...what are you watching...

The Handmaiden kmovie! I thought this was a horror movie from the initial trailer, but it was more of a dark romance (erotic, psychological thriller says wiki, but don't read wiki because it's based on a book and wiki gives away much of the interesting plot points). Park Chan-wook is the director who is known for his movies, Snowpiercer and Oldboy. This has the same beautiful cinematography and unusual story elements as his prior works. A young woman helps a con artist woo a rich woman out of her inheritance while posing as her maid. Things don't go as planned as love and betrayal come into play. I thought the end was lovely. Warnings for mildly explicit lesbian sex scenes. ~8/10 rating~ for the lush visuals and original storytelling.



Boku Dake ga Inai Machi jmovie! (Erased) is the movie version of the manga that was also an anime series last year. So slimming down an 8 volume manga to 12 episode anime cut a little of the story's detail out, and slimming it down further to a 2 hour movie cuts even more out. The movie focuses on Satoru trying to figure out who is kidnapping and killing young girls in the past to prevent his mother's murder in the future. The anime was excellent at ending each episode at a cliffhanger. Much of that thrill is lost in the movie. The movie takes a different route at the end, and it pretty much pegs Satoru as a moron for confronting a killer on his own twice. ~5/10 rating~ not for changing the ending, but changing it so badly that you wonder why there are 18 years worth of murders unchanged by the time travel. It's terrible, so don't watch this.



Attack on Titan (and the End of the World) jmovies! are two movies based on the manga of the same name. While the anime followed the manga fairly closely, these live-action movies had to do some creative writing to get an incomplete story into the two movies. The first movie speeds through the re-introduction of the Titans to the walled country after 100 years of peace. It concludes with Eren being eaten and re-emerging as a Titan. The movie creates unnecessary conflict between Eren and Mikasa when Eren unintentionally leaves Mikasa behind during the first attack. After training, Eren meets Mikasa again only to find out that she blames him for what happened to her. The second movie starts with the military being suspicious of Eren. Another Titan saves him from the trial. We find that Shikishima (original movie character), an elite military figure, is also a Titan and wants to use the last remaning bomb to destroy the inner walls to see what the higher class people are hiding. Eren and his comrades oppose him and want to close the hole in the outer wall to protect the people. There were many plot points left hanging, so maybe they are planning another movie? The CGI and aerial footage were better than expected, but not great. ~6/10 rating~ warnings for excessive blood splatterings and weak story. Only watch this for the novelty.



Chihayafuru: Kami no Ku jmovie! the first of two movies based on the manga of the same name. The actors are perfectly cast in their roles, and their personalities and relationships are preserved. The production is lovely, too. This first movie covers the creation of the karuta club and the local tournament. ~9/10 rating~ The humor and tension from the original story translate well into the live-action film. Looking forward to the 2nd movie.

Shingeki no Kyojin 23-25! the end of season one. I'm a fan of animes taking a break while the manga continues on. The identity of the female Titan is revealed. Glad to see Arwin had a clue long before the failed mission. I'm still wondering when Eren, Arwin and Mikasa will try to find out what Eren's father was hiding. They try and capture Annie. The final episode's battle was pretty awesome. ~10/10 rating~ Even with the gore, violence and inappropriately funny-looking titans, everything else about the anime was excellent. This definitely ranks up there with Hagaren and HXH in terms of memorable anime. It seems they've reached volume 8 of the manga and the mangaka estimates that he'll wrap it up in 20, so it'll be a bit of a wait to see what happens. Mikasa and Levi are pretty badass characters.


Hakkenden S2 12-13! the end. Skipping a few minor story details, the crazy nun gathers the 8 people with beads so that she can gain Fuse Hime's powers. This was a guilty pleasure anime since I was only watching for the attractive characters and the bromance. The manga isn't complete, but the anime plot was actually ok. It reminded me of Fushigi Yuugi without the annoying female characters. ~7/10 rating~ The anime was by no means great, but boy band fluff isn't so bad once in awhile.


Makai Ouji: Devils and Realist 11-12! the end. William is taken into Hell, puts on the ring of power and unleashes Solomon's power. Rather corny for the climax. And rather anti-climactic. Out of this and Hakkenden, Hakkenden was the better boy-band anime. ~5/10 rating~ Kevin was the only unintentionally amusing character in the show.


Monogatari S2 11-13! 11 is a flashback. 12 starts the Nadeko arc. She starts seeing the snake again. She's not as interesting as she was the first time around. The theme song is rather bland.

Hunter x Hunter 2013 96-98! features the Phantom Troupe who travel to their 'hometown' so to speak to get rid of the chimera ants who have taken over. It's nice to see what the side characters' powers are after seeing them do barely anything of note in the past. Kalluto, Killua's younger brother's point of view is interesting. After the two episodes on the Phantom Troup, 98 returns to Gon and Killua. There's some seemingly bad news about the series moving to a 1am timeslot from the 11am time. There is concern over the future quality and audience...hope those concerns remain unfounded.

Can't say that this fall's new anime list looks interesting, but here are a couple shows that did not have websites that did not have too much moe:
Samurai Flamenco - the title made me laugh...supermodel turned superhero
Pupa - brother and his sister who has turned to cannibalism...wtf japan and their cannibal genre...titans not enough?

Monogatari S2 10! anticlimactic, but sweet end to the time travel arc. Even though I keep looking forward to some action-packed climactic battle and they don't give me it, I do like how they resolve their problems.

Makai Ouji: Devils and Realist 9! cultural festival at the school...zzz....

Hunter x Hunter 2013 95! Gon's 30 days are up and everyone plans to fight their opponents. Killua's sad face worse than Gon's sad face.

Shingeki no Kyojin 22! After Levi shows off his skills and helps Mikasa save Eren, the aftermath of their mission has everyone devestated. I can see why fanboys like Levi.

Hunter x Hunter 2013 93-94! Funny how Gon knew how to plan his date with Palm out without any big fuss, while Killua was pretty clueless. The two episodes were very cute. Palm is the epitome of scary girlfriend.



Hakkenden S2 3-7! Shino teaches kids that were once abandoned at the red-light district. A small blind girl takes a liking to him. And then Shino investigates a town where the local deity was killed. Sosuke meets his other half. Anticlimactic episodes, but there are a few cute scenes. In episode 6, Shino learns that the members of his boy band all possess the beads that he was looking for. Nachi's cat, Kaede is able to sense the beads. I like the megane guy with the ice/snow princess. They are attractive. Episode 8-9 is a sad arc about a boy wanting to find flowers for his mother, but it turns out that the side character, Shinobu, is important.

Monogatari S2 9! After Araragi saves Hachikuji's life in the past, Araragi and Shinobu return to the present to find a world full of vampire-zombies.

Makai Ouji: Devils and Realist 9! However terrible the anime is, William's lack of any religious inclinations is amusing when the angels and demons keep angsting around him.

Shingeki no Kyojin 20-21! Ugh, the gore, suspense and cliffhangers! They are able to catch the female titan only long enough for her to call her fellow titans who start to devour her. The army retreats, but Erwin suspects the female titan is hiding as a fellow soldier. She attacks Eren's group and well, massacres them and eats Eren. Mikasa, the best female character in any anime right now, despairs for a split second before going right after her.

Shingeki no Kyojin 15-19! Major Hanji tells Eren about her experiments on captured Titans; crazy scientist is crazy. The new recruits then have to choose what division of the army to join. Most of the side characters that we've seen naturally join the recon/survey group...where Eren is of course. While 15-16 nicely builds the tension up, Episode 17 starts a new offensive. Armin runs across a intelligent female titan. 17-19 again brought some awesome visuals and tension while the group plans to capture the female titan.

Blood Lad 3! Stuck out another episode to see if wolf-boy is interesting. It's nice that he and Staz have mutual love-hate friendship going on, but it wasn't that engaging. Now, this is dropped.



Gin no Saji 2-4! Educational and cute, but the pacing lags and I keep falling asleep. Episode 4 was about pizza....mm...but dropped.

Hunter x Hunter 2013 88! End of their training. Gon vs Knuckle starts. Shoot lurks in the background. Another strong chimera ant is born.

Shingeki no Kyojin 14! The new opening theme song isn't as epic as the first, but I enjoyed the action-packed new visuals. In this episode, Eren is put on trial with his life at stake. The recon group is able to gain responsibility of him.

Hakkenden S2 2! End of the doll arc with more mysteries thrown into the plot.

Monogatari S2 2! Hanekawa via 'black' cat visits the tiger, and she meets Senjougahara. The girls get to know one another.

Blood Lad 2! Fuyumi angsts a little over being a demon while Staz sprays his saliva all over the town so nobody thinks twice about him or her. A girl with transport magic appears. The show has its silly fun moments, but I think I'm going to drop this. I think I've seen most of the jokes before.

Makai Ouji: Devils and Realist 2! William sorta befriends another demon who enrolls at the school. Like Hakkenden, it's a show about good-looking boys doing cutesy things and action-like things; ie. entertaining the female viewers.

Uchouten Kazoku 2! Day in the life of the tanuki brothers...and a tender moment with their mom/prince. Eccentric family, but fairly dull show thus far. Dropped.

Hunter x Hunter 2013 87! Thought Gon punched Knuckles in the groin or something. That was a confusing scene. Nevertheless, Kite is being turned into a Frankenstein-like doll. Netero and the other two are slowly killing off the chimera ant leaders. And Gon and Killua continue to train now with Knuckles' help.

Shingeki no Kyojin 13.5! skipped the recap episode.



Monogatari S2 1! It's a new school year and Hanakawa meets backpack-less Hachikuji on her way to school. She also sees a white tiger and her house burns down. Senjougahara finds her sleeping in the abandoned cram school building and forces her to stay with her. Araragi is not in this episode. It's female bonding/fanservice time.

And the new shows:


Uchoten Kazoku 1! Humans, tengu and tanuki.

+ Attractive production (Zetsubou Sensei-ish...with a wider color palette)
- Bland episode

Quick impression~ A young male tanuki dressing like schoolgirl runs errands for his grandfather. It appears that this should be a comedy, but it's lacking effective humor. The episode doesn't do much to get you interested in whatever story it's trying to tell.



Makai Ouji: Devils and Realist 1! I like how fanboys post 'yaoi' warnings when describing this anime show. This is based on a Zero-sum manga, so there's bound to be some light bromance.

+ Eye-candy
+ Goat-butler!

Quick impression~ A straight-A bocchan finds that his uncle has lost their family's fortune. William Twining and his one loyal butler search his home to find something to sell so that William can pay his school's tuition. I like that he attends a Catholic school but doesn't believe in god and such. They find a demon in the basement, but William believes him to be a con artist. The demon sees William as the descendent of Solomon who will choose the leader of the demon world while Lucifer is hibernating. This was actually fairly comedic. Unfortunately, the manga is not complete so the anime will unlikely cover much of the meat of the manga.



Kamisama no Inai Nichiyoubi 1! The Sunday without God

+ Interesting title and premise
- Really? a loli-gravedigger? (...well, 'gravekeeper' with a decorated shovel)
+ the main character's father's name is Humpnie Humbert...WTF...LOL.

Quick impression~ Heaven and Hell were too crowded so God forsake the world. Humans couldn't die or reproduce. Apparently, a gravekeeper could grant a peaceful slumber to the zombies that form after a human is 'killed'. Ai is the town's gravekeeper. One day she meets a traveler with her father's name and finds that all of the residents have been 'killed'. If Ai wasn't so annoyingly loli, this may be an interesting show.



Blood Lad 1! Ao no Exorcist vibes....

+ Bright, colorful production
+ Amusing

Quick impression~ A young, well-endowed female human wanders into the demon world. Staz, a vampire, is a big otaku and the leader of the gang who finds the girl. The girl is inadvertantly killed; she is now a ghost. Staz vows to turn her back into a human. Judging from the opening song, this is your typical shounen fighting show, and like typical shounen shows, it's fun. I do hope the female character gets some sort of power. (Vampire, ghost, and werewolf characters...sounds like the 'Being Human' trio..anime style)

Chihayafuru S2 24-25! the end! Finally get to see some of Arata and Shinobu's match. Arata shows that despite Taichi's very nice personality, Arata also wins in the niceness department. I do like Kana's support of Taichi x Chihaya despite everything moving against that direction. ~10/10 rating~ for a well-written series with plenty of suspense and comedy for a show about a poetry card game. All the characters were great to watch. I'm glad Mizusawa won the team competition and took every class but class A. I wouldn't mind seeing another season.

Hunter x Hunter 2013 85-86! A quick, tender flashback moment between Kite and Gon x Killua before Kite is well, killed..at least decapitated. Netero and two other hunters show up. Excellent episode. Very sad they did not show Kite's weapon choice and fight...though I suppose they may show it later in a flashback. 86 is a relief as Biscuit returns to train Gon and Killua. There's a twinge of optimism and humor that was lacking in the last few episodes.

Shingeki no Kyojin 12-13! Surprisingly, Mikasa could not reach Titan-Eren. Armin is the one to talk him out of his slump, and gets him to seal the hole in the wall. Eren, Armin and now Erwin...tongue-twister in progress?

Shingeki no Kyojin 10-11! Armin finally stops being a wimp...The commander decides to use Eren's power to take control of Trost. I am still impressed by the way they animate the movement through the city.



Chihayafuru S2 22-23! An injured Chihaya naturally loses quickly to Shinobu, so the final game is Shinobu vs. Arata. 23 is about Taichi who actually shines through...for Chihaya's sake. Hope they show a little of Arata's game in the last episode...it'd be nice to see his personality.

Hunter x Hunter 2013 83-84! Gon, Killua and Kite continue to kill their way to the Queen. The other HxH arcs were more fun because the characters were having fun or they encountered fun companions, but so far, nobody is having a good time. While the ant arc is interesting in its own right, it's also a shame to see Gon slowly losing his innocence. The poor Hunter who did not die earlier gets his brain scrambled and tells the Ant Chimera, Pitou, all about Nen.

Kotonoha no Niwa (Garden of Words) jmovie! the newest work from Makoto Shinkai is about a young boy who skips school on rainy days to work sketch shoe designs in a local park. He meets a young woman who likewise skips work on rainy days. They bond during those rainy days. It's a tender unrequited love story. As with Shinkai's previous works, the animation is rich with color and detail. ~7/10 rating

Evangelion 3.33: You Can (Not) Redo jmovie! It's been 14 years since the events in the 2nd movie and Shinji wakes up to the rest of the world 14 years older than him. Misato now leads a group against the Evas and NERV. There isn't enough logic in this universe that can accurately explain what actually goes on. Most of the character just react on emotion. They really need to fill Shinji (and the audience) in on what is going on. Anyway, Shinji plus Kaworu almost trigger a 4th impact. This movie had pretty entertaining visuals like the previous movie, but storywise, this movie wasn't as entertaining as the previous. ~7/10 rating

Man of Steel movie! I enjoyed the epic movie with the epic music and epic-ally hot actor. The dialogue was lacking, but forgivable. The style of storytelling was refreshing.

Hunter x Hunter 2013 82! Gon killing off a Chimera Ant without trying to talk to it is a bit out-of-character compared to his dealing with animal creatures and enemies in the past.

Shingeki no Kyojin 9! Surprisingly, this keeps getting better. Another group of soldiers are introduced, and they are actually more skilled than the characters they've shown so far...well, I guess up to now they've focused on the new cadets and their fears. Eren has some insight into what his father did to him while the army decides to execute him. The pacing of the show is quite entertaining and boy, do they know how to leave you with a cliffhander.

Chihayafuru S2 21! The individual matches start. Arata's parents are funny.