Princess Mononoke

Princess Mononoke^? (San) is an adorable, cheeky and righteous character. She dwells within the great forest where humans are expanding their mining and lumbering like a disease.


"Taste the blood..."

Ashitaka is our hero who's been cursed and has left his village never to return again. He encounters many changes in his body and also many divine encounters throughout his unraveling journey.


"I'm gonna fuckin' kill you!"

The Kodoma^? are the cutest little beings I've ever seen, their rattling heads just fill the air with music.
*rattle-rattle*

Set in an era of historic significance, the spiritual and materialistic worlds collide. The forest is a place where animals are Gods, usually represented by two or more tails or by gigantic size.

The orchestrated music is also very memorable... unforgettable actually. The animated plains that Ashitaka and his trusty elk, Yakul, ride across, are drawn realistically to create a "sway to the wind" effect.

Truly a classic and definite must-see! Not much to say but you have to watch the movie to really grasp it all.

Mushishi

Quite a decent anime along the lines of the ghost-hunting or medicine-man theme. Mushi are spiritual beings that dwell in the human world, in various shapes, sizes and forms. Some look like animals, insects and reptiles whilst others mimic parasitic, mutualistic and animalistic behavior.

Ginko is the Mushi-Master (Mushishi^?) we follow as he constantly eludes the mushi that mysteriously gather if he stays at a place for too long. We encounter individuals affected by Mushi and their characteristics, as Ginko seemingly unravels all the paranormal mystery surrounding the cases.


"Yes, Ginko is a plant too!"
Anbudom^? calls it, "x-files, anime-style" and it has been acclaimed by various critics, networks and the entire manga/anime scene.

The ambient background music (quite mysterious) establishes the identity and originality of this anime throughout the series.

The Sore Feet Song by Ally Kerr is quite a fitting opening song to go with the nomadic character of Ginko. Not the usual j-pop or karaoke but an English song. The guitar bit is very addictive.

I also love the way the ending scene always shows us scenery of the current episode and has a different thematic ambient ending every time.

It has been licensed and has been aired by Animax in parts of Asia. I wonder if DStv will air it. Either way, dubbed or subbed, it's a must-see.

Animax on DStv

A bit late and just for the DStv viewers... Animax will be broadcasting on Channel 111 as from 02 November 2007.

I would honestly stick to my trusty ol' wired ADSL in this situation.

Vampire List of Anime

The Vampire (Kyuuketsuki) List of Anime

Blood: The Last Vampire and Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust pioneered my lust for vampiric manga movies and anime. If there is such a race on Facebook apps, I'd choose to be a Vampire-Ninja! :D

Enough about my visual-bloodlust... onto the recommended list ordered by best at top as well as order to watch them, Hellsing and Blood are coupled with newer releases.

Hellsing, the series, stars the most incredible and powerful Vampire ever animated. Alucard is the Hellsing Organization's dog, kept alive to clean out vamps lesser than him... cos he is
#1! He does the job with such confidence and sportsmanship, allowing the enemy to fully unleash upon him, then slowly re-assimilating into their worst nightmare. :D Alucard rox! If you wanna go straight to the OVA (below), don't mind me... its classic either way.

Hellsing Ultimate OVA is a re-make of the entire series above, yet brilliantly precise in detail with no factual loopholes left except for subliminal references. Really well done! This is an example of what a brilliant vampire anime should be like.

Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust is a manga movie about D, the Vampire Hunter who is himself one of them, but works as a bounty hunter of sort, in this case, to save a wealthy man's daughter, Charlotte, who eloped with a pure-blooded vampire. D has a lot of neat
tricks including his companion, whos face is embedded into his left palm and has some abilities. The enemies have unique abilities like manipulating shadows (seen it in Naruto way after that). This movie is the 2nd Vampire Hunter D movie after the death of the creator. It's quite good for a re-consolidated piece... as it was created by another person using most of the original artwork.

Blood: The Last Vampire is a manga movie set in Japan on the eve of Halloween. Saya is deployed to slay the Chiroptera guised as humans hiding within the school which is on the outskirts of the US Air Force base. Suspicious! She is placed as an exchange student and tries to
uncover the masquerading Chiroptera(s). Shit goes down when Saya unsheathes her blade...

Blood+ just because I sorta remember half of what I watched 1 or 2 years ago (had to watch the first 25 again last month) and cos it's a redo of the Blood movie but eased down to a series where TV would air it. Not so violent yet fulfilling its role of captivating us into Saya's life and trials. The school element played a role, yet I disliked it, the hesitation of Saya in attack scenes are almost
predictable up to the 25 episodes.

Trinity Blood is really talked about, I did preview the episodes 1-2, can't remember much except still shots with talking amongst vampires, sorta like advanced vampires in the future, but not really. It has more of a futuristic theme intertwined with "the cradle of mankind" theme, instead of the age-old vampire portrayals. Has an oxymoronic air to it... I will elaborate on that theme one day.

Cant think of any others that I've seen with the vampire theme... Next post I'd give insight on Ghost/Horror types I've seen that are clearly distinct to the genre. Some genres are hard to place and could appear twice or more on my future lists.

BTW, my blood type is AB, so's my initials, I'm one of those rare ones!

Claymore - Anime + OST

Claymore is an excellent slasher/slayer anime featuring Clair, the "Hanjin-hanyou" (half-human/yôma).
A pretty fresh series that has been aired since April 2007 in Japan. The series is very well done for 26 episodes without any fillers, except for the usual flashbacks to fill in the gaps. I love gore! Claymore fulfills it with the almost believable purple blood and yôma chunks. Forget Dante's "Million-Stab", Clair's adapted technique aptly named "Flash-Sword" could also be called "Billion-Stab".



If you have spare bandwidth lying around, be sure to checkout Eclipse for the HQ (High-Quality) DVD-rips where possible & alternately the HD (High-Definition) H264 (.MKV) TV-rips, which is now my preferred video format for PC-viewing, with XviD sinking to #2.

The Intro (OP) and Outro (ED) songs are awesome. J-Pop is way kewler than Bollywood (hate most of em) and normal pop. Get both the torrents from Nipponsei. They're the best group for Anime & J-Pop OST's.

The singles are:
Claymore OP Single - Raison d'Etre [Nightmare]
Claymore ED Single - Danzai no Hana ~Guilty Sky~ [Kosaka Riyu]

My Anime Blog (served with OST's... maybe some manga too)

Welcome to my ichiban anime blog :) Please bear with the construction-work ;) Other than that, it's up!