Anime

Enter a worn torn empire that has it’s Government corrupted and it’s citizens on the brink of revolt. It’s been three years since the end of the war against the Republic of Frost. The Army is trying to bring peace and give aid to their citizens, but to no avail. Thus, the Imperial Army State Section III is created with the sole purpose to bring aid to the common folk. The setting of this series takes place in a Post World War One setting in Eastern Europe with many resemblances to Germany and the surrounding countries.

Pumpkin Scissors
4 Stars

The Imperial Army State Section III, also known as the “Pumpkin Scissors” is lead by a Noble named 2 LT. Alice L. Malvin. In the series, the population is divided into 3 main categories. The Army, the Nobles, and the Commoners. The War brought famine and poverty onto the Commoners, and hardly affected the Nobles’ way of life.

The Pumpkin Scissors team is often the butt of all military jokes. They are considered the easy team because they only do simple tasks such as distributing food and calming the Commoners, rather then doing and offensive military tactics.

The show starts off with the Pumpkin Scissors unit, led by Alice, on their normal runs of scouting out villages and sending back reports. When they scout out a group of Army deserters that terrorize the local towns. Her Warrant Officers, Officer Martis and Officer Oreldo , advise her to take the easy route and report the location and wait further orders. However, due to LT Alice’s head strong attitude and determination, she decides to lay siege to the marauders. They travel to a local town to seek reinforcements and and advise on the enemies fortress. The stumble upon a tattered soldier that is well over seven feet tall and has scars all over his body. He is Corporal Randel Oland from the 901-ATT unit. Not much is known about him at first, besides the fact that he is a giant man that carries a lantern around with him. Corporal Oland gives his aid to the Pumpkin Scissors unit and they successfully take down the insurgents. They report back to base and make the Corporal the newest member of the unit.

The rest of the series is dedicated to showing how the Pumpkin Scissors is criticized by everyone as either a waste of time, or just a propaganda unit for the government. They start facing very dangerous tasks that actually put their life in danger, rather then their simplistic missions in the past they start to face many challenges where Corporal Oland has to use his mysterious lantern and a large pistol he carries around with him. The strange lantern he carries emits a blue light when opened. Many say it’s the Will’O the Wisp and it possess the body. He rarely uses the lantern but it seems to be a deep secret that make the Army go through a lot of trouble to hide his past.

Along one of their fairly unorthodox missions, they stumble upon what seems to be a huge conspiracy that tries to make the Commoners revolt and disrupt the Noble’s activities. The Pumpkin Scissors unit springs into action, led by their fearless leader in hopes to save a war torn empire.

Overall this was a very clever series. I really liked the post World War One references that where placed in this series. Many references to trench warfare and the first usages of tanks on the battlefield. The setting of a destroyed Germany was also a pretty neat thing as well.

The series and unit being named “Pumpkin Scissors” was kind of a let down for me. With a name that awkward, there should be some deep significant meaning behind it. You find out about 10 episodes in that the pumpkin represents hard times with it’s hard outer shell and the scissors are a special tool used for harvesting pumpkins. Alice links that to their job to cut through the hard times and hard lies to expose the truth and finally bring peace and reconstruction to their beloved Empire.

As for the characters, they all seemed to have their odd quirks that made them unique. Lt Alice’s background of being apart of the more well known Noble Families makes her job extremely difficult. Commoners usually call her contradictive and no good. She tries really hard to be strong and lead the under funded, and commonly the butt of every joke unit.

Oland has almost his own subplot with his past. It’s revealed that the 9 Units are a taboo and where kept top secret using the code name Invisible Nine. He was part of a experimental unit designed to take out the new threat of tanks with a 13MM Handgun known as the “Door Knocker”. They run into other 9 Unit survivors, all usually being used for evil gains and to demoralize the commoners. His gentle nature is unfitting of his size and purpose in the Army, making it a desperate moral struggle every time he uses his powers.

Pretty much a World War One buffs anime. The story line is also very twisted and riddled with many unanswered questions that leave the series open up to other series or sequels. Well worth the watch!

Kanon is a story set in a snowy town of Hokkaido.  The main protagonist, Yuichi Aizawa is returning to the town after being away for seven years.  You discover over time that he used to visit during summer vacation back in grade school, but he does not remember anything from his past.  Yuichi Aizawa moved in with his Aunt Akiko and Cousin Nayuki Minase to finish out high school.

Kanon
4 Stars

Kanon is a story set in a snowy town of Hokkaido.  The main protagonist, Yuichi Aizawa is returning to the town after being away for seven years.  You discover over time that he used to visit during summer vacation back in grade school, but he does not remember anything from his past.  Yuichi Aizawa moved in with his Aunt Akiko and Cousin Nayuki Minase to finish out high school.

Over the course of time, Yuichi reunites with several girls who turn out to have a great deal with his past and future.  Ayu Tsukimiya, a fun-loving girl from Yuichi’s childhood reappears by running into him on the street; she is stuck in a haze, and does not remember much from her past.  Makoto Sawatori shows up unexpectedly and begins attacking Yuichi for no apparent reason.  After the attack, Yuichi brings her back to the house and she is welcomed into the household by Akiko and Nayuki, where they learn of her extreme amnesia.  Nayuki Minase is Yuichi’s Cousin, but she also has always been in love with him.  Nayuki is also a great athlete and is in the same class with Yuichi.  Shiori Misaka, sister of Kaori, shows up outside of Yuichi’s school in the courtyard waiting for her sister that never comes.  Over time, Shiori and Yuichi become close, allowing her to confide in him about her illness.  Mai Kawasumi, a very quiet and often understood, third-year student at the same high school as Yuichi.  Mai remains silent, slowly explaining herself as the series progresses.  Mai’s one and only friend until Yuichi came along was Sayuri Kurata.

The main girls in the anime cause the plot to be ripped into five pieces.  With a plot in so many sections it is hard to fully grasp everything, although, Kanon does a fine job at explaining things plainly.  The use of flashbacks and clues allows you to follow the story with ease.  The flashbacks are used to show when a memory has been rediscovered within the character.  Yuichi slowly remembers bits and pieces of his past, which included Nayuki, Ayu, Makoto and Mai.  Yuichi had known each of these girls, and either completely blocked out their memory or parts of it in Nayuki’s case.

Ayu, as you will discover, was a girl he had promised to return to after the school year let out again.  But what Yuichi does not remember until the very end was that Ayu had an accident right before he left town, she fell out of the large tree in the forest clearing.  Makoto was once a fox who he befriended before the Kanon story started.  Mai was yet another friend from Yuichi’s past.  Yuichi had deserted each of these girls, where they continued to think about him, creating their own insanity.  Yuichi helped each of the girls in the story in some way.  Ayu eventually recovers from her comatose state, kind of a sappy ending though.  Makoto died but only after she accomplished every wish she ever made thanks to Yuichi.  Mai, after defeating the demons she believed to be attacking her and Yuichi returned to her happier self.  Shiori finally recovered from her illness after Kaori accepted her as a sister, which is all she wanted from the start.  Moreover, Yuichi finally realized that he had hurt Nayuki all those years ago.

This is my first hardcore romance drama, and I have to say that it was a pretty confusing anime series all together.  You never fully understand Mai’s demons, Makoto’s ability to become human then finally vanishing, Ayu’s ability to detach from her comatose-self and I am still left wondering why everyone had such horrible cases of amnesia.  Kanon was sappy, tear-filled and most certainly strange.  The plot was incredibly difficult to follow, especially with all the amnesia involved, although I did like the flashbacks.  It seems that many people agree with the 4.5 out of 5 star rating on this anime, but I cannot seem to figure out why.  I did not particularly enjoy this anime, but maybe I just need more action to enjoy something.

Having a horrid nightmare, Muto Kazuki dreams he was brutally killed by a serpentine creature while trying to save a girl. He wakes up screaming, thinking it to only be a normal nightmare. He attends his normal high school life with his friends and sister, Muto Mahiro, and gets sentenced to an after school detention for misplacing his school briefcase. He seeks out his teacher after the sentence only to find out it was the creature from his nightmare, disguised as a his teacher.

Buso Renkin
4 Stars

Mahiro comes looking for Kazuki because he was out so late, only to find him running from the beast. They are both rescued by the girl from Kazuki’s dream. Her name is Tsumura Tokiko and she is an Alchemic Warrior. Mahiro is unconscious from the battle so Kazuki returns her home and seeks out Tokiko again. He finds her in the old abandoned factory on the hill and she is locked in combat with a giant beast. He charges in and summons a lance out of no where and ends up dealing the final blow to the creature. Tokiko was amazed and infuriated at the same time. Kazuki had no idea where this lance came from. Tokiko finally begins to explain what has been going on.

Kazuki’s nightmare wasn’t a dream, he actually was killed. He tried saving Tokiko from a beast known as a homunculus. A homuncului is a creature with an embryo-like creation from a plant, animal, or even a human that has been placed inside a human. The embryo then crushes the brain and takes control of the body, giving it abilities that mimic the natural talents of the embryo’s origin. Feeling bad for him, Tokiko used a Kakugane on him to replace his pierced heart, causing him to live again. Hoping that he’d live to be a normal person still, she fled and didn’t tell him what happened. Leaving it to seem like a normal nightmare.

A Kakugane is a tablet that transforms a person’s Buso Renkin, or will to fight, into a tool used to defend themselves. Kazuki’s lance is his own Buso Renkin. People with Kakugane are typically an elite group of warriors known as Alchemic Warriors. Their purpose is to rid the world of homunculi and try to restore what is commonly known as the Philosopher’s Stone. Kazuki begs for her to train him to be a Alchemic Warrior. She takes him under her wing and tries to keep him undercontrol. 

They continue to fight Homunculi until Tokiko gets an homunculi embryo attached to her. She is diagnosed with 7 days left of human consciousness before becoming a homunculis herself. They track down the culprit responsible for her condition. It is a fellow student of the highschool that Kazuki attends. He is a genius, but deathly ill boy that is trying to form a human based homunculi embryo so he can live on forever. His name is Koshaku Chono, or Papillion. Kazuki chases him down, but is too late. Chono becomes what is known as a Super human and Kazuki fights him to the antidote to save Tokiko. After an epic battle, Kazuki wins and saves Tokiko from her fate. Chono is also saved by his great-great grandfather Chōno Bakushaku, or more commonly known as Doctor Butterly.

Doctor Butterly restores Chono from his decrepit state and recruits him into the LXE or “League of Extraordinary Elects”. This organization is made up of homunculi with the sole purpose of restoring a super Alchemic Warrior named Victor. Victor possesses what is known as a Black Kakugane, or a super charged Kakugane. It makes him extremely powerful with a power to drain energy from everything around him and use it as fighting strength. Dr. Butterfly manages to restore Victor and he wreaks havoc on the world. Kazuki tries to fight him, but ends up using all his energy and changing his Kakugane into a Black Kakugane himself.

The other Alchemic Warriors find out and try to kill Kazuki, causing him and Tokiko to flee. They try to find a way to neutralize the Black Kakugane while the rest of the Alchemic Warriors try to put an end to both Victor and Kazuki.

 

 

This series really surprised me. I was really addicted to it. The plot itself takes many twists and turns that leaves you begging for the next one.

The one thing that really stands out is the relationship between Kazuki and Tokiko. At first Tokiko barely tolerates Kazuki, thinking him as a child and incapable of understanding what’s really going on. But by the end, they appear to be in love. It’s really touching how all the battles and hardships brought them together.

Another thing that interested me about this series was the battling. There was plenty to go around and with every individual having a unique buso renkin with different powers, it made every battle fresh exciting!

Amazing series for the action fan or the romantic warrior lovers out there. A great series to get hooked onto!

Enjoy ghouling ghost stories? I know I do, and I loved the series Ghost Hunt. It starts with a simple school girl named Taniyama Mai and her fellow classmates telling chilling ghost stories in their class after school. They are interrupted by another classmate, Kuroda, who claims she can see spirits and that they haunt the school. Little did they know, telling their stories lead to serious consequences at an abandoned school right beside theirs. The stories brought spirits back from the after life to the abandoned school, where they haunted it. A team from Shibuya Psychic Research Center (SPR for short) came to investigate and Mai is thrown into a world full of crazy phenomenons and ghosts.

Ghost Hunt
4 & 1/2 Stars

Mai and her friends peeked in a dusty window at the abandoned school to find video cameras placed everywhere. Mai walks inside, and is instantly attacked by a ghost who tries to drop a shelf on her. She is saved by one of the SPR workers, Koujo Lin. He gets injured and Kazuya Shibuya, the teenage director of SPR, forces her to take his stead.

They work as a duo for awhile, observing the school for any ghosts with sophisticated cameras and scanners. They later teamed up with other psychics that are called in to help with the exorcism. Houshou Takigawa, or Buo-san as everyone calls him, is a Buddhist monk from Mt. Koya. His main job however is a bass guitarist for a big band in Japan. Another exorcist that joins the group is Ayako Matsuzaki, a head strong self proclaimed priestess that seems to fail at every turn and appears to be a sham. Also the famous spirit medium that has a show about speaking to ghosts, Masako Hara, joins the SPR force. Then finally, the team is completed with a nineteen year old Catholic exorcist from Australia named John Brown.

The SPR group is followed by Kuroda as she insists that there are spirits that haunt the school. Despite that the medium, Masako, claims that there are no evil spirits, and the tests conducted by Naru (aka Kazuya Shibuya the SPR director). They conduct numerous of exorcisms and tests, but they could not find the answer to the problem. Naru then used his clever means of implanting a thought to the the team and see if they acted on it. He discovered that Kuroda, had some spiritual powers and rigged the entire school for attention

With that case solved, Mia is allowed to work part time with the SPR. They solve very dramatic cases and put their lives on the line many times to seek the answers as to why these spirits will not leave. Mai is taught to do minor exorcisms as well and tries to aid as best as she can. Although her knowledge is some what lacking in the phenomenal arts, she tries her best to please Naru to be a worthy asset to the team.

 

 

 

 

Starting out, I was a little nervous that this series was going to disappoint me. Seeming like some school girl drama show toward the begin was a big let down. Once the show got rolling however, I found it more chilling then some of the big Hollywood Horror hits! The writer was really thorough in his use of Ancient Japanese and even Ancient Chinese rituals and beliefs.

Another interesting character in this series is Mai. She is a orphan school girl that is very head strong and voices her thoughts and opinions a lot. She doesn’t have any special skills like the other psychics at first, but then she discovers that her sleep is a form of telepathy that shows her what spirits feel and even their memories. She becomes a big asset for the group, because her telepathic dreams lead to the solutions of the hauntings.

Overall, this is a great series filled with tons of scary stories ranging from devestating heartbreaks to vengeful spirits seeking retribution. A must see for ghost enthusiasts and anime fans a like.

Ever just wanted someone who wronged you to just disappear?  Well Hell Girl will “exact your revenge” with only one cost, the string puller and the victim of your straw doll, shall go to hell.

Hell Girl is a young girl who will come to you if you enter someones name into the Hotline to Hell website.  Except, the only time that the Hotline to Hell is accessible is at midnight every night, and only those with true hatred can access it, otherwise the site just times out.  The Hotline to Hell and Hell Girl idea is considered just an urban legend, and no one believes it is real until they use it for themselves.

Hell Girl
4 Stars

Ai Enma and her band of three take you on a series of straw doll deaths, allowing you to see what she does, and also to and show you more cases of when Hotline to Hell has been used.  These cases finally lead up to the following of one character.  The “Devil Child,” also known as Takuma Kurebayashi, is followed for the rest of the series. Takuma is first is visited by Kikuri, a purple eyed girl who is with Hell Girl, in episode fourteen.  Throughout the series you hardly know anything of Hell Girl or the other four, but towards the end it flashes back to their pasts and how they met.  Wanyuudou was originally an aid to a princess, and he died along side her in a stage coach accident.  After he died he continued to haunt the road where the accident occurred as a flaming wheel.  Hone-Onna was once a geisha who was betrayed by her friend Kiyo.  Ren Ichimoku is known to be an artifact spirit, meaning he was once a katana.  Slowly you find out who Ai Enma was, and Kikuri stays a secret until the very last episode.

Ai Enma, once an ordinary girl, is to wander the world doing the bidding of others.  She is forced to carry on the sins of others by taking people to Hell.

Takuma and Ai Enma have lived similar lives.  Everyone in Takuma’s town are blaming him for the murders and disappearances.  Which coincidentally are caused by Ai Enma and everyone accessing the Hotline to Hell.  Ai Enma is forced to carry out each request unless the person declines the contract, eventually she disobeys her ‘master’ which leads to her death by yet another angry mob.

Ai Enma always explains with each customer that, “If you truly wish to eliminate your antagonist you must until that red string.  If you remove the string, you shall officially enter into a contract with me.  The one you see revenge upon shall be taken immediately to Hell.  However, if I deliver your revenge, I must have you make restitution to me.  When one person is cursed, two graves are dug.  If you accept the contract, thy soul shall fall into the pit of Hell.  But that is only after you die.”

This series was pretty decent, but it was not exactly as much of a horror as I heard it was.  In the beginning the series started out a little strange, with no real characters, but once you started to identify with Takuma it was easier to get into.  I enjoyed the idea of the series, having a Hotline to Hell is neat, but anyone could send literally anyone to Hell in an instant.  To me, a world like that would be a little scary, it would be hard to trust anyone.  Especially when you see family sending other family members off to Hell, or supposed best friends sending the other to Hell.  It seems like a rather frightening dog-eat-dog situation.