DVD Review: A Complicated Bundle of Love

If anyone is struggling to find a decent romance anime, there's one show that they absolutely have to watch.

Season one of "Honey and Clover" is a powerful love story that is guaranteed to keep everyone emotionally attached until the very end.

It starts off as a simple slice-of-life about a group of art college friends: three guys and two girls. The guys consist of a first-year student named Takemoto, a sixth-year slacker named Morita and a fourth-year senior named Mayama. The girls consist of a young prodigy named Hagumi and a beautiful third-year pottery student named Ayumi Yamada.

At first, the story becomes a simple snapshot of daily life for these college students. As they grow older, they become more and more romantically attached. Yet, they all have a tough time confessing their feelings for each other, because they don't want their group of friends to break apart.

Although the plot is as simple as a light romance could get, the dialogue is remarkably rich with pent-up emotion. Viewers will immediately get hooked into heartbreaking relationship between Yamada and Mayama. Yamada can't help falling in love with Mayama, even when he starts to live in the apartment of another close friend named Rika.

The dialogue may seem innocent in the first few episodes. By episode 18, though, Yamada's emotions get the best of her when she runs away in tears. The entire series is filled with many difficult situations of unrequited love. These characters must wallow through these flooding emotions, struggling to find a new meaning to their lives.

To tell the truth, I can't believe this group of buddies could ever manage to stay together for two seasons. Thankfully, they never don't really take these pressing relationships too seriously. The director, Kenichi Kasai, has an incredible knack for making every comedy sequence as epic as possible.


For example, episode eight includes an especially agonizing Twister game. It starts out as an easy game. Near the end, though, all the characters are goofily breaking their bones from playing the game. The animators execute everything in this sequence with quick slapstick timing. They manage to make everything as ridiculously painful as possible, without ever crossing the line of extreme violence.

It's a bizarre series of wacky humor with unbearable waves of moving emotion. "Honey and Clover" is probably one of the best and most realistic anime love stories ever made. The protagonists are charming. The warm visuals are soothing. The dialogue hits people where it hurts.

As painful as it is to watch, this show is more about the characters' journeys rather than their relationships. "Honey and Clover" proves that sometimes it takes a little tough love for people to grow into mature adults.

Watch the series at hulu.com.

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DVD Review - Nana meets punk rock

The "Nana" anime charges up this coming-of-age manga with loud punk rock, and emotionally moving dialogue that everyone will fall in love with. This review covers the first box set of the series.

Ai Yazawa drew the manga which the anime is based on. Like her previous series, "Nana" features plenty of mature sexual situations and dramatic dialogue about lost love. However, the anime escalates the power of this manga with an edgy punk rock atmosphere.

The story involves two characters, who happened to meet each other on a train to Tokyo. Their first names are Nana. Though they are completely different types of people, they get along instantly. Although they separate, they meet once again by sheer happenstance when they are looking for an apartment to live in.

Sure, it's just a coincidental meeting, but the price is reasonable if they share the apartment. So by complete luck, the two Nanas become roommates and best friends.

Although this is a fictional anime about two strangers becoming close friends, the story involves more than just two girls. They each have bad luck in finding boyfriends who stay committed. Nana Komatsu is a polite-mannered girl whose boyfriend doesn't have enough time to see her very often. Nana Osaki is an orphan whose boyfriend left her to make a name for himself as a rock star in Tokyo.

The series is a masterpiece in its message of feminism and independence. Although there's plenty of emotional and sexual romance in the beginning, it's clear from the beginning that both Nanas really want more out of their love life. Economic freedom. Independence from the typical family lifestyle.

The series actually draws plenty of comparisons to "Kiki's Delivery Service," an anime by Hayao Miyazaki where a girl must face the nitty gritty difficulties of life, such as saving money to buy groceries instead of fancy clothes. The only big difference is that both of the Nanas' coming of age involves a punk rock band.

However, "Nana" is even more based on slice-of-life experiences in Japan. In this anime, the city of Tokyo is alive with sexy rock stars and cross-dressing fashion styles. At the same time, there's trendy, cute girl-like decorations for the trendy Nana Komatsu. And there's also a slew of economic pressures involving Komatsu's shopping sprees.

Certainly "Nana" will probably be the most eclectic of all the anime series this year. However, it conveys a universal theme involving characters who are missing the love they had as a child, as well as characters who push forward to find that love.

My only grudge with this box set is that it doesn't hit its big emotional peak yet. Most of the intense angst and frustration was purposefully left until box set two. However, this first box will definitely satisfy fans of the manga, as well as anyone else who loves punk rock, sex comedies and intense drama. In other words, there's something for everyone. This is a must-have for everyone to watch.

Cool features:

• Interview with Nana director Morio Asaka
• Clean opening and closing sequences.

Minor setbacks to the series:

• The English dub is great, but the voice actor for Nana Osaki doesn't sound nearly as cool and mature as she should be. Then again, I have my biases. Call me un-American, but our United States female rockers don't act as mature as Japanese female rockers. If you think I'm wrong, just listen to this clip by Jinn and see for yourself.
• There is a point in the anime where the director decided to rehash some of the events in episode one. Although he touches it up with new revelatory scenes, it could have been touched up somewhat.
• The last episode in this box is one of the dreaded recap episodes, where the characters review everything that happened in the previous episodes. Feel free to skip it if you wish.

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DVD Review - Class tensions and gender bending drama

The third season of "Maria Watches Over Us" strengthens the girls' romantic ties with warm dialogue and imagery.

The newest release for the Maria series is set in Lillian Girls Academy during the summer break after season two. As viewers may remember from the previous seasons, the student council is organized under a nobility system, in which each grande seour (big sister) appoints a first-year student as her petite seour, or little sister. It resembles an intern system in some ways, in which the upperclassmen assign certain tasks to their apprentices.

In this year, petite seour Yumi Fukuzawa spends her summer break with her grande seour, Sachiko Ogasawara. Although the vacation starts off as a boring moment of solitude, Sachiko has her own reasons for hiding out in a summer cottage. Rival families are looking forward to laying shame on the Ogasawara family name.

There's plenty of other interesting events, including a joint festival with the all boys high school next-door to the Lillian Girls Academy. The boys high school council features a completely improbable cast of characters, including two twins, a buff guy who works out, a geek, Yumi's little brother and a guy who wanted to grow up as a girl.

Yet, as fantastic as the third season turns out, the story still retains a warm, pleasant tone. Better yet, most of the story is now centered on the two main characters, Yumi and Sachiko. This new narrative focuses our attention on the two women whom anime fans fell in love with first. The ultimate affirmation of their love for each other takes place during an entertaining school festival story, complete with cosplaying guys and panda costumes.

The new OVA format, or original video animation, makes each episode more poignant than those in the previous two seasons. The one-hour episodes also make for richer stories, strung together in a continuous narrative without interruptions. The story tends to ramble during the long sports festival and the school trip. These last two episodes feature more still images than actual animation, but the show still maintains its steady momentum of conversational comedy.

Overall, "Maria Watches Over Us" will immerse you into a warm world of girls' romance, with beautiful character designs and charming stories. The episodes shows these touching relationships without any plot holes or cheaply drawn animation. Although the story tends to drift off in the last episodes of season three, yuri fans will definitely enjoy "Maria Watches Over Us."

Extras: The OVA continues the excellent "Maria Watches Over Us" comedy segments, "Don't Tell Maria," a series of out-takes for every episode. These short blurbs include some epic parodies of the opening narrative, including an epic one involving the all boys school. However, the best jokes involve the exaggerated height of Yumi's newest friend.

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DVD rerelease - His or Her Circumstances

"His & Her Circumstances" eases anime watchers with touching teenager romance, even if the animation quality declines at the end.

Rightstuf secretly rereleased the box set in September of last year. This series has suffered from mixed reviews throughout its run. Director Hideaki Anno, known as the director of "Neon Genesis Evangelion," helmed the production of this series. However, the series literally degenerated as the director fought with Masami Tsuda, the original manga artist of this series.

For anyone unfamiliar with the manga, "Kare Kano" is about a girl named Yukino Miyazawa. She is a talented, beautiful overachiever who strives for perfection. She's frustrated with having to compete with Soichiro Arima, a boy who is also one of the top students.

Unlike Arima, Miyazawa is a spoiled slob at home who studies endlessly to maintain her grades. Arima discovers her alter-ego when he arrives at Miyazawa's house to return a Brahms CD he borrowed from her. At first, he threatens to reveal her secret facade by forcing her to do his work for the student council for a few days. However, their feelings gradually deepen for each other. After a small argument, they begin to care for each other.

"His or Her Circumstances" takes a closer look at the complications of high school romance. It also looks into the deeper problems of Arima's own family conflicts. His own parents were blackmailers, who deserted him because of a huge debt they couldn't pay off. Although this series tends to ramble during some episodes, it never loses its charm until the director of the series quit working on the series.

Certainly this series has its flaws. The ending sequence is a boring motion sequences with a live camera in a Japanese high school. Parts of the series were taken out of the DVD because of arguments between animation studio Gainax and the manga artist. The last story arc of the series remains unfinished.

Yet the series never loses the charm it retains in the opening sequence. "His & Her Circumstances" easily has the best opening animation of a shoujo series ever. The theme song, "Tenshi no Yubikiri" (translated as "The Angel's promise"), is a lovely ballad as charming as an American Motown song. Viewers will be even more impressed by Anno's ability to mix the psychological elements of "Evangelion" seamlessly into a romantic atmosphere.

Overall, "His & Her Circumstances" is a must-buy. The warm relationship of Miyazawa and Arima is worth every penny, no matter how you may argue about the unfinished ending. Everything, from the beautiful character designs to the touching anime shading, is too wonderful to pass up.

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DVD Review: Road trippin' with a wolf goddess

"Spice and Wolf" presents a merchant and a wolf god's hardships and struggles on a road trip to the north in 13 extraordinary episodes.

For an entire show about financial hardships and near bankruptcy, "Spice and Wolf" makes economic supply and demand exciting. The great appeal of this series lies with an unusual duo of protagonists surviving over poverty in a world resembling Medieval Europe.

The main character, Kraft Lawrence, is a wandering peddler who hopes to start his own business. However, he puts his plans on the backburner when he discovers a naked girl hiding in his carriage, with the ears and tail of a wolf.

This young woman, Holo, was the harvest goddess of the town of Pasroe. However, nowadays the villagers grow a bountiful harvest. They have converted to Christianity and they no longer need her help. She asks Lawrence to take her to Yoitsu, her homeland in the north. Although Lawrence was down on his luck, his luck may have changed upon meeting his new friend.

This series at first presents a romance for secularism. By the fourth episode, however, it becomes a plot of desperation against all odds. Lawrence discovers that someone named Zeelen cheated him out of his money with a deal to trade old silver coins for new ones.

Lawrence joins the Milone Company to safeguard his collection of old silver, but when Zeelen's associates capture Holo, the story turns into an undercover rescue operation to save Holo from the confinement of the Catholic church.

The show covers plenty of ground in just six hours. For a nearly convoluted story of mercantilism and avoiding bankruptcy, "Spice and Wolf" holds an extraordinary amount of spiritualism. Holo may bare all for her fanboys for much of the series, with explicit parts conveniently blanked out. However, she can transform into a humongous wolf in a matter of seconds. In spite of her immense power, she tries her best not to scare people away, by remaining in her human form.

The artwork brings back wonderful memories of "Princess Mononoke," with its huge wolf gods and remorseless violence during some important moments. Yet, this is a romance story at its heart. Holo and Lawrence hit it off with dialogue as compassionate and playful as the Woody Allen film "Annie Hall."

There is a humorous story arc at the end where their partnership turns into a love triangle, making for some subtle wars with words. The relationship remains as strong as ever, with two characters who grow ever closer as the show progresses.

"Spice and Wolf" is a rich story of creative conversations, love and financial retribution against corrupt companies. Certainly the plot can get convoluted at times, but "Spice and Wolf" remains the best and most consistent show for winter of 2009.

(English dub review)

Of course, a series about Medieval Europe doesn't sound as authentic without solid voice actors. Funimation's dub delivers on all levels. Not an ounce of playfulness or urgency is wasted from the characters. Holo sounds every bit as boastful and vivacious as her Japanese counterpart and Lawrence's English voice retains his cleverness and laid-back mannerisms.

It sounds every bit as good as you'd want a English dub to sound. This is voice acting at its best.

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