Fifth Victim: Erementar Gerad Episode 1: Song of Sky and Wind.

Note: This title is a licensed coproduction by ADV. ADV sucks, please pirate this title. Just Kidding. Try to respect the license, though I know almost no one will.

Quick Summary: Unmemorable shounen fighting show that's been done 100 times before. More about the show in my take.

My take: Right off the bat, what the hell is up with the ENGRISH EXTREME title of the show? I love made up japanese words like "erementar". Really, I love them as much as root canals. Well I've never had a root canal, I imagine it's about as painful as the word "erementar". What is an "erementar" and what does he do? And who is Gerad? FYI I'm producing an anime next season funded by ADV called Engrishator Depardieu.

Anyway...The opening song is pretty upbeat. I kinda like it. The animation looks cheesy as hell though and is fairly low budget. It's by xebec, which makes the cheap animation surprising. But they make about 5 awful shows for ever 1 good show, so it's not THAT surprising. Among their most awful shows is Uchuu no Nakimushi (Stellvia). Anyway, I digress. Bayoab informs me this show is Flame of Recca V3. I hated FoR so I'm probably going to hate this too. The jokes are lame, the fighting is pretty lame. And it's pretty boring. So boring that I don't really even care to write much. The main character is named Cow or Coud or something and he's like a brat on some kind of pirate airplane ship called Red Rings or something, I wasn't really paying attention. (Drago says Red Lynx) He finds a girl in a box. And does a standard shounen manga "accidental" breast feel. Later 3 chicks (well maybe 2 chicks and a girly man) show up and try to buy her. Cowd refuses. And some people try to like kill her and shit cuz she's like "Edil Raid" or something. And then there's some retarded fighting. And people turn into weapons. Wow so not original. The best thing about this show is the ending song. In fact the op and ed are the only things that are decent.

Verdict: I really want to hate this show. I really want to give it a 2 for being really unoriginal. But it's more watchable than Glass Mask, so I give it a 5. And for some reason I don't hate it as much as I should. But I hated it enough so that I couldn't even make my own montage, and stole images from h-opera instead. It's really surprising to see Drago jizz all over this since it's shounen, but then again, since it sucks, it's not so suprising Drago likes it.

Fourth Victim: Tsubasa Chronicle Episode 1: Inevitable Encounter

Third Victim: Glass Mask Episode 1: Girl with a Thousand Masks

Quick Summary: This show is about some 13 year old girl named Kitajima Maya who wants to be an actress or something. She really likes TV dramas and movies. It seems to be a remake of a long running shoujo manga series. As such, insert every trite shoujo plot device you can think of. She's got a rival, a love interest, a dead father, and poor mother, etc, etc.

My take: The opening song is some jpop song that I didn't really dig, but I can see fanboys being all over that shit. The plot seems like it has a lot of crying at some point and a whole bunch of unnecessary drama, without any of the humor elements that often redeems shoujo. So anyway, Maya delivers take out from a ramen store or something where her mom works. The mom is a bitch. The owner of the ramen store is also a bitch. The daughter of the owner is a bitch, too. I want to kill her actually. She's the typical stuck up jealous bitch whore shoujo anti-heroine character. There are a lot of bitches in this show. And old hags. Like the scary witch lady who recognizes Maya's acting talent in the park. Anyway this shit put me to sleep. Literally. I woke up like 15 minutes later and still nothing had happened. OK well stuff happened I guess, but after I re-watched the bit I missed, I could say that I really didn't miss anything except for Maya delivering like 300 ramen in one night by herself in the snow both ways uphill so she could go to some stupid play. Boo hoo another character introduction is the love interest, someone who looks 30. Yes there is going to be lolicest people! I know you're all desperate for it. ZOMG and the rival appears, some 13 year old named Himekawa Ayumi. Ending song is some standard jpop piano song. Sounds very early 90s.

So about this glass mask shit, I think it means like when you act, you put on a glass mask or something retarded like that. Or like that if you can put on the glass mask you can change your feelings and emotions on the outside or something. Who cares, it's some stupid gay japanese concept.... Either way I'm sure if you're a super boring, drama-laden shoujo fan, you've been waiting for a show like this.

Verdict: I give it a 4. I'm not a fan of the character designs, it's boring as hell, and there's no comedy to relieve the drama. If you're a HyD fan, you'll probably love this shit. If you're name is ele or drago, you'll eat this shit up like it was candy and add some ":D"s for good measure.

Second Victim: Speedgrapher Episode 1: City of Corruption (?)

Quick Summary: It seems to be about a photographer/photojournalist. And it's by gonzo. And there seems to be a string of beheadings/killings or something. And there's some kind of high class secret club/cult. And that's all the plot I want to divulge without spoiling, Not that there's much more to say. That's pretty much all we get from episode 1.

My take: The opening is an old Duran Duran "hit" "Girls on Film," if you ever considered Druan Duran to have had "hits." They don't show the whole op though. The japanese was a bit difficult and I missed a lot. It's bloody. Really blood. And dark. Anyway Gonzo has a history of making shows that look promising and end up sucking ass and this seems to be a prime example of that. Maybe I'm just biased because they ass fucked the endings of FMP, L-E, and changed too many plot elements of a classic work of fiction in Gankutsuou. Ok enough of my gonzo-sucks rant. So yea, the photojournalist. Named Saiga Tatsumi. Who gets a hard-on seeing dead people. And can jump down 25 feet without hurting his feet. And there's a gay dancer dude who has a body suit that makes him a human gumby and he kills people. And there's this white haired chick who looks like a bakuten transplant with 2 golden guns. She kills people too. And feels dicks. And there's a bar with a model train that delivers drinks. Oh and what do we have here? Some S&M, gonzo style, that's what. And here comes the super powerful bishounen company owner. Oh oh! A french kiss by a "goddess." And there's the cliffhanger ending. The ending song is some unmemorable slow song sung by a woman with an annoying voice. Preview makes it look like the goddess is a school girl by day.

The first episode does a pretty good job of not hinting what the over all plot is going to be. It reminded me of the first episode of GITS:SAC a lot, in that it was fairly action packed, with some "WTF is going on" plot elements. No tachikoma=teh suck. That being said, it's seems no where near as good. It has "I'M LICENSED BY BANDAI or GENEON" written all over it as well.

Verdict: Right now I'd give it a 7. I'd need to watch the subs from a group that can translate (probably kraze, seems like something they would do) for 3 or 4 episodes before delivering a firm verdict. I have a feeling it'll get stupid real quick.

First Victim: Eyeshield 21 Episode 1: The man who possess legs with the speed of light.

Quick Summary: It seems to be about a high school student named Sena who becomes some crazy (american football) running back. He seems to be a loser who was used and abused by his classmates in grade school and junior high. It seems like a super cliche shounen sports show.

My take: When I started watching this, I wasn't expecting much. I knew that ES21 was another jump-style shounen sports show like PoT, but without the yaoi fan girl undertones. The opening scene confirmed that I shouldn't be expecting much. No running back can do shit like that. It was pretty ridiculous; like watching a bad kung-fu movie. The opening song is pretty standard fare with AWESOME engrish like "I FIND BREAKTHROUGH" and "I'M JUST DREAMER". The pre-op/op was about 4 minutes. 5 minutes in, it already has its first over used plot device, the childhood friend "older sister" protector figure. 7 minutes in, another cliche, the over-bearing "recruiter" senpai. 10 minutes in we have cliche #3, the bullying classmates who OBVIOUSLY become his #1 fans after some sort of confrontation 4 or 5 episodes from now. Maybe I'm wrong. Wait there's a formula to these shows, so I'm not. 18 minutes, unbelievable talent is coincidentally noticed by the team captain in a non sports setting... 19 minutes in, ENGRISH spouting side character! To round it out to a nice even 5, the last cliche is that they only have 3 players out of the required 12 on the team. It wouldn't be shounen sports formula without these kind of cliches... I swear all shounen mangakas buy their plots from the same source and just rename the sport, characters, and alter the character designs slightly. The ending song, is just as unmemorable as the op, and sounds like something straight out of PoT. My impression is that this shit can go on forever.

Overall there are a couple of funny moments and it has some potential, but it's cheesy as hell. However it's still fairly watchable in my book, but that's probably because I usually like sports anime. I probably won't be watching it because if I ever become interested, I can read 3 chapters of the manga in the time it takes to watch 1 ep of the anime.

Verdict: I give this show a 6. It's watchable if you like shounen sports.