Yep, our Editor-in-Chief Emeritus is 29 today, which puts him pretty far to the right side of the anime fan demographic Bell curve. Oh well.

Carlos gets to review that most backhanded of birthday presents, the utterly disastrous APOCALYPSE ZERO, which earns its place among the worst anime ever conceived in the history of the medium. Compared to that, the short fannish sitcom DOUJIN WORK feels like a breath of fresh air, even if it does come off as overly conventional.

Tim brings us a look at the initially intriguing, but unfortunately annoying series KAMEN NO MAID GUY. He has also revised his review for MAGICAL PLAY, who slides down to the bottom rung upon further examination. Ouch!

Off to the brew pub with me!

-- Carlos

So you'd think, but there's content enough for another update already!

First off, I'd like to point all of you at our visitor feedback survey. Seriously, feedback is great! There's plenty of room to let us know what you like, what you don't like, and how we can better serve the anime-viewing public as a review site.

Of course, it goes without saying that the best thing we can do is keep writing reviews. We might not have as many compared to Monday, but what we do have are real doozies.

Carlos forges through one of the most difficult series to review in recent history, the thought-provoking and emotionally powerful 2004 forbidden-romance anime KOI KAZE. He then moves on to one of the most highly anticipated anime of the current season, MACROSS FRONTIER, which turns out to be far more like the original than that other Macross television series that we're trying to forget ever existed. He's not entirely as effusive about ALLISON AND LILLIA, which is cute and charming, but unfortunately falls prey to some really dodgy storytelling choices and simplistic characterization. Next up is the mystery adventure series THE DAUGHTER OF TWENTY FACES, proof that no number of silly genre cliches can sink your series so long as you put Aya Hirano in the lead role. Yes, I just wrote that sentence completely unironically. Finally, Carlos profiles the RPG-based TALES OF SYMPHONIA: THE ANIMATION, one of those all-too-rare good video-game anime series.

Next update is scheduled for Friday, July 18. See you then!

Cheers!

-- Carlos

This update is being brought to you by your "retired" Editor-in-Chief Emeritus, Carlos. Lots of reviews added this time around, thanks to an unexpected surfeit of spare time.

Brad starts us off by shooting down STRIKE WITCHES OVA, an embarrassingly lame attempt by Gonzo to promote their upcoming television series of the same name.

Carlos, speaking about himself in third person, makes up for his extended absence by submitting nine new reviews. The first two are adult titles: the hilariously named but utterly avoidable ANAL SANCTUARY and the much more satisfying Satoshi Urushihara work ANOTHER LADY INNOCENT. Moving in a completely different direction, Carlos also covers the artistically impressive Production IG short film KIGEKI. He then moves on to another regrettable hentai title, MIDNIGHT MILK PARTY, before giving some qualified praise to another short film, PALE COCOON. Carlos then joins Brad in bashing STRIKE WITCHES OVA as well, despite (or maybe because of) getting all the references in that show. A stamp of approval to a hentai B-side (A TAIL OF TWO SISTERS), a thoroughly trashing of TENBATSU! ANGEL RABBIE, and a hearty thumbs-up for TOKYO MARBLE CHOCOLATE round out Carlos's submissions.

Diane gives us a look at the "optimistically pessimistic" mecha series BOKURANO, while Isaac profiles FULL METAL PANIC! THE SECOND RAID.

Though Stig's on vacation, he has left us three new reviews: a surprisingly subdued review for AH! MY GODDESS: TATAKAU TSUBASA, a sound drubbing of KANOKON, and a great cheer for SCHOOL RUMBLE.

Tim updates a few reviews (SONIC THE HEDGEHOG THE MOVIE, POKEMON THE MOVIE 2000, AZUSA WILL HELP!), and finishes us off with an overview of the intelligently funny SAYONARA ZETSUBOU SENSEI.

Cheers!

-- Carlos

...what better way to spend it than sitting at my PC? (Err...)

Anyway, we got quite a few new reviews for you.

Leading off is Tim, who gave Fushigi Yugi: The Mysterious Play: Eikoden another look. And lo and behold, it was still nothing more than a major disappointment.

Diane returns yet again with two reviews. The first is for the rather well known (at this point) Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's, where she points out that, while it's nothing special, it's rather cute and entertaining if you're into this sort of thing. On the other hand, Red Garden started like a butterfly but ended like a fat, bloated bee, unable to support its own weight.

Next up is Isaac, who also makes a return to regular reviewing. He gives us Kite: Liberator, which is a rather disappointing sequel to a far better anime.

Brad brings up our first mecha documentary (mechamentary?) with Flag, a show that should bring forth the peace-loving patriot in all of us, but doesn't... quite... make... it.

However, he does strike gold with Bamboo Blade, which speaks to the sportsman in all of us. (Or, possibly in this case, sportswoman.)

Bringing up the rear, we have the review of Aria the Origination, which makes the show go full circle. Looking back to the earlier seasons, I should note that the show probably fails to live up to th... ah, who am I kidding? I loved it to bits, and I'm sure you could see that coming a mile away.

Which makes it all the worse that the next show -- the last one in this update -- is for the ICE OAV, because... *urp* ...few shows have the ability to make me mentally ill, but somehow, this show managed to do just that. What a way to end an update. I'm so very sorry, everyone.

- Stig Høgset.

If you've read my Aria reviews, you've probably figured out that I'm rather sweet on the Ariaverse (in any of its incarnations, really), so the fact that Rightstuf announced the license of the show really made my day.

September can't come fast enough for me.

- Stig Høgset.

Brad starts us off with a nice little slice of life that goes under the name of Minami-ke. It's a decent little show that reminds the audience not to "expect too much" from it, so he doesn't. It's a nice time-waster all the same, though, for those into these kinds of shows.

Answering a request, I finally get around to giving the site a review of Midori Days. It's a nice little show as long as you, like with Minami-ke, don't expect too much from it.

While Tim generally enjoys magical girl shows, he's not all that impressed with Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, finding it almost laughably generic for the entire first half. Still, it pulls itself up by its metaphorical bootstraps in the last half, making it at least somewhat worthwhile.

Who knew we'd finally strike gold with a show starring an occasionally naked girl with animal ears, though? Not me, that's for sure, and yet, Spice and Wolf turns into something really interesting and compelling. All hail the tail.

I just wish that the next show, Rosario + Vampire could have kept up, what with the monster school theme. Sadly, the show chooses to dispense with ANY formalities and just commence with the boobs-and-panties bombardment, all targeted at our lovable male protagonist.

Well, that's it for now. I predict pain for the future, though I guess that's mostly for us, as we've got a few really bad shows in our target scope. Until next time...

- Stig Høgset