angelsinthewindow's Anime
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Pokémon (TV) (Season 1) So… This is an anime that has been going on for a very long time. It has become loved and hated by many for its sweet childlike story and the card and video games. I love how the anime actually starts out with a small clip from a video game. It brings the people who have played the game into the show, though that’s where the show pulls away. Instead of using Red and Blue like the manga or game, they use Ash and Gary. Not sure why the name change, and why they make their personality the way they do but it feels really off. Gary is pretty much the high end of the snobby jerk style rival and Ash is on the high end make friends and have fun style. I compare it to Yugioh where Yugi always trusts the heart of the cards, the Ash of Yugioh, and Seto is stuck up like Gary. I have a little question, how come Meowth from Team Rocket the only Pokémon that can talk? There doesn’t seem to be anything special about him and yet he is able to talk really well. Also, why do they want Pikachu and no other? Are they just so stupid that they want only one Pokémon? I did enjoy some of their appearances but it got really repetitive and boring after a while. While I’m on the subject of repetitive stuff, everything in the story is repetitive. Ash and his friends are traveling, they end up getting attacked by Team Rocket and then beat them, ending in Ash sometimes getting to where he wants to go or getting what he wants. The only times I actually liked the show was when they broke from that repetition and had it go for a couple episodes or maybe only had Team Rocket for a couple seconds. Otherwise, it was a story by day thing and got old fast. There has always been a problem with people thinking about the fight aspect of the show. The idea that ‘animals’ are fighting for human’s enjoyment has always been a touchy subject to say the least but I never really saw it as the same as dog fights in our life. Most Pokémon like Pikachu are actually smart and seem to know what they are doing. If a Pokémon didn’t really want to fight, then it could just run away. It was born in the wild so it knows it doesn’t really have to fight. The Banned episodes is the fun part of the show now that I’m older. The fact that they banned episodes completely or edited things out because it didn’t fit the normal in America is really funny to me. I have seen a couple of these though I have mostly only seen the dubbed version of the anime. I may not like how they did it but I understand why they did it. The whose that Pokémon bit that happens just seems really easy at times, using a Pokémon mostly from the episode that the children are watching. There is also the cute little times where its only pokemon talking though its not really used very much. Even though you can’t understand exactly what they are saying, they still get the feeling across. The animation is a bit old now, but still has the same feel of nostalgia that I felt when I was little. Attacks normally happen with speed lines and half assed affects that look like they skip a few seconds. Lighting seems to freeze up slightly when it happens especially in Pikachu’s attacks. The background is more like blotches of color mostly and don’t have much detail besides a couple lines for bumps in the dirt. The rest are watercolor looking. The voices are another matter. The dub kind of falls flat, children have raspy and annoying voices. I hate Gary’s voice the most and luckily we don’t hear it all the time. Ash is a bit easier to cope with since his voice is not normally that whinny and high strong. The music is pretty well known right now, and fits well with the type of story that’s being shown. The music fills you with hope and energy needed for the show although I could really go without the pokemon rap at the end. That felt more like a tack on rather then a actual piece from Japan. No matter the good or bad things about it, it still is a beloved memory of my childhood. I’m looking forward to working on the reviews for the whole series up till now. (Season 2) Ash is almost too lucky. The show starts out with him winning a trip on a blimp for all three of them. Almost everything happens perfectly for them no matter what is going on. There is a bunch of stuff that also carries over from the first season which I like. Things like Jigglypuff showing up, Brock’s problem with thinking with his pants whenever a cute girl is around, and Team Rocket’s blunders. It never fails that whenever they have a hand in something, they end up messing it up in the end. I know people say Team Rocket trying to steal Pikachu is pretty old but somehow, some of the things they do in this season feel a little fresh. After losing Brock, it actually didn’t seem to make much difference since they added Tracey Sketchit. He seemed exactly like Brock in a lot of ways. I didn’t miss Brock at all. The first episode feels a little stupid. They use Bulbasar’s vinewhip to hold Misty’s balance though they could have just used it to grab Togepi. Also, they use the same joke as Team Rocket where the blimp is going back and forward to balance the waight and it happens a little too long. There were also some things that happen in the others like that but it just bugs me slightly. Again, the Whose that Pokemon thing is a bit stupid, having a lot of the same pokemon over and over again. With 150 pokemon, you would think they would have at least one new pokemon in each episode. The art style is pretty much the same, and yet the beginning is rather bad. I don’t see why they had to change the opening to have the rather bad 3D pieces when the rest is more images from the show. Most of the characters they show in the opening is from season one. They should have spent a little more time on it. The rest has speed lines and yet the background has a little more detail work to it for most things. The animation is bright and actually a bit more colorful, probably because they were on a tropical island. They did a really big cop out where Nurse Joy and Police Officer Jeny look exactly the same as the ones on the main land. I get a little pissed off at this. They could have at least tried to come up with a better design. The music is a little catchier for the opening though the animation for the beginning is a bit odd. I think they should have done something a little different. The voices are the same, and the background music is alright. I don’t like the Pikachu Jukebox thing. It just seems like the same music over and over again, and I just don’t care for hearing the music at the end like that. I ended up skipping it. |
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Ranma ½ (TV) So wow, um… as you read from the description or just by knowing this pretty well known anime, this is a gender bender harem. As such, the show has numerous amounts of fan service, awkward tension, misunderstandings, and secrets. You can’t watch the whole series without a boob popping out once in a while or the occasional pervert showing up now and again. (Kurai: “You are not going to be seeing mine!”) (Angel: “Sounding more like a girl already are we?”) (Kurai: “Shut up!”) I have a big question, how is every freaken boy after Akane? I never see anything in her that would be the normal of a girl the boys would drool over. I guess in a way, that’s what makes this show special. She’s not the nerdy girl with glasses, the moe girl with childlike aspects, or a full adult style body. She’s just a normal girl who practices martial arts and is kind of (ok, really bad) at cooking. Sometimes she does have a sweet side but she doesn’t show it to just anyone so how they know about it would be beyond me. We can understand why everybody wants Ranma though; he’s strong, agile, and really athletic. He is also somewhat like a bad boy so it sums him up slightly. But even in the first episode, Ranma shows that he can be sweet and has a code that’s rather good. Now if only he wasn’t afraid of cats… (Kurai: “Ha! That’s the stupidest fear…”) (Angel: “Watch it or when I find out yours, your going down!”) (Kurai: *Shuts up*) One could also wonder about a lot of characters in this show because they are really super stupid. They may have some times where they are at least a little smart but oh god that doesn’t last long at all. I can understand some of the love triangles and some of the problems with nearsightedness, directional problems, and other such things. BUT… that does not excuse more then half the stupid stuff they do. Believe me, if I go too much into the other characters, we will be here all night. That’s another problem with the series; we have the main characters; the supporting characters; the characters that come up every other episode; the ones that stay for a short time, go away and come back again in the next season; and then there are the characters we think may show up again and don’t. (Akuma: “What about the ones that turn into animals?”) (Angel: “I’m getting to that.”) The ones who turn into animals (and I talk about the ones that actually are more like main characters) are somewhat interesting and if you really get into the animals they turn into and their personalities, they pretty much all fit. Ryoga who’s the pig, and he is pretty much as strong as a boar and a lot of times he runs head first into a situation without thinking. He gets lost easy to the point that he would get lost going to the bathroom in his own damn house! There is Mousse who turns into a duck, and he pretty much talks like one when he starts explaining things all the time. And yet, he is so nearsighted that even when standing two inches away from something, if he doesn’t have his glasses, he thinks it’s someone else. And then there is Shampoo who turns into a cat, she’s feisty and acts like a cat in how cunning she can be. Then we get to the point where I bet every one wants me to point out, the fact the series runs to damn long! There are seven seasons, three movies, and 12 OVAs. I will get to the OVAs later on though but the seasons… this show should not of gone on as long as it did and it still didn’t end! The manga didn’t end either but I feel that most of the reason the series went on so long is they were playing it out for the end of the manga. The jokes are reused so many times that it feels stale and I hate to say it but most of the episodes aren’t really even part of the manga. There are some inconsistencies that happen within the show, as in the first episode, Genma turns into a man after being a panda but he has clothing on. One of the big things about people who turn into animals is that they lose their clothing. It’s a major part of the story but yet at times it seems that it only happens when it inconsistencies them. Other times they turn back with clothing on. It makes it a little confusing. The artwork is rather good for how old the show is and it aged rather well. It does get even better in its later episodes as it grew with the time although the older ones have a nice feeling that they did different animation for flashbacks to previous episodes. The female body is very sexually created and yet many of the girls do seem to have a bit of muscular body structure to show they have been working out. There is a lot of nudity and though in the earlier episodes, they luckily don’t show the nipple (Well, at least for the moving images but then they are sitting there, sometimes they do. In the later ones though, they show practically a well-detailed body. The English voice acting… well it gets better over time. Oh come on now, you can’t tell me that after how many seasons Ranma got (and the many amounts of movies) it wouldn’t at least get better. Many times the lip sink does get out of sink but with so many characters screaming and having exaggerated mouth movements, it happens. The music can be really fun at times and then switch to a mysterious few cords. They may be annoying but since they have been used over and over, there are ones I can pick out perfectly as what the soundtrack is supposed to represent. |
Decent |
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Sgt. Frog (TV) The story is rather odd and yet, still rather funny. The show goes by a comedy of the week thing but if you dig down, it really does have an underlineing story that keeps the show together. A bunch of frog aliens trying to take over the world turned out to make it a really fun show. There are a lot of parodies, most of them I didn’t really get since they were Japanese and even turning it to the English Dub, some were a little to old for me I think. The characters are really cute and even if they are stereotypical, they keep the story going well. The gags can be a little repeditive but don’t really lose my intrest. They do change it around to try to give us a fresh take on the story and comedy. The show doesn’t relie on fan service, making most of those times rather slight and you don’t normally see it unless they point it out to you. Sometimes, they even break the 4th wall, talking to the narrator which makes the show funnier sometimes. The Animation is really nicely done, crisp and clean, even if some of the images go into runny egg art style. It doesn’t have much detail but I think it works well for the comical part of this show. I don’t understand why they made the ending have CG in it and really bad CG too. There voices are really strange, though I don’t have any real problems with them at all. None of them made me want to bleed at the ears. The only one that felt strange was Momoka. I really don’t care for her crazy voice. The music is really good for the opening and closing. The opening is a rather catchy theme called Ribbit March, and feels just like a march making me want to get up. The endings is a little strange and not sure why they talk about afros in one of them. |
Good |
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