you're never too old

This blog is dedicated to the animated features targeted towards an adult audience, most anime but sometimes other! Anime and animation in general have been thought to be very childish and not meant for adults but this blog is to show that thats not the case and it is for everyone. I will be posting reviews once a week for completed series or films and another review for airing anime. I do take request! Enjoy your stay!

[animatedcentral-blog]

Mahou Shoujo Madoka★Magica / Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Year: 2011 Number of episodes: 12 + 3 movies Producer: Shaft Author: Gen Urobuchi   Languages: Japanese and English Genres: drama, magic, psychological, thriller Rating: MA 15+ Plot: Madoka Kaname is your regular 14 year old girl with a loving family and good friends, but one day comes across a creature named Kyuubey. Kyuubey offers to make Madoka and her friends magical girls, he will grant any wish they desire in return they are to fight against witches who feed on humans. But there is a catch to become a magical girl you need your soul extracted from your body. Review Undercut.

Madoka Magica is not your ordinary magical girls anime as it appears to be on the surface. It is deconstruction of the magical genre and it is something that has never be done before. The magical girl genre has been around for decades and is incredibly popular often shown as young teen girls saving the world from destruction with the help of their friends. Madoka Magica has the cute innocent character designs and girly transitions but it also has consequence to getting the magical girl powers, it has betrayal, murder and psychological trauma inflicted on 14 year old girls. 

The first few episodes are the generic magical girl anime style, sweet young girl who has a lovely family and great friends goes to school everyday and goes home, a cute creature gives them the chance to be magical school girls and they see all the pretty things it has to offer. This is so misleading giving the whole audience who was watching this weekly at the time a huge shock when episode three came along and one of the girls was decapitated. This starts to show it will not be your average magical schoolgirl anime. The series slowly grows more and more darker seeing the girls become corrupted in their own ways and becoming the things they fear most. This anime is not for children even though it may seem that way. 

The animation is amazing and experimental giving it extra flare. The character designs are extremely innocent not sexualising the girls in any way or having any revealing outfits which makes the plot even more deceiving. The way the school and every day activities are animated are nothing out fo the ordinary besides the overly fancy settings, but that is just how Shaft does things. What is the highlight of the animation are the witches. The witches create a porthole into another world which humans are trapped into, the worlds are created by 3D textures and collages with little minions being little monsters made out of objects they looks like magazine cut outs. This brings a completely unique and unsettling feeling to the witches for it is not normal for anime to do these type of things. The witches are huge creatures which are a big collage too, often all having their own theme like sweets, music and water for some examples. 

The music is amazing to say in the least. The music for Madoka Magica is completely haunting and suits the unsettling feeling rhe anime gives you at times with an epic chorus singing and classical music with electric guitars all at once making it more intense. Some scores are more soft and mellow for the sad parts and overall inspiring parts. 

Madoka Magica is extremely good with things that have never been done in anime before it is one of a kind. It will leave the viewer in an emotional roller coaster they cannot escape from even when the series is over. The characters are well thought out and the story completely unique and interesting to keep the viewer interested the whole time. If you enjoy series that overcome the norm of the genre and go beyond what they usually do or series that is complete new and innovating this is the show for you.

[animatedcentral-blog]

Zankyou no Terror /  Terror in Resonance

Year: 2014 Number of episodes: 11 Producer: FUNimation Languages: Japanese Genres: psychological, thriller Rating: MA 15+ Plot: In Tokyo terrorist attacks start happening after an online duo wearing masks give out clues to where they plant the bombs. While Japanese detectives try and find the culprits two mysterious boys transfer to a new high school. These boys with the names Nine and Twelve are the cause of the terrorist attacks, where did they come from, why these attacks? Review Undercut.

Zankyou no Terror is an original anime created by FUNimation. Every time I hear a series is an original anime I worry because there are limited episodes and time to plan the overall ending and often ends up rushed or has plot holes. Zankyou no Terror is a well directed anime with an interesting story and amazing music which is very pleasing to see from an original anime. There were some things I didn't enjoy about the anime but they were minor compare to the overall product which I liked a lot.

The anime has so many things right with it, the animation and music were perfect absolutely stunning. The narrative is a bit complex not only playing mindgames on the detective characters but also the viewer. As well as good character designs and overall objectives of the characters. If only the anime had more episodes the ending would not feel as rushed and incomplete as it did, not that it did a lot but if it just had a few more episodes it could have been pushed to perfect.

The animation itself is amazing with beautiful night shots and memorable scenes able to give the viewer goosebumps. The animation is top quality leaving no detail behind. Even little details like fluid movements of hair have been put in and just makes the anime overall more enjoyable to watch. The colours are a dark vibrant scheme, so no pale or bright colours all were a dark shade that mostly consist of black grey, blue and green.

There are some scenes that I would like to talk about and they are both involving the characters Twelve and Lisa. Their relationship started to progress in episode three and this one scene they are riding a motorbike running away from police and the animation following the motorbike tire to a side profile of them and to a view of the whole city was stunning to watch. The music was so amazing too with a soft guitar and just calm in the midst of a storm. The other scene was the ferris wheel scene where Lisa has bombs stuck to her and there is only 8 minutes to defuse all of them while Twelve frantically works to defuse them. This slow calm music with a chorus singing in Icelandic starts as the ferris wheel slowly spins round and we are shown a beautiful night shot of the city. Makes the situation a lot more calming and beautiful even though there is a chance they were to die. These scenes stood out so much to me and made a huge impact on me as a viewer giving me goosebumps.

The music for this anime is amazing my favourite thing about it, Yoko Kanno who did the music never fails to impress with her amazing soundtracks. The music adds to the suspense of the story and causes me to have goosebumps at times. Epic guitar solos making the bombings and confrontation scenes more exciting getting the viewers blood boiling. And sometimes with dreamy calm songs with nice lyrics playing giving a nice juxtaposition between music and image.

I recommend this anime despite its kind of rushed ending it is extremely well put together and is very interesting. If you enjoy animes like death note or pyscho pass you’ll enjoy Zankyou no Terror. Its an anime you never really forget fully, some of it will always stay with you.

[hisokan]

[hissoka]

[lieberts]

… after this, will you be able to find a replacement for me?

[figma-deactivated20161222]

[animatedcentral-blog]

Mawaru Penguindrum

Year: 2011 Number of episodes: 24 Producer: Brains Base Author: Ikuhara  Kunihiko Languages: Japanese and English Genres: comedy, mystery, drama, psychological Rating: PG Plot: A family living in a sweet multicoloured house made up for twin brothers and their ill little sister, three penguins only they can see, a girl who follows a dairy religiously all have connections and ties in some way, by fate. A tale of fate and destiny and this group of young teenagers who are all interconnected with each other and penguins? Review Undercut.

Mawaru Penguindrum is an anime very close to my heart. Its very strange and confusing but leaves you wanting a hug and a box of tissues. It appears to be an anime for little kids but covers some mature themes. It is a psychological drama despite its first appearance and use of music and characters like the penguins. The anime covers many themes to do with self realisation and ones self worth making the viewer think about themselves in a way. Also looking at the world in many different ways and showing there is more to a person that meets the eye is what the anime is all about. 

The animation is amazing to say in the least. There is nothing like it out there it is unique and the first of its kind, a couple animes have now come out with similar style but Mawaru Penguindrum was the one to start it all. There s no bounds to what they did in this anime. They break the forth wall a couple times they change styles completely for a few minutes and start flashing random shots in the middle of scenes. The colour choices are spectacular making everything really lovely and vibrant, this helps a lot when they world turns back and white it makes it all the more dramatic. The background characters aren’t even drawn in they are all stick figures gliding around on the screen all to pay attention to the main characters. Some of the animation types is very experimental but I think that it all worked very well.

The music is one of my favourite soundtracks ever, reaching into the soul of the story and giving the anime that extra flare. They use beautiful choirs and music box effects to make the songs dream like. The music is like a lullaby, having a lot of emotional impact on the viewer. 

The series is an emotional ride from start to finish giving you time to be attached to all the characters. The twins being the main protagonists and constantly wanting their little sister Himari to be better trying to overcome internal family issues which turn out to be much larger than anyone can anticipate. A tale about fate and not being able to escape from it. The story will stay with you for a long time after always slightly thinking about it and the huge impact the story gave. It really is a stunning anime both visually and emotionally. 

If you enjoy tales like Alice in Wonderland you will enjoy Mawaru Penguindrum. An anime that is more than meets the eye and will attack you in ways that you did not know, a deconstruction of the word fate and of people in society. Showing you do not know anyone as well as you do. Mawaru Penguindrum is a stunning anime that is beautifully executed and I recommend to all. 

[kekkaisensen]

Leo, hang in there untill the last second, and when you feel

          “There’s no hope left! I am very clearly going to die! I’m done for! I’m utterly done for!           STOP!    STOP!    STOP!”

                    Then close your eyes.

[figma-deactivated20161222]

[kouu-deactivated20170122]

Are you going to destroy the whole world?

[animatedcentral-blog]

Tokyo Ghoul

Year: 2014 Number of episodes: 12 (s1) + 12 (s2) Producer: Studio Pierrot Author: Ishida Sui Languages: Japanese  Genres: action, mystery, drama, horror, supernatural, psychological, seinen Rating: MA 15+ Plot: In Tokyo a species called “ghouls” is feared throughout the city. Ghouls are known to eat humans and are unable to digest any human food or beverages besides coffee, the have super human strength and supernatural powers which make them feared among masses and has a whole government defense force whose soul purpose is to wipe out ghouls. When ordinary university student Kaneki Ken is forced to become half ghoul against his will he has to learn how to deal with life as a ghoul and struggle to live as a human. Review Undercut.

Tokyo Ghoul is the latest anime that has taken the internet by storm. The story is really interesting and characters really well developed. What makes Tokyo Ghoul good is the fact it is what it is, the author Ishida Sui makes a point to not sugarcoat any of his story and write it the way he wants to often making it very confronting and little to no sympathy for the characters putting them all through hell and back. The characters are really well developed and strong connection to the viewer. The anime starts off as ghouls are evil and as you see the story through Kaneki it is shown that it is not the case for all ghouls giving more a depth of the world. The original story is good and the manga is excellent but what I am reviewing is the anime, and unfortunately I do not have as high praise for the anime adaption. Having the first season stay by the original story line was not as bad adaption it had a few flaws that i’ll talk about later what I did not like about Tokyo Ghoul was the second season that went off canon story line and strayed into something that I thought could have been done better. Not to say it was terrible because the overall ending saved it but the middle of the show butchered characters into something they weren't and changed the story in ways not exactly for the better, this is one of my only complaints about the anime overall. 

The animation for the first season isn't bad, its quite good if it wasn't for the constant censorship that was used for the TV screening. Every action scene was cut off with black or white or the colours inverted because of the censorship rule in Japan. This makes it very hard to watch because you can’t see what is going on half the time, if you were to watch the series please watch the blu-ray version so you can actually see the fight scenes. Besides the censorship everything was well done in season 1. In season 2 however the scenes are more rushed and have such bad quality frames sometimes it looks like a 5 year old drew them. But then some scenes are top quality amazing animation and beautifully drawn is is so inconsistent, it was just too rushed if it had more creating time it would be a lot better.

The music for Tokyo Ghoul is super good having a haunting essence around them. The soundtrack is overused a lot repeating the songs over and over again but, these songs aren't bad. Some songs have lyrics with them and if you read the translation make the impact of the song more amazing suiting the whole anime and Kaneki’s character perfectly. 

I think Tokyo Ghoul isn’t a bad anime, its not the best but it has one of the best story lines. I recommend it all for people who enjoy dark stories with no real trace of hope. The series is dark and shows a mental breakdown for almost ever single character making it a very tough story to handle for the weak hearted. But if you’re up for a challenge you should give it a go. 

[sugawarakatashi-deactivated2018]

PP 1 

my Scan/edit

Akane Tsunemori & Kougami Shinya

[animatedcentral-blog]

Monster

Year: 2004 Number of episodes: 74 Producer: Madhouse Author: Urasawa Naoki Languages: Japanese and English Genres: mystery, drama, horror, police, psychological, thriller, seinen Rating: R 18+ Plot: In Europe post WW2 a talented Japanese brain surgeon Dr.Kenzo Temna who is highly praised by his peers and loved by his patients suddenly takes a turn for the worse after he denies to perform a surgery on the Mayor of the town and rescues a young boy instead. Suddenly the people who shun Dr. Tenma for what he did all suddenly died his life became normal again and he lived to the fullest helping people for many years. 10 years later people suddenly start to be killed off again like before and Dr.Tenma discovers the one behind the murder is none other bu the boy he haves 10 years ago Johan Liebert who is a murderous monster, handsome and all too smart to be caught. Dr.Tenma finds it in his right to be the one to stop Johan and kill him to save the world from his monstrous ways. Review Undercut.

Monster is a one of a kind story, one of its generation, there will never be anything like it for a very long time it is amazing. With one of the most terrifying fictional characters I have ever seen on any form of media Monster is an anime worth everyone’s time. The whole set up for the anime is amazing showing a genuinely kind man and how good and pure he is, turning into someone who is forcing himself to kill a patient he once saved for the good for the earth and still remain a good person. And the boy he saved an incredibly intelligent mastermind with the blood lust of 1000 men who was able to drive a group of adult insane and kill each other by the age of 11 without lifting a finger, the boy who wants to be saved from himself. The characters are amazing these are only two of them but there are countless others who continue to impress and are all carefully written characters. The story is unpredictable, suspenseful and plays mind games on both characters and the viewers. 

The anime is quite old and the animation for it was good for its time with no real badly drawn or rushed scenes it all stayed the same quality throughout. Its not bad and its not excellent or groundbreaking it is good, all of it is good. The same goes for the music it matches the story perfectly making it suspenseful at the right times but its nothing revolutionary. But the quality of this anime is great for its time.

What Monster thrives on is its story, it could be the most poorly animated series and I would still enjoy it, that’s how good this anime is. Everyone should watch this anime, for the whole time I was watching I was on the edge of my seat its so suspenseful and has an extremely satisfying ending. If you were to choose between the dub or sub the English dubbed for this is quite excellent and well acted, as well as the Japanese as per always. Cutting this review a bit short because I don’t want to go into spoiler territory and I have not much else to say than everyone should watch this epic tale. 

[ichij0u]

don’t forget, yu. don’t let us die in vain

[shokou-deactivated20241015]

One Punch Man PV 1

[tenkaichibudokai]

[dogchasingcars]

Archer || Fate Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works 

for: betweencatsandbats