What I watched in FEBRUARY 2013: Digest Version, part 2 of 2

b Ronin Warriors OVA: Yep, the Ronin Warriors in New York City in the 80s.  SO 80S!  The dub?  AWESOME!!!  "The pain will be unbearable.  I suggest you lose consciousness." - a villain  SO MUCH AWESOME CHEESINESS THE MIND BOGGLES.  The other set is full of wonky ethnic stereotypes and semi-hilarious mysticism.

b The Third: The Girl with the Blue Eye: Two thumbs enthusiastically up.  Excellent dub!  I liked that actress' work in Piano as a secondary character, so I'm glad to see she got a leading role and really nailed it.  And there was more of a finished story there than your average based-on-a-light-novel anime adaptation.  I'll definitely be watching it again.

b Tweeny Witches: This show is a pretty great one to listen to in the background as you do other things.  Don't get me wrong; the visuals are weird and creepy and interesting and well worth watching, but the English dub is pretty fun and lets you follow the story well enough.  Arisu is a normal girl who believes in magic, and then she gets sucked into a magical world, and she turns it on its ear through the power of positive thinking.  Kind of.  It gets pretty dark sometimes, but it's ultimately hopeful.

b Xam'd: So it sort of falls apart in the end, but you almost don't care because of the trippy journey it takes to get there.  I think maybe if I watch it 2 more times, I will get it.  Maybe.  I wish it had been a 39 episode show.  I think it might have been able to be more complete in all its varied storylines and thus been a tad more coherent.  They did a decent job with Eureka7, but that one fell apart a bit in the end, as well.  They both sort of choked on their own mysterious mythology.  But were awesome just the same.  And that opening sequence for the DVDs: holy cow is that catchy despite being totally nonsense Engrish.  I listened to it every single time and still liked it.  (Some fun resources.)

What I watched in FEBRUARY 2013: Digest Version, part 1 of 2

I don't know why, but I love reading reviews where reviewers get the details wrong.  I mean, I understand that they usually have a lot on their plates and can't go back and fact check, but, wow.  Sometimes they're just really wrong enough to make me wonder if we watched the same thing . . .

b Antique Bakery: I like the manga better for all that it leaves in.  The big-busted news ladies and the things they contributed to the actual plot, for one example.  The fact that Tachibana can't really open up and have a relationship with anyone, for another.  But something of the essential nature of Fumi Yoshinaga's characters is really brought to life here, and that makes it somewhat worthwhile.  The over-the-topness is often pretty funny.

b Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom:  Good English dub.  Lots of unfamiliar voices that are really good.  Shades of Darker than Black, Black Lagoon, and Leon (The Professional).  Apparently made by the same people who created Noir, Madlax, etc.  The difference is that this one has one boy and one girl instead of two girls.

Dark, dark stuff.  A generally good example of tragedy.  Made me think (in both good and bad ways) and did a good job with the melancholy tone.  Some lovely/appropriate music and a good reiteration about the motto: "Live by the sword, die by the sword." 

For a good synopsis, check out Serdar Yegulalp's piece.  "There’s an astonishing amount of plot in Requiem; I’ve barely described half the story in the above synopsis, and I’m still leaving out a lot of details . . ."     

"If you want to live, you have to be reborn.  You are now only allowed to exist for the purpose of killing people."
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"I'm too young to be this broken."
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"You're just doing the job someone else would do."
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"You live bearing the pain of what you've done.  You don't make mistakes.  You're careful."
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"Once you kill, everything in the world changes."
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"That's it.  I wanted to go back."
"No.  Let me go back to the world you live in."
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"Before I met you, I was a dead man wearing the skin of the living."
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"There's more to being in love than being with each other."