Can we get through our backlog? The Editor has challenged each staffer to get through a title a week. Let's see how we're doing.

Our fearless leader sets the pace with a preview of the as-yet-unlicensed TONDE BOORIN, lauded for being relentlessly cute. On the other hand, he's not so thrilled about BOKU WA IMOUTO NI KOI O SURU, or "I'm In Love With My Little Sister". No one wonders why.

Jen (doinkies) glows over TWIN SPICA, a recent, but as yet unheralded NHK series that she feels deserves more attention.

Mippa gives us a more indepth look at the original DIGIMON series, and comes away from it smiling.

In the meantime, Tim takes us though one of the more anticipated features this year, HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE, which isn't perfect, but still comes away with a positive grade, because there is no such thing as a bad Studio Ghibli film.

Finally, Jen gives us a quick update on her existing ROSE OF VERSAILLES review.

Okay, he's really not. But, workaholic that he is, he has gone straight from Japan into another grueling summer session, so he's been way behind on the updates for the site.

Still, he has found some time to get some reviews together. The first review from the Chief is for the surprisingly good erotic piece WET SUMMER DAYS, which gets a recommendation, tempered with an adults-only tag. Continuing with the adults-only material, he strikes out pretty severely with the substandard video fantasy SECRET DESIRES: PASSIONS OF THE MIDARA, and tees off on the "artistic" CANVAS ~MOTIF OF SEPIA~.

Moving into general audiences material doesn't help much, as the Editor-in-Chief sharpens his claws on CANARY ~PUT THIS FEELING INTO SONG~, a completely pointless one-off comedy OAV loosely based on a dating sim. He has more luck with the ADV Films release of A TREE OF PALME, which, admittedly, is more artistic than entertaining.

Christi, in the meantime, drags herself away from World of Warcraft long enough to give a rather scathing rebuke of the first two DVDs of the controversial TV series GANTZ, deriding it as being exploitative, sexist, and violent, and comparing it unfavorably to ADV stablemate ELFEN LIED. She also has some harsh words for Shueisha (*not* ADV Films) for the release format, which probably won't find much disagreement from anyone.

Enoch has much better luck, giving us a full rundown on the space pirate comedy MARS DAYBREAK. Yarr!

Stig also tackles not one, but two full TV series, profiling the promising, but ultimately overwrought MAI-HIME, and the watered-down but still very boobtastic TENJOU TENGE. Yes, we know they don't spell it that way on the DVD, but unlike some mangaka and marketing execs in Japan, we actually know how to use the Roman alphabet.

Finally, Connor tries to make heads or tails out of the bizarre one-shot random supposedly mahjong-based IDOL FIGHTER SU-CHI-PAI, and fails, prompting us to wonder why Hirameki even bothered to release it here.

Now to get on that backlog.