The good news is that our esteemed editor is back from Japan.

The bad news is that our reviewers' recent experiences with anime have been less than pleasant:

Jeremy starts us off with a review of AVENGER which he finds lacking in quality, entertainment value, interesting characters, et cetera.

Doinkies takes a look at NEIGHBORHOOD STORY and concludes it deserves its rather poor reputation.

Lastly Stig takes on two very different kind of shows and offers us only the barest glimmer of hope: HE IS MY MASTER and XENOSAGA. The former he finds quite awful and feels that Gainax may have taken fan service just a bit too far. While he is considerably kinder to XENOSAGA and gives it an average rating, he still finds himself disappointed in the video game adapation that seemingly has a lower visual quality and less intricate plot than its source material.

-Update By Jeremy A. Beard