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Beauty and the Baka▲▼
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Rating▲▼
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Comment▲▼
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| Ai Yori Aoshi (TV) |
Decent |
A promising start soon fades into the most routine of harems, including the most annoyingly subservient of all Maids of Lurve. Yeah, so she has guts, and yeah, her extreme nadeshiko-ness is the point. Doesn't make it any less irritating, though. |
| Boys Be... (TV) |
Good |
Effective romance that hinges on appealing, well-rounded characters, and rather sweetly sketched tales of romantic gravity: the inevitable physics of falling in love. A terrifying sign of the times: only six years have passed, and the lack of cellphones already makes this as quaint as a period piece. |
| Chinese Ghost Story (Chinese movie) |
Decent |
Tsui Hark does his usual cheap n cheerful stuff in this animated retelling of his classic film "A Chinese Ghost Story". The artwork is clearly Anime-tic, but the barely animated characters will not appeal to modern anime fans, in particular the decoupled dialogue and animation. It will, however, trigger the nostalgia of those who remember the classic Shanghai Film Studio products of the early 60s, such as the famous "Uproar in Heaven". |
| Chobits (TV) |
So-so |
CLAMP kinda don't work for me. Not to diss the Mistresses of Cute, it's just that they don't work for me. |
| Eiken (OAV) |
Awful |
Disturbing, truly disturbing. I might have gotten the joke if I hadn't been so creeped out. |
| He Is My Master (TV) |
Decent |
From the makers of “Wings of Honneamise”… isn’t it about time the guys at GAINAX sorted out their issues? Dunno, a few months in a mountain retreat… a spell in a detox program… six to seven in a sexual offenders unit… That den of corruption is at it again, as always unbound by the rules of decency, good taste, or criminal law. The fetish density approaches voodoo levels, especially during the very creepy first episodes, but this being the brilliant houngans at GAINAX, they pepper enough wit and subtlety onto the perversity to keep us rotten souls entertained. Guilty pleasure, as in “Guilty, Your Honor”. |
| If I See You in My Dreams (OAV) |
Decent |
One of the few rabukome catering to the woefully under-served salarymen-who-are-not-into-lolitas market. Admittedly, it’s probably a tiny market. The story is fairly conventional in format, male milquetoasts and female delicate souls seem to be as prevalent at age twenty-six as at age sixteen. |
| Iketeru Futari (TV) |
Decent |
Etchi romantic comedy deserves more respect. This series starts well, with promise of ample perversity ahead, but ends as a fairly standard-issue romantic comedy. |
| Kasimasi - Girl Meets Girl (TV) |
Good |
A pleasant enough gender-bender, thanks to an interesting central love triangle and a reasonable degree of emotional sincerity. Unluckily, all the peripherals are rather poor: terrible secondary characters, bad comic relief, silly plot devices. |
| Mahoraba ~Heartful days~ (TV) |
Good |
Fun and games with dissociative identity disorder. Skillfully gets the basics out of the way by packing every-frickin’-harem-cliché onto the first episode. It then proceeds to reuse those clichés in interesting ways: this is a harem with some sense and sensibility. Among its small mercies, the central milquetoast has at least double the average IQ for his kind (meaning he clocks in at a hefty 80 in the Stanford-Binet). Overall, while its emotional highs are very high, the routine bits are firmly routine. Winner of the Anne Sullivan Award for Most Sensitive Pedagogical Methods. |
| Mahoromatic - Automatic Maiden (TV) |
Decent |
Within the scary domain of maid comedy, Mahoro shines by virtue of GAINAX characteristic careful writing. Rampant fanservice and the usual harem silliness mixes with under-the-radar exposition and well-planned story development: plot points are carefully worked out almost by stealth, and characters ever so slightly fleshed out in minor segments. |
| Mahoromatic: Something More Beautiful (TV) |
Decent |
For some unfathomable reason, Gainax decided that the second season needed to be *fluffier*, which is like deciding that Coke needed to be sweeter. Nice ending, though. |
| Maison Ikkoku (TV) |
Good |
My college dorm was just like this. I mean, like, uncanny. |
| Maison Ikkoku - Apartment Fantasy (live-action movie) |
Very good |
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| Midori Days (TV) |
Decent |
The gimmick is a doozy, I'll give it that. It's a kinda sweet tale reasonably well written, but will shake nobody's world. |
| Momoiro Sisters (TV) |
Decent |
Not the best etchi comedy you'll see, but it does have great anthropological interest in its representation of the terrors of life as an OL nearing Christmas cakeyness. |
| Please Teacher! (TV) |
Very good |
Starting from a *spectacularly* contrived premise, this series unfolds in a rather unexpected fashion: in the midst of all the routine teenage male-fantasy, flourishes of, well, shocking maturity and sensitivity suddenly emerge. The parallel love stories unfold leisurely, delicately, almost tenderly, a major plus in a genre that relishes the frantic. Essential for Pocky addicts (we’re legion!). |
| Please Teacher! (OAV) |
Decent |
After the dust settles, the surprise outcome is some of the healthiest couples in Anime (there is little competition, of course). This episode is mostly a chance for the animators to indulge their etchi instincts, but by this point you cannot really begrudge them their little fun. Sit down, Waldo. |
| Please Twins! (TV) |
Very good |
While not quite the off-speed pitch that was “Teacher”, “Twins” still tosses a wicked changeup: these guys sure know how to get the maximum out of their silly premises. Perfectly structured and well timed as a romantic story, it works even better as a sweet tale of lonely souls defeating their loneliness and finding a place to call home. |
| Please Twins! (OAV) |
Very good |
Onegai, more Onegai! Smart set-up episode for the franchise: Them There leave everything in place for a number of possible sequels. Let's wait and see what they do. |
| REC (TV) |
Very good |
A taut and pithy romantic comedy with a rather good sense of the anxieties and insecurities of early adulthood. Did I mention that I think the 13 minute format should be more common? |
| Revolutionary Girl Utena (TV) |
Not really good |
Boring, booooring. It does prove that the Chief Baka can be a woman as much as a man. |
| Saber Marionette J (TV) |
Decent |
For some reason, I really like the premise of this story (although if they can mess with the clones enough to create phenotypical diversity, duplicating the X chromosome to create women should be a gimme. But I digress) |
| Shuffle! (TV) |
Good |
Oh Glory Oh Joy. It’s good to FINALLY see a harem hero who retains his viscerae –brain, (small) gonads, and (some) guts. And, please please please, pay attention, Oh Powers Above, that this small change makes that most ho-hum of traits, the hero’s lady-killing gentleness, feel sincere and real. The relationship dynamics are modestly interesting, even if the set-up is conventional to a fault. It helps that the voice acting is good, with the exception of the annoying mannerisms of Itou Miki. Too Much Information Time: I just want to have Sugita Tomokazu’s baby. |
| Step Up Love Story (OAV) |
Not really good |
Quasi-hentai that pretends to be a slightly dull PSA for young couples. About as arousing as an episode of Dr. Phil. |
| Tenchi Forever!: The Movie |
Good |
Probably the best of the Tenchi movies, with the kind of sad mood that goes well with the franchise's style of melodrama. Nice to see Tenchi getting some, too. |
| Tenchi Muyo! (OAV 1/1992) |
Very good |
The ultimate baka with the ultimate harem, forever giving hope to the personality- challenged losers amongst us. In fact, the Tenchi OVAs deserve their place in the pantheon for being one of the few in the genre with an actual heart. And I've never been able to get over my Washu crush. |
| Tenchi Muyo! Mihoshi Special |
Decent |
Very minor bridge episode with little in the way of substance, but pleasant enough nevertheless. But oy, Pretty Sammy, oy. From a tiny joke, an entire spinoff is born. You have to admire AIC's capacity to get mileage out of this franchise. |
| Tenchi Muyo! Ryo Ohki (OAV 3/2003) |
So-so |
The Tenchi franchise sputtering to an ignoble stop. A belated conclusion to the Ryo-Ohki OVAs, this third series is surprisingly bloodless and dull. Very pointless. |
| Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki (OAV 2/1994) |
Very good |
With all the attention given to this series as the paragon of all harems, it's easy to overlook what a rollickin' bit of scifi this is. Gotta love Jurai's tree-based technology. |
| Tenchi the Movie - Tenchi Muyo in Love |
Decent |
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| Tenchi The Movie 2 - The Daughter of Darkness |
Decent |
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| Tenshi na Konamaiki (TV) |
Good |
Although of course this gender-bender will automatically bring “Ranma” to mind, it is a fairly great farce on its own right. The blah character design is a pity, as they do an otherwise excellent job of conveying Megumi’s irresistible charms. The soundtrack has an inordinate number of weird musical references (the Pink Panther?). They never do explain the mystery of why four girls from Japan’s richest families go to a high-school in what seems to be the most crime-ridden, gang-infested urban area in the Eastern Hemisphere. Winner of the Susan Faludi Award for Most Insistent Debate on the Nature of Modern Japanese Masculinity. |
| Tokimeki Memorial (OAV) |
So-so |
This early attempt at adapting a dating sim (in this case, the grand-daddy of ‘em all) shows how much the sub-genre has evolved. This OVA is well-nigh incomprehensible without some familiarity with the original, and frankly, it has no interest except for fans who want to see the characters animated. Historical interest only. |
| Tokyo Daigaku Monogatari (OAV) |
So-so |
There is a cultural studies thesis somewhere in the weird fact that the Japanese pornographers are essentially peddlers of melodrama with a side business on skin. |
| Video Girl Ai (OAV) |
Good |
It is kinda nice to see a shounen romance where the boobs become *smaller*. There is some serious creepiness in the fact that Ai is a comfort girl. |
