Anime Impressions - High School of the Dead

After a long period of being not that into anime or manga, I've slowly started watching some stuff again. Its kind of complicated why it fell out of favour with me, but the show I've been trying to force myself back in with (half-heartedly at least) is High School of the Dead; an ongoing series that a lot of people seem to be talking about.

So after I was showed some snippets by my friend I was quite interested in this, and so far I've watched the first episode. So because I can't comment on the majority of it, this will be my very initial impressions of it.

The opening, wow. XD Fanservicey to the max, I approve of this. I don't know if it portrays quite what the first episode was like though. I can't quite imagine the rest of the show leaning towards fanservice in a different way from what they did in the #1. Its basically just an occasional thing, they don't seem to go over the top on panty shots and whatnot. I hope it doesn't turn into a RosarioXVampire thing or anything...the 2nd season of that looked ridiculous. Like, I think over emphasis on random needless fan service can detract from anime at times. So far in this one, I've not seen too much to be worried about. Wow, in trying to find a pic from google the majority are really NSFW lol...

Ok so I was wrong, in ep2 they just introduced the Nurse, Miss Shizuka who seems to have impossibly big boobs and seems to be all about fanservice so far XD

Its a nice, brutal-a good introduction back into anime for me. I usually tend to go for either mecha shows, vampire, sci-fi stuff and the occasional comedy anime and I don't think I've ever seen a pure zombie anime. I don't know if there are many to be honest. I'm quite a fan of live action zombie stuff, so at least so far it seems like a breath of fresh air. It might get old as the series goes on, I'll have to see. Seems like good mindless fun and I'll enjoy watching the rest of it.

There are many places to stream it online, I'm currently using http://www.animeshippuuden.com/ I may have to acquire the episodes so I can play them on my big TV though...

Here's some more info for you: 

Animenewsnetwork

Wikipedia

Anime Impressions - Noein

Another Anime Impressions post for you, and its another relatively old series I've been watching (since I've got a huge backlog of anime, and not been keeping up with many new releases.)

Noein (to your other self) (2005)

I was drawn to this series well...because I am a sucker for some good sci-fi anime. It starts off introducing the characters through a mainly drama/romance type show, but brings in some really interesting ideas to do with parallel dimensions. It really builds up into something quite intriguing as it goes on.

The art style is something that is very different from many other anime. It is very stylised at times, like in some of the fight scenes where they purposefully use a sketchy, scribbly style. Think that one episode in the Animatrix with the skateboarding kid. Quite a few other shows use this style in fast, dynamic scenes for great effect.

The characters are quite nice in terms of design as well. I've seen some anime and western cartoons using this kind of sketchy shading and really unusual character ideas. The character of Atori in Noein jumps out at me, I like quite a lot of the characters from Lacrima, especially Karasu who just kicks ass. Here's a pic of Atori looking suitably maniacal:

In terms of story, as always I don't want to give away too much of the later story, but it is mainly about a bunch of school kids who are good friends and it goes on to develop their relationships, trials and hardships they go through. They have to deal with studying for exams to get into colleges (or some kind of middle school equivalent) and all kind of minor stresses kids have to deal with (*facepalm*), yeah so its inevitably got a bit of emo-ness coming from Yu (one of the main characters) early on, but thankfully as the series goes on, it gets less mindnumbing and peters out. Its got quite a Ghost in the Shell/Matrix idea when it comes to the alternate dimensions and how they pass between, so if you like that kind of thing, check this one out.

So what about my rating for this one? Aside from the slightly dissapointing ending (but many anime have quite poor endings, so I can forgive this one a bit, since it ain't too bad) there really aren't that many things I didn't like about it.

I'd give Noein a 8.5/10 just because it had a LOT of potential, and I had heard really good reviews but it never really got me addicted exactly and I reckon they could have done some more with the rich atmosphere they had built up. Perhaps a couple more episodes or a second season could have been very good for the series. Still, its recommended from me.

'Till next time. =D

Anime Impressions - Makai Senki Disgaea.

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