Anime that I've recently finished and what I thought of them

So in the absence that occurred, I spent part of my time watching anime.

Yuru Yuri - Yuri moe starring about 13 girls in Junior High. Hilarity ensues. 8.5/10

Hen Zemi - Fucking... weird.... 7/10 (NSFW)

Kill Me Baby - 3 (technically 4) girls in High School that look like they should be in Elementary. Pretty funny. 8/10

Kore wa Zombie desu ka? - Ok... This was... different. There's a lot of "the fuck?" moments, but it's overall story was good. 7/10 (probably shouldn't watch it around normal people)

Upotte!! - Girls who carry guns, and are said guns at the same time. Funny, with a good bit of war attached to it. 8.5/10

Angel Beats! - It seems to take a lot of inspiration from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, in both animation style and slightly with the plot. Other than that, it's amazing... except it has one of the worst endings in history. 8/10

Elfen Lied - Shit's fuck up yo. 6/10 (NSFW/L)

Chobits - I had already seen it previously, but I decided to watch it again. It has a slow start, but has a good message about how technology is probably advancing too fast. 8.5/10

Clannad - Based off a visual novel, I surprisingly liked the love story. It was actually pretty good. 7/10

Sgt Frog - If you haven't seen this yet, you have to get on Netflix and watch it right now. There have been moments during this show where I've just had to pause it and just laugh because the jokes are so well written. This also must be seen in English. Usually it doesn't matter too much if an anime is viewed in dub or subbed format, but a lot of the jokes in the later seasons have more to do with western pop culture in the English dub. And besides, the cast for the show is amazing. 9/10

Gurren Lagann - God damn. Just go watch this show. Now. 9/10

Highschool of the Dead

So this is an anime that I (somewhat) recently finished watching. I was looking around to see if there was any news for a second season, and I stumbled upon this comment that does a good job of what I was going to do.

High School Of The Dead is a good anime. The tragedy is that it could have been a *great* anime if not for some horrible mistakes.

Let me explain. The setup is awesome. Zombie apocalypse+ a renegade group of kids + anime? It's pretty much every nerd's wet dream. Unfortunately, the writers decided to focus on the "wet" part much more than the dream.

A lot of people have been debating over HotD's overuse of fan service. Is it justified? I personally don't think so. Here you have a perfectly awesome setup for the apocalypse. People grabbing their guns, moral dilemmas, false messiahs, etc. HotD sets this up in a fairly realistic way and creates an immersive world that terrifies and fascinates the viewer. Then they give you episodes where 90% of the screen time is decided to naked women touching each other. Other episodes are more toned down, but the fan service isn't very subtle and it is very distracting and at times annoying. Shizuka, One of the main characters (who really isn't a character as much as she is a walking-talking fetish provider) has boobs that are literally larger than her head and does absolutely nothing besides acting stupid. She provides absolutely no other value to the show, and one has to wonder how she even gets out of bed in the morning.

Some of the other characters also have the same kind of one demential personality. Then you have characters like Saeko, and Takashi, who end up being dynamic and very interesting to watch. These two characters provide the show character development, constantly walking the line between hero and killer. They are fairly fascinating to watch, especially given that the series never promoted itself as being thought provoking.

The artwork is tough to describe, because while it is a visually impressive show, some of the character designs are incredibly awkward. As I mentioned before, the breast proportions on the female characters are insane. Rei and Saya have very edgy and unattractive hair that makes their characters look a bit cheaper than the rest of the cast. Despite this, most of the illustrations are very beautiful and it's generally top notch animation.

The best way to enjoy HotD is to expect very little from it and just go along for the ride. It has some terrible faults that might really ruin it for a lot of people, but watching the group survive the apocalypse is incredibly entertaining. It's a great mindless anime that is far better than any ecchi I have ever seen. If you are looking for a show with well developed characters and tasteful character interactions, find a different show. I would say that its worth making the exception for HotD though.


By the way, this was taken from Nanalily on MAL, who can be found here: http://myanimelist.net/profile/Nanalilly