A sweet and charming 'magical girl' show by the popular CLAMP team, built on the framework of a collectable card game. 4th grader Kinomoto Sakura (renamed to "Sakura Avalon" in the dub) accidentally releases a number of magical cards from an ancient book. With the aid of the cards' guardian, Keroberos, who appears as a winged toy bear, and her adoring girlfriend Tomoyo (called "Madison" in the dub), Sakura must recapture the cards and return them to their book, using the captured cards' powers to help her. Complications ensue with the appearance of other seekers of the cards. Cardcaptor Sakura is as much about the joys, vicissitudes and perplexities of growing up, of what friendship really means, of how to be brave in the face of danger, as it is about its frame story of the chase after magical cards. As with all CLAMP shows, the character and costume designs are utterly charming, and as with all CLAMP shows, there are hints of homoeroticism.
This show is commercially available in the US (from Geneon) in two formats: Cardcaptor Sakura has Japanese language and English subtitles only, and has not been edited for content; Cardcaptors, with an English dub only, is the version that was shown on American TV, and is heavily edited. Only the latter is available in Australia (from Madman).
[Entry by Slithy Tove]
see Tsukikage Ran
see Meitantei Conan
see Laputa
see the entry for Lupin III
See Gundam
see Haibane Renmei
See Kodomo no Omocha
A naive tax collector is surprised to find that he was assigned to work in the land of ghosts and spirits. Too late, he already fell in love with a beautiful ghost who wants to harvest his soul for her mistress. He can resist her spell and wins her love, but now the two lovers find themselves in the middle of a battle between the three best ghostbusters of the land. Loosely based on the same Chinese fairy tale as the popular live-action Hong Kong movie of the same name. Beautiful character design and 2D animation, badly mixed with ugly, overdone 3D computer graphics that brings down the overall experience. Yet the great (very Chinese) humour and a cute story save the film.
[Entry by Hanno Mueller]
Can a machine be alive? Can it have a broken heart? How does it change us to have our ideal partner, but with none of the challenges that a real person brings? Chobits can be mistaken for a shallow seinen (college student) story about a boy who finds a beautiful "Persocom" girl robot, but this story came from the all-female Osaka manga team Studio CLAMP, and nothing is ever what it seems with them.
A country boy, Hideki Motosuwa, moves to the big city to get an education and comes across Chi, a Persocom left in the garbage. In this near future, Persocoms are walking personal assistants, PCs and cellphones, made to look like beautiful humans, and of course people begin to become obsessed with them. In finding out the history of Chi, Hideki learns the secret history of Persocoms and that Chi may be the legendary "chobits" model: a model that has true emotions. And who is the mysterious author of those children's books that seem to be talking about Chi and Hideki?
The story works on so many levels. There's the wonderful (and ultimately platonic) love story of Hideki and Chi, but the series also asks interesting questions, like "How do people change when we can have a relationship with a robot?" and "What happens when we forget about the humans we used to have relationships with?" From a silly exploitation premise, CLAMP manages to create an intriguing philosophical love story.
Advisory: Mature content and very suggestive scenes; 16 years and up.
Licenced by Geneon in North America, and by Madman in Australia.
[Entry by Travers Naran]
see Juuni Kokki
It is the late 1920s, America is experiencing a boom economy, and the rich keep on getting richer... and with all that money, they find they have time to pursue other things, and number one on the list... Devil worship. That's not jake, so Sister Rosette Christopher, her demon friend Chrono, and the other members of the Holy Order of Mary of Magdelene must combat this terrible new menace. Rosette has her own reasons for fighting the demons, as she searches for her long lost brother, Joshua. This is definitely not a kid's show, however, the Christmas episode is a heart-warming one, definitely worth sharing. This series starts off slightly dark, switches to comedy every now and then, but can and will get very dark, very fast. So don't be a Mrs. Grundy, go out and watch this show.
Note: Of all the anime I've seen, this is the one that uses Christian symbols most closely to their true symbolism, and even though it seems to be just a Nuns With Guns show, it's much deeper than that.
Licenced by ADV in North America and the UK, and by Madman in Australia.
[Entry by Bill Martin]
A jazzy group of bounty hunters meet up and travel the galaxy. Lots of great individual episodes as well as a main storyline running through them all. Sharp animation that shows how well the hand drawn and computer mixed can look. Great music and even the dub is actually pretty good. Instant classic which appeals to a wide audience, otaku and non-otaku alike. Available from Bandai in North America, or Madman in Australia.
[Entry by Shawn Granger]
CotS (a.k.a. SeiMon from Seikai no Monshou) is a hard sci-fi story set amidst an era of interplanetary empires and galaxy-spanning war. Humanity has colonized the stars, and the resulting new order has become one of vast, conflicting empires. The male lead is the son of a free planet's president who "sold out" his people to the ABH empire when they came to invade. Now nobility himself and all but deprived of friends, family, and homeland, Jinto must enter the ABH military in the hopes of eventually assuming his rightful place in the nobility. His first contact with the genetically enhanced ABH is Lafille, a very special young woman whose identity and significance to the political fabric of the empire becomes only gradually apparent.
The show hits all the bases: politics, deeply imagined culture and futuristic technology, action both in person and between space fleets ... and most importantly character development, as Jinto and Lafille grow up as individuals while growing together as people. The chemistry between them is the focal point of the animators for this show, and they pull it off with style. Visuals aren't bad at all either, as expected of Bandai's frontline animators at Sunrise.
If you want something fluffy, something with major fanservice, something hyperkinetic, or can't take serious sci-fi, SeiMon is probably not the anime for you. If the above description sounds interesting, however, I recommend picking up the first volume and seeing what you think.
Available from Bandai in North America, and Madman in Australia.
[Entry by Mark L. Neidengard]
see Porco Rosso
You know something strange is afoot when the opening warning of an anime says "Kids, imitating this will get your thrown in jail" instead of the usual "Step Away from the TV and turn on the lights".
Cromartie High chronicles the misadventures of a delinquent high-school class whose misfit members more resemble traveling circuis attractions than students. With a cast that includes a gorilla, a singing robot, and a student with more than a passing resemblance to Freddy Mercury, Cromartie High is sure to entertain fans of wacky low-brow comedy.
Available in R1 from ADV.
[Entry by Abraham Evangelista]
Old-style comic-book action from the writers that later went on to create Dirty Pair: Feature movie and two OAV episodes available, from the TV series about team Crusher and their leader Joe, four mercenaries (and one robot) who'll tackle any job in the galaxy that needs doing, no matter how impossible ... especially if impossible. Available from AnimEigo.
[Entry by Derek Janssen]
In a world dominated by the criminal element, the forces of law and order turn to setting criminals up to work off their penalties by becoming unwilling foot soldiers in the march against crime. Three such criminals are followed in this series, each with a mission to complete within a given period of time, otherwise a device locked on their necks will make sure they do not get another chance. With each successful mission, a portion of their sentences is erased. (Manga)
[Entry by Chika]
