Oh my friggin’ god! This is one disturbing anime… I had no intention of blogging this anime after seeing the first episode. It really looked like some mediocre concept executed rather boringly with rather dull art. How this episode proved me WRONG!

I repeat: do not get fooled by the first episode. It’s just a big introduction of the second one. So many horrible things happen (I can reaaaaaly understand why they called this Japanese Classic Horror), most often considered taboo in anime. Seeing Oiwa kill herself was extremely painful to watch. The other murders that happened afterwards gave me the chills, and when the episode ended with the text: "this is only the beginning", I really had a tough time swallowing.

If you like to see some horror movies, and have a bit of patience, then I’ll certainly recommend this.

This episode wasn’t anything special. I guess they’re developing the little girl bit by bit. The story just was the same. Guy does something horrible, girl gets revenge. It was interesting to watch though, I think I’ll never really get tired of these kinds of stories.

It was great to see everyone who was left behind again after Ichigo set off for Soul Society. Especially Ichigo’s father cracked me up. What I found a bit weak was the fact that Renji suddenly appeared. He was getting popular, so the creators certainly couldn’t avoid to write him out of the series, so they tried to find an excuse to stuff him into this arc somehow. Furthermore, Inoue gets some serious screentime, probably the first time in fifty episodes, and we already know the goal for the next fifty episodes of the series. We also got a small glimpse of the new bad guys. I don’t know why the creators tried so hard to hide their faces, when right afterwards the ED gives us some nice close-ups of our new antagonists. I have to say, I like their art. The little girl is also too cute.

Oh my god Atori! When I thought the last episode was good, I really didn’t know that this one would be even better!

Even though this is just the aftermath of the previous episode, it suddenly became all clear what kind of huge impact it had. I’m most surprised about Atori. This was something I never would have expected. Tobi (I finally know her name. :P) plays a wonderful part once more, and the chase had me laughing for quite a while. It’s so nice to see that the total group of protagonists as become so large. It offers a great variety, which is what the series really shows in this episode.

Please, Noein. Give me more awesomeness.

Recap episode. Along with the ending of the ending of Soul Society arc.

"Bleach!"
"Celebration! Rukia rescue!"
"Shine Away! The ten fights of the Shinigami!"
"We will show you your favourite Shinigami!"
"Special!"
"On top of that, we’ll show you new developments!"

That’s the caption of this episode. I don’t know, but it seems a bit desperate. Especially the latest sentence. Are the creators that scared of losing people in a recap episode? I’m a bit sceptic about this. Another thing that I find strange is that they keep talking about the ten fights. Eventually, we just get to see seven of them. Did the creators have something special in mind, or are they just trying to save some budget?

Anyway, the recap itself consisted of almost all of the long fights that had happened in the series, put in just twenty-five minutes. The creators obviously tried to give the fight-loving viewers a little extra, by repeating the "good things" all over again. I, however, hated it.

Then we get Ichigo&co saying goodbye to everyone, and Rukia deciding to stay. That one’s an interesting development, but a tiny voice inside of me keeps yelling that they’ll eventually end up together again. My intuition says that that’ll happen within two episodes.

The thing I enjoyed about this episode was the comedy that finally returned to the series. From Ichigo’s arguing, to Kon’s blabbering and Inoue’s naiveness to Kenpachi’s enthusiasm.

About the next arc: I’m getting a bit worried. The fights at the soul society were already incredibly long. I have a feeling that the creators are trying to surpass themselves, with even longer fights. As for Ichigo, I would so love it if he became the bad guy in his Hollow-form. That would be so awesome. But then again… looking at some of the signs of low-budget in this episode, that probably won’t be happening.

This another one of those typical shounen series. With long fights, hugely powerful people and, of course, a male protagonist. I kept watching for the first ten episodes, just because the world, setting and magic system the creators created for this anime is hilarious. Every single nickname of every single warrior is horribly clichéd. So much that it actually becomes funny (for example, the strongest fighter in the kingdom named himself Scarface). When special martial arts techniques are executed, not only do the people executing them say the technique names once or twice, it also appears in huge lettters on the screen, in order to make sure that the viewer knows the name of the moves (which make no sense, by the way). The magic system is even more hilarious. Magic is sealed in cards, and when those cards are summoned, the cards start talking with an excessively overdramatic voice, telling who they are and what they do ("I am a flame! I scorch my enemies!"). When I saw these for the first time, I really couldn’t stop lauging.

This series surprised me even more when around the tenth episode, an actual story began to form, which is very rare among most shounen series. We saw some really interesting character interactions, motives and developments. Unfortunately, there were still the extremely long fights and sometimes, the scenes became a bit too dramatic, which didn’t do the series any good. The ending, also was (as expected) a horrible mess.

The character art itself looks a bit messy, and mostly typical for a shounen anime. I didn’t really care for it. EXCEPT when a character was either extremely beat down, or full of despair. At these moments, the creators managed to produce some of the most awesome-looking images ever, which really grab you, and take a while to let go. The music in this show is also awesome. The tunes realy give a reason to sit through the battles, and they really set the mood for the anime.

Why you should watch this: if you’re into shounen anime, you should watch this. But this is also a few good laughs worth for the ones who love shounen-parodies.

This is the sequel of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, another anime I really liked. The series starts out pretty decent. A new enemy appears, who defeats Nanoha in a fight. The premisse of another one of those action series.

Well, those predictions get totally trashed into the ground by the next following episodes. The creators managed to create the most amazing person for the "antagonist" of the show, and the other bad guys have some of the most depth ever seen. Especially the middle episodes are just too sad to watch, and they only get better and better as the story unravels.

But yeah, with a show like this, there was no way for the ending to be not predictable, and yes, the last two episodes indeed seem to go right the way you suspected it. Still, the creators manage to make something decent out of it.

The characters, as I’ve already said, are extremely well developed. The main characters may look a bit like other main characters, but all the other characters totally make up for it (after all, Nanoha already got her screentime in the first season, so now it’s time for the other characters to shine, the creators made the right choice for that).

As for the graphics and sound department, this show certainly delivers. The art looks great, the character art is extremely cute and the CG looks amazing. If you however, compare it to the prequel, it’s very hard to see any improvements in it. You would expect that the creators would put a bit more time in the show to make the graphics even better. The music also is wondeful, fitting each and every scene. Well, almost every scene. The ED and the commercial tune really break all of the tension the series had been building up. That is a bit of a pity.

Why you should watch this: If you like cute character art, a heavy dose of morality and furthermore a great story, then you should watch this.

Paradise Kiss doesn’t really rely on heavy cliffhangers or tensions. It’s mostly a love story, with people acting, a couple of unstabilities in the relationships, with all of it revolving around a fashon show. The show just has one climax, at the second last-episode, but apart from that, it’s just a very laid-back anime, focused on character interaction, no more, no less.

Some people may enjoy this, but I became a bit frustrated by it. The only reason I kept watching was because of the amazing OP and ED. I was looking forward to them every time I watched the anime. But I guess these kinds of shows don’t really appeal to me. The first episode was also a bit delusional, as there are a lot of wacky things going on, which had me smirking quite a few times. This really gave the impression that we’re dealing with some kind of love-comedy. Well, the comedy stopped entirely after the beginning of the second episode.

Overall, it had its interesting moments. The climax was really enjoyable to watch, the character art is different than other anime, but it looks awesome, and the ending deserves a few thumbs up. I’m just not the type of viewer who enjoys these kinds of love-shows, and twelve episodes long may have been a bit too much.

Why you should watch this: If you’re into fashon or romance shows, then this is the anime you should watch.