Merry Christmas!

Dogs: Stray Dogs Howling in the Dark OVAs review

I have just finished the 4 part OVA that is an adaption to the Dogs Manga Series. Now, I have to say that I have not read any of the Manga under the Dogs franchise, so this review is only from seeing the OVAs.

The OVA series consists of 4 episodes, each dedicated to one of the main characters. Each episode reveals the back story or some of it to the audience of one of the characters. The characters are Mihai: a retired mafia Assassin, Badou: A chain smoking free lance photographer with a tendency to be hilarious, Naoto: A sword wielding girl seeking vengeance and Haine: a genetically modified assassin.

The atmosphere of the series is very dark much like Black Lagoon. It labels itself as a action packed adventure but, this defiantly not the best part of the short series. The story and characters itself is the best feature.

Now, the most disappointing part of Dogs is the poor production values, the art looked rather decent until they started moving around. The action was really poorly done with slow editing which made the gun fights seem really fake. The music was really substandard as well, there was one good tune but, it lasts like 10 seconds.

Unfortunately due to underwhelming production values it really compromises the effect Dogs: Stray Dogs Howling in the Dark could have. However the characters and the story telling really intrigued me, and it is this that has made me want to read the original material. Lucky for me, Madman are releasing the first volume on the 10th of January 2010. I will definitely be grabbing this as soon as it is out. As for the OVAs, i give them a 6.8/10

Kannagi Review

I was in the mood for something cheery and fun after doing exams, so i picked up this series. First off, I am impressed! I picked this up just for the fun of it but, got something allot deeper then i expected. The characters are good, the chemistry is good, the animation is good and the humour is grand! It really set itself apart from generic school dramas with a well made plot and characters. I expected this to a harem anime but, i was dead wrong. It is very much just a school comedy with a slice of the supernatural, it reminded me of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzimiya or School Rumble (Though the quality was no quiet as good as those two). Each episode gave me plenty to laugh at and the last few episodes showed it's more serious side with well crafted drama.

The biggest stregnths of this show was the humour and the characters. Unlike alot of anime the characters personalitys were not overexaggerated. Some of my favourites were Nagi, the Heronine of this show armed with a child like naitivity and a childish manner to back that up. Zange was a decent character, she created most of the tension of this show though she loses points for being a bit of a bitch (though her design and voice are both very cute >_<). Unlike allot of comedies these days, the males had some good personalities, like Daitetsu, he is the artistic giant who is misunderstood and likes cute things... Kind of like a male Sakaki to an extent. Akiba is also awesome, an Otaku with a fitting name. He is constantly informing other members of the cast that there views of the Otaku community is faulty but, then he goes to contradict himself. His ten minutes of ranting about anime are also amusing.

The animation reminded me ALLOT of K-ON, the resemblance is almost scary. It had the same kind of floppy feel to it, Kyoto must have "borrowed" this art style for their Moe Blob madness.

All in all it is a very good comedy and I would highly recommend this to any anime fan looking for a good laugh. Though, I am kind of annoyed that allot of the supernatural side was left unanswered especially regarding Zange.

I give this series 7.5/10

Code Geass: Shikkoku no Renya

Remember that new Code Geass project I talked about? Well it has been confirmed, it is a new Manga series called Code Geass: Shikkoku no Renya created by Taniguchi Goro, the director of the Code Geass anime series. The story takes place in the edo period in Japan, CC goes in search a new partner to make a contract with and she meets Renya. Renya is a 17 year old boy with a Mechanical arm and uses Shuriken, there is also a character that resembles Lelouch.

More info can be found:
http://www.madman.com.au/actions/news.do?method=view&newsId=1368
http://myanimelist.net/manga.php?id=17311

I personally will read this, it sounds interesting.
Side note: I want to see CC go to Italy... So much pizza...

Winter Season

The lineup for the winter season has been released (this is a little late but whatever). I have to say.. Not much catches my attention.

What I will watch:
Dance in the Vampire Bund - Simply because it has Shinbou Akiyuki as the director, he always puts an interesting spin on things (I haven't seen his works on his various loli shows though)
So・Ra・No・Wo・To - It's K-ON at war. Probably won't be great but what the hell
Ookami Kakushi - Another alternative setting to the Higurashi universe, even though I didn't much care for Umineko, maybe i should catch up on missed episodes

New Code Geass Project in the Works

Yes, you heard right. Bandai has announced a new Code Geass is the works and is coming to us in 2010. You would think a fan like me would happy at this news? God no, I am really nervous, I hope they don't taint the name of Code Geass. R2 had a really satisfying ending and if they stuff with that I will be pissed as hell!

Major spoilers inbound

Bandai never announced the what exactly is the new project but, it hasn't stopped fans taking wild guesses. It could be a range of things, a compilation movie, some OVAs telling side stories and hopefully NOT a sequel to the anime. One fan suggested that the mysterious new project is Code Geass shown from Nunnally's point of view... Wouldn't that be extremely easy to animate?



Another fan has suggested that it could be an anime adaption of the alernate world story from the Manga: Code Geass: The Nightmare of Nunnally which can be found here. Many fans have pointed out that that the word “rebirth” is present in the advertising of this new project and suggesting the rebirth of Lelouch or the return of Lelouch after staging his own death (The speculation of Lelouch's death opens up a another can of worms). When I first heard about the controversy regarding Lelouch's death I had to jump on the “He is not dead” bandwagon because it made for a good story but, my suspicions were cut down by the creator claiming he is in fact dead but, another fan suggested he said this because he didn't want to reveal his plans for a new project.


This news has sent the Otaku Community into a mad frenzy with many supporters and skeptics. All this hype will probably be just wasted on a couple of OVAs. We will See how this turns out.

what is this i don't even

Oh... That's right... we have a blog. It's hard to remember these sort of things after the exams and then freedom. Don't worry new content is on it's way, we just have to get back into the habit. I hope the other two can follow suit.