member of the Straw Hat Pirates and its navigator. She is quite intelligent, and she normally uses her intellect to fight battles, since she is physically quite weak. She later obtains a weapon thanks to Usopp, which allows her to have minor control over weather, thus allowing her to use that to fight on more even grounds. She has a strong lust for money, and she considers it the most important thing in the world. Her dream is to draw a map of the world.


Usopp - He is mostly the comedy relief of the crew. Physically he is as weak as Nami, but he has an arsenal of random stuff that he makes to use in his fights. He likes to boast and claim that hes the captain of the Straw Hat Pirates, but when someone powerful comes along.... he will cower in fear. He is however quite gifted at tinkering things, and tends to invent a lot of random little gadgets, for example the weapon that Nami uses. He is also a gifted marksman, which can be seen when he fires a cannon with great precision.


Sanji - He is a passionate and highly skilled cook, but he also is a very strong fighter whose style is based around kicking. He is usually a pretty serious and hard faced character, but whenever a hot young female is nearby... he becomes really giddy and tries hard to flirt and court them. He is also very chivalrous, and will never harm a pretty lady or let them get hurt. His dream is to fine 'All Blue' which is an ocean with every ingredient imaginable, and he wants to cook using those ingredients. He is the 3rd strongest member of the Straw Hats Pirate crew, until maybe later when other people join, as I think its a pretty close call with some of the other people who join.


Chopper - He is the last to join for a pretty long time, but the crew attaining storylines end once they get chopper... and then a lot of the main story arcs begin. He is a reindeer who has eaten a zoan-type devil fruit, which gives him humanoid properties. He is a gifted doctor, and his dream is to be able to cure any illness. He is a bit cowardly like Usopp, however he can fight reasonably when he transforms, although I'd say he's a fair bit weaker than Sanji. Like Luffy, he is quite childish and is easily impressed by everything. He is also very gullible and will believe anything that hes told. Another thing is that he is flattered very easily, which he tries to hide often although he fails at doing so. Also, he has a funny habit where he tries to hide when hes scared... except hes hiding the wrong way, with his body out in the open whilst hes holding onto the wall.




There are also numerous powerful characters that are talked about throughout the anime. Probably the most prominent is a character named Whitebeard, who is known to be the strongest man in the world... with the power to destroy it. Luffy's role model; Shanks, is also a well known pirate, with some kind of special status in the pirate world. In addition, there are the 7 'Shichibukai', which translates to the Seven Warlords of the Sea. You will see more of them later on in the anime.


Rating - 9.5/10. Its one of my favourite animes, and I always look forward to it every week when it comes out. Even the fillers are actually pretty decent, especially compared to fillers of other animes. One thing that might deter people, is that the initial obtaining of the full pirate crew up to Chopper, takes up a lot of episodes... but this is because whenever a character is added... a large number of episodes are dedicated to the character development. I personally think this is fine, as I enjoy learning about a character's background... but I know theres a lot of impatient people out there who don't appreciate this kind of stuff. So I guess it depends... I definitely think people should at least give it a go. If nothing else... its a very humourous anime.

Below is a picture of Nami's future wanted poster. Although you might argue that its a bit of a spoiler... I personally don't think it is. I chose this pic, because its my favourite of Nami's poses, as I think its quite sexy.

Anime Review: Blood+

Blood+ is a dark kind of anime. Pretty serious atmosphere based of creatures called 'Chiropterans'. Chiropterans are monsters who feed off human blood. They are exceptionally strong, fast and have high speed regeneration. They can transform various body parts to do things like fly or extending limbs for attack. High level chiropterans can disguise themselves as humans.

Chiropterans are created from the blood of Queens. However if one Queen's chiropterans have another Queen's blood injected into their blood stream, it will cause them to crystalize and die. There are always 2 Queens at any given point of time, and they are female twins born from 1 of the previous Queens. Queens are only awake for 3 years at a time, and then they hibernate for 10 years.

Then there are the 'Chevaliers' who are the second strongest chiropterans after the 2 Queens. They are created when a human drinks the blood of a Queen. Chevaliers have a strong bond towards their Queen. They also retain a human appearance, unless they transform a body part into a chiropteran limb to fight with. Like normal chiropterans, they will die by the blood of the opposing Queen. But they can also die by being beheaded, or through burning the whole body. They don't age, and from what I can remember... are essentially immortal unless killed by one of the ways previously stated. A Queen can only be impregnated by a chevalier of the other Queen... and during pregnancy, her blood will no longer be dangerous.

So the story is based off these creatures living amongst humans. The main characters are;

Saya Otonashi - She is the primary character, and one of the Queens. She was adopted into a family, although she suffers from amnesia. She fights with a katana, and one of the main aspects of the plot is the recovery of her memory, which explains her past and what chiropterans are. (I've explained enough to give you an idea... theres more involved with them... so its not spoiled)

Hagi - Saya's Chevalier. He plays a cello, which he carries around and he uses it as a shield in combat.

Kai Miyagusuku - He is the son of Saya's adoptive father, hence he is Saya's brother by adoption. When his father was killed, he swore to protect Saya, since he is her older brother.

Riku Miyagusuku - He is the younger brother of Kai and Saya. He is very kind and gentle.

David - He is a very serious and cold character. He was Saya's father's friend, and he takes care of Kai and Riku. He is trying to get rid of chiropterans.


I kept a lot of the details of the characters brief, as a lot of it is important to the actual storyline... so I've only really spoiled stuff that you will see in the first episode.

Rating - 8/10. It has a good storyline, good fighting scenes and is well drawn. The humour in it is limited, but its meant to be more of a dark kind of story anyway, so its to be expected. I recommend it for people who like dark fantasy type of storylines.

Below is a picture of Saki when she awakens from hibernation... She actually has short hair in the present time of the anime, but she had long hair back then... and I think she looks much cuter with long hair. If you're wondering what shes doing in that picture... she's kind of kneeling on the ground, whilst grabbing the jacket/shirt (I forgot) of someone (I'll leave the details of that for you to see in the actual anime).

Anime Review: Yakitate!! Japan

This anime was broadcast a few years ago now, but I thoroughly enjoyed watching it. The title translates to "Freshly Baked Bread!! Ja-pan" where the 'pan' means bread in Japanese. "Ja-pan" is significant, because the main character; Azuma, is trying to make a national bread for Japan. Since pan means bread, he calls the breads he makes "Ja-pan", so its a bit of a pun.

The plot is quite unique, and is a good way of seeing how animes can turn random things into something very interesting. As I said before, the storyline is based off Azuma's quest to make the perfect bread for Japan. In doing so, he leaves his hometown to join the bread company 'Pantasia'. The anime goes through various competitions that Azuma and his friends enter, against opponents who get better and better. The highlight for me, is when it comes to the bread tasting. When the various judges taste the bread, they tend to exaggerate how the bread makes them feel. For example, if the bread makes the judge feel like hes in heaven, there will be a short cutscene where hes imagining himself in heaven and stuff like that.

The main characters of the anime are:

Kazuma Azuma - as stated, he dreams of making the perfect bread. He is extremely gifted at bread baking, which is reinforced by his 'solar hands' which helps ferments the yeast in the bread faster and better than by normal hands.

Kyousuke Kawachi - he becomes kind of like a sidekick to Azuma, and the anime's major comedy relief. He is often made fun of for various reasons, but hes also reasonably gifted at bread baking as well.

Kai Suwabara - hes the 'serious' character. He is a master swordsman, but he gave up the way of the sword to bake bread (sounds a bit random doesnt it?). His swordsman past carries over to bread baking, which causes him to become a very serious and fanatical kind of character.

Shigeru Kanmuri - he is a very intelligent person, and also possesses solar hands like Azuma. In terms of bread baking, hes probably second to Azuma... although quite close in talent. He is the character that usually explains all of the strange things Azuma comes up with.

Tsukino Azusagawa - she is the female lead of the anima, and is the granddaughter of the owner of Pantasia. She also manages the store that employs Azuma and his friends. It is implied throughout the anime that she has a crush on Azuma, but its never confirmed.

Ken Matsushiro - a large burly man with an affro. He becomes a kind of mentor to Azuma and Kawachi, and helps manage the store with Tsukino. He is talented in food critic, and like Kanmuri... he tends to be another character who explains all of the strange and complex things that occur, particularly with Azuma's innovative ideas.

Ryou Kuroyanagi - he is the head of the main Pantasia branch, and the examiner for Azuma's entrance exam. He later becomes a food critic and judges many of the events. He goes to extremes to give his judgments on bread that he tastes, and tends to use puns to describe many of the breads.

Rating: 8.5/10, good comedy and suitable for all audiences. If you're looking for blood and gore, you'll need to look elsewhere... but if you enjoy something different with a good style of comedy, then check this one out.

I'll leave you with some fan-service of Tsukino. The picture is coloured by a fan, but it was done pretty well.

Anime Review: Saki

Saki is an anime based on mahjong. The setting is of Japan, except that mahjong has become a national sport that is closely followed in the media. The plot is based on the girls mahjong competition for high school, and each school battles it out to represent their region in the national tournament for both the team tournament and the individual tournament. If you have no clue on the rules of mahjong, you might be lost while watching this anime... so I'll explain briefly what the basis of the rules are.

In the anime they have automatic shuffling tables, which you can get in real life... but they're not too common since they obviously cost more than ordinary tables. You shuffle the tiles and then make 4 lines of tiles and stack another line on top of that (since theres 4 players, each person stacks their own). In the anime, the automatic shuffling tables will obviously do this for the players. Players sit based on a particular direction, so you will see that each player will pick from 4 random tiles, which are the wind directions... and you sit according to that. The east player will then roll, and this determines where you start grabbing your tiles. I won't go into further detail about how you actually do it, cos its not very important unless you actually intend to play... and if you do play with someone, they will know the rules on how to determine that (hopefully).

So once everyone has drawn their tiles, the person who threw the dice should start with 14 tiles, and every other person has 13. Once you are at that point, the person who threw the dice will throw out a tile to begin the game. Now the aim of the game is to collect sets of 3 tiles, which can be either triples of a tile, or a consecutive straight with 3 tiles of the same suit. There are 3 suits; bamboo, money and circles. There are 3 'honour' tiles (some translations can be different); red honor, green honor, and blank... and theres the 4 'wind' tiles; east, south, west, north. You get extra points for getting a triple of the honor tiles, your own wind (based on where u're sitting) and the prevailing wind. The prevailing wind is what the round is at. The anime explains it quite early on, but basically there are 4 rounds... starting with east, then south, then west, then finally north.

So to win the game, you must have 14 tiles in total which includes 4 sets of at least 3, and a pair. The harder your hand is to obtain, essentially the more points you will get, and because of this... there are some special hands which give you max points since they are so rare. I won't go into detail on these, as there are quite a few... you can check wikipedia for them.

Each of the combinations have special names. They have different names for different rules of the game (theres rules for China, Malaysia, HK, Japan, Taiwan, etc), but I'll just use the Japanese names since thats more relevant for the anime. A triple of a tile is called "pon", a straight is a "chi" and a quad of a tile is called "kan". If you reveal a kan, you draw a a tile from the rear of the stack (I'll explain it more a bit later).

Now for the actual playing of the game... once the person who threw the dice chucks his/her tile out to begin the game, any player may declare "pon" if that tile that was just chucked allows that player to make a pon. Similarly this can also be done for a kan. Only the person directly after that player who chucked the tile may declare a "chi" to make up their straight. If no one wants the tile, the next player will draw from the stack in the middle, and then throw out a tile. If someone declares a combination and takes a tile, they must then throw out a tile to ensure they have a total of 13 tiles including the revealed combinations ( you should only have 14 when you win, unless u had kans). So this continues until either someone wins, or the stack empties... which would cause a draw. When someone throws out your winning tile, you declare "ron", and that player will lose points based on your hand, and you gain those points. If you draw the tile yourself, you declare "tsumo" and all players have to pay the points, and you gain them all.

Believe it or not... thats is a really basic outline of the game... you'd probably need to actually play the game to learn more about it (and I don't feel like writing a massive essay about how to play the game).

So on to the storyline...

The main characters of the story are the girls from Kiyosumi high school's mahjong club. It is the first time they that had 5 people in the club, so they enter the prefectural qualifiers in the hopes of winning the invite to the national tournament. There are 3 other main schools, so theres actually a lot of characters... but I'll mainly just talk about the main ones. Before I go any further, it should be noted that the way the games are played out in the anime are not that realistic.... but then it would be boring if they were too realistic. To add to this, there are many characters who have special abilities which give them certain edges in different situations. With that in mind, these are the main characters:

Saki Miyanaga - As can be seen by the name of the anime... the anime is primarily based off her. She is a first year student. She use to play mahjong a lot with her family, although she never enjoyed it because her family would get angry when she won. She subconsciously developed a method of playing such that she would always get a score of "plus minus zero" which means she neither won nor lost. Eventually the mahjong club gets her to snap out of that mentality, and she reveals herself to be ridiculously good at the game. She has a special ability of... pretty much just luck. She commonly wins by a hand called "rinshan kaihou" which means you win by drawing a tile from a kan. She is the captain of the team and plays the 5th match.

Nodoka Haramura - A first year student, who was the national champion of the middle school tournament last year. She is known to be the best online player under the alias "nodocchi". Her special ability is to be able to view a mahjong game as if she were online, thus being immune to people who have special abilities in manipulating their presence. There is what I would call 'borderline yuri (girl love)' between her and Saki... and I must note that she has unrealistically large boobs for a 1st year high school student (equivalent of year 10 in Sydney high schools). She is the vice-captain of the team and plays in the 4th match

Hisa Takei - She is a 3rd year student and the president of the mahjong club. She is very intuitive and always calm. Her play style is that she will 'wait for bad odds' which means that instead of making her hand such that she could win off multiple tiles (e.g. if your final combination to be made is a straight and you have 4 and 5... you require either 3 or 6 to finish the combination, as opposed to waiting for a 5 when you have a pair of 5's), instead she will wait for a tile that has the least chance of showing up. She plays the 3rd match for the team.

Mako Someya - She is a 2nd year student. Her family owns a mahjong parlour, so she has grown up watching and playing there. She has a special ability to recall the hundreds of games she has played in the past and find the games where the game state is either the same or relatively close to what she has seen in the past, and play based on that. She plays the 2nd match for the team.

Yuuki Kataoka - She is a 1st year student, and knows Nodoka from middle school... having played in the team tournament together (although unsuccessful). She is obsessed with tacos, and they're basically her fuel when she plays mahjong. She specialises in dominating the east round, but as the game goes on longer, she will lose her concentration and make more mistakes. For this reason, she plays the 1st match for the team.

Kyotaro Suga - A male 1st year. He is a friend of Saki, and was the one responsible for getting Saki to first play with the mahjong club. He is the comic relief of the anime, and normally seen buying and carrying mountain loads of food for the team (especially for Yuuki). He has a crush on Nodoka and another girl from another school... who he tends to daydream about.

I rate this anime as 9.5/10, but thats because I love mahjong so much. I think the more you're into mahjong, the more you'll enjoy this anime... its also a good starting point if you've always wanted to get into the game.

My favourite character is Touka Ryumonbuchi, who is the stereotypical rich girl of animes. She has the 'evil rich girl' laugh that is quite common across other animes. Unfortunately I can't find a good picture of her, so I'll settle with a picture of Nodoka (left) and Saki (right) for you all.

Phew that was a long review... I guess that makes up for the days that I missed posting something on my blog =P

Anime + Movie Review: Death Note

Death note has been out for a couple of years now as an anime, and also a live movie adaptation of it. There is also obviously a manga for it too, but I only watched the anime and the movie.

It is comparable to Code Geass in the sense that every episode leaves you hanging, and the twists in each episode are very cleverly done.

The main character is a high school student named Yagami Light. One day, he finds a black notebook on the floor. This notebook (the death note) has instructions behind the cover, stating that if you write the full name of a person whilst picturing their face in your mind's eye, that person will die. If just the name is written, they will die of a heart attack... otherwise they will die by whichever method you specify by writing it with the name. He then encounters the death god Ryuk, who is the original owner of the death note, and had dropped it on Earth and had gone to retrieve it. However, since Light picked it up... it is Light's to use as he wishes, however Ryuk warned him of the consequences of using it.

With the death note, Light decides to use it to punish the criminals of the world. He begins researching into criminal cases and looks for people who are definitely guilty of committing a crime, and using the death note to kill them. He then assumes the alias "Kira" and makes the name public as a self-claimed saviour of mankind. The world becomes divided between those who support his beliefs, and those who think he is just another murderer.

The police begin to investigate, and Light has to be very careful since his father is the chief of police. The police enlist the help of a mysterious detective named "L", who has solved many cases in the past which were considered impossible. The story then goes on to be a battle of the wits between Kira and L, both of whom have ridiculously high intellect, and fight to stay 1 step ahead of each other.

The movie adaptation differs slightly to the anime. Overall it wasnt a bad transition, and it was good that they made it into 2 movies so that they could fit in as much of the important content as possible. I was very disappointed with the actor for Light... who looks nothing like the Light from the anime... and his acting was pretty bad. The actor for L however, played it very well... so I guess that kind of offsets each other. Probably the thing I like most about the movie was Erika Toda, who plays Misa. Misa is a girl who also obtains a death note, and is completely in love with Kira. I think the reasons for her being in love with Kira differ between the anime and movie... but I'll leave it at that, since I don't want to spoil too much of the storyline.

I would give the anime a 9/10 rating, and the movies a 6.5/10. If you like a good suspenseful kind of storyline, this is definitely for u.

So below are a couple of pics of Erika Toda as Misa Amane in the death note movies... who is also the asian celebrity I find most attractive.

Anime/Manga Review: Claymore

I saw Claymore quite a while back now, but I knew the anime was not finished... and that it had deviated from the original storyline because the manga wasn't finished at the time. The anime ended without properly finishing off the story, and no second season has been announced as far as I know... so I decided to read the manga because the story was very interesting and I wanted to know more.

So first up, a basic outline of the story. Its based on a world where yoma (pronounced yoh-ma) dwell in human villages, and kill people to eat their guts, which is their food source. Yoma is directly translated into 'demon' in the English language, which is pretty much what they are. Then there is the 'Organisation', which is a mysterious group who create half-human half-yoma warriors, which other humans refer to as 'Claymores' or sometimes 'Silver-Eyed Witches', who are sent on missions to kill yoma. As the name suggests, all Claymores are female.

The Claymores have a ranking system. There are always 47 Claymores at any one time, each given a rank between 1 to 47. Ranks 1 to 9 are more special and are commonly referred to as 'single-digits' denoting that they are the strongest of the Claymores.

There are also different types of Yoma. There are the basic Yoma, who are generally pretty weak, but they hide amongst humans and feed off them when needed. Then there are 'awakened ones' who are vastly stronger than ordinary Yoma. The organisation will generally assign 4 Claymores to hunt down 1 awakened one, and 1 of those Claymores will be a single-digit. Then there are the 'abyssal ones', who are the 3 strongest awakened ones, and each of the 3 abyssal ones rule over 1 quadrant of the land (the 4th quadrant is where the organisation is).

The main characters are a Claymore named Clare and a young boy named Raki. Clare saved Raki's village from a yoma, but that yoma had slaughtered Raki's family. Raki left the village with Clare, and thats how the story starts. The story also has a major flaskback early on in the series, which goes back a generation of Claymores, when Clare was still an ordinary girl. The story will also skip some years later on and show another generation of Claymores. So theres actually quite a large number of characters.

The manga is quite relaxed about nudity. I don't remember if the anime had the nudity too, but its possible... so thats something for the guys to enjoy =P The manga is only a monthly release, and is still ongoing... so if you end up catching up to the current manga story.... you'll be waiting a while for each new chapter, but its definately worth reading. The anime is good too, as its pretty faithful to the manga, apart from the last couple of episodes.

Overall I'd give it an 8/10, for an interesting storyline and good action (mainly for the anime). It loses out on some rating due to the divergence in the end of the anime, which hasnt been continued on yet... and because the manga takes so long to be released.

So I'll leave you with a fan-coloured picture of my 2 favourite Claymores from the manga; Alicia and Beth, who are the current number 1 and 2 of the Organisation. They are the only Claymores to wear black armour... and I love the look of it.

Blast from the Past: Saint Seiya

While theres tonnes of good current anime and all, I still have a soft spot for a lot of the original animes and movies that I grew up watching. Saint Seiya was among the first shows I ever watched as a kid, and I really enjoyed it back then... but being in Australia, it was hard to get the whole series. I saw most of it, but there were missing episodes from my collection... which were given to me by relatives, or rented out from the chinese video store that my parents normally went to at the time.

Anyway, in this day and age... everything is available somewhere, and I managed to get all of the original seasons of Saint Seiya on DVD... and eagerly watched it. However when I watched it, I came to realise that there was a lot of useless repetitive dialogue, because Seiya is the most stubborn ass ever... and his fellow saints are no different. But it was still good to be able to see all of the episodes again, especially the ones that were missing from my childhood.

So the basic outline of the anime... Seiya is a ' bronze saint of Athena', which basically means that he is a warrior destined to protect the goddess Athena, who has reincarnated into a teenage girl named Saori... who incidently grew up with Seiya and the other bronze saints. There are 3 levels of saints under Athena; bronze, silver and gold... bronze being the weakest, and gold being the strongest. Each saint is based off something from greek mythology. The main characters are the bronze saints; Seiya (Pegasus saint), Shiryu (Dragon saint), Hyoga (Cygnus saint), Shun (Andromeda saint) and Ikki (Phoenix saint). In addition there are the silver saints, but you only see some of them during the early story arcs... the most important ones are generally the teachers to the bronze saints. The gold saints are based off the zodiac star signs.

So its a pretty typical good vs evil storyline, with battles between gods and goddesses + their saints/warriors. The first story arc the Sanctuary arc, which has multiple parts to it. The first part is based on the Black saints, which are essentially the dark versions of the main bronze saints... its more of an introductory season, where you find out a lot about each saint's past and how they eventually became a saint. This is followed by the introduction of the silver saints, and then later the 12 gold saints.

The second arc starts off with the Asgardians... but this is only in the anime, so I'm guessing it was a filler at the time. After that one is the Poseidon arc, where Seiya & Co have to fight Poseidon and his mariner generals.

The anime ended after the Poseidon arc. More recently the Hades arc was finally made into an anime, to continue on from where the Poseidon arc finished. The Hades arc sports much improved graphics and what I could only describe as 'special effects' for lack of a better description to animations for their special attacks. In this arc, the bronze saints along with the gold saints fight against Hades and his minions, which include; his 108 spectres, the 3 judges of the underworld, and the 2 gods Thanatos and Hypnos, who serve Hades. Quite an uphill battle! but was good to watch, if you ignore a lot of their stupid dialogue. The diaglogue is usually one particular sentence, but five different people speak a portion of the sentence. I guess its to illustrate that they were all thinking the same thing, but it annoying after a while.

A couple of months ago, the Saint Seiya Lost Canvas OVA began... which is much more to my liking. It is based on the previous holy war with Hades, with a different generation of saints. The OVA has a more modern feel to it... as it leaves out the terrible style of dialogue that old animes tend to have. It is also fairly fast paced, so you dont have those moments like in DBZ where they spend 2 episodes talking to each other and another 5 episodes charging up before they fight for a few minutes and someone wins.

So far onyl 4 episodes are out, but its well worth the watch even if you haven't seen any of the original Saint Seiya episodes before.

Overall I'd give the following ratings:

Sanctuary - 5/10

Asgard - 5/10

Poseidon - 7/10

Hades - 8.5/10

Lost Canvas - 9.5/10 (losing rating for taking a while to release!)

Now I would normally talk about the ladies of the anime... but there isnt that many in Saint Seiya... probably the one I liked most is Shaina... who is the Ochiuchus saint. She is a female warrior, so she must always wear a mask by Sanctuary law. If a man sees a female warrior's face, she must either kill that man or fall in love with him.

So heres a nice picture of her that I found without her mask:

And here is a picture of her with a gold cloth... although I have no idea where it came from, but she looks really nice with it!

Anime Review: Code Geass

Code Geass is probably the best anime I've seen to date in terms of storyline. There are 2 seasons for it, and each episode leaves you hanging like no other. It is a constant stream of plot development, and I appreciated every twist they did in the storyline... although there were a couple that crushed my heart =(

So the basic storyline is... the Empire of Britannia is basically taking over the world, and they just took over Japan, which is known to Britannians as 'area 11' and thus the Japanese are referred to as 'elevens.' The main character is Lelouch, who is a Britannian Prince that is keeping his identity hidden whilst studying at a Britannian school in Japan. He disowned his father, the Emperor of Britannia, after Lelouch discovered that his father murdered his mother while he was a young boy, which caused his little sister to go blind after the ordeal. He lives with his sister and their Japanese maid secretly.

One day, Lelouch encounters a strange woman known as "C C" and they formed a 'contract' which gave Lelouch the power of Geass. When Lelouch uses the Geass, which gives him a power of absolute suggestion, i.e he gives people a command and they will carry it out without question. This power can not be stopped once used upon a person and is irreversible. However the power can only ever be used once per person and he must make eye contact with them.

This is all explained in the first episode in more detail, and the story shows Lelouch's path to revenge.

So basically if you love a good story with interesting twists, mechs and supernatural stuff... you should check this one out. I'd give it a 9/10, only losing a rating because I was quite upset at a couple of the twists! however it does make the story more interesting. I shall leave you with a picture of the sexy CC:

Eureka 7

Just finished watching Eureka 7 tonight. Pretty good storyline, but I didnt like how they told the story in such massive blocks at the end, instead of developing it throughout the anime.

Below is a picture of my favourite character Anemone, isnt she cute? but below that cute exterior is a rather insane bitch =)

For people who like trance, this is a good insert song from the anime which is featured in a lot of fight scenes... and probably 1 of the best songs I've heard that has come from an anime. I'm pretty new to blogging so I dunno how to embed a youtube clip... but heres a link to the song if you're interested.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlocoNadBKs

I'm not sure who I'd recommend this anime to, but if you're into things like mechas, airborne fight scenes and strange fictional scientific plots... this might be the anime for you.