Now to review something I know some of my friends would appreciate, time for Girls Und Panzer.
Miho Nishizumi is a member of a prestigious family that practices sensha-do the way of the tank or Tankery in English, (which seems to be a sport aimed at women only, because Anime) but an incident during a match causes her to switch schools and turn her back on the sport, upon entering Oarai Girls High School, which for some reason is on a giant aircraft carrier, Miho finds she can't escape her heritage as she gets drawn into Tankery after a less than subtle threat from the student council but knowing that her new friends are willing to stick by her, she returns to the sport she's trying to avoid and gets thrust into the national championships again.
Girls Und Panzer runs slightly differently compared to your average Moé Military as the research as well as the attention to detail to the tanks far outweighs the fanservice in the show, so much so that World of Tanks actually used the series to help promote the game for the Japanese market.
I like it when a series is so willing to show off it's creativity and the concept is just so fun you can't help but get sucked in; Miho could easily have been a lousy character or a dreaded miracle rookie type but proves to be balanced enough to be a good lead character who is well backed up by the supporting cast despite having too many characters to really give any depth to, an issue it suffered late in the 12 episode series where a new unit joins up only for them to be shot down before anything happens and the viewers are left wondering if it was worth putting in these characters in the first place.
The dub has a habit of being drowned out by the music track but shouldn't be an issue in the sub version, otherwise the dub is solid.
The problems are relatively minor and easy to ignore so it won't take away the experience from the battles and it's the battles that really sell the show.
Final Verdict: Minor problems aside, Girls Und Panzer manages to succeed in showcasing a great story, give us good characters and keep everyone's attention with some epic battles. It's definitely worth a watch and I kind of wish it didn't end so soon as it needs more episodes.
After reviewing some terrible cartoons lets resume normal play with a review from the Dot Hack franchise with Dot Hack Quantum OVA.
In this story, the leads are a group of school girls named Asumi, Iori & Eri who all play "The World" online game but an incident during a guild battle draws them into a more desperate situation when Eri gets thrown into a coma after being PKed or Player Killed in the wrong zone, so it's up to Asumi & Iori to find out the problem and retrieve their friend before it's too late.
Now I attempted Dot Hack Sign a long time ago and found it boring and extremely slow paced, it didn't help that I don't play multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft so half the time I didn't know what they were talking about but come today I'm a little more educated on the subject but the OVA refused me entry as without knowing the full history of Dot Hack, a new viewer will be left in the cold. Oh well I did get this DVD for free after selling some old films so I'm not complaining and the characters are quite charming, especially lead character Asumi who makes me smile, and the dub was well done enough to not give me a headache.
So does this make me like Dot Hack? No, but I don't think so badly of the franchise anymore.
Final Verdict: If you're well versed in the Dot Hack franchise then you'll have no problems watching Quantum and you'll like the breath of fresh air the characters bring, but if you're new to the series, then it's not worth investing further unless you're willing to search around bargain shelves for the PS2 games; without the original story as a guide, you'll get lost straight away.
First off, I would like to offer my thanks to theotaku and my fans for the showcase on Facebook, it really inspired me to write more and hopefully I can continue providing my usual British wit of writing to the website, so to celebrate I'm pulling out one of my biggest lists, the 100 cartoons may have been cancelled but this list and it's follow up list showcases the worst animations of all time. Cartoons & Anime will both be accepted and requests are open to suggest any series I don't list in the dishonorable mentions to be added to the main list. Without further interruptions these are the dishonorable mentions, spared from the Top Ten list.
Yeah these shows are that bad
Android Ana Maico 2010: It's soooooooo boring, a good looking character doesn't mean it'll be used for a good story.
Comic Party: I still hate Comic Party with a passion, a mixture of the most annoying fans mixed with it's most hypocritical critics.
Mega Babies: Rugrats on acid channeling Ren & Stimpy.
Matt Hatter Chronicles: A story where you enter the movie world to fight B-Movie monsters sounds like an idea that couldn't possibly go wrong; yet it did and this was the result.
Slugterra: Turning slugs into a new collectable toy range was never going to catch on, not to mention scraping the barrel of ideas.
Teen Titans Go: Despite all the terrible things that have been said about it, I don't find it as bad as some of the other shows I've seen.
Fanboy & Chum Chum: As long as this show exists Nickelodeon will always be haunted by the fact that it picked this over Adventure Time.
Sanjay & Craig: But in all seriousness Nickelodeon deserve the pain it gets for all it's poor decisions and this Regular Show ripoff is just another one of those crappy shows.
Uncle Grandpa: I don't hate it, I know it looks really terrible but I just don't hate it.
Almost Naked Animals: Has got the humor of Spongebob, at it's worst it's atrocious, at it's best it's barely funny.
Kung Fu Dino Posse: A shameless Ninja Turtles ripoff
Johnny Test: A show that doesn't deserve to stay on air for the length of time that it has.
Elliot Kid: Over active imagination is one thing, make believing everything like you're on drugs is just wrong.
Idol Densetsu Eriko: All the worst qualities of Jem and the Holograms.
Dragon Booster: The worst you can offer from a CGI action show.
Long Runners: They did good in the past but seasonal rot is still rot.
4Kids: More a company problem than their products.
Failed Pilots: At least they realized they failed, Allen Gregory, Bubsy, Doozy Bots, Saban Moon, Battletoads, Defenders of Dynatron City, The Groovenians are all just examples.
Preschool Shows: You know my rules by now, I can't review preschool shows because the target audience are too young to defend it. If I had my way, Peppa Pig would be the worst cartoon of all time.
Video Brinquedo: Their work consists of copying popular animated films so horrifically it makes China facepalm in disgust but they do films and were looking at animated series.
So that gives you a fair idea of what to expect, now the fun bit is seeing what else is possible to dig up from you guys, the viewer, thanks again everybody.
Now lets try something mainstream, mainly because it leads to something more significant, so today lets talk about The Croods.
The Croods is a prehistoric animated feature about a family of cavemen who live a very sheltered life until the eldest daughter Eep ventures out of the cave one day and discovers Guy, a young caveman with great ideas who introduces her to new things like fire. Eep's father Grug, being the overprotective parent, grounds her, only for the cave they've been living in to fall apart following an earthquake forcing them to look for a new cave in a strange new land opened to them by said quake. It's only after a few more incidents that Eep calls Guy to help them navigate these lands, which makes Grug all the more jealous when his ideas get ignored over the new things Guy keeps coming up with. Eventually Grug loses it and fights Guy only to discover why Guy acts the way he does and through a series of events, learns not to be overprotective and accepts the new life he's come to learn.
That's pretty much it story wise, very simple story, not much to challenge you mentally. The art design is creative as standard for Dreamworks; the comedy is okay for it's target audience but the story has been done before and better by other shows.
I mention target audience for comedy and that's where Croods falls down the most;
The British Film rating system uses U - Universal for everyone up to 18 - For adults only with PG (Parental Guidance), 12 & 15 ratings in between. Croods was rated U - Universal for everyone but most recent releases have carried the PG rating including Frozen and How to Train your Dragon. PG's are more marketable because it seems less childish to an adult who ultimately has to pay for the movie ticket and they are the ones who are going to be the critics not the children watching it; it also taps into the young gen X adult market who view animation as a major part of their social development and aiming too young chases them away in an instant.
Croods is entertaining to kids but only kids and fails to tap into a wider audience, something I expected better from the likes of Dreamworks.
It's worth one watch but after that you're not going to see it evolve.
Now lets dive into something different with a visual novel anime called We Without Wings.
We Without Wings or Oretachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai if you prefer, focuses on the lives of three male protagonists named Takashi, Shusuke & Hayato respectively.
Takashi is a shy student whose illness seems to send him to a fantasy world where he's a noble knight.
Shusuke is a part timer for the Alexander restaurant as well as a freelance book reviewer.
And finally Hayato is a so called fixer, who is part of a night time gang, although he doesn't exactly choose to be with them they just seem to turn up.
Each story seems to progress normally as Takashi tries to get by with a high functioning girlfriend as well as getting over his own shyness, Shusuke gets dragged into the struggles of an amateur writer of whom he wrote a review about, while Hayato gets reluctantly dragged into a gang warfare while locating a girl's bike. Despite the stories being very different to each other, they are somehow connected as all three characters seem to know a young girl who they seem to all live with.
The anime was originally a visual novel from the makers of Shuffle which tells us very quickly what kind of anime to expect but what it doesn't tell you is how well the story works; the individual stories worked on their own and could've continued working that way without the big twist mid series or the forced fan service which at times borders on uncomfortable.
I find that a shame, at the moment I'm at a crossroads with anime in general, as I believe 80% of anime have run out of ideas and popular shows are over hyped but the other 20% which includes this anime still keep me going and while it did end up throwing logic out the window, I still came away with a good experience which I can take to future shows.
Final Verdict: If you can stomach the poor attempts at fan service then you'll enjoy the story We Without Wings has to offer. The dub is normal and the art is incredible as is standard with a visual novel anime and you even get some decent comedy even if some of it is a bit random.
